Tuesday, October 14, 2014

BITCOIN AND TAX EVASION: BRINGING ‘UNDER THE TABLE’ INCOME ONLINE

Kyle Torpey for Inside Bitcoins writes: While bureaucrats and venture capitalists are embracing the idea of a regulated, controlled Bitcoin industry where money laundering and other forms of financial crime can be limited, there is an undercurrent in the Bitcoin economy that wants no part of this so-called “mainstream adoption.” As more centralized Bitcoin services, such as Circle and Coinbase, continue to bring greater transparency to the blockchain, other projects, such as Zerocash and Dark Wallet, are working to preserve the original implications of Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention.

At its core, Bitcoin is about privacy and censorship-resistance, and it becomes difficult to enforce certain financial regulations and laws when you can’t track every online transaction. It’s possible that the cypherpunks were right when they predicted the idea that untraceable cash could lead to a society where taxation becomes nearly voluntary.

Why do people evade taxes?
In reality, you don’t need to be an anarchist to understand the benefits of tax evasion. When you don’t get caught, evading taxes allows one to enjoy the fruits of their labor without having to pay for public roads, education, national defense, and all of the other services currently provided by various governments around the world. Tax evaders don’t avoid paying taxes because they’re anarchists, they avoid paying taxes because they don’t want to give away money without much say in what they get in return.
This is similar to the case of Silk Road. Many Silk Road users were not anarchists who used Bitcoin and Tor for political reasons. They simply wanted to buy some pot off the Internet without having to deal with some sketchy dealer in their local town.

Tax evasion increases when income is not tracked
If you think that people pay their taxes because it’s the right thing to do, then you should take a look at the statistics related to tax evasion on cash income. In other words, how often do people pay taxes when they know there is a good chance that they could get away with their “criminal activity.”

Income on cash tips is supposed to be reported to the IRS. Of course, there’s no trace of actually receiving a tip when cash is used. Although many people are now using credit or debit cards to leave their tips for meals, drinks, or deliveries these days, the transactions we want to look at here are strictly cash based.

According to an IRS estimate from 1998, a time when the use of cash was much more prevalent in American society, more than 60% of all tips went unreported. In a 2013 study by economist Edgar Feige, he estimated that nannies, construction workers, waitresses, website developers, and other contract workers had underreported $2 trillion in taxes.
If you don’t believe the estimates, just think about a time when you, a friend, or a family member were being paid cash under the table for a job. How often was that income reported to the IRS? Now, what happens when these cash-based arrangements are brought to the Internet through the use of Bitcoin and various privacy-enhancing technologies?

Were the cypherpunks right?
In the near future, all someone will need to avoid taxation for the sale of goods or services is a Bitcoin wallet and an OpenBazaar node. Is it possible that, after all this time, the cypherpunks prophesying aboutcrypto anarchy were right? It has been well-known that electronic cash would eventually cause problems for governments if a proper digital cash system were ever implemented. As Timothy C. May noted in The Cyphernomicon in 1994:
“Concerns will be raised about the anonymity aspects, the usefulness for evading taxes and reporting requirements, etc.”

The cypherpunks knew that this day would eventually come. There are already users of various darknet marketplaces undoubtedly using Bitcoin, Tor, and PGP to avoid taxation. The question now seems to be to what extent the cypherpunks were right about crypto anarchy. At the very least, it seems that technologies such as Bitcoin and OpenBazaar could eventually persuade governments to change their point of attack when it comes to the collection of taxes.

You can follow @kyletorpey on Twitter.
Posted on 10:01 PM | Categories:

Salesforce.com Plans Entry Into Business Intelligence Market With 'Wave'

Trefis for SeekingAlpha.com writes: Summary

  • Through its new business intelligence cloud offering, Salesforce intends to provide customers with predictive analytics features.
  • Salesforce Wave is designed to make it easier for everyone to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device.
  • Salesforce could benefit from a SaaS analytics platform, but competition is intense in the BI Market.
The world's largest cloud software company, Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), looks to be working toward expanding its own addressable market to accelerate its sales growth and pull away from its competitors. The company launched a sixth cloud platform named Wave on October 13, 2014, to enter the Business Intelligence market. [1] Through this new cloud offering, Salesforce intends to provide customers with predictive analytics features by integrating its own Customer Relationship cloud offering. Salesforce Wave is designed to make it easier for everyone to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device.
We have a Trefis price estimate of $55 for Salesforce.com, approximately 3.3% higher than its current market price of $53.

