US Financial News

Catch-up contributions allow people who feel that they do not have enough of a nest egg to make higher retirement plan contributions as they approach retirement. If you are over or turning 50 in a given calender year you are eligible to make additional or catch-up contributions to your current retirement plan . The catch-up contribution is not prorated or apportioned in the year you turn 50. This means that as long as you turn 50 by December 31st of the given year, you can make the full catch-up contribution amount.

In addition to standard deferral/contribution limits, eligible participants can make catch-up contributions up to $5,500 in 2011 and 2012. The following plans are covered by this maximum limit : 401, 403, and governmental 457. Plan contributions are not treated as catch-up contributions until they exceed the $17,000 standard limit . So for those over 50, the maximum contribution limit in 2012 would be $22,500. Catch-up contributions are generally made in the same manner as regular contributions, i.e. through an automatic payroll deduction or via the plan administrator.

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| Tags: Ira Retirement, Retirement
Posted February 14, 2012 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

Years ago, I found myself sitting in law school in Moot Court wearing an oversized itchy blue suit. It was a horrible experience. In a desperate attempt to avoid anything like that in the future I enrolled in a tax course. I loved it. I signed up for another. Before I knew it, in addition to my JD, I had a LL.M Taxation. I needed only to don my cape…. taxgirl® was born. Today, I live and work in Philadelphia, PA, one of the best cities in the world . I landed in the City of Brotherly Love by way of Temple University School of Law. While at law school, I interned at the estates attorney division of the IRS. At IRS, I participated in the review and audit of federal estate tax returns. I even took the lead on a successful audit. At audit, opposing counsel read my report, looked at his file and said, “Gentleman, she’s exactly right.” I nearly fainted. It was a short jump from there to practicing, teaching, writing and breathing tax.

| Posted February 10, 2012 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

Buying a home in Laguna Beach allows you many options when choosing the right neighborhood. With homes ranging anywhere from a $300,000 condo to a $35,000,000 beach front home, finding the right home for the right price is important. There are many different areas of Laguna Beach to choose from that offer different lifestyles. Some buyers prefer the more country feel while other like the comfort of living in a guard gated community. No matter what your preference, Laguna Beach has a little bit of something for everyone.

If you are just moving here from the Midwest then be prepared to have sticker shock. This is a very common theme when visitors first come to California and realize the real estate prices are really high. Many clients talk about the large luxury homes they own that cost them $300,000 to buy while here in Laguna Beach you will be lucky to find a two bedroom condo for that price. Once the sticker shock has worn off then buyers soon realize that if they want to live by the beach then their is a certain price to pay.

If price is no option then the guard gated community of Emerald Bay is recommended. This is often our choice for a variety of reasons.

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| Tags: Buying, Laguna Beach
Posted February 5, 2012 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

Many of the hundreds of tales of investment fraud that we cover on this blog would be funny if they weren’t so tragic. We are used to reading about financial scamsters who spend part of their loot on expensive cars and luxury vacations. Today’s story won’t disappoint in that catagory. But this one has something that earlier stories haven’t — a tattoo parlor. According to a press release from the SEC:

On February 6, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Glencoe, Illinois resident Kenneth A. Dachman with misappropriating over $1.8 million in investor funds and making false and misleading statements to investors in offerings for three companies for which he was the Chairman – Central Sleep Diagnostics, LLC (Central Sleep), Central Sleep Diagnostics of Florida, LLC (Central Sleep Florida), and Advanced Sleep Devices, LLC (Advanced Sleep). The SEC also charged Scott A. Wolf and his company, Stone Lion Management, Inc., the brokers for the three offerings, for their roles in selling unregistered securities to investors.

Filed in the U.S. District Co

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| Posted February 4, 2012 by John Wane under Financial Guru

Share Only In Georgia! Matt Grattan writes: We recently attended the SAP B1 ASUG Summit in Atlanta.  SAP continues to gain momentum downstream with SMB companies through the adoption of the Business One platform providing best of breed functionality to support a company’s order to cash processes. One of the key themes from the show was SAP’s recognition of the growing importance of Cloud or SaaS-based solutions for supporting specific processes that fall outside of the core functions of the ERP platform.  Solutions that are easy to implement and support that add value to the SAP Business One customer experience. AvaTax for SAP Business One is directly aligned with that vision, providing a SaaS-based solution for enabling end-to-end sales tax automation and compliance. Learn more about how one of our valued SAP Business One customers implemented AvaTax by reading the Proceq success story. If you’d like to learn more, call Avalara at 206-826-4900 or visit us at www.avalara.com. No related content found.

| Tags: Asug Summit, B1 Asug, B1 Asug Summit, Georgia
Posted January 25, 2012 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

Credit card fraud is a problem that affects one in 10 Americans and costs us all in the long run.  Even though, under federal law, you’re only accountable for up to $50 of fraudulent charges, that still means that the credit card companies are on the hook for millions.  So, it’s in their interest to keep an eye out for possible fraud. And they’re getting so good at it.

