QUESTION:
I have 14K in a deferred comp account (457) from a previous employer. I just found out that since I'm separated from service, I can't take out a loan (to pay myself back in 5 years, it was my preference for retirement.) I have been "under employed" for the last 2 years, relying on a credit card to help out now and then. I missed a payment, and the interest rate was bumped to 30% (ack)! Now that I have a better job, I did a balance transfer to stop the interest rate, transferring it to another credit card with a lower interest rate (I only have 2.) The question more

QUESTION:
56 yr old married female on ss disability, husband works construction. We owe the irs 110,000 and the state of Indiana 52,000. We are making a small payment to the state but the federal is in non collectable status for now. Every year they have us fill out our current finances. Now can they garnish my ss and or my husband’s retirement, annuity or life insurance at his retirement.
The IRS Blues more

Warren Buffett, the mega-billionaire American investor who teamed up with Microsoft's Bill Gates to create an epic philanthropic endowment, may have performed his greatest public service recently with an op-ed piece in The New York Times. He bluntly told Congress in that essay to quit coddling the mega-rich, whose fortunes have soared in the past 20 years at rates far above the imperceptible gains of ordinary wage-earners, and to levy an income tax on this ultra-rich elite like they paid in "back in the 1980s and 1990s, (when) tax rates for the rich were far higher." more

The government is cutting premiums by up to 40 percent in 17 states and implementing other changes to make it easier for people with pre-existing medical conditions to get health insurance.

The move Tuesday comes as enrollment in the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan continues to lag far behind expectations, often because people can't afford the premiums or find it too hard to meet enrollment more

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When members of Congress and candidates for president bring up the issue of Social Security these days, Americans had better pay close attention -- and Californians closer still.

To a degree that would have been unimaginable in the now-gone golden age of retirement, Social Security has become the solitary pillar of support that for about half of today's California workers will allow them to survive on near-poverty incomes rather than become destitute when they reach old age. more

Many big investors look at the drop in the stock market as a buying opportunity. Small business owners should consider it an opportunity, as well. That's because it can be a smart time to start a retirement plan.

Workers may appreciate the chance to buy stocks while they're lower - or, if they're uneasy about the market, to start accumulating cash. And this is a good time of year to set up a plan and get a tax break, even for 2010. more

The long term used to mean three-, five- or 10-year holding periods for stock investors looking to wring out risk and boost their odds of making money. Then came the 2000s, dubbed the Lost Decade, when the U.S. stock market posted negative returns in a decade for the first time since the 1930s.

That poor 10-year stretch put a big dent in the boilerplate more