The Debt Settlement Tax Can Bite You If You're Not Careful

By Sean Payne

If you're currently in debt and you may be thinking about negotiating with your creditors to settle your debts for less than you owe. What you may not know about debt settlement, though, is that it can have a significant impact on your taxes.

If you negotiated a settlement with your creditors, you're basically "earning" money from your debt. Here's how it works: If you took out a loan for $10,000 and couldn't pay it back, but negotiated with your creditors for them to accept $6,000 as full payment of your loan, you've pocketed $4,000 (the difference between how much you borrowed and how much you paid back). The IRS takes a close look at these kinds of loan repayments.

It's possible that at some point in the past, the U.S. tax laws allowed for this to happen with no tax implications. Unfortunately for you, the IRS is smart about such things, and has closed any loophole that may have existed in the tax law.

As I mentioned in the example above, settling credit card debt or any other debt for less than you owe your creditor will probably result in you being held liable for the "profit" you realize after paying off your debt. Keep this in mind when you file your taxes after settling your debts.

Even though this may sound like a bad thing, you still come out ahead after taxes. In our example above, the $4000 you realized as a gain might be taxed at 30%, depending on your tax bracket. However, even when you add the $1200 tax, you've still only paid $7200 to clear a $10,000 debt. That's still a bargain in my book.

The debt settlement tax comes as a surprise to many people, who don't realize that they owe taxes on their so-called profit or gain until the IRS comes to audit them. Don't let it take you by surprise.

If you need any more details on how to deal with this tax, please check with your CPA or another tax expert. - 23167

About the Author:

Sean Payne is a personal finance expert who has learned through trial and error (and a lot of advice) how to get out of debt. You can discover the secret facts about the debt settlement tax at Sean's website, which can be found at http://www.debtpayofftips.com

What Impacts the Price of a Stock? How Useful is Historical Data?

By Marv Doniger

There are a myriad of factors that are commonly used by investors to evaluate potential stock investments. These investment opportunities are often identified through the use of the numerous stock screeners that are readily available to investors. Common searches seek to identify companies that have a low Price Earnings, Price to Book Value, or Price to Cash Flow Ratio; high Dividend Yields; high Returns on Assets, Invested Capital, or Earnings; low Debt to Equity; and high Cash balances. In fact there are pre-defined stock screeners such as the Contrarian Strategy, Dogs of the Dow, Momentum Stocks, New 52-Week Highs, etc. that can be used to identify stocks in which to invest. The implicit assumption in using stock screeners is that there is a relationship between this data and the future performance of a stock. Should this assumption be valid then all one would have to do is run his/her magic screener and buy those stocks with his/her favorite criteria such as low Price Earnings Ratio and high Dividend Yield. In order to validate the premise that the data obtained from stock screeners influences the price of a company's stock, the change in the price of the Dow 30 Industrial stocks from 1999 to 2009 was compared to changes in the Returns they generated, their Financial Condition and Performance over that same time period. Returns included Returns on Equity, Invested Capital and Assets as well as Dividends paid to investors. Financial Condition included Current Ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio, along with Interest Coverage and Dividend Coverage. Performance included Sales, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow trends. A correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship of the price of each of the companies comprising the Dow Industrials and these factors. The hypothesis being that there was a statistically valid relationship between these factors.

As the following chart shows, dividends had a statistically significant impact on the change in the price of the stock of Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, and Verizon. It had a moderate impact on the price of the stock of Alcoa, Bank of America, DuPont, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase. Earnings had a strong impact on the price of Citigroup's and Exxon Mobil's stock. The stock price of Caterpillar, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Proctor & Gamble, and United Technologies was moderately impacted by earnings. Price changes in the stock of Exxon Mobil were statistically significantly impacted by its Dividends, Cash, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow and moderately impacted by its Return on Invested Capital, Dividend Coverage and Sales. Another company whose price movement could be partially explained by change in these factors is Caterpillar. There were moderately statistically significant relationships between its price and its Returns on Equity, Investment and Assets; its Interest and Dividend Coverage; as well as its Earnings and Cash Flow. Perhaps one of the most astonishing results is that there were no statistically meaningful relationships between the changes in the price of the stocks of 3M, American Express, AT&T, Boeing, Intel, IBM, Kraft, Microsoft, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart and the measures of Returns, Financial Condition, and Performance used in the analysis. To put it another way, the price movement of 40 percent of the Dow Industrials bore no statistically meaningful relationship to changes in these factors.