Predictive Analytics Tools to Bolster Growth in Business Intelligence Market

Gartner estimates the Business Intelligence (BI) market at about $14.4 billion in 2013, up nearly 8% from 2012. [2] Comparatively, the year 2012 witnessed a 7% growth in the BI market on a year-on-year basis from 2011.[3] Despite the faster growth in the BI market in 2013, investments into mainstream BI tools that generate actionable insights have been tepid, with significant investments into ancillary tools such as experimental silos, infrastructure and other support services. Deployment of mainstream BI tools that leverage analytics on big data are likely to accelerate going forward.
German enterprise software giant SAP is the market leader in the BI space, with revenues of over $3 billion, indicating a market share of approximately 21.3%. [2] SAP has been able to support its organic analytics tools from the BusinessObjects line with acquisitions, such as KXEN. Additionally, the launch of the BusinessObjects suite on HANA has further provided strength to its existing analytics portfolio. The second, third and fourth spots are held in close contention by Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), IBM (NYSE:IBM) and SAS Institute respectively, with market shares of 13.9%, 12.7% and 11.8%, respectively. [2]
According to Mr. Dan Sommer, research director at Gartner, "As the BI market shifts gear, we see a series of tipping points in 2014 that will accelerate adoption, but it may come from a different place. These tipping points are that half of BI and analytics spend will be business driven, half of new license spend will be driven by data discovery requirements, and half of organizations will consider deploying BI in the cloud, at least tactically." [2]We believe predictive analytics tools that are business-driven in nature would begin to witness a significant uptick in sales going forward.

Salesforce Could Benefit from SaaS Analytics Platform, But Competition is Intense in BI Market

Given the extensive network Salesforce has built in its Sales and Service clouds, utilizing that data on the Wave platform to unveil new insights could immensely benefit its customers. Companies can quickly deploy sales, service and marketing analytics, or build custom mobile analytics apps, using any data source. As of now, Salesforce intends to offer Wave as an analytics tool for sales, service and marketing departments. However, partner companies will be working on other domains, such as human resources and finance. The standalone Salesforce Wave comes in two variants - one for "builders" with access to create and manage data sets priced at $250/month, and one for "explorers" with access to viewing and sharing data insights and dashboards, priced at $125/month. [1]
However, the BI market is only warming up to new areas of focus such as predictive and prescriptive analytics. Currently, BI platforms (both on-premise and on-demand) account for nearly 60% of the overall market, or $8.55 billion in sales. [2] These platforms require business analysts to build huge data warehouses and create schemes to access data. While this segment of the market has posted a healthy 9% growth over 2012, niche tools that provide predictive and prescriptive analytics, which stand at just over $1 billion in sales in 2013, seem to be a more lucrative opportunity going forward. A recent report from McKinsey Global Institute highlights that decisions based on data-driven insights result in 23 times greater likelihood of customer acquisition, 6 times greater likelihood of customer retention and 19 times greater likelihood of profitability. [1]
While the entry from Salesforce into the analytics realm is certainly a positive development with good long term prospects, the near-term outlook is challenging due to strong competition in the more mature product areas. As niche product areas gain traction, Salesforce has the opportunity to create tools that disrupt the traditional market trend, something it has done well in the past.

Posted on 9:57 PM | Categories:

AU / Digital First: Why One Accountant Chose To Run His Firm on Xero

Sholto MacPherson for Digital First writes:  Timothy Munro, an accountant with an avid interest in technology, was immediately attracted to online accounting software Xero when he first came across it in 2008.
“The main attraction was the time saving. I loved the automated bank feeds and I could work on it from the office at home. I could see how this would revolutionise the way we would interact with our clients,” Munro says.
Munro began using Xero for his 18-staff firm for several reasons, not least because he knew it would help him become an expert in the program and better explain how it worked to clients.
Moving to an online accounting program had other benefits. Munro’s firm Change Accountants used a desktop accounting program on a PC which could only be accessed by one person at a time.
Munro or a staff member entered all receipts and invoices manually which took a long time.
Once the firm began using Xero for its internal accounting, Munro could give several people access to the program from any device with an internet connection. One staff member could do the payroll while another could simultaneously send invoices to clients.  [snip].  The article continues @ Digital First, click here to continue reading....
Posted on 9:39 PM | Categories:

