Monday 29 September 2014

Reform Tax Law to Keep US Firms at Home

Editor's Note. Given a veritable flood over the last year of corporate "inversions"—US companies that reincoporate in other countries to take advantage of favorable tax rates and business regulations—lawmakers in Washington D.C. are debating how to respond. The arguments split, often along partisan lines, from overhauling the US corporate tax to punishing companies who choose to move elsewhere. On July 22, Mihir A. Desai, Miuzho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School, testified before the US Senate Committee on Finance. His message: The answer is not in restricting the ability of firms to locate where it makes sense for them to be, but rather to create tax reform that makes US firms more competitive.
Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Hatch, and Members of the Committee, it is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss international tax reform. I am a Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Recent merger transactions highlight long-simmering problems in the US corporate tax, particularly with respect to its international provisions. My comments attempt to outline briefly the origins of these transactions, the range of alternative solutions, guidelines for evaluating alternative reforms and some reforms that should be avoided.
The last twelve months have witnessed a remarkable wave of merger transactions that facilitate the expatriation of US corporations. Such transactions reflect the effects of policies and of the changing structure of multinational firms.
From a policy perspective, the transactions highlight the increasing costs of employing a) a worldwide tax regime when most other large capital exporting countries no longer maintain such regimes and b) a corporate tax rate that stands well above rates employed by other OECD countries. From a firm point of view, the transactions highlight a) the increased mobility of activity in today's economy, b) the growing "decentering" of firms whereby headquarter locations have been split up and reallocated across the world, and c) the growing importance of non-US markets for US firms. Rather than questioning the loyalties of executives, it is critical to understand these underlying structural and secular forces.
“REFORMS SHOULD BE FOCUSED EXCLUSIVELY ON ADVANCING US WELFARE WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION ON REFORMS THAT WILL IMPROVE AMERICAN WAGES”
While these transactions naturally attract growing attention, inversions are merely the most visible manifestation of these developments. In addition to inversions, these forces are giving rise to a) incorporation decisions by entrepreneurs that anticipate the burdens of being a US corporation, b) merger patterns that reflect the penalties of being domiciled in the US and the importance of offshore cash for US corporations, c) investment patterns by US and foreign companies, d) profit-shifting activities that are not value-creating and e) the consequent, negative impact of all of these distortions on the US labor force. While it is tempting to limit attention to the more sensational effects and characterize them as tax-avoiding paper-shuffling, this would effectively be missing the forest for the trees.
Reforms should be focused exclusively on advancing US welfare with particular attention on reforms that will improve American wages. These goals are mistakenly thought to be achieved by limiting the foreign activities of US firms as foreign activities can be viewed as diverting economic activity away from the US. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite as firms expand globally, they also expand domestically. Indeed, American welfare can be advanced by ensuring that investments in the US and abroad are owned by the most productive owner and that American firms flourish abroad, a goal advanced by the territorial regime that has now been adopted by most comparable countries.
While the developments described above have crystallized the case for international tax reform with an increasing attention on switching to a territorial regime, there is still tremendous variation in proposals for territorial regimes. Some proposals, including those with an alternative minimum tax on foreign profits, are tantamount to a backdoor worldwide regime with even more complexity than today's system. Revenue considerations should figure largely in tax reform today but should be accorded secondary status in this setting given the very limited revenue provided by current international tax rules and the remarkable complexity and distortions required to secure any such revenue. Additionally, it is not clear that policies should prioritize revenue considerations in other countries.
More broadly, the corporate tax is ripe for reform. In addition to international reforms and a rate reduction, reform should address the two other major developments in the corporate tax arena: a) the growing prominence of non-C corporate business income, and b) the disjunction between profits reported to capital markets and to tax authorities.
A useful blueprint for reform would include a) moving to a territorial regime unencumbered by excessive complexity, b) a considerably lower tax rate in the range of 18-20 percent, c) better alignment of book and tax reporting of corporate profits and d) by some taxation of non-C corporation business income. This combination of reforms has the potential of addressing significant changes in the global economy in a revenue-neutral way that will advance US welfare. More fundamental reforms, including those that replace a corporate tax with a consumption tax, are preferred if feasible.
Legislation that is narrowly focused on preventing inversions or specific transactions runs the risk of being counterproductive. These transactions are nested in a broader set of corporate decisions, leading to several unintended consequences.
For example, rules that increase the required size of a foreign target to ensure the tax benefits of an inversion can deter these transactions but can also lead to more substantive transactions. More substantive transactions are likely to involve the loss of US activity as American firms will be paired with larger foreign acquirers that demand the relocation of more activity abroad, including headquarters functions. Similarly, specific regulations targeted at inverted firms may also lead to foreign firms leading such transactions to avoid those regulations.
While it is tempting to address specific transactions in advance, or in lieu, of broader reform, it is useful to recall that the last wave of anti-inversion legislation likely spurred these more significant, recent transactions and reduced the prospect of reform in these intervening years.
Members of the Committee, I admire your foresight in addressing these issues. These highly visible manifestations of the structural problems in the corporate tax provide a significant opportunity for genuine reform. I'd be delighted to answer any questions.

