My Co-Signer is the Primary Account Holder for my Car Loan - Does this affect my credit?
It sounds like your father got a loan and you are making the payments.  If your name and SSN are not on the loan then you are not getting credit for making the payments your father is.  So it will not affect your credit.  If you are on the loan as a secondary borrower it will affect your credit but not substantially on the positive but could affect it substantially on the negative side. Since your father is named as the primary borrower you will probably need to talk with him about it first.  If this is a mistake the 2 of you will need to work together with the bank to get it corrected.  Since your father is currently listed first the bank is probably going to be unable(even if they are willing) to make a change to the loan now with out his explicit permission. In addition if the loan is in your fathers name, if it is a vehicle loan, then the car is most likely in your fathers name as well.  Most states require that the primary signatory on a vehicle loan also be the primary owner on the title to the vehicle.  If your fathers name is the primary name on the title then you would have to retitle the car to refinance in your name.
what you aim to do is a great idea and it will work in your favor for a number of reasons. First, paying down your loan early will save you lots in interest, no brainer. Second, keeping the account open will improve your credit score by 1) increases the number of installment trade lines you have open, 2)adds to your positive payment history and 3) varies your credit mix. If your paid your car off you will see a DROP in your credit score because now you have one less trade line. To address other issues as far as credit scoring, it does not matter(much) for your score if you have a $1000 car loan or a $100,000 car loan. what matters is whether or not you pay on time, and what your balance is compared to the original loan amount. So the quicker you pay DOWN the loans or mortgages the better. Pay them down, not off! As far how the extra payments will report, one of two things will happen. Either they will report every month paid as agreed (most likely), or they wont report anything for a few years until your next payment is due(unlikely, this wont hurt you but wont help you either). Someone posted they would lower the amount you paid every month on your report and thus lower your score. This is not true. even if they reported you paid $1/ month the scoring calculations do not care. All they care is whether or not you're on time, and in your case you would be months AHEAD of time(even though your report cant reflect this fact either) HOWEVER, if you are applying for a mortgage the lower monthly payment WOULD affect you in the sense that now you qualify for a BIGGER loan because now your debt to income ratio has improved. People will argue to just pay it off and be debt free, however being debt free does NOT help your credit. And being that you own a home and a car you see the benefits of good credit. You can have a million dollars in the bank but you will be denied a loan if you have NO or bad credit.  Nothing wrong with living on cash, I've done it for years, but good luck trying to rent a car, or getting the best insurance rates, and ANYTHING in life with poor credit. Yeah it sucks but you have to play the game. I would not pay down do $1 though because like someone else said they may just close the account. Pay it down to 10 or 20 percent and you will see the most impact on your credit and invest the rest of your cash elsewhere. Is your name on the title at all? You may have (slightly) more leverage in that case, but co-signing any loans is not a good idea, even for a friend or relative. As this article notes: Generally, co-signing refers to financing, not ownership. If the   primary accountholder fails to make payments on the loan or the retail   installment sales contract (a type of auto financing dealers sell),   the co-signer is responsible for those payments, or their credit will   suffer. Even if the co-signer makes the payments, they’re still not   the owner if their name isn’t on the title. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) notes: If you co-sign a loan, you are legally obligated to repay the loan in   full. Co-signing a loan does not mean serving as a character reference   for someone else.  When you co-sign, you promise to pay the loan yourself. It means that   you risk having to repay any missed payments immediately. If the   borrower defaults on the loan, the creditor can use the same   collection methods against you that can be used against the borrower   such as demanding that you repay the entire loan yourself, suing you,   and garnishing your wages or bank accounts after a judgment. Your   credit score(s) may be impacted by any late payments or defaults. Co-signing an auto loan does not mean you have any right to the   vehicle, it just means that you have agreed to become obligated to   repay the amount of the loan. So make sure you can afford to pay this   debt if the borrower cannot. Per this article and this loan.com article, options to remove your name from co-signing include: If you're name isn't on the title, you'll have to convince your ex-boyfriend and the bank to have you removed as the co-signer, but from your brief description above, it doesn't seem that your ex is going to be cooperative. Unfortunately, as the co-signer and guarantor of the loan, you're legally responsible for making the payments if he doesn't. Not making the payments could ruin your credit as well. One final option to consider is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a drastic option, and you'll have to weigh whether the disruption to your credit and financial life will be worth it versus repaying the balance of that auto loan. Per this post: Another not so pretty option is bankruptcy. This is an extreme route,   and in some instances may not even guarantee a name-removal from the   loan. Your best bet is to contact a lawyer or other source of legal help to review your options on how to proceed with this issue. "For simplicity, let's start by just considering cash back. In general, cash back from credit cards for personal use is not taxable, but for business use it is taxable (sort of, I'll explain later). The reason is most personal purchases are made with after tax dollars; you typically aren't deducting the cost of what you purchased from your personal income, so if you purchase something that costs $100 and you receive $2 back from the CC company, effectively you have paid $98 for that item but that wouldn't affect your tax bill. However, since businesses typically deduct most expenses, that same $100 deduction would have