Finance

It doesn’t get much more absurd. Over the last five years the state of California handed out over $120 million in tax credits and incentives for specific small business startups. Guess what? The state’s Franchise Tax Board is asking for all that money back. Only Sacramento could devise a scheme to change the rules and sock it to job creators.

A growing number of US companies are set to save hundreds of millions of dollars in tax by relocating to Europe after completing takeovers of Europeon firm, according to a report in the Financial Times. ”Some of the biggest mergers and acquisitions so far in 2013 have involved so-called “tax inversions” – where a US acquirer shifts overseas, to Europe in particular, to pay a lower rate. These deals have come at a time when politicians in Washington have been increasing their calls for corporate tax reform.”

Financial processes aren’t just about the numbers. The way you plan and decide budgets, and then track financial performance, has far-reaching impacts on strategy decisions, strategy execution, teamwork, culture, and innovation, as well as cost control. First step is to think of your business as a set of businesses within a business. Here’s how to go about it.

Last June, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell the most in 19 months after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank could cut back monthly bond purchases later this year. This change in Fed activity might send interest rates up, assert Wall Street advisors, whose business has benefited from low interest rates and record share prices. M&A experts are dampening forecasts for the next six months as a result of added uncertainty of valuations.

You worked your entire life with your blood, sweat and tears to create a viable business that you can be proud to say you were a part of something larger than yourself. For multiple reasons, such as family, health, age or interest, you have decided to sell your business. Now what do you do?

Data on newly formed companies and their founders are hard to come by, but a vital component to measuring economic health emerged in a recent study of today's entrepreneurs. LegalZoom and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation surveyed 1,431 business owners who formed their companies through LegalZoom in 2012. Policy makers should heed the finding that certain barriers impede start-ups at a critical stage of development.

What’s behind the allure of investing in startups? (Hint: It’s not always about the money.)

How does one understand the most outlandish monetary experiment ever conducted? Chris Martenson, founder of PeakProsperity.com noted a lament from a reader who said that the usual explanation of Quantitative Easing as "thin air money printing" did not satisfy his need for understanding either. Not being a trained economist he searched in vain for a definition that made sense. “ My difficulty is in understanding how thin air money gets into circulation.” In Martenson’s blog he puts his baffled reader out of his misery by giving his considered explanation alongside the official definition.

CEOs and boards of directors are feeling the pressures of increased stakeholder activism and scrutiny. When asked in the RHR International 2013 CEO Snapshot Survey about the current biggest threat to their tenure, 22 percent of CEOs cited “failure to perform to stakeholder expectations,” compared to just 12 percent in January 2012. In addition, more than half (57%) say that they will be driving a change in their company’s strategy this year.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has provided almost $35 billion in loans, loan guarantees and conditional commitments to renewable-energy companies. About 35 percent of that is for solar-generating projects, which benefit from falling panel prices, compared with less than 4 percent for solar manufacturers. What has happened to these "investments"?