New York SBDC Research Network

Nationally, today’s findings  of the 2012 Survey of Business Owners show the number of minority-owned firms in the U.S. rose from 5.8 million in 2007 to 8.0 million in 2012. This includes a 46.3 percent increase in the number of Hispanic-owned firms over the period, from 2.3 million to 3.3 million, and a 34.5 percent rise in the number of black or African American-owned firms, from 1.9 million to 2.6 million. Additionally, the number of Asian-owned firms climbed from 1.5 million to 1.9 million, an increase of 23.8 percent. For added context, total U.S. firms increased 2.0 percent during the same period, from 27.1 million in 2007 to 27.6 million in 2012. The 9.9 million women-owned firms in 2012 were up more than 2 million from five years earlier when there were 7.8 million women-owned businesses, a 26.8 percent increase. As a comparison, male-owned firms increased 6.8 percent from 13.9 million to 14.8 million during the same period. The Survey of Business Owners is a sample s

Today it has offices in four states, 10 employees and a roster of high-profile and successful clients that would be the envy of any web development company. But Binghamton-headquartered Freshy Sites got it starts on what founder Ben Giordano admits were misguided ideas. He was helped, he recalls now, by a 2009 visit to the New York Small Business Development Center based at Binghamton University. The confidential and free counseling included assessment of his business idea and financial forecasts. "I don’t know how you’d say it but some of my concepts were based on kind of misguided information, I think, and they helped me work through that. They helped me understand the market a little better,” he said. This is the kind of tale counselors at the business development center want to tell. Now, the SBDC, one of 24 across the state, is expanding its staff and array of services, but at its core is assessing new-business ideas of most any kind and training new business people i

Ever wonder how New York State decides how the state decides whether the application of sales tax is appropriate in specific situations? Here are the NYS Division of Tax Appeals, the Sales tax advisory opinions for 2015 , with previous years available as well. An Advisory Opinion is issued at the request of a person or entity. It is limited to the facts set forth therein and is binding on the Department only with respect to the person or entity to whom it is issued and only if the person or entity fully and accurately describes all relevant facts. An Advisory Opinion is based on the law, regulations, and Department policies in effect as of the date the Opinion is issued or for the specific time period at issue in the Opinion. TSB-A-15(48)S Petitioner asks whether a subcontractor should collect sales tax on its charges for various services to a prime contractor where the prime contractor’s customer is an exempt organization. TSB-A-15(47)S Petitioner asks whether it has Nexus w

The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) publishes information classified by characteristics such as income, household size, and age of the reference person. This article uses 2013 CE data to examine the relationship between age and consumer expenditures. This relationship is important because the aging of the baby-boom generation will influence the overall level and composition of consumer spending in the years to come. Data show that: Outlays on pensions and Social Security increased with age up to 45–54 years before declining. The share of the food budget devoted to food at home increased with age while the share devoted to food away from home declined. Healthcare spending, in dollar amount and as a share of the household budget, increased with age. CE household data classified by age of the reference person show that annual expenditures and pretax income are “hump” shaped over the lifecycle, lowest for the under 25 years group, then increasing to their highest levels for the

Are you collecting customer contact information? Being able to connect with your customers can be extremely beneficial to your new business, especially if you’re keeping a master email list. We asked Janine Popick, the CEO and founder of email service provider VerticalResponse, to explain the top reasons you should collect customer email addresses, and the best ways to get that information. Why you should collect customer emails: Email marketing can increase buying opportunities With a list of email addresses, you can send promotional emails to entice customers to buy from you. Send an email that offers a deal or a discount, Popick suggests. The trick to a good promotional email is to put a deadline on the deal, which encourages customers to act quickly. Without a deadline, your customer can say, “Oh, that’s nice, I’ll have to check it out later.” Odds are, they won’t get around to it. Whether customers shop online or print off a coupon and bring it into your business to us

 Eileen Collins of Admin-On-Call Today's small business success story comes from the Small Business Development Center at Onondaga Community College. Eileen Collins came to the Onondaga SBDC in June of 2013 through a referral from the Department of Labor.  She was coming to participate in our 3-day" Fast Track to Business Start-up" course as a requirement for the Self Employment Assistance Program, a DOL program that allows qualified persons to receive unemployment compensation while working on their self-employment business development. Eileen successfully completed the course and her SEAP business planning requirements, and went on to open "Admin-On-Call: Executive Assistant on the Run", a home-based business offering "cost effective Administrative Business Services on an as-needed basis. Perfect for busy Professionals, Sole Proprietors, Home Based Businesses, Large and Small Business Owners". We recently saw an example of Eileen's success

Who Must Report? As a governmental, Tribal, tax-exempt or for-profit employer, if you are an  applicable large employer  you are subject to the Affordable Care Act information reporting requirements. These requirements apply to you whether or not you offered health coverage to your employees. You are an  applicable large employer  for 2015 if you had 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, in 2014. What Must You Report? If you were an applicable large employer in 2015, you must file information returns with the IRS and provide statements to each employee who was a full-time employee for at least one month of the year about health coverage you offered or to show that you did not offer health coverage.