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1b16e6c6d56608b803ccac437922b2d8	How to “pay” one self in a single member LLC w/ separate checking account?	[ { "docid": "b2635248cd6f4a5ad54e321d27fcb3d6", "text": "\"Basically, yes. Don't use your business account for personal spending because it may invalidate your limited liability protection. Transfer a chunk of money to your personal account, write it down in your books as \"\"distribution\"\" (or something similar), and use it in whatever way you want from your personal account. The IRS doesn't care per se, but mixing personal and business expenses will cause troubles if you're audited because you'll have problems distinguishing one from another. You should be using some accounting software to make sure you track your expenses and distributions correctly. It will make it easier for you to prepare reports for yourself and your tax preparer, and also track distributions and expenses. I suggest GnuCash, I find it highly effective for a small business with not so many transactions (if you have a lot of transactions, then maybe QuickBooks would be more appropriate).\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "6ef75666739cf6561ccfe0c9579f9562", "text": "Yes, you can do this. I do this for my own single-member LLC, but I usually do it online instead of writing a check. Your only legal obligation is to pay quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS. I'm assuming you are not otherwise doing anything shady. For example, that you have funds in your business account to pay any expenses that will be due soon or that you are trying to somehow pull a fast one on someone else...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04b3f704a8ebfdd049ca8774d1e03bd8", "text": "If you have a one-time event, you are allowed to make a single estimated payment for that quarter on Form 1040-ES. People seem to fear that if they make one such payment they will need to do it forevermore, and that is not true. The IRS instructions do kind of read that way, but that's because most people who make estimated payment do so because of some repeating circumstance like being self-employed. In addition, you may qualify for one or more waivers on a potential underpayment penalty when you file your Form 1040 even if you don't make an estimated payment, and you may reduce or eliminate any penalty by annualizing your income - which is to say breaking it down by quarter rather than the full year. Check on the instructions for Form 2210 for more detail, including Schedule AI for annualizing income. This is some work, but it might be worthwhile depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i2210/ch02.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ee2f604bae71690b9dd02f5ebd3c2a0", "text": "\"Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income/expenses. You can \"\"explain\"\" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed me to put whatever I wanted as the name on the check. I think this looked a little better than having my name on the check. I don't see the need for a separate checking account for investing. The money can be kept in a separate savings account that has no fees, and can even earn a little interest. Unless you are doing a lot of investment transactions a month this has worked for me. I fund IRAs and 529 plans this way. We get paychecks 4-5 times a month, but send money to each of the funds once a month. You will need a business account if the number of transactions becomes large. If you deposit dozens of checks every time you go to the bank, the bank will want to move you to a business account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2227a351ed40c57f447a08a9c43166a7", "text": "Yes, it's a good idea to have a separate business account for your business because it makes accounting and bookkeeping that much easier. You can open a business checking account and there will be various options for types of accounts and fees. You may or may not want an overdraft account, for example, or a separate business credit card just so you can more easily separate those expenses from your personal cards. When I started my business, I opened a business checking account and met with my banker every year just to show them how the business was doing and to keep the relationship going. Eventually, when I wanted to establish a business line of credit, it was easier to set up because I they were already familiar with my business, its revenue, and needs for a line of credit. You can set up a solo 401k with your bank, too, and they'll be very happy to do so, but I recommend shopping around for options. I've found that the dedicated investment firms (Schwab, Fidelity, etc.) tend to have better options, fees, and features for investment accounts. Just because a specific bank handles your checking account doesn't mean you need to use that bank for everything. Lastly, I use completely different banks for my personal life and for my business. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I just don't want all my finances in the same place for both privacy reasons and to avoid having all my eggs in the same basket. Just something to consider -- I don't really have a completely sane reason for using completely different banks, but it helps me sleep.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06fd20bef0c8c90a7bd03c63416a8f8e", "text": "They sure can. They are two different legal entities, so why not? You can even write a check to yourself, and then deposit it back into your own account. (Not very useful, but you can). The tax implications are a very different question, as this might constitute taking money out of the company. Edit: In some countries, when the business hires someone to work for them, it is forbidden by law to do that, unless he/she is explicitly allowed to do it in his contract. The business owner himself however, can always 'allow' himself to do that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c9b91c35eb318ee1c0c35dfe4d2df3d", "text": "If you're a sole proprietor there's no reason to have a separate business account, as long as you keep adequate records, as you are one and the same for tax purposes. My husband and I already have 5 accounts and a mortgage with one bank. I don't see the need to open up yet another account. As a contracted accountant, I don't need to write business checks, and my expenses are minimal. As long as I have an present my assumed business name certificate and ID, there's no reason for a bank not to deposit into my personal account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acaf0037dbf1ceb8761d571c06a645fe", "text": "There are certain situations where you could legally pay yourself rent, but it'd be in the context of multiple business entities interacting, never in the context of an individual renting their own property. Even if you could, any rent paid to yourself would count as rental income, so there'd be no benefit. Edit: I was hunting for examples where it might be acceptable, and didn't, but I found a good explanation as to why it is not acceptable from Brandon Hall on a BiggerPockets post: To get technical, you will be going up against the Economic Substance Doctrine which states that a transaction has economic substance if: (1) the transaction changes in a meaningful way (apart from Federal income tax effects) the taxpayer’s economic position; and (2) the taxpayer has a substantial purpose (apart from Federal income tax effects) for entering into such transaction. By transferring your primary residence into a LLC, you would not be changing your economic position. Further, you do not have a substantial purpose for entering into such transaction other than to simply avoid paying federal income taxes. So it might make sense if multiple people owned the LLC that owned the property you wanted to rent, and there are instances where company X owns holding company Y that owns an office building that company X rents space in. But if you're the sole player in the LLC's then it sounds like a no-go.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "079c39dba5751844b335fed9f937a091", "text": "SurePay is not designed to send money from one person to himself. It is designed to transfer money from one person to someone else. What SurePay does, is allow you to link an account to a name/email/phone number. Then, when someone else, who's also linked an account to a name/email/phone number, selects your name/email/phone number to send money to, the money is transferred. This doesn't buy you anything when transferring money to another of your own accounts. I won't say it's impossible to use SurePay to do so, but it's definitely not designed to do so, and may not be permitted. If you could use it for that purpose, you would have to separately register your two accounts, using a separate email for each, and then use the first email to send to the second email; each will have been tied to a different account, so you'll know which is which. My suggestion would be to follow Wells Fargo's instructions here: Can I transfer funds to or from my accounts at another institution? You can transfer money between your Wells Fargo checking and savings accounts and accounts you may have at other U.S. financial institutions. Wells Fargo gives you greater flexibility, convenience, and control to transfer funds where and when you need it. Sign on to Wells Fargo Online and click the Transfers tab to learn more about transferring funds to your account at another financial institution. As that should give you the official answer, at least.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "983b96518395d2dd077ddb166149f582", "text": "or just input it in my accounting software along with receipts, and then when I'm doing taxes this would go under the investment or loses (is it somewhere along that line)? Yes, this. Generally, for the long term you should have a separate bank account and charge card for your business. I started my business (LLC) by filing online, and paying a fee for a registration, and that makes it a business cost right? Startup cost. There are special rules about this. Talk to your tax adviser. For the amounts in question you could probably expense it, but verify.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05575c7ecd138f1d959b8ffd50b5d3d2", "text": "I have researched this question extensively in previous years as we have notoriously high taxes in California, while neighboring a state that has zero corporate income tax and personal income tax. Many have attempted pull a fast one on the California taxation authorities, the Franchise Tax Board, by incorporating in Nevada or attempting to declare full-year residence in the Silver State. This is basically just asking for an audit, however. California religiously examines taxpayers with any evidence of having presence in California. If they deem you to be a resident in California, and they likely will based on the fact that you live in California (physical presence), you will be subject to taxation on your worldwide income. You could incorporate in Nevada or Bangladesh, and California will still levy its taxation on any business income (Single Member LLCs are disregarded as separate corporate entities, but still taxed at ordinary income rates on the personal income tax basis). To make things worse, if California examines your Single Member LLC and finds that it is doing business in California, based on the fact that its sole owner is based in California all year long, you could feasibly end up with additional penalties for having neglected to file your LLC in California (California LLCs are considered domestic, and only file in California unless they wish to do business in other states; Nevada LLCs are considered foreign to California, requiring the owner to file a domestic LLC organization in Nevada and then a foreign LLC organization in California, which still gets hit with the minimum $800 franchise fee because it is a foreign LLC doing business in California). Evading any filing responsibility in California is not advisable. FTB consistently researches LLCs, S-Corporations and the like to determine whether they've been organized out-of-state but still principally operated in California, thus having a tax nexus with California and the subsequent requirement to be filed in California and taxed by California. No one likes paying taxes, and no one wants to get hit with franchise fees, especially when one is starting a new venture and that minimum $800 assessment seems excessive (in other words, you could have a company that earns nothing, zero, zip, nada, and still has to pay the $800 minimum fee), but the consequences of shirking tax laws and filing requirements will make the franchise fee seem trivial in comparison. If you're committed to living in California and desire to organize an LLC or S-Corp, you must file with the state of California, either as a domestic corporation/LLC or foreign corporation/LLC doing business in California. The only alternatives are being a sole proprietor (unincorporated), or leaving the state of California altogether. Not what you wanted to hear I'm sure, but that's the law.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b171a55ca69f689ee46c4199f8dc686", "text": "If thinking about it like a business you normally only pay taxes on Net income, not gross. So Gross being all the money that comes in. People giving you cash, checks, whatever get deposited into your account. You then pay that out to other people for services, advertisement. At the end of the day what is left would be your 'profit' and you would be expected to pay income tax on that. If you are just an individual and don't have an LLC set up or any business structure you would usually just have an extra page to fill out on your taxes with this info. I think it's a schedule C but not 100%", "title": "" }, { "docid": "057b35fdb4e173c7a329dcd6da86e19a", "text": "\"The account you are looking for is called a \"\"Positive Pay\"\" account. It generally is only for business accounts, you provide a list of check numbers and amounts, and they are cross-referenced for clearing. It normally has a hefty monthly fee due to the extra labor involved.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb4538721131cc3f19655a02ffa66286", "text": "\"If you start an LLC with you as the sole member it will be considered a disregarded entity. This basically means that you have the protection of being a company, but all your revenues will go on your personal tax return and be taxed at whatever rate your personal rate calculates to based on your situation. Now here is the good stuff. If you file Form 2553 you can change your sole member LLC to file as an S Corp. Once you have done this it changes the game on how you can pay out what your company makes. You will need to employ yourself and give a \"\"reasonable\"\" salary. This will be reported to the IRS and you will file your normal tax returns and they will be taxed based on your situation. Now as the sole member you can then pay yourself \"\"distribution to share holders\"\" from your account and this money is not subject to normal fica and social security tax (check with your tax guy) and MAKE SURE to document correctly. The other thing is that on that same form you can elect to have a different fiscal year than the standard calendar IRS tax year. This means that you could then take part of profits in one tax year and part in another so that you don't bump yourself into another tax bracket. Example: You cut a deal and the company makes 100,000 in profit that you want to take as a distribution. If you wrote yourself a check for all of it then it could put you into another tax bracket. If your fiscal year were to end say on sept 30 and you cut the deal before that date then you could write say 50,000 this year and then on jan 1 write the other check.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "666e66f3e96edf4d68d164114e727b66", "text": "I have a very similar situation doing side IT projects. I set up an LLC for the business, created a separate bank account, and track things separately. I then pay myself from the LLC bank account based on my hours for the consulting job. (I keep a percentage in the LLC account to pay for expenses.) I used to do my taxes myself, but when I created this arrangement, I started having an accountant do them. An LLC will not affect your tax status, but it will protect you from liability and make things more accountable come tax time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d209a5d245c3051134b821bb1c03f58c", "text": "1 Primary acct. Receive and distribute money to all other accts. For security do not permit debit cards to touch or payment pull from this account. All joint bills paid here. Attach a savings acct and credit card to this account for accruing taxes vacation money blah blah. This will facilitate managing instead of storing your funds. 2 Push distributions to one or two other individual accounts on whatever basis works. Cash groceries incidentals. Debit cards here.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
6be267da380e2c224e58df128c4bd8e2	Earnings Calendar Fiscal Quarter Ending	[ { "docid": "3f591963899eb4a32562e19cb18bcc65", "text": "\"Why do stock markets allow these differences in reporting? The IRS allows businesses to use fiscal calendars that differ from the calendar year. There are a number of reasons a company would choose do this, from preferring to avoid an accounting rush at end of year during holiday season, to aligning with seasonality for their profits (some like to have Q4 as the strongest quarter). Smaller businesses may prefer to keep the extra stress of year end closeout to a traditionally slower time for the business, and some just start their fiscal calendar when the company starts up. You'll notice the report dates are a couple weeks after fiscal quarter end, you would read it as \"\"three months ended...,\"\" so for Agilent, three months ended October 31, 2017, so August, September, October are their Q4 months.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "5d7fd2ab75b51e221d3095eeb756341c", "text": "So for quarters So, if Q1's value was 10 and Q2's value was 25 For closing or opening prices, I would use closing prices. For instance, some used Adjusted Close or Close on Yahoo Finance (see this example of AAPL). Added Note: In your example, for your example, you'll want to take the absolute value of the denominator (aka: divisor), so an Excel formula might look like the below example ... ... where the new and old are cells.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de3465af8fb591518d665a2084219520", "text": "One's paycheck typically has a YTD (year to date) number that will end on the latest check of the year. I am paid bi-weekly, and my first 2012 check was for work 12/25 - 1/7. So, for my own balance sheet, brokerage statements and stock valuations end 12/31, but my pay ended 12/24. And then a new sheet starts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35124c3aee792df13fe3a69a181155f4", "text": "\"Here is where I am confused. On the income statement I am looking at it has a line item in cogs that is \"\"change in jobs in progress\"\". Change in JIP = (Starting raw materials, wip, and finished goods) - (Ending raw materials, wip, and finished goods) for the accounting period. From what I researched cost of goods manufactured is added to cogs: \"\"The formula for the cost of goods manufactured is the costs of: direct materials used + direct labor used + manufacturing overhead assigned = the manufacturing costs incurred in the current accounting period + beginning work-in-process inventory - ending work-in-process inventory. A manufacturer's cost of goods sold is computed by adding the finished goods inventory at the beginning of the period to the cost of goods manufactured and then subtracting the finished goods inventory at the end of the period.\"\" So it isnt wip that is in the income statement it is change in inventory. Why do they include the \"\"change of inventory\"\" in cogs? Wont this just be material and labor that should be in for the next accounting period cog calculation?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f48d2497330bc421990b575863046a8", "text": "In accrual accounting, you account for items on the income statement when the service has been delivered - in this case, the service that your employees are providing your company. Because of this, you incur the expense in the fiscal year that your employees work for you. So, you incur the expense, and net income decreases by (1-t)wage expense. Net income decreases, so owners' equity decreases; to balance you credit wages payable. Once the wages are paid, you decrease the liabilities side (wages payable) and offset it with a Cash change on the assets side.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04468a78b190230604ded783ba3cbc6c", "text": "There are too many nuances to the question asked to explore fully but here are a few points to keep in mind. If you are a cash-basis taxpayer (most individuals are), then you are not required to pay taxes on the money that has been billed but not received as yet. If you operate on an accrual basis, then the income accrues to you the day you perform the service and not on the day you bill the client. You can make four equal payments of estimated tax on the due dates, and if these (together with any income tax withholding from wage-paying jobs) are at least 90% of your tax liability for that year, then you owe no penalties for underpayment of tax regardless of how your income varied over the year. If your income does vary considerably over the year (even for people who only have wages but who invest in mutual funds, the income can vary quite a bit since mutual funds typically declare dividends and capital gains in December), then you can pay different amounts in each quarterly installment of estimated tax. This is called the annualization method (a part of Form 2210 that is best avoided unless you really need to use it). Your annualized income for the payment due on June 15 is 2.4 = 12/5 times your taxable income through May 31. Thus, on Form 2210, you are allowed to assume that your average monthly taxable income through May 31 will continue for the rest of the year. You then compute the tax due on that annualized income and you are supposed to have paid at least 45% of that amount by June 15. Similarly for September 15 for which you look at income through August 31, you use a multiplier of 1.5 = 12/8 and need to pay 67.5% of the tax on the annualized income, and so on. If you miscalculate these numbers and pay too little tax in any installment, then you owe penalties for that quarter. Most people find that guesstimating the tax due for the entire year and paying it in equal installments is simpler than keeping track of nuances of the annualized method. Even simpler is to pay 100% of last year's tax in four equal installments (110% for high earners) and then no penalty is due at all. If your business is really taking off and your income is going to be substantially higher in one year, then this 100%/110% of last year's tax deal could allow you to postpone a significant chunk of your tax bill till April 15.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b27a63bdb0730b88a8c021fafa174de", "text": "Both US GAAP and IFRS are accrual basis frameworks. 99.9% of businesses report under those frameworks (or their local gaaps, but still accrual based). Usually it's public sector entities which are cash-basis in my experience. Anyway, accrual basis has more to do with revenue recognition, not taxation, so that's not really relevant here. The value date of an invoice (ie in which moment it becomes taxable) depends on tax legislation (which sets the rules to determine the so called date of taxable event), not so much on accounting principles. In many cases taxable rules are intertwined with cash collection/payment, however, to prevent creative accounting for tax evasion purposes. For example, provisions for various uncertain future events might be required by accounting rules, but the corresponding expenses are generally not deductible for tax purposes (so you won't be able to deduct them until the event actually occurs and you pay).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b53d8cfbac1038571e8e1e2069446af", "text": "There are several questions to answer before help can be given. How much revenue did you have this year? What is expected revenue growth for next few years? Are you operating as a sole proprietor, partnership or corporation? If a corporation did you maintain your books on the cash basis or accrual? I recommend you seek a CPA not a bookkeeper. And, don't wait until end of year to fund one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f73770a2da33ab40245475e5bc5ee82", "text": "\"You may want, or at least be thinking of, the annualized method described in Pub 505 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p505/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000194669 (also downloadable in PDF) and referred to in Why are estimated taxes due \"\"early\"\" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? . This doesn't prorate your payments as such; instead you use your income and deductions etc for each of the 3,2,3,4-month \"\"quarters\"\" to compute a prorated tax for the partial year, and pay the excess over the amount already paid. If your income etc amounts are (nearly) the same each month, then this computation will result in payments that are 3,2,3,4/12ths of 90% of your whole-year tax, but not if your amounts vary over the year. If you do use this method (and benefit from it) you MUST file form 2210 schedule AI with your return next filing season to demonstrate that your quarterly computations, and payments, met the requirements. You need to keep good per-period (or per-month) records of all tax-relevant amounts, and don't even try to do this form by hand, it'll drive you nuts; use software or a professional preparer (who also uses software), but I'd expect someone in your situation probably needs to do one of those anyway. But partnership puts a wrinkle on this. As a partner, your taxable income and expense is not necessarily the cash you receive or pay; it is your allocated share of the partnership's income and expenses, whether or not they are distributed to you. A partnership to operate a business (like lawyers, as opposed to an investment partnership) probably distributes the allocated amounts, at least approximately, rather than holding them in the partnership; I expect this is your year-end draw (technically a draw can be any allowed amount, not necessarily the allocated amount). In other words, your husband does earn this money during the year, he just receives it at the end. If the year-end distribution (or allocation if different) is significant (say more than 5% of your total income) and the partnership is not tracking and reporting these amounts (promptly!) for the IRS quarters -- and I suspect that's what they were telling you \"\"affects other partners\"\" -- you won't have the data to correctly compute your \"\"quarterly\"\" taxes, and may thus subject yourself to penalty for not timely paying enough. If the amount is reasonably predictable you can probably get away with using a conservative (high-side) guess to compute your payments, and then divide the actual full-year amounts on your K-1 over 12 months for 2210-AI; this won't be exactly correct, but unless the partnership business is highly seasonal or volatile it will be close enough the IRS won't waste its time on you. PS- the \"\"quarters\"\" are much closer to 13,9,13,17 weeks. But it's months that matter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f5d0b22cf78bf5aa71207de175bdba3", "text": "Companies typically release their earnings before the market opens, and then later host an analyst/investor conference call to discuss the results. Here's a link to an interesting article abstract on the subject: Disclosure Rules For Earnings Releases And Calls \| Bowne Digest. Excerpt: In the aftermath of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the SEC changed regulations to bring quarterly earnings announcements in line with the generally heightened sensitivity to adequate disclosure. New regulations required that issuers file or furnish their earnings press releases on Form 8-K and conduct any related oral presentations promptly thereafter, to avoid a second 8-K. [...] Sample from a news release by The Coca Cola Company: ATLANTA, September 30, 2009 - The Coca-Cola Company will release third quarter and year-to-date 2009 financial results on Tuesday, October 20, before the stock market opens. The Company will host an investor conference call at 9:30 a.m. ( EDT ), on October 20. [...] Sample from a news release by Apple, Inc.: CUPERTINO, California—January 21, 2009—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended December 27, 2008. The Company posted record revenue of [...] Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at [...]", "title": "" }, { "docid": "738c48a8d03569e6abeebbf24f617c67", "text": " 2007 Accountant communicate with bosses about the ethical problem and possible illegal practices * Next years, Accountant work in complicated work environment ending with superiors retaliated against him for speaking out * 2012 Accountant hand over to IRS, and OSHA, a 137 pages of document proving how Cat swift billions in profit to Switzerland to avoid U.S. taxes * 2012 Accountant quits company * 2013 IRS concluded on abusive tax and demanded $ 2 billion * 2014 a U.S. Senate investigative committee, grilled executives and concluded the company had avoided taxes on more than $8 billion in revenue. * February 2017, “I love Caterpillar,” President Orange Donald Clown says. * March , 2017, the IRS, Department of Commerce, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. raid Caterpillar headquarters, warehouses and datacenter. * IRS standards payment is 15% to 30% of what it collects.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca8376b3a0efedcb0554d82b6e895514", "text": "Every class my Finance Prof writes a number on the board, I have no idea what it is other than it is related to the field of Finance. But I have it on good authority that it will be a bonus question on the final exam to find out what it is. Date \| # Written ---\|--- Oct. 12 \| 13 Oct. 17 \| 15 Oct. 19\| 15 Oct. 24 \| 15 Oct. 26 \| 15 Nov. 2 \| 11 If anyone knows please help a brother out. Dates are North American.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebd7b8b4d4c3a2ee667131466eae36f4", "text": "I second @DumbCoder, every company seems to have its own way of displaying the next dividend date and the actual dividend. I keep track of this information and try my best to make it available for free through my little iphone web app here http://divies.nazabe.com", "title": "" }, { "docid": "481b8423ba7e31615b1775bafe7d3029", "text": "I looked at this a little more closely but the answer Victor provided is essentially correct. The key to look at in the google finance graph is the red labled SMA(###d) would indicate the period units are d=days. If you change the time axis of the graph it will shift to SMA(###m) for period in minutes or SMA(###w) for period in weeks. Hope this clears things up!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57fb897c059fe117bf76781c5306adb8", "text": "\"Thanks for the response. I am using WRDS database and we are currently filtering through various variables like operating income, free cash flow etc. Main issue right now is that the database seems to only go up to 2015...is there a similar database that has 2016 info? filtering out the \"\"recent equity issuance or M&A activity exceeding 10% of total assets\"\" is another story, namely, how can I identify M&A activity? I suppose we can filter it with algorithm stating if company's equity suddenly jumps 10% or more, it get's flagged\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ac32be0cbf98c69d5b81fc6ed9aab89", "text": "Any accounting software should be able to handle this. When you invoice them, set the invoice date to the date of the event. Then receive a partial payment against that invoice. This will cause your accounting software to display the service income in the correct period as well. So if you sent them invoice for August 7, 2014 event on May 5th, 2014 and they gave you $500 due, you would see this Income in August ($500 on Cash basis, $1000 on Accrual basis. When you received the other $500 in August, you would see $1000 for both methods). You would not see any income in May, when you created the invoice. This is better for revenue matching with the correct period. When you send them same invoice (say 30 days before the event), Set the software to show payments already received (it seems that most online accounting software will do this by default). Here is an example in Freshbooks. Here is an example in Xero: Seems they both display information on when you can expect payment on the their respective dashboards. In the Desktop version of Quickbooks (which I use a lot), it will not show the balance of the customer by default on an invoice. You will have to modify the invoice template. There are more details on that here. In Desktop version of Quickbooks, you can look at Cash Flow Forecast report to see the expected amount coming in. I hope that helps and good luck.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
4c952866bbe4f43374cfaa1dd67df316	US Tax Form 1040EZ: Do I enter ALL income or ONLY income specified in W-2 forms?	[ { "docid": "734867313a623f2f57edf5c18acbae18", "text": "Yes, you need to include income from your freelance work on your tax return. In the eyes of the IRS, this is self-employment income from your sole-proprietorship business. The reason you don't see it mentioned in the 1040EZ instructions is that you can't use the 1040EZ form if you have self-employment income. You'll need to use the full 1040 form. Your business income and expenses will be reported on a Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ, and the result will end up on Line 12 of the 1040. Take a look at the requirements at the top of the C-EZ form; you probably meet them and can use it instead of the more complicated C form. If you have any deductible business expenses related to your freelance business, this would be done on Schedule C or C-EZ. If your freelance income was more than $400, you'll also need to pay self-employment tax. To do this, you file Schedule SE, and the tax from that schedule lands on form 1040 Line 57.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "054d1fd715f86a9e2710a4654ea243ee", "text": "Your phrasing of the question isn't very clear, but I believe you're asking: Does our total household income classify us as tax exempt? Or, can we avoid filing taxes if we make $22,500 or less per year? The answer is no. Your tax liability will be very low, and if you have dependents or other deductible expenses (mortgage interest, 401K contributions, etc.), you're likely looking at a close to $0 liability. You still have to file your taxes, and you can't claim exempt on your W-4. Even if you did qualify to be tax exempt, you still have to file taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c395dbb89260fe3992e496bf812cbc00", "text": "Why was I sent both 1042-S and 1099. Which amount is the right amount that has been withheld. Generally, each tax form you get will be about a separate income; for instance, you might get a 1099-DIV for dividends you earned from an investment and then a 1099-B for the profit or loss on selling that investment, in which case you'd report them both to the IRS. In this case, you've also had money withheld as a non-resident alien, which is why you've been issued a 1042-S. So you need to report both amounts to the IRS.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4021470e9744035b9be7907ab4e587a", "text": "The IRS no longer requires that employers submit all W4 forms, but they can request a W4 for an employee at any time, and putting false information on your W4 is still a punishable offense. I agree that having a return is like giving the Treasury Department an interest-free loan for the year, but unfortunately paying the appropriate amount of withholding tax is required. There is some ambiguous information regarding an employer adjusting the amount of withholding, but it seems to mean that they can withhold more than the estimated rate, but never less than what is calculated using the deductions on your W4. See the link for more details: IRS Tax Withholding", "title": "" }, { "docid": "711dbe2c6832a30372b7cc32b7c8b3ca", "text": "Unfortunately, if your taxes are too complicated for the 1040EZ form, then your tax situation is effectively unique and you need to try both options and see for yourself which one is better. If you do your taxes yourself, you may be more likely to do a more thorough job in digging everything up. You might even find that you can deduct some things that you hadn't thought of before. On the other hand, whenever I've gone to a tax professional, it's always been pretty much an all-or-nothing proposal. You sit down with them and hand them your records, they ask a couple simple questions, and they either give you your completed tax return on-the-spot or they have you come back in a week for a brief review of the final numbers. If they don't prepare your return on-the-spot, you can usually send additional items later on if you think of something that you forgot the first time around, but for the most part it's still a one-time shot. That said, I'm beginning to think the difference in monetary cost of completing even a mildly complex tax return is going to be insignificant, and the main factors to consider are the value of your own time and how much of the tax code you want to learn (because, in my experience, the software always refers to additional IRS forms or codes that are not automated in the software). In theory, your tax return should be the same regardless of whether you have a tax professional do your taxes or, if you do them yourself, which software you use. Given the same inputs, you should get about the same outputs. Even though that theory doesn't always hold exactly true, all the options should get you in the same ballpark--close enough that it doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things, unless your tax return is done incorrectly (e.g., you choose the wrong filing status or forget to take a major deduction). Suppose you're married and you or your spouse is a partner in an LLC. Maybe a tax professional wants to charge you $500 for your tax return (this will vary based on your circumstances). You could alternatively buy the tax software for $40-$300 and spend 20+ hours navigating through the interviews and reviewing tax codes for the decisions and worksheets that are not automated in the software. Depending on how much time you personally have to spend on the tax return, one option might be better than the other. Maybe you have to pay your in-house accounting person to use the tax software, or you have to pay an employee to cover for you while you use the software. Keep in mind that the tax professional and the tax software are probably deductible, whereas your time may not be. In the end, even if you save money up front, it might be a wash on the following year's tax return, especially after you consider the uncompensated time that you could have spent with your family, on your business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f5439eccba9927dbad2c3edb01e31dd", "text": "Such activity is normally referred to as bartering income. From the IRS site - You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 and Amended Returns for information on filing an amended return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75546585b13b415f40ba7b912437fc1a", "text": "\"Depending on the nature of the expenses, you will enter them under Deductions, on lines 9 through 20. Did you rent an office? Add the rental expense to line 13. Fee for a business license? Line 14. Everything else that doesn't fall into any specific category goes on line 20 (You'll need to attach a small statement that breaks out the expense categories, e.g. office supplies, phone, legal fees, etc.) Expenses that are entered in the Income section are costs directly related to sales, such as merchant fees that you pay to a bank if you take payments by credit card. Since you said the partnership has \"\"zero money coming in,\"\" I assume that it currently has no revenues, so all the fields in the Income section would be zero.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e468951d2762615d46c8acc2c2e2ffd8", "text": "Someone messed up here. My tax accountant says she is supposed to enter the values as they are on the W2 and CompanyB said they will not issue a new W2 because they were not involved in the refund of the money. Correct. We decided that we will enter a value different from 12b-d, subtract the money that was refunded to me because it's already on the 1099. Incorrect. Is there an alternative to avoid paying taxes twice on the 401k overages? If not, is there a better way to do this to minimize the risk of an audit? You should enter the amounts in W2 as they are. Otherwise things won't tie at the IRS and they will come back asking questions. The amount in box 12-D was deducted from your wages pre-tax, so you didn't pay tax on it. The distribution is taxable, and if it was made before the tax day next year - only taxable once. So if you withdrew the same year of the contribution, as it sounds like you did, you will only pay tax on it once because the amounts were not included in your salary. If the 1099-R is marked with the correct code, the IRS will be able to match the excess contribution (box 12-D) and the removal of the excess contribution (1099-R with the code) and it will all tie, no-one will audit you. The accountant is probably clueless as to how her software works. By default, the accounting software will add the excess contribution on W2 box 12-D back into wages, and it will be added to taxable income on your tax return. However, when you type in the 1099 with the proper code, this should be reversed by the software, and if it is not - should be manually overridden. This should be done at the adjustment entry, not the W2 entry screen, since a copy of the W2 will be transmitted with your tax return and should match the actual W2 transmitted by your employer. If she doesn't know what she's doing, find someone who does.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69544397471ef5cae6bd7a87612b501f", "text": "The company match is not earnings. My company deposits 5% of my income into my 401(k) and it appears nowhere except on the paperwork for the 401(k). To be clear, it doesn't appear on any paystub or W2.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acc343e3f8b327a4ea13ba9a21c8bb90", "text": "Since you worked as an RA, the university should send you a W2 form. The taxable wages line in that form would be the sum of both the direct salary and employer paid benefits that are taxable. As such you should not need to do anything than enter the numbers that they provide you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "046c3a367b30527c5d320c397e8de7c7", "text": "If you are in the US and a regular employee, this will have to show up on your year-end W2 form as income. If it doesn't, there is some funky accounting business going and you should probably consult a professional for advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e69ee98964f1df5d5bb017631a4b4bad", "text": "Here are the lists for the tax forms that Deluxe and Premier include. I think you'll be fine with Deluxe because it sounds like all you need is the Schedule D/8949 forms. Deluxe actually includes most investment related forms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a886ceef7a2b1df5dea7661dbe307641", "text": "If your dad would have won money on the slot machines(And the amount was high), the casino would have given him a W2G to fill out right there and taxes would have been deducted. However, table games including Poker does not have any such rule. You will have to account for your winnings(And losses) at the end of the year. So, it is ok if you sign that paper, as you do not owe the IRS any money yet. You will still need to file your taxes as a non resident alien at the end of the year and attach the form W2G with it and pay your dues.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "001777fad85611bd1aebbaf3796d70df", "text": "To clarify that legality of this (for those that question it), this is directly from IRS Publication 926 (2014) (for household employees): If you prefer to pay your employee's social security and Medicare taxes from your own funds, do not withhold them from your employee's wages. The social security and Medicare taxes you pay to cover your employee's share must be included in the employee's wages for income tax purposes. However, they are not counted as social security and Medicare wages or as federal unemployment (FUTA) wages. I am sorry this does not answer your question entirely, but it does verify that you can do this. UPDATE: I have finally found a direct answer to your question! I found it here: http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040sh/ar01.html Form W-2 and Form W-3 If you file one or more Forms W-2, you must also file Form W-3. You must report both cash and noncash wages in box 1, as well as tips and other compensation. The completed Forms W-2 and W-3 in the example (in these instructions) show how the entries are made. For detailed information on preparing these forms, see the General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3. Employee's portion of taxes paid by employer. If you paid all of your employee's share of social security and Medicare taxes, without deducting the amounts from the employee's pay, the employee's wages are increased by the amount of that tax for income tax withholding purposes. Follow steps 1 through 3 below. (See the example in these instructions.) Enter the amounts you paid on your employee's behalf in boxes 4 and 6 (do not include your share of these taxes). Add the amounts in boxes 3, 4, and 6. (However, if box 5 is greater than box 3, then add the amounts in boxes 4, 5, and 6.) Enter the total in box 1.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8518ab561569554ce809f6be732522a", "text": "\"I haven't dealt with this kind of thing in any way, but I found some quotes from IRS publications which I think are relevant and hopefully help. Your scenario sounds to me like a Qualified Tuition Reduction as described in Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education. It appears the rules are different for graduate study as opposed to pre-graduate work, though I don't see anything about any dollar amount limit. There are various requirements and exceptions, so hopefully reading through that section of the publication can help you understand whether the benefit is supposed to be taxable. If taxable, it should show up on your W-2 like any other income: Any tuition reduction that is taxable should be included as wages on your Form W-2, box 1. Report the amount from Form W-2, box 1, on line 7 (Form 1040 or Form 1040A) or line 1 (Form 1040EZ). It doesn't appear that there is any special designation or box for the tuition reduction as opposed to \"\"normal\"\" work, it just is income that's been earned like any other. If you need guidance on how much of the income is for \"\"normal\"\" work and how much is for the tuition reduction, you probably need to see if you can figure it out from her pay stubs, or contact the university's HR department. Well, looking through the credits I see in Publication 970, there appear to be two possible credits: The \"\"American opportunity credit\"\" section, under \"\"No double benefit allowed\"\", says things like (my emphasis added): You can't do any of the following. ⋮ My understanding from reading through the section is that expenses are only excluded if they were tax-free, so that there can't be a double-dipping of benefits. If they're included as taxable income, I think they would count under your second interpretation, that the employer paid them like any other income, and your wife spent them as educational expenses just like other students, and they would qualify for educational credits. In fact, it explicitly states: Don't reduce qualified education expenses by amounts paid with funds the student receives as: Which sure sounds to me that anything that counts as W-2 Box 1 \"\"Wages\"\" would be payments received that then the expenses were logically paid separately from. The other credit, the \"\"Lifetime Learning Credit\"\", appears to use identical language (No double benefits; and don't reduce by wages). Obviously this is just from my looking through Publication 970; there may be more nuances here and for \"\"real\"\" advice you may want to speak more to the university HR department (who perhaps have dealt with this before) and/or a real tax advisor. You might also see if you can get any sort of a \"\"receipt\"\" or even a Form 1098-T from the university of what amount was paid on your wife's behalf, to help document it is truly that she was just paid more wages and spent them on classes as far as tax law is concerned.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df72925f51029c060510200978db244d", "text": "Yes. This income would be reported on schedule SE. Normally, you will not owe any tax if the amount is less than $400. Practically, $100 in a garage sale is not why the IRS created the form SE. I wouldn't lose sleep over keeping track of small cash sales over the course of a year. However, if you have the information I'm not going to tell you not to report it.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
985a0f2eb1aadf9a73111d6569f49609	Australian stocks - any dividend tax or capital gains tax?	[ { "docid": "6c19f52eb2f363a003051b64b6b2d36e", "text": "\"For non Australian residents: Dividends withholding tax rate is 30%. Depending upon your country of residence where there is a tax treaty in place to avoid double taxation, then this can be reduced. Note that only dividends that are unfranked are subject to this (in Australia, if tax has already been paid by the company then they can distribute dividends as \"\"franked\"\" dividends\"\"). For example, if you owned shares in Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), their most recent dividend from Feb 2015 (Paid 2 April 2015) was $1.98 fully franked. No withholding tax is applicable. There is no capital gains tax for non-residents on share transactions. There are other \"\"tax events\"\" that related to large shareholdings in a company (>10%) with property holdings but I'm guessing that is not an issue. https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Tax-return/2014/In-detail/Publications/You-and-your-shares-2013-14/?page=14 https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/International-tax-for-business/Previous-years/Capital-gains-and-foreign-residents/ https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/International-tax-for-business/Previous-years/Capital-gains-and-foreign-residents/?page=13#Foreign_residents_holding_interests_in_Australian_fixed_trusts https://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/services/Tax/regional-tax-centers/asia-pacific-tax-centre/Documents/CountryProfiles/Australia.pdf\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "686c79bee148b44dfd8d5893636b200c", "text": "Does this make sense? I'm concerned that by buying shares with post tax income, I'll have ended up being taxed twice or have increased my taxable income. ... The company will then re-reimburse me for the difference in stock price between the vesting and the purchase share price. Sure. Assuming you received a 100-share RSU for shares worth $10, and your marginal tax rate is 30% (all made up numbers), either: or So you're in the same spot either way. You paid $300 to get $1,000 worth of stock. Taxes are the same as well. The full value of the RSU will count as income either way, and you'll either pay tax on the gains of the 100 shares in your RSU our you'll pay tax on gains on the 70 shares in your RSU and the 30 shares you bought. Since they're reimbursing you for any difference the cost basis will be the same (although you might get taxed on the reimbursement, but that should be a relatively small amount). This first year I wanted to keep all of the shares, due to tax reasons and because believe the share price will go up. I don't see how this would make a difference from a tax standpoint. You're going to pay tax on the RSU either way - either in shares or in cash. how does the value of the shares going up make a difference in tax? Additionally I'm concerned that by doing this I'm going to be hit by my bank for GBP->USD exchange fees, foreign money transfer charges, broker purchase fees etc. That might be true - if that's the case then you need to decide whether to keep fighting or decide if it's worth the transaction costs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81b9092a7fb8eabc369aa9bf0b4a9989", "text": "No Tax would have been deducted at the time of purchase/sale of shares. You would yourself be required to compute your tax liability and then pay taxes to the govt. In case the shares sold were held for less than 1 year - 15% tax on capital gains would be levied. In case the shares sold were held for more than 1 year - No Tax would be levied and the income earned would be tax free. PS: No Tax is levied at the time of purchase of shares and Tax is only applicable at the time of sale of shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "619d9bf8f60fc3b352242259405401bb", "text": "No. Black Scholes includes a number of variables to calculate the value of the derivative but taxation isn't one of them. Whether you are trading options or futures, the dividend itelf may be part of the equation, but not the tax on said dividend.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8bb9b540faa16f59254b2eeffb1f03b5", "text": "For the Roth the earnings: interest, dividends, capital gains distributions and capital gains are tax deferred. Which means that as long as the money stays inside of a Roth or is transferred/rolled over to another Roth there are no taxes due. In December many mutual funds distribute their gains. Let's say people invested in S&P500index fund receive a dividend of 1% of their account value. The investor in a non-retirement fund will be paying tax on that dividend in the Spring with their tax form. The Roth and IRA investors will not be paying tax on those dividends. The Roth investor never will, and the regular IRA investor will only pay taxes on it when they pull the money out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e05a30c4c2dd0cf27738493f5d1a2b47", "text": "This investment strategy may have tax advantages. In some countries, income received from dividends is taxed as income, whereas profits on share trades are capital gains. If you have already exceeded your tax-free income limit for the year, but not your capital gains tax allowance, it may be preferable to make a dealing profit rather than an investment income. These arrangements are called a bed-and-breakfast.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32b7ef01542919e2a594db157eaa3673", "text": "\"Do I have to pay the stock investment income tax if I bought some stocks in 2016, it made some profits but I didn't sell them at the end of 2016? You pay capital gains taxes only when you sell the stocks. When you sell the stock within a year you will pay the short term capital gains rate which is the same rate as your ordinary income. If the stock pays dividends, however, you will have to pay taxes in the year that the dividend was paid out to you. I bought some stocks in 2011, sold them in 2012 and made some gains. Which year of do I pay the tax for the gains I made? You would pay in 2012, likely at the short term gain rate. I bought some stocks, sold them and made some gains, then use the money plus the gains to buy some other stocks before the end of the same year. Do I have to pay the tax for the gains I made in that year? Yes. There is a specific exception called the \"\"Wash Sale Rule\"\", but that would only apply if you lost money on the original sale and bought a substantially similar or same stock within 30 days. Do I get taxed more for the money I made from buying and selling stocks, even if the gains is only in hundreds? More than what? You pay taxes based on the profit you make from the investment. If you held it less than a year it is the same tax rate as your regular income. If you held it longer you pay a lower tax rate which is usually lower than your regular tax rate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6d2ff48ecc96ad67e1df6ee79fd1f33", "text": "In Australia the ATO can determine if you are considered a shareholder or a share trader. The ATO defines a shareholder as: A shareholder is a person who holds shares for the purpose of earning income from dividends and similar receipts. Whilst they define a share trader as: A share trader is a person who carries out business activities for the purpose of earning income from buying and selling shares. To find out the differences between them you can refer to the following link describing The difference between a share trader and a shareholder. The ATO also describes: To be classed as a share trader, you may be asked to provide evidence that demonstrates you are carrying on a business of share trading, for example: the purchase of shares on a regular basis through a regular or routine method a trading plan use of share trading techniques in managing your share acquisitions, such as decisions based on thorough analysis of relevant market information a contingency plan in the event of a major shift in the market. Losses incurred in the business of share trading are treated the same as any other losses from business. If your activities change from investor to trader, your investment changes from a CGT (capital gains tax) asset to trading stock. This can trigger CGT event for any investments you currently hold as they change from CGT assets to trading stock. Once you have changed over to a trader you will not be entitled to the 50% CGT discount for stocks held over 12 months. You will, however, be able to count any paper losses at the end of Financial Year to reduce your other income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53da041e5b8c1a6f7148e4d5b1358ea5", "text": "It depends on your investment profile but basically, dividends increase your taxable income. Anyone making an income will effectively get 'lower returns' on their investments due to this effect. If you had the choice between identical shares that either give a dividend or don't, you'll find that stock that pays a dividend has a lower price, and increases in value more slowly than stock that doesn't. (all other things being equal) There's a whole bunch of economic theory behind this but in short, the current stock price is a measure of how much the company is worth combined with an estimation of how much it will be worth in the future (NPV of all future dividends is the basic model). When the company makes profit, it can keep those profits, and invest in new projects or distribute a portion of those profits to shareholders (aka dividends). Distributing the value to shareholders reduces the value of the company somewhat, but the shareholders get the money now. If the company doesn't give dividends, it has a higher value which will be reflected in a higher stock price. So basically, all other things being equal (which they rarely are, but I digress) the price and growth difference reflects the fact that dividends are paying out now. (In other words, if you wanted non-dividend shares you could get them by buying dividend shares and re-investing the dividend as new shares every time there was a payout, and you could get dividend-share like properties by selling a percentage of non-dividend shares periodically). Dividend income is taxable as part of your income right away, however taxes on capital gains only happen when you sell the asset in question, and also has a lower tax rate. If you buy and hold Berkshire Hatheway, you will not have to pay taxes on the gains you get until you decide to sell the shares, and even then the tax rate will be lower. If you are investing for retirement, this is great, since your income from other sources will be lower, so you can afford to be taxed then. In many jurisdictions, income from capital gains is subject to a different tax rate than the rest of your income, for example in the US for most people with money to invest it's either 15% or 20%, which will be lower than normal income tax would be (since most people with money to invest would be making enough to be in a higher bracket). Say, for example, your income now is within the 25% bracket. Any dividend you get will be taxed at that rate, so let's say that the dividend is about 2% and the growth of the stock is about 4%. So, your effective growth rate after taxation is 5.5% -- you lose 0.5% from the 25% tax on the dividend. If, instead, you had stock with the same growth but no dividend it would grow at a rate of 6%. If you never withdrew the money, after 20 years, $1 in the dividend stock would be worth ~$2.92 (1.055^20), whereas $1 in the non-dividend stock would be worth ~$3.21 (1.06^20). You're talking about a difference of 30 cents per dollar invested, which doesn't seem huge but multiply it by 100,000 and you've got yourself enough money to renovate your house purely out of money that would have gone to the government instead. The advantage here is if you are saving up for retirement, when you retire you won't have much income so the tax on the gains (even ignoring the capital gains effect above) will definitely be less then when you were working, however if you had a dividend stock you would have been paying taxes on the dividend, at a higher rate, throughout the lifetime of the investment. So, there you go, that's what Mohnish Pabrai is talking about. There are some caveats to this. If the amount you are investing isn't large, and you are in a lower tax bracket, and the stock pays out relatively low dividends you won't really feel the difference much, even though it's there. Also, dividend vs. no dividend is hardly the highest priority when deciding what company to invest in, and you'll practically never be able to find identical companies that differ only on dividend/no dividend, so if you find a great buy you may not have a choice in the matter. Also, there has been a trend in recent years to also make capital gains tax progressive, so people who have a higher income will also pay more in capital gains, which negates part of the benefit of non-dividend stocks (but doesn't change the growth rate effects before the sale). There are also some theoretical arguments that dividend-paying companies should have stronger shareholders (since the company has less capital, it has to 'play nice' to get money either from new shares or from banks, which leads to less risky behavior) but it's not so cut-and-dried in real life.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4275283d6083a46b9904a9ea71360cbc", "text": "Firstly a stock split is easy, for example each unit of stock is converted into 10 units. So if you owned 1% of the company before the stock split, you will still own 1% after the stock split, but have 10 times the number of shares. The company does not pay out any money when doing this and there is no effect on tax for the company or the share holder. Now onto stock dividend… When a company make a profit, the company gives some of the profit to the share holders as a dividend; this is normally paid in cash. An investor may then wish to buy more shares in the company using the money from the dividend. However buying shares used to have a large cost in broker charges etc. Therefore some companies allowed share holders to choose to have the dividend paid as shares. The company buys enough of their own shares to cover the payout, only having one set of broker charges and then sends the correct number of shares to each share holder that has opted for a stock dividend. (Along with any cash that was not enough to buy a complete share.) This made since when you had paper shares and admin costs where high for stock brokers. It does not make sense these days. A stock dividend is taxed as if you had been paid the dividend in cash and then brought the stock yourself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1e92a6e17ba78551b7fd1703fae444c", "text": "\"Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any \"\"Income tax\"\" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. However if you buy and sell; there would be a capital gain or loss. In stocks, if you hold a security for less than 1 year and sell it; it is classified as short term capital gain and taxes at special rate of 15%. The loss can be adjusted against any other short term gain. If held for more than year it is long term capital gain. For stock market, the tax is zero, you can't adjust long term losses in stock markets. Will the money received from selling shares fall under \"\"Taxable money for FY Income tax\"\"? Only the gain [or loss] will be tread as income not the complete sale value. To calculate gain, one need to arrive a purchase price which is price of stock + Brokerage + STT + all other taxes. Similar the sale price will be Sales of stock - Brokerage - STT - all other taxes. The difference is the gain. Will the \"\"Dividend/Bonus/Buy-back\"\" money fall under taxable category? Dividend is tax free to individual as the company has already paid dividend distribution tax. Bonus is tax free event as it does not create any additional value. Buy-Back is treated as sale of shares if you have participated. Will the share-holder pay \"\"Dividend Distribution Tax\"\"? Paid by the company. What is \"\"Capital Gains\"\"? Profit or loss of buying and selling a particular security.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4b9db2532d31e7ac04a8971d89360cf", "text": "\"If you sell a stock, with no distributions, then your gain is taxable under §1001. But not all realized gains will be recognized as taxable. And some gains which are arguably not realized, will be recognized as taxable. The stock is usually a capital asset for investors, who will generate capital gains under §1(h), but dealers, traders, and hedgers will get different treatment. If you are an investor, and you held the stock for a year or more, then you can get the beneficial capital gain rates (e.g. 20% instead of 39.6%). If the asset was held short-term, less than a year, then your tax will generally be calculated at the higher ordinary income rates. There is also the problem of the net investment tax under §1411. I am eliding many exceptions, qualifications, and permutations of these rules. If you receive a §316 dividend from a stock, then that is §61 income. Qualified dividends are ordinary income but will generally be taxed at capital gains rates under §1(h)(11). Distributions in redemption of your stock are usually treated as sales of stock. Non-dividend distributions (that are not redemptions) will reduce your basis in the stock to zero (no tax due) and past zero will be treated as gain from a sale. If you exchange stock in a tax-free reorganization (i.e. contribute your company stock in exchange for an acquirer's stock), you have what would normally be considered a realized gain on the exchange, but the differential will not be recognized, if done correctly. If you hold your shares and never sell them, but you engage in other dealings (short sales, options, collars, wash sales, etc.) that impact those shares, then you can sometimes be deemed to have recognized gain on shares that were never sold or exchanged. A more fundamental principle of income tax design is that not all realized gains will be recognized. IRC §1001(c) says that all realized gains are recognized, except as otherwise provided; that \"\"otherwise\"\" is substantial and far-ranging.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d5610e1b3aabcd6667baa0f09dbb5830", "text": "Income and Capital are taxed separately in the uk. You probably can't get dividends paid gross even in ISA's you pay the basic rate of tax on dividends only higher rate tax payers get tax benefit from dividends. What you could do is invest in splits (Spilt capital investment trusts ) in the share class where all the return comes as capital and use up some of your yearly CGT allowance that way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42b1ead55533cd98b74d01b75fe68089", "text": "\"Unfortunately, we don't know your country, but I'd guess \"\"Not US\"\" with the hint being your use of the word bugger in a comment. Realized profits are taxed by all tax authorities I'm aware of, i.e. the Tax Man in every country. Annually, so that you can let the profits run during the year, and offset by the losses during that year. The exception is within a qualified retirement account. Many countries offer accounts that will let you do just what you're suggesting, start with XXX number of Quatloos in your account, trade for decades, and only take the tax hit on withdrawal. In some cases there's an opportunity to fund the account post tax, and never pay tax again. But to repeat, this is with a retirement account, not the usual trading accounts.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee913e8ea8db7a5465c14f52c1d98bf1", "text": "The tax cost at election should be zero. The appreciation is all capital gain beyond your basis, which will be the value at election. IRC §83 applies to property received as compensation for services, where the property is still subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture. It will catch unvested equity given to employees. §83(a) stops taxation until the substantial risk of forfeiture abates (i.e. no tax until stock vests) since the item is revocable and not yet truly income. §83(b) allows the taxpayer to make a quick election (up to 30 days after transfer - firm deadline!) to waive the substantial risk of forfeiture (e.g. treat shares as vested today). The normal operation of §83 takes over after election and the taxable income is generally the value of the vested property minus the price paid for it. If you paid fair market value today, then the difference is zero and your income from the shares is zero. The shares are now yours for tax purposes, though not for legal purposes. That means they are most likely a capital asset in your hands, like other stocks you own or trade. The shares will not be treated as compensation income on vesting, and vesting is not a tax matter for elected shares. If you sell them, you get capital gain (with tax dependent on your holding period) over a basis equal to FMV at the election. The appreciation past election-FMV will be capital gain, rather than ordinary income. This is why the §83(b) election is so valuable. It does not matter at this point whether you bought the restricted shares at FMV or at discount (or received them free) - that only affects the taxes upon §83(b) election.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dffedd7f833b7d9447eef8335c059abb", "text": "\"Lots of good answers here about budgeting and other ideas. Here's a couple more: Think about offense and defense. Offense is how much money you make. Are you making enough to survive on? Is there a way you could bring in more income? Defense is what you do with your money. Do you have expensive habits? Do you have problems with impulse spending? Do you live in an expensive area with a high cost-of-living? Think about some of these areas and pick one to attack first. If it is the defense side that is causing you problems (you did mention trying to live on less), consider reading Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. There's a really good summary of it on the authors' site. The basic idea of the mechanical part of the book is that you figure out how much you're truly making per hour, and then evaluate your expenses based on how many hours of your \"\"life energy\"\" you are using for that expense. Then you evaluate whether you think that's a fair trade or not. There's a lot more to it than that, but it's an interesting way to get a different perspective on your spending habits, and may be enough to entice you to change those habits.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
2fc68b5c097d9f043a54ed2870f04e93	Are there contracts for fixed pay vs. fixed pay rates?	[ { "docid": "d5a2c50b5203029f48d9b4038438591b", "text": "Yes. I have personally signed such contracts (fixed budget software development) and lost money every single time. And yes, it is quite possible for you to get paid under minimum wage if you take too long. Scope creep is the primary culprit for these kinds of contracts, so make sure you put together iron-clad explanations of what is and is not covered by the contract (and pad the asking price for good measure).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a49fc3ec7da74e005fa6637578970f66", "text": "In general the other party will expect you to keep your promises. If you promise to do something for a fixed amount of money, you take on a risk and it is no longer their problem if you work slower than you planned. In principle it could even be the case that you take on a project and fail, after which the company may not have to pay at all. So regardless of how things should be written in your books (For example a theoretical pay above minimum wage but a loss for your private company): An important thing to note is that if you are worried about ending up below minimum wage, you are definitely asking a fee that is too low. You should keep in mind that your fee should include a fair compensation for the expected work, and a fair compensation for the risk that you have taken on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6944f9c0b50e5048b10f8ec9bfc045df", "text": "Software Contractors are not employees of the company that is procuring the software. Software Contractors necessarily work for another legal business entity. There is a business to business relationship between the procurer of the software and the entity producing the software. Therefore, the company procuring the software is not required to pay a minimum wage, or adhere to any other employment law. When any individual or company orders a software product and agrees to pay for it, that is a fixed priced contract. This happens millions of times a day. The amount of time taken to produce the software has no direct bearing on price. For instance, there is no minimum price for Microsoft Word based on the number of hours taken to produce it. Generally a Software Contractor will be a director and shareholder of a limited liability corporation. Directors are exempt from the standard protection offered under employment law. If the company producing the software was employing non-directors to produce the software, rather than sub-contracting to another business then employment law would apply.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "f5fac20924da0c47c46d22b313e9d0b3", "text": "\"It's not \"\"the market\"\" deciding anything if you're forcing a business to pay someone an arbitrary amount that you declare to be a \"\"living wage\"\". Why do you believe that you get to interfere in a mutual agreement between two people? One guy goes to another and says \"\"hey wanna do this job for me for X dollars\"\" and the other guy says \"\"ok cool sounds good\"\" and here you are jumping in and saying \"\"nope, can't allow that, I have to stop you\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74e554f4464d6e1d32033f8c6c94c8ce", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-labour-analysis/japan-inc-turns-contract-workers-into-permanent-staff-as-labor-market-tightens-idUSKCN1BC3PJ) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) *** > Last year, the average monthly pay for regular workers was 321,700 yen while for contract workers it was 211,800 yen, so a change in status can mean a big jump in pay plus benefits workers weren&#039;t previously receiving. > LABOR LAW REVISIONS. The trend is expected to accelerate toward April 2018 when a revised labor contract law starts forcing companies to provide permanent status for temporary workers who have served more than five years, if the workers request it. > The share of non-regular workers has almost doubled as companies saddled with excess capacity, debt and excess workers have replaced regular employees with cheaper contract workers. * [Extended Summary*](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6xgsde/japans_labor_market_is_getting_so_tight_that/) \| [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~202637 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: work^#1 employee^#2 year^#3 job^#4 contract^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b35780cda789898ec37a6d9718bbd5f", "text": "I can only speak to natural gas but I imagine the answer for electricity is the same. In general, yes, it is better to lock into a fixed price contract as in the long run, natural gas prices increase over time. However, if you locked (signed a fixed price contract) in prior to the economic downturn, most likely you were better off not doing so but the key is long-term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_prices However, do your research as fixed priced contracts vary considerably from company to company. http://www.energyshop.com/ I think it's a good time to sign a fixed-term contract right now as I don't see prices coming down much further with global economies are now recovering from the downturn. HTH", "title": "" }, { "docid": "09341e6010c64a265197ec01f49e1ee6", "text": "As no one has mentioned them I will... The US Treasury issues at least two forms of bonds that tend to always pay some interest even when prevailing rates are zero or negative. The two that I know of are TIPS and I series bonds. Below are links to the descriptions of these bonds: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.htm", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67198b44a9ad25a8f823da4edc053c3f", "text": "\"From some background reading I'm doing, it sounds like the union has people by the proverbial balls anyway. Even in an \"\"agency shop\"\", where union membership is optional, non members must pay for the collective bargaining done by the union, and \"\"union shop\"\" just means that the employer can hire anybody, but they must join the union in order to be employed. All of those seem to indicate that every worker in the represented class must accept the terms of the collective bargaining. [reference](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Workers_of_America_v._Beck#Background) Part of the reason that I'm curious is that, once I've decided that I'm done being an engineer, I think it might be fun to teach, but every time I hear about union negotiations, it makes me think that operating in that system would be lame. Going from a world where merit is the primary differentiator to a world where years in the system count for more would kinda suck.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b746fa726e1723cb28bd6ebb60a627b5", "text": "\"My answer has nothing to do with tax brackets or mathematics (I'm taking advantage of the leeway your question allowed), but rather it has to do with career goals and promotion. Large companies often have large \"\"Policies & Procedures\"\" booklets to go with them. One policy that sometimes exists which would make it a bad idea to accept a raise is: Employee cannot be given more than one salary increase in a 12-month period This means that if you accept a standard-of-living or merit increase of say, 2% or 3% in April, and then you apply for a job that would otherwise warrant a pay grade increase, you may be forced to wait until the following year to get bumped to the proper pay grade. Of course, this totally depends on the company, but it would be advisable to check your company's H.R. policy on that, if you're considering a move (even a lateral one) in the future.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e50a9213f93bfadf3a5f331bed00199", "text": "a 60k pay raise is totally possible (depending on too many factors to list (ok, fine I'm generalizing)) coming from TX to San Jose. the difference in raw pay numbers makes it emotionally hard to make rational comparisons. I once baked at a job on the east coast early I'm my career before I understood how to compare reasonably. anecdotal evidence shows it's possible because a machinist friend is moving here from Austin because he can make much more money. of course that's just an example.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f803ab9782a2449162023ce51e03255", "text": "Note too that being a contractor means that you will unavoidably have periods between contracts; you tend to be out of work more often than a salaried employee would. You need to set your rates so your average income, including those down times, adds up to a living wage including all those benefits that aren't being covered. If a company hires a contractor, they understand that this is part of the trade-off. They avoid making a long-term commitment when they don't have a long-term need, and they accept that this convenience may cost a bit more in the short term.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f0b77539fde6780785caa9c608426fb", "text": "The benefits and taxes thing, in my opinion is the biggie. Most people don't realize that the cost to the company for a full-time employee with benefits can be 2x or even 3x the amount they see in their paycheck. Health plans are extremely expensive. Even if you are having money taken from your check for health insurance, it is often just a fraction of the total cost, and the employer is subsidizing the rest. More expensive benefits that contractors don't typically get are 401K matches and paid vacation days. When contractors call in sick or don't work because it is a national holiday, they don't get paid for that day. Also, see that line on your paycheck deducting for Social security and Medicare? That is only half of the tax. The employer pays an equal amount that is not shown on that statement. Also, they pay taxes that go towards unemployment benefits , and may be required to pay higher taxes if they churn through a lot of full-time employees. You can usually let contractors go with relative impunity . For the unemployment tax reasons, not paying for people's days off or benefits, a lot less paperwork, and less risk to the business associated with committing to full-time employees all provide value to the company. Thus companies are willing to pay more because they are getting more. Think of it like a cell phone-contract. If you commit to a three year contract it can be a pain/expensive to get out of the deal early, but you will probably get a better rate in exchange for the risk being shifted to your end of the deal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a4130786450c04ffd206a2b40e28ac2", "text": "If you are a temp-to-hire, or you are asked to setup a company then you are not an employee. They expect you to fund everything from your hourly rate. This includes pay, insurance, taxes, social security, sick, vacation, holidays... The rule of thumb for an established company is 1.75 to 2.25 times the salary rate is the rate they need to charge a customer. For example: employee get paid checks for $25/hour x 80 hours x 26 times a year.: 2080 hours or $52,000 per year. Company can only bill customers for 1800 to 1900 hours of labor. They need to bill at 2 times the salary rate or $50 per hour. They will collect $90,000 (1800*50). The numbers have to be run by the particular company based on their actual costs for benefits, overhead and profits. If they were giving you $25 an hour as a contractor. They expect you to be making $12.50 an hour as an employee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4544ee466a8913a296cb6bb79266d0a", "text": "None of those things sounded like concessions. I suspect, if you negotiated health care in terms of percentage of the cost instead of in raw dollars deducted, it'd actually come out that the company was taking a hit since the last contract. (I have no numbers to back this up, it's just that health care costs have been skyrocketing the last few years.) Seniority rights kinda suck because they're just determined by time on the job and not merit. I'll take someone with 5 years in who's been getting better the whole time over someone with 20 who's been doing the negotiated minimum since the beginning. I'd like to be able to give the new people incentive to kick ass at their job. The thing I don't like about unions is that they take the individual out of the game. Solidarity leads to one-size-fits all thinking, which is also the kind of thinking that gets companies thinking that everybody is replaceable. Really, everybody'd be better off if good people were hard to replace and average people could get by, but not excel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1efec9c5402e5dac2668c94341a54eff", "text": "The partnership agrees to pay each of you salaries and/or bonuses, typically based on the net profit brought in. You do have a legal document setting out the rules for this partnership, right? If so, the exact answer should be in there. If you don't or it isn't, you need a lawyer yesterday.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3cf0a5724d02dbb1d92fe3db51804e3d", "text": "\"When he wrote this I think there may have been greater interchangeability between workers, workers were perfectly competitive if you will. I find that there is huge wage growth, in certain industries and with certain skills. This only impacts a limited number of people, with the majority of workers in fields that are not heavily valued. Another avenue would be to look at the \"\"real\"\" wage. If wages are going up only 1-2%, but inflation was at negative 3-4%, then those workers wages were increasing at 4-6%. I am not sure the gig economy is to blame. The gig economy would suggest that we are nowhere near full employment. How can people have time to have these gigs if they were gainfully employed already? Another scenario is that we are not near full employment at all, that you have a large number of people who are reluctantly part time, supplementing their income with other jobs to make ends meet. And I am sure that were Milton Friedman alive today, he would change his assumption to match reality. I wonder what wisdom he would have for us today.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53c9196acc52be86c9887d8674257cee", "text": "This is really just a matter of planning. It's good that you don't want the train to go off the rails but really you just need to budget your fixed expenses. I do this by having two checking accounts. One account gets a direct deposit to cover all of my fixed expenses, the other is my regular checking account. Take your rent and other fixed expenses, if you have any, and total them. Take that total and divide by four. That's how much of each check you should be socking away in to the separate account. Additionally, with a 30% pay increase you can probably start a savings account. You should start to establish an emergency fund so this really never becomes a problem. Take 10% of your pay and put it in savings, this will still leave you with a healthy pay increase to enjoy but you'll keep some of your money for yourself too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d34c21a2d3c48e716c0f7c03fbe1e8d", "text": "\"There are several ways you can get out of paying your student loans back in the USA: You become disabled and the loan is dismissed once verified by treating doctor or the Social Security Administration. You become a peace officer. You become a teacher; generally K-12, but I have heard from the DOE that teachers at state schools qualify as well. So the \"\"malicious\"\" friend B is prescribing to the theory that if one of those conditions becomes true, friend A will not have to pay back the loan. The longer you drag it out, the more chance you have to fulfill a condition. Given that 2 of these methods require a commitment, my guess is that they are thinking more along the lines of the first one, which is horrible. Financially, it makes no sense to delay paying back your loans because deferred loans are only interest-free until you graduate and are past your grace period, after which they will begin accruing interest. Unsubsidized loans accrue interest from the day you get them, only their payback is deferred until you graduate and exhaust your grace period. Anytime you ask for forbearance, you are still accruing interest and it is capitalizing into your principal — you are just given a chance to delay payback due to financial hardship, bad health, or loss of job. Therefore, at no point are you benefiting beyond the time you are in school and getting an education, still looking for a job, or dealing with health issues. In the current market, no CD, no savings account, and no investment will give you substantially more return that will offset the loss of the interest you are accruing. Even those of us in the old days getting 4.X % rates would not do this. There was a conditional consolidation offer the DOE allowed which could bring all your loans under one roof for a competitive 5.x-6.x % rate allowing you a single payment, but even then you would benefit if you had rates that were substantially higher. From a credit worthiness aspect, you are hurt by the outstanding obligation and any default along the way, so you really want to avoid that — paying off or down your loans are a good way to ensure you don't shoot yourself in the foot.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
2e11755efafa25e1db79f7626c933497	Can we cash a check under business name?	[ { "docid": "6de8dbdd7d1c1b74f23efaba007ed493", "text": "All banks in the US that I have ever worked with will allow you to deposit checks if: In your case, you have 3 options:", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "cb123ade4ccc7cfac85eccb067143e41", "text": "Assuming it's your business, endorse the check as yourself and your DBA name, payable to your personal account", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06d8ab67711673601cf3eaaf45b9519a", "text": "\"You can try writing on the back of the check, in the signature area, \"\"For deposit only to account xxxxxxxxx\"\", leaving room for the signature. This may or may not be legally binding, but it states your intnt and is in a form the bank will recognize.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51fb633f62e19dd495c87a1636237e4e", "text": "\"To put a positive spin on the whole thing, maybe it's a small family shop, and having the check made out to \"\"cash\"\" means that your barber can hand it to someone else without the need to countersign. Or maybe his last name is \"\"Cash\"\" - there was a pretty famous singer who fit that description. Either way, it's not your place to nanny his finances.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dfd0d06afe8c24b08155be3de6a58234", "text": "\"In my experience (in the US), the main draw of check-cashing businesses (like \"\"CheckN2Cash\"\" is that they will hold your check for a certain period of time. This is also known as a \"\"payday loan\"\". Rather than bringing them a check someone else has written you, you write them a check yourself, postdated, and they pay you the amount on the check less their fees, and agree not to cash the check until a future date. So if you don't have the money right now but you need it before your next payday, you visit a check-cashing business and get the money, and it'll be withdrawn from your account after your next paycheck.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58788bb7194efa79a0ed8dbb1f19f438", "text": "When a business asks me to make out a cheque to a person rather than the business name, I take that as a red flag. Frankly it usually means that the person doesn't want the money going through their business account for some reason - probably tax evasion. I'm not saying you are doing that, but it is a frequent issue. If the company makes the cheque out to a person they may run the risk of being party to fraud. Worse still they only have your word for it that you actually own the company, and aren't ripping off your employer by pocketing their payment. Even worse, when the company is audited and finds that cheque, the person who wrote it will have to justify and document why they made it out to you or risk being charged with embezzlement. It's very much in their interests to make the cheque out to the company they did business with. Given that, you should really have an account in the name of your business. It's going to make your life much simpler in the long run.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1aac6eba5fa292c4d798a14ff58e8758", "text": "\"When I deposit my paycheck in CapOne I have an email before I am out of the app that they received my check. I have access to some portion of the cash now and the rest the next business day, however they put things in order to NOT overdraft me. For instance, if I am overdrawn $150 but the charge is \"\"pending\"\", putting the check in they will deposit the check before posting the charge that would overdraft me. Plus I can use Apple Pay with it. My local CUs have app deposit, but it takes DAYS for a deposit to just show up. Plus, no Apple Pay.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4dad6e68f4ec1086833307bceee5dfa", "text": "Yes, you can cash the check now, but with the caution that if your amended return causes you to owe much more, you should immediately file and include payment with your amended return to avoid interest and penalties.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ca99142dfe7c283d0288ea002580182", "text": "\"Do not use a shared bank account. One of you can cash/deposit the check in your personal account and then either pay the others in the group cash or write them a check. You open yourself up to many, many problems sharing a bank account and/or money. Treat it like a business as far as income goes, but I would not recommend any type of formal business, LLC, partnership, sole proprietorship, etc. For federal taxes, you just keep track of how much \"\"you\"\" personally are paid and report that at the end of the year as income, most likely on a 1040EZ 1040SE, along with any other income you have.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75923e7b98826c603a28f39e0c475517", "text": "There are legitimate reasons: I wouldn't jump the gun and assume that this person is avoiding taxes, etc. Barbers are usually licensed professions. Since it's generally a cash business, they tend to get audited more often by the tax authorities. That said, I wouldn't pay her with a check -- you have no idea who is actually cashing the check, and you could run into issues with unknown third parties misusing your account information.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccd9c4730192f7cd2f124af4769cec68", "text": "Many small businesses are still cash and check. For example my landlord does not take credit card or online transfer. My choices are cash and check, and I prefer checks for the paper trail.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce0a9f7ecf842854a8dec19929fdc32a", "text": "\"It is your name, or the fictitious name under which you operate. For example, if your freelance front end is called \"\"Zolani the 13th, LLC\"\", then that's the name you want to appear on the check, and not \"\"Mr. John Zolani Doe\"\" that is written in your birth certificate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d50dd86803a7a3a824b18f39e530d378", "text": "You can pay with a cashiers check or personal check. You can even pay cash, or combine payment methods. However, in the USA if you give the dealership $10,000 or more in actual cash, they will be required to fill out a form 8300 with the IRS.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f414572f1273861b9e4d36c3ad3e02a", "text": "As I replied to someone else who said that: I'm often having to send stuff with the check. Paperwork, a bill etc. While that would work to a person who knows me, it's usually not going to work with a business or government who needs to know why I'm sending this check.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "851d7afd9275dd990fccef28368d64ff", "text": "\"The issues are larger than taxes. If one of you receives the check, then breaks off 25% of it for themselves and sends three checks out to each of you that will be indicated on that person's taxes. You three will then all recognize your portion of the income on your taxes and it's all settled. It's no big deal, it's a bit rag-tag but it'll get the job done. I've done little ad-hoc partnership work with people this way and it's not a problem. This is why you should really be more formal. What if this entity contracting you guys sues you? Who has the liability, if only one of you was paid? What if the money is sent to one of you and that person dies before paying you? What if you all get another client? What if this contracting entity has another project? The partnership needs to have the liability. The partnership needs to receive the money. The partnership needs to be named on whatever contract you all sign. The partnership can be a straight partnership, or maybe the four of you take a 25% stake in an LLC or Inc arrangement. Minimally, you should sit down with your partners so everyone knows everyone else's responsibilities, and you should write it all down. It probably sounds like overkill, and I'm sure your partners are you buddies and \"\"we're tight and nothing bad could come between us.\"\" I've done some partnership work with more than one friend, we've always been fine. Some ventures are successful, some aren't; I'm still very good friends with all of them. Writing things down manages expectations and when money starts moving around, everyone is happier when everyone has a solid expectation of who gets what.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec5412057d995fa26c9d1cff9cdb278d", "text": "\"The best reason for endorsing a check is in case it is lost. If the back is blank, a crooked finder could simply write \"\"pay to the order of \"\" on it and deposit it in his own account. You do not need a signature for the endorsement. The safest way to endorse a check is to write \"\"FOR DEPOSIT ONLY\"\" followed by an account number, in which case the signature is not needed. most businesses make up rubber stamps with this and stamp it the minute they receive a check. That way it has no value to anyone else. Depositing checks is increasingly going the way of the dodo. Many businesses today use check truncation - the business scans the check in, sends the digital image to the bank, and stores the check. I was surprised that Chase already has an applet for iPhones that you can use to deposit a check by taking a picture of it!\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
4677af8847450916dac0d3933f4f46cd	How should I report earning from Apple App Store (from iTunes Connect) in Washington state?	[ { "docid": "3e29685e4fc19ff48e0634c8621dfe68", "text": "If you're waiting for Apple to send you a 1099 for the 2008 tax season, well, you shouldn't be. App Store payments are not reported to the IRS and you will not be receiving a 1099 in the mail from anyone. App Store payments are treated as sales commissions rather than royalties, according to the iTunes Royalty department of Apple. You are responsible for reporting your earnings and filing your own payments for any sums you have earned from App Store. – https://arstechnica.com/apple/2009/01/app-store-lessons-taxes-and-app-store-earnings The closest thing to sales commissions in WA state seems to be Service and Other Activities described at http://dor.wa.gov/content/FileAndPayTaxes/BeforeIFile/Def_TxClassBandO.aspx#0004. When you dig a little deeper into the tax code, WAC 458-20-224 (Service and other business activities) includes: (4) Persons engaged in any business activity, other than or in addition to those for which a specific rate is provided in chapter 82.04 RCW, are taxable under the service and other business activities classification upon gross income from such business. - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=458-20-224 I am not a lawyer or accountant, so caveat emptor.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "6bd9d272d2c1f443beb8f7f2851e50c7", "text": "\"(Selling apps is AFAIK business, not freelancing - unless the type of app you produce is considered a freelancing subject. The tax office will give you a questionnaire and then decide). As Einzelunternehmer, you can receive the payments for the apps to the same account where your wages go. However, there are lots of online accounts that do not cost fees, so consider to receive them on a separate account so you have the business and private kind of separate (for small Einzelunternehmer, there is no legal separation between business and private money - you have full liability with your private money for the business). The local chamber of commerce can tell you everything about setting up such a business, ask them (you'll probably have to become a member there anyways). They have information as well on VAT (Umsatzsteuer, USt) which you need to declare unless you get an exemption (probably possible), and about Gewerbesteuer (the income tax of the business) etc. For the tax, you have \"\"subforms\"\" for the income tax e.g. for wages and for business income, so you just submit both with the main form. You'll get an appropriate tax number when registering the business. Social security/insurance: as long as the app selling is only a side business, the social insurance payments for your main job completely cover the side job as well. You need to make sure that your employment contract is compatible with the app business, though. A quick search indicates that there is a tax treaty between Germany and the Ukraine, Wikipedia says there are no contracts about social insurance in effect (yet).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c41fac766a5f69eeb5e8152d9c4ca30", "text": "iTunes U has a wealth of content from highly respected universities including Yale, Harvard, Wharton, MIT, etc. If I were fifteen and looking to build some business acumen and savvy, that is where I would start. In particular, I find Harvard business review idea casts to be thought provoking and very timely. In addition, they generally focus on disruptive business models. Good luck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b76302ffffe9f7cb6178113837b4c9e", "text": "\"Yeah, I'll take the challenge...:) How trustworthy these are and what are their sources of income? These are in fact two separate questions, but the answers are related. How trustworthy? As trustworthy as they're clear about their own sources of income. If you cannot find any clue as to why, what for and how they're paying you - you probably should walk away. What's too good to be true usually is indeed too good to be true. For those of the sites that I know of their sources of income, it is usually advertisements and surveys. To get paid, you have to watch advertisements and/or answer surveys. I know of some sites who are legit, and pay people (not money, but gift cards, airline miles, etc) for participating in surveys. My own HMO (Kaiser in California) in fact pays (small amounts) to members who participate in enough surveys, so its legit. Are these sites worthwhile to consider for extra income? Not something you could live off, but definitely can get you enough gift cards for your weekly trip to Starbucks. What do I need to consider tax wise? Usually the amounts are very low, and are not paid in cash. While it is income, I doubt the IRS will chase you if you don't report the $20 Amazon gift card you got from there. It should, strictly speaking, be reported (probably as hobby income) on your tax return. Most people don't bother dealing with such small amounts though. In some cases (like the HMO I mentioned), its basically a rebate of the money paid (you pay your copays, deductibles etc. Since the surveys are only for members, you basically get your money back, not additional income). This is in fact similar to credit card rebates. Is there a best practice for handling the income? If we're talking about significant amounts (more than $20-30 a year), then you need to keep track of the income and related expenses, and report it as any other business income on your taxes, Schedule C. Is there a good test to determine what is and isn't a scam? As I said - if it looks too good to be true - it most likely is. If you're required to provide your personal/financial information without any explanation as to why, what it will be used for, and why and what for you're going to be paid - I'd walk away. Otherwise, you can also check Internet reviews, BBB ratings, FTC information and the relevant state agencies and consumer watchdogs (for example: http://www.scamadviser.com) whether they've heard of that particular site, and what is the information they have on it. A very good sign for a scam is contact information. Do they have a phone number to call to? Is it in your own country? If its not in your own country - definitely go away (for example the original link that was in the question pointed to a service whose phone number is in the UK, but listed address is in Los Angeles, CA. A clear sign of a scam). If they do have a phone number - try it, talk to them, call several times and see how many different people you're going to talk to. If its always the same person - run and hide. Do they have an address? If not - walk away. If they do - look it up. Is it a PMB/POB? A \"\"virtual\"\" office? Or do they have a proper office set up, which you can see on the map and in the listings as their office? And of course your guts. If your guts tell you its a scam - it very likely is.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6a8e9b812dee0861eded0b48d1a0846", "text": "\"Your employer appears to be stealing from you. I know, Canada -- but I'm assuming you have the distinct pleasure of getting paid in local currency. I know it's easier said than done, but if you can code decently in something like Ruby, just look online for local hackathons and Startup Weekend events. Every single on I have attended, one or more professional speakers ends their presentation with \"\"and we're hiring developers\"\". Even if that doesn't happen, you'll get some great opportunities for networking and you will have a rudimentary public project to share with potential leads. Plus they are fun.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07d96288f612a95c2bbec1db71f046b7", "text": "The store keeps track of what you buy. It is all part of their big data. The knowledge of what you buy helps them project future sales. It allows them to target their marketing. But maybe even more importantly they can sell this knowledge to outside companies. They aren't going to give away that information to another company that would love to have that data, just so they could sell it. Stores use those loyalty cards to be able to link your household to those purchases. Those discounts, or free products, are what they use to entice you to give up your privacy. The fact that in your town young adults love caramel apples, even more than the town next door, makes them confident that your town will love caramel apple scented shampoo. Thus they send you coupons when it become available. They will also sell this knowledge to the shampoo companies. Do some stores make it possible for you to download the data? Yes they do. Apple stores send all receipts via email. Kohls allows me to see detail information about my transactions on line. There must be others. I don't know if any are grocery stores.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1154baf84454ded433044779cbbcfec8", "text": "You're charging service fees as a conduit entity for these tickets. While the service fee is not a fixed rate, but a percentage, you would need to record each purchase at dollar amount. To illustrate, it would look like: Now, to your question: How do I report this on my taxes? You would first start out by filing your Schedule C from the eyes of the business (the money you earn at your job, and the money you earn as a business are different). Just keep a general journal with the above entry for each sale and close them down to a simple balance sheet and income statement and you should be fine. Of course, read the instructions for your Schedule C before you begin. As always, good luck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71cc81f950ab08f4457fb8f094df23fa", "text": "\"Donate buttons are meaningless with regards to taxes. This is payment for something you provided, and you cannot claim that you've received a gift. Any money you receive in this way is payment for your software. Remember, for gifts - no consideration should have been provided to the donor. Anything for which a consideration was provided - cannot be a gift. In your case the consideration is the software, and it's value is the amount you were paid. Since every person can decide how much to pay you on his own - any payment is for the software, not a gift. Any money you get is taxable to you, and you cannot claim it as \"\"gifts\"\" without exposing yourself to risks of making fraudulent claims. Consult a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for a qualified tax advice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bae6e8d76b98b2ba96a5520be36c2c8f", "text": "I believe moving reimbursement has to be counted as income no matter when you get it. I'd just put it under miscellaneous income with an explanation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccbc20034b475506fd64d7f07b3989cf", "text": "There are a few methods you can use to estimate your taxes. On the results screen, the app will show you your estimated tax burden, your estimated withholding for the year, and your estimated overpayment/refund or shortfall/tax due. It may also have recommendations for you on how to adjust your W-4 (although, this late in the year, I think it only tells you to come back next year to reevaluate). Your state might also have income tax, and if you are curious about that, you can find the state tax form and estimate your state income tax as well. My guess is that you will be getting a refund this year, as you have only worked half of the year. But that is only a guess.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a931863acc83ad4edff1752ec43df94f", "text": "www.earnings.com is helpful thinkorswim's thinkDesktop platform has a lot of earnings information tied with flags on their charts they are free.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0d17415eded90e62972b593b0bcd960", "text": "\"Your employer should send you a statement with this information. If they didn't, you should still be able to find it through E*Trade. Navigate to: Trading & Portfolios>Portfolios. Select the stock plan account. Under \"\"Restricted Stock\"\", you should see a list of your grants. If you click on the grant in question, you should see a breakdown of how many shares were vested and released by date. It will also tell you the cost basis per share and the amount of taxes withheld. You calculate your cost basis by multiplying the number of released shares by the cost basis per share. You can ignore the ordinary income tax and taxes withheld since they will already have been included on your W2 earnings and withholdings. Really all you need to do is report the capital gain or loss from the cost basis (which if you sold right away will be rather small).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2ecbf066a9813b931081dcaab948ad7", "text": "\"Source?? Let me see all your evidence. What apps are you downloading and giving info too without permission? They have to request data and you have to click on \"\"allow\"\"-- its baked into the API. Please show me your sources that show Apple knowingly allows apps to have and distribute my personal information without asking for permission. These apps have access to all the encrypted data on my phone without my knowledge?? Please show me sources.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dde42cb2eb328499f4a02f6e692de0e", "text": "You report each position separately. You do this on form 8949. 7 positions is nothing, it will take you 5 minutes. There's a tip on form 8949 that says this, though: For Part I (short term transactions): Note. You may aggregate all short-term transactions reported on Form(s) 1099-B showing basis was reported to the IRS and for which no adjustments or codes are required. Enter the total directly on Schedule D, line 1a; you are not required to report these transactions on Form 8949 (see instructions). For Part II (long term transactions): Note. You may aggregate all long-term transactions reported on Form(s) 1099-B showing basis was reported to the IRS and for which no adjustments or codes are required. Enter the total directly on Schedule D, line 8a; you are not required to report these transactions on Form 8949 (see instructions). If the 1099B in your case shows basis for each transaction as reported to the IRS - you're in luck, and don't have to type them all in separately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3231c7537fb00691c38e465d9885fe0c", "text": "Um really, you expect US to know the answer? Why not ask Wells Fargo? Unless someone here happens to work for WF and has access to the right people, this is more likely a question to send to their support people than to get an answer here that is anything other than a SWAG (and in that line of reasoning, and as a software tester by trade, my money is on the already offered reasoning that it's doing some kind of primative 'bad word' search (probably a regular expression match) and getting a hit on tit. ) In the meantime I suggest an alternative term, how about 'offering'", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe924b06b4f744985a5c1a50c6871e3b", "text": "\"In your words, you want to \"\"easily determine whether an item was purchased as part of our individual accounts, or our combined family account.\"\" It's not clear exactly to me what kind of reporting you're trying to get. (I find a useful approach here to be to start with the output you're trying to get from a system, and then see how that maps to the input you want to give the system.) Here's some possibilities:\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
e4a6f99a4fb5374199547bdcff4099c8	What constitutes illegal insider trading?	[ { "docid": "43e559617382b38b2b11b0f4082a6a56", "text": "\"It becomes illegal when it is both material and nonpublic information. Material being defined as: Information that you would want and significantly alters the perception of the stock. To your point -- \"\"materiality\"\" is really up to the courts Nonpublic This is a little easier to define, but need to be careful if the information is disclosed selectively -- ie to just a small number of investment analysts -- this may still be nonpublic There is also an exception to this -- Mosaic Theory - This is the research you are referring to where the analyst calls up suppliers, etc and obtains information that is nonmaterial (wouldn't move the price of the security) but using experience and combined with public information creates something that is meaningful and could move the price of the security. This is perfectly legal. Material examples:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0683565621aff565ab849e4edfad786a", "text": "\"You have to read some appeals court cases see scholar.google.com , as well as SEC enforcement actions on sec.gov to get an understanding of how the SEC operates. http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/insidertrading/cases.shtml There are court created guidelines for how insider trading would be proven There is no clear line, but it is the \"\"emergency asset injunctions\"\" (freezing your assets if you nailed a suspiciously lucrative trade) you really want to avoid, and this is often times enforced/reported by the brokers themselves since the SEC does not have the resources to monitor every account's trading activities. There are some thin lines, such as having your lawyer file a lawsuit, and as soon as it is filed it is technically public so you short the recipient's stock. Or having someone in a court room updating you on case developments as soon as possible so you can make trades (although this may just be actually public, depending on the court). But the rules create the opportunities Also consider that the United States is the most strict country in this regard, there are tons of capital markets and the ideals or views of \"\"illegal insider trading\"\" compared to \"\"having reached a level of society where you are privileged to obtain this information\"\" vary across the board contains charts of countries where an existing insider trading prohibition is actually enforced: http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=articles https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~charvey/Teaching/BA453_2005/BD_The_world.pdf Finally, consider some markets that don't include equities, as trading on an information advantage is only applicable to things the SEC regulates, and there are plenty of things that agency doesn't regulate. So trying to reverse engineer the SEC may not be the most optimal use of energy\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "f03383a88a8140d54337e9b3816d3390", "text": "\"The Indian regulator (SEBI) has banned trading in 300 shell companies that it views as being \"\"Shady\"\", including VB Industries. According to Money Control (.com): all these shady companies have started to rally and there was a complaint to SEBI that investors are getting SMSs from various brokerage firms to invest in them This suggests evidence of \"\"pump and dump\"\" style stock promotion. On the plus side, the SEBI will permit trading in these securities once a month : Trading in these securities shall be permitted once a month (First Monday of the month). Further, any upward price movement in these securities shall not be permitted beyond the last traded price and additional surveillance deposit of 200 percent of trade value shall be collected form the Buyers which shall be retained with Exchanges for a period of five months. This will give you an opportunity to exit your position, however, finding a buyer may be a problem and because of the severe restrictions placed on trading, any bid prices in the market are going to be a fraction of the last trade price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b990865408156bb2715fe8bcd64b1ad3", "text": "A practical issue is that insider trading transfers wealth from most investors to the few insiders. If this were permitted, non-insiders would rarely make any money, and they'd stop investing. That would then defeat the purpose of the capital markets which is to attract capital. A moral issue is that managers and operators of a company should act in shareholders' interests. Insider trading directly takes money from other shareholders and transfers it to the insider. It's a nasty conflict of interest (and would allow any CEO of a public company to make ton of money quickly, regardless of their job performance). In short, shareholders and management should succeed or suffer together, so their interests are as aligned as possible and managers have the proper incentives.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cf93f14c4c9dbe35734cc4af063d42a", "text": "As others have said, it simply makes you a part owner. Even if you have ethical objections to a company's behavior, I'd argue that investing in it and using the proxy votes to influence the company's decisions might be even more ethical than not investing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ee090dbbfbf380955b2fa0d0ec45947", "text": "sweet, a Nazi analogy. And here I thought I'd never see one of those on the internet! A better example would be to arrest gun manufacturers because they created guns that were used in murders. Chances are this program was created for legitimate reasons. There's nothing illegal about using software to buy stock. There is, however, rules against doing things like this to influence the market. You're equating some software developers whose software was used illegally to a group of people who committed genocide. Think about that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60a47bddacca3f0846c65b31dee5118f", "text": "\"There are quite a few regulations on \"\"Insider Trading\"\". Blackouts are one of the means companies adopt to comply with \"\"Insider Trading\"\" regulations, mandating employees to refrain from selling/buying during the notified period. Once you leave the employment: So unless there is an urgent need for you to sell/buy the options, wait for some time and then indulge in trade.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52e8790f3d77d44502c61766e237945b", "text": "(yes, this should probably be a comment, not an answer ... but it's a bit long). I don't know what the laws are specifically about this, but my grandfather used to be on the board of a company that he helped to found ... and back in the 1980s, there was a period when the stock price suddenly quadrupled One of the officers in the company, knowing that the stock was over-valued, sold around a third of his shares ... and he got investigated for insider trading. I don't recall if he was ever charged with anything, but there were some false rumors spreading about the company at the time (one was that they had something that you could sprinkle on meat to reduce the cholesterol). I don't know where the rumors came from, but I've always assumed it was some sort of pump-and-dump stock manipulation, as this was decades before they were on the S&P 500 small cap. After that, the company had a policy where officers had to announce they were selling stock, and that it wouldn't execute for some time (1? 2 weeks? something like that). I don't know if that was the SEC's doing, or something that the company came up with on their own.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb1860fb6afb16093dbe499d9c96ac6d", "text": "pump and dump is a common Illegal practice of boiler room operations. It refers to the talking a stock up, both through word of mouth as well as selling shares to unwitting buyers. I fail to see much difference between that practice and this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "72f8406a31741459ff9869a0c5d52123", "text": "\"Does your job give you access to \"\"confidential information\"\", such that you can only buy or sell shares in the company during certain windows? Employees with access to company financial data, resource planning databases, or customer databases are often only allowed to trade in company securities (or derivatives thereof) during certain \"\"windows\"\" a few days after the company releases its quarterly earnings reports. Even those windows can be cancelled if a major event is about to be announced. These windows are designed to prevent the appearance of insider trading, which is a serious crime in the United States. Is there a minimum time that you would need to hold the stock, before you are allowed to sell it? Do you have confidence that the stock would retain most of its value, long enough that your profits are long-term capital gains instead of short-term capital gains? What happens to your stock if you lose your job, retire, or go to another company? Does your company's stock price seem to be inflated by any of these factors: If any of these nine warning flags are the case, I would think carefully before investing. If I had a basic emergency fund set aside and none of the nine warning flags are present, or if I had a solid emergency fund and the company seemed likely to continue to justify its stock price for several years, I would seriously consider taking full advantage of the stock purchase plan. I would not invest more money than I could afford to lose. At first, I would cash out my profits quickly (either as quickly as allowed, or as quickly as lets me minimize my capital gains taxes). I would reinvest in more shares, until I could afford to buy as many shares as the company would allow me to buy at the discount. In the long-run, I would avoid having more than one-third of my net worth in any single investment. (E.g., company stock, home equity, bonds in general, et cetera.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4ee33eae5c655fc944c90559949cff5", "text": "Arguably the money made or lost on the particular stock in question wouldn't have happened without the story. The AIs are just taking advantage of market conditions caused by the story. The person who planted the story bought the stock prior to the story being dropped and sold before the stock dropped back down, which is illegal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6dfe1333439370985d38d5a8a2ca24a3", "text": "\"The reason that stock buybacks are not considered insider trading is because the offers are open to all on equal terms to everyone outside the company. Even if the company knows \"\"inside\"\" information, it's not supposed to tell it (and company executives are not allowed to tender shares, unless they had previously set up a \"\"blind\"\" selling program on a\"\"schedule.\"\") If that's actually the case, no one investor is better informed than another, and hence there is no insider trading. The issue of inside trading is that \"\"insiders\"\" ARE better informed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da058ebde0a2b5ea058c7391f620ca07", "text": "\"Secret formulas are legal, \"\"privileged information\"\" is not. And that may be the whole point. People are allowed to trade stocks profitably if doing so results only from their skill. A \"\"secret formula\"\" (for evaluating information) is part of that skill. But having \"\"privileged information\"\" is not considered skill. It is considered an unfair, illegal advantage. Because company officials (and others) with privileged information are 1) not permitted to trade stocks while that information is privileged and 2) are not allowed to share that information with others. Inevitably, some do one or the other, which is why they are prosecuted. \"\"Raj\"\" took the process to new highs (or lows). He not only \"\"dealt\"\" in privileged information, he PAID for it. Anything from a new car or house to $500,000 a year in cash. In essence, he had a bunch of strategically placed \"\"spies\"\" inside or close to corporations including one on the board of Goldman Sachs, \"\"selling out\"\" their companies, and thereby practicing a form of corporate \"\"treason.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97bc32553a9af221bb08bc2e513dbf7c", "text": "I am a flight attendant on a private jet and I hear a bank CEO discussing a merger or a buyout. I proceed to purchase that stock before the announcement. The CEO did not tell me to buy it, I just overheard him. If you are a flight attendant on a private jet that is operated by one of the principals, probably including a bank, attorney, consultant, broker, etc., in the merger or buyout, then you probably have a fiduciary duty to safeguard the information and are prohibited from trading. Please see: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T052-C008-S001-would-you-be-guilty-of-insider-trading.html You’re a janitor at a major company. You hear members of the company’s board convening outside the room you’re cleaning and decide to hide in the closet. The board okays a deal to sell the company for a fat premium to the current share price. You load up on the shares. Illegal insider trading? Definitely. This is not a public place, and “you’d be in a position to understand that confidential information was being disclosed, which changes the calculus,” says Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities lawyer. Also see: http://meyersandheim.com/how-to-win-an-insider-trading-case/ However, between these two extremes of a bystander with no duty to the corporation and a corporate officer with a clear duty to the corporation stood a whole group of people such as printers, lawyers and others who were involved in non-public transactions that did not necessarily have a duty to the company whose securities they traded. To address this group of people the courts developed the misappropriation theory. The misappropriation theory covers people who posses inside information and who are prohibited from trading on such information because they owe a duty to a third party and not the corporation whose securities are traded. Yours is the perfect example. You owe a duty to your employer to operate in its best interests. As for the broader, more common example, where you overhear information in an elevator, restaurant, in line at the coffee shop, etc., trading on such information was found not to be insider trading in SEC v. Switzer: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/590/756/2247092/ In this case, Mr. Switzer overheard information at a track meet and traded on it with profits. The court found: The information was inadvertently overheard by Switzer at the track meet. Rule 10b-5 does not bar trading on the basis of information inadvertently revealed by an insider. On the basis of the above findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court orders judgment in favor of defendants.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49116813bdaca2a97e43c13f41359d5c", "text": "The CEO of a public company can, and often does, buy (and sell) the stock of his company. In fact, frequently the stock of the company is part of the compensation for the CEO. What makes this legal and fair is that the CEO files with the SEC an announcement before he buys (or sells) the stock. These announcements allow us 'in the dark' people enough warning ahead of time. See, for example, the trades of UTX stock by their public officers. As for trading on information about other companies, if I am not mistaken... that is why Martha Stewart wound up in prison. So, yeah, it does happen. I hope it is caught more often than not. On a related note, have you seen the movie 'Wall Street' with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9be77ec1a7a6711cd9e39215f344a6e9", "text": "\"There are situations where you can be forced to cover a position, particular when \"\"Reg SHO\"\" (\"\"regulation sho\"\") is activated. Reg SHO is intended to make naked short sellers cover their position, it is to prevent abusive failure to delivers, where someone goes short without borrowing someone else's shares. Naked shorting isn't a violation of federal securities laws but it becomes an accounting problem when multiple people have claims to the same underlying assets. (I've seen companies that had 120% of their shares sold short, too funny, FWIW the market was correct as the company was worth nothing.) You can be naked short without knowing it. So there can be times when you will be forced to cover. Other people being forced to cover can result in a short squeeze. A risk. The other downside is that you have to pay interest on your borrowings. You also have to pay the dividends to the owner of the shares, if applicable. In shorter time frames these are negligible, but in longer time frames, such as closer to a year or longer, these really add up. Let alone the costs of the market going in the opposite direction, and the commissions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "739b7375d58d91d8094464eb6a7b3760", "text": "\"So is knowledge of unannounced products simply not considered material nonpublic information? Well \"\"material\"\" is relative but it certainly is nonpublic information. And trading based on that information would likely be considered illegal if it is actually material. Many companies require that employees with material non-public info get stock trades approved by their legal department. This protects not only the employee but the employer from SEC scrutiny. If the legal department determines that the employee has non-public info that is the genesis of the stock trade, they might deny the request. In many cases these employees receive stock through ESPP, ISO and/or RSUs and often sell while in possession of information about unannounced products. Just receiving stock as part of as part of a compensation program would not be illegal, provided it was part of a normal compensation package and not deliberately awarded in advance of these types of events. Selling or outright buying stock (including RSUs) with that kind of information would certainly be scrutinized. An employee is granted RSUs, they vest 7 months before announcement of a new product. The employee knows the exact specifications of the product. If they sell the vested stock before the announcement would this constitute insider trading or not? Why? The law is not meant to prevent people from investing in their own company just because they know future plans. So knowledge of an announcement 7 months out may not be considered material. If, however, you sold stock the day (or a week) before some announcement that caused the stock to fall, then that would probably be scrutinized. Or, if you traded shortly before an announcement of a new, revolutionary product that was set to be released in seven months, and the stock rose, then you might be scrutinized. So there is a lot of gray area, but remember that the spirit of the law is to prevent people from benefiting unfairly with non-public information. It would be hard to prove that gaining on a stock trade 7 months before a product announcement would be considered \"\"unfair gain\"\". A lot can happen in that time.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
e1687c56cea40eded03263610efbe42e	If the housing market is recovering, why would a REIT index ETF (e.g. VNQ) not be performing well?	[ { "docid": "efce77f31deaafbffcf362e30aea9e0d", "text": "\"VNQ only holds ~16% residential REITs. The rest are industrial, office, retail (e.g. shopping malls), specialized (hotels perhaps?) etc. Thus, VNQ isn't as correlated towards housing as you might have assumed just based on it being about \"\"real estate.\"\" Second of all, if by \"\"housing\"\" you mean that actual houses have gone up appreciably, then you ought to realize that residential REITs seldom hold actual houses. The residential units held tend primarily to be rental apartments. There is a relationship in prices, but not direct.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d18af34075798769df46f3517dde7d05", "text": "To round out something that @Chris W. Rea pointed out, the business that a REIT is in will be either A) Equity REIT... property management, B) mortgage REIT... lending, or C) hybrid REIT (both). A very key point about why REITs broadly have been struggling lately, (and this would show up in the REIT indices/ETFs you've linked to,) is linked to the REIT business models. For an Equity REIT, they borrow money at the going rate (let's say ~4.5% for commercial-scale loans), and use that to take out mortgages on physical properties. If a property rents for $15K per month, and they can take out a $1.8 million loan at $9,000 per month, then their business is around managing maintenance, operating expenses, and taxes on that $6,000 per month margin. For a mortgage REIT, they borrow funds as a highly qualified borrower, (again let's say ~4.5%), and lend those funds back out at a higher rate. The basic concept is that if you borrow $10 million at 4.5% for 30 years, you need to pay it back at $50,668 per month. If you can lend it out reliably at 5%, you collect $53,682 per month... a handy $3,000 per month. The cheaper you can get money at (below 4.5%) and the higher you can lend it at (above 5%), the better your margin is. The worry is that both REIT business models are very highly dependent on the cost of borrowing money. With the US Fed changing its bond-buying/QE/stimulus activity, the prevailing interest rates are likely to go up. While this has its benefits (inflation), it also will make it more expensive for these types of companies to do business.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "478a4f74037de66e9ee99150366f6030", "text": "Housing prices are set by different criteria. It can become memoryless the same as the stock if the criteria used to set its price in the past is no longer valid. For example, take Phoenix or Las Vegas - in the past these were considered attractive investments because of the economical growth and the climate of the area. While the climate hasn't changed, the economical growth stopped not only there but also in the places where people buying the houses lived (which is all over the world really). What happened to the housing market? Dropped sharply and stays flat for several years now at the bottom. So it doesn't really matter if the house was worth $300K in Phoenix 5 years ago, you can only sell it now for ~$50K, and that's about it. The prices have been flat low for several years and the house price was $50K, but does it mean its going to stay so? No, once economy gears up, the prices will go up as well. So its not exactly memory-less, but the stocks are not memory-less as well. There is correlation between the past and the future performance. If the environment conditions are similar - the performance is likely to be similar. For stocks however there's much more environment conditions than the housing market and its much harder to predict them. But even with the housing people were burnt a lot on the misconception that the past performance correlates to the future. It doesn't necessarily.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0c0764029404e59244d50be1b159dad", "text": "\"Here is my simplified take: In any given market portfolio the market index will return the average return on investment for the given market. An actively managed product may outperform the market (great!), achieve average market performance (ok - but then it is more expensive than the index product) or be worse than the market (bad). Now if we divide all market returns into two buckets: returns from active investment and returns from passive investments then these two buckets must be the same as index return are by definition the average returns. Which means that all active investments must return the average market return. This means for individual active investments there are worse than market returns and better then market returns - depending on your product. And since we can't anticipate the future and nobody would willingly take the \"\"worse than market\"\" investment product, the index fund comes always up on top - IF - you would like to avoid the \"\"gamble\"\" of underperforming the market. With all these basics out of the way: if you can replicate the index by simply buying your own stocks at low/no costs I don't see any reason for going with the index product beyond the convenience.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "642605635985e7e03e7dea5aa0e99d77", "text": "Foreign stocks tend to be more volatile -- higher risk trades off against higher return potential, always. The better reason for having some money in that area is that, as with bonds, it moves out-of-sync with the US markets and once you pick your preferred distribution, maintaining that balance semi-automatically takes advantage of that to improve your return-vs-risk position. I have a few percent of my total investments in an international stock index fund, and a few percent in an international REIT, both being fairly low-fee. (Low fees mean more of the money reaches you, and seems to be one of the better reasons for preferring one fund over another following the same segment of the market.) They're there because the model my investment advisor uses -- and validated with monte-carlo simulation of my specific mix -- shows that keeping them in the mix at this low level is likely to result in a better long-term outcome than if i left them out. No guarantees, but probabilities lean toward this specfic mix doing what i need. I don't pretend to be able to justify that via theory or to explain why these specific ratios work... but I understand enough about the process to trust that they are on (perhaps of many) reasonable solutions to get the best odds given my specific risk tolerance, timeline, and distaste for actively managing my money more than a few times a year. If that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c000a032309b520eb3ac054a8cc66a0d", "text": "They lost money on an absolute basis. They got slammed as a hedge fund because its returns are less than 0%, not because they underperformed relative to the market. Hedge funds aren't mean to outperform a benchmark. They are meant to preserve (and grow) your funds. That's why long only houses are happy about their -15% when the market is down 30%, but a hedge fund should be above 0%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80923207a6f183be4e8cc88ae83b06f9", "text": "Here is a simple example of how daily leverage fails, when applied over periods longer than a day. It is specifically adjusted to be more extreme than the actual market so you can see the effects more readily. You buy a daily leveraged fund and the index is at 1000. Suddenly the market goes crazy, and goes up to 2000 - a 100% gain! Because you have a 2x ETF, you will find your return to be somewhere near 200% (if the ETF did its job). Then tomorrow it goes back to normal and falls back down to 1000. This is a fall of 50%. If your ETF did its job, you should find your loss is somewhere near twice that: 100%. You have wiped out all your money. Forever. You lose. :) The stock market does not, in practice, make jumps that huge in a single day. But it does go up and down, not just up, and if you're doing a daily leveraged ETF, your money will be gradually eroded. It doesn't matter whether it's 2x leveraged or 8x leveraged or inverse (-1x) or anything else. Do the math, get some historical data, run some simulations. You're right that it is possible to beat the market using a 2x ETF, in the short run. But the longer you hold the stock, the more ups and downs you experience along the way, and the more opportunity your money has to decay. If you really want to double your exposure to the market over the intermediate term, borrow the money yourself. This is why they invented the margin account: Your broker will essentially give you a loan using your existing portfolio as collateral. You can then invest the borrowed money, increasing your exposure even more. Alternatively, if you have existing assets like, say, a house, you can take out a mortgage on it and invest the proceeds. (This isn't necessarily a good idea, but it's not really worse than a margin account; investing with borrowed money is investing with borrowed money, and you might get a better interest rate. Actually, a lot of rich people who could pay off their mortgages don't, and invest the money instead, and keep the tax deduction for mortgage interest. But I digress.) Remember that assets shrink; liabilities (loans) never shrink. If you really want to double your return over the long term, invest twice as much money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5c828411013510f191bb0f58be880db", "text": "I'm not 100% familiar with the index they're using to measure hedge fund performance, but based on the name alone, comparing market returns to market neutral hedge fund returns seems a bit disingenuous. That doesn't mean the article is wrong, and they have a point about the democratization of data, but still.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7281e2011dcf9a28ad110b6fda9ae354", "text": "\"The majority (about 80%) of mutual funds are underperforming their underlying indexes. This is why ETFs have seen massive capital inflows compared to equity funds, which have seen significant withdrawals in the last years. I would definitively recommend going with an ETF. In addition to pure index based ETFs that (almost) track broad market indexes like the S&P 500 there are quite a few more \"\"quant\"\" oriented ETFs that even outperformed the S&P. I am long the S&P trough iShares ETFs and have dividend paying ETFs and some quant ETFS on top (Invesco Powershares) in my portfolio.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a5ce7886ff8ef284eec9051fa22bd58", "text": "Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway took a 50% loss in each of the last two bear markets. His stock even lost 10% in 2015 when the S&P lost 8%. He doesn't have a track record to support the claim that his stock performs relatively better in a bear market, so perhaps it's best to take his letter with a grain of salt. Edit: As one commenter points out, Mr. Buffett is comparing the book performance of his fund to the market performance of an index. That is an apples to oranges comparison. It's deceptive at best.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43740123fa97c27cf5e4af82928e3592", "text": "But if you add a security to the index you also remove one from the index, thus both a buy and sell. If weights change some go up, some go down thus some need to be purchased and some need to be sold. So I still don't see how ETFs are net sinks beyond their simple AUM.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d59301acd1b942e879c09beefec5df5d", "text": "tl;dr: The CNN Money and Yahoo Finance charts are wildly inaccurate. The TD Ameritrade chart appears to be accurate and shows returns with reinvested dividends. Ignoring buggy data, CNN most likely shows reinvested dividends for quoted securities but not for the S&P 500 index. Yahoo most likely shows all returns without reinvested dividends. Thanks to a tip from Grade Eh Bacon, I was able to determine that TD Ameritrade reports returns with reinvested dividends (as it claims to do). Eyeballing the chart, it appears that S&P 500 grew by ~90% over the five year period the chart covers. Meanwhile, according to this S&P 500 return estimator, the five year return of S&P 500, with reinvested dividends, was 97.1% between July 2012 to July 2017 (vs. 78.4% raw returns). I have no idea what numbers CNN Money is working from, because it claims S&P 500 only grew about 35% over the last five years, which is less than half of the raw return. Ditto for Yahoo, which claims 45% growth. Even stranger still, the CNN chart for VFINX (an S&P 500 index fund) clearly shows the correct market growth (without reinvesting dividends from the S&P 500 index), so whatever problem exists is inconsistent: Yahoo also agrees with itself for VFINX, but comes in a bit low even if your assume no reinvestment of dividends (68% vs. 78% expected); I'm not sure if it's ever right. By way of comparison, TD's chart for VFINX seems to be consistent with its ABALX chart and with reality: As a final sanity check, I pulled historical ^GSPC prices from Yahoo Finance. It closed at $1406.58 on 27 Aug 2012 and $2477.55 on 28 Aug 2017, or 76.1% growth overall. That agrees with TD and the return calculator above, and disagrees with CNN Money (on ABALX). Worse, Yahoo's own charts (both ABALX and VFINX) disagree with Yahoo's own historical data.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f141bf33c2f9103e671ece71f28922bb", "text": "Low volatility trading tends to be a hallmark of the late summer as Wall Street by and large goes on summer vacation. When all those traders and hedge fund managers return to work full-tilt in September, the market tends to become more volatile - either upwards or downwards. If you are wondering why these months have been particularly poor relative to others, than I don't think anyone knows the reason why.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb033d7bb61067cb9b8e2b2a79b2ed73", "text": "Most likely crazy bad, given all the news rolling out by October, mainly the fed meetings and government debt ceiling. Those big issues will scare the market imo. Nothing bad may actually happen, but the markets do not care what actually happens, but what they THINK is going to happen. I might take up some long TVIX/VXX positions myself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57d66880aced300bb4bcaf0bfbcd4e8d", "text": "\"I think the claim is that you shouldn't buy a house expecting it to increase in value as you would a stock portfolio. OTOH if you are looking at it from the stand point of \"\"I need housing, mortgage payments and rent are comparable and I build equity if I buy a house rather then rent\"\" that's potentiality a very different situation (that I'm not qualified to judge).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7c7d5c317bd7ca3d56dfc906b82d5a8", "text": "If your planning on shorting the stocks be careful, while the value of the retail sector may be declining there will be a lot of back and forth over the next ten years, and as REITs discounts to nav increases, there is huge opportunities for buyouts from developers who have other use ideas for the real estate. The real estate will always have value, even if it's not as a shopping center.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fd1f453fdf50f3d43731985b8d1c9bb", "text": "Moreover the fact that they're simply invested in two of the biggest emerging market ETFs which preform well with global stability but are overall kinda risky long term goes to show that it's not some unheard of success. As you said, the proving ground will be whether they can make money in a down economy, where it's much harder to find profitable investments. Perhaps they'll switch to bonds and commodities.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
b4e5373da12d48baf3bad01e691648c3	Can my broker lock my cash account if I try to use the money from a stock sale during the three-day settlement period?	[ { "docid": "95c2adec4356b3c197307f57a31ce4a5", "text": "Brokerage firms must settle funds promptly, but there's no explicit definition for this in U.S. federal law. See for example, this article on settling trades in three days. Wikipedia also has a good write-up on T+3. It is common practice, however. It takes approximately three days for the funds to be available to me, in my Canadian brokerage account. That said, the software itself prevents me from using funds which are not available, and I'm rather surprised yours does not. You want to be careful not to be labelled a pattern day trader, if that is not your intention. Others can better fill you in on the consequences of this. I believe it will not apply to you unless you are using a margin account. All but certainly, the terms of service that you agreed to with this brokerage will specify the conditions under which they can lock you out of your account, and when they can charge interest. If they are selling your stock at times you have not authorised (via explicit instruction or via a stop-loss order), you should file a complaint with the S.E.C. and with sufficient documentation. You will need to ensure your cancel-stop-loss order actually went through, though, and the stock was sold anyway. It could simply be that it takes a full business day to cancel such an order.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ada9d0a627c6197e572ac50d0b4cf55d", "text": "Here's how this works in the United States. There's no law regarding your behavior in this matter and you haven't broken any laws. But your broker-dealer has a law that they must follow. It's documented here: The issue is if you buy stock before your sell has settled (before you've received cash) then you're creating money where before none existed (even though it is just for a day or two). The government fears that this excess will cause undue speculation in the security markets. The SEC calls this practice freeriding, because you're spending money you have not yet received. In summary: your broker is not allowed to loan money to an account than is not set-up for loans; it must be a margin account. People with margin account are able to day-trade because they have the ability to use margin (borrow money). Margin Accounts are subject to Pattern Daytrading Rules. The Rules are set forth by FINRA (The Financial Industry Reporting Authority) and are here:", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "c51982782aa3d8d08ddcc69360b72bf1", "text": "Keeping your “big emergency” fund in stocks if you have 12 months income saved is OK. However you should keep your “small emergency” fund in cash. (However I find that even my stock broker accounts have some cash in them, as I like to let the dividends build up enough to make the dealing charges worthwhile. You don’t wish to be forced to sell at a bad time due to your boiler needing replacing or your car breaking down. However if you lost your job in the same week that your boiler broke down and your car needed replacing then being forced to sell stocks at a bad time is not much of an issue. Also if you are saving say 1/3 of your income each month and you have a credit card with large unused credit limit that is paid of each month, then most “small emergency” that are under 2/3 of your monthly income can be covered on the credit card with little or no interest charges. One option is to check you bank balance on the day after you are paid, and if it is more than 2x your monthly income, then move some of it to long term savings, but only if you tend to spend a lot less then you earn most months.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca175cc37562842565cc140b7fae1c65", "text": "\"First of all, not all brokers allow trading during pre-market and post-market. Some brokers only allow trading during the regular hours (9:30am - 4pm ET). Second of all, while you can place orders using limit orders and market orders during regular trading hours, you can only use limit orders during pre-market and post-market. This is because the liquidity is much lower during pre-market and post-market, and using market orders could result in some trades filling at horrible prices. So brokers don't allow using market orders outside of regular trading hours. Third, some brokers require you to specify that you want your order to be executed during pre-market or post-market. For example, my broker allows me to specify either \"\"Day\"\" or \"\"Ext\"\" for my orders. \"\"Day\"\" means I want my order to execute only during regular trading hours, and \"\"Ext\"\" means I want my order to execute at any time - pre-market, regular trading hours, or post-market. Finally, if your broker allows pre/post market trading, and you place a limit order while specifying \"\"Ext\"\", then your trade can happen in real-time during pre-market or post-market. Per your example, if a stock is trading at $5 at 8am, and you put in a limit order (while specifying \"\"Ext\"\") to buy it at $5 at 8am, then your order will execute at that time and you will buy that stock at 8am.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa1f9c1214d7c33fb2a1e73c46fcb482", "text": "\"You don't. No one uses vanilla double entry accounting software for \"\"Held-For-Trading Security\"\". Your broker or trading software is responsible for providing month-end statement of changes. You use \"\"Mark To Market\"\" valuation at the end of each month. For example, if your cash position is -$5000 and stock position is +$10000, all you do is write-up/down the account value to $5000. There should be no sub-accounts for your \"\"Investment\"\" account in GNUCash. So at the end of the month, there would be the following entries:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29051a1f78e6280e783af10934bd5ac1", "text": "Purchases and sales from the same trade date will both settle on the same settlement date. They don't have to pay for their purchases until later either. Because HFT typically make many offsetting trades -- buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling, etc -- when the purchases and sales settle, the amount they pay for their purchases will roughly cancel with the amount they receive for their sales (the difference being their profit or loss). Margin accounts and just having extra cash around can increase their ability to have trades that do not perfectly offset. In practice, the HFT's broker will take a smaller amount of cash (e.g. $1 million) as a deposit of capital, and will then allow the HFT to trade a larger amount of stock value long or short (e.g. $10 million, for 10:1 leverage). That $1 million needs to be enough to cover the net profit/loss when the trades settle, and the broker will monitor this to ensure that deposit will be enough.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8b3cdc8f3766cb93bb00036450b813a", "text": "As the record date is 7th August, you need to hold stocks on the 7th August closing. You need not hold it till 2nd Sept. The list as taken on 7th August would be processed and instructions given to Bank and the dividends credited by 1st Sept. Edit: To Clarify Victor's comment Typically from the time one sells the stocks to the time it actually gets transferred has a clearing cycle. Most stock exchanges have 2 or 3 days cycles. i.e. if I sell the stock today, it is still in my name. The money is still with the buyer. On Day 1, the positions are arrived at. On Day 2 the stock gets credited to the buyer and the funds gets credit to seller. As the question was specific whether to hold the stock till 7th or 22nd Sept, my initial answer was simple. The illustration by Victor is more accurate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efb02741e131bbeb35fabd25c9d5edb7", "text": "\"I have received a response from SIPC, confirming littleadv's answer: For a brief background, the protections available under the Securities Investor Protection Act (\"\"SIPA\"\"), are only available in the context of a liquidation proceeding of a SIPC member broker-dealer and relate to the \"\"custody\"\" of securities and related cash at the SIPC member broker-dealer. Thus, if a SIPC member broker-dealer were to fail at a time when a customer had securities and/or cash in the custody of the SIPC member broker-dealer, in most instances it would be SIPC's obligation to restore those securities and cash to the customer, within statutory limits. That does not mean, however, that the customer would necessarily receive the original value of his or her purchase. Rather, the customer receives the security itself and/or the value of the customer's account as of the day that the liquidation commenced. SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of any security. In a liquidation proceeding under the SIPA, SIPC may advance up to $500,000 per customer (including a $250,000 limit on cash in the account). Please note that this protection only applies to the extent that you entrust cash or securities to a U.S. SIPC member. Foreign broker dealer subsidiaries are not SIPC members. However, to the extent that any assets, including foreign securities, are being held by the U.S. broker dealer, the assets are protected by SIPC. Stocks listed on the LSE are protected by SIPC to the extent they are held with a SIPC member broker dealer, up to the statutory limit of $500,000 per customer. As I mentioned in the comments, in the case of IB, indeed they have a foreign subsidiary, which is why SIPC does not cover it (rather they are insured by Lloyds of London for such cases).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d7757af949d34fb59fec0397d70582f1", "text": "\"The difficulty is that you are thinking of a day as a natural unit of time. For some securities the inventory decisions are less than a minute, for others, it can be months. You could ask a similar question of \"\"why would a dealer hold cash?\"\" They are profit maximizing firms and, subject to a chosen risk level, will accept deals that are sufficiently profitable. Consider a stock that averages 1,000 shares per day, but for which there is an order for 10,000 shares. At a sufficient discount, the dealer would be crazy not to carry the order. You are also assuming all orders are idiosyncratic. Dividend reinvestment plans (DRIP) trigger planned purchases on a fixed day, usually by averaging them over a period such as 10 days. The dealer slowly accumulates a position leading up to the date whenever it appears a good discount is available and fills the DRIP orders out of their own account. The dealer tries to be careful not to disturb the market leading up to the date and allows the volume request to shift prices upward and then fills them.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22f5b5bd6ddbadb3f7c70481c5b68139", "text": "\"Securities clearing and settlement is a complex topic - you can start by browsing relevant Wikipedia articles, and (given sufficient quantities of masochism and strong coffee) progress to entire technical books. You're correct - modern trade settlement systems are electronic and heavily streamlined. However, you're never going to see people hand over assets until they're sure that payment has cleared - given current payment systems, that means the fastest settlement time is going to be the next business day (so-called T+1 settlement), which is what's seen for heavily standardized instruments like standard options and government debt securities. Stocks present bigger obstacles. First, the seller has to locate the asset being sold & make sure they have clear title to it... which is tougher than it might seem, given the layers of abstraction/virtualization involved in the chain of ownership & custody, complicated in particular by \"\"rehypothecation\"\" involved in stock borrowing/lending for short sales... especially since stock borrow/lending record-keeping tends to be somewhat slipshod (cf. periodic uproar about \"\"naked shorting\"\" and \"\"failure to deliver\"\"). Second, the seller has to determine what exactly it is that they have sold... which, again, can be tougher than it might seem. You see, stocks are subject to all kinds of corporate actions (e.g. cash distributions, spin-offs, splits, liquidations, delistings...) A particular topic of keen interest is who exactly is entitled to large cash distributions - the buyer or the seller? Depending on the cutoff date (the \"\"ex-dividend date\"\"), the seller may need to deliver to the buyer just the shares of stock, or the shares plus a big chunk of cash - a significant difference in settlement. Determining the precise ex-dividend date (and so what exactly are the assets to be settled) can sometimes be very difficult... it's usually T-2, except in the case of large distributions, which are usually T+1, unless the regulatory authority has neglected to declare an ex-dividend date, in which case it defaults to standard DTC payment policy (i.e. T-2)... I've been involved in a few situations where the brokers involved were clueless, and full settlement of \"\"due bills\"\" for cash distributions to the buyer took several months of hard arguing. So yeah, the brokers want a little time to get their records in order and settle the trade correctly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "123b23a493b497031a0d631a994c11dc", "text": "The T+3 settlement date only affects cash accounts. In a cash account, you need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your funds to be available to make your next trade. But if you convert your cash account into a margin account, then you do not need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your next trade - your broker will allow you to make another trade immediately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e767c26bb5156cea063ee0911642690", "text": "\"Yes. I heard back from a couple brokerages that gave detailed responses. Specifically: In a Margin account, there are no SEC trade settlement rules, which means there is no risk of any free ride violations. The SEC has a FAQ page on free-riding, which states that it applies specifically to cash accounts. This led me to dig up the text on Regulation T which gives the \"\"free-riding\"\" rule in §220.8(c), which is titled \"\"90 day freeze\"\". §220.8 is the section on cash accounts. Nothing in the sections on margin accounts mentions such a settlement restriction. From the Wikipedia page on Free Riding, the margin agreement implicitly covers settlement. \"\"Buying Power\"\" doesn't seem to be a Regulation T thing, but it's something that the brokerages that I've seen use to state how much purchasing power a client has. Given the response from the brokerage, above, and my reading of Regulation T and the relevant Wikipedia page, proceeds from the sale of any security in a margin account are available immediately for reinvestment. Settlement is covered implicitly by margin; i.e. it doesn't detract from buying power. Additionally, I have personally been making these types of trades over the last year. In a sub-$25K margin account, proceeds are immediately available. The only thing I still have to look out for is running into the day-trading rules.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f55e29b5b419a1fa47ae9f6fc7d40bd7", "text": "Nice idea. When I started my IRAs, I considered this as well, and the answer from the broker was that this was not permitted. And, aside from transfers from other IRAs or retirement accounts, you can't 'deposit' shares to the IRA, only cash.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4dda835616037c706767369d1efac27a", "text": "\"See \"\"Structuring transactions to evade reporting requirement prohibited.\"\" You absolutely run the risk of the accusation of structuring. One can move money via check, direct transfer, etc, all day long, from account to account, and not have a reporting issue. But, cash deposits have a reporting requirement (by the bank) if $10K or over. Very simple, you deposit $5000 today, and $5000 tomorrow. That's structuring, and illegal. Let me offer a pre-emptive \"\"I don't know what frequency of $10000/X deposits triggers this rule. But, like the Supreme Court's, \"\"We have trouble defining porn, but we know it when we see it. And we're happy to have these cases brought to us,\"\" structuring is similarly not 100% definable, else one would shift a bit right.\"\" You did not ask, but your friend runs the risk of gift tax issues, as he's not filing the forms to acknowledge once he's over $14,000.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ceb0169d967e05a1d9e2cb1df64a3729", "text": "It depends on the broker. The one I use (Fidelity) will allow me to buy then sell or sell then buy within 3 days even though the cash isn't settled from the first transaction. But they won't let me buy then sell then buy again with unsettled cash. Of course not waiting for cash to settle makes you vulnerable to a good faith violation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c63aad6e45412db0ff76bec5941037b", "text": "You need to contact the trading company and ask them what's going on. If it's simply a matter of needing to add more cash because you are now classified as a day trader, then call them, ask them what you need to do to not be considered a day trader, and do that. It would likely consist of not trading for a week and then trading less than you were going forward to avoid getting classified as a day trader again. That would be the easy problem to solve, so I hope that's right.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3631af51555feb4c27a4241fe7870abe", "text": "\"Your broker likely didn't close your position out because it is a covered position. Why interfere with a trade that has no risk to it, from their perspective? There's no risk for the broker since your account holds the shares available for delivery (definition of covered), for if and when the options you wrote (sold) are exercised. And buyers of those options will eventually exercise the options (by expiration) if they remain in-the-money. There's only a chance that an option buyer exercises prematurely, and usually they don't because there's often time value left in the option. That the option buyer has an (ahem) \"\"option\"\" to exercise is a very key point. You wrote: \"\"I fully expected my position to be automatically liquidated by whoever bought my call\"\". That's a false assumption about the way options actually work. I suggest some study of the option exercise FAQs here: Perhaps if your position were uncovered – i.e. you wrote the call without owning the stock (don't try this at home, kids!) – and you also had insufficient margin to cover such a short position, then the broker might have justifiably liquidated your position. Whereas, in a covered call situation, there's really no reason for them to want to interfere – and I would consider that interference, as opposed to helpful. The situation you've described is neither risky for them, nor out of the ordinary. It is (and should be) completely up to you to decide how to close out the position. Anyway, your choices generally are:\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
e6903c905863382e2941dc07108c6a28	Is it possible to borrow money to accrue interest, and then use that interest to pay back the borrower + fees?	[ { "docid": "69ae83f670a7244134f490f66f43f59a", "text": "No. The WSJ prime rate is 4.25%, even the Fed prime rate is 1.75%, way above the 1.20% you'll be making from your savings account. If you are high worth individual with great credit history, the bank might give you a personal loan at 4.25%. They won't care what you do with it as long as they get their payments. If you are not that creditworthy, they'll ask for a collateral, you can mortgage your house for example. It ends up being the sames thing, you get your money and do what you want with it. If you can make more than the interest rate the bank gave you, great, you made profit. The bank however won't agree to lend you money at 0.6% (1/2 of the 1.2% APY your savings account will bring). Why would they when they can loan that at prime rate of 4.25%?? The closest you can get to something like this is if you are a hot-shot wall street money manager with track record of making big profits. In that case the bank might put some money in your fund for you to manage, but that's not something a regular person can do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e25fcd5b89b415a0f9310d96fdd581a2", "text": "\"Your plan as proposed will not work, because it goes against how banks make money. Banks make money in two ways: (1) Fees [including account fees, investment advice fees, mortgage application fees, etc.]; and (2) Interest Rate Spread. They borrow money for x%, and they lend it out for x+y%. In a simple form, someone gives the bank a deposit, and earns 1%. The bank turns around to the next person in line and loans the money to them for 4%. You are asking them to turn the interest rate spread into a cost instead of their main source of profit: You are asking the bank to borrow money from another person paying them 1.2% interest, and then loan the money to you, paying you 0.6% interest and keeping 0.6% for themselves. The bank would lose money doing this. Technically yes, you can borrow from a bank and invest it in something earning above the 4% interest they will charge you. You can then pay the bank's interest off of your earnings, and make some profit for yourself. BUT this carries an inherent risk: If your investment loses money, you still owe the bank, effectively increasing the negative impact of your investment. This tactic is called \"\"Leveraging\"\"; you can look it up on this site or on google. It is not something you should do if you do not fully understand the risks you are taking on. Given that you are asking this question, I would suggest tactfully that you are not yet well informed enough to make this sort of investment. You run serious risk of losing everything if you over-leverage (assuming the banks will even lend you money in the first place).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9995f39a64da432da936cff80e0fefde", "text": "\"There are many flaws with your idea. Say I want to borrow $225,000.00 to accrue interest on a 1.20% APY account. I promise ... that I cannot withdraw nor touch the account by legal contract. If you break the contract and lose the money, the lender is out the money. They can take you to court and will win, but if you don't have the money, then they don't get paid. (You can't squeeze water out of a rock even if a judge orders you to.) By sharing the interest with me on a loan, they keep a percentage that they'd normally get... If you're \"\"investing\"\" the money at 1.2%, and the lender gets some amount less than that, then they are getting much less than they \"\"normally\"\" get. Lenders typically get somewhere from 5-15% on loans. The money can also be used to fund a stock/trading account. Regardless of whether I profit, I pay interest on the loan and split the profit shares 24/7. How can the lender lose with legal enforcing? Again, if you lose the money, no amount of legal enforcing can force you to pay money that you don't have. Even if you go to jail for fraud the lender still doesn't get paid. Simply, no bank would ever agree to this.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d9a776d08c206dacd7cec3133072133", "text": "\"With (1), it's rather confusing as to where \"\"interest\"\" refers to what you're paying and where it refers to what you're being paid, and it's confusing what you expect the numbers to work out to be. If you have to pay normal interest on top of sharing the interest you receive, then you're losing money. If the lending bank is receiving less interest than the going market rate, then they're losing money. If the bank you've deposited the money with is paying more than the going market rate, they're losing money. I don't see how you imagine a scenario where someone isn't losing money. For (2) and (3), you're buying stocks on margin, which certainly is something that happens, but you'll have to get an account that is specifically for margin trading. It's a specific type of credit with specific rules, and you if you want to engage in this sort of trading, you should go through established channels rather than trying to convert a regular loan into margin trading. If you get a personal loan that isn't specifically for margin trading, and buy stocks with the money, and the stocks tank, you can be in serious trouble. (If you do it through margin trading, it's still very risky, but not nearly as risky as trying to game the system. In some cases, doing this makes you not only civilly but criminally liable.) The lending bank absolutely can lose if your stocks tank, since then there will be nothing backing up the loan.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "e6a05a201fa315f59ff8f24e7e0a57ce", "text": "One of many things to consider is that in the United States student loan interest is tax deductible. That fact could change the math enough to make it worth putting A's money elsewhere depending on his interest rate and income bracket.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5248e0a577f68808f7f7d876323e419", "text": "When you get a loan (car, home, student) the lending company (bank) give the (auto dealer, previous home owner, school) money. You as the borrow promise to pay this money back with interest. So in your case the 100,000 you borrow requires a payment for principal and interest of ~965 per month. After 240 payments you will have paid the bank ~231,605. So who got the ~131,000 in interest. The bank did. It was used to pay interest to the people who made deposits into the bank. It was also used to pay the expenses of the bank: salaries, retirement, rent, electricity, computers, etc. If the bank is a company with investors they may have to pay dividends to them to. Of course not all loans are successfully paid back, so some of the payment goes to cover the loans that are in default. In many cases loans are also refinanced, or the house is sold long before the 20-30 year term is up. In these cases the amount of interest received for that loan is much less than anticipated, but the good news is that it can be loaned out again.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a30438a8e0fe678ad8874732fadef31", "text": "In short, your scenario could work in theory, but is not realistic... Generally speaking, you can borrow up to some percentage of the value of the property, usually 80-90% though it can vary based on many factors. So if your property currently has a value of $100k, you could theoretically borrow a total of $80-90k against it. So how much you can get at any given time depends on the current value as compared to how much you owe. A simple way to ballpark it would be to use this formula: (CurrentValue * PercentageAllowed) - CurrentMortgageBalance = EquityAvailable. If your available equity allowed you to borrow what you wanted, and you then applied it to additions/renovations, your base property value would (hopefully) increase. However as other people mentioned, you very rarely get a value increase that is near what you put into the improvements, and it is not uncommon for improvements to have no significant impact on the overall value. Just because you like something about your improvements doesn't mean the market will agree. Just for the sake of argument though, lets say you find the magic combination of improvements that increases the property value in line with their cost. If such a feat were accomplished, your $40k improvement on a $100k property would mean it is now worth $140k. Let us further stipulate that your $40k loan to fund the improvements put you at a 90% loan to value ratio. So prior to starting the improvements you owed $90k on a $100k property. After completing the work you would owe $90k on what is now a $140k property, putting you at a loan to value ratio of ~64%. Meaning you theoretically have 26% equity available to borrow against to get back to the 90% level, or roughly $36k. Note that this is 10% less than the increase in the property value. Meaning that you are in the realm of diminishing returns and each iteration through this process would net you less working capital. The real picture is actually a fair amount worse than outlined in the above ideal scenario as we have yet to account for any of the costs involved in obtaining the financing or the decreases in your credit score which would likely accompany such a pattern. Each time you go back to the bank asking for more money, they are going to charge you for new appraisals and all of the other fees that come out at closing. Also each time you ask them for more money they are going to rerun your credit, and see the additional inquires and associated debt stacking up, which in turn drops your score, which prompts the banks to offer higher interest rates and/or charge higher fees... Also, when a bank loans against a property that is already securing another debt, they are generally putting themselves at the back of the line in terms of their claim on the property in case of default. In my experience it is very rare to find a lender that is willing to put themselves third in line, much less any farther back. Generally if you were to ask for such a loan, the bank would insist that the prior commitments be paid off before they would lend to you. Meaning the bank that you ask for the $36k noted above would likely respond by saying they will loan you $70k provided that $40k of it goes directly to paying off the previous equity line.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "77d204a01aa381794682d8311a8a933d", "text": "\"Borrowing to invest is almost always a bad idea. You'd have to take out an unsecured loan, which has a higher interest rate, or a secured loan and put at risk whatever you are securing the loan with. You need some means to make payments on the loan, or if interest is being added to the balance then take the compounding effect into account with regards to the cost of the money and how much you will really end up owning. In order to come out ahead you need to 'invest' in something that will yield a return that is higher than the cost of borrowing the money, such high yields always come with higher risk, meaning that you will actually GET that return is less and less of a sure thing.. so now you are talking about the 'chance' to make money, Or a chance your 'investment' could fail, perhaps badly. Meaning you could well do nothing but end up in debt with little to nothing to show for it. If someone claims to have a 'sure thing' and is encouraging you to borrow money to invest in it, I'd be checking their back for a fin and remembering the lyrics \"\"when the shark bites ... scarlet billows start to spread\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efb67fdb36add186c2b1c0a521abe042", "text": "If they have borrowed money without paying it back, what makes you think you could get interest paid? The problem that you face first is to make clear to them that a loan is a loan. As long as they can get free money off you, they will keep borrowing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d98fbc6f95845296f3b6efb947d9d778", "text": "If it is a business loan, the borrower would be able to claim a deduction for any interest paid on the loan and the lender would include the interest earned as part of their taxable income. You need to be careful on what you do and don't include as income. If the repayments made to you by the borrower in a year is $10,000 but only $8,000 of that is interest and the other $2,000 is part of the principal being returned to the lender, then you would only claim $8,000 as your income and the borrower would only claim $8,000 as a business deduction. Of course if it is interest only, then you and the borrower would use the full $10,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60b52ce239d29324e0aacd35c82de6e3", "text": "It depends on the type of loan. Fully amortized loans have a schedule of payments don't recalculate as you pay. If you want to make an additional payment you need to contact the lender to apply your payment toward principle and reamortize the loan. Otherwise all your additional payment will do is change the amount due on your next payment, or push out your next payment due date. Regarding interest calculation, you owe interest on the principle outstanding. Say you have a 10 year loan (120 Months), at 5% APR, and a $1,000 payment (this means you borrowed roughly $94,000) Each month the amount of interest owed reduces because there is less principle outstanding. The reason loans are amortized like this is so the borrower has a predictable, known, monthly amount due.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "790bd1aa9a78f54d3bd90c4c236277fd", "text": "\"There are two things I can think of that might be different in other countries: Until 2013, American Express, Visa and MasterCard prevented businesses from charging extra for credit card usage, and credit card surcharges still illegal in several states. Since credit card companies add a surcharge to credit card purchases, and merchants can't pass that onto credit card users, they just make everyone pay extra instead. Since everyone gets charged the credit card surcharge, you might as well use a credit card and recoup some of that via \"\"rewards\"\" points. Almost all credit cards here have grace periods, where you won't be charged interest if you pay back your loans in full within some period of time (at least 21 days). This makes credit cards attractive to people who don't need a loan, but like the convenience that credit cards provide (not carrying cash, extra insurance, better fraud protection). Apparently grace periods aren't required by law here, so this might be common in other countries as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41f9066e5d2ad503b9ba9017aad63d7b", "text": "\"Money relationships are the opposite of friend relationships. That's why there's so much danger in loaning money to a friend - if the transaction doesn't work out well for one of you, it can destroy the friendship. Many of the answers here suggest you be prepared for the possibility that your friend will not pay you back. This is called a \"\"gift\"\". Give your friend the money, and trust that they will feel grateful. That gratitude will create generosity, and they will in turn seek to give gifts to you and to others in your circle. If you're not ready to give money to your friend, then you're better off not doing it. If you are ready to give money to your friend, then do it without expectation of return.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eafcee4e844d3264b7139caa74e2ecd8", "text": "\"As others have said: unless you can find someone willing to make a zero-interest loan, the answer is no. If you can figure out how to turn a \"\"0% for first N months\"\" credit card offer onto a leveraged investment or something of that sort -- seems unlikely -- maybe.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b000a97892cc975d572e05f9af9505f", "text": "This is very much possible and happens quite a lot. In the US, for example, promotional offers by credit card companies where you pay no interest on the balance for a certain period are a very common thing. The lender gains a new customer on such a loan, and usually earns money from the spending via the merchant fees (specifically for credit cards, at least). The pro is obviously free money. The con is that this is usually for a short period of time (longest I've seen was 15 months) after which if you're not careful, high interest rates will be charged. In some cases, interest will be charged retroactively for the whole period if you don't pay off the balance or miss the minimum payment due.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8b3cd9cdfce940bc2eec7386cf28b95", "text": "He would spend it into the economy that is accepting his dollars. As an example, the apple maker might borrow $100 with $10 interest for the deer shank, then later on get the $100 back from the deer hunter in trade for 150 apples, and then pay this $100 to the banker. Now the apple maker still needs $10 to pay off his loan. The banker says he'll trade his $10 in interest profit for 15 apples, now the apple maker can resolve his debt without further borrowing. The difference between spending interest earnings and issuing a loan is that when the banker is spending, they are getting something for their own use, when they are issuing the loan, they aren't getting anything but the promise to repay that loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e480d3236692273886be154a8499ced", "text": "\"I read up on it and saw that the IRS can \"\"charge\"\" the loan provider on interest even if the loan provider doesn't charge interest, but this is normally mitigated by the 0% interest being considered a gift and as long as it's below X amount your fine. Yes, this sums it up. X is the amount of the gift exemption, the $14K. However, you must differ between loan with no interest and loan with no paying back. With loan with no interest you're still giving a statutory gift of the IRS mandated minimum interest. However, the principal is expected to be repaid to you and you must show that this expectation is reasonably fulfilled. If you cannot (i.e.: you gave a \"\"loan\"\" with no intention of it being paid back), then the IRS will recharacterize the whole amount as the gift, and you'll be on the hook for gift tax for the amounts above the exemption. What defines a loan vs a gift in terms of the IRS, is it simply that the loan will be paid back, or is it only considered a loan if a promisary note is made? As I said - you must be able to show that the loan is indeed a loan, even if it is with no interest. I.e.: it is being repaid, it is treated as a loan by all parties, and is not an attempt to evade gift tax. Promissory note is not a must, but will definitely be helpful in showing that. But without the de-facto repayment of the loan, it will be hard to argue that it is not a gift, even if you have a promissory note. That means, you should make a loan in such a way that the borrower will (begin) repaying it reasonably soon, so that you can show payment schedule being followed and money moving back to you. Reasonably soon is not of course defined in a statute, so do consult with a EA/CPA licensed in your state on how to structure the loan so that it will not appear as an attempt to evade the gift tax. Are there any limits on how big a loan can be? No, but keep in mind that even with statutory interest charges (published by the IRS monthly, see the link), with large enough loan you can exceed the gift tax exemption. Also, keep in mind that interest is taxable income to you. Even if you gift it back (i.e.: the statutory interest).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4414e027b470e0bbfd52df49d5900c61", "text": "I would advise against this, answering only the first part of question #1. Borrowing and lending money among friends and family members can often ruin relationships. While it can sometimes be done successfully, this is most likely not the case. All parties involved have to approach this uniquely in order for it to work. This would include your son's future significant other. Obviously you have done very well financially, congratulations. Your view for your son might be for him to pay you off ASAP: Even after becoming a doctor, continue to live like a student until the loan is paid off. His view might be more conventional; get the car and house and pay off my loans before I am 50. He may start with your view, but two years in he marries a woman that pressures him to be more conventional. My advice would be to give if you can afford to, but if not, do not lend. If you decide to lend then come up with a very clear agreement on the repayment schedule and consequences of non-payment. You may want to see a lawyer. For the rest of it, interest payments received are taxable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d34007d3ff18343f2d2a187102c0548", "text": "\"A few thoughts: You said, To me it makes sense that if he accidentally put his own money in when he wasn't supposed to, he could just take it out and pay the tax on it and be fine. In this case, he would be putting his own after-tax money in, and wouldn't be able to deduct it, so the act of putting it in and taking it back out in the same tax year would be as if the transaction never occurred at all. He would not have to \"\"pay the tax on it\"\". As for this question: Is there any penalty to his employer if they contribute to an HSA on his behalf, knowing that he is not eligible, and that the money will be an excess contribution? It's good that your son is prepared to treat it as regular income and pay the appropriate taxes. However, the employer should be the one doing that. They should be treating it as regular income and taking out FICA and paying their end of FICA too. If they aren't doing that, technically they are breaking the law. The employer really shouldn't be making the contributions at all, and if they ever bothered to correct this, this article suggests that the employer may be legally allowed to drain the HSA account and take their money back out of it, but only for the same tax year. Apparently they can do this without your son's consent. If that's true, it may make sense to withdraw all money from that account immediately as soon as the money arrives, since they cannot take the money back if it is no longer there. Once the money leaves the HSA account the employer has no choice but to change it to income and if they don't, your son must declare it as such (which it sounds like he is prepared to do). This doesn't really answer your question of whether or not the employer can be penalized- I would assume yes, but not too badly. The worst case scenario for them would probably be just having to pay all the back FICA on those funds if they aren't doing so already. Maybe an interest penalty as well. All that being said, I'd recommend talking to an accountant. The most important thing you want to be sure of is that your son cannot possibly be liable for any wrongdoing. Particularly I would get confirmation on pulling money out of the HSA that you know shouldn't be there in the first place, just to make sure there is no possible way to get dinged for that.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
4454fe40b34b6d712111a62c0b5a1059	How much tax do I have to pay in Redmond, Washington form my Microsoft Research Internship income?	[ { "docid": "3e00c1083e5d0f95b58bbdb1a5f44a75", "text": "\"An unmarried person with a total U.S.-sourced earned income under $ 37,000 during the year 2016 is likely to owe: If the original poster is not an \"\"independent contractor\"\", and is not \"\"billing corp-to-corp\"\" then: In summary: References:\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4711d115a26526cf6a12fbdd94d7e0c3", "text": "I think traffic and public transit is still a government problem. It's just that Microsoft decided to offer perks to their employees. Just because I start a carpool with some other parents doesn't mean I'm suddenly responsible for fixing the transmission on the school bus.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f932b9ec392cc52fac4e8f6980fed03", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-seattle-minimum-wage-20170626-story.html) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) *** > The new study has found that jobs and work hours fell for Seattle&#039;s lowest paid employees after the city raised the minimum wage to $13 last year. > Some economists see it as a possible sign that $15 minimum wage laws such as those passed in Seattle, New York and several California cities could hurt workers at the lowest end of the wage spectrum. > In Seattle restaurants the number of jobs and hours worked overall did not change much after the minimum wage rose to $13 an hour, a University of Washington study found. * [Extended Summary*](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6jvbvn/minimum_wage_hike_in_seattle_confirming/) \| [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~154110 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: wage^#1 Seattle^#2 work^#3 job^#4 minimum^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b715ff7546dd7f500a622e44cd362d84", "text": "Yeah, totally. The worst thing about being a programmer is the endless skills treadmill. (Especially if you're involved in anything Microsoftian) There's just constant API and framework churn, usually for very minor if not nonexistent benefits. But the job market harshly judges anyone who doesn't keep hopping onto the latest trend and building up critical 'years of experience' in the latest language or API. Microsoft is also a notoriously unpleasant place to work among the top-tier software companies, thanks to intense politics and their godawful stack ranking system that guarantees good employees will get bad reviews.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30bdc1f66a762066e67bd7b71859af35", "text": "Didn't a recent UW study show exactly the opposite? And another from UC Berkeley found the unemployment rate was lower because of the law? I mean, the seattle area has a 3.3% unemployment rate and restaurants employment, which was supposed to be hardest hit, is up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "848f96c11dba0694cc5c7388bd4ed21b", "text": "I am a very light TurboTax user and have expensed a laptop in the past (since it was used exclusively for work) and used the itemized deduction there and has no issues. Just not sure if there was a limit or anything of note to realize ahead of time. Thanks!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f813a03faadc324bd6aa1f40bb8fc31", "text": "According to Intuit, you cannot claim the $50 charitable contribution, so the entire $2000 / month will be taxable instead of $1900. That's only an extra $35 if your combined tax rate is 35%. As TTT mentioned, do this for the experience, not for the money. My wife and I have been hosting international students for 10 years now. https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3152069-i-received-a-1099-misc-employee-compensation-for-hosting-a-foreign-exchange-student-can-i-complete-a-schedule-c-for-the-expenses", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc2bc5b74217b1974606d5671b2f157d", "text": "It's a tax shelter. Foreign affiliates hold most of Microsoft's cash and investments. The cost of borrowing is much cheaper than repatriating the money and paying taxes. Those bonds are selling at rates similar to US Treasury Debt. Also, many people and organizations with lots of assets still borrow money for day to day expenses. Why? You tend to make a better return on investments which are committed for a number of years, and the timing of income from those investments may not coincide with your expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee913e8ea8db7a5465c14f52c1d98bf1", "text": "The tax cost at election should be zero. The appreciation is all capital gain beyond your basis, which will be the value at election. IRC §83 applies to property received as compensation for services, where the property is still subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture. It will catch unvested equity given to employees. §83(a) stops taxation until the substantial risk of forfeiture abates (i.e. no tax until stock vests) since the item is revocable and not yet truly income. §83(b) allows the taxpayer to make a quick election (up to 30 days after transfer - firm deadline!) to waive the substantial risk of forfeiture (e.g. treat shares as vested today). The normal operation of §83 takes over after election and the taxable income is generally the value of the vested property minus the price paid for it. If you paid fair market value today, then the difference is zero and your income from the shares is zero. The shares are now yours for tax purposes, though not for legal purposes. That means they are most likely a capital asset in your hands, like other stocks you own or trade. The shares will not be treated as compensation income on vesting, and vesting is not a tax matter for elected shares. If you sell them, you get capital gain (with tax dependent on your holding period) over a basis equal to FMV at the election. The appreciation past election-FMV will be capital gain, rather than ordinary income. This is why the §83(b) election is so valuable. It does not matter at this point whether you bought the restricted shares at FMV or at discount (or received them free) - that only affects the taxes upon §83(b) election.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10d048445713a9cb28d60e32239f5683", "text": "They likely have an intern (job title) pay-scale that maxes out somewhere below $30/hr in order to meet the FLSA (that exempt vs non-exempt stuff you were seeing). As a PhD student, you could probably negotiate up into the ~$25/hr range, but from a benefits standpoint, they might not be able to pay you $35/hr without making you an exempt, full-time employee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27492e780af199c4b68397052c0b660a", "text": "I don't want to be needlessly critical, but I think that you're being downvoted because of how unwieldy that source is. The writer struggles to communicate ideas and concepts clearly - his structures are needlessly verbose, to the extent that arriving at his conclusion in even a single sentence is like slogging through a certain legendary molasses flood. I've dealt with technical language before (graduate economics-type stuff), and there are definitively good and bad ways of addressing dry, technical materials. If your material isn't interesting, then it should at least be clear. That blog post is neither (which is moderately surprising [or maybe it isn't?] considering his seniority at Microsoft).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95e4914133a78a83df309dfa5f2649ec", "text": "I graduated with a Computer Engineering degree in the mid 2000's, my first job out of school paid $70k. Every job I took after that increased my income 10-15%, and I jumped around a lot. Anyway, the $250k jobs aren't really a SF thing, you can find them all over if you have enough experience (at least 10 years under your belt). I see $150-175k jobs all the time here in Dallas, if you factor in a generous 401k and other benefits you can get pretty darn close to $250k, and the cost of living here is pretty cheap. I totally agree that the degree isn't all that important once you get started, that's why I encourage people to put effort into cultivating a professional network. Maintain your linkedin profile, and never stay with the same employer for more than 2 years. Jumping ship will give you new skills and greatly expand your professional network. It's not particularly difficult unless you're an introvert (which lots of tech type folks are), but that just means you'll have to work a little harder at it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a615eaaf29fdac7979f7a831c284c25", "text": "\"If you are talking about a home office, you don't \"\"charge\"\" the business anything. If the area is used exclusively as an office you pro-rate by square footage just the actual expenses. TurboTax recent published an article \"\"Can I Take the Home Office Deduction?\"\" which is a must read if you don't understand the process. (Note: I authored said article.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4323ed1970efc2dd96cac11c0a64cdd", "text": "In Canada, internships aren't as popular. We have co-op work terms during alternating semesters. When I was a coop student, I got about $15-20 per hour, and that was 2005-2007. Coop students at my current job make about $20-30 depending on their degree and year. That aside, I had a bad sales experience in one of my work terms. Basically exactly the same, cold calls all day, and if I got a lead, I would go to their office and present the plan. I hated it. I slugged it out, got a mediocre review, but my next work term I did really well and thus began my slightly different career in supply chain mgmt. I still miss finance, and i build family members and friends their investment portfolios. One day I'll start my own consulting business, maybe do it on the side.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5b640cb6456d918dd2e2060e26ef89d", "text": "that's just not possible. 27% of all US scientists are immigrants and so are 48% of all engineers. America does not produce enough high educated/skilled workers. MS build, or planned on building, a research facility around 5 years ago. They said they can't get enough professors and doctors with adequate education to fill the 9,000 positions. so they asked the INS how to proceed. the INS told them to fill H1b visa applications. that is only once a year and they might get, statistically, only 2000-3000 out of it of they're lucky because most will be rejected or just not get picked (it's a lottery). MS asked Canada, Canada said do whatever, more taxes for us. MS built it in Ontario I think. at the same time Google wrote that angry blog post in their corporate blog about how shitty the H1b situation is.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8acbe16dfc5f3919e03e8727db59c20", "text": "One study. With flaws like this: > In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. And also [this, from the Seattle Times](http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/) >In its report, the UW researchers focused on “low wage” jobs — those paying under $19 an hour — and not just “minimum wage” jobs, to account for the spillover effect of employers raising the pay of those making more than minimum wage. >To try to isolate the effects of the minimum-wage law from other factors, the UW team built a “synthetic” Seattle statistical model, aggregating areas outside King County but within the state that had previously shown numbers and trends similar to Seattle’s labor market. >Other studies on minimum wage have typically used lower-wage industries, such as the restaurant sector, or lower-paid groups such as teenagers, as proxies to get at employment, they said. >That was the case with a University of California, Berkeley study released last week that found Seattle’s minimum-wage law led to higher pay for restaurant workers without costing jobs in 2015 and 2016. If you support Trump's policies, then you should be in favor of raising the minimum wage. Isn't that the whole purpose of reducing the labor supply from immigrants? There was an article recently about the affect that the reduced supply of immigrants was having on the summer labor supply in Cape Cod. They will have to raise wages to get more people. From The Atlantic: [How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-democrats-immigration-mistake/528678/)", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
75422577c732d83805844d3c06402777	What does this diagram from Robert Kiyosaki about corporations mean?	[ { "docid": "c8672979540e87260ba5fd97c86aadc9", "text": "It looks like RK is encouraging tax fraud. Suggesting that one have their business cover personal expenses sounds like the advice that got Leona Helmsley in hot water.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2a80bbadd20bcfeb527a72ff20e820a", "text": "\"These types of diagrams appear all throughout Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad book. The arrows in the diagrams represent cash flow. For example, the first two diagrams of this type in the book are: The idea being presented here is that an asset generates income, and a liability generates expenses. According to the book, rich people spend their money buying assets, while middle class people buy liabilities. The diagram you posted above does not appear in the edition of the book I have (Warner Books Edition, printed in 2000). However, the following similar diagram appears in the chapter titled \"\"The History of Taxes and the Power of Corporations\"\": The idea behind this diagram is to demonstrate what the author considers the tax advantages of a personal corporation: using a corporation to pay for certain expenses with pre-tax dollars. Here is a quote from this chapter: Employees earn and get taxed and they try to live on what is left. A corporation earns, spends everything it can, and is taxed on anything that is left. It's one of the biggest legal tax loopholes that the rich use. They're easy to set up and are not expensive if you own investments that are producing good cash flow. For example; by owning your own corporation - vacations are board meetings in Hawaii. Car payments, insurance, repairs are company expenses. Health club membership is a company expense. Most restaurant meals are partial expenses. And on and on - but do it legally with pre-tax dollars. This piece of advice, like so much of the book, may contain a small amount of truth, but is oversimplified and potentially dangerous if taken a face value. There are many examples, as JoeTaxpayer mentioned, of people who tried to deduct too many expenses and failed to make a business case for them that would satisfy the IRS.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "088df15e0ea3ad2ead12b98c4f94df99", "text": "This article leaves quite a bit of information out, I gather. Poorly written. How many corporations is he getting paid from? What were the terms of the agreement? It sounds like Kiyosaki himself isn't going bankrupt, it sounds like some small, off-shoot is taking the brunt of the damages so the rest of his assets can move on. This guy knows how to protect himself and his companies. This could be nothing more than a parking ticket for him, and this news website decided to sensationalize it. What a surprise.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "037ff4f1b2515f5e2836409f3f382fe3", "text": "\"That has not been disproved. What the quote means is \"\"when [workers as a collective] earn more, [businesses as a collective] get more customers\"\". It's impossible to disprove this, because it's like a kind of economic tautology. It's like, if I give you five one dollar bills, how many five dollars will you have. What you mean to argue is that that's spacious, because the real world is more complicated.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6544dfbaa3555ca482c8c4d30ba723ce", "text": "\"Actually, this quote is bogus. It is from a book (Web of Debt by Ellen Brown). Even Brown herself now acknowledges this fact: Chapter 7, #20 at http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/questions-and-answers/response-to-gary-north/response-to-gary-north-2/ From Brown: \"\"A bogus quote from Garfield on the control over money. I was already alerted to that. Garfield is no longer mentioned in my book.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b58d203013c024c3657a62f4153e2b6", "text": "In the US, and I suspect in most of the developed world, one major point of a corporation is limited liability. The stockholders are not on the hook for liabilities beyond their investment. If the company does something terrible, or fails economically, it goes bankrupt. Usually the stockholders have their investment wiped out, but they are guaranteed that they do not have to pay more in to any settlement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6e5cbb198a4572e0a15ab50c115e729", "text": "Just clarifying in case some people just skim and walk away thinking the author is bankrupt. Kiyosaki is involved in many business ventures. One of his companies filed for bankruptcy, which is a separate entity to himself. He himself did not lose any personal assets and is still very rich. Thanks for reading.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e339735f623110bdf034ab57031d132", "text": "This is supply side nonsense. The primary driver of growth is demand. If demand is growing, then lower taxes will allow the company to meet growing demand faster. However, if demand is stable and currently being met by the company, reducing taxes will only enrich shareholders at the expense of society at large. Unless there is growing demand, a corporation will always choose to allocate profit via tax cuts to shareholders rather than to employees in the form of jobs or raises.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "313c3d47572e224eea5f71a63b51c006", "text": "\"I appreciate the time and thought you put into your comment. I, however, disagree with much of what you said. I don't think you understand the \"\"anti-business\"\" mentality at all. In fact calling it antibusiness to me sounds just horribly slanted. The wrongs that are commited by the business community should not be dismissed because they are \"\"hard to track\"\". Even if the statement is true, it doesn't matter. There is no excuse and frankly statements like that sound extremely apologetic. With that said, I agree with you 100% that a lot of the discourse on this subreddit is not conducive to discussion/learning. I certainly don't want to discourage you from posting. The frustration the \"\"business community\"\" feels by being misunderstood is certainly shared by the other side. If you would like to hear my thoughts on anything specific feel free to ask.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94d6cab7397de0ae8041fbfe4bf52214", "text": "This actually makes sense, although it's about twice as complicated as any concept I've seen laid out in a business, rather than economics context, so it's no surprise that people (as you say) get it wrong. Also, it emphasizes that corporate taxation is not exactly an easy thing to deal with.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f5cd0e2810aa265ab71d2be22529cb9", "text": "Read your link. Thanks. The basic idea is that capitalism will work it out. And that each of us will pay a security agency to handle our disputes, and that rival security agencies will collaborate and negotiate with each other. And that private courts will be fair to protect their brand. This overlooks some harsh realities that already exist with capitalism. Customers generally do not have time to purchase based on accurate information for every product. For example, airlines compete almost solely on price. Insurance companies compete on price and provide horrible, sometimes fraudulent service. But customers are left in the dark (who is to say the insurer committed fraud if it disputes it?) Banks operate with gross incompetence and deceipt and are left untouched by the justice system. We have already discovered that just letting corporations operate without an restrictions creates serious problems. There has to be force that tempers their worst tendencies, even if that force (government) is imperfect. I remain confused why people think that corporations are somehow more trustworthy and efficient than government agencies. Or that corporations can be used to address externalities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02fa66cfa69d5558e602110f32d2b89a", "text": "Activist Investor is the entrenched capitalists fake news meme. Trump wants to pass a law that says shareholders don't even get a vote until they pass a certain threshold on ownership % of a company so they can keep all the little people from having any say. Ownership isn't really ownership unless you're rich I guess. Democracy bad! Freedom! America!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e56e61a49df070c62eeaa3456510c9e", "text": "\"It's a front; a farce. It's nearly suicide for a corporation (which relies on voluntary customers) to say they're \"\"against\"\" climate change - interpret that statement how you will. So they say \"\"oh yeah, environment, great stuff, we love it, pollution bad, green good - we'll reduce our CO2\"\". So they find some stupid project, reduce their emissions by whatever-% - ya know, throw a couple spare bucks at it, greenwash the shit out of it. And probably get half those dollars back as a green tax credit anyway. Meanwhile, their bottom line and day-to-day operations are largely unaffected. And the costly stuff - MACT compliance, legislation, taxes - the things that make environmental responsibility really happen - they want no part of that. So they pay of their politicians to promote that as \"\"job killing\"\" and quietly let them haggle over details. Or better yet - stall indefinitely. So everybody wins. Kind of.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9da812b213cc5c3e9363a2765e600f72", "text": "This creates high levels of efficiency, but is efficiency really what we need? A robot is very efficient, and increases income, but for who? When a corporation absorbs another, it does so with the expectation that redundant jobs will be shed, and that the income from those jobs will go to the shareholders. And so one can see where income inequality has it's roots.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc75b92e879150b5457e0281a3e31053", "text": "> People should come before profits. The entire Corporate Charter process is in United States law. It does say profit comes before people, it's called fiduciary responsibility. I haven't seen any political parties rise around this topic -- so I'd assume corporations hurting people isn't as big as Reddit makes it out? Otherwise most Americans would change how they vote and find a new party?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0a105efb12a70353eeb386335cb84764", "text": "\">\"\"Our support for these (shareholder resolutions on climate risk) proposals is not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of economics,\"\" he said. \"\"To the extent there are significant risks to a company's long-term value proposition, we want to make sure there is long-term disclosure of those risks to the market.\"\" the irony is indescribable\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e51a130fe1c7a6a69cca14afabb9d37e", "text": "Whether or not you want to abstain or throw away the proxy, one reason it's important to at least read the circular is to find out if any of the proposals deal with increasing the company's common stock. When this happens, it can dilute your shares and have an effect on your ownership percentage in the company and shareholder voting control.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
469960a575acb8bb80d19461b8e31822	Are there any Social Responsibility Index funds or ETFs?	[ { "docid": "82f557e3bc6679dec9faab7b6e58cc05", "text": "Vanguard offers an index fund. Their FTSE Social Index Fund. For more information on it, go here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "046d9cdbbb9b9aa2eb877b718d47e705", "text": "Try this site for the funds http://www.socialinvest.org/resources/mfpc/ I'm not aware of any etfs. I'm sure some exist though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44d1af6d4395f2c235888d5616012479", "text": "TIAA-Cref has their Social Choice Equity Fund, which is a Large Blend primarily equity fund that invests given the following consideration: The Fund primarily invests in companies that are screened by MSCI Inc. (“MSCI”) to favor companies that meet or exceed certain environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) criteria. The Fund does this by investing in U.S. companies included in one or more MSCI ESG Indices that meet or exceed the screening criteria described below. Prior to being eligible for inclusion in the MSCI ESG Indices, companies are subject to an ESG performance evaluation conducted by MSCI, consisting of numerous factors. The ESG evaluation process favors companies that are: (i) strong stewards of the environment; (ii) devoted to serving local communities where they operate and to human rights and philanthropy; (iii) committed to higher labor standards for their own employees and those in the supply chain; (iv) dedicated to producing high-quality and safe products; and (v) managed in an exemplary and ethical manner. https://www.tiaa.org/public/offer/products/mutual-funds/responsible-investing", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a88f190b9a34215e9598fa911b24648", "text": "There is the iShares Jantzi Social Index Fund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5cc462f14c7eb5e444e024987746662", "text": "\"Look at the Calvert Funds. They have a variety of \"\"socially responsible\"\" funds with published selection standards. Beware of mixing personal politics with business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f104aaaa262a368acdac8f46ddc2c436", "text": "Index funds: Some of the funds listed by US SIF are index funds. ETFs: ETFdb has a list, though it's pretty short at the moment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65d63f2d360544b545ad1ec39c769653", "text": "At the other end of the spectrum is the VICEX fund. it invests in industries such as tobacco, gaming, defense/weapons, liquor and other companies whose products or services are widely considered not to be socially responsible", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "6d27696136ba1887f2e334a643403052", "text": "You question is very hard to answer as it is tough to put a value on how much bad your added investment in evil companies would cause and also how much value the charities add. However, there has been a bunch of really good work on socially responsible investing in general. This paper might be too technical for some but the conclusion section is very readable and clear. The big worry about socially responsible investing from a financial standpoint is that it will lower returns in the long run. The paper above and others show fairly clearly that as long as you only exclude a few classes of stocks and still have a fairly broad base that the expected returns are similar. The main issue though is some socially responsible funds have much higher fees. So the usual advice applies, do your research to make sure your investments are well diversified and have low fees. As long as the index is fairly broad you can consider the difference between the fees on the socially responsible index and investing in a more common index as the long run cost. Then you can balance that cost and having more money for charity against the benefits of not investing in evil companies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88edd029ff0f292e8b015f2b0773a604", "text": "\"Vanguard has a Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund. Their web page says \"\"Some individuals choose investments based on social and personal beliefs. For this type of investor, we have offered Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund since 2000. This low-cost fund seeks to track a benchmark of large- and mid-capitalization stocks that have been screened for certain social, human rights, and environmental criteria. In addition to stock market volatility, one of the fund’s other key risks is that this socially conscious approach may produce returns that diverge from those of the broad market.\"\" It looks like it would meet the qualifications you require, plus Vanguard funds usually have very low fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59b058bcdbb701d92ee0a1c7554b96c5", "text": "The short answer to your question is yes. Index funds are about the easiest and most efficient diversified way to invest your money. Vanguard's are among the cheapest and best. Be aware, though, that passive income doesn't mean you do nothing for your money. In the case of investing, what you are doing is bearing risk. That is, you are being paid (on average) to put your money in a situation where you may lose money. If you keep your eye on the long-term prize, then when (not if) you sustain losses in your investment account, you will have the patience to leave the money in there. I'm a little confused by your wording about increasing your salary. Normally we think of index funds as a way to increase our wealth. If you are making new investments, presumably you have more salary than you need right now. Normal index funds will reinvest dividends automatically, so you will see the value of your investments rise but will not see any cash flows per se unless you are selling your holdings. If you want actual cash coming out of your investment, you can use ETF's to achieve the same type of investment and treat the dividends as a supplement to your income. Note, however, that some gains in your ETF will be in the form of capital gains and some will be dividends. Think more like 2% year per in dividend payments and the rest in capital gains. If your objective is to save for retirement, please consider investing through an IRA, Roth IRA, or through your 401(k). No need to give uncle sam a gift from your hard-earned money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0918254a089cca9fd94fee63324ec519", "text": "\"Your bank's fund is not an index fund. From your link: To provide a balanced portfolio of primarily Canadian securities that produce income and capital appreciation by investing primarily in Canadian money market instruments, debt securities and common and preferred shares. This is a very broad actively managed fund. Compare this to the investment objective listed for Vanguard's VOO: Invests in stocks in the S&P 500 Index, representing 500 of the largest U.S. companies. There are loads of market indices with varying formulas that are supposed to track the performance of a market or market segment that they intend to track. The Russel 2000, The Wilshire 1000, The S&P 500, the Dow Industrial Average, there is even the SSGA Gender Diversity Index. Some body comes up with a market index. An \"\"Index Fund\"\" is simply a Mutual Fund or Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that uses a market index formula to make it's investment decisions enabling an investor to track the performance of the index without having to buy and sell the constituent securities on their own. These \"\"index funds\"\" are able to charge lower fees because they spend $0 on research, and only make investment decisions in order to track the holdings of the index. I think 1.2% is too high, but I'm coming from the US investing world it might not be that high compared to Canadian offerings. Additionally, comparing this fund's expense ratio to the Vanguard 500 or Total Market index fund is nonsensical. Similarly, comparing the investment returns is nonsensical because one tracks the S&P 500 and one does not, nor does it seek to (as an example the #5 largest holding of the CIBC fund is a Government of Canada 2045 3.5% bond). Everyone should diversify their holdings and adjust their investment allocations as they age. As you age you should be reallocating away from highly volatile common stock and in to assets classes that are historically more stable/less volatile like national government debt and high grade corporate/local government debt. This fund is already diversified in to some debt instruments, depending on your age and other asset allocations this might not be the best place to put your money regardless of the fees. Personally, I handle my own asset allocations and I'm split between Large, Mid and Small cap low-fee index funds, and the lowest cost high grade debt funds available to me.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "625a988bfb55940701a041358b283f3b", "text": "Some of the ETFs you have specified have been delisted and are no longer trading. If you want to invest in those specific ETFs, you need to find a broker that will let you buy European equities such as those ETFs. Since you mentioned Merrill Edge, a discount broking platform, you could also consider Interactive Brokers since they do offer trading on the London Stock Exchange. There are plenty more though. Beware that you are now introducing a foreign exchange risk into your investment too and that taxation of capital returns/dividends may be quite different from a standard US-listed ETF. In the US, there are no Islamic or Shariah focussed ETFs or ETNs listed. There was an ETF (JVS) that traded from 2009-2010 but this had such little volume and interest, the fees probably didn't cover the listing expenses. It's just not a popular theme for North American listings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "788e2922438931125a014bc6c0e69ede", "text": "Banks and energy are fundamental requirements for modern civilisation, and there are plenty of both who contribute a great deal to society's well-being, but I do know where you are coming from. The nature of the system we have is that the largest organisations tend to attract the most ruthless leaders who are prepared to screw over people and the environment in pursuit of their own selfish interest. Sociopaths cunning enough to not get caught out are rewarded and those who prioritise social benefits over the growth of their organisation are out-competed and make themselves less relevant. In theory, that should be kept in check by culture of social responsibility, a strong free press and good government, but those things have been eroding for a long time. There are mutual funds who seek to invest only in ethical companies. Ethics are subjective, so there's always the possibility that you'd disagree with their choices, or they make errors of judgement, but it's a better option than a fund that only considers returns. You've got a better chance that it is run by people who think ethics are important, so they might not see their clients as muppets to be fleeced (like Goldman Sachs apparently does). Alternatively, you could invest in a fund that contributes to growing a developing nation's economy, or only invests in renewable energy, or agriculture, or whatever you consider important.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b90dc3f316e64f6d93f0fd4e355334d", "text": "An index fund is inherently diversified across its index -- no one stock will either make or break the results. In that case it's a matter of picking the index(es) you want to put the money into. ETFs do permit smaller initial purchases, which would let you do a reasonable mix of sectors. (That seems to be the one advantage of ETFs over traditional funds...?)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74ccaa6350c9ba08aed19a0257ccad94", "text": "In the United States investing towards donation is a great idea because you can donate appreciated securities directly rather than donating cash. Notice how much this can benefit you: So you get to both (a) donate untaxed money and then (b) deduct that unrealized money from your income total on your tax return. With the above in mind, a good strategy for investing towards this type of donation would be to pick securities that are likely to increase in market value but not likely to produce any other sort of income. So bonds (which produce lots of interest income), or stocks with dividends, or equity mutual funds (which distribute dividends as capital gains) would all be suboptimal for this purpose. Of course, an even better strategy would be to establish a widely diversified investment portfolio without thought to future donations. Then, once a year (or whenever), evaluate all your investments and find some where the market value has increased. Then donate some of those shares. No special advance planning necessary. Note that your tax consequences could be more complicated depending on your exact situation. Read the section about Capital Gain Property in IRS Pub. 26 for all the details. There may be special limits on the amount you can deduct. Also, donations of short term capital gains are treated much less favorably, so make sure you donate only long term capital gain property.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd36cc84ea10cfdc1920099d015b5085", "text": "Why don't you look at the actual funds and etfs in question rather than seeking a general conclusion about all pairs of funds and etfs? For example, Vanguard's total stock market index fund (VTSAX) and ETF (VTI). Comparing the two on yahoo finance I find no difference over the last 5 years visually. For a different pair of funds you may find something very slightly different. In many cases the index fund and ETF will not have the same benchmark and fees so comparisons get a little more cloudy. I recall a while ago there was an article that was pointing out that at the time emerging market ETF's had higher fees than corresponding index funds. For this reason I think you should examine your question on a case-by-case basis. Index fund and ETF returns are all publicly available so you don't have to guess.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6cfd328152923cd18a400e5ea5ef1a5", "text": "Although you can't invest in an index, you can invest in a fund that basically invests in what the index is made up of. Example: In dealing with an auto index, you could find a fund that buys car companies's stock. The Google Finance list of funds dealing with INDEXDJX:REIT Although not pertaining to your quetion exactly, you may want to consider buying into Vanguard REIT ETF I hope this answers your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fbaf8f14b52cfeedf9a2bdeac8dc656c", "text": "They have ETFs for most of what you listed above. Except the deep-fried candy bars. You know that's just a distributed candy bar that is THEN fried right? They have a few religious ETFs as well as some socially responsible ones. There is no reason to make one based on a single person's preference though - ETFs make their money on fees. For that they need VOLUME. Move Volume = More Money Also, there are over 1,411 ETF's in the US as of 2014. That means there are a lot of options already. You could always create your own if you are a great salesperson though. Source", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3003d5746feb0494dc747bbe65128495", "text": "New to Reddit (please forgive any struggles with propriety) and created this post because I could not find any relatively recent discussions on corporate social responsibility or created shared value. I'm passionate about advocating for an intuitively triple bottom line economic system where compassion is logically and holistically advantageous. Curious to know if anyone can provide sound arguments for why that vision will never come true or won't come true anytime soon. Basically, I want to have a real micro/macro critical discussion on CSR and CSV.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b5b90e9340e1eadbd41a2f035e6a76b", "text": "\"Most people advocate a passively managed, low fee mutual fund that simply aims to track a given benchmark (say S&P 500). Few funds can beat the S&P consistently, so investors are often better served finding a no load passive fund. First thing I would do is ask your benefits rep why you don't have an option to invest in a Fidelity passive index fund like Spartan 500. Ideally young people would be heavy in equities and slowly divest for less risky stuff as retirement comes closer, and rebalance the portfolio regularly when market swings put you off risk targets. Few people know how to do this and actually do so. So there are mutual funds that do it for you, for a fee. These in are called \"\"lifecycle\"\" funds (The Freedom funds here). I hesitate to recommend them because they're still fairly new. If you take a look at underlying assets, these things generally just reinvest in the broker's other funds, which themselves have expenses & fees. And there's all kinds personal situations that might lead to you place a portion with a different investment.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3907f73e157690cfd45309ed0bda2e5", "text": "Does your current employer offer a 401(k)? Can you roll your IRA into that? You can borrow from a 401(k). If you leave your job, get fired etc., you have to pay back the loan but you can avoid the early withdrawal penalty at least; there may also be less of a tax issue since it is a loan and may not be considered income unless you don't pay it back. The terms for taking a loan are set by the 401(k) plan documents. If you explore this route make sure you see the plan document itself. Don't rely on what someone tells you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "007e22a9f926be047351fa6ff6a02a9c", "text": "Although this scheme is likely to get shut down rather quickly by either your broker or credit card company some points you seem to have missed out on. Properly timed you should be able to get ~55 days of grace period (30 day billing cycle + 25 day grace period) assuming you pay everything off every month and charge immediately following the statement date. You will need to avoid certain card issuers that code all transactions with financial institutions as cash advances (Citibank in paticular). If it is possible it would be in your best interest to lower cash advance limits to 0 to avoid any chance of cash advance fees. If your credit card attempts to process it as a cash advance the transaction will just be declined and you won't be out anything. Otherwise one cash advance fee will eat several months worth of profits. As far as investments with guaranteed principal goes the only thing you can realistically do is money market accounts and maybe treasury notes. Anything else and the short term price fluctuation may leave you high and dry. If this scheme were to work you would be much better off attempting to get rewards for the purchases than anything you could invest in. If you used a 2% card and churned it every month you would be looking at a 24% return on credit card rewards. Even 1% rewards gives you a 12% annual return which is going to beat anything you could invest the money in.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
