The U.S. Congress approved and President Obama signed a budget deal into law just in time to avoid a “fiscal cliff.”  But much harder tasks including spending cuts and increasing debt limit are still remains and deadline to address those are fast approaching.  The just approved deal will increase tax revenue for the Federal Government by about $212 billion, roughly $126 billion from payroll taxes, $24 billion from healthcare (Obamacare) taxes, and $62 billion from taxes from upper income earners.

The top one percent of Americans will pay more in taxes.  According to the approved tax legislation, top tax rate for ordinary income of $450,000 for a couple or $400,000 for a single person will increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.  Couples earning less than $250,000 a year will still pay 15 percent on dividends while others will pay a top rate of 20 percent.  However, the bill did not extended the two percent payroll tax holiday which was in effect for last two years.  Therefore, wages will be subject to a 6.2 percent tax for earnings up to $113,700.  The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) now will be indexed giving relief to more than 30 million middle income earners.

When it comes to finding the right debt collection management to help with recouping fees for you or your business can be a daunting task especially since many collection agencies only hire part time collectors which have little to no experience on how to really connect with those they will be contacting nor being successful in being paid the debts on time.

Before ever choosing a specific company you need to make sure that you are hiring a reputable company that will get you the results and payments that you deserve. Also you should look for collectors that will only charge you if they are successful in getting your collection paid and settled within a timely manner.

Being old hundreds to thousands of dollars can put a financial hardship on your company so finding a reputable www.psicollect.com that can get the job done is imperative to helping to rebuild or make your company successful.  The www.psicollect.com company that you use should be able to offer you various services such as judgment enforcement, nationwide coverage, free final notice forms and many other related items. There are many nationwide debt collection agencies that make tons of promises and charge you crazy upfront fees without any real results so when searching for a collection agency only choose those that can back up what they promise.  A commercial debt collection agency is the best choice for companies that are looking for collection agencies that don’t retail accounts because it will normally give you faster results with a good success rate.

These days much attention is given to the U.S. Congress and the President and Americans are waiting to hear news about a deal to avoid the so called “fiscal cliff” before January 1, 2013.  If no deal is reached, tax increases and automatic cuts to Federal spending are expected to go into effect as of January 1, 2013.  If that happens, it will negatively impact the U.S. economy as well as economies all throughout the world causing economic slow-down, hamper fragile economic recovery and send many countries into another recession.

Historically, the Congress has approved spending bills by the deadline only four times; 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997.  During the Fiscal Year 2011, the entire year was paid through continuing resolutions without a budget.  According to the Congressional Research Services, since 1977, an average of 178 days of each fiscal year was funded by continuing resolutions.  Not having a Federal Budget cost the government more in terms of on-going contracts and the indecision cost many other sectors outside the Federal government.  If the President and the Congress are unable to reach an agreement before the deadline, it will put the country over the “fiscal cliff”.

If you are someone who has a business on the internet, it is highly likely that you have heard of the term merchant accounts.  What exactly are these accounts though, how do they work, and how can they really help your business?  When you think about business, the ability to be able to accept credit cards has never been more important.  Merchant accounts give companies the ability accept credit cards, and these accounts act as an intermediary of sorts between you and the overall credit card company.

The way a merchant account works is that when you take in a credit card payment, you take in numbers such as the credit card number, expiration date, credit card company, and so on.  From there, the credit card information is sent to a terminal that is operated by he merchant account organizer or lead person.  From there, they will interface with Visa, MasterCard, and other credit card networks.  When this is done, the merchant account takes the information and forwards it off to the appropriate financial institution so that they can actually process the payment.

Merchant accounts are not as complicated as you may think as they are basically an intermediary between you, your company, the customer, and the credit card company itself. Companies have become experts in setting up these accounts, companies such as Solidtrustpay. Payments come in through your site but instead of you handling credit card information, the merchant account records it all.  Solid trust pay can have a merchant account up and running for your website in no time.

If you are following what is going on with the European Union, you may have seen the on-going battle to adopt a seven year budget for 2014 to 2020.  The European Commission is proposing €1.033 trillion budget, a four percent increase over the current budget.  Self-interest of 27 member EU countries is more evident in the budget proposal and a decision has been postponed at a recent EU summit meeting.  So, the division between the rich northern countries and the less fortunate south and east continues.

What’s in the proposed EU budget?  The EU budget funds transnational programs, regulations and development policies.  Spending on farms or aids to farms take up 44 percent of the budget while the EU’s more than 65,000 strong staff account for six percent of the budget.

Agriculture programs in Ireland and France benefits more than the United Kingdom and the Germany.  Therefore, those countries that benefit less are asking for reduction in the agriculture budget.  Germany contributes the highest percentage of funds to the EU budget.  The United Kingdom is seeking to freeze the spending at current levels.  The uneasy feeling between France and Germany is also evident in budget talks.

