Interesting discussion on the BUSLIB listserv this week. Someone was working with students of an instructor who has assigned the "impossible assignment" of finding the "demographics for a given company: how many female employees, how many male, how many disabled, how many minorities/persons of color, and what positions these hold and salaries they make. The instructor insists that this is a doable assignment."
Many companies give similar info annually to the US Government, such as to the Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), but generally it is released only in aggregate form. Public companies are not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, even though they are "subject to more reporting requirements than private companies by virtue of the fact that their shares are publicly traded."
However, the SEC does accept FOIA requests related to public companies for several reasons. Per the SEC: "A FOIA request is required to obtain non-public records, such
as records compiled in investigations, consumer complaints, and staff comment letters. We will release non-public records, unless the record is protected by one of nine FOIA exemptions. If we can reasonably segregate or delete exempt information from a requested record, we will release to you the rest of the record. In addition to FOIA exemptions, there are three special protection provisions, referred to as record "exclusions." The FOIA exclusions are reserved for certain specified circumstances." Of course, "FOIA requests can take weeks, months or longer to complete," and the request mmust be deemed "reasonable."
9 Kasım 2012 Cuma
FOIA and business
Hurricane Sandy Recovery Update
SBA Coordinating With Our Federal Partners
Federal response teams are already providing assistance to affected communities. SBA is closely coordinating with federal partners, including FEMA, to share information in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
Sandy Response
SBA plays an important role in disaster recovery efforts for businesses and homeowners by providing low-interest loans to rebuild and recover. If you have been affected by Sandy, please visit www.sba.gov/sandy to learn more and apply.
For the latest on the government-wide response to Sandy, please visit www.usa.gov/sandy.
Not affected by Sandy? You can help by sharing this update.
IRS Provides Tax Relief to Victims of Hurricane Sandy
Following recent disaster declarations for individual assistance issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the IRS announced that affected taxpayers in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York will receive tax relief. Other locations may be added in coming days based on additional damage assessments by FEMA.
Read more.
Should business owners want to create jobs?
CBS News:
...veteran entrepreneur and contributing [Inc. Magazine] editor ...Norm Brodsky's position is that, while he and all good business owners are happy when they can give people jobs, creating new jobs isn't -- and shouldn't be -- a goal. I'm a long-time fan of Brodsky and his down-to-earth advice, and an admirer of his tremendous business accomplishments. But I don't fully agree with his argument, or at least the way he frames it.
In his piece, Brodsky focuses on job-creation as it relates to overhead and productivity. He says "no one operates a company with the goal of maximizing labor costs," and of course in that regard he is right. We business owners naturally want -- and are generally obliged -- to generate the highest possible return on every dollar we spend. That means getting the most we can out of our real estate, machinery and people. Certainly no one has "increase rent" as a business goal, and Brodsky is saying the same thing in his labor cost argument. He is looking at the expense angle (the very conservative approach with which I almost always agree), rather than the investment view of hiring.
I look at it a different way, and I don't think it's semantics or nuance.
Too Many Business Objectives Are Worse Than None At All
From SmallBusinessNewz
This time of year many businesses turn to planning as a way to determine the path for the upcoming year. It’s a great practice and one that I support without hesitation.
Taking stock of where you are now and how you intend to move towards the vision for your business as you see it down the road is something that you must do to create positive change and growth.
While the task of annual planning is a necessary one, it’s also one that is fraught with challenges.
The best strategic planning focuses on carving our priorities for the year. The challenge with this is that many organizations see it as a time to create a giant wish list or to do list.
Disaster Assistance update
From the Governor's webpage:
You can register for FEMA assistance by calling 800-621-3362 (TTY: 800-462-7585) or visiting www.DisasterAssistance.gov (or m.fema.gov from a smartphone or Web-enabled device).
There is never a fee to apply for FEMA disaster assistance or to receive it. There is no fee for FEMA or U.S. Small Business Administration property damage inspections.
Please be aware: Government workers will never ask for a fee or payment. They wear a photo ID. Watch out for middlemen who promise you will receive money, especially if they ask for an up-front payment.
