Six Days of Package Delivery and Five Days of Mail. Does This Mean Stamp Prices Will Go Down by 16¢? Michael Cohn at Accounting Today reports that the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday that it will end Saturday delivery of letters starting in August, but will continue to deliver packages, in an effort to cut costs. More: The Postal Service expects to generate cost savings of approximately $2 billion annually once the plan for five-day mail delivery and six-day package delivery is fully implemented. The move could have an impact on accountants and their clients who need to receive…
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The IRS Has a Nationwide Organization of Approximately 2,000 Taxpayer Advocates to Help U.S. Individual and Business Taxpayers Resolve Problems. Here’s How It Can Help Advisors and Your Clients. Nina E. Olson is the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate. Since 2001, she has led the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), a nationwide organization of approximately 2,000 taxpayer advocates who help U.S. individual and business taxpayers resolve problems and work with the IRS to correct systemic and procedural problems. In this capacity, she reports to Congress annually on the most serious problems taxpayers face in dealing with the IRS and proposes solutions.…
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Few Business Owners Seem to Even Know How to Make a Good Guess at What Their Business is Worth. NY Times Introduces Technology to Help—and Certified Advisers Provide Extra Value. Mark Cohen, at The New York Times Small Business Guide, reports: “At 53, Joe Ritz is old enough to remember a time when many of the classic cars that now pull into his specialized repair shop were new. “It’s one field where it pays to be a senior citizen,” he said. It’s Critical for a Business Owner to Know the Value of His Business; Here are Tips on Technology, Advisors,…
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Aswath Damodaran, NYU’s Legendary Valuation Expert, Recently Argues that there’s a 90% Chance Apple is Undervalued. Here’s Why. This comes in the wake of Apple shares’ breathtaking plunge from recent highs. (That’s be about $700 in September to $425 or so today.) In a new blog post, Sam Ro at Business Insider reports that Damodaran thinks that management can learn a few things from the recent market volatility, and he offers some advice. Here are his four tips verbatim (emphasis courtesy of Business Insider’s Sam Ro: Build up credibility with investors: The company has to regain credibility with investors. Apple…
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Fed Buying Is Having Profound Implications. Bond Vigilantes Have Been Selling Heavily and May Continue. That Means We Still We Won’t See Much of an Impact on Interest Rates. Paul Santos at Seeking Alpha claims you don’t need to worry about the bond vigilantes anymore. I, personally, have always been a big fan, and think they will return. But hey: This is Mr. Santos’ opinion piece, not mine, so I’ll let him cut to the chase. Santos doesn’t claim they’re in hiding. He simply claims they’re gone. Santos asks: “So when did the mass killings take place in the U.S.?…
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Annie Cushing is on a Mission to Rid the World of Ugly Data. Learn About Data Collection, Analytics, Technical SEO, Analysis, and Beautification. Annie Cushing, a Senior SEO at SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based online marketing agency, explains that “There comes a time in a marketer’s life when making pretty charts with a predefined dataset just doesn’t cut it. “And finding the sum and average of a column of data just doesn’t satisfy you anymore. Eventually — and it’s really inevitable — you will actually have to dive deep into the data and cull out a smaller dataset or manipulate it…
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Exchange Would Make it Easier for Companies to Go Public in the U.S. But Would be Limited to Experienced Investors Dave Michaels at Bloomberg reports that a Securities and Exchange Commission panel suggested that an exchange limited to small businesses should be created. The exchange would make it easier for companies to go public in the U.S. but would be limited to experienced investors better able to assess the risks involved with lower disclosure hurdles. The Panel said the exchange should be limited to sophisticated investors, which it didn’t define. More:
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Obama’s New Vision: No Further Increases in Tax Rates; Instead Focus on Eliminating Loopholes and Deductions And just last week all the pundits were saying any sort of serious budget deal was dead. Now, The New York Times, CBS News, and Washington Post/Associated Press report that president Barack Obama said future deals with Congress on the U.S. budget could set aside the option of raising tax rates and, instead, focus on eliminating tax loopholes and deductions to reduce the deficit. “I don’t think the issue right now is raising rates,” Obama said. Instead, a focus might be on mortgage interest…
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Stakeholders Discuss Greater Institutional Investor Makeup, Governance Structures, Greater Regulatory Scrutiny Deloitte Insights contributes a piece to the CFO Journal on the Wall Street Journal site, part of a series designed to provide financial executives a customized resource to help them address the strategic, operational and regulatory issues they face in managing their finance organizations and careers, with top-line digests, research, perspectives and technical analyses. This Deloitte Insight reports on the Third Annual Hedge Fund Symposium Series held in New York recently. There, Joseph Fisher, who leads the Hedge Fund Audit practice for Deloitte & Touche LLP in New York, commented on how…