A lot of people who have companies think about hiring a company to do accounts receivable management for their company.  They will turn to a commercial debt collection agency for their services. Here are some advantages of using something like this.
 

• A lot of businesses struggle with some customers which have trouble with paying their bills.  The debt collector often is the one thing that’s going to save that business from going broke.
• A lot of big landlords are known for having those tenants unable to pay their rent. The debt collector is able to save that landlord from losing their business.
• Really big car dealerships have some problems with people not paying their car payments. When they hire the collection agency, it can make a difference in whether they get paid or if they have to cancel their own plans.
• Banks sometimes also need to use agencies for debt collections. A lot of loan offices are finding many people unable to pay their loans. Rather than seizing the goods and having an auction, the bank will hire this kind of agency to get the funds and help the bank keep running.

PSI Collect is a great company to turn to when you have customers who aren’t paying their bills. They do cash collection nationwide and they can help you with getting the money that you are owed for the services that you rendered and aren’t being paid for.  Go to their website and see what their business is about.

Everyone enjoy the thrill of winning medals at the 2012 London Olympics which are underway at this time.  The host country expects that the games will bring an economic boom as well as tourism dollars.  But the history may prove otherwise.

Greece entered the European Union in 2001.  The 2004 Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece.  At the time the event cost €9 billion making it the most expensive games at the time.  Greece paid €7 billion just for the games excluding the cost of the new subway system and the new airport.

In 2004, the Greece’s deficit came in at 6.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the public debt reached to 110.6 percent of the GDP.  The public debt in 2004 was €168 billion.  These levels were unacceptable to the European Union (EU) since it exceeded the limits.  As a result the European Commission placed Greece under fiscal monitoring.  Since that time Greece’s debt risen to 165.3 percent of the GDP.

Many of the sites built for the games are in decay.  Greece’s fiscal problems cannot be blamed solely on Olympics but to a certain extent it contributed to the current fiscal chaos in the country.

On June 27, 2012, Barclays agreed to pay $455 million to U.S. and U.K. regulators to settle an allegation that they were involved in an interest rate fixing that affects financial system worldwide. Regulators after a two year investigation found that the Barclays “systematically” attempted to rig the London interbank offered rate (Libor). Investigations were involved with suspected interest rate manipulations during the 2008 market turmoil.

Introduced in October 1984, Libor is an average interest rate that leading banks charge to each other for borrowing money. Therefore, it is the benchmark interest rate around the world. Many financial institutions, credit card companies, mortgage institutions, and others set the interest rate they charge to their customers and their financial products based on Libor. Worldwide, over $350 trillion worth of financial products are tied to the Libor.

Major banks including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, JPMorgan Chase, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group have been investigated by the regulators of the U.S. and the U.K. Many bank officers suspected to be involved in the scandal including the Barclays CEO Robert Diamond and COO Jerry del Missier has been fired or forced out of the job. Many more will become the victims of the scandal in the near future.

The European debt crisis is shifting its attention from Greece to Spain now that Greece is considering leaving the Euro Zone. This time it is Spain’s declining property values and failing banks causing concerns. It is estimated that Spain has $230 billion troubled real estate assets. The Spanish government is struggling to deal with the issues due to recession and the 24 percent unemployment rate, one of the world’s largest. Spain’s economy is twice the size of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined and its problems are far more deep and massive than Greece.

Banking problems in Spain are centered on BFA-Bankia. After losing 34 percent of its share value in less than one year, the government nationalized the bank on May 9, 2012. Government has pumped massive amount of funds to stabilize the bank. The European Union is also coming up plans to help troubled banks.

Home and office building activity in Spain was the main source of growth for the country for years. At the top of the boom, the construction accounted for 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Unlike in Ireland, Spain did not address the issue immediately when the real estate market tanked.

On Thursday, May 10, 2012, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Dimon, of the JP Morgan Chase announced that the banking behemoth’s unit in London, U.K. lost $2 billion in a risky derivative investment deal over last several weeks. Later several published reports admitted that the actual paper loss may even be higher than previously announced. Later reports also indicated that several high ranking officers of the bank either offered to resign or left the company. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also investigating the incident. The company stock continued to lose value since the incident disclosed.

Derivatives are a contract between two or more parties. The value is determined by the fluctuations of the underlying asset. Common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, interest rates and market indexes. Derivatives are complex agreements and highly leveraged. They are designed to control exposure to risk and therefore, adequate insurance should be available to cover any losses.

They are so complex that Warren Buffet once called them “weapons of mass financial destructions”. The irony for JP Morgan Chase is that they argued against Dodd-Frank financial control legislation which is intended, among other things, to limit or curb bank involvement in similar derivatives.