If you’re anything like me, your stomach drops when you receive any form of communication from the IRS. That’s because if they’re sending you something in the mail, it's most often because you owe some clams to Uncle Sam. Inevitably, the government finds ways in which to squeeze revenues from as many angles as possible, especially with today’s trimmed public budgets and high government debt. In fact, credit card holders have often been the recipients of such attempts at increasing the public coffers.

The Fed's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances was released earlier this week, and in spite of all the negative reports concerning shrinking incomes and net worth, it actually contained some tidbits of positive news regarding credit card debt. They're hard to find among all the other depressing information, but hey, I'll take what little good news we get these days!

If you haven't heard yet, Capital One announced that it closed on the purchase of HSBC's U.S. credit-card business earlier this month. Capital One paid a little over $31 billion in cash and received just over $28 billion in credit card receivables following the acquisition. It really was a win for HSBC as they desperately wanted out of the volatile credit card business in the U.S., and it also happened to be a perfect strategic fit for Capital One who continues to aggressively grow its domestic credit card portfolio. Part of the deal included HSBC's well-known Orchard Bank credit cards too, which have consistently ranked for years among the best credit cards for people with bad credit. If you have great credit scores, you've probably never even heard of this card. However, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone with bad credit who hasn't at least considered an application for an Orchard Bank credit card at some point in time.

Each year I look forward to checking out the National Foundation for Credit Counseling's Consumer Financial Literacy Survey. The NFCC has been sponsoring this report for six years now, and the results are generally released around the beginning of April in recognition of National Financial Literacy Month. As in previous years, the 2012 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey includes some pretty alarming statistics surrounding credit reports and credit scores. Here's what really caught my eye as I perused the key findings in this year's report.