Your getting the court to slam home to him his responsibility to support his child, dramatically cut back on his unreasonable visitation demands and submit to a special arbitrator regarding his on going bizarre demands is life changing for us. Add to this that we covered it all so efficiently as to time and cost and I can only tell you that I, my daughter and my parents are really pleased to have you on our side.
Love,
G

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Contrary to a common misconception, the SBA does not make direct loans to small businesses. Instead, the SBA establishes the guidelines for loans, which are then made by its “partners,” meaning lenders, community development organizations, and microlending institutions. To eliminate some of the risk to the lending partners, the SBA guarantees that these loans will be repaid. In short, a business applicant is actually applying for a commercial loan, structured according to SBA requirements, with an SBA guaranty.

SBA-guaranteed loans may not be made to a small business if the borrower has access to other financing on reasonable terms. Because SBA loan guaranty requirements and practices can be changed by the government, it is important for potential applicants to obtain current and accurate information.

7(a) Loan Program

This program, the most basic and most used of the SBA loan programs, is for eligible borrowers who want to start, acquire, or expand a small business. The loan is obtained from a participating lender institution, and it provides long-term, fixed-rate financing for major fixed assets, e.g., land and buildings. The loan proceeds can also be used to acquire equipment, supplies, and materials, or for long- or short-term capital needs. Loan terms range from up to 10 years for working capital to up to 25 years for fixed assets. There are a few prohibited purposes for which a 7(a) loan cannot be used, such as for the financing of nonprofits, real estate investments, and monopolies.

CDC/504 Loan Program

The CDC/504 Loan Program is a long-term financing tool designed to encourage economic development within a community. It accomplishes this goal by providing small businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing to acquire major fixed assets for expansion or modernization.

A Certified Development Company (CDC) is a private, nonprofit corporation that is created to contribute to economic development within its community. CDCs work with the SBA and private sector lenders to provide the financing to small businesses.

Typically, a project of this kind includes (1) a loan secured from a private sector lender, with a senior lien covering up to 50% of the project cost; (2) a loan secured from a CDC (backed by a 100% SBA-guaranteed debenture), with a junior lien covering up to 40% of the project cost; and (3) a contribution from the borrower of at least 10% of the project cost (equity). This arrangement means that 100% of the project cost is covered either by the contribution of equity from the borrower or from the senior or junior lien.

Proceeds from 504 loans must be used for fixed-asset projects, such as the purchase of land, including existing buildings; the purchase of improvements, including grading, street improvements, utilities, parking lots, and landscaping; the construction of new facilities or the modernizing, renovating, or converting of existing facilities; and the purchase of long-term machinery and equipment. The CDC/504 Loan Program cannot be used for working capital or inventory, consolidating or repaying debt, or refinancing.

Microloan Program

The Microloan Program gives small, short-term loans to small business concerns and certain types of not-for-profit child-care centers. The SBA makes funds available to specially designated intermediary lenders. These are nonprofit community-based organizations with experience in lending as well as in management and technical assistance. These intermediaries make the loans to eligible borrowers. The maximum loan amount is $50,000, but the average microloan is about $13,000.

Microloans may be used for working capital, the purchase of inventory or supplies, the purchase of furniture or fixtures, or the purchase of machinery or equipment. Microloan proceeds cannot be used to pay existing debts or to purchase real estate.

If you are a potential borrower, the SBA recommends four steps to take to get the ball rolling in its loan programs. First, estimate your business startup costs or the funds that you need to grow the business. Second, contact a local bank or lender to review the available loan programs for small businesses. Third, prepare a draft loan proposal. Finally, discuss all of the above with someone having solid knowledge of SBA loans, such as a representative of the SBA itself.

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Direct Deposit

Who knows, you may be one of those people who like to have the check in their hands for their pay, pension, or Social Security benefits so that they can personally take it to that bank teller they have known and trusted for years. Still, arranging for a direct deposit into a bank account is safer, easier, and more convenient, and, at least by a small margin of time, it allows you to get access to your money more quickly.

Recurring Bills

If the merchant, such as a utility or insurance company, allows the practice, you can pay recurring bills with an automatic withdrawal from your checking account or with a charge to a credit card. In the case of the former, don’t forget to record the transactions in your check register. In the same vein are online banking services that allow you to pay bills online instead of by snail mail.

Online Banking

Aside from bill paying, consider doing virtually all of your banking online, making it effectively paperless. You can go online to handle such tasks as reviewing deposits and withdrawals, tracking balances in your accounts, transferring funds between accounts, and receiving statements.

