Tips for small business owners to cut taxes: read them all at Canadian Money Magazine

BMO Bank of Montreal released 5 year-end tax tips and strategies for Canadian small business owners that can pay dividends come tax time.

“While 2011 may be a year remembered most for its economic challenges, many s mall business owners we talk to are cautiously optimistic and confident about their ability to finish 2011 on solid ground,” said Cathy Pin, Vice President, Commercial Banking, BMO Bank of Montreal. “Before the holiday rush, now is the time to do a quick financial check-up with a small business specialist and your accountant to consider some straightforward tips and strategies to help minimize the amount of 2011 income tax payable,” added Ms. Pin.

For small business owners in Canada (most commonly a sole proprietorship or partnership), there are a number of year-end strategies that can be applied to reduce the amount of income tax payable, including: 

1. Do a ‘Financial Check-Up’: A small business specialist, accountant, and investment advisor can help owners make sure they have a clear understanding of their current financial situation. These professionals can also help develop or adjust existing plans based on new needs or changing circumstances.

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Calory-busting food substitutes for Christmas eating: only at Condo.ca

You have enough going on this holiday season to have to put anything else on your plate—so why do you keep putting more stuff on your plate, literally? It’s so easy to get stressed out and overwhelmed this time of year. The holidays are supposed to be all about cheer, and giving, and love.

Let me make this easy on you. You know that you should be eating healthy, and you know that healthy eating will make you feel better. You just don’t know how to do it, especially at this time of year when there aren’t a lot of healthy options to choose from.

Well, here are 10 simple food substitutions that you can make this Holiday season to help you feel better about the food you are eating and the way you are treating your body. After all, why wait until January 1 to start your annual “get healthy” kick?

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Twelve tips for saving on your tax bill: information that could save you money, at Canadian Money Magazine

The holidays are all about spreading joy. While December is a hectic month for many, Ernst & Young suggests taking a little time out of busy scheduled to review these year-end tax tips. Remember: addressing these now could put a little extra jingle back into Canadian pockets in the months ahead.

On the first day, pay tax-deductible or tax-creditable expenses for 2011. A variety of expenses can only be claimed as deductions in a tax return if the amounts are paid by the end of the calendar year. If some amounts would otherwise be paid early in 2012, consider paying them by the end of this year, to get the benefit of the tax deduction or credit in 2011 returns. Children’s arts programs are a newly eligible expenditure for 2011.

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And the colour of the year 2012 is ... Tangerine Tango: read all about it at Condo.ca

You have just a few more weeks to enjoy your Honeysuckle. Tangerine is moving in. Pantone has declared that the colour of the year 2012 is Tangerine Tango. PANTONE® 17-1463 Tangerine Tango, to be specific, a “vivacious” and “enticing” reddish orange that’s “reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset.” Last year’s PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle is so 2011.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

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Roof strength an important factor in vehicle rollover fatalities: read about this and more at EDI Weekly

Early in November, 21-year-old Terry McCall was driving his truck Northbound on Route 28 in Cheswick, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Without warning, McCall lost control of his vehicle, striking a guiderail and flipping for a distance of some 150 feet.

Authorities quickly responded to the scene as the pickup burst into flames. Amazingly, McCall and another occupant of the vehicle were pulled free and taken to the hospital without major injuries. 

Considering the extremely dangerous nature of vehicle rollovers, it is nothing short of a miracle that all parties in that Pennsylvania crash escaped with their lives. Structural improvements to modern vehicles, like increased roof strength, have helped make some automobiles safer in rollover crashes. Even so, the type of accident recently seen on Route 28 is still disproportionally responsible for severe injuries and deaths.

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This Week on Dog&Cat World: Don't Pee on the Christmas Tree

A Dog’s Eye View of Christmas Continued: “Don’t bite Santa Claus!”

Now, my favorite part of this whole Christmas holiday thing is the eating part! Humans LOVE to eat extra good stuff around this time of year. While that is definitely a good thing (alot more scraps to go around) there are some rules to follow to make sure you are included in your human’s holiday cheer.

