By Brett Ferguson and Jonathan Nicholson Publication date: 04/29/2010 – from the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. The Senate Budget Committee-approved budget resolution does not make room for dividends tax rates to continue to be tied to capital gains rates after 2010, raising questions among some lawmakers about whether Democrats intend to allow the top [...]

It’s all About Fiduciary Duty to Your Clients Everyone who listens to the news, either on the radio or TV, knows that the SEC is going after Goldman Sachs. There are significant problems to be ironed out. If, as is alleged by the SEC, there was criminal activity at Goldman, then someone needs to be [...]

Christianity and Capitalism by Richard Doster It’s been a rough couple of years for free-market capitalism. In Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life, theologian Michael Novak wonders if capitalism is “spiritually empty and corrosive of virtue.” The evidence, perhaps now more than at any time in the past 70 years, may tilt [...]

How To Not Get Audited By The IRS With increased computer power and more money for staff from the Obama administration, the IRS is gearing up to intensify its audits of individual taxpayers. High income alone is far from the only factor triggering an audit: Last year only 6.4% of the nation’s 440,000 highest-income filers [...]

Now that we have passed the Health Care Reform Bill that was scored by the CBO to say it is not going to increase the deficit and over the long  term actually reduce the deficit, Congress is now floating the idea of a VAT, a Value Added Tax, like Europe. To me this is an [...]

This book was copyrighted in 1993 but couldn’t be more contemporary. Adams gives us a tour of taxation in world  history and its impact on civilization. Good tax policy causes societies to prosper and grow, bad tax policy brings down civilizations. It happens over and over. It would be wonderful if we could learn from [...]

This article explains in clear terms why a higher tax rate will usually result in fewer taxes being paid into the U.S. Treasury. Wouldn’t it be better if we had lower tax rates and actually collected them than higher rates that we don’t collect? Here’s what Forbes’ Christopher Helman found: What The Top U.S. Companies [...]

April 1, 2010 by Bob Veres Economic forecasters sometimes describe the investment markets as a leading indicator, which means that they believe returns can anticipate good or bad economic news.  Share prices fall when investors expect a recession, and rise when a recovery is expected–and last year’s stock market growth seems to fit that pattern.  [...]

Recent Market Volatility in Perspective The US stock market has taken investors on a bumpy ride in recent years. This volatility has tested investor discipline and prompted some people to question their commitment to equities. While no one knows the future, looking at the past may help you gain a better view of long-term market [...]

Investing, in the final analysis, is a matter of faith. This, I think, is an important fundamental to understand. I am not writing of “blind faith.” Nor, necessarily, religious faith. It is my conviction that there is no such thing as blind faith. If a person acts blindly, it is not out of faith; it [...]