A new quarterly forecast of trade and international business, launched today by HSBC, shows world trade increasing by nearly three-quarters between now and 2025, when it will reach $48.5 trillion. That’s up from $27 trillion today. Driving the growth: Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Egypt’s trade volume, in fact, is predicted to rise by nearly 200 percent by 2025, as many companies in other countries see it as an entré to the Middle East. Trade in India will jump 156 percent, due to its strength in engineering and chemicals. Brazil’s trade volume will grow 144 percent, largely with countries in Asia, including Vietnam and China. more

The assessment of a major focus of Oracle Open World by my colleague David Menninger sums up what I also see as the key strategic element of the event: the new appliance including that called Exalytics.

My focus as an industry analyst is on the needs of the line-of-business user, not IT. And that’s the source of my ongoing frustration with this event: It’s not an application user’s conference, especially compared to the PeopleSoft and Hyperion annual gatherings of the past before Oracle acquired and absorbed them. Open World seems almost grudging in addressing their needs, and so it’s not surprising that there don’t appear to be many business users here.

For example, other than the Finance IT folks, I’m not sure who from the finance organization was in attendance. In their case, most companies with fiscal years ending in December, March, June or September – and these constitute the vast majority of corporations – are busy with their quarterly financial close this week. Applications sessions focused on the basics and, while I might have missed the one or two line-of-business show-stopper success stories, the ones I saw were ho-hum. Another indication that applications are not the focus of the event is the location of the Hyperion breakout sessions, which were a 15-minute walk from the Moscone Center this year. more

While researching 2012 compensation (executive and general workforce comp) developments for a research project, I came across one of those trends that felt refreshingly optimistic.

“Simple is better,” Axiom Consulting Partners’ Juan Pablo González replied when I asked him what compensation-plan-design dynamics he expected to see more of in 2012 in beyond. “More organizations are designing with flexibility, and the best solutions are becoming simpler.”

This indeed qualifies as a departure from the mind-bogglingly complex compensation plans HR executives, finance folks and some external compensation engineers – er, I mean consultants – devised in the past several years. The problem with these extremely detailed plans was that they often became disconnected from strategy – or, worse, they were too complex to change when key elements of corporate strategy suddenly shifted. more

Guest post by Whitney Maracich, senior tax consultant at True Partners Consulting

Over the past few years, one of the more contentious issues when the IRS audits corporate taxpayers has been whether the value of employer-provided cell phones must be included in the W-2 income of employees. With guidance recently issued by the IRS taxpayers can relax—slightly.

Before 2010, the law provided that employers could only deduct the costs of certain “listed property”—including employer-provided cell phones—if certain onerous substantiation requirements were met. Congress removed employer-provided cell phones from inclusion as “listed property” effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2009. The new law, however, did not change the rule that employer-provided cell phones are considered a taxable fringe benefit unless the cell phone falls under the exception for a working condition fringe benefit. Since the law change, taxpayers have been asking what, when, and how much of the cell phone expense is considered a nontaxable working condition fringe benefit? more

With the recent introduction in Europe of a proposal to tax stock and bond transactions at a rate of 0.1 percent, and derivative contracts at a rate of 0.01 percent, as this KPMG summary highlights, the issue of a possible financial transactions tax here in the U.S. has arisen again.

While it’s critical that the pros and cons of such a tax be studied and debated, it’s worth correcting some misinformation regarding possible legislation on financial transaction taxes. According to Politifact.com/Oregon, an email has been spreading across the Internet, claiming “that (Rep. Peter) DeFazio (D-OR) wants to levy a 1 percent tax on every financial transaction, like depositing a Social Security check or cashing a paycheck. The letter claims his proposed legislation had the blessing of President Barack Obama’s ‘finance team’ and that Democrats are waiting until after the Nov. 2 election to pass H.R. 4646.” more