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a7c34b2ea772fb1d21821a64f84ba0e5
Advice on what to do with my equity?
[ { "docid": "5e88382b08a124934ea96a6c792286bb", "text": "\"How will 45K-60K \"\"end up in your pocket\"\"? Are you selling your home? Where are you going to live? You talk about moving to Arizona, what is so magical about that place? Congratulations on making a wise purchase. Some people with new found money use it to correct past mistakes. However, if they do not change their behavior they end up in the same situation just less them money they once had. While 50K income is respectable at your age, it is below the national average for households. One factor in having a college education is those with them tend to experience shorter and fewer periods of unemployment especially for males. Nothing will ever replace hustle, however. I'd ask you to have a plan to raise your income. Can you double it in 5 years? You need to get rid of the revolving debt. Do that out of current income. No need to touch the house proceeds for something so small. Shoot for 9 months. Then you need to get rid of the speeding fines and the vehicle loan. That is a lot of vehicle for your income. Again, I would do that out of current income or by selling the vehicle and moving to something more inline with your income. As far as to moving or flipping foreclosures that is more of a question that has to do with your hopes and dreams. Do you want to move your children every 3 years? What if you move to Arizona and it turns out to be quite horrible? You and your wife need to sit down and discuss what is best for your family.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b486c3d9f13e57d84d3be2790067c393", "text": "What to do with your equity? Leave it alone...", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "03012414b99a9299647d1deae6efedac", "text": "Are you trying to figure out if a project would increase the market value of equity? I think your issue is that the Market value of Equity will not be updated with the NPV of 40M (Assuming it is truly +, not sure if it's true with 50M of debt). EV = Market Value of Equity + Debt - Cash and CE Ev - Debt + Cash and CE = Market equity value. So I think you would have to update the market value of Equity up with 40M. This would then lead to EV = Equity Value + future income stream discounted + debt - Cash and Cash Equivalents.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16d806ad1069a3d64d5c7303dd0cba85", "text": "Most important: Any gains you make from risking this sum of money over the next few years will not be life changing, but if you can't afford to lose it, then losses can be. Rhetorical question: How can you trust what I say you should do with your money? Answer: You can't. I'm happy to hear you're reading about the stock market, so please allow me to encourage you to keep learning. And broaden your target to investing, or even further, to financial planning. You may decide to pay down debt first. You may decide to hold cash since you need it within a couple years. Least important: I suggest a Roth IRA at any online discount brokerage whose fees to open an account plus 1 transaction fee are the lowest to get you into a broad-market index ETF or mutual fund.", "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": "3b7e286509b8e3deab7cbf57c9657933", "text": "Both are close, but two notes - amiable or not, I'd rather have a deal that ends now, and nothing is hanging over my head to get or pay money on a future sale. 401(k) money is usually pre-tax, so releasing me from $10K of home equity is of more value than the $10K in a 401(k) that would net me $7K or so. As I commented to Joe, I'd focus on valuation. If your house is similar to those in the neighborhood, you might easily value it. If unique, the valuation may be tough. I'd spend a bit on an appraiser or two.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5113b7444d0fc0998ef14da59956b5ec", "text": "I agree with the other comments that you should not buy/hold your company stock even if given at a discount. If equity is provided as part of the compensation package (Options/Restrictive Stock Units RSU)then this rule does not apply. As a matter of diversification, you should not have majority equity stake of other companies in the same sector (e.g. technology) as your employer. Asset allocation and diversification if done in the right way, takes care of the returns. Buying and selling on the same day is generally not allowed for ESPP. Taxation headaches. This is from personal experience (Cisco Systems). I had options issued in Sept 2008 at 18$ which vested regularly. I exited at various points - 19$,20$,21$,23$ My friend held on to all of it hoping for 30$ is stuck. Options expire if you leave your employment. ESPP shares though remain.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7788782c64ab89ca2cfe4ef55dc42a9a", "text": "Morpheus, I think you are approaching this question the wrong way. The interest rate is not the most important consideration; you also need to consider the other characteristics of the investment. Money in a bank account is very liquid; you can do anything you want with it. Equity in a house is very illiquid; it is hard and expensive to access. Let's say you have $25,000 to either go towards a bigger downpayment or to invest. What happens if you lose your job? If you have $25,000 in the bank, you have a lot of flexibility; you can pay a mortgage for a number of months, or you could use it to relocate. If you put the money in the house, you cannot access it at all; without a job you can't refi or get a home equity loan. Your only recourse would be to sell the house, which might not be possible if there are systemic issues (such as the ones in the real estate crash). Even if you can refi or get a home equity loan, you will have to pay fees. My advice is to put the money somewhere else. If your term is long (say, 10 years or so), I would put the money in an index fund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ddd542a9d753c5c700f7503744bd1677", "text": "I would contribute this money to the deposit, but wouldn’t pay anything else-more, and want to know if they do the house up, and it increases in value how does my share gets worked out if I want it out in about l0 years? This can be simple; You have contributed 9K out of 260 K. You own Approx. 3.4% of equity in the house. Whenever this gets sold, you will get back 3.4%. Now the real trick comes in, if the house is not being sold, ie your Sister would continue using it, and you want out, then one would need to decide the fair market value. You could agree to consult some lists or agree of the fair value based on sale price of similar properties in the area. This is where it normally gets difficult and can cause disputes. we do not have much money for solicitors / lawyers, and we don't really really need them It is advisable to get a lawyer as one doesn't know what happens 10 years in future, things may go wrong between you and your sister, or your sister is no more and her fiancé may not honor the agreement you have. There are other considerations; It would be advisable you have your name on the property. It would help from Tax point of view in future. If you are not having your name on the property, then the money you are giving would be loan or gift and needs to have the right paper work If its a gift you can't have it back. Your sister would have to make a gift back to you later whenever you want out. So it can really be complicated and it would be worth the money you spend on lawyer", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c414e5cc9408b5328cdf86fdad68798", "text": "I would just like to point out that the actual return should be compared to your down payment, not the property price. After all, you didn't pay $400K for that property, right? You probably paid only 20%, so you're collecting $20K/year on a $80K investment, which works out to 25%. Even if you're only breaking even, your equity is still growing, thanks to your tenants. If you're also living in one of the units, then you're saving rent, which frees up cash flow. Your increased savings, combined with the contributions of your tenants will put you on a very fast track. In a few years you should have enough to buy a second property. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3721fd666e6ea8920304e2b973bef1c", "text": "\"The part that I find confusing is the loan/stock hybridization. Why would the investor be entitled to a 30% share if he's also expecting to be getting paid back in full? This is the part that's making me scratch my head. I can understand giving equity and buying out later. I can understand giving equity with no expectation of loan repayment. I can understand loan repayment without equity. I can even understand collateralizing the loan with equity. I can not understand how \"\"zeroing out\"\" the loan still leaves him with a claim on 30% of the equity. Would this be more of a good will gesture as a way to thank the investor for taking a chance? Please forgive any naivety in my questions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af0b1df1287ed9403409abff8d5d9e1c", "text": "Wow! First, congratulations! You are both making great money. You should be able to reach your goals. Are we on the right track ? Are we doing any mistakes which we could have avoided ? Please advice if there is something that we should focus more into ! I would prioritize as follows: Get on the same page. My first red flag is that you are listing your assets separately. You and your wife own property together and are raising your daughter together. The first thing is to both be on the same page with your combined income and assets. This is critical. Set specific goals for the future. Dreaming and big-picture life planning will be the foundation for building a detailed plan for reaching your goals. You will see more progress with more sacrifice. If you both are not equally excited about the goals, you will not both be equally willing to sacrifice lifestyle now. You have the income now to be able to set yourselves up to do whatever you want in 10 years, if you can agree on what you want. Hire a financial planner you trust. Interview people, ask someone who is where you want to be in 10 years. You need someone with experience that can guide you through these questions and understands how to manage your income stream. Start saving for retirement in tax-advantaged accounts. This should be as much as 10%-15% of your income combined, so $30k-$45k per year. You need to start diversifying your investments. Real estate is great, but I would never recommend it as this large a percentage of net worth. Start saving for your child's education. Hard to say what you need here, since I don't know your goals. A financial planner should assist you with this. Get rid of your debt. Out of your $2.1M of rental real estate and land, you have $1.4M of debt. It will be difficult to start a business with that much additional debt. It will also put stress on your retirement that you don't need. You are taking on lots of risk here. I would sell all but maybe one of the properties and let it cash flow. This will free up cash to start investing for retirement or future business too. Buy more rental in the future with cash only. You have plenty of income to do it this way, and you will be setting yourself up for a great future. At this point you can continue to pile funds into any/all your investments, with the goal of using the funds to start a business or to live on. If all your investments are tied up in real estate, you wont have anything to draw on if needed for a business opportunity. You need to weigh this out in your goal and planning. What should we do to prepare for a comfortable retirement and safety You cannot plan for or see all scenarios. However, good planning will give you more options and more choices. Investing driven by fear will set you up for failure. Spend less than you make. Be patient. Be generous. Cheers!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5379e3edcfed336432b98afdd0b7da9e", "text": "Equity means having ownership, and I think that's a REALLY bad idea in the scenario that you described. If you stay together, there's really no upside to either of you in this scheme. If you break-up then you'll have a terrible mess, especially if the break-up goes badly. If she's really building equity, you're going to be faced with several hard questions: If this went bad at the end, it might be worse than a divorce in some sense since at least in the divorce you have established law to sort out the issues. You'll be on your own here without a formal contract. (Marriage being a special case of a contract for our purposes here.) If she wants to share costs (which seems perfectly fair) then agree to rent and a split on utilities. If you really insist on going down the path that you described, I think that you'll need some sort of contract, which probably involves a lawyer. Anything short of that could not be considered having equity at all and will be completely unenforceable in the event of a bad break-up. (There is some notion of a verbal contract, but that's very hard to prove and subject to misunderstanding and misremembering.) Aside from all of these potential problems in event of a break-up, you would probably also be violating the terms of your mortgage, if you have one. From the bank's perspective, you are selling the property that is the collateral for that loan, which you're almost surely not allowed to do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae148a4b9aca1e2103a1c57a04f56f16", "text": "This is great, thank you. Can you think of any cases where expected return is greater than interest payments (like in #2) but the best choice would still be raise money through equity issuing? My intuition tells me this may be possible for an expensive company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8bc7bbe92b183a48b4f7a4f92bece0b1", "text": "\"Once again I offer some sage advice - \"\"Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog.\"\" Michael offers an excellent method to decide what to do. Note, he doesn't base the decision on the tax implication. If you are truly indifferent to holding the stock, taxwise, you might consider selling just the profitable shares if that's enough cash. Then sell shares at a loss each year if you have no other gains. That will let you pay the long term gain rate on the shares sold this year, but offset regular income in years to come. But. I'm hard pressed to believe you are indifferent, and I'd use Michel's approach to decide. Updated - The New Law is simply a rule requiring brokers to track basis. Your situation doesn't change at all. When you sell the shares, you need to identify which shares you want to sell. For older shares, the tracking is your responsibility, that's all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f325ed9d7b58e32d8d2bfbe40e6bddf", "text": "There might just not be anything useful for you to do with that 'value'. As others mentioned, HELOCs have their risks and issues too. There is no risk-less way to take advantage of the value (outside of selling) It is similar to owning a rare stamp that is 'worth a million' - what good does it do you if you don't sell it? nothing. It is just a number on a sheet of paper, or even only on some people's minds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7cd4bc1c1743be97be65b364924cfbaa", "text": "\"I don't know if it's common or necessary to include capital stock as a liability? Yes, if you look at the title of the nonasset part of the balance sheet it actually is titled \"\"Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity\"\". Your capital stock is a component of Equity. This sounds like it was reported in a reasonable manner. \"\"$2,582 listed under Loans from Shareholders (Line 19).\"\" Did you have a basis issue with your distributions? That is did you take shareholder distributions more than your adjusted basis that you have been taxed on? I have seen the practice of considering distributions in excess of basis as short term loans to prevent the additional taxation of the excess distribution. Be careful when you adjust this entry, your balance sheet had to roll from one year to the next. You must have a reasonable transaction to substantiate the removal of the shareholder loan.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5e1a6ecc813efd5b91773e41a5972e79
Getting a mortgage while self-employed
[ { "docid": "7060958d04aeaa00434f7d5a0d442542", "text": "Would it be worth legitimizing his business or is it too late at this point? To be blunt, you're asking if we recommend that he stop breaking the law. The answer is obviously yes, he should be declaring his income. And it would probably benefit him to get on the same page as his employer (or client) so they can both start obeying the law together. Once he's filed a tax return for 2016 that would certainly help his cause as far as a lender is concerned, and as soon as he can provide some recent pay stubs (or paid invoices) he should be ready to move forward on the mortgage based on that additional income.", "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": "ec15d96bb63c191e397c5ed59f14b495", "text": "\"You can shop for a mortgage rate without actually submitting a mortgage application. Unfortunately, the U.S. Government has made it illegal for the banks to give you a \"\"good faith estimate\"\" of the mortgage cost and terms without submitting a mortgage application. On the other hand, government regulations make the \"\"good faith estimates\"\" somewhat misleading. (For one thing, they rarely are good for estimating how much money you will need to \"\"bring to the closing table\"\".) My understanding is that in the United States, multiple credit checks within a two-week period while shopping for a mortgage are combined to ding your credit rating only once. You need the following information to shop for a mortgage: A realistic \"\"appraisal value\"\". Unless your market is going up quickly, a fair purchase price is usually close enough. Your expected loan amount (which you or a banker can estimate based on your down payment and likely closing costs). Your middle credit score, for purposes of mortgage applications. (If you have a co-borrower, such as a spouse, many banks use the lower of the two persons' middle credit score). The annual property tax cost for the property, taking into account the new purchase price. The annual cost of homeowners' insurance. The annual cost of homeowners' association dues. Your minimum monthly payments on all debt. Banks tend to round up the minimum payments. Also, banks care whether any of that debt is secured by real estate. Your monthly income. Banks usually include just the amount for which you can show that you are currently in the job, with regular paychecks and tax withholding, and that you have been in similar jobs (or training for such jobs) for the last two full years. Banks usually subtract out any business losses that show up on tax returns. There are special rules for alimony and child support payments. The loan terms you want, such as a 15-year fixed rate or 30-year fixed rate. The amount of points you are willing to pay. Many banks are willing to lower your \"\"note rate\"\" by 0.125% if you pay 0.5% up-front. The pros and cons of paying points is a good topic for another question. Whether you want a so-called \"\"no-fee\"\" or \"\"no-closing cost\"\" loan. These loans cost less up-front, but have a higher \"\"note rate\"\". Unless you ask for a \"\"no-fee\"\" or \"\"no-closing cost\"\" loan, most banks have similar charges for things like: So the big differences are usually in: As discussed above, you can come up with a simple number for (roughly) comparing fixed-rate mortgage loan offers. Take the loan origination (and similar) fees, and divide them by the loan amount. Divide that percentage by 4. Add that percentage to the \"\"note rate\"\" for a loan with \"\"no points\"\". Use that last adjusted note rate to compare offers. (This method works because you have the choice of using up-front savings to pay \"\"points\"\" to lower the \"\"note rate\"\".) Notice that once you have your middle credit score, you can ask other lenders to estimate the information above without actually submitting another loan application. Because the mortgage market fluctuates, you should compare rates on the same morning of the same day. You might want to check with three lenders, to see if your real estate agent's friend is competitive:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f8831114d27c3a782bad112fe6c3263", "text": "If you have self-employment income you can open a Solo 401k. Your question is unclear as to what your employment status is. If you are self-employed as an independent contractor, you can open a Solo 401k. You can still do this even if you also earn non-self-employment income (i.e., you are an employee and receive a W-2). However, the limits for contributions to a Solo 401k are based on your self-mployment income, not your total income, so if you have only a small amount of self-employment income, you won't be able to contribute much to the Solo 401k. You may be able to reduce your taxes somewhat, but it's not like you can earn $1000 of self-employment income, open a Solo 401k, and dump $5000 into it; the limits don't work that way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6717866315a55e750928ea6245ad3f8b", "text": "I don't quite understand your thought process here. First, in a tax-advantaged retirement account you are NOT allowed to engage in a transaction with yourself. If you just want to run a business and be able to write off expenses, how is using the self-directed IRA relevant? You can either buy the condo using your tax-advantaged account and rent it out to regular tenants. Or you buy the condo yourself using your own money and then operate your business so you can deduct business expenses from doing so. 401k's allow you to take a loan out of it, so you can look into that as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a9478eb389207bfb7d974ef114821da", "text": "Note: I am in the UK. I don't know specifically about australia but I expect the general principles will be much the same everywhere. What banks want is to be reasonablly confident that you have a steady income stream that will continue to pay the mortgate until it completes. In general employed are fairly easy to assess. Most employed people will have a steady basic pay that increases through their career. Payslips will usually seperate-out basic pay, overtime and bonuses. There is little opertunity to cook the books. The self-employed are harder to assess. Income can be bursty and there are far more opertunities for cooking the books to make it look like you are earning more than you really are. So banks are likely to be far more careful about lending to the self-employed, they will likely want to see multiple years of buisness records so that any bursts, whether natural due to the ebbs and flows of buisness or deliberatly created to cook the books average out and they can see the overall pattern. A large deposit will help because it reduces the risk to the bank in the event of a default. Similarly not being anywhere near your limit of affordability will help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4be1712bc31d7fa78eee37ac2c171b30", "text": "\"Your question asks \"\"how\"\" but \"\"if\"\" may be your issue. Most companies will not permit an external transfer while still employed, or under a certain age, 55 or so. If yours is one of the rare companies that permits a transfer, you simply open an IRA with the broker of your choice. Schwab, Fidelity, eTrade, or a dozen others. That broker will give you the paperwork you need to fill out, and they initiate the transfer. I assume you want an IRA in which you can invest in stocks or funds of your choosing. A traditional IRA. The term \"\"self-directed\"\" has another meaning, often associated with the account that permits real estate purchases inside the account. The brokers I listed do not handle that, those custodians have a different business model and are typically smaller firms with fewer offices, not country-wide.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3519245e2bbed46d3af790588ad319f8", "text": "There are a few loan programs that grant exceptions to bankruptcy requirements in the event of extenuating circumstances that can be proven to be outside of your control (i.e. massive medical bills that you used bankruptcy to settle, etc.) however, in order to make the case for this exemption, you would need to make a strong case for your solvency, shown the ability to re-establish your credit reputation since the discharge of your bankruptcy, and would almost certainly have to go through a bank that offers manual underwriting. Additionally, if you are Native American, the HUD-184 program is a great option for your situation as it allows for a wide latitude in terms of underwriter discretion and is always manually underwritten as there is no automated underwriting system developed for the loan program. There are several great lenders that offer nationwide financing (as long as you're in a HUD-184 eligible area) and would be a great potential solution if you meet the qualifying parameter of being Native American.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73deb8ce59c254ab3f7158df06349e47", "text": "\"Not unless you have something else to put up as collateral. The bank wants a basic assurance that you're not going to immediately move the money to the Caymans and disappear. 999 times out of 1000, the collateral for a home mortgage is the home itself (which you wouldn't be able to take with you if you decided to disappear), so signing up for a 30 year mortgage on a nonexistent house is probably going to get you laughed out of the bank. It's sometimes possible to negotiate something else as collateral; you may, for instance, have a portfolio of securities worth the loan principal, that you can put in escrow for the term of the loan (the securities will stay in your name and make you money, but if you default on the loan the bank goes to the escrow company and takes the portfolio for their own). The bank will consider the risk of value loss on the securities in the portfolio, and may ask for a higher collateral value or only allow a lower loan amount. In all cases, it's usually a bad idea to go into long-term personal debt just to get \"\"cheap money\"\" that you can use to beat the interest rate with some business plan or investment. If you have a business plan, take that to the bank with an LLC and ask for a business loan. The business itself, if the plan is sound, should become valuable, and the terms of business loans take that into account, allowing for a \"\"shrinking collateral\"\" transferring the initial personal risk of the loan to the business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7401b537f198afe92983962fc9b3061", "text": "My mortgage started out with an escrow, but it seemed like they were mismanaging it. They often over-collected it and locked up my money unnecessarily or under-collected and had to catch up later to pay the tax bill. Despite what Vitalik said, I told them I would pay my own taxes and insurance and to stop the escrow and they did without argument. Keep in mind, you should only do this if you are good about saving money. The banks know that many people aren't and will have trouble at the end of the year when a multi-thousand dollar tax or insurance bill comes due, hence the reason they try to get you to do the escrow. In my case, I just had the estimated tax/escrow amount automatically deposited from my paycheck into a special interest bearing savings account that I manage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1fbd376f5460b97bd2655cca07af266", "text": "It sounds like you may need to look into the different types of personal loans that are available to you. Typically, they are in 2 categories: secured vs unsecured. A personal loan is usually of the unsecured variety, meaning that the bank is loaning you money with no collateral to use if you default. These loans will have much higher interest rates than a secured loan. A prime example of a secured loan would be a mortgage or an equity line of credit. If you want an unsecured personal loan to use towards making those improvements, then whether or not you receive the loan will depend on your credit rating and income status. As Aganju stated, these loans don't really care what the money is used for. Because it's not your property that you're fixing up, you won't be able to get a secured loan against that property. If your mother took out a loan against her home (like a second mortgage), she may be able to get a significantly lower interest rate than what you'll get with an unsecured loan. She could also look into a renovation/remodeling loan, which would require information regarding the work being done such as costs and how it will improve the value of the property. If she used an equity line of credit instead, then they don't typically care what the money will be used for as it's just a credit line against the equity she's already built into her mortgage payments over the years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c805b4bd5c0bdcc9a481645e470d3ae8", "text": "You're effectively looking for a mortgage for a new self-build house. At the beginning, you should be able to get a mortgage based on the value of the land only. They may be willing to lend more as the build progresses. Try to find a company that specializes in this sort of mortgage.", "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": "adeb62f3873388115cae70ccf26f77c7", "text": "Used car dealers will sometimes deliberately issue high-interest-rate subprime loans to folks who have poor credit. But taking that kind of risk on a mortgage, when you aren't also taking profit out of the sale, really isn't of interest to anyone who cares about making a profit. There might be a nonprofit our there which does so, but I don't know of one. Fix your credit before trying to borrow.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "239eefd27af2f242572ffc8aa02b5f83", "text": "It is highly unlikely that this would be approved by a mortgage underwriter. When the bank gives a loan with a security interest in a property (a lien), they are protected - if the borrower does not repay the loan, the property can be foreclosed on and sold, and the lender is made whole for the amount of the loan that was not repaid. When two parties are listed on the deed, then each owns an UNDIVIDED 50% share in the property. If only one party has pledged the property as surety against the loan, then in effect only 50% of the property is forecloseable. This means that the bank is unable to recoup its loss. For a (fictional, highly simplified) concrete example, suppose that the house is worth $100,000 and Adam and Zoe are listed on the deed, but Adam is the borrower for a $100,000 mortgage. Adam owes $100,000 and has an asset worth $50,000 (which he has pledged as security for the loan), while Zoe owes nothing and has an asset worth $50,000 (which is entirely unencumbered). If Adam does not pay the mortgage, the bank would only be able to foreclose on his $50,000 half of the property, leaving them exposed to great risk. There are other legal and financial reasons, but overall I think you'll find it very difficult to locate a lender who is willing to take that kind of risk. It's very complicated and there is absolutely no up-side. Also - speaking from experience (from which I was protected because of the bank's underwriting rules) and echoing the advice offered by others on this site: don't bother trying. Commingling assets without a contract (either implicit by marriage or explicit by, well a contract) is going to get you in trouble.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57c466f2f25afac249a67fe39378fde3", "text": "No, 401(k) and IRA accounts are not at risk when you default on a mortgage, even in states that aren't non-recourse. In states where mortgages are non-recourse loans, the bank isn't allowed to go after you at all. They get the keys and whatever they recover from the house sale is it.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
be4505e7386f6057b53d2ce6d0f2d03f
Is it ok to just report to 1 credit bureau instead of all 3
[ { "docid": "3a0c5da5d45000dd5a41105eb72828b9", "text": "The reason you would want to report to all three is because lenders don't usually query all three. Thus, it may be that your negative mark will be missed by a future lender because that lender didn't query the agency you chose to report to. Generally, it is cheaper to report to more agencies than to query more agencies, and since those reporting are also those querying, it is in their best interest to continue reporting to all agencies, and expecting others to do the same. Each agency calculates the score independently based on the information reported to that agency. Thus only reporting a negative item to Experian will mean that TransUnion and Equifax scores for the same person will be higher.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d878b407e2951ae82995e866c073014a", "text": "One of your credit reports said this was negatively impacting your credit. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report once per year from each of the three major credit reporting companies in the U.S. (TRW, Equifax and one other). It is a good idea to check on these anyway, if you have credit accounts. Get copies from the other two credit reporting companies. See if they also say that your credit is negatively impacted by so many loans, even though the balances are small. If all three credit reporting companies are in consensus about negative effecting your credit, then it is true. If that IS the case, check with your subsidized loan lender about consolidation. If the unsubsidized loans are from the same lender, ask them too. If they're from different lenders, you might want to ask at your bank about getting a debt consolidation loan. You might be able to save money by refinancing (consolidating) the unsubsidized student loans as one loan, maybe even ALL the loans as one loan, particularly if you bank at a credit union.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c266d9796adb77a13575342646c77fc7", "text": "This very much depends how you use that second line of credit and what your current credit is. There are of course many more combinations buy you can probably infer the impact based on these cases. Your credit score is based on your likely hood of being profitable to a creditor should they issue you credit. This is based on your history of your ability to manage your credit. Having more credit and managing it well shows that you have a history of being responsible with greater sums of money available. If you use the card responsibly now then you are more likely to continue that trend than someone with a history of irresponsibility. Having a line but not using it is not a good thing. It costs the creditor money for you to have an account. If you never use that account then you are not showing that you can use the account responsibly so if you are just going to throw the card in a safe and never access it then you are better off not getting the card in the first place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a978ee57701d65e610c24bfd92a2d801", "text": "I visited annualcreditreport.com to get my annual credit report. It is only the report, not the score or FICO score. This is the only outlet I know of that allows you to get your report for free, without a bunch of strings attached or crap to sign up for and cancel later. It was very easy. I was wary of putting in my private information, but how else can they possibly pull you up? Read the instructions carefully. You go to each bureau to fetch your report, and they dutifully give you a free report, but they push hard to try and sell you a score or a report service. It is easy to avoid these if you read carefully. Once you get a report, you have print it out or you can't see it again for another year. Each bureau has a different site, with different rules, and different identity checks to get in. Again, read the instructions and it isn't hard. Instead of printing, I just saved the page as HTML. You get one html file and a folder with all the images and other stuff. This suits me but you might like to print. After you get each report, you have to click a link to back to the annualcreditreport.com site. From there you go to the next bureau. Regarding a score. Everybody does it differently. Free Issac does FICO, but anybody who pulls your credit can generate a score however they like, so getting a score isn't anywhere near as important as making sure your report is accurate. You can use credit.com to simulate a score from one of the bureaus (I can't easily see which one at the moment). It is as easy as annualcreditreport.com and I have no issue getting a simulated score and report card.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccdde9c8e3dd86621f0a52ae5263eeb0", "text": "Why would you want the company who failed to be the one monitoring your credit? Bankrupt them and be done with them. They're likely going to be sued into insolvency and that in turn should create an about-face to the other credit companies. The last thing anyone should want is giving additional or further responsibility to a company with the largest personal information leak of all time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e47987fedce704887117e8a35ac05629", "text": "\"Credit reports have line items that, if all is well, say \"\"paid as agreed.\"\" A car loan almost certainly gets reported. In your case it probably says the happy \"\"paid as agreed.\"\" It will continue to say that if you pay it off in full. You can get the happy \"\"paid as agreed\"\" from a credit card too. You can get it by paying the balance by the due date every month, or paying the mininum, or anything in between, on time. But you'll blow less money in interest if you pay each bill in full each month. You don't have to carry a balance. In the US you can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit bureaus. Here's the way to do that with minimal upsell/cross-sell hassles. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ In your situation you'd probably be smart to ask for a credit report every four months (from each bureau in turn) so you can see how things are going. They don't give you your FICO score for free, but you don't really care about that until you're going for a big loan, like for a condo. It might be good to take a look at one of those free credit reports real soon, as you prepare to close out your car loan. If you need other loans, consider working with a credit union. They sometimes offer better interest rates, and they often are diligent about making credit bureau reports for their good customers; they help you build credit. You mentioned wanting to cut back on insurance coverage. It's a worthy goal, but it's generally called \"\"self-insuring\"\" in the business. If you cancel your collision coverage and then wreck your car, you absorb the cost of replacing it. So think about your personal ability to handle that kind of risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "30901c7d3c65259b32942bbbe49329e5", "text": "\"According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act: any consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report [...] to a person which it has reason to believe [...] intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer See p12 (section 604). The usual interpretation of this that I've heard is that a debt collection agency that owns or has been assigned a debt can make hard pulls on your credit report without your consent. This link seems to support that (and references the same part of the act, among others): According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, [...], any business can access your credit history without your permission provided the business has a valid \"\"permissible purpose.\"\" The FCRA notes that one such permissible purpose is to review your credit information in connection with the collection of a debt. Thus, if you owe money to a debt collector, the debt collector has the legal right to pull and review your credit report. If they haven't been assigned the debt or own it outright, I believe you have a legal right to dispute it. Consult a lawyer if this is actually a situation you face. Once use for this is if the debt collection agency has trouble locating you; since your credit report normally contains current and past addresses, this is one way to locate you.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85b4e9a6d0ffa7e877775abbfd87f311", "text": "There are two types of credit checks. First is the hard pull which is typically done when you apply for a credit line. The lender will hard pull your file and make his/her decision based on that. This affects your score negatively. You might lose few points for one hard inquiry. Second type is soft pull, which is done as a background check. Typically done by credit card companies to send you a pre-approved offer, or renting an apartment etc. This does not affect your score. One thing to keep in mind is a company will not do a hard pull without your permission, where as they can do soft pulls without you even knowing. Soft inquiries vs hard inquiries", "title": "" }, { "docid": "218ad6826f704bba9d89d638efed1675", "text": "I can think of two services off the top of my head that offer free credit score information here in the UK. One being from one of the big three. No legal requirement to offer that service for free to consumers as far as I'm am aware There's probably other services too..", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f60f520231c8c33a0095bb8e007d774e", "text": ">That's one reason why they let you get access to your credit score, to check it the data is correct and make the 'product' (data about you) better. If that were true, checking your credit report regularly would be straight forward and free. However, the credit agencies have turned insuring your credit report is actuate into a revenue stream. You can see raw data that goes into your score once a year, because the agencies are required by law to provide that you. In past the agencies have been criticized for trying to trick people into buying their services when they request their annual free report (see [freecreditreport.com vs annualcreditreport.com](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/02/24/want-to-see-your-credit-report-for-free-freecreditreportcom-vs-annualcreditreportcom/)). If you want to check the accuracy of credit report more than once a year, you have to pay. If you want to know your score, you have to pay, although many credit cards offer this as a perk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c255ff47219bddb0cfeb3f185729b10", "text": "The number that really matters in this situation is your age of your longest account. Opening a new account is a good idea, but closing an old one may have an impact on your score if you have no other active accounts. If you have another card, or an overdraft line of credit or a car loan that is 4 or 5 years old, you won't see a big impact. I'd suggest calling the card company and asking them to waive the fee. They usually will. In the meantime, I would recommending having one card from each of the major networks. (MC, Visa, Discover, Amex) so you don't run into this again. Just don't open them all at once.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f63a2ebb0d599a7f156513c061b8228", "text": "\"(I'm a bit surprised that nobody talked about the impact of multiple inquiries on a loan, since OP is concerned with credit building. Probably an answer as opposed to a comment is justified.) Yes. In fact when you shop for auto loan you are expected to have your credit score/report be pulled by different banks, credit unions, and/or the financing arm of the car manufacturer or the dealership, so that you can hopefully get the best rate possible. This is especially true if the dealer is requesting quotes on rates on your behalf, as they would probably use a batch process to send out applications to multiple financial institutions all at once. Yes, and a bit unusual - CALVERT TOYO (your dealer) pulled your report twice on the same day. Presumably they are not getting any new information on the second pull. Maybe a fat finger? Regardless, you should not worry about this too much (to be explained below). I would say \"\"don't bother\"\". The idea behind hard inquiries lowering credit score is that lenders see the number of hard inquiries as your desire for credit. Too high a number is often viewed as either \"\"desperate for credit\"\" or \"\"unable to qualify for credit\"\". But as explained above, it is very common for a person to request quotes for multiple financial institutions and thus to have multiple hard inquiries in a short period of time when shopping for loans. To account for that, the credit bureau's model would usually combine hard inquiries for a same type of loan (auto, mortgage, etc.) within 30 days. Hence a person sending quote request to 3 banks won't be rated higher for credit than if he were to request quotes from 5 banks. Therefore in your case your credit profile is not going to be different if you had been pulled just once. my credit score goes down for 15 points I'm assuming you are talking about the credit score provided by Credit Karma. The score CK provided is FAKO. The score lenders care about is FICO. They are well correlated but still different. Google these two terms and you should be able to figure out the difference quickly. You can also refer to my answer to a different question here: Equifax credit score discrepancy in 1 month, why?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1ec5b1cd6585ec8dbb45a4727ef590f", "text": "First, before we talk about anything having to do with the credit score, we need the disclaimer that the exact credit score formulas are proprietary secrets that have not been revealed. Therefore, all we have to go on are broad generalities that FICO has given us. That having been said, the credit card debt utilization portion of your score generally has at least two components: an overall utilization, and a per-card utilization. Your overall utilization is taken by adding up all your credit card debt and all your credit limits and dividing. Using your numbers above, you are sitting at about 95%. The per-card utilization is the individual utilization of each card. Your five cards range in utilization from 69% to 100%. Paying one card over another has no affect on your overall utilization, but obviously will change the per-card utilization of the one you pay first. So, to your question: Is it better on the credit score to have one low-util card and one high-util card, or to have two medium-util cards? I haven't read anything that definitively answers this question. Here is my advice to you: The big problem you have is the debt, not the credit score. Your credit card debt should be treated like an emergency that needs to be taken care of as quickly as you possibly can. Instead of trying to optimize your credit score, you should be trying to minimize the number of days until all of your credit cards are completely paid off. The credit score will take care of itself once you get your financial situation back on track. There is debate about the order in which one should pay off their debts, but the fact of the matter is that the order is not as significant as the intensity at which you pay them all off. Dedicate yourself to getting rid of the debts as fast as possible, and it won't matter much which order they get paid off in. Finally, to answer your question, I recommend that you attack the card debt one at a time instead of trying to pay them off evenly. Not because it will optimize your credit score, but because it will help you focus your debt-reduction energy as you work on resolving your debt emergency. Fortunately, the credit utilization portion of the credit score has no history, so once you pay all of these off, the utilization portion of your score will get better immediately, and the path you took to get there will be irrelevant. After the credit cards are completely paid off, and you have resolved never to spend money that you don't have again, it is time to work on the student loans....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "860640df9cc44d389d0eb0b7a084e461", "text": "Wrong sub. You're looking for /r/personalfinance >will freezing just that credit report hurt them in any way? No, but it will help prevent an identity thief from wrecking your credit. >Can I still get a loan with only one of the three frozen? Depends, but yes. You should freeze your credit at all 5 credit bureaus for personal financial protections.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "018d05a7d9d5fc578c886461e79ecd98", "text": "Sometimes what happens is that a creditor will hand over accounts to a collection agency for action, and after a period of time, it may be reassigned to yet another collection agency if the first one was not successful. Theoretically, this should not be cause to reset the date of collections on your bureau file, but that very well could have happened here. Another instance when this happens is when someone contacts a creditor about a collection item on their report, either to pay or dispute it. Either way, this restarts the 7-year clock on that collection item, so if a debt is old enough, sometimes the best course of action is to let it go. If a debt has been in collections for 4 years, let's say, and you decide to pay it off now, your score isn't going to improve because you paid the collection enough to offset the effect of having it refreshed on your bureau file. Besides, creditors know how old the debt is, so waiting 4 years to pay it isn't going to win you any favors in their eyes anyway. To your question though, it seems to me the most likely thing is that somehow the debt was refreshed through some action by the creditor or one of the agencies assigned to collect on it. I hope this helps. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb9dd514f743aab91f0c3ca2e827629b", "text": "This discussion over at Google Answers suggests that the only time it matters is if your signature is challenged -- that is, someone has reason to doubt it's you authorizing your signature. (Assuming US here.) But if you wanted to get another debit card and sign it differently, and start signing things that way from then on, you might never get challenged about it.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6a48fd3b95873af8beb210ec5e636b26
Can a Zelle Bank Transfer be reversed or denied after credit has been added?
[ { "docid": "9c9acdcbf56c5fe87270584861c27edb", "text": "After collecting information via web searching, the comments above, and a additional call to BOA, i have concluded the following to the best of my knowledge. Zelle Transfers are final. Irreversible. As Jay mentioned above, funds are subtracted from the sending account before the transfer is made, therefore it eliminates sending funds that do not exist. I validated this information with BOA, and the BOA representative said that once a zelle transfer is initiated and the receiving party has received the funds, it can no longer be canceled. Funds received by the receiving party is credited immediately. I will note that the BOA representative was a BOA representative and not a Zelle representative. I say this because the representatives seemed to be slightly weary in answering my questions about Zelle, as if he was looking up the information as we spoke. If someone is reading this and plans to transfer huge amount of cash from a highly likely malicious user, i would recommend contacting Zelle or your personal bank directly to further validate this information. Zelle, from what i can find, is a fairly new technology. I could not find a Zelle contact number via the web for questioning, so i can only rely on the knowledge on my BOA representative.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "f74da4d8b3fe79ba63956ef642f3ebc2", "text": "Below are some of the differences between FedWire credit transfers and ACH credit transfers in the US. FedWire Same day clearing, which means the sender's account is debited and your account is credited on the same day Irrevocable. Once a FedWire is sent, the originator/sender cannot send a reversing transaction. This is a huge advantage of using FedWires because it mitigates risk of reversals. Cost. FedWire typically cost more to send and to receive ACH Credit (aka Direct Deposit) Allows for Reversals. Sender/originator does have the ability to perform reversals or correcting entries. Batch Processing ACH entries are group together into batches and processed by Financial Institutions and the ACH Operators in batch mode. You can find additional information regarding ACH at http://www.achrulesonline.org/ and FedWire at http://www.frbservices.org/serviceofferings/fedwire/fedwire_funds_service.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a3786764d2e6576dfd4848fae81f485", "text": "We have a pre-paid mastercard. This will only allow the spending up to the amount already paid into the card account. Visa Electron is a bank account linked debit card that will not allow the account to go overdrawn but this card type is getting quite rare.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc17bf0c8d9eecdcd412998741cfc8f4", "text": "Short answer: No. Some of those 'automatic' payments you've agreed to (presumably by signing a PAD form) are initiated in batch by the company whom you're buying from (phone company, cable company etc). So no, the bank has no indication from one day to the next what is coming through. And the request goes from say, your cable company to THEIR merchant bank to YOUR bank. Typically you have a monthly bill date which is fixed, and they should have terms established when it is due. If a payment comes back NSF they can retry once - but only for the same amount and I believe it is 14 days from the initial payment attempt. It makes it predictable, and you'd figure banks would clue in and start to predict for you when things may come out - but strictly speaking your bank doesn't know when or how much.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b138186eaa370f17d473b616b4c8885", "text": "If bank B has a transfer limit set, you bet that there is a nice reason for that. Either risk of fraud, liability, client preferences, profiling, credit scoring, etc, etc. For a bank, the cost of denying something [1] is way lower than the potential damages and liabilities of allowing something to go through. Regarding your concerns for the ACH, here is the summarized transaction walkthrough source: An Originator– whether that’s an individual, a corporation or another entity– initiates either a Direct Deposit or Direct Payment transaction using the ACH Network. ACH transactions can be either debit or credit payments and commonly include Direct Deposit of payroll, government and Social Security benefits, mortgage and bill payments, online banking payments, person-to-person (P2P) and business-to-business (B2B) payments, to name a few. Instead of using paper checks, ACH entries are entered and transmitted electronically, making transactions quicker, safer and easier. The Originating Depository Financial institution (ODFI) enters the ACH entry at the request of the Originator. The ODFI aggregates payments from customers and transmits them in batches at regular, predetermined intervals to an ACH Operator. ACH Operators (two central clearing facilities: The Federal Reserve or The Clearing House) receive batches of ACH entries from the ODFI. The ACH transactions are sorted and made available by the ACH Operator to the Receiving Depository Financial Institution (RDFI). The Receiver’s account is debited or credited by the RDFI, according to the type of ACH entry. Individuals, businesses and other entities can all be Receivers. Each ACH credit transaction settles in one to two business days, and each debit transaction settles in just one business day, as per the Rules. Take heed of this like: The Originator initiates a direct deposit/payment transaction. In your scenario, the originator would be B. But since the transaction amount is higher than the limit, B would not even initiate the ACH transaction. The request would be denied. So the transaction would look like this: [1] Usually this cost comes down to just the processing costs of the denied transaction (and it is rather fail-fast like). For the other parties involved it may have additional costs (missed deadlines, penalties for not fulfilling an obligation, fines, etc), but for the bank that is irrelevant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6c5de5165e603a04b0787b43b08c245c", "text": "In most cases, the brand on the card, eg Visa or MasterCard, is a middleman. The company processes the transaction, transferring $xx from the bank to the seller, and telling the bank to debit the buyer's account. The bank is at risk, not the company transacting the purchase. What's interesting is that American Express started as both. My first Amex card, issued in 1979 (long expired, but in my box of memorabilia) had no bank. American Express offered a card that offered no extended credit, it was pay in full each month. Since then, Amex started offering extended credit, i.e. with annual interest, and minimum payments, and more recently, offering transaction processing for banks which take on the credit risk, essentially becoming very similar to MasterCard and Visa.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8401508cd262c9959657b24535973b9b", "text": "I’ve been in the mortgage business for nearly 15 years. Your question is sort of multi-faceted and I’m surprised by some of these answers I’ve read! Anyway, I digress. Yes, you can be denied even if you have money for a down payment. One of the BIGGEST factors lenders are now required to take into account when approving mortgages now is a person’s “Ability to Repay.” Whether your traditional mortgages like Conventional, FHA, USDA, or VA loans, or even an “in-house” mortgage from a local bank —either way, the lender MUST be able to verify someone’s ability to repay. Your issue is that you won’t have any verifiable income until May. A couple people have answered correctly in that 1) if you have a firm offer letter that can be verified with the employer, and 2) you can use your education/college to substitute for a two year work history as long as you’re graduating with and working in the same line of work. Some programs require proof of 30 days of pay history once you actually start earning paychecks; some programs will use the offer letter as long as you will start earning paychecks within a certain number of days after the note date (basically when the payments start). Also I’m making the assumption that there is some sort of credit history that can be verified. Most lenders want at least a couple of accounts reporting a history just to show good use of credit and showing that you can manage your finances over a longer period of time. Just about every lender has some sort of minimum FICO score requirement. I hope this helps. If you have questions, just reply in a comment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "03c471d1e394097ee43d6fcfc8298725", "text": "could I decline it so the money would be returned back to the account they were transferred from? As a general banking practise, there is nothing automated that will allow you to mark something as return the funds. You would have to approach your Bank with a written statement mentioning that you don't recognise this credit as belonging to you and request the bank to take appropriate action.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16b32ac1b71ecd26d6a913654a3eb26a", "text": "I have the PDF of Wells Fargo bank sent by my client which also quotes the SWIFT Confirmation #. This is just the internal reference maybe from SWIFT terminal. It just means SWIFT received the message. Nothing more. What may have happened ? It could have got stuck somewhere in correspondent Bank chain. Or may have reached ICICI NY and they are not able to apply funds to your account in the ICICI India branch for whatever reasons. What are my next steps here ? You would need to do 2 things; First contact your ICICI bank branch with this details and ask them if they can trace it for you. Second contact your client and ask them to raise a BCNR [Beneficiary Claims Non Receipt] for this transaction with Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is bound to investigate this. Depending on your Clients relationship with Wells Fargo, there maybe charges of around 30-50 USD. This would trace the payment via Wells Fargo to the next in chain and can identify where it was stuck or when it was credited. What more information should I ask for The information in confirmation is quite less. Talk to your client and see if you are request for Sender Reference Number [This is preserved from Wells Fargo to your ICICI bank], BIC of Wells Fargo, Immediate routing [or sender Correspondent]; i.e. which Bank the payment was sent to [Wells Fargo may send it to other Bank and then it would reach ICICI]", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52b93ea21402f1d2f3d73a6d680c120c", "text": "I have already talked to them over the phone and they insist they haven't charged me yet, and I will not be charged. When I informed them I had in fact been charged they agreed it would be reversed. So I have tried to resolve the issue and I don't have any confidence they will reverse the charge as it has not been done yet. They are difficult to communicate which makes the whole process more difficult. Your best next step is to call the credit card company and share this story. I believe the likely result is that the credit card company will initiate a charge back. My question is, is this a valid reason to file a chargeback on my credit card? Yes. If you attempted to work it out with the vendor and it is not working out, this is an appropriate time to initiate a charge back.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bcf3e85b478a43834c0d63f867c7c6a3", "text": "\"Other answers didn't seem to cover it, but most \"\"0%\"\" bank loans (often offered to credit card holders in the form of balance transfer checks), aside from less-obvious fees like already-mentioned late fees, also charge an actual loan fee, typically 2-3% (or a minimum floor amount) - that was the deal with every single transfer 0% offer I ever saw from a bank. So, effectively, even if you pay off the loan perfectly, on time, and within 0% period, you STILL got a 3% loan and not 0% (assuming 0% period lasts 12 months which is often the case).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5b3f149abaf0264fbeac33ef91c6df2", "text": "I'd contact paypal to request clarification. In the meantime, most banks will credit outgoing transfers immediately but process later, and only debit incoming after it passes through a processing team. So while the money will go out right away it may take a few days for your bank to actually process the withdrawal and the subsequent reversal from Paypal. In reality Paypal doesn't usually recieve the money immediately either, but they extend you credit to speed up things. Either way, it doesn't hurt to contact Paypal to make sure they have reverted the amount to your bank, and if they confirm such you can also reach out to your bank and ask where the money is stuck. Usually delays like this will happen in the interface between two unrelated financial institutions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "397050bf496379d0b5e27f6d329f1278", "text": "\"you could get a discover card and then just \"\"freeze\"\" it. you might need to unfreeze it for a few minutes when you sign up for a new service, but it is unlikely an ongoing subscription would process a charge in that window. i believe merchants are charged a small fee for a transaction even if it is declined, so they won't try constantly forever. discover account freeze faq capitalone offers this freeze feature on their \"\"360\"\" debit cards. you can even freeze and unfreeze your card from their mobile app. this feature is becoming more common at small banks and credit unions too. i know of 2 small local banks that offer it. in fact, almost any bank can give you a debit card, then set the daily POS limit to 0$, effectively making it an atm-only card. but you may need to call the bank to get that limit temporarily lifted whenever you want to sign up for a new service. alternatively, jejorda2's suggestion of virtual account numbers is a good idea. several banks (including discover) have discontinued that feature, but i believe citi, and boa still offer them. side notes:\"", "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": "fe0be5fcc377b7e9be1d90b3354721ab", "text": "\"There's a difference between missing a payment and \"\"carrying a balance\"\" (making an on-time payments that are less than the full balance due). I have heard mortgage brokers claim that, if you have no other credit history, carrying a small balance here and there on a credit card may improve your score. (\"\"Small\"\" is in relation to your available credit and your ability to pay it off.) But actually missing a payment will probably hurt your score. Example: You have a card with a credit limit of $1000. In July you charge $300 worth of stuff. You get the next statement and it shows the balance due of $300 and a minimum payment of $100. If you pay the entire $300 balance in that cycle, most cards won't charge you any interest. You are not carrying a balance, so the credit scores may not reflect that you actually took a $300 loan and paid it off. If you instead pay $200, you'll be in good standing (because $200 is greater than the minimum payment). But you'll be carrying a $100 balance into the next statement cycle. Plus interest will accrue on that $100. If you do this regularly, your credit score will probably take into account that you've taken a small loan and made the payments. For those with no other credit history, this may be an appropriate way to increase your credit score. (But you're paying interest, so it's not free.) And if the average balance you carry is considered high relative to your ability to pay or to the total credit available to you, then this could adversely affect your score (or, at least, the amount of credit another provider is willing to extend to you). If you instead actually miss a payment, or make a payment that's less than the minimum payment, that will almost certainly hurt your credit score. It will also incur penalties as well as interest. You want to avoid that whenever possible. My guess is that, in the game of telephone from the banker to you, the \"\"carrying a balance\"\" was misinterpreted as \"\"missing a payment.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f33e2bcb2cdc6da2742b0438139a2fa0", "text": "There is a LOT of shuffling going on in the financial services industry. I would not immediately say your advisor is acting in bad faith. The DOL fiduciary changes are quite significant for some brokers. Investment Advisors who are fee-based have less of an impact since they are already fiduciaries. That being said, your issue is still the same. How can you get a low-cost solution to your problem? You might want to consider Vanguard, Fidelity, or another mutual fund company that can keep your costs low. However, you should understand that if you are using mutual funds, the fees are paid one way or another. 12b1 fees, commissions, and expenses are all deducted from the fund's gross returns. You have to choose between low cost and paid advice. you cannot get high-quality low-cost advice. Fortunately, there are a lot of new solutions out there, robo-advisors, indexing, asset allocation mutual funds, ETFs, and more. Do a bit of homework and you should be able to come up with a reasonable solution. I hope you found this helpful. Kirk", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
bdd4195b98757d424ac318c87dd9b9d9
What are the procedures or forms for a private loan with the sale of a vehicle?
[ { "docid": "b51589201c2d2e7f27a9572b11c42113", "text": "The Nebraska DMV web site has a neat page about this. It seems to be fairly simple, and not costly to record a lien and later release it. Just go there with the title and the sales agreement that details the terms, and pay the $7 fee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b2e1f0f7bd0926fa89271b2305f03c8", "text": "Draft up a promissory notes. Have a lawyer do it use one of those online contract places if you have simple needs. Your promissory note need to cover Be specific. There are probably a lot more items that can be included, and if a quick internet search is any indication it gets deep fast. http://lmbtfy.com/?q=car+sale+promissory+note (Like @LittleAdv says) Head to your DMV with the title and the promissory note. The title is signed over to you and held by the DMV. When you pay up, the seller informs the DMV and they send you the title. If you don't pay up, the seller can legally repossess the car. All butts are covered. Pay the note as agreed. When you are all paid up, your friend notifies the DMV who then mail you the title. Your butt is covered because your name is on the car, you can insure it and nobody can take it from you (legally) if you are paying the note as agreed. Your pal's butt is covered because if you stop paying half way through, he can keep whatever you have paid him and get his car back.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "19a41f572fb72c31a0e903d04b283a65", "text": "\"At this point there is not much you can do. The documentation probably points to you being the sole owner and signer on the loan. Then, any civil suit will degenerate into a \"\"he said, she said\"\" scenario. Luckily, no one was truly harmed in the scenario. Obtaining financing through a car dealer is almost always not advisable. So from here, you can do what should have been done in the first place. Go to banks and credit unions so your daughter can refinance the car. You will probably get a lower rate, and there is seldom a fee. I would start with the bank/CU where she does her checking or has some other kind of a relationship. If that fails, anywhere you can actually sit and talk with a loan officer is preferable over the big corporate type banks. Car dealers lying is nothing new, it happens to everyone. Buying a car is like a battle.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45430766fd9e2a4c81c5db997ceef669", "text": "The advice above is generally good, but the one catch I haven't seen addressed is which specific laws apply. You said that you are in Arkansas, but the dealer is in Texas. This means that the laws of at least two different states are in play, possibly three if the contract contains a clause stating that disputes will be handled in a certain jurisdiction, and you are going to have to do some research to figure out what actually applies. One thing that may significantly impact this issue is whether you were in TX or AR when you signed the contracts. If you borrowed the money in TX, and the lender is in TX, then it is almost certain that the laws of Texas will govern. However, if you were living in AR at the time you acquired the loan, particularly if you were in AR when you signed the papers, you have a decent case for claiming that the laws of Arkansas govern. I don't know enough about either state to know if one is more favorable to the consumer than the other, but it is a question you really want to have answered. That said, I would be shocked if any state did not have provisions requiring the lender to provide a copy of the terms and a detailed statement of the account and transaction history upon request. Spend some time on the web site of the Texas attorney general and/or legislator (because that is where the lender is, they are more likely to respect Texas law) to see if you can track down any specific laws or codes that you can reference. You might also look into the federal consumer protection laws, though I can't think of one off hand that would apply in the scenario you have described. Then work on putting together a letter asking them to provide a copy of the contract and a full history of the account. As others noted, make sure you send it certified/return receipt, or better yet use a private carrier such as fedex, and check the box about requiring a signature. Above all you need to get the dialog transferred to a written form. I can not stress this point enough. Everything you tell them or ask for from here out needs to be done in a written format. If they call you about anything, tell them you want to see their issue/offer in writing before you will consider it. You do not necessarily need a lawyer to do any of this, but you do need to know the applicable laws. Do the research to know what your legal standing is. Involve a lawyer if you feel you need to, but I have successfully battled several large utility companies and collection agencies into behaving without needing one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f619a6f40638cb8a9ed76badeb58cb7", "text": "\"Paperwork prevails. What you have is a dealer who get a kickback for sending financing to that institution. And the dealer pretty much said \"\"We only get paid our kickback at two levels of loan life, 6 and 12 months.\"\" You just didn't quite read between the lines. This is very similar to the Variable Annuity salespeople who tell their clients, \"\"The best feature about this product is that the huge commissions I get from the sale fund my kid's college tuition and my own retirement. You, on the other hand, don't really do so well.\"\" Car salesmen and VA sellers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4df213786d0460d57a29a7a1b27d1624", "text": "The other person has to decide that they want to be wholly responsible for the loan, and they have to be able to qualify for the loan. They are in essence purchasing the car from you with the sale price being the remaining balance of the loan. You will then use the processed from the new loan to pay the old loan off completely. They will then take the bill of sale to the state DMV/MVA to register the car in their name. You should have them start with their bank for a new car loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccaf4e379ae155f8f1ddd2d94784a9e7", "text": "The old truck is collateral for a loan. The place that made the loan expects that if you can't pay they can repossess that old truck. If you sell it they can't repossess it. The dealer needs clean title to be able to buy the truck from you, so they can fix up the truck and sell it to somebody else. I am assuming the the lender has filed paperwork with the state to show their lien on the title. Your options are three: As to option 2: If the deal still makes sense the new car dealer can send the $9,000 to the lender that you forgot about. That will of course increase the amount of money you have to borrow. You will also run into the problem that this loan that you forgot to mention on your credit application may cause them to rethink the decision to loan you the money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79ee7e90db2f1e6040e314f243def684", "text": "Not a good idea, the bank is a lean holder unless you deduct the remainder of the loan from the purchase price you will end up paying much more. Tell the seller to pay off the loan and provide you a clean title. Btw unless you're getting the deal of the century I'd walk away until I saw a clean title", "title": "" }, { "docid": "64fb7a323214f50afbc01fecc4753d61", "text": "Your first step is to talk to the current lender and ask about refinancing in the other person's name. The lender is free to say no, and if they think the other person is unlikely to pay it back, they won't refinance. If you're in this situation because the other person didn't qualify for a loan in the first place, the lender probably won't change their mind, but it's still worth asking. From the lender's point of view, you'll be selling the other person the car. If they qualify for a loan, it's as simple as getting the loan from a bank, then doing whatever is required by your state to sell a car between either private parties or between relatives (depending on who the other person is). The bank might help you with this, or your state's DMV website. Here are a few options that don't involve changing who is on the loan: Taking out a loan for another person is always a big risk. Banks have entire departments devoted to determining who is a good credit risk, and who isn't, so if a person can't get a loan from a bank, it's usually for a good reason. One good thing about your situation: you actually bought the car, and are the listed owner. Had you co-signed on a loan in the other person's name, you'd owe the money, but wouldn't even have the car's value to fall back on when they stopped paying.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06b62f2e839c4409e58c08dab7ad9f74", "text": "1) How long have you had the car? Generally, accounts that last more than a year are kept on your credit report for 7 years, while accounts that last less than a year are only kept about 2 years (IIRC - could someone correct me if that last number is wrong?). 2) Who is the financing through? If it's through a used car dealer, there's a good chance they're not even reporting it to the credit bureaus (I had this happen to me; the dealer promised he'd report the loan so it would help my credit, I made my payments on time every time, and... nothing ever showed up. It pissed me off, because another positive account on my credit report would have really helped my score). Banks and brand name dealers are more likely to report the loan. 3) What are your expected long term gains on the stocks you're considering selling, and will you have to pay capital gains on them when you do sell them? The cost of selling those stocks could possibly be higher than the gain from paying off the car, so you'll want to run the numbers for a couple different scenarios (optimistic growth, pessimistic, etc) and see if you come out ahead or not. 4) Are there prepayment penalties or costs associated with paying off the car loan early? Most reputable financiers won't include such terms (or they'll only be in effect during the first few months of the loan), but again it depends on who the loan is through. In short: it depends. I know people hate hearing answers like that, but it's true :) Hopefully though, you'll be able to sit down and look at the specifics of your situation and make an informed decision.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3e856d7e6912de3291f0bf813915525", "text": "\"You're supposed to be filling form 433-A. Vehicles are on line 18. You will fill there the current fair value of the car and the current balance on the loans. The last column is \"\"equity\"\", which in your case will indeed be a negative number. The \"\"value\"\" is what the car is worth. The \"\"equity\"\" is what the car is worth to you. IRS uses the \"\"equity\"\" value to calculate your solvency. Any time you fill a form to the IRS - read the instructions carefully, for each line and line. If in doubt - talk to a professional licensed in your state. I'm not a professional, and this is not a tax advice.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f36797606cd3c5a1d9b22a6c654c87d", "text": "\"In the US, \"\"title\"\" is the document that shows ownership of the car. It is a nicely printed document you get from the DMV, that includes the information about the car and about you. You \"\"sign off the title\"\" when you sell the car - part of the title is a form on which the owner of the title can assign it to someone else. With your signature on the title, the new owner goes to the DMV which exchanges it to a new title in the new owner's name. Never sign on the title unless you got the payment for the car from the buyer. Usually, when the car is bought with a loan, the lender holds the title. Since you need to sign off the title to pass the ownership if you sell the car - lender holding on to it will prevent you from selling the car until the lender gives you the title back (when you pay off the loan). Your boss, acting as a lender, wants the title to hold on to it to prevent you from selling the car that secures your debt to him. He wants that (usually pink) piece of paper. Here's an article explaining about the title and showing a sample. Lenders holding the title will usually also add an endorsement at the DMV, so that you can't go and claim that you lost it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f88dded301c180c38ceda078c73a1813", "text": "California bankruptcy law requires disclosure of any gift made by the person declaring bankruptcy in the past 12 months, and any asset transfers in the past 2 years (with a couple of minor exceptions). This would most certainly include the car, if it is regifted back to you. Such a claim would likely be considered fraudulent, though this would be a matter for the lawyers and bankruptcy trustee in question. There's a blog which you may wish to check out, the California Bankruptcy Blog, which has a specific entry on gifts. Now, there is a specific exemption for automobiles, but only up to a total of $2725. Legally, I believe there's nothing you can do here. If the $10K was a loan, it will be discharged in bankruptcy. If it was a gift, it'll have to be declared and the car will have to be sold. If regifted or transferred, it must be declared and will likely (but not definitely) be determined as an invalid disposal of assets. Either you or your family member will have to discuss this with a bankruptcy lawyer. I'm sorry your generous act is likely to get tangled up here. :(", "title": "" }, { "docid": "495dbb29d96221d44977ac2aa554a962", "text": "Contact the lien holder (the bank) and they'll have a procedure for you. Usually, you complete the transaction at the bank after agreeing on the purchase price: you will cut a check to the bank to pay off the loan, and then write a second check to the seller for whatever extra amount should go to him. The bank will handle the paperwork for transferring the title of the car to your name. Obviously, under no circumstances should you give all the money to the seller in the hopes that he pays off the loan. You need to follow the lender's procedures because they hold the title to the car and must be the ones to transfer it to you. Banks do this type of transaction all the time. Just call them and ask about how to proceed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8e6c38c95e169f5d01c19699cb2e6f0", "text": "Update: here is a message the seller just sent me. Does this make sense? I spoke with my bank again and they explained it a little better for me. I guess how it works is they will print out something for you that is called an affidavit in lieu of title that states they are no longer the lein holder and to release it to you. You then take that to the dol and they get it put in your name. He says that's how they do it all the time. When we get to the bank, the teller just verifies the check and I deposit it and they release the funds to pay off the account and that's when you would get the paperwork. You would be there for the whole process so nothing is sketchy. Sorry it's such a pain, I didn't understand how that worked. We've never sold a car with a loan on it before.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fa642b6d1699325bda825d5440788e0", "text": "Make sure I am reading this correctly. You signed the car over to you BF, he took a loan against it and gave you the money? If so, you sold him the car and any use you have had of it since was at his consent. Outside of a written contract saying otherwise (and possibly even with one) it is now his car to do with as he pleases. It sucks that things are not working out in the manner you intended at the time, but that is the reality of the situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76384f87eaa0952d8425ce9d84c3dd45", "text": "\"You have figured out most of the answers for yourself and there is not much more that can be said. From a lender's viewpoint, non-immigrant students applying for car loans are not very good risks because they are going to graduate in a short time (maybe less than the loan duration which is typically three years or more) and thus may well be leaving the country before the loan is fully paid off. In your case, the issue is exacerbated by the fact that your OPT status is due to expire in about one year's time. So the issue is not whether you are a citizen, but whether the lender can be reasonably sure that you will be gainfully employed and able to make the loan payments until the loan is fully paid off. Yes, lenders care about work history and credt scores but they also care (perhaps even care more) about the prospects for steady employment and ability to make the payments until the loan is paid off. Yes, you plan on applying for a H1-B visa but that is still in the future and whether the visa status will be adjusted is still a matter with uncertain outcome. Also, these are not matters that can be explained easily in an on-line application, or in a paper application submitted by mail to a distant bank whose name you obtained from some list of \"\"lenders who have a reliable track record of extending auto loans to non-permanent residents.\"\" For this reason, I suggested in a comment that you consider applying at a credit union, especially if there is an Employees' Credit Union for those working for your employer. If you go this route, go talk to a loan officer in person rather than trying to do this on the phone. Similarly, a local bank,and especially one where you currently have an account (hopefully in good standing), is more likely to be willing to work with you. Failing all this, there is always the auto dealer's own loan offers of financing. Finally, one possibility that you might want to consider is whether a one-year lease might work for you instead of an outright purchase, and you can buy a car after your visa issue has been settled.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
7b3e785e935faaeee2d5e3cbad118c52
Corporate Equity Draw vs Income
[ { "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": "0b055c497ebf3938a1c1d306b56febe6", "text": "It is. The outstanding value is the net cash flow, but it will always be higher than cash outflow due to a constant growth rate/expected return. I was slightly confused when my manager told me to find the IRR before and after cash inflows (the whole life of the investment). Especially as IRR after cash inflows is higher than the former.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1badb1b14dffa130f4d2ae7d360fed7", "text": "You need to distinguish a company's guidance from analysts' estimates. A company will give a revenue/earnings guidance which is generally based on internal budgets. The guidance may be aggressive or conservative - some managements are known to be conservative and the market will take that into account to form actual estimates. When you see a headline saying that a company missed, it is generally by reference to the analysts' estimates. Analysts use a company's guidance as one data point among many others to form a forecast of revenue/earnings. The idea behind those headlines is that the average sales/earnings estimates of analysts is a good approximation of what the market expects (which is debatable).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "052392f5d66b263d95bf4d5e2838e319", "text": "\"Equity does not represent production divisions in a company (i.e. chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla does not make sense). In Sole proprietorship, equity represents 1 owner. In Partnership, equity has at least two sub-accounts, namely Partner 1 and Partner 2. In Corporations, equity may have Common Stockholders and Preferred Stockholders, or even different class of shares for insiders and angel investors. As you can see, equity represents who owns the company. It is not what the company does or manufactures. First and foremost, define the boundary of the firm. Are your books titled \"\"The books of the family of Doe\"\", \"\"The books of Mr & Mrs Doe\"\", or \"\"The books of Mr & Mrs Doe & Sons\"\". Ask yourself, who \"\"owns\"\" this family. If you believe that a marriage is perpetual until further notice then it does not make any sense to constantly calculate which parent owns the family more. In partnership, firm profits are attributed to partner's accounts using previously agreed ratio. For example, (60%/40% because Partner 1 is more hard working and valuable to the firm. Does your child own this family? Does he/she have any rights to use the assets, to earn income from the assets, to transfer the assets to others, or to enforce private property rights? If they don't have a part of these rights, they are certainly NOT part of Equity. So what happens to the expenses of children if you follow the \"\"partnership\"\" model? There are two ways. The first way is to attribute the Loss to the parents/family since you do not expect the children to repay. It is an unrecoverable loss written off. The second way is to create a Debtor(Asset) account to aggregate all child expense, then create a separate book called \"\"The books Children 1\"\", and classify the expense in that separate book. I advise using \"\"The family of Doe\"\" as the firm's boundary, and having 1 Equity account to simplify everything. It is ultimately up to you to decide the boundaries.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7b44d6fb01103d972318fdd1aa04c52", "text": "\"You'll generally get a number close to market cap of a mature company if you divide profits (or more accurately its free cash flow to equity) by the cost of equity which is usually something like ~7%. The value is meant to represent the amount of cash you'd need to generate investment income off it matching the company you're looking at. Imagine it as asking \"\"How much money do I need to put into the bank so that my interest income would match the profits of the company I'm looking at\"\". Except replace the bank with the market and other forms of investments that generate higher returns of course and that value would be lower.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "829ff126b899af4b65aa225ce89badc3", "text": "Lets just get to the point...Ordinary income (gains) earned from S-Corp operations (i.e. income earned after all expenses for providing services or selling products) is passed through to the owners/shareholders and taxed at the owner's personal tax rate. Separately, if an S-Corp earns capital gains (i.e. the S-Corp buys and sells stock, earns dividends from investments, etc), those gains are passed through to the owners and taxed at a capital gains rate Capital gains are not the same as ordinary income (gains). Don't get the two confused, they are as different for S-Corp taxation as they are for personal taxation. In some cases an exception occurs, but only when the S-Corp was formally a C-Corp and the C-Corp had non-distributed earnings or losses. This is a separate issue whereas the undistributed C-Corp gains/losses are treated differently than the S-Corp gains/losses. It takes years of college coursework and work experience to grasp the vast arena of tax. It should not be so complex, but it is this complex. It is not within the scope of the non-tax professional to make sense of this stuff. The CPA exams, although very difficult and thorough, only scrape the surface of tax and accounting. I hope this provides some perspective on any questions regarding business tax for S-Corps and any other entity type. Hire a good CPA... if you can find one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9fbbddf99ada47cb3317b4673d6b8ca", "text": "This is fine, but I'd probably spend a moment introducing WACC and it's estimation. It's also useful to link up the enterprise value to share price, so just also mentioning the debt subtraction to get equity value and division by shares for price. Keep in mind you're usually given like a minute to answer this, so you can afford to be a bit more detailed in some parts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6a86727ce2c1f10f9574097f583a59e", "text": "Shareholders are the equity holders. They mean the same thing. A simplified formula for the total value of a company is the value of its equity, plus the value of its debt, less its cash (for reasons I won't get into). There are usually other things to add or subtract, but that's the basic formula.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f56bfa4b4678efd8cc9806a01578457", "text": "Would you mind adding where that additional value comes from, if not from the losses of other investors? You asked this in a comment, but it seems to be the key to the confusion. Corporations generate money (profits, paid as dividends) from sales. Sales trade products for money. The creation of the product creates value. A car is worth more than General Motors pays for its components and inputs, even including labor and overhead as inputs. That's what profit is: added value. The dividend is the return that the stock owner gets for owning the stock. This can be a bit confusing in the sense that some stocks don't pay dividends. The theory is that the stock price is still based on the future dividends (or the liquidation price, which you could also consider a type of dividend). But the current price is mostly based on the likelihood that the stock price will increase rather than any expected dividends during ownership of the stock. A comment calls out the example of Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway is a weird case. It operates more like a mutual fund than a company. As such, investors prefer that it reinvest its money rather than pay a dividend. If investors want money from it, they sell shares to other investors. But that still isn't really a zero sum game, as the stock increases in value over time. There are other stocks that don't pay dividends. For example, Digital Equipment Corporation went through its entire existence without ever paying a dividend. It merged with Compaq, paying investors for owning the stock. Overall, you can see this in that the stock market goes up on average. It might have a few losing years, but pick a long enough time frame, and the market will increase during it. If you sell a stock today, it's because you value the money more than the stock. If it goes up tomorrow, that's the buyer's good luck. If it goes down, the buyer's bad luck. But it shouldn't matter to you. You wanted money for something. You received the money. The increase in the stock market overall is an increase in value. It is completely unrelated to trading losses. Over time, trading gains outweigh trading losses for investors as a group. Individual investors may depart from that, but the overall gain is added value. If the only way to make gains in the stock market was for someone else to take a loss, then the stock market wouldn't be able to go up. To view it as a zero sum game, we have to ignore the stocks themselves. Then each transaction is a payment (loss) for one party and a receipt (gain) for the other. But the stocks themselves do have value other than what we pay for them. The net present value of of future payments (dividends, buyouts, etc.) has an intrinsic worth. It's a risky worth. Some stocks will turn out to be worthless, but on average the gains outweigh the losses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbc54297aa25d0a851d8421cd7854b7c", "text": "\"In the Income Statement that you've linked to, look for the line labeled \"\"Net Income\"\". That's followed by a line labeled \"\"Preferred Dividends\"\", which is followed by \"\"Income Available to Common Excl. Extra Items\"\" and \"\"Income Available to Common Incl. Extra Items\"\". Those last two are the ones to look at. The key is that these lines reflect income minus dividends paid to preferred stockholders (of which there are none here), and that's income that's available to ordinary shareholders, i.e., \"\"earnings for the common stock\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c197ad441c09d2f3cfd1b2b06df90281", "text": "I think the most concise way to understand EV is the value of the *operating assets* of the firm. It's most generally used when using income statement or cash flow ratios that are unlevered - before applying interest expense (which if the firm is optimally financed, in theory should only impact the equity). Examples include revenue, EBIT, EBITDA, unlevered FCF, etc. In your hypothetical scenario, you would expect the equity value of the firm to increase linearly as cash builds up. In other words, in some implausible, ceteris paribus formulation of the firm, the enterprise value should remain constant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58fee466a1611be7e3a36f466ff3a5b7", "text": "\"Equity could mean stock options. If that's the case if the company makes it big, you'll have the option to buy stocks cheap (which can then be sold at a huge profit) How are you going to buy those without income? 5% equity is laughable. I'd be looking for 30-40% if not better without salary. Or even better, a salary. To elaborate, 5% is fine, and even normal for an early employee taking a mild pay cut in exchange for a chance at return. That chance of any return on the equity is only about 1/20 (94% of startups fail) There is no reason for an employee to work for no pay. An argument could be made for a cofounder, with direct control and influence in the company to work for equity only, but it would be a /lot/ more (that 30-40%), or an advisory role (5% is reasonable) I also just noticed you mentioned \"\"investing\"\" in the startup with cash. As an angel investor, I'd still expect far more than 5%, and preferred shares at that. More like 16-20%. Read this for more info on how equity is usually split.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1dbe7bda5a57a5d62c4680327a932c6", "text": "It is difficult to reconcile historical balance sheets with historical cash flow statements because there are adjustments that are not always clearly disclosed. Practitioners consider activity on historical cash flow statements but generally don't invest time reconciling historical accounts, instead focusing on balancing projected balance sheets / cash flow statements. If you had non-public internal books, you could reconcile the figures (presuming they are accurate). In regards to Mike Haskel's comment, there's also a section pertaining to operating capital, not just effects on net income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79f388d2574f818e5c8512003c48d607", "text": "This really comes down to tax structuring (which I am not an expert on), for public companies the acquiror almost always pays for the cash to prevent any taxable drawdown of overseas accounts, dividend taxes suck, etc. For a private company, first the debt gets swept, then special dividend out - dividends received by the selling corporate entity benefit from a tax credit plus it reduces the selling price of the equity, reducing capital gains taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45b1fc2bfbffc1e40e824972d16fd3d0", "text": "First, corporate profits can grow relative to GDP. If companies succeed in growing revenue without paying much more to workers, then corporate profits and stock prices will grow relative to GDP. That has been happening for the last couple decades. If you require that we keep corporate profits vs GDP constant, then borrowing/leverage is how you do it. Companies can expand their operations on a fixed amount of shareholder equity, and as long as they can grow their profits faster than the cost of the debt, then shareholders keep the upside. But this also means that share prices will quickly fall if profits decline even a small amount, because the debt must still be paid off.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aaa788cffd3ea02085b6090b0e9b3120", "text": "It is true that operation profit comes from gross profit however it is possible for a company to have negative net profit yet have postive cash flow , it has to do with the accounting practice A possible example is that a company has extremely high depreciation expense of fixed asset hence net profit will be negative but cash flow will be positive. Assuming the fixed asset has been fully paid for in earlier years", "title": "" } ]
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8986d6f513886b3771b95a564367ec12
Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment?
[ { "docid": "49136c4aa863e265570541bc1bcd0c3a", "text": "K, welcome to Money.SE. You knew enough to add good tags to the question. Now, you should search on the dozens of questions with those tags to understand (in less than an hour) far more than that banker knows about credit and credit scores. My advice is first, never miss a payment. Ever. The advice your father passed on to you is nonsense, plain and simple. I'm just a few chapters shy of being able to write a book about the incorrect advice I'd heard bank people give their customers. The second bit of advice is that you don't need to pay interest to have credit cards show good payment history. i.e. if you choose to use credit cards, use them for the convenience, cash/rebates, tracking, and guarantees they can offer. Pay in full each bill. Last - use a free service, first, AnnualCreditReport.com to get a copy of your credit report, and then a service like Credit Karma for a simulated FICO score and advice on how to improve it. As member @Agop has commented, Discover (not just for cardholders) offers a look at your actual score, as do a number of other credit cards for members. (By the way, I wouldn't be inclined to discuss this with dad. Most people take offense that you'd believe strangers more than them. Most of the answers here are well documented with links to IRS, etc, and if not, quickly peer-reviewed. When I make a mistake, a top-rated member will correct me within a day, if not just minutes)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5bf8916a07958f21f05d6bdb91a0000f", "text": "\"First, a note of my personal experience: up until a year ago, my credit lines were composed exclusively of credit cards with perfect payment histories, and my credit score is fine. If you mean that credit cards have no impact on a person's credit score until they miss a payment, that is certainly not correct. FICO's website identifies \"\"payment history\"\" as 35% of your FICO score: The first thing any lender wants to know is whether you’ve paid past credit accounts on time. This is one of the most important factors in a FICO® Score. ... Credit payment history on many types of accounts Account types considered for payment history include: ... Details on late or missed payments (\"\"delinquencies\"\") and public record and collection items FICO® Scores consider: How many accounts show no late payment A good track record on most of your credit accounts will increase your FICO® Scores. Clearly, from the last item alone, we see that credit lines (a category which includes credit cards) with no late payments is a factor in computing your FICO score, and certainly other credit bureaus behave similarly. Possibly the banker was trying to explain some other point, like \"\"If you're careful not to spend more on your card than you have in the bank, you can functionally treat your credit card as a debit line,\"\" but did so in a confusing way.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2f560364d881177a7d1d519a65e37090", "text": "\"Not sure what you mean by \"\"missing\"\". Credit card debt can be paid back in full when you get the bill, or you can \"\"take a loan\"\" and \"\"pay in installments\"\". If you do the latter, and pay back at least the minimum required amount on time, you are not \"\"missing\"\" your payment. Technically, you are taking a small, but expensive loan, and if you pay that loan back according to the terms and conditions that apply to your credit card, this is reported to the credit bureau and improves your credit. If you are really \"\"missing your payment\"\", paying late (more than a few days), less than minimum or nothing at all, this won't help to improve your credit. A \"\"first-time offender\"\" won't always be reported to the credit bureau, but if he is, it won't be a positive report.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1a5a1da92420013f72c201f2ccd6593c", "text": "\"I can't think of any conceivable circumstance in which the banker's advice would be true. (edit: Actually, yes I can, but things haven't worked that way since 1899 so his information is a little stale. Credit bureaus got their start by only reporting information about bad debtors.) The bureaus only store on your file what gets reported to them by the institution who extended you the credit. This reporting tends to happen at 30, 60 or 90-day intervals, depending on the contract the bureau has with that institution. All credit accounts are \"\"real\"\" from the day you open them. I suspect the banker might be under the misguided impression the account doesn't show up on your report (become \"\"real\"\") until you miss a payment, which forces the institution to report it, but this is incorrect-- the institution won't report it until the 30-day mark at the earliest, whether or not you miss a payment or pay it in full. The cynic in me suspects this banker might give customers such advice to sabotage their credit so he can sell them higher-interest loans. UDAAP laws were created for a reason.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "211b1169133afa5b202361a6293b5274", "text": "Of course credit cards are viewed as credit. If you're using money on a credit card, you are not directly paying for your transactions on goods/services immediately: this is the act of borrowing credit to pay for them. Debit cards, on the other hand, work where the funds are taken from an account immediately (or subject to a small delay - but usually no more than 24 hours - depending on various factors). You should never miss credit card payments, as that will affect your credit rating. If you have unpaid money on your card this is debt - plain and simple. But to answer your question succinctly - yes, credit cards are a form of credit, as the name suggests. When you apply for a mortgage any unpaid credit (debt) is considered and would adversely affect you if you have such debts. The level to which it affects you depends on the amount of debt. This is how it works in the UK, but to my knowledge it is the same in the US and most other countries. Please clarify if you think this is incorrect.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe0be5fcc377b7e9be1d90b3354721ab", "text": "\"There's a difference between missing a payment and \"\"carrying a balance\"\" (making an on-time payments that are less than the full balance due). I have heard mortgage brokers claim that, if you have no other credit history, carrying a small balance here and there on a credit card may improve your score. (\"\"Small\"\" is in relation to your available credit and your ability to pay it off.) But actually missing a payment will probably hurt your score. Example: You have a card with a credit limit of $1000. In July you charge $300 worth of stuff. You get the next statement and it shows the balance due of $300 and a minimum payment of $100. If you pay the entire $300 balance in that cycle, most cards won't charge you any interest. You are not carrying a balance, so the credit scores may not reflect that you actually took a $300 loan and paid it off. If you instead pay $200, you'll be in good standing (because $200 is greater than the minimum payment). But you'll be carrying a $100 balance into the next statement cycle. Plus interest will accrue on that $100. If you do this regularly, your credit score will probably take into account that you've taken a small loan and made the payments. For those with no other credit history, this may be an appropriate way to increase your credit score. (But you're paying interest, so it's not free.) And if the average balance you carry is considered high relative to your ability to pay or to the total credit available to you, then this could adversely affect your score (or, at least, the amount of credit another provider is willing to extend to you). If you instead actually miss a payment, or make a payment that's less than the minimum payment, that will almost certainly hurt your credit score. It will also incur penalties as well as interest. You want to avoid that whenever possible. My guess is that, in the game of telephone from the banker to you, the \"\"carrying a balance\"\" was misinterpreted as \"\"missing a payment.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85d7d61feca0b602611f1e99f4aa8a53", "text": "\"This does not directly address the question, but how the Bank views your behaviour is not the same as a credit reporting bureau. If you do not \"\"go deep\"\" on your card at all, you may be deemed not to be exercising the facility, indeed they may ask you to reduce your credit limit. This is not the same as \"\"missing a payment\"\". At the same time, do not just make the minimum payment. Ideally you should clear it within 3 months. Think of it as a very short term line of credit. Not clearing the balance within three months (or turning it over) demonstrates a cash flow problem, as does clearing it from another card. Some banks call this \"\"kite flying\"\" after similar behaviour in older days with cheque accounts. If you use the credit and show you can pay it off, you should never need to ask for a credit increase, it will be offered. The Bureau will be informed of these offers. Also, depending upon how much the bank trusts you, the Bureau may see a \"\"monthly\"\" periodic credit review, which is good if you have no delinquencies. Amex does this as a rule.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5ae6030c0973f904173c87926a641503", "text": "\"Not only does the interest get charged from Day 1 on new purchases as long as you have a revolving balance, but the credit card agreement often says something to the effect that any partial payment is applied first to the interest to date, and then transfer balances on which no interest is being charged and so the bank is losing money on it, then to other transfer balances and cash advances (and no refund of that 3% fee that was collected up front on the cash advance) and finally to the purchases starting from the most recent back to the oldest one. Even the FAQ on my card site says in simple language \"\"We apply payments and credits at our discretion, including in a manner most favorable or convenient for us.\"\" (see mhoran_psprep's answer). The moral is indeed what Dheer has already told you: do not carry a revolving balance on a credit card and if you have a revolving balance, pay it off as soon as possible, Do not wait for the end of the grace period; if possible, pay it off the day the statement is issued, or if you can make only a partial payment, make it as soon as possible. Make multiple partial payments each month if you have cash flow problems, or improve your cash flow by forgoing one or more of the many Grande Vente Mocharino Espresso Lattes you consume each day. Credit card debt is close to the worst kind of debt that you can have, and it is best to get out from under as soon as possible. Remember, there is effectively no grace period as long as you have a revolving balance on your credit card. You are paying interest for every one of those days.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba5e72b09d215ff8acab3310262b3c2c", "text": "I just want to stress one point, which has been mentioned, but only in passing. The disadvantage of a credit card is that it makes it very easy to take on a credit. paying it off over time, which I know is the point of the card. Then you fell into the trap of the issuer of the card. They benefit if you pay off stuff over time; that's why taking up a credit seems to be so easy with a credit (sic) card. All the technical aspects aside, you are still in debt, and you never ever want to be so if you can avoid it. And, for any voluntary, non-essential, payment, you can avoid it. Buy furniture that you can pay off in full right now. If that means only buying a few pieces or used/junk stuff, then so be it. Save up money until you can buy more/better pieces.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef4ca974efeceed7a18e5432039f3b5f", "text": "Technically, yes but, in practice, no. I use a card for everything and pay it off every month. Sometimes, several times a month depending on how the month is going. In the last 10 years, I've paid a total of $8 in interest because I legitimately forgot to pay my balance before the statement came out when I was out of town. I wasn't late, I just didn't beat the statement and had a small interest charge that I couldn't successfully argue off. In the same time period, I've had one card cancelled at the banks request. The reason was that I hadn't used it in two years so they cancelled me. I never pay annual fees, I get cards with great rewards programs and I (almost) never pay interest. If your bank cancels your card because you're too responsible, find a better bank.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4571505cd5e76a598b1090e109add091", "text": "\"A lot of credit card companies these days uses what they call \"\"daily interest\"\" where they charge the interest rate for the number of days till you pay off what you spent. This allows them to make more money than the \"\"period billing\"\". The idea of credit, theoretically, is that there isn't really a day when you can borrow without paying interest - in theory\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "707710b1f52ebd3e174ecd48ca16ad0c", "text": "\"I have never had a credit card and have been able to function perfectly well without one for 30 years. I borrowed money twice, once for a school loan that was countersigned, and once for my mortgage. In both cases my application was accepted. You only need to have \"\"good credit\"\" if you want to borrow money. Credit scores are usually only relevant for people with irregular income or a past history of delinquency. Assuming the debtor has no history of delinquency, the only thing the bank really cares about is the income level of the applicant. In the old days it could be difficult to rent a car without a credit car and this was the only major problem for me before about 2010. Usually I would have to make a cash deposit of $400 or something like that before a rental agency would rent me a car. This is no longer a problem and I never get asked for a deposit anymore to rent cars. Other than car rentals, I never had a problem not having a credit card.\"", "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": "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": "213bfb9c6674440fc32a5733bc2f5010", "text": "\"It's not usually apparent to the average consumer, but there's actually two stages to collecting a payment, and two ways to undo it. The particular combination that occurs may lead to long refund times, on top of any human delays (like Ben Miller's answer addresses). When you pay with a credit card, it is typically only authorized - the issuing bank says \"\"I'm setting this money aside for this transaction\"\", but no money actually changes hands. You'll typically see this on your statement as a \"\"pending\"\" charge. Only later, in a process called \"\"settlement\"\", does your bank actually send money to the merchant's bank. Typically, this process starts the same day that the authorization happens (at close of business), but it may take a few days to complete. In the case of an ecommerce transaction, the merchant may not be allowed to start it until they ship whatever you ordered. On the flip side, a given transaction can be voided off or money can be sent back to your card. In the first case, the transaction will just disappear altogether; in the second, it may disappear or you may see both the payment and the refund on your statement. Voids can be as fast as an authorization, but once a transaction has started settlement, it can't be voided any more. Sending money back (a \"\"refund\"\") goes through the same settlement process as above, and can take just as long. So, to specifically apply that to your question: You get the SMS when the transaction is authorized, even though no money has yet moved. The refund money won't show up until several days after someone indicates that it should happen, and there's no \"\"reverse authorize\"\" operation to let you or your bank know that it's coming.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9be0004f5f7cefe478ac7e9dc888bd62", "text": "\"The short answer is no, it's probably not ok. The longer answer is, it might be, if you are very disciplined. You need to make sure that you have enough money to pay off the card after a year, and that you pay the card on time, every month, without exception. There may also be balance transfer or other fees that only make it worth while if the interest rate or balance on the other loan is high. The problem is most of these offers will raise your rates to very high levels (think 20% or more) if you are even one day late with one payment. Some of them also will back charge you interest starting from day one, although I have only seen this on store credit \"\"one year, same as cash\"\" type offers. In the end you need to balance the possible payoff against how much it will cost you if you do it wrong. Remember, the banks are not in the business of lending out free money. They wouldn't do this unless enough people didn't pay it back in one year for them to make a profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7cbcdb950e3d7d98704510e40c5d6cb", "text": "Yes, as long as you are responsible with the payments and treat it as a cash substitute, and not a loan. I waited until I was 21 to apply for my first credit card, which gave me a later start to my credit history. That led to an embarrassing credit rejection when I went to buy some furniture after I graduated college. You'd think $700 split into three interest-free payments wouldn't be too big of a risk, but I was rejected since my credit history was only 4 months long, even though I had zero late payments. So I ended up paying cash for the furniture instead, but it was still a horrible feeling when the sales rep came back to me and quietly told me my credit application had been denied.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e17891853f8ba14a06247af56ef889c3", "text": "\"No. Credit card companies will typically not care about your individual credit card account. Instead they look either at a \"\"package\"\" of card accounts opened at roughly the same time, or of \"\"slices\"\" of cardholder accounts by credit rating. If an entire package's or slice's balance drops significantly, they'll take a look, and will adjust rates accordingly (often they may actually decrease rates as an incentive to increase you use of the card). Because credit card debt is unstructured debt, the bank cannot impose an \"\"early payment penalty\"\" of any kind (there's no schedule for paying it off, so there's no way to prove that they're missing out on $X in interest because you paid early). Generally, banks don't like CC debt anyway; it's very risky debt, and they often end up writing large balances off for pennies on the dollar. So, when you pay down your balance by a significant amount, the banks breathe a sigh of relief. The real money, the stable money, is in the usage fees; every time you swipe your card, the business who accepted it owes the credit card company 3% of your purchase, and sometimes more.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "982b0e6b01ce7b090e517328f0d42af6", "text": "\"With the scenario that you laid out (ie. 5% and 10% loans), it makes no sense at all. The problem is, when you're in trouble the rates are never 5% or 10%. Getting behind on credit cards sucks and is really hard to recover from. The problem with multiple accounts is that as the banks tack on fees and raise your interest rate to the default rate (usually 30%) when you give them any excuse (late payment, over the limit, etc). The banks will also cut your credit lines as you make payments, making it more likely that you will bump over the limit and be back in \"\"default\"\" status. One payment, even at a slightly higher rate is preferable when you're deep in the hole because you can actually pay enough to hit principal. If you have assets like a house, you'll get a much better rate as well. In a scenario where you're paying 22-25% interest, your minimum payment will be $150-200 a month, and that is mostly interest and penalty. \"\"One big loan\"\" will usually result in a smaller payment, and you don't end up in a situation where the banks are jockeying for position so they get paid first. The danger of consolidation is that you'll stop triggering defaults and keep making your payments, so your credit score will improve. Then the vultures will start circling and offering you more credit cards. EDIT: Mea Culpa. I wrote this based on experiences of close friends whom I've helped out over the years, not realizing how the law changed in 2009. Back around 2004, a single late payment would trigger universal default on most cards, jacking all rates up to 30% and slashing credit lines, resulting in over the limit and other fees. Credit card banks generally apply payments (in order, to interest on penalties, penalties, interest on principal, principal) in a way that makes it very difficult to pay down principal for people deep in debt. They would also offer \"\"payment plans\"\" to entice you to pay Bank B vs. Bank A, which would trigger overlimit fees from Bank A. Another change is that minimum payments were generally 2% of statement balance, which often didn't cover the monthly finance charge. The new law changed that, resulting in a payment of 1% of balance + accrued interest. Under the old regime, consolidation made it less likely that various circumstances would trigger default, and gave the struggling debtor one throat to choke. With the new rules, there are definitely a smaller number of scenarios where consolidation actually makes sense.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "765030ab89ad614b11797593a102d108", "text": "Cancelled cards don't fall off the system for a long time, up to ten years. Card terms change, with notice of course, but it can happen at any time. I had a card with a crazy perk, 5% back in Apple Gift cards. This was pre-iPod days, but it was great to get a new computer every two years for free. But it was short lived. Three years into it, the cards were changed, a no-perk card from the bank. That is now my oldest account, and it goes unused. Instead of holding cards like this, I wish I had flipped it to a different card years ago. Ideally, your mix of cards should provide value to you, and if they all do, then when one perk goes away, it's time to refresh that card. This is a snapshot from my report at CreditKarma. (Disclosure, I like these guys, I've met their PR folk. I have no business relationship with them) Elsewhere on the page it's noted that average card age is a 'medium impact' item. I am 50, but I use the strategy above to keep the cards working for me. My current score is 784, so this B on the report isn't hurting too much. The tens of thousands I've saved in mortgage interest by being a serial refinancer was worth the hit on account age, as was the credit card with a 10% rebate for 90 days, the 'newest account' you see in the snapshot. In the end, the score manipulation is a bit of a game. And some of it is counter-intuitive. Your score can take a minor hit for actions that would seem responsible, but your goal should be to have the right mix of cards, and the lowest interest (long term) loans.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1971e56ed94ccd46fa6b3bcda6e5db3a", "text": "In a traditional IRA (or 401k or equivalent), income tax is not taken on the money when it is deposited or when dividends are reinvested, but money you take out (after you can do do without penalty) is taxed as if it were ordinary income. (I believe that's true; I don't think you get to take the long-term investment rate.) Note that Roth is the opposite: you pay income tax up front before putting money into the retirement account, but you will eventually withdraw without paying any additional tax at that time. Unlike normal investments, neither of these requires tracking the details to know how much tax to pay. There are no taxes due on the reinvested dividends, and you don't need to track cost basis.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6a6d74cd53d39bcc7907a768865a60e", "text": "Go to your local bank or credit union before talking to a dealership. Ask them if putting both names on the loan makes a difference regarding rates and maximum loan you qualify for. Ask them to run the loan application both ways. Having both names on the loan helps build the credit of the spouse that has a lower score. You may find that both incomes are needed for a car loan if the couple has a mortgage or other joint obligations. The lender will treat the entire mortgage payment or rent payment as a liability against the person applying for the loan, they won't split the housing payment in half if only one name will be on the car loan. Therefore sometimes the 2nd persons income is needed even if their credit is not as good. That additional income without a significant increase in liabilities can make a huge difference regarding the loan they can qualify for. Once the car is in your possession, it doesn't matter who drives it. In general the insurance company will put both spouses as authorized drivers. Note: it is almost always better to ask your bank or credit union about a car loan before going to the dealership. That gives you a solid data point regarding a loan, and removes a major complexity to the negotiations at the dealership.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5269f6ee19c8bbe6c50442fc437ab93b
Why does AAPL trade at such low multiples?
