Five players from Ohio State have received a punishment of suspension for the first five games of NEXT season. They will be allowed to play in this year's post-season bowl.
Their coach announced that they had all PROMISED that they will return next year and carry out the suspension. (Of course, the university has also appealed the penalty -- after all, if they play and win their bowl game, there is a chance the NCAA will reduce the penalty and they will get to play most of next season)
The coach felt that it would not be "fair" to keep them out a bowl game that they had "earned" by their play this season.
Whether you feel that the NCAA rules that they violated are fair or not is not part of THIS discussion.
They PROMISED that they will return. What holds them to that promise?
Fairness, honor, integrity and morality should hold them to that promise.
Is that enough? Will it hold?
If an NFL team offers any of these young men a contract for next season, what will keep them from accepting?
Honor, Integrity, Morality.
Is that enough?
If I owned an NFL team, would I want to employ someone who would take a public stand, then disavow it for financial gain? What does that tell me about the employee?
Frankly, there are NFL owners who have shown that they do not care about the honor of their team, the honor of the game, or anything except their own egos being stroked by winning.
So, where do you think these guys will be playing next year?
Ohio State?
Dallas?
Oakland?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The Keystrokes of Your Life
Is your life measured by keystrokes? Do you feeled compelled to tweet, text, and post on a daily or even hourly basis in order to assure yourself and the electronic world around you that you exist?
A friend of mine has a brother who has over 3,000 facebook "friends". How many of them do you suppose he knows? How many of them does he care about? How many of them care about him?
3,000 "friends"?
I doubt that I am acquainted with 3,000 people, much less "friends" with that many. Think about the number. If an elementary school teacher taught 30 children each year for 30 years, that would be 900 students. How many of the first year class would the teacher remember by retirement? If the teacher was also acquainted with ALL of the parents of those 900 children, the total number would begin to approach 3,000. But friends?
Of course, I don't make a habit of "friending" on facebook people I do not actually know IRL. I have made ONE exception. A person whose blog I regularly follow asked the blog readers to "friend" her. There are days when her blog post is actually her facebook jottings. I have also directly communicated with her by e-mail. As I say, ONE person I have never physically met.
So, if you have 3,000 "friends", if you spend your entire day tweeting, twittering, texting, posting, e-mailing, IMing, what are you doing with your life?
Do you have a life?
Please, post and let me know.
A friend of mine has a brother who has over 3,000 facebook "friends". How many of them do you suppose he knows? How many of them does he care about? How many of them care about him?
3,000 "friends"?
I doubt that I am acquainted with 3,000 people, much less "friends" with that many. Think about the number. If an elementary school teacher taught 30 children each year for 30 years, that would be 900 students. How many of the first year class would the teacher remember by retirement? If the teacher was also acquainted with ALL of the parents of those 900 children, the total number would begin to approach 3,000. But friends?
Of course, I don't make a habit of "friending" on facebook people I do not actually know IRL. I have made ONE exception. A person whose blog I regularly follow asked the blog readers to "friend" her. There are days when her blog post is actually her facebook jottings. I have also directly communicated with her by e-mail. As I say, ONE person I have never physically met.
So, if you have 3,000 "friends", if you spend your entire day tweeting, twittering, texting, posting, e-mailing, IMing, what are you doing with your life?
Do you have a life?
Please, post and let me know.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Irony
I remember a gift tax case I worked back in '05 or '06. The taxpayer had been instrumental in the development of a local corporation that became quite large. When his business was taken over by a publicaly traded company, he got a LOT of stock in the big company. A LOT OF STOCK. For the sake of numbers, we'll say his holdings (in one, publically-traded company) had a street value of $10 million.
He couldn't sell the stock and realize $10 million. If he had attempted to sell off even half of it, the value on the daily market would likely have plunged.
He was, in effect handcuffed by gold. He owned the stock, he received VERY nice dividends, but he couldn't sell enough stock in a brief time to give himself full liquidity.
He was not a young man. The stock would be valued at it's trading price on the day he died, and his estate would be taxed on that $10 million dollars.
Not a financially comfortable picture.
The gentleman was no fool. He met with his attorneys, and they developed a plan to minimize the estate tax effect of his stock ownership.
First, he transferred the stock from himself to a corporation. This corporation held two classes of stock - common and prefered. Each class of stock was divided into two characteristics - voting and non-voting.
There were further restrictions on the ability of any share holder to sell their stock to anyone outside of the corporation.
I was charged with auditing the gift tax returns for the gifts of stock in the corporation that he made to his children and grandchildren.
Now, when you take stock that trades on the public market for %10 million dollars and pays a regular dividend, and you manage, through expensive planning to put that stock into a corporation where it does not necesarily pay a dividend, where it cannot be sold outside of the corporation, and may or may not have any voting rights, the stock becomes worth less than $10 million. A minority interest in a non-liquid asset may be worth less than 50% of the fair market value of the asset on an unrestricted basis.
Yes, this gentleman had planned, and planned well to avoid a large portion of the estate tax that might otherwise be due upon his demise.
His plan was sufficiently sophisticated that after spending a considerable amount of time attempting to find it's weak points, I decided NOT to propose any adjustments to the gift tax returns.
The gentleman had probably payed between $150,000 and $500,000 to set up the plan. He probably payed another $10,000 for the gift tax returns that I was examining. In addition, there was another fee for the appraisals of the various classes of stock that were gifted.
Now recognize that the estate tax on $10 million would have been approximately $4.5 million. Of course, he owned other assets beyond the stock. H may have paid as much as one million dollars to avoid a portion of the $4.5 million.
I had the first year he had set up the complicated structure. He probably made more gifts of stock in the subsequent years.
Of course, the corporation he set u had to file annual returns also.
Irony?
He died in 2010. I saw his obituary in the newspaper.
