Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Credit Card Debt Survival Guide
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Max Blog Money 2010 Pro Blog Edition
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How to donate a car or boat ot charity
It sounds so simple: Donate your used vehicle or boat to charity, avoid the hassles associated with selling it, and score a tax deduction at the same time. Everybody wins, right?
Not necessarily. As the saying goes, the road to h-e-double-hockey-sticks is paved with good intentions, and it can be surprisingly easy to fumble this well-meaning act. Before you hand one of your biggest assets over to anyone, read the following tips to be sure you’re making the right moves.
1. Avoid middlemen. Numerous for-profit intermediary organizations advertise aggressively on TV, billboards and elsewhere, offering to help you donate your vehicle to charity. Here’s the catch: These organizations typically keep about 50 percent to 90 percent of the vehicle’s value for themselves, and the charities don’t get what they could have gotten. To prevent this, check directly with charities you admire and find out whether they accept car or boat donations.
2. Find a worthy charity. If the charities you normally support aren’t equipped to accept such donations, do some homework until you find a reputable charity that is. You can research charities’ track records online at this Better Business Bureau site and through Charity Navigator.
3. Check the math. If you still feel compelled to use an intermediary organization – possibly because you’re busy – at least ask the organization how much of the car or boat’s value will go to charity. If the organization simply gives charities flat fees — say, $100 for a used vehicle regardless of its value, or $2,000 a month — your donation may not be eligible for a tax deduction.
4. Know the status of your recipient. In order for you to qualify for a deduction, the charity that gets your donation must be an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organization. Your church, synagogue, mosque or temple likely qualifies. (Check first just to make sure.) You also can visit the Internal Revenue Service’s Web site and search for Publication 78 to find other qualifying non-profit organizations. (Just type “78” into the search field on the IRS home page and you’ll be directed to the right publication.)
5. Do the delivery yourself. Once you’ve identified a worthy charity, recognize that it will have to pay someone to pick up your car or boat for you. To help the charity maximize the benefit of your donation, drop the car or boat off yourself.
6. Transfer the vehicle with care. Want to eliminate all risk of running up parking tickets and other violations after you’ve said goodbye to your donated vehicle? Then formally re-title the vehicle to the charity, and report the transfer to your state’s department of motor vehicles or licensing. Never agree to leave the ownership space on the charity donation papers blank.
7. Your estimate of the donation’s value probably won’t cut it. If your car or boat is worth more than $500, the IRS is going to want to see evidence of how much the charity got for it. (Most charities that accept these donations turn around and sell them for cash.) You’ll need to get a receipt from the charity revealing exactly how much money it made.
8. Know when you can report the fair market value. You won’t need evidence of the sales price if the charity keeps the vehicle or vessel and uses it in its charitable work, or if your donation is worth less than $500. Then you can report its fair market value based on listings from Kelley Blue Book and similar sources.
9. Keep a thorough paper trail. If your donation is worth more than $500, you’ll have to attach IRS Form 8283 to your tax return. If it’s worth more than $5,000, your documentation must include an outside appraisal. You’ll also need proof of the donation, such as a receipt from the charity and a copy of the title change.
10. Be detail-oriented. This paper trail may seem cumbersome, but think about it: This may be one of the biggest charitable donations you ever make. By taking the time to dot the i’s, you can make sure that the charity gets the most benefit and you get the biggest possible deduction.
Ageas to buy UK's Kwik-Fit Insurance Services
BRUSSELS: Belgian-based insurance group Ageas, formerly known as Fortis, is to buy Britain's Kwik-Fit Insurance Services for 215 million pounds ($325.9 million) as part of its ongoing expansion plans in the country.
The insurance intermediary, currently owned by Paris-based private equity company PAI Partners, will contribute over 600,000 customers to Ageas, giving it a total of 1.6 million customers in Britain.
Ageas Chief Executive Bart De Smet said in a statement on Friday: "I welcome this acquisition on its strategic and financial merits and as a next step in the execution of our strategy announced last autumn."
Ageas has previously said it to underwrite motor and household insurance for Britain's biggest retailer Tesco.
