Month: July 2012

  • “Trust in the Age of Transparency” – Harvard Business Review

    This article ties in to the editorial I’m writing now on “Who to trust” for retail financial services. Yale economist Robert J. Shiller strikes a very different note. In Finance and the Good Society, he agrees that trust in business has been shaken (and cites, as they all do, the Edelman Trust Barometer as evidence),…

  • Partners cannot be employees for federal tax purposes

    IRS Rulings & Other Documents (2001-Earlier), Rev. Rul. 69-184 1 , 1969-1 CB 256, Internal Revenue Service, (Jan. 1, 1969) Section 3121.–Definitions 26 CFR 31.3121(d)-1: Who are employees. (Also Sections 3306, 3401; 31.3306(i)-1, 31.3401(c)-1.)

  • The importance of pricing power

    This excerpt comes from a MIT Sloan Management Review article titled “Is It Time to Rethink Your Pricing Strategy?” Renowned investor Warren Buffett has said, “The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very…

  • notes / updates on 412(i) pension plans

    Following is an unformatted dump of research notes. For a few complete articles see www.tonynovak.com/articles IRS code: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/412 http://zingleandassociates.com/papers/412i/shutdown.pdf  links to applicable Revenue Rulings http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/db_lrm.pdf 1_412e3 – Beyond the Basics.ppt https://www.allegisadvisorgroup.com/Content/Content/63/Documents/1_412e3%20-%20Beyond%20the%20Basics.ppt downloaded MassMutual powerpoint presentation Requirements for “Separate Agreements” for §412(i) Pension Plans This article discusses the information that must be included in the “separate agreements”…

  • How to write good

    How to write good By Frank Visco   Avoid Alliteration. Always. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.) Employ the vernacular. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. Contractions aren’t necessary. Foreign words and…

  • Medicare premiums are tax-deductible

    Medicare premiums are officially tax-deductible. Portions are highlighted for implication in tax planning. (The grammatical error in the final paragraph is reproduced as found). This excerpt comes from Journal of Accountancy: “Explaining a recent reversal of a long-held IRS stance, the Office of Chief Counsel advised IRS attorneys on Friday that self-employed individuals may deduct…

  • CFP Board endorses Financial Planning Competency Handbook

    A standards book for the financial planning industry is 25 years overdue but will finally be issued next spring by Wiley Publishers, a well-known company that we rely on for other important industry information. This excerpt comes from a press release issued today by the CFP Board. July 10, 2012 – Certified Financial Planner Board…

  • Penn State needs to stop hazing now

    Now is the time for Penn State to eliminate hazing from its campus. Earlier this year A Penn State employee resigned and students were held from spring graduation in the wake of investigations into alleged hazing on campus. The University confirmed that criminal charges were filed and that the University would continue to investigate. The…

  • Microsoft disturbed developers with Windows 8 announcement | Why this is good news for me

    All of my online businesses are based on the “primitive” HTML5 platform. Hearing that Windows 8 would use HTML5 and JavaScript for its new immersive applications was, therefore, more than a little disturbing to Windows developers. Such a switch means discarding two decades of knowledge and expertise of Windows development—and countless hours spent learning Microsoft’s…