9cde7a12c4c457690fad783688f46560	Peer to peer lending in Canada?	[ { "docid": "8586796e8d64cc6ebeb5ef6bc6cc0f27", "text": "Yes and no, P2P Capital Markets is similar concept but is more geared towards business loans. Community Lend used to offer this service but has stopped.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "38f7e76038c4ca35c5a3dfcd210ed4b8", "text": "A friend recently bought an 800€ TV on 0% financing. Sounded like a sensible thing to do. Why pay 800 when you can pay 80pm for 10 months? It took 30mins to set up the 'loan'. She had to sign all kinds of documents, giving away much personal information (age, employment info, income, email address etc). She now has a financial relationship with an institution which has nothing to do with the item purchased. She is bombarded with all kinds of financial offerings. She regrets taking out the finance. She had the money. The hassle and the unwanted links to banks make the deal unattractive. Perhaps she should have tried to make a cash deal...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a7deb3d6c5891fea008a3d261740e7d", "text": "\"Credit scores are not such a big deal in Canada as they are in the US and even some European countries. One reason for this: the Social Insurance Number (SIN number) isn't used for so many purposes like the Social Security Number (SSN) in the US. The SIN number isn't even required to get credit (but with some exceptions it is needed to open an interest-bearing savings account, so that the interest income can be reported). You can refuse to provide the SIN number to most private companies. Canada also has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates of any large country, so new arrivals are expected, and services are geared up for them. Most of the banks offer special deals for \"\"New Canadians\"\". You should get a credit card (even if just a secured credit card) through them with one of these offers to start a credit file anyway, but there's no need to actually use it much. Auto-paying a utility bill through the card, and paying it off in full each month, is one way to keep it active. No need to ever pay any interest. Most major apartment rental firms will expect a good proportion of their renters to be new to Canada, so should have procedures in place to deal with it (such as a higher deposit). You should not give them your SIN for a credit check, even when you're more established. Same for utilities, they can just charge a higher deposit if they can't credit check you. For private landlords, everything is negotiable (but see the laws link at the end of this answer). You will later need a credit rating for a mortgage on a house (if not paying cash), so it's worth getting that one token credit card. Useful for car rental also. Here's a fairly complete summary of the laws on renting in Canada, which includes the maximum deposits that can be asked for, and notice periods.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b7fa896641c253bb54b8cc490b4d8ee", "text": "Yes, it is. Got to start somewhere. Typically directly through a company itself. Check out this site that lists a bunch of them and their minimum requirements. Not many only accept $100 but there are a few. ie. ACTIVEnergy Income Fund, CIBC, COMPASS Income Fund, Suncor Energy Inc. and a few others.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0289022308ebf38fe78e9fa60167689b", "text": "Lending isn't profitable when interest rates are this low. Consider what's involved to offer a savings or checking account. The bank must maintain branches with tellers. The bank has to pay rent (or buy and pay property taxes and utilities). The bank has to pay salaries. The bank has to maintain cash so as to make change. And pay for insurance against robbery. All of that costs money. At 6% interest, a bank can sort of make money. Not great money, but it takes in more than it has to pay out. At 4% interest, which is about where ten year mortgage rates are in Canada, the bank doesn't make enough margin. They are better off selling the loan and closing their branches than offering free checking accounts. An additional problem is that banks tend to make money from overdraft fees. But there's been a move to limit overdraft fees, as they target the most economically vulnerable. So Canadian banks tend to charge monthly fees instead. UK banks may also start charging monthly fees if interest rates stay low and other fees get curtailed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55dc1bbd3528ca485ea549a23d352fa9", "text": "In the United Kingdom, there is a leading company that has been offering Progressive business funding solutions to the businesses for the last 120 years. Their service areas are South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Australia, USA, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb45f0f3cdc5a4feeae93a9c8bf160c7", "text": "The idea is great but US securities laws impose a huge burden on these businesses. Specifically [Rule 502(c)](http://taft.law.uc.edu/CCL/33ActRls/rule502.html) of Reg D prohibits 'general solicitation and advertising' - such as using the internet. There is currently pending legislation to amend the [US Securities act of 1933 sec. 4(2)](http://taft.law.uc.edu/CCL/33Act/sec4.html) regarding public offerings to help reduce such barriers, but as it stands there are significant barriers to entry in the market. SEC filing and reporting requirements, especially after Dodd-Frank, are onerous to say the least, and running direct lending services are at the moment largely cost prohibitive due to these requirements.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c19ae66b44737cc53fa80786107eabb5", "text": "The best description of P2P lending process I saw comes from the SEC proceedings. They are very careful about naming things that are happening in the process. Prosper got back to business after this order, but the paper describes succinctly how Prosper worked when its notes haven't yet been registered by the SEC. These materials contain a lot of responsible comments on how crowdfunding, including P2P lending, works.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "020f958d49f7f77b5400dc0ac1d52896", "text": "If money is more expensive (costs more to borrow) then fewer people will be able to qualify to make the payments for a particular size of mortgage. This reduces the number of potential buyers for property at that price. As sellers still want to sell, they will move their prices down to where more people can afford to buy. So rising interest rates create downward pressure on housing prices. But Toronto is the biggest city in Canada. I'd expect part of the high prices there is the location: lots of people want to be close to lots of activities, action, and opportunity. Unless something catastrophic happens, I don't see Toronto losing that advantage. If anything, it's going to get a tad warmer up there in the coming decades.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a29abe8bc565c446b56b3aa8d4130e1", "text": "I was active in Prosper when it started up. It was very easy to get attracted to the high risk loans with big interest rates and I lost about 14% after all my loans ran their course. (There's 10 still active, but it won't change the figure by much). Prosper has wider standards than Lending club, so more borrowers with worse credit scores could ask for loans. Lenders could also set interest rates far lower, so they could end up having loans with rates lower than the risk implied. This was set up with the idea of a free market where anyone could ask to borrow and anyone could loan money at whatever interest rate they wanted, It turns out a lot of lenders were not as smart as they thought they were. (Aside: it's funny how people will clamor for a free market, but when they lose money will suddenly be against the free market they said they wanted, this seems to apply to both individual p2p lenders up to massive multinational banks.). Since then Prosper has tightened their standards on who can borrow and the interest rates are now fixed. So I expect going forward it will be less easy to lose a bunch of money. The key is that one bad loan will erase the return of many good ones. So it's best to examine the loans carefully and stick with the high quality. Simplified Example If you have 10 1 yr loans of $100 each paying 10% interest/year, you get 10% return at the end of the year, so $100 (10% of $1000.). BUT if one loan goes bad at the start, you have lost money. So a 90% success rate in picking borrowers leads to a loss. You want to diversity over quite a few loans and you want to fund quality loans. I think really enjoyed investing through Prosper, because it gave me an insight into lending and loss ratios that I had not had before. It also caused me to look at the banks with even more incredulity when the case of the no-doc loans and neg-am loans came to light.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8271c5f5c72a8011814eda10ffe04a2", "text": "Canadian here: the US is our biggest customer, so we were impacted economically. I expected that within a year or two of the US housing collapse, we would also be hit, but something else happened: when the US dropped interest rates like a stone, we were also forced to drop interest rates. This meant that suddenly, money was being handed out for very very cheap, so cheap it was almost free if you had a decent job and good credit. The housing market here paused for a brief moment, and then continued climbing. It never stopped until some new rules were implemented, aimed mostly at foreign buyers and investors, and put in place this year. It appears however that this current drop in prices may be a temporary dip. The average cost of a home in Toronto is still around $1m CAD, and our real estate is still among the most expensive in the world if you look at how much we pay compared to our incomes. In some places, houses have basically tripled over the past decade. My point here is that Canadian home owners were not impacted negatively by the 2008 crisis. In fact, once the free money started flowing and prices went up accordingly, Canadian home owners were enriched as a direct result of the 2008 US housing crisis. The situation is clearly unsustainable, and the market is irrational. It's easy to say that we are in a bubble but it is impossible to tell when it will crash. In Canada, it's harder to walk away from mortgage debt; if you're underwater on your home, and the bank forecloses on you and sells the house for less than you owe, you still owe the bank the remainder of the money (in most provinces).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f08d6c1787b0d0596cfff5c0642ddfa", "text": "It has to do with return. I don't know if Canada has a matching feature on retirement accounts, but in the US many companies will match the first X% you put in. So for me, my first $5000 or so is matched 100%. I'll take that match over paying down any debt. Beyond that, of course it's a simple matter of rate of return. Why save in the bank at 2% when you owe at 10-18%? One can make this as simple or convoluted as they like. My mortgage is a tax deduction so my 5% mortgage costs me 3.6%. I've continued to invest rather than pay the mortgage too early, as my retirement account is with pre-tax dollars. So $72 will put $100 in that account. Even in this last decade, bad as it was, I got more than 3.6% return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "66e95cc2d4756ef1261006aef5665ad3", "text": "Social Lending may help you qualify for a loan, but doesn't necessarily provide better rates. You have to shop around to get the best rates, this is a market as any other, so don't expect one place to be consistently below the market - either the market will move, or the place will move eventually, everyone wants to earn the most for the buck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "520e7ba0e4b551aa44c93970fffdde0d", "text": "On pensions, part of the issue will be how well funded they are. Most pensions are not completely funded. In the US pension payments are insured to an annual cap by the PBGC. So you can loose out on part of your pension payment. I don't know what/if there is an equivalent in Canada.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "296a9ef0fe614daa0f69631c91d326d5", "text": "I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/metacanada] [Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Invests US$400 Million in WME│IMG](https://np.reddit.com/r/metacanada/comments/6sdk52/canada_pension_plan_investment_board_invests/) [](#footer)^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger)) [](#bot)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afc9e163be701e521007a05232e59cc0", "text": "I am not entirely sold on investing in start-up companies, but I really like the idea of crowdfunding investments. I've been an investor at [LendingClub](https://www.lendingclub.com/) for 10 months now and am quite happy so far. For those of you who don't know, Lending Club is where you can crowdfund consumer loans. I'm also very interested in [Solar Mosaic](https://solarmosaic.com/). Once their quiet period ends I am planning on investing in solar projects through them. Of course I'll want to see some data related to their risk and returns, but I love the idea of earning a return from funding solar projects. I think that crowdfunding allows you to invest in areas that are normally off-limits to those of us who aren't rich. At the very least these investments offer a nice source of portfolio diversification.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
7bea26a08ccd1aaf5e5f02e5f3e8a9cf	Washington State tax filing extension?	[ { "docid": "7691b04c045df57a892e781356f4004f", "text": "Washington State doesn't have a state income tax for individuals, so unless you've got a business there's nothing to file. Find out more on their website.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "0dbe615376361cbe5aee13c01dac142b", "text": "\"Hearing somewhere is a level or two worse than \"\"my friend told me.\"\" You need to do some planning to forecast your full year income and tax bill. In general, you should be filing a quarterly form and tax payment. You'll still reconcile the year with an April filing, but if you are looking to save up to pay a huge bill next year, you are looking at the potential of a penalty for under-withholding. The instructions and payment coupons are available at the IRS site. At this point I'm required to offer the following advice - If you are making enough money that this even concerns you, you should consider starting to save for the future. A Solo-401(k) or IRA, or both. Read more on these two accounts and ask separate questions, if you'd like.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfbe958f8ed0a8af91bbfb143871a2cb", "text": "The obligation is contractual, so you need to read the contract to answer your question. However, since you paid for the service provided, I see no way they can force you buy any other service from them. They cannot file your tax returns without your explicit consent (on a form dedicated to that, dated and having the numbers matching the return filed - not something you can sign before the actual return is ready). Worst case they can claim you owe them more money, but since you paid for the services provided, I can't see how they can have that stand in court as well. Bottom line - even if the contract has such an obligation, I cannot see how it can be enforced. As to the mistake they noted... I wouldn't rely on H&R Block advice in any matter. Very likely, the person you were talking to was not even licensed to provide tax advice. You're lucky if the person has passed CRTP exams (in California they're legally required), but I seriously doubt their clerks are EAs or CPAs (the only designations other than a lawyer legally allowed to provide tax advice). Tax preparers (CRTPs included) are only allowed to provide advice pertaining to the preparation of the tax return they're currently engaged to prepare. Claiming income is sourced or not sourced in NY is borderline, IMHO. If they got it wrong (and to me it sounds as they did) you can sue them for damages. If your situation is tricky and it is too late to get an appointment with a proper adviser - file an extension (form 4868) and deal with it after the April busy season.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e823a2231fe80ac405b0c2fe35a9cf4", "text": "You can file a revised W-4 with your employer claiming more allowances than you do now. More allowances means less Federal tax and (if applicable and likely with a separate form) less state tax. This doesn't affect social security and Medicare with holding, though. That being said, US taxes are on a pay-as-you-go system. If the IRS determines that you're claiming more allowances than you're eligible for and not paying the proper taxes throughout the year, they will hit you with an underpayment penalty fee, which would likely negate the benefits of keeping that money in the first place. This is why independent contractors and self-employed people pay quarterly or estimated taxes. Depending on the employer, they may require proof of the allowances for adjustment before they accept the revised W-4.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91f4c060b9360b9405745f9a6e20c852", "text": "File a 2nd amended return that corrects the mistake I made on the 1st amended return This. Pay the $500 before April 27th and try to get it back later This.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0a9bcaa84bf501af4ebd583840d4264a", "text": "Your best bet is going to be contacting TaxAct directly for their information. If you do enter your spouses information and choose to purchase their deluxe product, I would think you might end up paying for the second efile. I have used their deluxe version for many years now, but choose it mostly because of the free state efiling and not for the ability to determine whether or not to file separately. In my case, it makes sense to file jointly and not file separately. The deluxe version allows you to portion out your deductions and see which method of filing gives you the lowest total tax bill. Here's the link directly to TaxAct's support: https://www.taxact.com/tsupport/support_request.asp", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0df54c4fd766fcffc01e0aaeb445237d", "text": "The IRS allows filers to attach a statement explaining the reason for late filing. I have had clients do this in the past, and there has never been an issue (not that that guarantees anything, but is still good to know). Generally, the IRS is much more lenient when a taxpayer voluntarily complies with a filing requirement, even if it's late, than if they figure it out themselves and send a notice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c6506ac79cb6824fd2b472b524cba0f", "text": "Since you both are members of the LLC - it is not a single-member LLC, thus you have to file the tax return on behalf of the LLC (I'm guessing you didn't elect corporate treatment, so you would be filing 1065, which is the default). You need to file form 4868 on behalf of yourselves as individuals, and form 7004 on behalf of the LLC as the partnership. Since the LLC is disregarded (unless you explicitly chose it not to be, which seems not to be the case) the taxes will in fact flow to your individual return(s), but the LLC will have to file the informational return on form 1065 and distribute K-1 forms to each of you. So you wouldn't pay additional estimated taxes with the extension, as you don't pay any taxes with the form 1065 itself. If you need a help understanding all that and filling the forms - do talk to a professional (EA or CPA licensed in your state). Also, reconsider not sending any payment. I suggest sending $1 with the extension form even if you expect a refund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28d9aa347dd6586e63001086f0a889da", "text": "California is very aggressive when it comes to determining residency. While you have a legitimate defense, I suggest talking with a California-licensed CPA or EA practicing in California, which are experienced in dealing with the FTB residency audits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d8e6721496b0d8ad288f2a00eb81a13", "text": "It matters because that is the requirement for the 83(b) selection to be valid. Since the context is 83(b) election, I assume you got stocks/options as compensation and didn't pay for them the FMV, thus it should have been included in your income for that year. If you didn't include the election letter - I can only guess that you also didn't include the income. Hence - you lost your election. If you did include the income and paid the tax accordingly, or if no tax was due (you actually paid the FMV), you may try amending the return and attaching the letter, but I'd suggest talking to a professional before doing it on your own. Make sure to keep a proof (USPS certified mailing receipt) of mailing the letter within the 30 days window.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bfef03612efdf6839e7a6e282ba702e6", "text": "Based on these dates in your question: Going back over my records, I was able to recall the following: Maryland realized recently that on the 2009 Federal 1040 Form you stated that on December 31 2009 you liven in Maryland. They are wondering where the state tax form is. DC, MD and VA due to reciprocity collect income tax based on where you live not where you work. So when you moved in August 2009 and again in August 2010 you needed to file new state versions of the W4. The fact you did or didn't submit to your employer a correct state W-4 is not directly related, because you would owe the tax regardless. The W-4 just makes sure that something close to the correct amounts are withheld and sent to the appropriate state capital. I seem to remember something about not having to pay Maryland state taxes since I not only lived in the state for less than 6 months but also did not work in the state. The reciprocity between DC, MD and VA says that Maryland gets the money because that is where you lived. The last time I had to do a part year the law was that they would forgive a half a month. In other words if you move in late December or early January you could ignore that small time period and avoid having to file in two states. In some cases people argue that some short term moves were never meant to be permanent. You might be able to claim that except the fact that your 2009 federal tax form you most likely claimed you lived in Maryland. The next issue is time and money. If Maryland says you owe them money for that time period, and if they still have the ability to force you to pay it; This is where the issue of correct state W-4 comes in. If the money during the period you lived in Maryland was sent to Virginia, you should have had that money refunded by Richmond in the spring of 2010. But if there was no W-4 filed with your employer that would mean that Maryland didn't get any money for 2009. If you didn't tell Richmond you moved in 2009 they may not have refunded everything because they thought you lived there all year. Because of the time that has passed it may be too late to fix your Virginia filing, so they may not refund you excess payment to them. Maryland is interested in calculating how much you should have paid them in 2009. They are only looking at what you told the feds you made, and they may be assuming that you lived there the whole year. But until you file correctly that have no ability to calculate what you really owe. You need professional advice. You need to know what they can and can't collect. You also need to know what you can and can't get back from Richmond. And since it also may impact your filings for 2010 you will want to get that resolved at the same time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "871f4a0f6ba8fb25bd8237f7f9bc9b15", "text": "I'd be surprised if this ended in a materially-damaging final settlement. It may take more than 5 years to resolve, unless a smoking gun is produced. If PWC and outside counsel really issued written opinions, it could get a lot messier. Especially when we tip over into another recession, the IRS will come under intense Congressional pressure to cut a nominal deal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00b3c587b025b5ae800f89468ba7f5d0", "text": "To be on the safe side - you'll want to get the full invoice. You don't need to actually print them, you can save it as a PDF and make sure to make your own backups once in a while. Only actually print them when the IRS asks you to kill some trees and send them a paper response, and even then you can talk to the agent in charge and check if you can email the digital file instead. The IRS won't ask for this when you file your taxes, they will only ask for this if you're under audit and they will want to actually validate the numbers on your return. You'll know when you're under audit, and who is the auditor (the agent in charge of your case). You'll also want to have some representation when that happens.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45f7684814dbac7f3eed5ce793c0413b", "text": "The purpose of making sure you met the safe harbor was to avoid the penalty. Having achieved that goal the tax law allows you to wait until April 15th to pay the balance. So do so. Put enough money aside to make sure you can easily make that payment. I was in this exact situation a few years ago. I planned my w4 to make the safe harbor, and then slept easy even though the house settlement was in May and I didn't have to make the IRS payment unti 11 months later in April.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d70c66d71539d742252756e37426e4d", "text": "If you took advantage of options like a home buyers plan (HBP) you definitely need to file since you must designate how much of the plan to repay. Your employer does not know about what you do with your money so cannot take this into account for the withheld taxes. If you do not report repayment of the HBP it will be treated as a withdrawal from your RRSP i.e. additional income for that tax year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e39a1801cbfa777e2fda516c1822da31", "text": "\"It's not quite as bad as the comments indicate. Form 1040ES has been available since January (and IME has been similarly for all past years). It mostly uses the prior year (currently 2016) as the basis, but it does have the updated (2017) figures for items that are automatically adjusted for inflation: bracket points (and thus filing threshhold), standard deductions, Social Security cap, and maybe another one or two I missed. The forms making up the actual return cannot be prepared very far in advance because, as commented, Congress frequently makes changes to tax law well after the year begins, and in some cases right up to Dec. 31. The IRS must start preparing forms and pubs -- and equally important, setting the specifications for software providers like Intuit (TurboTax) and H&RBlock -- several months ahead in order to not seriously delay filing season, and with it refunds, which nearly everyone in the country considers (at least publicly) to be worse than World War Three and the destruction of the Earth by rogue asteroids. I have 1040 series from the last 4 years still on my computer, and the download dates mostly range from late September to mid January. Although one outlier shows the range of possibility: 2013 form 1040 and Schedule A were tweaked in April 2014 because Congress passed a law allowing charitable contributions for Typhoon Haiyan to be deducted in the prior year. Substantive, but relatively minor, changes happen every year, including many that keep recurring like the special (pre-AGI) teacher supplies deduction (\"\"will they or won't they?\"\"), section 179 expensing (changes slightly almost every year), and formerly the IRA-direct-to-charity option (finally made permanent last year). As commented, the current Congress and President were elected on a platform with tax reform as an important element, and they are talking even more intensely than before about doing it, although whether they will actually do anything this year is still uncertain. However, if major reform is done it will almost certainly apply to future years only, and likely only start after a lag of some months to a year. They know it causes chaos for businesses and households alike to upend without advance warning the assumptions built in to current budgets and plans -- and IME as a political matter something that is enacted now and effective fairly soon but not now is just as good (but I think that part is offtopic).\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
9f630f6fe3006193207f7c682f2d18df	Freehold and Leasehold for Pub/Bar?	[ { "docid": "f401316bf718c79216a5e715b1ea07d1", "text": "\"In the strictest sense of the words, Freehold and leasehold mean what you think they do. Freehold is that you own it outright and leasehold is a rental situation. That being said, there are scenarios like what Peter K. mentioned in his comment, where you're purchasing the building and business outright, but the land it sits on is actually being leased from a separate land-owner. You may also be seeing the business itself being offered as freehold or leasehold. In this case, you may be purchasing the business of the pub from a pub company, but the building the pub resides in is leased from a property owner. The \"\"pub\"\" would be the business plan, decor, alcohol partnerships, etc. but not the physical structure in which it resides. You should really look into hiring an Estate Agent to help you find what you're looking for. They will be able to assist in narrowing down your list, and may know of opportunities you're not seeing in ads.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "268885bbade6eaf5bbb7e23b4c7c07be", "text": "You should be aware that many pubs in the London (indeed, the UK as a whole) are sold as a leasehold with a beer tie. This typically means you pay less rent for the building and premises, but must enter a contract with the Pub Company to buy their beer and day-to-day supplies. You have the legal option to instead pay market rent for some (but not all) Pub Cos, under certain conditions. If you go with leasehold, the landlord can usually close your pub at their will. This is becoming a quite common occurrence in the booming real estate market of London. While your interest will be in running a pub, the Pub Co's interest will be in getting change of use planning permission and selling it to a real estate developer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e108f84f34d9b14d5f4853877b84669", "text": "Freehold is simple - it's when you own the building and the land it's on. There's no rent to pay (but you will still have to pay taxes!). Leasehold is when the property is leased - rented out for a fixed period that could be anything from 6 months to 199 years. There will be a rent to pay. The person who owns the property is still the freeholder. There may be some confusion caused by what is being sold. You can buy out a lease from the current leaseholder. It's also possible to buy the freehold of a property that is currently leased to someone else. It is also possible to have a freehold building on leasehold land.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "3b4a71f1757cedfab7de46ccf168bda1", "text": "Alas, institutions do not always act rationally, and being an outlier by never having debt may be bad enough. Therein is your problem. The question, then, is do you want to do business with institutions that are not acting rationally? While I cannot specifically speak to Canadian business practices, I have to imagine that in terms of credit history as a prerequisite to a lease, it can't be too different than America. It is possible to live without a credit score. This is typically done by those with enough resources that do not need to borrow money. To make transactions that commonly use credit scores, such as a lease, they will provide personal financial statements (balance sheets, personal income statements, bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns, etc...) to show that they are credit-worthy. References from prior landlords may also be beneficial. Again, the caveat is to elect to only conduct business with those individuals and institutions that are intelligent and rational enough to be able to analyze your financial position (and ability to pay) without a credit score. Therefore, you'll probably have better luck working with individual landlords, as opposed to corporate-owned rental complexes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a3b5dba9f57e8cd65d2b20b9781823e", "text": "\"Frequently selling and buying properties is generally not advisable in Germany due to the high cost for property purchase tax (\"\"Grunderwerbssteuer\"\") and land registration fees (\"\"Grundbucheintrag\"\"). You can generally assume that ever time you trade homes, you pay about 10% extra. So it is likely a good idea to keep your property and rent it out while you don't need it so you can use the rent to pay for your new room. That's especially true if you expect the property to increase in value. Also, due to the low interest rate right now, real estate is practically the only good capital investment. A 85k asset which makes you 4.8k each year is a return of investment of 5.6%. Any financial asset promising you that kind of dividend at the moment is likely equivalent to gambling. yes, I ignored maintenance costs, but it's still a really good deal. If you want to rent out your flat as stress-free as possible, give it to a property management company (\"\"Hausverwalter\"\"). In exchange for a percentage of the monthly rent they will take care of all the small stuff (like hiring handymen to fix broken toilets). You might still have to pay for really expensive investments, though (like replacing a leaking roof). But when something like that happens, you should have no issue to finance it with a loan because you have a real estate as a security. However, keep in mind that the German tenancy law might make it difficult (but not impossible) to get rid of the tenant in case you want to move back into the apartment. Google \"\"Mietrecht Eigenbedarf\"\" for more details. Should you decide after your study that you don't want to move back, you can always sell the flat with the tenant. But rented properties usually get far lower prices on the real estate market than empty ones. Regarding covering your cost of living besides rent during your studies: If you are eligible for BAföG (state-sponsored student loan), you should take it, because it's an offer simply too good to refuse. It's literally free money. But unfortunately you are not, because you own too much real estate wealth you are not living in. But you should ask your bank for a loan backed by said property. That way you will likely pay far less interest than with a regular private student loan which isn't backed by anything except the hope for a relevant degree.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9440b484bb97504f5e7bf8dfd994246b", "text": "If you can get the health ratios based off of the total sales the tenant does divided by their rent plus nets. I know a quite a few big firms look at that to determine the health of the tenant. Another item would be a surrounding market overview. Occupancy rates, average rent, big clients, future developments. The information on existing competitive properties are easy to find, just type in the name of their property plus the word leasing on the end. To find future development information, the city they submit to has to approve the plans. Some cities have it set up on their website over a Google maps type of link. Edit: spelling Good luck! Edit 2: example of competition link. http://properties.brixmor.com/cre/commercial-real-estate-listings/frisco/texas/preston-ridge/overview/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef064ae7e68cf30d539f1a7323d318ef", "text": "\"In addition to Alex B's excellent overview, I'd like to add a few more bits of advice. First of all, one term you should know is \"\"commercial real estate\"\" - which is precisely what this is. There is a business element, but it is strictly (and almost entirely) intertwined to the underlying real estate, which makes this a special category of business which is generally considered simply \"\"commercial real estate\"\" (just like office buildings, shopping malls, etc). All real estate and businesses value are based on alternatives - what other options are there? In appraisal, these are generally called \"\"comparables\"\". A professional appraiser is generally available for commercial real estate of this type. While a full, official commercial appraisal can run into the thousands, many/most (all?) appraisers are willing to sell you a simplified version of their service, which can be called a \"\"letter of opinion\"\" and can help you get an idea for the market price (what other similar commercial properties are running for). A loan company would strictly require this, but if you are thinking of an all cash or form of seller-financing this would technically be optional. Your best bet is to read about some of what is involved in commercial real estate appraisal and evaluation, and you may even want to speak with commercial loan officers - even if you don't know that you want to get a loan to acquire the property! It's their job to help inform you about what is required and what they look for, so they can be a potential resource beyond your own research as well. With this said, the only way to estimate value (and, conveniently, the best way) is to look at other properties! And by \"\"others\"\", I mean that you should really not consider buying absolutely anything until you've viewed at least 6-10 other options in some depth - and you probably want to double or triple that number if you are looking to make this the last big business transaction of your life. If you don't you'll be relying on little more than dumb luck to carry you through - which in this area of business, you don't want to do because the dollar amounts and liabilities involved can bankrupt you in no time flat. With that general advice out of the way, here's a tiny nutshell version of valuation of commercial real estate. There are a few key parts involved in commercial real estate: land, improvements (buildings, docks, stuff like that), income, and wages. Land: the value of the land is based upon what you could sell it for, as-is. That is to say - who else might want it? This alone has many important factors, such as zoning laws, the neighborhood (including your neighbors), water/utilities, pacts on the land (someone may have insisted the land not be paved into a parking lot, or really anything like that), alternative uses (could you put a golf course on it, or is the land suitable for a big building or farming?), etc. And is this in a growing area, where you might hope the value will increase over the next decade, or decrease, or basically stay flat (and possibly cause losses compared to inflation)? Improvements: anything on the land is both an asset and a liability. It's an asset because it could add to the value of the land, but it might also reduce the land value if it interferes with alternate land uses. It's a liability, both in the legal sense and in that it requires maintenance. If you want to rent them out, especially, that means concern about any foundations involved, termites, roofs, sewage/septic tanks, utilities that are your responsibility (pipes, poles, wires), as well as any sort of ac/heating you may have, docks, and so on. These things are rarely free and absolutely can eat you alive. Income: Ah, the best part, the constant influx of cash! But wait, is it a constant influx? Some businesses are purely seasonal (summer only, winter only), some are year-round but have peak times, and others don't really have a \"\"peak\"\" to speak of. If you are renting, are there issues collecting, or with people over-staying? How about damage, making a mess, getting rowdy and disturbing others? Regardless, there is obviously some income, and this is usually the most dangerous part of the equation. I say \"\"dangerous\"\", because people absolutely lie like dogs on this part, all the time. It's easy to cook the books, assuming they even attempt to keep proper books in the first place! Businesses of this form often have a lot of cash business that's easy to hide (from Uncle Sam, or sometimes even the owners themselves if there are employees involved) - and fake! And some people are just shoddy bookkeepers and the info is just wrong. But, there will clearly be some kind of yearly income involved. What does this matter? Well...how much is there? How much is tied to the owners (personal friends do business and they will leave if the ownership/management changes)? In commercial real estate the income will be calculated for a fiscal year, and then there is something called a \"\"multiple\"\", which is market dependent. Let's say the whole place takes in $100k in rent a year. As part of buying this business, you are buying not just assets, but expected future income. In some commercial areas the multiple is as little as .5 to 2 - which means that the going rate is about 6-24 months worth of income, as part of the purchase price. So with 100k rent a year, that means 50k-200k of the purchase price is attributable to the income of the business. And if business is half of what you thought it would be? That means the net value of the whole enterprise decreases by 25k-100k - on top of the reduced income every year you own it! Income provides cash flow, which should pay all the expenses (cleaning up from wind storms, replacing windows that are broken, hauling off trash, replacing a well that ran dry), and then the extra that remains is positive cash flow. If you take out a loan, then ideally the cash flow would also pay that completely so long as you don't have any big unexpected expenses in the year - and still have some left over for yourself. Wages: Well, that money doesn't collect itself! There's sales, keeping the books, collecting the rent, performing maintenance, customer service, cleaning, paying the bills, keeping the insurance people happy, handling emergencies, and everything else involved with running the business. Someone is going to do it, and the biggest error people make here is not to put any value on their time - and to make it so they can never afford to take a vacation again! Pay yourself, and give yourself the flexibility to pay others when you can't (or don't want) to do it all yourselves. So, what's the point of all this? How do you actually make any money? In two ways: 1) selling the whole thing later, and 2) cash flow. For 1, it's important that you not be in a situation where you are betting that in the future there will be a \"\"person richer, and dumber, than I am now\"\". If the current owner wanted 2 million, then 1 mil, then less, over multiple years...this suggests either he is delusional about the value of his place (and most property owners are), or that its actually hard to find a buyer for such a business. You are going to want to make sure you understand why that is, because most of the value of real estate is...well, in the real estate itself! For 2, you need cash coming in that's considerably more than the cost of running the place. Also, cash flow can strongly change the value of the business for resale (depending on the multiple, this can make a huge difference or prevent you from selling the thing at all). You mentioned you want to put in more cabins, more marketing/sales efforts, etc. That's great, but first, that would mean added investment beyond the purchase price. Is it legally and physically practical to add more cabins, and what is their current utilization rate? If they are only renting 10% of their current capacity, increasing capacity may be premature. This will also vary through the year, so you may find there is a problem with being sold out sometimes...but only for a small percentage of the time. Which means you'll be adding buildings only to have them used for a fraction of the year, which will be very hard to make a profit from. If cash flow is good, ideally even being enough to cover a loan payment to help cover the purchase price (and remember that commercial real estate loans are much smaller loan-to-value ratios than in residential real estate), there is one final barrier to making money: the damn non-regular maintenance! Roofs, wells, and wooden walls all have a sad tendency to cost you nothing right up until the point they cost you $30k+ on a single day. Is there enough cash flow to make these sort of certainties (and if you plan to be there for years, they are a certainty) not put you in the poor house? This was rather long, but I hope this overview helps you appreciate all that you'll need to look into and be cautious of during your future en-devour! Commercial real estate is generally costly and high-risk, but also can be high reward. You'll need to compare many opportunities before you can get a \"\"feel\"\" for what is a good deal and what is a terrible one. You'll need to consider many factors, such as resale value and cash flow/income (which they will have to tell you and you can assume is not true, due to ignorance or malice), as well as maintenance and liabilities, before you can begin to really estimate the value of an enterprise of this sort. There are people who can help you, like appraisers and commercial brokers, but ultimately you'll need to do a lot of research and comparisons yourself to help you make a good decision. Finally, there is no very simple method for evaluating commercial real estate value. You need a variety of information, and you must be skeptical of what you are told because of the very large sums of money involved. It is doable (lots of people do it), but you must take care and do your due diligence so you don't get bankrupted by a single bad purchase.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f75f8ce42dab41e68a46486e1897351d", "text": "A large part of the cost seems to be that he created the physical space from scratch: > Because Tortosa chose a brand-new building that had never been occupied, every single thing had to be built in. The upside is that he was able to create his dream space from scratch. The downside: That it cost him much more time and money. He spent approximately $500,000 doing that, and he received $100,000 from the landlord for doing it. So he's out $400k. The landlord will get a furnished space if he folds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2aa4ecf74cd550e0692cb04b5fde014c", "text": "\"Well, that's good and bad more regulation, but your not an agency your something better(IMHO) If the lawyer says yes, I'd scrub all mention of the word \"\"agency\"\". Being an \"\"employment business\"\" is part of your USP. You will presumable have to educate on why this is better, but you may as well use the protected words your entitled too and report any UK agencies calling themselves an employment business to try and undercut you. Check with your branding/marketing advisors this could be key (Oh and please PM, your launch page/teaser when you get to it)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df6f1b9d8e1eafea0e9b04a076b95774", "text": "Usually if the property is part of a strata then the water rates get sent to the owner each quarter to pay and the usage for the whole complex is paid by the strata. So in this type of situation your tenant would not have to pay any water usage. If for some reason, as you mentioned, your unit, although part of a strata complex, is individually metered and you receive a water bill for both water rates and water usage, then the tenant would be liable to pay the water usage portion. This can usually be arranged by either giving the tenant a copy of the water bill with the amount of usage payable, or organising with the water company to separately sending the tenant the usage part of the bill. As you had a real estate agent (managing agent) looking after your property at the time when the water usage was not being paid by the tenant, it would have been their responsibility to either recoup this money from the tenant or organise with the water compony to send the usage part of the bill to the tenants. That is part of the service you were paying them for. You may need to check with Fair Trading in your state to find out who you should be going after for this money, the tenant or the real estate agent. In NSW you have 6 months after the lease has ended to take the tenants to tribunal to recoup owing money, I don't know how long it is after end your agreement with the real estate agent to pursue them. The case may be that you start with the tenant and if that doesn't work then try with the real estate agent. Of course you may want to contact your old tenants first to see if they are reasonable and agree to back pay the water usage (after you showing them copies of the water bills). The tribunal will ask if you have tried to mediate the matter first anyway. Then there is the matter of how much the water usage amounts to and whether it is worth chasing both the tenants and the real estate agent, paying the tribunal application fees and taking time off work to attend the tribunal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c478ce517a23b24c5fa2356c7eeac393", "text": "They are two different animals. When you rent you are purchasing a service. The landlord, as your service provider, has to make a profit, pay employees to do maintenance, and buy materials. The price of these things will increase with inflation, and that rolls into your rent price. Taxes also are passed to the tenant, and those tend to only go upward. Market forces of supply/demand will drive fluctuation of prices as well, as other posts have described. When you buy, you are purchasing just the asset - the home. This price will also be driven by supply/demand in the market, but don't try to compare it to buying a service. Cheers!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55ecdda1e229a73cd562b64220076832", "text": "As user14469 mentions you would have to decide what type of properties you would like to invest in. Are you after negatively geared properties that may have higher long term growth potential (usually within 15 to 20km from major cities), or after positive cash-flow properties which may have a lower long term growth potential (usually located more than 20km from major cities). With negative geared properties your rent from the property will not cover the mortgage and other costs, so you will have to supplement it through your income. The theory is that you can claim a tax deduction on your employment income from the negative gearing (benefits mainly those on higher tax brackets), and the potential long term growth of the property will make up for the negative gearing over the long term. If you are after these type of properties Michael Yardney has some books on the subject. On the other hand, positive cash-flow properties provide enough rental income to cover the mortgage and other costs. They put cash into your pockets each week. They don't have as much growth potential as more inner city properties, but if you stick to the outer regions of major cities, instead of rural towns, you will still achieve decent long term growth. If you are after these type of properties Margaret Lomas has some books on the subject. My preference is for cash-flow positive properties, and some of the areas user14469 has mentioned. I am personally invested in the Penrith and surrounding areas. With negatively geared properties you generally have to supplement the property with your own income and generally have to wait for the property price to increase so you build up equity in the property. This then allows you to refinance the additional equity so you can use it as deposits to buy other properties or to supplement your income. The problem is if you go through a period of low, stagnate or negative growth, you may have to wait quite a few years for your equity to increase substantially. With positively geared properties, you are getting a net income from the property every week so using none of your other income to supplement the property. You can thus afford to buy more properties sooner. And even if the properties go through a period of low, stagnate or negative growth you are still getting extra income each week. Over the long term these properties will also go up and you will have the benefit of both passive income and capital gains. I also agree with user14469 regarding doing at least 6 months of research in the area/s you are looking to buy. Visit open homes, attend auctions, talk to real estate agents and get to know the area. This kind of research will beat any information you get from websites, books and magazines. You will find that when a property comes onto the market you will know what it is worth and how much you can offer below asking price. Another thing to consider is when to buy. Most people are buying now in Australia because of the record low interest rates (below 5%). This is causing higher demand in the property markets and prices to rise steadily. Many people who buy during this period will be able to afford the property when interest rates are at 5%, but as the housing market and the economy heat up and interest rates start rising, they find it hard to afford the property when interest rate rise to 7%, 8% or higher. I personally prefer to buy when interest rates are on the rise and when they are near their highs. During this time no one wants to touch property with a six foot pole, but all the owners who bought when interest rates where much lower are finding it hard to keep making repayments so they put their properties on the market. There ends up being low demand and increased supply, causing prices to fall. It is very easy to find bargains and negotiate lower prices during this period. Because interest rates will be near or at their highs, the economy will be starting to slow down, so it will not be long before interest rates start dropping again. If you can afford to buy a property at 8% you will definitely be able to afford it at 6% or lower. Plus you would have bought at or near the lows of the price cycle, just before prices once again start increasing as interest rates drop. Read and learn as much as possible from others, but in the end make up your own mind on the type of properties and areas you prefer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24d27d57f0294cef060793e5d19c2702", "text": "NO Even worse, most BTL(buy to let) lenders will not lend if you are going to be living in the property. There are very few lenders that will touch something like this. It is likely you will also need to use bridging for the time the building work takes at something like 1.5% per month! Try posting the question to http://www.propertytribes.com/ as there are a few UK mortgage experts on that site.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2cf81c153c54c9234313f8aa4c5e512", "text": "Get a lawyer to put this in contract form, with everything spelled out explicitly. What is fair is what the two of you agree upon. My own suggestion: Divide the property into things which are yours, his, and shared, then have each of you be responsible for all your costs plus half the shared costs, but get all the benefits of your half. That would mean that if he rents out his half, all the rental income is his; if you decide to live in your half, all the savings of not paying rent are yours. Each of you pays your half of mortgage, insurance, and other shared costs. Repairs to shared infrastructure should be done by someone both of you trust. If you agree the work is needed and he does it rather than your hiring someone, you owe him the appropriate percentage of the costs; the two of you will need to agree on whether you owe him for that percentage of his time as well. Make sure you agree on some mechanism for one person offering to buy the other out, or to sell their half to the other party... or potentially to someone else entirely. (Personally, I would try to do that at soonest opportunity, to avoid some of the ways this can go wrong -- see past comments about the hazards of guaranteeing a loan; this works or doesn't work similarly.) Does that address your question?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2522edeebfaa3c5b63906725e1ca5c2b", "text": "I believe he was recommended by one of the investors. After digging a little deeper, it seems the person who invested the most (I believe they own 40%) has his wife doing the taxes and paperwork. We've tried to get them to show us the paperwork and they always seem reluctant. They claim that they're not getting anything either, but they're more of a mutual partner that was introduced to us by the third investor. Basically I invested with a friend, who introduced a third investor (who bought in at the majority). I think it was my friend who knew this manager and hired him due to a past relationship they had. For more insight, my friend actually owns another 2 bars that are quite successful, but it seems he's completely not invested in this one despite owning 30%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0583fd50b3c20ae13a401c553cac3d1", "text": "\"The Solicitor involved up front should be able to place constrictions as your suggesting. I think you should look carefully at the desired wording. You deserve a return on your £100k. Say, the day after you buy (this is hypothetical, please bear with me) a developer says he needs the property and will give you £460k. Your wording here says you get £100k, and then, after the mortgage split £230k, but it seems more reasonable that your deposit doubles to £200k, the remaining £260k pays the mortgage, and the £130k left is split, £65k each. My method accounts for the value of your £100k. Some would ask, why not apply the mortgage rate to that deposit? Because the home value may grow at a different rate. In my opinion, it's fair to apply the home value growth to the £100k deposit. \"\"Fair\"\" means different things to different people. This is my opinion, and a suggestion. Consider it, and do what you and your partner wish. Use a solicitor. Put it in writing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47da880d880f5f3868723b4ae4aee77f", "text": "It is through a vendor leasing to a provider(99% coverage lol). Our municipality does not allow private entities to attach to the fixtures so that puts me in the cats seat. They will be metering their own electric so that is not a problem. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable, would it benefit me to argue for yearly payments instead of monthly?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92e9ecee4cfbe3d7f5e2c7f590b1635b", "text": "\"Edit #2 My whole answer was based on my misunderstanding that you were renting out a totally separate property to your girl friend. I finally understand now that you're renting out a room in YOUR apartment flat to your gf. So, based on my new understanding, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. The answer below is my answer to a different question ;) Original Answer My answer has nothing to do with business, but is totally relationship based. If you care about her in a \"\"we might be together a long time\"\" way, then I wouldn't do this. I don't care what arrangements you setup before hand, at some point, you're bound to feel like she owes you something at some point. Let alone the easiest of situations to imagine (she's late on the rent, she loses her job and can't pay, etc) you'll be forced to make decisions about how much your desire to love and care for her outweighs your need to pay your mortgage. You can argue how magnanimous your are all day long, but is this something you want to bring into your relationship? Now, if you don't really care to stay with her that long and you could do life with or without her, then go for it. I think the big question is, is your relationship worth £200? Edit In the interest of supporting my opinion, here are a few articles I found on the subject: Unfortunately, the way renting to friends or family often works out is far from what would be expected between people who care about one another. For the most part, friends and family members will actually make bad renters, because they’ll expect more from you than a tenant who doesn’t know you. You may get a lot of requests for maintenance and repairs, even for minor things, and you may also find that family members and friends think they should be entitled to perks because of your personal relationship with them. When they don’t get special treatment, they can get angry with you, and that hurts both your professional relationship and your personal relationship. American Apartment Owners Association \"\"In my experience, landlords renting to relatives doesn't work out perfectly,\"\" said Ceyhun Doker, a REALTOR® associate at Keller Williams Realty in Burlingame, CA. \"\"When you don't know each other, there are fewer problems.\"\" realator.com\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
69e065d29416f9107a88778269220c9b	Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge	[ { "docid": "e5173b4baf00f45b2cd4262eb0d06c1c", "text": "\"Here's an excerpt from VISA's Card Acceptance Guidelines for Visa Merchants (PDF) The merchant name is the single most important factor in cardholder recognition of transactions. Therefore, it is critical that the merchant name, while reflecting the merchant’s “Doing Business As” (DBA) name, also be clearly identifiable to the cardholder. This can minimize copy requests resulting from unrecognizable merchant descriptors. Merchant applications typically list the merchant name as the merchant DBA. This may differ from the legal name (which can represent the corporate owner or parent company), and may differ from the owner’s name which, for sole proprietorships, may reflect the business owner. I think that the key statement above is \"\"Therefore, it is critical that the merchant name [...] be clearly identifiable to the cardholder.\"\" Since this merchant was not clearly identifiable to the cardholder, they are in breach of a critical point in these guidelines. This is from VISA, but I would assume that all other major credit cards would have similar guidelines for their merchants. However keep in mind that these are \"\"guidelines\"\", and not (necessarily) rules.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe6c6b035064b9df1adf8d9f29e0d9c0", "text": "In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed the PTA to use their credit card reader to process transactions over a certain amount. Of course when the credit card statement arrived it looked like you spent $500 at the florist. I have seen PayPal listed when donating to some small charities. I have noted another case where confusion can occur. I used a debit card to buy a soda from a vending machine: the name and location were the name of the vending machine company and the location of their main office. It didn't say soda machine city A. It said Joe's vending company city B. In most cases the business and the credit card company want to make it easy to identify the transactions to keep the cost of research and charge backs to a minimum.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c435f5c350f31fd9c7567c22ec82571e", "text": "Obviously, the credit card's administators know who this charge was submitted by. Contact them, tell them that you don't recognize the charge, and ask them to tell you who it was from. If they can't or won't, tell them you suspect fraud and want it charged back, then wait to see who contacts you to complain that the payment was cancelled. Note that you should charge back any charge you firmly believe is an error, if attempts to resolve it with the company aren't working. Also note that if you really ghink this is fraud, you should contact your bank and ask them to issue a new card number. Standard procedures exist. Use them when appropriate.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "898499ec5c013cb2425c03238bfdc185", "text": "Credit card companies organize types of businesses into different categories. (They charge different types of businesses different fees.) When a business first sets up their credit card processing merchant account, they need to specify the category. Here is a list of categories that Visa uses. Grocery stores and supermarkets are category number 5411. Other types of businesses, such as the examples you provided in your question, have a different category number. American Express simply looks at the merchant category code for each of your transactions and only gives you rewards for the ones in the grocery store category. It's all automated. They likely don't have a list of every grocery store in the US, and even if they did, they would probably not provide it to the public, for proprietary reasons. If you are in doubt about whether or not a particular store is in the grocery category, you'll just have to charge it to your card and see what happens. Often, the category of transaction will be shown for each transaction on your credit card's website.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6479d2f2685bc1c6a0174388d1d0c22e", "text": "I don't have much to add other than your signature is not required to process a charge. Signatures are kept on file for validity in the event you dispute a charge. Your signature isn't held in some magical database with signature recognition software. If you draw an shark in the signature section of a receipt that won't stop the charge from processing. In fact, many merchants don't even bother requiring the signature below a certain threshold. There are loads of behind the scenes processing improvements offered by the EMV chip; namely prevention of card number skimming and duplication via encrypted transaction signing. While requiring a PIN adds an additional layer of security, simply processing via chip dramatically improves the network fraud prevention tools in a manner that is almost completely transparent to the user. To your point, if your wallet is lost and an imposer holds your physical card there is no anti-fraud improvement. At any rate, you have zero fraud liability in the US.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "229dcdc4c02910101ea85c81c214c263", "text": "\"The statement is (in laymans terms - if not in real terms) correct. Most credit cards (I know this to be true for VISA and Mastercard) have dispute processes and will do a chargeback on the merchant - ie take the money back from the supplier in cases where you don't receive the goods or other fraud - Particularly if they can't produce a signature and (for transactions which are not face-to-face) a tracking number. Your exact rights will vary by bank, but mostly they need to follow the guidelines set by the Credit Card company - and you do need to be a bit careful - if you received goods which were fake or a dispute arises you may be up for shipping the goods back to the merchant - and you have a limited - but reasonable time - in which to make the dispute. (The statement \"\"the money is the banks\"\" is not technically true, there is no money involved until you pay it, only credit [ they are very different, but almost no-one knows that, I communicated with a Minister of Finance on the topic], but this is quite technical and as a layman not something you need to worry about here)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "408321035e37e28e13a3b3933ba797ef", "text": "\"Working retail myself, I do not accept an unsigned card without verification. If I received one I would ask for ID and verify the photo with the Name. I would also let the buyer know it was unsigned and remind them that anyone finding it can sign it and use the card without issue. Putting on the back of the card \"\"SEE ID\"\" is the way buyers have protected themselves from thieves as long as people are actually looking at the cards. How does this protect? 1- a lost card cant be signed by a complete stranger as there is already writing on the card. 2- It provides a photo identification for use. I know with today's technology that this is going away and fewer people are actually checking but shame on those companies who handle the cards and don't look. Obviously this process does not apply to self checks, but safety protocols there require a pin of some form that only the authorized user should know.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd4e136401631719b477bcecbdb36789", "text": "\"Yes and No. There's always a \"\"fee\"\". The difference in credit vs debit usually determines how much that fee is and how it's paid. Each vendor who accepts the major credit card is under contract to pay for equipment and meet certain standards. The same is true for debt card transactions. How much the \"\"fee\"\" is can vary based on the contract the vendor has with MasterCard/Visa/AMEX. But in general most debt transactions go back to the bank who distributed the card.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fee4c2ada624f9f9dfd3cf43e073b65", "text": "There are different ways of credit card purchase authorizations. if some choose less secure method it's their problem. Merchants are charged back if a stolen card is used.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2432ced7c1711f5e0e728728c592a5c", "text": "I'm not sure about the laws in specific states. However it's part of their merchant agreement that they can not charge a fee for a customer paying with credit card. It's also against merchant agreements to require a minimum purchase to use a credit card, although this is less commonly enforced. Apparently (http://fso.cpasitesolutions.com/premium/le/06_le_ic/fg/fg-merchants.html) merchants can offer a cash discount. Offering payment by credit card, though practically a requirement in todays retail environment, is a privilege for the merchant. It's a way of making buying convenient for the customer. As a result, penalizing the customer in any way is not just against their agreement, but rather disingenuous as well. edit: here's a bit more information about what they can and can't do. Amex prohibits discrimination, so if a merchant can't do something to a Visa/MC customer they can't do it to an Amex customer either. http://fso.cpasitesolutions.com/premium/le/06_le_ic/fg/fg-merchants.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ca33c5438a226b77697ac71c63cfd6f", "text": "\"In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as \"\"- PAYMENT RECEIVED -\"\", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e987107dbb4125793c6317940aa88a4", "text": "\"It's anonymous/automated. They don't know who you are, just that customer x1a bought y. If your name isnt given to employees \"\"your\"\" privacy isnt being volated because the dont know its \"\"you.\"\" I imagine the government justifies their intrusions on our digital privacy the same way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd2350e9d1d0244e9c469071fa7541d2", "text": "The signature actually harks back to the days before every business checked every transaction online. When charge cards were introduced modems didn't exist. Nowadays, stolen credit cards are usually reported within 24 hours and the card won't work. Businesses that face low fraud rates don't bother checking. They probably figure that a certain percentage of charges get charged back because the cardholder claims that they didn't make them, and the credit card company usually just passes the cost on to the merchant, so it's really the merchant who should be worried about fraud since he or she is going to pay for it. The real question for the merchant is whether checking signatures actually reduces charge backs. If the credit card is stolen, how hard would it be for thieves to practice the signature on the card a few times until they can reproduce it well enough to fool someone? Businesses that face high fraud rates are often more careful. In New York City, try buying some Nikes on 34th Street, and you'll get your signature checked, your driver's license checked, and they'll call up your 5th grade social studies teacher.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4667ca0b508c1213651893932ccb69e", "text": "\"Understood. But based on the OP, it's not categorically clear what they were refusing. If they refused to quote the balance and/or refused to take a phone payment that was otherwise in keeping with the cardholder agreement (i.e., the cardmember called the correct number for phone payments and balance-checking, etc), then yeah, they were not only being unreasonable, but also violating the contract. What I read as ambiguous is whether the cardholder was specifically asking for the payoff balance/amount, and whether they were following process for phone-payments and balance-checking, etc. IOW, it's not necessarily \"\"illegal\"\" and might not even be unreasonable for the customer-service number to have different departments for balance-checking and phone-payments versus card-cancellation. It's not falsifiably clear from the OP that the cardholder was not asking the person on the other end of the phone for categorical statements of fact that they were obligated to make. I'm not accusing anyone of lying or saying that the CC company was acting reasonably, I'm just saying that language such as \"\"They do not provide mid-cycle payoff quotes\"\" is not evidence that they were doing any kind of funny-business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dce5d31a24c17381a5b1743e3e00d529", "text": "I gather that, while it is not illegal for a merchant to pass their payment card processing fees on to their customers directly in the form of a surcharge, doing so is a violation of their merchant agreements with the payment card processor (at least for Visa/MC). It's not - surcharging has been permissible since 2013, as a result of a class action lawsuit against Visa and MC. It's still prohibited by state law in 9 states. If you're in one of those 9 states, you can contact your state Attorney General to report it. If you're not, you can check to see if the business is complying with the rules set forth by the card brands (which include signage at the point of sale, a separate line item for the surcharge on the receipt, a surcharge that doesn't exceed 4% of the transaction, etc.) and if they're in violation, contact the card company. However, some of those rules seem to matter to the card companies more than others, and it's entirely possible they won't do anything. In which case, there's nothing you can really do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7af83dec07deef1a5cd58c68bc6ad1c", "text": "The truth is that Visa does not require a merchant to enter the cvv number before authorizing a transaction. The only information that is really needed is the credit card number and expiration date.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "528c03575fed81c0e5a4cb0ba68313bc", "text": "They specifically state on their website this waiver does not apply to this incident. It only applies to the use of their credit monitoring product. [link to website](https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/). So basically you can't have identify fraud then blame it on their credit monitoring tool. In this case, Equifax is guilty of several things, not related to this product, so they can't just sneak in a clause like this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ea5e79982cd5dc06501658bb7e80c710", "text": "Is this for the US? Or does it apply here in the UK in a general sense? Obviously I think we are using different terms, but this is just a general run down of the different business types really right? I'm wondering if the use of a name thing matters here in the UK or not. I'm happy to trade under my actual name, but would prefer a name for the business that is separate to my own name.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
409dbe69d6285172cc9b0b5d22d3b0d5	Looking to buy a property that's 12-14x my income. How can it be done?	[ { "docid": "bdb54ca94be1daad39e58cffcc6f6563", "text": "\"It is your choice to have \"\"insignificant income\"\", and that has consequences. One is that you cannot borrow money to purchase a home independent of your credit score. In order to purchase a home you must also have the ability to repay in addition to a good history. IMHO your question suggest that you have a unrealistic outlook on life. If you cannot come up with 10K, how can you afford a home? What happens when the HVAC system goes out? While I certainly hope you meet and exceed your goals, you can change your whole world by simply getting a job at a fast food restaurant. When you are not working you can then do the entrepreneurship thing. Life is often a choice of priorities. If you choose to \"\"back-burner\"\" the entrepreneur dream, for a time, and choose to focus on earning the best possible wage. Then perhaps you could afford to purchase a place of your own.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "450c8ae1359a23cf337b1a1817dd9c03", "text": "What options do I have? Realistically? Get a regular full time job. Work at it for a year or so and then see about buying a house. That said, I recently purchased a decent home. I am self-employed and my income is highly erratic. Due to how my clients pay me, my business might go a couple months with absolutely no deposits. However, I've been at this for quite a few years. So, even though my business income is erratic, I pay myself regularly once a month. In order to close the deal with the mortgage company I had to provide 5 years worth of statements on my business AND my personal bank accounts. Also I had about a 30% down payment. This gave the bank enough info to realize that I could absolutely make the payments and we closed the deal. I'd say that if you have little to no actual financial history, don't have a solid personal income and don't have much of a down payment then you probably have no business buying a house at this point. The first time something goes wrong (water heater, ac, etc) you'll be in a world of trouble.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8551dc1d527827ddf6696afe51c141f", "text": "You need a cosigner. Someone prepared to repay the mortgager if you should fail to. Needless to say this is going to have to be someone who knows you and trusts you very much. One way is to find someone prepared to share a house with you. Buy a bigger house than you would otherwise need. You would own half each, and the sharing agreement would specify that if one of you defaulted on their payments the other would get a larger share according to how much extra they end up paying. The other way is to find a silent partner, who doesn't live there. They put up no money unless you actually default. They would almost certainly have to be part owners, but you can structure the agreement so that you end up with the whole house if you succeed in paying off the mortgage, or miss no payments until you sell. Parents sometimes do this for their kids.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4bf65001c063594bdc70a9d5a0562c5b", "text": "\"that would deprive me of the rental income from the property. Yes, but you'd gain by not paying the interest on your other mortgage. So your net loss (or gain) is the rental income minus the interest you're paying on your home. From a cash flow perspective, you'd gain the difference between the rental income and your total payment. Any excess proceeds from selling the flat and paying off the mortgage could be saved and use later to buy another rental for \"\"retirement income\"\". Or just invest in a retirement account and leave it alone. Selling the flat also gets rid of any extra time spent managing the property. If you keep the flat, you'll need a mortgage of 105K to 150K plus closing costs depending on the cost of the house you buy, so your mortgage payment will increase by 25%-100%. My fist choice would be to sell the flat and buy your new house debt-free (or with a very small mortgage). You're only making 6% on it, and your mortgage payment is going to be higher since you'll need to borrow about 160k if you want to keep the flat and buy a $450K house, so you're no longer cash-flow neutral. Then start saving like mad for a different rental property, or in non-real estate retirement investments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6142c2088a28e774dd94f10842b252e7", "text": "To me it sounds like you need to come up with 67K (30+37), part of the time you can work in the current job, part of the time you could work a lower paying part time job (for a year). Lets assume that you can earn 15K for that year, and you can save 5K from your current job. (I'd try and save more, but what ever you can do.) 67 - 15 - 5 = 47 I'd sell the investment property. First you will have some funds to throw at this need, second you expense should go down as you don't have a payment on this property. 47 - 26 = 21 You have 32K in cash which is a lot for someone in your expense range. Six months would be 15K, so I would use some of that cash: 21 - 17 = 4 Now you are really close. If needed I'd use the investments to cover the last 4k or even more of the on hand cash. However, could you do something to reduce that amount further ...like working more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60aa7183387ee773269ce2401430e4b0", "text": "Real Estate is all local. In the United States, I can show you houses so high the rent on them is less than 1/3% of their value per month, eg. $1M House renting for less than $3500. I can also find 3 unit buildings (for say $200K) that rent for $3000/mo total rents. I might want to live in that house, but buy the triplex to rent out. You need to find what makes sense, and not buy out of impulse. A house to live in and a house to invest have two different sets of criteria. They may overlap, but if the strict Price/Rent were universal, there would be no variation. If you clarify your goal, the answers will be far more valuable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b7f66d0deb3fe87aea9a853975b835d", "text": "I'm an Aussie and I purchased 5 of these properties from 2008 to 2010. I was looking for positive cash flow on properties for not too much upfront investment. The USA property market made sense because of the high Aussie $$ at the time, the depressed property market in the US and the expensive market here. I used an investment web-site that allowed me to screen properties by yield and after eliminating outliers, went for the city with the highest consistent yield performance. I settled on Toledo, Ohio as it had the highest yields and was severely impacted by the housing crisis. I bought my first property for $18K US which was a little over $17K AUD. The property was a duplex in great condition in a reasonable location. Monthly rentals $US900 and rents guaranteed and direct deposited into my bank account every month by section 8. Taxes $900 a year and $450 a year for water. Total return around $US8,000. My second property was a short sale in a reasonable area. The asking was $US8K and was a single family in good condition already tenanted. I went through the steps with the bank and after a few months, was the proud owner of another tenanted, positive cash flow property returning $600 a month gross. Taxes of $600 a year and water about the same. $US6K NET a year on a property that cost $AUD8K Third and fourth were two single family dwellings in good areas. These both cost $US14K each and returned $US700 a month each. $US28K for two properties that gross around $US15K a year. My fifth property was a tax foreclosure of a guy with 2 kids whose wife had left him and whose friend had stolen the money to repay the property taxes. He was basically on the bones of his butt and was staring down the barrel of being homeless with two kids. The property was in great condition in a reasonable part of town. The property cost me $4K. I signed up the previous owner in a land contract to buy his house back for $US30K. Payments over 10 years at 7% came out to around $US333 per month. I made him an offer whereby if he acted as my property manager, i would forgo the land contract payments and pay him a percentage of the rents in exchange for his services. I would also pay for any work he did on the properties. He jumped at it. Seven years later, we're still working together and he keeps the properties humming. Right now the AUD is around 80c US and looks like falling to around 65c by June 2015. Rental income in Aussie $$ is around $2750 every month. This month (Jan 2015) I have transferred my property manager's house back to him with a quit claim deed and sold the remaining houses for $US100K After taxes and commission I expect to receive in the vicinity of AUD$120K Which is pretty good for a $AUD53K investment. I've also received around $30K in rent a year. I'm of the belief I should be buying when everybody else is selling and selling when everybody else is buying. I'm on the look-out for my next positive cash flow investment and I'm thinking maybe an emerging market smashed by the oil shock. I wish you all happiness and success in your investment. Take care. VR", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f000814393145523bb955e8c305cd035", "text": "\"I've never heard of rent quoted per week. Are you in the US? In general, after the down payment, one would hope to take the rent, and be able to pay the mortgage, tax, insurance, and then have enough left each year to at least have a bit of emergency money for repairs. If one can start by actually pocketing more than this each year, that's ideal, but to start with a rental, and only make money \"\"after taxes\"\" is cutting it too close in my opinion. The 19 to 1 \"\"P/E\"\" appears too high, when I followed such things I recall 12 or under being the target. Of course rates were higher, and that number rises with very low rates. In your example, a $320K mortgage at 4% is $1527/mo. $400/wk does not cut it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e25fcd5b89b415a0f9310d96fdd581a2", "text": "\"Your plan as proposed will not work, because it goes against how banks make money. Banks make money in two ways: (1) Fees [including account fees, investment advice fees, mortgage application fees, etc.]; and (2) Interest Rate Spread. They borrow money for x%, and they lend it out for x+y%. In a simple form, someone gives the bank a deposit, and earns 1%. The bank turns around to the next person in line and loans the money to them for 4%. You are asking them to turn the interest rate spread into a cost instead of their main source of profit: You are asking the bank to borrow money from another person paying them 1.2% interest, and then loan the money to you, paying you 0.6% interest and keeping 0.6% for themselves. The bank would lose money doing this. Technically yes, you can borrow from a bank and invest it in something earning above the 4% interest they will charge you. You can then pay the bank's interest off of your earnings, and make some profit for yourself. BUT this carries an inherent risk: If your investment loses money, you still owe the bank, effectively increasing the negative impact of your investment. This tactic is called \"\"Leveraging\"\"; you can look it up on this site or on google. It is not something you should do if you do not fully understand the risks you are taking on. Given that you are asking this question, I would suggest tactfully that you are not yet well informed enough to make this sort of investment. You run serious risk of losing everything if you over-leverage (assuming the banks will even lend you money in the first place).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b01b8a39d9dcd8a1f2f491f032e31143", "text": "I’m not an expert on the VISA/US tax or insurance, but you're making enough mistakes in terms of all the associated costs involved in owning and renting houses/apartments that this already looks potentially unwise at this stage of your investment career. Renting cheap properties/to students involves the property constantly being trashed, often being empty and requiring extremely close management (which you either have to pay someone a lot to do, or do yourself and lose other potential earning time. If doing yourself you will also make lots of mistakes in the vetting/managing/marketing process etc at first as this is a complex art in itself). Costs on this type of rental can often get as high as 25% a year depending exactly how lucky you get even if you do it all yourself, and will typically be in the 5-15% range every year once everything you have to constantly maintain, replace and redecorate is totalled up. That's all pre what you could be earning in a job etc, so if you could earn a decent clip elsewhere in the same time also have to deduct that lost potential. Send it all to third parties (so all upkeep by hired contractors, all renting by an agency) you will be lucky to even break even off ~15k a year per property rents to students. You’re not seeming to price in any transaction costs, which usually run at ~5% a time for both entrance and exit. Thats between half and one years rent gone from the ten per property on these numbers. Sell before ten is up its even more. On point three, rounding projections in house price rises to one decimal place is total gibberish – no one who actually has experience investing their own money well ever makes or relies on claims like this. No idea on Pittsburgh market but sound projections of likely asset changes is always a ranged and imprecise figure that cannot (and shouldn’t) be counted on for much. Even if it was, it’s also completely unattainable in property because you have to spend so much money on upkeep: post costs and changes in size/standard, house values generally roughly track inflation. Have a look at this chart and play around with some reasonable yearly upkeep numbers and you will see what I mean. Renting property is an absolute graveyard for inexperienced investors and if you don't know the stuff above already (and it's less than 10% of what you need to know to do this profitably vs other uses of your time), you will nearly always be better off investing the money in more passive investments like diversified bonds, REITs and Stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "932da761aed6d1f0a6fa2e8efc6af74f", "text": "If you expect a significant increase in future income, then you should wait until that future income is assured, and then buy based on that decision. Buying more house than you can afford is what caused you to have to sell; you don't want to do that again. Instead of buying more house now, buy the right house for what you have now. Better yet, though, you might rent instead of buying until the future income comes onboard. Then you can get the best of both worlds - you get to buy the house you can afford in a year or two, but also don't overspend your income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0b74ae43593376c509c0450f1ca4c0e7", "text": "A good quick filter to see if a property is worth looking at is if the total rent for the property for the year is equal to 10% of the price of the property. For example, if the property is valued at $400,000 then the rent collected should be $40,000 for the entire year. Which is $3,333.33 per month. If the property does not bring in at least 10% per year then it is not likely all the payments can be covered on the property. It's more likely to be sinking money into it to keep it afloat. You would be exactly right, as you have to figure in insurance, utilities, taxes, maintenance/repair, mortgage payments, (new roof, new furnace, etc), drywall, paint, etc. Also as a good rule of thumb, expect a vacancy rate of at least 10% (or 1 month) per year as a precaution. If you have money sitting around, look into Real Estate Investment Trusts. IIRC, the average dividend was north of 10% last year. That is all money that comes back to you. I'm not sure what the tax implications are in Australia, however in Canada dividends are taxed very favourably. No mortgage, property tax, tenants to find, or maintenance either.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe638c47505fa844419fd4a4523d8fb8", "text": "\"A person can finance housing expenses in one of two ways. You can pay rent to a landlord. Or you can buy a house with a mortgage. In essence, you become your own landlord. That is, insta the \"\"renter\"\" pays an amount equal to the mortgage to insta the \"\"landlord,\"\" who pays it to the bank to reduce the mortgage. Ideally, your monthly debt servicing payments (minus tax saving on interest) should approximate the rent on the house. If they are a \"\"lot\"\" more, you may have overpaid for the house and mortgage. The advantage is that your \"\"rent\"\" is applied to building up equity (by reducing the mortgage) in your house. (And mortgage payments are tax deductible to the extent of interest expense.) At the end of 30 years, or whatever the mortgage term, you have \"\"portable equity\"\" in the form a fully paid house, that you can sell to move another house in Florida, or wherever you want to retire. Sometimes, you will \"\"get lucky\"\" if the value of the house skyrockets in a short time. Then you can borrow against your appreciation. But be careful, because \"\"sky rockets\"\" (in housing and elsewhere) often fall to earth. But this does represent another way to build up equity by owning a house.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c2347a4ed4cd25bf7adcbdf7126f9d7", "text": "The rules of thumb are there for a reason. In this case, they reflect good banking and common sense by the buyer. When we bought our house 15 years ago it cost 2.5 times our salary and we put 20% down, putting the mortgage at exactly 2X our income. My wife thought we were stretching ourselves, getting too big a house compared to our income. You are proposing buying a house valued at 7X your income. Granted, rates have dropped in these 15 years, so pushing 3X may be okay, the 26% rule still needs to be followed. You are proposing to put nearly 75% of your income to the mortgage? Right? The regular payment plus the 25K/yr saved to pay that interest free loan? Wow. You are over reaching by double, unless the rental market is so tight that you can actually rent two rooms out to cover over half the mortgage. Consider talking to a friendly local banker, he (or she) will likely give you the same advice we are. These ratios don't change too much by country, interest rate and mortgages aren't that different. I wish you well, welcome to SE.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8aa65d9878651d74a4fa7628301e0078", "text": "I would not recommend you proceed for the reasons given by others and would recommend focussing on raising your annual income to a point where you are better able to decide whether buying is an option. Given the price of places where you are living and your situation it likely will be some time until buying a place makes sense financially if ever (at those prices I would expect renting makes better sense).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e37fc63b4815fe300399ed119c76dcb", "text": "Make sure to get a Homestead Exemption if your state has one. This can keep your taxes from rising quite as steeply, and in some cases the county assessment office can get you a retroactive refund when your application is approved. Also, if you really think you're paying too high based on home resale values around you, most county assessors will also let you dispute your valuation. A higher value is great if you intend to sell, not so good if you're staying long term. Kind of like the difference between trading bonds and investing in them. Also, as I think one of the other posters pointed out, you can usually make extra small payments and direct them to escrow or to principal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bffe0c8e40d0f4420e78fcbd9e76bab5", "text": "\"When you compare the costs of paying your current mortgage with the rental income from the flat, you're not really comparing like with like. Firstly, the mortgage payments are covering both interest and capital repayments, so some of the 8k is money that is adding to your net worth. Secondly, the value of the flat (130k) is much more than the outstanding mortgage (80k) so if you did sell the flat and pay off the mortgage, you'd have 50k left in cash that could be invested to provide an income. The right way to compare the two options is to look at the different costs in each scenario. Let's assume the bigger house will cost 425k as it makes the figures work out nicely. If you buy the bigger house with a bigger mortgage, you will need to borrow 50k more so will end up with a mortgage of 130k, and you will still have the 8k/year from the flat. Depending on your other income, you might have to pay tax on the 8k/year - e.g. at 40% if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, leaving you with 4.8k/year. If you sell the flat, you'll have no mortgage repayments to make and no income from the flat. You'll be able to exactly buy the new house outright with the 50k left over after you repay the mortgage, on top of your old house. You'd also have to pay some costs to sell the flat that you wouldn't have to with the bigger mortgage, but you'd save on the costs of getting a new mortgage. They probably aren't the same, but let's simplify and assume they are. If anything the costs of selling the flat are likely to be higher than the mortgage costs. Viewed like that, you should look at the actual costs to you of having a 130k mortgage, and how much of that would be interest. Given that you'll be remortgaging, at current mortgage rates, I'd expect interest would only be 2-3%, i.e around 2.5k - 4k, so significantly less than the income from the flat even after tax. The total payment would be more because of capital repayment, but you could easily afford the cashflow difference. You can vary the term of the mortgage to control how much the capital repayment is, and you should easily be able to get a 130k mortgage on a 425k house with a very good deal. So if your figure of 8k rent is accurate (considering void periods, costs of upkeep etc), then I think it easily makes sense to get the bigger house with the bigger mortgage. Given the tax impact (which was pointed out in a comment), a third strategy may be even better: keep the flat, but take out a mortgage on it in exchange for a reduced mortgage on your main house. The reason for doing it that way is that you get some tax relief on the mortgage costs on an investment property as long as the income from that property is higher than the costs, whereas you don't on your primary residence. The tax relief used to just be at the same tax rate you were paying on the rental income, i.e. you could subtract the mortgage costs from the rental income when calculating tax. It's gradually being reduced so it's just basic rate tax relief (20%) even if you pay higher-rate tax, but it still could save you some money. You'd need to look at the different mortgage costs carefully, as \"\"buy-to-let\"\" mortgages often have higher interest rates.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "072657906959afacef76be19931af359", "text": "If you're living in a market where some houses are going for $150K over asking, then you MUST buy before you sell. In a seller's market, you will get multiple offers on your current house when you decide to sell, it will sell for (well) over asking, and you can dictate possession dates. You do not need to worry about selling your own home, if you have a competent realtor. But buying a home is an entirely different story. You may struggle to find something affordable, and there may be multiple buyers each time you decide to make an offer. You may go through this cycle several times over many months before your offer is accepted. You should do this while living in your own home, with the comfort of knowing that you can sell your own home easily at any time, instead of the stress of an imminent closing date on your own home. Or worse, move into rented space or Malvolio's mom's house for months or a year while the market increases by 15% and the houses in your old area are now selling for $100K more than you sold for. Ouch, now you really can't afford to buy what you want, and you may end up buying something equivalent to what you used to own, for more, plus legal, realtor, and land transfer costs. If the closing dates don't align, then bridge. This will only end up costing a few hundred dollars, less than $1K including legal fees (the lawyer will also charge to handle this). But by buying before you sell, you'll easily make up that difference. This advice only applies to hot property markets. I'm not a realtor, just a guy living in the GTA who went through this process last year. Lost out on three offers over 10 months, then bought for asking price on fourth offer (very fortunate), then sold for $90K over asking, then bridged for 2 months. My realtor is awesome and made the process as stress free as it can be. Get a good realtor, start house hunting while preparing your own house for sale, and enjoy the process. Also you should negotiate with your realtor, they may be willing to reduce their commission on your sale if they are also representing you on the purchase. Good luck! P.S. Do not make a contingent offer, and do not accept one. Get your financing in place before you make an offer, and if you are concerned about inspection, you can also do that before the offer, if you act quickly. The inspection will cost ~$500, but it will increase the value of your offer by much more than that since you will be going in without conditions. I spent ~$1,000 on two property inspections on homes I lost out on, and I don't regret it. That is the cost of doing business. The other offers on the home I eventually bought were for significantly more than my offer, but they had conditions. I saved at least $40K by being condition free, and I only spent $1,500 on three property inspections. And, some people will just drop out of the multiple offer scenario when they learn that one of the buyers has done an inspection.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5dbd43746edede71a938c9c6c1227163	Working on a tax free island to make money?	[ { "docid": "5d8a3966501f9b1f0ee5a3b8b0067849", "text": "If you're an American, and willing to give up citizenship, good luck to you. Otherwise, Uncle Sam still wants his due -- Americans are responsible for paying taxes on income earned anywhere on earth, regardless of their residence.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a7e757db30713b8a6928d2c867ad0a1", "text": "According to Wikipedia, import duties on goods range from 5-22% on everything but cars (30-100%) and a handful of other goods (no import duties). Since almost everything must be imported, you will still be paying the taxman, just on the consumption side.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "550ec400294a7413ee78afe614a2c020", "text": "From http://www.taxrates.cc/html/cayman-islands-tax-rates.html: There is no income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, inheritance tax, property tax, gift tax or any other kind of direct taxation in Cayman Islands. Cayman Islands government receives the majority of its income from indirect taxation. There is no income tax or capital gains tax or corporation tax in Cayman Islands imposed on Cayman individuals and Cayman Islands companies. An import duty of 5% to 20% is levied against goods imported into the islands. Some items are tax exempt like baby formula, books and cameras. Tax on automobiles depends on the class and make of the model. Tax can reach up to 40% for expensive car models. Financial institutions that operate in the islands are charged a flat licensing fee by the government. A 10% government tax is placed on all tourist accommodations in addition to the small fee each tourist pays upon getting on the Caymans. The Cayman Islands government charges licensing fees to financial institutions that operate in the islands as well as work permit fees for expatriate employees ranging from around US$ 500 for a clerk to around US$ 20,000 for a CEO.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc8ee0ee14f8580c8135d7bc6380c9e0", "text": "The Cayman Islands has an income tax enacted, it is just currently 0%. It raises revenues from its tourism, import duties, and business registration. It is part of the UK commonwealth and therefore enjoys the military protection of that federation, but doesn't have to spend on it. But unlike the US, the UK does not have an umbrella federal income tax on its overseas territories, so the Cayman Islands doesn't have to pass that down to its citizens nor do its citizens/residents have to be encumbered by one. It was not taxed by the King when it was first incorporated (hm, might need to fact check that). They also didn't go to war with the king over some small tax, so they got treated differently than some other North American colonies you might think of. The Cayman Islands is not the only government that raises revenues this way. Delaware also has a 0% income tax and raises the majority of its revenues on business registration (and perpetual franchise taxes on those businesses), allowing it to spare its citizens from passive income taxes. But unlike a US state, a citizen or business in a UK overseas territory does not have federal regulatory overhead, making it more attractive as a worldwide financial center.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "64b9a133df2ccc0d6dd74246e71482b3", "text": "So, my question is what is the limit below which I don't have to pay taxes while trading. I just invested $10. Do I have to pay taxes for this too? what are the slabs? Any income is subject to tax. That said, investing $10 will probably not generate much of income, even at the discount brokers most of it will be wasted on commissions... I am also having an assistantship. So is holding two sources of income legitimate? Thanks You can have as many sources of income as you want. Working is what is restricted when you're on a student visa. As long as you don't open a business as a day trader or start working for someone trading stocks - you're fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9b1750861a184a70777dda66fa97951", "text": "\"Be careful here: If ACME were in California, I would pay taxes on USD 17,000 because I had revenue of 20,000 and expenses of 3,000. To CALIFORNIA. And California taxes S-Corps. And, in addition, you'd pay $800 for the right of doing business in the State. All that in addition to the regular Federal and State taxes to the State where you're resident. Suppose that ACME is in Britain (or anywhere else for that matter). My revenue and expenses are the same, but now my money has been earned and my expenses incurred in a foreign country. Same thing exactly. Except that you'll have to pay taxes to the UK. There may be some provision in the tax treaty to help you though, so you may end up paying less taxes when working in the UK than in California. Check with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) who won't run away from you after you say the words \"\"Tax Treaty\"\". Does it even make sense to use my S-Corporation to do business in a foreign country? That should be a business decision, don't let the tax considerations drive your business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a48fcaf49ef31f6176f786a67d71a5fb", "text": "Wanna make sure every company pays at least some taxes? Install a 'tax floor'. Basically, no matter how many losses you claim, no matter how much you offshore, no matter how many loopholes you find, you can not drop below a certain number. Let's say 15%. That is it, you have to pay at least 15%. As this takes effect, and only after revenues stream in for a few years to help balance things out, you can even slightly adjust the high rate down a tad to help the big companies that don't use the loopholes. Please spread this idea around.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2ebe776b2f5fe2953d6a2b3fccd8a9e", "text": "Call it whatever you like. There ate places you can go which have no government taxes... mostly because they have no government and there is no social services. They are places like Somalia, and regions of Afghanistan. Sorry, but if yippy ate going to live under the umbrella of three modern world, that comes with an implied cost that we pay or pay the consequences. The fact that you are using their internet would seem to indicate that you do enjoy the services that are paid for with your taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1b4f8c9c0fdd92363d5ad1c11f2d4b9", "text": "A lot wrong with this statement. Services which is 90% of their income is not exclusive to tourism. If you read the entire thing properly you'd know 80% of their income from services is not from the US 80% of its tourism is from the US. You're also changing the argument now you're attacking the economic policies of these countries and claiming it is reflective of their tax policy when in reality that's not true. Do you know what the Bahamian fiscal policies are? EDIT: 50% of Bahamas income is tourism", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c481d80bad34629d9f8441ecea5d327d", "text": "Grass is always greener at the other side of the hill. Tax is only a small proportion of your costs. you could easily set up a small company in a so called tax haven. But are you willing to emigrate? If not, will the gain in less taxes cover the frequent travel costs? Even if you would like to emigrate less tax might be deceiving. I recently had a discussion with a US based friend. In the US petrol is way cheaper then in Europe. THere were many examples in differences, but when you actually sum up everything, cost of living was kind of the same. So you might gain on tax, but loose on petrol, or child care to just name some examples For big companies who think globally it makes sense to seek the cheapest tax formula. For them it does not matter where they are located. For us mortals it does.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "730f045c86fb1fd0f70292b5f620bc95", "text": "\"I'm not 100% certain on boats, since they aren't typically sold for a gain, but the tax base of an asset is typically the cost of the asset plus the cost of any improvements, so your $15,000 gain looks right (check with a CPA to be certain, though, if you can). Your \"\"cost basis\"\" would be $50,000 + $25,000 = $75,000, and your net gain would be $90,000 - $75,000 = $15,000. The result is the same, but the arithmetic is organized a little differently. I am fairly confident you cannot include your time in the \"\"cost of improvements\"\". If you incorporated and \"\"paid yourself\"\" for the time, then the payment would be considered income (and taxed), if it was even allowed. Depending on your tax bracket that may be a WORSE option for you. You can look at it this way - you only pay the tax on the $15k gain versus paying someone else $15k to do the labor.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85e8f159933518a5a1796e99a84b2ce8", "text": "Ugh. Really? I thought this subreddit was smarter than this. 1) You pay taxes on net income, not sales. Expenses are tax deductible. 2) This took place in the UK, which operates on a different set of tax rules than many of us are familiar with. 3) The company still pays other taxes even if they don't pay income tax. In the US, examples would be payroll taxes including the employer portion of things like SS and Medicare, but I'm sure the UK has similar programs funded in a similar manner. To the extent that they own their buildings, they also pay property taxes. They globally source their supplies, which means they also pay import taxes. There are a ton of other taxes that a company pays. 4) Tax laws are complex because business is complex. Inflammatory headlines like this serve no purpose whatsoever.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d576f8479bbb1c76bf7bc1d479b5a3ed", "text": "In Sri Lanka, this is the normal practice. We, employees are free from the burden of paying tax for the income we get as a salary. Because that part is been taken care of by the company/employer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d620948b356dc5d0bc648a999c8ca5db", "text": ">The days of the secrecy regime are long gone and continued success is based on respected levels of regulation, strong legal protection, and access to international investment opportunities. Tax information is automatically shared with nearly 30 states including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the United States. In today’s world a financial centre’s reputation is a key factor in success. Good thing governments like Sudan and Zambia doesn't have the clout that the OECD countries do in shutting down blackmoney and tax havens for people trying to dodge their taxes. I'd imagine quite a comfortable living could be made with just black money from the developing world. This is a PR piece for the Cayman Islands.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9fce735a06d3dd36302147dbd99a66d", "text": "It depends and I would not just jump into conclusion as I have seen cases where offering some services are not U.S. sourced income. I'll advise you speak with a knowledgeable tax professional.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd834858008a205a5621a59361fc2f1c", "text": "> Do you know what the Bahamian fiscal policies are? Yes. Yet are a no income, estate, and wealth tax country. They have payroll tax that amount to almost 4%, and that us what funds their social services and infrastructure. However, only 10% off their GDP comes from manufacturing, so they have vey little need for strong infrastructure. That would change drastically if countries stopped bringing money into the country from tourism and banking. They are basically living off of and depending on the income of wealthy, tax strong nations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa3695d0d1032ee99f0636ca62b92cda", "text": "\"The current tax regime? Not sure if you are being serious or facetious, but: [US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad - Filing Requirements](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-filing-requirements) >If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien living or traveling outside the United States, you generally are required to file income tax returns, estate tax returns, and gift tax returns and pay estimated tax in the same way as those residing in the United States. In contrast, corporations don't pay taxes on profits earned abroad until repatriation [here](http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/14/news/economy/corporate-taxes-inversion/index.html), [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporate-tax-report.html), [here](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-apple-profits/). So guess what they NEVER do? This is why literally every large US multi-national corporate \"\"person\"\" pays next to nothing in taxes. It is quite obvious that this is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of tax law. That simple fix would wipe out massive amounts of government debt and force multi-national corporations and their shareholders to become engaged stake holders in the efficiency of government. But if, unlike W-2 paid human counterparts, you can dodge all taxation, \"\"Who cares if the government is using funds efficiently?\"\" That is incentive to actually game the system to force the government into wasteful spending because the subsequent fallout of increased taxation and/or failure of the state can be dodged without consequence.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b47b1fed185fd92a2718eccc810c8dc", "text": "\"So, what's your actual plan/strategy/suggestion to combat this, again? Are you planning on buying physical gold, other precious metals (again, tangible--not paper), and buying & investing in real estate? This isn't a sarcastic question; I want to go down this hypothetical path in the thought experiment a bit further. For example: for a US investor, could part of the strategy be to \"\"move to a state with no state income tax\"\" to preserve as much income as possible in order to invest that income in one of the target categories? Is careful selection of primary residence (real estate) in a location most likely to appreciate part of the strategy? Is moving your investment accounts offshore to a tax haven part of the strategy?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7851f4eb8431440619c6ffb3774188f0", "text": "\"As soon as I see the word \"\"friends\"\" along with money transfer I think scam. But ignoring that red flag.... You will have American companies reporting to the IRS that you are a Canadian Vendor they have hired. Then you are transferring money to people in Bangladesh. Assuming also that you fill out all the regulatory paperwork to establish this Money transfer business you may still face annual reporting requirements to 3 national taxing authorities. In the United states there are situations where the US Government hires a large company to complete a project. As part of that contract they require the large company to hire small businesses to complete some of the tasks. In a situation where the large company is imply serving as a conduit for the money between the government and the sub-contractor; and the large company has no other responsibilities; the usual fee for providing that function is 8% of the funds. This pays for their expenses for their accounting functions plus profit and the taxes that will trigger. Yet you said \"\"At the end of the day, I will not earn much, but the transactions will just burden my tax returns.\"\" The 8 percent fee doesn't include doesn't include having to file paperwork with 3 nations. Adding this to all the other risks associated with being an international bank, plus the legal costs of making sure you are following all the regulations...No thanks.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d3432f3f1b79f319e60a00f45aa0e911	About to start being an Independent Contractor - Any advice on estimating taxes?	[ { "docid": "07b1bf8262c1ae737d88e0063c01632c", "text": "I agree with your strategy of using a conservative estimate to overpay taxes and get a refund next year. As a self-employed individual you are responsible for paying self-employment tax (which means paying Social Security and Medicare tax for yourself as both: employee and an employer.) Current Social Security Rate is 6.2% and Medicare is 1.45%, so your Self-employment tax is 15.3% (7.65%X2) Assuming you are single, your effective tax rate will be over 10% (portion of your income under $ 9,075), but less than 15% ($9,075-$36,900), so to adopt a conservative approach, let's use the 15% number. Given Self-employment and Federal Income tax rate estimates, very conservative approach, your estimated tax can be 30% (Self-employment tax plus income tax) Should you expect much higher compensation, you might move to the 25% tax bracket and adjust this amount to 40%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fe97da3da12776e31cfb58e16e57f81", "text": "\"It's likely you don't have to make estimated tax payments if this is your first year of contracting (extra income), and your existing salary is already having taxes withheld. If you look at the 1040-ES: General Rule In most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2014 if both of the following apply. This is easier to understand if you look at the worksheet. Look at line 14b/14c and the associated instructions. 14b is your required annual payment based on last year's tax. 14c is the lesser of that number and 14a, so 14b is your \"\"worst case\"\". 14c is the amount of tax you need to prepay (withholding counts as prepayment). I'm going to apply this to your situation based on my understanding, because it's not easy to parse:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c240eb80447171c476c7943200e8042", "text": "One possibility that I use: I set up an LLC and get paid through that entity. Then I set up a payroll service through Bank of America and set up direct deposit so that it is free. I pay myself at 70% of my hourly rate based on the number of hours I work, and the payroll service does all the calculations for me and sets up the payments to the IRS. Typically money is left over in my business account. When tax time rolls around, I have a W2 from my LLC and a 1099 from the company I work for. I put the W2 into my personal income, and for the business I enter the revenue on the 1099 and the payroll expenses from paying myself; the left over in the business account is taxed as ordinary income. Maybe it's overkill, but setting up the LLC makes it possible to (a) set up a solo 401(k) and put up to $51k away tax-free, and (b) I can write off business expenses more easily.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "de2a1de2c247e1e573b8f28fcf9f1b28", "text": "\"LLC is, as far as I know, just a US thing, so I'm assuming that you are in the USA. Update for clarification: other countries do have similar concepts, but I'm not aware of any country that uses the term LLC, nor any other country that uses the single-member LLC that is disregarded for income tax purposes that I'm referring to here (and that I assume the recruiter also was talking about). Further, LLCs vary by state. I only have experience with California, so some things may not apply the same way elsewhere. Also, if you are located in one state but the client is elsewhere, things can get more complex. First, let's get one thing out of the way: do you want to be a contractor, or an employee? Both have advantage, and especially in the higher-income areas, contractor can be more beneficial for you. Make sure that if you are a contractor, your rate must be considerably higher than as employee, to make up for the benefits you give up, as well as the FICA taxes and your expense of maintaining an LLC (in California, it costs at least $800/year, plus legal advice, accounting, and various other fees etc.). On the other hand, oftentimes, the benefits as an employee aren't actually worth all that much when you are in high income brackets. Do pay attention to health insurance - that may be a valuable benefit, or it may have such high deductibles that you would be better off getting your own or paying the penalty for going uninsured. Instead of a 401(k), you can set up an IRA (update or various other options), and you can also replace all the other benefits. If you decide that being an employee is the way to go, stop here. If you decide that being a contractor is a better deal for you, then it is indeed a good idea to set up an LLC. You actually have three fundamental options: work as an individual (the legal term is \"\"sole proprietorship\"\"), form a single-member LLC disregarded for income tax purposes, or various other forms of incorporation. Of these, I would argue that the single-member LLC combines the best of both worlds: taxation is almost the same as for sole proprietorship, the paperwork is minimal (a lot less than any other form of incorporation), but it provides many of the main benefits of incorporating. There are several advantages. First, as others have already pointed out, the IRS and Department of Labor scrutinize contractor relationships carefully, because of companies that abused this status on a massive scale (Uber and now-defunct Homejoy, for instance, but also FedEx and other old-economy companies). One of the 20 criteria they use is whether you are incorporated or not. Basically, it adds to your legal credibility as a contractor. Another benefit is legal protection. If your client (or somebody else) sues \"\"you\"\", they can usually only sue the legal entity they are doing business with. Which is the LLC. Your personal assets are safe from judgments. That's why Donald Trump is still a billionaire despite his famous four bankruptcies (which I believe were corporate, not personal, bankrupcies). Update for clarification Some people argue that you are still liable for your personal actions. You should consult with a lawyer about the details, but most business liabilities don't arise from such acts. Another commenter suggested an E&O policy - a very good idea, but not a substitute for an LLC. An LLC does require some minimal paperwork - you need to set up a separate bank account, and you will need a professional accounting system (not an Excel spreadsheet). But if you are a single member LLC, the paperwork is really not a huge deal - you don't need to file a separate federal tax return. Your income will be treated as if it was personal income (the technical term is that the LLC is disregarded for IRS tax purposes). California still does require a separate tax return, but that's only two pages or so, and unless you make a large amount, the tax is always $800. That small amount of paperwork is probably why your recruiter recommended the LLC, rather than other forms of incorporation. So if you want to be a contractor, then it sounds like your recruiter gave you good advice. If you want to be an employee, don't do it. A couple more points, not directly related to the question, but hopefully generally helpful: If you are a contractor (whether as sole proprietor or through an LLC), in most cities you need a business license. Not only that, but you may even need a separate business license in every city you do business (for instance, in the city where your client is located, even if you don't live there). Business licenses can range from \"\"not needed\"\" to a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. In some cities, the business license fee may also depend on your income. And finally, one interesting drawback of a disregarded LLC vs. sole proprietorship as a contractor has to do with the W-9 form and your Social Security Number. Generally, when you work for somebody and receive more than $600/year, they need to ask you for your Social Security Number, using form W-9. That is always a bit of a concern because of identity theft. The IRS also recognizes a second number, the EIN (Employer Identification Number). This is basically like an SSN for corporations. You can also apply for one if you are a sole proprietor. This is a HUGE benefit because you can use the EIN in place of your SSN on the W-9. Instant identity theft protection. HOWEVER, if you have a disregarded LLC, the IRS says that you MUST use your SSN; you cannot use your EIN! Update: The source for that information is the W-9 instructions; it specifically only excludes LLCs.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e14cb4c06d785d9ab927ff0914196dcc", "text": "This is wrong. It should be or Now, to get back to self-employment tax. Self-employment tax is weird. It's a business tax. From the IRS perspective, any self-employed person is a business. So, take your income X and divide by 1.0765 (6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare). This gives your personal income. Now, to calculate the tax that you have to pay, multiply that by .153 (since you have to pay both the worker and employer shares of the tax). So new calculation or they actually let you do which is better for you (smaller). And your other calculations change apace. And like I said, you can simplify Q1se to and your payment would be Now, to get to the second quarter. Like I said, I'd calculate the income through the second quarter. So recalculate A based on your new numbers and use that to calculate Q2i. or Note that this includes income from both the first and second quarters. We'll reduce to just the second quarter later. This also has you paying for all of June even though you may not have been paid when you make the withholding payment. That's what they want you to do. But we aren't done yet. Your actual payment should be or Because Q2ft and Q2se are what you owe for the year so far. Q1ft + Q1se is what you've already paid. So you subtract those from what you need to pay in the second quarter. In future quarters, this would be All that said, don't stress about it. As a practical matter, so long as you don't owe $1000 or more when you file your actual tax return, they aren't going to care. So just make sure that your total payments match by the payment you make January 15th. I'm not going to try to calculate for the state. For one thing, I don't know if your state uses Q1i or Q1pi as its base. Different states may have different rules on that. If you can't figure it out, just use Q1i, as that's the bigger one. Fix it when you file your annual return. The difference in withholding is going to be relatively small anyway, less than 1% of your income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a13a67170ffc59dbf2ae2485ac4f2bd9", "text": "I do something pretty simple when figuring 1099 income. I keep track of my income and deductible expenses on a spreadsheet. Then I do total income - total expenses * .25. I keep that amount in a savings account ready to pay taxes. Given that your estimates for the quarterly payments are low then expected, that amount should be more then enough to fully fund those payments. If you are correct, and they are low, then really what does it matter? You will have the money, in the bank, to pay what you actually owe to the IRS.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3d82e1a48bd6fd8afb26538e78100d8", "text": "I'm not a tax advisor, but I've done freelance work, so... If any of your side-business revenue is reported on a 1099, you're now a business owner, which is why Schedule C must be filled out. As a business owner, minimum wage doesn't apply to you. All revenue is income to you, and you owe taxes on the profit, after subtracting legitimate (verifiable) business expenses. You'll want to talk to a real tax advisor if you're going to start expensing mileage, part of your house (if you use a home office), etc. Don't forget that you'll owe self-employment tax (the employer's half of your payroll tax). You can't save money on business taxes by paying yourself a wage and then counting it as an expense to the business. You'll definitely want to talk to a tax expert if you start playing around with finances as an (the) owner of the business. Income that is not reported on a 1099 should be reported as hobby income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2759de95b6e4abc47e93cbccb708395a", "text": "\"There are way too many details missing to be able to give you an accurate answer, and it would be too localized in terms of time & location anyway -- the rules change every year, and your local taxes make the answer useless to other people. Instead, here's how to figure out the answer for yourself. Use a tax estimate calculator to get a ballpark figure. (And keep in mind that these only provide estimates, because there are still a lot of variables that are only considered when you're actually filling out your real tax return.) There are a number of calculators if you search for something like \"\"tax estimator calculator\"\", some are more sophisticated than others. (Fair warning: I used several of these and they told me a range of $2k - $25k worth of taxes owed for a situation like yours.) Here's an estimator from TurboTax -- it's handy because it lets you enter business income. When I plug in $140K ($70 * 40 hours * 50 weeks) for business income in 2010, married filing jointly, no spouse income, and 4 dependents, I get $30K owed in federal taxes. (That doesn't include local taxes, any itemized deductions you might be eligible for, IRA deductions, etc. You may also be able to claim some expenses as business deductions that will reduce your taxable business income.) So you'd net $110K after taxes, or about $55/hour ($110k / 50 / 40). Of course, you could get an answer from the calculator, and Congress could change the rules midway through the year -- you might come out better or worse, depending on the nature of the rule changes... that's why I stress that it's an estimate. If you take the job, don't forget to make estimated tax payments! Edit: (some additional info) If you plan on doing this on an ongoing basis (i.e. you are going into business as a contractor for this line of work), there are some tax shelters that you can take advantage of. Most of these won't be worth doing if you are only going to be doing contract work for a short period of time (1-2 years). These may or may not all be applicable to you. And do your research into these areas before diving in, I'm just scratching the surface in the notes below.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef325af95e1dfafaa8396f9a31045429", "text": "\"I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were \"\"sunk\"\" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acd13ed628496354fa8b601a28ac4b2d", "text": "As a new (very!) small business, the IRS has lots of advice and information for you. Start at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed and be sure you have several pots of coffee or other appropriate aid against somnolence. By default a single-member LLC is 'disregarded' for tax purposes (at least for Federal, and generally states follow Federal although I don't know Mass. specifically), although it does have other effects. If you go this route you simply include the business income and expenses on Schedule C as part of your individual return on 1040, and the net SE income is included along with your other income (if any) in computing your tax. TurboTax or similar software should handle this for you, although you may need a premium version that costs a little more. You can 'elect' to have the LLC taxed as a corporation by filing form 8832, see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/limited-liability-company-llc . In principle you are supposed to do this when the entity is 'formed', but in practice AIUI if you do it by the end of the year they won't care at all, and if you do it after the end of the year but before or with your first affected return you qualify for automatic 'relief'. However, deciding how to divide the business income/profits into 'reasonable pay' to yourself versus 'dividends' is more complicated, and filling out corporation tax returns in addition to your individual return (which is still required) is more work, in addition to the work and cost of filing and reporting the LLC itself to your state of choice. Unless/until you make something like $50k-100k a year this probably isn't worth it. 1099 Reporting. Stripe qualifies as a 'payment network' and under a recent law payment networks must annually report to IRS (and copy to you) on form 1099-K if your account exceeds certain thresholds; see https://support.stripe.com/questions/will-i-receive-a-1099-k-and-what-do-i-do-with-it . Note you are still legally required to report and pay tax on your SE income even if you aren't covered by 1099-K (or other) reporting. Self-employment tax. As a self-employed person (if the LLC is disregarded) you have to pay 'SE' tax that is effectively equivalent to the 'FICA' taxes that would be paid by your employer and you as an employee combined. This is 12.4% for Social Security unless/until your total earned income exceeds a cap (for 2017 $127,200, adjusted yearly for inflation), and 2.9% for Medicare with no limit (plus 'Additional Medicare' tax if you exceed a higher threshold and it isn't 'repealed and replaced'). If the LLC elects corporation status it has to pay you reasonable wages for your services, and withhold+pay FICA on those wages like any other employer. Estimated payments. You are required to pay most of your individual income tax, and SE tax if applicable, during the year (generally 90% of your tax or your tax minus $1,000 whichever is less). Most wage-earners don't notice this because it happens automatically through payroll withholding, but as self-employed you are responsible for making sufficient and timely estimated payments, and will owe a penalty if you don't. However, since this is your first year you may have a 'safe harbor'; if you also have income from an employer (reported on W-2, with withholding) and that withholding is sufficent to pay last year's tax, then you are exempt from the 'underpayment' penalty for this year. If you elect corporation status then the corporation (which is really just you) must always make timely payments of withheld amounts, according to one of several different schedules that may apply depending on the amounts; I believe it also must make estimated payments for its own liability, if any, but I'm not familiar with that part.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b5c0f3ab5a837e85d550225adbb03c7", "text": "I would say you can file your taxes on your own, but you will probably want the advice of an accountant if you need any supplies or tools for the side business that might be tax deductible. IIRC you don't have to tell your current employer for tax reasons (just check that your contract doesn't state you can't have a side job or business), but I believe you'll have to tell HMRC. At the end of the year you'll have to file a tax return and at that point in time you'll have to pay the tax on the additional earnings. These will be taxed at your highest tax rate and you might end up in a higher tax bracket, too. I'd put about 40% away for tax, that will put you on the safe side in case you end up in the high tax bracket; if not, you'll have a bit of money going spare after paying your taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf1c0c8f4ce07239858da167fbbcade1", "text": "You can and are supposed to report self-employment income on Schedule C (or C-EZ if eligible, which a programmer likely is) even when the payer isn't required to give you 1099-MISC (or 1099-K for a payment network now). From there, after deducting permitted expenses, it flows to 1040 (for income tax) and Schedule SE (for self-employment tax). See https://www.irs.gov/individuals/self-employed for some basics and lots of useful links. If this income is large enough your tax on it will be more than $1000, you may need to make quarterly estimated payments (OR if you also have a 'day job' have that employer increase your withholding) to avoid an underpayment penalty. But if this is the first year you have significant self-employment income (or other taxable but unwithheld income like realized capital gains) and your economic/tax situation is otherwise unchanged -- i.e. you have the same (or more) payroll income with the same (or more) withholding -- then there is a 'safe harbor': if your withholding plus estimated payments this year is too low to pay this year's tax but it is enough to pay last year's tax you escape the penalty. (You still need to pay the tax due, of course, so keep the funds available for that.) At the end of the first year when you prepare your return you will see how the numbers work out and can more easily do a good estimate for the following year(s). A single-member LLC or 'S' corp is usually disregarded for tax purposes, although you can elect otherwise, while a (traditional) 'C' corp is more complicated and AIUI out-of-scope for this Stack; see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-structures for more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae96ebf7c42b5aa8611e7c1b9890c299", "text": "First - get a professional tax consultation with a NY-licensed CPA or EA. At what point do I need to worry about collecting sales taxes for the city and state of New York? Generally, from the beginning. See here for more information on NYS sales tax. At what point do I need to worry about record-keeping to report the income on my own taxes? From the beginning. Even before that, since you need the records to calculate the costs of production and expenses. I suggest starting recording everything, as soon as possible. What sort of business structures should I research if I want to formalize this as less of a hobby and more of a business? You don't have to have a business structure, you can do it as a sole proprietor. If you're doing it for-profit - I suggest treating it as a business, and reporting it on your taxes as a business (Schedule C), so that you could deduct the initial losses. But the tax authorities don't like business that keep losing money, so if you're not expecting any profit in the next 3-4 years - keep it reported as a hobby (Misc income). Talk to a licensed tax professional about the differences in tax treatment and reporting. You will still be taxed on your income, and will still be liable for sales tax, whether you treat it as a hobby or as a business. Official business (for-profit activity) will require additional licenses and fees, hobby (not-for-profit activity) might not. Check with the local authorities (city/county/State).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8c14645e80f7cd3b2ebaab6c67c182e", "text": "\"My number one piece of advice is to see a tax professional who can guide you through the process, especially if you're new to the process. Second, keep detailed records. That being said, I found two articles, [1] and [2] that give some relevant details that you might find helpful. The articles state that: Many artists end up with a combination of income types: income from regular wages and income from self-employment. Income from wages involves a regular paycheck with all appropriate taxes, social security, and Medicare withheld. Income from self-employment may be in the form of cash, check, or goods, with no withholding of any kind. They provide a breakdown for expenses and deductions based on the type of income you receive. If you get a regular paycheck: If you've got a gig lasting more than a few weeks, chances are you will get paid regular wages with all taxes withheld. At the end of the year, your employer will issue you a form W-2. If this regular paycheck is for entertainment-related work (and not just for waiting tables to keep the rent paid), you will deduct related expenses on a Schedule A, under \"\"Unreimbursed Employee business expenses,\"\" or on Form 2106, which will give you a total to carry to the schedule A. The type of expenses that go here are: If you are considered an independent contractor (I presume this includes the value of goods, based on the first quoted paragraph above): Independent contractors get paid by cash or check with no withholding of any kind. This means that you are responsible for all of the Social Security and Medicare normally paid or withheld by your employer; this is called Self-Employment Tax. In order to take your deductions, you will need to complete a Schedule C, which breaks down expenses into even more detail. In addition to the items listed above, you will probably have items in the following categories: Ideally, you should receive a 1099 MISC from whatever employer(s) paid you as an independent contractor. Keep in mind that some states have a non-resident entertainers' tax, which is A state tax levied against performers whose legal residence is outside of the state where the performance is given. The tax requires that a certain percentage of any gross earnings from the performance be withheld for the state. Seriously, keep all of your receipts, pay stubs, W2's, 1099 forms, contracts written on the backs of napkins, etc. and go see a tax professional.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36bc3419347f5ab9a094d1c7d866fbae", "text": "\"Anything is negotiable. Clearly in the current draft of the contract the company isn't going to calculate or withhold taxes on your behalf - that is your responsibility. But if you want to calculate taxes yourself, and break out the fees you are receiving into several \"\"buckets\"\" on the invoice, the company might agree (they might have to run it past their legal department first). I don't see how that helps anything - it just divides the single fee into two pieces with the same overall total. As @mhoran_psprep points out, it appears that the company expects you to cover your expenses from within your charges. Thus, it's up to you to decide the appropriate fees to charge, and you are assuming the risk that you have estimated your expenses incorrectly. If you want the company to pay you a fee, plus reimburse your expenses, you will need to craft that into the contract. It's not clear what kind of expenses you need to be covered, and sometimes companies will not agree to them. For specific tax rule questions applicable to your locale, you should consult your tax adviser.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "986c9acc7c40e3a524b8ef9cff81fbe9", "text": "I just scanned in a single sheet summary of my last two years tax returns. It is something our CPA does for us. How would I post it? Don't worry, I marked out all the personal information. What is says is I paid over $50K in taxes in 2015. Last year we had one of our biggest contracts put on hold, so I only paid $20K. I won't have this years figures, because we don't submit them to our CPA until the end of the year. However, this year, we just bought out two other owners at $1.2M, which makes me a 33% owner. The contract is getting restarted (knock on wood), which all together means my personal tax liability is going to be well over $100K. My company is a commercial company, but we work with the government, and matter of fact some of the stuff we produce was designed and developed by the government (as is many of today's modern inventions - I think you would be surprised). So lets tackle it one at a time. Pick one of those things that commercial does better than government. P.s. Higher taxes doesn't mean higher for you, a lot of times it means higher for guys like me or way better than me (which I am perfectly fine with, and matter of fact would support). People who use infastructure more - like large corporations - should pay more for it...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d86d2dee6b62b0b7c9130b5bfe2fd4f", "text": "To be honest I don't know how any of this work in the US so my answer will be of very limited value to yourself, I suspect, but when it comes to the UK if you're going to get the same pay gross either way than being independent makes very little sense. Running your own business is hassle, is generally more risky (although possibly not in your case) and costs money. Some of the most obvious costs are the added NI, probably the need for an accountant, at around £1200 p/a for basic accountancy service, you are obliged by law to have liability insurance and you probably want professional indemnity insurance, this will be around £600 p/a minmum, and so on and so forth. On top of that, oficially anyway, as a contractor, you really shouldn't be getting any benefits from the client, and so health insurance, company car, even parking are all meant to be arranged by, and paid by, your company, and can't (or rather - shouldn't) be charged to the client. So - I would say - if you're seriously thinking about setting up a consultancy company, and this client is first of many - set up a company, but take into account the sums you need to earn. If you're really thinking about employment - be an employee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62be4077a8b5f99137d2c3ca9b8a3ae0", "text": "You have made a good start because you are looking at your options. Because you know that if you do nothing you will have a big tax bill in April 2017, you want to make sure that you avoid the underpayment penalty. One way to avoid it is to make estimated payments. But even if you do that you could still make a mistake and overpay or underpay. I think the easiest way to handle it is to reach the safe harbor. If your withholding from your regular jobs and any estimated taxes you pay in 2016 equal or exceed your total taxes for 2015, then even if you owe a lot in April 2017 you can avoid the underpayment penalty. If you AGI is over 150K you have to make sure your withholding is 110% of your 2015 taxes. Then set aside what you think you will owe in your bank account until you have to pay your taxes in April 2017. You only have to adjust your withholding to make the safe harbor. You can make sure easily enough once your file this years taxes. You only have to make sure that you reach the 100% or 110% threshold. From IRS PUB 17 Who Must Pay Estimated Tax If you owe additional tax for 2015, you may have to pay estimated tax for 2016. You can use the following general rule as a guide during the year to see if you will have enough withholding, or if you should increase your withholding or make estimated tax payments. General rule. In most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2016 if both of the following apply. You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for 2016, after subtracting your withholding and refundable credits. You expect your withholding plus your refundable credits to be less than the smaller of: a. 90% of the tax to be shown on your 2016 tax return, or b. 100% of the tax shown on your 2015 tax return (but see Special rules for farmers, fishermen, and higher income taxpayers , later). Your 2015 tax return must cover all 12 months. Reminders Estimated tax safe harbor for higher income taxpayers. If your 2015 adjusted gross income was more than $150,000 ($75,000 if you are married filing a separate return), you must pay the smaller of 90% of your expected tax for 2016 or 110% of the tax shown on your 2015 return to avoid an estimated tax penalty.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
0ca791271c63ff8ae4c7511f0caf5e31	Does earning as a non-resident remote worker on an American account make people liable for U.S taxes?	[ { "docid": "8364441010f6737d8fc4c32e0f598d57", "text": "The United States taxes nonresident aliens on two types of income: First, a nonresident alien who is engaged in a trade or business in the United States is taxed on income that is effectively connected with that trade or business. Second, certain types of U.S.-source payments are subject to income tax withholding. The determination of when a nonresident alien is engaged in a U.S. trade or business is highly fact-specific and complex. However, keeping assets in a U.S. bank account should not be treated as a U.S. trade or business. A nonresident alien's interest income is generally subject to U.S. federal income tax withholding at a rate of 30 percent under Section 1441 of the tax code. Interest on bank deposits, however, benefit from an exception under Section 1441(c)(10), so long as that interest is not effectively connected with a U.S. trade or business. Even though no tax needs to be withheld on interest on a bank deposit, the bank should still report that interest each year to the IRS on Form 1042-S. The IRS can then send that information to the tax authority in Brazil. Please keep in mind that state and local tax rules are all different, and whether interest on the bank deposits is subject to state or local tax will depend on which state the bank is in. Also, the United States does tax nonresident aliens on wages paid from a U.S. company, if those wages are treated as U.S.-source income. Generally, wages are U.S.-source income if the employee provides services while physically present in the United States. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they depend on the amount of wages and other factors that are specific to the employee's situation. This is an area where you should really consult with a U.S. tax advisor before the employment starts. Maybe your company will pay for it?", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "63446bd49d23b1872991316c108d9e6e", "text": "As NRI/PIO (Non-Resident Indian/Person of Indian Origin), the overseas income and transfers in foreign currency are exempt from Indian income taxes. However, the account in India has to be designated NRE or FCNR. There are three kind of accounts that an NRI can maintain Interest earned in NRE and FCNR accounts is exempt from income taxes. Interest earned in NRO accounts is not exempt from income taxes, in fact banks would withhold about 30% of interest (TDS). The exact tax liability would depend upon income generated in India and TDS could be applied towards that liability when the tax returns are filed. There are other implications also of designating the account as NRE or NRO. NRE accounts can only be funded via inward remittance of permitted foreign currency e.g. deposit USD/GBP. So proceeds like rental income, pension etc. that are generated in INR within India can't be deposited in this account. The money deposited in NRE account can grow tax free and can be converted back in any foreign currency freely. On the other hand NRO accounts can be funded through both inward remittance of permitted foreign currency or local income e.g. rental, pension etc. All the amount in this account is treated as Indian originated INR (even if remitted in foreign currency) and thus is taxed as any other bank account. The amount in this account is subject to the annual cap of convertibility of USD 1 million. Both NRE and NRO accounts are maintained in INR and can be Saving and Term Deposit. Any remittance made to these accounts in any foreign currency is converted to INR at the time of deposit and is maintained in INR. FCNR account are held in foreign currency and can only be Term Deposit. Official definitions: Accounts for Non Resident Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f431551f93c52c2a7b9bb42ffb59e679", "text": "Tax liability in US: You would need to determine if you are a resident alien or non resident alien. Resident alien are taxed normally as per US citizens. For the annual remuneration you have quoted it would be in the range of 25%. Refer http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm To determine if you are resident alien or non resident alien, you need to be present for certain period in US. There is also an exemption even if you meet this you can still be treated as non resident alien if your tax home is outside US [India in this case] Refer to the link for details to determine your category, the durations are for number of days in financial year, hence it matters when you are in US and the exact durations. http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc851.html Also note that if you are assessed as resident alien, even the income from India will be taxed in US unless you declare there is no income in India. Tax liability in India: The tax liability in India would be depending on your NRI status. This again is tied to the financial year and the number of days you are in country. While the year you are going out of India you need to be away for atleast 183 days for you be considred are NRI. So if you are treated as Indian resident, you would have to pay tax in India on entire income. In the worst case, depending on the period you travel and the dates you travel, you could get classified as citizen in US as well as India and have to pay tax at both places. India and US do not have a dual tax avoidance treaty for individuals. Its there for certain category like small business and certain professions like teacher, research etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da1ec09d990e5aacc6bcce5c151bb629", "text": "If you earn money while in the US or from renting your US house - you have to pay taxes to the US on that income. If you become US tax resident - you have to pay US taxes on your worldwide income. Whether or not you're in the US illegally or receiving income while breaking any other law - doesn't matter at all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e11cdeaad788b7bd62e45704991b7ad2", "text": "Plenty of retired people do stay in the US for longer than 60 days and don't pay taxes. In this IRS document 60 days stay appears to be the test for having a 'substantial presence' in the US, which is part of the test for determining residency. However the following is also written: Even if you meet the substantial presence test, you can be treated as a nonresident alien if you are present in the United States for fewer than 183 days during the current calendar year, you maintain a tax home in a foreign country during the year, and you have a closer connection to that country than to the United States. In other words, if your property in the US is not your main one, you pay tax in another country, and you stay there less than half the year, you should be treated as a non-resident (I am not a lawyer and this is not advice). This IRS webpage describes the tax situation of nonresident aliens. As I understand it, if you are not engaged in any kind of business in the US and have no income from US sources then you do not have to file a tax return. You should also look into the subject of double tax agreements. If your home country has one, and you pay taxes there, you probably won't need to pay extra tax to the US. But again, don't take my word for it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1821d489190ca4b39fdd9e8a953ad6d1", "text": "\"What do you mean by \"\"Canadian income\"\"? Was it income paid to you as wages for the job you did in the US? Or rental/interest income in Canada? If the former - then it doesn't go to NEC, it goes to the main part of the return. If the latter - it doesn't appear on your NR return at all. Yes, it is to validate your residency status. It has no other effect on your taxes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e948ca5b9558c42927b25e6330a3ae74", "text": "\"The real question you're asking is how you can work for your business. You cannot. Whether your \"\"friend\"\" pays you or not is entirely irrelevant. Claiming your work-related earnings as interest/dividend will make it also a tax fraud, in addition to the immigration violation (i.e.: not only deportation but also potentially jail time).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0dff6557d816cb0977e9108b3513731", "text": "Do I need to declare it to IRS? The account? No. You do need to file a form W8-BEN with the bank though and make sure you maintain the correct information on it (it has your address there, so if you move - update it). Your account may be frozen until the form is provided, especially if it has activity on it. The 2-nd and 3-rd scenario would come as a result of some freelancing activity done while I am out of the US (definitely would qualify for Non-Resident Alien status). This you do have to report to the IRS. I'm guessing the payer is in the US, and would not know that you're a foreigner. In this case you're liable for taxes (if the payer knows you're a foreigner - they must withhold the taxes on your behalf). The payer will report payments to the IRS, so you have to submit your own tax return for a match. If there's activity on your account that might be suspicious, it will be reported to money laundering unit in the US Treasury Department, that may come after you through the treaties the US might have with your home country (tax treaty, extradition treaty, etc).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac312006d6f1c199884fac1886a4e1fc", "text": "The LLC will not be liable for anything, it is disregarded for tax purposes. If you're doing any work while in the US, or you (or your spouse) are a green card holder or a US citizen - then you (not the LLC) may be liable, may be required to file, pay, etc. Unless you're employing someone, or have more than one member in your LLC, you do not need an EIN. Re the bank - whatever you want. If you want you can open an account in an American bank. If you don't - don't. Who cares?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04468a78b190230604ded783ba3cbc6c", "text": "There are too many nuances to the question asked to explore fully but here are a few points to keep in mind. If you are a cash-basis taxpayer (most individuals are), then you are not required to pay taxes on the money that has been billed but not received as yet. If you operate on an accrual basis, then the income accrues to you the day you perform the service and not on the day you bill the client. You can make four equal payments of estimated tax on the due dates, and if these (together with any income tax withholding from wage-paying jobs) are at least 90% of your tax liability for that year, then you owe no penalties for underpayment of tax regardless of how your income varied over the year. If your income does vary considerably over the year (even for people who only have wages but who invest in mutual funds, the income can vary quite a bit since mutual funds typically declare dividends and capital gains in December), then you can pay different amounts in each quarterly installment of estimated tax. This is called the annualization method (a part of Form 2210 that is best avoided unless you really need to use it). Your annualized income for the payment due on June 15 is 2.4 = 12/5 times your taxable income through May 31. Thus, on Form 2210, you are allowed to assume that your average monthly taxable income through May 31 will continue for the rest of the year. You then compute the tax due on that annualized income and you are supposed to have paid at least 45% of that amount by June 15. Similarly for September 15 for which you look at income through August 31, you use a multiplier of 1.5 = 12/8 and need to pay 67.5% of the tax on the annualized income, and so on. If you miscalculate these numbers and pay too little tax in any installment, then you owe penalties for that quarter. Most people find that guesstimating the tax due for the entire year and paying it in equal installments is simpler than keeping track of nuances of the annualized method. Even simpler is to pay 100% of last year's tax in four equal installments (110% for high earners) and then no penalty is due at all. If your business is really taking off and your income is going to be substantially higher in one year, then this 100%/110% of last year's tax deal could allow you to postpone a significant chunk of your tax bill till April 15.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da92a0adce54a5e7edecdfd67283f870", "text": "Canada doesn't tax non-residents on income earned/incurred outside of Canada. So, your sister should start with this page to determine the residency status. If she is indeed determined to be non-resident - she should look here to see her obligations. If all she earns she earns outside of Canada - her obligations will be very little, if at all. This is similar to almost any other country in the world, with the notable exception of the United States of America. US citizens are taxed regardless of their residency status, everywhere in the world on worldwide income (unless tax treaty says otherwise).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b810befb58360be5aa7896bc91f112ce", "text": "Transferring money you own from one place to another pretty much never has tax implications. It might have other implications, including requirement to report it. Being a US citizen has tax implications, including the requirement to file US tax forms for the rest of eternity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af46f9f222b03afc70c4c684572cf355", "text": "\"For Non-Resident filers, New York taxes New York-sourced income. That includes: real or tangible personal property located in New York State (including certain gains or losses from the sale or exchange of an interest in an entity that owns real property in New York State); services performed in New York State; a business, trade, profession, or occupation carried on in New York State; and a New York S corporation in which you are a shareholder (including installment income from an IRC 453 transaction). There are some exclusions as well. It is all covered in the instructions to form IT-203. However, keep in mind that \"\"filing\"\" as non-resident doesn't make you non-resident. If you spend 184 days or more in New York State, and you have a place to stay there - you are resident. See definitions here. Even if you don't actually live there and consider yourself a CT resident.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96503ad0863d795ad2f0d81405f41c31", "text": "75k is short of the 'highly compensated' category. Most US citizens in that pay range would consider paying someone to do their taxes as an unnecessary expense. Tax shelters usually don't come into play for this level of income. However, there are certain things which provide deductions. Some things that make it better to pay someone: Use the free online tax forms to sandbox your returns. If all you're concerned about is ensuring you pay your taxes correctly, this is the most cost efficient route. If you want to minimize your tax burden, consult with a CPA. Be sure to get one who is familiar with resident aliens from your country and the relevant tax treaties. The estimate you're looking at may be the withholding, of which you may be eligible for a refund for some part of that withholding. Tax treaties likely make sure that you get credit on each side for the money paid in the other. For example, as a US citizen, if I go to Europe and work and pay taxes there, I can deduct the taxes paid in Europe from my tax burden in the US. If I've already paid more to the EU than I would have paid on the same amount earned in the US, then my tax burden in the US is zero. By the same token, if I have not paid up to my US burden, then I owe the balance to the US. But this is way better than paying taxes to your home country and to the host country where you earned the money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38ce8853a945c37b03874890c7effc66", "text": "It essentially works the same. Some states don't have any income taxes at all (like Florida or Wyoming), some only tax income derived in the state, and some tax worldwide income (like New York or California), similarly to the Federal income taxes. However, if you're living abroad (i.e.: you're a citizen or resident of a foreign country and you live there), you're not considered resident by most of the states (check with your state for specific definitions) for most, if not all, the time of your residency abroad. In such case - you don't pay state taxes, only Federal. You have to remember that foreign income exclusion doesn't apply to the income from your 401k, so you pay the taxes as if you're in the US. You can not use foreign taxes credit as well (but depending on the tax treaty with the country you're moving to, your 401k income might not be taxable there). In some cases you may end up with double taxation: US will tax your 401k income as you're a US citizen and the income is derived from the US sources, and the foreign country will tax the income based on its own laws. This is not a tax advice, and this answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94c39b345a0eb3878d903cb081e28da2", "text": "Are you planning to not pay taxes? Any time someone has income in the U.S., it is subject to U.S. taxes. You must file tax returns (and pay taxes if necessary) if you have income above a certain threshold, regardless of whether you're not authorized to work or not. If you plan to intentionally not pay taxes, then that's a whole other matter from working without authorization. Working without authorization is an immigration issue. It probably violates the conditions of your status, which will make you to automatically lose your status. That may or may not affect when you want to want to visit, immigrate to, or get other immigration benefits in the U.S. in the future; and at worst you may be deported. It's a complicated topic, but not really relevant for this site.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
8cee060c7498efd5727c12bfc97066d6	What is the stock warrant's expiration date here?	[ { "docid": "31f2cba76bbf847dc664ece3d256b0e9", "text": "\"These warrants do not have a fixed expiration date, rather their expiration date is dependant upon the company completing an acquisition. Thirty days after the acquisition is complete the warrants enter their exercise period. The warrants can then be exercised at any time over the next five years. After five years they expire. From the \"\"WARRANT AGREEMENT SOCIAL CAPITAL HEDOSOPHIA HOLDINGS CORP.\"\": A Warrant may be exercised only during the period (the “Exercise Period”) (A) commencing on the later of: (i) the date that is thirty (30) days after the first date on which the Company completes a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination, involving the Company and one or more businesses (a “Business Combination”), and (ii) the date that is twelve (12) months from the date of the closing of the Offering, and (B) terminating at the earliest to occur of (x) 5:00 p.m., New York City time on the date that is five (5) years after the date on which the Company completes its initial Business Combination, (y) the liquidation of the Company in accordance with the Company’s amended and restated memorandum and articles of association, as amended from time to time, if the Company fails to complete a Business Combination, and (z) 5:00 p.m., New York City time on, other than with respect to the Private Placement Warrants, the Redemption Date (as defined below) as provided in Section 6.2 hereof (the “Expiration Date”); provided, however, that the exercise of any Warrant shall be subject to the satisfaction of any applicable conditions, as set forth in subsection 3.3.2 below, with respect to an effective registration statement Source : lawinsder.com\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "90f3ac4042a941d61e7a35f1938326dc", "text": "\"The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) publishes these and other relevant data on their Statistics page, in the \"\"Treasury & Agency\"\" section. The volume spreadsheet contains annual and monthly data with bins for varying maturities. These data only go back as far as January 2001 (in most cases). SIFMA also publishes treasury issuances with monthly data for bills, notes, bonds, etc. going back as far as January 1980. Most of this information comes from the Daily Treasury Statements, so that's another source of specific information that you could aggregate yourself. Somewhere I have a parser for the historical data (since the Treasury doesn't provide it directly; it's only available as daily text files). I'll post it if I can find it. It's buried somewhere at home, I think.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8b3cdc8f3766cb93bb00036450b813a", "text": "As the record date is 7th August, you need to hold stocks on the 7th August closing. You need not hold it till 2nd Sept. The list as taken on 7th August would be processed and instructions given to Bank and the dividends credited by 1st Sept. Edit: To Clarify Victor's comment Typically from the time one sells the stocks to the time it actually gets transferred has a clearing cycle. Most stock exchanges have 2 or 3 days cycles. i.e. if I sell the stock today, it is still in my name. The money is still with the buyer. On Day 1, the positions are arrived at. On Day 2 the stock gets credited to the buyer and the funds gets credit to seller. As the question was specific whether to hold the stock till 7th or 22nd Sept, my initial answer was simple. The illustration by Victor is more accurate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a53c5f4ce1cf486607686d161248249", "text": "\"The official source is the most recent Form 13F that Berkshire Hathaway, which is filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on a quarterly basis . You can find it through the SEC filing search engine, using BRKA as the ticker symbol. and then looking for the filings marked 13-FR or 13-FR/A (the \"\"/A\"\" indicates an amended filing). As you can see by looking at the 13-F filed for the quarter ending September 30 , the document isn't pretty or necessarily easy to read, hence the popularity of sites such as those that Chad linked to. It is, though, the truly official source from which websites tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio derive their information.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b24d10511c7da25e635a279c6554e061", "text": "That looks very much like an S&P 500 E-Mini index future. However, ES1 is a strange symbol. Futures have the month of expiry encoded in their symbol as well: http://commodities.about.com/od/understandingthebasics/ss/futurescontract_3.htm For example, the September 2011 future in this series would be ESU1. I'm not very familiar with Bloomberg so perhaps this is the front contract (i.e. the one that's closest to expiry (in the is case the September 2011 one)). Only problem is that prices don't exactly match what CME has (high of 1190 and low of 1186.25, for when this page gets out of date): http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/e-mini-sandp500.html - but they are so close I suspect it must be some sort of S&P 500 index future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b41d41d122656bbf125375a4a2b44e9", "text": "\"(See also the question How many stocks I can exercise per stock warrant? and my comments there). Clearly, at the prices you quote, it does not seem sensible to exercise your warrants at the moment, since you can still by \"\"units\"\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) and bare stock at below the $11.50 it would cost you to exercise your warrant. So when would exercising a warrant become \"\"a sensible thing to do\"\"? Obviously, if the price of the bare stock (which you say is currently $10.12) were to sufficiently exceed $11.50, then it would clearly be worth exercising a warrant and immediately selling the stock you receive (\"\"sufficiently exceed\"\" to account for any dealing costs in selling the newly-acquired stock). However, looking more closely, $11.50 isn't the correct \"\"cut-off\"\" price. Consider three of the units you bought at $10.26 each. For $30.78 you received three shares of stock and one warrant. For an additional $11.50 ($42.28 in total) you can have a total of four shares of stock (at the equivalent of $10.57 each). So, if the price of the bare stock rises above $10.57, then it could become sensible to exercise one warrant and sell four shares of stock (again allowing a margin for the cost of selling the stock). The trading price of the original unit (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) shouldn't (I believe) directly affect your decision to exercise warrants, although it would be a factor in deciding whether to resell the units you've already got. As you say, if they are now trading at $10.72, then having bought them at $10.26 you would make a profit if sold. Curiously, unless I'm missing something, or the figures you quote are incorrect, the current price of the \"\"unit\"\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant; $10.72) seems overpriced compared to the price of the bare stock ($10.12). Reversing the above calculation, if bare stock is trading at $10.12, then four shares would cost $40.48. Deducting the $11.50 cost-of-exercising, this would value three \"\"combined units\"\" at $28.98, or $9.66 each, which is considerably below the market price you quote. One reason the \"\"unit\"\" (1 stock + 1/3 warrant) is trading at $10.72 instead of $9.66 could be that the market believes the price of the bare share (currently $10.12) will eventually move towards or above $11.50. If that happens, the option of exercising warrants at $11.50 becomes more and more attractive. The premium presumably reflects this potential future benefit. Finally, \"\"Surely I am misunderstand the stock IPO's intent.\"\": presumably, the main intent of Social Capital was to raise as much money as possible through this IPO to fund their future activities. The \"\"positive view\"\" is that they expect this future activity to be profitable, and therefore the price of ordinary stock to go up (at least as far as, ideally way beyond) the $11.50 exercise price, and the offering of warrants will be seen as a \"\"thank you\"\" to those investors who took the risk of taking part in the IPO. A completely cynical view would be that they don't really care what happens to the stock price, but that \"\"offering free stuff\"\" (or what looks like \"\"free stuff\"\") will simply attract more \"\"punters\"\" to the IPO. In reality, the truth is probably somewhere between those two extremes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2ea4c3a4655398c909b3000f481479d", "text": "I know people who work in the gulf and most contracts are of the 14 days on/ 14 days (or so) off flavor. I've never heard of someone being onboard a ship or platform for a year. I bet this is a scam.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5ad4e62ea3754feea8c6957408a7830", "text": "I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/talkbusiness] [The GPS\\/GNSS system behind finance, telecommunications and transportation networks is vulnerable to terrorist jamming and criminal spoofing](https://np.reddit.com/r/talkbusiness/comments/7828xq/the_gpsgnss_system_behind_finance/) [](#footer)^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger)) [](#bot)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca79662e35a8967e8928ef6b4e487cd4", "text": "yes, you are double counting. Your profit is between ($7.25 and $8) OR ($7.75 and $8.50). in other words, you bought the stock at $7.75 and sold at $8.00 and made $0.50 on top. Profit = $8.00-$7.75+$0.50 (of course all this assumes that the stock is at or above $8.00 when the option expires. If it's below, then your profit = market price - $7.75 + $0.50 by the way the statement won't call me away until the stock reaches $8.50 is wrong. They already paid $0.50 for the right to buy the stock at $8.00. If the stock is $8.01 on the day of expiration your options will be executed(automatically i believe).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94ca522ac3e692fc40a81e334445cace", "text": "\"Many companies (particularly tech companies like Atlassian) grant their employees \"\"share options\"\" as part of their compensation. A share option is the right to buy a share in the company at a \"\"strike price\"\" specified when the option is granted. Typically these \"\"vest\"\" after 1-4 years so long as the employee stays with the company. Once they do vest, the employee can exercise them by paying the strike price - typically they'd do that if the shares are now more valuable. The amount they pay to exercise the option goes to the company and will show up in the $2.3 million quoted in the question.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2bdde0d4794fe9988782373b8a264726", "text": "This should all be covered in your stock grant documentation, or the employee stock program of which your grant is a part. Find those docs and it should specify how or when you can sale your shares, and how the money is paid to you. Generally, vested shares are yours until you take action. If instead you have options, then be aware these need to be exercised before they become shares. There is generally a limited time period on how long you can wait to exercise. In the US, 10 years is common. Unvested shares will almost certainly expire upon your departure of the company. Whether your Merrill Lynch account will show this, or show them as never existing, I can't say. But either way, there is nothing you can or should do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03a783452b4908e9fcc071843916546c", "text": "Depending on the specific bond, here is the official info. http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/gmbondholders/index.html Bottom line, it won't be determined for a while yet, as the filing with the Bankruptcy Court still has lots of blanks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ed36d63a9b925c315ab217b16467959", "text": "Have you looked at what is in that book value? Are the assets easily liquidated to get that value or could there be trouble getting the fair market value as some assets may not be as easy to sell as you may think. The Motley Fool a few weeks ago noted a book value of $10 per share. I could wonder what is behind that which could be mispriced as some things may have fallen in value that aren't in updated financials yet. Another point from that link: After suffering through the last few months of constant cries from naysayers about the company’s impending bankruptcy, shareholders of Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (TSX:PWT)(NYSE:PWE) can finally look toward the future with a little optimism. Thus, I'd be inclined to double check what is on the company books.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bc45136caca7745acf7af3a33fe7e41", "text": "I don't think you understand options. If it expires, you can't write a new call for the same expiration date as it expired that day. Also what if the stock price decreases further to $40 or even more? If you think the stock will move in either way greatly, and you wish to be profit from it, look into straddles.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d94891f7db8bc509b8384492dbb6104", "text": "according to the SEC: Shareholder Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund respectively must provide shareholders with annual and semi-annual reports 60 days after the end of the fund’s fiscal year and 60 days after the fund’s fiscal mid-year. These reports contain updated financial information, a list of the fund’s portfolio securities, and other information. The information in the shareholder reports will be current as of the date of the particular report (that is, the last day of the fund’s fiscal year for the annual report, and the last day of the fund’s fiscal mid-year for the semi-annual report). Other Reports A mutual fund and a closed-end fund must file a Form N-Q each quarter and a Form N-PX each year on the SEC’s EDGAR database, although funds are not required to mail these reports to shareholders. Funds disclose portfolio holdings on Form N-Q. Form N-PX identifies specific proposals on which the fund has voted portfolio securities over the past year and discloses how the fund voted on each. This disclosure enables fund shareholders to monitor their funds’ involvement in the governance activities of portfolio companies. which means that sixty days after the end of each quarter they will tell you what they owned 60 days ago. This makes sense; why would they want to tell the world what companies they are buying and selling.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "862701abf9ce54de7a4210aa28b673a8", "text": "I will be messaging you on [2021-06-15 14:54:56 UTC](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2021-06-15 14:54:56 UTC To Local Time) to remind you of [this link.](https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/6cvvei/a_hedge_fund_manager_is_supporting_a_free_masters/dixuco3) [CLICK THIS LINK](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/6cvvei/a_hedge_fund_manager_is_supporting_a_free_masters/dixuco3]%0A%0ARemindMe! 4 years ) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete Comment&message=Delete! dixvaea) _____ \|[^(FAQs)](http://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/24duzp/remindmebot_info/)\|[^(Custom)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[LINK INSIDE SQUARE BRACKETS else default to FAQs]%0A%0ANOTE: Don't forget to add the time options after the command.%0A%0ARemindMe!)\|[^(Your Reminders)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List Of Reminders&message=MyReminders!)\|[^(Feedback)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBotWrangler&subject=Feedback)\|[^(Code)](https://github.com/SIlver--/remindmebot-reddit)\|[^(Browser Extensions)](https://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/4kldad/remindmebot_extensions/) \|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d41dc9d66a317a7dc75e61645a5d53fc	How do owners in a partnership earn income?	[ { "docid": "1efec9c5402e5dac2668c94341a54eff", "text": "The partnership agrees to pay each of you salaries and/or bonuses, typically based on the net profit brought in. You do have a legal document setting out the rules for this partnership, right? If so, the exact answer should be in there. If you don't or it isn't, you need a lawyer yesterday.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f088acfd5fcc4198a9c0950ba1711b3", "text": "\"If you business is incorporated, it's up to the two of you how to do it. Typically, you will have the company write cheques (or make transfers, whatever) to each of the humans: If you want to say that each of you gets a salary of 80% of the revenue you bring in, and then tweak things with bonuses, you can. If one of you is contributing more to marketing and awareness and less to revenue, then you may prefer to pay you each the same even though the revenue you bring are different. It's up to you - it's quite literally your business. When you're not incorporated, then for tax purposes you split the income and the expenses according to your ownership share. If that doesn't seem fair to you, then a partnership is probably not as useful to you as being incorporated. In general, it's better to be incorporated once you're past any initial phase in which the business is losing money for tax purposes (acquiring depreciable assets) and the partners have taxable income from elsewhere (day jobs, or at least income from the earlier part of the year before starting the business.) I would recommend that the \"\"partnership\"\" phase of the business be very short. Get incorporated and get a shareholder agreement.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "312a0b54124fbd8649a9f9aecd4b5b30", "text": "I second (or fifth?) the answers of the other users in that this should have been foreseen and discussed prior to entering the partnership. But to offer a potential solution: If the mortgage company allows you to assume the whole mortgage (big if) you could buy the other partner out. To determine what a fair buyout would be, take the current value of the house less the remaining mortgage to get the current equity. Half that is each partner's current gain (or potentially loss), and could be considered a fair buyout. At this point the partner realizes any gains made in the last 5 years, and from now on the whole house (and any future gains or losses) will be yours. Alternatively your partner could remain a full partner (if s/he so desires) until the house sells. You would see the house as a separate business, split the cost as you have, and you would pay fair market rent each month (half of which would come back to you). A third option would be to refinance the house, with you as a sole mortgage holder. To factor in how much your partner should receive out of the transaction, you can take his/her current equity and subtract half of the costs associated with the refi. I would also recommend both of you seek out the help of a real estate lawyer at this point to help you draft an agreement. It sounds like you're still on good terms, so you could see a lawyer together; this would be helpful because they should know all the things you should look out for in a situation like this. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75546585b13b415f40ba7b912437fc1a", "text": "\"Depending on the nature of the expenses, you will enter them under Deductions, on lines 9 through 20. Did you rent an office? Add the rental expense to line 13. Fee for a business license? Line 14. Everything else that doesn't fall into any specific category goes on line 20 (You'll need to attach a small statement that breaks out the expense categories, e.g. office supplies, phone, legal fees, etc.) Expenses that are entered in the Income section are costs directly related to sales, such as merchant fees that you pay to a bank if you take payments by credit card. Since you said the partnership has \"\"zero money coming in,\"\" I assume that it currently has no revenues, so all the fields in the Income section would be zero.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcb6523e22504bb769d3d28f4eef746a", "text": "It took me a while to understand the concept, so I'll break it down as best as I can. There are three parts to the accounting equation: Assets = Liabilities + Owner's Equity We'll look at this in two ways 1. As a business owner you invest (say) 10,000 USD into your bank. The entry would be: Debit: Assets: Cash for 10,000 Credit: Owner's Equity: Contributions for 10,000 In this case, you have assets of 10,000 from your deposit, but it is due to owner contributions and not business transactions. Another example (say a sale): Debit: Assets: Cash for 10,000 Credit: Owner's Equity: Sales for 10,000 Debit: Assets: Cash for 10,000 Credit: Liabilities: Deposits for 10,000 Deposits are a banking term to reflect a bank's obligation to return the amount on demand (though the bank has free reign with it, see fractional banking) You will NEVER debit or credit your bank as it is assumed you will be storing your money there, note bank reconciliation. Hope this helps, comment with any more questions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7c01e532e699f91dbf3b441b7b6a50c", "text": "It may clarify your thinking if you look at this as two transactions: I am an Australian so I cannot comment on US tax laws but this is how the Australian Tax Office would view the transaction. By thinking this way you can allocate the risks correctly, Partnership Tenancy Two things should be clear - you will need a good accountant and a good lawyer. I do not agree that there is a conflict of interest in the lawyer acting for both parties - his role should only be for advice and to document what the two of you agree to. If you end up in dispute, then you need two lawyers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "094dc968198d3380a7c3aa6a75e77ac5", "text": "\"A tax return is a document you sign and file with the government to self-report your tax obligations. A tax refund is the payment you receive from the government if your payments into the tax system exceeded your obligations. As others have mentioned, if an extra $2K in income generated $5K in taxes, chances are your return was prepared incorrectly. The selection of an appropriate entity type for your business depends a lot on what you expect to see over the next several years in terms of income and expenses, and the extent to which you want or need to pay for fringe benefits or make pretax retirement contributions from your business income. There are four basic flavors of entity which are available to you: Sole proprietorship. This is the simplest option in terms of tax reporting and paperwork required for ongoing operations. Your net (gross minus expenses) income is added to your wage income and you'll pay tax on the total. If your wage income is less than approximately $100K, you'll also owe self-employment tax of approximately 15% in addition to income tax on your business income. If your business runs at a loss, you can deduct the loss from your other income in calculating your taxable income, though you won't be able to run at a loss indefinitely. You are liable for all of the debts and obligations of the business to the extent of all of your personal assets. Partnership. You will need at least two participants (humans or entities) to form a partnership. Individual items of income and expense are identified on a partnership tax return, and each partner's proportionate share is then reported on the individual partners' tax returns. General partners (who actively participate in the business) also must pay self-employment tax on their earnings below approximately $100K. Each general partner is responsible for all of the debts and obligations of the business to the extent of their personal assets. A general partnership can be created informally or with an oral agreement although that's not a good idea. Corporation. Business entities can be taxed as \"\"S\"\" or \"\"C\"\" corporations. Either way, the corporation is created by filing articles of incorporation with a state government (doesn't have to be the state where you live) and corporations are typically required to file yearly entity statements with the state where they were formed as well as all states where they do business. Shareholders are only liable for the debts and obligations of the corporation to the extent of their investment in the corporation. An \"\"S\"\" corporation files an information-only return similar to a partnership which reports items of income and expense, but those items are actually taken into account on the individual tax returns of the shareholders. If an \"\"S\"\" corporation runs at a loss, the losses are deductible against the shareholders' other income. A \"\"C\"\" corporation files a tax return more similar to an individual's. A C corporation calculates and pays its own tax at the corporate level. Payments from the C corporation to individuals are typically taxable as wages (from a tax point of view, it's the same as having a second job) or as dividends, depending on how and why the payments are made. (If they're in exchange for effort and work, they're probably wages - if they're payments of business profits to the business owners, they're probably dividends.) If a C corporation runs at a loss, the loss is not deductible against the shareholders' other income. Fringe benefits such as health insurance for business owners are not deductible as business expenses on the business returns for S corps, partnerships, or sole proprietorships. C corporations can deduct expenses for providing fringe benefits. LLCs don't have a predefined tax treatment - the members or managers of the LLC choose, when the LLC is formed, if they would like to be taxed as a partnership, an S corporation, or as a C corporation. If an LLC is owned by a single person, it can be considered a \"\"disregarded entity\"\" and treated for tax purposes as a sole proprietorship. This option is not available if the LLC has multiple owners. The asset protection provided by the use of an entity depends quite a bit on the source of the claim. If a creditor/plaintiff has a claim based on a contract signed on behalf of the entity, then they likely will not be able to \"\"pierce the veil\"\" and collect the entity's debts from the individual owners. On the other hand, if a creditor/plaintiff has a claim based on negligence or another tort-like action (such as sexual harassment), then it's very likely that the individual(s) involved will also be sued as individuals, which takes away a lot of the effectiveness of the purported asset protection. The entity-based asset protection is also often unavailable even for contract claims because sophisticated creditors (like banks and landlords) will often insist the the business owners sign a personal guarantee putting their own assets at risk in the event that the business fails to honor its obligations. There's no particular type of entity which will allow you to entirely avoid tax. Most tax planning revolves around characterizing income and expense items in the most favorable ways possible, or around controlling the timing of the appearance of those items on the tax return.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a031b0e2a2e86e808859aba8e276338", "text": "\"Since you seem to be the expert.... riddle me this: What is the breakdown of entrepreneurs and how they operate by: LLCs, C-Corp, S-Corp, Sole-proprietor? Is it: 15/35/20/30? You basically need to know what this breakdown is in order to claim that \"\"most entrepreneurs pay hardly any income tax at all.\"\" So... what is it, and please cite your source.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0d5da798f1bcf302989d8b0d01cc12e", "text": "\"Private equity firms have a unique structure: The general partners (GP's) of the firm create funds and manage the investments of those funds. Limited partners (LP's) contribute the capital to the funds, pay fees to the GP's, and then make money when the funds' assets grow. I believe the article is saying that ultra high net worth individuals participate in the real estate market by hiring someone to act as a general partner and manage the real estate assets. They and their friends contribute the cash and get shares in the resulting fund. Usually this GP/LP structure is used when the funds purchase or invest in private companies, which is why it is referred to as \"\"private equity structure,\"\" but the same structure can be used to purchase and manage pools of real estate or any other investment asset.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5bd09952da9656e90f8489cbf956102a", "text": "There is no right and wrong answer to this question. What you and your business partner perceive as Fair is the best way to split the ownership of the new venture. First, regarding the two issues you have raised: Capital Contributions: The fact that you are contributing 90% of initial capital does not necessarily translate to 90% of equity. In my opinion, what is fair is that you transform your contributions into a loan for the company. The securitization of your contribution into a loan will make it easier to calculate your fair contribution and also compensate you for your risk by choosing whatever combination of interest income and equity you see suitable. For example, you might decide to split the company in half and consider your contributions a loan with 20%, 50% or 200% annual interest. Salary: It is common that co-founders of start-ups forgo their wages at the start of the company. I do not recommend that this forgone salary be compensated through equity because it is impossible to determine the suitable amount of equity to be paid. I suggest the translation of forgone wages into loans or preferred stocks in similar fashion to capital contribution Also, consider the following in deciding the best way to allocate equity between both of you and your partner Whose idea was it? Talk with you business partner how both of you value the inventor of the concept. In general, execution is more important but talking about how you both feel about it is good. Full-time vs. part-time: A person who works full time at the new venture should have more equity than the partner who is only a part-time helper. Control: It is important to talk about control and decision making of the company. You can separate the control and decision making of important decisions from ownership. You can also check the following article about this topic at http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2012/04/05/what-every-founder-needs-to-know-about-equity/#726842f3668a", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b34732078e878961b77988a504a7cad3", "text": "I am probably not the most qualified person, but I have taken some managerial finance courses. If company B is still in tact, has its own documentation saying it's a company and all that, the only income company A would need to claim from B is that which B profited and the profits were given to A. I see the above scenario similar to owning an asset, like a bond, which pays you interest. If the companies are merged, most definitely but that probably wasn't your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9aeb6ea330ab89ab7f767e72d9ee2209", "text": "I was hesitant to answer this question since I don't own MLP even though I'm aware of how they work. But hear crickets on this question, so here goes. I'll try to keep this as non technical as possible. MLPs are partnerships where a shareholder is a partner and liable for the partnership's taxes. MLPs don't pay corporate tax since the tax burden flows to you, the shareholder. So does that mean like a partnership the partners are liable for the company's actions? Technically, yes. Has it happened before? No. Of course there are limitations to the liability, but are not definitely shielded in a way normal shareholders are. MLPs issue a K-1 at the beginning of the year (feb/mar). The tax calculations are relatively complex and I'm not going to go over that in this post. Generally MLPs are a bad choice for tax-deferred accounts like IRAs since there are tax implications beyond certain limits of distribution (yes even out of an IRA you'll have to pay taxes if above the limit). Not all types of businesses can become MLPs (hey no corporate tax, let's form an MLP!) Only companies engaged in businesses related to real estate, commodities or natural resources can become MLPs. There are a number of MLPs out there. The largest is Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f362f2a26d64930517bf1086d30cb0e", "text": "\"You will need to set up accounts in your chart of accounts for each of the partners. These are equity accounts where you can track your contributions, share of the profits and losses, and distributions. You're going to have to go back into the beginning years to get this right. I'm not sure what you mean by a \"\"Built-in function\"\". All the accounting software I'm familiar with requires data entry of some kind. You need to post your contributions and distributions to the correct accounts, and close properly at year end. You were indeed legally considered a partnership as soon as you started a for-profit business venture together. It's a bug in the legal system that a written partnership agreement is not necessarily required - you can form a partnership unknowingly. (BTW, a partnership actually is pretty far off from a sole proprietorship, legally and taxwise - the change from one person to two is major. It's the change from two to three or four or more that's incremental ;) I know you said you didn't want to consult a professional, but I have to say that I think it's worth the money to get your books set up by someone who has experience and can show you how to do it. And get a separate bank account for the partnership, if you haven't done so already. And check with your state to see if there are any requirements regarding partnerships. Hope this helps, Mariette IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35ed04b2dace3b1397574bc03dc60917", "text": "\"As for the letting the \"\"wise\"\" people only make the decisions, I guess that would be a bit odd in the long run. Especially when you get more experienced or when you don't agree with their decision. What you could do, is make an agreement that always 3/4 (+/-) of the partners must agree with an investment. This promotes your involvement in the investments and it will also make the debate about where to invest more alive, fun and educational). As for the taxes I can't give you any good advice as I don't know how tax / business stuff works in the US. Here in The Netherlands we have several business forms that each have their own tax savings. The savings mostly depend on the amount of money that is involved. Some forms are better for small earnings (80k or less), other forms only get interesting with large amounts of money (100k or more). Apart from the tax savings, there could also be some legal / technical reasons to choose a specific form. Again, I don't know the situation in your country, so maybe some other folks can help. A final tip if your also doing this for fun, try to use this investment company to learn from. This might come in handy later.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9cdaa61a2421adce6c2d2297ddbb8541", "text": "\"I write software myself and was involved in a couple of start ups. One failed, another was wildly successful, but I did not receive much in compensation. The former I received stock, but since it failed, it was worthless anyway. There should be compensation for your time in addition to equity in a company. Any agreement needs be in writing. In the later situation I was told to expect about a 17%/year bonus, but nothing could be guaranteed. Translation: \"\"It will never happen.\"\" It didn't, but I meet my lovely wife there so I have that for a bonus. Agreements need to address the bad things can happen. What happens if one of you is no longer interested in continuing? What happens if one of you die, or addicted to something? What happens if one of you gets thrown in jail or disabled? Right now you are full of optimism and hope, but bad things happen. Cover those things while you still like each other. It might be enough to have a good salary, and some stock options. You man not be interested in running the day to day business. Most of all good luck, I wish you all the best!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78c952d76aedc67d4db240bed6ffd2c9", "text": "\"So your goal is to sell out? If I'm understanding correctly. I say that without connotation. Since you want stock and the ability to be bought. Your partner sounds like he wants reinvest back into the company and make it grow. If you want \"\"profit\"\", I'd say find a different partner. Again you personally can be profitable while still maintaining the company with a nonprofit status. Gotta pay employees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "482c834cf825bd1f559658f73a034ad2", "text": "In a word: budgeting. In order to have money left over at the end of the month, you need to be intentional about how you spend it. That is all a budget is: a plan for spending your money. Few people have the discipline and abundance of income necessary to just wing it and not overspend. By making a plan at home ahead of time, you can decide how much you will spend on food, entertainment, etc, and ensure you have enough money left over for things like rent/mortgage and utility bills, and still have enough for longer-term savings goals like a car purchase or retirement. If you don't have a plan, it's simply not reasonable to expect yourself to know if you have enough money for a Venti cup as you drive past the Starbucks. A good plan will allow you to spend on things that are important to you while ensuring that you have enough to meet your obligations and long-term goals. Another thing a budget will do for you is highlight where your problem is. If your problem is that you are spending too much money on luxuries, the budget will show you that. It might also reveal to you that your rent is too high, or your energy consumption is too great. On the other hand, you might realize after budgeting that your spending is reasonable, but your income is too low. In that case, you should focus on spending more of your time working or looking for a better paying job.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
64f6b1b7996cb4f429f6cba31aa94774	Pay team mates out of revenues on my name	[ { "docid": "76d3a95d25ff7bb001a41cb51f5d5769", "text": "\"Can I deduct the money that I giving to my team mates from the taxes that I pay? If yes, how should I record the transaction? Why? Why are you giving money to your team mates? That's the most important question, and any answer without taking this into account is not full. You would probably have to talk to a professional tax adviser (a CPA/EA licensed in your state) about the details, but in general - you cannot deduct money you give someone just because you feel like it. Moreover, it may be subject to an additional tax - the gift tax. PS: We don't have any partnership or something similar, it is just each of us on his own. Assuming you want to give your team mates money because you developed the project together - then you do in fact have a partnership. In order to split the income properly, you should get a tax ID for the partnership, and issue a 1065 and K-1 for each team mate. In most states, you don't need to \"\"register\"\" a partnership with the state. Mere \"\"lets do things together\"\" creates a partnership. Otherwise, if they work for you (as opposed to with you in the case above), you can treat it as your own business income, and pay your team mates (who are now your contractors/employees) accordingly. Be careful here, because the difference between contractor and employee in tax law is significant, and you may end up being on the hook for a lot of things you're not aware of. Bottom line, in certain situation you cannot deduct, in others you can - you have to discuss it with a professional. Doing these things on your own without fully understanding what each term means - is dangerous, and IRS doesn't forgive for \"\"honest mistakes\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "938db83ce9d0d8d64a670ca38b919a3b", "text": "Note: This is not professional tax advice. If you think you need professional tax advice, find a licensed professional in your local area. What are the expected earnings/year? US$100? US$1,000? US$100,000? I would say if this is for US$1,000 or less that registering an EIN, and consulting a CPA to file a Partnership Tax return is not going to be a profitable exercise.... all the earnings, perhaps more, will go to paying someone to do (or help do) the tax filings. The simplest taxes are for a business that you completely own. Corporations and Partnerships involve additional forms and get more and more and complex, and even more so when it involves foreign participation. Partnerships are often not formal partnerships but can be more easily thought of as independent businesses that each participants owns, that are simply doing some business with each other. Schedule C is the IRS form you fill out for any businesses that you own. On schedule C you would list the income from advertising. Also on schedule C there is a place for all of the business expenses, such as ads that you buy, a server that you rent, supplies, employees, and independent contractors. Amounts paid to an independent contractor certainly need not be based on hours, but could be a fixed fee, or based on profit earned. Finally, if you pay anyone in the USA over a certain amount, you have to tell the IRS about that with a Form 1099 at the beginning of the next year, so they can fill out their taxes. BUT.... according to an article in International Tax Blog you might not have to file Form 1099 with the IRS for foreign contractors if they are not US persons (not a US citizen or a resident visa holder).", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "cf3539f86c66a80f473878e2c84b1c32", "text": "\"It seems that you think you are freelancing, and they think you are an employee. What's bad for you, the tax office will also think you are an employee if they withhold tax for you. Alternatively, they think you are stupid, and they keep the money, but are actually not paying it to the tax office at all, in which case you will have a bad surprise when you do your tax returns. First, I'd ask them for proof that they are indeed paying these taxes into some account related to you. I'd then ask a tax adviser for some serious advice. If they are acting out of incompetence and not out of malice, then you should be mostly fine, but your work there will count as employment. Heaven knows why they treat you as an employee. Check your contract with them; whether it is between you and them or your company and them. It maybe that they never hired a contractor and believe that they have to pay employment tax. They don't. If your company sends them a bill, then they need to pay that bill, 100% of it, and that's it. Taxes are fully your business and your responsibility. As \"\"quid\"\" said, if they say they are withholding tax, then at the very least there must be a paystub that proves they have actually been paying these taxes. If they withhold taxes, and there is no paystub, then this looks like a criminal attempt to cheat you. If they have actually paid taxes properly into your account, then they are merely creating a mess that can hopefully be fixed. But it is probably complicated enough that you need a tax advisor, even if you had none before, since instead of paying to your company, they paid some money to the company, and some to you personally.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "559b05e48a817e0e9841d2cc181a9a71", "text": "\"You are confusing entirely unrelated things. First the \"\"profit distribution\"\" issue with Bob's S-Corp which is in fact tax evasion and will probably trigger a very nasty audit. Generally, if you're the sole employee of your own S-Corp, and the whole S-Corp income is from your own personal services, as defined by the IRS - there's no profit there. All the net income from such a S-Corp is subject to SE tax, either through payroll or through your K-1. Claiming anything else would be lying and IRS is notorious for going after people doing that. Second - the reclassification issue. The reason employers classify employees as contractors is to avoid payroll taxes (which the IRS gets through Bob's S-Corp, so it doesn't care) and providing benefits (that is Bob's problem, not the IRS). So in the scenario above, the IRS wouldn't care whose employee Bob is since Bob's S-Corp would have to pay all the same payroll taxes. The reclassification is an issue when employees are abused. See examples of Fedex drivers, where they're classified as contractors and are not getting any benefits, spend their own money on the truck and maintenance, etc. The employees are the ones who sued for reclassification, but in this case the IRS would be interested as well since a huge chunk of payroll taxes was not paid (driver's net is after car maintenance and payments, not before as it would be if he was salaried). So in your scenario reclassification is not as much a concern to Bob as his tax evasion scheme claiming earnings from performing personal services as \"\"profits from S-Corp\"\". A precedent to look at, as I mentioned elsewhere, would be the Watson v Commissioner case.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18ce58c8902a64eca070d530a060fd2a", "text": "From my understanding, only A and B are shareholders, and M is a managing entity that takes commission on the profit. Assuming that's true. At the start of the project, A contributes $500,000. At this point, A is the sole shareholder, owning 100% of the project that's valued at $500,000. The real question is, did the value of the project change when B contributed 3 month later. If the value didn't change, then A owns 33.33%, and B owns 66.66%. Assuming both A and B wants to pay themselves with the $800,000 profit, then A gets a third of that, and B gets the rest. However, if at the time of B's contribution, both parties agreed that the pre-money of the project has changed to $1 million, then B owns half the project valued at 2 million post-money. Then the profit would be split half way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8901ebcbe588b9b70a36bb5f84f71a5", "text": "\"You're a partnership. You should ask the money to be paid to the partnership. You'll have to fill partnership income tax return (form 1065) and each of you will get a K-1 schedule with your own personal portion of the income. For example, you're Adam, Ben and Clara. You work together on a project and are being paid. You get a check for $300 issued to \"\"Adam, Ben and Clara, DBA ABC Partnership\"\". You don't have to have a DBA, it just makes it easier to show you as a single entity. You then deposit the check to an account you set up for your partnership, and from that account you transfer $100 to each of you. Year end, you file form 1065, showing $300 income, and attach K-1 for each of the partners showing $100 income. That $100 income will flow to your individual tax returns. The overhead here is setting up a partnership account, potentially making a DBA, and filing the extra tax return. That's the proper way to do it, especially if it is something you're going to do regularly. For a one-time thing, one of you can get paid, report it as income on his/her Schedule C, and issue 1099 to the rest of you for your parts, and deduct the amount as his/her expense. Here, the overhead is Schedule C for each of you (instead of Schedule E if handling it as a partnership), extra 1099 forms (instead of 1065 and K-1s), and a risk of one partner defrauding the others (depends on how much you trust each other). With proper documentation, each of these is equally legal, and tax-wise the costs are the same (i.e.: either way you pay the same taxes). With partnership the overhead is a bit more expensive (DBA+1065 extra cost), but in the long term it will make your life easier if you do this kind of thing regularly. You may want to consider setting up your partnership as a LLC/LLP (depending on what your State allows), but that would require State paperwork and potentially more fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f640dd18435abf187d429a3648e9df1b", "text": "Typically, no. Unless you have a detailed agreement spelling out the apportioning of costs, all operating expenses are deducted from gross income first, with the division of the proceeds coming out of net profit, in accordance with the type and % of shares you own, and per the terms of the shareholders agreement. This is a simplified answer, and does not address other methods of extraction, such as wages paid, loans to shareholders, interest paid on loans from shareholders, etc..", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9b219180d9e2d78b21e5d2f6787fe61", "text": "\"The answer depends on this: If you had to hire someone to do what you are doing in the S-corp, what would you pay them? If you are doing semi-unskilled work part-time, then $20k might be reasonable. If you are a professional working full time, it's too low. Don't forget that, in addition to \"\"billable\"\" work, you are also doing office tasks, such as invoicing and bookkeeping, that the IRS will also want to see you getting paid for. There was an important court ruling on this subject recently: Watson v. Commissioner. Watson owned an S-Corp where he was the sole employee. The S-Corp itself was a 25% owner in a very successful accounting firm that Watson worked through. All of the revenue that Watson generated at the accounting firm was paid to the S-Corp, which then paid Watson through salary and distributions. Watson was paying himself $24k a year in salary and taking over $175k a year in distributions. For comparison, even first-year accountants at the firm were making more than $24k a year in salary. The IRS determined that this salary amount was too low. To determine an appropriate amount for Watson's salary, the IRS did a study of the salaries of peers in firms of the same size as the firm Watson was working with, taking into account that owners of firms earn a higher salary than non-owners. The number that the IRS arrived at was $93k. Watson was allowed to take the rest ($80k+ each year) as distributions. Again, this number was based on a study of the salaries of peers. It was far short of the $200k+ that the S-Corp was pulling in from the accounting firm. Clearly, Watson was paying himself far too low of a salary. But even at this extreme example, where Watson's S-Corp was directly getting all of its revenue from one accounting firm in which Watson was an owner, the IRS still did not conclude that all of the revenue should have been salary and subject to payroll taxes. You should ask an accountant or attorney for advice. They can help you determine an appropriate amount for your salary. Don't be afraid of an audit, but make sure that you can defend your choices if you do get audited. If your choices are based on professional advice, that will help your case. See these articles for more information:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e86e3e5d05fe804123b83e08af271ecb", "text": "If this is a publicly traded company, I'd be thinking the shareholders should take a long hard look at this. This is a man who hates his employees more than he likes money. A spite-based decision is obviously going to be inferior to a money-based decision. And shareholders want money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0c44cde230f2b8dc0dd8767c3b5635c", "text": "I know a guy on a much higher rate than me, about £500 per day, and he claims to pay around 18% tax which has me bewildered He will be showing expenses, which are deductible. Check with your accountant about expenses, which can be legally claimed as expenses. This is the main benefit of operating through a limited company. Legtimate business expenses can be claimed, which you cannot do if you are a permanent employee. Your friend might also be claiming false expenses, with a shady accountant. If HMRC does decide to give a call, he might have to pay n times the money he has saved till now. And my suggestion is always ask your accountant first. He(she) knows the legal stuff, so he(she) would give you the legally correct options. If you aren't comfortable with him(her), you can always change accountants. holiday pay, sick pay and job security You miss those that is why you are paid at a rate much higher than an employee. benefit of a limited company You can arrange your salary to pay no PAYE and take the rest as dividends. You willn't have to pay PAYE on that. Secondly if you have a partner(s), all of you can be paid dividends without paying PAYE(if you don't cross the threshold).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82d2d4a07821a9bb5dad39c545650d9a", "text": "Assuming you have registered your activities as partnership and receiving this money as Individual, you need to show this under Schedule OS, 1d [other income]. this will be under the ITR-2 [tab CG-OS] XLS tax preparation utility given by Tax Department. The XLS can be found at https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/individual_huf.do If the funds you are receiving are large [more than say Rs 500,000] then suggest you incorporate a partnership firm or company, there are quite a few exceptions you can claim lowering you tax outgo. The fact that you are transferring funds to your partners can be an issue incase you get audited. You would need to have sufficient evidence to show that the money paid was for services rendered directly and not your income. It would be easier if you create a partnership or have the client directly pay to them. Again if the sum is small its fine, as the sum becomes large, it would get noticed by the tax authorities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91770a33e5548e55c26be30c079ea99a", "text": "Playing devil's advocate here: Let's say you pull this off as a hired manager with no/little salary but with a share in profits. You really put in a lot of work and get the place going. What is going to stop them to kick you out after a season and take it over again themselves benefitting from your effort?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ce866c17821f50b358ce7a34ae8918e", "text": "\"This is such a common question here and elsewhere that I will attempt to write the world's most canonical answer to this question. Hopefully in the future when someone on answers.onstartups asks how to split up the ownership of their new company, you can simply point to this answer. The most important principle: Fairness, and the perception of fairness, is much more valuable than owning a large stake. Almost everything that can go wrong in a startup will go wrong, and one of the biggest things that can go wrong is huge, angry, shouting matches between the founders as to who worked harder, who owns more, whose idea was it anyway, etc. That is why I would always rather split a new company 50-50 with a friend than insist on owning 60% because \"\"it was my idea,\"\" or because \"\"I was more experienced\"\" or anything else. Why? Because if I split the company 60-40, the company is going to fail when we argue ourselves to death. And if you just say, \"\"to heck with it, we can NEVER figure out what the correct split is, so let's just be pals and go 50-50,\"\" you'll stay friends and the company will survive. Thus, I present you with Joel's Totally Fair Method to Divide Up The Ownership of Any Startup. For simplicity sake, I'm going to start by assuming that you are not going to raise venture capital and you are not going to have outside investors. Later, I'll explain how to deal with venture capital, but for now assume no investors. Also for simplicity sake, let's temporarily assume that the founders all quit their jobs and start working on the new company full time at the same time. Later, I'll explain how to deal with founders who do not start at the same time. Here's the principle. As your company grows, you tend to add people in \"\"layers\"\". The top layer is the first founder or founders. There may be 1, 2, 3, or more of you, but you all start working about the same time, and you all take the same risk... quitting your jobs to go work for a new and unproven company. The second layer is the first real employees. By the time you hire this layer, you've got cash coming in from somewhere (investors or customers--doesn't matter). These people didn't take as much risk because they got a salary from day one, and honestly, they didn't start the company, they joined it as a job. The third layer are later employees. By the time they joined the company, it was going pretty well. For many companies, each \"\"layer\"\" will be approximately one year long. By the time your company is big enough to sell to Google or go public or whatever, you probably have about 6 layers: the founders and roughly five layers of employees. Each successive layer is larger. There might be two founders, five early employees in layer 2, 25 employees in layer 3, and 200 employees in layer 4. The later layers took less risk. OK, now here's how you use that information: The founders should end up with about 50% of the company, total. Each of the next five layers should end up with about 10% of the company, split equally among everyone in the layer. Example: Two founders start the company. They each take 2500 shares. There are 5000 shares outstanding, so each founder owns half. They hire four employees in year one. These four employees each take 250 shares. There are 6000 shares outstanding. They hire another 20 employees in year two. Each one takes 50 shares. They get fewer shares because they took less risk, and they get 50 shares because we're giving each layer 1000 shares to divide up. By the time the company has six layers, you have given out 10,000 shares. Each founder ends up owning 25%. Each employee layer owns 10% collectively. The earliest employees who took the most risk own the most shares. Make sense? You don't have to follow this exact formula but the basic idea is that you set up \"\"stripes\"\" of seniority, where the top stripe took the most risk and the bottom stripe took the least, and each \"\"stripe\"\" shares an equal number of shares, which magically gives employees more shares for joining early. A slightly different way to use the stripes is for seniority. Your top stripe is the founders, below that you reserve a whole stripe for the fancy CEO that you recruited who insisted on owning 10%, the stripe below that is for the early employees and also the top managers, etc. However you organize the stripes, it should be simple and clear and easy to understand and not prone to arguments. Now that we have a fair system set out, there is one important principle. You must have vesting. Preferably 4 or 5 years. Nobody earns their shares until they've stayed with the company for a year. A good vesting schedule is 25% in the first year, 2% each additional month. Otherwise your co-founder is going to quit after three weeks and show up, 7 years later, claiming he owns 25% of the company. It never makes sense to give anyone equity without vesting. This is an extremely common mistake and it's terrible when it happens. You have these companies where 3 cofounders have been working day and night for five years, and then you discover there's some jerk that quit after two weeks and he still thinks he owns 25% of the company for his two weeks of work. Now, let me clear up some little things that often complicate the picture. What happens if you raise an investment? The investment can come from anywhere... an angel, a VC, or someone's dad. Basically, the answer is simple: the investment just dilutes everyone. Using the example from above... we're two founders, we gave ourselves 2500 shares each, so we each own 50%, and now we go to a VC and he offers to give us a million dollars in exchange for 1/3rd of the company. 1/3rd of the company is 2500 shares. So you make another 2500 shares and give them to the VC. He owns 1/3rd and you each own 1/3rd. That's all there is to it. What happens if not all the early employees need to take a salary? A lot of times you have one founder who has a little bit of money saved up, so she decides to go without a salary for a while, while the other founder, who needs the money, takes a salary. It is tempting just to give the founder who went without pay more shares to make up for it. The trouble is that you can never figure out the right amount of shares to give. This is just going to cause conflicts. Don't resolve these problems with shares. Instead, just keep a ledger of how much you paid each of the founders, and if someone goes without salary, give them an IOU. Later, when you have money, you'll pay them back in cash. In a few years when the money comes rolling in, or even after the first VC investment, you can pay back each founder so that each founder has taken exactly the same amount of salary from the company. Shouldn't I get more equity because it was my idea? No. Ideas are pretty much worthless. It is not worth the arguments it would cause to pay someone in equity for an idea. If one of you had the idea but you both quit your jobs and started working at the same time, you should both get the same amount of equity. Working on the company is what causes value, not thinking up some crazy invention in the shower. What if one of the founders doesn't work full time on the company? Then they're not a founder. In my book nobody who is not working full time counts as a founder. Anyone who holds on to their day job gets a salary or IOUs, but not equity. If they hang onto that day job until the VC puts in funding and then comes to work for the company full time, they didn't take nearly as much risk and they deserve to receive equity along with the first layer of employees. What if someone contributes equipment or other valuable goods (patents, domain names, etc) to the company? Great. Pay for that in cash or IOUs, not shares. Figure out the right price for that computer they brought with them, or their clever word-processing patent, and give them an IOU to be paid off when you're doing well. Trying to buy things with equity at this early stage just creates inequality, arguments, and unfairness. How much should the investors own vs. the founders and employees? That depends on market conditions. Realistically, if the investors end up owning more than 50%, the founders are going to feel like sharecroppers and lose motivation, so good investors don't get greedy that way. If the company can bootstrap without investors, the founders and employees might end up owning 100% of the company. Interestingly enough, the pressure is pretty strong to keep things balanced between investors and founders/employees; an old rule of thumb was that at IPO time (when you had hired all the employees and raised as much money as you were going to raise) the investors would have 50% and the founders/employees would have 50%, but with hot Internet companies in 2011, investors may end up owning a lot less than 50%. Conclusion There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, but anything you can do to make it simple, transparent, straightforward, and, above-all, fair, will make your company much more likely to be successful. The above awesome answer came from the Stack Exchange beta site for startups, which has now closed. I expect that this equity distribution question (which is strongly tied to personal finance) will come up more times in the future so I have copied the content originally posted. All credit for this excellent answer is due to Joel Spolsky, a moderator for the Startups SE beta site, and co-founder of Stack Exchange.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "052cdbc0b5131c019a97ef5aaafb1df6", "text": "You need to clarify with Bob what your agreement is. If you and Bob are working together on these jobs as partners, you should get a written partnership agreement done by a lawyer who works with software industry entity formation. You can legally be considered a partnership if you are operating a business together, even if there is nothing in writing. The partnership will have its own tax return, and you each will be allocated 50% of the profits/losses (if that's what you agree to). This amount will be reported on your own individual 1040 as self-employment income. Since you have now lost all the expense deductions you would have taken on your Schedule C, and any home office deduction, it's a good idea to put language in the partnership agreement stating that the partnership will reimburse partners for their out-of-pocket expenses. If Bob is just hiring you as a contractor, you give him your SSN, and he issues you a 1099, like any other client. This should be a situation where you invoice him for the amount you are charging. Same thing with Joe - figure out if you're hiring him as an independent contractor, or if you have a partnership. Either way, you will owe income and self-employment tax on your profits. In the case of a partnership, the amount will be on the K-1 from the partnership return. For an independent contractor who's operating as a sole proprietor, you report the income you invoiced for and received, and deduct your expenses, including independent contractors that you hired, on your Schedule C. Talk to your tax guy about quarterly estimated payments. If you don't have a tax guy, go get one. Find somebody people in your city working in your industry recommend. A good tax person will save you more money than they cost. IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b4fe471620d50e5a84a040ceb454af1", "text": "It's wrong in several situations: One, the business owner counts this as a business expense, which it is not, and therefore reduces the company's profit and taxes. That would be tax avoidance and probably criminal. Two, someone who is not the sole owner counts this as a business expense, which it is not, reduces the company's profit and when profits are shared, the company pays out less money to the other owners. That's probably fraud. Third, if the owner or owners of a limited liability company draw out lots of money from the company with the intent that the company should go bankrupt with tons of debt that the owners are not going to pay, while keeping the money they siphoned off for themselves. That would probably bankruptcy fraud. Apart from being wrong, there is the obvious risk that you lose control over your company's and your own expenses, and might be in for a nasty surprise if the company has to pay out money and there's nothing left. That would be ordinary stupidity. If you have to tell your employees that you can't pay their salaries but offer them to admire your brand new Ferrari, that's something I'd consider deeply unethical.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5054bb7fac6908efd541e2ad28e3cbec", "text": "If your friend is paying you same amount as the charge, there should be no problem. If the friend is paying you an amount in excess of the ticket (or in excess of the club tab in the 2nd example), you need to report the excess amount as income. I would keep the receipts for the purchases, credit card statements, bank statements, and checks/or electronic receipt show your payment of the credit card. If the IRS does question these, you tell them what happened and be able to prove that you made no money off the transaction by providing the statements and receipts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22a9c5d62d95ba6d72274bffda89c476", "text": "A per diem payment is a cost of doing business for the company, not for you. They can claim it (probably); you can't (definitely).", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
156a9c7dadea6e9c97f6b3f32322d851	How do I determine how much rent I could charge for a property or location?	[ { "docid": "2a2b55a5b15ae9da01086b439d1e60e2", "text": "This may not be entirely scientific, but as a landlord my usual approach is just to do a search for rental properties on Craigslist for comparable homes in the neighborhood. There are all kinds of formulas professional property managers use, but in the end these listings are the ones you are going to be competing with for tenants. Also, it isn't super accurate, but online services like Zillow.com can give you some numbers for rental houses that include those that aren't currently advertising.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "111f2cea2838b7e7938d9cf6d03b3316", "text": "Check out the property websites to get an idea of how much, the property in question, could yield as rent. Most give a range and you can get a good idea of it. Just one example from zoopla. Likewise you can refer mouseprice or rightmove and get yourself an idea. Property websites do a lot of data crunching to do an update, but their figure is only a guide.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "890056f8fb9d2dfe4955991a31f346f2", "text": "Zoopla may not always accurately reflect the market price. Your best bet is to get a quote for local registered) letting agents. That way you know you are close to the real market value. Also, these quotes may come into handy if you have a mortgage on the property. Since most banks will require you to provide proof of rent figures you are projecting by sending in official quotes. Hope this helps..", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5eac825aebabb072caecfe162adb3f10", "text": "A good way to find the rates of rental prices is to look what other landlords are charging for similar properties in your area. The proper investigation of property rental market should be make by using property listing platforms. The other method is online rent calculator. There are a bunch of them on the Web. Briefly speaking, the rent calculator uses industry data to look at the typical rent you might expect from a property in a post code. Remember that the rent you charge has to be at least equal to the cost of your monthly mortgage bill. When you’re deciding what to charge, don’t forget to factor in an estimate of repair costs, taxes, homeowners association fees and insurance.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "94c395ca34857ffc3bbd9d17f8bc8c7d", "text": "I think you are trying to figure out what will be a break-even rental rate for you, so that then you can decide whether renting at current market rates is worth it for you. This is tricky to determine because future valuations are uncertain. You can make rough estimates though. The most uncertain component is likely to be capital appreciation or depreciation (increase or decrease in the value of your property). This is usually a relatively large number (significant to the calculation). The value is uncertain because it depends on predictions of the housing market. Future interest rates or economic conditions will likely play a major role in dictating the future value of your home. Obviously there are numerous other costs to consider such as maintenance, tax and insurance some of which may be via escrow and included in your mortgage payment. Largest uncertainty in terms of income are the level of rent and occupancy rate. The former is reasonably predictable, the latter less so. Would advise you make a spreadsheet and list them all out with margins of error to get some idea. The absolute amount you are paying on the mortgage is a red herring similar to when car dealers ask you what payment you can afford. That's not what's relevant. What's relevant is the Net Present Value of ALL the payments in relation to what you are getting in return. Note that one issue with assessing your cost of capital is, what's your opportunity cost. ie. if you didn't have the money tied up in real estate, what could you be earning with it elsewhere? This is not really part of the cost of capital, but it's something to consider. Also note that the total monthly payment for the mortgage is not useful to your calculations because a significant chunk of the payment will likely be to pay down principal and as such represents no real cost to you (its really just a transfer - reducing your bank balance but increasing your equity in the home). The interest portion is a real cost to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41dd51abeb0546afc075005553f9f663", "text": "> The paper, which is yet to be published, found that a 10 percent increase in Airbnb listings can create an average 0.39 percent increase in rents and an average 0.64 percent increase in home prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. In the long term, rents and property value go up at the same rate. So if they're saying that one is almost double the other, the margin of error here could be very large.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c0f2b4fc4ce9963d3f9157bd0fd33a4", "text": "I would suggest the use of a management company to handle a rental property. They will take care of things like collecting rent, coordinating repairs and all the little things that come up when dealing with a renters. They typically charge a percentage of the rent or a flat fee, so make sure you include that in your rent calculation. You take a little bit of a financial hit, but save a lot of head aches - especially if you decide to acquire multiple properties in the future.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0255b03e9b26ac7886bc7db1ca7075a", "text": "\"I agree with Joe Taxpayer that a lot of details are missing to really evaluate it as an investment... for context, I own a few investment properties including a 'small' 10+ unit apartment complex. My answer might be more than you really want/need, (it kind of turned into Real Estate Investing 101), but to be fair you're really asking 3 different questions here: your headline asks \"\"how effective are Condo/Hotel developments as investments?\"\" An answer to that is... sometimes, very. These are a way for you-the investor-to get higher rents per sq. ft. as an owner, and for the hotel to limit its risks and access additional development funding. By your description, it sounds like this particular company is taking a substantial cut of rents. I don't know this property segment specifically, but I can give you my insight for longer-term apartment rentals... the numbers are the same at heart. The other two questions you're implying are \"\"How effective is THIS condo/hotel development?\"\" and \"\"Should you buy into it?\"\" If you have the funds and the financial wherewithal to honestly consider this, then I am sure that you don't need your hand held for the investment pros/cons warnings of the last question. But let me give you some of my insight as far as the way to evaluate an investment property, and a few other questions you might ask yourself before you make the decision to buy or perhaps to invest somewhere else. The finance side of real estate can be simple, or complicated. It sounds like you have a good start evaluating it, but here's what I would do: Start with figuring out how much revenue you will actually 'see': Gross Potential Income: 365 days x Average Rent for the Room = GPI (minus) Vacancy... you'll have to figure this out... you'll actually do the math as (Vacancy Rate %) x GPI (equals) Effective Potential Income = EPI Then find out how much you will actually pocket at the end of the day as operating income: Take EPI (minus) Operating expenses ... Utilities ... Maintenace ... HOA ... Marketing if you do this yourself (minus) Management Expenses ... 40% of EPI ... any other 'fees' they may charge if you manage it yourself. ... Extra tax help? (minus) Debt Service ... Mortgage payment ... include Insurances (property, PMI, etc) == Net Operating Income (NOI) Now NOI (minus) Taxes == Net Income Net Income (add back) Depreciation (add back) sometimes Mortgage Interest == After-tax Cash Flows There are two \"\"quickie\"\" numbers real estate investors can spout off. One is the NOI, the other is the Cap Rate. In order to answer \"\"How effective is THIS development?\"\" you'll have to run the numbers yourself and decide. The NOI will be based on any assumptions you choose to make for vacancy rates, actual revenue from hotel room bookings, etc. But it will show you how much you should bring in before taxes each year. If you divide the NOI by the asking price of your unit (and then multiply by 100), you'll get the \"\"Cap Rate\"\". This is a rough estimate of the rate of return you can expect for your unit... if you buy in. If you come back and say \"\"well I found out it has a XX% cap rate\"\", we won't really be qualified to help you out. Well established mega investment properties (think shopping centers, office buildings, etc.) can be as low as 3-5 cap rates, and as high as 10-12. The more risky the property, the higher your return should be. But if it's something you like, and the chance to make a 6% return feels right, then that's your choice. Or if you have something like a 15% cap rate... that's not necessarily outstanding given the level of risk (uncertain vacancies) involved in a hotel. Some other questions you should ask yourself include: How much competition is there in the area for short-term lodging? This could drive vacancies up or down... and rents up or down as well How 'liquid' will the property (room) be as an asset? If you can just break even on operating expense, then it might still make sense as an investment if you think that it might appreciate in value AND you would be able to sell the unit to someone else. How much experience does this property management company have... (a) in general, (b) running hotels, and (c) running these kinds of condo-hotel combination projects? I would be especially interested in what exactly you're getting in return for paying them 40% of every booking. Seasonality? This will play into Joe Taxpayer's question about Vacancy Rates. Your profile says you're from TX... which hints that you probably aren't looking at a condo on ski slopes or anything, but if you're looking at something that's a spring break-esque destination, then you might still have a great run of high o during March/April/May/June, but be nearly empty during October/November/December. I hope that helps. There is plenty of room to make a more \"\"exact\"\" model of what your cash flows might look like, but that will be based on assumptions and research you're probably not making at this time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b35e3d4c7fd82ef6e3ecfe25533e072", "text": "I am a realtor. For our rental business, we use a service that offers a background check. It costs us about $25, and it is passed along in the form of an application fee. I suggest you contact a local real estate agent who you know does rentals. Have a conversation about what you are doing, and see if they will help process the application for you, for a fee of course. If you are truly concerned about your safety (The text you wrote can either read as true concern or sarcasm. Maybe we are really in a wild country?) It's worth even a couple hundred bucks to screen out a potential bad roommate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88d77a3dd754aefdfb72b4a009b8c5e4", "text": "\"Started to post this as a comment, but I think it's actually a legitimate answer: Running a rental property is neither speculation nor investment, but a business, just as if you were renting cars or tools or anything else. That puts it in an entirely different category. The property may gain or lose value, but you don't know which or how much until you're ready to terminate the business... so, like your own house, it really isn't a liquid asset; it's closer to being inventory. Meanwhile, like inventory, you need to \"\"restock\"\" it on a fairly regular basis by maintaining it, finding tenants, and so on. And how much it returns depends strongly on how much effort you put into it in terms of selecting the right location and product in the first place, and in how you market yourself against all the other businesses offering near-equivalent product, and how you differentiate the product, and so on. I think approaching it from that angle -- deciding whether you really want to be a business owner or keep all your money in more abstract investments, then deciding what businesses are interesting to you and running the numbers to see what they're likely to return as income, THEN making up your mind whether real estate is the winner from that group -- is likely to produce better decisions. Among other things, it helps you remember to focus on ALL the costs of the business. When doing the math, don't forget that income from the business is taxed at income rates, not investment rates. And don't forget that you're making a bet on the future of that neighborhood as well as the future of that house; changes in demographics or housing stock or business climate could all affect what rents you can charge as well as the value of the property, and not necessarily in the same direction. It may absolutely be the right place to put some of your money. It may not. Explore all the possible outcomes before making the bet, and decide whether you're willing to do the work needed to influence which ones are more likely.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "812decada0ce722f70af249736022a63", "text": "If it was me, I would consider selling both properties. Unless of course your renters from the first house are very, very good; and you have a good handy man in the area. Managing real estate from a distance is tricky, and $400 per month is not a lot of wiggle room. You would be taking on a lot of risk with only 40K in the bank, a 200K salary, three mortgages (one likely a jumbo) and a student loan. Yea, if it was me I would sell both.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06724d4ce9c252533e99ccea2c29973c", "text": "If I is the initial deposit, P the periodic deposit, r the rent per period, n the number of periods, and F the final value, than we can combine two formulas into one to get the following answer: F = I(1+r)n + P[(1+r)n-1]/r In this case, you get V = 1000(1.05)20 + 100[(1.05)20-1]/0.05 = 5959.89 USD. Note that the actual final value may be lower because of rounding errors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2cccca030cc96b7911b60c0c88ca9027", "text": "The rent will be determined by: the rent being charged on similar houses near you. Your mortgage and other costs (very unfortunately!) have no bearing, at all, on the price you will get.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "257c70a9f954a96a7657e3761647efee", "text": "Think carefully about the added expenses. It may still make sense, but it probably won't be as cheap as you are thinking. In addition to the mortgage and property taxes, there is also insurance and building maintenance and repairs. Appliances, carpets, and roofs need to be replaced periodically. Depending on the area of the country there is lawn maintenance and now removal. You need to make sure you can cover the expenses if you are without a tenant for 6 months or longer. When tenants change, there is usually some cleaning and painting that needs to be done. You can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes on your part of the building. You need to claim any rent as income, but can deduct the other part of the mortgage interest and taxes as an expense. You can also deduct building maintenance and repairs on the rental portion of the building. Some improvements need to be depreciated over time (5-27 years). You also need to depreciate the cost of the rental portion of the building. This basically means that you get a deduction each year, but lower the cost basis of the building so you owe more capital gains taxes when you sell. If you do this, I would get a professional to do your taxes at least the first year. Its not hard once you see it done, but there are a lot of details and complications that you want to get right.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "839bca2b1ee5694acef25c021fb0d2a7", "text": "As has been mentioned, it's largely up to the landlord. I'm in Texas, USA, and my landlord's payment service permits it, but they charge an exorbitant fee of 22% plus 0.50 in order to do so. My rent is $895/month. If I chose to use a credit card, I pay $1092.40. The miles aren't worth that kind of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef064ae7e68cf30d539f1a7323d318ef", "text": "\"In addition to Alex B's excellent overview, I'd like to add a few more bits of advice. First of all, one term you should know is \"\"commercial real estate\"\" - which is precisely what this is. There is a business element, but it is strictly (and almost entirely) intertwined to the underlying real estate, which makes this a special category of business which is generally considered simply \"\"commercial real estate\"\" (just like office buildings, shopping malls, etc). All real estate and businesses value are based on alternatives - what other options are there? In appraisal, these are generally called \"\"comparables\"\". A professional appraiser is generally available for commercial real estate of this type. While a full, official commercial appraisal can run into the thousands, many/most (all?) appraisers are willing to sell you a simplified version of their service, which can be called a \"\"letter of opinion\"\" and can help you get an idea for the market price (what other similar commercial properties are running for). A loan company would strictly require this, but if you are thinking of an all cash or form of seller-financing this would technically be optional. Your best bet is to read about some of what is involved in commercial real estate appraisal and evaluation, and you may even want to speak with commercial loan officers - even if you don't know that you want to get a loan to acquire the property! It's their job to help inform you about what is required and what they look for, so they can be a potential resource beyond your own research as well. With this said, the only way to estimate value (and, conveniently, the best way) is to look at other properties! And by \"\"others\"\", I mean that you should really not consider buying absolutely anything until you've viewed at least 6-10 other options in some depth - and you probably want to double or triple that number if you are looking to make this the last big business transaction of your life. If you don't you'll be relying on little more than dumb luck to carry you through - which in this area of business, you don't want to do because the dollar amounts and liabilities involved can bankrupt you in no time flat. With that general advice out of the way, here's a tiny nutshell version of valuation of commercial real estate. There are a few key parts involved in commercial real estate: land, improvements (buildings, docks, stuff like that), income, and wages. Land: the value of the land is based upon what you could sell it for, as-is. That is to say - who else might want it? This alone has many important factors, such as zoning laws, the neighborhood (including your neighbors), water/utilities, pacts on the land (someone may have insisted the land not be paved into a parking lot, or really anything like that), alternative uses (could you put a golf course on it, or is the land suitable for a big building or farming?), etc. And is this in a growing area, where you might hope the value will increase over the next decade, or decrease, or basically stay flat (and possibly cause losses compared to inflation)? Improvements: anything on the land is both an asset and a liability. It's an asset because it could add to the value of the land, but it might also reduce the land value if it interferes with alternate land uses. It's a liability, both in the legal sense and in that it requires maintenance. If you want to rent them out, especially, that means concern about any foundations involved, termites, roofs, sewage/septic tanks, utilities that are your responsibility (pipes, poles, wires), as well as any sort of ac/heating you may have, docks, and so on. These things are rarely free and absolutely can eat you alive. Income: Ah, the best part, the constant influx of cash! But wait, is it a constant influx? Some businesses are purely seasonal (summer only, winter only), some are year-round but have peak times, and others don't really have a \"\"peak\"\" to speak of. If you are renting, are there issues collecting, or with people over-staying? How about damage, making a mess, getting rowdy and disturbing others? Regardless, there is obviously some income, and this is usually the most dangerous part of the equation. I say \"\"dangerous\"\", because people absolutely lie like dogs on this part, all the time. It's easy to cook the books, assuming they even attempt to keep proper books in the first place! Businesses of this form often have a lot of cash business that's easy to hide (from Uncle Sam, or sometimes even the owners themselves if there are employees involved) - and fake! And some people are just shoddy bookkeepers and the info is just wrong. But, there will clearly be some kind of yearly income involved. What does this matter? Well...how much is there? How much is tied to the owners (personal friends do business and they will leave if the ownership/management changes)? In commercial real estate the income will be calculated for a fiscal year, and then there is something called a \"\"multiple\"\", which is market dependent. Let's say the whole place takes in $100k in rent a year. As part of buying this business, you are buying not just assets, but expected future income. In some commercial areas the multiple is as little as .5 to 2 - which means that the going rate is about 6-24 months worth of income, as part of the purchase price. So with 100k rent a year, that means 50k-200k of the purchase price is attributable to the income of the business. And if business is half of what you thought it would be? That means the net value of the whole enterprise decreases by 25k-100k - on top of the reduced income every year you own it! Income provides cash flow, which should pay all the expenses (cleaning up from wind storms, replacing windows that are broken, hauling off trash, replacing a well that ran dry), and then the extra that remains is positive cash flow. If you take out a loan, then ideally the cash flow would also pay that completely so long as you don't have any big unexpected expenses in the year - and still have some left over for yourself. Wages: Well, that money doesn't collect itself! There's sales, keeping the books, collecting the rent, performing maintenance, customer service, cleaning, paying the bills, keeping the insurance people happy, handling emergencies, and everything else involved with running the business. Someone is going to do it, and the biggest error people make here is not to put any value on their time - and to make it so they can never afford to take a vacation again! Pay yourself, and give yourself the flexibility to pay others when you can't (or don't want) to do it all yourselves. So, what's the point of all this? How do you actually make any money? In two ways: 1) selling the whole thing later, and 2) cash flow. For 1, it's important that you not be in a situation where you are betting that in the future there will be a \"\"person richer, and dumber, than I am now\"\". If the current owner wanted 2 million, then 1 mil, then less, over multiple years...this suggests either he is delusional about the value of his place (and most property owners are), or that its actually hard to find a buyer for such a business. You are going to want to make sure you understand why that is, because most of the value of real estate is...well, in the real estate itself! For 2, you need cash coming in that's considerably more than the cost of running the place. Also, cash flow can strongly change the value of the business for resale (depending on the multiple, this can make a huge difference or prevent you from selling the thing at all). You mentioned you want to put in more cabins, more marketing/sales efforts, etc. That's great, but first, that would mean added investment beyond the purchase price. Is it legally and physically practical to add more cabins, and what is their current utilization rate? If they are only renting 10% of their current capacity, increasing capacity may be premature. This will also vary through the year, so you may find there is a problem with being sold out sometimes...but only for a small percentage of the time. Which means you'll be adding buildings only to have them used for a fraction of the year, which will be very hard to make a profit from. If cash flow is good, ideally even being enough to cover a loan payment to help cover the purchase price (and remember that commercial real estate loans are much smaller loan-to-value ratios than in residential real estate), there is one final barrier to making money: the damn non-regular maintenance! Roofs, wells, and wooden walls all have a sad tendency to cost you nothing right up until the point they cost you $30k+ on a single day. Is there enough cash flow to make these sort of certainties (and if you plan to be there for years, they are a certainty) not put you in the poor house? This was rather long, but I hope this overview helps you appreciate all that you'll need to look into and be cautious of during your future en-devour! Commercial real estate is generally costly and high-risk, but also can be high reward. You'll need to compare many opportunities before you can get a \"\"feel\"\" for what is a good deal and what is a terrible one. You'll need to consider many factors, such as resale value and cash flow/income (which they will have to tell you and you can assume is not true, due to ignorance or malice), as well as maintenance and liabilities, before you can begin to really estimate the value of an enterprise of this sort. There are people who can help you, like appraisers and commercial brokers, but ultimately you'll need to do a lot of research and comparisons yourself to help you make a good decision. Finally, there is no very simple method for evaluating commercial real estate value. You need a variety of information, and you must be skeptical of what you are told because of the very large sums of money involved. It is doable (lots of people do it), but you must take care and do your due diligence so you don't get bankrupted by a single bad purchase.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af327322384aaf1fb4808ed9b4adc50d", "text": "Another option is to look at the rent difference between where you need to be and where the others would rent, without considering your job. You pay the difference, which is due to your unique requirements, and split the remainder equally.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "954c914af462d734b6ed93d025097d44", "text": "Something that you omitted in your question is whether this prospective purchase is a single family residence (SFR) or some other type of real property. If this is an investment purchase as you say it is, then the only real way to tell it is worth what you are willing to pay is based on the income it produces. Once you complete an income and expense analysis you can get a CAP rate to compare it to other like properties in the area. This is the best way to value income/investment real estate. If you don't know what a CAP rate is and how to calculate it, then you might be over your head a bit. Another important aspect to consider is the reason to pay all cash for this property. The main reason to invest in real estate is to use the banks money as leverage. Again, you should understand these kinds of basic real estate concepts before you dive into purchasing investment property.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1018d9e6c1f99370dcffd85bd768bfaf", "text": "To your secondary question: Appropriately consider all estimated numbers involved with keeping the house compared to your closest estimate of what the home could sell for. Weigh out the pros and cons yourself as a stranger will not be able to 100% appreciate what you value and dislike. Remember to include insurances, taxes, HOA(s), and the actual mortgage payment. Depending on how you also plan to rent out the property, include whichever utilities you intend to cover (if any). There will also be costs for property management and upkeep as things will break overtime and tenants will not hesitate to get you (or your management) to fix them, either way that means you are paying. I would also keep in mind while homes typically appreciate in value there is a higher risk with tenants for the value to depreciate to damages and poor upkeep. There are increased legal risks to renting, so be sure you have properly vetted whichever management you are going with. In extreme circumstances you also could be required to retain an attorney to defend yourself again litigation because whichever management team you hire will most likely defend themselves and not include you in that umbrella. My family lives in the LA area as well and a judge refused to throw out an obvious frivolous suit when my parents attempted to rent out a house. The possible renters after signing the main paperwork never showed to finish a second set of documents for renting. Parents immediately declined to rent to these people as they missed something so important without any explanation and they sued claiming racism, emotional damages, and some other really crazy things despite my parents never having met them (first meeting was between property management and renters only). Personally and professionally, I would only suggest renting our the place and not selling if you can turn a profit after all the above mentioned costs. If renters are only paying to keep the property in the black you have yourself a non-earning asset which WILL be damaged over time and require repairs which will come out of your pocket. Also, while the property is unoccupied you also must remember it is not earning at that time. Much of this may sound obvious, overcautious, etc... I simply wish to provide my family's experience to help you in making your decisions. Best of luck with your endeavor. Edit: Also, you will be required to report all earned rental income on your taxes. They will fall under the Schedule E and possibly K-1 area. I would strongly recommend consulting with an actual accountant about the impacts to you.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d603d7dde3aa7adbc08c0bfa4224d6ac	I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent/adult present?	[ { "docid": "8ee780dd1a6ef64417b8857af8fb420c", "text": "As long as your money is green and you aren't buying something prohibited to youngsters (booze, cigarettes, etc.) I doubt any store is going to refuse your business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f511c3683463a075319f88336ebbc10e", "text": "My 12 year old routinely makes purchases with cash or a gift card (either a store's card or a Visa/Amex card that acts like credit card but is a gift card) and has never had an issue. Clothing, make-up, bath items, etc. I understand in some areas you need to be over 18 to buy certain markers, spraypaint, or other propellant items that can be fatal if inhaled. I see little issue with buying pet supplies, but it wouldn't hurt to have your sibling nearby if you think there will be an issue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e5dfe901f951e979eebb46132d0d825", "text": "I had a cat growing up--most of the time I was the one who got her supplies. It was never an issue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78c3c281bc43a0ee800cf0ed3fa83b0c", "text": "Perhaps a technicality, but minors do not have the legal capacity to bind a contract. Making a purchase from a store is a contract. I'm not a lawyer and there may be case law to the contrary or that creates exceptions, but my understanding is that purchases made by a minor may be void if later challenged. JohnFx's answer is true from a practical sense. But if you get turned away at a store, understand that they're probably just being careful to avoid headaches later.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "f0f03a51195c7a3e05197239cbb59377", "text": "Buy something from Nordstrom, then return it and ask for cash. They may ask for your ID. Nordstrom's return policies are very lax and they will almost always give cash when asked for, sometimes even if you don't have the receipt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6ae13b427fba3e6897c8e3f4b0c6203", "text": "We were members at costco, but decided not to renew. Meat was a definite cost savings, and laundry detergent as well. Diapers used to be a huge savings, but loblaws seems to be pricing things better now. We did by a bunch of Kirkland brand diapers and wipes before the membership ended. The problem we had was that you just get too much stuff - you save a bunch on that laundry detergent that you buy once every two years, or the chicken you have in your freezer forever. In Canada, the basic membership is $55 and we could not be certain we made that back, nor that we weren't over consuming as we walked the aisles. I have heard that the more expensive membership ($100) which gives you 2% back on purchases is a good way to gauge your usage and determine if it is worth it. It also costs nothing to give it a try - their policy is a full refund at any time, so in theory you could go in on your 364th day and get a refund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5589bc8e25b7c082c1dc2a97a160968e", "text": "The last thing I bought there was a barbecue for my dad. I needed two accessories that were on display with it as well, but they didn't carry them instore. So I had to go online to order them... from two different places. And one of the part numbers I was given didn't match anything, so I had to call on the phone and spend about 15 minutes with someone figuring it out. It was a less than stellar experience.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca9af8ae6ec87a10fb8408774f33346f", "text": "I don't know if BJ's or Costco is by you, but sharing a membership can make sense. Not just the annual fee, but splitting certain items that are just too big. The 20 pack of batteries, the 30lb sacks of potatoes, etc. Anything you look at and realize you won't use it before it goes bad or have no place to store it. Size is one objection I hear regarding the warehouse stores and a splitting buddy can help. To James' point - Yes, kids are cruel. We live in a nice area, and I pride myself on driving the cheapest car on the street. In the last two years, two neighbors (of 8 of us on this cul-de-sac) have downsized. They needed to take the difference and use it for college tuition. I explained to my daughter, when you see a kid in a big house, you don't know two key things: how big their mortgage is, and how much have they saved for college/retirement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4f12914ef0cf724285d65f57f5c65ee", "text": "I shop at Sears because of the enormous section of hardware parts. You can find almost any bolt,screw,connector, etc for any DIY project. Nothing online compares to being able to go to the hardware section only with an idea and piecing it together with the parts at hand. Also, I'm 35.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d1a7f1944348ed00e9367a5fcb54ad7", "text": "\"Well, I'd probably need to buy a lot more [Tide](http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1) to hide any purchases I don't want Uncle Sam to know about (not just drugs, either - When's the last time you paid sales tax at a yard sale?). Other than that, I doubt it would matter much. 99.9% of my financial transactions are already on plastic, and I regularly keep the same \"\"emergency $20 bill\"\" in my wallet for months at a time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7fd9f08c7784ffafdfbec03796c03d1", "text": "Your parents are troopers (pooper troopers?). Nothing in our area was affordable for those services so we tried the clean-your-own kind - they were really nice and probably would help potty train but seriously a few months of scraping poop into the trash and washing a bucket of smelly diapers got old quiiiiiick! I will say this - the kind you clean yourself is the absolute cheapest option. It was like $300 for a half week supply of cloth diapers so you're doing diaper laundry twice a week and the only other added cost is the special detergent which was pretty cheap and lasted a long time... Then we sold them used on eBay for $200 and bought the next size up when it was time which was like 2 months later (they snap to multiple sizes)... Rinse and repeat - works out pretty well if you're willing to commit to washing poop cloth twice a week. And 3 months of honest diapers is around $300 I think.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b77d8502335f3b8b8ed6d68bb3669ea", "text": "Make sure your handling the legal side of things. At your age, at least in the US usually, your parents are the one responsible for things like contracts and such. You can't legally get into contracts on your own and if your going to go into business, even at your age, a contract of work should be a must.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b88f011e80981c6d7b69bdd61da050e6", "text": "\"If you're under 18 there's not much you can do. As a minor, your kinda just stuck. There are routes to go, but not many. If you're over 18, here's what you can do. Now these steps won't help you not anger your mother. They're \"\"what you can do\"\" but it doesn't mean you \"\"should\"\". Keep in mind that it might be better just to have a conversation. In that conversation, if you think you need to say, \"\"I will file a complaint with the FBI, and have you arrested if you don't stop! You're breaking the law and invading my privacy.\"\" Again these are drastic steps to take. More moderate steps may be advisable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eca1589f556ec5c6b248b677962048d5", "text": "I can deal with the sometimes human trash that shops there, the screaming and running kids...and even the somewhat messy isles. For me, it comes down to two things: 1. Language barrier. If you are going to have staff on the floor, they need to be able to speak and understand English. This is an uncomfortable criticism, I know, but it is real. 2. Staff lack of knowledge of the products they sell. Reading the description on the tag of two different items does not help me.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaab9bd2b0cb3f917a3cf78a945a3545", "text": "Our Website : http://www.inglewoodarena.com/ The Forum loves children, but asks that you check the age minimum on the event you are attending prior to buying tickets. If children are allowed, those under two attend for free but must remain on a ticket-holders lap. Any strollers must be collapsible and stored beneath seat. Service Pets are happily accepted but must remain in the seating area with their human, harnessed or leashed. The Forum Inglewood strongly encourages Animal Access card photo IDs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e96a248e0185b8c754ebc2925ba34621", "text": "\"If you're in the US then no. You cannot enter a binding contract therefore you will not get a loan from a bank. Cosigner or no cosigner, anything to do with a loan and a bank will not involve you. Your parents can get a loan, then they can give you the money, then you can pay them for their payments, but none of that means the loan has anything to do with you. It's their loan, if they default it's on them. Given your age, you probably will ignore everyone else's advice here about this trip being a bad idea if you can't afford it, but you should reconsider it. You will be paying for this trip long after the fun and excitement has worn off. This is the cycle that sends alot of families into bankruptcy, and it's a horrible habit to learn so young. \"\"Loan\"\" shouldn't even be in your vocabulary dealing with anything other than a library book.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51c59aa3d9076346ca2df12daa9c1422", "text": "Fair enough, do what you want, but the issue is that the physical store is providing you with valuable services that you are taking advantage of (you get to see the shoes before you buy them, try them on, get advice from employees, etc.) without paying for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ede77e1d457e70fd95473a2bf510101c", "text": "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.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f688eb3dbae48ce79d34ffed10bd9a9", "text": "It's never too early, but age 3 is when we started a piggy bank. Age 4 is when we opened a bank account. When you go shopping with your children, discuss what items cost (such as bread, milk, books, etc.) Start teaching them that everything has a value...then relate it to how much they have saved. Kids need to learn 3 basic things from their parents: how to save/invest, how to spend wisely, how to share/donate", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
710039eee009988895644d894f3ef200	How can I find out the credit rating of a company	[ { "docid": "179994ff8c7fafc4523b9341609b5004", "text": "You can view Standard & Poor's credit ratings here: http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/en/us/ You have to register with S&P to access the ratings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb1a38f02429161760fdfff00d8be026", "text": "Dunn & Bradstreet offers detailed credit reports on businesses. They are not cheap, but they appear to have information on RIOCAN.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "681f7184bde61e9ceafddbd27414387a", "text": "You really can't. Credit rating is determined by financial history, and until your kids are old enough to legally sign a contract they have essentially no financial history. Interesting out-of-the-box thought, but not workable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d7927f3cc6a8c9dd272960747f38d05", "text": "The cold caller is just a different way to contact you compared to the junk mail that they send. The business gets information from the credit rating companies for households that meet a specific set of criteria. It could be town, age, home ownership, low credit utilization...Or the exact opposite depending on what they are selling. Some business do sell your data. Grocery store know who buys certain products: parents buying diapers may want to start saving for college; ones buying acne medicine may want to talk about lower rates for car insurance. When they call via phone they have a different success rate compared to junk mail, but for that business that may be acceptable for their needs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c783ef9f0ca268bb0df24e9258cb74e7", "text": "\"The list of the public companies is available on the regulatory agencies' sites usually (for example, in the US, you can look at SEC filings). Otherwise, you can check the stock exchange listings, which show all the public companies traded on that exchange. The shareholders, on the other hand, are normally not listed and not published. You'll have to ask the company, and it probably won't tell you (and won't even know them all as many shares are held in the \"\"street name\"\" of the broker).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0aeb0bb4b3bbbee25c09f14be0a80f01", "text": "Even assuming you were reading the balance sheet correctly it means nothing. What banks mostly care about is cash flow. Do they have enough extra money to make the payments on whatever they borrow? I have never had a credit card company ask me about assets--they don't care. They care about income with which to pay the credit card bill. Have a solid record of paying your bills and enough income to pay back what you are trying to borrow and you'll have an excellent credit rating no matter what your net worth. Whether you are one person or a megacorporation makes no difference.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "21bf027dd7d50ab43d1fea90f8798f18", "text": "\"I used to work for one of the three ratings agencies. Awhile ago. First: There are lots of different ratings. The bulk of ratings are for corporate debt and public finance. So senior debentures (fixed income) and General Obligations e.g. tax-free muni bonds, respectively. Ratings agencies are NOT paid by the investment banks, they are paid by the corporations or city/ state that is issuing debt. The investment banks are the syndicate that pulls the transaction together and brings it to market. For mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt CDO-CLO's, all of which are fancy structured securitizations, well, that is a different matter! Those transactions are the ones where there is an inappropriately close tie between the investment bankers and ratings agencies. And those were the ratings that blew out and caused problems. Ratings agencies continued to do a decent job with what WAS their traditional business, corporate and municipal bond ratings, as far as I know. What khajja said was 100% correct: S&P's fees were paid by investors, the people who were purchasing the bonds, until about 50 years ago. Around the same time that McGraw-Hill purchased S&P, in 1966, they departed from that model, and started charging the bond issuers for ratings. I don't know if that decision was driven by McGraw-Hill or not, though. One more thing: Not all credit ratings agencies are paid by the issuers. One of the 10 NRSRO's (a designation given by the S.E.C.) is Egan-Jones. Their revenue comes from the investors, bond purchasers, not the companies issuing bonds, unlike the S&P/ Fitch/ Moody's \"\"business model\"\". So there is an alternative, which I consider hopeful and reason not to totally despair. EDIT: What xcrunna19 mentions is also totally accurate. The part about Nouriel Roubini (who is a professor at N.Y.U. or Columbia or such and a sensible though slightly high strung sort) is consistent with my impression. As for whether it would require government action to implement the changes advocated by Roubini, yes, I guess it would, but I don't know if the government would do that. It would be better if the credit ratings agencies would find their own way to a different, less conflicted payment-incentive model. Keep in mind too that many of the provisions of Dodd-Frank have removed the existing regulatory requirements for credit ratings on bonds and other securities. This is the scary part though: There isn't anything to replace the credit ratings agencies, not at the moment, as far as I can tell! Eventually the government is supposed to come up with an alternative, but that hasn't happened yet. Which is better: Not requiring ratings at all, or the past situation of sometimes inflated ratings, which imparted a false sense of confidence? I don't know.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da3bb20b815bd711a1d70bb82fd9fd3f", "text": "In general you cannot. Once the security is no longer listed on the exchange - it doesn't have to provide information to the exchange and regulators (unless it wants to be re-listed). That's one of the reasons companies go private - to keep their (financial and other) information private. If it was listed in 1999, and is no longer listed now - you can dig through SEC archives for the information. You can try and reach out to the company's investors' relations contact and see if they can help you with the specific information you're looking for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2136538e1c183dd41f933085eadd0b7f", "text": "\"The mathematics site, WolframAlpha, provides such data. Here is a link to historic p/e data for Apple. You can chart other companies simply by typing \"\"p/e code\"\" into the search box. For example, \"\"p/e XOM\"\" will give you historic p/e data for Exxon. A drop-down list box allows you to select a reporting period : 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, all data. Below the chart you can read the minimum, maximum, and average p/e for the reporting period in addition to the dates on which the minimum and maximum were applicable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47d2401e8c9dcd835a24ea517a73bda6", "text": "I've seen this tool. I'm just having a hard time finding where I can just get a list of all the companies. For example, you can get up to 100 results at a time, if I just search latest filings for 10-K. This isn't really an efficient way to go about what I want.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c9e754e3769d7ad1a16dbc3e6c90ba5", "text": "It seems like you want to compare the company's values not necessarily the stock price. Why not get the total outstanding shares and the stock price, generate the market cap. Then you could compare changes to market cap rather than just share price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30aacc07f38e6b5fa8c9dab25168220f", "text": "\"is your credit history ruined, or merely dinged? Is the blow recoverable? Any bad credit rating event is recoverable given enough time / money to solve the problem. As far as \"\"Ruined\"\" vs\"\" \"\"Dinged\"\", well, that's a matter of opinion; some people think that one bad item is the end of the world, others not so much. You will have an unpaid debt listed on your report. This will drop your score. The amount it impacts the score will depend on other factors in your report. Can the carrier try to get the money back in court? I assume you'll wind up dealing with a debt collector. Yes they could go to court, but that's unlikely at least in the short term. Far more likely is that the debt ends up sold to a debt collection agency for pennies on the dollar. The debt collection agency will harass you until you pay and they might file in court if they think the debt is more than enough to cover the court costs. Will this affect any other relationships you have? Possibly. A bad rating may make it more difficult to get credit in the future. However that depends on numerous other factors such as your entire history. It could even prevent you from being hired from certain jobs - not many of them, but some. Is it criminal? Read this: http://www.startribune.com/investigators/95692619.html The US does NOT have a debtors prison. However if the company decides to file a court case and you fail to appear or fail to abide by the court ruling then, in some states, you could be committing a crime and may be thrown in jail. At which point you are on the hook not just for the original fee but potentially a plethora of other costs. Never mind the loss of reputation when your friends, family and coworkers find out that you are sitting in jail. At the end of the day, just pay the debt. If you agreed to the plan and the plan has an early cancellation fee then the moral and ethical thing to do is pay it. Trying to see how bad it would be to ignore it isn't the right way to live.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c7e2492482cabf5a89816370180c36c", "text": "The only recommendation I have is to try the stock screener from Google Finance : https://www.google.com/finance?ei=oJz9VenXD8OxmAHR263YBg#stockscreener", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4eaf0ece65e124c8ee239f8b0f7821d9", "text": "I've seen credit cards that provide you your credit score for free, updated once a month and even charted over the last year. Unfortunately the bank I used to have this card with was bought and the purchasing bank discontinued the feature. Perhaps someone out there knows of some cards that still offer a feature like this?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfc23c6e3d2e087ba14307e90558851f", "text": "Credit Sesame monitors your credit score for free. My understanding is that they make their money off of credit card referrals.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8723a73705f4f18937f82286dc564b0c", "text": "\"In one personal finance book I read that if a company is located in a country with credit rating X it can't have credit rating better (lower - i.e. further from AAA level) than X. This is simply wrong. Real world evidence proves it wrong. Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Exxon Mobile (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Microsoft (MSFT) all have a triple-A rating today, even though the United States doesn't. Toyota (TM) remained triple-A for many years even after Japanese debt was downgraded. The explanation was the following: country has rating X because risk of doing business with it is X and so risk of doing business with any company located in that country automatically can't be better than X. When reading financial literature, you should always be critical. Let's evaluate this statement. First off, a credit rating is not the \"\"risk of doing business.\"\" That is way too generic. Specifically, a credit rating attempts to define an individual or company's ability to repay it's obligations. Buying treasuries constitutes as doing business with the gov't, but you can argue that buying stamps at USPS is also doing business with the gov't, and a credit rating won't affect the latter too much. So a credit rating reflects the ability of an entity to repay it's obligations. What does the ability of a government to repay have to do with the ability of companies in that country to repay? Not much. Certainly, if a company keeps it's surplus cash all in treasuries, then downgrading the government will affect the company, but in general, the credit rating of a company determines the company's ability to pay.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9c64c3b2016141277efdf4e834774e1", "text": "Google Finance gives you this information.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
cee842a8b181e5424d4794b849e3dcb8	Income Tax on per Diem (Non Accountable plan)	[ { "docid": "22a9c5d62d95ba6d72274bffda89c476", "text": "A per diem payment is a cost of doing business for the company, not for you. They can claim it (probably); you can't (definitely).", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "d658c3ec1d9279c81cc4cf3a58c86168", "text": "\"Short answer: Yes. For Federal income tax purposes, you are taxed on your total income, adding up positives and negatives. If business A made, say, $100,000 while business B lost $20,000, then your total income is $80,000, and that's what you'll be taxed on. As @littleadv says, of course any business losses you claim must qualify as business losses under IRS rules. And yes, there are special rules about losses that the IRS considers \"\"passive\"\". If you have wage income in addition to business income, business losses don't offset wage income for social security and medicare tax purposes. You can't get a refund of the social security tax deducted from your paycheck. I don't know if this is relevant to you, but: If you have businesses in different states, each is taxed by that state. For example I have two tiny side businesses, one in Michigan and one in Ohio. Last year the Michigan business made money while the Ohio business lost money. So my federal income was Michigan minus Ohio. My Ohio income was negative so I owed no Ohio income tax. But I couldn't subtract my Ohio losses from my Michigan income for Michigan income tax purposes. Thus, having, say, $10,000 income in Michigan and $10,000 in Ohio would result in lower taxes than $30,000 income in Michigan and a $10,000 loss in Ohio, even though the total income in both cases is the same. And this would be true even if the tax rates in both states were identical.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26ce60fef4f08824a11abf3f8009ba3b", "text": "The IRS defines income quite specifically. On the topic What is Taxable and Nontaxable Income, they note: You can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. This section discusses many kinds of income that are taxable or nontaxable. It includes discussions on employee wages and fringe benefits, and income from bartering, partnerships, S corporations, and royalties. Bartering, or giving someone wages (or similar) in something other than currency (or some other specifically defined things, like fringe benefits), is taxed at fair market value: Bartering Bartering is an exchange of property or services. You must include in your income, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering. For additional information, Refer to Tax Topic 420 - Bartering Income and Barter Exchanges. Bartering is more specifically covered in Topic 420 - Bartering Income: You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 for information on filing an amended return. More details about income in general beyond the above articles is available in Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income. It goes into great detail about different kinds of income. In your example, you'd have to calculate the fair market value of an avocado, and then determine how much cash-equivalent you were paid in. The IRS wouldn't necessarily tell you what that value was; you'd calculate it based on something you feel you could justify to them afterwards. The way I'd do it would be to write down the price of avocados at each pay period, and apply a dollar-cost-averaging type method to determine the total pay's fair value. While the avocado example is of course largely absurd, the advent of bitcoins has made this much more relevant. Publication 525 has this to say about virtual currency: Virtual Currency. If your employer gives you virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) as payment for your services, you must include the fair market value of the currency in your income. The fair market value of virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) paid as wages is subject to federal income tax withholding, Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) tax, and Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax and must be reported on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Gold would be fundamentally similar - although I am not sure it's legal to pay someone in gold; assuming it were, though, its fair market value would be again the definition of income. Similarly, if you're paid in another country's currency, the US dollar equivalent of that is what you'll pay taxes on, at the fair market value of that currency in US dollars.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d749496b9ff44a719a74325995016634", "text": "If the employer provides housing to the employee, the employer has to identify whether it is taxable or not. If it is - the amounts would be added to the taxable income on your W2. All the withholding and FICA tax calculations will be performed based on that taxable income. If the employer fails to do that, and you get audited, you can be left on the hook for the unpaid taxes on the unreported income. In some cases, employee housing is a non-taxable fringe benefit, in others it is taxable. Your tax adviser will help identify which case applies to you. After you added in a comment that you're trying to see if you should be asking your boss to pay your personal expenses vs. giving you a raise - as I said in the comments, your personal expenses are not deductible neither for you nor for anyone else. If your boss pays your rent instead of a raise - its taxable income for you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc7b333b1d11ea994accd1f8b78a8fdf", "text": "\"Yes, the penalty is the tax you pay on it again when you withdraw the money. The withdrawal of the excess contribution is taxed as your wages (but no penalty). Excess contribution cannot be added to the basis or considered \"\"after-tax\"\" (hence the double taxation). Note that allowing you to keep the excess contribution in the plan may lead to disqualifying the plan, so it is likely that the plan administrator will force you to remove the excess contribution if they become aware of it. Otherwise you may end up forcing early 401(k) withdrawal on all of your co-workers. More on this IRS web page. And this one.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "865615acb30248354ccda7ef4be8a01b", "text": "\"I've been in a very similar situation to yours in the past. Since the company is reimbursing you at a flat rate (I assume you don't need to provide documentation/receipts in order to be paid the per diem), it's not directly connected to the $90 in expenses that you mention. Unless they were taking taxes out that would need to be reimbursed, the separate category for Assets:Reimbursable:Gotham City serves no real purpose, other than to categorize the expenses. Since there is no direct relationship between your expenses and the reimbursement, I would list them as completely separate transactions: Later, if you needed to locate all of the associated expenses with the Gotham trip, gnucash lets you search on memo text for \"\"Gotham\"\" and will display all of the related transactions. This is a lot cleaner than having to determine what piece of the per diem goes to which expenses, or having to create a new Asset account every time you go on a trip.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2872c54aa6d39f2befbdf243277e0511", "text": "\"On thing the questioner should do is review the Summary Plan Description (SPD) for the 401(k) plan. This MAY have details on any plan imposed limits on salary deferrals. If the SPD does not have sufficient detail, the questioner should request a complete copy of current plan document and then review this with someone who knows how to read plan documents. The document for a 401(k) plan CAN specify a maximum percentage of compensation that a participant in the 401(k) plan can defer REGARDLESS of the maximum dollar deferral limit in Internal Revenue Code Section 402(g). For example, the document for a 401(k) plan can provide that participants can elect to defer any amount of their compensation (salary) BUT not to exceed ten percent (10%). Thus, someone whose salary is $50,000 per year will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $5,000. Someone making $150,000 will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $15,000. This is true regardless of the fact that the 2013 dollar limit on salary deferrals is $17,500. This is also true regardless of whether or not a participant may want to defer more than ten percent (10%) of compensation. This \"\"plan imposed\"\" limit on salary deferral contributions is permissible assuming it is applied in a nondiscriminatory manner. This plan imposed limit is entirely separate from any other rules or restrictions on salary deferral amounts that might be as a result of things like the average deferral percentage test.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e1a358c98a0b9f7c9d1d3a1525349a4", "text": "\"There is no penalty for foreigners but rather a 30% mandatory income tax withholding from distributions from 401(k) plans. You will \"\"get it back\"\" when you file the income tax return for the year and calculate your actual tax liability (including any penalties for a premature distribution from the 401(k) plan). You are, of course, a US citizen and not a foreigner, and thus are what the IRS calls a US person (which includes not just US citizens but permanent immigrants to the US as well as some temporary visa holders), but it is entirely possible that your 401(k) plan does not know this explicitly. This IRS web page tells 401(k) plan administrators Who can I presume is a US person? A retirement plan distribution is presumed to be made to a U.S. person only if the withholding agent: A payment that does not meet these rules is presumed to be made to a foreign person. Your SSN is presumably on file with the 401(k) plan administrator, but perhaps you are retired into a country that does not have an income tax treaty with the US and that's the mailing address that is on file with your 401(k) plan administrator? If so, the 401(k) administrator is merely following the rules and not presuming that you are a US person. So, how can you get around this non-presumption? The IRS document cited above (and the links therein) say that if the 401(k) plan has on file a W-9 form that you submitted to them, and the W-9 form includes your SSN, then the 401(k) plan has valid documentation to associate the distribution as being made to a US person, that is, the 401(k) plan does not need to make any presumptions; that you are a US person has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. So, to answer your question \"\"Will I be penalized when I later start a regular monthly withdrawal from my 401(k)?\"\" Yes, you will likely have mandatory 30% income tax withholding on your regular 401(k) distributions unless you have established that you are a US person to your 401(k) plan by submitting a W-9 form to them.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec21364d60e47dc92323262e60451433", "text": "It's legal. In fact, they are required to do this, assuming you are in fact a HCE (highly compensated employee) to avoid getting in trouble with the IRS. I'm guessing they don't provide documentation for the same reason they don't explain to you explicitly what the income thresholds are for social security taxes, etc - that's a job for your personal accountant. Here's the definition of a HCE: An individual who: Owned more than 5% of the interest in the business at any time during the year or the preceding year, regardless of how much compensation that person earned or received, or For the preceding year, received compensation from the business of more than $115,000 (if the preceding year is 2014; $120,000 if the preceding year is 2015, 2016 or 2017), and, if the employer so chooses, was in the top 20% of employees when ranked by compensation. There are rules the restrict distributions from plans like 401ks. For example, treasury reg 1.401a(4)-5(b)(3) says that a plan cannot make a distribution to a HCE if that payment reduces the asset value of the plan to below 110% of the value of the plan's current liabilities. So, after taking account all distributions to be made to HCEs and the asset value of the plan, everyone likely gets proportionally reduced so that they don't run afoul of this rule. There are workarounds for this. But, these are options that the plan administrators may take, not you. I suppose if you were still employed there and at a high enough level, a company accountant would have discussed these options with you. Note, there's a chance there's some other limitation on HCEs that I'm missing which applies to your specific situation. Your best bet, to understand, is simply ask. Your money is still there, you just can't get it all this year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d137f8ba2fc7c051f2118309f7059b59", "text": "There is no such thing as double taxation. If you pay tax in the US, you CAN claim tax credits from India tax authority. For example, if you pay 100 tax in USA and your tax liability in India is 200, then you will only pay 100 (200 India tax liability minus 100 tax credits on foreign tax paid in the USA). This is always true and not depending on any treaty. If there is a treaty, the tax rate in the United States is set on the treaty and you CAN claim that final tax rate based upon that treaty. If you operate an LLC, and the income is NOT derived from United States and you have no ties with the US and that LLC is register to a foreign person (not company but a real human) then you will not have to submit tax return in the US... I advice you to read this: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98277,00.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "200f8c5f2b1d4a058debac7f16934960", "text": "\"I think you may have a significant misunderstanding here. You have been renting your property out for two years, now. There is no special \"\"roommate\"\" clause in the tax code; roommates are renters, and the rent they pay is rental income. (If they were roommates in a property you both rented from a third party, that would be different.) See publication 527, chapter 4 for more details on the subject (search on \"\"Renting Part of Property\"\"). You should be: You may also consider \"\"Not renting for profit\"\" section, which may be closer to what you're actually thinking - of changing from \"\"Renting not for profit\"\" to \"\"Renting for profit\"\". Not rented for profit means you can report on your 1040 as opposed to filing Schedule E, but it does mean you have to actually not make a profit (and remember, some of the money that goes to paying the mortgage is not deductible on this side of things since it's your property and you'll get that money back, presumably, when you sell it). If that is what you're asking about, it sounds like it's just a matter of money. Are you going to start making money? Or, are you going to start making enough significant upgrades/etc. to justify the tax deduction? You should consider the actual, specific numbers carefully, probably with the help of a CPA who is familiar with this sort of situation, and then make the decision that gives you the best outcome (keeping in mind that there may be long-term impacts of switching from not-for-profit to for-profit rental treatment).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7dda4d298962e5676469e1351ccb15d", "text": "\"Some of the 45,000 might be taxable. The question is how was the stipend determined. Was it based on the days away? The mile driven? The cities you worked in? The IRS has guidelines regarding what is taxable in IRS Pub 15 Per diem or other fixed allowance. You may reimburse your employees by travel days, miles, or some other fixed allowance under the applicable revenue procedure. In these cases, your employee is considered to have accounted to you if your reimbursement doesn't exceed rates established by the Federal Government. The 2015 standard mileage rate for auto expenses was 57.5 cents per mile. The rate for 2016 is 54 cents per mile. The government per diem rates for meals and lodging in the continental United States can be found by visiting the U.S. General Services Administration website at www.GSA.gov and entering \"\"per diem rates\"\" in the search box. Other than the amount of these expenses, your employees' business expenses must be substantiated (for example, the business purpose of the travel or the number of business miles driven). For information on substantiation methods, see Pub. 463. If the per diem or allowance paid exceeds the amounts substantiated, you must report the excess amount as wages. This excess amount is subject to income tax with-holding and payment of social security, Medicare, and FUTA taxes. Show the amount equal to the substantiated amount (for example, the nontaxable portion) in box 12 of Form W-2 using code “L\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db8344437995d7d7ef05aa29fe18db47", "text": "Sorry, it appears not, according to http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2008/508/perspectives/p12.htm: ...and the election to make Roth 401(k) contributions (these are after-tax contributions) is irrevocable. Fairmark says the same thing. PS, don't complain too loudly, given the reason for the problem. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc8ee0ee14f8580c8135d7bc6380c9e0", "text": "The Cayman Islands has an income tax enacted, it is just currently 0%. It raises revenues from its tourism, import duties, and business registration. It is part of the UK commonwealth and therefore enjoys the military protection of that federation, but doesn't have to spend on it. But unlike the US, the UK does not have an umbrella federal income tax on its overseas territories, so the Cayman Islands doesn't have to pass that down to its citizens nor do its citizens/residents have to be encumbered by one. It was not taxed by the King when it was first incorporated (hm, might need to fact check that). They also didn't go to war with the king over some small tax, so they got treated differently than some other North American colonies you might think of. The Cayman Islands is not the only government that raises revenues this way. Delaware also has a 0% income tax and raises the majority of its revenues on business registration (and perpetual franchise taxes on those businesses), allowing it to spare its citizens from passive income taxes. But unlike a US state, a citizen or business in a UK overseas territory does not have federal regulatory overhead, making it more attractive as a worldwide financial center.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b41a23be2e99ccd466f0ddb5b967ce6b", "text": "The argument seems to derive from the fact that state law bars cities from taxing net income. Hence the city is arguing it doesn't apply to gross income. Of course the city would also have to argue that income isn’t property. I don't think it's going to work out for them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5923619c7a3b18fc6934a3f2d6b95dc8", "text": "You will not necessarily incur a penalty. You can potentially use the Annualized Income Installment method, which allows you to compute the tax due for each quarter based on income actually earned up to that point in the year. See Publication 505, in particular Worksheet 2-9. Form 2210 is also relevant as that is the form you will use when actually calculating whether you owe a penalty after the year is over. On my reading of Form 2210, if you had literally zero income during the first quarter, you won't be expected to make an estimated tax payment for that quarter (as long as you properly follow the Annualized Income Installment method for future quarters). However, you should go through the calculations yourself to see what the situation is with your actual numbers.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
7db4a3cc86788445c3d7f8b76b6cd414	Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate]	[ { "docid": "1d6996c28689896be1cbbb0f340c6a87", "text": "Yes. If you reply back, they'll confirm that Uncle Alex did indeed leave you $7 million, and you just need to send them a few thousand dollars for taxes and estate fees and then they'll wire you the money. And then there'll be customs fees. And then more taxes. And of course, there will be separate import fees. And so on until you run out of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "988c6575e4ce64a92a839e7605009f72", "text": "It is absolutely a scam. Anyone who tells you they can give you a large amount of money for free is trying to scam you. Additional warning signs include:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5f1b4d0114213b9543fd6dd74832667", "text": "\"This is totally a scam. I didn't read the whole thing. Didn't need to after I read \"\"abandoned sum of 22.5 million\"\" which implied part of it was yours to take after you do something for them.. Logically speaking.. No stranger would disclose this to you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04e09df8643a9e9bf56221aeef4741af", "text": "\"In general, if you think something even MIGHT be a scam, the answer is\"\"yes\"\".\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "cf189bbfcf5cd1c6c0ed854c5b9c2ee9", "text": "\"This is definitely a scam. My husband was inquiring with a \"\"company\"\" that was offering him to be. Representative for them. He got the same job details but the company was called Ceneo. I did due diligence and found that the real Ceneo has no problems receiving money directly from buyers around the world. The fake company mirrored their website, posted jobs on the net,hoping to \"\"employ\"\" unsuspecting people in the U.S. This is their reply to my husband when he asked the job details. DO NOT GET SCAMMED and held accountable for money laundering.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b568bf322198a4fc02e3bc71ce3e14b", "text": "\"Thank you for the response, no they didn't ask for anything from anyone, and I certainly didn't give them any information. I was very skeptical but I don't want to be close minded. They claim that they never charge anyone for their mentorship. And the fact they talked so much about pyramid schemes really put me on edge. I guess I just would like to know if anyone else knew about this \"\"$10 billion in revenue private company.\"\" I read the article you posted and I didn't get that impression. The speaker said he was donating time because he felt like that was important for himself and his wife, to give back to the community. Anyways I will give it a chance, cautiously, and worst case scenario it's an opportunity to network. Thanks for the insight!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6656967ba487892e9921b4bb5f12ca72", "text": "\"I believe no-one who's in a legal line of business would tell you to default voluntarily on your obligations. Once you get an offer that's too good to be true, and for which you have to do something that is either illegal or very damaging to you - it is probably a scam. Also, if someone requires you to send any money without a prior written agreement - its probably a scam as well, especially in such a delicate matter as finances. Your friend now should also be worried about identity theft as he voluntary gave tons of personal information to these people. Bottom line - if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Your friend had all the warning signs other than a huge neon light saying \"\"Scam\"\" pointing at these people, and he still went through it. For real debt consolidation companies, research well: online reviews, BBB ratings and reviews, time in business, etc. If you can't find any - don't deal with them. Also, if you get promises for debtors to out of the blue give up on some of their money - its a sign of a scam. Why would debtors reduce the debt by 60%? He's paying, he can pay, he is not on the way to bankruptcy (or is he?)? Why did he do it to begin with?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f30a17be73a412245a9ab918311722d7", "text": "Yes, it is a scam. There is no doubt about it. Never give your bank password to anyone, especially strangers. You will lose your money if you fall for this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c931860195065d9558dc966e8eae2e83", "text": "\"Short answer: Yes this is a scam. I see three different possibilities how they get you. I will rank them from \"\"best\"\" to worst Scammer A sends 100$ to you. You then follow his instructions and send back 50$ through WU (this is untraceable). He then contacts his bank and tells them he never intended to send that 100$ to you, then bank will then reverse that transaction and give him back his money, leaving you 50$ short. Scammer A hacks or scams innocent person B and either sends B:s money to you or tricks person B to do it. When person B reports this to the police it will look like you were behind the whole thing. The transaction will be reversed leaving you 50$ short and with unwanted police attention (see this article for an extreme example: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/online-dating-made-woman-pawn-global-crime-plot/) The nice person A wants to send money to a criminal syndicate or terrorist organization but don't want to be associated with it. Leaving you 50$ up (hurray) and possibly on a bunch of terrorist watch lists (ouch!). The extra info you provide wouldn't be necessary for any of these scams but I guess it could be nice to have for some regular identity theft. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all that the scammers could do. It's just a short list to show you how dangerous it would be to play along. To state the obvious, don't walk from this person, RUN!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bae6825690a6c31017606cb7d6fd6596", "text": "Admins can often be the face (or voice) of a firm that leaves the first impression. You're totally right, you can usually tell what kind of place it is by the way they are treated and the way they treat clients and others. Hopefully she lives up to her impression and not her username!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56bc6d95b268336280b39839bab6321e", "text": "it's not a scam. it's not even too good to be true. frankly it's the lowest sign up bonus i've ever seen for a credit card. you would be better off signing up for a flagship card from one of the major banks (e.g. chase sapphire, citi double cash, discover it, amex blue). those cards regularly offer sign up bonuses worth between 400$ and 1000$. however, you can't get all the cards at once. noteably chase has a fairly firm limit of 5 new cards per 24 month. the other banks have similar, less publicized limits on who they will approve for a new card. so, by applying for this amazon card you are hurting your chances of getting far more lucrative sign up bonuses. it is however worth noting that those larger bonuses usually come with a minimum spending requirement (e.g. spend 1k$-3k$ in the first 3 months)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06dcdb3f6eb90ca6d5b0273dfd74d91e", "text": "What is she actually doing? Is it illegal? She is running some kind of scam and it is illegal. Quite often these are fronts. Generally people get suspicious if they haven't seen anyone. So you social engineer and someone like this girl would boost in her circle. The fact that she is making $6500 a day is unverified claim. I can say I make 1 million a day :) There is no free money. It is wise of you not to share your Bank details. Stay away as far as possible. Note depending on the country and regulation you could be in trouble with authorities for even knowing / suspecting that someone is committing fraud and not informing authorities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "338231cbc70b8a243b50a393e02af534", "text": "\"Here we go again! Why, oh why, would someone just open a bank account in your name with that much money for no good reason? Unless there's a very rich relative in your family tree, this can not come to a good ending. Besides, if this was money being left to you by someone as part of an inheritance, you'd hear from attorneys from the estate. Notwithstanding everything @NickR posted about the details of what makes it suspicious, ask yourself why a banker would contact you by email about an account with this much money in it. The bank would, at the very least, send you a registered/certified letter on official stationery. So what happens here is when you give them your banking information, whoever it is that's doing this will clean out your account, and that's for starters. They will ask for enough information to steal your identity too, and if you have good credit, that'll be gone in a heartbeat. The best scams (meaning the most successful ones) always appeal to peoples' greed, using large amounts of money that just miraculously belong to the victim, if only they'd give a little information to \"\"transfer\"\" the money. Worse yet, most of these scams will come up with some kind of \"\"fee\"\", \"\"tax\"\" or other expense that you have to pre-pay in order to make the transfer happen, so this just adds insult to injury when you find out (the hard way!) you've been scammed. DO NOT reply to the email you received or, if you already have, don't send any more responses. If they think they may have you on the hook then they won't stop trying, and it will become very messy very quickly. THIS IS NOT REAL MONEY! It isn't yours, it doesn't really exist, and all it will do is come to no good end if you go any further with it. Stay safe, my friend.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9989b76b4407475d54478507be66a0d5", "text": "Michael Pryor is 100% correct here. This is almost certainly a scam. If you want confirmation, look at the feedback of the buyers and of folks who buy stuff from them. You'll typically find that they run through a bunch of low value auctions, build up some feedback, then all of the sudden buy and sell lots of laptops or other high-value items. It's a big scam that has been going on for a decade or more. If you are actually trying to sell things like computers overseas, particularly to third world countries, the sign of a legitimate buyer is usually someone who will have you ship to an import-export company who handles the customs stuff and the bureaucratic nonsense required to deal with government on the other side. I had a bunch of Sun equipment in the late 90's that was purchased by folks in Latin America via EBay. They bought from EBay because the local resellers had a monopoly on the products or couldn't get sufficient quantities. All of them used companies, mostly in Miami, which handled the actual export at the customer's expense.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec456909c2d1c75c5820e40e811a5ee4", "text": "\"The answers here are all correct. This is 100% scam, beyond any reasonable doubt. Don't fall for it. However, I felt it valuable to explain what would happen were you to fall for this. It's not all that hard to understand, but it involves understanding some of the time delays that exist in modern banking today. The most important thing to understand is that depositing a check does not actually put dollars in your account, even though it appears to. A check is not legal tender for debts public and private. It's a piece of paper known as a \"\"bill of exchange.\"\" It's an authorization for a payee (you), to request that their bank pay you the amount on the check. A transaction made with a check does not actually draw to a close until your bank and their bank communicate and cause the actual transfer of funds to take place. This process is called \"\"clearing\"\" the check. Despite living in the modern times, this process is slow. It can take 7-10 days to clear a check (especially if it is an international bank). This is not good for the banking business. You can imagine how difficult it would be to tell a poor client, who is living paycheck to paycheck, that he can't have his pay until the check clears a week later. Banks have an interest in hiding this annoying feature of the modern banking system, so they do. When you deposit a check, the bank will typically advance you the money (an interest free loan, in effect) while the check \"\"floats\"\" (i.e. until it clears). This creates the illusion that the money is actually in your account for most intents and purposes. (presumably a bank would distinguish between the floating check and a cleared check if you tried to close out your account, but otherwise it looks and feels like the money is in your hands). Of course, if the check is dishonored (because the payer had insufficient funds, or the account simply did not exist), your bank will not get the money. At this moment, they will cancel any advances you received and notify you that the check bounced. Again, this happens 7-10 days later. The general pattern of this scam is that they will pay you by a method which clears slowly, like a check. They will then ask you to withdraw the money using a faster clearing method (like a wire transfer or withdrawing the cash). Typically they will be encouraging you to move quickly (they are on a timetable... when their check bounces, the game is up!) At this time, it will appear as though the account has a positive balance, but in fact it has a negative balance plus an advance on the check. This looks great until 7-10 days later, when the check bounces. At that time, the bank will cancel the advance, and reality will set in. You will now have an open bank account, legally opened by you in your own name, which is deeply in debt. Meanwhile, the scammer walks away with all the money that you sent them (which cleared quickly). There are many variants which can hide the details. Some can play games with check kiting to try to make your first check clear (then try to rope you in for a more painful hit). Some will change the instruments they use (checks are the easy ones, so they're simply most common). Don't try to think \"\"maybe this one is legit.\"\" These scammers literally make a living off of making shady transactions look legit. Things I would recommend looking out for:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ce583345d3b1edc1a00356f0e5996be", "text": "This is a scam. There is no soldier, no money ... This is a story to gain sympathy and make one part with Bank account and other details so that the scammer can make away with your money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "456c1399b8629f00c658ad7617c2ead5", "text": "It's got every sign of a scam. Signatures are needed on contracts, so you should only place them on below one. Free money sounds too good to be true. Money evading banks is a typical sign of money laundering; why are they trying to avoid paper trails? The normal way to gift money is to just hand it over or pay it to a bank account. If anything, you sign a tax declaration, but you would send that to the taxman yourself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a0262bed023fcc3be14a38a1572465b", "text": "I wonder if your rational thinking is getting confused by the prospects of getting some deposit from that person? He needs, amongst other things : •online access username •online access password Ok, so you have 1000 in your account. They deposit 500 and you are happy. Then they take out all 1500 and you're done :) How can you not think it is a scam when you're giving them your login as well. Here is an analogy. Some stranger asks you for keys of your home (while you're away) and tells you he will just go in place a gift inside your door and go away. Would you give him your keys and come home later expecting a gift to be there and nothing taken away? Is it a scam if the person only wants to deposit into my account, not make a withdrawal? Who is to tell? P.S: Sorry, please don't mind the rest of this answer but from it could also be related to a new relationship that you are in. Going ahead with this might cause you a lot of emotional harm as well. You seemingly trust that person when there are obvious signs that you are being defrauded, possibly in the name of love.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91b5aa73a2814feb10523862666ae38a", "text": "> Finally, she found notice from PayPal that a new e-mail address had been successfully added to her account! As far as she can tell, nothing was stolen, and she's changed and increased security for all her passwords. What's really weird is that PayPal looked into it, and reported that the request to add the new address came from (or had been well spoofed to look that way) our ISP, and our address. PayPal could say to within a few seconds when it happened, and it was at a time when all the humans here were asleep. The cats disclaim any interest in the computers Any hackers out there? If this was the doings of the insurance company, how would they have done this?", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d9e932032f8bf5e453921635ed947196	Can I claim GST/HST Input Tax Credits (ITCs) on Uber, taxi, or limousine fares?	[ { "docid": "f1be9d7231a61302958e09ca27c1c4fe", "text": "The Canada Revenue Agency describes in detail here what information businesses must generally include on their invoices so that GST/HST registrants can claim Input Tax Credits (ITCs) for the expenses. Quote: Sales invoices for GST/HST registrants You have to give customers who are GST/HST registrants specific information on the invoices, receipts, contracts, or other business papers that you use when you provide taxable goods and services. This information lets them support their claims for input tax credits (ITCs) or rebates for the GST/HST you charged. [...] The page quoted continues with a table describing what, specifically, needs to be on a sales invoice based on the total amount of the invoice; the requirements differ for: total sale under $30, total sale between $30 to $149.99, and total sale $150 or more. For the total sale under $30 category, the only things a sales invoice must contain to support an ITC claim are (1) the provider's business name, (2) the invoice date, and (3) the total amount paid/payable. i.e. When the total sale is under $30, there is no requirement for any GST/HST amount to be indicated separately, nor for a business number to be present on the invoice. Hence, IMHO (and I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer), if your Uber rides are for $30 or less, then you shouldn't expect a GST/HST number anyway, and a simple invoice as described should be enough for you to claim your ITCs. Whether or not the provider is registered in fact for GST/HST is beside the point. For amounts over $30, you need a bit more. While the page above specifies that the provider's business number should be included beginning with the next level of total sales, there are exceptions to those rules described at another page mentioned, Exceptions to invoice requirements, that specifically apply to the taxi/limousine case. Quote: Exceptions to invoice requirements GST/HST registrants are required to keep the necessary documentation to support their claim for ITCs and rebates. In certain circumstances the documentation requirements have been reduced. [...] For taxi or limousine fares your books and records must show: So at a minimum, for fare in excess of $30 total, you should ask the driver to note either (a) the amount of GST/HST charged, or (b) a statement that the fare includes GST/HST. The driver's business number need not be specified. Consequently, if your receipt for a ride in excess of $30 does not contain any such additional information with respect to GST/HST, then I would expect the receipt does not satisfy the CRA's requirements for supporting your ITC claim. i.e. Keep your individual rides under $30 each, or else get a better receipt from the driver when it is above that amount. p.s. It should go without saying, but your rides, of course, must be considered reasonable business expenses in order to qualify for GST/HST ITCs for your business. Receipts for rides of a personal nature are not eligible, so be sure to maintain proper records as to the business purpose and destination for each ride receipt so claimed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51328a301d4669335b4e1106f2a1a7dc", "text": "Apparently Canadians have not been paying any tax on Uber rides, and will only begin to do so on July 1, 2017. Source: http://mobilesyrup.com/2017/03/22/uber-canada-gst-hst-budget-2017/", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ed9e547c7fe50befd984c0eaa6a63f05", "text": "The best way to do this is to pay for the entire car, including gas, insurance, and repairs, from S-corp funds, then meticulously track how many miles are used for personal and how many miles for business. If you pay with S-corp funds, you will claim the personal miles as a taxable benefit from the S-corp on your personal return. The S-corp can then claim all the expenses and depreciation on the vehicle, reducing the S-corp's tax liability.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9b14590f5f078d5cf8ba640325c7ff0", "text": "\"Yes, they are. Ridesharing is just a term for Unmarked taxi booked through app. I have no issue with that, since \"\"Government regulated taxi\"\" is so awful in almost every city on earth, that ridesharing has improved safety and convenience.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "798170778594d0e501f31a16af9790d5", "text": "\"Reimbursements for business expenses are generally not taxable, but the commute from home to the job and back is not considered business travel and if they're paying for that it is taxable income. I don't think carpooling changes that, but I am not a tax lawyer or accountant. The rest of your questions seem to be company policy issues. There is no \"\"should\"\" here. You aren't required to pick up the other guys, but he isn't required to reimburse those miles (or employ you) so think carefully about your priorities before pushing back. Never invoke what thou canst not banish.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3fac14afc592b93b8ce9f478f10e9464", "text": "I really appreciate the long response! You clearly have more knowledge than me in regards to the finance end of the business. That said, is there so much money/debt tied up in taxi licenses and medallions that it would create even a mini financial market crash? If so, how would we (investors) profit from the situation?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "865615acb30248354ccda7ef4be8a01b", "text": "\"I've been in a very similar situation to yours in the past. Since the company is reimbursing you at a flat rate (I assume you don't need to provide documentation/receipts in order to be paid the per diem), it's not directly connected to the $90 in expenses that you mention. Unless they were taking taxes out that would need to be reimbursed, the separate category for Assets:Reimbursable:Gotham City serves no real purpose, other than to categorize the expenses. Since there is no direct relationship between your expenses and the reimbursement, I would list them as completely separate transactions: Later, if you needed to locate all of the associated expenses with the Gotham trip, gnucash lets you search on memo text for \"\"Gotham\"\" and will display all of the related transactions. This is a lot cleaner than having to determine what piece of the per diem goes to which expenses, or having to create a new Asset account every time you go on a trip.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e2e82582aad3b282c8ed97bf42cf423", "text": "One important thing though, while the experience is generally 90% the same to the rider, drivers may have vastly different experiences with the two companies. As long as there are fares to pick up drivers will probably still drive for a service, but that is another, secondary demographic of users that ride sharing companies need to consider/support/keep happy. And that side of things can have a hugely varying user experiences based on how the companies operate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d3077586f1ca10a37851e7b9c4f23a8", "text": "\"It looks like the HST will be in effect in Ontario on July 1st, 2010. As to whether it will replace GST with HST for all services, it looks like some sectors may get special treatment: Ontario may exempt mutual funds from HST (National Post). But it doesn't look final yet. However, I would suggest that most service-based businesses in Ontario need to prepare to start charging 13% HST instead of 5% GST. It will be the law. On the \"\"goods\"\" side of the new harmonized tax, it looks like certain goods will still be exempt from the provincial portion. Here's a quote from the Ontario Budget 2009 News Release: \"\"Books, diapers, children's clothing and footwear, children's car seats and car booster seats, and feminine hygiene products would be exempt from the provincial portion of the single sales tax.\"\" Here's some additional information on the introduction of the HST, from the province: General Transitional Rules for Ontario HST. And finally, another interesting article from the Ottawa Business Journal: Preparing For Ontario Sales Tax Harmonization – It's Not Too Early UPDATE: I just received an insert from Canada Revenue Agency included with my quarterly GST statement. Titled \"\"Harmonization of the Sales Tax in Ontario and British Columbia\"\", it contains a section titled \"\"What this means for you\"\" (as in, you the business owner). Here's an excerpt: [...] All Ontario and B.C. registrants would need to update their accounting and point-of-sale systems to accomodate the change in rate and new point-of-sale rebates for the implementation date of July 1, 2010. The harmonization of the sales tax in Ontario and B.C. may affect the filing requirements of registrants outside of these two provinces. Registrants will report their HST according to their current GST filing frequency. As a result of the harmonization, there will be changes to the rebates for housing and public service bodies. More information will be released as it becomes available. Visit the CRA web site often, at www.cra.gc.ca/harmonization, for the most up-to-date information on the harmonization of the sales tax and how it may affect you. [...] Last, I found some very detailed information on the HST here: NOTICE247 - Harmonized Sales Tax for Ontario and British Columbia - Questions and Answers on General Transitional Rules for Personal Property and Services. Chances are anything you want to know is in there.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd32fe9ac63a48f7adcb39dea2923ad9", "text": "I am an Israeli based citizen who represents and Indian company who sells its products in Israel. As an agent I am entitled to commission on sales on behalf the Indian company who advised that. Any commission paid to you will be applicable to TDS at 20.9% of the commission amount, the tax will be paid and a Tax paid certificate will be given to you. According to a Bilateral Double tax avoidance treaty if the tax has been deducted in India you will get credit for this tax in Israel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edcc0906cab85e7fb383412944be83d2", "text": "Hourly rate is not the determinant. You could be selling widgets, not hours. Rather, there's a $30,000 annual revenue threshold for GST/HST. If your business's annual revenues fall below that amount, you don't need to register for GST/HST and in such case you don't charge your clients the tax. You could still choose to register for GST/HST if your revenues are below the threshold, in which case you must charge your clients the tax. Some businesses voluntarily enroll for GST/HST, even when below the threshold, so they can claim input tax credits. If your annual revenues exceed $30,000, you must register for GST/HST and you must charge your clients the tax. FWIW, certain kinds of supplies are exempt, but the kind of services you'd be offering as an independent contractor in Canada aren't likely to be. There's more to the GST/HST than this, so be sure to talk to a tax accountant. References:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82d2d4a07821a9bb5dad39c545650d9a", "text": "Assuming you have registered your activities as partnership and receiving this money as Individual, you need to show this under Schedule OS, 1d [other income]. this will be under the ITR-2 [tab CG-OS] XLS tax preparation utility given by Tax Department. The XLS can be found at https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/individual_huf.do If the funds you are receiving are large [more than say Rs 500,000] then suggest you incorporate a partnership firm or company, there are quite a few exceptions you can claim lowering you tax outgo. The fact that you are transferring funds to your partners can be an issue incase you get audited. You would need to have sufficient evidence to show that the money paid was for services rendered directly and not your income. It would be easier if you create a partnership or have the client directly pay to them. Again if the sum is small its fine, as the sum becomes large, it would get noticed by the tax authorities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "691b6d6029c2f362848881780986f078", "text": "I think you can. I went to Mexico for business and the company paid for it, so if you are self employed you should be able to expense it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c27a6745db872edf0b1741bb3136b829", "text": "\"A C-Corp is not a pass-through entity, any applicable taxes would be paid by the Corporation, which is a separate legal entity from yourself. If you use the points to purchase something for yourself, that would constitute \"\"income\"\" to you, and would be taxable on your personal income tax.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6596d074e54060305ee4274ca92893b", "text": "\"Going by the information from Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the Australian Government website, there seem to be a number of possibilities. Note: First I am neither a tax expert nor a lawyer; this is simply my interpretation of the rules on the page linked above. Second, this interpretation is based on the assumption that \"\"resells a service\"\" means you (at least technically) buy the service from another company and sell it on to the users of your app. Depending on the nature of the service, and possibly factors such as whether you are deemed to \"\"take possession\"\" during the transaction, it might be that different rules apply. Your Turnover is Under A$75,000 (Providing you're not reselling taxi services!) You won't need to register for GST, should not charge it, and your invoices should show that GST was not included in the price. However, if the turnover of the company whose services you are reselling is registered for GST, they will be charging you GST that you will not be able to claim back, so you would need to factor this into the price you charge your users (before any promotional discount). For example: Your Turnover is Over A$75,000 If your turnover is above the limit, you would need to charge GST on the final sale amount and pay this amount (one eleventh of the price your customer paid) to the Australian Government. You also have to send out properly-formatted tax invoices. However, it's probably safe to say the company you are buying the original service from will also be over the GST threshold, so you should be able to reclaim the GST that was charged to you by them. For example: Here, your overall profit/loss is helped by the fact that you can reclaim the GST you were charged, and can under some circumstances result in an overall rebate. These figures assume you add 10% to your selling price to cover the GST you have to pay the Government. However, this may make your offering uncompetitive, so you may have to absorb some/all of the GST yourself.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95dd36e4d0bd04692f5031191b9c6a52", "text": "\"Regarding vehicle property tax in Virgina. The big difference is that business vehicles don't get a tax break: Under Virginia law -- the Personal Property Tax Relief Act of 1998 (PPTRA, also known as the \"\"No Car Tax\"\" legislation) -- the State planned to subsidize 100% of the taxes on personal use vehicle assessments below $20,000 by the year 2002. In passing this law, the State effectively pledged state revenue to pay local governments throughout the Commonwealth a subsidy in lieu of personal property taxes that local governments would have otherwise collected directly from taxpayers. At present, the State pays approximately 62% of the bill, and the taxpayer pays the remaining 38%. These rates are subject to change annually. The taxpayer must pay the full amount of taxes on any vehicle assessment that exceeds $20,000. Only personal use vehicles qualify for PPTRA. If that vehicle is worth 20K then a business will pay 4.57% of 20,000, but an individual will pay 4.57% of 7,600. A difference of $566 per year.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1075f7878643114cf6782d191f3599ae", "text": "From your first link: IRS.gov: IRA One-Rollover-Per-Year-Rule IRA One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule Beginning in 2015, you can make only one rollover from an IRA to another (or the same) IRA in any 12-month period, regardless of the number of IRAs you own (Announcement 2014-15 and Announcement 2014-32). The limit will apply by aggregating all of an individual’s IRAs, including SEP and SIMPLE IRAs as well as traditional and Roth IRAs, effectively treating them as one IRA for purposes of the limit. They are limiting your ability to roll over money from an IRA to an IRA. You are looking to go from a 401K to an IRA. That is fine. The idea was that some people were taking all money from their IRA, using it for almost 60 days, then putting it back into an IRA. Thus getting a sort of short term loan. They could do this multiple times in a year. The direct trustee-to-trustee transfer are exempt from the once per year rule because the money is never in your possession. Moving money from a 401K/403b/TSP plan from your former employer to an IRA or Roth IRA is fine, and isn't limited to once per year.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
f4ce4a9517dde032d891fa4d6ff99349	Investment strategies for young adults with entrepreneurial leanings?	[ { "docid": "33a18214048d00ec5c14fc9655f16b82", "text": "If you are an entrepreneur, and you are looking forward to strike on your own ( the very definition of entrepreneur) then I suggest that you don't invest in anything except your business and yourself. You will need all the money you have when you launch your business. There will be times when your revenue won't be able to cover your living costs, and that's when you need your cash. At that point of time, do you really want to have your cash tie up in stock market/property? Some more, instead of diverting your attention to learn how the stock market/property works, focus on your business. You will find that the reward is much, much greater. The annual stock market return is 7% to 15%. But the return from entrepreneurship can be many times higher than that. So make sure you go for the bigger prize, not the smaller gains. It's only when your business no longer requires your capital then you can try to find other means of investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a49bebeec026b0bc150ec6b1e3b579a", "text": "Diversity of risk is always a good idea. The cheapest equity-based investment (in terms of management costs) is some form of tracker or indexed fund. They're relatively low risk and worth putting in a fixed amount for long-term investment. I agree with Ngu Soon Hui, you're going to need a lot of cash if you decide to start your own business. You may have to cover a significant amount of time without an income and you don't want all your cash tied up. However, putting all your money into one business is not good risk management. Keep some savings where they can be a lifeline, should you need it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a427a599b24669cd353c69fa32a4cf4d", "text": "I talk about this subject on my blog on investing, I share everything that has worked for me personally and that makes sense. I would say the ideal investment would be to continue the entrepreneur route. Just make sure you have a clear plan and exit strategy. For me it's all about passion, I love blogging about personal experiences with life, money, and anything that affects our lives. Find something that you would talk about whether you were paid or not and create a business off of it. You'll never work a day in your life because you love it.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "bc86e5c2e5f05a875a6661be66ed5bcb", "text": "Sometimes invested capital is expected to earn interest, I've seen this be a stipulation in LLC operating agreements and Corporate bylaws. I thought this arrangement looks a little less than fair. BTW I'm a college freshman, though I do the finances for my parents' regulatory compliance and governance consulting company. Anyhow, that's just my two cents.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69e661b4e1154b9542f9d63bc5d62bbb", "text": "So I did some queries on Google Scholar, and the term of art academics seem to use is target date fund. I notice divided opinions among academics on the matter. W. Pfau gave a nice set of citations of papers with which he disagrees, so I'll start with them. In 1969, Paul Sameulson published the paper Lifetime Portfolio Selection By Dynamic Stochaistic Programming, which found that there's no mathematical foundation for an age based risk tolerance. There seems to be a fundamental quibble relating to present value of future wages; if they are stable and uncorrelated with the market, one analysis suggests the optimal lifecycle investment should start at roughly 300 percent of your portfolio in stocks (via crazy borrowing). Other people point out that if your wages are correlated with stock returns, allocations to stock as low as 20 percent might be optimal. So theory isn't helping much. Perhaps with the advent of computers we can find some kind of empirical data. Robert Shiller authored a study on lifecycle funds when they were proposed for personal Social Security accounts. Lifecycle strategies fare poorly in his historical simulation: Moreover, with these life cycle portfolios, relatively little is contributed when the allocation to stocks is high, since earnings are relatively low in the younger years. Workers contribute only a little to stocks, and do not enjoy a strong effect of compounding, since the proceeds of the early investments are taken out of the stock market as time goes on. Basu and Drew follow up on that assertion with a set of lifecycle strategies and their contrarian counterparts: whereas a the lifecycle plan starts high stock exposure and trails off near retirement, the contrarian ones will invest in bonds and cash early in life and move to stocks after a few years. They show that contrarian strategies have higher average returns, even at the low 25th percentile of returns. It's only at the bottom 5 or 10 percent where this is reversed. One problem with these empirical studies is isolating the effect of the glide path from rebalancing. It could be that a simple fixed allocation works plenty fine, and that selling winners and doubling down on losers is the fundamental driver of returns. Schleef and Eisinger compare lifecycle strategy with a number of fixed asset allocation schemes in Monte Carlo simulations and conclude that a 70% equity, 30% long term corp bonds does as well as all of the lifecycle funds. Finally, the earlier W Pfau paper offers a Monte Carlo simulation similar to Schleef and Eisinger, and runs final portfolio values through a utility function designed to calculate diminishing returns to more money. This seems like a good point, as the risk of your portfolio isn't all or nothing, but your first dollar is more valuable than your millionth. Pfau finds that for some risk-aversion coefficients, lifecycles offer greater utility than portfolios with fixed allocations. And Pfau does note that applying their strategies to the historical record makes a strong recommendation for 100 percent stocks in all but 5 years from 1940-2011. So maybe the best retirement allocation is good old low cost S&P index funds!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18e2dbbfbc4a95e3a737de96b732f1da", "text": "You are young so you have time on your side. This allows you to invest in more aggressive investments. I would do the following 1) Contribute at least what your company is willing to match on your 401k, if your company offers a Roth 401k use that instead of the normal 401k (When this becomes available to you) 2) Open a Roth IRA Contribute the maximum to this account ~$5500/year 3) Live below your means, setup a budget and try and save/invest a minimum of 50% of your salary, do not get used to spending more money. With each bonus or salary increase a minimum of 75% of it should go toward your savings/investment. This will keep you from rapidly increasing your spending budget. 3) Invest in real estate (this could be its own post). Being young and not too far out of college you have probably been moving every year and have not accumulated so much stuff that it makes moving difficult. I would utilize your FHA loan slot to buy a multifamily property (2-4 Units) for your first property using only 3.5% down payment (you can put more down if you like). Learn how to analyze properties first and find a great Realtor/Mentor. Then I would continue as a NOMAD investor. Where you move every year into a new owner occupied property and turn the previous into a rental. This allows you to put 3-5% down payment of properties that you would otherwise have to put 20-25% and since you are young you can afford the risk. You should check out this article/website as it is very informative and can show you the returns that you could earn. Young Professional Nomad Good luck I am in a very similar situation", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e581c27f5031f5164a7926715fae4f3", "text": "Whey protein, coffee, skills, skills, skills did I mention skills? Learn useful things and no debt. As for actual investment vehicles.. I have bad views of what is going to happen of the next 10 years.. I doubt you'll be allowed to own anything you invested in....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db4f592662f61d0769da885278c96784", "text": "An ideal investment for a highly risk tolerant college grad with a background in software and programming, is a software company. That's because it's the kind of investment that you will be able to judge better than most other people, including yours truly. Hopefully, one day the software company for a highly risk tolerant investor will be your own.(Ask Bill Gates or even Michael Dell, although the latter was more involved in hardware.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c00e188521bb82ead41c19c72e51825", "text": "\"Aggressiveness in a retirement portfolio is usually a function of your age and your risk tolerance. Your portfolio is usually a mix of the following asset classes: You can break down these asset classes further, but each one is a topic unto itself. If you are young, you want to invest in things that have a higher return, but are more volatile, because market fluctuations (like the current financial meltdown) will be long gone before you reach retirement age. This means that at a younger age, you should be investing more in stocks and foreign/developing countries. If you are older, you need to be into more conservative investments (bonds, money market, etc). If you were in your 50s-60s and still heavily invested in stock, something like the current financial crisis could have ruined your retirement plans. (A lot of baby boomers learned this the hard way.) For most of your life, you will probably be somewhere in between these two. Start aggressive, and gradually get more conservative as you get older. You will probably need to re-check your asset allocation once every 5 years or so. As for how much of each investment class, there are no hard and fast rules. The idea is to maximize return while accepting a certain amount of risk. There are two big unknowns in there: (1) how much return do you expect from the various investments, and (2) how much risk are you willing to accept. #1 is a big guess, and #2 is personal opinion. A general portfolio guideline is \"\"100 minus your age\"\". This means if you are 20, you should have 80% of your retirement portfolio in stocks. If you are 60, your retirement portfolio should be 40% stock. Over the years, the \"\"100\"\" number has varied. Some financial advisor types have suggested \"\"150\"\" or \"\"200\"\". Unfortunately, that's why a lot of baby boomers can't retire now. Above all, re-balance your portfolio regularly. At least once a year, perhaps quarterly if the market is going wild. Make sure you are still in-line with your desired asset allocation. If the stock market tanks and you are under-invested in stocks, buy more stock, selling off other funds if necessary. (I've read interviews with fund managers who say failure to rebalance in a down stock market is one of the big mistakes people make when managing a retirement portfolio.) As for specific mutual fund suggestions, I'm not going to do that, because it depends on what your 401k or IRA has available as investment options. I do suggest that your focus on selecting a \"\"passive\"\" index fund, not an actively managed fund with a high expense ratio. Personally, I like \"\"total market\"\" funds to give you the broadest allocation of small and big companies. (This makes your question about large/small cap stocks moot.) The next best choice would be an S&P 500 index fund. You should also be able to find a low-cost Bond Index Fund that will give you a healthy mix of different bond types. However, you need to look at expense ratios to make an informed decision. A better-performing fund is pointless if you lose it all to fees! Also, watch out for overlap between your fund choices. Investing in both a Total Market fund, and an S&P 500 fund undermines the idea of a diversified portfolio. An aggressive portfolio usually includes some Foreign/Developing Nation investments. There aren't many index fund options here, so you may have to go with an actively-managed fund (with a much higher expense ratio). However, this kind of investment can be worth it to take advantage of the economic growth in places like China. http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/04/27/how-to-create-your-own-target-date-mutual-fund/\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f06a650f6e12c270ce086e21c87761e3", "text": "\"Great question! While investing in individual stocks can be very useful as a learning experience, my opinion is that concentrating an entire portfolio in a few companies' stock is a mistake for most investors, and especially for a novice for several reasons. After all, only a handful of professional investors have ever beaten the market over the long term by picking stocks, so is it really worth trying? If you could, I'd say go work on Wall Street and good luck to you. Diversification For many investors, diversification is an important reason to use an ETF or index fund. If they were to focus on a few sectors or companies, it is more likely that they would have a lop-sided risk profile and might be subject to a larger downside risk potential than the market as a whole, i.e. \"\"don't put all your eggs in one basket\"\". Diversification is important because of the nature of compound investing - if you take a significant hit, it will take you a long time to recover because all of your future gains are building off of a smaller base. This is one reason that younger investors often take a larger position in equities, as they have longer to recover from significant market declines. While it is very possible to build a balanced, diversified portfolio from individual stocks, this isn't something I'd recommend for a new investor and would require a substantial college-level understanding of investments, and in any case, this portfolio would have a more discrete efficient frontier than the market as a whole. Lower Volatility Picking individual stocks or sectors would could also significantly increase or decrease the overall volatility of the portfolio relative to the market, especially if the stocks are highly cyclical or correlated to the same market factors. So if they are buying tech stocks, they might see bigger upswings and downswings compared to the market as a whole, or see the opposite effect in the case of utilities. In other words, owning a basket of individual stocks may result in an unintended volatility/beta profile. Lower Trading Costs and Taxes Investors who buy individual stocks tend to trade more in an attempt to beat the market. After accounting for commission fees, transaction costs (bid/ask spread), and taxes, most individual investors get only a fraction of the market average return. One famous academic study finds that investors who trade more trail the stock market more. Trading also tends to incur higher taxes since short term gains (<1 year) are taxed at marginal income tax rates that are higher than long term capital gains. Investors tend to trade due to behavioral failures such as trying to time the market, being overconfident, speculating on stocks instead of long-term investing, following what everyone else is doing, and getting in and out of the market as a result of an emotional reaction to volatility (ie buying when stocks are high/rising and selling when they are low/falling). Investing in index funds can involve minimal fees and discourages behavior that causes investors to incur excessive trading costs. This can make a big difference over the long run as extra costs and taxes compound significantly over time. It's Hard to Beat the Market since Markets are Quite Efficient Another reason to use funds is that it is reasonable to assume that at any point in time, the market does a fairly good job of pricing securities based on all known information. In other words, if a given stock is trading at a low P/E relative to the market, the market as a whole has decided that there is good reason for this valuation. This idea is based on the assumption that there are already so many professional analysts and traders looking for arbitrage opportunities that few such opportunities exist, and where they do exist, persist for only a short time. If you accept this theory generally (obviously, the market is not perfect), there is very little in the way of insight on pricing that the average novice investor could provide given limited knowledge of the markets and only a few hours of research. It might be more likely that opportunities identified by the novice would reflect omissions of relevant information. Trying to make money in this way then becomes a bet that other informed, professional investors are wrong and you are right (options traders, for example). Prices are Unpredictable (Behave Like \"\"Random\"\" Walks) If you want to make money as a long-term investor/owner rather than a speculator/trader, than most of the future change in asset prices will be a result of future events and information that is not yet known. Since no one knows how the world will change or who will be tomorrow's winners or losers, much less in 30 years, this is sometimes referred to as a \"\"random walk.\"\" You can point to fundamental analysis and say \"\"X company has great free cash flow, so I will invest in them\"\", but ultimately, the problem with this type of analysis is that everyone else has already done it too. For example, Warren Buffett famously already knows the price at which he'd buy every company he's interested in buying. When everyone else can do the same analysis as you, the price already reflects the market's take on that public information (Efficent Market theory), and what is left is the unknown (I wouldn't use the term \"\"random\"\"). Overall, I think there is simply a very large potential for an individual investor to make a few mistakes with individual stocks over 20+ years that will really cost a lot, and I think most investors want a balance of risk and return versus the largest possible return, and don't have an interest in developing a professional knowledge of stocks. I think a better strategy for most investors is to share in the future profits of companies buy holding a well-diversified portfolio for the long term and to avoid making a large number of decisions about which stocks to own.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "19a399279fa3d682c76b0f1cb8422a2e", "text": "IMO almost any sensible decision is better than parking money in a retirement account, when you are young. Some better choices: 1) Invest in yourself, your skills, your education. Grad school is one option within that. 2) Start a small business, build a customer base. 3) Travel, adventure, see the world. Meet and talk to lots of different people. Note that all my advice revolves around investing in YOURSELF, growing your skills and/or your experiences. This is worth FAR more to you than a few percent a year. Take big risks when you are young. You will need maybe $1m+ (valued at today's money) to retire comfortably. How will you get there? Most people can only achieve that by taking bigger risks, and investing in themselves.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0a5855b5ced372bdbf8af7f1267c5ced", "text": "I think your best strategy is to learn more about the behavior of what you're investing in. Learn everything you can about it. Specialize in it. The more you study, the more the proper strategy will present itself. Answer the questions you ask in paragraph 3 through your own study.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0602eb2408df6d73c04c5a0a08efd72a", "text": "\"If that's your goal. Watch the entire webinar on warren buffet books by Preston Pysh first for a good intro into stocks bonds etc: https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLECECA66C0CE68B1E&v=KfDB9e_cO4k Read Dale Carnegies book \"\"How to Win Friends and Influence People\"\" in order to learn how to communicate to people effectively and create networks. The most important skill in any field you choose to go into. Read \"\"The Everything Store\"\" for essentially an MBA in business. Read \"\"The Intelligent Investor\"\" by Benjamin graham for a bachelors in finance. Then take classes that get you the very best professors in the field of finance, economics, and business at your school and make sure you never stop asking questions. Continue to develop your skills and create good saving & communication habits. And if you want great jobs, get internships. To get internships be involved in as much as you can in campus and take leadership roles (especially when you think you can't handle it) you will grow quickly as a leader and businessman if you do it right. If reading is a bit much for you, try audiobooks. And make sure you enjoy college and surround yourself with ambitious youngsters like yourself. It will help you grow. Enjoy school and be social, make mistakes and do whatever it takes to get a minimum 3.5 GPA (get old tests study groups easy teachers or GPA boosting classes if you need to) Aight that's all I got haha\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d1c127a3e9e3982f880d91565d518c2", "text": "I recall similar strategies when (in the US) interest rates were quite a bit higher than now. The investment company put 75% or so into into a 5 year guaranteed bond, the rest was placed in stock index options. In effect, one had a guaranteed return (less inflation, of course) of principal, and a chance for some market gains especially if it went a lot higher over the next 5 years. The concept is sound if executed correctly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43e29fa4421236af230cf2f47a04c70e", "text": "\"I would like to add my accolades in saving $3000, it is an accomplishment that the majority of US households are unable to achieve. source While it is something, in some ways it is hardly anything. Working part time at a entry level job will earn you almost three times this amount per year, and with the same job you can earn about as much in two weeks as this investment is likely to earn, in the market in one year. All this leads to one thing: At your age you should be looking to increase your income. No matter if it is college or a high paying trade, whatever you can do to increase your life time earning potential would be the best investment for this money. I would advocate a more patient approach. Stick the money in the bank until you complete your education enough for an \"\"adult job\"\". Use it, if needed, for training to get that adult job. Get a car, a place of your own, and a sufficient enough wardrobe. Save an emergency fund. Then invest with impunity. Imagine two versions of yourself. One with basic education, a average to below average salary, that uses this money to invest in the stock market. Eventually that money will be needed and it will probably be pulled out of the market at an in opportune time. It might worth less than the original 3K! Now imagine a second version of yourself that has an above average salary due to some good education or training. Perhaps that 3K was used to help provide that education. However, this second version will probably earn 25,000 to 75,000 per year then the first version. Which one do you want to be? Which one do you think will be wealthier? Better educated people not only earn more, they are out of work less. You may want to look at this chart.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8fa04eaae270a59d75c5b36c12e036b", "text": "\"Between \"\"fresh out of college\"\" and \"\"I have no debts, and a support system in place which because of which I can take higher risks.\"\" I would put every penny I could afford in the riskiest investment platform I was willing to. Holding onto money in a bank account is likely to cost you %1-%2 a year depending on what interest rates are and what inflation looks like. Money invested in a market could loose it all for you or you could become an overnight millionaire. Loosing it all would suck but you are young you will bounce back. Losing it slowly to inflation is just silly when you are young. If there is something you know you have to do in the next few years start to save for it but otherwise use the fact that you are young and have a safety net to try to make money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a3c83dcfcc7f65c371782525e80bd26", "text": "Given what you state you should shop around for an advisor. Think of the time required to pursue your strategies that you list? They already have studied much of what you seek to learn about. Any good investor should understand the basics. This is Canadian based but many of the concepts are universal. Hope you find it helpful. http://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/Pages/default.aspx", "title": "" }, { "docid": "551e04ec2baa8f1a64f61ef6cd41daff", "text": "The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books - This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily/weekly/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
7e9745cf3f781df1210a02eb285e4c86	Settling before T+3?	[ { "docid": "b52b3111d42d2c95432b983ec29ce190", "text": "It is possible but unlikely. Securities firms would prefer never to settle externally; rather, they prefer to wait until the liabilities can be netted. They are forced to make and take payment in three business days. The reason why is because settlement is costly in the same way as any other business would prefer to build trade credit instead of taking or making payment rapidly. The only circumstance where a financial firm would wish to take full delivery is when a counterparty is no longer trusted to be solvent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "123b23a493b497031a0d631a994c11dc", "text": "The T+3 settlement date only affects cash accounts. In a cash account, you need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your funds to be available to make your next trade. But if you convert your cash account into a margin account, then you do not need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your next trade - your broker will allow you to make another trade immediately.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "1623a2eb8a76a355435bac24727d8667", "text": "\"The T+3 \"\"rule\"\" relates only to accounting and not to trading. It does not prevent you from day trading. It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade. When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the information you need to know the cash amounts that will hit your account three business days later. In a cash account, cash postings that arise from trading are treated as unsettled (for three days), but this does not mean that these funds are available for further trading. If you have $25,000 in your account on day 1, this does not mean that you will be able to trade more than $25,000 because your cash account has not yet been debited. Most cash accounts will include an item detailing \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". This will net out any unsettled business transacted. For example, if you have a cash account balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you purchase $10,000 worth of shares, then pending settlement in your cash account you will only have $15,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". Similarly, if you have a cash balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you \"\"day trade\"\", purchasing $15,000 and selling $10,000 worth of shares, then you will have the net of $20,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\" ($20,000 = $25,000 - $15,000 + $10,000). If by \"\"prop account\"\" you mean an account where you give discretion to a broker to trade on your behalf, then I think the issues of accounting will be the least of your worries. You will need to be worried about not being fleeced out of your hard earned savings by someone far more interested in lining their own pockets than making money for you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bfae4ee3ce21e5318f8c77e2a1927e1", "text": "I would use neither method. Taking a short example first, with just three compounding periods, with interest rate 10%. The start value y0 is 1. So after three years the value is 1.331, the same as y0 (1 + 0.1)^3. Depreciating (like inflation) by 10% (to demonstrate) gets us back to y0 = 1 Appreciating and depreciating by 10% cancels out: Appreciating by 10% interest and depreciating by 3% inflation: This is the same as y0 (1 + 0.1)^3 (1 + 0.03)^-3 = 1.21805 So for 50 years the result is y0 (1 + 0.1)^50 (1 + 0.03)^-50 = 26.7777 Note You can of course use subtraction but the not using the inflation figure directly. E.g. (edit: This appears to be the Fisher equation.) 2nd Note Further to comments, here is a chart to illustrate how much the relative performance improves when inflation is accounted for. The first fund's return is 6% and the second fund's return varies from 3% to 6%. Inflation is 3%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cab8a85705f3c03341cab69c7efa553e", "text": "If you look at history, it shows that the more people predict corrections the less was the chance they came. That doesn't prove it stays so, though. 2017 is not any different than other years in the future: Independent of this, with less than ten years remaining until you need to draw from your money, it is a good idea to move away from high risk (and high gain); you will not have enough time to recover if it goes awry. There are different approaches, but you should slowly and continuously migrate your capital to less risky investments. Pick some good days and move 10% or 20% each time to low-risk, so that towards the end of the remaining time 90 or 100% are low or zero risk investments. Many investment banks and retirement funds offer dedicated funds for that, they are called 'Retirement 2020' or 'Retirement 2030'; they do exactly this 'slow and continuous moving over' for you; just pick the right one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05206e3fc916ec4bb82e8b3111591c6b", "text": "\"Depends on your account. If you have a margin account, then you can \"\"withdraw\"\" the margin, and it will get paid off/settled on T+3. However if it's a cash account then you will most likely need to wait. Call your broker and ask, each broker has different rules.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f53938fe4acef1c5ca2cc4e5bb639f7", "text": "\"TLDR: Why can't banks give me my money? We don't have your money. Who has my money? About half a dozen different people all over the world. And we need to coordinate with them and their banks to get you your money. I love how everyone seems to think that the securities industry has super powers. Believe me, even with T+3, you won't believe how many trades fail to settle properly. Yes, your trade is pretty simple. But Cash Equity trades in general can be very complicated (for the layman). Your sell order will have been pushed onto an algorithmic platform, aggregated with other sell order, and crossed with internal buy orders. The surplus would then be split out by the algo to try and get the best price based on \"\"orders\"\" on the market. Finally the \"\"fills\"\" are used in settlement, which could potentially have been filled in multiple trades against multiple counterparties. In order to guarantee that the money can be in your account, we need 3 days. Also remember, we aren't JUST looking at your transaction. Each bank is looking to square off all the different trades between all their counter parties over a single day. Thousands of transactions/fills may have to be processed just for a single name. Finally because, there a many many transactions that do not settle automatically, our settlements team needs to co-ordinate with the other bank to make sure that you get your money. Bear in mind, banks being banks, we are working with systems that are older than I am. And all of the above is the \"\"simplest\"\" case, I haven't even factored in Dark Pools/Block trades, auctions, pre/post-market trading sessions, Foreign Exchange, Derivatives, KYC/AML.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e6eb756cc10517e78138928fe576fa8", "text": "\"Depositum irregulare is a Latin phrase that simply means \"\"irregular deposit.\"\" It's a concept from ancient Roman contract law that has a very narrow scope and doesn't actually apply to your example. There are two distinct parts to this concept, one dealing with the notion of a deposit and the other with the notion of irregularity. I'll address them both in turn since they're both relevant to the tax issue. I also think that this is an example of the XY problem, since your proposed solution (\"\"give my money to a friend for safekeeping\"\") isn't the right solution to your actual problem (\"\"how can I keep my money safe\"\"). The currency issue is a complication, but it doesn't change the fact that what you're proposing probably isn't a good solution. The key word in my definition of depositum irregulare is \"\"contract\"\". You don't mention a legally binding contract between you and your friend; an oral contract doesn't qualify because in the event of a breach, it's difficult to enforce the agreement. Legally, there isn't any proof of an oral agreement, and emotionally, taking your friend to court might cost you your friendship. I'm not a lawyer, but I would guess that the absence of a contract implies that even though in the eyes of you and your friend, you're giving him the money for \"\"safekeeping,\"\" in the eyes of the law, you're simply giving it to him. In the US, you would owe gift taxes on these funds if they're higher than a certain amount. In other words, this isn't really a deposit. It's not like a security deposit, in which the money may be held as collateral in exchange for a service, e.g. not trashing your apartment, or a financial deposit, where the money is held in a regulated financial institution like a bank. This isn't a solution to the problem of keeping your money safe because the lack of a contract means you incur additional risk in the form of legal risk that isn't present in the context of actual deposits. Also, if you don't have an account in the right currency, but your friend does, how are you planning for him to store the money anyway? If you convert your money into his currency, you take on exchange rate risk (unless you hedge, which is another complication). If you don't convert it and simply leave it in his safe, house, car boot, etc. you're still taking on risk because the funds aren't insured in the event of loss. Furthermore, the money isn't necessarily \"\"safe\"\" with your friend even if you ignore all the risks above. Without a written contract, you have little recourse if a) your friend decides to spend the money and not return it, b) your friend runs into financial trouble and creditors make claim to his assets, or c) you get into financial trouble and creditors make claims to your assets. The idea of giving money to another individual for safekeeping during bankruptcy has been tested in US courts and ruled invalid. If you do decide to go ahead with a contract and you do want your money back from your friend eventually, you're in essence loaning him money, and this is a different situation with its own complications. Look at this question and this question before loaning money to a friend. Although this does apply to your situation, it's mostly irrelevant because the \"\"irregular\"\" part of the concept of \"\"irregular deposit\"\" is a standard feature of currencies and other legal tender. It's part of the fungibility of modern currencies and doesn't have anything to do with taxes if you're only giving your friend physical currency. If you're giving him property, other assets, etc. for \"\"safekeeping\"\" it's a different issue entirely, but it's still probably going to be considered a gift or a loan. You're basically correct about what depositum irregulare means, but I think you're overestimating its reach in modern law. In Roman times, it simply refers to a contract in which two parties made an agreement for the depositor to deposit money or goods with the depositee and \"\"withdraw\"\" equivalent money or goods sometime in the future. Although this is a feature of the modern deposit banking system, it's one small part alongside contract law, deposit insurance, etc. These other parts add complexity, but they also add security and risk mitigation. Your arrangement with your friend is much simpler, but also much riskier. And yes, there probably are taxes on what you're proposing because you're basically giving or loaning the money to your friend. Even if you say it's not a loan or a gift, the law may still see it that way. The absence of a contract makes this especially important, because you don't have anything speaking in your favor in the event of a legal dispute besides \"\"what you meant the money to be.\"\" Furthermore, the money isn't necessarily safe with your friend, and the absence of a contract exacerbates this issue. If you want to keep your money safe, keep it in an account that's covered by deposit insurance. If you don't have an account in that currency, either a) talk to a lawyer who specializes in situation like this and work out a contract, or b) open an account with that currency. As I've stated, I'm not a lawyer, so none of the above should be interpreted as legal advice. That being said, I'll reiterate again that the concept of depositum irregulare is a concept from ancient Roman law. Trying to apply it within a modern legal system without a contract is a potential recipe for disaster. If you need a legal solution to this problem (not that you do; I think what you're looking for is a bank), talk to a lawyer who understands modern law, since ancient Roman law isn't applicable to and won't pass muster in a modern-day court.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b18dfb2f980c7c6e0d47ae978440fba3", "text": "\"The definition you cite is correct, but obscure. I prefer a forward looking definition. Consider the real investment. You make an original investment at some point in time. You make a series of further deposits and withdrawals at specified times. At some point after the last deposit/withdrawal, (the \"\"end\"\") the cash value of the investment is determined. Now, find a bank account that pays interest compounded daily. Possibly it should allow overdrafts where it charges the same interest rate. Make deposits and withdrawals to/from this account that match the investment payments in amount and date. At the \"\"end\"\" the value in this bank account is the same as the investment. The bank interest rate that makes this happen is the IRR for the investment...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b3ab4e4fb8cddfc0117247a078637e87", "text": "\"The settlement date for any trade is the date on which the seller gets the buyer's money and the buyer gets the seller's product. In US equities markets the settlement date is (almost universally) three trading days after the trade date. This settlement period gives the exchanges, the clearing houses, and the brokers time to figure out how many shares and how many dollars need to actually be moved around in order to give everyone what they're owed (and then to actually do all that moving around). So, \"\"settling\"\" a short trade is the same thing as settling any other trade. It has nothing to do with \"\"closing\"\" (or covering) the seller's short position. Q: Is this referring to when a short is initiated, or closed? A: Initiated. If you initiate a short position by selling borrowed shares on day 1, then settlement occurs on day 4. (Regardless of whether your short position is still open or has been closed.) Q: All open shorts which are still open by the settlement date have to be reported by the due date. A: Not exactly. The requirement is that all short positions evaluated based on their settlement dates (rather than their trade dates) still open on the deadline have to be reported by the due date. You sell short 100 AAPL on day 1. You then cover that short by buying 100 AAPL on day 2. As far as the clearing houses and brokers are concerned, however, you don't even get into the short position until your sell settles at the end of day 4, and you finally get out of your short position (in their eyes) when your buy settles at the end of day 5. So imagine the following scenarios: The NASDAQ deadline happens to be the end of day 2. Since your (FINRA member) broker has been told to report based on settlement date, it would report no open position for you in AAPL even though you executed a trade to sell on day 1. The NASDAQ deadline happens to be the end of day 3. Your sell still has not settled, so there's still no open position to report for you. The NASDAQ deadline happens to be the end of day 4. Your sell has settled but your buy has not, so the broker reports a 100 share open short position for you. The NASDAQ deadline happens to be the end of day 5. Your sell and buy have both settled, so the broker once again has no open position to report for you. So, the point is that when dealing with settlement dates you just pretend the world is 3 days behind where it actually is.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9136a647ab0179c71a5d473f896d3a87", "text": "\"JoeTaxpayer nailed it. Here's another way to look at it: Generally, we invest in something, then might leave it there for a few years, then take it out, but don't touch it in between. In that case, to get the final amount X(N), we need to take the initial amount, then multiply by growth in the first year, then multiply by growth in the second year, etc. So, for three years, we have: X(3) = X(0) G(1) * G(2) * G(3) = X(0) * \"\"average annual growth\"\" ^ 3 So, here, we see that we want the average annual growth to the power three equal to the product of the annual growth rates, thus, geometric mean: geometric mean = (G(1) * G(2) * G(3)) ^ (1/3) On the other hand, consider a situation where I have three investments X,Y,Z over one year. Now I have, after one year: X(1)+Y(1)+Z(1) = X(0)G(1,X) + Y(0)G(1,Y) + Z(0)G(1,Z) = ( X(0)+Y(0)+Z(0) ) \"\"average annual growth\"\" Now, in this case, if we assume X(0) = Y(0) = Z(0) = 1, i.e. I put equal amounts in each, we see that the average annual growth rate we want in this case is the arithmetic mean: arithmetic mean = (G(1,X) + G(1,Y) + G(1,Z)) / 3 (if we had unequal amounts at the beginning, it would be a weighted average). TL;DR:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c20acc933c7229ef76d2b45775b2092", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.princeton.edu/rpds/events_archive/repository/Naidu040313/Flood_HN_Jan2013.pdf) reduced by 99%. (I'm a bot) *** > Outcome Y in county c and year t is regressed on the fraction of county land ﬂooded in 1927, state-by-year ﬁxed eﬀects, and county ﬁxed eﬀects: Yct = &beta;t F ractionF loodc + &alpha;st + &alpha;c + \u0004ct Note that is allowed to vary by year, so each estimated is interpreted as the average diﬀerence between ﬂooded counties and non-ﬂooded counties in that year relative to the omitted base year of 1925 or 1920. > 53 In a modiﬁed version of equation, the fraction of county ﬂooded is interacted with a dummy variable for whether the county is a &quot;plantation county&quot; and a dummy variable for whether the county is a &quot;nonplantation county. > Column reports the within-state difference for each county characteristic by the fraction of the county flooded in 1927: the coefficients are estimated by regressing the indicated county characteristic on the fraction of the county flooded in 1927 and a state fixed effect, weighting by county size. * [Extended Summary*](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6q2327/when_the_levee_breaks_black_migration_and/) \| [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~177559 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: county^#1 ood^#2 Black^#3 agricultural^#4 estimate^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "149c4682dfbc9647724e92e4509ee2da", "text": "Think of it this way: C + (-P) = forward contract. Work it out from there. Anyways, this stack is meant for professionals, not students, I think.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f25fc1100906dad3d175ba50a5c3a5c", "text": "TWRR = (2012Q4 x 2013Q1 x 2013Q2) ^ (1/3) = ?? (1.1 * .809 * 1.29) ^ (1/3) = 1.047 or 4.7% return. No imaginary numbers needed. But. Your second line there is wrong $15,750 - $15,000 - $4,000 ? The $15K already contains the $4k, why did you subtract it again? This a homework problem?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e302b03f30b9eddbdda22282b45ba6e9", "text": "Not directly an answer to your question, but somewhat related: There are derivatives (whose English name I sadly don't know) that allow to profit from breaking through an upper or alternatively a lower barrier. If the trade range does not hit either barrier you lose. This kind of derivative is useful if you expect a strong movement in either direction, which typically occurs at high volume.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3bc7cbd264efa6c43b887e57c5fbe64", "text": "\"Curious if anyone has any insight here, but isn't it too soon to tell if this will lead to inflation, and purely speculative that we could \"\"do the same\"\", given that we are in a very different set of circumstances?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0eb89b0e9bf01c21aaade926811a1db", "text": "I think the answer to this must differ from country to country. I have lived in several countries where the normal everyday way of making a payment is to instruct my bank to transfer the money to the recipient's account. Of course this means I must know his name, SC and account number – but this is an accepted part of the system; businesses routinely display that information on invoices and correspondence. It is simply not regarded as confidential. DumbCoder's comment suggests that if he has that information he can take money from my account without my permission – in other words, my bank will pay money out of my account on someone else's request, without my authority. Is this correct? In which country or countries can this happen? (I must go there quickly and begin stealing people's money.)", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
722457e44afbdd6cc0a4236392812457	What forms of payment am I compelled to accept?	[ { "docid": "f92d29b145907a0e067d913ff84eeed4", "text": "\"The confusion comes from ambiguity in popular belief -- that businesses are required to accept x_y_x as payment. In reality, a business can state the terms of a transaction to their pleasure. On the other hand, debt is different -- no lender can refuse cash or other legal tender for repayment of debt. Sometimes, people try to split hairs and argue \"\"Well, if I eat a steak and I owe the restaurant $100, they should have to accept my $100 as tender for the debt of my meal.\"\" Not true. The restaurant isn't giving you a line of credit, they're billing you after services rendered, and your payment is due on their terms.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ae5ee4dee30d3f64c7745fc56b20495", "text": "I think cash, travelers checks (little iffy about this one: they're legal tender cash equivalents), and money orders are the only ones that you'd be a little weird to not accept. You certainly don't have to accept regular checks, credit cards, or barter. In the end though, you don't HAVE to accept anything. Accept only small bills, accept only checks from certain banks, accept only the diners card. Your sale, your rules.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12b40e074513538ce68402423a6b9317", "text": "I just listened to a podcast on this topic this week, and Satanicpuppy is pretty much correct. If you are interested, here is a link to the podcast on Legal Lad: Can Businesses Refuse to Accept Cash?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ad08fc0ab8ad1ece6c26bf0a5529da4", "text": "When you're selling something through a provider, like Craig's List or newspapers, the only thing that may limit your choices is the provider. They may refuse your post if it's against their rules or the law. But luckily they usually don't limit or enforce certain payment choices. These private business providers have the right to do so if they want. You don't need to be their customer. They may state their terms for using the service and even refuse service (before any payment is made). The fun part is that you may do so as well. Just remember to state your terms in your post so the prospective buyers are aware of them. I've found it best to put payment and delivery terms in separate lines so that they are easily noticeable, for example: Nice victorian handbasket with gold embroidery, only used once. Signed by the original author. Comes with a certificate of authenticity. No delivery, only cash payments.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "6deab0b0a73d54fc96fce6a32d886ccb", "text": "I'm not a lawyer, and am certainly not familiar with your jurisdiction, but the general guidelines I've seen around this kind of situation are: If all else fails, you could just cancel the card, though I'm not sure what liability you have to honour the contract. I cancelled a card once to stop being charged by a particularly annoying company and had no problems, but I'm not sure if that is a good way to deal with it in general.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a46e30f4bc33d0e7cd964393fe909451", "text": "Beg, plead, whimper, and hope they take pity on you. Sorry, but there's no way to force someone to take less than you legitimately owe them except to declare bankrupty, and even that may not do it. If they aren't interested in throwing away $3000, your best bet really is to try to arrange a payment plan, or to get a loan from somewhere and pay that back over time. Of course either of those options is likely to cost you interest, but that's what happens... I wish I could say something else, but there really isn't any good news here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efc61f4ca2cbf4747a962aacb18f1111", "text": "There are two separate cases here that people are not separating. Any card will allow you to pay an amount not exceeding the actually posted charges. Some cards will allow you to pay more than this, some will not. My parents have deliberately overpaid as a means of having a higher credit limit, I've been denied (different card) when trying to do the same thing and the website wouldn't even allow me to pay temporary charges that hadn't yet become real. (A human operator would allow paying those, though.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8bb67dbef75bc0e21447b957487b2d92", "text": "You can split payments, and nobody judges you because most prepaid cards are actually gift cards. They just think you have generous friends. When you use Visa/MC at a vendor, they get dinged around 2-3% plus 35 cents flat-rate. So when you ask them to charge 77 cents to the card, you're essentially asking they give half of it to Visa/MC. Which is unfair. A charity won't turn it down, but it's wasted. So how do you solve this problem? If you see a small merchant using Square or PayPal Here, their merchant agreements charge a flat rate (2.75% and 2.70% respectively) with no flat rate per transaction. If you see they are on PayPal/Square, go for it. Obviously PayPal itself doesn't have that problem, because they have a really, really good deal with Visa and Mastercard. So feel free to buy yourself credit on your PayPal account with these residual values. Amazon probably has a similar deal. You are getting these small amounts because you aim to pay a $22.69 bill with a card that has $25 on it. Reasonable, but it causes this. Flip it around: pay a $22.69 bill with a card that has $20 on it, consume the $20 value, and pay the $2.69 in cash. You may need to tell the cashier exactly the amount to charge (e.g. $20.00) especially if it is a Visa/MC card. It will certainly go faster if you do. The cashier may be able to pull up the balance, but it's an extra procedure, and an inexperienced cashier may struggle with it / have to call the manager etc. - not worth it in my book.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1b626a6a93f933925f5e3d6ad2d08dd", "text": "\"I bought a car a few years ago. The salesman had the order, I knew the car I wanted and we had a price agreed on. When I refused the payment plan/loan, his manager came over and did a hard sell. \"\"99% of buyers take the financing\"\" was the best he could do. I told him I was going to be part of the 1%. With rates so low, his 2 or 3% offer was higher than my own cost of money. He went so far as to say that I could just pay it off the first month. Last, instead of accepting a personal check and letting me pick up the car after it cleared, he insisted on a bank check to start the registration process. (This was an example of one dealer, illustrating the point.) In other cases, for a TV, a big box store (e.g. Best Buy) isn't going to deal for cash, but a small privately owned \"\"mom and pop\"\" shop might. The fees they are charged are pretty fixed, they don't pay a higher fee cause I get 2% cash back, vs your mastercard that might offer less.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0f7cc2ac0ed54ac2c5192299ce554b1a", "text": "I have a PayPal account that I have linked to my bank account. My PayPal balance is always $0. When I make a purchase with PayPal, PayPal will automatically withdraw the funds from my bank account to make the purchase. PayPal does not ask my permission for each purchase. I probably gave them permission to do this when I linked my bank account. Or perhaps the PayPal purchase process includes this permission. I don't read the text closely. Or I should add, that I probably read it at one point, but since I do it on a regular basis, I don't read it now, and I don't recall what is on the checkout page.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2254fe416d8e60c86d1f4473f3238fe0", "text": "Update: it looks like this may no longer be a requirement. I was able to withdraw from TreasuryDirect into another bank account without issue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1ff502edeca8b9aa55cce01a654cb0e", "text": "\"A business can refuse cash (paper currency) payment pretty much in all cases provided it's a reasonable policy and/or notified during/in advance of contracting. Details in this link. \"\"all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services.\"\" Even if the payment is being made to settle a debt or other obligation, the creditor may refuse payment if their rationale is reasonable (as determined by the courts).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36320d5d3ef4f2c73640925da28ba1b3", "text": "Generally, credit card networks (as opposed to debit/ATM cards that may or may not have Visa/MC logos) have a rule that a merchant must accept any credit card with their logo. Visa rules for merchants in the US say it explicitly: Accept all types of valid Visa cards. Although Visa card acceptance rules may vary based on country specific requirements or local regulations, to offer the broadest possible range of payment options to cardholder customers, most merchants choose to accept all categories of Visa debit, credit, and prepaid cards.* Unfortunately the Visa site for China is in Chinese, so I can't find similar reference there. You can complain against a merchant who you think had violated Visa rules here. That said, its not a law, its a contract between the merchant processor and the Visa International organization, and merchants are known to break these rules here and there (most commonly - refusing to accept foreign cards, including in the US). Also, local laws may affect these contracts (for example, in the US it is legal to set minimum amount requirements when accepting credit cards). This only affects credit card processing, and merchants that don't accept credit cards may still accept debit cards since those work in different networks, under a different set of rules. Those who accept credit cards, are also required to accept debit cards (at least if used as credit).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93e9804405a65dd7514e7995151eec43", "text": "You have to take legal tender to settle a debt. If your business model doesn't involve the customer incurring a debt that is then settled, you don't have to take cash. For example, in a restaurant where you pay after eating, you can insist on paying cash, because you're settling a debt. But in McDonald's they can refuse your cash at the counter, because you've not received your food yet and so no debt has been incurred.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "842264f7e67962cdd9820c15a852e5f3", "text": "The Federal Reserve website notes that creditors must accept cash for debts on services already rendered, but that businesses may refuse cash for services not yet rendered unless prohibited by local law. The Treasury website includes examples of businesses limiting what cash they will accept: For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df04bf973dfc980c682ed0adc5d14843", "text": "It sounds cold, but the law has to hold people to their agreements. There are exceptions for unconscionable terms, but I don't think this gets close to that level. This is certainly audacious, but not quite shocking to the conscience. Maybe there's an argument to be made regarding whether a reasonably prudent person in the party's position would have known what they were agreeing to under the circumstances (depending upon how the provision was presented), but without a lot more information we can't say whether that angle has a snowball's chance in hell. You should read the terms governing every important agreement you enter into. It sounds like a huge burden, but for any major undertaking you really do need to grit your teeth and trawl through the whole thing. If you don't like what you find, ask for a second look from a lawyer to confirm your suspicions, or just walk away. Bank service agreements, loan/mortgage applications, major venue reservations, and employment contracts (ESPECIALLY employment contracts!) all deserve that much time. Typically the terms you might not like are address circumstances that, as a practical matter, don't really concern you, but you might be surprised at how often you find deal-breakers like this crawling around in the woodwork.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3eafc311a47898fc86cd2c0adc1a07ff", "text": "Legal Tender means you have to accept that money as payment for a legal (as in not illegal) debt. If I'm in country X, and we go to court over a dispute of a debt, the law in most places is that the court will insist the debt be paid in the local legal tender at a specific amount. As others already said below - taxes, etc -those are debts. Eating at a restaurant is a debt (you ate it already) Filling up with gas without paying first is a debt. Employees work for you build up debt. But in any private transaction where there is no debt, people are free to do whatever they want (let's ignore discrimination laws and whatnot for this discussion, mmkay?). You can come into my store and I can insist that today I'll only accept euros. Or jelly beans. Or I can choose to simply not do business with you. We are two free people who are under no obligation to do business with each other, and if we choose to, how we choose to remunerate each other for that business is completely up to us. (How I pay the sales tax on that transaction, though, well, thats' between me and the tax authorites, and will be in the local legal tender)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3c332fbce2b61f308b02c595062977e", "text": "Ok so this is the best information I could get! It is a guarantee from a financial institution that payment will be made for items or services once certain requirements are met. Let me know if this helps! I'll try to get more info in the meantime.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ad235adbc365a7f267a915eb6b63ab2", "text": "Per their merchant agreements, Visa and MasterCard say that the signature on the back of the card is the proper way to identify the card holder. If a card is not signed, the merchant is supposed to check your ID and make you sign the card before accepting it for payment. Merchants are not allowed the require an ID for paying with a signed card. Of course, store employees rarely know all these things. Some will gladly accept an unsigned card. Some will try to make you show your ID.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
23d64cd2b58769c50205bba6ea57f176	Is there a tax deduction for renting office space in service of employer?	[ { "docid": "e74a34907bbd9a96c944e1b07530a98a", "text": "\"I disagree with BrenBran, I don't think this is qualified as unreimbursed employee expense. For it to qualify, it has to be ordinary and necessary, and specifically - necessary for your employer. This is not the case for you, as there's no such necessity. From employer's perspective, you can work from your home just as well. In fact, the expense is your personal, as it is your choice, not \"\"unreimbursed employee expense\"\" since your employer didn't even ask you to do it. You should clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in New York).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01146bc5aa9569a2197f4c8911640786", "text": "\"According to this post on TurboTax forums, you could deduct it as an \"\"Unreimbursed Employee\"\" expense. This would seem consistent with the IRS Guidelines on such deductions: An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense does not have to be required to be considered necessary. Office rent is not listed explicitly among the examples of deductible unreimbursed employee expenses, but this doesn't mean it's not allowed. Of course you should check with a tax professional if you want to be sure.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4df5bb9fc859ff7e608102a75e71a935", "text": "\"If you are a telecommuter and in good terms with your employer, then all you need is contact your employer and explain your situation. Ask them for a short letter that indicates: \"\"1. they require you to work from a privately rented office (or from a home office for those who prefer working from home), 2. this is one of the terms of your employment, and, 3. they will not reimburse you for this expense.\"\" With this letter in your hand, you satisify both the \"\"convenience of employer\"\" test AND the deduction of the rent for your private office as a unreimbursed employee expense. The IRS cannot expect your employer to open an office branch in your city just for your sake, nor can they expect you to commute to your employer's city for work, which is an impossiblity considering the distance. Additionally, the IRS cannot \"\"force\"\" telecommuters to work from home. The key is to get a letter from your employer. You'd be surprised how easily they are willing to write such letter for you.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "c1bf45ddcbca898af994b39c75a2d143", "text": "\"No, you can't deduct any of that. What they're talking about is a flexible spending plan, otherwise known as \"\"Use it or lose it\"\" money. You choose to put pre-tax dollars into a restricted fund. This money is not taxed, in fact technically, it's not even income. You can only spend out of that fund to buy parking, tolls, transit tickets, things like that. Any money not used for those purposes in a suitable time period evaporates. Gone, and irrecoverable. You can't even take the loss as a tax deduction! You have to set this account up with your employer. You can't just dig up your old transit and parking receipts and stick those on your Schedule A. Take 3 people. As you can see, Fran is shooting herself in the foot. This is where these plans can go wrong.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce475229839fec15efb664cd7ad7ac50", "text": "Your home doesn't belong to the partnership, it belongs to you. So you can (if qualified) deduct home office usage as a business expense on your individual tax return. Same goes to your partner. Similarly any other unreimbursed expense.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee21749916f89670ecfa90cfb2e9c360", "text": "\"While the question is very localized, I'll answer about the general principle. My main question is with how far away it is (over 1000 miles), how do I quantify the travel expenses? Generally, \"\"necessary and ordinary\"\" expenses are deductible. This is true for business and also true for rentals. But what is necessary and what is ordinary? Is it ordinary that a landlord will manage the property 1000 miles away by himself on a daily basis? Is it ordinary for people to drive 1000 miles every week? I'd say \"\"no\"\" to both. I'd say it would be cheaper for you to hire a local property manager, thus the travel expense would not be necessary. I would say it would be cheaper to fly (although I don't know if its true to the specific situation of the OP, but as I said - its too localized to deal with) rather than drive from Texas to Colorado. If the OP thinks that driving a thousand miles is indeed ordinary and necessary he'll have to justify it to the IRS examiner, as I'm sure it will be examined. 2 trips to the property a year will be a nearly 100% write-off (2000 miles, hotels, etc). From what I understood (and that is what I've been told by my CPA), IRS generally allows 1 (one) trip per year per property. If there's an exceptional situation - be prepared to justify it. Also, keep all the receipts (like gas, hotel, etc.... If you claim mileage but in reality you took a flight - you'll get hit hard by the IRS when audited). Also while I'm up there am I allowed to mix business with pleasure? You cannot deduct personal (\"\"pleasure\"\") expenses, at all. If the trip is mainly business, but you go out at the evening instead of staying at the hotel - that's fine. But if the trip is \"\"business\"\" trip where you spend a couple of hours at your property and then go around having fun for two days - the whole trip may be disallowed. If there's a reasonable portion dedicated to your business/rental, and the rest is pleasure - you'll have to split some of the costs and only deduct the portion attributed to the business activities. You'll have to analyze your specific situation, and see where it falls. Don't stretch the limits too much, it will cost you more on the long run after all the audits and penalties. Can I also write off all travel involved in the purchase of the property? Although, again, the \"\"necessary and ordinary\"\" justification of such a trip is arguable, lets assume it is necessary and ordinary and generally justified. It is reasonable to expect you to go and see the property with your own eyes before the closing (IMHO, of course, I'm not an authority). Such an expense can be either business or investment expense. If its a business expense - its deductible on schedule C. If its an investment expense (if you do buy the property), its added to the cost of the property (capitalized). I'm not a tax adviser or a tax professional, and this is not a tax advice. This answer was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code. You should seek a professional consultation with a CPA/Attorney(tax) licensed in your State(s) or a Federally licensed Enrolled Agent (EA).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14f144db69e3441a4aad7a98c912dc3d", "text": "\"In the US tax system, you cannot \"\"write-off\"\" capital assets. You have to depreciate them, with very specific exceptions. So while you may be purchasing $4500 of equipment, your deduction may be significantly less. For example, computers are depreciated over the period of 5 years, so if you bought a $1000 computer - you write off $200/year until it is completely depreciated, not $1000 at once. There are exceptions however, for example - IRC Sec. 179 is one of them. But you should talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about whether it is applicable to the specific expense you want to \"\"write off\"\" and to what extent. Also, keep in mind that State laws may not conform to the Federal IRC. While you may be able to use Sec. 179 or other exceptions and deduct your expenses on your Federal return, you may end up with a whole different set of deductions on your State return. And last but not least: equipment that you depreciated or otherwise \"\"wrote off\"\" that is later sold - is income to you, since depreciation/deduction reduces basis. Ah, and keep in mind - the IRS frowns upon Schedule C business that consistently show losses. If you have losses for more than 3 in the last 5 years - your business may be classified as \"\"hobby\"\", and deductions may be disallowed. But the bottom line is that yes, it is possible to end up with 0 tax liability with business income offset by business deductions. However, not for prolonged periods of time (not for years consistently, but first year may fly). Again - you should talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). It is well worth the money. Do not rely on answers on free Internet forums as a tax advice - it is not.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a615eaaf29fdac7979f7a831c284c25", "text": "\"If you are talking about a home office, you don't \"\"charge\"\" the business anything. If the area is used exclusively as an office you pro-rate by square footage just the actual expenses. TurboTax recent published an article \"\"Can I Take the Home Office Deduction?\"\" which is a must read if you don't understand the process. (Note: I authored said article.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97cbde3c965690a53a5b344eaf7ebe19", "text": "Forms 1099 and W2 are mutually exclusive. Employers file both, not the employees. 1099 is filed for contractors, W2 is filed for employees. These terms are defined in the tax code, and you may very well be employee, even though your employer pays you as a contractor and issues 1099. You may complain to the IRS if this is the case, and have them explain the difference to the employer (at the employer's expense, through fines and penalties). Employers usually do this to avoid providing benefits (and by the way also avoid paying payroll taxes). If you're working as a contractor, lets check your follow-up questions: where do i pay my taxes on my hourly that means does the IRS have a payment center for the tax i pay. If you're an independent contractor (1099), you're supposed to pay your own taxes on a quarterly basis using the form 1040-ES. Check this page for more information on your quarterly payments and follow the links. If you're a salaried employee elsewhere (i.e.: receive W2, from a different employer), then instead of doing the quarterly estimates you can adjust your salary withholding at that other place of work to cover for your additional income. To do that you submit an updated form W4 there, check with the payroll department on details. Is this a hobby tax No such thing, hobby income is taxed as ordinary income. The difference is that hobby cannot be at loss, while regular business activity can. If you're a contractor, it is likely that you're not working at loss, so it is irrelevant. what tax do i pay the city? does this require a sole proprietor license? This really depends on your local laws and the type of work you're doing and where you're doing it. Most likely, if you're working from your employer's office, you don't need any business license from the city (unless you have to be licensed to do the job). If you're working from home, you might need a license, check with the local government. These are very general answers to very general questions. You should seek a proper advice from a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) for your specific case.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3105ab8826e6eb604c6406d337dbae3", "text": "You can claim a deduction only if all of your business is conducted from the home, i.e. your home is your principal place of business - not just if you work from home sometimes. The CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) has pretty strict guidelines listed here, but once you're sure you qualify for a deduction, the next step would be to determine what portion of your home qualifies. You cannot attempt to deduct your entire mortgage simply because you run your business out of your home. The portion of your mortgage and other related & allowable home expense deductions has to be pro-rated to be equal to or less than the portion of your home you use for business. Simply put, if your business is operated out of a 120 sq-ft self-contained space, and your home's total square-footage is 2400 sq-ft, you can deduct 5% of your expenses (120/2,400 = 0.05). Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b3eb961fe4796f80757fdd694888379", "text": "IRS Publication 463 is a great resource to help you understand what you can and can't deduct. It's not a yes/no question, it depends on the exact company use, other use, and contemporaneous record keeping.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27be59dd2f4445169ef9d91862353b69", "text": "It would be unusual but it is possible that the expenses could be very high compared to your income. The IRS in pub 529 explains the deduction. You can deduct only unreimbursed employee expenses that are: Paid or incurred during your tax year, For carrying on your trade or business of being an employee, and Ordinary and necessary. An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense doesn't have to be required to be considered necessary. The next part lists examples. I have cut the list down to highlight ones that could be large. You may be able to deduct the following items as unreimbursed employee expenses. Damages paid to a former employer for breach of an employment contract. Job search expenses in your present occupation. Legal fees related to your job. Licenses and regulatory fees. Malpractice insurance premiums. Research expenses of a college professor. Rural mail carriers' vehicle expenses. Tools and supplies used in your work. Work clothes and uniforms if required and not suitable for everyday use. Work-related education. If the term of employment was only part of the year, one or more of the these could dwarf your income for the year. Before deducting something that large be sure you can document it. I believe the IRS computers would flag the return and I wouldn't be surprised if they ask for additional proof.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "823b2906fd183883e78f1d088118234d", "text": "1.If the compensation that I receive is over 10 lakhs, how much would be deducted as tax No tax will be deducted by the company. You have to calculate the tax and pay in Advance by yourself. There are quite a few Banks that give you online facility to pay your tax. There is no service tax. Otherwise the tax slabs are right. The current budget has slightly revised the tax brackets. 2.So are these the right taxes and % that Need to be paid? If not do let me know the correct deductions. Yes. Revised brackets for financial year 2014-2015 are NIL for first 2.5 lakhs. Other brackets are unchanged. 4.What others legal options I have to decrease the tax liability? As an employee of my ex company I had once taken an FD (that reduced my tax) The options are same as salaried, i.e. you can claim exemption under 80C or on interest of housing loan, etc. As a consultant certain expenses can also be deducted. You should also talk to a CA who can help you with this as there will be some paperwork involved.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8f0a7821b298099eff5e8c6d8591334", "text": "If your landlord is OK with you subletting your apartment - then that's all that the landlord has to do with that. It doesn't really matter if the landlord is a private person or a publicly trade corporation/fund. No relevance at all. As to your own reporting - you're receiving rent. That is income to you. You can deduct the portion of your expenses (including rent) attributable to the area you rent out. All this goes to your Schedule E. Any positive remainder becomes your taxable income. Any deduction must be substantiated (i.e.: you'll have to keep all the receipts for all the expenses you used for the deduction for as long as the tax year is open, which is at least the next 3 years after filing).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "052ed6cf9f53c654a8d17cb0e89b4f2f", "text": "You cannot deduct expenses directly. However, your employer may participate in programs to allow you to make a pretax deduction capped at $255 per month to pay for certain commuting expenses. For personal car commuters the main category is to pay for parking. IRS guidelines Qualified Transportation Benefits This exclusion applies to the following benefits. A ride in a commuter highway vehicle between the employee's home and work place. A transit pass. Qualified parking. Qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement. You may provide an employee with any one or more of the first three benefits at the same time. However, the exclusion for qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement isn't available in any month the employee receives any of the other qualified transportation benefits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbca7b934fbe5d2da0b11f7e2c079e46", "text": "The answer is simple. You can generally claim a deduction for an expense if that expense was used to derive an income. Of course social policy sometimes gets in the way and allows for deductions where they usually wouldn't be allowed. Your rent is not tax deductible because this expense is not used to derive your income. If however you were working from your home, example - you had a home based business, and you dedicated a part of your home for your work, say an office, then part of your rent may then become tax deductible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00b414e442d21632884141ce59c4e87a", "text": "\"You will need to see a tax expert. Your edited question includes the line For the short term, we will be \"\"renting\"\" it to my wife's grandmother at a deep discount. According to the instructions for schedule E If you rented out a dwelling unit that you also used for personal purposes during the year, you may not be able to deduct all the expenses for the rental part. “Dwelling unit” (unit) means a house, apartment, condominium, or similar property. For each property listed on line 1a, report the number of days in the year each property was rented at fair rental value and the number of days of personal use. A day of personal use is any day, or part of a day, that the unit was used by: I have no idea how this will work for Schedule C.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b716bade03dd6b48d556e5f54e846855", "text": "It depends on the structure of your business. Are you a sole proprietor filing Schedule C on your 1040, or an S-corp, or part of a partnership? The treatment of a home office will differ depending on business entity.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
88851f5fe952eb2fcc4abf913853bccf	Taxes paid in USA for sending money to parents in India	[ { "docid": "f0388f381186b61bc293f24e9f31396e", "text": "\"I'm not certain about international transfers, but that amount is large enough that it could be subject to gift tax. https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Frequently-Asked-Questions-on-Gift-Taxes Note that the threshold for this tax is \"\"per person, per person\"\". For example, if you gave your father $12,5k, and gave your mother $12.5k, and your wife gave them each the same amounts, each of those gifts is small enough to be within the $14,000 exclusion and you and your wife would owe no gift tax. If you aren't married, you might want to spread this gift over two years to stay under that threshold.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ac6ae89f7f5eb0d3df5301a48dd439f6", "text": "If you are a non resident Indian, the income you earn and transfer to India is tax free in India. You can hold the funds in USD or convert then into INR, there is no tax implication.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa6b5fd3a2691763e0186d3daa30563b", "text": "Buyer A didn't send money to the US government, Buyer A sent money to Seller B, a US resident. I think the most common way to facilitate a transaction like this is a regular old international wire transfer. Buyer A in India goes to their bank to exchange X INR to $1mm USD. $1mm USD is then wire transferred to Seller B's bank account. The USD was sold to Buyer A, either by funds held by Buyer A's bank, or foreign exchange markets, or possibly the US government. Seller B may owe taxes on the gain derived from the sale of this thing to Buyer A, but that taxation would arise regardless of who the buyer was. Buyer A may owe an import tax in India upon importing whatever they bought. I don't think it's common to tax imported money in this sort of transactional setting though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7109782443dbe86b480761ec2425af6a", "text": "Gifts from your parents are not treated as income for tax purposes. You should not include that in your subsidy calculation. If you are here on a student-visa and have been in the US for less than 5 years, then you are considered a non-resident alien, and you are not required to buy a qualified plan through the insurance marketplace. You might be able to get a cheaper student plan through your school, but the subsidy might be enough that it's still worth it when calculated correctly. If you are a resident-alien or you are a citizen of the US, then you are required to get coverage, though you can choose not to purchase coverage and pay the tax for not having creditable coverage. That tax cannot be collected by the IRS unless you have already had federal tax withheld. They can only confiscate your tax return money to recoup that money. I don't have enough information to recommend one way or the other what you should do, but I would bet that if you recalculated your subsidy without including your parents income it would cover the majority of the cost. You should also consider applying for Medicaid if you meet the eligibility requirements in your state.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d740f817b6dd1b882121203b2da3093", "text": "From an Indian tax point of view, this transaction is not taxable to you or your father.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42d575bfd21710239ab5dd5e4ad8f265", "text": "\"Assuming you are Non-Resident Indian for tax purposes, this transaction is not taxable. Indian tax law doesn't qualify \"\"gifts\"\" as taxable income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f32c9c6244b8cc79f6bd57cf5386d75", "text": "Are you actually supporting both your mother and father? Is the account joint? Is your mother aware of the gift and has control over the money same as your father? If you cannot answer (and provide support) yes to all these questions, then I doubt you could make such a claim. If the fact that the bank account is only in your father's name is a mere technicality for whatever reason, and the money is in fact intended, controlled by and benefits both of your parents, then I believe you can. See more details about gift tax in the IRS publication 950.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7da971f8aec74ab1da208c8d182c2eb1", "text": "\"Context: My parents overseas (Japan) sent me a little over $100,000 to cover an expensive tuition payment and moderate living expenses in 2014. They are not US residents, Green card holders or citizens. They did not remit the tuition payment directly to the school. I am a resident (for tax). This is enough to answer yes. That's basically the set of requirements for filing: you received >$100K from a non-US person and you yourself are a US person. You have to report it, and unless it is taxable income - it is a gift. Taxable income is reported on the form 1040, gifts are reported on the form 3520. The fact that in Japan it is not considered a gift is irrelevant. Gift tax laws vary between countries, some (many) don't have gift taxes at all. But the reporting requirement is based on the US law and the US definition of \"\"gift\"\". As I said above, if it is not a gift per the US law, then it is taxable income (and then you report all of it regardless of the amount and pay taxes). Had they paid directly to the institution, you wouldn't need to count it as income/gift to you because you didn't actually receive the money (so no income) and it went directly to cover your qualified education expenses (so no gift), but this is not the case in your situation. Whether or not this will be reported by the IRS back to Japan - I don't know, but it was probably already reported to the authorities in Japan by the banks through which the transfers went through. As to whether it will trigger an audit - doesn't really matter. It was, most likely, reported to the IRS already by the receiving banks in the US, so not reporting it on your tax return (either as income or on form 3520) may indeed raise some flags.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44a85d3ea44d8387f4232a5f7de85379", "text": "From India Tax Point of view, your parents can Gift you the money. There is no tax due to this in India for your parents or for you. Transferring the funds out of India is also possible. Under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme by RBI, one can transfer upto 200,000 USD. Please check with your Bank for the exact paperwork. Typically PAN and a CA certificate mentioning the relevant clauses and certifying the purpose is required. Bank may have some more paperwork on its own.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a37ba433298a25962301a4c5df8a2d03", "text": "You haven't indicated where the funds are held. They should ideally be held in NRO account. If you haven't, have this done ASAP. Once the funds are in NRO account, you can repatriate this outside of India subject to a limit of 1 million USD. A CA certificate is required. Please contact your Indian Bank and they should be able to guide you. There are no tax implications of this in US as much as I know, someone else may post the US tax aspect.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d47cb9cea747de0f04b7c04a16ffc7ed", "text": "No, you can not claim any sort of tax benefit. The main problem is that your parent is not living with you, though even if they were, they would also have to be dependent on you. I cannot find a good definition of 'dependant', but from what I can find, they must have only a trivial amount of income and must rely on you for at least 50% of their living expenses. Useful links include: Note that your parent may (but probably won't) be required to pay taxes on the money you submit to them. I have no experience whatsoever with Indian tax law, just pointing this out as a possibility.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f52e5d1fb5b3ba51acba2f3657db5615", "text": "\"Any inward remittance received by your Parents cannot be treated as \"\"Income\"\" as per the definitaion. This can at best be treated as \"\"Gift\"\". However in India there is No Gift tax for certain relations and there is no ceiling on the amount. In your case gifting of money by son to father or viceversa is allowed without any limits and tax implication. However if you father were to invest this money in his name and make gains, the gains would be taxable. However if the Money is being transfered with specific purpose such as to buy a property, etc make sure you have the Bank give your dad an certificate of Inward remittance. This is also advisable even otherwise, the Inwared Remittance certificate from Bank certifies that the credit entry in the account is because or funds comming into India and if the tax authorities were to question the large amount of credits, it would be proof that it is due to Inward remittance and not due to say a sale of property by your dad Helpful Links: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/tax/gift-tax-whatsa-gift_664238.html http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/bline/blnri/exp-tax.htm Edit 1: What you father does with the money is treated as EXPENSE, ie spends on day to day expense or pays off your Loans or Pay off his loans have no relevance from a Tax Prespective in India. The only issue comes in say you have transfered the funds to buy a property and there was no purpose of remittance specified by Bank's letter and one want to reptriate this funds back to US, then its an issue. If you transfer the funds directly to your Loan account again there is no tax implication to you in India as you are NRI.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3da6581a70d5dbae8ecdb677ea0df69d", "text": "\"The Option 2 in your answer is how most of the money is moved cross border. It is called International Transfer, most of it carried out using the SWIFT network. This is expensive, at a minimum it costs in the range of USD 30 to USD 50. This becomes a expensive mechanism to transfer small sums of money that individuals are typically looking at. Over a period of years, the low value payments by individuals between certain pair of countries is quite high, example US-India, US-China, Middle-East-India, US-Mexico etc ... With the intention to reduce cost, Banks have built a different work-flow, this is the Option 1. This essentially works on getting money from multiple individuals in EUR. The aggregated sum is converted into INR, then transferred to partner Bank in India via Single SWIFT. Alongside the partner bank is also sent a file of instructions having the credit account. The Partner Bank in India will use the local clearing network [these days NEFT] to credit the funds to the Indian account. Option 3: Other methods include you writing a check in EUR and sending it over to a friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically very nominal costs. Typically one month of timelines. Option 4: Another method would be to visit an Indian Bank and ask them to issue a \"\"Rupee Draft/Bankers Check\"\" payable in India. The charges for this would be higher than Option 3, less than Option 1. Mail this to friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically couple of days timelines for transfer to happen.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b71820880b93dab670918282f1115cc2", "text": "I wouldn't send it to India in the first place because their financial system is a bit sketchy, I would look into countries like Germany to send the money to you if you're looking to avoid high taxes with a very stable financial system", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c27632e969fad3685514e2a3c6f5149", "text": "Taxability does not depending on transfer of money to NRO. It depending on your tax status in India. Assuming you have spent more than 182 days outside India for the financial year 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016, you would be NRI. I am transferring money from my Maldives saving account to my Indian Saving account(NRO). Will it be taxable in India? Assuming you are NRI, this is not taxable. Any interest in NRO account is taxable in India. Again I am transferring the money from my Indian savings account to my dad's Indian saving account. Will it be taxable? This is not taxable to you. To your father it would be treated as Gift. As per Gift tax, this is not taxable to your father as well. If the amount is large, keep proper documentation of the transaction. Any income that is generated i.e. interest etc on this amount will be taxable to your father.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3369c12dde48989e1b07d98607b795fb", "text": "You won't be paying any taxes for income generated in the US as long as you are not-resident in India. You pay US taxes. You can file a null return in India just in case (all zeroes). If you have any income in India - bank deposits in your name, house rental income and so on - that needs to be declared and tax needs to be paid in India.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
8475ebe13c509823a70a3162fc5b6ea3	What happens if a purchase is $0.02 in Canada?	[ { "docid": "ed7216d70ae4bad46de9d20e5d88ca18", "text": "As someone who works for a company that deploys POS systems in Canada, I can tell you that your best bet would be to have a configuration option that lets the client decide what to do. If they have a business practice that would allow for a sale total to be $0.01 or $0.02, they should first evaluate their business practice. If you're building a POS system to deploy in Canada, I'm sure you have access to resources (potential clients) who would already know how they would want to handle this. Ask them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e35e549848daf278c5eebdd3e1c4201", "text": "The rounding should always follow the same rule. If the value ends in .01 or .02 then you round to .00. Doesn't matter if it's 10.01 rounding to 10.00 or 0.01 to 0.00. The decision on what a company wants to do if an invoice total is $0.01 or $0.02 would be up to the company. The POS system should follow the rule and round to $0.00 if the method of payment is cash, but the company has the right to not give things away for free. They can impose a minimum cash invoice amount of $0.05. But you would do this by requiring the customer to add more items to their purchase. You couldn't just round the invoice up to $0.05 and to charge them $0.05 for a $0.01 item It would be similar to companies having a minimum purchase amount when paying by credit card. If their minimum amount is $10.00 and you want to buy something that's $5.00, you either pay cash or add something to your order. They don't just charge you $10.00 for your $5.00 item. I think this would be a extreme edge case where you have an invoice with a total of $0.01 or $0.02, without any discounts, partial payments, etc. If the customer's total was $10.01 and they paid with a $10.00 gift card, the final amount owing of $0.01 would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't owe any more. If they had paid cash, the total would have rounded to $10.00 anyway. Similarly, if the customer returned an item and bought a new item, or used coupons, and the total owing was $0.01 or $0.02, then you would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't pay anything. As BobbyScon said, you can implement some options to allow the company to decide how they want to handle this. You could have an option that doesn't allow a sale to be processed if the total amount is less than $0.03 and the sale doesn't include any discounts, returned items, coupons, etc. The option could be to completely block the sale, require a supervisor override, or just display a warning to the cashier. Best bet is to talk to as many of your current or potential clients as you can to see how they would like this edge case handled. For many, it's probably a mute case since they wouldn't have items that have a unit price less than $0.03. Maybe a place like a hardware store that sells individual nuts, bolts, and washers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9a42e8d6987481747c2211d779c067c", "text": "I'd imagine in this extreme edge case it would round down to $0. I can't fathom what makes $10.02 or $153.02 any different from $0.02.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4370d67184d731bc7e118aca47f90f9", "text": "I think it should be free. Why? I had a coupon for 35, I bought something for 35.01 including taxes and total to pay was 0.01, rounded to 0.00. I think it's almost the same scenario.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "1a404654ead22b2255f0566d521035db", "text": "\"@sdg's answer is spot-on with the advice to avoid repeated conversions, but I'd like to provide some specifics on the fees involved: Each time you round-trip Canadian dollars (CAD) through a U.S.-dollar (USD) priced security at TD Waterhouse and leave your proceeds in CAD, you're paying a total foreign exchange fee – implied in their rate spread – of about 3%, give or take. That's ~3% per buy & sell combination, or ~1.5% on each end. You can imagine if you trade back & forth frequently, you can quickly lose a lot of money. Do it back and forth ten times in a year and you're out ~30% on the fees alone! The TD U.S. Money Market Fund (TDB166) that TD Waterhouse is referring to has no direct commission to buy or sell, but it does have a Management Expense Ratio (MER) of 0.20% per year – basically a fee which is deducted from the fund's returns (which, today, are also close to zero.) Practically speaking, that's a very slim fee to hold some USD in your Canadian dollar TFSA. While 0.20% is cheap, a point to keep in mind is if you maintain a significant USD balance, you are maintaining currency risk: You can lose money in CAD terms if the CAD appreciates vs. USD. Additional references: Canadian Capitalist describes TD Waterhouse and the use of TDB166 and \"\"wash trades\"\" at How to \"\"Wash\"\" Your Trade? He's referring to RRSPs, but the same applies to TFSAs, which came out after the post was written. Canadian Couch Potato has two relevant articles: Are US-listed ETFs Really Cheaper? and Lowering Your Currency Exchange Fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5158f026ede7c9b5abeba327ca1c33c0", "text": "So in your screenshot, someone or some group of someones is willing to buy 3,000 shares at $3.45, and someone or some group of someones is willing to sell 2,000 shares at 3.88. Without getting in to the specific mechanics, you can place a market buy order for 10 (or whatever number) shares and it will probably transact at $3.88 per share because that's the lowest price for which someone will currently sell their shares. As a small fish, you can generally ignore the volume notations in the bid/ask quotes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c12bc3175fa0e13e7583371e1891a8ba", "text": "In theory, when you obtained ownership of your USD cash as a Canadian resident [resident for tax purposes, which is generally a quicker timeline than being resident for immigration purposes], it is considered to have been obtained by you for the CAD equivalent on that date. For example if you immigrated on Dec 31, 2016 and carried $10k USD with you, when the rate was ~1.35, then Canada deems you to have arrived with $13.5k CAD. If you converted that CAD to USD when the rate was 1.39, you would have received 13.9k CAD, [a gain of $400 to show as income on your tax return]. Receiving the foreign inheritances is a little more complex; those items when received may or may not have been taxable on that day. However whether or not they were taxable, you would calculate a further gain as above, if the fx rate gave you more CAD when you ultimately converted it. If the rate went the other way and you lost CAD-value, you may or may not be able to claim a loss. If it was a small loss, I wouldn't bother trying to claim it due to hassle. If it's a large loss, I would be very sure to research thoroughly before claiming, because something like that probably has a high chance of being audited.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5e4f3d6fb848aeba5ab9dc132673cca", "text": "\"Occassionaly a trader will make a blatant mistake. A customer calls to buy 100 shares at $10, and the trader by mistake enters \"\"10 shares at $100\"\". You get one very happy seller :-) In the USA, it doesn't happen often for sales, because if the trader offers to sell 10 shares at $100, there will be nobody accepting the other. In Japan, with one dollar equal to 120 Yen, the same mistake would mean that someone wanted to sell 100 shares at 1200 Yen, and the trader enters 1200 shares for 100 Yen, then you will get a happy buyer, and a massive loss.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8c924f196d6c4d0c392a1e94967d8ebd", "text": "You should start a dispute with the credit card company, and they might be able to recover some/all of the money. Usually, if you act fast enough, credit companies (on the merchant's side) have enough of the deposits not yet disbursed to the merchant, and they'll just reverse the charge. The earlier you start the process - the more chances you have. Otherwise you'll have to sue, I'm not familiar with the Canadian legal system.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0a671734512500e733a71357cfd6b3b", "text": "If you aren't familiar with Norbert's Gambit, it's worth looking at. This is a mechanism using a Canadian brokerage account to simultaneously execute one stock trade in CAD and one in USD. The link I provided claims that it only starts potentially making sense somewhere in the 10,000+ range.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "302477bcb2eda09a78915b86bcdbb8b0", "text": "Could you not just say that you had bought it when it was pennies on the dollar and made the millions that way? There isn't much of a transaction record, is there? I also just realized that I don't understand how taxes work in that situation. If you have a different currency from the U.S. Dollar, and it increases in value greatly, do you have to pay tax on that increased value relative to the U.S. dollar? They don't when it's minimal increases.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c7b4c73d0cfa05f6db8ec14315332e2", "text": "Suppose you're a European Company, selling say a software product to a US company. As much as you might want the US company to pay you in Euros they might insist (or you'll lose the contract) that you agree pricing in USD. The software is licensed on a yearly recurring amount, say 100K USD per year payable on the 1st January every year. In this example, you know that on the 1st Jan that 100K USD will arrive in your USD bank account. You will want to convert that to Euros and to remove uncertainty from your business you might take out an FX Forward today to remove your currency risk. If in the next 9 months the dollar strengthens against the Euro then notionally you'll have lost out by taking out the forward. Similarly, you've notionally gained if the USD weakens against the EURO. The forward gives you the certainty you need to plan your business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26e287a091fd702c5e5f6a22d8b26381", "text": "If you want to convert more than a few thousand dollars, one somewhat complex method is to have two investment accounts at a discount broker that operations both in Canada and the USA, then buy securities for USD on a US exchange, have your broker move them to the Canadian account, then sell them on a Canadian exchange for CAD. This will, of course, incur trading fees, but they should be lower than most currency conversion fees if you convert more than a few thousand dollars, because trading fees typically have a very small percentage component. Using a currency ETF as the security to buy/sell can eliminate the market risk. In any case, it may take up to a week for the trades and transfer to settle.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0a837bb59550e224a7b7b583c1f7dc1", "text": "You shouldn't be charged interest, unless possibly because your purchases involve a currency conversion. I've made normal purchases that happened to involve changes in currency. The prices were quoted in US$ to me. On the tail end, though, the currency change was treated as a cash advance, which accrues interest immediately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e424bb3b0e7f90e3c589ee4b3890f1e", "text": "\"When you hold units of the DLR/DLR.U (TSX) ETF, you are indirectly holding U.S. dollars cash or cash equivalents. The ETF can be thought of as a container. The container gives you the convenience of holding USD in, say, CAD-denominated accounts that don't normally provide for USD cash balances. The ETF price ($12.33 and $12.12, in your example) simply reflects the CAD price of those USD, and the change is because the currencies moved with respect to each other. And so, necessarily, given how the ETF is made up, when the value of the U.S. dollar declines vs. the Canadian dollar, it follows that the value of your units of DLR declines as quoted in Canadian dollar terms. Currencies move all the time. Similarly, if you held the same amount of value in U.S. dollars, directly, instead of using the ETF, you would still experience a loss when quoted in Canadian dollar terms. In other words, whether or not your U.S. dollars are tied up either in DLR/DLR.U or else sitting in a U.S. dollar cash balance in your brokerage account, there's not much of a difference: You \"\"lose\"\" Canadian dollar equivalent when the value of USD declines with respect to CAD. Selling, more quickly, your DLR.U units in a USD-denominated account to yield U.S. dollars that you then directly hold does not insulate you from the same currency risk. What it does is reduce your exposure to other cost/risk factors inherent with ETFs: liquidity, spreads, and fees. However, I doubt that any of those played a significant part in the change of value from $12.33 to $12.12 that you described.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b449602794cc259348a97fddc5cf7f8", "text": "From a purely financial standpoint, you should invest using whatever dollars get you the best rate. The general rule of thumb that I've come across is that if you are making another person/company change your money into another nation's currency, they will likely charge a higher exchange rate than you could get yourself. However, it really depends on your situation, how easy it is for you to exchange money, what your exchange rate is, and what your broker is charging you to exchange to USD (if on the off chance this is truly nothing, then stick with CAD). Don't worry about the strength of the USD to CAD too much because converting your money before you make purchases doesn't allow you to buy more shares. For the vast majority of people, trying to work with national currency exchange rates makes things unnecessarily complex.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2daeb39af8f1c38b1ba1698a8be000ea", "text": " They have to accept some responsibility for submitting the order multiple times. * If the price had gone up, would UBS be offering to return the shares they didn't mean to purchase? * It hasn't cost them anything yet. Not unless they sell the shares before the prices goes back up (which it likely will eventually).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4b740c53cd6ff4f2ff8b29ed3c99642", "text": "I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any given time. How do you plan to do this? If you are using a debit or credit card on a CAD account, then you will pay that bank's exchange rate to pay for goods and services that are billed in foreign currency. If you plan on buying goods and services from merchants that offer to bill you in CAD for items that are priced in foreign currency (E.g. buying from Amazon.co.uk GBP priced goods, but having Amazon bill your card with equivalent CAD) then you will be paying that merchant's exchange rate. It is very unlikely that either of these scenarios would result in you paying mid-market rates (what you see on xe.com), which is the average between the current ask and bid prices for any currency pair. Instead, the business handling your transaction will set their own exchange rate, which will usually be less favorable than the mid-market rate and may have additional fees/commission bolted on as a separate charge. For example, if I buy 100 USD worth of goods from a US vendor, but use a CAD credit card to pay, the mid-market rate on xe.com right now indicates an equivalent value of 126.97 CAD. However the credit card company is more likely to charge closer to 130.00 CAD and add a foreign transaction fee of maybe $2-3, or a percentage of the transaction value. Alternatively, if using something like Amazon, they may offer to bill the CAD credit card in CAD for those 100 USD goods. No separate foreign transaction fee in this case, but they are still likely to exchange at the less favorable 130.00 rate instead of the mid-market rates. The only way you can choose to pay in the cheapest equivalent currency is if you already have holdings of all the different currencies. Then just pay using whichever currency gets you the most bang for your buck. Unless you are receiving payments/wages in multiple currencies though, you're still going to have to refill these accounts periodically, thus incurring some foreign transaction fees and being subject to the banker's exchange rates. Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers? It depends on who will be handling your transaction. Amazon will tell you at the checkout what exchange rate they will apply if you are having them convert a bill into your local currency for you. For credit/debit card transactions processed in a different currency than the attached account, you need to look at your specific agreement or contact the bank to see which rate they use for daily transactions (and where you can obtain these rates), whether they convert on the day of the transaction vs. the day it posts to your account, and how much they add on ($ and/or %) in fees and commission.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b56332284074941947f1f4196a9f43a", "text": "\"I don't know Canada very well, but can offer some general points when considering where to park your emergency fund. Savings rates are currently low, but then so is inflation. Always bear in mind that inflation decreases the value of your money, so if you're getting 4% interest and inflation is 2%, you're making 2% gross in real terms. If you're getting 2% and inflation is close to zero, you're actually earning a similar amount, it's just the numbers are going up more slowly. Obviously when and how much tax you pay affects the actual return, it's just worth bearing in mind that low interest and low inflation are actually not that bad a savings environment as they first appear. For an emergency fund the key thing is ease of access, consider keeping some portion of your savings in an instant access account for those emergencies that happen when the banks are closed. In the UK there are various tax-free savings options, I'm guessing Canada has a few too, if so you should explore those options. While these may not have attractive headline rates, you don't pay tax on the interest, this can make them much more competitive (4% tax free is the same as 5% gross if you would have to pay tax at 20%). Normally tax free investments have caps so once you've invested a set amount you can't add anymore. This may be a consideration if you regularly dip into your emergency fund as you might not easily be able to build it up again. My approach is to have about 90% of my \"\"rainy day\"\" fund in easily accessible but tax free savings. This discourages me from spending it unless I really need to. I then keep a slush fund sufficient to cover every day disasters (boiler packing up, needing a hire car for a week etc) in instant access accounts .\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