[ { "docid": "73c1c16bf47ebca4d43da55668d981a9", "text": "This is also an opinion, the iPhone makes up too much of the company's total revenue. Last quarter results were very well received because of the somewhat dramatic increase in service revenue indicating that maybe the company can shift from relying so heavily on the iPhone. As it stands, Apple is a single product company and that hinders long term prospects, hence the relatively low multiple. And the company has missed estimates, in fact one of those large dips was an earnings miss. Additionally, if you're looking at the charts another one of the recent dips was likely caused by the brexit vote because everything was clobbered for a couple of days after that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e93b98b04d8829f902ef2af64c30c25", "text": "\"This is an opinion, but I think it has more to do with the market's uncertainty about the long-term future of the company without Steve Jobs. Apple hasn't released anything more than incremental upgrades to its existing product lines since Jobs passed, and while some people would argue about the Apple watch, Jobs played a significant role in its development prior to his death, so that doesn't really count. Whether you like or hate Apple, you had to admire Jobs' passion and creativity, and there's real question as to whether the company can sustain its dominance in the market without the Jobs vision over the long haul. My guess is that the market is leaning slightly toward the \"\"no\"\" column, but only ever so slightly. The company continues to deliver fantastic results, but how long will that last of their next products don't wow consumers the way previous ones have? This skepticism manifests itself in a stock that trades at a lower P/E than it deserves to, but this is just my opinion. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0bc934b26cd5698a318b31ef671dd898", "text": "\"Simple answer is because the stocks don't split. Most stocks would have a similar high price per share if they didn't split occasionally. Why don't they split? A better way to ask this is probably, why DO most stocks split? The standard answer is that it gives the appearance that stocks are \"\"cheap\"\" again and encourages investors to buy them. Some people, Warren Buffett (of Berkshire Hathaway) don't want any part of these shenanigans and refuse to split their stocks. Buffett also has commented that he thinks splitting a stock also adds unnecessary volatility.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a217cbaefeb85839cd9f343a46cad2d9", "text": "\"The simple answer could be that one or more \"\"people\"\" decided to buy. By \"\"people,\"\" I don't mean individual buyers of 100 shares like you or me, but typically large institutional investors like Fidelity, who might buy millions of shares at a time. Or if you're talking about a human person, perhaps someone like Warren Buffett. In a \"\"thinly\"\" traded small cap stock that typically trades a few hundred shares in a day, an order for \"\"thousands\"\" could significantly move the price. This is one situation where more or less \"\"average\"\" people could move a single stock.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0742672d02cfccdb4f5d353d0b45f498", "text": "The main reason I'm aware of that very few individuals do this sort of trading is that you're not taking into account the transaction costs, which can and will be considerable for a small-time investor. Say your transaction costs you $12, that means in order to come out ahead you'll have to have a fairly large position in a given instrument to make that fee back and some money. Most smaller investors wouldn't really want to tie up 5-6 figures for a day on the chance that you'll get $100 back. The economics change for investment firms, especially market makers that get special low fees for being a market maker (ie, offering liquidity by quoting all the time).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2caad8bac7884678d9bc58880974f4d1", "text": "While on the surface it may seem that the warrant you described is trading below intrinsic value, there are many reasons why that might not be the case. It's more likely that you are lacking information, than having identified a derivative instrument that the market has failed to reasonably price. For instance, might there be a conversion ratio on the warrants other than the 1:1 ratio that you seem to be assuming? Sometimes, warrant terms are such that multiple warrants are required to buy one share of stock. Consider: The conversion ratio is the number of warrants needed in order to buy (or sell) one investment unit. Therefore, if the conversion ratio to buy stock XYZ is 3:1, this means that the holder needs three warrants in order to purchase one share. Usually, if the conversion ratio is high, the price of the share will be low, and vice versa. (source) Conversion ratios are sometimes used so that warrants can be issued on a 1:1 basis to existing stockholders, but where the potential number of new shares to be issued is much less. Conversion ratio is just one such example that could lead to perceived mispricing, and there may be other restrictions on exercise. Warrants are not issued by an options exchange using standardized option contract terms, and so warrant terms vary considerably from issuer to issuer. Even series of warrants from the same issuer may have differing terms. Always look beyond any warrant quote to find a definitive source of the warrant's precise terms — and read those terms carefully before taking any position.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e922f76f4b55236cf0889571e37fab4d", "text": "It is simply an average of what each analyst covering that stock are recommending, and since they usually only recommend Hold or Buy (rarely Sell), the value will float between Hold and Buy. Not very useful IMHO.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13d344c7642c5990a4d0b92f3dcccdf9", "text": "A bit of poking around brought me to this thread on the Motley Fool, asking the same basic question: I think the problem is the stock price. For a stock to be sold short, it has to be marginable which means it has to trade over $ 5.00. The broker, therefore, can't borrow the stock for you to sell short because it isn't held in their clients' margin accounts. My guess is that Etrade, along with other brokers, simply exclude these stocks for short selling. Ivestopedia has an explanation of non-marginable securities. Specific to stocks under $5: Other securities, such as stocks with share prices under $5 or with extremely high betas, may be excluded at the discretion of the broker itself.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d69da49ccfe79928a6c24a92c7f75c9", "text": "From a theoretical POV, it's in part due to Beta. Beta is a measure of volatility compared to the market. If the market returns 10%, and the risk free is 5%, then a company that has a beta 2 will have 2*(10%-5%) + 5% = 15% return. Usually it's not that great a measure for individual stocks because of the lack of diversification, eg if a company has a beta of 1, ie same expected returns as the market, and then it has a really bad earnings report, obviously is still going to go down even if the market is going up. Fixed equation, Forgot to add RF back in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b028ff834b19af321fd99ce9009ac14", "text": "AAPL will not drop out of NASDAQ100 tomorrow. From your own quote: The fund and the index are rebalanced quarterly and reconstituted annually", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dcf27f71de383975b0639ac33ada7d5", "text": "the implications are that the company's earnings per share may seem greater, (after the company buys them there will be less shares outstanding), giving wall street the impression that there is more growth potential than there really is. its an accounting gimmick that can work for a few quarters while the company evaluates how else to impress wall street", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6bf11b0627d73cbea9659cfedae9210", "text": "\"The calculation and theory are explained in the other answers, but it should be pointed out that the video is the equivalent of watching a magic trick. The secret is: \"\"Stock A and B are perfectly negatively correlated.\"\" The video glasses over that fact that without that fact the risk doesn't drop to zero. The rule is that true diversification does decrease risk. That is why you are advised to spread year investments across small-cap, large-cap, bonds, international, commodities, real estate. Getting two S&P 500 indexes isn't diversification. Your mix of investments will still have risk, because return and risk are backward calculations, not a guarantee of future performance. Changes that were not anticipated will change future performance. What kind of changes: technology, outsourcing, currency, political, scandal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e1c1d248918ff767562b5549d2a3218", "text": "\"According to Yahoo, AAPL was trading at $113.26 at 1:10 PM on 11/13/15, which is the approximate time of your option quote. You provided a quote for AAPL at 4:15, and the stock happened to keep going down most of the that afternoon. To make a sensible comparison, you need to take contemporary prices on both the stock and the option. The quote on the option also shows the \"\"price\"\" being outside of the bid-ask range, which suggests that the option was trading thinly and that the last price occurred sometime earlier in the day. If you use a price in the bid-ask range ($21.90-$22.30) and use the price of AAPL at the time of the put quote, you'll come up with a price that's much closer to your expectation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2203128e094a95e27e80cf38a2ef57c7", "text": "\"Often these types of trades fall into two different categories. An error by broker or exchange. Exchange clearing out part of their books incorrectly is an example. Most exchanges make firms reopen their positions for after market hours. There may have been an issue doing so or exchange could incorrectly cancel positions. I was in the direct feed industry for years and this was a big issue. At the same time the broker can issue a no limit buy on accident (or has software that is prospecting and said software has a bug or written poorly). unscrupulous parties looking to feign an upswing or downswing in market. Let's say you hold 500k shares in a stock that sells for $11. You could possibly buy 100 shares for $13. Trust me you will find a seller. Then you are hoping that people see that trade as a \"\"norm\"\" and trade from there, allowing you to rake in $1M for spending an extra $200 - NOTE this is not normal and an extreme example. This was so common in the early days of NASDAQ after hours that they discontinued using the after hours trades as part of historical information that they keep like daily/yearly high or closing price. The liquidity allows for manipulation. It isn't seen as much now since this has been done a million times but it does still happen.\"", "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": "52e41eaf6ab2a990bfe7c69d2d688a11", "text": "There are lots of good answers on here already. There are actually lots of answers for this question. Lots. I have years of experience on the exchange feed side and there are hundreds and thousands of variables. All of these variables are funneled into systems owned by large financial institutions (I used to manage these - and only a few companies in the world do this so not hard to guess who I work for). Their computers then make trades based on all of these variables and equations. There are variables as whacky as how many times was a company mentioned in an aggregate news feed down to your basic company financials. But if there is a way to measure a company (or to just guess) there is an equation for it plugged into a super computer at a big bank. Now there are two important factors on why you see this mad dash in the morning: Now most of the rest of the day is also automated trades but by the time you are an hour into market open the computers for the most part have fulfilled their calendar buys. Everyone else's answer is right too. There is futures contracts that change, global exchange info changes, options expiring, basic news, whatever but all of these are amplified by the calendar day changing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1368ff9eae4bc580a900ba04e19cb65", "text": "This all happens at once and quickly. Not in order. So the HFT floods the exchange with orders. This is independent of anything. They would be doing this no matter what. Simply in anticipation of finding someone who will want what they're trying to buy. They then notice someone wants what they have a buy order for. They, at the same time, cancel all orders that don't fit this criteria. At the same time, they're testing this guy to see what his price is. So while they're testing this guy they're cancelling all orders that are above his strike price for that stock. They let the right order go through, for a lower price. If they can't get a lower price, they just forget it. However, they probably can because they were in line first. They're buying before this guy and AFTER they know what he wants to pay. Then, they sell it to him.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
775e9c55f307b84170da24025cd25175
Can the Standard Deduction still apply to a Traditional IRA early withdrawal?
[ { "docid": "6fb392db66de88a0af8f251d21c68b04", "text": "\"IRA distributions are reported on line 15b on the standard form 1040. That is in the same Income section as most of your other income (including that 1099 income and W2 income, etc.). Its income is included in the Line 22 \"\"Total Income\"\", from which the Personal Exemption (calculated on 6d, subtracted from the total in line 42) and the Standard Deduction (line 40 - also Itemized Deduction total would be here) are later reduced to arrive at Line 43, \"\"Taxable Income\"\". As such, yes, he might owe only the 10% penalty (which is reported on line 59, and you do not reduce this by the deductions, as you surmised).\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "de9f45b8acc39f4bc9c42744ee75b90b", "text": "I remember reading in an earlier version of Pub 590 (or possibly the Instructions for Form 8606) that timely contributions for Year X to an IRA are deemed to have been made on January 1 of Year X regardless of when they were actually made, but I don't seem to be able to find it now in current versions of Pubs 590a or 590b and so cannot include a citation of chapter and verse. Be that as it may, the calculations on on Form 8606 Part I effectively track basis on an annual basis rather than on a daily basis, and so the fact that the Traditional IRA has a zero balance (and basis 0 too) at some time during the year doesn't matter in the least. In detail (though you didn't ask for it) Note that the whole $6500 that you put in remains non-deductible in its entirety, but you owe taxes on only $93,900 of that $100K that you rolled over into a Roth IRA and not on the whole $100K as you were assuming would have been the case. So, in effect, of that $6500 nondeductible contribution to your Traditional IRA, you did really get to deduct $6100 from your taxable income for 2016, and make only a $400 nondeductible contribution, exactly equal to your basis in your Traditional IRA as per the Form 8606 calculations. I can only assume that the software package that you are using reproduces the above calculations exactly and does what the IRS says you must do on Form 8606 rather than what you get by tracking the basis on a daily basis. IRS regulations and instructions are not necessarily the same as what the tax law says; they are interpretations of the tax law based on what the IRS understands the tax law to say. People have challenged various specific IRS regulations and interpretations as being different from what the law says in Tax Court and been successful in some cases and failed in others. If you believe that tracking basis on a daily basis is what the law says (instead of just being reasonable and rational: reasonableness and rationality are not required either of Congress in the laws that they write or the IRS regulations that interpret the laws), you should take up the matter with the IRS or the Tax Court.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "878a472b03f4ef818d9be6494476f2dc", "text": "Yes. Look at form 1040 AGI is line 37, and it comes well after you report your schedule D cap gains. I read this question as meaning you wish to contribute to a traditional IRA pretax. There is no income limit to contribute to an IRA and not take the deduction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79f3d2a1c18ab3374007ebd4c17e6373", "text": "Yes. In fact, it's explicitly mentioned in Publication 590-A that you can file before making the contribution, as long as you make the contribution before the deadline. Filing before a contribution is made. You can file your return claiming a traditional IRA contribution before the contribution is actually made. Generally, the contribution must be made by the due date of your return, not including extensions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e2d52f1b31187212c283b925bd819b8", "text": "The law says that you cannot make a contribution (whether tax-deductible or not) to a Traditional IRA for any year unless you (or your spouse if you are filing a joint tax return) have taxable compensation (income earned from the sweat of your brow such as wages, salary, self-employment income, commissions on sales, and also alimony or separate maintenance payments received under a divorce decree, etc) during that year, and you will not be 70.5 years old by the end of the year for which you are making the contribution. The contribution, of course, can be made up to Tax Day of the following year, and is limited to the lesser of the total compensation and $5500 ($6500 for people over 50). Assuming that you are OK on the compensation and age issue, yes, you can make a contribution to a Traditional IRA for an year in which you take a distribution from a Roth IRA. Whether you can deduct the Traditional IRA contribution depends on other factors such as your income and whether or not you or your spouse is covered by a workplace retirement plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b3da46ba29da550afad79b5dc35a53a4", "text": "\"1) Indeed, if referring to a Roth as the question is, you are right on. But - You can deposit to an Traditional IRA (TIRA). You just can't deduct it. You are then permitted to convert that to a Roth any time. Now, this would appear to negate income issues, right? Not so fast. When you convert, all TIRA accounts must be considered. In other words, when it comes to the TIRA, you only have One TIRA, the \"\"A\"\" actually standing for Arrangement, not account. That TIRA may then be spread over as many accounts as you have time to set up. So, if there is any pretax money and/or untaxed gain, it will be prorated and taxed based on your conversion amount. If any of this is not 110% clear, please comment and I will update the answer. No 401(k) at work? Note: I edited as my original wording misunderstood the response, and in turn, appeared a bit unkind. Not my intention.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e20fcec6c8c6bffd7c63b45263466c2", "text": "\"I think there are several issues here. First, there's the contribution. As littleadv said, there is no excess contribution. Excess contribution is only if you exceed the contribution limit. The contribution limit for Traditional IRAs does not depend on how high your income goes or whether you have a 401(k). It's the deduction limit that may depend on those things. Not deducting it is perfectly legitimate, and is completely different than an \"\"excess contribution\"\", which has a penalty. Second, the withdrawal. You are allowed to withdraw contributions made during a year, plus any earnings from those contributions, before the tax filing deadline for the taxes of that year (which is April 15 of the following year, or even up to October 15 of the following year), and it will be treated as if the contribution never happened. No penalties. The earnings will be taxed as regular income (as if you put it in a bank account). That sounds like what you did. So the withdrawal was not an \"\"early withdrawal\"\", and the 1099-R should reflect that (what distribution code did they put?). Third, even if (and it does not sound like the case, but if) it doesn't qualify as a return of contributions before the tax due date as described above (maybe you withdrew it after October 15 of the following year), as littleadv mentioned, your contribution was a non-deductible contribution, and when withdrawing it, only the earnings portion (which after such a short time should only be a very small part of the distribution) would be subject to tax and penalty.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79151757da264ff03765eb054820c95d", "text": "The rules are complex. See How to Deduct IRA Losses, at Smart Money. You must liquidate the entire account (bad) and the loss is subject to the amount exceeding 2% of your AGI. If you are subject to AMT, you may lose any or all of that remaining amount.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d5d70263a9125dd0bacf63062f78f2d", "text": "You do not have to wait 5 years from when a particular dollar was earned to withdraw it. To be a qualified distribution from a Roth IRA, A) the Roth IRA must have been opened for 5 years (which yours was), and B) you must be 59.5 years old, or meet one of the other exceptions (and $10,000 for a first-time home purchase is one of the exceptions). Since it is a qualified distribution, there is no tax or penalty.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c8f6d2bd1d6024b282ac335082e1290", "text": "\"A withdrawal from an IRA has a 60 day period during which time you may roll it over to another IRA, effectively \"\"borrowing\"\" and returning the money. Once that time has passed, the transaction is complete. Your question asks in one place about deposit, then withdrawal. You might edit to clarify the timing of your situation and your intentions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4c0d2d16b3592e2800408a3cb76c312", "text": "\"Yes, you can withdraw the excess contribution (or actually any amount you contributed for 2015, not necessarily an excess), plus earnings from that withdrawn contribution, by April 15, and not incur a penalty for the excess contribution. It would count as if you did not contribute that amount at all. The earnings would be taxed as regular income, and the earnings may incur a penalty. Yes, you can \"\"recharacterize\"\" (all or part of) your Roth IRA contribution as a Traditional IRA contribution (or vice versa) by April 15. Recharacterization means you pretend the contribution was originally made as a Traditional IRA contribution, and did not involve Roth IRA at all. (\"\"Conversion\"\" is something very different and can only go from Traditional to Roth, not the other way around.) You are likely not eligible to deduct that Traditional IRA contribution, so you will have to report it as a non-deductible Traditional IRA contribution on a 2015 Form 8606 Part 1. Note that after you've recharacterized it as a Traditional IRA contribution, you can also then \"\"convert\"\" that Traditional IRA money to a Roth IRA if you want, achieving the same state as what you have now. Contributing to a Traditional IRA and then converting to a Roth IRA is called a \"\"backdoor Roth IRA contribution\"\"; if you don't have any existing pre-tax money in Traditional IRA or other IRAs, then this achieves the same as a regular Roth IRA contribution except with no income limits. When you convert, the earnings you have made since contributing will be taxed as income. If you had done the backdoor originally to begin with (convert right after contributing), you would have had no earnings in between and no tax to pay, but since if you do the conversion now you have waited so long, you are disadvantaged by having to pay tax on the earnings in between. If you convert, you will have to fill out Form 8606 Part 2 for the year you convert (2016).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6fb93580c5457890126504ee2b5209bb", "text": "You're misunderstanding the concept of retirement savings. IRA distributions are taxed, in their entirety, as ordinary income. If you withdraw before the retirement age, additional 10% penalty is added. Investment income has preferential treatment - long term capital gains and qualified dividends are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. However, IRA contributions are tax deductible. I.e.: you don't pay taxes on the amounts contributed to the IRA when you earned the money, only when you withdraw. In the mean time, the money is growing, tax free, based on your investments. Anything inside the IRA is tax free, including dividends, distributions (from funds to your IRA, not from IRA to you), capital gains, etc. This is very powerful, when taking into account the compounding effect of reinvesting your dividends/sale proceeds without taking a chunk out for taxes. Consider you make an investment in a fund that appreciated 100% in half a year. You cash out to reinvest in something less volatile to lock the gains. In a regular account - you pay taxes when you sell, based on your brackets. In the IRA you reinvest all of your sale proceeds. That would be ~25-35% more of the gains to reinvest and continue working for you! However, if you decide to withdraw - you pay ordinary rate taxes on the whole amount. If you would invest in a single fund for 30 years in a regular account - you'd pay 20% capital gains tax (on the appreciation, not the dividends). In the IRA, if you invest in the same fund for the same period - you'll pay your ordinary income rates. However, the benefit of reinvesting dividends tax-free softens the blow somewhat, but that's much harder to quantify. Bottom line: if you want to plan for retirement - plan for retirment. Otherwise - IRA is not an investment vehicle. Also consider Roth IRA/conversions. Roth IRA has the benefit of tax free distributions at retirement. If your current tax bracket is at 20%, for example, contributing $5K to Roth IRA instead of a traditional will cost you $1K of taxes now, but will save you all the taxes during the retirement (for the distributions from the Roth IRA). It may be very much worth your while, especially if you can contribute directly to Roth IRA (there are some income limitations and phaseouts). You can withdraw contributions (but not earnings) from Roth IRA - something you cannot do with a traditional IRA.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29079941bcf673433726120d468485ea", "text": "If you have multiple accounts, you have to empty them all before you can deduct any losses. Your loss is not a capital loss, its a deduction. It is calculated based on the total amount you have withdrawn from all your Roth IRA's, minus the total basis. It will be subject to the 2% AGI treshhold (i.e.: if your AGI is > 100K, none of it is deductible, and you have to itemize to get it). Bottom line - think twice. Summarizing the discussion in comments: If you have a very low AGI, I would guess that your tax liability is pretty low as well. Even if you deduct the whole $2K, and all of it is above the other deductions you have (which in turn is above the standard deduction of almost $6K), you save say $300 if you're in 15% tax bracket. That's the most savings you have. However I'm assuming something here: I'm assuming that you're itemizing your deductions already and they're above the standard deduction. This is very unlikely, with such a low income. You don't have state taxes to deduct, you probably don't spend a lot to deduct sales taxes, and I would argue that with the low AGI you probably don't own property, and if you do - you don't have a mortgage with a significant interest on it. You can be in 15% bracket with AGI between (roughly) $8K and $35K, i.e.: you cannot deduct between $160 and $750 of the $2K, so it's already less than the maximum $300. If your AGI is $8K, the deduction doesn't matter, EIC might cover all of your taxes anyway. If your AGI is $30K, you can deduct only $1400, so if you're in the 15% bracket - you saved $210. That, again, assuming it's above your other deductions, which in turn are already above the standard deduction. Highly unlikely. As I said in the comments - I do not think you can realistically save on taxes because of this loss in such a manner.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe3622b074be22e2f759e81ccf1b5611", "text": "\"For 401(k) and regular IRA, you pay income tax on withdrawals from the account. At a certain age, there is a \"\"required minimum distribution\"\". This is an amount you must withdraw from the account or you face penalties. I've also read about, but am not familiar with, mechanisms by which you can retire early and start taking withdrawals before the regular official retirement age. (These may or may not be legit, I didn't do any research on it.) A Roth IRA, which is not \"\"tax deferred\"\" and thus not technically covered by your question, there is no tax on withdrawals (assuming you are at retirement age) and no required minimum distribution. Something to watch out for on your accounts are fees that they charge for withdrawals. I was in a 401(k) once that had a $50 fee per-withdrawal. A monthly check from this account would eat your money! I paid the fee once, when I rolled it into an account at a brokerage after leaving the company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "449e601fbc8fcbbad27d7ee51bb87e9e", "text": "\"There is not a special rate for short-term capital gains. Only long-term gains have a special rate. Short-term gains are taxed at your ordinary-income rate (see here). Hence if you're in the 25% bracket, your short-term gain would be taxed at 25%. The IRA withdrawal, as you already mentioned, would be taxed at 25%, plus a 10% penalty, for 35% total. Thus the bite on the IRA withdrawal is larger than that on a non-IRA withdrawal. As for the estimated tax issue, I don't think there will be a significant difference there. The reason is that (traditional) IRA withdrawals count as ordinary taxable income (see here). This means that, when you withdraw the funds from your IRA, you will increase your income. If that increase pushes you too far beyond what your withholding is accounting for, then you owe estimated tax. In other words, whether you get the money by selling stocks in a taxable account or by withdrawing them from an IRA, you still increase your taxable income, and thus potentially expose yourself to the estimated tax obligation. (In fact, there may be a difference. As you note, you will pay tax at the capital gains rate on gains from selling in a taxable account. But if you sell the stocks inside the IRA and withdraw, that is ordinary income. However, since ordinary income is taxed at a higher rate than long-term capital gains, you will potentially pay more tax on the IRA withdrawal, since it will be taxed at the higher rate, if your gains are long-term rather than short term. This is doubly true if you withdraw early, incurring the extra 10% penalty. See this question for some more discussion of this issue.) In addition, I think you may be somewhat misunderstanding the nature of estimated tax. The IRS will not \"\"ask\"\" you for a quarterly estimated tax when you sell stock. The IRS does not monitor your activity and send you a bill each quarter. They may indeed check whether your reported income jibes with info they received from your bank, etc., but they'll still do that regardless of whether you got that income by selling in a taxable account or withdrawing money from an IRA, because both of those increase your taxable income. Quarterly estimated tax is not an extra tax; it is just you paying your normal income tax over the course of the year instead of all at once. If your withholdings will not cover enough of your tax liability, you must figure that out yourself and pay the estimated tax (see here); if you don't do so, you may be assessed a penalty. It doesn't matter how you got the money; if your taxable income is too high relative to your withheld tax, then you have to pay the estimated tax. Typically tax will be withheld from your IRA distribution, but if it's not withheld, you'll still owe it as estimated tax.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccc59d257311b512fe3377b472a7bb2f", "text": "In simple terms, this is how the shares are traded, however most of the times market orders are placed. Consider below scenario( hypothetical scenario, there are just 2 traders) Buyer is ready to buy 10 shares @ 5$ and seller is ready to sell 10 shares @ 5.10$, both the orders will remain in open state, unless one wish to change his price, this is an example of limit order. Market orders If seller is ready to sell 10 shares @ 5$ and another 10 shares @5.05$, if buyer wants to buy 20 shares @ market price, then the trade will be executed for 10 shares @ 5$ and another 10 shares @ 5.05$", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
23fcf1260eaf05c4316b5d1135a83c14
Made more than $600. Company does not issue 1099-MISC's. Enter income as general income?
[ { "docid": "82643f07a5220a97f0efa5551e0b2d39", "text": "I'm not sure how this gets entered in TurboTax, but this income from the company should be included in the Schedule C (or C-EZ) Line 1 Gross Receipts total, along with all of your 1099-MISC income from your business and any other income that your business took in. You don't need a 1099 from them, and the IRS doesn't care (at least from your perspective) if you got a 1099 or not; in fact, they probably expect you to have some non-1099 income. We don't know why the company chose not to issue 1099 forms, but luckily it isn't your concern. You can fill out your tax return properly without it. Note: This answer assumes that you didn't have any tax withheld from your checks from this company. If you did have tax withheld, you'll need to insist on a 1099 to show that.", "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": "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": "7e974e9c76ecdd9f3ffe8704ae2d3f48", "text": "\"How can I avoid this, so we are taxed as if we are making the $60k/yr that we want to receive? You can't. In the US the income is taxed when received, not when used. If you receive 1M this year, taking out 60K doesn't mean the other 940K \"\"weren't received\"\". They were, and are taxable. Create a pension fund in the corporation, feed it all profits, and pay out $60k/yr of \"\"pension\"\". I doubt that the corporation could deduct a million a year in pension funding. You cannot do that. You can only deposit to a pension plan up to 100% of your salary, and no more than $50K total (maybe a little more this year, its adjusted to inflation). Buy a million dollars in \"\"business equipment\"\" of some sort each year to get a deduction, then sell it over time to fund a $60k/yr salary. I doubt such a vehicle exists. If there's no real business purpose, it will be disallowed and you'll be penalized. Your only purpose is tax avoidance, meaning you're trying to shift income using your business to avoid paying taxes - that's illegal. Do crazy Section 79 life insurance schemes to tax-defer the income. The law caps this so I can only deduct < $100k of the $1 million annually, and there are other problems with this approach.\\ Yes. Wouldn't go there. Added: From what I understand, this is a term life insurance plan sponsored by the employer for the employee. This is not a deferral of income, but rather a deduction: instead of paying your term life insurance with your own after tax money, your employer pays with their pre-tax. It has a limit of $50K per employee, and is only available for employees. There are non-discrimination limitations that may affect your ability to use it, but I don't see how it is at all helpful for you. It gives you a deduction, but its money spent, not money in your pocket. End added. Do some tax avoidance like Facebook does with its Double Irish trick, storing the income in some foreign subsidiary and drawing $60k/yr in salary to be taxed at $60k/yr rates. This is probably cost-prohibitive for a $1MM/yr company. You're not Facebook. What works with a billion, will not work with a million. Keep in mind that you're a one-man business, things that huge corporations like Google or Facebook can get away with are a no-no for a sole-proprietor (even if incorporated). Bottom line you'll probably have to pay the taxes. Get a good tax professional to help you identify as much deductions as possible, and if you can plan income ahead - plan it better.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "563440e7c3bd9c4100cc7605236340c8", "text": "\"I agree that you should have received both a 1099 and a W2 from your employer. They may be reluctant to do that because some people believe that could trigger an IRS audit. The reason is that independent contractor vs employee is supposed to be defined by your job function, not by your choice. If you were a contractor and then switched to be an employee without changing your job description, then the IRS could claim that you should have always been an employee the entire time, and so should every one of the other contractors that work for that company with a similar job function. It's a hornet's nest that the employer may not want to poke. But that's not your problem; what should you do about it? When you say \"\"he added my Federal and FICA W/H together\"\", do you mean that total appears in box 4 of your 1099? If so, it sounds like the employer is expecting you to re-pay the employer portion of FICA. Can you ask them if they actually paid it? If they did, then I don't see them having a choice but to issue a W2, since the IRS would be expecting one. If they didn't pay your FICA, then the amount this will cost you is 7.65% of what would have been your W2 wages. IMHO it would be reasonable for you to request that they send you a check for that extra amount. Note: even though that amount will be less than $600 and you won't receive a 1099 in 2017 for it, legally you'll still have to pay tax on that amount so I think a good estimate would be to call it 10% instead. Depending on your personality and your relationship with the employer, if they choose not to \"\"make you whole\"\", you could threaten to fill out form SS-8. Additional Info: (Thank you Bobson for bringing this up.) The situation you find yourself in is similar to the concept of \"\"Contract-to-Hire\"\". You start off as a contractor, and later convert to an employee. In order to avoid issuing a 1099 and W2 to the same person in a single tax year, companies typically utilize one of the following strategies: Your particular situation is closest to situation 2, but the reverse. Instead of retroactively calling you a W2 employee the entire time, your employer is cheating and attempting to classify you as a 1099 contractor the entire time. This is frowned upon by the IRS, as well as the employee since as you discovered it costs you more money in the form of employer FICA. From your description it sounds like your employer was trying to do you a favor and didn't quite follow through with it. What they should have done was never switch you to W2 in the first place (if you really should have been a contractor), or they should have done the conversion properly without stringing you along.\"", "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": "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": "5cd255593318509c2eba3620efead98a", "text": "You wouldn't fill out a 1099, your employer would or possibly whoever manages the stock account. The 1099-B imported from E-Trade says I had a transaction with sell price ~$4,500. Yes. You sold ~$4500 of stock to pay income taxes. Both the cost basis and the sale price would probably be ~$4500, so no capital gain. This is because you received and sold the stock at the same time. If they waited a little, you could have had a small gain or loss. The remainder of the stock has a cost basis of ~$5500. There are at least two transactions here. In the future you may sell the remaining stock. It has a cost basis of ~$5500. Sale price of course unknown until then. You may break that into different pieces. So you might sell $500 of cost basis for $1000 with a ~$500 capital gain. Then later sell the remainder for $15,000 for a capital gain of ~$10,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f61047fb54b551445d857275dd22d5d3", "text": "\"These kinds of questions can be rather tricky. I've struggled with this sort of thing in the past when I had income from a hobby, and I wanted to ensure that it was indeed \"\"hobby income\"\" and I didn't need to call it \"\"self-employment\"\". Here are a few resources from the IRS: There's a lot of overlap among these resources, of course. Here's the relevant portion of Publication 535, which I think is reasonable guidance on how the IRS looks at things: In determining whether you are carrying on an activity for profit, several factors are taken into account. No one factor alone is decisive. Among the factors to consider are whether: Most of the guidance looks to be centered around what one would need to do to convince the IRS that an activity actually is a business, because then one can deduct the \"\"business expenses\"\", even if that brings the total \"\"business income\"\" negative (and I'm guessing that's a fraud problem the IRS needs to deal with more often). There's not nearly as much about how to convince the IRS that an activity isn't a business and thus can be thrown into \"\"Other Income\"\" instead of needing to pay self-employment tax. Presumably the same principles should apply going either way, though. If after reading through the information they provide, you decide in good faith that your activity is really just \"\"Other income\"\" and not \"\"a business you're in on the side\"\", I would find it likely that the IRS would agree with you if they ever questioned you on it and you provided your reasoning, assuming your reasoning is reasonable. (Though it's always possible that reasonable people could end up disagreeing on some things even given the same set of facts.) Just keep good records about what you did and why, and don't get too panicked about it once you've done your due diligence. Just file based on all the information you know.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fabde7d45795614312a71467bc92b461", "text": "\"It is legal. They're probably going to give you a 1099-MISC, which is required of businesses for many cash payments over $600 in value to all sorts of counterparties. (Probably box 3 of 1099-MISC as is typical in \"\"cash for keys\"\" situations where one is paid to vacate early) A 1099-MISC is not necessarily pure income, but in this case, you do have money coming in. This money isn't a return of your security deposit or a gift. The payment could possibly be construed by you as a payment to make you whole, but the accounting for this would be on you. This is not a typical situation for IRS reporting. However, if you are uncomfortable with potentially explaining to the IRS how you implemented advice from strangers over the internet, the safest course is to report it all as income. Look at it this way: you did enter into a mutual contract, where you were paid consideration to release your leasehold interests in the property.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34a9082d8d05827f9fda9ec540a53c71", "text": "W9 is required for any payments. However, in your case - these are not payments, but refunds, i.e.: you're not receiving any income from the company that is subject to tax or withholding rules, you're receiving money that is yours already. I do not think they have a right to demand W9 as a condition of refund, and as Joe suggested - would dispute the charge as fraudulent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "173677a1d78c4e8a90b0be22dec7361e", "text": "\"I had experience working for a company that manufactures stuff and giving products to the employees. The condition was to stay employed for a year after the gift for the company to cover its cost (I think they imputed the tax), otherwise they'd add the cost to the last paycheck (which they did when I left). But they were straight-forward about it and I signed a paper acknowledging it. However, in your case you didn't get a product (that you could return when leaving if you didn't want to pay), but rather a service. The \"\"winning\"\" trip was definitely supposed to be reported as income to you last year. Is it okay for them to treat me differently than the others for tax purposes? Of course not. But it may be that some strings were attached to the winning of the incentive trip (for example, you're required to stay employed for X time for the company to cover the expense). See my example above. Maybe it was buried somewhere in small letters. Can they do this a year after the trip was won and redeemed? As I said - in this case this sounds shady. Since it is a service which you cannot return - you should have been taxed on it when receiving it. Would the IRS want to know about this fuzzy business trip practice? How would I report it? Here's how you can let them know. Besides now understanding the new level of slime from my former employer is there anything else I should be worried about? Could they do something like this every year just to be annoying? No, once they issued the last paycheck - you're done with them. They cannot issue you more paychecks after you're no longer an employee. In most US States, you are supposed to receive the last paycheck on your last day of work, or in very close proximity (matter of weeks at most).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "658d4b5adf3b6766285e8e5966b9fa94", "text": "So I learned that your employer CAN force you to make employee contributions. However, this source seems to think that the mandatory employee contributions do not count against the 402(g) limit of $18,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d7833f48df0b9d829546e90aeb990ef", "text": "\"I have a related issue, since I have some income which is large enough to matter and hard to predict. Start with a best guess. Check what tax bracket you were in last year and withhold that percentage of the expected non-withheld income. Adjust upward a bit, if desired, to reflect the fact that you're getting paid more at the new job. Adjust again, either up or down, to reflect whether you were over-withheld or under-withheld last year (whether the IRS owed you a refund or you had to send a check with your return). Repeat that process next year after next tax season, when you see how well your guess worked out. (You could try pre-calculating the entire tax return based on your expected income and then divide any underpayment into per-paycheck additional withholding... but I don't think it's worth the effort.) I don't worry about trying to get this exactly correct. I don't stress about lost interest if I've over-withheld a bit, and as long as your withholding was reasonably close and you have the cash float available to send them a check for the rest when it comes due, the IRS generally doesn't grumble if your withholding was a bit low. (It would be really nice if the IRS paid us interest on over-withholding, to mirror the fact that they charge us interest if we're late in returning our forms. Oh well.) Despite all the stories, the IRS really is fairly reasonable; if you aren't deliberately trying to get away with something, the process is annoying but shouldn't be scary. The one time they mail-audited me, it was several thousand dollars in my favor; I'd forgotten to claim some investment losses, and their computers noticed the error. Though I still say the motto of the next revolution will be \"\"No taxation without proper instructions!\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d814567aa5f5a1eaf61596718a3f55d", "text": "If you didn't receive the money in 2012 or have constructive receipt you really can't claim the income. If the company is going to give you a 1099 for the work they aren't going to give you one until next year and if you claim it this year you will have a hard time explaining the income difference. On the other hand if this isn't miscellaneous income, but rather self employment income and expenses you should be able to claim the expenses in 2012 and if you have a loss that would carry over to 2013. Note it is possible to use an accrual basis if you are running a business (which would allow you to do this), but it is more complex than the cash accounting individual tax payers use.", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
605f98fd509e1bfad1491d2db7d9a148
My employer doesn't provide an electronic pay stub and I need one to get a car loan
[ { "docid": "632a0ece15cf3dadbd5fe45fd5f93376", "text": "You have a few options and sometimes challenges help us improve our situation. First, you can not borrow to buy a car. Reducing the massive depreciation that cars undergo will help you be wealthier. It is hard to find a good use car that you can buy for cash, but it will play out best for your finances in the long run. If your heart is set on borrowing, I would encourage you to go to the bank/credit union where you have your checking account. They will see your history of deposits and may grant you a loan based on that. Also you are likely to get a better deal from the bank than from the car dealer. Thirdly, you can simply go to your employer's HR department and ask them. Surely someone has applied for a loan during the company's history. What did they do for them?", "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": "e50f6d3b54844133f771525f6a664b3b", "text": "\"Anyone can walk into a bank, say \"\"Hi, I'm a messenger, I have an endorsed check and a filled out deposit slip for Joe Blow who has an account here, please deposit this check for him, as he is incapacitated. Straight deposit.\"\" They'll fiddle on their computer, to see if they can identify the deposit account definitively, and if they can, and the check looks legit, \"\"thanks for taking care of our customer sir.\"\" Of course, getting a balance or cashback is out of the question since you are not authenticated as the customer. I have done the same with balance transfer paperwork, in that case the bank knew the customer and the balance transfer was his usual. If the friend does not have an account there, then s/he should maybe open an account at an \"\"online bank\"\" that allows deposit by snapping photos on a phone, or phone up a branch, describe her/his situation and see if they have any options. Alternately, s/he could get a PayPal account. Or get one of those \"\"credit card swipe on your phone\"\" deals like Square or PayPal Here, which have fees very close to nil, normally cards are swiped but you can hand-enter the numbers. Those are fairly easy to get even if you have troubles with creditworthiness. S/he would need to return the check to the payer and ask the payer to pay her/him one of those ways. The payer may not be able to, e.g. if they are a large corporation. A last possibility is if the check is from a large corporation with whom s/he continues to do business with. For instance, the electric company cashiers out your account after you terminate service at your old location. But then you provision service at a new location and get a new bill, you can send their check right back to them and say \"\"Please apply this to my new account\"\". If s/he is unable to get any of those because of more serious problems like being in the country illegally, then, lawful behavior has its privileges, sorry. There are lots of unbanked people, and they pay through the nose for banking services at those ghastly check-cashing places, at least in America. I don't have a good answer for how to get a check cashed in that situation.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a894bdc3aeb02c67796eae016c835cea", "text": "\"A paycheck is simply a check for your salary. It's just like a rent check, or a birthday check, or a grocery check... I've had \"\"paychecks\"\" that were personal checks from the owner of the business, I've had ones that are printed in the office I worked in and signed right there, and I've had paychecks that are printed through a third party company and mailed to me (my favorite, of course, is to forgo the \"\"paycheck\"\" entirely and get direct deposit :) ). Really, they're all just checks. Although that's a little disingenuous, because banks are often slightly more trusting of paychecks. However, this has little to do with it being a \"\"paycheck,\"\" per se, and more to do with the fact that they see you getting the same check for (roughly) the same amount on a regular basis; having seen you get a paycheck for the same amount from the same company for the last 12 months, there is less risk of the check bouncing or being returned unpaid, so you can often get banks to waive their hold policy and just give you the money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5640f5ba637dfb74c203c5419634b3b5", "text": "A lot of companies now do credit checks before employment. They may decide that you are untrustworthy by having shoddy credit after a foreclosure/bankruptcy. The past 2 jobs I have they did a credit check. I wonder how companies use that information in the hiring process.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69a0138a7f9ca95cd3a5d881abff6dca", "text": "No, they cannot refuse to provide you with the current balance or a balance history. The other answers point you to resources that are available to help you put pressure on the dealership. The bottom line is that you now know that you have the right to the details and to audit their recording of the transactions. You should now use that information and demand a better response in writing. If they have to give you a response in writing, they can't deny the answer they gave in a court of law later on. They understand this, and they will take you more seriously if you send a letter. Make sure to keep copies of the letter and send it with certified delivery.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89435a96181136431689538c7ba0448b", "text": "\"The thing to recall here is that auto-pay is a convenience, not a guarantee. Auto-pay withdrawals, notices that a bill is due, all of these are niceties that the lender uses to try to make sure you consistently pay your bill on time, as all businesses enjoy steady cash flows. Now, what all of these \"\"quality of life\"\" features don't do is mitigate your responsibility, as outlined when you first took out the loan, to pay it back in a timely manner and according to the terms and conditions of the loan. If your original contract for the loan states you shall make \"\"a payment of $X.XX each calendar month\"\", then you are required to make that payment one way or another. If auto-pay fails, you are still obligated to monitor that and correct the payment to ensure you meet your contractual obligation. It's less than pleasant that they didn't notify you, but you were already aware you had an obligation to pay back the loan, and knew what the terms of the loan were. Any forgiveness of interest or penalties for late fees is entirely up to the CSR and the company's internal policies, not the law.\"", "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": "442f6360ae50ff4b798ebf87fc1120c4", "text": "The first thing is to look at the monthly cost of the loan. The one from the company is interest free. While it is unlikely that a bank will have a zero percent loan, you will also have to look at what the seller will offer. The next thing to look at is the term of the loan. When comparing two loans with the same interest rate the shorter term loan will cost more per month. Many times when an auto dealer offers a zero percent loan they also have a very short term: 12-24 months; Many people can't afford the monthly payments with that short a term. You said you could afford to save the other $2000 in about six months. That means you could set aside $333 a month to do it in six months. If the loan from the employer has a term longer than 6 months you should be able to afford the loan. Keep in mind that the employer will probably be taking the money right out of your paychecks. You do have to look at the conditions attached to the loan. What does accepting the loan do to your employment situation? If you leave early do they want you to pay it back in 30 days, or will they take the rest from the final paycheck, or do you have longer? You do have to look at the term of the loan, and see if you can pay it off early. If they require a 12 month term can you end it earlier, or change the monthly payment to end it early? The reason why you care about the term is that if the term is 24 months then after a year you still owe them $1000; which if you have to pay back immediately if you quit, it may make it hard for you to leave the company. A minor note: They probably are not reporting it to the credit reporting agencies therefore it wont help your credit score. This is probably not a big issue since you are considering going without a loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51e02e18fe8ff18b3bbd421ca9eeee5c", "text": "As a follow-up, I was able to find a bank that gave me a loan. I just called several banks listed on Yelp, and one ended up working with me. It is also possible that the previous banks misunderstood me and assumed I was 1099 and not W2. I made it very clear to this guy that I was W2, and there was absolutely no problem. Also, it turned out the recruiter I work for has special paperwork their employees can give to lenders to verify W2 employment. So, I have been in my condo since January. And, the condo was a little under $250K. Anyway, I still think it's ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS that banks would not give a loan to a web developer who is in super high demand and making well over 100K/year -- even if I am 1099. I have never, ever in my life been late on a single payment for anything, and I have an 800 credit score. To even question that I could not make payments is ludicrous. Whenever I put my resume on monster.com (just one web site), I receive about 20 phone calls daily -- and I am not exaggerating even slightly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b45c7e6a0aa16d13a1411268ae1350b", "text": "An auto title loans are typically utilized by those that wish to obtain a funding with bad credit rating or no credit in any way. An auto-mobile title lending frequently called a vehicle title lending or merely title funding as well as pink slip funding’s. You merely should have a vehicle that is paid off or nearly paid off and also you could make use of the auto title as security to obtain the cash money you require, enabling you to continue driving your vehicle while paying your loan. Get Auto Car Title Loans Torrance CA and nearby cities Provide Car Title Loans, Auto Title Loans, Mobile Home Title Loans, RV/Motor Home Title Loans, Big Rigs Truck Title Loans, Motor Cycle Title Loans, Online Title Loans Near me, Bad Credit Loans, Personal Loans, Quick cash Loans Contact Us: Get Auto Car Title Loans Torrance CA 1148 W Clarion Dr, Torrance, CA 90502 Phone : 424-306-1531 Email : [email protected] http://getautotitleloans.com/car-and-auto-title-loans-torrance-ca", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63792b296af0765c2debb64c8e9bc54d", "text": "A traditional bank is not likely to give you a loan if you have no source of income. Credit card application forms also ask for your current income level and may reject you based on not having a job. You might want to make a list of income and expenses and look closely at which expenses can be reduced or eliminated. Use 6 months of your actual bills to calculate this list. Also make a list of your assets and liabilities. A sheet that lists income/expenses and assets/liabilities is called a Financial Statement. This is the most basic tool you'll need to get your expenses under control. There are many other options for raising capital to pay for your monthly expenses: Sell off your possessions that you no longer need or can't afford Ask for short term loan help from family and friends Advertise for short term loan help on websites such as Kijiji Start a part-time business doing something that you like and people need. Tutoring, dog-walking, photography, you make the list and pick from it. Look into unemployment insurance. Apply as soon as you are out of work. The folks at the unemployment office are willing to answer all your questions and help you get what you need. Dip into your retirement fund. To reduce your expenses, here are a few things you may not have considered: If you own your home, make an appointment with your bank to discuss renegotiation of your mortgage payments. The bank will be more interested in helping you before you start missing payments than after. Depending on how much equity you have in your home, you may be able to significantly reduce payments by extending the life of the mortgage. Your banker will be impressed if you can bring them a balance sheet that shows your assets, liabilities, income and expenses. As above, for car payments as well. Call your phone, cable, credit card, and internet service providers and tell them you want to cancel your service. This will immediately connect you to Customer Retention. Let them know that you are having a hard time paying your bill and will either have to negotiate a lower payment or cancel the service. This tactic can significantly reduce your payments. When you have your new job, there are some things you can do to make sure this doesn't happen again: Set aside 10% of your income in a savings account. Have it automatically deducted from your income at source if you can. 75% of Americans are 4 weeks away from bankruptcy. You can avoid this by forcing yourself to save enough to manage your household finances for 3 - 6 months, a year is better. If you own your own home, take out a line of credit against it based on the available equity. Your bank can help you with that. It won't cost you anything as long as you don't use it. This is emergency money; do not use it for vacations or car repairs. There will always be little emergencies in life, this line of credit is not for that. Pay off your credit cards and loans, most expensive rate first. Use 10% of your income to do this. When the first one is paid off, use the 10% plus the interest you are now saving to pay off the next most expensive card/loan. Create a budget you can stick to. You can find a great budget calculator here: http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources/interactive_budget_worksheet.html Note I have no affiliation with the above-mentioned site, and have a great respect for this woman's ability to teach people about how to handle money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee5f6b1e55b3705774b05f716500f72a", "text": "Just tell the buyer that there is a lien and explain the situation. Give them the car with a bill of sale after they buy the car from you. They can get a temporary tag at least in the State of Florida during this period of time. Take the buyer's money and deposit the check. Pay off your loan. Ask your bank to expedite the electronic title by paying a fee. I did this in March 2012 with no hassle at all. I was the seller. Some buyers may balk at this idea so just keep this in mind.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "37c92235ba646978f24e7933ffa9da44", "text": "No, we did not apply for the loan. So, this is why we thought it was a bit strange a company just sending you a real check for $30K. It does not say anywhere in big red letters that it is a loan. Probably something in very small letters on a back of a paper. This is really horrible. Especially,if your customers do pay you by check and small business relies on online statement to determine who paid what. I can easily imagine a small outfit that just takes all the checks to the bank, cash them, and then use online statement to update their books. I do not see how it is helpful to businesses to receive pre-approved credit that is so poorly marked. Especially in the age of electronic transfers!!! I am trying to understand why I feel so offended by this, and I guess it all comes down to disgust: I refuse to believe that any serious company would use these sort of tactics and instead of us spending more time developing a better product, we have to put more time and effort into ensuring we do not fall victim to this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83d700ae94fb9917fc1904ecdd1d0877", "text": "\"If you're really interested in the long-term success of your business, and you can get by in your personal finances without taking anything from the business for the time being, then don't. There is no \"\"legal requirement\"\" to pay yourself a prevailing wage if doing so would put the company out of business. it is common for a company's principals not to draw wages from the business until it is viable enough to sustain payroll. I was in that situation when I first began my business, so the notion that somehow I'm violating a law by being fiscally responsible for my own company is nonsense. Be wise with your new business. You didn't state why you feel the need to take some kind of payment out, but this can be a crucial mistake if it imperils your business or if that money could be better spent on marketing or some other areas which improve revenues. You can always create a salary deferral agreement between yourself and your own company which basically states that the company owes you wages but you are, for the time being, willing to defer accepting them until such time that the company has sufficient revenues to pay you. That's one solution, but the simplest answer is, if you don't need the money you're thinking of paying yourself, don't do it. Let that money work for you in the business so that it pays off better in the long run. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f1b045c543a90f25c4cfb615618dd4e6", "text": "I don't know, ask the various companies I'm forced to do business with why in the hell they want me to stop by their office so I can drop a check off vs just using some means of digital payment. I would fucking LOVE to ditch paper checks.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
c308d82779a0ab9b16df98faf3b2ab3f
What is the name of inverse of synergy? (finance)
[ { "docid": "f6d96c3c07bcf9d17687582be245c8ad", "text": "\"You could call it \"\"multiple streams of income\"\" a la Robert Allen and others. Or you could call it \"\"Do once, sell many\"\" or something like that.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a3237946bbb31c267c8c9f20eb00e3c", "text": "I'd probably call it an intangible or indirect benefit. Not sure what the trade term is.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d35a806d809e126734f6cb26f5db9d49", "text": "\"It does depend, but in the effort to be efficient we usually just add back Depreciation, Amortization, and Stock Based Comp. [Although adding back SBC is hotly debated](https://www.wallstreetprep.com/blog/stock-based-compensation-treatment-dcf-almost-always-wrong/), we usually still add it back at my firm. Keep in mind I'm in M&amp;A, so we don't really concern ourselves with creating the \"\"purest\"\" valuation... * EBIAT * Add Depreciation * Add Amort * Add SBC * Subtract Capex * Add the decrease in NWC * Subtract the increase in NWC * = FCFF\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22b1ea9120af491bb5ea89dbba820eb4", "text": "\"Thanks for pointing out [the study](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1748851). It's a slightly different cause than what I was describing when I posted this. Specifically, they show an effect not when the names get confused, but rather when the name similarity simply brings more attention to the stock. I was surprised nobody mentioned that in response to my post. But also interesting is that they had to control for simple confusion between stock symbols, which implies that ticker confusion has a known effect. So I dug into research on that and quickly found [this study](http://www.efmaefm.org/0EFMAMEETINGS/EFMA%20ANNUAL%20MEETINGS/2010-Aarhus/EFMA2010_0161_fullpaper.pdf) found \"\"a high positive correlation between returns on two matching stocks with similar ticker symbols\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2e6ffcf7409d456e200ca9836aa9a124", "text": "Credit products and securitized debt. Credit/debt is the flip side of equity but has less volatility. In today's investing environment people are not looking for a big return as much as less risk with a modest return. Another trend I think you will see is the disappearance of the wall between interest rate products/fixed income and credit products.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbefe50d05a17ab5e03bbdd33a74cb84", "text": "\"**Modern portfolio theory** Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk, defined as variance. Its key insight is that an asset's risk and return should not be assessed by itself, but by how it contributes to a portfolio's overall risk and return. Economist Harry Markowitz introduced MPT in a 1952 essay, for which he was later awarded a Nobel Prize in economics. *** **Option (finance)** In finance, an option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner or holder of the option) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specific strike price on a specified date, depending on the form of the option. The strike price may be set by reference to the spot price (market price) of the underlying security or commodity on the day an option is taken out, or it may be fixed at a discount in a premium. The seller has the corresponding obligation to fulfill the transaction—to sell or buy—if the buyer (owner) \"\"exercises\"\" the option. An option that conveys to the owner the right to buy at a specific price is referred to as a call; an option that conveys the right of the owner to sell at a specific price is referred to as a put. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&amp;message=Excludeme&amp;subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/finance/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08731cc1aa3d6b5299b0f83c6ebf6b87", "text": "I was looking at NAT and NAO, NAT owns 20% of NAO. They trade opposite each other on the price of oil, low is good for NAT, bad for NAO. In bad times the other company's stock would probably rise, so they could trim excess shares to keep a stable monetary holding. This would create cash in bad times, in good times they could buy more, creating a floor as well for the other.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d8a54ce401b8444a25daaee08bf9786", "text": "Empirial evidence for the second scenario: Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence. Excerpt: It was examined whether in the process of making money available to the borrower the bank transfers these funds from other accounts (within or outside the bank). In the process of making loaned money available in the borrower's bank account, it was found that the bank did not transfer the money away from other internal or external accounts, resulting in a rejection of both the fractional reserve theory and the financial intermediation theory. Instead, it was found that the bank newly ‘invented’ the funds by crediting the borrower's account with a deposit, although no such deposit had taken place. This is in line with the claims of the credit creation theory. Thus it can now be said with confidence for the first time – possibly in the 5000 years' history of banking - that it has been empirically demonstrated that each individual bank creates credit and money out of nothing, when it extends what is called a ‘bank loan’. The bank does not loan any existing money, but instead creates new money. The money supply is created as ‘fairy dust’ produced by the banks out of thin air.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3297e004a36457593c6d869c77ebc8c6", "text": "For the case of spinoffs it reflects the market as activities as the specific steps that have to be followed take place. For example the spinoff of Leidos from SAIC in 2013. (I picked this one becasue I knew some of the details) On September 9, 2013, the Board of Directors of SAIC, Inc.(Ticker Symbol (NYSE):SAI) approved the following: The separation of its technical, engineering and enterprise information technology services business through the distribution of shares of SAIC Gemini, Inc. to stockholders. Each stockholder of record of SAIC, Inc. as of September 19, 2013 (Record Date) will receive one (1) share of SAIC Gemini, Inc. common stock for every seven (7) shares of SAIC, Inc. common stock held by such stockholder as of the Record Date. This distribution will be effective after market close on September 27, 2013 (Distribution Date). After the Distribution Date, SAIC Gemini, Inc. will be renamed Science Applications International Corporation (New SAIC). A one (1) for four (4) reverse stock split of the SAIC, Inc. common stock effective as of Distribution Date. After the Distribution Date, SAIC, Inc. will be renamed Leidos Holdings, Inc. (Leidos). Q 11: What are the different trading markets that may occur between Record Date and Distribution Date? A: Beginning two days prior to the Record Date of September 19, 2013 through the Distribution Date on September 27, 2013, there may be three different trading markets available with respect to SAIC, Inc. and the separation. Stock Ticker – SAI (Regular Way Trading with Due Bills): Shares of SAI common stock that trade on the regular-way market will trade with an entitlement to shares of the New SAIC common stock distributed on the Distribution Date. Purchasers in this market are purchasing both the shares of Leidos and New SAIC common stock. Form of Stock Ticker –SAIC (When Issued Trading): Shares of New SAIC common stock may be traded on a “when-issued” basis. These transactions are made conditionally because the security has been authorized, but not yet issued. Purchasers in this market are only purchasing the shares of New SAIC common stock distributed on the Distribution Date. Form of Stock Ticker – LDOS (Ex-Distribution Trading): Shares that trade on the ex-distribution market will trade without an entitlement to shares of New SAIC common stock distributed on the Distribution Date. Purchasers in this market are only purchasing the shares of Leidos common stock. So the stock price for New SAIC starts a few days before the record date of 19 September 2013, while LDOS (new name for the old SAIC) goes back much earlier. But the company didn't split until after the close of business on 27 September 2013. http://investors.saic.com/sites/saic.investorhq.businesswire.com/files/doc_library/file/GeneralStockholder-QuestionsandAnswers.pdf", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d7818ae9d9068f5953344459e340be74", "text": "\"In a way yes but I doubt you'd want that. A \"\"Stop-Limit\"\" order has both stop and limit components to it but I doubt this gives you what you want. In your example, if the stock falls to $1/share then the limit order of $3/share would be triggered but this isn't quite what I'd think you'd want to see. I'd suggest considering having 2 orders: A stop order to limit losses and a limit order to sell that are separate rather than fusing them together that likely isn't going to work.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a6861c5a6ac2146025b8a13d9207d3c", "text": "That's pretty typical for introductory problems. It's leading you into an NPV question. They're keeping the cash flows the same to illustrate the time value of money to show you that even though the free cash flow is the same in year 1 and year 4 or whatever when you discount it to present value today's stream is worth more than tomorrow's", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f84c94ad004b29e8147168170dafdae1", "text": "Upstream is into businesses that supply the original business; downstream is into businesses that make use of the original product. So in that description, what they are saying is that the original business received products from plantations and sent products to manufacturing. This is also called vertical integration. Meaning that they are diversifying along their supply chain so that they control more of it. This is in contrast with horizontal integration, where they move into new products that either compete with the existing products or which are entirely separate. In general, the upside of vertical integration is that a company is less reliant on suppliers (and intermediate consumers) and has more control over its supply chain. The downside is that they have less opportunity to partner with other companies in the same supply chain, as they compete with them. Some companies are better at managing to do both. For example, Amazon.com has integrated fulfillment and sales. But partners can still do their own fulfillment and/or sales, choosing how much to send out to Amazon. If you are investing in individual stocks, integrated companies can be problematic in that they cut across diversification areas. So they can be harder to balance with other stocks. You can either buy plantations, transport, and manufacturing together or not buy at all. If your investment strategy says to increase plantations and reduce manufacturing, this can be difficult to implement with an integrated company. Of course, everyone else has the same problem, which can lead to integrated companies being undervalued. So they may be an opportunity as a value stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "924ec97e56ea4c56464f722c7914e103", "text": "Need help with a finance problem I'm currently facing in my business. My company might be going through an acquisition and I need to understand how the dilution works out for shareholders. They currently have large shareholder loans (debt), and will be converting to equity pre-transaction. For this case, if the original company value = $1 MM and the SHL value = $1 MM, I'm assuming that'd dilute equity by 50% for all shareholders if converted to equity at original company value. Correct? However, what if the $1 MM in shareholder loans were converted at the market value of the company, say $4 MM? I might be confusing myself, but just want to confirm.. thanks!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bca5b955ad21c09521f36d07d7b490dd", "text": "Sure let's say we're starting with the equity value of a public company. Fully diluted shares times market price. We add debt and subtract all cash to give us enterprise value. Calculate a multiple on that. Look what we did up there, we subtracted out all cash. The DCF approach assumes we have an operating level of cash when it calculates a value. You're saying that the DCF spits out an enterprise value. It cannot be an enterprise value if the DCF approach assumes we hold cash. We would have to subtract out an operating level of cash from the DCF concluded value to compare it apples to apples to the cashless enterprise values we derived from the market approach multiples.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ec6f6d74a9946f9c7b7f8f7132d8642", "text": "I guess I wasn't clear. I want to modestly leverage (3-4x) my portfolio using options. I believe long deep-in-the-money calls would be the best way to do this? (Let me know if not.) It's important to me that the covariance matrix from the equity portfolio scales up but doesn't fundamentally change. (I liken it to systemic change as opposed to idiosyncratic change.) This is what I was thinking: * For the same expiry date, find each positions lowest lambda. * Match all option to the the highest of the lowest lambda. * Adjust number of contracts to compensate for higher leverage. I don't think this will work because if I matched the lowest lambda of options on bond etfs to my equity options they would be out-of-the-money. By the way, thanks for your time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7626296dd8470e5e61b10acdd3c2c3f", "text": "\"The complete opposite of \"\"sunk cost\"\" is the term \"\"unrealized gain\"\"; until you sell it, then it is a \"\"realized gain\"\". There is also a term \"\"paper profit\"\" to point out the ephemeral nature of some of these unrealized gains.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4c507a80e084edb607b3096f6e1e8cf", "text": "It's a good answer. I was alluding to cryptocurrency such as bitcoin which was a pretty genius invention (blockchain and mining) to solve the honesty problem (counterparty risk) you outlined when there's no trusted middleman to help keep people honest. Sounds like a dodgy cat though!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
52cec544629ae286d6b6be32de6d884e
How do I receive payment from the USA to my current account in India
[ { "docid": "d30b6a6a3cc52d3c894e076b53b6c1f1", "text": "There is nothing called best; Depending on the amounts there are several options and each will cost some money. If your business is still small customers are individuals try PayPal it will be easy for everyone. The other options are accepting Credit Card, you would need to set-up card gateway on your website etc Simple wire transfer, it will cost more both for your customers and to you.", "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": "882feb570228ae176ed2072547a97f86", "text": "Ask them to send a SWIFT payment [aka International Wire]. You would need to give them your bank details, essentially Bank Account, Bank Name & Address, SWIFT BIC, etc. Almost all Public Sector Bank and all leading Private scetor banks are members of SWIFT and can give you a the SWIFT BIC. If you are not sure about other party, it would be wise to open a new account and give the details of this account rather than your normal account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d6e851041eb6a6aa5d1b35b740e4d31", "text": "You would need to pay tax on the 10% gain. Was this money loaned from your NRE account? Is there paperwork to show that there was this loan given? If yes then it would be easy to get this back into NRE account. Once in NRE account you can move this back to US without any issue. If not, then you can get this into NRO account. From NRO account you would need to consult a CA to do some paperwork [essentially certifying that you have paid all taxes due] so that funds can be remitted outside. Edit: Looks like you have completed all formalities. A credit to NRE Account can only happen from funds outside of India. However a credit from India into NRE account can happen under some circumstances, like Loan give and received back. You would need a CA in India to help you complete the formalities. The tax is due in India as this was due to gain in India. As you are US resident for tax purposes, and US taxes global income, this is taxable in US as well. You can claim relief in US to the extent of taxes paid in India. India and US have DTAA.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6d60f4dba811af0fb506943dfa626a1", "text": "You could use: SWIFT transfer : ask your counterparty for his bank SWIFT code and beneficiary account numbers; you can do a SWIFT transfer to most countries from your Indian bank). You will need to fill a form where they ask you what you're transferring the money for, etc. Most Indian banks provide this facility. Western Union: I'm not sure if WU is in China, but they are very simple to use. Paypal: They charge heavy fees, but may be the fastest way to get your money across.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c220364399a19ad2f56f3069efd44dd", "text": "I am on employment based visa in USA and want to send dollars from USA to India from my savings (after paying Tax). How much maximum dollars I can send in a day? month? or in a year regularly? There is no such limit. You can transfer as money you like to yourself anywhere. To pay the Bank Loan-student Loan how much maximum dollars I can send in a day, in a month or in a year? to pay that I have to pay directly to that Bank Account or in any account I can send money? You can transfer to your NRE account in India and move it further. You can also send it directly to the Loan Account [Check with the Bank, they may not be able to receive funds from outside for a Loan Account] My mother is having Green Card. She is not working. She has a NRE account in India. Can I send dollars from my USA Bank account to her NRE account in India? what are the rules for that? any Tax or limit for that? Or I have to get any permission before sending it? If you are sending money to your mother, it would come under Gift Tax act in US. There is no issue in India. Suggest you transfer to your own NRE account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "648e81484cd103fb3610a2d9383a7d04", "text": "\"Read the terms by your Travel Card issuer. Travel Card cannot be used to transfer USD to an Indian Bank Account. You have to spend outside India and if there is a balance you have to request the card issuers in writing for a refund Salaries should not be credited on \"\"Travel Card\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56a51834c97003723af0acd774fa6198", "text": "My account is with Indian Bank, if that's relevant. Indian Bank already has SWIFT BIC. Is there any way I can receive such international transfers in my account if the bank branch itself is not SWIFT enabled? The Branch need not be SWIFT enabled. However the Bank needs to be SWIFT enabled. Indian Bank is SWIFT enabled and has several Correspondent Banks in US. See this link on Indian Bank Website Select USD as filter in bottom page. It will list quite a few Banks that are correspondent to the Indian Bank. Click on the Link and it will give you more details. For example with Citi Bank as Correspondent. In the Beneficiary account details fill in your account details etc and send this to the company and they should be able to send you a payment based on this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6366fe7d18a72bc67b5c60778b0edc1", "text": "There is no best way, you can send the money to India or invest into shares in US. It depends on the risk you are ready to take.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69215acbca7cb211aa3819f52979f193", "text": "Yes. You may be subjected to the US gift tax (if you transfer to anyone other than your legally married spouse or yourself). The receivers will have to deal with the Indian tax laws, which I'm not familiar with.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe1eb8501e5dedebc8147c92190186d9", "text": "First of all, you need to tell Paypal people that you've changed your country of residence & your tax residency no longer is India. Then they'll tell you to create a new paypal account & get it verified. And then you can transfer the older paypal account money to that new paypal account & tell them to close the older paypal account. Then use remittance services to transfer to NRE. That's the legal process as far as I know, because Paypal would want to keep its records updated, or else it'd be against its Anti Money Laundering policy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6fe59b73bc4ebfe8b534e03f3f4cc6a5", "text": "\"Yes, many banks offer such a service. Often such payments can be made through their \"\"bill pay\"\" interface. You log in to your account on the bank's website, enter the recipient's routing and account numbers, and off you go. You could ask your bank whether they offer this. If not, you could change banks to one that does.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b2fe2d74750a319ba7f3e89da773762", "text": "\"If you want your bank to pay $1 to a beneficiary Bob, then the service (no matter how implemented) needs to result in Bob's bank saying to Bob \"\"Hey, I owe you $1\"\". The usual way how this is done consists of two parts - your bank needs to somehow tell Bob's bank \"\"hey guys, do us a favor and please give Bob $1 with a message from the sender\"\", and your bank needs to convince the other bank that they'll pay for (cover) that. This is the main source for the delays in international payments - there are thousands of banks, and most of possible pairs have no legal contact between themselves whatsoever, no bilateral agreements, no trust and no reasonable enforcement mechanism for small claims. If I'm Bob's bank, then a random bank from anywhere from Switzerland to Nigeria can send me an instruction \"\"give Bob $1, we'll make it up for you\"\", the SWIFT network is a common way of doing this. However, most likely I'm going to give Bob the money only after I receive the funds somehow, which means that they have given the money to some institution I work with. For payments within a single country, it often is a centralized exchange or a central bank, and the payment speed is then determined by the details of that particular single payment network - e.g. UK Faster Payments or the various systems used in USA. For international payments, it may require a chain of multiple intermediaries (correspondent banks) - for example, a payment of $1mm from Kazakhstan to China will likely involve the Kazakhstan bank asking their main correspondent in USA (some major bank such as Chase JPMorgan) to give the money to the relevant chinese bank's correspondent in USA (say, Citi) to then give the money to that chinese bank to then give the money to the actual recipient. Each of those steps can happen because those entities have bilateral agreements, trust and accounts with each other; and each of those steps generally takes time and verification. If you want all payments to happen instantly, then you need all institutions to join a single binding payment system. It's not as easy as it sounds, as it is a nightmare of jurisdiction - for example, if you'd want me (as Bob's bank) to credit Bob instantly, then the system needs to provide solid guarantees that I would get paid even if (a) the payer institution changes its mind, made a mistake or intentional fraud; (b) the payer institution goes insolvent; (c) the system provider gets insolvent. Providing such guarantees is expensive, they need to be backed by multi-billion capital, and they're unrealistic to enforce across jurisdictions (e.g. would an Iranian bank get recourse if some funds got blocked because of USA sanctions). The biggest such project as far as I know is SEPA, across most of Europe. Visa and MasterCard networks perform the same function - a merchant gets paid by the CC network even if the payer can't pay his CC bill or the paying bank goes insolvent.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d494f736c2fe7c90d149b3ec3bbbcc0f", "text": "There are several ways to minimize the international wire transfer fees: Transfer less frequently and larger amounts. The fees are usually flat, so transferring larger amounts lowers the fee percentage. 3% is a lot. In big banks, receiving is usually ~$15. If you transfer $1000 at a time, its 1.5%, if you transfer $10000 - it's much less, accordingly. If you have the time - have them send you checks (in US dollars) instead of wire transferring. It will be on hold for some time (up to a couple of weeks maybe), but will be totally free for you. I know that many banks have either free send and/or receive. I know that ETrade provides this service for free. My credit union provides if for free based on the relationship level, I have a mortgage with them now, so I don't pay any fees at all, including for wire transfer. Consider other options, like Western Union. Those may cost more for the sender (not necessarily though), but will be free for the receiver. You can get the money in cash, or checks, which you can just deposit on your regular bank account. For smaller amounts, it should be much cheaper than wire transfer, for example - sending $500 to India costs $10, while wire transfer is $30.", "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": "a854018240159da1d1efd29a2f1ce651", "text": "Can I Send the money back to my personal account of my mother/father in India? Why not? A huge number of Indians working in US are sending money to their parents. There may be multiple reasons like paying a mortgage/loan or sister's wedding or any personal reasons. Usually, there may be a reason column when you send money through any Remittance company. Do I need to pay any tax here in US or my parents back in India? Parents are direct dependents in India. So you can share your money with your dependents. Your parents have to pay tax for whatever they are earning in India based on the tax slab and age they fit in. So you can even give them the power of Attorney to control your properties in India.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
4b13f7904adec41089e96fc4a4a276c0
Insider trading in another company?
[ { "docid": "0e3085ac5c2dcd51f5a17ac8f04f1cdb", "text": "\"This information is clearly \"\"material\"\" (large impact) and \"\"non-public\"\" according to the statement of the problem. Also, decisions like United States v. Carpenter make it clear that you do not need to be a member of the company to do illegal insider trading on its stock. Importantly though, stackexchange is not a place for legal advice and this answer should not be construed as such. Legal/compliance at Company A would be a good place to start asking questions.\"", "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": "" }, { "docid": "5e07711725e88f3c785686eb535ef03b", "text": "\"I think you need to realize that regardless of whether they are \"\"shady\"\" or not, owners/founders are by and large in it for themselves. You as an employee as just a resource - why should they divulge their finances to you? You won't offend them if you pry and ask for it, but they simply are not going to give you the straight up. They will give you a bare minimum or some song and dance that beats around the bush without actually telling you what you need to know. In regards to whether you should buy the restricted shares: why not? Startups are a gamble anyway. So simply decide how much you're willing to gamble, and spend that much buying some shares. I mean, you're already taking the gamble by accepting a lower salary in exchange for equity which, in all likelihood, will never be worth anything anyway.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28ec486934904404fe18e53cf843ce76", "text": "\"Here is one \"\"other consideration\"\": don't, don't, don't sell based on insider information. Insider trading can land you in jail. And it's not restricted to top executives. Even overhearing a discussion about the current status of the acquisition talks can mean that you have insider information that you legally cannot act on in many jurisdictions. If you are just a regular employee, the SEC will likely not subject your dealings to special scrutiny, especially since lots of your colleagues will likely trade your company's shares at this point in time. And if you definitely hold insider info (for example, if you are intimately involved with the acquisition talks), you will likely have had a very serious warning about insider trading and know what you can and what you cannot do. Nevertheless, it's better to be careful here.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c43e5bdc8ef37b2bc35db788047d6e0", "text": "I suggest you contact head of the company your are interested in, ask if he or she owns a controlling interest. If so offer to buy him out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e44598dada0a8ebf91496f7b40fd3b2c", "text": "Shares are partial ownership of the company. A company can issue (not create) more of the shares it owns at any time, to anyone, at any price -- subject to antitrust and similar regulations. If they wanted to, for example, flat-out give 10% of their retained interest to charity, they could do so. It shouldn't substantially affect the stock's trading for others unless there's a completely irrational demand for shares.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e9c9cec3c9de303788378a493ed49f9", "text": "The 10-K language is very specific. And as someone that has worked w/ securities attorneys to write these things, I know it is worded like that for a reason. Regardless, to have that risk factor in there and not disclose executives leaving is really shoddy disclosure.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84684ca8001220b80db21a461e7b2e21", "text": "You won't be able to know the trading activity in a timely, actionable method in most cases. The exception is if the investor (individual, fund, holding company, non-profit foundation, etc) is a large shareholder of a specific company and therefore required to file their intentions to buy or sell with the SEC. The threshold for this is usually if they own 5% or greater of the outstanding shares. You can, however, get a sense of the holdings for some of the entities you mention with some sleuthing. Publicly-Traded Holding Companies Since you mention Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway is an example of this. Publicly traded companies (that are traded on a US-based exchange) have to file numerous reports with the SEC. Of these, you should review their Annual Report and monitor all filings on the SEC's website. Here's the link to the Berkshire Hathaway profile. Private Foundations Harvard and Yale have private, non-profit foundations. The first place to look would be at the Form 990 filings each is required to file with the IRS. Two sources for these filings are GuideStar.org and the FoundationCenter.org. Keep in mind that if the private foundation is a large enough shareholder in a specific company, they, too, will be required to file their intentions to buy or sell shares in that company. Private Individuals Unless the individual publicly releases their current holdings, the only insight you may get is what they say publicly or have to disclose — again, if they are a major shareholder.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51ad976b1e5d211f36c818bfef24e2a1", "text": "Is there any precedent for companies trading on their own insider information for the benefit of stockholders? Said another way, if a company were to enter a new market where they were very confident of their ability to steamroll a public competitor, could they use a wholly-owned special-purpose investment vehicle to short that competitor in order to juice the benefit of that move?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6509a8ab9ef0eed5eaff9b3b0df4e1f3", "text": "Calling insider trading theft is a pretty big stretch. I think it should remain illegal as it's not great for markets and undermines investor faith, if the people that bought stock from this guy wanted the stock they would have gotten it anyways.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4ed4fb03c9a393b737c5da1e8f0a6fe", "text": "No chance. First off, unless the company provides audited financials (and they don't from what I can tell), there is no way I'm tinkering with a bunch of small business owners. Transparency is a substantial part of investing and this actually exempts or excludes these companies, from what I can tell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d7c47268b8731b24a5cc95a73efbe03", "text": "\"How on earth can you possibly know what is going on in individual company X? The sole exception is if it is your own company. The stock markets of the world are in fact a nest of sharks. The big sharks essentially make money out of the little sharks. Some little sharks manage not to be eaten, and grow bigger. Good luck with that. \"\"Insider trading\"\" is, when found out, a crime these days. But \"\"insider knowledge\"\", \"\"insider hints\"\", \"\"knowledge of market sentiment\"\" and indeed just rumours about a given company are the kinds of things you won't particularly get to hear of in the fog of disinformation, and don't particularly want to waste your time with for a very uncertain loss or gain at the end of the year. The thing I find annoying about mutual funds is that they can be very stupid, and I speculate that it may be the consequence of the marketing on the one hand, and the commission structure on the other. I started cashing in my funds in late 2007, following the collapse of Northern Rock here in the UK. The \"\"2008\"\" crisis was in fact the slowest economic car crash in history. But very very few mutual funds saw, or seemed to see, the way the wind was blowing, and switch massively to cash. If the punters had the courage to hang on, of course, mostly stocks bounced back in 2009 and 2010. Moral: remember you can cash your stuff in any time you want.\"", "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": "92768dee365616e7e3535a2c9173de93", "text": "\"No. And furthermore, canceling based on insider information is not considered insider trading. SEC Interpretation from October of 2000: (a) Does the act of terminating a plan while aware of material nonpublic information result in liability under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5? No. Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 apply \"\"in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.\"\" Thus, a purchase or sale of a security must be present for liability to attach. See Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U.S. 723 (1975). [link mine] A 10b5-2 is a rule in the SEC's section in federal law that governs trading on \"\"material nonpublic information.\"\" Fried (2002) even concluded that: The SEC's safe harbour permitting insiders to buy or sell shares pursuant to prearranged trading plans while in possession of material nonpublic information and to cancel the plans while aware of material nonpublic information enables insiders to profit from their access to such information. The SEC could easily eliminate insider's advantages over public shareholders by not allowing insiders to cancel their plans after becoming aware of material nonpublic information.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "74aa3ca9abe89674b3ab4253d0438286", "text": "\"I'm surprised at the tone of the answers to this question! Trading with insider information is corruption and encourages fraud. As in many areas, there's an ethical line where behavior the gap between \"\"ok\"\" and \"\"illegal\"\" or unethical is thin. The classic local government insider information example is when the local councilman finds out that a highway exit is being constructed in an area that consists mostly of farmland. Knowing this, he buys out the farmers at what they think is a premium, and turns around for 10x profit a few months later. In that context, do you think that the councilman acting on that insider information is committing a crime or ethical lapse? Most people say yes. Even in this case, the line is thin. If the same councilman has his finger on the pulse of growth patterns in the area, and realizes that the terrain makes a certain area a prime candiate for a highway and exit, buying up land would not be criminal -- but it would be risky as it creates a perception that he is abusing his position.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9bdda7296f9e32ac24388bd7c85f9be7", "text": "I sold my Microsoft stock when they appointed him CEO (It was like $1000 worth.. nothing wild) because they hired an insider. I thought they needed an outsider. It's up like 200% since he was hired... turns out he was an outsider all along..", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
34a331ce1cb2c48af839b568bf427eaa
Can a husband and wife who are both members of the same LLC file a joint tax return?
