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Maintenance Update 06 20 2007

Calculator update notes for 6-30-2007.

Financial Calculator Update 6/30/2007

The quarterly update for 6/30/2007 is a small update. We recommend you review the update items below. If you do not immediately require the enhancements below, since all updates are cumulative, you may wish to wait to implement them with our 9/30/2007 release.

If you implement this update and you have not updated your calculators in a while you should definitely refresh your existing HTML calculator pages. All updates are cumulative, so if you start fresh with this update you will have all previous calculator updates as well. If you would like, you can review our 3/31/2007 update: 3/31/2007 Update. (The 6/30/2007 update includes all changes included in previous updates, you do not need to download any other updates to have the most current versions of all of the calculator components.)

Update instructions*:

  1. Download the latest version of your calculators from your download site, found on your update e-mail notice.
  2. Execute the Calc.exe file from your download. This is a self-extracting zip file. (Or unzip the Calc.zip file if you are using a non-windows platform.)
  3. When prompted for a directory, you may use the default of "java" or enter your own. It is recommended that you extract the update to a new directory and then move the required files to your production environment. One directory will be created. It will have three subdirectories.
  4. Replace the contents of your current KJEgui, KJEgraph and KJEcalculation directories with the new version.
  5. Replace your current dinkytown.jar file with the new version.
  6. Replace all files with the extension "class" with the new version.
  7. Make required changes to any HTML documents as described in this document or replace all of your existing HTML documents and re-apply your web-site custom changes.

*Please note, if you have a Servlet or other custom deployment (other than the custom formatted delivery described below), installation instructions for your package will found on your download page.

Update for custom formatted delivery**:

**Custom formatted delivery is a special option that you can add to your maintenance update service. With this option we can apply an HTML, JSP, CFM or ASP template to your calculator pages and their reports before the update is sent to you. You will then receive your calculator pages with all of your site formatting in place, without any rework to include changes that have been made to the pages deployed on your server. If you are interested in using custom formatted delivery, please contact us at (612) 331-2291, or for more information.

  1. Download the latest version of your calculators from your download site, found on your update e-mail notice.
  2. Execute the Calc.exe file from your download. This is a self-extracting zip file. (Or unzip the Calc.zip file if you are using a non-windows platform.)
  3. When prompted for a directory, you may use the default of "c:\java" or enter your own. It is recommended that you extract the update to a new directory and then move the required files to your production environment. One directory will be created. It will have three subdirectories.
  4. Replace the contents of your current "java" directory (including the KJEgui, KJEgraph and KJEcalculation directories) with the new version.

All pages will be custom formatted to your site, no further integration or modification of the calculators is required. Please note, if your custom delivery uses Active Server Pages (ASP), Java™ Server Pages (JSP) or Cold Fusion (CFM) the respective ASP, JSP or CFM pages will be in place of your HTML documents for all calculator main pages. Report templates will remain in HTML documents (these documents are not called by your server, but instead used by the applet in the main calculator page).

To clear your Browser's cache:

When you test the new version of the calculators, make sure that the browser you are using uses the new files instead of any it may have in its cache. You may need to clear the browser's cache manually to ensure the new versions are loaded.

Internet Explorer:

Choose "Internet Options" under the "Tools" menu and on the "General" tab click on the "Delete" button under the Browsing History section. Click the top button "Clear private data now..." Click "Ok" when prompted if you wish to delete all temporary files. Close this dialog box, and all open Internet Explorer windows. Your Cache should then be cleared.

Firefox:

Choose "Clear private data..." under the "Tools" menu. Check the box for "Cache" and then click the button "Clear private data now".

Netscape:

Choose "Preferences" under the "Edit" menu. Click on the "Advanced" category and then "Cache" option which appears under it. Click the "Clear Memory Cache" button, then click the "Clear Disk Cache" button.)

Master Changes (HTML Modification required, affects all calculators)

    None

Master Changes (no HTML changes required, affects all calculators)

    None

Updates that require modifications to HTML documents

  1. 72T Calculator, 72T Distribution Impact: (Retire72T.html, Retire72T2.html, Retire72Alt.html): The default "Reasonable interest rate" has been changed to 5.96% to reflect 120% of the current Federal Mid-Term rate as of July 2007.

    403b Calculator (Retire403b.html): New option has been added to allow for monthly contributions to be entered as dollar amounts. To add this ability and to set the default amount, add the parameters below to the Retire403b.html file:


    <PARAM name="SHOW_CONTRIBUTE_AMOUNT" value="true">
    <PARAM name="CONTRIBUTE_AMOUNT" value="100">

  2. Canadian Mortgage Qualifier:(CAMortgageQualifier.html) The GST Rate has been changed to 6%. In addition, the definitions have been enhanced to describe when the GST may not be the only tax due on the home purchase, and how to manage when GST is included in the purchase price. The following has been added to the report and to the definitions for GST:

      Many new homes have the purchase price with GST and/or HST/PST included. If this is the case for your home purchase, the checkbox to include GST should be left unchecked since the GST and/or HST/PST will be included in the purchase price.

