Petit Jean Electrical Co-op receives federal loan for venture

Small ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Petit Jean Electrical Cooperative Corp. in Arkansas will acquire a just about $21.seven million federal loan for development and improvement projects.

The loan is component of $3.six billion in loans to 82 projects in 31 states announced Wednesday by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

These loans will finance infrastructure upgrades, build jobs and improve system operations for rural electrical prospects nationwide.

The Petit Jean Electrical Co-op will make use of the loan to build or make improvements to 135 miles of line.

The loans are presented through the Electrical Program from the Rural Utilities Services, that is the successor for the Rural Electrification Administration.

LPC-Misys $1.5 billion-equivalent post-IPO loan scrapped

A $1.5 billion financing for Uk money software package provider Misys has fallen away soon after abandoning plans to listing on the London stock marketplace, banking sources stated.

Right after struggling for weeks to woo buyers for any proposed public supplying, Misys scrapped strategies to relist over the LSE, blaming shaky market circumstances and incorporating to a run of aborted floatations in latest weeks.

The loan, split in between a $400 million phrase loan B, a €537 million TLB, a $300 million phrase loan A plus a US$200m revolving credit facility, was dependant within the IPO taking place.

Misys will now revert to its current capital framework, the sources said.

The brand new financing closed and allocated to the secondary loan markets earlier this month following a successful syndication, in which pricing was tightened immediately after strong investor demand.

Deutsche Bank was lead left and Credit Suisse served as joint coordinator. Financial institution of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley had been joint bookrunners.

Owners Vista Equity Partners will now go back for the drawing board to take into account future possibilities.

Individuals could contain a dividend recapitalization, where existing debt is refinanced and elevated to supply to get a dividend payment, or some M&A activity including searching for bolt-on acquisitions, the sources explained.

“Vista will obviously be disappointed right now. They will be sitting down to talk and considering plan B. A dividend recap is the obvious option and the loan market place would be there for them,” one of your sources mentioned.
The company, owned by Vista Equity Partners, last tapped the loan market in November 2013, when it raised a $140 million add-on TLB along with a €50 million TLB. That followed a repricing in August 2013 of its $16 million revolving credit score A, a repriced $84 million revolving credit B, a $921.55 million TLB and also a €140 million TLB.

Scranton avoids federal conflict of interest on loan to small business by using state pot of money instead

Scranton faced a conflict of interest if it made use of federal funding as the supply of a $250,000 business loan to your father of a city police officer.

So, Mayor Bill Courtright’s administration utilised state income as an alternative, simply because the state has less-stringent principles on conflicts of interest, a solicitor for any city company explained.

The challenge arose final week, when city council split on authorizing the city to present a $250,000 small business loan to Roll Call LLC, a firm owned by Thomas Harris that sells tools and accessories to police, fire, emergency healthcare providers, security personnel and sportsmen. Roll Contact is moving from Duryea to 701 Hudson Ave. in West Scranton. The city loan would convert to a grant in the event the firm meets a affliction of building eight full-time jobs inside a certain time frame.

Since Mr. Harris’ son is city police Cpl. Joseph Harris, that is listed on Roll Call’s internet site as being a co-founder of your company, along with the city has finished some organization with all the firm, Councilman Bill Gaughan questioned at council’s Oct. twenty meeting irrespective of whether the city features a conflict of curiosity in providing the company the loan.
Councilman Pat Rogan replied that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Growth entirely vetted the loan and identified no conflict of interest. Councilman Wayne Evans said such background information and facts should happen to be included with all the loan legislation. Council voted 3-2, with Mr. Rogan, Joe Wechsler and Tim Perry in favor in the loan, and Mr. Gaughan and Mr. Evans opposed.

Mr. Gaughan requested much more information from your administration, including HUD’s decision and Roll Call’s application and organization.In a reply Wednesday

, Eugene Hickey, solicitor for the city Workplace of Economic and Neighborhood Improvement that administered the loan, explained the city very first pursued applying federal block grant funding since the loan source.

OECD mistakenly considered Cpl. Harris was part-owner of your relatives company, and sought a HUD determination if that might represent a conflict of interest. As a part of this inquiry, OECD issued a public notice, titled “Conflict of Interest” and published from the Might 9 and May 13 editions of the Times-Tribune, disclosing that Joseph Harris, a city police officer, and his father, as “owners” of Roll Contact, applied for any city loan; but the Harrises “are not in any position in the (city’s) determination making procedure.”

The Harrises corrected the city’s error, by signing affidavits saying Joseph Harris has no ownership interest in Roll Call, that is owned 100 % by his father.

While awaiting HUD’s choice, the city alternatively sought and received approval from your state in September to work with a certain pot of state economic improvement money since the source of the loan.

HUD’s determination of Oct. four - though now moot - said a possible conflict of curiosity exists regarding applying federal revenue for the loan to Thomas Harris, mainly because his son works in a police teaching unit that procures products of your very same sort sold by Roll Get in touch with. As a result of his position, Joseph Harris could have entry to “inside information” on city procurement processes that may advantage his father’s business, the HUD decision stated.

“HUD stated this was a conflict, so they (the administration) used a different pot of money” to acquire throughout the conflict, Mr. Gaughan mentioned Wednesday. “Based upon an appearance of a conflict of interest, this whole point is questionable.”

Mr. Hickey disagreed and explained federal conflict-of-interest guidelines are a lot a lot more stringent than state guidelines or the city’s code of ethics policy.

Mr. Rogan mentioned

he misspoke when he stated HUD observed no conflict of curiosity, and he meant to say the state located no conflict. He mentioned that his other remarks with regards to the concern referenced state funds as the loan source.

“The stage was almost everything was completely vetted” through the city and state, Mr. Rogan mentioned.

Attempts to reach Thomas Harris and Cpl. Harris have been unsuccessful.


Fitch: Loan Growth Evident in Capital One's 3Q16 Earnings

CHICAGO--(Small business WIRE)--Capital 1 Financial Corporation's (COF) third quarter 2016 (3Q16) earnings were fantastic and showed proof of continued development in the company's domestic credit card small business and automobile loan organization, in accordance to Fitch Ratings.

COF's general return on common assets (ROAA) was one.18% in 3Q16, up from 1.13% while in the sequential quarter, but down one.43% from the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year decline is primarily because of higher provision expense associated to continued development of the credit score card portfolio as well as some difficulty assets in the company's vitality portfolio and taxi medallion portfolio and $63 million of expenses relevant to a develop during the U.K. Payment Protection Insurance coverage purchaser refund reserve.

The company's return on average equity (ROE) was 8.59% in 3Q16 up from seven.64% during the sequential quarter, but down from 9.54% in the year-ago quarter to the very same motives noted over. Total revenue growth, while enhanced, stays difficult amid strong competition for card, automobile, and business loans.

COF's stability sheet has continued to broaden, developing 1.7% from your sequential quarter and 10% in the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year growth is due to each the GE Healthcare acquisition which closed at the end of 2015 along with the previously mentioned growth in the company's large domestic credit score card portfolio, which expanded 3% relative towards the sequential quarter and 11% relative to the year-ago quarter.

Fitch believes this development during the card portfolio is due to COF's continued efforts in marketing both its QuickSilver and Venture cards, the two of which have comparatively good rewards applications. The expense of these rewards packages have partially offset a lot of the rewards to earnings through the growth mentioned above.

COF's deposit portfolio has grown a lot more modestly, expanding 2% in the sequential quarter and 6% from your year-ago quarter to $226 million as of 3Q16. Given that loans grew faster than deposits the company's loan-to-deposit ratio remained elevated at somewhere around 106% as of 3Q16. COF primarily made use of securitizations and modest increases in wholesale borrowing to fund the loan growth.

Offered the growth during the loan portfolio, specifically since it relates to comparatively larger yielding credit card receivables, the company's net interest earnings grew 4% from your sequential quarter and 11% from your year-ago quarter. Similarly the company's net curiosity margin (NIM) ticked as much as a powerful six.79% in 3Q16, up from six.73% in the two the sequential and year-ago intervals.

When COF's buy volume enhanced 12% year-over-year, complete non-interest earnings only grew 2% from your sequential quarter and 4% from the year-ago quarter, as Fitch believes COF is continuing to work with far more of its interchange income to fund its good rewards programs mentioned over.

Complete non-interest expenditures for COF grew 2% in the sequential quarter and 6% through the year-ago quarter as the company continues to handle costs cautiously within the context of its efforts to build digital working platforms and consumer interfaces. Relative to each the sequential and year-ago quarters, COF did supply constructive operating leverage and the company's efficiency ratio ticked down to 52.02% in 3Q16.

As mentioned provision cost elevated drastically improved relative on the year-ago quarter as a result of acquisition of the GE Healthcare portfolio, development in credit card and auto loan receivables, and some year-over-year deterioration the energy and taxi medallion portfolios. Relative to the sequential quarter provision was flat as provision associated to growth while in the credit card and automobile loan portfolios was offset by some moderating of your energy loan portfolio.

COF's all round credit score excellent remains fantastic, together with the company's net charge-off (NCO) ratio ticking up modestly to 2.10% in 3Q16 which relative on the final 10 years is still low, although Fitch would note that COF's 30 day+ delinquency ratio is up nine basis points through the prior yr period, still strong compared to historical averages. Moreover, this quarter's NCO ratio compares to 2.01% while in the sequential quarter and 1.69% from the year-ago quarter.

The up-tick was resulting from continued seasoning and growth within the domestic credit card and car loan portfolios. Fitch continues to think credit score high-quality in these portfolios is close to cyclical troughs, and would assume even further reversion in NCO ratios above a medium-term time horizon.

As mentioned, within the business portfolio each the vitality and taxi medallion portfolios remain problematic. Given the rise in energy costs in excess of the final a number of months, there continues to be some moderating of your deteriorating trends from the power portfolio. Total energy loans are right down to $5.four billion, or three.98% with the complete commercial portfolio, and one.11% with the total loan portfolio. Provided the reduced loan balances, the allowance was down sequentially by $22 million, however the power reserve coverage stays very good at 9.18% of loans held for investment.

COF's taxi medallion portfolio continues to check out credit deterioration amid the proliferation of trip sharing services like Uber and Lyft. Nonetheless, the exposure stays modest at one.16% of commercial loans and 0.32% of complete loans. The allowance for this portfolio is $111mn as of 3Q16, representing reserve coverage of 14.32% of loans held for investment, but only 1.7% on the complete allowance.

