The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Beware of tax scams as tax season approaches

It will be time to file your income taxes soon, so that means scam artists are hard at work trying to get your money.

The IRS is seeing two new types of tax-related scams, one dealing with Social Security numbers and the other a phony tax bill:

• The SSN hustle. The latest twist includes scammers claiming to be able to suspend or cancel the victim’s Social Security number. It may be associated with the IRS impersonation scam. Con artists try to frighten people into returning “robocall” voicemails. They may mention overdue taxes in addition to threatening to cancel the person’s SSN.
• Fake tax agency. A letter threatens an IRS lien or levy, based on bogus delinquent taxes owed to a non-existent agency, the “Bureau of Tax Enforcement.” The lien notification scam also probably refers to the IRS to confuse potential victims into thinking the letter is from a real federal agency.

Number of retirees with mortgages increases dramatically

Retirement is different than it used to be. Many more retirees are still trying to pay off their homes.

One of four homeowners 30 years ago who were in their late 60s and 70s still had a mortgage. These days, nearly half have one. When people turned 80, mortgages used to be unusual, with just 3 percent being mortgage holders. These days, one in four of these older seniors have mortgages, according to “Housing America’s Older Adults 2019,” a report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

Seniors who have paid off their homes have more money to spend, which improves their standard of living in retirement.

Best wishes on Veterans Day

There are about 20.4 million veterans in America, and they make up less than 10 percent of the adult population in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.

The center offers these facts about those who have served in the military and how they’re changing:

1. Gulf War-era veterans now account for the largest share of all U.S. Veterans, surpassing Vietnam-era veterans in 2016.
2. The share of the U.S. population with military experience is declining with 7 percent of U.S. adults as veterans in 2016, down from 18 per cent in 1980.
3. More women will be veterans with the 9 percent in 2016 increasing to 18 percent by 2045.
4. Fewer members of Congress have prior military experience with 20 percent of senators and 19 percent in the current Congress having served compared to 81 percent of Senators and 75 percent of House members after the Korean War.
5. The Department of Veterans Affairs receives a low favorability rating.

Be sure to vote today

It’s Election Day throughout the nation in most places, and states are having important local elections. Be sure to research carefully who to vote for in these races. The people who run your city, county, and schools are important to your life and the lives of your family.

In addition, governors will be elected in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. State legislative elections also will be held in Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi as well as for the General Assembly, the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature. Special elections are also being held to fill state legislative seats vacated due to retirement, death, resignation, or election to another office.

On ballot measures, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, voters will consider a ballot initiative to change how seats in the legislature are apportioned. In Washington state, voters will decide on Referendum 88, a measure that would allow affirmative action policies in public education, employment, and contracting, and Initiative 976, which would reduce car tabs to $30. In Pennsylvania, voters will consider a constitutional amendment to adopt Marsy’s Law protections for crime victims.

Brush up on your fraud prevention techniques during International Charity Fraud Awareness Week

It’s International Charity Fraud Awareness Week, a coordinated international campaign to help charities and their contributors avoid charity fraud and promote wise giving.

“It’s unfortunate that far too often, scammers take advantage of the generosity of others in order to line their own pockets,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “I am proud to serve a state whose residents always give generously to charities, and I support ICFAW in its efforts to protect generous donors throughout the globe and the charities they support. I urge donors, wherever they are, to take advantage of resources available to them so they may give wisely.”

Some actions that donors can take to avoid fraud are:

How to improve your finances during Financial Literacy Month

It’s a good time during April’s Financial Literacy Month to take a look at how you handle your finances.

What is financial literacy? It’s knowing how to manage your personal finances.

How are Americans doing with financial literacy? In a survey of 1,500 people, respondents estimated that lacking knowledge about personal finances cost them an average of $1,230 in 2018, according to a study by the National Financial Educators Council.

What can you do to improve your financial literacy?

Take a look at your finances.

If you don’t have one, you need a budget. It’s a financial plan that will help you reach your goals. To develop a budget, you’ll need to keep track of your spending. Write down what your fixed monthly expenses are such as car payments and rent or mortgage payments. Determine what your periodic expenses are. They include items such as vacations and tax payments. Then you’ll need to track your variable expenses – food, clothing, transportation, and entertainment, costs that probably change every month.

Happy Tax Day

I’m happy I got my taxes mailed in Saturday. I’m not so happy my refund has gone down substantially. I hope you were able to get your taxes done on time or file for an extension.

I used TurboTax again, which turned out O.K., unlike H&R Block, which wouldn’t give me an estimate on how much it would to do my taxes until they were done.

For free items to get on Tax Day, see Dealnews.com’s The Best Tax Day Freebies to Get Today.

For information on the tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations included in the Trump-GOP 2017 tax law that should be amended or repealed see Americans for Tax Fairness’ report “Fair Taxes Now: Revenue Options for a Fair Tax System.” It recommends:

How is Trump’s tax act affecting you?

On Saturday afternoon, I mailed in my income taxes for 2018. Instead of getting a refund of around $1,000 like I do most years, my refund was $170.

The TurboTax representative I spoke to said deductions that were helpful to me in the past, such as for my small business and charitable donations, have been eliminated.

So while Trump’s tax revisions are helping the rich, they have no benefit for me. That huge corporations pay little or nothing in income taxes and I’m paying more is discouraging. I don’t mind paying my fair share of taxes. I support good schools, roads, and bridges. But Trump’s tax law is making the rich even richer.

Top 14 consumer stories of 2018

All in all, it’s been another bad year for consumers. President Trump and his administration’s generate so much chaos that they get all the media attention. Meanwhile in the background, federal agencies are moving forward on the administration’s conservative regulatory priorities, which are harmful to consumers. One bright spot is the Democrats taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives. That will help curb President Trump's excesses.

Here are the top 14 consumer stories for 2018:

1. The Trump administration continues decimated consumer protections.

President Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Under Mulvaney's leadership, the bureau reversed prior actions and programs of the agency. It has delayed rules to protect consumers from payday lenders, dropped lawsuits, stripped enforcements of fair-lending protections, and reduced the number of fines issued.

President George H.W. Bush: Not a consumer champion

As President George H.W. Bush is being positively eulogized, it’s important to remember that Bush, as often is the case with most Republican, was more interested in helping business interests than consumers.

Here are some examples of how the Bush administration, and the Republican Party, have failed consumers:

But by and large, [George H.W.] Bush was an establishment president. This meant that he did not fundamentally try to fix the inequities wrought by the American model. He escalated, for instance, Reagan’s War on Drugs – leading to the mass incarceration of African-Americans, a blight that still ails the country to this day. The New Statesman

President Bush signed the biggest rewrite of U.S. bankruptcy law in a quarter century, making it harder for debt-ridden Americans to wipe out their obligations. NBC News