Lane Report Archives
Displaying 81 through 120 of 263
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The stock market was very strong in 2013 with the S&P 500 index finishing at 1,848, up 32%. This was the best annual gain for the index since 1997. All of the ten sectors in the index generated positive returns. After such a strong year, our outlook is more benign yet still positive for the balance of this year.
As of this writing, the S&P 500 is...
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
As the Wall Street Journal reported this week,¹ investor demand for socially responsible business practices is stronger than ever. (For more information about socially responsible investing, please visit www.AdvocacyInvesting.com.) This notable evolution is motivating more profitable enterprises to establish a nonprofit arm through which they conduct...
Monday, March 3, 2014
If Illinois' “King Coal” is deposed as many predict, his subjects should herald the peaceful revolution.
The economics of the state's coal economy have remained virtually unchanged since Francis Peabody founded Peabody Daniels & Co., now Peabody Energy Corp., at age 24 in 1883 and became fabulously wealthy buying coal from established mines...
Monday, February 3, 2014
The growing influence of sustainable and responsible investing continues to cultivate a more just and equitable economy. Its efforts have fostered progressive changes in corporate behavior, helping to improve executive pay practices, increase board diversity and transparency on political contributions, enhance labor and human rights conditions, and address...
Thursday, January 2, 2014
After the Illinois Senate narrowly approved a well-intentioned, but misguided, bill in 2012 to compel publicly traded companies headquartered in Illinois or selling products here to report their state income tax liability to the Secretary of State — who would then post that information online — the measure went on to die in the House. If...
Monday, December 2, 2013
A recent decision by the U.S. Tax Court could make it more difficult for some nonprofit organizations to maintain exemption from income tax.
For context, the Internal Revenue Code exempts from tax the income of various types of entities, with perhaps the most prominent such type being “501(c)(3) organizations,” so named for the paragraph of the...
Friday, November 1, 2013
The world's first social impact bond, or SIB, was introduced in 2010 to fund innovative social programs that realistically might reduce recidivism by ex-offenders in Peterborough, England, and, with it, the public costs of housing and feeding repeat offenders. Prudently building on the strengths of that initiative, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is rolling out...
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
When Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the State's L3C bill into law late in 2009, the leadership of Social Enterprise Alliance's new Chicago chapter - - SEA's first chapter - - seized the opportunity to unite and energize the Chicago area's leading nonprofits, entrepreneurs, socially conscious individuals, foundations, thought leaders and impact...
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
In Illinois, victorious politicians secretly pick the voters, not the other way around. Political leaders, the ultimate arbiters of redistricting, game the system by designing districts to produce the results they favor.
Gerrymandering is easy to pull off. All the pols need to do is jam voters who are likely to support the opposition into throwaway...
Thursday, August 1, 2013
When was the last time you played “Duck, Duck, Goose”? If you’re like most people, you probably said when you were a kid, probably about 10 years old. Next question: When was the last time that you reviewed your will and/or trust? If you’re like most people, perhaps never, if you haven’t done any estate planning yet. Or perhaps...
Monday, July 1, 2013
Most businesses, and many individuals, operate a website. However, you may not have realized when you registered your domain name that you agreed to abide by the terms of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The UDRP is incorporated into the Registration Statement that you are required to accept when you register for most domain names....
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Marc J. Lane Investment Management, Inc. has been providing portfolio management solutions for high net-worth individuals since 2002. Historically, those services have only been made available to our clients with over $500,000 to invest. But now we are offering a competitive solution for clients with investable assets of $100,000 or more. These portfolios...
Monday, April 1, 2013
Over the past three years, Illinois courts have heard one claim after another that cities and towns outside the Regional Transit Authority's six-county territory have illegally lured businesses whose headquarters are within the RTA's taxing authority to set up satellite offices merely to reduce the sales taxes they owe. Adding to the controversy, the...
Friday, March 1, 2013
Today we find ourselves in what arguably is the most difficult environment for income investors in our nation's history. Yields on both stocks and bonds have been on the decline for the past three decades. Add to this the fact that as the baby boom generation now approaching retirement is swelling the ranks of income seeking investors. In competing with one...
Friday, February 1, 2013
Collaboration is the name of the game for the entrepreneurial community in 2013. Startup incubators and accelerators are cultivating the seeds of new business that might not otherwise sprout in the wake of decreased venture capital funding for early stage companies, a decline that PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association predict...
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Illinois' 97th General Assembly goes out of business on Jan. 8. Between now and then, it may tackle more divisive issues of moral consequence than any of its recent predecessors. The reform of the state's debt-ridden public employee pension system, the expansion of casino gambling, the legalization of same-sex marriage and the approval of medicinal...
Saturday, December 1, 2012
As of this writing, it’s difficult to speculate as to what U.S. income tax rates will be in the year 2013. This has become especially apparent due to the effect of the so-called “fiscal cliff” and the results of the November elections.
The “fiscal cliff” is actually the result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, a law passed to...
Thursday, November 1, 2012
In this political season, it comes as no surprise that objections are being raised over nascent efforts to snag an eventual Barack Obama library and museum for the University of Chicago, where for 12 years the U.S. president was a lecturer in constitutional law.
Skeptics predict that the institution would be celebratory, not scholarly, and that its...
Monday, October 1, 2012
Kudos to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Michelle Boone, Chicago's cultural commissioner, for inviting public debate around their ambitious campaign to revamp and strengthen the city's arts and culture scene. Cultural Plan 2012, the first such program in 25 years, lays out no fewer than 200 proposed initiatives to amp up cultural participation and convert creativity...
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, July 2012 was the hottest month on record for the continental United States. Surely, approaching autumn days will provide some very welcome cooler weather for much country. But with Republicans just having convened in Tampa, and Democrats set to gather in Charlotte this week, there is no...