COF's Basel III Typical Equity Tier one (CET1) ratio beneath the standardized approach as from the finish of 3Q16 was ten.6% relative to ten.9% on the finish of 2Q16. The decline was attributable to some share repurchases throughout the quarter along with the stability sheet growth mentioned over. Related to last quarter, COF noted that standardized ratio is going to be the long-term capital constraint for that corporation.2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Phone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in full or in element is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in generating other reviews (together with forecast details), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to become credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual data relied on by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains fair verification of that info from independent sources, on the extent this kind of sources are available for a given protection or inside a provided jurisdiction. The method of Fitch's factual investigation as well as the scope of your third-party verification it obtains will vary based on the nature on the rated protection and its issuer, the needs and practices from the jurisdiction through which the rated protection is presented and sold and/or the issuer is located, the availability and nature of appropriate public information, entry on the management of the issuer and its advisers, the availability of pre-existing third-party verifications for example audit reports, agreed-upon procedures letters, appraisals, actuarial reports, engineering reviews, legal opinions along with other reviews provided by third events, the availability of independent and competent third- party verification sources with respect for the distinct protection or while in the unique jurisdiction from the issuer, plus a number of other components. Consumers of Fitch's ratings and reports need to understand that neither an enhanced factual investigation nor any third-party verification can guarantee that all the info Fitch relies on in connection with a rating or possibly a report might be accurate and full. Eventually, the issuer and its advisers are accountable to the accuracy of the info they supply to Fitch and also to the market in giving paperwork as well as other reports. In issuing its ratings and its reports, Fitch have to depend on the do the job of experts, like independent auditors with respect to money statements and attorneys with respect to legal and tax issues. Even further, ratings and forecasts of money together with other data are inherently forward-looking and embody assumptions and predictions about future events that by their nature can't be verified as facts. Because of this, despite any verification of current facts, ratings and forecasts could be impacted by future events or problems that weren't anticipated at the time a rating or forecast was issued or affirmed.

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UEFA broke no rules in granting $4.4 million Slovenian loan

GENEVA (AP) -- After an internal investigation, UEFA has located that former common secretary Gianni Infantino and present president Aleksander Ceferin didn't break any rules once the governing entire body of European soccer sent a multimillion dollar loan to the Slovenian federation.

The 4 million euro ($4.four million) deal for any betting corporation investment in June 2015 - which an internal UEFA report says was ''granted in genuine exception'' - continues to be scrutinized since it had been signed off by Infantino and Ceferin. They've got considering that won sudden elections as presidents of FIFA and UEFA, respectively.

A Norwegian magazine reported that FIFA ethics prosecutors are investigating Infantino's aspect in the loan. It said UEFA flouted financial protocol to approve the cash, and noted that FIFA's code of ethics prohibits people from investing in soccer gambling operators.

The UEFA disciplinary committee asked its investigations unit to report on claims initially made by Scandinavian media final month.

The inquiry document, witnessed by the Associated Press, concluded that UEFA as well as the Slovenian federation ''respected the appropriate provisions and conditions'' of granting loans to members.

''The loan was granted fully in accordance with conventional UEFA procedures and that the use of the loan money through the Slovenian (federation) raised no issues both,'' UEFA said Wednesday in a statement towards the AP.

The document mentioned that FIFA's ethical principles on betting and integrity of matches relate to ''persons,'' not institutions. The code, as a result, does ''neither apply to UEFA, nor to nationwide associations,'' the document concludes.

Despite UEFA's internal report, FIFA ethics prosecutors can independently look for evidence and demand witness statements. Nevertheless, it really is unclear if an early stage probe has begun.

The investigatory chamber in the FIFA ethics committee said it will never ever confirm an ongoing preliminary inquiry. But that could lead to a formal situation being opened, which would normally be announced.

The multimillion dollar loan from UEFA was in depth last month right after FIFA constructed closer backlinks to Slovenia.

In July, FIFA appointed Slovenia state auditor Tomaz Vesel to chair its independent audit and compliance committee and also a panel which sets salaries. Norwegian magazine Josimar reported that Vesel plays on an amateur soccer workforce with Ceferin, who it claimed was supported by Infantino's personnel in what grew to become a landslide win for that UEFA presidency in September.

Interviewed by the AP final week, Ceferin described reports in search of to implicate him as ''mosquito bites'' assisted by an previous guard of soccer insiders opposing him.

''They needed to make an effort to invent some non-stories,'' Ceferin mentioned at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, insisting the loan was ''as clean as you possibly can. We asked for any loan, it had been a strategic investment.''

The report says Infantino was not directly associated with Slovenia's formal request in December 2014, which had ''one sole identified and well-documented aim'' - to order a 17.3 percent share in the state lottery Sportna loterija. The owners consist of the Slovenian Olympic committee and nationwide ski federation.

UEFA said its loan policy is ''to co-finance strategic projects by using a lasting effect and will by no means be granted to support bad management or incorrect decisions.''

Slovenia acquired ''exceptional'' therapy at two stages from the method, the report acknowledged, though notes that UEFA previously granted 25 loans to member federations.

One particular exception was in granting a ''force majeure loan'' in May 2015 that needed to be accredited by 5 senior UEFA officials, including then-president Michel Platini and Infantino. A ''detailed cash-flow'' prepare also needed to be provided, plus the Slovenian federation advised the investment would earn more income following eight years.

UEFA stated in addition, it will allow ''in pretty excellent cases'' for its finance committee to grant loans guaranteed against a member's long term payments from UEFA-controlled broadcasting and sponsorship revenue of Planet Cup and European Championship qualifying matches.

UEFA wrote to Ceferin on April 28, 2015, that Platini should approve how Slovenia could repay the loan. It could be offset against 800,000 euro ($870,000) payments Slovenia was due to get every August from 2016 as a result of 2020.

Noting that other UEFA members had commercial ties to betting operators, the report said the Spanish soccer federation received 1 percent of nationwide lottery earnings which was really worth 70 million euros ($76 million) because 1998.

''Furthermore, and as everybody knows, it's not at all at all uncommon for national football associations, or for football clubs, to have industrial relationships with providers inside the lottery or gaming business enterprise,'' UEFA stated in its statement Wednesday.

Four pupil loan myths you could think

Wanting to discover the correct way to take care of your pupil debt at times feels like attempting to avoid speaking about the presidential election. All people seems to have an opinion, so it’s easier to tune out and pretend it does not exist. But your loans, like the election, won’t go away just because you wish them to. So it is critical to know the specifics of your pupil debt.

We’ll allow you to begin by shedding light on four common student loan myths you might feel:

1. In case you don’t function in public service, you can not get pupil loan forgiveness
Public Services Loan Forgiveness isn’t the sole approach to get your federal loan debt wiped out. You can even get forgiveness when you join one of the income-driven repayment plans, like Revised Pay When you Earn, which is out there to all federal loan borrowers. For anyone strategies, your month-to-month payment volume is tied for your earnings, and forgiveness applies to any debt you have got left in excess of on the end of one's loan term. That’ll get 20 to 25 many years, dependent on which plan you sign up for.
If you qualify for both Public Services Loan Forgiveness, which forgives your debt immediately after 10 years, and an income-driven repayment system, you will conserve probably the most by opting for both. That’s because the income-driven approach will lower your monthly payment sum, so more debt can be forgiven following 10 years.
Utilize the Division of Education’s repayment estimator to determine which income-driven plans you qualify for. You’ll need to reapply annually and, unless of course you go through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, you will should pay out cash flow tax on any amount that’s forgiven.

2. Paying off your student loans should be your very first priority
Not necessarily. Debt that carries a higher interest rate than your student loans, like credit score card debt or perhaps a personalized loan, will leech dollars from your bank account a lot quicker than your student loans will. It is most effective to tackle that debt very first. But receiving from debt is only one component of fiscal protection. You’ll also need to save for long- and short-term goals.

“An emergency fund and taking benefit of employer [retirement] matching contributions should virtually generally get precedence in excess of paying out off student loans,” says David Metzger, a certified monetary planner at Onyx Wealth Management.

Discover everything you owe and what your interest rates are by logging into your numerous financial accounts. Then get a have a look at your month to month cash flow and examine your spending routines in the previous month. That way you will know which debts to pay off to start with, and you will be capable of make room in your spending budget for each lease and retirement cost savings.

three. When you have many student loans, consolidation is normally a great idea
The truth is, it will depend on any time you took out your loans. Consolidation used to be a method to simplify your month to month payments, but latest grads generally have all of their federal loans together with the very same servicer, so it is generally no longer essential.

Currently, federal pupil loan consolidation is most practical in qualifying for Public Support Loan Forgiveness or income-driven repayment plans. That’s because Federal Family Education Loans, Stafford loans and PLUS loans ought to be consolidated right into a federal direct loan to qualify for those packages.

But if you have got a Perkins loan and qualify for forgiveness, which includes it in consolidation would suggest providing up forgiveness added benefits for that loan. And when you've got many diverse varieties of federal loans, it’s cheaper to exclude direct loans, because your new loan’s rate of interest can be the typical price rounded as much as the nearest 0.8%. Plus, your loan term is going to be extended in case you owe greater than $7,500, so you’ll end up paying out a lot more more than the lifestyle of your loan.

“If you are going to pursue an aggressive repayment of pupil loans, it will conserve you both time and money to repay the loans with all the larger interest rates to start with, an option lost once you consolidate,” says Danna Jacobs, a certified money planner at Legacy Care Wealth.

four. You are caught using the interest rates you acquired if you took out your loans
If you have pupil loans with rates of interest over 6%, pupil loan refinancing could reduce your rates of interest and rein in long-term costs. It’s usually not a great strategy to refinance federal loans via a private loan provider, even though, given that you’d really need to quit federal borrower protections like income-driven repayment and forgiveness. To qualify for refinancing, you’ll require a regular supply of income as well as a superior credit score, generally 690 or larger.



A Comprehensive Guidebook to SBA Loan Requirements

It’s hard enough qualifying for any company loan, it’s the golden ticket to increasing your small business. That is exactly where the Modest Small business Administration comes in. An SBA loan is made by a loan company but assured by the government-which lowers the lender’s risk. To put it differently, the SBA tends to make it a lot easier for modest company owners to have major, affordable loans when they’d typically be turned away.

An SBA loan is made by a loan provider but guaranteed from the government, which lowers the lender’s possibility. Put simply, the SBA makes it a lot easier for little small business owners to acquire big, affordable loans when they’d commonly be turned away.

SBA lenders inquire for sure documents or details so as to solution certainly one of these four concerns. Let’s break them down.

1. What’s the deal with your small business?
You are more very likely to lend money to a buddy than a stranger, correct? SBA lenders perform the exact same way. They want to have an understanding of you along with your enterprise completely before they fork in excess of thousands (or millions) in financing. The extra cozy they are really with you, how competent they locate you and the way convincing your online business prepare is, the more probably that you are to qualify for any superior loan.