The insurance intermediary, currently owned by Paris-based private equity company PAI Partners, will contribute over 600,000 customers to Ageas, giving it a total of 1.6 million customers in Britain.
Ageas Chief Executive Bart De Smet said in a statement on Friday: "I welcome this acquisition on its strategic and financial merits and as a next step in the execution of our strategy announced last autumn."
Ageas has previously said it to underwrite motor and household insurance for Britain's biggest retailer Tesco.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Can we have car insurance for all the risks, or just the obligatory car insurance?
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
Responding to the question, Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states the following:
"Insurance service and contracts were invented and developed over the last four centuries in Europe, then extended to the Americas. They reached the Muslim World in the Nineteen century. Obviously, they were not known at the time of revelation of the Shari'ah nor at the time of the great scholars who founded the known Fiqhi Schools.
Over the last more than a hundred years, Muslim scholars considered insurance as a new service that accompanies new risks intrinsic to technological applications, and as a contract. Thus, in addressing it, two points of view have been developed: one that studies insurance within the context of its environment, i.e., the presence of a large number of people exposed to similar risks that call for the application of the theory of probability and what is called the laws of large numbers; the other regards insurance as only a specific relationship between two parties regardless of its environment.
The first trend was led by the late Sheikh Mustafa Al-Zarqa. He argued that, as a new service and contract, insurance companies gather together the risks of a large number of people and redistribute them in a manner that makes them bearable. This is a form of lawful cooperation that is compatible with the general objectives of the Shari'ah and hence the theory of probability is taken into consideration, the insurance contract does not contain any unbearable amount of ambiguity or undue uncertainty.
According to this view all kinds of insurance contracts (cars, hazards, accidents, transportation, life, etc.) are all permissible provided two conditions are fulfilled:
1. The contract must not contain any Riba element.
2. The object of insurance must be permissible in the Shari'ah i.e., insuring a shipment of liquor is not permissible. It doesn't matter whether this cooperation is founded by a group of concerned persons in the form of cooperatives or by a venture person or a company that takes charge of offering the service of pooling together the risks of a large number of persons.
Consequently, car insurance is permissible for the obligatory liability as well as for the value of the car and the hazards to driver and passengers and every other insurance coverage related to cars and driving them.
According to the second view, any conventional insurance contract between two persons contains elements of Riba, ambiguity, and gharar. It entails Riba because you pay small premium and get back a large sum should a risk occur. It also involves gharar because you don't know whether you will get the large sum or not since you don't know whether a hazard will happen, and ambiguity because you don't know the exact amount you get (though you know the maximum only) nor when it is going to be given to you since you don't know when an accident will happen.
This group of scholars argue that these objections may be overridden when the service of insurance is offered on donation basis through cooperatives, because if you give the premium as a donation, it doesn’t involve Riba, ambiguity and gharar because donations are not exchange contracts, and it doesn't hurt if such donations are given to a cooperative whose system is to cover these risks even with the fact that you really know this coverage in advance and you give the donation with the condition that such a coverage exists.
According to this view, only mutual cooperative insurance is permitted, the same two conditions mentioned in the first opinion apply here too. Hence, any insurance outside cooperatives is not permitted, and when you are required by law to take it you only take the part you don't have any choice about it.
In my opinion, there are too artificialities in the second view and I go with the first one, that all insurance is permissible provided that the two conditions are observed."
Moreover, we'd like to add that there is an old argument from the 1950s, even by those who oppose insurance, that whenever insurance is forced by law, one must do it and one is excused, from the Shari'ah point of view. This include car insurance, social security, workman compensation, and employer's imposed insurance if it is not optional for the employee in addition to the case if the insurance provided by the employer is paid completely from the employer, i.e., given as a fringe benefit without deducting any part of the premium from the pay checks, then it is a kind of grant from the employer and if a hazard happens the paid policy amount is halal because the it is an outcome of the grant."
If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to write back!