[ { "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": "382a84ba2de816aeea68f21ab665c9b2", "text": "Yes, absolutely she can. I come across small businesses from sole props to corps and llc who have their spouses employed. One thing to note is that the business won't need Workers Comp insurance if you're the only employee, if you hire anyone else you will need it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ece04d2bd05cd3126ea8db90f178fe7e", "text": "\"It's not possible to determine whether you can \"\"expect a refund\"\" or whether you are claiming the right number of exemptions from the information given. If your wife were not working and you did not do independent contracting, then the answer would be much simpler. However, in this case, we must also factor in how much your contracting brings in (since you must pay income tax on that, as well as Medicare and, probably, Social Security), whether you are filing jointly or separately, and your wife's income from her business. There are also other factors such as whether you'll be claiming certain child care expenses, and certain tax credits which may phase out depending on your income. If you can accurately estimate your total household income for the year, and separate that into income from wages, contracting, and your wife's business, as well as your expenses for things like state and local income and property taxes, then you can make a very reasonable estimate about your total tax burden (including the self-employment taxes on your non-wage income) and then determine whether you are having enough tax withheld from your paycheck. Some people may find that they should have additional tax withheld to compensate for these expenses (see IRS W-4 Line #6).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d39c6456e750dfb85f62ca446ac5b05", "text": "\"If you have a huge disparity in incomes, \"\"maybe\"\". If you make roughly in the same ballpark, **Noooooo!** The ability to file separately and have one partner (the higher earner) itemize and claim all the home-related deductions while the other takes the standard deduction is one of the greatest (middle-class) loopholes in modern tax law. When married, even if filing separately, you have to both itemize or both take the standard deduction. You just need to take care that the person itemizing has provably contributed *at least* the amount they claim toward the house. So have one of you write the checks for the mortgage and property tax, and the other pay for everything else, and it'll probably come out roughly even over time. Going back to my first line, the US tax code seems to be designed around the stereotypical Donna Reed 1950s household, with a single earner. The closer you are to equal, the bigger the marriage tax **penalty** gets.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "028a096c096a0e3346de1aa2bda02571", "text": "For some reason this can result in either the flow through income being UNTAXED or the flow through income being taxed as a capital gains. Either way this allows a lower tax rate for LLC profits. I'm not sure that correct. I know it has something to do with capital accounts. This is incorrect. As to capital accounts - these are accounts representing the members/partners' capital in the enterprise, and have nothing to do with the tax treatment of the earnings. Undistributed earnings add to the capital accounts, but they're still taxed. Also, is it true that if the LLC loses money, that loss can be offset against other taxable income resulting in a lower total taxation? It can offset taxable income of the same kind, just like any other losses on your tax return. Generally, flow-through taxation of partnerships means that the income is taxed to the partner with the original attributes. If it is capital gains - it is taxed as capital gains. If it is earned income - it is taxed as earned income. Going through LLC/partnership doesn't re-characterize the income (going through corporation - does, in many cases).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df8090240dd334ad2c157f72bb3e0944", "text": "\"Yes, you can make the election to file your LLC as an S-Corp, and Turbo Tax Business can help you with the S-Corp business return. You need to make sure you're set up correctly and there are a lot of things to be aware of. For example, the whole \"\"reasonable salary\"\" thing is a can of worms. So while the answer to your question is \"\"yes, it's manageable, you can do it on your own,\"\" it might be worthwhile to have a professional help you the first year, make sure it's set up right, and then you can do it on your own in subsequent years.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d441c483fe7ce59e0a61f1fbcb071287", "text": "Does your wife perform solo or in association with other actor/actresses and other volunteers? The latter arrangement sounds more like an unincorporated association or a partnership, which might be a bit freer to match the revenue and expenses. By grinding through the proper procedures, it might be possible to get official non-profit status for it, as well. Ask a professional.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ceeecc34e00810972aa028a778fd4c31", "text": "The LLC will file its own business taxes which may or may not have business level income and expenses. At the end, the LLC will issue Schedule K-1 tax forms to the members, that based on their percentage ownership, will reflect the percentage share of the income/losses. From an individual standpoint, the members need only worry about the K-1 form they receive. This has quite a few pass-through categories from the LLC, but the Income/Loss may be the only used one. The individual will likely include the K-1 by filing a Schedule-E along with their 1040 form. The 1040 Schedule-E has some ability to deduct expenses as an individual. Generally it's best not to commingle expenses. Additional schedule-E expense reporting is generally for non-reimbursed, but related business expenses. If a member paid certain fees for the LLC, it is better for the LLC to reimburse him and then deduct the expense properly. Schedule-E is on a non-LLC, personal level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f085e2fe7f632284bbea9f6955ebc0e", "text": "If it is a sole proprietorship and you didn't make another mistake by explicitly asking the IRS to treat it as a corporation - there are no IRS forms to fill. You'll need to dissolve the LLC with your State, though, check the State's department of State/Corporations (depending on the State, the names of the departments dealing with business entities vary).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9e74ba4baac14c76f760dc5296ec1415", "text": "An LLC does not pay taxes on profits. As regards tax a LLC is treated as a Partnership, but instead of partners they are called members. The LLC is a passthrough entity. As in Partnerships members can have a different percentage ownership to the share of profits. The LLC reports the share of the profits of the members. Then the members pay the tax as an individual. The profit of the LLC is deemed to have been transferred to the members regardless of any funds transferred. This is often the case as the LLC may need to retain the profits for use in the business. Late paying customers may mean there is less cash in the LLC than is available to distribute. The first answer is wrong, only a C corporation files a tax return. All other corporate structures are passthrough entities. The C corporation pays corporation tax and is not required to pass any funds to the shareholders. If the C corporation passes funds to the shareholders this is a dividend, and taxable to the shareholder, hence double taxation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e51fdeb51cecb92c7a69bc78db232a18", "text": "No, it will show on the LLC tax return (form 1065), in the capital accounts (schedules K-1, L and M-2), attributed to your partner.", "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": "c3146e19c2e6320686c78830040535e9", "text": "If you have an actual legal entity (legal partnership) that is jointly owned by you and your partner, then the partnership receives the money, and the partnership then sends money to you and your partner. Each of you will pay tax on your share. It's possible that the partnership itself may have to pay taxes. If you are not following that procedure in terms of actual money flow - for example if the royalties are paid into your personal account instead of a partnership account - then you may have trouble convincing the tax authorities that this is the legal situation. If this is a small amount of money then you may be better off just paying the taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67bbd14128eadd93b30815a6c969ca14", "text": "Just from my own experience (I am not an accountant): In addition to counting as 'business income' (1040 line 12 [1]) your $3000 (or whatever) will be subject to ~15% self-employment tax, on Schedule SE. This carries to your 1040 line ~57, which is after all your 'adjustments to income', exemptions, and deductions - so, those don't reduce it. Half of the 15% is deductible on line ~27, if you have enough taxable income for it to matter; but, in any case, you will owe at least 1/2 of the 15%, on top of your regular income tax. Your husband could deduct this payment as a business expense on Schedule C; but, if (AIUI) he will have a loss already, he'll get no benefit from this in the current year. If you do count this as income to you, it will be FICA income; so, it will be credited to your Social Security account. Things outside my experience that might bear looking into: I suspect the IRS has criteria to determine whether spousal payments are legit, or just gaming the tax system. Even if your husband can't 'use' the loss this year, he may be able to apply it in the future, when/if he has net business income. [1] NB: Any tax form line numbers are as of the last I looked - they may be off by one or two.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "35c5605589b6b4dbdea21675a10af603", "text": "There might be a problem. Some reporting paperwork will have to be done for the IRS, obviously, but technically it will be business income zeroed out by business expense. Withholding requirements will shift to your friend, which is a mess. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA) about these. But the immigration may consider this arrangement as employment, which is in violation of the visa conditions. You need to talk to an immigration attorney.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62d275defac8a06f8d6040c5a24625cd", "text": "LLC is not a federal tax designation. It's a state-level organization. Your LLC can elect to be treated as a partnership, a disregarded entity (i.e., just report the taxes in your individual income tax), or as an S-Corp for federal tax purposes. If you have elected S-Corp, I expect that all the S-Corp rules will apply, as well as any state-level LLC rules that may apply. Disclaimer: I'm not 100% familiar with S-corp rules, so I can't evaluate whether the statements you made about proportional payouts are correct.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5bf05b6d6d0b4cbcbeeded73e6251b11
Was on debt..can I now enter UK on visitor visa
[ { "docid": "56e7741116703bc204078da0634ebd33", "text": "Whether or not you'll be allowed to enter the UK is a topic for a different forum (and really more a topic for a lawyer rather than strangers on the internet). That being said, as a non-lawyer giving my opinion of the situation, you should be granted access to the UK as the banks/money lenders/phone companies don't have a relationship with Border Entry. With regards to debts in the UK, there is some precedent to debts being waived after a certain period of time, but the minimum is 6 years for unsecured debt, and the companies you owe money to can still chase you for payment, but can't use legal proceedings to force you to pay. However, the big caveat to this is that this only applies to residents of England and Wales. From the cleardebt.co.uk site: What is out of date debt? Debts like these are covered by the Limitation Act 1980, which is a statute of limitations that provides time scales as to how long a creditor can chase you (the debtor) for an unpaid debt. The Limitation Act 1980 only applies when no acknowledgement of a debt has been made between you and the creditor for six years for unsecured debts or 12 years for mortgage shortfalls and secured loans. This law only applies to residents of England and Wales. When does debt go out of date? If the creditor fails to maintain contact with you for six years or more, you may be able to claim that the outstanding debt is statute barred under the Limitation Act 1980. This means the creditor cannot use the legal system to enforce payment of the outstanding debt. The time limit starts from when you last acknowledged owing the debt or made a payment to the account. When can a creditor pursue an unsecured debt? You may think a creditor has written off your debt if you haven’t heard from them for a long time. The reality is that the debt still exists. The creditor can still contact you and they are entitled to chase the outstanding debt, even if the debt has been statute barred, but they are unable to use legal proceedings to force you to pay. Creditors can pursue an unsecured debt if:", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d1219fb850544eb95e1b9182489c5e9a", "text": "One possibility is to ask RBC to lend you some money (or more specifically, to lend you some more money): an overdraft, a personal loan, or whatever. To discuss this you should to talk to your personal banker (not a teller), probably by appointment: to explain why you want it, and how and when you expect repay it. You might (I don't know) say that you want the loan (or some of the loan) to pay off the Visa, and/or for the travel. If you've only just arrived in Canada, however, then I don't see why they should want to lend it to you (i.e. why they should think you're a good credit risk). Is there anyone else (e.g. an immigration sponsor or parent or employer) who might co-sign (a.k.a. guarantee) the loan? I have never had this issue before with any other credit cards but I got an RBC Visa in Canada In some countries (not Canada) a Visa behaves more like a debit card, i.e. you can only spend money you have in the account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbb774ef44583ab0f8f3a0370706cc1c", "text": "I also have approx. £6000 in debt Just a note: you're guaranteed to get a return on whatever debt you pay off quickly. Even if your debt is only 2%, you get a guaranteed return of 2% - which is higher than most of the savings here in the US (not sure about the UK). You mention saving for a house, which is also a good idea, but with debt, I'd recommend eliminating that if you're paying any interest at all. This won't be popular to write, but markets are high right now, so even though you may feel that you're missing out, the return on paying off debt is guaranteed; markets aren't.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63b9b79c6ef4b4ab69da4988ac1f7d32", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/04/britain-addicted-debt-crash-2007-sub-prime-mortgages-personal-credit) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; This is, of course, what determined the depth of the last crash, the wheeze of the collateralised debt obligation, which left no one able to distinguish between a good debt and a bad one. &gt; Alex Brazier, executive director of financial stability at the Bank of England, warned last month that consumer loans had gone up by 10% in the past year, with average household debt having already eclipsed 2008 levels. &gt; Student loan debt is counted separately from consumer loans, and stands at &amp;pound;13bn a year. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6y43cq/we_are_addicted_to_debt_and_headed_for_a_crash_it/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~204396 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*: **debt**^#1 **know**^#2 **year**^#3 **much**^#4 **loan**^#5\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1eadcadecc16bd82ca75224964cfb390", "text": "What you are describing is called following (or going over) a budget. There is no debt or loans in the scenario you are describing. Simply put a budget is when you allocate a certain amount of your income for expenses in various categories, and a certain amount for savings. So lets say you earn $100 a month. If you budget $50 in expenses every month, then that means you try not to spend more then $50 a month, and the rest you save. In any given month, you may go over your self-imposed budgeted amount for expenses. That simply means you are over the budgetted amount for that month, but that does not make you 'in debt'. It just means you didn't meet your goal for that month (or whatever time period you created). However, if you do this habitually then you clearly don't have a realistic budget, because the idea behind a budget is a plan that you can realistically meet on a consistent basis. Sometimes you may have to break it, but it should be made in such a way that if you work at it, it is consistently achievable. If not, then you need to rethink your budget. Instead of thinking in terms of taking loans from yourself, I would encourage you to think in terms of saving up for goals and only spending money from those 'goal funds.' In this way, you are not arbitrarily spending money that would instead go into savings, but rather explicitly setting money aside for those goals. This will also help you to see where exactly your money is going and also help you to prioritize your financial goals.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b370f4cf544b9d16301ff173ab8e399", "text": "The essential (and obvious) thing to avoid getting back into debt (or to reduce debt if you have it) is to make your total income exceed your total expenses. That means either increasing your income or reducing your total expenses. Either take effort. Basically, you need a plan. If your plan is to increase income, work out how. If the plan is to increase hours in your current, you need to allow for your needs (sleep, rest, etc) and also convince your employer they will benefit by paying you to work more hours. If your intent is to increase your hourly rate, you need to convince a current or prospective employer that you have the capacity, skills, etc to deliver more on the job, so you are worth paying more. If your intent is to get qualifications so you can get a better paying job, work out how much effort (studying, etc) you will apply, over how long, what expenses you will carry (fees, textbooks, etc), and how long you will carry them for (will you accept working some years in a higher paying job, to clear the debt?). Most of those options involve a lot of work, take time, and often mean carrying debt until you are in a position to pay it off. There is nothing wrong with getting a job while studying, but you have to be realistic about the demands. There is nothing sacrosanct about studying that means you shouldn't have a job. However, you need to be clear how many hours you can work in a job before your studies will suffer unnecessarily, and possibly accept the need to study part time so you can work (which means the study will take longer, but you won't struggle as much financially). If your plan is to reduce expenses, you need a budget. Itemize all of your spend. Don't hide anything from that list, no matter how small. Work out which of the things you need (paying off debt is one), which you can get rid of, which you need to reduce - and by how much. Be brutal with reducing or eliminating the non-essentials no matter how much you would prefer otherwise. Keep going until you have a budget in which your expenses are less than your income. Then stick to it - there is no other answer. Revisit your budget regularly, so you can handle things you haven't previously planned for (say, rent increase, increase fees for something you need, etc). If your income increases (or you have a windfall), don't simply drop the budget - the best way to get in trouble is to neglect the budget, and get into a pattern of spending more than you have. Instead, incorporate the changes into your budget - and plan how you will use the extra income. There is nothing wrong with increasing your spend on non-essentials, but the purpose of the budget is to keep control of how you do that, by keeping track of what you can afford.", "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": "beb06e5ee8a8a14c0984beb291bafda8", "text": "Not entirely true. Argentina walks away without the ability to get credit in the normal way, but with other (more expensive) avenues to get credit if needed. However, they also no longer have to pay the bond debt, which frees up a fair amount of tax income to go to the things they were previously paying with debt. Singer comes away with... nothing. He's out the cost of purchasing the debt. He's out the cost of litigating. He actually came away with worse than nothing. He lost bad.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba988bdbc979006c6e500c40c40d9704", "text": "Talk to a good tax accountant in the UK who deals with this sort of thing, as it sounds like most of the issues concern local tax. You actually have at least four different ways to do this transaction: You definitely need good local tax and legal advice. No matter how you do it, if the borrower defaults, it will be socially ugly and will involve some kind of collection or legal action if you want your money back. If it were me, I think I'd choose the lease with option to buy. At least that way you may be able to inspect the property from time to time, make sure it is kept up, and be able to get it back through eviction rather than foreclosure.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "872d37b659b196edc2b87bc5f87f3ac7", "text": "It won't hurt your credit rating. I wouldn't worry about it. The company can certainly pursue debt collections across borders but unless its a massive sum.. they will write it off. Now.. what the right thing to do is to take care of it... 1. for karma's sake and 2. so you don't make a bad name for foreigners.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eaee5116f787fd1fc84c9ab7fec2d7e2", "text": "\"Fortunately, this can be solved by simply going to the website. Unfortunately, the website is not very well designed, so it took a while to find it! However, looking at the section about entering your own meter reading in, it is clear that this is indeed a \"\"credit\"\", meaning \"\"they owe you money\"\". Notice how the costs break down. They estimated an energy usage (cost equivalent) of £104.09, which resulted in a \"\"bill\"\" of £29.77 (credit). Then the customer entered a meter reading, which resulted in an actual energy usage (cost equivalent) of £142.45. Since it was £38.36 higher, it went from a credit to a debit of £8.59. Were £29.77 (Credit) to mean money was owed to SSE, they would owe a bit over £68 instead given the higher energy charges. You can see this help page to inquire about getting a refund, or simply allow this to carry over to your next bill. Or - consider doing a self-entered meter reading, if one hasn't been done recently, to make sure that any actual excessive usage comes out of your credit (rather than being a shock at one time).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b72477e5c6869fd1514ba798f7f597b5", "text": "\"Going off hearsay here. I believe your question is. \"\"Does not having a credit card lower your credit score\"\" If that is the question then in the UK at least the answer appears to be yes. Having a credit card makes you less of a risk because you have proven that you can handle a little bit of debt and pay it back. I have a really tiny credit history. Never had a credit card and the only people who will lend to me are my own bank because they can actually see my income / expenditure. When I have queried my bank and at stores offering credit they have said that no credit history isn't far off a bad credit record. Simply having a credit card and doing the odd transactions show's lenders you are at least semi-responsible and is seen as a positive. Not having a credit card and not having much else for that matter makes you an unknown and an unknown is a risk in the eyes of lenders.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e015bfef5523dd0625658b8277998bc", "text": "\"Although now there are \"\"welcome\"\" banking packages when I landed in 2008 I couldn't find any and Vancity gave me a secured visa nonetheless. Let me emphasize: I didn't have a credit history, score at all. I doubt this changed much. The bank has zero risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9957097b8c49ec3dfe42d548cfb7989", "text": "You were an unsecured creditor. If Refco had a corporate credit card Visa would be in the exact same position you were. Nothing to do with being the little guy per se, just that UCC Article 9/the Bankruptcy Code has a massive preference for secured creditors over unsecureds. (Which I think is not the best idea, but for other reasons.) Just took my Secured Credit final a few days ago.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bdc63df27233450b829981c9d50a483", "text": "Simply NO, you can NOT be put in prison for unpaid debt in America!! However, if you commit a crime to earn wealth, you can be put in prison for that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edfaea8b74131376f39df1847e966ad5", "text": "It's misleading news. Comparing debt levels in nominal terms is completely pointless over a period of more than a few months. The article you responded to quite literally quoted extracts from the article you subsequently posted and explained why they were misleading or incorrect.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d66cb93e5718852cf2c532e6b29a53ff
What securities is Return of Capital applicable to?
[ { "docid": "de2b0f54bb412b964dac669ed6ced647", "text": "\"Off the top of my head, I don't know of any publicly-traded companies that routinely earmark distributions as return of capital, but theoretically, it's certainly applicable to any publicly-traded company. The Wikipedia article gives one situation in which a publicly-traded company may use return of capital: Public business may return capital as a means to increase the debt/equity ratio and increase their leverage (risk profile). Since return of capital is a distribution, it shrinks the firm's equity, thus increasing its leverage. Investopedia also has an article, Dividend Facts You May Not Know, that gives an example of when return of capital might be used: Sometimes, especially in the case of a special, large dividend, part of the dividend is actually declared by the company to be a return of capital. In this case, instead of being taxed at the time of distribution, the return of capital is used to reduce the basis of the stock, making for a larger capital gain down the road, assuming the selling price is higher than the basis. For instance, if you buy shares with a basis of $10 each and you get a $1 special dividend, 55 cents of which is return of capital, the taxable dividend is 45 cents, the new basis is $9.45 and you will pay capital gains tax on that 55 cents when you sell your shares sometime in the future. A company may choose to earmark some or all of its distribution as return of capital in order to provide shareholders with a more beneficial tax treatment. The IRS describes this different tax treatment: Distributions that qualify as a return of capital are not dividends. A return of capital is a return of some or all of your investment in the stock of the company. A return of capital reduces the basis of your stock. These distributions don't necessarily count as taxable income, except in some instances: Once the basis of your stock has been reduced to zero, any further non-dividend distribution is capital gain. The IRS also states: A distribution generally qualifies as a return of capital if the corporation making the distribution does not have any accumulated or current year earnings and profits. In this case, the firm is lowering its equity because it's paying distributions out of that equity instead of accumulated earnings/profits. A company may use return of capital to maintain a distribution even in times of financial difficulty. In the context of closed-end funds, however, return of capital can be much more complicated and can affect the fund's performance and reputation in numerous ways. Also, JB King is correct in cautioning you that \"\"return of capital\"\" is not the same thing as \"\"return on capital*. The latter is a method for valuing a company and determining \"\"how efficient a company is where it comes to using its resources.\"\" (to quote JB King's comment again).\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "425ca438f571c50d943009d1bf53592a", "text": "Do what's outlined here. The capital asset pricing model will reveal how an asset (a stock in this instance) performed relative to the market performance for that time period. This by itself will answer your assignment's question but allowing you to traverse much deeper in the intricate details of the field. You'll learn a few interesting things on the way! Good luck :)", "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": "83ee753bf0e789e557df6966e4cfcbc9", "text": "You could take these definitions from MSCI as an example of how to proceed. They calculate price indices (PR) and total return indices (including dividends). For performance benchmarks the net total return (NR) indices are usually the most relevant. In your example the gross total return (TR) is 25%. From the MSCI Index Defintions page :- The MSCI Price Indexes measure the price performance of markets without including dividends. On any given day, the price return of an index captures the sum of its constituents’ free float-weighted market capitalization returns. The MSCI Total Return Indexes measure the price performance of markets with the income from constituent dividend payments. The MSCI Daily Total Return (DTR) Methodology reinvests an index constituent’s dividends at the close of trading on the day the security is quoted ex-dividend (the ex-date). Two variants of MSCI Total Return Indices are calculated: With Gross Dividends: Gross total return indexes reinvest as much as possible of a company’s dividend distributions. The reinvested amount is equal to the total dividend amount distributed to persons residing in the country of the dividend-paying company. Gross total return indexes do not, however, include any tax credits. With Net Dividends: Net total return indexes reinvest dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes, using (for international indexes) a tax rate applicable to non-resident institutional investors who do not benefit from double taxation treaties.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7cd4bc1c1743be97be65b364924cfbaa", "text": "\"I don't know if it's common or necessary to include capital stock as a liability? Yes, if you look at the title of the nonasset part of the balance sheet it actually is titled \"\"Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity\"\". Your capital stock is a component of Equity. This sounds like it was reported in a reasonable manner. \"\"$2,582 listed under Loans from Shareholders (Line 19).\"\" Did you have a basis issue with your distributions? That is did you take shareholder distributions more than your adjusted basis that you have been taxed on? I have seen the practice of considering distributions in excess of basis as short term loans to prevent the additional taxation of the excess distribution. Be careful when you adjust this entry, your balance sheet had to roll from one year to the next. You must have a reasonable transaction to substantiate the removal of the shareholder loan.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ffd7588e47bdcfbf842058ec577af8f", "text": "\"Answering this question is weird, because it is not really precise in what you mean. Do you want all stocks in the US? Do you want a selection of stocks according to parameters? Do you just want a cool looking graph? However, your possible misuse of the word derivative piqued my interest. Your reference to gold and silver seems to indicate that you do not know what a derivative actually is. Or what it would do in a portfolio. The straightforward way to \"\"see\"\" an efficient frontier is to do the following. For a set of stocks (in this case six \"\"randomly\"\" selected ones): library(quantmod) library(fPortfolio) library(PerformanceAnalytics) getSymbols(c(\"\"STZ\"\", \"\"RAI\"\", \"\"AMZN\"\", \"\"MSFT\"\", \"\"TWX\"\", \"\"RHT\"\"), from = \"\"2012-06-01\"\", to = \"\"2017-06-01\"\") returns &lt;- NULL tickerlist &lt;- c(\"\"STZ\"\", \"\"RAI\"\", \"\"AMZN\"\", \"\"MSFT\"\", \"\"TWX\"\", \"\"RHT\"\") for (ticker in tickerlist){ returns &lt;- cbind(returns, monthlyReturn(Ad(eval(as.symbol(ticker))))) } colnames(returns) &lt;- tickerlist returns &lt;- as.timeSeries(returns) frontier &lt;- portfolioFrontier(returns) png(\"\"frontier.png\"\", width = 800, height = 600) plot(frontier, which = \"\"all\"\") dev.off() minvariancePortfolio(returns, constraints = \"\"LongOnly\"\") Portfolio Weights: STZ RAI AMZN MSFT TWX RHT 0.1140 0.3912 0.0000 0.1421 0.1476 0.2051 Covariance Risk Budgets: STZ RAI AMZN MSFT TWX RHT 0.1140 0.3912 0.0000 0.1421 0.1476 0.2051 Target Returns and Risks: mean Cov CVaR VaR 0.0232 0.0354 0.0455 0.0360 https://imgur.com/QIxDdEI The minimum variance portfolio of these six assets has a mean return is 0.0232 and variance is 0.0360. AMZN does not get any weight in the portfolio. It kind of means that the other assets span it and it does not provide any additional diversification benefit. Let us add two ETFs that track gold and silver to the mix, and see how little difference it makes: getSymbols(c(\"\"GLD\"\", \"\"SLV\"\"), from = \"\"2012-06-01\"\", to = \"\"2017-06-01\"\") returns &lt;- NULL tickerlist &lt;- c(\"\"STZ\"\", \"\"RAI\"\", \"\"AMZN\"\", \"\"MSFT\"\", \"\"TWX\"\", \"\"RHT\"\", \"\"GLD\"\", \"\"SLV\"\") for (ticker in tickerlist){ returns &lt;- cbind(returns, monthlyReturn(Ad(eval(as.symbol(ticker))))) } colnames(returns) &lt;- tickerlist returns &lt;- as.timeSeries(returns) frontier &lt;- portfolioFrontier(returns) png(\"\"weights.png\"\", width = 800, height = 600) weightsPlot(frontier) dev.off() # Optimal weights out &lt;- minvariancePortfolio(returns, constraints = \"\"LongOnly\"\") wghts &lt;- getWeights(out) portret1 &lt;- returns%*%wghts portret1 &lt;- cbind(monthprc, portret1)[,3] colnames(portret1) &lt;- \"\"Optimal portfolio\"\" # Equal weights wghts &lt;- rep(1/8, 8) portret2 &lt;- returns%*%wghts portret2 &lt;- cbind(monthprc, portret2)[,3] colnames(portret2) &lt;- \"\"Equal weights portfolio\"\" png(\"\"performance_both.png\"\", width = 800, height = 600) par(mfrow=c(2,2)) chart.CumReturns(portret1, ylim = c(0, 2)) chart.CumReturns(portret2, ylim = c(0, 2)) chart.Drawdown(portret1, main = \"\"Drawdown\"\", ylim = c(-0.06, 0)) chart.Drawdown(portret2, main = \"\"Drawdown\"\", ylim = c(-0.06, 0)) dev.off() https://imgur.com/sBHGz7s Adding gold changes the minimum variance mean return to 0.0116 and the variance stays about the same 0.0332. You can see how the weights change at different return and variance profiles in the picture. The takeaway is that adding gold decreases the return but does not do a lot for the risk of the portfolio. You also notice that silver does not get included in the minimum variance efficient portfolio (and neither does AMZN). https://imgur.com/rXPbXau We can also compare the optimal weights to an equally weighted portfolio and see that the latter would have performed better but had much larger drawdowns. Which is because it has a higher volatility, which might be undesirable. --- Everything below here is false, but illustrative. So what about the derivative part? Let us assume you bought an out of the money call option with a strike of 50 on MSFT at the beginning of the time series and held it to the end. We need to decide on the the annualized cost-of-carry rate, the annualized rate of interest, the time to maturity is measured in years, the annualized volatility of the underlying security is proxied by the historical volatility. library(fOptions) monthprc &lt;- Ad(MSFT)[endpoints(MSFT, \"\"months\"\")] T &lt;- length(monthprc) # 60 months, 5 years vol &lt;- sd(returns$MSFT)*sqrt(12) # annualized volatility optprc &lt;- matrix(NA, 60, 1) for (t in 1:60) { s &lt;- as.numeric(monthprc[t]) optval &lt;- GBSOption(TypeFlag = \"\"c\"\", S = s, X = 50, Time = (T - t) / 12, r = 0.001, b = 0.001, sigma = vol) optprc[t] &lt;- optval@price } monthprc &lt;- cbind(monthprc, optprc) colnames(monthprc) &lt;- c(\"\"MSFT\"\", \"\"MSFTCall50\"\") MSFTCall50rets &lt;- monthlyReturn(monthprc[,2]) colnames(MSFTCall50rets) &lt;- \"\"MSFTCall50rets\"\" returns &lt;- merge(returns, MSFTCall50rets) wghts &lt;- rep(1/9, 9) portret3 &lt;- returns%*%wghts portret3 &lt;- cbind(monthprc, portret3)[,3] colnames(portret3) &lt;- \"\"Equal weights derivative portfolio\"\" png(\"\"performance_deriv.png\"\", width = 800, height = 600) par(mfrow=c(2,2)) chart.CumReturns(portret2, ylim = c(0, 4.5)) chart.CumReturns(portret3, ylim = c(0, 4.5)) chart.Drawdown(portret2, main = \"\"Drawdown\"\", ylim = c(-0.09, 0)) chart.Drawdown(portret3, main = \"\"Drawdown\"\", ylim = c(-0.09, 0)) dev.off() https://imgur.com/SZ1xrYx Even though we have a massively profitable instrument in the derivative. The portfolio analysis does not include it because of the high volatility. However, if we just use equal weighting and essentially take a massive position in the out of the money call (which would not be possible in real life), we get huge drawdowns and volatility, but the returns are almost two fold. But nobody will sell you a five year call. Others can correct any mistakes or misunderstandings in the above. It hopefully gives a starting point. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_portfolio_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_(finance) The imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/LoBEY\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4571314d35b39aaa79c3fad8a33a7265", "text": "Yes, just set aside the amount of money. If you buy a cfd long in a stock for a 1000$, set aside 1000$. If you buy a cfd short, set aside the same amount and include a stoploss at the value at which the money is depleted. In this case however, you can stil lose more, because of opening gaps. By doing this, you replicate the stock return, apart from the charged interest rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28f13758cf91f1e70e60d49db4f80a9b", "text": "\"According to page 56 of the 2015 IRS Publication 550 on Investment Income and Expenses: Wash sales. Your holding period for substantially identical stock or securities you acquire in a wash sale includes the period you held the old stock or securities. It looks like the rule applies to stocks and other securities, including options. It seems like the key is \"\"substantially identical\"\". For your brokerage / trading platform to handle these periods correctly for reporting to IRS, it seems best to trade the same security instead of trying to use something substantially identical.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d3ad5c3e23220983ecf4990d8cae163b", "text": "\"The wash sale rule only applies when the sale in question is at a loss. So the rule does not apply at all to your cases 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, and 16, which all start with a gain. You get a capital gain at the first sale and then a separately computed gain / loss at the second sale, depending on the case, BUT any gain or loss in the IRA is not a taxable event due to the usual tax-advantaged rules for the IRA. The wash sale does not apply to \"\"first\"\" sales in your IRA because there is no taxable gain or loss in that case. That means that you wouldn't be seeking a deduction anyway, and there is nothing to get rolled into the repurchase. This means that the rule does not apply to 1-8. For 5-8, where the second sale is in your brokerage account, you have a \"\"usual\"\" capital gain / loss as if the sale in the IRA didn't happen. (For 1-4, again, the second sale is in the IRA, so that sale is not taxable.) What's left are 9-10 (Brokerage -> IRA) and 13-14 (Brokerage -> Brokerage). The easier two are 13-14. In this case, you cannot take a capital loss deduction for the first sale at a loss. The loss gets added to the basis of the repurchase instead. When you ultimately close the position with the second sale, then you compute your gain or loss based on the modified basis. Note that this means you need to be careful about what you mean by \"\"gain\"\" or \"\"loss\"\" at the second sale, because you need to be careful about when you account for the basis adjustment due to the wash sale. Example 1: All buys and sells are in your brokerage account. You buy initially at $10 and sell at $8, creating a $2 loss. But you buy again within the wash sale window at $9 and sell that at $12. You get no deduction after the first sale because it's wash. You have a $1 capital gain at the second sale because your basis is $11 = $9 + $2 due to the $2 basis adjustment from wash sale. Example 2: Same as Example 1, except that final sale is at $8 instead of at $12. In this case you appear to have taken a $2 loss on the first buy-sell and another $1 loss on the second buy-sell. For taxes however, you cannot claim the loss at the first sale due to the wash. At the second sale, your basis is still $11 (as in Example 1), so your overall capital loss is the $3 dollars that you might expect, computed as the $8 final sale price minus the $11 (wash-adjusted) basis. Now for 9-10 (Brokerage->IRA), things are a little more complicated. In the IRA, you don't worry about the basis of individual stocks that you hold because of the way that tax advantages of those accounts work. You do need to worry about the basis of the IRA account as a whole, however, in some cases. The most common case would be if you have non-deductable contributions to your traditional IRA. When you eventually withdraw, you don't pay tax on any distributions that are attributable to those nondeductible contributions (because you already paid tax on that part). There are other cases where basis of your account matters, but that's a whole question in itself - It's enough for now to understand 1. Basis in your IRA as a whole is a well-defined concept with tax implications, and 2. Basis in individual holdings within your account don't matter. So with the brokerage-IRA wash sale, there are two questions: 1. Can you take the capital loss on the brokerage side? 2. If no because of the wash sale, does this increase the basis of your IRA account (as a whole)? The answer to both is \"\"no,\"\" although the reason is not obvious. The IRS actually put out a Special Bulletin to answer the question specifically because it was unclear in the law. Bottom line for 9-10 is that you apparently are losing your tax deduction completely in that case. In addition, if you were counting on an increase in the basis of your IRA to avoid early distribution penalties, you don't get that either, which will result in yet more tax if you actually take the early distribution. In addition to the Special Bulletin noted above, Publication 550, which talks about wash sale rules for individuals, may also help some.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec2cecd148f5a36061685e5c592c6bf3", "text": "I found the following on a stock to mutual conversion for insurance firms for Ohio. Pulling from that link, Any domestic stock life insurance corporation, incorporated under a general law, may become a mutual life insurance corporation, and to that end may carry out a plan for the acquisition of shares of its capital stock, provided such plan: (A) Has been adopted by a vote of a majority of the directors of such corporation; (B) Has been approved by a vote of stockholders representing a majority of the capital stock then outstanding at a meeting of stockholders called for the purpose; (C) Has been approved by a majority of the policyholders voting at a meeting of policyholders called for the purpose, each of whom is insured in a sum of at least one thousand dollars and whose insurance shall then be in force and shall have been in force for at least one year prior to such meeting. and Any stockholder who has assented to the plan or who has been concluded by the vote of the assenting stockholders, and any stockholder who has objected and made demand in writing for the fair cash value of his shares subsequent to which an agreement has been reached fixing such fair cash value, but who fails to surrender his certificates for cancellation upon payment of the amount to which he is entitled, may be ordered to do so by a decree of the court of common pleas for the county in which the principal office of such corporation is located after notice and hearing in an action instituted by the corporation for that purpose, and such decree may provide that, upon the failure of the stockholder to surrender such certificates for cancellation, the decree shall stand in lieu of such surrender and cancellation. Since they successfully became a mutual insurance company, I would guess that those stocks were acquired back by the company, and are leftover from the conversion. They would not represent an ownership in the company, but might have value to a collector.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8e437a2c62972a44657f449075e12786", "text": "\"Debt is nominal, which means when inflation happens, the value of the money owed goes down. This is great for the borrower and bad for the lender. \"\"Investing\"\" can mean a lot of different things. Frequently it is used to describe buying common stock, which is an ownership claim on a company. A company is not a nominally fixed asset, by which I mean if there was a bunch of inflation and nothing else happened (i.e., the inflation was not the cause or result of some other economic change) then the nominal value of the company will go up along with the prices of other things. Based on the above, I'd say you are incorrect to treat debt and investment returns the same way with respect to inflation. When we say equity returns 9%, we mean it returns a real 7% plus 2% inflation or whatever. If the rate of inflation increased to 10% and nothing else happened in the economy, the same equity would be expected to return 17%. In fact, the company's (nominally fixed) debts would be worth less, increasing the real value of the company at the expense of their debt-holders. On the other hand, if we entered a period of high inflation, your debt liability would go way down and you would have benefited greatly from borrowing and investing at the same time. If you are expecting inflation in the abstract sense, then borrowing and investing in common stock is a great idea. Inflation is frequently the result (or cause) of a period of economic trouble, so please be aware that the above makes sense if we treat inflation as the only thing that changed. If inflation came about because OPEC makes oil crazy expensive, millennials just stop working, all of our factories got bombed to hades, or trade wars have shut down international commerce, then the value of stocks would most definitely be affected. In that case it's not really \"\"inflation\"\" that affected the stock returns, though.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3c2583945301f8f9b14c9f8f0af19fa", "text": "S & P's site has a methodology link that contains the following which may be of use: Market Capitalization. Unadjusted market capitalization of US$ 4.6 billion or more for the S&P 500, US$ 1.2 billion to US$ 5.1 billion for the S&P MidCap 400, and US$ 350 million to US$ 1.6 billion for the S&P SmallCap 600. The market cap of a potential addition to an index is looked at in the context of its short- and medium-term historical trends, as well as those of its industry. These ranges are reviewed from time to time to assure consistency with market conditions. Liquidity. Adequate liquidity and reasonable price – the ratio of annual dollar value traded to float adjusted market capitalization should be 1.00 or greater, and the company should trade a minimum of 250,000 shares in each of the six months leading up to the evaluation date. Domicile. U.S. companies. For index purposes, a U.S. company has the following characteristics: The final determination of domicile eligibility is made by the U.S. Index Committee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3221ea586106f111e68b463d6aeb1d53", "text": "Efficient Frontier has an article from years ago about the small-cap and value premiums out there that would be worth noting here using the Fama and French data. Eugene Fama and Kenneth French (F/F) have shown that one can explain almost all of the returns of equity portfolios based on only three factors: market exposure, market capitalization (size), and price-to-book (value). Wikipedia link to the factor model which was the result of the F/F research.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d6f7aaab66362044861af30f6dad102", "text": "I find the reg, at last. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=Cornerstone+Strategic+Value+Fund&owner=exclude&action=getcompany Yes, its a common stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "289270da721e0e136ede814135c932bf", "text": "\"Re. question 2 If I buy 20 shares every year, how do I get proper IRR? ... (I would have multiple purchase dates) Use the money-weighted return calculation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return#Internal_rate_of_return where t is the fraction of the time period and Ct is the cash flow at that time period. For the treatment of dividends, if they are reinvested then there should not be an external cash flow for the dividend. They are included in the final value and the return is termed \"\"total return\"\". If the dividends are taken in cash, the return based on the final value is \"\"net return\"\". The money-weighted return for question 2, with reinvested dividends, can be found by solving for r, the rate for the whole 431 day period, in the NPV summation. Now annualising And in Excel\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6b369eb3203921bb4621f9398674518", "text": "While the issuer of the security such as a stock or bond not the short is responsible for the credit risk, the issuer and the short of a derivative is one. In all cases, it is more than likely that a trader is owed securities by an agent such as a broker or exchange or clearinghouse. Legally, only the Options Clearing Corporation clears openly traded options. With stocks and bonds, brokerages can clear with each other if approved. While a trader is expected to fund margin, the legal responsibility is shared by all in the agent chain. Clearinghouses are liable to exchanges. Exchanges are liable to members. Traders are liable to brokerages. Both ways and so on. Clearinghouses are usually ultimately liable for counterparty risk to the long counterparty, and the short counterparty is ultimately liable to the clearinghouse. Clearinghouses are not responsible for the credit risk of stocks and bonds because the issuers are not short those securities on the exchange, thus no margin is required. Credit risk for stocks and bonds is mitigated away from the clearing process.", "title": "" } ]
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f20a3db66a8ae0b11b7cfd0a2b906fc4
How to save money on currency conversion
[ { "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": "72b452624646db70ff1533aa27000710", "text": "I haven't seen this answer, and I do not know the legality of it, as it could raise red flags as to money laundering, but about the only way to get around the exchange rate spreads and fees is to enter into transactions with a private acquaintance who has Euros and needs Dollars. The problem here is that you are taking on the settlement risk in the sense that you have to trust that they will deposit the euros into your French account when you deposit dollars into their US account. If you work this out with a relative or very close friend, then the risk should be minimal, however a more casual acquaintance may be more apt to walk away from the transaction and disappear with your Euros and your Dollars. Really the only other option would be to be compensated for services rendered in Euros, but that would have tax implications and the fees of an international tax attorney would probably outstrip any savings from Forex spreads and fees not paid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ebc7fc2fe6982e3c3c583336b0bc7fb", "text": "There's a possibility to lose money in exchange rate shifts, but just as much chance to gain money (Efficient Market Hypothesis and all that). If you're worried about it, you should buy a stock in Canada and short sell the US version at the same time. Then journal the Canadian stock over to the US stock exchange and use it to settle your short sell. Or you can use derivatives to accomplish the same thing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "78bb47fd959da4d5ff70d18bba75043b", "text": "If you're already in Australia you can just put your money in a savings account. The type of trade you're describing is called a carry trade, it makes money on the interest rate difference but gives you exposure to risk that the exchange rates change. You can, of course, leverage your money to get an even greater return at a higher risk. What you do is *borrow* USD, convert to AUD, and put in an Australian bank. In FX lingo this would be long AUDUSD.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b36c234151124c34fb9189a4356e13d3", "text": "Either way you'll be converting to US Dollars somewhere along the line. You are seeking something that is very redundant", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12c783ab58e622f4b75a45d00cc7d18a", "text": "There is a way I discovered of finding the current exchange rate before committing to buy, go to send payments, put in your own second email, pay 1gbp as the amount and it will give you the exchange rate and fees in your own currency, in my case euro, before you have to click on send payment", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0c5d572daf63971196fc6cffc133484", "text": "If your savings are in USD and will be making purchases using USD, then it will no longer go as far as it used to. I assume most Americans currently have their savings accounts in USD, so the value of those accounts will decrease. If you have investments in stocks or foreign currencies, your exposure may be less, but it depends. For example, stocks in companies that hold a lot of USD will also be hit hard, as will be currencies of nations that are still holding a lot of USD if the value of the USD is crashing. If you have a lot of debt measured in USD, while have a lot of assets that have nothing to do with USD, then you might make out like a bandit, since if you assume the value of the USD is falling, then it would become easier to sell off your other assets to pay off the debt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ea86fd7b4d8b9b47a0d883a41209fb7c", "text": "Yes, if all my savings were in Euro, I would absolutely be converting everything to US dollars, and possibly some gold. You probably don't want to sit around with lots of Euros while watching the shit hit fan. Talk to your bank, possibly they can open a US dollar bank account in your own country for you. Definitely any bank that has an international presence, like HSBC, should be able to do this for you. And if not US dollars, British Pounds would also be another option.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44714eb2b7b27e40ad6de9cdbbec0533", "text": "\"I'll try to give you some clues on how to find an answer to your question, rather than answering directly the question asked. Why not answer it directly? Well, I can, but it won't help you (or anyone else) much in two months when the rates change again. Generally, you won't find such in brick-and-mortar banks. You can save some time and only look at online banks. Examples: ING Direct (CapitalOne), CapitalOne, Amex FSB, E*Trade, Ally, etc. There are plenty. Go to their web sites, look for promotions, and compare. Sometimes you can find coupons/promotions which will yield more than the actual savings rate. For example, ING frequently have a $50 promotion for opening a new account. You need to understand that rates change frequently, and the highest rate account today may become barely average in a week. There are plenty of sites that offer various levels of comparison information. One of the most comprehensive ones (IMHO) is Bankrate.com. Another place to look is MoneyRates.com. These sites provide various comparisons, and you can also find some promotions advertised there. There are more similar sites. Also, search the Internet and you can find various blog posts with additional promotions – frequently banks give \"\"referral bonuses\"\" to provide incentive for clients to promote the banks. Do some due diligence on the results that appear promising. Not much. You won't find any savings account that would keep the value (purchasing power) of your money over the long term. Keeping money in savings accounts is a sure way to lose value because the inflation rate is much higher than even high-yield savings accounts. But, savings accounts are safe (insured by FDIC/NCUA up to the limit), and very convenient to keep short term savings – such as an emergency fund – that you cannot afford to lose to investments. Sometimes you'll get slightly better rates by locking up your money in a Certificate of Deposit (CD), but not significantly higher when the CD is short-term.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76def0924a473ee8754ddbcfa1ab06b3", "text": "If possible, I would open a Canadian bank account with a bank such as TD Canada Trust. You can then have your payments wired into that account without incurring costs on receipt. They also allow access to their US ATM network via TD Bank without additional costs. So you could use the American Affiliate to pull the funds out via a US teller while only bearing the cost of currency conversion. If that option can't work then the best route would be to choose a US bank account that doesn't charge for incoming wire transfers and request that the money be wired to your account (you'll still get charged the conversion rate when the wire is in CAD and the account is in USD).", "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": "3a3ace553b8d5770299f9fc3f60b1b86", "text": "I've done this for many years, and my method has always been to get a bank draft from my Canadian bank and mail it to my UK bank. The bank draft costs $7.50 flat fee and the mail a couple of dollars more. That's obviously quite a lot to pay on $100, so I do this only every six months or so and make the regular payments out of my UK account. It ends up being only a couple of percent in transaction costs, and the exchange rate is the bank rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b376cf28548b9fb41e44db2115279686", "text": "There are peer to peer services these days which work by trying to match someone who wants to convert currency X to currency Y with other people who want to convert Y to X. Obviously this works better with major currencies. They tend to give you the midmarket interbank rate banks use to trade with each less their commission of 1-2%. Banks can charge up to 5% and use different rates for buying and selling. Transfers may take a day or two, although you may be able to do it faster if you pay extra. Transferwise, CurrencyFair and MidPoint are examples of such services though there are many others. Here's a link to a newspaper article with more details.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6f3673e71cdfeb5998f0abfae96975d", "text": "In general, to someone in a similar circumstance I might suggest that the lowest-risk option is to immediately convert your excess currency into the currency you will be spending. Note that 'risk' here refers only to the variance in possible outcomes. By converting to EUR now (assuming you are moving to an EU country using the EUR), you eliminate the chance that the GBP will weaken. But you also eliminate the chance that the GBP will strengthen. Thus, you have reduced the variance in possible outcomes so that you have a 'known' amount of EUR. To put money in a different currency than what you will be using is a form of investing, and it is one that can be considered high risk. Invest in a UK company while you plan on staying in the UK, and you take on the risk of stock ownership only. But invest in a German company while you plan on staying in the UK, you take on the risk of stock ownership + the risk of currency volatility. If you are prepared for this type of risk and understand it, you may want to take on this type of risk - but you really must understand what you're getting into before you do this. For most people, I think it's fair to say that fx investing is more accurately called gambling [See more comments on the risk of fx trading here: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/76482/44232]. However, this risk reduction only truly applies if you are certain that you will be moving to an EUR country. If you invest in EUR but then move to the US, you have not 'solved' your currency volatility problem, you have simply replaced your GBP risk with EUR risk. If you had your plane ticket in hand and nothing could stop you, then you know what your currency needs will be in 2 years. But if you have any doubt, then exchanging currency now may not be reducing your risk at all. What if you exchange for EUR today, and in a year you decide (for all the various reasons that circumstances in life may change) that you will stay in the UK after all. And during that time, what if the GBP strengthened again? You will have taken on risk unnecessarily. So, if you lack full confidence in your move, you may want to avoid fully trading your GBP today. Perhaps you could put away some amount every month into EUR (if you plan on moving to an EUR country), and leave some/most in GBP. This would not fully eliminate your currency risk if you move, but it would also not fully expose yourself to risk if you end up not moving. Just remember that doing this is not a guarantee that the EUR will strengthen and the GBP will weaken.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0fa6c81a8ef6708e1285d62e7d01d454", "text": "\"The \"\"hidden\"\" fees in any transfer are usually: Foreign exchange transfer services are usually the cheapest option for sending money abroad when a conversion is involved. They tend to offer ways to get the money to or from them cheaply or for free and they typically offer low or no fees plus much better exchange rates than the alternatives. My preferred foreign exchange service is XE Trade. It looks like they support CAD to ZAR transfers so you might check them out. In my experience, they have not set a minimum on the amount I send although it does impact the exchange rate they will offer. The rate is still better than other alternatives available to me though. Note that for large enough transfers, the exchange rate difference will dominate all other costs. For example, if you transfer $10,000 and you pay $100 for the transfer plus $50 in wire fees ($150 in fees) but get a 2% better exchange rate than a \"\"free\"\" service, you would save $50 by choosing the non free service.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6f497d0d1f37a618b3d6ef7938703e3", "text": "Wire transfers are the best method. Costs can vary from $10 to $100 or more, depending on the banks and countries involved. There's rarely any saving using the same bank, although HSBC may have reduced charges if you have Premier accounts in both countries (for a one-off transaction, it may not be worth the effort to open an account). However, that cost is insignificant compared to your possible losses on the currency exchange. Assuming your money is currently in Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), it will need to be converted to US Dollars (USD). One place where it could be converted is at your Hong Kong bank. You'll get their retail rate. Make sure you are aware of the rate they will use, and any fees, in advance. Expect to pay around 2-3% from the mid-market rate (the rate you see quoted online, which doesn't fluctuate much for HKD-USD as the currencies are linked). Another place where the currency could be converted is at your US bank. You really don't get any control over that if it arrives as HKD and is then automatically converted into your USD. The rate and fees could be quite poor, especially if it is a minor US bank that has to deal with anther bank for foreign currency. For amounts of this size, it's worthwhile using a specialist currency conversion company instead. Currency Fair in Ireland is one. It's a peer-to-peer exchange that is generally the best deal (at least for the currency pairs I use). You wire the money to them, do the exchange on their site at a rate that is much closer to 0.5% from the midrate, then the money is transferred out by wire for a few dollars. Adds a few days to the process, but will possibly save you close to US$1000. Another established option is Currency Online in New Zealand. There are probably also specialist currency exchange companies in Hong Kong. The basic rule is, don't let the banks exchange currencies at rates that suit them, use a third party that offers a better rate and lower fees.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
00f127b8e61274eddf0d38aa4ee766d4
Buying a house 50/50
[ { "docid": "49b7553d244543856932b6f64b282728", "text": "This question is really a variation of rent vs buy. Try looking at it this way - If you bought it 50/50 and rented it out, what would you both get? Now, moved in, you are effectively collecting that rent, but half is your own money, half is from the partner. Is the half you are getting the from the partner equal to 1/4 of the mortgage. This sounds convoluted, but once you spell all the numbers out, it would be clear. Without the deal as you present it, you'd be paying the partner to 'live in his half.'", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba2dda2440aab1b0940b723689abe424", "text": "I don't like it using percentages makes no sense. Find out what market value is for rent and pay 1/2 of that to your partner, adjust annually. You partner should be protected from inflation if he is going to invest in real estate.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b2b74b5cd2be5c6afc1c3fe45820c19c", "text": "\"The current mortgaged owner would typically not have the right to sell any portion of the house without approval from the bank. The bank doesn't \"\"own\"\" the house through the mortgage, but they do have a series of rights that, in some cases, look similar to ownership. Remember that a mortgage is just a loan that uses a house as collateral, to reduce the risk to the lender in the event of default. If it was just a personal loan, without collateral, then there would be a much higher risk of default (and therefore the interest rate would be closer to 20% than 2%). But because the loan was taken with collateral, that collateral can't be sold without the bank's permission. If the bank allowed this to happen, then one risk would be exactly as you say - that the mortgagee stops paying the bank, and the bank no longer is able to recover the full value of the loan on selling the remaining 50% of the house owed as collateral.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98b07a3bada1706a14716f012eaff827", "text": "\"Accounting for this properly is not a trivial matter, and you would be wise to pay a little extra to talk with a lawyer and/or CPA to ensure the precise wording. How best to structure such an arrangement will depend upon your particular jurisdiction, as this is not a federal matter - you need someone licensed to advise in your particular state at least. The law of real estate co-ownership (as defined on a deed) is not sufficient for the task you are asking of it - you need something more sophisticated. Family Partnership (we'll call it FP) is created (LLC, LLP, whatever). We'll say April + A-Husband gets 50%, and Sister gets 50% equity (how you should handle ownership with your husband is outside the scope of this answer, but you should probably talk it over with a lawyer and this will depend on your state!). A loan is taken out to buy the property, in this case with all partners personally guaranteeing the loan equally, but the loan is really being taken out by FP. The mortgage should probably show 100% ownership by FP, not by any of you individually - you will only be guaranteeing the loan, and your ownership is purely through the partnership. You and your husband put $20,000 into the partnership. The FP now lists a $20,000 liability to you, and a $20,000 asset in cash. FP buys the $320,000 house (increase assets) with a $300,000 mortgage (liability) and $20,000 cash (decrease assets). Equity in the partnership is $0 right now. The ownership at present is clear. You own 50% of $0, and your sister owns 50% of $0. Where'd your money go?! Simple - it's a liability of the partnership, so you and your husband are together owed $20,000 by the partnership before any equity exists. Everything balances nicely at this point. Note that you should account for paying closing costs the same as you considered the down payment - that money should be paid back to you before any is doled out as investment profit! Now, how do you handle mortgage payments? This actually isn't as hard as it sounds, thanks to the nature of a partnership and proper business accounting. With a good foundation the rest of the building proceeds quite cleanly. On month 1 your sister pays $1400 into the partnership, while you pay $645 into the partnership. FP will record an increase in assets (cash) of $1800, an increase in liability to your sister of $1400, and an increase in liability to you of $645. FP will then record a decrease in cash assets of $1800 to pay the mortgage, with a matching increase in cost account for the mortgage. No net change in equity, but your individual contributions are still preserved. Let's say that now after only 1 month you decide to sell the property - someone makes an offer you just can't refuse of $350,000 dollars (we'll pretend all the closing costs disappeared in buying and selling, but it should be clear how to account for those as I mention earlier). Now what happens? FP gets an increase in cash assets of $350,000, decreases the house asset ($320,000 - original purchase price), and pays off the mortgage - for simplicity let's pretend it's still $300,000 somehow. Now there's $50,000 in cash left in the partnership - who's money is it? By accounting for the house this way, the answer is easily determined. First all investments are paid back - so you get back $20,000 for the down payment, $645 for your mortgage payments so far, and your sister gets back $1400 for her mortgage payment. There is now $27,995 left, and by being equal partners you get to split it - 13,977 to you and your husband and the same amount to your sister (I'm keeping the extra dollar for my advice to talk to a lawyer/CPA). What About Getting To Live There? The fact is that your sister is getting a little something extra out of the deal - she get's the live there! How do you account for that? Well, you might just be calling it a gift. The problem is you aren't in any way, shape, or form putting that in writing, assigning it a value, nothing. Also, what do you do if you want to sell/cash out or at least get rid of the mortgage, as it will be showing up as a debt on your credit report and will effect your ability to secure financing of your own in the future if you decide to buy a house for your husband and yourself? Now this is the kind of stuff where families get in trouble. You are mixing personal lives and business arrangements, and some things are not written down (like the right to occupy the property) and this can really get messy. Would evicting your sister to sell the house before you all go bankrupt on a bad deal make future family gatherings tense? I'm betting it might. There should be a carefully worded lease probably from the partnership to your sister. That would help protect you from extra court costs in trying to determine who has the rights to occupy the property, especially if it's also written up as part of the partnership agreement...but now you are building the potential for eviction proceedings against your sister right into an investment deal? Ugh, what a potential nightmare! And done right, there should probably be some dollar value assigned to the right to live there and use the property. Unless you just want to really gift that to your sister, but this can be a kind of invisible and poorly quantified gift - and those don't usually work very well psychologically. And it also means she's going to be getting an awfully larger benefit from this \"\"investment\"\" than you and your husband - do you think that might cause animosity over dozens and dozens of writing out the check to pay for the property while not realizing any direct benefit while you pay to keep up your own living circumstances too? In short, you need a legal structure that can properly account for the fact that you are starting out in-equal contributors to your scheme, and ongoing contributions will be different over time too. What if she falls on hard times and you make a few of the mortgage payments? What if she wants to redo the bathroom and insists on paying for the whole thing herself or with her own loan, etc? With a properly documented partnership - or equivalent such business entity - these questions are easily resolved. They can be equitably handled by a court in event of family squabble, divorce, death, bankruptcy, emergency liquidation, early sale, refinance - you name it. No percentage of simple co-ownership recorded on a deed can do any of this for you. No math can provide you the proper protection that a properly organized business entity can. I would thus strongly advise you, your husband, and your sister to spend the comparatively tiny amount of extra money to get advice from a real estate/investment lawyer/CPA to get you set up right. Keep all receipts and you can pay a book keeper or the accountant to do end of the year taxes, and answer questions that will come up like how to properly account for things like depreciation on taxes. Your intuition that you should make sure things are formally written up in times when everyone is on good terms is extremely wise, so please follow it up with in-person paid consultation from an expert. And no matter what, this deal as presently structured has a really large built-in potential for heartache as you have three partners AND one of the partners is also renting the property partially from themselves while putting no money down? This has a great potential to be a train wreck, so please do look into what would happen if these went wrong into some more detail and write up in advance - in a legally binding way - what all parties rights and responsibilities are.\"", "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": "6a8e2de27f93330982b24ba00ec571de", "text": "Split the money 50/50. Split the costs 50/50. Prioritize your relationship over a couple of dollars here and there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91efd15284b5feb071813dda505628cb", "text": "I've investigated this, and banks are willing to offer a deal similar to what you ask. You would take out a securities-backed loan, which provides you with the down payment on the property. For the remainder, you take out a regular mortgage. JAGAnalyst wonders why banks would accept this. Simple: because there's money to be made, both on the securities-backed loan and the mortgage. Both parts of the deal are financially sound from the banks perspective. Now, the 20% number is perhaps a bit low. Having 20% of the value in shares means you'd be able to get a loan for 50% of that, so only a 10% downpayment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d93fb5ceb668a6644a34fddd340476ab", "text": "It would be good to know which country you are in? You are basically on the right track with your last point. Usually when you buy your first property you need to come up with a deposit and then borrow the remainder to have enough to purchase the property. In most cases (and most places) the standard percentage of loan to deposit is 80% to 20%. This is expressed as the Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) which in this case would be 80%. (This being the amount of the loan to the value of the property). Some banks and lenders will lend you more than the 80% but this can usually come with extra costs (in Australia the banks charge an extra percentage when you borrow called Loan Mortgage Insurance (LMI) if you borrow over 80% and the LMI gets more expensive the higher LVR you borrow). Also this practice of lending more than 80% LVR has been tightened up since the GFC. So if you are borrowing 80% of the value of the property you will need to come up with the remainder 20% deposit plus the additional closing costs (taxes - in Australia we have to pay Stamp Duty, solicitor or conveyancing fees, loan application fees, building and pest inspection costs, etc.). If you then want to buy a second property you will need to come up with the same deposit and other closing costs again. Most people cannot afford to do this any time soon, especially since the a good majority of the money they used to save before is now going to pay the mortgage and upkeep of your first property (especially if you used to say live with your parents and now live in the property and not rent it out). So what a lot of people do who want to buy more properties is wait until the LVR of the property has dropped to say below 60%. This is achieved by the value of the property going up in value and the mortgage principle being reduced by your mortgage payments. Once you have enough, as you say, collateral or equity in the first property, then you can refinance your mortgage and use this equity in your existing property and the value of the new property you want to buy to basically borrow 100% of the value of the new property plus closing costs. As long as the LVR of the total borrowings versus the value of both properties remains at or below 80% this should be achievable. You can do this in two ways. Firstly you could refinance your first mortgage and borrow up to 80% LVR again and use this additional funds as your deposit and closing costs for the second property, for which you would then get a second mortgage. The second way is to refinance one mortgage over the two properties. The first method is preferred as your mortgages and properties are separated so if something does go wrong you don't have to sell everything up all at once. This process can be quite slow at the start, as you might have to wait a few years to build up equity in one property (especially if you live in it). But as you accumulate more and more properties it becomes easier and quicker to do as your equity will increase quicker with tenants paying a good portion of your costs if not all (if you are positively geared). Of course you do want to be careful if property prices fall (as this may drastically reduce your equity and increase your total LVR or the LVR on individual properties) and have a safety net. For example, I try to keep my LVR to 60% or below, currently they are below 50%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c83e47cb9631f83ce924a41ea510ae86", "text": "\"You are suggesting that a 1% return per month is huge. There are those who suggest that one should assume (a rule of thumb here) that you should assume expenses of half the rent. 6% per year in this case. With a mortgage cost of 4.5% on a rental, you have a forecast profit of 1.5%/yr. that's $4500 on a $300K house. If you buy 20 of these, you'll have a decent income, and a frequently ringing phone. There's no free lunch, rental property can be a full time business. And very lucrative, but it's rarely a slam dunk. In response to OP's comment - First, while I do claim to know finance fairly well, I don't consider myself at 'expert' level when it comes to real estate. In the US, the ratio varies quite a bit from area to area. The 1% (rent) you observe may turn out to be great. Actual repair costs low, long term tenants, rising home prices, etc. Improve the 1.5%/yr to 2% on the 20% down, and you have a 10% return, ignoring appreciation and principal paydown. And this example of leverage is how investors seem to get such high returns. The flip side is bad luck with tenants. An eviction can mean no rent for a few months, and damage that needs fixing. A house has a number of long term replacement costs that good numbers often ignore. Roof, exterior painting, all appliances, heat, AC, etc. That's how that \"\"50% of rent to costs\"\" rule comes into play.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2496a1379b1d804b89bcf3e6c0b4205c", "text": "Sorry, I don't think a bounty is the issue here. You seem to understand LTV means the bank you are talking to will lend you 60% of the value of the home you wish to purchase. You can't take the dollars calculated and simply buy a smaller house. To keep the numbers simple, you can get a $600K mortgage on a $1M house. That's it. You can get a $540K mortgage on a $900K house, etc. Now, 60% LTV is pretty low. It might be what I'd expect for rental property or for someone with bad or very young credit history. The question and path you're on need to change. You should understand that the 'normal' LTV is 80%, and for extra cost, in the form of PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) you can even go higher. As an agent, I just sold a home to a buyer who paid 3% down. The way you originally asked the question has a simple answer. You can't do what you're asking.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca439f4a6582d3c83baf1e7055724e58", "text": "Even post meltdown, there are banks that will lend money based on a low loan to value, so 50% might not be a problem. But such loans come at a price. The current 30 year fixed rated is 4.5% or so, but you might see quite a bit higher than this on the loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8d5c327ce6e719e6a82fda9724475de", "text": "While I agree with the existing bulk of comments and answers that you can't tell the lender the $7k is a gift, I do think you might have luck finding a mortgage broker who can help you get a loan as a group. (You might consider as an LLC or other form of corporation if no one will take you otherwise.) That is, each of you will be an owner of the house and appear on the mortgage. IIRC, as long as the downpayment only comes from the collective group, and the income-to-debt ratio of the group as a whole is acceptable, and the strongest credit rating of the group is good, you should be able to find a loan. (You may need a formal ownership agreement to get this accepted by the lender.) That said, I don't know if your income will trump your brother's situation (presumably high debt ratio or lower than 100% multiplier on his income dues to its source), but it will certainly help. As to how to structure the deal for fairness, I think whatever the two of you agree to and put down in writing is fine. If you each think you're helping the other, than a 50/50 split on profits at the sale of the property seems reasonable to me. I'd recommend that you actually include in your write up a defined maximum period for ownership (e.g. 5yr, or 10yr, etc,) and explain how things will be resolved if one side doesn't want to sell at that point but the other side does. Just remember that whatever percentages you agree to as ownership won't effect the lender's view of payment requirements. The lender will consider each member of the group fully and independently responsible for the loan. That is, if something happens to your brother, or he just flakes out on you, you will be on the hook for 100% of the loan. And vice-versa. Your write up ought to document what happens if one of you flakes out on paying agreed upon amounts, but still expects there ownership share at the time of sale. That said, if you're trying to be mathematically fair about apportioning ownership, you could do something like the below to try and factor in the various issues into the money flow: The above has the benefit that you can start with a different ownership split (34/66, 25/75, etc.) if one of you wants to own more of the property.", "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": "9cb8d2713786a67c691618f992ccd148", "text": "The assumption that house value appreciates 5% per year is unrealistic. Over the very long term, real house prices has stayed approximately constant. A house that is 10 years old today is 11 years old a year after, so this phenomenon of real house prices staying constant applies only to the market as a whole and not to an individual house, unless the individual house is maintained well. One house is an extremely poorly diversified investment. What if the house you buy turns out to have a mold problem? You can lose your investment almost overnight. In contrast to this, it is extremely unlikely that the same could happen on a well-diversified stock portfolio (although it can happen on an individual stock). Thus, if non-leveraged stock portfolio has a nominal return of 8% over the long term, I would demand higher return, say 10%, from a non-leveraged investment to an individual house because of the greater risks. If you have the ability to diversify your real estate investments, a portfolio of diversified real estate investments is safer than a diversified stock portfolio, so I would demand a nominal return of 6% over the long term from such a diversified portfolio. To decide if it's better to buy a house or to live in rental property, you need to gather all of the costs of both options (including the opportunity cost of the capital which you could otherwise invest elsewhere). The real return of buying a house instead of renting it comes from the fact that you do not need to pay rent, not from the fact that house prices tend to appreciate (which they won't do more than inflation over a very long term). For my case, I live in Finland in a special case of near-rental property where you pay 15% of the building cost when moving in (and get the 15% payment back when moving out) and then pay a monthly rent that is lower than the market rent. The property is subsidized by government-provided loans. I have calculated that for my case, living in this property makes more sense than purchasing a market-priced house, but your situation may be different.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6df9282dbf866387ec766e5cdbf9b750", "text": "I don't have a solid data-backed answer, but this is too lengthy for a comment. I've read that on average, about 1-2% is what you can get as a cash discount on a home purchase, all else being equal, but no hard data to back that. In certain situations it makes sense for a cash discount to be much greater than that, for instance, if the seller is in a hurry to close and your cash offer has no inspection clause. Similarly, if a house has been re-listed after a sale fell through you might get a greater cash-discount, or if an owner just over-values the advantages of a cash-offer. Anecdotally, I had a neighbor take a cash offer 5% below asking and they had multiple offers at asking, they took the cash offer so they could close faster (15 days). Also, I've lost out to a cash offer, also at 5% below asking, and they also had a short-closing period and no-inspection, my offer was over asking on that one, so total cash discount > 5%. There can be more volatility in the luxury home market, but I wouldn't guess that changes the cash vs financed evaluation much. Would love to see if anyone finds a good source, but even if they do, an average is only so helpful.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b9d593b1a04755bdf0903d4018edc79", "text": "Presumably this house is a great deal for you for some reason if you are willing to go to great lengths such as these to acquire it. I suggest you have your father purchase the house with cash, then you purchase the house from him. You might want to discuss this with the title company, it's possible that there are some fees that they will waive if you close both sales through them in a short period of time. If the home will appraise for a higher amount than purchase, then you may be able to get a mortgage without a significant down-payment. If not, then you will need to owe your father at least the amount of the down-payment at closing time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b290e20dbb771f105b217af25c83024", "text": "You and your husband are fronting all the money upfront. I'm guessing this will cost you around 67,000 once closing costs and fees are included. So obviously you would be hundred percent owners at the beginning. You'll then pay 31% of the mortgage and have your sister pay the remaining 69%. This puts your total investment at the end at 67k + 74.4k + 31% of interest accrued, and your sisters total investment at 165.6k+69% of interest accrued. If you hold the full length of the mortgage, your sister will have invested much more than you( assuming 30 year fixed rate, and 3.75%, she'd pay 116.6k in interest as opposed to your 49.6k) She will have spent 282.2k and y'all will have spent 191k. However if you sell early, your percentage could be much higher. These calculations don't take into account the opportunity cost of fronting all the cash. It could be earning you more in the stock market or in a different investment property. Liability also could be an issue in the case of her not being able to pay. The bank can still come after you for the whole amount. Lastly and most importantly, this also doesn't include the fact that she will be living there and y'all will not. What kind of rent would she be paying to live in a similar home? If it is more than 1400, you will basically be subsidizing her living, as well as tying up funds, and increasing your risk exposure. If it is more than 1400, she shouldn't be any percent owner.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3b80a6b371dfaf68db82677c58a11c59
Are American Eagle $20 gold coins considered “securities”, requiring dealers to be licensed to sell them as such?
[ { "docid": "f8fc26829c721659c31dd9dcad24000b", "text": "No. Securities brokers/dealers in the United States are licensed to broker debt and equity in corporations. (There are additional, commodities licenses to broker derivatives.) $20 American Eagle coins, or any other type of physical currency or physical precious metals can be traded or brokered by anyone without a specific license (except maybe a sales tax registration). The only situation where a securities license would be required is if a legal entity is holding the coins and you deal/broker an interest in that legal entity. For example, dealing in SPDR Gold Shares or a similar structure holding either physical assets or the right to purchase those assets (like a commodity pool) would require a securities and/or commodities dealing license.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3080c79cd27b9f11931ebb9fee6ad440", "text": "And just as easily, someone could find a reason for such a derivative to exist. Let's say I'm a vendor of memorabilia for a given sports team, but unlike most vendors I'm only a vendor for a particular team. Given that there is a large lead time between orders placed and memorabilia received (perhaps on the order of a month between order and receipt), it is inherently risky to order large orders towards the end of a season. However, if they're going to be in the playoffs, there's a huge opportunity to sell, but if they don't, you'd be left with tons of surplus inventory. So, wouldn't it be handy for there to be a way to hedge that risk? We've actually seen times when such things aren't unreasonable. Large risks are [hedged away](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303877604577380593015786140.html), even in sports.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b30ca28a9511d1c987202b799849f608", "text": "\"The fact that your shares are of a Canadian-listed corporation (as indicated in your comment reply) and that you are located in the United States (as indicated in your bio) is highly relevant to answering the question. The restriction for needing to be a \"\"qualified institutional buyer\"\" (QIB) arises from the parent company not having registered the spin-off company rights [options] or shares (yet?) for sale in the United States. Shares sold in the U.S. must either be registered with the SEC or qualify for some exemption. See SEC Fast Answers - Securities Act Rule 144. Quoting: Selling restricted or control securities in the marketplace can be a complicated process. This is because the sales are so close to the interests of the issuing company that the law might require them to be registered. Under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, all offers and sales of securities must be registered with the SEC or qualify for some exemption from the registration requirements. [...] There are regulations to follow and costs involved in such registration. Perhaps the rights [options] themselves won't ever be registered (as they have a very limited lifetime), while the listed shares might be? You could contact investor relations at the parent company for more detail. (If I guessed the company correctly, there's detail in this press release. Search the text for \"\"United States\"\".)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b7262dc2ce7e8c5af516b49b75cc613", "text": "\"There are a few people that do this for a living. They are called \"\"market makers\"\" or \"\"specialists\"\" in a particular stock. First of all, this requires a lot of capital. You can get burned on a few trades, a process known as \"\"gambler's ruin,\"\" but if you have enough capital to weather the storm, you can make money. Second, you have to be \"\"licensed\"\" by the stock market authorities, because you need to have stock market trading experience and other credentials. Third, you are not allowed to buy and sell at will. In order to do your job, you have to \"\"balance the boat,\"\" that is buy, when others are selling, and sell, when others are buying, in order to keep the market moving in two directions. It's a tough job that requires a lot of experience, plus a license, but a few people can make a living doing this.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27c36d33072f1f3c03abebb2b95e40c9", "text": "\"Yes. \"\"There is, ...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.\"\" Taken from the US Department of the Treasury.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ce3fbd446013c0224cc90bf725238b8d", "text": "Probably. It sounds like you're looking for a 1031-exchange for stocks and bonds. From the wikipedia page for 1031-exchanges: To qualify for Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, the properties exchanged must be held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment. Stocks, bonds, and other properties are listed as expressly excluded by Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, though securitized properties are not excluded. 1031-exchanges usually are applicable in real estate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f5aa4bf9c5d5c637dc8bbb26315ae07a", "text": "\"It's not consistent across the states. Most states have some implementation of these functions but fully regulated states don't have all of them and many are \"\"functions\"\" but are owned by the same entity. Look at the southeast, the rockies, the PNW, AZ there are zero or few opportunities for merchant anything.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06347da072b82d84f07b4c9d441f3931", "text": "Assuming US,but the principles apply in many (not all) places: If the bills are legitimate and issued by the federal government, they're legal tender and you can spend or deposit them. Old bills, especially silver certificates, may be worth more than their face value to collectors (or may not). Bills issued by banks, by the confederate states, or something like that have only collector's value (which will vary depending on exactly what they are and their condition). The value of money from another country will depend on the issuing country and exchange rates, of course. There's nothing wrong with windfall cash. The IRS may ask some nosy questions about it to make sure you aren't trying to hide something, but if you aren't deliberately trying to cheat them or hide something illegal that's generally harmless at worst.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5adcb66b7facb23889a1bb9856a5e2d9", "text": "\"It sounds like maybe you want an \"\"investment club\"\". As defined by the SEC: An investment club is a group of people who pool their money to make investments. Usually, investment clubs are organized as partnerships and, after the members study different investments, the group decides to buy or sell based on a majority vote of the members. Club meetings may be educational and each member may actively participate in investment decisions. These \"\"typically\"\" do not need to register: Investment clubs usually do not have to register, or register the offer and sale of their own membership interests, with the SEC. But since each investment club is unique, each club should decide if it needs to register and comply with securities laws. There's more information from the SEC here: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/invclub.htm The taxes depend on how you organized the club, i.e. if you organize as a partnership, I believe that you will be taxed as a partnership. (Not 100% sure.) Some online brokerages have special accounts specifically for investment clubs. Check around.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1fb0823ce32c596a1f3590d7c2e7c0c", "text": "For Canada No distinction is made in the regulation between “naked” or “covered” short sales. However, the practice of “naked” short selling, while not specifically enumerated or proscribed as such, may violate other provisions of securities legislation or self-regulatory organization rules where the transaction fails to settle. Specifically, section 126.1 of the Securities Act prohibits activities that result or contribute “to a misleading appearance of trading activity in, or an artificial price for, a security or derivative of a security” or that perpetrate a fraud on any person or company. Part 3 of National Instrument 23-101 Trading Rules contains similar prohibitions against manipulation and fraud, although a person or company that complies with similar requirements established by a recognized exchange, quotation and trade reporting system or regulation services provider is exempt from their application. Under section 127(1) of the Securities Act, the OSC also has a “public interest jurisdiction” to make a wide range of orders that, in its opinion, are in the public interest in light of the purposes of the Securities Act (notwithstanding that the subject activity is not specifically proscribed by legislation). The TSX Rule Book also imposes certain obligations on its “participating organizations” in connection with trades that fail to settle (see, for example, Rule 5-301 Buy-Ins). In other words, shares must be located by the broker before they can be sold short. A share may not be locatable because there are none available in the broker's inventory, that it cannot lend more than what it has on the books for trade. A share may not be available because the interest rate that brokers are charging to borrow the share is considered too high by that broker, usually if it doesn't pass on borrowing costs to the customer. There could be other reasons as well. If one broker doesn't have inventory, another might. I recommend checking in on IB's list. If they can't get it, my guess would be that no one can since IB passes on the cost to finance short sales.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "434de37fd30d2297aa6e78c13433dd39", "text": "The price for securities is negotiable. You totally have a right to make a lower offer when buying or ask for a higher price when selling. Securities don't trade at a fixed price, the price goes up and down throughout the day based on the price offers made by buyers and sellers and where they find agreement. If a stock last traded for $10, someone can put out an offer to buy the stock at $9.50, if they find someone who wants to sell and will accept that price, then a deal is made. unless something is falling rapidly in price however, an offer that far below the last price is not terribly likely to be accepted. Now if you want to be assured of making a sale or purchase, you generally trade 'at the market' and for small time players that is very much encouraged as it makes it easier for everyone.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "584bd446fe497404fff91a9215141feb", "text": "\"Apartment complexes have had a long history of not accepting cash for payment of rent. This eliminates the problem of robbery and strongly reduces the risks of embezzlement. THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution states: No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts Previous editions of banknotes stated that the notes were redeemable in gold or in lawful money. The Mint Act of 1792 set gold and silver as legal currency (and that one did not have to accept \"\"base metal coins\"\" for more than $10 which is why coin rolls only go up to $10). The Coinage Act of 1873 dropped silver and made gold the legal standard for currency. In 1933, the \"\"redeemable in gold\"\" was changed by federal statute and the legend you mention was added. Prior to 1933, someone could demand that you pay them in gold and not with a bank note. Legislation in 1933 ended that. This clause in the Constitution leads some political groups to wish to return to a gold standard. I recommend reading the book Greenback as it describes how our currency got the way it did and why that clause appears on currency.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afddbbed11db47d06d77751f3d76f112", "text": "\"And you have hit the nail on the head of holding gold as an alternative to liquid currency. There is simply no way to reliably buy and sell physical gold at the spot price unless you have millions of dollars. Exhibit A) The stock symbol GLD is an ETF backed by gold. Its shares are redeemable for gold if you have more than 100,000 shares then you can be assisted by an \"\"Authorized Participant\"\". Read the fund's details. Less than 100,000 shares? no physical gold for you. With GLD's share price being $155.55 this would mean you need to have over 15 million dollars, and be financially solvent enough to be willing to exchange the liquidity of shares and dollars for illiquid gold, that you wouldn't be able to sell at a fair price in smaller denominations. The ETF trades at a different price than the gold spot market, so you technically are dealing with a spread here too. Exhibit B) The futures market. Accepting delivery of a gold futures contract also requires that you get 1000 units of the underlying asset. This means 1000 gold bars which are currently $1,610.70 each. This means you would need $1,610,700 that you would be comfortable with exchanging for gold bars, which: In contrast, securitized gold (gold in an ETF, for instance) can be hedged very easily, and one can sell covered calls to negate transaction fees, hedge, and collect dividends from the fund. quickly recuperating any \"\"spread tax\"\" that you encounter from opening the position. Also, leverage: no bank would grant you a loan to buy 4 to 20 times more gold than you can actually afford, but in the stock market 4 - 20 times your account value on margin is possible and in the futures market 20 times is pretty normal (\"\"initial margin and maintenance margin\"\"), effectively bringing your access to the spot market for physical gold more so within reach. caveat emptor.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22b4698b41a63d0eb71f71fefe874e94", "text": "Gold is not legal tender. I can't walk into Walmart and buy groceries with 1/20 ounce of gold. I can't buy a TV or car with gold. And you can't *buy* money--that's not how it works. I can sell a barrel of oil or a whatever of copper in any currency, but that doesn't make either of them currencies in and of themselves.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a3397cd7662ba48d3e675a92d3cc91e", "text": "\"First of all, it is absolutely **not** constitutional for any branch of the US government to outsource its primary functions to a private corporation. But, more to your point, the constitution provides that \"\"no state shall make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.\"\" They will argue that Federal Reserve notes are unbacked, that taxes are voluntary, that Washington D.C. is not a state, that the FED is not private, or even (sometimes) that the gold standard is still in force. But each of those is contradicted by their actions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d2fd0c45caf45fe21db06971a5f4f8b", "text": "At one point it was illegal to melt silver coins in the US, but it is legal now. I don't know that will happen with copper coins, but that's what happened with silver coins. Accumulating nickels and leaving them as-is (in their spendable state) is legal. It's also a way to take physical ownership of copper. I expect to see more sales of nickels based on weight. People are already selling high-copper-content cents on eBay, by weight. There are machines in production that sort the zinc ones from the copper ones. Gresham's Law has small business backing. ;) Copper cents are already worth twice their face value in the copper content. Nickels will get up there, too. They are awfully heavy and bulky relative to their value, though. Precious metals give you better bang for your ounce.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
fc99392a50f6c0bcb7e1bedeb75920e3
Won an incentive trip in 2013, left employer in 2014, received an earning statement with no cash but a huge tangible bonus listed
[ { "docid": "173677a1d78c4e8a90b0be22dec7361e", "text": "\"I had experience working for a company that manufactures stuff and giving products to the employees. The condition was to stay employed for a year after the gift for the company to cover its cost (I think they imputed the tax), otherwise they'd add the cost to the last paycheck (which they did when I left). But they were straight-forward about it and I signed a paper acknowledging it. However, in your case you didn't get a product (that you could return when leaving if you didn't want to pay), but rather a service. The \"\"winning\"\" trip was definitely supposed to be reported as income to you last year. Is it okay for them to treat me differently than the others for tax purposes? Of course not. But it may be that some strings were attached to the winning of the incentive trip (for example, you're required to stay employed for X time for the company to cover the expense). See my example above. Maybe it was buried somewhere in small letters. Can they do this a year after the trip was won and redeemed? As I said - in this case this sounds shady. Since it is a service which you cannot return - you should have been taxed on it when receiving it. Would the IRS want to know about this fuzzy business trip practice? How would I report it? Here's how you can let them know. Besides now understanding the new level of slime from my former employer is there anything else I should be worried about? Could they do something like this every year just to be annoying? No, once they issued the last paycheck - you're done with them. They cannot issue you more paychecks after you're no longer an employee. In most US States, you are supposed to receive the last paycheck on your last day of work, or in very close proximity (matter of weeks at most).\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1e5a296417919a3349a32bef497bbb96", "text": "\"The company itself doesn't benefit. In most cases, it's an expense as the match that many offer is going to cost the company some percent of salary. As Mike said, it's part of the benefit package. Vacation, medical, dental, cafeteria plans (i.e. both flexible spending and dependent care accounts, not food), stock options, employee stock purchase plans, defined contribution or defined benefit pension, and the 401(k) or 403(b) for teachers. Each and all of these are what one should look at when looking at \"\"total compensation\"\". You allude to the lack of choices in the 401(k) compared to other accounts. Noted. And that lack of choice should be part of your decision process as to how you choose to invest for retirement. If the fess/selection is bad enough, you need to be vocal about it and request a change. Bad choices + no match, and maybe the account should be avoided, else just deposit to the match. Note - Keith thanks for catching and fixing one typo, I just caught another.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7580d0f09609a37a313d9980cfe14a7c", "text": "\"Daniel covered the correct way to file on the returns, I'm chiming in specifically to discuss the question of whether it could be a gift. The IRS will classify it as a tip even if the person giving it says it's a gift if a service was rendered before the gift was given. The only way that you could make a case to the IRS that it was a gift is if you have a personal relationship outside of the working environment, and the person giving the gift provides an explanation for the motivation behind the gift. Such explanations as \"\"Happy Birthday\"\" or \"\"Congratulations on graduating\"\" or other special occasions could be gifts. But \"\"you did a good job, and I just want to reward you for your effort\"\" is not a reason someone gives a gift, and the IRS will penalize you if you do not have evidence that it was a gift rather than a tip.\"", "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": "bc68bf29ee70f19bc49ab14d949dcf92", "text": "Indeed the IRS publication references the 3-6 year time span. And no limit for fraud. But. I get a notice that some stock I owned 10 years ago has a settlement pending, and the records of this stock purchase and sale would potentially get me back some money. I get my Social Security statement (the one they stopped sending, but this was before then) and I see the 1995 income shows zero. Both of these were easily resolved with my returns going all the way back, and my brokerage statement as well. For the brokerage, I recently started downloading all statements as PDFs, and storing a copy away from home. Less concerned about the bank statements as I've never had an issue where I'd need them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a26bb55527db0130404492b1c747d7b", "text": "\"This article is bogus. There may be companies where you would experience what the author describes, but it's not true where I work (I manage a department of 54 in a megacompany with 350k employees worldwide). \"\"The books are cooked. Corporate boards must approve labor budgets, raises, and bonuses pretty early in the calendar year. \"\" It's true that the total department budget is set, for example, by June. You might take 4% of everyone's salaries and reserve that for raises to be allocated in the future. That doesn't mean everyone gets 4% increase, though. Some may not be eligible for increase--for example, if they've been there for 6 months or less. Some may underperform, meaning they get 2% or 0%. And some may exceed expectations, so they get 6%. Performance definitely matters. \"\"Nobody knows how to talk about performance.\"\" Well, that's quite a blanket statement, isn't it? True, it's /difficult/ to talk about a person's performance. And there's certainly room for managers to improve /their/ performance and ability to give feedback. But I've had plenty of bosses that know how to give good feedback and do so throughout the year (not just a year-end). I also believe that I'm pretty good at it--at least my employees have indicated that I'm improving :) \"\"Unfortunately, you are not as fabulous as the executives in your company. Large bonuses are given at the top, which means that someone needs to be held accountable. Even if you've met and exceeded your goals for the year, that someone is you.\"\" I'm not even sure how to respond to that one. The author needs some holiday cheer, I think. Large bonuses are given at the top, true. What does that have to do with a not-at-the-top employee's accountability? The points don't seem to be related. \"\"Managers really love forced ranking.\"\" Not true. Forced ranking sucks, isn't fun and is difficult. I believe good managers care for all of their employees. (Bad managers are something else altogether...) \"\"Even if you rock, there isn't much money to go around\"\" The first accurate sentence in the article, woohoo! However, the author doesn't take into account at all that money isn't everything. Surveys of what motivates employees consistently shows that money isn't number one. Things like having a challenging job and working on important products usually come out over dollars-and-cents. And hey, we've built a real crappy economy. What do you expect? \"\"As you participate in the end-of-year performance management process, the best thing you can do is to stay neutral, remain dispassionate, and be quiet.\"\" I really take issue with this statement. DON'T DO THAT (please). Use the opportunity you have with your boss to discuss her or his expectations and what you can change so that you meet them or exceed them. If you're already exceeding expectations, ask how you can take on new work, how you can contribute to the welfare of your fellow employees. This is how you get ahead. \"\"Nobody really gets rich, anymore, from being a regular employee.\"\" Getting rich depends on how you spend and save, not so much on how much you make.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b877f4c1933e4e70b58b8050cf5d160", "text": "You already received a tax deduction, more or less, as you didn't pay tax on this income. Beyond that, no; the money is lost if you don't spend it. See this explanation for example, among many others; it's specific to FSA, but they work generally the same way. To go into a bit more detail, read the IRS publication on the subject; basically, what's happening here is that you're receiving a fringe benefit, rather than salary. So yes, you agreed to voluntarily reduce your salary by $255 or whatever per month in exchange for funds in this account. As such, they're nontaxable, which both your employer and you find helpful; but the downside is it's not really your money - it's a fringe benefit. Nice that it's tax free, and dissimilar to a medical or dependent care FSA, it doesn't have an expiration date; but it does go away when you leave your employer, and you don't get it back. It's money you never had.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fe82b5a5fe49e5cbba23b29f4fee54e", "text": "\"I have a quick question about statement of cash flows and how Account Receivable (Net) and Prepaids affect it (I've already asked the accounting subreddit but was wondering if anyone who does fundamental analysis etc would have a take on it). It stems from a homework problem where I have to reconstruct a cash flow statement using two comparative balance sheets (end of period 2013 and end of period 2014) and a change in retained earnings statement. The following transaction took place in 2014 \"\"The firm wrote off accounts receivable as uncollectible totaling $16,300 in 2013 and $18,500 in 2014. It recognized expired insurance of $4,100 in 2013 and $3,900 in 2014.\"\" My understanding is that the write offs have already been subtracted in order to yield Account Receivable (Net) and therefore I can just take the change in that account and make the appropriate entry. For the recognition of expired insurance I can simply take the change in the Prepayment account and record the appropriate cash flow entry. Am I correct in assuming this? Or did they give me those amounts in order to figure out Accounts Receivable (Gross) and take the change in that?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60133db85fa32dcba648d638d9e7cc85", "text": "Your withholding is taken out of your pay. So if you do YTD+withholding - you count the withholding twice, that's why it doesn't add up for you. The simple answer is to check your written contract/offer letter. See if it matches what you see, or what you expected to see. If the offer/contract states $36K - check with the payroll person at work why the discrepancy. If you don't have any written proof of the agreed amounts (don't know if it is legal, check local laws on the requirements of documenting employment terms), then it is up to you and your employer to sort it out. However, keep in mind: if you don't have any written proof and the employer is unwilling to adjust - one (judge?) would wonder: you've been getting paychecks monthly, which clearly state that your annual salary is $35K. Why did you wait so long to sort this out?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ad5b8a7665f87f4c1a7685590461e7f", "text": "This is tax fraud, plain and simple. I recently wrote an article The Step Transaction Doctrine, in which I explain that a series of events may each be legal, but aggregate to one transaction and the individual steps are ignored. In this case, it goes beyond that, by accepting $5/mo you are already outside the tax code. As littleadv noted, you can't work for a legitimate business for free and not expect to have some kind of issue. The $14K/yr gift isn't a bona fide gift, but ties to that work.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1f69580b17dd1e0f0938967cdcd6d0f", "text": "\"Did I do anything wrong by cashing a check made out to \"\"trustee of <401k plan> FBO \"\", and if so how can I fix it? I thought I was just getting a termination payout of the balance. Yes, you did. It was not made to you, and you were not supposed to even be able to cash it. Both you and your bank made a mistake - you made a mistake by depositing a check that doesn't belong to you, and the bank made a mistake by allowing you to deposit a check that is not made out to you to your personal account. How do I handle the taxes I owe on the payout, given that I had a tax-free 1099 two years ago and no 1099 now? It was not tax free two years ago. It would have been tax free if you would forward it to the entity to which the check was intended - since that would not be you. But you didn't do that. As such, there was no withdrawal two years ago, and I believe the 401k plan is wrong to claim otherwise. You did however take the money out in 2014, and it is fully taxable to you, including penalties. You should probably talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). My personal (and unprofessional) opinion is that you didn't withdraw the money in 2012 since the check was not made out to you and the recipient never got it. You did withdraw money in 2014 since that's when you actually got the money (even if by mistake). As such, I'd report this withdrawal on the 2014 tax return. However, as I said, I'm not a professional and not licensed to provide tax advice, so this is my opinion only. I strongly suggest you talk to a licensed tax adviser to get a proper opinion and guidance on the matter. If it is determined that the withdrawal was indeed in 2012, then you'll have to amend the 2012 tax return, report the additional income and pay the additional tax (+interest and probably underpayment penalty).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91cf909bdaa2962c76122f5cb8f29386", "text": "\"In the normal course of events, you should receive a separate check for the amount of the purchase, and that amount should not be included in your wages as shown on your W-2 statement. If the amount is included on your paycheck, it should still be listed separately as a non-taxable item, not as part of wages paid. In other words, the IRS should not even be aware that this money was paid to you, there is no need to list the amount anywhere on your income tax return, and if you are paranoid about the matter, staple the stub attached to the reimbursement to a copy of your bank statement showing that you deposited the money into your account and save it in your file of tax papers for the year, just in case the IRS audits you and requires you to document every deposit in your checking account. The amount is a business expense that is deductible on your employer's tax return, and your employer is also required to keep documentation that the employee expense reimbursement plan is running as per IRS rules (i.e., the employer is not slipping money to you \"\"under the table\"\" as a reimbursement instead of paying you wages and thus avoiding the employer's share of FICA taxes etc) and that is why your employer needs the store receipt, not a hand-written note from you, to show the IRS if the IRS asks. You said you paid with \"\"your own cash\"\" but in case this was not meant literally and you paid via credit card or debit card or check, then any mileage award, or points, or cash back for credit card use are yours to keep tax-free, and any interest charges (if you are carrying a revolving balance or paid through your HELOC) or overdraft or bounced check fees are yours to pay.\"", "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": "4b0d18312b23a3ac8eacafac641a4c03", "text": "\"As the comments above have been trying to get across, the prospective employer is offering to pay you for the bonus/unvested compensation that you would be losing by jumping ship right now to go work for them. They are not offering to buy any securities that you already hold, regardless of whether they're profitable or unprofitable. Example 1. You participate in your current company's 401(k), and your company matches your contributions at 50%. However, the matching funds are not yours immediately; they vest in 20%/year increments until you have been at the company for 5 years. Let's say you've been there for 3 years and have contributed $50K to the plan. Your company has matched you at $25K, but only 60% of that ($15K) has vested. If you leave right now for the new employer, you're leaving $10K behind. So the new employer might offer to \"\"buy out\"\" (i.e. pay you) that $10K to help encourage you to switch now. You might then counter their offer by pointing out that if you stay where you are that $10K is coming to you tax-deferred, whereas their $10K signing bonus would be taxed. So you ask for $15K instead. Example 2. You work for a Wall Street investment bank. Each December you receive a performance bonus. Since you began working there, your three yearly bonuses have been (in chronological order) $500K, $750K, and $1M. It's June, so you've worked halfway towards your next bonus. You have a lot of incentive to NOT leave your current employer. A competing employer may offer to \"\"buy you out\"\" of your anticipated bonus by giving you a $1.25M signing bonus (since you'd almost certainly not be eligible for a performance bonus during your first year there). You might negotiate with them and say \"\"I'm on track for $2M this year\"\", and then they would figure out if you're really worth that much to them. So you can see this all has to do with the prospective employer trying to compensate you for any income you're already counting on receiving from your current employer. By jumping ship now you would be foregoing that guaranteed/expected income, so the competitor wants to remove that anchor that might be holding you back from making the move. Stocks/options that you already own are irrelevant to the prospective employer. Since you wouldn't be giving those up by changing jobs, there's no reason for them to factor into the equation.\"", "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": "e62663c9c9db3037afa8721991aebb8d", "text": "I guess that means I should be making about $250k a year right now. I've been at my company for 16 years. The wage and profit sharing program beat the market wages in my area by a wide margin. Not all companies are interested in screwing their employees.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
63877ffc3a8ed48713c4da47f4db1c59
What is the contribution limit for a SEP-IRA?
