Expats Suffer More Collateral Damage

Americans who live or work abroad may enjoy many aspects of their cosmopolitan lifestyle, but Washington continues to make their financial lives miserable.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, commonly abbreviated FATCA, imposed burdensome compliance requirements on foreign banks that have American accountholders in the name of hunting down U.S. taxpayers hiding assets in offshore accounts. By farming out some of its enforcement duties to foreign banks, the IRS hoped to catch cheats, but some predicted that in the process it was likely to scare foreign banks away from accepting American customers.

That is exactly what happened. Some banks started turning Americans away soon after the legislation passed; more of them took that step recently in advance of the regulations' July 1, 2014 effective date. Expatriates and their families are not the only ones affected; small and midsized American companies, too, have had trouble obtaining banking services overseas. Under criticism, the Treasury has argued that turning away U.S. accountholders will not allow a foreign financial institution to avoid FATCA altogether, though that has not made it much easier for Americans living abroad to find a bank willing to take their business.

Now, with little relief in sight, the headache is about to get worse. Not only are American expatriates having trouble finding foreign banks to serve them, they are now finding that American mutual fund companies don't want to serve them either.

Fidelity Investments and other domestic financial services companies have told American clients living outside the country that they are imposing new rules on their accounts. Americans living abroad will not be able to perform basic management functions on their brokerage accounts from outside the country - transactions like buying new mutual funds, switching their holdings from one fund to another, or rebalancing their asset allocations among funds they already own. Stephen Austin, a spokesman for Fidelity, pointed to "today's continually evolving global regulatory environment," but did not identify any specific issue that triggered the change, according to The Wall Street Journal. (1)

Given foreign financial institutions' FATCA-fueled reluctance to deal with American customers, it is easy to lump this new problem under the umbrella of problems created by the law. But while FATCA may be indirectly to blame, it is almost certainly not the direct catalyst for this development. The problem for American mutual fund companies and their customers isn't really FATCA as such. Instead, it is the fear of tit-for-tat treatment by foreign governments.

Most countries apply tax laws and other statutes only to their own residents. If a German sets up permanent housekeeping in Iowa, Germany relinquishes the power to tax its citizen and will rely on American authorities to handle other related legal matters, such as protection against fraud. In contrast, the United States alone among industrialized countries insists that no matter how long an American lives in Dusseldorf, the American must continue to pay taxes to Washington. Expatriates also remain subject to a wide range of domestic laws, such as restrictions on commerce with sanctioned countries. None of this is anything new.

Notwithstanding this frustrating piece of American exceptionalism, for years U.S. citizens who moved abroad have been able to trade their mutual funds with most of the big investment houses as a matter of course. But now that America is aggressively prosecuting or extracting settlements from foreign banks for violating U.S. law, mutual fund companies fear that they will be targeted for equal treatment in turn. Since they don't wish to register their products in the nearly 200 national jurisdictions worldwide where an American customer might set up housekeeping, the companies have decided to simply tell American expats that they are out of luck.

This situation is yet another unanticipated consequence of the heavy-handed crusade against tax dodgers who have been hiding their assets from the Internal Revenue Service in secret overseas accounts. This is not to defend tax dodgers. But the collateral damage from hunting them threatens to affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans who are living, and often working, abroad. In the government's haste to recover these lost funds, it seems more than prepared to make life difficult or impossible for Americans who have done nothing more nefarious than live outside the borders of the United States.

It would be nice if reason prevailed, and institutions again felt it was prudent to work with American customers living overseas. In the absence of change built on reason, however, Americans may need to engage in elaborate, and only somewhat effective, planning through trusts and business arrangements that will keep their mutual funds in onshore entities where they can be managed effectively.

Aggravating? Sure. But as long as FATCA and other regulations like it hold sway, Americans abroad will have to live with the far-reaching consequences of Washington seeking to impose its will anywhere it can get away with it.

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By Larry M. Elkin

3 Ways To Select The Right Accountant

You may even find that you need different ones for various areas of your business, so for example a book keeper for the day-to-day accounting matters but a specialist to advice on taxation and the processing of annual tax returns.

Also, even though these 8 factors are most beneficial for a new instruction with a firm that you don't yet know, they can also be helpful for checking that any existing or previous accountant is still appropriate, and help benchmark with other accountancy firms.

