| Volume 131 Number 5 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
The IRS has announced that taxpayers who get the Earned Income Credit or the Additional Child Credit will receive their refund no earlier than February 15th this year. Your tax preparer may offer you a Refund Anticipation Check in order to receive your refund sooner. But, these RACs come with fees and interest rates in the triple digits and will reduce what you receive from your refund. Click here for more.
Volkswagen to Plea Guilty and Pay US Regulators $4.3 Billion
Yesterday Volkswagen confirmed that it has negotiated a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. regulators to resolve its diesel emissions scandal and plans to plead guilty to criminal misconduct. The guilty plea is part of the civil and criminal deal after it was revealed last year that the automaker installed secret software in more than half a million vehicles to illegally pass exhaust emissions tests. Volkswagen said with the addition of the fine, its diesel costs will exceed $19.2 billion. The automaker also said it will face oversight by an independent monitor over the next three years. Click here for more.
Your Money
If you're starting off 2017 with a credit card balance, it's time to break the cycle of wasting money on interest charges. The sooner you pay off that debt, the less money you'll wind up spending to eliminate it. For example, paying off a $5,000 balance at 20% interest over three years will cost you roughly $1,700 extra. Pay off that balance in one year, and you'll save yourself over $1,100 in interest charges. Additionally, do you know where all of your money goes each month? Without a budget, you'll probably have a hard time tracking your spending and identifying ways to save. A basic budget could save you hundreds of dollars or more over the course of any given year, yet most people are surprisingly resistant when it comes to using a budget. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Purchaser of EFT card is not a consumer under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). A federal district court in Texas considered whether Plaintiff, who did not borrow money, but rather paid a small fee in order to use her money in a different format — namely on a plastic EFT card as opposed to a direct cash transaction — has acquired a good or service, as defined in the DTPA. The court held that, “When viewed through this lens, it is clear that Hopkins' goal in purchasing the MoneyPak cards was not to acquire a particular service, but merely to convert her money to a different format.” Therefore, the Plaintiff was not a consumer as defined by the DTPA. Hopkins v. Green Dot Corporation (W.D. Tex. 2016). Click here for more.