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The muckracking professor whose research lead to the whole stock option backdating scandal (albeit, a decade later) is back at it again. Apparently, he’s now looking to see whether insiders backdated stock donations to their charitable foundations to “maximize tax benefits”.
As Portfolio points out, there are two ways that insiders could get this lucky: one legal [...]

When I initially discussed the Blackstone Group’s upcoming IPO, one of the issues that I pointed out was the murkiness of the tax situation. Congress has come out with a bill that essentially takes away the tax advantage that Blackstone would have over other publicly traded entities. The reason for the difference is that Blackstone is structured (technically) as a limited partnership while most publicly traded entities are corporations. Partnerships do not pay tax on their income while corporations do.

The big news in the financial markets this morning is the proposed IPO of Blackstone, the uber-private equity firm. Many market analysts are drooling over getting a look at Blackstone’s operations, which have essentially minted cash for the firm in the past few years. Media outlets have reported that the average Blackstone analyst has generated [...]

CNNMoney has an example of the rare lottery winner that knows how to handle his sudden fortune. So many people that get so incredibly lucky have no idea how to make their millions last and have so much stolen right from under their noses that a lot of them end up in bankruptcy.
Brad Duke, 34, [...]

The agency dilemma is an often studied issue in management classes. Basically, the dilemma states that an agent will do what is in their best interest more times than they will do what is in the best interests of the principal if the principal is not watching them like a hawk. In a stock market [...]

Ah, it’s that time of year again. Like Free Money Finance who posted a great article on rebalancing, I am also rebalancing my portfolio. As I stated in my post on this last year, my target allocations break down as follows:
45-55% Domestic Stocks
35-40% International Stocks
10-15% Real Estate
I further break down international stocks into emerging and developed [...]

I often slag my local paper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) as second rate. Growing up in a city with two first rate papers will do that to you. When they have real stories, the P-D does a great job with them and they have good reporters, but the cost cuts of the past several years [...]

So, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable rock? I have no idea, but I bet it’s a lot like the CEO of Craig’s List meeting a bunch of Wall Street bankers.
Those behind Craig’s List, as well as Craig himself, are vehemenently anti-capitalist when it comes to the website. They refuse to run ads, [...]

Welcome to the December 11, 2006 edition of The Carnival of Personal Finance.
With the end of the year coming up, I decided to highlight the posts that deal with tax planning strategies for the end of year. There are a lot of great submissions, so read all of the posts to find out about managing [...]