Watch Out for Decreases in Communication, Respect, and Aspiration; Increases in Isolation, Negativity, Rifts. Good News? It Can Be Cured. Rosabeth Moss Kantor asks on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network: How do you know a team, company, or country is on the slippery slope of decline and needs a culture shift? She writes that she found nine universal warning signs of change-in-the-wrong direction in research for my book Confidence, which compared downward spirals with the momentum of success. Watching out for these behaviors is the first step toward building better habits:
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Deal Activity Will Likely See a Surge in 2013 if a Meaningful Deficit-Reduction Compromise Can Be Reached Wallace Witkowski at Marketwatch reported in mid-December that deal activity will likely see a surge in 2013 if a meaningful deficit-reduction compromise can be reached. Otherwise the market will remain stunted as it was in the past year. Democrats and Republicans didn’t come to a full agreement by year end, or even early January, but the fact that it’s still possible within weeks and months allows his prediction to stand:
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The Tax Court Speaks Loudly and Firmly on the Responsibilities of Business Appraisers Hempstead & Co. has published “Estate of Gallagher is a Valuation Tutorial.” The article emphasizes the importance of providing the court with a clear and convincing explanation of the assumptions and arguments you have employed in carrying out a business appraisal. It discusses the recent Tax Court Memorandum opinion in the Estate of Gallagher v. Commissioner, (TC Memo. 2011-148). The court’s valuation was closest to the value on the return as filed.
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The United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday struck down the IRS’s registered tax return preparer program and enjoined it from enforcing the regulations Alistair M. Nevius at the Journal of Accountancy reports that a federal district court has struck down the Internal Revenue Service’s registered tax return preparer program as exceeding the IRS’ statutory authority. The court granted summary judgment to three tax return preparers who had sued, claiming they would lose revenue and perhaps be forced out of business by the rules. The court enjoined the IRS from enforcing the regulations:
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Some Schools Cut Hours of Hard-Pressed Adjuncts to Avoid Rules on Insurance Mark Peters and Douglas Belkin at the Wall Street Journal report that the federal health-care overhaul is prompting some colleges and universities to cut the hours of adjunct professors, renewing a debate about the pay and benefits of these freelance instructors who handle a significant share of teaching at U.S. higher-education institutions:
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SSRN Journal of Wills, Trusts, & Estates Law — Top 10 Papers Downloaded Nov-January Include Pieces on Valuation Discounting, Tax-Deductible Conservation Easements, and More The Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog reports the top downloads from November 21, 2012 to January 20, 2013 from the SSRN Journal of Wills, Trusts, & Estates Law for all papers announced in the last 60 days. Here are the top four. Visit the blog to see the rest.
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Sweet Tax Deductions for Individuals That Often Get Forgotten With October 15 behind us and April 15 still comfortably far away, it’s a good time to start boning up on ways to save your clients money once things start getting serious. With that in mind, Bankrate.com identified 10 great deductions that individual taxpayers should use – but often forget. Accounting Today passes on the good news. Here’s the list:
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Rule Will Require a Second Appraisal in Situations Where a Home is Being Flipped for a Quick, Higher Resale A new rule passed Jan. 15 gives mortgage lenders an additional year to institute appraisal standards for higher-risk loans, Bloomberg reported, and Appraiser News Online highlighted. The extension is one of the revisions that regulators made to the Dodd-Frank Act to address concerns from financial firms. Appraiser News Online explains that:
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Ahead of the new health-care law, small firms worry about crossing the crucial 50-person threshold — and about rising premium rates Emily Maltby at the WSJ Law blog reports on increasing concerns about the forthcoming healthcare laws among small business owners. This seems to be a prominent issue and concern among small business owners, and has been noted in most every major media outlet in recent weeks, from the New York Times to Forbes, CNN, US News & World Report, FoxNews, The Economist, The Hill, the Washington Post, and more:
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Here are four surprising ways to protect yourself in a law suit and keep legal fees to a minimum. Kevin Daum at Inc. advises: “Shakespeare said, “First kill all the lawyers.” Maybe this seems a tad aggressive, but then again, for most people the last thing you look forward to is someone showing up at your door with a subpoena. Whether a lawsuit is business related or personal, the thought of engaging an attorney for protracted litigation can strike fear into a person’s heart.” Not only is there emotion and argument to contend with, but the sheer agony of…
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Some Stakeholders Suggest Improvements to Segment Reporting Information A 1996 accounting standard established to improve the way public companies report financial information about their business segments generally achieves that purpose, although some stakeholders suggest improvements. That was the overall conclusion of the post-implementation review (PIR) of Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Statement No. 131, Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information (codified in Accounting Standards Codification Topic 280, Segment Reporting). The PIR process was established by the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) in 2010. The Financial Accounting Foundation elaborates:
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Qualifying Offices Can Deduct Up to $1,500 Per Year Michael Cohn at Accounting Today reports that The Internal Revenue Service plans to introduce a simplified way for small business owners and home-based employees to claim the home office tax deduction.