Your humans may occasionally invite lots of strangers to…

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Dog Care: Dogs and Christmas and how both Fido and family can be happy over the holidays.

Many people would like their pets to enjoy the holiday season as part of the family and nowadays it is easier than ever to find ways to include your dog in the festivities.

Stockings for dogs, packed with dog friendly treats can be found in all good pet stores — and… Read More>>

Smart and stylish green gifts for Christmas: find them at Condo.ca

Giving “green” doesn’t have to mean all hemp tote bags and colourless recycled clothes. Unique gifts that are green and stylish and fun and practical aren’t as hard to find as you might think, if you know where to look. 

Consider these gorgeous brass hoop earrings, made with recycled glass and sustainably sourced brass, ethically produced in Africa based on traditional designs.

Gorgeous earrings from Made designed by Sarah Andreasen cost about $30.

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Check our list of pet sitter qualifications at Dog & Cat World

Experts recommend you observe how your potential pet sitter interacts with your pet before you commit to leaving it.

While most pet care providers are trustworthy and provide great services, there are also those that pet owners should avoid. Petsitting.com offers the following tips when searching for pet boarders, doggy daycare, pet sitting services and more:

1. Make sure the provider’s paperwork is in order. The first thing pet owners must do when evaluating potential companies is verify proper licensing, insurance and bonding. This will help ensure that you are dealing with an established company with a sound reputation. Read more

Tridel aiming high with new 75-story condo: read about it at Condo.ca

Tridel’s 10 York Street condo is inspired by the Northern Lights, says architect Rudy Wallman

Tridel plans to build one of Toronto’s tallest buildings, a 75-story condo tower at 10 York Street. downtown. The building will be the first development undertaken in partnership with the city of Toronto’s Build Toronto program. Build Toronto is an independent and self-funding real estate and development corporation created by David Miller to maximize the value of city-owned real estate.

Tridel president Leo DelZotto called the site a “truly exceptional” parcel of land, promised that his company will create a “spectacular” condominium on it.

The 75-storey condominium, designed by Rudy Wallman, of Wallman Architects, will offer a sleek, contemporary and elegant tower, while fulfilling Tridel’s commitment to developing environmentally sustainable, high performance buildings. 

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Happy Thanksgiving! Now read about those calories you consumed at Advance

A typical Thanksgiving feast like this could pack more calories (4,500) than 8 Big Macs.

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, chances are it will be fatty gravy, buttery potatoes, marshmallow yams, and then pie, pie, pie. That adds up to about 4,500 calories for the average Thanksgiving dinner, according to the non-profit Calorie Control Council. Eating eight Big Macs® would give you fewer calories.

GlobalFit’s 10,000-step challenge makes a good start. To completely burn off the year’s biggest meal, though, you would need to take more than 90,000 steps. Consider the calories—and the steps required to burn them off—in these traditional favorites:

• Roasted turkey (6 oz, dark and white, untrimmed): 450 calories = 9,000 steps
• Homemade stuffing (1 cup): 400 calories = 8,000 steps
• Cranberry sauce (1/2 cup): 200 calories = 4,000 steps
• Mashed potatoes (1 cup): 350 calories = 7,000 steps
• Giblet gravy (1/2 cup): 150 calories = 3,000 steps
• Pecan pie slice: 650 calories = 13,000 steps

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Light Bulb Finder app named best for the environment by EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected the Light Bulb Finder mobile app as the “Winner, Best Overall App” in the Apps for the Environment Challenge. The Light Bulb Finder app enables users to easily switch from conventional incandescent to energy-efficient lighting at home. It is available as a free download on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android mobile devices.

Based on simple user inputs, the Light Bulb Finder app recommends energy-saving light bulbs with the right light quality, fit and style. It displays financial payback information and uses EPA’s eGRID data to calculate environmental impact when users replace incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient equivalents. Users can buy bulbs through the app or at local stores.