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

This is the second in a series of articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of bank capital for small business.
During the 2008 financial crisis, small businesses were hampered in securing bank credit because of a perfect storm of their falling sales and weakened collateral, and growing risk aversion among lenders. Those days are not over. While lingering cyclical factors from the crisis may still be constraining access to bank credit, there are also structural barriers that seem to be preventing banks, both large and small, from ever fully returning to the small business market.

CYCLICAL FACTORS LINGER FROM THE RECESSION

In the recent recession small-business sales were hit hard and may still be soft, undermining their demand for loan capital. Income of the typical household headed by a self-employed person declined 19 percent in real terms between 2007 and 2010, according to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances. And a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) noted that small businesses reported sales as their number one problem for four straight years during the crisis and subsequent recovery.
In addition, collateral owned by small businesses lost value during the financial crisis, potentially making small business borrowers less creditworthy today—in fact, small business credit scores are lower now than before the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve's 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances indicated that the average PAYDEX score of those surveyed was 53.4. By contrast, the 2011 NFIB Annual Small Business Finance Survey indicated that the average small company surveyed had a PAYDEX score of 44.7. Moreover, the values of both commercial and residential real estate, which represent two-thirds of the assets of small-business owners and are often used as collateral for small-business loans, were decimated during the financial crisis.
On the supply side, banks remain more risk averse in the recovery then they were prior to the recession. Measures of tightening on loan terms, including the Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Survey, for small businesses increased at double-digit rates during the recession and recovery, and have eased at just single-digit rates over the past several quarters. Loosening has been much slower and more tentative for small firms than for large firms.
Regarding points of access to capital, community banks have long been crucial to small business lending. But community bank failures have been high and few new ones have started up. Troubled and failed banks reached levels not seen since the Great Depression during the financial crisis of 2008, with the failures consisting mostly of community banks. This environment—where troubled local banks appear unable to meet re-emerging small firm credit needs—would be an ideal market for new banks, but new charters are down to a trickle. In fact, a year recently went by with no new bank charters issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the first time that happened in the agency's 80-year history.

The State of Small Business Lending: Credit Access During the Recovery and How Technology May Change the Game

 Small businesses are core to US economic competitiveness. Not only do they employ half of the nation's private sector workforce--about 120 million people--but also since 1995 they have created approximately two‐thirds of the net new jobs in the country. Yet in recent years, small businesses have been slow to recover from the recession and credit crisis that hit them especially hard. This lag has prompted the question, "Is there a credit gap in small business lending?" In this paper the authors compile and analyze the current state of access to bank capital for small business from the best available sources. The authors explore both the cyclical impact of the recession on small business and access to credit, and several structural issues that impede the full recovery of bank credit markets for smaller loans. They argue that the online banking market is likely to continue to grow, disrupting traditional ways of lending to small businesses. This will create both opportunities and risks for policymakers and regulators. Key concepts include:
  • Small businesses create two out of every three net new jobs, but there remains a significant jobs gap.
  • Structural issues make it more difficult for community banks to fill market gaps in small-business lending.
  • New entrants are innovating and using technology in ways that improve access, time needed for delivery of capital, and the overall borrower experience.
  • The policy challenge is to ensure that these new marketplaces have sufficient oversight to prevent abuse, but not too much oversight that the innovation is dampened or delayed.
  • source;http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7600.html

Government Can Do More to Unfreeze Small Business Credit

This is the third in a series of articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of bank capital for small business.)
Access to credit is critical to the success and job-creating ability of America's small businesses. But small business credit was hit hard during the recent recession and has been slow to recover. Beginning in early 2009, the federal government acted quickly to unfreeze credit markets with programs ranging from loan guarantees to capital infusions and regulatory changes. A number of these were extremely effective and also efficient in their use of taxpayer dollars, but most were not meant to be permanent.