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Beyond The Fiscal Cliff: Details to Act On Gail Perry at Accounting Web introduces a set of articles on the effect of the “fiscal cliff.” A first article – New Tax Law Emerges Beyond the Fiscal Cliff – provides an overview of the key tax provisions that will affect your individual and business clients. It’s followed by coverage of how the new law will impact federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax exemption limits. Today’s workplace fitness exercise encourages you to get out of your chair for a quick, low-impact pick-me-up! nature of such cooperation uncertain, the heads of the U.S. and international accounting standards setters said…
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Consider Lifetime Client Value, Cost of Client Acquisition, and Retention Rate Is your CPA firm making the most of current relationships and doing all it can to expand into new ones? While there are many metrics CPA firms use to evaluate quantitative performance, AICPA Insights suggests 12 metrics than can provide more qualitative feedback. These metrics can help CPA firms measure their reach with clients and provide insight into how well processes already in place are helping to identify opportunities with clients.
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Engage Employees with Teamwork and Consensus; Look Beyond Your Own Industry, and Execute Carefully In a recent issue of the Financial Planning Association’s Practice Management Solutions, Paul R. Brown identifies important factors successful business owners pay careful attention to when managing substantial change in their organizations successfully. Here’s what to pay attention to.
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The U.S. Must Cut $800 or $900 billion From Our Annual Government Spending to Maintain Mid-term Economic Solvency. And That’s Just the Beginning. Flooding the system with trillions of dollars and deficits has bought the U.S. economic stagnation, writes Rob Slee in an August 20, 2012 post at MidasNation. “What a lost opportunity. One thing we learned in MidasNation over the past few years is that when owners ignore the exponentially changing market and put their heads even deeper in the sand, only bad things result. Further, incremental actions will not change the equation for the better either.…
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In 2009 Duff & Phelps and the Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF) first published the results of their comprehensive Goodwill Impairment Study. The 2009 Study examined U.S. publicly-traded companies’ recognition of goodwill impairment at the height of the financial crisis (the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009), and featured a comparative analysis of the goodwill impairments for over 5,000 companies (by industry), as well as the findings of a survey of FEI members.
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The Richest and Most Comprehensive Comparables: IBA Data, 24/7. Log On Today. Business valuation has often been called an art, not a science. Revenue multiples are one key method; another is the use of comparables. Many valuators use both. KeyValueData offers NACVA members access to the IBA comparables, which are the richest and most comprehensive set of comparable available in the valuation world. Here’s an overview of the why comparables help—and what you’ll find in the IBA data set.
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Did you see the news? NACVA has partnered with the American Institute of Expert Witnesses (AIEWE), the organization dedicated to training and mentoring professionals in the art of delivering effective courtroom testimony, withstanding grueling cross-examination, and communicating persuasively to judges and juries. AIEWE courses will be offered through the Consultants’ Training Institute (CTI), NACVA’s training affiliate. NACVA has offered Expert Witness Bootcamps for more than five years, but AIEWE emerges this year as its own institution with a specific mandate to serve a broad base of business beyond financial consulting. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re defending a business valuation, challenging…