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A Colorado delegation's weeklong economic development mission to Israel was "a success on all fronts — business, academic and research," said Gov. Bill Ritter, who led the group.

“We created a solid foundation for future economic activity, set the stage for immediate follow-up meetings in Colorado and laid the groundwork for long-term collaboration. I’m confident this mission will lead to increased jobs, investments and economic growth for Colorado,” Ritter said in a statement upon the group's return from the July 12-18 trip.

Ritter's group met with Israeli President Shimon Peres; Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Benjamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer; Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau; and Deputy Foreign Minister and former ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon, among other officials.

In a statement, Ayalon applauded Colorado's interest in establishing cooperation with Israeli companies on such matters as renewable energy and water conservation.

"Renewable energy is the solution to the oil problem, and offers a solution to the reduction of negative oil politics around the world. Delegations such as these are important in strengthening the relationship of the people of Israel and the United States, and in the strengthening of future economic cooperation," Ayalon told Ritter during their meeting.

Among the accomplishments of the mission as cited by Ritter's staff:

• The Colorado delegation agreed to help establish workforce-development ties among Noble Energy Inc., the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) and Colorado School of Mines. "Last year, Noble Energy discovered a vast natural gas reserve off the coast of Israel, but the country lacks the workforce to develop the resource," Ritter's office said in a statement.

In a statement, Houston-based Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL) — which has a Denver office — calls the Tamar natural-gas find "the largest exploration discovery in the history of Noble Energy, as well as the largest conventional gas discovery in the world in 2009."

• Ritter and Ben-Eliezer signed a bilateral agreement between Colorado and Israel to advance research and collaboration between companies and institutions in both areas.

• Colorado State University and Ben Gurion University’s Desert Research Center signed a collaborative agreement on water-conservation and related technologies.

• The State of Colorado, through its Departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture, entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Desert Agro Research Center focused on water and agriculture research and development in arid and semi-arid climates. The agreement focuses on such water technologies as desalination, treatment and conservation.

• The Governor’s Energy Office entered an agreement with BrightSource Energy to examine whether cogeneration technologies involving large-scale concentrated solar and natural gas can be utilized on projects in Colorado. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource officials will be in Colorado later this month to begin those discussions.

• Ritter, Colorado Economic Development Director Don Marostica and state Energy Director Tom Plant met with a number of Israeli clean-energy, water-technology, bioscience and venture-capital companies that may be interested in doing business in Colorado.

• Colorado Agriculture Commissioner John Stulp promoted Colorado beef exports to Israeli officials, some of whom will be in Colorado next month for livestock discussions.

• Colorado Chief Operating Officer Don Elliman met with Israeli officials regarding homeland security, including discussions about an upcoming homeland security expo taking place in Denver later this year.

• The delegation visited Ramat Negev, the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado’s "partnership region" in Israel, where Ritter and the delegation were hosted by Mayor Shmulik Rifman.

The privately-supported trip was sponsored by the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado. A state ethics panel created under voter-approved Amendment 41, which bars gifts of more than $50 to public officials, agreed to participation by Ritter and other state employees in the trip in a ruling beforehand.

"The mission was a great success for Colorado citizens,” Doug Seserman, CEO of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with both Colorado and Israel in the months and years ahead to further the business relationships built on this trip.”

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Ohio Attorney General Rich Cordray has struck a $725 million settlement with American International Group to resolve charges of bid-rigging, accounting fraud and other practices that officials said led investors nationwide to lose millions.

New York-based AIG through the settlement has agreed to put up $175 million upon preliminary court approval of the deal. According to information from Cordray's office, the company plans to fund the remaining $550 million of the settlement through stock offerings.

At the center of the settlement are a range of fraud allegations over the company’s conduct from October 1999 through April 2005. The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, State Teachers Retirement System and state Police and Fire Pension Fund served as lead plaintiffs in the national class-action suit, roots of which stretch back to the tenure of former Attorney General Jim Petro paperless payday loans.

The former AG sued AIG in 2004 after New York officials probed charges of bid-rigging among the firm and other insurers.

That probe uncovered new charges and led to the ouster of Hank Greenberg, AIG’s longtime CEO and a case against a reinsurer tied to AIG, General Reinsurance Corp. Four former General Reinsurance executives and a former AIG executive have since been convicted of conspiracy and fraud charges tied to a deal that allegedly helped AIG inflate its loss reserves.

A number of parties tied to AIG, including Greenberg, have struck settlements with Ohio totaling $284.5 million since the litigation began.

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Research Triangle Park-based Semiconductor Research Corp. is getting some big backing from IBM (NYSE: IBM) and energy giant ABB (NYSE: ABB), both of which are putting money into SRC’s $5 million clean energy initiative.

SRC supports numerous faculty research projects at universities across the country. In the clean energy effort, Purdue University will get a photovoltaic research center, and a smart grid research center will be created at Carnegie Mellon University.

Initial efforts will focus on development of new modeling and simulation tools for development of photovoltaic devices for use in solar energy as well as systems and technology to support smart grids for electricity payday loans for bad credit.