36bac11dddd675983461c632baabe25a	Is there a bank account that allows ACH deposits but not ACH withdrawals?	[ { "docid": "5b28e315b2bebc5522b126396f8d62c5", "text": "\"Yes, kinda. Talk to local banks about a business account, and tell them you want to enable certain employees to make deposits but not withdrawals. They don't need to know you're all the same person. For instance I have a PayPal account for business. These allow you to create \"\"sub accounts\"\" for your employees with a variety of access privileges. Of course I control the master account, but I also set up a \"\"sub account\"\" for myself. That is the account I use every day.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d886d70fde7e58daf8a86ac00e1884c", "text": "Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "0d57a595cc31caf9543fc27603a5a3c4", "text": "Any institution that issues checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the passive side. Any institution that clears checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the originating side. Not any institution that can be - in fact is. Your credit union doesn't provide this service because they don't want to. It costs them money to implement and support it, but they don't see the required benefit to justify it. They can. My credit union does that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7206576eed3dbe62b8516cc60feb0040", "text": "\"Generally, ACH transfers are not considered direct deposits. However, you can pay for this service to various providers, and they will do the transfer so that it would be marked as a direct deposit. For example, Wells Fargo allows doing it using their \"\"DirectPay\"\" system. I happen to have a WF business account (free with conditions) where this service is available, but there are plenty of providers. It does cost money (for WF - $10 monthly fee + $0.50 for a transfer to non-WF account), but it may be worth it for you if the benefit is large enough.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ef23be84a2aa2a68bc4af656c4f0f7e", "text": "Yes, I've done this. Just added the borderless account into Paypal as a new bank account and the money has now showed up in my borderless account. I used the ACH Routing Number for my USD account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4caf6fa7e8a372ad3dc873529deed51", "text": "Many banks will allow you to open multiple accounts. Create a secondary checking account that has no automatic withdrawals and doesn't allow overdraft. This is the account you'll use for you discretionary spending. Get an account with a debit card and always use it as a debit card (never as a credit card, even if it allows that). Your employer may allow you to split your direct deposit so that a certain amount of money goes into this account each month. When it gets to $0, you have to stop spending. It will automatically refill when you get your paycheck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d608f482e2617e674cae8ec514453434", "text": "\"There is no \"\"reason why this cannot be done\"\", but you can tell your friend that these actions are officially shady in the eyes of the US government. Any bank transactions with a value of $10,000 or more are automatically reported to the government as a way to prevent money laundering, tax evasion, and other criminal shenanigans. \"\"Structuring\"\" bank deposits to avoid this monetary limit is a crime in and of itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7b257f2709405b41df0a6ea0a3eacf7", "text": "Yes. it is possible, I have seen many times banks permitting overdrawing and later charging a high courtesy fees. Of course in many countries this is not permitted. In one of my account, I am running negative balance as the bank has charged its commission which is not due.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6df5d0b36ed31940c1bf2c5350d5277", "text": "The RDFI (Receiving Depository Institution) is the place where you keep your money and where the Debit is going to be made. Unfortunately the Debit did not go through for some kind of regulatory reason that I don't understand. You could ask them why people are not allowed to make ACH Debits there or you can try to pay through a different bank.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "443ace8752b2c1eeca66acf51e249ae1", "text": "You can open an account at Scotiabank and use a Bank of America atm (and vice versa). No ATM or bank imposed foreign transaction fee (outside the 1% network imposed fee)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d585003ac8bc7e31dd82558e215bafb", "text": "There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76bc67fb64cb88a385b240a90e7935ac", "text": "I'd say it's a limitation of your bank. Every bank I've ever used had instant transfers between accounts at the same bank.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c61e05a99a1a3457b1290a36881c82d", "text": "Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking Account does not charge for incoming wires (both domestic and international), and has $0 monthly fee and minimum balance (plus they offer ATM fee rebates and no international surcharge). Schwab bank does not allow International wire transfers. Accepts domestic only.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c7a46fe492c59213577f579bccc7310", "text": "Yes it should be a ACH or other electronic transfer. However, it not unusual to have checks sent for large amounts in corporate banking. Large companies don't give large checks to tellers, they have it sent to a lockbox. However, lockboxes are suited for payment of invoices and I never heard of a billion dollar invoice. edit: Also, I believe that some of the bailouts were done in checks, but honestly I'm not 100% on that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df27f28c8004c4cc694b2d81cf463b68", "text": "\"Some banks allow mint.com read-only access via a separate \"\"access code\"\" that a customer can create. This would still allow an attacker to find out how much money you have and transaction details, and may have knowledge of some other information (your account number perhaps, your address, etc). The problem with even this read-only access is that many banks also allow users at other banks to set up a direct debit authorization which allows withdrawals. And to set the direct debit link up, the main hurdle is to be able to correctly identify the dates and amounts of two small test deposit transactions, which could be done with just read-only access. Most banks only support a single full access password per account, and there you have a bigger potential risk of actual fraudulent activity. But if you discover such activity and report it in a timely manner, you should be refunded. Make sure to check your account frequently. Also make sure to change your passwords once in a while.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79adfd0418bdf8de7786170858e74080", "text": "Call Wells Fargo or go to a branch. Tell them what you're trying to accomplish, not the vehicle you think you should use to get there. Don't tell them you want to ACH DEBIT from YOUR ACCOUNT of YOUR MONEY. Tell them you apparently need a paperless transaction sent to this and that account at this and that bank. See if they offer a solution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd359957c211621d936ff617b49d198a", "text": "Agree with the comment, 760 is a good score. The average score is less than 700 and average score for your age group is even lower. (Source: https://www.creditkarma.com/trends/age) Just keep paying your credit card bills on time. You could also ask for increases in your credit limits on your existing credit cards, which may increase your score, but could decrease it in the short term depending on how your credit card company looks at your credit history in the process. (Source: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/06/27/3-ways-to-increase-your-credit-card-spending-limit)", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
a582e47d1674e5aaf243ffba0a4f3129	What is quotational loss in stock market?	[ { "docid": "dd776fcff508cdba217b9e0a172c38b4", "text": "\"Been a long while since I've read it but if I remember correctly with quotational loss Graham refers to an unjustified decline in stock price because of Mr. Market's fear and loathing where the business prospects of the company are actually still sound. This is opposed to \"\"actual\"\" loss of capital which he would consider to be a company going bankrupt or just more generally turning out to have way worse business prospects than expected with the justified decline in stock price that entails.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7ba96c65118aba556e5fd66ad996b27", "text": "\"In this instance \"\"quotational\"\" is a reference to a market price quote, not a mathematical function. Staunch \"\"value investors\"\" like Graham, Dodd, Munger, Buffett et al. believe there is a material difference between what security is \"\"worth\"\" and what the current market mood quotes as its price. You, the investor, perform your analysis then derive a value for a security. If there has been no material change to an aspect of the security you analyzed then there hasn't been a change in that security's value, even if there has been a decline in the price quoted by the market, that is a \"\"quotational loss.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a94b5eecca6ba3b05164821c00dcc103", "text": "\"https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/07/30/2-types-of-risk-2-types-of-bubbles.aspx (mirror): The Wall Street Journal reviews: What Mr. Bernstein calls \"\"shallow risk\"\" is a temporary drop in an asset's market price; decades ago, the great investment analyst Benjamin Graham referred to such an interim decline as \"\"quotational loss.\"\" \"\"Deep risk,\"\" on the other hand, is an irretrievable real loss of capital, meaning that after inflation you won't recover for decades -- if ever. So quotational loss = loss not explained by change of actual value of a firm.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "329675bf2c9692f2f78d55243aa4920e", "text": "\"Yes, long calls, and that's a good point. Let's see... if I bought one contract at the Bid price above... $97.13 at expiry of $96.43 option = out of the money =- option price(x100) = $113 loss. $97.13 at expiry of $97.00 option = out of the money =- option price(x100) = $77 loss. $97.13 at expiry of $97.14 option = in the money by 1-cent=$1/contract profit - option price(x100) = $1-$58 = $57 loss The higher strike prices have much lower losses if they expire with the underlying stock at- or near-the-money. So, they carry \"\"gentler\"\" downside potential, and are priced much higher to reflect that \"\"controlled\"\" risk potential. That makes sense. Thanks.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac70de86f7432cca214663a85920e3dc", "text": "A Section 1256 contract is any: Non-equity options include debt options, commodity futures options, currency options, and broad-based stock index options. A broad-based stock index is based upon the value of a group of diversified stocks or securities (such as the Standard and Poor's 500 index). 60% of the capital gain or loss from Section 1256 Contracts is deemed to be long-term capital gain or loss and 40% is deemed to be short-term capital gain or loss. What this means is a more favorable tax treatment of 60% of your gains. http://www.tradelogsoftware.com/tax-topics/futures/ It's a really wierd rule (arbitraty 60% designation, so broad, etc), but section 1256 contracts get preferential tax treatment and that's what Buffett's talking about.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "844e727cb6711f204c235c018b8b8ca0", "text": "It's a phrase that has no meaning out of context. When I go to Las Vegas (I don't go, but if I did) I would treat what I took as money I plan to lose. When I trade stock options and buy puts or calls, I view it as a calculated risk, with a far greater than zero chance of having the trade show zero in time. A single company has a chance of going bankrupt. A mix of stocks has risk, the S&P was at less than half its high in the 2008 crash. The money I had in the S&P was not money I could afford to lose, but I could afford to wait it out. There's a difference. We're not back at the highs, but we're close. By the way, there are many people who would not sleep knowing that their statement shows a 50% loss from a prior high point. Those people should be in a mix more suited to their risk tolerance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb493ea94dd0fef17315bb6e00b6823b", "text": "There is a misunderstanding somewhere that your question didn't illuminate. You should have lost $0.04 as you say. Assuming the prices are correct the missing $0.02 aren't covered by a reasonable interpretations of the Robinhood fees schedule. For US-listed stocks: $0 plus SEC fees: 0.00221% of principal ($22.10 per $1,000,000 of principal) plus Trading Activity Fee: $0.000119/share rounded to nearest penny plus short/long term capital gains taxes The total fee rate is 0.002329% or 0.00002329the price of the trade. With you trades totaling around $11, the fee would be ~0.000256 or ~1/40 of a penny. The answer is probably that they charge $0.01 for any fraction of a penny. It's difficult to explain as anything other than avarice, so I won't try.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fd096c812c0ad78c3fd458f3ed8988e", "text": "In fact markets are not efficient and participants are not rational. That is why we have booms and busts in markets. Emotions and psychology play a role when investors and/or traders make decisions, sometimes causing them to behave in unpredictable or irrational ways. That is why stocks can be undervalued or overvalued compared to their true value. Also, different market participants may put a different true value on a stock (depending on their methods of analysis and the information they use to base their analysis on). This is why there are always many opportunities to profit (or lose your money) in liquid markets. Doing your research, homework, or analysis can be related to fundamental analysis, technical analysis, or a combination of the two. For example, you could use fundamental analysis to determine what to buy and then use technical analysis to determine when to buy. To me, doing your homework means to get yourself educated, to have a plan, to do your analysis (both FA and TA), to invest or trade according to your plan and to have a risk management strategy in place. Most people are too lazy to do their homework so will pay someone else to do it for them or they will just speculate (on the latest hot tip) and lose most of their money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84be8a7c538fae48665f33c5a50e9a99", "text": "\"Most of the time you're selling to other investors, not back to the company. The stock market is a collection of bid (buy offers) and asks (sell offers). When you sell your stock as a retail investor at the \"\"market\"\" price you're essentially just meeting whatever standing bid offers are on the market. For very liquid stocks (e.g. Apple), you can pretty much always get the displayed price because so many stocks are being traded. However during periods of very high volatility or for low-volume stocks, the quoted price may not be indicative of what you actually pay. As an example, let's say you have 5 stocks you're trying to sell and the bid-side order book is 2 stocks for $105, 2 for $100, and 5 for $95. In this scenario the quoted price will be $105 (the best bid price), but if you accept market price you'll settle 2 for 105, 2 for 100, and 1 for 95. After your sell order goes through, the new quoted price will be $95. For high volume stocks, there will usually be so many orders near the midpoint price ($105, in this case) that you won't see any price slippage for small orders. You can also post limit orders, which are essentially open orders waiting to be filled like in the above example. They ensure you get the price you want, but you have no way to guarantee they'll be filled or not. Edit: as a cool example, check out the bitcoin GDAX on coinbase for a live example of what the order book looks like for stocks. You'll see that the price of bitcoin will drift towards whichever direction has the less dense order book (e.g. price drifts upwards when there are far more bids than asks.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "398402f51ec457500408822627b1c4f2", "text": "Here's how capital gains are totaled: Long and Short Term. Capital gains and losses are either long-term or short-term. It depends on how long the taxpayer holds the property. If the taxpayer holds it for one year or less, the gain or loss is short-term. Net Capital Gain. If a taxpayer’s long-term gains are more than their long-term losses, the difference between the two is a net long-term capital gain. If the net long-term capital gain is more than the net short-term capital loss, the taxpayer has a net capital gain. So your net long-term gains (from all investments, through all brokers) are offset by any net short-term loss. Short term gains are taxed separately at a higher rate. I'm trying to avoid realizing a long term capital gain, but at the same time trade the stock. If you close in the next year, one of two things will happen - either the stock will go down, and you'll have short-term gains on the short, or the stock will go up, and you'll have short-term losses on the short that will offset the gains on the stock. So I don;t see how it reduces your tax liability. At best it defers it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02ef0274a4d40457956ad35df0119955", "text": "E.g. I buy 1 stock unit for $100.00 and sell it later for $150.00 => income taxes arise. Correct. You pay tax on your gains, i.e.: the different between net proceeds and gross costs (proceeds sans fees, acquisition costs including fees). I buy 1 stock unit for $150.00 and sell it later for $100.00 => no income taxes here. Not correct. The loss is deductible from other capital gains, and if no other capital gains - from your income (up to $3000 a year, until exhausted). Also, there are two different tax rate sets for capital gains: short term (holding up to 1 year) and long term (more than that). Short term capital gains tax matches ordinary income brackets, whereas long term capital gains tax brackets are much lower.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3659ad6a4c1d4d2f9e0aa0439187186", "text": "You have got it wrong. The profit or loss for smaller investor or big investor is same in percentage terms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "410f540b4ab654bf8bda42f5bd8443f1", "text": "If you make money in currency speculation (as in your example), that is a capital gain. A more complicated example is if you were to buy and then sell stocks on the mexican stock exchange. Your capital gain (or loss) would be the difference in value in US dollars of your stocks accounting for varying exchange rates. It's possible for the stocks to go down and for you to still have a capital gain, and vice versa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aedf2391fb10d1b8a89979464f555c0b", "text": "\"Easiest thing ever. In fact, 99% of people are loosing money. If you perform worse then 10% annually in cash (average over 5-10 years), then you better never even think about trading/investing. Most people are sitting at 0%..-5% annually. They win some, loose some, and are being outrun by inflation and commissions. In fact, fall of market is not a big deal, stock indexes are often jump back in a few months. If you rebalance properly, it is mitigated. Your much bigger enemy is inflation. If you think inflation is small, look at gold price over past 20 years. Some people, Winners at first, grow to +10%, get too relaxed and start to grow already lost position. That one loose trade eats 10% of their portfolio. Only there that people realize they should cut it off, when they already lost their profits. And they start again with +0%. This is hard thing to accept, but most of people are not made for that type of business. Even worse, they think \"\"if I had bigger budget, I would perform better\"\", which is kind of self-lie.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6467e804b2819ebdf69bc967a7c1f66", "text": "At any given time there are buy orders and there are sell orders. Typically there is a little bit of space between the lowest sell order and the highest buy order, this is known as the bid/ask spread. As an example say person A will sell for $10.10 but person B will only buy at $10.00. If you have a billion shares outstanding just the space between the bid and ask prices represents $100,000,000 of market cap. Now imagine that the CEO is in the news related to some embezzlement investigation. A number of buyers cancel their orders. Now the highest buy order is $7. There isn't money involved, that's just the highest offer to buy at the time; but that's a drop from $10 to $7. That's a change in market cap of $3,000,000,000. Some seller thinks the stock will continue to fall, and some buyer thinks the stock has reached a fair enterprise value at $7 billion ($7 per share). Whether or not the seller lost money depends on where the seller bought the stock. Maybe they bought when it was an IPO for $1. Even at $7 they made $6 per share. Value is changing, not money. Though it would be fun, there's no money bonfire at the NYSE.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96f824981dbe9557d71896527caa0655", "text": "The market maker will always take it off your hands. Just enter a market sell order. It will cost you a commission to pull the loss into this year. But that's it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35d17466538d7ee9d31e8ea996238f46", "text": "Your three options are: Options 2 and 3 are obviously identical (other than transaction costs), so if you want to keep the stock, go for option 1, otherwise, go for option 3 since you have the same effect as option 2 with no transaction costs. The loss will likely also offset some of the other short term gains you mentioned.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9861a7e8fe1d31b48293d7fd52f0ef1", "text": "Well, I'd argue they aren't technically 'supposed' to lose cash; VCs and other investors are just ok with it if the growth justifies the loss. Of course then again, people apparently still own snapchat stock, so who knows.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
3e85773d159a824b274c61e37ec7fda9	Is it financially advantageous and safe to rent out my personal car?	[ { "docid": "78becc0932c47c865cd73ac9b9f78f5b", "text": "The moment that you start to rent your car to strangers you are talking about using your car as a business. Will it be financially advantageous? If you can convince somebody to rent your vehicle for more than your required monthly payments then it might be. Of course you have to determine what would be the true cost of ownership for you. It could include your auto loan, and insurance, but you would be saving on the garage costs. Of course if you don't have it rented 100% of the time you will still have some costs. Your insurance company will need to know about your plan. They charge based on the risk. If you aren't honest about the situation they won't cover you if something goes wrong. The local government may want to know. They charge different car registration fees for businesses. If there are business taxes they will want that. Taxes. you are running a business so everybody from the federal governemnt to the local government may want a cut. Plus you will have to depreciate the value of the item. Turning the item from a personal use item to a business item can have tax issues. If you don't own it 100% the lender may also have concerns about making sure their collateral survives. Is it safe? and from the comments to the question : Should I do a contract or something that would protect me? Nope. it isn't safe unless you do have a contract. Of course that contract will have to be drawn up by a lawyer to make sure it protects you from theft, negligence, breach of contract.... You will have to be able to not just charge rent, but be able to repossess the car if they don't return it on time. You will have to be able to evaluate if the renter is trustworthy, or you may find your car is in far worse shape if you can even get it back.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46c6d4b8e8228b07600d4c53b5c3cc8f", "text": "\"I'm going to address a couple of extra issues over and above mhoran_psprep's great answer. Insurance A lot of the jobs you describe require that you have additional insurance over and above what you currently have, normally insurance that lets you drive for payment. You should insist that anyone you rent to has this insurance. If not, you may find yourself liable and uninsured. Also you should be aware of this story: \"\"Quebec Uber drivers have cars seized, fined up to $7,500\"\".\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "86044438cd8e8eda0053178579e091ae", "text": "\"My wife and I have been car-free since 2011. We spent about $3500 on car shares and rentals last year (I went through it recently to flag trips that were medical transportation and unreimbursed work related for taxes). This compares favorably with the last year of car ownership. I had reached a point I started needing $200+ repairs every couple of months and the straw that broke the camels back was a (dealer mechanic estimate but still) $3000 estimate to pass emissions inspection. Over 11 years the value went from $24000 to $3600, so it depreciated about 2k per year. I was easily spending $40 per week on gasoline on my last commute. I now use transit with the IRS commuter benefit so I do have a base after tax transportation expense of 1200 per year. We use weekend rentals about 2x per month (and do use a warehouse club) She uses rentals for her job about 12 times per year, and the medical transportation came in an intense burst. Access: Our nearest carshare pod is 0.22 miles (3 blocks); there are two hotels with full service rental car desks about half a mile from our house and every brand at the Amtrak station a mile away. There are concrete benefits to density, take every advantage. Insurance: I always take the rental company SLI daily insurance for $15 per day. Certain no annual fee credit cards automatically include CDW. Every time an insurance agent cold calls me, I ask for a quote for a \"\"named non owner\"\" policy, I'd probably take it if the premium was $300 or less per 6 months. Tips and tricks: a carshare minivan or truck rate is probably higher than a carshare car, but compared to a full service rental, may be much lower . The best value I spend no time in my life looking for a parking spot, and spend \"\"this hour\"\" tapping away on SE on a train instead of driving.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15ba43220578c9b495c2baeeb42ca862", "text": "\"I would split the savings as you may need some of it quickly for an emergency. At least 1/2 should be very liquid, such as cash or MMA/Checking. From there, look at longer term CDs, from 30 day to 180 day, depending upon your situation. Don't be surprised if by the time you've saved the money up, your desire for the car will have waned. How many years will it take to save up enough? 2? 5? 10? You may want to review your current work position instead, so you'll make more and hopefully save more towards what you do want. Important: Be prepared for the speed bumps of life. My landlord sold the house I was renting out from under me, as I was on a month-to-month contract. I had to have a full second deposit at the ready to put down when renting elsewhere, as well as the moving expenses. Luckily, I had done what my tax attorney had said, which is \"\"Create a cushion of liquid assets which can cover at least three months of your entire outgoing expenses.\"\" The Mormon philosophy is to carry at least one year's worth of supplies (food, water, materials) at all times in your home, for any contingency. Not Mormon, not religious, but willing to listen to others' opinions. As always, YMMV. Your Mileage May Vary.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ba1aa8230b37c2401e3c92abe036ee2", "text": "\"Your arrangements with the bank are irrelevant. Whoever is named on the title of the vehicle owns it. If she is the \"\"primary\"\", then I assume her name is on the title, therefore she owns the car. If you drive off with the car and it is titled in her name, she can report it stolen and have you arrested for grand theft auto unless you have a dated and signed permission in writing from her to use the car. Point #2: If a car loan was involved, then you didn't \"\"purchase\"\" the car, the bank did. If you want to gain ownership of the car, then you need to have her name removed from the title and have yours put in its place. Since the bank has possession of the title, this will require the cooperation of both your girlfriend and the bank.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3cfccfed3d82ca55e2aecef11e1b212c", "text": "Contacting a limo hire company is easy and hiring a car for personal use is also very easy. But it is seen in a majority of cases that those using these vehicles have no idea of what not do while using them. As a result, they fail to get the maximum benefit of the vehicle or the money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89a2e6e9f016d926d3d2d8735e6e6d8b", "text": "These days there are a lot of solutions which allow you to hire a car on the Internet itself. One of the major benefits of booking on the internet rental-car solutions is that you will preserve a fortune and ensure that things are effectively structured, thus saving sufficient time as well. We provide the Car rental services at a cheap price in the whole world. The best way to reduce costs and plan for local transportation when you are on a vacation is to book your car.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0f06c64f3954dc1ce53ca1017d37773a", "text": "\"I've lived this decision, and from my \"\"anecdata\"\": do #3 I have been car-free since 2011 in a large United States city. I was one month into a new job on a rail line out in the suburbs, and facing a $3000 bill to pass state inspection (the brakes plus the emissions system). I live downtown. I use a combination of transit, a carshare service, and 1-2 day rentals from full service car rental businesses (who have desks at several downtown hotels walking distance from my house). I have not had a car insurance policy since 2011; the carshare includes this and I pay $15 per day for SLI from full service rentals. I routinely ask insurance salesmen to run a quote for a \"\"named non-owner\"\" policy, and would pull the trigger if the premium cost was $300/6 months, to replace the $15/day SLI. It's always quoted higher. In general, our trips have a marginal cost of $40-100. Sure, this can be somewhat discouraging. But we do it for shopping at a warehouse club, visiting parents and friends in the suburbs. Not every weekend, but pretty close. But with use of the various services ~1/weekend, it's come out to $2600 per year. I was in at least $3200 per year operating the car and often more, so there is room for unexpected trips or the occasional taxi ride in cash flow, not to mention the capital cost: I ground the blue book value of the car from $19000 down to $3600 in 11 years. Summary: Pull the trigger, do it :D\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3eceb7f45d453ce6dae1a02a88cab370", "text": "\"I worked for a major car rental company (not Hertz, but comparable) for quite a while, taking reservations by phone. I completely agree that the reservation system is terrible, and is only vaguely based on the reality of their vehicles in stock at best. The problem is, from a strictly business perspective, taking more reservations than they have cars is currently considered the most profitable model for them. To play devil's advocate just a little, switching to a \"\"take only one reservation per vehicle, reserve it to 100% lock it in\"\" model is a bit more complicated than it sounds. In order to guarantee a specific car for a customer at a specific time, they either have to leave that car sitting on their lot until you rent it (not making money), or keep renting it out to other people in the interim. If they rent it out to someone else before your rental comes up, that removes the vehicle from their control. Bordering on constantly, renters don't return the vehicle within their promised schedule or return it in a damaged or otherwise unsuitable condition. To be clear I'm not trying to make excuses for the rental car company (there are many reasons I no longer work there), but it's objectively hard for them to get a specific vehicle if, say, all but one of them were in wrecks the previous night, and the person renting the last one drove it across the country without warning the rental office and refuses to come back. Those problems all get solved eventually, but that doesn't help you when you show up and can't get the car you reserved. So, they continue to take excessive reservations, and just give people whatever they happen to have when they show up, if they have any cars at all. There's definitely better ways to do it for the customer, but like many businesses, they'll continue to do it whatever way they determine is best for their profits. Edit: Words.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2d1c0c043e6c0d127ce9c0d8d2b9b31", "text": "Any way you look at it, this is a terrible idea. Cars lose value. They are a disposable item that gets used up. The more expensive the car, the more value they lose. If you spend $100,000 on a new car, in four years it will be worth less than $50,000.* That is a lot of money to lose in four years. In addition to the loss of value, you will need to buy insurance, which, for a $100,000 car, is incredible. If your heart is set on this kind of car, you should definitely save up the cash and wait to buy the car. Do not get a loan. Here is why: Your plan has you saving $1,300 a month ($16,000 a year) for 6.5 years before you will be able to buy this car. That is a lot of money for a long range goal. If you faithfully save this money that long, and at the end of the 6.5 years you still want this car, it is your money to spend as you want. You will have had a long time to reconsider your course of action, but you will have sacrificed for a long time, and you will have the money to lose. However, you may find out a year into this process that you are spending too much money saving for this car, and reconsider. If, instead, you take out a loan for this car, then by the time you decide the car was too much of a stretch financially, it will be too late. You will be upside down on the loan, and it will cost you thousands to sell the car. So go ahead and start saving. If you haven't given up before you reach your goal, you may find that in 6.5 years when it is time to write that check, you will look back at the sacrifices you have made and decide that you don't want to simply blow that money on a car. Consider a different goal. If you invest this $1300 a month and achieve 8% growth, you will be a millionaire in 23 years. * You don't need to take my word for it. Look at the car you are interested in, go to kbb.com, select the 2012 version of the car, and look up the private sale value. You'll most likely see a price that is about half of what a new one costs.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d1f550144d06e304037346ce25ed698", "text": "I might be missing something, but I always understood that leasing is about managing cash-flow in a business. You have a fixed monthly out-going as opposed to an up-front payment. My accountant (here in Germany) recommended: pay cash, take a loan (often the manufactures offer good rates) or lease - in that order. The leasing company has to raise the cash from somewhere and they don't want to make a loss on the deal. They will probably know better than I how to manage that and will therefore be calculating in the projected resale value at the end of the leasing period. I can't see how an electric car would make any difference here. These people are probably better informed about the resale value of any type of car than I am. My feeling is to buy using a loan from the manufacturer. The rates are often good and I have also got good deals on insurance as a part of that package. Here in Germany the sales tax (VAT) can be immediately claimed back in full when the loan deal is signed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "121b78600c056243d50d16e83fcf7327", "text": "\"Personally, I would: a) consider selling the car and replacing it with a 'cheaper' one. If you only drive it once a month, you are probably not getting much 'value' from owning a nice car. b) move the car (either current or replacement) out to your parent's place. The cost of a plane ticket is about the same as the cost of the garage, and your parents would likely hold on to it for free (assuming they live in the suburbs, and parking is not an issue) option b should lower your insurance costs (very low annual mileage) and at least you'll get some frequent flier miles out of your $350 a month. That being said: this is a \"\"quality of life\"\" issue, which means that there isn't going to be a firm answer. If you are 25, have little debt, which you are paying off on time, have an emergency fund, and you are making regular contributions to your 401k, you are certainly NOT \"\"being seriously irresponsible\"\" by owning a nice car. But you may decide that the $1000 a month could be better spent somewhere else.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fe05922ce9a0da7256cad78465a37d4", "text": "If you can generate a higher ROI by renting than by cashing out and investing, then you should rent it out. Please consider your risk tolerance as well. It's always a personal decision whether to assume higher risk for a higher return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11692d59ac54be45ba7425bb06463446", "text": "The only reason to lend the money in this scenario is cashflow. But considering you buy a $15000 car, your lifestyle is not super luxurious, so $15000 spare cash is enough.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35f7e9bbe9ff41aa6e46cb264ed40e26", "text": "I understand that, but there are so many mitigating factors now that I don't feel safe. It's more like thinking that airplanes are safe, but if you're walking through the airport and you notice the pilot at the bar and them see him with his shirt untucked as he bumps his head getting into the airplane you might not get onto that airplane. I wouldn't give this advice to someone in their 20s, but we are in our 50s. We have enough to live on comfortably with savings and my husband's pension and social security and passive income from the rental. It's just not worth the risk. As it is I am retired and can travel and eat whatever I want whenever I want. And the rental property is our hedge against inflation. I just see no reason to risk that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92f923e3727a7af46c38acb5c46bb1c7", "text": "You SHOULDN'T lease one if you are going to get an economy car, if you don't drive too much (<15K / year), and you want to hang on to the car for a long time. Otherwise, if you are a regular driver, driving a leased new quality car can be cost effective. Many cars now have bumper-to-bumper warranties that last as long as the lease (say 80K). So there is rarely any extra costs apart from regular maintenance. The sweet spot for most new cars is in the 5th, 6th, or 7th years, after they are paid off. But at that point, you may find you have maintenance bills that are approaching an average of $200 - $300 per month. In which case, a lease starts to look pretty good. I owned a 7 year old Honda Accord that cost only $80 less per month in maintenance than the new leased VW that replaced it. Haven't looked back after that. Into my 3rd car and 9th year of leasing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d864190cdecc0a7b03e663b49b5604b", "text": "It's my understand that leasing is never the better overall deal, with the possible exception of a person who would otherwise buy a brand new car every 2 or 3 years, and does not drive a lot of miles. Note: in the case of a company car, Canadian taxes let you deduct the entire lease payment (which clearly has some principal in it) if you lease, while if you buy you can only deduct the interest, and must depreciate the car according to their schedule. This can make leasing more attractive to those buying a car through a corporation. I don't know if this applies in the US. The numbers you ran through in class presumably involved calculating the interest paid over the term of the loan. Can you not just redo the calculation using actual interest and lease numbers from a randomly chosen current car ad? I suspect if you do, you will discover leasing is still not the right choice.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
31536700d8e8e02e59f46cfa10931c51	Is a website/domain name an asset or a liability?	[ { "docid": "7b8f26b9c664f83164a67fe7323ab686", "text": "\"This depends on your definitions of assets and liabilities. The word \"\"asset\"\" has a fairly straight forward definition. Generally speaking, an asset in finance is something that you own/control that has economic value. The asset has value because it is generating income for you or because you expect that it will be worth something to someone in the future. \"\"Liability\"\" is tougher to define, and depends on context. In accounting, a liability is a debt or obligation that is owed. It is essentially the opposite of an asset; where an asset represents something of value that you own, increasing your balance sheet, a liability is a value that you owe, decreasing your balance sheet. In that sense, a website or domain name that you own is an asset, not a liability, because it is something you own that has some value. It is not a debt. Many people use the word \"\"liability\"\" informally to refer to a bad asset: something that is losing value or is causing more in expenses than it is generating in income. (See definition #5 on Wiktionary.) With this definition, you might consider a website or a domain name a liability if it is losing money. Alternatively, depending on your business, you might not consider it an asset or a liability, but an expense instead. An expense is a cost of doing business. For example, if your business is selling something, you might need a website to make that happen. The website isn't purchased as an investment, and it might not have any value apart from your business. It is simply a necessary expense for your business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "418d1c8eb7b3bcbfe3ed9d3b91e0f720", "text": "In an accounting position, a domain name would fall under an intangible asset. Copyrights and patents are intangible, while tangible assets would be buildings or land (also known as property, plant, and equipment). Noting above, you can list it as an expense for personal reasons, but that would be poor classification. Tangible and intangible assets come with expenses such as legal fees and design. In these instances, you would expense the cost, or fee, but add back that value to the tangible or intangible as it would be considered maintenance. Please read here for tax treatment of a domain name. Please read here for what an intangible asset is. Also read here on page 11 for more clarification by IFRS.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "f83e907fd4c969acb36a4db865744b4d", "text": "I've read over these responses like a dozen times. It's really cool hearing from a business owner who has experienced things first-hand. Nobody in my family has ever been or known anything about business/stocks/Anything. I'm learning everything from the internet, friends, and now reddit. I'll certainly seek true legal advice but you have no idea how helpful you and every other person on this thread has been. Thank you! I'm all ears to anything else", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a25b57209b7b65d9120b4099816dbf27", "text": "Generally, the answer is as follows: If there is a legal obligation to pay cash flow (including the possibility of court determined restructuring), then it is debt. If the asset owner is not guaranteed any cash flow, but instead owns the residual cash flow from the operations of the business (I.e. the cash flow left-over), then it is equity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84fc8436480e8a494420b0c68ea08c25", "text": "\"I think you misunderstand the purpose of the liability account. I would suggest you review the standard accounting model, but to give you a brief overview: Income and expenses are money coming into and out of your possession. They are the pipes flowing into and out of your \"\"box\"\". Inside your box, you have assets (bank, savings, cash, etc) and liabilities (credit cards, unpaid debts, etc). Money can flow into and out of either asset or liability accounts, for example: deposit a payment (income to asset), buy office supplies with cash (asset to expense), pay a bill with credit card (liability to expense), customer pays one of your debts directly (income to liability). Paying off a debt with an asset does not affect your overall net worth, so paying a check to your credit card bill (asset to liability) doesn't decrease your total balance, it merely moves the value from one bucket to another. Now to your question: Mandatory payments, such as taxes or insurance (or for that matter, utilities, rent, food- all things that \"\"must\"\" be bought occasionally) are not liabilities, instead they are all expenses. They might be paid FROM a liability account, if they are paid on credit for example, but the money still flows from liability to expense. In my own records I have Expense:Taxes and Expense:Insurance, with sub-accounts in each. Where the money comes from depends entirely on how I pay my bills, whether from cash or banks (asset) or whether it's a charge (liability). Sometimes you receive payments back from an insurance company. I find that rather than treating insurance premiums as a positive balance in a liability (with eventual payments as debits to the liability account), it is better to treat any payment from the insurance as income. Hope that helps!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "771ef6ae92da14c94bcd4eba78e1270b", "text": "\"Technical people on Reddit who have dealt with Oracle or similar web sites & systems (myself included) seem to believe that Oregon's claims come down to whether it was Oracle or the state government who was worse at planning the creation and maintenance of Oregon's healthcare web site. I tend to think that government entities are often worse at managing & planning things, and therefore believe that Oracle would be less likely to blame, but this doesn't necessarily mean that all of the more than dozen claims for damages will all be thrown out either. One key claim is that Oracle asserted that ~95% of the web site's functionality would work \"\"out of the box\"\", thus leaving only 5% of the web site's functionality requiring third party (potentially custom) integration. The burden is on Oregon to prove that the failures of the web site were the result of more than that 5%, and that Oracle was contractually obligated to fix issues with the \"\">5%\"\" at no additional charge. Failure to prove that would result in Oracle being justified in asking for more $ to fix the web site, such that the alleged racketeering and much of the fraud did not actually take place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "558f752b8e4d53038da7f1fad1c7b577", "text": "One company owns majority of popular freelancing websites (elance included) Aside from the race to the bottom pricing happening for projects; customer is always right. Lots of stories of even a pip from a client freezing accounts -- not even just a project, your whole account with any ongoing projects. Everything gone. Thousands lost. Not worth it. No recourse.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e89abafad08bda7125659f6655dfd39", "text": "Assets with zero value, perhaps. Unless you can prove that they have resale value. Good luck with that. In other words, not worth spending time on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebebc5c60545ce9fcf8ba4c35d204b25", "text": "Fellow dirty jerz resident here. I would highly recommend going the llc route. If, god forbid, anything ever happened and you were sued, the llc will contain all losses and your personal assets will not be at risk. I'm not sure about the timing of clients. Better to ask a lawyer - cheap to use online services like rocketlawyer (sp?)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8378244dc29df4226efa9ea00b22aaf4", "text": "Yes, you do. Unless you actually donate it, the loan will be repaid and as such - is an asset for you. On your taxes you report the interest you got paid for the loan. You can claim the interest as a charitable deduction, if you don't effectively charge any (IRS dictates minimum statutory interests for arm-length loan transactions).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9797c3ae43e312e7a4e29c26a0f28f57", "text": "If i am not wrong, any business activities such should be declared on Year End Tax filing. If your friend is going to own that website either it is commercial or nonprofit, he has to declare in the year end taxation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f89ed67b5f0774d7905ab336c87cbb9a", "text": "REITs can be classified as equity, mortgage, or hybrid. A security that sells like a stock on the major exchanges and invests in real estate directly, either through properties or mortgages. Trades like equity but the underlying is a property ot mortgage. So you are investing in real estate but without directly dealing with it. So you wouldn't classify it as real estate. CD looks more like a bond.If you look at the terms and conditions they have many conditions as a bond i.e. callable, that is a very precious option for both the buyer and seller. Self occupied house - Yes an asset because it comes with liabilities. When you need to sell it you have to move out. You have to perform repairs to keep it in good condition. Foreign stock mutual fund - Classify it as Foreign stocks, for your own good. Investments in a foreign country aren't the same as in your own country. The foreign economy can go bust, the company may go bust and you would have limited options of recovering your money sitting at home and so on and so forth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90064678db84cc09897194a1ff7108ba", "text": "\"Maybe not the official solution satisfying int'l convention / legislation, but at least has some logic to it (though I myself am not 100% convinced as yet): Liabilities ! ... but is it really a liability? Rationale: And simultaneously ups my liabilities: since what difference does it make if I borrow some money (to use it or not use it, repay later) or if someone just wants to \"\"store\"\" some money with me: w.r.t. balance sheet I'd say: zero... ... with the one caveat that it might make a difference w.r.t. taxation ?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ea38d521dc9ddf679ca1260bc44b9d4", "text": "You mean sites like prosper.com? I see that they are growing but is this really substainable when the novely wears off? Also I find the low volatility claim interesting since I thought low vol portfolios would be a hard sell. How have you experienced this?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13ab27f6adec8293954d5fffd3caaefc", "text": "Quite a bit as in, $100K+? If you're a sole operator, not sure what constitutes a real likelihood that a risk of liability will materialize, and in need of a lot of up front financing, I am genuinely concerned that you're going to a lay a giant egg on this one. What is it your business is going to be doing? I don't really want to give a free consultation, but I'm worried you're either misunderstanding something or about to make a mistake, and I don't want to see that happen.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37e2d6eedafa33632362dc3b7976108c", "text": "The difference is downside risk. Your CD, assuming you are in the US and the CD is purchased from a deposit bank, will be FDIC insured, your $10,000 is definitely coming back to you. Your stock portfolio has no such guarantee and can lose money. Your potential upside is theoretically correlated to the risk that some or all of your money may not be returned to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d72a2287e6187ab29b5c58818cd1e8f", "text": "\"Alternatively you could exercise 12000 shares for $36000 and immediately sell 7200 shares to recover your exercise price. Then you use the remaining 4800 share to pay the exercise price of the remaining 8000 options. Both scenarios are equivalent but may have different fees associated, so it's worth checking the fine print. Tax wise: The above example is \"\"cash neutral before taxes\"\". The taxes associated with these transaction are substantial, so it's highly recommended to talk with a tax adviser. \"\"cash neutral after taxes\"\" depends highly on your specific tax situation.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
26ad8dbcd8eef8b2870735e59671abe8	Doctor's office won't submit claim to insurance after 5 months	[ { "docid": "e6556782b39b76a1797d32ea3c47cadc", "text": "I'm a business law student, so medical stuff isn't really my specialty. I'll share with you what I know though. First, as to the legality, I'm not aware of anything making it illegal for them to consider their business with you concluded. Absent any contract between you and the doctor, it seems to me that you agreed to pay them in cash. If I was the business, I'd assume our business had been concluded as well. As for any contracts between the insurance company and the doctor's office, as far as I know, that's between them. That wouldn't give you standing to sue the doctor. I'm unfamiliar with a patient submitting insurance claims, but if that's something you are allowed to do with your insurance company and all you need is more information, submit a request for your medical records to the doctor. Under United States law, your medical records are yours. You have a right to receive a copy of them. Keep in mind though that the doctor's office may charge you a small copying fee to cover expenses they incur while making a copy for you. As far as complaining, I would suggest your local Better Business Bureau. Each state generally has a medical board which oversees doctors. You might lodge a complaint with them as well. I hope this helps. Keep in mind that I'm not an attorney. This is not legal advice. This is only what I personally would do if I were in your situation. You can and should consult an attorney who is licensed to practice law in your particular jurisdiction.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "77de1f0828136343b16e6cd31563932d", "text": "First, as noted in the comments, you need to pay attention to your network providers. If you are unable to pay exorbitant prices out of pocket, then find an in-network medical provider. if you are unhappy with the in-network provider list (e.g. too distant or not specialists), then discuss switching to another plan or insurer with your employer or broker. Second, many providers will have out of pocket or uninsured price lists, often seen in outdated formats or disused binders. Since you have asked for price lists and not been provided one, I would pursue it with the practice manager (or equivalent, or else a doctor) and ask if they have one. It's possible that the clinic has an out of pocket price list but the front line staff is unaware of it and was never trained on it. Third, if you efforts to secure a price list fail, and you are especially committed to this specific provider, then I would consider engaging in a friendly by direct negotiation with the practice manager or other responsible person. Person they will be amenable to creating a list of prices (if you are particularly proactive and aggressive, you could offer to find out of pocket price lists from other clinics nearby). You could also flat out ask them to charge you a certain fee for office visits (if you do this, try to get some sort of offer or agreed price list in writing). Most medical practices are uncomfortable asking patients for money, so that may mean flat refusal to negotiate but it may also mean surprising willingness to work with you. This route is highly unpredictable before you go down it, and it's dependent on all sorts of things like the ownership structure, business model, and the personalities of the key people there. The easiest answer is to switch clinics. This one sounds very unfriendly to HSA patients.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcb9eaeafb6185e76ad564d565950eaf", "text": "Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79f3951e521b723d7cec441f8987995e", "text": "\"They have forever to collect a balance from you. Furthermore they can add whatever penalties and fees they wish to increase that balance. Worst of all, they don't have to remind you or send you bills or any other notification. You owed it when you left the office. (There very well could be local laws that require notifications, but that isn't really the issue here.) That dentist has every right to deny you service until you settle the account. Forever. The statute of limitations on collecting that debt via court: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/savings/when-does-your-debt-expire.aspx Which covers the rules on HOW LONG they have to collect the debt. Owing the money is one thing, but the rules and tools that you creditor has to collect the debt are another. You are probably worried about them suing you. But if you don't pay the debt (or settle in some way), that dentist can refuse to provide services to you, even if they write off the debt. Ways you can be punished by your dentist for not paying the bill are: Depending on your jurisdiction and/or type of debt, they typically only report it on your credit (if they are reporting at all) for 7 years. Even if you pay and settle the account, it will still be reported on your credit report for 7 years. The difference is how it is reported. They can report that \"\"user133466 is a super reliable person who always pays debts on time\"\". They can say \"\"user133466 is a flake who pays, but takes a while to pay\"\". Or they can say \"\"user133466 is a bad person to provide services before collecting money, because user133466 don't pay bills\"\". Other people considering lending you money are going to read these opinions and decide accordingly if they want to deal with you or not. And they can say that for 7 years. The idea of credit reporting is that you settle up as soon as possible and get your credit report to reflect the truth. One popular way to collect a debt to is to sue you for it. There, each state has a different time period on how long a creditor has to sue you for a debt. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/state-statutes-of-limitations-for-old-debts-1.aspx If you pay part of the debt, that will often reset the clock on the statute of limitations, so be sure any partial or negotiated settlements state very clearly, in writing, that payment is considered payment in full on the debt. Then you keep that record forever. There are other interesting points in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. See Debt collectors calling? Know your rights. They can only contact you in certain ways, they must respond to you in certain ways, and they have limits on what they can say, who they can say it to, and when they can say it. There are protections from mean or vicious bill collectors, but that doesn't sound like who you are dealing with. I don't know that the FDCPA is a tool you need to use in this case. You should negotiate your debt and try your best to settle up. From your post, both parties dropped the ball, and both parties should give a little. You should pay no or minor late fees, and the doctor should report your credit positively when you do so. If you both made honest mistakes, they both parties should acknowledge that and be fair, and not defensive. This is not legal advice. But you owe the debt, so you should settle up. I don't think it is fair for you to not pay because they didn't mail you a paper. However I also do not think it is fair for the doctor to run up fees and not remind you of the bill. Finally, you didn't bring up insurance or many other details. Those details can change the answer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78a3ef2b2e99a5dba21d383e0e5c778c", "text": "Due to the fact that months have gone by since the item was shipped to you it will be hard to resolve by sending it back. The collection agency is now only interested in getting as much of the money as they can from you. They may have sent a percentage of the debt to the original company when they bought the debt. They may also be working on a commission. Therefore they are not interested in having everybody happy with the result. They need to follow the law, but they don't care if you are a happy customer. The longer you wait to resolve it, the longer it will remain on the credit report. The fact that it went to collections has already hurt your score. Yes, make sure that they update your credit file to reflect that you have paid the debt. Get it in writing. Also check with your health insurance company to see if this is at least partially covered by insurance. They generally won't cover the $12 in fees from the collections company, but they might cover part of the original bill. Depending on the item, it might also be an allowable expense for your FSA (Flexible spending account) or your HSA (Health Spending account).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28fbd6147331296e24091a48b5f615a7", "text": "It is important to understand that when or before you received services from your medical provider(s), you almost certainly signed a document stating that you understand that you are fully responsible for the entire bill, even though the provider may be willing to bill the insurer on your behalf as a service. In almost all cases, this is the arrangement, so it is very unlikely that you will be able to dispute the validity of the bill, since you did receive the service and almost certainly agreed to be fully responsible for the payments. With regard to the discounts, your medical provides have likely contracted with your insurer to provide services at a certain price or discount level, so I would base all of your negotiations with the providers and/or the collectors on those amounts. They can't legitimately bill you for the full amount since you are insured by a company they have a contract with, and you are not self-pay/uninsured, and the fact that they haven't been paid by your insurer doesn't change that, because the discount likely depends on the contact they have with your insurer and not whether or not they are billed/paid by your insurer. Please note - this is a common arrangement, but I'd recommend that you verify this with your insurer. Unfortunately, payment in 90+ days is often typical by insurance standards, so it's not yet clear to me whether or not your insurer has broken any laws such as a Prompt Pay law, or violated the terms of your policy with them (read it!). However, you need to find out which claims rep/adjuster is handling your claims and follow up with them until the payments are made. It's not personal, so make this person's life miserable until it is done and call them so often that they know it's you by the caller ID. I would also recommend contacting the collector(s), and letting them know that you don't have the money and so will not be able to pay, provide them with copies of the EOBs that state that the insurance company plans to pay the providers, and then ignore their calls/letters until the payments are made. When they call, simply reiterate that you don't have the money and that your insurance company is in the process of paying the bills. You have to expect that you will be dealing with a low-paid employee that is following a script. You are just the next person on their robo-call list, and they are not going to understand that you don't have a pile of money laying around with which to pay them, even if you tell them repeatedly. Make sure that you at no point give them access to any of your financial accounts, such as a checking or savings account, or a debit card - they will access it and clean you out. It is likely that your insurance provider will pay the providers directly since they were likely billed by the providers originally. If the providers have sold the debt to the collectors (and are not just employing a collector for debt they still own), you may have to follow up with the providers as well and make sure that the collection activity stops, since the providers may also need to forward the payments to the collectors once they are paid by the insurance company. Of course, if the insurer refuses to pay the claims, at that point I would recommend meeting with a lawyer to seek to force them to pay.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2dee3bd7391f7fa666fa9ca7b4777d5f", "text": "This has a straightforward answer. It's likely that your doctor and the hospital have no responsibility to ensure that your insurance claim is filed in a timely manner. They bill you whether you or they get reimbursed by insurance, or not. The insurance company is more than happy not to pay you any way they can. Sorry if this is harsh, but it's up to you to follow through. See also here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af1106a29d58d5538e4e2baea1dc30ea", "text": "The insurance company issued the check. I'd contact the insurance company to have the current check voided and a new one issued to the pharmacy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8406e32f3d7bfb8d8866d422b322e321", "text": "I wouldn't classify your treatment as abuse. Medical billing has become more complex not less complex. You need to learn to ask even more questions regarding expenses, you probably need to see these price quotes in writing. You did several things correctly. Staying in-network generally is best because many plans have two deductible limits: In-network, and out-of-network. You need to make sure that the insurance company does credit you with having paid the new patient fee. That will qualify as an expense toward the deductible and your maximum out of pocket for the year. Some doctors offices don't send to insurance companies items that they know will not be covered, not remembering that these costs are critical under the High deductible plans with a health savings account. Doctors offices have problems determining how much the cost to you will be. It depends not just on the insurance company but also which type of plan you have, which sub-plan you have, and are you covered by more than one plan. Not to mention individual deductibles, family deductibles, and annual out-of-pocket amount. All this is wanted prior to the doctor seeing the patient. Most doctors offices will work with you, they know that each insurance plan treats each medical billing code differently, sometimes they make a mistake. Talk to them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3aadaf75dc0c8ee36d023b7551df1937", "text": "Insurance is mostly for covering against catastrophic events, it's not something that must be helpful to you every day. Sounds like you health is okay and you don't mind paying some cash in case of minor events. You could try to find a policy where coverage kicks in only once an incident is big enough (high deductible) - in such cases you payments will be significantly lower because you'll be unable to apply with minor incidents and that saves money to the insurance company and you're still covered against catastrophic events.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88d93fd72c2f70c40e0122c42f8b7025", "text": "Unless it is in the contract that you must replace it then this should be replaced by your insurance. They sent you a box that was defective, consumer grade electronics are designed for at least 85 deg C (185F) and unless they can prove your car was hotter than that they sent you a defective unit. That being said, I do not think it would be worth suing them for that low amount, I would suggest you get a new insurance company. The current company clearly values your business less than 185 pounds(?) and this issue will happen multiple times since the company has no incentive to buy better products if customers keep footing the bill.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fee06b37c87cee42807c9ce4ebb7e58", "text": "Article was about insurers not liking the uncertainty. Some insurers want Obamacare repealed, some of them want it to stay. But they all don't want to political climate of uncertainty. A situation where people wouldn't be mandated to buy insurance because they don't fear the IRS actually requiring them, but where the actual regulations haven't been changed yet is a nightmare for insurers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4a7824dea6df0994920939dd1e862e6", "text": "\"The concept of emergency fund is a matter of opinion. I can tell you the consensus is that one should have 6-9 months worth of expenses kept as liquid cash. This is meant to cover literally all bills that you might encounter during that time. That's a lot of money. There are levels of savings that are shy of this but still responsible. Not enough to cover too much in case of job loss, but enough to cover the busted transmission, the broken water heater, etc. this is still more than many people have saved up, but it's a worthy goal. The doctor visit is probably the lowest level. Even without insurance, the clinic visit should be under $200, and this shouldn't cause you to have to carry that amount beyond the time the bill comes in. The point that shouldn't be ignored is that if you owe money at 18% on a credit card, the emergency fund is costing you money, and is a bit misguided. I'd send every cent I could to the highest rate card and not have more than a few hundred $$ liquid until the cards were at zero. Last - $5K, $10K in the emergency account is great, unless you are foregoing matched 401(k) dollars to do it. All just my opinion. Others here whom I respect might disagree with parts of my answer, and they'd be right. Edit - Regarding the 'consensus 6-9 months' I suggest - From Investopedia - \"\"...using the conservative recommendation to sock away eight months’ worth of living expenses....\"\" The article strongly support my range for the fact that it both cites consensus, yet disagrees with it. From Money Under 30 The more difficult you rank your ability to find a new job, the more we suggest you save — up to a year’s worth of expenses if you think your income would be very difficult to replace. From Bank of America I have no issue with those comfortable with less. A dual income couple who is saving 30% of their income may very well survive one person losing a job with no need to tap savings, and any 'emergency' expense can come from next month's income. That couple may just need this month's bills in their checking account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "985c27490a1fc20d8f94bcadedf22034", "text": "Unfortunately I've seen every single example you've provided from the health care providers perspective. Trust me, they aren't happy about the situation either - hence the reason they will demand up front payment from you based on who your insurance carrier is. I could name a few of the top brand name insurance companies in this country that do all of this to their clients. Medical billing is an incredibly over complicated beast. One that insurance companies have been doing everything they can to make worse over the years. The codes can change annually and there are MANY different codes which can cover the exact same situation. Sure the insurance company might cover gallstones, but if you happen to be pregnant, well, that may not covered even though the treatment is the exact same. What can you do? Consider locating a new insurance company. You do have options and don't have to go with the one your company uses. The downside is that this is going to take quite a bit of research on your part and it will end up costing you more money on your monthly premiums simply because your company won't be footing part of the bill. Talk to other co-workers and see if their experiences match yours. If so, try to get a large enough group together to approach management and demand resolution. A third potential avenue is to get politically involved - but I'm enough of a pessimist that I doubt that would do any good. From what I've seen, neither major political party's current position actually does anything to solve the problem. A fourth option is suing the insurance company - but that is going to be incredibly expensive and take forever. You might have better luck getting together with a bunch of local people and demand your attorney general review the billing/payment practices. Again, this is going to require a LOT of effort. A fifth option is to attempt to cash pay your bills and submit them yourself to the insurance company for reimbursement. If you do this you can likely negotiate lower bills with the medical provider. For anything less than about $2,000 I negotiate the amount prior to service. Believe me when I say that providers are more than happy to give decent discounts if they know they won't have to deal with the insurance companies themselves. Slightly more work for you, but could be far cheaper in the long run.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d300a37caab11c1aad8bb3eaca7d4f2", "text": "It's an over crowded boat I'm sure. She hasn't had insurance all year either. She switched departments at the end of last year and they said she had to wait for open enrollment to come around again. So it wasn't by choice that she's been uninsured. It really baffles me that her company, a healthcare provider, would let their employees go through this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bacbf1312711592dd0661cd6e0a86ad", "text": "\"Well, they can. Up to six years in many countries. There can be consequences. If you went to the dentist three years ago, were happy with the bill and returned every six months, and the dentist informs you that your six $200 bills should have each been $1,200 then it is obvious that you would have looked for another dentist if the first bill had been correct; in that case you have a very good reason to refuse to pay the difference on the other five bills. (That's if you were not aware that the bill was wrong. If every time he fixed your teeth and the bill says \"\"examining your teeth\"\" which you would expect to be a lot cheaper, then maybe you should have known that the bill was wrong. Just an example).\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
b1e05b50bac11f3a1ac72d094900bfa2	Legitimate unclaimed property that doesn't appear in any state directory?	[ { "docid": "929316683fa35e9a0e9f86e94cf91880", "text": "\"Most states have a \"\"cap\"\" on the amount a \"\"heir finder\"\" can charge for retrieving the property. It is generally around 10%. Even if the state does not have a particular statute you can usually negotiate the rate with the company. Thirty-percent is extortion, if they won't do it for less, someone else will.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39537f525254e9cde5d5705482fd42e4", "text": "It's true that most states have limits on what finders can charge if the listing is in state possession. If it is in the pre-escheat phase (that period of time before it goes to the state) then even if the money will eventually go to the state, the limits don't apply. Keane does a lot of work with transfer agents that handle the administrative work of stocks. Other options that have a time limit include I have a friend that was contacted by Keane. It turned out to be stock that her mother had when she worked for AMEX. She got busy with other things and got another letter from Keane. The stock increased in value and they wanted more money to help her even though they had already done the work of finding her. The money eventually went to the state and she was able to claim the full amount for FREE. If the suggestions I gave you don't get results, contact me through my web site and I'll try to help. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b87ccde0ee05b8f9e1675a19631d39a1", "text": "@ Chris: Companies like Keane, ours, and others know where to look for these funds and where to ask at the correct agencies that are holding this money that is not part of the public links that you have access to. This is how we find this information. Our types of companies spend significant time, money and resources in finding out about the money, then finding who it actually belongs to (because it does not always belong to who is mentioned on the list) and then finding the correct individual. @ jdsweet: I apologize if you think this is a marketing ploy. It is not. Our company doesn't even take phone calls from people that want us to find them money. Only if we contact someone, because at that time we're confident that the person we touch base with is due the funds. Again, I am not plugging our company, but trying to let Neil know that in some cases he is right, you don't need a third party to claim funds for you - if you can find them. In this case, he has looked and cannot find them. Keane is charging a fair amount to retrieve funds he cannot find and doesn't know about and is not charging him anything to do all the work. Again, as mentioned above, the direct answer is that we know how to access information and lists that have this money hidden from the public because the agency holding the funds doesn't want you to know about it so that they can escheat the funds. Escheating is the state's legal way to confiscate your money. See, if you don't put in a claim for the money (depending on what type it is and where it is located) the agency and state holding the funds has certain time frames for you to get the money. If you don't, again, they get to keep it and that is what they want despite what they say. That is why there is approximately $33 Billion that is known to the public and really $1 Trillion that's out there. I apologize if you think that this is a plug for my company, it's not because we're not looking for calls, we make them. I'm also not asking Neil for his business. From all accounts on my side, this seems like a fair deal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34f60003b4847e6b7e946a91d4217856", "text": "So while these companies are not a scam, 30% feels pretty darn high. How about you negotiate a much lower rate? 10% or 15%? Here is why: You will spend time and effort (which technically isn't free) to find the money. I bet you can find it if you look hard enough. But you could also just collect it and give this company a cut for their expertise. However if 30% bugs you (and it would bug me) then consider their reality. They spent money to find the funds and contact you. HOWEVER, that is a sunk cost. It is already spent. You can find it on your own and they get zip. Or you negotiate a lower percentage, they get enough to cover their costs and make some profit and you save a ton of time. Since they took the time to explain themselves here, they are either scammers trying to bully you into compliance, or they are legit. It is field that people might look down on, but it isn't criminal. I would look for the money if it were me, but I feel I have enough free time that it would be worth it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f44d65ee06d29c9eac9b258e0d6b1ef", "text": "for full disclosure I'm an Independent Contractor and work with Jeff Richman. @ Neil: Question 1: How legitimate is this? If you were never contacted by the company you would never know about the money. Period, end of story. Not trying to be rude but that is the bottom line truth. Look up asset recovery businesses. They are in every city almost. They work for individuals, governments and businesses. Very legitimate business. Question 2: Since this doesn't seem to be the case, how does this company know that I potentially have unclaimed assets to claim? I understand your concern and the best analogy I can think of to explain this is: A company's copier breaks down. A copy machine repair man is called. He shows up and opens the copier and studies it intensely and closes it back up. He takes a hammer out of his bag and hits the copier on the side in two different places, twice. The copier starts working. He charges the company owner a $1000.00. The company owner is glad to pay it because without the knowledge of the repair man, his business is not making money. This is the same: The professionals at Keane have specific knowledge about how to, where to and who to ask for these lists. Granted, it's not your business we're talking about here but without them, you get nothing. 2 professionals have advised you to move forward; your brother's accountant and lawyer. Take the money. It costs you nothing. If they want money from you up front or want you to pay for stuff, run.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c64d2cab3ef5806372194f09705c5e30", "text": "You can't blame companies like 'Legal Claimant Services' for making a profit by providing this service. That is capitalism and it is the way of the world. It is just like any other business you can do yourself - from making dinner to cutting your own grass. If you choose to do it yourself, you save money but you also do the work. When I got my letter telling me about a claim, I automatically went online to do some research. That's how I found this site and information that led me to validate the claim. I then chose to follow a few simple instructions and keep all of the claim instead of giving away 30%.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "288030820e1d78decd491525378e6253", "text": "\"There are at least three financial institutions involved here: your insurance company's bank, the money center, and your bank. Normally, they would keep records, but given that the money center didn't even ask for your signature, \"\"normal\"\" probably doesn't apply to them. Still, you can still ask them what records they have, in addition to the other two institutions; the company's bank and your bank likely have copies of the check.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b06c4c5629a4c4f0af1e5c054ff97484", "text": "Actually banks aren't required to (and don't) report on 8300 because they already report $10k+ cash transactions to FinCEN as a Currency Transaction Report (CTR), which is substantively similar; see the first item under Exceptions in the second column of page 3 of the actual form. Yes, 8300 is for businesses, that's why the form title is '... Received In A Trade Or Business'. You did not receive the money as part of a trade or business, and it's not taxable income to you, so you aren't required to report receiving it. Your tenses are unclear, but assuming you haven't deposited yet, when you do the bank will confirm your identity and file their CTR. It is extremely unlikely the government will investigate you for a single transaction close to $10k -- they're after whales and killer sharks, not minnows (metaphorically) -- but if they do, when they do, you simply explain where the money came from. The IRS abuses were with respect to people (mostly small businesses) that made numerous cash deposits slightly under $10k, which can be (but in the abuse cases actually was not) an attempt to avoid reporting, which is called 'structuring'. As long as you cooperate with the bank's required reporting and don't avoid it, you are fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc7a6be9b8252d019482eb7a6c261482", "text": "Look up escheatment. Companies that have unclaimed property are supposed to send it to your State government. They should have a unclaimed property department of some sort. In short, the company is going to have to pay either you, or your State (In Your Name) so they have to pay it either way. It would be easier for them to just give you new check. Expect them to give you some grief in verifying it has not been cashed and such... but if you have the original, in hand, it shouldn't be too bad. A 'Lost' check may be harder to get replaced. Not a lawyer, don't want to be.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69b86f3654b9194f188b80eabf2295ae", "text": "For purposes of the EIN the address is largely inconsequential. The IRS cannot (read: won't) recover the EIN if you fail to write it down after the website generates it for you. On your actual tax form the address is more consequential, and this is more so a question of consistency than anything. But an entity can purchase property anywhere and have a different address subsequent years. Paying the actual taxes means more than the semantical inconsistencies. The whole purpose of separate accounts is to make an audit easier, so even if someone imagines that some action (such as address ambiguity) automatically triggers an audit, all your earnings/purchases are not intermingled with personal stuff, which just streamlines the audit process. Consequences (or lack thereof) aside, physical means where physical property is. So if you have an actual mailing address in your state, you should go with that. Obviously, this depends on what arrangement you have with your registered agent, if all addresses are in Wyoming then use the Wyoming address and let the Registered Agent forward all your mail to you. Don't forget your $50 annual report in Wyoming ;) How did you open a business paypal without an EIN? Business bank accounts? Hm... this is for liability purposes...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de5aca707980d49571f86a463301d315", "text": "The bank doesn't have to do anything. It is your responsibility to provide the proof of insurance. It is the agent's job, which you through your HOA dues paid for, to provide that proof to you. You shouldn't be registering with icerts. They say so in the first sentence on the registration page: Unit Owners, Do Not Register Here! If you own an existing property, and have received a letter from your lender requiring an annual renewal/updated certificate for an association that has recently expired, please forward that letter to info@iCerts.com to receive instructions to place your order. If your request is a new loan of any kind, please contact your lender and request that they either contact us to place this order, or register below. So you can try that route (sending an email to info@icerts.com), and see if it works. It does cost money, in the range of $20-$100 (I used a different similar service at the time and they charged $75 for this). If it doesn't, you can try and work with the insurance agent. There are some ways to persuade them: California has very strong traditions of consumer protections. In this case, I suggest checking out this site. Let the insurance agent know that as the HOA member - they're working for you, and that in the next HOA meeting you will raise a request to change the insurance agency. Also, remind the agent that the CA Insurance Commission will knock on their doors to ask why they don't provide you with the proof you need. If the HOA management company doesn't help you, you can remind them that they too can be fired. This can be done, and isn't even all that hard. There's a lot of competition in the HOA management market, and it wouldn't be too hard to find a new management company. The HOA management company should have provided you the proof of coverage when they renewed the policy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b9621b60430f617188f8e6a7a7ba8da", "text": "You should include the checks you received from the company, invoices you sent, bank statements showing the deposits, and your receipts, if any, you issued to the company. You'd be surprised to know that this is a fairly common tax fraud. You can also try and sue the company or its successor for the missing amounts, but if it has been dissolved it may be difficult. As with any non-trivial tax issue - I suggest you get a professional advice from a EA/CPA licensed in your State. You may need representation before the IRS - only EA, CPA or an Attorney may represent you in IRS proceedings (including audit and correspondence).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37cc8bdd08df6c1a1e8065e0b6807bbe", "text": "It all boils down to this: If you don't have a record of what you own before a fire happens, you can't get it after the fire happens. The more records you have, the better. Proof of sales price. Proof of authenticity. Condition. Quantity. If you have to prove value, you'll be glad you have the records. It makes sense also to see what kind of things are not covered. Is art covered? How about coins or jewelry? A stamp collection? Antiques? If replacing these kinds of things is important to you, then make sure you (a) have insurance for it, and (b) can demonstrate its value with your records (purchase receipt, appraisal, etc.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5585aaa5c498c78f143339441300c8fa", "text": "Why not just leave it as is and register as foreign entity in New Mexico? You won't avoid the gross receipts tax, but other than that - everything stays as is. Unless Illinois has some taxes that you would otherwise not pay - just leave it there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "179865a30346970704317a51f27e3820", "text": "Do you have any ties to your old address? In particular are you the LANDLORD? This could have been a precursor application to test identity evidence and setup a mortgage. The perps may even have legally changed their name to yours and even be living in, or close to the house if it is a share house to intercept this kind of mail. Otherwise someone's database may have been breached, so it is important you try to work out where this information used in the application came from. If they are an illegal you may be racking up Council Tax somewhere or end up paying income tax on their earnings. In any case your character has probably now been damaged. So do follow it up right smartly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28d9aa347dd6586e63001086f0a889da", "text": "California is very aggressive when it comes to determining residency. While you have a legitimate defense, I suggest talking with a California-licensed CPA or EA practicing in California, which are experienced in dealing with the FTB residency audits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "23d1fd7eb4061a4e562aef4f5efda6af", "text": "Such funds are handed over to the state. In NE, like in many states, there is a government website where you can search by your name, find them, and claim them (with proof of your identity, etc.): https://treasurer.nebraska.gov/up/ For sure, the bank cannot just take the money. It is sitting somewhere, the bank just closed the account, meaning they are technically not managing your money anymore.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a376c9d3887abdf50b1995e3dbdf34e3", "text": "\"There are TWO parts to an LLC or any company structure. This being the entire point of creating an LLC. The context is that a lawyer is after your LLC, and he's arguing that the LLC is not genuine, so he can go after your personal assets - your house, car, IRAs, tap your wife's salary etc. This is called \"\"piercing the corporate veil\"\". What would he use to claim the LLC is not genuine? The determination here is between you and the judge in a lawsuit. Suffice it to say, the way you withdraw money must consider the above issues, or you risk breaking the liability shield and becoming personally liable, which means you've been wasting the $25 every year to keep it registered. The IRS has a word for single member LLCs: \"\"Disregarded entity\"\". The IRS wants to know that the entity exists and it's connected to you. But for reporting tax numbers, they simply want the LLC's numbers folded into your personal numbers, because you are the same entity for tax purposes. The determination here is made by you. LLCs are incredible versatile structures, and you can actually choose to have it taxed like a corporation where it is a separate \"\"person\"\" which files its own tax return. The IRS doesn't care how you move money from the LLC to yourself, since it's all the same to them. The upshot is that while your own lawyer prohibits you from thinking of the assets as \"\"all one big pile\"\", IRS requires you to. Yes, it's enough to give you whiplash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "23e4a87d43219cca0d6b24be9ba1747d", "text": "If this happened, first you would be breaking the law for driving without insurance. Second, my uninsured motorists insurance would cover it. Third, your personal net worth is not zero. You are the owner of all those corporations which happen to own those assets. I could sue you and you would have to liquidate your stakes in those corporations. Your example is just saying someone doesn't have any assets if all their cash is tied up in stocks (equity ownership of corporations). If you're argument held true in court, no one could sue anyone successfully, because everyone would just put all their money in equities before a lawsuit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f5e0eafbf4a4f511c5b3cc702ad1061", "text": "\"Most likely the bank will keep it on file for a few years then turn it over to the state as \"\"unclaimed property\"\". I can't speak for all states though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e62680cb5119476d36137287a51679e", "text": "This seems very suspicious, as if it were fraud, and not a legitimate collector. Garnishing wages takes a court order. A court would require a bit more proof than a name. Names can easily be common, I know sets of first cousins named after the common grandparent, 4 pairs in my extended family, along with 2 triples. The court would certainly look for a social security number match. Your own credit history will show no activity in that state. A legitimate debt collector would handle this very differently.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
c90a610ca490a15bcf44c0ffa6959715	Uncashed paycheck 13 years old	[ { "docid": "bbf0bca0b4f5691d503ffa0bcb7eaca7", "text": "Under US law, a bank is not obligated to honor a check that is more than six months old. § 4-404. BANK NOT OBLIGED TO PAY CHECK MORE THAN SIX MONTHS OLD. A bank is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer's account for a payment made thereafter in good faith. Note the law says the bank is not OBLIGATED to honor the check, but they are not forbidden from doing so. I don't have a survey on this, but I think most banks won't honor a check after more than 6 months to a year. I've had a few occasions where early in the year someone accidentally wrote the previous year on a check, like on January 10, 2017 they dated the check January 10, 2016, and the bank has given me a hard time about cashing it. The statute of limitations to challenge payment or non-payment of a check is 6 years: § 3-118. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. (b) Except as provided in subsection (d) or (e), if demand for payment is made to the maker of a note payable on demand, an action to enforce the obligation of a party to pay the note must be commenced within six years after the demand. I understand your frustration about being denied money that you presumably worked for and earned. But look at it from the other side. Suppose you wrote a check to someone, and years later they still had not cashed it. At some point you'd want to be able to clear this off your bank account. What if you want to close the account? What happens when you die? Would your heirs have to keep this account open for years ... decades ... centuries ... on the possibility that someday someone will cash this check? Realistically, there has to be SOME time limit. 6 months should be plenty of time for someone to make it to the bank with a check. If the company still exists then you could argue they have a MORAL obligation to pay you. If they have records that show that they did indeed give you this check and you never cashed it there'd be no question that you were trying to cheat them. But a moral obligation and a legal obligation are two different things. Legally, they paid you, and it's your problem that you failed to cash the check. You could talk to a lawyer, but if you live in the US, I think you are out of luck. (Of course other countries have different laws.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a10fe96aca42c4058c474f1aea797326", "text": "Even going to small claims court the burden would be on you to prove that they never paid you. The 13 year gap would be the core of the argument by the company that they have no obligation to keep records from 13 years ago. That is far longer than they need to keep them for tax purposes. Even if they sent you a replacement check the next year, that happened to me once, the record of that transaction would have been 12 years ago. The bank will not cash it because of the date being 13 years ago. As we move forward with more and more of the checks being deposited via phone/scanner the banks will be even less likely to handle stale checks because the fact you have the check in your hand doesn't mean it wasn't cashed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ea513054d54b867e7794c67e2ed4338", "text": "\"If this is in the United States, there are laws governing business behavior when they have recorded expenses (checks, bills, etc) which are never withdrawn or deposited. A business is required to turn over these funds after a certain time frame to the state government as a part of their business tax cycle. (One caveat- these laws vary in age by state, and 13 years is a long time. You might still be out of luck for an amount so old..) There are even businesses which have cropped up to search for \"\"lost money\"\" (for a fee, of course) that your great uncle might have left behind and which now sits in a government holding account somewhere. It's not necessary to go through the third parties though, because the United States posts this information for the world to see. A good starting place is: USA.gov Unclaimed Money Tool Do as much legwork there as you can. You could even attempt to contact the former employer (you said the business accounts still exist) and in a very friendly, non-confrontational manner ask them what their procedures are and would have happened to your paycheck funds. As others have stated, they are under no legal obligation whatsoever to fix your problem for you, but who knows, you could get lucky and they might voluntarily help you out! You're looking for information not cash, so politeness, patience and understanding are your tools. If all else fails, you could try one of these 3rd party services. Here you run into diminishing returns as paying fees to search for money which might not exist just puts you further in the red.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "a3cfcbf32f2dfe015d7fbd95f4506a79", "text": "I wish I could up vote your comment more. I think that a lot of people do not understand that kids held minimum wage jobs that paid minimum wages, but adults received more money. At some point kids stopped working as much and adults kept or took over what was traditionally a kids first job. Those first jobs like working at McDonald's were never meant to be the only job a person had.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ede5ee05e12555948d4b99b7e4d4e0c8", "text": "\"Well, primarily because that's fraud and fraud prevents a debtor from receiving a discharge in bankruptcy court. Fraud would be pretty easy to prove if you didn't have an income change and you have several lines of credit opened on and around the same day with almost no payments made toward them. Additionally, thanks to the reforms of the bankruptcy code, if your income exceeds the median income of your state you'll be forced in to a Chapter 13 and committed to a repayment plan that allocates all of your \"\"disposable income\"\" to your creditors. Now if whoever posted that will attempt to simply not pay then negotiate repayment plans with their creditors the process will last far longer than 7 years. It takes a long time to be in default for enough time that a consumer creditor will negotiate the debt and this is assuming the creditor doesn't sue you and get a judgement which could apply liens to any property you may own. The judgment(s) will likely cause you to pursue bankruptcy anyway; only now you're at least a few years beyond the point at which you ruined your credit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e56cdc6054207dc13936e466cdbf7d33", "text": "\"Bankruptcy should be your last option, and you will find that BK will not resolve most of your problems, and create many more problems. There are two kinds of BK that are available to the average person, Ch13 debt repayment and Ch7 liquidation. Both have severe repercussions and lasting effects on your credit (7-10 years, after discharge). And the calculations required under the 2005 BAPCPA are complex and may require help to understand. Ch7 liquidation is the more severe course, and the trustee would liquidate assets that exceed exemptions (vary by state) to pay your creditors. Ch13 debt repayment is hard, and only 20-25% of those who pursue that route complete the debt repayment plan. Your credit score for either course would suffer greatly (200-250 points) and would remain reduced for years, especially since you would have to rebuild credit. And the law is flawed both in design and execution as there is no reward for successful debt repayment, few finish their repayment plan (20-25%), the mean recovery for unsecured creditors in repayment is zero (thus does not help creditors), and leaves the debtor with damaged credit for years (not a fresh start). Although you may have made some decisions that have placed you in a difficult position, you can find solutions to resolve these problems. You may find that simply learning to make better choices will improve your situation. Take a financial education course (such as the Dave Ramsey course), and learn how to budget, and make better choices. The LearnVest website offers a simple way to budget by dividing budgeting into only three (3) categories with suggested percentages for each, essentials (<50%), financial priorities (>20%), and lifestyle (<30%). The damage to your credit from the derogatory effects of BK would linger for years, but the damage from poor payment history declines much quicker, and loses most of the effect after 2 years (and should you keep the accounts open, leaves you with good history and longer account history), thus the effects decline to minimal after as little as 2 years of good behavior/payment history. Make a plan that prioritizes the debts, and how you will resolve the problem, and work the plan. Based upon the income and debts you mention, the situation you have may not be as bad as it appears. You may be getting bad advice, especially from a debt settlement company that might be more interested in their fees than in your problem. Since you \"\"want to play fair and continue with payments, but when people start to get greedy like this I am ready to just stop caring\"\", you really need two things, a plan, and a friend, someone who you can talk to honestly and openly, and who can support you as you work through the plan you make. Since you \"\"would prefer the option that will give me the most peace of mind and allow me to start saving money as soon as possible\"\", you need to find an approach that fits your goals. Your statement that you \"\"don't plan on ever using credit again\"\", fits with the Dave Ramsey philosophy and resonates with many of us who have learned that those who grant credit are often harsh masters. Now that you have provided more information, the advice below expands upon the above reflecting upon your specific situation. Since you make $62K/year, you may be close to the median income, and the BAPCPA (Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005) has a presumption of abuse for filing Ch7 when you have above median income (for your state, check the law). As you may be pushed into Ch13 debt repayment anyway, examine what you could do to repay the debt (over 5 years, 60 months, as that would be a Ch13 repayment duration). Since you have $8K of revolving (unsecured?) debt, that would be repaid in Ch13 over 60 months at about $133/month (no interest), but you would also be paying 10% to the trustee. There might be some portion of your auto debt which is unsecured, and also be repaid unsecured, suppose that is $3000. That would add another $50/month to the plan. The car could be repaid over 60 months (including interest), so you might be repaying $300/month for the car (estimate), although the payment could be higher or lower depending upon how much of the value of the car is unsecured. The trustee might object that the car is too expensive (depends upon the value, and the trustee), and require be liquidated. Since BK excludes relief for student loans, you might find yourself paying the student loans at the same payment. Your $62K income suggests that you have about $4200/month (guess, after taxes). The mortgage payment is higher than 25% ($1050-1100 would be ideal for your income). But after your mortgage payment you should still have about $3900. Even with $300 for credit card debt, $500 for car, and $400 for student loans (guessing), that leaves $2700 for essentials (utilities, food), lifestyle (cellphone, entertainment), and savings. You might find a friend who is good at budgeting who would be willing to help you craft a budget and be your \"\"responsibility partner\"\" to help you stick to the budget. Here is a sample plan (your mileage may vary), Essentials (50%, $2100): $2180 Financial (30%, 1230): $1250 Lifestyle (20%, 840): $500 (pick up slack here, as you have high debt load)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b56c8472893ae0327d62a950e9e7ea4f", "text": "When I was 18 in 1983, someone making $3.35 minimum wage full-time also could not afford a 2-bedroom apartment in any state. This is why most young people making minimum wage get roommates or live in some sort of communal housing or just live at home with their parents. If you are in your 40s and still making minimum wage, then there are other problems at play.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc445ca3f7b768e3442f89ed633a5da6", "text": "Why don't you get a better serving job? If you have all those years of experience why not bartend at a local or try for PF changs or Cheesecake Factory or something? I'm not trying to be snarky, I've got 13 years in the trenches myself. I just wouldn't work at a tgichilibees at my age or with my experience unless I was on some real hard times.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3956c2c86f057f543b46d9dd0818fbc8", "text": "The solution is clear: You need to find a second job and work on the weekends and use that to pay off your debt. You're only 25, you need to scrimp every ounce of your extra energy and pay off your debts by age 30. You can do it by working a second job, and by working harder at your current job and getting promotions and raises.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb01e3bf3c9f21fe05fb12e9e05fe780", "text": "The two do not imply that they are connected. The statement above states that there are plenty of people who graduated and are around 21-25. Then the next statement explains that people who graduated make 100k+ - it doesnt mean they are 21-25.....it just means they achieved two objectives at separate times.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9247ac42cea1b677ef3ad6d03ff47937", "text": "A fourteen-year-old can invest a few thousand into commuting to a part-time job or an education. If you can wait five years for a couple hundred you can wait two to four years for a car (or gas money) or a class (or some textbooks.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4896f11a944f6d57641a6383c67637c", "text": "This is not your problem and you should not try to fix it. If your employer paid money into someone else's account instead of yours they should ask their bank to reverse it and should pay you your wages while they are waiting for this to be done. No bank will let you do anything about money paid by someone else into an account that is not yours, or give you details of someone else's account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3ab9966a76b7e5083e98d3517707b29", "text": "I wouldn't be too concerned, yet. You're young. Many young people are living longer in the family home. See this Guardian article: Young adults delay leaving family home. You're in good company. Yet, there will come a time when you ought to get your own place, either for your own sanity or your parents' sanity. You should be preparing for that and building up your savings. Since you've got an income, you should – if you're not already – put away some of that money regularly. Every time you get paid, make a point of depositing a portion of your income into a savings or investment account. Look up the popular strategy called Pay Yourself First. Since you still live at home, it's possible you're a little more loose with spending money than you should be – at least, I've found that to be the case with some friends who lived at home as young adults. So, perhaps pretend you're on your own. What would your rent be if you had to find a place of your own? If, say, £600 instead of the £200 you're currently paying, then you should reduce your spending to the point where you can save at least £400 per month. Follow a budget. With respect to your car, it's great you recognize your mistake. We're human and we can learn from our mistakes. Plan to make it your one and only car mistake. I made one too. With respect to your credit card debt, it's not an insurmountable amount. Focus on getting rid of that debt soon and then focus on staying out of debt. The effective way to use credit cards is to never carry a balance – i.e. pay it off in full each month. If you can't do that, you're likely overspending. Also, look at what pensions your employer might offer. If they offer matching contributions, contribute at least as much to maximize the tax free extra pay this equates to. If you have access to a defined benefit plan, join it as soon as you are eligible. Last, I think it's important to recognize that at age 23 you're just starting out. Much of your career income earning potential is ahead of you. Strive to be the best at what you do, get promotions, and increase your income. Meanwhile, continue to save a good portion of what you earn. With discipline, you'll get where you want to be.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4092581e5dfc9f3941908358653b8cde", "text": "With a credit card debt at 17%, you should basically not eat in order to pay the balance off. This should be gone within the month. That being said, I would have a hard time reducing my contributions below the 4%, but would certainly do it to the 4%. However, I would also deliver pizzas on nights and weekends and work all available overtime. Coincidentally the pizza place by my home is hiring delivery drivers however, they did not disclose how much they typically make. Only that they make min wage plus tips. Make sure you stop borrowing first, then try to have this knocked out in 4 weeks or less.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7be13fa59cf116fba48f6e48a8d156b8", "text": "\"First off learn from this: Never cosign again. There are plenty of other \"\"tales of woe\"\" outlined on this site that started and ended similarly. Secondly do what you can to get off of the loan. First I'd go back to her dad and offer him $1000 to take you off the loan and sign over the car. Maybe go up to $3000 if you have that much cash. If that doesn't work go to the bank and offer them half of the loan balance to take you off. You can sign a personal loan for that amount (maybe). Whatever it takes to get off the loan. If she has a new BF offer him the same deal as the dad. Why do you have to do this? Because you owned an asset that was once valued at 13K and is valued at (probably) less than 4K. Given that you have a loan on it the leverage works against you causing you to lose more money. The goal now is to cut your losses and learn from your mistakes. I feel like the goal of your post was to make your ex-gf look bad. It's more important to do some self examination. If she was such a bad person why did you date her? Why did you enter a business transaction with her? I'd recommend seeking counseling on why you make such poor choices and to help you avoid them in the future. Along these lines I'd also examine your goals in life. If your desire is to be a wealthy person, then why would you borrow money to buy a car? Seek to imitate rich people to become rich. Picking the right friends and mates is an important part of this. If you do not have a desire to be a wealthy person what does it matter? Losing 13K over seven months is a small step in the \"\"right\"\" direction.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e74a34907bbd9a96c944e1b07530a98a", "text": "\"I disagree with BrenBran, I don't think this is qualified as unreimbursed employee expense. For it to qualify, it has to be ordinary and necessary, and specifically - necessary for your employer. This is not the case for you, as there's no such necessity. From employer's perspective, you can work from your home just as well. In fact, the expense is your personal, as it is your choice, not \"\"unreimbursed employee expense\"\" since your employer didn't even ask you to do it. You should clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in New York).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df4a0faa381737651673d571cb03dcf9", "text": "\"My education on this topic at this age range was a little more free-form. We were given a weeklong project in the 6th grade, which I remember pretty clearly: Fast forward 6 years (we were 12). You are about to be kicked out of your parents' house with the clothes on your back, $1,000 cash in your pocket, your high school diploma, and a \"\"best of luck\"\" from your parents. That's it. Your mission is to not be homeless, starving and still wearing only the clothes on your back in 3 months. To do this, you will find an apartment, a job (you must meet the qualifications fresh out of high school with only your diploma; no college, no experience), and a means of transportation. Then, you'll build a budget that includes your rent, estimated utilities, gasoline (calculated based on today's prices, best-guess fuel mileage of the car, and 250% of the best-guess one-way distance between home and job), food (complete nutrition is not a must, but 2000cal/day is), toiletries, clothing, and anything else you want or need to spend your paycheck or nest egg on. Remember that the laundromat isn't free, and neither is buying the washer/dryer yourself. Remember most apartments aren't furnished but do have kitchen appliances, and you can't say you found anything on the side of the road. The end product of your work will be a narrative report of the first month of your new life, a budget for the full 3 months, plus a \"\"continuing\"\" budget for a typical month thereafter to prove you're not just lasting out the 3 months, and all supporting evidence for your numbers, from newspaper clippings to in-store mailers (the Internet and e-commerce were just catching on at the time, Craigslist and eBay didn't exist yet, and not everyone had home Internet to begin with). Extra Credit: Make your budget work with all applicable income and sales taxes. Extra Extra Credit: Have more than your original $1000 in the bank at the end of the 3 months, after the taxes in the Extra Credit. This is a pretty serious project for a 12-year-old. Not only were we looking through the classified ads and deciphering all the common abbreviations, we were were taking trips to the grocery store with shopping lists, the local Wal-Mart or Target, the mall, even Goodwill. Some students had photos of their local gas station's prices, to which someone pointed out that their new apartment would be on the other side of town where gas was more expensive (smart kid). Some students just couldn't make it work (usually the mistakes were to be expected of middle-class middle-schoolers, like finding a job babysitting and stretching that out full-time, only working one job, buying everything new from clothes to furniture, thinking you absolutely need convenience items you can do without, and/or trying to buy the same upscale car your dad takes to work), though most students were able to provide at least a plausible before-tax budget. A few made the extra credit work, which was a lot of extra credit, because not only were you filling out a 1040EZ for your estimated income taxes, you were also figuring FICA and Social Security taxes which even some adults don't know the rates for, and remember, no Internet. Given that the extra-extra credit required you to come out ahead after taxes (good luck), I can't remember that anyone got that far. The meta-lesson that we all learned? Life without a college education is rough.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d0f62e24e4ac2cecb3d95ed1baf9dba", "text": "\"If you earn $160 a week for 26 weeks, are unable to claim yourself, have no other income at all, you will earn $4,160, which falls under the standard deduction, in your case a bit over $4,500; per publication 17, it is $350 above your earned income, to a maximum of $6300 as of 2016. (H/t Hart CO for the reminder.) In that case, if you paid no taxes (at all) last year (either did not file or filed and had 0 tax paid, so got a 100% refund), you could legitimately claim \"\"exempt\"\" by writing that on line 7. However, you would be very close to owing taxes, so if you have any unearned income (interest from bank accounts, dividends from your non-sheltered college fund, etc.), you would possibly owe taxes. You're also going to owe taxes if you have another ~$2150 of earned income from any other source (including things like mowing lawns, tutoring, etc.). Keep all of that in mind if you have any other sources of income other than the above.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
05271dcc2ea63f41712153f719954d21	How do I deduct payments to others out of a single payment to the group for contract work?	[ { "docid": "40a25db1ab916317b61fa902c417e982", "text": "You send the proper form to the other person for the amount you gave him, and file it as your business expense on your Schedule C.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "16cd7199c139d9f9e3025c20c4cacd73", "text": "You can ask the client to pay you through the LLC. In that case you should invoice them from the LLC and have them pay the invoice. If they pay you personally, you can always make a capital contribution to the LLC and use that money to buy equipment. The tax implications for a single person LLC providing professional services are the same for you either way: income is income whether it's from your LLC or an employer. It's different for the employer if they are giving you a W2 vs a 1099. So it doesn't matter much for you. If the LLC is buying equipment, make sure you get enough revenue through the LLC to at least offset those expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "82d2d4a07821a9bb5dad39c545650d9a", "text": "Assuming you have registered your activities as partnership and receiving this money as Individual, you need to show this under Schedule OS, 1d [other income]. this will be under the ITR-2 [tab CG-OS] XLS tax preparation utility given by Tax Department. The XLS can be found at https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/individual_huf.do If the funds you are receiving are large [more than say Rs 500,000] then suggest you incorporate a partnership firm or company, there are quite a few exceptions you can claim lowering you tax outgo. The fact that you are transferring funds to your partners can be an issue incase you get audited. You would need to have sufficient evidence to show that the money paid was for services rendered directly and not your income. It would be easier if you create a partnership or have the client directly pay to them. Again if the sum is small its fine, as the sum becomes large, it would get noticed by the tax authorities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4585c86d5566947354fbb2697a2c873", "text": "You're knowingly providing a payment method which has insufficient funds to meet the terms of the contract, because you are too lazy to comply with the contract. That's unethical and fraudulent behavior. Will you get in trouble? I don't know. I'd suggest getting acquainted with an electronic calendar that can remind you to do things.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb6a63bb1abd8ee6d5c4b1cde0087a9f", "text": "I took littleadv's advice and talked to an accountant today. Regardless of method of payment, my US LLC does not have to withhold taxes or report the payment as payments to contractors (1099/1042(S)) to the IRS; it is simply a business expense. He said this gets more complicated if the recipient is working in the US (regardless of nationality), but that is not my case", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50d712e4318ff47ff4c92c5ddf4fa22d", "text": "I'm not certain I understand what you're trying to do, but it sounds like you're trying to create a business expense for paying off your personal debt. If so - you cannot do that. It will constitute a tax fraud, and if you have additional partners in the LLC other than you and your spouse - it may also become an embezzlement issue. Re your edits: Or for example, can you create a tuition assistance program within your company and pay yourself out of that for the purposes of student loan money. Explicitly forbidden. Tuition assistance program cannot pay more than 5% of its benefits to owners. See IRS pub 15-B. You would think that if there was a way to just incorporate and make your debts pre-tax - everyone would be doing it, wouldn't you?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc6fa619ea47d96f8115d98b2b451219", "text": "\"This is called \"\"Net Operating Loss\"\", and it is in fact applicable for individuals as well. You can, under certain circumstances, have NOL even as an individual. But it is far more common in the corporate world. What happens is that you can carry it back or forward, and get refund on taxes paid or adjust income for taxes to pay. In your example, you could carry the $75 NOL back and deduct it from the prior year earnings, reducing the taxable income from $100 to $25, getting $18.75 of the $25 paid as taxes - back. The link is for individual NOL, corporate rules are different, but the principle is the same.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b36305cf5bd1204e47a99690160c354", "text": "The vendor needs to do this using apportionment, according to the VAT rules for mixed supplies: If you make mixed supplies and the individual supplies are not liable to VAT at the same rate then you need to work out the tax value of each supply in order to calculate how much tax is due. If the tax value is based on the total price you charge (see paragraph 7.3) you do this by splitting that price between the supplies. This is called an apportionment ... There is no special method of apportionment ... However, your calculations must be fair and you must be able to justify them. It is usually best to use one of the methods shown in section 32. The section 32 referred to really relates to apportioning use between business and non-business purposes, but it implies that splitting up the total price in proportion to the original prices would probably be fair. So in your example the vendor might split the £5 discount equally between the spoon and the carrycot as they had the same gross cost, and pay VAT as if each had cost £7.50 gross. The vendor could also do it in proportion to their net (pre-VAT) prices and thus apportion a bit more of the discount to the carrycot than the spoon, but as this would lead to them paying slightly more tax overall they probably wouldn't choose to. However, none of this is likely to be too relevant to a consumer, since in the UK prices must be presented as the gross (VAT-inclusive) amounts and so the discounts will also apply to those amounts. It will of course affect how much of the purchase price the vendor ends up paying on to the government and thus might indirectly affect what discounts the vendor is willing to offer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60833091fb5f878a8610f7b5990ddb4e", "text": "This is how a consulting engagement in India works. If you are registered for Service Tax and have a service tax number, no tax is deducted at source and you have to pay 12.36% to service tax department during filing (once a quarter). If you do not have Service tax number i.e. not registered for service tax, the company is liable to deduct 10% at source and give the same to Income Tax Dept. and give you a Form-16 at the end of the financial year. If you fall in 10% tax bracket, no further tax liability, if you are in 30%, 20% more needs to be paid to Income Tax Dept.(calculate for 20% tax bracket). The tax slabs given above are fine. If you fail to pay the remainder tax (if applicable) Income Tax Dept. will send you a demand notice, politely asking you to pay at the end of the FY. I would suggest you talk to a CA, as there are implications of advance tax (on your consulting income) to be paid once a quarter.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "894f9971edb02a62cb857bcb56f6a802", "text": "As an individual freelancer, you would need to maintain a book of accounts. This should show all the income you are getting, and should also list all the payments incurred. This can not only include the payments to other professionals, but also any hardware purchased, phone bills, any travel and entertainment bills directly related to the service you are offering. Once you arrive at a net profit figure, you would need to file this as your income. Consult a tax professional and he can help with how to keep the records of income and expenses. i.e. You would need to create invoices for payments, use checks or online transfers for most payments, segregate the accounts, one account used for this professional stuff, and another for your personal stuff, etc. In a normal course the Income Tax Department does not ask for these records, however whenever your tax returns get scrutinized on a random basis, they would ask for all the relevant documentations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa9290fe5300a24c04c6f8ab01f18f66", "text": "Sounds you need to read up on S corp structures. I think this would benefit you if you generate income even after you physically stopped working which is incomes from membership fees, royalties % of customer revenue, middle man etc... Under the Scorp, you as the sole member must earn a wage that fair and at current market value. You pay social security and Medicare on this wage. The interesting thing here is that an Scorp can pay out earning dividends without having to pay payroll taxes but the catch is that you, as the sole employee must earn a fair wage. As for paying the other member you may want to look into 1099 contract work plus a finders fee. The 1099 hourly wage does not require you to pay Medicare and SS. The common fee I'm used to is 5% of gross invoice. Then you would pay her an hourly wage. The company then bills these hours multiplied by 2 or 3 (or whatever you think is fair) to the client. Deduct expenses from this and that's your profit. Example. Contractor brings Client A which is estimated as a 100 hour project with $100 cost in supplies and requires 2 hours of your time @ $40/hr. You quote 100 hours @ $50 to client, client agrees and gives you down payment. You then present the contract work to your contractor, they complete the work in 100 hours and bill you at $25. You pay your contractor 2500 plus the 5% ($250) and your company earns $2070 (5000 - 2500 - 100-80) And you'll earn $80 minus the payroll tax. Then at the end of the quarter or year or however you want to do earning payouts your LLC- Scorp will write you a check for $2070 or whatever earning % you want to take. This is then taxed at your income tax bracket. One thing to keep in mind is what is preventing this other person from becoming your competition? A partnership would be great motivation to try and bring in as much work under the LLC. But if you start shafting people then they'll just keep the work and cut you out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b3647fabeeeeda60c6fe140cefcf0735", "text": "\"As you clarified in the comments, it is not a contract work but rather an additional temporary assignment with the same employer. You were paid for it in form of a \"\"bonus\"\" - one time irregular payment, instead of regular periodic payments. Irregular wage payments fall under the flat rate withholding rule (the 25% for Federal, some States have similar rules for State withholding). This is not taxes, this is withholding. Withholding is money the employer takes from your salary and forwards to the IRS on the account of your tax liability, but it is not in itself your tax liability. When you do your annual tax return, you'll calculate the actual tax you were supposed to pay, and the difference between what was withheld and your actual tax will be refunded to you (or owed by you, if not enough was withheld). You can control the regular pay withholding using W4 form.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b8d28b5cc468191072149c2e1c9c59f", "text": "Here is a quote from the IRS website on this topic: You may be able to deduct premiums paid for medical and dental insurance and qualified long-term care insurance for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents. The insurance can also cover your child who was under age 27 at the end of 2011, even if the child was not your dependent. A child includes your son, daughter, stepchild, adopted child, or foster child. A foster child is any child placed with you by an authorized placement agency or by judgment, decree, or other order of any court of competent jurisdiction. One of the following statements must be true. You were self-employed and had a net profit for the year reported on Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business; Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040), Net Profit From Business; or Schedule F (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Farming. You were a partner with net earnings from self-employment for the year reported on Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), Partner's Share of Income, Deductions, Credits, etc., box 14, code A. You used one of the optional methods to figure your net earnings from self-employment on Schedule SE. You received wages in 2011 from an S corporation in which you were a more-than-2% shareholder. Health insurance premiums paid or reimbursed by the S corporation are shown as wages on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. The insurance plan must be established, or considered to be established as discussed in the following bullets, under your business. For self-employed individuals filing a Schedule C, C-EZ, or F, a policy can be either in the name of the business or in the name of the individual. For partners, a policy can be either in the name of the partnership or in the name of the partner. You can either pay the premiums yourself or your partnership can pay them and report the premium amounts on Schedule K-1 (Form 1065) as guaranteed payments to be included in your gross income. However, if the policy is in your name and you pay the premiums yourself, the partnership must reimburse you and report the premium amounts on Schedule K-1 (Form 1065) as guaranteed payments to be included in your gross income. Otherwise, the insurance plan will not be considered to be established under your business. For more-than-2% shareholders, a policy can be either in the name of the S corporation or in the name of the shareholder. You can either pay the premiums yourself or your S corporation can pay them and report the premium amounts on Form W-2 as wages to be included in your gross income. However, if the policy is in your name and you pay the premiums yourself, the S corporation must reimburse you and report the premium amounts on Form W-2 as wages to be included in your gross income. Otherwise, the insurance plan will not be considered to be established under your business. Medicare premiums you voluntarily pay to obtain insurance in your name that is similar to qualifying private health insurance can be used to figure the deduction. If you previously filed returns without using Medicare premiums to figure the deduction, you can file timely amended returns to refigure the deduction. For more information, see Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Amounts paid for health insurance coverage from retirement plan distributions that were nontaxable because you are a retired public safety officer cannot be used to figure the deduction. Take the deduction on Form 1040, line 29.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bfc6b9e15735ccad53b4a312432b6239", "text": "I strongly recommend that you talk to an accountant right away because you could save some money by making a tax payment by January 15, 2014. You will receive Forms 1099-MISC from the various entities with whom you are doing business as a contractor detailing how much money they paid you. A copy will go to the IRS also. You file a Schedule C with your Form 1040 in which you detail how much you received on the 1099-MISC forms as well as any other income that your contracting business received (e.g. amounts less than $600 for which a 1099-MISc does not need to be issued, or tips, say, if you are a taxi-driver running your own cab), and you can deduct various expenses that you incurred in generating this income, including tools, books, (or gasoline!) etc that you bought for doing the job. You will need to file a Schedule SE that will compute how much you owe in Social Security and Medicare taxes on the net income on Schedule C. You will pay at twice the rate that employees pay because you get to pay not only the employee's share but also the employer's share. At least, you will not have to pay income tax on the employer's share. Your net income on Schedule C will transfer onto Form 1040 where you will compute how much income tax you owe, and then add on the Social Security tax etc to compute a final amount of tax to be paid. You will have to pay a penalty for not making tax payments every quarter during 2013, plus interest on the tax paid late. Send the IRS a check for the total. If you talk to an accountant right away, he/she will likely be able to come up with a rough estimate of what you might owe, and sending in that amount by January 15 will save some money. The accountant can also help you set up for the 2014 tax year during which you could make quarterly payments of estimated tax for 2014 and avoid the penalties and interest referred to above.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39f3a8221f16c84c72aefff9e8144049", "text": "To quote the answer you linked to: Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. So, if your business purchased the $1000 gift card for $800, you should see a $800 charge appearing on a business CC or bank statement. You would therefore be able to deduct the $800, but not the full $1000 of items that you purchase with it. Side Notes:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35f09e6454b7f5a6700a7e3e843615d0", "text": "\"This is going to depend on the tax jurisdiction and I have no knowledge of the rules in Illinois. But I'd like to give you some direction about how to think about this. The biggest problem that you might hit is that if you collect a single check and then distribute to the tutors, you may be considered their employer. As an employer, you would be responsible for things like This is not meant as an exhaustive list. Even if not an employer, you are still paying them. You would be responsible for issuing 1099 forms to anyone who goes above $600 for the year (source). You would need to file for a taxpayer identification number for your organization, as it is acting as a business. You need to give this number to the school so that they can issue the correct form to you. You might have to register a \"\"Doing Business As\"\" name. It's conceivable that you could get away with having the school write the check to you as an individual. But if you do that, it will show up as income on your taxes and you will have to deduct payments to the other tutors. If the organization already has a separate tax identity, then you could use that. Note that the organization will be responsible for paying income tax. It should be able to deduct payments to the tutors as well as marketing expenses, etc. If the school will go for it, consider structuring things with a payment to your organization for your organization duties. Then you tell the school how much to pay each tutor. You would be responsible for giving the school the necessary information, like name, address, Social Security number, and cost (or possibly hours worked).\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
a5a5f1728a598a38569c4114fb3df8f0	Is there a correlation between self-employment and wealth?	[ { "docid": "adc6e15089c8a3f5d3ae3a5805a15a08", "text": "In a well-managed company, employees bring more dollars to their employers than the employers pay the employees (salary and benefits). Employees trade potential reward for security (a regular paycheck). Employers take on the risk of needing to meet payroll and profit from the company's income, minus expenses. The potential rewards are much higher as an employer (self or otherwise), so the ones that do make it do quite well. But this is also consistent with your other statement that the reverse is not true; the risk of self-employment is high, and many self-employed people don't become millionaires.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8031cefc62322a4ac0c426c8089c9342", "text": "If you could find a breakdown, I suspect that it would show not just that they are self employed but own their own company. There are many people that are self employed, many of them make a good living at it, but are not millionaires. My neighbour the plumber is a perfect example of this sort of self-employed and comfortable but not rich person. The key to wealth growth is to own (a significant part of) a company. It one way to leverage a smaller amount of money to something much larger. Plough your profits back in to the company to grow it, pay yourself reasonably for some time as the company grows. After it is some size, you can afford to pay yourself more of the profits, if not sell it as a going concern to someone else. One last thought - I am assuming that your book is claiming that they made their money through self-employment, instead of choosing to become self employed after striking rich somewhere. If I were to win the lottery, I might then become a self-employed something, but in that case it was not my self-employment that got me there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8a17e9673fda9e7ad31cebd8b86c853", "text": "The key to becoming wealthy as a self-employed person is the drive to be successful. A driven person, who starts their own company (or companies, should they fail), will find success. Assuming that you define success as the accumulation of wealth, then yes, self-employment is correlated with wealth. But as matt mentions in the comments, there is no casual (in the statistical sense) relationship between self-employment and wealth. While I can't say for sure, I would argue that drive is more important that the employment situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a742e8ab8551b0afa3c10b4f7640e5e1", "text": "Many studies show that the wealthiest households are self employed and small business owners. But there is significant risk associated, and so the wealth cannot really be enjoyed.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "e2ce692daf1875916c41f817ea8fb73f", "text": "\"The fundamental flaw here is conflating net worth with utility, at least failing to recognize that there's a nonlinear relationship between the two. In the extreme example imagine taking a bet that will either make you twice as rich or completely broke. Your expected return is zero, but it would be pretty dumb to take it since being flat broke could ruin your life while being twice as rich may only improve it marginally. In more realistic cases most of your income is tied up in fixed costs, which magnifies relatively small perturbations to your net worth. Losing something essential (like your house or car), even if it's only 20% of your net worth, renders you effectively broke until you scrape together enough cash to get another one. That situation robs you of much more utility than you'd gain from a 20% increase in net worth. In either case, avoiding the risk is completely rational as long as you believe in nonlinear utility as a function of net worth, it's not just an issue of humans being \"\"risk averse\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28ca8044728004376da120c7f572a56f", "text": "\"It doesn't generally matter, and I'm not sure if it is in fact in use by the IRS other than for general statistics (like \"\"this year 20% of MFJ returns were with one spouse being a 'homemaker'\"\"). They may be able to try and match the occupation and the general levels and types of income, but for self-employed there's a more precise and reliable field on Schedule C and for employees they don't really need to do this since everything is reported on W2 anyway. So I don't think they even bother or give a lot of value to such a metric. So yes, I'm joining the non-authoritative \"\"doesn't matter\"\" crowd.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e614453ac44bc8533066e00f59ad5f1", "text": "\"that's one way to look at it. The point is that the \"\"wealth gap\"\" is a LOT less interesting to me than the \"\"income gap\"\". https://www.glassdoor.com/research/ceo-pay-ratio/ I've got all kinds of respect for people who save their pennies, make wise investments, and derive benefit from those actions. I've got MUCH less respect for a guy/gal who HONESTLY thinks they deserve to make ~$78k / hr.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70959a94ab8dc442e876159289f59fd4", "text": "\"? You quoted an oft cited oft disproven false factoid. It's extremely biased. Like you seem to be. Most of those \"\"self made\"\", notice those quotes, people came from money. Their business is \"\"self made\"\", with family money. Like the article implies.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b46bf67eed3590fec7a165af77e84c4a", "text": "\"Well, as they state \"\"the decreases in median net worth appear to have been driven most strongly by a broad collapse in house prices\"\". When you're caught holding an overvalued asset, was your previous worth really a true estimate? A better headline might be \"\"median family wealth corrected to true value after previous accounting errors found.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d4cdd04f8a72d8845bcb0ccb5f675ec", "text": "\"You got some answers that essentially inform you that CEOs that have £200k written on their paysheet may in fact get much more. I'll take the opposite point of view and talk about people who (according to whatever definition) have a £200k/year income. How can they afford it Guess no 1: not all of them can (in the sense that it is quite possible to end up with negative net worth at £200k/year income - particularly if you immediately want to show off with brand new luxury cars, luxury holidays and a large house in a very representative region). Guess no 2: not all of the £200k/year CEOs are equally visible. There is a trade-off between going for wealth, large house, and luxury car. I deliberately ordered the three points according to increased display of \"\"wealth\"\". However, display of wealth usually comes at a cost (in a very monetary sense). And there are ways to get much display without having much wealth (see below: lease the car, also the mortgage on the house usually isn't displayed on the outside). You also need to take into account how long they are already building up wealth. I guess the typical CEO with £200k/year you're asking about did not just finish school and enter his work life in this position. It would be very interesting to see how income, accumulating wealth (and possibly \"\"displayed wealth\"\") correlate. My guess is that the correlation between income and accumulated wealth isn't that high, and the correlation between displayed and actual wealth is probably even lower. they possess luxury cars, large house and huge savings Are you sure these are the same managers? E.g. the ones with the huge savings are and the ones with the luxury cars? I'm asking particularly about the luxury cars, because such cars loose value very quickly and/or are often not owned by the driver but rather by the bank or leasing company. Which on the other hand offers the more savings-oriented CEO who is not that much interested in having a brand new luxury car the possibility to go for a one-year-old and save the rest. Knowing that, your CEO should be able to buy a one-year-old Mercedes SL 350 / year. Or a new one every 1 1/2 years (without building up savings or buying a house). However, building up wealth will be much faster with the CEO going for the one-year-old as the brand-new car option amounts to loosing ca. £20 - 30k within a year. An even-more-savings-oriented CEO who keeps his existing Mercedes 300 TD for another few years, thinking that this conservative choice of car will be trust-inspiring to the customers. Or goes for the SLK thinking that most people anyways don't know that the K between SL and SLK halves the price... However, if you just want to be seen with the car: after an initial payment of say £8-10k, you can get a decent SLK 350 (not the base model, either) at a monthly rate of ca. 600£/month or less than £7k/year. Note however, that this money does not count towards any kind of wealth, it's just renting a nice car. In other words: If driving the SLK 350 is your absolute goal, you could in theory have that with a net salary of £25k/year (according to your tax calculation, that should be somewhere around £35k / year gross), if you have the savings for the initial payment (being able to make the initial payment may also help convincin the leasing company that you're serious about it and able to pay your rates). There are also huge differences in value between large houses, compare e.g. these 2: And, last but not least, there is a decided one-way component in the timing of priorities here: it is much easier to go and get a luxury car when you have savings than first going for the luxury car and then trying to make up with the savings... I forgot to answer the question in the caption of your question: How do I build wealth By going on to live as if your income were only £50k (as far as that is compatible with your job) - I gather the median gross income in the UK is about £30k, so aiming at £50k leaves you a very comfortable budget for luxury spending. If you want to build up wealth faster, adjust that. In general, if you can manage to withhold much of any income increase from spending, that will help (trivial but powerful truth). From the leasing calculation you can conclude that you basically have no chance to show off your wealth by luxury cars. That is, you'd need to go for luxury cars that are completely incompatible with with building if you want to show your built up wealth by the car: there are too many people who even destroy their existing wealth in order to display luxury. At least if anyone is around who has either a correct idea what luxury cars cost (or don't cost) or will look that up in the internet. Also, people who know such things may also have the idea that the probability that such a car was downright paid (wealth) is small compared to the probability of meeting a leased or (mortgaged) car. Which means, the plan to show off doesn't work out that well with the people you'd want to impress. As for the other people: just a bit of display you can get far cheaper: If you really want to drive the SLK, rent it for an occasion (weekend) rather than for years. I met a sales manager who told me which rental cars they get when important customers from far east are visiting. The rest of the year they drive normal business cars. You may want to choose a rental company that doesn't write their name on the license plate. Apply the same ideas to the decision of buying a house. Think about what you want for yourself, and then look where you can get how much of that for how much money. Oh, and by the way: if I understand correctly, the average UK CEO wage is £120k, not £200k.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b59b8bcec3ce603a925a99d968e6ff9f", "text": "The Chinese corporate sector doesn't really have a crazy amount of debt compared to developed countries. And households even less. What people are concerned about is how quickly it is rising, not the actual amount. And also the structure of the debt. (And how much of it isn't captured and reported.) But to answer your question, the two factors you mention are positively correlated, not negatively as you postulate. The more assets you have, the higher the odds you are able to repay and the more debt lenders are willing to give you. But debt tends to be measured relative to income not wealth and this is another reason Chinese household wealth may be overstated.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f54dcd1c8d8f89bebab265d18693b6a1", "text": "I mean, that self made stat has been disproven enough times to count it as laughable when people like you still tout it all about. That self made aspect doesn't mean what youd like to imply it means when you dive into the data. Bill Gates is a perfect example of this. So is Bezos", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ebdfe4ade818d0840a54870502ca32a", "text": "More likely I miswrote. Yes, we're talking about capital gains. But who, outside of the moneyed elite, have enough capital gains to incur substantial taxes? Many don't and never will despite how hard they work or how productive they are. Also, doesn't taxing income more than capital gains discourage production? I always hear how high capital gains tax discourages investment and growth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06a64bb266aaeb2e9eb528cf6d423bd0", "text": "\"See comment on how \"\"self made\"\" bill gates is, and he's probably legitimately one of the more self made people to make that list. \"\"Self\"\" made people come from very wealthy families. If I give you a loan of a million bucks to make a company and financially support you for two years while you wait for the business to make money you're still \"\"self made\"\". Just view how they calculate it. It's horse shit\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6abc80a58b79b8439f96e75f78cb81e8", "text": "Yes. It is luck that person will have no debilitating accidents or illness to give them crippling medical debt. It is luck that provides us with our family. It is skill that lets us choose trustworthy and resourceful people in our lives, but it is luck that they remain so. It is luck that those investments provide a healthy return, that the companies hire prudent management and do look to cheat their investors. Personal responsibility is all about choices, right? Those choices are only as good as the information and resources available. Access to resources and information is quite clearly not equal, and therefore the choices we make are built on foundations of chance. Too many people in America have a nasty habit asking people to tie their own shoes with one hand tied behind their back (or cut off), and blaming them when they trip.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8bb6f2fa37a7dadb2eecc6d87c3f65f2", "text": "\"In theory, the idea is that diversified assets will perform differently in different circumstances, spreading your risk around. Whether that still functions in practice is a decent question, as the \"\"truth\"\" of most probability based arguments for diversification rely on the different assets being at least somewhat uncorrelated. This article suggests that might not be true. Specifically: The correlations we note among industry sectors are profoundly and dysfunctionally high. and Gold and silver traders have gotten too used to the negative correlation trade with stocks. This is, in fact, an unusual relationship for precious metals tostocks. The correlation should actually be zero.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aca61a80dd93ea592d394c954c87c63b", "text": "While I agree that luck has something to do with it, most of the successful business owners also put in crazy long hours and submitted themselves to huge financial risk in order to get their businesses started. I do not say this to mean there is no luck; there is always an element of luck. But you cannot get lucky if you aren't at the right place at the right time, and sometimes arriving at that place and trying to get lucky takes much more than people realize. Edit: some people are interpreting this to say that only successful business owners work hard. This is not what I am saying.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ab0c1e82e1e9f0cc6156e8c9f7686003", "text": "Well, yes. Lewis (and anybody) is presuming that you accept take advantage of good fortune. In his own example, though, he wasn't in any way prepared to go into finance. Having gotten there, and established himself even, he pitched it in favor of writing a book. Neither of those examples supports everyone calling luck the result of work plus brains.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ad8021feefe60621434a1ed3c5d1ddf", "text": "Is this really a net effect of concentration of wealth? When so few people hold all the money, you need more money to keep the system running. Imagine we need 10 trillion to keep the economy running. If 1000 people hold 50%, you effectively need 5 trillion just to keep the economy running. It is somewhat ironic that the last time we had full employment was basically the real estate bubble where tons of money was dumped into the system by liar loans with no credit check. Not saying we want to go back there, but perhaps we need that level of money in the system to get full employment. If we want to get there safely, we need to buy back our debt, invest more in our infrastructure and provide more services. This is the only way we are going to get full employment", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
515878210bfb9735281b3cd2bcbb7be1	Tax benefits of recycling	[ { "docid": "6d7a39e18fe7359a500344b8b5016f82", "text": "If they charge a fee to accept an item, it's reasonable to assume the item has insignificant value, so the only tax-deductible bit would be the money you donated to their charity. What you describe sounds like a fee for service, not a charitable donation. The organization should provide a fee breakdown to show what percentage (if any) of the fee is a deductible contribution. There could be some additional PA-only tax benefit, but I didn't come across anything in my brief search.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e61c8109a1e48bc8a6820e7f65ba1659", "text": "They are certainly only suggesting that the money you pay to recycle the bulbs is tax deductible as a donation, assuming that they are indeed a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Donations of goods are only deductible at fair market value. Light bulbs that no longer light up have no market value, so only the payment could possibly be deductible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d56026a893ddab464ed4c737bcc2dcdd", "text": "If a business incurs expenses in the process of its trading, generally those expenses are deductible. Disposing of waste is generally held to be a deductible expense.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "2b56498bf511fe7fa1d202fb2eff296a", "text": "This will always be the case unless the tax relief is more than the expenditure, which it never is. There are some ways in which this can become worth it: if the thing you are spending the money on would actually be useful, of it you might be able to sell it for more than four dollars later - or if you can claim a government grant or similar for more than four dollars. And at the level of corporate finance it can get more complicated. But otherwise, No.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5280605812e2385284b2802e8d5a509", "text": "Do Alice and Bob have to figure out the fair market value of their services and report that as income or something? Yes, exactly that. See Topic 420. Note that if the computer program is for Bob's business, Bob might be able to deduct it on his taxes. Similarly, if the remodeling is on Alice's business property, she might be able to deduct it. There might also be other tax advantages in certain circumstances.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "690a6d2d2c6751e41efe65b56e1a5876", "text": "Most items used in business have to be depreciated; you get to deduct a small fraction of the cost each year depending on the lifetime of the item as per IRS rules. That is, you cannot assume a one-year life for an electronic item even if it will be obsolete in three months. Some items can be expensed; you get to deduct the entire cost in the first year but then if you don't stay in business, e.g. you get a job paying wages and are no longer self-employed, you have to recapture this and pay taxes on the amount recaptured in the later year. With respect to consumer-type electronics such as an iPad or laptop, it helps to have a separate item for personal use that you can show in case of an audit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfcbc865e377e9eed35445892b998966", "text": "You're last paragraph sums up what I mean exactly. Businesses will continue to make investments that try think make sense. Taxes have an pact on what makes sense. This combo is what we should be discussing. Thanks for adding to the conversation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c7beebb3549c75c9dd76f80232f5e9c", "text": "What you are looking for is a 1031 exchange. https://www.irs.gov/uac/like-kind-exchanges-under-irc-code-section-1031 Whenever you sell business or investment property and you have a gain, you generally have to pay tax on the gain at the time of sale. IRC Section 1031 provides an exception and allows you to postpone paying tax on the gain if you reinvest the proceeds in similar property as part of a qualifying like-kind exchange. Gain deferred in a like-kind exchange under IRC Section 1031 is tax-deferred, but it is not tax-free. You may also sell your house for bitcoin and record the sales price on the deed with an equal or lesser amount that you bought it for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9dadcaf1b7aff5c3555a19c51de29974", "text": "The CPA's mention of $2,500 is probably referring to the recently increased de minimis safe harbor under the final tangible property regulations (used to be $500) without an applicable financial statement. The IRS will not challenge your choice of expense or capitalization on amounts on or below $2500 if you elect the de minimis safe harbor election on your return. However, you must follow whatever you're doing for your books. (So if you are capitalizing your laptops for book purposes, you would also need to capitalize for tax purposes). Section 179 allows you to expense property that you would have otherwise have had to capitalize and depreciate. Section 179 can be annoying, especially if your LLC is treated as a passthrough, because there are recapture provisions when you dispose of the asset too early. For the tax return preparer, it makes the return preparation much more simple if there are no fixed assets to account for in the first place, which is quite possible if you are expensive all items/invoices less than $2,500.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dfa6cd1c8ac900289f0601b56e554dc8", "text": "They do give tax breaks for efficient furnaces, tankless water heaters, even LED lights. Homeowners can use their interest deduction to buy such items. There have been huge tax breaks for electric cars too. Are you serious right now?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6108ef904d7a74b2cc7775255c47bb06", "text": "I ran a plastic recycling plant with my dad about 10 years ago and the techniques or operations are still the same. The beauty of the plastic industry is that the market is extremely under served. The market is so under served that many of the big processors across the country will lease the machinery to you to process the material they send to you and let you pay for the machinery by processing some of their inventory for them. Recycling is a lucrative industry. I still have my old business plan if you are interested. You have a major player there in Northern Cali. Let's talk trueoutlawconsulting@gmail.com", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e4586a0d2adf51d94c2a45d74c1ad2d", "text": "My dad owned a steel Drum / barrel recycling company where we would get barrel from food companies and recondition them. Sometimes we would get drums from one company for free and they would call us to buy drums, many times we would sell them the same drums that we got from them for FREE. That's the beauty of recycling. After some time we started doing plastic drums and we had to find a way to salvage the plastic drums that we were not able to refurbish. So we started contacting plastic companies and started talking to a company in Middle Tennessee. He was a huge plastic processor that was shipping hundreds of thousands tons of plastic regrind every week. He was from India and had a huge plant about 70 miles from Memphis were I was living. He would process the plastic rods or shanks here in the U.S. and ship them too be made into products in India. I was in the process of securing a processing machine from him, one from a company in Northern California, and one from a company in Florida. All three where going to place a processing machine in my dads plant in Memphis and create a coast to coast pipeline with Memphis as the center point. They where going to let us pay for the machinery by paying us to process a percentage of their plastic since much of it was coming through Memphis. That way all they had to do was ship the material once it arrived from our plant. Since Memphis is the gateway to the west and a main truck route it was perfect. This type of arrangement is easy to make if you can convince the major players that you can deliver their product as promised. I also made arrangements with the processor close to me to relocate 2 of his employees to Memphis to manage the equipment until we got failure with the equipment and act as liaison for him. He was agreeing to everything I asked because it would have relieve production pressure off his employees and help him with his bottom line. Make sure you investigate the type of machines you need to process the many types of plastics your processor needs or wants. There are different types of plastics and different ways of processing it. #1 – PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) ... #2 – HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) ... #3 – PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) ... #4 – LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene) ... #5 – PP (Polypropylene) ... #6 – PS (Polystyrene) I also know that California has a lot of air quality laws. What I would do is get to know your local EPA reps and run your plans by them, they will be able to tell you all you can and can't do. Also you processor is going to want to see your Feasibility Study and business plan before he does this type of arrangement. Once you let me know if this is something that you are still interested in doing I will send you my old business plan. Here is a video to really get an idea of what's involved https://youtu.be/vAr4BZM_Tzk", "title": "" }, { "docid": "598447d7fc5f43f2a053c5c29cf3c2a4", "text": "It's called bartering and the IRS has a page titled Four Things to Know About Bartering. The summary is - The bottom line is this is taxable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76b55af2775772c8110da4c1f45acab8", "text": "Yeah, the VAT adds more fairness between who gets the taxes, but is only offset by it being more complicated and needing more bureaucracy. I think it's an interesting idea. If I were a policy analyst I'd like to see what costs are vs. benefit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "145d8cf762769c52f00716bde4c9129a", "text": "There is a positive not being mentioned above: the depreciation vs your regular earned income. Disclaimer: I am not a tax attorney or an accountant, nor do I play one on the internet. I am however a landlord. With that important caveat out of the way: Rental properties (and improvements to them) depreciate in value on a well-defined schedule. You can claim that depreciation as a phantom loss to lower the amount of your taxable regular income. If you make a substantial amount of the latter, it can be a huge boon in the first few years you own the property. You can claim the depreciation as if the property were new. So take the advice of a random stranger on the internet to your accountant/attorney and see how much it helps you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c736826887aa913f0544388ca51db098", "text": "If the building has no income, it also probably has minimal expenses. The heat, water and electricity costs are nearly zero. They are letting the value depreciate, and taking it off the taxes. I also suspect the condition of the building is poor, so any effort to make the building productive would be very costly. Many cities combat this by setting the tax on empty buildings or empty lots at a much higher rate. Or they set the value of the property at a high valuation based on what it could generate. Sometimes this is only targeted at some sections of the city to encourage development. They also offer tax breaks when the owner of a house has the house as their principal residence.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "460d9b7f54847c2d1d61cf029e7a866c", "text": "\"If this is an issue of opportunity cost then there is a benefit. Mortgage interest rates are extremely low, low enough that they can effectively be used to indirectly fund investments. If one stores equity in a house, ie \"\"pays it off\"\", then that wealth returns only the rate of growth of the house less expenditures. If one borrows against the house to fund investments, then the above stated returns which on average exceed the mortgage interest rate can be augmented by the investments, yielding a greater return. The tax benefit is more of a cherry on top. If one is using this as a justification to spend then it is frivolity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69979e52c592f1b1dfeb64442c298034", "text": "I wrote a detailed article on Tax Loss Harvesting to show the impact on returns. For my example, I showed a person in the 15% bracket. In years with no loss, they trade to capture gains at 0% long term rate, thus bumping their basis up. In years with losses, they tax harvest for a 15% effective 'rebate' on that loss. I showed how for the lost decade 2000-2009, a buy and hold would have returned -1% CAGR, but the tax loss harvester would have gained 1% (just 1% for the decade, not CAGR), ending the decade with no loss. As one's portfolio grows, the math changes. You can only take $3000 capital loss against ordinary income, and my example relies on the difference between taking a gain for free but using a loss to offset income. Note, the higher earner would take gains at 15%, but losses at 25%, but only for the relatively small portfolio. The benefit for them is to use loss harvesting to offset gains, less so for ordinary income. As the other answer state, Wealthfront can aid you to do this with no math on your part.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
f9e687611a8557975eafe1b093bfa0ac	How Emini/Minifuture price is set against its underlaying instrument?	[ { "docid": "d77d584e74daebcdd1a0347d8295c0ac", "text": "The market sets prices and the way JP Morgan or any other bank or organization determines the price it's willing to deal in would be proprietary business information.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "3f128f16f4e6731cf3b3b249ec63a4f4", "text": "\"Assuming you are executing your order on a registered exchange by a registered broker, your order will be filled at the best bid price available. This is because brokers are legally obliged to get the best price available. For example, if the market is showing a bid of 49.99 and an offer of 50.01 and you submit an order to offer 1000 shares at 5.00, your order will be filled at 49.99. This is assuming the existing bids are for enough shares to fill all of the 1000 shares being offered. If the share you are offering lacks the necessary liquidity to fill the order - i.e., the 49.99 bid is for less than 1000 shares and the \"\"level two\"\" bids are not enough to fill the remaining shares, then the order would be posted in the market as an offer to sell the balance (1000 - shares filled at 49.99 and those filled at level two bids) at 5.00. I'm pretty sure that the scenario you are describing would be described as market manipulation and it would be against the law.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db92ce858b3591cf4d0933e4c1a1d624", "text": "\"No, it means that is only the notional value of that underlying asset of that contract, generally. The contract specification itself is listed on the exchange's websites, and there are really no assumptions you can make about a particular contract. Where S&P futures have one set of specifications, such as what it actually represents, how many each contract holds, how to price profits and losses... a different contract, such as FTSE 100 stock futures have a completely different set of specifications. Anyway in this one example the s&p 500 futures contract has an \"\"initial margin\"\" of $19,250, meaning that is how much it would cost you to establish that contract. Futures generally require delivery of 1,000 units of the underlying asset. So you would take the underlying asset's price and multiple it by 1,000. (what price you use is also mentioned in the contract specification), The S&P 500 index is $1588 you mentioned, so on Jun2013 you would have to delivery $1588 x 1000, or $1,588,000. GREAT NEWS, you only have to put up 1.2% in principal to control a 1.5 million dollar asset! Although, if even that amount is too great, you can look at the E-Mini S&P futures, which require about 1/10th the capital and delivery. This answer required that a lot of different subjects be mentioned, so feel free to ask a new question about the more specific topics.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "befc5e32beb333b71ded5cf3f93981d1", "text": "\"I don't see EWQ6 in any of your links, so I can't say for certain, but when you buy an option contract on a future, the option will be for a specific future (and strike). So the page you're looking at may be for options on E-mini S&P 500 futures in general, and when you actually purchase one through your broker, you pick a specific expiry (which will be based on the \"\"prompt\"\" future, meaning the next future that expires after the option) and strike. UPDATE: Based on this page mirror, the option EWQ7 is an option on the ESU7 (SEP 2017) future. The next 3 monthly options use ESZ7 as the underlier, which confirms that they use the next prompt future as the underlier.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de6c4401e481d9f660c967f3307c4199", "text": "My logic for prices was this: S&P500/indexes price is based on the overall market for S&P500, generally. So my thought was that it should be correlated to the price of the Vix because as market volatility occurred, the price of the Vix would go up and vice Versa when the market goes down. However, I just started running these analyses as a side project and am still learning the right measures to make better observations. So I'm all for any advice in that regard.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67e4b5300c51efab8635a449c192e413", "text": "\"That characterisation of arbitrage-free pricing sounds a bit like the \"\"relative vs. fundamental\"\" approaches to asset pricing that Cochrane outlines (in his text, Asset Pricing). Rebonato also makes this distinction with regard to term structure models in Volatility and Correlation. On one extreme you have CAPM-style models in which asset prices are completely determined by investors' risk preferences; on the other extreme, you would have something like a SABR-Libor Market Model where you take everything up to and including the volatility surface as given. What's interesting to me is the way in which these different classes of models get used in various parts of the financial industry. So, buy side firms tend to rely a lot more on equilibrium-style models, since they ultimately care about things like how the equity risk premium or the bond risk premium affect asset prices. In contrast, derivatives quants working at a big sell-side bank who are pricing exotics don't care about what the \"\"fundamental\"\" value of their underlying assets is; they just take that as given and price the exotic accordingly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f03a5a32f7df5a49a93eb16e4e7bd82", "text": "Because the standard contract is for 125,000 euros. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/g10/euro-fx_contractSpecs_futures.html You don't want to use Microsoft as an analogy. You want to use non financial commodities. Most are settled in cash, no delivery. But in the early 80's, the Hunt brothers caused a spectacular short squeeze by taking delivery sending the spot price to $50. And some businesses naturally do this, buying metal, grain, etc. no reason you can't actually get the current price of $US/Euro if you need that much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a6e87ece5bda5dbb3720b8f90837b88", "text": "\"Here is how I would approach that problem: 1) Find the average ratios of the competitors: 2) Find the earnings and book value per share of Hawaiian 3) Multiply the EPB and BVPS by the average ratios. Note that you get two very different numbers. This illustrates why pricing from ratios is inexact. How you use those answers to estimate a \"\"price\"\" is up to you. You can take the higher of the two, the average, the P/E result since you have more data points, or whatever other method you feel you can justify. There is no \"\"right\"\" answer since no one can accurately predict the future price of any stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bbd043eabc228898ea2466c0b459b6e", "text": "There are 2 approaches. One of them is already mentioned by @Afforess. If the approach by @Afforess is not feasible, and you can not see yourself making an unbiased decision, close the position. By closing the position you will not get the best price. But by removing a distraction you will reduce amount of mistakes you make in the other stocks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0daa4cff8d959a279c6cc91d5bcc87", "text": "\"You can interpret prices in any way you wish, but the commonly quoted \"\"price\"\" is the last price traded. If your broker routes those orders, unlikely because they will be considered \"\"unfair\"\" and will probably be busted by the exchange, the only way to drive the price to the heights & lows in your example is to have an overwhelming amount of quantity relative to the order book. Your orders will hit the opposing limit orders until your quantity is exhausted, starting from the best price to the worst price. This is the functional equivalent to a market order.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f09a659705f500b5a9e46f2f59bb4d0", "text": "This idea does not make sense for most mutual funds. The net asset value, or NAV, is the current market value of a fund's holdings, minus the fund's liabilities, that is usually expressed as a per-share amount. For most funds, the NAV is determined daily, after the close of trading on some specified financial exchange, but some funds update their NAV multiple times during the trading day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_fund I am not certain, but I believe that OppenheimerFunds does not report intraday prices. I would call them up and ask.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b76ed1c3867613a61e57eaefd41c793", "text": "You want to sell for 61.15, but the most the best buyer will pay is 61.10? The HFT trader forces you both to trade over a gap of a nickel AND makes a nickel in profit?? How does he do that, with magic?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc774863ed13c1d2f406183d15b26019", "text": "Quick and dirty paper but pretty interesting.. I'm not in Portfolio Management but I probably would have ended up at the modal number as well. I don't know the subject deeply enough to answer my own question, but is the bias always toward underestimation of variance? Or is that a complex of the way the problem was set up? Another question I have for those in investment management; Would this impact asset allocation?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "885c2fe86964f417fb835bfe6bb68713", "text": "How would this trade behave IRL? I don't know how the simulation handles limit orders and bid/ask spreads to know it's feasible, but buying at 4.04 when the current ask is 8.00 seems unlikely. That would mean that all other sell orders between 8.00 and 4.04 were fulfilled, which means that there were very few sellers or that sell pressure spiked, both of which seem unlikely. In reality, it seems more likely that your order would have sat there until the ask dropped to $4.04 (if it ever did), and then you'd have to wait until the bid rose to $7.89 in order to sell them at that price. However, that kind of swing in option prices in not unrealistic. Options near at-the-money tend to move in price at about 50% of the change in the underlying, so if amazon suddenly dropped by $5, the option price could drop by $2.60 (from 6.66 to $4.04), and then rise back to $7.89 if the price rose $8 (which would be 1% swing and not unheard of intra-day). But it sounds like you got very lucky (or the simulation doesn't handle option trading realistically) - I've traded options in the past and have had some breaks similar to yours. I've also had bad breaks where I lost my entire investment (the options expire out-of-the money). So it should be a very limited part of your portfolio, and probably only used for risk management (e.g. buying put options to lock in some gains but keeping some upside potential).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9a42e8d6987481747c2211d779c067c", "text": "I'd imagine in this extreme edge case it would round down to $0. I can't fathom what makes $10.02 or $153.02 any different from $0.02.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "656fb040050e21c9676a9f63858ab091", "text": "\"I agree completely. \"\"I don't always agree with John Cochrane, but when I do, I agree completely.\"\" I think heavy reliance on either approach to pricing is generally a bad idea. Equilibrium models always include something that you're supposed to inherently know, but never do. No-arbitrage models don't necessarily say anything that you don't (in some mathematical sense) already know. So you're either stuck with unknown parameters, or you can't explain why you're something is worth what you say it is beyond, \"\"Herp derp, other people are doing it.\"\" So I think if buy-side people made some use of no-arbitrage models, they'd have a better understanding of the parameters they're making up, and if sell-side people sometimes used equilibrium models, they'd have a better grasp of what's going on economically. Also, it would have the beneficial effect of reminding people that their models are always wrong, even if they're frequently useful.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
698931f544874749580906da536ad56e	What is the lifespan of a series of currency?	[ { "docid": "1954c05331040b02cb1ab7f1ada311a5", "text": "In general, currency has no expiration date. Specifically, in Canada, the Bank of Canada has been issuing banknotes since 1935, and these are still considered legal tender, even though they don't look much like the modern banknotes. Before that, Canadian chartered banks issued currency, and these also still have value. However, there are a few things to note. First of all, with currency of that age, it often has more value as a collector's item than the face value. So spending it at a store would be foolish. Second, store clerks are not experts in old currency, and will not accept a bill that they do not recognize. If you want the face value of your old currency, you may need to exchange it for modern currency at a bank. Having said all that, there are certainly cases where currency does expire. Generally this happens when a country changes currency. For example, when the Euro was introduced, the old currencies were discontinued. After a window of exchange, the old currency in many cases lost its value. So if you have some old French Franc notes, for example, they can no longer be exchanged for Euros. These types of events cannot be predicted in the future, of course, so it is impossible to say when, if ever, the Canadian currency you have today will lose its spending value in Canada.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7640319b1c12b9083eb1af33680b292", "text": "US currency doesn't expire, it is always legal tender. I can see some trouble if you tried to spend a $10,000 bill (you'd be foolish to do so, since they are worth considerably more). Maybe some stores raise eyebrows at old-style $100's (many stores don't take $100 bills at all), but you could swap them for new style at a bank if having trouble with a particular store. Old-series currency can be an issue when trying to exchange US bills in other countries, just because it doesn't expire here, doesn't mean you can't run into issues elsewhere. Other countries have different policies, for example, over the last year the UK phased in a new five pound note, and as of last month (5/5/2017) the old fiver is no longer considered legal tender (can still swap out old fivers at the bank for now at least). Edit: I mistook which currency you took where, and focused on US currency instead of Canadian, but it looks like it's the same story there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03791a37f88fb667d6c14705ea1d4c3f", "text": "\"Currency lives no more then 50 years. US currency did not expire in last 100 years, but it was reinstated few times, last one was 2009. Note that currency is not just what you hold in your hand. Currency is system of relations of money supply (currency is not money but we forced to use standard terminology), banking rules and government policy. Currency exists as long as government wants it to. In 2009 for example, US government decided it needs new currency and just printed whole new money supply. So US dollar is now counting as \"\"partially fresh new currency\"\". It was reinstated. Not expired. But today's dollar is totally different from 90s and 00s. Will it be accepted after 200 years? Yes (probably). But most likely at that time there will be totally new US dollars. And new Euros, new Pounds and so on. Currency is method of transfer. You can have that physical coins you have, but as economic agent it will die very quickly. It is not only related to inflation, in fact, inflation is the least of your worries. If you count all currencies in the world which ever existed, most of them 99.99% are completely dead by now (with governments which supported it). Not even single one currency which lived more then 100 years. US dollar was reinstated in 1860, 1907, 1930, 1973, 1987, 2009 and in fact it is not single currency but dozen which were allowed to be used \"\"for compatibility reasons\"\".\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "031daa43ef28ab8f0178cc542cea1d56", "text": "\"Since you want to know exactly what \"\"yield\"\" means, let's get all the details of the security down first. Treasury Bills are 0-1 year and do not pay interest/coupons. The yield comes from buying the T-Bill at a discount. For example, you buy a T-Bill for $99 and it pays $100 when it matures, and the yield over that holding period is 1/99. When people talk about \"\"yield\"\" they are generally talking about annualized yield unless stated otherwise. Treasury Notes are 2-10 years. They pay interest semi-annually. Treasury Bonds are 20-30 years and they also pay interest semi-annually. Again, \"\"yield\"\" is typically the annualized yield, or the two semi-annual interest payments added together (without compounding). These have interest payments so they are typically sold at par. They may trade a premium/discount afterwards. TIPS pay a constant coupon rate, but the principal is adjusted up and down with inflation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "332c7311f705acec1dd28a25e372bdce", "text": "I'd have anything you would need for maybe 3-6 months stored up: food, fuel, toiletries, other incidentals. What might replace the currency after the Euro collapses will be the least of your concerns when it does collapse.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b8b1ccf5da9d12db5f771d27f4f5d92", "text": "Echoing JohnF, and assuming you mean the physical, rather than abstract meaning of money? The abstract concept obviously isn't replaced (unless the currency is discredited, or like the creation of the Euro which saw local currencies abandoned). The actual bits of paper are regularly collected, shredded (into itty-bitty-bits) and destroyed. Coinage tends to last a lot longer, but it also collected and melted down eventually. Depends on the country, though. No doubt, many people who took a gap year to go travelling in points diverse came across countries where the money is a sort of brown-grey smudge you hold with care in thick wadges. The more modern economies replace paper money on a dedicated cycle (around three years according to Wikipedia, anyway).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba960eb7f7436e5f3824be9fad756a02", "text": "If you're willing to use OFX or QIF files, most Canadian banks can spit output more data than 90 days. The files are typically used to import into Quicken-like local programs, but can be easily parsed for your webapp, I imagine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76f805fba133d2272947714245b4c446", "text": "As the value of a currency declines, commodities, priced in that currency, will rise. The two best commodities to see a change in would be oil and gold.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de76dd8be879644dd6aff119fe53a486", "text": "Money itself has no value. A gold bar is worth (fuzzy rushed math, could be totally wrong on this example figure) $423,768.67. So, a 1000 dollars, while worthless paper, are a token saying that you own %.2 of a gold bar in the federal reserve. If a billion dollars are printed, but no new gold is added to the treasury, then your dollar will devalue, and youll only have %.1 percent of that gold bar (again, made up math to describe a hypothetical). When dollars are introduced into the economy, but gold has not been introduced to back it up, things like the government just printing dollars or banks inventing money out of debt (see the housing bubble), then the dollar tokens devalue further. TL;DR: Inflation is the ratio of actual wealth in the Treasury to the amount of currency tokens the treasury has printed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6e67df494d70bb86bbc203462decd2a", "text": "Coins have the minimum value of the metal they are made from. Bank notes (paper money) would only be valuable when it becomes rare. And there isn't a good way to predict how quickly something like Zimbabwe dollars will become rare (that I know of at least).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6057489b63d4a6078034e2f58b3fe5f7", "text": "I'm not sure, but I think the monetary system of Second Life or World of Warcraft would correspond to what you are looking for. I don't think they are independent of the dollar though, since acquiring liquidity in those games can be done through exchange for real dollars. But there can be more closed systems, maybe Sim type games where this is not the case. I hope this helps.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5c814615f9c906e4ab3664358d56153", "text": "Currencies today are mostly just paper with perceived value. Gold and silver aren’t the same as modern monies because there is an actual finite amount in the world. Paper money is technically infinite and can be used to control the value of it to that end such as quantitative easing. The question is is Bitcoin like paper currency? In which case things that affect paper money would effect it with some exceptions. Or is it like gold and silver in that there is a finite amount? That’s for people who know more about it than me but I have heard terms like mining bitcoin and stuff... I was thinking about investing in bitcoins too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b45f748a0c31dd76eb6f670978f51320", "text": "Fist money does not have legal tender. And technically there are thousands of people willing to fight for bitcoin, who can be seen as an army so in that logic bitcoin has some intrinsic value. But both don't have intrinsic value. Most sources on the internet I can find agree with that. Wikipedia, investopedia and many others. Not that money needs intrinsic value. If the market value is 1000 times above the intrinsic value then the intrinsic value is not even relevant. But 1000 * 0 = 0 and the intrinsic value of the dollar itself (not coins) will always be 0. Same for the EUR and then YUAN.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e087c06ec9a617707d80075a5f8175b", "text": "It depends on what actions the European Central Bank (ECB) takes. If it prints Euros to bail out the country then your Euros will decline in value. Same thing with a US state going bankrupt. If the FED prints dollars to bailout a state it will set a precedent that other states can spend carelessly and the FED will be there to bail them out by printing money. If you own bonds issued by the bankrupting state then you could lose some of your money if the country is not bailed out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8d1a7ed650bccb30e84e1f254b57628", "text": "\"Currencies that are pegged or fixed require that foreign currencies are held by the central issuer at a proportional amount. This is analogous to having a portfolio of currencies that the central bank issues shares from - in the form of its own currency. We will continue with this analogy, if the central bank says these \"\"shares\"\" are worth $1, but the underlying components of the portfolio are worth $0.80 and decreasing, then it is expensive for the central bank to maintain its peg, and eventually they will have to disregard the peg as people start questioning the central bank's solvency. (People will know the $1 they hold is not really worth what the central bank says it is, because of the price changes people experience in buying goods and services, especially when it comes to imports. Shadow economies will also trade using a currency more reflective of labor, which happens no matter what the government's punishments are for doing so). Swiss National Bank (central bank) did this in early 2015, as it experienced volatility in the Euro which it had previously been trying to keep it's currency pegged to. It became too expensive for it to keep this peg on its own. The central bank can devalue its currency by adjusting the proportions of the reserve, such as selling a lot of foreign currency X, buying more of currency Y. They can and do take losses doing this. (Swiss National Bank is maintaining a large loss) They can also flood their economy with more of their currency, diluting the value of each individual 1 dollar equivalent. This is done by issuing bonds or monetizing goods and services from the private sector in exchange for bonds. People colloquially call this \"\"printing money\"\" but it is a misnomer in this day and age where printers are not relevant tools. The good and service goes onto the central bank's balance book, and the company/entity that provided the service now has a bond on its book which can be immediately sold to someone else for cash (another reading is that the bond is as good as cash). The bond didn't previously exist until the central bank said it did, and central banks can infinitely exchange goods and services for bonds. Bond monetization (also called Quantitative Easing) is practiced by the Federal Reserve in the United States, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank and now the Central Bank of the Republic of China\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5cb9014490f54e93bdd3c759e17a493", "text": "Granted, currencies don't have intrinsic value. Cryptocurrency is worse than government currencies in a few ways: - it costs real resources to produce - no institution keeps values stable - values are volatile in practice In those respects, crypto is more similar to a precious metal than a currency. Except it's worse than precious metals too, as metals have some intrinsic value. Crypto won't be able to overcome these disadvantages to compete with government-issued currencies in the long term. It might compete with gold long term. There are a lot of nuts and gold bugs in the world, and crypto might live on in that fringe space.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc23dc0b3a9f674b1d90cdb84f98052a", "text": "This was such a wonderful and clear explanation. It has helped me to understand (at 28) a concept that I have always been a bit murky on. I would feel safe making the bet that you are a teacher of some sort. I would find it extremely interesting to hear you thoughts on why we don't use the gold standard anymore. Do you work in finance?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7be13fa59cf116fba48f6e48a8d156b8", "text": "\"First off learn from this: Never cosign again. There are plenty of other \"\"tales of woe\"\" outlined on this site that started and ended similarly. Secondly do what you can to get off of the loan. First I'd go back to her dad and offer him $1000 to take you off the loan and sign over the car. Maybe go up to $3000 if you have that much cash. If that doesn't work go to the bank and offer them half of the loan balance to take you off. You can sign a personal loan for that amount (maybe). Whatever it takes to get off the loan. If she has a new BF offer him the same deal as the dad. Why do you have to do this? Because you owned an asset that was once valued at 13K and is valued at (probably) less than 4K. Given that you have a loan on it the leverage works against you causing you to lose more money. The goal now is to cut your losses and learn from your mistakes. I feel like the goal of your post was to make your ex-gf look bad. It's more important to do some self examination. If she was such a bad person why did you date her? Why did you enter a business transaction with her? I'd recommend seeking counseling on why you make such poor choices and to help you avoid them in the future. Along these lines I'd also examine your goals in life. If your desire is to be a wealthy person, then why would you borrow money to buy a car? Seek to imitate rich people to become rich. Picking the right friends and mates is an important part of this. If you do not have a desire to be a wealthy person what does it matter? Losing 13K over seven months is a small step in the \"\"right\"\" direction.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
1b511cce58cb85b8ea2a5fac15649edd	Is there a financial benefit for buyers from using community currencies?	[ { "docid": "7ffc83534ed9f045e2e4f6a6b3b400b1", "text": "Short answer: NO, there is no financial benefits for you to expect in a local currency even if some might give tiny discounts on local sales. Local currencies are attractive for small business or communities, they are perfectly legal and starting to be popular in a lot of places. Local currencies encourage individuals and businesses to exchange goods and services locally. Using them is like investing in your community. It could give you the feeling of doing something good for your community. Check this article for a discussion on the subject. They should not be considered investments. Local currencies do not offer the same financial security and some could be like monopoly money, but that would be another subject or question to debate. So, to summarize: no money to be made for your personal use, but some real social and financial benefits for your community. Would'nt that be a kind of personal benefit for you ?", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "15404acf93f7162857cc0bc696e09b11", "text": "\"There are firms that let you do this. I believe that Saxo Bank is one such firm (note that I'm not endorsing the company at all, and have no experience with it) Keep in mind that the reason that these currencies are \"\"exotic\"\" is because the markets for trading are small. Small markets are generally really bad for retail/non-professional investors. (Also note: I'm not trying to insult Brazil or Thailand, which are major economies. In this context, I'm specifically concerned with currency trading volume.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29891229a6cd740290149c10ec1cbff3", "text": "\"Perhaps it's the terminology \"\"fee\"\" that makes it a little confusing. I'm not sure whether it's due legislation or if it's tradition but banks and money changers in my country don't charge \"\"fees\"\". Instead they advertise separate prices for buying and selling money. For example they'd normally advertise: USD, we buy: 4.50, we sell: 4.65. It's a business. Just like selling cars or lemonade selling money only makes sense if you sell it at a higher price than what you bought it for. Regardless of what you call it it's the profit margin for the seller.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e30ca5efd5d21101a2e6d781d8bcf48", "text": "Some personal finance packages can track basis cost of individual purchase lots or fractions thereof. I believe Quicken does, for example. And the mutual funds I'm invested in tell me this when I redeem shares. I can't vouch for who/what would make this visible at times other than sale; I've never had that need. For that matter I'm not sure what value the info would have unless you're going to try to explicitly sell specific lots rather than doing FIFO or Average accounting.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38a479e3fac8a4d4deb5d8caa993d72a", "text": "\"Having savings only in your home currency is relatively 'low risk' compared with other types of 'low diversification'. This is because, in a simple case, your future cash outflows will be in your home currency, so if the GBP fluctuates in value, it will (theoretically) still buy you the same goods at home. In this way, keeping your savings in the same currency as your future expenditures creates a natural hedge against currency fluctuation. This gets complicated for goods imported from other countries, where base price fluctuates based on a foreign currency, or for situations where you expect to incur significant foreign currency expenditures (retirement elsewhere, etc.). In such cases, you no longer have certainty that your future expenditures will be based on the GBP, and saving money in other currencies may make more sense. In many circumstances, 'diversification' of the currency of your savings may actually increase your risk, not decrease it. Be sure you are doing this for a specific reason, with a specific strategy, and not just to generally 'spread your money around'. Even in case of a Brexit, consider: what would you do with a bank account full of USD? If the answer is \"\"Convert it back to GBP when needed (in 6 months, 5 years, 30, etc.), to buy British goods\"\", then I wouldn't call this a way to reduce your risk. Instead, I would call it a type of investment, with its own set of risks associated.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "61613f9d8b9dd2efa33ee36ade8f02a6", "text": "\"To speak to this a little more broadly: apart from groups like hedge funds and other investors investing for purely speculative purposes, one of the major purposes of forwards (and, for that matter, futures) for companies in the \"\"real economy\"\" is to \"\"lock in\"\" a particular price in advance (or to reduce the risk of some kind of investment or transaction). Investopedia defines a currency forward as follows (with a few key points emphasized): [A currency forward is] a binding contract in the foreign exchange market that locks in the exchange rate for the purchase or sale of a currency on a future date. A currency forward is essentially a hedging tool that does not involve any upfront payment. The other major benefit of a currency forward is that it can be tailored to a particular amount and delivery period, unlike standardized currency futures. This can be a major advantage for planning and risk management purposes. For example, if I know I'm going to have to pay $1 million USD in the future and most of my revenue is in Euros, the actual amount I'll have to pay will vary based on the exchange rate between Euros and dollars. Thus, it's very worthwhile for me to be able to \"\"lock in\"\" a particular exchange rate so that I know exactly how much I'm going to pay relative to my projected revenue. The goal isn't necessarily to make money off the transaction (maybe they do, maybe they don't) as much as to reduce risk and improve planning ability. The fact that it doesn't involve an up-front payment is also a major advantage. It's usually a bad practice to \"\"sit on\"\" cash for a year if you can avoid it. Another key point: savings accounts pay less interest than inflation. If inflation is 3% and your savings account pays 1%, that looks remarkably like a guaranteed 2% loss to me.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a784e06e0738e08af5368a14b5afae86", "text": "There's another dimension here as currency conversion isn't necessarily the final answer. As stated by others, converting money between the three should theoretically end up with the exact same value, less transactional costs. However the kink is that the price of most products are not updated as the currencies change. In many cases the price difference is such that even accounting for shipping and exchange fees, purchasing a product from a distributor in a foreign country can be cheaper than just picking it up at the local store. You might even be able to take advantage of this when purchasing at a single store. If that store is set up to accept multiple currencies then it's a matter of looking at the conversion rates the moment you are buying and deciding which one is the cheapest route for you. Of course, this generally will not work for smaller purchases like a cup of coffee or a meal. Primarily because the fee for the exchange might eclipse any savings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c5e4cc3f975021d306cac2f5730af64", "text": "It's very simple. Use USDSGD. Here's why: Presenting profits/losses in other currencies or denominations can be useful if you want to sketch out the profit/loss you made due to foreign currency exposure but depending on the audience of your app this may sometimes confuse people (like yourself).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e61919cc2567f96df4868a9c4de17281", "text": "At any instant, three currencies will have exchange rates so if I know the rate between A and B, and B to C, the A to C rate is easily calculated. You need X pounds, so at that moment, you are subject to the exchange rate right then. It's not a deal or bargain, although it may look better in hindsight if the currencies move after some time has passed. But if a currency is going to depreciate, and you have the foresight to know such things, you'd already be wealthy and not visiting here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b350243d1a7fea34bb88edd7d11f0aa0", "text": "All institutions, financial or otherwise, seek to maximize profits. In a free market, each bank would price its services to be competitive with the current state of the market. Since the currency conversion fee is generally a small part of the decision as to which bank to choose, banks can be non-competitive in this area. If this is an important consideration for you then you would need to find a bank with a lower conversion fee, but be prepared to have higher fees in other areas. TL;DR: The market bears it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a854b7f1fb9a4c4cbd73fad4b1fced68", "text": "Essentially imported goods from the country (in this case the US) that is improving against your local currency will become more expensive. For the most part, that is the only practical effect on you on an individual financial level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "614f000308e628a7beaebe5b18c56020", "text": "Thanks for your reply! I presume then if I don't convert back (say I spend everything) then it's much the same. So my main consideration should be whether I think the currency will increase or decrease in my time away if I'm converting back", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bffafb1c110a47aebd15ce939c82941e", "text": "This is more of an economics question than personal finance. That said, I already started writing an answer before I noticed, so here are a few points. I'll leave it open for others to expand the list. Advantages Disadvantages Advantages Disadvantages The flip-side to the argument that more users means more stability is that the impact of a strong economy (on the value of the currency) is diluted somewhat by all the other users. Indeed, if adopted by another country with similar or greater GDP, that economy could end up becoming the primary driver of the currency's value. It may be harder to control counterfeiting. Perhaps not in the issuing country itself, but in foreign countries that do not adopt new bills as quickly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27b7f7ddd7fa9a188b864065a49e34de", "text": "I don't follow Bitcoin but that seems like a really good service to offer to businesses. It protects their money and it nets out a commission (presumably) on each transaction. Plus, it helps create more acceptance of Bitcoin as a currency which leads to more transactions. Brilliant really.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d51b9616110f5402fe4bb70de5b97b68", "text": "\"In my experience working at a currency exchange money service business in the US: Flat fees are the \"\"because we can\"\" fee on average. These can be waived on certain dollar values at some banks or MSBs, and sometimes can even be haggled. If you Google EURUSD, as an example, you also get something like $1.19 at 4pm, 9/18/2017. If you look at the actual conversion that you got, you may find your bank hit you with $1.30 or something close to convert from USD to Euro (in other words, you payed 10% more USD per Euro). And, if you sell your Euro directly back, you might find you only make $1.07. This spread is the real \"\"fee\"\" and covers a number of things including risk or liquidity. You'll see that currencies with more volatility or less liquidity have a much wider spread. Some businesses even go as far as to artificially widen the spread for speculators (see IQD, VND, INR, etc.). Typically if you see a 3% surcharge on international ATM or POS transactions, that's the carrier such as Visa or Mastercard taking their cut for processing. Interestingly enough, you also typically get the carrier-set exchange rate overseas when using your card. In other words, your bank has a cash EURUSD of $1.30 but the conversion you get at the ATM is Visa's rate, hence the Visa fee (but it's typically a nicer spread, or it's sometimes the international spot rate depending on the circumstances, due to the overhead of electronic transactions). You also have to consider the ATM charging you a separate fee for it's own operation. In essence, the fees exist to pad every player involved except you. Some cards do you a solid by advertising $0 foreign exchange fees. Unfortunately these cards only insulate you from the processing/flat fees and you may still fall prey to the fee \"\"hidden\"\" in the spread. In the grander scheme of things, currency exchange is a retail operation. They try to make money on every step that requires them to expend a resource. If you pay 10% on a money transaction, this differs actually very little from the mark-up you pay on your groceries, which varies from 3-5% on dry food, to 20% on alcohol such as wine.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f223389ac294be1c02dff830429e81dd", "text": "First question: Any, probably all, of the above. Second question: The risk is that the currency will become worth less, or even worthless. Most will resort to the printing press (inflation) which will tank the currency's purchasing power. A different currency will have the same problem, but possibly less so than yours. Real estate is a good deal. So are eggs, if you were to ask a Weimar Germany farmer. People will always need food and shelter.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
99a586d1db037e95b31b269f976bdf3d	What is the difference between the asset management division in an investment bank and an investment company?	[ { "docid": "47511a8da9d1996e2c74fb9a799faffd", "text": "I would say that there is no real difference. Asset management companies that is part of large banking groups usually seat in separate entities and operate independently from the rest of the bank. Assuming proper procedures (and regulators usually check that) are in place they will not share information with the rest of the bank and their assets are clearly segregated from the rest of the bank. They have the same fiduciary duties as an independent AM and are probably using the broker/dealer services of other banks as well as their parent. Reputation is a key issue for banks and conflict of interests are usually managed properly. Independence also comes and goes. The corporate history of Neuberger Berman is a good example. Neuberger Berman was once an independent asset manager. In 2003, it merged with Lehman Brothers, thus loosing its independence. When Lehman went bankrupt in 2008, NB did not join its parent company in bankruptcy and did not lose the assets of its clients. The company continued to operate until it was acquired by the management. Finally it is mostly a question of marketing and positioning.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "e784c91a357f8a6f43b6cecad1872133", "text": "My uncle successfully manages a portfolio for an investment firm in New York. I believe he works with somewhere around 2.5 billion dollars, mostly endowments from schools and other funds like that. I know that he had to work very hard to get where he is today but he's been rewarded with excellent compensation and a lot of freedom to do his job how he sees fit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f7ed281d9e2247fd4711722f1855ffd", "text": "Private Equity is simply some type of an investment company, which is owned in a way not accessible to the public. ie: Warren Buffet runs Berkshire Hatheway, which is an investment company which itself is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. This means that anyone can buy shares in the company, and own a small fraction of it. If Warren Buffet owned all the shares of Berkshire Hatheway, it would be a Private Equity company. Note that 'Equity' refers to the ownership of the company itself; a private investment company may simply buy Bonds (which are a form of Debt), in which case, they would not be technically considered a 'Private Equity' company. A Hedge Fund is a very broad term which I don't believe has significant meaning. Technically, it means something along the lines of an investment fund (either public or private) which attempts to hedge the risks of its portfolio, by carefully considering what type of investments it purchased. This refers back to the meaning of 'hedge', ie: 'hedging your bets'. In my opinion, 'Hedge Fund' is not meaningfully different from 'investment fund' or other similar terms. It is just the most popular way to refer to this type of industry at the present time. You can see the trend of using the term 'investment fund' vs 'hedge fund' using this link: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=hedge%20fund,investment%20fund Note that the high-point of the use of 'hedge fund' occurred on October 2008, right at the peak of the global financial crisis. The term evokes a certain image of 'high finance' / 'wall-street types' that may exploit various situations (such as tax legislation, or 'secret information') for their own gain. Without a clear definition, however, it is a term without much meaning. If you do a similar comparison between 'hedge fund' and 'private equity', you can see that the two correlate very closely; I believe the term 'private equity' is similarly misused to generally refer to 'investment bankers'. However in that case, 'private equity' has a more clear definition on its own merits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81fd34136db8af0881a1428438fb5726", "text": "\"Index funds may invest either in index components directly or in other instruments (like ETFs, index options, futures, etc.) which are highly correlated with the index. The specific fund prospectus or description on any decent financial site should contain these details. Index funds are not actively managed, but that does not mean they aren't managed at all - if index changes and the fund includes specific stock, they would adjust the fund content. Of course, the downside of it is that selling off large amounts of certain stock (on its low point, since it's being excluded presumably because of its decline) and buying large amount of different stock (on its raising point) may have certain costs, which would cause the fund lag behind the index. Usually the difference is not overly large, but it exists. Investing in the index contents directly involves more transactions - which the fund distributes between members, so it doesn't usually buy individually for each member but manages the portfolio in big chunks, which saves costs. Of course, the downside is that it can lag behind the index if it's volatile. Also, in order to buy specific shares, you will have to shell out for a number of whole share prices - which for a big index may be a substantial sum and won't allow you much flexibility (like \"\"I want to withdraw half of my investment in S&P 500\"\") since you can't usually own 1/10 of a share. With index funds, the entry price is usually quite low and increments in which you can add or withdraw funds are low too.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cec3ef51a22422e79fd6f350848ec70", "text": "Reading the descriptions on Amazon.com it appears Investments is a graduate text and Elements of Investments is the undergraduate version of the text.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7a0db3a6ebee00e142ce84292f72158", "text": "There are two basic issues here. First, there is the difference between accounting terms and their dictionary definitions. Second, once you dig into it there are dichotomies similar to put vs call options, long sales vs short sales, bond yield vs interest rate. (That is, while they are relatively simple ideas and opposite sides of the same coin, it will probably take some effort to get comfortable with them.) The salient points from the Wikipedia article on debits and credits: In double-entry bookkeeping debit is used for increases in asset and expense transactions and credit is used for increases in a liability, income (gain) or equity transaction. For bank transactions, money deposited in a checking account is treated as a credit transaction (increase) and money paid out is treated as a debit transaction, because checking account balances are bank liabilities. If cash is deposited, the cash becomes a bank asset and is treated as a debit transaction (increase) to a bank asset account. Thus a cash deposit becomes two equal increases: a debit to cash on hand and a credit to a customer's checking account. Your bank account is an asset to you, but a liability to your bank. That makes for a third issue, namely perspective.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2bc6f8bc8f09c67ea95d522896ed8f58", "text": "Put simply: Financial Services provides or facilitates access to capital in some capacity, and are companies unto themselves (TD Ameritrade, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, etc), this also includes accounting companies which provide financial information, and insurance companies that deal with risk. Corporate Finance is part of all businesses in any industry (So for example Starbucks has a finance department, and those employees are doing corporate finance), and plans how to use capital to fund a company's projects and make sure there is sufficient cash on hand as it's needed for daily operations. Corporate Finance interacts with Financial Services to access the capital needed to fund the business's activities.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "503261d5bff005c524a8682b785a5b54", "text": "International equity are considered shares of companies, which are headquartered outside the United States, for instance Research in Motion (Canada), BMW (Germany), UBS (Switzerland). Some investors argue that adding international equities to a portfolio can reduce its risk due to regional diversification.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9363e182020d78bdc5050c5969a94da", "text": "\"The balance sheet for a bank is the list of assets and liabilities that the bank directly is responsible for. This would be things like loans the bank issues and accounts with the bank. Banks can make both \"\"balance sheet\"\" loans, meaning a loan that says on the balance sheet - one the bank gains the profits from but holds the risks for also. They can also make \"\"off balance sheet\"\" loans, meaning they securitize the loan (sell it off, such as the mortgage backed securities). Most major banks, i.e. Chase, Citibank, etc., could be called \"\"balance sheet\"\" banks because at least some portion of their lending comes from their balance sheet. Not 100% by any means, they participate in the security swaps extensively just like everyone does, but they do at least some normal, boring lending just as you would explain a bank to a five year old. Bank takes in deposits from account holders, loans that money out to people who want to buy homes or start businesses. However, some (particularly smaller) firms don't work this way - they don't take responsibility for the money or the loans. They instead \"\"manage assets\"\" or some similar term. I think of it like the difference between Wal-Mart and a consignment store. Wal-Mart buys things from its distributors, and sells them, taking the risk (of the item not selling) and the reward (of the profit from selling) to itself. On the other hand, a consignment store takes on neither: it takes a flat fee to host your items in its store, but takes no risk (you own the items) nor the majority of the profit. In this case, Mischler Financial Group is not a bank per se - they don't have accounts; they manage funds, instead. Note the following statement on their Services page for example: Mischler Financial Group holds no risk positions and no unwanted inventory of securities, which preserves the integrity of our capital and assures our clients that we will be able to obtain bids and offers for them regardless of adverse market conditions. They're not taking your money and then making their own investments; they're advising you how to invest your money, or they're helping do it for you, but it's your money going out and your risk (and reward).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34480337053b524ffb7b54a83e1dde6b", "text": "\"A fund is a portfolio, in that it is a collection, so the term is interchangeable for the most part. Funds are made up of a combination of equities positions (i.e., stocks, bonds, etc.) plus some amount of un-invested cash. Most of the time, when people are talking about a \"\"fund\"\", they are describing what is really an investment strategy. In other words, an example would be a \"\"Far East Agressive\"\" fund (just a made up name for illustration here), which focuses on investment opportunities in the Far East that have a higher level of risk than most other investments, thus they provide better returns for the investors. The \"\"portfolio\"\" part of that is what the stocks are that the fund has purchased and is holding on behalf of its investors. Other funds focus on municipal bonds or government bonds, and the list goes on. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30d8cfeb8bae5fd75350f26e5852946c", "text": "the difference is whose money is being invested. when you deposit money in a bank, it is FDIC insured and capital requirements are set to ensure the preservation of your deposits. if the bank wants to make huge derivative bets, with leverage inherent in the instrument or provided by another bank, deposits are involved in the equation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d68b02b590f00b6b9e569a4648f50fa8", "text": "\"For US stocks it's a bit of a gamble. Many actively managed funds underperform the market indexes, but some of them outperform in many years. With an index you will get average results. With an active manager you \"\"might\"\" do better than average. So you can view active management as a higher risk, potentially higher reward investment approach. On the other hand, if you want to diversify some of your investments into international stocks, bonds, junk bonds, and real estate (REITs) active management is highly likely to be better than indexing. For these specialized areas specialized knowledge and research is needed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e1712afdad5c21cbba461f9e26c7cb02", "text": "The main difference between a mutual fund and an ETF are how they are bought and sold (from the investors perspective). An ETF is transacted on the open market. This means you normally can't buy partial shares with your initial investment. Having to transact on the open market also means you pay a market price. The market price is always a little bit different from the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the fund. During market hours, the ETF will trade at a premium/discount to the NAV calculated on the previous day. Morningstar's fund analysis will show a graph of the premium/discount to NAV for an ETF. With a mutual fund on the other hand, your investment goes to a fund company, which then grants you shares while under the hood buying the underlying investments. You pay the NAV price and are allowed to buy partial shares. Usually an ETF has a lower expense ratio, but if that's equal and any initial fees/commissions are equal, I would prefer the mutual fund in order to buy partial shares (so your initial investment will be fully invested) and so you don't have to worry about paying premium to NAV", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8627b383cbdb6db68614a5784acb1870", "text": "In view of business, we have to book the entries. Business view, owner and business are different. When capital is invested in business by owner, in future business has to repay it. That's why, capital always credit. When we come about bank (business prospective) - cash, bank, fd are like assets which can help in the business. Bank is current asset (Real account) - Debit (what comes into the business) Credit (what goes out of the business) Hence credit and debit differs from what type of account is it.... credit - when business liables debit - what business has and receivables", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3439297b29f6ed71eb08afad392cfde", "text": "I used to work for blackrock, although not in the finance side of the house. Which coast are you on? There's still a big difference in culture - west coast used to be BGI and was acquired in 2009, doubling the size of the company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b611488d1d23e35fd8b1e3ed248e14f", "text": "\"Asset management typically refers to the \"\"product\"\" group e.g. Mutual fund, etf, etc., like invesco offering qqq or some emerging market mutual fund. Capital management is more vague and can refer to a wide range of financial products and services including asset management and stuff like ptfl planning, wealth advisory etc. That said they are both used interchangeably and not like anyone would correct you if you used one vs the other...\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
