Question: How do taxes work with donations made to an individual, e.g. for free software I wrote?

Do I report it as income? Is it subject to just the same amount of   taxes (~30%) as regular income? Are there any restrictions on how it   can be used? It is income. You can deduct the costs of maintaining the web page and producing the software from it (have an accountant do that for you, there are strict rules on how to do that, and you can only deduct up to the income if its a hobby and not a for-profit business), but otherwise it's earned income like any other self employment income. It is reported on your schedule C or on line 21 of your 1040 (miscellaneous income), and you're also liable for self-employment taxes on this income. There are no restrictions, it's your money. Technically, who is the donation even being made to? Me, just because   I own the webpage? Yes. This is for the United States, but is there any difference if the   donations come from overseas? No, unless you paid foreign taxes on the money (in which case you should fill form 1116 and ask for credit). If you create an official 501(c) organization to which the donations are given, instead of you getting it directly, the tax treatment will be different. But of course, you have to have a real charitable organization for that. To avoid confusion - I'm not a licensed tax professional and this is not a tax advice. If in doubt - talk to a EA/CPA licensed in your State.

The only way this suggestion works is if you can realize a higher rate of return on the investment than the payoff of the loan.  There's no guarantee of that, so it can be a risky strategy from the standpoint that you'll end up paying more for the car when all is said and done.

The time value decay is theoretically constant.  In reality, it is driven by supply and demand, just like everything else in the market.   For instance, if a big earnings announcement is coming out after the close for the day, you may see little or no time decay in the price of the options during the day before. Also, while in theory options have a set value as related to the trading price of the underlying security, that does not mean there will always be a buyer willing to pay a premium as they come close to expiration (in the last few minutes). You can't forget to account for the transaction fees associated with buying the options, or the risk factor involved.   It is rare, but there are times I've actually had to sell in the money calls at a penny or two LESS than they're actually worth at the time just to unload them in the last few minutes before the market closed on expiration day.

Ok, so you like posting on reddit.   but you won't actually do the work to make sure you're making sense or are correct.  Gotcha.   I'm someone who knows her in real life. As I've stated in this thread elsewhere, her and I have disagreed on things we've talked about professionally, we don't work togeather, but I respect her success, and my ONLY purpose here is to talk about how most of you are calling her out for sounding dumb, and accusing her of not knowing anything, when she actually DOES!  You may not agree with her perception of the world as it is. You may not like what she's suggesting.  And I have had disagreements with her on other topics,  but watching people look like complete assholes and accusing her of ignorance when she isn't, and its EASY to find that out... is what I can't stand.

Article quotes AT&T CEO:  >Every $1 billion in tax savings would create 7,000 well-paying jobs, Mr. Stephenson went on to say.  Let me check those numbers with out even disputing them: ~143K / year per job. I mean... those are some expensive jobs! I can think of a number of better ways to spend 1 billion.

"If they'd just let me cast stuff from an app like I do with 90% of the stuff I watch off Netflix I'd probably watch stuff a ton more from it.  Netflix + chromecast is so brainless that I can just toss on any old thing without investing much time or effort.  Watching Prime stuff is, like I said, an inconsistent hassle.  Like... I just fired up the Amazon app on my phone.  Oh, there's the new Tick show right at the top.  I click on it.  The only option is to add it to my ""Watchlist.""  What's that noise?  What if I just want to watch it now on my phone?  Where even is that watch list useful?  I really feel like Amazon is too worried about selling their relatively cheap hardware.  If they just let me actually watch their content, I'd be able see some actual value in it.  And yeah, the hardware is cheap, so why not just get a fire stick?  Because then I have another fucking power cord I have to route through my wall and another input to manage on my TV.  I already have a streaming device for everything else that offers a consistent and stable experience for every other stream service I use.  Why can't Amazon just play nice?!  Oddly, I think they want to sell their hardware to help push their content... but I'm _trying_ to watch their content already!"

Those surveys suck.  I've seen them jump all over the place.  Not too long ago the northeast one was way up.  Real live recessions don't usually happen unless the yield curve is inverted.  This muddling along crap is pretty characteristic of a recovery from a financial panic.  Lots of slow deleveraging fed by easy money.  I'd be really surprised to see a real recession.  I do think corporate earnings are going to start missing estimates.  But that is more about some mean reversion than anything else.

"Considering that I can't find anything on Chase's web site referencing a ""Money Market IRA"" I suspect that this is a type of account that they aren't actively supporting anymore, but aren't forcing you to cash it in.  I would call Chase to find out for sure, however. That said, a money market is not a good investment if you are looking for any kind of growth.  They are basically a savings account that pay (currently) a small amount of interest.  You can get much better return from other low-risk investments.  You can rebalance periodically if you want to keep a certain amount of ""cash"" available."


Question: What are “preferred” stocks? How are they different from normal (common) stocks?

It is just a different category of stock issued by a company that gives its owners different treatment when it comes to dividend payment and a few other financial transactions. Preferred stock holders get treated with some preference with regard to the company's profits and assets. For example, dividends are typically guaranteed to preferred stock holders whereas the leadership in the company can elect at any time not to pay dividends to common stockholders. In the event the company is liquidated, the preferred stockholders also get to be in line ahead of common stockholders when the assets are distributed.

There is no requirement to open a company. You can work as freelancer. You need to report income and file returns. If your income is more than exempt limit, pay taxes. Apply for a PAN number if you don't have one yet.

Two companies I worked for in the DC area also did WageWorks. The commuting money could be used for the Subway, Bus, and commuter rail. A separate pot of money was used for parking.  We had to estimate the amount of money that would be used the next month. We had to decide by mid-June how much we would spend in July. The money was automatically added to the metro fare card on the first business day of the month. When I first started they put the money on a special debit/credit card that could only be used at commuter system. It would be rejected at the department store. If parking couldn't be paid using a special card, there was a way to claim the money with or without receipts. If the company, like the US Government does for their employees, paid the commuting expenses any excess funds at the end of the month were pulled back from the card. They were just starting to do this in 2012 for employee pre-tax funds. They were supposed to add it to your next paycheck any excess at the end of the month. There was also a way to use post tax funds from your paycheck so that all your commuting expenses could be on one card. Of course any post-tax funds would be left on the card. There was no real way for them to audit this because the system would never know if you were going to work or going to the dentist. I ended up using two cards, one for work and one for non-work usage.

Talk to the property manager and explain your situation. They may be more willing to work with you than you think. At the very least they will tell you if you should even bother filling out the application. In most cases they are obligated to do a background and credit check so you will have to provide them with the required information one way or another. What they are really looking for is your ability to pay the rent. Property managers take a lot more things into consideration than a mortgage company would for a loan. If you have a history of paying on time in the past (a reference from a previous landlord perhaps) and if you show proof of the ability to pay now and in the future they will usually take that into consideration regardless of what the credit check says. It all depends on how motivated they are to fill the rental and how willing they are to take on a potential risk. Keep in mind property managers don't make money on empty rentals.

The salary of a coal miner with a couple years of experience is $29/hour.  After a couple years at Arby's a good worker might make shift supervisor at $10/hr.  Thousands of products are made from coal including pharmaceuticals, soap, dyes, solvents, plastics, nylon, and carbon fibers.  Miners would still be needed even if coal wasn't used for energy.  Fast food workers could disappear tomorrow and we'd just be healthier.

You could buy shares of an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) based on the price of gold, like GLD, IAU, or SGOL. You can invest in this fund through almost any brokerage firm, e.g. Fidelity, Etrade, Scotttrade, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, ShareBuilder, etc. Keep in mind that you'll still have to pay a commission and fees when purchasing an ETF, but it will almost certainly be less than paying the markup or storage fees of buying the physical commodity directly. An ETF trades exactly like a stock, on an exchange, with a ticker symbol as noted above. The commission will apply the same as any stock trade, and the price will reflect some fraction of an ounce of gold, for the GLD, it started as .1oz, but fees have been applied over the years, so it's a bit less.  You could also invest in PHYS, which is a closed-end mutual fund that allows investors to trade their shares for 400-ounce gold bars. However, because the fund is closed-end, it may trade at a significant premium or discount compared to the actual price of gold for supply and demand reasons. Also, keep in mind that investing in gold will never be the same as depositing your money in the bank. In the United States, money stored in a bank is FDIC-insured up to $250,000, and there are several banks or financial institutions that deposit money in multiple banks to double or triple the effective insurance limit (Fidelity has an account like this, for example). If you invest in gold and the price plunges, you're left with the fair market value of that gold, not your original deposit.  Yes, you're hoping the price of your gold investment will increase to at least match inflation, but you're hoping, i.e. speculating, which isn't the same as depositing your money in an insured bank account. If you want to speculate and invest in something with the hope of outpacing inflation, you're likely better off investing in a low-cost index fund of inflation-protected securities (or the S&P500, over the long term) rather than gold.  Just to be clear, I'm using the laymen's definition of a speculator, which is someone who engages in risky financial transactions in an attempt to profit from short or medium term fluctuations This is similar to the definition used in some markets, e.g. futures, but in many cases, economists and places like the CFTC define speculators as anyone who doesn't have a position in the underlying security. For example, a farmer selling corn futures is a hedger, while the trading firm purchasing the contracts is a speculator. The trading firm doesn't necessarily have to be actively trading the contract in the short-run; they merely have no position in the underlying commodity.

