Groundhog Day: A Good Reminder to Make Gifts Before the Sun Shines
February 13, 2012 by Hudson Watts · Leave a Comment
Yesterday was a beautiful day in Nashville. Supposedly, that means we’re in for six weeks of miserable weather. Whether or not we receive all of this dreary weather, we expect the sun to be shining bright in spring and summer.
Like the groundhog, a lot of our clients are able to forecast future conditions for their businesses. We encourage our clients to consider their estate planning when conditions are still cloudy, but the future looks bright.
Yesterday, I met with a business owner whose business struggled during the Great Recession. The tide is beginning to turn, and my client believes the business will become very profitable in the next three to five years. Now is a great time for him to make gifts of company stock to a trust for his children. Due to poor earnings for the last three years, an appraiser will put a very low value on the stock. If the stock performs well in the future, the value of the stock will belong to the trust and not to my client. If the stock does not perform well, then my client will only have a modest estate tax problem. His real vulnerability to estate taxes is the possibility that the business will become very valuable while he still owns it.
Prior to making the gift, we will recapitalize the company stock so that 99% of the stock is non-voting and 1% is voting. My client will transfer all of his non-voting stock to a trust for his son and daughter, and he will retain all of the voting stock. This will enable him to control corporate policy, including the salary that he pays to himself.
Gifts should be made when the future is uncertain, but there remains a possibility of sunny weather ahead. Apparently this is the technique that Mitt Romney used to establish a trust fund for his children that is now worth $100 million without paying any gift taxes. Mr. Romney must hav
Two Sites That Stress Fundamentals
February 8, 2012 by Hudson Watts · Leave a Comment
Usually a tool that’s wielded by technical analysts, charting has come to fundamental analysis in a big way at Websites like YCharts and GuruFocus.
A picture’s worth a mountain of numbersand YCharts’ images are excellent for isolating and highlighting a security’s key leverage points, liberating them from the rows and columns of numbers and ratios in which they are often buried.
A few of YCharts’ (www.ycharts.com) plots, like 200-day moving average, are price/volume metrics commonly used in technical analysis. But most illustrate one or more of the 85 fundamental valuation measures that YCharts tracks for more than 5,000 U.S.-listed securities.
Best Credit Cards for Your Credit Range
January 19, 2012 by Hudson Watts · Leave a Comment
Guest Post: Credit Karma
Picking your next credit card is a lot like shopping for a new outfit.
You could shop according to a familiar name brand, like Discover or Chase. Or shop according to credit card typerewards, travel, low interest, secured, and morethe way you’d shop at specialty stores for a specific garment.
Or you can shop according to your credit score range, sort of like shopping by department stores that fit your budget. You go to Target, because you know you can afford their mid-range offerings. If you can afford to live lavishly, you shop Neiman Marcus.
Likewise, shopping according to your credit range gives you the most diverse selection of options that have one, important thing in commonthese cards are in your reach. The cards recommended for your credit range are the cards you have the biggest chance of approval for. It’s the most practical strategy to narrow your plastic preference.
So, let’s go credit card shopping.
Poor Credit
Plastic preference: A credit card is your #1 tool to establish or rebuild credit.
NHS Health Solutions’ BVI subsidiary moves towards revenue
January 17, 2012 by Hudson Watts · Leave a Comment
NHS Health Solutions, Inc. has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, a British Virgin Islands-registered corporation Mineseeker Operations Overseas Limited has made significant advancements toward its target to be under revenue by the second quarter of 2012. During the past 5 months, the BVI company has invested in excess of US$200,000 in order for the data collected during trials in Croatia to be processed and finalised. Mineseeker will also make available samples of the images to the market in general.
This month, the management team of the BVI company have been asked to travel to Mozambique to present the results of the trials to government ministers responsible for humanitarian demining and the oil and gas sectors. Mineseeker is confident that it will secure letters of intent for both the humanitarian projects and for the liberation of land in the oil and gas concessions as a result of these meetings.
Tennessee Second Fastest to Tax Freedom Day
December 29, 2011 by Hudson Watts · Leave a Comment
As April 15th draws near, a lot of us are thinking about income taxes. The Tax Foundation has concluded that the average American had to work from January 1st to April 12th to pay federal and state income taxes that will be owed in 2011.
The average Tennessean reached tax freedom day on March 27th, 2011. Only Mississippi reached tax freedom day before Tennessee. I am somewhat surprised that Mississippi beat us since Mississippi has a state income tax that applies to all types of income. Tennessee’s income tax only applies to dividends and interest. Our favorable income tax laws have been an important factor for a lot of high income individuals who have migrated to Tennessee.