fiscal cliff

Does a 'fiscal cliff' await software vendors switching to cloud?

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:53:05 GMT

Source: www.zdnet.com --- Tuesday, May 21, 2013
No one in the industry is talking about any fears they may be having about the cloud -- at least not out loud. ...

The Fiscal Cliff Deal: Big Win for Dividend Investors - InvestmentNews

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Source: topics.investmentnews.com --- Thursday, May 16, 2013
White paper on the fiscal cliff deal, discussing how dividend-paying stocks could be a focus for investors for years to come. Also how keeping the tax rate on dividends steady for most investors turned the cliff into a launching pad for investments in dividend-paying companies. ...

[No Fiscal Cliff Hangover] 1Q 2013 Hamptons & North Fork Reports

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:02:00 GMT

Source: www.millersamuel.com --- Monday, May 13, 2013
[click to open reports] We recently released the market reports we prepare for Douglas Elliman covering the The Hamptons and North Fork . This is part of an evolving market report series I’ve been writing for Douglas Elliman since 1994. Key Points HAMPTONS 1Q 2013 Listing inventory continued to fall. Number of sales surged. Number of sales in excess of $5M dropped as many high end buyers rushed to close at the end of 2012. Limited supply beginning to apply upward pressure to stable markets. Credit remains tight, restraining supply from entering market, no urgency to list. Record low mortgage rates and release of pent-up demand keeping demand strong. Less high end sales as tax-incentivized buyers rushed to close at the end of 2012. NORTH FORK 1Q 2013 Housing prices up in all segments except for top quintile due to tax-incentivized rush at end of 2012. Number of sales fell and listings rose. Days on market expanded. Here’s an excerpt from the 1Q 2013 report: HAMPTONS…After an unprecedented year end surge in high end closings motivated by tax planning purposes, the first quarter Hamptons housing market saw an unusually low level of high end sales despite a year-over-year increase in total sales. As a result, the price indicators reflected declines, when in fact the housing market was not experiencing falling prices… NORTH FORK…Sales activity in the first quarter of the North Fork housing market was somewhat weaker than the same period a ...

The Great Fiscal Cliff Disaster Outrage Massacre of 2013, cont’d

Mon, 13 May 2013 03:32:33 GMT

Source: biglychee.com --- Sunday, May 12, 2013
A slightly tiresome, make-believe game of chicken plays itself out in the battle between the Hong Kong government and radical legislators filibustering the 2013-14 Budget. According to Financial Secretary John Tsang, failure to pass the bill on Wednesday could cause disruptions to welfare payments, health care, education, the courts and, of all things, electricity subsidies. It is an interesting list of items, carefully chosen to include something to affect most of us. Pro-establishment lawmakers parrot the official ‘fiscal cliff’ Armageddon line, while the radicals make the dubious claim that any forced cuts will be the government’s fault for not meeting their demands for a universal pension. The pro-establishment camp demands that Legislative Council President Tsang Yok-sing uses parliamentary devices fair or foul to curtail the delaying tactics. The more moderate pro-democracy legislators insist on the sanctity of the legislative branch’s rights and liberties to check the executive. Tsang Yok-sing, though as pro-Beijing as they come, is reluctant to damage the Council’s powers (the Legco presidency has a funny effect on people). The government might be tempted to cut off handouts to starving widows and orphans, switch off kidney patients’ dialysis machines and turn kids away from exam halls, in the hope that an angry population would take it out on Long Hair Leung Kwok-hung and his comrades. But to the extent that people would ...

Edge of a fiscal cliff: Is future of local education in danger?

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:06:14 GMT

Source: www.uticaod.com --- Sunday, May 12, 2013
Classrooms crowded with more than 30 students. No electives or advanced placement classes. No sports or music. This is the future for some local schools if finances continue on their current trend — and it might happen sooner than later. ...

Lessons for Nigeria from the US sequester and fiscal cliff dodging

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:25:52 GMT

Source: www.vanguardngr.com --- Saturday, May 11, 2013
All human beings are prince and princesses, but only very few know their kingdom. As a president, rule as if the people are ruling themselves. When power is needed, summon, and use it. When war is needed then rise and go to war in the highest way, and win in the quickest way, and use it to create better conditions for all… (BEN OKRI in STARBOOK) ...

