Did you know that you can save your office thousands of dollars per year by using a few proven energy saving tips? To discover some effective energy saving tips, which will help your company decrease its utility bills, simply continue reading.

On average a single air-conditioning unit will consume 4,000 watts of power and will cost around 1,460 pounds, per year. So if you want to save your business money, it’s well worth limiting your use of air-conditioning units. As an example, there’s no reason to keep your air-conditioning units turned on, at the end of the day or during the cold winter months.

In comparison, while an air-conditioning unit will consume 4,000 watts of power in a year, desktop computers only consume 100 watts of electricity per year.

Invest in a green, energy efficient air-conditioning unit:

If you’re shocked by the amount of money that it takes to run an air-conditioning unit, it’s a great idea to replace your old, air-conditioning unit, with newer, energy efficient air-conditioning units. A smart move, which should save your hundreds of dollars per year.

Replace all of your outdated appliances:

You may be surprised to learn that in general, old, outdated appliances can consume up to 90% more power than new models. So if it’s been years since you’ve replaced your servers, computers, heat pumps or air-conditioning units, now may be the perfect time to replace some of your office’s outdated appliances.

One appliance which is well worth replacing is your server. As an average server consumes 1,000 watts of power per year and older servers take more energy to run than newer servers. You may also be surprised to learn that after air-conditioning units, severs consume the most energy, in your office.

Replace your office’s light bulbs with power saving LED light bulbs:

While light bulbs only consume 60 watts of energy per year, just think about how many light bulbs are currently used in your office. As it’s highly like that your office features a few dozen light bulbs, it’s a wise idea to replace all of your office’s light bulbs with power saving, LED light bulbs. As a bonus, the average LED light bulb has a lifespan, which is 5 times longer, than a cheap, traditional light bulb.

Use your printers sparingly:

In today’s technology focused age, where you can share files easily online, make sure that your team members think twice, before printing out pages of documents. As on average printers use 50 watts of energy each year. If you use your printers sparingly you may be able to reduce this number to 25 watts or less per year.

It’s also well worth getting your employees to think twice before using your office photocopiers. As photocopiers consume 70 watts of power per week.

Final thoughts:

So if you’ve been searching for smart ways to reduce your consumption of energy in the office, it’s definitely well worth implementing all of the clever, power saving tips which are listed above. All of which will also help your business save several thousand dollars per year.

 

Since 1975 the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been a godsend to low income earners who really cannot afford to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes (FICA) from an already limited income. The EITC has proved immensely helpful for millions of families across the US. Unfortunately, it is a tax credit that is often misunderstood.

For example, self-employed people otherwise eligible to claim the credit often fail to do so because they believe they are ineligible. Nothing could be further from the truth. As long as a self-employed individual meets all the same criteria as a standard employee, he or she can claim the EITC.

To qualify for the EITC, a taxpayer must be between the ages of 25 and 65. His or her filing status must also be single or married filing jointly. Finally, the taxpayer must be caring for dependent children or qualifying adult dependents not listed as dependents on anyone else’s tax return.

Definition of Self-Employment

The tricky thing with self-employment and the EITC is not actually the tax credit but defining self-employment. Whether or not a taxpayer is truly self-employed depends on how that person’s business is set up. We can start with sole proprietors, as they are the easiest to understand.

A sole proprietor is a person who does business individually, usually under a DBA arrangement. The business typically doesn’t have its own bank account, though some sole proprietors utilize alternative financial services to keep business finances separate. Finally, business income and expenses are reported on schedule C. All business income is treated as personal income for tax purposes.

You can technically be self-employed if your business is set up as an S Corporation or LLC. However, there are other tax implications to consider. Self-employed individuals working under a corporate arrangement tend to pay themselves through a combination of distributions and regular salaries. Corporate distributions are not subject to self-employment tax.

Claiming the EITC as a Sole Proprietor

Most self-employed people eligible to receive the EITC are sole proprietors. By their very nature, employees of S corporations and LLCs generally make too much to claim the credit anyway. Thus, our focus on sole proprietors.

The maximum credit for the 2019 tax year is $6,557. The average credit paid out for the 2018 tax year was just under $2,500. How much a given taxpayer might be eligible for depends on income and the total number of qualifying dependents claimed.

Claiming the credit is a matter of doing some calculations on your annual tax return. A sole proprietor begins with the previously mentioned schedule C. This is the form used to declare all business revenue and expenses. He or she uses the same calculations that he/she used to determine total income or loss from business dealings.

In essence, the amount of revenue left over after deducting all business expenses counts as the sole proprietor’s income. That number is used to determine EITC eligibility. If you were using computer software to do your taxes, the software would automatically calculate any EITC credit you were due. Preparing your taxes manually would require running the numbers yourself.

Play by the Rules

In closing, it is vitally important for self-employed taxpayers to play by the rules. Fudging the numbers in order to reduce self-employment taxes might also make one eligible for a higher EITC credit, but it could also result in losing access to the credit if the IRS discovers what has been done. In essence, the EITC is not guaranteed. Cross the IRS and you might not be able to claim it for up to 10 years.

