The Supreme Court Has Long Distinguished the Taxing Power from the Regulatory Power Paul Moreno, professor of history at Hillsdale College, details the history on the Wall Street Journal opinion page: The first enumerated power that the Constitution grants to Congress is the “power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” The text indicates that the taxing power is not plenary, but can be used only for defined ends and objects—since a comma, not a semicolon, separated the clauses on means…
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Are Deficiencies More Common? Or is it Simply that PCAOB Now Successfully Targets Audit Areas Prone to Problems? Emily Chasan at the Wall Street Jurnal’s CFO Report delivers the news that The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has been catching an increased number of audit errors around fair value measurement this year, says PCAOB member Lewis Ferguson. He notes that audit regulators around the world have been finding issues with fair value measurement as well as auditor independence and going concern opinions.
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Jon Hilsenrath at the WSJ’s Real Time Economics blog captures some interesting tidbits from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke‘s testimony which go beyond the big question of whether the Fed will try to ease financial conditions again:
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Jennifer Smith at the WSJ Law Blog reports that A U.S. district court ruling on who can claim profits from a defunct law firm’s unfinished cases could mean trouble for firms who take on partners from the ailing New York firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP:
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Competitive Intelligence is Key to Smart Acquisitions Part of growth is acquisition. To do smart acquisitions, you need insight into a business owner’s thoughts—specifically, her concerns vis-à-vis selling the businesses. These are not questions with simple yes or no answers; it’s more critical to figure out what an owner thought was missing in previous acquisition overtures. What, aside from price, will it take an owner to sit down and discuss a sale? The McLean Groups’s Zane Markowitz offers a case study and blow-by-blow analysis.
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This is increasingly a point of concern, writes Molly Williams at the Wall Street Journal’s Small Business Blog. Business owners can eliminate the possibility legal chaos on this front by ensuring Web accounts are in their business’ name, rather than their own. And it’s probably not a good idea to include account numbers and passwords in wills and trusts because those can become public documents. A few states have passed specific estate laws addressing the issue: As small businesses move more operations online, there’s an unpleasant question they need to ask: What happens if the one person who has…
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U.S. banks are awash with money from depositors, reports David Reilly in Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street, while demand for loans lags behind. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s banking profile shows that net loans amounted to 70% of deposits in the first quarter, the lowest figure since 1984. As far as problems go, this isn’t the worst to have. Deposit money is still washing over U.S. banks even as loan growth continues to prove elusive. The result: Net loans equaled just 70% of total deposits in the first quarter, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s quarterly banking…
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New private company council includes FASB, but in reduced role, The Journal of Accountancy explains. “This announcement is excellent news for small businesses that have been concerned about the future of US GAAP particularly in relation to an international move toward IFRS,” adds Editor Gail Perry at AccountingWeb. Emily Chasan at the Wall Street Journal reports: The Financial Accounting Foundation’s Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to establish a new Private Company Council that will create exceptions and modifications to U.S. accounting rules as they apply to private companies. The board, which oversees the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board, said…
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The U.S. likely will fall back into recession if scheduled spending cuts take effect and Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire this year, the Congressional Budget Office said. If the U.S. falls off this “fiscal cliff,” the economy will probably contract 1.3% in the first half of 2013, the CBO said. CNN Financial Times / Alphaville New York Times NPR Reuters USA Today Wall Street Journal Yahoo! Finance Is there an upside? Depends if you like disco. Styx’s Tommy Shaw: “Around ’75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper…
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The Wall Street Journal’s Small Business Blog featured recently a guest column by Antone Johnson on the use, misuse, and misvaluation of intellectual property. It’s probably of interest to valuators and financial consultants who are working with small business owners to value and growth their businesses. Venture capitalists, angel investors and start-up lawyers these days tend to be obsessed with “intellectual property,” or IP. And for good reason: In the information economy, the core assets of a new venture are likely to be talented people, the IP they create, and little else. To maximize future value, founders should…
