US Financial News

After hitting highs in October 2008, consumer debt has shown steady declines and now sits near pre-recession levels, Equifax said in a recent report.

Equifax’s National Credit Trends Report revealed that total consumer debt now sits at $11.2 trillion, which is almost identical to the $11.1 trillion mark established back before the recession in 2006.

Total consumer debt topped out at $12.4 trillion back in October 2008.

According to Equifax, more than $436 billion in new credit originated in the first seven months of 2011 (January through July), which represents the highest total in 3 years (for that time period). “New credit” includes auto loans, consumer loans, home equity lines of credit, student loans, and credit cards.

Despite overall debt numbers falling, the credit card category is showing an increase in usage in debt. Between the four months of June through September 2011, both bank credit cards and retail credit cards – as a whole – saw outstanding debt increase.

More than 11.3 new auto loans originated in the first seven months of 2011, Equifax said, a 13 percent increase year-over-year.

On the flipside, home equity loan activity continues to decline. In Septem

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| Tags: Consumer Debt, Levels
Posted January 6, 2012 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

Parole Board 1:  ”That name is ‘recidivism.’”

Parole Board 2:  ”Repeat offender!”

Parole Board 1:  ”Not a very pretty name is it, HI?”

HI:  ”No sir, that’s one bonehead name, but that ain’t me no more.”

Parole Board 1:  ”You aren’t just telling us what we want to hear, are you?”

HI:  ”No sir. No way.”

Parole Board 2:  ”‘Cause we just want to hear the truth.”

HI:  ”Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.”

Parole Board 1:  ”Boy, didn’t we just tell you not to do that?”

HI:  ”Yessir.”

Parole Board 1:  ”Okay then.”

Please forgive my homage to the Coen Brothers’ classic, Raising Arizona. But, it fits perfectly with today’s post. This is the second post this week in which the topic has been the type o

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| Tags: Name, Name People
Posted January 3, 2012 by John Wane under Financial Guru

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 January 1, 2012 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

The IRS has released 2012 contribution limits and updated eligibility rules for two of the most popular small business retirement plans : the SEP IRA and Simple IRA.

SEP IRA

A SEP is a popular and widely used retirement plan management approach because it provides self employed owners or small business owners with a few staff a simplified method to make contributions toward their employees’ retirement and, if self-employed, their own retirement.

For 2012, the annual contributions an employer makes to an employee’s SEP-IRA cannot exceed the lesser of:

• 25% of compensation, or
• $50,000 . This is an $1000 increase from last year
• Up to $250,000 of an employee’s compensation may be considered

The same limits on contributions made to employees’ SEP-IRAs also apply to contributions made to a self-employed individual’s SEP-IRA.  Contributions must be made in cash and you have up to April 15, to contribute for the past year’s SEP IRA. A SEP provides high maximum contribution limits and relatively low setup cost, but an employer sponsored Individual 401k may allow a greater contribution at the same income level. Also, for th

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| Tags: Business Retirement, Business Retirement Plans, Plans, Retirement Plans
Posted December 29, 2011 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

Consumers plan to spend more on Christmas this year than they planned to spend at this time one year ago, Gallup said in a recent report.

Not only do American consumers plan to spend 7 percent more this year on Christmas than last – $764 compared with $714 – but they plan to spend more than $100 more than what they estimated at this time of year in both 2008 and 2009, Gallup said.

Gallup surveyed consumers from November 3-6, 2011 and reached the $764 average estimate. Just one month earlier, consumers estimated a $712 spend.

The $50 increase in estimated spend year-over-year could lead to a bump in holiday sales in the neighborhood of 3 to 4 percent, Gallup said, as the estimates recorded by this yearly survey often translate into similar results on the retail sales side.

For example, last year (November 2010), consumers estimated spending 12 percent more than the previous November (2009). These estimations coincided with a 5.2 percent jump in holiday retail sales.

On the flipside, Gallup recorded a huge 29 percent decrease in estimated spending from November 2007 to November 2008. The

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| Tags: Consumers Plan, Spend
Posted November 27, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

A United Kingdom (UK) investigations team from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is set to begin a countrywide sweep to locate and fine or prosecute British citizens who own property overseas yet are not declaring it on their taxes. The firm is expected to exercise treaties between the UK and other European countries to obtain records, and anyone who owns property abroad is advised to come forward now to avoid more severe penalties. The HMRC has created a specialized team called the Offshore Coordination Unit that will be scouring public records and foreign paper trails in an effort to uncover tax cheats.  For more on this continue reading the following article from Property Wire. British people who own properties overseas which they have not yet disclosed to the UK taxman should put their affairs in order now, according to a tax specialist. The warning from tax expert Peter Howarth follows the launch of a new investigations team by HM Revenue & Customs to track down people who own land and property abroad by data mining publicly available records. Howarth, who advises many expats and overseas property owners, says this latest development is one of a number of trends conspiring to catch out those who have undisclosed assets. Read more…

| Tags: Property, Tough Property
Posted November 26, 2011 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

We never think that the very impressive man or woman describing a promising investment is really an investment criminal trying to steal our assets. Our brains are wired such that the thought doesn’t occur to us. But, even if you are fully aware of the very real danger from folks who don’t “seem” dangerous at all, you are prone to believe that the battle is a game of one-on-one; that you’d never get more than one person to agree to be part of something so dastardly.  Unfortunately, history has shown us otherwise, as has a recent story arising from the biggest investment fraud in history. According to a press release from the SEC:

The SEC alleges that David Kugel, who worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BMIS) for nearly four decades, was asked by Madoff to provide the firm’s investment advisory operations with backdated arbitrage trade information to be formulated into fictitious trading on investors’ account statements. Kugel’s own ac

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| Posted November 25, 2011 by John Wane under Financial Guru

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 November 19, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance