Bank finance articles and tips

Cost Segregation is a hidden jewel in which the IRS gives you, the property owner; an opportunity to maximize the return on your investment. Cost Segregation has been around since JFK signed it into law to help stimulate the economy back in 1963. Then in 2008, it was extended to go back five years instead of two, as part of the stimulus plan. That expired in September 2010; all property owners should be looking into Cost Segregation, because you can still go back two years to recapture over paid taxes....

The foreign exchange market has not been behaving the way it should, and the euro has been the most disobedient currency of the majors.

In July the German ZEW expectations index (a measure of sentiment among German investment professionals) fell to a worse-than-expected 30-month low of -15.1, attributed to the European sovereign-debt crisis. The euro should have fallen, and it rose.

Days later, the flash composite PMI for July plummeted to 50.8 from 53.3, barely remaining above the boom-bust line at 50. The EUR climbed again.

So, with fundamentals not adding up, we'll instead look at technical analysis. However, depending on the time frame you look at, the EUR might be set to rise or go down. And, it isn't easy to determine which time frame to use, as the fx market is facing conditions never seen in the 37 years since the 1974 introduction of floating currency rates (and nothing has come close in the 12 years since the EUR was introduced).

For the 2011 tax year, the IRS has made mid-year standard mileage deduction rate adjustments for both business and health related car expenses; it has increased the rate of mileage deduction to cushion against the ever seemingly high and rising fuel prices. The IRS does not customarily make such mid-year adjustments and instead provides an annual standard mileage rate guideline once during fall to apply for the next tax year. However, when the fuel prices rise significantly within a year, the IRS can raise these rates as it did for 2011. The last time that the IRS made such mid-year adjustments was in 2008, when the fuel prices drastically rose following the economic recession.