You should write a demand letter immediately, send the letter by certified mail, and then wait 30 days. Here is a sample demand letter for the state of california that you can send: http://www.courts.ca.gov/11151.htm It seems like most of the demand letters assumed that you tried to cash the check and incurred a service fee. Personally, I wouldn't risk incurring even most cost. Instead, after 30 days, I would take him to small claims court and show all the evidence you have (checks, receipts, and letters of correspondence).

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Question: How do I find a good mutual fund to invest 5K in with a moderately high amount of risk?

Just find a low cost S&P 500 index fund, and spend your time reading The Great Mutual Fund Trap instead of wasting your time and money picking actively managed funds.

In my opinion, the average investor should not be buying individual stocks. One reason why is that the average investor is not capable of reading financial statements and evaluating whether a stock is overpriced or underpriced. As such, they're often tempted to make buy/sell decisions based solely on the current value of a stock as compared to the price at which they bought it. The real reasons to buy (or sell) a stock is the expectation of future growth of the company (or continued profit and expected dividends). If you aren't able to analyze a company's financial statements and business plan, then you really aren't in a position to evaluate that company's stock price. So instead of asking whether to sell based on a recent drop in stock price, you should be investigating why the stock price is falling, and deciding whether those reasons indicate a trend that you expect to continue.  If you buy and sell stocks based solely on recent trends in the stock price, you probably will end up buying stocks that have recently risen and selling stocks that have recently fallen. In that case, you are buying high and selling low, which is a recipe for poor financial outcomes.

"People seem to think that Yelp serves businesses or the public.  It doesn't.  It serves Yelpers.  Yelpers want reviews from other Yelpers – and that's it.  If you don't review things frequently on Yelp, they don't care about your opinion.  Sorry.  Nothing personal, but this website is only interested in reviews from people who use the site frequently.  You might be the most upstanding person in the world, and you might post a great review of a business, but this isn't your blog.  You're not entitled to have the world see your review here.  They only want the opinion of regular Yelpers.  If you want to be a part of the Yelp community, keep making reviews, and they'll un-filter your reviews.  There are people who say that businesses that pay Yelp get more reviews, but it's not true.  The article even states that she was paying $350/month *before* these reviews got filtered out.  The article also says a court case against Yelp was thrown out because there was no evidence showing bias.  People who claim this are just butt-hurt and want to justify their bias by claiming that Yelp is greedy and unscrupulous.  The fact of the matter is this: Yelp has a powerful community.  Business owners see Yelp as possibly affecting their business.  They want to have control over that, but they can't.  In fact, Yelp goes out of their way to prevent that.  Many business owners simply aren't mentally capable of grasping how some things work, and when things don't go their way, they get angry and make accusations.  This particular woman, who is currently taking 3 hours of ""social media classes per week"" (WTF), thinks “there maybe needs to be some rules on the net that aren’t there now.”  No offense lady, but you probably shouldn't be writing internet laws until you're done with your ""internet for dummies"" classes.  You might think that this is not a good model for a review website.  If so, don't use it.  It's not a government institution and you're not obligated to use it.  Go find another review site.  Better yet, if you think Yelp is so horrible, go make your own review website that allows anyone to review things.  I'm sure it will be great and everyone will love it.  Whatever you choose, stop trying to ruin Yelp.  The people who use it like the way the it is and don't want some butt-hurt non-users fucking it up."

If it was me, I would outsource as much as possible with the desire to receive up front payment from financing companies for originating a loan.  Why? The biggest risk to newer businesses is cash flow.  The amount of work a new business owner has to do is daunting.  If you can outsource some of that work it will increase your chance of success and make your life easier.  Focus on selling cars. The upfront origination will help with your cash flow. If you can outsource the credit decision making and paper work you have leveraged your time and can focus on more important things.

Probably start by looking up other stores in your field nationwide and seeing how they did.  There were three Etsy sourced stores in SF.  They all closed faster than stores usually do here.  Not trying to be a dick, but if I can get it on Etsy, why would I pay the markup to cover your store's rent and salaries to get it from you?

All they care about right now is market share. The profit will come later (see Facebook for example).   Or better yet, read about the marshmallow experiment (wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment).  The same rationale is why Uber, Lyft, Tesla and all of these other tech companies are valued so high.   That being said, I do not know that Snap, Inc. will be a success. I'm just saying that it's naive to say that Evan is a fool. For all we know, he's creating the next AR (insert buzzword) technology. We don't know.

"Starting with small amount of money is definitely a good idea, as it is a fact that majority of the online traders lose their initial investment. No wonder that for example in the UK, FCA decided to make steps to raise the chances of clients staying in business by limiting leverage to 1:50 and 1:25. http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/bloggers/new-fca-regulations-going-affect-retail-brokers/ Trading leveraged products is risky and you will lose some, or all your money with very high chance. But that doesn't mean necessarily it is a ""bad investment"" to trade on your own. Imagine you have a $1000 account, and you trade max 0,1 lot fx position at once maximum (=$10.000 position size, that is 1:10 leverage max). Beginner steps are very challenging and exiting, but turning back to your initial question: is there a better way to invest with a small amount of money Obviously you could purchase a cheap ETF that follows a broad market index or an already existing successful portfolio."

Customers also have different needs and the more extreme the need, the more likely they're going to rate you. So even if you completely fulfill a customer's need, unless it was an extreme need or they were in a predefined emotional state, you're not likely to get a review.  As an example, we used to actually fix things at our Radio Shack, with solder and such. In store. A FEW people would give us feedback about that. We were also allowed leeway on what we could take for returns (receipt, 30 day limit, etc.). So if the customer came in and started telling me how our products sucked, and they were calling the BBB it's unlikely they would receive the queen bee treatment. They also gave reviews (Yelp wasn't around at the time).  In short, despite the fact we gave the vast majority of our customers way above par treatment, the people most likely to give reviews were self-entitled pissants. Despite what people say about turning customers around (from angry to nice), this only happened with maybe 1 out of every 5 pissy customers. Another two would probably be shown to be attempting to scam the store in some manner and a fourth would likely have to be shown the door.


Question: How to diversify IRA portfolio given fund minimum investments and IRA contribution limits?

There are fund of funds,e.g. life cycle funds or target retirement funds, that could cover a lot of these with an initial investment that one could invest into for a few years and then after building up a balance large enough, then it may make sense to switch to having more control.

> The racial angle at the end cheapens your argument, though.   Thanks for pointing that out. Removed race and replaced with 'low income families'   > The principles behind creating and keeping those entities are reasonable, civilized, and economically sound  I disagree 100%. If banks did not have a big brother to bail them out of loans that went bust whenever they wanted, they would be a lot more careful in who they loaned money too. No one is promised a house and a lawn in this life. Some of us will be renters in apartments for life, and there is nothing wrong with that.

">Darden, based in Orlando, Fla., has made cost cutting a priority in recent years as sales growth and traffic have stalled at its flagship chains...  > Given the challenging job market, Darden has been able to offer lower pay rates to new hires. Bonuses for general managers have been reduced as sales have stagnated. Servers at Red Lobster are handling four tables at a time, instead of three.  >And last year, the company also put workers on a ""tip sharing"" program, meaning waiters and waitresses share their tips with other employees such as busboys and bartenders. That allows Darden to pay more workers a far lower ""tip credit wage"" of $2.13, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.    So their food sucks and they're cheap."

There is a basis for that if you consider the power of compounding. So, the sooner you re-invest the dividends the sooner the time will give you results (through compounding). There is also the case of the commissions, if they are paid with a percentage of the amount invested they automatically gain more from you. Just my 2cents, though the other answers are probably more complete.

"Declaring bankruptcy is not ""stealing"", as you forfeit the property once you repudiate the debt.  The article correctly states that consumers should exercise the same rights as mega corporations to walk away from bad deals, and not feel bad about it.  I agree strongly with the article."

