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Monday's Daily Pulse
What You Need to Know About Florida Today
Plan of a Tax
With the end of 2011 closing in, now is a good time to make a few smart moves to reduce your tax bill. Some tax breaks are scheduled to expire this year. Other tax credits will be around awhile longer, but it might make sense to claim them this year. "This is the time to get organized and make sure you have the right expertise," says Elaine King, president and chair of the Financial Planning Association of Miami-Dade and managing director of Lubitz Financial Group in Miami. King and several other Florida financial experts share tax moves to make before the end of the year.
Defense firms search elsewhere for clients
As Congress debates potentially large deficit-reduction cuts in defense spending, the handwriting may already be on the wall for Central Florida defense contractors: Diversify or suffer. Many have already taken heed, among them Jim Jardon, chief executive officer and co-founder of Orlando-based Jardon & Howard Technologies Inc. "You don't really know what Congress is going to do, but you know there has to be some big changes — something's got to give," said Jardon, a small-business defense contractor for more than 20 years. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
» Defense Contractors:
War Business
» Contractor Profiles
For those with disabilities, a new entrepreneurial spirit
If you think the job market is tough for the able-bodied, consider the case for those with disabilities. In Florida, estimates of the jobless rate among disabled, working-age adults — including large numbers of young, severely injured soldiers returning to civilian life — run as high as 50 percent. To address the problem, nonprofit organizations and government agencies recently have begun pushing an option that many with disabilities may have once thought unlikely: becoming entrepreneurs. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
Can Curiosity draw the crowds?
The cover of the white, paper menu sports a space shuttle launching from a coffee cup and words that invite customers to "Get your first lift" at Steve's Diner in Titusville. But it's the staff that received the latest early morning jolt when told Brevard tourism officials are hoping the planned post-Thanksgiving Day launch of NASA's most sophisticated Mars rover to date could draw 100,000 visitors to the Space Coast. "What launch?" asked hostess Rikki King. "There's a launch?" echoed waitress Melinda Schaffer. "I was going shopping that day." [Source: Florida Today]
Casino revenue would be mild boost to state coffers
Resort casinos would boost state coffers next year by about $155 million, mostly from licensing fees, but the net benefit to the state once the resorts are in full swing in 2015 would be only between $4 million and $102 million a year, according to state economists.
The first analysis of the financial impact of resort casinos was performed by state economists trying to forecast the effect of legislation on state finances.
[Source: Times/Herald]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Feds targeting South Florida halfway-house owners who take kickbacks
A Miami couple sent to prison for decades could never have carried out one of the nation's biggest healthcare scams without assisted-living facilities and halfway houses supplying them scads of residents covered by Medicare, authorities say.
Now, the Justice Department has charged 10 residential operators in a first-ever Medicare investigation into people who prosecutors say pocketed bribes for providing patients with substance abuse problems to mental-health clinics owned by Larry Duran and Marianella Valera.
› More women moving into Brevard funeral industry
Dori McKenzie believes that as a woman, she has something to offer the funeral industry, most notably a caring and compassionate demeanor that helps guide families during one of the most emotional journeys they'll likely ever take.
That's in large part why she left her career of nearly two decades as an insurance administrator to head back to school to be a funeral director. McKenzie is among thousands of women across the country who are changing the face of the mortuary business, long dominated by men in both ownership and employment.
› For six Tampa Bay startups, it comes down to an 8-minute pitch
On Nov. 17, the founders of six young businesses just getting started in the Tampa Bay area will each deliver an 8-minute "pitch" from the stage of St. Petersburg's swank Mahaffey Theater to an audience of investors and interested locals. The goal of each of the founders, of course, is to convince deep-pocket people that their startup, their business idea and the confident tone in their relentlessly practiced pitch is worth the risk of putting some capital behind efforts to make local businesses grow.
› Ritz-Carlton Sarasota marks 10 years
In the decade since its November 2001 premier, the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota has largely redefined luxury along the Gulf Coast, helped spur the development of hundreds of condominiums and brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to a region always hungry for new visitors.
All that has come against a raft of problems and obstacles that plagued the resort during its short history.
Go to page 2 for more stories ...
