Ellen's tax client, Tom, is employed at a large company that offers health care flexible spending accounts to its employees. Tom must decide at the beginning of the year whether he wants to put as much as $2,700 of his salary into the health care flexible spending account. He expects that he will have to pay for at least $8,000 of medical expenses for his family during the year since his wife is seeing a psychiatrist every week and his daughter and son are both having their teeth straightened. Tom does not itemize deductions. Should Ellen recommend that Tom put the maximum in his medical flexible spending account, and if so, why? Karen is a wealthy retired investment advisor who is in the 35 percent tax bracket. She has a choice between investing in a high-quality municipal bond paying 5 percent or a high-quality corporate bond paying 7 percent. Which investment do you think she will make and why?

Ummit record company is negotiating with two banks for a $157,000 loan. fidelity bank requires a compensating balance of 24 percent, discounts the loan, and wants to be paid back in four quarterly payments. southwest bank requires a compensating balance of 12 percent, does not discount the loan, but wants to be paid back in 12 monthly installments. the stated rate for both banks is 9 percent. compensating balances will be subtracted from the $157,000 in determining the available funds in part a. a-1. calculate the effective interest rate for fidelity bank and southwest bank. (do not round intermediate calculations. input your answers as a percent rounded to 2 decimal places.) a-2. which loan should summit accept? southwest bank fidelity bank b. recompute the effective cost of interest, assuming that summit ordinarily maintains $37,680 at each bank in deposits that will serve as compensating balances

Suppose that a firm is considering moving from a batch process to an assembly-line process to better meet evolving market needs. what concerns might the following functions have about this proposed process change: marketing, finance, human resources, accounting, and information systems?

A. j. was a newly hired attorney for idle time gaming, inc. even though he reported directly to the president of the company, a. j. noticed that the president always had time to converse with the director of sales, calling on him to get a pulse on legal/regulatory issues that, as the company attorney, a. j. could have probably handled. a. j. also noted that the hr manager’s administrative assistant was the go-to person for a number of things that would make life easier at work. a. j. was recognizing the culture at idle time gaming.