It looks like our friends in DC are at it again. You know that tax gap some of those in Congress are all worried about? The tax gap, which is the difference between what the Treasury Department estimates it should receive in tax revenues and the amount it actually does receive.

It is projected that the majority of taxpayers responsible for the tax gap (57% of them) have been identified as self-employed. One way The Congressional Democrats are looking to go after one more thing in another failed attempt to narrow this so called gap are electronic transactions.

They are proposing that:

credit and debit card issuers will be required to report electronic transactions of business merchants to the IRS. They will also be required to collect and verify Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs) and, if they cannot verify a merchant’s TIN, to immediately begin withholding 28% of that merchant’s transactions, which will be remitted to the IRS. Making Life Difficult for the Self Employed

This is a stupid plan. These type of transactions are already well documented. And they are unlikely subjects for willful under-reporting. I would suggest you get in touch with your congressman/congress woman and tell them this is not the correct way to go about helping the U.S. economy everyone is so worried about.

To reach your congressman, us this handy Online Directory for the 110th Congress.

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“The Links” this week is being hosted by Halo Secretarial Blog which is published by Laurie Mapp. Laurie can also be followed on twitter at @halosecretarial.

Take a trip over to Halo Secretarial Blog and read, The Links. And thanks Laurie for doing such a great job this week hosting it.

If anyone else would like to host “The Links” just let me know. You can leave a comment on this post or drop me an email at, grant@g2webmedia.com.

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This is the first installment in a new weekly series here at Home Office Warrior, where Andrew Flusche will answer your legal questions about running a home business.

Andrew is a business attorney who works out of his home office in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Which certainly makes his understanding of the legal issues of a Home Office Warrior unique. He regularly assists clients with business formation, licensing, zoning, intellectual property, litigation, and other issues. Andrew has been blogging himself since 2006, and he loves the giant online conversation!

If you have questions about trademark registration, be sure to sign up for the free webinar Andrew is hosting on August 18th: Trademark Registration Basics.

Now, here’s the first question for Legal Andrew:

Q:

Do I need a zoning permit to work from home?

A:

Most likely, yes. Most local governments have enacted zoning ordinances that regulate the specific things you can do out of your residence. Since a business can disrupt the quiet enjoyment of your neighbors’ homes, municipalities commonly enact special rules regarding home businesses.

The easiest way to find out what you need is to call your local zoning or code compliance department. The employees there should be able to tell you if your home business requires a special permit, commonly known as a “home occupation permit.”

Obtaining a permit is usually a simple matter of filling out the application and paying a small fee (maybe $30). But if your intended use runs afoul of the zoning ordinance, you might have difficulty with your permit. That’s when you could have to make a hard decision about changing your business, moving it elsewhere, or finding a new place to live.

Even with a permit, you will likely be limited as to specific business activities that you can do at home. Common limitations include: no outside business signs, no non-resident employees, and only one commercial vehicle allowed on the premises.

This is going to be a weekly feature. So now is your chance to send questions to an experienced attorney. Submit your questions to me via my email at grant@g2webmedia.com or leave your comments here. If we get more than one, I bet we can talk Andrew into answering more than one in next weeks “Ask Legal Andrew”.

Disclaimer: Andrew Flusche is a licensed Virginia attorney, but these posts do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create an attorney client relationship. For legal advice, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

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I’m on the road this week, in the process of taking my son to college while investigating options for a move to North Carolina this fall.  One of the things I’ve come to appreciate the most about being a virtual assistant is the ability to leave my home office and travel when and where I want or need to.  With a traditional in office job one has the option of taking vacations, and unless you’re lucky enough to have accrued a lot of vacation time its generally just a week or two.  The rest of the year, you’re required to stay at home and be in your place of business every day.  As a virtual assistant I have the ability to work from any location where I have an internet connection.  That means I can travel anytime throughout the year and still get my job done.

As I prepared for this trip, one of my clients was skeptical.  How would I complete all the tasks that I normally did from my well outfitted home office from a simple hotel room?  What about faxes?  and phone calls?  Would I be taking client files from my office on the road with me?  and if so, what about confidentiality?

