XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Sunday 20 March 2011

Paying your taxes on your credit card? Not in Canada - but 2.6M Americans will use one - the IRS even promotes it -

Paying your taxes on your credit card? Not in Canada - but 2.6M Americans will use one - the IRS even promotes it -


It’s tax time. Will that be cash or charge? Millions of Americans will being doing just that this tax season -- paying their bill to Uncle Sam with a credit card.
It sounds crazy but 2.6 million Americans will use their credits to pay third-party processors who submit tax bills to the U.S. federal government on behalf of clients, says Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of Birmingham, Ala.-based lowcards.com.
He says the Internal Revenue Service even promotes the use of credit cards for paying tax bills, noting the IRS say on its web site it is “convenient, safe and secure,” and reminds taxpayers using cards with a reward program can earn points.
And people still wonder how the U.S. got in into a credit problem.
“Heck, you can pay for everything with a credit card. They’ll let you pay for your casket if you want,” says Mr. Hardekopf, whose web site does not take advertising but makes money when people sign up for credit cards through lowcards.com,
Aside from the potential for interest charges, paying for your credit card to get points makes absolutely no sense. Third party filers in the U.S. charge a processing fee ranging from 2.35% to 3.93% to put a tax bill on a credit card. Most reward programs offer the equivalent of maybe 1% to 2% back, depending on how you calculate the reward.
Why do people love points so much?
“I don’t think you should be using your credit card unless you are in a dire emergency,” says Mr. Hardekopf. “If you need a couple of weeks, I guess you could do that. But the risk is costly, if you forget to pay, because [of interest].”
Maybe we should be thankful that Canada Revenue Agency doesn’t allow us to use credit cards in any form. You can pay your tax bill online or at the bank but it has to be from an account with actual money in it.
“You wonder why they have a debt problem,” said Cleo Hamel, senior tax analyst with H&R Block Canada.
There is a way a Canadian could conceivably use their credit card to pay off a tax bill but it would mean taking out a cash advance, which not only won’t earn you points, but usually means interest charged from the day of the transaction.
There is really not much of an argument for Canadians to use credit to pay their tax bill off by the May 2 deadline. The interest the government charges is far less than you’ll pay on most cards.
“Our interest rate is pretty low right now,” says Jamie Golombek, managing director of tax and estate planning at CIBC Private Wealth Management, adding it is 5% today based on prevailing rates. It varies by quarter.
The biggest mistake you can make if you owe taxes is to not file a return at all. If you are late it is 5% of the amount owing and 1% for every month your are late to maximum of 12 months. And that’s for a first-time offence. The penalties double if you are late paying in any of the prior three years.
Ms. Hamel says H&R Block’s general advice is if you owe money, go ahead and file your taxes right away if you have all your information ready. Between now and the tax season deadline you could pay it down and your balance won’t be as high.
As for using debt, you could use a line of credit to pay your tax bill if your rate is lower than the government of Canada’s. “A line of credit might make more sense if you are looking for the cheapest borrowing method,” says Ms. Hamel.
Tax bills are one of the things that can lead Canadians into more debt problems, says Patricia White, executive director of Credit Counselling Canada.
“We don’t see it as a major issue so maybe it’s a good thing that in Canada we don’t have the ability to put our taxes onto our credit,” she says.
I’ll take the CRA approach on this over the IRS. The last thing we need is more credit card debt, even if it is to pay off the government.

NFL lockout threatens chicken wing business - "If we don't have Sunday football, the demand will go down tremendously" -

NFL lockout threatens chicken wing business - "If we don't have Sunday football, the demand will go down tremendously" - 


With NFL owners and players in a standoff, the CEO of one of the nation's largest chicken farms warns that a long-lasting football lockout would be bad news for a gameday staple, the chicken wing.
"It will be a major blow," said Joe Sanderson Jr., CEO of Sanderson Farms, the fourth largest poultry company in the U.S. "If we don't have Sunday football, the demand will go down tremendously, and of course, if that happens, the price will go down."
Chicken wings are big business. According to Sanderson, wings account for 12 percent of his company's output, and the National Chicken Council estimates that in 2011, more than 13.5 billion wings will be marketed. Of course, football and wings are inextricably linked.
"We sell about three million pounds of wings a week," Sanderson said. "And a lot of those wings to go sports bars."
And while all game days are big business for wings, the "absolute peak," Sanderson said, comes on Super Bowl Sunday. According to the National Chicken Council, more than 1.25 billion wings were consumed during last Super Bowl weekend.
Pro football owners and the players union are in a disagreement over how much pay players should earn and how long the season should last. If there is no season next year, the effects will be profound, Sanderson said.
While Sanderson says that while the NFL lockout won't force layoffs at his company, he believes that plenty of other businesses, like restaurants that cater to sports fans, will be in trouble if the season is scrapped.