The Brokerage firm will purchase shares for the dividend paid in a omnibus account for the security of the issuer and then they will distribute fractional shares among all their clients that chose Div Reinvest.  They will only have to buy 1 extra share to account for the fractional portion of what they allocate.  The structure of the market does not permit trading of fractional shares. There is generally not any impact to the market place for Div Reinvest with the exception of certain securities that pay large dividends that are not liquid. sometimes this occurs in  preferred securities where a large amount of Div reinvestment could create a large market order that has market impact.  Most brokers place market orders for the opening on the day following the payment of the dividend. When you sell the fractional portion same process as full shares are sold into the market and the fractional if traded between you and the brokers omnibus account.  if it creates a full share for the broker (omnibus has .6 shares and you sell him .5 they would likely flip that out to the street with the full share portion of your order. This would not have impact to outstanding shares and all cost are operational and with the broker handling the Div reinvestment service.

So a significant portion of that money went to the financial clusterfuck he inherited.  But in an effort of make sure we don't get ourselves back into that mess, he initiated Dodd-Frank.  What are your thoughts on the current administration's effort to reverse it?

This will have no effect on your credit score.  Even though your credit card account number is changing, it is still the same account, so your history of payments and age of accounts will remain unchanged.


Question: The board of directors in companies

Boards of Directors are required for corporations by nearly all jurisdictions.  Some jurisdictions have almost self-defeating requirements however, such as in tax havens. Boards of Directors are compensated by the company for which they sit.  Historically, they have set their own compensation almost always with tight qualitative legal bounds, but in the US, that has now changed, so investors now set Director compensation.  Directors are typically not given wages or salary for work but compensation for expenses.  For larger companies, this is semantics since compensation averages around one quarter of a million of USD. Regulations almost always proscribe agencies such as other corporations from sitting on boards and individuals convicted of serious crimes as well.  Some jurisdictions will even restrict directories to other qualities such as solvency. While directors are elected by shareholders, their obligations are normally to the company, and each jurisdiction has its own set of rules for this.  Almost always, directors are forbidden from selling access to their votes. Directors are almost always elected by holders of voting stock after a well-publicized announcement and extended time period. Investors are almost never restricted from sitting on a board so long as they meet the requirements described above.

"At times the issue seems to be one of  reading comprehension and general information processing. Regardless of length or depth, an email allows for both clarity of message and a persistent record to refresh from. Yet people default  to these hugely inefficient meetings.   Modern meetings also seem to suffer from an issue with mob rule. Very rarely do meeting ""coordinators"" do anything but kick off meetings, instead of acting as a whip/coordinator. Everyone puts more value on a faux-friendly workplace than an efficient one, so no one is willing to be the heavy that keeps the meeting focused and on schedule."

"You've cited nothing but your own outlandish claims. Aside from the original USAToday article, you've not provided one link to substantiate any of the many, many assertions that you have made.    > none of the people doing any of these things are ""true economists"".  **unsubstantiated**  >It's a subconscious bias thing... they all inherently belive that an ""inflationary currency"" is a good & necessary thing... ergo they do not really TRY to disprove that dogmatic assumption. **unsubstantiated**  >... and that ""confirmation"" was the entire goal of the project. **unsubstantiated**  **Not one link**.   End of discussion. This is a waste of my time."

Have you checked the reviews for those products? I wonder if other people have the same complaints. TBH I don't know if there is a consumer protection agency that tests all the products for effectiveness and whether their claims regarding chemicals are in fact true.

>Can't be that much more sustainable, isn't China also building ghost cities at break neck speeds here?  Most ghost cities fill up eventually. There are some major fuckups, but that's always been the case with urbanization, and China still has a shitton of peasants tied to the land its trying to slowly get into the cities. Cf many other urbanization processes which resulted in huge numbers of people living in hastily built structures unsuitable for human health, and then dying in a fire / plague.

"Yes, you effectively need to ""double count"" when shifting balances between foreign accounts."

"As already noted, options contain inherent leverage (a multiplier on the profit or loss). The amount of ""leverage"" is dictated primarily by both the options strike relative to the current share price and the time remaining to expiration. Options are a far more difficult investment than stocks because they require that you are right on both the direction and the timing of the future price movement. With a stock, you could choose to buy and hold forever (Buffett style), and even if you are wrong for 5 years, your unrealized losses can suddenly become realized profits if the shares finally start to rise 6 years later. But with options, the profits and losses become very final very quickly. As a professional options trader, the single best piece of advice I can give to investors dabbling in options for the first time is to only purchase significantly ITM (in-the-money) options, for both calls and puts. Do a web search on ""in-the-money options"" to see what calls or puts qualify.  With ITM options, the leverage is still noticeably better than buying/selling the shares outright, but you have a much less chance of losing all your premium. Also, by being fairly deep in-the-money, you reduce the constant bleed in value as you wait for the expected move to happen (the market moves sideways more than people usually expect). Fairly- to deeply-ITM options are the ones that options market-makers like least to trade in, because they offer neither large nor ""easy"" premiums. And options market-makers make their living by selling options to retail investors and other people that want them like you, so connect the dots. By trading only ITM options until you become quite experienced, you are minimizing your chances of being the average sucker (all else equal). Some amateur options investors believe that similar benefits could be obtained by purchasing long-expiration options (like LEAPS for 1+ years) that are not ITM (like ATM or OTM options). The problem here is that your significant time value is bleeding away slowly every day you wait.  With an ITM option, your intrinsic value is not bleeding out at all. Only the relatively smaller time value of the option is at risk. Thus my recommendation to initially deal only in fairly- to deeply-ITM options with expirations of 1-4 months out, depending on how daring you wish to be with your move timing."

Please. Say what you will about Trump, but let's not pretend the ACA was working, or that it was good for young people. It did *nothing* to rein in the healthcare and pharmaceutical corporate-cartels. Under the ACA, Americans still had the most expensive drug costs in the world.  Young people were also the group most screwed by the ACA. The entire plan rested on forcing young people to pay for the health care of boomers. One of the reasons the program was failing so badly is that young people turned out to not be stupid -- and they were opting out in numbers vastly higher than bean counters had predicted.   The ACA was literally written by health insurance companies and Big Pharma. Anyone who doubts this should pull up a chart of healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical sector stocks for the time-period the ACA was signed. If the ACA had been anything other than a forced buy-in to an already ridiculously overpriced sector, those stocks would have cratered. Instead they soared. If you want to know who got screwed by the ACA, it was people under 35 -- whose healthcare spending *rose* per capita as a result of that atrocious tax.   And let's not forget that the annual price-tag for all of us was climbing by unsustainable rates every year. (Along with those fat healthcare stocks).  That turd was failing of its own accord. It was a terribly crafted bill. If you want to fix healthcare in the US you need to get rid of money in politics, and by cutting the absurd legal/financial protections granted to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.  (Which by the way, Trump isn't doing either. We *still* don't have a candidate on either side of the aisle with the balls it takes to fix this extremely busted industry. And it starts with campaign finance reform)


Question: Can I fully deduct capital losses against discounted capital gains?

The short answer is no - the CGT discount is only applied against your net capital gain. So your net capital gain would be: $25,000 - $5,000 = $20,000 Your CGT discount is $10,000 You will then pay CGT on $10,000 Of course you could sell ABC in this financial year and sell DEF next financial year.  If you had no other share activities next financial year than that net capital loss can be carried forward to a future year. In that case your net capital gain this year would be $25,000 Your CGT discount is $12,500 You will then pay CGT on $12,500 Next year if oyu sell DEF, you'll have a $5000 net capital loss which you can carry forward to a future year as an offset against capital gains. Reference: https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Capital-gains-tax/Working-out-your-capital-gain-or-loss/Working-out-your-net-capital-gain-or-loss/

If you have made $33k from winning trades and lost $30k from loosing trades your net gain for the year would be $3k, so obviously you would pay taxes only on the net $3k gains.

The best source of financial statements would be from the company in question. On corporate websites of public listed companies, you can find such financial statements uploaded in the Investor's Relations section of their website. If their company does not have an online presence, another alternative would be to go to the website of the exchange the company is trading in (e.g. NYSE or NASDAQ) for financial data.

Nope.  If there is no prepayment penalty go for it.  Find another credit source to use (like a credit card you pay off every month) if you want to get a long history. Saving money on interest is more important to me than minutia in a credit score.

Mervis Diamond is a onestop destination for buying diamonds and diamond ornaments. They specializes in diamond engagement rings and wedding bands, diamond studs, and much more. With their roots at diamond mines in South Africa, they maintain strong relationships and import all their own diamonds. Mervis has a reputation you can trust. For any budget, they will get you the biggest and most brilliant diamond possible, and save you some dollars in the process.

