Halloween has come and gone, but there are a number of financial tricks that happen all year long.

One common way investors are mislead is by advisers who quote percentages. How many advisers, for example, charge a 1 percent-plus fee annually to manage your money?

That certainly doesn't sound like a high fee. But if you're handing over $100,000 to the adviser to manage, that lowly 1 percent annual fee amounts to $1,000. If you're handing over $1 million to manage, you're talking a $10,000 annual fee. Meanwhile, we've heard of some advisers who charge more than 2 percent!

Another way we're being sold a bill of goods is through our federal income taxes.

How many times have you heard politicians boast about how income taxes have dropped in the last six years?

Indeed, the top 35 percent tax bracket represents a drop from the 38.6 percent charged in 2002. The federal estate tax, which once taxed amounts over $600,000 upon a person's death, now has a $2 million exemption, which rises to $3.5 million next year. The tax is 45 percent.

However, Barron's recently pointed out that these seeming tax cuts actually may have been tax increases.

How do you figure?

Tax cuts are tax increases, Barron's notes, when the tax cut is accompanied by a larger rise in government spending than in prices. Indeed, the federal government is due to spend more than $3.1 trillion in 2008, up from $2.3 trillion in 2003, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

"Until our elected officials grapple with the spending side of the ledger, talk of 'tax cuts' is just newspeak," according to the Barron's author, Gene Epstein.

Also, haven't state and local taxes been rising -- perhaps due to those so-called federal tax cuts?

Another trick is played an awful lot by advertisers who encourage you to buy access to your credit score. This number, many argue, is critical to helping you qualify for whatever loan you might seek. Improvement in your score also can help slash your loan rate.

Meanwhile, pinning down the actual credit score your specific lender or insurance company may use is not an easy task.

Although the dominant credit score is known as a "FICO" score, issued by Fair Isaac Corp., Minneapolis, your particular score may mean something entirely different if issued by another provider.

Plus, many lenders and insurers use their own in-house systems to score their customers.

Meanwhile, federal disclosure of your credit score is required if you apply for a mortgage on a one- to four-unit home and a credit score is used in the process.

So how can you avoid falling for all these tricks?

• Avoid making financial decisions based on percentages alone. Always crystallize the dollars-and-cents value it represents.

• Attend public meetings and work harder to get state, federal, local and county officials to curb wasteful spending.

• Check your credit report annually for free -- only at www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. Fix any mistakes, and encourage lenders to remove negative information from your report. Generally, for example, most accurate negative information may be reported for only seven years and bankruptcy information for 10 years.