IN THE NEWS

Open House scores a touchdown

Sponsel CPA Group held its annual Open House on Jan. 27 with a special football theme to celebrate the Big Game in town. The pigskin party was a smashing success, with nearly 300 attendees for the event. Door prizes were awarded to Kris Hale of Fifth Third Bank, Lori Leineweber of CBMC Inc. and Norma Boyd of McGowan Insurance Group, who each won two tickets to the NFL Experience.

Bedel named CPA-PAC Trustee

Mike Bedel, Manager, Audit & Assurance Services, has been named a Trustee with Indiana CPA-PAC. Indiana CPA-PAC is the sole political action committee in the state on behalf of CPAs, and supports the campaigns of state legislature candidates who represent the best interests of the profession. He has also served on the Indiana CPA Society Leadership Cabinet for the past two years.

Congrats, Mike!

2012 Tax Guide
is out

Our 2012 Tax Pocket Guide is now available! Click here to view a copy, which you can also download or print. It provides a concise chart of the most common tax rates for individuals and businesses, and will assist you in estimating your 2012 taxes. Now is the time to start planning a strategy to minimize your tax burden for the new year.

Estate Planning Isn't Just a
Once-in-a-Lifetime Responsibility
By Nick Hopkins, CPA, CFP
Partner and Director of Tax Services

Estate planning is a critical component of personal wealth management. Unfortunately, far too often this important task is addressed a single time, and the documents are put in a binder and placed high on a shelf ... maybe forever!

As your trusted advisors, we at Sponsel CPA Group strongly encourage you to dust off that plan every two to three years and review it in detail with your accountant and/or attorney. If you haven't done so in a while, you may find the estate plan you spent so much thoughtful time and money on 10 years ago is NOT perpetually perfect.

Here are just some scenarios that can occur over a decade, many of which are real-life examples we've encountered with aged estate plans:

The back-up corporate trustee you designated (such as a bank) no longer exists.
Your very best, trusted friend who you named the personal trustee and/or executor of your estate has become a stranger – you've lost contact or not spoken in years.

Is "The Cloud" Right for Your Business?
By Chris Edwards
Manager, IT Services

Whether you're a business owner, information technology expert or just a consumer of media, you've probably heard about “The Cloud.” It's become one of those buzzwords whose meaning is as fuzzy to most people as its name.

“Cloud computing” (or services) first originated to describe unknown elements in a diagram of network hardware. Now the term has come to be used more loosely to mean anything available on the Web – data, photos, video – to which one may outsource services that used to be handled internally, such as email, document storage and even programs.

If you use Hotmail or Gmail, those are examples of cloud computing. Instead of downloading and storing emails on your computer's hard drive, the software and storage is provided via the computer cloud. If you've ever watched streaming video via Netflix or Vudu, you used The Cloud instead of trudging to a brick-and-mortar store to rent a DVD.

For business applications, The Cloud has many upsides but also some notable disadvantages. Cloud services can reduce costs and improve efficiency, but there is a price: the one thing all cloud computing has in common is that the end user possesses limited control and understanding of exactly how these services are provided.

As with any IT business changes, it's vital to evaluate the usefulness and security implications before making a move. Sponsel CPA Group can help you assess whether The Cloud fits your business, rather than trying to make your business fit it.

Cloud services are particularly attractive to smaller businesses. They are often a good option when a company has no central office, or has employees who frequently work remotely. Cloud-supported businesses have lower start-up costs since there is less hardware to purchase and maintain, and because anyone with access to high-speed internet can perform a variety of services.