Business identity theft is a relatively new form of identity theft that has been in the news recently. A criminal can steal a business’s identity much the same way that they can steal an individual's identity: by getting hold of critical identifying information for your business and behaving as though they are the business owner acting on behalf of the business. The criminal can revive a dissolved business entity, or assume the identity of a going concern. They may file change of address information with the State or simply file a change of address with the post office.

Once the criminal has established a stolen business identity, they use that identity to establish lines of credit with banks or retailers, then use the credit to buy retail goods that can be bought and exchanged for cash or easily sold.

The damage can be devastating to your business. The damage to the your credit history can lead to denial of credit and operational problems. The cost to clean up and correct the damage can be hundreds of dollars and hours of lost time.

Most small businesses operate on a calendar year as their fiscal year. As a result, the first quarter of the new year is a blur of accounting, legal and tax administration. How can you make sure you stay on track? Mark your calendar with these dates and deadlines:

Mark the end of the calendar quarters: First Quarter, March 31, 2012; Second Quarter, June 30, 2012; Third Quarter, September 30, 2012; Fourth Quarter, December 31, 2012.

If you must file payroll taxes semiweekly, make sure to mark every Wednesday and Friday as the dates your deposits are due.

By January 31, 2012, you need to provide your employees with a Form W-2 Wage and Tax Statement, and provide your independent contractors and service providers with a Form 1099. You also  need to file your Federal Unemployment Tax Return (Form 940) and your QUARTERLY Federal Tax Reurn (Form 941 or 944).

By February 15, 2012, you should obtain a new Form W-4 from each exempt employee (on February 16, 2012, old forms W-2 expire).

By February 28, 2012, you should file Copy A of all paper Forms 1099 with Form 1096, Annual Summary and Transmittal of U.S. Information Returns, with the IRS. You should also file Copy A of all paper Forms W-2 with Form W-3, Transmittal of Wage and Tax Statements, with the Social Security Administration.

By March 15, 2012, your annual federal tax return is due.

By March 31, 2012, you should file electronic Forms 1099, 8027, and W-2, if applicable.

By April 30, July 31, and October 31, 2012, you should: deposit federal unemployment (FUTA) tax due (if it is more than $500); and file Form 941 and deposit any undeposited income, social security, and Medicare taxes.

Before December 1, 2012, you should remind employees to submit a new Form W-4 if their marital status or withholding allowances have changed or will change for the next year.

To make it even easier to keep track of important dates, consider installing the IRS Calendar Connector tool on your computer.

A non-compete agreement prevents your employee from using your company's confidential information while working for a competitor. In Florida, to be valid, a non-compete agreement must meet two requirements: (1) it must be geographically reasonable; and (2) it must be for a reasonable amount of time.

Even small businesses have ideas, ways of doing things and other trade secrets - including the secret family recipe you use in your restaurant - that may make it worth protecting your business with a non-compete agreement signed by your employees.

A non-compete agreement should describe what is being protected by defining what information you consider confidential. You don't have to include specifics, just a general description of confidential information. Typically, this will include such things as your client or customer list, lists of prospective clients or customers, employee information, written materials you supply to employees, recipes, formulas, processes and procedures, financial information, and other sensitive business information you need to protect.

The agreement should also specify what you mean by "non-compete." For most businesses, it means that the employee cannot go to work for or own a competing business, or make disclosures of confidential information to a competing business.

Next, it should define the geographic area that the agreement will cover. Generally speaking, unless you are having the agreement signed by someone whose work took them all over the world, you cannot expect to protect your business worldwide or even in the entire United States. Constrain the geographic area you want to protect to where you actually do business or where your employee handles business on your behalf (such as a certain sales territory), whichever is smaller.

Finally, the agreement should specify how long it will last. For most agreements, Florida permits a term of two years. To protect trade secrets, however, the term can be considerably longer.

Once you have a non-compete agreement, sit down with your employees and go over the exact terms of the agreement. Explain to them their obligations under the agreement. Make it clear that continued employment is conditioned on signing the agreement. In Florida, continued employment is sufficient consideration for signing a non-compete agreement.

What would you would do with your time if money were no object? Would you work at the same job you have now (or maybe the one you lost not too long ago)? Start your own business? How would you change your career if you didn't have to chase every dollar?

And why aren't you doing that now?

I recently read Timothy Farriss's The 4-Hour Workweek. I'm a little behind the times, I know, since the book originally came out in 2007.

Anyway...

Mr. Farriss challenges common perceptions about why we do what we do with our time and our lives. Working hard to maybe, hopefully retire someday? Waste of time. Earning money for the sake of having money? Waste of resources. Hate what you do but it pays the bills? Waste of your life. It's an eye-opener, to say the least.

The bottom line is that you should live every day as if it is  your last. If you do not love what you do, find a way to spend less time doing it. Use automation and other efficiencies in order to work less. Change what it is you do. We should all keep in mind that, as Mr. Farris points out, money is a means to an end (e.g. free time and the luxury to do what we want) and not an end in itself (e.g. retirement).

So if you hate your job, why are you still doing it? You should be doing something, ANYTHING else! Go follow your passion and quit being miserable.

I did, repeatedly.

Recently, I was approached by a friend who was looking at renting space in my office building for his business. He has been focused mostly on raising his two small children, and only recently decided to put more into his business. His confusion, he said, was whether to put the money into a brick-and-mortar office or whether to put the money into marketing.

"What are you doing now to market your business?" I asked.

"Nothing, really," he said. "I don't even have a web site."

Nor did he have a defined set of business goals, an idea of what an ideal customer looked like beyond "paying," or even an established place to work in his home. He had been meeting clients at Starbucks or borrowing my conference room as needed, but without a plan for how he was going to serve those clients.

I sent him home with some homework: "I want you to do a SWOT analysis on your business," I said.

"A what?" he replied.

deus ex machina |day uss eks mäk en uh|   noun: an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, esp. as a contrived plot device in a play or  novel. ORIGIN late 17th cent.: modern Latin, translation: ‘god from the machinery.’

I wrote about the Seven-to-Nine Rule in September. You remember: you can only juggle seven to nine things in your life, and it drops to three when one of them is a biggie. That Rule provides a great explanation for what happens to us when a disaster strikes. But how do we go about handling a disaster? The Rule is silent.