Obama Tax Plan Proposal

Once again my friend, Diane Kennedy, renowned Tax Strategist, has the news hot-off the presses. Read what she has to say about this new tax proposal. It may not pertain to you personally, but it will affect you ultimately, as all tax bills do.

Watch Out For This Pet Project of Obama Tax Plan

Posted November 12th, 2008 by Diane Kennedy

Pres-Elect Obama has a pet project. Well, he probably has quite a few, but this one could really impact taxpayers, especially business owners and investors. It’s called the Levin-Coleman-Obama Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. On the surface, that sounds good. But read on if you EVER plan to live or buy or otherwise do business outside of the US.

This Act starts off by stating that there will now be a presumption of GUILT if any American owns part of or sends money to any company within one of the 34 so-called Tax Haven countries. If hope you noticed that sends money to because just wait until you read who the countries are.

Some you’d expect like the Bahamas and the Caymans. But look at the rest on the list: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominica, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey/Sark/ Alderney, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jersey, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Samoa ,St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore ,Switzerland, Turks and Caicos, and Vanuatu.

If you make any transfer it will be presumed that the amount transferred is unreported income and you will be taxed, penalized and possibly even found guilty of fraud. It’ll be up to you prove they are wrong. (This is a very tough standard.) Banks and other financial institutes will be required to report any suspicious activity to the IRS.

Failure to follow these rules could mean 150% penalty and up to $1 million per incident in fines.

You can read the details of this Act at http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=269479

Let's Become a Bank So That We, Too, Can Participate in the Bailout!

Recently I talked here on my blog about credit limits being reduced, first with HELOC's, then credit cards. Well it appears that the media, a little late to the party, are now beginning to report on this.

Some media reports are now saying that there are a couple of criteria that some banks are using. For example, if you live in an area hit hard by real estate value drops, chances are your limits are going to be reduced. You could always have paid all your bills on time, have had the accounts for years and you can still find you credit lines reduced. It also appears that if you’re in a category where others are defaulting you will be affected, regardless of your personal history and payment record...so if the percentage of females age 20 - 29 defaulting on credit cards is going up, if you’re a female age 20 - 29 your credit card limits will be cut.

And think about this. If someone had a credit card with a $15K line with WaMu and also one with a $15K line with Chase the risk would have been distributed. Now that the banks are one and the same I would think the exposure of $30K would make Chase more aggressive about either closing one or at least reducing the credit lines wherever possible; after all, Chase would have qualified the card holder for a $15K line, not a $30K line.

In my personal experience some are just looking at the total credit line and comparing it to the outstanding balance and cutting the credit limit back to that. It's obviously what they did when they cut one of my credit card lines by only $1,240! American Express is really coming down hard with this; they reduced my credit line, and the lines of several people I know.

BTW, maybe American Express' strong-arm approach is because today they just got the OK to be a bank? Different guidelines to meet? http://www.bloomberg.com

From the news story: "New York-based American Express said last month that credit-card holders failed to repay loans in the third quarter at almost twice the rate of a year earlier." And it seems that by becoming a bank "American Express, the largest U.S. credit-card company by purchases, joins securities firms Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley in gaining "increased liquidity support'' as part of a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. American Express said its conversion won't require "significant divestitures.''

So...now we just have to figure out how to become a bank so WE can participate in the $700 billion bailout!

What Do You Make of This Photo?

Now I'm not a person that usually talks about spirituality, ghosts, after-life, and so on. Like politics I find it to be a subject that I avoid, unless with a very good friend or my husband.

But the friends that we went to Europe with are those kind of close friends that you can discuss these subjects with and the conversations are lively and interesting.

So when the wife told me about "orbs" in photographs it wasn't anything I was familiar with, but interesting. She pointed out several orbs in the photographs we took (on different cameras) in Europe. Most without flash so reflection wasn't an explanation.

But her mom took this photo and sent it to her and we are all wondering. She said she took others within minutes of these, but with no people in them and there were no orbs at all. It was inside, no rain, no water on her lens, etc.

Gotta wonder...