Bank finance articles and tips

Standard costs serve as benchmarks that represent expected future costs required to achieve an objective or goal. In business, these costs are mainly used for decision management and decision control. The same control applications can be employed for family finances. The related concepts that are exercised in business prove beneficial to several areas of family finance described below.

Families operate very similarly to businesses, working together to reach common family-related objectives through setting goals. Similar to businesses maintaining mission statements, families develop unofficial, unwritten family standards and themes. Within the overall family objective are many smaller objectives that change with time, economic demands and other internal or external factors. Standard costs provide businesses with a mean for decision management and control in order to assist them in reaching their objectives, and thus, the principles can be applied to family finance in the same manner to achieve common objectives.

The IRS has released details about the registered tax return preparer exam. Availability of online scheduling for the exam is expected soon. Testing will occur at centers provided by Prometric, a third party administrator of professional examinations.

Tax preparers are required to pass the competency exam in order to use the designation of Registered Tax Return Preparer. The IRS goal is assurance of basic preparer competency in meeting ethical responsibilities for tax reporting. According to the IRS, the RTRP exam 2011 relies upon 2010 tax forms and publications....