And simply because you are a smaller company owner, the SBA is particularly interested in your individual history. Here’s a few of what they’ll inquire for:

Past names and addresses
Your resume
Your educational background
Your criminal record
Plus, they’ll be trying to find some insight into your online business and the way you run it. A good organization plan will give them with:

Economic projections
Core differentiators (What sets your company apart?)
Marketplace analysis
Approaches for sales, advertising, etc.
Organizational construction and management workforce bios
And that is not all. You will also be asked to provide copies of one's legal documentation, together with:

Licenses, permits, and registrations
Articles or blog posts of Incorporation
Actual estate or equipment leases
Franchise contracts
Supplier contracts
Lastly, your SBA lender will wish to understand how major your organization is and the way long you’ve been around for.

Though your time in business is just a background reality to you, for the lender it could possibly assistance predict your business’s achievement: 50 percent of compact corporations fail inside their 1st five years, so the younger your online business is, the riskier the investment.

2. Why do you need financing?
To reference the initial analogy, if a pal asks for cash, you’ll most likely request them why. Your SBA lender will do the exact same point. They’ll choose to know specifically everything you intend to implement all their cash for, because it's going to aid them choose if you’ll have the ability to spend them back down the line.

Be sure to possess a good motive for taking out a loan, make certain that cause matches up together with your company strategy, financial projections, market place research, and competitor analysis. To put it differently, verify that your loan use is usually a intelligent one.

The SBA may also be comparing your intended utilizes with their loan program needs to find out if they match up. They've some different types of loans-including the seven(a) SBA loan, with flexible usage necessities, and also the CDC/504 loan, which focuses on significant fixed asset purchases. Double-check this before you even start an application.

3. Are you able to afford the loan?
Will your organization have the ability to create people regular monthly loan repayments? It’s a straightforward query, but all-important for lenders. In advance of they loan you income, they want to be sure they’ll get it back-plus interest.

To figure that out, your SBA loan provider will request you for these financials:

Stability sheets
Revenue & loss statements
Income flow statement
Bank statements
Enterprise tax returns
Company debt schedule
Collateral
The additional cautiously and successfully you have managed your business finances, the higher your chances are of getting an SBA loan.

That said, the SBA does guarantee loans for startups with little or no company background, too. If that is the case along with your enterprise, then you’ll wish to focus additional on the next section.

4. Should they trust you to repay?
The final question: are you trustworthy? Your reliability as a small company proprietor gets measured a few various ways, but the single most significant factor is your personal credit score-especially for young or new companies.

Why do lenders care about your personal credit?

It is basic: your credit score reflects how savvy that you are with debt, and lenders figure that your private financial habits will inform your enterprise decisions. By maintaining a higher credit score, you are proving that you pay out back loans on time, have distinctive kinds of credit lines, use only a portion of one's available credit at any given time, and additional.

In short, a high credit score means you have been a superb borrower in the past. It's a strong indication that you’ll continue for being one in the future. (That’s why you should test your credit just before you apply for an SBA loan.)

Besides your individual credit, lenders will also look to a number of additional paperwork to determine whether they can trust you to repay them:

Business enterprise credit report (primarily for established organizations)
Personal tax returns (to confirm your income and see the way you manage your personalized finances)
Loan application background (how much debt have you taken on, how regularly, and for what?
SBA loan applications can take a prolonged time, but the additional prepared you will be when you come for the table, the faster things will be. Gather these documents ahead of time to have your small business financed with the most affordable loan available-without too much waiting.

Student loan borrowers share tales of woe with regulators

“It’s a pleasure to get here, ultimately,” aren't the words you could possibly anticipate to hear from someone getting ready to share their story of pupil debt woe to a area packed with strangers. But that’s exactly how John Carter, a 77-year-old Ny City resident, began just before recounting the years of problem he faced starting to be latest on his debt to a group of advocates and regulators gathered to hear how the pupil loan crisis is affecting New Yorkers like him.

Carter initial took out a student loan in the 1980s, but explained he did not acquire any information regarding repaying the loan to the subsequent quite a few decades. Then in 2013, he discovered the government was taking a portion of his month-to-month Social Security cash flow to pay out his debt, which by then was in default. He entered into an agreement with his debt collector in an energy to cure his default, which essential him to generate various month to month payments on leading of his garnishment to come to be existing on his loan. Carter manufactured most of the payments, but his checking account amount switched midstream. The firm did not course of action his up coming payments appropriately and they informed him he would really need to start the system throughout once more, at which level Carter was “ticked,” he informed the crowd.

In the end, Carter cured his default with the assist of legal advocates by a a lot quicker course of action the company under no circumstances informed him about, while he had a appropriate to it under the law the entire time. Now Carter is employing a payment plan provided from the government that allows borrowers to cap payments like a percentage of their earnings. He’s able to stay current on his loans by generating payments of zero dollars a month.

“This is really a very widespread story we see,” Evan Denerstein, Carter’s attorney and also a senior personnel attorney at MFY Legal Companies, an organization that supplies legal counsel to low-income New Yorkers, advised the room.


Denerstein as well as other advocates organized the occasion earlier this week to bring awareness for the plight of borrowers like Carter to federal and state regulators. These borrowers often struggle to accessibility the protections and rights that federal student loan borrowers are guaranteed by way of their servicers, the private corporations hired through the government to manage the student loan repayment course of action, he explained. As a substitute, these borrowers are turning to legal advocates for enable.

Customer advocates have extended complained that student loan servicers don’t do ample to help borrowers handle the student loan repayment process. For their part, the Nationwide Council of Increased Training Assets (NCHER), a trade group that represents lots of pupil loan servicers and debt collectors, says its members follow pointers, contract prerequisites and regulations to guarantee that borrowers get assistance curing their defaults and enrolling within the payment plan that most effective fits their wants.
“NCHER members work closely with pupil loan borrowers to provide them with high-quality providers that assistance borrowers manage their student loan debt,” Pam Shepherd, a spokeswoman for your organization, said in an emailed statement.

The Department of Education can be inside the midst of producing a whole new servicing method that aims to do away with confusion and push servicers to act in borrowers’ finest interest. From the meantime, some states, like Connecticut, have currently taken methods to manage servicers inside their own jurisdictions. Denerstein said he’s ultimately hoping for a thing similar in Ny, ideally by way of a program where New York’s Division of Fiscal Companies licenses and regulates the providers. The company is enthusiastic about exploring the thought, a spokeswoman mentioned, nevertheless it would get action from legislators to give the regulator the power to oversee these companies.

“What we would want to do is come collectively to come up with a more systematic strategy to managing these issues, as an alternative of just handling them on the one-off basis as a result of person complaints,” Denerstein said.

And it seems that there are tons of complaints, if the forum was any indication. One particular attorney said he routinely encounters borrowers that are unable to operate because they are disabled and hence eligible to possess their loans forgiven, but their servicers “really put them through the wringer” to prove they’re earning under the cash flow threshold that makes them eligible for that discharge.

Mary, a Bronx resident, told the crowd about her decades-long struggle to repay loans that were really eligible to become discharged all along. Mary attended a laptop entry system at a for-profit university inside the late 1980s. She wasn’t even conscious that her school requested $6,000 in loan-based economic aid underneath her name right up until 2002 when she observed money was getting taken from her tax refund to offset the debt. She made greater than $12,000 in payments around the loan by means of an agreement with her debt collector to the next 15 years.

Mary explained that none in the companies dealing with her federally assured debt ever told her that she was actually eligible to have the loan wiped away simply because there was widespread proof the college - now shuttered - engaged in fraud when signing up borrowers like Mary for loans. She located out minutes prior to the forum that greater than $14,000 in curiosity and costs she still owed would be discharged and she would get a refund with the dollars she already paid, thanks to the aid of legal advocates at Legal Services NYC.

Other advocates shared stories of borrowers at a loss to search out reliable information regarding their loans. Eve Weissman, a personnel attorney at the New Economy Undertaking, a nonprofit targeted on addressing inequality in Ny City, recounted a recent cellphone phone the organization obtained as a result of its hotline. That borrower struggled to acquire precise information regarding his loans and the method for getting them from default - an urgent consideration due to the fact his wages had been being garnished for the tune of $600 a month to repay his debt. He even turned to a scam operator for a period, who promised to cure his default for any fee, a thing he had a ideal to via his debt collector for free. Soon after considerably investigation and heartache he sooner or later acquired the $300 he paid on the scam operator back and begin the approach towards getting recent on his loans.

Nonetheless, his trials indicate that “surely we can do superior,” Weissman mentioned.

The regulators gathered seemed to agree. Seth Frotman, the pupil loan ombudsman with the Shopper Economic Safety Bureau, explained that in lots of scenarios servicers are falling quick. Frotman stated he often hears from housing as well as other money counselors enthusiastic about assisting customers tackle their pupil debt, but that theoretically shouldn’t be important.

“The challenge for us as well as the challenge for any large amount of you is you will find folks who are supposed to counsel student loan borrowers and they are called student loan servicers,” he explained.

Student loan debt has grown exponentially inside a short period and the regulatory construction all around pupil loan-related merchandise hasn’t very caught up, he mentioned. Typically shopper finance experts and regulators depart issues about how you can address student debt on the greater training neighborhood, which is typically targeted on accessibility to training, he mentioned. But that ignores the actuality that 44 million Americans who previously attended college are definitely facing a monetary challenge.

“Their lives wouldn’t be better if we passed no cost university tomorrow,” he stated.

Industrial loan development boosts financial institution earnings


Region banks Valley National Bancorp Inc. and Lakeland Bancorp Inc. reported third-quarter earnings growth, buoyed by an increase in loans.

Wayne-based Valley mentioned inside a statement that net revenue climbed 19 % to $42.eight million, or sixteen cents a share, from $36 million, or 15 cents, from your exact same time period a 12 months in the past, lifted by a commercial loan surge.

Net curiosity earnings to the third quarter rose $20.four million to $156.three million in the very same quarter a yr ago, driven by loan development plus a reduction in price of funds largely associated with the debt modification in August 2016. Complete new organic loan originations, excluding new lines of credit and bought loans, totaled a lot more than $900 million, primarily from the business loan categories in the course of the third quarter of 2016, the company explained.

Non-performing assets decreased by sixteen.7 % to $51 million as of Sept. thirty, compared with $61.3 million at June thirty, due, in part, to a couple of large non-accrual loan payoffs throughout the third quarter.

Oak Ridge-based Lakeland said third-quarter net revenue climbed 45 percent to $11.three million, or 25 cents a share, from $7.eight million, or twenty cents, to the very same period in 2015.

