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Thursday, September 6, 2007
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   Thursday, September 6, 2007

5 Motivations to Identity Theft Proof Your Business
Identity theft is a serious crime that has challenged legal systems worldwide. Contrary to popular belief, identity theft can take place in many ways, besides web-based and electronic transactions. There have been a number of instances of identity theft resulting from stolen credit cards, business documents and checkbooks.
A recent study confirms that only about 11.6 percent of identity theft crimes take place via the Internet. A large number of identity theft crimes have been committed with the help of stolen documents from offices. If you own a business, it is important to ensure that adequate measures are in place to safeguard the sensitive information of your company and your clients.
Listed below are the top five reasons why you should make sure that your business is identity theft proof:
1. For The Security Of Your Business - Without proper security measures, your company name (and credit) can be used to purchase merchandise from other companies.
2. To Safeguard Your Reputation - It takes years to build a good reputation - you cannot afford to ruin it by allowing someone else to use your name to cheat people.
3. To Safeguard The Privacy Of Employees - The main interest of an identity thief lies in documents and sources that may reveal important personal data. These include names, addresses, Social Security Numbers, phone numbers, insurance information and banking details. Employee files in your company include all this information. Access to these files, leads to serious implications and puts the financial future of your employees at risk.
4. To Avoid Litigation - If you are forced to sue a fraudulent company for identity theft, you stand to lose a great deal of time and money - both of which are usually in short supply.
5. To Strengthen Rapport With Customers And Build Trust - Customers are always eager to be associated with a brand or company that has a good reputation. If you protect the interests of your customers, you are sure to win their loyalty.
Andy Lawson and Southland shredding, a California document shredding services company, work to help businesses prevent information security issues by providing collection centers and mobile shredding services for the document destruction needs of Southern California companies, government offices or individual privacy protection. Andy understands the importance of identity theft proofing your business and offers Los Angeles document destruction to companies in need of protection.


Payroll Minnesota, Unique Aspects of Minnesota Payroll Law and Practice
The Minnesota State Agency that oversees the collection and reporting of State income taxes deducted from payroll checks is:
Department of Revenue
Taxpayer Info. Technical Support
10 River Park Plaza, Mail Station 6501
St. Paul, MN 55146-6501
(651) 282-9999
(800) 657-3594
www.taxes.state.mn.us/

Minnesota does not require you to use a state form to calculate state income tax withholding.

Not all states allow salary reductions made under Section 125 cafeteria plans or 401(k) to be treated in the same manner as the IRS code allows. In Minnesota cafeteria plans are not taxable for income tax calculation; taxable for unemployment insurance purposes. 401(k) plan deferrals are not taxable for income taxes; taxable for unemployment purposes.
In Minnesota supplemental wages are taxed at a 6.25% flat rate.

You must file your Minnesota State W-2s by magnetic media if you are required to file your federal W-2s by magnetic media.

The Minnesota State Unemployment Insurance Agency is:
Department of Economic Security
390 N. Robert St.
St. Paul, MN 55101
(651) 296-6141
http://www.deed.state.mn.us/bizdev/
The State of Minnesota taxable wage base for unemployment purposes is wages up to $22000.00.
Minnesota requires Magnetic media reporting of quarterly wage reporting if the employer has at least 50 employees that they are reporting that quarter.

Unemployment records must be retained in Minnesota for a minimum period of eight years. This information generally includes: name; social security number; dates of hire, rehire and termination; wages by period; payroll pay periods and pay dates; date and circumstances of termination.

The Minnesota State Agency charged with enforcing the state wage and hour laws is:
Department of Labor and Industry
Labor Standards Division
443 Lafayette Rd. N.
St. Paul, MN 55155-4306
(651) 284-5005
http://www.doli.state.mn.us/
The minimum wage in Minnesota is $5.15 (large employers) and $4.90 (small employers) per hour.

The general provision in Minnesota concerning paying overtime in a non-FLSA covered employer is one and one half times regular rate after 48-hour week.

Minnesota State new hire reporting requirements are that every employer must report every new hire and rehire and government contractors. The employer must report the federally required elements of:
Employee's name
Employee's date of birth.
Date of hire
State of hire
Employee's address
Employee's social security number
Employer's name
Employers address
Employer's Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN)
This information must be reported within 20 days of the hiring or rehiring.
The information can be sent as a W4 or equivalent by mail, fax or electronically.
There is a $25.00 penalty for a late report and $500 for conspiracy in Minnesota.
The Minnesota new hire-reporting agency can be reached at 800-672-4473 or 651-227-4661or on the web at www.mn-newhire.com

Minnesota does not allow compulsory direct deposit
Minnesota requires the following information on an employee's pay stub:
Gross and Net Earnings
Employee's name
Pay period ending date
Straight time and overtime pay
Hours worked
Itemized deductions
Minnesota requires that employee be paid no less often than every 30 days; semimonthly for public service corporations; 15-day intervals for laborers.

