HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Click The Pumpkin

LENDERS NOW HAVE TOUGHER CREDIT STANDARDS

(INC.com) -- The number of small-business loans continues to decline as banks raise standards on personal credit ratings, leaving fewer owners able to access working capital, according to lenders and policy experts. "Lending standards have tightened and loan demand is down considerably," Chad Moutray, the chief economist at the Small-Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, said this week at a roundtable on small-business credit held by the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington. Other panelists urged policymakers to look beyond traditional bank loans. "I think we need to get busy in developing game plans and getting more creative," said Andrew Sherman, a small-business policy expert at Dickstein Shapiro, a Washington-based law firm. Sherman called ongoing uncertainties in the financial market a "cloud that's getting in the way of our productivity and our competitiveness."

FOLLOW THIS ADVICE TO HELP ELIMINATE SPAM

Here is some sound advice from Snopes.com. This may eliminate some spam from your mailbox if you follow it.

1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to '10' of your friends, or sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck, good luck, or whatever, it almost always has an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those folks you forward to.

The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of 'active' E-Mails to use in SPAM E-Mails, or sell to other spammers.

2) Almost all E-Mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of E-Mail is, is a way to get names and 'cookie ' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers - - to validate active E-Mail accounts for their own profitable purposes.

You can do your friends and family members a GREAT favor (PLEASE) by sending this information to them. You will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam E-Mails in the future!

If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much SPAM!

Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listings regardless how inviting they might sound! You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT in the long run. Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later! Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let's don't make it easy for them!

Also: E-Mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress/Parliament or any other organization. To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address of the person signing the petition.

IS YOUR VEHICLE OWNED BY YOUR CORPORATION?

If you are a corporation with a vehicle owned by the corporation, don't forget to add back to your W-2 the personal use of your corporate vehicle. The IRS has charts on how to calculate per use. Check out www.irs.gov for more information.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Larry Kopsa CPA

CHRISTMAS CAKES

The Holidays are upon us...what a busy time of year! If you plan to do any baking in the midst of all the holiday chaos, you might enjoy the following link. Pick A Cake

I thought it was pretty cool. I forwarded it to my wife... I'm not sure if she will get the hint. All you have to do is click on a link and the recipe will come up.

Enjoy!

Larry Kopsa CPA

JUST HOW BAD IS THE ECONOMY? MAYBE YOU CAN'T BELIEVE ALL YOU HEAR

All we seem to hear is bad economic news. If you read the "real" economic news, the economy is not great, but certainly not as bad as you would think. The "talking heads" on the tube would make you think that the big depression is coming back. As the columnist George Will recently said, "an airplane that lands safely does not make news." Did you know that in October the economy rose by about 3%? That is off from past growth, but is still positive.

Here is an article that I thought might shed a little light on the subject.

(Star Tribune, Minneapolis) -- Suppose that everything you know is wrong.

· Consider the commonly held belief that corporate America is headed into a recession, tapped out for cash. Not so. Cash compared with total corporate debt is near a 50-year high.
· Certainly consumer debt appears unmanageable, with late payments nearing record levels on credit cards and real estate, right? Not true. The percentage of home loans 30 days or more past due, while rising, is nowhere near record levels.
· You say troubled home and auto loans are dragging down the economy as never before? Wrong again. While together such loans lopped 1.5 points off U.S. economic growth in recent quarters, it has been worse. In the final three months of last year, housing and auto pared more than 2 points from the chief barometer of economic progress.

“Most of that, I’ve got to believe, is behind us,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management. Paulsen argues that the economy has more going for it than popularly believed. Paradoxically, the president, Congress and Federal Reserve officials have stoked fears instead of calming them, in Paulsen’s view. “We’ve never had a fear crisis like this,” he said. “All of our monetary and fiscal tools are to restore economic fundamentals. When it comes to fear, our toolbox is empty.” In earlier economic crises, three of every four problems were fundamental roadblocks to economic growth, Paulsen said. “This one is three-quarters fear.”

INVESTING IN TODAY'S CHALLENGING MARKET

The stock market has made headlines this year with record volatility, record drops, and even record gains. And while many investors are still sitting on the sidelines, you may already be looking for bargains amidst the wreckage. So, we're writing to alert you to a possible problem with acting now.

Are you considering buying mutual funds in a taxable account (as opposed to an IRA or 401K)? Then you should be aware that most funds distribute capital gains this time of year. These distributions are taxable to you as long-term capital gains, even if you just bought the fund.

