Classifying a worker as an employee or an independent contractor has significant consequences for a business, as employees are covered by a host of labor laws and tax regulations that typically don’t apply to contractors. Last week, the IRS launched a program, under its “Fresh Start,” initiative, that it says will help employers resolve issues around worker classification.

The program appears to be geared to employers who had classified workers as contractors when they more accurately would have been classified as employees. The “Voluntary Classification Settlement Program” (VCSP) allows employers to begin complying with worker classification regulations by voluntarily reclassifying their workers as employees and making a payment generally equal to 10 percent of the employment tax liability that may have been due on the worker’s compensation for the most recent tax year, according to this explanation of the program from the IRS. more

Does the liquidity of a particular stock – that is, the ease with which investors can buy and sell the shares – impact investors’ decisions to acquire the stock, and then their ability or desire to get involved with management to improve governance and performance? Alex Edmans of the Wharton School, Vivian Fang of Rutgers University, and Emanuel Zur of Baruch College examined this question and published their findings in a recent paper, “The Effect of Liquidity on Governance.”

As a point of comparison, Edmans notes, in an article accompanying the study, that Japan’s economic boom during the 1980s convinced many academics and others that a low-liquidity system was a good model. When it’s difficult for shareholders to buy or sell their shares, they’re more likely to nudge management to boost performance – or so the theory went. Then, Japan experienced what’s often been referred to as “the lost decade,” giving rise to some doubts about this theory. What’s more, even as Japan was languishing, stocks were booming in the U.S., even with the greater liquidity. more

Corporate America’s ability to sometimes pay little or no taxes on the income it earns has captured headlines recently. Consider this story from MSN Money: GE’s Corporate Tax Bill: Zero. There’s also this one from The Daily Beast: 15 Top Corporate Tax Dodgers. ABC News weighed in with a slightly less incendiary take on the matter in its story, Big Corporate Profits, Small Tax Bill. more

The hours you spend preparing your firm’s taxes may drop, albeit slightly, courtesy of the latest guidance to come from the IRS.

Until now, cell phones used in business were considered listed property, which is a “specific class of depreciable property that is subject to a special set of tax rules if it is used for business no more than 50 percent of the time…. Listed-property rules limit the amount of deductions and depreciation that can be taken if the asset isn’t predominantly used in a business or trade,” according to Investopedia. In general, items found on the “listed property” list are those that easily lend themselves to personal use, such as cars and cell phones. more

While more and more business processes are moving online, the human element still matters when it comes to business banking. That’s the conclusion of a recent report by Greenwich Associates, a research firm focusing on financial services.

It’s also a reversal of the enthusiasm with which small- and mid-sized businesses embraced Internet banking during the years just prior to the recession. By late 2009, these businesses said that their banks’ Internet platforms were just as important as their personal interactions with their banks. more