[ { "docid": "5e02604ba9a683a904508ddc6fb0142a", "text": "\"Both are saying essentially the same thing. The Forbes articles says \"\"as much as 20% [...] up to a maximum of $50,000\"\". This means the same as what the IRS page when it says the lesser of a percentage of your income or a total of $53,000. In other words, the $53k is a cap: you can contribute a percentage of your earnings, but you can never contribute more than $53k, even if you make so much money that 20% of your earnings would be more than that. (The difference between 20% and 25% in the two sources appears to reflect a difference in contribution limits depending on whether you are making contributions for employees, or for yourself as a self-employed individual; see Publication 560. The difference between $50k and $53k is due to the two pages being written in different years; the limits increase each year.)\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "37bf7a313c044228098e096f44d928e1", "text": "I found this website for some ammo if you need it. For plans with less than 100 participants the limit is 7 days after deduction from your paycheck, though an extension is possible with some paperwork. A DOL audit would probably land your employer in some trouble if they are regularly taking 4 weeks to deposit your funds in the 401k account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee9ec3cf0e095eca0867b554e25a864e", "text": "\"If you have wage income that is reported on a W2 form, you can contribute the maximum of your wages, what you can afford, or $5500 in a Roth IRA. One advantage of this is that the nominal amounts you contribute can always be removed without tax consequences, so a Roth IRA can be a deep emergency fund (i.e., if the choice is $2000 in cash as emergency fund or $2000 in cash in a 2015 Roth IRA contribution, choice 2 gives you more flexibility and optimistic upside at the risk of not being able to draw on interest/gains until you retire or claim losses on your tax return). If you let April 15 2016 pass by without making a Roth IRA contribution, you lose the 2015 limit forever. If you are presently a student and partially employed, you are most likely in the lowest marginal tax rate you will be in for decades, which utilizes the Roth tax game effectively. If you're estimating \"\"a few hundred\"\", then what you pick as an investment is going to be less important than making the contributions. That is, you can pick any mutual fund that strikes your fancy and be prepared to gain or lose, call it $50/year (or pick a single stock and be prepared to lose it all). At some point, you need to understand your emotions around volatility, and the only tuition for this school is taking a loss and having the presence of mind to examine any panic responses you may have. No reason not to learn this on \"\"a few hundred\"\". While it's not ideal to have losses in a Roth, \"\"a few hundred\"\" is not consequential in the long run. If you're not prepared at this time in your life for the possibility of losing it all (or will need the money within a year or few, as your edit suggests), keep it in cash and try to reduce your expenses to contribute more. Can you contribute another $100? You will have more money at the end of the year than investment choice will likely return.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fabef76eede8dc4c8f8152a62aeebdec", "text": "Are the $18,000 401k 2017 limit and the $5,500 IRA limit mutually exclusive for a combined limit of $23,500 (under 49)? Yes, but the amount that you can deduct from a traditional IRA depends on your gross income and marital status - See publication 590-A for details. Also note that the limit applies to your combined traditional and Roth IRA contributions (meaning you can't contribute $5,500 to both; just a total of $5,500 between the two). I'm also assuming employee match $ count towards these limits - is this correct No - the limit for combined contributions between you and your employer is $54,000 in 2017. So if you contribute $18,000 your employer can only contribute $36,000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b58b90a49e0b20b9bd0d2f12d025d018", "text": "\"How will contribution limits rise? Contribution limits are raised based on COLA. COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) is a number based on CPI (Consumer Price Index) which is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The IRS publishes these limits annually and a simple search term to find them each year is \"\"415 limits\"\" because section 415 lists how much the various qualified plans can set aside each year. CPI is a heavily managed and very political number. It is the number that is cited when the media talks about \"\"inflation.\"\" Since it drives increases in salaries, deductions, Social Security and pension payments, there is very heavy pressure to keep the number smaller than it really is. My next step was to calculate how long that money will last One traditional rule-of-thumb is to withdraw 4% of your balance each year. Another alternative is to purchase annuities. While younger people think that annuities are horrible investments, they appeal to older people because they protect the annuitant from excessive risk of losing your capital. When you are 30, and another 2008 comes along wiping out half your savings, you have time to re-earn that money. When you are 60, and another 2008 comes along wiping out half your savings, you have very few years to recover that money. So an annuity pushes that risk onto insurance companies. If you think you will die in your 90s, then an annuity is going to be a good investment (the insurance company will be betting that you won't be living that long). I have a simple spreadsheet that I use to calculate estimated projected balances and compare them to actual performance. Don't forget that when you reach 50, the amount you can contribute goes up due to \"\"catch up contributions.\"\" There are 2 views of the same tab in this picture. There are 3 growth rates: pessimistic, nominal and optimistic. You can change the numbers to suit your own projections of future growth. Other tabs on this spreadsheet include measurements of actual performance by my 401k and IRA accounts. At the end of the year, I replace the numbers in columns F, G & H with the actual end-of-year dollar amounts. This way, future estimates do not get too far unhinged from reality. If you need more sophisticated planning, such as Monte Carlo analysis to attempt to cope with inflation, I recommend the book Engineering Your Retirement. The book is aimed at younger engineers, so there is a bit more math than the average person would want.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b109fdeeaa6932d906b448179de638fa", "text": "Yes, eligibility for contributing to a Roth IRA is determined by your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) which is based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Now, AGI includes the net capital gains from your transactions and MAGI adds back in things that were subtracted off (e.g. tuition deductions, foreign earned income exclusion) in arriving at the AGI. There is a worksheet in Publication 590 that has the details. You are always entitled to contribute to a Traditional IRA. The MAGI affects how much of your contribution is tax-deductible on that year's tax return, but not your eligibility to contribute. Both the above paragraphs assume that you have enough compensation (wages, salary, self-employment income) to contribute to an IRA: the contribution limit is $5500 or total compensation, whichever is smaller. (If you earned only $2K as wages, you can contribute all of it; not just your take-home pay which is what is left after Social Security and Medicare taxes, Federal taxes etc have been withheld from that $2K). If your entire income is from capital gains and stock dividends, you cannot contribute to any kind of IRA at all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96b99a04d53ca89aba986c32e6a62ad2", "text": "\"IRA contribution must be from your earned income in the sense that you cannot contribute to IRA more than you have in earned income. If all your income is capital gains - you cannot contribute anything to IRA. Once you're within the income limit restriction, it doesn't matter what other money you have, because as you said - once in your account, its all just money. But what you're describing is basically \"\"I deposit $850 from my salary into an IRA and then go pay for my gas with the $850 I have from the capital gains\"\", so you're not paying any less taxes here. If it makes you feel any better, you can describe it to yourself the way you did. It doesn't really matter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97cf05dfe3028c0d5c154cf84ef6da1e", "text": "Adding to the excellent answers already given, we typically advise members to contribute as much as needed to get a full employer match in their 401K, but not more. We then redirect any additional savings to a traditional IRA or ROTH IRA (depending on their age, income, and future plans). Only once they've exhausted the $5000 maximum in their IRA will we look at putting more money into the 401K. The ROTH IRA is a beautiful and powerful vehicle for savings. The only reason to consider taking money out of the ROTH is in a case of serious catastrophe.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b094f1270094c90abc105c28a7c6899d", "text": "I know in the instance that if my MAGI exceeds a certain point, I can not contribute the maximum to the Roth IRA; a traditional IRA and subsequent backdoor is the way to go. My understanding is that if you ever want to do a backdoor Roth, you don't want deductible funds in a Traditional account, because you can't choose to convert only the taxable funds. From the bogleheads wiki: If you have any other (non-Roth) IRAs, the taxable portion of any conversion you make is prorated over all your IRAs; you cannot convert just the non-deductible amount. In order to benefit from the backdoor, you must either convert your other IRAs as well (which may not be a good idea, as you are usually in a high tax bracket if you need to use the backdoor), or else transfer your deductible IRA contributions to an employer plan such as a 401(k) (which may cost you if the 401(k) has poor investment options).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "878a472b03f4ef818d9be6494476f2dc", "text": "Yes. Look at form 1040 AGI is line 37, and it comes well after you report your schedule D cap gains. I read this question as meaning you wish to contribute to a traditional IRA pretax. There is no income limit to contribute to an IRA and not take the deduction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dcfe1c3e1342af0bb67f2cc47dc3904b", "text": "There is no maximum. The only stipulation other than contribution limits is that you must take withdrawals at age 70 1/2.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "167747398d356f0b9a3ed4ff63181465", "text": "\"This is a great question! The IRS is not 100% clear on this. IRS publications do however very strongly suggest that assuming your wife has a plan providing family coverage, you can contribute up to your family maximum. If she does NOT have a family coverage plan then the answer is definitively no, you may only contribute the individual limit. Note if you have children covered by her plan then she is considered to have \"\"family coverage\"\" even if you are not covered by her plan (see here, question 12). From the 2012 IRS publication, bottom of Page 4. For 2012, if you have self-only HDHP coverage, you can contribute up to $3,100. If you have family HDHP coverage, you can contribute up to $6,250. This is presumably the referencing the definition which is introduced and discussed for married couples on Page 6: Rules for married people. If either spouse has family HDHP coverage, both spouses are treated as having family HDHP coverage. If each spouse has family coverage under a separate plan, the contribution limit for 2012 is $6,250. You must reduce the limit on contributions, before taking into account any additional contributions, by the amount contributed to both spouse's Archer MSAs. After that reduction, the contribution limit is split equally between the spouses unless you agree on a different division. Example. For 2012, Mr. Auburn and his wife are both eligible individuals. They each have family coverage under separate HDHPs. Mr. Auburn is 58 years old and Mrs. Auburn is 53. Mr. and Mrs. Auburn can split the family contribution limit ($6,250) equally or they can agree on a different division. If they split it equally, Mr. Auburn can contribute $4,125 to an HSA (one-half the maximum contribution for family coverage ($3,125) + $1,000 additional contribution) and Mrs. Auburn can contribute $3,125 to an HSA. The last example is nearly the exact situation you are in assuming your wife's plan is family coverage. The only assumption beyond what is explicitly written you need to make is that you are considered to have family coverage in the example as per the \"\"Rules for married people\"\" section, even though your plan only is a single-coverage plan. This conclusion seems to logically follow from information in the FAQs here (see Q32), as well as this document. Neither the above example nor any IRS documents referenced in this answer cover your situation completely.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "48200c2619731735e1decc0ae5936cd2", "text": "\"It seems I can make contributions as employee-elective, employer match, or profit sharing; yet they all end up in the same 401k from my money since I'm both the employer and employee in this situation. Correct. What does this mean for my allowed limits for each of the 3 types of contributions? Are all 3 types deductible? \"\"Deductible\"\"? Nothing is deductible. First you need to calculate your \"\"compensation\"\". According to the IRS, it is this: compensation is your “earned income,” which is defined as net earnings from self-employment after deducting both: So assuming (numbers for example, not real numbers) your business netted $30, and $500 is the SE tax (half). You contributed $17.5 (max) for yourself. Your compensation is thus 30-17.5-0.5=12. Your business can contribute up to 25% of that on your behalf, i.e.: $4K. Total that you can contribute in such a scenario is $21.5K. Whatever is contributed to a regular 401k is deferred, i.e.: excluded from income for the current year and taxed when you withdraw it from 401k (not \"\"deducted\"\" - deferred).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d6960968bae59a344da844853fb3054", "text": "These are plans similar to 401k plans. 457(b) plans available for certain government and non-profit organizations, 403(b) available for certain educational, hospital, religious and non-profit organizations. Your school apparently fits into both classes, so it has both. These plans don't have to allow ROTH contributions, but they may, so you have to check if there's an option. The main (but not only) difference from IRA is the limit: for 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b) plans the contribution limit is $17500, while for IRA its $5500 (for 2013). Additional benefit of 457(b) plan is that there's no 10% penalty on early withdrawal, just taxes (at ordinal rates).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70087fd7cec29ba6c2aa38fb0bd78780", "text": "Because you have maxed your 2011 contribution, you can't add any more for 2011. If you have 2012 income you can make a contribution anytime between now and April 2013. Only you can determine if this makes sense for you, but there doesn't appear to be any reasons to suspect you can't do this. (this was based on your comments to the original question)", "title": "" }, { "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": "" } ]
fiqa
6b180245998cd26de5b76a43693b89f9
Who maintains receipt for employee expense reimbursements?
[ { "docid": "91cf909bdaa2962c76122f5cb8f29386", "text": "\"In the normal course of events, you should receive a separate check for the amount of the purchase, and that amount should not be included in your wages as shown on your W-2 statement. If the amount is included on your paycheck, it should still be listed separately as a non-taxable item, not as part of wages paid. In other words, the IRS should not even be aware that this money was paid to you, there is no need to list the amount anywhere on your income tax return, and if you are paranoid about the matter, staple the stub attached to the reimbursement to a copy of your bank statement showing that you deposited the money into your account and save it in your file of tax papers for the year, just in case the IRS audits you and requires you to document every deposit in your checking account. The amount is a business expense that is deductible on your employer's tax return, and your employer is also required to keep documentation that the employee expense reimbursement plan is running as per IRS rules (i.e., the employer is not slipping money to you \"\"under the table\"\" as a reimbursement instead of paying you wages and thus avoiding the employer's share of FICA taxes etc) and that is why your employer needs the store receipt, not a hand-written note from you, to show the IRS if the IRS asks. You said you paid with \"\"your own cash\"\" but in case this was not meant literally and you paid via credit card or debit card or check, then any mileage award, or points, or cash back for credit card use are yours to keep tax-free, and any interest charges (if you are carrying a revolving balance or paid through your HELOC) or overdraft or bounced check fees are yours to pay.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "f9460e77e47a9f0243cd73d416144d7f", "text": "Thanks for clarifying. Also, I know Goodwill, and most likely the others, aren't technically one entity, but rather many entities under the same operating name, so there are many CEOs that work for Goodwill. Maybe there is one that heads the whole thing, but I wonder how much is going to all the C-levels?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "807c16336abdd3d0c6f9ee3fa1c647fa", "text": "\"The personal checks may be due to their bank not issuing the company checks yet and there may also not be a payroll system in place at this time. So far as the W2's are concerned you should probably ask the owner if they plan on distributing them to the employees. If the owner has no interest in making you proper \"\"on the books employees\"\" let them know that they should probably be paying you in cash so that if the IRS comes you wont be tied to it. Obviously working in cash (off the books) has its drawbacks (no rights or protections) and benefits (no taxes).\"", "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": "1071e7137d3521bb67f4701cdadd93d3", "text": "\"I would say to only bother keeping the ones you know you'll use for itemized deductions. This includes any unreimbursed business expenses and vehicle licensing fees. There are a lot of other itemized tax deductions possible, but those are two common ones. Also, keep track of your business mileage (mileage before and after the trip, and commuting doesn't count as \"\"business mileage\"\"). You may also want to keep receipts of all out-of-state purchases if your state is one of those that tries to collect state tax on out-of-state purchases. Ensure your supported charities are 501(c)(3), and they'll give you a receipt at the end of the year. Don't bother keeping fast food or gas receipts (unless they're business expenses).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f76893321e950109c4e9f146204b9ba", "text": "\"Following up on this, here is what I did. First, I called my benefits provider. They had documentation of my election over the phone, which then allowed them to retroactively fix the problem. Had they not had this documentation, I would have been out of luck. Second, the next step for \"\"fixing\"\" occurred when I received my W-2 for this position. This W-2 mistakenly showed the amount for my medical FSA in box-10 of my W-2 as the same dependent care FSA. This requires calling/emailing my benefits and payroll department to get an updated W-2...\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f544b73053ef55810b85675372d3150a", "text": "I store all my receipts digitally, and make sure to input them into accounting program sooner than later, just so I don't forget about it. For practical purposes, the two important things are: Any kind of a digital system makes this pretty easy, even just putting the sums in a spreadsheet and the receipts into files with the date in the name. However, because it's easy enough, I also have a box where I stuff the paper receipts. I expect never to need them, but should something very weird happen to my computer and backups, they would be there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26380e834a3f492cf088ecc635f89079", "text": "You can just buy the items personally and then submit an expense report to the company to get reimbursed. Keep all the receipts. Paying with a company check is also fine, but you might run into problems with stores not accepting checks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1c74729f1dca762dfb8b1500a304afd", "text": "I'll assume you are asking about a check for some kind of work or service that you provided them, that they hired your company to do. No large business will do that. In their records they have a contract with your company to provide services. If they write you a personal check it won't match with the contract, and when the auditors see that they will scream blue murder. Whoever wrote the check will have to prove that you are legitimately the same thing as the company (that doesn't mean taking your word for it). They may also have to show they weren't conspiring with you to commit tax fraud ( that wasn't your intention of course, was it?) .", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ead9519c377d41cada5b7e5d4c8af17", "text": "You should be recording the reimbursement as a negative expense on the original account the expense was recorded. Let's assume you have a $100 expense and $100 salary. Total $200 paycheck. You will have something like this In the reports, it will show that the expense account will have $0 ($100 + ($100)), while income account will have $100 (salary).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a00d5959b32ca0bc12b319ae14ed2da", "text": "IRS pub 521 has all the information you need. Expenses reimbursed. If you are reimbursed for your expenses and you use the cash method of accounting, you can deduct your expenses either in the year you paid them or in the year you received the reimbursement. If you use the cash method of accounting, you can choose to deduct the expenses in the year you are reimbursed even though you paid the expenses in a different year. See Choosing when to deduct, next. If you deduct your expenses and you receive the reimbursement in a later year, you must include the reimbursement in your income on Form 1040, line 21 This is not unusual. Anybody who moves near the end of the year can have this problem. The 39 week time test also can be an issue that span over 2 tax years. I would take the deduction for the expenses as soon a I could, and then count the income in the later year if they pay me back. IF they do so before April 15th, then I would put them on the same tax form to make things easier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "236a0694ab87dbb04a680150b68f8269", "text": "It is probably safe to throw away the receipt. Without a system to process and store receipts, they are of little use. With regards to personal finances I'm guilty of preaching without practicing 100% of the time, but here are some arguments for keeping receipts. To reconcile your statement to receipts before paying the credit card bill - people make mistakes all the time. I bet if you have an average volume of transactions, you will find at least one mistake in 12 months. To establish baseline spending and calculate a realistic budget. So many people will draft a budget by 'estimating' where their money goes. When it comes to this chore, I think people are about as honest with themselves as exercise and counting calories. Receipts are facts. To abide by record keeping requirements for warranty, business, IRS, etc... Personally, the only thing I've caught so far is Bank of America charging me interest when I pay my bill in full every month!", "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": "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": "3d256f5131dfbb00d5117bc0e6e9af62", "text": "You don't need to keep receipts for most things, and if you are not going to itemize your deductions (which as a college student, you probably won't), you need even fewer. Things that you should always keep: If you are itemizing your deductions, you want to keep receipts for anything that you can itemize. Some common things are: Another thing that you should do, but few people do, is keep track of your online purchases, since many states require you to pay sales tax on those purchases. Of course, the state has no way of knowing what you buy online, so it is all done on the honor system.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96be169c2db8ab9588b647f3b54e964b", "text": "By definition, this is a payroll deduction. There's no mechanism for you to tell the 401(k) administrator that a Jan-15 deposit is to be credited for 2016 instead of 2017. (As is common for IRAs where you do have the 'until tax time' option) If you are paid weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, 12/31 is a Saturday this year and should leave no ambiguity about the date of your last check. The only unknown for me if if one is paid bi-weekly, and has a check covering 12/25 - 1/7. Payroll/HR will need to answer whether that check is considered all in 2016, all in 2017 or split between the two.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
fda1c5c8376a66a6fe16a2c6333b5291
BoA Closed my Accounts and Froze my Funds. How can I get money back besides cashier's check?
[ { "docid": "64145ff9c1322efb673cce526bb70180", "text": "I'd suggest you contact the Office of the Controller of Currency, who regulates BOA and file a complaint. This whole deal seems shady. According to the OCC FAQ, the fact that they closed the account is in their prerogative. However, I would think they are obligated to quickly return your funds, but can't find anything specific to that. The banks are very sensitive to having complaints filed against them, so if nothing else this may encourage them to be more helpful, even if your complaint isn't actionable. OCC Complaint Process. This topic on how long a bank can hold a large deposit before making funds available may also be helpful.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "a96543e87a7d692090fe7441ce7b12c7", "text": "I was a victim of this. I'm not sure who got my routing and account number off my check, but someone subscribed to Playboy.com using my bank account information. Luckily it was only for about $30 and the bank refunded my money. However, it was a mess in that I had to open a new checking account and keep the other one open until all checks cleared. The bank was extremely helpful and monitored the account to make sure only the checks I told them about were processed. I then had to close the old account. This is why I believe checks are much less secure than credit cards or debit cards. A paper check can lay on someone's desk for anyone to pick up or write the information down off of it. I avoid checks if at all possible. For things like Craig's list, I would try to use PayPal or some other intermediate processing service.", "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": "72d91dcb2317801f81a6ce13273e1bc3", "text": "\"I second what \"\"powercow\"\" and \"\"Osetic\"\" said. I switched away from Wells Fargo to Patelco (Pacific Telephone Company, i'm in the bay area). They are world's better. My biggest issue with WF was the overdrafts, how much they charged, and the way in which they processed incoming transactions (which they are being sued in a class action for, btw). I had my new account setup so it could never overdraft, it would just decline. In my first month with Patelco, I ordered checks. When that charge processed, it dipped my account into the negative due to it being an internal CU charge and their system not performing all the checks/balances first. They called me about 24hrs after it happened to let me know: * How sorry they were * That they would refund me the amount of the checks * That they added $10 on top of the refund to ensure I understood it was a mistake * If there was anything else they could do to make the situation right And like others here, I have shorter lines, more helpful tellers, a more inviting atmosphere, oh and free coffee. You gotta find a better CU, yo\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "677afd9ef329ac743ab987505762a37a", "text": "I had a similar situation a while ago, and here's what I learned: What are our options here to ensure that this company can't retry to take our money again via ACH? Close existing account and create a new one that has different account number? Yes. As a temporary solution keep ~$0 balance in the account so that their request for $840 can't be fulfilled? However, would our bank incur any fees because of insufficient funds each time the other company tries to charge us again? Bad idea. You may incur penalties for returned payment, or the bank may honor the payment and charge you overdraft fees. Provide to our bank the service termination notice that proves that we are not in business with the other company anymore and effectively block them. However, termination notice has only our signature Bank doesn't care. ACH withdrawal is akin to a check. The assumption is that the other side has entitlement. You can put stop payment once its processed and try to reverse it claiming fraud, but the end result will be #1: you'll end up getting a new account set up, while they try to recover the money. This is one of the reasons I'm reluctant allowing standing ACH authorizations any more. Generally, the American banking system is very much geared against the consumers, and in many ways is very retarded. In a more advanced countries (which is almost any other country than the US), the standing withdrawal authorization goes through your bank and can be revoked.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83b10f0d7090aca06e4991a092758afa", "text": "I've called both BofA and Amex Customer Support, and they couldn't help. That's because you cannot. Debit card is tied to your checking account, so you can do a cash advance from your AMEX and deposit it to your BOA checking account. It will then be available to use with your debit card.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "538d00b01cd78aa88c96dc839feefdad", "text": "First, make sure you are contacting the bank directly - use an old invoice you have on hand with a phone number direct to the bank and call them. Do not use the provided number, or you may wind up being pulled into a scam (It is entirely possible that the bank is also confused at this point - so you should not rely on the number provided at all). Second, once you can confirm that your account is being closed, find out when it is being closed so you know when you need to act on it - it's possible you still have access to your account, and do not need to launch into a panic just yet. Third, get the bank to explain exactly why they are closing your account - make it clear that if they cannot explain, you will be forced to transfer to a new account and close business with them permanently - this is not a threat, this is a matter of fact because... Finally, if you cannot keep your account open, find a different bank and open up a new account. Frankly, if your current bank is closing your account and only managed to get a letter out to you a month late, you should probably find a new bank. If instead they simply cannot figure out if your bank account is closed or not, this is also a bad sign and you may want a new bank account anyway. But please, go through these steps in order, because you need to verify with your bank what is going on. Keep @Brick 's answer in mind as well, in case you need to get your money out of your account quickly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba32ffcbfb9be8adb5c2c2504b72937e", "text": "\"Is there any way for me to get my money bank? It would be a long drawn process. You would have to file a fraud complaint, they should be able to catch the imposter and / or get a freeze on the account you did wire transfer on [even courts would be involved in process] ... could take lot of time and money. Depending on the amount it may or may not be worth it. If so, should I talk to my bank Your Bank will not take any liability. From their point of view, you deposited a check, they sent it get cleared and reversed the transaction moment they realized it was fraud. the \"\"vendor's\"\" bank You could talk to Vendor Bank. However as you have no relationship with them, they may or may not co-operate. If its a large institution they may do their own internal investigations. If you act sooner, they maybe able to place a hold on the account. Often this is a parking account and the funds are moved elsewhere. They will not be able to refund the funds unless the legal system / process is involved. bank that the fraudulent check came from Depending on how the check was made ... the Bank can easily claim that someone printed something with their Bank's name on it and they are not responsible for it. If there are large cases, the Bank may to contain reputational damage may lodge a complaint with Police and put out some advertisement.\"", "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": "6a76319f8b71db581de878d899541507", "text": "Banks loan out money they don't have to you to get you to pay them interest. It's all just computer bits. Papier maché would require that they actually have money. If everybody told BofA that they wanted to close their accounts and to get the money in cash, it would never be able to happen.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "46691bddaf9882f2bfd4e34befd3fefa", "text": "You can't cash the check silly. How can you go off on a rant when you can't even tell the difference between a real check and a promotional tool. If you don't want to call in an get info throw it away....simple. This thread made me laugh. Thanks for that. Good day.", "title": "" }, { "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": "ce4f7a1447c3c7731583d3cad057c878", "text": "\"Most banks will not allow you to use online bill pay with a savings account as the funding source; rather, instead it must be funded from either a checking or money market account. The reason for this is that checks can typically be written from a money market account but not from a savings account. Update: I was having trouble wrapping my head around what the check would look like when the \"\"pay from account\"\" is an external bank, so I just called Bank of America and asked them. Basically, they do an ACH Withdrawal from your external bank account and route the money directly to the payee electronically. This means that your BofA account isn't touched and it won't show up on your BofA statement (but you can see it in the online bill pay history, and on your external bank's statement.) If the payee cannot be paid electronically, than you cannot use an external funding source. In other words, if a physical check is going to be sent, then it must have a BofA account as its funding source. Even though the ACH withdrawal should technically be allowed from a savings account, I suspect that this is forbidden since the intended purpose of the ACH is actually to streamline the writing of a check.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d5def564824c8bcbc4e68db1a556af97", "text": "\"OK, there is no way in hell that a stranger should have your contact details. there is no way in hell that a stranger should be able to determine your name from that account number unless you are previously known to them. Have they explained to your satisfaction how any previous relationship was established? It was correct to direct them back to their own bank or their branch manager if they bank with the CBA. There are procedures in place for this, and you are in the clear if the bank handles it. Even there is a previous relationship, and you are in their address book, think long and hard about their \"\"bona fides\"\". It may not have been a scam they may have had fat fingers and be genuinely out of pocket now. It is SOP that if you refuse to refund the money the banks will become less helpful. (EDIT - you have consented to retrun the money). EDIT - IF you had not consented... Disclosure: I am a former CBA employee and a 20 year veteran of NetBank, and these are my own opinions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f887f060715767fd16691d606e5b6b7", "text": "how safe is my money As safe as it can get. Most Banks would be registered under FDIC. See the list here if a specific bank is covered or not. Bank of America is covered. How does this work, and is there something I need to do so I am covered by it? Should I be getting a certificate or something?Is BOA under the scope of this Deposit insurance? It only covers if the bank fails, i.e. goes bankrupt. The FDIC steps in and either oversees a merger of the failed bank with another bank, or in the worst case, pays the depositors upto $250,000. Does it cover me if someone steals my money? The FDIC does not cover if someone steals your money. if someone hacks my computer and transfers all my money? This will be determined on a case to case basis. If the loss of money is because of your negligence, i.e. you gave your password etc to someone else or did not take enough precautions to safegaurd ... including allowing someone to hack you computer ... in such cases it is a crime and you would need to file police complaint and the bank will on best effort basis try and reverse the transfer. If this was due to the bank's error; i.e. Bank did not ensure right controls/security was in place resulting in loss of your money, the bank is liable and will pay you back. So cases like someone forged your signature on a check etc. are the bank's responsibility.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47447e31ee0e6167f34a876a0ca7c73d", "text": "Both of the other answers are correct and good answers, but I think neither directly answers your question. No, you do not need to pay additional taxes on the wedding gifts simply because of the fact that they are going into a Roth IRA. Similarly, if you put them into a traditional IRA, that amount would be deductible (assuming you met the other criteria, including minimums and maximums of earned income, in both cases). The act of putting money into a Roth IRA is not what makes it taxable; its original source is. Roth simply does not reduce your current taxes any, whereas a traditional IRA would. The seeming exception to this is when rolling money from a tax-deductible source to a non-tax-deductible destination, such as transferring money from a Traditional IRA or 401(k) to a Roth IRA or 401(k). Then, the taxable event is really the distribution from the Traditional IRA or 401(k), not the deposit into a Roth IRA or 401(k), though of course if you rolled a 401(k) over to a traditional IRA it would not be taxable.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ec4ad4d313d6d3c5d67a11c537b5e627
Do shares purchased on FTSE AIM move with company to other markets?
[ { "docid": "95ed38e69290471c4ff58513f465c7b1", "text": "\"Any shares you buy when a company is listed on one market will remain yours if the company moves to another market. Markets and exchanges like AIM are just venues for dealing in shares - indeed you can deal in those shares anywhere else that will allow you as well as on the AIM. The benefit of being listed in a market is that trade in the shares will be more \"\"liquid\"\" - there's more likely to be people who want to buy and sell them at any given time. The bigger concern would be what happens if the company does badly and drops out of the AIM entirely. You'd still be able to sell your shares to any willing buyer, but finding that buyer might get harder.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "832437bac388e9144d8a839979a40ee4", "text": "I have had this happen a couple of times because of splits or sales of portions of the company. The general timeline was to announce how the split was to be handled; then the split; then a freeze in purchasing stock in the other company; then a freeze in sales; followed by a short blackout period; then the final transfers to funds/options/cash based on a mapping announced at the start of the process. You need to answer two questions: To determine if the final transactions will make the market move you have to understand how many shares are involved compared to the typical daily volume. There are two caveats: professional investors will be aware of the transaction date and can either ignore the employee transactions or try and take advantage of them; There may also be a mirroring set of transactions if the people left in the old company were awarded shares in your company as part of the sale. If you are happy with the default mapping then you can do nothing, and let the transaction happen based on the announced timeline. It is easy, and you don't have to worry about deadlines. If you don't like the default mapping then you need to know when the blackout period starts, so you don't end up not being able to perform the steps you want when you want. Timing is up to you. If the market doesn't like the acquisition/split it make make sense to make the move now, or wait until the last possible day depending on which part they don't like. Only you can answer that question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "afb4e4a37f3f6133905d174f36e03ee3", "text": "Well, the potential problem is that the FTSE 100 could go down, or just not up. Really, it's as simple as that. After all, why diversify if the FTSE 100 will only go up? So, the question is, why wait to diversify? Why not add in the Gilt ETF for a little government bond exposure? Why not a Corp. bond ETF? Maybe a little of that Global ex-UK for a little foreign stock exposure? That said, saving is better than not saving, so if starting it off with just the FTSE 100 gets you saving, go for it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf2cc994457ea13e93d3bd7c72e58655", "text": "I'm not familiar with the deal, nor is this my specialty, but a cursory Google search yields that Greybull (the buyer) also [agreed to invest £400m in Scunthorpe](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/11/greybull-nears-deal-to-buy-tata-steels-scunthorpe-plant/). The £1 was, as far as I can tell, somewhat symbolic. [The whole thing](http://www.businessinsider.com/tata-steel-sells-uk-business-to-greybull-capital-2016-4?r=UK&amp;IR=T) sort of reads to me like Tata wanted it off their books and the UK government wanted it to be [revitalized](https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/719478349886791680), but again, not really my wheelhouse.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7b84c856eb772803ebfa337eef126f3", "text": "\"Yes, you're still exposed to currency risk when you purchase the stock on company B's exchange. I'm assuming you're buying the shares on B's stock exchange through an ADR, GDR, or similar instrument. The risk occurs as a result of the process through which the ADR is created. In its simplest form, the process works like this: I'll illustrate this with an example. I've separated the conversion rate into the exchange rate and a generic \"\"ADR conversion rate\"\" which includes all other factors the bank takes into account when deciding how many ADR shares to sell. The fact that the units line up is a nice check to make sure the calculation is logically correct. My example starts with these assumptions: I made up the generic ADR conversion rate; it will remain constant throughout this example. This is the simplified version of the calculation of the ADR share price from the European share price: Let's assume that the euro appreciates against the US dollar, and is now worth 1.4 USD (this is a major appreciation, but it makes a good example): The currency appreciation alone raised the share price of the ADR, even though the price of the share on the European exchange was unchanged. Now let's look at what happens if the euro appreciates further to 1.5 USD/EUR, but the company's share price on the European exchange falls: Even though the euro appreciated, the decline in the share price on the European exchange offset the currency risk in this case, leaving the ADR's share price on the US exchange unchanged. Finally, what happens if the euro experiences a major depreciation and the company's share price decreases significantly in the European market? This is a realistic situation that has occurred several times during the European sovereign debt crisis. Assuming this occurred immediately after the first example, European shareholders in the company experienced a (43.50 - 50) / 50 = -13% return, but American holders of the ADR experienced a (15.95 - 21.5093) / 21.5093 = -25.9% return. The currency shock was the primary cause of this magnified loss. Another point to keep in mind is that the foreign company itself may be exposed to currency risk if it conducts a lot of business in market with different currencies. Ideally the company has hedged against this, but if you invest in a foreign company through an ADR (or a GDR or another similar instrument), you may take on whatever risk the company hasn't hedged in addition to the currency risk that's present in the ADR/GDR conversion process. Here are a few articles that discuss currency risk specifically in the context of ADR's: (1), (2). Nestle, a Swiss company that is traded on US exchanges through an ADR, even addresses this issue in their FAQ for investors. There are other risks associated with instruments like ADR's and cross-listed companies, but normally arbitrageurs will remove these discontinuities quickly. Especially for cross-listed companies, this should keep the prices of highly liquid securities relatively synchronized.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c11fe5f13315fd4fb806ae0e7b291386", "text": "\"As far as I know, the answer to this is generally \"\"no.\"\" The closest thing would be to identify the stock transfer company representing the company that you want to hold and buy through them. (I have held this way, but I don't know if it's available on all stocks.) This eliminates the broker, but there's still a \"\"middle man\"\" in the transfer company. Note this section from the Stock transfer agent Wikipedia article: A public company usually only designates one company to transfer its stock. Stock transfer agents also run annual meetings as inspector of elections, proxy voting, and special meetings of shareholders. They are considered the official keeper of the corporate shareholder records. The decision to have a single transfer company is a practical one, ensuring that there is one entity responsible for recording this data - Hence even if you could buy stock \"\"directly\"\" from the company that you want to own, it would likely still get routed through the transfer company for recording.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0622d970d4c45fc8bc60f986f22d96c", "text": "My understanding was that if a company buys back shares then those shares are 'extinguished' I.e. the rest of the shareholders now own a greater portion of the company. However, if there is only one share left, then the company could not buy it because doing so would extinguish it leaving the company without an owner. That result would run contrary to the requirements for an incorporated company in countries like NZ and Australia.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc1e558425d3536d26b4dd208926dff9", "text": "You can't actually transfer shares directly unless they were obtained as part of an employee share scheme - see the answers to questions 19 and 20 on this page: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/isa/faqs.htm#19 Q. Can I put shares from my employee share scheme into my ISA? A. You can transfer any shares you get from into a stocks and shares component of an ISA without having to pay Capital Gains Tax - provided your ISA manager agrees to take them. The value of the shares at the date of transfer counts towards the annual limit. This means you can transfer up to £11,520 worth of shares in the tax year 2013-14 (assuming that you make no other subscriptions to ISAs, in those years). You must transfer the shares within 90 days from the day they cease to be subject to the Plan, or (for approved SAYE share option schemes) 90 days of the exercise of option date. Your employer should be able to tell you more. Q. Can I put windfall or inherited shares in my ISA? A. No. You can only transfer shares you own into an ISA if they have come from an employee share scheme. Otherwise, the ISA manager must purchase shares on the open market. The situation is the same if you have shares that you have inherited. You are not able to transfer them into an ISA.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bfe5f2d434119bfe551f072cfae1166", "text": "\"Depends. The short answer is yes; HSBC, for instance, based in New York, is listed on both the LSE and NYSE. Toyota's listed on the TSE and NYSE. There are many ways to do this; both of the above examples are the result of a corporation owning a subsidiary in a foreign country by the same name (a holding company), which sells its own stock on the local market. The home corporation owns the majority holdings of the subsidiary, and issues its own stock on its \"\"home country's\"\" exchange. It is also possible for the same company to list shares of the same \"\"pool\"\" of stock on two different exchanges (the foreign exchange usually lists the stock in the corporation's home currency and the share prices are near-identical), or for a company to sell different portions of itself on different exchanges. However, these are much rarer; for tax liability and other cost purposes it's usually easier to keep American monies in America and Japanese monies in Japan by setting up two \"\"copies\"\" of yourself with one owning the other, and move money around between companies as necessary. Shares of one issue of one company's stock, on one exchange, are the same price regardless of where in the world you place a buy order from. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll pay the same actual value of currency for the stock. First off, you buy the stock in the listed currency, which means buying dollars (or Yen or Euros or GBP) with both a fluctuating exchange rate between currencies and a broker's fee (one of those cost savings that make it a good idea to charter subsidiaries; could you imagine millions a day in car sales moving from American dealers to Toyota of Japan, converted from USD to Yen, with a FOREX commission to be paid?). Second, you'll pay the stock broker a commission, and he may charge different rates for different exchanges that are cheaper or more costly for him to do business in (he might need a trader on the floor at each exchange or contract with a foreign broker for a cut of the commission).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca19675b030e68b3aa2c000b08464550", "text": "I work at BATS Chi-X Europe and wanted to provide some clarity/answers to these questions. BATS Chi-X Europe is a Recognised Investment Exchange, so it is indeed a stock exchange. Sometimes the term “equity market” could be used when explaining our business, but essentially we are a stock exchange. As some background, BATS Chi-X Europe was formed by the acquisition of Chi-X Europe by BATS Trading in November 2011. At the time of the acquisition, each company operated as a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) for the trading of pan-European equities via a single trading platform. The category of MTF was introduced by MIFID (markets in Financial Instrument Directive) in 2007, which introduced competition in equities trading and allowed European stocks, to be traded on any European platform. Until 2007, many European stocks had to be traded only their local exchanges due to so-called “Concentration Rules”. Following the acquisition, BATS Chi-X Europe became the largest MTF in Europe, offering trading in more than 2,000 securities (2,700 securities by September 2013) across 15 major European markets, on a single trading platform. In May 2013, BATS Chi-X Europe received Recognised Investment Exchange status from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, meaning that BATS Chi-X Europe has changed from an MTF status to full exchange status. In response to question 1: The equities traded on BATS Chi-X Europe are listed on stock exchanges such as the LSE but also listed on the other European Exchanges. The term “third party” equities is not particularly useful as all stock trading in Europe is generally a “second hand” business referred to as “secondary market” trading. At the time of listing a firm issues shares; trading in these shares after the listing exercise is generally what happens in equity markets and these shares can be bought and sold on stock exchanges across Europe. Secondary market trading describes all trading on all exchanges or MTFs that takes place after the listing. In response to question 2: BATS Chi-X Europe trades over 2,700 stocks on its own trading platform. When trading on BATS Chi-X Europe, orders are executed on their own platform and will not end up of the LSE order books or platform. The fact that a stock was first listed on the LSE, does not mean that all trading in this stock happens via the LSE. However settlement process ensures that stocks end up being logged in a single depository. This means that a stock bought on BATS Chi-X Europe can be offset against the same stock sold on the LSE. In response to question 3: As noted above, BATS Chi-X Europe received Recognised Investment Exchange (RIE) status from the UK Financial Conduct Authority in May 2013, meaning that BATS Chi-X Europe has changed from an MTF status to full stock exchange status. As an exchange / RIE, BATS Chi-X Europe is authorised to offer primary and secondary listings alongside its existing business. According to the Federations of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), BATS Chi-X Europe has been the largest equity exchange in Europe by value traded in every month so far in 2013. In August, 24.1% of European equities trading in the 15 markets covered were traded on BATS Chi-X Europe. In July and August, the average notional value traded on BATS Chi-X Europe was around €7.2 billion per day. Hope this information is helpful.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd093cedb934ad8da9a795727991701a", "text": "Keep in mind that the exchanges do not hold, buy, or sell the stock - people (or funds) do. All the exchange does is facilitate the sale of stock from one entity to another. So the shares outstanding (and market cap) for a company are set regardless of how many exchanges the stock is listed on. The company typically indicates the number of shares outstanding in its financial statements. I do not know if the exchange itself keeps track of shares outstanding; it may just report whatever the company publishes. So theoretically, if you wanted to buy all of the stock of a company, you could do it all in one exchange, provided that all the existing holders of the stock were willing to sell you their shares. There are many issues with that, though, which I don't think are germane to your question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ad90a43dbbddabdd2b952044b0237b6", "text": "Transfers of money to the UK for any purpose are not generally taxed, so you can just transfer it here and invest. Once the money is here, you'll be taxed on the business activity like anyone else - the company will have to pay corporation tax, and depending on your own residency you might have to pay income tax on any distributions from the company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d666c38057c10de0df25b0b819739a26", "text": "It doesn't matter which exchange a share was purchased through (or if it was even purchased on an exchange at all--physical share certificates can be bought and sold outside of any exchange). A share is a share, and any share available for purchase in New York is available to be purchased in London. Buying all of a company's stock is not something that can generally be done through the stock market. The practical way to accomplish buying a company out is to purchase a controlling interest, or enough shares to have enough votes to bind the board to a specific course of action. Then vote to sell all outstanding shares to another company at a particular fixed price per share. Market capitalization is an inaccurate measure of the size of a company in the first place, but if you want to quantify it, you can take the number of outstanding shares (anywhere and everywhere) and multiply them by the price on any of the exchanges that sell it. That will give you the market capitalization in the currency that is used by whatever exchange you chose.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b69187cb5be0290794bbdd55916a4d36", "text": "Gold is traded on the London stock exchange (LSE) and the New York stock exchange (NYSE) under various separate asset tickers, mainly denominated in sterling and US dollars respectively. These stocks will reflect FX changes very quickly. If you sold LSE gold and foreign exchanged your sterling to dollars to buy NYSE gold you would almost certainly lose on the spreads upon selling, FX'ing and re-buying. In short, the same asset doesn't exist in multiple currencies. It may have the same International Securities Identification Number (ISIN), but it can trade with different Stock Exchange Daily Official List (SEDOL) identifiers, reflecting different currencies and/or exchanges, each carrying a different price at any one time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5db2500544c713428b4b849702c8e351", "text": "In order to see whether you can buy or sell some given quantity of a stock at the current bid price, you need a counterparty (a buyer) who is willing to buy the number of stocks you are wishing to offload. To see whether such a counterparty exists, you can look at the stock's order book, or level two feed. The order book shows all the people who have placed buy or sell orders, the price they are willing to pay, and the quantity they demand at that price. Here is the order book from earlier this morning for the British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Let's start by looking at the left-hand blue part of the book, beneath the yellow strip. This is called the Buy side. The book is sorted with the highest price at the top, because this is the best price that a seller can presently obtain. If several buyers bid at the same price, then the oldest entry on the book takes precedence. You can see we have five buyers each willing to pay 1543.0 p (that's 1543 British pence, or £15.43) per share. Therefore the current bid price for this instrument is 1543.0. The first buyer wants 175 shares, the next, 300, and so on. The total volume that is demanded at 1543.0p is 2435 shares. This information is summarized on the yellow strip: 5 buyers, total volume of 2435, at 1543.0. These are all buyers who want to buy right now and the exchange will make the trade happen immediately if you put in a sell order for 1543.0 p or less. If you want to sell 2435 shares or fewer, you are good to go. The important thing to note is that once you sell these bidders a total of 2435 shares, then their orders are fulfilled and they will be removed from the order book. At this point, the next bidder is promoted up the book; but his price is 1542.5, 0.5 p lower than before. Absent any further changes to the order book, the bid price will decrease to 1542.5 p. This makes sense because you are selling a lot of shares so you'd expect the market price to be depressed. This information will be disseminated to the level one feed and the level one graph of the stock price will be updated. Thus if you have more than 2435 shares to sell, you cannot expect to execute your order at the bid price in one go. Of course, the more shares you are trying to get rid of, the further down the buy side you will have to go. In reality for a highly liquid stock as this, the order book receives many amendments per second and it is unlikely that your trade would make much difference. On the right hand side of the display you can see the recent trades: these are the times the trades were done (or notified to the exchange), the price of the trade, the volume and the trade type (AT means automatic trade). GlaxoSmithKline is a highly liquid stock with many willing buyers and sellers. But some stocks are less liquid. In order to enable traders to find a counterparty at short notice, exchanges often require less liquid stocks to have market makers. A market maker places buy and sell orders simultaneously, with a spread between the two prices so that they can profit from each transaction. For instance Diurnal Group PLC has had no trades today and no quotes. It has a more complicated order book, enabling both ordinary buyers and sellers to list if they wish, but market makers are separated out at the top. Here you can see that three market makers are providing liquidity on this stock, Peel Hunt (PEEL), Numis (NUMS) and Winterflood (WINS). They have a very unpalatable spread of over 5% between their bid and offer prices. Further in each case the sum total that they are willing to trade is 3000 shares. If you have more than three thousand Dirunal Group shares to sell, you would have to wait for the market makers to come back with a new quote after you'd sold the first 3000.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28409171ea6205d636f9f30e07fba1f0", "text": "\"Yes and no. There are two primary ways to do this. The first is known as \"\"cross listing\"\". Basically, this means that shares are listed in the home country are the primary shares, but are also traded on secondary markets using mechanisms like ADRs or Globally Registered Shares. Examples of this method include Vodafone and Research in Motion. The second is \"\"dual listing\"\". This is when two corporations that function as a single business are listed in multiple places. Examples of this include Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever. Usually companies choose this method for tax purposes when they merge or acquire an international company. Generally speaking, you can safely buy shares in whichever market makes sense to you.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ed587c285f4310efe025e87514fa4308
How to move (or not move) an LLC from Illinois to New Mexico?
[ { "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": "21f92446dfd048a11ba3713e97294bf3", "text": "\"No, there are no issues. When you form the corp in DE, you pick a business there to serve as your \"\"agent\"\" (essentially someone who knows to get in contact with you). The \"\"agent\"\" will notify you about taxes and any mail you get, but besides the fee they charge you for being the agent, you should file all the taxes directly with DE (franchise tax is easy to file on the web) instead of going through the agent and paying a surcharge. When your LLC files taxes, you'll do so in DE and then the LLC will issue you a federal and state K1. You'll file taxes where you reside and use the federal K1, but I think you might have to file DE state taxes (unsure about this part, feel free to edit or comment and I'll correct).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e725b58b1b28fc1dfc5ca7b43ed7c8f", "text": "\"Did it show just your address, or was your name on it as well? You didn't share how long you've lived at the address either, so it makes me wonder whether a former tenant is the one who filed that paperwork. It's also possible that someone used your address when making a filing. Whether that was deliberate or accidental is hard to discern, as is their intent if it was intentional. It could be accidental -- someone picked \"\"CA\"\" for California when they meant to pick \"\"CO\"\" for Colorado or \"\"CT\"\" for Connecticut...These things do happen. It can't make you feel any better about the situation though. You should be able to go online to the California Secretary of State's website (here) and look up everything filed by the LLC with the state. That will show who the founders were and everything else that is a matter of public record on the LLC. At the very least, you can obtain the registered agent's name and address for the LLC, which you can then use to contact them and ask why your address is listed as the LLC's business address. Once you have that info, you can then contact the Secretary of State and tell them it isn't you so they can do whatever is necessary to correct this. This doesn't sound like a difficult matter to clear up, but it's important to do your homework first and gather as much information as you can before you call the state. Answering \"\"I don't know\"\" won't get you very far with them compared to having the best answers you can about where the mistake started. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "362888dad7a489b2fecb115aab213605", "text": "In this case not only that you must register in California (either as domestic, or as foreign if you decided to form elsewhere), you'll also be on the hook for back-taxes if you didn't do it from the start. FTB is notorious for going after out-of-state LLCs that Californians open in other States trying to avoid the $800 fee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b11c1807668b0b0b3630b0e41f2d1cd6", "text": "You won't be able to avoid the $800 fee. CA FTB has a very specific example, which is identical to your situation (except that they use NV instead of AZ), to show that the LLC has liability in California. State of formation is of no matter, you'll just be liable for fees in that state in addition to the CA fees. This is in fact a very common situation (that's why they have this as an example to begin with). See CA FTB 568 booklet. The example is on page 14. I suggest forming the LLC in AZ/CA and registering it as a foreign entity in the other state (AZ if formed in CA, the better option IMHO, or CA if formed in AZ). You'll have tax liability in both the states, AZ taxes can be credited towards the CA taxes. Instead of forming LLC, you can cover your potential liability with sufficient insurance coverage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8831f4e7c58254ff02b0311baf3833f4", "text": "It's not so much about time but about intent. If your intent is to move there permanently, it would be when you arrive in the state for the purposes of living there (i.e. not from a while before that when you went to check a place out or for an interview). I believe that most (if not all) states expect you to get a Driver's License from that state within 30-days of moving there. Something like a Driver's License or State ID would be proof of your residency. These things vary greatly from state to state, so you'd have to research particular states. Or find someone who's done that already. A bit of searching, specifically for Texas, brought me to this forum thread: If you / he wish to establish residency here -- here being Texas -- get a Texas Driver's License and Voter Registration here. Government issued ID with a Texas address is pretty much bulletproof defense against being found to be a resident of elsewhere. Your battle, if there is one, will not be with Texas, but with your present home of record state and/or local government if there are income taxes associated with having been a resident there during the tax year. Which brings up the other question: You would need to make sure that California does not have some provision that would cause you issues. (This isn't so much a case of income from a company in the state as it about capital gains, but it is still prudent to check.)", "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": "" }, { "docid": "8bee88c03ff8c758403ac1e82e9afc43", "text": "The cost will be around $300-$500 if you do it correctly it in Florida and can be over a $1,000 if you do it in New York (New York is more expensive due to a publication requirement that New York has for LLC’s). The price ranges I’ve given include filing, state fees, getting a tax ID number (EIN), operating agreement, membership certificates, registered agent fees and publication fees if done in New York. Each state also have licensing boards and city fees that are applicable, so you would want to also make sure that you are keeping compliant there. Yearly paperwork to keep the LLC running won’t be so expensive, expect the state to charge a yearly fee and require some basic information to be submitted. I had a quick look at Florida, and with someone filing it for you, expect around $200 to $250 a year, plus registered agent fees. If you are late in Florida the penalty is $400 so you definitely would want a service that provides compliance calendar notifications to make sure you are on time with fees. In regards to bookkeeping and taxes, yearly tax filing will start at $250 to $500 for an LLC and move up from there depending on the services being offered and the amount of time of work. I recently referred someone to an accountant that will charge $250 to file an almost zero tax return on an LLC. I think $40 an hour is a little low for a bookkeeper but it all depends on where you are. I know in some major cities bookkeepers expect $75 an hour or higher. So the expectation in Miami and Manhattan will probably be more expensive than Jacksonville and Albany. If you doing a little business don’t expect the cost to be too much on the bookkeeping. So, breakdown: $300-$500 (FL) - $1,000 (NY) Registration of LLC + any business license, city or other registrations $250 Yearly Fee + Yearly Registered Agent + any business licenses, city or other fee $500 Tax Return + Bookkeeping Fee Banks will charge more than a personal account so expect $120 a year plus. In regards to service I would look at companies that specialize in foreigners setting up businesses in the US, because they will have services designed to help you more than services that primarily specialize with US clients. You are going to have some different needs, based on not having a Social Security Number or establishing from overseas.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70edc1fac438a42eff7c8d79af5963bf", "text": "As far as the spam mail goes, I own a rental (in Connecticut) and live in Massachusetts, I get very little mail related to this property. I view this as a non-compelling reason. Your other reasons pick up quick in value. The protection from the rest of your assets is helpful, and the one con for most is the inability to get a loan with such a structure, but in your case, a cash purchase is mentioned. I don't know what the fees are to start an LLC, but overall, I believe the pros outweigh the cons. Yes, your Pro 4 looks good, an ongoing business with a track record will help the next purchase.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1248d34c35232a822321595a0794fa0", "text": "This is an older question but I thought I'd give the correct response for anyone else that might look. Yes there definitely could be issues. You can form in friendly states such as Delaware and Nevada without having a physical location in the state but you can't run a business from another state without having to 'qualify' to do business in that State. To give a bit more clarification. Lets say you open a Delaware LLC. But you answer the phone when it rings on your New York phone and money comes into your New York bank account and your suppliers and vendors all use your New York address to send invoices and correspondence. Well you can pretty much count that you fall into the definition of doing business in New York and expected to pay New York taxes and qualify to do business in the state. The solution would be to set up your business to truly 'operate' from the state you would rather be in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee166c86d628d6354e45e2b491d31a0f", "text": "You should be careful about mingling your personal money and that of the business, even if it is a sole prop right now. It is a good habit to keep separate business and personal bank/credit accounts just so that when you change to an LLC, it is simpler for you to separate what belongs to the company and what is yours personally. What you're doing makes it more difficult (although only marginally so) to itemize business deductions that were paid with an ostensibly personal credit account. The better habit to get into now is keeping that distinct separation between personal and business. That being said, there's nothing illegal in what you're doing, but it would make an accountant cringe, that's for sure. (chuckle) Hope this helps. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "776d1b6aa23bf68f4ab21bf947292452", "text": "If I hire someone in Utah to do sales for me over the phone, and he works out of his home, am I required to register an LLC or file my current one as a foreign entity in Utah? Yes, since you've established presence in Utah. You'll register your current LLC in Utah, no point creating another one. If my sales guy, or I, call businesses in, say, Florida, and sell a few businesses our services for online work like maybe a website design, etc. Are we required to file our LLC In Florida as either a new LLC or a foreign one? No, you need to register where you (your company, including your employees or physical offices) are physically present. You don't need to register in any state you ship products or provide services to. If no-one of your company's employees is present in Florida and you don't have an office/rent a storage there - then you have no presence in Florida. If you actually go there to provide the services - then you do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc267f3350b78dfbd46c7d16a0e08121", "text": "I would talk to an immigration lawyer. This sounds like the kind of thing that they'd deal with frequently. As I understand it, your concern is mostly about managing the transfer, not the sale. An immigration lawyer is going to see clients with overseas assets frequently. If this isn't something that they do themselves, they can refer you appropriately. In general when I'm looking for a lawyer, I start with the local bar association. The one for San Francisco. If that's the wrong bay area, they are normally at the county level. So you can find them by searching for bar association with the appropriate county or city name. If you explain your problem briefly, they can direct you.", "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": "35c5605589b6b4dbdea21675a10af603", "text": "There might be a problem. Some reporting paperwork will have to be done for the IRS, obviously, but technically it will be business income zeroed out by business expense. Withholding requirements will shift to your friend, which is a mess. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA) about these. But the immigration may consider this arrangement as employment, which is in violation of the visa conditions. You need to talk to an immigration attorney.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cc25350853bd49c0776a03e2ab19e8c9", "text": "Machine learning is definitely applied to trading, but I have not tried it myself. For now I've been focused on figuring out the platforms and how they work; I have not been trying out other strategies besides a SMAC strategy. The most machine learning-like application I've attempted was cross-validation by walk-forward analysis (I'm publishing that post on Monday). I know nothing about TensorFlow other than it's used for deep learning and that it doesn't work on Windows and thus would not work on my more powerful gaming computer, and like I said above, I have not been exploring machine learning right now. Neural networks are on my radar, on the list of things I need to read, but there was a topic on r/algotrading recently where most users said that deep learning has not demonstrated better performance than more traditional ML techniques and looks like a fad. I want to convince myself of that first, though. I'm glad you enjoyed the post and my site! Thank you!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
bd96b1e039cc5af85e2cd29dc53ffda3
Value investing
[ { "docid": "547c5288c6257859afa48a19b2a24f88", "text": "\"As an aside, why does it seem to be difficult to get a conclusive answer to this question? I'm going to start by trying to answer this question and I think the answer here will help answer the other questions. Here is a incomplete list of the challenges involved: So my question is, is there any evidence that value investing actually beats the market? Yes there is a lot of evidence that it works and there is a lot of evidence that it does not. timday's has a great link on this. Some rules/methods work over some periods some work during others. The most famous evidence for value investing probably comes from Fama and French who were very careful and clever in solving many of the above problems and had a large persistent data set, but their idea is very different from Damodaran's, for instance, and hard to implement though getting easier. Is the whole field a waste of time? Because of the above problems this is a hard question. Some people like Warren Buffet have clearly made a lot of money doing this. Though it is worth remembering a good amount of the money these famous investors make is off of fees for investing other peoples' money. If you understand fundamental analysis well you can get a job making a lot of money doing it for a company investing other peoples' money. The markets are very random that it is very hard for people to tell if you are good at it and since markets generally go up it is easy to claim you are making money for people, but clearly banks and hedge funds see significant value in good analysts so it is likely not entirely random. Especially if you are a good writer you can make a more money here than most other jobs. Is it worth it for the average investor saving for retirement? Very, very hard to say. Your time might be better spent on your day job if you have one. Remember because of the fees and added risk involved over say index investing more \"\"Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dabc7412a6bb3aa6b04232e77185d57a", "text": "\"The June 2014 issue of Barclays Wealth's Compass magazine had a very nice succinct article on this topic: \"\"Value investing – does a rules-based approach work?\"\". It examines the performance of value and growth styles of investment in the MSCI World and S&P500 arenas for a few decades back, and reveals a surprisingly complicated picture, depending on sector, region and time-period. Their summary is basically: A closer look however shows that the overall success of value strategies derives mainly from the 1970s and 1980s. ... in the US, value has underperformed growth for over 25 years since peaking in July 1988. Globally, value experienced a 30% setback in the late 1990s so that there are now periods with a length of nearly 13 years over which growth has outperformed. So the answer to \"\"does it beat the market?\"\" is \"\"it depends...\"\". Update in response to comment below: the question of risk adjusted returns is interesting. To quote another couple of fragments from the piece: Since December 1974, [MSCI world] value has outperformed growth by 2.6% annually, with lower risk. This outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis is the so-called value premium that Eugene Fama and Kenneth French first identified in 1992... and That outperformance has, however, come with more risk. Historical volatility of the pure style indices has been 21-22% compared to 16% for the market. ... From a maximum drawdown perspective, the 69% drop of pure value during the financial crisis exceeded the 51% drop of the overall market.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "887b3200296cd2619401dfefffaeee33", "text": "One aspect of this - no matter which valuation method you choose - is that there are limited shares available to buy. Other people already know those valuation methods and have decided to buy those shares, paying higher than the previous person to notice this and take a risk. So this means that even after you have calculated the company's assets and future growth, you will be possibly buying shares that are way more expensive and overvalued than they will be in the future. You have to consider that, or you may be stuck with a loss for decades. And during that time, the company will get new management or their industry will change, completely undermining whatever fundamentals you originally considered.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54284d2a3c8a95d3298247d368e50224", "text": "\"The Investment Entertainment Pricing Theory (INEPT) has this bit to note: The returns of small growth stocks are ridiculously low—just 2.18 percent per year since 1927 (versus 17.47 percent for small value, 10.06 percent for large growth, and 13.99 percent for large value). Where the S & P 500 would be a blend of large-cap growth and value so does that meet your \"\"beat the market over the long term\"\" as 1927-1999 would be long for most people.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "70591461ef9fce7e7b32b7b259bf14f6", "text": "The quant aspect '''''. This is the kind of math I was wondering if it existed, but now it sounds like it is much more complex in reality then optimizing by evaluating different cost of capital. Thank you for sharing", "title": "" }, { "docid": "081512f0aaafbef6ec324b5e271c4821", "text": "\"Check out Professor Damodaran's website: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/ . Tons of good stuff there to get you started. If you want more depth, he's written what is widely considered the bible on the subject of valuation: \"\"Investment Valuation\"\". DCF is very well suited to stock analysis. One doesn't need to know, or forecast the future stock price to use it. In fact, it's the opposite. Business fundamentals are forecasted to estimate the sum total of future cash flows from the company, discounted back to the present. Divide that by shares outstanding, and you have the value of the stock. The key is to remember that DCF calculations are very sensitive to inputs. Be conservative in your estimates of future revenue growth, earnings margins, and capital investment. I usually develop three forecasts: pessimistic, neutral, optimistic. This delivers a range of value instead of a false-precision single number. This may seem odd: I find the DCF invaluable, but for the process, not so much the result. The input sensitivity requires careful work, and while a range of value is useful, the real benefit comes from being required to answer the questions to build the forecast. It provides a framework to analyze a business. You're just trying to properly fill in the boxes, estimate the unguessable. To do so, you pore through the financials. Skimming, reading with a purpose. In the end you come away with a fairly deep understanding of the business, how they make money, why they'll continue to make money, etc.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae5328d39b4595fdc2abf63ff7bdfb46", "text": "I wouldn't read into the title too much. We live in a world of click bait. I'd agree with your statement, that really the point is that reading fiction makes you better at understanding human emotion which makes you better at investing because the market is very emotional by nature. Of course I'd say if this is your position I'd be taking some long straddle positions on options leading up to conference meetings on big companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Tesla and calling it a day.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89d0451472da336c5b36dca90f59adb4", "text": "Many good sources on YouTube that you can find easily once you know what to look for. Start following the stock market, present value / future value, annuities &amp; perpetuities, bonds, financial ratios, balance sheets and P&amp;L statements, ROI, ROA, ROE, cash flows, net present value and IRR, forecasting, Monte Carlo simulation (heavy on stats but useful in finance), the list goes on. If you can find a cheap textbook, it'll help with the concepts. Investopedia is sometimes useful in learning concepts but not really on application. Khan Academy is a good YouTube channel. The Intelligent Investor is a good foundational book for investing. There are several good case studies on Harvard Business Review to practice with. I've found that case studies are most helpful in learning how to apply concept and think outside the box. Discover how you can apply it to aspects of your everyday life. Finance is a great profession to pursue. Good luck on your studies!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69e391d3a97df557994cd37dac75471a", "text": "Value investing is an investment approach that relies on buying securities below their intrinsic values. There are two main concepts; one is the Intrinsic Value and the other is Margin of Safety. Intrinsic value is the value of the underlying business - if we are talking about stocks - that can be calculated through carefully analyzing the business looking at all aspects of it. If there is an intrinsic value exists for a company then there is a price tag we can put on its shares as well. Value investing is looking to buy shares well below its intrinsic value. It is important to know that there is no correct intrinsic value exists for a company and two people can come up with different figures, if they were presented the same data. Calculating the intrinsic value for a business is the hardest part of value investing. Margin of Safety is the difference between the buying price of a stock and its intrinsic value. Value investors are insisting on buying stocks well below their intrinsic value, where the margin of safety is 20%-30% or even more. This concepts is protecting them from poor decisions and market downturns. It is also providing a room for error, when calculating the intrinsic value. The approach was introduced by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in a book called Security Analysis in 1934. Other famous investor using this approach is Warren Buffet Books to read: I would start to read the first two book first.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68ad2d6cc4afb29c1b2f1b4a8f0d38f1", "text": "All you have to do is ask Warren Buffet that question and you'll have your answer! (grin) He is the very definition of someone who relies on the fundamentals as a major part of his investment decisions. Investors who rely on analysis of fundamentals tend to be more long-term strategic planners than most other investors, who seem more focused on momentum-based thinking. There are some industries which have historically low P/E ratios, such as utilities, but I don't think that implies poor growth prospects. How often does a utility go out of business? I think oftentimes if you really look into the numbers, there are companies reporting higher earnings and earnings growth, but is that top-line growth, or is it the result of cost-cutting and other measures which artificially imply a healthy and growing company? A healthy company is one which shows year-over-year organic growth in revenues and earnings from sales, not one which has to continually make new acquisitions or use accounting tricks to dress up the bottom line. Is it possible to do well by investing in companies with solid fundamentals? Absolutely. You may not realize the same rate of short-term returns as others who use momentum-based trading strategies, but over the long haul I'm willing to bet you'll see a better overall average return than they do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ad8c31cf38ded9ae11e02d78b881164", "text": "\"Thank you for the in-depth, detailed explanation; it's refreshing to see a concise, non verbose explanation on reddit. I have a couple of questions, if that's alright. Firstly, concerning mezzanine investors. Based on my understanding from Google, these people invest after a venture has been partially financed (can I use venture like that in a financial context, or does it refer specifically to venture capital?) so they would receive a smaller return, yes? Is mezzanine investing particularly profitable? It sounds like you'd need a wide portfolio. Secondly, why is dilution so important further down the road? Is it to do with valuation? Finally, at what point would a company aim to meet an IPO? Is it case specific, or is there a general understanding of the \"\"best time\"\"? Thank you so much for answering my questions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20fb453bd63f1f4ded5fa3e211933994", "text": "Value investing is just an investment strategy, it's an alternative to technical investing. Buffet made money picking stocks. It's not obvious how that adds value, but it does. Everything about the stock market is ultimately about IPOs. Without active trading, of stocks after issue, no one would buy at the IPO. The purpose of an IPO is to finance the long-term growth of a business, which is the point in the process where the value to the people gets created. There is a group of elites that needs to be dealt with, you're correct, but I worry that your definition of this group is overly broad.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25e56af0f5cbdab0fbbef9de4082a0b0", "text": "Hey, you seem like you read a lot about what a quant does on the Internet... I'm guessing zerohedge mostly and maybe some financial pop culture books about the financial crisis. Why don't you leave that out of this discussion as it is pretty misleading. Quants price relative risk and that is important for a number of reasons.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebb20a00f7a59b2682b77987bd4151f6", "text": "The steps you outlined are fine by themselves. Step 5, seeking criticism can be less helpful than one may think. See stocktwits.com There are a lot of opposing opinions all of which can be correct over different time-frames. Try and quantify your confidence and develop different strategies for different confidence levels. I was never smart enough or patient with follow through to be a successful value investor. It was very frustrating to watch stocks trade sideways for years before the company's intrinsic value was better reflected in the market. Also, you could make an excellent pick, but a macro change and slump could set you back a year and raise doubts. In my experience portfolio management techniques like asset allocation and dollar-cost-averaging is what made my version of value investing work. Your interest in 10k/10q is something to applaud. Is there something specific about 10k/10q that you do not understand? Context is key, these types of reports are more relevant and understandable when compared to competitors in the same sector. It is good to assess over confidence! It is also good to diversify your knowledge and the effort put into Securities Analysis 6th edition will help with other books in the field. I see a bit of myself in your post, and if you are like me, than subsequent readings, and full mastery of the concepts in 'Securities & Analysis 6th ed.' will lead to over confidence, or a false understanding as there are many factors at play in the market. So many, that even the most scientific approaches to investing can just as equally be described as an 'art'. I'm not aware of the details of your situation, but in general, for you to fully realize the benefits from applying the principals of value investing shared by Graham and more recently Warren Buffett, you must invest on the level that requires use of the consolidation or equity method of accounting, e.g. > 20% ownership. Sure, the same principals used by Buffett can work on a smaller scale, but a small scale investor is best served by wealth accumulation, which can take many forms. Not the addition of instant equity via acquisitions to their consolidated financials. Lastly, to test what you have learned about value investing, and order execution, try the inverse. At least on paper. Short a stock with low value and a high P/E. TWTR may be a good example? Learn what it is like to have your resources at stake, and the anguish of market and security volatility. It would be a lot easier to wait it out as a long-term value investor from a beach house in Santa Barbara :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "399db64a304c7fc66c5a72efd53d8696", "text": "How you use the metric is super important. Because it subtracts cash, it does not represent 'value'. It represents the ongoing financing that will be necessary if both the equity plus debt is bought by one person, who then pays himself a dividend with that free cash. So if you are Private Equity, this measures your net investment at t=0.5, not the price you pay at t=0. If you are a retail investor, who a) won't be buying the debt, b) won't have any control over things like tax jurisdictions, c) won't be receiving any cash dividend, etc etc .... the metric is pointless.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6b93d56422824ec67ede47fd8faf611", "text": "Very interesting. I would like to expand beyond just precious metals and stocks, but I am not ready just to jump in just yet (I am a relatively young investor, but have been playing around with stocks for 4 years on and off). The problem I often find is that the stock market is often too overvalued to play Ben Graham type strategy/ PE/B, so I would like to expand my knowledge of investing so I can invest in any market and still find value. After reading Jim Rogers, I was really interested in commodities as an alternative to stocks, but I like to play really conservative (generally). Thank you for your insight. If you don't mind, I would like to add you as a friend, since you seem quite above average in the strategy department.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed94c996ea2eda52c332ab82b4541cd4", "text": "I really like Value Investing by Bruce Greenwald. It's not a textbook so you can probably pick it up for about $20. While it is dense, I think with some patience you might be able to understand it at the undergrad level. The process outlined in the VI book is very different from the conventional corp finance way of valuing a company. A typical corp finance model would probably have you model cash flows 5 or 10 years out and then assume some sort of terminal growth. The VI book argues that it's nearly impossible to predict things that far out accurately so build your valuation on what we know. Start with the balance sheet. Then look at this year's earnings. Is that sustainable? This is a simplification of course but I describe it only so you can get the idea. I think it's definitely a worthwhile read.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4fb93947461cf2614b37f4ea50bbec9b", "text": "Googling vanguard target asset allocation led me to this page on the Bogleheads wiki which has detailed breakdowns of the Target Retirement funds; that page in turn has a link to this Vanguard PDF which goes into a good level of detail on the construction of these funds' portfolios. I excerpt: (To the question of why so much weight in equities:) In our view, two important considerations justify an expectation of an equity risk premium. The first is the historical record: In the past, and in many countries, stock market investors have been rewarded with such a premium. ... Historically, bond returns have lagged equity returns by about 5–6 percentage points, annualized—amounting to an enormous return differential in most circumstances over longer time periods. Consequently, retirement savers investing only in “safe” assets must dramatically increase their savings rates to compensate for the lower expected returns those investments offer. ... The second strategic principle underlying our glidepath construction—that younger investors are better able to withstand risk—recognizes that an individual’s total net worth consists of both their current financial holdings and their future work earnings. For younger individuals, the majority of their ultimate retirement wealth is in the form of what they will earn in the future, or their “human capital.” Therefore, a large commitment to stocks in a younger person’s portfolio may be appropriate to balance and diversify risk exposure to work-related earnings (To the question of how the exact allocations were decided:) As part of the process of evaluating and identifying an appropriate glide path given this theoretical framework, we ran various financial simulations using the Vanguard Capital Markets Model. We examined different risk-reward scenarios and the potential implications of different glide paths and TDF approaches. The PDF is highly readable, I would say, and includes references to quant articles, for those that like that sort of thing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dcb7260f7b813b016081465372c8589", "text": "Berkshire Hathaway's earnings for the last reported quarter were $6.395 billion, which works out to $822 in profit per second, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is directly the result of about 50 years of carefully applying the value investing philosophy.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ad7eef5eaf1ff856a5bc2e220317e7d3
Is it acceptable to receive payment from U.S. in Indian saving bank account via PayPal?