Lakeland stated excluding the acquisition of Harmony Bank, complete loans and leases elevated by $80.5 million, or 2 percent, to $3.79 billion throughout the quarter. This general improve was mainly because of the addition of $65.eight million in business authentic estate loans and $23.3 million in business, industrial together with other loans.

Thomas J. Shara, Lakeland Bancorp’s president and chief executive officer, cited Lakeland’s completion of its acquire of Ocean County-based Harmony Bank and natural growth in loans and deposits as highlights from the quarter.

3 Dangers Of Refinancing Pupil Loans Nowadays

Interest rates continue to be at historically minimal amounts. Ideal now is a superior time for you to refinance debt. You will discover thirty 12 months fixed rate mortgages as very low as 3.37%. Currently, even pupil loan debt could be refinanced. Should you shop on the internet at sites like StudentLoanHero or MagnifyMoney, you will discover fixed rates as lower as three.25%. Dependent upon where or after you originally borrowed, you could potentially probably cut your pupil loan interest rate in half. Even so, ahead of signing over the dotted line, you need to carefully take into consideration 3 big dangers of refinancing student loan debt nowadays.
one. You'll forfeit government protections

Over the past few many years, the federal government has expanded income-driven repayment plans that will enable people today with issues repaying their student loans. Should you have federal pupil loan debt, you might be likely eligible for a program when you run into monetary trouble. Based upon the plan, you could possibly cap your month to month payment to ten percent of one's discretionary income. Right after as couple of as twenty years, you can have the remaining balance forgiven. (Warning: debt forgiveness would be taxable).

Income-driven repayment programs are like insurance coverage policies. The policy can be incredibly precious should you drop your job or take a substantial reduce in shell out. Usually, the longer you feel it'll consider to pay off your debt, the extra useful the insurance coverage policy. Why? The longer it will take to repay debt, the greater than probability that some thing will go incorrect. It's highly unlikely that you simply will lose your work tomorrow. Nonetheless it is a lot extra probably that you simply will get rid of your occupation sooner or later more than the subsequent twenty years.

Should you truly feel highly assured within your capability to keep your income and speedily pay off your pupil loan debt, forfeiting this appropriate not be a large concern. But think very carefully before giving up this benefit. As soon as you refinance a public student loan using a private lender, you can not go back.

When you have private pupil loan debt, refinancing to a reduced interest rate is surely an apparent decision.

2. You might not be accepted.

The providers providing student loan refinancing options are very selective. Most lenders will only refinance your loan in case you have graduated from school, have great credit and may demonstrate that you simply have a robust cash movement. When you've got run into fiscal troubles from the previous, you can most likely be declined. For those who have loads of missed payments in your credit score report, you should assume to get rejected. And some lenders only approve graduates from precise universities.
Twitter is struggling to keep the curiosity of Wall Street as a standalone firm, but its reliable third quarter earnings may well stem a downward spiral as traders flee the stock on fears its growth has petered out.

On Thursday morning, Twitter delivered slightly superior than anticipated third quarter earnings, which incorporated an 8% rise in revenues to $616 million plus a 3% rise in typical monthly users to 317 million. Daily lively consumers rose 7%, indicating, an acceleration in exercise from your 2nd quarter. These results beat analyst estimates of $605 million in revenues and flat growth in MAUs, leading to Twitter shares to rise nearly 5% in pre-market trading, but those gains typically faded through the afternoon.

“Our system is directly driving development in audience and engagement, with an acceleration in year-over-year growth for every day active utilization, Tweet impressions, and time invested for the 2nd consecutive quarter,” Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s cofounder and CEO said inside a statement.

Read through Additional: Twitter Plunges As Buyout Bubble Bursts

For Twitter, third quarter earnings may well stem the tide of a 25% plunge in its stock this yr as consumer growth slowed to a crawl along with the business was not able to appeal to takeover bids from Disney and Salesforce.com immediately after reportedly launching a sale approach this fall.
Twitter’s single digit development rate reflects its struggles versus faster-growing peers like Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, as does its $92 million net reduction, equal to 13-cents a share. But the takeaway from earnings may very well be the organization continues to possess time for you to correct itself following various missteps and failed investments, together with Vine, which it discontinued on Thursday. Although Twitter is caught inside a tide of countless quarterly losses, the consumer produced 140-character media giant continues to show an underlying profitability.

After all, the company’s funds stockpile grew to $3.7 billion immediately after making $80 million in absolutely free cash flow during the third quarter, and it was profitable when excluding non-cash expenses like stock compensation. Earnings just before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 26% to $181 million, drastically exceeding analyst estimates. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 9-cents, a different beat.

Data licensing, an under-exploited chance for Twitter, continued to show promise as revenues rose 26% to $71 million. Meanwhile, a latest push into live occasions together with the streaming of Thursday Night Football, presidential debates, and Bloomberg Tv may be giving Twitter customers a cause to return for the social media platform.

Twitter stated it “saw favourable trends for consumer engagement, across pretty much all measures, with time spent on platform and Tweet impressions accelerating on a year-over-year basis for that second consecutive quarter, while searches and direct messages continued to post solid double-digit development prices year-over-year.”

Thursday Night Football viewers exceeded 3 million viewers, and also the third presidential debate produced record day by day lively consumer interest during the Usa. With this particular curiosity, all round ad engagements rose 91% year-over-year, but Twitter failed to totally capitalize on it as value per engagement fell 44%.

Twitter also stated it will announce enhanced security and enforcement characteristics following month, since it responds to criticism concerning the bullying, racism and bigotry that is often amplified around the platform and might be retaining customers and advertisers away.

To obtain to the black, Twitter is cutting personnel and doing work to cut back overall costs. On Thursday morning, Twitter explained it would lay off 9% of its workforce, focusing on staff in revenue, partnerships, and promoting efforts, in an effort to increase efficiency and turn to profits in 2017. Twitter expects to incur up to $20 million in money bills for this restructuring during the fourth quarter.

“We see a substantial chance to boost development as we proceed to improve the core service. We now have a clear program, and we’re making the necessary modifications to guarantee Twitter is positioned for long-term growth. The important thing drivers of potential revenue development are trending beneficial, and we remain confident in Twitter’s potential,” CEO Dorsey extra.

To the full year, Twitter expects to produce up to $715 million in EBITDA, and reign in capital expenditures to $360 million. The organization did not give updated revenue advice as a result of restructuring, but said it will pare back stock-based compensation in the fourth quarter to between $150 million and $160 million.

“We’re having a lot more disciplined about how we invest in the business, and we set an organization intention of driving towards GAAP profitability in 2017,” explained Anthony Noto, Twitter’s CFO. “We intend to fully invest in our highest priorities and are de-prioritizing particular initiatives and simplifying how we operate in other locations,” he extra.

Credit by Examination

Getting a head get started at University of Maryland University School could be as easy as passing approved examinations and earning university credit score. You are able to earn credits toward your associate's degree (for military and veteran college students) or bachelor's degree through credit by examination. You are able to earn these credits provided that there is no duplication of academic credit as well as your scores meet UMUC requirements.
Proctored Exams

Proctored exams can be found for students transferring from UMUC Europe or UMUC Asia.

CLEP

Our test center presents computer-based School Level Examination System, or CLEP, exams. CLEP examine guides can be found at most bookstores otherwise you can buy on the web with the School Board. The UMUC code quantity is 5804. You need to enter this number in your examination material if you want your score sent to UMUC.
DSST

The nationally acknowledged DSST program, formerly regarded as DANTES Subject Standardized Exams, permits you to earn school credits for understanding acquired outside the standard classroom. The UMUC code variety is 9357. You have to enter this quantity on your examination material if you need your score sent to UMUC. The Rules of Public Speaking exam is available by appointment only by contacting your location or e-mailing e-mailing Exams and Testing.

Pearson VUE

Pearson VUE testing includes academic, government, well being, IT certifications, expert certifications and licensure exams, such as ASMC, Cisco, CompTIA, DSS, Excelsior, GMAT, ISC2, NREMT, PTCB, and substantially extra. We also supply Pearson VUE Computerized GED Exams. The Pearson VUE examination is obtainable by appointment only.
Other Exams

Advanced Placement Exams
Superior placement and college credit may well be granted to students who enter UMUC immediately from a secondary school, about the basis of scores on the College Board Advanced Placement (AP) examination. These examinations are typically administered to eligible large college seniors throughout the Could preceding matriculation in college.


A pupil intending to transfer AP credit score that was awarded at another college or equivalent institution will have to possess a transcript of people scores sent right to UMUC from your University Board. When people scores are already received, an evaluator will establish no matter if they meet the standards established at UMUC for granting AP credit, and just how a great deal credit score might be awarded.

Cambridge Global Examinations

UMUC accepts credits for advanced-level exams taken by means of Cambridge Global Examinations when scores meet UMUC requirements. Official transcripts, with scores, needs to be sent directly to UMUC for critique.

Excelsior School Exams

Students may perhaps earn credit for effectively finishing topic exams supplied by Excelsior College. Tests can be found in many places of the arts and sciences, too as in organization. Scores must meet UMUC standards.

Worldwide Baccalaureate Exams

When you completed your Worldwide Baccalaureate exam just before graduating from large school, you could have the capacity to transfer applicable credits to your UMUC degree.

Industry-Specific Certification

If you’ve taken considered one of quite a few industry-standard certification exams (this kind of as CompTIA, Microsoft, or Cisco) within the past five many years, UMUC could accept your certification for university credit. You may just need to submit documentation of your certification. See which certifications you'll be able to flip into credit.

Program Challenge Exams

Immediately after you will be a student at UMUC, you'll be able to apply to get a Program Challenge examination (offered via our Prior Discovering plan). On this system, you are able to earn credit score by taking the equivalent of your last examination for a UMUC program.

UMUC Foreign Language Working experience Questionnaire

You'll be able to earn credits to your expertise in foreign languages by filling out our Foreign Language Questionnaire and going through a credit-by-credit evaluation to determine transfer credit score eligibility.

5 Actions To improve An Existing Line of Credit score

For each small organization proprietor, there comes a time if you locate your self within a funds movement crunch, wishing you had added revenue available to cover your bills. Ready small business owners can stay away from this moment of panic by taking out a small business line of credit score.

A line of credit works similar to a business enterprise credit card: you are offered accessibility to a pool of money and can draw to the capital anytime you would like or ought to. You will only shell out curiosity to the income you consider out and use-and when you pay it back, your line of credit gets refilled to its original sum. (That is why it is termed “revolving” credit score.)

Say you by now have a line of credit for the enterprise and you are enjoying its several added benefits, although. You could choose to have an even greater pile of funds available to make use of whenever you may need it.

