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Is is possible to dispute IRS underpayment penalties?
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didn't pay the extra underpayment penalty on the grounds that it was an honest mistake. You seem to think a penalty applies only when the IRS thinks you were trying to cheat the system. That's not the case. A mistake (honest or otherwise) still can imply a penalty. While you can appeal just about anything, on any grounds you like, it's unlikely you will prevail.
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How can I minimize the impact of the HST?
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The HST is a sales tax levied on most goods and services. It is important to realize that in both BC and Ontario, the new HST does not (in most cases) result in an increase in sales tax paid. For example, in Ontario the PST is 8% and when combined with the GST the sales tax is 13%. With the HST, the GST and PST are replaced by a single HST of 13% so the tax bill does not change. Some services that were previously not subject to PST (such as mutual fund service fees and labour) will now be subject to the HST. So some things will increase. Over time, this should not have a material impact on the consumer due to the way businesses remit GST/HST.
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What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years?
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Books such as "The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Investing in Mutual Funds" claim that money market funds and CDs are the most prudent things to invest in if you need the money within 5 years. More specifically:
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Good books for learning about tax strategy/planning
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J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax is, remarkably, a great read. It's a line by line review of the tax forms, and offers commentary and examples for every scenario. Of course, it's updated every year to reflect new rules and numbers. I actually read it from cover to cover the first year I started working. It's not going to offer convoluted strategies to use, but, you'll understand your tax return well enough to respond to the advice you encounter elsewhere. To mhoran's point - "Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog." Taxes are important, but should take a back step to earning and investing. Those who didn't sell at the height of the dotcon bubble "to avoid the big tax bill" only saw in hindsight that paying taxes is part of success not failure.
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Who should pay taxes in my typical case?
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The bottom line is you broke the law. While this is pretty much victimless, it is none the less a violation of the law and should be avoided in the future. I would have not agreed to this as a parent and it sets a bad precedent. As such I would avoid trading and move the money into cash until you turn 18. Once you turn 18 you should transfer the money into an account of your own. From there you may proceed as you wish. As far as paying taxes, of course you need to pay them. Your mother did this as a favor to you and by doing such you caused her tax bill to rise. As a gesture of goodwill you should at least provide her with half of the profits, not the 15% you propose. Fifteen percent would be the "I am an ungrateful son" minimum, and I would seriously consider giving all of the profits to her.
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Why would a company issue a scrip dividend and how will this issue affect me?
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Am I correct in understanding that a Scrip Dividend involves the issue of new shares instead of the purchase of existing shares? Yes. Instead of paying a cash dividend to shareholders, the company grants existing shareholders new shares at a previously determined price. This allows shareholders who join the program to obtain new shares without incurring transaction costs that would normally occur if they purchased these shares in the market. Does this mean that if I don't join this program, my existing shares will be diluted every time a Scrip Dividend is paid? Yes, because the number of shares has increased, so the relative percentage of shares in the company you hold will decrease if you opt-out of the program. The price of the existing shares will adjust so that the value of the company is essentially unchanged (similar to a stock split), but the number of outstanding shares has increased, so the relative weight of your shares declines if you opt out of the program. What is the benefit to the company of issuing Scrip Dividends? Companies may do this to conserve their cash reserves. Also, by issuing a scrip dividend, corporations could avoid the Advanced Corporation Tax (ACT) that they would normally pre-pay on their distributions. Since the abolition of the ACT in 1999, preserving cash reserves is the primary reason for a company to issue scrip dividends, as far as I know. Whether or not scrip dividends are actually a beneficial strategy for a company is debatable (this looks like a neat study, even though I've only skimmed it). The issue may be beneficial to you, however, because you might receive a tax benefit. You can sell the scrip dividend in the market; the capital gain from this sale may fall below the annual tax-free allowance for capital gains, in which case you don't pay any capital gains tax on that amount. For a cash dividend, however, there isn't a minimum taxable amount, so you would owe dividend tax on the entire dividend (and may therefore pay more taxes on a cash dividend).
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How can I invest in an index fund but screen out (remove) certain categories of socially irresponsible investments?
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Hmm, this would seem to be impossible by definition. The definition of an "index fund" is that it includes exactly the stocks that make up the index. Once you say "... except for ..." then what you want is not an index fund but something else. It's like asking, "Can I be a vegetarian but still eat beef?" Umm, no. There might be someone offering a mutual fund that has the particular combination of stocks that you want, resembling the stocks making up the index except with these exclusions. That wouldn't be an index fund at that point, but, etc. There are lots of funds out there with various ideological criteria. I don't know of one that matches your criteria. I'd say, search for the closest approximation you can find. You could always buy individual stocks yourself and create your own pseudo-index fund. Depending on how many stock are in the index you are trying to match and how much money you have to invest, it may not be possible to exactly match it mathematically, if you would have to buy fractions of shares. If the number of shares you had to buy was very small you might get killed on broker fees. And I'll upvote @user662852's answer for being a pretty close approximation to what you want.
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When is the best time to put a large amount of assets in the stock market?
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I have been considering a similar situation for a while now, and the advice i have been given is to use a concept called "dollar cost averaging", which basically amounts to investing say 10% a month over 10 months, resulting in your investment getting the average price over that period. So basically, option 3.
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Best starting options to invest for retirement without a 401k
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Being from the UK, I'd not heard of a Roth IRA, but it sounds very similar to our own ISA (Individual Savings Account). Having just looked it up, I couldn't believe the annual limit was so low: $5500! Still, you have to work within your jurisdiction's legal framework (or agitate for change?). I would definitely agree with Ben Miller's answer: you need different savings buckets for the different savings objectives you'll have throughout the different periods of your life. I, for instance, am now a parent of two young children. I am fortunate to be able to provide for them on multiple levels: I hope that's of some help.
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Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics?
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The whole point of a credit report and, by extension, a credit score, is to demonstrate (and judge) your ability to repay borrowed funds. Everything stems from that goal; available credit, payment history, collections, etc all serve to demonstrate whether or not you personally are a good investment for lenders to pursue. Revolving credit balances are tricky because they are more complicated than fixed loans (for the rest of this answer, I'll just talk about credit cards, though it also applies to lines of credit such as overdraft protection for checking accounts, HELOCs, and other such products). Having a large available balance relative to your income means that at any time you could suddenly drown yourself in debt. Having no credit cards means you don't have experience managing them (and personal finances are governed largely by behavior, meaning experience is invaluable). Having credit cards but carrying a high balance means you know how to borrow money, but not pay it back. Having credit cards but carrying no balance means you don't know how to borrow money (or you don't trust yourself to pay it back). Ideally, lenders will see a pattern of you borrowing a portion of the available credit, and then paying it down. Generally that means utilizing up to 30% of your available credit. Even if you maintain the balance in that range without paying it off completely, it at least shows that you have restraint, and are able to stop spending at a limit you personally set, rather than the limit the bank sets for you. So, to answer your question, 0% balance on your credit cards is bad because you might as well not have them. Use it, pay it off, rinse and repeat, and it will demonstrate your ability to exercise self control as well as your ability to repay your debts.
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Is the I.T. function in banking considered to be on the expense side, as opposed to revenue side?
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This depends entirely on the kind of "IT" you're doing. A couple of examples to illuminate how wide the term is: To answer your core question: look beyond the title ("IT"), to the function you're providing to the bank, and ask if / how that function can generate money for the bank for better income possibilities; if the answer is "none", figure out which levers are closer to making money, and position yourself as such.
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Implications of a Canadian company IPO having a dual TSX/NYSE stock listing?
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Investors who are themselves Canadian and already hold Canadian dollars (CAD) would be more likely to purchase the TSX-listed shares that are quoted in CAD, thus avoiding the currency exchange fees that would be required to buy USD-quoted shares listed on the NYSE. Assuming Shopify is only offering a single class of shares to the public in the IPO (and Shopify's form F-1 only mentions Class A subordinate voting shares as being offered) then the shares that will trade on the TSX and NYSE will be the same class, i.e. identical. Consequently, the primary difference will be the currency in which they are quoted and trade. This adds another dimension to possible arbitrage, where not only the bare price could deviate between exchanges, but also due to currency fluctuation. An additional implication for a company to maintain such a dual listing is that they'll need to adhere to the requirements of both the TSX and NYSE. While this may have a hard cost in terms of additional filing requirements etc., in theory they will benefit from the additional liquidity provided by having the multiple listings. Canadians, in particular, are more likely to invest in a Canadian company when it has a TSX listing quoted in CAD. Also, for a company listed on both the TSX and NYSE, I would expect the TSX listing would be more likely to yield inclusion in a significant market index—say, one based on market capitalization, and thus benefit the company by having its shares purchased by index ETFs and index mutual funds that track the index. I'll also remark that this dual U.S./Canadian exchange listing is not uncommon when it comes to Canadian companies that have significant business outside of Canada.
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Why was my Credit Limit Increase Denied?
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I think they gave you the answer: You haven't previously shown that you can run that particular card up to (near) its existing maximum and then pay it off, so they don't have a strong indication that you can handle that large an unsecured loan. Generally, requests to have the limits raised when there isn't evidence that the customer is finding the current limit inconvenient are going to be considered suspicious. Remember, a great credit rating does not require that they consider you a good risk -- it's just one of the things they consider. Why do you need the limit raised? Have you tried contacting the bank's credit department directly and discussing what they will or won't let you do? Re paying off the card every month: Remember, they do get a processing fee from the vendor. They'd prefer that we paid interest (I'm told the term of art for those of us who don't is "deadbeats"), but they certainly don't lose money when we don't. And they'd generally rather have us be loyal customers who MIGHT someday pay interest, and who are bringing in fees, than have us go elsewhere.
