As part of the No Worker Left Behind law [PDF], Michigan has created a Green Jobs Initiative which provides statewide, regional and local resources and training opportunities in alternative energy, green building and construction and retrofitting, and sustainable business practices.
If you’re unemployed or looking to re-educate and change careers, you can identify training opportunities for [...]

Do you and your business partners have a buy-sell agreement? Do you have a spouse or heir who will take ownership of your business interests after your death? Have you identified a successor to run your business when you no longer want to, or are able to?
Paul Ditlevson, director of Legacy Estate Programs [...]

Business owners who are behind in paying their taxes to the IRS are going to pony up more dough.
The IRS raised the interest rate on taxes past due to 6% for balances existing or beginning in the third quarter of 2008. That’s an interest rate increase of a full point (and reflects the fact [...]

The accounting world is getting flatter, and fast.
According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to move US accounting practices away from GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).
Used widely in the US, GAAP is not an international standard. Firms outside of the US in over 100 countries use standards from [...]

Finjan, a data security services firm, reported today that more than 500 megabytes of stolen medical and business data and Social Security Numbers (SSNs) have been found on “crimeservers” in Malaysia and Argentina. The data were stolen from systems for a major airline and a health care provider using widely available hacker toolkits, [...]

The ABA Journal is reporting another development in attorney-client privilege concerns with the booming legal outsourcing market. Here are the questions:
Does the monitoring of cross-border communications by the United States government under the Patriot Act and the Wiretapping Act and the lack of US constitutional protection in foreign countries violate an attorney’s duty to [...]

As I reported here, the Michigan film and entertainment industry incentives legislation was fast-tracked and signed by Governor Granholm today (April 8, 2008). Companies can receive incentives such as a 40% tax break and assistance from the state with locations and the use of state resources, in qualifying film and entertainment projects.  Here are the [...]

A package of bills (with broad bipartisan support) was under consideration Tuesday in the Michigan Capitol which will provide business tax incentives to film producers, video game developers, and other entertainment based ventures. The key component of the legislation introduced last week is a 40% business tax break for firms engaged in moviemaking in [...]

‘Tis the season…tax season, that is. You know that this festive season is upon us when the store aisles of Office Max, Best Buy, and yes, even your local Wal-Mart or Meijer are gaily bedecked with row upon row of glossy red-and-white boxes.
Multiple states, multiple taxes, multiple tax returns
So, this year’s first tax [...]

UPDATE 12-5-07: The 6% services tax enacted by the Michigan legislature went briefly into — and then out of — effect, on December 1, 2007. The repeal legislation retroactively exempted all potentially covered transactions from tax liability.

Otto Von Bismarck famously said that “to retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch [...]