Did you know that your summer day care expenses may qualify for an income tax credit? Many parents who work or are looking for work must arrange for care of their children under 13 years of age during the school vacation. Those expenses may help you get a credit on next year’s tax return.

Here are five facts the IRS wants you to know about a tax credit available for child care expenses. The Child and Dependent Care Credit is available for expenses incurred during the lazy hazy days of summer and throughout the rest of the year.

1.       The cost of day camp may count as an expense towards the child and dependent care credit.

2.       Expenses for overnight camps do not qualify.

3.       If your childcare provider is a sitter at your home or a daycare facility outside the home, you’ll get some tax benefit if you qualify for the credit.

4.       The actual credit can be up to 35 percent of your qualifying expenses, depending upon your income.

5.       You may use up to $3,000 of the unreimbursed expenses paid in a year for one qualifying individual or $6,000 for two or more qualifying individuals to figure the credit.

For more information check out IRS Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses. This publication is available on the IRS Web site, IRS.gov or by calling 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676).
Links:

IRS Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses

The US economy lost 125,000 jobs in June, more than economists had forecast, as thousands of temporary census jobs ended and private hiring grew less than expected.

And though the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9.5% from 9.7%, the lowest in a year, it was largely due to more people dropping out of the labor force.

The report was the latest sign that the economic recovery may be faltering.

“Overall what this does is it reinforces the market’s view that the U.S. recovery is losing steam,” said Greg Salvaggio, vice president of trading at Tempus Consulting in Washington.

Stocks tumbled in reaction to report, while Treasury debt prices slipped.

With unemployment stubbornly high, household spending has turned sluggish in recent months, threatening to create a vicious cycle that stock market investors and some analysts worry could tip the economy back into recession.

“We are in a difficult situation. I don’t think there is political will to have another stimulus program and even if we did I am not sure people feel it would be that effective,” said Stephen Bronars, a senior economist at Welch Consulting in Washington.

The Federal Reserve is also in a bind. It has held benchmark overnight interest rates close to zero since December 2008 and has pumped more than $1 trillion into the economy.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38054214

The Social Security Administration’s Business Services Online website has an online tool for correcting errors on Form W-2. With W-2C Online you can complete up to five Forms W-2C on the computer, submit them, and print copies for your employees and for your records at no charge to you. If you have more than five to correct, then start a new set of W-2Cs.

You will find information and tutorials for this online tool, as well as other business tools, on the Social Security’s employer website.

California’s white population has declined since 2000 at an unprecedented rate, hastening the day when Hispanics will be the state’s largest population group, according to newly released state figures.

There were half a million fewer whites in California in 2008 than in 2000, a period when the state’s overall population grew by 4 million to 38.1 million, according to a study released Thursday by the state Department of Finance.

By 2008, whites made up 40 percent of Californians, down from 47 percent at the turn of the century. In 2000, Hispanics comprised 32 percent of the population; that number grew to 37 percent in 2008.

Analysts said the decline can be attributed to two main causes – a natural population decrease as Baby Boomers enter their later years and die at a faster rate than younger whites have children, and a migration from California since 2001 among whites who sought affordable housing as real estate costs soared.
The study also confirmed projections that a steadily growing Hispanic population will surpass whites as the state’s largest racial demographic in 2016.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/06/05/MNSG1DQ1BL.DTL#ixzz0sSQlpyTt

A UN report released on Tuesday calls for abandoning the US dollar as the main global reserve currency to achieve greater stability in the world financial system.

“The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency,” said the World Economic and Social Survey 2010.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who previously chaired a UN expert commission that considered ways of overhauling the global financial system, has advocated the creation of a new reserve currency system.

Russia and China have also supported the idea.

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=132688&sectionid=3510213

The following are 25 signs that almost everyone in the financial world is expecting an economic downturn during the second half of 2010….

#1) The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index declined sharply to 52.9 in June.  Most economists had expected that the figure for June would be somewhere around 62.  To get an idea of how bad this is, the index was at 100 back during the baseline year of 1985.

#2) Major banks are being instructed to hoard cash in preparation for the next financial crisis.

#3) French bank Societe Generale is forecasting that gold could reach $1,430 an ounce in the third quarter of this year due to fears of a double-dip recession.

#4) Paul Krugman of the New York Times declared in a recent column that we are about to enter “the third depression”.

#5) According to one recent poll, about eight out of every 10 Americans expect the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to damage the U.S. economy and drive up the cost of gas and food.

#6) Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, is not optimistic about the chances of avoiding another recession….

“There’s an uncomfortably high probability that we slip back into recession.”

#7) The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting that the number of Americans on food stamps will increase to 43 million in 2011.

#8) George Soros claims that a European recession in the coming months is “almost inevitable”.

#9) Kevin Giddis, the Managing Director of Fixed Income at Morgan Keegan says that a lot of people are making some really large financial bets that a recession is on the way….

“There is big money making big bets that at a minimum we we’ll have a recession if not a depression that could last for years.”

#10) The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently said that U.S. states in fiscal 2011 could be facing the worst budget situation that they have experienced since the economic downturn began in 2007.

#11) Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is publicly saying that the U.S. unemployment rate is quite likely to remain “high for a while”.

#12) The National League of Cities is warning that large numbers of cities across the U.S. will be facing horrible economic conditions over the next couple of years….

“City budget shortfalls will become more severe over the next two years as tax collections catch up with economic conditions.  These will inevitably result in new rounds of layoffs, service cuts, and canceled projects and contracts.”

