It looks like Congress won’t get around to fixing the estate tax before this year ends. Aside from boosting the incomes of estate planning attorneys, this doesn’t help anyone. Read the full article

A report released this month on indicates that while average college debt levels reached $23,200 for the graduating class of 2008, there is an extremely wide range of variation among student debts loads in different parts of the country and at different school. It’s not very enlightening to speak of an “average” college debt when average debt levels at specific institutions vary from $5,000 to $106,000. Read the full article

This past summer I wrote about the novel Macroshares trusts released this year that enable investors to speculate on the direction of housing prices. Earlier this week, MacroMarkets announced that instead of terminating in 2014, the trusts will terminate next week. Read the full article

Last Friday, the House passed the the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a measure hailed as the biggest reform of financial services in half a century. Already, though, some interesting exceptions have been spotted in the bill, which weighs in at 1200-plus pages. The bill does a number of laudable things, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to oversee financial products and services. Read the full article

For many people, December is the riskiest month in which to buy into a new mutual fund in a taxable account. This has nothing to do with the gyrations of the stock market, and everything to do with taxes. Read the full article

As the end of the year approaches, it’s always a good idea to take see if there are any last-minute moves that make sense for you. Here are four opportunities for tax savings: Read the full article

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