Automatic Savings

It is simply common sense that if you set up a system in which something happens automatically rather than only when you think about it and take action, the “something” is going to occur with greater consistency. So it is with saving for the future. Arrange with your employer or bank to put a predetermined amount of money into an account or an investment vehicle on a regular schedule. Another bonus for this approach as an investment strategy is that over the long run, it might provide a better return than jumping in and out of the markets.

Consolidation

You might want to streamline your finances by consolidating what could be an unwieldy number of accounts and credit cards. By doing so, you can better monitor everything, lighten the load of paperwork you receive, avoid some fees, and perhaps even obtain better deals. If you are combining deposits at one banking institution, though, be careful not to exceed FDIC deposit insurance limits ($250,000 for each ownership category in a single institution).

Up-to-Date and Available

Even if you have been diligent about making a will, review it periodically to make sure it still conforms to your wishes, especially if there have been any intervening major events that might prompt a change. The same goes for any number of important financial documents, such as life insurance policies and retirement accounts identifying beneficiaries and providing directives about what happens to bank accounts and other assets if you become incapacitated.

All of the above may not matter much if nobody can find the documents, so keep them in a secure place, ideally in a central filing system. Make sure to let your family members know where they can find your important documents.

If a Disaster Strikes

It is not a pleasant scenario to contemplate, but what if in an emergency you had to evacuate your home in moments and all of your carefully gathered and organized financial material were left behind? One way to prepare for this possibility is to keep copies of the important documents, or at least lists of account numbers and similar identifying information, on a secure website that you could access from any location.

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The acknowledgment letter, which may be in the form of a thank you letter to you as the donor, should include the following information:

* the name and address of the recipient of the donation;

* the amount of a cash gift or, if not in cash, a description of the donation sufficient to identify the nature of the gift; and, if applicable,

* a statement that no goods or services were provided by the recipient in return for the donation, or a description and good-faith estimate of the value of any goods and services that were provided by the recipient in return for the donation.

As some donor taxpayers have discovered to their consternation, including some who have made very large donations, the timing of the receipt of the letter can be as important as its contents. The rule to bear in mind is that you must obtain the acknowledgment letter by the date of the filing of the tax return for the year in which the charitable contribution was made. You run the risk of being denied the deduction in assuming that it will suffice if the letter has been promised or will be received after the return has been filed but before you would ever hear from the IRS.

Recently, the Chief Counsel for the IRS underscored the need for having the donation acknowledgment letter in hand (or in your e-mail inbox) when you file your return in order to qualify for the deduction. The federal Tax Code actually has a provision that states that the donor is not required to obtain an acknowledgment letter if the recipient organization itself files a return that meets applicable requirements and includes the required information about the gift. Nonetheless, because no implementing regulations on this law have yet been issued, the Chief Counsel determined in a memorandum that a donor cannot take this route to claim the deduction.

The takeaway lesson for donor taxpayers is to be sure that you receive your acknowledgment letters before you file, and don’t make the mistake of assuming that the IRS will cut you some slack if, for whatever reason, that deadline is missed.

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Here is how an ILIT works. At the core of the trust is the life insurance policy itself. The “grantor” of the trust makes annual gifts of sufficient money to pay the premiums on the policy and to cover administrative costs, unless the trust is funded by other assets.

The legal owner of the policy is the trust, not the grantor, which explains how the insurance policy is treated as being outside of the grantor’s estate. The insured cannot personally benefit financially. Another plus arising from the fact that the trust owns the policy is that this protects the funds from possible claims by the beneficiary’s creditors.

As with any trust, an ILIT must have a designated trustee to manage and administer it. Typically, the trustee is a bank or a trust company, but practically any person or entity other than the grantor can serve in that role. The trustee establishes a bank account into which the gifts will be deposited for use in paying the premiums. The trustee is also responsible for a variety of administrative duties, including giving notifications to the beneficiaries under the policy and filing the ILIT’s tax return.

Upon the death of the grantor, it is also the trustee who oversees distribution of the policy’s proceeds, in accordance with the grantor’s wishes as expressed in the trust. This distribution can be all at once or spread out over time.

One of the appealing features of an ILIT is that it can be closely tailored to fit the wishes of the grantor regarding the conditions and circumstances for paying out the proceeds of the ILIT. There are almost as many possibilities as there are individual grantors. For example, if the grantor is in a second marriage, the ILIT proceeds might go to any children from the first marriage, with the rest of the estate going to the second spouse and the children from the second marriage. It is also possible for the grantor to specify and achieve very specific purposes for the ILIT proceeds, with strings attached if desired. Think carrots and sticks: A beneficiary might be in store for proceeds from the ILIT only if he or she satisfies certain conditions or meets certain goals. On the more negative side, misconduct by a beneficiary could be used as an effective disqualification.

Bear in mind that an ILIT must comply with certain government rules and regulations if it is to achieve the desired results. Thus, aside from the potential complexities of the instrument itself, the assistance of a professional is a must in navigating the government’s requirements for an effective ILIT.

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If you remember the mid-1900′s you’ll easily recognize this message and if you do not, permit me to create and re-create the abundant positiveness of this incredibly upbeat lyric which has been recorded by many – including Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Aretha Franklin – and which I submit is worth revisiting with a vengeance at this time.

The first few lines of this song are:  “You’ve got to accentuate the positive / Eliminate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative / and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between / Spread joy up to the maximum and bring gloom down to the minimum.”

Now, how about an “Amen” for that?  “Don’t mess with Mr. In-Between”  is the icing on the cake to be sure if one is really going to “ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive”.

So, now, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion – for you elders) these are the positives that I see in our current economic scene:

1. Because business is so competitive the survivors in today’s economy are providing the best products and services, across the board, ever.  I can not recall seeing such an abundantly available array of high quality goods and services as we routinely have available to us today from hamburgers to automobiles.

2. As a corollary to these high quality goods and services being delivered – when success comes to these vendors they get written up in the press, positively posted on-line by their customers and seriously rich in what appears to be record time.

3. Even “villainous” debt collectors that we have been dealing with on behalf of our clients for decades now, routinely are downright courteous and even helpful.

4.  Opportunities for homeowners to hang on to their homes despite having months and even years of unpaid mortgage payments are in a never-before-seen state of affairs.

5.  The real trouble-makers, like Goldman Sachs and its alums, the Fed, Ben Bernanke and all of their minions in our government have been “outed” and they are becoming a part of the dialogue.  The camouflage of “Look what the Republicans did here.” and “Look what the Democrats did there.” is tattering and with our spotlight brightening on the real writers and directors of this meltdown we now have a chance for some real solutions.

6. Another camouflage tattering is our current stock market – now really folks, isn’t this current decline just the gas coming out of a falsely booming stock market that phony Fed stimulus money created?  If that is so, then won’t we be at the conclusion of this fall at a stable and real bedrock from which we can then far more confidently improve for real? And lastly,

7. Jobs – here is the real bottom line, and here is where economics becomes an easy subject because when people are working, they are buying and recovery is in sight.  So, check this out:  In the Wednesday, August 3, 2011 edition of the New York Times there was an article outlining the 2 and 3 year sustaining prosperity that high-end retailers like Tiffany’s, Neiman-Marcus, Louis Vuitton and their ilk are continuing to enjoy at this time.  The article points out that the top 20% of income earners generate 60% of retail sales – and that sure looks like a seedling of new jobs to me.

So, keep the faith my friends, revitalize your dreams, front up to whatever is in your way and let us know if we can be of help.

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It is important to bear in mind that the SMDIA does not mean that under no circumstances may a single individual have insurance on more than $250,000 in a single institution. The SMDIA applies per depositor, per insured depository institution, for each account ownership category. A person’s single account will be insured up to the new permanent maximum amount, but so will his or her share of all joint accounts, as well as any other of his or her accounts in other ownership categories.

Another legislative change, which went into effect on the last day of 2010, creates a new temporary insurance category that will fully insure all funds, regardless of the dollar amount, but only in checking accounts that pay no interest to the account holder. An example of a possible application of this new insurance is an account in which an individual who has just sold a home temporarily parks the large proceeds from the sale in that account, understanding that no interest will be earned. As the law now stands, this change is temporary, in that the new insurance account category is set to expire at the end of 2012.

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Among the significant pieces of the new federal tax law that was passed in December 2010 were very substantial, albeit temporary, increases in the lifetime gift tax exemptions for individuals and couples. For 2011 and 2012, these exemptions have increased five-fold, from $1 million to $5 million for individuals, and from $2 million to $10 million for couples. There will be no gift tax imposed on gifts that do not exceed those totals. The same law reduces the tax rate for gifts above the exemptions to 35% from a scheduled rate of 55%, thus benefiting individuals wealthy enough to make gifts that exceed the exemption levels.

