Category: Finance

  • Why the Fiduciary Rule Matters

    In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, one of the main directives given to the transition team was to eliminate two regulations for every new government regulation passed. In addition, the administration used a rarely-utilized loophole known as the Congressional Review Act to target every amendment and regulation passed in the closing months…

  • Surging Tech Stocks Lead In Market Cap

    In one of the strongest signs yet of the long-term effects of the economic recovery, for the first time since 1974, the world’s five largest corporations by market capitalization are both US-based and all in the same sector. While the last two years have been particularly bullish for tech stocks, the broader-market slowdown combined with…

  • Should You Care About The “Hard Fork”?

    One month ago, amid even higher than normal volatility, Bitcoin underwent a split known as the “hard fork”. While there were myriad technical reasons for this to happen, the most pressing issue was the Bitcoin network being too slow to process the much higher volume of trades developing as cryptocurrency becomes a viable investment. After…

  • Medicaid and Your Estate: What Can Be Saved?

    While Medicaid pays for 59% of long-term elder care in the US (its largest category of spending by far), when the program was created it was intended as a “payer of last resort” — a form of insurance that takes over for poor seniors or, as is often the case, senior citizens made poor by…

  • What Is the Means Test?

    If you have been considering filing for bankruptcy, you’ve probably heard about the “means test,” a requirement for filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in US courts. Bankruptcy, by definition, depends on not having enough money to pay off one’s debts, let alone money to save or spend. Therefore it is a function of total net income,…

  • The New Tax Code And You – Deductions

    As most of us know, there have been drastic changes to the income tax system taking effect this year, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, otherwise known as the Republican tax reform. This is the first in a series of special articles to guide you through the most important changes, and show you…

  • The New Tax Code And You – Millennials

    As tax time approaches, there are even more questions than usual this year. With the sweeping changes in tax law that passed in December, what used to be deductible might not be anymore, and what used to be taxed might be taxed differently, or not at all, now. The scariest change for millennials, the removal…

  • Taxes and the Gig Economy

    Like it or not, the gig economy is here to stay, especially for younger workers and job searchers. While, according to a study from Intuit, 34 percent of workers under 30 are working temporary and/or independent contractor jobs at any given time, and statistics from the BLS show about another 10 percent are permanently freelancers…

  • HELP! I GOT AN EXTRA TAX REFUND!

    So you haven’t even filed your taxes yet and you got a refund from the IRS. Free money, right? Not to mention the time you just saved gathering all the paperwork, going to your financial advisor or accountant, and filing your 1040. Unfortunately, nothing with the IRS is ever that easy. It may be an…

  • What Was The Personal Exemption Anyway?

    One of the biggest changes in the 2017 tax bill is eliminating the personal exemption. But what exactly was it? And how might this affect you as you file your taxes this year? The personal exemption originated, along with the modern income tax itself, in the 16th amendment to the US Constitution. It originally exempted…