New rule protects consumers from unscrupulous debt relief firms...

A new Federal Trade Commission rule meant to reign in the deceptive practices of for-profit debt relief services will take effect this week, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The Better Business Bureau has received more than 6,000 complaints about debt relief companies since December 2007. Many of these credit counseling, debt settlement and debt negotiation services advertise on late-night television and charge advance fees to cover their marketing costs, The Tulsa World reported.

Beginning Wednesday, the FTC will have the legal authority to ban debt relief firms from charging or collecting these upfront retainers until a debt has been settled and the customer has started to make payments. The new rule also requires these companies to:

* Back up their advertising claims

* Provide a written settlement agreement or debt management plan

* Tell customers how much their services cost

* List all potential penalties

* Explain how long customers will have to wait before seeing results - (more)

How One Woman Went to Tax Court and Won Deduction...

(Wall Street Journal)- A Maryland nurse accomplished two rare feats in her battle with the Internal Revenue Service: She defended herself against the agency's lawyers and won, and she got a ruling that could help tens of thousands of students deduct the cost of an M.B.A. degree on their taxes. The U.S. Tax Court handed Lori Singleton-Clarke her victory last month, saying the 47-year-old Bryantown, Md., woman had properly deducted nearly $15,000 in business school tuition. The Tax Court ruling should make it easier for many other professionals to deduct the expense of a Master in Business Administration degree. After getting word of the court decision, "I nearly yelled the roof off the house," Ms. Singleton-Clarke says. "I still can hardly believe it." The IRS's rules on deducting work-related tuition are complicated and onerous, ultimately preventing most students from deducting their tuition. But this case clarifies the rules and will likely lead to more taxpayers taking the deduction, tax experts say.- complete article

Disappearing Federal Estate Tax Could Be A Mirage...

(Hartford Courant)- For the first time since 1916, wealthy people who die can leave an unlimited amount to their children or grandchildren without the IRS's taking its piece. The 2010 hiatus from the federal tax — a quirk that no one ever expected would happen — could last all year, if Congress doesn't act on it. Or, the temporary death of the "death" tax could be a mirage, if lawmakers slap a levy on estates retroactive to Jan. 1 of this year.

The outcome is anyone's guess. For now, the federal estate tax — scheduled to return at a high level in 2011 — is a confusing morass affecting thousands of families with multimillion-dollar estates. It also stands at the heart of a broader debate about how government should raise money. That's nowhere sharper than in Connecticut, the nation's richest state, with many families with fortunes to protect, but also among the most liberal, with wealthy residents who say the tax is fair. In 2009 and into this year, the state's estate tax has been a political football in the contest over how to balance an out-of-whack budget. - complete article

But what's happened to the federal tax has taken political gridlock to new heights.

"No one would argue it's best to go from 45 percent to zero to 55 percent, and yet that's what we're doing," said Ben Harris, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.