The fliers increasingly popping up around many community churches seem harmless enough. They are handwritten, include a first name and local phone number, and offer exactly what any taxpayer would want: more money back on your tax returns.
But as unsuspicious as the flier may seem, following up on the enticement could leave your bank account and your identity vulnerable to theft.
The Internal Revenue Service has seen an increase in these types of tax-return-related scams targeting church congregations across the country, especially in Louisiana.
The way the scam works is simple: An unsuspecting taxpayer calls the phone number on the flier, seeking help with filing tax returns. The scam artist then solicits the caller’s Social Security number, and in many cases, bank account and credit card numbers, giving them all the information necessary to steal the caller’s money and identity.
These scams, which exploit a tax refund system that can sometimes prove complicated, tend to prey disproportionately on elderly and low-income individuals.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” said Dee Harris Stepter, a spokeswoman for the IRS based in New Orleans. “Most people rely on the faith and credibility of the people in their church, and so they believe the tax help’s a legitimate thing when it’s not.”
These schemes tend to spread by word of mouth, as well-intentioned people tell their friends and family.
To avoid becoming a victim of tax scams, there are certain precautions you can take.
If you’re considering paying someone to help with tax returns, check the preparer’s track record first. The Better Business Bureau of New Orleans offers ratings of many local tax return preparers, from A+ to F, to help taxpayers make the right choice.
“Bottom line is don’t give out any of your information to anyone you haven’t checked out first,” said Cynthia Albert, the bureau’s director of operations and media relations.
Scammers often promise free money with no documentation required. The IRS will always require documentation.
Social Security beneficiaries should be wary of anyone promising refunds or larger payouts, Stepter said, because if someone’s sole source of income is Social Security, they are not eligible for income tax credits.
The IRS is also seeing a lot of scams involving expired or nonexistent tax credits, such as the now-expired Economic Recovery Credit or Recovery Rebate Credit.
Many scam artists pretend to be IRS officials. They call or email people asking for their personal information, and in some cases, threaten to arrest the person they’re calling, saying the person must hand over the personal information or else.
The IRS will never ask for personal information over email or phone.
“Be informed about what your rights as a taxpayer are,” said Stepter. “These scams are something that’s very prevalent in our society, unfortunately.”
Naomi Martin can be reached at nmartin@timespicayune.com
Friday, August 26, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Accounts Receivable Financing
Shaw Capital Management and Financing provides export trade financing to clients in every major world market and can convert accounts receivable finance transactions in 17 currencies.
We have no minimum or maximum monthly volume requirements. Other factoring companies require a financial commitment for the amount of freight bills you factor each month.
Our highly skilled team provides full administrative support - including credit management, invoicing, collections, account reporting, expense reporting, fuel card management and much more!
With Shaw Capital Management and Financing, you get paid in full minus our fee the day we receive your freight bills. Other factoring companies holdback 10 to 15 percent of your money or more for each invoice in a reserve account. That reserve amount is not immediately provided to your company. In the end, you receive part of that percentage back, depending on how long it takes the factoring company to receive payment on the invoice.
We have no minimum or maximum monthly volume requirements. Other factoring companies require a financial commitment for the amount of freight bills you factor each month.
Our highly skilled team provides full administrative support - including credit management, invoicing, collections, account reporting, expense reporting, fuel card management and much more!
With Shaw Capital Management and Financing, you get paid in full minus our fee the day we receive your freight bills. Other factoring companies holdback 10 to 15 percent of your money or more for each invoice in a reserve account. That reserve amount is not immediately provided to your company. In the end, you receive part of that percentage back, depending on how long it takes the factoring company to receive payment on the invoice.
Welcome to Shaw Capital Management Value of great service... Help grow your business...
Shaw Capital Management and Financing provide same-day-funding. We can help you meet your cashflow needs immediately without entering into a long term factoring relationship. The money you get for the freight bills we purchase is payment in full.
Shaw Capital Management and Financing offer a complete line of factoring services, purchase order funding, asset based financing, accounts receivable management, and other related financial services.
Shaw Capital Management and Financing offer funding for a wide range of industries and flexible funding requirements that most businesses can easily qualify for.