New Zealand Analyst Woodward Partners, "Xero's platform was "not as disruptive as it once was" / Xero defends US strategy

Tom Pullar-Strecker for Stuff.nz.co writes: The broking firm that most accurately predicted Xero's share price drop is questioning whether the cloud software firm should give up chasing growth in the United States.

Woodward Partners said Xero's board should be seriously questioning whether Xero's US strategy still made sense, or whether it should conserve its cash to consolidate its stronger positions in New Zealand, Australia and Britain.
But Xero chief executive Rod Drury said the suggestion the company should beat a retreat from the US was "the craziest thing we have ever heard" given Xero was "the fastest-growing software-as-a-service company in the world".
"We are just ignoring some of this stuff because it doesn't make sense to us," he said.
"We are doing so well, and the thought of us not chasing the US is just ludicrous."
Woodward analyst Nick Lewis warned in April that Xero's share price could fall below $20 if, as he expected, it failed to achieve significant success in the United States. At the time Xero shares were trading at $37.80, more than double their present price, though 18 per cent off their record high of $45.99.
In a new research note, Lewis and fellow analyst Cahn McKenzie questioned whether Xero should continue trying to win market share in the US, given the challenges and the company's rising costs.
The note was posted after Xero revealed it had only acquired 4000 customers in North America during the six months to September and Drury said the 1000-strong firm expected to hire at least another 500 staff over the coming year.
Woodward said the odds were too heavily stacked against Xero in the US, where the Wellington-based firm is competing against "deeply entrenched" accounting software incumbent Intuit.
Cloud accounting software was converging in terms of the functions it provided, so it was harder to make any particular product stand out and Xero's platform was "not as disruptive as it once was", it said.
Woodward forecast that, given its newly-stated hiring intentions, Xero would chew through its $170m in cash reserves by early 2016 unless it raised fresh capital or cut costs.
A US listing would be hard to pull off unless Xero grew meaningfully in the US market, the research note said. It speculated it was unlikely that Xero's major US venture capital investors, Valar Ventures and Matrix Capital, would "stump up once more".
Xero shares were unchanged at $17.50 during lunchtime trading today.
Drury said Wellington-based Lewis had got his cost assumptions wrong.
"It is disappointing having people from our own city who are taking these positions," he said.
"We haven't mis-executed at all. The only bother we have had is we got our US chief executive wrong and we are changing that."
Xero announced last month that former Paypal vice president Peter Karpas would step down from the role he had held for less than seven months.
"We are still signing up lots of US customers and we have only really started focusing on delivering US software since March," Drury said.
"Ninety-eight per cent of the market is still to play for. All the reviews would say we have at least as good technology [as Intuit] and we are delivering software a lot faster."
H&R Block, a US company that helps small businesses complete their tax accounts, entered into a partnership with Xero in April and Drury said it had got 25 customers on to Xero's software at the first of its 12,000 franchises.
"They were really happy," he said.
"We are doing fine and we have no concerns at all about the US. We just need to get our leadership right, which we are working on, and we are signing up customers and it is accelerating."
Meanwhile, businesses that regularly refuel vehicles at Z Energy petrol stations will be able to have their invoices automatically loaded to Xero's accounting software.
The companies said the arrangement would save thousands of Z Card customers time that they would otherwise have to spend manually entering transactions.

Xero has a similar arrangement with Warehouse Stationery.

Posted on 8:31 PM | Categories:

9.9m Xero shares going on market / ''burning through cash'', given its 1000-plus employees and marketing costs, and could possibly have to go back to the market for more cash ''some time in the next couple of years''.