The average U.S diversified stock fund is down about 33% for the year. Funds in most other categories are down as well. But many of those funds sold assets for nice profits earlier this year. This means you may get socked with a nasty tax surprise!

There are generally two ways to avoid this bite. The first is to find funds without capital gains to distribute. The second is to wait until a fund actually pays out capital gain distributions. Make sure that you discuss with your broker to see if they expect distributions, and if so, when they will be paid.

Today's challenging market makes it even more important to invest with an eye on taxes.

THINK DAY

Do you want to take your business to the next level? Try this...

I am a small business owner like you. I know that on a day to day basis, we are busy doing what we need to do to operate our business. How many times do we say, “If I just had time to …?”

As I write this, I am taking time to do exactly that. I am held up at Embassy Suites for the weekend doing a “think-business development day.” No family...no friends...TV is unplugged...books all over the place, but I have an agenda. I am lucky that my family understands the importance of me getting away just to concentrate on business.

I’ve brought along the stack of magazines I’ve been meaning to get to, the staff evaluations, the client list, the budget and some business development books. I have spent Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday just concentrating on business. Monday will be back to normal, but over this weekend I am developing strategies and doing the things that will help to make sure my business is running properly.

I read that Bill Gates takes four days a year he calls “think days”, to go out and strategizes. If success leaves clues, certainly Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, would be a good example to follow.

If you haven’t done this, try it.

Larry Kopsa CPA

NEWS FROM AGRICULTURE

Neb. corn harvest called 2nd-highest on record

(AP) — The Nebraska corn crop is expected to be the second-highest on record at 1.38 billion bushels. The latest USDA estimate says Nebraska's corn crop will come in 7% under last year's record harvest of 1.47 billion bushels. Nebraska's soybean crop will come in at an estimated 14% higher than last year. Sorghum production was forecast to be the third-highest on record -- 19% below a year ago. Nebraska production of sugar beets was down 20% from last year, mostly because fewer acres were planted for harvest. Potato production was forecast at 4% less than a year ago.

Ag land prices may be wilting

(Omaha World-Herald) -- After several years of double-digit growth, agricultural land values might be on the decline. While prices for cropland remain high, some properties are fetching 10 to 20% less than they would have a few months ago, agricultural real estate agents said. Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Iowa State University say they don't yet have data to show a decline, but anecdotal evidence suggests the red-hot markets of recent years may be cooling. State Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah, who sells agricultural real estate, seed and other ag services, said land prices in northeast Nebraska -- which had experienced a "land boom'' -- have dropped as much as 20% in three months. Chris Langemeier of Schuyler, another state senator who sells agricultural real estate, said he has not seen a downturn. At a land auction Friday in Leigh, a 40-acre parcel of dryland farm ground sold for about $2,800 an acre, he said. Researchers and real estate agents said the next several months will reveal more about future land values.

NEBRASKA ECONOMY STILL STRONG DESPITE NATIONAL OUTLOOK

(KOLN-KGIN TV) -- The Labor Department released October's job loss numbers this past Friday. The good news is Nebraska hasn't been hit as hard as the rest of the country. Larry Routh, the director of Career Services at UNL, said while his office has seen a slow down in some industries, he thinks UNL has remained unscathed because most of its students plan to work on Main Street instead of Wall Street. "The financial woes move from the East Coast to the Midwest," Routh said. "Agriculture remains pretty strong and that's been helpful to us." Brandon Schmidt is a Mechanical Engineering graduate student at the university. He considers himself lucky not only because he's graduating in December, but also because he'll likely have at least one offer by graduation day. "It hasn't been too bad," Schmidt said. "I've had three interviews so far and it doesn't seem to be a problem for me to find options for me getting into a career."

CALL TO ACTION

A NEW ADMINISTRATION….NOW WHAT?

As we have heard, “change is coming.” We are concerned that one change that is coming is higher taxes! Given the projected increases in the federal income tax, capital gains, and qualified dividend rates, you may want to take action before December 31st to keep more of your money in your pocket. To determine if you'll be affected, we have prepared the enclosed checklist for you. Please click on this link to review the checklist: Call to Action Checklist. If you feel that you might be impacted by any or all of these items, contact us!

If you already have a pretax appointment scheduled with us, we will be discussing these items at that time.

We are watching the activity in Washington D.C. very closely so that we can best serve you, therefore we will keep you posted. Let us know if you have any questions.

It is a pleasure serving you!

Larry Kopsa CPA