Directbanc.com Goes In Depth with the Personal Finance Experts and their Personal Finance Blogs.
In our second installment, Directbanc.com continues our “Asking the Experts” series of interviews with the best Personal Finance Experts from around the web. If you missed the first one with Carrie Smith, of 
Careful Cents Blog, be sure to read it here. Our goal is to provide helpful information on a wide range of financial topics that affect all consumers.
We asked Trevor McCandless, the founder of Fusion CPA – Atlanta Tax & Bookkeeping Services , to answer some common tax questions.
Trevor specializes in tax translation, with a focus on small businesses and their owners. He says “As an entrepreneur, I know what my clients go through. I counsel creative entrepreneurs on how to think about their financial numbers, and the tax effects that result from their everyday transactions. To get there, I’m literally changing the way tax professionals service their clients.” Trevor is also a Tax Master, CPA, Entrepreneur, Eagle Scout, and Yard Games Enthusiast.
1. What are the top two concerns that consumers have when it comes to tax preparation? Compliance (IRS audit avoidance) and Tax savings (reduction of potential taxes due & identifying applicable tax deductions).
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Entrepreneurs and self-employed people devote an untold number of hours towards their business, wearing multiple hats and juggling an infinite number of tasks. For many, their business is their future security which is why they are willing to spend so much time working in it. Because of that, and the fact that most business owners view their business as their financial security, most don’t get around to establishing a self employed retirement plan.
The reality is that most businesses fail within their first five years, and for those that succeed, there is no guarantee that they create the financial capital needed to fund a secure retirement. For those reasons, it is especially important for self-employed people to establish and fund a self employed retirement plan as early as possible.
The other key reason why the self-employed should start on their retirement plans early is that they provide valuable tax benefits that enable them to keep more of their money working towards their business. The tax code encourages entrepreneurship in a number of ways, and there is no shortage of opportunities for business owners to capitalize on the tax breaks available through a number of different self employed retirement plan options for the self-employed.
No matter if you are the only employee or you have some people working for you, it is important to select the right self employed retirement plan option that will enable you to maximize your own benefits while keeping your costs in check. These three plans offer business owners the best opportunity to maximize their benefits and the flexibility to accommodate business growth:
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Many people who now live financially responsible lives, have had their past come back to haunt them. After years of paying bills on time, building up their credit scores, and qualifying for mortgages, they might receive a call one day from a collections agency informing them of an outstanding debt – from 10 years ago!
A common response from many people, fearful that this might somehow ruin their efforts in building their credit, is to agree to make payments towards the old debt. Big mistake. Big! Old debt, although a moral obligation, may not be a legal obligation after a certain period of time has passed. As far as your credit score goes ,old debt may be better left alone. Before agreeing to anything with a collection agency, it’s important to know the law, your rights and how to deal with the agency.
When Old Debt is Really Old Debt
First, it’s important to understand a debt is considered to be “old” when it is beyond the statute of limitations on debt for legal collections. Each state establishes a legal statute of limitations for debt collection. It ranges from a few years to as many as 15 years. When the statute of limitations on debt is reached on a debt, you can no longer be sued for collection of the debt.
If you receive a collections call on an old debt, you can be fairly certain that it is not the original creditor trying to collect. Most creditors charge off the debt after about a year and then sell it to a collection agency for cents on the dollar. However, within a certain period of time that agency has every legal right to pursue collections.
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I’m not about to make any stock market predictions for the New Year, but one thing I can say with nearly 100% certainty is that 
there will be more uncertainty. If all we could count on is “more of the same”, we might even find comfort in that. After all, we now know what it is like to live through another year of anemic economic growth, chronic unemployment, a suffocating housing market, political deadlock, threatening deficits, a worsening Euro-crisis, China deflating, and a world on fire. And, so does the stock market in 2012 which usually does a fair job pricing all of this into its valuation.
I do anticipate that some of these will improve over the coming months – continued economic growth albeit tepid, better housing numbers, and flat to lower government spending (but no real improvement on the deficit). At the same time, we can expect some things to get worse before they get better – political deadlock exacerbated by the elections, a hard landing for the Chinese economy, the Euro-crisis, and Middle East (and possibly Korean) tensions, which could unleash a black swan event that could throw the markets into turmoil.
On a fundamental basis, the stage is set for slightly improved performance for the stock market in 2012. Corporate earnings will continue to modestly improve. Interest rates will remain low. The economy looks to have dodged the double-dip recession bullet; and we should see some slight improvement in the employment situation.
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After a three year lull in the credit card industry, offers are starting to flood consumers’ mailboxes ,and people who have been on the sidelines as far as credit card use are starting to bite on them. For people who got into 
trouble with past credit card usage, it would be a wise thing to, this time around, really study the fine print on the application and in the terms and conditions.
Although the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forcing card issuers to make it more understandable, the fine print and the credit laws still provide credit card issuers with a lot of ways to come after you if you stop paying on your debt. Hopefully, you won’t find yourself in that situation again, but if you do, you should know both the capabilities and the limitations on credit card debt recovery.
Creditors Can and Will Call You
Although you may not hear from them until after you’ve missed two or three payments, you can expect a call at some point. And, if they can’t reach you at home, they can and will call your workplace or any other place or phone for which they have a phone number. They can start calling at 8am and will often call several times during the day up until 5pm. They will fill your voicemail box. If you choose to ignore them, the calls will continue – perfectly legal.
The best course is to take the call and explain your situation. While they’re not the most compassionate people in the world, they may listen and they may be willing to work with you to a small extent. You will be asked to provide specific dates and amounts to which you will commit payments. Even if you agree, you may, and probably will, continue to receive calls.
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As the wild stock market gyrations continue, investors are reawakening to the performance benchmarks of their mutual funds to see if their fund choices are at least doing better than the market indexes. With most 
actively managed mutual funds underperforming the current market, investors are, once again, feverishly moving their funds out of stock funds and into cash or bonds. And as a result, investors are once again locking in subpar returns and relegating their financial future to “safe” investments with low or negative returns.
Benchmarking has become a standard practice for investors, especially with the proliferation of mutual funds on the market all vying for attention. TV ads and investment newsletters blast benchmark results on a daily basis, creating a herd mindset that they must be important. Also, as the number of indices has grown over the years, investors have more ways to compare their funds. But, can this method of evaluation provide investors with the kind of information that can guide their investment choices over the long term?
Why Benchmarking Mutual Funds Doesn’t Work
As most studies indicate, mutual fund investors who turn over their funds frequently rarely achieve returns that beat the market. It is also common knowledge that the vast majority of fund managers fail to consistently beat the major market indices. And to the chagrin of investors, very few funds that do track or beat the indices in a given year go on to repeat that performance in subsequent years.
While benchmarking mutual funds is a valid way of evaluating funds, investors may be missing the mark if they rely too heavily on them for making their investment decisions. By focusing on fund performance as compared to the market, investors may become overly sensitive to the market risk they are assuming and make abrupt decisions in an effort to mitigate the risk or chase surging mutual funds.
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Unless you are among the unbanked or underbanked in America, those who by choice or circumstance don’t show up on the banking grid, you have come to realize that it is virtually impossible to get through life without 
the use of plastic. You need a credit card to make purchases online, to book travel, and for emergencies when you are short of cash.
But if you’re among the many people who have run into credit problems in the past, or are just starting to build your credit, a credit card may not be available to you, which is why more people are turning to secured credit cards – as a way to rebuild or establish their credit. For people who need plastic, secured cards don’t get the same consideration as debit cards, largely because they are not as widely available, but there are a number of reasons why you would want to use them instead of debit cards.
It’s Like Real Credit
Except that you are the one that establishes the credit limit with your own deposit of money, typically around $300 to $500 a month which does earn savings rate interest. With some cards, the issuing bank will add a percentage of credit on top of your deposit, but usually only after you have established a solid payment history. If they continue to increase your credit limit over your deposit, then you are probably ready to qualify for a credit card. It’s best not to use a secured card any longer than you have to.
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