How to Choose the Right LED Sign for Your Business?

As a business owner or as a soon-to-be businessman you have a lot of decisions to make, but one of the most important and first thing you should decide on is what signs you will install to advertise your business. Your sign is your “face” so to speak and it's how people will find and remember your business. So you better make your signs first impression a good one.

Elements of good signage

When considering signage for your business, you need to think size and placement first since you want people to be able to see your sign. Your municipality  and landlord may have something to say about the size they will allow and where you can install it. The next thing you need to consider is illumination. That is right, illumination . It doesn't matter how massive your sign is and how well-placed it is; if it is not illuminated, customers will not be able to appreciate it in the dark. Even in the daylight they may think you are closed. This is where purchasing a well designed Outdoor LED Business sign comes in.

Outdoor LED Open Sign

The Benefits

There are so many benefits you can get from outdoor LED signs and they include:

• Durable -- Other types of signs including neon and back-lit fluorescent tubes can break during shipping and handling, LED modules are very durable requiring little maintenance.
• Reduce Energy Costs -- LED signs can draw as little as 10% of conventional light sources, reducing wattage usage as well as your carbon footprint.
• No Mercury -- LED are RoHS compliant

• Flexibility -- Because of the smaller size, LEDs can be used in slim sign cabinets providing more flexibly in sign placement.

• Illumination -- Passersby can see your business from a distance day or night making it a focal point in the neighborhood.
• Location Branding -- Bright LED signs getting the message out about your company's location and help customers find your business in a clutter of competing messages.

So you see, purchasing an outdoor LED business is a real boon and one of the smartest business decisions you can make. 

Thanksgiving Holiday 2013

LED Sign Authority will be closed this Thursday and Friday, November 28-29, for the Celebration of the Thanksgiving Holiday. We will resume our regular working hours on Monday, December 2nd, 2013. We appreciate your business!

LED Sign Authority estará cerrada este jueves y viernes, 28 al 29 de noviembre, por la Celebración del Día deAcción de Gracias en Estados Unidos. Volveremos a nuestro horario regular el lunes, 2 de diciembre de 2013. ¡Agradecemos  sus negocios!

Utah Sign Company Owner Killed When Crane Malfunctions

The owner of a Utah sign company was killed Friday morning while working from a cherry picker crane in Bountiful. Richard Gillies, 66, of Gillies Signs & Design Inc., was replacing a sign at an out-of-business Blockbuster store when the truck-mounted crane apparently malfunctioned, according to Assistant Bountiful Police Chief Ed Biehler. 

According to police, Gillies was in the bucket of the crane when the problem occurred. When his son, attempted to maneuver the crane from below, there was an additional malfunction which pressed Gillies up against an overhanging facade and then flung him forward toward the building. He fell from the bucket to the ground 10 to 15 feet below.

Other workers inside the building, which is being turned into a fitness club, performed CPR on the victim until emergency personnel arrived. Gillies was flown to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were investigating the accident, and members of the state medical examiner’s office also were at the scene.

According to his company website, Richard Gillies has been in the sign business for over 35 years. The Gillies family has set up this donation/fund to help offset some of the unexpected medical and funeral expenses.  Your support is greatly appreciated. 

DONATE TO THE GILLIES MEMORIAL FUND    http://fundly.com/richard-gillies-memorial-donations

It's Not Too Late to Benefit from Tax Savings

Most people think the Section 179 deduction is some mysterious or complicated tax code. It really isn't.

Essentially, Section 179 of the IRS tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software purchased or financed during the tax year. That means that if you buy (or lease) a LED Sign, you can deduct the FULL PURCHASE PRICE from your gross income. It's an incentive created by the U.S. government to provide needed tax relief for small businesses. The American Taxpayer Relief Act, reinstated by Congress earlier this year, gives business owners the opportunity to lower their taxable income and free up cash by providing a 50 percent tax deduction on capital expenditures, including LED Displays.

Essentially it works like this. When your business buys certain items of equipment. including an LED display it is typically classified as a capital asset and it gets written off a little at a time through depreciation. In other words, if your company spends $50,000 on a display, it gets to write off (say) $10,000 a year for five years.

Now, while it's true that this is better than no write off at all, most business owners would really prefer to write off the entire equipment purchase price for the year they buy it. In fact, if a business could write off the entire amount, they might add more equipment this year instead of waiting over the next few years.

That's the whole purpose behind Section 179 - to stimulate the American economy (and your business) to move in a positive direction. For most small businesses (adding total equipment, software, and vehicles totaling less than $500,000 in 2013), the entire cost can be written-off on the 2013 tax return.

Section 179 does come with limits - there are caps to the total amount written off ($500,000 in 2013),  with a graduated phase-out once qualified capital expenditures exceed $2 million in the 2013 tax year. To qualify for tax savings, the equipment must be placed in service between Dec. 31, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2014. Because this tax benefit includes both the purchase price and the cost of installation of the LED Displays, business owners need to act fast to ensure their LED sign can be installed by the Dec. 31st deadline. When factoring in manufacturing lead times, if you want to take advantage of this benefit this year, you need to act now.

As always, please be sure to consult with your tax professional before making any capital purchases or visit the Internal Revenue Service web site at www.irs.gov.