From: owner-persfin-digest@lists.xmission.com (persfin-digest) To: persfin-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: persfin-digest V5 #35 Reply-To: persfin Sender: owner-persfin-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-persfin-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes persfin-digest Monday, July 20 1998 Volume 05 : Number 035 In this issue of the Personal Finance Digest: Re: Social Security and our govt Re: Social Security and our govt MA Tax Cut All But Certain Re: Health Insurance for part time employees Purpose of this list Re: Dependent Care Benefits - what are they ? Re: persfin-digest V5 #34 The messages posted to the Persfin-Digest are opinions and are not intended to substitute for qualified professional advice. Subscribers should seek the services of qualified professionals for such advice. The publisher, Internet provider, and Digest contributors cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any of the information provided here. To ask questions or provide answers, send your email to "persfin-digest@lists.xmission.com". Also, you can "reply" to the persfin-digest and your email tool should fill in the same address. However, if you "reply", be sure to edit the subject field in your email to reflect your topic. Copyright (c) 1998, Jeff Salisbury POSTED SUBSCRIPTION FEE: $20/year. Payment is optional. You will not be billed. The Digest is available to all subscribers, whether or not they pay. I do not discriminate either in favor of paying subscribers or against nonpaying subscribers. If you feel that the information presented here is worth the fee, and you feel comfortable paying it, send cash, check, or money order (U.S. funds), payable to "Jeff Salisbury", to: Jeff Salisbury 65 North 1300 East Logan, Utah 84321 Payment will be acknowledged by e-mail if you include an e-mail address. Subscribe: e-mail majordomo@xmission.com, text: subscribe persfin-digest Unsubscribe: e-mail majordomo@xmission.net, text: unsubscribe persfin-digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 17:13:12 -0500 From: Bill La Mar Subject: Re: Social Security and our govt elaine steward wrote: > Greg.Panayotti@wdr.com wrote: > > (Check the facts: Did you know this country has the HIGHEST percentage > of children under the poverty line of ANY developed country in the > world? > > That's because in other countries either the tax rate is higher or the > children die. I, too, think this is disgusting, but I also think that > since individuals and/or communities aren't able to resolve the > problem(s) that the Gov't must. What makes you thinnk the Gov't can? Bill La Mar - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 18:11:42 -0400 From: "Cal Lester" Subject: Re: Social Security and our govt >Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 13:20:51 -0400 >From: Greg.Panayotti@wdr.com >Subject: Re: Social Security and our govt I read your interesting article lambasting our Federal Government, and the Social Security System in general. I must admit that there some inequities in it, but I am secure in the knowledge that people like you, although you complain, will still continue to work, earn money, and contribute to my retirement funds. I for one do appreciate the fact that you are contributing to my personal welfare. My parents (posthumously) thank you, my wife thanks you, my children thank you (so that they do not have to support me) and I thank you. Kalman J. Lester CLU Insurance Course Coordinator Broward Community College - - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 00:43:13 -0400 From: Rich Carreiro Subject: MA Tax Cut All But Certain For those MA taxpayers who haven't been following the news, the tax cut has overwhelmingly cleared the Legislature, and the governor has promised to sign it, so I'd be willing to call it a done deal. The highlights: (1) Conform to federal treatment of Roth IRAs (2) Conform to federal treatment on sale of primary residence. (3) Doubles the personal exemption from $2,200 to $4,400 (singles) and from $4,400 to $8,800 (married, jointly). (4) Reduces the tax on dividends and interest from 12% to 5.95%. (5) Leaves the long-term gains sliding scale tax (from 5% to 0%, depending on holding period) untouched, and leaves the 12% tax on short-term gains untouched. Item (3) goes partially into effect for Tax Year 1998 (exemptions raised 73%, raised the remainder the following year). Item (4) doesn't take effect until Tax Year 1999. I don't know about (1) and (2), but I'd bet they will be in effect for Tax Year 1998. Rich Carreiro rlcarr@animato.pn.com P5-100/RedHat Linux 4.1 - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 09:55:24 EDT From: Subject: Re: Health Insurance for part time employees In Vol 5, #34 Tonia Sams asks about offering Health Insurance to her two part time employees. First off let me say that health insurance is regulated by each State's Insurance Department. Health Insurance products that are offered by Insurance Companies look very different in New York or New Jersey or California or Florida. When a small business owner wants to offer coverage to their employees they first have to look at what products are available to employees in the particular State inwhich the Business is based. Than they should try to get some feeling as to whether the Insurance Companies are complying with State and Federal laws about what aspects of products are being covered. Case in point is the viagra pills that have been making the news lately. In the case of Tonia you have to ask the insurance companies how they interpret the laws about part time employees. Can they indeed be covered, after how many hours of work is one considered to be 'full time' and does the insurance company offer coverage that you can afford and/or want to give your employees. Than