e92c69de6712690a238ab5b1c880ec59	If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real?	[ { "docid": "b12b0aabd80cb5c2609e5f39ae7a7ad3", "text": "The debt is absolutely real. China loans money to US via buying the US treasury bonds. The bond is essentially a promise to pay back the money with interest, just like a loan. As you point out, the US can print money. If this were to happen, then the USD that the owner of a treasury bond receives when the bond matures are worth less that than the USD used to purchase the bonds. There are lots of reasons why the US doesn't want to print lots of money, so the purchaser of the bond is probably confident it won't happen. If for some reason they think it is possible, then they will want to cover that risk by only purchasing bonds that have a higher interest rate. The higher interest offsets the risk of the USD being worth less. Of course, there are lots more details, e.g., the bonds themselves are bought and sold before maturity, but this is the basic idea.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ce931d868b678112c38d510efe1c7d3", "text": "\"I think the important fact here is that all of our currencies are Fiat Currencies. So currency technically means nothing, because (as you mentioned) the country could print more any time it wants. Now what makes it useful is the combination of two big things: So I would say, we know they owe us 100 \"\"dollars\"\", and the dollar is just a word we use to represent value. It is not technically worth anything, beyond the fact that the government controls the amount of that currency in circulation and you trust that people still want more of that currency.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45185420c394230f6ea4c738968825fd", "text": "To understand this fully one would need to understand quite a few things. Not in scope here. In short, whenever China sells goods to US, it gets USD as most of the trades are in USD. China uses this money to buy other things it needs like Oil etc. After this they still have quite a bit of USD left with them. The money is left with them because US is buying more things from China and selling less things to China. This creates a surplus USD with China. So if US were to borrow money from China or any other country, it would be this excess money. Ofcourse how money gets created in first place is a different topic altogether.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6b44c3e9f0f7b02c284a23f945e7de1", "text": "This is a extremely complicated subject, but I assume you want a very simple answer (otherwise I'm not qualified to answer). The value of most currencies is closely tied to the economy of the county, so if China were to print a huge amount of yuan, then since the value of their economy has not really changed, the international currency markets would devalue the yuan to compensate. (This is rather like, if have shares in, say Apple, and they were to issue an extra billion shares, then the value of your shares would fall (by half), rather than for Apple to be suddenly be worth twice as much) Print too many notes and your currency basically becomes almost worthless, which is what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar. I like the idea of China skipping crate loads of actual yuan or dollars notes to America, but in practice, the borrowing is just a paper exercise, rather like an IOU. As to whether America owes Yuan or dollars, the answer is whatever has been agreed. Assuming the currencies are fairly stable, then since each country has more control over their own currency, it is natural for them to prefer their own currency. However, if America believes the value of the dollar will increase, they may prefer to pay back in Yuan (costing them less dollars), and if China believes the value of the dollar will decrease they may agree to that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db76c8b2fee1cabf362f8e88da5c5936", "text": "The main driver behind countries not printing themselves out of debt is the fact that it will cripple the economy, destroy citizens savings, asset valuations and piss all the countries trade partners off so much that they may stop doing business with them. You will have a few different extremes, look at Zimbabwe as an example of a country that just prints money like no ones business. America is essentially devaluing its currency to compete with China. That annoys the Chinese because their holdings are devalued and as such you then see people moving away from US treasuries into more stable commodities and currencies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6e444f254d171aade7bf0b62c90b74d", "text": "\"Debt can be denominated either in a currency the country controls or a currency the country doesn't control. If the debt is denominated in a currency the country controls then they have the option of \"\"printing their way out of it\"\". That option doesn't come for free, it will devalue their currency on the global market and hurt savers in their country but it is an option. If the debt is denominated in a currency the country does not control then they don't have that option. As I understand it the US debt is in the first category. It's denominated in US dollars so the US government could if they so wished print their way out of it. On the other hand greece's debt is denominated in euros putting them at the mercy of european bankers.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "9a6362547ac6859733c2e74e823f56da", "text": "Japan printed 11 trillion yen on Monday. They do this by monetizing their own debt. The increase in the supply of yen affects the value of the currency. Strange thought, I know. Greece has an economic crisis because they were borrowing at rates that AAA rated countries do. Someone noticed that they weren't exactly a AAA country when they needed to ask for bailout money. Since all government debt is considered risk free and same as cash, this came as a shock to most 'investors' hence the 'crisis' edit: my bad, was 11 trillion, not 9 trillion", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef900298081d52c0b7a1e22a0c5c2834", "text": "You don't understand government financing at all. Gov'ts earn revenue, aka, taxes. They also spend money. The different between the money they spend and they money they earn is the deficit. If you run a deficit for a long period of time, you incur a very large national debt. Now, you can finance (aka, pay for) a deficit by borrowing money. This means you can sell bonds, and instead of pay off the debt each year, you just pay the interest. If your spending balloons out of control, your the likely hood of you paying your debt decreases. If you are very unlikely to payback your debt, people won't buy any more of your bonds, and you no longer have the income (from borrowing) to pay off your interest from other debt you owe, or what ever other obligations you own (think mortgage payments, or teachers salaries, etc). Here's were Europe and USA differ: European nations can't just print money. They can issue more debt, but they can't just create more euros. IF you can print money, you can pay off your debt with money you literally created out of thin air (at the expense of your people, this is called inflation). But this is a form of cheating, eventually people won't trust you, and won't buy your debt either. So where do the banks come in? if the government is SOUND and the banks are NOT, the government can backstop the banks. This is what the US and UK did. Greece, Spain, Ireland all had to back stop their banks also. However, Greece, Spain, and Irelany ( and Italy, and Portugal) also have 1) A lot of debt 2) Structurally high deficits 3) Extremely high borrowing costs (high interest rates...because people don't trust them...because...) 4) Weak underlying economies The fourth point gets you in real trouble. if you have high entitlements, lots of poeple out of work, who the hell is paying taxes and what are they going to? You have no revenue! Remember, a govt works just like a household. It is easy for a good household to support one member, but it is difficult for a member to support an irresponsible household.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65a545ad655f7500a92ec4ec4f1f0f4f", "text": "\"Japan Has Entered The Next Phase: Unlimited Money Printing Investors have been watching Japan for over a decade now, wondering what happens to a country that has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 234%--too big to realistically pay off. We are starting to get the answer. For review, Japan was the first country in the modern central banking era to begin a policy of quantitative easing--an unconventional form of monetary policy that is used when interest rates have already been lowered to the zero bound. Quantitative easing, which involves the purchase of \"\"printed\"\" money to buy government bonds, was widely viewed in Japan as a failure, but what most people don't understand about Japan's early QE experiments is that they were very small--less than $20 billion a month. It took Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to ramp up asset purchases significantly in what was called \"\"Abenomics.\"\" Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg The results of Abenomics have been mixed, but the stock market is certainly higher and the yen is certainly lower, although it's not clear that either of those two developments have really helped. Japan's stock market is mostly foreign-owned, and the weaker yen didn't materially help the balance of trade. Still, there are a lot of people who said that Japan's endless debt deflation would have been worse without Abenomics, so it has remained firmly in place for five years. Abenomics rapidly began to cause distortions, as accelerated asset purchases caused the Bank of Japan to hold a huge percentage of outstanding government bonds, at 40% and rising, as well as being the majority holder of index ETFs. Investors who traffic in JGBs have remarked that the market now functions very poorly, since so much of the market is held by the BOJ. It seems that will get worse, not better. Last year the BOJ implemented a policy of yield curve targeting (ostensibly to help the banks), keeping the overnight rate negative but targeting a 10 year rate at zero percent. The BOJ has been buying longer-dated bonds for years, but this was the first time it ever explicitly capped a rate at longer maturities. Some people wondered how committed the BOJ would be to maintain that cap in the event that JGBs were caught up in a global duration selloff, which we experienced in the last two weeks. As 10-year JGB yields rose above 0.10% last week, the BOJ announced that it was prepared to buy an unlimited amount of bonds to keep yields close to zero percent. As you can imagine, buying an unlimited amount of 10-year JGBs involves printing a theoretically unlimited amount of yen, so the yen weakened significantly on the news. It still remains about ten percent stronger than it was in 2015. We are getting closer to the endgame for Japan. What happens if yields rise further? What happens if the yen depreciates significantly? How much could it depreciate? Could Japan have a currency crisis? What happens if the BOJ ends up owning the entire bond market? These are the questions that investors are asking, and nobody really knows the answers. We are in uncharted territory. I believe that a currency crisis isn't just possible--it's inevitable. And it probably happens at about the time that the BOJ owns all or nearly all of the JGB market, and has to resort to canceling the debt. This sounds like a neat magic trick to make the debt go away, but the laws of economics are not to be conned. Anything is possible--a currency crash, a bond market crash--anything. This is the very definition of debt monetization that resulted in hyperinflation in places like Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe. Is Japan different? We shall see. We will find out soon, as Japan has taken a major step in that direction. Jared Dillian is the author of All the Evil of This World, and the editor of the 10th Man newsletter for Mauldin Economics. Subscribe here. Forbes articles have 8 tracking cookies and 9 tracking scripts. This comment has none.(https://www.reddit.com/r/raws/comments/68xk37/about/)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "768afd430beaddf843064787b4537b0f", "text": "If we postulate that there is at least some element of truth to the phrase 'A leopard does not change his spots' and then consider this tidbit He conveniently forgets to mention his 1.5 million dollar fraud fine from the SEC over investment “advice” he sold through a news letter. The SEC claimed and the judge agreed that the report was “replete with lies”. I think that gives you just about all you might need to know regarding the man behind the video, and the nature of it's content. Oh, and it's purpose? To SELL YOU the same said newsletter. I guess it's natural for Stansberry to feel as he does. After all if the US gov had just busted me for conning and lying to folks, and fined ME 1.5Mill, I'd be having some pretty intense lurid fantasies about it going down in flames, and trying to hide any money I had left offshore also. A huge amount of his argument hinges on the US no longer being the world's reserve currency. Firstly, while I'll admit I'm none too happy with the way the national debt has been managed for oh, around 30 years how, (which includes I will note going from a pretty much balanced budget, to around an 80% increase in the debt from 2001 through 2008, when 'times were good' and there was little need to spend money we didn't have), when compared to a lot of other countries, we still don't look that bad. You have to ask yourself this first, if not the US, then WHO? are the governments of the world going to trust China? could the Yen handle the load? Is the Euro any better off especially considering problems in Greece, Ireland, etc. Do countries like Switzerland have enough liquidity and available ways to invest there? In order for the US to STOP being the world's reserve currency, you must have something to replace it with, and really, can we realistically think of one country/currency with the capability to become a new 'world reserve currency'??? Secondly, even then should such a shift actually happen, it doesn't mean people will ALL just magically stop buying US debt. Yes the demand would go down, but it would not go to zero. There are after all a worldfull of other countries who's money is right now NOT the world reserve currency, and yet they are able to sell bonds and people and even other countries invest there. (China for example does not invest exclusively in the US), so yeah we might have to start paying more interest to get people to buy US debt, but it's not like the demand will go away. Save your money, save your time, don't buy into this dung.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4ee281926e6a79e88acbe72e41096f9", "text": "\"First of all, just for the sake of clarity, the Federal Reserve doesn't actually \"\"print\"\" money - that's the job of the BEP. What they do is they buy US Treasury bonds - i.e., loan money to the US government. The money they do it with are created \"\"from thin air\"\" - just by adding some numbers in certain accounts, thus it is described as \"\"printing money\"\". The US government then spends the money however it wishes to. The idea is that this money is injected into the economy - since the only way the US government can use the money from these loans is to spend them on buying something or give it to some people that would spend them. As it is a loan, sometime in the future the US government would pay these loans back, and in this moment the Fed would decide - if they want to \"\"contract\"\" the supply of money back, they just \"\"destroy\"\" the money they've got, by erasing the numbers they created before. They could also do it by selling the bonds they hold on the open market and then again \"\"destroy\"\" the money they got as proceeds, thus lowering the amount of money existing in the economy. This way the Fed can control how much money is out there and thus supposedly influence inflation and economic activity. The Fed could also inject money in the economy by buying any assets after creating the money - for example, right now they own about a trillion dollars worth of various mortgage-based securities. But since buying specific security would probably give unfair advantage to the issuers and owners of this security, usually US treasury bonds if what they buy. The side effect of increased supply of money denominated in dollars would be, as you noted, devaluation of dollars compared to other currencies.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe6aa5920172d01e15ecd2a8c400c64e", "text": "\"Bankruptcy is a way to the fiat currency system to regulate itself. The current system assume that there will always be more debts than money available. Since money is created with debt already attached to it, the difference between \"\"real\"\" money, and \"\"on paper\"\" money build up over time. When this disparity become to big, bankruptcies need to occur to bring those two number closer to each other. It's like earthquakes if you like, the tectonic plates build up tension that need to be released in many small shocks, or a few big shocks. The everyday bankruptcies represent the small quakes, and big recession represent too much build up that need to be released in one big shocks. It's a very high level explanation and it doesn't go into details, but it's roughly why it happens. EDIT: I wasn't saying that it was bad or not, I was simply explaining bankruptcy and why it's bound to happen. If you don't like the analogy, it's no reason for downvote. I know it may not be clear for everyone, but if you do not agree, please explain yourself.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "119a3ad16226b55f87fc67344cc171f8", "text": "\"> but the buying power of that money can be significantly reduced to the point where it's fundamentally useless, i.e. inter-war Germany and many countries in South and Central America. That's true, but how does that come about? The effect on buying power stems from the level of spending in the present period. Too little leaves you anywhere from outright deflation and contraction to weaker growth falling short of capacity. Too much reaches capacity and keeps spending, bidding up prices and driving down purchasing power. It has nothing to do with debt:GDP or interest payments. > Germany managed to skate by by creating a new Deutschmark in a confidence trick, and it worked because Germany is a solid, iron clad manufacturing powerhouse of a lot of stuff. There are two important differences between inter-war Germany and the US. First is that inter-war Germany lost a war. This real shock is kind of important. When you're talking about buying power of money, one side of it is the amount of money in circulation but the other side of it is how much real output there is to buy and German real output capacity collapsed after the war. Their most productive regions were occupied territory and they were no longer a powerhouse manufacturing a lot of stuff, driving down the value of their currency. So lesson number one from Germany: real output collapse harms your currency. The second problem is that losing a war left Germany saddled with war reparations denominated in foreign currency. When you're on the hook for something you don't print you're in a situation where you can run out of money and that's exactly what happened to them. They tried printing more of their own currency to buy the foreign stuff with but that quickly drove down the value of German currency. So lesson number two from Germany is you don't want to be on the hook for a currency you don't issue. Put the two together and you have a real supply shock + foreign-denominated debt eviscerating the buying power of German currency. It wasn't debt:GDP but the real basis for their economy collapsing out from under them pushed along by a need for foreign currency. >My question is, at what point do we engage Washington's unlimited money printing presses until we reach that point? In answer to your question, the printing presses are what funds the real economy. The worry in terms of avoiding \"\"that point\"\" is in making sure we keep that real economy productive and fully funded. Ironically, taking our eye off the ball to focus on budget balance at the expense of real output pushes the economy in the direction you're afraid of going. See also: the euro zone today.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fdf71bd9c994ed091173b092c7fda40f", "text": "> Story printed literally as the only thing that can hold on value to the currency.. Japan has huge current account and trade surplus. they have to print money or else Yen will shoot up to the moon. Japan cannot afford over valued currency.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2393a44dc0901577a7086d3f55c7bdc7", "text": "\"Sovereign states borrow money explicitly in a two primary ways: A sovereign cannot be compelled to repay debt, and there isn't a judicial process like bankruptcy to erase debt. When sovereigns default, they negotiate new terms with creditors and pay back some fraction of the actual debt owed. They can also print money to repay debt, which has other nasty consequences. But, while a state cannot be compelled to repay a debt, creditors cannot be compelled to loan money to the state either! Any enterprise of sufficient size needs access to capital via loans to meet daily obligations in anticipation of revenue -- even when times are good. Defaulting makes borrowing impossible or expensive, and is avoided. Regarding using your military to avoid repaying debt... remember what Napoleon said: \"\"An army travels on its stomach\"\". Military campaigns are expensive... no borrowing ability means the soldiers don't get paid and the food, fuel and ammo don't get delivered. Smaller countries have other risks as well. Many nations are essentially forced to use US Dollars as a reserve currency, or are forced by the market to borrow money in a foreign currency. This creates a situation where any risk of non-payment results in a deep devaluation of the local currency. When your debt is denominated in dollars, these shifts can dramatically increase your debt obligations from a local currency point of view. You also run the risk that a larger or richer company will park warships in your harbor and seize assets as payment -- the US and Britain engaged in this several times during the 19th and 20th centuries. In general, not paying the bills has a cascading effect. Bad situations get worse, and they do so quickly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b56622ebc3733c8796be7e12c241770e", "text": "Yes, and heres some pretty scary stats. Global debt went from about 200% of GPD in 2007 to 325% of GDP today. Global Debt is about 2.5x more than the value of global broad money (all the money in the world). The value of the derivatives market has increased to 6x the value of all global debt. Meaning a global market of packaging and trading debt exists that is 6x the value of the debt being traded, and 15x the value of all the money in the world.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fefb2bebc863d73f23a0dfeed3af1802", "text": "Question: So basically the money created in this globalized digital world where capital is free to roam, it is referring to digital money and not actual physical cash. So the goldbugs that talk about america becoming weimar republic is delusional, since there isn't enough physical cash in relations to how big the economy is. And it is actually the debt lending that acts as a derivative of cash money that goes around posing as the money supply or the blood supply of an economy, and that feels like inflation, but when the debt is defaulted on or destroyed, underwritten or even paid back closing the circuit then it's deflationary? But does defaulting on ones debt create inflation since that money is still in the system and not being paid off? You know, when debts are paid off they are taken out of the system.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90bde0cc066745cdff7035c91c4165a8", "text": "\"[There's about 10 trillion in gold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve) and about [2.8 trillion of US cash](http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/the-value-of-united-states-currency-in-circulation/) in the world. Neither of these is anywhere large enough to be used for all the transactions in the world. For example, about [4 trillion a day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market) changes hands in the currency markets alone - if that were required to be cash or gold it would be impossible to do so, and you'd suffer from more poorly priced goods since markets could not adjust as quickly, so vendors would charge more premium to handle the risk. Yes, there is not (and has not been) enough cash in circulation to run the world economy. There is also vastly too little gold, unless you want to strangle commerce due to not being enough money to trade. > \"\"posing as the money supply\"\" All money is debt, and always has been. Money is a placeholder that you can trade for goods later meaning someone owes you a thing. The value of that money is the debt they (or society) owes you for something you already did to get that money. So there is no posing, just most don't understand money, how it originated, why it exists, or why it works. They never ask the question \"\"how does money come into existance\"\". > Does defaulting on ones debt create inflation since that money is still in the system and not being paid off? Probably not much. Loans are made expecting some default, so the interest others pay on their loans helps offset the defaulted ones. If loans become riskier, the interest demanded increases, so the lender still (if they do their risk analysis well and no external events break their expectations) makes money. When you pay off a debt, that money, as you're paying it, is likely being lent in other loans, so paying it off does not do much. If you could pay off about 100 trillion in debt into the US economy in one payment you might break some things :)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57904482f79435e2e4f514c6c20f95a3", "text": "They're not going to do anything about it. Washington needs the debt wheel to keep spinning, or the Dollar will lose its position as the Reserve Currency. Then all hell would break loose. Powerful countries like Japan are going to have to take the initiative. And apparently they are starting to. It has to be countries like Japan because if a weak country tries this, they'll get invaded.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39430e9e2b7e42a65b94a9ad0d7d55bf", "text": "\"Correct! But this is only true when a central bank is involved. So if there's a single institution that has a territorial monopoly on the production of money (and competing currencies aren't allowed via \"\"legal tender laws\"\"), then the debt-based money system OP describes isn't actually the system being used. That's the problem with his post: he's trying to make it seem like our current system of fiat currencies is somehow natural or emergent. It's not. What we have now is the result of a legal monopoly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b239353cfdc455d5b2bc50df36c11c4", "text": "\"Are you working for a company that offers a Dependent Care Account? You may be able to withhold up to $5000/yr pre tax for care for you child. If you cover more than half her expenses, she is your dependent. You can't \"\"double dip.\"\" If she is your dependent, she cannot be the care provider for purposes of the DCAS, see Pub 503 top of p7 \"\"Payments to Relatives or Dependents.\"\" How do you think a business would change your situation? The DCA is a small tax break, if you have no business now, this break isn't something that should drive this.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
cb53c191d77727a234f604d9ad92e2f2	Why would a company sell debt in order to buy back shares and/or pay dividends?	[ { "docid": "e52bf1749687a26ac564b1945ae7f73f", "text": "I believe that article provides some good reasons, though it may be a bit light on technical details and there are likely other reasons a company would do it. So, if they can finance for less then they would lose to taxes by bringing the money home and they do not take on too much debt, this will likely work just fine and increase share holder value. Hopefully, someone else can provide some other reasonable scenarios. The bottom line is that it does not matter how they finance the share buybacks and/or dividend payments as long as they do not shoot themselves in the foot while doing it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc2bc5b74217b1974606d5671b2f157d", "text": "It's a tax shelter. Foreign affiliates hold most of Microsoft's cash and investments. The cost of borrowing is much cheaper than repatriating the money and paying taxes. Those bonds are selling at rates similar to US Treasury Debt. Also, many people and organizations with lots of assets still borrow money for day to day expenses. Why? You tend to make a better return on investments which are committed for a number of years, and the timing of income from those investments may not coincide with your expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a8d7995d7303fd33d5e096f3635f99c", "text": "\"There is a substantial likelihood over the next several years that the US Dollar will experience inflation. (You may have heard terms like \"\"Quantitative Easing.\"\") With inflation, the value of each dollar you have will go down. This also means that the value of each dollar you owe will go down as well. So, taking out a loan / issuing a bond at a very good rate, converting it into an asset that's a better way to store value (possibly including stock in a big stable company like MSFT) and then watching inflation reduce the (real) value of the loan faster than the interest piles up... that's like getting free money. Combine that with the tax-shelter games alluded to by everyone else, and it starts to look like a very profitable endeavour.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cae49475cac493413300539035dcc851", "text": "When I play Railroad Tycoon III, I often send my company deep into debt to get cash on hand to buy back shares, effectively increasing my ownership of the company as an absolute percentage. Then I issue massive dividends until my company goes bankrupt, and start a new company. It's a way to shuttle money borrowed against a company's assets into my personal bank account at no risk to me. In the MSFT case, maybe they think there will be inflation and this is a hedge against holding so many dollars in cash already. If they can borrow a couple billion in 2010 dollars and pay it back in 2015 dollars, they're probably going to end up ahead if all they do is buy back shares. Paying dividends with the money seems stupid vs. buying back shares - they're just driving up income taxes for investors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3efe3ae43a81233cc493fe7893ce776", "text": "My answer is not specific, or even maybe applicable, to Microsoft. Companies don't want to cut dividends. So they have a fixed expense, but the cashflow that funds it might be quite lumpy, or cyclical, depending on the industry. Another, more general, issue is that taking on debt to retire shares is a capital allocation decision. A company needs capital to operate. This is why they went public in the first place, to raise capital. Debt is a cheaper form of capital than equity. Equity holders are last in line in a bankruptcy. Bondholders are at the front of the line. To compensate for this, equity holders require a larger return -- often called a hurdle rate. So why doesn't a company just use cheaper equity, and no debt? Some do. But consider that equity holders participate in the earnings, where bondholders just get the interest, nothing more. And because lenders don't participate in the potential upside, they introduce conditions (debt covenants) to help control their downside exposure. For a company, it's a balance, very much the same as personal finances. A reasonable amount of debt provides low-cost capital, which can be used to produce greater returns. But too much debt, and the covenants are breached, the debt is called due immediately, there's no cash to cover, and wham! bankruptcy. A useful measure, if a bit difficult to calculate, is a company's cost of capital, and the return on that capital. Cost of capital is a blended number taking both equity and debt into account. Good companies earn a return that is greater than their cost of capital. Seems obvious, but many companies don't succeed at this. In cases where this is persistent, the best move for shareholders would be for the company to dissolve and return all the capital. Unfortunately, as in the Railroad Tycoon example above, managers' incentives aren't always well aligned with shareholders, and they allocate capital in ways advantageous to themselves, and not the company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "72040b1a5a0b194ef0f0940bf9acac4a", "text": "Businesses have bond ratings just like people have credit ratings. It has become common for businesses to issue low rate bonds to show that they are strong, and leave the door open for further borrowing if they see an opportunity, such as an acquisition. One of the reasons Microsoft might want to build a credit reputation, is that people become familiar with their bonds and will purchase at lower rates when they want to borrow larger amounts of money, rather than assuming they are having financial issues which would lead them to demand higher rates.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "187da176de28134ca36a1b9726d3e13a", "text": "The shareholders have a claim on the profits, but they may prefer that claim to be exercised in ways other than dividend payments. For example, they may want the company to invest all of its profits in growth, or they may want it to buy back shares to increase the value of the remaining shares, especially since dividends are generally taxed as income while an increase in the share price is generally taxed as a capital gain, and capital gains are often taxed at a lower rate than income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43f2d72be1a3b0a5c3f9a5aa9964ed05", "text": "If that company issues another 100 shares, shouldn't 10 of those new 100 shares be mine? Those 100 shares are an asset of the company, and you own 10% of them. When investors buy those new shares, you again own a share of the proceeds, just as you own a share of all the company's assets. A company only issues new share to raise money - it is a borrowing from investors, and in that way can be seen as an alternative to taking on loans. Both share issuing and a loan bring new capital and debt into a company. The difference is that shares don't need to be repaid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bd114ba8024fb450b6316413d117d97", "text": "who issued stock typically support it when the stock price go down. No, not many company do that as it is uneconomical for them to do so. Money used up in buying back equity is a wasteful use of a firm's capital, unless it is doing a buyback to return money to shareholders. Does the same thing happen with government bonds? Not necessarily again here. Bond trading is very different from equities trading. There are conditions specified in the offer document on when an issuer can recall bonds(to jack up the price of an oversold bond), even government bonds have them. The actions of the government has a bigger ripple effect as compared to a firm. The government can start buying back bonds to increase it's price, but it will stoke inflation because of the increase in the supply of money in the market, which may or mayn't be desirable. Then again people holding the bond would have to incentivized to sell the bond. Even during the Greek fiasco, the Greek government wasn't buying Greek bonds as it had no capital to buy. Printing more euros wasn't an option as no assets to back the newly printed money and the ECB would have stopped them from being accepted. And generally buying back isn't useful, because they have to return the principal(which might run into billions, invested in long term projects by the government and cannot be liquidated immediately) while servicing a bond is cheaper and investing the proceeds from the bond sale is more useful while being invested in long term projects. The government can just roll over the bonds with a new issue and refrain from returning the capital till it is in a position to do so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f18a170ac1d92e77e5a4792ddf675b6", "text": "Equity can be diluted by future investors, royalties get paid on each sale, companies can continue selling things even when operating at negative profit, back royalties due can be negotiated and at least partially paid in a bankruptcy. From the standpoint of the investor: If it doesn't look like the company will likely have commercial success with a second product, it may be wise to simply take a portion of the product that is actually selling rather than risk your capital on the company's future successes (or failures). From the standpoint of the business owner/entreprenuer, if you believe you have a second product close to the end of the development pipeline it would be wise not to give up equity in the entire enterprise simply to gain required financing to ramp up production and marketing on an existing product. Paying a royalty may be advantageous compared to paying interest on a loan as well (royalty payments are contingent on the occurrence of a sale while interest is due regardless).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "518b52c68869a5db8e185a64c74529c7", "text": "\"The basic theoretical reason for a company to return money to shareholders is that the company doesn't need the money for its own purposes (e.g. investment or working capital). So instead of the company just keeping it in the bank, it hands it back so that shareholders can do what they think fit, e.g. investing it elsewhere. In some cases, particularly \"\"private equity\"\" deals, you see companies actively borrowing money to payout to shareholders, on the grounds that they can do so cheaply enough that it will improve overall shareholder returns. The trade-off with this kind of \"\"leveraging up\"\" is that it usually makes the business more risky and every so often you see it go wrong, e.g. after an economic downturn. It may still be a rational thing to do, but I'd look at that kind of proposal very carefully. In this case I think things are quite different: the company has sold a valuable asset and has spare cash. It's already going to use some of the money to reduce debt so it doesn't seem like the company is becoming more risky. Overall if the management is recommending it, I would support it. As you say, the share consolidation seems like just a technical measure and you might as well also support that. I think they want to make their share price seem stable over time to people who are looking at it casually and won't be aware of the payout - otherwise it'd suddenly drop by 60p and might give the impression the company had some bad news. The plan is to essentially cancel one share worth ~960p for every payout they make on 16 shares - since 16x60p = 960p payout this should leave the share price broadly unchanged.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39d9fb59d7fa1dca7f75c482b5943014", "text": "According to pretty well accepted corporate finance principles. They're mature/maturing companies with large durable noncyclical cash flow streams. Increasing their debt load and distributing the proceeds to shareholders would lower their after tax cost of capital and increase the value of their equity. IMO operating with such under levered balance sheets is nonoptimal. It's subjective though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c7b7bc49b3a18d2c21e9f2ddc23d02c", "text": "A share of stock is a small fraction of the ownership of the company. If you expect the company to eventually be of interest to someone who wants to engineer a merger or takeover, it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay to help make that happen or keep it from happening. Which means it will almost always track the company's value to some degree, because the company itself will buy back shares when it can if they get too cheap, to protect itself from takeover. It may also start paying dividends at a later date. You may also value being able to vote on the company's actions. Including whether it should offer a dividend or reinvest that money in the company. Basically, you would want to own that share -- or not -- for the same reasons you would want to own a piece of that business. Because that's exactly what it is.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5bf73ff2c8973bf282521eda8b1c959", "text": "Ask your accountant about convertable preference shares. This would permit you to loan money to your company and then convert the debt to equity, should you so choose, at a later stage. As with the answer by bstpierre, these are all contractual arrangements conducted at arms-length.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13741d54162a9c82b58e040a60a81243", "text": "There are two main ways you can make money through shares: through dividends and through capital gains. If the company is performing well and increasing profits year after year, its Net Worth will increase, and if the company continues to beat expectations, then over the long term the share price will follow and increase as well. On the other hand, if the company performs poorly, has a lot of debt and is losing money, it may well stop paying dividends. There will be more demand for stocks that perform well than those that perform badly, thus driving the share price of these stocks up even if they don't pay out dividends. There are many market participants that will use different information to make their decisions to buy or sell a particular stock. Some will be long term buy and hold, others will be day traders, and there is everything in between. Some will use fundamentals to make their decisions, others will use charts and technicals, some will use a combination, and others will use completely different information and methods. These different market participants will create demand at various times, thus driving the share price of good companies up over time. The annual returns from dividends are often between 1% and 6%, and, in some cases, up to 10%. However, annual returns from capital gains can be 20%, 50%, 100% or more. That is the main reason why people still buy stocks that pay no dividends. It is my reason for buying them too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58bb884158f8aea9bc18842b1ccdee1a", "text": "When he says shitty, he means less likely to actually pay back the money. If I have a company that's not doing well enough, and I have already issued $100,000 in bonds onto this market, and I want to pay back all my bond-holders, maybe I convince a near-bankrupt company to give me $100,000 of bonds in their company for $50,000 in goods. I then repay my bondholders with the $100,000 in shitty bonds. Or maybe I give them $300,000 in goods and they give me $600,000 in their shitty bonds (since thier company is about to fall apart and they know I'll give them a kickback down the line). Then I pay back my 100k bonds with the new shitty bonds, and I go buy $500k worth of raw material for my company and pay for them using almost-bankrupt-company's shitty bonds . Then I have no debt, $500k worth of raw material, the people I used to owe money to (AND my suppliers) now hold a total of $600k in shitty bonds, and then my friend's almost-bankrupt-company DOES go bankrupt.... and my suppliers and old lenders realize the paper I just gave them is worthless.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74825d07b4fbdcb1d73b49bba074e785", "text": "Ford paid off a tremendous amount of debt prior to reinstating the dividend. While they still have a sizable amount of debt on the balance sheet, they've been able to refinance this debt to a much more affordable point. Their free cash flow + cash on the balance could enable them to pay it off in the very near future (12 - 16 months). Most auto companies have debt on their balance sheet if they choose to offer financial services. Their overall credit rating (if you really think such things are valid) has also improved. Generally speaking, I agree its a poor idea to give money back to shareholders if you have high-interest bearing debt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f78be2f8b571feb3fbeefc80e83873a0", "text": "\"After the initial public offering, the company can raise money by selling more stock (equity financing) or selling debt (e.g. borrowing money). If a company's stock price is high, they can raise money with equity financing on more favorable terms. When companies raise money with equity financing, they create new shares and dilute the existing shareholders, so the number of shares outstanding is not fixed. Companies can also return money to shareholders by buying their own equity, and this is called a share repurchase. It's best for companies to repurchase their shared when their stock price is low, but \"\"American companies have a terrible track record of buying their own shares high and selling them low.\"\" The management of a company typically likes a rising stock price, so their stock options are more valuable and they can justify bigger pay packages.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "283fc5c844dfed1d7a837cf58c8a42b5", "text": "The main reason, as far as I can see, is that the dividends are payments with which the shareholders may do what they want. Capital that the company has no use for does not make a significant positive return on investment, as you pointed out, yes the company could accrue interest, but that is not going to make the company large sums of cash. While the company may be great at making shoes - maybe even the best in the world - doesn't mean they are good investors. Sure they could dabble at using their capital to invest in other equities, but they don't, because they just want to focus on making shoes. If the dividend goes to the investors, they can do what they wish, be it reinvest in the company, or invest elsewhere. Other companies that may make good use of the capital, and create significant returns on it are one such example. That is the rational answer, beyond that, one of the main reasons is that people like the feeling of receiving dividends - it might not be the answer you are looking for, but many people prefer companies that pay dividends for no rational reason over companies which grow their asset value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1fc75f7221b7f6989bcfc65a0566b4e9", "text": "\"If so, then if company A never pays dividends to its shareholders, then what is the point of owning company A's stock? The stock itself can go up in price. This is not necessarily pure speculation either, the company could just reinvest the profits and grow. Since you own part of a company, your share would also increase in value. The company could also decide to start paying dividend. I think one rule of thumb is that growing companies won't pay out, since they reinvest all profit to grow even more, but very large companies like McDonalds or Microsoft who don't really have much room left to grow will pay dividends more. Surely the right to one vote for company A's Board can't be that valuable. Actually, Google for instance neither pays dividend nor do you get to vote. Basically all you get for your money is partial ownership of the company. This still gives you the right to seize Google assets if you go bankrupt, if there's any asset left once the creditors are done (credit gets priority over equity). What is it that I'm missing? What you are missing is that the entire concept of the dividend is an illusion. There's little qualitative difference between a stock that pays dividend, and a stock that doesn't. If you were going to buy the stock, then hold it forever and collect dividend, you could get the same thing with a dividend-less stock by simply waiting for it to gain say 5% value, then sell 4.76% of your stock and call the cash your dividend. \"\"But wait,\"\" you say, \"\"that's not the same - my net worth has decreased!\"\" Guess what, stocks that do pay dividend usually do drop in value right after the pay out, and they drop by about the relative value of the dividend as well. Likewise, you could take a stock that does pay dividend, and make it look exactly like a non-paying stock by simply taking every dividend you get and buying more of the same stock with it. So from this simplistic point of view, it is irrelevant whether the stock itself pays dividend or not. There is always the same decision of whether to cut the goose or let it lay a few more eggs that every shareholder has to make it. Paying a dividend is essentially providing a different default choice, but makes little difference with regards to your choices. There is however more to it than simple return on investment arithmetic: As I said, the alternative to paying dividend is reinvesting profits back into the enterprise. If the company decided to pay out dividend, that means they think all the best investing is done, and they don't really have a particularly good idea for what to do with the extra money. Conversely, not paying is like management telling the shareholders, \"\"no we're not done, we're still building our business!\"\". So it can be a way of judging whether the company is concentrating on generating profit or growing itself. Needless to say the, the market is wild and unpredictable and not everyone obeys such assumptions. Furthermore, as I said, you can effectively overrule the decision by increasing or decreasing your position, regardless of whether they have decided to pay dividend to begin with. Lastly, there may be some subtle differences with regards to things like how the income is taxed and so on. These don't really have much to do with the market itself, but the bureaucracy tacked onto the market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4d2473d001e4be93bf68b6de5f0ab77", "text": "One reason a company might choose to pay a dividend is because of the desire of influential stockholders to receive the dividend. In the case of Ford, for example, there are 70 million shares of Class B stock which receive the same dividend per share as do the common stock holders. Even though there are 3.8 billion shares of common stock, the Class B owners (which are Ford family) hold 40% of the voting power and so their desires are given much weight. The Class B owners prefer regular dividends because if enough were to sell their Class B shares, all Class B shares (as a block) would have their voting power drop from 40% to 30%, and with further sales all special voting would be lost and each Class B share would be equivalent to a common share in voting power. Hence the Class B owners, both for themselves and for all of the family members holding Class B, avoid selling shares and prefer receiving dividends.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5c6547866b53ffdebad3de0077a7fed8	Can I depreciate a car given to me?	[ { "docid": "6215fdd9bea0719ad1c30f5dc8684f14", "text": "That seems to indicate that you can in fact depreciate a vehicle given to you? Section 1015 discusses the calculation of basis for gifted property, it says nothing about depreciation. Personal property cannot be depreciated for tax purposes unless it is used for business purposes. So unless you drive your car as part of your sole-proprietor business, you cannot depreciate it, be it a gift or a car you purchased yourself. If you can depreciate the car, then sec. 1015 is used to calculate the basis for the depreciation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "116d04b82e742b0ca8785f85fceddc5f", "text": "Yes, you can depreciate gifts to your business subject to the special rules in § 1011 and Regulation § 1.1011–1 and 1.167(g)–1. It is dual basis property so when you sell the item your gain/loss basis will be different. Adjusted basis of the donor for gain, FMV on the date received for the loss. Minus any depreciation you add, of course, in both cases.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "85003e0414cf9df7ca49bf330b63a9ab", "text": "\"Short answer: Absolutely not, unless you're comfortable with putting years of your labor into a depreciating asset that will incur hefty maintenance costs over its remaining life. i.e. consider your 10K gone forever once you buy the car, and then some. Some comments on your reasons: \"\"Keeping up with spoiled brats\"\" is a losing proposition, and is a mindset counterproductive to financial independence. I'd encourage you to find a way to not care about how the spoiled brats live their lives. It won't be easier when you're older and you see your peers driving fancy cars and living fantasy lifestyles that you are tempted to emulate. Break the impulse to \"\"keep up\"\" and you'll be in a much better place. A used BMW may not be a piece of junk at first, but once you hit 100K miles, everything will suddenly fall apart and need repair. Been there myself. Still have the car after 7 years, only because very few people want to buy a high-mileage German sport sedan with recurring maintenance issues. See #2. It will be a good drive for a while, then it will own you. This is not so bad when you have a decent amount of savings, but when you have nothing, it's very hard to truly enjoy the car while knowing that any problems not covered by warranty will be financially devastating. Are you prepared to ride the bus for 4 weeks while saving enough income from work to replace a bad clutch? I had to do this, and it's not something I brag about.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2877ea212c9e3863024c98fb6b9f6fa0", "text": "In a perfect world scenario you would get a car 2-5 years old that has very little mileage. One of the long standing archaic rules of the car world is that age trumps mileage. This was a good rule when any idiot could roll back an odometer. Chances are now that if you rolled your odometer back the car was serviced somewhere, had inspection or whatever and it is on a report. If seller was found to do this they could face jail time and obviously now their car is almost worthless. Why do I mention this? Because you can take a look at 2011 cars. Those with 20K miles go for just a little more than those with 100K miles. As an owner you will start incurring heavy maintenance costs around 100K on most newer cars. By buying cars with lower mileage, keeping them for a year or two, and reselling them before they get up in miles, you can stay in that magic area where you can drive a pretty good car for $200-300 a month. Note that this takes work on both the buying and selling side and you often need cash to get these cars (dealers are good about siphoning really good used cars to employees/friends). This is a great strategy for keeping costs down and car value up but obviously a lot of people try to do this and it takes work and you have to be willing to settle sometimes on a car that is fine, but not exactly what you want. As for leasing this really gets into three main components: If you are going to do EVERYTHING at a dealership and you want something new or newish you might as well lease. At least then you can shop around for apples to apples. The problem with buying a new/used car from the dealers in perpetuity isn't the buying process. It is the fact that they will screw you on the trade-in. A car that books for 20K may trade-in for 17K. Even if the dealer says they are giving you 20K, then they make you pay list price for the car. I have many many times negotiated a price of a car and then wife brought in our car separately and I can count on ZERO fingers how many times that the dealership honored both sides of the negotiations. Not only did they not honor them but most refused to talk with us after they found out. With a lease you don't have to worry about losing this money in the negotiations. You might pay a little extra (or not since you can shop around) but after the lease you wash your hands of the car. The one caveat to this is the high-end market. When you are talking your Acura, Mercedes, Lexus... It is probably better to buy and trade in every couple years. You lose too much equity by leasing, where it won't cover the trade-in gap and cost of your money being elsewhere. I have a friend that does this and gets a slightly better car every 2-3 years with same monthly payment. Another factor to consider is the price of a car. If your car will be worth over $15K at time of sale you are going to have a hard time selling it by owner. When amounts get this high people often need financing. Yes they can get personal financing but most people are too lazy to do this. So the number of used car buyers on let's say craigslist are way way fewer as you start getting over $10-12K and I have found $15K to be kind of that magic amount. The pro-buy-used side is easy. Aim for those cars around $12-18K that are out there (and many still under warranty). These owners will have issues finding cash buyers. They will drop prices somewhere between book price and dealer trade-in. In lucky cases where they need cash maybe below dealer trade-in. And remember these sellers aren't dealing with 100s let alone 10 buyers. You drive the car for 3-4 years. Maybe it is $7-10K. But now you will get much much closer to book price because there will be far more buyers in this range.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1cf24b5d8cfb72fb8f040d7974afa9d5", "text": "I have sold cars before to individuals and always just received cash. I would think as long as the amount is less than $10,000.00 and the buyer is serious they will get there with the cash. Of course there is no possible way to guarantee the cash will not be counterfeit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6c4ae5dec040649e1cfeea63f1c9ee3", "text": "Obviously, the best thing financially would be to continue using your present car, unless it impacts you financially on a regular basis. For example, maintenance or breakdowns impacting your ability to work. An unreliable car also impacts your freedom, for example preventing you from taking road-trips you might want to take or taking up free time with maintenance. Give thought to what it is about your present car that you dislike, both to determine the value you gain from a new car and what's most important to you. Anytime you buy a car, you generally lose thousands of dollars simply driving it off the lot. This is the profit which goes to dealers, salespeople, etc... and not part of the actual value of the car. Cars also depreciate over time, with most of the depreciation happening in the first few years of operation. Many of the newer model cars have additional expenses. (For example, replacement $200 keys or electronic systems that can only be repaired at special facilities.) In addition, if you have insurance (other than the minimum third-party required by law), consider the rate increases and add up the long-term impact of that. Imagine you had invested that money instead at 8% interest over the lifetime of the car. If you don't have insurance, consider what you would do in the unfortunate situation where you were at fault in a collision. Could you afford to lose your investment? Even with safe responsible driving, there is always the potential for road/weather conditions or mechanical failures. If you determine there is sufficient value to be gained from changing vehicles, I would recommend that you buy a vehicle with history from someone privately, doing appropriate background checks and consulting friends or family who know about vehicles and can provide feedback. Do research into the models which interest you ahead of time, read online reviews. Every vehicle generally has known advantages and disadvantages which can take years to discover, so buying an older vehicle gives you the advantage of knowing what to expect. I would say there is probably a reasonable middle ground between using a 1991 vehicle you don't like (that's as old as you are) and getting a relatively new model. Look at what you value in the vehicle, consider all the costs, and find the balance that works best for you. Vehicles from 2000-2005 years are quite affordable and still 10-15 years newer than your car.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7be13fa59cf116fba48f6e48a8d156b8", "text": "\"First off learn from this: Never cosign again. There are plenty of other \"\"tales of woe\"\" outlined on this site that started and ended similarly. Secondly do what you can to get off of the loan. First I'd go back to her dad and offer him $1000 to take you off the loan and sign over the car. Maybe go up to $3000 if you have that much cash. If that doesn't work go to the bank and offer them half of the loan balance to take you off. You can sign a personal loan for that amount (maybe). Whatever it takes to get off the loan. If she has a new BF offer him the same deal as the dad. Why do you have to do this? Because you owned an asset that was once valued at 13K and is valued at (probably) less than 4K. Given that you have a loan on it the leverage works against you causing you to lose more money. The goal now is to cut your losses and learn from your mistakes. I feel like the goal of your post was to make your ex-gf look bad. It's more important to do some self examination. If she was such a bad person why did you date her? Why did you enter a business transaction with her? I'd recommend seeking counseling on why you make such poor choices and to help you avoid them in the future. Along these lines I'd also examine your goals in life. If your desire is to be a wealthy person, then why would you borrow money to buy a car? Seek to imitate rich people to become rich. Picking the right friends and mates is an important part of this. If you do not have a desire to be a wealthy person what does it matter? Losing 13K over seven months is a small step in the \"\"right\"\" direction.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38ec38eaad11c8b8a112cf547e69262e", "text": "I think you're dancing with the line here, this question is hard to back up without opinions and could really be three different questions. I'm going to push aside the part about quality and reliability, that could be an emotional subject. So from a price standpoint, there's virtually no disagrement that it makes financial sense to buy a used car instead of a new car. The majority of new cars lose the majority of their resale value within the first year or two. If you purchase said car after someone else has used it for the first two years, you just avoided all of that depreciation yourself, and you're still going to be purchasing a perfectly reliable car as long as you are diligent in the buying process.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4454d8ffce998d225e20eb9e5771fb5", "text": "It isn't common to lose that much value in 3 years, but it is possible. If you don't take care of small dents, scratches, etc., you can quickly reduce the value far beyond what you might expect looking at graphs. Another big factor is the trim level of the car that you purchase. If you spend $30,000 for the highest trim level of a car, instead of $22,000 for the lowest trim level, the higher trim car could lose 50% of it's value while the lower trim car loses only 35%. There's no way to know why the OP of your linked question had such a large loss, but again, that's not the usual experience. It is definitely a good idea to consider used though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9fbcff82a0a01ff954a2c75351c5c23", "text": "I'm guessing Toronto? Sell the car! Use public transit. Save a ton of money. You can always rent a car for the day or weekend (or use a service like Uber) when necessary at a fraction of the cost of car ownership, and feel good about it!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8662bc7a394e496f275a26d98462aee", "text": "Of course you do. You can sell it, wreck it, do whatever you want with it. Of course, some things may void warranty, or whatever, but since you do in fact own the vehicle, it is technically yours to do with as you please. Did you know that you can bore the engine of a car to increase performance? Not saying you should, there are lots of pros and cons there, and it requires an individual with specialized knowledge to do it, who you will have to pay for his service, but it is doable. Should you be upset that this wasn't already done by the manufacturer? Did you know that lots of vehicles are equipped with gps functionality? If your car can display a compass, there is a decent chance that you already have the basics of what you need to set up gps in the vehicle. Should you be upset that your vehicle doesn't have gps? But you can't boil it down that far. Well, I suppose you can, but it makes everything cost more for everyone. When you buy a Tesla, you aren't just buying a car. You are buying into the company. They make updates, fix programming issues, etc. and this requires access. They chose to market their vehicles differently, and so they sell them differently. Alternatively, they could have 2 separate assembly lines, one for the 60 (discontinued) and one for the 75. Now this will equate to both cars costing significantly more than they currently do, but hey, at least you have the right battery, right?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3bc0e3ea7c70a92c9fe0bad50a0ad3a", "text": "\"The transfer is easy. Usually you just sign over the title to the new owner, and you're set. Blue book price is a fantasy designed to get you in a car dealership to trade in your car. You won't get \"\"blue book\"\" pricing. I would use NADA \"\"Yellow Book\"\" or Edmunds TMV pricing as a guide. A dealer won't pay you a good price, but will take the car off your hands quickly. Selling a car privately can be a real pain if you don't have the personality for it. You'll get more money and more hassle. Figure out where people do private party sales in your area. In my area, there's an autotrader magazine that dominates the market. Craigslist is going to attract the types of people who frequent craiglist, which is not always a good thing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee60151939fc8a15f134d44755e021c1", "text": "$27,000 for a car?! Please, don't do that to yourself! That sounds like a new-car price. If it is, you can kiss $4k-$5k of that price goodbye the moment you drive it off the lot. You'll pay the worst part of the depreciation on that vehicle. You can get a 4-5 year old Corolla (or similar import) for less than half that price, and if you take care of it, you can get easily another 100k miles out of it. Check out Dave Ramsey's video. (It's funny that the car payment he chooses as his example is the same one as yours: $475! ;) ) I don't buy his take on the 12% return on the stock market (which is fantasy in my book) but buying cars outright instead of borrowing or (gasp) leasing, and working your way up the food chain a bit with the bells/whistles/newness of your cars, is the way to go.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46f295dd712175146f902bb3afbad09b", "text": "\"You are still paying a heavy price for the 'instant gratification' of driving (renting) a brand-new car that you will not own at the end of the terms. It is not a good idea in your case, since this luxury expense sounds like a large amount of money for you. Edited to better answer question The most cost effective solution: Purchase a $2000 car now. Place the $300/mo payment aside for 3 years. Then, go buy a similar car that is 3 years old. You will have almost $10k in cash and probably will need minimal, if any, financing. Same as this answer from Pete: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/63079/40014 Does this plan seem like a reasonable way to proceed, or a big mistake? \"\"Reasonable\"\" is what you must decide. As the first paragraph states, you are paying a large expense to operate the vehicle. Whether you lease or buy, you are still paying this expense, especially from the depreciation on a new vehicle. It does not seem reasonable to pay for this luxury if the cost is significant to you. That said, it will probably not be a 'big mistake' that will destroy your finances, just not the best way to set yourself up for long-term success.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "715380f95aaedb38a91ca6a8d595aded", "text": "\"I do not think you are missing much. One thing you have right is low cost cars depreciate almost nothing. One thing you are missing is your satisfaction index. Driving a 200K car for 4 years requires a bit of motivation when your friends are driving new cars. Typically you need a larger goal to keep you focused. That might be saving money, getting out of debt, or obtaining an education. Buying a car from a private party, Craigslist is only one source, can save both parties money as the \"\"middle man\"\" is cut out. If you have the ability to do so, one can save a lot of money by doing your own brakes. The info is up on youtube, and I typically \"\"earn\"\" between 100-300/hour doing this work myself. Most of the time warranties do not pay off. At the core, they are insurance and insurance companies are in the business to make money. If your car is likely to need repairs a policy may be unattainable or very high in price.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3cef4b15724a32fdbb940c05a10463e0", "text": "I don't think there's much you can do. Losses from the sale of personal-use automobiles (used for pleasure, commuting, etc) are not deductible as capital losses. See IRS Tax Topic 409, end of the first paragraph. The expenses you incurred in owning and operating the car (insurance, fuel, maintenance, service plans, etc) are not deductible either. If you used it partly for business, then some of your expenses might be deductible; see IRS Tax Topic 510. This includes depreciation (decline in value), but only according to a standard schedule; you don't generally just get to deduct the difference between your buying and selling price. Also, you'd need to have records to verify your business use. But anyway, these deductions would apply (or not) regardless of whether you sell the car. You don't get your sales tax refunded when you resell the vehicle. That's why it's a sales tax, not a value-added tax. Note, however, that if you do sell it, the sales tax on this new transaction will be the buyer's responsibility, not yours. You do have the option on your federal income tax return to deduct the state sales tax you paid when you bought the car; in fact, you can deduct all the sales taxes you paid in that year. (If you have already filed your taxes for that year, you can go back and amend them.) However, this takes the place of your state income tax deduction for the year; you can't deduct both. See Tax Topic 503. So this is only useful if your sales taxes for that year exceeded the state income tax you paid in that year. Also, note that state taxes are not deductible on your state income tax return. Again, this deduction applies whether you sell the car or not.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aded402bd51de6c5e624d61882af5c79", "text": "I'm not a lawyer and someone more knowledgeable than I will probably respond to this inquiry. I worked with nonprofits for years however. My suggestion would be that the Board would have a resolution allowing the Director to approve any contract below a certain dollar amount.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
0ab7e47342fdc148de6636475dada4d7	New Pooled Registered Pension Plan details?	[ { "docid": "2e5228f376c81b614558f5d162247f48", "text": "The general idea of the PRPP is so that small business who cannot afford to offer a plan alone will be able to pool resources with others along with self-employed to create voluntary, defined-contribution pension plans that would be managed by private sector financial institutions. The PRPP concept would offer more options to individuals as well as small and medium-sized businesses - Tax Rules for Pooled Registered Pension Plans You can also find an overview here THE NEW PRPP – A Pension for the Pension-Less", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "c2985abf51365c0748e889c837755967", "text": "I question the reliability of the information you received. Of course, it's possible the former 401(k) provider happened to charge lower expense ratios on its index funds than other available funds and lower the new provider's fees. There are many many many financial institutions and fees are not fixed between them. I think the information you received is simply an assumptive justification for the difference in fees.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "028df917647481b5d4e19cbb323afd32", "text": "\"I would want a clause that says you can't endanger my portfolio, but that would never happen I guess. I've just started what I hope to be a long and successful career and I'm considering opting out of the company pension and managing it myself. Some economics people want to make this an \"\"every man for himself\"\" situation. Right now I pay $400 per month into a pension, and at any point it may not exist. I don't think I'm alone in the idea that I can manage my own portfolio at least as well as that, and my own pension will stay with me no matter what, no matter how many companies I work for.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02bc3370105404e706e80c2703d57fb1", "text": "Are these PFIC rules new? No, PFIC rules are not new, they've been around for a very long time. what would that mean if a person owned a non-US company stock, like a company in Europe that makes chocolate? Is that considered assets that produces passive income? No. But if a person owned a non-US company stock like a company that holds a company that makes chocolate - that would be passive income. this is non-US mutual funds that hold foreign shares, like a mutual fund in India, not a US fund which owns Indian stocks? Non-US fund. For those of you who are tax advisors, is the time length (30 hours) true for filing form 8621? I would suggest not to fill this form on your own. Find a tax adviser specializing on providing services to expats, and have her do this. 30 hours for a person who has never dealt with taxes on this level before is probably not enough to learn all about PFIC, the real number is closer to 300 hours. While ZeroHedge article may be a sales pitch, PFIC rules should frighten you if they apply to your investments. Do not take them lightly, as penalties are steep and if you don't plan ahead you may end up paying way too much taxes than you could have.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "715a11027b9155f44bab80231c88d933", "text": "Pensions in the UK are a real free-for-all. A few years ago, the government introduced stakeholder pensions to try and simplify things, but if anything it's just made things more complex. To give you an idea, everyone has access to a Basic state retirement pension, but there's also SERPS (state earnings related pension scheme) and the State second pension provided by the government. Then in the private sector there are the aforementioned Stakeholder pensions, Self Invested Personal Pensions, Final salary occupational pension schemes and Money purchase occupational pension schemes. For a good summary, take a look at this excellent Times article and for more details, have a look at the Pensions in the United Kingdom Wikipedia page or browse around the Which? retirement section or the moneysavingsexpert pensions pages. The main things to look out for are whether your company offers a defined benefits scheme, or a money purchase scheme where they offer pay additional contributions or offer to match your additional contributions. Either of these are likely to be better than just buying a money purchase scheme pension privately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7c209e1b5df83af93c35d1c0a9e196c", "text": "I'm no expert in this, so this is a legit question. Are 401Ks and pension plans considered HFT or buy & hold? If HFT, would exception rates be beneficial? Or would we want to encourage those groups to reduce frequency as well?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be08d0c6a4da19a79000124e82331b20", "text": "\"Let's not trade insults. I understand defined benefit plans better than you think. Of course offering a lump-sum payout NOW is better for the company. If you think of the lifetime value of the pension, then yeah, it's \"\"worse\"\" for the recipient... but exactly like lottery winners, this is just a question of my personal discount rate. Maybe I want/need that money now, and value it more now than I would in 10/20/30 years. So it's a question for each individual to decide.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "66c2e069c3503182b76c10aac73e22e5", "text": "Thanks to the other answers, I now know what to google for. Frankfurt Stock Exchange: http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/equities/newissues London Stock Exchange: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/statistics/new-issues-further-issues/new-issues-further-issues.htm", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d96ffa27caec8d874570b6eff6a9c68", "text": "\"The portfolio described in that post has a blend of small slices of Vanguard sector funds, such as Vanguard Pacific Stock Index (VPACX). And the theory is that rebalancing across them will give you a good risk-return tradeoff. (Caveat: I haven't read the book, only the post you link to.) Similar ETFs are available from Vanguard, iShares, and State Street. If you want to replicate the GFP exactly, pick from them. (If you have questions about how to match specific funds in Australia, just ask another question.) So I think you could match it fairly exactly if you wanted to. However, I think trying to exactly replicate the Gone Fishin Portfolio in Australia would not be a good move for most people, for a few reasons: Brokerage and management fees are generally higher in Australia (smaller market), so dividing your investment across ten different securities, and rebalancing, is going to be somewhat more expensive. If you have a \"\"middle-class-sized\"\" portfolio of somewhere in the tens of thousands to low millions of dollars, you're cutting it into fairly small slices to manually allocate 5% to various sectors. To keep brokerage costs low you probably want to buy each ETF only once every one-two years or so. You also need to keep track of the tax consequences of each of them. If you are earning and spending Australian dollars, and looking at the portfolio in Australian dollars, a lot of those assets are going to move together as the Australian dollar moves, regardless of changes in the underlying assets. So there is effectively less diversification than you would have in the US. The post doesn't mention the GFP's approach to tax. I expect they do consider it, but it's not going to be directly applicable to Australia. If you are more interested in implementing the general approach of GFP rather than the specific details, what I would recommend is: The Vanguard and superannuation diversified funds have a very similar internal split to the GFP with a mix of local, first-world and emerging market shares, bonds, and property trusts. This is pretty much fire-and-forget: contribute every month and they will take care of rebalancing, spreading across asset classes, and tax calculations. By my calculations the cost is very similar, the diversification is very similar, and it's much easier. The only thing they don't generally cover is a precious metals allocation, and if you want that, just put 5% of your money into the ASX:GOLD ETF, or something similar.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18b251aede171ca1805ed860e33c3c99", "text": "I decided to open it with funds b/c the checking account I have is used as a savings, and has been stagnant. Doesn't make any noticeable interest, and I'm not tapping into it for now. Figured why not get some of it moving. Especially since I'm not working right now and am not contributing to retirement otherwise. The old 401(k)s have been sitting still for many years, and aren't that full. Really miss my old deferred compensation fund, that does well even when I'm not contributing!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c69713d90bd91bd6142580bd765e223", "text": "I would point this out to the committee or other entity in charge of handling this at work. They do have a fiduciary responsibility for the participant's money and should take anything reasonable seriously. The flip side to this is 95% of participants -- especially participants under 35 or so -- really pay next to no attention to this stuff. We consider it a victory to get people to pony up the matching contributions. Active participation in investment would blow our minds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1bed398557ab5aed028262e5a1c0a590", "text": "\"I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what \"\"pension\"\" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account is generally a \"\"defined benefit\"\" account, whereas 403(b)/401(k) and similar - are \"\"defined contribution\"\" accounts. The difference is significant: for pensions, the employer committed on certain amount to be paid out at retirement (the defined benefit) regardless of how much the employee/employer contributed or how well the account performed. This makes such an arrangement a liability. An obligation to pay. In other words - debt. Defined contribution on the other hand doesn't create such a liability, since the employer is only committed for the match, which is paid currently. What happens to your account after the employer deposited the defined contribution (the match) - is your problem. You manage it to the best of your abilities and whatever you have there when you retire - is yours, the employer doesn't owe you anything. Here's the problem with pensions: many employers promised the defined benefit, but didn't do anything about actually having money to pay. As mentioned, such a pension is essentially a debt, and the retiree is a debt holder. What happens when employer cannot pay its debts? Employer goes bankrupt. And when bankrupt - debtors are paid only part of what they were owed, and that includes the retirees. There's no-one raiding pensions. No-one goes to the bank with a gun and demands \"\"give me the pension money\"\". What happened was that the employers just didn't fund the pensions. They promised to pay - but didn't set aside any money, or set aside not enough. Instead, they spent it on something else, and when the time came that the retirees wanted their money - they didn't have any. That's what happened in Detroit, and in many other places. 403(b) is in fact the solution to this problem. Instead of defined benefit - the employers commit on defined contribution, and after that - it's your problem, not theirs, to have enough when you're retired.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a860f3f8edddf97f00daf44f42cd1d3", "text": "\"Note - this is a complicated topic. I've read the rules multiple times and I'm still not sure I understand them perfectly. So please take this with a pinch of salt and read the rules for yourself. The time(s) at which a test is done against the LTA are known as a \"\"Benefit Crystallization Event\"\" (BCE). There are 13 of these (!) - they're numbered 1-9 with the addition of some extras numbered 5A-D. However, the most important ones for those with defined contribution pensions are: Broadly, the idea is that a BCE occurs when you start taking money out of your pension, and when you reach age 75. Each time one happens, the amount you are taking out (\"\"crystallizing\"\") gets compared against the LTA and a certain percentage of your LTA gets designated as being used. Crystallising doesn't necessarily mean you actually receive the money immediately, just that some of your money is switched into a mode where you can start receiving it in different ways. The rules are designed to avoid double counting, so broadly anything that was taken off your LTA won't be taken off a second time. The cumulative use of your LTA is tracked as a percentage rather than an absolute amount, to take account of any changes in the LTA between the different times you crystallise money. For example if you crystallise £100K when the LTA is £1mn, that's 10% of your LTA gone. If later on the LTA has risen to £1.1mn and you take out £110K, that's another 10%. Once you hit 100%, you start paying a LTA charge on any excess. The really simple path here is if you just get an annuity with your entire pot, before hitting age 75 (and you don't make any further pension contributions after). Then only BCE 4 applies: your pension pot, all of which is being used to buy the annuity, is compared with the LTA. After this point your entire pension pot is considered to be crystallized, so no more BCEs will apply - the tests at age 75 only apply if you still have money that you haven't taken out or used to buy an annuity. The annuity payments themselves will be subject to income tax at your normal rate at the time you receive them, i.e. 0%, 20%, 40% or 45% depending on how much other income you have. In reality most people would want to take 25% of their pot as a lump sum at the same time as buying an annuity, given that it's tax-free if you're under the LTA. At this point BCE 6 applies in addition to BCE 4, but again the overall effect of the test is pretty simple, look at the total pension pot (lump sum + cost of annuity), and if it's under the LTA you're fine. Again, at this point no more BCEs will apply as all the money is considered to have been fully distributed. If you only use part of the money for an annuity/lump sum, then only that part of the money is compared against the LTA, and the rest stays in your pension and will be compared later. The 25% limit for a tax-free lump sum applies to the total you are taking out at that point: if you have £200K and are taking out £100K, you can take out £25K as a tax-free lump sum and use £75K for the annuity. The other £100K stays in your pension. Many people see annuity rates as very low and will want to take on more risk (and reward) by using \"\"Drawdown\"\" for at least part of their pension. Essentially, you can designate part of your pension for drawdown, and at that point BCE 1 applies to the money you designate. Once designated, you can start drawing the money out as income, which will be taxed at your normal income tax rate at the time you receive it. Again, you can take 25% as a lump sum at this point which will be subject to BCE 6. There's also an alternative route where you put everything into \"\"flexi-access drawdown\"\" without taking any lump sum immediately, and then as you actually withdraw income, 25% is tax-free and the rest is taxed as income. The overall effect is the same, but it gives you more control over when you get the tax-free bit. However, because with drawdown you can actually leave the money in your pension and growing tax-free, there's a further test against the LTA at age 75 under BCE 5A. To avoid double-counting (\"\"prevention of overlap\"\"), the amount left in the drawdown fund at that point is reduced by whatever was previously tested against BCE 1. So if you put £150K into drawdown initially, and it's grown to £200K by age 75, then another £50K will crystallise under BCE 5A. I think that if you put £150K into drawdown initially and it grows by £50K, but you take that out as income so that only £150K (or less) remains at age 75, then the amount crystallising under BCE 5A is nil. Also, when money is in drawdown, you can choose to use it to buy an annuity. BCE 4 is applied at this point (if before age 75), but as with BCE 5A, this is reduced by anything that was previously crystallised under BCE 1. If you only use some of it to buy an annuity, the reduction is pro-rataed, e.g. if you started out with £150K moved into drawdown, and later it has grown to £200K and you use £100K to buy an annuity, then the reduction is £75K so £25K is considered to have crystallised under BCE 4. Once you reach age 75, as well as any money that's still in drawdown, anything you haven't yet crystallised at all gets tested against the LTA under BCE 5B. Broadly, once you go over the LTA, the charges are simple: There's never any explanation given for these two rates, but I think it's all based on trying to at least cancel out the benefit you got from using your pension, on the assumption that: So with the 25% charge + 20% income tax, if you take out £100, you'll end up with £75 gross income, so £60 net income - just the same as if you'd originally paid 40% tax. (This ignores the effect of investment growth, but if you would have saved the £60 in an ISA, the end result is the same: if you had growth of say 50% over the time the money was in your pension, it'll be the same effect if you had £100 growing to £150 and now received 60% of it, or if you had £60 growing to £90 untaxed in an ISA.) The 55% lump sum charge is in case you are paying 40% tax when you take it out, to make sure that it's not a more attractive option than the 25%+income tax: if you have £100, either you get £45 tax free via a lump sum, or you get £75 gross and hence £45 net. I haven't covered lots of cases here: defined benefit pensions. Roughly, when you start receiving the pension, 20x the initial income from the pension is deemed to crystallise under BCE 2 and any lump sum you receive crystallises under BCE 6. In the former case, you could end up having to pay the LTA charge with money you haven't actually got yet, and you can ask the pension administrator to instead reduce your pension to pay it. However, there are lots of special cases for defined benefit pensions, mostly for historical reasons, so you should make sure you check with your pension administrator about this. if you die before age 75, at which point the LTA test is applied via either BCE 5C/5D, or BCE 7. After paying the LTA charge if any, your dependents or whoever else you leave it to gets the remainder tax-free. transferring overseas (BCE 8). \"\"scheme pensions\"\" under BCE 2 and BCE 3 (I think these are relatively uncommon) some corner cases covered by regulations (BCE 9)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22a58bb6f1803e7765a19450e6a9a536", "text": "\"Well the People's Trust's IPO prospectus is now (2017-09-08) available for all to read (or there's a smaller \"\"information leaflet\"\"). (May need some disclaimers to be clicked to get access). Both have a \"\"highlights\"\" bullet-point list: Coverage here has a comment thread with some responses by the founder attempting to answer the obvious objection that there's other multi-manager trusts on a discount (e.g Alliance Trust on ~ -5.5%), so why would you buy this one on a (very small) premium? (Update: There's also another recent analysis here.) Personally, I'm thinking the answer to the original question \"\"How is The People's Trust not just another Investment Trust?\"\" is pretty much: \"\"it's just another Investment Trust\"\" (albeit one with its own particular quirks and goals). But good luck to them.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32c2716abf18c9873139c68bc1960ebb", "text": "Looks like the result got decided recently, with a little uncertainty about exactly how much is the total allowed claims: http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/gmbondholders/plan_disclosure.html http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/gmbondholders/pdf/GUC_Trust_Agreement.pdf They give the following example: Accordingly, pursuant to Section 5.3 of the GUC Trust Agreement, a holder of a Disputed Claim in the Amount of $2,000,000 that was Allowed in the amount of $1,000,000 (A) as of the end of the first calendar quarter would receive: Corresponding to the Distribution to the Holders of Initial Allowed Claims: Corresponding to the First Quarter Distribution to Holders of Units: Total:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "189074bc66e38dfa800eb176139e72b2", "text": "\"I've been down the consolidation route too (of a handful of DC pensions; the DB ones I've not touched, and you would indeed need advice to move those around). What you should be comparing against is: what's the cheapest possible thing you could be doing? Monevators' online platform list will give you an idea of SIPP costs (if your pot is big enough and you're a buy-and-hold person, ATS' flat-fee model means costs can become arbitrarily close to zero percent), and if you're happy to be invested in something like Vanguard Lifestrategy, Target Retirement or vanilla index trackers then charges on those will be something like 0.1%-0.4%. Savings of 0.5-1.0% per year add up over pension saving timescales, but only you can decide whether whatever extra the adviser is offering vs. a more DIY approach is worth it for you. Are you absolutely sure that 0.75% pa fee isn't on top of whatever charges are built into the funds he'll invest you in? For the £1000 fee, advisers claim to have high costs per customer because of \"\"regulatory burdens\"\"; this is why there's talk of an \"\"advice gap\"\" these days: if you only have a small sum to invest, the fixed costs of advice become intolerable. IMHO, nutmeg are still quite expensive for what they offer too (although still probably cheaper than any \"\"advised\"\" route).\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
832a5437fcfe45f9a8f8d869ce8ca858	Whats the difference between day trading and flipping and their tax implications?	[ { "docid": "2b4f379d4a0247140662c5e4e57844b8", "text": "Flipping usually refers to real-estate transaction: you buy a property, improve/renovate/rehabilitate it and resell it quickly. The distinction between flipper and investor is similar to the distinction between trader and investor, even though the tax code doesn't explicitly refer to house flipping. Gains on house flipping can be considered as active business gain or passive activity income, which are treated differently: passive income goes on Schedule E and Schedule D, active income goes on Schedule C. The distinction between passive and active is based on the characteristics of the activity (hours you spent on it, among other things). Trading income can similarly be considered as either passive (Schedule D/E treatment) or active (Schedule C treatment). Here's what the IRS has to say about traders: Special rules apply if you are a trader in securities, in the business of buying and selling securities for your own account. This is considered a business, even though you do not maintain an inventory and do not have customers. To be engaged in business as a trader in securities, you must meet all of the following conditions: The following facts and circumstances should be considered in determining if your activity is a securities trading business: If the nature of your trading activities does not qualify as a business, you are considered an investor... Investor, in this context, means passive income treatment (Schedule D/E). However, even if your income is considered active (Schedule C), stock sale proceeds are not subject to the self-employment tax. As you can see, there's no specific definition, but the facts and circumstances matter. You may be considered a trader by the IRS, or you may not. You may want to be considered a trader (for example to be able to make a mark-to-market election), or you may not. You should talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for more details and suggestions.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4f0bf4cadc7fbe8eae1c85a73b5ad41e", "text": "As mentioned by Dilip, you need to provide more details. In general for transacting on stocks; Long Term: If you hold the stock for more than one year then its long term and not taxable. There is a STT [Securities Transaction Tax] that is already deducted/paid during buying and selling of a stock. Short Term: If you hold the stock for less than one year, it's short term gain. This can be adjusted against the short term loss for the financial year. The tax rate is 10%. Day Trading: Is same as short term from tax point of view. Unless you are doing it as a full time business. If you have purchased multiple quantities of same stock in different quantities and time, then when you selling you have to arrive at profit or loss on FIFO basis, ie First in First Out", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c494d981cd42f26b230f546bd8aa58c1", "text": "If you buy puts, there are no guaranteed proceeds though. If you short against the box, you've got immediate proceeds with a nice capital loss if it doesn't work out. Conversely, you could write a covered call, take the contract proceeds, and write off the long position losses. Nobody ever factors tax consequences into the equation here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91e13572f4af39783a97352f0aec9248", "text": "The difference is ordinary income. If the price drops and you sell for exactly what you paid, you have an income of D and a capital loss of D which usually cancel each other, but not always. For example, if you already have over $3000 in losses, this loss won't help you, it will carry forward. The above changes a bit if you hold the stock for 2 years after the beginning of the purchase period. If sold between your purchase price and fair market the day you bought, the gain is only the difference, no gain to fair market + loss. Pretty convoluted. Your company should have provided you with a brief FAQ / Q&A to explain this. My friends at Fairmark have an article that explains the ESPP process clearly, Tax Reporting for Qualifying Dispositions of ESPP Shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6027594444879a9496df9840f35f9a55", "text": "if you open spreadbetting accounts and prove to the inland revenue that trading profits are not your main income, you will not be liable for any tax on your gains. Holding a property in the uk which is point of call for any held bank accounts needs to be verifiable though. This is only an issue if accounts are larger than £400k. seems anything smaller doesnt get the sniffer dogs attention at the IR dept.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb0b1106505cc2f5eb4c597f84834d88", "text": "With a short position you make your money (profit) when you buy the stocks back to close the position at a lower price than what you bought them at. As short selling is classed as speculation and not investing and you at no time own any actual assets, you cannot donate any short possition to charity. If you did want to avoid paying tax on the profits you could donate the proceeds of the profits after closing the position and thus get a tax deduction equal to the profits you made. But that raises a new and more important question, why are you trading in the first place if you are afraid to make profits in case you have to pay tax on those profits?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b7cd157197402aa1a8b2a3dc933137c", "text": "\"This question and your other one indicate you're a bit unclear on how capital gains taxes work, so here's the deal: you buy an asset (like shares of stock or a mutual fund). You later sell it for more than you bought it for. You pay taxes on your profit: the difference between what you sold it for and what you bought it for. What matters is not the amount of money you \"\"withdraw\"\", but the prices at which assets are bought and sold. In fact, often you will be able to choose which individual shares you sell, which means you have some control over the tax you pay. For a simple example, suppose you buy 10 shares of stock for $100 each in January (an investment of $1000); we'll call these the \"\"early\"\" shares. The stock goes up to $200 in July, and you buy 10 more shares (investing an additional $2000); we'll call these the \"\"late\"\" shares. Then the stock drops to $150. Suppose you want $1500 in cash, so you are going to sell 10 shares. The 10 early shares you bought have increased in value, because you bought then for $100 but can now sell them for $150. The 10 late shares have decreased in value, because you bought them for $200 but can now only sell them for $150. If you choose to sell the early shares, you will have a capital gain of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $1000 purchase price), on which you may owe taxes. If you sell the late shares, you will have a capital loss of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $2000 purchase price is -$500), which you can potentially use to reduce your taxes. Or you could sell 5 of each and have no gain or loss (selling five early shares for $150 gives you a gain of $250, but selling five late shares for $150 gives you a loss of $250, and they cancel out). The point of all this is to say that the tax is not determined by the amount of cash you get, but by the difference between the sale price and the price you purchased for (known as the \"\"cost basis\"\"), and this in turn depends on which specific assets you sell. It is not enough to know the total amount you invested and the total gain. You need to know the specific cost basis (i.e., original purchase price) of the specific shares you're selling. (This is also the answer to your question about long-term versus short-term gains. It doesn't matter how much money you make on the sale. What matters is how long you hold the asset before selling it.) That said, many brokers will automatically sell your shares in a certain order unless you tell them otherwise (and some won't let you tell them otherwise). Often they will use the \"\"first in, first out\"\" rule, which means they will always sell the earliest-purchased shares first. To finally get to your specific question about Betterment, they have a page here that says they use a different method. Essentially, they try to sell your shares in a way that minimizes taxes. They do this by first selling shares that have a loss, and only then selling shares that have a gain. This basically means that if you want to cash out $X, and it is possible to do it in a way that incurs no tax liability, they will do that. What gets me very confused is if I continue to invest random amounts of money each month using Betterment, then I need to withdraw some cash, what are the tax implications. As my long answer above should indicate, there is no simple answer to this. The answer is \"\"it depends\"\". It depends on exactly when you bought the shares, exactly how much you paid for them, exactly when and how much the price rose or fell, and exactly how much you sell them for. Betterment is more or less saying \"\"Don't worry about any of this, trust us, we will handle everything so that your tax is minimized.\"\" A final note: if you really do want to track the details of your cost basis, Betterment may not be for you, because it is an automated platform that may do a lot of individual trades that a human wouldn't do, and that can make tracking the cost basis yourself very difficult. Almost the whole point of something like Betterment is that you are supposed to give them your money and forget about these details.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1e92a6e17ba78551b7fd1703fae444c", "text": "\"Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any \"\"Income tax\"\" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. However if you buy and sell; there would be a capital gain or loss. In stocks, if you hold a security for less than 1 year and sell it; it is classified as short term capital gain and taxes at special rate of 15%. The loss can be adjusted against any other short term gain. If held for more than year it is long term capital gain. For stock market, the tax is zero, you can't adjust long term losses in stock markets. Will the money received from selling shares fall under \"\"Taxable money for FY Income tax\"\"? Only the gain [or loss] will be tread as income not the complete sale value. To calculate gain, one need to arrive a purchase price which is price of stock + Brokerage + STT + all other taxes. Similar the sale price will be Sales of stock - Brokerage - STT - all other taxes. The difference is the gain. Will the \"\"Dividend/Bonus/Buy-back\"\" money fall under taxable category? Dividend is tax free to individual as the company has already paid dividend distribution tax. Bonus is tax free event as it does not create any additional value. Buy-Back is treated as sale of shares if you have participated. Will the share-holder pay \"\"Dividend Distribution Tax\"\"? Paid by the company. What is \"\"Capital Gains\"\"? Profit or loss of buying and selling a particular security.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5db324f25d180b02a9e3523efe4ef4a4", "text": "I would say it's all relative. Take the following two scenarios: If you were facing these options, would you chose #2 just because you pay a lower tax rate, even though you make less money? These numbers are of course fictional, but the point I'm trying to make is that everyone will seek the method that allows them to make the most money. If they have to pay a higher tax rate, so be it. One other thought: daytraders will have higher expenses, which are deductible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7e82acf77e5091b7bcac9655fad7156", "text": "Often times the commission fees add up a lot. Many times the mundane fluctuations in the stock market on a day to day basis are just white noise, whereas long term investing generally lets you appreciate value based on the market reactions to actual earnings of the company or basket of companies. Day trading often involves leverage as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "64b9a133df2ccc0d6dd74246e71482b3", "text": "So, my question is what is the limit below which I don't have to pay taxes while trading. I just invested $10. Do I have to pay taxes for this too? what are the slabs? Any income is subject to tax. That said, investing $10 will probably not generate much of income, even at the discount brokers most of it will be wasted on commissions... I am also having an assistantship. So is holding two sources of income legitimate? Thanks You can have as many sources of income as you want. Working is what is restricted when you're on a student visa. As long as you don't open a business as a day trader or start working for someone trading stocks - you're fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e37a0bedf04922bb9fa43fd2c0e00b4", "text": "The tax is only payable on the gain you make i.e the difference between the price you paid and the price you sold at. In your cse no tax is payable if you sell at the same price you bought at", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2efee2c5fd498c4cbb9139d8a8d79065", "text": "\"Oddly enough, in the USA, there are enough cost and tax savings between buy-and-hold of a static portfolio and buying into a fund that a few brokerages have sprung up around the concept, such as FolioFN, to make it easier for small investors to manage numerous small holdings via fractional shares and no commission window trades. A static buy-and-hold portfolio of stocks can be had for a few dollars per trade. Buying into a fund involves various annual and one time fees that are quoted as percentages of the investment. Even 1-2% can be a lot, especially if it is every year. Typically, a US mutual fund must send out a 1099 tax form to each investor, stating that investors share of the dividends and capital gains for each year. The true impact of this is not obvious until you get a tax bill for gains that you did not enjoy, which can happen when you buy into a fund late in the year that has realized capital gains. What fund investors sometimes fail to appreciate is that they are taxed both on their own holding period of fund shares and the fund's capital gains distributions determined by the fund's holding period of its investments. For example, if ABC tech fund bought Google stock several years ago for $100/share, and sold it for $500/share in the same year you bought into the ABC fund, then you will receive a \"\"capital gains distribution\"\" on your 1099 that will include some dollar amount, which is considered your share of that long-term profit for tax purposes. The amount is not customized for your holding period, capital gains are distributed pro-rata among all current fund shareholders as of the ex-distribution date. Morningstar tracks this as Potential Capital Gains Exposure and so there is a way to check this possibility before investing. Funds who have unsold losers in their portfolio are also affected by these same rules, have been called \"\"free rides\"\" because those funds, if they find some winners, will have losers that they can sell simultaneously with the winners to remain tax neutral. See \"\"On the Lookout for Tax Traps and Free Riders\"\", Morningstar, pdf In contrast, buying-and-holding a portfolio does not attract any capital gains taxes until the stocks in the portfolio are sold at a profit. A fund often is actively managed. That is, experts will alter the portfolio from time to time or advise the fund to buy or sell particular investments. Note however, that even the experts are required to tell you that \"\"past performance is no guarantee of future results.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e364e5a4e47e1d529db4f0601030e31", "text": "I don't understand the logic in the other answer, and I think it doesn't make sense, so here is my take: You pay taxes on income, not on sales price. So if you put X $ of your own money in the account and it becomes X + Y $ in the future, at the moment of liquidation, you will own taxes on the Y $. Never on the X $, as it was your own (already taxed) money to begin with. The difference between long-term and short-term gains just influences the tax rate on Y. If you donate the gain alone (the Y $) to charity, you can deduct Y from your tax base. So adding Y to your tax base and then deducting Y again obviously leaves your tax base at the old value, so you pay no extra taxes. Which seems logical, as you didn't make any money in the process. Aside from extreme cases where the deductible gain is too large a percentage from your income or negative, I don't see why this would ever be different. So you can take your original 100 $ back out and donate all gains, and be fine. Note that potential losses are seen different, as the IRA regulations are not symmetric.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2344c287634cb6e22a4b35f37aee3997", "text": "Sale of a stock creates a capital gain. It can be offset with losses, up to $3000 more than the gains. It can be deferred when held within a retirement account. When you gift appreciated stock, the basis follows. So when I gifted my daughter's trust shares, there was still tax due upon sale. The kiddy tax helped reduce but not eliminate it. And there was no quotes around ownership. The money is gone, her account is for college. No 1031 exchange exists for stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2dde5ad88962880589d29a60a1fa5ae", "text": "Buying a put is hedging. You won't lose as much if the market goes down, but you'll still lose capital: lower value of your long positions. Buying an ultrashort like QID is safer than shorting a stock because you don't have the unlimited losses you could have when you short a stock. It is volatile. It's not a whole lot different than buying a put; it uses futures and swaps to give the opposing behavior to the underlying index. Some places indicate that the tax consequences could be severe. It is also a hedge if you don't sell your long positions. QID opposes the NASDAQ 100 which is tech-heavy so bear (!) that in mind. Selling your long positions gets you out of equities completely. You'll be responsible for taxes on capital gains. It gets your money off of the table, as opposed to playing side bets or buying insurance. (Sorry for the gambling analogy but that's a bit how I feel with stock indices now :) ).", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
f6dc8fab7341fa2c359e43b55bea5d2f	Getting Cash from Credit Card without Fees	[ { "docid": "22338a43b9006dea9a3662a5d65947de", "text": "Nope. Or at least, if it were possible the company offering such a credit card would quickly go out of business. Credit card companies make money off of fees from the merchants the user is buying from and from the users themselves. If they charged no fees to the user on cash advances and, in fact, gave a 3% back on cash advances, then it would be possible for a user to: The company would lose money until they stopped the loophole or went out of business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c6e91792fbbfd98238e6a5d560df128", "text": "\"While I think this is generally inadvisable, there are sites and communities dedicated to \"\"points churning\"\" credit card reward programs. In general, no there is no easy way to get cash from a credit card, and receive the spending rewards, and not pay fees well in excess of your rewards value. However, there are people who figure out ways to do this kind of thing. Like buying prepaid Visa cards $500 at a time from drug stores on a 5% bonus rewards month. Or buying rolls of $1 coins from the US treasury with free shipping. The issue is the source of the fees. When you spend money on your card the merchant pays a fee. When you get cash from an ATM not only is there no merchant remitting a fee there is an ATM operator and a network both charging fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0dd41d0517af2ceda26e49c4584a138", "text": "You said: Use a credit card (to get my 3% Cash back) to withdraw cash ... Then you said: Is there any way to do this without paying a cash advance fee (or any fees in general)? Right there you have stated the inconsistency. Withdrawing cash using a credit card is a cash advance. You may or may not be charged a fee for doing the cash advance, but no credit card will offer you cash back on a cash advance, so you can't earn your 3% by using cash advances. As others have mentioned, you can sometimes get close by using the card to purchase things that are almost like cash, such as gift cards. But you have to make a purchase.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf440d0839f6e7b0b0d43587d7dcdd8c", "text": "This was actually (sort of) possible a few years ago. The US Mint, trying to encourage use of dollar coins, would sell the coins to customers for face value and no shipping. Many people did exactly what you are proposing: bought hundreds/thousands of dollars worth of coins with credit cards, reaped the rewards, deposited the coins in the bank, and paid off the credit cards. See here, for example. Yeah, they don't have that program any more. Of course, this sort of behavior was completely predictable and painfully obvious to the credit card companies, who, as far as I know, never let users net rewards on cash advances. They're trying to make money after all, unlike the Mint, which, uh, well...", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "336b97b24895254218c39d45f15f8b28", "text": "\"in theory, yes. in practice, no. largely because merchants pay a fee to process credit card transactions which normally exceeds the cash back you can get. i tried this with square, since their vendor fee was 2.75%, and i got 5% back on restaurants. however, even though i registered with square as a restaurant, transactions were categorized as \"\"other services\"\" or something, so i only got 1% back and lost 1.75% net. moreover, if you did find a card/processor combination that left you with a net gain, they would eventually catch on and charge you with some sort of fraud. i wasn't worried about it with the square experiment because it was only 1$, but if you tried to do this with large sums, a human would catch you. and if it was enough money to matter, there would be a lawsuit. if you were really unlucky, you might get charged with some terrorism crap like \"\"structuring\"\" deposits.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3debd2edac6a100583eaea8224464d7", "text": "\"I'm a bit loathe to offer this response, but some pre-paid credit card vendors offer \"\"direct deposit\"\" to the card. Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart is one of them -- the very first \"\"how to reload\"\" option is direct deposit from an employer: https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/walmart/account/learn-how I think this sort of service encourages bad money habits. People shouldn't have to pay fees to get their own money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49b743482fb6c3ce7ded4219b2149524", "text": "Three things prevent you from doing this: Credit cards generally don't accept other credit cards as payment. You could do this with a cash advance or balance transfer, but Cash advances and balance transfers usually have fees associated with them, negating any reward you might earn. Your card might have a no-fee balance transfer promotion going, but Cash advances and balance transfers generally aren't eligible for rewards.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fe0271bdb83db485bf754c0f2b12df3", "text": "You can generally withdraw cash from an ATM with a major credit card. There are exceptions of course, but generally yes. It's a terrible deal unless you are in the most dire of straits. Avoid it. Credit card companies make money on purchases at a store from the store. If you pay late, they make money from you. For an ATM, they make money by charging you a fee and then charging interest on day one with no grace period. This is a very high interest rate short term loan. You will also be charged a fee by the ATM itself - and you will pay interest on that fee!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee44afaaeb77f2fed647ae241e8bd562", "text": "I suggest opening a Credit Card that doesn't charge Foreign currency conversion fees. Here is the list of cards without such a fee, Bankrate's Foreign transaction fee credit card chart", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a72d3d0c6af58a24af1bad27a75d7846", "text": "If it's always the same person, you could open a joint account. Then fees are avoided altogether. How fast the funds are available depends on what you deposit. Cash is immediate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1757b028d75e69e0e93402a12b746d1b", "text": "One way you can accomplish this is on a cruise ship. Most cruise ships have casinos, and most will allow you to sign out chips at the casino cage. You can then exchange the chips for cash. The chips that were signed for are resolved as room charges. Those room charges can be charged to a CC. Those signed for chips are rolled into the total room charges and are thus not treated as a cash advance. The cost of the cruise not with standing, you could earn money in that form. Step off the boat, deposit cash in the bank, and send a check to the CC company. All that being said, it is an cheap and safe way to get cash while you are traveling in that method.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4502fb18066fc053cd52c0aca1090f1", "text": "You don't need credit cards but there are few benefits, if you pay them off right away I assume you do have a debit card, since sometimes (like unattended gas stations or shopping on the web) cash is not accepted.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebb874728ea5c83f7c47d5f71cbed3ed", "text": "I can't speak for India, but for US travelers abroad, using an ATM card that reimburses transaction fees is usually the most convenient and cheapest way to obtain foreign cash. There are several banks and brokerages that offer these types of ATM cards in the US. The exchange rate is competitive and because the fees are reimbursed it's cheaper and easy than going to a bank or kiosk to exchange currencies. I don't know if you can get accounts/cards like this in India that reimburse ATM fees. For purchases, using a credit card is fine, too. Some cards charge a foreign transaction fee of ~1%, some don't. The credit card I use most of the time does charge a 1% transaction fee, but I get 2% back in rewards so I still don't mind using it when traveling.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "104ae8a9ec8b6b78961094e0cd95e102", "text": "If you had a CC issuer that allowed you to do bill-pay this way, I suspect the payment would be considered a cash advance that will trigger a fee and a pretty egregious cash advance specific interest rate. It's not normal for a credit payment portal to accept a credit card as payment. If you were able to do this as a balance transfer, again there would be fees to transfer the balance and you would not earn any rewards from the transferred balance. I think it's important to note that cash back benefits are effectively paid by merchant fees. You make a $100 charge, the merchant pays about $2.50 in transaction fee, you're credited with about $1 of cash back (or points or whatever). Absent a merchant transaction and the associated fee there's no pot of money from which to apply cash back rewards.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ac9a4cfd8b76a5ee60eb07001219f44", "text": "\"A few ideas: If you can find cards that don't have fees, you could use re-loadable debit/gift cards as your \"\"envelopes\"\". You can write the purpose for each card on its face. Carrying around more than a few cards will get unwieldy fast -- how many categories do you need? Use the rewards card strategy that was recommended to you. Put all of your spending on this. Carry a slip of paper in your wallet for each of your categories of spending. When you charge against a category, punch/mark/tear off a piece of the paper according to some scheme that will allow you to track the amount. You don't have to carry the envelopes around with you all the time. You wouldn't carry around the grocery envelope all the time -- unless you often just randomly decide to go grocery shopping while you're out and about. When you are going out and know you need to have cash for a certain purpose, pull some money from your envelope, put a paper clip around it with maybe a slip of paper, and put it into your wallet. You could carry around a few different categories of money this way without too much hassle. This requires planning your spending for the day. (The best way to avoid spending money is to not have it.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f75b393e72ec9c1debbd50e4cafb218", "text": "All the fees are added to the amount you actually spend, but they only occur when you do these kind of transactions. They do not happen for any other reason. If you transfer a balance from another credit card this fee is added to your balance. Since this is your first credit card you don't have to transfer any balance. This site says that this is a special type of check, linked to your credit card account, not to your checking account. If you write this type of check to a merchant the additional fees will apply. If you use your credit card at an ATM this fee will be applied on top of the money you withdraw. Usually it is a percentage of the amount you withdraw. According to this site, a cash equivalent is something like casino chips which can be easily converted back into money without any loss. If you use your credit card in a different currency, for example Euro but your credit cards currency is Dollar. Usually a percentage of the amount (~3-5%). If you withdraw money from a foreign currency ATM they add usually a fixed amount plus a percentage or any combination of this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90db26b89e8f2d04c74b31b6bfdaecf1", "text": "\"When you buy something with your credit card, the store pays a fee to the credit card company, typically a base fee of 15 to 50 cents plus 2 to 3% of the purchase. At least, that's what it was a few years back when I had a tiny business and I wanted to accept credit cards. Big chain stores pay less because they are \"\"buying in bulk\"\" and have negotiating power. Just because you aren't paying interest doesn't mean the credit card company isn't making money off of you. In fact if you pay your monthly bill promptly, they're probably making MORE off of you, because they're collecting 2 or 3% for a month or less, instead of the 1 to 2% per month that they can charge in interest. The only situation I know where you can get money from a credit card company for free is when they offer \"\"convenience checks\"\" or a balance transfer with no up-front fee. I get such an offer every now and then. I presume the credit card company does that for the same reason that stores give out free samples: they hope that if you try the card, you'll continue using it. To them, it's a marketing cost, no different than the cost of putting an ad on television.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc875b9c0d3f029ba3a99bb6c6a2d0be", "text": "I am using my debit card regularly: in ATM's with a pin, in stores with my signature, and online. But later you say But from what I recall from starting my own business (a LONG time ago), for debit cards there's only a per-transaction fee of like $0.25, not a percentage cut. Only pin transactions have just a per-transaction fee paid by you to the merchant (and you are reimbursed by Schwab). If you use your card with just a signature or online without a pin, then it is a credit transaction from the merchant's perspective. The merchant pays a fee and Schwab gets its cut of that. So for two of the transaction types that you describe, the merchant pays Schwab (indirectly) out of your payment. Only when you enter your pin does it process as a debit transaction where Schwab pays the merchant. Because check cards withdraw the money from your account immediately, you don't even get the twenty to fifty day grace period. So those merchant fees are pure profit for Schwab, offsetting the loss from the ATM fees. You claim $4-5k in fees at $.25 each. That's sixteen to twenty thousand transactions. Assuming that several is four to five years, that's more than ten transactions a day. That seems like a lot. I can see three for meals, one for miscellaneous, and maybe some shopping. But if I go shopping one day, I don't normally go again for a while. I have trouble seeing a consistent average of five or more transactions a day. Even if we use just the higher ATM fees (e.g. $2), that's still more than a transaction a day. That's an extreme level of usage, particularly for someone who also makes frequent purchases via card. I haven't done any other business with them. I find this confusing. How does money get into your account? At some point, you must have deposited money into the account. You can't debit from an account without a positive balance. So you must have done or be doing some kind of business with them. If nothing else, they can invest the balance that you deposit. Note that they make a profit off such investments. They share some of that profit with you in the form of interest, but not that much really. Of course, Schwab may still be losing money on your transactions. We can't really tell without more information on how much of each transaction type you do and how much of a balance you maintain. Perhaps they are hoping that you will do other, more profitable, activities in the future. I doubt there are that many Schwab customers like you describe yourself. As best I've been able to see, they advertise their banking services just to investment customers. So it's unlikely that many customers who don't use their investment services use their banking services just for ATM reimbursements.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7e7b0b6b6cd92d8e2039afbaf9c15ed", "text": "Suppose you're writing a put with a strike price of 80. Say the share's(underlying asset) price goes down to 70. So the holder of the put will exercise the option. Ie he has a 'right to sell' a share worth 70 for rs 80. Whereas a put option writer has an 'obligation to buy' at rs 80 a share trading at rs 70. Always think from the perspective of the holder. If the holder exercises the option, the writer will suffer a loss. Maximum loss he suffers will be the break even FSP, which is Strike price reduced by the premium paid.. If he doesn't exercise the option the writer will make a profit, which can maximum be the put premium received.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
167fe1e614f07ad9b20c082f950fd8c0	Dormant company, never paid taxes, never traded in UK - should I have notified the HMRC?	[ { "docid": "d294dd6438dfaa3a54557e2c33f1d5ae", "text": "You don't have to register for corporation tax until you start doing business: After you’ve registered your company with Companies House, you’ll need to register it for Corporation Tax. You’ll need to do this within 3 months of starting to do business. Since you haven't needed to do that yet, there also shouldn't be any need to tell HMRC you've stopped trading. So it should just be a question of telling Companies House - I guess it's possible they'll first want you to provide the missing accounts.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "8400613fe1604536e0f9484699465382", "text": "You should check this with a tax accountant or tax preparation expert, but I encountered a similar situation in Canada. Your ISA income does count as income in a foreign country, and it is not tax exempt (the tax exemption is only because the British government specifically says so). You would need to declare the income to the foreign government who would almost certainly charge you tax on it. There are a couple of reasons why you should probably keep the funds in the ISA, especially if you are looking to return. First contribution limits are per year, so if you took the money out now you would have to use future contribution room to put it back. Second almost all UK savings accounts deduct tax at source, and its frankly a pain to get it back. Leaving the money in an ISA saves you that hassle, or the equal hassle of transferring it to an offshore account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "285656fee715b39a89d1eaadd137f3b2", "text": "The LLC (not you) is probably in debt to the California FTB. Any LLC registered in California must pay at least $800 a year, until it is officially dissolved (i.e.: notice of cancellation/dissolution properly filed with the California Secretary of State). The FTB may come after members (including you) personally, if it can prove that the failure to pay was due to your negligence. Talk to a CA-licensed EA/CPA about how to resolve this. Otherwise, at least from what you've described, there were no other taxable events. LLC is a disregarded entity, so the IRS doesn't care about it much anyway (unless someone was stupid enough to elect it to be taxed as a corporation, that is). Keep in mind that when in doubt - you are always better off with a professional (a CPA/EA licensed in your State) advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9dca32b8177f2bddd8208506c0d1b84", "text": "You proceed with a proper legal advice. You should not ignore IRS letters. You should have taken your chances in trying to reach a compromise with them, but that ship has likely sailed already. You might want to consider bankruptcy. Ask your parents for a couple of hundreds of dollars to pay for a legal consultation with a lawyer and a CPA and proceed from there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5233f5bef9fbf9e67543bacf0f91b536", "text": "As someone who used to be an IT contractor in the UK and used to work from home, my advice is to talk to your accountant in detail. It's been a few years, but IIRC you can write off some small stuff like proportional heating costs etc, but in my case it was so minuscule that it wasn't worth the effort. You're likely better off to just leave it. <subliminal message> Talk to your accountant :). </subliminal message>", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e30c1a9481ded4a26c6feb5502718faa", "text": "My understanding is you can create a company 0 value. Then you need to either loan the company the money to buy the building (it will still have 0 value as it will have a debt equal to it's assets) or sell share to investors at any price you like to raise the money to buy the building. Once shares have value (as valued by a chartered accountant - not anyone can do this) then anyone recieving shares will have to pay income tax. This is why keeping the shares as no value for as long as possible can be preferable. Also a benefit of using share options. talk to your investors, see what they require.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "358ca6cdfe9780ec08e4a2d93d91605b", "text": "My understanding (I am not a lawyer or tax expert) is that you are not allowed to work for free, but you can pay yourself minimum wage for the hours worked. There are probably National Insurance implications as well but I don't know. The main thing is, though, that if HMRC think that you've set up this system as a tax avoidance scheme then they're allowed to tax you as though all the income had been yours in the first place. If you are considering such a setup I would strongly advise you to hire a qualified small business accountant who will be familiar with the rules and will be able to advise you on what is and is not possible / sensible. Falling outside the rules (even inadvertently) leaves you liable to a lot of hassle and potentially fines etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0405c80b946e2a2c2c2ceae2b78ccae7", "text": "In a simple case as the sole UK resident director/shareholder of a company, with that company as your only income, you are usually best paying yourself a salary of the maximum tax free amount allowed under your tax code (~£11k for most people at present). On this you will have to pay some employer and employee National Insurance (NI) contributions (totalling around £1000). Your salary/employer NI counts as an expense, so that is taken off the company profits. You then pay corporation tax on the remainder (20%). The first £5k you take as dividends is tax free, the remainder at a lower tax rate than the equivalent combined income tax/NI (starting at 7.5% instead of 20% tax plus employee plus employer NI), giving a significant saving compared to salaried income even after corporation tax. To declare and pay the tax, you would need to complete a self-assessment tax return. Your company will also need to file a return. The Contractor UK website, although aimed at IT contractors, has some very useful information on operating Ltd companies. That said, finances are rarely that simple so I would concur with the recommendation you engage an accountant, which is a tax-deductible expense.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25c3c0fedb487bda03a9b386cba5a700", "text": "As 'anonymous' already mentioned, I think the correct answer is to go see an accountant. That said, if you are already have to fill in a tax return anyway (ie, you're already a high rate taxpayer) then I don't see why it should be an issue if you just told HMRC of your additional profit via your tax return. I never was in the situation of being employed with a side business in the UK, only either/or, but my understanding is that registering as self employed is probably more suitable for someone who doesn't PAYE already. I might be wrong on this as I haven't lived in the UK for a couple of years but an accountant would know the answer. Of course in either case, make sure that you keep each an every scrap of paper to do with your side business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8c9b48ed7f140ddf25940da79b0bba86", "text": "The VAT number should be equivalent from the point of view of your client. The fact that you are a sole trader and not a limited liability doesn't matter when it comes down to pay VAT. They should pay the VAT to you and you will pay it to the government. I'll guess that their issue is with tax breaks, it is a bit more tricky to receive a tax break on paid taxes if you buy something abroad (at least it is here in Finland). If they won't pay you because of that, you could open a LTD or contract the services of a 'management company' which will do the job of invoicing, receiving the money and passing it back to you, for a fee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "21d0c3dcd64ed588f9aa8af50c2612a9", "text": "An ISA is a much simpler thing than I suspect you think it is. It is a wrapper or envelope, and the point of it is that HMRC does not care what happens inside the envelope, or even about extractions of funds from the envelope; they only care about insertions of funds into the envelope. It is these insertions that are limited to £15k in a tax year; what happens to the funds once they're inside the envelope is your own business. Some diagrams: Initial investment of £10k. This is an insertion into the envelope and so counts against your £15k/tax year limit. +---------ISA-------+ ----- £10k ---------> \| +-------------------+ So now you have this: +---------ISA-------+ \| £10k of cash \| +-------------------+ Buy fund: +---------ISA-------+ \| £10k of ABC \| +-------------------+ Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ \| £12k of ABC \| +-------------------+ Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ \| £12k of cash \| +-------------------+ Buy another fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-----------------+ \| £10k of JKL & £2k of cash \| +-----------------------------+ Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-----------------+ \| £11k of JKL & £2k of cash \| +-----------------------------+ Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care: +---------ISA-------+ \| £13k of cash \| +-------------------+ Withdraw funds. This is an extraction from the envelope; HMRC don't care. +---------ISA-------+ <---- £13k --------- \| +-------------------+ No capital gains liability, you don't even have to put this on your tax return (if applicable) - your £10k became £13k inside an ISA envelope, so HMRC don't care. Note however that for the rest of that tax year, the most you can insert into an ISA would now be £5k: +---------ISA-------+ ----- £5k ---------> \| +-------------------+ even though the ISA is empty. This is because the limit is to the total inserted during the year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3275902f1c0f9720de7ffcf33556f77", "text": "\"The shares are \"\"imputed income\"\" / payment in kind. You worked in the UK, but are you a \"\"US Person\"\"? If not, you should go back to payroll with this query as this income is taxable in the UK. It is important you find out on what basis they were issued. The company will have answers. Where they aquired at a discount to fair market value ? Where they purchased with a salary deduction as part of a scheme ? Where they acquired by conversion of employee stock options ? If you sell the shares, or are paid dividends, then there will be tax withheld.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abd138c01e6d5a971c99c8f92350dfec", "text": "\"That's a tricky question and you should consult a tax professional that specializes on taxation of non-resident aliens and foreign expats. You should also consider the provisions of the tax treaty, if your country has one with the US. I would suggest you not to seek a \"\"free advice\"\" on internet forums, as the costs of making a mistake may be hefty. Generally, sales of stocks is not considered trade or business effectively connected to the US if that's your only activity. However, being this ESPP stock may make it connected to providing personal services, which makes it effectively connected. I'm assuming that since you're filing 1040NR, taxes were withheld by the broker, which means the broker considered this effectively connected income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "305d0bb481877f331240bc5ec2e0572e", "text": "I love the flat rate VAT scheme. It's where you pay a percentage based on your industry. An example might be Computer repair services, where you'll pay 10.5% of your total revenue to the HMRC. But you'll be invoicing for VAT at 20% still. Would definitely recommend registering for it since you're expecting to cross the threshold anyway. And like DumbCoder said, you also get a first year discount of 1%, so in the example above, you'd end up paying 9.5% VAT on your turnover. I personally found it a pain to invoice without VAT (my clients expected it), so registering made sense regardless of the fact I was over threshold. The tricky bit is keeping under the £150k turnover so you stay eligible for the flat rate. It does get more complex otherwise.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85e8f159933518a5a1796e99a84b2ce8", "text": "Ugh. Really? I thought this subreddit was smarter than this. 1) You pay taxes on net income, not sales. Expenses are tax deductible. 2) This took place in the UK, which operates on a different set of tax rules than many of us are familiar with. 3) The company still pays other taxes even if they don't pay income tax. In the US, examples would be payroll taxes including the employer portion of things like SS and Medicare, but I'm sure the UK has similar programs funded in a similar manner. To the extent that they own their buildings, they also pay property taxes. They globally source their supplies, which means they also pay import taxes. There are a ton of other taxes that a company pays. 4) Tax laws are complex because business is complex. Inflammatory headlines like this serve no purpose whatsoever.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "553ba551de833464c003df753f98f022", "text": "Not sure about the UK, but if it were in the US you need to realize the expenses can be claimed as much as the income. After having a mild heart attack when I did my business taxes the first time many years ago, a Small Business Administration adviser pointed it out. You are running the site from a computer? Deductible on an amortization schedule. Do you work from home? Electricity can be deducted. Do you drive at all? Did you pay yourself a wage? Any paperwork, fax communications, bank fees that you had to endure as work expenses? I am not an accountant, but chances are you legally lost quite a bit more than you made in a new web venture. Discuss it with an accountant for the details and more importantly the laws in your country. I could be off my rocker.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
f9eee0c47bd816dc0561ae2c5ff2a8ba	Side work and managing finances?	[ { "docid": "2501def977a14701dad8252d84a2c649", "text": "\"I have done similar software work. You do not need an LLC to write off business expenses. The income and expenses go on Schedule C of your tax return. It is easy to write off even small expenses such as travel - if you keep records. The income should be reported to you on a 1099 form, filled out by your client, not yourself. For a financial advisor you should find one you can visit with personally and who operates as a \"\"fee-only\"\" advisor. That means they will not try to sell you something that they get a commission on. You might pay a few $hundred per visit. There are taxes that you have to pay (around 15%) due to self-employment income. These taxes are due 4 times a year and paid with an \"\"estimated tax\"\" form. See the IRS web site, and in particular schedule SE. Get yourself educated about this fast and make the estimated tax payments on time so you won't run into penalties at the end of the year.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c93f3024d8d4bde48399c1dabe42032b", "text": "\"I've done various side work over the years -- computer consulting, writing, and I briefly had a video game company -- so I've gone through most of this. Disclaimer: I have never been audited, which may mean that everything I put on my tax forms looked plausible to the IRS and so is probably at least generally right, but it also means that the IRS has never put their stamp of approval on my tax forms. So that said ... 1: You do not need to form an LLC to be able to claim business expenses. Whether you have any expenses or not, you will have to complete a schedule C. On this form are places for expenses in various categories. Note that the categories are the most common type of expenses, there's an \"\"other\"\" space if you have something different. If you have any property that is used both for the business and also for personal use, you must calculate a business use percentage. For example if you bought a new printer and 60% of the time you use it for the business and 40% of the time you use it for personal stuff, then 60% of the cost is tax deductible. In general the IRS expects you to calculate the percentage based on amount of time used for business versus personal, though you are allowed to use other allocation formulas. Like for a printer I think you'd get away with number of pages printed for each. But if the business use is not 100%, you must keep records to justify the percentage. You can't just say, \"\"Oh, I think business use must have been about 3/4 of the time.\"\" You have to have a log where you write down every time you use it and whether it was business or personal. Also, the IRS is very suspicious of business use of cars and computers, because these are things that are readily used for personal purposes. If you own a copper mine and you buy a mine-boring machine, odds are you aren't going to take that home to dig shafts in your backyard. But a computer can easily be used to play video games or send emails to friends and relatives and lots of things that have nothing to do with a business. So if you're going to claim a computer or a car, be prepared to justify it. You can claim office use of your home if you have one or more rooms or designated parts of a room that are used \"\"regularly and exclusively\"\" for business purposes. That is, if you turn the family room into an office, you can claim home office expenses. But if, like me, you sit on the couch to work but at other times you sit on the couch to watch TV, then the space is not used \"\"exclusively\"\" for business purposes. Also, the IRS is very suspicious of home office deductions. I've never tried to claim it. It's legal, just make sure you have all your ducks in a row if you claim it. Skip 2 for the moment. 3: Yes, you must pay taxes on your business income. If you have not created an LLC or a corporation, then your business income is added to your wage income to calculate your taxes. That is, if you made, say, $50,000 salary working for somebody else and $10,000 on your side business, then your total income is $60,000 and that's what you pay taxes on. The total amount you pay in income taxes will be the same regardless of whether 90% came from salary and 10% from the side business or the other way around. The rates are the same, it's just one total number. If the withholding on your regular paycheck is not enough to cover the total taxes that you will have to pay, then you are required by law to pay estimated taxes quarterly to make up the difference. If you don't, you will be required to pay penalties, so you don't want to skip on this. Basically you are supposed to be withholding from yourself and sending this in to the government. It's POSSIBLE that this won't be an issue. If you're used to getting a big refund, and the refund is more than what the tax on your side business will come to, then you might end up still getting a refund, just a smaller one. But you don't want to guess about this. Get the tax forms and figure out the numbers. I think -- and please don't rely on this, check on it -- that the law says that you don't pay a penalty if the total tax that was withheld from your paycheck plus the amount you paid in estimated payments is more than the tax you owed last year. So like lets say that this year -- just to make up some numbers -- your employer withheld $4,000 from your paychecks. At the end of the year you did your taxes and they came to $3,000, so you got a $1,000 refund. This year your employer again withholds $4,000 and you paid $0 in estimated payments. Your total tax on your salary plus your side business comes to $4,500. You owe $500, but you won't have to pay a penalty, because the $4,000 withheld is more than the $3,000 that you owed last year. But if next year you again don't make estimated payment, so you again have $4,000 withheld plus $0 estimated and then you owe $5,000 in taxes, you will have to pay a penalty, because your withholding was less than what you owed last year. To you had paid $500 in estimated payments, you'd be okay. You'd still owe $500, but you wouldn't owe a penalty, because your total payments were more than the previous year's liability. Clear as mud? Don't forget that you probably will also owe state income tax. If you have a local income tax, you'll owe that too. Scott-McP mentioned self-employment tax. You'll owe that, too. Note that self-employment tax is different from income tax. Self employment tax is just social security tax on self-employed people. You're probably used to seeing the 7-whatever-percent it is these days withheld from your paycheck. That's really only half your social security tax, the other half is not shown on your pay stub because it is not subtracted from your salary. If you're self-employed, you have to pay both halves, or about 15%. You file a form SE with your income taxes to declare it. 4: If you pay your quarterly estimated taxes, well the point of \"\"estimated\"\" taxes is that it's supposed to be close to the amount that you will actually owe next April 15. So if you get it at least close, then you shouldn't owe a lot of money in April. (I usually try to arrange my taxes so that I get a modest refund -- don't loan the government a lot of money, but don't owe anything April 15 either.) Once you take care of any business expenses and taxes, what you do with the rest of the money is up to you, right? Though if you're unsure of how to spend it, let me know and I'll send you the address of my kids' colleges and you can donate it to their tuition fund. I think this would be a very worthy and productive use of your money. :-) Back to #2. I just recently acquired a financial advisor. I can't say what a good process for finding one is. This guy is someone who goes to my church and who hijacked me after Bible study one day to make his sales pitch. But I did talk to him about his fees, and what he told me was this: If I have enough money in an investment account, then he gets a commission from the investment company for bringing the business to them, and that's the total compensation he gets from me. That commission comes out of the management fees they charge, and those management fees are in the same ballpark as the fees I was paying for private investment accounts, so basically he is not costing me anything. He's getting his money from the kickbacks. He said that if I had not had enough accumulated assets, he would have had to charge me an hourly fee. I didn't ask how much that was. Whew, hadn't meant to write such a long answer!\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "8753871fa539a3cd8957b1bd8db5b58e", "text": "So, you don't necessarily have to have your job be your life to work in finance. That's good to know, and makes sense, since surely there aren't enough Type A's to populate an entire, large, industry. Man, I don't understand how one could work 100 hours a week for more than maybe one week. It would seem like basic needs such as sleep would become difficult with that level of work.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70b440149f0ea2945f6e0a986e1c361f", "text": "In the current economy there is no upside to working for yourself. Get in a salaried position as soon as you can, and sacrifice to whatever gods you worship that you don't get made redundant. If you're already working for yourself, and wouldn't give it up for anything, hire someone, and get them off the street.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb5a20653a17edd0a4c4b6373ca9ca63", "text": "If commuting is a big budget item, then can you: A side job is one way to make extra money, but I'd suggest a home business. If your wife substitute teaches, I bet she writes fairly well, and in any case you can. Write a personal finance blog or just a site with articles. Focus on surviving and thriving with child(ren) in a one-income Christian household in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Or if you have a hobby that stokes your furnace, write about that. Heck, do both. The content just stays there and gets traffic day after day that you can monetize. My main suggestion would be to start this now because it's not overnight money. But in the long run it can turn into a nice, fairly passive income. The big advantage of this is that mommy gets to stay home with the kids and build up a decent business. The cost is $10/year for the domain (per domain) and maybe $10/month for hosting. Or, if some other legitimate work-at-home business presents itself, go with that. I suggest blogging because it's what I know, but everyone's an expert in something unique.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b7bf351cd2a799c09043b696a6fae8e", "text": "\"I did this a couple of years ago, and boy do I regret it. After many months of delayed, and new faces coming onto the team for a short period before leaving, there wasn't much hope to ever complete the project. I ended up accumulating debt (About 4.5 grand) that I am still paying off because I chased my dream. Unfortunately, anything can happen when you choose to pursue a goal. It can get delayed, stopped, or outright fail. At the bare minimum, you would best be prepared to deal with delays, competing products, and outright failures. If you say \"\"I have enough money to last me 12 months and I expect to take 7 months\"\", then you best be prepared to answer: These are just a handful of ideas, and there are plenty more that would need to be addressed. Probably the best thing that I have seen a few friends do is to ask for reduced hours. Working part time allows you more time while reducing, but not eliminating, the pay. Even better is that depending on your company, you could ask to go back to full time if your startup didn't work out. Another option is to do what I'm doing currently: Find a job with lots of downtime. My job is critical and the market here is starved of good techs. Even then, I have a solid 2-4 hours of work each day. The other 4-6 hours I can spend on my personal projects that may eventually lead into a startup. If you plan to do this though, make sure to read your agreements carefully. There may be restrictions on copyright and the likes by working on a personal project on company property. If you do plan to go this route, you might want to consult a lawyer (like I did) to make sure you won't get screwed later.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca7d8dfd97eb2966bce100d8c393e62e", "text": "You should be receiving monthly P&L statements at the very least. Who did you have filing taxes, doing payroll, performing audits? It seems that many restaurants and bars have a slippery cash issue where profits seem to just slide out the doors. Everyone touching cash might be skimming and if the manager is doing all the totals and reconciling the tills and filing taxes then that single point of failure is going to KILL you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4336435e2c2a2afe95151e911afbb5f", "text": "Read the game of numbers by nick Murray. You have to find money to call yourself a money manager and most of the job is sales. You won't stay in business if you're bad at managing it, but step #1 is finding something to manage. Hani", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5183bbab5aeab7826f11c6ca20470d98", "text": "Thanks for the feedback. What area of finance are you currently in? I've heard that RMI jobs are in demand right now as well, and I feel like that coupled with a background in computer science could really help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a2a765a7cfc832278978c121597cd18", "text": "Running a sandwich shop and, say, a software consulting service are quite different things. I had two employees at one point, following the kind of thinking in the article. But I found what that meant was that I had to spend more time being a manager and salesperson and much less time doing the work I enjoyed. To make it viable I would have had to scale up to the point where I had at least one salesperson and maybe a manager, which would have required more income-producing staff to support them. Instead, I scaled back to just myself, and have been very happy with that decision. The article also underestimates what can be made in consulting or IT contracting. Rates well above $100/hr are common for people with expertise (as opposed to commodity providers), and billing at least 40 hours a week is not usually a problem. It's certainly true that a one-man operation is much more likely to put a ceiling on your earnings, but (a) that ceiling can be a lot higher than the article suggests, and (b) depending on the business, breaking that ceiling and earning much more is certainly possible in some businesses, for example where you have the opportunity to sell your work in product form rather than hourly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97981d763eaf2dd7462318854e27a4e7", "text": "Hey, not really related, but could I ask you some questions through PM? I'm a rising junior majoring in finance and minoring in stats with interests in corporate banking/credit risk, but I'm really interested in the buy-side work you do/your dealflow experience/industry expertise/analyst experience before Associate", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1aeb7f4002099cbc82dbdf8af140fe4a", "text": "\"Here's another perspective - I work in FP&A at a large Chicago bank. I originally was interested in treasury, but here it is mostly cash management/reserve requirements/etc. - not really my cup of tea. A lot of our M&A activity and fundraising roles are held by former I-Bankers. It might be hard to make it into that role. I don't have any \"\"Accounting Functions\"\" - the accounting teams do that. While I am involved in planning and forecasting, I also provide a lot of strategic analysis on projects and ad-hoc/pro-forma reporting. Here, FP&A is more the voice of the financial function in strategic decision making. One other piece of advice - see if you can talk to some people on the team and see what their day-to-day is like. If you're interested in FP&A in the true sense and not accounting/GLs, try looking for a larger firm.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3da0cd1c67d1c4cc43b2d6c2096f217", "text": "Not sure why you're posting in r/finance; did you meant to post in /r/PersonalFinances ? Or /r/financialindependence ? Anyway, I'll play. There are 3 ways you can go about it, make it 4: 1. Commercial: find yourself a job/career that you'd do it for free. I once met a guy who was in your similar situation and he had a hot dog stand in the hearth of the financial district of a large US city; he did it for the fun and to be social. He'd be there only when the Stock Market was open and if the weather was good. You could also develop a more challenging career for the satisfaction of it: writer, artists, craftsman.... You could go back to school, or take an online class, or do an online degree for the pure satisfaction of it all 2. Start a company. Similar to #1 above, but this this 100% entrepreneurial. It could be just yourself, or enlist the help of the wife; full time or part time. This again, follow your passion; since you're set financially it should not that difficult to break even. With time you could grow and hire people, but that increase the complexity and you might find yourself managing the business and not actually getting the satisfaction of doing what you had set to do. 3. Volunteer: find a non profit whose mission aligns with your values, and volunteer there; 1 or a couple of organizations; if you're up to it with time you could climb up the ranks ... 4. Mentoring: there are a lot of people who dream about being in your situation. I am sure it was not luck but hard work as well. You could become a blogger, write a book (in your name or anonymously); or mentor directly someone, reddit and a web site is a good marketing start. If you have enough money (accredited investor) you could become an angel investor, or join an angel consortium to help people with your background to make something out of themselves. 5. A combination of 2 or more from the above.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f058c4857630cac998ee4000cdf51dd2", "text": "it is not a creative career. you don't make anything, you serve your purpose in the economy ofcourse, and it is interesting to be surrounded and in the middle of business like this...but at the end of the day, you sell a service that anyone else can do, and your clients, the businesses, are the actual smart ones. they are the ones that make something and make real decisions. in finance you just trade, or research, or sell your investment banking services...its pretty bs, you leach of what actual creative people are doing. unless you are at a buy side shop, and high up, but then you would be incredibly intelligent and lucky. that all being said, i have no regrets choosing finance, it is still a great career, and any job gets boring after a bit. i wish i worked in a different area of finance yes, but every area you need to start as someones bitch for a few years, and I'm not sure if I can do that again. More math education always helps in finance", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ced8bdf8dd9ea79f75c2faf73ca36f9", "text": "Happy to help. I always recommend you try and solve these types of problems by hand over financial calculators so that you can get a feel for how terms in the equation relate to one another. That's important while you're studying/learning. But for work--by all means you should use the fastest method, which is probably excel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d628afa3834e34ce20884705a088e800", "text": "Yeah, I suppose that's true - and not just in finance but smaller companies in general. I think I might have a good gig right now where I can try my hand on both things. It's a bit tied to one IT system though (Misys Summit) but I guess a lot the skills are transferable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "904291c8790bd890b5644dd82a6e17d8", "text": "Your problem is one that has challenged many people. As you said there are two aspects to balancing a budget, reducing expenses or increasing income. And you state that you have done all the cost-cutting that you can find. Looking at ways to increase your income is a good way to balance your budget. How big is your problem? Do you need to find another $100/month, or do you need $1000/month? There are many part-time jobs you could obtain (fast food, retail, grocery), you could obtain a sales-job (cars, real estate, even working for a recruiting firm) where you could connect buyers and sellers. If your need is $100/month, a part-time job on weekends would fill the gap. When I was trying to solve my budget problems a few years ago, I thought that I needed to increase my income. And I did increase my income. But then I realized that my expenses were too high. And I re-evaluated my priorities. I challenge you to revisit your expenses. Often we assume that we need things that we really cannot afford. Consider a few of your (possible) expenses, My problems included mortgage debt, auto loans, high utilities, high car insurance, too much spending on kids activities, and a few other problems.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
460c4ce11db1568cba081022f1e31d83	What happens when PayPal overdrafts a checking account (with an ample backup funding source available)?	[ { "docid": "31748a9d3c9acbd7ecd84088aa552479", "text": "You should check directly with the seller. I suspect you will find they have not recieved any money. Paypal tend to hang on to money as long as possible in all transactions, and will do anything to avoid giving out cash before it has come in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb9b830ba43c5a42c6f41b9e1714634b", "text": "PayPal will be contacting you shortly, I'm sure. You'll see the reversal on their site in a few days as well as a fee from their end I bet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f37161273d28eaa14946bf84ac9c41c", "text": "\"I made this mistake and tried calling Paypal...the first time I have ever been unhappy with their service. The girl gave me some number but didn't make it clear whether it was an order reference number or a reference phone number for the company I ordered from. I called within 10 minutes of placing my order and they were unable to cancel or change the payment method. I did find however, that even though you can't pay paypal with your credit card, some banks will let you. I went into my account and \"\"paid\"\" my account the amount needed using my credit card from the same bank that I had intended to use in the first place...hopefully it went through quickly enough to not get a service fee from Paypal\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "048a197e1f19c8e5bbb16b6dc3812080", "text": "I never understood why anyone would overdraft their checking account, until a conversation with a bank teller recently who told me that most young folks these days don't bother to balance their checkbooks anymore or to even bother with a checkbook at all -- they just check their available balance to see how much is in their checking account (totally ignoring any checks or other charges that may have been made against their account but have not yet been debited). It's hard to believe that young people can be that stupid, but apparently some are.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "625b4ac57726954c615a0f324b509988", "text": "There are several red flags here. can they get my bank account info in any way from me transferring money to them? Probably yes. Almost all bank transactions are auditable, and intentionally cause a money track. This track can be followed from both sides. If they can use your bank account as if they were you, that is a bit deeper than what you are asking, but yes they (and the polish cops) can find you through that transfer. I did look up the company and didn't find any scam or complaints concerning them. Not finding scams or complains is good, but what did you find? Did you find good reviews, the company website, its register, etc, etc? How far back does the website goes (try the wayback machine) Making a cardboard front company is very easy, and if they are into identity theft the company is under some guy in guam that never heard of poland or paypal. As @Andrew said above, it is probably a scam. I'd add that this scam leverages on the how easier is to get a PayPal refund compared to a regular bank transfer. It is almost impossible to get the money back on an international transaction. Usually reverting a bank transfer requires the agreement in writing of the receiver and of both banks. As for paypal, just a dispute from the other user: You are responsible for all Reversals, Chargebacks, fees, fines, penalties and other liability incurred by PayPal, a PayPal User, or a third party caused by your use of the Services and/or arising from your breach of this Agreement. You agree to reimburse PayPal, a User, or a third party for any and all such liability. (source) Also, you might be violating the TOS: Allow your use of the Service to present to PayPal a risk of non-compliance with PayPal’s anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing and similar regulatory obligations (including, without limitation, where we cannot verify your identity or you fail to complete the steps to lift your sending, receiving or withdrawal limit in accordance with sections 3.3, 4.1 and 6.3 or where you expose PayPal to the risk of any regulatory fines by European, US or other authorities for processing your transactions); (emphasis mine, source) So even if the PayPal transfer is not disputed, how can you be sure you are not laundering money? Are you being paid well enough to assume that risk?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41b1dc88dca2576c9ddf6131b6f7343f", "text": "\"As the other answers stated: Yes PayPal will transfer money from your bankaccount automatically if your PayPal balance isn't sufficient. Let's add some proof to the story: (Note, I am in the EU, specifically the Netherlands, situation might be different in other parts of the world) If I login to PayPal and go to my wallet, I have a section that looks like this: If I click on it, I am presented with a screen with details about the connection. Note the \"\"Direct debit instruction\"\". If I click on the \"\"view\"\" link I am presented with the following text (emphasis mine): [snip some arbitrary personal details] This authorisation allows (A) PayPal to send instructions to your bank account and (B) your bank to debit your account in accordance with the instructions from PayPal. As part of your rights, you are entitled to a refund from your bank under the Terms and Conditions of your agreement with your bank. A refund must be claimed within 8 weeks starting from the date on which your account was debited. Your rights are explained in a statement that you can obtain from your bank. Below this text is a button to delete the authorization.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46275c177deeb601b7d56a1afda66b34", "text": "\"This is based on my experience with Chase and may not be applicable to other banks. As you mentioned Chase as one of the banks you do business with hopefully this will be helpful to you. The money does come out of your account immediately. If the check isn't cashed in a certain amount of time, the check expires and you get the money credited back to your account. Once you have made a bill payment online you can check on the status of your check by looking at your payment activity, finding the payment in question, and following the \"\"proof of payment\"\" link. There is will provide you with information on your payment which you can submit to your payee to prove when you submitted the payment, and which they can use to verify with the bank that you really did send the payment as you claimed. Once the check is cashed, this page will also contain images of the front and back of the cashed check, so you can prove that the recipient really did cash it. You can see from this info that the check is being funded from a different account number than your own, which is good for security purposes since (per Knuth, 2008) giving someone else your bank routing number and account number as found on your personal checks basically provides them with all they need to (fraudulently, of course) clean out your account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95f2f611920c54d8dff0a27016ba995b", "text": "Can a third party deposit to my account? (Say I'm selling something and I ask him/her to just deposit the payment to my account? No, but PayPal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cdc0cbcd30799904fff3857fb4579d78", "text": "\"Insufficient funds will cause a check to bounce. If there is evidence that you \"\"kited\"\" the check deliberately, that's a potential fraud charge. If the vendor accepts that you were just stupid/careless, you'll probably just have to pay a penalty processing fee in addition to making good the payment. It is your responsibility to track your account balance and not write bad checks. If the timing could be bad, don't write the check yet. If you insist on paying with money you may not have, talk to your bank about setting up overdrafts to draw from another account, or automatic overdraft loans... or use a credit card rather than paying by check.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b722f7ab18aa74ea0ca2f4cbd589dfb", "text": "Of course its possible. Under what terms and with what fees depends on your bank/country regulations, but generally speaking - loaning is the major source of income for banks, especially short-term account overdrafts (which is essentially a loan, usually at a high rate). In the US you can (now, since the new regulations kicked in) instruct the bank not to pay checks/decline debit card purchases if you don't have sufficient funds on the account. Otherwise you can instruct them to pay (at their discretion) to avoid bouncing checks, and accept NSF fees (usually pretty high). Some banks provide overdraft lines of credit (then you won't have NSF fees, and will just pay interest when tapping into that line), others provide option to automatically withdraw the missing amount from a linked account (checking or credit card).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6062d1d56fd7a847048feadf670efed", "text": "I think part of the reason people overdraft is because the online banking app/website doesn't show a true indication of your account balance. I've had mine (at Bank of America) adjust to $30 less than it told me I had when I checked due to processing payments being altered.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ade9e9453e39272b378323c795f6e9a8", "text": "The initial story sounds normal. Happens every day. Checksums cannot prevent this, since it is a typo by the sender. The sender typed in a wrong account number. That account number happened to exist (so the sender wouldn't get any immediate error message), your account. But, that innocent story can also be used as part of a money laundering plan. Namely, to give the money a legitimate source. Also can be used in a scheme to frame you for something. The question of how the person got your phone number raises suspicion. The bluffs to avoid the normal paperwork, and then disappearing, make it incriminating. No doubt. Take this to the police. The question arises: even if the plan (whatever it was) failed, why didn't he do the paperwork and get the money back? The answer is that that would leave a trail to possibly be picked up in a future investigation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e09675eb1b11e2d356c5e98f69dfd519", "text": "\"Your broker will charge you commissions and debit interest on your \"\"overdraft\"\" of $30,000. However it is very likely that your contract with the broker also contains a rehypothecation clause which allows your broker to use your assets. Typically, with a debt of $30,000, they would probably be entitled to use $45-60,000 of your stocks. In short, that means that they would be allowed to \"\"borrow\"\" the stocks you just bought from your account and either lend them to other clients or pledge them as collateral with a bank and receive interest. In both cases they will make money with your stocks. See for example clause #14 of this typical broker's client agreement. Applied to your example: In other words they will make $60 + $450 + $1,800 = $2,310 the first year. If the stock is expensive to borrow and they manage to lend it, they will make a lot more. There are by the way a few important consequences:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c8994eda8bc5560355d5e4bd03d5914", "text": "\"The whole concept of \"\"spending a fraudulent check\"\" is misleading. Both in practice and legally there are two separate transactions - you (not) receiving funds by depositing a fraudulent check, and you sending a cash transfer further on. Regarding the fraudulent check, generally your bank is 'responsible' in the sense that it's their responsibility to recover the money from you - it will not receive any money from the bank that supposedly issued the fake check, and if they give it to you, you spend all that money and are unable to pay it back, that's their problem and not of the other institutions. Regarding the cash transfer, from the bank point of view it's solely your responsibility - it was really you who made that payment, you explicitly authorised/instructed the banks to deliver money to the recipient, and none of those banks have the duty to return it. You have been defrauded by the recipient of this payment, and may attempt to recover the money from the fraudster - but that's not particularly likely to happen even in the case of a successful arrest and conviction. Very fast reaction with involvement of police may block the \"\"vendor's\"\" account before they are able to withdraw the money. If that is the case, you might be able to recover your money or part of it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1aac6eba5fa292c4d798a14ff58e8758", "text": "\"When I deposit my paycheck in CapOne I have an email before I am out of the app that they received my check. I have access to some portion of the cash now and the rest the next business day, however they put things in order to NOT overdraft me. For instance, if I am overdrawn $150 but the charge is \"\"pending\"\", putting the check in they will deposit the check before posting the charge that would overdraft me. Plus I can use Apple Pay with it. My local CUs have app deposit, but it takes DAYS for a deposit to just show up. Plus, no Apple Pay.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee00fcd08011a8bc19f48b4fee0f010c", "text": "\"My sister, who is in her mid twenties and not the most financially responsible kept telling me that the bank was doing \"\"weird shit\"\". I looked at her statements and noticed something else wells fargo does. She has a checking account that has a ten or fifteen dollar monthly fee. If her account ever got near that number or in the negative that is when that fee would be charged. So basically instead of charging that fee at the same time every month they would wait till that charge would cause an overdraft which would spark a $35 dollar fee. Yes I also proved that they are still reordering. I told her to save all her receipts for one month. Her account was at $50. She made a five dollar food purchase, and several other small purchases and then had to pay a small bill that took her over. Via the receipts it was easy to see that all the other small purchases were done two to three days ahead of the one that actually over drafted her. Which cost her almost $200 in overdraft fees. She is actually not that bad with money, she works 40 hours a week but she just does not make enough to live on and this kind of practice puts her in a hole over and over again.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "759d03a7648458750b610f6759244394", "text": "\"BoA used to do this too (probably still do). I opened an account at BoA and got low one month, and then a friend of mine cashed a $50 check that I'd given him months prior (that he said he would never cash because \"\"your money is no good here\"\"). That freaking $50 check cost me hundreds of dollars. They charged me the overdraft fee, a bounced check fee, and then ran the fucking thing through again to see if it would cash when they knew it wouldn't, so I ended up with all the fees doubled! I closed my account after that, and 2 months later, I got a notice that my account had a negative balance of more than $100 because they had charged me the monthly fee for the checking account after I closed it, and since the account was empty... buttfuckbybankapalooza.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc730f98db6f12a5b86cfb47010b49ff", "text": "\"Lol, wtf kind of question is this? First off, there is no single \"\"derivatives market\"\". There's listed derivatives (ETD's) and OTC. Then you can break each of those broad markets down into forwards, futures, options (includes all exotics such as binaries, single barriers, double barriers, one touches, double no touches, knock ins, knock outs, reverse knock ins, reverse knock outs, window barriers, etc), and swaps (including swaptions). All of these are product specific (FX, FI, Credit, Equities, Commodities, etc).... so its more appropriate to look at derivatives with respect to the market they are in rather than all derivatives across all markets. Now to your question... your question makes absolutely no sense. Are you wondering what the daily volume is? Notional outstanding? Total exposure?\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
80592674a995d60d29c5b6a9625cdec5	Moonlighting as a software developer: employee or independent contractor w/ LLC?	[ { "docid": "ef325af95e1dfafaa8396f9a31045429", "text": "\"I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were \"\"sunk\"\" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations:\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "d5a2c50b5203029f48d9b4038438591b", "text": "Yes. I have personally signed such contracts (fixed budget software development) and lost money every single time. And yes, it is quite possible for you to get paid under minimum wage if you take too long. Scope creep is the primary culprit for these kinds of contracts, so make sure you put together iron-clad explanations of what is and is not covered by the contract (and pad the asking price for good measure).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e99da3dcb69407b14e31d57a876e9de", "text": "\"Yea. Almost every form I fill out wants to know \"\"Employer Name\"\". They don't even bother checking \"\"Are you Self Employed\"\". Of course, I end up writing \"\"Self Employed\"\" in employer name field anyway. In the United States, it is even harder because EVERY state has their own labor and employment laws. You are a freelancer but what if you need to travel to a client site in a different state. Bam, you gotta file taxes for that state as well even if you made like a few hundred bucks. Too much red tape and it is really hard to change.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6944f9c0b50e5048b10f8ec9bfc045df", "text": "Software Contractors are not employees of the company that is procuring the software. Software Contractors necessarily work for another legal business entity. There is a business to business relationship between the procurer of the software and the entity producing the software. Therefore, the company procuring the software is not required to pay a minimum wage, or adhere to any other employment law. When any individual or company orders a software product and agrees to pay for it, that is a fixed priced contract. This happens millions of times a day. The amount of time taken to produce the software has no direct bearing on price. For instance, there is no minimum price for Microsoft Word based on the number of hours taken to produce it. Generally a Software Contractor will be a director and shareholder of a limited liability corporation. Directors are exempt from the standard protection offered under employment law. If the company producing the software was employing non-directors to produce the software, rather than sub-contracting to another business then employment law would apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8faf102c4cceb0254f9731411e2413c0", "text": "If the firm treats you as an employee then they are treated as having a place of business in the UK and therefore are obliged to operate PAYE on your behalf - this rule has applied to EU States since 2010 and the non-EU EEA members, including Switzerland, since 2012. If you are not an employee then your main options are: An umbrella company would basically bill the client on your behalf and pay you net of taxes and NI. You potentially take home a bit less than you would being 100% independent but it's a lot less hassle and potentially makes sense for a small contract.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9af7bc5f7852658ba815630c125902db", "text": "\"I made a throwaway for this... I work in IT for the government. I was tasked with finding a vendor that provided a particular kind of software. My bosses expected it would take me 4-6 months to source out companies, go through all the paperwork and process to work with them, try to get them to understand what we need, and them aid them in implementing their software on our stack. Well, that seemed like an enormous waste of time (and ridiculously boring), so instead I wrote the software on my own time over the course of 4 months, built a subscription model around it, and incorporated a company. I've since sold the subscription based model to a number of other government bodies and clients. The government body I work for has around 250 employees, and I recently sold a subscription to a peer government body with over 1500 employees. I built a free subscription tier that my current company uses so that i'm not taking any payment from them, to avoid any conflicts of interest, and built the entire project on my own time and resources. The funny thing is, the software product I built easily beat out all the competitors in blind tests, and no one that I work for could ever imagine that I am capable of even being employed by such a company, forget building the whole stack and founding the company. In fact, all of upper management has been impressed with the software I \"\"found\"\", and how well it has worked... there has been a ton of positive feedback on it since it was launched. I'm basically just sitting on this project (that is mostly self sustaining), until I can just cash out - which should be quite soon. Edit to the people warning me what i'm doing is illegal, a few key points - 1) The public sector can't legally profit from anything, my job is to limit cost, not make a profit... which leads to... - 2) I'm not charging the government body I work for, it's a free implementation devoid of contract. I also ensured I do all the work on my own time, not company time. I live somewhere where most government employees work multiple jobs, so this isn't uncommon. In fact, my government body actually does often hire contractors who are also employed. So not only did I create the service on my own time, I gave it to my employer for free (other companies pay, of course) - 3) I don't live in the US, things are different where I am. It is certainly not illegal, and I would even argue that (given this is the public sector) it is even somewhat ethical. My work saved my employer (the tax payer) a significant amount of money, which is a net positive. The service is of high quality, and I did not break any employment agreements or laws in the process. - 4) I hired a lawyer to double check everything. - 5) I absolutely am not in any way using any proprietary information for profit. I'm not even using my contacts through work as leverage for sales - everything so far has been cold calls and positive references from other clients. This was a key part of the project.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e00c1083e5d0f95b58bbdb1a5f44a75", "text": "\"An unmarried person with a total U.S.-sourced earned income under $ 37,000 during the year 2016 is likely to owe: If the original poster is not an \"\"independent contractor\"\", and is not \"\"billing corp-to-corp\"\" then: In summary: References:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f039b8bf09ec32891f0466248f7bbe50", "text": "The reality is that for labor is cheap for software startups. A couple of founders can usually take a prototype to the point where they can get the seed capital to hire labor at market rates, so why would they give up significant equity to employees? Plus, if they need cheap employees, there are always contractors and naive new grads who will gladly take below-market salary for 0.1% of the company. (in options, vested over four years, of course)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7beb296a45b2f6718fda648042db802f", "text": "\"Your comment to James is telling and can help us lead you in the right direction: My work and lifestyle will be the same either way, as I said. This is all about how it goes \"\"on the books.\"\" [emphasis mine] As an independent consultant myself, when I hear something like \"\"the work will be the same either way\"\", I think: \"\"Here thar be dragons!\"\". Let me explain: If you go the independent contractor route, then you better act like one. The IRS (and the CRA, for Canadians) doesn't take lightly to people claiming to be independent contractors when they operate in fact like employees. Since you're not going to be behaving any different whether you are an employee or a contractor, (and assuming you'll be acting more like an employee, i.e. exclusive, etc.), then the IRS may later make a determination that you are in fact an employee, even if you choose to go \"\"on the books\"\" as an independent contractor. If that happens, then you may find yourself retroactively denied many tax benefits you'd have claimed; and owe penalties and interest too. Furthermore, your employer may be liable for additional withholding taxes, benefits, etc. after such a finding. So for those reasons, you should consider being an employee. You will avoid the potential headache I outlined above, as well as the additional paperwork etc. of being a contractor. If on the other hand you had said you wanted to maintain some flexibility to moonlight with other clients, build your own product on the side, choose what projects you work on (or don't), maybe hire subcontractors, etc. then I'd have supported the independent contractor idea. But, just on the basis of the tax characteristics only I'd say forget about it. On the financial side, I can tell you that I wouldn't have become a consultant if not for the ability to make more money in gross terms (i.e. before tax and expenses.) That is: your top line revenues ought to be higher in order to be able to offset many of the additional expenses you'd incur as an independent. IMHO, the tax benefits alone wouldn't make up for the difference. One final thing to look at is Form SS-8 mentioned at the IRS link below. If you're not sure what status to choose, the IRS can actually help you. But be prepared to wait... and wait... :-/ Additional Resources:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ceefd9186fbe63a649c1b841cd61d71d", "text": "It makes no difference for tax purposes. If you are 1099, you will pay the same amount of taxes as if you formed a corporation and then paid yourself (essentially you are doing this as a 1099 contractor, just not formally). Legally, I don't know the answer. I would assume you have some legal protections by forming an LLC but practically I think this won't make any difference if you get sued.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0cc9f29299b97f983d66979dc8a38088", "text": "Are you talking about domicile? An LLC is treated differently than a corporation in the terms of citizenship of the law. An LLC is a citizen of whichever state it's members (shareholders) are citizens. I would recommend you just spend the money on a business attorney to ensure that all the t's are crossed correctly so it doesn't end up costing you more later on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd1b696673c652e6a1cf4604b7cb0acb", "text": "I had an internship and they hired me afterwards. Honestly sounded like a good way to break in. I also learned a whole new language for the internship and wanted to continue using it instead of any of the languages taught in school. Not sure if the company would be considered good or bad. I ended up being solo for a long time but also building three applications ground up. I felt like I was improving a lot, especially on projects they gave me lots of leeway on because they were low priority (they just wanted features, no emergency bug tickets, etc). But no peers for most of my work and all the software was privately made and privately licensed/sold. I also had difficulties leaving because I'm an idiot. With no backup me leaving basically meant they would be fucked, and they were my only reference. I was fine taking that salary because I had zero experience (no job. Ever. Not even volunteering. My mother wouldn't let me because of snobbiness), however once I was more valuable to this company and they even praised me for it in the assessments -- they gave out 2% raises. Later my bonuses decreased as my hours and responsibilities increased, too. I asked to be taken off the stressful project, thinking I could salvage this, and they hired a replacement for me to train 3 months later. I got the high leeway project again for 6 months and my job satisfaction was phenomenal by comparison so i stayed. However, then my replacement was fired... So they asked me as a favour to work on the stressful project again and said they would replace me in a month and a half. They didn't. I worked on it for 8 months, I kept asking about it too. Their job posting was also terrible and they roped me in on it at the end and I gained the responsibility of recruiting and vetting (yay for that one actually...). We hired another replacement for me, I trained them too, and left immediately. Actually I regret staying there as long as I did. They gaslit me and I shouldn't have tried to make up for their incompetence. They actually made me a contractor at the end so I was getting paid half of what I originally was. Before I left I asked for a competitive raise and the company owner basically lied about details and tried to tell me what a fuss I was trying to talk about my happiness and what I want once a year... It was surreal but they agreed to bump my pay in the end. However, I was furious by their treatment and reply (which BTW came after I 'suddenly did not show up' despite bolding and clearly stating I would cease work with them and informing the people I worked with on the last day that I heard nothing back from the owner about a new/extended contract), so I said no. I don't know how to negotiate. I am too humble. Selling oneself or seeing someone sell themselves makes me physically uncomfortable. It is completely unnatural, and sets off my bullshit alarms. Actually I seem to have some PTSD from that job, now, too...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "559b05e48a817e0e9841d2cc181a9a71", "text": "\"You are confusing entirely unrelated things. First the \"\"profit distribution\"\" issue with Bob's S-Corp which is in fact tax evasion and will probably trigger a very nasty audit. Generally, if you're the sole employee of your own S-Corp, and the whole S-Corp income is from your own personal services, as defined by the IRS - there's no profit there. All the net income from such a S-Corp is subject to SE tax, either through payroll or through your K-1. Claiming anything else would be lying and IRS is notorious for going after people doing that. Second - the reclassification issue. The reason employers classify employees as contractors is to avoid payroll taxes (which the IRS gets through Bob's S-Corp, so it doesn't care) and providing benefits (that is Bob's problem, not the IRS). So in the scenario above, the IRS wouldn't care whose employee Bob is since Bob's S-Corp would have to pay all the same payroll taxes. The reclassification is an issue when employees are abused. See examples of Fedex drivers, where they're classified as contractors and are not getting any benefits, spend their own money on the truck and maintenance, etc. The employees are the ones who sued for reclassification, but in this case the IRS would be interested as well since a huge chunk of payroll taxes was not paid (driver's net is after car maintenance and payments, not before as it would be if he was salaried). So in your scenario reclassification is not as much a concern to Bob as his tax evasion scheme claiming earnings from performing personal services as \"\"profits from S-Corp\"\". A precedent to look at, as I mentioned elsewhere, would be the Watson v Commissioner case.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce7f4a7b972e08489a6a8c630a90ded1", "text": "\"Am I on crack, or do the perceived tax savings via S-Corp distributions really not matter at a certain level of business income? You're not on crack. Generally, if all the income is generated by your own personal services - this is the outcome. The benefit of S-Corp is when you have employees who generate your income, and you distribute to yourself profits that come out of other's personal services. In this case your distributions are exempt from FICA since it is not in fact a self-employment income. You'd still have to pay yourself a reasonable salary for your position (as a manager/officer), but it wouldn't have to cover all of the available profits. So if the IRS takes a position against you it would be that your salary should be to include the whole profits, since it is the compensation to you for the personal services that produced the income to the corporation (you). In many cases they might agree that a salary at the SS maximum limit would be reasonable - but that's only a speculation of mine. In that case you might gain some portion of the medicare tax (with the recent law changes at the levels you're talking about you'll pay some medicare anyway). There are a lot of accountants who take more aggressive position saying that not all of the distributions are liable for SE taxes, even if you're the sole employee of the corporation. These cases often end up in the Tax Court, and whatever the outcome, your legal fees become higher than the FICA savings. What is probably missing in your picture is the SS limit of (currently $112K) above which you don't pay social security tax, so whether you get it as a salary or as a distribution - that limit is the same. That is why you don't see a significant difference. I know there are a lot of accountants who'd disagree, but I would argue that for a sole employee of your company, S-Corp doesn't provide significant benefits over the disregarded LLC taxation, but has some additional overhead that adds to your expenses. Here's a link to a lawyer's blog where he suggests (and says many accountants follow) 60/40 division between salary and distributions. I.e.: his take, similarly to mine, is that most of the earnings have to be treated as salary. In your case, when the total is about 300K - you indeed will not get any FICA savings with such a division other than some of the medicare. Unusually low wages when compared to distributions can draw unwanted IRS scrutiny and an audit. An unfavorable audit will likely result in some portion of the distributions being reclassified as earned income for federal income tax purposes, which results in a deficiency assessment (i.e., a tax bill), interest on those unpaid taxes, and IRS penalties. The article also talks about the Watson case (one of the Tax Court cases I referred to), which can be used as the guidelines for determining the \"\"reasonable\"\" compensation. Talk to your tax adviser. I'm neither a tax adviser nor a tax professional. For a tax advice contact a CPA/EA licensed in your state. This is not a tax advice, just my personal opinion.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d5db709426ecd7f9d7fbe0d9e7ed547", "text": "They believe that it reduces the risk that Revenue Canada will deem you to be an employee and make them pay a whole pile of tax, EI, CPP and so on that should have been paid if you had been hired as an employee. It's my recollection that the employer gets dinged for both the employee and employer share of those withholdings (and generally the employer's share is larger than yours) so they really want to prevent it. There's a Revenue Canada publication about whether you're an employee or not. There's nothing on it about being incorporated, but still employers feel more protected when their contracts are incorporated. We did work as a sole proprietorship at the very beginning, so that we could deduct our losses against employment income earned earlier in the year, before we started the business. You can find clients who will take you on. We incorporated once the losses were over with (basically we had bought the equipment and office supplies we needed to get started.) It's a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, and gives clients a sense of protection. It won't protect you from your own poor decisions since you'll be a director of the firm.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "077e69dfbbb8d8112c446114db179a4c", "text": "As a nonresident sole proprietor or partnership You are not a sole proprietor or a member of a legal partnership. You are an employee for a corporation. Does the nature of your work require you to be present in New York regularly? If you are in New York for personal reasons, you are simply telecommuting. You must pay taxes personally for your W-2 income, but your business entity never moved from Wyoming. If this were not true, companies would have to pay corporate income tax to every state in which they have a telecommuter. For example, I live in Florida but telecommute to a company in Michigan. Does my employer pay Florida business tax? Of course not. Your business would only owe New York if the nature of the business requires a consistent and regular business presence in New York, such as maintaining an office for a portion of every year so clients could see you.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
a44f98a0b1a001917415fe82cd7b0445	W-8BEN? What's the tax from selling my software to a U.S. company, from abroad?	[ { "docid": "115d0a051dd222f63829ad5e3d860058", "text": "You should not form a company in the U.S. simply to get the identification number required for a W-8BEN form. By establishing a U.S.-based company, you'd be signing yourself up for a lot of additional hassle! You don't need that. You're a European business, not a U.S. business. Selling into the U.S. does not require you to have a U.S. company. (You may want to consider what form of business you ought to have in your home country, however.) Anyway, to address your immediate concern, you should just get an EIN only. See businessready.ca - what is a W8-BEN?. Quote: [...] There are other reasons to fill out the W8-BEN but for most of you it is to make sure they don’t hold back 30% of your payment which, for a small company, is a big deal. [...] How do I get one of these EIN US taxpayer identification numbers? EIN stands for Employer Identification Number and is your permanent number and can be used for most of your business needs (e.g. applying for business licenses, filing taxes when applicable, etc). You can apply by filling out the Form SS-4 but the easier, preferred way is online. However, I also found at IRS.gov - Online EIN: Frequently Asked Questions the following relevant tidbit: Q. Are any entity types excluded from applying for an EIN over the Internet? A. [...] If you were incorporated outside of the United States or the U.S. territories, you cannot apply for an EIN online. Please call us at (267) 941-1099 (this is not a toll free number) between the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So, I suggest you call the IRS and describe your situation: You are a European-based business (sole proprietor?) selling products to a U.S.-based client and would like to request an EIN so you can supply your client with a W-8BEN. The IRS should be able to advise you of the correct course of action. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Consider seeking professional advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8b09ee2638ceb7294e3fcb01aaeee55", "text": "I realize this is a stale topic, but to anybody who may swing by looking for an answer to this question (on the recently revised W-8BEN), a foreign taxpayer can get an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) without being resident in the US. However, an ITIN will often not be necessary for W-8BEN purposes if you have a tax number from your local jurisdiction. Check the Form W-8BEN instructions for your specific situation, but some taxpayers will need neither a US-issued ITIN nor a foreign-issued TIN. Forming a Delaware or Nevada LLC would be expensive and generally subject to federal and state tax and filing obligations. It would also moot the need for a W-8BEN, which only applies to foreign taxpayers; the equivalent form for domestic taxpayers is Form W-9.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "e4a96168ebf9048f2eaba2e0c6ff53fc", "text": "\"As you said, in the US LLC is (usually, unless you elect otherwise) not a separate tax entity. As such, the question \"\"Does a US LLC owned by a non-resident alien have to pay US taxes\"\" has no meaning. A US LLC, regardless of who owns it, doesn't pay US income taxes. States are different. Some States do tax LLCs (for example, California), so if you intend to operate in such a State - you need to verify that the extra tax the LLC would pay on top of your personal tax is worth it for you. As I mentioned in the comment, you need to check your decision making very carefully. LLC you create in the US may or may not be recognized as a separate legal/tax entity in your home country. So while you neither gain nor lose anything in the US (since the LLC is transparent tax wise), you may get hit by extra taxes at home if they see the LLC as a non-transparent corporate entity. Also, keep in mind that the liability protection by the LLC usually doesn't cover your own misdeeds. So if you sell products of your own work, the LLC may end up being completely worthless and will only add complexity to your business. I suggest you check all these with a reputable attorney. Not one whose business is to set up LLCs, these are going to tell you anything you want to hear as long as you hire them to do their thing. Talk to one who will not benefit from your decision either way and can provide an unbiased advice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "682533ea6458ceb27586506887e053bb", "text": "Since you're a US citizen, submitting W8-BEN was wrong. If you read the form carefully, when you signed it you certified that you are not a US citizen, which is a lie and you knew it. W9 and W8 are mutually exclusive. You're either a US person for tax purposes or you're not, you cannot be both. As a US citizen - you are a US person for tax purposes, whether you have any other citizenship or not, and whether you live in (or have ever been to) the US or not. You do need to file tax returns just like any other US citizen. If you have an aggregate of $10K or more on your bank accounts outside of the US at any given day - you need to file FBAR. FATCA forms may also be applicable, depending on your balances. From foreign banks' perspective you're a US person, with regard to their FATCA obligations. Whether or not you'll be punished is hard to tell. Whether or not you could be punished is easy to tell: you could. You knowingly broke the law by certifying that you're not a US citizen when you were. That is in addition to un-filed tax returns, FBAR, etc etc. The fact that you were born outside of the US and have never lived there is technically irrelevant. Not knowing the law is not a reasonable cause for breaking it. Get a US-licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in the US) to help you sort it out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7e18992948f103e302b59bfe41d5930", "text": "Does my prior answer here to a slightly different question help at all? Are there capital gains taxes or dividend taxes if I invest in the U.S. stock market from outside of the country?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e29685e4fc19ff48e0634c8621dfe68", "text": "If you're waiting for Apple to send you a 1099 for the 2008 tax season, well, you shouldn't be. App Store payments are not reported to the IRS and you will not be receiving a 1099 in the mail from anyone. App Store payments are treated as sales commissions rather than royalties, according to the iTunes Royalty department of Apple. You are responsible for reporting your earnings and filing your own payments for any sums you have earned from App Store. – https://arstechnica.com/apple/2009/01/app-store-lessons-taxes-and-app-store-earnings The closest thing to sales commissions in WA state seems to be Service and Other Activities described at http://dor.wa.gov/content/FileAndPayTaxes/BeforeIFile/Def_TxClassBandO.aspx#0004. When you dig a little deeper into the tax code, WAC 458-20-224 (Service and other business activities) includes: (4) Persons engaged in any business activity, other than or in addition to those for which a specific rate is provided in chapter 82.04 RCW, are taxable under the service and other business activities classification upon gross income from such business. - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=458-20-224 I am not a lawyer or accountant, so caveat emptor.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71cc81f950ab08f4457fb8f094df23fa", "text": "\"Donate buttons are meaningless with regards to taxes. This is payment for something you provided, and you cannot claim that you've received a gift. Any money you receive in this way is payment for your software. Remember, for gifts - no consideration should have been provided to the donor. Anything for which a consideration was provided - cannot be a gift. In your case the consideration is the software, and it's value is the amount you were paid. Since every person can decide how much to pay you on his own - any payment is for the software, not a gift. Any money you get is taxable to you, and you cannot claim it as \"\"gifts\"\" without exposing yourself to risks of making fraudulent claims. Consult a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for a qualified tax advice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a285a126c4ec7591bb3e03afcd6adc6", "text": "I agree with Joe, having the money deposited to the US bank account may land you in trouble. Technically, a US business paying a foreigner must withhold 30% of the payment, unless a tax treaty says otherwise. The US business should do that based on your W8-BEN/W8-ECI form that you should have given to the business before being paid. I'm guessing, that by paying to your US bank account, you (and your American counterpart) are trying to avoid this withholding. That may cause trouble for both of you. I would suggest you talking to a professional (EA/CPA licensed in the State where the business is located) and having the situation resolved ASAP. You may not be liable for the US taxes at all, but because of incorrectly reporting the income/expense - you and the US business may end up paying way more than the $0 you otherwise would have, in penalties.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8675e5ed784b05da168b42c094e4005b", "text": "I believe I have to pay taxes in US since it is a US broker. No, not at all. The fact that the broker is a US broker has nothing to do with your tax liabilities. You should update the banks and the broker with your change of status submitting form W8-BEN to them. Consult a tax professional proficient with Indo-US tax treaty as to what you should put in part II. The broker might withhold some of your income and remit it as taxes to the IRS based on what you put in W8-BEN and the type of income, but you can have it refunded (if it exceeds your liability) by submitting a tax return (form 1040-NR). You do have to pay tax in India, based on the Indian tax law, for your profits in the US. Consult with an Indian tax accountant on that. If I'm not mistaken, there are also currency transfer restrictions in India that you should be aware of.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0cf658c6d4727ceda9b94342ac66bd0e", "text": "\"Earned income is what your software is doing, so it is taxable. So you can't really make it tax exempt. You can form a business and claim the revenues from that business as income and deduct expenses it costs you to earn that revenue. If you buy a server to run your software, then that is an acceptable expense to deduct from your revenues. Others can be more questionable and the best thing to do is to consult a CPA. If you are still in the testing stage and the revenues will be small then it should not matter. Worry about the important things, not if you paid the IRS a few hundred to much. Are you in a state/country that allows online gambling? In most states here in the US you are operating on shaky legal ground. Before \"\"Black Friday\"\" I used to earn a nice part-time income playing online poker.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36b316dae8931cbafc1732ebfdf62123", "text": "The US has a tax treaty with Ukraine (unlike Singapore), so you should be in a similar situation to Canadians etc. who choose to use a foreign broker. You'll have to file a W8BEN to reduce withholding taxes, and they'll want identification documentation and so on, and I imagine they'll want a wire transfer to fund the account. In many places now they are requiring permission to share information with the tax authorities in your home country (you waive your privacy), but that may not be true with Ukraine, and should not be a problem in any case if you're being upfront.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5712bdc7208402f56051e2fd71d54a61", "text": "Let me restate question for clarity. Facts: Question: Are there any taxes for this transaction? Answer: (Added improvements provided by Eric) Generally No. Generally, it is not considered income until you sell and the sale price is greater than the purchase price. But with currency differences, there is an additional complication, section 988 rules apply. It could result in ordinary income or loss.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4fb1e7d340adf085ae9e86ec77b6f00", "text": "I thought the line is much blurrier than that though. Say you have a company with divisions. An overseas division makes an item, sells it to another division overseas for final packaging, then it's sold domestically. The domestic division should only pay taxes on the profits they earn, and overseas on the profits from what they ship. But the company only wants to pay minimal taxes, so they set the foreign price high so that a majority of profits are made overseas. Who will argue that this isn't correct? Isn't that it? It's not foreign sales but interdivisional markup?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a92d69a63d8683745d8154be66e811f5", "text": "Most countries tax income in its various ways, but not moving money. If this is a movement of already owned money, it is not tax-relevant. If it is a payment for services done, it is income, and it is the recipient's duty to pay taxes on it. Note that transferring large amounts of money (10k+) between countries can trigger a review, which - worst case - results in questions where it came from. The point of that is solely to verify it was legally earned money (not drug money or such). There is nothing to worry about if the money was legally earned.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df5f23b76dff4d3d4a7efb790e61a420", "text": "For tax optimization, cash is stored mostly overseas, according to the New York Times. For Apple, everytime a song or an app is bought in Europe, Africa or Middle East, money flows to iTunes Sàrl, in Luxemburg. Royalties on patents flow internally from Apple in California to Apple in Ireland. Then profits flow to the Carribean. The problem is that cash cannot be brought back to the USA without huge taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a1679e489500cf3c6141c20737206ed", "text": "You can't currently avoid it. The reason the legislation was introduced was to prevent the big-name developers from setting up shop in a low-VAT country and selling apps to citizens of EU countries that would normally be paying a much higher VAT. You need to register for VAT and file quarterly nil-returns so that you get that money back. It's a hassle, but probably worth it just to recoup those funds. From an article in Kotaku from late 2014: You see, in the UK we have a rather sensible exemption on VAT for businesses that earn under £81,000 a year. This allows people to run small businesses - like making and selling games in your spare time, for instance - without the administrative nightmare of registering as a business and paying VAT on sales. Unfortunately, none of the other EU member states had an exemption like this, so when the new legislation was being put together, there was no exemption factored in. That means that if someone makes even £1 from selling something digital to another person in another EU country, they now have to be VAT registered in the UK AND they have to pay tax on that sale at whatever rate the buyer’s country of residence has set. That could be 25% in Sweden, 21% in the Netherlands, and so on. [...] There’s one piece of good news: even though anyone who sells digital stuff now has to be VAT-registered in the UK, they don’t actually have to pay VAT on sales to people in the UK if they earn less than £81,000 from it. (This concession was achieved earlier this month after extensive lobbying.) But they’ll still have to submit what’s called a “nil-return”, which is essentially a tax return with nothing on it, every quarter in order to use the VAT MOSS service. That’s a lot of paperwork. Obviously Brexit may have a significant impact on all this, so the rules might change. This is the official Google Link to how they've implemented this and for which countries it affects: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/138000?hl=en Due to VAT laws in the European Union (EU), Google is responsible for determining, charging, and remitting VAT for all Google Play Store digital content purchases by EU customers. Google will send VAT for EU customers' digital content purchases to the appropriate authority. You don't need to calculate and send VAT separately for EU customers. Even if you're not located in the EU, this change in VAT laws will still apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6bd9d272d2c1f443beb8f7f2851e50c7", "text": "\"(Selling apps is AFAIK business, not freelancing - unless the type of app you produce is considered a freelancing subject. The tax office will give you a questionnaire and then decide). As Einzelunternehmer, you can receive the payments for the apps to the same account where your wages go. However, there are lots of online accounts that do not cost fees, so consider to receive them on a separate account so you have the business and private kind of separate (for small Einzelunternehmer, there is no legal separation between business and private money - you have full liability with your private money for the business). The local chamber of commerce can tell you everything about setting up such a business, ask them (you'll probably have to become a member there anyways). They have information as well on VAT (Umsatzsteuer, USt) which you need to declare unless you get an exemption (probably possible), and about Gewerbesteuer (the income tax of the business) etc. For the tax, you have \"\"subforms\"\" for the income tax e.g. for wages and for business income, so you just submit both with the main form. You'll get an appropriate tax number when registering the business. Social security/insurance: as long as the app selling is only a side business, the social insurance payments for your main job completely cover the side job as well. You need to make sure that your employment contract is compatible with the app business, though. A quick search indicates that there is a tax treaty between Germany and the Ukraine, Wikipedia says there are no contracts about social insurance in effect (yet).\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
