#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
Iowa's H.F. 2766, effective July 1, 2026, cuts the minimum capital for protected cell captives to $100,000, allows LLC and series LLC cells, and waives premium tax for captives that redomesticate. Here's when a captive pencils out for a small business — and how to spot abusive micro-captive tax shelters.
Iowa Senate File 629, signed June 2, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026, writes four expedited business filing tiers into Iowa Code section 9.15 — one-hour ($200), same-day ($125), two-day ($50), and five-day ($15) surcharges on top of standard fees — covering formations, amendments, mergers, foreign qualifications, and dissolutions for every entity type.
The IRS cut its Enrolled Agent exam fee from $99 to $66 per part in 2026, but new vendor PSI charges $251 versus Prometric's $168 — raising the total to $317 per part. The switch also brings a March–June testing blackout, a 200–800 scoring scale, and first-time remote proctoring for U.S. candidates.
June 2026 CPI fell 0.4% — the largest monthly drop since April 2020 — cutting annual inflation to 3.5%, but core prices were flat and producer inflation still runs 5.5%. What the CPI/PPI gap means for small-business supplier costs, tariff pass-through, and fall contract negotiations.
Kansas's 2026 fee overhaul — the first since 2008 — sets LLC, LLP, and LP formation at the same $90 online fee corporations pay, cuts PEO annual report fees from $1,000 to $250, and lowers biennial report fees, saving Kansas businesses over $3 million a year combined.
Maine's 2% surtax on taxable income above $1 million ($1.5 million joint) took effect January 1, 2026, alongside a new pass-through entity tax election at 7.15% with a 90% refundable owner credit. Here's who owes the surtax, how the PTET election interacts with it, and why the two must be modeled together.
Third-party reprocessors of single-use medical devices are regulated as full manufacturers under the FDA's QMSR (effective February 2, 2026) — same 510(k), MDR, and UDI obligations as the OEM. That reshapes the books; a three-stage inventory split, per-device-family COGS, recurring validation expenses, and product liability reserves sized by risk class.
New Jersey reduced business formation fees effective July 1, 2026 — LLC and corporation registration drops from $125 to $100, nonprofit registration from $75 to $50, with annual report, amendment, merger, and dissolution fees cut by about $25 each. Here's how the new rates compare nationally and what new founders should do next.
New York's FAIR Business Practices Act, effective February 17, 2026, adds "unfair" and "abusive" conduct standards to GBL Section 349, extends protection to small businesses and non-profits, and carries penalties up to $5,000 per violation — or $15,000 for willful ones. Here is what changed, who enforces it, and a seven-step compliance checklist for any business selling to New York customers.
New York's A10640/S9483 would be the first state law giving small businesses a free, enforceable right to machine-readable bank data via mandated APIs, with $10,000 civil penalties per violation — a state-level backstop while the federal Section 1033 open banking rule remains stalled in court.
Nuvei is acquiring Payoneer for $7.40 per share in a $2.75 billion all-cash deal announced June 15, 2026, expected to close mid-2027. Here's what the merger means for freelancers and marketplace sellers who rely on Payoneer — and why fees, FX spreads, and platform integrations are worth watching over the next year.
Operating margin — operating income divided by revenue — shows whether a business's core operation makes money before interest and taxes. Here's the formula with a worked example, 2026 benchmarks by industry (SaaS 15–35%, services 15–25%, manufacturing 8–15%, retail under 5%), how it differs from gross and net margin, and the bookkeeping errors that distort it.
