Take Up an Informed Contrarian View to Disrupt the Business Valuation Profession What frustrates you about our industry? Do you think your prospects, clients, and referral sources might feel the same way? What if you took a stand? What if you stood out by promising something different than the standard operating procedures your competitors follow? What frustrates you about our industry? There must be something you don’t like about why or how we do what we do. Do you think your prospects, clients, and referral sources might feel the same way? What if you took a stand? What if you…
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How does the current performance of U.S. stocks compare to the long-run historic average? Since the stock market is essentially a vote by millions of investors on future cash flows of companies, growing faster than average would indicate that, at least on this dimension, Trump is delivering on his promise to “make America great again.” (American companies, that is.) To read the full article in FinancialPlanning, click: Trump vs. Obama: Who Had Best 1st Year Stock Market Gains?
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In an age of rapid technological change, the traditional corporate R&D process just won’t cut it. Bureaucracy and slow decision making are impediments to a company’s ability to innovate and the speed of execution. As younger companies like Tesla are surpassing incumbents in their industries, the established players need to change to keep up. Megan Richards, financial analyst with Mercer Capital, explores this topic. To read the full article in Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Blog, click: Corporate Venture Capital Trends. This article is republished from Mercer Capital’s Financial Reporting Blog. It is reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the blog,…
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Despite all the talk about new changes underway now that Republicans will assume control of Congress and governorships in 31 states, much of the current tax issues will look the same in 2015 as they did in 2014, according to Forbes. Below is a snapshot of the top nine tax stories to watch in 2015: Business Taxes. Will 2015 be the year of business tax reform? Probably not, according to Forbes, as the Affordable Care Act and battles over spending will continue to swallow up lawmakers’ focus and time this coming year. Dynamic Scoring. GOP leaders have introduced rule changes…
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The IRS has released the annual inflation adjustments for a number of provisions for tax year 2015, including tax rate schedules, tax tables, and cost of living adjustments for some items. In total, the IRS posted more than 40 updates. You can read them in full here. You can also find an excellent overview of all the changes at Forbes.com through the link below. [button color=”blue” link=”http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/10/30/irs-announces-2015-tax-brackets-standard-deduction-amounts-and-more/” target=”_blank” font=”arial” align=”left”]Read More[/button]
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When it was announced in August that fast food giant Burger King had purchased Tim Horton’s, a Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, for $8.4 billion and was moving its headquarters from the U.S. to Canada, it surprised some, but shocked no one. What it did do was irritate lots of people in Congress. Some called the plan of America’s second-largest fast food chain to move out of the country unpatriotic, but beneath all the bluster, the outrage was all about lost tax revenue. The idea of a national corporation moving its main offices out of the country isn’t new,…
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It was a shock to most people when the news hit that actor and comedian, Robin Williams, had suddenly passed away earlier this month at the age of 63. While most were aware of Mr. Williams’ hard-won 20-year sobriety milestone, what they didn’t know was the financial struggle he was facing in recent years. Forbes.com takes a respectful and detailed look at the estate planning of Mr. Williams, and shows how taking the right steps early on can secure the future of loved ones, even in the face of financial hardship and unexpected sudden loss. [button color=”blue” link=”http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialandheirs/2014/08/12/whats-next-for-robin-williams-family-and-estate/” target=”_blank”…
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In a windfall for the IRS, 77,000 foreign banks have turned over data on American account holders as part of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The U.S. devised tax law with global reach requires all foreign banks to submit full data on all American accounts with a balance of $50,000 or more. Financial institutions that are non-compliant risk being frozen out of U.S. markets and a 30 percent withholding tax on any activity taken by the bank, and even its customers. While FATCA was billed as an effort to expose overseas tax cheats, many honest Americans and…
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Believe it or not, Hawaii’s top marginal tax rate is 367,100 percent. That makes France’s 75 percent and 100 percent tax rates seem like a downright bargain. A new paper released by the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Texas Tech University and The Institute for Business and Finance Research details how state tax laws in Hawaii create a tax cliff of epic proportions where a single extra dollar in income can trigger marginal tax rates that are nothing short of income confiscation. The paper titled, Marginal Tax Rates Around the Hawaii Itemized Deduction Cliff, details how a single dollar that…