Last year, Congress also raised the exemption for federal estate taxes to $5 million, and lowered the estate tax rate to 35%, also for a two-year period, so that, taken together, the new federal estate and gift tax rates are more favorable for taxpayers than they have been for approximately 80 years.

This is an area of the law for which sophisticated professional help is especially appropriate, but there are some general considerations to bear in mind when devising a plan for gift-giving. For example, making a gift now, tax-free, makes good sense, especially for assets that are appreciating rapidly, so that future appreciation can be shielded from taxes. It is conceivable that Congress in the future could “claw back” gifts that are greater than the exemption at the time the donor dies, but, even in that event, any income or appreciation occurring after the gift date should be tax-exempt.

Other considerations for giving are more emotional than legal. Financial considerations aside, it may be a high priority for you to make sure that assets with sentimental value are preserved for future descendants, such as by putting them into a trust. Or gift-giving decisions may entail weighing some remorse over parting with assets that took so long to acquire against the desire to improve the lot of those receiving the gifts. Of course, a contrarian view might see large gifts as mainly abdicating control and risking having everything squandered. In any case, if these considerations are all reconciled in favor of making major gifts, now may well be the time to take the plunge.

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It takes a qualified written request to trigger the loan servicer’s duties under RESPA to acknowledge and respond. RESPA defines a “qualified written request” as written correspondence from the borrower or his or her agent that requests information or states reasons for the borrower’s belief that the account is in error. To qualify, the written request must also include the name and account number of the borrower or must enable the servicer to identify the borrower.

Within 60 days after receiving a qualified written request, the servicer must take one of three actions: (1) make appropriate corrections to the borrower’s account and notify the borrower in writing of the corrections; (2) investigate the borrower’s account and provide the borrower with a written clarification as to why the servicer believes the borrower’s account to be correct; or (3) investigate the borrower’s account and provide either the requested information or an explanation as to why the requested information is unavailable.

In any event, the servicer must provide a name and telephone number of a representative of the servicer who can assist the borrower. During the 60-day period, a servicer may not provide information regarding any overdue payment, owed by such borrower and relating to such period or qualified written request, to any consumer reporting agency.

In the culmination of what the court described as “maddening troubles” that two borrowers, a husband and wife, encountered with two mortgage companies, a federal appellate court ruled that the borrowers’ claims under RESPA for damages could proceed to a trial on the merits. Two of the five different letters sent by the borrowers were ruled to be qualified written requests. As to both letters, the borrowers contended that one of the mortgage servicers violated RESPA by reporting their account as delinquent to credit bureaus within the 60-day window after the letters were received. As to one of the letters, the servicer also was alleged to have failed to investigate properly or to take corrective action.

The borrowers withstood an argument by the mortgage servicers that the borrowers had not done enough to raise triable issues on actual damages allegedly sustained as a result of the RESPA violations. It was for a jury to decide if they had, in fact, suffered the compensable losses they claimed, stemming from being denied home equity lines of credit and a small business loan, and from suffering emotional distress from the whole affair.

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In addition to scenarios in which a worker loses his or her job because of something appearing in social media, litigation may ensue against an employer if its supervisory officials go too far in digging for dirt by this means. For example, two restaurant workers won a monetary settlement after having sued their former employer for gaining access to postings on a password-protected Myspace page set up as a chat group for employees only. What was found on the page eventually led to the workers’ termination. The case was settled after a jury found that the employer had violated the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA).

The employees’ managers had violated the SCA by knowingly accessing the chat group on Myspace without authorization. Although a fellow employee had provided her log-in information to one of the company’s managers, she had not authorized access to the chat group by any of the company’s managers. She also felt that she had been coerced into giving her password to her manager, as she felt that she would have been in trouble if she had not done so.

Using the employee’s password, the company’s managers accessed the chat group on several occasions, although it was clear on the website that the chat group was intended to be private and accessible only to invited members. Finally, the managers continued to access the chat group even after realizing that the employee had reservations about having provided her log-in information.

Since e-mail first came on the scene, similar cases have arisen over what was or was not appropriate when employees used their company-provided computers for sending e-mails. One preventative measure for employers has been to create a clear written policy on the subject, followed up by informing and training the employees. Likewise, an employer’s best protection against potential liability stemming from social media may be to establish a policy that clearly spells out the ground rules for the use of social media.

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