Democrats were joined by 22 Republicans Thursday to block new overtime regulations that critics say would deny overtime pay for at least 6 million workers.The vote was 223-193, defying a veto threat from the White House. The sweeping overtime rules were attached as an amendment to a $142 billion measure funding education, worker training and health programs.The administration believes the rules would improve overtime protection for many more workers than would lose them, the Los Angeles Times reported. The U.S.

A series of e-mails dating from the mid-1990s to 2003 show that even after KPMG was ordered by the Internal Revenue Service to stop pushing tax shelters considered abusive, the Big Four firm continued to promote at least a dozen new similar shelters, the New York Times reported.New documents issued Monday by the Senate subcommittee looking into the abusive shelters, show that KPMG was continuing to develop tax shelters similar to those deemed abusive, but do not indicate whether the new tax shelters were ever actually sold, the Times reported.

State-by-state actions to adopt an updated, standardized set of trust rules are triggering fears of privacy violations.The Uniform Trust Code, or UTC, is designed to clarify sometimes-confusing trust laws, which differ from state to state, the Wall Street Journal reported. Legal observers said a national codification of the trust laws should simplify matters for trust creators, trustees and heirs.The UTC has already been approved in 10 jurisdictions.

If you know someone who is retired from the airline, steel, transportation, machinery, retail trade, apparel and financial services industries and lives in New York, California, Texas, New Jersey or Pennsylvania, there's a possibility that pension money belonging to them is being held by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Reuters reported.While most of the $75 million in unclaimed benefits due to 26,000 people the agency can't find comes from those industries and belongs to people living in the above states, the benefits aren't confined to these areas.

Bridget Thomas of Prairieville, Louisiana, lobbied for a way to block access to credit reports in her state after she was badly burned by identity theft that destroyed her credit status.A woman with the same name as Thomas, but a different middle initial, obtained her social security number and started spending.Lawmakers in Louisiana and a few other states, moved by stories like Thomas’, have instituted a privacy option called a security freeze.

On Monday, the Internal Revenue Service announced the release of the Spring 2004 issue of the Statistics of Income Bulletin, a quarterly compilation of information on selected topics from tax returns and other sources. For the first time, the Bulletin takes a detailed look at individual retirement arrangements. At the end of 2000, 46.3 million taxpayers held IRA accounts worth a total of $2.6 trillion in fair market value. The bulk — $2.4 trillion, or 91.5 percent — was invested in traditional IRA plans, which have been available for the longest amount of time.

Used properly, credit cards offer significant safety and convenience benefits. But mistakes with credit can cost dearly -- in time and money and in terms of credit rating. To help consumers avoid costly credit card errors, the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants highlights the most common credit card mistakes and explains how to avoid them.Mistake 1: Not shopping around for the best interest rate. Credit card rates and terms vary greatly. Financial publications and the Internet are good sources to find the best credit card options.

Microsoft has announced it would pay a $32 billion special dividend to its shareholders, while buying back $30 billion of its shares over the next four years and doubling its regular dividend payment. Pending approval by shareholders, the special dividend of $3 a share will be paid out on Dec. 2. The annual dividend will be increase to 32 cents a share, or about $3.5 billion a year.Observers say Thursday’s announcement is an answer to critics who believe the software giant is too conservative with its cash, the Business Standard reported.

The largest professional association for financial planners sued the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday to force stock brokers to be held to the same standards as financial planners.The Financial Planning Association (FPA) contends that stock brokers who act as financial planners should not be exempt from the fiduciary duties and disclosure rules required by the federal Investment Advisers Act, TheStreet.com reported."The SEC has given brokers a wholesale exemption from the Advisers Act that Congress never intended," said Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America, which