Luckily, there are some fantastic means small business owners can enhance their existing line of credit. Maintain reading through to find out them all.

one. Demonstrate You’re a Major Notch Borrower

In case you usually repay your draws on your line of credit score in complete and on time, the loan provider will see that you have a robust, trustworthy borrowing history. For those who request your loan company for an increase inside your line of credit, they might reward your superior habits using a bigger pool of money.

Building your repayment background will get a while, although:

Most lenders will not consider an increase as part of your line of credit score until eventually you’ve proved by yourself a steady and reliable borrower for no less than six months. The moment you’ve built up a historical past of steady repayment, it is best to inquire for a rise in the line of credit score if you feel you require a lot more money.



2. Construct Your Personal And Company Credit

If you have taken out a compact organization loan just before, you already know that lenders have a look at your individual credit score score really closely. In truth, the strength of the credit score is most likely the single most critical aspect in your loan application process.

Why is your private credit score score so crucial?

Great question.

Considering the fact that you’re aiming to fund your compact business, your individual money habits possess a significantly bigger effect on how you will run your enterprise. If lenders see that you are accountable along with your individual finances, they’ll figure that you will be responsible with your company finances, too.

Your personal credit score score played a large role in securing your preliminary line of credit and will be crucial for upping that line of credit any time you want far more capital. In the event you can prove that the two your individual and enterprise credit score ratings have improved considering that you initial took out your line of credit, lenders will likely be extra possible to increase your existing line of credit score. You’re a less-risky borrower-and you may have the credit score improvement to display it.

three. Raise your Fiscal Capacity

In case your company has improved its financials considering the fact that you’ve taken out your organization line of credit, you might be eligible to get a greater line of credit.

Lenders may very well be willing to increase your line of credit in case your organization is bringing in far more income or you are seeing regularly robust cash flows.

Why?

Very well, stronger financials imply that you have a lot more capital to cover your line of credit score repayments, plus interest. Continue to keep in thoughts that greater lines of credit demand more collateral, so you may additionally have the ability to improve your present line of credit in case you have more collateral to present up.

To discover when you qualify for a bigger line of credit, re-submit a stability sheet to your loan provider that proves you have upped your business’s money capacity.

4. Repay Your Expenditures

It’s not unusual for business enterprise owners to possess a line of credit and present debt from other business enterprise loans-and most small business line of credit score lenders are okay with this.

Nevertheless, if you have a short while ago paid off a specific cost that is been holding your business’s financials back, you might qualify for a bigger line of credit.

Say you’ve acquired a line of credit score and just paid off your short-term loan. You are now free of charge of a sizeable debt burden, which means you is likely to be in a position to get on an even more substantial line of credit.

In advance of you pay back any excellent loan, though, observe out for prepayment penalties. Not all lenders will charge a fee when you shell out your loan early, but some will-and it may possibly be expensive.

five. Develop Your Business’s Social Media Presence

This final tip could come like a surprise, but it is well worth paying out awareness to:

You may be able to increase your existing line of credit score if you have a powerful social media presence.

Owning a sizable following on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn can basically be truly precious for a business. If you have much more customers and followers supporting you, lenders get that as being a indicator that you run a strong organization and therefore are well worth investing in.

In case you have a line of credit score with Kabbage, as an example, you ought to attain out to them and prove your social media presence-it may possibly make it easier to increase your line of credit.



China could possibly use information to produce a score for every citizen based on how reliable they are

Warning: This publish incorporates slight spoilers for your 1st episode of "Black Mirror" season 3.

Inside the third season of common British television series "Black Mirror," the first episode functions an eye-embedded app that lets folks fee their interactions with one another and share standing updates. It's like Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp combined - with severe stakes.


Characters who act wonderful and don't seem smarmy could get 5 stars. But if they act negatively, they'll encounter one-star critiques. If anyone drops also low, they come to be a variety of second-class citizen - they are socially shunned, shuttered out of workplaces, forced to spend a premium on leases, and penalized in myriad other strategies.

Like numerous "Black Mirror" episodes, this 1 requires a existing tech-related paranoia to its severe. But in China, a comparable system could soon become a reality.

The Chinese government is planning on implementing a method that connects citizens' money, social, political, and legal credit score ratings into 1 large social trustability score. The concept can be that if a person breaks believe in in one particular spot, they'd be adversely impacted everywhere.

Proponents from the approach, like Chinese blogger Wenquan Xin, say the method is needed due to the fact many of China's 1.three billion citizens never personal a credit card, and also the country lacks an equivalent program to the US' FICO credit score. That means bankers and loan suppliers will not have much to go on.

In accordance to the Washington Submit, eight private corporations have developed pilot "credit databases" that compile details about people.

Sesame Credit, a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is presently working a social credit score program. In accordance for the BBC, the corporation determines people's scores by incorporating numerous factors into its algorithms, which includes irrespective of whether someone has gotten site visitors tickets, if they've paid their taxes, and what they get on the web. If you are continuously shopping for video video games, as an example, you'll be witnessed as idle. If you're obtaining diapers, you could potentially be regarded as a responsible parent.

People with higher rankings can rent bikes or automobiles without the need of leaving a deposit, and skip lines at hospitals by having to pay after they depart, in accordance on the Submit. 15% of end users on Chinese dating website Baihe choose to display their Sesame Credit score score, and that some weed out potential dates based on that measure of trustability.

This preferential therapy for higher-rated folks is extremely very similar for the situation depicted on "Black Mirror."
The Chinese program for any more widespread scoring process has become from the operates given that 2015. But in September, the government released bullet factors of proposed penalties for those who "breaks social trust" (which may very well be completed by defaulting on a loan, for example, or voicing a dissenting view against the government on line).

In accordance for the policy documents, here is what could occur should you be a lower scorer:

You will not be viewed as for public workplace
You may eliminate entry to social security and welfare
You are going to be frisked a lot more totally when passing by means of Chinese customs
You are going to be shut out of senior degree positions while in the foods and drug sector
You won't get a bed in overnight trains
You are going to be shut out higher-starred hotels and restaurants and will be rejected by travel agents
Your children will not be allowed into a lot more expensive personal colleges
From the "Black Mirror" episode, titled "Nosedive," the function of the universal ratings system is ostensibly to incentivize untrustworthy individuals in the society to shape up to what other members take into consideration excellent.

But the irony during the episode is the method ends up producing a culture of disingenuity - a "numbers game" wherever people kiss as much as preferred people to increase their social standing, instead of simply just striving to become a better individual.

Although the technological innovation in "Nosedive" is not right here but, China's social credit scores could one day contribute on the sort of culture we noticed in "Black Mirror." And if your episode's finale is any superior predictor of your final result, the method may not finish happily for those who phase out of line with common view.

FSA or child-care credit on taxes?

You will frequently obtain a bigger break together with the FSA, in particular as your cash flow rises.

You are able to put aside as much as $5,000 pretax within a dependent-care FSA, if one is offered by your employer. That revenue avoids not simply federal cash flow taxes but also the seven.65-percent Social Security and Medicare tax, and it may bypass state income taxes at the same time. If you're during the 25-percent federal earnings tax bracket and shell out 5 % in state taxes, one example is, contributing $5,000 to an FSA would save you $1,883 in taxes.

The higher your tax bracket, the greater the advantage. (The maximum contribution is $5,000 per home annually whether or not the two spouses have entry to a dependent-care FSA wherever they perform.)

The dependent-care tax credit score, on the flip side, is really worth twenty percent to 35 percent of up to $3,000 in eligible child-care bills for those who have one particular youngster, or up to $6,000 when you have two or extra little ones. The percentage is dependant on your cash flow; you may qualify for the 35-percent credit score only if your family's revenue is $15,000 or reduce.


In case your revenue is $43,000 or far more, the credit is really worth 20 percent of eligible child-care expenses, having a optimum credit score of $600 when you have one particular youngster or $1,200 when you have two or a lot more young children. See IRS Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenditures, to get a checklist of credits at every earnings level.

You can't double dip, which means you cannot use the FSA and get the total dependent-care credit. But families with two or a lot more eligible youngsters can max out the $5,000 FSA advantage and still consider the dependent-care credit for as much as $1,000 in eligible child-care expenditures, which could reduce your tax bill by an additional $200 or far more, based on your earnings.

The two the dependent-care FSA as well as tax credit have the identical eligibility demands: The care have to be to get a child underneath age 13 while you as well as your spouse do the job (the two spouses ought to have earned cash flow, or 1 can be quite a full-time pupil).

The price of day care, a nanny, a babysitter and preschool counts (but not the price of school for little ones in kindergarten or greater grades). You may also count the price of before-school or after-school care and day camp (but not overnight camp) throughout the summer and school breaks.


Whitehall police ask public to recognize girl in credit fraud inquiry

Whitehall Township police have launched a surveillance photo of the female they suspect has been utilizing a fake credit card to create purchases at numerous stores.

The woman has employed a counterfeit credit card that disguises the fraud by delivering details from a further person's credit account, police stated.

The photo shows the woman in front of an unidentified store's funds register and credit card swiper. Inside the picture, she is by using a guy, who police say accompanied her as she produced illegal purchases.

Any person who recognizes the girl or man can attain Whitehall police at 610-437-3042, ext. 218.


Employee made use of Arkansas county charge card to acquire puppy tuxedo, affidavit says

Sizzling SPRINGS, Ark. -- A former county employee in Arkansas is arrested immediately after prosecutors accused her of using a county charge card to get personalized goods such as Arkansas Razorbacks tickets and a tuxedo for her dog.

The Sentinel-Record newspaper reported that Kristi Goss was arrested Tuesday on six counts of fraudulent use of a charge card. Goss had worked as administrative assistant for your Garland County judge’s office.

According to an affidavit, investigators and auditors flagged about $200,000 in purchases manufactured over the county’s bank card, which includes a diamond bracelet, Razorbacks tickets, pet insurance along with the canine tuxedo, which was ordered from Amazon.

Court data usually do not record an lawyer for Goss. Prosecutors have filed a request for a gag buy stopping any comment over the situation.

Credit Reports for Mortgages Loans Get an Update

Applying for a home loan? You may want to consider paying off your credit card bill first.

Thanks to a recent change by major credit rating agencies, mortgage lenders can now look at whether you pay off your bill every month or keep a balance. That means home buyers who pay off their credit cards may earn an advantage when looking for a mortgage.

Historically lenders reviewed basic information such as your total debt and whether you were on-time with your payments when deciding whether to make a home loan. But they didn't know whether you were paying off your credit card or other revolving debts in full or carrying a balance month-to-month.

