– The Gulf Coast Venture Forum, in conjunction with the Florida Venture Forum and the Tamiami Angel Fund, will hold its annual kick-off events for the 2010/11 season. Both, Naples and Sarasota chapters will participate by presenting vital topics for today’s business environment. The kick-off events will be held on October 13, 2010, in Sarasota and on October 14 in Naples.

The Sarasota event on October 13 will be held at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota and The Naples Grande Resort & Club will be the venue on October 14 for the Naples Kick-off. Both events will begin with registration at 5:30, followed by one hour presentations from 6 to 7 P.M. and a reception from 7 to 8 P.M. to wind up the event.

The Sarasota Chapter Kick-off will include a panel of experts discussing: “Company Valuations: What is my company worth and how is that determined?” Panelists include: Rob Campbell, CEO of Voalte, Nelson Castellano, Attorney with Trenam Kemker, Matthew Rice, Vice President of Ballast Point Ventures and Brian Zophin, CPA, Senior Manager with Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, LLP.

Rob Campbell has started five companies and worked for Apple and Microsoft in the early days of Silicon Valley. He holds the distinction of working directly for Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and is best known for his products PowerPoint and FileMaker both of which have reached their twenty year anniversaries.

The Naples Chapter Kick-off will feature special guest speaker John W. Ransom, Managing Director and Director of Healthcare Research with Raymond James & Associates. The topic: “Reading Vital Signs How emerging healthcare trends and legislation will affect market performance and investing.”

“Entrepreneurs and investors understand that successful negotiations come from understanding each other’s goals with an appreciation for the current and future economic realities,” says Gulf Coast Venture Forum President Tim Cartwright. “Insight and experience are valuable commodities, and these kick-off events offer priceless advice and counsel from longstanding, successful entrepreneurs and investors in our community.”

Sponsorships are still available for these events at three different levels of support. Each sponsor will receive tickets to the event and their logo placed on all media and signage, with more benefits for higher levels of sponsorship, including introduction to the panelists and speakers. For more information on becoming a sponsor, contact Kristi Zammit at 239-262-5248.

These kick-off events are open to the public. The price of admission is $65 if pre-registered and $75 at the door. For more information or to pre-register, please visit www.floridaventureforum.com. Following the October kick-off meeting, the Gulf Coast Venture Forum holds monthly meetings in Naples and Sarasota.

In Naples, the dates are: Nov. 11, 2010, Jan. 13, Feb. 10, March 10, April 14, and May 12, 2011. The Sarasota meetings are scheduled for: Nov. 10, 2010, Jan. 12, Feb. 9, March 9, and April 13, 2011.

About GCVF

The purpose of the Gulf Coast Venture Forum is to promote the success of Southwest Florida’s new and emerging businesses by bringing together the best entrepreneurs, early stage venture capital firms and Angel Investors. They promote the success of the region’s new and emerging businesses by bringing together entrepreneurs, educational resources, capital providers, and service providers. The group also offers informative educational programs presented by seasoned, recognized professionals and business people, providing a place for the sharing and exchange of business and technical experience. Members of the GCVF meet monthly to hear about local investment opportunities, and they also offer informative educational programs presented by seasoned, recognized professionals and business people, providing a place for the sharing and exchange of business and technical experience. To encourage capital investments in Southwest Florida businesses, the GCVF seeks to identify sources of private equity investment and venture capital. Gulf Coast Venture Forum is always open to new members. Monthly meetings are scheduled October through June each year. GCVF is also available to provide speakers to local organizations who want to learn more about the purpose of the GCVF and local investment opportunities. Interested parties are encouraged to view www.gcvf.com or call 239-262-6300 for more information.

The Florida Venture Forum, Inc. is Florida’s premier statewide support group for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneurial networking group, the Florida Venture Forum educates entrepreneurs and assists them in identifying sources of venture capital. In the early part of each year, The Florida Venture Forum hosts the Venture Capital Conference. The 20th Annual Florida Venture Capital Conference will be held February 3rd and 4th, 2011 at the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Florida. Throughout the year, the Forum also provides monthly programs on a statewide basis. For additional information, please visit the Forum’s web site at www.floridaventureforum.org or e-mail pat@floridaventureforum.org.