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You’ve probably already read this story—Facebook Co-Founder Renounces U.S. Citizenship in Advance of IPO, Saving Millions in U.S. Taxes —heard about it on the radio, or seen it on TV. But Paul L. Caron of The TaxProf Blog has done a remarkable job of aggregating all the media responses to the story from about 20+ outlets, and linking to previous posts this week on the developing story. On Thursday: Bloomberg: Schumer Proposes Tax on People Like Facebook’s Saverin: U.S. Senator Charles Schumer proposed legislation that would impose a 30% capital gains tax on people like Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin unless…
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The most highly anticipated IPO in history didn’t put on much of a show. Facebook closed today within decimal points of its opening price of $38. Even so, the company’s market cap is higher than McDonald’s or Pepsico. Espen Robak is the president of Pluris Valuation Advisors, where he studies and values private companies trading on the secondary market. Derek Thompson at The Atlantic talked to him this morning right as Facebook trading began. One of Robak’s first points was “The people who bought in the secondary market came in right around $44. Those shares are locked for 180…
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When ‘Friending’ Becomes a Source of Start-Up Funds Social networking is pretty good for keeping abreast of far-flung friends. Could it work for entrepreneurs looking for investors? That’s the question Sarah E. Needleman and Angus Loten pose over at the Wall Street Journal Small Business blog. Critics say the idea is dangerous for investors, and even dicey for the entrepreneurs. Yet, it is gaining traction with small-business owners from the Bay Area to New York, who say they eagerly await an opportunity to sell stakes in their businesses through social networking—a process known as crowd funding. The House Financial Services committee last week…
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Which States are Poised for Job Growth? As the U.S. jobs market digs its way out of the recession, gains aren’t expected to be evenly distributed. But some of the hardest-hit regions may also see some of the best growth, according to a new analysis, writes Phil Izzo at the Wall Street Journal Real Time Economics blog. Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight looked at which states will have the strongest rates of expansion through 2017. Do your own research with an interactive graph: Visit this site and click on any state to find out its projected jobs growth rate in…
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Buying an Established Business The Wall Street Journal’s “Running a Business” blog analyzes the benefits of buying vs. building: If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, but lack ideas or time to create a new business, buying an established company may be a wise alternative. You’ll inherit a working infrastructure complete with resources you’d otherwise have to secure on your own, such as equipment and employees. You’ll also ideally be taking over a known brand built on a positive reputation over many years’ time. Buying a business typically does require more capital upfront than if you were to build one anew. But…
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House lawmakers passed a bill today to overhaul the U.S. patent system for the first time in nearly 60 years, Nathan Koppel notes on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog: The House passed the America Invents Act on a 407 to 117 vote, WSJ reports. The bill would change how the U.S. grants patents and award them to the party which is “first to file” an invention instead of the “first to invent” it. The change would bring the U.S. in line with other countries, according to WSJ. The Senate passed similar legislation in March on a 95-to-5 vote. (Click here to see…
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The Accountable Care Fiasco That’s what the Wall Street Journal calls the state of developing real-world guidelines for “the Accountable Care Organizations that are supposed to be the crown jewel of cost-saving reform.” The theory for ACOs, as they’re known, is that hospitals, primary-care doctors and specialists will work more efficiently in teams, like at the Mayo Clinic and other top U.S. hospitals. ACOs are meant to fix health care’s too-many-cooks predicament. The average senior on Medicare sees two physicians and five specialists, 13 on average for those with chronic illnesses. Most likely, those doctors aren’t coordinating patient care. This…
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Lawyers and Accountants Once Put Integrity First So asserts Mark W. Everson, commissioner of the IRS from 2003 to 2007, in an opinion piece for the Sunday NY Times: Three or four decades ago, investors and regulators could rely on these professionals to provide a check on corporate risk-taking. But over time, attorneys and auditors came to see their practices not as independent firms that strengthen the integrity of capitalism, but as businesses measured chiefly by the earnings of their partners. . . . Recent decades have seen a new model take root: a business plan tied to partner earnings. Obviously,…