Archive for January 14th, 2013

Warning: Before you click the 1040 eFile button …

January 14, 2013

This one strikes close to home.

Article in this morning’s WSJ E-Filing and the Explosion in Tax-Return Fraud

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Over 80% of individual returns were e-filed last year.

As a direct result:

  • Tax fraud is now the third-largest theft of federal funds after Medicare/Medicaid and unemployment-insurance fraud.
  • Tax-identity theft exploded to more than 1.1 million cases from 51,700 in 2008.
  • Last summer, the Treasury “discovered” an additional 1.5 million potentially fraudulent 2011 tax refunds totaling in excess of $5.2 billion.
  • The IRS has a backlog of 650,000 identity theft cases, and it usually takes over a year to resolve each of them

Here’s why I don’t just shrug off those stats.

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Posted in Identity Fraud, IRS, Taxes | 1 Comment »

My imagination, or did my middle class paycheck get smaller?

January 14, 2013

Even the lowest information voters should have realized by now that their paychecks have shrunk by 2% …  since the Feds didn’t renew the 2% payroll tax holiday.

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The big question for the economy as 2013 gets underway is how America will react to their smaller paychecks.

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Posted in Behavioral Economics, Consumer psychology, Fiscal cliff, Payroll taxes, Taxes | Leave a Comment »

Patagonia: “Don’t buy our stuff” … say, what?

January 14, 2013

Punch line: Cloaked in green, Patagonia’s proposition — that you not buy its clothes — is resulting in some of its best sales ever.

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Excerpted from Fast Company’s, “How Patagonia Makes More Money By Trying To Make Less”

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Instead of blasting sales prices and urging consumers to load up their virtual shopping carts, Patagonia encourages consumers to buy less.

(more…)

Posted in Mktg - Promotion, Retailing, Sustainability | 1 Comment »