And the Winners of the Small Biz Bill… Big Businesses!

Throughout much of his tenure, President Obama been lending a significant amount of lip service to the idea that America should be investing in its small businesses.

 

Since the onset of our current economic difficulties, small businesses have disproportionally been suffering from the overall slowdown in consumer spending, leading to less cash flow and poor credit- two factors that have effectively crippled many businesses by limiting their ability to operate effectively and receive necessary financing.

As of late, Obama has been trying to push through legislation meant to provide some relief to small businsses by offering tax credits and other incentives. But the truth is that the new bill is loaded with features that seem more suited to bigger businesses.

The new legislation provides a tax break for companies that make large capital purchases, such as airlines and telecommunications firms. Most small businesses do not usually make such large capital purchases.

The issue of bonus depreciation is more relevant for large or middle-sized firms. Small businesse


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Credit Card Companies Quickly Adapt to New Legislation

No one can say that the credit card industry isn’t resourceful. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, which was enacted in 2009, was meant to reshape consumer finance. The new legislation stipulates that card issuers must give customers more notice about interest-rate increases. It also restricts problematic billing practices, such as inactivity fees.

While some of these fees and practices may have been abolished, the credit card companies are quickly clamoring to establish new fees to replace the old ones and are seeking out any loophole they can fit themselves through.

And there is little wonder why…The Card Act is expected to wipe out some $390 million a year in fee revenue, according to David Robertson, the publisher of industry newsletter Nilson Report, and in July the Bank of America reported that it is expecting to write off up to $10 billion in the third quarter as a direct result of the new legislation.

 

The signs of the credit industry’s response ar popping up everywhere. Since


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Bye Bye Free Wi-Fi?

A few years back, I stopped going to my local coffee shop to write and started going to the Starbucks across the street from me.

It wasn’t because the coffee was better, or the people friendlier at the coffee conglomerate.

It was because there was no internet access at Starbucks.

Those days are now long gone, thanks to Starbucks’ decision last month to offer free wi-fi, so I’m back to ordering the local cup of joe, but for a while there, it was nice to know that all I had to do (and could do) when I sat down in my seat was write.

As it turned out, free wi-fi wasn’t a “perk”; it was a distraction.

No checking e-mail. No “researching” new ideas. And no excuses.

As the LA Times reported this week, it turns out I wasn’t alone. What used to be a staple of the coffee house scene – free internet access – has now become a selling point if it’s missing.

“People still desire and need actual interaction,“ states the article. “That dynamism is part of w


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Your Take: Bush Era Income Tax Cuts

Despite what you feel about President Obama, you have to appreciate the sheer amount of work he’s managed to get Congress to do in the few years he’s been in office. Whether or not they’re the right things to do will remain to be seen, but one topic that is sure to take center stage within the next few months, if not weeks, is what we should be doing about the soon-to-be expiring Bush-era tax cuts.

A little history for those of us who weren’t paying taxes before 2001 (that includes myself, at least on any meaningful level). President Bush signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and made one of the largest tax cuts we’ve seen in quite some time. Among other things, the EGTRRA (quite an acronym) lowered every tax bracket, lowered capital gains tax, and effectively lowered the tax burden on every single American. If you remember, this was the boom years of the Internet dot-coms and the economy was doing great. As a way to make the debt and deficit math look more palatable, the cuts were given a sunset provision of December 31st, 2010.

There is no question that the “rich” benefited the most from these tax cuts. Lowering the


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An insurance contract only insures property that the insurance company is advised of at the time that the insurance is purchased.

The Insured sought indemnity under a property insurance policy.  The Insured and the Insurer disagreed on whether various provisions of the policy and a Statement of Values signed by the Insured, but not expressly incorporated into the policy, limited the recovery of the Insured.  The Insured sought a declaration that it was owed the unpaid balance of its claim.

 

The Insured filled out the Statement of Values after it had already applied for insurance.  Effectively, the Statement of Values assigned value to the property insured by the policy.  The Insurer sought to limit its liability to the Insured based on this Statement of Values.  Ultimately, the Court found that the Statement of Values was not part of the contract and therefore, the Insurer’s liability to the Insured would be determined by reference to the policy.  In the result, the Insured was successful.

 

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