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Can I claim a tax deduction for working from home as an employee? I work there 90% of the time
The general rule is: Generally, in order to claim a business deduction for your home, you must use part of your home exclusively and regularly: Exclusively seems to be the toughest standard and I do not know exactly how strict the IRS's interpretation is. Working in your living room where you regularly watch TV and hav...
Why REIT prices are not going down while bonds are being hammered?
I don't like REITs because they are more closely correlated to the movement of the stock market. They don't really do the job of diversifying a portfolio because of that correlation. When the stock market dropped in 2008, REITs were hammered as well because the housing bubble burst. Bonds went up, and if you rebalance...
Malaysian real estate: How to know if the market is overheated or in a bubble?
I am also from Malaysia and I just purchase a property around Klang Valley area. Property market is just like share market. You will never know when is the highest peak point and when is the lowest peak point. Yes. Not only you, but everyone of us. What I would say that, just buy according to your need and your financi...
How to find cheaper alternatives to a traditional home telephone line?
Try to use VOIP service provider or web enabled conference calling services in your home phone. Now a days communication technologies have seen a boost as well as integration of different formats and platforms which easily reduces phone bills of a user. Service such as UberConference, Skype, Webinar etc enables audio/...
How To Report Cryptocurrency Earnings?
As cryptocurrencies are rather new compared to most assets, there hasn't been a lot of specific guidance for a lot of situation, but in 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. I'm not aware of further guidance that has been published beyond that, though it wouldn't surprise me if treatments...
Family suggests my first real estate. Advice?
Do not borrow to invest in real estate. The interest payments will eat up most of your profit (the property management fees might eat up the rest), and you will have significant risk with tenant issues, property value, etc. Many people have made it work - many also lose everything. Real estate can be a great investme...
Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?
I generally agree with the sentiment in many other answers that $27K is more I would personally spend on a car if I were in your position. Having said that, the following assumes you are already intent on buying that car. Even if you change your mind, I think the general ideas still apply.
Higher returns from international markets?
I went to Morningstar's "Performance" page for FUSEX (Fideltiy's S&P 500 index fund) and used the "compare" tool to compare it with FOSFX and FWWFX, as well as FEMKX (Fidelity Emerging Markets fund). According to the data there, FOSFX outperformed FUSEX in 2012, FEMKX outperformed FUSED in 2010, and FWWFX outperformed...
What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time?
I've been using Tick at work now for several months and have really enjoyed it. It's got a nice, simple interface with good time-budgeting and multi-user/project features. It can be used on several platforms, too (website, desktop widgets, and phone apps).
Why ADP does not accurately withhold state and federal income tax (even if W4 is correct)?
I see several interesting statement in your question. A. my only income is from my Employer B. I also receive employer stock (ESPP, RSU, NSO). However, employer withholds taxes for these stock transactions through my broker (I see them broken down on my W2). C. I have been subject to Alternative Minimum Tax. A implie...
United States Treasury Not Endorsing Checks
Welcome to the 21st century, the New Order. Forget all that legal mumbo jumbo you may have read back in law school in the 1960s about commercial code. Its all gone now. Now we have Check 21 and the Patriot Act !!! Basically what this means is that because some Arab fanatics burned down the World Trade Center, the US go...
Question about Tax Information from a Prospectus
A mutual fund could make two different kinds of distributions to you: Capital gains: When the fund liquidates positions that it holds, it may realize a gain if it sells the assets for a greater price than the fund purchased them for. As an example, for an index fund, assets may get liquidated if the underlying index ch...
Should I pay my Education Loan or Put it in the Stock Market?
2.47% is a really, really good rate, doubly so if it's a fixed rate, and quadruply so if the interest is tax-deductible. That's about as close to "free money" as you're ever going to get. Heck, depending on what inflation does over the next few years, it might even be cheaper than free. So if you have the risk toleranc...
Paying taxes on income earned in the US, but from a company based in Norway
If you are paid by foreigners then it is quite possible they don't file anything with the IRS. All of this income you are required to report as business income on schedule C. There are opportunities on schedule C to deduct expenses like your health insurance, travel, telephone calls, capital expenses like a new comput...
What do the points in a stock market index epresent?
The All Ords Index consists of the 500 largest companies by market capitalisation listed on the Australia Stock Exchange. Each stock in the All Ords. Index is given a weighting based on its market capitalisation. As the price of the stocks within the All Ords. Index change, so does the points on the index itself. The...
Should you keep your stocks if you are too late to sell?
You should distinguish between the price and the value of a company: "Price is what you pay, value is what you get". Price is the share price you pay for one share of the company. Value is what a company is worth (based on fundamental analysis, one of the principles of value investing). I would recommend selling the ...
How should I handle taxes for Minecraft server donations?
Technically, this is considered "income" for you, and is actually not considered a "donation" for your donors, but is instead a "gift" (not tax-deductible for your donors). So, you are technically required to report it, and there is a pretty significant audit trail that can be followed to prove you made that money. I d...
Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?
...instead of all of us draining our money into a landlord... Instead, you are suggesting that still everyone (except you) will drain their money into a landlord, just that now the landlord is you. I guess what that really means is that you will need to have landlord tenant agreements between you and your roommates. W...
How exactly do dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) work?
I think Wikipedia offers a very good explanation: A dividend reinvestment program or dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP) is an equity investment option offered directly from the underlying company. The investor does not receive quarterly dividends directly as cash; instead, the investor's dividends are directly reinveste...
$65000/year or $2500 every two weeks: If I claim 3 exemptions instead of zero, how much would my take home pay be?
I use paycheckcity.com and first punch in my paycheck and make sure it calculates within a few pennies the value of my actual paycheck. Then I fiddle with withholding values, etc. to see the effect of change. It has been very effective for me over the years.
Are bonds really a recession proof investment?
You're mixing up two different concepts: low-risk and recession-proof. I'll assume I don't need to explain risk: there is always risk, regardless what form you keep your assets in. With bonds, the interest rate is supposed to reflect the risk. If a company offers bonds with too low an interest rate for the risk level, ...
Is Weiss Research, Inc. a legitimate financial research company?
It is a scam organization praying on fear of the simple minded. The facts Edelson presents are not accurate - http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2006/ia-2525.pdf
Possible to purchase multiple securities on 1 transaction?
No, this is not generally possible, as each security purchase is booked as a separate order => hence separate transaction. You can do this through purchasing of a fund, i.e.: purchasing one share of a ETF will get you a relative share of the ETF holdings, but the actual holdings are not up to you then.
Can Health-Releated Services be a Business Expense?
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 h...
Having a separate bank account for business/investing, but not a “business account?”
Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income/expenses. You can "explain" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed...
Student loan payments and opportunity costs
If I understand correctly, your question boils down to this: "I have $X to invest over 25 years, are guaranteed returns at a 0.6% lower rate better than what I expect to get from the stock market over the same period?" Well, I believe the standard advice would go something like: Rational investors pay a premium to redu...
Any tips for asset allocation across multiple retirement accounts?
I have a similar plan and a similar number of accounts. I think seeking a target asset allocation mix across all investment accounts is an excellent idea. I use excel to track where I am and then use it to adjust to get closer (but not exactly) to my target percentages. Until you have some larger balances, it may be ...
Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?
During World War II, the United States (US) instituted wage and price controls. To attract better employees, companies would offer benefits to get around salary limits. Health insurance was one of the more successful benefits. At that time, income taxes were newer and there were many ways to evade them. Companies ...
Starting a new job. Help me with retirement/debt planning please!
Your initial plan (of minimizing your interest rate, and taking advantage of the 401(k) match) makes sense, except I would put the 401(k) money in a very low risk investment (such as a money market fund) while the stock market seems to be in a bear market. How to decide when the stock market is in a bear market is a s...
Does owning BP ADR from US stock market required to pay custody fees
New SEC rules also now allow brokers to collect fees on non-dividend bearing accounts as an "ADR Pass-Through Fee". Since BP (and BP ADR) is not currently paying dividends, this is probably going to be the case here. According to the Schwab brokerage firm, the fee is usually 1-3 cents per share. I did an EDGAR search f...
In a reverse split, what happens to odd lots?
There are two reasons to do a reverse split. Those partial shares will then be turned into cash and returned to the investors. For large institutional investors such as mutual funds or pension funds it results in only a small amount of cash because the fund has merged all the investors shares together. If the company ...
Stocks are traded on secondary markets?
NYSE and Nasdaq are secondary markets where stocks are bought or sold. The process of creating new stocks via IPO or private placements etc are called Private Market.
What happens with the “long” buyer of a stock when somebody else's short fails (that is, unlimited loss bankrupts short seller)
Unless I am missing something subtle, nothing happens to the buyer. Suppose Alice wants to sell short 1000 shares of XYZ at $5. She borrows the shares from Bob and sells them to Charlie. Now Charlie actually owns the shares; they are in his account. If the stock later goes up to $10, Charlie is happy; he could sell t...
Is a real estate attorney needed for builder deposit contract?
You are planning on signing a contract for, likely, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and plan on paying, likely, tens of thousands of dollars in a deposit. For a house that is not built yet. This isn't particularly unusual, lots of people do this. But, you need a lawyer. Now, before you sign anything. Your agent may b...
For a major expensive home renovation (e.g. addition, finished basement, or new kitchen) should one pay cash or finance with a loan? Would such a loan be “good” debt?
The number one reason to borrow is quite simple; when you have no other choice. The primary reason to do this is when renovations or additions must be made in a timeframe that precludes you being able to save enough money to pay cash. Harmanjd's example of a kid on the way with no space to put him is a very good hypoth...
Expiring 401(k) Stock Option and Liquidation Implications
Is the parent company's common stock public? If not, then there will be absolutely no pressure from everyone liquidating at the same time. If so, consider the average daily volume of transactions in the parent company's stock. Is it much greater than the volume your 10k co-workers will have to liquidate? If so, I ...
Where on schedule C should a PO Box Rental fee go?
Turbotax community had a similar question. They claim you just put it into "Office Expense". I never understood why there are so many categories when they are just summed up and subtracted from your income. How can you possibly get in trouble for putting something in a wrong column if the final tax liability doesn't c...
Free/open source Unix software that pulls info from all my banks/brokers/credit cards?
Gnucash uses aqbanking, so I'd suggest looking at aqbanking to see if it will do what you want. It seems to be actively developed (as of 26.2.2011), but the main page is in German and my German is a bit rusty... You might also try asking on the gnucash-users list.
What kind news or information would make the price of a stock go up?
There is a highly related question which is much easier to answer: what normally value-increasing news about a company would cause that company to fall in value in the public stock market? By answering that, we can answer your question by proxy. The answer to that question being: anything that makes investors believe t...
How can I determine how much my car insurance will cost me?
The best way to determine how much it will cost you is to call the insurance companies to get a quote from them for all the vehicles that you are planning on purchasing. They will have a set amount depending on the year/make/model of the car combined with all your personal details like where you live, age, sex, occupa...
How do I screen for stocks that are near to their 52 weeks low
You can use Google Finance Stock Screener for screening US stocks. Apparently it doesn't have the specific criterion (Last Price % diff from 52 week low) you are (were!) looking for. I believe using its api you can get it, although it won't exactly be a very direct solution.
Resources to begin trading from home?
A good place to start is to read, such as : Robert T. Kiyosaki : poor dad rich dad. It is quite simple but it gives the good mindset to start. But moreover it is stated in the book : "the best investement you can make is educate yourself". You current situation is quite difficcult, but don't give up on your study. Fro...
Should I buy a home or rent in my situation?
First, let me mention that the reasons mentioned this far for renting are excellent ones. But, I disagree. Second, I would like to mention that I'm just a regular Joe, not an accountant, or a realtor. That said, I was in a similar situation not that long ago. I ended up renting, but I wish I hadn't. You should check ou...
How to manage $50k in Savings?
In today's market being paid 1% for risk and free access money is pretty darn good. If 50k is what you feel comfortable with an emergency fund, then you are doing a fine enough job. To me that is a lot to keep in an emergency fund, however several factors play into this: We both drive older cars, so I also keep enough...
Latest China devaluation (24/08/2015) and the affect on house prices in UK
No. There is no indication that the recent decline will have an impact on the house market in the UK. The reason(s) for the downward move these last few weeks are mainly due to: The last two points caused the Chinese government to decide to devaluate the Yuan. This in turn triggered an unforeseen panic attack among inv...
I'm upside down on my car loan and need a different car, what can I do?
Before buying a new car, determine whether you really need one! If there's an automotive discussion, you should ask there FIRST to get opinions on how much all-wheel-drive helps. You may not want to change cars at all. Remember, most of us in the Northeast are NOT driving all-wheel-drive vehicles, and all cars have all...
Pros/cons of replicating a “fund of funds” with its component funds in my IRA?
Mostly you nailed it. It's a good question, and the points you raise are excellent and comprise good analysis. Probably the biggest drawback is if you don't agree with the asset allocation strategy. It may be too much/too little into stocks/bonds/international/cash. I am kind of in this boat. My 401K offers very l...
What is the difference between a structured collar and a normal collar in finance?
Let's start with a definition: A Collar is a protective strategy for a position in the underlying instrument created by purchasing a put and selling a call to partially pay for the put option purchased or vice versa. Based on that definition, there are two different types of collars. Each is a combination of two simple...
Are stocks always able to be bought and sold at market price?
There needs to be a buyer of the shares you are offering. There are a lot of feature rich options for buying and selling. I don't understand them all in depth, but for example on TD Ameritrade here are some of the order types "Limit", "Market", "Stop Market", "Stop Limit", "Trailing Stop %", "Trailing Stop $". This ...
Is there an advantage to keeping a liquid emergency fund if one also has an untapped line of credit?
An emergency fund is your money, sitting in a bank, that you can use for emergency purposes. A line of credit is somebody else's money, that they've provisionally promised to let you borrow. But they can change their mind at any time.
Comprehensive tutorial on double-entry personal finance?
I found this book to be pretty decent: It is a workbook, and full of little exercises.
Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house?
First, as others have commented, the idea that getting a mortgage to buy a house is always a good idea is false. It depends on a number of factors including the current interest rate, what you think the future interest rate will do over the life of your mortgage, the relative cost of renting vs. buying, and how long y...
401(k) Investment stategies
You could end up with nothing, yes. I imagine those that worked at Enron years ago if their 401(k) was all in company stock would have ended up with nothing to give an example here. However, more likely is for you to end up with less than you thought as you see other choices as being better that with the benefit of h...
Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?
Do I have to explain the source of all income on my taxes? "Yes, you do", say the ghosts of Ermenegildo and Mary Cesarini. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/general/what-to-know-about-taxes-on-found-property/L9BfdKz7N The Cesarinis argued to the IRS that the money wasn’t income, and so it should not be taxed as such...
If the housing market is recovering, why would a REIT index ETF (e.g. VNQ) not be performing well?
To round out something that @Chris W. Rea pointed out, the business that a REIT is in will be either A) Equity REIT... property management, B) mortgage REIT... lending, or C) hybrid REIT (both). A very key point about why REITs broadly have been struggling lately, (and this would show up in the REIT indices/ETFs you'v...
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age?
I would focus first on maxing out your RRSPs (or 401k) each year, and once you've done that, try to put another 10% of your income away into unregistered long term growth savings. Let's say you're 30 and you've been doing that since you graduated 7 years ago, and maybe you averaged 8% p.a. return and an average of $50k...
Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques
This is an example from another field, real estate. Suppose you buy a $100,000 house with a 20 percent down payment, or $20,000, and borrow the other $80,000. In this example, your "equity" or "market cap" is $20,000. But the total value, or "enterprise value" of the house, is actually $100,000, counting the $80,000 mo...
To rebalance or not to rebalance
This answer will assume you know more math than most. An ideal case: For the point of argument, first consider the following admittedly incorrect assumptions: 1) The prices of all assets in your investment universe are continuously differentiable functions of time. 2) Investor R (for rebalance) continuously buys and ...
Should I use put extra money toward paying off my student loans or investing in an index fund?
Yes, it's a risk. To put it in perspective, If we look at the data for S&P returns since 1871, we get a CAGR of 10.72%. But, that comes with a SDev (Standard deviation) of 18.67%. This results in 53 of the 146 years returning less than 4%. Now if we repeat the exercise over rolling 8 year periods, the CAGR drops to 9....
How can I determine which stores are regarded as supermarkets for a rewards credit card?
Credit card companies organize types of businesses into different categories. (They charge different types of businesses different fees.) When a business first sets up their credit card processing merchant account, they need to specify the category. Here is a list of categories that Visa uses. Grocery stores and super...
How do dividend reinvestment purchases work?
In order: A seller of the stock (duh!). You don't know who or why this stock was sold. It could be any reason, and is of no concern of yours. It doesn't matter. Investors (pension funds, hedge funds, individual investors, employees, management) sell stock for many reasons: need cash, litigation, differing objectives, s...
Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100?
What benefit vs. what cost? Benefit - none that I can think of. Cost - massive. Every system that handles money would need to re-value overnight, every store would need to re-price. In many ways it would be simpler and maybe even cheaper to introduce a new currency.
What is the valuation of a company based on?
There is no such thing as a correct value. There are different ways to calculate (read: guess) an anticipated value, but neither of them is the "correct" one. Last not least this depends on your interpretation of the term "correct" in that context. Why do you think paid Facebook such a huge amount for WhatsApp? Surely...
Can I sell a stock immediately?
In order to see whether you can buy or sell some given quantity of a stock at the current bid price, you need a counterparty (a buyer) who is willing to buy the number of stocks you are wishing to offload. To see whether such a counterparty exists, you can look at the stock's order book, or level two feed. The order bo...
Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income?
Yes -- If you are prepared to own the stock and have the cash to buy it, it can be a good way to generate income. The downside is really no more than buying a stock and it goes down -- which can happen to any investment -- and you have the premium of the put. Just don't do it on any stock you would not buy outright. To...
What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?
Here's what you do without, on the negative side, just for balance: A bill: When I last had comprehensive insurance, it cost something like 3-4% of the value of the car per annum. (Obviously ymmv enormously but I think that's somewhere near the middle of the range and I'm not especially risky.) So, compared to the to...
Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what?
Deposit check and send a personal check (resulting in tax and IRS reporting issues) That's a bad idea, unless maybe the check you're receiving is a certified bank draft. Suppose the insurance company are crooks and the check is fraudulent. It could take weeks or months for some investigation to catch up to that, long a...
How to invest Rs.10k in India
Rs 10,000 is a small but good amount to begin with. I would suggest you start by investing in some good mutual funds. Do some research, a balance mutual fund is less risky less returns compared to a equity mutual fund. The other option is directly investing in stock market, however this needs some experience and you wo...
What exactly do fund managers of index trackers do?
From How are indexes weighted?: Market-capitalization weighted indexes (or market cap- or cap-weighted indexes) weight their securities by market value as measured by capitalization: that is, current security price * outstanding shares. The vast majority of equity indexes today are cap-weighted, including the S...
Do stocks give you more control over your finances than mutual funds?
Exchange-traded funds are bought and sold like stocks so you'd be able to place stop orders on them just like you could for individual stocks. For example, SPY would be the ticker for an S & P 500 ETF known as a SPDR. Open-end mutual funds don't have stop orders because of how the buying and selling is done which is on...
UK - reclaim VAT on purchases for freelance work
You are either VAT registered or you are not VAT registered. If you are not VAT registered, then you are not allowed to charge customers VAT, and you cannot reclaim VAT that you are paying. You are however allowed to deduct the cost of goods including VAT from your expenses. So if you buy a computer for £1000 + £200 V...
When does Ontario's HST come into effect?
In general you must charge HST on and after July 1, 2010. However, in the case of delivered sales, you must charge HST if the transfer of goods will happen on or after July 1,2010. Example: A person comes into my hypothetical store on June 29, 2010 and buys a couch. They opt to have it delivered by my truck on July 2...
What would be the signs of a bubble in silver?
@fennec is right, no one knows. Here's a link that may help: http://pragcap.com/silver-prices-display-some-bubbly-characteristics I don't follow markets enough to comment, but I have read enough of Cullen's stuff to know he's not off his rocker.
Credit and Debit
In view of business, we have to book the entries. Business view, owner and business are different. When capital is invested in business by owner, in future business has to repay it. That's why, capital always credit. When we come about bank (business prospective) - cash, bank, fd are like assets which can help in the...
Are there any rules against penalizing consumers for requesting accurate credit reporting?
The Fair Credit Reporting Act specifies in some detail on pages 50-54 (as labeled in the footer, 55-59 as pages in pdf) the process that occurs when a consumer initiates a dispute. The safe outcome for the reporting agency is to remove the information in dispute from reports within 30 days if the reporting party does...
In US, is it a good idea to hire a tax consultant for doing taxes?
There are few things going on here: My advice would be: with 75k income and a regular pay check there isn't a whole let you can do to adjust your tax burden. It's unlikely that any adviser will save enough money to warrant professional advice and the associated cost. Use off the shelf software for tax return and tax pl...
Priced out of London property market. What are my accommodation investment options?
Real Estate is all local. In the United States, I can show you houses so high the rent on them is less than 1/3% of their value per month, eg. $1M House renting for less than $3500. I can also find 3 unit buildings (for say $200K) that rent for $3000/mo total rents. I might want to live in that house, but buy the tripl...
Can I contribute to an IRA from investment income?
Traditional IRA contributions can be made if you have compensation and the amount of the contribution is limited to the smaller of your compensation and $5500 ($6000 if age 50 or more). Note that compensation (which generally means earnings form working) is not just what appears on a W-2 form as salary or wages; it ca...
Should I re-allocate my portfolio now or let it balance out over time?
Personally I'm not a huge fan of rebalancing within an asset class. I would vote for leaving the HD shares alone and buying other assets until you get to the portfolio you want. Frequent buying and selling incurs costs and possible tax consequences that can really hurt your returns.
Why do some people say a house “not an investment”?
A house is a funny kind of investment. Normally when you invest, you do it to make money. The return on a house, though, isn't principally real money, it's the imputed rent - money that you would have needed to pay to rent the house. The thing about this imputed rent is that you consume it right away. Getting a bigger ...
Is the Yale/Swenson Asset Allocation Too Conservative for a 20 Something?
You can look the Vanguard funds up on their website and view a risk factor provided by Vanguard on a scale of 1 to 5. Short term bond funds tend to get their lowest risk factor, long term bond funds and blended investments go up to about 3, some stock mutual funds are 4 and some are 5. Note that in 2008 Swenson himsel...
What is the difference between a stock and a bond?
In a sentence, stocks are a share of equity in the company, while bonds are a share of credit to the company. When you buy one share of stock, you own a (typically infinitesimal) percentage of the company. You are usually entitled to a share of the profits of that company, and/or to participate in the business decision...
Net loss not distributed by mutual funds to their shareholders?
When you invest (say $1000) in (say 100 shares) of a mutual fund at $10 per share, and the price of the shares changes, you do not have a capital gain or loss, and you do not have to declare anything to the IRS or make any entry on any line on Form 1040 or tell anyone else about it either. You can brag about it at par...
First time investing in real-estate, looks decent?
This might be a good idea, depending on your personality and inclinations. Key points: How close is the building to you? Do not buy any building that is more than 20 minutes travel from where you are. Do you have any real hard experience with doing construction, building maintenance and repair? Do you have tools? Examp...
How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money?
You don't even need to formally loan the LLC any money. You pay for the setup costs out of pocket, and then once the LLC is formed, you reimburse yourself (just like with an expense report). Essentially you submit an expense report to the LLC for the startup costs, and the LLC pays out a check to you, categorized for t...
What tax year does my income get assigned to if my client sends the payment in December but I receive it in January?
Confused? see your CPA
Empirical performance data of ETFs and Mutual Funds tracking identical Indexes?
Why don't you look at the actual funds and etfs in question rather than seeking a general conclusion about all pairs of funds and etfs? For example, Vanguard's total stock market index fund (VTSAX) and ETF (VTI). Comparing the two on yahoo finance I find no difference over the last 5 years visually. For a different ...
One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this?
You bought the stock at some point in the past. You must have had a reason for this purchase. Has the recent change in price changed the reason you bought the stock? You must assume your losses are sunk costs. No matter what action you take, you can not recover your losses. Do not attempt to hold the stock in the hopes...
Wash sales + restricted stock in USA: grant date or vesting date?
For restricted stock, I think the vesting date meets the requirements of the second wash sale trigger from IRS Pub 550: Wash Sales: Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade I base this on these two quotes from IRS Pub 525: Restricted Property: any income from the property, or the rig...
Filing a corporation tax return online?
This may not exactly answer your question but, as a small business owner, I would highly recommend having a professional handle your taxes. It is worth the money to have it done correctly rather than doing something wrong and getting audited or worse having penalties assessed and owing more than you thought would be po...
Bi-weekly payment option
Biweekly pay for salaried employees is typically calculated as Annual-salary / 26. Twice a month pay for salaried employees is typically calculated as Annual-salary / 24. If you were getting paid twice a month and now are getting paid every other week, your paycheck will be roughly ( Twice-a-month-paycheck-amount * 24 ...
Creating S-Corp: Should I Name My Wife as a Director/Shareholder?
There are many aspects to consider in deciding what sort of company you want to form. Instead of an S-corporation, you should determine whether it would be better to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC), Limited Partnership (LP) or even a professional company (PC). Littleadv is correct: There is minimal benefit in fo...
can the government or debt collectors garnish money from any bank account to which the debtor has access?
I would call the bank and ask how the person is on the account. If they are an owner, or are an authorized user, or what type of owner they are, etc. If the bank makes the distinction between "user" and "owner" then most likely, your funds are not able to be seized. If they are a joint owner, then, typically, 100...
What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?
A value of zero or a negative value makes the percent change meaningless. Saying 100% when going from 0 to some other value is simply wrong. I have seen a similar situation several times when looking at a public company with a loss last quarter. On Google Finance or some other service, the PE ratio will be blank, N/A, ...
What does the average log-return value of a stock mean?
Log-returns are very commonly used in financial maths, especially quantitative finance. The important property is that they're symmetrical around 0 with respect to addition. This property makes it possible to talk about an average return. For instance, if a stock goes down 20% over a period of time, it has to gain 25%...
Received mysterious K-1 form, seeking answers
You should contact the company and the broker about the ownership. Do you remember ever selling your position? When you look back at your tax returns/1099-B forms - can you identify the sale? It should have been reported to you, and you should have reported it to the IRS. If not - then you're probably still the owner. ...
How is someone tax exempt at Walmart in Canada?
The short answer is you're tax exempt if the tax laws say you are. There are a bunch of specific exemptions based on who you are, what you're buying and why. Taking British Columbia as an example. One exemption is supplies for business use: Some exemptions are only available to certain purchasers in certain circumstan...
What U.S. banks offer two-factor authentication (such as password & token) for online banking?
StasM, It's taken a while but many banks offer tokens - although they tend to limit the accounts for which they will be issued. All of the following issue tokens, but there are many more: CitiBank JP Morgan Union Bank Wells Fargo Callaway Bank Wachovia Bank of North Dakota The River Bank of Wisconsin Metcalf Bank, Kans...
Personal finance web service with account syncing in Germany
As much as I know StarMoney has also a web service for banking.
I have an extra 1000€ per month, what should I do with it?
What about getting the saving account - "Bausparen" (~100EUR/month) which you can later use for credit to get better mortgage deal and to buy a flat for renting to others (Anlegerwohnung)?