If you walk away from a mortgage you don’t want any more, what are the consequences? I wrote about the moral and credit implications in a previous post. A reader emailed to ask about the federal tax implications. “In my state, the banks send a notice saying that you owe taxes on the unpaid debt,” [...]
The summer wedding season isn’t just for the young. Plenty of older couples are marrying, too, which raises the rigors of the pre-nuptial agreement.
I was a widow when I remarried two Junes ago and can testify that pre-nups aren’t for sissies. They’re essential when each of you has children from a previous marriage to protect. [...]
Consumers won. Banks lost. That summarizes the consumer piece of the financial reform bill.
On the other part of the bill that affects individuals, my verdict flips. Investors lost, Wall Street won.
Taking the consumer side first, color me thrilled that Congress created a potentially strong Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. When President Obama proposed it last [...]
For all the anger about taxes, you’d think that rates had never been so high. In fact, it’s the reverse. They’ve rarely been this low. The median income family of four, earning $75,594, will pay only 4.6 percent of its total income in federal income taxes, after taking exemptions, deductions and tax credits. Last year [...]
It’s a historic day for health care in America. The House will pass the Senate bill and the President will sign. The reconciliation effort–odds and ends of the House and Senate compromise–still has to run some roadblocks in the Senate, but soon we’ll have a national program for covering the uninsured. The major provisions don’t [...]
