“What we have isn’t legal rights under the law,” he said. “What we have is legal rights if you can afford a lawyer.”

The office of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, did not immediately respond Tuesday morning to a request for comment on the suit and to a question about whether the help Upsolve wants to offer would violate rules on the unlicensed practice of law. The New York State Bar Association, which represents lawyers, said it would not comment on pending litigation.

In America, consumers are served with suits alleging failure to make payments of all kinds, whether for phone bills or fish tanks. The most common subjects of debt collection suits include medical bills, credit card balances and auto loans.

Americans do not legitimately owe most of the debt they are sued for, according to consumer advocates. A 2010 report by the Legal Aid Society found that in more than one-third of debt-collection cases reviewed, the debt had already been paid or had resulted from mistaken identity or identity theft; the statute of limitations on collecting the debt had expired; or the debt had been shed in bankruptcy. ACA International, a trade group for debt collectors, did not immediately respond on Tuesday to a request for comment on the Legal Aid Society’s report.

Marshal Coleman, a veteran consumer lawyer in Manhattan, said that most consumer debt suits were over matters of a few thousand dollars. “Typically, if a client like that comes to a lawyer,” he said, “a lawyer’s not going to be able to help them because the fees will exceed the value of the services.”

There are legal aid organizations that offer free representation to low-income people, but they tend to focus their very limited resources on other matters, like domestic-violence protection orders, evictions and foreclosures. Legal Services NYC, the city’s biggest provider of free civil legal services, has 450 lawyers on staff. Only one concentrates on consumer debt suits.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/nyregion/consumer-debt-legal-advice.html

The bull market may have swelled the proportion of stocks in your portfolio inordinately. If that’s the case, rebalance. Sell some high value stocks and put the money into bonds. Later on, if the stock market falls, you can sell some bonds to buy stocks. Better yet, let a balanced fund (or a target-date fund), do it automatically.

Diversify with cheap index funds.

Diversified, low-cost, broad-based index funds, which mirror the overall market, are a much safer way to invest in stocks and bonds than buying individual securities.

If you pick the right stock — say, Apple — and hold it for decades, you will outperform any index fund. Since 1989, the numbers show, Apple’s returns are about 20 times greater than those of the SP 500.

But picking and holding a stock like Apple from the beginning is exceedingly difficult. Apple was a miserable stock through much of the 1980s and 1990s. Would you have known to stick with it when it was near bankruptcy? I did not.

Furthermore, unlike Apple, roughly 96 percent of the securities in the U.S. stock market don’t earn money for investors at all over long periods, according to research by Hendrik Bessembinder, a professor of finance at Arizona State University. Professor Bessembinder has since found that in global markets, too, most stocks won’t earn you money over the long run.

Broad, low-cost index funds takes care of these problems. You’ll own little pieces of a lot of mediocre stocks, but the winners have pulled the indexes higher, regardless.

None of this guarantees that you will make money in stock funds, however.

After bear markets, American stocks have always come back and redeemed their losses. But that might not be true forever.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/business/stocks-hold-or-sell.html

“I had worked virtually every moment that I wasn’t in school,” he wrote in a history for the company.

The firm begun in the 19th century by his great-grandfather Maurice got into numismatics as a sideline, buying and selling collector coins and currency in addition to its primary function in foreign exchange. It later diversified into dealing in antiques and rare stamps.

In 1935, after converting the company to a rare coin dealership, Morton and Joseph Stack held their first public auction. In 1953, Stack’s moved to a gallery on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan. (It is now on 38th Street and has galleries in other cities.)

In 2011, Stack’s merged with Bowers Merena to create Stack’s Bowers Galleries.

Mr. Stack was the president of the Professional Numismatists Guild for two years beginning in 1989. In 1993 he was given the Founder’s Award, the guild’s highest honor.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Harriet (Spellman) Stack; his daughter, Susan; two grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He lived on Long Island.

The Stack’s gallery was considered an inviting global clubhouse by many coin dealers and collectors. But Mr. Stack was not shy about promoting the company’s financial success.