      It is important to be aware that there may be additional taxes on new home purchases in the form of HST and/or PST, depending on the province where the purchase is made. These additional taxes are not included in this analysis.

    Along with the change above the Mortgage Insurance requirement is now only applied to purchases with less than a 20% down payment. This is in compliance with the Canadian Bank Act which was changed on April 23, 2007. Although mortgage insurance is available for purchasers with large down payments, it is no longer required by law.

  3. Canadian Mortgage Rent vs Buy: (CAMortgageRentvsBuy.html) The GST Rate has been changed to 6%. In addition, the definitions have been enhanced to describe when the GST may not be the only tax due on the home purchase, and how to manage when GST is included in the purchase price. The following has been added to the report and to the definitions for GST:

      Many new homes have the purchase price with GST and/or HST/PST included. If this is the case for your home purchase, the checkbox to include GST should be left unchecked since the GST and/or HST/PST will be included in the purchase price.

      It is important to be aware that there may be additional taxes on new home purchases in the form of HST and/or PST, depending on the province where the purchase is made. These additional taxes are not included in this analysis.

    Along with the change above the Mortgage Insurance requirement is now only applied to purchases with less than a 20% down payment. This is in compliance with the Canadian Bank Act which was changed on April 23, 2007. Although mortgage insurance is available for purchasers with large downpayments, it is no longer required by law.

  4. RRIF Calculator: (Rrif.html, FRRrif.html) The age field has been replaced with a birthdate entry field and the age at the beginning of the current year is now calculated. The French version of this calculator has had extensive changes to the text including the definitions and the report.

  5. French Canadian Life Insurance Calculator: (FRLifeInsurance.html) Reporting and entry screen have been modified to match the English version of this calculator.

  6. Canadian Mortgage Comparison (CACompareMortgage.html, FRCompareMortgage): Calculation of APR for Canada was changed to comply with Canadian Cost of Borrowing Regulations (SOR/2001-101). All APRs now use the formulas specified by the regulations showing an annual rate, vs. periodic rate.

Updates do not require changes to HTML documents

  1. Mortgage Debt Consolidation (MortgageConsolidate.html): Fixed an issue that ended the amortization schedule at 360 payments for loans with terms longer than 30 years. New amortization schedule now shows all payments to the end of the term.

  2. Basic Financial Calculator (FinCalc3.html): Applet version only. The calculator was originally designed to ignore any entered present value of when calculating an interest rate. It also required a periodic payment amount. A change has been made to allow the calculation of the interest rate with a periodic payment and a current amount (IE Present Value amount).  We then calculate the required interest rate to achieve the specified ending balance.

  3. 401k Savings Calculator (Retire401k.html): Maximum match by an employer has been increased to 200% to account for plans with higher matching contributions.

  4. Interest Only ARM Calculator: (MortgageIOAdjustable.html) Total payments were being displayed without taking the final payment into account. This update fixes this issue.

  5. 1040 Tax Calculator, Marginal Tax Calculator (Tax1040.html, TaxMargin.html): Itemized deduction phaseout has been changed to match current legislation that limits the phaseout to no more than 53.33% of your total itemized deductions. The income levels where the phaseout begins have not changed.

  6. Asset Allocator: (AssetAllocator.html) Highest federal tax rate has been set to 35%.

  7. Mortgage Maximum (MortgageMax.html): Interest rate on report now shows three decimals, increased from two decimals. You can also set the default periods for the drop down boxes in the popup windows using the entry field name with the prefix 'cmb' followed by the new default value. For example, to set the real-estate tax period to Annual (instead of normal default of semi-annual):
    <PARAM name="cmbREAL_ESTATE_TAXES_UNIT" value="Annual">

  8. Home Equity Auto Loan Calculator (AutoEquityLoan.html): Interest rate on report and calculator now shows three decimals, increased from two decimals.

  9. Loan & Credit Line Tax Savings: (LineTaxes.html): Calculation for the marginal combined tax rate for Federal and State taxes has been changed from:

    MARGINAL_TAX_RATE = STATE_TAX_RATE + FEDERAL_TAX_RATE;
    to
    MARGINAL_TAX_RATE = ((STATE_TAX_RATE)*(1-FEDERAL_TAX_RATE)) + FEDERAL_TAX_RATE;

    This change accounts for the tax deductibility of state income taxes on a Federal return. Your normal marginal tax rate would be the sum of your state and Federal tax rates if you do not itemize deductions. The above formula is appropriate for itemized deductions.