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After the media gaffe that disgraced LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, the mogul was fined $2.5 million by the NBA. There’s a misconception that he’s being required to sell the team as part of his lifetime ban from the sport, but that’s not actually true. NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, is asking the NBA Board of Governors to force Sterling to sell, which requires three quarters of the league’s owners to sign on. Common sense would ask that if Sterling has been banned from the league for life, how is it possible to own and operate a team within it? Wouldn’t…
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Comcast recently filed its public interest statement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explaining how the American public will benefit from its $45 billion planned merger with Time Warner Cable. Comcast claims the merger is necessary because it can’t compete with the likes of Google, Apple, Verizon and Netflix–companies with a national footprint. On the flipside, over 50 public interest groups, including MoveOn.org and Daily Kos, have signed a petition stating that a merger would give Comcast unprecedented power to raise broadband rates for a significant portion of the country and gatekeeper power over too much commercial and private activity.…
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With Colorado and Washington state legalizing casual use of marijuana, more states considering it and 20 allowing medicinal usage, at least 60 publicly traded entities have scrambled to cash in by offering pot penny stocks. Virtually none emerged through an IPO to avoid disclosure scrutiny. Real estate, marketing and even oil outfits have gotten into the game, either through reverse mergers or declaring a new line of business. Forbes magazine interviews Michael Mona, Jr., CEO of CannaVest, one of the biggest winners at the top of the pot stock bubble. The company surged 1,260 percent in 2013, the year it…
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With the kickoff of the new football season, Forbes has once again, released its much anticipated valuation list of Most Valuable NFL Teams. How the numbers stack up gives a very interesting view inside the most valuable professional sports league on earth. According to the Forbes data as reported by Pressboxonline.com, the average NFL team increased in value by 5 percent. Interestingly, winning the Super Bowl only adds about an additional 1 percent to a team’s value. This is largely due to the operating structure of the NFL, the variance of national revenues and the sometimes limited revenue from local…
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U.S. Patent Law Changes from “First to Invent” to “First to File” Standard. Plus: New Discount on Filing Fees for Small Businesses and Inventors This spring, patent law in the United States moved from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system. The new law—called the America Invents Act (AIA)—puts the U.S. in harmony with most patent systems around the world, but it’s also a big change for inventors and other patent holders. You may have heard about the law before: It passed last fall. But it only went into effect in March. Here’s RocketLawyer on the new set of…
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Increased Transparency, More Automation, and More Access to Capital Rod Ebrahimi, a columnist for the Entrepreneurs section of Forbes, writes that “Thousands of miles away from Wall Street, some David-sized companies in Silicon Valley are cultivating new trends that will change people’s relationship with money.”
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Six Out of 10 Small-Business Owners Buy Business Benefits of Social Media; 41% Prefer LinkedIn; Only 3% Vouch for Twitter Not that that stopped Twitter from getting a $9B valuation this last week. Emily Maltby and Shira Ovide report that the Wall Street Journal and Vistage International recently surveyed 835 small business owners. Here are the results.
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Plus: A Black Box that Performs Business Valuations for Privately Held Companies? The Scenario Might Not Be as Far-Fetched as You Think Not too long ago I had lunch w/a senior valuation guy, someone who’s made his living in the field for some 30 years, and was there almost from the first days The National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA) was formed and Shannon Pratt began publishing his first books. His thesis? On the horizon are electrical cars that drive themselves; computers that calculate things in miliseconds that third graders used to be taught to manually construct…
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2013 California Filings: Aetna: 22 percent. Anthem Blue Cross: 26 percent. Blue Shield of California: 20 percent. Reed Abelson at the New York Times reported last week that health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers. More:
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There’s good news and bad news. Here’s the low-down. Dean Zerbe offers his take at Forbes on how the current deal will affect small-business owners:
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Disaster Area Declarations Have a Lot of Tax Implications. Learn Specifics. Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, may provide certain tax opportunities and insurance recovery situations that business owners and individuals should be aware of. Howard A. Lewis, MS, ABAR, AVA, and Former IRS Program Manager for Valuation Service offers insight: