Archive for the ‘Spend Page’ Category

A Tariff is…

Friday, August 21st, 2009

A tariff is a tax placed on imports.

A Retailer is…

Friday, August 21st, 2009

A retailer is a person or organization (often a store) that sells commodities or products (aka things you want to buy) directly to the public, rather than to other companies for resale. For example, Target and Amazon are retailers, because they sell products directly to you for your personal use or consumption.

A Monopoly is…

Friday, August 21st, 2009

A monopoly is a company that has control over all sales and distribution of a product – to the extent that no other company can compete with it. For example, if your cable or utility companies are the only sellers of their service and you can’t really choose another company to buy from, they hold a monopoly on that particular service. Remember the game Monopoly? The goal was to own EVERYTHING.

Electronic Fund Transfers are…

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Electronic fund transfers (EFTs) are the movement or deposition of money using purely electronic signals, like using an ATM machine to transfer money between accounts, rather than using checks or cash and bank tellers.

Wholesale Trade is…

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Wholesale trade is the purchase of large quantities of a commodity or product followed by the sale of that commodity or product to retailers. Basically, wholesale trade isn’t selling commodities to the public, it’s selling them to other companies who sell them to the public. Another term for it is B2B – business to business.

A Proportional Tax is…

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A proportional tax is a system of taxation in which individuals are taxed at the same rate regardless of their income level. So whether you make $25,000 a year or $3,000,000, you’re still paying the same percentage of that amount in income taxes. The U.S. uses a progressive tax system for income tax purposes.

Bankruptcy is…

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Bankruptcy is a legal procedure which occurs when a company in debt is unable to make the payments it owes and therefore the assets of the company are distributed to the creditors. Filing for bankruptcy can be either voluntary or involuntary but is an indicator that a company cannot raise enough money to repay the debt without selling its assets.

Individuals can also file for bankruptcy for basically the same reason: they have more debt than they can reasonably repay. When you file for bankruptcy, your debts are either forgiven or reorganized into a viable payment plan. A declaration of personal bankruptcy will remain on your credit record for seven to ten years.

Real Income is…

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Real income is how much an individual, organization, or country can actually purchase or do with its earnings after taking inflation into account; that is, its purchasing power. In an environment where prices are increasing, even if you made the same amount of money, say $100, this year as you did last year, your real income was greater last year because you could buy more with that $100 last year than you can this year.

A Duty is…

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

A duty is a tax levied on products that are imported or exported from a different country. If a manufacturer wants to ship his product to another country and sell it there, he may have to pay a duty for sending it out of the first country and another duty for sending it into the second, depending on the tax laws in place in each country.