[ { "docid": "3e11f0e7ab671c5e2e7a3c86eb356e1f", "text": "It is fine to receive payments into Indian Savings Bank account. There are no restriction on deposits. There are only restrictions on number of withdrawls in a quarter. A Current[a.k.a Checking] account makes it easier to manage. You haven't asked about tax, but I you may already know you would need to pay taxes irrespective of whether you got the money in Savings or Current account. Edit: Any individual can open a Current Account on individual's name. There is no restriction. There are multiple aspects to determine whether the activity you are doing is a service as defined by the Service Tax Rules. Please consult a CA to guide you. For less than 5K INR he would not only advice you but also do everything required to file taxes.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "118b7cdb68dfddbd40d4ac3fb00c6b6b", "text": "Yes, you can transfer money to your account, any bank will do it. The conversion charges will be there i.e. the diff between USD and the rate at which the bank sells it, usually Rs. 2/-, appx. In addition, transaction charge (not very high). As for taking from friends & repaying in India, check UAE tax treatement for taking money from friends (is it considered as your income & are you liable for taxes). As for giving back, get some documentation done as a loan, otherwise your friends may be considered to be taking gift/consideration/income from you and taxed. Most straight forward way is to transfer the money from your mother's account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b290195b7de9cc800442e2563e6ddbc", "text": "\"HSBC, also known as \"\"The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation\"\" has banks in India. I would imagine that might be a place to start. Paypal, which is commonly used to pay for items on eBay -- is also available in both India and China. You should, of course, respect any laws regulating this kind of money transfer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "202dc5cefb400162d5f5ac4b27711e5d", "text": "You cannot directly transfer money from your Bank Account. You can use Debit Card to make payments to your paypal account. Just enter the details of the payment and amount, it would make the necessary deduction from your debit card. Indian regulations do not allow you to store value in your paypal account. This credits have to be transfered to a Bank account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb5105cef9bf56d1edb545ff9441e282", "text": "The data provided in your question is irrelevant. The data that you provided in the comments (that you're physically present in the US while doing the work) is the only relevant information needed to answer your question. You will need to pay taxes in the US for the earnings. The company invoicing the US client will also need to pay taxes in the US for its earnings from these invoices. You can transfer between bank accounts and deposit whatever you want anywhere you want, no-one cares (with respect to the US taxes, check with Indian tax accountant about Indian requirements).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac8abccf51bd6ddeaff31ce498e4be7b", "text": "\"You are right in insisting upon a proper B2B contract in any business relationship. You wish to reduce your risk and be compensated fairly. In addition to the cost and complexity of international wire transfers, the US companies may also be considering the fact that as an international contractor in a relatively hard-to-reach jurisdiction, payments to you place the company at higher risk than payments to a domestic contractor. By insisting upon PayPal or similar transmitters, they are reducing their internal complexity and reducing their financial exposure to unfulfilled/disputed contract terms. Therefore, wire payments are \"\"hard\"\" in an internal business sense, as well as in a remittance transfer reporting sense. The internal business procedure will likely be the hardest to overcome--changing risk management is harder than filling out forms.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08248f5214e8b3782b0d58a4351d7af1", "text": "He cannot get money from someone else account. Your US resident friend in New York can send money to your Indian friend in Atlanta via Western Union which has presence in almost every corner of the US. Most definitely in the city of Atlanta. Your Indian friend can receive the Western Union transfer, in cash, within minutes after the friend in New York sends it. Here's the site for location search. The sender doesn't need to go anywhere, can send online, so your New York friend doesn't even need to waste much time. In fact - you don't need to bother your friend in New York, you can send it online yourself (assuming you're American/have US bank account). In order to receive the money, your Indian friend will obviously need a proper identification (i.e.: passport).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a41efbee5c826099835787e354a813b0", "text": "I just tried doing that on my PP which is in the Netherlands, I have added a USD bank account (from my dutch bank) and they sent the verification amount in Euros, I called the bank and wonder why they didn't let me choose account currency they said it's not possible and if I cashout Dollars that I have in my PP (cause we usually do international business so we set it to dollars) it will be changed to Euros, So we decided to keep the dollars in account to pay our bills instead of getting ripped off by PayPal in xchange rates.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5c208aa15db85fd959b6995ab8b9298", "text": "In short getting funds converted outside of the Banking channel is illegal in India as Foreign Exchange is still regulated. If you show only a credit from your friend's NRE account to your NRO account [note it can't be your NRE account], it would be treated as GIFT and taxed accordingly, else you would have to show it as loan and pay back. You may show the payback in USD. But then there is a limit of Fx every individual can get converted/repatriate out of India and there is a purpose of remittance, all these complicate this further.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c5e87f8ad4f78766ee62122ac566585", "text": "It's possible the recipient of the payment is not setup to receive funds form PayPal from a credit card, too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08921e6ff179ad1d23307d2cf828f157", "text": "\"This is not a problem. SWIFT does not need the Beneficiary Account Currency. The settlement account [or the Instruction amount] is of interest to the Banks. As I understand your agreement with client is they pay you \"\"X\"\" EUR. That is what would be specified on the SWIFT along with your details as beneficiary [Account Number etc]. Once the funds are received by your bank in Turkey, they will get EUR. When they apply these funds to your account in USD, they will convert using the standard rates. Unless you are a large customer and have special instructions [like do not credit if funds are received in NON-USD or give me a special rate or Call me and ask me what I want to do etc]. It typically takes 3-5 days for an international wire depending on the countries and currencies involved. Wait for few more days and then if not received, you have to ask your Client to mention to his Bank that Beneficiary is claiming non-receipt of funds. The Bank that initiated the transfer can track the wire not the your bank which is supposed to receive the funds.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3dae5d8ea7f05dd0a8e89d8773b90495", "text": "I can't address Indian law but US law has no problems with you having savings accounts in India. Furthermore, there are no tax consequences from paying off the student loan. However there is big problem here--while the US has no rules against foreign bank accounts it has reporting rules that you certainly have violated (if you hadn't violated them you wouldn't be asking the question.) 1) Those foreign bank accounts must be listed on your tax return. 2) Those foreign bank accounts must be listed on a PDF that's filed with the (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. (Yes, it's very stupid they need identical information sent to two different departments.) 2) The interest you earned on that bank account is income that should have been reported on your return. As for what to do about it--this is the realm where you get professional help. As for the outcome--since you didn't set out to cheat they have a much less harsh system set up. Expect to amend your 2012 and 2013 returns (and 2014 if you've already filed it), pay interest and late-payment penalties on the additional tax caused by the interest and pay a penalty of 5% of the highest total value of the accounts. Since the discovery of large amounts of money being hidden from the taxman in Swiss bank accounts Congress has gone 1000# gorilla about it and been pressuring foreign banks to cough up the details on any US-citizen or US-resident depositors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3dda95b6fe5e60b7c1a455d81fc346f", "text": "\"I cannot speak for Paypal specifically and I doubt anyone who doesn't actually work on their internal automated payment systems could. However, I can speak from experiencing in working on automated forex transaction systems and tell you what many institutions do and it is often NOT based on live rates. There is no law stating an institution must honor a specific market exchange rate. Institutions can determine their own rates how and when they want to. However, there is some useful information on their website: https://www.paypal.com/an/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/sell/mc/mc_convert-outside \"\"The most readily available information on currency exchange rates is based on interbank exchange rates. Interbank exchange rates are established in the course of currency trading among a global network of over 1,000 banks, and are not available through consumer or retail channels.\"\" This leads me to believe they pull exchange rates from either Oanda or XE periodically and then use these rates throughout the day to conduct business. Paypal does not disclose who they use to determine rates. And it's highly doubtful they do this for every transaction (using live rates). Even if they did, there would be no way for you to check and be certain of a particular exchange rate as paypal states: \"\" Consumers may use these rates as a reference, but should not expect to use interbank rates in transactions that involve currency conversion. To obtain actual retail rates, contact your local financial institution or currency exchange, or check the rate displayed in your PayPal transaction.\"\" This is partly because rates can change by the second just like stock prices or anything else which is susceptible to the open market's variables of supply, demand news events etc. So, even if you check the rates on Oanda (which you can do here: http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/) you are not going to get a 100% accurate representation of what you would get by doing an exchange immediately afterwards from Paypal or any other financial institution. However, if you want to estimate, using Oanda's currency converter will likely get you close in most scenarios. That is assuming Paypal doesn't charge a premium for the exchange, which they may. That is also assuming they use live rates, it's also possible they only update their rates based on market rates periodically and not for every transaction. You may want to test this by checking the exchange rate on your transaction and comparing that to the Oanda rates at the same time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "08714b4e965257c6b6b9472a64777a3e", "text": "From my experience using PayPal for selling products on eBay (and for the last two, experiences of a friend)... Can paypal get money from my Bank Account without my authorization. This is assuming they have transferred the funds to me. They can't pull money from your bank account without your authorization. They will, however, take the money from your PayPal account if it's still there, or leave you with a negative balance if you've already withdrawn. They will do this as soon as there is a claim against you and will only release the funds if the investigation ends in your favor. Any money received would first be used to satisfy the negative balance. What actions can paypal takes against me if charge back amount is very high and I don't agree / pay them. They will send it to a collections agency. Is there any case it is going to effect my bank account, i.e. is there any chance paypal can block my bank account in India. They will block you from using PayPal. If you try to sign up again with a different bank account or credit card and they recognize you as the account holder, they will block that account as well.", "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": "9c220364399a19ad2f56f3069efd44dd", "text": "I am on employment based visa in USA and want to send dollars from USA to India from my savings (after paying Tax). How much maximum dollars I can send in a day? month? or in a year regularly? There is no such limit. You can transfer as money you like to yourself anywhere. To pay the Bank Loan-student Loan how much maximum dollars I can send in a day, in a month or in a year? to pay that I have to pay directly to that Bank Account or in any account I can send money? You can transfer to your NRE account in India and move it further. You can also send it directly to the Loan Account [Check with the Bank, they may not be able to receive funds from outside for a Loan Account] My mother is having Green Card. She is not working. She has a NRE account in India. Can I send dollars from my USA Bank account to her NRE account in India? what are the rules for that? any Tax or limit for that? Or I have to get any permission before sending it? If you are sending money to your mother, it would come under Gift Tax act in US. There is no issue in India. Suggest you transfer to your own NRE account.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e654c6e0410d1ace3a1140d4a6493bd9
Can I locate the name of an account holder by the account number and sort code? (U.K.)
[ { "docid": "1106f53035aa74ff20d51f8c9d233ccc", "text": "\"No, the best you can do is (probably) determine the bank, from the sort code. using an online checker such as this one from the UK payments industry trade association. Revealing the name of an account holder is something the bank would typically require a warrant for, I'd expect, or whatever is covered in the account T&Cs under \"\"we provide all lawfully required assistance to the authorities\"\" Switching to what I suspect is your underlying problem - if this is a dispute that's arisen at the end of your tenancy, relating to the return of the deposit, then there are plenty of people to help you, for free. Use those rather than attempting your own detective work. Start with the UK government How to Rent guide, which includes links on to Shelter's pages about deposits. The CAB has lots of good info here too. Note that if your landlord didn't put your deposit in a deposit protection scheme, then as a professional landlord they could be penalised four times (I think) the deposit amount by a court, so stick to your guns on this.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8e67b6911d14a79d53b0b47b4fdd2ac1", "text": "\"Accounts track value: at any given time, a given account will have a given value. The type of account indicates what the value represents. Roughly: On a balance sheet (a listing of accounts and their values at a given point in time), there is typically only one equity account, representing net worth, I don't know much about GNUCash, though. Income and expenses accounts do not go on the balance sheet, but to find out more, either someone else or the GNUCash manual will have to describe how they work in detail. Equity is more similar to a liability than to assets. The equation Assets = Equity + Liabilities should always hold; you can think of assets as being \"\"what my stuff is worth\"\" and equity and liabilities together as being \"\"who owns it.\"\" The part other people own is liability, and the part you own is equity. See balance sheet, accounting equation, and double-entry bookkeeping for more information. (A corporate balance sheet might actually have more than one equity entry. The purpose of the breakdown is to show how much of their net worth came from investors and how much was earned. That's only relevant if you're trying to assess how a company has performed to date; it's not important for a family's finances.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "97793b3a30e5346c88a4c290d48d8e81", "text": "\"That's Imbalance-USD (or whatever your default currency is). This is the default \"\"uncategorized\"\" account. My question is, is it possible to get the \"\"unbalanced\"\" account to zero and eliminate it? Yes, it's possible to get this down to zero, and in fact desirable. Any transactions in there should be reviewed and fixed. You can delete it once you've emptied it, but it will be recreated the next time an unbalanced transaction is entered. Ideally, I figure it should autohide unless there's something in it, but it's a minor annoyance. Presumably you've imported a lot of data into what's known as a transaction account like checking, and it's all going to Imbalance, because it's double entry and it has to go somewhere. Open up the checking account and you'll see they're all going to Imbalance. You'll need to start creating expense, liability and income accounts to direct these into. Once you've got your history all classified, data entry will be easier. Autocomplete will suggest transactions, and online transaction pull will try to guess which account a given transaction should match with based on that data.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd41897ff6e235a6fe27bf154a7bdade", "text": "Of course not, this is confidential information in the same way that I cannot phone up your bank and ask to see a list of the transactions that you have made. Any bank has to be extremely careful about protecting the private transactions of it's customers and would be subject to heavy fines if it revealed this information without the customer's consent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d2099b9473e1b692d5d0916ea617bc7", "text": "\"To the best of my knowledge the UK's online banking systems look purely at the Sort Code and Account Number when routing transfers. The name is not cross-checked to ensure it matches. This is why it's so easy to misdirect transfers if you make an error entering the numbers and inadvertently enter the details for a valid account belonging to the wrong person. So in your case so long as you're sure you have the correct account number and sort code it doesn't matter what you put in the name field - it'll end up in the account to which those numbers apply. Of course you might as well put your \"\"best guess\"\" into the name field since it doesn't hurt, and in the event that something does go wrong it's backup evidence of your intentions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9aaf3e6f3d48e0e891852acee4964319", "text": "I think you'll find that a credit card does have an account number and sort code, I have had a Visa card previously and currently have a Mastercard. Both were paid by Direct Debit, and I could then transfer money to the account when I wanted to pay more than the minimum payment off. Check the introductory letter from the card provider, it should be on there, failing that, contact the provider and ask them for the details, how to pay, or a direct debit mandate for either the whole amount or the minimum amount.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d32ccf220435358c890dd86b7bce3e2", "text": "\"Generally, it would be an accountant. Specifically in the case of very \"\"private\"\" (or unorganized, which is even worse) person - forensic accountant. Since there's no will - it will probably require a lawyer as well to gain access to all the accounts the accountant discovers. I would start with a good estate attorney, who in turn will hire a forensic accountant to trace the accounts.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73af9a56905b7f5768ee9ac3b6b2a344", "text": "You need to report your accounts, not other persons. However, if you have a joint account with another person - it is your account, jointly. So the joint account has to be reported, your girlfriend's personal accounts - not (unless the money there is yours or you have signature authority, of course). For a joint account - you need to report who are the joint holders, yes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93651496bbc8ad51ee18fb100f61dfbc", "text": "I used to use Quicken, but support for that has been suspended in the UK. I had started using Mvelopes, but support for that was suspended as well! What I use now is an IPhone app called IXpenseit to track my spending.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec25ffcf96bd8f2078cb0d47209194f4", "text": "My bank claims they cannot trace since the money never reached them. Your bank is right. They can't generally trace this. I asked the sender to initiate a trace with Natwest, but no results for 3 days now. Natwest should be able to trace and confirm it. This usually takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "169f26454c7338aaed54ac233d34d34a", "text": "Be interesting to see how this falls in line with new rules on data protection in the EU (and probably more relevant, the UK as it's maintaining them after Brexit..). Some of the data being held may well not be shareable without consent and if someone turns a spotlight on banks sharing data it could get quite ugly quite quickly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "250776fdc7608cf2ad194f982553b759", "text": "\"In Europe in most of the countries there is also a thing called ACH. In UK there is a thing called BACS and in other countires there are other things. Essentially every country has what is called a \"\"Low value Net Settlement System\"\" that is used to transfer funds between accounts of different banks. In US there is rounting number, in UK there is a Sort Code, in Indonesia there is a sort code. Essentially a Bank Identifier that is issued by the Governing body within respective countires. Certian identifiers like SWIFT BIC [Bank Identification Code] are Unique across world.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9840638aad3cf96aee25bd53d600d8d4", "text": "\"Shares do not themselves carry any identity. Official shareholders are kept at the registrar. In the UK, this may be kept up to date and publicly accessible. In the US, it is not, but this doesn't matter because most shares are held \"\"in street name\"\". For a fully detailed history, one would need access to all exchange records, brokerage records, and any trades transacted off exchange. These records are almost totally unavailable.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d6a0684c5d2fd9d65960fd64b8dac44", "text": "It appears all you have to do is submit a form. It might be better if she submitted it herself instead of you doing it on her behalf. All natural persons (individuals) and non-natural persons (businesses) are entitled to access and inspect the data held on record about them in the Central Credit Information System (KHR).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6b8189320edc6bd23ad212fbdbfe276", "text": "\"It's generally not possible to open a business account in the UK remotely. It's even difficult (near impossible) for a non-resident (even if a citizen) to open a business or personal bank account while visiting the UK. A recent report says that it may be possible to open an account via Barclays Offshore in the Isle of Man. This requires a large deposit, and probably lots of paperwork and fees (most offshore locations have stricter \"\"know your customer\"\" rules than major countries). Note that while the Isle of Man is inside the UK banking system (for sort codes, account numbers), it is a separate territory that doesn't have the same deposit guarantees as the UK. There is no legal reason why a UK company has to bank within the UK banking system, although many companies paying the company would expect it or require it, and an account in anything other than sterling would complicate the accounts. It could have an account in your home country. It's not even a legal requirement that the company has an account in its own name at all. Some people use a (separate) personal account for this purpose. There are plenty of reasons why this is a bad idea (for example it's unclear who/what owns the money in the account, and can give the appearance of director's loans), but it's a work-around. Most inbound electronic payments only require a sort code and account number, the account owner name is not checked. The UK does have a much simpler and cheaper company registry than most European countries, but the near-impossibility of opening a bank account for a business in the UK as a non-resident has made it an unsuitable place to register a small international company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29c4fa7248e6e93f50bbdd0f550d20a0", "text": "If iban and name don't match. This shud have been refunded. Logic says so. Otherwise they just ask for iban without other details if they won't be considered", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
280787d0368752d779f1c6368d378b60
Company is late in paying my corporate credit card statement - will it hurt my credit?
[ { "docid": "e264c10f6f937dbbc6dd7287934cb8e5", "text": "\"According to an article on Bankrate.com from 2011, yes, it can hurt your credit: With individual liability accounts, the employee holds all responsibility for the charges, even if the company pays the issuer directly. Joint liability means the company and employee share the responsibility for payments, says Mahendra Gupta, author of the RPMG survey. In both cases, if the card isn't paid and the account becomes delinquent, it will pop up on the employee's credit report and dent his or her credit score, says Barry Paperno, consumer affairs manager at myFICO.com. It doesn't matter if the company was supposed to make the payment; the repercussions fall on the employee. \"\"It will impact your score no differently than if you were late on one of your own accounts,\"\" Paperno says. Usually, with corporate credit cards, the employee is liable along with the employer for charges on the card. The intent is to provide the employee with an incentive not to misuse the card. However, this can be a problem if your company is late in paying bills. In the distant past, I had a corporate credit card. I was not supposed to have to pay the bill, but I did receive a bill in the mail every month. And occasionally, the payment was late. In my case, these late payments never showed up on my credit report. I can't remember now whether or not this card was reported on my credit report at all. And I remember being told when I got the card that I was jointly responsible for the card with the company. However, your experience may be different. Do the on-time payments show up on your credit report? If so, that may be an indication that a late payment might appear.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0f298e784249ed9b824b177253cf6ca", "text": "After doing some investigating, my employers contract with the credit card company has a clause that basically specifies that despite my name being on the credit card, and bills being sent to me, all liability is on the company. Additionally, the employer reserves the right to garnish wages in the event of a balance on the card. So it looks like it won't affect my credit score. I appreciate all of the advice.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e035cf8095b7f043254c4e5ead6f0785", "text": "This is normal for credit cards. As long as you make the credit card company's cutoff time, they will make the funds available on your credit card rather than make you wait for them to actually get the funds from your bank. The amount of time this takes actually can vary significantly from bank to bank. You do want to make sure funds are available in your bank account for them to withdraw when they do take them though. If not, the payment would get returned and can set red flags on your credit card account that take a while to drop off.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c83dfb8bae683361cff5422a87ac9b70", "text": "\"The fact that you pay the bill reliably is going to count more for your credit rating than anything else, even if you are paying it off in full every month. Lenders seem to like to see at least one instance where you charged a large balance, held it a couple months, then paid it off in full... but I wouldn't go out of my way to do that. Remember that the credit card company is making money on transaction fees as well as interest. If you're pushing money through their system, they're happy. They'd be happier if you were paying them interest too -- reportedly, they actually refer to those of us who pay in full every month as \"\"deadbeats\"\" -- but they aren't going to kick you out or ding your credit rating for it. The quote you give says that a small balance \"\"may be slightly better\"\". I submit that \"\"may be slightly\"\" is too small a difference to be worth worrying about, unless you have reason to believe that your credit rating actively needs to be repaired. (And as noted in the comments, it's actually stated even less strongly than that!) Personal recommendation: You can get a free credit report each year from each of the \"\"big three\"\" credit rating agencies. Those reports usually include a brief explanation of what they think the most negative item on your record is. The phrasing of those explanations is often somewhat misleading, but I'd still suggest that you get these reports and see what they think would improve your rating. I'm willing to bet it won't be \"\"doesn't carry a high enough debt balance.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8595d13e97d4e3b4a5a071bfee70f6c", "text": "Nothing will happen. It will not affect your credit score. You are not in trouble. :) Assuming that you didn't already agree to a purchase contract, you are not obligated to purchase simply because you had a pre-approval credit check done. However, even if you did, since they aren't shipping yet, you could probably cancel. If you are in doubt, talk to customer service to ensure that they aren't planning on shipping one to you. They did check your credit report (known as a hard pull), and this does temporarily affect your credit score. However, it affects it the same whether you complete the purchase or not. If you have another credit check done with another seller, it will result in another hard pull, affecting your credit score a little more. But I wouldn't worry about a few hard pulls if you need to do some shopping. Just don't go overboard, and you'll be fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "639cc7a31d1d784762a35b44780f1a2c", "text": "You definitely have an argument for getting them to reverse the late fee, especially if it hasn't happened very often. (If you are late every month they may be less likely to forgive.) As for why this happens, it's not actually about business days, but instead it's based on when they know that you paid. In general, there are 2 ways for a company to mark a bill as paid: Late Fees: Some systems automatically assign late fees at the start of the day after the due date if money has not been received. In your case, if your bill was due on the 24th, the late fee was probably assessed at midnight of the 25th, and the payment arrived after that during the day of the 25th. You may have been able to initiate the payment on the company's website at 11:59pm on the 24th and not have received a late fee (or whatever their cutoff time is). Suggestion: as a rule of thumb, for utility bills whose due date and amount can vary slightly from month to month, you're usually better off setting up your payments on the company website to pull from your bank account, instead of setting up your bank account to push the payment to the company. This will ensure that you always get the bill paid on time and for the correct amount. If you still would rather push the payment from your bank account, then consider setting up the payment to arrive about 5 days early, to account for holidays and weekends.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "247fbb4f91a338206823d07020596f94", "text": "Your credit report is composed of different factors and each has a different weight. Payment history has the biggest weight, at 35%, while length of credit history is 15%. So together, these two factors make up 50% - there are 5 factors total. Given that your card is your oldest card, and assuming you've made on time payments on that card, it does have an influence on your credit report/score. I would not close the card, and use it to make occasional purchases. I have a card like that where I only use it to make iTunes purchases - at most a couple bucks every few months.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b6846494d7cc3cfacbb19f76e63255f", "text": "If you are worried about it, call up the loan company and confirm that they received the payment and that they credited it properly. If they received the payment but did not credit it properly to your loan, the customer service representative on the phone should be able to make the adjustment, as well as remove any late fee that might have been applied as a result of the misapplied payment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acc3bac45df62a18420b25658dff1ad7", "text": "I had a debt collector call on a bill that was sent to collections because of a clerical error. Instead of negotiating with the debt collector, I called the company that originally owned the debt. They allowed me to pay my bill without any late fees 6 months later, and they gave me a receipt to furnish to the debt collectors. I'm sure the debt collectors got a refund for the purchase of my debt. If your desire is to pay the debt, then you could still call the owner of the debt and see it they wish to work with you to get the debt paid. Any contact with the original creditor will affect your legal rights with respect to collection and statutes of limitation, so you should be sure you want to pay the debt back in full before you take such a step.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8f4c6b3e04e233e8e39707b4eaa8bbd", "text": "Remember, carrying debt on a credit card and waiting to pay it is increased risk in the event something happens and you can't pay it off. I have 1 CC and I have it set to auto-pay on the day it's due (paid in full each month as I don't carry debt anymore - learned that lesson a hard way :) ). So the day it's due it auto-drafts out of my checking. No worries of late payments, missed payments, etc. If you feel that having any balance is bad then by all means pay it off the minute you get your statement. It should come at the same time each month (or close to the same time) and you should be able to setup an auto-payment to pay it off in full as soon as the new statement goes live. To be honest, those extra few days of supposed interest saved by keeping the money in your checking account is so minimal that's it's probably not worth it. Most checking is horrible in interest (all my 'high interest' checking accounts are now less than 1% APR. boo.) and if you're late 1 day then bam! All that earned interest is gone in 1 late fee...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "300207fb417715762863a5b3d7fa6275", "text": "It's likely that your bill always shows the 24th as the due date. Their system is programmed to maintain that consistency regardless of the day of the week that falls on. When the 24th isn't a business day it is good to error on the side of caution and use the business day prior. It would have accepted using their system with a CC payment on the 24th because that goes through their automated system. I would hazard a guess that because your payment was submitted through your bank and arrived on the 23rd it wasn't credited because a live person would have needed to be there to do it and their live people probably don't work weekends. I do much of my bill paying online and have found it easiest to just build a couple days of fluff into the schedule to avoid problems like this. That said, if you call them and explain the situation it is likely that they will credit the late charge back to you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d74c157a41a9d5a8f0fb4c2a3cd6e00", "text": "It is COMPLETELY no use to pay earlier (during a billing cycle) to better your credit score! Your credit score gets affected ONLY once a month from each creditor, and that happens when they post your monthly statement. Thus, no matter what you do or pay and how many times a month or how many days earlier than your due date, it has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your score. Anything you do will be reflected only after the statement. What you pay in between those two statements is irrelevant. So, as far as credit score goes IT DOESN'T MATTER. However, if you want to save on interest being charged, it is wise to pay as early as possible, so your balance is as low as possible for day-by-day calculation of your interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36ddc2dc68b1162f8dc928fe970e3625", "text": "Absolutely. It's the way credit is calculated. The most important things here are credit utilization (how much of your open credit you're using, the less the better for your score) and and length of open credit. The longer you've had a credit card, the more it helps your score. If you use your card and pay it off before the bill comes, the credit card company still knows you're using the card and won't close it. I recommend you download credit karma so you can track your score and learn more about how credit is calculated.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b727ae7b43228b83efcdc86a2ddfa0c7", "text": "Looking at your dates, I think I see a pattern. It appears that your statement closing date is always 17 business days before the last business day of the month. For example, if you start at May 31 and start counting backwards, skipping Saturdays, Sundays, and May 30 (Memorial Day), you'll see that May 5 is 17 business days before May 31. I cannot explain why Bank of America would do this. If you ask them, let us know what they say. If it bothers you, find another bank. I do most of my banking (checking, savings, etc.) with a local credit union. Their statements end on the last day of the month, every month without fail. (Very nice, in my opinion.) I have two credit cards with nationally known banks, and although those statements end in the middle of the month, they are consistently on the same date every month. (One of them is on the 13th; the other date I can't recall right now.) You are right, a computer does the work, and your statement date should be able to fall on a weekend without trouble. Even when these were assembled by hand, the statement date could still be on a weekend, and they just wouldn't write it up until the following Monday. You should be able to find another bank or credit union that does this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8f7a3ce6a223974c1913148af62ded8", "text": "\"To avoid nitpicks, i state up front that this answer is applicable to the US; Europeans, Asians, Canadians, etc may well have quite different systems and rules. You have nothing to worry about if you pay off your credit-card statement in full on the day it is due in timely fashion. On the other hand, if you routinely carry a balance from month to month or have taken out cash advances, then making whatever payment you want to make that month ASAP will save you more in finance charges than you could ever earn on the money in your savings account. But, if you pay off each month's balance in full, then read the fine print about when the payment is due very carefully: it might say that payments received before 5 pm will be posted the same day, or it might say before 3 pm, or before 7 pm EST, or noon PST, etc etc etc. As JoeTaxpayer says, if you can pay on-line with a guaranteed day for the transaction (and you do it before any deadline imposed by the credit-card company), you are fine. My bank allows me to write \"\"electronic\"\" checks on its website, but a paper check is mailed to the credit-card company. The bank claims that if I specify the due date, they will mail the check enough in advance that the credit-card company will get it by the due date, but do you really trust the USPS to deliver your check by noon, or whatever? Besides the bank will put a hold on that money the day that check is cut. (I haven't bothered to check if the money being held still earns interest or not). In any case, the bank disclaims all responsibility for the after-effects (late payment fees, finance charges on all purchases, etc) if that paper check is not received on time and so your credit-card account goes to \"\"late payment\"\" status. Oh, and my bank also wants a monthly fee for its BillPay service (any number of such \"\"electronic\"\" checks allowed each month). The BillPay service does include payment electronically to local merchants and utilities that have accounts at the bank and have signed up to receive payments electronically. All my credit-card companies allow me to use their website to authorize them to collect the payment that I specify from my bank account(s). I can choose the day, the amount, and which of my bank accounts they will collect the money from, but I must do this every month. Very conveniently, they show a calendar for choosing the date with the due date marked prominently, and as mhoran_psprep's comment points out, the payment can be scheduled well in advance of the date that the payment will actually be made, that is, I don't need to worry about being without Internet access because of travel and thus being unable to login to the credit-card website to make the payment on the date it is due. I can also sign up for AutoPay which takes afixed amount/minimum payment due/payment in full (whatever I choose) on the date due, and this will happen month after month after month with no further action necessary on my part. With either choice, it is up to the card company to collect money from my account on the day specified, and if they mess up, they cannot charge late payment fees or finance charge on new purchases etc. Also, unlike my bank, there are no fees for this service. It is also worth noting that many people do not like the idea of the credit-card company withdrawing money from their bank account, and so this option is not to everyone's taste.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ecef843666d67bbc24fc04bf1cc0d6d", "text": "\"I really have to use the business card for personal expenses, please assume that in your answer. This is very hard to believe. You must do that? Why not just have the company pay you $1600 each month? Then you can use that money for whatever you want. Why can't you do this? (I cannot think of a legitimate reason...) How to integrate the personal expenses in company? Anyway, to answer your question, what I've done when I accidentally used my corporate card for a personal expense is to code the expense as a payment to me similar to if a check had been written to me. If you aren't ever paying yourself, then you should just pay the company back the $1600 every month. As a side note, I highly recommend you don't do this. By doing this on a regular basis you are opening the door for piercing the corporate veil. This means that the financial protections provided by the LLC could potentially be stripped away since personal and corporate funds are being mixed. The unfortunate end result is that personal assets could end up being fair game too in a judgement against the company. Even if you aren't an owner, your relative could be considered to be \"\"using business money for personal expenses\"\", namely, letting a relative spend business funds for personal use. How to show more expenses and lessen the profit? If you're referring to the personal expenses, then you absolutely do not want to do this! That's illegal and worthy of stiff penalties, which possibly include jail time for tax evasion. Better to just have the company pay you and then the entire payment is deductible and reduces the profit of the company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50d2bfc70b59903dfa3bc86ce72b6e9b", "text": "I'll have to read the discussion. I did mean owed. A quick reading of the decision seemed to indicate that the law they were considering was for 3rd party debt collection agencies. They decided that if the company was directly owed the money, they weren't under that law. If it was a unanimous decision it seems like there must have been something pretty obvious about it. Thanks for the link to the discussion.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
2b2776b95bbe0f68b9371085344c9b43
How to declare foreign gift of nearly $10,000
[ { "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": "970bf827c2ba21f4e4be22f0c766713e", "text": "As the college education is very costly, I want to send USD 25,000 to him as a gift. What is the procedure and what Indian and American tax laws are involved ? This transaction will be treated as gift. As per Indian law you can transfer unlimited amount to your close relative [son-in-law/grandchildren/daughter/etc]. In US the gift tax is on donor, as you are no US citizen you are not bound by this. As your son-in-law/grandchildren are US citizens, there is no tax to them. Your son-in-law may still need to declare this in Form 3250 or such relevant returns. Under the Liberalized remittance scheme [Refer Q3], you can transfer upto USD 250,000 per year. There maybe some forms that you need to fill. Ask your Bank. If the amount is more than USD 25,000 a CA certificate along with 15CA, 15CB need to be filled. Essentially the CA certifies that taxes on the funds being transferred have already been paid to Govt of India. Can I send money to him directly or to his father who is submitting tax returns in USA? This does not make any difference in India. Someone else may answer this question if it makes a difference in US.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9100a3e1cee41f47fc7d15a0ffe99996", "text": "So I want to sell my 100 shares of AAPL to him at a price of 10 or even 1 US Dollar. Is that legal/allowed? Of course. It's your stocks - do with it what you want. if the two persons are not served by a same broker. You'll have to talk to your broker about the technicalities of the transaction. if the person who sell are US citizen and the person who buy are not, and and vice-versa Since you asked specifically about US citizenship, I'll assume you're in the US or the transaction is taking place in the US. Citizenship has nothing to do with it (except may be for economic sanctions against Russians or Iranians that may come into play). What is important is the tax residency status. Such a transfer is essentially a gift, and if you're a US tax resident (which doesn't correlate to your immigration status necessarily) - you'll have to deal with the gift tax consequences on the discount value. For example - you have 100 shares of AAPL which you sold to your friend for $1 each when the fair market value (FMV) was $501. So essentially, the friend got $50,100 value for $100. I.e.: $50K gift. Since this amount is above the annual $14K exemption - you'll have to deal with the gift tax and file gift tax return. There are also consequences for the capital gains tax for both you and your friend. I suggest you talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about the specifics given your circumstances. If you (or the recipient) are also a foreign citizen/tax resident - then that country's laws also may affect your situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "800c5783f99b60b8c046861416bb28c6", "text": "If you trust the other party, an international bank wire would be the quickest, easiest, and cheapest option. It is the standard way to pay for something overseas from the United States. Unfortunately, in most cases, they are not reversible. I don't believe Paypal is an option for an amount that large. Escrow companies do exist, but you would have to research those on a case by case basis to see if any fit the criteria for your transaction and the countries involved. I'll also add: If it were me, and there was no way to get references or verify the person's identity and intent to my satisfaction, then I would probably consider hopping on a plane. For that amount of money, I would verify the person and items are legitimate, in person, and then wire the money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8e90732e325599af6175216e695a35f", "text": "It would be better for you to sell yourself and pay capital gains tax than to transfer to your parents and pay the gift tax. Also, sham transfer (you transfer to your mother only so that she could sell and transfer back to you without you paying taxes) will be probably categorized as tax evasion, which is a criminal offense that could lead to your deportation. What the US should or should not claim you can take to your congressman, but the fact is that the US does claim tax on capital gains even if you bought the asset before becoming US tax resident, and that's the current law.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf91d1943fd0ea2823261d687164c5fd", "text": "Since your question is very particular on the details, I'm assuming you did your research. Unfortunately you won't get a better answer here than what you've found on the Internet already. This is not a clear-cut situation as the situation you're describing has been a source to some confusion. Mainly, the question is whether the US bank account is a tangible asset or not. To the best of my knowledge, this has not yet been settled, so I suggest going to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in the US) who'd advise you the best course of action. I think it would be safer to transfer the money directly from the foreign account to the US beneficiary (although even then, if the IRS decides to start digging, it may claim that you're essentially disguising a transfer from a US account, so I suggest talking to a professional before doing anything). In any case, the US recipient will need to report the gift (if it is $100K or more) using the form 3520 with his/her tax return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6e23a040a11669cd162671a3ea1a597", "text": "This is a case where you sit down with an advisor or two. There are legal, and tax issues. When you deposit the cash, or buy a car with it, the large cash transaction will trigger a notice to the US Government. So they will eventually find out. Before you get to that point you need to know what obligations and consequences you will be facing. Because you don't know if it was a gift, or found money, or if the owner will be back looking for you to return it; therefore you need expert advice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c319314829325f38c1d037dea17cd4fe", "text": "My understanding is that the only tax implication is that any interest income earned on foreign accounts is still taxable in the US if held by a US citizen. If the total across foreign accounts totals more than $10,000 you'll have to report those accounts to the Treasury via FinCEN Form 114, this doesn't create any additional tax obligations, it's just a regulatory measure to stop people from hiding money overseas and not paying tax on those earnings. If the US account is only in your husband's name, and the Australian account is only in your name, there may not be any reporting requirement to the Treasury. Money transferred between spouses is not subjected to gift-tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2947f7492ade177b57d15dc7816b08c5", "text": "If you are looking to transfer money to another person in the US, you can do do with no tax consequence. The current annual gift limit is $14k per year per person, so for example, my wife and I can gift $56k to another couple with no tax and no forms. For larger amounts, there is a lifetime exclusion that taps into your $5M+ estate tax. It requires submitting a form 709, but just paperwork, no tax would be due. This is the simplest way to gift a large sum and not have any convoluted tracking or structured loan with annual forgiveness. One form and done. (If the sum is well over $5M you should consider a professional to guide you, not a Q&A board)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acf18cccc864a82e84d9a39617284fb5", "text": "What you are describing is perfectly legal, and is well under the threshold to attract the attention of the IRS ($10K+). The money is not income, because it is repayment for goods provided or a loan made to your friends. I do this myself oftentimes to take advantage of the rewards on my credit cards. With cash to cover expenses coming in immediately from friends/family, there is virtually no risk. If you are concerned and want to protect against questions in the future about the source of the money, you ought to start keeping records of dates, times, locations, amounts, and the names of people involved when the charges are made. Then track the dates when the cash is deposited into your bank account. That way you can demonstrate the cash flow (Charge -> Repayment -> Deposit) to anyone who needs to know.", "title": "" }, { "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": "b13137b08509ded0d14669718b79b904", "text": "It is correct, in general. Gift tax is indeed at 35%, but you have the first 14K of your gift exempt from it for each person you give to, yearly (verify the number, it changes every year). You can also use your lifetime exemption ($5.45M in 2016, subject to change each year), but at the amounts you're talking about it still will not be enough. Charitable (501(c)) organizations, paying for someone's tuition or medical expenses (directly to the providers), political donations, transfer between you and your spouse - these are all exempt from gift tax. If you have 10 millions to give, I'm sure you can afford a $200 consultation with a EA/CPA licensed in your state.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0cf9d33d378ff00799e461f26c6fa9f9", "text": "You say that you inherited the money from your mother, and are now paying these people using money that is already yours. Because of that, the money is considered a gift from you to them, and the fact that you are doing it in accordance with your mother's wishes doesn't change that. For it to be considered a bequest from your mother's estate directly to these beneficiaries, it would have had to be handled via the regular by-the-book inheritance procedure and been given to them directly rather than bequeathed to you with informal instructions to pass it on to them. If one gives another person more than $14K in any calendar year, there is the potential gift tax issue to address. I'll explain why it's more a matter of 'addressing' than 'paying', as there are a number of legal ways around this. Form 709 is what you'll use. In the end, you'll report the gifts over $14K but no tax will be due as they'll simply go against your lifetime gifting allowance, currently $5.49M per person. Note, 2 ways to avoid even this obligation. If you have a spouse, you have a combined $28K/yr gifting (per recipient) with no reporting required. Similarly, if the recipient has a spouse, you can gift them $14K. i.e. couple to couple can gift $56K/yr. Last, why not just gift $14K before December, and in January, give the second installment? If I had money coming in separate from a will, I'd be happy that you honored a verbal request, and wouldn't be so greedy as to expect you to risk a dime of your own finances to transfer the funds immediately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a867c6f052ff0ca6c6709e1a4dfacbe", "text": "The LLC portion is completely irrelevant. Don't know why you want it. You can create a joint/partnership trading account without the additional complexity of having LLC. What liability are you trying to limit here? Her sisters will file tax returns in the us using the form 1040NR, and only reporting the dividends they received, everything else will be taxed by Vietnam. You'll have to investigate how to file tax returns there as well. That said, you'll need about $500,000 each to invest in the regional centers. So you're talking about 1.5 million of US dollars at least. From a couple of $14K gifts to $1.5M just by trading? I don't see how this is feasible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9bd68162d80c19b631cbddb1dec4916", "text": "I can't speak to New Zealand law, but under US law, it's not a gift, so there is no tax. But there are some practical considerations. How good a relationship do you have with the banks on each end of the transfer? Transfers in the neighborhood of USD$10,000 are automatically considered suspicious and the banks are required to take extra steps to ensure you are not laundering the proceeds of criminal activity, funding terrorism, evading taxes, etc. You will have to fill out quite a bit of paperwork.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9f1f658e19c7b94b3ca6f5101aac3daf", "text": "As I understand it, US federal gift tax doesn't kick in at all until one person gives more than about $14,000 in a single year. (So a couple can give someone $28,000.) If you want to give more than that in a lump sum while avoiding gift tax, one workaround is to structure it as an intra-family loan. Basically, you write (and formally register) a loan for the amount, then gift them with up to the limit for them to pay off that loan. The IRS requires that you charge interest on this loan, but the rates are pretty minimal and of course you can incorporate that in the gift. The downside is that the interest income you're required to take is taxable, but that's a comparitively small sum. (On the other hand, if the loan is a mortgage against real property, and properly filed as such, the interest paid may be deductable for the person you're giving the money to.) Doing this properly requires a tax accountant or lawyer who has a clue about the right legalese to make it work. However, there are starting to be some services which specialize in this, doing it for a fixed fee. I used one of those recently, which is why I'm somewhat familiar with this process; they made it about as much of a fill-out-the-forms process as they could, but it still took a few weeks for me to figure out which options were best for my needs.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
39e98447b82ec542697a4e9354e40a72
Should I pay myself a dividend or a salary?
[ { "docid": "7d1306a254ef3c211c21b48d9f1c434c", "text": "In cases like this you should be aware that tax treaties may exist and that countries are generally willing to enter into them. Their purpose is to help prevent double taxation. Tax treaties often times give you a better tax rate than even being a resident of the countries in question! (For instance, the Italy to US tax rate is lower than simply doing business in many United States) This should guide your google search, here is something I found for Germany/Spain http://tmagazine.ey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/2011G_CM2300_Spain-Germany-sign-new-tax-treaty.pdf It appears that the dividend tax rate under that treaty is 5% , to my understanding, the income tax rates are often multiples higher! I read that spain's income tax rate is 18% So what I would do is see if there is the possibility of deferring taxes in the lower tax jurisidiction and then doing a large one time dividend when conveninet. But Germany isn't really known for its low taxes, being a Federal Republic, the taxes are levied by both the states and the federal government. Look to see if your business structure can avoid being taxed as the entity level: ie. your business' earnings are always distributed to the owners - which are not germany citizens or residents - as dividends. So this way you avoid Germany's 15% federal corporate tax, and you avoid Spain's 18% income tax, and instead get Spanish dividends at 5% tax. Anyway, contact a tax attorney to help interpret the use of the regulations, but this is the frame of mind you should be thinking in. Because it looks like spain is willing to do a tax credit if you pay taxes in germany, several options here to lower your tax footprint.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0dac24e12eefbe65efdfe988ff4c2aa6", "text": "\"If you sold the stock for a profit, you will owe tax on that profit. Whether it is taxed as short-term or long-term capital gains depends on how long you held the stock before selling it. Presumably you're going to invest this money into mutual funds or something of that sort. Those may pay dividends which can be reinvested, and will grow in value (you hope) just as the individual stock shares would (you hope). Assuming the advice you've been given is at all reasonable, there's no need for buyer's remorse here; you're just changing your investing style to a different point on the risk-versus-return curve. (If you have to ask this question, I tend to agree that you should do more homework before playing with shares in individual companieS ... unless you're getting thess shares at employee discount, in which case you should still seriously consider selling them fairly quickly and reinvesting the money in a more structured manner. In a very real sense your job is itself an \"\"investment\"\" in your employer; if they ever get into trouble you don't want that to hit both your income and investments.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcaf54599e1643faabf88cf789396fb3", "text": "I guess you are making quite a bit of assumptions without clarifying what you are trying to achieve. As a non-resident you cannot incorporate a sole proprietorship in Singapore. You have to be citizen. Alternatively you can register a company that has its own norms like minimum number of directors and some being Singapore national, etc. As you are paying dividend and not salary to yourself, the company will be required to pay taxes on gains. So all consulting money is gain as there is no expense. The balance when you transfer to Spain would potentially get taxed as income to you subject to DTAA", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e86ce0a96fa86c9a6148bec403e66783", "text": "\"The $100,000 is taxed separately as \"\"ordinary income\"\". The $350,000 is taxed at long-term capital gains of 15%. Capital gains is not taxed at 20% until $415,050. Even though $100,000 + 350,000 = $450,000, only $350,000 can be taxed at capital gains. The total ordinary income tax burden will be $31,986 if single, in California. Caveat: By creating a holdings corporation (C-corp), you can section 351 that $100,000 into the C-corp for tax deferment, which won't be taxed until you take money from the corporation. Since you will hold 100% of the voting stock, all distributions will be considered pro rata. Additionally, you can issue yourself a dividend under the rules of 26 USC §§243-246 (a greather-than-80% shareholder who receives a dividend can write-off 100% of said dividend). As long as that dividend doesn't trigger §§1.243-246 of The Regulations by keeping the distribution just under 10% of E&P i.e. $10,000. Wages are deductible against basis so pay yourself $35,000 and keep $55,000 in the corporation and you can decrease the total liabilities down to $22,000 from $31,000, which includes the CA franchise tax. You don't have to pay yourself any money out a corporation to use the money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c7b3e7692fed18720326764c41804733", "text": "I'm assuming your talking USA. There are two ways to look. If you know you should pay on the cap gains, the best way to handle that separately from your salary is to file a quarterly tax payment. That, I understand, is what the self-employed have to do. I'm in the situation where at some point, probably this year, the company that employs me will be bought out, and I will owe capital gains taxes on my shares gobbled up in the buy-out. It's a cash-for-stock transaction. So, in my case, I've just adjusted my W-4 to take advantage of the safe-harbor provision related to taxes I payed in 2016 and my salary. The details vary depending on your situation, but in my case, I've calculated what it will take in W-4 allowances to make sure I pay 110% of my 2016 tax payment (after refund). I'm not worrying about what the actual taxes on those shares of company stock will be, because I've met the rules for safe-harbor. Safe harbor just means that they can't penalize you for under-withholding or underpayment. It doesn't mean I won't have to write a check on april 15.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67bc3979d4e8d6e5a329e82b5f8ab282", "text": "Join me for a look at the Quote for SPY. A yield of 1.82%. So over a year's time, your $100K investment will give you $1820 in dividends. The Top 10 holdings show that Apple is now 3% of the S&P. With a current dividend of 2.3%. Every stock in the S&P has its own different dividend. (Although the zeros are all the same. Not every stock has a dividend.) The aggregate gets you to the 1.82% current dividend. Dividends are accumulated and paid out quarterly, regardless of which months the individual stocks pay.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d682ec08327aec0e660ebd6bf5b50850", "text": "\"I agree with all the people cautioning against working for free, but I'll also have a go at answering the question: When do I see money related to that 5%? Is it only when they get bought, or is there some sort of quarterly payout of profits? It's up to the shareholders of the company whether and when it pays dividends. A new startup will typically have a small number of people, perhaps 1-3, who between them control any shareholder vote (the founder(s) and an investor). If they're offering you 5%, chances are they've made sure your vote will not matter, but some companies (an equity partnership springs to mind) might be structured such that control is genuinely distributed. You would want to check what the particular situation is in this company. Assuming the founders/main investors have control, those people (or that person) will decide whether to pay dividends, so you can ask them their plans to realise money from the company. It is very rare for startups to pay any dividends. This is firstly because they're rarely profitable, but even when they are profitable the whole point of a startup is to grow, so there are plenty of things to spend cash on other than payouts to shareholders. Paying anything out to shareholders is the opposite of receiving investment. So unless you're in the very unusual position of a startup that will quickly make so much money that it doesn't need investment, and is planning to pay out to shareholders rather than spend on growth, then no, it will not pay out. One way for a shareholder to exit is to be bought out by other shareholders. For example if they want to get rid of you then they might make you an offer for your 5%. This can be any amount they think you'll take, given the situation at the time. If you don't take it, there may be things they can do in future to reduce its value to you (see below). If you do take it then your 5% would pay you once, when you leave. If the company succeeds, commonly it will be wholly or partly sold (either privately or by IPO). At this point, if it's wholly sold then the soon-to-be-ex-shareholders at the time will receive the proceeds of the sale. If it's partly sold then as with an investment round it's up for negotiation what happens. For example I believe the cash from an IPO of X% of the company could be taken into the company, leaving the shareholders with no immediate direct payout but (100-X)% of shares in their names that they're more-or-less free to sell, or retain and receive future dividends. Alternatively, if the company settles down as a small private business that's no longer in startup mode, it might start paying out without a sale. If the company fails, as most startups do, it will never pay anything. It's very important to remember that it's the shareholders at the time who receive money in proportion to their holding (or as defined by the company articles, if there are different classes of share). Just because you have 5% now doesn't mean you'll have 5% by that time, because any new investment into the company in the mean time will \"\"dilute\"\" your shareholding. It works like this: Note that I've assumed for simplicity that the new investment comes in at equal value to the old investment. This isn't necessarily the case, it can be more or less according to the terms of the new investment voted for by the shareholders, so the first line really is \"\"nominal value\"\", not necessarily the actual cash the founders put in. Therefore, you should not think of your 5% as 5% of what you imagine a company like yours might eventually exit for. At best, think of it as 5% of what a company like yours might exit for, if it receives no further investment whatsoever. Ah, but won't the founders also have their holdings diluted and lose control of the company, so they wouldn't do that? Well, not necessarily. Look carefully at whether you're being offered the same class of shares as the founders. If not consider whether they can dilute your shares without diluting their own. Look also at whether a new investor could use the founders' executive positions to give them new equity in the same way they gave you old equity, without giving you any new equity. Look at whether the founders will themselves participate in future investment rounds using sacks of cash that they own from other ventures, when you can't afford to keep up. Look at whether new investors will receive a priority class of share that's guaranteed at exit to pay out a certain multiple of the money invested before the older, inferior classes of shares receive anything (VCs like to do this, at least in the UK). Look at any other tricks they can legally pull: even if the founders aren't inclined to be tricky, they may eventually be forced to consider pulling them by a future new investor. And when I say \"\"look\"\", I mean get your lawyer to look. If your shareholding survives until exit, then it will pay out at exit. But repeated dilutions and investors with priority classes of shares could mean that your holding doesn't survive to exit even if the company does. Your 5% could turn into a nominal holding that hasn't really \"\"survived\"\", that entitles you to 0.5% of any sale value over $100 million. Then if the company sells for $50 million you get $0, while other investors are getting a good return. All of this is why you should not work for equity unless you can afford to work for free. And even then you need to lawyer up, now and during any future investment, so your lawyer can explain to you what your investment actually is, which almost certainly is different from what it looks like at a casual uninformed glance.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af4679f4a8afd4be7e354e3d1b5d4410", "text": "Small companies need not pay out heft dividends. It makes much more sense to invest it directly in to the company to build a stronger company and produce future results. For example just say Mike see's a company called Milk Inc. Milk inc is doing very well and for the last three year's the amount the profits are increasing by has been going up by 10% the company is still small and doesn't do dividends. Mike see's opportunity and snatches up 1000 at 2.20 , He knows this company does not pay dividends. 10 years pass and this company is absolutely booming profits are still going up the company has decided to start paying hefty dividends as it no longer needs as much money to invest in it's growth. Shares are now valued at 6.80 . Mike banks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b24411e84ecc56597e67ce068060d8d", "text": "It is a bit more complicated than whether it pays more or less dividends. You should make your decision based on how well the company is performing both fundamentally and technically. Concentrating mainly on the fundamental performance for this question, most good and healthy companies make enough profits to both pay out dividends and invest back into the company to keep growing the company and profits. In fact a good indication of a well performing company is when their dividend per share and earnings per share are both growing each year and the dividends per share are less than the earnings per share (that way you know dividends are being paid out from new profits and not existing cash holdings). This information can give you an indication of both a stable and growing company. I would rather invest in a company that pays little or no dividends but is increasing profits and growing year after year than a company that pays higher dividends but its profits are decreasing year after year. How long will the company continue to pay dividends for, if it starts making less and less profits to pay them with? You should never invest in a company solely because they pay dividends, if you do you will end up losing money. It is no use making $1 in dividends if you lose $2+ because the share price drops. 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 for a stable and growing company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edc7ef593efc8e63c3943b0bccda0122", "text": "Instead of giving part of their profits back as dividends, management puts it back into the company so the company can grow and produce higher profits. When these companies do well, there is high demand for them as in the long term higher profits equates to a higher share price. So if a company invests in itself to grow its profits higher and higher, one of the main reasons investors will buy the shares, is in the expectation of future capital gains. In fact just because a company pays a dividend, would you still buy it if the share price kept decreasing year after year? Lets put it this way: Company A makes record profits year after year, continually keeps beating market expectations, its share price keeps going up, but it pays no dividend instead reinvests its profits to continually grow the business. Company B pays a dividend instead of reinvesting to grow the business, it has been surprising the market on the downside for a few years now, it has had some profit warnings lately and its share price has consistently been dropping for over a year. Which company would you be interested in buying out of the two? I know I would be interested in buying Company A, and I would definitely stay away from Company B. Company A may or may not pay dividends in the future, but if Company B continues on this path it will soon run out of money to pay dividends. Most market gains are made through capital gains rather than dividends, and most people invest in the hope the shares they buy go up in price over time. Dividends can be one attractant to investors but they are not the only one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd88013d135507b19b21b17d512fc998", "text": "\"My father imparted this advice to me when I was a teenager, and it hasn't failed me yet. > Pay yourself first What this means is that the first \"\"bill\"\" you pay should always be your savings. Preferably in a way that automatically comes out of your paycheck or account without requiring you to take an active step to make it happen. I save a ton of money, but I am no more disciplined than anyone else. I just realized that over the years of progressing in my career that I gradually got higher and higher salaries, yet never had a substantial increase in the money I had leftover in my bank at the end of the month despite the fact that I make about 8x the money I used to live reasonably comfortably on. Therein is the point, we spend whatever money we see, so you almost have to hide it from yourself. First, participate to the fullest in your company's 401k if they offer it. After a while you will adjust naturally to the net take home pay and won't miss the savings you are accumulating. Absent that, or in addition to that, set up a separate bank or investment account and arrange an automatic transfer from your checking account every month. Then set up automatic investing in CD's or some other less-liquid-than-cash investment so you it is just enough hassle to get at the money that you won't do it on a whim. It sounds too simple, but it works.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04bbc88a939792d7bc92dd48454f2d87", "text": "\"Paying yourself through a corporation requires an analysis of a variety of issues. First, a salary paid to yourself creates RRSP contribution room as well as CPP contributions. Paying yourself a dividend achieves neither of those. By having a corporation, you will have to file a corporate (T2) tax return. The corporation is considered a separate legal entity from you. As an individual, you will still need to file a personal (T1) tax return. Never just \"\"draw\"\" money out of a corporation. This can create messy transactions involving loans to shareholders. Interest is due on these amounts and any amounts not paid within one calendar year are considered as wages by Canada Revenue and would need to be reported as income on your next T1 return. You should never withhold EI premiums as the sole owner of a corporation. You are considered exempt from these costs by CRA. Any amounts that have been remitted to CRA can be reclaimed by submitting a formal request. The decision on whether to take a salary or dividends normally requires some detailed analysis. Your accountant or financial advisor should be able to assist in this matter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84da3bf13c478784b8698f72765551b7", "text": "In theory the integration of taxes make the tax implications of paying salary or dividends equal. This is what happens when you calculate the taxes using a generic tax calculator, however, the theory breaks down in certain cases. If you are earning less than $100k there is very little difference and paying out a salary is usually the better option. In a large stable company the most efficient option is almost always a mix of both. If you are earning more than $100k a year it depends on a number of factors: 1) Are your companies annual earnings over $500,000? In Canada, private companies that earn more than $500,000 annually are taxed at a higher rate than those earning less than $500,000. If the earnings are above $500,000 generally you should reduce the earning to under $500,000 by paying a salary. However, this depends on the province, the other income of the owners are and how much more than $500,000 your company earns. 2) Are you eligible for deductions or benefits only available on earned income? Earned income is income that you have worked for, which does not include dividends. RRSP contribution room, child care expense deductions, CPP, and many other benefits under the CRA rules are only available to people who have an earned income. It is worth taking advantage of these deductions when they are available. 3) Is your company eligible for any tax deductions? The same as with your personal tax deductions and your personal benefits of earning income, having a corporate income is also a benefit. There are a number of tax credits and tax deductions that corporations can take advantage of and when available these should be taken advantage of before paying everything out in salary. Once all these questions are answered the calculation is based on your marginal tax rate and the tax rate of the Corporation. One other reason to have at least a portion of you salary as a dividend is that if you incur capital loss in your corporation you can pass them to your personal taxes. If you were payed 100% in salary this does not work. Other strategies to be more tax efficient: Income splitting (Pay a salary/dividend to yourself, your wife, your children your parents, or anyone you support). Rolling-over property with taxable gains into your private corporation. Buying insurance policies that gives a return of premium or increase your Capital Dividend Account (CDA).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14473f2ac55ef0a59cf823be7856e1de", "text": "You will need to register as self-employed aka sole trader (that's the whole point: pay taxes on income that you're not getting as wages from an employer, who would arrange PAYE/NI contributions), or set up a limited company (in the last case you would have the option of either getting paid as wages or as dividends — which one is better is a complex issue which varies from year to year). You'll find lots of advice on the HMRC website.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c243d1eac92836b54948f6676ef8da4", "text": "I also reckon the tax situation is a relevant difference. I'd rather take shares over a wage when, you know, I'm not / minimally taxed for capital gains, at a rate way lower than what I should be paying for the equivalent as income tax.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5cf0c6ed1f95bedb09ad7b7b301a971d", "text": "However, you have to remember that not all dividends are paid quarterly. For example one stock I recently purchased has a price of $8.03 and the Div/yield = 0.08/11.9 . $.08 * 4 = $0.32 which is only 3.9% (But this stock pays monthly dividends). $.08 * 12 = $0.96 which is 11.9 %. So over the course of a year assuming the stock price and the dividends didn't change you would make 11.9%", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
5437e855013a61bdd06801f9d8ee72a7
Precedent and models for 100% equity available via initial offering?
[ { "docid": "6709174d7e2f97d95f26f15572e9648b", "text": "Founder makes available 100% equity, but uses a reasonable amount of the proceeds to pay him/herself a salary (or wage) and from that salary invests in the same initial offering to acquire shares for him/herself. I see several problems. What is a reasonable salary? Also, this leaves the door open to the following scam: Founders say that they are going to follow this plan. However, instead of buying shares, they simply quit after being paid the salary. They use knowledge gained from this business to start a competitor. Investors are left holding an empty company. Tax consequences. The founder would pay income tax on the salary. By contrast, if the founder instead sells shares, that would be capital gains tax, which is lower in many countries (e.g. the United States). Why would I want to invest in a business where the founders don't believe in it enough to take a significant equity stake? Consider the Amazon.com example. Jeff Bezos makes a minimal salary, around $80,000 a year, less than many of his employees. But he has a substantial ownership position. If the company doesn't make money, he won't. Would investors really value the stocks with a P/E of 232.10 in 2016 if they didn't trust him to make the right long term decisions? It's also worth noting that most initial public offerings (IPOs) are not made when the founder is the only employee. A single employee company instead looks for private investors, often called angel investors. Companies generally don't go public until they are established in some way, often making money. Negotiating with angel investors is different from negotiating with the public. They can personally review the books and once invested tend to have input on how the money is spent. In other words, this is mostly solving the wrong problem if you talk about IPOs. This might make more sense with a crowdfunded venture, as that replaces a few angel investors with many individuals. But most crowdfunded ventures tend to approach things from the opposite direction. Instead of looking for investors, they look for customers. If they offer a useful product, they will get customers. If not, they never get the money. Beyond all this, if a founder is only going to get a fair salary some of the time, then why put in any sweat equity? This works fine if the company looks valuable after a year. What if it doesn't? The founder is out a year of sweat equity and has nothing in return. That happens now too, but the possibility of the big return offsets it. You're taking out the big return. I don't think that this is good for either founders or investors. The founder trades a potentially good or even great return for a mediocre return. The investors trade a situation where both they and the founder benefit from a successful company to one where they benefit a lot more than the founder. That's not good for either side.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef34014ce4364ee818940477c94f3703", "text": "Specifically I was wondering, how can the founder determine an appropriate valuation and distribution of shares; ie- the amount of equity to make available for public vs how much to reserve for him/herself. This is an art more than science. If markets believe it to be worth x; one will get. This is not a direct correlation of the revenue a start up makes. It is more an estimated revenue it would make in some point in time in future. There are investment firms that can size up the opportunity and advise; however it is based on their experience and may not always be true reflection of value.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b8da10c8337c08554e4582761a771d98", "text": "underwriters aren't subject to lock-up. They actually don't hold anything. They oversell at IPO, with their short position covered by the green shoe (an option from the company). If the deal does well, the underwriters exercise the green shoe to cover their short. If the deal runs into some pressure, they step in to support the price by buying back shares... thereby covering their short. So they are doing price support in the early days of a deal, but it is almost always paid for by the company granting them an option. But the underwriters aren't taking stock. Correct that typically all insiders and existing investors are expected to sign-up a lock-up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "924ec97e56ea4c56464f722c7914e103", "text": "Need help with a finance problem I'm currently facing in my business. My company might be going through an acquisition and I need to understand how the dilution works out for shareholders. They currently have large shareholder loans (debt), and will be converting to equity pre-transaction. For this case, if the original company value = $1 MM and the SHL value = $1 MM, I'm assuming that'd dilute equity by 50% for all shareholders if converted to equity at original company value. Correct? However, what if the $1 MM in shareholder loans were converted at the market value of the company, say $4 MM? I might be confusing myself, but just want to confirm.. thanks!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abe1bdfd75ae3be1ffe8588abac21765", "text": "This situation sounds better than most, the company it seems likely to be profitable in the future. As such it is a good candidate to have a successful IPO. With that your stock options are likely to be worth something. How much of that is your share is likely to be very small. The workers that have been their since the beginning, the venture capitalist, and the founders will make the majority of profits from an IPO or sale. Since you and others hired at a similar time as you are assuming almost no risk it is fair that your share of the take is small. Despite being 1/130 employees expect your share of the profits to be much smaller than .77%. How about we go with .01%? Lets also assume that they go public in 2.5 years and that revenues during that time continue to increase by about 25M/year. Profit margins remains the same. So revenues to 112M, profits to 22.5M. Typically the goal for business is to pay no more than 5 times profits, that could be supplanted by other factors, but let's assume that figure. So about 112M from the IPO. So .01% of that is about 11K. That feels about right. Keep in mind there would be underwriting fees, and also I would discount that figure for things that could go wrong. I'd be at about 5K. That would be my expected value figure, 5K. I'd also understand that there is a very small likelihood that I receive that amount. The value received is more likely to be zero, or enough to buy a Ferarri. There might also be some value in getting to know these people. If this fails will their next venture be a success. In my own life, I went to work for a company that looked great on paper that just turned out to be a bust. Great concept, horrible management, and within a couple of years of being hired, the company went bust. I worked like a dog for nothing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f5f20c9dfd3239e234d66385fb395d15", "text": "What I think was being asked (and so this is how I interpreted it) is not the transition from public to private, but a corporation itself buying all its shares back, and as a result having no shareholders. In this case we could envision that all outstanding shares would be become treasury stock. My argument was that this would never happen in a practical setting. Obviously, if you interpret the question differently, for instance to be about all the shares of firm being purchased by someone else (as in a private equity buyout), you get very different answers about practicality. So I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I just read the question differently.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe39007b6afce2e43176aa30787fb6a6", "text": "Yes, that is correct. There is no limit. An initial public offering of common stock by a company means that these shares remain outstanding for as long as the company wishes. The exceptions are through corporate actions, most commonly either", "title": "" }, { "docid": "19f18ebdd0d55ba406566aa94f714891", "text": "You can either borrow money... credit card, line of credit, re-finance your home, home equity line of credit, loan, mortgage, etc. Or you have other invest in your company as equity. They will contribute $X to get Y% of your company and get Z% of the profits. Note amount of profits does not necessarily have to equate to percentage owned. This makes sense if they are a passive investor, where they just come up with the money and you do all the work. Also voting rights in a company does not have to equate to percentage owned either. You can also have a combination of equity and debt. If you have investors, you would need to figure out whether the investor will personally guarantee the debt of your company - recourse vs non-recourse. If they have more risk, they will want more of a return. One last way to do it is crowdfunding, similar to what people do on Kickstarter. Supporters/customers come up with the money, then you deliver the product. Consulting practices do something similar with the concept of retainers. Best of luck.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f69471fbc64767b814c43447c1a02d6f", "text": "There are not necessarily large shareholders, maybe every other Joe Schmoe owns 3 or 5 shares; and many shares might be inside investment funds. If you are looking for voting rights, typically, the banks/investment companies that host the accounts of the individual shareholders/fund owners have the collective voting rights, so the Fidelity's and Vanguard's of the world will be the main and deciding voters. That is very common.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c526e569e2ae563e14b933f146c30364", "text": "\"Companies normally do not give you X% of shares, but in effect give you a fixed \"\"N\"\" number of shares. The \"\"N\"\" may translate initially to X%, but this can go down. If say we began with 100 shares, A holding 50 shares and B holding 50 shares. As the startup grows, there is need for more money. Create 50 more shares and sell it at an arranged price to investor C. Now the percentage of each investor is 33.33%. The money that comes in will go to the company and not to A & B. From here on, A & C together can decide to slowly cut out B by, for example: After any of the above the % of shares held by B would definitely go down.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41d5bfb7a9d47b8e32ca6736772ca243", "text": "\"Yes and no. There are different classes of shares - Some have voting rights, some *don't*. Some take precedence over others in a bankruptcy. Some get larger dividends. \"\"Common\"\" isn't really a useful description of your stake in the company. You *do* have a \"\"stake\"\" in the company, but not all shares are equal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "33e1168b647035deb672a2797e3a6afe", "text": "\"Your company actually will most likely use some sort of options pricing model, either a binomial tree or black-scholes to determine the value for their accounting and, subsequently, for their issuance and realization. First, market value of equity will be determined. Given you're private (although \"\"pre-IPO could mean public tomorrow,\"\"), this will likely revolve around a DCF and/or market approaches. Equity value will then be compared to a cap table to create an equity waterfall, where the different classes of stock and the different options will be valued along tranches. Keep in mind there might be liquidation preferences that would make options essentially further out of the money. As such, your formulae above do not quite work. However, as an employee, it might be difficult to determine the necessary inputs to determine value. To estimate it, however, look for three key pieces of information: 1. Current equity value 2. Option strike price 3. Maturity for Options If the strike is close to the current equity value, and the maturity is long enough, and you expect the company to grow, then it would look like the options have more value than not. Equity value can be derived from enterprise value, or by directly determining it via a DCF or guideline multiples. Reliable forecasts should come from looking at the industry, listening to what management is saying, and then your own information as an insider.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2dd5540db63905132ff6419c895d1df", "text": "\"Because I'll be investing time, effort, energy and take some initial risks I would like to receive more shares (more than just purely financial contribution would suggest) I don't see money in that list. How much money will you be contributing to your own project? Mutual understanding, focusing on big image, rather that covering each and every edge case. These kinds of one page agreements are an excellent \"\"idea\"\" and they work just fine when everyone is happy and everything is working well; they are an utter nightmare if anything goes sideways. Coincidently, the reason you write anything down at all is to have everyone agree on the same big picture at the same time. People's memory of the original big picture gets fuzzy when their money might not come back to them. You don't need to cover all edge cases, but you need to cover obvious negative outcomes. What if you can't find a renter? What if you're late paying someone back? What if your vendor \"\"repairs\"\" something incorrectly? What if you forget to get a permit and the vendor needs to come back to tear it all apart and redo the work? What if your project needs more money, who is required to contribute, who has the option to contribute, who gets diluted? Who is doing the work of managing the project, how much is that person getting paid, how is that person's pay determined, how can it be adjusted? Is any work expected from any other investor, on what terms, who decides the terms? What if you get an offer to buy the building, who decides to sell, etc and so forth and on and on and on... You write down an agreement so everyone's understanding of the agreement is recorded. You write down what will happen in XYZ event so you don't argue about what you all should do when that event does ultimately occur. You take as much equity as your other investors will allow you to have, and you give them as much as required to get their money. Understand that the more cooks there are in the kitchen the more difficult it is to act on a problem when one arises; when not if. Your ego-stroking play to \"\"open source crowd-sourced wisdom\"\" is nothing more than a silly request for vague advice at no cost. Starting a project on trust, transparency and integrity is naive. This is about money. Why on earth should anyone trust you with their money if you won't do the most basic step of stewardship and spend a couple hundred pounds to talk to a local professional about organizing your first ever project. To answer your question directly, the first precaution you should take is not taking money from any of your friends or family.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3721fd666e6ea8920304e2b973bef1c", "text": "\"The part that I find confusing is the loan/stock hybridization. Why would the investor be entitled to a 30% share if he's also expecting to be getting paid back in full? This is the part that's making me scratch my head. I can understand giving equity and buying out later. I can understand giving equity with no expectation of loan repayment. I can understand loan repayment without equity. I can even understand collateralizing the loan with equity. I can not understand how \"\"zeroing out\"\" the loan still leaves him with a claim on 30% of the equity. Would this be more of a good will gesture as a way to thank the investor for taking a chance? Please forgive any naivety in my questions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b945382c83fff7377066083bd024669", "text": "Isn't that uncommon in small business financing/investing. You can structure your capital anyway you wish (relatively speaking). It starts as an equity investment with an option for the founder to buy back equity. Then there is an 8% dividend payment that takes a similar form to preferred stock.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a040eda3ed2664e5f7bbb8bd1ddbf82c", "text": "\"First off, with startups, forget that you know about common structures of debt and equity. Just try to think of this money as a generic \"\"investment\"\" that meets the investors risk and return objectives. Startups are unique in that they are high risk but generally have almost no assets or security for an investor. Investors generically want two things: 1) Return and 2) Limited Risk. Without speculating too much: consider that the investor might be viewing the return component as the 30% equity and the 8% dividend and he views the risk management component as the additional 30% equity, until repaid. A different way of looking at this might be that the investor would require an equity stake greater than 30% with greater than a 8% dividend if he did not get the initial investment back in return for the reduced stake. In other words, this structure is debt and equity because that is what the investor can demand. Maybe you can get around this by offering a higher equity stake or offering something else although this structure is common because it aligns interests of the investor and the startup.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "934ef0bc0a19ea24509fa1f5c7af0b94", "text": "In my original question, I was wondering if there was a mathematical convention to help in deciding on whether an equity offering OR debt offering would be a better choice. I should have clarified better in the question, I used Vs. which may have made it unclear.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
f30fa9945c4fe942f44ddf53d2d99761
Can stock market gains be better protected under an LLC arrangement?
[ { "docid": "4492a7c887b3e31a90e888103dd0f897", "text": "All corporate gains are taxed at the same rate as corporate income, for the corporate entity, so this actually can be WORSE than the individual capital gains tax rates. There are a lot of things you can do with trading certain asset classes, like opening you up to like-kind re-investment tax perks, but I can't think of anything that helps with stocks. Also, in the US there is now a law against doing things solely to avoid tax if they have no other economic purpose. So be conscious about that, you'll need to be able to rationalize at least a thin excuse for why you jumped through all the hoops.", "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": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "557de771f5d36064911e7a767f197b57", "text": "\"In US public stock markets there is no difference between the actions individual retail traders are \"\"permitted\"\" to take and the actions institutional/corporate traders are \"\"permitted\"\" to take. The only difference is the cost of those actions. For example, if you become a Registered Market Maker on, say, the BATS stock exchange, you'll get some amazing rebates and reduced transaction prices; however, in order to qualify for Registered Market Maker status you have to maintain constant orders in the book for hundreds of equities at significant volumes. An individual retail trader is certainly permitted to do that, but it's probably too expensive. Algorithmic trading is not the same as automated trading (algorithmic trading can be non-automated, and automated trading can be non-algorithmic), and both can be anywhere from low- to high-frequency. A low-frequency automated strategy is essentially indistinguishable from a person clicking their mouse several times per day, so: no, from a legal or regulatory perspective there is no special procedure an individual retail trader has to follow before s/he can automate a trading strategy. (Your broker, on the other hand, may have all sorts of hoops for you to jump through in order to use their automation platform.) Last (but certainly not least) you will almost certainly lose money hand over fist attempting bid-ask scalping as an individual retail trader, whether your approach is algorithmic or not, automated or not. Why? Because the only way to succeed at bid-ask scalping is to (a) always be at/near the front of the queue when a price change occurs in your favor, and (b) always cancel your resting orders before they are executed when a price change occurs against you. Unless your algorithms are smarter than every other algorithm in the industry, an individual retail trader operating through a broker's trading platform cannot react quickly enough to succeed at either of those. You would have to eschew the broker and buy direct market access to even have a chance, and that's the point at which you're no longer a retail trader. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d20f6f9d6beb36c84e5a946fd9aeb52d", "text": "This is not correct information. The plan sponsor is the fiduciary and potentially any advisor or consultant. The recordkeeper or even the custodian of the assets is a directed trustee, and follows the instructions provided by the plan sponsor. Fidelity or whatever recordkeeper is being used is not in the business of determining if company stock is a prudent investment in the plan. That, again is the job of the plan sponsor and the plans investment committee and possibly an advisor. The plan sponsor in this case is most certainly eliminating the stock as an option in the plan to pre-empt a stock loss lawsuit brought on by plan participants or plantiffs attorneys.", "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": "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": "cabb237fffd7db5cb951c9fa74e91e1c", "text": "The easiest way to deal with risks for individual stocks is to diversify. I do most of my investing in broad market index funds, particularly the S&P 500. I don't generally hold individual stocks long, but I do buy options when I think there are price moves that aren't supported by the fundamentals of a stock. All of this riskier short-term investing is done in my Roth IRA, because I want to maximize the profits in the account that won't ever be taxed. I wouldn't want a particularly fruitful investing year to bite me with short term capital gains on my income tax. I usually beat the market in that account, but not by much. It would be pretty easy to wipe out those gains on a particularly bad year if I was investing in the actual stocks and not just using options. Many people who deal in individual stocks hedge with put options, but this is only cost effective at strike prices that represent losses of 20% or more and it eats away the gains. Other people or try to add to their gains by selling covered call options figuring that they're happy to sell with a large upward move, but if that upward move doesn't happen you still get the gains from the options you've sold.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73cccbaae914b8dac683a086c810dac6", "text": "These are all factually correct claims. S-Corporation is a pass-through entity, so whatever gain you have on the corporate level - is passed to the shareholders. If your S-Corp has capital gains - you'll get your pro-rata share of the capital gains. Interest? The same. Dividends? You get it on your K-1. Earned income? Taxed as such to you. I.e.: whether you earn income as a S-Corp or as a sole proprietor - matters not. That's the answer to your bottom line question. The big issue, however, is this: you cannot have more than 25% passive income in your S-Corp. You pass that limit (three consecutive years, one-off is ok) - your S-Corp automatically converts to C-Corp, and you're taxed at the corporate level at the corporate rates (you then lose the capital gains rates, personal brackets, etc). This means that an S-Corp cannot be an investment company. Most (75%+) of its income has to be earned, not passive. Another problem with S-Corp is that people who work as self-proprietors incorporated as S-Corp try to abuse it and claim that the income they earned by the virtue of their own personal performance shouldn't be taxed as self-employed income. IRS frowns upon such a position, and if considerable amounts are at stake will take you all the way up to the Tax Court to prove you wrong. This has happened before, numerously. You should talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA/Attorney licensed in your state) to educate you about what S-Corp is and how it is taxed, and whether or not it is appropriate for you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2b404a114b92318d69dfa152ac3ec48", "text": "\"It would take an unusual situation. They exercise certain types of option, which come in as regular income rather than capital gains, and are holding the stock \"\"long\"\" (perhaps they are not allowed to sell because of an insider-trading freeze window; like right before earnings announcements). And then the stock tanks. Their company is acquired. They get stock options in their unicorn at $1/share, which blows up to $1000/share right as HugeFirm buys it. Options are swapped dollar-for-dollar for HugeFirm stock (at $250/share) so 4 shares for 1. I heard this happened a lot in the 1999-2000 boom/bust. And the problem was, this type of stock-option had historically only been offered to $20-million salary CEOs and CFO's, who retained professional legal and financial counsel and knew how to deal with the pitfalls and traps of this type of option. During the dot-com boom, it was also offered to rank-and-file $50k salary tech employees who didn't even know the difference between a 401K and a Roth. And it exploded in their faces, making a big mess for everyone including the IRS -- now struggling to justify to Congressmen why they were collecting $400,000 in taxes on entirely phantom, never-realized income from a 24 year old tech guy earning $29k at a startup and eating ramen. When that poor guy never had a chance of understanding the financial rocks and shoals, and even if he did, couldn't have done anything about it (since he wasn't a high executive involved in the decisions). And even the company who gave him the package didn't intend to inflict this on him. It was a mistake. Even the IRS dislikes no-win situations. Some laws got changed, some practices got changed, etc. etc., and the problem isn't what it used to be.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fefe41a09a3c3baf58db957de491f60", "text": "\"I am not a lawyer, but I can't think of a reason this is illegal (something that would be illegal would be to \"\"trade with yourself\"\" across the accounts to try to manipulate stock or option prices). I don't think you're \"\"funneling,\"\" you're doing \"\"asset location\"\" which is a standard tax planning strategy. http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=154126&t1=1303874170 discusses asset location. I'd be more concerned about whether it makes sense.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a867c6f052ff0ca6c6709e1a4dfacbe", "text": "The LLC portion is completely irrelevant. Don't know why you want it. You can create a joint/partnership trading account without the additional complexity of having LLC. What liability are you trying to limit here? Her sisters will file tax returns in the us using the form 1040NR, and only reporting the dividends they received, everything else will be taxed by Vietnam. You'll have to investigate how to file tax returns there as well. That said, you'll need about $500,000 each to invest in the regional centers. So you're talking about 1.5 million of US dollars at least. From a couple of $14K gifts to $1.5M just by trading? I don't see how this is feasible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd64e0364d2155994fb14edafa14b040", "text": "You should ensure that your broker is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). SIPC protects the cash and securities in your brokerage account much like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protects bank deposits. Securities are protected with a limit of $500,000 USD. Cash is protected with a limit of $250,000 USD. It should be noted that SIPC does not protect investors against loss of value or bad advice. As far as having multiple brokerage accounts for security, I personally don’t think it’s necessary to have multiple accounts for that reason. Depending on account or transaction fees, it might not hurt to have multiple accounts. It can actually be beneficial to have multiple accounts so long as each account serves a purpose in your overall financial plan. For example, I have three brokerage accounts, each of which serves a specific purpose. One provides low cost stock and bond transactions, another provides superior market data, and the third provides low cost mutual fund transactions. If you’re worried about asset security, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself. I would recommend you begin by consulting a qualified financial advisor about your risk profile. You stated that a considerable portion of your total assets are in securities. Depending on your risk profile and the amount of your net worth held in securities, you might be better served by moving your money into lower risk asset classes. I’m not an attorney or a financial advisor. This is not legal advice or financial advice. You can and should consult your own attorney and financial advisor.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "101539eaf2a1c7edd0566ddfeec41f5f", "text": "As an ordinary shareholder, yes you are protected from recourse by the debtors. The maximum amount you can lose is the amount you spent on the shares. The rules might change if you are an officer of the company and fraud is alleged, but ordinary stockholders are quite well protected. Why are you worried about this?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a8a3c216908f110c3f8039d8e1ba396", "text": "I've never heard of an employer offering this kind of arrangement before, so my answer assumes there is no special tax treatment that I'm not aware of. Utilizing the clause is probably equivalent to exercising some of your options, selling the shares back to your employer at FMV, and then exercising more options with the proceeds. In this case if you exercise 7500 shares and sell them back at FMV, your proceeds would be 7500 x $5 = $37,500, with which you could exercise the remaining 12,500 options. The tax implications would be (1) short-term capital gains of 7500 x ($5 - $3) = $15,000 and (2) AMT income of 12,500 x ($5 - $3) = $25,000, assuming you don't sell the shares within the calendar year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4ed4fb03c9a393b737c5da1e8f0a6fe", "text": "No chance. First off, unless the company provides audited financials (and they don't from what I can tell), there is no way I'm tinkering with a bunch of small business owners. Transparency is a substantial part of investing and this actually exempts or excludes these companies, from what I can tell.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2c9edbdcb15f0079a308668226bfe44", "text": "Erisa laws protect your retirement just like something should mandate what minimum ownership should be to classify yourself as exempt from labor laws. I like this idea a lot....however how does 1 employee present enough value to actually effect the price of their company stock? This would only work for top brass positions....which is probably the way it should be.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "25c73c24fa91cd5756013eee21f7adfb", "text": "I'm not the guy you're responding to, but you asked a good question. There's a dearth of data, but [about 1% is the estimate.] (http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20110814/NEWS03/308149986#) Either way, having increased young adults on an insurance plan is a good thing. Socially, this demographic is exceptionally stinging from the Great Recession and I think the ability to give young adults health insurance (and thus the freedom to start developing a career without worrying about health coverage) outweighs the nominal additional premium costs. Fiscally, having young adults in a group plan decreases the risk profile of that plan since young adults don't incur the same expenses that a 45 or 50 year old would.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
66db04b52e58855d4a3734b505d70f30
How can I set up a recurring payment to an individual (avoiding fees)?
