Few things say “thank you” like food. As the holidays and year-end crunch approach, many Maine employers will bring pizza or donuts into the office, organize a holiday luncheon or provide their staff with free Thanksgiving turkeys. Employer-provided meals offer an opportunity to thank employees for another year of service — or to entice them to  Continue Reading »

Value is relative. Some assignments require the valuation of a minority interest that may lack control and “marketability,” while others call for an appraisal of the entire entity on a controlling basis. How do these situations differ, and how are these differences accounted for by a valuator? Level of Value The ability to sell an investment  Continue Reading »

Chancery Adopts Merger Price Sans Cost Savings Reduction Merlin Partners LP v. AutoInfo, Inc., 2015 Del. Ch. LEXIS 128 (April 30, 2015) In a Delaware statutory appraisal action, the Chancery once again determined that the merger price trumped values resulting from other valuation analyses. But before “placing full weight on the Merger price,” Vice Chancellor  Continue Reading »

Business valuations are prepared as of a specific date, similar to balance sheets. Sometimes a valuation’s effective date is in the past, and events have occurred after the valuation date that would have impacted the company’s value if investors knew (or could have known) about them beforehand. These retrospective valuations are common in litigation and  Continue Reading »

IRS Revenue Ruling 59-60 is an essential building block of modern appraisal practice. It identifies “the condition and outlook of the specific industry” as one of the factors to consider when valuing a private business. But how do investors measure industry risk and how does it fit in the valuation paradigm? Risk and Return Value is  Continue Reading »

Cartwright v. Jackson Capital Partners, Limited Partnership, 2015 Tenn. App. LEXIS 361 (May 21, 2015) Did the appraiser use the wrong method for the case? This question took center stage in a lawsuit featuring the beneficiary of a grantor trust who claimed the trustee had deprived him of all the distributions to which he was  Continue Reading »

Changes brought by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continue to roll in. For affected Maine employers, these changes could mean higher expenses and will add filing responsibilities with the IRS. Background: The ACA has a language of its own, with many new terms employers must learn. For example, “applicable large employer,” or ALE, is defined as an  Continue Reading »

Virtually all Maine small business owners are frustrated with our current tax system. In fact, five out of today’s Top 10 small business concerns relate to state and federal tax issues, according to the Small Business Problems and Priorities survey released by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a small business advocacy group. Small businesses  Continue Reading »

Recently there has been a rise in the use of staffing agencies, so the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has sought to redefine the relationship between the employees of such an agency and the agency’s client. To do that, the NLRB had to broaden the legal test that makes a worker a “joint employee” of both  Continue Reading »

Reedy-Huffman v. Huffman, 2015 Alas. LEXIS 56 (May 20, 2015) Hire a valuation expert. That’s the message the Alaska appeals court sent in a ruling involving a professional practice caught up in a divorce. The opinion also includes a good summary of the state’s position on goodwill. ‘Evidentiary void’: The husband was a licensed naturopathic  Continue Reading »