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401(k) plans will have to disclose feesBy Margaret Collins Saturday, October 16, 2010; 8:55 PM Employer-sponsored 401(k) retirement plans will have to disclose fees that savers pay on investments and transactions by 2012, the Labor Department said. "Participants will be able to understand the dramatic effect fees play in the returns that they get," Assistant Secretary of Labor Phyllis Borzi said. The regulations, which will apply to the plans by Jan. 1, 2012, will require companies to provide investors information on administrative and investment fees charged to their accounts in their quarterly statements, the department said. Regulators and legislators have...

When Michigan government's outsized waistline fails to shrink, there's often very definitive actions and votes that tell the tale. Just two of many recent examples include 2007's billion-plus-dollar tax hikes and politicians too timid to make modest reforms last fall that would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in K-12 spending. But it isn't always so clear. Outside of those "big meals," there are other high-fat morsels that keep the state from adopting a sensible diet. A good place to find these "midnight snacks" is wherever a lawmaker is talking about a "fee" like it is different from a...

The cost of getting married in California may soon go up to shelter women whose marriages turn violent. The Senate Thursday gave final approval to legislation, Senate Bill 662, that would allow county boards of supervisors to boost marriage license fees from $23 to $33 with the extra $10 going to keep shelters for victims of domestic abuse from closing.

The move is expected to hurt retail clients who could be asked to pay new monthly maintenance fees on the most basic accounts that do not generate a lot of activity, the paper said. To avoid a fee, customers will have to maintain certain account balances or frequently use other banking services, such as credit and debit cards, automated teller machines and online accounts, the Journal said.

New Yorkers, Be Prepared To Pay Out Your Noses For Privilege To Drive On Empire State Streets And Highways. The new license plates that have begun popping up on the streets of New York are a money raiser for the state, but that's not they only way the state is sticking it to motorists. There are higher fees for just about everything. It may be no coincidence that the state's new license plates are called "Empire Gold" because the new plates -- with their higher fees -- will turn out to be a gold mine for the state. New York's...

Those little fees sure do add up. Airlines across the county have been changing customers extra for all sorts of services, from checking bags to changing reservations, and it's paying off handsomely for them. Last year, U.S. airlines took in more than $7.8 billion in fees from passengers, according to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. And those fees are rising quickly. In the last three months of 2009, the airlines charged passengers $1.9 billion in extra fees, up a whopping 18.3 percent from the same period the prior year. And there are signs that things are only...

The father of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters told Fox News he will defy a court order and not pay the protesters' appeal costs. Albert Snyder, of York, Pa., told Fox News he does not intend to pay $16,510 to Fred Phelps, the leader of Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church, which held protests at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's funeral in 2006. "I don't think I'm going to be writing a check until I hear from the Supreme Court," Snyder told Fox News on Tuesday. "I'm not about to pay them anything." The Court...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/14/president-wall-street-we-want-our-money-back-and-were-going-get-it Home • The White House Blog The White House Blog The President to Wall Street: "We Want Our Money Back, and We're Going to Get It" Posted by Jesse Lee on January 14, 2010 at 03:59 PM EST Read the Transcript | Download Video: mp4 (137MB) | mp3 (6MB) Discussing Wall Street executives' reaction to his proposed new fees on major banks, the President delivered a simple message: "Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal, or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee,...

Friend or foe? Banks hope you'll think of them more kindly this year by offering a slew of new products aimed at making life easier for customers. But that convenience, along with pretty much everything else your bank offers, will likely come at a price. In fact, consumers should expect to spend a lot more on fees this year as banks look to replace the money they expect to lose once new credit card rules go into effect next month. Come February, the Credit Card Act of 2009 will be put in place. The act is generally considered among personal...

SAN FRANCISCO -- No longer would the city charge extra business fees for tour guides, amusement parks, wrestling exhibitions, Wild West shows or funeral processions. That's the hope, at least, of Board of Supervisors President David Chiu. On Tuesday he introduced legislation to wipe dozens of special business fees off the books and tame "a bureaucracy gone wild." The roster of obscure business fees has yielded the city relatively little cash - collectively less than $20,000 a year - and probably cost the city more to administer, Chiu said. Most of the targeted fees are obsolete and generated no or...

Over more than a decade, consumers became accustomed to the sweet, steady flow of free news, pictures, videos and music on the Internet. Paying was for suckers and old fogeys. Content, like wild horses, wanted to be free. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation charges for access to The Wall Street Journal and could do the same on Hulu. Now, however, there are growing signs that this free ride is drawing to a close

Well, it's not quite as bad as Paul Krugman critiquing the Fox Business Network, but a little troubling because tax dollars are being spent to undertake such an effort. A Nov. 27 post by incoming White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer on the The White House Blog attempted to fact check a Nov. 27 column by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, proving the left-wing noise machine isn't the only shop in Washington, D.C. criticizing conservative voices (h/t Amanda Carpenter of The Washington Times). "In today's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer takes great pains to paint a bleak picture of health care...

(snip) There’s a list of issues being hammered out, but at the top is finding money for South Florida’s cash-strapped Tri-Rail. Republicans are targeting a $2 fee on rental cars as the source and discussing whether to let county commissions approve the charge or require a referendum.“That’s sort of one of the issues we’re dealing with,” Crist said. Florida’s Republican leaders believe they need to settle funding issues for Tri-Rail and a host of insurance and money issues for a proposed Central Florida line known as SunRail before the state has any chance at securing $2.5 billion in federal stimulus...

In a bad economy, we expect poor people will get poorer. But this recession has taught us that one mishap can snip anyone's strings and collapse middle-class financial security like a marionette. We didn't expect that. Consider planned communities. They're appealing as places where everyone is supposed to keep up: No front lawns going to seed; no cars rusting on top of them. However, the poor economy has meant that some of the neighbors can't keep up – and this hits homeowners associations in a unique way. Neighbors are financially yoked together, and problems for one can mean problems for...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerged from a two-month absence from public view with a private talk, heavy on foreign policy, to a group of investors in Hong Kong. Palin was paid an undisclosed amount, said to be in the low six figures, for the 90-minute speech. She has said one of the reasons she resigned was to pay legal bills that have topped $500,000. The speech was closed to reporters, but Palin later posted lengthy excerpts on her Facebook page. "This speech had very little to do with advancing her political career and more to do with advancing her...

More than a year after Bay Area air pollution regulators became the first in the nation to charge businesses for pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the program has raked in close to $1.7 million. And as early as this week, the state may follow suit by imposing similar fees on large California polluters as part of an ongoing effort to cut greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020. The proposed program from the California Air Resources Board and the fledgling regional effort are designed to use the fees to pay for measuring, monitoring and studying the emissions blamed for global...

SACRAMENTO — State air-quality regulators appear back on track to impose the nation's first broad-based fee on greenhouse gas emissions, potentially costing Californians a little extra to fill their gas tanks, turn up the heat or go out to dinner. Regulators estimate that overall, the average consumer will pay less than $1.50 a year more once the fee is passed down by energy providers and others that release greenhouse gasses linked to global warming. ... The fee will affect about 250 types of businesses, such as the energy and cement industries, that burn huge quantities of fossil fuels. Together, those...

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — The California State University system raised student fees Tuesday by 20 percent as part of a budget plan that would also shrink enrollment and furlough nearly all employees for two days a month. The Board of Trustees voted 17-1 to raise undergraduate fees by $672 a year to $4,827 in the nation's largest four-year university system. The fee increase, which follows a 10 percent hike approved in May, is part of the 23-campus system's plan to close a $584 million budget shortfall caused by an unprecedented drop in state funding to CSU, which has with...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration official says billions of dollars to raise fees for doctors treating Medicare patients are not covered by President Barack Obama's pledge to pay for health care legislation. Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday that's because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to prevent a cut of more than 20 percent in doctor fees.

State law ups late fines, adds new road and bridge surcharges for transportation funding. A set of new fees aimed at funding highway repairs and improvements took effect July 1, and officials at the local branch of the Division of Motor Vehicles said they've been getting an earful from angry vehicle owners since then. While they didn't want to be named in the newspaper, the clerks said Tuesday that they don't set the fees. “People are irate about the fees, but it's a state law. We just collect them,” said one of the clerks, describing how some vehicles owners have...