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 Before we get into year-end tax planning, let’s focus on job creation for a moment.  President Obama held his White House “Jobs Summit” – without a few key business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which represents over 3 million companies and over 115 million employees.

Another stimulus package is being discussed, but a focus on job creation and tax reduction will be the best short-term strategy.  There are numerous federal and state programs which allow employers to claim credits ranging from $500 to $15,000 per “qualified” employee.  The Obama Administration needs to focus on refundable hiring credits, an investment tax credit for purchasing equipment and incentives for loaning funds or making equity investments in small businesses.

For a full library of articles focused on these tax incentive programs, please click on the following link:

www.blakechristian.com/blog

2009 federal and state tax changes provide huge opportunities for both business and individual taxpayers to minimize their 2009 tax liabilities and in many cases optimize refunds from prior years.

With some effort before year-end, March and April 15th can be much less taxing — but advance planning is necessary.

Businesses and individual taxpayers have had to navigate a challenging economic landscape for at least the last two years.  In addition to trying and maintain revenue levels while paring down costs, businesses and homeowners have found their financing options dramatically limited.

Therefore it is critically important for both businesses and individual taxpayers to carefully plan now for their year-end to ensure that they minimize their federal and state tax obligations – and insome cases – secure refunds for prior tax years.

As more fully detailed in the attached links to a variety of articles addressing topics raanging from:

- How to maximize tax refunds via the carryback of 2009 tax losses – including the recently passed 5 year federal carryback option for all businesses:

http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2008/CorpTax/Corporate_Tax_Losses.jsp

http://www.blakechristian.com/blog/?s=tax+loss

- How to maximize write-off of wholly and partially worthless bad debts

http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2007/CorpTax/Uncertainty.jsp

- Taking full advantage of federal and state depreciation and immediate write-off of equipment and other capital expenditures:

http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2009/CorpTax/Stimulus_Maximus.jsp

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Claiming the wide variety of federal and state green/ eco-credits:

http://www.blakechristian.com/green_tax_incentives.html

- Claiming valuable federal and state Location-Based Investment Credits (LBICs) for hiring employees and making capital investments in any one of the 8,500+ incentive tax Zones.  There are over 42 state Enterprise Zones in California which can often eliminate taxes in the highest rate state in the country:

http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2008/CorpTax/EZstreet.jsp

 2009 was an extremely active year for tax legislation and while federal changes were often beneficial for corporations and individuals, state changes, particularly California, often resulted in higher rates, less deductions and accelerated tax payment requirements.

For a full library of corporate tax articles log onto the AICPA Corporate Taxation Insider Newsletter:

http://www.cpa2biz.com/search/results.jsp?N=79&mode=content

For a wider variety of business and individual tax and economic articles, news and otherlinks, please click onto my personal website:

www.blakechristian.com

Our comprehensive year-end tax planning guide can be accessed at:

http://hcvt.com/