Minnesota requires that the lag time between the end of the pay period and the payments of wages to the employee not exceed thirty days; 15 days after pay period for public service corporations.

Minnesota payroll law requires that involuntarily terminated employees must be paid their final pay immediately, or within 24 hours of demand and that voluntarily terminated employees must be paid their final pay by the next regular payday; if payday is less than 5 days, then by second payday, but no more than 20 days after discharge.

Deceased employee's wages of $10,000 must be paid to the surviving spouse upon request and after affidavit showing proof of relationship is shown.

Escheat laws in Minnesota require that unclaimed wages be paid over to the state after one year.

There is no provision in Minnesota law concerning record retention of abandoned wage records.

There is no tip credit in Minnesota law concerning State minimum wage.
In Minnesota the payroll laws covering mandatory rest or meal breaks are that a sufficient time to eat a meal during shift of at least 8 hours; adequate time to visit restroom in each 4 hours of work; reasonable time to express breast milk (doesn't need to be paid).

Minnesota statute requires that wage and hour records be kept for a period of not less than three years. These records will normally consist of at least the information required under FLSA.
The Minnesota agency charged with enforcing Child Support Orders and laws is:

Child Support Enforcement Division
Department of Human Services
444 Lafayette Rd., 4th Fl. S.
St. Paul, MN 55155-3846
(651) 296-2542
www.dhs.state.mn.us/ecs/Program/csed.htm
Minnesota has the following provisions for child support deductions:
When to start Withholding? First pay period after 14 days from service.
When to send Payment? Within 7 days of Payday.
When to send Termination Notice? Within 10 days of termination.
Maximum Administrative Fee? $1 per payment.
Withholding Limits? Federal Rules under CCPA.


Please note that this article is not updated for changes that can and will happen from time to time.


Blogs: 5 Reasons Why All Small Business Owners Must Blog
If there’s one thing that I continue to repeat to my clients over and over and over, it is that blogging is one of the most effective ways to attract prospects to your Internet site, and you need to be doing it at least weekly.
Here are five reasons why all Small Business Owners must blog:
• Search engine optimization: Blogging helps your Internet site achieve a higher ranking on search engines. The key to search engine ranking is information-rich content. Blogging is the ideal format for publishing information on the Internet, and it’s really easy to update a blog. It’s just like writing an email only it’s to the whole world. Every Blog you post becomes its own web page adding yet another page of content on the web. The more content you have on your Internet site, the more you look like an information-rich website to the search engines.
• Credibility: A blog helps to brand you as an expert in your industry. Blogs are the perfect place to talk about what you know and cost you practically nothing to post them. When you share your knowledge in a blog, you build the kind of trust that turns leads into clients for life. After awhile, you will build up a huge inventory of postings which will be impressive, especially to the Generation X and Y consumers.
• Relationship Building: Blogs put a personal face on your business. The personal nature of blogs makes them a powerful tool for building relationships with your clients and potential clients. There’s a lot of competition online; a blog is one of the best ways to separate your business from the competition. Staying in front of these potential future clients is critical in staying in their hearts and minds when they are needing the products or services you offer.
• Feedback: Your blog makes instant feedback possible. A blog is an ideal format for getting feedback from clients. Visitors can respond to your comments and link to your blog posts from their own websites and blogs. Hot topics can create a thread that engages dozens—or hundreds—of readers to post their replies. The replies will tell you a lot about what your customers want.
• Up to date information: Blogs put information that is new and that helps you in a couple ways. First, it will give your clients and potential clients reason to come back to your site again and again. Also, the “spiders” that Google uses to crawl your site will reward you for the fresh and frequently updated content by giving you higher Search Engine rankings. Every time Google comes back to see “how you’re doing” and discovers that you and your site aren’t going to roll over and play dead after putting up your initial 8 page website, they will take note and give you an advantage over the other complacent website owners. Google is drawn to new content as a cat is drawn to catnip. Give Google all the catnip you can and reap the benefits!
Blogging helps you build the quality of relationships that can turn leads into clients for life. If you don’t have a blog, make launching your own blog one of your top priorities.
Brett Miller, the founder of HoopJumper Websystems, is the creator of Webepreneur, an easy-to-use web-building program for small business owners who want to save money and time by building and editing their own search engine optimized websites. If you’re a small business owner and you want your websites to work for you, go to http://www.webepreneur.com/