News

Big Employers Estimate Health-Care Costs Will Rise 8.9% in 2011

Aug 20th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

By Katherine Hobson – Wall Street Journal A survey of big employers finds they expect their health-care costs to rise nearly 9% next year and plan to share some of that burden with employees via higher premiums and higher out-of-pocket limits. The survey included responses from 72 members of the nonprofit National Business Group on [...]



Fallen soldiers’ families denied cash as insurers profit

Jul 28th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

Survivors given checkbook accounts, while carriers retain the assets in their corporate accounts; ‘turning death claims into a profit center’ By Bloomberg News July 28, 2010 The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by [...]



Obamacare: Naive or Deceptive?

May 18th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

No, You Can’t Keep Your Health Plan Insurers and doctors are already consolidating their businesses in the wake of ObamaCare’s passage. By SCOTT GOTTLIEB – Wall Street Journal President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It’s clear that this promise cannot be kept. [...]



Health care law’s massive, hidden tax change

May 6th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

by Neil deMause, contributing writer NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork. Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies [...]



Senate Budget Raises Questions if Dividends Rates Will Top 40 Percent

Apr 30th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

By Brett Ferguson and Jonathan Nicholson Publication date: 04/29/2010 – from the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. The Senate Budget Committee-approved budget resolution does not make room for dividends tax rates to continue to be tied to capital gains rates after 2010, raising questions among some lawmakers about whether Democrats intend to allow the top [...]



How to Not Get Audited by The IRS

Apr 12th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

How To Not Get Audited By The IRS With increased computer power and more money for staff from the Obama administration, the IRS is gearing up to intensify its audits of individual taxpayers. High income alone is far from the only factor triggering an audit: Last year only 6.4% of the nation’s 440,000 highest-income filers [...]



The Uptrend Continues – No Foolin’

Apr 1st, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

April 1, 2010 by Bob Veres Economic forecasters sometimes describe the investment markets as a leading indicator, which means that they believe returns can anticipate good or bad economic news.  Share prices fall when investors expect a recession, and rise when a recovery is expected–and last year’s stock market growth seems to fit that pattern.  [...]



The IRS Dirty Dozen List

Mar 17th, 2010 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

The IRS issued its 2010 “dirty dozen” tax scams, including return preparer fraud, hiding offshore income and phishing.



Wal-Mart 401(k) pays retail – does your 401(k) also?

Dec 31st, 2009 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

“Merrill Lynch, with Wal-Mart’s blessing, was choosing mutual funds based on payments that the funds would make to Merrill Lynch,” says Braden attorney Derek Loeser of Keller Rohrback in Seattle, Wash. “This explains the anomaly of a $10 billion plan ending up with off-the-shelf retail funds that just so happen to share revenue.” Forbes magazine [...]



IRS Year End Reminders for Donors to Charity

Dec 28th, 2009 | By Charles L. Stanley CFP® ChFC® AIF® | Category: News

Businesses and individuals making 2009 contributions to charity should keep in mind several important tax law provisions that have taken effect in recent years. Some of these changes include the following… IR-2009-114, Dec. 8, 2009 WASHINGTON — Individuals and businesses making contributions to charity should keep in mind several important tax law provisions that have [...]