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Tax Season Made Easy: Kelli Lewis’ Guide For Business Owners

Market Daily Staff on January 8, 2026

By: Matt Emma

One of the most arduous tasks for entrepreneurs is tax preparation, which can be chaotic and confusing. The taxpayer has numerous tasks to keep in mind when preparing taxes, including statements, receipts, and payments. Kelli Lewis has revolutionized the accounting system with her virtual accounting firm, KelliWorks. The firm is a testimony to her passion for helping small and mid-sized businesses thrive and grow. Kelli’s passion towards inspiring these entrepreneurs goes without saying, and she finds immense pleasure and satisfaction in turning their dreams into reality. 

Though we live in times of technological advancement, there is always ambiguity when it comes to applying technology to accounting processes. Entrepreneurs are often in the dark about the extent to which accounting firms can go to help them deal with all accounting departments. This is where KelliWorks guides and simplifies the tax preparation process for entrepreneurs. Though their approach to client requirements is technology-based, the firm also understands the importance of being strategically smart to achieve success with clients. 

Simplifying the Process of Tax Preparation for Entrepreneurs

Tax preparation is a laborious task, and entrepreneurs struggle with it. Kelli Lewis, a small business expert, comes to their help with “KelliWorks, so you don’t have to”. She guides them to have the tax prepared by simplifying the entire process and making it easier to use. Her approach is transparent and transformational:

  • Understand the scope of the business fully: Assess the goals of the business in totality and see how the workflow is. Check the payroll and see how the payments are made and how the cash flow is. 
  • Make a note of the pitfalls and pain points: Many businesses still rely on outdated accounting models. Find out whether they are still using an obsolete accounting method that is keeping the company from succeeding. Tax preparation is no longer the same with modern accounting methods.
  • Give them personalized solutions: Once the problem is identified, KelliWorks guides them by providing expert guidance on how to address the business and its accounting procedures. The firm encourages them to use modern systems that meet the needs of the growing industry.
  • Motivate the businesses to set sights on long-term plans and success: Provide them with tips that are doable and achievable when it comes to preparing their taxes. Encourage them to simplify tax preparation so businesses can achieve long-term success.

KelliWorks has an easy, streamlined process that lightens the burden of tax season with simple steps that lead to success.

  • Fill out the Taxpayer Organizer Form
  • Download the Tax to Go App
  • Complete the Tax to Go App (all tax documents, like any statements of investment accounts, W-2s, 1099s, and last year’s tax returns)
  • Fill out and complete the financial information on the App
  • After reviewing the form, sign the completed return

You can even request a free consultation to learn how their full-service accounting works.

KelliWorks takes the burden off entrepreneurs by guiding them in planning their taxes and making their businesses successful in the long term. Their proactive approach enables clients to identify tax-saving strategies, build a sound financial structure, and meet deadlines. If you are looking for a more innovative way to deal with your tax payments without feeling anxious and getting expert tips and guidance, then KelliWorks is the place to go. The simplified taxpayer payment process guides these entrepreneurs to take their businesses to great success and heights. 

 

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, financial, or professional advice. While we strive for accuracy, we make no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability of this information. Use of this information is at your own risk.

The Fed’s Most Dangerous Number Isn’t Inflation. It’s 4.6%

Market Daily Staff 2 on January 8, 2026

The Federal Reserve likes to say it has two mandates. Keep prices stable. Keep people working. In practice, those goals don’t always cooperate. When inflation cools, but employment holds firm, policymakers hesitate. When jobs soften but prices refuse to fully behave, hesitation turns into tension.

Right now, that tension is showing up in a single number the market can’t stop watching. The U.S. unemployment rate is hovering near 4.6%.

On its face, that figure looks harmless. By historical standards, it’s still low. By political standards, it’s survivable. By market standards, it’s quietly explosive.

Why Employment Still Sits At The Center Of Fed Thinking

Inflation gets the headlines, but employment drives confidence. The unemployment rate is one of the fastest, cleanest signals the Fed has about whether demand is overheating or cooling. When it stays low, labor demand is strong, wages tend to rise, and inflation pressure lingers. When it edges higher, slack starts to appear, wage growth slows, and price pressure eases.

Economic theory has a name for this balance point. NAIRU, the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. The idea is simple, even if the math isn’t. Below a certain unemployment level, inflation risks rise. Above it, those risks fade.

The Fed doesn’t publicly fixate on a single number, but most estimates place that neutral zone around 4.0% to 4.2%. That makes 4.6% uncomfortable. Not weak enough to panic. Not strong enough to ignore.

What The Chicago Fed Is Quietly Signaling

The Fed’s Most Dangerous Number Isn’t Inflation. It’s 4.6%

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com

Before the official jobs report even lands, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago runs real time labor market models using public and private data. Their latest estimate suggests unemployment held at about 4.6% in December, unchanged from November. Economists surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics expected closer to 4.5%.

