In my last column, I had fun picking on the stupidity of our state legislature's feeble attempt to make sufferers of the common cold suffer even more.

This month, it's time to pick on the federal legislature, aka US Congress, and their now one year old disaster aka "Obamacare." What are some of the hidden costs to businesses (and their employees)?

As we approach the end of the year many of us are beginning to get a nasty feeling that keeps nagging: "...dang! It's already September?!?! I should probably start getting my records cleaned up before tax season hits in few months..."

Being a "Procrastinators Club" Alumni, I understand that typically the things we most often put off, are tasks that seem overwhelming... so we don't even want to start them.

I thought I would take this occasion to give a few tips on how you can very quickly & very easily do some clean up work on your QuickBooks file.

What does it take to prepare a tax return? It's simple, right? Just follow the instructions the IRS publishes for each form. You don't want to take the time to read all those instructions, so you think you will hire somebody else to do that.

Unfortunately, for too many "less expensive" preparers, reality is that they are hiring non-trained, non-certified, non-IRS-approved folks who just sit at a computer and enter data, without much of a clue as to what the tax laws are, or how complicated a situation can become.