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Bucks Blog: A.T.M. Surcharge Fees on the Rise

April 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Anyone who uses A.T.M.’s to get cash knows that you usually pay a penalty for using a machine outside your own bank’s network. A recent government report documents just how much those fees have increased in recent years.

Average A.T.M. surcharges — the fee a bank charges someone who is not a customer for using its machine — have increased by 20 percent over the last five years, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office finds.

The average surcharge for banks and credit unions rose to $2.10 in 2012, from $1.75 in 2007 (adjusted for inflation). The surcharges ranged from 45 cents to $5, the report found.

In contrast, the average “foreign” fee — the fee a bank charges its own customers for using a machine not in its network — has remained flat, the report found.

It’s unclear just what bank, in what market, is charging $5 surcharge fees, since the report is based on aggregate data and didn’t name names. Some big banks, notably, JP Morgan Chase, tested $4 and $5 surcharge fees in some markets two years ago, but quietly dropped them.

Generally, banks don’t want their A.T.M. surcharge fees to be so high that they turn away potential customers, one bank official told the G.A.O. investigators. Rather, they want account holders from competing banks to use their machines — and then, perhaps, open accounts at their bank.

Fees are generally higher, bank officials told the government investigators, in areas of low competition, like airports, or amusement parks.

The report estimates there are about 420,000 A.T.M.’s in the United States. About half are operated by financial institutions, which determine the fees charged. The other half are operated by independent firms that work with merchants to set fees.

Most users of the independently owned A.T.M.s pay surcharges, although there are some fee-free networks. Based on an analysis of about 100 A.T.M.’s. run by independent operators, the G.A.O. found the average surcharge for such machines was $2.24, and ranged from $1.50 to $3. (But it said some operators could charge fees that are higher or lower.)

Have you encountered a $5 A.T.M. surcharge? What is the highest surcharge you have paid?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/a-t-m-surcharge-fees-on-the-rise/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,

A Quest for Speedier and Smarter Airport Security

December 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The Transportation Security Administration has expanded its PreCheck trusted traveler program to 35 airports, allowing members who have been deemed low risk to keep shoes, jackets and belts on. Children 12 and under and passengers 75 and older also receive expedited screening at any checkpoint; pilots, flight attendants, members of the military and people with top secret security clearances qualify at some airports.

John S. Pistole, administrator of the T.S.A., said in an interview that the agency’s priority this year had been to move toward a risk-based approach to screening, recognizing that a large majority of travelers are not potential terrorists.

“When the agency was set up, it was focused almost exclusively on the security mission and not as much on the passenger experience,” Mr. Pistole said. “It became an adversarial relationship, so what we’re trying to do through all these initiatives is change that paradigm and make this a partnership.”

Even with these changes, the agency is under pressure to refine its strategy further in 2013. Its operations have been scrutinized by independent researchers, travel industry committees and government officials charged with oversight, and their ideas for reform are coalescing around a consistent theme.

“I use this acronym SEE,” said Stephen M. Lord, director of homeland security and justice issues for the Government Accountability Office, which has issued many lengthy reports about the T.S.A. “They need to make the process more selective, more effective and more efficient.”

More selective means “shrinking the haystack and really focusing on the dangerous people,” Mr. Lord said. While PreCheck and other expedited screening options are a step in that direction, only 7 percent of passengers qualify for these programs, a number Mr. Pistole said the agency was working to expand.

One option being tested is to use dogs that sniff for explosives in tandem with behavior detection officers to divert more people to PreCheck lanes. That process was used at Indianapolis International Airport the day before Thanksgiving, allowing nearly a third of passengers to have expedited screening.

Regarding effectiveness, Mr. Lord said, the T.S.A. needs to improve the technology it relies on — primarily expensive body scanners that may not detect explosives reliably. Although the test results are classified, lawmakers briefed on them have called them disappointing. The agency has acknowledged problems with the slow pace of its X-ray body scanners, removing many of the machines from larger airports in favor of millimeter wave scanners. These now number 655 units in use, in contrast to 170 X-ray machines.

Finally, becoming more efficient means addressing the time passengers spend waiting to get through security — a factor that the T.S.A. does not measure consistently or make public, but one of growing concern to the travel industry as passenger volume has stagnated.

“You can’t focus exclusively on security,” Mr. Lord said. “You’ve got to be mindful of customer service.”

It is difficult to assess how travelers truly feel about airport security. Still, a G.A.O. report released in November found that the T.S.A. did a poor job of tracking and handling customer complaints, a process Mr. Lord described as allowing officials to “essentially investigate themselves.” A separate G.A.O. study called for better performance assessments, particularly as a way to gauge whether airports that use private companies to handle screening, under federal supervision, score higher than airports that use T.S.A. employees.