you need to find out what would happen if you do offer coverage to your employees but they can't or won't take the coverage unless you pay 100% of the premium. If you were in New York and I was counciling you I would 1st have to tell you that part timers cannot be covered by any group insurance program I know of. My suggestion is to tell your part timers to go out and get individual/family coverage as though they were not employed. As they pay the premium each month they bring in the canceled check and you reimburse them according to some percentage reimbursement you set up in a written contract between you the employer and your employees. Tonia I have to congratulate you for trying to be a benevolent employer. You are a rare breed. Take a look in the local yellow pages under Insurance Consultant to find a Health Insurance expert to help you research the products in your State. Good Luck Richard Allen, CFP The Employee Benefits Group http://www.iix.com/ny/tebg Your Business OWES You- take advantage of your Business! - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 08:12:07 -0600 From: Wade Watkins Subject: Purpose of this list I thought this was a list to discuss personal finance issues, not the politics of the nation. True, politics affect our personal finances, as well as many other things, I don't think this is the place. If you are going to spend all of this time arguing do it on a political list instead of here. Let's get back to the real purpose of this list. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 05:27:44 -0700 From: ravi_sekhar@mentorg.com Subject: Re: Dependent Care Benefits - what are they ? I have the following situation: My employer provides on-campus childcare facilities. My child is enrolled in the childcare facility. I contribute to a Dependent Care Spending Account ( DCSA ). In addition, depending on the employees salary level, my employer also provides a subsidy of upto 15% of the childcare expenses in a given year. For the year 1996, I did contribute to the DCSA account. However, I did not avail of the subsidy. As such, I did not file Form 2441 for Dependent Care Benefits for 1996. However my W-2 for the year shows an amount of $4000 under Box 10 of the W2. My Question: Is the amount in box 10, the amount I contributed to the DCSA account? My current understanding is if I receive any subsidy from my employer, then that amount will be reported under Box 10 of the W-2. Since the amount in the DCSA account is being contributed entirely by me, only that the money is pre-tax, I DONOT think that the DCSA amount should go into box 10 of the W2 form. Please help me understand the finer points of what the difference between Dependent Care Spending Account ( DCSA) and Dependent Care Benefits ( DCB) is!!! Thanks a lot in advance. Ravi - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 13:04:54 -0400 From: Greg.Panayotti@wdr.com Subject: Re: persfin-digest V5 #34 >Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:05:56 -0700 >From: elaine steward Subject: Re: Social Security and >our govt > >That's because in other countries either the tax rate is higher or the children >die. I, too, think this is disgusting, but I also think that since individuals >and/or communities aren't able to resolve the problem(s) that the Gov't must. > >elaine I don't agree. The government does what we want it to do - eventually. If everyone decided tomorrow that something like this was intolerable and must stop then govt would stop screwing around with things like independant council investigations and start doing the business that needs to be done to make things right with our country - or else politicians would risk their re-election which is really the only thing any of them care about. Seemingly, the people's only power is to threaten to use their one weapon --> the vote. And since the people we're talking about (low income wage earners) for the most part don't vote, I guess you have the answer right there. The middle class and the rich are too busy making sure they don't end up poor to give a damn about anyone "below" them. It's a shame - but low income classes don't vote and children obviously don't vote, so they have no voice and so our govt will continue to let this go on because hey ... their kids are going to Ivy league schools and the stock market is doing great! What's the problem? I'm not talking about giving everyone below a certain level a free ride and I believe everyone should have to do some kind of work to recieve benefits and help from society. True some people don't want to work and just want a free ride. But there are millions in this system that want to help themselves but can't. These and other issues our society needs to fix before we conquer another planet or spend billions on foreign countries. BACK TO SS: It's broke and we have plenty of money to fix it - and most other things that are wrong. But instead of being accountable and to find the money to do it - the govt would just rather raise taxes. If I hear one more time 'Isn't $xx a month/week/year worth it to solve our x problem" I'm going to throw up! I'm not willing to spend another penny on ANY tax WHATSOEVER for ANYTHING until govt begins to be accountable for the money they already take from me and everyone else. Did you catch the last govt audit of itself? What a sick joke! Sorry for the rant but I am tired of our complacent American attitudes towards our govt. This country is still great, but it needs some work and nobody seems to want to admit that. We can do better. Hey, just my opinion. Or is it? G - - ------------------------------ End of persfin-digest V5 #35 **************************** - To unsubscribe to persfin-digest, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe persfin-digest" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.