May Allah guide you to the straight path, and guide you to that which pleases Him, Amen.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
Responding to the question, Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states the following:
"Insurance service and contracts were invented and developed over the last four centuries in Europe, then extended to the Americas. They reached the Muslim World in the Nineteen century. Obviously, they were not known at the time of revelation of the Shari'ah nor at the time of the great scholars who founded the known Fiqhi Schools.
Over the last more than a hundred years, Muslim scholars considered insurance as a new service that accompanies new risks intrinsic to technological applications, and as a contract. Thus, in addressing it, two points of view have been developed: one that studies insurance within the context of its environment, i.e., the presence of a large number of people exposed to similar risks that call for the application of the theory of probability and what is called the laws of large numbers; the other regards insurance as only a specific relationship between two parties regardless of its environment.
The first trend was led by the late Sheikh Mustafa Al-Zarqa. He argued that, as a new service and contract, insurance companies gather together the risks of a large number of people and redistribute them in a manner that makes them bearable. This is a form of lawful cooperation that is compatible with the general objectives of the Shari'ah and hence the theory of probability is taken into consideration, the insurance contract does not contain any unbearable amount of ambiguity or undue uncertainty.
According to this view all kinds of insurance contracts (cars, hazards, accidents, transportation, life, etc.) are all permissible provided two conditions are fulfilled:
1. The contract must not contain any Riba element.
2. The object of insurance must be permissible in the Shari'ah i.e., insuring a shipment of liquor is not permissible. It doesn't matter whether this cooperation is founded by a group of concerned persons in the form of cooperatives or by a venture person or a company that takes charge of offering the service of pooling together the risks of a large number of persons.
Consequently, car insurance is permissible for the obligatory liability as well as for the value of the car and the hazards to driver and passengers and every other insurance coverage related to cars and driving them.
According to the second view, any conventional insurance contract between two persons contains elements of Riba, ambiguity, and gharar. It entails Riba because you pay small premium and get back a large sum should a risk occur. It also involves gharar because you don't know whether you will get the large sum or not since you don't know whether a hazard will happen, and ambiguity because you don't know the exact amount you get (though you know the maximum only) nor when it is going to be given to you since you don't know when an accident will happen.
This group of scholars argue that these objections may be overridden when the service of insurance is offered on donation basis through cooperatives, because if you give the premium as a donation, it doesn’t involve Riba, ambiguity and gharar because donations are not exchange contracts, and it doesn't hurt if such donations are given to a cooperative whose system is to cover these risks even with the fact that you really know this coverage in advance and you give the donation with the condition that such a coverage exists.
According to this view, only mutual cooperative insurance is permitted, the same two conditions mentioned in the first opinion apply here too. Hence, any insurance outside cooperatives is not permitted, and when you are required by law to take it you only take the part you don't have any choice about it.
In my opinion, there are too artificialities in the second view and I go with the first one, that all insurance is permissible provided that the two conditions are observed."
Moreover, we'd like to add that there is an old argument from the 1950s, even by those who oppose insurance, that whenever insurance is forced by law, one must do it and one is excused, from the Shari'ah point of view. This include car insurance, social security, workman compensation, and employer's imposed insurance if it is not optional for the employee in addition to the case if the insurance provided by the employer is paid completely from the employer, i.e., given as a fringe benefit without deducting any part of the premium from the pay checks, then it is a kind of grant from the employer and if a hazard happens the paid policy amount is halal because the it is an outcome of the grant."
If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to write back!
May Allah guide you to the straight path, and guide you to that which pleases Him, Amen.
Life Insurance from an Islamic Perspective
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
Life insurance is a new contract not known in the history of Fiqh. Muslim scholars have different opinions regarding this kind of insurance.
Responding to the question, Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states the following:
Responding to the question, Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states the following:
In the circles of contemporary Shari'ah scholars, there are three opinions about life insurance. They all recognize that it is a new contract not known in the history of Fiqh. A minority consider it haram and with all kinds of argument against it including Riba, gambling, gharar and speculation on the will of Allah. This view does not carry much weight.