Based in Baltimore, Maryland. Importing into the tri-state area mostly from the far east such as China, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.
For your convenience, we have associate offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul in S Korea.
Shaw Capital Management and Financing offer a complete line of factoring services, purchase order funding, asset based financing, accounts receivable management, and other related financial services.
Shaw Capital Management and Financing offer funding for a wide range of industries and flexible funding requirements that most businesses can easily qualify for.
Based in Baltimore, Maryland. Importing into the tri-state area mostly from the far east such as China, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.
For your convenience, we have associate offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul in S Korea.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Shaw Capital Working Management News Worldwide: Twitter Tests New Ad Types
http://financial.shaw-capitalworkingmanagement.com/2011/07/shaw-capital-working-management-news-worldwide-twitter-tests-new-ad-types/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474100156000380.html
JULY 29, 2011
BY AMIR EFRATI
To make good on its ballooning multibillion-dollar valuation, online-messaging service Twitter Inc. must pass the Sephora test.
Initially, Sephora, the makeup retailer that is part of luxury-brand-giant LVMH, didn’t allocate any funds for Twitter’s young advertising system for this year. But in February, it bought more than 15 Twitter ads to promote a contest for customers in which it gave away products to fans of the Fox show “Glee.” According to its analysis, the response rate from the Twitter ads beat its projections by 700%.
So Cathy Choi, Sephora’s social media director, sought additional money—she declines to disclose how much—to try out Twitter’s newest ad offering, which rolled out Thursday. Called “promoted tweets to followers,” it lets brands and charities pay to make sure that their followers see messages they send out on Twitter even if the followers don’t log on to the service until hours after the messages are sent.
It’s the latest move by the San Francisco-based company, which lets people broadcast messages of up to 140 characters known as “tweets,” to build up its fledgling online advertising business. Despite the relatively nascent nature of that business, investors have pumped up the valuation of the closely held company amid a new Silicon Valley boom. Twitter is currently raising a new round of financing that would value the company at around $8 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Twitter, which launched its ad system in April 2010, is on pace to generate $150 million in ad revenue this year, research firm eMarketer has estimated. The microblogging service is home to thousands of brands, from Coca-Cola Co. to local bakeries, that work to gain “followers,” or people who track the brands’ tweets about new products and promotions. About 20% of Twitter users “follow” a brand, according to a survey by marketing firm ExactTarget.
Twitter, which has more than 200 million registered accounts, said its new ad offering is being rolled out slowly and only for a couple of dozen advertisers, including Microsoft Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Twitter advertisers pay a fee, determined by an automated auction, only if a user selects their ad, including clicking on a link or “retweeting” the message to the user’s followers.
Overall, Twitter sales chief Adam Bain said the company has opened its ad system to more than 1,000 advertisers, including many small businesses, and about 80% have made more than one purchase. He added that many tweets by such brands as Walt Disney Co. have become viral hits on Twitter after users retweeted the ad.
Twitter began rolling out ad offerings last year using a format called “promoted tweets” that lets marketers place bids to show ads to Twitter users who perform searches on the Twitter.com home page. It later added “promoted trends,” which are ads that cost $120,000 a day and appear alongside each user’s account and on Twitter.com’s home page, among other ad offerings.
Not all of Twitter’s ad features have succeeded. An experiment called the “quick bar,” which Twitter introduced in March to users of its iPhone application, showed ads and hot topics on the service, but it was removed after an uproar from some users who felt it was too intrusive.
“We’re still testing it to figure out what works, but Twitter is one of the more promising channels for us going forward,” said Abby Lunardini, vice president of corporate communications for the airline Virgin America, which has paid for 65 different Twitter ads since last year. She declined to disclose how much the company spent.
Digits
Alison Moore, senior vice president of digital platforms for Home Box Office Inc., said she expects Twitter’s latest ad offering to be a “very focused way for us to show the most relevant brand information to the people who raised their hands and want it most.”
HBO expects to use the ads to promote its online video service HBO GO and merchandise for shows such as “True Blood,” which has more than 264,000 followers on Twitter, she said.