Mr. Pistole said the agency was working to improve its relationship with passengers. It is training officers and supervisors to defuse escalating situations at checkpoints, appointing customer service staff at some airports and creating a way to send complaints that are not resolved locally to an ombudsman.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/business/a-quest-for-speedier-and-smarter-airport-security.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

The Agenda: Why the Health Care Tax Credit Eludes Many Small Businesses

September 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

The Agenda has now profiled three small businesses that are struggling in different ways with providing health insurance to employees. The companies are very different — they trade in very different parts of the economy, and couldn’t be located much further apart geographically — but they do have one thing in common: Though all three have fewer than 25 employees, not one has qualified for the tax credit in the Affordable Care Act that was intended to help small businesses pay for health insurance. Indeed, the credit is one element of the controversial health law that has already fallen short of expectations.

Estimates of the number of businesses eligible to take the tax credit have ranged from 1.4 million to 4 million companies, but in May, the Government Accountability Office reported that only 170,300 firms actually claimed the credit in 2010. Of these, only a small fraction, 17 percent, were able to claim the whole credit.

For eligible companies, the credit effectively refunds 35 percent of health insurance expenses between 2010 and 2013.* After 2014, the credit increases to 50 percent and is available for any two consecutive years. The credit is fully available to companies with 10 or fewer full-time employees and average wages below $25,000. It phases out as the number of employees rises to 25 and wages grow to $50,000. In 2009, there were about 4.6 million companies with fewer than 10 employees, according to the Census Bureau, and 5.7 million with fewer than 100.

The credit was aimed squarely at the smallest companies, which rarely offer health insurance to employees. However, as we reported two weeks ago, it appears not to have persuaded very many to start offering insurance. The most recent study of employer health insurance from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that just half of all companies with fewer than 10 employees offered insurance, a share that has not moved much since 2005.

So why has the credit fallen short of expectations? The G.A.O. concluded that the credit was too small to sway business owners. Moreover, it said, claiming the credit is a task so complicated as to discourage many companies from trying. Companies have to determine the number of hours each employee worked in the year, as well as compile information about their insurance premiums. “Small-business owners generally do not want to spend the time or money to gather the necessary information to calculate the credit, given that the credit will likely be insubstantial,” the report said, citing conversations with tax preparers. “Tax preparers told us it could take their clients from two to eight hours or possibly longer to gather the necessary information to calculate the credit and that the tax preparers spent, in general, three to five hours calculating the credit.”

The G.A.O. report hints at the complexity with this delicious example:

On its Web site, I.R.S. tried to reduce the burden on taxpayers by offering “3 Simple Steps” as a screening tool to help taxpayers determine whether they might be eligible for the credit. However, to calculate the actual dollars that can be claimed, the three steps become 15 calculations, 11 of which are based on seven worksheets, some of which request multiple columns of information.

It may be tempting to hold the Internal Revenue Service responsible for whatever burden accompanies the tax credit, but in this case, the complexity is written directly into the law. It turns out that legislators wrote the provision in a way that makes it appear more generous than it really is. Many businesses with both fewer than 25 employees and average wages below $50,000 are in fact unable to claim the credit.

Under the law, once such a business has calculated its potential credit, it is required to reduce the credit first to account for any excess employees over 10 and then separately reduce the potential credit to account for any excess average wages paid over $25,000. For many companies, the two reductions exceed the potential credit itself — meaning the business gets no credit.

That’s what happened to Carrie Van Dyck, who along with her husband owns the Herbfarm Restaurant outside of Seattle. Excluding its owners, the Herbfarm, which we profiled in June, employed the equivalent of about 21 or 22 full-time staff members, who were paid an average wage of about $35,000 — a few thousand dollars over the credit’s threshold for 21 employees. The result surprised Ms. Van Dyck, she said recently by e-mail, because “it would seem that we are a pretty typical small, mom-and-pop type business that this should apply to.”

Of course, by making the credit less generous, the senators who wrote the law made it less expensive to the United States Treasury. Now it is apparent that credit will be even cheaper than planned: initially it was expected to cost the Treasury $2 billion in 2010; instead it cost the government only a quarter of that.

The law also excludes owners and owners’ families from counting toward the credit, which can cut both ways. On the one hand, owners don’t count as employees and their salaries are excluded from the annual wages, exclusions that could make some companies eligible for a bigger credit than they might otherwise have gotten. On the other hand, premiums paid for the owners’ and their families’ insurance aren’t eligible for the credit, which for some companies, as You’re The Boss commenter JAB recently noted, “greatly reduces the incentive to provide coverage for employees.”

