Marsha L. Heinke DVM, EA, CPA, CVPM

If surgery is your game, this may be the year to ante up some cash and go shopping. High-tech advancements for the veterinary profession have merged opportunistically with favorable tax law changes.

One might say that veterinary practice management has always been based on the old adage, "If one thing is certain, it is change". No question about it.

Dr. Marsha L. Heinke demonstrates how tracking your clients will lead to better compliance and the opportunity to offer better care to your patients.

Dr. Marsha L. Heinke offers a lesson in phone etiquette to ensure your staff doesn't shut the door on clients even before they walk in.

Answer to practice woes could be as simple as 'who's answering the phone'

Keep your staff current with new procedures, existing protocols

Gift lists are the hallmark of the holiday season and the well-organized mind. Shopping duties, generally anticipated as a fun activity, tend to quickly be completed as compared to other lists that occur at year-end. Issues of business management are procrastinated to a much greater extent.

Personal use of business-earned frequent flyer program premiums continues as a gray area when it comes to taxability.

Tax return extension is almost always the most advisable course of action for those with more complex tax issues.

Dr. Marsha Heinke provides an overview of the financial components that need to be considered when adding retail services and products.

Disputes and conflicts commonly arise in any business.

Understanding that your practice is a significant investment is only a convenient starting point.

Everything you read today indicates an overwhelming opinion consensus that veterinarians are paid abysmally as compared to other professions and even occupations.

Most veterinarians are used to client jokes about deducting the family pet on the personal tax return.

In Brief-One provision of the 1997 tax law change is just starting to hit. New lower capital gains rates will apply to property held for more than five years. For taxpayers in the 15 percent bracket, an 8 percent capital gain rate will apply to gain from property held more than five years. Under the current rules, the rate is 10 percent. If you are in the above 15 percent bracket, you will not be able to cash in on the new 18 percent rate until 2006. One exception would allow a property to be marked to market at the beginning of 2001.A 1997 tax law changed taxation of capital gains. A variety of capital gain rates were established, depending on asset classification and taxpayer bracket. Rate application depended on the holding period of various assets through new definitions of short-, mid- and long-term holding.