The second view is that it contains gharar because no one knows whether the liability of the insurer (the company) will ever materialize nor when it will, if ever. This is a serious gharar that leads to a major defect in the contract. It is therefore forbidden.
The third opinion is presented by the late Sheikh Mustafa al Zarka. He argued that the gharar in the contract is remedied by the fact that it is a contract based on overwhelming statistical knowledge and the application of the theory of probability. With this in mind, there is no gharar on the part of the insurer and the contract is permissible with two conditions: that it contains no Riba clause and that its subject (insured thing) be legitimate. These two conditions rule out regular fixed return life insurance because the value of the policy is the outcome of investment premiums at a compounded rate of interest, (while variable - return life is permissible if the funds are invested in the Shari'ah approved stocks or mutual funds). They also rule out insuring a prohibited activity such as casinos.
The advocators of the second opinion argue that the gharar problem applies only in exchange contracts. If the contract is modified and restructure on the basis of cooperation or mutuality, where there will be an association of the insured instead of a profit motivated insurer company, the gharar is then tolerated. This is so because the relation between the association and its members become based on contribution or tabarru' rather than exchange and a tabarru' can accommodate certain conditions ( i.e., that the association compensate in case a hazardous event happens). On the basis of this all the "Islamic insurance companies" were established.
In this regards, al-Zarka adds, that if a mutual or cooperative insurance exists he prefers it to profit motivated insurance out of his respect to the opinion of opponents. There is an old argument (from the 1950s), even by those who oppose insurance, that whenever insurance is forced by law, one must do it and one is excused, from the Shari'ah point of view. This include car insurance, social security, workman compensation, and employer's imposed insurance if it is not optional for the employee to this we add another element that if the insurance provided by the employer is paid completely from the employer, i.e., given as a fringe benefit without deducting any part of the premium from the pay checks, then it is a kind of grant from the employer and if a hazard happens the paid policy amount is halal because it is an outcome of the grant.
Now think for yourself: if your life insurance is only term life, you may apply the opinion of Sheikh al-Zarka, and if it is imposed by employer, you also have room to accommodate, and if it is a grant from employer it is also tolerated. Otherwise you need to see the specifics of the contract you have and determine, in the light of the above briefing, whether you keep or seek to withdraw from it.
Why is conventional insurance not permissible in Islam?
| Why is conventional insurance not permissible in Islam? |
Gharar: “Uncertainty”
The insurance contract contains uncertainty due to:- Uncertainty whether the payment will be accepted as promised
- The amount to be paid is not known
- The time it will occur is not known
When a claim is not made the insurance company may acquire all the profits whilst the participant may not obtain any profit whatsoever. The loss of premiums on cancellation of a life insurance policy by the policyholder, or the "double standard" condition of charging a customary short period in general insurance, whilst only a proportional refund is made if the insurance company terminates the cover is also considered as unjust.
Maisir: Gambling
- The participant contributes a small amount of premium in hope to gain a large sum
- The participant loses the money paid for the premium when the insured event does not occur
- The company will be in deficit if claims are higher than contributions
Riba: Interests
- An element of interest exists in conventional life insurance products - as the insured, on his death, is entitled to get much more than he has paid
- Insurance funds invested in financial instruments such as bonds and stocks contain and element of Riba
What is Sood (Interest) that is stated as Haram (forbidden) in Islam ?
What is Sood (Interest) that is stated as Haram (forbidden) in Islam ?
My understanding is that any income that falls under the following criteria
To me a savings account in bank is the purest form of interest and is Haram. It gives a fixed return over an year, is always a profit over the deposited money and it does not require any work or any effort from me. No risk.
There are two other viewpoints on the bank deposits in savings accounts.
If a family does not have any sources of income and they don't know how and what business to invest in, the interest money from the bank is Halal (allowed). Just to give you an extreme example, if say a women is a widow and her children are young, and there is just the cash that they have and nothing else, the interest money from the bank is HALAL (allowed).
