Running a home-based business has become the real thing nowadays. Home-based businesses not only offer you the chance of making money from the comfort of your own home but also the opportunity to spend time with your family. For this reason, it is not inappropriate to describe home-based businesses as endless money-making holidays. Christian home – based business has an extra advantage on top of the aforementioned advantages of home-based businesses- it gives you the opportunity to spread the word of God.There are many good home-based business opportunities available for Christians. All these tie your business with God and set to strengthen your faith even more. Before embarking on the spiritual journey, you must trust in God to guide you but you must also put in lots of effort for you to succeed. The following are some ideas you could borrow when starting your own home business based on Christian values:Online Christian bookstoreThere are many online bookstores but the online Christian bookstore business is still in its infancy. This is a brilliant way of spreading the word of God while making decent earnings. Of course, you must have some amount of capital as well as good management and marketing skills to get your business up and running. You could take advantage of social networks and especially Christian pages to market your bookstore. The paths of business are to be treaded carefully so ensure you have good management skills before starting your business. Enrolling for a short management course could be quite useful. You will also require basic understanding of search engine optimization in order to enhance your marketing strategies. There are many useful online resources on search engine optimization which you can utilize.Online marketingThere are many strategies of making money online through marketing. A good example of these is an affiliate program which involves connecting with others and marketing their products. You could connect with fellow Christians online and help them market their merchandise then charge them advertisement fees. Conducting online fundraisers is also a brilliant way of making money while assisting the church in its charitable mission. This is a great Christian home – based business that is easy, and can surely be aligned to your Christian ideals.Christian blogsBlogging is a brilliant way of making money but requires total commitment and hard work for it to succeed. Creating a blog would seem like an easy thing but trust me you’ve got to sweat. Driving traffic to your blog requires you to blog about relevant and interesting things. You could share your personal experiences and challenges as a Christian with the intention of getting fellow Christians to comment on your blog posts in the spirit of sharing experiences and challenges. You could also write inspiring stories and messages on your blog or even review Christian products and services and link them with corresponding sales websites. This is called affiliate marketing and is one of the highest paying online marketing strategies. Note that people will want to advertise on your blogs only if you are capable of generating heavy traffic.Christian day careHome-based business doesn’t necessarily have to be online. If your home is large and you love spending time with young children, then a Christian day care business would work out well for you. Working Christian parents obviously prefer leaving their children under the care of other Christians. This way they’re guaranteed that their children will learn Christian values and grow strong spiritually.As you can see, there are many Christian home – based business opportunities at your disposal. All there’s left to do is to choose which one is most suitable for you depending on your personal interest and experience.
SEIS the Tax-Free Investment Opportunity for UK Investors
Enterprise Investment Schemes
An EIS is an investment vehicle that provides funds and capital to small businesses that, due to the tightening of the credit market, cannot otherwise get financing from traditional sources. An EIS is an unquoted company that is not on a stock exchange and is most likely managed by a venture capital firm. These firms manage the investment objectives to protect investors and maximize investment returns. A good firm will have been involved in venture capital investing for a number of years and be able to provide a solid track record of protecting principle and securing returns. Firms operate their EISes differently, some offering investments into single companies while others operate EIS funds in which you could invest into a fund of multiple companies, therefore diversifying your risk.
The benefit of tax protection that EISes offer has resulted in an increased demand among wealthier investors, with EIS being utilized as a strategic tool within their portfolios. The UK government increased tax relief from 20% to 30% and the annual investment amount has been increased from £500,000 to £1,000,000. With the added benefit that the investment is exempt from capital gains tax and inheritance tax, EIS is increasingly the perfect vehicle for certain investors. More and more EISes have become essential within many investment portfolios as an integral tax relief tactic.
Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes
Not quite as large as the EIS, the SEIS provides a similar benefit and experience. The main difference being the investment amount allowed annually which currently stands at a maximum of £100,000, but offers an unprecedented 50% tax relief on the investment’s gains and value. However this 50% is only applicable if the SEIS continues to comply with the SEIS rules and providing the investment is left for a minimum of three years. After three years the investor can sell their stake, incurring no capital gains tax against profit realized. Furthermore, loss relief applies to any losses incurred.
As of 2014, the upfront tax relief for the highest tax bracket investors equates to a 64% tax break and, when combined with a loss relief tax break of a further potential of 22.5%, equates to a total of 86.5% tax relief. The downside tax protection of almost 90% is unprecedented amongst all other investment vehicles and provides significant tactical value to certain investors.
