Money Rant

By Barton Simmons

 The Public Employee Retirement System is for government employees except for teachers and students. This is a mandatory membership and all members should fill out a form of application at the beginning of their employment. It is a benefit plan that gives benefits to employees once they retire. This will be based on the number of years they rendered service and on their average salary.

The Public Employees Retirement system also covers survivor and disability protection. The system also allows those with 30 years of service to file for an early retirement. They also provide death benefits and beneficiary benefits. Every Public Employee Retirement System of every state is committed to ensuring the retirement benefits of every employee.

Contributions are deducted from the employee’s payrolls. The amount may vary for every employee depending on their retire plan and coverage. Currently, the contribution rate is 8.5 percent of the salary of an employee and will increase up to 9.5% in the year 2007. Employer contributions however, range from 13 to 17%.

The benefits that you will get once you retire are dependent on your contribution and position as well as your employer’s contribution. The benefits are fixed depending on the legislation set by every state. That is why it is always recommended for members to know their benefits and coverage so that they can get the most of their contributions once they retire.

Although the Public Employee Retirement System is compulsory for all employees, there are still criteria that you have to meet to become a member. Here are the criteria that you need to meet to become a member for most states’ Public Employee Retirement Systems:

1. The applicant should be a regular employee and the annual salary of the applicant should be $1,500 or higher.

2. The applicant’s position should be under the coverage of the Social Security System.

Generally, these are some of the most common grounds for ineligibility:

1. If the person does not meet the minimum annual salary required which is $1,500.

2. If the applicant is not covered by the Social Security.

3. If you are a temporary employee

4. If you are currently employed by the Job Training Partnership Act and being paid by their federal funds.

5. Students who are employed by their schools and universities where they attend regular classes sometimes may not qualify for the PERS.

6. Inmates in correctional institutions are not eligible.

7. Mental health and retardation patients do not qualify for the Public Employee Retirement System.

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Defining the 401(K)

By Barton Simmons

 The 401(k) retirement plan is funded by employee contribution and a matching employer contribution. The major feature of the plan is that the contributions are taken from pre-taxed salary. The fund accumulates tax-free until it is withdrawn. Most businesses and tax-exempt organizations can create these retirement plans.

The 401(k) takes its name from the IRC (Internal Revenue Code) of 1978. The operation of the 401(k) is administered by the EBSA (Employee Benefits Security Administration) of the Department of Labor.

The 401(k) plan has a lot of advantages. First and foremost is that the employee can contribute pre-tax money that reduces the tax paid in each paycheck. Also, the company contribution and any growth in the fund is free of tax until withdrawn.

The compounding of the fund during a 20 to 30 year period is quite amazing. The employee has a lot of control in the direction of the future contributions. When the company matches your contributions, it adds something extra on top of your own money. All money in the plan can be moved from one company to another unlike pension.

The 401(k) plan is protected by pension laws since it is a personal investment plan. It includes protection from garnishment by creditors but not from domestic cases that include child support.

There are some disadvantages in the 401(k) plan, it is hard to get your 401(k) contributions before age 60 (59 1/2 to be exact). The 401(k) is not insured by the PBGC (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp). Also, the company contributions do not kick in until a certain number of years of service have been given. The rules state that company matching contributions must either be a 3 year ‘cliff’ plan (100 percent after 3 years) or a 6-year ‘graded’ plan.

Employees participating in a 401(k) plan have many options for investment. In most cases a listing of mutual funds. The mutual funds usually include money market fund, treasuries, stock funds and bond funds. Some plans may include investing in company stock and US Savings Bonds. The employee gets to choose how the savings is invested. The employee can also choose at any time to stop contributions.

Financial advisers usually say that the average 401(k) contributor is non-aggressive in terms of their investment options. Stocks have historically outperformed other types of investment, since the 401(k) is a long term investment it should be able to minimize the stock fluctuations.

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Selling your Collection Accounts

By Joel Booker

 When you engage in factoring or selling your accounts receivable, you’re accepting less money for an asset than you might expect to get for it. But there are great reasons for factoring and here are 10 of them:

1. The ready cash you’ll get by factoring will help your company to grow. If you have $2000 ready cash in the bank, but you’ve invoiced for $100,000 down the line this will lead to $75,000. Think about it: the ability to hire more necessary staff, buy needed equipment, and have stock on hand could make a real difference to your business.

2. Ready cash can help you pay your suppliers sooner, helping you negotiate discounts and have a larger credit line than you had before.

3. Factoring your current invoices gives you the capital to take on large, deadline-oriented contracts and orders that you’d otherwise have to pass up because of slow cash flow.

4. Those large accounts are worth money. Having cash on hand now allows you to offer longer payment terms to the new large accounts.

5. Out of marketing comes business. With ready cash you can get from factoring, you can buy billboards, newspaper and radio ads, and even have direct mail campaigns for those timely marketing campaigns.

6. If you’ve invoiced too much and now are finding yourself in a cash crunch, factoring will help you to meet your current expenses right away, reducing the chance of not being able to pay your bills. Nothing is worse for your company than not meeting payroll; you lose your best employees, and the ones who stay are probably going to be seeking other employment.

7. You can improve your balance sheet with working capital without incurring debt.

8. Pay off limited lines of credit, or lines of credit that are costing you too much in interest and fees.

9. Factoring out slow debts allows you to skip the unpleasantness of making payment collection calls; instead, the factoring company does this for you.

10. If you factor out part of your accounts receivable, the factoring company will give you a free analysis and comparison of what payment terms and credit amounts your customers really qualify for. This is invaluable information for conducting business in the future.

In addition to these ten great reasons to try factoring your accounts, there are a few reasons never to factor your accounts. If you’re concerned about late and slow payments without a good reason such as; you’ve given a thirty-day due date to someone and they take forty days to pay, then factoring is not a good idea. Instead, you should change your business practices to give a shorter due date. If you think your customer won’t pay, factoring their invoice out is dishonest, and will win you no points with a factoring company. Do you really want to ensure you have a bad reputation with people who trust you with a large amount of their capital?

If you’re in a dispute with a customer and you decide factoring out your invoice is a way out, you’re wrong. The customer could simply refuse to pay the factoring company and then sue you, or worse, tell everyone else what a horrible company you run. Face your disputes head on. If you are dissatisfied with the customer, don’t do business with them again.

Factoring to sustain a non-profitable business without some hope of profitability in the future is a sure way to drive your self into bankruptcy. Instead, you should let your business die a dignified death. Factoring so that you can remove cash from your business is a bad idea, akin to taking out a dozen credit cards so you’ll have money now. When you engage in factoring, you’re essentially agreeing to a profit loss; you should only do this if you stand to make more money in the long run.

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