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Can dividends be exploited?
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In an ideal world Say on 24th July the share price of Apple was $600. Everyone knows that they will get the $ 2.65 on 16th August. There is not other news that is affecting the price. You want to go in and buy the shares on 16th Morning at $600 and then sell it on 17th August at $600. Now in this process you have earned sure shot $2.65/- Or in an ideal world when the announcement is made on 24th July, why would I sell it at $600, when I know if I wait for few more days I will get $2.65/- so i will be more inclined to sell it at $602.65 /- ... so on 16th Aug after the dividend is paid out, the share price will be back to $600/- In a real world, dividend or no dividend the share price would be moving up or down ... Notice that the dividend amount is less than 1% of the stock price ... stock prices change more than this percentage ... so if you are trying to do what is described in paragraph one, then you may be disappointed as the share price may go down as well by more than $2.65 you have made
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Retirement formula for annual compound interest with changing principal
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The equation is the same one used for mortgage amortization. You first want to calculate the PV (present value) for a stream of $50K payments over 20 years at a10% rate. Then that value is the FV (future value) that you want to save for, and you are looking to solve the payment stream needed to create that future value. Good luck achieving the 10% return, and in knowing your mortality down to the exact year. Unless this is a homework assignment, which need not reflect real life. Edit - as indicated above, the first step is to get that value in 20 years: The image is the user-friendly entry screen for the PV calculation. It walks you though the need to enter rate as per period, therefore I enter .1/12 as the rate. The payment you desire is $50K/yr, and since it's a payment, it's a negative number. The equation in excel that results is: =PV(0.1/12,240,-50000/12,0) and the sum calculated is $431,769 Next you wish to know the payments to make to arrive at this number: In this case, you start at zero PV with a known FV calculated above, and known rate. This solves for the payment needed to get this number, $568.59 The excel equation is: =PMT(0.1/12,240,0,431769) Most people have access to excel or a public domain spreadsheet application (e.g. Openoffice). If you are often needing to perform such calculations, a business finance calculator is recommended. TI used to make a model BA-35 finance calculator, no longer in production, still on eBay, used. One more update- these equations whether in excel or a calculator are geared toward per period interest, i.e. when you state 10%, they assume a monthly 10/12%. With that said, you required a 20 year deposit period and 20 year withdrawal period. We know you wish to take out $4166.67 per month. The equation to calculate deposit required becomes - 4166.67/(1.00833333)^240= 568.59 HA! Exact same answer, far less work. To be clear, this works only because you required 240 deposits to produce 240 withdrawals in the future.
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Does the rise in ACA premiums affect employer-provided health insurance premiums?
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It's likely impossible to determine why premiums are increasing in a meaningful way; not only is the interrelationship between the various data points very complex, but some of the increases are likely due to decisions by people who do not and will not publicly post what they decided and why. However, it is possible to compare health insurance premium increases over time to see if the increases in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are comparable or not to the pre-ACA timeframe. Since the ACA phased in over a few years, we can compare the period 2008-2010 "pre-ACA" and 2013-2015 "post-ACA", ignoring 2011-2012 as being unclearly affected by the ACA phase-in. For this, I will look at single coverage premiums only for the purpose of simplifying the analysis. I found a good table of 2008-2010 premiums from the NCSL; they list the following: Kaiser Permanente had a good list for 2013-2015 here: From 2008-2010, the average growth was around 6% per year. From 2013-2015, the growth averaged about 3%. In both of these cases we are comparing total premiums (sum of employer and employee contributions). So, from a data-driven look, it seems that the premium growth is lower post-ACA than pre-ACA, so it's unlikely that the ACA could be accused of causing increased premium growth. Of course, this is US-wide average, and on a state-by-state basis there may well be significant differences that may or may not be related to the ACA. One thing that is covered on the NCSL page linked above that is interesting: while the premium growth has slowed significantly (about 50% of the growth pre-ACA), health insurance premiums are a higher proportion of employee's wages, and that growth is continuing - because wage growth has not kept pace with inflation post-2008 recession. Employee contributions also may be higher post-recession; many companies reduced their contribution percentage (as my then employer did, for example). Finally, increases in the ACA plans are also commonly overstated. They largely are in line with employer plans or even less. In 2015, premiums were basically flat, decreasing slightly in fact - see the KFF analysis here. 2016 saw a 3.6% by this methodology (see the 2016 analysis). It's very easy to cherrypick examples that are favorable to any interpretation from the data, though; there are such big swings as a result of the different conditions in the marketplaces that it's easy to pick a few that have high swings and claim the ACA has massive premium increases, or pick a few that have low swings and claim it's reducing costs.
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Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?
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The market capitalization of a stock is the number of shares outstanding (of each stock class), times the price of last trade (of each stock class). In a liquid market (where there are lots of buyers and sellers at all price points), this represents the price that is between what people are bidding for the stock and what people are asking for the stock. If you offer any small amount more than the last price, there will be a seller, and if you ask any small amount less than the last price, there will be a buyer, at least for a small amount of stock. Thus, in a liquid market, everyone who owns the stock doesn't want to sell at least some of their stock for a bit less than the last trade price, and everyone who doesn't have the stock doesn't want to buy some of the stock for a bit more than the last trade price. With those assumptions, and a low-friction trading environment, we can say that the last trade value is a good midpoint of what people think one share is worth. If we then multiply it by the number of shares, we get an approximation of what the company is worth. In no way, shape or form does it not mean that there is 32 billion more invested in the company, or even used to purchase stock. There are situations where a 32 billion market cap swing could mean 32 billion more money was invested in the company: the company issues a pile of new shares, and takes in the resulting money. People are completely neutral about this gathering in of cash in exchange for dilluting shares. So the share price remains unchanged, the company gains 32 billion dollars, and there are now more shares outstanding. Now, in some sense, there is zero dollars currently invested in a stock; when you buy a stock, you no longer have the money, and the money goes to the person who no longer has the stock. The issue here is the use of the continuous tense of "invested in"; the investment was made at some point, but the money doesn't really stay in this continuous state of being. Unless you consider the investment liquid, and the option to take money out being implicit, it being a continuous action doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the money is invested in the company, when the company causes stocks to come into being and sells them. The owners of stocks has invested money in stocks in that they spent that money to buy the stocks, but the total sum of money ever spent on stocks for a given company is not really a useful value. The market capitalization is an approximation, which under the efficient market hypothesis (that markets find the correct price for things nearly instantly) is reasonably accurate, of the value the company has collectively to its shareholders. The efficient market hypothesis isn't accurate, but it is an acceptable rule of thumb. Now, this value -- market capitalization -- is arguably not the total value of a company: other stakeholders include bond holders, labour, management, various contract counter-parties, government and customers. Some companies are structured so that almost all value is captured not by the stock owners, but by contract counter-parties (this is sometimes used for hiding assets or debts). But for most large publically traded companies, it (in theory) shouldn't be far off.
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Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?
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As the other answers stated: Yes PayPal will transfer money from your bankaccount automatically if your PayPal balance isn't sufficient. Let's add some proof to the story: (Note, I am in the EU, specifically the Netherlands, situation might be different in other parts of the world) If I login to PayPal and go to my wallet, I have a section that looks like this: If I click on it, I am presented with a screen with details about the connection. Note the "Direct debit instruction". If I click on the "view" link I am presented with the following text (emphasis mine): [snip some arbitrary personal details] This authorisation allows (A) PayPal to send instructions to your bank account and (B) your bank to debit your account in accordance with the instructions from PayPal. As part of your rights, you are entitled to a refund from your bank under the Terms and Conditions of your agreement with your bank. A refund must be claimed within 8 weeks starting from the date on which your account was debited. Your rights are explained in a statement that you can obtain from your bank. Below this text is a button to delete the authorization.
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How much power does a CEO have over a public company?
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Also keep note - some companies have a combined CEO/Chairman of the board role. While he/she would not be allowed to negotiate contracts or stock plans, some corporate governance analysts advocate for the separation of the roles to remove any opportunity for the CEO to unduly influence the board. This could be the case for dysfunctional boards. However, the alternate camps will say that the combined role has no negative effect on shareholder returns. SEC regulations require companies to disclose negotiations between the board and CEO (as well as other named executives) for contracts, employee stock plans, and related information. Sometimes reading the proxy statement to find out, for example, how many times the board meets a year, how many other boards a director serves on, and if the CEO sits on any other board (usually discouraged to serve on more than 2) will provide some insight into a well-run (or not well-run) board.
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Why does my car loan interest go up despite making payments on-time?
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Interest is calculated daily. Doing the math: Between 6-17 and 7-25 are 38 days, 200.29 / 38 = 5.27 interest per day. Between 7-25 and 8-17 are 23 days. 120.02 / 23 = 5.22 interest per day. The minimal difference is because the principal has already gone down a little bit. So you should expect ~5.20 x number of days for the next interest number coming up; slowly decreasing as the remaining principal debt decreases. Note that this is equivalent of an annual interest rate of over 20 %, which is beyond acceptable. In the current economy, this is ridiculously high. I recommend trying to get a refinancing with another provider; you should be able to get it for a third of that.
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Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary?
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It would make sense to refuse a raise when it pushes your effective marginal 'tax' (including reduced benefits) above 100%. The working poor (family of 4, 20K-40K in the US) often face marginal rates above 100% when you consider the phase out of various government benefits (EITC, insurance, housing,etc.) You can see the research here and here.
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How to record business income tax paid, in QuickBooks?
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Federal income taxes are indeed expenses, they're just not DEDUCTIBLE expenses on your 1120. Federal Income Tax Expense is usually a subcategory under Taxes. This is one of the items that will be a book-to-tax difference on Schedule M-1. I am presuming you are talking about a C corporation, as an S corporation is not likely to be paying federal taxes itself, but would pass the liability through to the members. If you're paying your personal 1040 taxes out of an S-corporation bank account, that's an owner's draw just like paying any of your personal non-business expenses. I would encourage you to get a tax professional to prepare your corporate tax returns. It's not quite as simple as TurboTax Business makes it out to be. ;) Mariette IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law.
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Is there a standard check format in the USA?
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Legally, a check just needs to have a certain list of things (be an instruction to one's bank to pay a specific amount of money to bearer or to a specific entity, have a date, have a signature, etc.) There are anecdotes around of a guy depositing a junk mail check and it accidentally qualifying as a real check (which he turned into a live show), or of writing a check on a door, cow, or "the shirt off your back". What kind of checks your bank will process is technically up to them. Generally, if you get your blank checks printed up by any reputable firm, they'll have similar information in similar places, as well as the MICR line (the account and routing number in magnetic ink on the bottom) to allow for bank to process the checks with automated equipment. As long as it's a standard size, has the MICR line, and has the information that a check needs, your bank is likely to be fine with it. So, there are some standards, but details like where exactly the name of the bank is, or what font is used, or the like, are up to whoever is printing the check. For details on what standards your bank requires in order to process your checks, you'd have to check with your bank directly. Though, it wouldn't surprise me if they just directed you to their preferred check printer provider, as they know that they accept their check format fine. Though as I said, any reputable check printer makes sure that they meet the standards to get processed by banks without trouble. Unless you're a business that's going to be writing a lot of checks and pay a lot of fees for the privilege, a bank is not likely to want to make exceptions for you for your own custom-printed octagonal checks written in ancient Vulcan.
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value of guaranteeing a business loan
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You are confining the way you and the other co-founders are paid for guaranteeing the loan to capital shares. Trying to determine payments by equity distribution is hard. It is a practice that many small companies particularly the ones in their initial stage fall into. I always advise against trying to make payments with equity, weather it is for unpaid salary or for guaranteeing a loan such as your case. Instead of thinking about a super sophisticated algorithm to distribute the new shares between the cofounders and the new investors, given a set of constraints, which will most probably fail to make the satisfactory split, you should simply view the co-founders as debt lenders for the company and the shareholders as a capital contributor. If the co-founders are treated as debt lenders, it will be much easier to determine the risk compensation for guaranteeing the loan because it is now assessed in monetary units and this compensation is equal to the risk premium you see fit "taking into consideration the probability of default ". On the other hand, capital contributors will gain capital shares as a percentage of the total value of the company after adding SBA loan.
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What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada?
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Now, keep in mind I'm biased because I'm an engineer at this company, but FutureAdvisor.com provides advice on your savings and investments. We currently help users optimize their portfolios for retirement savings, but plan on rolling our more savings goals in the future.
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Real estate loans for repairs
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If you intend to flip this property, you might consider either a construction loan or private money. A construction loan allows you to borrow from a bank against the value of the finished house a little at a time. As each stage of the construction/repairs are completed, the bank releases more funds to you. Interest accrues during the construction, but no payments need to be made until the construction/repairs are complete. Private money works in a similar manner, but the full amount can be released to you at once so you can get the repairs done more quickly. The interest rate will be higher. If you are flipping, then this higher interest rate is simply a cost of doing business. Since it's a private loan, you ca structure the deal any way you want. Perhaps accruing interest until the property is sold and then paying it back as a single balloon payment on sale of the property. To find private money, contact a mortgage broker and tell them what you have in mind. If you're intending to keep the property for yourself, private money is still an option. Once the repairs are complete, have the bank reassess the property value and refinance based on the new amount. Pay back the private loan with equity pulled from the house and all the shiny new repairs.
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Should I use a credit repair agency?
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Repairing your credit takes time. Companies that offer to do it for you (for money) generally succeed mostly at getting money from you. Nonprofit agencies will help you with advice and encouragement and will not want money from you. They may be able to help you apply for a consolidation loan, but to be honest that is rarely the best first step. Over time, you need to The last step may happen months or years after the first two.
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Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment?
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Not sure what you mean by "missing". Credit card debt can be paid back in full when you get the bill, or you can "take a loan" and "pay in installments". If you do the latter, and pay back at least the minimum required amount on time, you are not "missing" your payment. Technically, you are taking a small, but expensive loan, and if you pay that loan back according to the terms and conditions that apply to your credit card, this is reported to the credit bureau and improves your credit. If you are really "missing your payment", paying late (more than a few days), less than minimum or nothing at all, this won't help to improve your credit. A "first-time offender" won't always be reported to the credit bureau, but if he is, it won't be a positive report.
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How should I value personal use television for donation?
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The usual lazy recommendation: See what similar objects, in similar condition, of similar age, have sold for recently on eBay. That establishes a fair market value by directly polling the market.
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Are the stocks of competitor companies negatively correlated?
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Not especially. It depends on why sales have changed. If it's just consumer demand, that affects everyone in parallel rather than pushing in opposite direactions. If it's changes other than sales, that may have no effect on other companies. If it's because someone introduced the next must-have-it device and they're selling rapidly and drawing customers from the competing brands, maybe. And that's all neglecting the fact that this may already have been incorporated into the competitor's share price long ago, in anticipation of this news. Sorry, but the market just ain't simple.
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Good habits pertaining to personal finance for someone just getting started?
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nan
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Are parking spaces and garage boxes a good investment?
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If the company that owns the lot is selling them it is doing so because it feels it will make more money doing so. You need to read carefully what it is you are getting and what the guarantees are from the owner of the property and the parking structure. I have heard from friends in Chicago that said there are people who will sell spaces they do not own as a scam. There are also companies that declare bankruptcy and go out of business after signing long term leases for their spots. They sell the lot to another company(which they have an interest in) and all the leases that they sold are now void so they can resell the spots. Because of this if I were going to invest in a parking space, I would make sure: The company making the offer is reputable and solvent Check for plans for major construction/demolition nearby that would impact your short and long term prospects for rent. Full time Rental would Recoup my investment in less than 5 years. Preferably 3 years. The risk on this is too high for me with out that kind of return.
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Dad paying for my new home in cash. How can I buy the house from him?
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There are quite some options, but without additional information, I can only provide examples. Last year I had the option to buy a house, but I decided against it because in my area it is getting harder and harder every year to sell it at a reasonable price. But if I had bought a house, my mother would have lent me the money, with me paying it back to her over the years on 3% interest. So it would have been some kind of a private loan. But my mom would never have taken ownership of the house, since it was not her intention to own it in any way. (Does your dad intend to own the house and rent it to you? If yes, and if you are comfortable with renting instead of buying, then this is an option.) The second option, the one we discarded because of the additional cost, is that I could have taken a loan, paying 4.5% interest to the bank, which would then pay under 1% to my mom, and keep the rest. Banks always want to make profit, and this profit has to come from somewhere - from the difference between the interest rates. If your dad has 230k on the bank, and you owe 230k to the bank, you are better off if you keep the bank out - at least as long as your dad is comfortable with lending you money, and you are comfortable with owing him money. (my gf would never borough money from her mother, because her mother would always play the "you are in my debt" card - on each and every visit, and whenever she needed help in any way...) So the key is: What does your dad feel comfy with - and what do you feel comfy with. If possible, keep the banks out, but set up a written contract between you and your dad.
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Taxable Website Ad Revenue
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If the $5000 is income, then you need to pay income taxes on it. That's simply the way it works. Hourly rate has nothing to do with whether or not you pay taxes. If it helps, try to think of the $5000 as the first $5000 you make for the year. Now it's covered by your standard deduction and you're not paying taxes on it.
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Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit?
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I've lived this decision, and from my "anecdata": do #3 I have been car-free since 2011 in a large United States city. I was one month into a new job on a rail line out in the suburbs, and facing a $3000 bill to pass state inspection (the brakes plus the emissions system). I live downtown. I use a combination of transit, a carshare service, and 1-2 day rentals from full service car rental businesses (who have desks at several downtown hotels walking distance from my house). I have not had a car insurance policy since 2011; the carshare includes this and I pay $15 per day for SLI from full service rentals. I routinely ask insurance salesmen to run a quote for a "named non-owner" policy, and would pull the trigger if the premium cost was $300/6 months, to replace the $15/day SLI. It's always quoted higher. In general, our trips have a marginal cost of $40-100. Sure, this can be somewhat discouraging. But we do it for shopping at a warehouse club, visiting parents and friends in the suburbs. Not every weekend, but pretty close. But with use of the various services ~1/weekend, it's come out to $2600 per year. I was in at least $3200 per year operating the car and often more, so there is room for unexpected trips or the occasional taxi ride in cash flow, not to mention the capital cost: I ground the blue book value of the car from $19000 down to $3600 in 11 years. Summary: Pull the trigger, do it :D
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The formula equivalent of EBITDA for personal finance?
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This should not be taken to be financial advice or guidance. My opinions are my own and do not represent professional advice or consultation on my part or that my employer. Now that we have that clear... Your idea is a very good one. I'm not sure about the benefits of a EBITDA for personal financial planning (or for financial analysis, for that matter, but we will that matter to the side). If you have a moderate (>$40,000) income, then taxes should be one the largest, if not the largest chunk of your paycheck out the door. I personally track my cash flow on a day-by-day basis. That is to say, I break out the actual cash payments (paychecks) that I receive and break them apart into the 14 day increments (paycheck/14). I then take my expenses and do the same. If you organize your expenses into categories, you will receive some meaningful numbers about your daily liquidity (i.e: cash flow before taxes, after taxes, cash flow after house expenses, ect) This serves two purposes. One, you will understand how much you can actually spend on a day-to-day basis. Second, once you realize your flexibility on a day-to-day basis, it is easy to plan and forecast your expenses.