ec349e7fbd854389ecaf7037bb1d239a	My tenant wants to pay rent through their company: Should this raise a red flag?	[ { "docid": "5d256f69d73c1c1546971bffb32a663d", "text": "\"I disagree with the other respondents. If your tenant is an individual, renting in their individual capacity, there is no reason they need your SSN. They will not be sending a 1099 to you. If your tenant is a business, then your property is not a residential property. It is at least a \"\"corporate housing\"\", and you would have noticed that the contract was signed by a company representative in the capacity of being a company representative, not an individual person. In that case, that representative would also ask you to fill a form W9, on which your tax ID should be reported. I would suggest let the tenant figure out their tax avoidance issues without you being involved.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf4a17e7e53a23ab14726c1951d8ddf1", "text": "The company that's apparently going to pay this rent wants to treat it as a business expense. They are asking for your SSN because they expect to issue a 1099-MISC. (They probably gave you a Form W-9? It's not mandatory but it's common to request a taxpayer ID on this form.) There are a couple of issues at play here:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c4fb00e6b3071eec30e978b68f7d54e", "text": "Maybe you should consider setting up a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for your business dealings as a landlord and consider providing that instead of your SSN for this type of thing. I am assuming (if this is legitimate) they want it so they can send you a 1099 as they might be obligated to do if they are claiming the rent as a business expense. Also, I'd suggest having the tenant tell their employer to contact you directly. There is no need for the tenant in this situation to also get your SSN/TIN.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "cfd81576bb7bf35d9fa0c764680262f3", "text": "\"No. The full text of the Landlord-Tenant Act (specifically, section 554.614 of Act 348 of the year 1972) makes no mention of this. Searching the law for \"\"interest\"\" doesn't yield anything of interest (pardon the pun). Specifically, section 554.604 of the same law states that: (1) The security deposit shall be deposited in a regulated financial institution. A landlord may use the moneys so deposited for any purposes he desires if he deposits with the secretary of state a cash bond or surety bond written by a surety company licensed to do business in this state and acceptable to the attorney general to secure the entire deposits up to $50,000.00 and 25% of any amount exceeding $50,000.00. The attorney general may find a bond unacceptable based only upon reasonable criteria relating to the sufficiency of the bond, and shall notify the landlord in writing of his reasons for the unacceptability of the bond. (2) The bond shall be for the benefit of persons making security deposits with the landlord. A person for whose benefit the bond is written or his legal representative may bring an action in the district, common pleas or municipal court where the landlord resides or does business for collection on the bond. While it does sound like the landlord is required to deposit the money in a bank or other secured form, e.g. the Secretary of State, he/she isn't required to place it in an account that will earn interest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5143aeb0b0a00bf3eeba177754bca3aa", "text": "\"Without the specifics of the contract, as well as the specifics of the country/state/city you're moving to, it's hard to say what's legal. But this also isn't law.se, so I'll answer this from the point of view of personal finance, and what you can/should do as next steps. Whenever paying an application fee or a deposit, you need to ensure that you have in writing exactly what you're applying for or putting a deposit in for. Whether this is an apartment, a car, or a loan, before any money changes hands, you need to get in writing exactly what you're putting that money to. So for a car, you'd want to have the complete specifications - make, model, year, color, extra packages, and any relevant loan information if applicable. You wouldn't just hand a dealer $2000 for \"\"a Toyota Camry\"\", you'd make sure it was specified which one, in writing, as well as the total you're expecting to pay. Same for an apartment: you should have, in writing (email is fine) the specific unit you are putting a deposit for, and the specific rate you'll be paying, and the length of time the lease is for. This is to avoid a common tactic: bait and switch, which is what it looks like you've run into. A company puts forth a \"\"nice\"\" model, everything looks good, you get far enough in that it seems like you're locked in - and then it turns out you're really getting a less nice model that's not as ideal as whatever you signed up for. Now if you want to get what you originally signed up for you need to pay extra - presumably \"\"something was wrong in the original ad\"\", or something like that. And all you can hear in the background is Darth Vader... \"\"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.\"\" So; what do you do when you've been bait-and-switched? The best thing to do is typically to walk away. Try to get your application fee back; you may or may not be able to, but it's worth a shot, and even if you cannot, walk away anyway. Someone who is going to bait-and-switch on you is probably not going to be a good landlord; my guess is that rent is going to keep going up beyond the level of the market, and you probably can kiss your security deposit goodbye. Second, if walking away isn't practical for whatever reason, you can find out what the local laws are. Some locations (though very few, sadly) require advertised prices to be accurate; particularly the fact that they re-advertised the unit again for the same rate suggests they are falling afoul of that. You can ask around, search the internet, or best yet talk to a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing; some of them will be willing to at least answer a few questions for free (hoping to score your business for an easy, profitable lawsuit). Be aware that it's not exactly a good situation to be in, to be suing your landlord; second only to suing your employer, in my opinion, in terms of bad things to do while hoping to continue the relationship. Find an alternative as soon as you can if you go this route. In the future, pay a lot of attention to detail when making application fees. Often the application fee is needed before you get into too much detail - but pick a location that has reasonable application fees, and no extras. For example, in my area, it's typical to pay a $25 application fee, nonrefundable, to do the credit check and background check, and a refundable $100-$200 deposit to hold the unit while doing that; a place that asks for a non-refundable deposit is somewhere I'd simply not apply at all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b5ad6c50ddd6f92617ff2bf39a2fb69", "text": "That may become complicated depending on the State laws. In some States (California for example), LLCs are taxed on gross receipts, so you'll be paying taxes on paying money to yourself. In other States this would be a no-op since the LLC is disregarded. So you need to check your State law. I assume the LLC is not taxed as a corporation since that would be really stupid of course, but if it is then it adds the complexity of the Federal taxes on top as well (corporate entity will pay taxes on your rent, and you'll pay taxes on your dividends to get the money back). The best option would be to take that property out of the LLC (since there's no point in it anyway, if you're the tenant).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1569f93563ab208396b84015c60d687d", "text": "* Absolutely agree with /u/IsAnAlpaca * You /must/ not agree to this without seeing his balance sheet. * That means assets and liabilities, but also ask for the last 12 months' cash flow * Inability or unwillingness to provide any of those things is a HUGE no-go red flag.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fab868581152d6464183e52963bacff7", "text": "\"To the best of my knowledge, in California there's no such thing as registering a place as a business. There's zoning (residential/commercial/mixed/etc), and there's \"\"a business registered at a place\"\". But there's no \"\"place registered as a business\"\". So you better clarify what it is that you think your landlord did. It may be that the place is used for short term rentals, in which case the landlord may have to have registered a business of short term rentals there, depending on the local municipal or county rules. Specifically regarding the deposit, however, there's a very clear treatment in the California law. The landlord must provide itemized receipt for the amounts out of the deposit that were used, and the prices should be reasonable and based on the actual charges by the actual vendors. If you didn't get such a receipt, or the amounts are bogus and unsubstantiated - you have protection under the CA law.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f8fdfaf770de8745e3b0fcaa705afcc", "text": "\"This arrangement is a scam to get around certain tax and benefits laws, both State and Federal. I know they can't get away with this with a person-as-contractor, but this \"\"he's not a contractor, he's a business owner\"\" may move it into a gray area. (I used to know this stuff cold, but I've been retired for a while.) The fact that they asked you to do this is at all is, IMNSHO, a Red Flag®. They think that this way they won't be paying 1/2 your FICA, your Workman's Comp, health insurance, overtime, sick leave or vacation time ... you will. A somewhat simplistic rule of thumb for setting contracting rates is to take your targeted annual salary as a full-time, full-benefits employee and double it. So $50,000 becomes $100,000 a year; $25/hour becomes $50/hour. You can tell them that driving to their workplace from your company's location is now a \"\"site visit\"\" and charge them your hourly rate for the one-way commute time. You could also tell them that your company charges 150% for hours worked over 40 hours/week, plus 150% on Saturdays and 200% on Sundays. Your company may also have a minimum 30 days notice of termination with a penalty kicker. Get it all in writing and signed by someone who has the authority to sign it. Also, Get A Lawyer. The most expensive contracts I've ever signed were ones I thought I was smart enough to draw up myself.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a40bb98efec6409b70151dd126776cff", "text": "I'm assuming this is the US. Is this illegal? Are we likely to be caught? What could happen if caught? If you sign an occupancy affidavit at closing that says you intend to move in within 60-days, with no intention of doing so, then you'll be committing fraud, specifically mortgage/occupancy fraud, a federal crime with potential for imprisonment and hefty fines. In general, moving in late is not something that's likely to be noticed, if the lender is getting their money then they probably don't care. Renting it out prior to moving in seems much riskier, especially if you live in a city/state that requires rental licensing, or are depending on rental income to carry the mortgage. No idea how frequently people are caught/punished for this type of fraud, but it hardly seems worth finding out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b73465541b505fd29eecafb445ece16", "text": "The money your tenants spent on repairs and maintenance that is otherwise your responsibility is considered rent paid to you (and deductible to the extent you can deduct maintenance expenses, provided you have documentation etc etc). The money your tenants spent on utilities, which is their responsibility anyway, is not considered rent paid to you. Since in your question you seem to be mixing both together, it is hard to accept a claim that the additional $300 spent on utilities and maintenance is enough to bring the rent to the FMV level. Especially since the transaction is between related persons, it may bring additional scrutiny of the IRS.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5adc69cca3d027f18083e62afca7523", "text": "From the apartment owners perspective what was the purpose of $300? They promised they wouldn't rent it to somebody before you had a chance to see it. But lets say you did see it, and decided you didn't like the view. Would they have to give the money back? if so, why would they promise not to rent it if somebody showed up first? I would have made it clear, as the owner, what the money was for. It was a $300 fee to delay rental. You would have essentially bought x number of days of delay. You could view it as a mini-short-term rental. Of course there should have been paperwork involved. There should have been been a receipt that at least mentioned the amount of money involved. You may need to pay the amount owed, and may need to determine if you want to sue in small claims court. Of course your agent may have some liability based on your contract with them and any paperwork they signed when the money was sent to the owner. The fact that the bank sided with you doesn't mean the courts will.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "669e68311bbc565174483b8e4fc5519f", "text": "\"I'd say your tenant is out $750, not you. How you handle it is totally personal preference. If you want to be the super-nice landlord and eat the loss this one time, then you might gain some karma and hopefully they'll be awesome tenants for the remainder of their stay. Are they the kind of tenants you want to be nice to because they deserve it? You (and she) have no way to prove she ever actually tried to pay you. Sound like she is learning a $750 lesson. \"\"Don't leave cash in a mailbox, and always get a receipt for rent paid.\"\" Your insurance company would likely not pay out as it'd be below a typical deductible and you can't really prove the money ever existed. You'd be better off just taking the loss. Think about it this way: How would you expect a bank or utility company to respond to this situation? \"\"Yeah, I left my mortgage as a cash-filled envelope on your doorstep. You didn't get it? I told you I'd do it!\"\" Guess who's paying double mortgage and a late fee? You're not stuck with option 1, you're choosing to do it. She could refuse and fight you on it, which might not be worth the headache and potential small-claims court. But you're entitled to receive the rent and she is obligated to pay it. And \"\"paying it\"\" means making sure you actually receive it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dcfb94807ecbf6a57b0435b1d135e4c6", "text": "\"Assuming the renter was properly vetted, the only question worth asking is \"\"what has changed in your life?\"\" Perhaps one of the earners has lost a job, or has moved out because a couple has broken up. If nothing has changed but they just don't feel like paying you, start the eviction process. If something has changed and you assess that it's temporary (I lent my brother money and he didn't pay me back - I'll be behind for a few months but I will catch up; my employer went out of business and didn't pay me for the last two weeks - I have a new job already and am waiting for my first paycheque) then perhaps you are willing to wait. If something has changed and it seems pretty permanent then you might reluctantly start the process. Depending on how long it takes where you live, the renter might get things under control before you finish.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc944b121bd06b9a75a12eae2177827d", "text": "It actually depends on the services provided. If you're renting through AirBnB, you're likely to provide much more services to the tenants than a traditional rental. It may raise it to a level when it is no longer a passive activity. See here, for starters: Providing substantial services. If you provide substantial services that are primarily for your tenant's convenience, such as regular cleaning, changing linen, or maid service, you report your rental income and expenses on Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business, or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040), Net Profit From Business. Use Form 1065, U.S. Return of Partnership Income, if your rental activity is a partnership (including a partnership with your spouse unless it is a qualified joint venture). Substantial services do not include the furnishing of heat and light, cleaning of public areas, trash collection, etc. For information, see Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business. Also, you may have to pay self-employment tax on your rental income using Schedule SE (Form 1040), Self-Employment Tax. For a discussion of “substantial services,” see Real Estate Rents in Publication 334, chapter 5", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d7c29e9c4ebb6e172ec8547493df051c", "text": "\"If you pay her rent, how do you differ from a tenant in the eyes of the law? I ask this to show that you are in a business relationship first and foremost. If you don't want to file jointly, there is nothing compelling about your situation to force it. (Grant you, in most countries, there is a benefit to filing jointly) but here, I would argue it would be difficult to make the case. There are, to the best of my knowledge, no laws barring opposite sex landlord-tenant rental situations. Furthermore, there are no laws barring romantic relationships amongst landlords and tenants. Indeed, you would need to prove your relationship in some fashion for it to even be considered. In establishing a date of separation from my soon-to-be-ex-wife, for example, I merely needed to prove that we were not \"\"presenting ourselves as husband and wife.\"\" Once I showed that we didn't sit together at church and that she was attending parties I wasn't, that was sufficient. Proving you are in a relationship is actually a lot harder than proving you're not.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d3841fc3f6ff1124683964bd1c14213", "text": "Because you're not married, its a partnership agreement, and unless there's a written contract, either the two of you agree on how to handle the home, or it's off to court you go. If you were both supposed to pay for the home, and he failed to for a a while, that would put him in breach of contract which I would think gives you a good position in court. On the other hand, if you are at all concerned about your safety from this louse, remember, he knows exactly where the house is.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2b34353f037de897b420fd6ac257afe", "text": "\"Should you negotiate? Yes, what harm can it possibly do? The landlord is unlikely to come back and say \"\"Because you tried to negotiate, I'm putting the rent up by 10% instead.\"\", or to evict a paying tenant merely because they tried to negotiate. Is the proposed rent increase \"\"normal\"\"? Yes. Landlords will generally try to get as high a rent as they can.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
b079ca5fde42796315e34c9b43893703	Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers?	[ { "docid": "10dad58de53089d15cf755545b887fc9", "text": "\"There really isn't any good ways that I'm aware of. (The exception is in New York or California, where hospitals must post prices.) The law sets price floors on many procedures by setting Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. As a result, the \"\"list price\"\" for a given procedure is dramatically inflated, and various health insurers negotiate rates somewhere in the middle. I'd recommend talking to the business offices or financial counselors at medical groups that you do business with. Ask about \"\"self pay discounts\"\" or other programs appropriate for folks in your position.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f185953aed490ec9c110be633b433b9c", "text": "When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ to do comparisons among the plans. As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "263ebfef8a5f308be4a90c24ac0a5afd", "text": "A competent Indian VA cost about 4-6 an hour. Realistically speaking, with that budget, nobody is going to be on the phone 8 hours a day 5 days a week. But small tasks and data entry could work. Western VAs are a much pricer but they you can find some for 200 a month. I have a biz that offers similar services, but the price you are looking for is a bit low, but I can work something out if your interested. Otherwise, it would be best to search for NYC based VA companies that have a team of indians working. But what you get is a luck of the draw.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "318d1517ba7429f4cad193d5cae9c59d", "text": "If you are disputing the size of the charge for specific services, like you think that they overcharged for lab work, you can try disputing it with the business office staff at the doctor's office. If, on the other hand, you just think that the overall bill is too expensive then you really only have one option. You can ask if they will reduce the bill for you. Most hospitals and clinics I've dealt with have programs set up for this, but you usually access them by filling out paperwork demonstrating financial hardship (along with supporting documents). It never hurts to ask. But with the services already rendered the only person with an interest in reducing the bill is you. The reduction, if any, will probably depend on what the clinic thinks your ability to pay is compared with the cost to them of pursuing you for payment, as well as the amount of funding they have for bill reduction. When I worked in the financial services office of a hospital a $400 bill would not even have been reviewed for discounting-- the balance would be too low to devote staff time to reviewing. It's frustrating, and even asking in advance might not have given you accurate (or any!) information on what the cost of the visit would be, so your ability to shop around is limited. Unfortunately, that doesn't give you any additional options in this case.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b677bf9fd32eb6bc39174c40ce70a5b", "text": "If the hospital is run like hospitals in the US it can take a long time just to determine the bill. The hospital, Emergency room, ER doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, X-Ray department, pharmacy and laboratory are considered separate billing centers. It can take a while to determine the charges for each section. Is there an insurance company involved? When there is one involved it can take weeks or months before the hospital determines what the individual owes. The co-pays, coverages, and limits can be very confusing. In my experience it can take a few months before the final amount is known. You may want to call the hospital to determine the status of the bills.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccde069c7755ed62ee56a93b5a2fb5fd", "text": "I would suggest that you try ClearCheckbook. It is kind of like Mint, but you can add and remove things (graphs, features, modules) to make it as simple or diverse as you need it to be. It should be a workable solution for simply tracking both income and expenses, yet it will also provide extra features as needed. There is a free option as well as a paid option with added features. I have not used ClearCheckbook before, but according to their features page it looks like you may have to upgrade to the paid option if you want to have complete tagging/custom field flexibility.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e73af8ed93d1669a723747bf0477a5f", "text": "\"Yes, you've successfully proved that I think NPV and marginal utility are the same thing. Let me state this explicitly. You didn't hesitate to throw out tools that don't agree with your prescriptions. You invoked the false premise that indivuduals manually and exhaustively calculate NPV of possible decisions. Instead of refuting the points of the argument you resorted to personal attacks. That's fine, I've already lowered my expectations after reading your first comment. If NPV should be thrown out because you claim noone explictly uses it to guide their decisions what does that say about marginal utility? Why should 1 tool be thrown out but the other kept? Essentially you are saying we should keep all of the tools that confirm your absurd assertions and throw out the tools that may cast doubt on them. But hey, maybe I should \"\"stop acting like I know what I'm talking about\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57e1115d5f30efd13813bb51c89ac504", "text": "Hey, I was thinking back to that X-Ray you got done at the hospital, that you said was cheaper than 90% of the population. I am wondering if maybe that hospital wasn't one of the many that qualify for DSH reimbursement payments. What could have happened is that they saw that you are uninsured, and made a decision that they would only charge you for the portion that they didn't think Medicare / Medicaid would reimburse. If that happened, it wouldn't even show up on your credit report, as the hospital is the one that would file a credit claim. Likely, if they have to go through this a lot, they wouldn't even waste time filing a credit claim, they would just go after a reimbursement through Medicare / Medicaid. And thus, to you, it would just look like a very small bill, but in reality it would only represent a smaller portion of the true bill. I would also wonder, if they do a lot of these, if they aren't also one of the hospitals that article I linked to showed was super-inflating the prices of uninsured in the hopes of getting a larger portion reimbursed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7539b9988f0a814c141ac2ad49451470", "text": "Keep in mind there are some examples of combination medications that have improved outcomes. I'm thinking specifically of HIV meds, HEP C medications, and other combo meds for infectious disease. Truvada for example. It's one pill. Emtricitibine and tenofovir. Taken alone emtricitibine and tenofovir have complex and tedious pill regimens (like most other HIV meds regimens) but for patients to be able to take one pill, once a day has made their compliance with the med regimen much better. Lower viral load, higher cd4 counts, and improved management of their HIV. I'm not saying the absurd price hikes of these other meds are warranted. They're not. But when dealing with public health issues, and infectious disease in a population that has a difficult time being compliant with their meds, combo meds are worth the cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0ead864c41156712a3fe4d3e8335176", "text": "Determining the value of a service is an art, not a science. It depends on what others are charging, the quality and complexity and annoyance factor of the work, availability of people with the skill to do the work, etc. This topic can and does fill books, plural, and can't be answered fully here. As a customer, the answer is to get multiple quotes, understand how they differ, and pick the one you are most comfortable with. Last job I priced, I got three quotes, discarded the lowball who didn't know PT from cedar, discarded the one with the luxury price, and went with the guy in the middle who did adequate (not great) work for a tolerable fee. For a different kind of job I might have decided otherwise, or chucked all three and looked for more quotes from respected firms.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b0e332ffa8a284d5b2e0173613b0944", "text": "CrimsonX did a great job highlighting the primary pros and cons of HSAs, so I won't go into detail there. However, I did want to point out another pro - HSAs are (or can be) easy to manage. You said: Is this a better way to approach health care costs instead of itemizing health care expenses on yearly federal taxes? I'm not sure which company you are looking at establishing your HSA with, but with mine I have a debit card that I use when paying for medical care and then at the end of the year I get a 1099-SA that provides the amount of money spent on qualified purchases that calendar year. Yes, there are a few extra boxes I need to fill in for my 1040 come tax time, but I don't need to itemize my healthcare costs over the year. It really is pretty simple and straightforward. Also, one con that is worth noting is that you become much more sensitive to healthcare costs due to the high deductible healthcare plan an HSA requires. For example, in all the years we've had an HSA we've not yet met our deductible, which means we pay out of pocket for any non-routine doctor visits. (The health insurer pays 100% of routine visits, like my wife's annual, well-baby check ups for the little one, and so on.) So, when you're feeling really sick and think a doctor's visit would be warranted, you have to make a decision: After being faced with this decision a time or two you will start to envy those who have just a $20 copay! Of course, that's just an emotional con. Each year I run the numbers on how much we spent per year on out of pocket plus premiums and compare it to what it would cost in premiums for an HMO-type plan, and the HSA plan always comes ahead. (In part because we are a pretty healthy family and I work for myself so do not get to enjoy group discount rates.) But I thought it worth mentioning because there are certainly times when I know I need to see a doctor or specialist and I cringe because I know I am going to be slapped with a big bill in the not too distant future!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f5bec49fc704181aa03613c3ead464a2", "text": "\"Lets put glib non-answers into perspective. - There is not a single number: how many wounds. Then, dividing the total per this value, you'd know a bit more. - They are generous in a lot of other percentages which, of course, mean crap without this. 5.8% of what? Is that 5 people shot, or 50000? - The % of people without insurance is interesting, but a far more interesting value would be: X of the value is uninsured, in Y of the wounds. Then you'd know whether uninsured wounds are costlier on average. - There is a 20 to 1 differential in 5000 to 100 000. Doesn't really tell us either average or median. - What cost is accounted? Cost first billed? Values actually paid? Accounting cost of the actual care? Same price measure for the ones insured, and the ones uninsured? A standardized cost per types of wounds? If an hospital charges 100000 for the same another asks 20000 for, its meaningless. Societal cost is one thing, the billing fantasies of the american health system another. If you fail to understand what is contained in what you read, and then again fail to understand when it is pointed out, then you do waste a lot of resources. For those that CAN read, you can see how a full article can be read and published that contains no real information or original thought or research about a problem, being useless to define it. Its a \"\"feel this\"\" piece, knowledge is optional.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99e521f85fb70eeed53177745a07f388", "text": "I'm not disputing that. I just said in answer to the guy pointing out that indonesian people earn less that this price might be higher than what the locals pay. Often hospitals will have higher prices for foreigners with insurance etc. So I was actually strengthening your point.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24a78ce01e579101c6b2cf6529438d5b", "text": "It is meant to be a Valuation Model. So the data I have collected are for the Addressable Markets in potential countries( i.e. population currently affected by the disease and potential growth of the disease in the future). Possible competition for the drug. And most importantly the expenses of the drug (how much it cost to create the drug and clinical trails etc.) I need to create a Revenue chart and the Pricing for the drug as well. What I am looking for is someone who is familiar with creating a valuation model or has a template and can give me advice on how to structure this. thanks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "64c4ccde4ee50cfa5b1328ff7781c804", "text": "\"I had a similar issue take place at a hospital when the repeatedly billed the \"\"wrong me\"\" -- a stale insurance record left behind from when I was a dependent on my parent's insurance a decade earlier. They ended up billing me for anesthesia when I had a major surgery (everything else was billed to the correct insurance.) The outsourced billing people were pretty unhelpful (not usually the case with hospitals), so I became the squeaky wheel. I sent certified letters, had my priest rattle the cage (it was a Catholic hospital) and eventually talked myself into a meeting with the VP of Finance, who started paying attention when the incompetence of his folks became apparent. Total cost: $0 + my time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d8b5d2d18ca80beb458fb984738ce57", "text": "\"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not twist that data and make an assertion that it doesn't support. Yes, medical inflation has outpaced the CPI for ages, but when you disaggregate spending into Medicare (US single-payer) and private insurers, [Medicare is able to better contain costs](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/22/2/230.full) (my hypothesis: likely due to its ability to leverage its scale and keep costs low, while private insurers are fragmented against strong provider networks). But wait! you're thinking: shouldn't market forces keep insurance outlays low? It's Econ 101, right? Theoretically they should, but this ignores the industrial structure of healthcare providers and assumes perfect competition that doesn't exist. Typically, providers (doctors groups, hospitals, etc) are [highly localized and able to exercise significant market power in a community](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/2/8.full) relative to several insurance plans who are competing to contract that provider \"\"in-network.\"\" For example, when Aetna, Cigna, and BCBS go up against, hypothetically, Cedars-Sinai to negotiate payment rates, Cedars has the ability to obtain high reimbursement rates because the three insurers have to have that provider in-network to remain competitive. Ironically, the less competition on the insurer side in that market, the better reimbursement rates would be observed since the sole insurer would capture a large fraction of patients in the geographic area served and could use that volume to negotiate better rates. Finally, there's the overhead issue. Medicare has lower overhead expenses than private insurers do (again, my guess: greater economies of scale and lower advertising and marketing costs, coupled with no profit motive). [Even health insureres themselves agree (.pdf warning)](http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf) that Medicare has lower overhead costs, and that includes some questionable addition of what the authors claim are hidden Medicare expenses. I'm inclined to believe that a single-payer is probably more efficient and cheaper than a fragmented private insurance market. That said, I also find some sympathy to the argument that maintaining a robust private insurance market may spur innovation on payor innovation (e.g., increased participation in wellness programs for enrollees, or increasing the likelihood that patients be more sensitive to costs and benefits when seeking care). After all, countries like Germany and Switzerland are able to maintain a private insurance market while ensuring nearly universal coverage. Either way, though, arguing that health inflation alone makes single payer systems \"\"mathematicaly unsustainable\"\" isn't a strong argument, since private insurers are currently doing worse on cost containment.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3986b8ad3cefc7cfe6ef7d44ea9dd44b", "text": "On topic of Healthcare needs, I think it depend on individual. For example, my employer's dental plan offer PPO $34 per month and DMO $12 per month. I have my favor dentist that I have been going for years. He only accept PPO. I already had most of my dental works done so I only use him for teeth clean. He charge $100 without insurance and free with insurance. I can only use my insurance for teeth clean twice a year so $34x12 = $408 vs $200. If I go with DMO, I won't get to see my doctor and since I get my teeth once a year why not just save that money and go to my favor doctor instead the DMO doctors and if I need major dental works done which isn't immediate. I can go to Taiwan for dental works that is way cheaper than U.S. I think if you're a healthy young man/women. You should put more money toward your retirement and only keep insurance for emergency. You can do a medical tourism mentioned in 60 minutes that can be more cost effective and those doctors are U.S. trained. For older folks, a full Health care insurance is more needed than retirement. Just my two cents.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
b64683f2e01788d90f6dd6137c938f5e	How are investment funding valued when invested in a company before it goes public?	[ { "docid": "87b5c999ab6c956258894265f2a2b654", "text": "This is a question of how does someone value a business. Typically, it is some function of how much the company owns, how much the company owes, how risky is the company's business, and how much the company makes in profit. For example if a company (or investment) make $100/year, every year no matter what, how much would you pay for that? If you pay $1,000 you'll make 10% each year on your investment. Is that a good enough return? If you think the risk of the company requires a 20% payoff, you shouldn't pay more than $500 for the company.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "b77ce1eda52bbf046d67670793dc2e8d", "text": "You have a lot of different questions in your post - I am only responding to the request for how to value the ESPP. When valuing an ESPP, don't think about what you might sell the shares for in the future, think about what the market would charge you for that option today. In general, an option is worth much less than the underlying share itself. For the simplest example, assume you work at a public company, and your exercise price for your options is $.30, and you can only exercise those options until the end of today, and the cost of the shares on the public stock exchange is also $.30. You have the same 'strike price' as everyone else in the market, making your option worth nothing. In truth, holding that right to a specific strike price into the future does give you value, because it means you can realize the upside in share price gains, without risking any money on share losses. So, how do you value the options? If it's a public company with an active options market, you can easily compare your $.30 strike price with the value of call options in the market that have a $.30 strike price. That becomes the value to you of the option (caveat: it is unlikely you can find an exact match for the terms of your vesting period, but you should be able to find a good starting point). If it's a public company without an active options market, you will have to do a bit of estimation. If a current share is worth $.25 (so, close to your strike price), then your option is worth a little bit, but not much. Compare other shares in your industry / company size to get examples of the relative value between an option and a share. If the current share price is worth $.35, then your option is worth about $.05 [the $.05 profit you could get by immediately exercising and selling, plus a bit more for an option on a share that you can't buy in the open market]. If it's a private company, then you need to be very clear on how shares are to be valued, and what methods you have available to sell back to the company / other individuals. You can then consider as per above, how to value the option for a share, vs the share itself. Without a clear way to sell your shares of a private company [ideally through a sale directly back to the company that you are able to force them to agree on; ie: the company will buyback shares at 5x Net income for the previous year, or something like that], then the value of a small number of shares is very nebulous. There is an extremely limited market for shares of private companies, if you don't own enough to exert control. In your case, because the valuation appears to be $2/share [be sure that these are the same share classes you have the option to buy], your option would be worth a little more than $1.70, if you didn't have to wait 4 years to exercise it. This would be total compensation of about $10k, if you were able to exercise today. Many people don't end up working for an early job in their career for 4 years, so you need to consider whether how much that will reduce the value of the ESPP for you personally. Compared with salary of 90k, 10k worth of stock in 4 years may not be a heavy motivating compensation consideration. Note also that because the company is not public, the valuation of $2/share should be taken with a grain of salt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5467dcadbea676578ee66dca23e951b4", "text": "\"I think it's easiest to illustrate it with an example... if you've already read any of the definitions out there, then you know what it means, but just don't understand what it means. So, we have an ice cream shop. We started it as partners, and now you and I each own 50% of the company. It's doing so well that we decide to take it public. That means that we will be giving up some of our ownership in return for a chance to own a smaller portion of a bigger thing. With the money that we raise from selling stocks, we're going to open up two more stores. So, without getting into too much of the nitty gritty accounting that would turn this into a valuation question, let's say we are going to put 30% of the company up for sale with these stocks, leaving you and me with 35% each. We file with the SEC saying we're splitting up the company ownership with 100,000 shares, and so you and I each have 35,000 shares and we sell 30,000 to investors. Then, and this depends on the state in the US where you're registering your publicly traded corporation, those shares must be assigned a par value that a shareholder can redeem the shares at. Many corporations will use $1 or 10 cents or something nominal. And we go and find investors who will actually pay us $5 per share for our ice cream shop business. We receive $150,000 in new capital. But when we record that in our accounting, $5 in total capital per share was contributed by investors to the business and is recorded as shareholder's equity. $1 per share (totalling $30,000) goes towards actual shares outstanding, and $4 per share (totalling $120,000) goes towards capital surplus. These amounts will not change unless we issue new stocks. The share prices on the open market can fluctuate, but we rarely would adjust these. Edit: I couldn't see the table before. DumbCoder has already pointed out the equation Capital Surplus = [(Stock Par Value) + (Premium Per Share)] * (Number of Shares) Based on my example, it's easy to deduce what happened in the case you've given in the table. In 2009 your company XYZ had outstanding Common Stock issued for $4,652. That's probably (a) in thousands, and (b) at a par value of $1 per share. On those assumptions we can say that the company has 4,652,000 shares outstanding for Year End 2009. Then, if we guess that's the outstanding shares, we can also calculate the implicit average premium per share: 90,946,000 ÷ 4,652,000 == $19.52. Note that this is the average premium per share, because we don't know when the different stocks were issued at, and it may be that the premiums that investors paid were different. Frankly, we don't care. So clearly since \"\"Common Stock\"\" in 2010 is up to $9,303 it means that the company released more stock. Someone else can chime in on whether that means it was specifically a stock split or some other mechanism... it doesn't matter. For understanding this you just need to know that the company put more stock into the marketplace... 9,303 - 4,652 == 4,651(,000) more shares to be exact. With the mechanics of rounding to the thousands, I would guess this was a stock split. Now. What you can also see is that the Capital Surplus also increased. 232,801 - 90,946 == 141,855. The 4,651,000 shares were issued into the market at an average premium of 141,855 ÷ 4,651 == $30.50. So investors probably paid (or were given by the company) an average of $31.50 at this split. Then, in 2011 the company had another small adjustment to its shares outstanding. (The Common Stock went up). And there was a corresponding increase in its Capital Surplus. Without details around the actual stock volumes, it's hard to get more exact. You're also only giving us a portion of the Balance Sheet for your company, so it's hard to go into too much more detail. Hopefully this answers your question though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "235d9911f024b3047fa915c0789caa18", "text": "There are different ways to determine the value of a company: When an entrepreneur starts a new company himself and owns 100% of the company, the Fair Market value is unknown. He has put his own money into the company, so it has a high Investment value to him, meaning he has a lot at stake in the company. The Asset value is probably less than the Investment value, meaning if he closed the company, he would lose some of the money he invested. Now, using your example, a Venture Capitalist comes along and takes a look at the company. She believes that the company has a great future potential to make money, which means that she believes that the Intrinsic value is very high. She decides to invest $1 Million in the company for a 10% stake, and the founder agrees. The Fair Market value of the company at that moment is $10 Million. The VC believes that the Intrinsic value of the company is more than $10 Million and that she is making a good investment. The Asset value of the company just went up by $1 Million. To answer your question, the $1 Million is not the founder's to spend on a new house. It is the company's money. However, the founder owns 90% of the company. The new capital will allow the company to buy whatever assets the company needs to meet the potential that the founder and the VC see in it, and make the company grow and earn money for the two investors. A crooked founder could, theoretically, close down the company immediately and pocket 90% of the new cash, but there are certainly legal protections in the contract they signed when the investment was made that prevent him from doing that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "821e3eecf2857fc1405d1f4b33e8d359", "text": "The value of a company is, simplified, the sum of the value of the equity and the value of the debt. There are some other things to add/subtract to that, but just think about those for now. You could also say the value of a company is the value of its assets, or more precisely the value of the net cash flows those assets will generate in the future. So let's say you want to start a company, so you want to buy some assets. Maybe you want to buy a $200 asset. Well, you only have $100, so you take out a loan (debt) for $100 for the remainder. You buy the asset and start generating income. Let's say after a month you get bored and decide to sell the company. Let's assume the value of the assets hasn't changed. Your equity is worth $100, and you find a buyer who is willing to pay $100 for your company. Great! Right? Well there's still the $100 loan you owe, so you have to pay that back. And suddenly you now have $0. So in fact, you should have negotiated $200 with the buyer, because that's what the assets are actually worth. Then you can pay back the loan and still have the $100 in equity you deserve. (Alternatively, you could have negotiated the buyer to assume responsibility for the loan; same outcome for you.) Did that help?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4bef758a078cff5aded80dbc6fc24be", "text": "\"Matt explains the study numbers in his answer, but those are the valuation of the brand, not the value of the company or how \"\"rich\"\" the company is. Presuming that you're asking the value of the company, the usual way for a publicly traded company to be valued is by the market capitalization (1). Market capitalization is a fairly simple measure, basically the total value of all the shares of stock in that company. You can find the market cap for any publicly traded company on any of the usual finance sites like Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. If by rich you mean the total value of assets (assets being all property, including cash, real property, equipment, and licenses) a company owns, that information is included in a publicly traded company's quarterly SEC filing and investor releases, but isn't usually listed on the popular finance sites. An example can be seen at Duke Energy's Investor Relation Site (the same information can be found for all companies on EDGAR, the SEC's search tool). If you open the most recent 8-K (quarterly filing), and go to page 8, you can see that they have $33B+ in assets, and a high level breakdown of those. Note that the numbers are given in millions of dollars For a privately held company this information may or may not be available and you'd have to track it down if it is available. I picked Duke Energy because it's the first thing that popped into my mind. I have no affiliation with Duke, and I don't directly own any of their stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c214d560ed54ea4495c8526b2894adf6", "text": "The worth of a share of stocks may be defined as the present cash value of all future dividends and liquidations associated therewith. Without a crystal ball, such worth may generally only be determined retrospectively, but even though it's generally not possible to know the precise worth of a stock in time for such information to be useful, it has a level of worth which is absolute and not--unlikely market price--is generally unaffected by people buying and selling the stock (except insofar as activities in company stock affect a company's ability to do business). If a particular share of stock is worth $10 by the above measure, but Joe sells it to Larry for $8, that means Joe gives Larry $2. If Larry sells it to Fred $12, Fred gives Larry $2. The only way Fred can come out ahead is if he finds someone else to give him $2 or more. If Fred can sell it to Adam for $13, then Adam will give Fred $3, leaving Fred $1 better off than he would be if he hadn't bought the stock, but Adam will be $3 worse off. The key point is that if you sell something for less than it's worth, or buy something for more that it's worth, you give money away. You might be able to convince other people to give you money in the same way you gave someone else money, but fundamentally the money has been given away, and it's not coming back.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34bbcb90aefee6b1b90f85ab10a1b6d5", "text": "While there are many very good and detailed answers to this question, there is one key term from finance that none of them used and that is Net Present Value. While this is a term generally associate with debt and assets, it also can be applied to the valuation models of a company's share price. The price of the share of a stock in a company represents the Net Present Value of all future cash flows of that company divided by the total number of shares outstanding. This is also the reason behind why the payment of dividends will cause the share price valuation to be less than its valuation if the company did not pay a dividend. That/those future outflows are factored into the NPV calculation, actually performed or implied, and results in a current valuation that is less than it would have been had that capital been retained. Unlike with a fixed income security, or even a variable rate debenture, it is difficult to predict what the future cashflows of a company will be, and how investors chose to value things as intangible as brand recognition, market penetration, and executive competence are often far more subjective that using 10 year libor rates to plug into a present value calculation for a floating rate bond of similar tenor. Opinion enters into the calculus and this is why you end up having a greater degree of price variance than you see in the fixed income markets. You have had situations where companies such as Amazon.com, Google, and Facebook had highly valued shares before they they ever posted a profit. That is because the analysis of the value of their intellectual properties or business models would, overtime provide a future value that was equivalent to their stock price at that time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98ec745c6a8e74d555e9e026298ed9a2", "text": "It is difficult to value a private company. Most of the valuations is based on how one feels the idea would translate into revenue in some future time. The VC firms take into account various factors to determine the price, but more often then not, its their hunch. Even VC don't make money on all picks, very few picks turn out to be stars, most picks lose money they have invested. Few picks just return their money. So if you feel that the idea/product/brand/people are great and would someday make good money, invest into it. Else stay away.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e656547f1bc1d937b6442ccc45a63ab2", "text": "When a stock is going to become public there's a level of analysis required to figure out the range of IPO price that makes sense. For a company that's somewhat mature, and has a sector to compare it to, you can come up with a range that would be pretty close. For the recent linkedin, it's tougher to price a somewhat unique company, running at a loss, in a market rich with cash looking for the next great deal. If one gives this any thought, an opening price that's so far above the IPO price represents a failure of the underwriters to price it correctly. It means the original owners just sold theirvshares for far less than the market thought they were worth on day one. The day of IPO the stock opens similar to how any stock would open at 9:30, there are bids and asks and a price at which supply (the ask) and demand (bid) balance. For this IPO, it would appear that there were enough buyers to push the price to twice the anticipated open and it's maintained that level since. It's possible to have a different system in which a Dutch auction is used to make the shares public, in theory this can work, it's just not used commonly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "718c94c2f02d2b07d82175dba8776ff6", "text": "\"The company gets the proceeds from the sales of shares on the open market. If a company is selling 1,000,000 shares at $12/share then they will receive $12,000,000 from the underwriter minus some fees that the underwriter will collect. The part that ties into valuation is to consider what percentage is the company selling of itself that is coming from its own holdings. If the company is putting out 10% of its shares in the IPO from treasury holdings on a $10B valuation then it will get $1B minus the fees I'd suspect. Where I worked in late 1990s/early 2000s had an IPO where the underwriter did a bridge loan and the IPO so that the company didn't get all the money raised but did get enough to run operations for a while before ending operations. Public Offering notes that after an IPO other offerings would be called \"\"seasoned equity offering\"\" that may or may not be dilutive as they could come from new or existing shares.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "145a5decacc13be14030121db03b4578", "text": "The (assets - liabilities)/#shares of a company is its book value, and that number is included in their reports. It's easy for a fund to release the net asset value on a daily basis because all of its assets (stocks, bonds, and cash) are given values every day by the market. It's also necessary to have a real time value for a fund as it will be bought and sold every day. A company can't really do the same thing as it will have much more diverse assets - real estate, cars, inventory, goodwill, etc. The real time value of those assets doesn't have the same meaning as a fund; those assets are used to earn cash, while a fund's business is only to maximize its net asset value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1343c7ed17d2c9d9ea47022e828c951c", "text": "Not sure of the question here if by IPO(initial public offering) you mean private company then: A company can invest its excess money into other companies, to earn returns. Also a company that is private can attract private investment if the sector is doing well on publicly traded markets. Finally a company can diversify away risk, by holding shares of a company that would benefit in the event of a disruption in their own industry.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e30c1a9481ded4a26c6feb5502718faa", "text": "My understanding is you can create a company 0 value. Then you need to either loan the company the money to buy the building (it will still have 0 value as it will have a debt equal to it's assets) or sell share to investors at any price you like to raise the money to buy the building. Once shares have value (as valued by a chartered accountant - not anyone can do this) then anyone recieving shares will have to pay income tax. This is why keeping the shares as no value for as long as possible can be preferable. Also a benefit of using share options. talk to your investors, see what they require.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3f2365912ad92fdb6806f5009bb20a8", "text": "As far as I know, the AMT implications are the same for a privately held company as for one that is publicly traded. When I was given my ISO package, it came with a big package of articles on AMT to encourage me to exercise as close to the strike price as possible. Remember that the further the actual price at the time of purchase is from the strike price, the more the likely liability for AMT. That is an argument for buying early. Your company should have a common metric for determining the price of the stock that is vetted by outside sources and stable from year to year that is used in a similar way to the publicly traded value when determining AMT liability. During acquisitions stock options often, from what I know of my industry, at least, become options in the new company's stock. This won't always happen, but its possible that your options will simply translate. This can be valuable, because the price of stock during acquisition may triple or quadruple (unless the acquisition is helping out a very troubled company). As long as you are confident that the company will one day be acquired rather than fold and you are able to hold the stock until that one day comes, or you'll be able to sell it back at a likely gain, other than tying up the money I don't see much of a downside to investing now.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59c4d3ea50aad7d39d3a7495aa8e3924", "text": "Book value = sell all assets and liquidate company . Then it's the value of company on book. Price = the value at which it's share gets bought or sold between investors. If price to book value is less than one, it shows that an 100$ book value company is being traded at 99$ or below. At cheaper than actually theoretical price. Now say a company has a production plant . Situated at the most costliest real estate . Yet the company's valuation is based upon what it produces, how much orders it has etc while real estate value upon which plant is built stays in book while real investors don't take that into account (to an extend). A construction company might own a huge real estate inventory. However it might not be having enough cash flow to sustain monthly expense. In this scenario , for survival,i the company might have to sell its real estate at discount. And market investors are fox who could smell trouble and bring price way below the book value Hope it helps", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
9748bb94b4b9e7d3a5febf35da129f5c	If a employers supposed to calulate drive time pay with your weekly gross pay	[ { "docid": "798170778594d0e501f31a16af9790d5", "text": "\"Reimbursements for business expenses are generally not taxable, but the commute from home to the job and back is not considered business travel and if they're paying for that it is taxable income. I don't think carpooling changes that, but I am not a tax lawyer or accountant. The rest of your questions seem to be company policy issues. There is no \"\"should\"\" here. You aren't required to pick up the other guys, but he isn't required to reimburse those miles (or employ you) so think carefully about your priorities before pushing back. Never invoke what thou canst not banish.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7a3cbe87c7d49cdb8cc02b7f7fdec32", "text": "\"You're getting paid by the job, not by the hour, so I don't see why you think the employer is obligated to pay you for the drive time. The only way that might be true, as far as I can see, is if he were avoiding paying you minimum wage by structuring your employment this way. It looks like to me you're over the minimum wage based on what you wrote. At maximum \"\"unpaid\"\" drive time (59 min each way) and maximum length of job (4 hours as you stated it), gives your minimum hourly rate of $8.83/hr. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25/hr, so you're over that. A quick search online suggests that NV does have a higher minimum at $8.25/hr under some conditions, but you're still over that too. The fact that you're required to pick-up the helpers and that you have a company car at home probably does mean that you're \"\"on the clock\"\" from the moment that you leave your house, but, again, you're not actually being paid by the clock. As long as no other law is being broken (and it appears from your telling that there isn't), then the employer can set any policy for how to compute the compensation that he wants. Regarding taxes, the employer probably has no discretion there. You're making what you're making, and the employer needs to tax it in total. Since you're driving a company vehicle from home, I don't think that you're entitled to any reimbursement (vs. wages) that would not be taxed unless maybe you pay for gas yourself. The gas money, if applicable, should be reimbursable as a business expense and that generally would not be taxed.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ea751480073d65d4e870329fddcd427f", "text": "\"IANAL, but I had heard (and would appreciate someone more qualified commenting on this) that one reason these things were often found unenforceable is that there is no consideration. The contract is to bind you for your work each day, but once you stop working, they allege you have a continued obligation that transcends your time at the company. Claiming that your day-to-day compensation covers this is as if to say some part of that compensation is not for your work but to pay you for not going elsewhere. It would be nice to see at minimum a requirement to separate these two concepts into separate contracts as bundling them creates a blur, and most importantly doesn't allow you to negotiate or walk away from the terms of one part without the other. At the heart of any \"\"market\"\", which the job market purports to be, is a sense that a fair price is reached when both parties can walk away from a bad deal. This is not so in the case of employment because, as Adlai Stevenson said, \"\"a hungry man is not a free man\"\", so someone who needs to eat (or feed a family) has a need to take an offer that is already biasing their acceptance of work, and this quasi-duress is compounded when a company can attach additional pressures that work agains that person's ability to fairly negotiate possible improvements of what may already have been a bad situation. I'm of the impression that duress itself has been argued to be a reason to hold a contract invalid. But more abstractly and generally, any time two parties are bargaining asymmetrically (I'm not sure the legal definition, but intuitively I'd say where one party has the ability to force a contract change and the other party is not), then those terms have to be suspect. Also, for the special case the pay is anything near minimum wage, I would suggest asking the question of whether the part of the compensation that is salary, not \"\"keeping you from working for the competition\"\", is the wage paid consistent with minimum wage, or does it have to draw from the pool of money that is not about wage but is about incentivizing you to not move. And, finally, if they stop paying you, and each day you've been paid a little to work and a little to incentivize you to leave, then are you getting a continued revenue stream to continue to incentivize you not to work for the competition? If not, there would seem again not to be consideration. As I said, I'm not an expert in this. I just follow such matters sometimes in the news. But I don't see these issues getting discussed here and I hope we'll see some useful responses from the crowd here, and also the smart folks at reddit can help through their discussions to form some useful political and legal defenses to help individuals overcome what is really a moral outrage on this matter. Capitalism is an often cruel engine. I worked at a company where one of the bosses said to me, after contributing really great things that added structurally in fundamental ways to the company, \"\"don't tell me what you've done, tell me what you've done lately\"\". Capitalism makes people scrap every day to prove their worth. So it's morally an outrage to see it also trying even as it beats down the price of someone and tells them they aren't entitled to better, to tell them that they may not go somewhere else that thinks they are better. That is not competition and it is not fair. Indentured servitude, not slavery, is more technically correct. And yet it is a push to treat people like capital, so slavery is not inappropriate metaphorically. The topic is non-competes, but really it's about businesses not wanting to have to compete for employees; that is, about businesses not wanting capitalism to prevail in hiring. Sorry for the length.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bae6e8d76b98b2ba96a5520be36c2c8f", "text": "I believe moving reimbursement has to be counted as income no matter when you get it. I'd just put it under miscellaneous income with an explanation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e9724203d4f5b5c13be3e4ffa92717c5", "text": "I would think that the real teeth here would be the IRS, should they look into it (and they should). Splitting paychecks to avoid overtime also reduces taxes paid, which is large scale tax fraud, which generally leads to a sentence in gently-caress-my-bum-Federal-Penitentiary.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3aa263038384b8ba5f32d1e559ba0291", "text": "\"It is like you are your own boss on the side... Could seem reasonable, but... Let me guess, this will NOT count as part of a regular 8 hour day, be applicable toward a 40 hour work week, qualify anyone for over time, and/or qualify workers on the borderline of qualifying for full time benefits as full time. Also, if packages come up missing it will count directly against the employee and/or be deducted from their normal wages BEFORE the employee receives them. Walmart will also find a way not be responsible for the administrative overhead required to use one's car in a work capacity. With employees feeling the social pressure to provide the service \"\"for the team\"\" while Walmart doesn't put the procedures in place to make sure that employees ALWAYS have the proper car insurance. What could go wrong?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5bf4aa4f68b173fc56b2b036fda4b580", "text": "One point that I don't see covered in the other answers yet: How does this affect the months that have 5 weeks. Do we actually lose two weeks a year? I get paid every two weeks, and pay day is always a Friday. Some months, I get paid 3 times - which is always great. If you live within your means, it's like an extra paycheck. All other months, I get paid two times. How many months a year do I get paid 3 times? 2. It will always be two, because there are 12 months. If you get paid twice a month, that's 24 pay checks, which is 2 shy of 26 pay checks - what we would expect if we were paid every two weeks. That means those 2 extra pay checks need to fall somewhere, and they will be on the months where your pay day is hit 5 times. For example, in 2014, there are 4 months with 5 Fridays: Jan May Aug Oct I got paid the second Friday of January, so I only got 2 checks in January. I will be paid on the first Friday of May, which means I will get 3 checks in May. My other triple-check month this year is October, so of course I am only going to be paid twice in August.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a57851d680f06d0d027cbc370f7c762e", "text": "I contacted Stephen Fishman, J.D., the author of Home Business Tax Deductions, to let him know that this question was missing from his book. He was kind enough to send a reply. My original phrasing of the question: If your car is used for both business and personal use, and you deduct via the actual expense method, do trips to the mechanic, gas station, and auto parts store to service or repair the car count as business miles, personal miles, or part-business-part-personal miles? What about driving the newly-purchased car home from the dealership? And his response: Good question. I can find nothing about this in IRS publication or elsewhere. However, common sense would tell us that the cost of driving to make car repairs should be deductible. If you use your car for business, it is a business expense, just like transporting any other piece of business equipment for repairs is a business expense. This should be so whether you use the standard mileage rate or actual expense method. You should probably reduce the amount of your deduction by the percentage of personal use of the car during the year. The same goes for driving a car home from the dealer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ae88354d918c5f09d1b21baec41180e", "text": "\"Take a look at IRS Publication 15. This is your employer's \"\"bible\"\" for withholding the correct amount of taxes from your paycheck. Most payroll systems use what this publication defines as the \"\"Percentage Method\"\", because it requires less data to be entered into the system in order to correctly compute the amount of withholding. The computation method is as follows: Taxes are computed \"\"piecewise\"\"; dollar amounts up to A are taxed at X%, and then dollar amounts between A and B are taxed at Y%, so total tax for B dollars is AX + (B-A)Y. Here is the table of rates for income earned in 2012 on a daily basis by a person filing as Single: To use this table, multiply all the dollar amounts by the number of business days in the pay period (so don't count more than 5 days per week even if you work 6 or 7). Find the range in which your pay subject to withholding falls, subtract the \"\"more than\"\" amount from the range, multiply the remainder by the \"\"W/H Pct\"\" for that line, and add that amount to the \"\"W/H Base\"\" amount (which is the cumulative amount of all lower tax brackets). This is the amount that will be withheld from your paycheck if you file Single or Married Filing Separately in the 2012 TY. If you file Married Filing Jointly, the amounts defining the tax brackets are slightly different (there's a pretty substantial \"\"marriage advantage\"\" right now; withholding for a married person in average wage-earning range is half or less than a person filing Single.). In your particular example of $2500 biweekly (10 business days/pp), with no allowances and no pre-tax deductions: So, with zero allowances, your employer should be taking $451.70 out of your paycheck for federal withholding. Now, that doesn't include PA state taxes of 3.07% (on $2500 that's $76.75), plus other state and federal taxes like SS (4.2% on your gross income up to 106k), Medicare/Medicaid (1.45% on your entire gross income), and SUTA (.8% on the first $8000). But, you also don't get a refund on those when you fill out the 1040 (except if you claim deductions against state income tax, and in an exceptional case which requires you to have two jobs in one year, thus doubling up on SS and SUTA taxes beyond their wage bases). If you claim 3 allowances on your federal taxes, all other things being equal, your taxable wages are reduced by $438.45, leaving you with taxable income of $2061.55. Still in the 25% bracket, but the wages subject to that level are only $619.55, for taxes in the 25% bracket of $154.89, plus the withholding base of $187.20 equals total federal w/h of $342.09 per paycheck, a savings of about $110pp. Those allowances do not count towards other federal taxes, and I do not know if PA state taxes figure these in. It seems odd that you would owe that much in taxes with your withholding effectively maxed out, unless you have some other form of income that you're reporting such as investment gains, child support/alimony, etc. With nobody claiming you as a dependent and no dependents of your own, filing Single, and zero allowances on your W-4 resulting in the tax withholding above, a quick run of the 1040EZ form shows that the feds should owe YOU $1738.20. The absolute worst-case scenario of you being claimed as a dependent by someone else should still get you a refund of $800 if you had your employer withhold the max. The numbers should only have gotten better if you're married or have kids or other dependents, or have significant itemized deductions such as a home mortgage (on which the interest and any property taxes are deductible). If you itemize, remember that state income tax, if any, is also deductible. I would consult a tax professional and have him double-check all your numbers. Unless there's something significant you haven't told us, you should not have owed the gov't at the end of the year.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81e8e8a67a6655b2089007919ee45413", "text": "No. Regular W2 employees cannot deduct housing or transportation costs related to their employment. However, in the US, many employers offer Parking and/or Transit FSA programs which are usually collectively referred to a Commuter Benefits FSA programs, this is particularly common among larger employers with locations in major metropolitan cities. Under Commuter benefits FSAs employees can defer up to $255 per month from their gross pay, tax-free, for parking and/or transit expenses. Eligible expenses include things like bus and train passes or parking at a train or bus station. These are money-in/money-out arrangements so expenses can only be claimed against contributions that have been made, unlike a Health FSA. Though, like a health FSA, contributions are subject to use-it or lose-it provisions. These programs must be sponsored by the employer for an employee to take advantage of them though. Some jurisdictions mandate that employers above a certain threshold must offer commuter benefits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ef572d74f547abb3dee28a7951c7242", "text": "It's difficult to quantify the intangible benefits, so I would recommend that you begin by quantifying the financials and then determine whether the difference between the pay of the two jobs justifies the value of the intangible benefits to you. Some Explainations You are making $55,000 per year, but your employer is also paying for a number of benefits that do not come free as a contractor. Begin by writing down everything they are providing you that you would like to continue to have. This may include: You also need to account for the FICA tax that you need to pay completely as a part time employee (normally a company pays half of it for you). This usually amounts to 7.8% of your income. Quantification Start by researching the cost for providing each item in the list above to yourself. For health insurance get quotes from providers. For bonuses average your yearly bonuses for your work history with the company. Items like stock options you need to make your best guess on. Calculations Now lets call your original salary S. Add up all of the costs of the list items mentioned above and call them B. This formula will tell you your real current annual compensation (RAC): Now you want to break your part time job into hours per year, not hours per month, as months have differing numbers of working days. Assuming no vacations that is 52 weeks per year multiplied by 20 hours, or 1040 hours (780 if working 15 hours per week). So to earn the same at the new job as the old you would need to earn an hourly wage of: The full equation for 20 hours per week works out to be: Assumptions DO NOT TAKE THIS SECTION AS REPRESENTATIVE OF YOUR SITUATION; ONLY A BALLPARK ESTIMATE You must do the math yourself. I recommend a little spreadsheet to simplify things and play what-if scenarios. However, we can ballpark your situation and show how the math works with a few assumptions. When I got quoted for health insurance for myself and my partner it was $700 per month, or $8400 per year. If we assume the same for you, then add 3% 401k matching that we'll assume you're taking advantage of ($1650), the equation becomes: Other Considerations Keep in mind that there are other considerations that could offset these calculations. Variable hours are a big risk, as is your status as a 'temporary' employee. Though on the flip side you don't need to pay taxes out of each check, allowing you to invest that money throughout the year until taxes are due. Also, if you are considered a private contractor you can write off many expenses that you cannot as a full time employee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "168c75be45ba473b7391fb8a0554acb8", "text": "Not if the bonuses are also on a grid. At my work it's the same way -- you get paid a certain amount for every year of tenure you have at the company (outside experience generally doesn't count) and then the bonus varies depending on how your performance rating goes. Everybody knows what the bonus levels are.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0de7e6aed1729871b322f5ff71e320c1", "text": "This sounds like it makes no difference if you behave in the same manner (i.e. take the same vacation time). For example, say you work 1 hour and take 1 hour of vacation and the current hourly rate is $1/hour. You would make $2. Using your formula, new rate = 1* (1+1)/1 = 12 = $2. So they would pay you $2 for the hour you worked and then you would take the 1 hour of vacation with no pay. If you plan on taking LESS vacation than used in the formula, you make more money. If you plan on taking MORE vacation, you make less money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afc203f282f5079672ba3daa2e0812b1", "text": "Biweekly pay for salaried employees is typically calculated as Annual-salary / 26. Twice a month pay for salaried employees is typically calculated as Annual-salary / 24. If you were getting paid twice a month and now are getting paid every other week, your paycheck will be roughly ( Twice-a-month-paycheck-amount 24 / 26 ). If you were paid $1000 twice a month, you'll be paid $923 every other week. $1000 * 24 = $24K and $923 * 26 = $24K. You will get paid every other week regardless of month boundaries on a biweekly pay cycle.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8b07cdddb2d7d038e84779c08abb29c", "text": "Temporary flex time is just fine. During crunch time, put in 60 hours a week and then when the crunch is over, do a few weeks of 30 hours, wind down, take a day off, charge for the next crunch. That's how flexible hours should work, to both directions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60692161b8b350f107c09ff2893b31e6", "text": "\"I believe there is an overtime meal allowance. That is, if an employee works \"\"overtime\"\" (defined as 7:00 p.m. for a 9:00 start, or ten-plus hours after the shift starts), the company can provide a non-taxable meal free of charge, or give a \"\"reasonable\"\" allowance ($15-$20) that must be spent outside on a meal (no drinks). This is because the employee is working extra hours at the convenience of the company. Lunches can be subsidized. That is the company can provide lunch on company premises, and must charge employees the direct costs of the food and preparing it, but can forego charging for \"\"overhead\"\" (e.g. the implied rent for the lunch facility) and profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b13f719477e0d0f36451f0425affb9dc", "text": "Not really. For moderate length (5-6hr) that is a lunch break. Leave at 6, break after 3hr for lunch, extra charge at 2:30pm for 20m, break at dinner, drive. Meal alignment and you drove 6am to 8pm or so with only one extra stop. If you hyper optimize your time that sucks, but was minor imo.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
39c87d91d52668d6dafc4f59ae9dadf1	How to manage 20 residential apartments	[ { "docid": "4947e3208e0f0fd6a510771e77a0b9e3", "text": "If he can't manage, best is he sells it off. Its easier to manage cash. Not sure what tax you are talking about. He should have already paid tax on fair market value of the 20 flats. If the intention of Mr X is to gift to son by way of death, then yes the tax will be less. Else whenever Mr X sells there will be tax. how to manage these 20 apartments? Hire a broker. He may front run quite a few things like showing the place etc. There is a risk if he is given a free hand, he may not get good quality tenant. There are quite a few shark brokers [its unregulated] who may arm twist seeing the opportunity of an old man with 20 flats. See if you can do long term lease with companies looking for guest house etc, or certain companies who run guest house. They would like the scale, generally 3-5 years contracts are done. The rent is good and overall less hassle. The risk is most would ask to invest more in furnishing and contracts can be terminated in months notice. If the property is in large metro [Delhi/Bangalore/Chennai/etc] These places have good property management companies. Ensure that you have independent lawyer; there are certain aspects of law that may need to be studied.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5a6e5ffd6b132189f7b39f5213d9725", "text": "I have no idea about India, but in many countries there are companies that specialize in property management. This means they will take on the business of maintaining the properties, finding tenants, doing paperwork and background checks, collecting rents and evicting tenants if necessary. Obviously for this they require a fee, but essentially the owner gets to sit back and do nothing except collect a cheque every month. In my country some real estate agents are in this business as well, though for 20 apartments I would be looking for a specialized firm.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8daccb4c7d1963417fafccde3f1149a4", "text": "There are many property management companies are available in India. You can easily find trusted companies just searching on the google. They manage all these things legally. You just try this", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4ac2c64ce70259bde39978411a151518", "text": "\"with 150K € to invest to \"\"become a landlord\"\" you have several options: Pay for 100% of one property, and you then will make a significant percentage of the monthly rent as profit each month. That profit can be used to invest in other things, or to save to buy additional properties. At the end of the 21 years in your example, you can sell the flat for return of principal minus selling expenses, or even better make a profit because the property went up in value. Pay 20% down on 5 flats, and then make a much a smaller profit per flat each month due to the mortgage payment for each one. At the end of the 21 years sell the flats. Assuming that a significant portion of the mortgage is paid off each flat will sell for more than the mortgage balance. Thus you will have 5 nice large profits when you sell. something in between 1 and 5 flats. Each has different risks and expenses. With 5 rental properties you are more likely to use a management company, which will add to your monthly cost.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32f65fc97fd635d2e2758c4e3e51da9d", "text": "I owned and managed a few residential properties. At one time the net cash flow was on the order of $1000 per month. But it was work. Lots of work. I was managing about 7 units. This does not count the gains in capital appreciation which were significant. Using a management company would have put the cash flow at 0 or in the negative and would have lowered the quality of management IMO. Nothing comes for free...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "186949c06eb488b98bb884fff413d4d4", "text": "Renting a house out using a management company is mostly passive income. Earning affiliate income from companies that pay on a recurring basis is closer to passive income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0255b03e9b26ac7886bc7db1ca7075a", "text": "\"I agree with Joe Taxpayer that a lot of details are missing to really evaluate it as an investment... for context, I own a few investment properties including a 'small' 10+ unit apartment complex. My answer might be more than you really want/need, (it kind of turned into Real Estate Investing 101), but to be fair you're really asking 3 different questions here: your headline asks \"\"how effective are Condo/Hotel developments as investments?\"\" An answer to that is... sometimes, very. These are a way for you-the investor-to get higher rents per sq. ft. as an owner, and for the hotel to limit its risks and access additional development funding. By your description, it sounds like this particular company is taking a substantial cut of rents. I don't know this property segment specifically, but I can give you my insight for longer-term apartment rentals... the numbers are the same at heart. The other two questions you're implying are \"\"How effective is THIS condo/hotel development?\"\" and \"\"Should you buy into it?\"\" If you have the funds and the financial wherewithal to honestly consider this, then I am sure that you don't need your hand held for the investment pros/cons warnings of the last question. But let me give you some of my insight as far as the way to evaluate an investment property, and a few other questions you might ask yourself before you make the decision to buy or perhaps to invest somewhere else. The finance side of real estate can be simple, or complicated. It sounds like you have a good start evaluating it, but here's what I would do: Start with figuring out how much revenue you will actually 'see': Gross Potential Income: 365 days x Average Rent for the Room = GPI (minus) Vacancy... you'll have to figure this out... you'll actually do the math as (Vacancy Rate %) x GPI (equals) Effective Potential Income = EPI Then find out how much you will actually pocket at the end of the day as operating income: Take EPI (minus) Operating expenses ... Utilities ... Maintenace ... HOA ... Marketing if you do this yourself (minus) Management Expenses ... 40% of EPI ... any other 'fees' they may charge if you manage it yourself. ... Extra tax help? (minus) Debt Service ... Mortgage payment ... include Insurances (property, PMI, etc) == Net Operating Income (NOI) Now NOI (minus) Taxes == Net Income Net Income (add back) Depreciation (add back) sometimes Mortgage Interest == After-tax Cash Flows There are two \"\"quickie\"\" numbers real estate investors can spout off. One is the NOI, the other is the Cap Rate. In order to answer \"\"How effective is THIS development?\"\" you'll have to run the numbers yourself and decide. The NOI will be based on any assumptions you choose to make for vacancy rates, actual revenue from hotel room bookings, etc. But it will show you how much you should bring in before taxes each year. If you divide the NOI by the asking price of your unit (and then multiply by 100), you'll get the \"\"Cap Rate\"\". This is a rough estimate of the rate of return you can expect for your unit... if you buy in. If you come back and say \"\"well I found out it has a XX% cap rate\"\", we won't really be qualified to help you out. Well established mega investment properties (think shopping centers, office buildings, etc.) can be as low as 3-5 cap rates, and as high as 10-12. The more risky the property, the higher your return should be. But if it's something you like, and the chance to make a 6% return feels right, then that's your choice. Or if you have something like a 15% cap rate... that's not necessarily outstanding given the level of risk (uncertain vacancies) involved in a hotel. Some other questions you should ask yourself include: How much competition is there in the area for short-term lodging? This could drive vacancies up or down... and rents up or down as well How 'liquid' will the property (room) be as an asset? If you can just break even on operating expense, then it might still make sense as an investment if you think that it might appreciate in value AND you would be able to sell the unit to someone else. How much experience does this property management company have... (a) in general, (b) running hotels, and (c) running these kinds of condo-hotel combination projects? I would be especially interested in what exactly you're getting in return for paying them 40% of every booking. Seasonality? This will play into Joe Taxpayer's question about Vacancy Rates. Your profile says you're from TX... which hints that you probably aren't looking at a condo on ski slopes or anything, but if you're looking at something that's a spring break-esque destination, then you might still have a great run of high o during March/April/May/June, but be nearly empty during October/November/December. I hope that helps. There is plenty of room to make a more \"\"exact\"\" model of what your cash flows might look like, but that will be based on assumptions and research you're probably not making at this time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f47d532ee2ff1cd4da42aa86e7f3042", "text": "Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) have different end of term dates but by less than a month. Both have summer sessions, but most students do not stay over the summer. You can rent over the summer, but prices fall by a lot. Thirty to forty thousand students leave over the summer between the two. Only ten to twenty thousand remain throughout the year and not all of those are in Oakland (the neighborhood in Pittsburgh where the universities are located). So many of the landlords in Oakland have the same problem. Your competitors will cut their rates to try to get some rent for the summer months. This also means that you have to handle eight, nine, and three month leases rather than year long and certainly not multiyear leases. You're right that you don't have to buy the latest appliances or the best finishes, but you still have to replace broken windows and doors. Also, the appliances and plumbing need to mostly work. The furnace needs to produce heat and distribute it. If there is mold or mildew, you will have to take care of it. You can't rely on the students doing so. So you have to thoroughly clean the premises between tenants. Students may leave over winter break. If there are problems, the pipes may freeze and burst, etc. Since they're not there, they won't let you know when things break. Students drop out during the term and move out. You probably won't be able to replace them when that happens. If you have three people in two bedrooms, two of them may be in a romantic relationship. Romantic relationships among twenty-year olds end frequently. Your three people drops back to two. Your recourse in that case is to evict the remaining tenants and sue for breach of contract. But if you do that, you may not replace the tenants until a new term starts. Better might be to sue the one who left and accept the lower rent from the other two. But you likely won't get the entire rent amount for the remainder of the lease. Suing an impoverished student is not the road to riches. Pittsburgh is expected to have a 6.1% increase in house prices which almost all of it is going to be pure profit. I don't know specifically about Pittsburgh, but in the national market, housing prices are about where they were in 2004. Prices were flat to increasing from 2004 to 2007 and then fell sharply from 2007 to 2009, were flat to decreasing from 2009 to 2012, and have increased the last few years. Price to rent ratios are as high now as in 2003 and higher than they were the twenty years before that. Maybe prices do increase. Or maybe we hit a new 20% decrease. I would not rely on this for profit. It's great if you get it, but unreliable. I wouldn't rely on estimates for middle class homes to apply to what are essentially slum apartments. A 6% average may be a 15% increase in one place and a 3% decrease in another. The nice homes with the new appliances and the fancy finishes may get the 15% increase. The rundown houses in a block where students party past 2 AM may get no increase. Both the city of Pittsburgh and the county of Allegheny charge property taxes. Schools and libraries charge separate taxes. The city provides a worksheet that estimates $2860 in taxes on a $125,000 property. It doesn't sound like you would be eligible for homestead or senior tax relief. Realtors should be able to tell you the current assessment and taxes on the properties that they are selling you. You should be able to call a local insurance agent to find out what kinds of insurance are available to landlords. There is also renter's insurance which is paid by the tenant. Some landlords require that tenants show proof of insurance before renting. Not sure how common that is in student housing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de2f8020f2afe5a02fa537ebb9f85250", "text": "\"To be completely honest, I think that a target of 10-15% is very high and if there were an easy way to attain it, everyone would do it. If you want to have such a high return, you'll always have the risk of losing the same amount of money. Option 1 I personally think that you can make the highest return if you invest in real estate, and actively manage your property(s). If you do this well with short term rental and/or Airbnb I think you can make healthy returns BUT it will cost a lot of time and effort which may diminish its appeal. Think about talking to your estate agent to find renters, or always ensuring your AirBnB place is in good nick so you get a high rating and keep getting good customers. If you're looking for \"\"passive\"\" income, I don't think this is a good choice. Also make sure you take note of karancan's point of costs. No matter what you plan for, your costs will always be higher than you think. Think about water damage, a tenant that breaks things/doesn't take care of stuff etc. Option 2 I think taking a loan is unnecessarily risky if you're in good financial shape (as it seems), unless you're gonna buy a house with a mortgage and live in it. Option 3 I think your best option is to buy bonds and shares. You can follow karancan's 100 minus your age rule, which seems very reasonable (personally I invest all my money in shares because that's how my father brought me up, but it's really a matter of taste. Both can be risky though bonds are usually safer). I think I should note that you cannot expect a return of 10% or more because, as everyone always says, if there were a way to guarantee it, everyone would do it. You say you don't have any idea how this works so I'd go to my bank and ask them. You probably have access to private banking so that should mean someone will be able to sit you down and talk you through. Also look at other banks that have better rates and/or pretend you're leaving your bank to negotiate a better deal. If I were you I'd invest in blue chips (big international companies listed on the main indeces (DAX, FTSE 100, Dow Jones)), or (passively managed) mutual funds/ETFs that track these indeces. Just remember to diversify by country and industry a bit. Note: i would not buy the vehicles/plans that my bank (no matter what they promise, and they promise a lot) suggest because if you do that then the bank always takes a cut off your money. TlDr, dont expect to make 10-15% on a passive investment and do what a lot of others do: shares and bonds. Also make sure you get a lot of peoples opinions :)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a66f38ae2cba550a0b1745a99f4782ac", "text": "Approach property management companies. I work for one with hundreds of properties and we need plumbers all the time. On the business side it simplifies your marketing and repeat business. We get potted flowers and candy from vendors all the time. Or they bring in pizza for lunch once a quarter to keep the relationship up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ad92aef2db18e00c11a34e335a8493c", "text": "Well for starters you want to rent it for more than the apartment costs you. Aside from mortgage you have insurance, and maintenance costs. If you are going to have a long term rental property you need to make a profit, or at a bare minimum break even. Personally I would not like the break even option because there are unexpected costs that turn break even into a severe loss. Basically the way I would calculate the minimum rent for an apartment I owned would be: (Payment + (taxes/12) + (other costs you provide) + (Expected annual maintenance costs)) * 100% + % of profit I want to make. This is a business arrangement. Unless you are recouping some of your losses in another manner then it is bad business to maintain a business relationship that is costing you money. The only thing that may be worth considering is what comparable rentals go for in your area. You may be forced to take a loss if the rental market in your area is depressed. But I suspect that right now your condo is renting at a steal of a rate. I would also suspect that the number you get from the above formula falls pretty close to what the going rate in your area is.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e912dbff135225ac31d53bff72a6ff8", "text": "\"I am surprised at the amount of work this contract wants done. I'd question if it's even legal given the high costs. I suspect it's only there to remind abusive tenants of responsibilities they already have in law for extraordinary abuse beyond ordinary wear-and-tear: they are already on the hook to repaint if they trash the paint (think: child writing on walls, happens a lot), and already need to fumigate (and a lot more) if they are a filth-type hoarder who brings in a serious infestation (happens a lot). The landlord can already go after these people for additional money beyond the deposit. But that's not you. So don't freak out about those clauses, until you talk to the landlord and see what he's really after. Almost certainly, he really wants a \"\"fit and ready to rent\"\" unit upon your departure, so he doesn't have to take the unit off the market for months fixing it. As long as that's done, there's no reasonable reason for further work -- a decent landlord wouldn't require that. Nor would a court, IMO. The trouble with living in a place for awhile is you become blind to its deficiencies. What's more, it's rather difficult to \"\"size up\"\" a unit as ready when it's still occupied by your stuff. A unit will look rather different when reduced to a bare room, without furniture and whatnot distracting you. Add to it a dose of vanity and it becomes hard to convince yourself of defects others will easily see. So, tread carefully here. If push comes to shove, first stop is whether it's even legal. Cities and states with heavy tenant populations tend to have much more detailed laws, and as a rule, they favor the tenant. Right off the bat, in most states the tenant is not responsible for ordinary wear-and-tear. In my opinion, 6 years of ordinary, exempt wear would justify a repaint, so that shouldn't be on the tenant at all. As for the fumigation, I'm not in Florida so I don't know the deal, maybe there's some special environmental issue there which somehow makes that reasonable, it sure wouldn't fly in CA. Again that assumes you're a reasonable prudent tenant, not a slob or hoarder. As for the pro carpet cleaning, that's par for the course in any of the tough rent control areas I've seen, so that's gotten a pass from the legislators. Though $600 seems awfully high. Other than that, you can argue the terms are \"\"unconscionable\"\" -- too much of a raw deal to even be fair. However, this will depend on the opinion of a judge. Hit or miss. I'm hoping your landlord will be happy to negotiate based on the good condition of the unit (which he may not know; landlords rarely visit tenant units unless they really need to.) You certainly should make the case that you make here; that the work is not really needed and it's prohibitive. Your best defense against unconscionable deals is don't sign them. Remember, you didn't know the guy when you initially signed... the now-objectionable language should have been a big red flag back then, saying this guy is epic evil, run screaming. (even if that turned out not to be true, you should't have hung around to find out.) You may have gotten lucky this time, but don't make that mistake again. Unless one of the above pans out, though... a deal is a deal. You gave your word. The powerful act here is to keep your word. Forgive me for getting ontological, but successful people say it creates success for them. And here's the thing. You have to read your contracts because you can't keep your word if you don't know what word you gave. It's a common mistake: thinking good business is trust, hope, faith, submission or giving your all. No. In business, you take the time to hammer out mutually beneficial (win-win) agreements, and you set them on paper to eliminate confusion, argument and stress in the future as memories fade and conditions change. That conflict resolution is how business partners remain friends, or at least professional colleagues.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d2dca01d9cfa77aa73046505321e972", "text": "\"I see two important things missing from your ongoing costs: maintenance and equipment. I also don't see the one-time costs of buying and moving. Maintenance involves doing some boring math like \"\"roofs go every 20 years or so and a new roof would cost $20k, so I need $1000 a year in the roof fund. Furnaces go every 20 years and cost $5k, so I need $250 a year in the furnace fund.\"\" etc etc. Use your own local numbers for both how long things last and how much they cost to replace. One rule of thumb is a percentage of the house (not house and land) price each year keeping in mind that while roof, furnace, carpet, stove, toilets etc all need to get replaced eventually, not everything does - the walls for example cost a lot to build but don't wear out - and not all at a 20 year pace. Some is more often, some is less often. I've heard 5% but think that's too high. Try 3% maybe? So if you paid $200,000 for a $100,000 house sitting on $100,000 of land, you put $3000 a year or about $250 a month into a repair fund. Then ignore it until something needs to be repaired. When that happens, fund the repair from the savings. If you're lucky, there will always be enough in there. If the house is kind of old and on its last legs, you might need to start with a 10 or 20k infusion into that repair fund. Equipment means a lawnmower and trimmer, a snow shovel, tools for fixing things (screwdriver, hammer, glue, pliers, that sort of thing.) Maybe tools for gardening or other hobbies that house-owners are likely to have. You might need to prune back some trees or bushes if nothing else. Eventually you get tools for your tools such as a doo-dad for sharpening your lawnmower. Well, lots of doo-dads for sharpening lots of things. One time expenses include moving, new curtains, appliances if they don't come with the house, possibly new furniture if you would otherwise have a lot of empty rooms, paint and painting equipment, and your housewarming party. There are also closing costs associated with buying a house, and you might need to give deposits for some of your utilities, or pay to have something (eg internet) installed. Be sure to research these since you have to pay them right when you have the least money, as you move in.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f433e95de68c23d93cf4fae5295ecc2", "text": "You will need to look at the 27.5 year depreciation table from the IRS. It tells you how you will be able to write off the first year. It depends on which month you had the unit ready to rent. Note that that it might be a different month from when you moved, or when the first tenant moved in. Your list is pretty good. You can also claim some travel expenses or mileage related to the unit. Also keep track of any other expenses such as switching the water bill to the new renter, or postage. If you use Turbo tax, not the least expensive version, it can be a big help to get started and to remember how much to depreciate each year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a1293a666b8079d199978def4663f03", "text": "Getting the first year right for any rental property is key. It is even more complex when you rent a room, or rent via a service like AirBnB. Get professional tax advice. For you the IRS rules are covered in Tax Topic 415 Renting Residential and Vacation Property and IRS pub 527 Residential Rental Property There is a special rule if you use a dwelling unit as a personal residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days. In this case, do not report any of the rental income and do not deduct any expenses as rental expenses. If you reach that reporting threshold the IRS will now expect you to to have to report the income, and address the items such as depreciation. When you go to sell the house you will again have to address depreciation. All of this adds complexity to your tax situation. The best advice is to make sure that in a tax year you don't cross that threshold. When you have a house that is part personal residence, and part rental property some parts of the tax code become complex. You will have to divide all the expenses (mortgage, property tax, insurance) and split it between the two uses. You will also have to take that rental portion of the property and depreciation it. You will need to determine the value of the property before the split and then determine the value of the rental portion at the time of the split. From then on, you will follow the IRS regulations for depreciation of the rental portion until you either convert it back to non-rental or sell the property. When the property is sold the portion of the sales price will be associated with the rental property, and you will need to determine if the rental property is sold for a profit or a loss. You will also have to recapture the depreciation. It is possible that one portion of the property could show a loss, and the other part of the property a gain depending on house prices over the decades. You can expect that AirBnB will collect tax info and send it to the IRS As a US company, we’re required by US law to collect taxpayer information from hosts who appear to have US-sourced income. Virginia will piggyback onto the IRS rules. Local law must be researched because they may limit what type of rentals are allowed. Local law could be state, or county/city/town. Even zoning regulations could apply. Also check any documents from your Home Owners Association, they may address running a business or renting a property. You may need to adjust your insurance policy regarding having tenants. You may also want to look at insurance to protect you if a renter is injured.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b3f26a15ae57922ab21582901c89a67", "text": "You may have to ask each tenant to provide copies of bank statements or copied of deposited checks indicating what was paid, to whom and when. Using a spreadsheet is a good idea. It doesn't have to be complicated. If everyone co-operates then this exercise might not be too much of a hassle. But if anyone is combative or unwilling to produce these records, I would recommend reminding them that their other choice is to take each other to court where these records would be required anyway - or face eviction if the landlord doesn't get paid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e78a7689dc55077eb13c694a60c5654", "text": "\"When you say \"\"apartment\"\" I take it you mean \"\"condo\"\", as you're talking about buying. Right or no? A condo is generally cheaper to buy than a house of equal size and coondition, but they you have to pay condo fees forever. So you're paying less up front but you have an ongoing expense. With a condo, the condo association normally does exterior maintenance, so it's not your problem. Find out exactly what's your responsibility and what's theirs, but you typically don't have to worry about maintaining the parking areas, you have less if any grass to mow, you don't have to deal with roof or outside walls, etc. Of course you're paying for all this through your condo fees. There are two advantages to getting a shorter term loan: Because you owe the money for less time, each percentage point of interest is less total cash. 1% time 15 years versus 1% times 30 years or whatever. Also, you can usually get a lower rate on a shorter term loan because there's less risk to the bank: they only have to worry about where interest rates might go for 15 years instead of 30 years. So even if you know that you will sell the house and pay off the loan in 10 years, you'll usually pay less with a 15 year loan than a 30 year loan because of the lower rate. The catch to a shorter-term loan is that the monthly payments are higher. If you can't afford the monthly payment, then any advantages are just hypothetical. Typically if you have less than a 20% down payment, you have to pay mortgage insurance. So if you can manage 20% down, do it, it saves you a bundle. Every extra dollar of down payment is that much less that you're paying in interest. You want to keep an emergency fund so I wouldn't put every spare dime I had into a down payment if I could avoid it, but you want the biggest down payment you can manage. (Well, one can debate whether its better to use spare cash to invest in the stock market or some other investment rather than paying down the mortgage. Whole different question.) \"\"I dont think its a good idea to make any principal payments as I would probably loose them when I would want to sell the house and pay off the mortgage\"\" I'm not sure what you're thinking there. Any extra principle payments that you make, you'll get back when you sell the house. I mean, suppose you buy a house for $100,000, over the time you own it you pay $30,000 in principle (between regular payments and any extra payments), and then you sell it for $120,000. So out of that $120,000 you'll have to pay off the $70,000 balance remaining on the loan, leaving $50,000 to pay other expenses and whatever is left goes in your pocket. Scenario 2, you buy the house for $100,000, pay $40,000 in principle, and sell for $120,000. So now you subtract $60,000 from the $120,000 leaving $60,000. You put in an extra $10,000, but you get it back when you sell. Whether you make or lose money on the house, whatever extra principle you put in, you'll get back at sale time in terms of less money that will have to go to pay the remaining principle on the mortgage.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ca1b59e45e7dd98ad3c7f6ba8724c30", "text": "They call you because that is their business rules. They want their money, so their system calls you starting on the 5th. Now you have to decide what you should do to stop this. The most obvious is to move the payment date to before the 5th. Yes that does put you at risk if the tenant is late. But since it is only one of the 4 properties you own, it shouldn't be that big of a risk.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
ca04b0b64a5200696b4e4c4a211db0b2	My boss wants to buy me a gift. How do I account for taxes for this?	[ { "docid": "45390f1ecd215cbde66ecaa8e7578bd6", "text": "\"Gifts given and received between business partners or employers/employees are treated as income, if they are beyond minimal value. If your boss gives you a gift, s/he should include it as part of your taxable wages for payroll purposes - which means that some of your wages should be withheld to cover income, social security, and Medicare taxes on it. At the end of the year, the value of the gift should be included in Box 1 (wages) of your form W-2. Assuming that's the case, you don't need to do anything special. A 1099-MISC would not be appropriate because you are an employee of your boss - so the two of you need to address the full panoply of employment taxes, not just income tax, which would be the result if the payment were reported on 1099-MISC. If the employer wants to cover the cost to you of the taxes on the gift, they'll need to \"\"gross up\"\" your pay to cover it. Let's say your employer gives you a gift worth $100, and you're in a 25% tax bracket. Your employer has to give you $125 so that you end up with a gain of $100. But the extra $25 is taxable, too, so your employer will need to add on an extra $6.25 to cover the 25% tax on the $25. But, wait, now we've gotta pay 25% tax on the $6.25, so they add an extra $1.56 to cover that tax. And now they've gotta pay an extra $.39 . . . The formula to calculate the gross-up amount is: where [TAX RATE] is the tax rate expressed as a percentage. So, to get the grossed-up amount for a $100 gift in a 25% bracket, we'd calculate 1/(1-.25), or 1/.75, or 1.333, multiply that by the target gift amount of $100, and end up with $133.33. The equation is a little uglier if you have to pay state income taxes that are deductible on the federal return but it's a similar principle. The entire $133.33 would then be reported as income, but the net effect on the employee is that they're $100 richer after taxes. The \"\"gross-up\"\" idea can be quite complicated if you dig into the details - there are some circumstances where an additional few dollars of income can have an unexpected impact on a tax return, in a fashion not obvious from looking at the tax table. If the employer doesn't include the gift in Box 1 on the W-2 but you want to pay taxes on it anyway, include the amount in Line 7 on the 1040 as if it had been on a W-2, and fill out form 8919 to calculate the FICA taxes that should have been withheld.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05a2f8e0a28b65ca24ec68ecb84e114d", "text": "The way I have seen this done in the past is the business will withhold taxes on the amount of the gift. Very much like receiving a bonus. There are probably other ways to do it where taxes are avoided like you boss could buy the gift for you personally. Not sure about all the legal ways to avoid taxes on this.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "33815eb947ceaf1d6ce9d49424d4d5eb", "text": "As was once famously said, Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. — Benjamin Franklin, 1789 It's very likely that either the company or you personally is going to have to pay taxes on that money. Really the only way to avoid it would be if the company spent that money on next year's expenses, and paid the bill before the end of this year. Of course you can only do that if the recipient is willing to receive their money so far in advance, which isn't necessarily the case since they would pay more taxes this year as a result. As for whether it's better to have the company pay the tax or for you to do as your accountant suggests, there are a lot of factors that go into that equation, and my gut feeling is that your accountant already ran it both ways and is suggesting the better choice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39f3a8221f16c84c72aefff9e8144049", "text": "To quote the answer you linked to: Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. So, if your business purchased the $1000 gift card for $800, you should see a $800 charge appearing on a business CC or bank statement. You would therefore be able to deduct the $800, but not the full $1000 of items that you purchase with it. Side Notes:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f5ea3293efbf96f1c81666d56f4562a", "text": "\"I transfer all their funds to my bank account Are they paying tax on that transfer? Gifts under $14,000 are excluded from taxation in the US, but they're going going to have a hard time arguing that it is a gift (since they expect it back). The taxes are almost certainly going to exceed the amount you can make from your investments in the short term, and if they aren't paid then your \"\"clients\"\" are going to be in hot water with the IRS. You need to have something set up that establishes you as merely managing the funds, and not receiving them personally as a transfer. The other answers have good suggestions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "94f593b5521152a87c5459a25f4a9088", "text": "\"In the US you are not required to have a corporation to use business expenses to offset your income. The technical term you need is \"\"deducting business expenses\"\", and in matters of taxes it's usually best to go straight to the horse's mouth: the IRS's explanations Deducting Business Expenses Business expenses are the cost of carrying on a trade or business. These expenses are usually deductible if the business operates to make a profit. What Can I Deduct? Cost of Goods Sold, Capital Expenses, Personal versus Business Expenses, Business Use of Your Home, Business Use of Your Car, Other Types of Business Expenses None of this requires any special incorporation or tax arrangements, and are a normal part of operating a business. However, there is a bit of a problem with your scenario. You said you \"\"invested\"\" into a business, but you mentioned buying specific things for the business which is not generally how one accounts for investment. If you are not an owner/operator of the business, then the scenario is not so straight-forward, as you can't simply claim someone else's business expenses as your own because you invested in it. Investments are taxed differently than expenses, and based upon your word choices I'm concerned that you could be getting yourself into a bit of a pickle. I would strongly advise you to speak with a professional, such as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), to go over your current arrangement and advise you on how you should be structuring your ongoing investment into this shared business. If you are investing you should be receiving equity to reflect your ownership (or stock in the company, etc), and investments of this sort generally cannot be deducted as an expense on your taxes - it's just an investment, the same as buying stock or CDs. If you are just buying things for someone else's benefit, it's possible that this could be looked upon as a personal gift, and you may be in a precarious legal position as well (where the money is, indeed, just a gift). And gifts of this sort aren't deductible, either. Depending on how this is all structured, it's possible that you should both consider a different form of legal organization, such as a formal corporation or at least an official business partnership. A CPA and an appropriate business attorney should be able to advise you for a nominal (few hundred dollars, at most) fee. If a new legal structure is advisable, you can potentially do the work yourself for a few hundred dollars, or pay to have it done (especially if the situation is more complex) for a few hundred to a few thousand. That's a lot less than you'd be on the hook for if this business is being accounted for improperly, or if either of your tax returns are being reported improperly!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "388064e6784725aed42532bb9245f0f4", "text": "\"Yes, it's taxable. If anyone suggests it's a gift, they are mistaken. There's a line on the 1040 for \"\"other\"\" and as long as you claim it, you're fine with the IRS. It's 2012 income as you already got it. Edit - mhoran makes two good points I'm not really able to address. (a) does a late bonus such as this effect one's penalty? (b) since it skipped payroll, will there be an issue by not having FICA withheld?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52fd8c46f1c0418a056dc8204ca347e9", "text": "It is generally best to avoid such situations. Any credits to your accounts need to be explained to tax authorities whenever they enquire. This cannot be treated as income as you did not work in exchange for the amount. It can be treated by tax authorities as GIFT. Gift upto certain amount is tax free. Beyond the amount its taxable. Gifts from close relatives has not amount limit and is tax free. Whenever the scrutiny happens, if you can convince the tax authorities that the action was more for convenience, it maybe fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffd08dea7dad0b41a6ed09bda545c60a", "text": "No, any gifts you receive are not taxable to you. In fact, losing money in a scam (as this sure sounds like to me) can even be tax-deductible if you lose enough! I wouldn't recommend accepting anything. Usually people with millions are dollars are capable of setting up their own bank accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "046c3a367b30527c5d320c397e8de7c7", "text": "If you are in the US and a regular employee, this will have to show up on your year-end W2 form as income. If it doesn't, there is some funky accounting business going and you should probably consult a professional for advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12145f28caf8629f91f0f822a8de3b2c", "text": "Don't overthink it. As an employee, whether of your own corporation or of someone else, you get a salary and there are deductions taken out. As the owner of a business you get (hopefully) business profits as well. And, in general, you often have other sources of income from investments, etc. Your estimated tax payments are based on the difference between what was withheld from your salary and what you will owe, based on salary, business income, and other sources. So, in essence, you just add up all the income you expect, estimate what the tax bill will be, and subtract what's been withheld. That's your estimated tax payment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16975eb82ac74d9be6a9f09e50a0f753", "text": "Yes, if you gift him with a large amount you may be liable for gift tax. I believe the current limit is still $17k per person per person per year, so between you and your spouse you could give him up to $34k per year without triggering gift tax. If you want to give a larger sum, the standard workaround is an intra-family loan. Websearch for that phrase to learn more about it, but basically you loan the money and then gift the payments on the loan. This gives him the money up front, spreading the gift over subsequent years --but it requires that you declare the interest that he is supposedly paying you as income. There is a lower limit on the interest rate for these loans, but it's a fraction of a percent so this generally isn't a significant cost. (If you are able to structure the loan as a mortgage, he may be able to deduct the interest from his taxes. That usually requires a few hundred dollars if paperwork to set up.) I've done it. It works. And one of the advantages is that it puts the exact terms of the lian on paper where everyone can agree to them, which could be useful should there be arguments later on. When doing business with friends and relatives, keeping it on a clear business contract basis is the best way to avoid destroying the friendship.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26ce60fef4f08824a11abf3f8009ba3b", "text": "The IRS defines income quite specifically. On the topic What is Taxable and Nontaxable Income, they note: You can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. This section discusses many kinds of income that are taxable or nontaxable. It includes discussions on employee wages and fringe benefits, and income from bartering, partnerships, S corporations, and royalties. Bartering, or giving someone wages (or similar) in something other than currency (or some other specifically defined things, like fringe benefits), is taxed at fair market value: Bartering Bartering is an exchange of property or services. You must include in your income, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering. For additional information, Refer to Tax Topic 420 - Bartering Income and Barter Exchanges. Bartering is more specifically covered in Topic 420 - Bartering Income: You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 for information on filing an amended return. More details about income in general beyond the above articles is available in Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income. It goes into great detail about different kinds of income. In your example, you'd have to calculate the fair market value of an avocado, and then determine how much cash-equivalent you were paid in. The IRS wouldn't necessarily tell you what that value was; you'd calculate it based on something you feel you could justify to them afterwards. The way I'd do it would be to write down the price of avocados at each pay period, and apply a dollar-cost-averaging type method to determine the total pay's fair value. While the avocado example is of course largely absurd, the advent of bitcoins has made this much more relevant. Publication 525 has this to say about virtual currency: Virtual Currency. If your employer gives you virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) as payment for your services, you must include the fair market value of the currency in your income. The fair market value of virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) paid as wages is subject to federal income tax withholding, Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) tax, and Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax and must be reported on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Gold would be fundamentally similar - although I am not sure it's legal to pay someone in gold; assuming it were, though, its fair market value would be again the definition of income. Similarly, if you're paid in another country's currency, the US dollar equivalent of that is what you'll pay taxes on, at the fair market value of that currency in US dollars.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a99219ec5f173dad91f95b2103fdc1f1", "text": "Get the worker put it in writing, and deduct it in December under constructive receipt rules. The fact that you're getting the actual cash in January isn't significant as long as you've secured the payment. Verify this with a tax adviser, but that's what I would do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56596fac5107f6f0af730a04194202f2", "text": "\"A little terminology: Grant: you get a \"\"gift\"\" with strings attached. \"\"Grant\"\" refers to the plan (legal contract) under which you get the stock options. Vesting: these are the strings attached to the grant. As long as you're employed by the company, your options will vest every quarter, proportionally. You'll become an owner of 4687 or 4688 options every quarter. Each such vest event means you'd be getting an opportunity to buy the corresponding amount of stocks at the strike price (and not the current market price which may be higher). Buying is called exercising. Exercising a nonqualified option is a taxable event, and you'll be taxed on the value of the \"\"gift\"\" you got. The value is determined by the difference between the strike price (the price at which you have the option to buy the stock) and the actual fair market value of the stock at the time of vest (based on valuations). Options that are vested are yours (depending on the grant contract, read it carefully, leaving the company may lead to forfeiture). Options that are not vested will disappear once you leave the company. Exercised options become stocks, and are yours. Qualified vs Nonqualifed - refers to the tax treatment. Nonqualified options don't have any special treatment, qualified do. 3.02M stocks issued refers to the value of the options. Consider the total valuation of the company being $302M. With $302M value and 3.02M stocks issued, each stock is worth ~$100. Now, in a year, a new investor comes in, and another 3.02M stocks are issued (if, for example, the new investor wants a 50% stake). In this case, there will be 6.04M stocks issued, for 302M value - each stock is worth $50 now. That is called dilution. Your grant is in nominal options, so in case of dilution, the value of your options will go down. Additional points: If the company is not yet public, selling the stocks may be difficult, and you may own pieces of paper that no-one else wants to buy. You will still pay taxes based on the valuations and you may end up paying for these pieces of paper out of your own pocket. In California, it is illegal to not pay salary to regular employees. Unless you're a senior executive of the company (which I doubt), you should be paid at least $9/hour per the CA minimum wages law.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7da971f8aec74ab1da208c8d182c2eb1", "text": "\"Context: My parents overseas (Japan) sent me a little over $100,000 to cover an expensive tuition payment and moderate living expenses in 2014. They are not US residents, Green card holders or citizens. They did not remit the tuition payment directly to the school. I am a resident (for tax). This is enough to answer yes. That's basically the set of requirements for filing: you received >$100K from a non-US person and you yourself are a US person. You have to report it, and unless it is taxable income - it is a gift. Taxable income is reported on the form 1040, gifts are reported on the form 3520. The fact that in Japan it is not considered a gift is irrelevant. Gift tax laws vary between countries, some (many) don't have gift taxes at all. But the reporting requirement is based on the US law and the US definition of \"\"gift\"\". As I said above, if it is not a gift per the US law, then it is taxable income (and then you report all of it regardless of the amount and pay taxes). Had they paid directly to the institution, you wouldn't need to count it as income/gift to you because you didn't actually receive the money (so no income) and it went directly to cover your qualified education expenses (so no gift), but this is not the case in your situation. Whether or not this will be reported by the IRS back to Japan - I don't know, but it was probably already reported to the authorities in Japan by the banks through which the transfers went through. As to whether it will trigger an audit - doesn't really matter. It was, most likely, reported to the IRS already by the receiving banks in the US, so not reporting it on your tax return (either as income or on form 3520) may indeed raise some flags.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3db51ddabf9b2150a0a0e9952e75348c", "text": "Generally for tax questions you should talk to a tax adviser. Don't consider anything I write here as a tax advice, and the answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer. Does IRS like one payment method over other or they simply don't care as long as she can show the receipts? They don't care as long as she withholds the taxes (30%, unless specific arrangements are made for otherwise). She should withhold 30% of the payment and send it to the IRS. The recipient should claim refund, if the actual tax liability is lower. It's only consulting work at the moment, so most of the communication is done over phone. Should they start engaging in written communication to keep records of the work done? Yes, if she wants it to be a business expense. Is it okay to pay in one go to save money-transferring fees? Can she pay in advance? Again, she can do whatever she wants, but if she wants to account for it on her tax returns she should do it the same way she would pay any other vendor in her business. She cannot use different accounting methods for different vendors. Basically, she has not outsourced work in previous years, and she wants to avoid any red flags. Then she should start by calling on her tax adviser, and not an anonymous Internet forum.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
408261340dbd7bb14145fd4b69dccf5b	What types of careers consistently make the most money entering with no background or social skills?	[ { "docid": "de739c66d71c43b7ed7b810b9d702bc1", "text": "\"You may think it sucks to have learned a crap ton of category theory, which is seemingly useless outside of academia, but have you considered picking up a \"\"functional\"\" programming language, e.g. Haskell? How about Java or, more recently, Scala? I would bet that you would love Haskell. And then you can make a fortune working at Jane Street Capital, which uses OCaml, another functional programming language. Time to get your hands dirty with some programming experience. Minimal social skills required, as you had wished for, plus maximal compensation, plus you get to keep using math that was sort of close to your research area. Good luck.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bce48e2907397d3a7870a47c5e64fbfa", "text": "\"It sounds like you're massively under-selling yourself. You presumably have a degree to get into the PhD program, and you now have work experience as well. But you're applying for jobs in fast food restaurants. You may struggle to get a job because they will expect you to only be there a few weeks until you find a \"\"proper\"\" job.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "d8215c6954706a094273f3a834a35d61", "text": "I went through a very self damaging phase in my teens and wound up having to get a GED. I eventually followed it up with a punt for college and got a 2yr Assoc in Business. When I finally got my head out of my ass around my 30s, I realized how much I was stuck in the ~$25-30k bracket. I got an entry level job doing computer repair and started hitting the books & web. Soon, I was taking on web design and basic server admin duties. I got downsized and wound up looking again. Wound up in an entry level again doing first level support & inventory for a local ISP. I took an interest in networking and self studied for and got my Net+ and Sec+. I was acting as their local level network engineer but they weren't willing to change my pay or title so I began looking. I wound up getting picked up by a recruiter who helped me land a job that over doubled my pay and got me into a position where I'd get a lot of experience with high demand technologies and they'd sponsor my security clearance. I'm now closing in on the magical 6 digits but it's all about self motivation on constant education and learning. It should also be said that patience must be remembered. I knew I had dug a hole for myself and it wouldn't be overnight... I'm now in my early 40s so it's been a full decade of effort and just getting by.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "706fc4c602a14d6d7a58d167df266569", "text": "Florida. Piece work. Gutters. Oh and the industry is in such demand you can company hop all day all over the country. It's not much just climbing a ladder all day in the sun in 110 heat index 100% humidity hardly able to move after work. Oh that's also if you don't mind basically working minimum wage for the first year until you get good. Yeah no medical but no one seems to care if you're a junkie or alcoholic. Or call out every day. Or show up late because you can't be fired because there is no one to replace you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "66dd66bcab65f67540b450c111ddba7b", "text": "Everything in life is a combination of luck and skill. Startups are no different. The risks are higher and most sensible people know and understand that. You know why we worship the successes? Because against all odds, those startups stood up to your salaried buddies who work for faceless large corporations and have tons of people and kicked their asses. At some point, they deserve it. You see startups as gambling, others see it as betting on yourself. Especially founding or joining an early stage startup. It's also taking on huge responsibility. In a mega-corp your failures and shortcomings will be covered and almost certainly won't tank the company. Your creativity probably won't flourish and their is an incentive to do just well enough. Why should you work your ass off for a company that you're not invested in other than a paycheck? Startups aren't for everyone. Hell, startups probably aren't for most people. But there are some people, those select few, who simply can't imagine not working for themselves, creating things, tinkering, trying to change the world. It's not even gambling to them, it's a way of life.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8b8662496d3ff734aa0b957108abe71", "text": "\"This quote has it almost backwards. Thomas J. Stanley's recent book (he's one of the duo who researched and wrote about The Millionaire Next Door) claims that the top occupation of millionaires is \"\"business owner / self-employed\"\" (28%). \"\"Real estate investor\"\" is lumped in with \"\"other\"\" (9%), and if the ordering is correct in the list, it's no more than 2% of the total. (source)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d5afca16ee485c9157d01ff29ff09333", "text": "Hey OP, Don't listen to the negative comments, they don't know what they're talking about. I just got hired as an associate i-banker at the top investment bank in my country , which is roughly at the level of American bulge bracket banks. I'm an introvert. Yes, I like to drink and socialize, and part of the interview process involved cocktails and dinner with other candidates and several ibankers at all levels . But I-bankers are just geeks in suits. As long as you are comfortable in social settings , you don't need to be an alpha male or frat jock. I recommend meeting as many ibankers as possible. Have coffee chats and learn about the people that work in the industry. Good luck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "31cc1b414ce9879753cb345ab95d2af5", "text": "\"Even the Wall Street jobs require skill, knowing how the stock market work, knowing how people work, etc. Even saying \"\"that luck is the main factor in the majority of cases of great wealth\"\" is still wrong. Really the only time luck is the real reason is non skill based gambling games (lottery, slots, etc), inheritance, and finding a wallet on the side of the road/street\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f16eb5e1d56ec6965130ccdeaf8313ae", "text": "70 isn't all that bad. And being a fund manager at a top fund is not the highest paying job per se. What's critical is to be a partner, or found your own fund, or have some ownership stake. There are sales people and lawyers who make more than PMs because they own/run the firm. And I would say it's impossible to do anything in finance anymore without a degree.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b80363c7a594c079da8718c39651df41", "text": "It's all really personal preference and dependent on how your lifestyle/hobbies are. I have a friend who majored in Marketing and is now making 80k/yr out of college as he is also into web design. However, in my opinion, Finance would be the most exhilarating and Accounting would be the most stable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d92328b094a5df3c5d586bf8a4e5f54f", "text": "\"In finance What kind of amorphous bullshit is that? There are literally hundreds of different things that can varyingly be termed \"\"in finance\"\". If you want the traditional big bank job working as a spreadsheet monkey, very fucking difficult right now. Masters in finance doubling down on a BS: if it's from Princeton, great, if it's from Blue Mountain State, whatever. A CFA is getting common but it might help - it probably won't hurt at least. If you mean \"\"as a big shot trader for a hedge fund\"\" the answer is precisely impossible with only that on your resume. If you mean entry corporate finance, it's certainly possible (although you should not listen to anything I say in this regard as I've successfully avoided learning much about the subject thus far and have no intention of changing that, thus am as roughly as reliable on that as a wet paper towel).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8b3c91cd485070546d4ccdae881febf", "text": "Yes it is! You don't need the candidate waving a university diploma to find out in 5 minutes if they can read, write or understand. As someone who work with many interns, some of them from ivy league universities, I can confirm that many of them, 30%, have terrible attitudes, immaturity, spoiled, disorganized, and it all goes together with being not so smart, despite the degree. In the past, to be a teller in a bank, you did not have to finish high school. Just needed to be good with basic math.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f3cd600693eeed79ee84d83fd546f80", "text": "I work in marketing. Finance is probably the safest route with regards to opportunity and stability. Marketing can be expendable. Finance usually can't. That being said, it really depends on your personality type. Marketing people and Finance people are two different breeds. If you're the type that likes a very linear, matter-of-fact field, stick to finance where numbers don't lie. If your more of an extrovert who likes to think creatively in a field of a lot of unknowns, marketing may be the way to go.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "370abae7f82206dca7db05458d1152bf", "text": "Yeah, I've heard of actual people, like Jim-down-the-hall, making 1M due to those beautiful, god damned, golden handcuffs known as RSUs. This was at a valley tech giant though, so common, no. But in the realm of possibility without autism level natural abilities, yes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cbfd1c4095aaa7fb7d8ce00026bad72a", "text": "One overarching thing to keep in mind is that wherever you go with Finance if you work hard enough and climb the ladder, you can make decent money. I know CIO's, Market Stragesits and even CFO's, Portfolio Managers and CPA's that all live extremely comfortably, and all of them work outside of the IB industry, basically, IB isn't the end-all for making large sums of money. The main reason why it pays so much upfront is that of the hours you have to work if you look at their salary at an hourly rate, it's around 10-12 bucks an hour. Definitely think about the Double major thing though, or potentially just doing a minor. It would definitely look good on a resume, especially if it's something you also enjoy, but you've gotta keep that GPA high, and getting a 4.0 in CS is quite a challenge, to begin with. Pretty much any of the Series certifications can help you depending on where you want to go career-wise, obviously for some positions have certain series certifications won't be useful at all. It's also worth looking into the CFA program if you plan on doing Financial Analysis, but you'll need a sponsor for this, just like the Series certifications. Happy to help man, if you've got any other questions feel free to reach out. I'm in the same boat just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life to make decent money so I can take care of my friends and family, and live life to the fullest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3074a94094ff46b32f84a6d94a0651eb", "text": "Another way to do this is go to work for that company. Companies in this situation normally offer low pay, long hours, and stock options. Given a sufficient grant, it could be all very lucrative or worthless. Even if you have no electronics background you might be able to work in a different capacity. There were secretaries at various companies that became wealthy off of their stock options.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bab1f2c4e07d0694af1c5867122fa73b", "text": "\"I used to run a telecommunications construction company and left to go back to school so that I could find a job in a \"\"white collar\"\" industry. Trade work is great when the money flows, but it's so cyclical that the downturns can rip your company/bank account apart. My sister that stayed in it is making 85k a year and I'm about to start a 45k a year job out of college. I guess I'll know in 5 years if I made the right choice, but I at least have a lot more job mobility than she does.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d058c73c3bca6b02bf0c0609b88648f9	In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter?	[ { "docid": "c76a49480c763077c8874d844213b235", "text": "\"(Disclaimer: I am not an accountant nor a tax pro, etc., etc.) Yes, a Canadian corporation can function as a partial income tax shelter. This is possible since a corporation can retain earnings (profits) indefinitely, and corporate income tax rates are generally less than personal income tax rates. Details: If you own and run your business through a corporation, you can choose to take income from your corporation in one of two ways: as salary, or as dividends. Salary constitutes an expense of the corporation, i.e. it gets deducted from revenue in calculating corporate taxable income. No corporate income tax is due on money paid out as salary. However, personal income taxes and other deductions (e.g. CPP) would apply to salary at regular rates, the same as for a regular employee. Dividends are paid by the corporation to shareholders out of after-tax profits. i.e. the corporation first pays income tax on taxable income for the fiscal year, and resulting net income could be used to pay dividends (or not). At the personal level, dividends are taxed less than salary to account for tax the corporation paid. The net effect of corporate + personal tax is about the same as for salary (leaving out deductions like CPP.) The key point: Dividends don't have to be paid out in the year the money was earned. The corporation can carry profits forward (retained earnings) as long as it wants and choose to issue dividends (or not) in later years. Given that, here's how would the partial income tax shelter works: At some point, for you to personally realize income from the corporation, you can have the corporation declare a dividend. You'll then have to pay personal income taxes on the income, at the dividend rates. But for as long as the money was invested inside the corporation, it was subject only to lesser corporate tax rates, not higher personal income tax rates. Hence the \"\"partial\"\" aspect of this kind of tax shelter. Or, if you're lucky enough to find a buyer for your corporation, you could qualify for the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption on proceeds up to $750,000 when you sell a qualified small business corporation. This is the best exit strategy; unfortunately, not an easy one where the business has no valuable assets (e.g. a client base, or intellectual property.) * The major sticking-point: You need to have real business revenue! A regular employee (of another company) can't funnel his personally-earned employment income into a corporation just to take advantage of this mechanism. Sorry. :-/\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7f7384d35c387d2c34d790377bb93df", "text": "\"This scheme doesn't work, because the combination of corporation tax, even the lower CCPC tax, plus the personal income tax doesn't give you a tax advantage, not on any realistic income I've ever worked it out on anyway. Prior to the 2014 tax year on lower incomes you could scrape a bit of an advantage but the 2013 budget changed the calculation for the tax credit on non-eligible dividends so there shouldn't be an advantage anymore. Moreover if you were to do it this way, by paying corporation tax instead of CPP you aren't eligible for CPP. If you sit with a calculator for long enough you may figure out a way of saving $200 or something small but it's a lot of paperwork for little if any benefit and you wouldn't get CPP. I understand the money multiplier effect described above, but the tax system is designed in a way that it makes more sense to take it as salary and put it in a tax deferred saving account, i.e. an RRSP - so there's no limit on the multiplier effect. Like I said, sit with a calculator - if you're earning a really large amount and are still under the small business limit it may make more sense to use a CCPC, but that is the case regardless of using it as a tax shelter because if you're earning a lot you're probably running a business of some size. The main benefit I think is that if you use a CCPC you can carry forward your losses, but you have to be aware of the definition of an \"\"allowable business investment loss\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "348ecf0fe173c503a0275e31aa820056", "text": "Revenue Canada allows for some amount of tax deferral via several methods. The point is that none of them allow you to avoid tax, but by deferring from years when you have high income to years when you have lower income allows you to realize less total tax paid due to the marginal rate for personal income tax. The corporate dividend approach (as explained in another answer) is one way. TFSAs are another way, but as you point out, they have limits. Since you brought TFSAs into your question: About the best and easiest tax deferral option available in Canada is the RRSP. If you don't have a company pension, you can contribute something like 18% of your income. If you have a pension plan, you may still be able to contribute to an RRSP as well, but the maximum contribution amount will be lower. The contribution lowers your taxable income which can save you tax. Interest earned on the equity in your RRSP isn't taxed. Tax is only paid on money drawn from the plan because it is deemed income in that year. They are intended for retirement, but you're allowed to withdraw at any time, so if you have little or no income in a year, you can draw money from your RRSP. Tax is withheld, which you may or may not get back depending on your taxable income for that year. You can think of it as a way to level your income and lower your legitimate tax burden", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ee0f34fa27cb4ca84be860d651f060f3", "text": "You tagged with S-Corp, so I assume that you have that tax status. Under that situation, you don't get taxed on distributions regardless of what you call them. You get taxed on the portion of the net income that is attributable to you through the Schedule K that the S-Corp should distribute to you when the S-Corp files its tax return. You get taxed on that income whether or not it's distributed. If you also work for the small business, then you need to pay yourself a reasonable wage. The amount that you distribute can be one factor in determining reasonableness. That doesn't seem to be what you asked, but it is something to consider.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cdfa745942f12fffa09d6b579f5b9403", "text": "That's the foundation of Limited Liability. There is a corporate veil that protects your personal assets from that of your business. The corporate veil can be pierced if you do certain stuff and thus your personal assets will get effected. This allows people to start companies and innovate more and take more risks knowing that they could not be personally liable if the business folds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8edffa2e7f767881481e995bd8dca08", "text": "\"My late answer is: Be aware of the difference of being a contractor and being an employee. I am not sure of the laws in Canada, but in the United States lots of small companies like to hire people as \"\"contractors\"\" but make them work under rules that fall into employee. The business is trying to avoid paying payroll taxes, which is fine, but make sure you know your rights and responsibilities as a contractor vs employee. You can check with your state's Bureau of Labor and Industry in the US, but I am sure wherever you are from there is a government agency to do the same thing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7e01f4693da28ecd3ef88fbcc7b66c1", "text": "\"Not normally, for a limited liability company anyway. In extreme circumstances a court may \"\"lift the veil\"\" of incorporation and treat shareholders as if they were partners. If you are an office bearer or a director that is found to have breached duties/responsibiities then that is another matter. Dim views can be taken of shonky arrangents for companies formed for activites not of a bona fide business nature too.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7fd6d379a23acdd8369d63e87fb51d0e", "text": "You're not physically present in the US, you're not a US citizen, you're not a green card holder, and you don't have a business that is registered in the US - US laws do not apply to you. You're not in any way under the US jurisdiction. Effectively connected income is income effectively connected to your business in the US. You're not in the US, so there's nothing to effectively connect your income to. Quote from the link: You usually are considered to be engaged in a U.S. trade or business when you perform personal services in the United States. You ask: If I form an LLC or C corp am I liable for this withholding tax? If you form a legal entity in a US jurisdiction - then that entity becomes subjected to that jurisdiction. If you're physically present in the US - then ECI may become an issue, and you also may become a resident based on the length of your stay.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2c740c35ddf20f575c2c47f14a14738", "text": "The only way you can save taxes is by starting a limited company, not paying yourself any salary, so you pay 20% corporation taxes, you can take I think £5000 a year dividends tax free, and leave the rest in the company account, and don't touch it until you make less money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7455173c32b84deeccb016729e52c76d", "text": "You don't have to wait. If you sell your shares now, your gain can be considered a capital gain for income tax purposes. Unlike in the United States, Canada does not distinguish between short-term vs. long-term gains where you'd pay different rates on each type of gain. Whether you buy and sell a stock within minutes or buy and sell over years, any gain you make on a stock can generally be considered a capital gain. I said generally because there is an exception: If you are deemed by CRA to be trading professionally -- that is, if you make a living buying and selling stocks frequently -- then you could be considered doing day trading as a business and have your gains instead taxed as regular income (but you'd also be able to claim additional deductions.) Anyway, as long as your primary source of income isn't from trading, this isn't likely to be a problem. Here are some good articles on these subjects:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce251ce6d31823ac7124eae816392f7c", "text": "Do you have any insight on average effective rates paid by SE owners? As a counterpoint to your (very valid) links, filing as S-corp allows for taxes on distributions to be exempt from payroll tax and taxed at much lower rates. Also, being SE allows for various deductions not possible for wage earners. There's probably other examples not immediately coming to mind. Also, SE taxes equal taxes otherwise paid by employer + employee. It's just that those employer taxes don't appear on the employee's paystub so not everyone realizes this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e48543d05d46d98fd78d2a185a230f59", "text": "The only possibility that I've seen in the past is if some of the income is for deferred services which are to be delivered in the following tax year, a portion of the income can be deferred. Also, agree that you should be an S-corp and talk to another CPA if yours hasn't told you that yet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a03156df5f0b04b4961d56ac075f92a1", "text": "I think you are overcomplicating the scenario by assuming a benefit that doesn't exist. Assume an employee earns 50k, before considering the MSP. The corporation wants to cover the MSP. They have two options: increase the salary to $50,900, or keep the salary the same and pay for the MSP directly. Both options increase the employee's taxable income by $900. Both options decrease the corporation's income by $900. Net tax for each is unchanged. *Note - I couldn't find any specific reference to the MSP in income tax documentation on either BC Finance's or CRA's website. I am assuming that it is treated as a regular cash benefit, though I am not 100% convinced this is the case. If I am wrong in this please provide a comment below.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae5066c9a5bc07ef196332219cdba89b", "text": "\"I'm no lawyer and no expert, so take my remarks as entertainment only. Also see this question. If you have a U.S. SSN which is eligible for work, they may be able to pay you on 1099 basis with your SSN as a sole proprietor, unless they have some personal reason for avoiding that. So perhaps try asking about that specifically. HR policies can be weird and tricky, maybe a nudge in the right direction will help. Not What You Asked: regardless, I might recommend you register as an LLC and get an EIN (sort of SSN for companies) for a variety of reasons. It's called a \"\"limited liability\"\" company for a reason. You may also have an easier time reaping various business-related rewards, like writing off expenses. If you do so, consider a state with no income tax like Wyoming. (Or, for convenience sake, WA if you live in BC, or maybe NH if you live in Ontario.. etc.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc5e4cb4631274d24c6ed6886da7d9c4", "text": "\"There are countries out there that are known as tax havens, where they offer companies low or no taxes on earned revenue. I haven't looked into this in over a decade, but recall that countries like the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Ireland, and Nauru, to name a few fit that tag. But like bstpierre stated, there's a reason why the IBM's of the world can pull that off easier then us mere mortals. They have the financial clout to make sure they have accountants that dot every i, cross every t, and close every loophole that would give an \"\"in\"\" to the folks at the IRS, CRA, Inland Revenue, or who have you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8c53d1b2149e29a06ade529876aca990", "text": "An LLC is a very flexible company when it comes to taxation. You have three basic tax options: There are other good reasons to create an LLC (mainly to protect your personal assets) so even if you decide that you don't want to deal with the complications of an S-Corp LLC, you should still consider creating a sole proprietorship LLC.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "103006facd061e7a355e43dcd43e9eaf", "text": "You would report the overall income on your T1 general income tax return, and use form T2125 to report income and expenses for your business. Form T2125 is like a mini income-statement where you report your gross revenue and subtract off expenses. Being able to claim legitimate expenses as a deduction is an important tax benefit for businesses big and small. In terms of your second question, you generally need to register for a business number at least once you cross the threshold for GST / HST. If you earn $30,000/year (or spread over four consecutive quarters) then charging GST / HST is mandatory; see GST/HST Mandatory registration. There are other conditions as well, but the threshold is the principal one. You can also register voluntarily for GST / HST even if you're below that threshold; see GST/HST Voluntary registration. The advantage of registering voluntarily is that you can claim input tax credits (ITC) on any GST that your business pays, and remit only the difference. That saves your business money, especially if you have a lot of expenses early on. Finally, in terms of Ontario specifically (saw that on your profile), you might want to check out Ontario Sole Proprietorship. There are specific cases in which you need to register a business: e.g. specific types of businesses, or if you plan on doing business under a name other than your own. Finally, you may want to consider whether incorporating might be better for you. Here's an interesting article that compares Sole Proprietorship Versus Incorporation. Here's another article, Choosing a business structure, from the feds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af84ae777b49e1156576a487ed32528f", "text": "Taxing citizens on global income caused by tax inversion, not the cause of tax inversion. If yourwebsite.com makes $1mil, and you pay yourwebsite.ca $1m for rights to the name, that's inversion. Your company, and you, as the owner, have $1m income in Canada. All of which came from US revenue. I'm not saying the tax system is great or anything. There just seems to be a miss understanding.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
603e9bded7c73db3c690c70edd611968	When does a pricing error become false advertising?	[ { "docid": "6f74e06785dd589d7d2e3505795b36bf", "text": "\"It's definitely annoying, but it's not necessarily false advertising. There is no rule or law that says they have to fix a pricing error at all, let alone within a certain period of time. Unfortunately they have no obligation to do business with you unless they take (and keep) your money. If they canceled the order and returned your money you have no binding agreement with them. On top of that, in the US... 'misleading advertising' usually refers to \"\"Any advertising or promotion that misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographic origin of goods, services or commercial activities\"\" (Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1125(a)). The main criteria that they evaluate before taking legal action is whether or not someone has suffered harm or loss due to the reliance on the bad information. But you're in Europe. The EU ideas behind misleading advertising tend to focus a lot more on comparing one product to someone else's and making subjective claims or false promises. Pricing does come up, but still, you need to have an ability to prove that you suffered harm or a loss from the business' actions. Even if you were able to prove that, to force the business to change its price catalog, you would need to go through legal proceedings, demonstrate the harm that you've sustained, and then have a judge decide in your favor and order the supplier to comply. My guess is that it's just not worth it for you, but you haven't specified if this is just an annoying shoe-shopping experience or if you are regularly experiencing bait-and-switch tactics from a supplier that is a crucial part of a business operation. If it's the former, just like a physical shop reserves the right to kick you out if you're not behaving, (but usually doesn't because they'd like to keep you as a customer), an online shop can update its prices whenever they like. They can change their prices too, and cancel orders. If it's the latter, then start putting together some documentation on how many times this has happened and how it has damaged your business. But before you get on the warpath I would recommend you look for another place to buy whatever you have in mind, or else try a pound of sugar in your approach to this supplier... My own business experience has shown that can go a lot way in figuring out a mutually beneficial resolution. If you want to see a bit more... Here is the EU Justice Commission's website on false advertising, Here is a PDF leaflet from the UK Office of Fair Trading that spells out what is explicitly not allowed from a business by way of advertising & business practices.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ed704cf268161edfe870f77e2aa24052", "text": ">I don’t really like when apps show me ads pasted all over their interface, so this option was instantly crossed out. I did a double-take when the author said the above. It's an article about using empirical evidence to set price and he discards an option based on personal preference.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e513a42cc62175045e50d61a634a5d83", "text": "If an offered price is below what people are willing to sell for, it is simply ignored. (What happens if I offer to buy lots of cars as long as I only have to pay $2 each? Same thing.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "817577b7bcd07bbd91bb72275efb94be", "text": "Dispute the charge. Receiving the wrong product is grounds for dispute.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24f8ef68a02f2c845e9305c18857f6f0", "text": "There are a few scenarios I see possible: 1. Risk parameters in the algo were set very conservatively. Putting quotes out and canceling them is very common. 2. It was looking to exploit situations where someone rips through the book with a market order. 3. It was reacting too slowly to signals, and chasing opportunities that had already passed. Other comments: What do you believe front running is? Your version differs from the textbook definition. Quote taxes are more effective than minimum order durations. I wrote about how that works in a previous post in this thread.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c7c83c86016cc0041271214675e9c13", "text": "We actually have [a thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/GroceryStores/comments/10sldg/im_so_tired_of_this_grocery_shrinkray_bullshit/) about that going on right now in r/grocerystores. It is a fine line to walk. No one wants to visibly raise prices. But they are still showing price per pound/ounce on the tag (right? Every store I have been in shows that). The consumer is partly to blame for allowing those shenanigans.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26064c80f92e50da1d5c5af2ca98d9d9", "text": "When I ran a gas station, our price was largely set by our neighbors-- the other gas stations in the area. We couldn't go below the current cost of replacement gas, but other than that we wanted to be at .05 over the average. (We got away with charging more because we were the last station on a major road.) Everybody else did the same thing. Also, we only set prices once a day, early in the morning before the commuter rush. Changing prices while somebody is pumping gas Was Not Done, for fairly obvious reasons. So, you'd get these ripples of price-changing, as one station changed its price, and then all its neighbors would react to that the next day, and then THEIR neighbors would change the day after that, and so on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f48a4f2f79c6876582055e16e3166128", "text": "\"Ah to be clear, \"\"bad customer\"\" here means someone that ends up costing the company more money than they are worth to you. The article explictly says that a lot of the problems that Bob had were nothing to do with their product.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c30bf41ef74f9c650df65cedcfa60092", "text": "As I understand it, the correct price is any point between the minimum the seller is willing to accept and the maximum the buyer is willing to pay. These values are influenced by a number of factors, including market conditions, cost of production and immediate need. There's also a sense of fairness and expectation that influences these numbers. People don't want to pay a much higher price or accept a much lower price than they think the other party should agree to. For example, in the event of a sudden actual or anticipated shortage in some commodity consumer good, say... gasoline, it would make sense for sellers to raise the price significantly. In the short term, consumers of gasoline are very price-insensitive and most will pay more than double the usual price to obtain it. This behavior is commonly seen as unfair on the part of the seller - to the point that certain variations of it are illegal in some jurisdictions. Economists would describe it as rational. Oddly, people don't seem to be as upset about buyers offering low prices in the event of a sudden increase in highly motivated sellers. When people do tend to get upset is if the buyers have a profit motive; they know the price decrease is temporary and are willing to buy and hold the asset to make a profit later. Even so, it seems to me that it's much rarer for such behavior to be illegal. The underlying objection, as far as I can tell is to what is perceived as greed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9deab02a93f8610d92c4ad9185f964b0", "text": "You are confusing manufacturing cost and listed price. They are being sold for less than listed price. There is no way they are being sold for 1/3rd of manufacturing cost. They could be sold for less than manufacturing cost but future support will be factored into that sale so they would still be a loss leader.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "137a3e87be092013b7b45a65eb330fc6", "text": "The sales manager and/or finance manager applied a rebate that did not apply. It's their fault. They have internal accounts to handle these situations as they do come up from time to time. The deal is done. They have no legal ground.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6232478af3a94f2588dfd3e1e8f816da", "text": "This has happened to me several times while trying to travel. See a flight listed for one price, go through the process and it ends up being 50-100 more. Not sure which airlines just in general. I dont see how 2 seperate sites can have the same price problem. and what changes in the 5-10 minutes it takes someone to enter their info? do gas and costs go up that much in 10 minutes? Just like extra ticket fees and everything....i just wish companies would start putting the FULL price up front. extra fees and all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02bb688428d59b63300e88a3256cc5c7", "text": "Just the opposite, if you can, offer all prices! Make a premium product, and regular one, a lite version, and so on. Capture all price points. The premium version's price gives you anchoring so your less expensive product will appear cheap even if it isn't. This also gives users an upgrade path so the way to full price is baby steps.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a31a26bc40d98a655b0e3bc57f2a9c89", "text": "\"However, it also anti-correlates: advertising these features of their product lets them charge more, and the higher price means they can afford better inputs. And customers who are willing to spend extra money on \"\"natural\"\" are also more willing to spend extra money on taste.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db3816bf403891ee9fd6cf579b261951", "text": "What you found is that when your were on website X on day y when you clicked on the link they told you to buy 7 stocks and you performed an experiment, but the values went down. Somebody else on website A on day B saw a lightly different list, they may have been flat. But if you were on website W on day D that list hit the jackpot. Which of the three decided that the people running the ad knew what they were talking about? They could have tailored the list based on the nature of the website. Sports and recreation ones on ESPN, high tech on a computer focus site. They could have varied the size of the lit, they could have varied the way they described their analysis. They could have even varied the name of the expert to make it sound familiar or authoritative. What you found was a marketing plan. It may have been a scam, or it may have been just a way to try and convince you they know what they were doing. If you clicked on the wrong list, they probably lost you as a potential customer, unless you can convince yourself that they were close, and deserve a second look....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99a1c389d5216cd5cdf955b049a2fac6", "text": "A lower Price/Book Value means company is undervalued. It could also mean something horribly wrong. While it may look like a good deal, remember;", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
1b093e5da6e3ba9540866d230eae6347	Where can I find a Third Party Administrator for a self-directed solo 401K?	[ { "docid": "c86927a383eb005d90ee36730dcda654", "text": "You setup a self-directed solo 401k by paying a one time fee for a company to setup a trust, name you the sole trustee, and file it with the IRS. None of these companies offer TPA because it opens them up to profit leaching liability. After you have your trust setup, you can open a brokerage account or several with any of the big names you want (Vanguard, Fidelity, Ameritrade, etc), or just use the money to flip houses, do P2P lending, whatever, the world is your investment oyster. If the company has recurring fees you need to ask what is going on because if they aren't offering TPA services, then what the heck could they be charging you for? I did see one company, I think it was IRA Financial Group, that had the option of having a CPA do TPA for you for a recurring fee, but I would pass on that. The IRS administration requirements are typically just the 5500-EZ that you have to file as a hard copy by July 31 if your investments are worth more than $250k, on December 31. Yes, you have to get the actual form from the IRS, write on it with a pen and mail it to them every year, barbaric. You can either have your accountant do it or do it yourself. If you're below $250k just google solo 401k rule change two or three times a year and don't try to launder money. If anything, the rules will loosen with time, I don't imagine the Republican Congress cracking down on small business owners any time soon.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0f8c5f28061ad8e75404c5fcc51dbaf", "text": "Fidelity Investments offers Solo 401(k) plans without any management fees. The plan administrator is typically the employer itself (so, your business, or you as the principal manager). You (as the individual employee) are the participant.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "27190f396673fa1761500386491ffe9a", "text": "My former accountant, used to provide this service as part of him doing my taxes. During the off season, he would provide a planning session and he would review strategies that I might look into. Since he did not make any money off of providing investments, he was about as unbiased as one could be. However, something like that might not be enough for you guys. You could go with someone online, Scottrade is going into the business of providing advice, as well as Charles Schwab or Fidelity, but you might need someone more personal. In that case, I would use my network. Talk to people, ask who they use, like, and respect. I would say it is very easy to find mediocre investment advisers, the good ones are hard. I would look for one that teaches. It is very easy to tell someone what to do, much harder to teach them what is the right thing. One thing that is easy about your situation: Planning to buy a home. Put money for a down payment in a high interest savings account. What I mean by high interest, is they still pay almost nothing. You can't really make a mistake. If you find one with .5% instead of .85%, what is the real difference after 5 years? About $180?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a179f846cd675420143bd596b5d26a9", "text": "Can't tell you where to go for a good policy, but I can tell you that most brokers make a hefty commission out of your payments for at least a year before you even start funding the tax sheltered investment account that you're trying to buy under the umbrella of life insurance. You'll have to do a lot of homework to hunt down a reputable discount broker or a direct policy purchase from the insurance company. Life insurance requires insurable need. The description is vague enough, that you can probably still get the account despite being a single male with no apparent heirs to benefit, but it raises the question of why you are buying the insurance. Whole life policies require you to maintain a certain ratio of investment to premium payment and you will likely never be able access all of the money in the account for your own personal usage. Compare several policies from several brokers and companies. Read all the critical sources you can about the pitfalls and dangers of commissions, fees and taxes eating the benefits of your account. Verify that the insurance company you buy the policy from is financially stable after the market crash. You are paying a commission to pool your money into their investment fund, and if your insurer goes under, you'll have to get a portion of your money (possibly only the principle) back from the state insurance commissioner. Some companies sold pretty generous policies during the bubble and have cut their offerings way down without fixing their marketing literature and rosy promises. Finally, let us know what you find. It never hurts to see hard numbers and to run multiple eyes over the legalese in these contracts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb7429f700bf206a2c989ac07d7b563b", "text": "From the employer side there are A LOT of legal duties attached to sponsoring a 401(k). If you are asking this question I would not suggest attempting to meet all of the regulations related to handling employee money internally. There are certain annual filings, periodic notices, accounting etc related to these kinds of plans, and the fines for non-compliance are extraordinary. You would be far better off seeking a separate vendor, in my opinion.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8eabb4ee0cac8a619ce1562d3648991d", "text": "\"Your 401K (and IRA) is a legally distinct entity from yourself. In fact, it is a \"\"trust,\"\" and your Administrator is a \"\"trustee,\"\" while you are both creator and benefactor. This fact, and the 10% early withdrawal penalty, makes it immune from most judgments. The IRS can \"\"levy\"\" your 401K or IRA for back taxes, but must waive the 10% penalty (under the 1997 Tax Reform law). That gives them the power to do what most others can't. A \"\"tricky\"\" banker may persuade you to take money out of your 401K to pay the bank. If you do, s/he has won. But s/he can't go after your 401k.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4217f4b58b17bf01e6deb8e2a43bf894", "text": "The Employee Benefits Security Administration within the US Department of Labor is tasked with keeping track of pension and 401K programs. The even have a website to search for abandoned plans: it helps participants and others find out whether a particular plan is in the process of being, or has been, terminated and the name of the Qualified Termination Administrator (QTA) responsible for the termination. The Employee Benefits Security Administration discuss all types of details regarding retirement programs. This document What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan has a lot of details including this: If your former employer has gone out of business, arrangements should have been made so a plan official remains responsible for the payment of benefits and other plan business. If you are entitled to benefits and are unable to contact the plan administrator, contact EBSA electronically at askebsa.dol.gov or by calling toll free at 1-866-444-3272. There are also EBSA offices spread thought the United States", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7656ef45cba6e4625dec01393a52132b", "text": "My employer matches 1 to 1 up to 6% of pay. They also toss in 3, 4 or 5 percent of your annual salary depending on your age and years of service. The self-directed brokerage account option costs $20 per quarter. That account only allows buying and selling of stock, no short sales and no options. The commissions are $12.99 per trade, plus $0.01 per share over 1000 shares. I feel that's a little high for what I'm getting. I'm considering 401k loans to invest more profitably outside of the 401k, specifically using options. Contrary to what others have said, I feel that limited options trading (the sale cash secured puts and spreads) can be much safer than buying and selling of stock. I have inquired about options trading in this account, since the trustee's system shows options right on the menus, but they are all disabled. I was told that the employer decided against enabling options trading due to the perceived risks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07c75adfe6ef2da84f3e05878e67e85f", "text": "My employer matches 6% of my salary, dollar for dollar. So you have a great benefit. The self-directed side has no fees but $10 trades. No option trading. Yours basically allows you to invest your own funds, but not the match. It's a restriction, agreed, but a good plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "447c3f654c405b11900b5814b150328a", "text": "Alright, team! I found answers to part 1) and part 2) that I've quote below, but still need help with 3). The facts in the article below seem to point to the ability for the LLC to contribute profit sharing of up to 25% of the wages it paid SE tax on. What part of the SE tax is that? I assume the spirit of the law is to only allow the 25% on the taxable portion of the income, but given that I would have crossed the SS portion of SE tax, I am not 100%. (From http://www.sensefinancial.com/services/solo401k/solo-401k-contribution/) Sole Proprietorship Employee Deferral The owner of a sole proprietorship who is under the age of 50 may make employee deferral contributions of as much as $17,500 to a Solo 401(k) plan for 2013 (Those 50 and older can tack on a $5,500 annual catch-up contribution, bringing their annual deferral contribution to as much as $23,000). Solo 401k contribution deadline rules dictate that plan participant must formally elect to make an employee deferral contribution by Dec. 31. However, the actual contribution can be made up until the tax-filing deadline. Pretax and/or after-tax (Roth) funds can be used to make employee deferral contributions. Profit Sharing Contribution A sole proprietorship may make annual profit-sharing contributions to a Solo 401(k) plan on behalf of the business owner and spouse. Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(3) states that employer contributions are limited to 25 percent of the business entity’s income subject to self-employment tax. Schedule C sole-proprietors must base their maximum contribution on earned income, an additional calculation that lowers their maximum contribution to 20 percent of earned income. IRS Publication 560 contains a step-by-step worksheet for this calculation. In general, compensation can be defined as your net earnings from self-employment activity. This definition takes into account the following eligible tax deductions: (1) the deduction for half of self-employment tax and (2) the deduction for contributions on your behalf to the Solo 401(k) plan. A business entity’s Solo 401(k) contributions for profit sharing component must be made by its tax-filing deadline. Single Member LLC Employee Deferral The owner of a single member LLC who is under the age of 50 may make employee deferral contributions of as much as $17,500 to a Solo 401(k) plan for 2013 (Those 50 and older can tack on a $5,500 annual catch-up contribution, bringing their annual deferral contribution to as much as $23,000). Solo 401k contribution deadline rules dictate that plan participant must formally elect to make an employee deferral contribution by Dec. 31. However, the actual contribution can be made up until the tax-filing deadline. Pretax and/or after-tax (Roth) funds can be used to make employee deferral contributions. Profit Sharing Contribution A single member LLC business may make annual profit-sharing contributions to a Solo 401(k) plan on behalf of the business owner and spouse. Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(3) states that employer contributions are limited to 25 percent of the business entity’s income subject to self-employment tax. Schedule C sole-proprietors must base their maximum contribution on earned income, an additional calculation that lowers their maximum contribution to 20 percent of earned income. IRS Publication 560 contains a step-by-step worksheet for this calculation. In general, compensation can be defined as your net earnings from self-employment activity. This definition takes into account the following eligible tax deductions: (i) the deduction for half of self-employment tax and (ii) the deduction for contributions on your behalf to the Solo 401(k). A single member LLC’s Solo 401(k) contributions for profit sharing component must be made by its tax-filing deadline.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e33d3966285f67dd5f2d0f6ae221bcf", "text": "401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, IRAs etc all require more paperwork than a non-tax-advantaged investment. As a result, most such plans (with Vanguard as well as with other management companies) offer only a small set of investment options, and so it costs the plan sponsor (you wearing your Employer hat) money if you want to add more investment options for your Solo 401(k) plan). Note that with employer-sponsored retirement plans, investments in each mutual fund might be coming in small amounts from various employees, much less than the usual minimum investment in each fund, and possibly less than the minimum per-investment transaction requirement (often $50) of the fund group. Taking care of all that is expensive, and it is reasonable that Vanguard wants to charge you (the Employer) a fee for the extra work it is doing for you. When I was young and IRAs had just been invented (and the annual contribution limit was $2000 for IRAs), I remember being charged a $20 annual fee per Vanguard fund that I wanted to invest in within my IRA but this fee was waived once my total IRA assets with Vanguard had increased above $10K.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0eb36cb23e54bb663852701290267fcd", "text": "My two-cents, read your plan document or Summary Plan Description. The availability of in-service withdrawals will vary by document. Moreover, many plans, especially those compliant with 404(c) of ERISA will allow for individual brokerage accounts. This is common for smaller plans. If so, you can request to direct your own investments in your own account. You will likely have to pay any associated fees. Resources: work as actuary at a TPA firm", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f36ca2639d4852d8262d20e589d6ad31", "text": "You can open a self-employed 401k, here's an example. You can deposit up to 50K (including the personal cap and the profit sharing/matching portion).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "09831bc94519dff461f2559278ffa955", "text": "Read the Forbes article titled IRA Adventures. While it's not the detailed regulations you certainly need, the article gives some great detail and caution. You may be able to do what you wish, but it must be structured to adhere to specific rules to avoid self dealing. Those rules would be known by the custodians who would help you set up the right structure, it's well buried within IRS regs, I'm sure. Last, in general, using IRA funds to invest in the non-traditional assets adds that other layer of risk, that the investment will be deemed non-allowed and/or self-dealing. So, even if you have the best business idea going, be sure you get proper council on this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b36177c86a000963a421bfef2ab82829", "text": "I use the self-directed option for the 457b plan at my job, which basically allows me to invest in any mutual fund or ETF. We get Schwab as a broker, so the commissions are reasonable. Personally, I think it's great, because some of the funds offered by the core plan are limited. Generally, the trustees of your plan are going to limit your investment options, as participants generally make poor investment choices (even within the limited options available in a 401k) and may sue the employer after losing their savings. If I was a decision-maker in this area, there is no way I would ever sign off to allowing employees to mess around with options.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1fa75ab8a23b7d77ea05b2bba4111506", "text": "\"You want a fee-only advisor. He charges like an architect or plumber: by the hour or some other \"\"flat fee\"\". That is his only compensation. He is not paid on commission at all. He is not affiliated with any financial services company of any kind. His office is Starbucks. He does not have a well lit office like the commission broker down the street. He does not want you to hand him your money - it stays in the brokerage account of your choice (within reason - some brokerage accounts are terrible and he'll tell you to get out of those). He never asks for the password to your brokerage account. Edit: The UK recently outlawed commission brokers. These guys were competitive \"\"sales types\"\" who thrive on commissions, and probably went into other sales jobs. So right now, everyone is clamoring for the few proper financial advisors available. High demand is making them expensive. It may not be cost-effective to hire an advisor; you may need to learn it yourself. It's not that hard. Ever hear of a plumber who works totally for free, and makes his money selling you wildly overpriced pipe? That's what regular \"\"financial advisors\"\" are. They sell products that are deliberately made unnecessarily complex. The purpose is first, to conceal sales commissions and high internal fees; and second to confuse you, so the financial world feels so daunting that you feel like you need their help just to navigate it. They're trying to fry your brain so you'l just give up and trust them. Products like whole life and variable annuities are only the poster children for how awful all of their financial products are. These products exist to fleece the consumer without quite breaking the law. Of course, everyone goes to see them because they have well lit offices in every town, and they're free and easy to deal with. Don't feel like you need to know everything about finance to invest. You don't need to understand every complex financial product that the brokerage houses bave dreamed up: they are designed to conceal and confuse, as I discuss above, and you don't want them. The core of it is fairly simple, and that's all you really need to know. Look at any smaller university and how they manage their endowments. If whole life, annuities and those complex financial \"\"products\"\" actually worked, university endowments would be full of them. But they're not! Endowments are generally made of investments you can understand. Partly because university boards are made of investment bankers who invented those products, and know what a ripoff they are. Some people refuse to learn anything. They are done with college and refuse to learn anything more. I hope that's not you. Because you should learn the workings of everything you're investing in. If you don't understand it, don't buy itl And a fee-only financial advisor won't ask you to. 1000 well-heeled, well-advised university endowments seek the most successful products on the market... And end up choosing products you can understand. That's good news for you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb7e57438c6ed8ba47bd2bd2a7ae324a", "text": "I use healthequity. It's just the one I was given, but they actually have really good fund options. There's a .396% yearly administration fee to access their low-cost funds, but the fund fees are really low (.02% for VIIIX, .03% for VBMPX)", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
ab628cd1cdd55010c13798286b6bdd4b	Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card?	[ { "docid": "59ffc40b4113b4fcee9b4be04039d9c9", "text": "As a general premise: In most of the online transactions in case of dispute the benefit of doubt is given to the customer. IE if the customer refuses to pay and claims that its not his transaction, the card company reverses the charges and does not pay the merchant (or recovers if its already paid). There are many types of online vendors who use a variety of methods to ensure that they are not at loss. Some of these are:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c84f0f572bfc3e7a3e4c9442340d5088", "text": "Given that the laws on consumer liability for unauthorized transactions mean no cost in most cases, the CVV is there to protect the merchant. Typically a merchant will receive a lower cost from their bank to process the transaction with the CVV code versus without. As far as the Netflix case goes, (or any other recurring billing for that matter) they wouldn't care as much about it because Visa/MC/Amex regulations prohibit storage of the CVV. So if they collect it then it's only used for the first transaction and renewals just use the rest of the card info (name, expiration date, address). Does the presence of CVV indicate the merchant has better security? Maybe, maybe not. It probably means they care about their costs and want to pay the bank as little as possible to process the transaction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fee4c2ada624f9f9dfd3cf43e073b65", "text": "There are different ways of credit card purchase authorizations. if some choose less secure method it's their problem. Merchants are charged back if a stolen card is used.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e", "text": "", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7c109089f649f7783cff28efe4472e4", "text": "Some businesses verify the shipping address with the credit card company, and refuse to ship to an alternate address without additional, offline verification. Of course, this is only useful for physical goods.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8862161d023090a19e10c93cd537f166", "text": "@Jeremy Using CVV doesn't decrease the transaction cost. I know this because I have quotes for CC transactions and the cost/transaction doesn't depend on using CVV. That said we don't plan to use CVV because we sell insurance and the likelihood that someone who steals CC will buy insurance is very low.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7af83dec07deef1a5cd58c68bc6ad1c", "text": "The truth is that Visa does not require a merchant to enter the cvv number before authorizing a transaction. The only information that is really needed is the credit card number and expiration date.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "fe6c6b035064b9df1adf8d9f29e0d9c0", "text": "In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed the PTA to use their credit card reader to process transactions over a certain amount. Of course when the credit card statement arrived it looked like you spent $500 at the florist. I have seen PayPal listed when donating to some small charities. I have noted another case where confusion can occur. I used a debit card to buy a soda from a vending machine: the name and location were the name of the vending machine company and the location of their main office. It didn't say soda machine city A. It said Joe's vending company city B. In most cases the business and the credit card company want to make it easy to identify the transactions to keep the cost of research and charge backs to a minimum.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "77f11f50bbd997629b688c1747b28103", "text": "The reason is in your own question. The answer is simple. They use that code to tax the product otherwise it would just be out of pocket expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58798764a5f701a63768787f72841c06", "text": "Chip and Pin cards are popular in Europe, however in the US we don't have them. Visa/MC and Amex can issue chip and pin cards but no merchants or machines are set up here to take them. Only certain countries in Europe use them and since you could possibly have a US visitor or a non-chip and pin person using your machine or eating at your restaurant they usually allow you to sign or just omit the pin if the card doesn't have a chip. It is definitely less secure, but the entire credit card industry in the US is running right now without it, so I don't think the major credit card companies care too much (they just pass the fraud on to the merchants anyway).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1efe012004c978e7b829c44528c40646", "text": "Lol you moron. Chip and pin significantly reduced physical retailer fraud when we introduced it in Europe (a decade ago? 15 years?) - a signature is absurdly easy to fake and retailers have little to no way of protecting against it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a27715be676e47c2c991c5717c23bdfa", "text": "\"I'm not sure if this answer is going to win me many friends on reddit, but here goes... There's no good reason why they couldn't have just told him the current balance shown on their records, BUT... There are some good reasons why they can't quote a definitive \"\"payoff\"\" balance to instantly settle the account: It's very possible to charge something today, and not have it show up on Chase's records until tomorrow, or Monday, or later. There are still places that process paper credit-card transactions, or that deal with 3rd-party payment processors who reconcile transactions M-F, 9-5ish, and so on. - Most transactions these days are authorized the instant you swipe the card, and the merchant won't process until they get authorization back from the CC company. But sometimes those authorizations come from third-party processors who don't bill Chase until later. Some of them might not process a Friday afternoon transaction until close-of-business Monday. - Also, there are things like taxicab fares that might be collected when you exit the cab, but the record exists only in the taxi's onboard machine until they plug it into something else at the end of the shift. - There are still some situations (outdoor flea-markets, auctions, etc) where the merchant takes a paper imprint, and doesn't actually process the payment until they physically mail it in or whatever. - Some small businesses have information-security routines in place where only one person is allowed to process credit-card payments, but where multiple customer service reps are allowed to accept the CC info, write it down on one piece of paper, then either physically hand the paper to the person with processing rights, or deposit the paper in a locked office or mail-slot for later processing. This is obviously not an instant-update system for Chase. (Believe it or not, this system is actually considered to be more secure than retaining computerized records unless the business has very rigorous end-to-end info security). So... there are a bunch of legit reasons why a CC company can't necessarily tell you this instant that you only need to pay $x and no more to close the account (although there is no good reason why they shouldn't be able to quote your current balance). What happens when you \"\"close an account\"\" is basically that they stop accepting new charges that were made after your notification, but they will still accept and bill you for legit charges that you incurred before you gave them notice. So basically, they \"\"turn off\"\" the credit-card, but they can't guarantee how much you owe until the next billing cycle after this one closes: - You notify them to \"\"close\"\" the account. They stop authorizing new charges. - Their merchant agreements basically give the merchant a certain window to process charges. The CC company process legit charges that were made prior to \"\"closing\"\" the account. - The CC company sends you the final statement after that window for any charges has expired, - When that final statement is paid (or if it is zero), THAT is when the account is settled and reported to Equifax etc as \"\"paid\"\". So it's hard to tell from your post who was being overly semantic/unreasonable. If the CC company refused to tell the current balance, they were just being dickheads. But if they refused to promise that the current balance shown is enough to instantly settle the account forever, they had legit reasons. Hope that helps.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "898499ec5c013cb2425c03238bfdc185", "text": "Credit card companies organize types of businesses into different categories. (They charge different types of businesses different fees.) When a business first sets up their credit card processing merchant account, they need to specify the category. Here is a list of categories that Visa uses. Grocery stores and supermarkets are category number 5411. Other types of businesses, such as the examples you provided in your question, have a different category number. American Express simply looks at the merchant category code for each of your transactions and only gives you rewards for the ones in the grocery store category. It's all automated. They likely don't have a list of every grocery store in the US, and even if they did, they would probably not provide it to the public, for proprietary reasons. If you are in doubt about whether or not a particular store is in the grocery category, you'll just have to charge it to your card and see what happens. Often, the category of transaction will be shown for each transaction on your credit card's website.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7c2a78b891bb6313aa4aef5e470df86", "text": "\"Do not store credit cards on your servers! You will get into HUGE trouble if they get stolen. Instead, the whole credit card transaction should be done in a \"\"frame\"\" on a web that is handle by a credit card processor you chose. Once the transaction is finished, you get a code for the credit card number (masked credit card number) that no-one can convert back to a credit card number (except the processor). When you need to charge more or give refund, you use that code to tell the processor what credit card to make the charges/credits to.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "398bfb864e3bdee31e346f5c9836893b", "text": "It depends on the seller. If the seller wants, they can collect the information from you and send it to the payment gateway. In that case, they of course have everything that you provide at some point. They are not supposed to keep the security code, and there are rules about keeping the credit card number safe. The first four digits of the credit card number often indicate the bank, although smaller banks may share. But for example a Capital One card would indicate the bank. Other sellers work through a payment gateway that collects the information. Even there, the seller may collect most of the information first and send it to the gateway. In particular, the seller may collect name, email, phone, and address information. And in general the gateway will reveal that kind of information. They will not give the seller credit card info other than the name on the card, expiration date, and possible last four digits. They may report if the address matches the card's billing address (mismatched addresses may mean fraud). Buying through someone like PayPal can provide the least information. For a digital good, PayPal can only expose the buyer's name (which may be a business name) and email (associated with the payment account). However PayPal still has the other information and may expose it under legal action (e.g. if the credit card transaction is reversed or the good sold is illegal). And even PayPal will expose the shipping address for physical goods that require shipping.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8ece65eb6ec4ccdf42ad3ecc6bfaf9a", "text": "Merchants are only supposed to verify the presence of a signature, which signifies that the card owner has accepted the terms and conditions of the card / account. It was never really intended to be used to authenticate the card holder, nor is it used as such in practice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28349274456d5728c148fd4f35165880", "text": "This is a question with a flawed premise. Credit cards do have two-factor authentication on transactions they consider more at risk to be fraudulent. I've had several times when I bought something relatively expensive and unusual for me, where the CC either initially declined and sent me a text asking to confirm immediately (after which they would approve the charges), or approved but sent me a text right away asking to confirm (after which they'd automatically dispute if I told them to). The first is legitimately what you are asking for; the second is presumably for less risky but still some risk transactions). Ultimately, the reason they don't allow it for every transaction is that not enough people would make use of it to be worth their time to implement it. Particularly given it slows down the transaction significantly (and look at the complaints at the ~10-15 seconds extra EMV authentication takes, imagine that as a minute or more), I think you'd get a single digit percentage of people using that service.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d18beb46cb0338a631f4fa4b4b77fcea", "text": "My understanding it that the signature requirement is at the retailer's discretion. If the merchant decides to require a signature it protects them against fraudulent charge-back claims, but increases their administrative costs. In some situations it just isn't practical for a retailer to require a signature. Consider for example mail-order or online purchases, which I've never had to sign a credit card slip for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc2ade6041922447eedfb53677d9184a", "text": "\"Here's another rational reason: Discount. This typically works only in smaller stores, where you're talking directly to the owners, but it is sometimes possible to negotiate a few percent off the price when paying by check, since otherwise they'd have to give a few percent to the credit card company. (Occasionally the sales reps at larger stores have the authority to cut this deal, but it's far less common.) Not worth worrying about on small items, but if you're making a large purchase (a bedroom suite, for example) it can pay for lunch. And sometimes the store's willing to give you more discount than that, simply because with checks they don't have to worry about chargebacks or some of the other weirdnesses that can occur in credit card processing. Another reason: Nobody's very likely to steal you check number and try to write themselves a second check or otherwise use it without authorization. It's just too easy to steal credit card info these days to make printing checks worth the effort. But, in the end, the real answer is that there's no rational reason not to use checks. So it takes you a few seconds more to complete the transaction. What were you going to do with those seconds that makes them valuable? Especially if they're seconds that the store is spending bagging your purchase, so there's no lost time... and the effort really isn't all that different from signing the credit card authorization. Quoting Dean Inge: \"\"There are two kinds of fool. One says 'this is old, and therefore good.' The other says 'this is new, and therefore better.'\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "697575f46e2273d12899964f4cc6796b", "text": "\"I don't think the reason is \"\"to verify that it is truly me\"\". It should be possible for someone else (friend, relative...) to make a payment on your behalf, using their own card. It is common that \"\"gift cards\"\" are not per-authorized for \"\"Card Not Present\"\" (CNP) use like on the internet, or over the phone. In many cases, you can register your card, online or by speaking to a representative over the phone. After that, you should be able to use it to pay your phone company. Also, depending on where you got the card, you may be able to go to a teller at the issuing bank, and withdraw cash (or get a check), possibly without a fee.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37f1468d33edbdf2cc73c45e8868ae69", "text": "\"Actually in Finland on some bank + debit/credit card + online retailer combinations you type in your card details as you normally do, but after clicking \"\"Buy\"\" you get directed to your own bank's website which asks you to authenticate yourself with online banking credentials. It also displays the amount of money and to which account it is being paid to. After authentication you get directed back to the retailer's website. Cannot say why banks in US haven't implemented this.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e788b9c0aaa2183ef5c768ba4be1f73", "text": "I used to work for a online payment posting company. Anytime a payment is made via Credit Card to a company that does not have PCI DSS(aka the ability/certification to store credit card information) there is a MD5 checksum(of the confirmation code, not the Credit Card information) that get sent to the company from the processor(billing tree, paypal, etc). The company should be able to send this information back to the processor in order to refund the payment. If the company isn't able to do this, to be honest they shouldn't be taking online credit card payments. And by all means do not send your credit card information in an email. As said above, call the company's customer service line and give them the info to credit your account.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5d1289ef7cd288cda5c8031eda11c67c	Do Americans really use checks that often?	[ { "docid": "ef31f1e5df5e9daf7d1a3ba4e3c6ab4a", "text": "When you start at a new job here in the U.S., the default means of payment is usually a paper check. Most folks will quickly set up direct deposit so that their employer deposits their paycheck directly into their personal bank account - the incentive to do so is that you receive your funds faster than if you deposit a paper check. Even if you set up direct deposit on your first day on the job, you may still receive your first paycheck as a paper check simply because the wheels of payroll processing turn slowly at some (large) companies. A counter example is a self-employed contractor - perhaps a carpenter or house painter. These folks are paid by their customers, homeowners and such. Many larger, well established contracters now accept credit card payments from customers, but smaller independents may be reluctant to set up a credit card merchant account to accept payment by card because of all the fees that are associated with accepting credit card payments. 3% transaction fees and monthly service fees can be scary to any businessman who already has very thin profit margins. In such cases, these contractors prefer to be paid by check or in cash for the simple reason that there are no fees deducted from cash payments. There are a few folks here who don't trust direct deposit, or more specifically, don't trust their employer to perform the deposit correctly and on time. Some feel uncomfortable giving their bank info to their employer, fearing someone at the company could steal money from their account. In my experience, the folks who prefer a paper paycheck are often the same folks who rush to the bank on payday to redeem their paychecks for cash. They may have a bank account (helps with check cashing) but they prefer to carry cash. I operate in a manner similar to you - I use a debit card or credit card (I only have one of each) for nearly all transactions in daily life, I use electronic payments through my bank to pay my regular bills and mortgage, and I receive my paycheck by direct deposit. There have been periods where I haven't written or received paper checks for so long that I have to hunt for where I put my checkbook! Even though I use a debit card for most store purchases, the bank account behind that debit card is actually a checking account according to the bank. Again, the system defaults to paper checks and you have the option of going electronic as well. Before we judge anyone who doesn't use direct deposit or who prefers to be paid in cold hard cash, consider that direct deposit is a luxury of stability. Steady job, home, etc. Direct deposit doesn't make sense for a contractor or day laborer who expect to work for a different person each day or week. I don't think this is all that unique to the US. There are people in every city and country who don't have long-term employment with a single employer and therefore prefer cash or paper check over electronic payments. I'd be willing to bet that this applies to the majority of people on the planet, actually.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fda556ad6cb96a5357c78be226dbea8", "text": "In my business (estate planning law practice), probably 60-70% of my income is in the form of checks, with the balance as credit/debit cards. I prefer to get paid by check so I don't have to pay the approx 2.5% merchant fee, but I don't push clients to choose one method over the other. I offer direct deposit to my employees but most of them choose to be paid by check. Also, check processing is becoming more and more electronic - when I get paid by check, I scan the checks in a dedicated desktop scanner, and upload the check images to the bank at the end of the day, and the checks are processed very quickly. I also make deposits to my personal credit union account by scanning checks and uploading the images. So, yes, there's technically a paper check, but I (as the merchant/recipient/depositor) keep the check for a few months to make sure there's no problem with the deposit/payment, then shred them. The bank never sees the actual paper check.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1612c66234ab9b4f19b31a9a740465c8", "text": "\"A very interesting topic, as I am moving to the US in a month. I realise this thread is old but its been helpful to me. My observations from my home country \"\"Before we judge anyone who doesn't use direct deposit or who prefers to be paid in cold hard cash, consider that direct deposit is a luxury of stability. Steady job, home, etc. Direct deposit doesn't make sense for a contractor or day labourer who expect to work for a different person each day or week\"\" --- well here a contractor would still be paid by a direct deposit, even if he was working for many different people. On the invoice the contractor provides Bank account details, and customer logs onto their internet banking and pays electronically. It is a a very simple process and is the preferred method of payment by most businesses even small contractors. Many accounting software programs are linked to bank accounts and can quickly reconcile accounts for small business. Many businesses will not accept a cheque in Australia anymore as they are considered to be a higher risk. I started work in 1994 and have never received any payment except via direct deposit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1e1220560ce3d4ece5ce7f64ee937e5", "text": "I still use checks to pay rent and occasionally some bills/liabilities. That said, I did notice an (elderly) lady paying by check at the supermarket a while ago. So is it really common to get a paycheck in the sense that you get a piece of paper? Yes and no. There are some people that opt for the physical paycheck. Even if they do not, there is a pay stub which serves as a record of it. My last employer went to online pay stubs and a bunch of us opted out, sticking with the good old paper in an envelope. We sure were glad of that when there were technical issues and security concerns with the online service.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e01aba077b19ab21e245ef66e69f8aa5", "text": "Sorry for this late reply. I currently live in Iceland (I am a United Statesian). People here told me they thought checks were just something that were in movies. I was amazed by this. So here are some reasons that I see to being why it works still in the usa. 1. Social Security system. Most Euro, Nordic countries have their lives, bank accounts, ect tied to their 'Social Security' number and that number is not top secret like it is in the USA. In fact here in Iceland you throw your number around to anyone who wants it because they cant do anything with it but pay you money really. 2. Banks. In the USA there are millions, MILLIONS of small town banks. That means that doing direct deposits or transfers is much much harder to achieve. Example: Iceland has two banks. The most common way of loaning a friend money or paying for that hotel room if you forgot to bring cash or your card is to say 'Give me your SSN and I will transfer to you'. It takes about 30 seconds to do a funds transfer. In the USA you can't do that. They would think you are lying or not want to give they bank info or because of the fees from small town banks it would be pointless. Also a lot of these small banks will not accept direct deposit (I had a bank growing up that still does not) These are some of the main reasons that I think cause the flow of checks in the usa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20f1faf11e9fc76bc2216ed86c83a0e7", "text": "\"I know this an old thread, but one that caught my interest as I just moved to the USA from Australia. As per the OP I had never written a check in my whole life, and upon arriving in the US I was surprised as to their proliference. In Australia pretty much all bills you receive can be paid in a number of ways: For small amounts between friends cash is probably used most, but for larger amounts direct transfer is popular. Your friend/landlord will give you their bank account number and BSB number, which identifies their bank, and then you transfer the money in. We don't have a SSN like some other countries. Cheques are still used by some however, esp by the older generations. Now that I'm in the US initially I had tried to set up direct transfer to pay my rent however the bank has a $1000 daily transfer limit. I contacted the bank to get this increased however I was informed that this limit applies to ALL accounts at the bank. I asked how do people pay their rents with this low limit and was told that most people used cheques. (This explains the strange look I got from my landlord when I asked for their bank account details so I could pay the rent!) I now have some bills to pay here and I use online banking. You enter the biller's name and address and then the bank actually prints off a cheque and posts it to the biller on your behalf! My first couple of pays here were also cheques, which were the first actual \"\"paychecks\"\" I had ever received.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7f899827d3aae4754d6c612163051a6", "text": "Typically your paychecks are direct deposited into your bank account and you receive a paycheck stub telling you how much of your money went where (taxes, insurance, 401k, etc.). Most people use debit or credit cards for purchases. I personally only use checks to transfer money to another person (family, friend, etc.) than a business. And even then, there's PayPal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45d5bbbb109433ec4decc5f783d5ee72", "text": "There are some people that still get an old-fashioned paycheck but for the most part if you are an employee at a company you get a paystub while the money is direct deposited into your accounts. Paying for stuff at a store with a check is not very common. Most people use credit cards for that purpose. A significant percentage of the population still use checks for paying there regular bills through the mail. Although the more internet savvy people will most likely use online bill pay from their bank so they don't have to mail checks. Personally I have only written about 15 checks in 5 years. Mostly to people and not to businesses setup for receiving bill payments electronically.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccd9c4730192f7cd2f124af4769cec68", "text": "Many small businesses are still cash and check. For example my landlord does not take credit card or online transfer. My choices are cash and check, and I prefer checks for the paper trail.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dce2e7d55d8aed2b088a1fd27ce27f39", "text": "\"People who rent an apartment will typically pay by check. Probably 90% of the checks I have written are for rent. To some extent this falls under the previously mentioned \"\"payments to another person\"\" rule.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e726704aa3a047d7e8672b6868a8e179", "text": "Ever since my apartment complex started accepting rent payments online, I've almost never written a check. I use my debit card for everything. And I get paid by direct deposit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67a6bbba7f13b2a6635133848ebf9e54", "text": "I receive checks from my tenant. Also, from our medical reimbursement account. I'm sure there's an option somewhere to get that direct deposited, just haven't yet. My wife will write checks for school functions. Funny, they haven't cashed one since february, and this is the one item to look for every time I reconcile her account. A few select others don't take credit or debit cards. Our tailor (losing weight, needed pants pulled in), among others. The number of checks is surely down an order of magnitude over the years, but still not zero.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14db4aaccba207332c28e3d8235ba523", "text": "From a Canadian point of view, I think we are generally very similar to how you describe Austria. The only thing I use cash for, is to pay for my coffee at a local micro-roaster who only accepts cash. Cheques, I only use to pay friends. Everything else is debit or credit card. Very few businesses around here will even accept cheques anymore.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "005e07c2a709929f6b8fb66f86f38363", "text": "It is possible to not use checks in the US. I personally use a credit card for almost everything and often have no cash in my wallet at all. I never carry checks with me. If we wanted to, we could pay all of our monthly bills without checks as well, and many people do this. 30 years ago, grocery stores didn't generally accept credit cards, so it was cash or check, though most other kinds of stores and restaurants did. Now, the only stores that I have encountered in years that do not accept credit cards are a local chicken restaurant, and the warehouse-shopping store Costco. (Costco accepts its own credit card, but not Mastercard or Visa.) Still, we do pay the majority of our monthly bills via check, and it would not be shocking to see someone paying for groceries with a check. I can't name the last time I saw someone write a check at a store exactly, but I've never seen any cashier or other patrons wonder what a check-writer was trying to do. Large transactions, like buying a car or house, would still use checks -- probably cashier's or certified checks and not personal checks, though.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "90f4a09fd47702b34fd698aa96b6fdb0", "text": "\"You can spend the money quite quickly. The problem is that if there is something wrong with the check, the bank will ask you for the money back. If the check is from a trusted source (a trusted friend, a business with good reputation etc.) that's fine. If the money is from an untrusted source, make sure that having to pay back the money doesn't get you into trouble. Since most people are honest, this is fine for a small amount, but if it's more than you can afford to pay back, don't spend it. A simple scam is that people send you checks, \"\"by mistake\"\" the check is for the wrong amount, say $910 instead of $190, and they ask you to send the difference back. So you put $910 into your account, send them $720, and six weeks later your bank asks for their $910 back. If someone pays you too much on a check and asks you to pay them the difference, you know it is a scam.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cdc5937ee4679065bb4a2878b10d27dc", "text": "Check use is declining here too, but it still has some practical advantages over electronic means:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "593a607429bbea53a8c549008657a60f", "text": "\"The real reason credit cards are so popular in the US is that Americans are lazy and broke, and the credit card companies know how to market to that. Have you ever heard of the $30k millionaires? These were individuals that purchased as if they were some of the wealthy elite, but had no real money to back it up. American society has pushed the idea of \"\"living on credit\"\" for quite some time now. An idea that is even furthered by watching the US government operate solely on credit. (Raise the debt ceiling much?) Live in America for more than six months and you will be bombarded with \"\"Pre-Approved Deals\"\" with low introductory rates that are designed to sucker the average consumer into opening multiple accounts that they don't need. Then, they try and get you to carry a balance by allowing low minimum payments that could take in the neighborhood of 20 years to pay off, depending on carried balance. This in turn pads the credit companies' pockets with all of the interest you now pay on the account. The few truly wealthy Americans do not purchase on credit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e906b74b083c9b0c9370ece62cffc5b", "text": "Not just America, and I assume not ALL companies, but heaps in Australia are doing the same thing. I work for one that does, I mean all of the Visa workers in here are wonderful people so it's not a big deal to me. I can definitely relate to people being annoyed about this though, especially as many foreigners send a lot of their money overseas instead of spending it here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ff97fdc7a3510f25ff7d3820da6ec25", "text": "A lot of Americans have used Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes. However recently several large Swiss banks have started disclosing the details on some of their customers to the IRS. There isn't much security in Swiss banking at this point in time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e728f67b84c940c2e23ee8334471085", "text": "Because it makes money for all parties, and because the general public is reluctant to any change. Who should have an interest to change that? People. And they have no say in it. You can actually do a lot without paper checks nowadays (I only use one per year for car taxes, as they do not accept anything else), but many people shake their heads about even online banking and would never trust it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de5b3b9faab2ae254ca546bb6740d4e1", "text": "In the US, paper checks are still the rule, and there is a large amount of the population that does not care to use online banking. As a result, those people need to go to the bank once a week or more often, to deposit checks they get from anywhere, to get cash, etc.; so all those little banks have traffic. This is slowly changing, and banks start to automatic the processes even in the brick-and-mortar location, but for now, they are around.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee98cdc37024de3dac00fdb75f6e1d98", "text": "Believe it or not, this is done as a service to you. The reason for this has to do with a fundamental difference between a credit card account and a checking account. With a credit card account, there is no money in the account; every charge is borrowed money. When you get to your credit limit, your credit transactions will start getting declined, but if the bank does for some reason let one get approved, it's not a big deal for anyone; it just means that you owe a little more than your credit limit. Note that (almost) every credit card transaction today is an electronic transaction. A checking account, however, has real money in it. When it is gone, it is gone. When a balance inquiry is done, the bank has no way of knowing how many checks you've written that have not been cashed yet. It is a customer's responsibility to know exactly how much money is available to spend. If you write more checks than you have money for in your account, technically you have committed a crime. Unfortunately, there are too many people now that are not taking the responsibility of calculating their own checking account balance seriously, and bad checks are written all the time. When a bank allows these transactions to be paid even though you don't have enough money in your account, they are preventing a crime from being committed by you. The fee is a finance charge for loaning you the money, but it is also there to encourage you not to spend more than you have. Even if you use a debit card, it is still tied to a checking account, and the bank doesn't know if you have written enough checks to overdraw your account or not. It is still your responsibility to keep track of your own available balance. Every time this happens to you, thank the bank as you pay this fee, and then commit to keeping your own running balance and always knowing how much you have left in your account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "23641425a136902b14a888a56d82c9b1", "text": "Because of the way checks are processed, you can't write a check for $100 million or more: http://www.bankingquestions.com/checksyoureceived/q_limitfunds.html The field used for 'amount' has 10 digits, so anything at/above 10^10 cents (which would require 11 digits) can't be processed, at least not by normal means.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d797e0c5aeb688f536cd46d2b3308dd", "text": "\"Here's a hack for getting the \"\"free\"\" checking that requires direct deposit. Some effort to set up, but once everything is in place, it's all autopilot. (If your transfer into savings is higher than your transfer out of savings, you'll build up a nice little stash over time.) I don't know if there are deposit amounts or frequencies that you must have to qualify for the free account, if these are public or secret, or if this works everywhere. If anyone else has experience using this kind of hack, please leave a comment.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc9beba134af860f63df40315c9b5caa", "text": "\"Two typical responses to articles/surveys making such claims: 1. People use other forms of asset for emergency savings because interest rates are low - clearly false. 2. People use other forms of saving than a saving account therefore such surveys as the X% can't handle a $500 emergency are wrong on their face - this is false the vast majority use a savings account. I've chosen a topic that absolutely annoys the shit out of me every time it comes up, how people save their money. Every time this topic comes up about X% of americans can't come up with $Y dollars in an emergency or have less than $Z in savings someone inevitably chimes in with the linked response. I have never seen anyone attempt to source their hand waving response beyond their own anecdote, which is usually a thinly veiled brag about how financially savvy they are with their wealth. Perhaps people who have no assets, or crippling debt don't go out of their way to brag about it... I could link multiple reddit posts making a similar response, which I address with my own stock response about once every 1-2 months. Instead I've decided to expand with data from several other sources. This is the prototypical good/bad research problem. If you're asserting something, but qualify your statement with, \"\"I\"\"m sure we'd find...if we looked into...\"\" then you're doing it wrong. A good researcher or journalist doesn't put bullshit like that in their work because it's their job to actually look for sources of data; data which should exist with multiple government and independent groups. So let's get started (all data as recent as I could find, oldest source is for 2010): * [Most americans don't invest in the stock market](https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2014/pdf/scf14.pdf) About 48.8% of americans owned publicly traded stock directly or indirectly, with a much smaller percent (13.8%) owning stock directly - pages 18 and 16 respectively. It's important to note the predominance of indirect ownership which suggests this is mostly retirement accounts. It's entirely possible people are irresponsible with their emergency savings, but I think it safe to say we should not expect people to dip into their retirement accounts for relatively minor emergency expenses. The reason is obvious, even if it covers the expense they now have to make up the shortfall for their retirement savings. This is further supported by the same source: >\"\"The value of assets held within IRAs and DC plans are among the most significant compo-nents of many families’ balance sheets and are a significant determinant of their future retirement security.\"\" Ibid (page 20, PDF page 20 of 41) There is also a break down of holdings by asset type on page 16, PDF page 16 of 41. * [This data is skewed by the top 10% who keep more of their wealth in different asset types.](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html) For a breakdown between the 1st, 10th, and 90th percentiles see table 3. So far it seems pretty hard to maintain a large percent of americans have their wealth stored outside of savings accounts, mattresses aside. * [Here's my original reply as to the breakdown of americans assets by type and percent holding.](https://imgur.com/a/DsLxB) Note this assumes people have assets. [Source for images/data.](https://www.census.gov/people/wealth/data/dtables.html) Most people use savings accounts, with runner up falling to checking accounts. This will segue into our next topic which is the problem of unbanked/underbanked households. * [A large number of individuals have no assets; breaking down by asset types assumes people have assets in the first place.](https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/) To quote the FDIC: >\"\"Estimates from the 2015 survey indicate that 7.0 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2015. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households. An additional 19.9 percent of U.S. households (24.5 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system.\"\" That's right there are millions of households so finance savvy they don't even have banks accounts! Obviously it's because of low interest rates. Also, most people have a checking account as well as savings account, the percent with \"\"checking and savings\"\" was 75.8% while those with \"\"checking only\"\" were 22.2% (page 25, PDF page 31 of 88). It's possible in some surveys people keep all their money in checking, but given other data sources, and the original claim this fails to hold up. If the concern was interest rates it makes no sense to keep money in checking which seldom pays interest. This survey also directly addresses the issue of \"\"emergency savings\"\": > \"\"Overall, 56.3 percent of households saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies in the past 12 months.\"\" (page 37, PDF page 43 of 88) Furthermore: >\"\"Figure 7.2 shows that among all households that saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies, savings accounts were the most used savings method followed by checking accounts: more than four in five (84.9 percent) kept savings in one of these accounts. About one in ten (10.5 percent) households that saved maintained savings in the home, or with family or friends.\"\" Emphasis added. * [Why don't people have wealth in different asset classes? Well they don't save money.](http://cdn.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/savings-rates-by-wealth-class.png) This is further supported by the OECD data: * [Americans \"\"currency and deposits\"\" are 13% vs 5.8% for \"\"securities and other shares\"\" as % of total financial assets.](https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-financial-assets.htm) Additionally: * [Interest earning checking accounts: 44.6% of american households (second image)](https://imgur.com/a/DsLxB) * [\"\"Among all households that saved for unexpected expenses or emergencies, savings accounts were the most used savings method followed by checking accounts...\"\" (page 7, PDF page 13 of 88)](https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2015/2015report.pdf) * ~70% saved for an emergency with a savings account vs ~24% who used checking. Ibid. In fairness the FDIC link does state banked americans were more likely to hold checking accounts than savings accounts (98% vs ~77% respectively) but that doesn't mean they're earning interest in their checking account. It's also worth noting median transaction account value was for 2013 (this is the federal reserve data) $4100.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1e3057c1fc6c4cd285ff605bf4f2e8ef", "text": "Yes. I've spoken to mortgage officers from various banks who will do conventional loans with anything as low as 3.5% down, however there are many more restrictions (e.g., normally you can borrow funds from a parent or relative for a down payment, in this case that was prohibited). If you are already pre-approved, then your approval letter should state the specifics you need to adhere to. If you would like to modify that (e.g. put a smaller amount down), then you could still get the loan, but your pre-approval won't be valid. I would recommend speaking with your lender (and perhaps with a few others as well) about the new home you are looking at.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcb9eaeafb6185e76ad564d565950eaf", "text": "Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