No, no they don't. No more so than wages do. A pension is not some magical pot of money that you retire and suddenly are a billionaire. A pension payment replaces your wages. It is retirement savings.   This is like saying we should eliminate 401K's, Roth, and Keogh IRA's and simply take the money. This is like saying we should seize homes and other properties. You need to elaborate why you think paying out pensions is going to raise inflation, that doesn't make sense.

They didn't license it from themselves. They licensed it from another business entity. Cross-entity charges are common.  > But as a citizen and a taxpayer, I don't want global corporates to get away with tax evasion.   Then you should be voting for Romney then, as a major part of his platform is to restructure the tax code to discourage this.

"1. That's a really complicated answer. In short, I think we need to make accounting rules much simpler (I say this as an accountant) in combination with financial education in K-12 school. Most adults in this country can't tell you which is a better investment: something that returns 5% monthly or something that returns 10% annually. They don't know that accounting income and cash flow are different things and what they mean. Accounting rules are sometimes ridiculous. Look at the balance sheet of even a moderate size company. What's in ""Other Comprehensive Income"" and why is that different than net income? Why is it that American Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the world doesn't have a single airplane on their balance sheet?  2. That might be a step in the right direction, but I'm just not sure how effective something like that would be. More comprehensive might be better, but then there's going to be less people that want to take the time."


Question: Can you short a stock before the ex-div. date to make a profit?

When you short a stock and the stock goes ex-div. you have to pay out an amount equal to the dividend. So in your example, GG would short the stock at $10.00, buy back at $9.00 and be charged $1.00 for the dividend. Net effect $0.00.

I would just like to point out that the actual return should be compared to your down payment, not the property price. After all, you didn't pay $400K for that property, right? You probably paid only 20%, so you're collecting $20K/year on a $80K investment, which works out to 25%.  Even if you're only breaking even, your equity is still growing, thanks to your tenants. If you're also living in one of the units, then you're saving rent, which frees up cash flow. Your increased savings, combined with the contributions of your tenants will put you on a very fast track. In a few years you should have enough to buy a second property. :)

"In general, I agree with Alex' ""don't do it."" If I dig deep for any reasons to transfer from a Roth into a Roth 401(k) there might be 2:"

The big box retailers weren't really a monopoly.  It was just a better business model.  There were many of them and they were very competitive with each other (we'll match our competitor's price). Many of them even went out of business because the profits were driven down to such low levels.

>Banks benefit from lower interest rates because it decreases the rate at which they can borrow from the Federal Reserve from.  But what matters is the spread: if rates on the borrowing and lending side go down, the spread % shrinks, which makes banks less profitable. That's why bank stocks go up when higher rates are anticipated. You can think of a bank stock as being long interest rates.  That's why bank stocks have lagged the rest of the market during this long bull market.  >Bank's Assets aren't all debt  The vast majority is for most banks. GS and MS are the rare exceptions.

I use RetailMeNot all the time. I don't bother keeping pizza coupons anymore. If I want to order delivery, I just get a coupon code from there, order online, and save myself a few bucks.

"So let's say, as a counterfactual, that Obama did not bail out the banks: what would happen? The world economy would have collapsed. Every creditor and their funds to endless bankruptcy stays. All credit would have been frozen. No businesses would have been able to pay off their loans or pay their employees' salaries. The banks, sadly, were too big to fail because everyone and everything depended on them for funding. The issue is not the bailout, but the activites of the banks that forced the bailout. This is why all of the current legislative schemes being put into operation are looking at way to limit systemic risk to both prevent future catastophic bankruptcies and limit their impact on the credit markets.   As a last note: notice how inflation did not significantly increase since the bailout, despite Bernanke printing trillions of dollars. Cleary, ""printing money"" has not caused harm in and of itself. Its only harm is reinforcing the too big to fail mentality. This can be cured, but by not bailing out the banks, we would have seen a catastophic collapse."

I use it for work to automatically fill in building features which are spelled differently and are classified differently by architects (for some reason). It's mainly vlookups, I'm not sure if it'll solve your problem but that's how I solved my problem. The only problem this creates is that the master list is pretty long and that you'll need to update your sheets when you open 'em.


Question: Tax On Unsold Mined Bitcoin

Based on my research, the answer is both. You would pay taxes on the bitcoin you mine as income, and then capital gains tax when you sell them for a profit (or capital loss if you lose value on the sale).  You can write off a portion of your electricity bill and hardware purchased for the use of mining as a business expense, but it's recommended that you consult a tax professional for determining the proper amount that is eligible for a deduction.  From Forbes: New Bitcoin are being issued by the system roughly every 10 minutes by   a process called mining. In mining, computers running the Bitcoin   software around the world attempt to solve math problems and the first   computer to come up with the solution adds the most recent   transactions to the ledger of all Bitcoin transactions, plus receives   the new bitcoins created by the system, called the block reward. If you are a miner and win the block reward, you must record the fair   market value of Bitcoin that day and mark that as an addition to your   personal or business income. Also note the date and timestamp at which   your coins were mined. Later, when you dispose of those Bitcoin, you   will subtract the date of acquisition from the date of disposal, and   you will be taxed a long-term capital gains rate on any Bitcoin you   held for more than a year, and a short-term capital gains rate on any   Bitcoin you held for a year or less. (The timestamp isn’t absolutely   necessary, but is helpful to validate the order of multiple   acquisitions or disposals within a day.) The amount you pay in taxes on a long-term capital gain will depend on   your income-tax bracket, while short-term capital gains are taxed the   same as ordinary income. From bitcoin.tax:  Another clarification in the IRS's March notice was how mining should   be treated. Mining is income, on the day of receipt of any coins and   at the fair value of those coins. This means that if you mined any   Bitcoins or alt-coins either solo, as part of a pool, or through a   cloud provider, you need to report any coins you received as income. Where it is less clear, is what that dollar value might be, since the   fair value is not always as easy to determine.  Bitcoins, Litecoins,   Dogecoins, are all examples of where there is a direct USD market and   so you can easily find out their value of any given day. However, a   newly created alt-coin that was mined in its early days has no direct   market and so how do you determine its value? Or for any alt-coin,   e.g. ABC coin, that has no direct USD market but does have a BTC   market. Does it have a value? Do you have to make a conversion from   ABC to BTC to USD?  Since there is no clarification yet from the IRS on   this issue you should discuss how to proceed with your own tax   professional. BitcoinTaxes has taken a prudent approach and calculates   value where a fiat or BTC market exists, converting an alt-coin to BTC   to USD as necessary. And from Bitcoin magazine: The IRS also stated mined bitcoins are treated as immediate income at   the market value of those mined coins on their date of mining. “Most don’t know they can write off any losses they have,” said Libra   founder Jake Benson. “The IRS allows you to offset income by up to   $3,000 per year on capital losses.  If you have losses and you aren’t   writing them off, then it’s like throwing money away. Nobody likes   doing taxes, but if you can owe less or increase your return, then   doing your Bitcoin taxes often results in a benefit. In fact, the   majority of our users are filing a capital loss, which means they’ve   actually saved money by using our tool.”  Benson also gives insight for miners.  “Mining is considered income, so know the price of Bitcoin at the time   you mined it,” he said. “If you make money on Bitcoin trading, the IRS   requires that you report gains with line level detail.”  The   appropriate form for that is 8949, a sub-form of schedule D. Gains and   losses, as outlined above, are treated like every other capital asset.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://news.ehealthinsurance.com/news/affordable-care-act-health-insurance-will-be-unaffordable-in-2018-for-many-middle-income-american-families-ehealth-analysis-shows) reduced by 94%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The Affordable Care Act considers health insurance to be &quot;Unaffordable&quot; when annual premiums for the lowest-priced plan in a market cost more than 8.16% of a household&#039;s modified adjusted gross income.  > eHealth, Inc. owns eHealth.com, a leading private online health insurance exchange where individuals, families and small businesses can compare health insurance products from brand-name insurers side by side and purchase and enroll in coverage online and over the phone.  > eHealth offers thousands of individual, family and small business health plans underwritten by many of the nation&#039;s leading health insurance companies.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/73ecm7/ehealthcom_has_just_published_a_new_study_that/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~219483 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **plan**^#1 **health**^#2 **insurance**^#3 **eHealth**^#4 **City**^#5"

The only fair thing to do is to let each of you pay their own loans. That way, your brother will probably get out of debt faster and starts saving or investing (assuming equal down payments), while you'll be stuck with your loan for a while longer. If you want to minimize the interests you have to pay, you could simply borrow money from your brother. That way, he'll contribute towards your loans, and you will know exactly how much you owe him. Your brother may lend you money interest-free, or you could agree on an interest rate which is lower than what you pay on your loans, which will somewhat compensate your brother and still be beneficial to you. It still won't be fair though, because your brother might be able to invest his extra money with better interest rate, and lending money to you would prevent that.