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
At the Law Offices of Marc J. Lane, P.C., we strive to keep you informed about helpful planning topics each month. This month we are discussing a topic near and dear to everyone's heart: taxes.
The following is a summary of the most important tax developments that have occurred in the past three months that may affect you, your family, your...
Monday, July 2, 2012
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is mulling a common-sense rule that, for the first time, would set caps on the carbon pollutants that future fossil fuel-fired power plants may lawfully emit. Carbon dioxide emissions from new plants would be limited to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour. This would essentially provide the unceremonious end to the age of...
Friday, June 1, 2012
Illinois is billions of dollars in the red, yet the state's legislators inexplicably continue to deny themselves the right to know how much the measures they consider would cost or save taxpayers.
In other states, “fiscal notes,” which estimate the costs or savings and the revenue gain or loss of proposed laws, are indispensable tools for...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The seeds of change are taking root in the nation's Capital. This past month, the IRS released proposed regulations that would add nine new examples of investments which qualify as “program-related investments” (PRIs) for private foundations.
Having the ability to make PRIs is advantageous for private foundations, which are required to make...
Monday, April 2, 2012
Last Friday Illinois, joining Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania, inked a deal with the Obama administration to speed up regulatory review of plans for offshore wind farms in the Great Lakes, which had been dogged by cost concerns. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn applauded the agreement, noting that developing offshore wind energy would...
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Last month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Census Bureau released survey results on the importance that businesses place on various forms of intellectual property (IP). John Jankowski, lead author of the report in NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, stated:
In today's global economy, much of a business's...
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Chicagoans have reason to applaud an impressive 39% drop over the past five years in the number of city residents living in its “food desert,” those low-income neighborhoods where affordable and nutritious food is hard to come by. Yet 1 in 7 residents, 124,000 of them children, still live in communities without readily available fresh food.
The...
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Many mission-driven organizations, both nonprofits and for-profits, are becoming “social enterprises” that embrace market-based strategies in the pursuit of their social purposes. New business models and even entity forms are emerging to help the social entrepreneur drive positive social change. Lawyers have new opportunities to aid their...
Thursday, December 1, 2011
On Monday, November 21, the Deficit Reduction Joint Committee of Congress officially threw in the towel and announced that it was unable to reach an agreement on the $1.2 trillion in cuts in the federal budget mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. What does this failure mean to you and the typical American family as we move forward into 2012?
If the...
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
With the rise in electronic filing of tax returns –- nowadays, almost 80% of individual tax returns are filed electronically – it can be easy to forget that millions of tax returns, ranging from individual to corporate, are still prepared on paper and need to be mailed to the Internal Revenue Service for filing. And having to mail returns to the...
Monday, October 3, 2011
Mayor Rahm Emanuel seems undeterred by naysayers as he invests his vast political capital in an agenda of fiscal responsibility, school reform and safe streets. No question the urgent issues Mr. Emanuel has targeted must be on the front burner if Chicago is to remain livable, let alone become the world-class city it could be.
But without real economic...
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The Low-profit Limited Liability Company, or "L3C," is a new, for-profit business form available to social entrepreneurs who seek the legal and tax flexibility of a traditional LLC, the social benefits of a non-profit organization, and the branding and market positioning advantages of a social enterprise. Moreover, the L3C presents a unique opportunity to...
Monday, August 1, 2011
The Law Office of Marc J. Lane is now on Facebook! To follow the firm, please click here.
At the Law Offices of Marc J. Lane, P.C., we strive to keep you informed of helpful planning topics each month. Tax reform and budget reform are currently hot topics in Washington D.C., but as of the time of this writing, no clear consensus appears to be in...
Friday, July 1, 2011
In the waning days of the Daley administration, the former mayor incurred the wrath of union leaders when he floated the possibility of outsourcing the city's curbside recycling initiative without first consulting labor. It was Richard M. Daley, everyone remembers, who struck the deal to sell Midway Airport that ultimately collapsed for lack of financing...
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The final chapter of my new book, Social Enterprise: Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs, (American Bar Association, 2011) raises the provocative question: "To What End?" The demand for metrics to evaluate social impact has never been stronger, and that demand comes from all quarters. Donors and investors want to ensure that their gifts, grants and...
Monday, May 2, 2011
AT&T's recently proposed acquisition of T-Mobile has awakened not so distant memories of when, prior to its breakup 1984, AT&T enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the telecommunications industry. The combination of these companies presents a host of issues that range from antitrust implications to the questionable benefits and relative costs to consumers...
Friday, April 1, 2011
Three years ago, the Chicago Urban League, a civil rights organization that encourages economic empowerment for African-Americans, sued the state of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Education, alleging that the state's funding formula for education punishes minorities because it is based on property values. The Urban League, which hopes its case...
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Law Office of Marc J. Lane is now on Facebook! To follow the firm, please click here.
Yummy Dough, a fairly new product out of Germany, creates a compound that kids can mold into various shapes, bake, and eat. The company behind Yummy Dough, 123 Nahrmittel GmbH, received numerous awards for the product and has been expanding distribution to other...
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
An unheralded provision of last spring's budget legislation adds Illinois to the growing roster of states committed to performance-driven budgeting. “Budgeting for outcomes” was introduced by former Washington Gov. Gary Locke in 2002, when he faced a $2.5-billion budget shortfall. Mr. Locke reformed the way state officials prioritized and spent...
Monday, January 3, 2011
This past December, as the weather outside became increasingly colder, the debate in Washington over taxes and spending was heating up to a fever pitch. Politicians, pundits, and concerned citizens from the right to the left and everywhere in between expressed opinions about our nation's economic policy and tax structure. One thing remained clear during...
Displaying 81 through 120 of 263