570fba075522daf304f52a67822d695c	Anyone please explain the meaning of turnover in this pic?	[ { "docid": "8a189b80c56ab2a8eb314620583105a8", "text": "\"The Business Dictionary has three definitions of \"\"turnover\"\". When it comes to share dealing, the most likely one is the total value of shares traded on the stock exchange in a given period.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "fb52419d4872fd7d43717254d06fd548", "text": "\"On 3# - My company is constantly complaining about saving money, cutting costs. Then we have these events, and banners, and trinkets and bullshit about our new \"\"mission statement\"\" - everyone here just sees them pissing away money (millions) while bitching about money. That's a fucking drag on company morale. Then again, #8 - my job is being phased out, so it's not like I really like this place anyway.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8be21d05ed1779908307183b4400187e", "text": "That was a quote from the article itself... There's a good link involved in that excerpt... Read it... Job lock is a real thing... That's the only reason people remain at the large corporations that treat them just like a number and don't give a crap about them... People work for large companies with fucked up schedules, commutes and often health detrimental duties... Yet they don't want to adventure to the unknown where there's a chance they will not get the same benefit package... As anecdote, I live in Rural Washington state, a lot of Union people travel to Seattle for work... This is a very long, and stressful commute, I-5, 16, and 405 are not fun... Some of them will spend upwards of five or six hours a day just on the road... when you ask them why... It's because of the pay and the benefit package... when you factor in the extra hours of driving, the pay really is not that huge of a difference, and the toll on your body that that kind of commute takes is horrific... But they wouldn't dare look at small companies Closer by that may not be able to offer them the pension, and health insurance plan that is mandated when working for Amazon, or building for JP Morgan... So they just give in, become a number, and on paper, and empirically, it is a net gain... But the intangible effects on their psyche, happiness, are quite clear....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a38bafeb735f43826f9b6342241c2be", "text": "So to translate that to US English: taking an early retirement in lieu of impending layoffs. If you have a layoff you're saying you have no need for the work and if you replace the workers then they come back to sue you (which seems to be what you're saying, and we have the same concept) but an early retirement is a voluntary exit with a compensation package such that any right to sue is forfeit because it was a consensual exit rather than mandatory. Got it. Thanks. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fd6b1bfb16e4b4349123fb95103e97c", "text": "\"It means price movements in the past do not affect price movements in the future. Think of the situation of a coin, if you flip it once, and then you flip it a second time, the results are independent of each other. If the first time, you flipped a HEAD, it does not mean that the coin will remember it, and produce a TAIL the second time. This is the meaning of \"\"memoryless\"\". FYI, stock markets are clearly not memoryless. It is just an assumption for academic purposes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6bd677c1e3ea129e086763705a7bdad", "text": "\"The \"\"c.\"\" is probably circa, or \"\"about.\"\" Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means \"\"business as usual\"\" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84db8928e71914d29c1ede1652c8857d", "text": "That looks like a Bloomberg terminal. And like @Jer said, it would appear to be the symbol for the S&P 500 E-mini index future. Although it doesn't look right all on its own, as it should have a modifier indicating the month (or quarter) of expiry. However, since it appears on a Bloomberg terminal in the image, I checked a source for Bloomberg Symbol Lists and found one of two possibilities for ES1. It is most likely the S&P 500 e-mini future: CME E-Mini Futures E-Mini S&P 500 ES1 INDEX the only alternative was LIFFE 3 Month Euroswiss ES1 COMDTY I think the former is far more likely, as the latter has the COMDTY commodity tag instead of INDEX as the tag in the image. Also, it isn't the ESI which pertains to Ethibel Sustainability Indices and something with the Eurozone (also Bloomberg Indices). Here we go! Excerpt straight is from a presentation presentation on charting from a business school PDF see pp.12-13, and appears to be a straight excerpt from September 2007 Bloomberg documentation. I didn't know any other way to imbed it besides taking a screen shot then uploading to imgur. Or of course, see pp.12-13 in the referenced PDF I've attached. See", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91d757f3506cda4e6a14d708282d8c13", "text": "Rather large, incorrect assumption for someone who wants to chat about logic. I think it's a clickbait article that doesn't articulate anything other than defending Damore, which isn't the point of the article, based on the title. Please, if you're going to suggest the CEO of Google should resign over this manifesto in the NYT, you better have something more than some emotional digs and crying about leadership by someone who doesn't have the slightest clue of what it entails in total. That's why I don't think he should write another piece, sure as hell not on this subject. But I appreciate your armchair analysis bub.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2647687762360c49bb6114991554d0de", "text": "I think you are having trouble understanding what 'liquid' means. Liquidity refers to how easily an asset can be converted to cash. More liquid = more easily converted to cash, less liquid, less so. Any kind of exit load is going to make an asset less liquid due to the penalties associated with making the sale. So, the whole point of liquid funds is to give people the option of selling quickly if they need to. Since an exit load is meant to discourage this behavior, liquid funds tend not to have one. The point isn't what the financial institution 'gets', it's about offering a service to clients with a particular investment need.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "059208f33a4bafb29026f32af0cbcc61", "text": "\"I would look at the wording of the question. \"\"Expect\"\" does not necessarily mean that they plan to work until they die, or that they want to work until they die. \"\"Expect\"\" here likely means that they think they will have to work until they die - in particular, think that they will not be able to save up enough to retire. Thinking that you will have to work until you die doesn't mean you shouldn't save money - that's just giving up if you don't, right? Instead you save up money and hopefully you're one of the luckier ones.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d85158f0a82f5d0aa198c6541dd827e0", "text": "Thank you very much. >Corporations are really a means of removing risk beyond initial investment This made my light bulb just go off. Thank you! --- I'm going to have to digest the rest of the material slowly. It makes sense, but I want to get it 100%. Thanks a lot!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56721438fa6acaf9a0b838542836851b", "text": "This is where someone hand waves: innovation, competitive spirit, technology, hard work, and values -- code words for -- cut everything to the bone, replace with automation as much as possible, and/or acquire work-slaves, rinse-repeat until an exit strategy is found, bail out at optimal point and leave someone else to clean up the mess.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "630322d6c195ac675508693c89b9b106", "text": "\"Ordinarily a stock split increases all shareholders' share counts, so that there is no change in anybody's voting power. For example, if you owned 1% of the company before the split, after the split you now have twice as many shares, but there are now twice as many shares outstanding, so you still own 1% of the company. Also, stock splits are not ordinarily \"\"triggered\"\". Usually they happen when the board decides that for one reason or another it's desirable to increase the number of shares in circulation, which causes the price of each share to decrease proportionally. I'm not familiar with the show, and in particular I don't know what the action is that the character being addressed is thinking of taking, but it sounds like they are describing something akin to a \"\"poison pill\"\". In these arrangements, the \"\"pill\"\" is triggered by some predefined condition, say a party acquiring shares in excess of a defined threshold. What typically happens is that shareholders other than the ones who triggered the pill get a chance to buy shares at a substantial discount, thereby diluting the shares of the party that triggered it. Because the other shareholders have to buy their additional shares, albeit at a discount, and because it applies only to certain shares, it's not really a split, but it's close enough that the writers of the show may have felt it was worth using the term that is more familiar to the public.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a1e9da8ed7b56d4014e73204605cf7e", "text": "Ideally, you would be correct. There is an inverse correlation between wages and turnover rate... to a point. We live in an economy where, unfortunately, there is a ready supply of labor to take the place of those who quit or otherwise leave the company. This brings the value of your current employees down.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03765888936dcdd3e8e5bb21462ea911", "text": "Owning a home is cheaper than paying rent. You ever think the turnover is so high because it's a shitty work environment for what their paid? How about you go sit at the Walmart employee smoke area. All they do is bitch for their 30 minute break about how their job is miserable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2687a838a4c2f0effb07b4ec3585b60", "text": "Im an actor preparing for a role. I play a trader in the UK during the late 80s. I have a very basic understanding of the stock market and am unsure what some of the dialogue is referring to. For example: “bid 28 at the figure” “sell at 3” “5 march at 28” “9 for 5” “bid 4 at 6” “closing out now at 4”. What do these numbers mean exactly. It doesn’t help that im Australian and this is a UK production, or that im an idiot", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
349ac19ce85d662b9f5d1b2e9f9e8209	Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt?	[ { "docid": "07d96288f612a95c2bbec1db71f046b7", "text": "The store keeps track of what you buy. It is all part of their big data. The knowledge of what you buy helps them project future sales. It allows them to target their marketing. But maybe even more importantly they can sell this knowledge to outside companies. They aren't going to give away that information to another company that would love to have that data, just so they could sell it. Stores use those loyalty cards to be able to link your household to those purchases. Those discounts, or free products, are what they use to entice you to give up your privacy. The fact that in your town young adults love caramel apples, even more than the town next door, makes them confident that your town will love caramel apple scented shampoo. Thus they send you coupons when it become available. They will also sell this knowledge to the shampoo companies. Do some stores make it possible for you to download the data? Yes they do. Apple stores send all receipts via email. Kohls allows me to see detail information about my transactions on line. There must be others. I don't know if any are grocery stores.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "543f4652e82ee1c5329dcd9006612b55", "text": "As a merchant I can tell you that the only thing the bank gets from me. Is the total amount and a category for my business. No detail, not ever.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83826f181cbed6fb08aa3d823a249337", "text": "The stores track the individual items for inventory planning and marketing purposes. Having worked in the transaction processing business for a time (writing one), I can say with confidence that the credit/debit card companies do not receive an itemized list of the items involved in the transaction. There is usually a description field in the information transmitted to the processor, which may or may not contain useful information. But it is not big enough to contain an itemized grocery list of any size. And it is not standardized in any way that would facilitate reliable parsing. There may be an amount of metadata about the transaction that would indicate the types of products involved in the transaction, which they can also infer from the merchant reporting the transaction. There are efforts to increase the amount of data reported, but they are not widely used yet, due to the overwhelming numbers of banks that would need to be upgraded. These efforts are rolling out only in specific and limited uses where the banks involved are willing to upgrade software and equipment. For now, the best way to know what you bought is to keep your receipts from the store. Shoeboxes work great for this. So do smartphone cameras and a folder on your hard drive. There are also mobile apps that track receipts for you, and may even try to OCR the data for you.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "88009ffa9f0e9233ee90f4ca2dbdd79c", "text": "Keeping a receipt does allow you to verify that the expected amount was charged/debited it also can help when you need to return an item. Regarding double charging, the credit card companies look for that. If the same card is used at the same vendor for the same exact amount in a short period of time the credit card company will flag the transaction. They assume either a mistake was made, or fraud is being attempted. The most likely result is that the transaction is denied. A dishonest vendor can write down the card number, expiration date and CVV number. Then after you leave make up a new transaction for any amount they want. You of course wouldn't have a paper receipt for this fraudulent transaction. The key is reviewing your transaction history every few days: looking for unexpected amounts, locations, or number of transactions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39ce77a9a6f73da8194f996943405e13", "text": "\"It's very straightforward for an honest vendor to refund the charge, and the transaction only costs him a few pennies at most. If you initiate a chargeback, the merchant is immediately charged an irreversible fee of about $20 simply as an administrative fee. He'll also have to refund the charge if it's reversed. To an honest merchant who would've happily refunded you, it's unfair and hurtful. In any case, now that he's out-of-pocket on the administrative fee, his best bet is to fight the chargeback - since he's already paid for the privilege to fight. Also, a chargeback is a \"\"strike\"\" against the merchant. If his chargeback rate is higher than the norm in his industry, they may raise his fees, or ban him entirely from taking Visa/MC. For a small merchant doing a small volume, a single chargeback can have an impact on his overall chargeback rate. The \"\"threshold of proof\"\" for a chargeback varies by patterns of fraud and the merchant's ability to recover. If you bought something readily fungible to cash - like a gift card, casino chips, concert tickets etc., forget it. Likewise if you already extracted the value (last month's Netflix bill). Credit card chargeback only withdraws a payment method. Your bill is still due and payable. The merchant is within his rights to \"\"dun\"\" you for payment and send you to collections or court. Most merchants don't bother, because they know it'll be a fight, an unpleasant distraction and bad for business. But they'd be within their rights. Working with the merchant to settle the matter is a final resolution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6b6c0b21e83c57a3b62918af7f3f1bf", "text": "\"* Don't underestimate the power of facial recognition wizardry. * No, you don't have to show ID to activate the cards. But keep in mind that they know which cards were activated. There is a paper trail. I'm sure Amex, Visa, MC would happily deactivate the cards for them. Target just has to report that the cards were activated using fraud/theft. * If you took advantage of this \"\"deal\"\" your best bet is to get the prepaid credit cards and spend the money asap at another store (walmart) before they are deactivated. * If indeed this legally is considered fraud, and they go after you for it, you could end up in a giant heap of trouble as many laws have been broken. And, if you use any of the \"\"fraudulent\"\" CC's to make online purchases from a company in another state you could face even more federal charges.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe6c6b035064b9df1adf8d9f29e0d9c0", "text": "In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed the PTA to use their credit card reader to process transactions over a certain amount. Of course when the credit card statement arrived it looked like you spent $500 at the florist. I have seen PayPal listed when donating to some small charities. I have noted another case where confusion can occur. I used a debit card to buy a soda from a vending machine: the name and location were the name of the vending machine company and the location of their main office. It didn't say soda machine city A. It said Joe's vending company city B. In most cases the business and the credit card company want to make it easy to identify the transactions to keep the cost of research and charge backs to a minimum.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5825b7937a3c46f4dad210d283bc7aa", "text": "Also see who has the authority to delete bills or items on bills. This was a huge scam with some servers I've worked with. If you can delete an entire bill that was paid in cash then that's money in your pocket.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "846cc8abedf02be2afab8ad9cbc9cfd9", "text": "You have paid the vendor (school?), etc, $75.75 too much, for whatever reason. They can send you back this money, or it can apply against a future bill. This is common when I pay my credit card in full, but also have a store return. The bill can show a credit, but it will quickly get used up by new purchases.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e18a3c6cbff373b8ab0f583250150a6", "text": "A friend of mine has two credit cards. He has specifically arranged with the card issuers so that the billing cycles are 15 days out of sync. He uses whichever card has more recently ended its billing cycle, which gives him the longest possible time between purchase and the due date to avoid interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f66e25bacedbdcc71660c7a8b122bb2e", "text": "The only issue I can see is that the stranger is looking to undervalue their purchase to save money on taxes/registration (if applicable in your state). Buying items with cash such as cars, boats, etc in the used market isn't all that uncommon* - I've done it several times (though not at the 10k mark, more along about half of that). As to the counterfeit issue, there are a couple avenues you can pursue to verify the money is real: *it's the preferred means of payment advocated by some prominent personal financial folks, including Dave Ramsey", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39f3a8221f16c84c72aefff9e8144049", "text": "To quote the answer you linked to: Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. So, if your business purchased the $1000 gift card for $800, you should see a $800 charge appearing on a business CC or bank statement. You would therefore be able to deduct the $800, but not the full $1000 of items that you purchase with it. Side Notes:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30c431a4738f2c89c49acec373d3c91a", "text": "\"Every legitimate claim I've filed regarding fraudulent charges on my card includes signing a legal document. If your \"\"friend\"\" completes such a document and you can verify that it is untrue, he's in deeper trouble than you. Unfortunately, if he's successful in filing a claim that is later proven to be fraudulent, it puts your account in a poor status until it's fully cleared. Even then, corporate inertia may result in longer duration inaccurate information. Once you've cleared the fraudulent claim, you'll want to contact your credit agency to ensure they are provided with correct and proper documentation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69eacef6ab630c1a74ab135faf233369", "text": "\"When processing credit/debit cards there is a choice made by the company on how they want to go about doing it. The options are Authorization/Capture and Sale. For online transactions that require the delivery of goods, companies are supposed to start by initially Authorizing the transaction. This signals your bank to mark the funds but it does not actually transfer them. Once the company is actually shipping the goods, they will send a Capture command that tells the bank to go ahead and transfer the funds. There can be a time delay between the two actions. 3 days is fairly common, but longer can certainly be seen. It normally takes a week for a gas station local to me to clear their transactions. The second one, a Sale is normally used for online transactions in which a service is immediately delivered or a Point of Sale transaction (buying something in person at a store). This action wraps up both an Authorization and Capture into a single step. Now, not all systems have the same requirements. It is actually fairly common for people who play online games to \"\"accidentally\"\" authorize funds to be transferred from their bank. Processing those refunds can be fairly expensive. However, if the company simply performs an Authorization and never issues a capture then it's as if the transaction never occurred and the costs involved to the company are much smaller (close to zero) I'd suspect they have a high degree of parents claiming their kids were never authorized to perform transactions or that fraud was involved. If this is the case then it would be in the company's interest to authorize the transaction, apply the credits to your account then wait a few days before actually capturing the funds from the bank. Depending upon the amount of time for the wait your bank might have silently rolled back the authorization. When it came time for the company to capture, then they'd just reissue it as a sale. I hope that makes sense. The point is, this is actually fairly common. Not just for games but for a whole host of areas in which fraud might exist (like getting gas).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ca7447f38a27e878762e5755e08b164", "text": "You will need to first try and get the seller to refund. (Get the name of the person you talked to and a date and time). Then you can contact the bank the card was issued through and dispute the charge. I would make sure that you retain any proof that you purchased one item and received something other than what you purchased. The seller does have recourse if they did fulfill their side of the transaction but if they are a legitimate merchant and actually sent you the wrong product most will not bother.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9c2e358eafa3b0780056c5c7b722068", "text": "Can they? Sure. Should they? Absolutely not. You're exactly right that it's dishonest, but it's not like it's a crime. Your best recourse, as is often the case, is simply to stop buying from this site, and cancel any existing orders. Shop with companies that exhibit trustworthy behavior.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1321dc071d64c45d197ac4f381d77ac9", "text": "\"It surely doesn't HURT to keep a receipt. I tend to pile up receipts in my desk drawer, never look at them, and then every few months throw them all out. If a vendor writes a receipt by hand or if the cash register is not tied in to the credit card system, keeping a receipt could give you evidence against mistakes or fraud. Like if the vendor gives you a receipt for $10 and then sends a transaction to the credit card company for $20, you could use the receipt as evidence of the problem. But if the vendor is trying to really cheat you, the most likely thing for him to do is run the legitimate transaction through, and then some time later run a fake transaction. So say today you go to vendor X, buy something for $20, and he bills your credit card $20. Then a few days later he bills you another $100 even though you never came back to the store. Sure, you have a receipt for $20. But you don't have a receipt for the $100 because you never authorized that transaction. Your receipt proves nothing -- presumably you're not disputing the $20. If you complain to the bank or go to the police or whatever, saying, \"\"Hey look, I don't have a receipt for the $100\"\" doesn't prove anything. How do they know you didn't just throw it away? It's difficult to prove that you never had such a receipt.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "38ec38eaad11c8b8a112cf547e69262e", "text": "I think you're dancing with the line here, this question is hard to back up without opinions and could really be three different questions. I'm going to push aside the part about quality and reliability, that could be an emotional subject. So from a price standpoint, there's virtually no disagrement that it makes financial sense to buy a used car instead of a new car. The majority of new cars lose the majority of their resale value within the first year or two. If you purchase said car after someone else has used it for the first two years, you just avoided all of that depreciation yourself, and you're still going to be purchasing a perfectly reliable car as long as you are diligent in the buying process.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
bc0a76fa376429866712501cf3caacb5	Is income from crypto-currencies taxed?	[ { "docid": "4f64ef46bb0260c8b78aaf58038bcb06", "text": "Mining is income at the value at time of earning, I would use an index like XBX to determine price. Asset appreciation is capital gains. These aspects of crypto-assets are not a gray area in the US financial sector, and have been addressed for almost half a decade now.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "229d3ecda58289b259fc5368abefe568", "text": "In Canada, it is similarly taxed as CQM states. Mining is considered business income and you need to file a T1 form. Capital appreciation is no different than treating gains from stock.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "1c7beebb3549c75c9dd76f80232f5e9c", "text": "What you are looking for is a 1031 exchange. https://www.irs.gov/uac/like-kind-exchanges-under-irc-code-section-1031 Whenever you sell business or investment property and you have a gain, you generally have to pay tax on the gain at the time of sale. IRC Section 1031 provides an exception and allows you to postpone paying tax on the gain if you reinvest the proceeds in similar property as part of a qualifying like-kind exchange. Gain deferred in a like-kind exchange under IRC Section 1031 is tax-deferred, but it is not tax-free. You may also sell your house for bitcoin and record the sales price on the deed with an equal or lesser amount that you bought it for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dcde7237c2f07188a3d6d58976f32e7", "text": "Crypto will make us all rich when it becomes the new standard highly volatile currency. As we all know how attractive a highly volatile currency is. Who doesn't want to save on 1% banking fees for cross border transactions when you could use crypto and potentially make or lose 20%. /s", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a87688fb747cdc8f66ebfc69393bdf18", "text": "This is taxed as ordinary income. See the IRC Sec 988(a)(1). The exclusion you're talking about (the $200) is in the IRC Sec 988(e)(2), but you'll have to read the Treasury Regulations on this section to see if and how it can apply to you. Since you do this regularly and for profit (i.e.: not a personal transaction), I'd argue that it doesn't apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b72c7f112014ad0f2539574456e73e5f", "text": "\"As cryptocurrencies are rather new compared to most assets, there hasn't been a lot of specific guidance for a lot of situation, but in 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. I'm not aware of further guidance that has been published beyond that, though it wouldn't surprise me if treatments changed over time. In that notice, the answer to the first question describes the general treatment: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. Your specific questions (about what constitutes a \"\"business\"\", and when you're considered to be \"\"selling\"\" the cryptoproperty) are likely to be considered on a case by case basis by the IRS. As the amounts involved here are so small (relatively speaking), my recommendation would be to read through what the IRS has published carefully, make reasonable assumptions about what scenarios that are described are closest to what you're doing, and document doing so clearly as part of your tax preparations. And when in doubt, erring on the side of whichever option incurs more tax is unlikely to be objected to by them. Of course, I'm not a lawyer or tax advisor, I'm a stranger on the Internet, so for \"\"real\"\" advice you should contact somebody qualified. I doubt you'd be faulted too much for not doing so given the amounts involved. You could also attempt contacting a local IRS office or calling them with your specific questions, and they may be able to provide more specific guidance tailored to you, though doing so may not save you from an auditor deciding something differently if they were to examine your return later. There are also phone numbers to contact specific people listed at the end of Notice 2014-21; you could try calling them as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef1aa2e4d657518b6e67bb4c8e7ff483", "text": "Under what section do I declare my profits when I pay tax? You have to declare this as income from other source and pay tax as per tax brackets. I'm from India and have been trading in binary options for a while now Trading in India on binary options is illegal. If you are using Forex from India for trading, this is not allowed as per Foreign Exchange Management Act.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d50c7fdfce08325fca77e8f189c16e91", "text": "It's important to note that the US is also the country that taxes its expats when they live abroad, and forces foreign banks to disclose assets of US citizens. Americans are literally the property of their government. America is a tax farm and its citizens can't leave the farm. Wherever you go, you are owned. And that now appears to be true of your Bitcoin as well. Even if you spend 50 years outside the USA, your masters want a piece of what you earn. Land of the Free.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67363603df95dbf02c5c4c322d2c4a61", "text": "It should be very obvious that getting X Euro cash in your hand is better than deducting them from taxable income. You would need to have a tax rate of over 100% to do better otherwise.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f047a86a26ffe9decad612ab2b5ed4e0", "text": "Note the above is only for shares. There are different rules for other assets like House, Jewellery, Mutual Funds, Debt Funds. Refer to the Income Tax guide for more details.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac6ae89f7f5eb0d3df5301a48dd439f6", "text": "If you are a non resident Indian, the income you earn and transfer to India is tax free in India. You can hold the funds in USD or convert then into INR, there is no tax implication.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b86d06b83930b46c910d7c04b1b8f98e", "text": "It should be reported as Miscellaneous Income. Congratulations for wanting to report this income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b66aecaca3cfc6d1bf0b48153f487a92", "text": "Yes, at that stage income is income regardless of source. Assuming you're talking about overall profit, not just the individual wins when gambling.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0924928f7f5f7194bd15333e140dbae", "text": "\"In 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. In that notice, the answer to the first question describes the general tax treatment of virtual currency: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. As it's property like any other, capital gains if and when you sell are taxed. As with any capital gains, you're taxed on the \"\"profit\"\" you made, that is the \"\"proceeds\"\" (how much you got when you sold) minus your \"\"basis\"\" (how much you paid to get the property that you sold). Until you sell, it's just an asset (like a house, or a share of stock, or a rare collectible card) that doesn't require any reporting. If your initial cryptocurrency acquisition was through mining, then this section of that Notice applies: Q-8: Does a taxpayer who “mines” virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? A-8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully “mines” virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable income. That is to say, when it was mined the market value of the amount generated should have been included in income (probably on either Line 21 Other Income, or on Schedule C if it's from your own business). At that point, the market value would also qualify as your basis. Though I doubt there'd be a whole lot of enforcement action for not amending your 2011 return to include $0.75. (Technically if you find a dollar bill on the street it should be included in income, but usually the government cares about bigger fish than that.) It sounds like your basis is close enough to zero that it's not worth trying to calculate a more accurate value. Since your basis couldn't be less than zero, there's no way that using zero as your basis would cause you to pay less tax than you ought, so the government won't have any objections to it. One thing to be careful of is to document that your holdings qualify for long-term capital gains treatment (held longer than a year) if applicable. Also, as you're trading in multiple cryptocurrencies, each transaction may count as a \"\"sale\"\" of one kind followed by a \"\"purchase\"\" of the other kind, much like if you traded your Apple stock for Google stock. It's possible that \"\"1031 like kind exchange\"\" rules apply, and in June 2016 the American Institute of CPAs sent a letter asking about it (among other things), but as far as I know there's been no official IRS guidance on the matter. There are also some related questions here; see \"\"Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges?\"\" and \"\"Assuming 1031 Doesn't Apply To Cryptocurrency Trading\"\". But if in fact those exchange rules do not apply and it is just considered a sale followed by a purchase, then you would need to report each exchange as a sale with that asset's basis (probably $0 for the initial one), and proceeds of the fair market value at the time, and then that same value would be the basis of the new asset you're purchasing. Using a $0 basis is how I treat my bitcoin sales, though I haven't dealt with other cryptocurrencies. As long as all the USD income is being reported when you get USD, I find it unlikely you'll run into a lot of trouble, even if you technically were supposed to report the individual transactions when they happened. Though, I'm not in charge of IRS enforcement, and I'm not aware of any high-profile cases, so it's hard to know anything for sure. Obviously, if there's a lot of money involved, you may want to involve a professional rather than random strangers on the Internet. You could also try contacting the IRS directly, as believe-it-or-not, their job is in fact helping you to comply with the tax laws correctly. Also, there are phone numbers at the end of Notice 2014-21 of people which might be able to provide further guidance, including this statement: The principal author of this notice is Keith A. Aqui of the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Income Tax & Accounting). For further information about income tax issues addressed in this notice, please contact Mr. Aqui at (202) 317-4718\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7167ec18e71daaffb58292000094dc2c", "text": "Would I have to pay some kind of capital gains tax? And if so, when? Converting Tax paid USD into CAD is not a taxable event. A taxable even will occur if you convert back the CAD into USD. If you receive interest on the CAD then the interest is also a taxable event. Also, is there any reason this is a terrible idea? That will only be known in future. Its like predicting that in future this will turn out to be advantageous, however it may turn out the other way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe4d51ea49dc69c61e96c23aedb34e51", "text": "Normally, yes, you would have to pay. If you are in the US, or a citizen of the US, then IRC Sec. 61 would levy tax on all income. Even if you find money on the ground, that will generally be taxable income (the treasure trove doctrine). If you are paying foreign income taxes, the US may allow credit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85e79ba38e7a9b761ad1d0665011ddf6", "text": "It has properties of both. Tax authorities will eventually give their opinion on this. Through its properties of finite quantity, fungibility, and resistance to forgery/duplication, it acts as a commodity. It can be sent directly between any two parties anywhere on Earth, without regard for the quantity transacted or physical distance, to act as a currency. By the way, establishing trust in a trust-free environment through cryptographic proof-of-work is a remarkable invention. Sending economic value, cheaply and securely, around the world in minutes, not days/weeks, is a remarkable invention. This is where the value comes from.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
37ed90b6ca29e111ce8ed254644f3a69	Can I cash a cashier's check at any bank?	[ { "docid": "56e501ad9e345426d2297fbcb1c91911", "text": "The classic Nigerian scam involves sending fraudulent cashier's checks to unwitting recipients who then deposit them in their account. The bank reverses these deposits once they discover the check is not valid. At least in the US and in the parts of the EU I'm familiar with (the Netherlands), the method of the Nigerian scam is consistent and banks will reverse the deposit after some holding period. Given this, it's unlikely that most banks will convert an arbitrary cashier's check to cash without any means to recover the amount should the check be fraudulent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7317fb4f46b375b628a969a195c49b5f", "text": "\"At least in the US, a Cashier's Check is just like a regular personal check - only it's guaranteed by the bank itself, so the person accepting it can be pretty certain the check won't be returned for insufficient funds...if the check is genuine! Most banks therefore have a policy for cashier's checks that is very similar to their policies on regular checks and money orders: if you are a member with an account in good standing, they'll make all or part of the money available to you according to their fund availability policy, which is usually anywhere from \"\"immediately\"\" to 7-10 days. With amounts over $5,000, banks will tend to put a hold on the funds to ensure it clears and they get their money. If you are not a member then many banks will refuse to cash the check at all, unless the cashier's check is drawn on on that brand of bank. So if the cashier's check is issued by, say, Chase Bank, Chase banks will usually be willing to cash out the entire check to you immediately (with properly provided ID). Because the bank is guaranteed by them they are able to check their system and ensure the check is real and can clear the check instantly. This policy isn't just up to individual banks entirely, as it is defined by United States federal banking policies and federal regulations on availability of funds. If you really must cash the check without a holding period and won't/can't have a bank account of your own to perform this, then you will generally need to go into a branch of the bank that is guaranteeing the check to be able to cash it out fully right away. Note that since the check might be issued by a bank with no branch near you, you should have a back-up plan. Generally banks will allow you to setup a special/limited savings-only account to deposit your check, even if you don't have a checking account, so if no other option works you might try that as well. The funds availability policies are the same, but at least you'll be able to cash it generally in 10 days time (and then close the account and withdraw your money).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37794866268a27f723559f431c8a31d9", "text": "Normally if the amount of a cashiers check is over $5,000, a bank (like Wells Fargo) may put a 10 business day hold on it to make sure the transaction is sound.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e401011b92d6c89b508ce9f8b78789e", "text": "Cashiers check is as good as cash. I use them all the time as banks don't carry over 2-3k anymore. I can bring the cashiers check anywhere and thus cash it for u without an account. It's basically a piece of paper that says these funds are set aside from the issuers account just for and only for the check. That's why it's accepted anywhere. It's a gurantee from one bank to another that the funds are there waiting to be transferred. The whole point of the check is so the funds are available immediately. The bank will call the issuing bank verify the Check is real and than cash it immediately. You don't pay a fee to buy the cashiers check just to wait for it to clear like a normal free check. Its immediate and just as good as cash. I use them weekly/monthly for amounts from 5k up to over 100k.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "253360e3cafdc6b07b20398e7ba38969", "text": "\"If you forgot to put the name on the \"\"pay to the order of\"\" line then anybody who gets their hands on the check can add their name to the check and deposit it at their bank into their account. If it goes to the correct person they will have an easy time making sure that the check is made out correctly. They don't have to worry about that picky teller who doesn't know what to do with a check made out to Billy Smith and a drivers license for Xavier William Smith. On the other hand... a criminal will also be able to make sure it is processed exactly the way they want it. If I made it out to a small business or a person I would let them know. You might not have a choice but to wait and see what happens if it was sent to a large business, the payment processing center could be a long way from where you will be calling.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f25fafb34d78ed0c7ffedc3a21440848", "text": "Ask your bank or credit union. Mine will let me issue recurring payments to anyone, electronically if they can, if not a check gets mailed and (I presume) I get billed for the postage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25e2790f0097e1553fcb935da1c4396a", "text": "\"This answer is based on my understanding of the US banking system. We have check cashing businesses here too, which are just like what you describe, except for the spelling :-) Let's consider what \"\"cash it for free at the bank\"\" really means, and why it might not be an option for everyone. One key issue is \"\"which bank?\"\" As an example, suppose that I have an account at ABC Bank. I take out my checkbook for that account and write you a check for $500. (Terminology: In this case, I am the drawer or maker of the check, ABC Bank is the drawee bank, and you, user54609, are the payee. Disclaimer: \"\"You\"\" here is meant as a generic pronoun and I do not mean to insinuate that anything here actually applies to you personally.) There are two common things you might do with the check: If you have an account at some bank, say XYZ Bank, you might take the check to XYZ Bank and deposit it in your account. (You might be able to do this through an ATM, mobile app, or by mail, instead of in person.) XYZ Bank does not have a way to verify with certainty that the check is valid (e.g. they don't know what my signature looks like, nor whether I actually have $500 in my account at ABC), so they send it to ABC Bank, which verifies the check and transfers $500 to XYZ. (This is usually done through a central clearinghouse, such as the Federal Reserve in the US, and in some cases an image of the check may be sent electronically, instead of the physical check.) This process takes some time, so XYZ may not make the $500 available to you right away - there may be a hold period before you can withdraw that $500 from your account. You could take the check to ABC Bank, in person. They will verify on the spot that the check is valid and that you are in fact user54609. If everything looks good, they will hand you $500 in cash (perhaps subtracting a fee of a few dollars). Now we can see some possible problems with each of these approaches. For 1: Maybe you don't have a bank account at all. There are many possible reasons: You don't have enough money to meet the minimum balance that a bank account would require. You used to have an account, but you overdrew or otherwise misused an account, so the bank closed it. They then entered you in a registry such as ChexSystems which ensures that other banks know about this, and so no other bank will open a new account for you. You immigrated to the country illegally and cannot get the documents (driver's license, social security number, etc) that a bank normally requires to open an account. You simply don't like the idea of keeping your money in a bank. Maybe you do have an account at XYZ Bank, but it's in another town. You need the cash today, so you can't use mail or a mobile app, and third-party ATMs usually don't accept deposits. Maybe you need to spend the money today, and XYZ Bank would place a hold. For 2: ABC Bank may not have a branch you can conveniently visit. Maybe the nearest one is a long way away, in another city or across the country. Or maybe ABC is an online bank with no physical branches at all. Maybe it's in the same city, but you don't have transportation to get you there. Or maybe it's simply less convenient than the check-cashing business on the corner. Maybe it is after usual banking hours, or a weekend, and ABC Bank is closed, but you need cash now. In any of these situations, \"\"cash it at the bank\"\" might not be a viable option, and so you might reasonably turn to a check cashing business instead. As you say, you will pay a much higher fee there, but maybe it is worth it to you, or you just don't have any choice. Another possibility, of course, is that you are poorly educated about the banking system, and you don't really understand that 1 and 2 are options, or how to go about them. But there's this storefront on the corner that says \"\"Check Cashing\"\", so this seems like a low-stress, uncomplicated way to exchange this piece of paper for money. As such, there certainly are people who legitimately might want to cash a valid check at a check-cashing business. Check cashing business do of course take some risk of fraud, since they can't necessarily verify the check. There are sometimes steps they can take to minimize this risk. Sometimes they can call ABC Bank and check that I have sufficient money in my account. Maybe they'll only accept certain kinds of checks, such as payroll checks from well-known companies for which you can produce a matching pay stub. And they can demand identification from you (perhaps allowing more flexible options than a bank), which helps ensure that you are the payee, and would make you easier to track down if you did commit fraud. But they will probably lose some money this way, so they will have to make their fees high enough to cover those losses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "591374af295eea181078c11fff644f7f", "text": "How often do you need to actually go to a bank? atm's, debit and credit cards work where ever. you can even deposit checks by taking a picture of them. dealing with cash would be more troublesome though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6aa022f401826c82028f3335f5cd8c4d", "text": "I'm going to give the checkmark to Joe, but I wanted to convey my personal experience. I bank with TD in New Jersey and was informed by the teller that I simply needed to endorse the check myself and indicate Parent of Minor. I cannot attest if other banks will accept this, but it at least works for TD and my situation in particular.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "31c281eb2eb9a00f332080b149465ff9", "text": "Years ago, I had a tenant who bounced a check now and then. I started going to the bank where his account was. With my ID they were agreeable to cashing the check against his account. The teller first checked his balance and only cashed when there were enough funds. One time he was $10 short. I wrote a deposit slip and added the $10 it took to clear the check. As they say, your mileage may vary, I hear some banks won't even break a large bill for a non customer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f11642ee9a141532e6f6837656985f1b", "text": "\"How does this get any business? You'd be surprised on how much profit these type of businesses can bring in and the number of people who cash their checks this way. They make profit off people who want their checks cashed ASAP. Usually cheques written to \"\"cash\"\" or something can just be cashed for free at the bank right? Yes, most banks cash your check for free. Some may not cash it right away and may require a few days to process. Some charge a small fee if the check is not from the same bank. Some personal checks may not even be processed the same day as well. Wouldn't the only cheques that people would cash at these places be bad cheques? Yes and no. Yes because it may be \"\"easier\"\" to try to cash a fraudulent check at these type of check cashing places. However, some places may only cash business checks and require your ID in which they write down the information in order to possibly track you down in the future. Also some places only cash a check to a certain amount. And wouldn't this mean that the business will lose a lot of money since it pays out cash but then has the cheque bounce? Of course the business loses money if the check bounces or is fake. That is why they try to minimize their losses with certain requirements that needs to met before the check can be cashed. Who uses these services exactly? Just about anyone who needs their check cashed ASAP or like ChrisW stated in his answer is trying to keep their money on the low. There is a demand for this service even though it may seem shady to you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ea22f3848d931782d35dccdbe5fdeed", "text": "The only certain way is to have the issuer confirm it. You'd think there would be a better way, but no there isn't. I suggest you read this story about what can happen even if you are the innocent victim trying to cash a fraudulent Cashier's Check. The consequences included some jail time and huge attorney fees for this unlucky person.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bfd3eb0b7e5e8a780a7c355f643759a2", "text": "\"Legally, a check just needs to have a certain list of things (be an instruction to one's bank to pay a specific amount of money to bearer or to a specific entity, have a date, have a signature, etc.) There are anecdotes around of a guy depositing a junk mail check and it accidentally qualifying as a real check (which he turned into a live show), or of writing a check on a door, cow, or \"\"the shirt off your back\"\". What kind of checks your bank will process is technically up to them. Generally, if you get your blank checks printed up by any reputable firm, they'll have similar information in similar places, as well as the MICR line (the account and routing number in magnetic ink on the bottom) to allow for bank to process the checks with automated equipment. As long as it's a standard size, has the MICR line, and has the information that a check needs, your bank is likely to be fine with it. So, there are some standards, but details like where exactly the name of the bank is, or what font is used, or the like, are up to whoever is printing the check. For details on what standards your bank requires in order to process your checks, you'd have to check with your bank directly. Though, it wouldn't surprise me if they just directed you to their preferred check printer provider, as they know that they accept their check format fine. Though as I said, any reputable check printer makes sure that they meet the standards to get processed by banks without trouble. Unless you're a business that's going to be writing a lot of checks and pay a lot of fees for the privilege, a bank is not likely to want to make exceptions for you for your own custom-printed octagonal checks written in ancient Vulcan.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17e57e485e12f83d79d5bfe9251e82e5", "text": "Some Walmart stores have a surcharge-free ATM in their Money Center. If that doesn't work, look for the logo of the interbank network on the back of your card that your bank uses (e.g. Star, Cirrus, Allpoint, MoneyPass) and Google them. If you're lucky, they'll have a surcharge-free ATM locator (e.g. https://www.star.com/locator/).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d886d70fde7e58daf8a86ac00e1884c", "text": "Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "830598775e637c5f87e5ecf2bbbf7e59", "text": "I don't know that. I know mine has a great mobile app where I can deposit a check online. And all the smaller banks I've seen dont build their own sites or apps, they white label generic ones from common vendors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ffa2250acc63d88f31a6961a58f380b9", "text": "I've been a landlord and also a tenant. I have been able to deposit money in an account, where I have the account number, and/or a deposit slip. In a foreign bank you can deposit by a machine if in the bank or someone is there for you and knows the account number. With regards to cashing a check in another country, it is up to the bank and the time is at least 14 to 21 business days, with a fee is added. As of a winning check, since its in your name, if you are in another country sign the check, for deposit only with a deposit slip and send it to your out of country bank by FedEx - you will have a tracking number, where as regular mail it might get there in 3 months. I hope by now you came to your solution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f824ec9564ba86142f8aecb01947433a", "text": "\"No, you cannot do that. You can't just debit someone because \"\"he said so\"\". You'll need a document in writing, that would show the routing number, account number, the amount to withdraw and who is allowed to withdraw it. This document must be signed by the account owner and dated. Usually, these documents are called \"\"checks\"\". But legally speaking, in most countries you can write this on any piece of paper and it would be valid. But better use a standard check. Once you have a check - you can cash/deposit it in any bank, that part is true.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaa1f2198f2b2841062db955e8b4bbd2", "text": "When I moved banks. I had my old bank cut a cashier's check. It isn't a check you write. They write it and give it to you. I then took the cashier's check to my new bank to deposit it.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
fe8faae0880fa4780315126c382d5e83	How is Massachusetts state tax on unrealized capital gains calculated?	[ { "docid": "5215319ee6dd5ebecf3ec9185d2c25c8", "text": "\"Massachusets does no such thing. The 5.25% tax is only on realized gains. \"\"Unearned\"\" means \"\"doesn't tie to your trade/business\"\", i.e.: is not gained through your personal performance.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "2c3122d7636f15842b326dc32f0f5598", "text": "The sale of shares on vesting convolutes matters. In a way similar to how reinvested dividends are taxed but the newly purchased fund shares' basis has to be increased, you need to be sure to have the correct per share cost basis. It's easy to confuse the total RSU purchase with the correct numbers, only what remained. The vesting stock is a taxable event, ordinary income. You then own the stock at that cost basis. A sale after that is long or short term and the profit is the to extent it exceeds that basis. The fact that you got these shares in 2013 means you should have paid the tax then. And this is part two of the process. Of course the partial sale means a bit of math to calculate the basis of what remained.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2fd055035118e9368579e888c579bdf7", "text": "It depends to some extent on how you interpret the situation, so I think this is the general idea. Say you purchase one share at $50, and soon after, the price moves up, say, to $55. You now have an unrealized profit of $5. Now, you can either sell and realize that profit, or hold on to the position, expecting a further price appreciation. In either case, you will consider the price change from this traded price, which is $55, and not the price you actually bought at. Hence, if the price fell to $52 in the next trade, you have a loss of $3 on your previous profit of $5. This (even though your net P&L is calculated from the initial purchase price of $50), allows you to think in terms of your positions at the latest known prices. This is similar to a Markov process, in the sense that it doesn't matter which route the stock price (and your position's P&L) took to get to the current point; your decision should be based on the current/latest price level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b7cd157197402aa1a8b2a3dc933137c", "text": "\"This question and your other one indicate you're a bit unclear on how capital gains taxes work, so here's the deal: you buy an asset (like shares of stock or a mutual fund). You later sell it for more than you bought it for. You pay taxes on your profit: the difference between what you sold it for and what you bought it for. What matters is not the amount of money you \"\"withdraw\"\", but the prices at which assets are bought and sold. In fact, often you will be able to choose which individual shares you sell, which means you have some control over the tax you pay. For a simple example, suppose you buy 10 shares of stock for $100 each in January (an investment of $1000); we'll call these the \"\"early\"\" shares. The stock goes up to $200 in July, and you buy 10 more shares (investing an additional $2000); we'll call these the \"\"late\"\" shares. Then the stock drops to $150. Suppose you want $1500 in cash, so you are going to sell 10 shares. The 10 early shares you bought have increased in value, because you bought then for $100 but can now sell them for $150. The 10 late shares have decreased in value, because you bought them for $200 but can now only sell them for $150. If you choose to sell the early shares, you will have a capital gain of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $1000 purchase price), on which you may owe taxes. If you sell the late shares, you will have a capital loss of $500 ($1500 sale price minus $2000 purchase price is -$500), which you can potentially use to reduce your taxes. Or you could sell 5 of each and have no gain or loss (selling five early shares for $150 gives you a gain of $250, but selling five late shares for $150 gives you a loss of $250, and they cancel out). The point of all this is to say that the tax is not determined by the amount of cash you get, but by the difference between the sale price and the price you purchased for (known as the \"\"cost basis\"\"), and this in turn depends on which specific assets you sell. It is not enough to know the total amount you invested and the total gain. You need to know the specific cost basis (i.e., original purchase price) of the specific shares you're selling. (This is also the answer to your question about long-term versus short-term gains. It doesn't matter how much money you make on the sale. What matters is how long you hold the asset before selling it.) That said, many brokers will automatically sell your shares in a certain order unless you tell them otherwise (and some won't let you tell them otherwise). Often they will use the \"\"first in, first out\"\" rule, which means they will always sell the earliest-purchased shares first. To finally get to your specific question about Betterment, they have a page here that says they use a different method. Essentially, they try to sell your shares in a way that minimizes taxes. They do this by first selling shares that have a loss, and only then selling shares that have a gain. This basically means that if you want to cash out $X, and it is possible to do it in a way that incurs no tax liability, they will do that. What gets me very confused is if I continue to invest random amounts of money each month using Betterment, then I need to withdraw some cash, what are the tax implications. As my long answer above should indicate, there is no simple answer to this. The answer is \"\"it depends\"\". It depends on exactly when you bought the shares, exactly how much you paid for them, exactly when and how much the price rose or fell, and exactly how much you sell them for. Betterment is more or less saying \"\"Don't worry about any of this, trust us, we will handle everything so that your tax is minimized.\"\" A final note: if you really do want to track the details of your cost basis, Betterment may not be for you, because it is an automated platform that may do a lot of individual trades that a human wouldn't do, and that can make tracking the cost basis yourself very difficult. Almost the whole point of something like Betterment is that you are supposed to give them your money and forget about these details.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4911f9a1e0f23dca3556083c61350494", "text": "\"Since you did not treat the house as a QBU, you have to use USD as your functional currency. To calculate capital gains, you need to calculate the USD value at the time of purchase using the exchange rate at the time of purchase and the USD value at the time of sale using the exchange rate at the time of sale. The capital gain / loss is then the difference between the two. This link describes it in more detail and provides some references: http://www.maximadvisors.com/2013/06/foreign-residence/ That link also discusses additional potential complications if you have a mortgage on the house. This link gives more detail on the court case referenced in the above link: http://www.uniset.ca/other/cs5/93F3d26.html The court cases references Rev. Rul 54-105. This link from the IRS has some details from that (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/0303021.pdf): Rev. Rul. 54-105, 1954-1 C.B. 12, states that for purposes of determining gain, the basis and selling price of property acquired by a U.S. citizen living in a foreign country should be expressed in United States dollars at the rates of exchange prevailing as of the dates of purchase and sale of the property, respectively. The text of this implies it is for U.S. citizen is living in a foreign country, but the court case makes it clear that it also applies in your scenario (house purchased while living abroad but now residing in the US): Appellants agree that the 453,374 pounds received for their residence should be translated into U.S. dollars at the $1.82 exchange rate prevailing at the date of sale. They argue, however, that the 343,147 pound adjusted cost basis of the residence, consisting of the 297,500 pound purchase price and the 45,647 pounds paid for capital improvements, likewise should be expressed in U.S. dollar terms as of the date of the sale. Appellants correctly state that, viewed “in the foreign currency in which it was transacted,” the purchase generated a 110,227 pound gain as of the date of the sale, which translates to approximately $200,000 at the $1.82 per pound exchange rate. ... However fair and reasonable their argument may be, it amounts to an untenable attempt to convert their “functional currency” from the U.S. dollar to the pound sterling. ... Under I.R.C. § 985(b)(1), use of a functional currency other than the U.S. dollar is restricted to qualified business units (\"\"QBU\"\"s). ... appellants correctly assert that their residence was purchased “for a pound-denominated value” while they were “living and working in a pound-denominated economy,” ... And since appellants concede that the purchase and sale of their residence was not carried out by a QBU, the district court properly rejected their plea to treat the pound as their functional currency.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ec4040c3ac8334ab36c650435360cd4", "text": "\"As Dilip said, if you want actual concrete, based in tax law, answers, please add the country (and if applicable, state) where you pay income tax. Also, knowing what tax bracket you're in would help as well, although I certainly understand if you're not comfortable sharing that. So, assuming the US... If you're in the 10% or 15% tax bracket, then you're already not paying any federal tax on the $3k long term gain, so purposely taking losses is pointless, and given that there's probably a cost to taking the loss (commission, SEC fee), you'd be losing money by doing so. Also, you won't be able to buy back the loser for 31 days without having the loss postponed due to the wash sale that would result. State tax is another matter, but (going by the table in this article), even using the highest low end tax rate (Tennessee at 6%), the $50 loss would only save you $3, which is probably less than the commission to sell the loser, so again you'd be losing money. And if you're in a state with no state income tax, then the loss wouldn't save you anything on taxes at the state level, but of course you'll still be paying to be able to take the loss. On the high end, you'd be saving 20% federal tax and 13.3% state tax (using the highest high end tax state, California, and ignoring (because I don't know :-) ) whether they tax long-term capital gains at the same rate as regular income or not), you'd be saving $50 * (20% + 13.3%) = $50 * 33.3% = $16.65. So for taxes, you're looking at saving between nothing and $16.65. And then you have to subtract from that the cost to achieve the loss, so even on the high end (which means (assuming a single filer)) you're making >$1 million), you're only saving about $10, and you're probably actually losing money. So I personally don't think taking a $50 loss to try to decrease taxes makes sense. However, if you really meant $500 or $5000, then it might (although if you're in the 10-15% brackets in a no income tax state, even then it wouldn't). So the answer to your final question is, \"\"It depends.\"\" The only way to say for sure is, based on the country and state you're in, calculate what it will save you (if anything). As a general rule, you want to avoid letting the tax tail wag the dog. That is, your financial goal should be to end up with the most money, not to pay the least taxes. So while looking at the tax consequences of a transaction is a good idea, don't look at just the tax consequences, look at the consequences for your overall net worth.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf0540111a2051185227f72005547c32", "text": "\"Generally if you are using FIFO (first in, first out) accounting, you will need to match the transactions based on the number of shares. In your example, at the beginning of day 6, you had two lots of shares, 100 @ 50 and 10 @ 52. On that day you sold 50 shares, and using FIFO, you sold 50 shares of the first lot. This leaves you with 50 @ 50 and 10 @ 52, and a taxable capital gain on the 50 shares you sold. Note that commissions incurred buying the shares increase your basis, and commissions incurred selling the shares decrease your proceeds. So if you spent $10 per trade, your basis on the 100 @ 50 lot was $5010, and the proceeds on your 50 @ 60 sale were $2990. In this example you sold half of the lot, so your basis for the sale was half of $5010 or $2505, so your capital gain is $2990 - 2505 = $485. The sales you describe are also \"\"wash sales\"\", in that you sold stock and bought back an equivalent stock within 30 days. Generally this is only relevant if one of the sales was at a loss but you will need to account for this in your code. You can look up the definition of wash sale, it starts to get complex. If you are writing code to handle this in any generic situation you will also have to handle stock splits, spin-offs, mergers, etc. which change the number of shares you own and their cost basis. I have implemented this myself and I have written about 25-30 custom routines, one for each kind of transaction that I've encountered. The structure of these deals is limited only by the imagination of investment bankers so I think it is impossible to write a single generic algorithm that handles them all, instead I have a framework that I update each quarter as new transactions occur.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e4deccb755d9c7a79fd4d572b047302", "text": "If you just want to know total return, either as dollars or a percentage, just add up the total amount spent on buys and compare this to current value plus money received on sales. In this case, you spent (310 x $3.15 + $19.95) + (277 x $3.54 + $19.95). So your total investment is ... calculator please ... $1996.98. You received 200 x $4.75 on the sale minus the $19.95 = $930.05. The present value of your remaining shares is 387 x $6.06 = $2345.22. So you have realized plus unrealized value of $2345.22 + $930.05 = $3275.27. Assuming I didn't mix up numbers or make an arithmetic mistake, your dollar gain is $3275.27 - $1996.98 = $1278.29, which comes to 1278.29 / 1996.98 = 64%. If you want to know percentage gain as an annual rate, we'd have to know buy and sell dates, and with multiple buys and sells the calculation gets messier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71895907b50a404d9be614264fbc3feb", "text": "I did the reverse several years ago, moving from NH to MA. You will need to file Form 1-NR/PY for 2017, reporting MA income as a part-year residence. I assume you will need to report the April capital gain on your MA tax return, as you incurred the gain while a MA resident. (I am not a lawyer or tax professional, so I don't want to state anything about this as a fact, but I would be very surprised if moving after you incurred the gain would have any affect on where you report it.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c3f715ad21d7342bb9dcc0b681bad51", "text": "\"As ApplePie discusses, \"\"tax bracket\"\" without any modifiers refers to a single jurisdiction's marginal tax rate. In your case, this is either your California's \"\"tax bracket\"\" or your Federal \"\"tax bracket\"\" (not including marginal Social Security and Medicare taxes). But if someone says \"\"combined state and federal tax bracket\"\", they probably mean the combination of your state and federal income tax brackets (again, lot including sales taxes, business and occupational taxes, social security taxes, and medicare taxes). The math to combine the state and federal marginal tax rates is a bit tricky, because most people can deduct either their state and local income taxes, or their state and local general sales taxes when computing their income for federal income tax purposes. (The federal \"\"alternative minimum tax\"\" restricts this deduction for some people.) For a single person earning $ 100,000 of salaries and wages in California, whose state income taxes are close to their standard deduction, the calculations for the combined marginal income tax rate look something like this: As mentioned above, this understates the tax bite on marginal \"\"earned income\"\". To find the true marginal rate, we need to add in Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, sales taxes, and business & occupation taxes. The Social Security and Medicare taxes are sometimes called \"\"self employment taxes\"\". This math omits unemployment insurance and workers' compensation insurance, because those taxes are typically capped well below $ 100,000 per year of income. This math also omits B & O taxes, because this question is California specific. If an employer wishes to increase an employee's pay by $ 1,076.50, the first $ 76.50 will go to the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. The remaining $ 1,000.00 will be subject to the combined marginal income tax rate discussed above, plus will have $ 76.50 go to the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. The employee might buy some extra things with some of their extra money, and pay sales tax on them. In 2016, a 9 % sales tax rate was common in California's largest cities. The IRS estimated that (for a single person with no dependents making $ 100,000 per year who did not buy a boat, RV, motor vehicle, or major home construction), about 9 % of their marginal gross income was subject to sales tax.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b17e88382f97661d723cef5bbbb871a6", "text": "First of all, I've been out of college for over a decade, so good job on the assumptions. /s Secondly, when calculating capital gains, you have to take into account the depreciation of the asset. As you would have it, a house owned for 20 years would be fully depreciated, and so no capital gains would apply to such a case. But don't let facts or knowledge get in the way of your trolling, please.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25da61f49242a3389fbc379b3e8e8c64", "text": "You bought a rental property in 2001. Hopefully you paid fair value else other issues come into play. Say you paid $120K. You said you have been taking depreciation, which for residential real estate is taken over 27.5 years, so you are about halfway through. Since you don't depreciate land, you may have taken a total $50K so far. With no improvements, and no transaction costs, you have $50K in depreciation recapture, taxed at a maximum 25% (or your lower, marginal rate) and a cap gain of the 5-10K you mentioned. Either can be offset by losses you've been carrying forward if you suffered large stock losses at some point.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f30925cada52ee4b7ba9ce02215c0385", "text": "Is that normal? Yes. It's in fact pretty low. Just the FICA taxes you pay are ~7.5%, so you're paying ~21% for State and Federal. Pretty reasonable, especially if you live in a high-tax state (which MA is ~5.3% on all income).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a09cd21f070cc0902cff893c3827266a", "text": "\"Stocks (among other property) currently is allowed a \"\"stepped-up basis\"\" when valuing for estate tax purpose. From the US IRS web page: To determine if the sale of inherited property is taxable, you must first determine your basis in the property. The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of the following: The fair market value (FMV) of the property on the date of the decedent's death. The FMV of the property on the alternate valuation date if the executor of the estate chooses to use alternate valuation. See the Instructions for Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return. If you or your spouse gave the property to the decedent within one year before the decedent's death, see Publication 551, Basis of Assets. Your question continues \"\"the person that died still has to pay taxes on their profits in the year they died, right?\"\" Yes. The estate would be subject to tax on realized gains/losses prior to death.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "841f67a51fe5b559c4ce1db46e0b290f", "text": "The point of a total return index is that it already has accounted for the capital gains + coupon income. If you want to calculate it yourself you'll have to find the on-the-run 10y bond for each distinct period then string them together to calc your total return. Check XLTP if they have anything", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0eaa489227b57eec5f75fc86beefaa81", "text": "You are absolutely correct, incorporation and the fiduciary responsibility that comes with it almost always leads to a sacrifice in product quality and long-term business principles. I always think of the difference between McDonalds and In-n-Out hamburgers as examples of where each road leads.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5a5f8ad3288f2cb621f7ca5831446fbe	Is it possible to get life insurance as a beneficiary before the person insured dies?	[ { "docid": "32fc43e946560f7aece913aec3c0d849", "text": "I recall the following business from the AIDS crisis: viatical settlement But because there were life-extending treatments developed in the 1990s, many third parties which engaged in these took a bath and it's not as common.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2c799c21cbf7e9fc6f2c8ab23de5d35", "text": "If the insurance policy is a whole-life (or variable life) policy, it might have a surrender value that the owner of the policy might be able to get by surrendering the policy in whole; if it is a term life policy, it has no surrender value. In many cases, the owner of the policy is also the insured and so ask Uncle Joe whether he would be willing to surrender the life insurance policy and give you the proceeds now instead of making you wait till he passes away. If it is a term life policy, ask him to consider not renewing the policy and from now on, just give you the premium he would have been paying to the insurance company. Whether he will pay you increasing amounts in later years (as a renewable five-year level term policy might require) is a more delicate matter that you can negotiate with him. On the other hand, if the policy owner is Aunt Annie but the insured is Uncle Joe (and you are the beneficiary), talk to Aunt Annie instead; she is the one who can cancel the policy, not Uncle Joe. And for heaven's sake, don't grease the skids to facilitate Uncle Joe's first step onto the stairway to heaven; there are, depending on where you live, various laws prohibiting payments to beneficiaries who have had a hand in arranging for the happy event to occur.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "328e79ef60ec002d959f06cda2b2b17a", "text": "Generally no. It does not make sense for insurance company to alter terms and if there are such rules it can be subject to misuse.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1234f8cb5c80b9ebe1fd888e157d3d7", "text": "\"The short answer is \"\"No\"\". There a 2 ways to get cash from a life insurance policy. If the policy has cash value greater than the surrender value, then the difference can be borrowed, but will generally increase premiums in the future. The other method, available on many term policies allows the owner to receive part of the death benefit if the insured has a physician willing to certify that he/she will probably pass away within a 12 month period. Several carriers also offer cash benefits for critical care.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "3393f7c349cd30df4749a2c59947f9ae", "text": "To add to JoeTaxpayer's answer, the cost of providing (term) life insurance for one year increases with the age of the insured. Thus, if you buy a 30-year term policy with level premiums (the premium is the same for 30 years) then, during the earlier years, you pay more than the cost to the insurance company for providing the benefit. In later years, you pay somewhat less than the cost of providing the insurance. The excess premiums that the insurance company charged in earlier years and the earnings from investing that money covers the difference between the premium paid in later years and the true cost of providing the coverage. If after 20 years you decide that you no longer need the protection (children have grown up and now have jobs etc) and you cancel the policy, you will have overpaid for the protection that you got. The insurance company will not give you backsies on the overpayment. As an alternative, you might want to consider a term life insurance policy in which the premiums increase each year (or increase every 5 years) and thus better approximate the actual cost to the insurance company. One advantage is that you pay less in early life and pay more in later years (when hopefully your income will have increased and you can afford to pay more). Thus, you can get a policy with a larger face value (150K for your wife and 400K for yourself is really quite small) with annual premium of $550 now and more in later years. Also if you decide to cancel the policy after 20 years, you will not have overpaid for the level of coverage provided. Finally, in addition to a policy with larger face value, I recommend that you include the mortgage (if any) on your house in the amount that you decide is enough for your family to live on and to send the kids to college, etc., or get a separate (term life insurance) policy to cover the mortgage on your home. Many mortgage contracts have clauses to the effect that the entire principal owed becomes immediately due if either of the borrowers dies. Yes, the widow or widower can get a replacement mortgage, or prove to the lender that the monthly payments will continue as before, (or pay off the mortgage from that $150K or $400K which will leave a heck of a lot less for the family to survive on) etc., but in the middle of dealing with all the hassles created by a death in the family, this is one headache that can be taken care of now. The advantage of including the mortgage amount in a single policy that will support the family when you are gone is that you get a bit of a break; the sum of the annual premiums on ten policies for $100K is more than the premiums for a single $1M policy. There is also the consideration that the principal owed on the mortgage declines over the years (very slowly at first, though) and so there will be more money available for living expenses in later years. Alternatively, consider a special term life insurance policy geared towards mortgage coverage. The face value of this policy reduces each year to match the amount still due on the mortgage. Note that you may already have such a policy in place because the lender has insisted on you getting such a policy as a condition for issuing the loan. In this case, keep in mind that not only is the lender the beneficiary of such a policy, but if you bought the policy through the lender, you are providing extra profit to the lender; you can get a similar policy at lower premiums on the open market than the policy that your lender has so thoughtfully provided you. I bought mine from a source that caters to employees of nonprofit organizations and public sector employees; your mileage may vary.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f1a6600c7d5167d1c80460f44dc3060", "text": "You have asked this question but provide very little information. As others have stated, what country are you in? Was there a will or any other agreement? Basically any estate will go to the beneficiaries once all debtors have been paid off. How this is done will largely depend on which country/state/region you are in and what documentation was in place at the time of death. You might want to check out this website for details on passing away without a will: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-estate-settled-if-theres-32442.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3e80c45ba965e888546e407bc8bf122", "text": "Life insurance is not an investment -- by definition, since the companies need to take a profit out of it, the average amount paid in exceeds the amount paid out, yielding a negative rate of return. Get life insurance if your death would cause severe financial hardship for someone. If you have sufficient savings that your wife could recover and move on with her life without hardship, and your kids are grown, you probably DO NOT need life insurance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cbe60d47428c4fd61da728a2ede6e83f", "text": "I just went through this and life insurance money generally does not go into Probate. However, since there was no beneficiary, you will have to ask the probate court. I would advise you not to spend any of the money yet. Make a meeting with the probate court in the county where they lived. You will need the death certificate and the will. If you do not have a will, the estate generally does not need to go into probate. But if it does, then they will definitely let you know what to do with the insurance money. Just make sure you use the estate accounts to pay off all of his debts before you distribute the left over money. The entire process should take an absolute minimum of 6 months.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d29f10957e2b14100a27d8ab2ce1cbd", "text": "\"There are two types of insurance: whole life and term. I don't recommend whole life insurance, because you are insuring against something that will happen, your death. Maybe you could buy it if members of your family have a history of outliving the averages. This is called \"\"adverse selection.\"\" Term is different: it insures against your UNTIMELY death. Many people I know take term insurance for the X years until their last child leaves college, or some other well defined \"\"term.\"\" They don't want to die before this term but will be satisfied with the insurance as a \"\"consolation\"\" prize.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa80e2066fab165e86db3de8af6d86ac", "text": "Does such insurance make any sense or is it just wasting money for passengers? As with most insurance, it depends. If you just look at the probability of a payout, the cost of the insurance, and the payout amount, then statistically it will always be better to avoid buying insurance. This is because there is a certain amount of overhead in an insurance company, like the commissions and salaries you mentioned. The goal when buying insurance should be to avoid a cost that you cannot afford or is inconvenient to be able to afford. For example, if your family would be devastated financially by your death then it would make sense for you to buy some sort of life insurance. Whether or not this particular insurance makes sense for you depends on your financial situation and risk tolerance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e37f85cd922fdb9702e05ac45d345b6", "text": "So far all insurances start from the perspective of the insurance taker. However, I find it much more intuitive to look from the perspective of the insurance giver: Note that the exact amount may differ, but management fees of a few dozen percent are quite realistic. Note that it is not as unreasonable as it may sound at first, some costs: And of course most insurance companies will want to keep some profit as well. If you are completely risk averse, typically it is only financial beneficial to get insurance if you have a significantly higher risk profile. Examples of this (not an expert on boats): Note that piece of mind may also be worth getting the insurance for, for instance if you frequently put others in the position to crash your boat, and don't want to create an awkward financial discussion when they do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "730ad7c986ba008c4a3dfbaf3aed190d", "text": "At their age, the likely did not even need the coverage anymore unless they were doing some major estate planning. If that's the case then it sound like they purchased the wrong policy to begin with since OP's account of the information makes it sound like a term policy. If it is a term policy, the term was also probably about to end as well. In the end, this will likely not be a bog deal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5345be7d605b0afce14d92988730fc0", "text": "Here's the issue with LTC and, really, underwritten insurance in general; no one has a crystal ball. Based on today's available rates where's the sweet spot to buy LTC? Probably right around the mid-60s, because you probably won't pay much in before you start gutting the carrier (assuming you can make it through underwriting in your mid-60s). The issue is, what happens when some life event changes your underwriting status? Would you rather buy prematurely or be excluded entirely? Those are generally your two options when it comes to individual LTC. The underwriting eligibility window on LTC is very narrow. There's a very very small space between the best possible underwriting and being flatly declined. Look for an LTC agent in your area. Likely someone in your circle of friends and family will know a reputable/knowledgeable insurance agent who can run up some quotes at various underwriting classes. Try to avoid looking at quotes for your age + 10 years to see what the quote will look like 10 years from now. 10 years from now the rate tables will be significantly different. Whether or not you should buy LTC now rather than waiting will depend on a whole host of other criteria. Personally, if I was 50 and my biggest health concern was improving my run time and LTC is on my mind, I'd just pick up a policy now while I will likely be in a preferred underwriting class rather than waiting and hoping my health doesn't betray me. Obviously I'm a stranger on the internet and none of this is actual advice. You should find an agent local to you and talk about your options and situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d446846369a78284f7692921324ee4c6", "text": "\"Careful with saying \"\"no need\"\". Look careful at the cost of life insurance. That cost depends obviously on the amount, but also on the age when you start paying into the insurance. If you take out a $100,000 insurance at 20, and someone else takes it out at 30, and a third person at 50, they will pay hugely different amounts when you reach the same age. You will pay less when you are 50 then the person taking out insurance at 30 when they reach the age of 50, and less again than the person who just started with their life insurance. And as mhoran said, once you have insurance you can keep it even if you get an illness that would make you uninsurable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "caf48708dcdc273ce87c8acb2d58e838", "text": "I think the chances of them changing the rules without grandfathering in people of retirement age (pun intended) are pretty small. The general rule of thumb on this issue seems to be to wait to get the full amount if you have sufficient resources that you don't expect to need the money earlier. That is, unless you have some reason to not expect much longevity (family history of dying young, current medical condition, etc.) Ultimately, however, this is a big financial decision that is best made with the help of a good financial adviser/actuary. There are a large number of variables to be considered.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc5200a551eb8da86019269ffc0be7db", "text": "Here's a good rule of thumb. In any situation where you are required to purchase insurance (Auto Liability, Property Mortgage Insurance, etc.) you can safely assume that you aren't the primary beneficiary. You are being required to buy that insurance to protect someone else's investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43bfcb307ebfd5d196bfaafbe1c6da53", "text": "If someone recommends a particular investment rather than a class of investments, assume they are getting a commission and walk away. If someone recommends whole life insurance as an investment vehicle, walk away. Find someone whose fiduciary responsibility is explicitly to you as their client. That legally obligated them to consider your best interests first. It doesn't guarantee they are good, but it's done protection against their being actively evil.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af02b3b52407fb1095c82f3e24c29f34", "text": "If there are no dependents, there is no need for life insurance. You mention getting insurance when it is not needed, to protect you against some future risk. If you have a policy and a disease crops up that would normally make you un-insurable, you can keep your insurance for the rest of the term. The cost for this would be very high. You would have to have a term that would last decades to cover you until some future child is out of college. If you never have somebody that depends on you for income, there never is a need for life insurance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e29bc8c9c4d905e2a43a95cbb0da7cc1", "text": "\"As others have said, if you don't have dependents, there's little need for life insurance. If you can't think of any obvious beneficiary for an insurance policy, than you probably don't need one. \"\"Dependents\"\" here should be understood broadly. It wouldn't necessarily be limited to wife and children. If you're the only support for your handicapped cousin, for example, you might want to provide for him. But I take it from your question that you have no such special case. Of course even if you have no dependents now, you might pick some up in the future. And if and when that does happen, your medical situation may have changed, making it difficult to get life insurance. But if you have no immediate plans so that any such even is likely to be far away, a serious alternative to consider would be to invest the money you would have paid in insurance premiums. Then if someday you do acquire dependents, you have a pot of money set aside to provide for them in case something happens to you. If it's not enough and you can get insurance at that time, then great, but if you can't get insurance, at least there's something. If you never do acquire dependents, you can consider that pot of money part of your retirement fund.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5bc88083377c42e4326cf6f70ad4aeee	If I go to a seminar held overseas, may I claim my flights on my tax return?	[ { "docid": "1ba79cc552d47f900a08881f2c79d879", "text": "You can deduct this if the main purpose of the trip is to attend the seminar. Travel expenses relating to the attendance at conferences, seminars and other work-related events are deductible to the extent that they relate to your income-producing activities. You will need to apportion your travel expenses where you undertake both work-related and private activities. Travel costs to and from the location of the work-related event will only be deductible where the primary purpose of the travel was to attend the event. Accommodation, food and other incidental costs must be apportioned between work-related and private activities taking into account the types of activities that you did on the day you incurred the cost. You might like to consider in advance what you would tell them if they questioned this - for instance you might say (if they are true):", "title": "" }, { "docid": "691b6d6029c2f362848881780986f078", "text": "I think you can. I went to Mexico for business and the company paid for it, so if you are self employed you should be able to expense it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "081f555c38ac6fb2c9bc41996fc7ad5a", "text": "\"Disclaimer: My answer is based on US tax law, but I assume Australian situation would be similar. The IRS would not be likely to believe your statement that \"\"I wouldn't have gone to the country if it wasn't for the conference.\"\" A two-week vacation, with a two-day conference in there, certainly looks like you threw in the conference in order to deduct vacation expenses. At the very least, you would need a good reason why this conference is necessary to your business. If you can give that reason, it would then depend on the specifics of Australian law. The vacation is clearly not just incidental to the trip. The registration for the conference is always claimable as a business expense.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "8cb4e274c228cb0a2282d036447a0de5", "text": "\"Books would be considered Personal-Use Property according to Canada's income tax laws. The most detailed IT I was able to find is IT-332R, which says: GAINS AND LOSSES 3. A gain on the disposition of personal-use property is normally a capital gain within the meaning of paragraph 39(1)(a). Where the property is a principal residence, the gain > is computed under paragraph 40(2)(b) or (c). 4. Under subparagraph 40(2)(g)(iii), a loss on a disposition of personal-use property, other than listed personal property, is deemed to be nil. [...] This part of the bulletin indicates that a gain might be considered a capital gain - not income. However, you don't get to book a loss as a capital loss. This is the first hint that your book sale - which is actually an exempt capital loss - shouldn't go on your tax return unless it's one of the \"\"listed\"\" items: LISTED PERSONAL PROPERTY 7. Listed personal property is defined in paragraph 54(e) to mean personal-use property that is all or any portion of, or any interest in or right to, any (a) print, etching, drawing, painting, sculpture, or other similar work of art, (b) jewellery, (c) rare folio, rare manuscript, or rare book, (d) stamp, or (e) coin. So unless you're selling rare books, the disposition (sale) of them is essentially exempt as income, regardless of whether you sold it at a profit or at a loss. If it is rare, then you might be able to consider it a capital loss, which doesn't help you much unless you had other capital gains, but you can carry over capital losses to future years. There's also a newer IT related to hobbies and \"\"collecting\"\" items, IT-334R2. This one says: 11. In order for any activity or pursuit to be regarded as a source of income, there must be a reasonable expectation of profit. Where such an expectation does not exist (as is the case with most hobbies), neither amounts received nor expenses incurred are included in the income computation for tax purposes and any excess of expenses over receipts is a personal or living expense, the deduction of which is denied by paragraph 18(1)(h). On the other hand, if the hobby or pastime results in receipts of revenue in excess of expenses, that fact is a strong indication that the hobby is a venture with an expectation of profit; if so, the net income may be taxable as income from a business. The current version of IT-504, Visual Artists and Writers, discusses the concept of \"\"a reasonable expectation of profit\"\" in greater detail. Where a hobby consists of collecting personal-use property or listed personal property, dispositions should be accounted for as described in the current version of IT-332, Personal-Use Property. (emphasis mine) In other words, if it's not the type of thing where you'd make a tax deduction when you bought it in the first place, then you clearly don't need to report it as income when you sell it. Just to be absolutely clear here: The fact that you are selling them at a loss is not actually what's important here. What's important is that, if the books aren't collectibles, then you would have had no expectation of profit. If you did have that expectation then you could have made a tax deduction when you first purchased them. So in this case, it is probably not necessary for you to report the income; however, for the benefit of other readers, in some cases you might need to report it under \"\"other income\"\" or book it as a capital gain/loss, depending on what those personal items are and whether or not you made a net profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2c0ee6cdbc67b58bdec4983dbec7a49", "text": "\"It depends on what the \"\"true\"\" reason for the trip is. If you decide to deduct the trip as a business expense, then during an audit you will be asked why you had to go there. If there was nothing accomplished via the travel (that is, you worked from the hotel, met with no clients, visited no tradeshows, etc) then the expense is unlikely to be allowed. Yes, on a business trip you can do sightseeing if you wish (though you can't deduct any sightseeing specific expenses, like admission to a tourist attraction), but if you are just working while on vacation, then the trip itself is not deductible, since there was no business benefit to traveling in the first place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "61dba5aecad8bc42dfa6168de21ab588", "text": "\"For simplicity, let's start by just considering cash back. In general, cash back from credit cards for personal use is not taxable, but for business use it is taxable (sort of, I'll explain later). The reason is most personal purchases are made with after tax dollars; you typically aren't deducting the cost of what you purchased from your personal income, so if you purchase something that costs $100 and you receive $2 back from the CC company, effectively you have paid $98 for that item but that wouldn't affect your tax bill. However, since businesses typically deduct most expenses, that same $100 deduction would have only been a $98 deduction for business tax purposes, so in this case the $2 should be accounted for. Note, you should not consider that $2 as income though; that would artificially inflate your revenue. It should be treated as a negative expense, similar to how you would handle returning an item you purchased and receiving a CC refund. Now for your specific questions: Part 1: As a small business owner, I wish to attend an annual seminar to improve my business. I have enough credit card reward points to cover the airfare, hotel, and rental car. Will those expenses still be deductible at the value displayed on the receipt? Effectively no, these expenses are not deductible. If you deduct them they will be completely counter-acted by the \"\"refund\"\" you receive for the payments. Part 2: Does it matter if those points are accrued on my personal credit card, rather than a business credit card? This is where it gets hairy. Suppose your company policy is that employees make purchases with their own personal credit cards and submit receipts for reimbursement. In this case the employer can simply reimburse and would not know or care if the employee is racking up rewards/points/cashback. The trick is, as the employee, you must always purchase business related items normally so you have receipts to show, and if you receive cashback on the side there seems to be a \"\"don't ask, don't tell\"\" rule that the IRS is OK with. It works the same way with heavy business travelers and airline miles- the free vacations those users get as perks are not treated as taxable income. However, I would not go out of my way to abuse this \"\"loophole\"\". Typically, things like travel (airfare, hotel, car rental, meals) are expected. But I wouldn't go purchase 100 company laptops on your personal card and ask the company to reimburse you. The company should purchase those 100 laptops on a company card and effectively reduce the sale price by the cashback received. (Or more realistically, negotiate a better discount with your account rep and just cut them a check.) Part 3: Would there be any difference between credit card points and brand-loyalty points? If the rental car were paid for with points earned directly on the rental car company's loyalty system (not a CC), would that yield a different result? There is no difference. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. This is why when you volunteer and work 10 hours for a charity, you can't call that a \"\"donation\"\" of any amount of money because there is no actual payment made that would show up on a bank statement. Instead you could have billed the charity for your 10 hours of work, and then turned around and donated that same amount back to them, but it ends up being a wash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a87688fb747cdc8f66ebfc69393bdf18", "text": "This is taxed as ordinary income. See the IRC Sec 988(a)(1). The exclusion you're talking about (the $200) is in the IRC Sec 988(e)(2), but you'll have to read the Treasury Regulations on this section to see if and how it can apply to you. Since you do this regularly and for profit (i.e.: not a personal transaction), I'd argue that it doesn't apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "943bdfb9bd4b87b033901c6b9f9b209a", "text": "You can do that, you aren't missing anything. It is supposed to be punishment, but as you are moving to a European country your non-penalized income would likely be taxed higher as is. I don't have info on whether you will be taxed a second time by the European country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6681aab67e513952ed9e5130e3f33fcc", "text": "\"If you're a US citizen, money earned while in the US is sourced to the US. So you can't apply FTC/FEIE to the amounts attributable to the periods of your work while in the US even if it is a short business trip. Tax treaties may affect this. Most tax treaties have explicit provisions to exclude short trips from the sourcing rules, however due to the \"\"saving clause\"\" these would probably not apply to you if you're a US citizen - you'll need to read the relevant treaty. Your home country should allow credit for the US taxes paid on the US-sourced income, and the double-taxation avoidance provision should apply in this case. The technicalities depend on your specific country. You would probably not just remove it from the taxable income, there probably is a form similar to the US form 1116 to calculate the available credit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efa51fe7c17d14246a73d36a35151dd5", "text": "\"I would say similar rules apply in the US. If you have a net loss from rental property, you certainly can claim that loss against your personal income. There are various rules around this though that make it a bit less clear cut. If you are a \"\"real estate professional\"\", which basicly means you spend at least 750 hours per year working on your rental properties (or related activities), then all losses are deductible against any other ordinary income you have. If you aren't a \"\"real estate professional\"\", then your rental income is considered a \"\"passive activity\"\" and losses you can count against regular income are limited to $25,000 per year (with a carry-forward provision) and begin to phase out entirely if your income is between $100,000 and $150,000. So, the law here is structured to allow most small-time investors to take rental real estate losses against their ordinary income, but the income phase-out provision is designed to prevent the wealthy from using rental property losses to avoid taxation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ce69c9552cebe89bb7ae5454f950e65", "text": "So the EU is forcing its ~~green religion dogma~~ taxation policies on US airlines flying in international airspace? Or is it just taxing the fuel that is burned while flying through EU airspace? If the tax applies to all of the fuel that is burned, even that which is burned in international and US airspace, who gets the money?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e316d41336ca3bda6eb126bcc4115790", "text": "\"Can I use the foreign earned income exclusion in my situation? Only partially, since the days you spent in the US should be excluded. You'll have to prorate your exclusion limit, and only apply it to the income earned while not in the US. If not, how should I go about this to avoid being doubly taxed for 2014? The amounts you cannot exclude are taxable in the US, and you can use a portion of your Norwegian tax to offset the US tax liability. Use form 1116 for that. Form 1116 with form 2555 on the same return will require some arithmetic exercises, but there are worksheets for that in the instructions. In addition, US-Norwegian treaty may come into play, so check that out. It may help you reduce the tax liability in the US or claim credit on the US taxes in Norway. It seems that Norway has a bilateral tax treaty with the US, that, if I'm reading it correctly, seems to indicate that \"\"visiting researchers to universities\"\" (which really seems like I would qualify as) should not be taxed by either country for the duration of their stay. The relevant portion of the treaty is Article 16. Article 16(2)(b) allows you $5000 exemption for up to a year stay in the US for your salary from the Norwegian school. You will still be taxed in Norway. To claim the treaty benefit you need to attach form 8833 to your tax return, and deduct the appropriate amount on line 21 of your form 1040. However, since you're a US citizen, that article doesn't apply to you (See the \"\"savings clause\"\" in the Article 22). I didn't even give a thought to state taxes; those should only apply to income sourced from the state I lived in, right (AKA $0)? I don't know what State you were in, so hard to say, but yes - the State you were in is the one to tax you. Note that the tax treaty between Norway and the US is between Norway and the Federal government, and doesn't apply to States. So the income you earned while in the US will be taxable by the State you were at, and you'll need to file a \"\"non-resident\"\" return there (if that State has income taxes - not all do).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9fce735a06d3dd36302147dbd99a66d", "text": "It depends and I would not just jump into conclusion as I have seen cases where offering some services are not U.S. sourced income. I'll advise you speak with a knowledgeable tax professional.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c11d1781a910fe53b160db6f0ac43cb5", "text": "The IRS Guidance pertaining to the subject. In general the best I can say is your business expense may be deductible. But it depends on the circumstances and what it is you want to deduct. Travel Taxpayers who travel away from home on business may deduct related expenses, including the cost of reaching their destination, the cost of lodging and meals and other ordinary and necessary expenses. Taxpayers are considered “traveling away from home” if their duties require them to be away from home substantially longer than an ordinary day’s work and they need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of their work. The actual cost of meals and incidental expenses may be deducted or the taxpayer may use a standard meal allowance and reduced record keeping requirements. Regardless of the method used, meal deductions are generally limited to 50 percent as stated earlier. Only actual costs for lodging may be claimed as an expense and receipts must be kept for documentation. Expenses must be reasonable and appropriate; deductions for extravagant expenses are not allowable. More information is available in Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses. Entertainment Expenses for entertaining clients, customers or employees may be deducted if they are both ordinary and necessary and meet one of the following tests: Directly-related test: The main purpose of the entertainment activity is the conduct of business, business was actually conducted during the activity and the taxpayer had more than a general expectation of getting income or some other specific business benefit at some future time. Associated test: The entertainment was associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business and occurred directly before or after a substantial business discussion. Publication 463 provides more extensive explanation of these tests as well as other limitations and requirements for deducting entertainment expenses. Gifts Taxpayers may deduct some or all of the cost of gifts given in the course of their trade or business. In general, the deduction is limited to $25 for gifts given directly or indirectly to any one person during the tax year. More discussion of the rules and limitations can be found in Publication 463. If your LLC reimburses you for expenses outside of this guidance it should be treated as Income for tax purposes. Edit for Meal Expenses: Amount of standard meal allowance. The standard meal allowance is the federal M&IE rate. For travel in 2010, the rate for most small localities in the United States is $46 a day. Source IRS P463 Alternately you could reimburse at a per diem rate", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f41ce7e0d2fa9c6ff52ac387f7808299", "text": "The committee folks told us Did they also give you advice on your medication? Maybe if they told you to take this medicine or that you'd do that? What is it with people taking tax advice from random people? The committee told you that one person should take income belonging to others because they don't know how to explain to you which form to fill. Essentially, they told you to commit a fraud because forms are hard. I now think about the tax implications, that makes me pretty nervous. Rightly so. Am I going to have to pay tax on $3000 of income, even though my actual winning is only $1000? From the IRS standpoint - yes. Can I take in the $3000 as income with $2000 out as expenses to independent contractors somehow? That's the only solution. You'll have to get their W8's, and issue 1099 to each of them for the amounts you're going to pay them. Essentially you volunteered to do what the award committee was supposed to be doing, on your own dime. Note that if you already got the $3K but haven't paid them yet - you'll pay taxes on $3K for the year 2015, but the expense will be for the year 2016. Except guess what: it may land your international students friends in trouble. They're allowed to win prizes. But they're not allowed to work. Being independent contractor is considered work. While I'm sure if USCIS comes knocking, you'll be kind enough to testify on their behalf, the problem might be that the USCIS won't come knocking. They'll just look at their tax returns and deny their visas/extensions. Bottom line, next time ask a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) before taking advice from random people who just want the headache of figuring out new forms to go away.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac752fb104fc90705e42850f151aec14", "text": "What I'm going to write is far too long for a comment, so I'll put it here even though its not an answer. That's the closest thing to an answer you'll get here, I'm afraid. I'm not a tax professional, and you cannot rely on anything I say, as you undoubtedly know. But I'll give you some pointers. Things you should be researching when you have international clients: Check if Sec. 402 can apply to the pension funds, if so your life may become much easier. If not, and you have no idea what you're doing - consider referring the client elsewhere. You can end up with quite a liability suit if you make a mistake here, because the penalties on not filing the right piece of paper are enormous.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7c69995a03600169bdd569cdbd3f7af", "text": "I can't find anything specifically about holding international real estate as a US taxpayer, but the act of transferring the money to (I presume) an account of yours in Italy, and any other associated accounts, will trigger requirements for reporting under FBAR and FACTA. Even with this, it is primarily a reporting requirement. I do not believe you will incur any additional taxes unless you do rent out the property (or allow someone not a reported dependent to make use of the property). Note that if you do not report and should, the penalties are quite steep, so please do comply. NOTE: I am not a tax expert, nor a lawyer, nor an accountant, nor an agent of the IRS. Please consult one or all of these before making any decisions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c630aeb467186a71cce758e33cc14d9f", "text": "ML is a brokerage firm. Tell them to sell. If you can't or don't know how to do it on-line - call them and do it over the phone. Your citizenship might come in effect when tax are withheld, you need to fill form W8-BEN if you haven't done so yet. If US taxes are withheld, you can file 1040NR to request refund, or get it credited against your local tax liabilities.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
a0924aeaa3a313090bcde3e09ba44f71	Double entry for mortgage	[ { "docid": "e31d8c3f836d3ec8d604107df90b5081", "text": "For the purpose of personal finance, treating $500 as Interest Expense is sufficient. For business accounting, it involves making the $500 a contra-liability and amortizing it as interest expense over the course of life of the loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bcbb94c232d3c08232b50344bfc12be", "text": "The £500 are an expense associated with the loan, just like interest. You should have an expense account where you can put such financing expenses (or should create a new one). Again, treat it the same way you'll treat interest charges in future statements.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "409ac925651cc4ebb63b381c55fee2a8", "text": "Sounds fishy - taking out more debt to pay the main mortgage down faster? There are a couple of issues I can see: I would think that a much more sensible strategy with a lot less risk is to save up extra cash and send your lender a check every quarter or six months.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9480629b3fcd1e52c37b21d24bc2587a", "text": "\"I took a second mortgage when I moved house because I had a long-term fixed rate mortgage that would have incurred punitive fees if I had cancelled it. Rather than doing that I took a second mortgage over the same term for the difference. As my second mortgage was with the same lender, they still had \"\"First Charge\"\" on the property (This means that in the event of default they have first call on the property to recoup their losses), so the interest rate was not higher (actually it was slightly less than my first mortgage). My case is not that usual, normally a 'second mortgage' is with a separate provider that takes a \"\"Second Charge\"\" on the property. The interest rates are normally higher as a result as there is more chance that the lender will not recoup their money in case of a default as the first charge has priority. The second mortgage may still be cheaper than an unsecured loan, as the second charge provides some collateral, this might make it attractive if a sudden expense needs to be covered.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bfa0272d5b3a2671dfda9ee449eee319", "text": "\"littleadv's first comment - check the note - is really the answer. But your issue is twofold - Every mortgage I've had (over 10 in my lifetime) allows early principal payments. The extra principal can only be applied at the same time as the regular payment. Think of it this way - only at that moment is there no interest owed. If a week later you try to pay toward only principal, the system will not handle it. Pretty simple - extra principal with the payment due. In fact, any mortgage I've had that offered a monthly bill or coupon book will have that very line \"\"extra principal.\"\" By coincidence, I just did this for a mortgage on my rental. I make these payments through my bank's billpay service. I noted the extra principal in the 'notes' section of the virtual check. But again, the note will explicitly state if there's an issue with prepayments of principal. The larger issue is that your friend wishes to treat the mortgage like a bi-weekly. The bank expects the full amount as a payment and likely, has no obligation to accept anything less than the full amount. Given my first comment above here is the plan for your friend to do 99% of what she wishes: Tell her, there's nothing magic about bi-weekly, it's a budget-clever way to send the money, but over a year, it's simply paying 108% of the normal payment. If she wants to burn the mortgage faster, tell her to add what she wishes every month, even $10, it all adds up. Final note - There are two schools of thought to either extreme, (a) pay the mortgage off as fast as you can, no debt is the goal and (b) the mortgage is the lowest rate you'll ever have on borrowed money, pay it as slow as you can, and invest any extra money. I accept and respect both views. For your friend, and first group, I'm compelled to add - Be sure to deposit to your retirement account's matched funds to gain the entire match. $1 can pay toward your 6% mortgage or be doubled on deposit to $2 in your 401(k), if available. And pay off all high interest debt first. This should stand to reason, but I've seen people keep their 18% card debt while prepaying their mortgage.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa1f9c1214d7c33fb2a1e73c46fcb482", "text": "\"You don't. No one uses vanilla double entry accounting software for \"\"Held-For-Trading Security\"\". Your broker or trading software is responsible for providing month-end statement of changes. You use \"\"Mark To Market\"\" valuation at the end of each month. For example, if your cash position is -$5000 and stock position is +$10000, all you do is write-up/down the account value to $5000. There should be no sub-accounts for your \"\"Investment\"\" account in GNUCash. So at the end of the month, there would be the following entries:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "48868ffe482149e6978a8f1257960eff", "text": "The calculations you suggest have some issues, but I think they are not necessary to answer the question: It sounds like you are buying the house either way. So the question really is simply whether to pay toward your house first or your loan first. In that case, the answer is simple: pay whichever has the highest interest rate first. Make the minimum payment on the other until the first is paid off. Remember this and make it your mantra for the rest of your life. If you have any debts (such as credit cards) that charge a rate higher than the two options you have presented, do them first. Now, be careful as you compute the interest rates. Most likely you can deduct interest on your mortgage, so its effective interest rate is lower [it is (1-T)*R instead of R, where T is your marginal tax rate]. For a while, the cost of mortgage insurance will make your effective mortgage rate artificially high, but it sounds like you intend to get to that 20% hurdle pretty fast, so my guess is that this is not a big factor. Congratulations on your bonus and good luck with your new home.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f31499789d7290c5909610351f06461a", "text": "I can't give you a specific answer because I'm not a tax accountant, so you should seek advice from a tax professional with experience relevant to your situation. This could be a complicated situation. That being said, one place you could start is the Canada Revenue Agency's statement on investment income, which contains this paragraph: Interest, foreign interest and dividend income, foreign income, foreign non-business income, and certain other income are all amounts you report on your return. They are usually shown on the following slips: T5, T3, T5013, T5013A To avoid double taxation, Canada and the US almost certainly have a foreign tax treaty that ensures you are only taxed in your country of residence. I'm assuming you're a resident of Canada. Also, this page states that: If you received foreign interest or dividend income, you have to report it in Canadian dollars. Use the Bank of Canada exchange rate that was in effect on the day you received the income. If you received the income at different times during the year, use the average annual exchange rate. You should consult a tax professional. I'm not a tax professional, let alone one who specializes in the Canadian tax system. A professional is the only one you should trust to answer your question with 100% accuracy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3afb0883ae38ba9c71dcea12eef9398c", "text": "I have been following some of these threads. Some of them are really old. I have read used recording to equity accounts to resolve the imbalance USD issue. The thing I noticed is that all my imbalances occur when paying bills. I took all the bills and set them up as vendor accounts, entered the bills in the new bills, and used the process payment when paying bills. The imbalance issue stopped. It makes sense. The system is a double entry. That's it will credit and debit. Assets accounts are increased with a debit and decreased with a credit. Equity accounts are increased with a credit and decreased with a debit. ie; Say you have an monthly insurance bill for $100. You enter it into the new vendor bill. This credits Accounts Payable. When paying the bill it credits checking, debits account payable, credits vendor account, debits the expense insurance. In short for each credit there has to be a debit for the books to balance. When there is no account for it to record to it will record in Imbalance USD to balance the books.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7da7f4bfd86810b55a4c938eb892ef0a", "text": "As pointed out in a comment, it would be more natural to get a regular mortgage on the second house, which is essentially using the second house as collateral for its own loan. If you are to use the first house, either mortgage it or get a home equity line of credit on it and use that money to buy the second house. The relative merits of the options may depend in part on where you live, whether or not you live in the homes, and the relative cost of the two properties. For example, in the US, first and second homes get preferred tax treatment in addition to rates that are typically better than commercial loans (including mortgages for investment properties). If you're going to get a better rate and pay less taxes on one option and not on the others, that's definitely something to weigh.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1c2347a4ed4cd25bf7adcbdf7126f9d7", "text": "The rules of thumb are there for a reason. In this case, they reflect good banking and common sense by the buyer. When we bought our house 15 years ago it cost 2.5 times our salary and we put 20% down, putting the mortgage at exactly 2X our income. My wife thought we were stretching ourselves, getting too big a house compared to our income. You are proposing buying a house valued at 7X your income. Granted, rates have dropped in these 15 years, so pushing 3X may be okay, the 26% rule still needs to be followed. You are proposing to put nearly 75% of your income to the mortgage? Right? The regular payment plus the 25K/yr saved to pay that interest free loan? Wow. You are over reaching by double, unless the rental market is so tight that you can actually rent two rooms out to cover over half the mortgage. Consider talking to a friendly local banker, he (or she) will likely give you the same advice we are. These ratios don't change too much by country, interest rate and mortgages aren't that different. I wish you well, welcome to SE.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d137f8ba2fc7c051f2118309f7059b59", "text": "There is no such thing as double taxation. If you pay tax in the US, you CAN claim tax credits from India tax authority. For example, if you pay 100 tax in USA and your tax liability in India is 200, then you will only pay 100 (200 India tax liability minus 100 tax credits on foreign tax paid in the USA). This is always true and not depending on any treaty. If there is a treaty, the tax rate in the United States is set on the treaty and you CAN claim that final tax rate based upon that treaty. If you operate an LLC, and the income is NOT derived from United States and you have no ties with the US and that LLC is register to a foreign person (not company but a real human) then you will not have to submit tax return in the US... I advice you to read this: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98277,00.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3902ff75b95b17d3da9bb9b7e00e3bdb", "text": "\"If you have enough earned income to cover this amount you should be all set. If I understand you correctly you proposed two transactions. The first, a withdrawal from the beneficiary IRA. Some of which is an RMD the rest is an extra withdrawal of funds. Next, you propose to make a deposit to a combination of your IRA and your wife's IRA. As long as there's earned income to cover this deposit, your plan is fine. To be clear, you can't \"\"take a bene IRA and deposit the RMD to an IRA.\"\" But, money is fungible, the dollars you deposit aren't traceable, only need to be justified by enough earned income. A bene IRA is a great way to get the money to increase your own IRA or 401(k) deposits. Further details - The 2016 contribution limit is $5,500 per person, so I did make the assumption you knew the $9000 deposit need to be split between the 2 IRAs, with no more than $5500 going into either one.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "042b242265023ff11bf09c68b010334d", "text": "If you can qualify for two mortgages, this is certainly possible. For this you can talk to a banker. However, most people do not qualify for two mortgages so they go a different route. They make offers on a new home with a contingency to sell the existing home. A good Realtor will walk you through this and any possible side effects. Keep in mind that the more contingencies in an offer the less attractive that offer is to sellers. This is how cash buyers can get a better deal (no contingencies and a very fast close). Given the hotness of your market a seller might reject your offer as opposed to first time home buyer that does not need to sell an old home. On the other hand, they may see your contingency as low risk as the market is so hot. This is why you probably need a really good agent. They can frame the contingency in a very positive light.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5118f344d1af3a18c3adfa1c3264fd1f", "text": "If your mortgage is an interest only one then the full amount of the payment you make should be to an expense account perhaps called mortgage interest. If the mortgage is a repayment mortgage you need to split the amount of the payment between such an expense account called mortgage interest and between a liability account which is the amount of the loan. In practice I have not found it very easy to do all this as the actual amounts vary depending on number of days in the month and then there are occasional charges etc made by the mortgage company so some approximations seem to be needed unless one is to spend hours trying to get it exactly correct...... Steve", "title": "" }, { "docid": "252746493a0e4309e5f8a4c89e7e6467", "text": "I'll preface this with saying that I'm not a finance or real estate professional, this is just how I understand the situation and what I'm doing: We just got a 30year/FHA mortgage, there's no prepayment penalty, and no fees associated with paying it biweekly. In fact (Wells Fargo), while the payments get withdrawn biweekly, they don't actually post to the mortgage until there's enough for a full payment. So essentially here are the benefits I'm realizing:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f92ce53db50ec532e8395af9da6f0bb", "text": "I think you are running into multiple problems here: All these together look like a high risk to a bank, especially right now with companies being reluctant to hire full-time employees. Looking at it from their perspective, the last thing they need right now is another potential foreclosure on their books. BTW, if it is a consolation, I had to prove 2 years of continuous employment (used to be a freelancer) before the local credit union would consider giving me a mortgage. We missed out on a couple of good deals because of that, too.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
660f19ee869d017a20ba8ba2c00b5477	Why doesn’t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes?	[ { "docid": "6a79cda350d7160731ebebf084b0ff5c", "text": "\"I believe that an understanding of the taxation system can help to understand our place in it, and how that impacts each of our personal finances. I will try to remain unbiased here but this is a somewhat subjective question, so please bear with me if you disagree on any point. Some of these tax savings are well-advertised, and can be used by many people, such as tax credits for mass-transit passes which exists in some countries. But some of these tax savings are things you never heard of before, until it winds up on the news. Why do some people seem to get tax savings that you and I cannot get, and why do those people always seem to have so much more money than us? A simplistic answer can show this in three parts: (1) The source of one's income; (2) Transaction costs; and (3) \"\"tax loopholes\"\". Tax savings occur proportionately to one's income, and if the savings apply to investment income, they occur proportionately to one's wealth. If someone living paycheck to paycheck with a minimal amount in a bank account \"\"saves tax on investment income\"\", they might reduce their taxable interest from $50 to $0. That's because they simply don't have any other investment income to reduce. All of their income comes in the form of employment, which is typically very hard to save taxes on. Most governments have a very firm grasp on the taxation of employment income, because it is a huge proportion of income in the country (and therefore has the largest amount of tax associated), and because it is very straightforward (work for someone = employment income). A more cynical person than I might point out that investment income is earned by the very wealthy, who can afford to lobby for politicians to pass favourable investment income laws. Even very straightforward tax saving opportunities may cost money to enable. The simplest example would be: if a tax saving opportunity is so complicated that an average person can't understand it themselves, then an accountant, lawyer, or banker will need to be the one to explain it. And that can cost you money. If your tax isn't so much to begin with, then the transaction costs to achieve the tax savings could be higher than the tax savings themselves. For example, most countries have tax savings / deferrals if you start a corporation. These rules typically exist to promote investment in the local economy. But someone who earns $10k in a side-business might not be able to afford the $3k in incorporation costs just to save $2k in taxes. The more income and wealth you have, the more these transaction costs become worthwhile. I'm going to generally define \"\"tax loopholes\"\" for the purposes of this answer as something where a somewhat arbitrary situation allows for taxes that a layman would consider unfair or unexpected. This often occurs with good intentions but poor legislation - the government tries to provide a benefit to a deserving group or to promote an activity, but ends up allowing another group to take advantage. For example in Canada, there existed until a few years ago tax saving rules about passing on wealth to children at lower tax rates, only when a close family member is near-death [setting up a 'testamentary trust' between a grandparent and a grandchild could in some circumstances allow that trust to be created with additional 'tax brackets', meaning more income would be taxed at a less-than top tax rate before being distributed to the grandchildren]. The rules were put in place with the idea that \"\"oh gee, a family member has died, and the dang ol' family is grieving so hard they can't distribute the wealth to the next generation for a few months on account of all the crying. We should make it so that the estate is taxed like a person, and if they earn only a little income, they have a low tax rate, and they only get taxed at the full rate if they have a lot of income\"\". Seems reasonable enough, but if a family is ready to pass on wealth at the same time as someone is nudging the bucket with their foot, a morbid discussion with your lawyer and accountant could set your children up for life with forever reduced taxes on massive inheritances. In the case of the Panama / Paradise leaks, tax savings are due to all 3 of the above: Those who have massive wealth (and therefore earn the majority of their income from investments instead of employment) can afford the transaction costs associated with taking advantage of specific \"\"tax loopholes\"\". The simplest example of which is just that income earned in a foreign country might have a lower tax rate than income earned domestically. This is often a result of \"\"cracks\"\" in the foreign tax treaties between countries, which exist generally to promote business between countries and prevent double-taxing individuals who need activity in both countries for whatever reason. Take for example the \"\"Apple loophole\"\". Apple has operations around the world. Some activity occurs in low-tax jurisdictions. Apple reports a high percentage of the value of R&D as being associated with those jurisdictions. Those branches in low-tax jurisdictions charge the high-tax branches (such as the US) with fees for use of their valuable research. So much of Apple's income is reported in those foreign jurisdictions. It won't be taxed in the US until Apple \"\"repatriates\"\" the cash back to the US. Until then, the cash sits in the foreign jurisdiction, accruing less tax. This and similar rules can be used by individuals wealthy enough to hold corporations in foreign jurisdictions with low tax rates. How each particular rule / \"\"loophole\"\" works will depend on the nature of a specific case - tax law is complex, and the rules between countries are even more so. These foreign tax loopholes are closing every year. It is getting harder and harder to hide money offshore, and it is getting less and less likely that you will be able to find a country with juuuust the right loopholes for your own offshore wealth. These types of news leaks will only help to expedite those changes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd2b59be1209888981f7fe29cf6b6e0d", "text": "\"Your \"\"average company and taxpayer\"\" generally wouldn't have significant off-shore/foreign income. In the U.S., for example, even if you have your employer deposit all of your salary to an account at a foreign bank, they would still report it to the IRS as income. Removing the money from your home country isn't what gets it out of being taxed, it's that the money was never in your home country.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b10baf24c0aa7867791b8ae4fe55005", "text": "In a nutshell, there are significant entrance hurdles, legally and especially financially. The fixed cost and effort to get it set up is high (although later, the proportional cost and efforts are negligible). Therefore, this is only of interest for taxable amounts of seven digits or more - which most people don’t reach.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "614098cccc7c2833b8fc3c2452d2e12c", "text": "\"Ditto @GradeEhBacon, but let me add a couple of comments: But more relevantly: GradeEhBacon mentioned transaction costs. Yes. Many tax shelters require setting up accounts, doing paperwork, etc. Often you have to get a lawyer or accountant to do this right. If the tax shelter could save you $1 million a year in taxes, it makes sense to pay a lawyer $10,000 to set it up right. If it could save you $100 a year in taxes, paying $10,000 to set it up would be foolish. In some cases the tax savings would be so small that it wouldn't be worth the investment of spending $20 on a FedEx package to ship the paperwork. Inconvenience. Arguably this is a special case of transaction costs: the cost of your time. Suppose I knew that a certain tax shelter would save me $100 a year in taxes, but it would take me 20 hours a year to do the paperwork or whatever to manage it. I probably wouldn't bother, because my free time is worth more than $5 an hour to me. If the payoff was bigger or if I was poorer, I might be willing. Complexity. Perhaps a special case of 3. If the rules to manage the tax shelter are complicated, it may not be worth the trouble. You have to spend a bunch of time, and if you do it wrong, you may get audited and slapped with fines and penalties. Even if you do it right, a shelter might increase your chance of being audited, and thus create uncertainty and anxiety. I've never intentionally cheated on my taxes, but every year when I do my taxes I worry, What if I make an honest mistake but the government decides that it's attempted fraud and nails me to the wall? Qualification. Again, as others have noted, tax shelters aren't generally, \"\"if you fill out this form and check box (d) you get 50% off on your taxes\"\". The shelters exist because the government decided that it would be unfair to impose taxes in this particular situation, or that giving a tax break encourages investment, or some other worthy goal. (Sometimes that worthy goal is \"\"pay off my campaign contributors\"\", but that's another subject.) The rules may have unintended loopholes, but any truly gaping ones tend to get plugged. So if, say, they say that you get a special tax break for investing in medical research, you can't just declare that your cigarette and whiskey purchases are medical research and claim the tax break. Or you talked about off-shore tax havens. The idea here is that the US government cannot tax income earned in another country and that has never even entered the US. If you make $10 in France and deposit it in a French bank account and spend it in France, the US can't tax that. So American companies sometimes set up bank accounts outside the US to hold income earned outside the US, so they don't have to bring it into the US and pay the high US tax rate. (US corporate taxes are now the highest of any industrialized country.) You could, I suppose, open an account in the Caymans and deposit the income you earned from your US job there. But if the money was earned in the US, working at a factory or office in the US, by a person living in the US, the IRS is not going to accept that this is foreign income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a67e97c315357cc1ac6335a6f29b8e79", "text": "\"There are tax free bonds in the United States. They are for things like public housing and other urban projects. They are tax free for everyone but only rich people buy them. Why? The issue is that the tax free nature of the bond is included in its yield. So rather than yielding say a 5% return, they figure that the owner is getting 20% off due to not paying taxes. As a result, they only give a 4% return but are as risky as a 5% return investment. Net result, only rich people invest in tax free bonds. \"\"Rich\"\" is defined here to mean people paying a 20% tax on long term investment returns. Or take the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, which has been in the news recently. Again, it is technically open to everyone. But there is also a standard deduction that is open to everyone. For the typical family, state and local taxes might be 5% of income. So for a family making $100k a year, that's $5k. The same family can take a $13k or so standard deduction instead of itemizing. So why would they take the smaller deduction? As a practical matter, two groups take the SALT deduction. People rich enough to pay more than $13k in state and local taxes and people who also take the mortgage interest deduction. So it helps a lot of people who are rich quite a bit. And it helps a few middle class people some. But if you are lower middle class with a $30k mortgage on a tiny house and paying 4% interest, then that's only $1200 a year. Add in property taxes of $3000 and SALT of $2.8k and that's only $7k. Even if the person gives $3k to charity, the $13k deduction is a lot better and requires less paperwork. Contrast that with someone who has $500k mortgage at 3.6% interest. That's $18k in interest alone. Add in a SALT of $7k and property taxes of $50k, and there's $75k of itemized deductions, much better than $13k. Now a $7k donation to charity is entirely deductible. And even after the mortgage interest deduction goes away, the other $64k remains.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b4ca1ab5cb8361c56e25a44e7b344cf", "text": "\"And yet, the same law that these individuals and companies use to lower their taxes applies for every citizen and company of the country. Thus, in principle, every individual and company could make use of these methods. Clearly, they do not. Why? Misconception number 1. How did you conclude they do not? Because NY Times didn't spend time doing an expose' on your plumber? The Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers contain the files from merely three companies that help in this large industry. This is a story about poor IT policies of three companies. A potential reason could be the price charged to set up and maintain these services. This is a significant deterrent. The costs of forming offshore entities are perpetuated by the expensive lawyers, registered agents and incompetent government representatives in these tiny jurisdictions. (For what its worth, even most United States are pretty incompetent at these administrative processes. Really only a few financial centers and a few exceptions have it all streamlined.) These are scale problems primarily. The incompetence of different nation/state's public sectors will make you realize everything you take for granted. The main message emerging from Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and the like, is that it is the rich, powerful and famous who make use of and benefit from tax havens. But not exclusively for tax purposes. Newspapers, and even the organization leaking this information, is driving clicks to a gullible and impressionable public. I've talked with ICIJ (who release and push the discussion on the Panama/Paradise Papers), they really do believe in their \"\"tax expose'\"\" angle, but lack any consideration of how business work. 'Tax Haven'. These are sovereign nations with due process with democratically elected legislatures who looked at their budget and realized they don't need to fund their government via passive taxes. Their governments offer a good and service that people want, and it provides enough revenues to their governments. Many of these jurisdictions have well evolved corporate laws for fast evolving business models. For example, The Segregated Portfolio Company in the British Virgin Islands is more well defined and supported by clearer case law and is more useful entity than a Series LLC in the few United States that support it. There are at least a dozen reasons why someone would use a \"\"tax haven\"\", where only one of them is \"\"tax\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "737584b1df2438d3c2880417457d2498", "text": "Many of the Financial intermediaries in the business, have extraordinary high requirements for opening an account. For example to open an account in Credit Suisse one will need 1 million US dollars.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be55d01ea3210d4e85ba15cac77c8570", "text": "However, if you are employed by a company that exists in a tax haven and your services are provided to an employer by that tax haven company, it is the tax haven company that gets paid, not you. Under various schemes that company need not pay you at all. For example it may make you a loan which is not taxed (ie you don't pay tax on a loan, just as you don't pay tax on the money lent you by a mortgage company). You are bound by the terms of the loan agreement to repay that loan at a rate that the company finds acceptable. Indeed the company may find eventually that it is simply convenient to write off the loan as unrecoverable. if the owners/officers of he company write off your loans, how much tax will you have paid on the money you have had as loans? The taxman can of course state that this was simply set up to avoid tax (which is illegal) so you should have a balancing scheme to show that that the loans were taken to supplement income,just as one might take a bank loan / mortgage, not replace it entirely as a tax scam. Hiring tax counsel to provide this adequate proof to HMRC has a price. Frequently this kind of loophole exists because the number of people using it were sufficiently low not to warrant policing ( if the policing costs more than the tax recovered, then it is more efficient to ignore it) or because at some stage the scheme has been perfectly legal (as in the old offshore'education' trust recommended by the government a few decades ago). When Gordon Brown set out a 75% tax rate (for his possibly ideological reasons rather than financially based ones)for those who had these accounts , he encountered opposition from MPs who were going to be caught up paying high tax bills for what was effctively retrospective taxation, so there was a built in 'loophole' to allow the funds to be returned without undue penalty. If you think that is morally wrong, consider what the response would be if a future Chancellor was to declare all IAs the work of the devil and claim that retrospective tax would need to be paid on all ISA transactions over the last few decades.eg: tot up all the dividends and capital gains made on an ISA in any year and pay 40% tax on all of them, even if that took the ISA into negative territory because the value today was low/ underperfoming. Yet this has been sggested as a way of filling in the hole in the budget on the grounds that anyone with an ISA can be represented as 'rich' to a selected party of voters.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "ddbfee81b2dd2fedc5864ad12ce58715", "text": "I'm going to guess that now you're going to explain how you shouldn't add up these percentages. That is most certainly wrong. The reason is that countries aren't going to agree on an order in which to tax a company. It wouldn't go like: well UK taxes first then Germany will tax whatever is left in net profits. Why the hell would Germany agree to that? They would each want their percentage of the untaxed pie.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2948cd0e63af02de801485656a7996bc", "text": "\"Tax US corporate \"\"persons (citizens)\"\" under the same regime as US human persons/citizens, i.e., file/pay taxes on all income earned annually with deductions for foreign taxes paid. Problem solved for both shareholders and governments. [US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad - Filing Requirements](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-filing-requirements) >If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien living or traveling outside the United States, you generally are required to file income tax returns, estate tax returns, and gift tax returns and pay estimated tax in the same way as those residing in the United States. Thing is, we know solving this isn't the point. It is to misdirect and talk about everything, but the actual issues, i.e., the discrepancy between tax regimes applied to persons and the massive inequality it creates in tax responsibility. Because that would lead to the simple solutions that the populace need/crave. My guess is most US human persons would LOVE to pay taxes only on what was left AFTER they covered their expenses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86a58016d685e1775ba7bfe86afae3c2", "text": "\"You mean to tell me that everyone doesn't pay his/her fair share?! Please say it isn't so. :) Therein lies the welfare state: Tax the rich more heavily to subsidize the poor, and hobble the rich's ability to do so on their own accord. In any case, though, in the United States, if you make any money whatsoever, that usually counts as income, and can hence be taxed. Here's the IRS' definition of gross income. Pretty all-inclusive, isn't it? Businesses are allowed to deduct expenses to count against their income, but if one has more expenses than income year after year, (a) this is the road to financial ruin, and (b) the IRS puts an end to the tax losses after enough years of failing to show a profit. So, sure, if a businessperson doesn't have any income, then they're technically using the roads, etc., \"\"for free,\"\" but unless the businessperson wants to live off the land and the kindness of strangers, he'd better turn a profit eventually. Then he'll be taxed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51b98857496db91ad880cc721db0c57c", "text": "\"That's a very clear explanation, thanks! So a few additional things if anyone will humor my curiosity... 1. By \"\"one-time\"\" tax, does that mean a company that has, say, $5B overseas could bring that back into the US and just be taxed $500M, then keep the remaining $4.5B? 2. Could a company choose a percentage of their overseas money to transfer into the US? Like, only bring in 8% of that $5B ($400M) and be taxed $40M, while keeping all the rest outside the US? Or would it be mandatory to bring it all over? 3. Would most companies just start that same practice of routing to tax havens again after this tax is implented?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "085d5ffce51b655747223b981112e7cd", "text": "\"It sounds good, but perhaps they've overlooked several things that would need to be addressed before anything like this could work well. 1) If there is a leak in the overall flow, such as a HFT hedge fund sucking money out of the markets at an enormous rate into a tax haven, such a system would just perpetuate the existing rise of the superwealthy entities. They still get richer without spending much in return. 2) As described they have only talked about one government, one nation, one monetary recycling system, as if nations are closed boxes. They are not. Money flows across borders with ease. Nations compete to maximise the amount of assets they hold within their borders at any given time. These can be fixed capital assets too. So nothing prevents the \"\"global equity investment\"\" they mention from starting to resemble all the powerful corporations concentrated in a single favoured nation over time. That would represent a lot of political power concentrated in ways that are not necessarily favourable to individual sovereign national legal systems elsewhere. It is possible that this could mean that nations would compete to lower taxes to zero to attract corporations, thereby risking bankrupting governments unless the income from the global equity index compensated enough. At 6% it won't match current tax rates. The second point also means that nations cannot unilaterally decide to implement this unless they have a guaranteed additional inflowing income from transnational activities that could compensate for excessive outflow.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adda4a9f88198cd8bcf8f5d44e0473bc", "text": "Many examples in Europe and other countries have shown once you break that barrier people will go to extreme lengths to avoid it. So much so back in the 80s in the UK tax rates over 75% were imposed, needless to say when they reduced it to 40% they actually got more money. Ultimately it does more harm than good to the economy and means well paid jobs leave the country and go elsewhere. The exact same thing is happening right now with the French moving to London. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930", "title": "" }, { "docid": "207a39fe2e1a34b9c6cb216915cb9b90", "text": "\"You're confused. This has nothing to do with taxes. It has to do with screwing people out of profit-sharing. The shell company pays bogus/hyper-inflated fees to the parent company, who pays taxes on them. That way, the contract with the shell company that says \"\"you get 5% of the profits\"\" now means nothing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22134f97c9279b484342d04421ff2d5e", "text": "\"'Note that \"\"to keep an investor from lowering their tax bill\"\" is not an explanation'. Well, yes it is. In fact it is the only explanation. The rule plainly exists to prevent someone from realizing a loss when their economic situation remains unchanged before/after a sale. Now, you might say 'but I have suffered a loss, even if it is unrealized!' But, would you want to pay tax on unrealized gains? The tax system still caters to reducing the tax impact of investments, particularly capital investments. Part and parcel with the system of taxing gains only when realized, is that you can recognize losses only when realized. Are there other ways to 'artificially' reduce taxable income? Yes. But the goal of a good tax system should be to reduce those opportunities. Whether you agree that it is fair for the government to prevent this tax-saving opportunity, when others exist, is another question. But that is why the rule exists.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0845ea3bb217850b6499a6db3cd4b63", "text": "\"First, I'm not a CPA or international tax accountant; my entire understanding of the French tax system is entirely from what I've read in places like the WSJ, Barrons, WaPo, etc. However, *my understanding* is that French tax law works something like this. Let's say France has a tax rate of 35%. First, it must be assessed where the controlling entity is. In this case, if the majority of production and labor, or if the corporation is primarily based in France, it would proceed as follows. Taxes are initially paid based on transfer pricing to the original local entity (this avoids \"\"double taxation\"\"). So in the example above, you would pay 10% to India on the $3,000,000 in profits ($300,000). You would then reduce the 35% French tax rate by the 10% already paid. This means you would pay an additional 25% to France ($750,000). The premise is that you have an effective \"\"minimum\"\" tax threshold for being in France. In the case above, companies like GE would have to pay the difference (this doesn't get into tax breaks/shelters on previously recorded losses, etc.). Again, *I AM NOT SURE ON THIS. This is my basic understanding and am by no means a tax accountant/lawyer/etc. From what I understand; however, this hasn't necessarily been a good thing for France either (California is likely a similar case study with the Unitary return requirement). The fact is the world is very global nowadays. Its easier and cheaper for the companies to just leave instead of being forced to pay higher taxes... IMO, Germany hit it right on the head. Low corporate tax rates with high personal tax rates. This maintains a very business friendly environment (business move there because of the skilled labor and low corporate taxes), but they effectively pass the burden on to individuals (who also benefit from the pro-business environment). You'd be hard pressed to find an economist that doesn't think Germany's economy has been very strong over the past decade (very good Soros speech that was recently posted about his analysis of the Euro and Germany's unfair benefits, but that's a whole different gear). What I find the issue to be is the whole concept is complex enough that's difficult to explain to the average person with a 2 second attention span. That's why I like writing posts like this, to try to help people understand how finance and businesses operate behind the scenes!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ee6112f35da0db5c94c7853706cb131", "text": "[90% of their income](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Bahamas) is from services. And 80% of that income is from the US..... Do some research. Still waiting for this no tax, no government utopia which works so well* (yet there doesn't seem to be a good example of in existence...)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5edf2f1e73f47cd5ee55c47a59f8e782", "text": "A government is there to serve the people. Under this logic, a government is doing a disservice to its people by allowing a corportation to have a signicantly lower tax rate in relation to the value a corportation would gain from doing business in that country. For all I know, Starbucks would only do business in the UK if the value it sees from doing business there is at the tax rate it is paying out now. However, like a corportation testing the markets for price, the UK government is doing a disservice to its own people for not doing its own research on the value Starbucks is seeing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "828c11ab1a9dd388af11264f4d0f4c04", "text": "The US is one of the only countries which taxes its citizens on global income. You're ignoring the high fixed costs of compliance with the US tax code, both for individuals and institutions. Compliance is so big an issue that foreign banks are turning away US customers rather than having to comply with FATCA, leaving people unable to open a bank account. Also, renunciations of citizenship are up something like 400%, and they aren't all billionaires.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "768f033ddc2a03c93a62559f41e7f613", "text": "Braeburn is no more a hedge fund than any other off-shore entities corporations create to manage taxes creatively. All of the major corporate entities in the world do the same thing. Apple isn't even very good at it comparatively.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1f4c26b3d5b67fd332c4b12fcf33855", "text": "Part of the purpose of a tax haven is retaining more capital for reinvestment. Then you have more control over how, when and where you pay taxes. Once the capital has been retained in your haven you can strategically deploy it to other favorable locations on the globe. Should you ever want part of it to hit a personal account in the US you'd have a tax liability. But at this level you could just put your ownership of that account up as collateral on a loan and buy your boat that way instead.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90f2ea577546aa2ca83613733b43b7bd", "text": "I don't know enough about international tax law to dispute what you say, but I would think that if it were illegal we would be seeing more repurcussions for nearly EVERY multinational company using these practices. How can you prove that the licensing deal between bluehat9 llc and bluehat9 lp (cayman) is illegitimate?", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
fef07ca2bcbeb2d862d2c24321b830a3	US taxation of stock purchase plan for non-resident alien	[ { "docid": "8eb1a478c19f1e107212313733892c40", "text": "From my research it looks like its an income NOT effectively connected with the trade of business. This page has the exact details https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/effectively-connected-income-eci", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "43bdaa58a8294a11126f9f82315e045b", "text": "It really depends. If it is offered as compensation (ie in leiu of, or in addition to salary or cash bonus) then it would be reportable income, and if sold later for a profit then that would be taxable as gains. If this share is purchased as an investment at current value then it would be treated like other securities most likely gains realized at sale. Any discount could be considered income but there are some goofy rules surrounding this enacted to prevent tax evasion and some to spur growth. That is the answer in a nut shell. It is far more complicated in reality as there are somewhere around 2000 pages of regulations deal with different exceptions and scenerios.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81b9092a7fb8eabc369aa9bf0b4a9989", "text": "No Tax would have been deducted at the time of purchase/sale of shares. You would yourself be required to compute your tax liability and then pay taxes to the govt. In case the shares sold were held for less than 1 year - 15% tax on capital gains would be levied. In case the shares sold were held for more than 1 year - No Tax would be levied and the income earned would be tax free. PS: No Tax is levied at the time of purchase of shares and Tax is only applicable at the time of sale of shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0d77534de7a82cb11f9ea7f796d372f", "text": "However, you might have to pay taxes on capital gains if these stocks were acquired during your prior residency.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "306bbfcbeb9d36a4dfe629c06c6049d9", "text": "\"A nondividend distribution is typically a return of capital; in other words, you're getting money back that you've contributed previously (and thus would have been taxed upon in previous years when those funds were first remunerated to you). Nondividend distributions are nontaxable, so they do not represent income from capital gains, but do effect your cost basis when determining the capital gain/loss once that capital gain/loss is realized. As an example, publicly-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) generally distribute a return of capital back to shareholders throughout the year as a nondividend distribution. This is a return of a portion of the shareholder's original capital investment, not a share of the REITs profits, so it is simply getting a portion of your original investment back, and thus, is not income being received (I like to refer to it as \"\"new income\"\" to differentiate). However, the return of capital does change the cost basis of the original investment, so if one were to then sell the shares of the REIT (in this example), the basis of the original investment has to be adjusted by the nondividend distributions received over the course of ownership (in other words, the cost basis will be reduced when the shares are sold). I'm wondering if the OP could give us some additional information about his/her S-Corp. What type of business is it? In the course of its business and trade activity, does it buy and sell securities (stocks, etc.)? Does it sell assets or business property? Does it own interests in other corporations or partnerships (sales of those interests are one form of capital gain). Long-term capital gains are taxed at rates lower than ordinary income, but the IRS has very specific rules as to what constitutes a capital gain (loss). I hate to answer a question with a question, but we need a little more information before we can weigh-in on whether you have actual capital gains or losses in the course of your S-Corporation trade.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c0110c21e3e15f28b53d04cc6b3dc73", "text": "I assume US as mhoran_psprep edited, although I'm not sure IRS necessarily means US. (It definitely used to also include Britain's Inland Revenue, but they changed.) (US) Stockbrokers do not normally withhold on either dividends/interest/distributions or realized capital gains, especially since gains might be reduced or eliminated by later losses. (They can be required to apply backup withholding to dividends and interest; don't ask how I know :-) You are normally required to pay most of your tax during the year, defined as within 10% or $1000 whichever is more, by withholding and/or estimated payments. Thus if the tax on your income including your recent gain will exceed your withholding by 10% and $1000, you should either adjust your withholding or make an estimated payment or some combination, although even if you have a job the last week of December is too late for you to adjust withholding significantly, or even to make a timely estimated payment if 'earlier in the year' means in an earlier quarter as defined for tax (Jan-Mar, Apr-May, June-Aug, Sept-Dec). See https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes and for details its link to Publication 505. But a 'safe harbor' may apply since you say this is your first time to have capital gains. If you did not owe any income tax for last year (and were a citizen or resident), or (except very high earners) if you did owe tax and your withholding plus estimated payments this year is enough to pay last year's tax, you are exempt from the Form 2210 penalty and you have until the filing deadline (normally April 15 but this year April 18 due to weekend and holiday) to pay. The latter is likely if your job and therefore payroll income and withholding this year was the same or nearly the same as last year and there was no other big change other than the new capital gain. Also note that gains on investments held more than one year are classified as long-term and taxed at lower rates, which reduces the tax you will owe (all else equal) and thus the payments you need to make. But your wording 'bought and sold ... earlier this year' suggests your holding was not long-term, and short-term gains are taxed as 'ordinary' income. Added: if the state you live in has a state income tax similar considerations apply but to smaller amounts. TTBOMK all states tax capital gains (and other investment income, other than interest on exempt bonds), and don't necessarily give the lower rates for long-term gains. And all states I have lived in have 'must have withholding or estimated payments' rules generally similar to the Federal ones, though not identical.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "48b2fd3b012dabac3583f3775f1f943d", "text": "If you are a US resident (not necessarily citizen) then yes, you do have to pay capital gains taxes on any capital gains, including interest from assets oversees (like interest from a savings account). Additionally you have to report all your foreign bank accounts according to FATCA (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-fatca).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee913e8ea8db7a5465c14f52c1d98bf1", "text": "The tax cost at election should be zero. The appreciation is all capital gain beyond your basis, which will be the value at election. IRC §83 applies to property received as compensation for services, where the property is still subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture. It will catch unvested equity given to employees. §83(a) stops taxation until the substantial risk of forfeiture abates (i.e. no tax until stock vests) since the item is revocable and not yet truly income. §83(b) allows the taxpayer to make a quick election (up to 30 days after transfer - firm deadline!) to waive the substantial risk of forfeiture (e.g. treat shares as vested today). The normal operation of §83 takes over after election and the taxable income is generally the value of the vested property minus the price paid for it. If you paid fair market value today, then the difference is zero and your income from the shares is zero. The shares are now yours for tax purposes, though not for legal purposes. That means they are most likely a capital asset in your hands, like other stocks you own or trade. The shares will not be treated as compensation income on vesting, and vesting is not a tax matter for elected shares. If you sell them, you get capital gain (with tax dependent on your holding period) over a basis equal to FMV at the election. The appreciation past election-FMV will be capital gain, rather than ordinary income. This is why the §83(b) election is so valuable. It does not matter at this point whether you bought the restricted shares at FMV or at discount (or received them free) - that only affects the taxes upon §83(b) election.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bfbb3a0f9d2ac58c9bb99f9390209f7", "text": "\"Long term: Assuming you sold stock ABC through a registered stock exchange, e.g., the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange of India, and you paid the Securities Transaction Tax (STT), you don't owe any other taxes on the long term capital gain of INR 100. If you buy stock BCD afterwards, this doesn't affect the long term capital gains from the sale of stock ABC. Short term: If you sell the BCD stock (or the ABC stock, or some combination therein) within one year of its purchase, you're required to pay short term capital gains on the net profit, in which case you pay the STT and the exchange fees and an additional flat rate of 15%. The Income Tax Department of India has a publication titled \"\"How to Compute your Capital Gains,\"\" which goes into more detail about a variety of relevant situations.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6d9b9d9394524e7112df5fd6b09f008", "text": "You should talk to a lawyer. One solution I can think of is using a trust. Keep in mind that that may complicate things (non-revocable trusts are taxed on income not distributed, and revocable trust means you effectively keep the owenership of the stock). If you don't mind paying taxes on the dividends and keep the stocks in a living trust - that would be, IMHO, the simplest solution. That would, however, invoke the gift/estate tax at the value of the stock when the ownership actually passes to the intended receipient (i.e.: you die/gift the stock to the child). It would be very hard to pay the gift tax now and avoid getting the childs SSN and opening an account for the child with it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2948cd0e63af02de801485656a7996bc", "text": "\"Tax US corporate \"\"persons (citizens)\"\" under the same regime as US human persons/citizens, i.e., file/pay taxes on all income earned annually with deductions for foreign taxes paid. Problem solved for both shareholders and governments. [US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad - Filing Requirements](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-filing-requirements) >If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien living or traveling outside the United States, you generally are required to file income tax returns, estate tax returns, and gift tax returns and pay estimated tax in the same way as those residing in the United States. Thing is, we know solving this isn't the point. It is to misdirect and talk about everything, but the actual issues, i.e., the discrepancy between tax regimes applied to persons and the massive inequality it creates in tax responsibility. Because that would lead to the simple solutions that the populace need/crave. My guess is most US human persons would LOVE to pay taxes only on what was left AFTER they covered their expenses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4121769fdb123d21c420f416189149b8", "text": "Form 8288 is to report to the IRS withholding of capital gains tax that may be due from the seller. Foreign nationals don't always file tax returns, so they often didn't pay capital gains tax on properties that they sold. Congress decided to make the buyers responsible for this tax so that they would have a better chance of collecting it. There is a penalty against the buyer if that tax is not withheld. Your attorney should have filed this form on your behalf as part of the closing papers. I think your first step is to look at your copy of the closing papers and see if money was withheld from the sale. There definitely should be disclosure of these requirements before the sale. You should also follow up with your attorney to see whether he has already filed the forms 8288 and 8288-A on your behalf. If you had purchased for less than $300,000 (and were purchasing for your primary residence), you would not have to file that form, but since the property was under $1,000,000 the withholding rate is only 10% (rather than 15%).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcd63746460412b016148057d123dec0", "text": "It looks like your best option is to go with an online broker. There are many available. Some of them won't let you open an account online as a foreign national but will allow you to open one through the mail. See more about that http://finance.zacks.com/can-nonus-citizen-trade-us-stocks-9654.html Also keep in mind that you will need to pay taxes on any capital gains made through selling http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p519.pdf", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28f92e26dcc503d4c07d8bac7f07e7a4", "text": "\"The examples you provide in the question are completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter where the brokerage is or where is the company you own stocks in. For a fairly standard case of an non-resident alien international student living full time in the US - your capital gains are US sourced. Let me quote the following text a couple of paragraphs down the line you quoted on the same page: Gain or loss from the sale or exchange of personal property generally has its source in the United States if the alien has a tax home in the United States. The key factor in determining if an individual is a U.S. resident for purposes of the sourcing of capital gains is whether the alien's \"\"tax home\"\" has shifted to the United States. If an alien does not have a tax home in the United States, then the alien’s U.S. source capital gains would be treated as foreign-source and thus nontaxable. In general, under the \"\"tax home\"\" rules, a person who is away (or who intends to be away) from his tax home for longer than 1 year has shifted tax homes to his new location upon his arrival in that new location. See Chapter 1 of Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses I'll assume you've read this and just want an explanation on what it means. What it means is that if you move to the US for a significant period of time (expected length of 1 year or more), your tax home is assumed to have shifted to the US and the capital gains are sourced to the US from the start of your move. For example: you are a foreign diplomat, and your 4-year assignment started in May. Year-end - you're not US tax resident (diplomats exempt), but you've stayed in the US for more than 183 days, and since your assignment is longer than 1 year - your tax home is now in the US. You'll pay the 30% flat tax. Another example: You're a foreign airline pilot, coming to the US every other day flying the airline aircraft. You end up staying in the US 184 days, but your tax home hasn't shifted, nor you're a US tax resident - you don't pay the flat tax. Keep in mind, that tax treaties may alter the situation since in many cases they also cover the capital gains situation for non-residents.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "175a9f550ec56623c289df7f2fe0dc18", "text": "Here is how it should look: 100 shares of restricted stock (RSU) vest. 25 shares sold to pay for taxes. W2 (and probably paycheck) shows your income going up by 100 shares worth and your taxes withheld going up by 25 shares worth. Now you own 75 shares with after-tax money. If you stop here, there would be no stock sale and no tax issues. You'd have just earned W2 income and withheld taxes through your W2 job. Now, when you sell those 75 shares whether it is the same day or years later, the basis for those 75 shares is adjusted by the amount that went in to your W2. So if they were bought for $20, your adjusted basis would be 75*$20.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3d239c130b81bd9fa913591c6178870", "text": "The thing you get wrong is that you think the LLC doesn't pay taxes on gains when it sells assets. It does. In fact, in many countries LLC are considered separate entities for tax properties and you have double taxation - the LLC pays its own taxes, and then when you withdraw the money from the LLC to your own account (i.e.: take dividends) - you pay income tax on the withdrawal again. Corporate entities usually do not have preferential tax treatment for investments. In the US, LLC is a pass-though entity (unless explicitly chosen to be taxed as a corporation, and then the above scenario happens). Pass-through entities (LLCs and partnerships) don't pay taxes, but instead report the gains to the owners, which then pay taxes as if the transaction was their personal one. So if you're in the US - investing under LLC would have no effect whatsoever on your taxes, or adverse effect if you chose to treat it as a corporation. In any case, investing in stocks is not a deductible expense, and as such doesn't reduce profits.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
c4181dde2ab9e4682ab0c03970b398ef	Am I legally allowed to offset the tax I pay on freelance work? (UK)	[ { "docid": "15a68028202202a61ad5b69ba02c6f16", "text": "Yes, you can deduct from your taxable profits (almost) any expenses incurred in the course of your business. See here for HMRC's detailed advice on the subject. The fact that you have salaried PAYE employment as well makes no difference.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "9c19f9ceaab748d179323a7f07b6ec39", "text": "It is a great advice. I would suggest going to the Companies House (it's in London somewhere), picking up all of their leaflets regarding requirements for different forms of corporate entity, and deciding if you want to have that burden. It is not a lot of work, you can essentially claim VAT on all business purchases (the way roughly it works, is that your company invoices your client, your client has to pay the fee + VAT (usually that VAT is then deducted by your client from it's VAT, so no loss there), and you pay the VAT on the difference between the service sales price, and your costs (computers etc.) ) You have to be careful to avoid excessive double taxation (paying income tax on both corporate income, and then your personal income off said company), but it usually comes off in your favor. Essentially, if you're making more than 50% of your income from services rendered, it is to your advantage to render such services as a business entity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d3b2a9a6abd42118fa040f7b762a52b", "text": "\"In the US, you'd run the risk of being accused of fraud if this weren't set up properly. It would only be proper if your wife could show that she were involved, acting as your agent, bookkeeper, etc. Even so, to suggest that your time is billed at one rate but you are only paid a tiny fraction of that is still a high risk alert. I believe the expression \"\"if it quacks like a duck...\"\" is pretty universal. If not, I'll edit in a clarification. note -I know OP is in UK, but I imagine tax collection is pretty similar in this regard.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acb3ad5a9f87addc77582c3aa113b246", "text": "Yes if you do it as a hobby, as it's still income. But it should be something you can offset against tax Either way, you shouldn't be doing this as you, you should either register as self employed or create a company. You register this income as self-employed income (or income of the company) and offset the expenses of running the server against tax. In the UK, companies (or self employed people, which are basically companies) pay tax on profit not income (unless VAT applies, in which case they're basically just passing the VAT on for their customers). Since you're not making a profit over the whole year (even if some months are profitable) you will pay no tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1e31c0a10ca632844786eb12a4497e3", "text": "The company will have to pay 20% tax on its profits. Doesn't matter how these profits are earned. Profits = Income minus all money you spend to get the income. However, you can't just take the profits out of the company. The company can pay you a salary, on which income tax, national insurance, and employer's national insurance have to be paid at the usual rate. The company can pay you a dividend, on which tax has to be paid. And the company can pay money into the director's pension fund, which is tax free. Since the amount of company revenue can be of interest, I'd be curious myself what the revenue of such a company would be. And if the company makes losses, I'm sure HMRC won't allow you to get any tax advantages from such losses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0405c80b946e2a2c2c2ceae2b78ccae7", "text": "In a simple case as the sole UK resident director/shareholder of a company, with that company as your only income, you are usually best paying yourself a salary of the maximum tax free amount allowed under your tax code (~£11k for most people at present). On this you will have to pay some employer and employee National Insurance (NI) contributions (totalling around £1000). Your salary/employer NI counts as an expense, so that is taken off the company profits. You then pay corporation tax on the remainder (20%). The first £5k you take as dividends is tax free, the remainder at a lower tax rate than the equivalent combined income tax/NI (starting at 7.5% instead of 20% tax plus employee plus employer NI), giving a significant saving compared to salaried income even after corporation tax. To declare and pay the tax, you would need to complete a self-assessment tax return. Your company will also need to file a return. The Contractor UK website, although aimed at IT contractors, has some very useful information on operating Ltd companies. That said, finances are rarely that simple so I would concur with the recommendation you engage an accountant, which is a tax-deductible expense.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7beb296a45b2f6718fda648042db802f", "text": "\"Your comment to James is telling and can help us lead you in the right direction: My work and lifestyle will be the same either way, as I said. This is all about how it goes \"\"on the books.\"\" [emphasis mine] As an independent consultant myself, when I hear something like \"\"the work will be the same either way\"\", I think: \"\"Here thar be dragons!\"\". Let me explain: If you go the independent contractor route, then you better act like one. The IRS (and the CRA, for Canadians) doesn't take lightly to people claiming to be independent contractors when they operate in fact like employees. Since you're not going to be behaving any different whether you are an employee or a contractor, (and assuming you'll be acting more like an employee, i.e. exclusive, etc.), then the IRS may later make a determination that you are in fact an employee, even if you choose to go \"\"on the books\"\" as an independent contractor. If that happens, then you may find yourself retroactively denied many tax benefits you'd have claimed; and owe penalties and interest too. Furthermore, your employer may be liable for additional withholding taxes, benefits, etc. after such a finding. So for those reasons, you should consider being an employee. You will avoid the potential headache I outlined above, as well as the additional paperwork etc. of being a contractor. If on the other hand you had said you wanted to maintain some flexibility to moonlight with other clients, build your own product on the side, choose what projects you work on (or don't), maybe hire subcontractors, etc. then I'd have supported the independent contractor idea. But, just on the basis of the tax characteristics only I'd say forget about it. On the financial side, I can tell you that I wouldn't have become a consultant if not for the ability to make more money in gross terms (i.e. before tax and expenses.) That is: your top line revenues ought to be higher in order to be able to offset many of the additional expenses you'd incur as an independent. IMHO, the tax benefits alone wouldn't make up for the difference. One final thing to look at is Form SS-8 mentioned at the IRS link below. If you're not sure what status to choose, the IRS can actually help you. But be prepared to wait... and wait... :-/ Additional Resources:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c2fe5a2fd10180b48792906009b272fc", "text": "I am a freelancer based in Europe and I want to tell you: - if you are a freelancer, then you INVOICE your Swizzerland based client The word salary is improper. - So your client will DEDUCE the invoice from its taxes, and NOT pay income tax on top of that invoice. Because invoice = expense. So, ONLY YOU pay income tax in India. Your client pays no tax at all, not in India, not in Swizzerland. As you are a freelancer and not employee, the company has no obligation to pay employer taxes for you. A company has financial benefits from working with a freelancer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "caac26bdd391f8e851b7ad6108cc0407", "text": "Yes, you do. Depending on your country's laws and regulations, since you're not an employee but a self employed, you're likely to be required to file some kind of a tax return with your country's tax authority, and pay the income taxes on the money you earn. You'll have to tell us more about the situation, at least let us know what country you're in, for more information.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8617be6ccb0f198c77c9c8aeab78dcd2", "text": "If you are still a UK resident, then yes. Also, as I understand it, if the contract is only for a year, then unless it happens to exactly match the payroll year, you will have to remain a UK resident and hence, yes you will have to pay tax. See here for more info (from HMRC FAQ questions)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8cb781b721834ee11d37597b7ec7030", "text": "There is no tax code I know that would grant you such a privilege. And it just isn't practicable. In your examples, you always sold your product and were thus able, in retrospect, to give a value to your work. What if you don't sell your product? What if in one case your worked hour is reimbursed with one price, with the next product at another (i.e. difference in margin)? No, it won't work like that. And by the way, I think you might have got some definitions upside down. What you want is a salary that your own company pays out to yourself and you can deduct from other profits. But as long as you can't afford to pay yourself a salary, and you don't have access to investors who are willing to front you the money, the time invested is your personal investment and cannot be deducted anywhere - though it might pay off nicely in the long run. That's the risk entrepreneurs take.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68ef32bfccf785eb45abd36e22f3fe2c", "text": "\"I think the £35K band applies to the \"\"dividend income\"\" not the \"\"dividend paid to you\"\", and so you would only actually get £31.5K (90% of £35K) in your pocket before the next tax band kicked in. If your company will only supplying large VAT registered entities, then register for VAT yourself and elect the Flat Rate scheme - depending on your area of business, given that you have no expenses, your company will get an extra 7% - 14% on its income for free. Your clients won't care that you charge them VAT because they'll claim it back. Finally, depending on what your company is for, beware of the dreaded IR35\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a9011e433785e61732b017579a786a1", "text": "Yes, but make sure you issue a 1099 to these freelancers by 1/31/2016 or you may forfeit your ability to claim the expenses. You will probably need to collect a W-9 from each freelancer but also check with oDesk as they may have the necessary paperwork already in place for this exact reason. Most importantly, consult with a trusted CPA to ensure you are completing all necessary forms correctly and following current IRS rules and regulations. PS - I do this myself for my own business and it's quite simple and straight forward.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b3647fabeeeeda60c6fe140cefcf0735", "text": "\"As you clarified in the comments, it is not a contract work but rather an additional temporary assignment with the same employer. You were paid for it in form of a \"\"bonus\"\" - one time irregular payment, instead of regular periodic payments. Irregular wage payments fall under the flat rate withholding rule (the 25% for Federal, some States have similar rules for State withholding). This is not taxes, this is withholding. Withholding is money the employer takes from your salary and forwards to the IRS on the account of your tax liability, but it is not in itself your tax liability. When you do your annual tax return, you'll calculate the actual tax you were supposed to pay, and the difference between what was withheld and your actual tax will be refunded to you (or owed by you, if not enough was withheld). You can control the regular pay withholding using W4 form.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "735288ea721f87fe49b5c1098226c735", "text": "The finance team from your company should be able to advise you. From what I understand you are Indian Citizen for Tax purposes. Any income you receive globally is taxable in India. In this specific case you are still having a Employee relationship with your employer and as such the place of work does not matter. You are still liable to pay tax in India on the salary. If you are out of India for more than 182 days, you can be considered as Non-Resident from tax point of view. However this clause would not be of any benefit to you as are having a Employee / Employer relationship and being paid in India. Edit: This is only about the India portion of taxes. There maybe a UK protion of it as well, plus legally can you work and your type of Visa in UK may have a bearing on the answer", "title": "" }, { "docid": "305d0bb481877f331240bc5ec2e0572e", "text": "I love the flat rate VAT scheme. It's where you pay a percentage based on your industry. An example might be Computer repair services, where you'll pay 10.5% of your total revenue to the HMRC. But you'll be invoicing for VAT at 20% still. Would definitely recommend registering for it since you're expecting to cross the threshold anyway. And like DumbCoder said, you also get a first year discount of 1%, so in the example above, you'd end up paying 9.5% VAT on your turnover. I personally found it a pain to invoice without VAT (my clients expected it), so registering made sense regardless of the fact I was over threshold. The tricky bit is keeping under the £150k turnover so you stay eligible for the flat rate. It does get more complex otherwise.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
061c0dc2a613e931658f0fd7d66b3abe	Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate]	[ { "docid": "85e79ba38e7a9b761ad1d0665011ddf6", "text": "It has properties of both. Tax authorities will eventually give their opinion on this. Through its properties of finite quantity, fungibility, and resistance to forgery/duplication, it acts as a commodity. It can be sent directly between any two parties anywhere on Earth, without regard for the quantity transacted or physical distance, to act as a currency. By the way, establishing trust in a trust-free environment through cryptographic proof-of-work is a remarkable invention. Sending economic value, cheaply and securely, around the world in minutes, not days/weeks, is a remarkable invention. This is where the value comes from.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79add24a8545fda941b3158fea0c6d65", "text": "\"Its neither. Its a scam. there's no value underlying it, and it has proven to be the most speculative and untrustworthy investment there is. The scam works like a pyramid scam, so the more people come later on the more people who came in earlier on gain, so that is why you see so much hype around it encouraged and fueled by those early adopters who'll cash out at your expense. Imagine people who jumped on the bandwagon when each coin was worth a mere fraction of a dollar - they want you to \"\"invest\"\" at the current price of hundreds of dollars per unit so that they could cash out. You'd be better off with tulips, really. (And don't be discouraged by the downvotes on this answer, of course those scamers will try to shut me down. That will just prove the point.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e6d821a8993439b77890a01220e2930", "text": "I would classify Bitcoin as a hybrid. Currency : It is accepted by e-businesses as a form of payment Commodity : Chart illustrating the volatility and speculative nature of Bitcoin", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4f64ef46bb0260c8b78aaf58038bcb06", "text": "Mining is income at the value at time of earning, I would use an index like XBX to determine price. Asset appreciation is capital gains. These aspects of crypto-assets are not a gray area in the US financial sector, and have been addressed for almost half a decade now.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b6e0840c6ca3acfeab6d19c999c5c21", "text": "\"A perfectly-implemented fiat currency, printed and ordained by a perfectly omniscient, perfectly competent, and perfectly benevolent central bank (let's call it God money\"\"), is the ideal. \"\" Guess I had to come out of the woodwork here. Sounds like you just described bitcoin. :) Plus it is nice because it is much cheaper and easier to digitally transfer than heavy metal. Since bitcoin has a very finite supply, and probably upsets Keynesian economics, I could see an alt-coin that would have an automatic calculation built in to create more money based on inflation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41d1adf0e83406848f9a4b39a7f698c4", "text": ">$1,000 worth of electricity to generate The cost of Bitcoin always tracks the price of Bitcoin. There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin available to be mined every day. The cost to mine bitcoin rises because of competition (they increase the difficulty of the problems to maintain a fixed supply of Bitcoin). The electricity cost to mine Bitcoin is directly related to the amount of miners, which is directly related to the current cost of Bitcoin. More people want to mine when the price is high. If you really think about it, what you are really saying is that the intrinsic value of bitcoin is the value of Bitcoin. Its a completely circular mirage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95849db2b91d8a1f2973c952c3b7651a", "text": "Part of the value of bitcoin is indeed in speculation about its future. Will it be a store of value, like gold is? Will it be the medium of exchange for online and offline transactions? Will it be a representation and insurance for services (to be) rendered? It currently most resembles the first, but don't forget that bitcoin is still in its infancy. There's a lot of room for it to grow, and the technology behind it can grow.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb9d15f23da11e1c1e89effd602bfcec", "text": "Can someone please explain how this is not the definition of a Ponzi scheme? Bitcoin has a $100B market cap. This is a financial instrument with very little real value to either consumers or businesses. However, Bitcoin has experienced a meteoric rise in value as more and more people buy in. Is the bottom not going to fall out here?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9320140934a24403d41e217d806ab81a", "text": "I know I'm late to the party, but a couple of rebuttals as a recent bitcoin advocate. I may be out of place in this subreddit as I come from a primarily technological background, not a financial one. > Bittcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value, because it is not widely accepted as tender by most people. Bitcoin is not a currency yet, but because it does not have widespread adoption yet. Like other revolutionary technologies, there is an [inflection point](https://medium.com/@mcasey0827/speculative-bitcoin-adoption-price-theory-2eed48ecf7da) where adoption goes from hardly anyone to almost everyone very quickly. [Example chart](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0E4eb7wxHinGNdYQq.) >Even as a store of value, it's not very good. It's volatile and the fact that there is a limited supply of bitcoin is not a good thing. Sure, in the short run it results in speculation that drives up the price of a coin and makes it all the rage among gamblers but I don't think anyone can explain how, if used on a larger scale, wouldn't lead to deflation in the price of goods. To me, this is basic supply and demand, and it would in theory become less volatile and more stable following mass adoption. Bitcoin has virtually no inflation, and I agree that this could lead to the deflation of goods, but only insofar as that valuation is determined in bitcoin. For example, milk is still $2, but as the value of bitcoin fluctuates, I may pay .001 BTC or .0005 BTC for that milk. It's important to remember we're dealing with a digital asset in an increasingly more digitized world, a point-of-sale device like we use for credit cards could certainly tackle that conversion in the future. >Also, at the end of the day, fiat currencies are based on trust and accountability of the government. How does Bitcoin or any other online currency solve that problem? There's no accountability, and it effectively acts as as an anti-currency, fueled by mistrust in the establishment. This is the best part of bitcoin, understanding the incentives. If you follow that supply and demand logic, then it is in the best interest of everyone who uses bitcoin* that the bitcoin software and the system itself be reliable and secure. The software is open source so anyone can see how it works and where its flaws and weaknesses are - and it is still standing strong after 8 years. The biggest weakness so far has been in software updates and changes to the core protocol. Without any central structure (i.e. accountability) it can be slow to reach a democratic consensus is such a way that doesn't split the blockchain or fracture the network. This has led to some of the recent extreme volatility. Bitcoin (and some other cryptocurrencies) have tremendous potential to disrupt existing financial institutions. The private blockchains peddled by banks are at this point [just databases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo&index=2&list=LL7mI3EyFeE83Ac-VtxNUhxA). At some point, these institutions will realize that they can't create their own Facebook, they need to find ways to become part of the new Facebook market.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f39d6047af5c4f9ebfafb0c99c198907", "text": "\"Bittcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value, because it is not widely accepted as tender by most people. Even as a store of value, it's not very good. It's volatile and the fact that there is a limited supply of bitcoin is not a good thing. Sure, in the short run it results in speculation that drives up the price of a coin and makes it all the rage among gamblers but I don't think anyone can explain how, if used on a larger scale, wouldn't lead to deflation in the price of goods. Also, at the end of the day, fiat currencies are based on trust and accountability of the government. How does Bitcoin or any other online currency solve that problem? There's no accountability, and it effectively acts as as an anti-currency, fueled by mistrust in the establishment. What do you mean, \"\"cryptocurrencies are growing hundreds of times faster than the market as a whole\"\"?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9a36dad5328565bc5ddca2e2b3bcdb6", "text": "\"The relative value of Gold (or any other commodity) as measured against any given currency (such as the USD), is not a constant function either. If you have inflationary pressure, the \"\"value\"\" of an ounce of gold (or barrel of oil, etc) may \"\"double\"\", but it's really because the underlying comparator has lost \"\"half\"\" its value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5e06ae5797a21d78982d8329f0a8175", "text": "\"A good reference to what encompasses \"\"securities\"\" are detailed in the Securities Act of 1933, which was enacted by the United States federal government. One main exception, which I would still consider securities for your purposes, would be \"\"commercial paper\"\". These are exempt from the securities act because they mature in 270 days of less, but they function much like bonds or promissory notes Therefore though, it would not encompass currencies and commodities. It really comes down to the structure of the agreement for transferring or holding the particular kind of underlying asset.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ab8e2c4f62e90b429e52348b090e65d3", "text": "\"First of all, metals are commodities. So if you're phrasing that as metals and/or commodities, then that's poorly worded. If you're phrasing that as \"\"metal commodity reports\"\" then say as such. Second, and more importantly: what commodities? Power is very different than coffee. Different places specialize in different things, all banks are good in some and weak in others. There's no generic \"\"commodity\"\" market but rather a huge range of specifically different products traded in the future.You learn more than a small fraction of this universe so pick one or two specific products from the macro buckets (i.e. energy, grains, metals) and focus on those.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0020f28be04149c2e9ad46da4ab8aaa7", "text": "This isn't an article discussing the business aspects of bitcoin. It's a comment on the price movement of bitcoin. Do we regularly comment about the gyrations of commodities and currencies on this thread? I tend to find talk of those things on subs like /r/finance and /r/investing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "379efa836cc7a4c7502ea05e87ecfafc", "text": "Currencies don't have intrinsic value. Just because you have to pay taxes in USD does not mean it has intrinsic value. The government could theoretically switch currency every second, not that that will ever happen. But yes the USD is supported by the US government and that's like a safety net for the value of the USD. Bitcoin doesn't have a government accepting bitcoin in taxes (except maybe liberland or something) so BTC doesn't have that safenet. But with such a liquid market and millions of buyorders bitcoin doesn't really need a safenet. There will always be demand. I prefer a scarce currency with growing demand than an inflationary currency backed by a corrupt government that loses value over time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2cac70eed45ceaa9d24925004cef85f", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/07/strategist-tom-lee-weighs-sees-bitcoin-going-as-high-as-55000.html) reduced by 80%. (I'm a bot) *** > The strategist&#039;s case for bitcoin is a basic supply-and-demand story, similar to the argument other proponents of bitcoin use when playing up its future as &quot;Digital gold.\"\" > While the lack of regulation is what has attracted many buyers, many consider bitcoin the &quot;Wild West.&quot; Three years ago, Mt. Gox, the largest bitcoin exchange then, filed for bankruptcy and said it lost 750,000 of its users bitcoins and 100,000 of the exchange&#039;s own. > Lee acknowledged bitcoin&#039;s volatility in his report, noting that annualized bitcoin volatility is 75 percent, &quot;Substantially higher than gold&#039;s 10%. But as noted, gold&#039;s volatility approached 90% from 1971 to 1980 as the U.S. abandoned the gold standard - hence, we expect this to improve over time.\"\" * [Extended Summary*](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6lved5/first_major_wall_street_strategist_weighs_in_on/) \| [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~161687 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: bitcoin^#1 Lee^#2 currency^#3 digital^#4 gold^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51a6ca6a32a72b6063be3ac0e7c42d47", "text": "\"Alright, so this is all out of the way. As a further note, I have a degree in computer science so I'm not oblivious to the technical aspects of bitcoin. I reject the idea that banning bitcoin is akin to banning the internet - in fact, I reject the notion that bitcoin is anywhere as revolutionary as \"\"the internet\"\" was (which itself, as a construct, is far older than most people let on). I've always acknowledged that there are many innovative technical aspects to bitcoin which are likely to find their way into our current system of money and transactions. The reality, however, goes back to my original contentions - that bitcoin is difficult (if not nearly impossible) to track, and thus serves as a black-market vehicle for those who wish to transact outside the power of the government. Whether or not you see this as \"\"good\"\" or \"\"bad\"\" doesn't matter; \"\"the government\"\" within any defined national border is the plenary power - period - and thus (for lack of a better phrase) \"\"resistance is mostly futile.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98327dbb386c1a738abe97f050ef7ca7", "text": "There are forums online (Wall Street Oasis, Poets and Quants) that cover what you need to know for a Wall Street interview. That's the most efficient way. But it's also important to research the company that you're interviewing for. Do they invest in equity or debt? Are they in a specialized industry (e.g., real estate, oil & gas)? A model for a equity research firm is going to have different priorities from a LBO model for a private equity firm or a cash flow model for a bank/lending company.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
4172f2bea545dd229dcc9a69866d0abf	S-Corp and distributions	[ { "docid": "49b16b6e3edc3ebf47f9e78c863c098a", "text": "Does the corporation need the money for its ongoing business? If so, don't transfer it. If not, feel free. This decision has nothing to do with whether the corporation made money in any particular year.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "2948cd0e63af02de801485656a7996bc", "text": "\"Tax US corporate \"\"persons (citizens)\"\" under the same regime as US human persons/citizens, i.e., file/pay taxes on all income earned annually with deductions for foreign taxes paid. Problem solved for both shareholders and governments. [US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad - Filing Requirements](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-filing-requirements) >If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien living or traveling outside the United States, you generally are required to file income tax returns, estate tax returns, and gift tax returns and pay estimated tax in the same way as those residing in the United States. Thing is, we know solving this isn't the point. It is to misdirect and talk about everything, but the actual issues, i.e., the discrepancy between tax regimes applied to persons and the massive inequality it creates in tax responsibility. Because that would lead to the simple solutions that the populace need/crave. My guess is most US human persons would LOVE to pay taxes only on what was left AFTER they covered their expenses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8fded8029447d6371ae0dc5bccd7432", "text": "Withdrawals from a traditional 401(k) plan are always treated as cash income and the taxable portion is taxed at ordinary income tax rates, even if the money was held in stocks within the 401(k) plan and the amount withdrawn is equal to whatever capital gains you made by selling the stock within the 401(k) plan. If your plan permits you to take the distribution as stock shares (transferred to your taxable brokerage account), then, for tax purposes, it is treated as if you took a distribution of cash equal to the market price of the shares as of the day of the distribution and promptly bought the same number of shares in your brokerage account. And yes, if the 401(k) plan assets in your ex-employer's plan consists solely of pretax contributions and the earnings thereon, then the entire distribution is ordinary taxable income regardless of whether you sold the stock within the 401(k) plan or took a distribution of stock from the plan and promptly (or after a few days) sold it. The capital gains or losses (if any) from such a sale are, of course, outside the 401(k) plan and taxable accordingly. Finally, the 10% penalty for premature withdrawal from a traditional 401(k) will also apply if you are not 59.5 years of age or older (or maybe 55 since you are separated from service), and it will be computed on the entire distribution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f4303dc4fdce909f8af8b9e3d983cc1f", "text": "Because the distribution date was APR 21, 2011, THAT should be the correct date for ascertainng the stock prices of the GM stock and warrants. The subsequent distributions after April should also be allocated in accordance with their distribution dates, with tax basis being reduced from the original APR 21st date's allocations, and reallocated to those subsequent distributions, taking into account any interim sales you might have made.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57390fc75c7c0b3a47269f7ea8e90c07", "text": "\"If you have an S-Corp with several shareholders - you probably also have a tax adviser who suggested using S-Corp to begin with. You're probably best off asking that adviser about this issue. If you decided to use S-Corp for multiple shareholders without a professional guiding you, you should probably start looking for such a professional, or you may get yourself into trouble. That said, and reminding you that: 1. Free advice on the Internet is worth exactly what you paid for it, and 2. I'm not a tax professional or tax adviser, you should talk to a EA/CPA licensed in your state, here's this: Generally S-Corps are disregarded entities for tax purposes and their income flows to their shareholders individual tax returns through K-1 forms distributed by the S-Corp yearly. The shareholders don't have to actually withdraw the profits, but if not withdrawing - they're added to their cost bases in the shares. I'm guessing your corp doesn't distribute the net income, but keeps it on the corporate account, only distributing enough to cover the shareholders' taxes on their respective income portion. In this case - the amount not distributed is added to their basis, the amount distributed has already been taxed through K-1. If the corporation distributes more than the shareholder's portion of net income, then there can be several different choices, depending on the circumstances: The extra distribution will be treated as salary to the shareholder and a deduction to the corporation (i.e.: increasing the net income for the rest of the shareholders). The extra distribution will be treated as return of investment, reducing that shareholder's basis in the shares, but not affecting the other shareholders. If the basis is 0 then it is treated as income to the shareholder and taxed at ordinary rates. The extra distribution will be treated as \"\"buy-back\"\" - reducing that shareholder's ownership stake in the company and reallocating the \"\"bought-back\"\" portion among the rest of the shareholders. In this case it is treated as a sale of stock, and the gain is calculated as with any other stock sale, including short-term vs. long-term taxation (there's also Sec. 1244 that can come in handy here). The extra distribution will be treated as dividend. This is very rare for S-Corp, but can happen if it was a C-Corp before. In that case it will be taxed as dividends. Note that options #2, #3 and #4 subject the shareholder to the NIIT, while option #1 subjects the shareholder to FICA/Self Employment tax (and subjects the company to payroll taxes). There might be other options. Your licensed tax adviser will go with you through all the facts and circumstances and will suggest the best way to proceed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71d5097054e25bcf177dfa43b19c737c", "text": "Ok, so here's the strategy I decided to go with in the meantime: Allocate E1 to A_corp and E3 to A_ira. Here are my considerations which I assume at this stage to be right:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2af033af3f8b981e4e7147ebc864cc28", "text": "\"You probably don't need S-Corp. There's no difference between what you can deduct on your Schedule C and what you can deduct on 1120S, it will just cost you more money. Since you're gambling yourself, you don't need to worry about liability - but if you do, you should probably go LLC route, much cheaper and simpler. The \"\"reasonable salary\"\" trick to avoid FICA won't work. Don't even try. Schedule C for professional gamblers is a very accepted thing, nothing extraordinary about it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "789c6ee5519a98310ca80232d15d7573", "text": "\"S-Corp is a corporation. I.e.: you add a \"\"Inc.\"\" or \"\"Corp.\"\" to the name or something of that kind. \"\"S\"\" denotes a specific tax treatment which may change during the lifetime of the corporation. It doesn't refer to a legal status.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da9ecf6147e0082b20047381cdb41141", "text": "\"There are no dividends from S-Corp. There are distributions. Big difference. S-Corps fill form 1120S and schedule K-1 per shareholder. In the schedule all the income of your S-Corp will be assigned to various categories that you will later copy to your personal tax return as your personal income. It is not dividend income. The reason people prefer to take distributions from their S-Corps instead of salary is because you don't pay SE taxes on the distributions. That is also the reason why the IRS forces you to pay yourself a reasonable salary. But the tax rate on the income, all of it, is your regular income tax rate, unless the S-Corp income is categorized in a preferred category. The fact that its an S-Corp income doesn't, by itself, allow any preferential treatment. If you're learning the stuff as you go - you should probably get in touch with a tax professional to advise you. All the S-Corp income must be distributed. Its not a matter of \"\"avoiding paying the tax\"\", its the matter of \"\"you must do it\"\". Not a choice. My answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer (circ 230 disclaimer).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88ec8414da1e0a42a4da03f9edf304eb", "text": "\"For MCD, the 47¢ is a regular dividend on preferred stock (see SEC filing here). Common stock holders are not eligible for this amount, so you need to exclude this amount. For KMB, there was a spin-off of Halyard Health. From their IR page on the spin-off: Kimberly-Clark will distribute one share of Halyard common stock for every eight shares of Kimberly-Clark common stock you own as of the close of business on the record date. The deal closed on 2014-11-03. At the time HYH was worth $37.97 per share, so with a 1:8 ratio this is worth about $4.75. Assuming you were able to sell your HYH shares at this price, the \"\"dividend\"\" in the data is something you want to keep. With all the different types of corporate actions, this data is extremely hard to keep clean. It looks like the Quandl source is lacking here, so you may need to consider looking at other vendors.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e23eda4b8b64a62749c8eb12447ab724", "text": "\"Generally if you're a sole S-Corp employee - it is hard to explain how the S-Corp earned more money than your work is worth. So it is reasonable that all the S-Corp profits would be pouring into your salary. Especially when the amounts are below the FICA SS limits when separating salary and distributions are a clear sign of FICA tax evasion. So while it is hard to say if you're going to be subject to audit, my bet is that if you are - the IRS will claim that you underpaid yourself. One of the more recent cases dealing with this issue is Watson v Commissioner. In this case, Watson (through his S-Corp which he solely owned) received distributions from a company in the amounts of ~400K. He drew 24K as salary, and the rest as distributions. The IRS forced re-characterizing distributions into salary up to 93K (the then-SS portion of the FICA limit), and the courts affirmed. Worth noting, that Watson didn't do all the work himself, and that was the reason that some of the income was allowed to be considered distribution. That wouldn't hold in a case where the sole shareholder was the only revenue producer, and that is exactly my point. I feel that it is important to add another paragraph about Nolo, newspaper articles, and charlatans on the Internet. YOU CANNOT RELY ON THEM. You cannot defend your position against IRS by saying \"\"But the article on Nolo said I can not pay SE taxes on my earnings!\"\", you cannot say \"\"Some guy called littleadv lost an argument with some other guy called Ben Miller because Ben Miller was saying what everyone wants to hear\"\", and you can definitely not say \"\"But I don't want to pay taxes!\"\". There's law, there are legal precedents. When some guy on the Internet tells you exactly what you want to hear - beware. Many times when it is too good to be true - it is in fact not true. Many these articles are written by people who are interested in clients/business. By the time you get to them - you're already in deep trouble and will pay them to fix it. They don't care that their own \"\"advice\"\" got you into that trouble, because it is always written in generic enough terms that they can say \"\"Oh, but it doesn't apply to your specific situation\"\". That's the main problem with these free advice - they are worth exactly what you paid for them. When you actually pay your CPA/Attorney - they'll have to take responsibility over their advice. Then suddenly they become cautious. Suddenly they start mentioning precedents and rulings telling you to not do things. Or not, and try and play the audit roulette, but these types are long gone when you get caught.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ee5f967f040a013fe5a5188ca5f7d40", "text": "Capital gain distribution is not capital gain on sale of stock. If you have stock sales (Schedule D) you should be filing 1040, not 1040A. Capital gain distributions are distributions from mutual funds/ETFs that are attributed to capital gains of the funds (you may not have actually received the distribution, but you still may have gain attributed to you). It is reported on 1099-DIV, and if it is 0 - then you don't have any. If you sold a stock, your broker should have given you 1099-B (which is not the same as 1099-DIV, but may be consolidated by your broker into one large PDF and not provided separately). On 1099-B the sales proceeds are recorded, and if you purchased the stock after 2011 - the cost basis is also recorded. The difference between the proceeds and the cost basis is your gain (or loss, if it is negative). Fees are added to cost basis.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4bf9c168d813c28cba490998fef20d5e", "text": "\"Be careful of the other answers here. Many are wrong or partially wrong. The question implies that you knew this, but for everyone else's benefit, you can keep you LLC organization and still elect to be treated as a S-Corp by the IRS just for tax purposes. You do this by filing Form 2553 with the IRS. (You can also, by the way, elect to be taxed as a \"\"regular\"\" C-Corp if you want, although that's probably not advantageous. See Form 8832.) The advantage of electing to be treated as an S-Corp is that income beyond what constitutes a \"\"reasonable salary\"\" are not subject to social security and medicare taxes as they would when paid was wages or counted as self-employment income on Schedule C. Depending on what you need to pay yourself to meet the \"\"reasonable salary\"\" test, your overall income, and other factors about your business, this could result in tax savings. Contrary to other answers here, making this election will not force you to create a board of directors. You are still an LLC for all purposes except taxes, so whatever requirements you had in organization and governance at the state level will not change. You will have to file a \"\"corporate\"\" tax return on Form 1120S (and likely some corresponding state tax form), so that is additional paperwork, but this \"\"corporate\"\" return does not mean the S-Corp pays taxes itself. With a couple of exceptions, the S-Corp pays no taxes directly (and therefore does not pay at the corporate tax rate). Instead the S-Corp apportions its income, expenses, and deductions to the owner(s) on Schedule K. The owners get their portion reported from the S-Corp on Schedule K1 and then include that on their personal Form 1040 to pay tax at their personal rate. In addition to filing Form 1120S, you will have to handle payroll taxes, which will create some additional administrative work and/or cost. Using a payroll service for this will likely be your best option and not terribly expensive. You've also got the issue of determining your reasonable salary within the rules, which is the subject of other questions on this site and other IRS guidance.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b673df4129fb2dab004b655c4a601aa", "text": "No. As a rule, the dividends you see in the distribution table are what you'll receive before paying any taxes. Tax rates differ between qualified and unqualified/ordinary dividends, so the distribution can't include taxes because tax rates may differ between investors. In my case I hold it in an Israeli account but the tax treaty between our countries still specifies 25% withheld tax This is another example of why tax rates differ between investors. If I hold SPY too, my tax rate will be very different because I don't hold it in an account like yours, so the listed dividend couldn't include taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe9092bd89d9397b81899948937ce3bc", "text": "Shareholder's Equity consists of two main things: The initial capitalization of the company (when the shares were first sold, plus extra share issues) and retained earnings, which is the amount of money the company has made over and above capitalization, which has not been re-distributed back to shareholders. So yes, it is the firm's total equity financing-- the initial capitalization is the equity that was put into the company when it was founded plus subsequent increases in equity due to share issues, and retained earnings is the increase in equity that has occurred since then which has not yet been re-distributed to shareholders (though it belongs to them, as the residual claimants). Both accounts are credited when they increase, because they represent an increase in cash, that is debited, so in order to make credits = debits they must be credits. (It doesn't mean that the company has that much cash on hand, as the cash will likely be re-invested). Shareholder's Equity is neither an asset nor a liability: it is used to purchase assets and to reduce liabilities, and is simply a measure of assets minus liabilities that is necessary to make the accounting equation balance: Since the book value of stocks doesn't change that often (because it represents the price the company sold it for, not the current value on the stock market, and would therefore only change when there were new share issues), almost all changes in total assets or in total liabilities are reflected in Retained Earnings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d1b6d0e815236cc2d30689a315ddbe6", "text": "You report what you contributed (sum of monthly investments that you made) to the bond fund. Distributions are the earnings in the account that stay in the account and have no tax consequences (in particular, you don't report them as income on your tax returns) until you withdraw the money later.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
