Dan Bobkoff

Several big retailers say the return of the full payroll tax is causing consumers to curtail spending, but so far the evidence is mostly anecdotal. Some analysts argue a variety of factors, and not any specific policy, contributed to slower growth in consumer spending in January.

Going public is typically considered an achievement. But reverting to private ownership — as computer giant Dell plans to do — can have benefits, too, like enabling managers to focus on long-term strategies or conduct shake-ups in private. Still, withdrawing from the stock market also carries some risks.

If you usually wait until April to file your taxes, you might want to hurry up — before identity thieves beat you to it. Using stolen names and Social Security numbers, these criminals file fake tax returns. This generates big, and fraudulent, refunds, before the real taxpayer gets around to filing.

Conventional wisdom says fewer airlines mean higher fares and fewer flights. But experts say the American Airlines-U.S. Airways proposed merger is a mixed bag. Past mergers haven't led to significantly higher fares, but will this time be different?

Authorities say they've broken up one of the biggest credit card fraud rings in U.S. history. The group stole more than $200 million by creating fake identities and opening thousands of card accounts.

Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Zynga are on a shopping spree. They're buying small startups with innovative products and apps. But many times the buyers don't care about what the small companies were producing. They just want the engineers.