The Federal Tax Credits Blog

Archive for April, 2008

Hard Money Lending is Helping the Economy For real estate investors access to conventional funding through banks for real estate projects has become difficult to obtain. Banks have tightened up their requirements for lending, and any blemish on your record can disqualify you for a loan. Additionally the amount of paperwork required to obtain a conventional loan has become paramount, taking weeks to months to complete the process. Many time critical investment deals are missed due to the length of the funding process. Many of these real estate investors have turned to hard money lenders to fund their real estate projects. Since hard money loans are secured based on the value of the property, credit scores are not as critical. Although credit scores are part of the assessment, the entire credit portfolio of an investor is considered when making a decision. A blemish or two will not hurt your chances, if you are still deemed credit worthy. The major decision factor for lending is in the assessment of the property. Good levels of equity in the property will result in a positive financing decision. As banks crack down on their lending practices, hard money lenders are filling the void for real estate investors, and local economies are benefiting from their involvement.

The continued flow of money for flips as well as new construction projects has kept the local economies moving. Real estate investors are still investing in properties and obtaining construction loans. This in turn has kept construction workers, building supply shops, plumbers, painters, etc. employed in this tough economy. This also trickles down to retail, grocery stores, and restaurants, keeping these establishments in business as well. All of this continued business activity results in a healthier local economy and adds to the local tax revenue. The buying and selling of houses keeps the real estate market active, and provides a new supply of renovated houses for homeowners. More homeowners in the community means more dollars spent locally as well as additional tax revenue. These are all good things for the local economy. Hard money lenders are changing the real estate investment landscape from credit based financing to equity based financing. Many projects that were not financed previously due to credit decisions are seeing new light. Also, equity based financing helps parse out the good deals from the bad resulting in better financing decisions overall. With new money being invested in profitable projects, everyone from the real estate investor to the local restaurant owner are benefiting from a stronger local economy.

DATA SNAP:Irish Nov Private Sector Credit -5.2% On Bad Debts

DUBLIN (Dow Jones)–Irish private-sector credit fell 5.2% on the year in November or EUR2.1 billion, with about half of this due to the writedown of loans by banks, exchange rate movements and increased provisions for bad debts, the Central Bank of Ireland said Wednesday.

James Burke : The Day The Universe Changed: “Credit Where It’s Due”, 2 of 5 (CC)

Fight global warming, get $1,100 a year

A new proposal to curb global warming could jump start stalled Senate greenhouse gas discussions and put an average of $1,100 a year back into the pockets of American consumers.

Remodel Replace Refund!: Your DIY Guide to the 2009-2010 Federal Tax Credit for Homeowners $4.03 Part home improvement book and part financial instrument, Remodel, Replace … Refund makes sense of the home remodeling provisions of the 2009-2010 Federal Tax Credit for Homeowners. Learn which types of improvements qualify and how to file the paperwork to get your share of this popular element of the Stimulus Plan. Then, see clear step-by-step photos that show how to do the work yourself–most …

Clean energy gets a tax jolt.: An article from: Journal of Accountancy $9.95 This digital document is an article from Journal of Accountancy, published by American Institute of CPA’s on June 1, 2009. The length of the article is 956 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Clean energy gets a tax jol…

Grants in lieu of business energy credits.: An article from: The Tax Adviser $9.95 This digital document is an article from The Tax Adviser, published by American Institute of CPA’s on December 1, 2009. The length of the article is 1007 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Grants in lieu of business en…

2009-11-8 LBNH EP & Bldg Performance Jack Band

Some people copy their first paragraph and put in the article summary. Doing that, your summaries are nowhere near as powerful as those you can can create after reading this article.

When someone is looking for information about something, they usually see the title and article summary, before even thinking of clicking to read the full article. This means that they will look at your summary to see what you have to say. If they like what they read, most likely the will click to read the full article, otherwise they will jump to the next article.

About 80% of the people think about what they will write and talk about it. Then write the article. They are doing it in the wrong order.