“The development of these capabilities is beyond the scale of a single company or even industry, making the cooperation between industry and academia critical to delivering the benefits of alternative energy on a global scale,” said SRC Executive Vice President Steven Hillenius in a statement.

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Advanced Inquiry Systems Inc., a company developing a semiconductor testing technology, has raised $10 million in a Series C round from a group of investors, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The money will be used to help bring a product to market.

The Hillsboro company closed a $11 million Series B round last year, bringing its funding up to $33 million at the time.

The company has developed a proprietary silicon-based testing platform to enable lower cost testing of memory devices pay day advance.

The company’s previous investors include OVP Venture Partners, TL Ventures, Intel Capital, Applied Ventures, KT Ventures and Northwest Technology Ventures. The Series C round included a new undiscloved investor.

The company was founded in 2002. It declined to disclose revenue on its most recent SEC filing.

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The board of directors of Computer Services Inc. has approved a 15.8 percent increase to its quarterly cash dividend.

The dividend was raised to 11 cents per share from 9.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable Sept. 24 to shareholders of record Sept. 1.

It is the 22nd annual increase of the quarterly dividend, according to a news release issued by Computer Services Inc. The company announced last week it recorded a record first-quarter net income and revenue.

It had net income of $5 fast payday loans.3 million, or 36 cents per share, on revenue of $39.7 million, in the fiscal first quarter, ended May 30.

Paducah, Ky.-based Computer Services (Pink Sheets: CSVI) provides core banking services such as payment processing, Internet, card services, risk assessment, fraud prevention, network management and regulatory compliance to financial institutions and corporations.

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Banner Corp. said it issued more than 85 million shares of stock at $2 per share in a recent stock offering and raised about $162 million, after discounts and commissions were deducted.

Last week, Walla Walla-based Banner (NASDAQ: BANR), parent of Banner Bank and Islanders Bank, said it “intends to use a significant portion of the net proceeds from the offering to strengthen Banner Bank’s regulatory capital ratios and to support managed growth . The company expects to use the remaining net proceeds for general working capital purposes.”

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The leaders of the Group of Eight world economic powers have taken the first steps toward a "broad consensus" on the need to balance growth with shrinking deficits, a senior White House official said Friday.

President Obama attended a luncheon at the G-8 summit in Toronto to discuss economic policies with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the official.

The official acknowledged that there were different "points of emphasis" among the leaders at the meeting, which is in its early stages. But he said there is a "convergence of views" and that the president is "confident" about the upcoming meetings of the Group of 20 nations, which includes China, India and other developing economic powers.

"There is broad consensus among G-8 leaders on how to maintain durable growth while reaffirming our shared commitment to fiscal consolidation going forward," the official said.

President Obama has stressed the need to keep economic stimulus measures in place to prevent a global slowdown. But European nations have been moving toward more conservative fiscal policies as the region grapples with an ongoing debt crisis.

In a letter to G-20 leaders sent earlier this week, the president wrote that safeguarding and strengthening the economic recovery should be "our highest priority in Toronto lowest fee payday loans."

"This means that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong," he wrote. "In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avert a slowdown in economic activity."

Meanwhile, European nations have been cutting back on public spending and raising taxes to cope with massive budget deficits. The euro has been in a tailspin as investors bet against the proposed austerity measures and worry the European Union could slide back into recession.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom unveiled one of its harshest budgets in decades. The five-year budget, widely anticipated by fiscal experts, may hold lessons for U.S. policymakers who will face similar quandaries about how to rein in debt.

"The president sees deficit reduction as part of a long-term growth strategy," the White House official said. 

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Guilford County School has applied for more than $17 million in federal grants to help it achieve goals contained in the district's strategic plan.

One application is to the Teacher Incentive Fund for $12.5 million to support individual and school-wide incentive programs. A separate grant of $5 million from "Investing in Innovation" or i3 would be directed toward plan goals in recruitment, retention and employee development.

“The Strategic Plan calls for staff to put strategies in place that will lead to increases in student achievement, and educators are the greatest factor impacting student success,” said Amy Holcombe, executive director of talent development. “At least 80 percent of our budget is devoted to people. An investment in educators is an investment in our students.”

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Estate planning attorneys may worry that their persistent headaches are a sign of something more serious. But once they remember what they do for a living, the headaches start to make perfect sense.

That’s because they are operating in a kind of weird estate tax limbo. The federal estate tax was here, now it’s gone for a year. It’s probably coming back soon, although no one can say exactly what it will look like.

Unless Congress acts, the estate tax will be back next year and no more than $1 million of a person’s estate would be exempt from it. That’s well below the $3.5 million exemption in place last year. And the top estate tax rate would be 55%, up from 45% in effect last year.

Oh, and just because there is no federal estate tax this year doesn’t mean heirs of someone who dies in 2010 have no federal tax liability on their inheritance. They very well may, but it can be hard to tell them in some instances what it will be because of ambiguities in the law.

So what’s an estate planner to do?

