The Ideal Length of Your Business PlanWritten by Dave Lavinsky
How long should a business plan be? A business plan needs to be whatever length is required to excite investor, prove that management truly understands market, and detail execution strategy. From surveys of investor needs, Growthink has found that 15 to 25 pages of text is optimum length in which to accomplish this. Any more and time-constrained investor will be forced to skim certain sections of plan, even if they are generally interested, which could lead them to miss essential elements. Any less and investor will think that business plan has not been fully developed, or he or she will simply not have enough information to make an investment decision.Many management teams feel that their company is too complex to describe in 15 to 25 pages. While this is sometimes true, business plan is not meant to tell whole story. Rather, company must be “boiled down” into its essential elements. If investor is interested, there will be plenty of additional time to tell whole story. Business plans, like other marketing communications documents, should be visually appealing and easy-to-read. This can be accomplished by using charts and graphics and by formatting plan for readability. Effectively using these techniques will enable investor to more quickly and easily understand company’s value proposition within fewer pages.
| | How To Get An Extension To File Your Business Tax ReturnsWritten by Richard A. Chapo
Yes, tax season is upon with first filing date for some businesses being March 15, 2005. If you can’t imagine getting your tax returns together by that date, you need not worry. The IRS automatically gives you an extension if your file appropriate form. As you might expect, there are different forms for different businesses. An Important Note It is vitally important that you understand that an extension to file taxes is not an extension to PAY taxes. The IRS will give you a break on filing date, but it wants money now! If you anticipate that you will owe taxes, you need to send in appropriate payment. Failure to do so could result in interest charges when you eventually get around to filing your returns. Corporations If you conduct business as a corporation with a fiscal year-end of December 31st, you are required to file your 2004 tax returns on or before March 15, 2005. You can get an automatic extension, however, by filing form 7004 before March 15 deadline. Form 7004 applies both to “C” and “S” corporations and grants you an automatic 6-month extension to September 15, 2005. While this automatic extension applies to “S” corporations, you should be aware of a quirk in tax code. Since “S” corporations “pass through” taxes to your personal returns, six-month extension is really only a five-month extension. To file your personal tax returns, you must report information from K-1 issued from “S” corporation. Unfortunately, IRS only grants automatic extensions for filing personal tax returns to August 15, 2005. Limited Liability Company The IRS has never really figured out to how to handle limited liability companies. It has settled on a policy of avoiding issue and simply treating entity as a corporation or partnership.
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