Since 1992, the Florida Venture Forum has hosted the annual Florida Venture Capital Conference. The purpose of the conference, held every year in January/February, is to showcase high growth companies looking for equity financing before a nationwide audience of venture capitalists and investment bankers. Over the past 20 years, former presenters of the Conference have been successful in raising over $2 billion.

The Tamiami Angel Fund I, LLC (“TAFI” or “the Fund”) is Southwest Florida’s first Angel Fund. TAFI is a formal fund of growth capital organized to invest in Florida-based early stage through expansion stage companies. It is a member owned and member-managed for-profit limited liability company that seeks to provide its members an opportunity for active involvement in a diversified capital investment process and a portfolio of high quality, high growth companies located in the State of Florida.

The Fund’s strength is in its members – a group of mostly retired, highly successful men and women, who have migrated to the extremely popular Southwest Florida region, enjoy entrepreneurship and can afford to invest risk capital in start-up businesses

– INHERITING AN IRA

Make sure you pay attention to the rules.

Provided by The Retirement Group: Your Partners In Retirement

What do you do when you inherit an IRA? Good question. Most people don’t know the rules and regulations pertaining to inherited IRA assets. You should. You, not the IRS, should benefit the most in this circumstance.

Will my income taxes soar this year as a result? Not necessarily. If you roll the assets into an inherited IRA, you have up to five years to either a) withdraw the money entirely or b) withdraw the money over your lifetime according to an IRS life expectancy formula.1 Many heirs would prefer b) because the tax scenario is better but some IRA custodians require you to go by the five-year rule.2

What if you don’t roll the money into an inherited IRA? What if you just take the balance as a lump sum and spend it? Look out. All that money will be taxed at your regular income tax rate.3 After income and estate taxes eat away at the IRA balance, you may be left with a fraction of the original assets.

Let’s look at some options for those who inherit IRA assets. Keep in mind: this brief article discusses only some basic, common scenarios. Tax laws pertaining to inherited IRA assets are complex, with constant “new wrinkles” so be sure to talk to a financial advisor or tax advisor who is up to speed on IRS rule changes.  

What if you inherit your spouse’s IRA? The IRS says a surviving spouse can elect to be treated as the owner of such IRA assets rather than the beneficiary.1 A surviving spouse can therefore roll this money into his or her own IRA. That makes a lot of sense, especially for younger spouses: distributions can be extended over your lifetime and the lifetime of your beneficiaries.

If you roll over your late spouse’s IRA assets into your IRA, they may be able to compound for a long time, as you don’t have to take a Required Minimum Distribution from your IRA until you reach age 701/2. (If you have a Roth IRA, you don’t have to take them at all.) On the other hand, you must take a distribution from an inherited IRA a year after your spouse’s death.4

You also have other options. If you are younger than 591/2 and need the IRA assets for living expenses, you could keep all or part of the money in your late spouse’s IRA, whereby you could take penalty-free distributions. Or you could disclaim some or all of the IRA assets if you don’t need them (this has to happen within nine months of the original IRA owner’s death). Disclaiming them will allow the IRA assets to go to the contingent beneficiaries named by the original IRA owner. This might result in a better estate tax picture for your kids.4

You inherit an IRA from someone other than a spouse. Okay, this is complicated. Was the original IRA owner younger than age 701/2 at death? Did he or she turn 701/2 last year and die before April 1 this year? If the answer is yes to either question, you have two choices. 1) You can liquidate the inherited IRA by no later than December 31 of the fifth year after the year the original IRA owner dies. This is mandatory for some IRAs. 2) You can take minimum withdrawals over your life expectancy, calculated per IRS tables.2

Did the original IRA owner pass away on or after April 1 of the year after he or she turned 701/2? Then forget the five-year rule. You must start taking minimum withdrawals over your life expectancy. Your first such withdrawal has to happen by Dec. 31 of the year after the year the original IRA owner dies.2

The no-RMDs-in-2009 wrinkle. No one has to take a Required Minimum Distribution from an IRA in 2009. What does that mean for inherited IRAs? If the IRA owner died in 2008, you don’t have to take a distribution in 2009 and you get six years rather than five to withdraw inherited IRA assets if you would ordinarily go by the five-year rule.