"You try to do as little as possible," [[for the estate of] someone who died in 2010," said Steve Hartnett, associate director of education at the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

And when you absolutely have to do something, he said, you make your best guess and hope it turns out to be the right one when Congress gets around to clarifying the estate tax rules of the road.

One potential minefield is how to deal with the change in "step up" rules for heirs.

Under the old regime, heirs who wanted to sell inherited assets had to pay the capital gains tax on the gains accrued since the day they inherited the asset. In other words, the "cost basis" of the asset was essentially stepped up to present day. Those rules go back into effect next year.

This year, however, when heirs sell appreciated assets they will owe capital gains tax on all the gains since the deceased bought the asset. But the first $1.3 million in gains is treated as tax free. And for surviving spouses, another $3 million is as well.

Say an estate’s assets with $5 million of gains are sold. Non-spousal heirs would only pay the capital gains tax on $3.7 million. A widow who is sole beneficiary would only owe tax on $700,000.

As a result of the new step-up rules, estate planners face an array of new complexities. One of them is advising clients when to sell an asset to minimize the tax bite. For instance, if the heirs of someone who dies this year don’t sell an appreciated asset until 2011 or beyond, which step-up rules will they be subject to? Hartnett says how the law will be applied isn’t clear.

Equally confusing is how best to cook up an estate plan for someone who is living now and plans on doing so at least until 2011.

The ‘who knows?’ factor

The only good news is that generally speaking relatively few taxpayers are affected by the federal estate tax itself.

At most, only an estimated 1.76% of estates would be affected in 2011 if the estate tax is resurrected with a $1 million exemption, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service.

Then again, every estate of someone who died this year, no matter how small, will be affected by changes to rules governing heirs’ step-up in cost basis.

Optimists still hold out hope Congress will offer clarity before 2011, but the smart money says it won’t come before the mid-term elections in November.

Then again, who knows?

Lawmakers shocked the death rattle out of people by actually letting the estate tax lapse this year. Soon after, there was talk that they would reinstate the estate tax retroactively. Wrong again. Now halfway through the year, few expect that will happen.

Next expectation? Lawmakers absolutely, positively will come up with a more lenient version of the federal estate tax for 2011 than the one slated for currently.

Several key senators have been trying to cut a deal for months. Negotiations have stalled on more than one occasion.

"We’re almost half a year away from a tax policy that a super majority of senators say they don’t support. Yet, we’re stuck," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said earlier this week. "This time-sensitive issue has taken a back seat to everything else."

Anne Mathias, director of research at Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group, thinks it’s a fair bet to assume the new exemption level will fall somewhere between $3.5 million to $5 million.

But she also said if Republicans sweep the mid-term elections, and win at least 60 seats in the Senate, they may push to extend the repeal of the tax.

When Hartnett was asked what he thinks will happen with the estate tax next year, he gave the only answer he and his colleagues can give for many estate tax questions these days: "I don’t know." 

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Seeking to appease deficit hawks, Senate Democrats scaled back unemployment benefits and Medicare physician reimbursement measures on Wednesday.

The revised jobs bill eliminates a $25 weekly supplement for the jobless that had been part of the last year’s stimulus act. Those currently receiving the supplement in their unemployment benefits check will continue to do so until they exhaust their extended benefits, or until the week of Dec. 7, whichever comes first. That cut will reduce the bill’s cost by $5.8 billion over the next decade.

The new version of the bill would also freeze a 21% cut to Medicare physician reimbursement rates only through November, instead of through 2011. This will reduce the bill’s size by $16.4 billion over 10 years.

The legislation, which has been stuck in the Senate for more than a week, originally came in at about $140 billion and would have added about $78.7 billion to the deficit. The revised bill would raise the deficit by $55.1 billion.

Lawmakers are hoping to vote on the bill as early as Thursday. But if Democratic leaders can’t rustle up enough support, the vote could be pushed back to next week.

The Senate’s actions mirror what happened in the House, which twice had to shrink its version of the jobs and tax extenders bill to secure enough votes among members wary of raising the federal deficit even further. Representatives ultimately passed a measure in late May that would increase the deficit by $54.3 billion.

The grab-bag legislation pushes back the deadline to file for federal unemployment benefits until the end of November, renews expired tax provisions, lengthens a small business lending program and adds to infrastructure investments.

It also increases the tax on money paid to managers of hedge funds and investment partnerships to ordinary income levels instead of the much-lower capital gains rate. Under the revised bill introduced Wednesday, investment fund managers would have to treat 75% of this money as ordinary income, beginning in 2011.

The revised bill further hiked a tax on oil that finances the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to 49 cents, up from the 34 cents in the House version. The current tax is 8 cents. This measures is now projected to raise $18.3 billion over 10 years.

The revised Senate bill retained $24 billion in Medicaid funding to states, a provision the House had to jettison. President Obama and governors pressed lawmakers to keep the money, which many state officials have already included in their fiscal 2011 budgets, which begin July 1.

Senate lawmakers also voted Wednesday to include a measure in the bill that would push back the deadline to close on home purchases and still qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $8,000. Homebuyers would have until September 30, instead of June 30, to complete the transaction. The provision will cost $140 million over 10 years. 

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