Financial reporting

Peoples Income Tax, a local tax prep chain in Virginia, plans to give a break to recently laid-off workers.

Clients are coming to their CPAs with concerns about their shrinking retirement savings as the recession deepens.

Manny Weintraub is the founder, principal, and portfolio manager of Integre Advisors, based in New York City. He was the former managing director of Neuberger Berman. Integre is a money management firm that was established in 2003 and specializes in risk/reward investing. In fact, their mission is to grow and preserve their clients’ worth. And, they’ve been pretty successful at it for the past five years. But, there has been no question that what is going on now has presented problems. Actually, says Weintraub, “It has been one of the most challenging years investors have ever experienced.” As a result, he has put together what he suggests are 10 resolutions for investors to help them navigate the coming year. They are certainly worth detailing here. 1. Never Put All Your Eggs in One Basket. Weintraub very quickly adds that it doesn’t matter how attractive that basket even is. “This relates to the Madoff case but it could apply equally to anything, such as putting all your pension money into the stock of your employer.” 2. Beware of Conventional Wisdom. He has said that when everyone knows something is going to happen, there’s a decent chance it won’t happen. “When oil was $100, everyone knew that we’re running out of oil and that the price can only go one way – up. It’s the same with China – everyone knew this was the Chinese Century – and that investments related to China would go up. There were all these certainties related to emerging markets that turned out not to be so certain.” 3. Know Your Goal. Weintraub’s admitted goal is to preserve wealth from the ravages of inflation. “If your goal is to outperform the S&P 500 every day, then you might chase things that have worked before but are now overvalued. 4. Match Your attention Span to Your Time Horizon. Weintraub believes that if you are investing money for 10 or 20 years, try not to look at those cable news shows constantly. “To watch these things jiggle up or down, when in the end it doesn’t make a difference, is really a huge waste of time – and a way to get worse results.” 5. Know That We Are Living in History. History is not just something that happened a long time ago. And that’s scary because a lot of scary things have happened in the last 70 years. So you have to be prepared for anything to happen now and in the future. You must have some humility to know that you can’t ever know exactly what’s going to happen, which now brings us to... 6. Avoid Leverage. Anything can happen. The problem with leverage is that it cannot only magnify returns up or down, but leverage is the thing that can say: “game over.” A margin call can sell you out at the worst time whereas, if you’re not leveraged, you can come back some other time. 7. Try to Be as Unemotional as Possible Regarding your Investments. Weintraub says that your stocks don’t “love you” when they’re up or “hate you” when they’re down. They haven’t been “good to you.” “They’re just up. Maybe once a year focus on your investments and ask yourself if you would buy the same thing today, and why. If you don’t have a really good reason, sell.” 8. Paper Losses are Actual Losses. Weintraub points out that alot of people say, “It’s not really a loss unless I sell it.” He retorts, “In that case Warren Buffett isn’t actually a billionaire because he’s a billionaire on paper. One can realize a loss and move on.” 9. Don’t Let Taxes Move Your Portfolio. In other words, don’t let the tail wag the dog. Taxes are important, he says, and if one has the opportunity to buy a triple tax-free bond yielding five percent instead of a corporate bond yielding six percent, go for it. “That’s different from not wanting to sell an investment because you have to pay taxes. A lot of people got completely and totally wiped out by borrowing against their stock instead of selling their stock and paying taxes. They got leveraged and forgot they were living in history. It all ties together.” 10. Wealth is Relative. There you go.If you’re down but not out, you’re in pretty good shape. Even if you’re down 20 percent, you can still buy more yield with the remaining corpus--or more gas, more country house, more modern art, or more expensive clothes--than you could before. If you would like to speak with Manny about Integre, the market, or the stocks in his portfolio, contact Davia Temin, Christine Summerson, or Lauren Balog of Temin and Company at 212.588.8788 or e-mail them at news@teminandco.cominfo@integreadvisors.com.. Or e-mail

Many Americans are planning to delay retirement, postpone vacations and reconsider buying or selling their homes as the result of the economy, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

The Senate has unanimously approved a $15,000 tax credit for individuals who purchase a home in the next year.

It’s no surprise the TARP has turned out to be such a murky endeavor, since even the name of the controversial bailout program has been in doubt from the beginning.

Private sector employers slashed 522,000 jobs last month, according to the latest report by payroll giant ADP.

Accounting firm Barfield Murphy Shank & Smith has formed a group to help restructure struggling small companies.

A survey of small business owners showed signs that some are less worried about the economy than they were three months ago.

The majority of U.S. companies are making multiple adjustments in their pay and hiring programs for both executives and employees in response to the financial crisis, according to a new survey.

There has been talk, and some hope, that the current financial crisis might be the perfect storm for tax reform, allowing the Obama administration to push through significant policy changes.

Accounting firm Wiss & Co. has created an economic advisory group to help business owners and executives deal with the recession.

A new board that includes the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies will now oversee the trustees who oversee the International Accounting Standards Board.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed standard that would require disclosures about the fair value of financial instruments in interim financial statements as well as annual statements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board wants to bring more clarity to some of the complex credit derivatives that contributed to the financial crisis.

The American Institute of CPAs has opened an online Economic Crisis Resource Center with information to help accountants advise their clients, employers, family members and friends on how to cope with the recession.

The House included a taxpayer accountability amendment in the economic stimulus bill that provides protections to federal workers who expose waste, fraud and abuse, drawing praise from whistleblower advocacy groups.

Whether navigating your firm through the choppy waters of today’s unstable economy or mapping out both long- and short-term strategies, a trio of CEOs from CPA firms in both the U.S. and Canada agreed that communication with staff members and an understanding of the competition are among the more critical factors in driving a firm’s growth and evolution.

The Internal Revenue Service touted Earned Income Tax Awareness Day as a way to raise consciousness about the credit for low-income taxpayers as the economic crisis forces more Americans into lower tax brackets.

Last year, we published for the second time a ranking of CPAs by AUM (Assets Under Management). The response was staggering. We more than doubled the prior year’s number and went over the 200 mark. We had two criteria for consideration: They must be a CPA firm that has a financial planning practice, even as a subsidiary or affiliate, and the financial planner in the office must hold a CPA credential. In the top list were 18 firms that were in “The Billion Dollar Club,” or as we called it, “Wealth Magnet Elite.” We had 87 firms were in “The $100+ Million Club” or “Wealth Magnet Select,” and then 37 in the “$50 Million Club.” In the eight-figure category that we deemed “Rising Stars,” we had another 40. We also delved beneath the surface of just a ranking and unearthed what share broker/dealers, wire-houses, financial services companies, and the like had. We went even further and revealed the areas of financial planning products that each firm recommended in basic categories such as IRAs, 401(k)s, mutual funds, life insurance, bonds, 529 plans, to name a few. The reaction from the accounting profession has been simply wonderful. No one had ever seen such a ranking before we did the first one in 2007 and it opened the door more. Firms clamored for this to be an annual event, and we are complying. We are contacting everyone on our list from last year for updates plus additional firms that have contacted us. The final list will be compiled on May 1 and we will publish the rankings in the July 2009 CPA Wealth Provider. We encourage you to participate. For a copy of the Survey Form, contact me by email (stuart.kahan@sourcemedia.com), or write to me at Source Media, One State Street