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The student loan
bubble has ripened to such an extent that over 7 million debtors were in
default as of mid-2014 and they're holding on to over $100 billion in
outstanding debt. Consequently, both private and federal lenders are exploring
a variety of tactics to collect outstanding payments. Those payments, after
all, represent forecasted revenues that never arrived. One such tactic employed
by the Education Department is engaging private debt collectors to bring in
borrowed money. While they often rely on unethical (and illegal) pressure
tactics to coerce borrowers to start paying, these glorified bounty hunters
have earned over $1.6 billion in commissions and bonuses from 2010 – 2013.
Still, when engaging debt collectors just doesn’t cut it, many states resort to
other, more punitive means. 22 States have passed litigation that permits them
to suspend professional and/or driver's licenses of student loan defaulters. [more...]
Your U.S. Federal taxes are due. The
average work week is over 40 hours now, and the IRS has decided to veer from
its job description and play the role of U.S. job creator as well, after
requesting funds for 9,000 new positions that would work to enforce Obamacare
regulations. These additional jobs will count as added Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), which means more people working on taking rather than making something
useful like a service or product, which means someone - you, a U.S. citizen -
will be taking on the burden of financially covering the expenses via
heightened taxes. Each year the IRS makes changes to the tax code, and this
year is no exception. One out of every four businesses will be affected by the Affordable Care Act. For those businesses or individuals that do not
offer private insurance, market insurance, or any type of qualifying insurance
at all, they will be required to pay the dreaded fine. However, despite
proposals for ongoing increased costs, there are ways to bypass and cash in on
the ultimate tax refund.
[more...]
Tax Day, April 15, reminds us of
just how overtaxed we have become and how a circular cage of taxes on earning,
spending, investing and saving is being created to snare us. If you earn money
to live on, you face income taxes nationally as well as from 41 of the 50
states. If you buy anything, you face sales taxes in all but five states – and
some local sales taxes in those five. In D.C., politicians now talk
enthusiastically about imposing a national European-style sales tax, an
easily-increased Value-Added Tax (VAT) to soak both companies and consumers. If
you invest what little money you have left after paying all your other taxes,
get ready to pay capital gains taxes, which the current administration aims to
increase.
[more...]
Entrepreneurs
dream of the day they can call themselves business owners. They want to grow
their ideas into tangible results, be their own boss and obtain financial
freedom. However, the reality is that many of these individuals end up creating
another job for themselves in which to work, rather than a business that works for them. The biggest mistake business
owners make is that they do not plan their exit strategy. Most business owners
decide to sell upon the occurrence of a catastrophic event, in which case their
business is typically trending downward. The BEST time to sell is when your
company is thriving, not dying. [more...]
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