 

If we compare how we live our lives a couple of decades back or how our elders use to live, we can easily spot the difference in technology around them and us. In the early 2000s, we do not have access to the internet everywhere. We did not have any mobile phones which can support us in office work and so on. Technology has changed every aspect of our lives, and it will keep on changing.

Talking about the change in our lives, it is worth mentioning how businesses have changed over time. Many companies were nonexistent in the 2000s that are currently working around us like fintech (Financial Technology). These are the companies that use technological advancements to help companies and individuals to manage and transact money. Whenever we talk about business and money, this always leads to loans.

Fintech gave birth to an online business loan. But this is just one aspect of fintech. Technology has influenced the loan industry and has drastically changed the dynamics of it. So, how does technology changed or improves business loans? Let us see it in detail.

Impact of technology:

When we talk about business loans in the 21^st century, we cannot ignore technology and the role it plays. Technology has improved many things like our connectivity with our loved ones to our cab booking process. So it must have also impacted the loan industry as well and improved the process for a business to obtain a loan. Here are some improvements which technology has brought in business loans:

Building a bridge between a lender and a borrower:

Imagine yourself as a business owner who needs to finance his business because you are $10,000/- down. This is making you worried, but you do not have enough time looking for which bank is giving loans and at which rate, and either your bank is good against the other one just across the street. Also, when you select a bank, now you have to go to the bank, sit in front of a banker to fill out the application. Submit the application and all the relevant papers for which you have been working for a week. Resubmit a paper if it is not correct or if something is missing, and you do not know whether the bank will approve your loan or not.

This is not an old story of the 19^th century. It used to happen just a few years ago. But with the help of technology, a borrower is aware which bank, or financial institution is offering which type of loan and at which markup rate. Also, the lenders do not have to put billboards or newspaper ads or Television commercials and so many old school methods. They have to upload the update on their website, and this can do the job for them. There are also some websites where a borrower can compare the loan terms and markup rates side by side to make an informed decision. So in this way, technology has bridged a borrower with the perfect lender he is looking for.

Credit score or Creditworthiness evaluation process:

As a lender, you want to be sure that you will receive your money back. For this, what will you do? You are not going to give your money to everyone who asks for it. This is why there is a standard which a borrower has to meet to get the loan. The standards were set so ruggedly and hard that most of the borrowers find it impossible to get their loan application approved. But technology has made it easier.

Before the advent of technology like the internet, lenders do not have all the information regarding the borrowers; hence they use to have their metrics like personal credit score or collateral, etc. However, with the help of technology, a lender can evaluate very minute information like transaction flow analysis and much more. This creates a whole new matrix of evaluation and understanding the borrower for safer lending.

Easy loan application:

Imagine yourself going to decide to apply for a loan. You have decided which bank you are going to choose from. But the only problem is the application process. To apply for a loan, you have to work for a week so that you can collect, print, attest, and some other work to sit on the table of the lending bank and start filling the application form. But you still be uncertain whether you will qualify for the loan or not.

Now again, imagine yourself going to apply for a loan. You have compared all the banks and have come to the agreement that this is the bank from which you are going to get the loan. But you again are uncertain whether you will qualify or not. However, this time you are going to apply online and see if your loan application will go for scrutiny or not. You do not have to go to the bank this time, just by sitting anywhere where you have an internet connection and a laptop or a smartphone. You fill out the form and submit it. Instantly, you will receive the email if your application is accepted or not. How does that sound? Easy right? This is what technology has made it for a borrower and a lender. A borrower does not have to wait for weeks to see if his application is accepted and also work day and night for the paperwork. Also, on the other hand, a lender does have to look at every application. Computers do it for them, and only those applications which fall under the set criteria get through to the table of the lender.

High loan approval rate:

This one is connected with the improvement above. When you, as a lender, do not have to go through all those applications which do not fall upon your criteria, your efforts will be focused on only those applications which can be given a loan. Hence you can now focus on serving them better by offering some relaxed or, in other words, personalized and customized offers that will benefit you.

Also, the other side is for the borrower. A borrower will get to know quickly whether he can get the loan from you or not. This helps the borrower focus on finding the lender who can help him. You will not have to waste your precious time upon a bank that will not go to give you a loan after you have put in work for a week or so. Hence if your initial loan application is accepted, then there will be a high probability that you will get the loan.

Loan payment tracking system:

When you have borrowed the money, it is hard to keep track of your loan payments and to pay on a specific date. It happens that sometimes you are so messed up with a new project that you forgot to pay the due money back to the lender. This might result in asset recall from the lender or some penalties, which I know you do not want to give. So technology helps you keep track of them. This tracking system can be automated, as well. It can make payments upon your behalf upon your per set date and time. Also, it can notify you that you have to make the payment today.

THE BOTTOM LINE OF THE DISCUSSION

It can be said that technology has improved our everyday life. The way we interact with each other and the way we work. Technology has also impacted the way we transact money, and this change applies to the way we use to borrow or lend money. With technology, it is easy to get a loan now because the lender and the borrower are more informed. However, whenever you are into taking a loan, you have to be cautious because if you can take a loan, it does not mean that you should take a loan.