That changed in September, when two of the major credit rating agencies, Equifax and Transunion, began offering what's known as "trending data."

Lenders now have access to a more comprehensive view of a borrower's debt management habits, specifically how much someone paid off each month on those accounts over the past two years. And they may reward those who regularly pay more than the minimum on revolving debts or pay them off in full.

The remaining credit reporting agency, Experian, is also expected to begin offering trending data soon. It is the first time in 30 years that the standard information provided to lenders on credit reports has been updated, according to Equifax.

The change was driven by Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that guarantees many of the loans in the U.S. It found that all other things being equal, borrowers who paid off their credit card every month were 60 percent less likely to become delinquent than borrowers who make only the monthly minimum payment. As a result, Fannie Mae will now regularly review this information to help improve its risk assessment.


The final decision on who gets the loan still remains with the bank or lender, who can decide whether or not they want to consider this factor.

Experts say that while it's still early in adoption, Fannie Mae's influence over the industry means they expect it to become part of the regular mortgage review process.

Fannie Mae, credit bureaus and other industry experts say they intend to use the additional information to expand the number of loans available, not to penalize those who do carry a balance.

"It's going to benefit someone who is on the border today," said Mindy Armstrong at Fannie Mae.

Consider two people with otherwise equal credit profiles: Jack and Jill. Jack makes the minimum payments each month, while Jill pays her cards off in full. They may both have been "maybes" in the loan officer's mind, but this factor could tip Jill into the approved pile.

"It's just one factor of the risk assessment," Armstrong said. "These are all things you can do put yourself in a better position."

Your credit score and credit worthiness will ultimately be determined by many other factors — most importantly whether you pay your bills on time and how much of your available credit you use. So paying down debts more aggressively may have an added bonus of improving your utilization rate, and thereby your credit score too.

Donald Trump said that he expects to win the key battleground states of Ohio, Florida and North Carolina -- victories he says will help push his campaign over the finish line.

"I think I'm gonna win," Trump told ABC News on Wednesday.

Trump and his family gave their take on the final stretch of the presidential race in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in their new hotel in Washington, D.C.

Melania Trump, who has mostly stayed off the campaign trail, remaining at home with the couple's young son Barron, said that she might be a more frequent presence in the last 12 days. Donald Trump said that she may make two or three speeches in the coming days.

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"I support him 100 percent and I'm there or him every time he needs me," she said.

Her advice for her husband was to "just keep fighting hard as he did for the last year and a half."

Donald Trump said that he intends to spend heavily in the final days of the campaign. The real-estate mogul said he is prepared to pour in $100 million of his own cash on the campaign by Election Day.

When Stephanopoulos noted that Trump has spent $56 million so far on his campaign, the Republican presidential nominee said, "Well, no, it's $61 million. But I'm spending a lot of money. And that doesn't include everything. I'm spending a lot of money.”

Watch the full interview, including a tour of the presidential suite at the new Trump hotel, in the video above.

Donald Trump went on the offensive against a military expert and former dean of the Army War College, Jeff McCausland, who said the Republican nominee’s comments this weekend about the battle to reclaim Mosul in Iraq show he doesn’t have a firm grasp of military strategy.

“You can tell your military expert that I’ll sit down and I’ll teach him a couple of things,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the ongoing offensive against the ISIS stronghold of Mosul is turning out to be a “total disaster.”

“We gave them months of notice. U.S. is looking so dumb. VOTE TRUMP and WIN AGAIN!” he tweeted.

Trump doubled down on his assertion that the element of surprise is an important military strategy.

“I’ve been hearing about Mosul now for three months. ‘We’re going to attack. We’re going to attack.’ Meaning Iraq’s going to attack but with us. OK? We’re going to attack. Why do they have to talk about it?” he asked Stephanopoulos.

“Element of surprise. One of the reasons they wanted Mosul, they wanted to get ISIS leaders who they thought were, you know, in Mosul. Those people have all left. As soon as they heard they’re going to be attacked, they left,” Trump added. “The resistance is much greater now because they knew about the attack. Why can’t they win first and talk later?”

But according to The New York Times, some military experts disagree with Trump’s claims that the element of surprise is crucial to win the fight against ISIS.

“What this shows is Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about military strategy,” McCausland told the Times.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is on the ground in Iraq and told ABC’s Martha Raddatz in an interview earlier this week that he’s “encouraged” by the progress in the fight against ISIS because it “is going according to plan ... ISIL will surely be destroyed.”

Trump blamed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama for the need to reclaim Mosul.

“We had Mosul. We have to take it because Hillary Clinton and Obama left that big vacuum, and ISIS went in, and they took Mosul,” he said.
Donald Trump today blasted his critics for complaining that he is tending to business matters rather than his presidential campaign, arguing that Hillary Clinton takes time off the trail for less important matters.

“I built one of the great hotels of the world. What am I supposed to do, not show up? I’m taking one hour off. I’m going to North Carolina right after this, then I’m going back down to Florida. I’m going up to New Hampshire. I’m all over the place,” Trump said in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos from inside his new Washington, D.C., hotel. “I can’t take one hour off to cut a ribbon at a one of the great hotels of the world? I mean, I think I’m entitled to it.”

The Republican presidential candidate blasted Clinton for taking Tuesday night off to go to an Adele concert.

“I think it’s so unfair because, you know, Hillary Clinton goes to see an Adele concert last night, and everybody says, ‘Oh, wasn’t that nice, isn’t that wonderful?’” Trump said.

A Dead Heat for Congress, Despite Clinton’s Advantage (POLL)
A History of the Donald Trump-Megyn Kelly Feud
“She goes, she does one stop,” Trump told ABC News today, which is Clinton’s 69th birthday. “She has no energy. She’s got nothing going. She does one stop. And nobody complains about that. Nobody complains when she goes to an Adele concert all night long, while I’m making two speeches at rallies with, you know, massive crowds.”

Trump has repeatedly criticized what he calls Clinton’s lack of stamina, citing her decision to take five days off the campaign trail before the last of their three presidential debates. She has argued that the preparation last week for her final major national audience before Election Day was time well spent.

Trump spent the morning in Washington to attend the grand opening of his brand’s latest hotel. The hotel, which is in the city’s Old Post Office building, had a soft launch last month.

That “I built this hotel under budget and ahead of schedule … sends a real message,” he said.

But the hotel hasn’t been without controversy. Famed chef Jose Andres had been set to run one of the hotel’s restaurants, but he backed out of the project after Trump said last year that some Mexicans entering the U.S. are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”


Firefighters performed a dramatic rescue dozens of feet above the ground, pulling a man from the window of a burning building in New York City's Upper East Side.

The New York Fire Department responded to the six-alarm blaze the started around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday, reports WABC, a local affiliate. The fire quickly ripped through all five floors of an apartment building and burst through the roof, killing one person and leaving another in critical condition. Two other people and two firefighters reported minor injuries.

Witnesses saw a heroic rescue as a firefighter was lowered down by rope from the burning building's roof to rescue a man hanging out of a 5th floor window.

“You couldn’t see anything over the edge, there was so much smoke and flames going out the window,” Jim Lee, of the FDNY's Rescue 1 unit, later told WABC.

Lee pulled the man from the window and held on as they were both lowered safely to the ground.

“I told him to stay calm and when we got down, I said, 'hope you enjoyed the ride.' he sort of smiled and he was thankful,” Lee said.

The man suffered serious burns and was rushed to New York Presbyterian Hospital – Cornell in critical condition, WABC reported.

“The chief told me he was in critical condition, but he was able to talk to me,” Lee said of the rescued man.

After they got to the ground, the rope they had been hanging from broke, the result of flames shooting out the building's windows.

“This is the type of rescue that is really extraordinary,” FDNY Chief of Department James Leonard told WABC.

“He really put his life at risk. It doesn’t happen that often in this department, maybe once every couple years, that we have a member who puts his life in this position and save a life because of their teamwork, their training and their bravery.”

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Southwest Airlines earnings drop 34% on credit card accounting, tech outage

Southwest Airlines reported a 34% decline in net earnings Wednesday, missing analyst expectations just after a one-time adjustment for an accounting change for a branded credit card plus a technical outage that snarled flights in July cut into earnings.

The Dallas-based airline's $388 million in net cash flow for July, August and September compared to $584 million to the very same time period a 12 months earlier.

The results of 62 cents per diluted share missed the 81 cent prediction of analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

But the results came right after a $172 million adjustment for accounting methodology from July 2015 for any co-branded credit card with Chase Bank and a $55 million revenue loss from a technology outage in July. Excluding special items, net earnings of $582 million, or 93 cents per share, would have exceeded estimates.

The results came on a 3.4% decline in revenue, to $5.1 billion, stemming largely from the credit-card adjustment. Passenger revenue declined 1% decline, to nearly $4.7 billion.

Lower fuel prices have caught up with Southwest, which reported a 4.6% decline in fuel expenses, to $1 billion, soon after a time period of double-digit drops.

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement the airline was delighted to reach tentative agreements with unions representing pilots, flight attendants, facilities maintenance technicians and aircraft appearance technicians.


Kelly also commended workers for “truly heroic” efforts to serve customers despite the technical outage in July. The first release of a new reservation system is expected in December and preparations are proceeding as planned, he said. Besides the $55 million in lost revenue, the company spent $24 million on the outage, Kelly told reporters during an earnings call Wednesday.

“The outage was really odd,” Kelly said. “I think I would readily admit to everybody that it is impossible to have a failsafe backover for every conceivable scenario that can happen. But we’re in really good shape and have a lot of experience in preventing outages like that.”

Southwest has blamed a router failure for starting a cascading technology glitch on July 20 that knocked reservations systems offline and took several days to fully resolve. It took until July 25 that Southwest said it was back to a near-normal operation after more than 2,300 cancellations -- about 12% of its schedule over the period. An estimated 8,000 flights were delayed.

The company is updating two major technologies, for its reservations system and its communications for flight crews.

“Hardening or fortifying our technology is absolutely a component of our spending,” Kelly said. “Right now we are in the midst of establishing a new data center, which in effect has a complete redundant data center in the same place, in addition to a backup facility.”

The airline will also launch new service to Cuba from Florida, and to Mexico from Los Angeles International Airport in the fourth quarter, Kelly said.

Millennials Are Applying For Credit Cards But Not Qualifying For Them

New findings by consumer risk management firm ID Analytics found that 35% of new credit card applications are made by millennials. That’s 6 points higher than the applications submitted by Generation X, and 7 points higher than baby boomers. While the demand for credit cards among this age group appears to be higher than most, the approval rates are less than impressive. One in five people between the ages of 23 and 27 have been declined for credit multiple times within a single year . Once declined, an overwhelming majority does not re-apply for at least a year.

The biggest obstacle facing millennials in their struggle for new cards appears to be their credit scores. ID Analytics reports that 67% of consumers under the age of 30 have a subprime or non-prime credit score. Worse yet, around 33% of people in this age group do not have any score at all, due to a lack of credit history. Patrick Reemts, vice president of credit risk solutions at ID Analytics, claims that this is, in part, due to the fact that traditional credit scores aren’t tapping into more modern data sources, like cell phone bills. “Traditional credit scores may have served previous generations well,” he writes. “Their lack of visibility into critical modern credit responsibilities [has left] many millennials with incomplete or nonexistent histories at the major credit bureaus.”


Analysis of credit score data by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that 67% of those who are 30 or younger have a credit score below 680. A majority of that group has scores below 621, putting them in the subprime-lending region.


This wouldn’t be a problem if millennials were being declined credit for valid reasons. Credit scores are intended to predict an individual’s ability to repay their debt. This filtering mechanism prevents credit cards from falling into the hands of people who, with them, would dig themselves into a financial pit. However, the ID Analytics also found that many individuals in this age group have the ability to repay their obligations. Therefore, there is a clear mismatch between the risk modeling provided by traditional credit scores and the real financial standing of people under 30. This also prevents many millennials from building out a credit history and from ultimately getting travel rewards cards that many of their peers are using as a way to save money on lavish trips.

How Credit Scorers Are Stepping Up

FICO, the company that produces the most widely used credit scoring models in the United States, recognizes these problems. In recent years, they haven taken steps to help underscored groups, like millennials. In 2015, the company introduced FICO Score XD – a new model that draws on alternative data sources to produce scores for otherwise unscorable consumers. However, this doesn’t immediately solve the problem at hand.
Once better models exist, the issue then becomes whether or not lenders actually use them. Currently, FICO 8 is the standard model that most banks rely on when determining credit worthiness for new card accounts. According to Jim Wehmann, Executive Vice President of Scores at FICO, it took “5 years for FICO score 8 to reach usage in 50% of risk management decisions.”

Large institutions typically have many legacy systems in place that make it difficult to upgrade to new technologies. Big banks cannot simply jump on the newest and best credit scoring model, without significant effort. However, research by firms like ID Analytics suggests there is high demand for card accounts among populations that wouldn’t necessarily default on their loans. Perhaps this is enough of an incentive for banks to put resources towards pushing these models through at a faster rate.

A Gap Filled by Alternative Lenders

Some companies have decided to jump on the lending gap created by traditional scores. Affirm is one of the companies gaining the most traction in this space. To date, the company has raised $420M from investors, including $100M from Morgan Stanley just this month. Max Levchin, Affirm’s CEO and the cofounder of PayPal, told CNBC that the company is focused on “creating a purchase oriented, purchase built loan to help folks afford nicer things…especially millennials.” The startup operates by providing consumers loans when at the checkout of some online retailers, including Casper, Reverm and Pixel. Affirm uses some pretty alternative data sources to provide their loans to as many people as possible. According to the New York Times, the company uses things like social network profiles and online communications to assess their users.

The danger to alternative lenders popping up to fill the credit card gap, is that it leaves the door open for predatory practices. This is something that is currently plaguing the small business online loans space, where rates are high and terms are often difficult to sift through and understand. Fortunately, consumer lending in the United States is subject to much regulation that aims to minimize the risk of something like that affecting millennials seeking credit.

Raj Panjabi was one of the lucky ones, though it may not have felt like it at the time. He was born in Liberia in West Africa. And by the time he was nine, his country was being ripped apart by civil war. His family lost their home but managed to find space on a rescue plane, were taken to the US and built a new life in North Carolina.

From then on Panjabi made his own luck. He studied hard at UNC at Chapel Hill, one of the best universities in the US, became a doctor and then joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School. But Panjabi never forgot the people who didn’t make it out.

In 2005, Panjabi decided he could help. The civil war had left the country with just 50 doctors to serve a population of four million. Away from major towns, medical care was all but non-existent. “In remote villages, far from the nearest clinic, you could die anonymously of a preventable illness like malaria or diarrhea,” says Panjabi. “These are things people shouldn’t die from in the 21st century.”
Panjabi returned to advise Liberia’s Ministry of Health and work as a doctor in rural communities. In 2007 he joined forces with a small group of civil war survivors and other American health workers to form Tiyatien Health. With just $6,000, a wedding gift, they set up a rural HIV clinic.

Panjabi and his team then developed a radical but simple solution to the paucity of health care in remote areas. They suggested that locals in could be trained, equipped and paid to carry out basic health care: to screen for tuberculosis and provide anti-retroviral drugs for those with HIV; to hydrate those with diarrhoea; and to administer antibiotics and nutritional supplements for new-born babies.

In 2013 Tiyatien Health, a non-profit rebranded Last Mile Health outside of Liberia with Panjabi as CEO, was supporting 300 healthcare workers who were providing advice and care for more than 30,000 Liberians. In 2014 though Ebola broke out in West Africa and it hit Liberia hard.


Last Mile Health moved quickly to train and support a new frontline of health workers and locals across Liberia to help control the infection. It also worked with the Liberian government to establish and run the Ebola Operations Center.

That kind of response requires support. And it came quickly, from the UBS Optimus Foundation. “With their support we were able to fight back and mount a surge response, training over 1,300 rural Liberian responders, including CHWs, primary care nurses and midwives and community leaders,” says Panjabi.

“The UBS Optimus Foundation’s support helped to train people like Alice Johnson, a nurse who distributed digital thermometers, masks, gloves and gowns to clinics to ensure infection prevention and control measures were in place. And David Sumo, a 24-year-old lab technician who drove a motorbike more than six hours over mud tracks in the rainforest to collect blood samples from hundreds of people at risk. And Zarkpa Yeoh, a CHW who ensured no child with malaria in her village missed a day of treatment even as the health system was collapsing around her.”

Support for Last Mile Health came in other ways too. “I had the honor of speaking at the Global Philanthropy Forum that UBS hosted with its clients in December of 2014,” says Panjabi. “It was during the height of the Ebola crisis and was an important opportunity to inform and get feedback. We received great wisdom and ideas from the group, and had the chance to build new collaborative partnerships that continue to impact our work today.”

For Panjabi it was further proof of contemporary philanthropy’s power. “Philanthropy is becoming more entrepreneurial,” he says, adding that it’s “leveraging the skills of the private sector” to heighten its own impact.

Last Mile Health typifies the kind of partners Optimus supports; organizations that can be genuine game changers; that already have effective leadership but who need more support; that are already making an impact but can be scaled up; and that can effect policy changes at the highest level. Panjabi and his team are a perfect fit. And they have ambitious plans.

Panjabi believes he has a model that can be replicated across the developing world. The World Health Organisation estimates that 1 billion people have no physical access to health care. Panjabi believes that if his model of professionalised community health workers is scaled up, 3 million lives could be saved every year in sub-Saharan Africa alone. “Our primary responsibility is to build an everyday health system that works for the people and provides a health worker for everyone, everywhere, every day,” he says.


As of the end of last week, 78% of the companies that have reported earnings for the most recent quarter have beaten estimates.

That’s on about a third of S&P 500 companies that have reported thus far. Remember, FactSet says on average (the five-year average), 67% of companies in the S&P 500 beat their analyst expectations. And they beat by an average of 4%. So the numbers in this earnings season are running a little hotter, albeit on a lowered bar.

We’ve talked quite a bit in the past week about the run up to Apple earnings, which came in yesterday after the market close. The earnings number beat expectations. But it was by a slim margin.
The stock was lower on the day. Still, on the second quarter report this past July, Apple was a sub-$100 stock (trading at just above $96). Today it will close above $115. That’s 20% higher in the span of one quarter, and it was on a report that was very much in line with the report we heard yesterday. And the report included only a few weeks of the new iPhone7 release. And it doesn’t reflect the implosion of Apple’s competitor, Samsung.

As the media and analysts tend to do, especially when the macro news front is quiet and market volatility is quiet, they picked apart and speculated on the future of Apple today as a company that may have peaked.

Let’s just take a look at the stock, and not pretend to have better visibility on the future of the company than the people do inside–the same ones that put a transformational supercomputer in our pockets
Apple still trades at 13x earnings. The S&P 500 trades at 16x. Apple trades at 13x next year’s projected earnings. The S&P 500 trades at 16.5x. Clearly it’s undervalued compared to the broader market. What about Apple’s monster cash position? Apple has even more cash now–a record $237 billion. If we excluded the cash from the valuation, Apple trades at 8.6x earnings. Though not an apples to apples (pun), and just for a reference point, that valuation would group Apple with the likes of these S&P 500 components that trade 8x earnings: Dow Chemical, Prudential Financial, Bed Bath & Beyond, a Norwegian chemical company (LBY), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It’s safe to say no one is debating whether or not Hewlett Packard is at the pinnacle of its business. Yet, if we strip out the cash in Apple, AAPL shares are trading at an HPE valuation.

Apple still looks like a cheap stock.

Click here to get started and get your portfolio in line with our Forbes Billionaire’s Portfolio.
Earlier we looked at how to become a billionaire. It’s really not that hard if you can live long enough. Today we are going to look at how to accumulate $1 million in retirement accounts. More specifically, we are going to examine some common mistakes people make that derail their savings goals.
Let’s start with the assumption that one saves $1,000 a month in a 401k or IRA (subject to contribution limits, of course). If invested in an S&P 500 index fund, it will take about 22 years to become a millionaire. This assumes a 10% return on stocks (more on this assumption in a moment).

In contrast, if one were to stick the money under their mattress, it would take just over 83 years to achieve millionaire status. And after even modest inflation, one would never accumulate $1 million in today’s dollars.

With our baseline set, let’s look at some common mistakes investors make. What’s fascinating about these mistakes, as you’ll see, is that at first glance they look like sound decisions.

Mistake #1: Bonds are Safe

It’s a common belief that stocks are risky and bonds are safe. It’s important to understand what is meant by “risky” and “safe.” In the investment world, risky simply means volatile. Stocks are “riskier” than bonds because their prices fluctuate more widely. Stocks can go up or down by 30% or more in a given year. Bonds tend to stick to a tighter band of returns.
The problem with this definition of risk is that it doesn’t tell the whole story. According to Vanguard, a 100% bond portfolio returned 5.4% from 1928 through 2015. Using this return data, and saving $1,000 a month, it would take 32 years to become a millionaire. That’s an entire decade longer than the 100% stock portfolio we looked at earlier.
Halloween is just around the corner and we all enjoy giving a good scare, especially when playing a silly “trick” on our kids. Make sure your “scare-tactics” focus on goblins and ghosts and not on our often ghastly behavior around money. Unfortunately, I’ve seen my fair share of scary financial situations, which have really messed with our kids’ perception of money. What are some of those instances that will haunt the financial lives of your children? Let’s try to unravel some of these messes and messages to turn the, “Boo” into “Do.”

