Beliveau Attorney's Blog | Waltham Attorneys| Salem, NH Lawyers

How to Handle Negative Reviews

With all the rating services on sites like Amazon and Yelp, it’s not a question of whether your business will receive a negative review, only when. Every business or service must know how to handle these negative reviews. Here are some hints: The best defense is a great offense You don’t have to address negative reviews if you never have them in the first place. Proactively identify possible negative experiences and encourage customers to respond directly

Consider the Tax BEFORE You Sell

Multiple tax rates hold the key In times of market volatility or when a financial need arises, it is only natural to consider selling some investments. Understanding the tax consequences is key to making an informed and planned decision. Here is what you need to know BEFORE you sell: Investment Tax Rates Investment Tax Classification Holding Period Tax Rate Comments Retirement Accounts: 401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA Ordinary income (when funds are withdrawn from

Why You Need to Read the Fine Print

According to a recent Deloitte survey, 91 percent of people agree to terms and conditions without reading the legal agreement. While reading through the legally complex language may be slow and painful, it’s more important than you think. Here are four reasons why reading entire legal agreements make sense: You miss a major technicality. Many agreements have an exit penalty that requires you to pay for a period of time after you terminate an agreement. Others

Help Older Adults Stand Up Against Scams

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently reported in financial exploitation cases that older adults lost an average of $34,200. Unfortunately, these funds are often never recovered. You can ensure this doesn’t happen by learning more about scams and how to protect yourself. Here are some tips: Recognize the scams.The best way to protect yourself from a scam is to understand what they look and sound like. Here are a few key elements to look for when

Select the Right Health Insurance for Your Business

If you have employees, you know how important health insurance is for your benefits package. It also takes a big bite out of your budget. Selecting the right insurance for your company is extremely important for employee retention and maintaining your bottom line. Here are tips to help you find the best health insurance for your business: Know the size of the network. A popular way to lower insurance costs is opting for a smaller network

The IRS Is Not Always Right

A letter in the mailbox with the IRS as the return address is sure to raise your blood pressure. Here are some tips for handling the situation if this happens to you: Stay calm. Try not to overreact to the correspondence. They are often in error. This is easier said than done, but remember the IRS sends out millions of notices each year. The vast majority of them correct simple oversights or common filing errors. Open

Workers can sue employer for failing to protect personal data

In a ruling that should make employers everywhere sit up and take notice, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently decided that workers could bring a negligence claim (in other words, a lawsuit alleging that they were hurt by their employer’s unreasonable carelessness) against their employer over a data breach that compromised their personal information. The case involved more than 60,000 current and former employees of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Hackers broke into the UPMC’s

Beware the careless employee review

Annual or semi-annual employee reviews can be helpful in documenting worker issues to justify actions you might take, and in protecting yourself against potential lawsuits by disgruntled workers. They also can help your workforce identify ways to improve its productivity and professionalism. But if you go about the review process the wrong way, you may turn what you view as a shield against employment suits into a sword for terminated, transferred or demoted workers. That’s

Case highlights importance of protecting secret documents

Does your company have important trade secrets it wants to protect? If so, be sure to take affirmative steps to actually maintain the secrecy of these documents. That can help you if you need to take an ex-employee to court for trade secret violations, as a recent South Carolina case shows. In that case, employee Diego de Amezega worked for AirFacts, a revenue-accounting software developer for the airline and travel industry, from 2008 to 2015. His

Employers take note: Harassment claims were on the rise last year

Last fall, nearly a year after the #MeToo movement emerged as a major social force, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released findings that sexual harassment claims had risen sharply during fiscal year 2018. The EEOC reported a 12 percent increase in sexual harassment complaints filed with the agency, the first time in a decade when that figure rose. EEOC attorneys filed 41 sexual harassment lawsuits on the agency’s behalf, twice as many suits as in 2017.

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