The Senate's side of the Capitol Building in DC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Senate Bill On Internet Taxes Passes First Hurdle

Recently, the United States Senate passed a bill concerning Internet tax collection. Online retailers currently don't have to collect sales tax from every single sale. If a person places an order from a state where that business doesn't have any physical presence, then the company doesn't need to collect taxes. Unfortunately, states lose out on billions of dollars in taxes because of this loophole.

Apple Inc. New Headquarters (Photo credit: MarkGregory007)

An Overview Of The Apple Inc, Quarterly Earnings

Apple Inc. released its quarterly earnings statement on April 23, 2013. In simple terms, the company beat one expectation but fell short on another. Most analysts expected the tech company to earn $10.00 per share on revenues of $42.33 billion. Apple's profits declined for the first time in the last 10 years, though. Luckily, the company is still worth putting money into, despite its mediocre performance this past quarter. Investors shouldn't count the company out yet.

English: Logo of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Category:Goldman Sachs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How Goldman Sachs Beat The Estimates

Expected to do little on Wall Street for the first quarter of the financial year, mega investment firm Goldman Sachs proved the critics wrong by beating the expectations for earnings in the first part of the year with a strong performance.  The criticism of the investment bankers came from a belief that there would be less debt underwriting than hoped in the continuation of the housing crisis, although Goldman Sachs earned well above the estimates. 

English: Bank of Cyprus huge offices in Aglandjia suberb of Nicosia Republic of Cyprus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The S&P 500 Is The Likely Winner Of The Crisis In Cyprus

Some investors know that there is a certain potential element of opportunity lurking in almost every dark cloud. In the case of the recent restructuring of the Cypriot banking sector, this is most certainly the case. As the Cyprus banks reopen and money gradually trickles past the currency controls imposed to prevent capital flight, funds have to find a home somewhere else. Even if it takes months to gradually extract one's deposits, it is going to happen.

English: World GDP growth rate and GDP growth rate of total OECD countries. Data source: World Bank Group and OECD. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. household debt drops and retails sales grows amidst higher taxes

There is good news for all the retailers in the country since both the sequestration and the tax hikes along with rising fuel prices have failed to stunt the growth in retail sales across the board. As per the latest news update, total retail sales have jumped up by an annual rate of 1.1% in the month of February 2013. In addition, consumers are found to be bold enough to buy increasing number of cars amidst rising taxes.

Photo of Bank of America ATM Machine by Brian Katt, Framingham Rest Stop, Massachusetts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Invest In The Stock Of Bank Of America

Bank of America, as its name suggests, is a multinational corporation offering banking and financial services that is based in America. In terms of assets, Bank of America ranks second as far as bank holding companies are concerned. In the year 2010, Forbes has also listed it as the third largest company globally. This company also offers stocks to the common public for the purpose of investment, it is abbreviated as BAC in case of the New York Stock Exchange. Since this is such a huge company, one of the largest in America, therefore people automatically assume that investing in its stocks is a good idea. While this notion is certainly true, there are other reasons too that makes the investment worthwhile.

Ken'ichirō Mogi, Senior Researcher of the Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.,, talked with Kazuyo Katsuma, Certified Public Accountant, in Kōchi Prefecture on November 29, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Finding a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) to file and prepare your taxes can be a challenge. You can spend hours calling around; trying to find one that can fit you in to their schedule. Fortunately, there is a solution. With the TurboTax CPA Select program, you are instantly connected to a qualified CPA in your area.

How Does it Work?

When you log on to the Turbo Tax site, it automatically registers your exact geographic location. You can change your location to find a CPA in another area, or simply choose one from the list provided.

After you select the CPA that you want to prepare your taxes, you will start the tax filing process. Instead of trekking all the way to their office and taking hours out of your day, you simply upload your documents onto the secure server and share them with your accountant. You can also share your documents via smartphone or fax.

Federal Reserve: 1913-2009 (Photo credit: r0b0r0b)

Stocks Continue to Move Higher

Despite nervousness that the Federal Reserve may stop buying treasurers and that China may take steps to cool its housing sector, the stock market moved higher today continuing the trend that started well before the election of 2012. The recent run-up happened during earning season as profits should some strength and the end of the season led to a short period of pause. But that may now be over.

We need to get this to the Fiscal Cliff! What could go wrong? (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Kicking Spending Cuts To March 1st But Raising Taxes

When the Fiscal Cliff solution came about at the beginning of the year, the Democrats received a lot of what they wanted in tax increases on the rich but gave nothing in return. The cuts were delayed until the end of February, which has now arrived. The cuts are about to happen in a $85 billion reduction in new spending for 2013 which is good for our budget trouble and slightly negative for growth. But growth was slowing already for a number of reasons related to natural disasters, tax increases, and business regulation. Now the country hopes to either live through the sequester or modify the sequester to make smarter cuts than just the generic across the board cuts required.

Food, Inc. on Facebook (Photo credit: Jory™)

Facebook Inc. Pays No Taxes in 2012

In their most recent filing, Facebook Inc. reported not paying any taxes on their 2012 income of $1.1 billion. There are a number of reasons that a company would not pay taxes on such a sizable amount of income and this case it appears that loses from prior years and the granting of stock options to employees are the main reasons. The company lost money during earlier pre-IPO years when it was growing and only beginning to monetize its services. In addition the company gave stock grants to employees to a large degree which is common in the technology industry. These stock options are considered business costs and are therefore deductible.