» Basic Financial Concepts

The progressive tax system is widely used around the world. It is based on the idea that the more taxable income or profit an individual makes the higher the rate of tax they should pay. The way this system should work is that those who earn the least amount of money should have to pay the least amount of tax – they will pay a lower percentage of tax on their income than the high earners. It is viewed as fair system by many but there are also critics who believe that taxing the rich too much stifles the economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Public sector entities in the United States require their own system for accounting. These will be used in all state, federal, and local agencies. Government accounting has its own principles and guidelines. These are provided by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) or the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). Federal agencies will rely on the guidelines provided by the FASAB while other public agencies will use GASB guidelines.

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The word ‘omnibus’ refers to one item that contains inside a number of different items. For example, when we say that a book is an omnibus we mean that it contains a collection of stories possibly by different authors. An omnibus account is also one thing that contains a number of different things, but in this case it is investors.

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Investing in the future is always a great idea, and this is why we bother with things like pensions. If we have spare cash today then the wisest thing to do is put this by for later. When we get older we will likely have far less potential for making money so we have to make provisions for this now. This is why most of us will regularly put money into our pension funds. But what happens if we hit a bad patch now? Will we be able to get this money back that we have put aside for our retirement? Well this is where the hardship withdrawal comes into play. It is an option with some 401K plans and it is a way to get to our money early if life gets too rough financially. The companies that manage these plans add the hardship withdrawal element as a way to encourage people to choose them. This is because we are more likely to put money aside for our future if we know that we can get to it in an emergency.

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When some of us first hear about a jumbo CD we may get a mental picture of compact disc packed full of great music. In fact, this type of CD actually refers to ‘certificates of deposit’ and a jumbo one of these means that it involves a very large denomination. In most cases this will be denominations greater than $100,000. This type of certificate of deposit is usually considered to be a low risk investment.

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People will usually have different types of income. For instance, they may have their salary and other money they get for providing services. For tax purposes it is necessary to declare not only your earned income but also you unearned income. There can be confusion though, about what this unearned income actually refers to. In simple terms this unearned money is any money that you have been paid but you have not yet earned. For example, if you have been paid money in advance for some service that is not yet complete then this would be considered to be unearned income. There are also other types of unearned income that we will consider below.

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Different financial instruments will have a face value. This is referred to as a notional amount or notional value. The word ‘notional’ means that something is just an idea and not a physical reality. The reason why we talk about a notional amount on a financial instrument is that it is an amount of money that doesn’t actually change hands. This numerical value is still important though, especially when it comes to calculating any payments that need to be made on a bond, future, or other derivative instrument.

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An allonge is something that may sound quite exotic, but it is actually quite a simple document. It is generally just a slip of paper where people can add their signature. The reason for having an allonge is that it makes it possible for the reader to confirm that they agree with the contents of a main document. In a lot of cases this slip of paper will be added to something like a contract or other agreement.  Even though this slip of paper is a separate physical document it is considered the same as the main document for legal purposes. The name of this piece of paper comes from the French word ‘allonger’ which means to draw out. Read the rest of this entry »