The straight line

Businesses now have until August 1st, 2009 to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “Red Flags Rule.” The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 directed financial regulatory agencies, including the FTC, to create rules requiring “creditors” and “financial institutions” with covered accounts to implement identity theft prevention programs.

PolicyWorks recently notified credit unions that the 2008 tax year would be their last year of filing a group Form 990. PolicyWorks sighted a number of reasons, one being that “due to increasing complexity, we feel credit unions are better served seeking advice from professionals with tax/accounting expertise”.

For the past few years, state charted credit unions have been taxed on unrelated business taxable income. Taxed items included credit life, credit disability and other insurance products which Credit Unions have been selling to their members. Recently, two cases have challenged the IRS ruling that income from the sale of these products should be subject to UBIT.

Recently, Congress passed and the president signed into effect, a corporate bailout bill that impacts credit unions. This bill creates a Corporate Credit Union Stabilization Fund, essentially allowing the NCUA to borrow up to $6 billion from the Treasury in order to cover the losses suffered by U.S. Central Federal Credit Union and WesCorp Federal Credit Union.

For employers, the time is now to comply with a little-known provision in the new stimulus law, signed by President Obama on February 17th. Part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is a revamping of COBRA law for certain employees.

The latest economic stimulus law, enacted on February 17, 2009, contains tax incentives designed to get the stagnant U.S. economy moving again. Here are 10 significant changes that might have an impact on your business.