Today's Opinions

In our highly partisan environment there seems to be very few issues that Republicans, Independents and Democrats agree on. This partisanship is easily seen in Congress, but is also alive with voters across the country. Small business owners are often no different than their customers in demonstrating divergent opinions on issues depending on their political preferences.
So when we find an issue on which small business owners agree, regardless of partisan leanings, we should take notice. And when that agreement centers on one of them most contentious matters that Congress will soon be addressing, our elected officials in Washington need to pay close attention. Such is the case involving federal tax fairness between small business and large, multinational corporations.
Small business owners are keenly aware that multinational corporations are legally escaping paying much, and often all, of the highly publicized 35 percent United States corporate income tax rate. In a poll released early last year by the American Sustainable Business Council and others, 80 percent of the small business owners surveyed said that U.S. multinational corporations using accounting loopholes to shift their U.S. profits to offshore tax havens is a problem. Seventy-five percent said that big corporations using tax loopholes harms their own small business.

Business owners don’t need a degree in accounting, but they do need to know how to read basic financial statements and when to ask the accountants who prepare them to explain what they don’t understand.
No one wants to be like the business owner who believed she was making a profit because her checkbook had a positive balance. But even business owners who diligently record financial transactions using basic accounting software don’t always comprehend the reports their CPA generates based on these records.
That means they’re not using the expertise they pay for, and they’re not using the numbers as tools to build their business.
The three financial reports every business owner should understand are the profit and loss statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement.
Profit and loss: The P&L, or income, statement shows how much profit a company makes — or doesn’t make — over a given period. The statement reports revenues, expenses, gains and losses. If a positive balance remains once expenses and losses are subtracted from revenues and gains, the result is net income. If the balance is negative, the statement shows a net loss.

Sixty-nine years ago, the SS Paul Hamilton — carrying 7,000 tons of explosives — was torpedoed, resulting in the loss of the ship and all 580 men aboard. 
The ship left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on April 2, 1944, and was headed with munitions and fresh troops to the theater of operations in North Africa.
Near sunset, on April 20, the Hamilton was attacked by German Ju 88 bombers, 30 miles off the Coast of Cape Bengut, Algiers, in the Mediterranean Sea. 
The attacking aircraft launched its torpedo less than 150 feet from the Hamilton.
Immediately after the torpedo hit, a violent explosion threw debris and black smoke high in the air, and when the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the ship. 
During the attack on that convoy, the USS Lansdale also was sunk, with the loss of its
47 crew members.
In a Veterans Today article, Jim W. Dean noted that, “details [surrounding the Hamilton] were classified for 50 years ... only two bodies were recovered and are buried at the Allied cemetery in Algiers.
They were identified through fingerprints, so those two families had some closure.”