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Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?
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Another factor is, how far is your prospective rental property from where you live? vs. how comprehensive is your property management service? If you need to visit much or would simply like to keep an eye on it, a couple of hours drive could be a deal breaker. One more thought; would you be able to upgrade the property at a profit when it comes time to sell? If you have a realtor you trust he or she should be able to tell you if, say a $20k kitchen reno would reliably return more than $20k. It has a lot to do with the property's relative price position in the neighborhood. A cheaper home has more "upsell" room.
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Renting out rooms in my home, what's the proper way to deal with utilities for tax purposes?
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It's the same result either way. Say the bills are $600, and you are reimbursed $400. You'd be able to write off $400 as part of the utilities that are common expenses, but then claim the $400 as income. I'd stick with that, and have contemporaneous records supporting all cash flow. You also can take 2/3 of any other maintenance costs that most homeowners can't. Like snow removal, lawn care, etc.
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What is a negotiable security and how are they related to derivatives?
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negotiability is a legal concept that permits free transfer of a security without the requirement of prior consent of the issuer. that means the issuer must pay the current holder of the security, irrespective of who he is. negotiability also protects a good faith buyer of the instrument from adverse ownership claims of purported prior holders of the instrument. it is not related to "negotiating" the price or whatnot. A negotiable security means the current owner does not have to be concerned about acquiring the asset via a bad chain of title b/c he can always assert that he is a "holder in due course" defense against such claims, and have absolute security in his ownership right over the asset. securities and derivatives are different. securities are transferrable instruments representing a direct claim on the issuer for the value of the security, whether debt or equity ownership. derivatives are bilateral contracts, which can only be entered into with the consent of both parties, and can only be transferred by such consent. derivatives represent a claim against the parties of to the derivative that depends on some economic reference which is outside of the financial condition of the two parties to the contract, such as interest rates, FX rates, commodity prices, etc.
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Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage?
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A revocable trust? Else the title would be his...vs recieving a gift that large. Make it a business investment like a holding company. And use the trust as agreement to shares.
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Unemployment Insurance Through Options
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Options do act, somewhat, like insurance.... However.... An insurance policy will not have such short term expiration time frames. A 20 year term life insurance policy can be thought of as insurance with an expiration. But the expiration on options is in weeks, not decades. So (IMO) options make terrible insurance policies because of the very short term expirations they have.
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What happens to public shareholders when a public stock goes private?
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If a deal is struck, you're part of that deal because you own shares. If someone offers $10/share for the entire company, you'll get that. If the stock price is $1.50 and someone offers $2/share, you'll get that.
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What is the difference between state pension plans and defined contribution plans?
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The specific "State Pension" plan you have linked to is provided by the government of the U.K. to workers resident there. More generally speaking, many countries provide some kind of basic worker's pension (or "social security") to residents. In the United States, it is called (surprise!) "Social Security", and in Canada most of us call ours "Canada Pension Plan". Such pensions are typically funded by payroll deductions distinct & separate from income tax deducted at source. You can learn about the variety of social security programs around the world courtesy of the U.S. Social Security Administration's own survey. What those and many other government or state pensions have in common, and the term or concept that I think you are looking for, is that they are typically defined benefit type of plans. A defined benefit or DB plan is where there is a promised (or "defined") benefit, i.e. a set lump sum amount (such as with a "cash balance" type of DB plan) or income per year in retirement (more typical). (Note: Defined benefit plans are not restricted to be offered by governments only. Many companies also offer DB plans to their employees, but DB plans in the private sector are becoming more rare due to the funding risk inherent in making such a long-term promise to employees.) Whereas a defined contribution or DC plan is one where employee and/or employer put money into a retirement account, the balance of which is invested in a selection of funds. Then, at retirement the resulting lump sum amount or annual income amounts (if the resulting balance is annuitized) are based on the performance of the investments selected. That is, with a DC plan, there is no promise of you getting either a set lump sum amount or a set amount of annual income at retirement! The promise was up front, on how much money they would contribute. So, the contributions are defined (often according to a matching contribution scheme), yet the resulting benefit itself is not defined (i.e. promised.) Summary: DB plans promise you the money (the benefit) you'll get at retirement. DC plans only promise you the money (the contributions) you get now.
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Car as business expense, but not because of driving
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To be deductible, a business expense must be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business. An expense does not have to be indispensable to be considered necessary. (IRS, Deducting Business Expenses) It seems to me you'd have a hard time convincing an auditor that this is the case. Since business don't commonly own cars for the sole purpose of housing $25 computers, you'd have trouble with the "ordinary" test. And since there are lots of other ways to house a computer other than a car, "necessary" seems problematic also.
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What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt?
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The difference in interest is not a huge factor in your decision. It's about $2 per month. Personally I would go ahead and knock one out since it's one less to worry about. Then I would cancel the account and cut that card up so you are not tempted to use it again. To address the comments... Cutting up the card is NOT the ultimate solution. The solution is to stop borrowing money... Get on a strict budget, live on less than what you bring home, and throw everything you can at this high-interest debt. The destroying of the card is partly symbolic - it's a gesture to indicate that you're not going to use credit cards at all, or at least until they can be used responsibly, not paying a DIME of interest. It's analogous to a recovering alcoholic pouring out bottles of booze. Sure you can easily get more, but it's a commitment to changing your attitude and behavior. Yes leaving the card open will reduce utilization and improve (or not hurt) credit score - but if the goal is to stop borrowing money and pay off the other card, then once that is achieved, your credit score will be significantly improved, and the cancelling of the first card will not matter. The card (really both cards) should never, ever be used again.
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Main source of the shares/stocks data on the web
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The main source is a direct feed from the stock market itself. The faster the feed, the more expensive. 15-minute delay is essentially free... and for those of us who do long-term investment is more than adequate. If you want data sooner, sign up with a brokerage that provides that service as part of what you're paying them for... and remember that every bit you spend on services is that much more profit you have to make just to break even, so there's a real tradeoff.
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why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?
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I treat the concept of emergency funds as a series of financial buffers. One layer is that I have various credit cards with a small positive balance, that I can max out in an emergency should I go broke and not be in employment (those have saved me once or twice) My final level of emergency funds, is kept at home in the form of cash, I've never needed it, but it protects against getting locked out of the financial system (I lose my debit cards, banking system freezes all withdrawals, zombie invasion). It also doubles as my destitution fund, as if all else fails I still have raw cash to buy food and thus I won't starve (at least for a few months).
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Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)?
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Yes you can, but to do so successfully, you need lots of money. You also need to be able to meet the criteria for being classified as a "professional trader" by the IRS. (If not, you'll be buried in paperwork.) The fact that you're asking about it here probably means that you do not have enough money to succeed at HFT.
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New to investing — I have $20,000 cash saved, what should I do with it?
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@mbhunter and @JoeTaxpayer have given good advice. Were I in your situation, the only thing I might do differently is put whatever amount of cash not needed for emergencies in a money market fund with check-writing privileges and/or a debit card. The rate on the account has at least some chance of preserving the value of your principal, and it will be easier to put your money into investments as soon as you're ready. This sort of account is offered by any number of brokerages and financial companies, so pick one you trust and start there.
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Are these really bond yields?
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Yes those are really yields. A large portion of the world has negative yielding bonds in fact. This process has been in motion for the past 10 years for very specific reasons. So congratulations on discovering the bond market.
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I'm about to be offered equity by my employer. What should I expect?
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In my experience, any kind of equity you may be offered by the company is just a carrot. Your offer may be written in such a way that your potential ownership represents, say, 1% of the company today. But if the company goes for a round of financing your ownership percentage can get diluted. If this happens a couple of times and the terms of financing aren't very favorable then your percentage can go from that 1% down to 0.001%, making the equity worthless. I've known people who heard their company was being bought and thought they might get some kind of payoff. Come to find out the company hadn't done all that well and there wasn't anything to pay out after the main investors got some money back. (The main investors took a loss.) For obvious reasons, management wasn't keeping the staff up to date about the fact that they were operating in the red and their options were worthless. Some people grumbled about lawyers and filing lawsuits, but at the end of the day, there wasn't any money to be won. Keep this in mind. As to your question regarding what to look out for:
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Why does Warren Buffett say his fund performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market?
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From the letter you link: Our performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market so that deductions made from the above results should be tempered by the fact that it was the type of year when we should have done relatively well. In a year when the general market had a substantial advance I would be well satisfied to match the advance of the Averages. Putting those two sentences together, the word relatively means that his funds perform better than the market in bear markets and perform about the same as the overall market in bull markets. It does not mean that absolute performance is better in bear markets than bull markets. Later on he states This policy should lead to superior results in bear markets and average performance in bull markets.
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What does “profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share” mean?
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What does it mean in terms of share price? Should the share price increase by 15 cents? No, but you're on the right track. In theory, the price of a share reflects it's "share" of time discounted future earnings. To put it concretely, imagine a company consistently earning 15 cents a share every year and paying it all out as dividends. If you only paid 25 cents for it, you could earn five cents a share by just holding it for two years. If you imagine that stocks are priced assuming a holding period of 20 years or so, so we'd expect the stock to cost less than 3 dollars. More accurately, the share price reflects expected future earnings. If everyone is assuming this company is growing earnings every quarter, an announcement will only confirm information people have already been trading based on. So if this 15 cents announcement is a surprise, then we'd expect the stock price to rise as a function of both the "surprise" in earnings, and how long we expect them to stay at this new profitability level before competition claws their earnings away. Concretely, if 5 cents a share of that announcement were "earnings surprise," you'd expect it to rise somewhere around a dollar.
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First time consultant, doubts on Taxation
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I would look into the possibility that the promise "that no taxes will be withheld" is all about your status as a 'consultant'. They may be meaning you to be treated like a business they buy services from. In Canada the distinction is very watery and I presume the same in India. If you agree to become a business, then you must look into how that business income will be taxed.
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Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money “in this economy”?
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Saving some money for the future is a good idea. But how much to save is a tough question. I retired with a small fraction of what the experts said I would need. Three years later, I can confidently say I did not even need what I had saved.
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Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing?
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The problem with daily-rebalanced "inverse" or "leveraged" ETFs is that since they rebalance every day, you can lose money even if your guess as to the market's direction is correct. Quoting from FINRA'S guide as to why these are a bad idea: How can this apparent breakdown between longer term index returns and ETF returns happen? Here’s a hypothetical example: let’s say that on Day 1, an index starts with a value of 100 and a leveraged ETF that seeks to double the return of the index starts at $100. If the index drops by 10 points on Day 1, it has a 10 percent loss and a resulting value of 90. Assuming it achieved its stated objective, the leveraged ETF would therefore drop 20 percent on that day and have an ending value of $80. On Day 2, if the index rises 10 percent, the index value increases to 99. For the ETF, its value for Day 2 would rise by 20 percent, which means the ETF would have a value of $96. On both days, the leveraged ETF did exactly what it was supposed to do—it produced daily returns that were two times the daily index returns. But let’s look at the results over the 2 day period: the index lost 1 percent (it fell from 100 to 99) while the 2x leveraged ETF lost 4 percent (it fell from $100 to $96). That means that over the two day period, the ETF's negative returns were 4 times as much as the two-day return of the index instead of 2 times the return. That example is for "just" leveraging 2x in the same direction. Inverse funds have the same kind of issue. An example from Bogleheads Wiki page on these kinds of funds says that over 12/31/2007 to 12/31/2010, The funds do exactly what they say on any given day. But any losses get "locked in" each day. While normally a 50% loss needs a 100% gain to get back to a starting point, a fund like this needs more than a 100% gain to get back to its starting point. The result of these funds across multiple days doesn't match the index it's matching over those several days, and you won't make money over the long term. Do look at the further examples at the links I've referenced above, or do your own research into the performance of these funds during time periods both when the market is going up and going down. Also refer to these related and/or duplicate questions:
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Online Return Policies
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If you paid by credit card, file a dispute with the credit card company. They will credit you the money immediately while they investigate. The burden of proof will then be on the merchant. Keep your documents handy in case you need them: USPS receipt, proof of delivery, copies of all correspondance, etc. File the credit card chargeback now, because there are time limits. The FTC has more information.
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What could happen to Detroit Municipal bonds because of Detroit's filing for bankruptcy?
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Since the bondholders have voted to reject the emergency manager's plan, which would have paid them pennies on the dollar, the city is now attempting to discharge its short-term and long-term debt. If they get what they want in court, it is likely these bonds will become worthless. Even if they are only able to restructure the debt, its likely that bondholders will need to accept large concessions. However, this may not be immediately reflected in bond prices as it's very possible that the market for these bonds will be very limited in terms of who they could sell them to. If you were to buy them now , that would be a bet on some outcome other than bankruptcy and the discharge of the city's long-term obligations. President Obama has already stated that he monitoring the situation, and it seems unlikely to me that after all of the support given to the auto industry in the last several years that the federal government will do nothing, if only to avert job losses. However, I think it's likely that state aid will be limited at best, as Michigan's economy has been struggling for a number of years. There aren't many large precedents to look at for guidance. One of the largest public entities to declare bankruptcy, Orange County, was a very different situation because this was due to malfeasance on the part of its investment manager, whereas Detroit's situation is a much larger structural problem with its declining economy and tax base. I think the key question will be whether the Federal Government will consider a Detroit bankruptcy to be a large enough embarassment/failure to take significant action.
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How to find historical stock price for a de-listed or defunct company?
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http://www.euroinvestor.com/exchanges/nasdaq/macromedia-inc/41408/history will work as DumbCoder states, but didn't contain LEHMQ (Lehman Brother's holding company). You can use Yahoo for companies that have declared bankruptcy, such as Lehman Brothers: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=LEHMQ&a=08&b=01&c=2008&d=08&e=30&f=2008&g=d but you have to know the symbol of the holding company.
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Is the amount taxable if my grandfather sells agricultural land
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As your is a very specific case, please get an advice of CA. It should not cost you much and make it easier. The sale of agriculture land is taxable in certain conditions and exempt from tax in other cases. Sale of agricultural land is subject to capital gains tax. But there are certain exemptions under Section 54B, subject to conditions, which are as follows: If deemed taxable, you can avail indexation, ie the price at which you grandfather got [the date when he inherited it as per indexation] and pay 10% on the difference. If the price is not known, you can take the govt prescribed rate. As there is a large deposit in your fathers account, there can be tax queries and need to be answered. Technically there is no tax liable even if your grandfather gifts the money to your father. More details at http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130401/jsp/business/story_16733007.jsp and http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/publications/4_compute_your_capital_gains/chapter2.asp
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Does the rise in ACA premiums affect employer-provided health insurance premiums?
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Depends on the insurance company itself, as well as the costs of treatments. Imagine an ideal scenario where costs of treatments stayed the same, and that all insurance plans were segregated and pulled from the same pool of funds to pay for treatments. Then employer subsidized health insurance plans would be unaffected by the drama in the ACA plans. Those are the factors to consider, from my understanding. But I wouldn't be surprised if the burdens of accepting people that would previously never have been serviced by these companies has greatly distorted the market as a whole.
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Scammer wants details and credentials for my empty & unused bank account. What could go wrong?
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It's a scam. Here are the many signs: The bank will never ask for your password. They can access your account without it. The bank will never use a customer's account for their own business. They have their own accounts. "Some guy" is not a bank employee. Bank employees are people that you meet at the bank. Banks do not hand out thousands of dollars for free to customers, especially customers with nothing in their accounts. Even if you have no money in the account, this crook that you would give access to your account can do lots of illegal things in your name, such as writing bad checks, laundering money, running scams on other people through your account, etc. If you have already given your account info to this person, you need to go to the bank immediately and inform them. Since you have no money in the account, you should close it.
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I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it?
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I'm almost in the same situation as you. Here is what I'm doing. Buy ETFs each time you have above 3000€ saved up. I buy these: HSBC S+P 500 C.S.-MSCI PACIFIC UBS-ETF-MSCI EMERGING MARKETS ISH.STOX.EUROPE 600 They are taxable under Abgeltungssteuer, so no hassle with that, are cheap and cover almost the entire world economy. Don't worry what everyone else is doing. My friends all started buying stuff when they started earning real money. Now everyone has shitloads of stuff piled up somewhere, which never gets used.
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How might trading volume affect future share price?
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There tends to be high volume around big changes in stock price. The volume of a stock does not remain constant and the term "fat fingers" can influence price.--> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-01/that-japanese-fat-finger-can-absolutely-happen-in-u-s-.html That being said keshlam is 99% right when it comes to a stock moving when their is no news or earnings announcements. Check out these papers. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6803.2010.01285.x/full They do a time series analysis to try and predict future prices off of past demand during news events. They forecast using auto-regressive models. google "forecasting autoregressive model" and the upenn lecture will be helpful. I would post another link but I cannot because I do not have enough rep/ This is more of a quant question. Hope this helps. JL
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Possible replacement for Quicken
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Do you use any other online features of Quicken? How many unique ticker symbols do you have? How often do you really need to update the prices? You can always continue to use Quicken, and enter the stock prices by hand. Maybe update them once a month to get an idea of how your investments are doing. That should work indefinitely.
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Can I move my 401k to another country without paying tax penalty?
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Transfers can be made from U.S. pension plans to Canadian RRSPs, if the following conditions are met: Way more details here: http://www.howlandtax.com/answers/05Sept21.htm And googling 'transfer 401k to rrsp' yields much fruit.
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What does it mean when my Money Market account lists both a dividend share and an APY?
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In a money market fund, one share is worth $1. For your fund, you'll earn $0.0010 a year per share, or 0.10%. That is all that you will earn. The APY is just another number to represent this interest rate, not a separate income stream. If you were expecting extra money from a separately credited dividend, you were mistaken. (Usually the APY is a slightly different number than the interest rate, to reflect the way that the interest is compounded over the course of the year. In this case the compounding is too slight to notice with just 2 decimal places.) If you were investing in a regular savings account, you would see the rate you are paid expressed as an APY also, but not as a dividend (as no shares are involved) and use that number to compare the two. If you were buying a bond fund or stock fund that did not have a fixed price, you could calculate the dividend yield based on the current stock price, but you would not probably see an APY listed. Money market funds are kind of an odd hybrid of 'fund' and 'savings', so they list both.
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What type of pension should I get?
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It's best to roll over a pension plan, you don't want to pay the penalties especially when you are young. Rolling over into another scheme, or rolling over into a scheme that is somewhat self directed would avoid the penalty and could help you achieve higher returns should you feel you will perform better. Making regular monthly or biweekly contributions is imperative so that you catch compounded returns on your investments. Since you state that you are inexperienced, I would suggest rolling over into the new scheme and sitting with the pension advisor for the company, ie Prudential, etc. Telling them some key information like your age, in how many years you expect to retire, your current income, your desired pension income per year and such will greatly help them ensure that you come as close to your goal as possible, providing nothing horrendous happens in the market.
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Why don't more people run up their credit cards and skip the country?
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Quality of life, success and happiness are three factors that are self define by each individual. Most of the time all three factors go hand by hand with your ability to generate wealth and save. Actually, a recent study showed that there were more happy families with savings than with expensive products (car, jewelry and others). These 3 factors, will be very difficult to maintain after someone commit such action. First, because you will fear every interaction with the origin of the money. Second, because every individual has a notion of wrong doing. Third, for the reasons that Jaydles express. Also, most cards, will call you and stop the cards ability to give money, if they see an abusive pattern. Ether, skipping your country has some adverse psychological impact in the family and individual that most of the time 100K is not enough to motivate such change. Thanks for reading. Geo
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Offered a job: Should I go as consultant / independent contractor, or employee?
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Linkedlinked, You might want to seriously take another look at the links that Chris provided you. Specifically the ones on the IRS website: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html From the IRS website: Businesses must weigh all these factors when determining whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor. Some factors may indicate that the worker is an employee, while other factors indicate that the worker is an independent contractor. There is no “magic” or set number of factors that “makes” the worker an employee or an independent contractor, and no one factor stands alone in making this determination. Also, factors which are relevant in one situation may not be relevant in another. The keys are to look at the entire relationship, consider the degree or extent of the right to direct and control, and finally, to document each of the factors used in coming up with the determination. Perhaps more importantly... pay attention to what happens if you're WRONG: Consequences of Treating an Employee as an Independent Contractor If you classify an employee as an independent contractor and you have no reasonable basis for doing so, you may be held liable for employment taxes for that worker (the relief provisions, discussed below, will not apply). See Internal Revenue Code section 3509 for more information. I would STRONGLY recommend that you and your partners give your accountant a call and discuss the matter. They will be able to help you make the right decision. One of biggest mistakes businesses make in this are is to classify their employees as independent contractors. The IRS (who happens to be hungry for money right now) comes in and says, "Nooooooooo... those are employees." ...and the COMPANY gets to pay the employment taxes. I actually have person experience with this as I worked for a company this happened to. Every contractor was re-classified as an employee except for two (myself and one other). The key reason in that case was that none of the other contractors had any other clients. While I understand that you have other clients, I would still recommend talking to your accountant for an hour or so... just to be 100% sure. Sincerely, Andrew Smith TaxQueries.com
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Stocks vs. High-yield Bonds: Risk-Reward, Taxes?
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nan
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Where do large corporations store their massive amounts of cash?
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For tax optimization, cash is stored mostly overseas, according to the New York Times. For Apple, everytime a song or an app is bought in Europe, Africa or Middle East, money flows to iTunes Sàrl, in Luxemburg. Royalties on patents flow internally from Apple in California to Apple in Ireland. Then profits flow to the Carribean. The problem is that cash cannot be brought back to the USA without huge taxes.
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501(3)(c) to donators for trophy party
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The good news is that your parent organization is tax exempt and your local organization might be. The national organization even has guidelines and even more details. Regarding donations they have this to say: Please note: The law requires charities to furnish disclosure statements to donors for such quid pro quo donations in excess of $75.00. A quid pro quo contribution is a payment made partly as a contribution and partly for goods or services provided to the donor by the charity. An example of a quid pro quo contribution is when the donor gives a charity $100.00 in consideration for a concert ticket valued at $40.00. In this example, $60.00 would be deductible because the donor’s payment (quid pro quo contribution) exceeds $75.00. The disclosure statement must be furnished even though the deductible amount does not exceed $75.00. Regarding taxes: Leagues included under our group exemption number are responsible for their own tax filings with the I.R.S. Leagues must file Form 990 EZ with Schedule A if gross receipts are in excess of $50,000 but less than $200,000. Similar rules also apply to other youth organizations such as scouts, swim teams, or other youth sports.
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ETF holding shares in itself
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Lindsell Train Investment Trust could be different than the "Lindsell Train Limited", the company that runs the fund and thus you are mixing apples and oranges here since the bank isn't a listed stock.
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Are there statistics showing percentage of online brokerage customers that are actually making a profit trading forex/futures/options?
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Finding statistics is exceedingly hard, because the majority of traders lose money. That is, not only they don't "beat the markets", not only they don't "beat the benchmark" (S&P 500 being used a lot as reference): they just lose money. Finding exact numbers, quality statistics and so on is very difficult. Finding recent ones, is almost impossible. With enormous effort I have found two references that might help make an idea. One is very recent, Forex "centered" and has been prepared by a large finance group for the the Europen Central Bank (ECB). It's available on their website, at an obscure download location. The document is stated to be confidential, but its download location has been disclosed to the public by CNBC. I can't post CNBC's link because I have just joined this Stack Exchange portal so I don't have enough reputation. You can find it by looking for their article about FXCM Forex broker debacle due to the Swiss Central Bank removing the EUR/CHF peg at 1.20. The second is a 2009-ish paper about Taiwanese retail traders profitability statistics published by Oxford University Press and talks about stocks. Both documents focus on retail traders. I strongly suggest you to immediately save those documents because they tend to disappear after a while. We had a fantastic and complete statistics report made by a group of German Banks in 2011... they pulled it off in 2012.
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What is the meaning of Equal Housing Lender? Do non-banks need to display it?
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At the top result of the Google search, on the Google results page it's sumarized as applicable to every lender participating in FDIC: The terms equal housing lender and equal opportunity lender are synonymous and refer to all banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States. Such banks are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap, or familial status.
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Buying car from rental business without title
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I would steer well clear of this. The risk is that they take your money but don't pay the bank. This wouldn't require dishonesty - what if they run into financial trouble? Any money of yours that they have that hasn't gone on to the bank yet might end up paying off other debts instead of yours. It's not clear if the idea is that you are paying them all the money up front or will be making payments over time, but either way if they don't clear the lien with the bank then the bank can come after the car no matter who is in physical possession of it. That would leave you without either the money or the car. In theory you'd have a legal claim against the seller, but in reality you'd probably find it hard to collect.
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If the former owner of my home is still using the address, can it harm me?
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Don't worry about it. One of the big banks who like to whine a lot about defaulting borrowers is sending credit cards to a former resident of my home. The guy died in the late 90s.
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How can I invest my $100?
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Sure. For starters, you can put it in a savings account. Don't laugh, they used to pay noticeable interest. You know, back in the olden days. You could buy an I-bond from Treasury Direct. They're a government savings bond that pays a specified amount of interest (currently 0%, I believe), plus the amount of the inflation rate (something like 3.5% currently, I believe). You don't get paid the money -- the I-bond grows in value till you sell it. You can open a discount brokerage account, and buy 1 or more shares of stock in a company you like. Discount brokerages generally have a minimum of $500 or so, but will waive that if you set the account up as an IRA. Scot Trade, for instance. (An IRA, in case you didn't know, is a type of account that's tax free but you can't touch it till you turn 59 1/2. It's meant to help you save for retirement.) Incidentally, watch out of "small account" fees that some brokerages might charge you. Generally they're annual or monthly charges they'd charge you to cover their costs on your account -- since they're certainly not going to make it in commissions. That IRA at Scot Trade is no-fee. Speaking of commissions, those will be a big chunk of that $100. It'll be like $7-$10 to buy that stock -- a pretty big bite. However, many of these discount brokerages also offer some mutual funds for no commission. Those mutual funds, in turn, have minimums too, but once again if your account's an IRA many will waive the minimum or set it low -- like $100.
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Learning investing and the stock market
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I would recommend getting a used set of Chartered Financial Analyst books. The series is a great broad introduction to the most important aspects of investing and the markets. Combining both day-to-day knowledge and fundamental theory. CFA materials include in depth discussions of: After you have a strong base then stop by quant.stackexchange and ask about more specialized books or anything else that interests you. Have fun with your journey.
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Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently?
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No. There is no incentive for the card issuer to permanently loan you money for free (Even though they make a small amount of money with every transaction). Yes, there are many credit cards that offer introductory 0% APR, often lasting for a year, some even two years. In theory, you could keep applying for new cards with these terms, and continually transfer the balance to the new card (Though you would probably incur a fee for doing so).
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If banksimple.com is not a bank, what is it?
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I don't see how this concept takes off. First and foremost, BankSimple is NOT a bank but a tech company masquerading as one. BankSimple leaves industry regulation and treasury management -- the CORE of banking, to outside parties. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to have as few stops between me and my money as possible. If not for a fear of losing it in a robbery and inability to earn interest, I'd shove it under a mattress. So why would I want to bank with an intermediary, who admittently doesn't understand how the process works? How is that "looking out for my interests"? And how is your security better than other institutions that offer 128-bit encryption and multiple security questions to test a customer's identity? I'd like to add that not charging overdraft fees and providing lines of credit to help customers out in the event they spend more than they have is nice in concept, but what happens when those same customers do not make deposits to cover their shortfalls? When it comes to money, people will take advantage of any opportunities they have to circumvent the system. Especially if funds are tight.
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Can Health-Releated Services be a Business Expense?
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Chris, since you own your own company, nobody can stop you from charging your personal expenses to your business account. IRS is not a huge fan of mixing business and personal expenses and this practice might indicate to them that you are not treating your business seriously, and it should classify your business as a hobby. IRS defines deductible business expense as being both: ordinary AND necessary. Meditation is not an ordinary expense (other S-corps do not incur such expense.) It is not a necessary expense either. Therefore, you cannot deduct this expense. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Deducting-Business-Expenses
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What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent?
