My first real encounter with taxes came when I was 17 and spent the first of four summers working at the Raytheon plant in Andover, which was producing guided missile parts and sub-assemblies for the Department of Defense.Starting out in Production Control, I learned how to develop work orders, purchase orders, and job tickets for […]
Seasonal businesses are scary, especially product-based seasonal businesses with long finance cycles. I cut my financial teeth in the bicycle industry back in the days when Univega was one of the leading U.S. brands. My mentor was the late Ben Olken, whose retail store, The Bicycle Exchange, was a Harvard Square landmark for more than […]
The proliferating use of data to help assess results of sports teams and sporting events in recent years threatens to turn sports fans into statisticians in order to gain a better understanding of the competitive field. Similar measures that are available in most businesses can help owners and managers improve their game.
“Financial Managers Trust,” a Massachusetts business trust, was a relatively new concept in Massachusetts corporate law when I hung out my shingle 22 years ago. The corporate trust provided the state equivalent of a federal S Corporation, with taxes at the personal rate of 5% rather than the usual Mass.corporate rate of almost twice that […]