EQUINOX Business Law Group - Seattle Bellevue

eZine marketing

July 26, 2006

There's a site that rates eZines, online magazines or newsletters, for many categories including business. Take a look at the section on the top business eZines. A favorite of mine is Seattle marketing guru Nancy Juetten's "Media-Saavy-to-Go" eZine. This publication has innovative marketing tips for small businesses on a budget. I find something new and valuable for my own business each time I read it. Now it's just the implementation! Also, think of how you might use this kind of marketing tool for your own business. The ratings on eZines are driven by users' feedback. Get your customers, friends and family out there talking about you!

Informed voting for judges

July 19, 2006

Many of us head to the polling booths on election day with some basic information about who we plan to vote for in the less talked about local and statewide elections. A new website is being developed at the urging of State Representative Shay Schual-Berke to provide information on judicial candidates. The website address will be www.votingforjudges.org and they hope to have it live on August 1, 2006. The site will include candidate resumes and written statements, links to candidates' websites, endorsements of the candidates, information about contributions to the candidates' campaigns, and other information that may be valuable to voters in determining which judicial candidates to elect.

Digitized I-9 forms

July 12, 2006

Proposed new roles by the Department of Homeland Security may allow businesses to digitize their I-9 forms, allowing businesses to legally store the documents electronically versus maintaining hard copies. Electronic filings would enable business owners to save money in storage costs as well as to easily search the documents if necessary. If the immigration reform legislation being considered by the Senate and House is enacted requiring businesses to validate social security numbers, real-time, electronic searches will be crucial to a business' ability to hire employees and validate their legality in a timely manner.

Modifying the business tax in Washington

July 05, 2006

A group called the Prosperity Partnership comprised of 150 businesses, government, labor and nonprofit groups is putting together a proposal for a Net Economic Activity Tax (NEAT) to replace the current Business & Occupation Tax (B&O) for the 2007 Washington State Legislative Session. The current B&O tax taxes the total value of the product at each step of a product's lifecycle. The NEAT would only tax the economic activity which occurs in each step. The NEAT should result in the same amount of total tax revenue for the State but will simplify the taxation process by allowing all industries to use the same tax rates. Currently, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and services are all taxed at different rates to accommodate the B&O tax system.