Ep. 12: Ringing in the New Year, in Texas?

Nasir and Matt kick off 2014 discussing the new changes to Obamacare, a bookkeeper stealing from the business she works for, the consequences of raising minimum wage, and the backlash surrounding Uber's surge pricing. They also answer questions about paying yourself in an LLC, copyright infringements in a t-shirt printing business, and working with international clients. Nasir and Matt also discuss the expansion of Top Floor Legal. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Happy New Year, everyone! I don’t know what it is, but the “Happy New Year” thing seems to last too long in the sense that it’s been weeks now – well, actually, I guess it’s only been a week, but I’m already tired of it. I feel like it’s been weeks. MATT: Yeah, I mean, you’ve got a couple of days. You’re the type of person that takes down the Christmas tree as you’re opening your gifts. NASIR: I’d say maybe five minutes after midnight is probably the limit for me. After that, then it’s looking forward to January. MATT: All right. Let’s get into the first story we have for this new year – not only this week, but this year. So, we’re going to lead off with something that’s going to be pretty big, I think, throughout the year. A big story – Obamacare. NASIR: In fact, I think we’re going to cover it the whole month. It’s a big topic, obviously. So, unless we devote an entire episode which might get a little boring, I think we’ll touch on it every week this January. MATT: Yeah, I can only handle one story a week. So, we can’t do a full episode of it. Your wife and my wife are both in the healthcare industry. I rely on my wife a lot to just keep me up-to-date with everything for things that don’t have to do with business because it’s a pretty expansive act that was put into effect. NASIR: Yeah, and everyone says it’s not even the legislators actually read the bill and it is pretty lengthy. But, not only that, it keeps changing, and we’ll talk about that in a second in the sense that there’s rules that are being rolled out in 2014, but that don’t necessarily apply because the administration has decided not to enforce some of those provisions. MATT: Right. Okay. Well, let’s get into some of the changes or the things that are happening for 2014 in relation to Obamacare. So, just a couple of things here, and this is all how it relates to businesses, of course. The Small Business Tax Credit Expand – previously, 35 percent now up to as much as 50 percent for I believe it’s businesses with fewer than 25 employees. So, this is a pretty beneficial thing for these smaller businesses. I guess we’ll see how this works out. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone. California is all right, but there’s a few states that it doesn’t work for. NASIR: Yeah, because they haven’t even set up their business exchanges right. So, to get this tax credit, you actually have to have your employees on the new government-run small business exchange. And so, if you want to use your 2013 plan or not make any changes, then you might want to take a look at this because you won’t be eligible for the new tax credit. MATT: Right, and that’s exactly why that is the way it is. There’s some other things – health insurance tax, the tax part of that starts, that was a big thing when that came out. I believe that’s how it got all pushed through – it was labelling his attacks. I know peop had problems with that. NASIR: Yeah. Technically, it’s not a tax on the small business, but it’s a tax on the insurance companies for these small business plans. Effectively, it’s going to drive up premiums. They say 2 to 2.5 percent, but we’ll have to see how that actually manifests itself. MATT: Yeah, we’ll see, and it seems like a low number, but who knows? This is a pretty good one, too. Insurers can no longer calculate prices based on past history of the employees or the industry itself.

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