Every year, tax season creates opportunities for criminals looking to steal your money. The IRS just issued an Alert regarding a new tax fraud. Criminals are targeting CPA firms and tax professionals to obtain client information. The criminals use this information to prepare fraudulent tax returns (with your correct social security number, address, dependents, bank [...]
A business is usually the most valuable asset; yet owners typically have no idea what their business is worth. Unlike real estate or brokerage investments, owners are handicapped by not having readily available information to indicate business worth. For example, with real estate, nearby transactions occur daily. You can usually find that 4 bedroom, 2 [...]
An appraiser seeking to determine a company’s fair market value may choose to use a market approach called the private company transaction method. This method is based on actual transactions in privately-held stock. It is from these transactions any number of pricing multiples can be derived. Buyers, sellers and investors may ask, however, if the [...]
The security breach announced by Equifax last week serves as a stark reminder that we need to do what we can to protect ourselves from identity theft. It has been reported that the potential impact could exceed 143 million customers. Currently, there are five credit bureaus. The three main credit monitoring agencies, which are well-known, [...]
When analyzing financial statements, you may need to assess whether they are wrong. You may need to assess whether they indicate undisclosed problems, as well. Some comfort may be gained by the situation, and perhaps some corroborative information, such as: Does the company use an outside CPA, and if so, what services does the CPA provide? [...]
Revenue Ruling 59-60 supports the market approach to value. One of the market-based methodologies, the private company transaction method, looks at transactions in privately-held stock to derive a pricing mechanisms to value a particular company. The key to this method, and to the market approach in general, is comparability. The business appraiser will attempt to [...]
It is important to understand that profit reported on a company's income statement does not equate to cash flow. Understanding a company’s cash –cycle can be vital to truly understanding and assessing how the company is doing overall. The cash cycle is an important component to understand when assessing a company’s operations and for understanding [...]
Restaurant profitability and success can be traced to various factors. These factors can include: location, demographics, and concept. Another key factor to consider is the restaurant’s prime costs. Prime Costs and Restaurant Profitability What are prime costs? It is the total cost of food, beverage and labor. The food and beverage costs will typically be [...]
Filing Status If you are divorced by December 31st, you will need to file your federal return as a single taxpayer; or, if you qualify, as head of household. Division of Assets Consider the tax impact of your assets. For instance, the spouse who keeps the house will be able to deduct the interest expense [...]
Business Risk When performing a business appraisal, a great deal of research and analysis is done to help the appraisers arrive at an indication of value for the entity. Certain research and analyses relate to the appraiser’s assessment of risk. One type of risk analysis often used is the S.W.O.T. analysis (“SWOT”). SWOT [...]