Category: News

Tax Update – Small Business Jobs Act

On September 27, 2010, the President signed the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, passed by Congress the prior week.  The Act’s title “Small Business Jobs Act of 2010” does not reflect its true scope; its provisions impact businesses of many sizes. In addition to the many non-tax provisions related to small business lending and access to capital, tax provisions in the legislation include a retroactive extension of bonus depreciation, a doubling of the Code Sec. 179 expense limit, a

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Legal Update – CORI Law

On August 6, 2010, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law long-promised amendments to the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information law, commonly referred to as the CORI law.  The amendments are generally effective as of February 6, 2012.  However, the amendments relating to written employment applications become effective on November 4, 2010.  These changes will have important ramifications for employers that use criminal offender record information to learn about criminal charges, arrests and incarceration of current and prospective employees. Initial Written

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Investigative Report Questions Five-Star Rating System for Nursing Homes

How reliable are the ratings given nursing homes under the five-star rating system that the federal government recently instituted? Not very, according to an investigative report by the Massachusetts magazine Commonwealth. In an in-depth discussion of the rating system, the report highlights numerous instances in which facilities received above-average overall ratings despite being cited for serious deficiencies in care, some of which resulted in serious injuries of residents. The rating system, which was launched in December 2008 by the federal

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Make Sure Your Life Insurance Is Not Taxed at Your Death

Although your life insurance policy may pass to your heirs income tax-free, it can affect your estate tax. If you are the owner of the insurance policy, it will become a part of your taxable estate when you die. While the federal estate tax is currently zero, the exemption will be $1 million and the rate will increase to 55 percent on January 1, 2011, if Congress fails to act in the interim. And state estate taxes are still in

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Getting Social Security While Living Overseas

Many retirees look forward to traveling in their retirement, and more and more are actually retiring overseas, in part as a way to stretch savings. But what happens to retirees’ federal benefits while they are out of the country? The short answer is that although Social Security benefits are available to retirees in other countries, Medicare is not. In this installment we look at Social Security. (Click here for our article on overseas travel and Medicare.) As is not the

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