57% of taxpayers file electronically!

That's right, according to the IRS, 70 million taxpayers, or 57%, filed their taxes through a computer. Many states are now requiring tax preparers to file electronically, disallowing paper-only transactions.

What future ramifications does this pose if you are a business owner that has not taken time to advance in areas of digital literacy?

More Businesses Required to E-File Taxes

More Businesses Required to E-File Taxes (By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG)
While electronic filing of tax returns has been an option for small businesses for years, many small-to-medium sized corporations are finding that e-filing is becoming a requirement.

 

The threshold revenue for requiring e-filing has gone from $50M to $10M last year... and, in the years ahead, will most likely go even lower, affecting smaller and smaller businesses.

 

Full text here:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060222/APF/602220865

 

 

_______________________________________________________________
Matthew K. Magne, Small Business Center Director              mmagne@cfcc.edu
-> Classes & Counseling for Small Business: 910.362.7469   www.cfcc.edu/sbc

Parents don't think there's a math/science gap!

Science, math crisis not seen in the home

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/NEWS/60214040

By Ben Feller, Associated Press

This is kind of a frightening article... especially if we are going to catch up with the hundreds of thousands of China and India engineers graduated every year compared to our 70,000. My take is that if you're parents are not engineers, or don't have advanced degrees, they might not understand the need for advanced math. My own parents couldn't help me with Calculus in HS. - Matt

Excerpts:

In a new poll, 57 percent of parents say "things are fine" with the amount of math and science being taught in their child's public school. High school parents seem particularly content - 70 percent of them say their child gets the right amount of science and math.

In 1994, 52 percent of parents considered a lack of math and science in their local schools to be a serious problem. Now, only 32 percent say the same thing. During that time, states ramped up standards and testing, which seems to have affected parents' views.

The findings are based on phone interviews with a nationally random sample of 1,342 public school students in grades six to 12, and of 1,379 parents of children in public school. The interviews were done between Oct. 30 and Dec. 29. The margin of sampling error was 3.4 percentage points for the children and 3.8 percentage points for the children.

 

_______________________________________________________________
Matthew K. Magne, Small Business Center Director              mmagne@cfcc.edu
-> Classes & Counseling for Small Business: 910.362.7469   www.cfcc.edu/sbc

Conference Pictures are up!

About 50 pictures from the conference are now up- click here to see them!

The Digital Divide Guide is also available online!
Use this guide for:
- Definitions
- Digital Literacy Assessment
- Why is it important?
- What are next steps to take?

Conference a great success!

I've been remiss in posting- Randall, Neela and I have been churning out documents left and right. Nametags, tent cards, reg forms, the devil is in the details... our final total was 177 registrations - a huge success for everyone involved!

Got up at 6am, to hit N. Campus 7am... we had some concern that we would run out of seats... Connie Majure-Rhett kept us on point as MC, Dr. Clay was a fantastic speaker, Dr. Rasheed did a great job with an outstanding and relevant panel and Jeff and Jeannette King of SpecialtySoft.Com finished us off with a technology discussion. Estimates are about 180 for breakfast and about 165 for lunch... great video coverage... everyone came together to pull off the most professional conference yet.

Most importantly, we had great community leader and black business participation... we increased awareness of the digital divide and through great insights and stories from the panel, stakeholders and speakers, we all experienced a great networking and learning opportunity.

I'm exhausted...
-m

140 Registered so far! Quickbooks Simplestart

Only 3 days left! 140 registered (77 by phone, 63 online) - we're almost there!

See review of Quickbooks SimpleStart - a basic accounting tracking tool to help save you time and a great example of using simple technologies to improve your business:

"With its no-brainer setup, Intuit's QuickBooks SimpleStart opens up electronic bookkeeping to the stuffed-file-folder and paper-spreadsheet crowd."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1663678,00.asp?p=2

Rupert Murdoch spends $580M for Myspace.Com

Furthering the important role that blogging plays, Rupert Murdoch recently spent $580M to buy the company that owns Myspace.Com.

Myspace.Com, Xanga.Com, and Facebook.com are some examples of blog sites that create online communities where primarily teenagers to young 20-somethings post pictures, their favorite TV shows, music, etc.

MySpace has 20M visitors/month and is a little "raunchier" according to a recent NY Times columnist David Brooks article "Bowling alone, or Group hug?".

See related article here:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5407672