Bad loans to bars, hotels, furniture makers, property investors and even a state house builder wiped out at least $100 million from South Canterbury Finance. Companies Office records show a group of failed companies owe SCF but recovery prospects are bleak. In many cases, the companies have huge deficits and the taxpayer [ Read More → ]

New research from MSN Money suggests that UK taxpayers are wasting billions every year due to simple acts of carelessness or forgetfulness. MSN has coined these costly mistakes ‘idiot taxes’, a catch-all term for all those forgetful and stupid acts, like putting the wrong fuel in a car engine and locking [ Read More → ]

NEW YORK - Lots of homeowners are frustrated these days that they can’t seem to get a mortgage refinance even though interest rates are at historic lows. It turns out they’re not alone. Plenty of people on Wall Street would also love to see a boom in refinancing activity, saying it [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - Reveling in victory, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, a package that aims to protect consumers and ensure economic stability from Main Street to Wall Street. The law, pushed through mainly by Democrats in Washington’s deeply [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON — Reveling over a new milestone in his presidency, a triumphant Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules since the Great Depression, adding safeguards for millions of consumers and aiming to restrain Wall Street excesses that could set off a [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON — Two years after the global financial system nearly collapsed, a vast revamping of regulation has been signed into law. The measure targets the risky banking and oversight failures that led to the last crisis. The goal is to make another crisis less likely - and, if it does [ Read More → ]

NEW YORK (AP) — Small business owners who want to give their companies a midyear financial checkup may find it hard to forecast what the rest of the year will bring. It’s not just the economy that’s unpredictable, there’s also uncertainty about the tax laws. This may complicate the decisions that [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - The first stage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is expected to provide coverage to about 1 million uninsured Americans by next year, according to government estimates. That’s a small share of the uninsured, but in a shaky economy, experts say it’s notable. Many others , more than 100 [ Read More → ]

Stephen Tindall is among Waterman’s shareholders. Photo / Martin Sykes Small and medium-sized businesses could get a hand-up from the taxpayer under plans by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to invest $30 million in a fund targeting private companies. The $15.9 billion “Cullen fund” yesterday allocated the money to private equity investors [ Read More → ]

The higher a tax is, the less willing people will be to do the activity being taxed Photo: REX THE most interesting thing about income tax is that it is not permanent. When William Pitt the Younger introduced the levy on salaries in 1798, it was supposed to be a [ Read More → ]