State Taxation of Unitary Businesses

The income taxation of multistate businesses has created problems for tax administrators, primarily with regard to the question of how to divide the income taxation amongst the multiple states. To address this, the concepts of unitary business and formula apportionment have been created. However, the non-uniform state taxation practices create difficulties even with the existence of these concepts. Some states have adopted the Multistate Tax Compact, but for it to be completely effective there still must be a uniform view adopted on what constitutes a unitary business. This note examines the constitutional issues attendant to developing a standard definition of a unitary business, an in-depth analysis of the unitary business concept and its origins, and proposes a workable definition of a unitary business

Twitter: Businesses Increasing Their Revenues 140 Characters at a Time

With the consumer market becoming more competitive by the day, businesses must find innovative yet cost effective means of reaching their target markets and steadily increasing their revenues. While businesses compete with one another to remain the best, they must have a strategic market plan that differentiates their products and/or services from their competitors. In an effort to do this, many businesses have begun using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn as a means of reaching their target markets. Such sites have opened businesses to a new level of advertising where they reach consumers faster, have the ability to be more innovative, and spend less money than they would with conventional means of advertising. In addition to these social networking sites, Twitter has emerged, gaining interest from businesses looking to get their products and/or services out to consumers through a new medium. With the number of users increasing daily and the ease of passing information along from one user to the next, businesses have begun to see their new found means of advertising on Twitter as the way to increase their revenues 140 characters at a time. This project highlights how the understanding of the benefits of social media marketing is essential to businesses venturing into the use of Twitter. This understanding allows businesses to frame the use of Twitter to successfully fit their business strategies, while the Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) shows the connection between the use of social networking sites by businesses and how it relates to the manner in which consumers are receptive to the information such sites provide. Various studies conducted on the use of Twitter by companies along with a case study on FM Global, a mutual insurance company, highlight how Twitter can be used by businesses as a marketing tool for branding purposes and increasing revenues

Fostering internationalization of African businesses

Some of the top African investors in China are from Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles and Nigeria.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324503392_Fostering_Internationalisation_of_African_Businesses/statsPublished versionPublished versio

Managing Growth: Best Practices of Family-Owned Businesses

Family-owned businesses represent the majority of business in the United States. As consumers and employees, we are compelled to their sense of trustworthiness that all too often disappears in the business world. Our economy depends on the success of family-owned businesses, but only one third of these organizations successfully transition to the second generation and only one in ten survive to the third generation. While a series of best practices attempt to prescribe solutions their challenges, these practices fail to account for the various types of family-owned businesses. More specifically, many types of family-owned businesses exist as evident by specific transitions in terms of ownership, family and business. Therefore, the study of best practices in family firms must consider the timing of implementation. This study analyzes three family-owned businesses that successfully transitioned from start-up businesses owned by a single controlling owner ready to give up control to an expanding business owned by a sibling partnership with young children. From this analysis of a specific type of family-owned business, six common practices emerged

Enhancing Employment for Low-Income Women

This paper highlights key findings and lessons learned about the performance of nine social purpose businesses that received support from CFWED in 2002 and 2003, and about the outcomes experienced by the individuals who worked for these businesses. It reviews results of two years of data on nine businesses, focusing on key accomplishments and challenges

Small Business Fintech Lending: The Need for Comprehensive Regulation

The 28.7 million small businesses in the United States—99% of all American businesses—are the backbone of the American economy. Historically, small businesses relied on community banks for their credit needs. Over the last decade, however, small businesses increasingly have turned to “fintech” lenders—nonbank lenders that are largely unregulated. Nonbank consumer lending is governed by consumer protection statutes, but nonbank small business lending is outside of any clear regulatory framework that would protect borrowers from potentially predatory practices. This Article argues that the optimal regulatory regime is a combination of both state authority over fintech lenders and inclusion of small business borrowers in federal consumer protection statutes

Small Business Administration and Job Creation

The Small Business Administration (SBA) administers several programs to support small businesses, including loan guaranty programs; disaster loan programs; management and technical assistance training programs; and federal contracting programs. Congressional interest in these programs has increased in recent years, primarily because they are viewed as a means to stimulate economic activity, create jobs, and assist in the national economic recovery. This report examines the economic research on net job creation to identify the types of businesses that appear to create the most jobs. That research suggests that business startups play a very important role in job creation, but have a more limited effect on net job creation over time because fewer than half of all startups are still in business after five years. However, the influence of small business startups on net job creation varies by firm size. Startups with fewer than 20 employees tend to have a negligible effect on net job creation over time whereas startups with 20- 499 employees tend to have a positive employment effect, as do surviving younger businesses of all sizes (in operation for one year to five years). This report then examines the possible implications this research might have for Congress and the SBA. For example, the SBA provides assistance to all qualifying businesses that meet its size standards. About 97% of all businesses currently meet the SBA’s eligibility criteria. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of targeting small business assistance to a narrower group, small businesses that are the most likely to create and retain the most jobs. Also, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended that the SBA use outcome-based program performance measures, such as how well the small businesses do after receiving SBA assistance, rather than focusing on output-based program performance measures, such as the number of loans approved and funded. GAO has argued that using outcome-based program performance measures would better enable the SBA to determine the impact of its programs on participating small businesses. Given congressional interest in job creation, this report examines the potential consequences of adding net job creation as an outcome-based SBA program performance measure. This report also examines the arguments for providing federal assistance to small businesses, noting that policymakers often view job creation as a justification for such assistance whereas economists argue that over the long term federal assistance to small businesses is likely to reallocate jobs within the economy, not increase them. Nonetheless, most economists support federal assistance to small businesses for other purposes, such as a means to correct a perceived market failure related to the disadvantages small businesses experience when attempting to access capital and credit

Job Creation, Worker Churning, and Wages at Young Businesses

Prior research has established the important role of startups and fast-growing young businesses in job creation and employment growth in the U.S. economy (Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda, (2010)). New firms and young businesses account for about 70 percent of gross job creation and disproportionately contribute to net job creation. The experimentation and dynamism of startups and young businesses also contribute to productivity growth (see, e.g., Haltiwanger (2012)). While the contribution to job creation and productivity is increasingly well understood, relatively little is known about the characteristics of the jobs generated by startups and young businesses. We use newly released data from the QWI using the firm size and firm age measures developed from the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) to shed light on characteristics of jobs at young businesses. We focus on three key characteristics of jobs -- job creation, the churning of workers, and earnings per worker