The White House has said that the number of businesses claiming the credit for 2011 has grown to at least 360,000, but that is still well below even the smallest estimate of eligible businesses. Some advocates for the law say that more businesses will take advantage of the credit in 2014, when it grows to 50 percent, especially if the new insurance exchanges make it easier and cheaper for small companies to offer insurance.

The Obama administration has proposed making more businesses eligible for the credit, in part by starting phase-outs at higher thresholds, and also by changing the way it is calculated so that every business within the limits, such as the Herbfarm Restaurant, can take some amount of credit.

But judging from the comments of Representative Sam Graves, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, the initiative is unlikely to pass a Republican-controlled House anytime soon. “This tax credit has already largely failed to attract small-business owners, and expanding it will not make the president’s health care law affordable,” the Missouri Republican said in a statement. “For small employers that do not offer health insurance, tax incentives are unlikely to cause many of them to choose a massive new expense they just cannot afford in the first place.” It was Mr. Graves who sought the G.A.O. report.

Of course, a business denied a credit has not been made worse off by the 2010 health law. But the law surely has raised and dashed a lot of hopes, and these are the early days — the sweeping changes that are the law’s hallmark don’t come until 2014.

*There are, of course, many caveats here, but the main one is that the company has to pay at least half of the premium.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/why-the-health-care-tax-credit-eludes-many-small-businesses/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Why the Health Care Tax Credit Eludes Many Small Businesses

September 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

The Agenda has now profiled three small businesses that are struggling in different ways with providing health insurance to employees. The companies are very different — they trade in very different parts of the economy, and couldn’t be located much further apart geographically — but they do have one thing in common: Though all three have fewer than 25 employees, not one has qualified for the tax credit in the Affordable Care Act that was intended to help small businesses pay for health insurance. Indeed, the credit is one element of the controversial health law that has already fallen short of expectations.

Estimates of the number of businesses eligible to take the tax credit have ranged from 1.4 million to 4 million companies, but in May, the Government Accountability Office reported that only 170,300 firms actually claimed the credit in 2010. Of these, only a small fraction, 17 percent, were able to claim the whole credit.

For eligible companies, the credit effectively refunds 35 percent of health insurance expenses between 2010 and 2013.* After 2014, the credit increases to 50 percent and is available for any two consecutive years. The credit is fully available to companies with 10 or fewer full-time employees and average wages below $25,000. It phases out as the number of employees rises to 25 and wages grow to $50,000. In 2009, there were about 4.6 million companies with fewer than 10 employees, according to the Census Bureau, and 5.7 million with fewer than 100.

The credit was aimed squarely at the smallest companies, which rarely offer health insurance to employees. However, as we reported two weeks ago, it appears not to have persuaded very many to start offering insurance. The most recent study of employer health insurance from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that just half of all companies with fewer than 10 employees offered insurance, a share that has not moved much since 2005.

So why has the credit fallen short of expectations? The G.A.O. concluded that the credit was too small to sway business owners. Moreover, it said, claiming the credit is a task so complicated as to discourage many companies from trying. Companies have to determine the number of hours each employee worked in the year, as well as compile information about their insurance premiums. “Small-business owners generally do not want to spend the time or money to gather the necessary information to calculate the credit, given that the credit will likely be insubstantial,” the report said, citing conversations with tax preparers. “Tax preparers told us it could take their clients from two to eight hours or possibly longer to gather the necessary information to calculate the credit and that the tax preparers spent, in general, three to five hours calculating the credit.”

The G.A.O. report hints at the complexity with this delicious example:

On its Web site, I.R.S. tried to reduce the burden on taxpayers by offering “3 Simple Steps” as a screening tool to help taxpayers determine whether they might be eligible for the credit. However, to calculate the actual dollars that can be claimed, the three steps become 15 calculations, 11 of which are based on seven worksheets, some of which request multiple columns of information.

It may be tempting to hold the Internal Revenue Service responsible for whatever burden accompanies the tax credit, but in this case, the complexity is written directly into the law. It turns out that legislators wrote the provision in a way that makes it appear more generous than it really is. Many businesses with both fewer than 25 employees and average wages below $50,000 are in fact unable to claim the credit.

Under the law, once such a business has calculated its potential credit, it is required to reduce the credit first to account for any excess employees over 10 and then separately reduce the potential credit to account for any excess average wages paid over $25,000. For many companies, the two reductions exceed the potential credit itself — meaning the business gets no credit.