[ { "docid": "beda3cf6bca17ac9e91c02eeee920a24", "text": "I think about as close as you're going to get is to use a personal PayPal account, and set up a reminder to yourself to log in and send the money. (Because, as you said, setting up a recurring payment is a business account thing.) From PayPal's website: Sending money – Personal payments: It's free within the U.S. to send money to family and friends when you use only your PayPal balance or bank account, or a combination of their PayPal balance and bank account. ... Receiving money – Personal payments: It's free to receive money from friends or family in the U.S. when they send the money from the PayPal website using only their PayPal balance or their bank account, or a combination of their PayPal balance and bank account. You can automate the reminder to yourself with any of the gazillion task managers out there: Google Calendar, MS Outlook, Todoist, Remember the Milk, etc.", "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": "5de2302daad9e8d231a14595943b7a66", "text": "Many U.S. banks now support POPMoney, which allows recurring electronic transfers between consumer accounts. Even if your bank doesn't support it, you can still use the service. See popmoney.com.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e5bdfd9c24f25f07783ca8aed2c4b0b", "text": "A handful of well-known banks in the United States are part of the clearXchange network, which allows customers of those banks to move money amongst them. The clearXchange service is rebranded differently by each member bank. For example, Chase calls it QuickPay, while Wells Fargo calls it SurePay, and Capital One calls it P2P Payments. To use clearXchange, the sender's bank must be part of the network. The recipient isn't required to be in the network, though if they are it makes things easier, as no setup is required on the recipient's end in that case. Otherwise, they must sign up on the clearXchange site directly. From what I can tell, most payments are fee-free within the network. I have repeating payments set up with Chase's QuickPay, and they do not charge fees.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "9cac2f8096f2ec2234d0b587551f30b9", "text": "You could buy debt/notes or other instruments that pay out periodically. Some examples are If there is an income stream you can discount the present value and then buy it/own the rights to income stream. Typically you pay a discounted price for the face value and then receive the income stream over time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1974b67e6034872ebcac953936b2da0b", "text": "Depending on the particulars, you could get an Amex Serve account, load it into your Serve account, have them send a check for $150 to a family member of yours, and then have your family member transfer $150 to you seperately.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ecef843666d67bbc24fc04bf1cc0d6d", "text": "\"I really have to use the business card for personal expenses, please assume that in your answer. This is very hard to believe. You must do that? Why not just have the company pay you $1600 each month? Then you can use that money for whatever you want. Why can't you do this? (I cannot think of a legitimate reason...) How to integrate the personal expenses in company? Anyway, to answer your question, what I've done when I accidentally used my corporate card for a personal expense is to code the expense as a payment to me similar to if a check had been written to me. If you aren't ever paying yourself, then you should just pay the company back the $1600 every month. As a side note, I highly recommend you don't do this. By doing this on a regular basis you are opening the door for piercing the corporate veil. This means that the financial protections provided by the LLC could potentially be stripped away since personal and corporate funds are being mixed. The unfortunate end result is that personal assets could end up being fair game too in a judgement against the company. Even if you aren't an owner, your relative could be considered to be \"\"using business money for personal expenses\"\", namely, letting a relative spend business funds for personal use. How to show more expenses and lessen the profit? If you're referring to the personal expenses, then you absolutely do not want to do this! That's illegal and worthy of stiff penalties, which possibly include jail time for tax evasion. Better to just have the company pay you and then the entire payment is deductible and reduces the profit of the company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a3357c6b83be6ff170ecea33ce8a78c", "text": "I haven't worked with Xero before, but can't you just set it up as accounts payable? Put in an accounts payable for the contract. When the client makes a payment, the accounts payable goes down and the cash goes up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9dc05df9fc6e20481d08de42919c5f53", "text": "Almost every company I know of charges something like 2% per month on past due accounts. They are not financial institutions, so it's probably quite legal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac87f082a3a41ed46993d0840e78b8a3", "text": "\"The bank SHOULD be able to issue you a new card without letting vendors roll over the recurring payments. In fact, I've never had a bank move recurring payments to a new card automatically, or even upon request; they've always told me to contact the vendor and give them my new card number. So go back to the bank, tell them specifically that you have a security issue and you want the new card issued WITHOUT carrying over any recurring charges, and see if they can do it properly. If not: 1) Issue a \"\"charge back\"\" every time a bogus charge comes in. This costs the vendor money, and should convince them to stop trying to access your card. It's a hassle because you have to keep contacting the bank about the bad charges, but it won't cost you more than time and a phone call or letter. (The bank can tell you what their preferred process is for this.) 2) Consider moving to a bank that isn't stupidly over-helpful.\"", "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": "62d5c32ad49fc3189ebd8b98819ce212", "text": "Your relative in the US could buy a pre-paid Visa (aka Visa gift card) and give you the numbers on that to pay. They're available for purchase at many grocery/convenience stores. In most (all??) cases there'll be a fee of a several dollars charged in addition to the face value of the card. The biggest headache I can think of would be that pre-paid cards are generally only available in $25/50/100 increments; unless the current SAT price matches one of the standard increments they'll have to buy the next card size up and then get the remaining money off it in a separate transaction. A grocery store would be one of the easier places for your relative to do this because cashiers there are used to splitting transactions across multiple payment sources (something not true at most other types of business) due to regularly processing transactions partially paid for via welfare benefits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84e962e8a922ef20369456f294be4ccc", "text": "It depends, generally for consumer goods it is advisable to pay money in one go and avoid paying installments as there are charges for it.", "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": "dabeca4966bcc58743a28badc128b907", "text": "There are a couple of things to consider. First, in order to avoid interest charges you generally just need to pay the statement balance before the statement due date. This is your grace period. You don't need to monitor your activity every day and send immediate payments. If you're being really tight with money, you can actually make a little profit by letting your cash sit in an interest bearing account before you pay your credit card before the due date. Second, credit card interest rates are pretty terrible, and prescribed minimum payments are comically low. If you buy furniture using your credit card you will pay some interest, be sure to pay way more than the minimum payment. You should avoid carrying a balance on a credit card. At 20% interest the approximate monthly interest charge on $1,000 is $16.67. Third, if you carry a balance on your credit card you lose the interest grace period (the first point above) on new charges. If you buy your couch, and carry the balance, when you buy a soda at 7-11, the soda begins to accrue interest immediately. If you decide to carry a balance on a credit card, stop using that card for new charges. It generally takes two consecutive billing period full balance payments to restore the grace period. Fourth, to answer your question, using a credit card to carry a balance has no impact on your score. Make your payments on time, don't exceed your limits, keep your utilization reasonable. The credit agencies have no idea if you're carrying a balance or how much interest you're paying. To Appease the people who think point four needs more words: Your credit report contains your limit, your reported balance (generally your statement balance), and approximate minimum payment. There is no indication related to whether or not the balance contains a carried balance and/or accrued interest. The mere fact of carrying a balance will not impact your credit score because the credit reporting bureaus don't know you're carrying a balance. Paying interest doesn't help or hurt your score. Obviously if your carried balance and interest charges push your utilization up that will impact your score because of the increased utilization. Make your payments on time, don't exceed your limits, keep your utilization reasonable and your score will be fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "397050bf496379d0b5e27f6d329f1278", "text": "\"you could get a discover card and then just \"\"freeze\"\" it. you might need to unfreeze it for a few minutes when you sign up for a new service, but it is unlikely an ongoing subscription would process a charge in that window. i believe merchants are charged a small fee for a transaction even if it is declined, so they won't try constantly forever. discover account freeze faq capitalone offers this freeze feature on their \"\"360\"\" debit cards. you can even freeze and unfreeze your card from their mobile app. this feature is becoming more common at small banks and credit unions too. i know of 2 small local banks that offer it. in fact, almost any bank can give you a debit card, then set the daily POS limit to 0$, effectively making it an atm-only card. but you may need to call the bank to get that limit temporarily lifted whenever you want to sign up for a new service. alternatively, jejorda2's suggestion of virtual account numbers is a good idea. several banks (including discover) have discontinued that feature, but i believe citi, and boa still offer them. side notes:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0288ad4861488073b702208da13fa2b", "text": "ACH, Paypal, Amazon Pay are all other options that can be used. ACH is cheapest for the merchant but it is a bit of a pain for the customer to setup (aka adds friction to our sales process, which is *very* bad). Paypal and Amazon Pay both cost a bit more than regular credit cards for the merchant. Google Wallet is free but not available unless you are a sole proprietor or an individual, which is is useless for businesses. So yeah, other options are either difficult or more expensive.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41f0b1acb57b7544bd49bad2965c8fb9", "text": "\"Should is a very \"\"strong\"\" word. You do what makes most sense to you. Should I be making a single account for Person and crediting / debiting that account? You can do that. Should I be creating a loan for Person? And if so, would I make a new loan each month or would I keep all of the loans in one account? You can create a loan account (your asset), you don't need to create a new account every time - just change the balance of the existing one. That's essentially the implementation of the first way (\"\"making a single account for a Person\"\"). How do I show the money moving from my checking account to Company and then to Person's loan? You make the payment to Company from your Checking, and you adjust the loan amount to Person from Equity for the same amount. When the Person pays - you clear the loan balance and adjust the Checking balance accordingly. This keeps your balance intact for the whole time (i.e.: your total balance sheet doesn't change, money moves from line to line internally but the totals remain the same). This is the proper trail you're looking for. How do I (or should I even) show the money being reimbursed from the expense? You shouldn't. Company is your expense. Payment by the Person is your income. They net out to zero (unless you charge interest). Do I debit the expense at any point? Of course. Company is your expense account. Should I not concern myself with the source of a loan / repayment and instead just increase the size of the loan? Yes. See above.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "334b64dd9b69e5dcffb441f922e147ed", "text": "\"American Express is great for this use case -- they have two user roles \"\"Account Agent\"\" and \"\"Account Manager\"\" which allow you to designate logins to review your account details or act on your behalf to pay bills or request service. This scheme is designed for exactly what you are doing and offers you more security and less hassle. More details here.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e7c80bc667f72cec12dc876cde40bab1
How can a freelancer get a credit card? (India)
[ { "docid": "3c36fb440fbd6a2a6d737a589e1567b1", "text": "Typically Banks look for a steady source of income or savings based on which they issue a credit card. If you can't show that build a cash balance and show it. For Example if you have an PPF account with say SBI, they issue you a card with a limit of around 50% of the balance in PPF. No other documentation is required. Similarly if you have Fixed Deposits for a large amount quite a few Banks would give you a Credit Card. My wife has a credit card because she had a good balance [around 100,000 INR] for around a year, the Bank kept calling her and offered her a card.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a12d4c02b46a38be2eacbfee2b24c239", "text": "The OP might have obtained his credit card by now but I'm answering now as there is one more easy way to get a credit card. All major Indian banks like SBI, ICICI, HDFC and Axis issue instant credit cards on opening a FD (Fixed Deposit). For instance ICICI offers one for FD amount of as less as ₹20000. The credit limit on such cards will be 85% of the deposit amount. Another advantage of these kind of cards is customer won't be charged any annual fees and at the same time interest will be paid on original FD.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1bca6efbe832423d0184f47a61d09dc1", "text": "I don't know about India, but here in the US banks, and more friendly institutions such as credit unions, use to offer the option of a 'secured' credit card where the card was secured by placing a lock on money in a savings account equal to the credit limit on the card. So for example, if you had $1500 in savings, you could have them lock say $1000, which you would not be able to withdraw from savings, in return for a credit card account with a credit limit of $1000. Typically you still earned interest on the full amount of the savings, you were just limited to having to maintain a minimum balance in that account of $1000.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "f09e5df95d050feae1e745fb0c66f9bd", "text": "Debit is them taking the money, in your case electronically. Credit is somebody vouching for you and saying you will pay later. They are alternate ways to pay for a product. As a merchant, if you take a credit card you are agreeing that a the issuer of the credit card is going to pay you right away. The issuer of the credit will worry about collecting the money from me. There are a ton of details with regards to why you would use one over another, where the costs in each method are and who pays what for each. The main different is the source of the funds.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "573e48e9b9d4cbbfa1dee18393f88dd7", "text": "The best way is for X to work as Independent consultant fro c.com from India by raising monthly invoices for the work done. This will avoid the complications and paperwork associated by registering a LLC in US by XF and then employing X as independent consultant in India. X may need to fill out W8-BEN forms so that there is no withholding in US Edit: Independent consultant means without having to register any legal entity either in India or in US. There are no legal regulations in US or in India to hire an independent contractor / consultant. There maybe internal policy of C.com not to have independent consultants. Payments can be made via transfer to Bank account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebe8905a496ad4f1d60a1c4af85f0f24", "text": "\"Yes, merchants are charged. Visa/Mastercards charge 1 to 2%, of which some part goes to the Visa/MC and the rest to the issuing bank (if you have an HDFC Bank Visa card, HDFC bank is the issuing bank. And yes, you can get a discount from the merchant - while it probably isn't allowed by Visa/MC, some merchants still provide discounts for cash. But you won't get it at places like supermarkets or large brand retail. Late fees + charges can be huge. In multiple ways - first, they all seem to charge a late fee of Rs. 300-500 nowadays, plus service tax of 10%. Then, you will pay interest from the bill date to the eventual payment date. And further, any new purchases you make will attract interest from the day they are made (no \"\"interest-free\"\" period). Interest rates in India on CCs are over 3% a month, so you really must get rid of any open balances. I've written a longish piece on this at http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/The-good-bad-ugly-credit-yahoofinancein-2903990423.html\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42aeba15aa13ed69c349cf669b430e62", "text": "\"Im currently working on the line for a major multinational. They regularly take feedback from us for improvements, and in India, one of those suggestions increased direct sales by (reportedly) over 50%. That suggestion? Put a label on card readers that said \"\"(company name) Authorized Card Reader\"\". It cost the company less than $10, and now brings in millions per year.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b349fa2cd507828c15535760edc5280e", "text": "There are sites in India that offer this, http://www.intuit.in/ is one such site. Apart from this some banks like ICICI offer this to limited extent.", "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": "b79ee9aba5de71821740aebb9cb3c967", "text": "There are multiple ways in which you can get money to India; - Citi Bank / HDFC Bank offere similar services [and the credit account can be ICICI Bank] - Ask for a Wire/SWIFT transfer, there would be some changes [in the range of USD 30] - Ask for a company check, it would take around 30 days for you to encash in into your bank account in India.", "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": "102c30a822fd503925f07060b6aca3c4", "text": "The post that you linked to saying that a pre-paid credit card is really a debit card is kind of right and kind of wrong. From your point of view, to get a $1000 pre-paid credit card, you need to hand over $1000. So nobody is giving any credit to you. You can only spend money that you actually own, like a debit card. For the merchant accepting your card, it is exactly like a credit card. He doesn't know what deals you had to make to get the card. The merchant just knows that up to some amount, he will receive money. So in that sense it is a credit card and will be accepted like a credit card.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a6c19087f1431dd9a7ab61dc764a70a", "text": "\"Your own site/business. I’m in freelancing and internet business for 15 years, 20 years IT experience. Currently i use freelance websites for cheap Asian employees, very seldom for EU/USA employees, and if only if local competition is heavily out-pricing qualified staff. Till I went \"\"limited\"\" i.e., founded a limited corporation I was jobbing as freelancer and sole proprietor, both with limited success due to the strong Asian competition i myself currently hire. The point where freelancing got \"\"not sustainable\"\" as primary income was 2006 for me, don’t want to get into detail but every freelancer who was active back then knows what I mean, it was like whole India got internet. If you have absolutely no references, do it for the references a limited time and see the fee you pay as service for you to get references, then start your own web identity, either as freelancer or as corporation. Make sure you take your very satisfied customers with you. Every \"\"very satisfied\"\" customer in your contact list means 10 new customers which mean 2 new customers which mean 0.2 new customers and so on. Honestly, this info is solely based on experience of this niche fro ma European citizen perspective, if you’re based anywhere else the situation might be totally different.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ea9f9fc82183c4ddab03dc9c66889e9f", "text": "Can he use an existing credit card in his name for all his business expenses, or does that pierce the corporate veil? That would be a question to a lawyer, since there's no definitive answer but rather circumstantial. Generally it is safer to separate the finances completely than to try and guess what the court would rule if it comes to that. It is not hard to get a separate card for a LLC (especially if it is a sole proprietorship). We are going to buy a house soon, so I don't want any extra inquiries. I guess it depends on the bank and the type of card. My Citi business card doesn't show up on my personal credit report.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5c268fcbe2a1e81abbd9f972e63cda43", "text": "You can do this if you merge Credit Cards with personal loans. You will have to pay 1 upfront fee but you can bounce a balance between 4 CCs almost indefinitely if you do it right. You have to have good credit though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0fee119a89fa8496dd26a8658cde5e1", "text": "Is it possible her husband obtained a card from a bank overseas? Unlikely. A Bank overseas generally will not issue such cards. Is that why she can't find it on the credit report? The data sent to Credit Bureau is periodic and not immediate. At times it may take a month or more for a Bank to start reporting the new card to Credit Agencies. If he got the card recently, she has a freeze in effect and no bank can issue a card in her name without her approval. Possibly timing issue. i.e. the freeze was put after card company pulled the report and approved. It may take sometime to dispatch a new card. So it could be that her husband applied for this card previously before the freeze was put in place.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f2c27c7f73773c5751edef1d9d7f003", "text": "\"This does not seem, to me, to be a very good indication regarding the risk of the person not paying their balances off. If you do not have a source of income then how are you going to repay your debt. Not to mention there is recource for creditors to garnish wages. That is not possible if you have no income. The risk assessment is about the ability of the creditor to recover any moneys loaned and costs and still make a profit. For example, students have their parents pay them some pocket money to cover for expenses, or a person might be working sporadically on consulting gigs that do not have a fixed monthly or yearly component. Most credit card companies that are willing to issue to college students will allow you to include money from your parents in your income. Credit card companies are looking for customers that will carry a balance and incur fees but be able to pay them. These companies do not make money off of fees and interest that they do not collect. As such, sporatic work increases risk. Is it possible for people to get approved for unsecured credit cards if they don't hold (or have not held for some time) a job at the time of application? I was able to while I was in college. Though I did have a part time job. If you can show that you have the ability to pay you can usually get a credit card if you do not have bad credit. It will probably be high interest and have alot of fees some of them you will have to pay upfront. But what you probably mean to ask is \"\"Is it possible to get a no cost unsecured credit card with out a reliable source of income?\"\" The answer to that is: probably not. Even the ones that look like they are free probably have hidden fees.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57df0258a0afb33df7402a40ec2fc121", "text": "In general, minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts -- which is what credit accounts are -- so an individually held card is probably not an option for you right now. You will not be approved for a credit card because you are minor. The only option credit card wise for you is for your parents to add you on as an authorized user onto their accounts. The upside is that you and your parents can work out a monthly payment for the amount you spend on your equipment, the downside is that if your parents don't pay their credit card bill, your credit score/report can be negatively affected. (This also depends on the bank, however, all the banks I bank with report monthly payment activities on authorized users' credit reports as well. There might be a bank that doesn't.) In terms of credit cards, there is nothing you can do. What you could do as the comments have suggested is either save up money for the equipment you want, or buy something cheaper.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9f2a2a9c628253b6d0af71084ed5b475
Creating a Limited company while still fully employed
[ { "docid": "cf6fcd8dd2402e5e78393771026d802e", "text": "I was just thinking ahead, can I apply for Limited company now, while fully time employed, and not take any business until I get a contract. Yes. You can open as many companies you want(assuming you are sane). There is no legal provisions regarding who can open a company. What happens if I create a company and it has no turnover at all? Does this complicate things later? After you open a company, you have to submit your yearly statements to Companies House, whether you have a billion pounds turnover or 0. If you claim VAT that has also to be paid after you register for VAT. VAT registration is another registration different from opening a limited company. Is it the same if I decided to take a 1,2 or x month holiday and the company again will not incur any turnover? Turnover is year end, so at the year end you have to submit your yearly results, whether you took a 12 month holiday or a week's holiday. Is it a OK to do this in foresight or should I wait weeks before actually deciding to search for contracts. No need to open a limited company now, if you are so paranoid. Opening a company in UK takes 5 minutes. So you can open a company after landing a contract.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2f0e077c22de387bba03168f12f9c62", "text": "Can I apply for limited company now, while fully time employed, and not take any business until I get a contract? Some employment contracts may include non-compete clauses or similar which expressly forbid you engaging in other employment or becoming self-employed while simultaneously working for your current employer. You may want to check this out before making any moves to register as a limited company. You may forfeit long-term benefits (such as a pension) you have built up at your present employer if they catch wind of a conflict of interest. As noted in an earlier answer, the setup process for a limited company is extremely simple in the UK, so there is no reason you need to take these steps in advance of leaving your current employment. During my resignation period scout for contracts... Should I wait weeks before actually deciding to search for contracts? Depending on the type of IT work you intend to be contracting for, you may find yourself shut out from major work if you are not VAT registered. It is a requirement to register for VAT when you breach certain earnings limits (see HMRC's website) but you can voluntarily register with HMRC before these limits if you wish. Being VAT registered increases your bookkeeping and oversight requirements, which makes you appear more attractive to larger enterprises / corporations than a non-VAT registered firm. It also suggests some degree of stability and a plan to stick around for the long haul. This might be a catch-22 situation - if you want to get noticed and land the sizable contracts, you will almost certainly require a VAT registration regardless of your overall yearly earnings. It would be advisable to engage the services of a professional advisor before becoming VAT registered, but this and the subsequent professional advice you may require for putting in VAT claims may not be a fee you wish to pay upfront if you are only attracting a small volume of work.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f18626e4be6df6a17d540cc9d98025c", "text": "You can register a limited company and leave it dormant, that's no problem. You just need to make sure that later on you notify HMRC within 3 months of any trading activity. As pointed out, you can register a company in a few hours now so I wouldn't worry about that. Your confusion about Private Limited Companies is understandable, it's often not made clear but UK formation services standard packages are always Private Limited by Shares companies. Limited by Guarantee is something else, and normally used by charities or non-profits only. See explanations here. Registering for VAT is optional until you reach the £81,000 turnover threshold but it can make your services more attractive to large companies - especially in your field of business. You should really seek professional advice on whether or not this is the best option for you.", "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": "2412c5cd1130f007f6f068e6b280e2b3", "text": "\"You're confusing so many things at once here...... First thing first: we cannot suggest you what to do business-wise since we have no idea about your business. How on Earth can anyone know if you should sell the software to someone or try to distribute to customers yourself? How would we know if you should hire employees or not? If you say you don't need employees - why would you consider hiring them? If you say you want to sell several copies and have your own customers - why would you ask if you should sell your code to someone else? Doesn't make sense. Now to some more specific issues: I heard sole proprietary companies doesn't earn more than 250k and it's better to switch to corporation or LLC etc. because of benefits. I heard it was snowing today in Honolulu. So you heard things. It doesn't make them true, or relevant to you. There's no earning limit above which you should incorporate. You can be sole proprietor and make millions, and you can incorporate for a $10K/year revenue business. Sole proprietorship, incorporation (can be C-Corp or S-Corp), or LLC - these are four different types of legal entity to conduct business. Each has its own set of benefits and drawbacks, and you must understand which one suits you in your particular situation. For that you should talk to a lawyer who could help you understand what liability protection you might need, and to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) who can help you understand the tax-related costs and benefits of each choice. On the other hand I heard that if I create LLC company, in case of failure, they can get EVERYTHING from me, what's this all about? No. This is not true. Who are \"\"they\"\", how do you define \"\"failure\"\", and why would they get anything from you at all? Even without knowing all that, your understanding is wrong, because the \"\"LL\"\" in LLC stands for LIMITED liability. The whole point of forming LLC or Corporation is to limit your own personal liability. But mere incorporation or forming LLC doesn't necessarily mean your liability is limited. Your State law defines what you must do for that limited liability protection, and that includes proper ways to run your business. Again - talk to your lawyer and your tax adviser about what it means to you. I'm totally unfamiliar with everything related to taxes/companies/LLC/corporation etc Familiarize yourself. No-one is going to do it for you. Start reading, ask specific questions on specific issues, and get a proper legal and tax advice from licensed professionals.\"", "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": "68c4d6b201926c7dc2dbd6098be0d795", "text": "\"It is definitely legal, however none of such expenses will be allowed as a tax deduction for the corporation. Basically, you'll end up paying more to maintain the entity and pay taxes on its income (the rent you're paying to yourself as a corporation) at corporate rates, for no apparent benefit. Being the director/executive in the corporation will make you liable for whatever the corporation is liable, so liability isn't going away. The reason corporation is considered \"\"limited liability\"\" for owners is because shareholders are shielded from the corporate liability. Not directors or executives (which are explicitly not shielded).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0c8d3728efd4fd11889096f3baabf9f", "text": "\"Your wages are an expense to your employer and are therefore 100% tax deductible in the business income. The company should not be paying tax on that, so your double-tax scenario, as described, isn't really correct. [The phrase \"\"double taxation\"\" with respect to US corporations usually comes into play with dividends. In that case, however, it's the shareholders (owners) that pay double. The answer to \"\"why?\"\" in that case can only be \"\"because it's the law.\"\"]\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85f1ee03b67a2df86e96dbcec51a9f21", "text": "\"Assuming you are paying into and eligible to collect regular Employment Insurance benefits for the job in question, I don't see how owning a side business would, by itself, affect your ability to participate in the workshare program. Many people own dormant businesses ($0 revenue / $0 income), or businesses with insignificant net income (e.g. a small table at the flea market, or a fledgling web-site with up-front costs and no ad revenue, yet ;-) I think what matters is if your side business generated income substantial enough to put you over a certain threshold. Then you may be required to repay a portion of the EI benefits received through the workshare program. On this issue, I found the following article informative: How to make work-sharing work for you, from the Globe & Mail's Report on Business site. Here's a relevant quote: \"\"[...] If you work elsewhere during the agreement, and earn more than an amount equal to 40% of your weekly benefit rate, that amount shall be deducted from your work sharing benefits payable that week. [...]\"\" The definitive source for information on the workshare program is the Service Canada web site. In particular, see the Work-Sharing Applicant Guide, which discusses eligibility criteria. Section IV confirms the Globe article's statement above: \"\"[...] Earnings received in any week by a Work-Sharing participant, from sources other than Work-Sharing employment, that are in excess of an amount equal to 40% or $75 (whichever is greater) of the participant's weekly benefit rate, shall be deducted from the Work-Sharing benefits payable in that week. [...]\"\" Finally, here's one more interesting article that discusses the workshare program: Canada: Employment Law @ Gowlings - March 30, 2009.\"", "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": "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": "7ac28e80f3aded6c61b2c5c30003cc89", "text": "Sounds like they need to tighten the regulation around that and specify how long one can be off and tie that to further employment. In other words, you can't go off and come back to just quit, but need a specified time off, and a specified time back on the job. Beyond entry level, can't you hire contract workers for the interim? Surely the UK has temp agencies for just this sort of thing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83d700ae94fb9917fc1904ecdd1d0877", "text": "\"If you're really interested in the long-term success of your business, and you can get by in your personal finances without taking anything from the business for the time being, then don't. There is no \"\"legal requirement\"\" to pay yourself a prevailing wage if doing so would put the company out of business. it is common for a company's principals not to draw wages from the business until it is viable enough to sustain payroll. I was in that situation when I first began my business, so the notion that somehow I'm violating a law by being fiscally responsible for my own company is nonsense. Be wise with your new business. You didn't state why you feel the need to take some kind of payment out, but this can be a crucial mistake if it imperils your business or if that money could be better spent on marketing or some other areas which improve revenues. You can always create a salary deferral agreement between yourself and your own company which basically states that the company owes you wages but you are, for the time being, willing to defer accepting them until such time that the company has sufficient revenues to pay you. That's one solution, but the simplest answer is, if you don't need the money you're thinking of paying yourself, don't do it. Let that money work for you in the business so that it pays off better in the long run. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ac188863937de2106c8c20b17e1bbb7", "text": "As I understand it (please correct me if i'm wrong, i've looked at this before and i've been a sole trader briefly but I've never formed a LTD company) there are pros and cons to forming a limited company. Pros Cons", "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": "a06bd6c760994cbcb0a5f5e853084331", "text": "As you own a company, you need to know what your role is. You can never just move money into or out of the company, you have to identify the role in which you are doing it, and do it properly. There is Company, and there is You, in three different roles. You are the sole shareholder and director of Company. You are the sole employee of Company. You are also just a private person. You need to keep these three roles separate. As the sole shareholder, you own the company. However, you don't own any assets of the company. The company is yours, but the money in its bank account isn't. As a private person, you give a loan to your company. You write on a sheet of paper that You personally, give a loan to the company, how much a loan is, what interest is paid, and when the loan will be paid back (that could be 'whenever You demands the money paid back'). Then you move the money from your private bank account to the company bank account, and the company has the money it needs to fund its operation. Assume it wasn't you who loaned the money, but I gave the loan to the company. You can imagine that I would have this loan written down and signed before I hand over the cash. And you must have exactly the same papers that I would have. How do you get money from the company? The company can pay back your loan. That should be written down again, in the same way as the loan itself was written down. Other than that, there are three ways how you can get money out of the company: The company can pay You, in your role as its employee, a salary, which it can deduct from its profits. The company can pay money into a pension of the company director (that's You in your role as company director) up to £40,000 or so a year; that money is deducted from its profits again. The company pays 20% tax on its remaining profits. Then the company can pay You, in your role as company director, a dividend, usually twice a year. Each of these payments has to be written down and given to HMRC properly. Best by far to use an accountant to do all the paper work for you and advice you what to do. You can lose a lot of money by just not getting the paperwork right, by filing late etc., which the accountant will get right. The accountant will also tell you what are the optimal amounts for salary and dividend (best is a small salary, about £10,000 a year, dividend of about £30,000 a year, pension as much as the company can afford, which is then all tax free to you). You can't pay more dividend then the company can afford (paying a dividend and then not being able to pay your suppliers is criminal), and if you want higher dividends, then you will have to pay taxes on them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0239db99a14304f9c2d2c4e5f0e8cc2e", "text": "\"We use Cater Allen for our business banking (recommended/introduced by our accountants so we've saved the standard \"\"minimum funds per month\"\" limit) which was set up all remotely - our accountants sent us the forms (which you can get from Cater Allen's site), we photocopied the identity documents (driving licence etc) and sent them off. Within a couple of weeks we had the account open. Cater Allen hasn't got any physical branches, so that's \"\"one way\"\" of working around the \"\"come into a branch\"\" solution - pick a bank without branches! Girobank (which became Alliance and Leicester Business Banking and then became part of Santander) used to allow all account creations remotely - but that was back in the 90s and I've got no idea if Santander still do. Since you've setup an Ltd company, you are probably looking for an accountant too (even if it just to do your year end or payroll) - ask them for their recommendations.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57abae6c2d43dc8a8a1ff90716c636d9", "text": "Wow, that is filled with misinformation. What are you trying to achieve here? L1 has a 5yr limit, and requires a ton of evidence to support the fact that you were previously working in a managerial/executive function with the same parent company. In order to prove that, you need to be making a reasonably large salary too. It has to be applied for by the employing company, through a lawyer. What a load of hogwash, don't write about topics you have no knowledge of.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
4efaff3bfe6b10763e4e59a184ded7df
Best Practices for Managing Paper Receipts
[ { "docid": "f544b73053ef55810b85675372d3150a", "text": "I store all my receipts digitally, and make sure to input them into accounting program sooner than later, just so I don't forget about it. For practical purposes, the two important things are: Any kind of a digital system makes this pretty easy, even just putting the sums in a spreadsheet and the receipts into files with the date in the name. However, because it's easy enough, I also have a box where I stuff the paper receipts. I expect never to need them, but should something very weird happen to my computer and backups, they would be there.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b941ec8a64dd8a7efd3690dab33cd768", "text": "Try the following apps/services: Receipt Bank (paid service, gathers paper receipts, scans them and processes the data), I've tested it, and it recognizing receipts very well, taking picture is very quick and easy, then you can upload the expenses into your accounting software by a click or automatically (e.g. FreeAgent), however the service it's a bit expensive. They've apps for Android and iPhone. Expentory (app and cloud-based service for capturing expense receipts on the move),", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39efebb7c6e866b8c97268e70ed69f1e", "text": "I'm trying to organize my financial papers as well. I have a Fujitsu ScanSnap and it's tearing through my papers like a hot knife through butter (i.e. awesome). Here's how I'm addressing organizing the paper. I'm organizing mine a little bit organically. Here are the main parts: So anyway, all that to say that it's not necessary to organize the files to the hilt. If you want to, that's fine too, but it's a tradeoff: up-front organization for possibly some time savings later. The search function available is decreasing the advantage of organizing your files carefully. If throwing all of your files in a digital pile makes your skin crawl, then I won't force you otherwise, but I'm not worried about it for the time being. What you're doing with the other tracking sounds fine to me. Others may have different insights there.", "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": "318a10dcf31d185fb02673649998132a", "text": "Depends on the type of documents, if they are just sales flyers you can email/post on website etc. IF they are medial records or some other sensitive information you need to have something with access controls encryption and logging/auditing capabilities... Some places use sharepoint or just have a shared drive where the docs are stored.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d27970c7bb23fd79499c7f484c5da1b", "text": "First, I try to keep electronic records (with appropriate backups) whenever it seems feasible: utility bills, credit card statements, bank statements, etc. This greatly cuts down on storage space, and are kept forever. For hard copy records, it depends on the transaction. I try to balance filing time and recover time, by how likely it is that I will need to access a record in the future. I'm much less likely to need the receipt for this mornings coffee at Starbucks than I am to need the utility bill for my rental property (100%, come tax time). For instance, by default I file my credit card receipts, that don't get filed elsewhere, by year with all cards kept together, and cull them after 5-7 years. I keep all of the credit card receipts, just because it is less effort for me than making a decision about what to keep and what to discard. I put them in an accordion file by month of charge, and keep two, for the current year and previous years. At the beginning of each year, I get rid of the receipts in the oldest file and reuse it. Anything that needs to be kept longer that a couple of years gets filed separately. Certain records are kept together. For example, car repair/maintenance receipts are filed by vehicle and kept for the life of the vehicle (could be useful when its sold, to provide the repair history). All receipts for the rental property are kept together, organized by account. I'll keep these until the property is sold. All tax related receipts that don't have a specific file are kept together, by year, along with the tax return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ad9394be1f239ad6444fe6793dd0dcaa", "text": "\"We're in much the same boat as you. We do make use of the transaction download feature of our software, but we don't let it auto-enter the amounts. We use the downloaded transactions to make entering our receipts easier. We each take responsibility for entering our own transactions, and then I go through and download bills, reconcile statements and such. I'm the numbers person in our house, so it's easier for me to take care of this stuff. We have all of our bills on auto-pay so that we don't have to worry about payments not getting made if we don't have time to get to our banking tasks on time. I try to set aside time on Saturday afternoon while my kids have their \"\"screen time\"\", or I'll do it in the evening after the kids are in bed. This year, my wife has been much busier and hasn't had as much time to keep up with her data entry, so we've been doing less well at keeping up with things. Something we're considering (and this might work for you as well) is to use the envelope system for the categories where we're most in danger of over-spending. This way. we would have an easy way to see if we'd overspent a category even if we were behind on our data entry. If you're not familiar with the envelope system, respond here and I'll explain it further.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4217855657af5723dd47f882f3a402fb", "text": "\"There is not one right way. It depends on the level of detail that you need. One way would be: Create the following accounts: When you pay the phone bill: When you are paid with the reimbursement: That is, when you pay the phone bill, you must debit BOTH phone expense to record the expense, and also reimbursements due to record the fact that someone now owes you money. If it's useful you could add another layer of complexity: When you receive the bill you have a liability, and when you pay it you discharge that liability. Whether that's worth keeping track of depends. I never do for month-to-month bills. Afterthought: I see another poster says that your method is incorrect because a reimbursement is not salary. Technically true, though that problem could be fixed by renaming the account to something like \"\"income from employer\"\". The more serious problem I see is that you are reversing the phone expense when you are reimbursed. So at the end of the year you will show total phone expense as $0. This is clearly not correct -- you did have phone expenses, they were just reimbursed. You really are treating the expense account as an asset account -- \"\"phone expenses due to be reimbursed by employer\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11668b70c0ecdd334a253db99038c8ab", "text": "Attempting to treat every BU as a profit center is doomed for failure. Some of the record keeping for charge back models are good for data collection and any BU that primarily acts as a profit center can easily do charge backs with other BUs that utilize their services (say a publishing company asking the BU in charge of printing to provide some internal material). If the business function is not a core competency and is not a profit driver it is a cost center and should be treated as such. For cost center based BUs record keeping, budgeting and controlling your commitments are key however you have a higher chance of being jerked around in some scenarios, this really comes down to the kinds of leadership around the BU.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5892a6b97d54e8ad76db42787b8e4aa0", "text": "After talking to two CPAs it seems like managing it using an imprest system is the best idea. The base characteristic of an imprest system is that a fixed amount is reserved and later replenished as it runs low. This replenishment will come from another account source, e.g., petty cash will be replenished by cashing a cheque drawn on a bank account. Petty cash imprest system allows only the replenishment of the spend made. So, if you start the month with €100 in your petty cash float and spend €90 of that cash in the month, an amount of €90 will be then placed in your petty cash float to bring the balance of your petty cash float back to €100. The replenishment is credited to the primary cash account, usually a bank account (Dr - Petty Cash a/c, Cr - Bank a/c) and the debits will go to the respective expense accounts, based on the petty cash receipt dockets (Dr- Expense a/c, Cr - Petty Cash a/c). In a non imprest system where a fixed amount is issued every month, e.g., €100 every time cash is required, there is no incentive to ensure all money issued has been documented because when money is all spent a check for a fixed amount is issued. It is much more difficult to reconcile a non imprest system as you never know how much exactly should be in the float. In an imprest system the amount requested is documented, the documentation being the petty cash dockets and their associated receipts or invoices. So at all times you can check how much should be left in the petty cash float by deducting the amount spent from the opening petty cash float.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a34fbc4103ce3d39567284a17480747", "text": "\"Your debits and credits are perfect. Now, it comes down to a choice of how you want your accounts organized, financially speaking. In terms of taxes, it's recommended you keep a separate set of books just like a corporation and account for them strictly according to law. It's best not to credit phone expenses since it will no longer show on your net reports. A better alternative would be \"\"Phone reimbursement\"\". With that, you can not only see if you've been compensated but also how much you're personally managing these expenses by checking the annual \"\"Phone expense\"\" account. This is all up to personal preference, but so long as you're properly balancing your accounts, you can introduce any level of resolution you wish. I prefer total resolution when it comes to financial accounting. Also, it is not good practice to debit away \"\"Salary\"\". The net of this account will be lower and distorted. An expense reimbursement is not salary anyways, so the proper bookings will follow below. Finally, if GnuCash is calling \"\"Salary\"\" an income account, this is unfortunate. The proper label would be \"\"revenue\"\" since \"\"income\"\" is a net account of expenses from revenue in the income identity. Entries With this, your books will become clearer: your cash assets will remain as clear as you had organized them, but now your income statement will provide higher resolution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d39558707c99370df964113c766d448b", "text": "Some other ratios: * Cost per customer (expenses divided by attendance) * Attendance variance year over year * Payroll minutes per patron Not sure if those help. They have a bunch of smaller performance tracking stats from % of waste from inventory to employee performance. From talking with my roommate, the theater industry sounds awfully familiar to how the hotel industry tracks it's performance. The hotel industry tracks performance based on occupancy and room revenue. Theaters track performance based on attendance and concession revenue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ff87b4504eaa0cf33d2b696582f47ef", "text": "\"I think the \"\"right\"\" way to approach this is for your personal books and your business's books to be completely separate. You would need to really think of them as separate things, such that rather than being disappointed that there's no \"\"cross transactions\"\" between files, you think of it as \"\"In my personal account I invested in a new business like any other investment\"\" with a transfer from your personal account to a Stock or other investment account in your company, and \"\"This business received some additional capital\"\" which one handles with a transfer (probably from Equity) to its checking account or the like. Yes, you don't get the built-in checks that you entered the same dollar amount in each, but (1) you need to reconcile your books against reality anyway occasionally, so errors should get caught, and (2) the transactions really are separate things from each entity's perspective. The main way to \"\"hack it\"\" would be to have separate top-level placeholder accounts for the business's Equity, Income, Expenses, and Assets/Liabilities. That is, your top-level accounts would be \"\"Personal Equity\"\", \"\"Business Equity\"\", \"\"Personal Income\"\", \"\"Business Income\"\", and so on. You can combine Assets and Liabilities within a single top-level account if you want, which may help you with that \"\"outlook of my business value\"\" you're looking for. (In fact, in my personal books, I have in the \"\"Current Assets\"\" account both normal things like my Checking account, but also my credit cards, because once I spend the money on my credit card I want to think of the money as being gone, since it is. Obviously this isn't \"\"standard accounting\"\" in any way, but it works well for what I use it for.) You could also just have within each \"\"normal\"\" top-level placeholder account, a placeholder account for both \"\"Personal\"\" and \"\"My Business\"\", to at least have a consistent structure. Depending on how your business is getting taxed in your jurisdiction, this may even be closer to how your taxing authorities treat things (if, for instance, the business income all goes on your personal tax return, but on a separate form). Regardless of how you set up the accounts, you can then create reports and filter them to include just that set of business accounts. I can see how just looking at the account list and transaction registers can be useful for many things, but the reporting does let you look at everything you need and handles much better when you want to look through a filter to just part of your financial picture. Once you set up the reporting (and you can report on lists of account balances, as well as transaction lists, and lots of other things), you can save them as Custom Reports, and then open them up whenever you want. You can even just leave a report tab (or several) open, and switch to it (refreshing it if needed) just like you might switch to the main Account List tab. I suspect once you got it set up and tried it for a while you'd find it quite satisfactory.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6a1dba7c884abf417ef6c4dc0a2bedd7", "text": "You need receipts only if you claim deductions in the itemized deductions section based on them. You itemize deductions only if your claims exceed the standard deduction (which for a single person was $5,800 last year). Even then, you need receipts for everything only if you claim sales tax as the deduction (you have to buy really a lot to pass $5K with sales tax...). I would expect people to pay more in state income taxes than sales taxes (you can claim either this or that, not both). For food - there are no taxes (at least here in California), so nothing to deduct anyway. In any case, you can always scan your receipts and keep them in the computer, for just in case, but IMHO it's waste of time, pixels and gigabytes. Here's a question which deals with the same issue, read the answers there as well.", "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": "93f3dcda2f0d75ba43f7c7d5741bb049", "text": "\"I think the survey needs to be broken down to \"\"as a consumer...\"\" and \"\"as a merchant...\"\" I'm not sure any service like the one you propose can be really implemented on the consumer side. In particular, I suspect few if any consumers would pay for the privilege You might look into the company \"\"Neat\"\" who sold a specialized scanner and software package designed around organizing reciepts a while back. Retailer buy-in is a huge factor too. You can create a platform and encourage retailers to send reciepts via email or whatever, but at the end of the day, a lot of retailers still see value in a reciept 5x as long as it should be to itemize the 22 ways you \"\"saved money\"\" and the 19 cross-promotions or coupons they want to inform you of. Unless you can provide equal percieved value for them, they won't be interested, even if consumers like the concept. The classic example in this debate is the US chain \"\"CVS Pharmacy\"\"-- whose long reciepts are the butt of many jokes, but persist because they're part of an elaborate reward scheme where they give people coupons in the hopes of them coming back to use them. As for the smaller vendors who may not be as tied to such strategies, they're also likely going to be less technically equipped to cope with a new feature. You almost need to target the POS vendors like NCR and IBM-- if you can make \"\"electronic reciept\"\" a feature in their platform, it becomes something that hundreds of stores are getting built into their systems for \"\"free\"\" and they just have to turn it on. That's a lot easier than selling to every single retailer one at a time, and it would be a big enough launch that you could start to get customer preference\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b4c06815bde27ff291a8a73dea9d8820
offshoring work and tax dilemma
[ { "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": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "87e40772409ac3c7bcb7202bf1d952c0", "text": "I think companies should be able to reduce their tax burden to zero as long as they produce a net benefit to their host country. Taxes for corporations should be ways of influence and reducing cost of having the business in the country due to externalities like pollution and influence things like against outsourcing.", "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": "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": "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": "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": "265d27dfb5d41ee5453592f8dcd0d2bc", "text": "Its one of the main points. Transfer pricing includes discretionary decisions and is part of BEPS. Its also completely unnecessary: Pay taxes on revenue in country earned/sold. Get tax credits/refunds in country were spending is made. The reason why already profitable companies consider BEPS/tax arbitrage for HQ locations is because they get discretionary power over accounting profit allocation. Tax policy should serve the society though, and this proposal encourages the spending that benefits society. Its the usual case that the right answer is different than that being lobbied for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52cc3372c358d8a4abf865160106ab9b", "text": "Typically tax treaties will cover double taxation (taxes paid in one jurisdiction are deducted in the other jurisdiction so there is no double tax). You'll need an accountant and attorney with experience in international business setups to confirm and determine which jurisdiction gets first priority of tax payment. In short, this is the wrong place to get a good answer. Talk to (and pay for) professionals to get you properly set up.", "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": "d2223ba17e7bcf4a2a34b412079a6779", "text": "This is how all corporations shift taxes to low income tax . Most large companies are actually hundreds of companies, with individual companies in each country they do business in. They use this type of transfer payment so most of the profits end up in countries with low income taxes. That is why you might as well lower the corporate rate. It will help employment, and end this kind of useless profit shifting. It's a world wide economy, and companies do what they need to do to keep taxes low no matter what.", "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": "d40457654507d077aaa16693767506f8", "text": "\"Wait, are you sure you've got that right? What you're describing is a tax credit that counts against your total owed. In normal operations, companies get to \"\"write off\"\" all of their expenses and they only pay taxes on the net profit of the operation. So I guess you could say that if it cost me $100M to move a factory off shore, and my marginal tax rate was 35%, then I would \"\"save\"\" $35M in taxes ( it still cost me the $100M, but it only felt like it cost $65M). This is true of any business expense. I (not Romney, apparently) don't know of any special treatment that offshoring activities get one way or the other.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d57a64c6ad0a57f8ee6c4d17aad1ffb4", "text": "\"1) Yes in theory that is right - minus any state taxes as well. 2) They could since there is an unknown amount outside of the US - and probably it will be a percentage and not all. Most of these companies that make a difference are already international companies. 3) They would most likely still do it for any money kept offshore, and it doesn't prevent them from continuing to do it. Again, I didn't say this was a good solution. They are just hoping to ward off economic collapse a little longer by doing this, or perhaps hire more accountants to be able to look at their books to figure out how much they are hiding to punish them. There could be many \"\"motivations\"\" for doing this tax. But I doubt any of the motivations intend to stop it from continuing to happen after the tax. The problem is any company that takes advantage of it basically says \"\"yes, i broke the law - in this amount.\"\" Thus, it might be a good way to get a list of companies to audit more thoroughly.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18cff58594bd21465aeac91bbf585bb8", "text": "You're right, the issue of inversion is not going to go away as long as there are countries willing to go to 2% on their tax rate. But the goal isn't really to eliminate them it's to have a tax system and regulatory system which encourages healthy business growth and financial support to the government. The path the US has chosen is high corporate tax, cherry pick activities they want to encourage through breaks, then rely on taxing overseas profits on money returned to the US (since so many major companies are US based). This was a great system but its an anachronism since globalization became a real thing. Now what it has left us with is a tax incentive system where ONLY the business activities with breaks (RD tax credit) are considered worthwhile ventures while profit centers are offshored. Then no one can reinvest their profits in the US because they can't repatriate cash without paying tax. The corporate tax structure now hinders employment and investment. We don't need to lower our taxes to 0 to be competitive. The most popular countries for offshoring are Puerto Rico (pharma) Ireland and Switzerland their tax rates are effectively 0. However due to other costs (employment transportation of goods) on a total cost basis the US can be more than competitive with a corp tax rate of 20%.", "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": "50096e4fb5fbc967e77618ddb3453157", "text": "Oh I see - then yes I agree with you. Even if it was a foreign company in that situation, they should pay taxes. But in regards to the concept of repatriated profits, that has to do with profits generated outside of the borders...", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
c8cfc05bef90726ed9bfbb0a91380e15
Travel expenses for an out-of-state rental
[ { "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": "33605c894c6520ec288ce3cfc68ac6f0", "text": "Does allowing family to stay at the rental jeopardize my depreciation? No, accumulated depreciation that hasn't been deducted reduces your basis in the event of sale. That doesn't go anywhere. Accumulating more may not be allowed though. If the property is no longer rental (i.e.: personal use, your family member lives there for free), you cannot claim expenses or depreciation on it. If you still rent it out to your family member, but not at the fair market value, then you can only claim expenses up to the rental income. I.e.: you can only depreciate up to the extent the depreciation (after all the expenses) not being over the income generated. You cannot generate losses in such case, even if disallowed. If you rent to your family member at the market rate (make sure it is properly documented), then the family relationship really doesn't matter. You continue accumulating expenses as usual.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9cb55c78006443f2de98a78d5f4c745f", "text": "\"Find approximate housing-cost difference, which is likely to swamp the tax differences. Find a cost-of-living measurement you believe for each state and figure appropriate state's sales tax on the non-housing portion of it (numbers can be found on line). Figure out roughly what your state income tax would be (forms on line). Figure city sales tax for each city you'd live in (again, numbers on line). Determine transportation cost differences. Determine entertainment cost differences (\"\"First prize: one week in Hackensack. Second prize: TWO weeks!\"\") Mix and add seasonings to taste... Then remember that many people commute into the City, including from NJ, so run the numbers that way... and think about how much time you're willing to spend communting every day (and via which forms of transportation); the worse the commute, the less housing costs. Then remember that companies in NYC are aware of all the above, and are likely to adjust their salaries to partly offset it... because otherwise they couldn't recruit anyone who wasn't already a Noo Yawker... so the real question here is whether their adjustment, plus not living in Noo Joisey, is enough to make up the difference for you. To get more accuracy than that, you need to start nailing down specifics. Possible. Not trivial.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb16551aaaa62f19ddaf2a03ef09ae10", "text": "It is not a question of where you have your driver's license. It is a question of the states' tax related residency rules. (Though a driver's license can be a part of that question.) Since you likely have a residence in NYC and so can prove residency through a lease, bills, etc., you probably have to file as a NYS/NYC resident. I do have to question your maintaining a California driver's license if you are not a resident. If you are attempting to maintain dual-residency, look into both states' residency rules to see if you are liable for taxes in both states. California seems particularly picky about these types of situations, probably due to concerns that you may be trying to circumvent California taxes. That said, it usually revolves around income in the state. Of course, if you maintain residency in California as well, the argument can be made that you owe some taxes due to the fact that you take advantage of state services. (E.g. you drive on California roads.) I suggest you consult a tax professional knowledgeable in these issues to sort out the details.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f395c55d7f9fd1f519a973966956ddbe", "text": "The relevant IRS publication is pub 463. Note that there are various conditions and exceptions, but it all starts with business necessity. Is it necessary for you to work from the UK? If you're working from the UK because you wanted to take a vacation, but still have to work, and would do the same work without being in the UK - then you cannot deduct travel expenses. It sounds to me like this is the case here.", "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": "8bd2e1f9d7a5d44921dab05154ef824a", "text": "As I posted above: Assumes using an A380 with 154 seats, flying from NY to Washington DC *All dollar amounts assume PER PERSON* $2.50 - in fuel costs. $1.50 - in crew costs. $13.50 - in takeoff/landing fees in JKF and Dulles. $6.00 - Domestic passenger tax. $4.00 - Domestic Flight Segment Tax. $5.50 - 9/11 Security Fee. $11.50 - in Flight Cycle payment. $14.00 - Airplane maintenance. $10.00 - Overall operations overhead (conservative estimate) $0.25 - Insurance. **Our very rough grand total is!!**... $68.75 Lets just round up to $70.. for other small things not covered.. Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oe8T3AvydU", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb19bc4e2cb5eac7b2d169fad8d2cfc1", "text": "Pro-Tip: You can get free reservations from many major rental companies (no credit card required, no cancellation fee even if you no call/no show), so you can often make redundant bookings to have fallback options. As discussed elsewhere in this thread any or all of those reservations might end up being worthless, but people with a reservation generally get priority over people without one, so it's at least slightly better than nothing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "137304a6d70a9b27ece9809f15ac64d2", "text": "I think your math is fine, and also consider insurance costs and the convenience factor of each scenario. Moving a car frequently to avoid parking tickets will become tedious. I'd rather spend an hour renting a car 20 times in a year rather than have to spend 15 minutes moving a car every three days. And if there's no other easy parking, that 15 minutes can take a lot longer. Plus it'll get dirty sitting there, could get vandalized. Yuck. For only 20 days/year, I don't see how owning a car is worth the hassle. I recommend using a credit card that comes with free car rental insurance.", "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": "f081fc5998cf8f0a6557d8a5c4132973", "text": "The cost of an extra 30 days is $1459.80", "title": "" }, { "docid": "02b0ae2add091e42b8d2135798eb3bc5", "text": "Prior to having children we did exactly what you describe. We would visit my mother in law about four to six times a year, a 350-mile-each-way trip for a weekend. We'd simply rent a car, drive down, drive back, return it, out $150 or so for the weekend, a total of under $1000 a year; far cheaper than owning. You should factor in whether you will save money, though, on things you might not immediately consider. Will you spend less on groceries, in particular, if you can drive to Costco or Sam's Club (or even just to a regular grocery store)? I doubt you'll save the cost of the car ($2000/year as you say), but it's possible it will factor into the mix. I definitely would discourage purchasing a new car, if you're considering the financial side primarily. I suspect you can get a used car - maybe the $10k car you would've sold - and spend more like $1000 a year on it, or less. I don't know if I'd go to the $5000 level as those in comments suggested, as if you're doing long trips you want something with higher than average reliability; but even a car like a 5 year old mid-level sedan, easily costing you less than $10k, would be fine and likely sell in 5 years for $5k itself while hopefully not having too much maintenance (especially if you choose something with lower mileage; shop around!). But even with those assumptions, 20 days a year of rental which you can probably get less than $50 rates on (particularly if you look at some of the car sharing options, Zipcar and Enterprise both allow you to do longer term rentals for reasonable prices) seems like a fine deal compared to the hassle of owning.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2165327c3c3f3f94f8d28852faad5bfd", "text": "Driver's license isn't relevant. If NYS considers you a part-year resident, they assess income tax on a pro rata basis. NY is broke now, so expect them to be really obnoxious about it if you make a lot of money. California probably has a similar policy. If you really make a lot of money, the demands of the states in these matters are insane. I've read of cases where a state has actually demanded that an individual provide documentation of their in-/out-of-state status for every day of the year!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5e09b8f3f1df05950ad6b60037318e2", "text": "Utilities and cost of living vary from city to city but maybe not that much. For basic planning purposes you can probably figure to spend as much as you are now, maybe a little more. And adjust as needed when you get there. (And adjust if, for example, you're moving from a very low cost of living area or to a very high cost of living area.) The cost of housing varies quite a bit from city to city, but you can do this research using Zillow, Craigslist, other places. Now, on to moving itself. The cost of moving can vary hugely depending on how much stuff you have and how much work you want to do. On the cheap end, you can rent a U-Haul or one of those portable boxes that they plant outside your old house and move for you. You'll do all the packing/loading/unloading/unpacking yourself but it saves quite a bit of money. My family and I moved from Seattle to California last year using one of those portable box places and it ended up costing us ~$1400 including 30 days of storage at the destination while we looked for a place. We have a <1000 sq foot place with some furniture but not a huge amount and did all the packing/loading ourselves. If we had wanted full service where people come pack, load, unpack, etc, it could have been 2-3x that amount. (And if we had more stuff, it could have been a lot more expensive too. Try not to acquire too much stuff as you just end up having to move it around and take care of it all!) Your employer may cover moving expenses, ask about this when talking about job offers. Un-reimbursed moving expenses are tax-deductible in the US (even if you don't itemize). Since you're just starting out, your best bet is to overestimate how much you think things will cost, then adjust as you arrive and settle in for a few months. Try to save as much as you can, but remember to have fun too. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71bd8b7bb71148feb7f19174d08ae7fa", "text": "\"When I have a question about my income taxes, the first place I look is generally the Giant Book of Income Tax Information, Publication 17 (officially called \"\"Your Federal Income Tax\"\"). This looks to be covered in Chapter 26 on \"\"Car Expenses and Other Employee Business Expenses\"\". It's possible that there's something in there that applies to you if you need to temporarily commute to a place that isn't your normal workplace for a legitimate business reason or other business-related travel. But for your normal commute from your home to your normal workplace it has this to say: Commuting expenses. You cannot deduct the costs of taking a bus, trolley, subway, or taxi, or of driving a car between your home and your main or regular place of work. These costs are personal commuting expenses. You cannot deduct commuting expenses no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work. You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commuting trip.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "420bdfb40a54706409ebf250ca7da92c", "text": "\"Generally, you pick the State which you're located at, because you'll have to register your LLC there in any case. In your case that would be either Colorado or Oklahoma - register as domestic in one, as foreign in the other. If your concern is anything other than mere convenience/costs - then you need to talk to a lawyer, however most State LLC laws are fairly alike (and modeled after the \"\"Uniform Limited Liability Company Act\"\". Keep in mind that most of the sites talking about \"\"forming LLC out of state\"\" are either sales sites or targeted to foreigners attempting to form a US company. All the cr@p you hear about forming in Delaware/Nevada/Wyoming - is useless and worthless for someone who's a resident of any of the US States. If you're a US resident - you will always have to register in the State you're located at and do the work at, so if you register elsewhere - you just need to register again in your home State. In your case you already span across States, so you'll have to register in two States as it is - why add the costs of registering in a third one?\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6d082b2f95fbd4b5cdebb1a59fe58e6b
Do Online Currency Exchanges' registration with the government guarantee safety and reliability?
[ { "docid": "bc0682855ab73115a7ab506f3c255162", "text": "\"Government registering of financial institutions usually is to make the government safe (eg FINTRAC is watching for money laundering and financing terrorism) rather than to make it's customers safe. Most governments have many levels of registrations and regulatory bodies. The most stringent requirements are usually obligatory only for banks, and they indeed often include precautions for insuring customer's deposits. Even this insurances have limits, eg in most EU countries the state guarantees deposits up to 100kEUR. If you deposit more and the bank flops - you lose everything over the limit. Companies like forex or currency exchanges usually make their best effort to avoid as many regulations as possible, just because it's costly. If a given company does have guarantee funds and/or customer insurance, it should be advertised and explained on their website. However the whole issue of trust is misguiding. You don't have to \"\"trust\"\" in your grocery store to shop there. There is no government guarantee that the vegetables sold will be tasty. If you buy and the product fells short of your expectations, you call it a loss and start shopping elsewhere. Financial services are no different than any other product. I recommend to your aunt to start small and see how it works. If a service turns out well, she can increase the amount sent through exchange and decrease amount sent through bank. But still, it's always prudent to send eg $1000 every week instead of $4000 once a month. It's more time consuming and cumbersome than having your bank do it - but it's the safety and convenience you're paying premium for.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "ccef86861b5918e8ad02925f6b4ea9c4", "text": "Is there not some central service that tracks current currency rates that banks can use to get currency data? Sure. But this doesn't matter. All the central service can tell you is how much the rate was historically. But the banks/PayPal don't care about the historical value. They want to know the price that they'll pay when they get around to switching, not the last price before the switch. Beyond that, there is a transaction cost to switching. They have to pay the clearinghouse for managing the transaction. The banks can choose to act as a clearinghouse, but that increases their risk. If the bank has a large balance of US dollars but dollars are falling, then they end up eating that cost. They'll only take that risk if they think that they'll make more money that way. And in the end, they may have to go on the currency market anyway. If a European bank runs out of US dollars, they have to buy them on the open market. Or a US bank might run out of Euros. Or Yen. Etc. Another problem is that many of the currency transactions are small, but the overhead is fixed. If the bank has to pay $5 for every currency transaction, they won't even break even charging 3% on a $100 transaction. So they delay the actual transaction so that they can make more than one at a time. But then they have the risk that the currency value might change in the meantime. If they credit you with $97 in your account ($100 minus the 3% fee) but the price actually drops from $100 to $99, they're out the $1. They could do it the other way as well. You ask for a $100 transaction. They perform a $1000 transaction, of which they give you $97. Now they have $898 ($1000 minus the $5 they paid for the transaction plus the $3 they charged you for the transaction). If there's a 1% drop, they're out $10.98 ($8.98 in currency loss plus a net $2 in fees). This is why banks have money market accounts. So they have someone to manage these problems working twenty-four hours a day. But then they have to pay interest on those accounts, further eating into their profits. Along with paying a staff to monitor the currency markets and things that may affect them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2933c48c4708a2ad6e4a280295b127d2", "text": "Selftrade does list them. Not sure if you'll be able to sign up from the US though, particularly given the FATCA issues.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "10ecf9570eab2bcf9769c9cd4862c2c3", "text": "Banks do of course incur costs on currency transactions. But they're not as high as the fee charged to the customer. Most banks in most places lose a lot of money on operating bank accounts for customers, and make the money back by charging more than their costs for services like currency exchange. If you don't choose to pay those fees, use an online service instead. But bear in mind that if everyone does so then banks will be forced to charge higher fees for current accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ce35d03492be82ba637153265746f74", "text": "I used Oanda.com for Forex trading a couple years ago. I am in the US but I think it's available in the UK as well. At the time, they had no commissions and their spreads were comparable or better than other brokers. The spreads would just quite considerably when a big event like a Fed meeting or the unemployment figures come out, but I suspect that that is the same everywhere (or they have constant spreads and reject trades). They did not push the high leverages like other brokers were at the time. I considered this to be very reputable, because though the profits to be gotten through 100:1 leverage are great advertising, the reality is that one unexpected spike and a newbie would lose a bunch of money in a margin call.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb719ae661b72d91b53f9b95c0b1c77f", "text": "In addition to there being no real guarantee on the guarantee page, note that the domain was registered on May 27, 2013, so there's no substantial track record of reliability. Finally, their Terms of Service explicitly note that they are not liable for loss of funds due to system malfunction, unauthorized access, etc. etc. Perfect Money is going out of their way to ensure they are offering no guarantees and will not be liable for any losses. How safe are your funds? You should not consider your funds to be safe if stored there. There's no guarantee you'll lose your funds, but no significant reason to believe you won't. Additionally, Perfect Money shut down access to all U.S. citizens on July 1st, 2013 with only two weeks of notice. Anyone who did not withdraw their money within this time lost access to it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bee965f0336fd3381165bf33273aa74d", "text": "\"OneTwoTrade is a binary option seller, and they are officially licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority. They are not in any way licensed or regulated as an investment, because they don't do actual investing. Is your money safe? If you mean will they take your money and run off with it, then no they probably won't just take your deposit and refuse to return any money to you for nothing - that would be a terrible way to make money for the long-term. If you mean \"\"will I lose my money?\"\" - oh yeah, you probably will! Binary options - outside of special sophisticate financial applications - are for people who think day trading has too little risk, or who would prefer online poker with a thin veneer of \"\"it's an investment!\"\" In the words of Forbes, Don't Gamble On Binary Options: If people want to gamble, that’s their choice. But let’s not confuse that with investing. Binary options are a crapshoot, pure and simple. These kinds of businesses run like a casino - there's a built-in house advantage, you are playing odds (which are against you), and the fundamental product is trying to bet on short-term volatility in financial markets. This is often ridiculously short-terms, measured in minutes. It's often called \"\"all or nothing options\"\", because if you bet wrong you lose almost everything - they give you a little bit of the money you bet back (so you will bet again, preferably with more of your own money). If you bet correctly you get a pay-out, just like in craps or roulette. If you are looking to gamble online, this is one method to do it. But this isn't investing, you are as mathematically likely to lose your money and/or become addicted as any other form of money-based gambling, and absolutely treat it the same way you would a casino: decide how much money you are willing to spend on the adventure before you start, and expect you'll likely not get much or any of that money back. However, I will moralize on this point - I really hate being lied to. Casinos, sports betting, and poker all generally have the common decency to call it what it is - a game where you are playing/betting. These sorts of \"\"investment\"\" providers are woefully dishonest: they say it's an exciting financial market, a new type of investment, investors are moving to this to secure their futures, etc. It's utterly deceptive and vile, and it's all about as up-front and honest as penny auction websites. If you are going to gamble, I'd urge you to do it with people who have the decency to to call it gambling and not lie to you and ask for a \"\"minimum investment\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ee003abb9d3d266789513d9d7673856", "text": "\"Edit: I discovered Bitcoin a few months after I posted this answer. I would strongly recommend anyone interested in this question to review it, particularly the myths page that dispels much of the FUD. Original answer: Although it is not online, as a concept the Totnes Pound may be of interest to you. I live quite close to this village (in the UK) and the system it promotes does work well. According to the Transition Town Totnes website this means that it is \"\"a community in a process of imagining and creating a future that addresses the twin challenges of diminishing oil and gas supplies and climate change , and creates the kind of community that we would all want to be part of.\"\" If you are looking for a starting place to introduce a new type of currency, perhaps in response to over-dependence on oil and global trade, then reading about the Transition Towns initiative could provide you with the answers you're looking for.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bac039338b7d35deb88310614fc1cdde", "text": "Swaps form backstop to a shit load of int'l trade. Liquidity of currency is a huge factor in being a govt reserve currency, which USD currently has the VAST majority of holdings. This agreement is a shove against USE dominance in trade settlements, which is negative. Also challenges us general capital markets dominance a bit", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1940348e30b01c2494e3e8aeb301fb11", "text": "\"Generally, yes. Rather than ask, \"\"why are these guys so cheap?\"\", you should be asking why the big names are so expensive. :) Marketing spend plays a big role there. Getting babies to shill for your company during the super bowl requires a heck of a lot of commissions. Due to the difficulties involved in setting up a brokerage, it's unlikely that you'll see a scam. A brokerage might go bankrupt for random reasons, but that's what investor insurance is for. \"\"Safeness\"\" is mostly the likelihood that you'll be able to get access to your funds on deposit with the broker. Investment funds are insured by SIPC for up to $500,000, with a lower limit on cash. The specific limits vary by broker, with some offering greater protection paid for on their own dime. Check with the broker -- it's usually on their web pages under \"\"Security\"\". Funds in \"\"cash\"\" might be swept into an interest-earning investment vehicle for which insurance is different, and that depends on the broker, too. A few Forex brokers went bankrupt last year, although that's a new market with fewer regulatory protections for traders. I heard that one bankruptcy in the space resulted in a 7% loss for traders with accounts there, and that there was a Ponzi-ish scam company as well. Luckily, the more stringent regulation of stock brokerages makes that space much safer for investors. If you want to assess the reliability of an online broker, I suggest the following: It's tempting to look at when the brokerage was founded. Fly-by-night scams, by definition, won't be around very long -- and usually that means under a few months. Any company with a significant online interface will have to have been around long enough to develop that client interface, their backend databases, and the interface with the markets and their clearing house. The two brokerages you mentioned have been around for 7+ years, so that lends strength to the supposition of a strong business model. That said, there could well be a new company that offers services or prices that fit your investment need, and in that case definitely look into their registrations and third-party reviews. Finally, note that the smaller, independent brokerages will probably have stiffer margin rules. If you're playing a complex, novel, and/or high-risk strategy that can't handle the volatility of a market crash, even a short excursion such as the 2010 flash crash, stiff margin rules might have consequences that a novice investor would rather pretend didn't exist.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "890e8e0a93a34ffc61874715ecaac7a2", "text": "\"You say you want a more \"\"stable\"\" system. Recall from your introductory economics courses that money has three roles: a medium of exchange (here is $, give me goods), a unit of account (you owe me $; the business made $ last year), and a store of value (I have saved $ for the future!). I assume that you are mostly concerned with the store-of-value role being eroded due to inflation. But first consider that most people still want regular currency, so as a medium of exchange or accounting unit anything would face an uphill battle. If you discard that role for your currency, and only want to store value with it, you could just buy equities and commodities and baskets of currencies and debt in a brokerage account (possibly using mutual funds) to store your value. Trillions of dollars' worth of business takes place this way every year already. Virtual currency was a bit of a dot-com bubble thing. The systems which didn't go completely bust and are still around have been beset by money-laundering, and otherwise remain largely an ignored niche. An online fiat currency has the same basic problem that another currency has. You need to trust the central bank not to create more money and cause inflation (or even just abscond with the funds... or go bankrupt / get sued). Perhaps the Federal Reserve may be jerking us around on that front right now.... they're still a lot more believable than a small private institution. Some banks might possibly be trustworthy enough to launch a currency, but it's hard to see why they'd bother (it can't be a big profit center, because people aren't willing to pay too much to just use money.) And an online currency that's backed by commodities (e.g. gold) is going to be subject to potentially violent swings in the prices of commodities. Imagine getting a loan out for your house, denominated in terms of e-gold, and then the price of gold triples. Ouch?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e05b8470e1f018fc6559664426d3d08", "text": "Are you serious? They're a US government department, of course they will always want USD. If they ever offer the option to pay in bitcoin it won't be at par, but with a significant fee on top of the amount you owe. And that fee will go specifically to what they will have to do which is turn around and convert your bitcoin into real money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d53e34fe02d98329fad8b4a92043b8fb", "text": "not a chance. imagine how this could be abused. US stock exchanges rarely ever do any reversing of transactions. theres a million different ways the market can take your money. a loss from a typo is nothing special. its a mismanagement just like any other loss or profit for others.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "caad56ea6624dac4ebfb566becb8285e", "text": "When the market isn't allowed to favor one currency (provider) over another, there must be a central authority with the power to regulate, provide, and insure it. People don't learn the dangers of fractional reserve banking and the resulting expansions and contractions of the money supply when the providers of the currency aren't allowed to fall, taking the savings of depositors with them. Insuring people against the dangers of mismanaged money guarantees the mismanagement of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7a562f90e6e5ccb498f28c8ecf5cb6a", "text": "I'm answering this from a slightly different angle, but there are people (individuals) who will do this for you. I know private Forex traders who are 'employed' to manage Forex trading accounts for wealthy individuals. The trader takes a percentage of the wins but is also responsible for a percentage of the loss (if there is a loss in a particular month). However the fact that the trader is able to prove that they have a consistent enough trading history to be trusted with the large accounts generally means that losses are rare (one would hope!). Obviously they have contracts in place (and the terms of the contract are crucial to the responsibility of losses) etc. but I don't know what the legalities are of offering or using this kind of service. I just wanted to mention it, while perhaps not being the best option for you personally, it does exist and matches your requirements. You would just have to be extremely careful to choose someone respectable and responsible, as it would be much easier to get ripped off while looking for a respected individual to trade your account than it would be while looking for a respected firm (I would imagine).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cb84fc641cf335e2101b55a343905e7", "text": "\"*(\"\"Fee-only\"\" meaning the only money they make is the fee your folks pay directly; no kickbacks from financial products they're selling.) The answer to this is: for God's sake, leave it alone! I commend you on wanting to help your family avoid more losses. You are right, that having most of one's retirement in one stock or sector is just silly. And again yes, if they're retired, they probably need some bonds. But here's the thing, if they follow your advise and it doesn't work out, it will be a SERIOUS strain on your relationship. Of course you'll still be a family and they'll still love you, but emotionally, you are the reason they lost the money, and that will an elephant in between you. This is especially the case since we're talking about a lot of money here (presumably), and retirement money to boot. You must understand the risk you're taking with your relationships. If you/they lose, at best it'll make things awkward, and you'll feel guilty about their impoverished retirement. At worst it can destroy your relationship with your folks. What about if you win? Won't you be feted and appreciated by your folks for saving them from themselves? Yes, for a short while. Then life moves on. Everything returns to normal. But here's the thing. You won't win. You can't. Because even if you're right here, and they win, that means both they and you will be eager for you to do it again. And at some point they'll take a hit based on your advise. Can I be blunt here? You didn't even know that you can't avoid capital gains taxes by reinvesting stock gains. You don't know enough, and worse, you're not experienced enough. I deduce you're either a college student, or a recent grad. Which means you don't have experience investing your own money. You don't know how the market moves, you just know the theory. You know who you are? You're me, 20 years ago. And thank God my grandparents ignored my advise. I was right about their utilities stocks back then, too. But I know from what I learned in the years afterwards, investing on my own account, that at some point I would have hurt them. And I would have had a very hard time living with that. So, tell your folks to go visit a fee-only financial adviser to create a retirement plan. Perhaps I'm reading into your post, but it seems like you're enthusiastic about investing; stocks, bonds, building wealth, etc. I love that. My advise -- go for it! Pull some money together, and open your own stock account. Do some trading! As much as people grouse about it, the market really is glorious. It's like playing Monopoly, but for keeps. I mean that in the best way possible. It's fun, you can build wealth doing it, and it provides a very useful social purpose. In the spirit of that, check out these ideas (just for you, not for your folks!), based on ideas in your post: Good luck.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
e52aac7f2d92d8efa8bc500e49d09101
Virtual Terminal WITHOUT merchant account?
[ { "docid": "7a4aa68fef79415dd4efb362c3404bb7", "text": "You would need to setup a company (even if it's just a sole proprietorship, in the US) to be able to apply for a true merchant account. And thus have a terminal; either real or virtual in your home or business. However, many services such as paypal allow you to accept credit cards (both online and with a card reader) and when the customer is billed it appears as paypal + your account name. So you essentially have the benefits of a merchant account, without having to set one up.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4bd3c727e2113cfaf0a8352244f5832a", "text": "I'm looking for another one right now. Here's what I've found: Los Alamos National Bank (www.lanb.com) has tokens ($5?), but I think they only open accounts for New Mexico residents. I've had one for several years. USAA Savings Bank (usaa.com) has tokens ($5 or free, I don't remember). I'm pretty sure you do NOT need to be a USAA member to open an account. I've had one for a couple of years. Several banks (Frost Bank, American National Bank of Texas, Amegy Bank, and probably many, many more) offer them as part of their Treasury Management accounts, meant for big businesses and charged for accordingly. Happy State Bank (in, where else, Happy, Texas) has a web page saying they have them but their services charges were more than I wanted to pay. ClearSky Bank (an Internet bank started by Chesapeake Bank) claims on their web page to have them but I haven't verified that yet. Still looking...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c78a4e7f1cbddf0cd8df1eb12d921b7", "text": "If PayPal won't accept the VCC number, then by definition you can't do this. If you want to know whether there's a way to get special permission or bypass that restriction... I'm afraid the right thing to do is ask PayPal. Yes, I know their customer support is awful, but this is a classic customer support question, and they know the internals of their system better than any of us possibly could.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "93f3dcda2f0d75ba43f7c7d5741bb049", "text": "\"I think the survey needs to be broken down to \"\"as a consumer...\"\" and \"\"as a merchant...\"\" I'm not sure any service like the one you propose can be really implemented on the consumer side. In particular, I suspect few if any consumers would pay for the privilege You might look into the company \"\"Neat\"\" who sold a specialized scanner and software package designed around organizing reciepts a while back. Retailer buy-in is a huge factor too. You can create a platform and encourage retailers to send reciepts via email or whatever, but at the end of the day, a lot of retailers still see value in a reciept 5x as long as it should be to itemize the 22 ways you \"\"saved money\"\" and the 19 cross-promotions or coupons they want to inform you of. Unless you can provide equal percieved value for them, they won't be interested, even if consumers like the concept. The classic example in this debate is the US chain \"\"CVS Pharmacy\"\"-- whose long reciepts are the butt of many jokes, but persist because they're part of an elaborate reward scheme where they give people coupons in the hopes of them coming back to use them. As for the smaller vendors who may not be as tied to such strategies, they're also likely going to be less technically equipped to cope with a new feature. You almost need to target the POS vendors like NCR and IBM-- if you can make \"\"electronic reciept\"\" a feature in their platform, it becomes something that hundreds of stores are getting built into their systems for \"\"free\"\" and they just have to turn it on. That's a lot easier than selling to every single retailer one at a time, and it would be a big enough launch that you could start to get customer preference\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f54884ae32eefec916c3d43e722d841", "text": "At one point you could log into your HSBC account from the command line, but gosh, I've never heard of a bank that has a command line interface!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "573e48e9b9d4cbbfa1dee18393f88dd7", "text": "The best way is for X to work as Independent consultant fro c.com from India by raising monthly invoices for the work done. This will avoid the complications and paperwork associated by registering a LLC in US by XF and then employing X as independent consultant in India. X may need to fill out W8-BEN forms so that there is no withholding in US Edit: Independent consultant means without having to register any legal entity either in India or in US. There are no legal regulations in US or in India to hire an independent contractor / consultant. There maybe internal policy of C.com not to have independent consultants. Payments can be made via transfer to Bank account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8623e6b3e12ca9478225e18df7e0e06a", "text": "Some banks would allow you to export your transactions as CSV (they call it Excel export, but in many cases it's actually just CSV). However, I would not expect any bank to bother with creating anything like command-line access - return on such investment would be too low. There are other ways to get information out of the banks, I'm sure - providers like Yodelee must be using something to fetch financial data - but those usually not for general public access. Also, you can use something like mint.com to aggregate you banking data if you bank doesn't do good export and then export it from there. They have CSV export too. If you need to do any actions though, I don't think there's anything like you are looking for.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4292a7bd8f3414af85c8a085f74175c4", "text": "If this is a pre-authorized automatic billing, and if you have signed any contract with the merchant, cancelling may not block any future charges from the merchant. Happens with gyms, magazines, memberships quite often. There is a time period after the cancellation this will occur, then it'll be completely dead.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d4a3dd491e30221cdfc909e6e6895a32", "text": "What you're referring to is Visa Easy Payment Services (VEPS). Other payment processors have similar programs. Basically, certain merchants (based on merchant category code - or MCC), are not required to obtain a signature under $50. This limit was raised to $50 from $25 last year. Here is the press release from Visa describing the increase, and the program in general.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ccda6b515f09fe101f3d7e6ccb0150d", "text": "You should consider Turbocash. It's a mature open-source project, installed locally (thick client).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2869ed77f1c671a95cb9d46ce27d144", "text": "There are thousands of processors. But I explicitly mentioned the customer experience, which is completely different and no matter how much you want your industry experience to matter for that, it doesn't affect it. This you did not read and comprehend. Could you clarify for me how VISA/MasterCard managed to block a merchant, who presumably wasn't a direct customer (but instead a payment processor customer), but cannot block a card holder? (yes, this is an honest question) &gt; Visa and Mastercard prohibited payments to Wikileaks on the basis of WL allegedly facilitating illegal activity. How is that relevant to what PayPal's doing? The WikiLeaks blockade was clearly political. What makes you say otherwise? And this is political. &gt; No one is unable to accept payments if they're barred from PayPal. In this case, yes. So who is morally and/or legally responsible when everyone does the same thing?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d12eafeff696a9084ff5c95ad615c099", "text": "Given your clarifying points, it sounds like you are running both businesses as one combined business. As such, you should be able to get just a single HST number and use that. However, let me please urge you to contact a professional accountant and possibly a lawyer, as it is very unusual to be performing these services without a business license, and you may be exposing yourself to civil penalties and placing your personal assets (e.g. your house) at risk. Additionally, it may be beneficial for you to run these as businesses as you can likely write off (more of) your expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5551e1d6c53d78ac4f021ce3d5c4c4b4", "text": "I traded futures for a brief period in school using the BrokersXpress platform (now part of OptionsXpress, which is in turn now part of Charles Schwab). They had a virtual trading platform, and apparently still do, and it was excellent. Since my main account was enabled for futures, this carried over to the virtual account, so I could trade a whole range of futures, options, stocks, etc. I spoke with OptionsXpress, and you don't need to fund your acount to use the virtual trading platform. However, they will cancel your account after an arbitrary period of time if you don't log in every few days. According to their customer service, there is no inactivity fee on your main account if you don't fund it and make no trades. I also used Stock-Trak for a class and despite finding the occasional bug or website performance issue, it provided a good experience. I received a discount because I used it through an educational institution, and customer service was quite good (probably for the same reason), but I don't know if those same benefits would apply to an individual signing up for it. I signed up for top10traders about seven years ago when I was in secondary school, and it's completely free. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the interface was poorly designed and slow. Furthermore, at that time, there were no restrictions that limited the number of shares you could buy to the number of outstanding shares, so you could buy as many as you could afford, even if you exceeded the number that physically existed. While this isn't an issue for large companies, it meant you could earn a killing trading highly illiquid pink sheet stocks because you could purchase billions of shares of companies with only a few thousand shares actually outstanding. I don't know if these issues have been corrected or not, but at the time, I and several other users took advantage of these oversights to rack up hundreds of trillions of dollars in a matter of days, so if you want a realistic simulation, this isn't it. Investopedia also has a stock simulator that I've heard positive things about, although I haven't used it personally.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3b2575d1033e052c22614deb65dd7b7e", "text": "\"Paypal linked with my bank account. 1.Can I use my Saving bank account to receive payments from my clients? Or is it necessary to open a current account? Yes you can get funds into your savings account. However it is advisable to keep a seperate account as it would help with your IT Returns. 2.I will be paying a certain % as commission on every sales to a couple of sales guys (who are not my employees but only working on commission). Can I show this as an expense in my IT returns? As you are earning as freelancer, you are eligible for certain deductions like Phone calls, Laptop, other hardware, payments to partners. It is important that you maintain a book of records. An accountant for a small fee of Rs 5 K should be able to help you. In the Returns you have to show Net income after all these deductions, there is no place to enter expenses. 3.Since I will be receiving all the payments in Euros so am I falling under a category of \"\"Exporter of services\"\"? The work you are doing can be Free Lancing. 4.Do I need an Import Export Code (IEC) for smoothly running this small business? You can run this without one as Free lancing. IEC would be when you grow big and are looking for various benefits under tax and pay different taxes and are incorporated as a company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8de0bd6e321f81879376c5cc24885ddb", "text": "So there are a lot of people that get into trouble in your type of self employment situation. This is what I do, and I use google drive so there are no cost for tools. However, having an accounting system is better. Getting in trouble with the IRS really sucks bad.", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
799ecaf9db339be98568796c4881ac8b
Maxing out HSA after maxing out Roth IRA
[ { "docid": "a1aa8718c1ebbbe0f75c12946bfb92ec", "text": "Unless the hypothetical fellow is immune to disease, and indestructible, with no risk of injury, the HSA is an ideal place for this money. It offers a pretax deposit, and if used for medical expenses, a tax free withdrawal. This combination can't be beat for those who have the medical insurance that qualifies them for the HSA.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "31594816af776ae31246dff47b57b5a2", "text": "Your 1&2 are the end of that chapter. You can't convert for that year again, and must wait 30 days to convert in the new tax year. For example, each year for over a decade, I've helped my mother in law with this. In May, we convert a chunk of money/stock to Roth. In April, I'll recharacterize just enough so she tops off her 15% bracket but doesn't hit 25%. 30 days later, the new conversion happens. All the Roth money is money now taxed at 15%, which, in an emergency, a need for a lot of cash, will avoid the potential of 25% or higher, tax. You see, your 3 never really happens.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53990967faa1ef5dd5726f5e2ff4db20", "text": "HSA's are one of the few accounts where the money is both tax free going in and coming out. For long term savings, the only account that might beat that is a 401(k) with an employer match. Unlike an FSA, the money can stay in the account indefinitely. You can also use the money to pay medical insurance premiums once you separate from the employer. An HSA combines the best features of a FSA, Roth account, and IRA/401(k) account. As such I think there is rarely a reason not to max one out, and in fact I think it is worth it to go out of your way to get access to one. There are some drawbacks, of course. If you don't use the money for medical expenses, it may be taxed and perhaps penalized. Getting access to one can be tricky (you have to be covered by an HDHP, but not by a non-HDHP, nor by an FSA). The low contribution limits make it hard to build up a large balance. Many providers charge a monthly fee of $1 to $4 if you want to invest the balance (small, but it adds up, especially given the low balance per previous sentence).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8062146412f4d4ad57595551d6a4f910", "text": "\"Unfortunately, not directly. For IRAs and HSAs, we have an annual maximum contribution limit. What you can do (which doesn't \"\"initially seed\"\" it) is to put the money aside in a savings account that you want to contribute to your HSA or IRA and then put it in the IRA or HSA when the timing is right for you. The key here though is that the contribution cannot exceed the maximum limit for the year. Another \"\"way around\"\" this (which really isn't because it just means that you'll have a new higher limit) is to become self employed, see this from the IRS about SEPs: Contribute as much as 25% of your net earnings from self-employment (not including contributions for yourself), up to $51,000 for 2013 ($52,000 for 2014). Still, none of these methods are pre-seeding an account, as the maximum contribution limit is never exceeded.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7d0e8d53edf2e9f986a2ccfd2d7a06d9", "text": "\"Do you think that you had previously been over-saving for retirement? If so, then the first time home buyers exemption might be a good opportunity for you to reverse that error. On the other hand, if you think you have been saving the right amount, or too little, for retirement, then why would you undo that savings? \"\"Because I can, under existing tax law\"\" seems like an inadequate answer. Remember that if you are anticipate to be maxing out your tax advantaged accounts in the near future, then such a distribution is a permanent loss of opportunity. You can't get the money back in. Are you thinking more clearly now, or were you thinking more clearly back when you decided to contribute to an IRA rather than build up a down-payment fund in the first place?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b094f1270094c90abc105c28a7c6899d", "text": "I know in the instance that if my MAGI exceeds a certain point, I can not contribute the maximum to the Roth IRA; a traditional IRA and subsequent backdoor is the way to go. My understanding is that if you ever want to do a backdoor Roth, you don't want deductible funds in a Traditional account, because you can't choose to convert only the taxable funds. From the bogleheads wiki: If you have any other (non-Roth) IRAs, the taxable portion of any conversion you make is prorated over all your IRAs; you cannot convert just the non-deductible amount. In order to benefit from the backdoor, you must either convert your other IRAs as well (which may not be a good idea, as you are usually in a high tax bracket if you need to use the backdoor), or else transfer your deductible IRA contributions to an employer plan such as a 401(k) (which may cost you if the 401(k) has poor investment options).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2cda0bf4fbd3580c0bac2416a6cea33", "text": "I would not suggest closing out your Roth IRA -- Couple of reasons for that - 1) Since you've been contributing to it for 15 years, your investments have probably grown, seen dividends, etc. If you close it out, you will owe taxes and be slapped with a 10% penalty on the growth (money you didn't contribute). That's quite a waste of hard earned money. 2) While your income may exceed the contribution limit of a Roth, you could do what's called a 'backdoor' Roth - which is really just converting your after tax contributions into an IRA into a Roth IRA. 3) Given the length of your contributions your Roth IRA is seasoned (5 years) This allows you to use up to 10k for your house if you chose. (Usually not an option people use) Other than that, consider paying off the student loans with the highest interest first.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14ec6cac8c7da14b46e08507111a0ef2", "text": "Assuming you max-out your Roth IRA with $5000 in inflation-adjusted contributions every year from 25-65, your balance at age 65 will depend on the post-inflation return you get in the account. Assuming you withdraw 4% per year after that, here is what your income will be: (All numbers are in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars.) If your post-inflation return is zero - if you buy treasury bonds, money-market accounts, or something like that - you'll have a simple $5000 * 40 = $200,000, which will give you an income of around $8000 per year. If you get a 3% post-inflation return - e.g. fairly safe Muni bonds, corporate bonds, and boring stocks - you'll approximately double your money to around $393,000, giving you an income of over $15,000 per year. If you get a 6% return - e.g. more aggressive stocks and more risk-taking - you'll approximately double your money again to over $825,000. A 4% withdrawal rate will give you an income of around $33,000 per year. Stocks have historically returned around inflation + 8% - that will get you over $1.4 million - and an annual income of over $56,000 per year. So, yes, it is feasible to retire on nothing but a maxed-out Roth IRA.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d57f3a9eae2a318daa394cf4b8d8175", "text": "IRS Publication 969 gives all the details about HSA accounts and High Deductible plans: According to your question you are covered by a plan that can have an HSA. There a few points of interest for you: Contributions to an HSA Any eligible individual can contribute to an HSA. For an employee's HSA, the employee, the employee's employer, or both may contribute to the employee's HSA in the same year. For an HSA established by a self-employed (or unemployed) individual, the individual can contribute. Family members or any other person may also make contributions on behalf of an eligible individual. Contributions to an HSA must be made in cash. Contributions of stock or property are not allowed. That means that yes you could make a contribution to the HSA. Or if in the future you were the provider of the insurance you could have a HSA. Limit on Contributions For 2015, if you have self-only HDHP coverage, you can contribute up to $3,350. If you have family HDHP coverage you can contribute up to $6,650. It sounds like you have a family plan. Additional contribution. If you are an eligible individual who is age 55 or older at the end of your tax year, your contribution limit is increased by $1,000. Rules for married people. If either spouse has family HDHP coverage, both spouses are treated as having family HDHP coverage. If each spouse has family coverage under a separate plan, the contribution limit for 2014 is $6,550. You must reduce the limit on contributions, before taking into account any additional contributions, by the amount contributed to both spouses' Archer MSAs. After that reduction, the contribution limit is split equally between the spouses unless you agree on a different division. The rules for married people apply only if both spouses are eligible individuals. If both spouses are 55 or older and not enrolled in Medicare, each spouse's contribution limit is increased by the additional contribution. If both spouses meet the age requirement, the total contributions under family coverage cannot be more than $8,550. Each spouse must make the additional contribution to his or her own HSA. Note: most of the document was written with 2014 numbers, but sometimes they mention 2015 numbers. If both are covered under a single plan it should be funded by the person that has the plan. They may get money from their employer. They may be able to have the employer cover the monthly fee that most HSA administrators charge. The non employee can make contributions to the account but care must be taken to make ure the annual limits aren't exceeded. HSA contributions from the employees paycheck may reduce the social security tax paid by the employee. If the non-employee is self employed you will have to see how the contribution impacts the social security situation for the couple. If the non-employee is 55 or older it can make sense to throw in that extra $1000. The employer may not allow it to come from the paycheck contributions because they wouldn't necessarily know the age of the spouse, they may put a maximum limit based on the age of the employee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2a2fe0109c08c64a110380f5b02751d", "text": "Much of this is incorrect. Aetna owns Payflex for starters, and it's your EMPLOYER who decides which banks and brokers to offer, not Payflex. An HSA is a checking account with an investment account option after a minimum balance is met. A majority of U.S. employers only OFFER an HSA option but don't contribute a penny, so you're lucky you get anything. The easy solution is just keep the money that is sent to your HSA checking account in your checking account, and once a year roll it over into a different bank's HSA. The vast majority of banks offer HSAs that have no ties to a particular broker (i.e. Citibank, PNC, Chase). I have all my HSA funds in HSA Bank which is online but services lots of employers. Not true that most payroll deductions or employer contributions go to a single HSA custodian (bank). They might offer a single bank that either contracts with an investment provider or lets you invest anywhere. But most employers making contributions are large or mid-market employers offering multiple banks, and that trend is growing fast because of defined contribution, private exchanges and vendor product redesigns. Basically, nobody likes having a second bank account for their HSA when their home bank offers one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de92e1a4ea311ce09e08ae3cb8f0d17f", "text": "Is it worth saving HSA funds until retirement? Yes Are there pros and cons from a tax perspective? Mostly pros. This has all of the benefits of an IRA, but if you use it for medical expenses then you get to use the money tax free on the other side. Retirement seems to be the time you are most likely to need money for medical expenses. So why wouldn't you want to start saving tax free to cover those expenses? The cons are similar to other tax advantaged retirement accounts. If you withdraw before retirement time for non-medical purposes, you will pay penalties, but if you withdraw at retirement time, you will pay the same taxes you would pay on an IRA. I should note that I put my money where my mouth is and I max out my contribution to my HSA every year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b586c9fde989b7a17dd298472bc9b8a", "text": "If your employer matches a percentage of your contributions, then you should try to max out your plan. Once you have completed maxing out your 401k, you may want to open up an IRA for several reasons: will your 401k be enough to sustain your lifestyle in retirement? Your IRA allows you to save even more for retirement. you can invest in all sorts of stuff through your IRA that might not be available in your plan. you can withdraw the principal from your IRA, usually after five years. This serves as another form of savings. IRAs have some asset protection in the event of bankruptcy. A normal savings or investment account usually does not offer such protection.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16c1c9bdd4c50b6ad76bf36744c1c030", "text": "\"You can (and definitely should) withdraw any part of the contribution that will put you over the contribution limit. You can (and should if you need to) withdraw to repay any medical payments you made from outside the account. You can (but should avoid at all costs) withdraw (distribute) from the HSA for non-medical reasons. Here's the IRS publication which covers this: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969 Here's the bit about distributions that covers what you're trying to do: You can receive tax-free distributions from your HSA to pay or be reimbursed for qualified medical expenses you incur after you establish the HSA. If you receive distributions for other reasons, the amount you withdraw will be subject to income tax and may be subject to an additional 20% tax. You don’t have to make distributions from your HSA each year. It is better to pay from your checking and reimburse than to over-fund the HSA. Best route forward is to reduce your contributions for the rest of the year, especially if continuing them will cause excess contributions. Another nasty gotcha: Excess contributions. You will have excess contributions if the contributions to your HSA for the year are greater than the limits discussed earlier. Excess contributions aren’t deductible. Excess contributions made by your employer are included in your gross income. If the excess contribution isn’t included in box 1 of Form W-2, you must report the excess as \"\"Other income\"\" on your tax return. Generally, you must pay a 6% excise tax on excess contributions. See Form 5329, Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts, to figure the excise tax. The excise tax applies to each tax year the excess contribution remains in the account. You may withdraw some or all of the excess contributions and avoid paying the excise tax on the amount withdrawn if you meet the following conditions. •You withdraw the excess contributions by the due date, including extensions, of your tax return for the year the contributions were made. •You withdraw any income earned on the withdrawn contributions and include the earnings in \"\"Other income\"\" on your tax return for the year you withdraw the contributions and earnings. If you will not be over your maximum contribution, let the contribution ride. Make sure your HSA balance is divided between cash, stock fund, bond fund. Much like your 401k. Because the part that you don't spend on medical expenses this year can be spent in future years' medical expenses, and if you have anything left when you retire you can spend it on whatever you want. And the funds, including growth, are not taxed until you distribute them. Bottom line: if the funds will not cause excess contribution, leave them in. Otherwise, take them out as soon as possible.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7b9a22ad8d02c935197dd1ba6d1370c0", "text": "\"You would want to prioritize Roth and retirement over HSA. As the HSA is only for health and dental expenses, which you will always have, overfunding it will put you in a bit of a pickle for all of the life involved. For example, even if you or a loved one develop a strange & expensive ailment, the HSA will only cover the medical costs, but not any travel to specialists, hotel stays, home alterations, special vehicles, or lifestyle alterations (food, clothing). However, you will eventually stop working even if you are healthy throughout your life. I would suggest that you treat the HSA as a part of your overall emergency fund, giving it a cap the same as you would normal non-retirement savings. Since you stated you have three young children, small and large medical expenses (such as braces, trips to the emergency room) are something that are almost guaranteed, thus having fairly large amount in the HSA would be very beneficial throughout their time with you. Once the children have left however, if you still have an overwhelming balance in your HSA, you may not want to add anymore to the HSA. Setting a cap for the HSA based off a certain number of years of deductible payments for medication would be a good place to start. Roth accounts, whether it be within your company's 401k plan or the IRAs for yourself and your spouse, are single-handedly the best location for your money for long-term savings. Roth money grows tax-free, is immune to Required Minimum Distribution provisions, and will avoid estate escrow when going to one's beneficiaries. Even if you tap into the funds prior to age 59 1/2, you would only pay taxes on any investment growth, in addition to the 10% early withdrawal penalty. If you have established Roth IRA accounts and have an AGI that disallows you to further contribute to them, there is still a provision to get Roth funds contributed via conversion through what is commonly called a \"\"back door\"\" Roth.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be99b3f4807ab72dd602ae62e4062ebb", "text": "\"Yes. A most emphatic yes. I suggest you look at your 2014 return and project what 2015 will look like. I'd convert enough to \"\"top off\"\" the 15% bracket. Note, if you overshoot it, and in April 2016, see that you are say $5K into the 25% rate, you can just recharacterize the amount you went over and nail the bracket to the dollar. If you have the time and patience, you can convert into 2 different Roth accounts. One account for one asset class, say large cap stocks/funds, the other, cash/bonds. In April, keep the account that outperformed, and only recharacterize the lagger. Roth Roulette is my name for this strategy. It's risk free, and has the potential to boost the value of your conversions. Edit - To be clear, you are permitted to recharacterize (undo) any or all of the converted amount. You actually have until tax time (4/15 or so) plus the 6 month extension. You can recharacterize for any reason - A personal anecdote - I manage my mother in law's money. She is well under the 25% bracket cutoff. Each year I convert, and each April, recharacterize just enough to be at the top of the 15% bracket. Over $100K has been shifted from Traditional IRA to Roth by now. Taxed at 15% so her daughters will 'not' pay 25% when they withdraw. $10K in tax saved from uncle sam, for my effort of filling out paper twice a year for 12 years now. Well worth my effort.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6794500b234dae3d48cb55d57c9eb201", "text": "\"Would I only have to pay regular taxes plus the excess contribution tax on any contributions? Yes, you'll pay regular taxes plus the excess contribution taxes on the contributions until you withdraw. So what would be your gain in doing this? The whole point in HSA is to use pre-tax money for medical expenses, and you're not only going to use post-tax money - you'll pay extra tax for doing that (6% for each year the contribution remains in the account). Are you trying to get the \"\"employer match\"\" in this way? Maybe just ask for a raise instead? Would this cause problems for my employer in any way? Not sure, but it might. Is it possible to simply receive funds in my HSA even though I am not eligible, and then transfer them to his HSA to avoid any penalties? No, HSA is a personal account. You can pay for dependents, but you can't move money between the accounts. You can roll over to your own account. See the IRS publication 969 for more details.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
cd7cb9a122c9f2d76067d3acf0263155
How to report a personal expense for an LLC partnership paid in one year and reimbursed in another?