Twitter will also launch a “self-serve” ad system later this year so that anyone can buy an ad, and it is working on several other potential ad products, people familiar with the matter have said. Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo said earlier this month that Twitter might let marketers sell items directly on Twitter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474100156000380.html
JULY 29, 2011
BY AMIR EFRATI
To make good on its ballooning multibillion-dollar valuation, online-messaging service Twitter Inc. must pass the Sephora test.
Initially, Sephora, the makeup retailer that is part of luxury-brand-giant LVMH, didn’t allocate any funds for Twitter’s young advertising system for this year. But in February, it bought more than 15 Twitter ads to promote a contest for customers in which it gave away products to fans of the Fox show “Glee.” According to its analysis, the response rate from the Twitter ads beat its projections by 700%.
So Cathy Choi, Sephora’s social media director, sought additional money—she declines to disclose how much—to try out Twitter’s newest ad offering, which rolled out Thursday. Called “promoted tweets to followers,” it lets brands and charities pay to make sure that their followers see messages they send out on Twitter even if the followers don’t log on to the service until hours after the messages are sent.
It’s the latest move by the San Francisco-based company, which lets people broadcast messages of up to 140 characters known as “tweets,” to build up its fledgling online advertising business. Despite the relatively nascent nature of that business, investors have pumped up the valuation of the closely held company amid a new Silicon Valley boom. Twitter is currently raising a new round of financing that would value the company at around $8 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Twitter, which launched its ad system in April 2010, is on pace to generate $150 million in ad revenue this year, research firm eMarketer has estimated. The microblogging service is home to thousands of brands, from Coca-Cola Co. to local bakeries, that work to gain “followers,” or people who track the brands’ tweets about new products and promotions. About 20% of Twitter users “follow” a brand, according to a survey by marketing firm ExactTarget.
Twitter, which has more than 200 million registered accounts, said its new ad offering is being rolled out slowly and only for a couple of dozen advertisers, including Microsoft Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Twitter advertisers pay a fee, determined by an automated auction, only if a user selects their ad, including clicking on a link or “retweeting” the message to the user’s followers.
Overall, Twitter sales chief Adam Bain said the company has opened its ad system to more than 1,000 advertisers, including many small businesses, and about 80% have made more than one purchase. He added that many tweets by such brands as Walt Disney Co. have become viral hits on Twitter after users retweeted the ad.
Twitter began rolling out ad offerings last year using a format called “promoted tweets” that lets marketers place bids to show ads to Twitter users who perform searches on the Twitter.com home page. It later added “promoted trends,” which are ads that cost $120,000 a day and appear alongside each user’s account and on Twitter.com’s home page, among other ad offerings.
Not all of Twitter’s ad features have succeeded. An experiment called the “quick bar,” which Twitter introduced in March to users of its iPhone application, showed ads and hot topics on the service, but it was removed after an uproar from some users who felt it was too intrusive.
“We’re still testing it to figure out what works, but Twitter is one of the more promising channels for us going forward,” said Abby Lunardini, vice president of corporate communications for the airline Virgin America, which has paid for 65 different Twitter ads since last year. She declined to disclose how much the company spent.
Digits
Alison Moore, senior vice president of digital platforms for Home Box Office Inc., said she expects Twitter’s latest ad offering to be a “very focused way for us to show the most relevant brand information to the people who raised their hands and want it most.”
HBO expects to use the ads to promote its online video service HBO GO and merchandise for shows such as “True Blood,” which has more than 264,000 followers on Twitter, she said.
Twitter will also launch a “self-serve” ad system later this year so that anyone can buy an ad, and it is working on several other potential ad products, people familiar with the matter have said. Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo said earlier this month that Twitter might let marketers sell items directly on Twitter.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Shaw Capital Working Management Tips & Articles: Google’s Eric Schmidt Set For Sept. 21 Senate Antitrust Hearing
http://shaw-capitalworkingmanagement.com/2011/07/29/shaw-capital-working-management-tips-articles-google%E2%80%99s-eric-schmidt-set-for-sept-21-senate-antitrust-hearing/
JUL29
Rate this
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-googles-eric-schmidt-set-for-sept.-21-senate-antitrust-hearing/
By Sam Gustin
Jul 28, 2011 7:03 PM ET
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will testify before lawmakers probing the company’s market power on Sept. 21, the search giant confirmed on Thursday. After initially declining to appear, the former CEO received a not-so-subtle subpoena threat from the committee and rethought his position. The hearing, which will focus on charges that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) uses its market power to favor its own services and hinder rivals, comes as the Federal Trade Commission ramps up its investigation into the company’s dominance of the web search business.
