Agela Financial Services Inc

Sometimes, yes. Generally, grants reduce the costs by 50% or more. If you fall into the IRS range of qualified income levels, our professional services are free. We provide professional services at market rates for the professional’s time on your case. Then we apply a grant determined discount based upon age and income level. Direct costs such as court filing fees and document preparation are not discounted. If the resulting bill is a significant financial burden due to your circumstances, your case manager will apply to the Rudder board for a special discount. Our goal is that you are never denied access to professional representation because you cannot afford it.

1. The minimum grant for the 55+ age group is 50%. Additional grants based upon income and individual circumstances can result in larger discounts.

1. Your interviewer will provide you with a binding estimate of your cost and grants at the time you sign your engagement papers.

1. Costs for professional services are paid on a monthly fee basis. The amount of the estimate given you before engagement is divided into payments that fit your budget. Direct cost, such as filing fees and court documents, are billed to you prior to our incurring the cost. Payment, or a payment plan, for those costs is completed at that time.

• Absolutely! All fees charged for professional services are deposited in a trust account and are not released until you sign a form indicating your satisfaction with the resolution of your issues and agreement to release the paid fees. Any direct costs incurred in processing your case are separately billed to you and are not refundable once paid.

Almost never. Like most loan modification ads, the ads for settling IRS debts for pennies are fraudulent. The IRS does have a program called Offer in Compromise in which tax debts can be settled for less than the tax bill; however, less than 4% of such offers are accepted by the IRS. The ones that are accepted are generally a situation in which the taxpayer is insolvent and uncollectible. These advertisers will take a large non-refundable fee from you to complete the form applying for a settlement, but they know that the settlement will never be accepted.

Most tax problems are a result of mis-communication and mis-understandings. The tax codes are very complex; forms are hard to understand; computer letters may be based upon incorrect information; another party may file an information form naming the wrong party or reporting the money in the wrong form box, etc. A professional can determine the correct interpretation of the facts, document the facts in a manner that simplifies the revenue agent’s job and resolve the problem for all parties. When it is needed, the professional has access to the stakeholders liaison office and the taxpayer advocate’s office to cut across jurisdictional barriers and get a problem into the right hands.

If you have a tax debt, but cannot handle the amount due, installment plans can be negotiated. If a tax lien is preventing an asset from being sold or financed to pay a tax debt, we can negotiate release in the interests of settlement. If a tax debt is not yours, or is owed by multiple parties, we can resolve responsibilities.

Grants under our programs are for individuals, but they can still reduce your costs of representation. Sole proprietorships, partnerships, and subchapter S corporations are examples of business forms that report to the individual’s personal tax return. This reporting is also true of rental properties, trusts and estates.

1. You can be. When you sign a joint return, you are accepting responsibility for full payment of any tax that may be assessed in the future. If an audit years later finds a tax due but cannot find your ex, you can be held responsible for full payment. Innocent spouse relief is limited to proven situations in which you were in fear of your life.

Almost nothing. Long term care is one of the world’s most serious problems, yet it is being ignored by government and the general population. Rudder Foundation wants to educate everyone about this issue. The typical member of the Boomer generation can expect to need 5 years or more of in-home care, 5 to 10 years of assisted living care and 3 to 5 years of skilled nursing care. At today’s prices, the total bill would be over $1.8 million dollars spread over the last 20 years of life. Families have been able to provide the in-home care and assisted living, while insurance and welfare programs have supplemented the final years. But the shear size of the Boomer generation compared to the generations immediately younger shows that families cannot continue to provide support for an increasingly long-lived aging population. Nor is long term care an issue only for the elderly.

Most people know of a relative, friend or acquaintance who is burdened with the care of an accident victim. Medical costs are often covered along with in-home rehabilitation and therapy, but, once the short term trauma care is over, there is no coverage for the daily care required for those no longer able to handle basic living tasks. And, with one wage earner in the family receiving only a small stipend for permanent disability, the second wage earner cannot afford the time away from work to provide family care.

The same needs are found in families with disabled children. In some school districts as many as one child in three has been identified as qualifying for special needs care in school. What can working parents do within the school day and outside of school to handle the care needs of these children?

