For most small time Internet marketers hiring a SEO consultant seems unnecessary and most could not even afford one anyways. But here is one way to view hiring an SEO consultant as a long term investment.

The idea is to hire a consultant to help with your initial website and then learn all the steps that they do to help get your site ranking very high. Then you can repeat the steps yourself on all your subsequent websites.

Obviously this works only if the person shares all of their SEO tips and techniques with you. You could put this clause in your contract that you sign with them that they will fully disclose all the steps that they take and the websites that they use to help get your website ranking well.

If you view hiring a consultant this way, then most small time Internet marketers cannot help but view hiring someone like this as a great long-term investment.

Since most Internet marketers have dozens of sites, this can be a great way to shorten your learning curve by learning from someone who is already mastered this field. Learning from a master can shorten your learning curve dramatically.

Hiring an SEO consultant is cheaper than you think, and in some cases you pick and choose certain packages. And if you learn enough about SEO, then you could open up your own consulting firm as a great way to supplement your income. In fact many SEO experts make a great living doing just this.

Everyone has differing opinions on recruitment consultancies, but each company should think about how they can maximize their relationship. In this article, we will look at how to make the most of your recruitment consultants.

When choosing a recruitment consultancy partner, you should consider your future hiring needs as well as your current ones. You might find you need a part time qualified accountant at present, but in the future you may want to grow your department by hiring a senior position. If this is the case, then there is little point working with a part time qualified specialist.

The best partnerships are usually the ones where a recruitment consultancy puts the time and effort into learning about your business and you in turn know about their capabilities and strengths. This involves both parties investing time in building a strong relationship but one that will reap rewards in the long term.

The better the consultancy understands you and your business requirements, the more likely they are to send ideal candidates to match your roles. One way to help build this relationship is to invite the recruiter to meet the team they will be hiring for and also keep them abreast of any important information within the company.

Being transparent with your recruitment consultancy will not only improve your relationship but also make both sides more efficient. If you are also interviewing internally for a position, let the agency know. Providing interview feedback is another great way to be transparent and help streamline the whole process for success.

Working with too many recruitment agencies can mean you end up spreading yourself too thin. It’s best to build up strong relationships with one or two agencies. Having four or five agencies trying to fill one role is quite often a logistical nightmare.

If you view your recruitment consultancy as a partner rather than an external agency, you will find the process of finding the best candidates will be a lot easier.

A tax consultant is also referred to as a tax advisor as he advises you on the best practices so that you can maximise your tax refunds. These individuals are trained in law and accounting procedures so that they can help you manage your taxes and cash flow as well. Filing your taxes can be a time and energy consuming endeavour so it is better to hire the services of tax consultants.

What is the need?

The need depends primarily on your business needs. In today’s day and age every penny saved in used to be reinvested in the business so it is very important that you get the correct financial advice when planning your business capital. Where taxes are concerned you can save a lot of money if you have the correct knowledge about deductions and applicable tax credits. This is not about finding loopholes or some grey areas, but if you know where to spend what amount, it can actually be profitable for you.

Most business owners, as the companies expand need to invest all of their attention in the company and in ways to grow, in such cases though important, they don’t have time to file taxes which is punishable by law. To avoid such issues it is the best practice to hire a professional taxation accountant who can file the right amount of tax at the right time.

Reasons to get a Tax Consultant:

Experience:

Experienced tax consultants is what you should hire, don’t be fooled by students who are fresh out of the college and start offering financial and tax advice. Agreed there is a dearth of consultants, but make sure you hire only an experienced professional as this will save you money as opposed to shelling out extra to amend mistakes made by newbies. Inexperienced consultants can offer you misleading advice and this could lead to legal disputes, which something we all want to avoid at all costs.

