Starting next week, some consumers may have a higher credit score.

Because of improved standards for utilizing new and existing public records, the three major credit reporting companies are now excluding all tax liens from credit reports. That means some scores will head higher, for some by as much as 30 points.

Credit scores, notably those from FICO, one of the largest credit scoring companies, generally range from 300 to 850. A good credit score generally is above 700, and those over 760 are considered excellent.

Credit reporting and scores play a key role in most Americans' daily life. The process can determine the interest rate a consumer is going to pay for credit cards, car loans and mortgages — or whether they will get a loan at all.

The new rules come following a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that found problems with credit reporting and recommended changes to help consumers. (Incorrect information on a credit report is the top issue reported by consumers, according to the bureau.)

Last July, credit reporting companies removed nearly 100 percent of civil judgment data and about 50 percent of tax lien data from credit reports. Now they will remove the rest. The latest change will take effect April 16.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions predicts that about 11 percent of the population will have a judgment or lien removed from their credit file, according to the company's own estimate.

This isn't really a big deal. The reality is that most people with liens on their record didn't have great scores to begin with -- so them shifting up or down a bit at the lower scores doesn't really mean much.

Also, the copy-paste above, stopped right at some of the more important information, so I'll continue the next few paragraphs here:

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"Other industry groups have said these changes will have less of an impact.

'Analyses conducted by the credit reporting agencies and credit score developers FICO and VantageScore show only modest credit scoring impacts,' Eric Ellman, a senior vice president of the Consumer Data Industry Association, said in a statement when the changes were first announced. The association represents Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, the three largest credit reporting companies.

A follow-up report by the CFPB found that only a small number of consumers who had civil judgments or tax liens removed from their reports in July experienced a jump significant enough to improve their credit profile."

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So, basically, probably not a big deal for most of us. It's not like everyone's scores are suddenly jumping 30 points.

Also, note that a big reason for doing this is because many liens are NOT directly tied to a SSN. They are just name records and they were discovering that lots of them were showing up for the WRONG person.

The real problem here is that many states have STILL not tied liens and other records (especially criminal and civil court records) to an SSN. This is a HUGE problem in Michigan -- where if you have a common name (like Mike Smith or Dave Johnson), you'll find DOZENS of evictions that get pulled up during a search. They REALLY need to start tying these to a specific person -- not just basically a name and a county like tends to happen with the current records.

- John...

As LL's the removal of tax liens is the least of it since most of our tenants haven't owned a home, the number one reason for tax liens, and are not self employed and failed to pay taxes.

Aside from tax liens judgements for unpaid rent will also be disappearing from CR.