That difference looks trivial. Markets disagree.

The signal isn’t collapsing. It’s deceleration. Hiring has slowed. Layoffs haven’t surged. Workers aren’t flooding the unemployment line, but they’re not being pulled into new roles at the same pace either. Economists call it low hire, low fire. Investors call it a warning light.

Why Markets Are Pricing Cuts Without Believing In Them

Traders don’t wait for certainty. They price probabilities. Right now, those probabilities tell a careful story.

Markets see roughly a 10% chance of a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting. In other words, almost no one expects an immediate move. By April, that changes. Odds rise to about 55% for at least one cut.

This isn’t optimism. It’s conditional logic.

If unemployment prints at 4.5% or lower, the Fed can justify patience. Labor demand would still look resilient enough to risk holding rates higher. If it sticks at 4.6% or drifts higher, the case for waiting weakens. The economy wouldn’t look broken, but it would look fragile enough to justify insurance cuts.

The Data That Actually Moves Policy

Unemployment alone doesn’t force the Fed’s hand. What matters is how it interacts with everything else.

If unemployment ticks up while inflation expectations remain elevated around 3.4%, policymakers face a tradeoff. Let growth slow further, or cut early and risk inflation reaccelerating.

Wage growth matters just as much. Slower hiring and softer wage gains ease inflation pressure and make cuts safer. Strong wages do the opposite, even if headline inflation behaves.

Inside the Federal Open Market Committee, these crosscurrents are widening divisions. Some officials see cooling labor as justification for easing. Others worry that cutting too early undermines credibility. The result is a Fed that’s more data dependent than ever and far less willing to commit.

Markets also look beyond the unemployment rate itself. Jobless claims, consumer confidence, and hiring intentions often shift first. When those weaken alongside unemployment, expectations for rate cuts harden quickly.

Why 4.6% Isn’t An Emergency, But Isn’t Comfort Either

A 4.6% unemployment rate doesn’t legally or mechanically trigger action. It alters the risk math.

At very low unemployment levels, the Fed worries about overheating. At sharply rising levels, it worries about a recession. In between, it worries about timing.

That middle zone is where policy mistakes happen. Cut too soon and inflation returns. Wait too long and economic damage compounds.

A moderate uptick like this supports the idea of a soft landing. Growth slows without breaking. Inflation cools without collapsing demand. In that scenario, rate cuts become a calibration tool rather than a rescue mission.

What This Means For Markets

Interest rates move first. Softer labor data pulls down expectations for future yields, reshaping Treasury curves and easing borrowing costs across credit markets.

Equities react next. Lower rate expectations boost valuations, but only if investors believe earnings won’t deteriorate alongside employment. When job weakness hints at slower profits, that support weakens.

Currencies and commodities follow the rate story. A labor market that cools enough to invite cuts can soften the U.S. dollar. Commodity prices respond to both growth expectations and shifting interest rate differentials.

The Fed’s job isn’t to please markets. It’s to manage risk. Right now, 4.6% isn’t a crisis signal. It’s a pressure point.

And pressure points are where policy turns are born.

How AI Is Quietly Reshaping Main Street Business Transitions

Market Daily Staff on January 8, 2026

By: Jessica Williams

As millions of owner-led firms approach transition, incremental AI adoption is redefining documentation, underwriting, and deal viability.

Across the United States, ownership transitions in the lower market and lower middle market are becoming a core economic issue rather than a niche transactional concern. As federal agencies incrementally expand the documented use of artificial intelligence to improve workflow clarity and information management, private-sector operators positioned near public missions are experiencing similar pressures around data structure, underwriting readiness, and diligence standards. 

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that identified generative AI use cases across federal agencies increased from 571 in 2023 to 1,110 in 2024, and formal generative AI applications grew from 32 to 282 (GAO, 2025). This shift does not represent a rapid overhaul; instead, it signals a gradual institutional movement toward systems that expect cleaner documentation and verifiable information.

This evolution intersects with a demographic reality. Approximately 2.9 million U.S. businesses owned by Baby Boomers employ nearly 32 million workers and produce an estimated 6.5 trillion dollars in annual revenue, subject to ownership change (Project Equity, 2025). Without effective transitions, many of these firms will close rather than transfer, reducing the local institutional capacity that supports tax bases, employment, and municipal function. The exposure is not theoretical; it is measurable and approaching.

Banking data reinforces what transition environments require. The FDIC’s 2024 Small Business Lending Survey notes that community banks hold a minority share of national banking assets yet originate a disproportionate share of small-business lending. The most frequent causes of declined acquisition financing remain insufficient documentation, unclear working capital needs, and incomplete diligence files (FDIC, 2024). In markets where public-sector revenue, regulatory oversight, or government contracting obligations are present, these documentation lapses can eliminate deals that would otherwise preserve local continuity.

