With tens of millions of Americans relying on unemployment benefits during the pandemic, many may face a tax bill — or smaller refund — this season if they haven't withheld enough during the year.
Unemployment benefits are taxable and have to be reported on your 2020 taxes, both on federal and on state returns. They are considered earned income and are taxed the same way.
"People receiving unemployment benefits are hard on cash and don't put aside the money for the unemployment income,” Lewis Taub, a certified public accountant and New York director of tax services at Berkowitz Pollack Brant Advisors, told Yahoo Money. “They do get hit ...
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Five Credit Mistakes Older Americans Make
Seniors are getting squeezed in so many ways. Healthcare and other basic expenses are rising. Fewer have pensions to supplement their Social Security income in retirement. Low interest rates mean what savings they do have isn’t growing quickly — unless they are willing to invest in higher-risk financial products.
And then there’s the other side of the equation: credit. debt, credit report mistakes and identity theft can quickly bring down credit scores older Americans have carefully built over several decades. Here are five major credit mistakes older Americans make, and what to do about them.
1. Using Too Much Credit
Older Americans ...
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Forum Shopping May Backfire for NRA
Forum Shopping in Bankruptcy can backfire.
The NRA’s former advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen Inc., has said it thinks the gun group’s Chapter 11 case will be thrown out of Bankruptcy Court on the grounds it was filed in bad faith, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy recently reported.
The comments came in papers Ackerman McQueen filed in Texas, where it is embroiled in litigation with the NRA in a multipronged dispute stemming from the acrimonious end in 2019 of the agency’s decades long relationship with the gun-rights group.
“The objectives of the reorganization plan are to utilize the bankruptcy code to continue streamlining costs and ...
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Six Common Fraud Schemes and How To Avoid Them
Our hunkering down during the Covid crisis has made us a sitting target to scams. Here are a couple of common ones and tips on how to handle them
Tech support scam
You may get a call alerting you to a problem with your computer, or a message may pop up on the screen saying your computer is infected with a virus. If you follow the instructions of the caller or the screen message, your computer may be taken hostage and your personal information stolen. You are then asked to pay a fee to restore access to your computer or data.
What to do:
Prevention is the best medicine. Don't click pop-up ads or attachments from unknown senders. ...
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Beware of IRS Telephone Scams
Being contacted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can cause concern for any taxpayer, but imagine receiving a telephone call and hearing this:
"This prerecorded message is to notify you that the IRS has found fraud and misconduct on your tax return. This needs to be resolved immediately, and it's very important that I hear from you as soon as possible or a legal action will be taken against you."
Most people are quick to spot the call as a fake since the IRS doesn't threaten taxpayers by telephone, emails, or text messages—or issue arrest warrants. But any scam can work if you aren't paying close attention.
Remember these ...
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Post Discharge Prosecution of a Foreclosure Action Is Not a Stay Violation
While not exactly a sexy topic, there is a growing body of case law regarding what constitutes a creditor violation of the discharge injunction imposed under 11 U.S.C. Section 524 in a Chapter 7 case.
In a recent case decided by Chief Judge Alan Trust in the EDNY, Judge Trust clarified and distinguished a creditor's post-discharge rights when a mortgage debt is discharged in bankruptcy and the remedies that are still available to the creditor under applicable State Law.
A mortgage, in its simplest form, is a pledge of a property to guarantee the payment of a debt. When a mortgagor files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the underlying personal ...
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NY Catholic Dioceses Bankruptcies Place Abuse Claims in Limbo
New York-based Roman Catholic dioceses that filed for Chapter 11 protection to address child sex abuse lawsuits are fueling tensions by asking Bankruptcy Courts for a victims’ claim filing window that’s shorter than what survivors were given under a recently enacted state law.
New York’s Child Victims Act, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in 2019, has spurred a flood of abuse lawsuits against the church and other organizations. Victims have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits against alleged abusers and institutions that harbored or concealed them, state court records show. Four of New York’s eight local dioceses — Syracuse, Rochester, ...
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Credit Counseling Requirement Is Not Serving Its Original Purpose
When the Bankruptcy laws were overhauled in 2005, the new law mandated that all individual debtors (with certain limited exceptions) complete two counseling sessions - one prior to filing (Pre-Bankruptcy Credit Counseling) and a Debtor Education Session prior to the issuance of a discharge.
Legend has it that Bush 43 thought that if someone spoke to a credit counselor prior to filing bankruptcy, it would dissuade them from filing - NOT!
All this has done is to lay on another expense (usually between $45-75 per case) and filled the pockets of about 100 companies throughout the country that won the lottery with the DOJ.
Any amendment ...
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Student Loan Relief Belongs in Bankruptcy Court
Let's stop the nonsense about absolute student loan forgiveness.
I think we can all agree that if a student who never got a degree after incurring student loan debt, and is in a low paying job, that student should be afforded some relief as long as they can prove that they do not have the ability to pay the debt. As noted in last week's WSJ, this would level the playing field between the haves and have nots. The place to do this is in Bankruptcy Court. The mechanisms are already in place and have worked fairly well for the LAST 15 YEARS. Between exemptions that are allowed with respect to property that can be protected and the means test ...
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Taxi Drivers Will Not Be Getting Any Relief From NYC
From time to time, this issue comes up in discussions with the NYC Taxi Drivers that I have worked with over the past four years.
Unfortunately taxi drivers comprise too small a population to even be considered for any pandemic relief other than unemployment and PUA.
You have to take a close look at the numbers. There are roughly 13,000 medallions issued by the NYC TLC. When you take into account the owners of large fleets, at the peak of the market in 2015-6, there were well less than 10,000 "owners" of NYC medallions. Of the 10,000 individual medallions owners, at least 3-4,000 have already surrendered their medallions to lenders ...
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