Covering the week’s most noteworthy business news impacting the Filipino-American and Global Filipino community.
1. MAIL your payments to be received on time. The monthly due date is the date of receipt at the IRS Service Center, not the date of mailing. 2. Use certified mail with return receipt. 3. Do not skip one payment and double up on the next payment. One skipped payment causes the entire installment…
ARE you facing insurmountable debt problems? Are creditors threatening you with lawsuits, judgments or a wage garnishment? Are you afraid of losing what little you have and wonder how you are going to survive if you can’t even pay for life’s basic necessities like rent, mortgage, food, transportation, etc., let alone pay your bills? Making…
OF the nearly four dozen concerns that can cause a car’s Check Engine light to illuminate, none is so small it can reasonably be ignored. There are more than 40 reasons why the Check Engine light on a car’s dashboard could come on. Some are major and some are not, but because each can affect…
Signs of a company headed toward failure and important ways to fix the problems SOMETIMES companies get into financial trouble. They have leadership issues, they have failures by suppliers, and they have cash flow problems. Companies have a lot of problems, often every day. Most of the time, companies get past their problems and move on,…
Q: I TRAVEL several times a month as part of my job duties using my own car. I also make several business-related calls on my personal cell phone. My work duties sometimes require me to stay out of town overnight and I incur further expenses. My employer pays me a fixed amount of money, included…
(Part 2 of 2) THE Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a major expansion of its “Fresh Start” initiative to help struggling taxpayers by providing: • Offer in Compromise (OIC) – more flexible guidelines for collection potential. • Payment plans – more taxpayers can apply without financial statements. We discussed OIC in a prior article. Let’s…
I KNOW we’ve never met. But there’s a common fear everyone shares when they’re in drowning in debt. As a debt relief attorney, I hear it from people who consult with me every day. It is this: The possibility of losing what they’ve worked hard for all their lives…their homes, their savings, their retirement money,…
Senior with $24K debt seeks Chapter 7 relief; Senior protects house with Chapter 13 Chapter 11 CLIENT presents himself as an importer & nationwide distributor of electronic items with gross annual sales $5.0M. He has a warehouse in Los Angeles with 15 employees. His business is actually doing well. But due to a business dispute with…
Q: I work for a large company and recently took a leave of absence due to pregnancy disability. My pregnancy was high-risk and I used up all of my 4 months of leave. However, due to some health complications, after the birth of my child, my doctor says I still cannot return to work, and…
TOO good to be true? Perhaps, but read on. The IRS cannot deny your application if you satisfy all of the following requirements: 1. The tax is not more than $10,000. 2. You timely filed and paid all income tax returns for the past five years. 3. You did not enter into any installment agreement….
INDIVIDUALS who have accumulated excessive debt are often left to ponder whether they should file bankruptcy in order to get out of debt. Sometimes, these people feel that somehow, they’ve lost, failed, or that they will never have a chance to rebuild their credit again. Because we are living in a society where having a…
Have you ever received an email, a flier on your car, shopping catalogues in the mail, a promotional letter from your cable provider, or have seen television commercials, banner ads, or outdoor advertising? If you answered yes, then you have been a target of direct marketing. Direct marketing is a type of advertising campaign that…
SOMETIMES companies get into financial trouble. They have leadership issues, they have failures by suppliers, and they have cash flow problems. Companies have a lot of problems, often every day. Most of the time, companies get past their problems and move on, they continue to make money, pay their employees and the owners take home…
Q: I WORK at UX Corp, a big national processing plant. However, I am employed by ABC Agency, a subcontractor of UX Corp. ABC Agency pays my wages. We often work more than 8 hours per day at UX Corp but we are not paid overtime. When we complain to managers at UX Corp about…
BEING in debt can be one of the most stressful situations you will ever face in life. It happens to everyone although you may feel like you’re the only person on the planet going through what you’re going through. But let me assure you that you are not alone in your struggle. The first step…
IRS audits have been dominated by examination of Schedule C for taxpayers who conduct their businesses as sole proprietors (instead of corporation or LLC). This includes professionals, technicians, and independent contractors who receive 1099s as subcontractors (instead of W2s as employees). Here are some issues that generate the most dollar assessments & therefore the most…
“There are special laws that allow middle class families to avoid paying thousands of dollars out of their pocket monthly for nursing home care, assisted living care and home care. So, why get financially devastated when a health crisis happens that cannot be avoided?” CHAPTER 13 Client is 68 and relies on social security of…
National origin is not a bar to recovery Immigrants are a growing part of the labor force in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014, there were 25.7 million foreign-born persons in the US labor force, comprising 16.5 percent of the total workforce. According to the Office of Occupational Safety,…
How long do you have to keep tax records? How long can the IRS audit your tax returns? Let’s discuss 10 tips on statute of limitations so you can clean your garage this weekend. Statute of limitations provides final dates after which neither you nor the IRS can be disturbed by the other. • From…
Deciding if bankruptcy is right for you can be one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make in your life. As much as possible, most people try to avoid it, of course. But sometimes, the hole you’ve dug up is too deep that there is no other way out. For example, perhaps you owe…
Client seeks Chapter 11 reorganization to save business; senior seeks Chapter 13 reorganization instead of reverse mortgage after two loan modification denials CLIENT NO. 1 is 58. Divorced and remarried. He has spent the last 20 years building up his business in Los Angeles. He started with importation of construction materials direct from manufacturers in Asia,…
Privacy suit filed against doctor and hospital Norma Lozano was a patient at UCLA Medical Center. According to the Daily Journal, she had been fighting with Dedreck Harris, her ex-boyfriend. Harris’ current girlfriend, Alexis Price, worked as a medical assistant for Dr. John Edwards, a private doctor who had access to UCLA’s health records. Even…
The IRS issued new guidance requiring individuals with an interest in a “specified foreign financial asset” to attach a disclosure statement to your income tax return for any year in which the aggregate value of all such assets exceeds $50,000. Use new form Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) starting in 2011. Q….
Life is all about making choices. The choices we make today determine our future. What will my life be like 3, 5 or 10 years for now? Will I be financially secure? Will I remain in the same dead-end job or perhaps move somewhere else that makes my time more worthwhile? Will I be able…
Get rid of your debts now and get a head start to live up to 120! CLIENT no. 1 Client is 65. She presents her financial problem thus. Both she and her husband were gainfully employed for the last 20 years. They are both professionals. Husband was making $100K a year with a cushy job…
Mayra Casas worked as a sales clerk for Victoria’s Secret in one of the company’s California stores. Casas claimed that she, and other employees, were required by the company to “call-in” two hours before their scheduled shift to see if work was available. If there was no work for them, they should not show up….
New Foreign bank account rules were designed to combat money laundering, terrorism, and tax evasion. Unfortunately, folks like you and me get snared in the process. We get penalized if we don’t follow the new rules. I have written a series of simplified articles on this subject to help you understand the new rules and…
The last few years have been financially difficult for a lot of people. When the real estate marked crashed a few years ago, millions of people found themselves with a mortgage they could not afford. A lot of people simply walked away from their homes out of desperation in some cases, they were forced out…
SECTION 707 (b) of the bankruptcy code is the provision that allows the dismissal of a Chapter 7 case if there is a “presumption of abuse” of bankruptcy law. This is applied to individuals with primarily consumer debts. So if the individual who seeks Chapter 7 relief has primarily business debts this provision would not…
ROBERT Wascher, M.D. began working as a cancer surgeon for Southern California Permanente Medical Group (“Kaiser”) in 2009. He was the only specialty-trained cancer surgeon for Kaiser’s 440,000 patients in Orange County. Dr. Wascher expressed concern to Kaiser that non-trained surgeons were allowed to perform complex cancer surgeries resulting in high death rates among patients….