“There are people who sell gold and silver bullion, and rolls and bags of coins, who call themselves coin dealers, and some of them probably do upward of $100 million business a year,” he told The New York Times in 1984. “When you say ‘rare coin dealers,’ though, and speak of firms that sell both directly and at auction, we’re the largest coin dealer in the United States.”

He drew a distinction between coin collectors, whom he courted assiduously, and investors.

“If a collector and an investor had to abandon a sinking ship, the collector would take with him the rarest and most aesthetically appealing pieces without regard to market value,” he told The Times in 1977. “The investor would try to take as much of his coins as possible, starting with the most valuable.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/business/harvey-g-stack-dead.html

Next came deciding what streaming services to keep.

Mr. Willcox suggests making a list of the shows you and your family want to watch and then matching them with the appropriate streaming service. Set a limit on what you want to spend. “It’s a lot more work than it used to be,” he said.

To keep the total cost under a target of $250 a month (a savings of at least $150 from my current bill), I had $65 left.

I prefer advertising-free viewing, so I’m planning on paying a bit more than I would for ad-supported streaming options. Even so, my savings should cover the cost of monthly subscriptions to Netflix (currently $13.99 for a standard plan), Paramount+ ($9.99 for premium) and Amazon Prime video ($8.99; if you pay for a full Prime membership, video is included). I learned that we can keep Disney+ bundled with two more services free — Hulu (shows include “Only Murders in the Building,” with Steve Martin) and ESPN+ — as part of a promotion from Verizon, our mobile phone company. The Hulu option in the deal has ads, but I’ll take them — for now. Finally, we can add HBO Max ($11.99) and watch acclaimed shows like “Station Eleven.”

(Our Apple TV+ subscription is free for six more months; we’ll re-evaluate it when the promotion expires.)

Grand total for streaming and cable: $230.

With the overall savings (about $170 a month), maybe we can even buy other things (hopefully, more books).

Still, that’s a lot of television — and it’s probably unnecessary to pay for all of those subscriptions year round, Mr. Willcox said. You could instead pay for a month here and there because most streaming services currently allow customers to join and cancel at will. (Just remember to cancel.)

For instance, if you don’t care about watching a new show right away, he said, you can simply wait. When an entire season of a show that you want to watch becomes available, you can join the appropriate streaming service, watch it for a month, then cancel — and sign up again later if something else catches your fancy. (Some people even binge watch their selections during free trials.) It takes some planning but can save you money.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/your-money/cable-streaming-bill.html

Make a list of your nonnegotiable monthly expenses — mortgage, rent, food, utilities, insurance, car payments, other debt, child care — and a list of what you can do without. If you don’t already have an emergency fund, you should save at least three to six months’ worth of expenses. Even if your job search doesn’t take that long, that sum doesn’t account for costs you can’t anticipate.

If you own a home, applying for a home equity line of credit before you quit (and lose your pay stubs) can provide added security. “You may not need it, but it is a nice thing to fall back on for extra cash because it is much cheaper than drawing on credit cards,” said Laura Rotter, a financial planner in White Plains, N.Y.

A Roth individual retirement account can also act as backstop: Contributions, but not earnings, can be withdrawn without penalty.

Take advantage of flexible spending accounts.

Before you leave, be sure to use (or lose) the money you’ve set aside in your flexible spending accounts, whether for medical or dependent care expenses. Expenses must be incurred before you leave.

There’s good news for employees here, and it may surprise you: You’re entitled to the full health care F.S.A. amount you elected to set aside — even though the money is taken out of your paycheck over the course of the year. If you elected to set aside $2,000 for medical expenses but have had only $1,000 taken out of your checks by the time you leave, you can still spend the entire sum. And your employer can’t make you pay back the difference.

“An employer is stuck with the bill,” said Karen Burke, an adviser with the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM, a trade organization.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/your-money/quitting-your-job-guide.html

Before she became eligible for Medicare, Deborah Rosenwinkel, who lives in Wheaton, Ill., and has rheumatoid arthritis, used a manufacturer’s discount card for Enbrel, a biologic she injected at home once a week. The $12,000 card covered her deductible and co-payments, while her individual insurance policy picked up the balance, of up to $80,000 a year.

