Asean Bankers Conference

Archive for January 23rd, 2012

Basic home insurance provides coverage for disasters such as fire, hurricane damage, lightning and any others covered by your policy, but basic coverage might not protect from every potential loss. Most home insurance plans do offer a wide variety of optional coverage to help meet your home insurance needs.

Here are eight types of optional coverage you could purchase with your basic home insurance.

1) The first place to look for extra coverage is for any natural disaster left uncovered in your home insurance policy that is likely to befall your home. This includes flood insurance, earthquake insurance and wind insurance if you live in areas where this is not part of standard home insurance.
2) Guaranteed replacement cost is the most comprehensive home insurance you can purchase. To buy this level of home insurance you need to meet specific rules and conditions, and you will most likely pay premiums that increase with the cost of inflation.

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3) To increase your level of theft protection, you can buy theft coverage protection endorsement. With this home insurance option possessions in your motor vehicle, trailer or watercraft have coverage even without proof of forcible entry.
4) You can add optional coverage to your home insurance to protect your money, securities, banking and credit cards. Increasing your limits on money and securities does just that – it increases the coverage on money, bank notes, deeds and other securities. Credit card forgery and depositors forgery coverage endorsement gives you protection against loss, theft and unauthorized use of your credit cards, as well as coverage for a banking forgery.
5) Inflation guard endorsement allows your home insurance provider to automatically increase your coverage to meet a rising cost of inflation. You will eventually pay a higher premium, but not until your policy is renewed.
6) If you have high dollar items such as furs, stamp or coin collections, guns, antiques or other items that might exceed your regular home insurance policy, you will want to take a scheduled personal property endorse – also known as a personal article floater – on these items.
7) If you own a vacation home or other secondary residence you will likely want to add a secondary residence premises endorsement to your basic home insurance.
Similar to the secondary residence endorsement, if you own a small sailboat or outboard motor boat you will want a watercraft endorsement added to your basic home insurance for the personal liability coverage this option provides.

The Internal Revenue Service wants to set new rules on income tax preparers nationwide.  IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman issued a proposal on January 4, 2010 citing federal regulation will help reduce fraud, improve compliance and close the tax gap.

California and Oregon are the only states that have set tax education requirements for its income tax preparers.  In 2009, New York passed legislation to require its tax preparers register with the state; however, it does not enforce education or insurance requirements.

In California, paid income tax preparers who are not a licensed attorney, certified public accountant (CPA) or IRS enrolled agent (EA), are required by law to register with the California Tax Education Council (CTEC).  All TEC-egistered ax reparers (CRTPs) must complete tax education courses each year and obtain a surety bond before they can prepare tax returns for a fee.

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In Oregon, all paid tax preparers must be licensed through the Oregon State Board of Tax Practitioners.  Oregon tax preparers have to pass a competency exam before they can prepare tax returns professionally.

“Compliance is a big issue with tax pros,” said Mary Beth LaMunyon-Jones, CRTP and CTEC board member. “Nationwide there are the good ones and the bad ones.  There are the ones who care and the ones who don’t.”

Proponents of the IRS proposal believe enforcing tax education and professional licenses for tax preparers is a necessary step in order to increase the protection of taxpayers.  Skeptics argue it is not tax preparers who are entirely to blame, but the complex tax code that is causing issues and mistakes.

“From CTEC’s standpoint, the reasoning has always been that some education is better than no education,” said Celeste Heritage, CTEC administrator.

Federal regulation of tax preparers has been a topic of discussion for at least five years.  The question of how to fund a national tax preparer program has been one of the biggest hurdles for the IRS and even some states that want regulation.  Maryland passed legislation in 2008 to license its tax preparers; however, the program has been postponed due to budget constraints.

Unlike Oregon, New York and Maryland, the registration requirement in California is not managed by the government.  The state decided to privatize its tax preparer program in 1997 by transferring the responsibility from the California Department of Consumers Affairs to CTEC as part of a “grand experiment” to save money.

Today CTEC is a nonprofit quasi-public benefit corporation that is run by a board of directors, three staff members and is funded by CRTPs who pay an annual registration fee.  CTEC has never once received funding from the state.

“It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.”