Complex Financing

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As January winds down, you should have received most of the paperwork that youll need to file your taxes. If youre like most FCN readers and most Americans in general youll be e-filing this year.

Sure, e-filing is convenient. But guess what? Its also much cheaper for the IRS to process your return if you file electronically. As it turns out, it costs the IRS $3.29 to process a paper return vs. $0.19 for an electronic return a savings of $3.10 (or nearly 95%!) per e-filer.

Looking back at last tax season, more than 100M individual federal tax returns were e-filed. Thus, the e-filing program saved well over $300M last year alone not to mention an awful lot of paper waste.

Global – Some 44% of the GP 100 Panel are taking advantage of lower equity valuations to re-risk their portfolios.

The findings support observations by JP Morgan Transition Management officials who told Global Pensions last month that UK pension funds are showing early signs of re-risking.

Executive director, EMEA technical sales specialist for transition management Robert Calder said: “Now with the market levels, we believe a lot of pension funds are reconsidering their approach to de-risking, not reducing their allocation to equity and increasing their allocation to bonds, because bond yields are not at the right levels.”

“We are actually seeing indications of pension funds looking to re-risk, which is a change compared to the last couple of years.” Instead, pension funds are putting their moves into fixed income on hold and considering taking advantage of low equity prices, he said.

Managing director, global head of strategy and implementation, regional head of transition management EMEA, Michael Gardner said there has been a high frequency of pre-trade assessments and analysis before transitions, which he has interpreted as indications of pension funds looking to re-risk.

He said the lack of certainty in the markets is what has slowed pension funds from moving. “I think

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Every New Year seems to begin with a new commitment to change health or money habits, and marketing experts know it. Nearly every advertisement I have seen this year is pitching their product or idea as the answer to fulfilling a New Year’s resolution.  Even the financial websites have piled on with New Year budget and debt suggestions. This article is not full of quick fix suggestions because parents know that teaching their kids about money is an every year resolution.

Bill Cosby had a knack for using parenting moments to entertain us. One of my favorite clips is this one. As you can see, Cosby was his classic self, although it was Theo that nailed the scene. Theo’s humorous depiction of money ignorance is not uncommon for a teenager, yet most schools send kids into the working world without a course that teaches them how to manage their money. As you can read here, I have a real problem with that. Rega

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According to their latest Credit Conditions Survey, the Bank of England has found that credit card limits had increased at the end of 2011.

The increases occurred at a time when the demand for this type of lending had declined, with other forms of money lending also experiencing a decrease.

Suggested reasons for this change include the current economic crisis. The current situation surrounding the Euro-Zone is thought to have made consumers more cautious about their spending, resulting in a reduced demand for credit cards and other financial loan products.

This decreased demand is expected to continue throughout 2012 as the Euro-Zone crisis continues to remain unresolved.

Alternatives to credit cards

Perhaps one of the other reasons why credit cards were not in such high demand for the last quarter of 2011 is that there are plenty of alternatives available.

Unsecured loans have continued to gain popularity recently whilst other forms of card lending, such as prepaid credit cards, have also experienced some success.

Prepaid credit cards are often seen as a better alternative to standard credit cards due to the reduced risk of debt.

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Youre probably working through your holiday gift list about now, and you might be realizing that your budget is going to be pretty tight. How far would you go to stretch that budget?

Questions of ethics rarely enter the shopping realm. When it comes to saving money, whats not to like? After all, in these lean times saving money is considered a virtue in and of itself.

But are there situations in which saving a few bucks is not virtuous, and in fact may be unethical? Obviously, stretching your gift budget by shoplifting that bottle of Old Spice for your dad is wrong! And grabbing the last close-out Monster High Doll out of that ladys shopping cart when shes not looking is equally unethical.

But there are many gray areas. What if you overhear the lady with the Monster High Doll in her cart tell another shopper that she has no daughters or granddaughters, but is grabbing the last doll on the shelf to sell it later on eBay?

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