But watch out: if you inherited an IRA from a non-spouse and the original IRA owner named multiple beneficiaries, you still have to split up the IRA into separate inherited IRAs by the end of 2009 to permit minimum withdrawals over heirs’ life expectancies. If you don’t, each beneficiary will have to take withdrawals based on the age of the oldest beneficiary, which could be a tremendous blow to tax deferral.5

You can’t contribute to inherited IRAs. This applies to traditional and Roth IRAs.6,7 However, as mentioned above, surviving spouses can elect to treat an inherited IRA as their own in IRS eyes, they do so by making any contribution to it.1  

A Roth IRA wrinkle. It is possible to pay taxes on an inherited Roth IRA. Roth IRA earnings can be withdrawn tax-free starting on the first day of the fifth taxable year after the year the Roth IRA was established. So if an inherited Roth IRA was established less than five years ago, an heir may have to pay tax on earnings withdrawals if the original owner’s death and the withdrawal both occur within five years of the creation of the account. However, a beneficiary can circumvent this penalty by leaving the earnings in the Roth IRA for the required time period, even if he or she withdraws everything besides the earnings.

John Jastremski is a Representative with QA3 Financial and may be reached at The Retirement Group 800-900-5867

Visit us on the web:

http://www.theretirementgroup.com

– WHO: Barcode artist Scott Blake. His digital art, inspired by the Y2K computer crisis, started with circles, squares and tile patterns that morphed into lines and eventually became barcodes. Blake has created more than 30 large-scale digital portraits of cultural icons using actual UPC numbers connected to some aspect of their lives.

WHAT: Blake is entering his work into the second annual ArtPrize competition, which bestows the world’s largest art prize. He will be looking to edge out 1,712 other artists in competition, which begins September 22 at 6 p.m. at 192 venues throughout Downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.

At ArtPrize, Blake will be exhibiting four of his barcode portraits at the Stache Gallery http://www.artprize.org/venues/public-profile/235, 120 South Division Ave., Studio 124. His Barcode Elvis http://www.barcodeart.com/Barcode_Elvis.html, Barcode Bruce Lee http://www.barcodeart.com/Bruce_Lee.html, Barcode Andy Warhol http://www.barcodeart.com/Andy_Warhol.html and Barcode Marilyn Monroe http://www.barcodeart.com/Marilyn_Monroe.html All will have barcode scanning interfaces that will allow patrons to interact with the portraits, including hearing music and viewing movies.

The “Barcode Elvis” portrait is made from barcodes from the singer’s music CDs. “Barcode Bruce Lee” and “Barcode Marilyn Monroe” are comprised of barcodes from DVDs of their movies. “Barcode Andy Warhol” features 2,160 barcodes from Campbell’s Soup cans, measures 8′ x 8′ and contains 829.4 megapixels.

In addition to international exhibitions, Blake’s art has been featured on ABC’s “World News Tonight,” Tech TV, Boing Boing TV, WFLA-TV (NBC), WFTS-TV (ABC), msnbc.com, Wired.com, and in Art Papers Magazine. His studio is located in Omaha, Nebraska; his art, a wide range of barcode art products and additional information can be found at

WHEN: Blake will be installing his portraits and will be available for interviews tomorrow, Sept. 21, beginning around noon and also on Sept. 22.

WHERE: Blake’s ArtPrize venue is the Stache Gallery , 120 South Division Ave., Studio 124, in Grand Rapids.

CONTACT: Scott Blake (402) 321-3485;  or Jim Swope, (727) 744-4556;

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– Apopka, FL September 16, 2010 Higher Horizon Communications is excited to announce the unveiling of our online store which will provide a wide-range of products to meet your business needs.

The store highlights a huge variety of cables, accessories, privacy filters, and specialized products.  Higher Horizon has truly positioned itself as thee one-stop shop for all business communications and electronics.

Not only does the store carry many products, but all of the products are competitively priced so that you can save time and money by heading to one source for all of your purchases.  Higher Horizon wants to gain your business by gaining your trust with our quality products and prices.

Convenience is our aim, so we have made your experience simpler by offering several payment options and methods.  We are now accepting Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Cashiers Checks and money orders.  Plus, we have several shipping options for your consideration.

Darren C. Yates, CEO states, “you won’t know if we carry the product you are looking for until you come and visit our store and check our large selection and competitive pricing.”

Higher Horizon Communications is calling on ALL businesses to consider stopping by our store and doing business with us.  Let’s start a mutually beneficial and productive relationship.  Go to www.HHCCorp.com/portal  or www.hhccorp.com and follow the HHC Storefront shopping cart buttons for more information and ordering.


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