845ab8934380957a988f8a0aae7842aa	When filing a US 1065 as a General Partnership, do we combine our expenditures for a home office?	[ { "docid": "ce475229839fec15efb664cd7ad7ac50", "text": "Your home doesn't belong to the partnership, it belongs to you. So you can (if qualified) deduct home office usage as a business expense on your individual tax return. Same goes to your partner. Similarly any other unreimbursed expense.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "122f3058c852e263c160735fb876b210", "text": "No. The equipment costs are not necessarily a direct expense. Depending on the time of purchase and type of the expenditure you may need to capitalize it and depreciate it over time. For example, if you buy a computer - you'll have to depreciate it over 5 years. Some expenditures can be expensed under Section 179 rules, but there are certain conditions to be made, including business revenue. So if your business revenue is $3K - your Sec. 179 deduction is limited to $3K even if more purchases can qualify. Not every purchase qualifies for Sec. 179 treatment, and not all the State tax rules conform to the Federal treatment. Get a professional advice from a CPA/EA licensed in your State.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fd632a34c4689f4fcdbfb85bb386537", "text": "You have to file and issue each one of them a 1099 if you are paying them $600 or more for the year. Because you need to issue a 1099 to them (so they can file their own taxes), I don't think there's a way that you could just combine all of them. Additionally, you may want to make sure that you are properly classifying these people as contractors in case they should be employees.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2226740c96f085d39471c7c914edee3f", "text": "If you are paid by foreigners then it is quite possible they don't file anything with the IRS. All of this income you are required to report as business income on schedule C. There are opportunities on schedule C to deduct expenses like your health insurance, travel, telephone calls, capital expenses like a new computer, etc... You will be charged both the employees and employers share of social security/medicare, around ~17% or so, and that will be added onto your 1040. You may still need a local business license to do the work locally, and may require a home business permit in some cities. In some places, cities subscribe to data services based on your IRS tax return.... and will find out a year or two later that someone is running an unlicensed business. This could result in a fine, or perhaps just a nice letter from the city attorneys office that it would be a good time to get the right licenses. Generally, tax treaties exist to avoid or limit double taxation. For instance, if you travel to Norway to give a report and are paid during this time, the treaty would explain whether that is taxable in Norway. You can usually get a credit for taxes paid to foreign countries against your US taxes, which helps avoid paying double taxes in the USA. If you were to go live in Norway for more than a year, the first $80,000/year or so is completely wiped off your US income. This does NOT apply if you live in the USA and are paid from Norway. If you have a bank account overseas with more than $10,000 of value in it at any time during the year, you owe the US Government a FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR). This is pretty important, there are some large fines for not doing it. It could occur if you needed an account to get paid in Norway and then send the money here... If the Norwegian company wires the money to you from their account or sends a check in US$, and you don't have a foreign bank account, then this would not apply.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28485e0d5f2e225bab5d6de3d6a31d45", "text": "Definitely get a lawyer to write up all the details of the partnership in a formal agreement. If your ex does not want to do this, that is a bad sign. You both need to be clear about expectations and responsibilities in this partnership, and define an exit strategy in the case one of you wants out. This is the most fair to both parties. Generally, what is common is that property is split cleanly when the relationship ends. I would strongly recommend you both work towards a clean split with no joint property ownership. How this looks depends on your unique situation. To address your questions 2 and 3: You have two roles here - tenant and owner. As a 50% owner, you are running a business with a partner. That business will have assets (home), income, expenses, and profit. You basically need to run this partnership as a simple business. All the rent income (your rent and the other tenant's) should go into a separate account. The mortgage and all other housing expenses are then paid from only this account. Any excess is then profit that may be split 50/50. All expenses should be agreed upon by both of you, either by contract or by direct communication. You should see a financial professional to make sure accounting and taxes are set up properly. Under this system, your ex could do work on the house and be paid from the business income. However, they are responsible to you to provide an estimate and scope of work, just like any other contractor. If you as a joint owner agree to his price, he then could be paid out of the business income. This reduces the business cash flow for the year accordingly. You can probably see how this can get very complicated very fast. There is really no right or wrong answer on what both of you decide is fair and best. For the sake of simplicity and the least chance of a disaster, the usual and recommended action is to cleanly split all property. Good Luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "839decb72a043b2574f664f4caef55df", "text": "How is the business organized? If as a General Partnership or LLC that reports as a partnership, you will be getting distributed to you each year your % ownership of the earnings or loss. But note, this is a paperwork transfer on the form K-1, which must then carryover to your tax return, it does not require the transfer of cash to you. If organized as an S-Corp, you should be holding shares of the company that you may sell back to the S-Corp, generally as outlined in the original articles of incorporation. The annual 'dividend' (earnings remaining after all expenses are paid) should be distributed to you in proportion to the shares you hold. If a C-Corp and there is only one class of stock that you also hold a percentage of, the only 'profits' that must be distributed proportionally to you are declared dividends by the board of directors. Most family run business are loosely formed with not much attention paid to the details of partnership agreements or articles of incorporation, and so don't handle family ownership disputes very well. From my experience, trying to find an amicable settlement is the best...and least expensive....approach to separation from the business. But if this can't be done or there is a sizable value to the business, you may have to get your own legal counsel.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c6506ac79cb6824fd2b472b524cba0f", "text": "Since you both are members of the LLC - it is not a single-member LLC, thus you have to file the tax return on behalf of the LLC (I'm guessing you didn't elect corporate treatment, so you would be filing 1065, which is the default). You need to file form 4868 on behalf of yourselves as individuals, and form 7004 on behalf of the LLC as the partnership. Since the LLC is disregarded (unless you explicitly chose it not to be, which seems not to be the case) the taxes will in fact flow to your individual return(s), but the LLC will have to file the informational return on form 1065 and distribute K-1 forms to each of you. So you wouldn't pay additional estimated taxes with the extension, as you don't pay any taxes with the form 1065 itself. If you need a help understanding all that and filling the forms - do talk to a professional (EA or CPA licensed in your state). Also, reconsider not sending any payment. I suggest sending $1 with the extension form even if you expect a refund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8901ebcbe588b9b70a36bb5f84f71a5", "text": "\"You're a partnership. You should ask the money to be paid to the partnership. You'll have to fill partnership income tax return (form 1065) and each of you will get a K-1 schedule with your own personal portion of the income. For example, you're Adam, Ben and Clara. You work together on a project and are being paid. You get a check for $300 issued to \"\"Adam, Ben and Clara, DBA ABC Partnership\"\". You don't have to have a DBA, it just makes it easier to show you as a single entity. You then deposit the check to an account you set up for your partnership, and from that account you transfer $100 to each of you. Year end, you file form 1065, showing $300 income, and attach K-1 for each of the partners showing $100 income. That $100 income will flow to your individual tax returns. The overhead here is setting up a partnership account, potentially making a DBA, and filing the extra tax return. That's the proper way to do it, especially if it is something you're going to do regularly. For a one-time thing, one of you can get paid, report it as income on his/her Schedule C, and issue 1099 to the rest of you for your parts, and deduct the amount as his/her expense. Here, the overhead is Schedule C for each of you (instead of Schedule E if handling it as a partnership), extra 1099 forms (instead of 1065 and K-1s), and a risk of one partner defrauding the others (depends on how much you trust each other). With proper documentation, each of these is equally legal, and tax-wise the costs are the same (i.e.: either way you pay the same taxes). With partnership the overhead is a bit more expensive (DBA+1065 extra cost), but in the long term it will make your life easier if you do this kind of thing regularly. You may want to consider setting up your partnership as a LLC/LLP (depending on what your State allows), but that would require State paperwork and potentially more fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b9e65e73e1d2ee9ac596a33ff6295d8", "text": "Since from the question it seems that you're talking about the US taxation, I'll assume that. You can definitely continue filing jointly. Being members of a partnership has no bearing on how you file your own tax return. The partnership will distribute K-1 to each of you separately, but you'll report both of them on the same return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0032f41609f12a0c1aab22a62a5e196", "text": "\"Why not start a third account, the \"\"house\"\" account? However you decide to fund it, equally or in proportion to income, you both chip in, and the payments for all joint expenses come from there. Rent, utilities, food, phone, cable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "067252b5ff9ca4e62bf6ff506f4bd7cb", "text": "The general rule is: Generally, in order to claim a business deduction for your home, you must use part of your home exclusively and regularly: Exclusively seems to be the toughest standard and I do not know exactly how strict the IRS's interpretation is. Working in your living room where you regularly watch TV and have people over on the weekends would seem to fail that test. A separate room with your computer in it would pass it. If it was your only computer and you regularly played online games with it, that would seem to be a grey area. The IRA booklet covering this area is here http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p587.pdf I know people that have rented rooms in other places or made use of rental offices for this purpose.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32637ccc9962c2adcab62d05df912a25", "text": "The short answer is you are not required to. The longer answer depends on whether you are referring to your organization as a sole proprietorship in your state, or for federal taxation. For federal tax purposes, I would suggest filing each side job as a separate Sch C though. The IRS uses the information you provide about your sole proprietorship to determine whether or not your categorization of expenses makes sense for the type of business you are. This information is used by the IRS to help them determine who to audit. So, if you are a service based business, but you are reporting cost of goods sold, you are likely to be audited.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9a15d4ecc758b477a3b68fb24dd21a4", "text": "\"You can hire a good CPA for a really low price. They can advise you on how to do exactly what you said and many other aspects of your business. Mine does this as a courtesy with the filing of my taxes. And the filing of my taxes is not all that much. It is great value for the money. Recently I had to make a decision that is a potential audit situation and can go badly if not properly documented. It was not hard to document (with the CPA's help), but now that it is so I don't lose mental energy on if I am going to get \"\"caught\"\" by the IRS. Let them come, I have the necessary documentation. Beyond the IRS, I really like the documentation that you are trying to put behind this loan. Having this in writing helps smooth this potentially bad situation between you and the BIL. I would go above and beyond writing conditions and contingencies down in order to keep this relationship happy. With these kinds of things, cover the applicable 5 \"\"Ds\"\" of partnership agreements: However, I would add another: Boom. What happens if your business takes off? Perhaps there should be a clause to retire the loan prior to you expanding beyond a certain level. Please understand I am not suggesting that any of these bad things are going to happen to you (except the Boom, I really hope that happens to you), but it is a way to communicate contingent actions if one of the risks of small business materializes. Having agreements ahead of time helps avoid crisis.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7455319de0de59050f5b59e53c48bbe1", "text": "\"I am not a lawyer nor a tax accountant, so if such chimes in here I'll gladly defer. But my understanding is: If you're romantically involved and living together you're considered a \"\"household\"\" and thus your finances are deemed shared for tax purposes. Any money your partner gives you toward paying the bills is not considered \"\"rent\"\" but \"\"her contribution to household expenses\"\". (I don't know the genders but I'll call your partner \"\"her\"\" for convenience.) This is not income and is not taxed. On the off chance that the IRS actually investigated your arrangement, don't call any money she gives you \"\"rent\"\": call it \"\"her contribution to living expenses\"\". If you were two (or more) random people sharing a condo purely for economic reasons, i.e. you are not a family in any sense but each of you would have trouble affording a place on your own, it's common for all the room mates to share the rent or mortgage, utilities, etc, but for one person to collect all the money and write one check to the landlord, etc. Tax law does not see this as the person who writes the check collecting rent from the others, it's just a book-keeping convenience, and so there is no taxable transaction. (Of course the landlord owes taxes on the rental income, but that's not your problem.) In that case it likely would be different if one person outright owned the place and really was charging the others rent. But then he could claim deductions for all the expenses of maintaining it, including depreciation, so if it really was a case of room mates sharing expenses, the taxable income would likely be just about zero anyway. So short answer: If you really are a \"\"couple\"\", there are no taxable transactions here. If the IRS should actually question it, don't refer to it as \"\"collecting rent\"\" or any other words that imply this is a business arrangement. Describe it as a couple sharing expenses. (People sometimes have created tax problems for themselves by their choice of words in an audit.) But the chance that you would ever be audited over something like this is probably remote. I suppose that if at some point you break up, but you continue to live together for financial reasons (or whatever reasons), that could transform this into a business relationship and that would change my answer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d86ebab266bf0a5d9f55be7a5222389", "text": "I am assuming this is USA. While it is a bit of a pain, you are best off to have separate accounts for your business and personal. This way, if it comes to audit, you hand the IRS statements for your business account(s) and they match your return. As a further precaution I would have the card(s) you use for business expenses look different then the ones you use for personal so you don't mess another one up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc944b121bd06b9a75a12eae2177827d", "text": "It actually depends on the services provided. If you're renting through AirBnB, you're likely to provide much more services to the tenants than a traditional rental. It may raise it to a level when it is no longer a passive activity. See here, for starters: Providing substantial services. If you provide substantial services that are primarily for your tenant's convenience, such as regular cleaning, changing linen, or maid service, you report your rental income and expenses on Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business, or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040), Net Profit From Business. Use Form 1065, U.S. Return of Partnership Income, if your rental activity is a partnership (including a partnership with your spouse unless it is a qualified joint venture). Substantial services do not include the furnishing of heat and light, cleaning of public areas, trash collection, etc. For information, see Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business. Also, you may have to pay self-employment tax on your rental income using Schedule SE (Form 1040), Self-Employment Tax. For a discussion of “substantial services,” see Real Estate Rents in Publication 334, chapter 5", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
d7bd264b364d26af0addde05bf39811a	ACH processing time of day	[ { "docid": "9f62569be9b7c332637d6eeed835ddb2", "text": "It depends on the bank and network. Banks are to provide outgoing data at the certain time for the processing by the central clearing house (the Federal Reserve system, for ACH), which then distributes incoming data back to the banks. All this has to be done between the closing of the business day and the opening of the next one. If the transaction hasn't completed the full path during that time - it will wait at the position it was stuck at until the next cycle - next night. That's why sometimes ACH transactions take more than 1 day to complete (if, for example, multiple Fed banks have to be involved).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0d913bff1f30277e52a1968d3a25cb5", "text": "Each bank is different, so your question needs to be more specific. For instance, I believe Paypal and Chase settles at 7pm EST on business days. Bank of America at 5PM.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "1c4a0bcd6ec884cb4e38e9035f7e5ffb", "text": "I haven't used it in years, but look at GnuCash. From the site, one bullet point under Feature Highlights:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c36672b381c86276903fa1f9237200e", "text": "I was recently at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK and discussing exactly this. By January 2018 financial institutes will be legally required to time stamp all transactions (including high frequency trades) with a UTC time code. Today this is almost exclusively done using GPS satellite time and as the OP states - these can be spoofed but also are vulnerable to certain weather conditions. One of the many innovations of NPL in their recent diversification includes sending ‘time’ into the city by optical fibre which is ‘gold standard and cannot be tampered with’. Very interesting topic ( I thought )!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e48d0443319cd49f9c32c2c8fba88553", "text": "TARGET2 is a high value realtime settlement system across Europe and for this to be open on weekends would mean all the Banks including Central Banks in the Euro Zone work. Quite a few times to manage intra day liquidity, banks borrow from each other, hence there is an active monitering of the liquidity by Banks. The borrowing happens over phone and fax and the lending bank sending a high value transaction that credits the borrowing banks. These is the day to day job of treasury group [highly paid individuals] to manage liquidity. Now if on weekends the volume is less, it does not make sense to keep these people, the cost of supporting this for very insiginificant business gain is not driving to build such systems. On the other hand on retail transactions, say Cards [Debit / Credit], ATM, the value is not high and hence there is no treasury function involved and there is a huge need, everything is automated. So no issues.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa91763d3069df0a5cadff629dfd558f", "text": "\"The second part of your question is the easiest to answer, how much manual work is involved in settlement processes? Payment systems which handle low value (i.e. high volume) transactions work on the basis of net settlement. Each of the individual payments are netted across all of the participant banks, so that only one \"\"real\"\" payment is made by each bank. Some days banks will receive money, others they will pay money. This is arbitrary and depends on whether their outbound payments exceed their inbound payments for that day. The payment system will notify each Bank how much it owes/will receive for the day. The money is then transferred between all of the banks simultaneously by the payment system to remove the risk that some pay and others don't. If you're going to make or receive a very large payment, you're going to want to make certain that its correct. This means that if there's a discrepancy, you need operations people available to find out why its wrong. When dealing with this many payments, answering that question can be hard. Did we miss a payment? Is there a duplicate? Etc. The vast majority of payments will process without any human involvement, but to make the process work, you always need human brains there to fix problems that occur. This brings me to your first question. On every day that settlement happens, a bank will receive (or pay) a very large sum of money. As a settlement bank you must settle that money - the guarantee that every bank will pay is one of the main reasons these systems exist. For settlement to happen, every bank has to agree to participate, and be ready to verify the data on their side and deliver the funds from their account. So there is no particular reason that this doesn't happen on weekends and holidays other than history. But for any payment system to change, it would require the support of (at least) a majority of participants to pay staff to manage the settlement process on weekends. This would increase costs for banks, but the benefits would only really be for you and me (if at all). That means it's unlikely to happen unless a government forces the issue.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e0b6f7861785caa8fbf307787905843", "text": "\"We have a local bank that changed to a bill pay service. The money is held as \"\"processing\"\" when the check is supposed to be cut and shows as cleared on the date the check is supposed to be received. Because our business checking is with the same bank, we discovered recently that the although the check shows cleared from our account, the recipient has not received the paper check yet - and may not for 2-3 days. We discovered this because the payroll checks we write this way (to ourselves) never arrive on the due date but clear the business account. It appears to be a new way for banks to ride the \"\"float\"\" and draw interest on the money. It happens with every check processed through the bill pay system and not with electronic transfers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4ea222c46b78da5d98cec42d6f91562", "text": "I use XE.com for almost the same purpose. They have free transfer options, such as ACH withdrawals and deposits. I normally do a online bill payment through my international bank to XE, and have them deposit it in the US via ACH. It takes 1-3 business days, and there's no fee beyond their small percentage (about 1.25%) on top of the exchange rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fe5999d61e2c4421932f9a2e290acf0", "text": "When I place an order with Scottrade I also have to specify if I am wanting to trade outside of normal hours.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f67397e8aa4882f62733d4d80aaabdf3", "text": "They need to spread the work for all customers over the whole month, and they don't work on weekends. Combine the two, and the rule becomes clear - if months have minimum of N working days, 1/N of all customers gets set on each day. You seem to be on day 5: If the month starts with a Monday, the fifth working day is the 5. (Friday); if there is a Sat or Sun in between, it will be the 6th, and if there is both a Sat and a Sun in there, it will be the 7th. However, the statement itself is not very important at all. It is just the day where they print it on paper (or even only on a PDF). You can see your bank account activity every day 24/7 by checking online, and nothing keeps you from printing it on every 1st of the month if you want (or every day, or whenever you prefer).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7798a497f460a1874486ef14357ec956", "text": "There are banks and credit unions that don't charge fee for incoming wire transfer. You most likely won't get that from big brick and mortar banks like BofA, Citi but if you are doing it regularly, using another bank that offers it free would save you a lot. Since ACH are free, you can transfer money between those banks to your regular bank (e.g. BofA) for free. There would be delay involved in this process due to additional ACH. You could also use one these banks as your primary bank to avoid that delay. Credit unions are also generally fee friendly and many would offer free incoming wire transfer. However you are limited to what is available to you as all of them would have some membership criteria.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a6fc6409486bd64dced6e09bdc81cf5", "text": "From Chase FAQ it looks like this is a regular ACH transfer. ACH transactions can be reversed under certain conditions. I haven't been able to find some authoritative link on this, so I suggest this (thenest.com budgeting blog) instead: Allowed Reasons You can have ACH transactions reversed for one of three reasons under the rules: wrong money amount, wrong account or duplicated transactions. For example, if your mortgage bill is for $756.00, but your lender's website messes up and you're charged $856.00, the transaction is reversible it because it's the wrong dollar amount. If the website charges you $756.00 twice, the second duplicated transaction is reversible. Reversal Procedures You might have to bring a mistake to the originator's attention to get it fixed. Only the originator -- the person or company taking or sending money -- can ask for a reversal. For example, if you have a transaction for a wrong dollar amount from your lender's website, the originator is the lender. An originator is supposed to send the reversal within 24 hours of the error's discovery and within five banking days of the original transaction. When a reversal is required because of a wrong amount or wrong account, the originator must send a correcting entry with the right information. Bank's Responsibility A bank should honor an ACH reversal, even if it means debiting a customer's account again because of a correcting transaction. However, the bank doesn't have to debit your account if you closed it or the new transaction would overdraw it. Your bank does have to tell you if a correcting entry is going to take money out of your account, but the bank doesn't need your permission to do it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b256309a1cab2e6951e4eb89c9b56c33", "text": "8 am EDT happens when this comment is 5 hours and 51 minutes old. You can find the live countdown here: https://countle.com/424159rwH --- I'm a bot, if you want to send feedback, please comment below or send a PM.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d65931bcdd9257af1f8355851a61b1f3", "text": "A day is a long time and the rate is not the same all day. Some sources will report a close price that averages the bid and ask. Some sources will report a volume-weighted average. Some will report the last transaction price. Some will report a time-weighted average. Some will average the highest and lowest prices for the interval. Different marketplaces will also have slightly different prices because different traders are present at each marketplace. Usually, the documentation will explain what method they use and you can choose the source whose method makes the most sense for your application.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4059ea0037fe601d67bfb083947ecd6d", "text": "Shop around for a bank that offers lower/no fees for this operation and move your account there... or, yes, change where the direct deposit is routed... or move these accounts into a single bank so it's an internal transfer rather than ACH. Or ask the bank whether there is another way to arrange this which doesn't cost you money. (It costs me nothing to move money within my credit union, whether manually or on a scheduled basis. It costs me nothing to have them send funds to another entity from my checking account. Specific example: Pay comes into my savings account. On the 27th, an automatic transfer moves the cost of a mortgage payment from savings to checking. On the 30th, an automatic payment sends that to my mortgage in another bank. No fees on any of this, 100% reliable.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "585dcbe697a32ef9df12931509c5c79f", "text": "A couple ways, but its not a guarantee. You have to have special charts. Instead of each tick being 1 min, 5 min, or whatever, it is a set number of trades. Say 2000. Since retail investors only buy and sell in small amounts, there will be small volume per tick. An institutional investor, however, would have a much much higher trade lot size, even if using an algo. Thus, large volume spikes in such a chart would signal institutional activity over retail. Similarly, daily charts showing average trade size can help you pick out when institutional activity is highest, as they have much larger trade sizes. You could also learn how the algos work and look for evidence one is being used. ie every time price hits VWAP a large sell order goes through would indicate an institutional investor is selling, especially if it happens multiple times in a row.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f2d02333fab4076506ce124c981619d", "text": "If you're talking about just Theta, the amount of decay due to the passage of time (all else being equal), then theoretically, the time value is a continuous function, so it would decay throughout the day (although by the day of expiry the time value is very, very small). Which makes sense, since even with 15 minutes to go, there's still a 50/50 shot of an ATM option expiring in-the-money, so there should be some time value associated with that one-sided probability. The further away from ATM the option is, the smaller the time value will be, and will be virtually zero for options that are deep in- or out-of-the-money. If you're talking about total time value, then yes it will definitely change during the day, since the underlying components (volatility, underlying price, etc.) change more or less continuously.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
5b4a7108996e36619a5074cd47c2842e	In what cases can states tax non-residents?	[ { "docid": "9e54f8026b89f25711e7092dcbbaf3e1", "text": "From the Massachusetts Department of Revenue: 1st - Massachusetts Source Income That is Excluded Massachusetts gross income excludes certain items of income derived from sources within Massachusetts: non-business related interest, dividends and gains from the sale or exchange of intangibles, and qualified pension income. 2nd - Massachusetts Source Income That is Included: Massachusetts gross income includes items of income derived from sources within Massachusetts. This includes income: 3rd - Trade or business, Including Employment Carried on in Massachusetts: A nonresident has a trade or business, including any employment carried on in Massachusetts if: A nonresident generally is not engaged in a trade or business, including any employment carried on in Massachusetts if the nonresident's presence for business in Massachusetts is casual, isolated and inconsequential. A nonresident's presence for business in Massachusetts will ordinarily be considered casual, isolated and inconsequential if it meets the requirements of the Ancillary Activity Test (AAT) and Examples. When nonresidents earn or derive income from sources both within Massachusetts and elsewhere, and no exact determination can be made of the amount of Massachusetts source income, an apportionment of income must be made to determine that amount considered Massachusetts gross income. 4th - Apportionment of Income: Apportionment Methods: The three most common apportionment methods used to determine Massachusetts source income are as follows: Gross income is multiplied by a: So if you go to Massachusetts to work, you have to pay the tax. If you collect a share of the profit or revenue from Massachusetts, you have to pay tax on that. If you work from Oregon and are paid for that work, then you don't pay Massachusetts tax on that. If anything, your company might have to pay Oregon taxes on revenue you generate (you are their agent or employee in Oregon). Does the answer change depending on whether the income is reported at 1099 or W-2? This shouldn't matter legally. It's possible that it would be easier to see that the work was done in Oregon in one or the other. I.e. it doesn't make any legal difference but may make a practical difference. All this assumes that you are purely an employee or contractor and not an owner. If you are an owner, you have to pay taxes on any income from your Massachusetts business. Note that this applies to things like copyrights and real estate as well as the business. This also assumes that you are doing your work in Oregon. If you live in Oregon and travel to Massachusetts to work, you pay taxes on your Massachusetts income in Massachusetts.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "43cc8bc27d099e616f7caa21a347e45a", "text": "No state taxes, but Italy also has a favorable treaty with the US Federal Government. Look into to lowering your federal taxes to 5% ;) its a thick read, http://www.irs.gov/businesses/international/article/0,,id=169601,00.html and also try to determine if the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion applies to you, reducing your Federal tax to ZERO on the first $95,100 earned abroad. http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97130,00.html but then you may be subject to a 20%+ italy tax. so maybe you should just try for the tax treaty", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a89404183a0ad268890174c0623c23d", "text": "This question came up again (Living in Florida working remotely - NY employer withholds NYS taxes - Correct or Incorrect?) and the poster on the new version didn't find the existing answers to be adequate, so I'm adding a new answer. NYS will tax this income if the arrangement is for the convenience of the employee. If the arrangement is necessary to complete the work, then you should have no NYS tax. New York state taxes all New York-source salary and wage income of nonresident employees when the arrangement is for convenience rather than by necessity (Laws of New York, § 601(e), 20 NYCRR 132.18). Source: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2009/jun/20091371.html Similar text can also be found here: http://www.koscpa.com/newsletter-article/state-tax-consequences-telecommuting/ The NYS tax document governing this situation seems to be TSB-M-06(5)I. I looked at this page from NYS that was mentioned in the answer by @littleadv. That language does at first glance seem to lead to a different answer, but the ruling in the tax memo seems to say that if you're out of state only for your convenience then the services were performed in NYS for NYS tax purpose. From the memo: However, any allowance claimed for days worked outside New York State must be based upon the performance of services which of necessity, as distinguished from convenience, obligate the employee to out-of- state duties in the service of his employer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f54cb2a890547946bb92bb2091023b4", "text": "\"ECI is relevant to non-resident aliens who are engaged in trade or business in the US. For that, you have to be present in the US, to begin with, or to own a business or property in the US. So the people to whom it is relevant are non-resident aliens in the US or business/property owners, not foreign contractors. From the IRS: The following categories of income are usually considered to be connected with a trade or business in the United States. You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a nonimmigrant on an \"\"F,\"\" \"\"J,\"\" \"\"M,\"\" or \"\"Q\"\" visa. The taxable part of any U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant in \"\"F,\"\" \"\"J,\"\" \"\"M,\"\" or \"\"Q\"\" status is treated as effectively connected with a trade or business in the United States. If you are a member of a partnership that at any time during the tax year is engaged in a trade or business in the United States, you are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You usually are engaged in a U.S. trade or business when you perform personal services in the United States. If you own and operate a business in the United States selling services, products, or merchandise, you are, with certain exceptions, engaged in a trade or business in the United States. For example, profit from the sale in the United States of inventory property purchased either in this country or in a foreign country is effectively connected trade or business income. Gains and losses from the sale or exchange of U.S. real property interests (whether or not they are capital assets) are taxed as if you are engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You must treat the gain or loss as effectively connected with that trade or business. Income from the rental of real property may be treated as ECI if the taxpayer elects to do so.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b6283d1a0db1485ca2d42467220e43e", "text": "Prachi - While most non-resident aliens are not allowed to claim the standard deduction here are some exceptions: IRS Law under Article 21: ARTICLE 21 Payments Received by Students and Apprentices This falls under the U.S.A.-India Tax Treaty. Sources: I hope this helps. So, yes, I do believe you would be able to claim the standard deduction, although it's always good to check with a tax adviser.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b06cf61d9da1756b77f18ecfb634e214", "text": "You do not need to report gifts from US residents (US citizens/green card holders/tax residents due to length of stay) since filing gift tax return is their responsibility. In case of foreigners you need to report gifts in excess of $100K. In any case, transfers between spouses are exempt from gift tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "505e9b5d00c1c37a1fa0fc01c0688472", "text": "No, if you are a nonresident alien, you cannot deduct sales tax. You can only deduct state income tax. 1040NR Schedule A (which is page 3 of 1040NR) does not contain an option for sales tax, like 1040 Schedule A does. If you are a resident alien, then you can deduct sales tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93fc4ef00f459bf1627f5af390b72a44", "text": "Completely different. Canadians can be deemed non-residents by severing their residential ties with Canada and emigrating to another country, and no longer required to file unless they have certain sources of Canadian income. See http://travel.gc.ca/travelling/living-abroad/taxation No such classifications exist with US citizenship. You file a return no matter what, even if you haven't stepped foot in the US in decades.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd4828eae5fcc94632df84f5418fc8fd", "text": "\"Depends. If you can choose where to relocate to, then I second the \"\"no income tax\"\" states. But even of these chose wisely, some have no income taxes at all, others have taxes on some kinds of income. Some don't have neither individual nor corporate taxes, some tax businesses in some ways. Some compensate with higher property taxes, others compensate with higher sales taxes. On the other hand, you might prefer states with income taxes but no sales taxes. It can happen if your current income is going to be low, but you'll be spending your savings. If you don't have a choice (for example, your employer wants you to move closer to their office), then you're more limited. Still, you can use the tax break on moving expenses (read the fine print, there are certain employment requirements), and play with the state taxes (if you're moving to a state with less/no taxes - move earlier, if its the other way - move later). Check out for cities that have income taxes. In some states it cannot happen by law (for example, in California only the state is allowed to collect income taxes), in others it is very common (Ohio comes to mind). Many things to consider in New York. New York City has its own income tax (as well as Yonkers, as far as I remember these are the only ones in the State of New York). So if you want to save on taxes in NYS but live close to the city, consider White Plains etc. If you work in NYC its moot, you're going to pay city taxes anyway. That is also true if you live in NJ but work in the city, so tax-wise it may be more efficient not to live across state lines from your place of work.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da160fffe8072dca28be2c03e430316a", "text": "There's virtually no way for a person to completely avoid taxation at some point in their lives. Between payroll, sales, excise, and the like, you've been taxed at some point. And whether or not the individual paid is irrelevant to the ownership claim being invalid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5bf683f73eaca9db5871c953efed4ff7", "text": "\"This is an answer grounded in reality, not advice. Most states have no means of enforcing their foreign business entity registration statutes. Some states never even codified consequences. (California is a notable exception.). Some states have 'business licenses' that you need in order to defend your entity in court, but will retroactively apply the corporate veil when you get the license. The \"\"do I have to register\"\" question is analogous to asking a barber if you need a haircut. But this doesn't absolve you of looking in the mirror (doing your research). Registration and INCOME taxes are different stories. If a state calls their fee a franchise tax and it is applicable and there are real consequences for not, then you will have to pay that tax. Anyway, this isn't advocating breaking the law, but since it describes ignoring toothless state-chartered agencies, then there are people that will disagree with this post, despite being in line with business climate in the United States. Hope that helps\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed944c03c1e7096cb07630e758530dac", "text": "Both states will want to tax you. Your tax home is where you maintain a domicile, are registered to vote, etc. and you will probably want to keep this as MA since you state that MA is your permanent residence and you are staying in a rented place in PA. But be careful about voter registration; that is one of the items that can be used to determine your state of residence. OK, so if you and your spouse are MA residents, you should file jointly as residents in MA and as nonresidents in PA. Do the calculations on the nonresident return first, and then the calculations on the resident return. Typically, on a nonresident tax return, the calculations are effectively the following: Report all your income (usually AGI from the Federal return). Call this $X. Compute the PA state tax due on $X. Note that you follow the rules for nonresidents in doing this, not the calculations used by PA residents. Call the amount of tax you computed as $Y. What part of the total income $X is attributable to PA sources? If this amount is $Z, then you owe PA $Y times (Z/X). On the resident return in MA, you will likely get some credit for the taxes paid to PA, and this will reduce your MA tax burden. Usually the maximum credit is limited to the lesser of actual tax paid to PA and what you would have had to pay MA for the same income. As far as withholding is concerned, your employer in PA will withhold PA taxes as if you are a PA resident, but you can adjust the amount via the PA equivalent of IRS Form W4 so as to account for any additional tax that might be due because you will be filing as a nonresident. Else you can pay estimated taxes via the PA equivalent of IRS Form 1040ES. Similarly, your wife can adjust her withholding to account for the MA taxes that you will owe on the joint income, or you can pay estimated taxes to MA too. Note that it is unlikely that your employer in Pennsylvania will withhold Massachusetts taxes (and send them to Massachusetts) for you, e.g. if it is a ma-and-pa store, but there may be special deals available if your employer does business in both states, i.e. is a MA-and-PA store.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f99de8c7958c0d3021748790f921142", "text": "Yes. Here's the answer to this question from oregon.gov: 3. I am moving into Oregon. What income will be taxed by Oregon? As an Oregon resident, you are taxed on ALL income regardless of the source of the income. This includes, but is not limited to: You may need to pay estimated taxes if you don't have Oregon withholding on your income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de65a195799a90cbf017660532c71024", "text": "Multistate Impact of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 In general, states with rolling conformity will follow this change. States with specific date conformity will continue to follow the date of conformity currently in effect and will not follow the change. A few states may have their own QSBS rules and will not conform to or be impacted by this provision of the Act. The chart that follows summarizes these principles as applied to the enumerated states: STATE: QSBS Exclusion Conformity: California statutes refer to the IRC QSBS provisions but modify and limit their applicability, and would not be impacted by this provision of the Act. However, California’s provisions were ruled unconstitutional in recent litigation and the California Franchise Tax Board has recently taken the position that gain exclusions and deferrals will be denied for all open tax years. Florida Florida does not impose an income tax on individuals and therefore this provision of the Act is inapplicable and will have no impact. Illinois Due to its rolling conformity, Illinois follows this provision of the Act. Because New York effectively provides for rolling conformity to the IRC, through reference to federal adjusted gross income as the state starting point, New York effectively follows this provision of the Act. Texas does not impose an income tax on individuals", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e749065a0f4b7021263d95af5976c0d", "text": "I agree that double taxation makes no sense regardless of individual or corporation. Having said that, it's my understanding that Murca offers corporations tax credits on foreign taxes paid to avoid double taxation. I'm pretty sure that a similar vehicle exists for individuals as well. My issue is entirely with corporations paying off legislators to avoid taxes that they have an obligation to pay in the country that they operate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "23b0dfdbfbf5dd51940969b729167d69", "text": "non-resident aliens to the US do not pay capital gains on US products. You pay tax in your home country if you have done a taxable event in your country. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax.asp#axzz1mQDut9Ru but if you hold dividends, you are subject to US dividend tax. The UK-US treaty should touch on that though.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
f5a93c1bafe0831a70b23d6c123b5339	Is it possible to borrow money to invest in a foreign country?	[ { "docid": "230984d1dc54df5eba50d8d40e9b1046", "text": "Most likely, this will not work they way you think. First things first, to get a loan, the bank needs to accept your collateral. Note that this is not directly related to the question what you plan to do with the loan. Example: you have a portfolio of stocks and bonds worth USD 2 million. The bank decides to give you a loan of USD 1 million against that collateral. The bank doesn't care if you will use the loan to invest in foreign RE or use it up in a casino, it has your collateral as safety. So, from the way you describe it, I take it you don't have the necessary local collateral but you wish to use your foreign investments as such. In this case it really doesn't matter where you live or where you incorporate a company, the bank will only give you the loan if it accepts the foreign collateral. From professional experience with this exact question I can tell you, there are very few banks that will lend against foreign property. And there are even less banks, if any, that will lend against foreign projects. To sum it up: Just forget banks. You might find a private lender to help you out but it will cost you dearly. The best option you have is to find a strategic partner who can cough up the money you need but since he is taking the bigger risk, he will also take the bigger profit share.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7b97f8d1e7cef7a371db32488ca1d52", "text": "Yes it is possible. It would depend on Banks policies whether they would lend. Quite a few large corporations borrow money in one country for business needs in other country", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "10ac79d2ac6be5c20574e7d20547be22", "text": "\"You have a few correlated questions here: Yes you can. There are only a few investment strategies that require a minimum contribution and those aren't ones that would get a blanket recommendation anyway. Investing in bonds or stocks is perfectly possible with limited funds. You're never too young to start. The power of interest means that the more time you give your money to grow, the larger your eventual gains will be (provided your investment is beating inflation). If your financial situation allows it, it makes sense to invest money you don't need immediately, which brings us to: This is the one you have to look at most. You're young but have a nice chunk of cash in a savings account. That money won't grow much and you could be losing purchasing power to inflation but on the other hand that money also isn't at risk. While there are dozens of investment options1 the two main ones to look at are: bonds: these are fixed income, which means they're fairly safe, but the downside is that you need to lock up your money for a long time to get a better interest rate than a savings account index funds that track the market: these are basically another form of stock where each share represents fractions of shares of other companies that are tracked on an index such as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq. These are much riskier and more volatile, which is why you should look at this as a long-term investment as well because given enough time these are expected to trend upwards. Look into index funds further to understand why. But this isn't so much about what you should invest in, but more about the fact that an investment, almost by definition, means putting money away for a long period of time. So the real question remains: how much can you afford to put away? For that you need to look at your individual situation and your plans for the future. Do you need that money to pay for expenses in the coming years? Do you want to save it up for college? Do you want to invest and leave it untouched to inspire you to keep saving? Do you want to save for retirement? (I'm not sure if you can start saving via IRAs and the like at your age but it's worth looking into.) Or do you want to spend it on a dream holiday or a car? There are arguments to be made for every one of those. Most people will tell you to keep such a \"\"low\"\" sum in a savings account as an emergency fund but that also depends on whether you have a safety net (i.e. parents) and how reliable they are. Most people will also tell you that your long-term money should be in the stock market in the form of a balanced portfolio of index funds. But I won't tell you what to do since you need to look at your own options and decide for yourself what makes sense for you. You're off to a great start if you're thinking about this at your age and I'd encourage you to take that interest further and look into educating yourself on the investments options and funds that are available to you and decide on a financial plan. Involving your parents in that is sensible, not in the least because your post-high school plans will be the most important variable in said plan. To recap my first point and answer your main question, if you've decided that you want to invest and you've established a specific budget, the size of that investment budget should not factor into what you invest it in. 1 - For the record: penny stocks are not an investment. They're an expensive form of gambling.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "638947ae1029dd877c240c92506276e6", "text": "Are there banks where you can open a bank account without being a citizen of that country without having to visit the bank in person? I've done it the other way around, opened a bank account in the UK so I have a way to store GBP. Given that Britain is still in the EU you can basically open an account anywhere. German online banks for instance allow you to administrate anything online, should there be cards issued you would need an address in the country. And for opening an account a passport is sufficient, you can identify yourself in a video chat. Now what's the downside? French banks' online services are in French, German banks' services are in German. If that doesn't put you off, I would name such banks in the comments if asked. Are there any online services for investing money that aren't tied to any particular country? Can you clarify that? You should at least be able to buy into any European or American stock through your broker. That should give you an ease of mind being FCA-regulated. However, those are usually GDRs (global depository receipts) and denominated in GBp (pence) so you'd be visually exposed to currency rates, by which I mean that if the stock goes up 1% but the GBP goes up 1% in the same period then your GDR would show a 0% profit on that day; also, and more annoyingly, dividends are distributed in the foreign currency, then exchanged by the issuer of the GDR on that day and booked into your account, so if you want to be in full control of the cashflows you should get a trading account denominated in the currency (and maybe situated in the country) you're planning to invest in. If you're really serious about it, some brokers/banks offer multi-currency trading accounts (again I will name them if asked) where you can trade a wide range of instruments natively (i.e. on the primary exchanges) and you get to manage everything in one interface. Those accounts typically include access to the foreign exchange markets so you can move cash between your accounts freely (well for a surcharge). Also, typically each subaccount is issued its own IBAN.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0f61c2688a2b82bdbad6909bab943faf", "text": "\"Yes, definitely. Many municipalities and local governments issue bonds to fund various projects (schools, hospitals, infrastructure, etc). You can buy these bonds and in that way invest in these things. In the US these kinds of bonds are tax-free, i.e.: the income they provide is not taxed (by the US government, may be taxed by your State, check local tax laws). There are also dedicated mutual funds that that is all they invest in, if you don't want to deal with picking individual bonds. As to mom-and-pop stores - that would not be as easy, as mom-and-pop stores are by definition family owned and you can invest in them only if you are personally acquainted with them. Instead, you can invest in small regional/local chains, that while not being mom-and-pop, still small enough to be considered \"\"local\"\", but are publicly traded so that you can easily invest in them. You'll have to look for these. You can also use social lending platforms, like Lending Club, which I reviewed on my blog, or others, where you can participate in a lending pool to other people. You can invest in a credit union by opening an account there. Credit unions are owned by their account holders.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d98a1a97eb6179caef1f1e5c9c6958c7", "text": "\"Not at all impossible. What you need is Fundamental Analysis and Relationship with your investment. If you are just buying shares - not sure you can have those. I will provide examples from my personal experience: My mother has barely high school education. When she saw house and land prices in Bulgaria, she thought it's impossibly cheap. We lived on rent in Israel, our horrible apartment was worth $1M and it was horrible. We could never imagine buying it because we were middle class at best. My mother insisted that we all sell whatever we have and buy land and houses in Bulgaria. One house, for example, went from $20k to EUR150k between 2001 and 2007. But we knew Bulgaria, we knew how to buy, we knew lawyers, we knew builders. The company I currently work for. When I joined, share prices were around 240 (2006). They are now (2015) at 1500. I didn't buy because I was repaying mortgage (at 5%). I am very sorry I didn't. Everybody knew 240 is not a real share price for our company - an established (+30 years) software company with piles of cash. We were not a hot startup, outsiders didn't invest. Many developers and finance people WHO WORK IN THE COMPANY made a fortune. Again: relationship, knowledge! I bought a house in the UK in 2012 - everyone knew house prices were about to go up. I was lucky I had a friend who was a surveyor, he told me: \"\"buy now or lose money\"\". I bought a little house for 200k, it is now worth 260k. Not double, but pretty good money! My point is: take your investment personally. Don't just dump money into something. Once you are an insider, your risk will be almost mitigated and you could buy where you see an opportunity and sell when you feel you are near the maximal real worth of your investment. It's not hard to analyse, it's hard to make a commitment.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6470741c89540d9d5adea1af37740f9b", "text": "\"I don't follow the numbers in your example, but the fundamental question you're asking is, \"\"If I can borrow money for a low cost, and if I think I can invest it and receive returns greater than that cost, should I do it?\"\" It doesn't matter where that money comes from, a mortgage that's bigger than it needs to be, a credit card teaser rate, or a margin line from your stock broker. The answer is \"\"maybe\"\" - depending on the certainty you have about the returns you'd receive on your investments and your tolerance for risk. Only you can answer that question for yourself. If you make less than your mortgage rates on the investments, you'll wish you hadn't! As an aside, I don't know anything about Belgian tax law, but in US tax law, your deductions can be limited to the actual value of the home. Your law may be similar and thus increase the effective mortgage interest rate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e6b3c3d49316238ac8a589d1dd171d9", "text": "\"The problem here can be boiled down to that fact you are attempting to obtain a loan without collateral. There are times it can be done, but you have to have a really good relationship with a banker. Your question suggests that avenue has been exhausted. You are looking for an investor, but you are offering something very speculative. Suppose an investor gives you 20K, what recourse does he have if you do not pay the terms of the loan? From what income will this be paid from? What event will trigger the capability to make a balloon payment? Now if you can find a really handy guy that really needs a place to live could you swap rent for repairs? Maybe. Perhaps you buy the materials, and he does the roof in exchange for 6 months worth of rent or whatever. If you approached me with this \"\"investment\"\", the thing that would raise a red flag is why don't you have 20K to do this yourself? If you don't how will you be able to make payments? For example of the items you mentioned: That is a weekend worth of work and some pretty inexpensive materials. Why does money need to be borrowed for this? A weekend worth of demo, and $500 worth of material and another weekend to build something serviceable for a rental. Why does money need to be borrowed for this? 2K? Why does money need to be borrowed for this? This can be expensive, but most roofing companies offer financing. Also doing some of the work yourself can save a ton of money. Demoing an old roof is typically about 1/3 of the roofing cost and is technically simple, but physically difficult. So besides the new roof, you could have a lot of your list solved for less than 3K and three weekends worth of work. You are attempting to change this into a rental, not the Taj Mahal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "478cdde040cedfb6e01af7f6e8296744", "text": "I looked into the investopedia one (all their videos are mazing), but that detail just was not clear to me, it also makes be wonder, if a country issues bonds to finance itself, what happens at maturity when literally millions of them need to be paid? The income needs to have grown to that level or it defaults? Wouldn't all the countries default if that was the case, or are bonds being issued to being able to pay maturity of older bonds already? (I'm freaking myself out by realizing this)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7526af225add390d4ab164b8fd1d35e2", "text": "The best would be to find someone in that country to make a payment on behalf of you. Other option is to use remittance services like Western union. It allows transfers to bank Account in Poland. You can fund by debiting your Card or Bank Account in US. If you debit your Card, there may be some fees as it would be treated as Cash Advance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74b29da71765c7cbe5d01f3f964e4834", "text": "That's a broad question, but I can throw some thoughts at you from personal experience. I'm actually an Australian who has worked in a couple of companies but across multiple countries and I've found out first hand that you have a wealth of opportunities that other people don't have, but you also have a lot of problems that other people won't have. First up, asset classes. Real estate is a popular asset class, but unless you plan on being in each of these countries for a minimum of one to two years, it would be seriously risky to invest in rental residential or commercial real estate. This is because it takes a long time to figure out each country's particular set of laws around real estate, plus it will take a long time to get credit from the local bank institutions and to understand the local markets well enough to select a good location. This leaves you with the classics of stocks and bonds. You can buy stocks and bonds in any country typically. So you could have some stocks in a German company, a bond fund in France and maybe a mutual fund in Japan. This makes for interesting diversification, so if one country tanks, you can potentially be hedged in another. You also get to both benefit and be punished by foreign exchange movements. You might have made a killing on that stock you bought in Tokyo, but it turns out the Yen just fell by 15%. Doh. And to top this off, you are almost certainly going to end up filling out tax returns in each country you have made money in. This can get horribly complicated, very quickly. As a person who has been dealing with the US tax system, I can tell you that this is painful and the US in particular tries to get a cut of your worldwide income. That said, keep in mind each country has different tax rates, so you could potentially benefit from that as well. My advice? Choose one country you suspect you'll spend most of your life in and keep most of your assets there. Make a few purchases in other places, but minimize it. Ultimately most ex-pats move back to their country of origin as friends, family and shared culture bring them home.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e21d4c1386c08c5618e49b4a77c233f2", "text": "\"Hmm... Maybe I somewhat misunderstood your question then. Yes, trade deficits/surpluses are really the core of the country-level \"\"investment\"\". But yes, it maters what they do with it, which is why so many countries put any excesses into US treasuries. Going back to \"\"personal\"\" finance, if they pay down higher interest debt with their trade surplus, great; if they have no debt and can issue local currency (in PF land, \"\"take out a loan\"\") for under 2%, great; If not... Not so great. \"\"Saving\"\" money that costs over 2% isn't an investment, it's nothing but a loan disguised as one.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e3d6a2ce2c219ca85fe488f106792ae", "text": "\"While you have asked for general principles, I am going to seize onto a specific example you gave in order to illustrate the difficulties here: Argentina. Argentina's bonds are probably not safer than US treasuries. Argentina is presently in the business of seizing foreign oil businesses (Repsol YPF) while championing leftist causes. At the very least this indicates an elevated level of political risk: S&P, which affirmed Argentina's ratings five notches into junk territory at B, said policies such as those enacted since the country's October presidential election could also weaken Argentina's macroeconomic framework and external liquidity... \"\"Actions of this type continue to shorten the economic planning horizon in the country and contribute to Argentina's deteriorating economic and political links with the international community.\"\" -- \"\"S&P Lowers Argentina Outlook To Negative\"\". The Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2012 You're not going to be able to capture that sort of a risk with raw budget numbers. It's hard enough to figure out creditworthiness for a business; for an entire nation it's even harder. That's why credit-rating firms, as faulty as they may be, employ dozens of people to try and figure this sort of thing out. Additionally, there is a currency risk associated with buying bonds denominated in foreign currencies. It doesn't matter much if $nation repays all its bonds if they have so much inflation that the repayment is worth half of what it used to be (nor is it much help if your own nation's currency rises in value while your investment's value is stable elsewhere). Ultimately the value of a bond is \"\"how much money am I actually going to get back?\"\" and while operating a budget surplus isn't a bad sign in and of itself, it's hardly the complete picture. A fair accounting of the relative creditworthiness of any two nations needs to unite two massive fields of study: Macroeconomics and Politics. It is possible that the right sort of degree in economics, risk management, or a similar field of study could prepare you to know exactly what sort of research is necessary to make a meaningful analysis. :) Now, if you just want some commentary on which bonds are safe to buy, ask a credit-rating agency -- for example, read Standard and Poor's sovereign ratings - or find a mutual fund which may invest in international bonds at its own discretion and have someone else make the decisions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6fa8022f1a94860b18f850167f8bedd5", "text": "\"Average return on the S&P500 over the last 10 years has been 1.6 %; so if you'd invested in that with money borrowed at 3 % you would have lost (so far). Investing with borrowed money implies you think you can beat the market: that you're a cleverer investor than whoever decided to lend you the money. Whoever decided to lend you the money decided that you are the best (return/risk ratio) investment for their money. It might make sense to invest borrowed money if you don't need to pay it back if things go wrong: if you're an investment professional whose bonus depends on the profit you make, but who won't need to repay any loss. It might also makes sense to borrow money if you're going to 'add value', e.g. sweat equity: for example if you use it to renovate a house or (if you're a business) to hire more staff. But the question was \"\"What guidelines do you use\"\" and the answer is, \"\"I don't make passive investments with borrowed money.\"\" My Dad did it, i.e. didn't repay his mortgage as soon as he could have: but that was because (back in the '70s) he had a long-term (government-sponsored) mortgage for about 1.5 % (designed to help first-time buyers or something like that), at a time when banks were paying higher interest rates on (ultra-safe) deposits.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a1eeb8bc084a1d378814a548ab4109a", "text": "Usually, you can buy ETFs through brokerages. I looked at London to see if there's any familiar brokerage names, and it appears that the address below is to Fidelity Investments Worldwide and their site indicates that you can buy securities. Any brokerage, in theory, should allow you to invest in securities. You could always call and ask if they allow you to invest in ETFs. Some brokerages may also allow you to purchase securities in other countries; for instance, some of the firms in the U.S. allow investors to invest in the ETF HK:2801, which is not a U.S. ETF. Many countries have ETF securities available to local and foreign investors. This site appears to help point people to brokers in London. Also, see this answer on this site (a UK investor who's invested in the U.S. through Barclays).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "752e054a65d930d5a2efae595a2d3d62", "text": "Are there any laws against doing this? so long as you are truthful in your application for the loan, none that I know of - technically you could use the loan to pay for school and the cash that you would have used instead to invest. Are there other reasons why this is a very bad idea? I think you've already identified the biggest one, but here are my reasons: Will you go broke or go to jail? Likely not, but there is significant risk in investing with borrowed money. You might come out ahead, but you might also lose a bundle. If you're willing to take that risk, that's your right, but I would not call it a good idea under any circumstances.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1622d00b8e5930ff7cf8b02cd26ee96", "text": "the best thing to do is file bankrupt. your credit will be shot for 7 to 10 years. however usually 3 years after the bankrupt people will give you small lines of credit. then you rebuild on the small credit lines. and never get into a bad loan again you learn from mistakes. there is no shame in a mistake if you learned from it. I rebuilt my credit by using fingerhut. small credit limit on a cap 1 credit card 300 dollars unsecured card. personal loan of 1500 dollars to buy a old clunk for a car as I did not want to have five years of car payments. you can also get a secured credit card. and build credit with that. the bank will explain how to build credit using your own money. also you should know a lot of banks like your bankrupt stat. because they no you cant file for several more years. meaning if you don't pay your loan they can garnish you and you cant file bankrupt. you can get a new car loan with good interest rate. by taking 5000 dollars of your 15000 dollars savings down on the new loan. making your new car loan have better payments cheaper and better interest. and get a secured credit card of 2000 to build towards a unsecured credit card. keep all your new credit tabs small and pay on time.i would not use all your nest egg savings. that is not smart. get a lawyer and file. stay in school you will have a fresh start and you learned about upside down loans. don't listen to people trying to tell you bankruptsy is bad. it in a lot of ways gives you the upper hand in a no win debt or debts.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
9eec5400b563f70a346ce2d94208848a	What are the tax guidelines for a Canadian freelancer working for a US company?	[ { "docid": "be8d414a0fd1c029f1c9ad663a449c4d", "text": "I do NOT know the full answer but I know here are some important factors that you need to consider : Do you have a physical location in the United States? Are you working directly from Canada? With a office/business location in the United States your tax obligation to the US is much higher. Most likely you will owe some to the state in which your business is located in Payroll Tax : your employer will likely want to look into Payroll tax, because in most states the payroll tax threshold is very low, they will need to file payroll tax on their full-time, part-time employees, as well as contractor soon as the total amount in a fiscal year exceeds the threshold Related to No.1 do you have a social security number and are you legally entitled to working in the States as an individual. You will be receiving the appropriate forms and tax withholding info Related to No.3 if you don't have that already, you may want to look into how to obtain permissions to conduct business within the United States. Technically, you are a one person consulting service provider. You may need to register with a particular state to obtain the permit. The agency will also be able to provide you with ample tax documentations. Chances are you will really need to piece together multiple information from various sources to resolve this one as the situation is specific. To start, look into consulting service / contractor work permit and tax info for the state your client is located in. Work from state level up to kick start your research then research federal level, which can be more complex as it is technically international business service for Canada-US", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "a30c7eb9e87bc88e5f6f9fef0e1ae22b", "text": "\"I would suggest you pay quarterly. Or, if you prefer, do the extra withholding. Don't wait until the end of the year. My experience is that of having a day job with freelance work on the side. I've spent a few years just freelancing, and I paid quarterly as requested to avoid the penalties. Now that I have a good day job again, my freelancing is just a small part of my income, and so I end up with a net return and no longer have to pay quarterly. You shouldn't wait until the end of the year to pay. This is assuming your wife is bringing in a decent income. The only scenario where you would want to wait is if her income is only a small amount (such as my wife's plans for an Etsy store). To the IRS, it doesn't really make a difference whether you withhold extra or pay quarterly. Of those two choices, my preference is to pay quarterly - it's easy to set up calendar reminders on the quarterly payment dates, which are always the same. I did the same as bstpierre when estimating my payments: just take last year's tax (for the business) and divide by 4 (adjusting for any obvious situational differences). That's usually close enough. Paying quarterly instead of via withholding means you get to hold on to your money (on average) for 6 weeks longer. Granted, that doesn't mean much with today's interest rates, but it's something. You may prefer the simpler accounting for withholding, though - you can \"\"set and forget\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a16a073fbef02fb2422c039375c8413b", "text": "\"What would be the best strategy to avoid paying income taxes on the sale after I move to another US state? Leaving the US and terminating your US residency before the sale closes. Otherwise consider checking your home country's tax treaty with the US. In any case, for proper tax planning you should employ a licensed tax adviser - an EA, CPA or an attorney licensed in your State (the one you'd be when the sale closes). No-one else is legally allowed to provide you tax advice on the matter. Because the company abroad is befriended, I have control over when (and e.g. in how many chunks) the earnings of the sale flow into my LLC. So I can plan where I live when that money hits my US account. I'm not familiar with the term \"\"befriended\"\" in this context, but form what I understand your description - its a shell corporation under your own control. This means that the transfer of money between the corporation and your LLC is of no consequence, you constructively received the money when the corporation got it, not the LLC. Your fundamental misunderstanding is that there's importance to when the money hits your US bank account. This is irrelevant. The US taxes your worldwide income, so it is taxed when you earn it, not when you transfer it into the country (as opposed to some other countries, for example India or the UK). As such, in your current scheme, it seems to me that you're breaking the US tax law. This is my personal impression, of course, get a professional advice from a licensed tax professional as I defined earlier.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca9561fce46ca68de2a189227d7c91b2", "text": "\"ITR-4 is for incorporated business. For freelancing, You can fill ITR 2 and declare the freelancing income as \"\"income from other source\"\". Refer to the Income Tax website for more details\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27fcc343ed9d01eac9eb28343ef02044", "text": "\"The IRS W-8BEN form (PDF link), titled \"\"Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding\"\", certifies that you are not an American for tax purposes, so they won't withhold tax on your U.S. income. You're also to use W-8BEN to identify your country of residence and corresponding tax identification number for tax treaty purposes. For instance, if you live in the U.K., which has a tax treaty with the U.S., your W-8BEN would indicate to the U.S. that you are not an American, and that your U.S. income is to be taxed by the U.K. instead of tax withheld in the U.S. I've filled in that form a couple of times when opening stock trading accounts here in Canada. It was requested by the broker because in all likelihood I'd end up purchasing U.S.-listed stocks that would pay dividends. The W-8BEN is needed in order to reduce the U.S. withholding taxes on those dividends. So I would say that the ad revenue provider is requesting you file one so they don't need to withhold full U.S. taxes on your ad revenue. Detailed instructions on the W-8BEN form are also available from the IRS: Instruction W-8BEN (PDF link). On the subject of ad revenue, Google also has some information about W8-BEN: Why can't I submit a W8-BEN form as an individual?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0c55747bc1f3a76ac6eb4c80269b2d5", "text": "\"The other answer has mentioned \"\"factual resident\"\", and you have raised the existence of a U.S./Canada tax treaty in your comment, and provided a link to a page about determining residency. I'd like to highlight part of the first link: You are a factual resident of Canada for tax purposes if you keep significant residential ties in Canada while living or travelling outside the country. The term factual resident means that, although you left Canada, you are still considered to be a resident of Canada for income tax purposes. Notes If you have established ties in a country that Canada has a tax treaty with and you are considered to be a resident of that country, but you are otherwise a factual resident of Canada, meaning you maintain significant residential ties with Canada, you may be considered a deemed non-resident of Canada for tax purposes. [...] I'll emphasize that \"\"considered to be a resident of Canada for income tax purposes\"\" means you do need to file Canadian income tax returns. The Notes section does indicate the potential treaty exemption that you mentioned, but it is only a potential exemption. Note the emphasis (theirs, not mine) on the word \"\"may\"\" in the last paragraph above. Please don't assume \"\"may\"\" is necessarily favorable with respect to your situation. The other side of the \"\"may\"\" coin is \"\"may not\"\". The Determining your residency status page you mentioned in your comment says this: If you want the Canada Revenue Agency's opinion on your residency status, complete either Form NR74, Determination of Residency Status (Entering Canada) or Form NR73, Determination of Residency Status (Leaving Canada), whichever applies, and send it to the International and Ottawa Tax Services Office. To get the most accurate opinion, provide as many details as possible on your form. So, given your ties to Canada, I would suggest that until and unless you have obtained an opinion from the Canada Revenue Agency on your tax status, you would be making a potentially unsafe assumption if you yourself elect not to file your Canadian income tax returns based on your own determination. You could end up liable for penalties and interest if you don't file while you are outside of Canada. Tax residency in Canada is not a simple topic. For instances, let's have a look at S5-F1-C1, Determining an Individual’s Residence Status. It's a long page, but here's one interesting piece: 1.44 The Courts have stated that holders of a United States Permanent Residence Card (otherwise referred to as a Green Card) are considered to be resident in the United States for purposes of paragraph 1 of the Residence article of the Canada-U.S. Tax Convention. For further information, see the Federal Court of Appeal's comments in Allchin v R, 2004 FCA 206, 2004 DTC 6468. [...] ... whereas you are in the U.S. on a TN visa, intended to be temporary. So you wouldn't be exempt just on the basis of your visa and the existence of the treaty. The CRA would look at other circumstances. Consider the \"\"Centre of vital interests test\"\": Centre of vital interests test [...] “If the individual has a permanent home in both Contracting States, it is necessary to look at the facts in order to ascertain with which of the two States his personal and economic relations are closer. Thus, regard will be had to his family and social relations, his occupations, his political, cultural or other activities, his place of business, the place from which he administers his property, etc. The circumstances must be examined as a whole, but it is nevertheless obvious that considerations based on the personal acts of the individual must receive special attention. If a person who has a home in one State sets up a second in the other State while retaining the first, the fact that he retains the first in the environment where he has always lived, where he has worked, and where he has his family and possessions, can, together with other elements, go to demonstrate that he has retained his centre of vital interests in the first State.” [emphasis on last sentence is mine] Anyway, I'm acquainted with somebody who left Canada for a few years to work abroad. They assumed that living in the other country for that length of time (>2 years) meant they were non-resident here and so did not have to file. Unfortunately, upon returning to Canada, the CRA deemed them to have been resident all that time based on significant ties maintained, and they subsequently owed many thousands of dollars in back taxes, penalties, and interest. If it were me in a similar situation, I would err on the side of caution and continue to file Canadian income taxes until I got a determination I could count on from the people that make the rules.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d96a217cfd999cfcfdccb979a8068a15", "text": "\"Q) Will I have to submit the accounts for the Swiss Business even though Im not on the payroll - and the business makes hardly any profit each year. I can of course get our accounts each year - BUT - they will be in Swiss German! You will have to submit on your income from the business. The term \"\"partnership\"\" refers to a specific business entity type in the U.S. I'm not sure if you're using it the same way. In a partnership in the U.S. you pay income tax on your share of the partnership's income whether or not you actually receive income in your personal account. There's not enough information here to know if that applies in your case. (In the U.S., the partnership itself does not pay income tax - It is a \"\"disregarded entity\"\" for tax purposes, with the tax liability passed through to the partners as individuals.) Q) Will I need to have this translated!? Is there any format/procedure to this!? Will it have to be translated by my Swiss accountants? - and if so - which parts of the documentation need to be translated!? As regards language, you will file a tax return on a U.S. form presumably in English. You will not have to submit your account information on any other form, so the fact that your documentation is in German does not matter. The only exception that comes to mind is that you could potentially get audited (just like anyone else filing taxes in the U.S.) in which case you might need to produce your documentation. That situation is rare enough that I wouldn't worry about it though. I'm not sure if they'd take it in German or force you to get a translation. I was told that if I sell the business (and property) after I aquire a greencard - that I will be liable to 15% tax of the profit I'd made. I also understand that any tax paid (on selling) in Switzerland will be deducted from the 15%!? Q) Is this correct!? The long-term capital gains rate is 15% for most people. (At very high incomes it is 20%.) It sounds like you would qualify for long-term (held for greater than 1 year) capital gains in this case, although the details might matter. There is a foreign tax credit, but I'm not completely sure if it would apply in this case. (If forced to guess, I would say that it does.) If you search for \"\"foreign tax credit\"\" and \"\"IRS\"\" you should get to the information that you need pretty quickly. I will effectively have ALL the paperwork for this - as we'll need to do the same in Switzerland. But again, it will be in Swiss German. Q) Would this be a problem if its presented in Swiss German!? Even in this case you will not need to submit any of your paperwork to the IRS, unless you get audited. See earlier comments.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa6ac06db3552d08eda4e4d6ff3339b3", "text": "Your freelance income will not qualify you for the work-from-home deductions, for that you would need a T2200 form signed by your employer. But, you are allowed to be self employed as a sole-proprietorship while still being an employee of another company. If you take that route, you'll be able to write-off even more expenses than those you linked to. Things like a portion of your internet bill can be claimed, for example. But note that these deductions would only apply to offset the self-employment income, so if you're not earning very much from the freelance work, it might not be worth all the hassle. Filing taxes when self-employed is definitely more complicated, and many people will get professional tax preparation help - at least for the first time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e66da98d366e13d9534abe2af2536c82", "text": "$60-$100 US is typical for US 1099 contract IT work, but it varies quite a bit by location and industry. Contract agencies can charge more (sometimes significantly more), but you probably don't have the clout to ask for rates that are on par with those. $85 per hour might be a good starting point. Here are some factors to consider: I am not qualified to comment on the Canadian vs US legal and tax aspects fo your situation. Good luck", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f32db279288b5726c22159492891b6d4", "text": "\"Since as you say, an LLC is a pass-through entity, you will be making income in the U.S. when you sell to U.S. customers. And so you will need to file the appropriate personal tax forms in the US. As well as potentially in one or more States. The US government does not register LLCs. The various States do. So you'll be dealing with Oregon, Wisconsin, Wyoming, one of those for the LLC registration. You will also need to have a registered agent in the State. That is a big deal since the entire point of forming an LLC is to add a liability shield. You would lose the liability shield by not maintaining the business formalities. Generally nations aim to tax income made in their nation, and many decline to tax income that you've already paid taxes on in another nation. A key exception: If money is taxed by the U.S. it may also be taxed by one of the States. Two States won't tax the same dollar. Registering an LLC in one State does not mean you'll pay state taxes there. Generally States tax income made in their State. It's common to have a Wyoming LLC that never pays a penny of tax in Wyoming. Officially, an LLC doing business in a State it did not form in, must register in that State as a \"\"foreign LLC\"\" even though it's still in the USA. The fee is usually the same as for a domestic LLC. \"\"Doing business\"\" means something more than incidental sales, it means having a presence specifically in the State somehow. It gets complicated quick. If you are thinking of working in someone's app ecosystem like the Apple Store, Google Play, Steam etc. Obviously they want their developers coding, not wrestling with legalities, so some of them make a priority out of clearing and simplifying legal nuisances for you. Find out what they do for you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fe6f7a9cad2f4520ed898b0c39b47ba", "text": "\"I assume your employer does standard withholding? Then what you need to do is figure what bracket that puts you in after you've done all your normal deductions. Let's say it's 25%. Then multiply your freelance income after business expenses, and that's your estimated tax, approximately. (Unless the income causes you to jump a bracket.) To that you have to add approximately 12-13% Social Security/Medicare for income between the $90K and $118,500. Filling out Form 1040SSE will give you a better estimate. But there is a \"\"safe harbor\"\" provision, in that if what you pay in estimated tax (and withholding) this year is at least as much as you owed last year, there's no penalty. I've always done mine this way, dividing last year's tax by 4, since my income is quite variable, and I've never been able to make sense of the worksheets on the 1040-ES.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0493d4f827147a296d9f105fe8748726", "text": "They might be concerned with having to charge sales tax in California if they have a single employee in California, creating a nexus situation with CA. If that's the case, or even if there is some other issue, you might be able to switch from being a W2 employee to being a 1099 independent contractor. There's a host of additional issues this could cause, but it alleviate the nexus problem (if THAT is the problem). Here's a terrible solution you can bring up, but shouldn't do under any circumstances: offer to set up a mailing address in an allowed State, and give your company plausible deniability with regards to your legal residence. Obviously, this is a terrible idea, but exploring that option with your employer would help you suss out what the actual objection is. Ultimately, anything said here about the reason is just conjecture. You need to talk to the decision maker(s) about the real reason behind the denial. Then you can talk through solutions. Also - don't forget that you can get another job. If you are serious about a future with your girlfriend, you should put that relationship ahead of your current employment comfort and security. If you are willing to walk away from your position, you are in a much better situation to negotiate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a9011e433785e61732b017579a786a1", "text": "Yes, but make sure you issue a 1099 to these freelancers by 1/31/2016 or you may forfeit your ability to claim the expenses. You will probably need to collect a W-9 from each freelancer but also check with oDesk as they may have the necessary paperwork already in place for this exact reason. Most importantly, consult with a trusted CPA to ensure you are completing all necessary forms correctly and following current IRS rules and regulations. PS - I do this myself for my own business and it's quite simple and straight forward.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "107749335103a8ad581ed32e3ba6bdcf", "text": "To answer my own question, at least to the extent of my understanding. Here the IRS says that all income for a foreign person from a US-based company is taxable with 30%. Here the IRS says that this tax should be withhold at source by whomever pays you. In case there is a tax treaty with the country, the tax can even be waived in the US. Of course, if you don't declare it in your home country, the US bank could probably give information requested by the home country authorities. For the other two cases (when there's no US party involved) I can't find anything on the IRS website, which kind of make sense. If I am using an account in the US just to receive and send money shouldn't imply any tax. Thanks to @litteadv for pointing me into the right direction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1b56254525ee1a4d3bd61ecf5a539da", "text": "Before answering specific question, you are liable to pay tax as per your bracket on the income generated. I work with my partner and currently we transfer all earning on my personal bank account. Can this create any issue for me? If you are paying your partner from your account, you would need to maintain proper paperwork to show the portion of money transferred is not income to you. Alternatively create a join Current Account. Move funds there and then move it to your respective accounts. Which sort off account should be talk and by whose name? Can be any account [Savings/Current]. If you are doing more withdrawls open Current else open Savings. It does not matter on whos name the account is. Paperwork to show income matters from tax point of view. What should we take care while transfering money from freelance site to bank? Nothing specific Is there any other alternative to bank? There is paypal etc. However ultimately it flows into a Bank Account. What are other things to be kept in mind? Keep proper record of actual income of each of you, along with expenses. There are certain expenses you can claim from income, for example laptop, internet, mobile phone etc. Consult a CA he will be able to guide and it does not cost much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b9ab1f95c481e326cd7c4f61ba760ec", "text": "I'm not familiar with Canadian taxes, but had your question been written about the United States, I'd advise you to at least consult for a couple of hours with an accountant. Taxes are complex, and the cost of making a mistake generally exceeds the cost of getting professional advice.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
de102d02bff0c6738334fe2a3082f7bd	What are the consequences of being classified as a day trader, in Australia?	[ { "docid": "f6d2ff48ecc96ad67e1df6ee79fd1f33", "text": "In Australia the ATO can determine if you are considered a shareholder or a share trader. The ATO defines a shareholder as: A shareholder is a person who holds shares for the purpose of earning income from dividends and similar receipts. Whilst they define a share trader as: A share trader is a person who carries out business activities for the purpose of earning income from buying and selling shares. To find out the differences between them you can refer to the following link describing The difference between a share trader and a shareholder. The ATO also describes: To be classed as a share trader, you may be asked to provide evidence that demonstrates you are carrying on a business of share trading, for example: the purchase of shares on a regular basis through a regular or routine method a trading plan use of share trading techniques in managing your share acquisitions, such as decisions based on thorough analysis of relevant market information a contingency plan in the event of a major shift in the market. Losses incurred in the business of share trading are treated the same as any other losses from business. If your activities change from investor to trader, your investment changes from a CGT (capital gains tax) asset to trading stock. This can trigger CGT event for any investments you currently hold as they change from CGT assets to trading stock. Once you have changed over to a trader you will not be entitled to the 50% CGT discount for stocks held over 12 months. You will, however, be able to count any paper losses at the end of Financial Year to reduce your other income.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "e073371096371d8c81a0098cfabe41f6", "text": "Yeah man, was basically just screwing around. Day-trading stocks is a bit different for me. I usually trade options. Taking a bit getting used to. Not to mention, I probably lost a good bit on spreads. I made all market orders lol.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d2af695d255a62e171075d5e2071046", "text": "Short-term, the game is supply/demand and how the various participants react to it at various prices. On longer term, prices start to better reflect the fundamentals. Within something like week to some month or two, if there has not been any unique value affecting news, then interest, options, market maker(s), swing traders and such play bigger part. With intraday, the effects of available liquidity become very pronounced. The market makers have algos that try to guess what type of client they have and they prefer to give high price to large buyer and low price to small buyer. As intraday trader has spreads and commissions big part of their expenses and leverage magnifies those, instead of being able to take advantage of the lower prices, they prefer to stop out after small move against them. In practise this means that when they buy low, that low will soon be the midpoint of the day and tomorrows high etc if they are still holding on. Buy and sell are similar to long call or long put options position. And options are like insurance, they cost you. Also the longer the position is held the more likely it is to end up with someone with ability to test your margin if you're highly leveraged and constantly making your wins from the same source. Risk management is also issue. The leveraged pros trade through a company. Not sure if they're able to open another such company and still open accounts after the inevitable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ffea634afb34ef8300a36b65480bcd8", "text": "\"I assume that whatever you're holding has lost a considerable amount of its value then? What sort of instrument are we talking about? If the margin call is 14k on something you borrowed against the 6900 you're a bit more leveraged than \"\"just\"\" another 100%. The trading company you're using should be able to tell you exactly what happens if you can't cover the margin call, but my hunch is that selling and taking the cash out ceased to be an option roughly at the time they issued the margin call. Being labelled as a day trader or not most likely did not have anything to do with that margin call - they're normally issued when one or more of your leveraged trades tank and you don't have enough money in the account to cover the shortfall. Not trying to sound patronising but the fact that you needed to ask this question suggests to me that you shouldn't have traded with borrowed money in the first place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fa967e62946c3b1420aa199448e2f81", "text": "Trading volumes are higher at the end of the day as many traders close their open positions. In the morning however, traders incorporate various factors like performance of worldwide markets overnight, any corporate or government announcements, global macro events, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59b331357427c7f84ef6709fbdfc5a91", "text": "I've had a small forex investment in the AUDUSD since Oct of 2010 at 50:1 leverage, and have more than doubled my investment on the swap alone. Granted this is high risk with virtually every guarantee that it will fail eventually, but the AUD hasn't dropped at anytime during this trade enough to stop me out so far. With a higher interest rate, there's a natural scarcity in the AUD, especially when compared to the USD. Unless there's another crash like 2008, Asian trading with Aus significantly weakens, or the RBA screws the pooch, the AUD doesn't have many factors with a high probability for devastating impact on the currency.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56d51d676394b5851cf6c07b46b19b7d", "text": "NYSE started allowing four letter tickers around 2009. NASDAQ allows 4-5 letter tickers. I guess they'll keep increasing when / if needed. Companies are allowed to change tickers, although there are costs. Tickers in the US are assigned through a single entity. Companies that are new need to take something that's open. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124296050986346159 I see that you're in Australia, but, since there aren't really that many options to deal with the problem that you mentioned, I'd guess that you'll ultimately do the same. Not sure about how tickers are assigned there though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2dc4fec57148f221da98f849fa2699b5", "text": "\"....causes loses [sic] to others. Someone sells you a stock. The seller receives cash. You receive a stock certificate. This doesn't imply a loss by either party especially if the seller sold the stock for more than his purchase price. A day trading robot can make money off of the price changes of a stock only if there are buyers and sellers of the stock at certain prices. There are always two parties in any stock transaction: a buyer and a seller. The day trading robot can make money off of an investment for 20 years and you could still make money if the investment goes up over the 20 years. The day trading robot doesn't \"\"rob\"\" you of any profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adcf4d81a16e9141f53d218267ac3b5f", "text": "\"The high frequency trading you reference has no adverse impact on individual investors - at least not in the \"\"going to take advantage of you\"\" way that many articles imply. If anything, high-frequency trading is generally more helpful than harmful, adding liquidity to the system, although it can cause some volatility and \"\"noise\"\" in volume and other data, and the sudden entrance or exit of this type of trading can drive some abnormal market movements. As to research and time needed for trading, most data suggests that the less you try to \"\"beat the market\"\", the better you'll do. Trade activity tends to be inversely related to returns, particularly for individuals. Your best bet is likely to learn enough about investment risks to ensure you're comfortable with them, and invest in broadly diversified asset classes, regions, and sectors, and then mostly leave them alone, or rebalance annually. You'll almost surely do a lot better that way than you will if you spend countless hours researching the \"\"right\"\" stocks to buy.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaf6c3310231fc85c46cd31aa5e7a832", "text": "The answer is no. Online trading is not premature, and hasn't been for a long time. The presence of online complaints has no bearing on the maturity of this means of trading. I'm sure you can find negative reviews of banks, brokers, grocery stories, online retailers, car manufacturers etc. but no one in their right might would consider those industries premature. Sorry, I think your avoidance based on some online reviews sounds a little paranoid. What exactly are you afraid of? Maybe I could provide a more precise answer if we knew your exact concerns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa12cba86d52e3dec51271ecfec2688a", "text": "I can't think of any more negatives apart from what you mentioned, but the positives might include higher cost base for when you sell the place (this only applies in Australia if it is an investment property) thus having to pay less tax on the capital gains, and being able to borrowing extra funds which may help with your cashflow (especially if you keep the extra funds in an 100% offset account so your interest payable is not increased until you really need the extra funds).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "654bdfe7a7296a4add795b43b2c13276", "text": "Understood. Similar to how doctors who go through/pay for med school prevent me from practicing medicine to profit. Unsure what you think the average bbg user is doing with the terminal, bud. It's definitely not day-trading, at least not in the way you the think.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a438d1fb8c6ec13210a1dd6eb9cf28c", "text": "However, is it a risk that they may withhold liquidity in a market panic crash to protect their own capital? Two cases exist here. One is if you access the direct market, then they cannot. Secondly if you are trading in the internal market created by them, yes they can do to save their behind, but that is open to question. They don't make money on your profit or loss, their money comes from you trading. So as long as you maintain the required margin in your accounts, you can go ahead. I had a mail exchange with IG Index regarding this and they categorically refuted on this point. Will their clients be unable to sell at a fair market price in a panic crash? No. Also, do CFD providers sometimes make an occasional downward spike to cream off their clients' cut-loss order? Need proof regarding this, not saying it cannot happen. They wouldn't antagonize the people bringing them business without any reason. They would be putting their money at risk. But you should know, their traders are also in the market. Which might look skimming your money, it would be their traders making money in the free market. After all Google, Facebook etc also sell your personal data for profit, why shouldn't the CFD firm also. Since they are market makers, what is to prevent them from attempting these tricks? Are these concerns also valid for forex brokers serving the retail public? What you consider as tricks are legitimate use of information to make money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76b3ed663f72d7d3a4b5b4f8254222b9", "text": "This is often the case where traders are closing out short positions they don't want to hold overnight, for a variety of reasons that matter to them. Most frequently, this is from day traders or high-frequency traders settling their accounts before the markets close.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db7a27bf0afb30d12a004f760578f6a8", "text": "\"is there anything I can do now to protect this currency advantage from future volatility? Generally not much. There are Fx hedges available, however these are for specialist like FI's and Large Corporates, traders. I've considered simply moving my funds to an Australian bank to \"\"lock-in\"\" the current rate, but I worry that this will put me at risk of a substantial loss (due to exchange rates, transfer fees, etc) when I move my funds back into the US in 6 months. If you know for sure you are going to spend 6 months in Australia. It would be wise to money certain amount of money that you need. So this way, there is no need to move back funds from Australia to US. Again whether this will be beneficial or not is speculative and to an extent can't be predicted.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d488865526296e2db4fd5227db813131", "text": "If you want the cheapest online broker in Australia, you can't go past CMC Markets, they charge $9.90 upto a $10,000 trade and 0.1% above that. There is no ongoing fees unless you choose to have dynamic data (stock prices get updated automatically as they change). However, the dynamic data fee does get waived if you have about 10 or more trades per month. You don't really need the dynamic data unless you are a regular trader anyway. They also provide some good research tools and some basic charting. Your funds with them are kept segragated in a Bankwest Account, so are resonably safe. They don't provide the best interest on funds kept in the account, so it is best to just deposit the funds when you are looking to buy, and move your funds elswhere (earning higher interest) when selling. Hopes this helps, regards Victor. Update They have now increased their basic brokerage to a minimum of $11 per trade unless you are a frequent trader.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
c3257ecf73330c240a4ee469a5196d3f	How do margins on tracker mortgages (variable rate mortages) vary over time?	[ { "docid": "c7b5e49eac72c5c8079a6d70519277a2", "text": "how do these margins vary over time Depends on a lot of factors. The bank's financial health, bank's ongoing business activities, profits generated from it's other businesses. If it is new to mortgages, it mightn't take a bigger margin to grow its business. If it is in the business for long, it might not be ready to tweak it down. If the housing market is down, they might lower their margin's to make lending attractive. If their competitors are lowering their margins, the bank in question might also. Do they rise when the base rate rises, or fall, or are they uncorrelated? When rates rise(money is being sucked out to curb spending), large amount of spending decreases. So you can imagine margins will need to decrease to keep the mortgage lending at previous levels. Would economic growth drive them up or down? Economic growth might make them go up. Like in case 1, base rates are low -> people are spending(chances are inflation will be high) -> margins will be higher(but real value of money will be dependent on inflation) Is there any kind of empirical or theoretical basis to guess at their movement? Get a basic text book on macroeconomics, the rates and inflation portion will be there. How the rates influence the money supply and all. It will much more sense. But the answer will encompass a mixture of all conditions and not a single one in isolation. So there isn't a definitive answer. This might give you an idea of how it works. It is for variable mortgage but should be more or less near to what you desire.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "6657c05898ceb7473983e062b054aa66", "text": "\"Thanks! Do you know how to calculate the coefficients from this part?: \"\"The difference between the one-year rate and the spread coefficients represents the response to a change in the one-year rate. As a result, the coefficient on the one-year rate and the difference in the coefficients on the one-year rate and spread should be positive if community banks, on average, are asset sensitive and negative if they are liability sensitive. The coefficient on the spread should be positive because an increase in long-term rates should increase net interest income for both asset-sensitive and liability-sensitive banks.\"\" The one-year treasury yield is 1.38% and the ten-year rate is 2.30%. I would greatly appreciate it if you have the time!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2aaca1bc531b6eef0e29db9a819bcf72", "text": "Bonds can increase in price, if the demand is high and offer solid yield if the demand is low. For instance, Russian bond prices a year ago contracted big in price (ie: fell), but were paying 18% and made a solid buy. Now that the demand has risen, the price is up with the yield for those early investors the same, though newer investors are receiving less yield (about 9ish percent) and paying higher prices. I've rarely seen banks pay more variable interest than short term treasuries and the same holds true for long term CDs and long term treasuries. This isn't to say it's impossible, just rare. Also variable is different than a set term; if you buy a 10 year treasury at 18%, that means you get 18% for 10 years, even if interest rates fall four years later. Think about the people buying 30 year US treasuries during 1980-1985. Yowza. So if you have a very large amount of money you will store it in bonds as its much less likely that the US treasury will go bankrupt than your bank. Less likely? I don't know about your bank, but my bank doesn't owe $19 trillion.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7a7a97238901b51b69c23d0c538c7d28", "text": "Mortgages with a prepayment penalty usually do not charge points as a condition of issue. The points, usually in the range 1%-3% of the amount borrowed, are paid from the buyer's funds at the settlement, and are effectively the prepayment penalty. Once upon a time (e.g. 30 years ago), in some areas, buyers had a choice of This last option usually had a higher interest rate than the first two. It was advantageous for a buyer to accept this option if the buyer was sure that the mortgage would indeed be paid off in a short time, e.g. because a windfall of some kind (huge bonus, big inheritance, a killing in the stock market, a successful IPO) was anticipated, where the higher interest charged for only a few years did not make much of a difference. Taking this third option and hanging on to the mortgage over the full 15 or 20 or 25 or 30 year term would have been a very poor choice. I do not know if all three options are still available in the current mortgage market. The IRS treats points for original morttgages and points for re-financed mortgages differently for the purposes of Schedule A deductions. Points paid on an original mortgage are deductible as mortgage interest in the year paid, whereas points paid on a refinance must be amortized over the life of the loan so that the mortgage interest deduction is the sum of the interest paid in the monthly payments plus a fraction of the points paid for the refinance. The undeducted part of the points get deducted in the year that the mortgage is paid off early (or refinanced again). Prepayment penalties are, of course, deductible as mortgage interest in the year of the prepayment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98863528ca9a2014fa3bc34c6c060f5a", "text": "yes, i am incorporating monte carlo return scenarios for both equity and real estate. yeah there is a lot to consider in the case of the property being a condo where you have to account for property taxes as well as condo fees. the two projects have entirely different considerations and it's not like the money that is injected to one is similar to the other (very different) which is why i figured there should be differing discount rates. in any case, thanks for the discussion and suggestions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35ec6ed1d2beb27b9ab3d584c9de8470", "text": "Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target. Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently). I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend payment divided by my cost basis per share. As an example, say you have shares in X, Co. X issues a quarterly dividend of $1 per share and the share price is $100; coincidentally this is the price at which you purchased your shares. But a few years goes by and now X issues it's quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, and the share price is $160. However your shares only cost you $100. Your annual yield on X is 6%, not the published 3.75%. All of this is to say that looking back on dividend yields is somewhat similar to nailing jello to the wall. Do you look at actual dividends paid through the year divided by share price? Do you look at the annualized dividend at the time of issue then average those? The stock price will fluctuate, that will change the yield; depending on where you bought your stock, your actual yield will vary from the published amount as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d74ce0acb761e346e6dfe3323d9ea77c", "text": "The article John cites says no correlation, but this chart from the article says otherwise; One sees the rate drop from 14% to 4% and housing rise from an index of 50 to near 190. (reaching over to my TI BA-35 calculator) I see that at 14%, $1000/mo will buy $84,400 worth of mortgage, but at 4%, it will buy $209,500. 2-1/2 times the borrowing power for the same payment. But wait, my friends at West Egg tell me that inflation means I can't compare $1000 in 1980 to the same $1000 in 2010. The $1,000 inflates to $2611 (i.e. an income rising only with inflation, no more) and that can fund a mortgage for $546,900. This is 6.5 times the original borrowing power, yet the housing index 'only' rose 3.8X. See that crazy chart? Housing actually got cheaper from 1980 to the peak. Statistics can say whatever you wish. Interest rate change drove all the change in housing prices, but not quite as much as it should have. To answer your question - I expect that when rates rise (and they will) housing prices will take a hit. In today's dollars, a current $1000 borrows (at 4%) nearly $210K, but at 6%, just $167K. If rates took a jump from these record lows, that's the nature of the risk you'd take.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c091e3281e221f90416b841dccd337be", "text": "Ok maybe I should have went into further detail but I'm not interested in a single point estimate to compare the different options. I want to look at the comparable NPVs for the two different options for a range of exit points (sell property / exit lease and sell equity shares). I want to graph the present values of each (y-axis being the PVs and x-axis being the exit date) and look at the 'cross-over' point where one option becomes better than the other (i'm taking into account all of the up front costs of the real estate purchase which will be a bit different in the first years). i'm also looking to do the same for multiple real estate and equity scenarios, in all likelihood generate a distribution of cross-over points. this is all theoretical, i'm not really going to take the results to heart. merely an exercise and i'm tangling with the discount rates at the moment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65cf9a90015e47167757486425ce4587", "text": "\"Oftentimes, the lender (the owner of the security) is not explicitly involved in the lending transaction. Let's say the broker is holding a long-term position of 1MM shares from Client A. It is common for Client A's agreement with Broker A to include a clause that allows the broker to lend out the 1MM shares for its own profit (\"\"rehypothecation\"\"). Client A may be compensated for this in some form (e.g. baked into their financing rates), but they do not receive any compensation that is directly tied to lending activities. You also have securities lending agents that lend securities for an explicit fee. For example, the borrower's broker may not have sufficient inventory, in which case they would need to find a third-party lending agent. This happens both on-demand as well as for a fixed-terms (typically a large basket of securities). SLB (securities lending and borrowing) is a business in its own right. I'm not sure I follow your follow-up question but oftentimes there is no restriction that prevents the broker from lending out shares \"\"for a very short time\"\". Unless there is a transaction-based fee though, the number of times you lend shares does not affect \"\"pocketing the interest\"\" since interest accrues as a function of time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2278504170f25f5ade3ffef9c2df34fb", "text": "The value does change from 12.61% to 13.48%. The difference between re-investing cashflows at 14% vs 12% is not big enough to change the rounded value. Edit: The initial cashflow is discounted at t0, meaning it's already equal to its present value and the finance rate doesn't have an effect. It does impact future outgoing cashflows, as you've noted.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a18c18f6b6591c375d4587f16548dc7a", "text": "In a strictly mathematical sense, no. Or rather, it depends what 'long run' means. Say today the home average is $200K, and payment is $900/mo. The $900 today happens to be about 20% of the median US monthly income (which is approximately $54,000/yr). Housing rises 4%/yr, income 3%/yr. In 100 years (long enough?) the house costs $10M but incomes are 'only' $1.03M/yr, and the mortgage, even at the same rate is $45K/month, or, to be clear, it rose to 52% of monthly income. My observation is that, long term, the median home costs what 25% of median income will support, in terms of the mortgage after downpayment. Long term. That means that if you graph this, you'll see trends above and below the long term line. You'll see a 25 year bubble form starting in the late 80's as rates dropped from near 18% to the Sub-4% in the early 00s. But once you normalize it to percent of income to pay the loan, much of the bubble is flattened out. At 18%, $1500/mo bought you a $100K mortgage, but at 3.5%, it bought $335K. This is in absolute dollars, wages also rose during that time. I am just clarifying how rates distort the long term trends and create the short term anomalies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8eb15fd9cad42cbd62a7309b9306c4e1", "text": "But the notes are always called at par, no? So you have a fixed yield which depends on the coupon and price you bought it at. I still don't see how the company doing better than expected changes the yield on your investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "59c81481b8726cfc411fafbc7b7c61d3", "text": "Does the price only start the day based on the previous day's rebalancing? No, the tracker will open at the price according to the stock it is tracking. So for example, if the ETF closed at $10 but the tracked stock continued trading and was priced $15 when the ETF reopened the ETF will open at $15. (Example is for a non-leveraged ETF.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bad7733c71b5c618301ebf612cd85e05", "text": "Usually that is the case that when fixed rates are lower than the variable rates, it is an indication that the banks feel the next movement in rates could be down. You also need to look at the fixed rates for different periods, for example 1 year fixed compared to 3 year fixed and 5 year fixed rates. If you find the 3 and 5 year fixed rates are higher than the 1 year fixed rates this could be an indication that the banks feel rates will fall in the short term but the falls won't last long and will continue to rise after a year or so. If the 3 year fixed rates are also low in comparison, then the banks may feel that the economy is heading for a longer term down trend. The banks won't want to lose out, so will change their fixed rates on their perception of where they feel the economy is headed. Since your post in May 2011, the standard variable rate has since dropped twice (in November and December) to be at 7.30%. You will also find that fixed rates have also been dropped further by the banks, indicating additional future cuts in the variable rates. Regards, Victor", "title": "" }, { "docid": "799a9ee5e202bf0686256b32b8c4a361", "text": "\"As Michael McGowan says, just because gold has gone up lots recently does not mean it will continue to go up by the same amount. This plot: shows that if your father had bought $20,000 in gold 30 years ago, then 10 years ago he would have slightly less than $20,000 to show for it. Compare that with the bubble in real estate in the US: Update: I was curious about JoeTaxpayer's question: how do US house prices track against US taxpayer's ability to borrow? To try to answer this, I used the house price data from here, the 30 year fixed mortgages here and the US salary information from here. To calculate the \"\"ability to borrow\"\" I took the US hourly salary information, multiplied by 2000/12 to get a monthly salary. I (completely arbitrarily) assumed that 25 per cent of the monthly salary would be used on mortgage payments. I then used Excel's \"\"PV\"\" (Present Value) function to calculate the present value of the thirty year fixed rate mortgage. The resulting graph is below. The correlation coefficient between the two plots is 0.93. There are so many caveats on what I've done in ~15 minutes, I don't want to list them... but it certainly \"\"gives one furiously to think\"\" !! Update 2: OK, so even just salary information correlates very well with the house price increases. And looking at the differences, we can see that perhaps there was a spike or bubble in house prices over and above what might be expected from salary-only or ability-to-borrow.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a67a9aa56c7f5ce0cb27dd013d0dc2a8", "text": "Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. The CBOE Interest Rate 10-Year T-Note, TNX, is a security directly related to this rate. Divide the CBOE price of TNX by 10 to get the yield. One can also track the 10Y T-Note yield at yahoo finance using ticker symbol (^TNX). One can also track the 10Y T-Note yield at yahoo finance using ticker symbol (^TNX).", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
18da748724a332af07aa6aa66e09bdf3	Why charge gross receipts taxes to the customer?	[ { "docid": "90544e3c1e3bf85fdd78b635d8ba2d0f", "text": "\"the state of New Mexico provides guidance in this exact situation. On page 4: Gross receipts DOES NOT include: Example: When the seller passes tax to the buyer, the seller should separate, or “back out”, that tax from the total income to arrive at \"\"Gross Receipts,\"\" the amount reported in Column D of the CRS-1 Form. (Please see the example on page 48.) and on page 48: How do I separate (“back out”) gross receipts tax from total gross receipts? See the following examples of how to separate the gross receipts tax: 1) To separate (back out) tax from total receipts at the end of the report period, first subtract deductible and exempt receipts, and then divide total receipts including the tax for the report period by one plus the applicable gross receipts tax rate. For example, if your tax rate is 5.5% and your total receipts including tax are $1,055.00 with no deductions or exemptions, divide $1,055.00 by 1.055. The result is your gross receipts excluding tax (to enter in Column D of the CRS-1 Form) or $1,000. 2) If your tax rate is 5.5%, and your total gross receipts including tax are $1,055.00, and included in that figure are $60 in deductions and another $45 in exemptions: a) Subtract $105 (the sum of your deductions and exemptions) from $1,055. The remainder is $950. This figure still includes the tax you have recovered from your buyers. b) Divide $950 by 1.055 (1 plus the 5.5% tax rate). The result is $900.47. c) In Column D enter the sum of $900.47 plus $60 (the amount of deductible receipts)*, or $960.47. This figure is your gross receipts excluding tax.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4478326e08817e1c19391c1f9412df4f", "text": "I'll address one part of your question: There are other taxes that companies pay as well, such as income tax, but don't charge to the customer as a fee. So, why are gross receipts taxes charged to the customer? Things like income tax can't be passed on to the consumer in a direct way, because there's no fixed relationship between the amount of the tax and the price of an individual product. Income tax is paid on taxable income, which will incorporate deductions for the costs the company incurred to do business. So the final amount of corporate income tax can depend on things unrelated to the price of goods sold, like whether the business decided to repave their parking lot. Gross receipts taxes, by definition, are charged on the total amount of money taken in, so every dollar you spend on an item at the store will be subject to the gross receipts tax, and hence will cost the business 7 cents (or X% where X is the tax rate). This means there is a direct link between the price you pay for an individual item and the tax they pay on that transaction. The same is true for sales taxes, which are also often added at the time of sale. Of course, businesses could roll all of these into the posted price as well. The reason they don't is to get their foot in the door and make the price seem lower: you're more likely to buy something if you see it for the low, low, one-time-only price of $99.99, act now, save big, and then find out you owe an extra $7 at the register than if you saw $107 on the price tag.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5538e02a3ed26d84b12fb9db21e19d32", "text": "\"It sounds like \"\"gross receipt tax\"\" is essentially the same thing most states call \"\"sales tax\"\", which is always handled this way -- prices displayed are pre-tax, tax is added when the final price is calculated. One reason for doing it that way is that most prices result in taxes that involve fractions of pennies, and calculating from the total produces a more accurate result than calculating tax on each item individually. It is theoretically possible to set prices so the numbers come out evenly when tax is added. But that requires that the prices be in fractional cents, potentially to many decimal places. And in fact in some places it is illegal to display (only) the with-tax price. Otherwise I'm sure some stores and restaurants would be willing to deal with the mils and micros, purely on principle or as a marketing gimmick. Since customers have learned to expect sales tax, it really isn't worth the effort to fight it. The closest I've seen has been occasional \"\"we'll pay your sales tax\"\" offers, or statewide sales-tax holidays once a year.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "855e6133093fb51ca06e352973a96378", "text": "This is basically done to reduce costs and overhead, with agreement of the credit card issuers. When the card is physically present and the charge is low, the burden of keeping the signed receipts and of additional delays at the cash register is not worth the potential risk of fraud. Depending on the location and the specific charge-back history of the business, the limit above which signature is required differs. In one supermarket in the area I live they require signatures only on charges above $50. In another, 10 miles away from the first one, they require signatures on charges above $25.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd9b19a37e4c92262904baf33a754b6d", "text": "What's funny to me is that the sales tax isn't what gives Amazon better prices. It's that stores have to include their costs on the price that's shown on the shelf. Amazon gets to tell you later that there's a shipping fee, Amazon isn't paying a store staff and rental on store front property. In short Amazon can show the customer a price that is making a decent profit, and still be lower than a retail outlet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a603e76dd7cf5e499482b89caca47328", "text": "First, they don't have an obligation to provide a service for a non-customer. In theory, the could even refuse this service to account holders if that was their business model, although in practice that would almost surely be too large of a turn-off to be commercially feasible. Non-account holders aren't paying fees or providing capital to the bank, so the bank really has no incentive or obligation to tie up tellers serving them. Maybe as importantly, they have a legitimate business reason in this case as stated. The fact that the bill passed whatever test the teller did does not, of course, ensure that the bill is real. They may (or may not) subject it to additional tests later that might be more conclusive. Making you have an account helps ensure that, in the event they do test it and it fails, that (a) they know who you are in case the Secret Service wants to find you, and (b) they can recover their losses by debiting your account by the $100. This isn't foolproof since any number of bad things could still happen (identity theft, closing account before they do additional tests, bill passing later tests, etc.), but it does give them some measure of protection.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d072016a2ccc2726e7b3018546b815db", "text": "I'd imagine you want to keep the utility bills around to dispute any historical billing errors or anomalies for perhaps 6 months to a year. Beyond that, you always have the financial records of making the payments -- namely, your bank statements. So what benefit is there in keeping the paper receipts for utility payments around for longer than that? I say shred them, with extreme prejudice -- while wearing black Chuck Norris style.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8d5478ef1db64563a3c20bda209e11f3", "text": "looks like the US tax system needs an overhaul. You cant charge yourself arbitrary amounts to even out your bottom line. Wel you and I cant, but apparently we just need to make more money to do so....thanks BK for showing me the way!!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5ee1e17e8e4b943fe7322831dec28f6", "text": "\"Imagine two restaurants. One has prices 15% higher than the other, and the owner pays this 15% to his wait staff in the form of higher wages. The other has lower prices, but the average customer gifts 15% to their waiter. Clearly, in the first restaurant, the 15% the wait staff receives is taxable income. It is traditional salary. What legitimate, economic justification is their for treating the second restaurant any differently? Imagine a grocery store in a small town that offered long-time customers a \"\"pay nothing\"\" option but made it clear that they'd be subject to social ostracism and no longer welcome in the store if they didn't gift 85% of the usual cost of the items. The customers would save on sales tax and the grocer would argue that all that money was gifts, not income. Of course this doesn't work. The IRS, and the laws, don't care very much about what you call things. They care about the underlying economic reality. If the money was part of the payment for the services rendered, regardless of how it was delivered, what the parties called it, or whether the obligation to pay was legal or social, it's still a payment for the service and it's still taxable. You would have to be able to argue to the IRS that it really was a gift and wasn't any form of payment for the service received. Otherwise, it's just a scheme to evade taxes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d69a4e4466093ccea9e763adb6374aa4", "text": "Businesses are only required to keep receipts over $751. However for individuals, I would throw them all in a shoebox and not worry about organizing them. There's a small chance you'll need to go through them during an audit, and you can worry about reconciling all of them and putting them in order at that point. Just write 2010 on the box and keep it somewhere easy, and at the end of the year throw it in your basement (or get a scanner, and scan and trash the original).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3372ca3e67f71cc946ef94b9f46cfca", "text": "A simple option is to ask your teammates to send you their portion of the tax bill. This option makes everyone's taxes easier, especially since it is very likely that they have already sent in their tax returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a646a739d6aea9022f6c1e0c15a6857d", "text": "\"There is some merit to it, in that [federal gross receipts are largely uncorrelated with tax rates](https://i0.wp.com/wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/top-federal-personal-income-tax-rates-tax-receipts-2014-02.png). There are two somewhat perverse consequences of that fact - First, raising taxes doesn't raise revenues, meaning we can't actually pay for \"\"moar free stuff from Uncle Sam!\"\" merely by adding an offsetting tax increase. And second, raising taxes on group-X (ie, the rich) to make them pay their \"\"fair\"\" share flat-out doesn't work, it's effectively just kicking them in the balls because we grudge them for having more money than we do. Now, as to whether or not lowering taxes really encourages companies to hire more and pay better - That's an entirely separate issue from whether or not it's revenue neutral from the perspective of the federal government. Fortunately, we have a recent historical example - Reagan did exactly that, which ushered in a period of corporate greed and erosion of workers' rights not seen since the end of the days of the Robber Barons. So on the front-end, Trump's not wrong; on the back end, he's trying to sell us unicorn farts.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e13b682ffb08bdfdfb9f4297d66fb225", "text": "If you want to be safe, only claim deductions for which you have a receipt. This explanation may help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5343a55d9de262de93da6ee1e7ee768a", "text": "It's always beneficial to have detailed business records. There are any number of reasons where you'd need to prove both the types of services you've rendered and the payment history - you've already noted audits (for IRS taxes). Other possibilities: Whether these records need to be original or electronic might be the topic for another question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01e7358c2245eabd5d5287f4ca158ee5", "text": "The other reason you might want to keep receipts is if you do any freelancing or contract work, for your business expenses. You can take a picture of the receipts with your phone, or scan them - you don't have to keep the paper copies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da71f9205f2e0eb7c6a2ce25a7af6eb4", "text": "[This is a company's (TradingView.com) customer subscription levels.](https://i.imgur.com/1YIPzOn.gif) Why do they charge a higher price when customers pay monthly? Monthly increases short term cash flow, right? Why do you think they make prices in such a way that it incentivizes customers to be billed every 2 years?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc092acc5cde5b1d46766e306480c082", "text": "This is a great answer. It's worth noting that often internal charging is commonly an issue in less clear cut situations like IT departments charging for their services - there is much less of an 'real' value that they could charge for their services to the outside world (as it is an internal service not a physical product that is relatively liquid), yet their chargeable costs gets inflated and can slow down businesses by making projects seem more expensive than they are. I would describe that as one of the most common gripes. Also I'd argue that your latter scenario where profits are shifted around to reduce tax bills IS well understood by the top of the business, and unlikely to create a situation where divisions are mistakenly regarded as unprofitable (unless the CFO / FD is missing from all the board meetings!). It's a situation that is carefully designed by the business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbc665f95d5518c2fc7082a4541d862c", "text": "A) Wrong subreddit. There's probably a legal advice Canada one you should check out. B) You're a cashier. No one cares about your involvement in taxing products/customers. Unless you're directly pocketing money the most you could be is out of a job. C) If you're part of a chain store there is a REALLY good chance they have their inventory/sales numbers looked at regularly by extremely qualified people. Conclusion: Customer was being a dick for no reason.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
30b0514aa2c0fe255a8c8b57fae8a029	1099 Misc for taking care of foreign exchange students	[ { "docid": "8e67f5d319cbe5f6e7fc12d9ff5115ee", "text": "\"In general, you are allowed to deduct up to $50/month per student (see page 4), but only if you aren't reimbursed. In your case, since you are receiving a stipend, the full $2000 will be treated as taxable income. But the question of \"\"is it worth it\"\" really depends on how much you will actually spend (and also what you'll get from the experience). Suppose you actually spend $1000/month to host them, and if your combined tax rate is 35%, you'll pay $700 in additional taxes each month, but you'll still profit $300 each month. If your primary motivation for hosting students is to make a profit, you could consider creating a business out of it. If you do that you will be able to deduct all of your legitimate business expenses which, in the above example, would be $1000/month. Keeping with that example, you would now pay taxes on $1000 instead of $2000, which would be $350, meaning your profit would now be $650/month. (Increasing your profit by $350/month.) You will only need to keep spending records if you plan to go the business route. My advice: assume you won't be going the business route, and then figure out what your break even point is based on your tax rate (Fed+state+FICA). The formula is: Max you can spend per month without losing money = 2000 - (2000 * T) e.g. if T = 35%, the break even point is $1300. Side note: My family hosted 5 students in 5 years and it was always a fantastic experience. But it is also a very big commitment. Teenagers eat a lot, and they drive cars, and go on dates, and play sports, and need help with their homework (especially English papers), and they don't seem to like bed times or curfews. IMHO it's totally worth it, even without the stipend...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f813a03faadc324bd6aa1f40bb8fc31", "text": "According to Intuit, you cannot claim the $50 charitable contribution, so the entire $2000 / month will be taxable instead of $1900. That's only an extra $35 if your combined tax rate is 35%. As TTT mentioned, do this for the experience, not for the money. My wife and I have been hosting international students for 10 years now. https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3152069-i-received-a-1099-misc-employee-compensation-for-hosting-a-foreign-exchange-student-can-i-complete-a-schedule-c-for-the-expenses", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "d34cb5f443878184b7f7c24914d6b8db", "text": "Since you were a nonresident alien student on F-1 visa then you will be considered engaged in a trade or business in the USA. You must file Form 1040NR. Here is the detailed instruction by IRS - http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68a64f99ce3e7b39eb632a8f6aefc86a", "text": "You are expected to file 1099 for each person you pay $600 a year. I.e.: not a one time payment, but the total over the course of the year. Since we don't know how much and what else you paid - we cannot answer this question. The real question you're asking is that if you're treating the enterprise as a hobby, whether you're supposed to file 1099s at all. The answer to that question is yes. You should talk to your tax adviser (a EA/CPA licensed in your state) about this, and whether it is the right thing for you to do treating this as a hobby at all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29f435b2c18dc8dbc198bb80a1cabc83", "text": "If treaties are involved for something other than exempting student wages on campus, you shouldn't do it yourself but talk to a licensed US tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) who's well-versed in the specific treaty. Double taxation provisions generally mean that you can credit the foreign tax paid to your US tax liability, but in the US you can do that regardless of treaties (some countries don't allow that). Also, if you're a US tax resident (or even worse - a US citizen), the royalties related treaty provision might not even apply to you at all (see the savings clause). FICA taxes are generally not part of the income tax treaties but totalization agreements (social security-related taxes, not income taxes). Most countries who have income tax treaties with the US - don't have social security totalization agreements. Bottom line - talk to a licensed professional.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0980ca2d1a7e51b55220dd25da641b4f", "text": "question #2 - yes, 25% of your 1099 income. Good idea. It adds up quickly and is a good way to reduce taxable income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c4da0f6689c697989f3e85d5e528ac56", "text": "\"It says that you are exempt \"\"as long as such interest income is not effectively connected with a United States trade or business\"\". So the interest is from money earned from doing business with/through AirBnb, a US company. So you will have to report it. Even if your bank doesn't send you a 1099-INT, you have to report it, unless it is under $0.49 because the IRS allows rounding.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6d8246a6d2c372099e8140b3683674e", "text": "Business Apprentice is internship. That is not what is applicable for you. You're a visiting professor/researcher, which falls under Article 22, so you don't get the standard deduction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57fbee9831e6442f6cf8d4f9f3c712b6", "text": "I can't find specific information for Form 1099-DIV for this tax year. However, I found this quote for next tax season that talks about Form 1099-B: Due date for certain statements sent to recipients. The due date for furnishing statements to recipients for Forms 1099-B, 1099-S, and 1099-MISC (if amounts are reported in box 8 or 14) is February 15, 2018. [emphasis added] I know many brokerages bundle the 1099-DIV with the 1099-B, so one might assume that the deadlines are the same. February 15 seems consistent with the messages I got from my brokerages that said the forms will be mailed by mid-February.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb0647f840b95233af703f5eabf08a32", "text": "\"1. What forms do I need to file to receive money from Europe None. Your client can pay you via wire transfer. They need to know your name, address, account number, and the name of your bank, its SWIFT number and its associated address. The addresses and names are required to make sure there are no typos in the numbers. 2. What forms do I need to file to pay people in Latin America (or any country outside the US) None. 1099s only need to be filled out when the contractor has a US tax ID. Make sure they are contractors. If they work for you for more than 2 years, that can create a problem unless they incorporate because they might look like \"\"employees\"\" to the IRS in which case you need to be reporting their identitites to the IRS via a W-8BEN form. Generally speaking any foreign contractor you have for more than 2 years should incorporate in their own country and you bill that corporation to prevent employee status from occurring. 3. Can I deduct payments I made to contractors from other countries as company expense Of course.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9336d26dd5877928c86ed75d766ddbc7", "text": "\"In general, scholarship income that you receive that is not used for tuition or books must be included in your gross income and reported as such on your tax return. Scholarship income you receive that is used for those kinds of expenses may be excludable from your gross income. See this IRS information and this related question. I believe that as represented on the 1098-T, this generally means that if Box 5 (Scholarships and Grants) is greater than Box 1 or 2 (only one of which will be used on your 1098-T), you received taxable scholarship income. If Box 5 is less than or equal to Box 1/2, you did not receive taxable scholarship income. This TaxSlayer page draws the same conclusion. However, you should realize that the 1098-T is not what makes you have to pay or not pay taxes. You incur the taxes by receiving scholarship money, and you may reduce your tax liability by paying tuition. The 1098-T is simply a record of payments that have already been made. For instance, if you received $10,000 in scholarship money --- that is, actually received checks for that amount or had that amount deposited into your bank account --- then your income went up by $10,000. If you yourself paid tuition, it is likely that you can exclude the amount of the tuition from your taxable income, reducing the tax you owe (see the IRS page linked above). However, if you received $10,000 in actual money and in addition your tuition was paid by the scholarship (with money you never actually had in your own bank account), then the entire $10,000 would be taxable. You do not give enough information in your question to be sure which of these situations is closer to your own. However, you should be able to decide by looking at your bank account: look at how much money you received and how much you spent on tuition. If you received more scholarship money than the tuition you paid out of pocket, you owe taxes on the remainder. (I emphasize that this is just a general rule of thumb and should not be taken as tax advice; you should review the IRS information and/or consult a tax professional to determine what part of your scholarship income is taxable.) In addition, as this (now rather old) article from the New York Society of CPAs notes, \"\"many colleges and universities prepare 1098-Ts incorrectly and report tuition and related expenses inconsistently\"\". This means you should be careful to reconcile the 1098-T with your own financial records of what money you actually received and paid. When I was in grad school there was a good deal of hand-wringing and hair-pulling each year among the students as we tried to determine what relationship (if any) the 1098-T bore to the financial facts.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e20a9c8c36738492aa0363c1113b6ca9", "text": "\"I'm working on similar problem space. There seems to be some working ambiguity in this space - most focus seems to be on more complex cases of income like Dividends and Capital Gains. The US seems to take a position of \"\"where the work was performed\"\" not \"\"where the work was paid\"\" for purposes of the FEIE. See this link. The Foreign Tax Credit(FTC) is applied (regardless of FEIE) based on taxes paid in the other Country. In the event you take the FEIE, you need to exclude that from the income possible to claim on the FTC. i.e. (TOTAL WAGES(X) - Excluded Income) There is a weird caveat on TOTAL WAGES(X) that says you can only apply the FTC to foreign-sourced income which means that potentially we are liable for the on-US-soil income at crazy rates. See this link.. Upon which... there is probably not a good answer short of writing your congressperson.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27b9e5f5f85fe3439903cc3d99d16902", "text": "Students at college employed by the college are exempt from the FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare). You are not exempt from federal and state income taxes, but if you are a part time employee making a small amount of money, you probably aren't projected to be paid enough between now and the end of the year to trigger the withholding. If you are concerned that your tax burden for the year will require you to send in money at tax time next year, you can estimate what your taxes will be, and if you determine that you will owe too much, you can fill out a new W-4 form with your HR department and request that additional tax be withheld.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85794d485be3d23157e21a9378a3e00f", "text": "To start with, I should mention that many tax preparation companies will give you any number of free consultations on tax issues — they will only charge you if you use their services to file a tax form, such as an amended return. I know that H&R Block has international tax specialists who are familiar with the issues facing F-1 students, so they might be the right people to talk about your specific situation. According to TurboTax support, you should prepare a completely new 1040NR, then submit that with a 1040X. GWU’s tax department says you can submit late 8843, so you should probably do that if you need to claim non-resident status for tax purposes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7eac2e73f8d413f7e41d518f1fd205ce", "text": "\"You may be considered a resident for tax purposes. To meet the substantial presence test, you must have been physically present in the United States on at least: 31 days during the current year, and 183 days during the 3 year period that includes the current year and the 2 years immediately before. To satisfy the 183 days requirement, count: All of the days you were present in the current year, and One-third of the days you were present in the first year before the current year, and One-sixth of the days you were present in the second year before the current year. If you are exempt, I'd check that ending your residence in Germany doesn't violate terms of the visa, in which case you'd lose your exempt status. If you are certain that you can maintain your exempt status, then the income would definitively not be taxed by the US as it is not effectively connected income: You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a nonimmigrant on an \"\"F,\"\" \"\"J,\"\" \"\"M,\"\" or \"\"Q\"\" visa. The taxable part of any U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant in \"\"F,\"\" \"\"J,\"\" \"\"M,\"\" or \"\"Q\"\" status is treated as effectively connected with a trade or business in the United States. and your scholarship is sourced from outside the US: Generally, the source of scholarships, fellowship grants, grants, prizes, and awards is the residence of the payer regardless of who actually disburses the funds. I would look into this from a German perspective. If they have a rule similiar to the US for scholarships, then you will still be counted as a resident there.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e60c76c4257a2b9514250cba964fb1e6", "text": "I believe it's not only legal, but correct and required. A 1099 is how a business reports payments to others, and they're required by the IRS to send them for payments of $600 or more (for miscalleneous payments like this). The payment is an expense to the landlord and income to you, and the 1099 is how that's documented (although note that if they don't send you a 1099, it's still income to you and you still need to report it as such). It's similar to getting a 1099-INT for interest payments or a 1099-DIV for dividend payments. You'll get a 1099-MISC for a miscellaneous payment. If you were an employee they'd send you a W-2, not a 1099.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0eb36cb23e54bb663852701290267fcd", "text": "My two-cents, read your plan document or Summary Plan Description. The availability of in-service withdrawals will vary by document. Moreover, many plans, especially those compliant with 404(c) of ERISA will allow for individual brokerage accounts. This is common for smaller plans. If so, you can request to direct your own investments in your own account. You will likely have to pay any associated fees. Resources: work as actuary at a TPA firm", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
b493b330baa676b50da2d4f4c0025081	Why are there so many stock exchanges in the world?	[ { "docid": "9afa9a63cbedc37a3769f61c1b6654ad", "text": "\"Nearly every country has its own exchange because so many countries have their own currency, and currency permeates every part of an exchange's business. Generally, an exchange will support transaction and settlement only in local currency. Securities (except those that explicitly enable FX trading) are denominated and will trade in a single currency-- you can only buy a share of IBM in U.S. dollars. Securities trading always seeks to be a clean, frictionless, scalable process, and adding cross-currency translation to the mix would just complicate things. So it's one exchange, one currency. In most countries, citizens and even businesses are largely restricted to having bank accounts in local currency. There are various political reasons for this, but there it is: it is difficult or impossible to open a domestic bank account in a foreign-denominated currency. A public company headquartered in a given country will be required to publish financial statements in local currency, will be more likely to do business with the local citizenry and businesses in that currency, and so will likely look for investors from that same pool-- which generally means listing in local currency, which means on an exchange in that country. There are exceptions, of course. Big multinationals do business all over the world, and many seek investors all over the world as well. Mechanisms have been created to permit this (American Depositary Receipts or ADRs, for example). But once again, cross-currency translation makes things more complicated, so ADRs and their like are only practical for very big international players. As to why there may be many exchanges in a single country, IMO Nick R has it right. Read \"\"Flash Boys\"\"; many market makers profit from trading between exchanges, and so have an interest in there being many of them. And in the U.S., regulators have expressed an interest in \"\"innovation\"\" in the exchange space, and so permit them. There is also an argument to be made against having a single \"\"Too Big To Fail\"\" exchange just like the argument for banks, but I wouldn't call that a \"\"reason\"\" for the current state of affairs.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "19b8fefc80b1480b222601567516f7e6", "text": "Stock exchanges have been undergoing a period of consolidation for the past hundred years for the exact reasons you mentioned. The existence of digital trading, harmonized laws and regulations, and fewer relevant currencies have made it more practical for mergers and acquisitions between exchanges. Stock exchanges are most often times private companies that compete with other exchanges, so that also promotes the existence of many exchanges.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2df1f883c931101ae884951adcb3ebc", "text": "\"Why are there so many stock exchanges in the world? The simple answer is that there is a lot of money to be made by charging fees to facilitate the trading of securities, but there are other factors at play here relating to new technologies. Trading volumes have increased rapidly in recent years. According to this ITG data, in 1997, 6.5 billion shares were traded on US exchanges. By 2015 this number had increased to 40.8 billion shares. There are a number of reasons for this rapid increase in volumes. Most significant would be the introduction of new technologies that allow for high volume, high frequency trading. This increase in activity has be accompanied by an increase in the number of stock exchanges. As CQM points out in his answer, there has been considerable consolidation in the ownership of \"\"legacy\"\" exchanges. For example, the NYSE merged with EuroNext in 2007, and the combined group is now owned by the Intercontinental Exchange, which also owns numerous smaller stock exchanges as well as a number of derivative/commodities exchanges. However, this consolidation in ownership has been more than matched by the creation of many \"\"virtual\"\" exchanges. In North America these virtual exchanges are called \"\"Alternative Trading Systems\"\". In Europe, they are called \"\"Multilateral Trading Facilities\"\". These new virtual exchanges, sometimes referred to as \"\"dark pools\"\", have begun to significantly eat away at the volumes of the legacy exchanges. If you look at the ITG data (linked above), you will see that the total volume of shares traded on legacy exchanges actually peaked in 2008, and has since then has decreased. This coincides roughly with the appearance of the virtual exchanges and the new high frequency trading methods. According to this paper from the SEC site, dated 2013, Alternative Trading Systems accounted for 11.3% of total volumes in 2012. This will have increased rapidly in the years since 2012. It is this loss of business that has prompted the consolidation in the ownership of the legacy exchanges. These new exchange are \"\"conceptually the same\"\" as the legacy exchanges and must play by the same regulatory rules.\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "4048f622462175257b20a025cffe2227", "text": "The total value of the stock market more or less tracks the total value of the companies listed in the stock market, which is more or less the total value of the US economy (since very few industries are nationalized or dominated by privately held companies). The US economy has consistently grown over time, thanks to the wonders of industrialization, the discovery of new markets, new natural resources, etc. Thus, the stock market has continued to grow as well. Will it forever? No. The United States will not exist for ever. But there's no obvious reason it won't continue to grow, at least for a while, though of course if I could accurately predict that I would be far richer than I am. Why do other countries not have the same result? China is its own ball of wax since it's a sort-of-market-sort-of-command economy. Japan has major issues economically right now and doesn't really have the natural or people resources; it also had a huge market bubble a while back that it's never recovered from. And many European countries are doing fine. German's DAX30 index was at around 2500 in 2004 and is now at nearly 13000. That's pretty fast growth. If you go back further (there was a crash ending in around 2004), you can see around the fall of the Berlin wall it was still around 2000; even going that far back, that's about an 8% annual bump. The FTSE was also around 2000 back then, around 8000 now, which is around 5% annual growth. Many of these indexes were more seriously hurt than the US markets in the two major crashes of this millenium; while the US markets fell a lot in 2008, they didn't fall nearly as much as many smaller markets in 2002, so had less to recover from. Both DAX and FTSE suffered similar falls in 2002 to 2008, and so even though during good periods they've grown quite quickly, they haven't overall done as well as they could have given the crashes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b032ce2063c3d7d8952a3ba8ebc1121a", "text": "You don't have to go through an exchange. That wasn't the problem. It was that the people trading on them wouldn't be willing to take your offer. An exchange can't just list a company. They need that company's consent and the company need's the exchange's consent. I don't know if you're aware of this but that was also an entirely new disaster during Facebook's IPO. Computer glitches didn't help. What you're talking about is a called a secondary market, kind of. Stock exchanges offer those too, especially for options. That's the typical stock footage you see of guys on wall street yelling and screaming while throwing paper up in the air.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8b1c36e5d1791682dd0255c1fe4c7d4", "text": "I don't know why stocks in some industries tend to have lower prices per share than others. It doesn't really matter much. Whether a company has 1,000,0000 shares selling for $100 each, or 10,000,000 shares selling for $10 each, either way the total value is the same. Companies generally like to keep the share price relatively low so that if someone wants to buy a small amount, they can. Like if the price was $10,000 per share, than an investor with less than $10,000 to put in that one stock would be priced out of the market. If it's $10, then if someone wants $10 they can buy one share, and if someone wants $10,000 they can buy 1000 shares. As to why energy stocks are volatile, I can think of several reasons. One, in our current world, energy is highly susceptible to politics. A lot of the world's energy comes from the Middle East, which is a notoriously unstable region. Any time there's conflict there, energy supplies from the region become uncertain. Oil-producing countries may embargo countries that they don't like. A war will, at the very least, interfere with transportation and shipping, and may result in oil wells being destroyed. Etc. Two, energy is consumed when you use it, and most consumers have very limited ability to stockpile. So you're constantly buying the energy you need as you need it. So if demand goes down, it is reflected immediately. Compare this to, say, clothing. Most people expect to keep the same clothes for years, wearing them repeatedly. (Hopefully washing them now and then!) So if for some reason you decided today that you only need three red shirts instead of four, this might not have any immediate impact on your buying. It could be months before you would have bought a new red shirt anyway. There is a tendency for the market to react rather slowly to changes in demand for shirts. But with energy, if you decide you only need to burn 3 gallons of gas per week instead of 4, your consumption goes down immediately, within days. Three, really adding to number two, energy is highly perishable, especially some forms of energy. If a solar power station is capable of producing 10 megawatts but today there is only demand for 9 megawatts, you can't save the unused megawatt for some future time when demand is higher. It's gone. (You can charge a battery with it, but that's pretty limited.) You can pile up coal or store natural gas in a tank until you need it, but you can't save the output of a power plant. Note numbers two and three also apply to food, which is why food production is also very volatile.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68091295b7fb6720774adf3dda051fda", "text": "It might be easiest to think of stock exchanges like brokers. If you buy a home, and your broker goes bankrupt, you still own your home, but you could not sell it without the aid of another broker. Same with stocks, you own the stocks you buy, but you would be unable to either purchase new stocks or sell your stock holdings without an exchange.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27c4e69d2f392f68687ad026b2b9ae91", "text": "The stock market's principal justification is matching investors with investment opportunities. That's only reasonably feasible with long-term investments. High frequency traders are not interested in investments, they are interested in buying cheap and selling expensive. Holding reasonably robust shares for longer binds their capital which is one reason the faster-paced business of dealing with options is popular instead. So their main manner of operation is leeching off actually occuring investments by letting the investors pay more than the recipients of the investments receive. By now, the majority of stock market business is indirect and tries guessing where the money goes rather than where the business goes. For one thing, this leads to the stock market's evaluations being largely inflated over the actual underlying committed deals happening. And as the commitment to an investment becomes rare, the market becomes more volatile and instable: it's money running in circles. Fast trading is about running in front of where the money goes, anticipating the market. But if there is no actual market to anticipate, only people running before the imagination of other people running before money, the net payout converges to zero as the ratio of serious actual investments in tangible targets declines. By and large, high frequency trading converges to a Ponzi scheme, and you try being among the winners of such a scheme. But there are a whole lot of people competing here, and essentially the net payoff is close to zero due to the large volumes in circulation as opposed to what ends up in actual tangible investments. It's a completely different game with different rules riding on the original idea of a stock market. So you have to figure out what your money should be doing according to your plans.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81e3c658b4c1ad494a06e67bc0a6de25", "text": "Non-electronic stock exchanges still exist because they used to exist. There are a lot of people in trading firms who grew up with floor trading and don't want to give it up, either because they feel more comfortable with it or because they might lose their job if they went away from it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f59f4442413d1763b8006e17302d92bb", "text": "The reason a company creates more stock is to generate more capital so that this can be utilized and more returns can be generated. It is commonly done as a follow on public offer. Typically the funds are used to retire high cost debts and fund future expansion. What stops the company from doing it? Are Small investors cheated? It's like you have joined a car pool with 4 people and you are beliving that you own 1/4th of the total seats ... so when most of them decide that we would be better of using Minivan with 4 more persons, you cannot complain that you now only own 1/8 of the total seats. Even before you were having just one seat, and even after you just have one seat ... overall it maybe better as the ride would be good ... :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "992515091016e92c23ab724308d91cbb", "text": "\"There are people (well, companies) who make money doing roughly what you describe, but not exactly. They're called \"\"market makers\"\". Their value for X% is somewhere on the scale of 1% (that is to say: a scale at which almost everything is \"\"volatile\"\"), but they use leverage, shorting and hedging to complicate things to the point where it's nothing like a simple as making a 1% profit every time they trade. Their actions tend to reduce volatility and increase liquidity. The reason you can't do this is that you don't have enough capital to do what market makers do, and you don't receive any advantages that the exchange might offer to official market makers in return for them contracting to always make both buy bids and sell offers (at different prices, hence the \"\"bid-offer spread\"\"). They have to be able to cover large short-term losses on individual stocks, but when the stock doesn't move too much they do make profits from the spread. The reason you can't just buy a lot of volatile stocks \"\"assuming I don't make too many poor choices\"\", is that the reason the stocks are volatile is that nobody knows which ones are the good choices and which ones are the poor choices. So if you buy volatile stocks then you will buy a bunch of losers, so what's your strategy for ensuring there aren't \"\"too many\"\"? Supposing that you're going to hold 10 stocks, with 10% of your money in each, what do you do the first time all 10 of them fall the day after you bought them? Or maybe not all 10, but suppose 75% of your holdings give no impression that they're going to hit your target any time soon. Do you just sit tight and stop trading until one of them hits your X% target (in which case you start to look a little bit more like a long-term investor after all), or are you tempted to change your strategy as the months and years roll by? If you will eventually sell things at a loss to make cash available for new trades, then you cannot assess your strategy \"\"as if\"\" you always make an X% gain, since that isn't true. If you don't ever sell at a loss, then you'll inevitably sometimes have no cash to trade with through picking losers. The big practical question then is when that state of affairs persists, for how long, and whether it's in force when you want to spend the money on something other than investing. So sure, if you used a short-term time machine to know in advance which volatile stocks are the good ones today, then it would be more profitable to day-trade those than it would be to invest for the long term. Investing on the assumption that you'll only pick short-term winners is basically the same as assuming you have that time machine ;-) There are various strategies for analysing the market and trying to find ways to more modestly do what market makers do, which is to take profit from the inherent volatility of the market. The simple strategy you describe isn't complete and cannot be assessed since you don't say how to decide what to buy, but the selling strategy \"\"sell as soon as I've made X% but not otherwise\"\" can certainly be improved. If you're keen you can test a give strategy for yourself using historical share price data (or current share price data: run an imaginary account and see how you're doing in 12 months). When using historical data you have to be realistic about how you'd choose what stocks to buy each day, or else you're just cheating at solitaire. When using current data you have to beware that there might not be a major market slump in the next 12 months, in which case you won't know how your strategy performs under conditions that it inevitably will meet eventually if you run it for real. You also have to be sure in either case to factor in the transaction costs you'd be paying, and the fact that you're buying at the offer price and selling at the bid price, you can't trade at the headline mid-market price. Finally, you have to consider that to do pure technical analysis as an individual, you are in effect competing against a bank that's camped on top of the exchange to get fastest possible access to trade, it has a supercomputer and a team of whizz-kids, and it's trying to find and extract the same opportunities you are. This is not to say the plucky underdog can't do well, but there are systematic reasons not to just assume you will. So folks investing for their retirement generally prefer a low-risk strategy that plays the averages and settles for taking long-term trends.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb40365ea193ef944818cd92378da144", "text": "He said he's using MSCI World as a benchmark. MSCI World is not an exchange. The point is the same security listed in different places has different prices, so how do you describe the equity beta of the company to MSCI World if you have multiple and different return streams? This is a real problem to consider and you just dismiss it entirely.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f59842b4cc87ff6f7e622e7c1b8a5f5e", "text": "\"Pay to play? You mean they pay for beefier data feeds that other firms don't need, sure they do. But everyone can trade on the US exchanges now (NYSE, NASDAQ, BATS, etc) which was not true 20 years ago when NYSE had the specialist monopoly, so yes the markets are more democratic than they've ever been. Side note, the exchanges do directly profit from increased trading volume because they take a small % of every trade, so I'm not sure what you mean they don't directly profit from it. Also I get the feeling you don't understand the scope of HFT activity, HFT peak profits were on the order of 7 billion during the highest volume time of the last decade (2005-2010). They are now around 1B. Compared to the trillions of dollars that change hands in the exchange per year, this is chump change, hardly a \"\"free money faucet\"\". Also Katsayuma opened yet another dark pool that caters to high volume clients (your goldmans and merrils). The only difference in IEX is it got a free marketing campaign to entice clients. Seriously, IEX is nothing more than the existing fixed cross dark pools, which btw screws over retail investors more than the lit exchanges like NASDAQ. Katsayuma got steamrolled in his executions because he couldn't keep up with the time and then hit the lottery jackpot by getting Michael Lewis to paint him as a \"\"hero\"\", honestly I'm confounded at how lucky that dude got. BTW broker dealers get preferential treatment in IEX, meaning they get to cut in front of the line in front of retail investors. Why are you so opinionated about this, did you make a few bad trades on eTrade and need a scapegoat?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c6b17bfa485445555a5611682e477de", "text": "The suffix represents the stock exchange the stock is traded on. N represents the New York Stock Exchange and O represents the Nasdaq. Sometimes a stock can be listed on more than one exchange so the suffix will give you an indication of which exchange the stock is on. For example the Australian company BHP Billiton Ltd is listed on multiple exchanges so is given a different suffix for the different exchanges (especially when the code is the same for each exchange). Below are a few examples of BHP:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2827cf778c230ac62baa016936a44c42", "text": "Serious answer: If 7 banks owned the vast majority of houses for sale -- that is, on their balance sheet, at the peak of the housing bubble -- there would be. These 7 LCD companies produced the majority of LCDs globally. Real estate is far more decentralized, and in many times the bank merely provided financing for a third-party sale (from the builder, from any one of a hundred or so real estate companies, etc). (But I am assuming you probably weren't looking for a factual answer, anyway.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d354ffcba653ace3f0d5f2d49614d2d", "text": "First and foremost you need to be aware of what you are comparing. In this case, HSBC as traded on the NYSE exchange is not common shares, but an ADR (American Depository Receipt) with a 5:1 ratio from the actual shares. So for most intents and purposes owning one ADR is like owning five common shares. But for special events like dividends, there may be other considerations, such as the depository bank (the institution that created the ADR) may take a percentage. Further, given that some people, accounts or institutions may be required to invest in a given country or not, there may be some permanent price dislocation between the shares and the ADR, which can further lead to discrepancies which are then highlighted by the seeming difference in dividends.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14117e82a174430358141e8f5bc52d22", "text": "You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock? No. That would be absurdly expensive. So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the time when instant communications is available. Why do we now still need brokerages, when the Exchanges could set up web sites and let you do the trading? The answer is that the Exchanges don't want to have to develop the accounting systems to manage the transactions of hundreds of thousands of small traders, when existing brokerage firms already have those computerized processes in place and are opening their own web sites. Thus, in 2017 we have brokerage firms because of history.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d9775c0ff085d4d7023a275e8706142", "text": "\"A huge amount of money in all financial markets is from institutional investors, such as mutual funds, government pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, etc. For various reasons these funds do all of their trading at the end of the day. They care primarily that their end-of-day balances are in line with their targets and are easy to audit and far less about \"\"timing the market\"\" for the best possible trades. So, if you're looking at a stock that is owned by many institutional investors -- such as a stock (like AAPL) that makes up a significant portion of an index that many funds track -- there will be a huge amount of activity at this time relative to stocks that are less popular among institutions. Even just in its introduction this paper (PDF) gives a fair overview of other reasons why there's a lot of trading at end-of-day in general. (In fact, because of all this closing activity and the reliance on end-of-day prices as signposts for financial calculations, the end-of-day has for decades been the single most fraud-ridden time of the trading day. Electronic trading has done away with a lot of the straight-up thievery that floor traders and brokers used to get away with at the expense of the public, but it still exists. See, for example, any explanation of the term banging the close, or the penalties against 6 banks just last month for manipulating the FX market at the close.)\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
93fa754dd29e3aeaf3129fb1bd52250d	Are large companies more profitable than small ones?	[ { "docid": "588c6dd2a52de1016e17691809f23a2c", "text": "\"There is no general theory to support the notion that larger companies will be more profitable than smaller companies. Economies of scale are not always positive, one can have diseconomies of scale too. It is more common to talk about an optimal firm size, even going back to Stigler's (1958) \"\"The Economies of Scale.\"\" Intuitively, if economies of scale extended indefinitely, then natural monopolies would dominate all industries in the long run. A profit ratio, unfortunately, wouldn't quite get at scale economies. Consider, for example, that the denominator of your metric would be profit+cost and that you are trying to get at the cost reduction that derives from scale. Then, you are measuring the size of a company by the exact metric that should be reduced if scale economies exist, so the calculation would be a bit confounded. It is my understanding that such assessments are usually conducted at the industry level by determining whether the industry is becoming increasingly concentrated among fewer firms over time. (Again see Stigler). If concentration is increasing, there is an implication that, at current firm sizes, there are economies of scale in the industry.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb87c7f991935f3e133dc34eafb8e586", "text": "\"This isn't as rigorous as it should be, but may offer some useful insight into how big and small companies differ operationally. Putting Apple aside, larger companies tend to sell larger volumes of products (even if they're MRI devices, or turbines) relative to what smaller companies can sell (obviously, in absolute terms as well). They are also able to negotiate volume discounts as well as payment terms. This allows them to finance sales through their supply chain. However, their large direct competitors are able to do the same thing as well. Competitive forces then drive prices down. Smaller businesses, without these advantages of scale, tend to have to charge higher margins since they have to pay directly (and, if their clients are large businesses, finance the sale). Small businesses still have higher proportional costs of operation. Sadly, my reference here is a study I performed for the South African Revenue Service about ten years ago, and not available online. However, the time taken by a small business to manage admin, tax, HR is a greater proportion of revenue than for larger companies. If the small business is a start-up with big investment from venture finance, then they could subsidise their selling price, run at a loss and try and gain scale. Funnily enough, there is a fantastic article on this by Joel Spolsky (Ben and Jerry's vs. Amazon) For the average highly-competitive smaller company, the best choice is to chase design/quality/premium markets in order to justify the higher margins they have to charge. And that's what makes Apple interesting as a case study. They were a small company in the presence of giants (Intel, Microsoft, IBM). They were \"\"forced\"\" to concentrate on design and premium markets in order to justify their need for higher margins. It almost didn't work but then they broke through. Now they're in the unique position of having gained scale but are still small enough relative to other electronics manufacturers to continue charging that premium (by volume their sales are still relatively small but their margins make them a giant). This type of variation from market to market makes developing some sort of generalised solution very unlikely but the general requirement holds: that smaller companies must charge higher margins in order to create equivalent profits to larger companies which must gain scale through volume.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9dddb677de82e42ec770d23f1c7fe059", "text": "Small companies could have growth prospects. Large companies may not have that many. So look at ROE of companies by quatile to determine which companies have better growth.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "8e4671bd2d50e27b9b831bf249dd2bf3", "text": "I agree, I am a small business owner. But my original point is that companies large and small got to pay low rates for almost a decade now. And they profited from it. economics tell you that it will swing back eventually. Conceptually you may have to pay more, you may have to charge more, but your clients are probably making more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88bbaaa1f478d2d0a6c1994996a4e34d", "text": "Twitter (and Facebook) are media companies. They make money selling (user generated) content to advertisers. To do this affectively, they need people on the ground in each market who speak the language and know the local customs. If your question is why don't they make larger profits, is this their focus? Growth is THE major factor in stock price for a startup / newly floated company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db351fb142066f802e9dfed69b44acb6", "text": "In the scenario you describe, the first thing I would look at would be liquidity. In other words, how easy is it to buy and sell shares. If the average daily volume of one share is low compared to the average daily volume of the other, then the more actively traded share would be the more attractive. Low volume shares will have larger bid-offer spreads than high volume shares, so if you need to get out of position quickly you will be at risk of being forced to take a lowball offer. Having said that, it is important to understand that high yielding shares have high yields for a reason. Namely, the market does not think much of the company's prospects and that it is likely that a cut in the dividend is coming in the near future. In general, the nominal price of a share is not important. If two companies have equal prospect, then the percentage movement in their share price will be about the same, so the net profit or loss you realise will be about the same.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d36e0205b0ac8c7e297c5ca82ec01fd2", "text": "The parent company is likely to own other assets, which can be badly performing. Spinoffs are typically the better performers. There are also other factors, for example certain big funds cannot invest in sectors like tobacco or defense and for conglomerates it makes sense to spin those assets off to attract a wider investor audience.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4ed57c04ebace079b2c46549a314472d", "text": "There are many reasons but perhaps the most telling is that these small foreign companies usually have not experienced diminishing marginal returns. This means they grow faster, which means higher returns for investment. However a lack of infrastructure, and of political and economic stability, make these investments risky!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96387f55bb095db0193bdbe95e7499a8", "text": "\"The \"\"coin flip\"\" argument made in the article is absurd. My old boss had a saying, \"\"the harder I work, the luckier I get.\"\" He came from nothing, worked maniacally to become an Olympian, and later in life became a multi-millionaire. This is a common story among self-made people. I DO think that the rich have significant advantages: education, contact networks, access to startup capital, etc. These are very helpful, but don't assure success. Their lack is not insurmountable by the ambitious. I also think those advantages have expanded in recent years. Monetary policy has resulted in a large pool of investable funds being made available to to the financial sector, who earn high incomes with rent-seeking tactics.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "019c562381dbf07dddf134fca21b2b8a", "text": "To build off of this, they also generally have logistics and distribution in place already. When a smaller company makes a product that people can't get enough of, the small company has problems scaling up fast enough. The big company has scale, the small company has the right product. Put them together, and 1+1=3", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a26a00ac9aeb9b8f04f1f97a152a9542", "text": "Market capitalization is one way to represent the value of the company. So if a company has 10 million shares, which are each worth $100, then the company's market capitalization is 1 billion. Large cap companies tend to be larger and more stable. Small cap companies are smaller, which indicates higher volatility. So if you want more aggressive investments then you may want to invest in small cap companies while if you lean on the side of caution then big cap companies may be your friend.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adc6e15089c8a3f5d3ae3a5805a15a08", "text": "In a well-managed company, employees bring more dollars to their employers than the employers pay the employees (salary and benefits). Employees trade potential reward for security (a regular paycheck). Employers take on the risk of needing to meet payroll and profit from the company's income, minus expenses. The potential rewards are much higher as an employer (self or otherwise), so the ones that do make it do quite well. But this is also consistent with your other statement that the reverse is not true; the risk of self-employment is high, and many self-employed people don't become millionaires.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5adacefbe232ae2fdb5061c62d1ea13b", "text": "This is an interesting discussion. I've never been a part of a large corporation, but aren't these functions good for morale. If they gripe about saving money, and then cut all the employees functions becoming the most uncaring and dispassionate company in all of companydom, wouldn't that also kill productivity?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf6022bc93687e36f52a30b212aea8d4", "text": "I think it's safe to say that Apple cannot grow in value in the next 20 years as fast as it did in the prior 20. It rose 100 fold to a current 730B valuation. 73 trillion dollars is nearly half the value of all wealth in the world. Unfortunately, for every Apple, there are dozens of small companies that don't survive. Long term it appears the smaller cap stocks should beat large ones over the very long term if only for the fact that large companies can't maintain that level of growth indefinitely. A non-tech example - Coke has a 174B market cap with 46B in annual sales. A small beverage company can have $10M in sales, and grow those sales 20-25%/year for 2 decades before hitting even $1B in sales. When you have zero percent of the pie, it's possible to grow your business at a fast pace those first years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2776ed9cfdd28deaf526993369bf1308", "text": "It depends on which of the big4. Some of them have more revenue and profit from consulting than from audit. Specifically, some of the big4 have failed at growing their consulting business to be competitive with the consulting arms of other firms and/or sold off their consulting groups and are in the process of rebuilding.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d367c0b197e4d2b19fdd9f60cb97c426", "text": "Of course you wouldn't, and of course data is incredibly important. What I'm saying is that you at least have access to rudimentary data about what people are interested in, public data sources, etc that didn't even exist in the past. In the past, small businesses were flying incredibly blind. The data small businesses do have access to today didn't even exist except in either very expensive data collection firms or in hard to get physical records in the past. A small company is never going to have the resources of a large one - at any point in history", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec3898a025bd61dafe6b6459d27b46c0", "text": "Of course it's more difficult to grow profits now after they've been having record profits. It's hard to beat the record. Their strategies have been cut salaries in exchange for lowering costs and making higher profits. But when EVERY company cuts salaries, who is left with enough disposable income to buy the products?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fba48783c305d72d6c1464d65e0f9cd2", "text": "And the truth of the matter is that the majority of entrepreneurs are rich only because they are lucky. Strangely none of them are prepared to admit this either. See if you throw enough mud at a wall, eventually some of it will stick. And if 20,000 people start a business, then most will fail, but some will succeed, and some will go through the roof. The business acumen of the directors is sometimes capable of making a business MORE successful than it otherwise would be, but mostly, it's down to luck.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
6f9d970cdb0de4e16cea5f9e6b27b95d	Gap in domestic Health Insurance coverage, expect higher premiums?	[ { "docid": "0d5f1455758d9b22e82fe037b6ccc6f3", "text": "The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of. The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do. Insurance companies are businesses. They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insurer). They can not do that if you can buy insurance only when you need for them to pay out. So even though you may not have a preexisting condition, they are precluded from requiring an examination that would detect the most expensive preexisting conditions (hidden cancers, neurological, autoimmune disorders). So the companies must do what takes business sense and either deny you coverage or charge a rate that covers the risk they would be forced to take. In your question on travel there was a response that suggested you get international health insurance instead of travel health insurance that would be considered credible coverage. You are trying to save money which on a personal level is a good idea. However that is against the societal and business need that you maintain health coverage during your healthy times to cover the costs of those who need expensive treatment. So you will be monetarily penalized should you choose to reenter the society of insured people. Once you have paid the higher rate for up to 18 months you should be able to get a better policy for people who have had continuous coverage. Alternately you may be lucky enough to start working for a company that provides health insurance with out requiring continuous coverage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8c8ca4077f27a86a88ff81a4d00b991b", "text": "I bought Health Insurance for myself after a period without it, and my premiums were not terrible. I was a 27 year old man, living in California, no preexisting conditions, and I paid approximately 90$ a month. This was for a standard Health Insurance plan. However, when I moved back to NY a little while later, insurance companies wanted almost $500/month for catastrophic coverage. So, from personal experience, my answer is that price varies widely by state. Different states have different regulations as to what Health Insurance Companies need to cover and at what price. In NY, Health Insurance companies can't charge different rates according to age. Also, in NY, there is a price spiral, where the price is so high, few people buy it, so they have to raise the price because not enough well people are in the pool, so fewer people buy it.... To test it out, go to an online insurance broker, like ehealthinsurace, and put in your proposed information, including that you haven't been covered for a period. This way you will know.", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "8ab61e568e38627d9eac8f57dda56b28", "text": "\"It seems like if that were true, then if everyone were in one group, you'd get the biggest discount of all. My preference has been for single payer, but recently I saw a guy suggesting single-group, multi-payer, or SGMP. This was just a comment from a physician in a medical journal, and I don't have the link and haven't been able to find out anything more about it, but it seems intriguing. It had something to do with insurance companies bidding to provide coverage services. edit: [Here it is](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1211514#t=comments): > JOEL SPALTER, MD \| Physician - Infectious Diseases \| Disclosure: None > FAYETTEVILLE AR > October 02, 2012 > Single Group Multi-Payer > True reform resulting in universal health insurance and access to care is achieved by state mandates for insurance with replacement of individual or group underwriting with underwriting by \"\"Dutch auction\"\" for a percentage of the single group consisting of all of the residents of a State – Single Group – Multi-Payer (SGMP). Each successful insurance company would be responsible for payment of the percentage of the total costs for medical services equal to the percentage of the population insured. This preserves the integrity of the bidding process. > States are free to establish the public contribution to premiums. SGMP prevents exclusion of insurance for pre-existing conditions or due to genetic background, absent individual underwriting; guarantees maintenance of health care insurance independent of place, or even existence of employment; assures equality of access to providers due to a single established remuneration scale; and assures patients' choice of providers free from any empanelling by insurance companies. Market forces will govern providers' attempts to gain and hold market share. > A single group eases statistical comparison, with EMR, of 50, State patterns of care.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f30b8c0051a86ccbe58cdf955df9ad6", "text": "\">If you have more people in an insurance pool, premium costs go down, which is the whole point of the individual mandate. The costs depend very, Very, VERY much on WHO the people in the \"\"pool\"\" are -- actuarial data shows that older people (almost invariably and by definition) have significantly higher costs, ergo this is why their premiums have been higher (or if a particular pool has an inordinate number of older people in it, why everyone in that pool's premiums are higher, because they are essentially an average; and the younger members are in essence subsidizing the older ones -- conversely if a firm has almost entirely young, single people, premium costs are significantly {significantly} lower). One of the things the legislation does though is place an artificial limitation of the premium price differential -- ergo younger people will (across the board) be seeing a HUGE increase in premium costs (because the law is essentially mandating a major increased operating LOSS on the older pool members, the cost WILL be shifted to the younger people). End result is that premiums for younger people will increase several times over -- which will make buying a policy (which in the past was relatively cheap for young & healthy people) a significantly more difficult burden -- and that will naturally make paying the \"\"fine\"\" far more financially pragmatic. This is especially true since the OTHER provision of the law is that known pre-existing conditions cannot be used to exclude or change the premium cost -- so, should the individual be diagnosed with something they can, after the fact, still purchase coverage. Basically it is like being able to buy a lottery ticket AFTER the number have been drawn. It is an inherently unstable and unsustainable system.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ce2cb038987b99f545b6709add10e79", "text": "\"This is only partly true. The main problem is that the average person is not a fully informed healthcare consumer. For example if you go to your local doctor with lower back pain: One doctor might prescribe a whole bunch of expensive diagnostics tests; another might tell you to go to a physiotherapist; and yet another might tell you to take some cheap pain killers and come back in six weeks time if nothing has changed. Most people will have no way of knowing which is the best course of action. Then, in a country like the US which is very litigiousness, all the doctors will recommend the most comprehensive and expensive care-package so that they don't get sued. Ultimately economists do not work in healthcare and are not qualified to recommend the best financial model for healthcare delivery. To quote Donney \"\"Who knew that healthcare was so complicated?\"\" certainly not the economists.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "498dd9364752e5929bcfce248a0e04f3", "text": "An article linked from cnn.com has some great advice, which I think are good rules of thumb. Also, at least my insurance gives a premium price for those who haven't filed a claim in 5 or more years for homeowners or rental insurance. See if you have a similar discount, will loose it, and guess how much that will cost you over 5 years. My rule of thumb: Your premium might go up quite a bit, possibly as much as triple, especially for a large claim. But, it is certainly worth it if you are going to get more than triple your premium through your claim. The worst case: Mortgage mandated insurance, which will be about triple your current cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1cea69d97c37b6f5dd989a2c3e02b1be", "text": "Health insurance is tough, as you know, because the offerings vary dramatically by State, and there is the added complication of the Affordable Care Act, which depending on where and who you are has had either a good or bad impact on the available options. If you are a sole proprietor or other business person, I'd advise talking to someone at a local chamber of commerce. Also, professional organizations like the IEEE or ACM (for IT professionals) often offer catastrophic medical or other health plans. Some employer plans give you the option to continue coverage at a higher cost when COBRA lapses as well. If you can't afford a comprehensive plan, make sure to get something to protect you against pre-existing conditions or hospitalization.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65ecdd0c503f0f64599c176748fe89df", "text": "At some point, there will even be non wealthy nations with better healthcare. Anyone who is well travelled, or from another country knows how horrific the US healthcare system is. The media talks about poor people, but it's awful for the middle to upper middle class too in comparison to alternatives. It constantly shocks me this is not a bigger public issue. If only the general population realized what the alternative looks like. Not perfect by any means, but so much better.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed4b855ba8358889dad8e7d020ee3190", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.aier.org/blog/academics-lift-veil-medical-protectionism) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot) *** > In 2011 a total of 538 items required a CON license, and 37 states were enforcing CON laws. > Non-CON states provide higher-quality services, and the costs of unregulated medical care have not risen dramatically, as claimed by proponents of CON programs. > According to him, &quot;So-called &#039;certificate of need&#039; laws increase costs for consumers by protecting inefficient hospitals and other health care providers from competition. The theory behind such laws is that since the government has completely unleashed demand by insulating consumers from the cost of their health insurance and medical care, the government must contain supply to keep spending from getting out of hand.\"\" * [Extended Summary*](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/70ixsd/academics_lift_the_veil_on_medical_protectionism/) \| [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~211185 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: laws^#1 CON^#2 state^#3 care^#4 Health^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7288244b1e70bb0b665ab9461c33d128", "text": "While I can't say how it is in the Philippines, my wife the insurance broker leads me to believe that individual insurance is more expensive than group coverages in the US almost always. So much so that people will go to great extents to form any sort of business just to insure themselves. If however it is cheaper, can't you simply opt out of your employer's plan? If you can opt out, will your employer give you any of the money they aren't paying for your insurance? If you can't opt out, or if you paycheck doesn't grow, I can't see why you would want additional coverage especially at such a young age. Should you lose your job in the near future and you worry about, go get the insurance then. EDIT One big advantage is if you get personal insurance, you might need to get an exam to qualify, and it is likely the younger you are the better you will qualify. But again, you already have insurance that covers you so I would advise keeping the group policy is probably better.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7903f7bac6c4a5fce750be794314e88", "text": "According to Money Girl, home insurance premiums are higher if you have a poor credit score. You might self-insure though if you are wealthy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99e521f85fb70eeed53177745a07f388", "text": "I'm not disputing that. I just said in answer to the guy pointing out that indonesian people earn less that this price might be higher than what the locals pay. Often hospitals will have higher prices for foreigners with insurance etc. So I was actually strengthening your point.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1190abed12e293e1f0971f3dcd56757", "text": "This is very interesting, and I am fully in support of the US moving to a single-payer system such as we have here in the UK, but I am a little confused. US costs are markedly higher than the second most expensive country, that's clear. However, by my reading of the data presented, it seems as though no distinction is made between the government paying for health care, and the individual paying for health care. Much of that 1.4t is coming out of the individual's pocket, rather than the insurance company's, and that for me is the crux of the whole issue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "985c27490a1fc20d8f94bcadedf22034", "text": "Unfortunately I've seen every single example you've provided from the health care providers perspective. Trust me, they aren't happy about the situation either - hence the reason they will demand up front payment from you based on who your insurance carrier is. I could name a few of the top brand name insurance companies in this country that do all of this to their clients. Medical billing is an incredibly over complicated beast. One that insurance companies have been doing everything they can to make worse over the years. The codes can change annually and there are MANY different codes which can cover the exact same situation. Sure the insurance company might cover gallstones, but if you happen to be pregnant, well, that may not covered even though the treatment is the exact same. What can you do? Consider locating a new insurance company. You do have options and don't have to go with the one your company uses. The downside is that this is going to take quite a bit of research on your part and it will end up costing you more money on your monthly premiums simply because your company won't be footing part of the bill. Talk to other co-workers and see if their experiences match yours. If so, try to get a large enough group together to approach management and demand resolution. A third potential avenue is to get politically involved - but I'm enough of a pessimist that I doubt that would do any good. From what I've seen, neither major political party's current position actually does anything to solve the problem. A fourth option is suing the insurance company - but that is going to be incredibly expensive and take forever. You might have better luck getting together with a bunch of local people and demand your attorney general review the billing/payment practices. Again, this is going to require a LOT of effort. A fifth option is to attempt to cash pay your bills and submit them yourself to the insurance company for reimbursement. If you do this you can likely negotiate lower bills with the medical provider. For anything less than about $2,000 I negotiate the amount prior to service. Believe me when I say that providers are more than happy to give decent discounts if they know they won't have to deal with the insurance companies themselves. Slightly more work for you, but could be far cheaper in the long run.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fee06b37c87cee42807c9ce4ebb7e58", "text": "Article was about insurers not liking the uncertainty. Some insurers want Obamacare repealed, some of them want it to stay. But they all don't want to political climate of uncertainty. A situation where people wouldn't be mandated to buy insurance because they don't fear the IRS actually requiring them, but where the actual regulations haven't been changed yet is a nightmare for insurers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8925381adc875542b03dff22a1c8477b", "text": "\"Not aying you're wron, but do you have any sources showing that young people's premiums will go up SEVERAL times over? I think your argument would be more convincing with numbers instead of using words like \"\"far\"\" and \"\"significantly\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6fd75e272894c9da2786c006793712de", "text": "Prediction: costs won't go down. The basis for that is the cost of insurance for health has never gone down in the history of that product mainly due to the fixed market. There is competition, but pricing is so rigged as health insurance companies and employers have completely removed pricing from consumers experience. Until everyone has individual/independent insurance away from their jobs, healthcare costs will never be in check. When employers gtfo of your business and stop providing benefits and people have to buy their own insurance, that is the only time there will be any real market or real pricing in healthcare/medical.", "title": "" } ]	fiqa
505dc55df0bc389cd7212fd73df59e34	When is it necessary to apply taxes for web freelancing services in Quebec, Canada?	[ { "docid": "076e0d5e64e17e91c7161a310b3c440e", "text": "\"AFAIK, there are two kinds of taxes your web freelancing income may be subject to in Quebec: On the income taxes: The net income you realize from your web freelancing activities would be considered taxable income. Assuming you are not operating as an incorporated business, you would need to declare the freelancing income on both your federal and provincial tax returns. You should be able to deduct certain costs related to your business – for instance, if you paid for software, hosting, domain name registration, etc. That is, only the profit from your business would be subject to income tax. With income and expenses arising from self-employment, you may want to use a professional to file your taxes. On the sales taxes: You may also need to charge federal GST and provincial QST (Quebec Sales Tax) on your services: You must enroll and charge GST and QST once you exceed the \"\"small supplier\"\" revenue threshold of $30,000 measured over four consecutive quarters. (You can still choose to enroll for GST/QST before you reach that amount, but over that amount enrollment becomes mandatory. Some businesses enroll before the threshold is reached so they can claim input tax credits for tax paid on expenses, but then there's more paperwork – one reason to perhaps avoid enrolling until necessary.) In Quebec, the Ministère du Revenu du Québec administers both GST (on behalf of the federal government) as well as provincial QST. Be sure to also check out their informative booklet, Should I Register with Revenu Quebec? (PDF). See also General Information Concerning the QST and the GST/HST (PDF).\"", "title": "" } ]	[ { "docid": "05443a44fc8d39a49dbe9480afdcbdce", "text": "Assuming that you don't own the business, it would seem to apply. The CRA says: If you were a resident of Quebec on December 31, 2016, and you did not have a business with a permanent establishment outside Quebec, your refundable Quebec abatement is 16.5% of the basic federal tax on line 55 of Schedule 1. If you had income from a business (including income you received as a limited or non-active partner) and the business has a permanent establishment outside Quebec, or you were not a resident of Quebec on December 31, 2016, and the business has a permanent establishment in Quebec, use Form T2203, Provincial and Territorial Taxes for 2016 - Multiple Jurisdictions, to calculate your abatement. For people whose income isn't coming from businesses they own, this seems quite clear.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7370a33a0e00e3ab8b244ef51854982a", "text": "\"I know this is a little late but here is my answer. No. You do not \"\"need\"\" to incorporate. In fact, incorporating in your situation will cost you in legal fees, administrative headaches, and a fair bit in taxes. The CRA would probably look at your corporation as a personal services corporation and it would not be allowed to claim a number of tax reductions. The tax rate would end up being over the top range (unless you are in Quebec where it would be just under the top marginal range).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfda73ae0f9dbf89a67f975f4f6047b6", "text": "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.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "616eeb050776c24607530a993d6be9d5", "text": "\"New York will want to you to pay taxes on income from \"\"New York sources\"\". I'm not sure what this means to a freelance web developer. If your wife is doing freelance web development under the same business entity as she did in New York (ie. a New York sole proprietor, corporation, etc), you probably do need to file. From nonresident tax form manual: http://tax.ny.gov/pdf/2011/inc/it203i_2011.pdf If you were a nonresident of New York State, you are subject to New York State tax on income you received from New York State sources in 2011. If you were a resident of New York State for only part of 2011, you are subject to New York State tax on all income you received while you were a resident of the state and on income you received from New York State sources while you were a nonresident. To compute the amount of tax due, use Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return. You will compute a base tax as if you were a full-year resident, then determine the percentage of your income that is subject to New York State tax and the amount of tax apportioned to New York State.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d5db709426ecd7f9d7fbe0d9e7ed547", "text": "They believe that it reduces the risk that Revenue Canada will deem you to be an employee and make them pay a whole pile of tax, EI, CPP and so on that should have been paid if you had been hired as an employee. It's my recollection that the employer gets dinged for both the employee and employer share of those withholdings (and generally the employer's share is larger than yours) so they really want to prevent it. There's a Revenue Canada publication about whether you're an employee or not. There's nothing on it about being incorporated, but still employers feel more protected when their contracts are incorporated. We did work as a sole proprietorship at the very beginning, so that we could deduct our losses against employment income earned earlier in the year, before we started the business. You can find clients who will take you on. We incorporated once the losses were over with (basically we had bought the equipment and office supplies we needed to get started.) It's a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, and gives clients a sense of protection. It won't protect you from your own poor decisions since you'll be a director of the firm.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae96ebf7c42b5aa8611e7c1b9890c299", "text": "First - get a professional tax consultation with a NY-licensed CPA or EA. At what point do I need to worry about collecting sales taxes for the city and state of New York? Generally, from the beginning. See here for more information on NYS sales tax. At what point do I need to worry about record-keeping to report the income on my own taxes? From the beginning. Even before that, since you need the records to calculate the costs of production and expenses. I suggest starting recording everything, as soon as possible. What sort of business structures should I research if I want to formalize this as less of a hobby and more of a business? You don't have to have a business structure, you can do it as a sole proprietor. If you're doing it for-profit - I suggest treating it as a business, and reporting it on your taxes as a business (Schedule C), so that you could deduct the initial losses. But the tax authorities don't like business that keep losing money, so if you're not expecting any profit in the next 3-4 years - keep it reported as a hobby (Misc income). Talk to a licensed tax professional about the differences in tax treatment and reporting. You will still be taxed on your income, and will still be liable for sales tax, whether you treat it as a hobby or as a business. Official business (for-profit activity) will require additional licenses and fees, hobby (not-for-profit activity) might not. Check with the local authorities (city/county/State).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0eee29beb739a8a8abb87eff51649618", "text": "Since you say 1099, I'll assume it's in the US. :) Think of your consulting operation as a small business. Businesses are only taxed on their profits, not their revenues. So you should only be paying tax on the $700 in the example you gave. Note, though, that you need to be sure the IRS thinks you're a small business. Having a separate bank account for the business, filing for a business license with your local city/state, etc are all things that help make the case that you're running a business. Of course, the costs of doing all those things are business expenses, and thus things you can deduct from that $1000 in revenue at tax time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be8d414a0fd1c029f1c9ad663a449c4d", "text": "I do NOT know the full answer but I know here are some important factors that you need to consider : Do you have a physical location in the United States? Are you working directly from Canada? With a office/business location in the United States your tax obligation to the US is much higher. Most likely you will owe some to the state in which your business is located in Payroll Tax : your employer will likely want to look into Payroll tax, because in most states the payroll tax threshold is very low, they will need to file payroll tax on their full-time, part-time employees, as well as contractor soon as the total amount in a fiscal year exceeds the threshold Related to No.1 do you have a social security number and are you legally entitled to working in the States as an individual. You will be receiving the appropriate forms and tax withholding info Related to No.3 if you don't have that already, you may want to look into how to obtain permissions to conduct business within the United States. Technically, you are a one person consulting service provider. You may need to register with a particular state to obtain the permit. The agency will also be able to provide you with ample tax documentations. Chances are you will really need to piece together multiple information from various sources to resolve this one as the situation is specific. To start, look into consulting service / contractor work permit and tax info for the state your client is located in. Work from state level up to kick start your research then research federal level, which can be more complex as it is technically international business service for Canada-US", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b171a55ca69f689ee46c4199f8dc686", "text": "If thinking about it like a business you normally only pay taxes on Net income, not gross. So Gross being all the money that comes in. People giving you cash, checks, whatever get deposited into your account. You then pay that out to other people for services, advertisement. At the end of the day what is left would be your 'profit' and you would be expected to pay income tax on that. If you are just an individual and don't have an LLC set up or any business structure you would usually just have an extra page to fill out on your taxes with this info. I think it's a schedule C but not 100%", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afbca4d29419bb73a19199c8112612b3", "text": "\"If you are in the US, you legally must file taxes on any income whatsoever. How much you will pay in taxes, if any, will depend on your total taxable income. Now, for small transactions, the payments are often not reported to the IRS so some people do not file or pay. The threshold at which they payer is required to send a 1099 to the IRS is $600. Patreon considers each donation a separate transaction and therefore does not send a 1099 to the IRS unless you make more than $20,000 in a calendar year. If they do not report it, the IRS will not know about it unless they audit you or something. However, you are technically and legally responsible to report income whether the IRS knows about it or not. -------- EDIT ------- Note that the payer files a 1099, not the recipient. In order to report your patreon income you will either use schedule C or add it to the amount on 1040 line 21 (\"\"other income\"\") depending on whether you consider this a business or a hobby. If it's a business and it's a lot of money you should consider sending in quarterly payments using a 1040-ES in order to avoid a penalty for too little withholding.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ef4e47b64b903efa22be3cfe708549a", "text": "There are no clear guidelines. If you are selling as individual, then what ever profit you make gets added to your overall income as you pay tax accordingly. This is true for sole proprietor or partnership kind of firms. If you are registered as a Company, the profits are taxed as business income. There may be VAT and other taxes. Please consult a CA who can guide you in specifics as for eCommerce, there is no defined law and one has to interpret various other tax laws.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2c28bf26ba5ea1a2b8b24af91d571f4", "text": "You need to set your status as self-employed the day you started online work. If that date is a little ambiguous (as is usually the case with online business), you can start with the day you first made any money. Yes, you can deduct expenses from your revenue. But you have to be sure that the expenses were purely business related. This is how it goes: You inform HMRC about the day you started work. HMRC will assign you a UTR (Unique Tax Reference) number. Depending on how much you make you might or might not need to pay Class 2 NI contributions. You'll need to tell HMRC how much you expect to earn in the current tax year. Finally, you'll need to complete a Self-Assessment at the end of the tax year. I highly recommend setting up a business banking account. Here is a link that discusses being part-time self-employed in the UK.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "730bf896fd9945161b247899375340c3", "text": "I'm a freelance programmer, reverse-engineer, and network engineer. I do quarterly 1099 filings using a cheap local accounting firm. I did them on my own at first; not that hard.. You deduct from sum the percentage for that earning-tier issued by the IRS.. $500.00 for writing algorithms on a timer? Yikes.. I did topcoder once but it didn't pay much then it was only good for portfolio.. No way I would race to do algorithms for third-world-rate capital..", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c340d3fe50a1f2fb12a38f17eda9b95", "text": "Work on your own site is certainly not relevant here, that's just a part of your trade, not a service you provided to yourself. The business received the benefit of that work, not you. Suppose your business sold televisions. If you took a TV from stock for your own lounge, that would be included in this box because you have effectively paid yourself with a TV rather than cash. If you take a TV from stock to use as a demo model, that's part of your trade and not goods you have taken out of the business for your own use. For services provided to your dad it's less clear. As Skaty said, it depends whether it's your business providing the service, or you personally. If you gave your dad a free TV then it would be clear that you have effectively paid yourself with another TV and then given it to your dad as a gift. With services it's less clear whether you're receiving services from the business for free. You might consider how it would be treated by your employer if you weren't self-employed. If you were just applying your skills to help your dad in your free time, your employer wouldn't care. If you used your employer's equipment or facilities, or hosted his site on a server that your employer pays for, your employer would be more likely to discipline you for effectively stealing services from them, as they would if you took a TV from their warehouse for him.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc55d2f06ed16eb2a0e502d86f342e03", "text": "\"So the main reason that you aren't getting answers is that the question is not really answerable on this site without putting a lot of details about the expenses of your company online. Even then you will need someone who specializes in Canadian taxes to go through those details to be sure. Most of those people feel like they should be paid a decent amount per hour to go through the details. That being said, I dealt with a similar question for my contract work company by just taking a couple weekends and calculating the taxes myself on estimated numbers. It was time consuming but not really that hard. I thought I might have to buy software, but all I needed was a small calculator. Along the way I learned a few details that helped me lower my overall tax exposure. I found that Neil was generally correct that you are \"\"taxed on profits\"\" but it is worth doing the taxes yourself because the details can really matter.\"", "title": "" } ]	fiqa

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