The IRS’s list of its annual “Dirty Dozen” tax frauds includes credit counseling. Credit Counseling Agencies. Taxpayers should be careful with credit counseling organizations that claim they can fix credit ratings, push debt payment plans or impose high set-up fees or monthly service charges that may add to existing debt. The IRS Tax Exempt and […]
Plastic in the Life of our Society
In the flurry before the effective date of BAPCPA, the bankruptcy “deform” act, I encountered two articles on the role of credit cards in the economy of American familes. Borrowing to Make Ends Meet looks at the growth of credit card debt during the 90’s and concludes that the increase in housing and health care […]
Katrina as a model for debtors
The enormous devastation wrought by Katrina has prompted a push to delay implementation of the harsh new bankruptcy provisions or to exempt victims of disasters from its more burdensome provisions. What Congress missed, or didn’t care to consider, when it enacted the 2005 bankruptcy bill, is that the lives of most bankruptcy debtors are just […]
Living in the Valley of the Shadow of Debt
Nearly 40% of California homeowners spend more than the target 30% of their income on housing; 15% spend more than 50%. Therein lies the start of financial instability. Liz Warren’s book on the Two Income Trap identified the quest for schools in better school districts as the reason that two income, middle class families were […]
Credit Cards Call the Shots
The arbitrariness of the credit card world is highlighted in a recent Consumer Action study of reasons a credit card issuer can raise the interest rate on your card. Adjacent to “too much debt” as a reason for a rate increase was “too much credit available”! So if you’re a good credit risk in the […]
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