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Firms Need to Update Technology, Use Social Media, and Hire Younger Advisors, Says Tom Nally of TD Ameritrade Institutional Rachel F. Elson at reports at Financial Planning: Advisory firms need to start hiring young financial advisers to attract and keep the business of Generation X and Y investors, who will have accumulated $28 trillion of personal wealth by 2018, up from $2 trillion in 2011, said Tom Nally, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional. A recent survey showed that, if given the chance, 86% of young investors would fire their parents’ financial adviser, he said. More:
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External Attacks, Data Loss are Top Concerns Jeffrey Roman at Government Industry Security interviews Forensics expert Rob Lee who says its not new types of attacks that concern him. It’s the old ones that continue to impact organizations. How can organizations learn from past incidents and respond in 2013? The bulk of the cases he investigates are external breaches, not insider cases, says Lee, a seasoned forensics professional and curriculum lead and author for digital forensic and incident response training at the SANS Institute. When analyzing the incidents and reporting back to technical teams or executives, he’s often faced with the question, “How do…
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Cash Flow is the Most Important Financial Item for a Small Business Owners to Pay Attention To. Here’s How to Speed it Up. Cash flow–how cash flows through your organization from sale to invoice to receipt–is the lifeblood of a small company, writes Eric V. Holtzclaw at Inc.com. And speeding up your cash flow allows you to do more and gives your company more stability. Here are seven tips:
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Accounting Isn’t Just a Necessary Evil; Sometimes the Methods Can be Used as a Key Part of Your Business Strategy Jeff Haden at Inc. answers a question from a reader who wonders if it matters what inventory accounting method she uses. It does! Here’s some explanation, and specific advice:
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Tighter Regulations Leave Less Room for Error When Computing and Disclosing How Much Mortgages Cost. John Adams at American Banker reports that Ernst Publishing, not related to the accounting company, sells technology and closing cost data to mortgage market players. Its clients include nine of the largest ten originators and servicers and the largest five title insurance companies. And it has now received a U.S. patent for its recording fee and tax calculator, called “System and Method for Generating and Tracking Field Values of Mortgage Forms.” Read the whole thing here. More:
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Many Business Buyers Probably Have Some Boilerplate Questions Ready to Ask Business Sellers — But May be Missing the Most Important Ones. Mike Handelsman, group general manager for BizBuySell.com and BizQuest.com, the Internet’s largest and most heavily trafficked business-for-sale marketplaces, recently advised readers at Inc.com that if they’re thinking about buying a business, they should put extra effort into preparation. More:
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Details Found in IRS Explanation Issued Wednesday; $20,000 Figure Based on a Family of Four. In a final regulation issued Wednesday, January 30, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The news was reported by Huffington Post, CNS News, Catholic News, Investment Watch, Economonitor, Naked Capitalism, Investor Village, and more. The Journal of Accountancy offered detailed analysis of the new regulations, and NPR weighed in…
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“You’re The Boss” Author Josh Patrick Suggests Business Owners Use Credentialed Advisers Who Work Only for You, Employing Intermediaries, Developing a Personal Financial Plan, More. Josh Patrick is a founder and principal at Stage 2 Planning Partners, where he works with private business owners on creating personal and business value. Recently he offered some recommendations about selling a business at the New York Times “You’re the Boss” blog. Here are five of the “hard-earned” lessons he passes on.
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On Marketing Mistakes Generally, Bad Marketing Messages in Particular, Social Networking, and More Geoffrey James at Inc.com writes: “A few months ago, I traded emails with best-selling author Seth Godin on the subject of marketing inside small businesses. The more I read over the interview, the more I realize that his advice is priceless.” Here’s an excerpt of the interview. Read the whole piece for the rest of Seth Godin’s answers to Geoffrey.
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MidasFund Will Not Acquire Distressed Companies; However, it Will Buy Stable Divisions of Bankrupt Companies. Here’s Why. “Last week’s announcement that MidasFund had started acquiring zombie companies caused a flurry of emails,” writes Rob Slee on the MidasMoments blog of the MidasNation site. “Many of you asked about the differences between acquiring distressed, zombie and healthy companies. Let’s dig into this.” Here’s an excerpt:
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Jewels from Seth Godin, Harvey Mackay, Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and Others on Success, Vision, Health, and More This set of inspirational thoughts for the new year will galvanize you into action. “At the start of every year,” writes Geoffrey James, Sales Source columnist at Inc.com, “I create a list of quotes to guide and inspire me for the next 12 months. Here are the quotes I’ve selected for 2013.” Here are his first six. Read the full piece to find the others and see other Geoffrey James’ columns.