[ { "docid": "b80a4da09befcb5e2df91a2c39fd52a4", "text": "\"You report it when the expense was incurred/accrued. Which is, in your case, 2014. There's no such thing as \"\"accounts payable\"\" on tax forms, it is an account on balance sheet, but most likely it is irrelevant for you since your LLC is probably cash-based. The reimbursement is a red-herring, what matters is when you paid the money.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "efde1ab1a9035da2874810c95db67d9e", "text": "\"I think you're on the right track. Your #2 journal entry is incorrect. It should be (I usually put the debit entry on top, but I followed your formatting) I'm assuming your employer uses an accountable reimbursement plan (reimbursing you when you turn in your payment bill/receipts). This is not salary. Reimbursements under the accountable plan in the US are not taxed as income. If you think about it though, \"\"phone expense\"\" isn't really your phone expense. So, instead of #1 entry, you could make an account receivable, or other current asset account, maybe call it Reimbursables - cellphone, and debit this account, and credit your cash account. When you receive the $30 back, you will reverse the entries on the day of payment. If you do it this way, you should be able to see a list of receivables outstanding (I'm not too familiar with GNUCash but I'm sure it has this type of report).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11aa0d830ce41e174690756c06ce534f", "text": "(do I need to get a W9 from our suppliers)? Will PayPal or Shopify send me a 1099k or something? Do not assume that you'll get paperwork from anyone. Do assume that you have to generate your own paperwork. Ideally you should print out some kind of record of each transaction. Note that it can be hard to view older transactions in PayPal, so start now. If you can't document something, write up a piece of paper showing the state of the world to the best of your knowledge. Do assume that you need separate receipts for each expenditure. The PayPal receipt might be enough (but print it in case the IRS wants to see it). A receipt from the vendor would be better (again, print it if it is online now). A CPA is not strictly necessary. A CPA is certified (the C in CPA) to formally audit the books of a corporation. In your case, any accountant would be legally sufficient. You still may want to use a CPA, as the certification, while technically unnecessary, still demonstrates knowledge. You may otherwise not be in a position to evaluate an accountant. A compromise option is to go to a firm that includes a CPA and then let them assign you to someone else to process the actual taxes. You are going to have to fill out some business tax forms. In particular, I would expect a schedule C. That's where you would show revenues and expenses. You may well have to file other forms as well.", "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": "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": "8c4eec481cd96016588a5da0051cb9b8", "text": "Profits and losses in a partnership, LLC or S-corp are always reported proportional to the share of ownership. If you have a 30% share in a partnership, you will report 30% of the profit (or loss) of the respective tax year on your personal return. If you look at Part II, section J of your K-1, it should show your percentage of ownership in the entity. All numbers in Part III should reflect the amount of your share (not the entity's total amounts, which will be on Form 1065 for a partnership):", "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": "ceeecc34e00810972aa028a778fd4c31", "text": "The LLC will file its own business taxes which may or may not have business level income and expenses. At the end, the LLC will issue Schedule K-1 tax forms to the members, that based on their percentage ownership, will reflect the percentage share of the income/losses. From an individual standpoint, the members need only worry about the K-1 form they receive. This has quite a few pass-through categories from the LLC, but the Income/Loss may be the only used one. The individual will likely include the K-1 by filing a Schedule-E along with their 1040 form. The 1040 Schedule-E has some ability to deduct expenses as an individual. Generally it's best not to commingle expenses. Additional schedule-E expense reporting is generally for non-reimbursed, but related business expenses. If a member paid certain fees for the LLC, it is better for the LLC to reimburse him and then deduct the expense properly. Schedule-E is on a non-LLC, personal level.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edb005ea7461d6a53124407aca06bab5", "text": "After reading OP Mark's question and the various answers carefully and also looking over some old pay stubs of mine, I am beginning to wonder if he is mis-reading his pay stub or slip of paper attached to the reimbursement check for the item(s) he purchases. Pay stubs (whether paper documents attached to checks or things received in one's company mailbox or available for downloading from a company web site while the money is deposited electronically into the employee's checking account) vary from company to company, but a reasonably well-designed stub would likely have categories such as Taxable gross income for the pay period: This is the amount from which payroll taxes (Federal and State income tax, Social Security and Medicare tax) are deducted as well as other post-tax deductions such as money going to purchase of US Savings Bonds, contributions to United Way via payroll deduction, contribution to Roth 401k etc. Employer-paid group life insurance premiums are taxable income too for any portion of the policy that exceeds $50K. In some cases, these appear as a lump sum on the last pay stub for the year. Nontaxable gross income for the pay period: This would be sum total of the amounts contributed to nonRoth 401k plans, employee's share of group health-care insurance premiums for employee and/or employee's family, money deposited into FSA accounts, etc. Net pay: This is the amount of the attached check or money sent via ACH to the employee's bank account. Year-to-date amounts: These just tell the employee what has been earned/paid/withheld to date in the various categories. Now, OP Mark said My company does not tax the reimbursement but they do add it to my running gross earnings total for the year. So, the question is whether the amount of the reimbursement is included in the Year-to-date amount of Taxable Income. If YTD Taxable Income does not include the reimbursement amount, then the the OP's question and the answers and comments are moot; unless the company has really-messed-up (Pat. Pending) payroll software that does weird things, the amount on the W2 form will be whatever is shown as YTD Taxable Income on the last pay stub of the year, and, as @DJClayworth noted cogently, it is what will appear on the W2 form that really matters. In summary, it is good that OP Mark is taking the time to investigate the matter of the reimbursements appearing in Total Gross Income, but if the amounts are not appearing in the YTD Taxable Income, his Payroll Office may just reassure him that they have good software and that what the YTD Taxable Income says on the last pay stub is what will be appearing on his W2 form. I am fairly confident that this is what will be the resolution of the matter because if the amount of the reimbursement was included in Taxable Income during that pay period and no tax was withheld, then the employer has a problem with Social Security and Medicare tax underwithholding, and nonpayment of this tax plus the employer's share to the US Treasury in timely fashion. The IRS takes an extremely dim view of such shenanigans and most employers are unlikely to take the risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d434bac93e59b6bc54b351997abe1226", "text": "\"(I'm assuming USA tax code as this is untagged) As the comments above suggest there is no \"\"right\"\" answer or easy formula. The main issue is that you likely got into business to make money and if you make money consistently you will pay taxes. Reinvesting generally should be a business decision where the main concern is revenue growth and taxes are an important but secondary concern. Taxes can be complicated, but for a small LLC shouldn't be that bad. I highly recommend that you take some time closely analyze your business and personal taxes for the previous year. Once you understand the problem better, you can optimize around it. If it is a big concern, some companies buy software so they can estimate their taxes periodically through the year and make better decisions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2001e382087977d58faadeb8485548a", "text": "I'm not familiar with Gnucash, but I can discuss double-entry bookkeeping in general. I think the typical solution to something like this is to create an Asset account for what this other person owes you. This represents the money that he owes you. It's an Accounts Receivable. Method 1: Do you have/need separate accounts for each company that you are paying for this person? Do you need to record where the money is going? If not, then all you need is: When you pay a bill, you credit (subtract from) Checking and debit (add to) Friend Account. When he pays you, you credit (subtract from) Friend Account and debit (add to) Checking. That is, when you pay a bill for your friend you are turning one asset, cash, into a different kind of asset, receivable. When he pays you, you are doing the reverse. There's no need to create a new account each time you pay a bill. Just keep a rolling balance on this My Friend account. It's like a credit card: you don't get a new card each time you make a purchase, you just add to the balance. When you make a payment, you subtract from the balance. Method 2: If you need to record where the money is going, then you'd have to create accounts for each of the companies that you pay bills to. These would be Expense accounts. Then you'd need to create two accounts for your friend: An Asset account for the money he owes you, and an Income account for the stream of money coming in. So when you pay a bill, you'd credit Checking, debit My Friend Owes Me, credit the company expense account, and debit the Money from My Friend income account. When he repays you, you'd credit My Friend Owes Me and debit Checking. You don't change the income or expense accounts. Method 3: You could enter bills when they're received as a liability and then eliminate the liability when you pay them. This is probably more work than you want to go to.", "title": "" }, { "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": "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": "ee166c86d628d6354e45e2b491d31a0f", "text": "You should be careful about mingling your personal money and that of the business, even if it is a sole prop right now. It is a good habit to keep separate business and personal bank/credit accounts just so that when you change to an LLC, it is simpler for you to separate what belongs to the company and what is yours personally. What you're doing makes it more difficult (although only marginally so) to itemize business deductions that were paid with an ostensibly personal credit account. The better habit to get into now is keeping that distinct separation between personal and business. That being said, there's nothing illegal in what you're doing, but it would make an accountant cringe, that's for sure. (chuckle) Hope this helps. Good luck!", "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": "d42df4b19921edac9589e2d0d8ad984a", "text": "\"The FTB, as any government agency, is understaffed and underpaid. Even if someone took a glance and it wasn't just an automated letter - consider the situation: you filed as a LLC and then amended to file as a partnership. Unless someone really pays attention - the obvious assumption would be that you had a limited partnership. Yes, you'll need to call them and work with them on fixing this. They do have all the statements you've attached. However, there's a lot of automation and very little attention to details when it comes to matching errors, so don't get surprised if no-one even looked at these statements. Next time your elected government officials talk about \"\"small government\"\" and \"\"cutting government expenses\"\" - you can remind yourself how it looks in action with this experience.\"", "title": "" } ]
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477b48164ca6904020ce6a521f9b58c1
“Occupation” field on IRS Form 1040
[ { "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": "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": "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": "866f22fd8cd4d23e7773cbf115bafca5", "text": "You should ask a CPA or tax lawyer to what extent living in specific housing provided by the employer as a job requirement is exempt from taxation. You might find a nice surprise. Your tax professional can also help you to report the items properly if mis-reported. Much of this is in the article you cite in the question, but perhaps a look at some of the original sources is warranted and will show why some expert advice might be useful. I would argue that an RA who is required to police and counsel undergrads in a college dorm in exchange for a room or a flat is closer to a worker with quarters on a ship or at an oil well than a full professor who receives a rental home in a neighborhood near the university as a benefit. In the first case living at the provided premises is necessary to do the job, but in the second case it is merely a benefit of the job. The IRS Publication 15-B guidance on employer provided housing is not entirely clear, so you might want to get some additional advice: Lodging on Your Business Premises You can exclude the value of lodging you furnish to an employee from the employee's wages if it meets the following tests. It is furnished on your business premises. It is furnished for your convenience. The employee must accept it as a condition of employment. Different tests may apply to lodging furnished by educational institutions. See section 119(d) of the Internal Revenue Code for details. If you allow your employee to choose to receive additional pay instead of lodging, then the lodging, if chosen, isn’t excluded. The exclusion also doesn't apply to cash allowances for lodging. On your business premises. For this exclusion, your business premises is generally your employee's place of work. For example, if you're a household employer, then lodging furnished in your home to a household employee would be considered lodging furnished on your business premises. For special rules that apply to lodging furnished in a camp located in a foreign country, see section 119(c) of the Internal Revenue Code and its regulations. For your convenience. Whether or not you furnish lodging for your convenience as an employer depends on all the facts and circumstances. You furnish the lodging to your employee for your convenience if you do this for a substantial business reason other than to provide the employee with additional pay. This is true even if a law or an employment contract provides that the lodging is furnished as pay. However, a written statement that the lodging is furnished for your convenience isn't sufficient. Condition of employment. Lodging meets this test if you require your employees to accept the lodging because they need to live on your business premises to be able to properly perform their duties. Examples include employees who must be available at all times and employees who couldn't perform their required duties without being furnished the lodging. It doesn't matter whether you must furnish the lodging as pay under the terms of an employment contract or a law fixing the terms of employment. Example of qualifying lodging. You employ Sam at a construction project at a remote job site in Alaska. Due to the inaccessibility of facilities for the employees who are working at the job site to obtain lodging and the prevailing weather conditions, you furnish lodging to your employees at the construction site in order to carry on the construction project. You require that your employees accept the lodging as a condition of their employment. You may exclude the lodging that you provide from Sam's wages. Additionally, since sufficient eating facilities aren’t available near your place of employment, you may also exclude meals you provide to Sam from his wages, as discussed under Meals on Your Business Premises , later in this section. Example of nonqualifying lodging. A hospital gives Joan, an employee of the hospital, the choice of living at the hospital free of charge or living elsewhere and receiving a cash allowance in addition to her regular salary. If Joan chooses to live at the hospital, the hospital can't exclude the value of the lodging from her wages because she isn't required to live at the hospital to properly perform the duties of her employment. One question would be how the conflict with IRC 119(d) is resolved for someone who must live in the dorm to watch over the dorm and its undergrads. Here's 26USC119(d) from LII: (d) Lodging furnished by certain educational institutions to employees (1) In general In the case of an employee of an educational institution, gross income shall not include the value of qualified campus lodging furnished to such employee during the taxable year. (2) Exception in cases of inadequate rent Paragraph (1) shall not apply to the extent of the excess of— (A) the lesser of— (i) 5 percent of the appraised value of the qualified campus lodging, or (ii) the average of the rentals paid by individuals (other than employees or students of the educational institution) during such calendar year for lodging provided by the educational institution which is comparable to the qualified campus lodging provided to the employee, over (B) the rent paid by the employee for the qualified campus lodging during such calendar year. The appraised value under subparagraph (A)(i) shall be determined as of the close of the calendar year in which the taxable year begins, or, in the case of a rental period not greater than 1 year, at any time during the calendar year in which such period begins. (3) Qualified campus lodging For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualified campus lodging” means lodging to which subsection (a) does not apply and which is— (A) located on, or in the proximity of, a campus of the educational institution, and (B) furnished to the employee, his spouse, and any of his dependents by or on behalf of such institution for use as a residence. (4) Educational institution, etc. For purposes of this subsection— (A) In generalThe term “educational institution” means— (i) an institution described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(ii) (or an entity organized under State law and composed of public institutions so described), or (ii) an academic health center. (B) Academic health centerFor purposes of subparagraph (A), the term “academic health center” means an entity— (i) which is described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(iii), (ii) which receives (during the calendar year in which the taxable year of the taxpayer begins) payments under subsection (d)(5)(B) or (h) of section 1886 of the Social Security Act (relating to graduate medical education), and (iii) which has as one of its principal purposes or functions the providing and teaching of basic and clinical medical science and research with the entity’s own faculty.", "title": "" }, { "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": "177452e08f5bcd1a5ccb6fada4720bcd", "text": "\"(Insert the usual disclaimer that I'm not any sort of tax professional; I'm just a random guy on the Internet who occasionally looks through IRS instructions for fun. Then again, what you're doing here is asking random people on the Internet for help, so here goes.) The gigantic book of \"\"How to File Your Income Taxes\"\" from the IRS is called Publication 17. That's generally where I start to figure out where to report what. The section on Royalties has this to say: Royalties from copyrights, patents, and oil, gas, and mineral properties are taxable as ordinary income. In most cases, you report royalties in Part I of Schedule E (Form 1040). However, if you hold an operating oil, gas, or mineral interest or are in business as a self-employed writer, inventor, artist, etc., report your income and expenses on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040). It sounds like you are receiving royalties from a copyright, and not as a self-employed writer. That means that you would report the income on Schedule E, Part I. I've not used Schedule E before, but looking at the instructions for it, you enter this as \"\"Royalty Property\"\". For royalty property, enter code “6” on line 1b and leave lines 1a and 2 blank for that property. So, in Line 1b, part A, enter code 6. (It looks like you'll only use section A here as you only have one royalty property.) Then in column A, Line 4, enter the royalties you have received. The instructions confirm that this should be the amount that you received listed on the 1099-MISC. Report on line 4 royalties from oil, gas, or mineral properties (not including operating interests); copyrights; and patents. Use a separate column (A, B, or C) for each royalty property. If you received $10 or more in royalties during 2016, the payer should send you a Form 1099-MISC or similar statement by January 31, 2017, showing the amount you received. Report this amount on line 4. I don't think that there's any relevant Expenses deductions you could take on the subsequent lines (though like I said, I've not used this form before), but if you had some specific expenses involved in producing this income it might be worth looking into further. On Line 21 you'd subtract the 0 expenses (or subtract any expenses you do manage to list) and put the total. It looks like there are more totals to accumulate on lines 23 and 24, which presumably would be equally easy as you only have the one property. Put the total again on line 26, which says to enter it on the main Form 1040 on line 17 and it thus gets included in your income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b31ab8ae55f25f15b2f8ae758ea49bcd", "text": "Disclaimer: I am not a tax professional. Please don't rely on this answer in lieu of professional advice. If your sole source of Arizona income is your commercial property, use the number on line 17 of your federal form 1040. This number is derived from your federal Schedule E. If you have multiple properties (or other business income from S corporations or LLCs), use only the Schedule E amount pertaining to the AZ property.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8199c1f269790dd8ecce7897a0159c49", "text": "\"Regardless of the source of the software (though certainly good to know), there are practical limits to the IRS 1040EZ form. This simplified tax form is not appropriate for use once you reach a certain level of income because it only allows for the \"\"standard\"\" deduction - no itemization. The first year I passed that level, I was panicked because I thought I suddenly owed thousands. Switching to 1040A (aka the short form) and using even the basic itemized deductions showed that the IRS owed me a refund instead. I don't know where that level is for tax year 2015 but as you approach $62k, the simplified form is less-and-less appropriate. It would make sense, given some of the great information in the other answers, that the free offering is only for 1040EZ. That's certainly been true for other \"\"free\"\" software in the past.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "747434105a81d44117295b394b27c1ba", "text": "Just type in the forms as they are, separately. That would be the easiest way both to enter the data without any mistakes, and ensure that everything matches properly with the IRS reports.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a4ea401a7db431a02f515cee6f65660", "text": "\"You can report it as illegal income and you don't have to elaborate any further. For instance, spirit the cash off to a state where pot is legal and set up a dispensary. That is not legal at the Federal level, so it is in fact \"\"illegal income\"\" vis-a-vis your Form 1040 and that's all you say. Make sure you look, walk, and quack like a fairly successful pot distributor. That will most likely be the end of their inquiry, since they're not terribly driven to investigate the income you do report. Having to give 33% of it to the IRS is generally strong motivation for folks to not report fake income. You're not claiming the money is from pot, you're allowing them to infer it.\"", "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": "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": "47c9c8dbbbfb64b9537ec5a36e9cc724", "text": "\"What theyre fishing for is whether the money was earned in the U.S. It's essentially an interest shelter, and/or avoiding double taxation. They're saying if you keep income you make outside the US in a bank inside the US, the US thanks you for storing your foreign money here and doesn't tax the interest (but the nation where you earned that income might). There is no question that the AirBNB income is \"\"connected with a US trade or business\"\". So your next question is whether the fraction of interest earned from that income can be broken out, or whether IRS requires you to declare all the interest from that account. Honestly given the amount of tax at stake, it may not be worth your time researching. Now since you seem to be a resident nonresident alien, it seems apparent that whatever economic value you are creating to earn your salary, is being performed in the United States. If this is for an American company and wages paid in USD, no question, that's a US trade or business. But what if it's for a Swedish company running on Swedish servers, serving Swedes and paid in Kroner to a Swedish bank which you then transfer to your US bank? Does it matter if your boots are on sovereign US soil? This is a complex question, and some countries (UK) say \"\"if your boots are in our nation, it is trade/income in our nation\"\"... Others (CA) do not. This is probably a separate question to search or ask. To be clear, the fact that your days as a teacher or trainee do not count toward residency, is a separate question from whether your salary as same counts as US income.\"", "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": "16fe0dbb757bc0480bbc021032418c6a", "text": "Publication 15 is the IRS guide for business. https://www.irs.gov/uac/about-publication-15 They will be deposited electronically at https://www.eftps.com/eftps/ Form 941 is the one you will be using: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/depositing-and-reporting-employment-taxes The other ones are for special circumstances. I would recommend that you have a chat with an accountant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6ad013cf08e69dbb6805502c23c936c", "text": "Fear tactics posted above, likely by IRS agents. Yes, you qualify based on the residence test. You perform your work outside the US. You gather business data in a foreign country. The income is excluded.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9da9a29bae1c93f5fa047a1a07c525dd
Can I deduct personal loans or use them as tax “write offs?”
[ { "docid": "37ab19113c26928885755f04ab154a8c", "text": "You will have to write it off as an offset of capital gains or as bad debt against personal income, limited to $3k/ yr. Write off 3k this year, 2k next. Here's the tax code, you'll need to file a form 8949, link below. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc450/tc453 So, this requires that it is a loan, acknowledged by both you and the borrower, with terms of repayment and stated interest, as well as wording for late payments and time for delinquency. The loan document doesn't have to be fancy, but it must show a reasonable intention of repayment to distinguish it from a gift. Then send out a 1099c for cancellation of debt. This is a starting point, it's a good idea to run everything by your tax processional to make sure you're meeting the requirements for bad debt with your contact and payment communication.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "73476d4891f0c410c689123c015f63e0", "text": "\"Assuming you are talking about an LLC in the United States, there are no tax repercussions on the LLC itself, because LLCs use pass-through taxation in the U.S., meaning that the LLC does not pay taxes. Whatever you take out of the LLC in the form of distributions goes onto your personal income tax as ordinary income, and you pay personal income tax on it. See this link on the subject from the Nolo.com web site: Tax treatment of an LLC from the Nolo.com web site Repayment of your loan by the LLC would just be another business expense for the business itself. I guess the question would then turn on what your personal tax repercussion would be for payments received from the LLC on the loan. I would guess (and I emphasize \"\"guess\"\") that you would pay tax on any interest gain from the loan payments, which makes the assumption you made the loan to include interest. If not (in other words, if you made this an interest-free loan) then it would be considered a wash for tax purposes and you would have no tax liability for yourself. To reiterate, the LLC (if it is a U.S.. entity) does not pay taxes. Taxation of LLC income is based on whatever distributions the principals take out of it, which is then claimed as taxable personal income. My apologies to littleadv for not making my prior answer (I deleted it) more clear about my answer assuming you were speaking of a U.S.-chartered LLC. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2860f12c36966891eb816cce27702fcc", "text": "You need to report the interest expense, assuming the loans were for your business: You need to report interest expense (only interest, principle is not an expense just as the loan proceeds are not income). The interest expense goes to the appropriate line on your Schedule C or E (depending on whether you used the loan for the online business or the rental). People whom you borrowed from must also report the interest as income to them on their Schedule B. You cannot deduct the interest expense if they don't report it as interest income. If you didn't take the loans for your business then the interest is not deductible. You don't need to report anything. People who lent you money still have to report the interest you paid to them as income on Schedule B. If you paid no interest (free loan) or below/above market interest to a related party (family member), then the imputed interest is considered income to them and gift to you. They need to report it on their Schedule B, and depending on amounts - on a gift tax return. For $1K to $10K loans there probably will be no need in gift tax returns, the exemption is for $14K per year per person. If the imputed interest rules may apply to you, better talk to a licensed tax adviser on how to proceed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5274ce56724302aa26b53670f04d501d", "text": "\"Here is a simple loan payment calculator. If you allow early principal repayment, then you should just be able to plug in the new principal amount to find his new monthly payment (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken). Are you averse to creating a spreadsheet yourself in excel? I suppose it could become quite an undertaking, depending on how detailed you chose to get with the interest. Seems like it would be more direct and serve the dual purpose of recordkeeping. It's important to agree in advance whether pre-payments go to principal or go partly to interest (prepaying for periodic amounts not yet due, which are mixed principal and interest). It's a family loan, so it probably makes sense to allow the prepayments to pay down principal; you don't need to structure your interest income and prevent him from depriving you of interest income (which many bank loans will do). Allowing early principal repayment is pretty easy to calculate in your own excel spreadsheet, since you just need to know the remaining principal, time outstanding, and the interest rate. Note that if you are a US citizen, then the interest paid to you will be taxable income to you (\"\"ordinary income\"\" rate). Your brother will not be able to deduct the interest payments, unless maybe they are used for something like his business or perhaps mortgage. There is no deduction for just a personal loan. Also, if you instead structured it without interest, then the interest not charged would be considered a gift under US gift tax law. As long as the annual interest were under the gift exclusion amount ($14,000) then there would be no gift tax. With no interest and no gift, you would not have tax consequences.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd46e9d7e5ae77f81add1183228d93a7", "text": "\"Yes, as long as you are not filing \"\"Married, Filing Separately,\"\" you can deduct student loan interest expense as an adjustment to income. Since your MAGI is < $60k, you can deduct the lesser of $2,500 or the actual interest expense. http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc456.html http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch04.html You didn't mention how you might file your return. If you're filing jointly in future years, the MAGI threshold prior to any phaseout is raised to $125k (for CY 2013).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d48b3959a4c1e909e284f158ea38e1f1", "text": "First, you need to see if you actually qualify as a dependent under IRS rules; in short: While there may be exceptions to the cohabitation rule, I am not sure what those could be. The takeaway is that if your parent is wishing to claim you as a dependent, they must be responsible for supporting the majority of your living expenses (e.g. food and shelter). If this is the case, then the next question is to look at how the impact of the exemptions play out. In your situation, I would guess that your mother is correct: your taxable income is likely to be so low that if you do not take an exemption for yourself, you probably would still have zero or minimal tax liability; but if you mother claims you as a dependent, she will be able to take a deduction. In the case of your grants and loans, the loans should not be taxable income since these need to be repaid (presumably, with future earnings). Federal grants may be taxable--basically, the portion of the grant that is used solely for paying educational expenses toward a specific degree (tuition and books) is non-taxable, but the remainder may be subject to tax. As for tax credits, you would need to see how much you would get and how they would apply to you. The bottom line is, there are too many variables to say for certain what the best approach would be, so both your and your mother's returns must be prepared under each scenario (you as her dependent, versus you claiming a personal exemption).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e58d99883593d6d12f8032f38a42982d", "text": "If your business is a Sole Proprietorship and meets the criteria, then you would file form Schedule C. In this case you can deduct all eligible business expenses, regardless of how you pay for them (credit/debit/check/cash). The fact that it was paid for using a business credit card isn't relevant as long as it is a true business expense. The general rules apply: Yes - if you sustain a net loss, that will carry over to your personal tax return. Note: even though it isn't necessary to use a business credit card for business expenses, it's still an extremely good idea to do so, for a variety of reasons.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5f71b9b4dff539d0be3fb2849ca6e7cb", "text": "I recently paid-off $40k in student loan debt. One of the motivations for me to accelerate my payments was that over time, as my income increased, the amount of student loan interest I could write-off on taxes started to phase-out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcea0195c525dd15d0979228c8159f02", "text": "Use a limited company. Use the HMRC website for help on limited companies and get a good accountant for doing your taxes. Mixing your website income and personal income may make you pay a higher tax rate. You can take out expenses from the limited company, which are tax deductible. But if you group it in personal income it wouldn't be tax deductible. In a personal capacity you are 100% liable if your business goes bust and you owe debt. But for a limited company you are only liable for what you own i.e %age of shares. You can take on an investor if your business booms and it is easier if you do it through a limited company rather than through a personal endeavour.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "593f4db1a68747f316eb246b4073b067", "text": "\"Do you mean how much income tax the IRS will assess? Loans are not income, therefore they do not incur income tax. So as long as the money isn't being given, but being loaned, you don't have to pay income tax on it. And just in case you think there's a loophole of \"\"Instead of paying my workers, I'll just 'loan' them their paychecks, and then forgive the debt at the end of the year\"\", no, the IRS does consider loan forgiveness to be a form of income. So you need to look at whether the loan is going to you, or whether your business is a separate legal entity that is getting the money. If it's a capital contribution, then you are selling a stake in your company. Or, more precisely, as long as the money is going into the business, the company is selling a stake in itself. In that case, there generally isn't tax owed. Here's a Quara question that touches on this: https://www.quora.com/Is-money-raised-through-investors-taxed\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fab076774b036cd9084c4f5e2bad63c9", "text": "I'm not an expert, but here's my $0.02. Deductions for business expenses are subject to the 2% rule. In other words, you can only deduct that which exceeds 2% of your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income). For example, say you have an AGI of $50,000, and you buy a laptop that costs $800. You won't get a write-off from that, because 2% of $50,000 is $1,000, and you can only deduct business-related expenses in excess of that $1,000. If you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy a $2,000 laptop, you can deduct a maximum of $1,000 ($2,000 minus 2% of $50,000 is $2,000 - $1,000 = $1,000). Additionally, you can write off the laptop only to the extent that you use it for business. So in other words, if you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy that $2,000 laptop, but only use it 50% for business, you can only write off $500. Theoretically, they can ask for verification of the business use of your laptop. A log or a diary would be what I would provide, but I'm not an IRS agent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f5817302bdf7050001df688b373b906", "text": "If the mortgage is against your primary residence, then the only part that's (probably) deductible is the mortgage interest. If you pay down your loan principal faster, then all other things being equal you'll get less of a tax deduction, because you'll accrue less interest in the months after you throw a big chunk at the principal (the principal is less, so the interest is less). But don't worry; that's all right! It's a tax deduction, so your actual tax savings will be only a fraction of the interest you paid, so at the end of the day you'll be saving yourself money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a8501ffd0029873ce04c5d31e4c59d2", "text": "The principal of the loan itself isn't any sort of taxable event. There are, however, two taxable events here. First, cashing out your 401(k). That income wasn't originally taxed, so it will be now, as regular income. Plus, you're going to pay a 10% penalty, assuming you're under 59.5 years of age. Second, when the business pays you interest, that interest will be taxable. The principal is not taxable; that's not income, after all. You simply are getting back what's yours. The interest is taxable, as that is the actual income here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "105fbbdc7d6044068263a6a89a7e4217", "text": "Graduating from college is probably one of the most fulfilling triumphs you’ll ever achieve in your entire life. However, that joy also brings bigger responsibilities in life that could affect tax time too. This specific time in your life will have a lot to offer and before the winds of change take you to wherever you dream of, here are some advices from [Southbourne Tax Group](http://www.thesouthbournegroup.com/) to make your taxes easier where you can get a refund during filing time and save money as well. If your modified adjusted gross income is below $80,000 and you’re single, up to $2,500 of the interest portion of your student loan payments can be tax deductible, and below $160,000 for married person filing jointly. Job hunting expenses can be tax deductible too but there are exceptions such as expenses involved in your search for a new job in a new career field and working full-time for the first time. Major tax breaks are expected in case you are moving to a new and different city for your first job. Get a jump start on retirement savings with your company’s 401(k). Each year, you can secure up to $18,000 from your income taxes by contributing on one. If you have a family coverage, you could secure $6,750 from contributing to a health savings account in case you are enrolled in a high-deductible health plan. And if you are single, you can secure up to $3,400. Placing your money into a flexible spending account could keep an added $2,600 out of your taxable income. Getting big deductions for business expenses is possible if you are planning to be a freelancer or to be your own boss as a new college graduate. Southbourne Group also advises saving at least 25% of what you’re earning for the IRS. Research more about lifetime learning credit and understand its importance. You can claim up to $2,000 of a tax credit for post-secondary work at eligible educational institutions. This is possible if your adjusted gross income is below $65,000 as a single filer, or below $131,000 as a married person filing jointly. Saving money has a lot of benefits and one of which is cutting your tax bill. If you’re a married person filing jointly and have an adjusted gross income of less than $62,000, you may qualify for the saver’s credit, while for a single filer, it should be below $31,000. That can reduce your tax bill by up to 50% of the first $2,000 if you’re a single filer, or $4,000 if you’re a married person filing jointly you contribute to an eligible retirement plan. Southbourne Tax Group doesn’t want you to overspend on tax software and getting professional help in this regard. The firm suggests using the free packages from trusted tax software companies if your tax situation is quite simple. Get that professional help at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which can help you meet with a pro at little or no cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d60d0d0e939ed8bb808d351ef905c8e", "text": "According to the IRS: To deduct a bad debt, you must show that: So if you fulfill the basic requirements, then generally yes, you can deduct them from your taxes. However, as always, please refer to a professional CPA for any final tax determinations.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a17f801749c61e70721be29bae27a51d", "text": "There is the underpayment penalty, and of course the general risk of any balloon-style loan. While you think that you have enough self-discipline, you never know what may happen that may prevent you from having enough cash at hands to pay the accumulated tax at the end of the year. If you try to do more risky investments (trying to maximize the opportunity) you may lose some of the money, or have some other kind of emergency that may preempt the tax payment.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
bc999a11c067cb4c6d1c7af36528fcef
The equivalent of the standing order in the internet age for the UK specifically
[ { "docid": "2873bd1c450f7ea7bacb0cf4f7616263", "text": "A standing order is still the right way to do this. Most bank accounts have online access and will let your customer setup the standing order online, without having to fill in a paper form.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6e1a49099026facd9c7a976bb9804035", "text": "I searched for FTSE 100 fund on Yahoo Finance and found POW FTSE RAF UK 100 (PSRU.L), among many others. Google Finance is another possible source that immediately comes to mind.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81a0892a695ba40344a68db23cb8c3a6", "text": "moneydashboard.com claims to be the UK's Mint but I have problem using it with my HSBC account right now. I have contacted their helpdesk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8b38af48c5cb20cf0572ca36bb7e8bc", "text": "\"I've just received my first Credit Card statement from HSBC. All I can say is all the information you need is there. It's really easy to pay off your credit card bill just have to read the instructions! Here are the bank account numbers and steps how to set up a standing order (as it was written in my statement): \"\"Standing Order/ bill payment Pay a fixed amount to your HSBC Bank Credit Card using the following information: Type of Card Card ------------------------ Number Begins ----Account Number MasterCard: HSBC Bank and Welsh --- 543460 ----------------29004734 Visa: HSBC and Welsh ---------------------454638 ----------------09003649 Gold Visa ---------------------------------------494120 ----------------69005161 Remember, if payments are made using the wrong card details, sort code or account number, they may be delayed or not applied.\"\" hope it was helpful\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2fc536708cdb5af32df9385f3befdc41", "text": "This answer will be US-centric but hopefully most of the information will be applicable to other jurisdictions: Generally speaking:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db10ef26744c608b17138ca1b553355c", "text": "&gt; But the more pressing question is: What obligations should be imposed on the Web Trust giants as they embed themselves ever further into our lives? How do we assure ourselves that the “users” they connect us to are human or that the search results they feed us are based on merit — not pay for play (or worse, algorithmic racism). &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; It’s time to consider whether to break up the Google search and advertising functions, or to deny safe harbors that protect the tech platforms if they turn a blind eye to sex trafficking or commercial piracy. We need a new privacy Bill of Rights to demystify the algorithms that track and tag you and shape your on-line experience. &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; In these partisan times, it speaks to how dangerous The Web Trust has become that both Republicans and Democrats are calling for action and reform. If Congress and the administration want to preserve a truly open internet, they need to become the trustbusters for a new, digital generation. I guess those parts are not important for you? This article to me was more along the lines of; it's this, or it is that; the authors formatting for this op-ed was a bit wack, creating uncertainty in his assessment. I'm not worried if you didn't see that though!", "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": "e3404e5602b568dd1e5af71e50c6d531", "text": "\"[This is the simple solution.](http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3041628) \"\"Since the Securities and Exchange Act requires that all orders must be intended to execute there's a simple way to prevent this sort of nanosecond game, where any part of the strategy involves \"\"flashing\"\" an order that isn't really intended to execute and thus clear through the exchange: Force all orders to be valid for two full seconds or until executed.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57f41222ce7dc5831f6d274d9d46090a", "text": "I know nice and free stock screener for UK (and 20+ exchanges) - https://unicornbay.com/screener?f=exchange_str|%3D|LSE;&s=MarketCapitalization|desc&p=1|20 from Unicorn Bay. It supports both fundamental and technical analysis.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "99ba5e42ae44defa6d756a61fa2526da", "text": "This probably would not stand up in court, but seeing as businesses do not have the same collection protection rights as consumers, it could be a very costly mess to disentangle yourself from. Operations like this are like whack-a-mole, they're ridiculously easy for someone to set up and very hard to take down.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ce860f27cf55929c517065a9c8f5c32", "text": "I guess my point of view is that if domain seizing becomes a very prominent thing than proxies become a prominent thing amongst piraters - not that they already aren't, but I'm of the belief that whatever technology legislators embrace for combating piracy, pirates embrace an equally effective converse technology. As usual there will be a lot of unsuspecting American citizens hurt by SOPA but eventually the people who have made torrents successful for the average Internet user will be able to make proxies, hidden downloads, and mirrors extremely user-friendly and easy-to-use for the public. As far as I'm concerned combatting piracy through legislation rather than business practices is opening pandora's box. Right now it's possible to make your ISP see nothing but bandwidth, it's difficult to set-up, and a pain to maintain, but if content providers want to wage war, they should be prepared to lose, and lose hard.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56e7741116703bc204078da0634ebd33", "text": "Whether or not you'll be allowed to enter the UK is a topic for a different forum (and really more a topic for a lawyer rather than strangers on the internet). That being said, as a non-lawyer giving my opinion of the situation, you should be granted access to the UK as the banks/money lenders/phone companies don't have a relationship with Border Entry. With regards to debts in the UK, there is some precedent to debts being waived after a certain period of time, but the minimum is 6 years for unsecured debt, and the companies you owe money to can still chase you for payment, but can't use legal proceedings to force you to pay. However, the big caveat to this is that this only applies to residents of England and Wales. From the cleardebt.co.uk site: What is out of date debt? Debts like these are covered by the Limitation Act 1980, which is a statute of limitations that provides time scales as to how long a creditor can chase you (the debtor) for an unpaid debt. The Limitation Act 1980 only applies when no acknowledgement of a debt has been made between you and the creditor for six years for unsecured debts or 12 years for mortgage shortfalls and secured loans. This law only applies to residents of England and Wales. When does debt go out of date? If the creditor fails to maintain contact with you for six years or more, you may be able to claim that the outstanding debt is statute barred under the Limitation Act 1980. This means the creditor cannot use the legal system to enforce payment of the outstanding debt. The time limit starts from when you last acknowledged owing the debt or made a payment to the account. When can a creditor pursue an unsecured debt? You may think a creditor has written off your debt if you haven’t heard from them for a long time. The reality is that the debt still exists. The creditor can still contact you and they are entitled to chase the outstanding debt, even if the debt has been statute barred, but they are unable to use legal proceedings to force you to pay. Creditors can pursue an unsecured debt if:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca2a261bf62d97c5c7f72f6c496bcd37", "text": "I suppose all our (british) newspapers have 'social media teams' which may or may not include spammers, it will become a more common thing. Bear in mind also that the Daily Mail (website at least) seems really popular in the US. They are also taking posts from sites like reddit and putting them into their dead tree paper. I think the issue the admins banned these domains about was that the sites (or agents acting on behalf of) were spamming *and* manipulating the voting system - method unknown.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d0da1ce4c52be459834daa39d8b3357", "text": "I've used yahoo to perform the exercise you're asking about. It allows you to download price data, month end if you wish, and by manipulating via a spreadsheet to add a column for purchases, you can easily see how your £100/mo would end after so long a time period.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cf585819f69f8fd9fcd539685c2709b", "text": "\"Are there any known protections against obvious typos in the stock systems themselves? Do you know of stock exchanges which flags or rejects obviously wrong buy or sell orders (e.g., selling something for 0.1% of its highest buy order, or buying something at 1000 times the current sell order)? Does the stock exchange \"\"community\"\" have some sort of \"\"rules of conduct\"\" for this? Yes and No. Most Stock Exchanges for certain set of stocks have circuit breakers that are more to restrict panic selling or artificial drop in prices. The kind of controls you are mentioning can't be put on individual trades; as stock exchanges are meant to guarantee / provide neutral ground for the price to be determined by demand / supply. There are quite a few companies that have quickly lost value and become worthless with a day or two. Hence it becomes difficult to determine if something is error by an individual or not. Once an order is submitted to the exchange, it can't afford the to and fro to verify ... as even few seconds make a different in volatile markets. The kind of errors reported are difficult for an individual to make as he would not own the kind of stocks and the stock broker will stop the trade from being placed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1d9e53bd586aec0b2ccf90d331df268", "text": "In your proposed world, each business would have it's own laws when people stepped on their property. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. How would everyone keep track of the millions of different laws? What's to stop a business from taking advantage of this and duping customers who haven't researched their unfair laws? And how would two parties in a dispute agree on which private court system to use?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ba799406a237f89be1c282d77ac84ae0
What are useful indexes for rapid evaluation of country investment risk?
[ { "docid": "9c35407c8dfdd0bc2be3f53cac7a1ea2", "text": "Rather than using the Human Development Index or Ease of Doing Business, if you primary purpose is for investments, you need to consider the Country rating provided by various agencies like These would tell as to how good the country is for investment in general. Just to highlight a difference, China may not fare very high in Human Development Index, however right now from investment point of view its a pretty good market. once you have decided the countries, you can either invest in funds specalizing in these countries or if legally permitted invest directly into the leading stock index in such countries. If your intention is to start a business in these countries, then you need to look at some other indexes. http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245219962821 http://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/sector/Sector.faces?selectedTab=Overview&Ne=4293330737%2b11&N=0 http://v3.moodys.com/Pages/default.aspx", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "97ba7c78d9da95d26c6773d89ff25ec3", "text": "\"It's interesting that you use so many different risk measures. Here's what I'd like to know more in detail: 1) About the use of VaR. I've heard (from a friend, may be unreliable) that some investment managers like Neuberger Berman doesn't use VaR for assessing risk and maintaining capital adequacy requirements. Rather, some firms only rely on tracking error, beta, standard deviation, etc. Why do you think is this so? Isn't VaR supposed to be a widely accepted risk measure. 2) The whole \"\"Expected Shortfall vs. VaR\"\" debate. I've read some papers comparing Expected Shortfall and VaR. Mainly, they criticize VaR for not being able to consider the 1% probability left where losses can (probably) skyrocket to infinity. If I need to choose between the two, which do you think is better and why?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96c20301e3d9cce0e80714e7dbe7ede1", "text": "You could look up the P/E of an equivalent ETF, or break the ETF into components and look those up. Each index has its own methodology, usually weighted by market cap. See here: http://www.amex.com/etf/prodInf/EtAllhold.jsp?Product_Symbol=DIA", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27956ee0d314fb8c8e1a361b3b04ae07", "text": "I would say your decision making is reasonable. You are in the middle of Brexit and nobody knows what that means. Civil society in the United States is very strained at the moment. The one seeming source of stability in Europe, Germany, may end up with a very weakened government. The only country that is probably stable is China and it has weak protections for foreign investors. Law precedes economics, even though economics often ends up dictating the law in the long run. The only thing that may come to mind is doing two things differently. The first is mentally dropping the long-term versus short-term dichotomy and instead think in terms of the types of risks an investment is exposed to, such as currency risk, political risk, liquidity risk and so forth. Maturity risk is just one type of risk. The second is to consider taking some types of risks that are hedged either by put contracts to limit the downside loss, or consider buying longer-dated call contracts using a small percentage of your money. If the underlying price falls, then the call contracts will be a total loss, but if the price increases then you will receive most of the increase (minus the premium). If you are uncomfortable purchasing individual assets directly, then I would say you are probably doing everything that you reasonably can do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "61e08f0d238c2474a7eb648aac96c339", "text": "\"TL;DR - go with something like Barry Ritholtz's All Century Portfolio: 20 percent total U.S stock market 5 percent U.S. REITs 5 percent U.S. small cap value 15 percent Pacific equities 15 percent European equities 10 percent U.S. TIPs 10 percent U.S. high yield corp bonds 20 percent U.S. total bond UK property market are absurdly high and will be crashing a lot very soon The price to rent ratio is certainly very high in the UK. According to this article, it takes 48 years of rent to pay for the same apartment in London. That sounds like a terrible deal to me. I have no idea about where prices will go in the future, but I wouldn't voluntarily buy in that market. I'm hesitant to invest in stocks for the fear of losing everything A stock index fund is a collection of stocks. For example the S&P 500 index fund is a collection of the largest 500 US public companies (Apple, Google, Shell, Ford, etc.). If you buy the S&P 500 index, the 500 largest US companies would have to go bankrupt for you to \"\"lose everything\"\" - there would have to be a zombie apocalypse. He's trying to get me to invest in Gold and Silver (but mostly silver), but I neither know anything about gold or silver, nor know anyone who takes this approach. This is what Jeremy Siegel said about gold in late 2013: \"\"I’m not enthusiastic about gold because I think gold is priced for either hyperinflation or the end of the world.\"\" Barry Ritholtz also speaks much wisdom about gold. In short, don't buy it and stop listening to your friend. Is buying a property now with the intention of selling it in a couple of years for profit (and repeat until I have substantial amount to invest in something big) a bad idea? If the home price does not appreciate, will this approach save you or lose you money? In other words, would it be profitable to substitute your rent payment for a mortgage payment? If not, you will be speculating, not investing. Here's an articles that discusses the difference between speculating and investing. I don't recommend speculating.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7176ccf3641af634c793417c35c17887", "text": "A target date fund is NOT a world market index. There is no requirement that it be weighted based on the weights of the various world stock markets. If anything, historically (since the invention of target date funds), a 2:1 ratio is actually pretty low. 6:1 is, or was, probably more common. Just a token amount to non-US investments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae119a1854147b5b6ee88b6f3dd09dc4", "text": "\"He is wrong. Using Total Return (Reinvesting Dividend), from the peak in December 1999, it only took 6 years to recover. You can check the data for free here. Make sure you choose \"\"Gross Index Level\"\". ACWI Index is Developed Markets + Emerging Markets. World Index is Developed Markets only.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55b1341a3a982569d7c490daba32c0b2", "text": "\"I don't think blanket answers are very helpful. You are asking the right question when you are young! You have a large number of investment options and Australia has the Superannuation system that you can extract significant tax value from. I've not attempted to grade these with regard to \"\"risk\"\", as different people will rate various things with different levels, depending on their experience and knowledge. Consider the following factors for you:-\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca41d7db1b793e37d2a3a3973139132e", "text": "\"Wow, this analysis really surprised me. Very complete and useful, but i think my teacher request was easier. He just said: \"\"Try to build a diversified portfolio. Then try to add a commodity (like silver or gold) and understand how the risk vary introducing an asset like this.\"\" So, i'm basically making a stocks portfolio and i'm calculating its expected return and risk. (for example 40%FB, 10%JNJ, 20%GS, 10%F and 20%MCD) then i'm adding GLD (so now i have something like 20%FB, 10%JNJ, 10%GS, 10%F and 20%MCD 30%GLD) and i'm actually making an excel spreadsheet where i calculate all the: -Expected returns -St Deviation -Covariance At the end i compare the returns and the risks on the 2 different portfolios.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0f0da2c0e5a4bfa04bda19efad7eb01", "text": "There are some ETF's on the Indian market that invest in broad indexes in other countries Here's an article discussing this Be aware that such investments carry an additional risk you do not have when investing in your local market, which is 'currency risk' If for example you invest in a ETF that represents the US S&P500 index, and the US dollar weakens relative to the indian rupee, you could see the value if your investment in the US market go down, even if the index itself is 'up' (but not as much as the change in currency values). A lot of investment advisors recommend that you have at least 75% of your investments in things which are denominated in your local currency (well technically, the same currency as your liabilities), and no more than 25% invested internationally. In large part the reason for this advice is to reduce your exposure to currency risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "879df5cccfdb6e93aa59f97d4b067107", "text": "Russia current account. https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/current-account US current account https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/current-account Russia balance of trade https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/balance-of-trade US balance of trade https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade Forex reserve by country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_reserves List of country by oil import size. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_imports . If I have to make a wild guess, country with huge deficit everything and no saving usually sinks faster in time of crisis.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e72a9e53a04c6d504a9d521f8f8eb891", "text": "Haven't there been examples of governments defaulting, delaying payment and imposing haircuts on investors? Greece and Argentina come to mind. Quite a few Govt have defaulted in the past or were very of default or crisis. Most 3rd world countries or developing countries have under gone stress at some point. Greece was amongst the first example of Developed country going bankrupt. am I not better off if the fund invests solely in AAA corporate bonds, avoiding government bonds? Well that depends. Corporate bonds are not safer than Government Bonds. There have been instances of Corporate bonds not giving the required returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f4704351a133fc68df4838e78f5ece3", "text": "\"Taking examples from this loosely Googled page: http://www.fundlibrary.com/features/columns/page.asp?id=14406 If you find, or calculate, the standard deviation (volatility) of the returns from your various investment classes you will find they range from low-risk (low volatility), such as Cash, to high-risk (high volatility), such as Strategic Growth. The risk rating (volatility) is a good indicator of how reactive to market conditions your investment is likely to be. As you can see below, from mid-2010 to mid-2011 the High Risk index performed really well, but it was also most reactive when the market subsequently turned down. The medium risk indices performed the best over the chart period, 2010 to 2013, but it could have turned out different. Generally, you choose your investment according to your \"\"risk appetite\"\" - how much you're willing to risk. You might play safe with, say, 30% cash, 60% medium risk, 10% high risk. (Then again, are you paying someone to manage cash, which you might be able to do for free in a bank?) Assuming, for a moment, European (3.) and Intnl Equity Tracker (9.) had the same medium risk profile, then holding 50% & 50% would also add some currency diversification, which is usually advisable. However, the main choice is down to risk appetite. To address your specific question: \"\"my main interest for now is between Stockmarket Growth and Strategic Growth\"\", first thing to do is check their volatilities. For a further level of sophistication you can check how they are correlated against each other. If they are inversely correlated, i.e. one goes up when the other goes down, then holding some of each could be a good diversification. FYI: An Introduction to Investment Theory The historical returns are important too, but the investment classes your pension fund is offering will probably be reasonably aligned on a risk-return basis. You should check though. I.e. do they line up on a plot of 3 year Return vs Volatility? e.g. the line through SA Cash - SA Bonds - Vol Target 20 - SA Equity. Source\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4b354080dc85234776d08425d237976", "text": "Your definition of 'outside your country' might need some redefinition, as there are three different things going on here . . . Your financial adviser appears to be highlighting the currency risk associated with point three. However, consider these risk scenarios . . . A) Your country enters a period of severe financial difficulty, and money markets shut down. Your brokerage becomes insolvent, and your investments are lost. In this scenario the fact of whether your investments were in an overseas index such as the S&P, or were purchased from an account denominated in a different currency, would be irrelevant. The only thing that would have mitigated this scenario is an account with an overseas broker. B) Your country's stock market enters a sustained and deep bear market, decimating the value of shares in its companies. In this scenario the fact of whether your investments were made in from a brokerage overseas, or were purchased from an account denominated in a different currency, would be irrelevant. The only thing that would have mitigate this scenario is investment in shares and indices outside your home country. Your adviser has a good point; as long as you intend to enjoy your retirement in your home country then it might be advisable to remove currency risk by holding an account in Rupees. However, you might like to consider reducing the other forms of risk by holding non-Indian securities to create a globally diversified portfolio, and also placing some of your capital in an account with a broker outside your home country (this may be very difficult to do in practice).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "605eb7aa548de18d74c5f4e178dd3731", "text": "First, currencies are not an investment; they are a medium of exchange; that is, you use currency to buy goods and services and/or investments. The goods and services you intend to buy in your retirement are presumably going to be bought in your country; to buy these you will need your country's currency. The investments you intend to buy now require the currency of whatever country they are located in. If you want to buy shares in Microsoft you need USD; if you want shares in BHP-Billiton you need AUD or GBP (It is traded on two exchanges), if you want property in Kuwait you need KWD and if you want bonds in your country you need IDR. When you sell these later to buy the goods and services you were saving for you need to convert from whatever currency you get for selling them into whatever currency you need to buy. When you invest you are taking on risk for which you expect to be compensated for - the higher the risk you take the better the returns had better be because there is always the chance that they will be negative, right down to losing it all if you are unlucky. There is no 100% safe investment; if you want to make sure you get full value for your money spend it all right now! If you invest overseas then, in addition to all the other investment risks, you are adding currency risk as well. That is, the risk that when you redeem your investments the overseas currency will have fallen relative you your currency. One of the best ways of mitigating risk is diversification; which allows the same return at a lower risk (or a higher return at the same risk). A pure equity portfolio is not diversified across asset classes (hopefully it is diversified across the equities). Equities are a high risk-high yield class; particularly in a developing economy like Indonesia. If you are very young with a decades long investment horizon this may be OK but even then, a diversified portfolio will probably offer better rewards at the same risk. Diversifying into local cash, bonds and property with a little foreign equities, bonds and property will serve you better than worrying about the strength of the IDR. Oh, and pay a professional for some real advice rather than listening to strangers on the internet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c0b0f2a8a8ad5213aec82f7c592e9d45", "text": "Debit cards with the Visa or Mastercard symbol on them work technically everywhere where credit cards work. There are some limitations where the respective business does not accept them, for example car rentals want a credit card for potential extra charges; but most of the time, for day-to-day shopping and dining, debit cards work fine. However, you should read up the potential risks. A credit card gives you some security by buffering incorrect/fraudulent charges from your account, and credit card companies also help you reverse incorrect charges, before you ever have to pay for it. If you use a debit card, it is your money on the line immediately - any incorrect charge, even accidential, takes your money from your account, and it is gone while you work on reversing the charge. Any theft, and your account can be cleaned out, and you will be without money while you go after the thief. Many people consider the debit card risk too high, and don't use them for this reason. However, many people do use them - it is up to you.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d987c2c97c6137f618bb1251aa219838
Is there a resource for knowing when Annual and Quarterly Reports are coming out?
[ { "docid": "b06c0b97de0ebf63398fcb54dfedfbf0", "text": "https://www.google.com/search?q=quarterly+and+annual+financial+report+calendar&oq=quarterly+and+annual+financial+report+calendar&aqs=chrome..69i57.9351j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The third result on Google is: https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/earnings-calendar/us The fourth result on Google is: https://finance.yahoo.com/calendar/earnings", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3e1635a637bbb1a5c4363476bdfa51e1", "text": "\"For US equities, Edgar Online is where companies post their government filings to the SEC. On Google Finance, you would look at the \"\"SEC filings\"\" link on the page, and then find their 10K and 10Q documents, where that information is listed and already calculated. Many companies also have these same documents posted on their Investor Relations web pages.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2639dfbfda29a4b457a716086b92953d", "text": "The most important filings are: Form 10-K, which is the annual report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Form 10-Q, for the interim quarters.", "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&amp;A activity exceeding 10% of total assets\"\" is another story, namely, how can I identify M&amp;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": "c03a09f06650bf57d78ea96446ea5f09", "text": "Usually you want two consecutive quarters before declaring a recession. This blog doesn't reference any seasonal adjustment; a one or two month decline may be to any number of reasons. E.g. labor numbers dropped this month largely attributed to weather. I only see screen shots of excel sheets, I'm not willing to invest any time into parsing that out :(", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff49b9a4ec21562562c1d00890c4883e", "text": "Just look at the filing date of the 10Q and then Yahoo the closing price or Google it. I assume you are looking for market reactions to SEC filings? If you want to look at the closing stock price for the end of the period which the filing covers, it's like on the first page of the filing when the period (either quarterly or yearly) ends. This data is generally less useful, however, because it really is just another day in the market for the company. The actual release of the data to the public is more important.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "24f1e3c24307c4fa598090106e73df87", "text": "Not sure why this is being downvoted, SSRS, CR, or really any of the major reporting scenarios are designed for these types of calculations. Not only that but using them would enable one to just update the data/change the parameters to match the right date range and not have to spend hours doing repetitive calculations. Edit: yeah Access is basically GUI-SQL but depending on who will see this data (i.e OP's boss) you'll want it all prettied up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e762d578a09726a9f767ed87d82bde3", "text": "I know of no free source for 10 years historical data on a large set of companies. Now, if it's just a single company or small number that interest you, contact Investor Relations at the company(ies) in question; they may be willing to send you the data for free.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8b3c1cca904587c28af58db32522868", "text": "The short float ratio and percent change are all calculated based on the short interest (the total number of shares shorted). The short interest data for Nasdaq and NYSE stocks is published every two weeks. NasdaqTrader.com shows the exact dates for when short interest is published for Nasdaq stocks, and also says the following: FINRA member firms are required to report their short positions as of settlement on (1) the 15th of each month, or the preceding business day if the 15th is not a business day, and (2) as of settlement on the last business day of the month.* The reports must be filed by the second business day after the reporting settlement date. FINRA compiles the short interest data and provides it for publication on the 8th business day after the reporting settlement date. The NYSE also shows the exact dates for when short interest is published for NYSE stocks, and those dates are exactly the same as for Nasdaq stocks. Since the short interest is only updated once every 2 weeks, there is no way to see real-time updating of the short float and percent change. That information only gets updated once every 2 weeks - after each publication of the short interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae140b6307f4e621e74d4a2184730378", "text": "Companies release their earnings reports over news agencies like Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg before putting them on their website (which usually occurs a few minutes after the official dissemination of the report). This is because they have to make sure that all investors get the news at the same time (which is kind of guaranteed when official news channels are used). The conference call is usually a few hours after the earnings report release to discuss the results with analysts and investors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b91ea9ba00641d019c71d2986da2f19", "text": "the financial information is generally filed via SEDAR (Canada) or SEC (US) before the conference call with the investment community. This can take before either before the market opens or after the market closes. The information is generally distribute to the various newswire service and company website at the same time the filing is made with SEDAR/SEC.", "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": "3e16c1962a04806e7faffbe436927639", "text": "As a business analyst, a tool I've picked up recently is Tableau. It's a powerful reporting tool that can build powerful dashboards which are great for presentations. If you have an academic email, you can get a free licence otherwise I believe it's around $3000. The bank I work at pays contractors $100,000+ for a single dashboard which can be built by a single person in a few weeks with some basic knowledge in the tool. It's a very versatile tool, I have a friend that tracks his fitness data with a Fitbit and then creates visualizations to date with his friends. I use it to import massive data extracts from multiple sources and then link common share points to build visuals that are put into a dashboard and reported to executives monthly. It's very interactive and that's why the higher-ups love it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d581f5da4cbbd3a23e4b057cf1e03f0d", "text": "\"I think I found the answer, at least in my specific case. From the heading \"\"Questar/Dominion Resources Merger\"\" in this linked website: Q: When will I receive tax forms showing the stock and dividend payments? A: You can expect a Form 1099-B in early February 2017 showing the amount associated with payment of your shares. You also will receive a Form 1099-DIV by Jan. 31, 2017, with your 2016 dividends earned.\"", "title": "" }, { "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": "3cf0e38a9490502c906628977ecba626", "text": "Under construction, but here's what I have so far: Schwab Data from 1970-2012: About.com data from 1980-2012:", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b3b7e059211fb95a9da27ef57c0fd9cf
Is there any sort of tax write off for unfulfilled pay checks?
