Unemployed people, who depended on COBRA for extended coverage on medical expenses or the ones who could benefit from the 65% subsidies provided by the law (some people who lost their jobs before September 1st last year, could not benefit even from COBRA as per their response to a blog by Laurie Brannon.) breathed a sigh of relief when, Obama inked the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” or ARRA, as its known into the American law this February.

I feel that the COBRA or the “Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act” has been the most nerve wrecking and complicated laws of the federal government that are effective in a workplace.

The consequences of the ARRA that is the tweaked version of COBRA are aplenty and since the time President Obama has put the law into effect, the IRS is trying to cope up with this law.

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News about Internal Revenue Service’s plan to levy a tax on cell phones provided by the employers is making rounds within the Wireless circles. Such cell phones would now be available under the fringe benefit plan.

According to IRS, the proposed plan would now require that you to declare up to 25% of your yearly cell phone bills under tax benefits. I feel that many employees could avert this by proving that they used their personal cell phones for calls that were not related to work during the working hours. A fellow tax collector nodded in agreement with my remark.

I feel this might increase your tax burden by a slight amount but an excess burden is an excess burden, there is no debating that. Global marketing survey company, JD Power and Associates, an average cell phone bill per month comes to $73.

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If you think all the sectors in America are hit by recession then think again, besides installing solar energy panels, the IRS, a vanguard organization for public services has plenty of job opportunities available with it.

President Obama believes that an 8% hike would aid IRS in collecting an additional $17 Bn taxes via rampant tax enforcements. Obama has thereby increased the funding for IRS by $400 million for the 2010 fiscal year.

I see the noose tightening around corporate giants as the IRS Commissioner, Doug Shulman remarked that most of the funding would be used to monitor and enforce taxes on the international operations of such companies. The Obama administration intends to keep a tab on businesses that push filing for taxes by blaming the delay or lack of payment of taxes on the complexness of the capital markets overseas.

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I have realized that financial decisions are complicated! If you are planning to look up information on mortgage on the net, it’s not as simple as purchasing books online which have user reviews about how many of them bought the book, loved the book or gifted it to someone.

You would see consumers spending time and efforts more time bargaining for a discount as low as $5 on their grocery shopping as compared to seeking information on mortgage or analyzing whether the timing is correct to purchase a house.

If it’s refinancing that’s on your mind (and concerns pertaining to the drop in your credit scores due to late payment of bills) or if you are buying your first home ever seeking to take advantage of really low rates of the past (even though they are fast rising), then by all means it’s the most daunting task for consumers today. Continue Reading

President Obama, backed by his team announced that he strongly supports the idea that many American citizens (including encroachers) should attend college and hence there’s a need for taxpayers to fund grants and loans. I find this plan faulty and propose something’s that’s best.

From what I understand, the students who Obama has in mind are shirkers and duffers or people who are otiose or dumb to get to attend a college and America has no dearth of them! Although Obama isn’t bothered if they are lazy or dumb, what he cares is the vote bank.

I don’t want to spend a penny of my tax in proving or providing education to adults who cannot attain a degree in an age where grades seem to touch the sky. I have an intelligent and economical plan for such a population that is currently under merited by such colleges. What we really need to do is to enforce the Five-minute University, first proposed by Father Guido Sarducci.

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Have you ever had trouble in decrypting credit reports issued by banks? I certainly have gone through the grind before getting my loan approved; not knowing what is it that helps them to decide in allotting or rejecting a loan.

For all you people who have had a tough time knowing why you are not worth it I have some good news! CreditKarma.com, a site that provides your credit scores has developed a tool that generates your credit scores free of cost. The so-called Credit Report Card gives individual scores of important constituents of your real credit-report present at “TransUnion LLC”.

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The following information is about the Income Based Repayment plan for the federal student loans. The information includes the eligibility criteria, calculation of payment and benefits of the plan with some examples to make the understanding easier. Some common questions answered;

What is the Income Based Repayment?

As the name suggests, Income Based Repayment is a new scheme of repaying the loans taken by the students. Under this scheme, the student can repay the loan as per his monthly income and family size. For example, if your income allows you to pay only $500 a month towards repaying your loan, your loan repayment will be capped at $500.

What type of the federal student loans can be repaid under the IBR scheme?

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The United States President Barack Obama seems to have gone wiser by the day and has brought in the ‘PAYGO’ legislation. This legislation aims to reduce the government spending by a considerable amount.

The legislation says that all the new congress tax cuts or increase in the government expenditure will result in higher taxes and lesser spending in some other department of the government so that the excess spending is offset.

The statutory “Pay as you go” legislation has been submitted with the aim of curbing government expenditure and preventing it from going over board. If this legislation were to work, the fiscal deficit in the United States could slightly bee soothed. Touted to hit a whopping 1.8 trillion mark this fiscal, the mood of the US economy still remains gloomy.

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On what seems to be a preventive move, the federal government has announced a loan program starting this week in order to help small businesses that are feeling the heat due to the ongoing recession.

Phillip Silva, district director for the SBA (Small Business Administration) which is currently overseeing the American Recovery Capital Loan Program said that this would aid small businesses, which are experiencing sales erosion due to the recession and are finding it difficult to pay back their financial indebtednesses.

Eligible companies are entitled for $35,000 interest free and SBA guaranteed loans for a period of five years, provided they apply to their area banks that would decide which of the two would be granted. SBA is currently paying the interest on loan costs charged by the area banks.

Around $225 million of the $700 odd billion-stimulus package bill that was passed by the Congress was meant for the payment of interest charges on loans that were granted to small enterprises nationwide by the SBA.

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Small businesses that are experiencing credit crisis can now breathe easy as in a hearing the House Small Business Committee decided on expanding capital access to such companies.

The Small Business Administration was making slow-paced reforms even though the stimulus bill signed by President Obama had provisions to open up the constricted credit market for small businesses as SBA’s main loan guarantee plans have seen a huge fall due to the ongoing recession.

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