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More possible considerations: Comparability with other properties. Maybe properties that rent for $972 have more amenities than this one (parking, laundry, yard, etc) or are in better repair. Or maybe the $972 property is a block closer to campus and thus commands 30% higher rent (that can happen). Condition of property. You know nothing about this until you see it. It could be in such bad shape that you can't legally rent it until you spend a lot of money fixing it. Or it may just be run down or outdated: still inhabitable but not as attractive to renters, leading to lower rent and/or longer vacancy periods. Do you accept that, or spend a lot of money to renovate? Collecting the rent. Tenants don't necessarily always pay their rent on time, or at all. If a tenant quits paying, you incur significant expenses to evict them and then find a new tenant, and all the while, you collect no rent. There could be a tenant in place paying a much lower rent. Rent control or a long lease may prevent you from raising it. If you are able to raise it, and the tenant doesn't want to pay, see above. Maintenance and more maintenance. College students could be hard on the property; one good kegger could easily cause more damage than their security deposits will cover. Being near a university doesn't guarantee you an easy time renting it. It suggests the demand is high, but maybe the supply is even higher. Renting to college students has additional issues. They are less likely to have incomes large enough to satisfy you that they can pay the rent. Are you willing to deal with cosigners? If a student quits paying, are you willing to try to collect from their cosigning parents in another state? And you'll probably have many tenants (roommates) living in the house. They will come and go separately and unexpectedly, complicating your leasing arrangements. And you may well get drawn in to disputes between them.
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At what point should I go into credit card debt?
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Credit cards are a reasonable if relatively expensive tool to gain liquidity. If you have $50k in liquid cash, you don't have a liquidity problem for credit to help you solve. You have 100 months of expenses in cash. I suppose you could see a balance as a motivational tool, but it's all stick and no carrot. Take the next part half seriously in the spirit of "what if" talking therapy: If you feel you need to be motivated to get back to work by the true risk of running out of cash, and take such advice from strangers on the internet, the traditional midlife crisis purchase is a sports car. At least have some fun in a (depreciating but resellable) asset instead of paying a financier's bonus in evaporated interest! If there is a luxury car tariff in your country, you may even be able to exploit a personal exemption if you drove in from the U.S. I suppose this advice could possibly get you booted from the family house as it'll probably come across as a seriously "ugly American" move though...
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Harmony Gold Mining Company is listed on the NYSE and JSE at different prices?
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The quotes on JSE are for 100 share lots. The quotes on NYSE are for single shares. That still leaves some price difference, but much less than you calculated. (EDIT: Equivalently, the price is quoted in 1/100th of a Rand. The Reuter's listing makes this explicit since the price is listed as ZAc rather than ZAR. http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HARJ.J) As noted in the other answer currently up, NYSE is quoting American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) for this company, which is not directly its stock. The ADR in this case, if you check the prospectus, is currently 1 share of the ADR = 1 share of the stock on its home market. A US institution (in this case it looks like BNY Mellon) is holding shares of stock to back each ADR. Arbitrage is possible and does happen. It's not perfect though, because there are a variety of other cost and risk factors that need to be considered. There's a good review here: Report by JP Morgan Some summary points:
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How to calculate how far a stock price can drop before a broker would issue a margin call?
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With your numbers, look at it this way - You borrowed $50. When the stock is $100, you are at 50% margin. What's most important, is that there's margin interest charged, so the amount owed will increase regardless of the stock price. When calculating your return or loss, the interest has to be accounted for or your numbers will be wrong. For a small investor, margin rates can run high, and often, will offset much of your potential gain. What good is a $100 gain if you paid $125 in margin interest?
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What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors?
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I had about $16k in student loans. I defaulted on the loans, and they got > passed to a collection type agency (OSCEOLA). These guys are as legitimate as a collection agency can be. One thing that I feel is very sketchy is when they were verifying my identity they said "Does your Social Security Number end in ####. Is your Birthday Month/Day/Year." That is not sketchy. It would be sketchy for a caller to ask you to give that information; that's a common scheme for identity theft. OSCEOLA are following the rules on this one. My mom suggested I should consider applying for bankruptcy Won't help. Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy. You have the bankruptcy "reform" act passed during the Bush 43 regime for that. The loan itself is from school. What school? Contact them and ask for help. They may have washed their hands of your case when they turned over your file to OSCEOLA. Then again, they may not. It's worth finding out. Also, name and shame the school. Future applicants should be warned that they will do this. What can I do to aid in my negotiations with this company? Don't negotiate on the phone. You've discovered that they won't honor such negotiations. Ask for written communications sent by postal mail. Keep copies of everything, including both sides of the canceled checks you use to make payments (during the six months and in the future). Keep making the payments you agreed to in the conversation six months ago. Do not, EVER, ignore a letter from them. Do not, EVER, skip going to court if they send you a summons to appear. They count on people doing this. They can get a default judgement if you don't show up. Then you're well and truly screwed. What do you want? You want the $4K fee removed. If you want something else, figure out what it is. Here's what to do: Write them a polite letter explaining what you said here. Recount the conversation you had with their telephone agent where they said they would remove the $4K fee if you made payments. Recount the later conversation. If possible give the dates of both conversations and the names of the both agents. Explain the situation completely. Don't assume the recipient of your letter knows anything about your case. Include evidence that you made payments as agreed during the six months. If you were late or something, don't withhold that. Ask them to remove the extra $4K from your account, and ask for whatever else you want. Send the letter to them with a return receipt requested, or even registered mail. That will prevent them from claiming they didn't get it. And it will show them you're serious. Write a cover letter admitting your default, saying you relied on their negotiation to set things straight, and saying you're dismayed they aren't sticking to their word. The cover letter should ask for help sorting this out. Send copies of the letter with the cover letter to: Be sure to mark your letter to OSCEOLA "cc" all these folks, so they know you are asking for help. It can't hurt to call your congressional representative's office and ask to whom you should send the letter, and then address it by name. This is called Constituent Service, and they take pride in it. If you send this letter with copies you're letting them know you intend to fight. The collection agency may decide it's not worth the fight to get the $4K and decide to let it go. Again, if they call to pressure you, say you'd rather communicate in writing, and that they are not to call you by telephone. Then hang up. Should I hire a lawyer? Yes, but only if you get a court summons or if you don't get anywhere with this. You can give the lawyer all this paperwork I've suggested here, and it will help her come up to speed on your case. This is the kind of stuff the lawyer would do for you at well over $100 per hour. Is bankruptcy really an option Certainly not, unfortunately. Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators. You are their lawful prey. They look at you, lick their chops, and think, "food." Watch John Oliver's takedown of that industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c Good luck and stay safe.
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What is the most effective saving money method?
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Envelope budgeting is pretty simple. It's easy enough that you can teach it to children, and flexible enough you can use it as an adult. The general idea is that you take your cash money (no bank accounts involved in the simple version), and stick it in envelopes marked for what it's supposed to be for. So for example, you get paid, you cash your paycheck and you put $100 in an envelope marked food. Now when you go out to eat, you go get the money out of your food envelope, and spend it on food. When your food envelope is empty you go hungry. In the simple version you have envelopes for things like "food", "candy", "toys", "games". etc. (simple version is usually taught to kids.) So you want a $60 game, and your game envelope only has $5. Well you can't get the game. You need to add more money to the game envelope. You need to eat so you have to put money there, but maybe you don't need toys. So you can divert some incoming money from toys to games. Sure it's still going to take a while to get to $60, but now with some simple kid friendly math you can see how long, and more importantly, you can make decisions on what is more important. Candy or Toys? In the adult version things are much the same. We just have more envelopes. We have Rent, Car Payment, Gas, Food, Electric. Then we need some envelopes for "savings" and "retirement". etc. Now when you get your Paycheck you prioritize your money and you stuff it in the envelopes. How much you put in each envelope is easy. Enough to pay for that thing. Savings and Retirement meet different goals. You want $6,000 savings. Well just like that game in the kid version, you're not going to get there all at once. But you can see and make decisions on what is most important. You want $1,000,000 to retire on. Sure, but that envelope is going to take a while to fill up. At it's core, the important parts are that: Let me explain the rent example, as it's the oddest. You get $500 a week, and you need $1000 for rent. This means you're spending from your envelopes. During week 1 and 2 you're spending last months week 3 and 4. You DO NOT do: This is important because if you lose your paycheck in week 3 or 4 you are homeless. Finally, in general, you stick stuff in savings envelope. And you want to reach a savings envelope goal of 6 months of your average pay checks. Once you reach this goal, then you're in good shape, and a job loss doesn't mean you're homeless. You can always just pull from savings. It's important when using these envelopes to understand that you only make the decision of what is more important when you're sticking money in, not when you're taking money out, and that you only work with the money you have right now today (in your hand). Now what you think you're going to get tomorrow. Money in the bank can be split into virtual envelopes. Money in savings can be in any vehicle, but generally you want a short term emergency envelope (savings account) and a long term envelope (CDs for example). Take a look at YNAB.com they used to provide free lessons in using their software to manage an envelope system. And the I know it's going to get comments section. The rent v.s. homeless is a real example. You should not take money from, say, the food envelope, to cover the rent. This may seem silly, but if you're doing that then you made poor decisions when deciding where the money goes. Use the emergency fund envelope to cover the rent, and next time put less money into food. It's this "rule" that makes envelope budgeting work well. You may be homeless, but you can eat, drive to work, put gas in your car, and pay your bills. Taking money from different envelopes usually results in a spiral, where you attempt to do the sensible thing, but in the end, you're worse off. Migrating to envelope budgeting (in the strict sense) is hard. The best way I have taught people to do it is to only envelope budget an increasing part of their income until their envelopes are full enough for one month. That means that you might only envelope budget 10% of your income at first. But unless your situation is such that you can cover all your bills with one paycheck, it's not going to be possible to transition without breaking the "don't take money from other envelope" rules.
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Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance?