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Snowbirds finding great real estate bargains in Florida, Arizona

The snowbird migration began early this year, with the bad weather in the northeastern United States sending flocks southwards weeks before the usual late November season. For Canadian snowbirds, Florida remains a popular destination, and they are snapping up properties there, taking advantage of depressed real estate prices to find great bargains. A survey of foreign buyers produced by the National Association of Realtors on behalf of the Florida Realtors association found that one-quarter of Florida homes were bought by foreigners, mostly Canadians. Canadians accounted for ten per cent of all real estate sales in the state for the twelve-month period from mid-2010 to mid-2011. The median price of homes purchased was about $150,000. More than 90 per cent of the sales were cash transactions.

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3 students collect 3500 books in viral campaign to improve literacy with low-income families

Alex Venetis, Steffi Chua and Joseph Choi collect books for low-income families to fight illiteracy.Three university students decided to roll do something about the rising problem of illiteracy. They collected over 3500 books at a shopping mall and donated them to a charity working with low-income familes and children.

Over one million adults in British Columbia considered insufficiently literate to “participate in today’s world”, according to Literacy BC. Joseph Choi, Alex Venetis and Steffi Chua collected more books than they anticipated, and plan a second drive for books this month, hoping to raise another 6500 books, with an emphasis on children’s books.

“We are so incredibly thankful for the generosity of the Richmond community for donating over 3,500 books to our book drive. Initially, we were estimating that we would be able to reach just 2,000 books from both events,” said Joseph Choi, one of the BIG Book Drive coordinators. “This is not the end, we still have one more event for the Burnaby community to donate their books and aid us in helping the Salvation Army. This time, our new goal will be 6,500 books.”

Choi, a Richmond resident, emphasizes that The BIG Book Drive welcomes all sorts of books from children’s books and magazines to textbooks (with the exception of adult-oriented materials and newspapers).

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World's most expensive book sells for $11.6 million at auction

A first edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America sold for £7.3 million ($11.6 million Cdn) at auction in London Tuesday.

That made it the most expensive book ever sold at auction, outstripping another first edition Birds of America that sold in 2000 for $8.8 million.

Sotheby’s auction house said the illustrated book by Audubon, the renowned ornithologist, naturalist and painter who lived 1785-1851, was bought by Michael Tollemache, a London dealer.

Audubon wanted to paint the birds life-sized so the book measures 90 centimetres by 60 centimetres to accommodate the prints.

The first edition was once owned by Baron Frederick Hesketh, a collector of rare books who died in 1955.

This copy was originally owned by paleobotanist Henry Witham. He bought it after a personal meeting with Audubon in 1826, Sotheby’s said.

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Real "Da Vinci Code" discovered in France

A coded manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered in a public library in the French city of Nantes.

The document was found after a journalist came across a reference to it in a Leonardo biography, the library said.

It was among 5,000 manuscripts donated by wealthy collector Pierre-Antoine Labouchere in 1872 and then forgotten.

The text is written from right to left in Leonardo’s trademark mirror-writing and has yet to be deciphered.

“He was most probably writing in 15th-century Italian, and possibly in other languages,” the head of the Nantes library, Agnes Marcetteau said.

The fragment of paper with brown scrawls is the second rare item uncovered in the Labouchere collection, after a score by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was found among the documents in 2008.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the most important artists and scientists of the Renaissance.

His masterpieces include the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre museum in Paris. He also designed the prototype for a flying machine with a rotating wing similar to today’s helicopters.

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New web site has all Leslie Nielsen movies

This new web site has an extensive list of Leslie Nielsen movies, spanning most of his sixty year career. There are single movies and boxed sets. Most are in DVD format, some in downloadable format and others in Blu-Ray.

After performing in more than 150 live television dramas in the mid-1950’s in New York, Leslie moved to Hollywood. With his six foot two height, his blond hair, his handsome face, he seemed ideal for a movie leading man.

In Hollywood, he signed a seven year contract with MGM. His first film for that studio was auspicious — as the space ship commander in the science fiction classic “Forbidden Planet.” He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure.”

Behind the camera, this serious actor was a well-known prankster. That was an aspect of his personality never exploited, however, until the movie “Airplane!” was released in 1980 and became a gigantic hit. Leslie would do comedy for most of the remainder of his career.

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Million Book Give-Away for World Book Night - Exclusive from Margaret Atwood

Courtesy of MY idolVineStory courtesy of MY idolVine. Click Picture for more>>

Books Rule! You read it here first!

They’re giving away a million of them. That’s 1,000,000. On a single, fabulous night. March 5, 2011, called World Book Night.

Can you imagine? Who would do such a madly, hugely unbelievable thing?

The madly, hugely unbelievable British, of course. A whole lot of their writers, publishers, libraries, and lowly booksellers are getting together and, yes, giving away 1,000,000 books to complete strangers all over the UK and Ireland.

Actually, the way it works is that 20,000 “givers” will be chosen, and each one will give away 48 copies of a book, so the people receiving the books won’t technically be “complete strangers” to the givers, in that sense. 

By giving away, we mean “giving.” Donating. Printing at cost. Foregoing royalties. Not making any money from the thing.

Margaret Atwood told us exclusively at MY idolVine, “The Twitterverse is already saying that World Book Night is a brilliant idea, and many from countries other than the UK and Ireland are hoping it can be available to them also. I know there are plans afoot to bring it to North America in 2012, and with luck it can spread to other countries as well.” 

Colin Firth, the actor, is a supporter. Seamus Heaney, too (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1995). Nigella Lawson, the bombshell English foodie, also J K Rowling, who needs no introduction (but she wrote the Harry Potter books) and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd are some of the other stellar types who are taking part.

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Hollywood in the 1970s Peculiar, Perverse and Hip

Bright, Edgy New Literary Fiction, Elephant Milk

 

Veteran actress and author Diane Sherry Case explores the fine line between fiction and non-fiction in her new novel about the edgy escapades of Sean Hayes who in 1969 has left Beverly Hills to follow her heart and find her first boyfriend — even if it means joining a traveling circus in Mexico.

 

Santa Monica, CA - Nov 24, 2010 - Widely published author and veteran actress of film, stage and television, Diane Sherry Case, announces the release of her novel, Elephant Milk. Case’s quirky and rambunctious narrative of a young heroine’s pursuit of her lost lover through a world of drum rolls, lions and Mayan glyphs draws clever parallels between the colorful world of the circus and the notoriously wild Hollywood film industry of the nineteen seventies.

 

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My Enemy, My Beloved Explores the "Enemy" Point of View as a Prisoner of War

Most Americans don’t know. In 1945, approximately 371,000 WWII German POWs were housed in internment camps inside the United States-6,000 in Minnesota-leading to My Enemy, My Beloved.

 

Shoreview, MN - Nov 29, 2010 - Author Karl Vanghen has written a work of historical fiction that will absorb you completely-and you’ll be telling others what you’ve learned.

 

The story is filled with historical authenticity, and strong ethical and moral characters, both the German prisoner and the residents of New Ulm’s farming community. A sensitive portrayal of those main characters gives the story “heart” and page-turning appeal.

 

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How Now Brown Cow? Delightful Children's Book Explains All...

Does Chocolate Milk Come From Brown Cows? Young Allison investigates-and tells us the truth about where milk comes from-and how it gets to us!

Minneapolis, MN- Nov 29, 2010 - Does chocolate milk come from brown cows? Every kid has wondered if it is true.and often some adult has told them it is. But is it?

 

Meet Allison, the kid “myth buster.” She is curious and full of questions. Her dad likes to make her think, and always tells her that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. One morning, she sets off to discover the truth for herself. Filled with cows, farms, and fun, this book helps readers to discover how milk gets from cows to you-from the farm to the store near you.

 

The author/illustrator has filled the book with wonderful big brown-eyed cows that look out at the children as they learn. Young Allison asks questions during her investigation just like all inquisitive children do. With many children today never seeing a farm or how food is grown, they get answers to lot of questions.

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