As virtual assistants these questions are easily answered and working from the road is a piece of cake.  The virtual receptionist system that I use, Onebox, not only delivers faxes to my e-mail but allows me to send faxes from my Onebox web interface.   And since all of my client file information is electronic, there is no need for me to carry paper files with me on the road.  When on the road, my computer is always with me and I have several passwords and safety features to protect sensitive information. My virtual receptionist can also be set up to deliver phone calls to my cell phone, or it can be programmed to simply take messages, which are then delivered to my e-mail and I can use my cell to return calls.

Not only is this a great perk of being a VA, our clients can breathe easy knowing that their work is being completed in the same manner they are accustomed to. But don’t forget, it’s important to make sure that as a virtual assistant you actually take a vacation as well.  Just because you can be always accessible doesn’t mean you should be.

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One of our clients made Blawg of the Day over at inter alia The blog is Northeast Texas Bankruptcy Lawyer where J. Brian Allen covers bankruptcy issues in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Texas.

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This weeks edition of Home Office Tips and Hints — The Links will be hosted by @halosecretarial at her great blog Halo Secretarial Which will be wonderful in that it will provide all of you with a different look at some different links from someone other than me.

However, I am not going to let any of you off the hock that easy. In order to make this week’s edition even bigger and better, with Laurie’s edition of “The Links”, I thought we would do a “Reader’s Best Tip” post too.

So, submit your best tip you would give someone brand new to the home office world. Something you would have really liked to have known when you first started working from a home office. No holding back either. Any tip will work. Leave your comments here or drop me a direct message on twitter at @grantgriffiths

What I will do is than take all of the tips provided either in the comments to this post or on twitter and make a post including them all. Not only will your tip be featured, you will get linkage too. And if you have more than one tip, don’t stop with one. Lets get the conversation going.

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Ran across a post in my RSS reader from Enterprise Nation about 5 steps to get your business ready for September and I thought it applied to home based business. The post focuses on kicking your business in the butt after the summer vacations. And they all could help a lot.

1. Update your website. Go through each and every page to make sure what you and your business offers is represented correctly on your website. It’s amazing how fast your business can change as you work with different types of clients or offer different types of programmes. Have you got your latest testimonials online? Are all your links working? What about your news page? Is it up to date?

2. Plan your event marketing. If you plan to run events, workshops or seminars in September, your marketing plan should have been done weeks ago, to be honest. But it’s not too late for events happening in October onwards. I recommend a minimum of 6 weeks hard marketing before any event and if you have very little database, then longer. So, plan your early bird offer, decided how you are going to get the message out there (leaflets, emails, website, local PR) and start writing your compellling marketing copy. If you have set up a weekly timetable then it makes it far easier to execute and ensure all your events are sold out.

3. Build your team. I have just gone through this exercise over the past month as I knew I wanted to delegate my newsletters and shopping cart to a new VA. The whole process took about 2 weeks from start to finish and I now have another fab new VA with all the skills I was looking for. By doing this now rather than wait until September, she and I can out how to get the best out of each other, get all the prep work done and be ready to go with the routine actions in September. I can recommend www.AssistU.com as a great place to go and recruit a VA, especially a VA with shopping cart and email newsletter experience.

4. Plan your articles, newsletters and blog postings. There is nothing like having a weekly schedule of the articles all set out, to make writing them easier. It can be as simple as printing out a monthly calendar for the next 2 or 3 months and writing in the topic or article headline in the day you plan to publish it. No more wasted time looking for much needed inspiration on the day. Oh, and make sure your articles help promote what ever newlsetter, product or programme you will be offering in the Autumn.

5. Clear out your office. A tidy desk gives a tidy mind. And if you have been building up paper clutter (like me!) over the past few months, it is easy to feel overwhelmed every time you walk in to your office. Get busy filing, recycling, delegating or throwing away all post-stick notes, invoices, paperwork and client forms. Start September with a clear desk and your head will be a lot clearer too.

Take a look at all of the steps provided and see if they might help you out too.

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