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It's important because you may be able to reduce the total amount of interest paid (by paying the loan faster); but you can do nothing to reduce the total of your principal repayments. The distinction can also affect the amount of tax you have to pay. Some kinds of interest payments can be counted as business expenses, which means that they reduce the amount of income you have to pay tax on. But this is not generally the case for money used to repay the loan principal.
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Optimal pricing of close to zero marginal cost content
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It seems this will be very much driven by price discrimination. If there are some customers who will pay up to $100, sell at that; and if there are others who'll pay $1 sell at that price. For instance you see computer games, which have zero marginal cost of production, sold at "normal new release" prices, at premium prices with a special box or doo-dad, and at discount prices once the game is a bit old.
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How do I get into investing in stocks?
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The best way I know of is to join an investment club. They club will act like a mutual fund, investing in stocks researched and selected by the group. Taking part in research and presenting results to the group for peer review is an excellent way to learn. You'll learn what is a good reason to invest and what isn't. You'll probably pick both winners and losers. The goal of participation is education. Some people learn how to invest and continue happily doing so. Others learn how to invest in single stocks and learn it is not for them.
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Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?
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There are a great number of financial obligations that should be considered more urgent than student loan debt. I'll go ahead and assume that the ones that can land people in jail aren't an issue (unpaid fines, back taxes, etc.). I cannot stress this enough, so I'll say it again: setting money aside for emergencies is so much more important than paying off student loans. I've seen people refer to saving as "paying yourself" if that helps justify it in your mind. My wife and I chose to aggressively pay down debt we had stupidly accrued during college, and I got completely blindsided by a layoff during the downturn. Guess what happened to all those credit cards we'd paid off and almost paid off? Guess what happened to my 401k? If all we had left were student loans, then I still wouldn't prioritize paying those off. There are income limits to Roth IRAs, so if you're in a field where you'll eventually make too much to contribute, then you'll lose that opportunity forever. If you're young and you don't feel like learning too much about investing, plop 100% of your contributions into the low-fee S&P 500 index fund and forget it until you get closer to retirement. Don't get suckered into their high-fee "Retirement 20XX" managed funds. Anyway, sure, if you have at least three months of income replacement in savings, have maximized your employer 401k match, have maximized your Roth IRA contributions for the year, and have no other higher interest debt, then go ahead and knock out those student loans.
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Looking for a stock market simulation that's as close to the real thing as possible
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Stock market is like poker: you don't take the same risks when it is fake money and thus you don't learn the same lessons from your mistakes. I would recommend instead to play with real market and real money (rule #0: use only money that you don't need). Start with safe products and go to the bath progressively. It took me about ten years and I am still learning.
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File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options?
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If your parents can afford to shell out $1,250 a month for 5 years, they would pretty much have the debt paid off, provided the credit card companies don't start playing games with rates. If that payment is too high, maybe you could kick in $5k every few months to knock the principal down. If they think the business can keep puttering along without losing more money, that may be the way to go. Five years is long enough that the business or property may have recovered some value. Another option, depending on the value of the home, could be a reverse mortgage. I don't know how the economy has affected those programs, but that might be a good option to get the debt cleared away. My grandfather was in a similar position back in the 70's. He owned taverns in NYC that catered to an industrial clientele... the place was booming in the 60s and my grandfather and his brother owned 4 locations at one point. But the death of his brother, post-Vietnam malaise, suburban exodus and shutting of industry really hurt the business, and he ended up selling out his last tavern in 1979 -- which was a dark hour in NYC history and real estate values. A few years later, that building sold for a tremendous amount of money... I believe 10x more. I don't know whether there was a way for his business to survive for another 5-7 years, as I was too young to remember. But I do remember my grandfather (and my father to this day) being melancholy about the whole affair. It's hard to have to work part-time in your 60's and be constantly reminded that your family business -- and to some degree a part of your life -- ended in failure. The stress of keeping things afloat when you're broke is tough. But there's also a mental reward from getting through a tough situation on your own. Good luck!
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Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money
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Well, all of the previous answers already mentioned the upcoming scam and danger situation for your financial position. I thoroughly read all answers and wanted to add a few more lines on it. Cort Ammon) already shows details of it. Any kind of financial transaction involving a complete stranger is the first big scam tag that shows up and this should always 'Never Fall In' type situation. If you open a new bank account or give away any existing bank account to this lady, other than just losing some amount, you might pay earlier than clearing checks you deposited on behalf of your 'stranger' partner. Depending on their target/plan/experience with your bank account they can make you a victim of a bigger crime. There is a full length of scam plans, like sending you false checks to deposit and ask you withdrew money to send them back to even having very big incoming transaction to your account sitting idle on your account which might originate from a crime beyond the financial domain. You can try to be smart, thinking in mind, well, let them send some, I will never send them back before bank declare the deposited checks got horned and clear (and send back the amount after keeping your share). But, still you will face problems later. Even if your account fills up with real money and after confirming with bank you find it OK and never return them (scam a scammer). Still you will not have any valid authority or answer describing how/why you got this money if someone ask you later. Depending on scammer's ability, they might even give you control over fund to spend for your own (to gain some trust from your part). On this type of scam it is a sign of an even bigger danger. I live such a country, Bangladesh, from where recently they successfully transferred out around US$10 millions using a bank account of an outsider like you keeping in between source of money and final unknown destination. The result is the owner / operator of those accounts used for these transfers are now under law enforcement pressure, not only just to find out where ultimately money has gone, but for sure they will face some degree of charge for helping transfer of illegal money overseas". For someone who is not part of a full scam chain it is a big deal. It might ruin their life forever. To be on the safe side, and help protect others from falling on the same type of problem you may contact your local law enforcement agency. Depending on the situation, they might be interested to run a sting operation using your information and support to catch and stop the crime going to happen soon or later. I would give a rare chance of 2% legitimate reason for anyone to use a third-party bank account to pay some other living either different country (still it is not legal, but a lower-type crime). But obviously they will not ask randomly over the Internet/social network sites. In your case this is a real scam. Be careful and stay safe; Good Luck.
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How to double-entry bookkeep money incoming from sold items
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If you were a business, all your assets would have a dollar value, so when you sold them you'd decrease the amount of assets by that amount and increase in cash, and if there was a profit on the sale it would go in as income, if there was loss it would count as a cost (or a loss)... so if there was a profit it would increase Equity, a loss then it would decrease Equity. Since it's not really worthwhile doing a estimated cost for everything that you have, I'd just report it as income like you are doing and let the amount of equity increase proportionately. So, implicitly you always had roughly that amount of equity, but some of it was in the form of assets, and now you're liquidating those assets so the amount shows up in GnuCash. When you buy new things you might sell later, you could consider adding them as assets to keep track of this explicitly (but even then you have problems-- the price of things changes with time and you might not want to keep up with those price changes, it's a lot of extra work for a family budget) -- for stuff you already have it's better to treat things as you are doing and just treat the money as income-- it's easier and doesn't really change anything-- you always had that in equity, some of it was just off the books and now you are bringing it into the books.
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Why is Dell currently trading above the buyout price?
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Dividends would be a possible factor you are ignoring. If Dell has another quarter or two to pay out dividends that could account for some of the difference there. I don't think there is a confirmed date of when the deal is done yet other than around the end of Dell's second quarter which was in the LA Times link you cited. There is also the potential for the terms of the deal to be revised that is another possibility here. Have you examined other deals where a public company went private to see how the stock performed in the last few months before the deal closed?
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How to diversify IRA portfolio given fund minimum investments and IRA contribution limits?
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Many mutual fund companies (including Vanguard when I checked many years ago) require smaller minimum investments (often $1000) for IRA and 401k accounts. Some also allow for smaller investments into their funds for IRA accounts if you set up an automatic investment plan that contributes a fixed amount of money each month or each quarter. On the other hand, many mutual fund companies charge an annual account maintenance fee ($10? $20? $25? more?) per fund for IRA investments unless the balance in the fund is above a certain amount (often $5K or $10K$). This fee can be paid in cash or deducted from the IRA investment, and the former option is vastly better. So, diversification into multiple funds while starting out with an IRA is not that great an idea. It is far better to get diversification through investment in an S&P 500 Index fund (VFINX since you won't have access to @JoeTaxpayer's VIIIX) or a Total Market Index fund or, if you prefer, a Target Retirement Fund, and then branch out into other types of mutual funds as your investment grows through future contributions and dividends etc. To answer your question about fund minimums, the IRA account is separate from a taxable investment account, and the minimum rule applies to each separately. But, as noted above, there often are smaller minimums for tax-deferred accounts.
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How will I pay for college?
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There are some useful comments about the tradeoffs of the decisions in front of you. Intertwined with the financial choices, hopefully you can see a map opening up. Make a little chart if it helps. Benefit and Cost. If you're looking for financial options, you will have to also add more columns to that chart: Option and Cost. An example is the comment on making connections with rich kids. Trust fund babies are everywhere in this country. Did you know any rich kids while growing up? How were those rich kids you knew of back then... in your school... in your town? How did they treat you? Were you ever invited to their parties or gatherings? Now there's an opportunity for the privilege to pay a lot of money to sit in a classroom next to them? Even in the early days of American history with merit based millionaires... tycoons who made it rich by the seat of their pants. At fancy dinner parties and soirees, a new term emerged to put each other again out of reach: old money (the deserving) and new money (uncultured climbers). That's my bias. You'll have some of your own. What is important to YOU has to come through because these days, the price tag of any higher education implies a considerable piece of your life's timeline will be committed to... something. Make sure you get what you feel is worth that commitment. Take stock of what has been said here by the others, but put a value on those choices and seriously consider what you're willing to pay for... and what you're not. There is no formula for your success as there's been thousands of exceptions... ESID (Every Situation is Different).
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