Forbes Personal Finances Information

When news broke on Sunday that Yahoo agreed to purchase the mindless ramblings of 100 million 13-year old girls Tumblr, the micro-blogging web platform, the immediate reaction of most Americans could be summed up thusly: ?Great?now which punk kid just became an overnight multi-millionaire??

According to many self-made millionaires, the times legal fees are voluntary – or quasi-voluntary – are ALL THE TIME. The general process is that lawyers do legal work and they send a bill. Sometimes they get a retainer – partial payment. It’s also likely the lawyers, depending on the nature of the work, provided estimates (which are rarely on target).

Out of state investors in real estate partnerships in high tax states sometimes get nasty surprises, particularly if partnership management is not sensitive to their concerns.  That appears to be what happened to Craig Olsheim based on a recent decision in the State of New York Division of Tax Appeals.  Mr. Olsheim inherited an interest in Fifth Avenue Building Associates, LLC in 2004.  In 2005, Fifth Avenue sold its only asset and dissolved.

Over $1 billion of post-war and contemporary art changed hands in New York last week, generating masses of headlines about record-breaking sales and record-breaking art. Larry Gagosian said that last week's evening sale of contemporary art at Christie's demonstrated "how broad the market is - as in deep pockets".

You probably won't be surprised to hear that early IRA withdrawal is a major trend in retirement investing.

Paying back that 20 dollars your buddy spotted you last night will soon be as easy as sending an email. With very little fanfare last week at Google I/O, a very useful new technology was introduced. You might have missed it among the flurry of other announcements. Google announced that Gmail users will be able to make peer-to-peer (P2P) payments with similar ease to adding an email attachment within a Gmail message.

MLPs-- Master Limited Partnerships-- are back in style.  Born in the 80s to incent investment in domestic energy infrastructure, Congress showered them with impressive tax benefits. Like their contemporaries, acid washed jeans and Swatches, they were forgotten for a while, but are du jour again.

A lot of investors who love to buy at the bottom and sell at the top are kicking themselves these days?for missing the market peak in gold and the nadir in housing.

At the annual Lithium Technologies LiNC conference in April, I heard about an innovative approach to credit cards in the Banking industry that is built on the core ideas of social business: a community-driven credit card from Barclaycard USA. This is a solid business product that makes sense to customers, supports the business, and combines financial responsibility with the engagement of its customer community.

By Jane Gross, Next Avenue Contributor

Banks are required to notify taxpayers and the IRS about debt discharges by filing Form 1099-C.  It is less than crystal clear as to exactly when the banks are supposed to file 1099-C.  A recent bankruptcy decision in the case of William and Elaine Reed has made the issue even more challenging  for the banks.  Tentatively, I'm looking at this as a win for the little guys.

The super-rich with a net-worth of US$500 million or more, by definition, have money. They also are very likely to have connections resulting in business and political clout. However, none of this means that the super-rich are safe. On the contrary, there are institutions and people that can easily put them on edge – that scare them. The following are admittedly broad generalizations based on interviews with some of the super-rich and high-end security specialists.