Simon Hartley for Otago Daily Times writes: Xero has another problem to contend with when 9.9 million shares bought mainly in the US for $147 million a year ago come off escrow and can be traded from tomorrow.
While analysts are becoming perturbed by Xero's performance, the 9.9 million shares represent less than 1% of its present market capitalisation.
A year ago, Xero sold the 9.9 million shares at $18.15 in October and raised $147 million; part of a wider $180 million capital-raising, on the proviso the 9.9 million shares were held in escrow and would not be traded for a year.
Last year's sharemarket darling - its shares hit $45.99 in March - has gone off the boil, most lately after analysts criticised its sales momentum in the crucial US market, prompting various downgrades to forecasts of either target share prices or future profits after tax.
From a peak market capitalisation of $5.8 billion, Xero shares were $17.40 yesterday, valuing the company at $2.2 billion.
Following the Xero trading update last Thursday, its shares dipped below $20; they were down again almost 6% on Monday to $18, before hitting yesterday's $17.40.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said Xero shares dropped 20% during the past five trading days and had lost 44% over the past six months.
He said any selling of the 9.9 million shares could potentially see some further short-term share price weakness, but he believed US investors would take a more pragmatic, positive long-term view and hold their shares.
''In terms of significance, they [9.9 million shares represent] less than 1% of market capitalisation,'' he said.
While Xero maintained about $170 million in cash, Mr McIntyre said it was nevertheless ''burning through cash'', given its 1000-plus employees and marketing costs, and could possibly have to go back to the market for more cash ''some time in the next couple of years''.
Xero had so far exhibited ''good growth'', but given it was yet to post an after-tax profit, it needed to deliver on plans for its growth strategy, he said. He noted the rising analysts' scrutiny on Xero's implementing its growth strategy in the US market.
Xero came in for further criticism yesterday, from Woodward Partners co-founder Nick Lewis, who said while Xero's entry into the US ''was disruptive three or four years ago'', since then, the competition had caught up, Radio New Zealand reported.
He highlighted that Xero's US competition, Intuit, was a much larger competitor with deep pockets, while Xero was a minnow by comparison. Xero's $170 million cash in hand, to put towards marketing, was a small resource by US standards.
Mr Lewis said it would take something ''incredibly disruptive'' for Xero to beat Intuit at its own game.
Posted on 1:49 PM | Categories:

Quit US, analyst urges Xero / Woodward Partners analysts Nick Lewis and Cahn McKenzie said the additional cost of Xero's plan to take on 500 new staff over the next 12 months could mean its cash reserves - now $171 million - could be wiped out by early 2016.

Christopher Adams for the New Zealand Herald writes: Analysts at Wellington's Woodward Partners have suggested Xero abandon its expensive strategy of chasing growth in the United States and instead focus on consolidating its position in New Zealand, Australia and Britain.

But the online accounting software developer's chief executive, Rod Drury, says the idea makes no sense and the company remains confident it can crack the US market.
Xero shares have fallen around 17 per cent since the firm released numbers last week showing US customer growth had been slower in the six months to September 30 than analysts had been expecting.
It added 4000 clients there during the period, taking the total number of US customers to 22,000.
In a research note, Woodward Partners analysts Nick Lewis and Cahn McKenzie said the additional cost of Xero's plan to take on 500 new staff over the next 12 months could mean its cash reserves - now $171 million - could be wiped out by early 2016.
Drury did not agree, saying Woodward had built too much cost into its model.
The analysts also said Xero faced an expensive, difficult task gaining market share in the US where its major competitor, Intuit, was already "way ahead" of the New Zealand firm.
"Instead, would it not be more prudent for the board to use its remaining cash balance to consolidate [Xero's] relatively stronger market positions in NZ, UK and Australia?" they suggested.
Drury said more than 75 per cent of the US accounting market did not use Intuit's Quickbooks accounting product.
"It's a massive white space market," he said.
"We're just getting started in the US and it will take some time."
Xero shares, which hit a record $45.99 in March, closed down 45c at $17.50 yesterday.
Posted on 11:31 AM | Categories:

BONUS DEPRECIATION’S UNCERTAIN FUTURE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO YOUR 2014 TAX STRATEGY

Kevin A. Eisenhart, CPA, MBA, MST, for RKL CPA writes: With the outlook on the economy looking brighter, the future of popular tax savings strategies that allowed accelerated depreciation of capital expenditures looks dim. While it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility for congress to retroactively reinstate these popular tax breaks back to their 2013 levels, the general consensus is that Bonus Depreciation won’t be available for the year 2014, and that Section 179 may or may not be increased from its current level. For businesses, these changes may represent a shift in your 2014 tax strategy and plans for expenditures and improvements.
Aimed at stimulating economic investment, Bonus depreciation was originally introduced into the US Tax Code in September 2001, and has been available off and on since its introduction.  Bonus depreciation allowed businesses to deduct up to half the cost of newcapital expenditures and real property, with the rest of the cost depreciated over the prescribed tax life. At year end, many companies would leverage this tax savings opportunity by purchasing big ticket items such as equipment, vehicles and furniture.  This provision expired at the end of 2013.
The second depreciation related change is that the asset expensing election under Section 179 will be reduced to $25,000 for 2014, which is down from $500,000 in 2013. Section 179 was a provision that allowed for the immediate write off of the cost qualifying property that would otherwise have to be capitalized and depreciated.
In order to do so, you must have taxable income and an investment limit caps how much qualifying property you can place in service in a given year before Section 179 starts to phase out. Under the current law, the investment limit has fallen to $200,000, which means Section 179 will be completely phased out if a business purchases $225,000 of qualifying property.
What does this mean to your 2014 tax strategy? First, know that it’s highly likely that capital expenditures won’t qualify for accelerated deduction in 2014. While Bonus Depreciation and Section 179 may be off the table, you may want to discuss other tax savings strategies, such as those available under the new Tangible Asset Regulations (TARS) with your CPA.
Posted on 10:46 AM | Categories:

The Ten Best Accounting Apps for Small Business Owners Who HATE Bookkeeping

Todd Spear for GetApp.com writes: Wow, it seems like there are a million small business accounting apps on the market, with more coming out all the time. In fact, many of them are great, and one is often just as good as another, in terms of features. So it becomes a challenge to distinguish one accounting app for another, especially for small business owners who hate accounting. Let’s face it, that’s the case quite often – maybe most of the time!
If you don’t have an accounting degree but you need to keep accurate books, you need a tool that doesn’t require you to be both a computer programmer and mathematician to operate. In short, you need an idiot-proof tool. You’re in luck, because several accounting apps stand out and distinguish themselves as positively simple, beautiful tools. In fact, there are certain tools aimed at small business owners who simply shudder at the thought of dealing with bookkeeping.
In this article, we’re serving up a list of the ten best accounting apps for your specific predicament. Because you have to keep the books, but you dread having to do it, here are the ten best accounting apps for small business owners who HATE account!

Freshbooks small business accounting appFreshBooks

FreshBooks is a cinch, anyway you look at it. FreshBooks is simple to understand, especially if you’ve used any accounting software before. Even if the source of your disdain for accounting stems from having used Excel spreadsheets to keep track of things, you will find the transition to FreshBooks easy, and rewarding.
Featuring an easy-to-understand dashboard and brilliant visualizations, you won’t find an easier accounting app to stomach if you just so happen to hate accounting.

Freeagent small business accounting reviewFreeAgent

FreeAgent makes our list of the best accounting apps for non-accounting types because it cuts out all the jargon and focuses on the things that matter to small businesses. FreeAgent makes it easy to invoice customers, track expenses, synchronize your bank accounts, and even chase payments, all from one intuitive interface.
FreeAgent offers excellent user support on demand, and the app backs up your data regularly, so you never have to worry about losing your data.

Quickbooks Small Business Accounting AppQuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is an accounting app with a walloping set of features presented in one of the simplest accounting interfaces ever. If you’re concerned about a particular feature, or support for a certain bank, or the ability to retrieve a particular accounting metric, you should look to QuickBooks Online, which benefits from the infrastructure of of accounting powerhouse, Intuit.
QuickBooks Online is the original and most popular cloud-based accounting app, and one test drive will convince you of that.

nutcache small business accounting appNutcache

Nutcache is a free yet feature-rich accounting application that many small business owners swear by. In fact, you might say it’s an app that has a “cult following.” But Nutcache’s allure is understandable, as the app’s features are robust. Nutcache sports support for multiple languages, and adds invoicing and time tracking functions to the expected array of accounting features.
Nutcache is free and simple, and its features compete admirably against the paid options on this list.

