Debt Free

First of all, I'm writing this on a new Lenovo laptop equipped with Microsoft Windows Vista, my first experience with the new Microsoft OS. I'll let you know how I feel about it later in the week, after I've logged some more hours on it. Sadly, the machines not mine, just a loaner, but at least I'll be able to give a bit of evaluation to those of you out there.

What if you're not doing as well you'd have liked in your serarch for fgreedom from debt? Are still getting those infernal calls from the "non profit" credit counseling agencies offering their services? Did you know that non profitorganizations aren't obligated to abide by the federal do not call list? Well, it's true. They aren't. That may explain why some organizations repeatedly call you during dinner, even though you are on the list. Those bastards! Furthermore, some of these organizations are being looked at pretty carefully by the Internal Revenue Serivce. In fact, several credit counseling services that are supposedly non profit have been informed by the feds that they're losing their tax exempt status because they have repeatedly failed to abide by Federal tax exempt guidelines. In fact, last May, they revoked tax exemption from 41 such credit counseling agencies and indicated they were investigating still more. At the time, IRS commish Mark W. Everson even went so far as to term several of te industry's participants "Bad Actors".

As far back as 2003, the IRS was advising folks in need of credit counseling to be cautious, and even issued a consumer alert on the subject.Bankrate.com even listed the problems with Credit Counselors in its article on "12 Ways to Lose Money" last year. So, as I advised in my post last month on the subject, thouroughly check out any such credit organizations before you use their services. The money you save will be your own.