"Only the little people pay taxes"

Tax return done?
Ask for extension to file taxes if you will miss April 17. You can obtain an extension for the paperwork buy you still have to send in your check by April 17. Send this form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4868.pdf

“Only the little people pay taxes.” Leona Helmsley
See why, below, under SCAMS

Is your “paid up”life coverage really paid up?
With low interest rates in their 3rd year, insurers are cutting the crediting rates on your policies. This means your policy is not working out as promised by the agent. Some insurers may let your coverage lapse because then they don’t have to pay the death benefit. The cash value is probably gone. Alternatives: You can lower the DB and pay less. You can ask for a new projection of premiums to see if you or your heirs might want to keep paying. After all, they will benefit. You can sell the policy to investors through life settlement agents. Check http://www.lisa.org/ WARNING: Read the mouse type—taxes may be due.

Uncle Sam wants you to buy an annuity—but is it right for you?
Regulators propose to make it easier for you to use part of your retirement accounts to buy longevity annuities (deferred income annuities) that start your payouts many years after retirement, typically at age 85. All annuities have extra costs above what you can have your IRA trustee do for you at no cost. Usually you have limited means to retrieve your money if you need it. Some annuities end at death with the insurer keeping your unused balance. Others can pay you and your surviving spouse. There are alternatives that pay more: http://www.amazon.com/Not-Buy-That-Annuity-Guaranteed/dp/1466494573/

CA flood coverage rising
Flood insurance is on the way up for low-lying properties in the Ross Valleyand Mill Valleyas the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepares new flood plain maps. Kathleen Schaefer, a FEMA official, said that as local flood improvements are made, the agency will revise its maps, enabling lower prices for insurance. She added flood insurance backed by the government averages about $484 a year, but can range up to $2,800. It is important to shop around.

Is online home inventory right for you?
Now you can keep all your documentation for an insurance claim online so you are ready to present your claim when needed. http://www.homezada.com/ organizes your pictures and receipts and documents so you don’t need a place to secure your pictures and inventory listing OUTSIDE your home. This is a great idea but the cost is $99 a year. Seems like you can just backup your computer with the same information and kill 2 birds with one stone. Some use http://www.carbonite.com/which offers unlimited backup for $59. Depending on your backup needs, there are three different plans to choose from. I keep my important stuff in another hard drive AND as an email to my self—FREE.

Are Exchange-Traded Notes, ETN, right for you?
ETNs are unsecured-debt instruments that track an index. ETNs don't hold anything: They are contracts between an investor and an investment bank stating that the bank will deliver the return of an index minus fees. In recent weeks, ETNs issued by Credit Suisse Group AG and Barclays PLC have drawn scrutiny from regulators and brokers-dealers, because their shares began to trade at extreme premiums to their respective indexes. After the banks stopped issuing new shares of the notes, demand for the shares drove prices to around twice the actual net asset value of the notes. When Credit Suisse announced it would start issuing new shares of its ETN again, the premium at which the existing shares were trading was wiped away; share value plummeted 50% in two days. This is not a wager you want to make unless you have insider information. Members invest without Wall Street: http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Without-Wall-Street-Commissions/dp/1442168137

CA calls Aetna out on rate hike
California regulators have formally declared an April 1 rate hike from Aetna Inc. on small employers "unreasonable," but the insurer isn't backing down from the hike. Annually, the hike amounts to an average 8 percent increase. CA determined the hike to be unreasonable after state actuaries found that Aetna's projections about medical cost increases weren't supported by actual claims. Aetnamade a 27.7 percent profit in 2011. Members shop for health cover often.

Tea Party supports BrounCare as alt. to ObamaCare
The Rep Broun plan is “a very simple bill that lowers costs for everyone. Plus, we cover those who cannot afford it by giving states money to help the uninsured get care.”The bill doesn’t directly address Medicaid, as Broun has co-sponsored another bill, the State Health Flexibility Act, that converts Medicaid into a series of block grants for the states. The Broun plan would allow seniors to opt out of Medicare, and seek out their own insurance instead. It’s not clear that an opt-out provision is compatible with the premium-support formula that Broun has conceived. One detail not worked out: Healthier seniors would be the ones who would choose to opt out, leaving sicker retirees on Medicare. Poor people would want to move to states with bigger block grants for better care. Broun’s plan would revolutionize the insurance market, by incentivizing employers—particularly smaller ones and startups—to pay their workers directly in wages, and let those workers decide how to pay for their own care. Why would an employer pay extra wages so employee can buy care when they know most employees will keep the money and wait at the emergency room. When they get sick, the Broun’s plan lets ER refuse care and gives doctors tax credits to treat uninsured sick. http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/04/07/the-tea-partys-plan-for-replacing-obamacare/?partner=yahoofeed As always, the devil is in details. 1%ers love BrounCare!