'Fiscal cliff' looms as radical lawmakers delay HK Budget

Fri, 10 May 2013 02:03:00 GMT

Source: stprdfeeds.straitstimes.com --- Thursday, May 09, 2013
May 10, 2013 2:03 AM HONG KONG faces an unprecedented "fiscal cliff" if the Legislative Council (LegCo) does not pass the Budget for the coming fiscal year by the middle of this month, warned Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying. ...

Fiscal Cliff Settlement: What CPAs Need to Know to Advise Individual Clients Webinar - Jan. 9 , 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:58:45 GMT

Source: www.aicpa.org --- Tuesday, May 07, 2013
This is the 1/9/13 AICPA webinar on the fiscal cliff and individual and estate planning. ...

UG#634 - The Coming Apocalypse etc. (Catastrophism, Zombies, The "Fiscal Cliff")

Tue, 07 May 2013 01:13:00 GMT

Source: www.indymedia.org.uk --- Monday, May 06, 2013
On our last show before December 21st, 2012, we examine the spectre of 'catastrophe'. Does the popularity of undead imagery reveal anything about modern society? We begin by revisiting David Graeber's insights on Tiv mythology at the time of the African slave trade, then examine the underpinning of the modern university and schooling systems as a way to decode the barrage of modern day warnings of the 'fiscal cliff'. ...

Asian markets weighed by US fiscal cliff gridlock

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:25:38 GMT

Source: www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com --- Monday, May 06, 2013
HONG KONG, Dec 31 (AFP): Asian markets fell in New Year's Eve-shortened trade on Monday as hopes that US lawmakers will reach a deal to avert the fisc ...

‘Fiscal Cliff’ Debt Truce Nears Expiration

Mon, 06 May 2013 09:56:20 GMT

Source: newmediajournal.us --- Monday, May 06, 2013
A three-month truce on the debt-limit war is about to expire, and Congress and President Obama will enter a no-man's land with nobody quite knowing how things will shake out when the debt peace ends in two weeks. Some lawmakers fear underhanded tricks by the Obama administration to try to artificially boost the borrowing space, while the Treasury Department promises only "more clarity" sometime in the future. For now, there is no legal debt limit, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are wondering what the number will be come May 19, which is the end of the grace period Congress granted in February. "As this day looms, much uncertainty exists," Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, wrote to newly installed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. "The debt limit will be reinstated at that time, but at a higher, unspecified level." ...

'Fiscal cliff' debt truce nears its end with no solution in sight

Mon, 06 May 2013 01:34:03 GMT

Source: www.washingtontimes.com --- Sunday, May 05, 2013
A three-month truce on the debt-limit war is about to expire, and Congress and President Obama will enter a no-man's land with nobody quite knowing how things will shake out when the debt peace ends in two weeks. Some lawmakers fear underhanded tricks by the Obama administration to try to ... ...

Coming Clean Beyond the Fiscal Cliff

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:00:21 GMT

Source: sgtreport.com --- Friday, May 03, 2013
by Catherine Austin Fitts, SilverBearCafe.com : Washington’s negotiations to address the fiscal cliff of automatic tax increases and spending cuts legislatively triggered at the close of 2012 are the latest in an ongoing effort to address increasing U.S. federal government deficits and debt levels. Enormous monetary and fiscal stimulus has failed to produce an economic recovery. In short, the U.S. government and central banks have failed to dig out. Instead, they are now dug in deeper. What to do now? What is missing from this and other debates on the reengineering of the U.S. federal finances is an understanding or discussion of the structural problems in the federal finances that have been accumulating since WWII, when the United States – with 6% of the world’s population – found itself the master of 50% of the world’s resources. Read More @ SilverBearCafe.com ...

Fiscal Cliff Implications On Small-Mid Sized Businesses

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:19:47 GMT

Source: ezinearticles.com --- Thursday, May 02, 2013
By now, most of us are well aware of the 2012, eleventh-hour, year-end deal and decisions enacted by Congress to avert the fiscal cliff crisis. Whether or not those decisions successfully will accomplish that objective remain unknown. ...