FACTORS AFFECTING STOCK PRICE of DOW 30 INDUSTRIALS RETURNS FINANCIAL CONDITION PERFORMANCE Dow 30 Components Company Equity Invested Capital Assets Dividends Current Ratio Debt to Equity Interest Coverage Dividend Coverage Cash Sales Earnings Book Value Cash Flow 3m Co Alcoa Inc ● American Express Company, AT&T Inc. Bank of America Corporation ● Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Chevron Corp ●● ● ● ●● ● Citigroup, Inc. ●● ● E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co ● Exxon Mobil Corp ● ●● ● ●● ● ●● ●● ●● General Electric Company ● General Motors Corporation ● Hewlett-Packard Co. ●● ● Intel Corporation International Business Machines Johnson & Johnson ● ● ● JP Morgan & Chase & Co ● Kraft Foods Inc. McDonald's Corporation ● ● Merck & Co., Inc. ●● Microsoft Corporation, Pfizer Inc, The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Inc. The Procter & Gamble Company ● ● ● ●● United Technologies Corporation ● ● ● Verizon Communications ●● Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Impact ● Moderate ●● Significant Data Standard & Poor's

Based on the previous examination of the relationships between the price of the Dow Industrials stocks and certain measurements of their historical data, it should be apparent that stock screeners, in and of themselves, are not sufficient tools to use in selecting potential stock investments. Even if there were statistically significant relationships between the historical price movement and the data used in the stock screener, it does not mean that those relationships would continue in the future. Wall Street constantly warns that past performance is not indicative of future results, yet investors search the past to divine the future. It is like driving in traffic by looking through the rear view mirror and missing the collision ahead that is about to happen. As events of the past eighteen months have proven, highly improbable events can occur and inflict unforeseen casualties on investors. Since equity markets are supposedly discounting future events, investors should look through the windshield to see what is ahead of them and use the rear view mirror to see if the vehicle behind them has any relevance to their ultimate destination.

Marvin Doniger, Managing Partner of Doniger & Associates, is the author of A Common Sense Road Map to Uncommon Wealth, which is a treatise on managing careers and finances. His perspectives have been developed from his lifelong study of investing, his actual experiences as a registered representative, an individual investor, as well as from working for large companies in industry and as a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies. He is a leader in his industry. - 23167

About the Author:

Mr. Doniger received a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University. He has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in production control, inventory management, information technology and finance at Fitchburg State College and Webster University. CONTACT INFORMATION: Tel: 949-661-5456 Email: Marv@DonigerAssociates.com www.donigerassociates.com

Forex Signals

By Larry Thomas

The forex market provides traders with the ability to make astounding amounts of money in a short period of time. You can go from rags to riches. You can work from any location you choose during any hours that you choose. It can provide freedom from the rat race and bring you the life that you've always wanted.

Success in the forex market can happen, provided you know when to get in and out of the market. Coming up with a profitable trading system is easier said than done as the market can be extremely volatile. For experienced traders, knowing how to trade is almost second nature.

Those with experience know when to enter a trade, which direction to go, and when to get out. However, the inexperienced trader doesn't have this luxury. Are they left to study the market for the next several years in order to figure everything out? Luckily for them, forex signals have been developed. What are forex signals and how can they help you achieve your financial goals?

Well let's say you are a forex trader and you're ready to start trading. You have money in your account and the trading platform up on your computer. You are waiting patiently for the right time to jump in. You glance over at your email box and you have one new message that says to buy the EUR/USD pair. You put the trade into your platform taking into account your level of risk and comfort. The trade is now live and as the market moves another email comes in telling you to close out. You instantly do so and notice that you made a nice profit for the day. This in a nutshell is the idea of forex signals.

Forex signals allow you to leverage other people's experience and skill into a successful forex trading career of your own. You don't have to go to school for this but of course taking a class will help you grow quicker. You don't have to pay someone to manage your money or worry about who is taking care of your trades.

Forex Signals allows you to handle all of the trades yourself. Someone who is more experienced with trading forex than you emails you an alert letting you know when to make a trade. I'm sure you can see the beauty in all of this. It allows you to profit even if you are new and let's you make money while you learn the forex market yourself.

Finding a good source for your forex signals is the key to your success. Listening to a guy who has no clue about the forex market or doesn't understand the dynamics will leave you broke. This is where your homework and time come in. Make sure you find the right person and that the forex signals are in fact profitable.

The first thing you should do is test your signals on a demo account. Hopefully a majority of them are good and profitable. Nothing is one hundred percent all the time. Then if you are feeling comfortable and confident with your source its time to sign up for the forex signals. Only thing left to do is trade and make money! - 23167

About the Author:

If you interested in learning more about forex signals or automated forex trading check out a great blog by Jim Sullivan.

How to Pay Off Debt, Even if You Never Could Before

By Sean Payne

A large number of people who are currently in debt have tried at least once to pay off their debts. Many of them have tried several times. Unfortunately, most of them have failed, ending up even deeper in debt than before.

What causes this? Why do they end up accumulating more and more debt? The answer can be found in the methods that they use to try to get out of debt. Those people who use additional loans to get out of debt are only temporarily fixing the problem. Debt reduction loans might work for a while, but eventually the habits that caused the problem with debt in the first place will sabotage them.

The true answer to the problem can be found in fixing the underlying habitual behaviors that originally created the debt problem. The best way to accomplish this is by using a proven plan for paying off debt, one that won't let you continue in your old ways.