The Accountant's Cost

The first factor is the most obvious and probably perceived as the most important - cost. What the total cost of the advice will be, the emphasis being on total. You need to make sure that the entirety of the instruction is considered, including any further costs down the line as well as any main or initial costs. You may be able to agree any initial consultation as being free of charge, but be careful as to what and when other costs will then come.

So maybe one firm only needs to charge for advice every year, but this cost can be higher than another firm charging every 3 months but being able to keep on top of things every three months with yourself doing day-do-day accounts in the meantime.

The Accountant's Small Print

The second to fifth factors are what you might refer to as the 'small print' with any firm - the way in which they are regulated, making sure they have a valid track record and creditable references, the correct insurance cover in case anything goes wrong and you need to make a claim, and their main terms and conditions. You need to consciously request, receive, and check all this information out and not simply go on claims that are made.

On one extreme, claims such as "we are regulated by such and such an authority" can be blatantly incorrect, but on another extreme they can simply be misunderstood through effective marketing so that yes you are instructing a regulated firm of accountants, but in actual fact the main individuals dealing with your work are still under training. Also, details like the insurance cover and terms and conditions can have little effect at the start of the instruction and only cause issues when things don't go to plan and a gap emerges between yours and the firm's expectations of the work.

The Accountant's Delivery

The final three factors from six to eight are then to do with the ability to deliver your service. This includes looking at the size of the firm and number and location of their branches, and what service they actually provide. This will also depend upon your own circumstances and preferences as well as the actual instruction and workload, so although you may be offering a large volume of work that could more efficiently be carried out with a larger firm with more resources to fulfil this, they may not be able to offer such a personal service that helps provide and interpret this advice to your own situation and understanding

The Right Accountant

Therefore make sure you're first clear on what you're trying to achieve, and go through these criteria to make sure you select the most suitable accountant.



By Andrew Nuttall

Important Points to Consider in Financial Hardships

Financial hardship takes place when you fail to settle financial arrears. This may be caused by unforeseen and uncontrolled situations or unpredicted changes that can affect your cash flow. Some of these conditions include changes of income and increase in family or personal expenses. Monetary difficulties may also be brought about by injuries, prolonged ailments, natural disasters, death in the family or divorce. This can be very difficult and can ruin your life if not addressed properly and promptly.

This is not a hopeless predicament. You can recover given the necessary help and determination.

Financial hardship support is meant to provide temporary respite from the time that you are unable to settle regular settlements until you can may repayments in full. This is when your economic condition goes back to normal. It is possible to work out a new arrangement that can be fair and easily met. Assistance for financial hardship is generally made on a case to case basis. It is important to inform your bank of these circumstances. Do not wait until you are lagging behind in paying loans and the collection agency has sent you a formal notice.

You have to be honest. In such case, you can still be given hardship assistance even in this state of debt. In case you are in a state of financial hardship, go through these following steps:

Evaluate your personal situation and determine the degree of your indebtedness.

Call a representative of your bank and give notice of your hardship.
Provide all the information about your condition to the bank.
Maintain close communications with your bank.
It is vital to take a look at your current income and monthly expenses. This will allow you to know your financial capacity. It is a way of figuring out how much can be allocated for your loans and still have enough for food, utilizes and rent. Be ready to do away with unnecessary expenditures. Most banks have hardship teams that specialize in these cases. Get in touch with this group immediately.

Be candid and inform the team once you are not capable of making repayments. You can do this in writing or even verbally. Inform the bank about timelines when you can deal with these issues. The bank is willing to compromise so you can reach a solution that is favorable to both. Discuss a new repayment plan with the bank if the current one is not viable.


By Anne Del Rio

Understanding Dogecoin

Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer internet currency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. The good side with the currency is that it can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware. The coins also provide faster transaction confirmations (usually of about 2.5 minutes).

The dogecoin network uses a memory-card which serves as a proof that the currency can be mined using regular CPUs and computers used by many people.

How it can be used

For you to use Dogecoins you need to have a digital wallet. This is an address that you use to receive the coins. When you have a new wallet, the dogecoin network generates a private key that is given to you.

The network also generates a public key that you use when exchanging the coins with other users.