Possible New Oil Spill 100 By 10 Miles Reported in Gulf Of Mexico (Update: Spill Photos) -

Possible New Oil Spill 100 By 10 Miles Reported in Gulf Of Mexico (Update: Spill Photos) -




Black Swan Clusterflock +1. As if earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns and war was not enough, the Examiner now discloses that a replay of the BP oil spill could be in the making, sending WTI to the (super)moon, the economy collapsing, and Ben Bernanke starting the printer in advance of QE 666. To wit: "The U.S. Coast Guard is currently investigating reports of a potentially massive oil sheen about 20 miles away from the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last April." There are no definitive reports yet, but we should now for sure within hours, if the Keppel FELS built TLP is indeed the culprit: "According to Paul Barnard, operations controller for the USCG in Louisiana, a helicopter crew has been dispatched to the site of the Matterhorn SeaStar oil rig, owned by W&T Offshore, Inc." And if preliminary reports are correct, BP will have been the appetizer: "Multiple reports have come in of a sheen nearly 100 miles long and 10 miles wide originating near the site." If confirmed, Obama can kiss tomorrow's Rio golf outing goodbye.
Independent pilots, including John Wathen of the Waterkeeper Alliance, and Bonnie Schumaker with Wings of Care, are currently flying out to investigate the spill. Schumaker reports having seen the sheen on Friday, March 18, and confirms that it is rapidly expanding.

A Louisiana fisherman, who has chosen to remain anonymous at this time, also reports fresh oil coming ashore near South Pass, LA, and that cleanup crews are laying new boom near the beach.

The site of the sheen, near Mississippi Canyon 243, lies 30 miles from the Louisiana coastline. The Matterhorn field, at a depth of 2,789 feet (850 meters) of water, was discovered in 1999, leased and permitted in July 2001, and came into production in November 2003. It is located 30 miles SE of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

According to W&T, the field has produced an average rate of 5,200 barrels of oil per day, and has production capacities of 35,000 barrels of oil per day.
Of course, whether this is due to the Matterhorn SeaStar or a second leak that many predicted last year due to the Deepwater Horizon will also be closely evaluated this time around.
An in depth look at the SeaStar (after the jump):
And the technical specs:
Field Facts 
LocationMississippi Canyon, Block 243
Water Depth:2,820 ft
Oil throughput:33,000 bpod
Gas throughput:55 MMcfd
Water Injection:20,000 bwpd
# of production wells:5 spare (sub-sea), 7 + 2 spare (surface)
Production Risers:10 ¾-in, 9 5/8-in, 9 7/8-in
Export Risers:18-in SCR (oil), 10-in SCR (gas)
  
SeaStar® TLP Specifications 
Payload (deck/facilities/risers):8,425 tons
Tendons:6 32-in
Main column dimensions:584 ft (dia) x 125 ft (ht)
Pontoon dimensions:179 ft (r) x 42 ft (ht)
Draft:104 ft
Deck Dimensions:140 x 140 ft (3 levels)
  
Schedule Milestones 
Project Sanction:September 2001
Platform Installation:July 2003
First Oil:November 2003
And from GulfOilSpillAction, photos of the latest supposed spill:
Update 2: Dow Jones is on it:
The U.S. Coast Guard said late Saturday that it is investigating reports of a miles-long oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard said in a news release that it received a report of a three-mile-long rainbow sheen off the Louisiana coast at around 9:30 a.m. local time on Saturday. Two subsequent sightings were relayed to the Coast Guard, the last of which reported a sheen that extended from about 6 miles south of Grand Isle, La. to 100 miles offshore.

Though the Coast Guard was able to confirm that there is a substance on the water's surface, it has not yet been able to determine if it is oil. Petty Officer Casey Ranel said that officers who observed the substance from a helicopter said they saw no sheen associated with it. That flight was diverted from the scene on a separate search and rescue mission, however, and could not continue their investigation, the Coast Guard said in the news release.

The Coast Guard has since launched additional aircraft and boats to the scene from New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., to collect samples of the substance. Ranel said the area where the substance has been reported is about 20 miles west of where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last April, killing 11 and unleashing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Ranel said the Coast Guard has not linked the substance to any particular rig or well.

The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which holds oil royalties to pay for spill clean-up costs, has been opened, the Coast Guard said.