How?  Computers, databases, and psychological profiling.  Here’s the anatomy of spotting, and stopping, a fraudster.

First, we have to talk about your card’s history.  People tend to use credit cards in certain ways: for example, you may use one card pretty much exclusively for gas and groceries, or you may use one to shop online.  That data is put into a database, and each purchase is compared against it as you use it.  This sets up your card’s “behavior pattern,” if you will: how it’s used, where it’s used, and so on.  These tend to be pretty reliable; most of us are fairly set in our ways, or at least our spending habits.

Now, imagine that your card information is stolen.  This can be done in any number of ways: credit card skimmers attached to gas pumps, database breaches of vendors, and so on.  The point is, the thief now has a credit card.  What he doesn’t have is any real information about that card.  In fact, depending on how he got it, he doesn’t even know if it still works.  So, he has to try it out, and he has to act quickly once he knows it’s valid.  This is called a “testing charge.”

Thieves tend to do this in a few ways.  If they have just the card information, they’ll generally go online and, for example, buy an MP3 or two: something cheap and easy to download that tells them the card is valid.  Or, if they h

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| Tags: Card, Credit Card
Posted January 17, 2012 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

Club Med, renowned the world over for providing all-inclusive vacation packages, is now wading into the luxury property market. Its first offering is a chalet development in the ski region of Valmorel, France that epitomizes the company’s philosophy of luxurious living. Apartment buyers will be able to take advantage of all included amenities like restaurants, bars and ski passes as well as have the freedom to exchange spaced for vacations with other owners in the growing Club Med network. Club Med execs say the added perks amount to a value of €50,000 for a family of four. For more on this continue reading the following article from Property Wire. Club Med has launched its first ever luxury chalet and apartment development in the ski-ing resort of Valmorel, France. The company, which was founded with the aim of offering all inclusive holiday packages based on the values of friendliness, happiness and nature, has decided to build luxury villas and apartments and sell them to property investors who could enjoy the same kind of values that holiday makers had enjoyed for half a century. Club Med Villas and Chalets isn’t just about buying a piece of property, it is about buying into a concept that is backed by a global business. There Read more…

| Tags: Club Med, Market, Property Market
Posted January 12, 2012 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

There are a lot of factors that go into making up your credit score, from how often you pay your bills on time to the age of your various accounts.  When you’re trying to clean up your credit report, knowing which areas to focus on can make the credit repair process much easier and go by quicker than you may have initially thought.

This article will focus on the other side of the coin; the stuff you DON’T have to worry about.  Because while knowing what you do have to worry about taking care of is important, knowing what doesn’t matter as much to credit repair can free up any additional worries you may have.  With that said, here are 5 things you don’t have to worry about ever affecting your credit score.

• Your income.  You’ll typically find personal information like past addresses and employment info listed in your credit report, but one area of your finances that you don’t have to worry about showing up is your monthly income, both past and present.  Creditors and lenders are more interested in what you do with money than how much of it you have.

• Your rent.  While your credit card and car payments will routinely show up on your credit report, you won’t have to worry about your past rental history coming back to haunt you.  Unless you consistently are late on your monthly rent payments and your landlords are trying to evict you, this is another area you don’t need worry about.

• Account overdrafts.  If your bank account is ever in the red for whatever reason, you can rest a little easier knowing it won’t show up in your credit history.  While overdrafts are generally something you want to avoid anyway (those fees are a real pain), your bank won’t typically take the time to beat you while you’re down and report the overdraft to the credit bureaus.

• Your utilities.  Just like your past rental history, you won’t have to worry about utility bills showing up on your credit report, either.  Anything from electric and cell phone bills to insurance accounts generally stays off your report unless they fall into collections.

• Any type of credit counseling or credit repair services.  Some people are afraid to seek any type of credit counseling or credit repair service because they’re afraid it might show up on their credit reports.  You can rest easy knowing that no one reports your use of a credit counseling service to the credit bureaus; you’re allowed a cheat sheet on this exam.

| Tags: Credit Score, Score
Posted January 11, 2012 by John Wane under Financial Guru