Promoting Through Writing - A New Perspective

Written by Todd W. Winslow


Much has been published lately touting writing articles as a good means of promoting online businesses. I couldn't agree more. However,repparttar vast majority of those writing these articles are missingrepparttar 125131 big picture.

Writing articles which carry a byline describing yourself and your business - including a link to your web site, is a great way to gain traffic and new customers. This is a win-win situation, asrepparttar 125132 writer gains exposure for their business, whilerepparttar 125133 publisher gains free content for their web site or publication. However, most ofrepparttar 125134 writers today are not taking full advantage ofrepparttar 125135 power these articles can produce.

Asrepparttar 125136 owner of a company which publishes nine daily and two weekly newsletters, I belong to numerous content announcement lists which supply us with many ofrepparttar 125137 articles we publish in our various newsletters. Unfortunately, a very high percentage ofrepparttar 125138 articles submitted to these announcement lists have a business or marketing theme. None of our newsletters carry these types of articles. As a result,repparttar 125139 authors attempting to gain exposure for their businesses by writing business and/or marketing related articles are missing out on a very large segment ofrepparttar 125140 potential market place.

There are many quality business related web sites, newsletters and e-zines which need web business and marketing content. However, as more and more people are writing these types of articles, competition for getting your article published is ever increasing. Moreover,repparttar 125141 redundancy of subject matter is also a growing problem. These two issues combined makes it more and more difficult for writers to get their articles published. So what's repparttar 125142 answer? Expand your horizons!

Can I get off this rollercoaster now, please? Strategies for working net-smarter.

Written by Kenneth Doyle - e*Analyst


According to a new survey carried out by Alliance & where ID_NUM=9270; Leicester, one in five small business owners view tax as their greatest concern. The Chancellor has announced in his last budget that companies with profits below œ10,000 will not have to pay any corporation tax with effect from 1 April 2002. The question to be asked is: does that announcement make incorporation a more attractive option compared to being a sole trader?

The answer is that from a tax point of view, it is advantageous to trade through a limited company as long asrepparttar income is drawn fromrepparttar 125130 company byrepparttar 125131 owners as dividends from their shares andrepparttar 125132 amount of dividends drawn is restricted belowrepparttar 125133 40% band rate (i.e. œ31,063 for tax year 2002/03). That way,repparttar 125134 owners have no further personal tax ("income tax") to pay. Moreover, dividends are not subject to national insurance contributions. This is excellent news of course. But, if dividend income falls withinrepparttar 125135 higher rate bracket of income tax (i.e. above œ34,515), they will be taxed at 22.5% onrepparttar 125136 excess, which of course will increaserepparttar 125137 tax burden. The company profits are subject to corporation tax rates. Those are lower than income tax rates.

The most catastrophic scenario is whenrepparttar 125138 director takes his reward fromrepparttar 125139 company as salary. Then his/her salary is taxed at income tax rates (like a sole trader's income). That is because, unlike sole traders,repparttar 125140 tax system treats companies as separate from their owners because a company is a separate legal entity. The problem is thatrepparttar 125141 income taxes are higher than corporation tax rates. On top of that, they will be subject to employee and employer national insurance contributions, which of course increaserepparttar 125142 tax burden and render his position worse than even an unincorporated business ("sole trader"), because NIC Class 1 on payroll are higher than NIC Class 2 paid by self employed.

In contrast, a self employed person ("sole trader") is taxed at income tax rates onrepparttar 125143 profits from his business, which are added to his other sources of income. As it has already been mentioned, income tax rates are overall higher than corporation tax rates. On top of income tax, national insurance contributions class 4 are payable onrepparttar 125144 business profits within a specified band (7% on profits between œ4,615and œ30,420). National insurance contributions Class 2 are also paid by self-employed people, although those are lower than those payable by company directors on their salaries.

To illustraterepparttar 125145 above, let's take a simple example. We have a limited company and a sole trader. They both make œ60,000 profits each inrepparttar 125146 tax year 2002/03. We assume thatrepparttar 125147 company director takes a salary equal torepparttar 125148 amount of his personal allowances (untaxed income) of œ4,615 andrepparttar 125149 balance as dividends. The company will pay corporation tax at 19% equal to œ10,523 and nothing else. The sole trader will pay income tax œ16,542, National insurance Class 2 œ104 and National insurance Class 4 œ1,806. Total œ18,452. The bottom line is thatrepparttar 125150 person that has incorporated his business into a limited company will make a tax saving of œ7,929 compared to a sole trader! Isn't that fantastic?

Somebody might be wondering: why is this entire happening? The official explanation is that, this government, to helprepparttar 125151 economy grow, encourages people to leave as much profits within their businesses to be reinvested, instead of being taken out and spent.

The "unofficial line" is that, as a matter of fact, for yearsrepparttar 125152 Inland Revenue has tried to reclassifyrepparttar 125153 self-employed. The 1% in NIC hike on staff salaries aboverepparttar 125154 NIC threshold from next April adds to bothrepparttar 125155 employees' and employers' tax burden and may more than offsetrepparttar 125156 saving fromrepparttar 125157 corporation tax zero rate onrepparttar 125158 first œ10,000 of profits.

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