by Steve Kowalski | Aug 20, 2026 | Informational
Making your first hire is a milestone. It’s also the moment a pile of federal and state paperwork lands on your desk, most of it with deadlines you didn’t know existed. Miss one and the penalties are real. Here’s the clean, current checklist for...
by Steve Kowalski | Aug 15, 2026 | All
This is one of the first questions a new Florida employer should ask, and one of the last they usually get around to. Workers’ compensation isn’t optional here it’s state law but when it kicks in depends entirely on your industry and headcount. Get...
by Steve Kowalski | Aug 10, 2026 | Payroll
Every year I get the same call from a new S-corp owner, usually right after their accountant scared them: “Wait — I have to put myself on payroll?” Yes. And how much you pay yourself is one of the few payroll decisions that can trigger an IRS audit if you...
by Steve Kowalski | Jul 30, 2026 | Industry Payroll
The number of business owners who stay with a payroll company they can’t stand because they think they’re trapped until January 1st it’s a lot. I hear it every year: “I’d love to switch, but I don’t want to mess up my taxes, so...
by Steve Kowalski | Jul 20, 2026 | Industry Payroll, Informational
A Fort Myers contractor called me a while back, rattled. He’d been paying two guys as 1099 independent contractors for three years no tax withholding, no employer taxes, just a check and a form in January. Simpler, cheaper, and the guys were fine with it. Then...
by Steve Kowalski | Jul 15, 2026 | Industry Payroll, Informational
You posted a job at $22 an hour. So that’s what the new hire costs you — $22 an hour, right? Not even close. And in my nine years at Paychex, the single most common surprise I watched land on a small business owner’s desk was the gap between the wage they...
by Steve Kowalski | Jun 18, 2026 | Industry Payroll
I’ve run payroll for hundreds of restaurants across Southwest Florida. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that restaurant owners who try to manage payroll themselves — or who use a generic payroll service that doesn’t understand the...
by Steve Kowalski | Jun 18, 2026 | Informational
A Fort Myers restaurant owner called me last year after getting a notice from the IRS. He’d missed a payroll tax deposit by four days while dealing with a family emergency. Four days. The penalty was over $800 on a $20,000 payroll. He didn’t know the...
by Steve Kowalski | Jun 12, 2026 | Informational
I spent nine years at Paychex. I know exactly how payroll pricing works — and more importantly, I know how it gets presented to business owners in a way that obscures the real number until the invoice shows up. If you’re a Fort Myers small business owner trying...
by Steve Kowalski | Jun 12, 2026 | Informational
Electing S-Corp status is one of the most popular tax strategies for Fort Myers small business owners. The math is straightforward: profit that flows through as distributions avoids self-employment tax. For an owner earning $150,000, that can mean saving...
