Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
The IRS Is Holding Up To $1.3 Billion In Unclaimed Funds (Bankrate.com)
Forget about your 2009 tax return for a minute. If you didn’t file one for 2006, you might be missing out on some money from back then. But you’re quickly running out of time to claim it.
Three years ago, more than 1.4 million individuals apparently decided they had better things to do than file their [...]
Young War Veterans Returning Home To Unemployment (Yahoo! News)
The unemployment rate last year for young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans hit 21.1 percent, the Labor Department said Friday, reflecting a tough obstacle combat veterans face as they make the transition home from war.
The number was well above the 16.6 percent jobless rate for non-veterans of the same ages, 18 to 24.
As of last year, [...]
Top Dem Clyburn Says House Doesn’t Enough Votes To Pass Health-Care (ABC News)
The House’s chief Democratic headcounter said Sunday he hadn’t rounded up enough votes to pass President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul heading into a make-or-break week, even as the White House’s top political adviser said he was “absolutely confident” in its prospects.
The administration gave signs of retreating on its demands that senators jettison special home-state [...]
Social Security Calls In Gov’s IOUs – A Case Of Bad Timing (Yahoo! News)
The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It’s time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out [...]
THE STORY THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO HEAR: Senators Spector & Issa Say That If Administration Offered Sestak Job to Drop Senate Race It Could Be a Crime (CSN News)
Two members of Congress said this week that someone in the White House may have committed a crime if they offered Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) an administration job in exchange for him not running in Pennsylvania’s Democratic senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, an allegation that Sestak said was true.
Meanwhile, despite several media inquiries over [...]
TAX TIPS: Secrets Your Tax Accountant Won’t Tell You (Yahoo!/Shine)
With the April 15 tax deadline looming, we reached out to CPAs to share their frank insights into filing taxes, audits, extensions, preparers and more!
1. We see many disastrous returns prepared by ill-trained preparers. When selecting a preparer, many people shop price and not experience. We don’t like to knock the competition — however, the [...]
States May Hold Onto Tax Refunds For Months (USA Today)
Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months.
States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn [...]
NEW LAW: Social Security Turns ‘Bill Collector’ – Defaulted Loans May Haunt Seniors (Wall Street Journal)
A little-noticed law could soon result in smaller Social Security checks for hundreds of thousands of the elderly and disabled who owe the U.S. money from defaulted loans and other debts more than a decade old.
Social Security benefits are off-limits to creditors, such as credit-card companies and banks. But the U.S. can collect debts to [...]
Dems Try To Out Maneuver GOP By Pairing Health-Care And Student Loan Bills (Wall Street Journal)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that health-care legislation, which House Democrats hope to pass by the end of next week, would also include a proposal to overhaul the nation’s student-loan program.
Tying the student-loan and health-care legislation “has always been part of the plan,” Ms. Pelosi (D., Calif.) said.
House Democrats are readying a two-part strategy [...]
With ObamaCare Looming, Employers Plan To Shift More Health-Care Costs To Workers, Survey Reports (Washington Post)
Most big employers plan to shift a larger share of health-care costs to their workers next year, according to a survey released Thursday.
Many say they may charge more to cover spouses, tighten eligibility standards for their health plans and dispense financial rewards or penalties based on the results of certain lab tests. At some companies, [...]
