Iowa Farm Bureau is sponsoring a 2009 farm income tax seminar that will be broadcast on the Iowa Telecommunications Network from 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 24. Roger McEowen, a professor of agricultural law at Iowa State University, will provide an update on income tax law changes and present information on estate and business planning. Charles Brown, president of Ottumwa-based AgriFinancial Services LLC, will offer farm income tax strategies and information on how the strategies might affect individual farm operations. Admission is free at eight locations where the seminar will be broadcast. It will be available Nov. 25 on the Iowa Farm Bureau’s Web site, www.iowafarmbureau.com, where more information, including broadcast sites, is available.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has approved a proposal to develop a new model for determining the regulatory treatment of residential mortgage-backed securities. The new model will produce ratings designations for approximately 18,000 of the securities that were owned by U.S. insurers at the end of 2009. The NAIC action reflects a loss of confidence in the ratings for residential mortgage-backed securities produced by nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations, the NAIC said in a news release. Until now, these ratings have been used by regulators to score these securities for solvency regulation. Problems with mortgage-backed securities began to appear during the third quarter of 2005, yet ratings organizations failed to represent these problems until late 2007, the NAIC said. Click here to read the proposal.

The number of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their properties are worth fell in the third quarter as values stabilized and some homes were lost to foreclosure, Bloomberg reported, based on data released by real estate data tracker Zillow.com. About 21 percent of owners of mortgaged homes were underwater, down from 23 percent in the second quarter, according to Zillow, which estimated that the median value of single-family houses, condominiums and cooperative apartments declined 6.9 percent in the same period. The rate of decline slowed, as home values dropped 0.4 percent from the second quarter to a median of $190,400, Zillow said.

The Waldenbooks store at Valley West Mall will close by the end of January as part of an effort by Borders Group Inc. to eliminate underperforming stores in shopping centers. The Valley West store is one of three locations in Iowa that will be shuttered after the Christmas shopping season. Borders announced plans last week to close a total of 200 Waldenbooks stores, although the number is not final, the company said. The announcement does not affect Borders superstores or the company’s seasonal kiosk business.