National Spending Journal – By Shoeboxed

Businesses planning to claim the newly-expanded work opportunity tax credit (WOTC) for eligible unemployed veterans and unskilled younger workers hired during the first part of 2009 have until Aug. 17 to request the certification required for these workers, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Newly-revised Form 8850, now available on IRS.gov, is used by employers to [...]

Small Business Week was May 17 to 23, and the Internal Revenue Service urges small businesses to act now and take advantage of tax-saving opportunities included in the recovery law.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), enacted in February, created, extended or expanded a variety of business tax deductions and credits. Because some of these [...]

The Internal Revenue Service announced today that small businesses with deductions exceeding their income in 2008 can use a new net operating loss tax provision to get a refund of taxes paid in prior years.
To accommodate the change in tax law, the IRS today updated the instructions for two key forms – Forms 1045 and [...]

Taxpayers who use a portion of their home for business purposes may be able to take a home office deduction if they meet certain requirements.
In order to claim a business deduction, you must use part of your home for one of the following two reasons:

Exclusively and regularly as either: your principal place of business, or [...]

With the credit markets as frozen as they are, it is difficult for many small businesses to get the loans they need to grow. Today, President Barack Obama announced new plans for immediate action to bring America’s credit markets back to life for small business owners.

Small business are a major component of the American economy. [...]

BatchBlue, a slick online contact relationship management (CRM) application, has implemented the Shoeboxed API and now allows you to automatically sync your Shoeboxed business cards directly into their online software. This is a big win for any small business that wants to get more out of the business cards that they collect. This will save [...]

FreshBooks and Shoeboxed today announced a partnership to help small and home-based businesses transform piles of paper receipts into professional-looking invoices for their clients. Often, small businesses make purchases for their clients and expect to be reimbursed. Starting today, they can collect the receipts from those purchases, mail them to Shoeboxed to be scanned and [...]

Shoeboxed, the leader in online receipt management that many of our readers know and love, has announced an exciting new partnership to help you use your Shoeboxed receipts for online bookkeeping.
Outright.com, the easiest way for self-employed people to manage their bookkeeping, now integrates directly with Shoeboxed, allowing receipts from Shoeboxed to flow seamlessly into Outright.com’s [...]

The United States Postal service announced price hikes for mailing services today, including a 2-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail stamp. Those stamps will be 44 cents with the price increase.
The changes will go into effect on May 11, which is in line with the annual review of postal mailing prices that [...]

Amid speculation that the United States Postal Service might layoff significant portions of their workforce or downsize delivery service to only five days per week, the USPS reported a first quarter loss of $384 million this week.
Citing the economic recession as the main reason for a decrease in mail volume by 5.2 billion pieces during [...]

Shoeboxed, the leading online service for organizing receipts, released a new feature today allowing users to download their receipt information into a format that they can import into Quickbooks, a popular accounting software program for small businesses.
Since many small businesses use Shoeboxed to organize their receipts, this move makes a lot of sense.
Follow these easy [...]

Perhaps the long awaited announcement that was supposed to come out on January 16, the United States Postal Service finally announced a major potential change to its operations yesterday: no Tuesday delivery.

Massive deficits and declining mail circulation could force the USPS to cut delivery, John Potter, the postmaster general told Congress. Though many would first [...]

There are many factors to consider when determining where to locate (or relocate) your company. On top of personal preferences and where you may be rooted by family and friends, there are many factors that directly impact your business in any area. The labor force, financial incentives from the government, support from local officials, the [...]

UPDATE (12:10 p.m.): Jerry McKiernan, Manager of Media Relations for USPS, called back. He says he has “nothing to announce today.”
The USPS won’t call us back regarding the “Big Announcement” that is scheduled to be announced today, but they did release a press release today talking about the rate hikes for USPS shipping prices that [...]

They’re sturdy and extremely convenient, but you have to give them up. Those white plastic crates you’ve slowly collected from the United States Postal Service over the years need to go home, the Postal Service says.
Strapped with a $2.8 billion deficit, the USPS is trying to save as much money as it can. That’s why [...]