Our Economy and the Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson
I recently wrote an email to clients and made known my frustration with the fact that neither Candidate for President voiced the obvious disdain they should have over the $700 Billion Bailout Bill. Why were neither of them critical of this bill being only for the wealthiest of the wealthy with “0″ benefits to the poor and the middle classes?
Where was the outrage with the original draft of this Bailout Bill being a total of 3 pages long, demanding immediate payment and with no accountability on its spending by this administration. Add to this, the un-heard of: demand for a vote without a single Congressional or Senate hearing on this monstrous new liability for our U.S. Citizens and several future generations as well.
Bicycle Safety
When a car or truck has a collision with a bicycle, the bicycle rider usually loses, no matter who legally had the right of way. Bicycle riders should take extra care to obey the following safety tips:
Remember: Bikes Are Vehicles, Too
Legally, bicycles traveling on a road are required to be treated in the same way as any other vehicle traveling on the road would be. This means that, as a bicyclist, you must obey the same laws as other drivers do. Do not run red lights, change lanes without signaling, or commit other infractions. If you would not do it in a car, don’t do it on a bike.
Federal Estate Tax
The federal estate tax credit, currently at $2 million, is set to increase to $3.5 million in 2009. This means that in 2009 you can leave up to $3.5 million to your heirs without any federal estate tax liability.
If Congress takes no action, the federal estate tax will be repealed altogether in 2010. While this is an unlikely scenario, it does underscore the uncertainty involved in estate planning over the next few years. Make sure to meet with a professional to review your plan.
LLC Ruling Favors Taxpayers
Anna was the mother of three children and the widow of the man who invented the heart defibrillator implant. In 1992, she created a trust for each of her daughters and gave a portion of her substantial interests in patent licenses to the trusts. In 2001, she created a limited liability company (LLC), to which she made some large transfers. She then gave a 16% interest in the LLC to each of the trusts, keeping a 52% interest to herself. Only four days later, Anna died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Cyber Insurance for Businesses
Businesses have been dependent on computerized information for some time now, but it has been only relatively recently that insurance companies have devised and offered insurance policies specifically tailored to the potential losses from a variety of problems that can affect a computer system.
An early impetus for cyber insurance was anticipation in the late 1990s of losses associated with the coming of “Y2K.” That concern turned out to be overblown, but the threats that have spurred cyber insurance offerings since then are real enough, including viruses, hackers, and legal injuries to others from information on a company’s website. One study has found that the average annual technology- related financial loss for United States companies more than doubled just from 2006 to 2007.
Landowner Gets Settlement for Taking
When the government takes aim at private property to be taken for some public purpose, more often than not any resulting litigation is a contest over how much the property owner should be paid, rather than whether the exercise of the power of eminent domain was appropriate in the first place.
From the landowner’s standpoint, it is important to realize that adequate compensation is not determined simply on the basis of the current use of the property. Instead, the landowner is entitled to the value of the property based on its “highest and best” use (whether that use already exists or is only in the eye of a developer), so long as such a potential use is not too speculative or otherwise foreclosed by applicable laws and regulations.
Get it in Writing
When an Internet executive held a meeting with the chairman of a telecommunications company, the agenda was a new business idea that the Internet executive had. The discussion was transformed into a recruitment when the telecommunications executive suggested that the idea should be pursued within the company he headed. For two men in the upper echelons of high-tech businesses, they then chose a decidedly low-tech way to memorialize their agreement. The end result, however, shows how substance can sometimes triumph over form in the law of contracts formation.
Little Known Legal Facts: State Shows No Mercy For Unlicensed Contractors
With the state of the current economy, this information should be of interest to many.
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code section 7026 defines a contractor as any person who undertakes to construct, alter, repair, add to, subtract from, improve, move, wreck or demolish any building, highway, road, parking facility, railroad, excavation or other structure, project, development or improvement, and/or to do any part thereof, including the erection of scaffolding or other structures or works in connection therewith.
Home Improvement Scams
Your home is your castle . . . and it is also probably your most valuable investment. Unfortunately, many homeowners unwittingly hire crooked contractors to improve or repair their castles, and they wind up being cheated out of money or paying for inferior work. The home improvement business is crawling with cheats. Before signing on the dotted line, remember the following:
* Be wary of a salesman who comes to your home uninvited, especially if he claims he was doing some work for your neighbor or was just “in the neighborhood.”
Employer Forced to Pay Unapproved Overtime
An enforcement action by the U.S. Department of Labor resulted in a ruling that nurses were employees, not independent contractors, of a staffing agency that provided them on a temporary basis to hospitals. After this ruling, the agency took action to attempt to deter unauthorized overtime by the nurses and to avoid having to pay time and a half for such hours. It adopted a policy, printed on all of the nurses’ time sheets, stating that the nurses had to notify the agency in advance of any hours exceeding 40 hours a week. If they did not, the notice stated that the nurses would be paid for such time only at their regular rate.