Tax cuts do lead to economic growth, and why not?  More money circulating in the private economy is good for everybody.  It’s why the stock market is up big on the prospect for tax cuts.  The problem is the rosy growth projections that accompany these plans.  The growth will occur, but the pace of growth is a big question and very hard to model.  So a prudent policy proposal would be to cut spending as well while the growth materializes.  Then (hopefully) that spending cut becomes permanent as the economy grows so the private economy grows at the expense of the state.

"I didn't say ""not at all available outside of work hours"".  I said ""not checking work email"".  If something urgent comes up at the office when I'm out where it makes more sense for someone to call me and ask for help, sure, they can call, and I'll answer if I can, or get back to them when it's reasonably convenient to do so.  I'm not going to waste my non-work hours looking for work to do, though; if it's not urgent, it waits until the next time I'm in the office."

A person name Matthew Drury or a similar name owes money on their loan, and it has gone to collections. The collections company is trying to match the account to a real person with money. They sent a letter to somebody (your grandmother) with the same last name. The debtor may have even lived in that town at sometime.  The reason you received the letter is because your grandmother forward it on. Because the rest of your info (SSN and birth date) don't match the loan it is unlikely they can attach the debt to you. Unless you provided your address to the company you could in the future receive a letter from them. But I doubt they are going to send letters to everybody with the same name. I would not worry about it unless they actually send a letter or call you directly.

"I see the problem more that the controversial is banned.  The mods took control of this subreddit under a pro-banking industry agenda.  To filter out criticism of the banking industry resulting from 2008 event including ""debate the morality of central banking"". r/finance is the most successful astroturfing of reddit I know of.  This has led to a filter of the controversial.  Throughtful, philosophical and scholarly posts [such as this one](http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/ncez0/greece_will_default_minutes_after_its_last_major/) are either banned or pre-filtered.  The concern with pre-filtering things that the mods think are wrong, is that the mods haven't claimed any special expertise that makes them more knowledgeable than every submitter.  Personally, I've only been attacked ad hominem-ly without a discussion of presented ideas or concepts by mods here.  So it is possible to be too close-minded.  Leads to insular views without discussion."

"Diversify between high risk, medium risks investments as well as ""safe"" ones like bonds authored directly from the EU.  All in all you re much better off than lending money to the bank through a savings account for no more than 1% in interest rate(given the current NL situation).  Congratulations on becoming financially independent(your investments covering your living expenses) in as low as 9-15years from now."


Question: How do I pay my estimated income tax?

Congratulations on starting your own business. Invest in a tax software package right away; I can't recommend a specific one but there is enough information out there to point you in the right direction: share with us which one you ended up using and why (maybe a separate question?) You do need to make your FICA taxes but you can write off the SE part of it. Keep all your filings as a PDF, a printout and a softcopy in the native format of the tax software package: it really helps the next tax season. When you begin your business, most of the expenses are going to be straightforward (it was for me) and while I had the option of doing it by hand, I used software to do it myself. At the beginning, it might actually seem harder to use the tax software package, but it will pay off in the end. Build relationships with a few tax advisors and attorneys: you will need to buy liability insurance soon if you are in any kind of serious (non hobby) business and accounting for these are no trivial tasks. If you have not filed yet, I recommend you do this: File an extension, overpay your estimated taxes (you can always collect a refund later) and file your return once you have had a CPA look over it. Do not skimp on a CPA: it's just the cost of running your business and you don't want to waste your time reading the IRS manuals when you could be growing your own business. Best of luck and come back to tell us what you did!

You make a great point. For a large part of America, their support for Trump was reactionary, not based on his qualifications.   For better or for worse, is a bad electoral strategy it alienate voters with valid criticisms of a celebrity they like. Like you say, they will just stop listening. Instead they will react with an intense desire to stick it to those dirty liberals for being mean, and elevate that priority above the well-being of the republic.

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.

Yeah I guess those prices are ok, though we will get a heavier tobacco tax next year. The beer is cheap in supermarkets, but I have to add this is just your regular dutch beer brands (Heineken, Amstel, Hertog Jan, etc.) with 24 33CL bottles. In a cheap bar you pay around $3.50-4.50 for those brands though (not to mention clubs with sometimes prices of $15+ for a beer).

If this will be your sole income for the year, going self-employed is the best way to do this: So, here's how to go at it: Total cash in: £2000 Total Tax paid: £0 Admin overhead: approx 3 hours. Legit: 100%   :) Edit:  Can you tell me that in my case what are the required fields on the invoice? If you're non-VAT registered, there are no legal requirements as to what information you need to put on the invoice -it literally can be a couple of numbers on a napkin, and still be legit.  With that said, to make a professional appearance, my invoices are usually structured as follows: Left side: ( Sidenote: why client-specific incremental numbering? Why, so they can't make educated guesses to the number of clients I have at any given time :)  ) Right side: Center table: And so far, none of my clients missed any fields, so this should have everything they need to :) Hope this helps, but keep in mind, all of the above is synthetic sugar on the top -ultimately,  the relationship you share with your Clients is the thing you will (or will not) get paid for! Edit#2: The voices in my head just pointed out, that I've totally omitted National Insurance contributions in the above. However, and I quote HMRC: If your profits are expected to be less than £5,315 you may not have to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions. Hence, this won't change the numbers above, either -just make sure to point this out during your registration in the office.

You can anything you want with your 401K. It is not a good idea to borrow against yourself unless there are some critical situations you are facing.

Bake backup to azure into their new powercli releases. Force poor saps like me who certify with microsoft products learn about their cloud so we can parrot back the marketing material to our corporate masters. Build a pretty flexible product that isn't junk (so I hear).  EDIT: My VMware is showing. Powercli should be Powershell.

Chaos theory is two essays combined as a book. It's short.  You could probably read the whole thing in under 2 hours.  Also [here is a print version](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.html) of David Friedman's theory.  I do have a longer, more detailed explanation, but it's in video form (about an hour).


Question: Is it worth having a pension?

"Paying someone to look after your money always costs something - it doesn't matter whether you're inside a pension or not. Fees are highest for ""actively managed"" funds and lowest for passively managed funds or things where you choose the investments directly - but in the latter case you might pay out a lot in dealing fees. Typically pensions will have some small additional costs on top of that, but those are hugely outweighed by the tax advantages - payments into a pension are made from gross salary (subject to an annual limit), and growth inside the pension is tax free. You do pay income tax when you take the money out though - but by then your marginal tax rate may well have dropped. If you want to control your own investments within a pension you can do this, subject to choosing the right provider - you don't have to be invested in the stockmarket at all (my own pension isn't at the moment). I wrote an answer to another question a while ago which briefly summarises the options As far as an annuity goes, it's not as simple as the company taking the money you saved when you die. The point of an annuity is that you can't predict when you'll die. Simplifying massively, suppose the average life expectancy when you retire is 20 years and you have 100K saved, and ignore inflation and interest for now. Then on average you should have 5K/year available - but since you don't know when you'll die if you just spend your money at that rate you might run out after 20 years but still be alive needing money. Annuities provide a way of pooling that risk - in exchange for losing what's left if you die ""early"", you keep getting paid beyond what you put in if you die ""late"". Your suggestion of taking the dividends from an index tracker fund - or indeed the income from any other investment - is fine, but the income will be substantially less than an annuity bought with the same money because you won't be using up any capital, whereas an annuity implicitly does that. Depending on the type of investment, it might also be substantially more risky. Overall, you only need to secure the income you actually need/want to live on. Beyond that level, keeping your money outside the pension system makes some sense, though this might change with the new rules referred to in other answers that mean you don't have to buy an annuity if you have enough guaranteed income anyway. In any case, I strongly suggest you focus first on ensuring you have enough to live on in retirement before you worry about leaving an inheritance. As far as setting up a trust goes, you might be able to do that, but it would be quite expensive and the government tends to view trusts as tax avoidance schemes so you may well fall foul of future changes in the rules."

"But you also can't use a comparison to a cell phone battery; they are not the same chemistry either despite both having ""lithium"" in the name, and EVs limit themselves to a far narrower range of charge than a cell phone does.  My point was that Toyota, didn't base their longevity claims on nothing; they did a shitload of testing of their battery before putting it out, and the ""you'll need a new pack after five years"" crowd was ultimately proved wrong.  GM has made similar claims about the longevity of their packs, based on similar shitloads of research and testing, and I see no reason why they won't ultimately enjoy the same vindication.  As for Nissan, they are reaping the effects of cheaping out and omitting a liquid cooling system from their cars battery packs. Heat kills batteries of any chemistry!"

