THE Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to income tax rates and traditional deductions. Let’s look at 10 tips on how those changes affect tax plans for this year ending December 31, 2019. This is the third of a three-part series. 7. Cover health care costs efficiently Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible…
ARE you overwhelmed with debt problems that seem insurmountable? Are you starting to feel hopeless about your financial future and thinking you’ll never get ahead? You may be at a critical point in your life where the decisions you make at this very moment will determine the kind of life you will have in the…
THE client is 42 and is going through a divorce after a short two-year marriage. He has moved out of the marital home and now lives by himself. He has a toddler who is with his wife, so he expects to pay child support. There is not alimony because the marriage has not lasted 10…
ALIVIA Stricklin worked as a security officer for First Alarm Security, a company in San Jose, CA that provides security and patrol services to businesses and homeowners. Stricklin’s duties included patrolling the premises, typically working from eight to fourteen hours a day, six days a week. Stricklin and her fellow employees claimed that they were…
Part 2 of 3 THE Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to income tax rates and traditional deductions. Let’s look at 10 tips on how those changes affect tax plans for this year ending December 31, 2019. This is the second of a three-part series. 4. Convert your traditional IRA to a Roth…
THERE’S a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest. There’s a time for everything. So states Ecclesiastes 3: “For everything, there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven… A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear…
Q: I was recently hired for a job and was asked to sign an arbitration agreement. I was told that signing the agreement is “voluntary” but when I asked if I could just skip it, the HR person said “did you want to keep working for the company?” I took that to mean that I…
ARE you worried about not being able to take care of your family’s needs because of your debt problems? No one ever wants to be in this situation but I see it every day in my work as a bankruptcy attorney. When you are overwhelmed with debt problems, the situation becomes even more challenging when…
Part 1 of 3 THE Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to income tax rates and traditional deductions. Let’s look at 10 tips on how those changes affect tax plans for this year ending December 31, 2019. This is the first of a three-part series. 1. Determine if itemizing deductions still works for…
Q: I worked on Thanksgiving Day and the Day after Thanksgiving. Am I entitled to holiday pay? A: Around this time of year, we get this question a lot. So we thought we would revisit this issue, especially since Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are coming up and they fall in the middle of…
THE client is a corporation that has been in business since 2000. It had both good and bad times over the last two decades but always managed to land on its feet. It has an ever-growing list of clients that need its products, which it sources from abroad. It has two kinds of clients: clients…
A LOT of people in debt often already know what they need to do once they realize that bankruptcy is their only way out. But they usually delay the decision to file because they try their best to avoid it if at all possible and will only rush to act when they face an immediate…
1. Go to YouTube and Google Take time to view presentations by stock gurus. Listen to their checklists and guidance. Start with basics for beginners and gradually move to more sophisticated charts and moving averages, 2. Open an online brokerage account Open a brokerage account. It’s similar to setting up a bank account. You complete an…
THE client is a senior at 67. He is married but has been separated from his wife for some time. He lives with a woman but is not married to her obviously because he is only separated from his wife. You can’t remarry until you have divorced. Separation, whether de facto or legal, does not…
EDEN Smiles worked for Walgreens, the pharmacy giant, as a cashier. She filed a class action case on behalf of current and former non-exempt, hourly-paid cashiers, photo specialists, beauty advisors, and other employees assigned cash register duties who worked for Walgreens. Smiles also filed the lawsuit on behalf of the State of California under the…
1. Research. Just as location is critical real estate investing, research is critical to stock investing. Without research, you have a better chance of making money; without it, a better chance to lose money. 2. Learn how to trade stocks. Commit to learn how to trade stocks. Consider what you hope to gain from the…
AURORA Isabel is a Filipina who worked for the Pasadena Water and Power. Isabel complained that her manager discriminated against her for her accent. She was demoted to a field position and was told to stop complaining or she would be demoted again. Her manager told her that she had to learn to speak without…
THE Fair Debt Collection Practices (FDCPA) is a Federal law that was enacted in 1978 by the United States Congress to protect consumers from abusive debt collectors. However, the FDCPA applies only to third-party collectors who collect debt for original creditors. It does not apply to the original creditor itself who uses its own employees…
FACING serious debt problems can be depressing to a lot of people. It may seem like the end of the world. You may feel angry, depressed, guilty- or a combination of all three. You may even be blaming yourself for making the decisions that led you to your present situation. I’m here to tell you,…
Q: I AM thinking of filing an overtime claim against my employer because I and my coworkers are doing a lot of off-the-clock work. However, I am concerned about losing my job and not being able to work in this company any more. Should I still file a claim? What should I do? A: You…
THE client is 50 and married. He owes $60,000 of credit cards. He pays $2,000 a month as minimum credit card payments to keep the $60,000 current. His wife is not jointly liable on these cards. She owes about only $2,000 of credit cards by herself. They own a house that is currently worth $500,000…
AN ETF is a basket of securities that you can buy or sell through a brokerage firm on a stock exchange. It’s called Exchange-Traded because it’s traded on an exchange just like stocks. It’s a fund because money is pooled from many investors. This is unlike mutual funds, which are not traded on an exchange, and…
AN ETF is called an Exchange-Traded Fund since it’s traded on an exchange just like stocks. Below are three red flags to avoid the worst ETFs: 1. Inadequate liquidity Avoid all ETFs with less than $100 million in assets. Low levels of liquidity can lead to a discrepancy between the price of the ETF and…
THE client is 72, married, and owns a small business. He’s been operating the business for the last 30 years. At its height, when times were good, the business had 10 full-time employees. He used to net between $120,000 to $150,000 of profits after tax. That’s a nice and decent profit. Well, what happened to…
Q: I work for a 100-employee company in Los Angeles. I recently returned to work after maternity leave. Since I decided to breastfeed my newborn, I needed to periodically pump breast milk at work. When I asked my supervisor if there is a room in the building where I could do this, I was told…
Q: MY new supervisor recently told me that I need to wear my hair in a “more conventional” way because it is distracting other people. My hairstyle is appropriate to my ethnicity and is part of my cultural identity. More importantly, my hair does not interfere with my work. When I said so, my supervisor…
THE first client is 75. Her husband passed four years ago and left her with $30,000 of credit card debt. She has been making minimum payments on their credit cards for the last 15 years as far as she can recall at the rate of $800 a month. So in one year, she pays about…
FACING serious debt problems can be depressing to a lot of people. It may seem like the end of the world. You may feel angry, depressed, guilty- or a combination of all three. You may even be blaming yourself for making the decisions that led you to your present situation. I’m here to tell you,…
Exchange-traded funds versus mutual funds Part 2 of 2 Mutual Funds allow you to trade without paying commission: Because ETFs are traded like stocks, you typically pay a commission to buy and sell them. There are some commission-free ETFs available, but they may have higher expense ratios to recoup money lost from being commission-free. Mutual funds,…
“The law says that bankruptcy is nothing more than a fresh financial start when you are no longer in a position to help yourself.” A LOT of people who are contemplating bankruptcy as a solution to their debt problems often wonder if it can be avoided at all. They fear that they might be making…
