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ILLINOIS GOVERNOR VETOES BILL ALLOWING OUTSOURCED COLLECTIONS
- The governor of Illinois vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed the city of Chicago and Cook County to hire third-party collection agencies to try and recover unpaid taxes. The governor’s explanation was that property taxes in the state were already too high and using collection agencies would “penalize” those individuals who were struggling to pay their taxes. The state representative who introduced the bill said the measure would have been used on other unpaid taxes, such as an amusement tax or a tobacco tax.
CONSUMER LAWYER WRITES ARTICLE CRITICIZING CFPB ‘OVERREACH’
- A Georgia attorney who says he represents consumers being sought after by collectors has written an article in the August Chronicle that is very critical of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s debt collection proposals. “While the changes may be well-meaning, they focus on the symptoms while failing to address the underlying causes contributing to out-of-control consumer spending,” the lawyer writes.
BANKRUPTCY FILINGS DECLINE OVERALL, BUT COMMERCIAL FILINGS KEEP RISING
- The number of bankruptcy filings declined 15% in July, compared with the same period a year ago, according to data released by the American Bankruptcy Institute. Personal filings were down 16% during the period, while commercial filings were 8% higher. Commercial filings have now increased on a year-over-year basis for nine consecutive months.
DOCTORS HAVING MORE CONVERSATIONS WITH PATIENTS ABOUT MONEY
- Medical offices may be used to having awkward and difficult conversations with patients about their health problems, but talking about money is not something they have traditionally had to do. That is changing, though, as more individuals are choosing health insurance plans with higher deductibles, putting them on the hook for more of their healthcare coverage. How medical offices tread that line between providing care and getting paid for it is becoming more of a tightrope act.
IRS TAXPAYER ADVOCATE EXPRESSES CONCERNS ABOUT OUTSOURCED COLLECTIONS
- Nina Olson, the country’s taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service, issued a mid-year report last month and talked about the agency’s requirement to outsource collections of some unpaid income taxes to third-party collection agencies. Collection agencies will try and collect from individuals who have no means to repay their debts because the IRS is not allowed to withhold economic hardship cases from the program, Olson said. “Thus, [collection agencies] may end up pursuing taxpayers in financial hardship for tax debts the IRS itself could not collect.”
WORTH NOTING: Eight secrets of great communicators … A computer outage at Delta airlines has stranded passengers worldwide … Alex Rodriguez announced his retirement from baseball, effective this Friday … A 10-year old boy died on a 17-story waterslide in Kansas City yesterday … Stop giving away free advice during job interviews … The NFL had to cancel it’s Hall of Fame exhibition game because of poor field conditions … NASA released more than 1,000 photographs of Mars. Here are some of the best … Basic marketing tools every company should know … Why the Indiana Senate race is tremendously important to the financial services industry … Donald Trump plans to call for a moratorium on financial regulations today.
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