One of the dire consequences of any disaster for many people is the loss of important documents. Often, such documents are needed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state emergency services in order to process assistance applications for those who suffered losses or damage to their homes and belongings.
If papers are lost – like birth certificates, Social Security cards, drivers’ licenses, tax records and so on – you can receive replacements by contacting the following:
Birth certificates: If you were born within the confines of the five boroughs of New York City, visit or write to the Office of Vital Records, 125 Worth Street, Room 133, New York, N.Y. 10013. (A photo ID is required both by mail and in person.) The office advises the fastest way to get records is online at www.nyc.gov/vitalrecords. The phone number is (212) 788-4520.
To download and print an application, log onto http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/vr/birth1.pdf; to apply online, log onto http://www.nyc.gov/vitalrecords www.nyc.gov/vitalrecords.
If you were born in New York state outside of New York City, log onto www.vitalchek.com or phone 1-877-854-4481. This will connect you to a company called VitalChek, which is contracted with the state to handle credit-card orders. There are modest fees involved.
Drivers’ licenses: Visit any New York Department of Motor Vehicles office. To find an office nearby, log onto www.nydmv.state.ny.us/offices.htm.
Social Security cards: Call the U.S. Social Security office at 800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time. For TTY users the number is 800-325-0778, or log onto www.ssa.gov/ssnumber for more information.
Federal tax records: Call 800-829-1040, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time, or log onto www.irs.gov.
New York state tax records and New York City tax records: Log onto http://www.tax.ny.gov or phone 518-457-5181
For copies of your utility bills, bank records, insurance policies, mortgage payments and the like, call the appropriate firm and speak to a customer-service representative.
5 Kasım 2012 Pazartesi
Startups can now Reignite the American economy
As the WSJ has reported in this piece (Keeping capital close to home The Wall Street Journal (8/6)), there are good reasons to look for funding in friendlier terrain:
1. Years into the economic crisis, banks still aren’t lending. The SBA guarantees the merest trickle of loans.
2. VCs and Angels often want too great a return and too much control. Entrepreneurs may want to develop their business more fully to be in a better bargaining position for when they go to these sources.
3. Friends and family are more likely to be in the corner of “their” entrepreneur.
Using friends and family money creates perhaps even more of a moral imperative to plan and manage funds responsibly. Whether friendly investors are demanding or not, entrepreneurs should be fully prepared to succeed through sound planning.
There are approximately 8 million millionaires, and 1 million “ultra high net worth individuals” with assets of more than $5 million in the U.S. Certainly you can argue it’s well past time time for these people to stop sitting on their hands and seek out the investment opportunities in their communities and in their fields of interest to benefit themselves and the economy. But so far, they’re not.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if wealthy Americans want to sit on their money, many “unqualified” investors do not. Crowdfunding has been the rising model for projects and community-based projects, with portals such as Rocket Hub and Kickstarter having raised $100s of millions in the past few years. Starting in January 2013, the startup exemption in the JOBS Act will allow for previously unqualified investors to use the crowdfunding method to become stakeholders in new ventures. This carries tremendous implications. With an annual cap for low income investors of $2,000, and no limit to how many people can invest, crowdfunding promises to democratize capital formation and reignite the economy, “from the middle out.”.
For more information, visit crowfundingroadmap.com and startupexemption.com
Funding RoadmapTM is an innovative, networked business planning and due diligence reporting system for funding professionals and entrepreneurs alike. It also includes a video pitching platform, a document repository and deal flow marketplace so entrepreneurs will have an online medium to brilliantly communicate all the essential data – along with their personal passion and commitment.
More On Limited Liability Companies' Fiduciary Duty
"In Fairness and Good Faith as a Precept in the Law of Corporations and Other Business Organizations, 36 Loy.U.Chi. L.J. 551 (2005), Murdock addresses the fiduciary duty of good faith and fairness that controlling interests of a business owe to minority interests. Noting that this internal duty is a fairly recent legal phenomenon, he surveys caselaw on the subject from around the country that applies to closely held corporations, public corporations and LLCs. Noting that the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (ULLCA), a model law adopted by several states, doesn't include language that gives members of an LLC fiduciary duties to one another, he praises Illinois for modifying that language to protect members in the updated Limited Liability Company Act."
