In 1997, with its stock price in the mid $60 per share range and an average market capitalization valued around $16 billion, JC Penney (JCP), having an investment grade credit rating, issued a $500 million, 100-year bond, that paid a coupon of 7.625%. On Friday, May 15th, 2020, the 118-year old JC Penney filed for…

Read More

Virtual currency received for small tasks on a crowdsourcing platform is taxable Watch the latest video at foxnews.com The IRS issued new guidance clarifying how cryptocurrencies are treated for tax purposes when they are received in exchange for certain services. The tax agency recently released a memorandum stating that an individual who receives digital currency through a crowdsourcing platform…

Read More

Reuters/Phil McCarten   Mohamed El-Erian has warned that gold’s status as a “must-have” asset has led to its “bipolar personality”, as investors buy it as a hedge against both inflation and deflation. Gold’s rapid price rise “is yet another unintended result in a lengthening list of the exceptional involvement of central banks in the functioning of…

Read More

When the economy imploded in 2007, millions of young homeowners saw their property values disintegrate. The American Dream was never the same. Getty After looking at several houses along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, my new wife and I decided the sunny cottage on Audubon Drive in Foley was the one—so long as the seller came down…

Read More

A boarded up building in downtown Louisville. Photographer: Andrew Cenci/Bloomberg Big companies are going bankrupt at a record pace, but that’s only part of the carnage. By some accounts, small businesses are disappearing by the thousands amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and the drag on the economy from these failures could be huge. This wave of silent…

Read More

Some individuals who did not receive their economic impact payment – or received less than they were eligible for – may not have to wait until next year to see the amount corrected. The Taxpayer Advocate Service will help the IRS resolve stimulus check issues beginning on August 10 – and the IRS will start correcting payment…

Read More

The IRS warns about the top 12 taxpayer scams. GETTY Tax season is finally over, unless you opted for a filing extension until October 15, but tax scams are still brewing. The Internal Revenue Service released its annual Dirty Dozen tax scams today with a warning about aggressive and evolving schemes related to Covid-19 tax relief, especially…

Read More

Think chasing big S&P 500 dividends is a savvy thing to do? 2020 served up yet another reminder that this is a costly and flawed strategy. All 10 of the S&P 500 stocks with the highest dividend yields coming into the year, like real estate play Iron Mountain (IRM), energy firm and Warren Buffett holding Occidental Petroleum (OXY) plus consumer…

Read More