Currently, as described in the HBS working paper The State of Small Business Lending, gaps persist in certain areas of the small-business market, and regulatory overhang continues to create pressures on small business credit.

GOVERNMENT STEPS TO LOOSEN CREDIT

Three landmark pieces of legislation passed between 2009 and 2012 were aimed at, first, responding to the immediate impact of the financial crisis on small business and, second, driving economic recovery in the years following. Together, the three-the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, and the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (JOBS Act)-leveraged effective federal programs that already existed, while also taking action in some new areas.

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The striking entry featuring a long wide drive way adorned with lush greens, open green spaces, expresses the overall ambience and lifestyle of the enticing surrounding. Careful planning in designing and segregation of space ensures each home gets to enjoy panoramic views as well as experience maximum privacy.

Devanahalli is just an hour's drive from Bangalore; there has been a growth of tourist traffic recently due to the impetus provided by the Bangalore International Airport.

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Overthrowing the Bond King

EVEN though the writing had been on the wall for months, the departure of Bill Gross from Pacific Investment Management Co (PIMCO) on September 26th still came as a shock. Mr Gross, often dubbed the “Bond King”, had founded the firm back in 1971, and had built it into a giant, with $2 trillion of assets under management. In 2000 Allianz, a German insurer, had bought the firm, but Mr Gross stayed on as its chief investment officer, with continued success. His flagship “Total Return” fund did consistently better than its rivals, thanks to clever mathematical modelling and uncanny economic foresight, even as it grew to become the world’s biggest mutual fund. Over the past 15 years, it has earned a return of 164%, far above the industry’s average of 116%.
Mr Gross is leaving PIMCO for Janus, a much smaller firm; its market capitalisation was around $2 billion when the news broke, on a par with estimates of Mr Gross’s personal fortune. He released a statement saying he was switching jobs to get away from the distractions of running a giant firm and to focus instead on investing his clients’ money. However, news reports suggested that PIMCO’s board had been planning to dismiss him in the next few days anyway, and that he had jumped to avoid being pushed. Douglas Hodge, the company’s chief executive, only a few months ago praised Mr Gross for generating “more value for more investors than anyone in the history of our industry”. He now says that there is sense of relief at the firm following Mr Gross’s departure, according to the Wall Street Journal.
There appear to be three main reasons behind Mr Gross’s abrupt exit. The immediate cause was his abrasive management style. He had long planned to hand the reins to Mohamed El-Erian, a globetrotting economist who had worked for the IMF, managed Harvard’s endowment and chaired Barack Obama’s Global Development Council. But in January Mr El-Erian, who served as PIMCO’s co-chief investment officer, abruptly resigned. Although the firm’s leadership repeatedly encouraged Mr Gross to promote a more collegial atmosphere, he alienated many senior executives, in one instance by criticising some by name in a large group e-mail. After that, many of them allegedly threatened to resign if he remained in charge.
Moreover, Mr Gross’s public behaviour has grown increasingly peculiar of late. He has always been quirky—his public investment commentaries usually include long digressions on topics such as his late cat, and he once led an impromptu conga line on the PIMCO trading floor. He gave a speech at an investment conference earlier this year that struck many as unbecoming of a man to whom savers had entrusted nearly half a trillion dollars. He delivered it in sunglasses, compared himself with Justin Bieber, a 20-year-old pop star known for behaving badly, and told journalists to repeat that he was “the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being you’ve met in your life.”
Such mis-steps might have been forgiven had Mr Gross’s charmed streak as an investor continued. But over the past three years, several misjudgements have caused his funds to lag. In 2011 he warned that American government bonds would fall in value after the Federal Reserve ended a round of quantitative easing, and sharply reduced the Total Return fund’s holdings of Treasuries. When his prophesied interest-rate spike failed to materialise, the fund finished in the bottom 15% of its peer group. It rebounded the next year, but slumped again in 2013 with a 2% loss, and trails its benchmark again this year. As a result, performance-chasing investors have run for the exit: Total Return’s funds under management have shrunk from a high of $293 billion in 2013 to just $222 billion this month. A further cloud fell over Mr Gross when the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulator, recently announced it was investigating potential mispricing in the exchange-traded version of the Total Return fund.
However, Janus’s shares soared 43% on news of Mr Gross’s move, suggesting that many investors still have faith in him. Janus’s smaller size will allow him to trade less liquid bonds, providing him with new areas in which to work magic. Meanwhile, Allianz’s share price slid by 6%. PIMCO’s leading closed-end funds fell 6% as well—though some of those sales may have been motivated by fears that Mr Gross, who personally owns about 2% of their shares, might unload them.
As for PIMCO, the risks implicit in its strategy of promoting superstar managers have now been laid bare: changes of the guard at other giant fund-managers such as Vanguard, Fidelity or American Funds rarely make headlines. By tying its identity so closely to Mr Gross and Mr El-Erian, PIMCO may now lose a hefty chunk of its assets, even though their replacements are themselves high-performing by industry standards. At a time when ever more investors are shunning active management altogether in favour of cheaper index funds, the end of Mr Gross’s reign at PIMCO may also mark the end of the era of the superstar fund-manager that he personified.