The private key is kept as a big secret and the owner is the only person who knows it. The reason why it's kept as a secret is because anyone who knows it can claim complete ownership of the funds associated with it.

Due to the importance of the key, it's vital that you guard it as much as you can. This is because if you reveal it to other people it can easily result to loss of your money.

Block chain

This is a place where all the transactions that you engage in are maintained. Many experts equate the block chain to a logbook. Since the block chain records every transaction that you engage in, it's updated every time that you complete a transaction.

To eliminate errors in the records, all the transactions are first verified before they are written permanently. For example, if you send money to a friend, the transaction is first added to the most current "block" after which it undergoes verification for authenticity.

Once the verification is complete it's written permanently. The verification process is done by "miners".

How to acquire Dogecoins

There are a number of ways you can acquire the coins. Some of the ways include: mining, faucets, tips, and changing of other forms of currency to dogecoins. The most common method of acquiring the coins is mining. Here you only need to have a computer and software that allows you to mine the coins.

To mine faster you may be required to purchase an ATI/AMD video card. You need to note that the better the card you have, the faster you will mine the coins.

By Duncan Lancer

A Stable Stream Of Income - Your Means To A Comfortable Retirement!

Preparing in advance is indeed the only way to be ready for a challenge or opportunity which might present itself in the near future. The only way to derive maximum benefit from a probable opportunity and convert a challenge into a profitable prospect, is to be well aware of one's capabilities and have a plan ready, which would help one easily deal with any and every situation.

Therefore, while preparing for the unexpected, it is even more important to be ready for the inevitable, which includes planning and organizing strategies for one's retired life. It is understandable that retirement age is not a preferred time in life to have to worry about meeting expenses and stress about having to meet with the various essential treatment expenditures that come with old age. Rather, it is preferable to have a means of support which makes it possible to enjoy life after retirement with all the comfort and satisfaction that one desires.

But in order to ensure that, it is important to have a constant and stable stream of income, which promises them the convenience to easily meet with their different needs and essentials, without having to seek loans or worry about them.

A steady stream of income helps one to prepare and plan for a retirement life, which requires suitable capital to help tackle any pressing expenses and essential expenditures. Most individuals have to support their families as well as take care of their own treatment expenditures, which makes it very difficult for them to handle the situation without a source of income. But a stable stream of income which has been wisely invested and planned for future financial security, serves to alleviate all the worries that an individual might be facing in their retired life, trying to meet with the numerous personal and family needs.

With the need to ensure a comfortable retirement regime, it is essential to pursue a career opportunity which offers job security and a constant flow of income, along with a means to increase business productivity and have a lucrative job in the sector. By opting for a job which ensures stable income, one can easily plan out for their retirement while taking care of all present needs, without any need to opt for a loan. Part time jobs also present exciting opportunities for lucrative earnings, offering a wonderful means to ensure a comfortable retirement life and happy future.



By Kevin J Marshall 

Top 10: States With Best Credit Scores

Lenders look at credit scores as a way to gauge a person's creditworthiness. In today's recessive economy, it might seem like everyone is taking a hit to that all important credit score. It will probably come as a surprise to you that some states are faring better than others. Living in a particular locale doesn't mean you have perfect credit, however. Knowing which states top the list will give you an idea of how you compare with the people living around you.

What Factors Influence a State's Average Credit Rating?

Exactly what factors can change the average credit rating of a state's residents? There are a number to consider. Unemployment is one of the top concerns. States with better employment statistics tend to have residents with a healthier FICO score. Being unemployed forces some people to rely heavily on credit to pay for essentials, and that can drive their scores down. Foreclosures within the state are another prime concern.

Other considerations include:

Average credit card payment history
Natural disasters that affect the state economy
New businesses
Housing market
Bankruptcy rates

Warm-weather locations tend to suffer more than states that face the cold each year, too. This may be in part due to their tourism-based economies. As a nation, Vantage Scores average from 707 to 785, but by state, there is a wider distribution.

A Look at the Top Ten

10. Iowa - With a score that sits around 771, Iowa makes the top 10. Residents of Iowa tend to have low credit card delinquencies, and the state as a whole has low unemployment. Iowa does take a mild ding for a higher-than-average foreclosure rate. It was enough to push the state down to number 10.