In early days of Islam, when interest was made Haram (prohibited), the currency used to be of GOLD and thei value did not use to depreciate. Gold used to appreciate with rising inflation and people could buy the same amout of goods even after many years of price hike. In modern times, with currency notes in fashion and value of currency depreciating everyday with rising inflation, people cannot buy the same amount of goods after one year with the same money that they have now. Keeping money in savings accounts of the banks only safeguards against the possible devaluation of money in the form of interest. So it is actually not interest and is justified.
Insurance
Now let’s talk about insurance. There are two forms of insurances, insurance of a product (object/ material) and life insurance of humans.
Product Insurance
If a person or company owns some product (e.g. car or house or goods) and wants to insure it against any possible harm (e.g. theft, fire, accident etc.), the person or company would get the product insured by some insurance company. There will be some fixed payment in the form of insurance fee that the person or company will pay to the insurance company and in-turn the product would be insured. Now if any harm is inflicted upon the product, the insurance company bears the cost to the tune it is insured. But the key point is that the payment money in the form of insurance fee is not returned, if there is no claim.
Life Insurance
Life insurance of a human is a somewhat newer concept as compared to product insurance, which has been there for many centuries (so it is known). In life insurance, a person keeps on making a certain amount of payment for a certain number of years (we have 20 years normally offered by State Life and EFU) and it covers three areas.
Now this is a win-win situation and this income somewhat falls under my definition of interest i.e. Is fixed, Is definitely profit (no risk of loss), Does not involve any effort/ work.
So what is the take of rest of the participants on this forum. Is Insurance a friend or an evil, specifically in the context of Islam?
My understanding is that any income that falls under the following criteria
- Is fixed
- Is definitely profit (no risk of loss)
- Does not involve any effort/ work
To me a savings account in bank is the purest form of interest and is Haram. It gives a fixed return over an year, is always a profit over the deposited money and it does not require any work or any effort from me. No risk.
There are two other viewpoints on the bank deposits in savings accounts.
If a family does not have any sources of income and they don't know how and what business to invest in, the interest money from the bank is Halal (allowed). Just to give you an extreme example, if say a women is a widow and her children are young, and there is just the cash that they have and nothing else, the interest money from the bank is HALAL (allowed).
In early days of Islam, when interest was made Haram (prohibited), the currency used to be of GOLD and thei value did not use to depreciate. Gold used to appreciate with rising inflation and people could buy the same amout of goods even after many years of price hike. In modern times, with currency notes in fashion and value of currency depreciating everyday with rising inflation, people cannot buy the same amount of goods after one year with the same money that they have now. Keeping money in savings accounts of the banks only safeguards against the possible devaluation of money in the form of interest. So it is actually not interest and is justified.
Insurance
Now let’s talk about insurance. There are two forms of insurances, insurance of a product (object/ material) and life insurance of humans.
Product Insurance
If a person or company owns some product (e.g. car or house or goods) and wants to insure it against any possible harm (e.g. theft, fire, accident etc.), the person or company would get the product insured by some insurance company. There will be some fixed payment in the form of insurance fee that the person or company will pay to the insurance company and in-turn the product would be insured. Now if any harm is inflicted upon the product, the insurance company bears the cost to the tune it is insured. But the key point is that the payment money in the form of insurance fee is not returned, if there is no claim.
Life Insurance
Life insurance of a human is a somewhat newer concept as compared to product insurance, which has been there for many centuries (so it is known). In life insurance, a person keeps on making a certain amount of payment for a certain number of years (we have 20 years normally offered by State Life and EFU) and it covers three areas.
- If the person dies within those 20 years, his family (beneficiaries) receives a handsome sum of money, already decided at the time of signing the insurance contract.
- If the person does not die within those 20 years, a handsome some of money is given to him as profit incurred on the yearly installments of payments he had been making to the insurance company.
- In some cases, in addition to one of the above, if the person falls ill, his medical expenses are borne by the insurance company during those 20 years.
Now this is a win-win situation and this income somewhat falls under my definition of interest i.e. Is fixed, Is definitely profit (no risk of loss), Does not involve any effort/ work.
So what is the take of rest of the participants on this forum. Is Insurance a friend or an evil, specifically in the context of Islam?
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