Scary Thing #1:  Making Money The Biggest Secret In Your Family

If you are like most families, money issues are the biggest secret within the household.  Your kids may ask what something costs, what you earn, or how much the bill was for dinner at the local restaurant last night.  Your knee-jerk reaction may be, “Don’t ask about money, it’s impolite.”

Hold on! Do you want your kids to have a healthy attitude toward money? Do you want them to understand what it can and can’t do?  You never want them to confuse “net worth” and “self-worth;” however, if you never discuss it, or hide behind “being polite,” they will ultimately learn about it from friends.  Those lessons may not reflect your values.

Buck up and make the money part of your life, the business part as well.  You want to teach your children to grow up to be financially responsible, so start talking.  Begin with the small things.  When they are about 10 years old, introduce them to some of the household bills and work with them to understand that there are costs involved with, for instance, electricity.  It just doesn’t come with the house.  You are not practicing recreational yelling when you pounce on them for having a conversation with the refrigerator door open; there is a real cost to that behavior.
Challenge your kids to reduce the electric bill by unplugging cell phone chargers, turning off the TV or computer when they leave the room, and, yes, only opening the fridge when they know what they are looking for. They can track the savings and you can decide whether or not to split the windfall with your kids each month.

When there are teens involved, you can discuss your real budget, unless you feel it will scare them. Your goal is to allow them to understand how the real world of money works.  Show them your pay stub, if you are comfortable.  Explain that you are entrusting them not to share this knowledge with anyone.  It could make their friends feel bad; this is information that should be kept within the family. Show your kids what is taken out for taxes, Social Security, and benefits like a 401(k).  Explain what you are saving for in the future.

Scary Thing #2: Fostering, “The I Want, I Want Syndrome”

You know how your kids can nag you for something they want?  Well, if you give in and just say, “Yes,” you are supporting the notion that they are entitled to get what they want if they whine enough.  It may work when they are little ones, but it probably will not be okay with you by the time they are teenagers, and hopefully not as they move into adulthood.

Nip this behavior in the bud when they are young.  Show them that the only way to get money is to earn it.  Set up my simple allowance system that shows them how to do chores (work) to get money (payment).  The caveat is that there are two types of chores within any household; Citizen of the Household Chores, where they do not get paid, and Work for Pay Chores, where they do get paid.

Mom and Dad, you are the CEOs of the household, so you decide on what chores go into which category.  In my home, my kids had to keep their own rooms free of breeding diseases, and they didn’t get paid for that.  They also had to learn respect for public places in the house and clean up their toys and stuff.  Work for Pay Chores taught them the life skills that they needed to run a home, such as dusting, recycling, loading and emptying the dishwasher, doing laundry, vacuuming, making a shopping list, etc.

Next, comes the pay.  I recommend that you pay kids their “age” per week; a 5-year-old receives 5 dollars and a 10-year-old receives 10 dollars. With their newly-earned income, should come the habit of budgeting.  Get four clear jars or envelopes and label them: Charity (10% goes into that jar); Quick Cash (30% goes into that jar to go for instant gratification spending); Medium Term Saving (30% goes into that jar for kids to push off instant gratification and save for something more expensive); Long Term Saving (30% goes into that jar to save for college).

Scary Thing #3: Fighting About Money In Front Of The Kids

Money problems bubble up within any family and they can cause a tremendous amount of stress.  We have to deal with financial issues every day of our lives.  These issues can also be attached to subconscious baggage that we carry with us from childhood. The Wall Street Journal noted; “That’s because when couples argue about how to spend money, they’re not just debating the issue at hand, such as how much they can put on the credit card each month, or whether they can really afford that big vacation.  They’re giving voice to subconscious anxieties that even they may not be aware of—bumping up against the unarticulated fears of their partners.”

The bottom line?  Your arguing causes your kids to become stressed out, and thus they will start to develop their own “scary” relationship to money.  So, “let it go” when you are in front of the kids; don’t frighten them.

The money part of your kids’ lives should be healthy and not scary.  Come clean with them about how money works.  Remember the words of Lloyd Douglas, the famous minister and author who said, “If a man harbors any sort of fear, it makes him landlord to a ghost.”
The latest episode of “The Bulletin with UBS” on Monocle 24 delves into the third edition of the UBS/PwC Billionaire Report, part of a continuing investigation into an historic era of wealth generation. The featured data covers about 1,400 billionaires over two decades; it includes 14 of the largest billionaire markets, accounting for about four fifths of billionaire wealth around the world.
China may be the world’s largest emerging economy, beating India in many economic and financial indicators. But India is beating China in an indicator that matters the most to emerging market investing: financial market development. This means that India is less prone to a financial crisis than China, and therefore, a better investment than China.

China’s economy outperforms India’s in many metrics, including World Forum’s Global Competitiveness – where China occupies the 28th and India the 39th position – and per capita GDP, where China beats India by more than three to one—see tables.

Apparently, China has been doing a lot of things right. That’s why it is suggested as a model for India.

But there’s an important metric, financial market development, where India beats China. India ranks 38, while China ranks 56.
 Source: World Competitiveness Index, World Economic Forum.

Financial development is the 8th pillar in The Global Competitiveness Index, and includes several sub-metrics that describe the soundness of a country’s financial sector. That includes such measures as domestic credit to private sector, financing of SMEs, corporate bond issuance, financing through equity markets, market capitalization of listed companies, soundness of banks, bank non-performing loans, and regulation of security exchanges.
Why is this metric so important? First, poor financial development leads to uncontrolled growth of credit, which fuels financial bubbles, which lead to economic crises.

That seems already to be the case in China. In a recent report the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), pointed to the rapid rise of China’s credit-to-GDP ratio, which now stands at 30.1, three times the threshold of 10 that indicates an impending financial crisis.

Second, the financial system is the Achilles heel of emerging market economies – the sector where economic crises arise, and the reason equity market rallies end and bear markets begin.

In fact, it was government’s heavy-handed intervention in financial markets that killed recent rallies in Chinese equities, which have been lagging behind Indian equities in the last five years. And things can turn worse, when China’s multiple bubbles burst.

That’s why I’d rather bet on Indian rather than Chinese equities at this point.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced the annual inflation adjustments for a number of provisions for the year 2017, including tax rate schedules, tax tables, and cost-of-living adjustments for certain tax items.

These are the applicable numbers for the tax year 2017 - in other words, effective January 1, 2017. They are NOT the numbers and tax rates that you’ll use to prepare your 2016 tax returns in 2017 (you’ll find them here). Rather, these numbers and tax rates are those you’ll use to prepare your 2017 tax returns in 2018.

If you aren’t expecting any significant changes, you can use the updated tax tables to estimate your liability for the 2017 tax year. If, however, you are expecting to make more money, get married, buy a house, have a baby or other life change, you’ll want to consider adjusting your withholding or tweaking your estimated tax payments.
If you are filing as an individual taxpayer, you generally have to make estimated tax payments if you expect to owe tax of $1,000 or more when you file your federal income tax return. Take a look at line 76 of your form 1040: if it is at least $1,000, you should likely be making estimated tax payments.

estimated tax threshold

Similarly, if you owed federal income tax last year and expect to owe again this year, you may also have to pay estimated taxes for the current year. Some exceptions and special rules apply, so check out federal form 1040-ES (downloads as a pdf) for more information.

To make estimated payments, you’ll figure your estimated tax; you can use the worksheet on the federal form 1040-ES to figure your estimated tax. For estimated tax purposes, the year is divided into four payment periods, about once every quarter. Each period has a specific payment due date as determined by IRS (usually April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15). Watch the dates carefully: if you don’t pay on time, you may be subject to a penalty.

If you don’t make enough in estimated payments for 2011, you may owe a penalty if the total of your withholding and timely estimated tax payments did not equal at least the smaller of:

90% of your 2011 tax, or
100% of your 2010 tax. This amount is considered the “safe harbor” amount. A good rule of thumb if your income doesn’t change from year to year is to pay at least as much as you owed in tax for the prior year. There is one quick exception: if your adjusted gross income (AGI) for 2010 was more than $150,000 ($75,000 if your 2011 filing status is married filing separately), you must pay at least 110% of your 2010 tax for the safe harbor amount.
If you are subject to a penalty for not making enough estimated tax payments throughout the year, you can figure the penalty by using federal form 2210 (downloads as a pdf). The penalty amount is entered on your return at line 77; add the penalty to your total tax due and enter that amount on line 76.

estimated tax

A good example of when a form 2210 comes in handy is when your income varied during the year and your penalty is reduced or eliminated when figured using the annualized income installment method. Taxpayers use this method when income is uneven throughout the year; for example, instead of receiving a regular paycheck every other week, the bulk of your income comes in summer due to seasonal employment. When this happens, your estimated tax payment is figured at the end of each period based on a reasonable estimate of your income, deductions, and other items from the beginning of the tax year through the end of the period. While this method can save you from unwanted penalties, it can also be tricky.

You will not file form 2210 with your return unless the instructions on the form indicate that you must. Typical situations that would require the filing of form 2210 would include a request for waiver of part or the entire penalty. There is an exception to this rule for weather-related issues. Last year, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and fires created havoc across the country and interfered with making estimated payments. If you lived in a federally declared disaster area and were granted a break on making estimated payments, you do not have to do anything special and you do not need to file form 2210. The IRS will automatically identifies taxpayers located in a covered disaster area and will apply the appropriate penalty relief. If you still owe a penalty after the automatic waiver is applied, the IRS will send you a bill.

If the math is too much for you, you can use tax prep software to figure the amount due. You can also choose to leave line 77 blank and the IRS will figure your penalty and send you a bill unless you use the annualized income installment method (this is where that tax pro comes in handy). The IRS won’t charge interest on the penalty amount if you pay by the due date on the bill.

It’s important to try to file and pay your estimated payments by the applicable deadlines but if you miss one, don’t assume all is lost and just ignore it. Ignoring a missed payment won’t make it go away (anymore than ignoring a bill will make it go away). If you miss a payment, simply file and pay as soon as you can. Remember that penalties are imposed on each underpayment for the number of days it remains unpaid so it’s to your advantage to pay as soon as you can.

Of course, if you miss a payment, there’s no need to panic either. The penalty is worth, roughly, the unpaid interest on the estimated payment. It’s not huge but it’s not worth racking up.







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