Start by writing the article. When you finish, read it again so you remember well what you talking about. Now here is the trick, put yourself on the shoes of the reader and ask yourself these questions:

- Why should I read this article?
- Will this article help me somehow?
- Would I learn something if I read it?
- Will I get the information I need, by reading this?
- What are the strengths of this article?

Depending from article to article, some of these questions apply. Tell them the strong points of the article and what they benefit from reading the article. Article summaries should be between 2 and 3 sentences.

If you do this, then you most likely will start getting more views. Hope this could hep you. Until next time. Take care.

Economy Report: Changes in Mortgage Lending

In KERA’s weekly economy segment, KERA’s Sam Baker spoke about changes in mortgage financing with Marcus McCue, Vice President of Sales with Guardian Mortgage, based in Richardson.

WFSB: Rep. Courtney introduces first-time homebuyer tax credit extension (full story)

The policy of our Ohio web design firm is to start every new project by creating sitemaps and flowcharts. Sitemaps help users navigate a site more easily and they can help with search engine optimization efforts.

A sitemap is essentially an index of all of the pages contained within a given website. The information contained within most sitemaps isn’t very complicated and typically doesn’t require many sophisticated design elements. Because of this, many designers choose to haphazardly create their own sitemaps by using programs such as Illustrator, InDesign and Excel. These programs are excellent tools when used for their intended purposes, but they aren’t meant to be used for creating flowcharts and sitemaps and thus make the process more difficult than it needs to be.

When creating sitemaps and flowcharts, the best option for designers is to use programs found on the web that are specifically created to function as sitemap and flowchart generators. Some sitemap design programs are even completely free of charge and very high in quality.

SlickPlan is one such program. SlickPlan is a web-based sitemap/flowchart generator that allows for the creation of free sitemap and flowchart design. SlickPlan is different from other similar programs found on the web because its only function is to provide a professional flowchart/sitemap design service at no cost to its users.

SlickPlan enables its users to simply and efficiently perform the following tasks:

SlickPlan was developed by the professional, experienced Ohio web design team, Atomic Interactive, with the web designer and developer in mind. But the program is set up in such a way that it can be easily used by amateurs as well as professionals.

As many as 6 out of every 10 adults in the United States play legal lotteries, of which about two-thirds play them on a regular basis. Youngsters are also hooked to this game, even though they are forbidden by law.

All online lottery winners are expected to claim their prize within a stipulated time frame. In Florida and Missouri, the claim should be made within 6 months from the date of the draw. The amount an individual wins depends on the number of winners. If the prize is high, the possibility of multiple winners improves.

Online Lottery winners are intimated by telephone or e-mail. The winners have to submit their personal details and also have to pay a nominal fee while collecting the prize money.

Lotteries in the United States are subject to the rules and regulations pertaining to the particular state. If the prize money is less than $ 600, the winner can claim it from the local retailer. If the prize money is as high $ 50,000 then it must be claimed from the lottery headquarters.

Online Lottery winners may claim to get their prize money either as a lump sum or as annual annuity. If you opt for the lump sum, then the amount that is withdrawn may not be enough to pay the government as federal tax.

In case of the annuity payment, you will receive the payment in a series of installments. Most winners prefer this form of payment because the tax on this is less than the lump sum.

In case of the death of the winner, the remaining amount of prize money is disbursed to the winner’s spouse or children. Online lotteries now have also introduced insurance cover as backup for the winners.

Scams and discrepancies in lotteries have multiplied over the period of time in the U.S. In order to curb this, consumers should stop responding to scam/junk mail.

Government of Canada Announces New Electronic Filing Requirements for GST/HST Registrants

OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Jan. 4, 2010) – The Honourable Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of National Revenue and Minister of State (Agriculture and Agri-Food), today announced proposed changes to electronic filing requirements for goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) registrants beginning July 1, 2010. “As a result of these changes, more businesses will benefit from a …

Does a company have to pay tax to claim R&D tax relief?