It's all about keeping your employees happy and ensuring they feel like they're part of something other than a job. Make them feel like they're part of a family and support system. Throw in other things besides pizza parties once a month. Have corporate parties at your house on a weekend, or frequent happy hours. Have an employee of a month kind of thing or recognize your employees for the hard work they do. BUILD, SUPPORT, and SUSTAIN.

There are other answers here about how much you can deduct for a home office. What seems unique is the question of whether you can deduct it for both your LLC and for your employment. Unless your LLC owns the home, you cannot deduct the depreciation directly. Instead you have to charge your LLC rent for the time that you are using the space for the LLC. That rent must be declared as income on your personal tax return, and you can then offset some of it with the time you spend in that space working for your employer and depreciation for time it is being rented to your LLC. Using a strategy this complex may save you a few bucks on your return, but this is definitely an area where a tax professional is worth the expense making sure you get it right.

Self-insure a $250K+ house that's deemed to be in a flood zone? Wake up, have coffee. If you don't change your mind, have another cup.

Organic product Circle Cereal Diamond CBD Hemp oil will help you to remember a bowl of sweet fruity enhanced grain loaded with drain, similar to the one we as a whole love for breakfast.  Precious stone CBD is a top of the line CBD Tincture oil which is mixed with premium CBD rich hemp oil.

The hospital likely has a contract with your insurance company which makes them obligated to bill the insurance before billing you! I had a similar occurrence that was thrown out when my insurance company provided a copy of a contract with the hospital to the judge. So if there is an agreement they must file with the insurance in timely manner.

Doterra oil products in the Doterra shop come from the compounds in flowers and plants, seeds, bark, stems and roots. They do not include fatty lipids or acids like you would find in vegetable or animal oils, instead they are clean and extremely absorbent through the skin.


Question: Should I make partial pre-payments on an actuarial loan?

The contract is not very clear. As much as I can understand it will still help if you make part prepayments. In an Rule 78 or Actuarial method, the schedule is drawn up front and the break-up of interest and principal for each month is calculated ahead. At the beginning both the reducing balance method as well as Actuarial method will give the same schedule.  However in Actuarial method, if you make part prepayments, they get applied to the future principals, the interest are ignored. However the future interests are not reduced. Example: Say your schedule looks something like this; Monthly Payments say 100; Month | Principal | Interest 1 | 10 | 90 2 | 20 | 80 3 | 30 | 70 4 | 40 | 60 5 | 50 | 50 6 | 60 | 40 7 | 70 | 30 8 | 80 | 20 9 | 90 | 10 So lets say you have made 3 payments of 100, in the 4th month if you make 150 [in addition to 100], it would get applied to the principal of 4th, 5th and 6th month. So essentially you would save interest of 4th, 5th and 5th month. It would also reduce the total payments to 6. i.e. you will only have 7th, 8th, 9th due. The next payment you make of 100 will get applied to row 7. The disadvantage of this method over reducing balance is that the interest calculated for rows 7,8,9 don't change compared to reducing balance. However if you prepay in full, the unearned interest is calculated and returned as per the Actuarial Tables.

"But what's the point of even saying that? You could get killed in a car accident tomorrow.   Should I just follow you around and post that any time you have some victory or good news? ""Yeah, you got a promotion, but you could get killed in a car accident tomorrow."" ""Hey, glad she accepted your proposal; but you could get killed in a car accident tomorrow.""  I could mix it up - ""You could have a *c. dificile* infection festering in your intestine right now - your days are numbered."" ""Heading to your kid's graduation? Plane could fall out of the sky on the way.""  I started all this by saying that the OP was a complete waste of time. It gives no advice, passes on no wisdom. There's nothing about it that anyone could act on to change their life. It offers zero value. Hell - the time I spent reading it (and arguing about it) I could've spent masturbating and been better off.   In closing - your success is *affected* by random chance. Also, the sky is often blue and more often than not water is wet at room temperature. Have a nice day."

Keep in mind a good lawyer will have the contract cover the five D's: Its really best to lay these things out ahead of time.  I watched, first hand, two friends start a business.  When they were broke and struggling the worked very well together.  Then the money started rolling in.  Despite exceeding their dreams they were constantly at each other's throats fighting and bickering over stupid stuff.  In the end, because they had decent legal docs, they both were able to pull money out of the business.   Had that not been worked out they would have destroyed the business so that no one would have profited.

Party bus rentals will give the alternative of satellite TV for your amusement needs. Encompass sound stereo are added to get high caliber in sound. For immovability, class and style, Boulder party buses are outstanding decision and it will give you everlasting voyaging background.

could I decline it so the money would be returned back to the account they were transferred from? As a general banking practise, there is nothing automated that will allow you to mark something as return the funds. You would have to approach your Bank with a written statement mentioning that you don't recognise this credit as belonging to you and request the bank to take appropriate action.

One major benefit to being able to buy discounted company stock is that you can sell in-the-money covered calls and potentially make more than you would selling at strike.

https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/GST/ Some of the costs are indeed related to the conversion rate, which, as we all know,changes daily. You don't say whether you're using a credit card. If so, some cards do charge foreign transaction fees; some do not. However, Australia, like many European countries, does use a VAT system. Therefore your charges will be increased. Please be aware that these taxes are built into the economic system. In many cases, you van apply for and receive a waiver to be reimbursed if the purchase is made through a duty free store.

Not generally in my experience.  It is no more difficult than giving up all the extras us Americans feel like we are entitled to.  Just giving some of that shit up, internet, computers, cable/satellite/cellphones, can save an average person hundreds a month.  Don't take long to get to 5k doing THAT.  They choose to be unable to afford it, not that they aren't *actually capable of it* - there are outliers of course but not as many as the average of the bell curve.


Question: How can I estimate business taxes / filing fees for a business that has $0 income?

Is the business an S-Corp, LLC or Sole Prop? I am going to guess based on the question that it is an LLC that you never closed with the state and you live in a state (NY) that charges a fee for having an LLC in the state in which case you owe those fees to the state. I am not aware of any taxes on the mere existence of a business by the IRS. I think you are going to find out that the are no taxes owed to the IRS for this nonexistent activity.

Ok, so by doubling down you mean when I said that ms as well as 3/4 of the country don't consider sexual orientation a protected class...ok, then apparently I am not the only one who has their mind made up.   You entire argument is based on it being a protected class...it is, but only in a few states. Ms is not one of them. I agree that they should not think like that and their business should hurt because they are bigots...but that does not mean another business can do the same thing because you agree with them.  It is ok to have a difference of opinion but you seem to think that a company providing a service based on their bias is ok for some and not for others. How can you not see the similar aspects of the two.   I agree with you that ms is wrong in this case, and I also agree that the nazi wannabes are wrong...We are on the same side...but I don't think that PayPal should get a free pass when it aligns with my thinking. They are not offering service based on an ideal, the businesses in ms were as well. So, I think they are both wrong and should be blasted in public...either you can show biased when dealing with customers or you can't. It is that simple.   You are agreeing with a company choosing to do business with whom they want to, but then you are doubling down on having another business doing the same thing because you think that sexual orientation is a protected class everywhere.  If it was we would not be having this discussion, but here we are. You are trying to have it both ways. I don't know how else to explain it.

"Margin trades let you post a margin of a certain proportion of the value of the trade as collateral against the price of a trade and pay off the difference between the current price and the price that you bought at. Any losses incurred are taken from the margin so the margin has to be maintained as prices change. In practice this means that when the price moves significantly from the buying price a ""margin call"" is triggered and the buyer has to increase their posted margin. The vast majority of the foreign exchange trades done every day are margin trades as (effectively) are all spread bets. Margins get reset overnight whether or not a call has occurred."

Unless you're going to claim that humans lack free will, you can't reduce human action to deterministic processes that you can test in a particle accelerator.  You reference experiments, but there have been no experiments. If you really are a physicist, I find it seriously disconcerting that you'd so flippantly conflate experimental data with observational data. They are not the same thing.   If you happen to know any statisticians, it might be worth your while to have a refresher chat on this distinction with one of them.  To put is very simply: the tools of physics are inappropriate for an analysis of any phenomenon that involves human choices, and if you insist on an empirical approach when key variables (the internal state of the mind) are not measurable, you are wrong.

Exactly. that is paying double the money for no better coverage. It makes no sense. The paperwork when you file a claim will ask you if there is coverage from another policy. Making the same claim to two different policies, without telling them,  would be considered insurance fraud. For that kind of money the insurance company would be involved with paying the re-builder money periodically. Obviously only one re-builder is involved, and they would notice if they were getting paid more than was required. While you could decide to take the money and not rebuild, but that wouldn't work if you had a mortgage. The lender would want their money or force you to rebuild.