#13) According to the Wall Street Journal, debates have already begun inside the Federal Reserve about what to do in the event of a “double-dip” recession.

#14) In May, sales of new homes in the United States dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.  The truth is that the American people know economic hard times are coming and so they aren’t running out and buying expensive new homes that they can’t afford.

#15) Mike Whitney says that without more “stimulus” from the federal government a recession by the end of 2010 is extremely likely….

“Without another boost of stimulus, the economy will lapse back into recession sometime by the end of 2010.”

#16) One recent poll found that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession.

#17) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, is not mincing words about what he believes is headed our way….

“Do your friends a favor. Tell them to “batten down the hatches” because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don’t need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won’t recognize the country. They’ll retort, “How the dickens does Russell know — who told him?” Tell them the stock market told him.”

#18) The Bank of International Settlements said in its annual report that major banks on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean continue to remain “highly leveraged and still appear to be on life support”.

#19) Mish Shedlock recently raised eyebrows by openly proclaiming that “an economic depression is here”.

#20) Bob Chapman of the International Forecaster is very pessimistic about the state of the world economy as we head into the second half of 2010….

“There is still no question in our minds that Greece was a setup to lead to a deflationary collapse later and the Greek people refused to listen. As a result it is now apparent that Greece is even worse off than the elitists imagined. We do not see European bailouts going any further. The result is the US and UK will follow. Financial Europe is history. You should all keep in mind that this is child’s play. Wait until England and the US go down, perhaps before the end of the year.”

#21) An article on Bloomberg’s website says that 46 U.S. states are facing a ”Greek style” financial crisis.

#22) Charles Cooper at Oriel Securities says that worries about the global economy right now are actually very good for the price of gold….

“Debt on government balance sheets and worries that the world could be heading towards a double-dip recession are driving the gold price higher.”

#23) Richard Suttmeier recently wrote an article for Forbes magazine in which he predicted that we are headed for another dramatic decline in housing prices….

Home prices will decline again with risk of another 50% down to get house prices back to levels of 1999 / 2000.

#24) University of Maryland professor Peter Morici is warning that the decision by European governments to slash their budgets makes the prospect of another recession much more likely….

“Europeans cutting their budgets now could thrust the global economy into a double-dip recession.”

#25) John P. Hussman, fund manager of Hussman Strategic Total Return and Hussman Strategic Growth, has issued a full-fledged recession warning: “Based on evidence that has always and only been observed during or immediately prior to U.S. recessions, the U.S. economy appears headed into a second leg of an unusually challenging downturn.”

So in light of all this, what should we all do?

We should all start preparing for difficult times.

Now is a great time to get out of debt, to reduce expenses, to develop additional streams of income and to start storing up food and supplies for when things really fall apart.

After all, you don’t start preparing once the storm has already arrived.  You start preparing the moment that you see the first signs of trouble on the horizon.

There is no excuse for not getting yourself prepared.  The signs that we are headed towards an economic nightmare are all around us.

Do what you have to do for youself and for your family.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/25-signs-that-almost-everyone-is-expecting-an-economic-collapse-in-2010.html

Little noticed comments from former President Bill Clinton over the weekend which he made in South Africa are perhaps — well — a bit explosive.

“Unless we send the Navy down deep to blow up the well and cover the leak with piles and piles and piles of rock and debris, which may become necessary – you don’t have to use a nuclear weapon by the way, I’ve seen all that stuff, just blow it up – unless we’re going to do that, we are dependent on the technical expertise of these people from BP,” Clinton said.

Clinton was speaking about British Petroleum’s efforts to staunch a massive leak that erupted after one of the oil rigs it was leasing blew up Apr. 20. His remarks about the explosion solution come at about 2:30 into the recording, posted below.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0629/bill-clinton-we-blow-oil-well/

Says Military ‘Overburdened’ and He Needs Another Nation Building Force

Speaking today at a town hall meeting, President Obama declared that the military was “overburdened’ by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, say that is among the reasons for his record military budgets as he contends with growing deficits.

Of course, the president’s solution to this is not to scale down those wars. Rather, he is proposing to build a “civilian expeditionary force” that is as large as the military and can be deployed abroad for nation-building duties.

Absent from President Obama’s call was any explanation of the legal basis for this and perhaps more importantly, how he intends to pay for another military-sized institution when the $700 billion plus annual military budget is already choking the budget.

But in fact the administration has been talking for awhile about dramatically increasing the State Department’s budget to put it roughly on par with the military. Though this would ostensibly be a “civilian” force, the State Department is already looking at acquiring its own military hardware to create its own “combat force” dependent on military contractors.

So having grown the military to a size unprecedented in human history and had its mission grow to include a failed campaign of nation building, the administration may wind up trying to create another, equally large force to take over this nation building campaign, only to find its mission grown to include combat.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/30/obama-calls-for-civilian-force-as-large-as-the-military/

Now the US State Department is looking to get into the war fighting business in its own right, saying it needs its own combat force to meet the “extreme security challenges in Iraq.”

Not only is the State Department looking for a combat force, they insist they need to “duplicate the capabilities of the US military,” seeking to acquire 24 Black Hawk helicopters, and a number of other combat vehicles.

The State Department says the creation of the new force is necessary for a “smooth transition,” but it leaves open the question: transition from what to what?

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/14/state-dept-wants-own-combat-force-for-iraq/