The Golden Opportunity for Congress to Avoid the Transportation “Fiscal Cliff”

Wed, 01 May 2013 19:30:51 GMT

Source: dc.streetsblog.org --- Wednesday, May 01, 2013
The Highway Trust Fund is expected to slip into negative territory in 2015. Estimates are based on CBO's February 2013 baseline projections. Image: CBO MAP-21 expires in a year and five months. When it does, if lawmakers haven’t already found a solution to the “transportation fiscal cliff,” they’ll have to do one of three things, according to a report issued last week by the Congressional Budget Office [ PDF ]: Transfer $14 billion more in general funds Raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon Cut the authority to obligate funds in 2015 from about $51 billion projected under current law to about $4 billion “If lawmakers chose to wait until fiscal year 2015,” wrote CBO analyst Sarah Puro, “at the expiration of MAP-21, to reduce spending, those cuts in 2015 would need to total about 92 percent for the highway account and 100 percent for the transit account.” It couldn’t be clearer. Congress has to stop dithering and start working on a revenue solution, stat. Oh, and the president and his new secretary of transportation have to get behind it, guns blazing. Congress has three potential vehicles for a revenue solution: 1) a “grand bargain” on the deficit, the sequester and the fiscal cliff, 2) tax reform, and 3) the next surface transportation bill. And what will that “revenue solution” be? The simplest, most easily implemented fix is a gas tax hike, but over the long term, taxing fossil fuels as a way to pay for transportation infrastr ...

Reinhart and Rogoff’s 90 Percent Fiscal Cliff: It’s Academic When You Count All the Liabilities

Wed, 01 May 2013 04:16:43 GMT

Source: streetwiseprofessor.com --- Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Krugman and others have been doing a victory dance, claiming that the Reinhart-Rogoff work on the relationship between debt and growth has been repudiated. Hardly. The R&R spreadsheet error (but I repeat myself) is embarrassing, but of minor consequence. The other criticisms leveled by Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin are matters of judgment and interpretation, not definitive error. James Hamilton has a balanced overview , as do Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers . Matthew Klein dissects the matter of New Zealand , which proves pivotal in the analysis. Not surprisingly, Niall Ferguson is quite scathing in his criticism of Krugman’s gloating . Ferguson just points out the obvious. There is a limit to debt, and accumulation of too much debt leads to either default or inflation. You can’t borrow a trillion (or about 6 percent of GDP) forever, or even for a modest period, without coming a cropper. The most interesting part of Ferguson’s analysis draws an analogy I’ve used before: between governments and Enron. (And Niall is nice, not pointing out that Krugman took Enron’s checks as an “advisor.”) What do they have in common? Hiding huge liabilities off balance sheet. Well, that’s not really correct. Governments don’t have proper balance sheets. ”Government accounting” is something of an oxymoron. But in the main, the point holds. The debt that was on Enron’s books was only a fraction of its actual liabilities, and the of ...

School boards can help NSBA lobby to avoid fiscal cliff

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:16:42 GMT

Source: schoolboardnews.nsba.org --- Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Political pundits are already warning President Barack Obama and members of Congress not to spend too much time basking in their Nov. 6 victories. Beginning next week, Congress and the White House will start the tough negotiations to deal with the process of sequestration, which is the cancellation of budgetary resources. The Budget Control Act [...] ...

Congress Passes Fiscal Cliff Act; Benefits Affected

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:33:30 GMT

Source: benefitslink.com --- Tuesday, April 30, 2013
"Various temporary tax provisions enacted as part of EGTRRA were made permanent. These include: ... The liberalized child and dependent care credit rules (allowing the credit to be calculated based on up to $3,000 of expenses for one dependent or up to $6,000 for more than one) (Sec. 21); ... The exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance (Sec. 127); ... The employer-provided child care credit (Sec. 45F); ... The act also extended through 2013 a number of temporary individual tax provisions, most of which expired at the end of 2011 ... [including] Parity for exclusion from income for employer-provided mass transit and parking benefits (Sec. 132(f))[.]" (Journal of Accountancy) ...

America on the Brink: The Great Fiscal Cliff of 2012-13

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:26:24 GMT

Source: blogs.moneyandmarkets.com --- Monday, April 29, 2013
More than $1.6 trillion in tax hikes and spending cuts are scheduled to automatically take effect this coming New Year’s Day. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warns they will cause America to plunge off of the “fiscal cliff” on January 1, 2013 … JP Morgan — the global financial services [...] ...

Impact of Federal Fiscal Cliff on Kansas Hospitals

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:51:50 GMT

Source: wellcommons.com --- Monday, April 29, 2013
Impact of Federal fiscal cliff on Kansas Hospitals ...