9. Hawaii - Hawaii is tied with Connecticut and Wisconsin for average credit score, with all three coming in at 772. Hawaii is the exception to the warm weather rule. While this sunshine state is known for its high cost of living, it also hosts one of the highest number of millionaires per capita in the U.S.

8. Wisconsin - Coming in at 772, Wisconsin boasts a gross state product of $248.3 billion. A negative factor in its credit score is high unemployment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the rate in Wisconsin hovers around 6.3, but that is a considerable improvement over the 2010 numbers.

7. Connecticut - The per capita income in the state of Connecticut is one of the best in the country, but the unemployment rate runs high. In this case, the one positive and one negative cancel each other out to give the state an average credit rating of 772.

How Does the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) Empower Me to Repair My Credit?

What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act?

Established in 1970, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) restricts businesses from freely accessing an individual's personal credit information by contacting one or more of the big three credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a company must have "permissible purpose" before requesting information from a credit bureau. In other words, a business cannot access someone's credit record unless the query achieves a lending decision.Intended to protect individual privacy, the FCRA makes it illegal for anyone who is not involved in a lending situation with a potential client to contact a credit agency and request information about that person's credit history. For example, insurance agencies and employers must get permission from the individual they are interacting with before contacting Experian, Equifax or TransUnion to request copies of that person's credit score.

How the FCRA Helps Ensure Credit Repair

When the FCRA was passed in 1970, it not only supported privacy rights of consumers but also enacted rules by which all credit bureaus must abide. These include:

Removing all data that is obsolete within a pre-set time period (debt type dictates the time period; for example bankruptcies remain on a person's credit report for seven to 10 years).

Removing the majority of closed accounts within seven years regardless of debt type.Giving consumers the legal ability to dispute errors on their credit score as reported by one or more credit agencies. When confronted with possible errors by a consumer, the credit agency must investigate the issue fully until it has been resolved with supporting documentation.

Entitling consumers to legal recourse if they discover someone has deliberately provided erroneous information to a credit bureau regarding their credit score. In fact, consumers can sue the company or individual who gave false information to a credit agency for up to $1,000 per infraction.

Granting consumers the right to sue anyone who accesses copies of their credit score (FICO) by falsely representing themselves and their intent.

By giving consumers the right to protect their credit score from inaccuracies that could significantly impair their ability to receive loans, purchase homes or obtain credit cards, the FCRA can help repair credit and increase FICO scores when misinformation and errors are damaging a person's credit.

Why is My FICO Score So Important?

Credit repair involves raising your FICO score, or the number representing your credit "grade" that appears on your credit report. FICO numbers are always between 300 and 850, with 300 being the lowest score you can have. FICO is an acronym for Fair Isaac and Company, a business that created software during the 1980s to assist lending companies in determining whether an individual was a credit risk. FICO based its software algorithms on the ability of a person to make payments on time while avoiding defaults or bankruptcies. Other factors contributing to a FICO score include how much money the person owed to lending institutions and the length of his or her credit history.

Credit Repair with the Help of the FCRA and FACTA

In addition to the provisions provided by the FCRA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACTA) Act of 2003 offers even more protection for consumers by setting additional standards to which individuals and businesses must adhere or face litigation. According to guidelines established by the FACTA Act, consumers are allowed to ask for free copies of their credit scores from any one of the three credit reporting agencies if an adverse action has been taken due to information contained in that report. Additionally, creditors must inform you of any negative comments placed in your file by them so that you know such comments exist. FACTA also allows you to insert a statement of no more than 100 words in your file to describe any extenuating circumstances that may have contributed to a negative entry or in support of an ongoing dispute.

Rebuilding Your Credit Score Using FCRA and FACTA Laws

If you have been denied a loan, credit card, apartment lease or other similar action because you were informed your credit score was too low and you have blemishes, possibly in error, on your FICO score, you can either perform the necessary investigations into why your credit report is damaged, or you can consult a professional credit repair agency experienced in dealing with unresponsive credit reporting agencies that often do not want to admit they are wrong.Unfortunately, credit bureaus and lenders are in a position to profit financially from keeping consumer credit scores low, an unethical motive prompting the establishment of the FCRA and FACTA laws. For example, to fulfill underwriting requirements, lenders need credit scores that are just average or below average to label customers as "high-risk" borrowers so they can extract extra fees and inflate interest rates. Alternately, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian earn a lot of money selling credit data to lenders interested in people with credit scores between 500 and 600, or those who may be tempted to borrow much-needed money at high rates of interest.

Confronting Credit Agencies

Don't be intimidated by big-name credit agencies that tend to ignore or minimize complaints of error or wrongdoing concerning consumer credit reports. If you think your payment history does not warrant a denial of credit and understand you may need credit repair, use the benefits provided by the Fair Credit Report Act as well as the FACT Act and start taking back control of your credit score.



By Nikitas Tsoukalis

Achieve Your Goals Of A Secure Financial Future By Making The Right Choice!

With the highly volatile economic conditions, the need for a stable career which promises a constant stream of income suitable for meeting with all individual and family needs has acquired paramount importance like never before.

With the highly challenging lifestyles and pressing economic strain, it is essential to pursue a career in a field which promises high returns, possible growth and prospective advancement in the future. In order for you to acquire your goal of a secure financial future, you need to make the right career choice and opt for a field which not only satisfies your passion, but also ensures you the opportunity to strive for a lucrative and stable financial future for yourself.

Achieving Financial Goals

In order to achieve the financial goals you have set for yourself, it is essential that you strive to pursue a successful career which has great prospects in the future, and is one which is predicted to have a significant impact on the economy and the environment in the future.

By aiming to seek a job which has potential for further research and improvement, you can try your luck in the sector in aiming for growth and career advancement.

Securing A Financial Future

By achieving your goal to secure your financial future, you can easily provide for your family, while taking care of your own individual needs. With the assurance of a secure financial future, you won't have to worry about acquiring large loans for meeting with any family needs and can utilize the earnings to invest in lucrative projects and pursue great opportunities.

Preparing For Retirement

While thinking of planning for your retirement, it is important that you carefully evaluate all possible eventualities and prepare a strategy which ensures the proper utilization of monetary resources. With the proper planning, you can be sure of a comfortable and hassle free retirement life which does not result in you being worried about how to meet with your own and family needs in your old age.

As old age entails its own added expenses, it is important to have a source of financial security which can help you meet with your medical expenses and treatment costs. With the added requirement to support your family after retirement, you would definitely be better off having a sound plan for achieving your goals of a secure financial future.

Being prepared for the future is sure to pay off and reduce any mounting worries and stress associated with providing for the family in the future.


By Mark Ecko

How To Make Money Online - Up To $12/Hour!

Making money online has never been easier than now. You can make easily money by doing easy tasks online, and you can earn up to $12 on some sites. The sites are accessible for everyone that are over thirteen years old.

Cashcrate

CashCrate is a well known site that is for many the best way to make money online. The site itself is easy to use, very simple, and has ton of offers all the time. The site also has different kind of contests which they host that has usually a prize pool of over $100.

The site itself can produce you quite a bit of money, since as I said earlier, it has ton of offers available. Also, the site has a very cost efficient referral system, which pays you $1 for every single referral that signs up under your link. This is the reason many people prefer CashCrate over sites like InstaGC or Swagbucks.

InstaGC

InstaGC is also a very known site and probably pays the best after CashCrate. It has a bit more offers than CashCrate has, but it loses to CashCrate due to its referral system, which doesn't pay as well.

InstaGC is a great site though, because it provides tons of contests for its users, its admins are very active on social medias, and also the site is very known for having an option of donating the money you make to different charities around the globe.

Get-Paid

Get-Paid is one of the newest additions to the world of GPT (Get Paid for Tasks) sites and has successfully been able to provide tons of tasks for people in Europe in addition.

Most of the GPT sites are quite infamous for not providing enough offers for Europeans, but Get-Paid is one of those sites that are different from the normal. The site has ton of offers for different European countries and they have put a ton of emphasis on giving enough work to do for Europians too.

Tips For The Sites

Now that I have told you some basic information about the sites, for the end of the article I will also tell some tips for the sites to maximize your money making.

Make these sites a part of your daily routine. You only need about an hour per day to make a couple hundred dollars in a month and you can make more depending on how much work you are willing to put into this.

Try to do as much work as you can for the amount of time you have decided to put into this. This makes it so that you aren't slacking and you aren't still burning out yourself while doing this

While I mentioned earlier that you don't really have to put in a ton of dedication to get good payrolls every month, you still need to work as hard as you can for the little amount of time you use for it.
These sites can generate you a pretty good income, without you needing to do hard, exhausting work. The tasks are fairly easy, pay quite well, and sometimes you face incredibly good prices for your work.



By Jesse Willman  

Why Tax Season Is the Time to Repair Your Credit

Why is tax season the best time to repair credit? As important as credit repair is, this process repeatedly slips to the bottom of many people's to-do lists. They make excuses, telling themselves that it's not quite the right time to get around to addressing credit issues. If this situation sounds familiar, there's good news. Tax season is a great time to take strides toward resolving your credit issues and improving your FICO score. Take a look at why you should seize this opportunity to improve your financial future.

Financial Issues Are Already On Your Mind

Whether you're doing your taxes yourself, hiring a tax professional or using tax preparation software, the tax filing process requires you to evaluate your overall financial picture. Many people with credit issues find that this first step toward credit repair can be the most difficult part of the process. Because you're already taking stock of items such as your earnings, loan interest, charitable donations and expenses when you do your taxes, this is the perfect time to continue that process and delve deeper into your financial picture. While you're researching and calculating, add up your total debt, take stock of your debt payment history, order copies of your credit reports and review them. Create an organization system for all of this information so you'll have an easier time keeping track of your progress as you work toward improving your credit. Daunted by the idea of tackling it yourself? Gathering all your records can also be the first step you take before turning to a professional credit repair company that can put you on a better financial path.

You Can Get a Head Start at Paying Down Debt

If things go well, tax season means you should receive a tax refund. While it may be tempting to spend that money on a new purchase, a few nice dinners or a vacation, it's a better idea to put the cash toward improving your credit score. If unpaid debt is one of the issues that has contributed to your less than ideal credit score, putting your tax refund toward one of those outstanding balances can be a significant step in the right direction. Don't fall into the trap of getting discouraged if your tax refund is only a small portion of your total debt. Every little bit helps and puts you closer to your financial goal of having less - or no - debt weighing you down. Using your tax refund to pay down debt can also inspire you to use future lump payments to cut back on debt. This small effort could be the first of many tax refunds and bonuses that go toward chipping away at your debt and making a big impact over the long term.

You'll Eliminate a Common Barrier with an Emergency Fund

Maybe you've tried to repair your credit in the past, but you were thrown off track by an unexpected car repair bill or health expense. One of the main reasons people continue to damage their credit score is because they aren't prepared to handle emergencies like these. If this situation sounds familiar, you can use your tax refund to create an emergency fund. This will give you more security and flexibility to improve your FICO score without your having to worry about getting sidetracked by unexpected expenses and financial setbacks.

Can SMEs Achieve The Living Wage Aspiration?

In the current market place SMEs are generally pulled from pillar to post with commitments from the financial to the ethical, the environmental to the commercial.

Most SMEs survive and thrive by spinning all of these plates particularly well and ensuring all aspects of their business work in harmony and towards a common goal. The most recent concept being brokered by the business community is that of employing workers on a living wage.

Following a recent poll 64% of business owners questioned backed the idea but saw it as an aspirational goal and usually not one that is immediately achievable. Anyone successful in business knows you are only as strong as your weakest link so when a business has great employees it is hugely important that they feel valued and justly rewarded. It is in the interest of the business to try and retain them and inspire loyalty, being an employer who pays the accepted living wage is just one way to do this.

Funding in business is a balancing act taking loans or funding that, in the long run, will benefit the business and show a return on the initial co

st usually through investment in growth and sustainability. SMEs have more funding options than ever to try and achieve this balance, with funding enabling businesses to attain the living wage accolade amongst their other business aspirations.

Below is a list of what is seen as the top 5 funding options for SMEs in the UK.

Traditional Bank Loans - Generally less flexible than some other forms of lending but still a viable option for most in the current climate.

Asset Based Finance and Invoice Finance - The fastest growing form of funding with SMEs, generally it is flexible, reliable and sustainable. With short term contracts now being offered this is an option that many SMEs are using as an interim growth tool.