kiplinger connection
The Economy • Spending and Taxes • Business Tech
The Economy: Recession rears its head as gas and food costs spike.
Spending and Taxes: IRS may increase audits on sole practitioners and S firms.
Business Tech: Computerized model-making machines are getting affordable.

Taking Care of Business
Letters to the Editor
This week, readers sound off about “carbon neutral,” pdfs (or lack thereof) for practice articles, the mentor/shadow program at the convention, the Tall Buildings poll, and giving credit where credit is due.

Chamber of Commerce Launches Program to Help Businesses Form Community Involvement Partnerships
Survey Identifies Business Priorities for Community
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) on May 11 launched its Corporate Community Investment, a new program dedicated to advancing U.S. corporate community development initiatives. The program will engage companies in activities such as workshops with chambers of commerce around the country and issue a report on U.S. corporate community investment, to be released in December 2007. The survey reveals that the most important issues affecting community development are K-12 education (71 percent), workforce development (68 percent), entrepreneurship and business development (48 percent), and higher education (47 percent). By far, respondents prefer to pursue community investment initiatives at the grassroots level, with local schools, local charities, and local government agencies cited as partners far more often than national charities or the federal government. For more information, visit the Chamber of Commerce Web site.