What are the steps of the debt repayment plans that won't allow you to indulge in self defeating habits?

The first step is to build up a "buffer" between you and overspending. When you're running low on money, even a small financial problem can make you go back to using debt. What exactly is a buffer? This is a small amount of money that you save, somewhere around $500 to $1000, depending on how much money you make. Your buffer should be enough money to fix your vehicle if it breaks down, hire a plumber if a sewage pipe breaks, or pay your bills if there's a delay in getting your paycheck.

The next step is to take on no additional debt. This means no debt reduction loans, no additional mortgages, or any other debt. If you take out a second mortgage in an attempt to pay off credit card debt, you're replacing an unsecured debt with a secured loan. This means that if you are unable to pay off your debt, you're at risk of losing your home.

The next step is to create a plan to pay off your debts. Keep in mind that the order in which you pay off each debt makes a significant difference. If you do it wrong, you can lose your motivation to get out of debt. If you do it right, you'll pay off each debt quickly while gaining more and more motivation to finally get out of debt.

The fourth step is to carry out your plan. The easiest way to do this is to automate your debt repayment plan. One way to accomplish this is to use an automatic bill payment service, such as the kind offered by most banks. Once set up, a bill payment service will keep you from incurring late fees. Most bill payment services are free, so this is awesome if you want to get out of debt.

The fifth step is to stick to your plan. Once you've developed a little bit of momentum, this should be easy. Once again, the right debt repayment plan makes a huge difference.

That's all you have to do. Now you can finally pay off your debts, even if you've failed every time you've tried. All it takes is the correct approach. - 23167

About the Author:

Sean Payne has helping others learn about personal finance and how to get out of debt for over a decade. To get more information about how to pay off debt, get Sean's excellent free course on debt reduction management.

Be Aware of Shady Credit Related Phone Calls

By Jennifer McClelland

In the past I received a phone call, I presume a telemarketing telephone request, on my house telephone number that I knew I had to disclose with my readers at Lucrative Investing. It was beyond a doubt the most hilarious phone call I have received in a lengthy time, and unquestionably something worth giving out for the amusement value and the example it provides. The telephone call came up on the caller ID as ?Home Area? and the digits 1-850-390-4590. When I answered the call, a recording said something close to, ?Hello, this is a call from Card Services concerning your current credit card account. We are pleased to inform you that you are entitled for lower interest rates since you have made all your payments in good time and have shown trustworthy use of your credit. To query further concerning lower interest rates on your open credit card, press ?1?.?

I was curious and a little bored, so I pushed ?1? and a gentleman came immediately to the handset. This is the discussion from that phone talk, with ?Telemarketer? being the guy on the other end that represents ?Card Services?, and ?MB? being myself:

Telemarketer: Hi?

MB: Hello.

Telemarketer: Are you responding to the suggestion for reduced interest rates?

MB: I suppose.

Telemarketer: Well, you are qualified for cut interest rates on an open credit card.

MB: What card?

Telemarketer: Your qualifying Visa or Mastercard.

MB: Okay, well, this call could be for anyone in the house. Who is this call for?

Telemarketer: The primary credit card holder, and you pressed ?1?, so I would assume that?s you.

MB: Well, we have four credit card owners in this home. If you would prefer to offer me a name, I can certainly?.

Telemarketer: [Click]

MB: Hello? [Amusingly, having heard the click] Helloooooooo?.

He did not have a clue who that call was for or what card he was offering me a lower rate on. No one even is aware if whatever assembly or business he is employed with is respectable. I thought it was amusing that they used the title ?Card Services?, thinking about some respectable corporations that you may really do business with make use of that at which time they phone up, because that is the title of the section that is calling you. At what time Chase, who I previously had a card with, called me, they time and again said they were from ?Card Services?, so I thought it was probable Chase was calling me, even if I sincerely doubted it as I no longer possess that card. When someone says they are with ?Card Services?, do not assume it is a shifty call, but do press them to find out what company they are with.

Remember that they called your phone, concerning your alleged credit card, and may ask for your information. Do not assume they are on the level and do not assume that they already know anything about you. Nicely require that they give you some additional information about who the call is for, what card this is relating to, or something else before going any further. I will never know if that was a possible con or not, but I do recognize that they had no right calling me, particularly since we are on the ?Do Not Call Registry?, that has long since established that it means nil.

Be intelligent, be aware, and be conscious of the fact that there are thousands, if not millions, of companies and people out there who want your money, and especially your social security number. They are calling you daily and one fallacious move could compromise your fiscal security, either in a minute way or a large way. They may have been valid, but they might have been a scam, just hoping I would give up the information they were looking for. Either way, they had no business calling me with an assumed guise the way they did, and I suggest that all of my readers be careful when a call like that comes in. - 23167

About the Author:

Want to see extra about Credit card accounts and get more regarding Money Investing.