Thanks for your feedback! I do see the 2 million cell limit being issues with big datasets sometimes. I think it just reassures me that if other companies have made the transition and are running well after, then we can get through this transition as well lol

When they stop paying fines and damages for these issues and stop losing money by screwing up? When they do illegal things on a wide scale in the portion of business that actually matters in terms of profit and revenue - IB and corporate services.   Why would they be a criminal Enterprise after having 2 widely publicised issues that realistically affect a tiny portion of its business?

Honestly, if you're going to restrict the online payment on your card over this, you may as well just restrict it permanently. Because this is definitely not the only time anyone has had an opportunity to retrieve the information on your card. There isn't really that much information on there - anyone taking more than a cursory look could in theory remember it and use it. We're talking waiters and checkout chicks, anytime you've given your card to anyone really. Banks know this. Credit card numbers are not really secure. They factor this in. And they  have software for fraud detection - looking at large or unusual transactions and transactions in foreign countries etc. Of course it's not fool proof, but the best thing you can do isn't to cripple your card, but just be a little bit more diligent about checking your statements, making sure the transactions make sense. Some banks also allow you to set up an alert system so anytime any transactions occur you are notified immediately.


Question: Whole life insurance - capped earnings

"The question that I walk away with is ""What is the cost of the downside protection?"" Disclaimer - I don't sell anything. I am not a fan of insurance as an investment, with rare exceptions. (I'll stop there, all else is a tangent) There's an appeal to looking at the distribution of stock returns. It looks a bit like a bell curve, with a median at 10% or so, and a standard deviation of 15 or so. This implies that there are some number of years on average that the market will be down, and others, about 2/3, up. Now, you wish to purchase a way of avoiding that negative return, and need to ask yourself what it's worth to do so.  The insurance company tells you (a) 2% off the top, i.e. no dividends and (b) we will clip the high end, over 9.5%.  I then am compelled to look at the numbers. Knowing that your product can't be bought and sold every year, it's appropriate to look at 10-yr rolling returns. The annual returns I see, and the return you'd have in any period. I start with 1900-2012. I see an average 9.8% with STD of 5.3%. Remember, the 10 year rolling will do a good job pushing the STD down. The return the Insurance would give you is an average 5.4%, with STD of .01. You've bought your way out of all risk, but at what cost?  From 1900-2012, my dollar grows to $30080, yours, to $406. For much of the time, treasuries were higher than your return. Much higher.  It's interesting to see how often the market is over 10% for the year, clip too many of those and you really lose out.  From 1900-2012, I count 31 negative years (ouch) but 64 years over 9.5%. The 31 averaged -13.5%, the 64, 25.3%.  The illusion of ""market gains"" is how this product is sold. Long term, they lag safe treasuries."

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I wonder why they continue to allow sponsored links from fiverr, then (they sell upvotes).  I have reported them before, and was told by hueypriest that they would suspend the ads pending investigation, but then they returned and I got no response to my second inquiry.

it is possible that if you do not accept the offer, they will try offering you an even lower rate.  if they offered you close to 0%, you could start carrying a balance and find a better use for the cash you would have spent paying it off. there are plenty of investments with a guaranteed return of over 0%. personally, i am using a 0% offer from one of my cards to invest in the stock market.  i might lose that bet, but on average over the last 10 years, i have not. a pretty safe bet would be paying down your mortgage, or buying a cd that matures when the offer ends. that said, even a 10k$ balance might only pay you around 300$. is that worth the hassle to you?

"This is a really interesting question and something a lot of work is being done to understand.  I'm going to look at the closely related question ""Do non market-cap etf weighting methods consistently outperform once you take into account their investment biases?"" Let's use revenue weighting as a reason why investment biases are so important.  In revenue weighting, you would own almost no fast-growing tech companies as they generally have little revenue.   This sounds great if we are talking about say Pets.com in the late 90s but you also would miss most of the rise of Google. To believe in these ETFs consistently outperform (adjusted for risk) you would have to have a strong reason to believe that earnings, sales, or dividends are a better predictor of company value than market value.  Market analysts include the above three metrics and many more when pricing stocks so out-performance using only one of the above metrics seems unlikely. There is one caveat to this and that is value and small cap stocks have been shown to give slightly better risk-adjusted returns in the very long run (see Fama/French) and many of these alternative weighting methods will have a value or small cap bias.  First, it is unclear if this out-performance will continue now that it is more widely known.  Second, even if you believe this will continue you can more easily and cheaply get this bias though value/small-cap etfs than these weighting schemes. In the end, the only thing that is perfectly clear is that higher fee investments will generally under-perform."

Your original example is a little confusing because just shorting for 1k and buying for 1k is 100% leveraged or an infinitive leverage ratio. (and not allowed) Brokerage houses would require you to invest some capital in the trade.  One example might be requiring you to hold $100 in the brokerage.  This is where the 10:1 ratio comes from. (1000/10) Thus a return of 4.5% on the 1000k bond and no movement on the short position would net you $45 and voila a 45% return on your $100 investment. A 40 to 1 leverage ratio would mean that you would only have to invest $25 to make this trade.  Something that no individual investor are allowed to do, but for some reason some financial firms have been able to.

First, accept the fact that you are not going to be able to predict the ups and downs of the market well enough for that to be a viable strategy. In the long run these schemes tend to be losers because it forces you to guess correctly twice (When to get out, when to get back in) and missing either date can cost you. A better strategy to benefit from market volatility:

"> How can one not get it?  I dunno, you tell me.  >You need to ask yourselves why the actual battery companies balked at building plants for his cars  See my other comment, because that doubly didn't happen.  Not only have ""the actual battery companies"" increased capacity for Tesla, but they're partnering in the plant.  Please attempt to be informed about the things you talk about before you talk about them.  *Or* don't go into the conversation acting informed when you are not."


Question: Price graphs: why not percent change?

The actual price is represented on charts and not the change in price as a percentage, because it is the actual price which is used in all other parts of analysis (both technical and fundamental), and it is the actual figure the security is bought and sold at. A change in price has to be relative to a previous price at a previous time, and we can easily work out the change in price over any given time period. I think what you are concerned about is how to compare a certain actual price change in low priced securities to the same actual price change in a higher priced securities.  For example: $1.00 rise in a $2.00 stock representing a 50% increase in price; $1.00 rise in a $10.00 stock representing a 10% increase in price. On a standard chart both of these look the same, as they both show a $1.00 increase in price. So what can we do to show the true representation of the percentage increase in price? It is actually quite simple. You view the chart using a log scale instead of a standard scale (most charting packages should have this option). What may look like a bubble on a standard scale chart, looks like a healthy uptrend on a log scale chart and represents a true picture of the percentage change in price. Example of Standard Price Scale VS LOG Price Scale on a Chart Standard Price Scale  On the standard scale the price seems to have very little movement from Mar09 to Jan12 and then the price seems to zoom up after Jan12 to Mar13. This is because a 4% increase (for example) of $0.50 is only $0.02, whilst a 4% increase of $7.00 $0.28, so the increases seem much bigger at the end of the chart. LOG Price Scale  On the LOG chart however, these price changes seem to be more evenly displayed no matter at what price level the price change has occurred at. This thus give a better representation of how fast or slow the price is rising or falling, or the size of the change in price.

">The question confronting us all is not if, but how will civilization evolve from the unsustainable centralized control of industrialization to the freedom of technologically enhanced open systems?  Industrialization and central control aren't even relate-able concepts. Unless you count that you learned about them both in ""Social Studies"".  Additionally, the author has no concept of how finance operates."