Careful Consideration
As with any investment decision, you need to be careful in your consideration when choosing to use EIS or SEIS for your portfolio. You should be considering these tax relief options in your portfolio after you have exhausted other forms of tax mitigation. The first two that should be utilized are your pension and annual Individual Savings Account (ISA) allowance. These primary tax savings vehicles provide secure investment vehicles; ISAs offer amazing investment flexibility not available through EIS or SEIS. Another option includes VCTs – Venture Capital Trusts – which have similar strategic benefits to EIS or SEIS but are limited to £200,000 per year.
In deciding on further tax mitigation, you need to consider the portion of your portfolio that these tactical investments would make up. Conventional wisdom dictates that you should not put more than 20% of your holdings into risky opportunities, but that 20% could realistically be surpassed with correct use of the right investment vehicles. If you are hedging your portfolio against a known event that will increase your capital gains taxes or inheritance taxes, EIS and SEIS would be a viable way to mitigate those taxes in a given year. In this way you could max out your contributions to these two tactical strategies in order to mitigate the known tax implications from another portion of your investment portfolio. It is these considerations that you should be aware of before deciding on a specific EIS or SEIS company.
Another concern that you should be aware of is the fact that EISes and SEISes are essentially “locked-in” products. You need to be able to leave the investments locked in for a period of at least three years (and in some cases longer) in order to access the tax relief benefits – managers will generally look for an exit in or around year 4, but an exit could realistically take longer and is subject to market conditions. In this way, many EIS and SEIS companies are illiquid and the secondary market for selling EIS/SEIS shares is therefore small. Taking the long view on these investments should be a natural consideration.
Choosing the Right EIS/SEIS
When deciding on the right company to invest for the purpose of tax mitigation, not all EIS/SEIS companies are the same. Choosing a company should not be done on impulse and requires effective due diligence to ensure that their investment philosophy is in line with your own. At the time of consideration, ask all the same questions of the company as you would when investing in any stock. By ensuring the company has a solid and proven track record of investments, open reporting functions that promote transparency and an investment philosophy you agree with, you can feel comfortable with your investment.
By considering an EIS/SEIS investment you are considering an investment option that has a real potential for investment loss. It can be the right option for those looking for a high risk option with an effective tax mitigation strategy as a small portion of their overall portfolio. EIS and SEIS investments can also be an excellent way for investors to dabble in venture capital investing without having to put up too much capital.
5 Critical Skills to Guarantee Success in Your Home Based Business
If you want to build any business, you need to learn how to do it, the skills that require you to build a successful business. This applies to building a home based business too.Here are the 5 critical business building skills that you need to guarantee your success in your home based business.1. Marketing SkillsAll businesses need marketing. Marketing is about finding a group of people who are looking for a particular need, and you find solutions to provide for their needs. That’s where your business comes in. You must know how to target these group of people, and market to them effectively!Many people don’t know how to market their business and they just try to sell them to All people, which is wrong. They will then go ahead and pitch their deals to every person that they know, and thus losing friends and chasing people away from them! If you want to get sales and results, you have to know how to market.2. Relationship Building SkillsBusiness is about building relationships. You want to build strong and long-lasting relationships with business partners, with your team, and your customers too! Remember? People buys from people they know, like and trust! Only when strong relationships are built, there then comes long-lasting businesses.3. Leadership SkillsLeadership skills is crucial to the growth and success of a business. All successful businesses are led by leaders. In your home based business, you are your own leader. If you have a team of business partners, you have to be the leader to lead them, and groom them to become leaders, to lead their own people too!4. Communication SkillsI can’t stress this further. We all communicate, however, to be successful in your business, you have to communicate well. You have to be professional and present your benefits of your products or services to your clients the right way. You have to communicate well with business partners when doing business with them.Business fail when communication breaks down and misunderstandings occur. And hence, it is very important that you master communication skills too.5. Teaching And Coaching SkillsThis skill may not be very important in other industry, but it is especially important in the home based business industry. If you are working with a group of business partners, you must learn how to teach them and groom them to become independent entrepreneurs too. You must be able to coach them and make sure that they are able to learn and apply what you have taught them, without being information overloaded.Only if you know how to pass on your skills and grow them to become independent entrepreneurs, then your business can run and grow without your presence.These are the 5 really important skills you have to master, if you want true success in your home based business.