only been a $98 deduction for business tax purposes, so in this case the $2 should be accounted for. Note, you should not consider that $2 as income though; that would artificially inflate your revenue. It should be treated as a negative expense, similar to how you would handle returning an item you purchased and receiving a CC refund. Now for your specific questions: Part 1: As a small business owner, I wish to attend an annual seminar to improve my business. I have enough credit card reward points to cover the airfare, hotel, and rental car. Will those expenses still be deductible at the value displayed on the receipt? Effectively no, these expenses are not deductible. If you deduct them they will be completely counter-acted by the ""refund"" you receive for the payments. Part 2: Does it matter if those points are accrued on my personal credit card, rather than a business credit card? This is where it gets hairy. Suppose your company policy is that employees make purchases with their own personal credit cards and submit receipts for reimbursement. In this case the employer can simply reimburse and would not know or care if the employee is racking up rewards/points/cashback. The trick is, as the employee, you must always purchase business related items normally so you have receipts to show, and if you receive cashback on the side there seems to be a ""don't ask, don't tell"" rule that the IRS is OK with. It works the same way with heavy business travelers and airline miles- the free vacations those users get as perks are not treated as taxable income. However, I would not go out of my way to abuse this ""loophole"". Typically, things like travel (airfare, hotel, car rental, meals) are expected. But I wouldn't go purchase 100 company laptops on your personal card and ask the company to reimburse you. The company should purchase those 100 laptops on a company card and effectively reduce the sale price by the cashback received. (Or more realistically, negotiate a better discount with your account rep and just cut them a check.) Part 3: Would there be any difference between credit card points and brand-loyalty points? If the rental car were paid for with points earned directly on the rental car company's loyalty system (not a CC), would that yield a different result? There is no difference. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. This is why when you volunteer and work 10 hours for a charity, you can't call that a ""donation"" of any amount of money because there is no actual payment made that would show up on a bank statement. Instead you could have billed the charity for your 10 hours of work, and then turned around and donated that same amount back to them, but it ends up being a wash." I recently paid off a line of credit on an investment property that I own.  I had some surplus cash and decided to pay off the line of credit rather than to make a principal payment on the primary mortgage with a higher interest rate.  The interest rate on the line of credit was tiny and the balance was also pretty low. My reasoning was that by paying off the line of credit I would be done with that account and would have one less bill to pay each month, one less risk of something going wrong and a late payment hurting my credit, one less statement to reconcile each month, and one less bookkeeping core to manage.  I could have grown my net worth by few couple of dollars each month had I kept the line of credit and made a principal payment on the primary loan. I judged that it wasn't worth the hassle and risks. You can be a co-borrower on the property that your father owns. Some Banks require that you also be part owner of the property, some banks do not require this. You can take a home loan for a new property, normally Banks will ask you of all your current loans [auto/other home/personal/ etc] to determine the amount they will be ready to lend. Edit: The first loan I believe your father already has a property in his name ... your father can apply for Loan against property ... if he does not have sufficient income, then you can guarantee the loan [ie co-sign on the loan, some banks allow this ... however there is no tax benefit on this loan]  .   The second is the Home Loan for the balance amount that you would get it … Both the loans can be taken from the same Bank, there would be a overall cap as to the amount of loan a Bank would give depending on your income, further the finance for this house will only be to the extent of 80% of the value. "It doesn't matter if you give the check to the dealer or your friend. But under NO circumstances should you co-sign your friend's car loan. Since the money you are giving is a loan, I highly, highly recommend you do the following: Requiring a signed promissory note shows you are serious about getting paid back, and gives you some legal protections if you are not paid back. If you go to a random small claims court on any given day, you will witness at least a few cases where one person says, ""it was a gift!"" and the other says, ""it was a loan!"". With a promissory note, it's a loan, period. Prepare not to get paid back, even with the note. It happens all the time. Think about what you will do if your friend misses a payment to you or never repays the loan. Will you forgive or get legal and try to collect? Again, do NOT co-sign the loan.If you do, and your friend does not make car payments, you will be 100% responsible and the lender will take legal action against you to collect." Co-signing is not the same as owning. If your elderly lady didn't make any payments on the loan, and isn't on the ownership of the car, and there was no agreement that you would pay her anything, then you do not owe either her or her daughter any money. Also the loan is not affecting the daughter's credit, and the mother's credit is irrelevant (since she is dead). However you should be aware that the finance company will want to know about the demise of the mother, since they can no longer make a claim against her if you default. I would start by approaching the loan company, telling them about the mother's death, and asking to refinance in your name only. If you've really been keeping up the payments well this could be OK with them. If not I would find someone else who is prepared to co-sign a new loan with you, and still refinance. Then just tell the daughter that the loan her mother co-signed for has been discharged, and there is nothing for her to worry about. It's perfectly legal for your brother to make a loan to you.  However those two transactions are separate.  If he defaults on the LC loan because you didn't pay him, it's his responsibility.  If you default on your loan with him, you've got big problems.  Money + family/friends = scary.