That’s what happened to Carrie Van Dyck, who along with her husband owns the Herbfarm Restaurant outside of Seattle. Excluding its owners, the Herbfarm, which we profiled in June, employed the equivalent of about 21 or 22 full-time staff members, who were paid an average wage of about $35,000 — a few thousand dollars over the credit’s threshold for 21 employees. The result surprised Ms. Van Dyck, she said recently by e-mail, because “it would seem that we are a pretty typical small, mom-and-pop type business that this should apply to.”

Of course, by making the credit less generous, the senators who wrote the law made it less expensive to the United States Treasury. Now it is apparent that credit will be even cheaper than planned: initially it was expected to cost the Treasury $2 billion in 2010; instead it cost the government only a quarter of that.

The law also excludes owners and owners’ families from counting toward the credit, which can cut both ways. On the one hand, owners don’t count as employees and their salaries are excluded from the annual wages, exclusions that could make some companies eligible for a bigger credit than they might otherwise have gotten. On the other hand, premiums paid for the owners’ and their families’ insurance aren’t eligible for the credit, which for some companies, as You’re The Boss commenter JAB recently noted, “greatly reduces the incentive to provide coverage for employees.”

The White House has said that the number of businesses claiming the credit for 2011 has grown to at least 360,000, but that is still well below even the smallest estimate of eligible businesses. Some advocates for the law say that more businesses will take advantage of the credit in 2014, when it grows to 50 percent, especially if the new insurance exchanges make it easier and cheaper for small companies to offer insurance.

The Obama administration has proposed making more businesses eligible for the credit, in part by starting phase-outs at higher thresholds, and also by changing the way it is calculated so that every business within the limits, such as the Herbfarm Restaurant, can take some amount of credit.

But judging from the comments of Representative Sam Graves, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, the initiative is unlikely to pass a Republican-controlled House anytime soon. “This tax credit has already largely failed to attract small-business owners, and expanding it will not make the president’s health care law affordable,” the Missouri Republican said in a statement. “For small employers that do not offer health insurance, tax incentives are unlikely to cause many of them to choose a massive new expense they just cannot afford in the first place.” It was Mr. Graves who sought the G.A.O. report.

Of course, a business denied a credit has not been made worse off by the 2010 health law. But the law surely has raised and dashed a lot of hopes, and these are the early days — the sweeping changes that are the law’s hallmark don’t come until 2014.

*There are, of course, many caveats here, but the main one is that the company has to pay at least half of the premium.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/why-the-health-care-tax-credit-eludes-many-small-businesses/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Chairman Accused of Withholding Information in Nuclear Repository Decision

June 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The report, by the commission’s chief internal investigator, does not accused the agency’s chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, of breaking any laws, but is likely to add to a political controversy over the Obama administration’s decision to kill the repository program.

In the 1980s, Congress picked Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the prime candidate for a burial site for civilian and military nuclear waste, and in 2008 the Energy Department applied for a license to build the repository. But President Obama, making good on a campaign pledge, terminated the program.

The Government Accountability Office recently concluded that the administration’s decision was made on a political basis, not a technical one. Critics of the site, however, say it was chosen in the 1980s as a political decision, without thorough scientific evaluation of potential alternatives in Washington State and Texas, both of which were then more powerful in Congress.

At the moment, Harry Reid of Nevada is the Senate majority leader and a fierce opponent of the project; Mr. Jaczko is a former aide to Mr. Reid.

When Congress failed to pass a budget for the current fiscal year, it approved a series of continuing resolutions, which generally hold agencies to the same spending level they had in the previous year. There were no instructions to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in those resolutions about Yucca Mountain, but the Energy Department stopped most work.

Mr. Jaczko instructed his staff to halt evaluating the Energy Department’s license application. But the report, dated Monday, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general, Hubert T. Bell, said that Mr. Jaczko had not told the other commissioners that he planned to use the budget as a reason to stop work.

Mr. Jaczko, in an unusual move, defended himself before the report’s public release.

“The closeout of the Yucca Mountain license review has been a complicated issue, with dedicated and experienced people holding different viewpoints,” Mr. Jaczko said in a statement. “All N.R.C. chairmen have the responsibility to make difficult and sometimes controversial decisions.”

A three-judge panel appointed to hear the license application voted that the Energy Department could not withdraw its application, a decision automatically appealed to the commission. The commissioners appear deadlocked on that issue.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=00a938bf5032a9b990a70cf4e36dc272

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,