Thursday 26 June 2014

Stocks And Shares - How To Trade Profitably In A Bear Market

Many traders find they can make money trading in bullish markets, but when there is a major correction underway or when the market has turned bearish, they literally freeze and are unable to trade successfully or find profits in their trading. Discover how you can trade profitably in a bear market and not be slaughtered.

Trading in a bull market is easier than trading in a bear market. Many traders find they can make money trading in bullish markets, but when there is a major correction underway or when the market is bearish, they literally freeze and are unable to trade successfully or find profits in their trading.
First,when a market has collapsed, it is important to accept the fact that the market trend has changed from bullish to bearish. It is human nature to find scapegoats or to find a "reason" or to rationalise away the fact that the market trend has changed. But unless the trader accepts the fact that he is solely responsible to trade his way out of a bearish market, he will find his position untenable and discover losses that add up daily as the market bearish sentiments continue. It does not pay to refuse the responsibility of your own trading action and put the blame on your broker or your friend who has given you the "tips" that led to your losses.
If you are faced with losses from a sudden collapse in prices, accept that it is your responsibility to now institute action to get out of this situation with profits.
Secondly, while in bullish markets it is easy to trade by just buying stocks that are in initial outbreaks and just holding them and coming back again after a few days to reap profits, you cannot do the same during bearish markets.
In bullish markets, you trade with the trend, and as long as the trend is up, you stand to make easy profits. On the contrary, in bearish markets, the market goes into consolidation, and trends are "shorter" in duration or the market will go into a sideways direction, with prices oscillating between ranges. During bearish markets, we are more biased towards range trading rather than trend trading. So if you do not know how to change from using trend trading to range trading, you can be caught with short term trend changes and suffer whipsaws and lose money trend trading during bearish markets.
Dealing with traders who have gone through a series of major market corrections since 1987 has led me to conclude that there is no room for lackadaisical trading during bearish markets. The margin of error for a trading signal is much lower when trading in a bearish market. I have seen traders who are able to quickly change or adapt from longer trend trading to trading shorter swings in the market or range trading to be able to make money from their trades. In bearish markets, they are contented with smaller profits, but trading more often and in higher volumes. To aid in their margin of profits, they are able to negotiate the lowest brokerage terms possible with their brokers or to use discounted online trading platforms.
In bearish marketsHealth Fitness Articles, the trader who range trade will be the one who is best positioned to take advantage of the shorter and faster rebounds that occur as stocks get oversold and retrace upwards. Accepting personal responsibility and adapting to range trading will improve his chances to make money during bearish markets.