In 2010, there is/was NO estate tax. His heirs could have recieved the stock unrestricted and tax free. Instead, they receive the stock subject to the corporate structure he established in order to avoid estate taxes. They will likely pay the attorneys another quarter of a million dollars to un-do the structrue he set up.
All that very, very expensive work gave no benefit to his heirs. In fact, it has cost them more to un-do it. They received the stock as a gift, which means that the value in their hands is NOT the value as of his death, but a lesser amount.
Irony. He planned well, and Congress disposed of matters in a different way.
RIP
He couldn't sell the stock and realize $10 million. If he had attempted to sell off even half of it, the value on the daily market would likely have plunged.
He was, in effect handcuffed by gold. He owned the stock, he received VERY nice dividends, but he couldn't sell enough stock in a brief time to give himself full liquidity.
He was not a young man. The stock would be valued at it's trading price on the day he died, and his estate would be taxed on that $10 million dollars.
Not a financially comfortable picture.
The gentleman was no fool. He met with his attorneys, and they developed a plan to minimize the estate tax effect of his stock ownership.
First, he transferred the stock from himself to a corporation. This corporation held two classes of stock - common and prefered. Each class of stock was divided into two characteristics - voting and non-voting.
There were further restrictions on the ability of any share holder to sell their stock to anyone outside of the corporation.
I was charged with auditing the gift tax returns for the gifts of stock in the corporation that he made to his children and grandchildren.
Now, when you take stock that trades on the public market for %10 million dollars and pays a regular dividend, and you manage, through expensive planning to put that stock into a corporation where it does not necesarily pay a dividend, where it cannot be sold outside of the corporation, and may or may not have any voting rights, the stock becomes worth less than $10 million. A minority interest in a non-liquid asset may be worth less than 50% of the fair market value of the asset on an unrestricted basis.
Yes, this gentleman had planned, and planned well to avoid a large portion of the estate tax that might otherwise be due upon his demise.
His plan was sufficiently sophisticated that after spending a considerable amount of time attempting to find it's weak points, I decided NOT to propose any adjustments to the gift tax returns.
The gentleman had probably payed between $150,000 and $500,000 to set up the plan. He probably payed another $10,000 for the gift tax returns that I was examining. In addition, there was another fee for the appraisals of the various classes of stock that were gifted.
Now recognize that the estate tax on $10 million would have been approximately $4.5 million. Of course, he owned other assets beyond the stock. H may have paid as much as one million dollars to avoid a portion of the $4.5 million.
I had the first year he had set up the complicated structure. He probably made more gifts of stock in the subsequent years.
Of course, the corporation he set u had to file annual returns also.
Irony?
He died in 2010. I saw his obituary in the newspaper.
In 2010, there is/was NO estate tax. His heirs could have recieved the stock unrestricted and tax free. Instead, they receive the stock subject to the corporate structure he established in order to avoid estate taxes. They will likely pay the attorneys another quarter of a million dollars to un-do the structrue he set up.
All that very, very expensive work gave no benefit to his heirs. In fact, it has cost them more to un-do it. They received the stock as a gift, which means that the value in their hands is NOT the value as of his death, but a lesser amount.
Irony. He planned well, and Congress disposed of matters in a different way.
RIP
Monday, December 6, 2010
Cookies, Anyone?
As a person who loves to cook, I naturally make cookies. This time of year, I make a LOT of cookies.
You see, there is only me and George. If I bake one batch of cookies, the two of us eat the entire batch. Bad result. Therefore, I bake a LOT of cookies. Some years, I make a dozen different types. Result?
1. I am so sick of cookies that I have no desire to eat any.
2. I have goodies to give to all of my friends. (One year, everyone in my group got a bag of assorted cookies. They all loved me!)
And what is Christmas without cookies? This is part of my way of celebrating the season.
I try at least one new recipe every year.
This year, the first new one was a Martha Stewart honey-walnut confection. I should have smelled a rat when she used a food processor to reduce the toasted walnuts to meal. Everyone knows that you put the toasted nuts in a plastic bag and use the rolling pin to reduce them to meal. Anyway, this one is a sort of shortbread. I may keep it for the honey proportions and tweak it a bit -- add lemon zest and cinnamon and convert it into a sort of baklava shortbread.
I'm golfing tomorrow. The ladies playing with me will get some of my "tried and true" cookies as a treat. George fed some to the guys he golfed with today. They LOVED them. Of course, at this rate, I'll have to bake at least 3 more batches before the weekend.
Sometimes life is tough. Sometimes it's just sweet. That's the way the cookie crumbles.
You see, there is only me and George. If I bake one batch of cookies, the two of us eat the entire batch. Bad result. Therefore, I bake a LOT of cookies. Some years, I make a dozen different types. Result?
1. I am so sick of cookies that I have no desire to eat any.
2. I have goodies to give to all of my friends. (One year, everyone in my group got a bag of assorted cookies. They all loved me!)
And what is Christmas without cookies? This is part of my way of celebrating the season.
I try at least one new recipe every year.
This year, the first new one was a Martha Stewart honey-walnut confection. I should have smelled a rat when she used a food processor to reduce the toasted walnuts to meal. Everyone knows that you put the toasted nuts in a plastic bag and use the rolling pin to reduce them to meal. Anyway, this one is a sort of shortbread. I may keep it for the honey proportions and tweak it a bit -- add lemon zest and cinnamon and convert it into a sort of baklava shortbread.
I'm golfing tomorrow. The ladies playing with me will get some of my "tried and true" cookies as a treat. George fed some to the guys he golfed with today. They LOVED them. Of course, at this rate, I'll have to bake at least 3 more batches before the weekend.
Sometimes life is tough. Sometimes it's just sweet. That's the way the cookie crumbles.
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