Particularly When Valuing Companies with Substantial Foreign Operations, Business Valuation Analysts Know That Country-Specific Input Is Critical  David Foster at BVWire News reports that in additional to his general data update for 2013, Prof. Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern School of Business) provides a list of country default spreads and risk premiums.  Here's the professor's assessment: ...

Businesses Incur Expenses In Order to Generate Sales. Understanding How These Different Variables Relate to Each Other is Important. Here are Some Tips. Often experts present opinions based on statistical analysis. It helps to understand some basic statistical tools.  Dave Sutherland discusses some tools used to test for relationships that may exist among data sets, such as sales, marketing, cost of goods s ...

Plus: Rulings on Family Business Share Value in Oklahoma, Expert Witnessing in New Hampshire The California Appeals Court rules on whether a vineyard’s expectations for future profits for land taken in eminent domain proceedings was a reasonable extrapolation in The People v. Dry Canyon Enterprises, LLC.  Click for more state case law on non-competition agreements, expert witnessing, and family business sha ...

Difficulties Sometimes Complicate a Valuation Engagement. Here’s How to Anticipate and Derail Potential Disasters With Solid, Upfront Client Conversations Conversations with clients, both current and prospective, are critically important to ensure both owner and appraiser are in agreement about what standards will be used to produce the final report, how long the process will take, and what it will ultimate ...

Buyers and Sellers Need to Negotiate Delivery Targets for Working Capital and Agree on a Fair Market Value for Fixed Assets. Valuation principles generally hold that the value of a business is largely a function of return on invested capital and growth, writes Ron Stacey, since these are the primary drivers of free cash flow. But how does this cash flow relate to the asset and liability values on the balanc ...

A Petitioner Relies Reasonably on His CPA in Gaggero v. Commissioner, the Tax Court Finds. That Makes a Difference: Here’s Why. In Gaggero v. Commissioner, Judge Holmes at the U.S. Tax Court disagrees with the IRS’s contention that the plaintiff conducted an improper scheme to avoid capital gains.  In First Street Holdings NV, LLC v. MS Mission Holdings, LLC, Judge Markell at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court finds ...

Net Cash Flow is Often the Most Significant Single Factor in a Financial Condition Analysis A financial expert in an arson case answers four questions: What changes occurred in financial condition prior to the date of the fire? What was the financial condition at the date of the fire? What was the future financial picture if there had not been a fire? Was there a potential financial benefit from the fire?  ...

Investors Looked Favorably Upon Insurance Underwriters in 2012:  The Industry Index Did Better than the S&P.  Will Momentum Continue? Mercer Capital provides the insurance industry with corporate valuation, financial reporting, transaction advisory, and related services.   Download Mercer's Fourth Quarter 2012 summary here.  More: Investors looked favorably upon insurance underwriters in 2012, driving t ...

Case Involved $6M in Gift Tax and $5M in Estate Tax; Interest in General Partnership Sold for Private Annuity; Much Planning at the End of 2012 Bruce Givner at Financial Planning reports that U.S. Tax Court Judge Elizabeth Paris handed the taxpayers a victory last Thursday [2/14/2013]  involving a powerful estate tax planning tool: private annuities.   The case, Estate of Kite v. Commissioner, is important, ...

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Using Online Software Services Can Help Small Businesses Cut Costs. But Companies in Idaho are Discovering It Can Also Increase Their Tax Bills.   Steven D. Jones at the Wall Street Journal reports: ...

A Solid Checklist to Help Businesses Deal with the Immediate Hours after Discovery of Fraud The discovery of fraud within a company can be extremely unnerving and can introduce a certain amount of panic in business owners and accounting professionals. Here’s a checklist of things you should be sure to do—from contacting law enforcement and insurers to preserving evidence and communicating with employees. ...

There Are All Kinds of Different Standards to Consider In Sophisticated Valuations. Here are Some Tips. Control premiums are difficult to calculate.  Why?  Because there are so many variables. You may need to adjust earnings to reflect a control value (i.e., restating owner’s compensation and adjusting discretionary expenses). But wait: There’s more!  There are minority earnings. And a variety of people to ...

Arbitration Panels Don’t Know Everything a Financial Expert Does. But That Doesn’t Mean You Should Even Consider Talking Down to Them. Arbitration is somewhat similar to a bench trial, but experts need to present opinions somewhat differently than if they were testifying in a jury trial—and this is particularly true with experts testifying on financial issues such as economic damages.  Joe Epps explains why ...

Tax Court Judges Structured Trust Advantaged Repackaged Securities” ("STARS") as Illegitimate.  Costs to BNY/Mellon May Exceed $800M. The Internal Revenue Service won a high-profile tax shelter case involving Bank of New York Mellon Corp. on Monday, in a ruling that could cost the company more than $800 million.  John D. McKinnon at the WSJ Washington Wire reports the news: ...

Private Companies and Nonpublic Not-for-Profits are Exempted from a Particular Fair Value Disclosure as a Result of Recent FASB Amendment The Financial Accounting Standards Board responded quickly to concerns voiced in December to issue an amendment clarifying that private companies and nonpublic not-for-profits are exempted from a particular fair value disclosure.  Ken Tysiac at The Journal of Accountancy ...

It's Not Municipal Securities, Consumer Credit, or Commercial Paper:  It's the $17 Trillion Trade Receivables Market   Walter Kurtz at Business Insider writes that it turns out that the biggest financing market is not in corporate bonds or even mortgages. It's trade receivables. According to the Receivables Exchange, $11 trillion of trade receivables is originated by small and mid-size businesses and anothe ...

Watch Out, Wall Street!  The Federal Reserve, a Primary Banking Regulator, is Trying Harder to Spot Speculative Excesses Peter Eavis at The New York Times Dealbook reports: In a speech on Thursday, governor Jeremy C. Stein, who joined the Fed last year, focused on parts of the financial markets that show signs of overheating. He went into considerable detail, citing metrics that appear designed to spot bubb ...

Income/Franchise Changes in Wisconsin,  Sales & Use Exclusion in California, Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Margin Tax Initiative Deloitte State Tax Matters has a new set of updates on state tax law developments and changes. Deloitte's February 8th Issue includes additional detail on some of the cases cited and excerpted below. For more information, visit Deloitte's full State Tax Matters archive here. ...

Troopers Knocked on the Door.  Say They Were Greeted by a Stoned Man Named Clarence Stone. Everyone knows tax season can be an especially stressful time. ...