In addition to the well-known problem of requiring the recipient to be stripped of his or her property, MediCal also presents problems to the spouse and children. Care quality and institutional bias are also serious problems for MediCal recipients

A good financial plan includes savings and protection against unexpected costs. Health related costs of all kinds are a necessary part of a financial plan until the plan builds sufficient wealth to provide self-insurance. There are many types of insurance plans and many inappropriate insurance packages. Alternatives to LTCI exist. Children with parents approaching the need for LTC should plan ahead. If you are young enough and have no immediate health problems, annuities and investment plans are an alternative to the purchase of a long term care insurance policy. The presence of insurance in a financial plan is a protection against the unexpected.

Should a fixed income individual build up credit balances? As we approach the retirement period in which our income becomes relatively fixed, it is important to review our credit management strategy. During the period in which we expect annual incomes to increase, it is natural to use credit to purchase personal rewards rather than save to afford them. While that tendency is certainly questionable at any age, it can be dangerous when we approach a fixed income period. A retiree at 62 in good health may well live for far longer than his or her entire work life up to the age of retirement. Even an inflation-proof fixed income can be challenged by such a long period.

Between age 70 and 75 many common resources are no longer available. Term life insurance, long term care policies and many credit-related services are but a short list of resources readily available in your 60's that become unavailable simply because of age. This phenomenon is based upon the picture of a frail, mentally unstable elder all too common in generations born before adequate health care and nutrition developed in this country. Although projected age-of-death numbers are now climbing into the 90's, many policies and programs have not adapted to the extended life spans and greatly extended robustness of today’s elders.

This option is not for the weak at heart, but you can settle your outstanding debts for far less than their principal balances. If you are approaching a fixed income retirement and are forced to continue working because your unsecured debt is too high, consider settling that debt prior to retirement. It is foolish to dissipate your retirement funds by paying high interest debt service when you can end the interest and settle the principal with lump sum payments or short term settlements.

Housing, like transportation, is a commodity than can be purchased or leased. The home has been looked upon as a sound investment for the average person for many decades; however, the past is never a sure basis for prediction of the future. The question today is if a person whose mortgage principal is larger than their current home’s market value is better off to keep the home or walk away from it and rent. After all, paying more than the rental value for housing is simply an investment. When the cost of home ownership and the time required to recover a positive equity are taken into account, many homes may not be a good investment.

Less than 10% of loan modifications result in a reduction of principal. More than half of the modifications create larger and more drawn out debt that prevents homeowners from building equity, refinancing or selling their home in the future. Nearly half of the loan modifications actually increase monthly payments. Only about one-third of the modifications reduce monthly payments and these modifications quickly rise back to the original payment or more. Almost three-fourths of those who received a modification default on the modified loan within a year. Obviously, the modification programs are not working.

In almost every case, the answer is no. First, the current loan modification programs are not likely to solve your problem. Second, getting into a work out program with a lender does not require any specialized knowledge.

There are special circumstances that may cause Rudder interviewers to recommend that you engage a lawyer to represent you for the purpose of modifying your loan. If you have been frustrated by lender representatives while trying to enter a work out program and would feel more comfortable with a legal service, Rudder Foundation can provide free or low-cost representation. If you have been sold a loan using tactics referred to as "predatory lending", you have legal recourse against the mortgage broker and the lender.

No one should counsel you to stop paying your mortgage and deliberately stay in your home for the purpose of free rent. That advice would be actionable by the lender. Rudder Foundation interviewers and the attorneys who volunteer with us can, however, tell you that the process of foreclosure from the time you miss your first mortgage payment to the time you are actually evicted from your home is quite a long time. Lenders and mortgage brokers made many mistakes, committed many violations of federal and state law, sold collection rights to mortgages electronically and lost the vital papers, failed to make legal assignments of notes, failed to follow required federal and state regulations in dealing with borrowers, and continue to make more errors today using insufficiently trained agents and employees. It is not inexpensive to defend yourself against foreclosure, even at the discounted rates of Rudder Foundation lawyers, but surveys show that most foreclosures would be successfully challenged, if challenged in court.