Services they offer:

GST and Tax Services:

o Preparation of tax returns for

-Partnerships

-Individuals

-Companies

-Trusts

o Preparation of Business Activity Statements both monthly and quarterly for GST

o Professional Advice

Bookkeeping:

o They use a number of accounting tools like MYOB and Quicken

o They can assist you with preparation of monthly financial reports

o Help you with Debtors and Creditors

Secretarial:

o They can even help you with the preparation of company minutes

o Company formations

Auditing:

o Auditing of-

-Sporting Associations

-Solicitors

-Real Estate Trust Accounts

-Company Statements

Financial Services:

o They can even assist you with Home Loans, Commercial Loans, Debt Financing, Invoice factoring, etc.

o Refinancing Investment loans and other business loans

o They can advise you on purchase of commercial equipment and machinery, leasing of equipment and machinery, Hire Purchase, Chattel Mortgage.

Independent consultants are doing their business on their own and ironically, they are loaded with increased tax burden of owning a business. Still we are lucky enough to have strategies to help reduce this tax burden.

The major contributor of this tax burden is the self-employment tax. Every employer is responsible for paying his portion of social security and Medicare tax for his employees. In the same way as you are self-employed, you are supposed to pay both the portions of employer and employee for these taxes. Currently these taxes sum up to a whopping 15.3% of your earnings.

There are several legal structures designed but you have to opt for the one that suits your business the most. By choosing some structures, you may opt for paying self-employment tax and alternatively, with some other structures, you can choose to go for double taxation. This double taxation means that the corporate entity is taxed on its earnings separately and then again a separate tax is to be paid on the salary paid to employees, including your own salary. This is taxed as the personal tax return. So, needless to say, it is very crucial to choose the correct business structure and it is definitely suggested to take a professional advice on this matter.

If you choose to work with an employer of record, it can help you reduce your taxes. A portable employer of record provides a corporate infrastructure to an independent consultant. This way the consultant is free from the hassle of setting up a formal business entity and can save his employment tax as well. If you work with a portable W-2 employer of record, you will be paying only the employer’s side’s taxes but by choosing this particular business structure your tax liability for retirement contributions and other benefit programs is considerably lowered. To reduce your taxable income you have to maximize your itemized deductions. For this, you have to take credit for each and every deduction that you are eligible for and can save on your taxes. This can be small out-of-pocket medical expenses along with the medical premiums or procedures and tests, not covered by insurance.

However, there are certain conditions to be fulfilled to avail deductions for these out-of-pocket expenses. As you are running your own business as a sole proprietor, LLC or S Corp, to be eligible for these deductions your out-of-pocket expenses should be equal to or greater than 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. For example, if you are a consultant whose earnings are $80,000, then the deductions would have this limit of $6,000 and can be easily achieved. But when a consultant is earning $200,000 a year, to fulfill the criteria of eligibility, he has to have the limit of $15,000 for his out-of-pocket medical expenses.

This eligibility for deduction is not required to be considered if you are working with an employer of record. Then you can deduct all your out-of-pocket medical expenses up to a given limit without qualifying to meet the eligibility limit. Here you need to study the strategies of the employer of record properly as all of them are not following the same strategies and you have to select the best to suit your need to reduce your taxable income.

You can also avail of the deduction for the expenses paid on dependent care as child and/or elder care. These deductions normally have a limit of $5,000 per year. You need to check with your employer of record organization if they have any expense reimbursement program to offer. As in such cases this limit can be increased even up to $10,000 per year. You would be aware of the childcare costs deductions but you should also remember to deduct the elder care expenses. Your per year expenses can easily add up to $5,000 to $10,000 if you have your parent in nursing home or even a daycare setting or if he has assisted living facility, which means you have some scope to further reduce your tax liability.

Lastly, remember to take miscellaneous deductions for heads such as educational expenses, professional books and trade magazines, home office expenses, travel, lodging and even 50% of business meals. But remember some of these are deductible if you exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income. For this you have to maintain a proper record of all your deductions and the same can be eased with the help of an accountant. Again check out if your employer of record is offering a simplified process of keeping track of your business deduction and thus taking business deductions to reduce your tax liability. So make sure you explore this option of business deductions thoroughly to help you reduce your tax liability.

When you start your business as independent consultant, you need to make a lot of expenditure on many aspects of your business. Naturally, you look out for as many deductions as possible. Do you know, there are some typical deductions which are inadvertently ignored? Chintamani Abhyankar explains.