$1160 per month, lets say you only have one kid.  Oh, wait, taxes are taken out.  You really only have about $1,000 to work with.  Cheapest rent in my area is about 400 a month, and then you're living in the ghetto.  Seriously, a really not great place to raise a kid but I'm being generous here to prove a point.    What's this?  Walmart is not within walking distance of the ghetto?  Damn, you need a car.  Lets say you have about $100 a month in car payments for a pretty cheap car that just goes from A to B.  Liability only insurance (being generous since if you're making payments you probably need more than liability only) also for another $40 a month.  So we're already at 540.  But since you need to drive to work, we need gas, too.    Let's say you live between 5-10 miles from work.  That means you drive about 20 miles a day, at least.  Your car only gets about 20 miles to the gallon, probably less with city driving, and gas is about $4 a gallon, so $4 per day times 20 days a month (we'll assume you only work $5 a day) and there's another $80.  $620 dollars so far.   Assuming you actually cook at your house instead of eating out.  $75 dollars is average for two people for food for a week, so that's $300 a month (4 weeks.)  $920 so far.  $80 left.  Let's average your utility bill out.  Lets say you don't even have AC, as you can go without it and just be incredibly uncomfortable in a temperate climate.  Just normal electricity and heat in the winter, we'll GENEROUSLY make that a $50 a month bill to average out for the entire year.  $30 left.  In one full year, you've saved up $360!  You're rich!  No, wait...that kid you have probably needs school supplies.  They're growing, too, so they probably need clothes.  For that matter, you also need new clothes.  Even used clothes from Goodwill can be costly over a year.  I really hope your car doesn't break down because that can set you back at LEAST $200 most times.  Also, better hope you don't get sick, because you don't have insurance and a doctors visit or emergency room visit could EASILY break that budget.  No preventative care, either, so your risk of getting sick is substantially hire to begin with than the insured.  I also have not included ANY luxury utility bills, let alone any kind of phone at all or especially internet.    Also, all of this assumes that you work full time, which at WalMart most employees do NOT because Walmart wants to avoid being forced to give benefits to employees.  Do you REALLY want to continue to sit on your high horse and tell me that people can make it raising a family on minimum wage?

It's an old problem that extends from intellectual property rights which were designed around inventions and patients. Given the current popularity of the 'mash-up' generation that sees value and merit in using part or most of anothers work and calling it original, there is a large disconnect when it comes to where and how usage should be permitted. The laws governing this particular publication depend on when it was published, what was precedent then and what addendums have been added in between.

You can take out the contributions to your Roth tax and penalty free.  That's the good thing. Anything above the amount you contributed that you withdraw early will cost you ordinary income tax (which is higher than capital gains tax) plus a 10 percent penalty on that amount. So if you have $15,000 in the account and $5,000 is gains and you withdraw $11,000, then you owe tax and penalty on $1,000.  The penalty is 10% and your taxes (high taxes!) are added to that.  Pretty bad deal. If you kept it in a normal account and paid capital gains tax, you just pay 15% (or whatever) on your gains and you get to offset income tax with your losses via tax loss harvesting. So back to your question: your idea works even better than you suggested if you only withdraw up to the amount that you contributed (you pay no tax!).  Take out any of the gains and you will be penalized more than you would if you just paid capital gains on them.  Leave those in until you are old enough to take them out penalty and tax free. To me, contributing to a Roth, making a bunch of gains on it, and withdrawing only the contribution part whenever you want seems to make good sense.

"My simple rule to avoid impulse buys is that if you see something you want, you can get it.... but not today; go back and get it tomorrow (or wait even longer, for big-ticket items). This way you'll have time to think about it rather than just doing it. That won't address all your wasteful spending, but it's a good way to avoid ""why did I think this would be a good idea?"" type situations."

A: Rollover the cash from the previous account into the new one a low-cost IRA like Vanguard. This, and only this.  Because your mortgage is, less than 4%, while your retirement plan will earn 7% over the long term. I have no 'retirement' plans because Because you're 28. and essentially will be happy working until I die Unless circumstances change. but as far as I see it this is not such a bad deal because it is like paying taxes on income. (Principal says I will lose up to 30%) You're ignoring the 10% early withdrawal penalty. I am wise with my money for the most part Then don't piss away $3,000 just for a temporary feel good. I earn a high salary in a tech job.  As a result of being under 20%, I am paying mortgage insurance of about $300/mo. So -- after building up an Emergency Fund -- throw as much as possible of your high salary against your mortgage to get rid of the PMI.


Question: What is a decent rate of return for investing in the markets?

Don't ever, ever, ever let someone else handle your money, unless you want somebody else have your money. Nobody can guarantee a return on stocks. That's utter bullshit. Stock go up and down according to market emotions. How can your guru predict the market's future emotions? Keep your head cool with stocks. Only buy when you are 'sure' you are not going to need the money in the next 10 years. Buy obligations before stocks, invest in 'defensive' stocks before investing in 'aggressive' stocks. Keep more money in obligations and defensive stock than in aggressive stocks. See how you can do by yourself. Before buying (or selling) anything, think about the risks, the market, the expert's opinion about this investment, etc. Set a target for selling (and adjust the target according to the performance of the stock). Before investing, try to learn about investing, really. I've made my mistakes, you'll make yours, let's hope they're not the same :)

The thing is Spain really isn't like Greece and their financial crises are fundamentally different but unfortunately interconnected.  Greece's issue is too much sovereign debt and a banking sector that lent far too heavily to their own government. Spain's problems derive from a private banking sector crisis as they over lent particularly to fund an insane property boom that went really really bad really quick. The root cause is far more akin to the US crisis than the Greek one, however being caught up in the Eurozone and having banks exposed to the debt of other nations has really fucked them over in terms of borrowing and debt to gdp ratio.  Spain was one of the few Eurozone nations that stuck to the max 3% og GDP borrowing rule, not even Germany stuck to that, they were fiscally responsible. Then having to provide a huge bailouts to a financial sector, as the economy was tanking from the global recession amd the bubble bursting and a crisis emerging in other EU nations (and a lack of a central bank) has been their ruin.

Some countries in European Union are starting to implement credit history sharing, for example now history from polish bureau BIK and German Schufa are mutually available. Similar agreements are planned between polish BIK and bureaus in the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

- This is a simple solution because you don't have to monitor a person's trades over time, or even their frequency. Implementing this in the modern computer exchanges seems trivial to me. Asking an exchange to monitor each trader's trades to ensure no HFTs seems full of loopholes (ask a computer to execute HFTs across multiple trader IDs, for example), and I think is a distraction suggestion.  - The reason that I think these taxes don't get implented is, as ChaosMotor correctly states, these taxes empower the government, which is something that a lot of political players (republicans, libertarians, and anarchists) don't want. I have always wondered what would happen if these fees were imposed by the government, implemented by the exchanges, but all money went to, say, the American Red Cross. I think that that would be a pretty good idea.  - Finally, I also want to mention that the government plays a large role in markets already. For example, enforcing contracts, managing bankrupcties, and preventing fraud are all things that the government does to ensure that markets work well. This is another simple thing the the government can do to reduce market uncertainty and make our financial markets work better.

"simplicity and roi are often at odds. the simplest plan that also supports a reasonable investment return would have 3 accounts: if you want to get better returns on your investments, things can get much more complicated. here are some optional accounts to consider: besides the mechanics of money flowing between accounts, a budget helps you understand and control your spending.  while there are many methods for this (e.g. envelopes of cash, separate accounts for various types of expenses), the simplest might be using mint.com.  just be sure to put all your spending on a credit or debit card, and you can see your spending by category when you log into mint. it can take a bit to get it set up, and your bank needs to be compatible, but it can give you a really good picture of where your money is going.  once you know that, you can start making decisions like ""i should spend less on coffee"", or ""i should go to the zoo more"", based on how much things cost vs how much you enjoy them. if you feel like your spending is out of control, then you can set yourself hard limits on certain kinds of spending, but usually just watching and influencing your own choices is enough. notes:  if you have a spouse or partner, you should each maintain your own separate accounts. there are many reasons for this including simplicity and roi, besides the obvious. if you feel you must have a joint account, be sure to clearly define how it should be used (e.g. only for paying the utilities) and funded (x$ per month each). particularly with your house, do not do joint ownership. one of you should be a renter and the other a landlord. some of these statements assume you are in the usa. on a personal note, i have about 20 credit cards, 2 checking accounts, 2 ira's, 2 brokerage accounts, and 3 401k's. but i consider myself a personal finance hobbyist, and spend an absurd amount of time chasing financial deals and tax breaks."

Worked my way through college, 40-50 hours a week making minimum wage at KFC until I got promoted to assistant manager. Yes it's hard, but not so hard that you can't still have a life outside of school and work. Having kids would change all that I have no idea what it's like to try and juggle work school and kids but that's the risk you take when you have kids wether on purpose or accident.

https://www.onlinesbi.com/nri/accounts_deposits/sbinri_ad_nro.html  attached a link from India's premier bank SBI, confirming that you can move your regular saving account money, to NRO

It's definitely something to keep on top of. Who knows if he's right, in the long run. I'm 100% positive cryptocurrency in general is here to stay and will complement fiats, but the question is whether another coin than Bitcoin can deliver something truly more useful. What exact idea will beat it? if you can answer that, you'll be a billionaire yourself, but imagining that someone will have such an idea is not hard at all. It's harder to imagine that no one ever will. And when that happens, it will probably happen fast and it's going to sting. Many people will be once bitten twice shy after that, and the total crypto market cap may take some time to recover.