Last month, Sen. Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the antitrust subcommittee, and Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican and ranking member, requested that either Schmidt or current Google CEO Larry Page testify. For its part, the company offered to send its chief legal officer, David Drummond, but Kohl and Lee insisted, warnings that lawmakers “would very much prefer to work this out by agreement rather than needing to resort to more formal procedures.”
See more of our latest Travel coverage
or add an alert for future coverage of Travel.
The hearing title: The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?
Google’s competitors have long been pushing for greater government scrutiny of the search giant’s market power. A group of them have created an organization called FairSearch.org, which seeks to highlight Google’s abuses. Among the group’s members: Google’s search rival Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), as well as travel sites Expedia, Travelocity, and Hotwire, which had opposed the search giant’s purchase of ITA Software, a provider of back-end services for travel search engines.
When that deal was approved, representatives of the travel companies predicted greater scrutiny for Google.
Not surprisingly, FairSearch.org praised Kohl and Lee for this effort.
Proponents of greater regulation of Google’s search engine tend to argue that because the service is so ubiquitous, it has become something like a public utility. Or they claim that Google must be totally “objective” in its search results, so as not to violate so-called “search neutrality.”
Google’s supporters call such arguments nonsense and say that “search neutrality” is a fantasy. Google may be publicly traded but it is still a private company, they argue. It can place any information it wishes on its website. It is under no obligation whatsoever to even include its competitors on its web page. Furthermore, web search is inherently subjective. Google’s search rankings are judgements produced by its proprietary algorithm, which the company tweaks constantly.
At the hearing, Schmidt likely will point out that web users are free to choose any search engine they wish—the alternatives are just a click away.
JUL29
Rate this
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-googles-eric-schmidt-set-for-sept.-21-senate-antitrust-hearing/
By Sam Gustin
Jul 28, 2011 7:03 PM ET
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will testify before lawmakers probing the company’s market power on Sept. 21, the search giant confirmed on Thursday. After initially declining to appear, the former CEO received a not-so-subtle subpoena threat from the committee and rethought his position. The hearing, which will focus on charges that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) uses its market power to favor its own services and hinder rivals, comes as the Federal Trade Commission ramps up its investigation into the company’s dominance of the web search business.
Last month, Sen. Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the antitrust subcommittee, and Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican and ranking member, requested that either Schmidt or current Google CEO Larry Page testify. For its part, the company offered to send its chief legal officer, David Drummond, but Kohl and Lee insisted, warnings that lawmakers “would very much prefer to work this out by agreement rather than needing to resort to more formal procedures.”
See more of our latest Travel coverage
or add an alert for future coverage of Travel.
The hearing title: The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?
Google’s competitors have long been pushing for greater government scrutiny of the search giant’s market power. A group of them have created an organization called FairSearch.org, which seeks to highlight Google’s abuses. Among the group’s members: Google’s search rival Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), as well as travel sites Expedia, Travelocity, and Hotwire, which had opposed the search giant’s purchase of ITA Software, a provider of back-end services for travel search engines.
When that deal was approved, representatives of the travel companies predicted greater scrutiny for Google.
Not surprisingly, FairSearch.org praised Kohl and Lee for this effort.
Proponents of greater regulation of Google’s search engine tend to argue that because the service is so ubiquitous, it has become something like a public utility. Or they claim that Google must be totally “objective” in its search results, so as not to violate so-called “search neutrality.”
Google’s supporters call such arguments nonsense and say that “search neutrality” is a fantasy. Google may be publicly traded but it is still a private company, they argue. It can place any information it wishes on its website. It is under no obligation whatsoever to even include its competitors on its web page. Furthermore, web search is inherently subjective. Google’s search rankings are judgements produced by its proprietary algorithm, which the company tweaks constantly.
At the hearing, Schmidt likely will point out that web users are free to choose any search engine they wish—the alternatives are just a click away.
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