Kashflow small business accounting appKashFlow

KashFlow is a seriously powerful accounting app that is specifically aimed at UK small businesses.  KashFlow listens to its customers and puts in only the features that are most requested. What’s more, KashFlow handles UK taxation effortlessly, with VAT reports built right in.
If you’re a small business based in the UK, give KashFlow is worth considering, especially since it bills itself as “no accounting knowledge required!”

arithmo small business accounting appArithmo

Arithmo takes the complexity out of small business accounting by automating the math. If you’re coming from the old spreadsheet to the cloud, you are surely familiar with the aggravation of formulas in cells, and the agony of copying in pasting, deleting and replacing those formulas as you try to input simple data. Arithmo makes all that simply go away.
Arithmo is easy to use, even if you have no prior experience using accounting apps.

sage one small business accounting appSage One

Sage One is an accounting app that operates on a curious principle. Acknowledging that small business accounting is mostly a snore, a laborious residual of doing business, Sage One aims to put the dull aspects of being in business, accounting tasks, largely on autopilot.
Sage One puts simplicity ahead of other considerations. If you’re not a bookkeeping lover, you can still keep it all organized and accurate with Sage One.

zoho books small business accounting appZoho Books

Zoho Books is another super simple accounting app. Zoho Books also benefits from integrating with Zoho’s other business apps, which are perhaps the most notable alternatives to Google Apps for Business. Zoho Books, together with the other apps in Zoho’s growing Web app ecosystem, can help you keep it simple at every stage of small business accounting.
From invoicing to tax reporting, Zoho Books puts everything you need at your fingertips, and leaves out the stuff you don’t need!

Sellsy small business invoicingSellsy Invoicing

Sellsy Invoicing is suitable for the simplest of all small business needs (and freelancers). If all you need is to send invoices, take payments, and occasionally send payment reminder, it gets no simpler than with Sellsy Invoicing.
Sellsy Invoicing also offers estimating tools as part of its easy feature set.

financialforce small business accounting appFinancialForce Accounting

FinancialForce Accounting rounds out our list of the ten best accounting apps for small business owners who hate bookkeeping largely because it plays so nicely with SalesForce.com. As a matter of fact, FinancialForce is made for SalesForce integration. If your business is one of the many using Salesforce for customer relationship management (CRM), you owe it to yourself to check out FinancialForce Accounting.
Tight CRM integration makes FinancialForce Accounting a unique tool that can help you capture sales as customer interactions play out to your advantage!
Posted on 10:44 AM | Categories:

Guidance Issued On Allocation Of After-Tax Amounts To Rollovers

Mel SchwarzDustin Stamper and Shamik Trivedi for Grant Thornton writes: The IRS provided rules on Sept. 18 for allocating pretax and after-tax amounts among disbursements made to multiple destinations from a qualified retirement plan. Notice 2014-54 and an accompanying proposed regulation ( REG-105739-11) provide more details and apply to disbursements from a Section 403(b) plan or a Section 457(b) plan maintained by a governmental employer.

If a participant's account balance in a qualified retirement plan or in a Section 403(b) plan includes both after-tax and pretax amounts, each distribution from the account includes a pro-rata share of both after-tax and pretax amounts. If the distribution is made to multiple destinations, the after-tax and pretax amounts must be determined for each destination.

The notice provides that in determining the portion of a disbursement from a plan, all disbursements from the plan to the recipient that are scheduled to be made at the same time are treated as a single distribution regardless of whether the recipient has directed that the disbursements be made to a single destination or multiple destinations.
Regarding the allocation of the disbursement between after-tax and pretax amounts, if the pretax amount (related to the aggregated disbursements that are treated as a single distribution) is less than the amount of the distribution that is directly rolled over to one or more eligible retirement plans, the entire pretax amount is assigned to the amount of the distribution that is directly rolled over. In that case, if the direct rollover is to two or more plans, the recipient can select how the pretax amount is allocated among these plans. To make this selection, the recipient must inform the plan administrator of the allocation before the direct rollovers.

