Part 2 THE US tax system is on a pay-as-you-go basis. Taxpayers are required to pay most of the tax liabilities during the same year they earn the income. If you pay less than 90 percent of your taxable income for the current year, you will be assessed with estimated tax penalty plus interest for…
Seniors choose Chapter 7 to discharge $30K and $10K credit cards CLIENT is 47, single and a registered nurse. Her income is good at $80K a year. She has no dependents except her mom who lives with her. Despite her good income, she has a default on her mortgage for $50K. She had an affair…
(16th of a series) ”He who must travel happily must travel light.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery TRAVEL is a pure metaphor for our life’s journey. There are two choices in the way we can travel. We can travel light or we can load up on stuff and literally become a beast of burden. The…
CAREGIVERS are presumptively disqualified from being named as beneficiary of a patient’s Will or Trust. Probate Code Section 21350, subdivision (a) provides: “Except as provided in Section 21351, no provision, or provisions, of any instrument shall be valid to make any donative transfer to any of the following: …… (6) A care custodian of a…
LESS than six weeks before the consequential midterm elections, President Donald Trump and the members of the Republican Party are urgently scrambling, moving heaven and earth to confirm Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court (SC) Justice after the retirement of Justice Robert Kennedy. Brilliant legal mind with stellar credentials Kavanaugh has, they assert, and Senate Majority…
(Part 3 of 3) AFTER the session, Calalang and Benedicto remarked: “Had the Dollar Plan been devised and implemented since 1946, there would have been no need in the past for import and exchange controls.” We were tasked to supervise the dollar-plan’s implementation. Newspaper columnists and opinion makers reacted with profuse praises for the remittance…
Democrat Gil Cisneros says he’s ready to serve the 39th in the House of Representatives IN the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the Democratic Party began a self-reflection period that involved taking stock of what the party truly represents in order to truly reflect its brand as a party of the people. During the 2016…
UNDOCUMENTED immigrants who receive food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers or other public benefits may be denied green cards, the Trump administration announced on Friday, September 22. The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) said that a new proposal would classify current and previous recipients of some public benefits as a “heavily weighed negative factor” if they…
FORMER Vice President Jejomar Binay on Monday, September 24, decided to once again return to public office and run as the second district representative in Makati City in the upcoming May 2019 elections. Binay’s spokesperson Joey Salgado confirmed that the former vice president is eyeing for a government position along with three of his family…
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest son Paolo Duterte told Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to prove in court that he was involved in the P6.4-billion drug smuggling case on Monday. “Dakdak na naman (You’re all talk). See you in court!,” he responded after Trillanes issued a statement on Sunday, September 23, saying he has a plan to…
AMID the recent commemoration of the atrocities brought by the declaration of Martial Law in 1972, Malacañang on Monday, September 24, refuted the accusations that former senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. could twist what transpired in history. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that in order to change the facts on what…
HONOLULU 24 September 2018 – A Philippine military delegation attended the Philippines-United States Command and Control Interoperability Board (CCIB 18-2) meeting at Fort Shafter, Hawaii from 28 to 31 August 2018. The CCIB participants discussed policies, processes and other matters related to communications, electronics and information systems including cyber security, to enhance interoperability between U.S….
IF you are considering bankruptcy as a last resort to solve your debt problems, it is important for you to have your case evaluated by a professional who can advise you if it is appropriate for your situation. While there are a lot of cases where filing is the only solution, in other cases, there…
THE client is a foreign company that has been doing business with a California company since 2012. The client is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of a certain kind of equipment, which the CA company sells and distributes in the United States. Business was good reaching low million dollar figures until the CA company…
DEAR Attorney Tan, My US Citizen mother filed an I-130 immigrant petition on my behalf, which has a priority date in February 2000 and which has been approved. She filed the I-130 petition after I came to the US in 1999 as a tourist from the Philippines. Since my arrival, I have lived in the…
(Employer’s failure to prevent is actionable) COLE H worked as a truck driver for Beverly Fabrics for eight years. During the last 5 years of his employment, he experienced bullying and harassment by a coworker, Dan Rangle. Rangle referred to himself as “Big Swingin’ Dan.” Rangle’s inappropriate comments escalated when he spread gossip among other…
SOME people are not religious, but they possess genuine human qualities of compassion, kindness, empathy, and care for other people. They are people who may not always go to church or are not even part of any religion, but they have a deep sense of shared humanity. They’re not easy to judge other people because…
WHEN an audit is completed, you will be notified of the Agency’s determination: 1. No change: IRS accepts your returns as filed. You will be asked to sign the examination report. That concludes your pain and suffering. About 11% of correspondent audits and 8% of field audits end with a no change verdict, a win for…
CONGRATULATIONS are in order for this fine actor for winning best actor – the first Filipino-American to do so. Darren Criss won his first Emmy for his role as Andrew Cunanan in FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story where he won best actor in a limited series or movie. He fended off tough…
WHEN a person is old, he or she has only one’s soul for company. There are times when you feel it crying, but you do not ask why. Your eyes are dry, but heavy, hot tears drop on your heart. There is nothing to do but wait and listen to the emptiness which is sometimes…
SAN DIEGO – The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival celebrated in Asia. The festival is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar with full moon at night. A symbol of reunion, it is also known as reunion festival. Nowadays, there are many Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese living in…
With all of the bad news coming out of Manila, like typhoons, runaway inflation and Duterte lawyer Salvador Panelo, I felt a need to inject some happy thoughts into the prevailing atmosphere. So I went through my Happiness File (I have all kinds of files) and found the following gem: Happiness is a Filipino. According…
TRUST is a tower built stone by stone. Lies remove stones from the base and can topple the highest tower. When trust is important there are no little lies. – Michael Josephson Michael Josephson is a former law professor and attorney who founded the non-profit Joseph and Edna Institute of Ethics from which he operates as…
‘The Cleaners’ to be shown at 8th Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Hong Kong MILLIONS of new content are uploaded to the internet every single day, entering the timelines and feeds of the internet’s over 4.2 billion users. That includes 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, over 90 million photos added each…
by Susan Jaffe Starting next year, Medicare Advantage plans will be able to add restrictions on expensive, injectable drugs administered by doctors to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration and other serious diseases. Under the new rules, these private Medicare insurance plans could require patients to try cheaper drugs first. If those are not effective, then the patients…
U.S. Army Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion Commander, LTC Patrick Flood presided over the change of command ceremony from Captain Tifani Summers to Captain Miguel Diaz at the Museum of Military History in Simi Valley on Wednesday, September 19. Captain Summers served in Los Angeles for two years and has done a tremendous job connecting with…
WHAT began as an innocent outing for donuts in turned into an upsetting, but familiar affair of bigoted attitudes and racist verbal harassment toward a person of color. Last week, Selina Cairel, who is half-Filipina and half-English, posted a video on her Facebook page of a young white woman, Sierra Measelle, hurling racist and xenophobic…
California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday, September 18 signed into law, an anti-bullying bill that would require the California Department of Education (CDE) to buckle down in addressing bullying in California schools through new bullying prevention guidelines. Authored by Assemblymember David Chui (D-San Francisco), AB 2291 requires local education agencies in to adopt bullying prevention…