But when Ms. Rosenwinkel turned 65 last February and enrolled in Medicare, she was no longer eligible for the card. Even when a Medicare Part D plan covers Enbrel, annual co-payments could run as much as $7,000.

Ms. Rosenwinkel’s rheumatologist advised her to switch drugs. Because the new medication is injected monthly in the physician’s office, it falls under Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient services. Medicare and her private Medigap plan cover the total cost. “I have not received any bills,” she said. “I am so grateful.”

The price tags for wheelchairs, patient lifts and other durable medical equipment also can be steep. Medicare pays 80 percent if the doctor and supplier are enrolled in the program. Disease-specific organizations or local aging organizations may be able to recommend nonprofit groups that provide free or discounted equipment.

Mr. Schwartz’s wheelchair cost $30,000, with a $6,000 co-payment. But Medicare did not cover a standing frame, which improves muscle and bone strength by enabling users to stand with support. To help pay for the $15,000 device, he raised more than $10,000 in a GoFundMe campaign.

Another source of financial help: tax write-offs. Taxpayers can deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. Among eligible costs: drug expenses, home improvements such as support bars, assisted-living charges, and medical equipment. To take advantage of the deduction, people who have large medical bills should consider tapping sources of taxable income, such as an individual retirement account, Dr. McClanahan said.

While he deals with his own physical and financial challenges, Mr. Schwartz helps raise money for others with multiple sclerosis. Over 10 years, first for the Myelin Repair Foundation and then for the MS Society, he has made six tandem sky-diving jumps. He hopes to jump again in June.

“People say I am amazing, and it feels good for people to tell you how great you are,” he said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/business/chronic-illness-financial-planning.html

The Biden administration is seeking an additional $80 billion over a decade for the I.R.S. to increase its staff, upgrade its technology and improve its enforcement and customer service capacity. That request is part of the administration’s Build Back Better Act, which is stalled in Congress.

“Additional resources are essential to helping our employees do more in 2022 — and beyond,” Charles P. Rettig, the I.R.S. commissioner, said in a statement on Monday.

Ms. Collins reiterated the agency’s recommendation that Congress provide it with enough money to do its job. Since 2010, the I.R.S.’s staffing is down 17 percent, according to the report. Its workload, measured by the number of individual returns, is up from 142 million in 2010 to 169 million last year — an increase of 19 percent.

Over the past two years, the agency has been charged with administering several pandemic-related programs, including three rounds of stimulus (totaling 478 million payments worth $812 billion) and $93 billion in advance payments for the expanded child tax credit to more than 36 million families.

“One irony of the past year is that, despite its challenges, the I.R.S. performed well under the circumstances,” Ms. Collins wrote.

As of late December, the I.R.S. had yet to finish processing six million original tax returns, 2.3 million amended returns, more than two million employer quarterly returns and five million pieces of taxpayer correspondence — with some submissions dating to April and with many taxpayers still waiting for refunds, according to the advocate’s report. In contrast, there are fewer than a million unaddressed returns in a more typical year, according to Treasury officials.

Even millions of returns filed electronically — which usually flow through the system more quickly — were suspended during processing because of discrepancies between the amounts claimed on returns and what the I.R.S. had on record.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/irs-backlog-tax-returns-2021.html

Banking regulators have taken aim at overdraft practices in recent months. Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has said many lenders have become “hooked on overdraft fees” to feed their profits. The acting comptroller of the currency, Michael J. Hsu, has said the charges disproportionately affect vulnerable customers.

Bank of America’s plan is the most aggressive among the biggest banks, but smaller banks have gone further: Capital One and Ally Financial eliminated fees for overdrafting last year. Some lenders have introduced less-punitive alternatives to the fees, like grace periods or small short-term loans.

JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, said last month that it planned to give overdrawn customers an extra business day to raise their balances to within the $50 “overdraft cushion” that prevents fees from being charged. Even before Tuesday’s announcement, Bank of America was offering strapped customers loans of up to $500 that must be repaid over three months.

“This is a very strong program that creates both limits, guardrails and the supports that people need to get through cash crunches that are going to continue to come to many working families,” Mike Calhoun, the president of the Center for Responsible Lending, an advocacy group that promotes financial fairness, said in an interview.

The nonprofit, which was among the community groups consulted by Bank of America on the new policies, has urged all financial institutions to eliminate overdraft fees.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/your-money/bank-of-america-overdraft-fees.html

When I first posed this question to Mr. Kumarasamy, he suggested that it was a kind of gamesmanship. I objected to that, given that plenty of people don’t feel they can afford his $75,000 or so list price but can make it work at $50,000 with that merit aid discount. How can this be gaming the system, I asked, when he doesn’t give them any sense ahead of time of whether they might get that $25,000 off?

Eventually, he came around. “What is not good for the student is not good for any of us,” he said. But he was also quick to point out the zero-sum nature of early decision; if you bail out on an acceptance, you took the spot of someone else — perhaps someone even needier than you — who would have liked their shot at getting in early in their senior year of high school and actually accepting the school’s financial aid offer.

“There’s a difference between behavior that occurs in rare instances and behavior we want to encourage,” a Northeastern spokesman, Michael Armini, said via email.

I would like to encourage that behavior a bit more than Northeastern does, and I wish college counselors in high schools would too.

It would be so much easier if none of this parsing was necessary, but early decision is going to be with us for a while because colleges like it so much. When enrollment managers (as they now often refer to themselves) admit a large fraction of a class at a point in the process where students feel obliged to come if they get in, it gives the schools great control over precisely what sorts of students are in any given class — and how much revenue they will deliver.

So as long as we’re stuck with a highly imperfect system, schools should say what percentage of students get merit aid in the early decision round, if they have one and also offer merit aid. All schools should also say what percentage of the overall class gets merit aid and explain how they’re defining the term.

They should say that early decision is not binding, and they should pledge not to punish future applicants from high schools where former applicants walked away from an early decision acceptance. They should also clarify whether they have a problem with people who decline an early decision offer because they didn’t get enough merit aid.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/your-money/college-early-decision-northeastern-merit-aid.html

But others may urge filers to use the amounts shown in their records, if they have documentation — like a bank statement — to show that they are accurate. That, however, could cause the I.R.S. to flag the return for review, delaying the entire refund — not just the amount tied to the child tax credit, said Erin M. Collins, the national taxpayer advocate. Ms. Collins heads the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent agency representing taxpayers inside the I.R.S.

One option could be to file a return using the I.R.S. numbers, then file an amended return later with the amounts documented in the filer’s records. Filers would eventually get the correct amount from the credit, without delaying their entire refund.

But Eric Smith, an I.R.S. spokesman, advised against that approach because the agency already has a large backlog of amended returns to process, and wait times will probably lengthen once filers begin submitting returns for 2021. “Amended returns take a long time, even under the best of circumstances,” he said.

Ms. Evenstad said filers who wanted to get at least part of their refund could choose to file with the I.R.S. numbers and then ask the agency to trace the payments in question so they could get the money once the difference was verified.

“They definitely should talk to their accountant,” Ms. Collins said, noting that her office does not give tax advice. Since there is still time before returns can be filed, she said, taxpayers can try to contact the I.R.S. to correct any discrepancy. Be aware, however, that wait times for assistance may be lengthy. “It’s not going to be a quick fix,” she said.

If you got advance payments but don’t receive an I.R.S. letter, you can go to the I.R.S.’s child tax credit update website and create an account to check your information online. (You’ll need to verify your identity, using an ID like a driver’s license or a passport, and you’ll need a way to take a photograph of yourself and upload it.)

The total amount of the credit varies from family to family, and is based on your child’s age as well as your income and filing status. Families with children 5 and younger are eligible for credits of as much as $3,600 per child, with up to $300 received monthly in advance; those with children ages 6 to 17 are eligible for up to $3,000, with up to $250 a month in advance. Families are eligible for the full amount if they earn less than $150,000 and are married filing a joint return. Single filers who earn less than $75,000 are also eligible for the full amount, as are head-of-household filers earning less than $112,500.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/your-money/taxes-irs.html