In addition, if the pretax amount related to the aggregated disbursements in a distribution equals or exceeds the amount of the distribution that is directly rolled over to one or more eligible retirement plans, the pretax amount is assigned to the portion of the distribution that is directly rolled over, up to the amount of the direct rollover (so that each direct rollover consists entirely of pretax amounts).

Any remaining pretax amount is next assigned to any 60-day rollovers (that is, rollovers that are not direct rollovers) up to the amount of the 60-day rollovers. If the remaining pretax amount is less than the amount rolled over in 60-day rollovers, the recipient can select how the pretax amount is allocated among the plans that receive 60-day rollovers. If, after the assignment of the pretax amount to direct rollovers and 60-day rollovers, there is a remaining pretax amount, that amount can be included in the distributee's gross income. If the amount rolled over to an eligible retirement plan exceeds the portion of the pretax amount assigned or allocated to the plan, the excess is an after-tax amount.

The notice points out that even though certain multiple disbursements to different destinations are treated as a single aggregated distribution, each disbursement may be required to be reported on a separate Form 1099-R, "Distributions from Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc.," in accordance with the instructions to Form 1099-R.

The preparer of Form 1099-R must consider the assignment and allocation rules under the notice in determining the amount of pretax contributions assigned or allocated among direct rollovers and any amounts paid to the recipient.

The rules in the notice and proposed regulations apply to distributions made on or after Jan. 1, 2015. For distributions made before Jan. 1, 2015, taxpayers may apply a reasonable interpretation of Section 402(c)(2) to allocate after-tax and pretax amounts among disbursements to multiple locations, including applying the allocation rules prescribed under the notice.

However, for distributions made from Roth accounts before Sept. 18, 2014, taxpayers must continue to apply existing Roth account distribution rules. These rules require that any amount paid in a direct rollover is treated as a separate distribution from any amount paid directly to the employee. This separate distribution rule is eliminated under the proposed regulation by replacing the separate distribution rule with the rules previously described.
Posted on 10:42 AM | Categories:

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has sold another 20,000 shares last week making that 7 consecutive weeks of selling CRM stock and now a total of 340,000 shares sold

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has sold another 20,000 shares last week making that 7 consecutive weeks of selling CRM stock and now a total of 340,000 shares....and we're not sure of the last time we've seen a CEO sell shares for 7 consecutive weeks.   Click here to see the previous report and history of this sell off run.  As Mr. Benioff is worth $3 Billion it's not a lot of money for him....but the interest level is driven by the "optics" of what many consider to be the most overvalued stock there is (click to read why).  (Salesforce.com's valuation is debated extensively - and to many insider selling matters).  On that note this news below... 
Mark Dietrich for WatchListNews.com writes: Marc Benioff sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.84, for a total value of $1,156,800.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available atthis link.
Shares of salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded down 2.81% on Monday, hitting $53.23. 5,442,204 shares of the company’s stock traded hands. salesforce.com, inc. has a 1-year low of $48.18 and a 1-year high of $67.00. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $58.06 and a 200-day moving average of $55.29. The company’s market cap is $32.949 billion.
salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 21st. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.12 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.29 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.09 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 37.9% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that salesforce.com, inc. will post $0.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.
CRM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Analysts at Nomura reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Friday. They now have a $70.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $65.00. Separately, analysts at Northland Securities reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Friday. They now have a $70.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $65.00. Finally, analysts at MKM Partners initiated coverage on shares of salesforce.com, inc. in a research note on Thursday. They set a “buy” rating and a $67.00 price target on the stock. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. The company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $68.42.
salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of enterprise cloud computing and social enterprise solutions. The Company provides a customer and collaboration relationship management (NYSE:CRM), applications through the Internet or cloud.
Posted on 10:40 AM | Categories:

Xero's US rival, Intuit, on track to grow customer base but XERO CEO Rod Drury says "Intuit is not doing too well"...

Radio New Zealand reports: "Intuit's Brad Smith aiming for 950,000 Quickbooks Online Subscrbers by July, 2015" but  "Xero's chief executive, Rod Drury, says his company's major competitor in the United States, Intuit, isn't doing so well.".  Listen to the Radio New Zealand Report by clicking here.   
Posted on 7:05 AM | Categories: