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These gains don't cause pain. A capital gain is the amount of money you pocket by selling one of your investments for more than you paid for it. Technically, capital gains only count for what's called a capital asset, but that's really just anything you own for investment purposes. Stocks and bonds obviously qualify, but your house and household furnishings can also count.
For tax purposes, capital gains are classified as either long-term (held for more than one year) or short-term (held for less than one year) and there are different tax implications for how long you hold onto a capital asset. For most long-term capital gains, you're taxed no more than 15% of the value of the asset. Short-term gains get taxed as regular income, so you pay the rate for the tax bracket you're in.
Capital gains can also be realized or unrealized. When you physically sell an asset like a stock, you've realized the capital gain. When you're holding the stock, and it has a value over its purchase price, but you're not selling it, you've got an unrealized gain, and you won't realize it until you sell.
In a perfect world, we'd all have capital gains. But no one¿s that smart or lucky. When the value of an asset at sale is below what you've paid for it, it's called a capital loss. The good news is that the government lets you count that loss against any gains you've had, lowering the taxes you pay. In fact, many people who sell a stock that has risen far over their purchase price tend to sell some stinkers, too, at the same time for the tax benefit. This is known as a capital-loss offset.
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Friday, July 25, 2008
URAC's Awards for Best Practices in Health Care Consumer Empowerment and Protection will Spotlight Innovative Quality Efforts
Comtex
WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----URAC, the independent, nonprofit leader in promoting health care quality through accreditation and education programs, released its call for entries for its 2009 Best Practices in Health Care Consumer Empowerment and Protection Awards today. Award-winning entries will be spotlighted at the Best Practices Conference and Exhibit, to be held April 1-2, 2009 in Orlando.
Entries describing innovative best practices are sought from health information/ decision support, health management, health plans, health networks, pharmacy quality management and workers' compensation companies.
"The Best Practices Awards honor the achievements of organizations that are actively pursuing practices to advance consumer empowerment and protection in an exceptional, measurable and reproducible way," said Alan P. Spielman, URAC's president and CEO. "URAC accreditation is designed to comprehensively assess the quality practices of the total organization. The Best Practices Awards extend our educational reach by evaluating specific programs and identifying exceptional programs and practices."
The deadline for entries is Sept. 15, 2008, and entry is not limited to URAC accredited organizations. The Call for Entries is available at http://www.urac.org/bestpractices.
The Best Practices Award competition calls upon organizations to submit their best programs for assessment by a panel of expert judges in two categories:
-- Consumer Decision-Making: Practices that educate consumers on their health care needs and provide the information, tools, and resources-including pricing transparency and transparency of quality measures-that are necessary to empower consumers to enable them to make responsible evidence-based choices and to help them better manage their own health care decisions;
-- Consumer Health Improvement: Practices that are broadly related to quality improvement in patient safety--including care coordination between providers- or consumer health quality improvement for the purpose of protecting the consumer where outcomes are limited to health/clinical metrics or health quality improvement that protects the consumer from a short-term or long term health related adverse event.
All entries should feature a practice that measurably demonstrates its purpose and impact, involves collaborative partnerships activity and exhibits a potential for wide-spread implementation. Presenters at the Best Practices Conference & Exhibit will be selected from the award winners.
"An intentional outcome of the Best Practices Awards and Conference is the multiplication of these innovative programs in other markets," Spielman said. "That is the purpose of combining an awards competition with a conference and exhibit opportunity. We hope to serve as a guide to the market on how best to direct and engage consumers as partners through innovative best programs."
Consistent with URAC practice, industry experts in the awards competition program areas will serve as judges, using objective criteria to evaluate each entry and select winners.
"The Best Practices Awards and Conference are consistent with URAC's vision to promote both consumer empowerment and quality improvement in health care management," Spielman said. "When combined, those areas of focus can have a true impact on health care management and drive the practices that will improve quality across the industry."
About URAC
URAC, an independent, nonprofit organization, is well-known as a leader in promoting health care quality through its accreditation and education programs. URAC offers a wide range of quality benchmarking programs and services that keep pace with the rapid changes in the health care system, and provide a symbol of excellence for organizations to validate their commitment to quality and accountability. Through its broad-based governance structure and an inclusive standards development process, URAC ensures that all stakeholders are represented in establishing meaningful quality measures for the entire health care industry. For more information, visit www.urac.org.
SOURCE URAC
http://www.urac.org
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
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