Standard Two
Standard Two What is the 2008 Standard Deduction What is the standard deduction?: The standard deduction is a tax extractable dollar amount available to all U.S. citizens who do not itemize their ...
Standard Two
What is the 2008 Standard DeductionWhat is the standard deduction?: The standard deduction is a tax extractable dollar amount available to all U.S. citizens who do not itemize their tax returns. The exact amount of an individual’s standard deduction is usually based on their filing status, age, and living situation, and increases every year for each. The standard deductions for the 2008 tax year are as follows: Single - $5,450 If a qualifying individual is blind or 65 years or older, their standard deduction amount will increase. However, this gets into a trickier area as the specific amounts are not available on the IRS’ website. To find out if you qualify, and what the exact amount is, you should probably call the IRS or have a tax professional find out on your behalf. Additionally, if an individual can be claimed as a dependent on another persons return, their deduction can be reduced. According to the IRS, for 2008, the standard deduction for a taxpayer who can be claimed as a dependent on another taxpayer's return was: • earned income (wages, salaries, tips, etc.) plus $300 • but not less than $850 • and not more than the standard deduction for the single filing status ($5,450) According the IRS publication 501, the individuals who cannot take the standard deduction are as follows: 1. A married individual filing a separate return whose spouse itemizes deductions. 2. An individual who was a nonresident alien or dual status alien during any part of the year (note that residents of India may be able to claim the standard deduction if they meet certain criteria (refer to Publication 519). 3. An individual who files a return for a period of less than 12 months due to a change in his or her annual accounting period. 4. An estate or trust, common trust fund, or partnership. Who should use the standard deduction?: Normally, you will want to check whether itemizing or taking the standard deduction is the right choice by comparing the amount your total tax liability in either situation. For example, if you are a single taxpayer and total your itemized deductions came to $3,200, then you would be much better off taking the standard deduction of $5,450. On the other hand, if the same single taxpayer totaled their itemized deductions to find they come to over the standard deduction of $5,450, they would want to stick with itemizing. To check for your self, you will want to first gather all of your tax information and a Schedule A form. Complete the form, then compare the standard deduction and itemized deductions to see which benefits you more. If you are hesitant to do it yourself, you can bring your tax documents in to a tax professional and have them tell you which option is the best choice for you. If you do find itemizing your deductions best suits your situation, be sure to follow the rules when doing your itemizing, and check with a professional to assure the numbers are crunched correctly. For any additional information on the standard deduction, check out the IRS' website, IRS.gov. About the Author The Roni Deutch Tax Center is one of the nation's hottest income tax franchise. For more information on owning a franchise visit RDTCFranchise.com, or check out Watch Me Franchise to see what it is really like to run a franchise business. |
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How to Position a Brand for Success: by Creating Brand Standards You Can Actually Use
Whether you’re launching a new product or maintaining a legacy, there’s no arguing the value of consistency in your branding. The question is, do you consider your brand standards necessary or a necessary evil? If it’s the latter, use these ideas to help develop standards that everyone’s happy to use.
Make the right decisions up front
Find a war room and line the walls with every piece of communication you plan to affect. In partnership with your brand consulting firm, rearrange the work into two tiers – the work the agency will write and design all the way through production (like product and overview brochures), and the marketing pieces that will need to be templated and updatable by the in-house team (like white papers and data sheets).
The reason for this is simple. The level of brand standards applied to each audience can and should vary. For your advertising agency, the standards can stay fluid and a bit looser. Great print ads, for example, are often difficult to template – making it worthwhile to invest new dollars with your ad firm to make them great every time. Ideally, your brand standards should be flexible for talented designers and totally inflexible for those in-house designers who likely have a less mature skill set.
Create one central resource for assets
Once your standards have been developed by your brand strategy firm, establish one online location where all the resources can live. Many times, companies lack a centralized database, so designers grab assets from different locations and inconsistencies abound. This also makes it simpler to update a single set of files as the standards shift – instead of distributing updates to designers across the globe and expecting them to keep track of the changes.
Assign the brand police
Someone must be put in the position and held accountable for policing the brand standards – a key component of implementing and upholding brand consistency. In choosing the right person, make sure it’s someone who sees all communications before they’re released for production. Additionally, they must have the time and authority to watch over the situation, approve or disapprove of standards that push the brand boundaries, and they need the power to make changes to the brand system as necessary. In most cases, this person is the brand manager within a corporation.
Be flexible, yet stringent
Creating brand standards is one thing, but you’ll never know how truly usable they are until they’re put into action. Which means, updates will be required to perfect the standards for all user audiences. It’s also very difficult to anticipate all the needs you’ll have for your standards – they will constantly grow and evolve over time. Be ready to adapt to new situations, with some issues that designers are battling needing immediate attention and others being okay to study down the line. Typically, a quarterly review and update of materials should suffice.
Can we help make your brand standards friendlier? Send me a note and I’ll let you know info@leereedy.com
About the Author
LeeReedy is an innovation design agency. We work in partnership with companies, both large and small, to come up with game-changing ideas and then effectively launch them into action. We've been doing so since 1968. www.leereedy.com