PA setting up health insurance exchanges with fed help
Simplifying the process for consumers is the goal of the insurance exchange. Those needing insurance will log onto the exchange, enter their ZIP code, and be electronically routed to qualified providers where their offerings are presented. Policy rates are difficult to predict, but each policy for sale will be a "qualified" (what services will be deemed "essential" has yet to be decided) health plan that is Pennsylvania-licensed and accredited. The process may refer qualifying people to sites that deliver government-funded CHIP and Medicaid options. Health insurance purchased on the exchange will be guaranteed issue, with no medical questions asked. The policies will rely on widely dispersed risks and costs for viability. "Many industry insiders forecast that exchanges represent the future approach of health insurance sales," one observer said.

VT welcomes exchanges
Three out of four (75 percent) Vermonters say they are interested in using "an online health insurance exchange" to compare and purchase health insurance... Employers cutting health care from benefitsA new survey found the percentage of all adults who get their health insurance through an employer trended down from 49.8 percent in 2008 to 44.5 percent currently.

Apple CEO paid $1 million A DAY! How many jobs is Cook creating in the US?
The median chief executive in this group took home $14.4 million — compared with the average annual American salary of $45,230. But can American workers afford to buy stuff to make the economy grow. The workers who actually make Apples can't afford to even look at one!http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/business/in-chief-executives-pay-a-rich-game-of-thrones.html

Bush wishes the tax cuts were not his!
Former President George W. Bush said he wishes the " Bush tax cuts" had someone else's name attached to them because "if they were called somebody else's tax cuts they'd probably be less likely to be raised." The so-called Bush tax cuts, enacted over the course of Bush's first term between 2001 and 2003 are set to expire at the end of this year and are sure to be a campaign issue in November. Tax cuts and two wars made the deficit what it is today. http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/26/7170139-charts-seriously-its-the-bush-tax-cuts

GOP out of control?
FL Rep. Allen West says that up to 80 House Democrats are secretly members of the Communist Party. Worse: His supporters and others actually believe it. Back to 1950s?
(West says the members of the Progressive caucus are Commies.)

Another rate hike for long-term care insurance?
A look at the future of health care too!
The long-term care insurance market is struggling, and some companies are dropping out of selling the insurance to individuals. Others are raising premiums, but nobody is raising them as high as John Hancock, where some long-term care premiums in other states are jumping as high 90 percent. The actuarial numbers used to create these plans years ago turned out to be wrong. People are living longer than planned. They stay in nursing homes longer. The premiums they paid were too low. Insurance companies make their profits on investments, and it hasn't been happy days in that area for the last few years. Members look at alternatives: http://www.amazon.com/Long-term-Care-Insurance-better-alternatives/dp/147006877X/

SCAMS “Only the little people pay taxes.” Leona Helmsley

Corp tax receipts continue to fall. Lowest in developed world!
Citizens for Tax Justice surveyed major U.S. companies and found that 26 on average paid no net federal income taxes between 2008 and 2011, among them General Electric and Duke Energy. Revenue from corporate income taxes fell from between 5 percent and 6 percent of gross domestic product in the early 1950s to about 1.3 percent of GDP in 2010, according to the Tax PolicyCenter, another tax research group. Taxpayers gave our taxes back to GE, BankAmerica, Boeing, Citigroup, Exxon, Google, Merck, Pfizer, FoxNews, Verizon, Wells Fargo, and others after they all made profits.

The GAO (the Government Accountability Office) found that 18,857 US companies keep a post office box in one five-storey building in the Cayman Islands.In fact, 80 percent of the largest US corporations use offshore tax havens. Little wonder 57 percent of these companies paid no federal income taxes for at least one year from 1998 to 2005. General Electric keeps its tax rate low -- an average -19% (negative 19 percent) A REFUND between 2008 and 2011 -- primarily by using tax benefits from its leasing business to offset profits in other units, such as the company's finance arm. Others use accelerated depreciation which lets firms deduct the cost of equipment from profits quickly. Accelerated depreciation will cost the U.S. Treasury $37 billion between 2010 and 2014. Some use special credits obtained by lobbying each level of government. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=263&Topic2id=70http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/05/260535/graph-corporate-tax-second-lowest/?mobile=nchttp://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/

Swiss continue to hide American tax evaders! “What treaties?”
A Swiss court blocked the handover of one unnamed bank client's data to U.S.authorities. The Federal Administrative Courtsaid a 1996 treaty between Switzerlandand the United Statesdoesn't allow the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to request the account details of potential tax cheats without clear evidence of fraudulent intent.Drawing on Switzerland's distinction between evasion and fraud, the court said evidence of tax evasion, such as failure to declare a Swiss bank account, didn't provide sufficient grounds for the IRS to receive the data. It also criticized the fact that the IRS didn't specifically name the suspected tax cheat in their information request.The IRS had asked its Swiss counterpart in September to provide details on certain types of American clients who it said had received help from Credit Suisse in hiding income and assets in secret accounts. Nationalist People's Party says they will try to block the treaties.

NJ Health care report cards http://www.state.nj.us/health/healthfacilities/asc_info.shtml

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