God Bless Retirement (GBR), a Fort Worth–based brokerage serving the lower middle market and Main Street, is adopting AI-powered capabilities to improve file preparation, accelerate document review, and create clearer pathways for lender engagement. GBR’s relevance does not imply that it solves a national problem. Instead, the firm aims to demonstrate how responsible use of workflow tools can increase deal flow, keep regional lenders active, and lower capital issuance costs by reducing underwriting friction. In practice, AI-supported packaging is deployed to make transactions more navigable, not more abstract.

How AI Is Quietly Reshaping Main Street Business Transitions

Photo Courtesy: God Bless Retirement
(Left: The Chicotsky family, which leads the Fort Worth-based business brokerage, God Bless Retirement. Right: Blake Oliver, Associate Broker at God Bless Retirement.)

“Small business owners deserve a transition that matches the value they built over years of work,” said Blake Oliver, Associate Broker at God Bless Retirement. The firm’s managing principal, Dr Brandon Chicotsky, adds, “AI is being incorporated to strengthen, not displace, the judgment of lenders, brokers, and operators. Thus, we host civic gatherings, with some of them focused on AI, to help professionals understand these tools together in an environment where informed use may improve the likelihood that Main Street and lower market businesses transfer rather than disappear.”

Rather than focusing on panels or programming as endpoints, GBR’s approach is to bring together professionals in the service of capital, lenders, investors, operators, and advisors, to normalize expectations around information standards and underwriting transparency. The intended downstream effect is a transaction environment in which documentation is cleaner, loan submittals are more viable, and community banks remain flush and competitive, enabling more favorable loan terms locally and regionally. In doing so, local stakeholders gain both an informational and positional advantage, reducing the frequency of failed transactions that remove productive assets from the economy.

GBR’s year-launch gathering will convene leaders spanning public policy, finance, technology, and capital formation. Participants include Tan Parker, Texas State Senator for District 12, whose legislative work has focused on economic vitality and governance reform; John Nichols, Innovation Technical Lead for AI & Innovation within Ernst & Young’s Government & Public Sector practice; and Chase Friedman, Managing Partner at Alpine Anchor, an AI automation firm focused on operational scaling for small and mid-sized enterprises.

The program also includes civic and financial leadership, with Gilbert Little, Private Banker at First Horizon Bank, serving as invocation leader, and Dr. Andrea Sasha Ortiz, international award-winning clinical psychologist and Miss World International 2024, leading the U.S. and Texas pledges for attendees. Together, these contributors add a spirit of patriotism and purpose, which represent the cross-institutional perspectives required to address modernization, underwriting transparency, and ownership transition in Main Street and lower middle-market environments.

How AI Is Quietly Reshaping Main Street Business Transitions

Photo Courtesy: God Bless Retirement – a promotion of their January 2025 professional gathering on AI

Professional gatherings that bring private capital together may help accelerate deal flow and technological adoption. Such gatherings are catalyzed by a bigger mission. For example, in addition to convening capital professionals, God Bless Retirement formally aligns its events with nonprofit organizations supporting veterans and military families. Partner organizations include the Special Forces Foundation, which provides mental health, transition, and family support services for U.S. Army Special Forces personnel and Gold Star families, as well as Roll Call, Halo for Freedom, Cloud Dancer Foundation, and Undaunted.

GBR also recognizes veteran community leadership through individuals such as Alexia Tuttle, Managing Partner at Tuttle Equity, whose work focuses on connecting veteran-led enterprises with capital networks. These partnerships reflect a broader view of economic stewardship, one that links ownership transition, institutional continuity, and service to those who have supported the country’s civic and financial infrastructure.

By pairing stewardship values with incremental technological adoption, GBR shows how brokerage firms can reinforce, rather than replace, relationship-driven finance. This work emphasizes market conditioning, aligning participants for an orderly transfer of ownership at a time when the country’s economic structure benefits from continuity and stability. As GBR’s Associate Broker, Blake Oliver, says, “Technological advancement is inevitable, and so it’s no surprise our strongest strategic partners are getting deals done to dignify proprietors who are liquidating, as well as buyers aiming to strengthen their vertical or assume a new cash flow entity. And the ones doing it best are those who are intentional adopters of AI functions.” 

Contact God Bless Retirement:

References

  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (2024). FDIC Small Business Lending Survey: Findings and Observations. FDIC. https://www.fdic.gov/publications/2024-report-small-business-lending-survey
  • Finance & Commerce. (2025, July 22). Economic shifts create challenges for aging entrepreneurs. Finance & Commerce.
  • Government Accountability Office. (2025). Artificial Intelligence: Federal Agencies’ Use of Generative AI and Early Management Approaches (GAO-25-107653). U.S. Government Accountability Office. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107653
  • Project Equity. (2025, March 14). Business owner demographics and exit exposure in the United States. Project Equity.

 

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only. The content is not intended to serve as professional advice and should not be relied upon as such. Readers are encouraged to seek professional guidance for their specific circumstances.