[ { "docid": "dd17ea184df500d33e41bc9dd5e08bd4", "text": "Unfortunately, no. Think about the numbers. If you work for me, and I pay you $1000, you owe tax on $1000. If you still work, but I don't pay you, you have no tax due, but there's no benefit for you to collect for my stealing your time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b222a22985cab94784ba4a8f390e6a69", "text": "If you don't receive a W2, there are 2 scenarios you should consider: If you have reason to believe that scenario 1 is accurate, then you could file your taxes based on the last valid paycheck you received. If you have reason to believe that scenario 2 is accurate, then you need to do some extra math, but fortunately it is straight forward. Simply treat your final paychecks as if the gross amount of your check was equal to the sum of your taxes paid, and the net amount of the check is $0. This way your income will increase by the proper amount, and you will still receive credit for the taxes paid. This should work out cleanly for federal and state taxes, but will likely result in an overpayment of FICA taxes. You can use form 843 to receive a refund of excess FICA taxes. As a side note, I'd recommend spot checking the YTD numbers on your last paychecks against previous paystubs to make sure there wasn't any fuzzy math going on when they realized they were going out of business.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "9be715061f856d7dd862ae1541224250", "text": "\"If you don't want to get income tax taken out of your check, then get a 1099 job and stop blubbering like a baby. You are not doing your case any help. If fact, I am more positive that \"\"anti-taxers\"\" are out of their gourd.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cc980dd84c99df9e3ac48558af4987c", "text": "Either make your best guess, or set it low and then file quarterly Estimated Tax payments to fill in what's missing, or set it high and plan on getting a refund, or adjust it repeatedly through the year, or...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ce3c0de5cd8ce04c8a1764c39e3c46d", "text": "No, there is no special leniency given to first time tax payers. In general, this shouldn't be an issue. The IRS collects your taxes out of every one of your paychecks throughout the entire year in what is called a Withholding Tax. The amount that the IRS withholds is calculated on your W-4 Form that you file with your employer whenever you take a new job. The form helps you calculate the right number of allowances to claim (usually this is the number of personal exemptions, but depending upon if you work a second job, are married and your spouse works, or if you itemize, the number of allowances can be increased. WITHHOLDING TAX Withholding tax (also known as “payroll withholding”) is essentially income tax that is withheld from your wages and sent directly to the IRS by your employer. In other words, it’s like a credit against the income taxes that you must pay for the year. By subtracting this money from each paycheck that you receive, the IRS is basically withholding your anticipated tax payment as you earn it. In general, most people overestimate their tax liability. This is bad for them, because they have essentially given the IRS an interest free loan (and weren't able to use the money to earn interest themselves.) I haven't heard of any program targeted at first time tax payers to tell them to file a return, but considering that most tax payers overpay they should or they are giving the government a free grant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65005c7763f5008da5d62afca405c5cc", "text": "Yes, there are checks and balances. Employers can be, and have been, prosecuted for failing to pay super before the statutory timeline, which is three months from the pay date. However, it is still in your interests to check for yourself. The most common point for missing super to be discovered is when the company goes broke, at which point it's too late for you. What you should do is Check on your payslips that the right amount is allocated to super. It should be 9% of gross, plus any salary sacrifice or additional component. Check your super fund's half-yearly statements line up the deductions given on your payslip. Consider getting online access to your super account so you can check more quickly. If something is missing, call your super fund and/or payroll office. Resources:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5dc1692967e15601951b68dfe4ad8c44", "text": "\"So after a great deal of clarification, it appears that your question is how to adjust your withholding such that you'll have neither a refund, or a balance due, when you do your 2016 taxes next year. First, a little terminology. The more you have withheld, the more money will be taken out of your check to cover your estimated tax liability. Confusingly, the more allowances you select on your W-4, the less money you will have withheld (more allowances means more dependents/deductions/other reasons why you will owe less tax). When you go to file your 2015 tax return next year, you'll figure out exactly how much you owe. If you had too little tax withheld, you'll have to pay the difference. If you had too much tax withheld, you'll get a refund back. Given your situation, simply following the instructions on the W-4 should work pretty well. If you want to be more precise, you can use the IRS Withholding Calculator to figure the number of allowances and submit a new W-4 to your employer. It's a little hard to tell whether \"\"paying this much/year in taxes seem steep?\"\" because you've lumped all the taxes together in one big bucket. Does the $543.61 in taxes per paycheck include Social Security (OASDI) and Medicare taxes? Whatever you do, it's not going to be an exact science. Come tax time, you'll figure out exactly what you owe and either pay the balance or get a refund back. As long as you're relatively close, that's fine. You can always adjust your withholding again next year after you've done your taxes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b76688b2a41aa08caa2425ee232c376b", "text": "I actually think your boss is creating a problem for you. Of course it's taxable. The things IRS will look at (and they very well might, as it does stand out) what kind of payment is that. Why did it not go through payroll? The company may be at risk here for avoiding FICA/FUTA/workers' compensation insurance/State payroll taxes. Some are mandatory, and cannot be left to the employee to pay. On your side it raises your taxable income without the appropriate withholding, you may end up paying underpayment penalties for that (that is why you've been suggested to keep proofs of when you were paid). Also, it's employment income. If it is not wages - you're liable for self-employment taxes (basically the portion of FICA that the employer didn't pay, and your own FICA withholding). When you deposit the check is of no matter to the IRS, its when you got it that determines when you should declare the income. You don't have a choice there. I suggest asking the company payroll why it didn't go through them, as it may be a problem for you later on.", "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": "65c68a828b7a4907e8704f5296b345ee", "text": "If you're under audit - you should get a proper representation. I.e.: EA or CPA licensed in California and experienced with the FTB audit representation. There's a penalty on failure to file form 1099, but it is with the IRS, not the FTB. If I remember correctly, it's something like $50 or $100 per instance. Technically they can disqualify deductions claiming you paid under the table and no taxes were paid on the other side, however I doubt they'd do it in a case of simple omission of filing 1099 forms. Check with your licensed tax adviser. Keep in mind that for the IRS 2011 is now closed, since the 3-year statute of limitations has passed. For California the statute is 4 years, and you're almost at the end of it. However since you're already under audit they may ask you to agree to extend it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43f87fe215d44ba35eaef3fddfb5d50a", "text": "Yes. W4 determines how much your employer will withhold from your wages. Leaving everything at default would mean that your salary is your only taxable income, and you only take default deductions. Your employee will calculate your tax withholding based on that. But, if your salary is >200k, I assume that you have other income (investment/capital gains, interest on your bank account), which you will have to pay taxes on. You're probably going to have some deductible expenses (business/partnership expenses, mortgage interest, donations, college funds etc) as well. So it is very likely, unless you're really not smart about money, that you have more to do with your taxes than just the employers' withholding.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ab01f6b877e2fecbd87017f51f0d487", "text": "She filed for 0 withholdings in her W4, so my (unprofessional) guess was that she'd be owed money, and therefore the IRS wouldn't care much if she didn't file her taxes.† Maybe, but doesn't she want that money back? Is she at as much risk as any other individual of being audited and penalized to the same degree if she skips filing her taxes? Audited and penalized are not the same. She's at the same risk of being audited, and even slightly higher since the IRS got reports of her wages, but didn't get the matching report from her. They may want to ask why. But it doesn't mean she's going to be penalized for anything. Being audited doesn't mean you did something wrong. Or does the IRS tend to overlook such individuals. The IRS might want to overlook because they're the ones owning money. She cannot get a refund without filing a tax return. She'd file her taxes today if she could, but the worry is that time's running out Filing an extension is free and it postpones the deadline to file till OCTOBER!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b17812fbcc51ba2eaa7f18c455796b30", "text": "Should I have a W-2 re-issued? A W-2 can be corrected and a new copy will be filed with the IRS if your employer incorrectly reported your income and withholding on a W-2 that they issued. In this case, though the employer didn't withhold those taxes, they should not reissue the W-2 unless they plan to pay your portion of the payroll taxes that were not withheld. (If they paid your share of the taxes, that would increase your gross income.) Who pays for the FICA I should have paid last year? Both you and your employer owe 7.65% each for FICA taxes. By law your employer is required to pay their half and you are required to pay your half. Both you and your employer owe additional taxes because of this mistake. Your other questions assume that your employer will pay your portion of the taxes withheld. You employer could decide to do that, but this also assumes that it was your employer's fault that the mistakes were made. If you transitioned to resident alien but did not inform your employer, how is that your employer's fault?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd2b03ed3cd4d1e068eb182200ec4848", "text": "\"What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing. One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not income. Keep the pay stubs for the year, or the pdf files if they don't give you a physical stub. Pay attention to the YTD numbers on each stub to make sure they aren't sneaking in the expenses as income. If they continue to do this, ask about ownership of the items purchased, since you will be paying the tax shouldn't you own it? You can in the future tell them \"\"I was going to buy X like the customer wanted, but I just bought a new washer at home and their wasn't enough room on the credit card. Maybe next month\"\"\"", "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 A*X + (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": "aaf455a6b98de73436a830d72bc7489a", "text": "For most Americans the date on the check determines the tax year. A check with the date of Jan X 2016 will be reflected on the tax forms you will file in early 2017. That also means that the 401K money is also 2016 money, and so is the money for the flexible spending account, or health savings account. The change of year impacts everybody differently. That last/first check can make a big difference for some people. If you are trying to make sure you deposit the maximum amount of money into one of those accounts, knowing how many pay checks there is in the year is important. It also works the other way, getting an extra check can cause you to over deposit into those accounts. The taxes for that Jan 2016 paycheck are collected by your employer and periodically sent to the appropriate government office. You are paying those taxes on payday, even though you won't file that paperwork until 2017.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8e1232f37a0340add92e8754fbc0bef", "text": "To address the travelers checks question: waste of time and money. I did this years ago, the fees were outrageous, it was a hassle to find some place to cash them, and in the end you're carrying cash anyway. Otherwise do what orokusaki said.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0326a1dc0b23325a7680f4fe165bd6cc
Cosigning - cosigner won't pay and won't give any information or transfer asset
[ { "docid": "3eec08f53ddb437a4e142b74fbd3492f", "text": "Is your name on the title at all? You may have (slightly) more leverage in that case, but co-signing any loans is not a good idea, even for a friend or relative. As this article notes: Generally, co-signing refers to financing, not ownership. If the primary accountholder fails to make payments on the loan or the retail installment sales contract (a type of auto financing dealers sell), the co-signer is responsible for those payments, or their credit will suffer. Even if the co-signer makes the payments, they’re still not the owner if their name isn’t on the title. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) notes: If you co-sign a loan, you are legally obligated to repay the loan in full. Co-signing a loan does not mean serving as a character reference for someone else. When you co-sign, you promise to pay the loan yourself. It means that you risk having to repay any missed payments immediately. If the borrower defaults on the loan, the creditor can use the same collection methods against you that can be used against the borrower such as demanding that you repay the entire loan yourself, suing you, and garnishing your wages or bank accounts after a judgment. Your credit score(s) may be impacted by any late payments or defaults. Co-signing an auto loan does not mean you have any right to the vehicle, it just means that you have agreed to become obligated to repay the amount of the loan. So make sure you can afford to pay this debt if the borrower cannot. Per this article and this loan.com article, options to remove your name from co-signing include: If you're name isn't on the title, you'll have to convince your ex-boyfriend and the bank to have you removed as the co-signer, but from your brief description above, it doesn't seem that your ex is going to be cooperative. Unfortunately, as the co-signer and guarantor of the loan, you're legally responsible for making the payments if he doesn't. Not making the payments could ruin your credit as well. One final option to consider is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a drastic option, and you'll have to weigh whether the disruption to your credit and financial life will be worth it versus repaying the balance of that auto loan. Per this post: Another not so pretty option is bankruptcy. This is an extreme route, and in some instances may not even guarantee a name-removal from the loan. Your best bet is to contact a lawyer or other source of legal help to review your options on how to proceed with this issue.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "325b3734841f36f5f68aa1ba1902f580", "text": "I know this question has a lot of answers already, but I feel the answers are phrased either strongly against, or mildly for, co-signing. What it amounts down to is that this is a personal choice. You cannot receive reliable information as to whether or not co-signing this loan is a good move due to lack of information. The person involved is going to know the person they would be co-signing for, and the people on this site will only have their own personal preferences of experiences to draw from. You know if they are reliable, if they will be able to pay off the loan without need for the banks to come after you. This site can offer general theories, but I think it should be kept in mind that this is wholly a personal decision for the person involved, and them alone to make based on the facts that they know and we do not.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28b410ed0d92fb6024497c5728194ff0", "text": "In a nutshell, not really. That's the risk you take when you co-sign for someone. The lender only made the loan because of the strength of your brother's credit, not your mother's, so his reputation (in the form of his credit rating) is going to take the hit because of his mother's behaviors. The one thing he can do is this: The credit bureaus allow you to add a comment or explanation to your credit file which may be helpful, provided potential creditors read it, which is never a guarantee. It's worth trying though, so suggest to him to look into it. Here's a link for him/you/anyone to look at that can help explain how this works and what effects it can have: Adding a comment to your credit file for negative items I hope this helps. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79d2ca0681ec20663320a4dee527ced1", "text": "It could be a couple of things besides extra principal: I seem to remember hearing that some (shady?) lenders would just pocket extra payments if you didn't specify where they were headed, but I've also been told that this just isn't true.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44ca1105854eaaa4c37d66b0d1ce7774", "text": "Ok but if there's no money and nobody willing to lend, how are those payments made? It's fine and dandy to have the theoretical obligation and willingness, but I'm wondering what happens when there's simply no more capability to borrow more. Edit: Funny you say that, I'm moving in!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79febff37005fe840f1be5912c0f914c", "text": "\"You say Also I have been the only one with an income in our household for last 15 years, so for most of our marriage any debts have been in my name. She has a credit card (opened in 1999) that she has not used for years and she is also a secondary card holder on an American Express card and a MasterCard that are both in my name (she has not used the cards as we try to keep them only for emergencies). This would seem to indicate that the dealer is correct. Your wife has no credit history. You say that you paid off her student loans some years back. If \"\"some years\"\" was more than seven, then they have dropped off her credit report. If that's the most recent credit activity, then she effectively has none. Even if you get past that, note that she also doesn't have any income, which makes her a lousy co-signer. There's no real circumstance where you couldn't pay for the car but she could based on the historical data. She would have to get a job first. Since they had no information on her whatsoever, they probably didn't even get to that.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a6e78d648403a607c83fb538ac0fd1d7", "text": "I have recently been the lender to a couple people. It was substantially less money (~$3k), but I was trusting their good faith to pay me back. As a lender, I will never do it again. Reasons, Overall, not worth it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a063c0e3d308e707580d58ac1b53af9", "text": "\"Short answer: don't do it. Unless you know something that the bank doesn't, it's safe to assume that banks are a lot better at assessing risk than you are. If they think he can't afford it, odds are he can't afford it regardless of what he might say to the contrary. In this case, the best answer may be \"\"sorry for your luck;\"\" you could recommend that he comes up with a larger down payment to reduce his monthly payment (or that he find a way to get some extra income) rather than getting you to cosign. Please also see this article by Dave Ramsey on why you should never cosign loans.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b1776b58d3761de3875f4ac67e01798", "text": "I don't think there's anything to worry about. TFS doesn't really care who's paying, as long as the loan is being paid as agreed. Of course you're helping your dad's credit history and not your own, but I doubt TFS would give back money just because it came from your bank account. A business may claim a payment wasn't made against the loan, but you'd have the records that you did in fact pay (keep those bank statements). In theory they could sue you, in practice you'd send them the proof and they'd investigate and find the misplaced money. THAT does happen sometimes; the wrong account is credited. If it did end up in court, again you'd win because you have proof you sent payments. Even if you put the wrong loan account number to pay to, you'd have proof you in fact sent the money. If you're talking about something like a loan shark... they can do whatever they like. They won't sue you though, because again you'd have proof. That's why they'd use violence. But probably a loan shark wouldn't falsely claim you didn't pay if you did, as word would get out and the loan shark would lose business. And again, as long as they get what's agreed to, they don't care how they get it or who they get it from.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf4ebb2f45e209ce6aed1eb9814a36ff", "text": "\"Obligatory \"\"Don't do it\"\" remarks: If the guy isn't trusted enough to even show up to work, and can't get a personal loan directly from a bank (Home Equity Line of Credit would suffice), this is really setting things up for failure. What if he quits? What if you need to fire him (you know, for not showing up for weeks)? </rant> In order to be able to place a lien on his home should he default on the loan, you'll need to draft up a loan agreement or promissory note stating specifically that you have the right to do so. Get a lawyer involved. Here's an article that talks about setting up a Private Home Loan, which is geared more at helping someone buy a home, but may prove useful in this case as well: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/borrowing-from-family-friends-buy-29649.html It's pretty lengthy, so I won't quote it out here, but the gist of it is: Get everything in writing in a legally binding contract.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a53ede8e34ef2dfe0235c51a616f4410", "text": "Co-signing is not the same as owning. If your elderly lady didn't make any payments on the loan, and isn't on the ownership of the car, and there was no agreement that you would pay her anything, then you do not owe either her or her daughter any money. Also the loan is not affecting the daughter's credit, and the mother's credit is irrelevant (since she is dead). However you should be aware that the finance company will want to know about the demise of the mother, since they can no longer make a claim against her if you default. I would start by approaching the loan company, telling them about the mother's death, and asking to refinance in your name only. If you've really been keeping up the payments well this could be OK with them. If not I would find someone else who is prepared to co-sign a new loan with you, and still refinance. Then just tell the daughter that the loan her mother co-signed for has been discharged, and there is nothing for her to worry about.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3b002ea82cb6beda3efb0966543bceb", "text": "Maybe there's more to this story, because as written, your sister seems, well, a little irrational. Is it possible that the bank will try to cheat you and demand that you pay a loan again that you've already paid off? Or maybe not deliberately cheat you, but make a mistake and lose track of the fact that you paid? Sure, it's POSSIBLE. But if you're going to agonize about that, what about all the other possible ways that someone could cheat you? What if you go to a store, hand over your cash for the purchase, and then the clerk insists that you never gave him any cash? What if you buy a car and it turns out to be stolen? What if you buy insurance and when you have a claim the insurance company refuses to pay? What if someone you've never met or even heard of before suddenly claims that you are the father of her baby and demands child support? Etc etc. Realistically, banks are fanatical about record-keeping. Their business is pretty much all about record-keeping. Mistakes like this are very rare. And a big business like a bank is unlikely to blatantly cheat you. They can and do make millions of dollars legally. Why should they break the law and risk paying huge fines and going to prison for a few hundred dollars? They may give you a lousy deal, like charge you outrageous overdraft fees and pay piddling interest on your deposit, but they're not going to lie about how much you owe. They just don't. I suggest that you not live your life in fear of all the might-be's. Take reasonable steps to protect yourself and get on with it. Read contracts before you sign, even if the other person gets impatient while you sit there reading. ESPECIALLY if the other person insists that you sign without reading. When you pay off a loan, you should get a piece of paper from the bank saying the loan has been paid. Stuff this piece of paper in a filing cabinet and keep it for years and years. Get a copy of your credit report periodically and make sure that there are no errors on it, like incorrect loan balances. I check mine once every year or two. Some people advise checking it every couple of months. It all depends how nervous you are and how much time you want to spend on it. Then get on with your life. Has your sister had some bad experience with loans in the past? Or has she never borrowed money and she's just confused about how it works? That's why I wonder if there's more to the story, if there's some basis for her fears.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "beb3f083af599d46d40746bcc6f23dda", "text": "\"I think everything in your case is just simply missing one important rule of how credit works. Essentially, your MIL cannot get a loan. You can. You are making her a large loan that she cannot get for herself. That is all. That is the essence of what this deal is. It is not without interest - she makes a financial contribution toward your son, you get the deal in 2 years assuming she doesn't default (she will), etc. Imagine it this way: you are sitting in the dealership with the dealer and your MIL. She wants a loan to pay for the car. The dealership says, \"\"you are way not credit worthy.\"\" So your MIL says, \"\"why doesn't my son-in-law take out the loan instead?\"\" Now the dealership says, sure, that's fine. From the dealer's standpoint, every other part of your arrangement is irrelevant - boring, even. The only magic trick is in who takes the loan out, no other difference. You're letting your MIL pull a car out of her sleeve like a magician, and in taking the deal you're believing her. This sentence: I am pretty sure that the ex-MIL will not let me down (I've loaned her large sums of money before and she always promptly repaid). is everything. You're making a rather large bet that the things that can go wrong in two years - including any situation involving your wife's welfare - are rather miniscule. And furthermore, that the few times she's paid you back - that did NOT convince banks and dealer she is more creditworthy - justifies her good creditworthiness. Is the interest worth it? Do you really believe that your MIL needs to wring a car out of you before she would consider contributing to her grandson's well-being (which is, essentially, the interest)? But wait, it's NOT everything. Her daughter (my ex-wife) would drive it for 2 years and then turn the car over to our son. Even if your MIL is creditworthy, the woman you described as follows: Her daughter, though, is a loose cannon. Will be holding and returning the collateral in this deal. Things she can do include: So I'm arguing two points: Obviously my opinion on this is clear. I hope I did a decent job of explaining where the components of this deal (credit, interest, collateral) play out in the eyes of a dealer or bank, and get lost in the mechanics of the rules you worked out with your family.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aef57fa4cc3eff2eaebc63a3feb09561", "text": "\"I don't think you've mentioned which State you're in. Here in Ontario, a person who is financially incapable can have their financial responsibility and authority removed, and assigned to a trustee. The trustee might be a responsible next of kin (as her ex, you would appear unsuitable: that being a potential conflict of interest); otherwise, it can be the Public Guardian and Trustee. It that happens, then the trustee handles the money; and handles/makes any contracts on behalf of (in the name of) the incapable person. The incapable person might have income (e.g. spousal support payments) and money (e.g. bank accounts), which the trustee can document in order to demonstrate credit-worthiness (or at least solvency). For the time being, the kids see it as an adventure, but I suspect, it will get old very fast. I hope you have a counsellor to talk with about your personal relationships (I've had or tried several and at least one has been extraordinarily helpful). You're not actually expressing a worry about the children being abused or neglected. :/ Is your motive (for asking) that you want her to have a place, so that the children will like it (being there) better? As long as your kids see it as an adventure, perhaps you can be happy for them. Perhaps (I don't know: depending on the people) too it's a good (or at least a better) thing that they are visiting with friends and relatives; and, a better conversational topic with those people might be how they show your children a good time (instead of your ex's money). One possible way I thought of co-signing is if a portion of child/spousal support goes directly to the landlord. I asked the Child Support Services (who deduct money from my paycheck monthly to pay support to my ex) and they told me that they are not authorized to do this. Perhaps (I don't know) there is some way to do that, if you have your ex's cooperation and a lawyer (and perhaps a judge). You haven't said what portions of your payments are for Child support, versus Spousal support (nor, who has custody, etc). If a large part of the support is for the children, then perhaps the children can rent the place. (/wild idea) Note that, in Ontario, there are two trusteeship decisions to make: 1) financial; and 2) personal care, which includes housing and medical. Someone can retain their own 'self-care' authority even if they're judged financially incapable (or vice versa if there's a personal-care or medical decision which they cannot understand). The technical language is, \"\"Mentally Incapable of Managing Property\"\" This term applies to a person who is unable to understand information that is relevant to making a decision or is unable to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision about his or her property. Processes for certifying an individual as being mentally incapable of managing property are prescribed in the SDA (Substitute Decisions Act), and in the Mental Health Act.\"\" The Mental Heath Act is for medical emergencies (only); but Ontario has a Substitute Decisions Act as well. An intent of the law is to protect vulnerable people. People may also acquire and/or name their own trustee and/or guardian voluntarily: via a power of attorney, a living will, etc. I don't know: how about offering the landlord a year's rent in advance, or in trust? I guess that 1) a court order can determine/override/guarantee the way in which the child support payments are directed 2) it's easier to get that order/agreement if you and your ex cooperate 3) there are housing specialists in your neighborhood: They can buy housing instead of renting it. Or be given (gifted) housing to live in.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ca37ccaeb56e7276aa66a6183d66820", "text": "\"I really don't feel co-signing this loan is in the best interests of either of us. Lets talk about the amount of money you need and perhaps I can assist you in another way. I would be honest and tell them it isn't a good deal for anybody, especially not me. I would then offer an alternative \"\"loan\"\" of some amount of money to help them get financing on their own. The key here is the \"\"loan\"\" I offer is really a gift and should it ever be returned I would be floored and overjoyed. I wouldn't give more than I can afford to not have. Part of why I'd be honest to spread the good word about responsible money handling. Co-signed loans (and many loans themselves) probably aren't good financial policy if not a life & death or emergency situation. If they get mad at me it won't matter too much because they are family and that won't change.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0609f66030464ce8977f64934cb2684a", "text": "I am 17 and currently have a loan out for a car. My parents also have terrible credit, and because I knew this I was able to get around it. Your co-signer on your loan does not have to be your parent, at least in Wisconsin, I used my grandmother, who has excellent credit, as my cosigner. With my loan, we had made it so it doesn't hurt her credit if I don't get my payments in on time, maybe this is something for you to look into.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
2fa5e4714d9044241b9cf81a285d0e9b
Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup
[ { "docid": "6df12d93516abeff8fd5bd05200b87b4", "text": "\"Since you have no sales, I'd likely question how well could you determine the value of the company's assets in a reasonable fashion. You may be better to estimate sales and discount that back to a current valuation. For example, insurance companies could determine that if you wanted to be paid $x/month for the rest of your life, the present day value of that is $y. There are similar mechanisms for businesses but this does get tricky as the estimates have to be somewhat conservative and you have to be prepared for some other scenarios. For example, if you got the $200,000 then would you really never have to ask for more external equity financing in the future or is it quite likely that you'd want another infusion down the road? While you can mark it at $1,000,000 there will be questions about why that value that you'd have to answer and saying, \"\"Cause I like big round numbers,\"\" may not go over well. My suggestion is to consider what kind of sales will the company have over the next 5 years that you could work back to determine a current price. If you believe the company can have $5,000,000 in sales over the 5 years then it may make sense to place the current valuation of $1,000,000 on it. I wouldn't look too much into the money and time you've invested as that isn't likely to go over well with investors that just because you've put in what is worth $x, the business may or may not be worth that. The challenge is that without sales, it is quite difficult to get an idea of what is the company worth. If it makes billions, then it is worth a lot more than a company that never turns a profit. Another way to consider this is the question of what kind of economic output do you think you could do working here for the next 5 years? Could you do thousands of dollars of work, millions of dollars or just a few bucks? Consider how you want this to be seen where if you want some help look up episodes of TV shows like \"\"Dragon's Den\"\" or \"\"Shark Tank\"\" as these give valuations often as part of the pitch which is what you are doing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e07f51ad632a2e6d294466c9ba25e6af", "text": "The value of a business without proven profits is really just a guess. But to determine what % ownership the VC takes some measure must be used. He is asking the OP to start the negotiations. So you start high - higher than you will settle for. The value of the business should always be WAY more the $$ you have put into it ... because you have also invested your time (which has an opportunity cost) and assumed huge risk that you will never get those $$ back. When you need the cash and only one person will give it to you, you are over a barrel. You either take the terms they offer, or you let the business collapse. So keep a show of strength and invent other funders. Or create a business plan showing that you can continue without their $$ (just at a smaller volume).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d0de6281da77f43b6d511b19cad05f9", "text": "\"Putting a dollar amount on the valuation of a start up business is an art form that often has very little at all to do with any real numbers and more to do with your \"\"salesman\"\" abilities when talking with the VC. That said, there are a few starting points: First is past sales, the cost of those sales and a (hopefully) realistic growth curve. However, you don't have that so this gets harder. Do you have any actual assets? Machinery, computers, desks, patents, etc. Things that you actually own. If so, then add those in. If this is a software start-up, \"\"code\"\" is an asset, but without sales it's incredibly hard to put a value on it. The best I've come up with is \"\"How much would it cost for someone else to build it .. after they've seen yours\"\". Yes, you may have spent 5,000 hours building something but could someone else duplicate it, or at least the major parts, in 200 hours after seeing a demo? Use the lower number. If I was you, I'd look hard at my business plan. Hopefully you were as honest as you can be when writing it (and that it is as researched as possible). What is it going to take to get that first sale? What do you actually need to get there? (hint: your logo on the side of a building is NOT a necessary expense. Nor is really nice office space.) Once you have that first sale, what is the second going to take? Can you extrapolate out to 3 years? How many key members are there? How much is their contribution worth? At what point will you be profitable? Next is to look at risks. You haven't done this before, that's huge - I'm assuming simply because you asked this question. Another is competitors - hopefully they already exist because opening a new market is incredibly hard and expensive; on the flip side, hopefully there aren't that many because entering a crowded market is equally hard and expensive. Note: each are possible, but take radically different approaches and sums of money - and $200k isn't going to cut it no matter what it is you are selling. That said, competition should be able to at least point you in the direction of a price point and estimate for how long sales take. If any are publicly traded then you have additional info to help you set a valuation. Are there any potential regulatory or legal issues? What happens if a key member leaves, dies or is otherwise no longer available? Insurance only helps so much if the one guy that knows everything literally gets run over. God help you if this person likes to go skydiving. I bring risks up because you will have to surmount them during this negotiation. For example, asking for $200k with zero hard assets, while trying to sell software to government agencies assuming a 3 week sales cycle will have you laughed at for naivety. Whereas asking for $10m in the same situation, with a team that has governmental sales experience would likely work. Another big question is exit strategy: do you intend to IPO or sell to a competitor or a business in a related category? If selling, do you have evidence that the target company actually buys others, and if so, how did those deals work out? What did they look for in order to buy? Exit strategy is HUGE to a VC and they will want to make several multiples of their money back in a relatively short amount of time. Can you realistically support that for how much you are asking for? If not then going through an Angel group would be better. They have similar questions, but very different expectations. The main thing is that no one knows what your business is worth because it is 100% unproven after 2 years and is therefore a huge financial risk. If the money you are asking for is to complete product development then that risk factor just went up radically as you aren't even talking about sales. If the money is purely for the sales channel, then it's likely not enough. However if you know what it's going to take to get that first sale and have at least an educated idea on how much it's going to cost to repeat that then you should have an idea for how much money you want. From there you need to decide how much of the business it is worth to you to give up in order to get that money and, voila, you have a \"\"pre money valuation\"\". The real trick will be to convince the VC that you are right (which takes research and a rock solid presentation) and negotiating from there. No matter what offer a small percentage of the business for the money you want and realize you'll likely give up much more than that. A few things you should know: usually by year 3 it's apparent if a start-up is going to work out or not. You're in year 2 with no sales. That doesn't look good unless you are building a physical product, have a competent team with hard experience doing this, have patents (at least filed), a proven test product, and (hopefully) have a few pre-orders and just need cash to deliver. Although in that situation, I'd probably tell you to ask your friends and family before talking to a VC. Even kickstarter.com would be better. $200k just isn't a lot of money and should be very easy to raise from Friends or Angels. If you can't then that speaks volumes to an institutional VC. A plus is having two or three people financially invested in the company; more than that is sometimes a problem while having only 1 is a red flag. If it's a web thing and you've been doing this for 2 years with zero sales and still need another $200k to complete it then I'd say you need to take a hard look at what you've built and take it to market right now. If you can't do that, then I'd say it might be time to abandon this idea and move on as you'll likely have to give up 80%+ to get that $200k and most VCs I've run into wouldn't bother at that level. Which begs the question: how did the conversation with the VC start? Did you approach them or did they approach you? If the latter, how did they even find out about you? Do they actually know anything about you or is this a fishing expedition? If the latter, then this is probably a complete waste of your time. The above is only a rough guide because at the end of the day something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay. $200k in cash is a tiny sum for most VCs, so without more information I have no clue why one would be interested in you. I put a number of hard questions and statements in here. I don't actually want you to answer me, those are for you to think about. Also, none of this shouldn't be taken as a discouragement, rather it should shock you into a realistic viewpoint and, hopefully, help you understand how others are going to see your baby. If the VC has done a bit of research and is actually interested in investing then they will bring up all the same things (and likely more) in order to convince you to give up a very large part of it. The question you have to ask yourself is: is it worth it? Sometimes it is, often it's not.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "558928c78899ad68b8aeab5a78e0a0e7", "text": "\"When the VC is asking what your Pre-Money Valuation is, he's asking what percentage of shares his $200,000 will buy. If you say your company is worth $800K, then after he puts the money in, it will be worth $1M, and he will own 20% of all shares – you'll still own the remainder. So when the VC is asking for a valuation, what he really wants to know is how much of your company he's going to own after he funds you. Determining your pre-money valuation, then, is a question of negotiation: how much money will you need, how likely are you to require more money later (and thus dilute the VC's shares, or give up more of your own shares), how likely is your business to survive, and how much money will it make if it does survive? It isn't about the actual value of your business right now, as much as it is \"\"how much work has gone into this, and how successful can it be?\"\" The value is going to be a bit higher than you expect, because the work is already done and you can get to market faster than someone else who hasn't started yet. VCs are often looking for long shots – they'll invest in 10 companies, and expect 7 to fail, 2 to be barely-profitable, and the last one to make hilarious amounts of money. A VC doesn't necessarily want 51% of your company (you'll probably lose motivation if you're not in charge), but they'll want as much as they can get otherwise.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "dc61bab52d0f73aaebd7179bee102155", "text": "You will probably never see it. The startup at some point may start issuing dividends to the shareholders (which would be the owners, including you if you are in fact getting equity), but that day may never come. If they hire others with this method, you'll likely lose even that 5% as more shares are created. Think of inflation that happens when government just prints more money. All notes effectively lose value. I wouldn't invest either, most startups fail. Don't work for free on the vague promise of some future compensation; you want a salary and benefits. Equity doesn't put food on your table.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "639bc6d80c441eae03aacc9b5ee99b53", "text": "Relative valuation is always my go to. Reason being i can make any company a buy or sell by changing assumptions such as growth rate, discount rate ect with a DCF. Still a great exercise to complete on all investments. Also an RV will help you pick the best out of the group (hopefully) rather than take a stance on whether you can actually predict the future inputs ( no one can)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62077bd6249e2f08079161e4588f0f94", "text": "\"Will the investment bank evaluate the worth of my company more than or less than 50 crs. Assuming the salvage value of the assets of 50 crs (meaning that's what you could sell them for to someone else), that would be the minimum value of your company (less any outstanding debts). There are many ways to calculate the \"\"value\"\" of a company, but the most common one is to look at the future potential for generating cash. The underwriters will look at what your current cash flow projections are, and what they will be when you invest the proceeds from the public offering back into the company. That will then be used to determine the total value of the company, and in turn the value of the portion that you are taking public. And what will be the owner’s share in the resulting public company? That's completely up to you. You're essentially selling a part of the company in order to bring cash in, presumably to invest in assets that will generate more cash in the future. If you want to keep complete control of the company, then you'll want to sell less than 50% of the company, otherwise you can sell as much or as little as you want.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d14fb27da79fc6cbf91391e62d5f4610", "text": "Ok so I used Excel solver for this but it's on the right track. Latest price = $77.19 Latest div = $1.50 3-yr div growth = 28% g = ??? rs = 14% So we'll grow out the dividend 3 years @ 28%, and then capitalize them into perpetuity using a cap rate of [rs - g], and take the NPV using the rs of 14%. We can set it up and then solve g assuming an NPV of the current share price of $77.19. So it should be: NPV = $77.19 = [$1.50 / (1+0.14)^0 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^1 / (1+0.14)^1 ] + ... + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 / (1+0.14)^3 ] + [$1.50 x (1+0.28)^3 x (1+g) / (0.14-g) / (1+0.14)^4 ] Which gives an implied g of a little under 9%. Let me know if this makes sense, and definitely check the work...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f70d373b1e48e9949d418ae128a1d8d9", "text": "You are wildly over-estimating your taxes. First, remember that your business expenses reduce your gross income. Second, remember that taxes are progressive, so your flat 35% only applies if you're already making a high salary that pushed you into the higher brackets of US and CA. I think the deeper problems are: 1) you are expecting a super early start-up (with no finished product) to pay you the same as a steady job, including health insurance, and 2) you are expecting Kickstarter to independently fund the venture. The best source of funding is yourself. If you believe in this venture and in your game design abilities, then pay for most of the costs out of your own savings. Cut your expenses to the extent you can. You may want to wander over to startups.SE to get more perspective and ideas on your business plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92ee9cadaa14d9d89f6ca7d5aaa4a99e", "text": "\"There are some assumptions which can be made in terms of the flexibility you have - I will start with the least flexible assumption and then move to more flexible assumptions. If you must put down a number 1, your go-to for this(\"\"Change the start period to 1\"\"), is pretty good, and it's used frequently for other divide-by-zero calculations like kda in a video game. The problem I have with '1' is that it doesn't allow you to handle various scales. Some problems are dealt with in thousands, some in fractions, and some in hundreds of millions. Therefore, you should change the start period to the smallest significantly measurable number you could reasonably have. Here, that would take your example 0 and 896 and give you an increase of 89,500%. It's not a great result, but it's the best you can hope for if you have to put down a number, and it allows you to keep some of the \"\"meaning in the change.\"\" If you absolutely must put something This is the assumption that most answers have taken - you can put down a symbol, a number with a notation, empty space, etc, but there is going to be a label somewhere called 'Growth' that will exist. I generally agree with what I've seen, particularly the answers from Benjamin Cuninghma and Nath. For the sake of preservation - those answers can be summarized as putting 'N/A' or '-', possibly with a footnote and asterisk. If you can avoid the measurement entirely The root of your question is \"\"What do my manager and investors expect to see?\"\" I think it's valuable to dig even further to \"\"What do my manager and investors really want to know?\"\". They want to know the state of their investment. Growth is often a good measurement of that state, but in cases where you are starting from zero or negative, it just doesn't tell you the right information. In these situations, you should avoid % growth, and instead talk in absolute terms which mention the time frame or starting state. For example:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a78f3c9169feacf67c5604a515ba24d", "text": "I am an instructor who teaches Financial Modeling courses to investment bankers in NYC. Looking at the model, I do not see anything wrong with it. There are just too many assumptions. I would rather use the Multiple Value for the Terminal Value calculation, but, it will not make any significant differences. Some more thoughts : a) The author has used text book method for valuation, but, everyone improvises the text book method, hence, subjective evaluations. b) Oil and Gas valuation is quite a deep subject and every time we create models, industry experts come and big time change the inputs. We have no indication that the model is tested by industry experts (O&amp;G Operations experts) c) For matured companies like ARAMCO, I would prefer the DCF model as used and then parb (adjust) using comparables. I do not see that it has been done in the model. d) In some cases, investment experts would rather use 3 stage DCF model (5 years, next 10 years, next 20 years or so). It makes the model pretty complex, but, provides more accuracy. e) The revenue taken in the calculation is flat, instead, he should have taken the data from past 10 years and modeled the fluctuations. f) One of the biggest challenges we have faced in this sector is the accounting method full cost of successful effort. High CAPEX only occurs in one of the methods and depending on the company's maturity level, people may use different methods. More on this method in this link -http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental-analysis/08/oil-gas.asp I am at wits to understand how the value will be more than 1 Trillion dollars in any case.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8399543fe9b611cc89a88cecf78f9c74", "text": "It's been awhile since my last finance course, so school me here: What is the market cap of a company actually supposed to represent? I get that it's the stock price X the # of shares, but what is that actually representing? Revenues? PV of all future revenues? PV of future cash flows? In any case, good write up. Valuation of tech stocks is quite the gambit, and you've done a good job of dissecting it for a layman.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c1a37f69c6b8f12b0d2791e85a1aaf9", "text": "\"Working for a lot of startups, I have seen this cycle. Really it has little to do with making the IPO look good because of number of employees, and is more about making the IPO look good because of planning for the future. Many times an IPO is released, it will be valued at $1.00 (made up) and the market will soar and spike. Now stock shares are valued at $3.00. Great. Till after the dust settles a bit, and stocks are valued at $0.85. This is \"\"normal\"\" and good. It would be better if the stocks ended a little higher than their initial value, but... such is life. Now the initial value of the stock is made up of basically the value of the company's assets, and employees are part of those assets and its earning power. They are also a liability, but that has less impact on initial value than assets. Sales right after IPO are based on how well a company will do. Part of that is growth. So it looks nicer to say: \"\"We have 500 employees and have been growing by 20% per month.\"\" than to say \"\"We have 100 employees\"\". In other words, before IPO, employees may be hired to make the company look like it is growing. They may be hired because the budget is projected based on expected growth and expected valuation. After IPO, you get a concrete number. You have your budget. It may be more than you thought, or it may be less. In our example, the real budget (from capital), is only 28% of the entire projected budget, and 85% of the initial value. It's time to make some budget cuts. Also, normally, there is a period of adjustment, company wide, as a company goes from VC funding, \"\"here, have as much money as you want\"\", to \"\"real world\"\" funding, with stricter limits and less wiggle room.\"", "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": "cf8488ef41130233fcc63a7b933a6fdf", "text": "So, the price-earnings ratio is price over earnings, easy enough. But obviously earnings are not static. In the case of a growing company, the earnings will be higher in the future. There will be extra earnings, above and beyond what the stock has right now. You should consider the future earnings in your estimate of what the company is worth now. One snag: Those extra earnings are future money. Future-money is an interesting thing, it's actually worth less than present-money- because of things like inflation, but also opportunity cost. So if you bought $100 in money that you'll have 20 years from now, you'd expect to pay less than $100. (The US government can sell you that money. It's called a Series EE Savings Bond and it would cost you $50. I think. Don't quote me on that, though, ask the Treasury.) So you can't compare future money with present-money directly, and you can't just add those dollars to the earnings . You need to compute a discount. That's what discounted cash-flow analysis is about: figuring out the future cash flow, and then discounting the future figuring out what it's worth now. The actual way you use the discount rate in your formula is a little scarier than simple division, though, because it involves discounting each year's earnings (in this case, someone has asserted a discount of 11% a year, and five years of earnings growth of 10%). Wikipedia gives us the formula for the value of the future cash flow: essentially adding all the future cash flows together, and then discounting them by a (compounded) rate. Please forgive me for not filling this formula out; I'm here for theory, not math. :)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d49d3b30cf6d71a768d8297d38ddcaf3", "text": "Hi all Started my MBA studies recently. We have a simulation project and I've taken the VP Finance Role as I didn't have much experience in this and wanted to learn more. Unfortunately I don't have accounting until next semester, so I'm trying to make up the cap with my career experience so far as an engineer + youtube tutorials. I built a discounted cashflow model. I'm trying to now determine the amount of loan to take in my first year of business. Basically the equity financing doesn't cover our first year capital expenditure, let alone any other costs. My question is how do I determine what an appropriate loan amount is to take. My first thoughts are enough to cover my capital expenses + 1st half of the year operating expenses before I start seeing a revenue. Right now my balance sheet would lead me to believe I have a 0.52 Debt Ratio and 1.23 Debt-to-Equity ratio. Is that ok?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1423a5b34e0ba05d007a623a2b02f8ec", "text": "To calculate you take the Price and divide it by the Earnings, or by the Sales, or by the Free Cash Flow. Most of these calculations are done for you on a lot of finance sites if the data is available. Such sites as Yahoo Finance and Google Finance as well as my personal favorite: Morningstar", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70591461ef9fce7e7b32b7b259bf14f6", "text": "The quant aspect '''''. This is the kind of math I was wondering if it existed, but now it sounds like it is much more complex in reality then optimizing by evaluating different cost of capital. Thank you for sharing", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e09e504da831f2a596ce992d0226259", "text": "\"For every buyer there is a seller. That rule refers to actual (historical) trades. It doesn't apply to \"\"wannabees.\"\" Suppose there are buyers for 2,000 shares and sellers for only 1,000 at a given price, P. Some of those buyers will raise their \"\"bid\"\" (the indication of the price they are willing to pay) above P so that the sellers of the 1000 shares will fill their orders first (\"\"sold to the highest bidder\"\"). The ones that don't do this will (probably) not get their orders filled. Suppose there are more sellers than buyers. Then some sellers will lower their \"\"offer\"\" price to attract buyers (and some sellers probably won't). At a low enough price, there will likely be a \"\"match\"\" between the total number of shares on sale, and shares on purchase orders.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
cf05d3d94c931a8436a317a39ac6afda
Passing money through a different account to avoid cash pay-in fees
[ { "docid": "969778faec1250232e0b31c8475c279d", "text": "\"Let me do the math. .6% * (not large) = really tiny. Since \"\"not large\"\" = \"\"small\"\" , etc. I suggest that even a small chance that you need to explain this to anyone in the future is a sign to avoid the risk. Yes, there are times that it's illegal. A real estate office may not deposit escrow funds into anything but a segregated escrow account. In your case, even if legal, it messes up 'the books' and can cost you more in grief than the 'tiny amount' saves you in cash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8d9a264811e3392550bcf41ffb67dda", "text": "buy a cashiers check with the cash (a CRT will be nec if over 10 K) and deposit the cashiers check", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3c9b27a19b0086ba941085e3b3ad0c19", "text": "\"A couple of thoughts and experiences (Germany/Italy): First of all, I recommend talking to the Belgian bank (and possibly to a Dutch bank of your choice). I have similar conditions for my German bank accounts. But even though they talk about it as salary account (\"\"Gehaltskonto\"\") all they really ask for is a monthly inflow of more than xxxx € - which can be satisfied with an automatic direct transfer (I have some money automatically circulating for this reason which \"\"earns\"\" about 4% p.a. by saving fees). In that case it may be a feasible way to have a Belgian and a Dutch bank account and set up some money circulation. Experiences working in Italy (some years ago, SEPA payments were kind of new and the debits weren't implemented then): My guess with your service providers is that they are allowed to offer you contracts that are bound to rather arbitrary payment conditions. After all, you probably can also get a prepaid phone or a contract with a bill that you can then pay by wire transfer - however, AFAIK they are allowed to offer discounts/ask fees for different payment methods. Just like there is no law that forces the store around your corner to accept credit cards or even large EUR denominations as long as they tell you so beforehand. AFAIK, there is EU regulation saying your bank isn't allowed to charge you more for wire transger to foreign country within the SEPA zone than a national wire transfer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70ea11dccd38402e5345271ba4ee0a4b", "text": "\"This seems like a risky setup. All it takes is one missed or delayed transfer for you to overdraw your \"\"savings\"\". There is a benefit to keeping your regular expenses and savings separate, and I can see some benefits in having multiple checking accounts depending on how you organize your finances, but I don't see a benefit to having a paycheck go to one account and all regular spending (and \"\"savings\"\") come from another. It requires some regular maintenance to transfer money over to use for regular spending. I suppose if you have a checking account that earns interest, but requires direct deposits, and a savings account that earns slightly higher interest you could squeeze out a bit, but it's probably not worth the effort these days unless you have a LOT of money going in and out. Also, it should not be easy to tap into savings, but your day-to-day spending should be very accessible. All those factors suggest (to me) that your paycheck should go into your regular spending account, and keep your savings separate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0389e0bb9a7c9040ef7f95f68c65875", "text": "You're buying the operations of firm A for $450, or 4.5x EBITDA. You're buying the operations of firm B for $500, or 5.0x EBITDA. You're paying a higher multiple for firm B. Of couse subtracting cash 'skews multiples' - but you need to pull it out. You're paying for a business' ability generate that EBITDA over time. Cash is a one-shot deal. You need to pull it out to get the value of what you're actually investing in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1ca559527a3ccb31f9c1ab11028626a", "text": "Margin accounts do not have the problem you are imagining, which is unique to cash accounts", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39a4b955470357e232d768b3ec2da7bb", "text": "\"Wells Fargo uses a service called clearXchange (update: it is now called Zelle) to do this transfer without an account number. This is the same service Bank of America uses, so when you configured your account to be linked to clearXchange, Wells Fargo customers can use it the same way Bank of America customers can. This also applies to Chase bank. Since your bank is a member, they've integrated the service into your online bill pay: If your bank is a clearXchange member, you will need to use your current online or mobile banking service to send and receive payments. If you hadn't previously configured it through BofA, you'd have been taken to their site to register an account in order to receive the money, it seems. They explicitly point out here that they will automatically deposit any money you receive through their service without your having to \"\"accept\"\" the payment like you would from other P2P pay services. If you don't want to use this service anymore, I suggest contacting your bank, but if they can't or won't help you, you can contact clearXchange customer service to have your account closed.\"", "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": "73263b07ceab7ff831dd179b39735b74", "text": "Atm machine and my Credit Union account. Low fees (often zero, if the machine is on any of the same networks) and decent exchange rate, and no need to carry cash or traveler's checks to be exchanged. Alternatively, pay by credit card, though there is a foreign transaction fee on that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fb5f84f227bcf9ce8d5c1fe5e39467d", "text": "\"I added \"\"Shared money in account\"\" (SMIA) as sub-account of my bank checking (CA) account and moved current difference to that account so total of CA was not changed but now private and shared money is separated. My cases would be handled the following The only downside I see is that now my balance in CA transaction log do not match exactly with bank so reconciliation will be slightly harder.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91c1e5a7cf791b995eb94817024b8a20", "text": "\"It's possible to cash cheques by post. When I did this, it involved filling out a \"\"paying-in slip\"\" (I had a book of these provided by the bank) and posting the cheque together with the slip to an address provided by the bank. You could also bring the paying-in slip and the cheque to a branch and deposit them there, and it wasn't necessary that you were the account holder, just that the details on the slip matched the account you were paying into. I Googled \"\"paying-in slip\"\" and found the instructions for HSBC as an example: Paying-In Slips. It explicitly mentions that you don't need to be the account holder to do this, and moreover there are even blank slips in the branch, which you just need to fill in with the correct account details. I think the procedure is much the same for other banks, but presumably you could check the relevant bank's website for specific guidance.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b07f497cffd2218956e7aa65b10ae538", "text": "The simplest thing to do is still one of the oldest: Write a check. If you don't have a checking account, you can still probably enter the payment in your bank's online bill pay - In this case they will send him a paper check. There's an irrational desire these days to avoid checks at all costs, which I don't understand. There's a time and place for electronic transfers and there's no doubt they're often very useful. This is probably not one of those cases, however, since neither you nor your friend are set up for it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14ab055436f15aed3e2ca0ee8ecd6fcf", "text": "The bottom line is to keep most of your money in accounts with no check privileges and to not give the account numbers for these accounts to anyone. Keep just enough in your checking account for the checks you are going to write.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8fefe41a09a3c3baf58db957de491f60", "text": "\"I am not a lawyer, but I can't think of a reason this is illegal (something that would be illegal would be to \"\"trade with yourself\"\" across the accounts to try to manipulate stock or option prices). I don't think you're \"\"funneling,\"\" you're doing \"\"asset location\"\" which is a standard tax planning strategy. http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=154126&t1=1303874170 discusses asset location. I'd be more concerned about whether it makes sense.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8aca39fe525a0570bb5efbd0fec8dd19", "text": "\"Another option is to set up an accoutn with Western Union Bill Payment Solutions, where your customer could go to one of their locations and pay in cash and then the cash is transferred to your account. See \"\"Walk in Cash Payments\"\" on their site.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8c4ae8966c19697d96576190b6a9ba8", "text": "Do you have direct deposit of your paycheck? If so, almost every employer will allow you to split the paycheck into two accounts. You could open one account for savings, and one for spending. Put $x from each paycheck into the savings account, and the rest into the spending account. Keep the savings account totally separate, with its own ATM card. There should be no way to get money out of this account except by using the SEPARATE ATM card. Now, get a dish of water. Put the ATM card in the dish of water. Put the dish of water in the freezer. If you are ever tempted to spend your savings, you'll have to wait for the block of ice to defrost. Hopefully, while the ice is defrosting, the urge to waste money will pass :)", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
254b83fd3be107b82b4926a3a2116cbd
Using a FOREX platform to actually change money
[ { "docid": "bc53a3856d0f7baf0a4ed7744243a7f5", "text": "\"FX trading platforms are not used for exchanging money, they are used for trading currencies. \"\"I know there are cheaper services like transferwise, charging about 0.5 %, but there is little/no control over the exchange rate, you just get the rate at the time of execution.\"\" With FX trading you don't have control of the exchange rate either, just like the share market, FX markets are determined by supply and demand of one currency over an other. So an individual does not have control over the exchange rate but will just get the rate at the time of the trade being executed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68e8dd4cb04f33ac12a48e82504d96dc", "text": "If you wanted to spend money in another country, a specialist credit card would be the most cost-effective way. Near-spot exchange rate, zero-loading, no/low ATM fees. Likewise a pre-paid debit card would also allow for money transfer across borders. If this is the right situation, FOREX trading platforms are overkill to achieve a valid solution.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "1cfa763eb7329a1cea601b1c91dda9c7", "text": "\"In short, yes. By \"\"forward selling\"\", you enter into a futures contract by which you agree to trade Euros for dollars (US or Singapore) at a set rate agreed to by both parties, at some future time. You are basically making a bet; you think that the dollar will gain on the Euro and thus you'd pay a higher rate on the spot than you've locked in with the future. The other party to the contract is betting against you; he thinks the dollar will weaken, and so the dollars he'll sell you will be worth less than the Euros he gets for them at the agreed rate. Now, in a traditional futures contract, you are obligated to execute it, whether it ends up good or bad for you. You can, to avoid this, buy an \"\"option\"\". By buying the option, you pay the other party to the deal for the right to say \"\"no, thanks\"\". That way, if the dollar weakens and you'd rather pay spot price at time of delivery, you simply let the contract expire un-executed. The tradeoff is that options cost money up-front which is now sunk; whether you exercise the option or not, the other party gets the option price. That basically creates a \"\"point spread\"\"; you \"\"win\"\" if the dollar appreciates against the Euro enough that you still save money even after buying the option, or if the dollar depreciates against the Euro enough that again you still save money after subtracting the option price, while you \"\"lose\"\" if the exchange rates are close enough to what was agreed on that it cost you more to buy the option than you gained by being able to choose to use it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68307d5be9ffcdcde08545453139e73a", "text": "\"Buying physical gold: bad idea; you take on liquidity risk. Putting all your money in a German bank account: bad idea; you still do not escape Euro risk. Putting all your money in USD: bad idea; we have terrible, terrible fiscal problems here at home and they're invisible right now because we're in an election year. The only artificially \"\"cheap\"\" thing that is well-managed in your part of the world is the Swiss Franc (CHF). They push it down artificially, but no government has the power to fight a market forever. They'll eventually run out of options and have to let the CHF rise in value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71e219616902d8413d4e308625b6c570", "text": "The only advantage of changing all your money now to the new currency is that you might get a better conversion rate now than later, so you get more of the new currency and you may pay a lower percentage fee for changing a larger sum of money. However, regarding the better conversion rate - you will not know this except with hindsight. The disadvantage of changing all at once is that if you have changed too much and need to change back to your own currency or a third currency, you will be charged fees and lose on the conversion rate twice. If you know how long you are going to be in the new country, say 12 months, maybe start by converting an amount you think you will be spending in a month. If you spend more then you can change a bit more the next month, or if you spend less change less the next month. If you find you are spending similar amounts for the next month or so, then you can budget on the amount you may be spending for the remainder of your stay and then convert this amount over. If you have a little left over at the end of your stay maybe reward yourself with something or buy a present for someone special back at home. If you need a little more, just convert this amount in the last month or so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9baaf39656cae04a080059718b623e3a", "text": "Actually, yes. Two parties can write a contract and specify how money will change hands, it's called a swap. It's not unusual to write a contract that mimics an existing financial instrument. However, there are disadvantages to both sides to trading a swap rather than a more standard, liquid instrument, so usually it won't happen unless there's an excellent reason.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac0ce3b2e0c026f80b68a29b373f2481", "text": "Any time you are optimizing a portfolio, the right horizon to use for computing the statistics you will use for optimization (expected return, covariance, etc.) will be the same as your rebalance/trading frequency. If you expect your trading strategy to trade once a day, you should use daily data for optimization. Ditto for monthly or quarterly. If at all possible you should use statistics across the board that are computed at the same frequency as your trading. Regarding currency pricing, I see no reason you can't take the reported prices and convert them to whatever currency you want using that day's foriegn exchange rate. Foreign exchange rates are available for free at the Fed and elsewhere. Converting prices from one currency to another is not rocket science. Since you are contemplating putting actual money behind this, note that using data to compute statistics is less reliable for lower statistical moments. The mean (expected return) is the first moment, so using historical returns is extremely unreliable at predicting future returns. The variances and covariances are second moments, they are better. Skewness and kurtosis, yet better. The fact that the expected return can't reliably be estimated from past returns is the major downfall of the Markowitz method (resulting portfolios are often very crazy and will depend critically on the data period you use to set them up). There are approaches to fixing this, such as Black-Litterman's (1992) method, but they get complicated fast.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5488cb152533b6023509b909b183eec", "text": "If you're interested in slower scale changes, one option is to use indexes that value a common commodity in different currencies such as the Big Mac Index. If a Big Mac costs more in AUD but stays the same in USD, then AUD have gone up.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "170473bd8e884ff4f8835a20e2c6cc1b", "text": "Disregarding leverage and things alike, I would like to know what's the difference between opening a position in Forex on a pair through a broker, for example, and effectively buy some currency in a traditional bank-to-bank transition The forex account may pay or charge you interest whereas converting your currency directly will not. Disregarding leverage, the difference would be interest.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eda543db876b5d150a730688db867bef", "text": "This is called currency speculation, and it's one of the more risky forms of investing. Unless you have a crystal ball that tells you the Euro will move up (or down) relative to the Dollar, it's purely speculation, even if it seems like it's on an upswing. You have to remember that the people who are speculating (professionally) on currency are the reason that the amount changed, and it's because something caused them to believe the correct value is the current one - not another value in one direction or the other. This is not to say people don't make money on currency speculation; but unless you're a professional investor, who has a very good understanding of why currencies move one way or the other, or know someone who is (and gives free advice!), it's not a particularly good idea to engage in it - while stock trading is typically win-win, currency speculation is always zero-sum. That said, you could hedge your funds at this point (or any other) by keeping some money in both accounts - that is often safer than having all in one or the other, as you will tend to break even when one falls against the other, and not suffer significant losses if one or the other has a major downturn.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8331b83bbbd50d34c1de1b1590da0a5", "text": "The currency market, more often referred as Forex or FX, is the decentralized market through which the currencies are exchanged. To trade currencies, you have to go through a broker or an ECN. There are a lot's of them, you can find a (small) list of brokers here on Forex Factory. They will allow you to take very simple position on currencies. For example, you can buy EUR/USD. By doing so, you will make money if the EUR/USD rate goes up (ie: Euro getting stronger against the US dollar) and lose money if the EUR/USD rate goes down (ie: US dollar getting stronger against the Euro). In reality, when you are doing such transaction the broker: borrows USD, sell it to buy EUR, and place it into an Euro account. They will charge you the interest rate on the borrowed currency (USD) and gives you the interest and the bought currency (EUR). So, if you bought a currency with high interest rate against one with low interest rate, you will gain the interest rate differential. But if you sold, you will lose the differential. The fees from the brokers are likely to be included in the prices at which you buy and sell currencies and in the interest rates that they will charge/give you. They are also likely to gives you big leverage to invest far more than the money that you deposited in their accounts. Now, about how to make money out of this market... that's speculation, there are no sure gains about it. And telling you what you should do is purely subjective. But, the Forex market, as any market, is directed by the law of supply and demand. Amongst what impacts supply and demands there are: Also, and I don't want to judge your friends, but from experience, peoples are likely to tell you about their winning transaction and not about their loosing ones.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4bebec0aa0906edd17ddf97af3fa375b", "text": "What is the point of this? Can't I achieve the exact same effect and outcome by exchanging currency now and put that amount of USD in a bank account to gain some interest, then make the payment from one year from now? This is for companies, not individuals. Companies usually take loans, because they think they can make more money (e.g. 10%*) than the interest on the loan (e.g. 5%*). Putting money on a bank account to earn interest there would give them even less (e.g. 1%*). So with your option, instead of earning 10%* interest, they'd earn 1%* interest. If the cost of the currency forward is less than these 9%* difference, the forward saves them money. If they have excess cash and they don't know how to invest that money, your option may be preferable *Simple numbers chosen for simplicity, not accuracy.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a41efbee5c826099835787e354a813b0", "text": "I just tried doing that on my PP which is in the Netherlands, I have added a USD bank account (from my dutch bank) and they sent the verification amount in Euros, I called the bank and wonder why they didn't let me choose account currency they said it's not possible and if I cashout Dollars that I have in my PP (cause we usually do international business so we set it to dollars) it will be changed to Euros, So we decided to keep the dollars in account to pay our bills instead of getting ripped off by PayPal in xchange rates.", "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": "505ca7e221596c6b8fd0ab08c320d875", "text": "Your assumption that funds sold in GBP trade in GBP is incorrect. In general funds purchase their constituent stocks in the fund currency which may be different to the subscription currency. Where the subscription currency is different from the fund currency subscriptions are converted into the fund currency before the extra money is used to increase holdings. An ETF, on the other hand, does not take subscriptions directly but by creation (and redemption) of shares. The principle is the same however; monies received from creation of ETF shares are converted into the fund currency and then used to buy stock. This ensures that only one currency transaction is done. In your specific example the fund currency will be USD so your purchase of the shares (assuming there are no sellers and creation occurs) will be converted from GBP to USD and held in that currency in the fund. The fund then trades entirely in USD to avoid currency risk. When you want to sell your exposure (supposing redemption occurs) enough holdings required to redeem your money are sold to get cash in USD and then converted to GBP before paying you. This means that trading activity where there is no need to convert to GBP (or any other currency) does not incur currency conversion costs. In practice funds will always have some cash (or cash equivalents) on hand to pay out redemptions and will have an idea of the number and size of redemptions each calendar period so will use futures and swaps to mitigate FX risk. Where the same firm has two funds traded in different currencies with the same objectives it is likely that one is a wrapper for the other such that one simply converts the currency and buys the other currency denominated ETF. As these are exchange traded funds with a price in GBP the amount you pay for the ETF or gain on selling it is the price given and you will not have to consider currency exchange as that should be done internally as explained above. However, there can be a (temporary) arbitrage opportunity if the price in GBP does not reflect the price in USD and the exchange rate put together.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccef86861b5918e8ad02925f6b4ea9c4", "text": "Is there not some central service that tracks current currency rates that banks can use to get currency data? Sure. But this doesn't matter. All the central service can tell you is how much the rate was historically. But the banks/PayPal don't care about the historical value. They want to know the price that they'll pay when they get around to switching, not the last price before the switch. Beyond that, there is a transaction cost to switching. They have to pay the clearinghouse for managing the transaction. The banks can choose to act as a clearinghouse, but that increases their risk. If the bank has a large balance of US dollars but dollars are falling, then they end up eating that cost. They'll only take that risk if they think that they'll make more money that way. And in the end, they may have to go on the currency market anyway. If a European bank runs out of US dollars, they have to buy them on the open market. Or a US bank might run out of Euros. Or Yen. Etc. Another problem is that many of the currency transactions are small, but the overhead is fixed. If the bank has to pay $5 for every currency transaction, they won't even break even charging 3% on a $100 transaction. So they delay the actual transaction so that they can make more than one at a time. But then they have the risk that the currency value might change in the meantime. If they credit you with $97 in your account ($100 minus the 3% fee) but the price actually drops from $100 to $99, they're out the $1. They could do it the other way as well. You ask for a $100 transaction. They perform a $1000 transaction, of which they give you $97. Now they have $898 ($1000 minus the $5 they paid for the transaction plus the $3 they charged you for the transaction). If there's a 1% drop, they're out $10.98 ($8.98 in currency loss plus a net $2 in fees). This is why banks have money market accounts. So they have someone to manage these problems working twenty-four hours a day. But then they have to pay interest on those accounts, further eating into their profits. Along with paying a staff to monitor the currency markets and things that may affect them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9440f6a0c8c21dafac732d0fc850d408", "text": "It depends on the currency pair since it is much harder to move a liquid market like Fiber (EURUSD) or Cable (GBPUSD) than it is to move illiquid markets such as USDTRY, however, it will mostly be big banks and big hedge funds adjusting their positions or speculating (not just on the currency or market making but also speculating in foreign instruments). I once was involved in a one-off USD 56 million FX trade without which the hedge fund could not trade as its subscriptions were in a different currency to the fund currency. Although it was big by their standards it was small compared with the volumes we expected from other clients. Governments and big companies who need to pay costs in a foreign currency or receive income in one will also do this but less frequently and will almost always do this through a nominated bank (in the case of large firms). Because they need the foreign currency immediately; if you've ever tried to pay a bill in the US denominated in Dollars using Euros you'll know that they aren't widely accepted. So if I need to pay a large bill to a supplier in Dollars and all I have is Euros I may move the market. Similarly if I am trying to buy a large number of shares in a US company and all I have is Euros I'll lose the opportunity.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
481a406fcf33751d0ec1f9c7401035ea
Pay off debt with RRSPs, or refinance and roll into Mortgage?
[ { "docid": "fefb086a115dbe34d379a43b0cf32c8a", "text": "I would personally look at consolidating your debt at a lower interest rate by refinancing your mortgage. I would leave any retirement funds alone unless it was absolutely necessary to touch it with no other avenues available. However, once you have consolidated your debt into the mortgage I would pay more than the minimum amount so that you don't take too long to pay it off. I would put about 50% of the freed-up cash flow back into the repayments, that way you will be paying more debt off quicker and you will have additional cash flow to help your monthly budget. Another good point would be to go through your monthly budget to see if there is any expenses you could reduce or eliminate.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "64bf683b2cb764773bfa0664236dc782", "text": "Others have suggested paying off the student loan, mostly for the satisfaction of one less payment, but I suggest you do the math on how much interest you would save by paying early on each of the loans: When you do the calculations I think you'll see why paying toward the debt with the highest interest rate is almost always the best advice. Whether you can refinance the mortgage to a lower rate is a separate question, but the above calculation would still apply, just with different amortization schedules.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fef389da72a3933fc59fbc4e3eb5879", "text": "I concur that you should probably go with option 1. And that is coming from a guy that refinanced all three of his properties with down to 20% equity 3 years ago to lock in either 4% 30 year fixed or 2.75% 15 year mortgage. And I will not pay them off early because I do think I can do better than that in the market even if inflation is 0% for the next 30 years. Just imagine when the fed stops manipulating tax rates. I could be making more than 4% just in a checking account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0b313dc70955d4dd6322d735b89def0", "text": "Don't do it. I would sell one of my investment houses and use the equity to pay down your primary mortgage. Then I would refinance my primary mortgage in order to lower the payments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "40b175d270c74eeb9e2496161fcc45ec", "text": "\"In my opinion, you should pay off the student loans as soon as possible, before you start saving for the house downpayment. $26k is a big number, but you have a great salary. (Nice!) Up until now, you have been a poor college student, accustomed to a relatively low standard of living. Your $800 per month plan would have you pay off the loan in 3 years, but I would challenge you to pay off this entire student loan in 1 year or less. A monthly loan payment of $2226 will pay off your loan in 12 months. After that is done, if you take the same amount you had been paying toward your student loans and save it for your condo, in less than two years you'll have a 10% down payment saved ($50k). The whole thing will take less than three years. There are three reasons why I recommend paying off the loan first before saving for the condo: one is practical and two are philosophical. Practical: You will save money on interest. Paying off the loan in 1 year vs. 3 years will save you $1343. You won't find a short-term safe investment that will beat 5% in interest. Philosophical: The loan is something current and concrete that you can focus on. Your condo is a dream at this point, and there is lots of time to change your mind. If the $2k+ per month amount is at all a sacrifice for you, then in a few months, you might be tempted to say to yourself, \"\"This month I really want a vacation, so I'll just skip this month of saving.\"\" For the loan, however, if you establish a concrete goal of 12 months to pay off the loan, it will hopefully help motivate you to allocate this money and stick to your plan. Philosophical: Getting used to borrowing money, making payments to a bank, and paying interest is not a great way to live. It is better, in my opinion, to eliminate your debt as fast as possible and start getting accustomed to saving cash for what you want. Clean up your debt, and resolve not to borrow any more money except for a reasonably-sized mortgage on your home.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20a7959caf83fac45282eec3f792ae84", "text": "I can probably rent the house out for about $1,600. If sell now I can get 180k at the most. My mortgage will be $1,800 with tax and insurance. If I use the 180k to pay off the house, I can refinance the loan for a lower interest rate too. I think I know what I want to do but just need a second opinion. Thanks btw", "title": "" }, { "docid": "77e8a58ea457d1de62cdf902574ded7f", "text": "\"First to actually answer the question \"\"how long at these rates/payments?\"\"- These is nothing magic or nefarious about what the bank is doing. They add accrued interest and take your payment off the new total. I'd make higher payments to the 8.75% debt until it's gone, $100/mo extra and be done. The first debt, if you bump it to $50 will be paid in 147 months, at $75/mo, 92 months. Everything you pay above the minimum goes right to the principal balance and gets you closer to paying it off. The debt snowball is not the ideal way to pay off your debt. Say I have one 24% credit card the bank was nice enough to give me a $20,000 line of credit on. I also have 20 cards each with $1000 in credit, all at 6%. The snowball dictates that the smallest debt be paid first, so while I pay the minimum on the 24% card, the 6% cards get paid off one by one, but I'm supposed to feel good about the process, as I reduce the number of cards every few months. The correct way to line up debt is to pay off the (tax adjusted) highest rate first, as an extra $100 to the 24% card saves you $2/mo vs 50 cents/mo for the 6% cards. I wrote an article discussing the Debt Snowball which links to a calculator where you can see the difference in methods. I note that if the difference from lowest to highest rate is small, the Snowball method will only cost you a small amount more. If, by coincidence, the balances are close, the difference will also be small. The above aside, it's the rest of your situation that will tell you the right path for you. For example, a matched 401(k) deposit should take priority over most debt repayment. The $11,000 might be better conserved for a house downpayment as that $66/mo is student loan and won't count as the housing debt, rather \"\"other debt\"\" and part of the higher ratio when qualifying for the mortgage. If you already have taken this into account, by all means, pay off the 8.75% debt asap, then start paying off the 3% faster. Keep in mind, this is likely the lowest rate debt one can have and once paid off, you can't withdraw it again. So it's important to consider the big picture first. (Are you depositing to a retirement account? Is it a 401(k) and are you getting any matching from the company?)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e6c8a8bc66736ec4edd9e77be8941d3", "text": "You have a loan. You can probably assume you're going to have to repay that loan, every dollar. And every dollar that's outstanding on that loan costs you interest. So assuming you're not hit by any pre-payment penalty, any dollar that you pay down on your house right now saves you a compounded R% a year, where R is your mortgage rate. It doesn't really matter whether you're planning to sell it in a few years or not. If you pay $N, you'll save the interest + $N taken from the sale price and sent to the bank when you sell the house and move (though you might get a tax deduction on the interest). If you have a better place to park your money and earn a decent rate of return, it would be worth it to do that instead of paying down the mortgage. If you had another loan with higher interest rates, that's probably a better loan to pay off. If you can spend some of all of it on something that's actually genuinely worth R% of its purchase price a year (plus whatever the wear and tear takes away from its value, if anything) then spend it on that instead; that'd be a better investment. (For instance, investments in the stock market may offer better returns. However, that's risky! Observe that you can't lose money paying down your mortgage, and that Safety is usually relatively expensive these days, so it's not a bad deal. But if you're talking about using it for long-term retirement savings that are tax-advantaged to boot, that's another matter.) If you already have ample emergency funds and were just planning on putting the money into a savings account to rot at ~1.35% taxable interest, it's definitely worth it to pay down your balance now, unless you're about to sell (so the savings are slight) and it's a real inconvenience.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b0539898150b5e673be097df180a33b", "text": "As far as the RRSP goes, see my answer in self directed RRSP for a non resident Don't forget to file your FBAR and form 8938, if applicable. -Jon", "title": "" }, { "docid": "415cfe9c6e1ba63151cdb3c932fb13c4", "text": "The bit I don't quite understand is why you are thinking about staying in debt in the first place - you're basically thinking about shuffling around assets and liabilities in order to stay in debt? I think what I would do in your situation is to liquidate enough of the investments you have and pay off the mortgage. This doesn't change your net worth position less the fees etc that you might incur, but it'll save you the interest for the mortgage over the remaining term of your mortgage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5de97a1bc0bbdec7f2e311fbfba9d0bd", "text": "\"Be careful that pride is not getting in the way of making a good decision. As it stands now what difference does it make to have 200K worth of debt and a 200K house or 225K of debt and a 250K house? Sure you would have a 25K higher net worth, but is that really important? Some may even argue that such an increase is not real as equity in primary residence might not be a good indication of wealth. While there is nothing wrong with sitting down with a banker, most are likely to see your scheme as dubious. Home improvements rarely have a 100% ROI and almost never have a 200% ROI, I'd say you'd be pretty lucky to get a 65% ROI. That is not to say they will deny you. The banks are in the business of lending money, and have the goal of taking as much of your hard earned paycheck as possible. They are always looking to \"\"sheer the sheep\"\". Why not take a more systematic approach to improving your home? Save up and pay cash as these don't seem to cause significant discomfort. With that size budget and some elbow grease you can probably get these all done in three years. So in three years you'll have about 192K in debt and a home worth 250K or more.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf79dde3dc875f2fbf63f83f73b19f09", "text": "See my recent answer to a similar question on prepaying a mortgage versus investing in IRA. The issue here is similar: you want to compare the relative rates of funding your retirement account versus paying down your debt. If you can invest at a better rate than you are paying on your debt, with similar risk, then you should invest. Otherwise, pay down your debt. The big difference with your situation is that you have a variable rate loan, so there's a significant risk that the rate on it will go up. If I was in your shoes, I would do the following: But that's me. If you're more debt-averse, you may decide to prepay that fixed rate loan too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f07974bd886b6e8108387019411c35ff", "text": "It really depends on your taxable income. If you are in a higher tax bracket and expect to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement, the RRSP is probably your best bet. If, however, you are in a low tax bracket now, then it might be best to start with your TFSA. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c853961074fd36f608ef0fb10f40b4a", "text": "Paying off debts will reduce your monthly obligation to creditors (less risk) and also remove the possibility of foreclosure / repossession / lawsuit if you ever lost access to income (less risk). Risk is an important part of the equation that can get overlooked. It sounds like pulling that money out of the market will reduce your yearly tax bill as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0933048f289c21eb3a5c4a85958f3908", "text": "\"Understand your own risk tolerance and discipline. From Moneychimp we can see different market results - This is a 15 year span, containing what was arguably one of the most awful decades going. A full 10 year period with a negative return. Yet, the 15 year return was a 6.65% CAGR. You'd net 5.65% after long term cap gains. Your mortgage is likely costing ~4% or 3% after tax (This is not applicable to my Canadian friends, I understand you don't deduct interest). In my not so humble opinion, I'd pay off the highest rate debts first (unlike The David followers who are happy to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in 0% interest debt before the large 18% debt) and invest at the highest rate I'd get long term. The problem is knowing when to flip from one to the other. Here's food for thought - The David insists on his use of the 12% long term market return. The last 100 years have had an average 11.96% return, but you can't spend average, the CAGR, the real compound rate was 10.06%. Why would he recommend paying off a sub 3% loan while using 12% for his long term planning (All my David remarks are not applicable to Canadian members, you all probably know better than to listen to US entertainers)? I am retired, and put my money where my mouth is. The $200K I still owe on my mortgage is offset by over $400K in my 401(k). The money went in at 25%/28% pretax, has grown over these past 20 years, and comes out at 15% to pay my mortgage each month. No regrets. Anyone starting out now, and taking a 30 year mortgage, but putting the delta to a 15 year mortgage payment into their 401(k) is nearly certain to have far more in the retirement account 15 years hence than their remaining balance on the loan, even after taxes are considered. Even more if this money helps them to get the full matching, which too many miss. All that said, keep in mind, the market is likely to see a correction or two in the next 15 years, one of which may be painful. If that would keep you up at night, don't listen to me. If a fixed return of 4% seems more appealing than a 10% return with a 15% standard deviation, pay the mortgage first. Last - if you have a paid off house but no job, the town still wants its property tax, and the utilities still need to be paid. If you lose your job with $400K in your 401(k)/IRA but have a $200K mortgage, you have a lot of time to find a new job or sell the house with little pressure from the debt collectors. (To answer the question in advance - \"\"Joe, at what mortgage rate do you pay it off first?\"\" Good question. I'd deposit to my 401(k) to grab matching deposits first, and then if the mortgage was anywhere north of 6%, prioritize that. This would keep my chances at near 100% of coming out ahead.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "363fd94950f22e0134aa2f2d5c7b54b6", "text": "So if I understand your plan right, this will be your situation after the house is bought: Total Debt: 645,000 Here's what I would do: Wait until your house sells before buying a new one. That way you can take the equity from that sale and apply it towards the down payment rather than taking a loan on your retirement account. If something happens and your house doesn't sell for as mush as you think it will, you'll lose out on the gains from the amount you borrow, which will more than offset the interest you are paying yourself. AT WORST, pay off the 401(k) loan the instant your sale closes. Take as much of the remaining equity as you can and start paying down student loans. There are several reasons why they are a higher priority than a mortgage - some are mathematical, some are not. Should I look to pay off student loans sooner (even if I refi at a lower rate of 3.5% or so), or the mortgage earlier ... My thoughts are that the student loans follow me for life, but I can always sell and buy another home So you want this baggage for the rest of your life? How liberating will it be when you get that off your back? How much investing are you missing out on because of student loan payments? What happens if you get lose your license? What if you become disabled? Student loans are not bankruptable, but you can always sell the asset behind a mortgage or car loan. They are worse than credit card debt in that sense. You have no tangible asset behind it and no option for forgiveness (unless you decide to practice in a high-need area, but I don't get the sense that that's your path). The difference in interest is generally only a few payment' worth over 15 years. Is the interest amortized the same as a 15 year if I pay a 30 year mortgage in 15 years? Yes, however the temptation to just pay it off over 30 years is still there. How often will you decide that a bigger car payment, or a vacation, or something else is more important? With a 15-year note you lock in a plan and stick to it. Some other options:", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3bce6e2c511d49609f57014e69899d14
How to send money across borders physically and inexpensively, but not via cash?
[ { "docid": "c9d6be6f0e86bffd710cc7970c6d52dc", "text": "Traveller's cheques. That's exactly what they were intended for. Their usage has dropped a lot since everyone can use ATMs in foreign countries, but they still exist.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c2dfe34ea55af11139b3dade5f2cb38", "text": "I assume the same criteria apply for this as your previous question. You want to physically transfer in excess of 50,000 USD multiple times a week and you want the transportation mechanism to be instant or very quick. I don't believe there is any option that won't raise serious red flags with the government entities you cross the boundaries of. Even a cheque, which a person in the comments of OP's question suggests, wouldn't be sufficient due to government regulation requiring banks to put holds on such large amounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8b4be8aad61a6ef44553bfbc86c5f17a", "text": "There are checks, international wire transfers (SWIFT), depending on country pair remittance services.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7b0abf889b5f4d92b0380f441a712a5d", "text": "A USD bank draft from any of the major Canadian banks is a good solution. They clear quickly in the U.S. I use them frequently and have never had a problem depositing them in a U.S. bank account. If you carry more than $10k across the border, even as a cheque, be sure to declare it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d75920d84097b33a1bc7c02b04354336", "text": "\"At this point, a great deal of the world's wealth exists only in electronic form, and just as you can write a check or pay by debit card and trust the banks will handle it, banks can conduct wire transfers\"\" through higher-level banking networks. In the US, when there is a need to convert physical money to electronic or vice versa, it is typically handled by armored car and armed guard transfer between a bank and the local Federal Reserve Bank office. Physical money is moved around only when necessary, and for as short a distance as possible, to the most secure facilities possible, to minimize risk. I can't vouch for how it's managed elsewhere in the world, where the networks and repository banks may not be as available. I would presume (I would hope!) that the same general concepts and approaches are followed.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1fdd4f09855ddcd6cdc153c4d6a7f45f", "text": "Beside standard Swift (which may be registered and checked for money laundering) there are the money transfer companies (Western Union) and the electronic currencies like bitcoin. Besides that is buying something very expensive (gold / diamonds) and sell them again a possibility to transport vast amount of value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b07f497cffd2218956e7aa65b10ae538", "text": "The simplest thing to do is still one of the oldest: Write a check. If you don't have a checking account, you can still probably enter the payment in your bank's online bill pay - In this case they will send him a paper check. There's an irrational desire these days to avoid checks at all costs, which I don't understand. There's a time and place for electronic transfers and there's no doubt they're often very useful. This is probably not one of those cases, however, since neither you nor your friend are set up for it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3191d2f454326a7859fc9d698b99996f", "text": "I would imagine that a wire transfer would be the best way to transfer large amounts of money without the risk of carrying cash or dealing with plastic.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d09b3d9cf7ceb80f318ecff449b2bfb", "text": "You can use a service like Transferwise to send money. The trick is that they allow sending money to yourself, from a GBP account to an EUR account, effectively making it an exchange shop. Their rates are usually very good, with the transfers happening on the same day most of the time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "259c8a36df993034b5efd5360444ceb7", "text": "Maintain your U.S. bank accounts. Use xe.com to transfer money back and forth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e4be9577a4007b8e6fa6001cd6834502", "text": "This question was asked three years ago, but now that it's 2017 there is actually a relatively easy, cheap and fast solution to at least the first half of your question. To cash the check: I've done this a half dozen times while abroad (from the US) without any problems.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b775389adcd94bfb236015feb4f12193", "text": "I've spoken with a number of expatriates in Canada and Canadian bankers over the past few days. Here's what I've been able to piece together. This was surprising to me. As I understand it, the only sure-fire way to wire transfer funds from an arbitrary bank to another arbitrary bank on a different continent on the first try is by using the IBAN number of the destination account. IBAN seems to be the only account number format that is anywhere close to a worldwide standard. If the destination account does not have an IBAN number (like those in Canada and USA), then you rely on a degree of wisdom on the part of the sending bank(er) to format your numbers (account/institution/transit/etc) in such a way that the transfer successfully reaches the destination account. If any given sending bank has not sent funds to another given non-IBAN bank recently, then there is an element of uncertainty as to how the destination account's numbers have to be entered into the sending bank's system. The de facto practice seems to be to develop the wisdom of what works and what doesn't by attempting to transfer small sums until they succeed. Then the sending bank uses the exact same method to transfer the large sum as they used for the small sum that succeeded. It seems like there are some things you can do pro-actively increase your odds that a wire transfer to a non-IBAN account will succeed. Ultimately you want to provide four different pieces of information that are especially important for non-IBAN wire transfers: All of your numbers in all applicable compositions - Wire transfer number formats are often actually multiple fundamental numbers that are concatenated, prefixed, and suffixed. I suspect that some wire transfer senders actually need to enter the fundamental numbers separately or in different compositions. Suppose the sending bank needs, for example, the institution identifer. The ABA routing number does contain, among other things, the institution identifier. However, you should provide the institution number separately in your wire transfer instructions because the sending bank might need the institution number and will probably have no idea how to extract it from the ABA routing number. For Canada, I think the number you should provide are as follows:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3231246773240a1db631abc67e9a1df0", "text": "The best, cheapest and safe way is to wire transfer that money from their Bank Account to yours. Ask your bank about information regarding inbound international wire transfer and provide those details to your dad. About how much amounts can he do so : if the amount is more than $10K, you need to provide enough information about where the money is coming from, sources and other legal details. Whatever way you chose, never do transfers in small chunks (which is called structuring), to avoid the legal hassle - as that might result in more issues and every bank has checks in place to find out this way of structuring. I would suggest wire transfer all the money, through proper channel, through the banks. It's better to pay some fees, follow the law and live peacefully than to go through some improper channels to avoid paltry fees and get into serious issues.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0eea496577f21e08aba1c08f0120db3", "text": "\"I've been doing a bunch of Googling and reading since I first posed this question on travel.SE and I've found an article on a site called \"\"thefinancebuff.com\"\" with a very good comparison of costs as of September 2013: Get the Best Exchange Rate: Bank Wire, Xoom, XE Trade, Western Union, USForex, CurrencyFair by Harry Sit It compares the following methods: Their examples are for sending US$10,000 from the US to Canada and converting to Canadian dollars. CurrencyFair worked out the cheapest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6d60f4dba811af0fb506943dfa626a1", "text": "You could use: SWIFT transfer : ask your counterparty for his bank SWIFT code and beneficiary account numbers; you can do a SWIFT transfer to most countries from your Indian bank). You will need to fill a form where they ask you what you're transferring the money for, etc. Most Indian banks provide this facility. Western Union: I'm not sure if WU is in China, but they are very simple to use. Paypal: They charge heavy fees, but may be the fastest way to get your money across.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cefda8906aadf05eb9ff42cf1142e13b", "text": "Give a cheque. You can. Your friend would have to deposit this in a Bank that does this service. Not all Banks offer this service in US. It generally would take 1-3 months for the funds to reach. Give a dollar-denominated cheque You can NOT write check on a Rupee account and put USD. You can definitely buy a USD Draft generally payable in the US. There would be some charge for you here and send it by courier, post. It would get paid into your friends account in about a week. Do a SWIFT transfer Yes you can. You may need to walk into a Branch and fill up forms. If the amount is more than specified limit a CA certificate is required. Am I correct in understanding Yes Use my ATM card in the US Yes you can. Specialised money transfer services like Western Union Transfer money out of India is not allowed by Money Transfer services", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6de94ac78115627cd2b1b2bc786d5e8d", "text": "You can go to any Canada Post office and ask for their money-transfer services (they use a company called Money-gram). You can see more details here: http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/productsservices/shop/moneygrams.jsf At least to send money to Brazil and other south-american countries, it's the cheapest service I've found, and it's very reliable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "eb6c6796782b010ab2df31917602aebc", "text": "I am looking at size by revenue. Looking at market capitalization gives a much different list. I don't think market cap is a good metric for this discussion. According to market cap Telsa is the largest automotive company in the US, but that is because it is expected to do well in the future by the investment community. According to market cap what is reddit worth?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
9a7ad7c920939aa36c5b38589bc0542e
Opening offshore account from UK
[ { "docid": "956f5c8f52802256580ee4bf8cde3dd3", "text": "\"I think your best bet here would be HSBC. They will provide the required currencies, credit/debit cards, and very easy to use online banking transfers. This includes an online \"\"Global Account View\"\" which features all of your accounts on a single screen and allows you to \"\"drag and drop\"\" money between accounts. Regarding fees, I suspect you will need to be a \"\"Premier Account\"\" holder in order to avoid any fees imposed on transactions such as money transfers and exchanging money between currencies. In my experience HSBC offers extremely good exchange rates when exchanging \"\"large\"\" amounts of money ( greater than $10,000 / GBP 5,000 ). Exchanging small amounts will carry a larger spread but still much better than most banks offer. In my experience, exchanging GBP 5000 will have a spread of about 0.50-to-0.75 percent, while exchanging more than GBP10,000 will have a spread of as little as 0.10-to-0.20 percent. In order to qualify for a \"\"Premier Account\"\", if my memory of HSBC UK serves me correctly, you will need to have at least GBP 50,000 net across all of your HSBC managed accounts, including stockbroking and other investment accounts. In order to open a banking Swiss account, you will need to travel to Switzerland and apply in person. You cannot open a foreign bank account remotely. With a foreign investment account, I believe you can open accounts remotely. For example, I opened an account with Fidelity Switzerland using my Fidelity UK account directly from the UK, however obviously Fidelity does not provide banking services so this is not of interest to you. The simplest thing to do is to visit your local HSBC branch and discuss it with them in person. Other UK banks, such as Barclays, will also provide such services, but in my experience they are not as competitive on fees.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "ad3ff73b40335a18780563464d344851", "text": "Royal Bank in Canada can open an account for you in the US through RBC (the US affiliate to Royal Bank of Canada) I think it's called RBC Access USA.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fea2316fbdf92a6a9f2072df1000cf8", "text": "\"I am not sure about transferwise and how they work, but generally when I had to transfer money across countries, I ended up using a foreign currency/transfer company who needed the destination account details i.e. a GBP account in the UK in your case, and money from the source account. Basically that means your father would need to open an EUR account, probably in an EU country (is this an option?) but may be in the UK is fine too depending on transfer fees. And a GBP account in the UK, perhaps see if there is a better business account than HSBC around, I have used them as well as Santander before. The only FX transaction done in this straightforward set up is the one performed by the specialised company (there are a few) - and their spread (difference between interbank i.e. \"\"official\"\" and your price) is likely to be around 1.0 - 1.5%. The other expenses are transfer fees to the FX company account, say a flat fee of $25 for the SWIFT payment. The full amount less the spread above then goes to your UK GBP account. There are still the running costs of both EUR and GBP accounts of course, but here the advice would be just to shop around for offers/free banking periods etc. Point being, given the saving in FX conversion, it might still be a better overall deal than just letting HSBC deal with it all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5717dc64a0a7d6b53568555d1bbece24", "text": "Citizens of India who are not residents to India (have NRI status) are not entitled to have ordinary savings accounts in India. If you have such accounts (e.g. left them behind to support your family while you are abroad), they need to be converted to NRO (NonResident Ordinary) accounts as soon as possible. Your bank will have forms for completion of this process. Any interest that these accounts earn will be taxable income to you in India, and possibly in the U.K. too, though tax treaties (or Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements) generally allow you to claim credit for taxes paid to other countries. Now, with regard to your question, NRIs are entitled to make deposits into NRO accounts as well as NRE (NonResident External) accounts. The differences are that money deposited into an NRE account, though converted to Indian Rupees, can be converted back very easily to foreign currency if need be. However, the re-conversion is at the exchange rate then in effect, and you may well lose that 10% interest earned because of a change in exchange rate. Devaluation of the Indian Rupee as occurred several times in the past 70 years. Once upon a time, it was essentially impossible to take money in an NRO account and convert it to foreign currency, but under the new recently introduced schemes, money in an NRO account can also be converted to foreign currencies, but it needs certification by a CA, and various forms to be filled out, and thus is more hassle. interest earned by the money in an NRE account is not taxable income in India, but is taxable income in the U.K. There is no taxable event (neither in U.K. nor in India) when you change an ordinary savings account held in India into an NRO account, or when you deposit money from abroad into an NRE or NRO account in an Indian bank. What is taxable is the interest that you receive from the Indian bank. In the case of an NRO account, what is deposited into your NRO account is the interest earned less the (Indian) income tax (usually 20%) deducted at the source (TDS) and sent to the Income Tax Authority on your behalf. In the case of an NRE account, the full amount of interest earned is deposited into the NRE account -- no TDS whatsoever. It is your responsibility to declare these amounts to the U.K. income tax authority (HM Revenue?) and pay any taxes due. Finally, you say that you recently moved to the U.K. for a job. If this is a temporary job and you might be back in India very soon, all the above might not be applicable to you since you would not be classified as an NRI at all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bde6bba4256ec0b5dc1dad835b10a5c9", "text": "There are a few company they can help you open an offshore account. I searched and found rtrsupportslimited.com on another discussion forum. It is a company which does the exact same thing. I got my own company incorporation and bank account from them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2eb74f0ef6f1a3b3531f7f79a1a0b978", "text": "See this website. In my opinion you should physically exist there to open your account.The bank needs to fulfill all requirements such as checking your identity, taking your signatures for future transactions etc. However, there might be some exceptions as Banking industry works pretty much on personal relations and money power. Also check these links: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=722141 http://askville.amazon.com/open-bank-account-abroad/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=7004217 and http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r18761-.html", "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": "74d0fa61b92d8638efba87d10c7cae27", "text": "This taxation guide may be helpful in sorting out some of your questions. I'm not entirely versatile with UK tax, so my answer will stay broad. I think the answer may be to consult a professional advisor. You may become non-resident but remain UK domiciled. Everybody has exactly one domicile and it is essentially their permanent home (the place where they intend to one day return and live. The test is based on your intent - do you intend to return to the UK or do you intend to make another land your permanent home? Simply traveling about the world will not establish a new domicile for you. So you may owe some taxes on your worldwide income or capital gains while a UK-domiciled non-resident, as suggested here. If it helps, the UK tax residence rules are listed by HMRC online. If your business is a corporation, there's a different analysis. You may also want to refer to the UK-BVI tax treaty. HMRC offers a tax residence calculator to help sort your residence, if you plan to return often.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6208896a2c975207e5bd9acbc24275ec", "text": "If you don't want to hassle with opening an account (and don't mind going without insurance) there are currency ETF's that basically invest in euro money market accounts. Here's an example of one Not sure if the return would be as much as you'd get if you opened your own account and went for longer term instruments like a 12 month CD (I think the Euro MM rate is around 1.1% compared to 0.1% for the US). But since it trades like a stock you can do it without having to establish an account with an overseas bank.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7ed531fe60042d3bc1339c8a9319744", "text": "\"What options do I have to transfer money to UK from Pakistan ? You can do a SWIFT / International Wire. Most Banks in Pakistan will allow you to do this. Note: Pakistan still Manages Forex and it is not freely convertible. You would need to comply with Foreign Exchange Act. You have to fill Form \"\"M\"\" giving the details and purpose of remittance. In these 5 years they bought 2 properties on my name for me worth around £12000 x 2 = £24K, based on currency conversion rate of that time. You would need to pay capital gains on this sale in Pakistan. You would also need to declare this gain in UK and pay taxes accordingly. Some relief can be claimed under DTAA [Dual Tax Avoidance Agreement]\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22eb978738fd1c98a3ff89e48dc890fb", "text": "One way of looking at this (just expanding on my comment on Dheer's answer): If the funds were in EUR in Germany already and not in the UK, would you be choosing to move them to the UK (or a GBP denominated bank account) and engage in currency speculation, betting that the pound will improve? If you would... great, that's effectively exactly what you're doing: leave the money in GBP and hope the gamble pays off. But if you wouldn't do that, well you probably shouldn't be leaving the funds in GBP just because they originated there; bring them back to Germany and do whatever you'd do with them there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b5a5158de606e7e460cd70ae9d56b730", "text": "\"UPDATE: Unfortunately Citibank have removed the \"\"standard\"\" account option and you have to choose the \"\"plus\"\" account, which requires a minimum monthly deposit of 1800 sterling and two direct debits. Absolutely there is. I would highly recommend Citibank's Plus Current Account. It's a completely free bank account available to all UK residents. http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/bankingproducts/currentaccounts/sterling/plus/index.htm There are no monthly fees and no minimum balance requirements to maintain. Almost nobody in the UK has heard of it and I don't know why because it's extremely useful for anyone who travels or deals in foreign currency regularly. In one online application you can open a Sterling Current Account and Deposit Accounts in 10 other foreign currencies (When I opened mine around 3 years ago you could only open up to 7 (!) accounts at any one time). Citibank provide a Visa card, which you can link to any of your multi currency accounts via a phone call to their hotline (unfortunately not online, which frequently annoys me - but I guess you can't have everything). For USD and EUR you can use it as a Visa debit for USD/EUR purchases, for all other currencies you can't make debit card transactions but you can make ATM withdrawals without incurring an FX conversion. Best of all for your case, a free USD cheque book is also available: http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm You can fund the account in sterling and exchange to USD through online banking. The rates are not as good as you would get through an FX broker like xe.com but they're not terrible either. You can also fund the account by USD wire transfer, which is free to deposit at Citibank - but the bank you issue the payment from will likely charge a SWIFT fee so this might not be worth it unless the amount is large enough to justify the fee. If by any chance you have a Citibank account in the US, you can also make free USD transfers in/out of this account - subject to a daily limit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "791b9c92810949d5143fb8de3b0426a3", "text": "I am a US citizen by birth only. I left the US aged 6 weeks old and have never lived there. I am also a UK citizen but TD Waterhouse have just followed their policy and asked me to close my account under FATCA. It is a complete nightmare for dual nationals who have little or no US connection. IG.com seem to allow me to transfer my holdings so long as I steer clear of US investments. Furious with the US and would love to renounce citizenship but will have to pay $2500 or thereabouts to follow the US process. So much for Land of the Free!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "09b40b4aeb26d398776db60a4235aab8", "text": "This is an alternative solution and it will depend where you live as to how you will have to make it work. I am in the UK and there are a number of ways that I can use to access my money from anywhere in the world without high transaction fees. Internet banking takes care of everything else.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b61a88cbf1aeceb13ce3eab226c8f96f", "text": "Is there any chance of losing money in the account Assuming you are a Singapore citizen. The money is your's to claim. Note the account may go dormant [if you do not transact for a period] as per Bank's norms and they may charge a fees for such accounts.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39a433a84ddadd612b78e80c78d4808f", "text": "\"The UK has Islamic banks. I don't know whether Germany has the same or not (with a quick search I can find articles stating intentions to establish one, but not the results). Even if there's none in Germany, I assume that with some difficulty you could use banks elsewhere in the EU and even non-Euro-denominated. I can't recommend a specific provider or product (never used them and probably wouldn't offer recommendations on this site anyway), but they advertise savings accounts. I've found one using a web search that offers an \"\"expected profit rate\"\" of 1.9% for a 12 month fix, which is roughly comparable with \"\"typical\"\" cash savings products in pounds sterling. Typical to me I mean, not to you ;-) Naturally you'd want to look into the risk as well. Their definition of Halal might not precisely match yours, but I'm sure you can satisfy yourself by looking into the details. I've noticed for example a statement that the bank doesn't invest your money in tobacco or alcohol, which you don't give as a requirement but I'm going to guess wouldn't object to!\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3553a9b4af87328eeabd82e8adba1549
Why doesn't Graham consider gold as an investment?
[ { "docid": "b9cf1a9d3d8234f8adeeb92f3ab10905", "text": "\"During Graham's career, gold and currency were the same thing because of the gold standard. Graham did not advise investing in currencies, only in bonds and stocks, the latter only for intelligent speculation. Graham died a couple of years after Nixon closed the gold window, ending the gold standard. Gold may be thought of as a currency even today, as endowments and other investors use it as a store of value or for diversification of risks. However, currency or commodities investing does not seem Graham-like. How could you reliably estimate intrinsic value of a currency or commodity, so that you can have a Graham-like margin of safety after subtracting the intrinsic value from the market value? Saying that gold is \"\"clearly underpriced in today's market\"\" is just hand-waving. A Graham analysis such as \"\"net net\"\" (valuing stocks by their current tangible assets net of all liabilities) is a quantitative analysis of accounting numbers audited by CPAs and offers a true margin of safety.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0ff176eb7c422c1fc2cc9399e488d3c1", "text": "I think what the person meant to say is that Gold is not a one stop solution. There's nothing wrong with having Gold in an otherwise diversified portfolio but you need to be aware about the potential downsides: The problem with gold is that its value nowadays depends mainly on investor confidence, or the lack of it (actual demand for gold cannot explain the rise in value gold had after the crisis). If people are afraid the world and currencies with it will go to hell, the gold price will go up. Why? Because if currencies seize to exist, Gold will still be accepted. It can replace currencies. What many people tend to forget: let's consider the extreme example and currencies really cease to exist and all hell breaks lose. What good are gold bars at the bank, or even at home, for that matter? You'll be better off with gold coins to use in barter and to pay off marauders. But that's not about investing anymore, that's survivalism.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07ab45d648477b203edf198498035159", "text": "\"&gt;Because selling gold and buying dollars has an effect on the market: it reduces the value of gold, and increases the value of dollars. Ah, but with all the business you'd do in gold, you'd constantly be increasing the value of gold. Think of it! I'm pretty sure that most people want to be paid in dollars not simply because of the fact that their taxes have to be paid in it, but because of it's universality. Not everyone has a use for a sack of barley, or a fish, or some gold dust. But you can buy whatever you want with an amount of dollars. &gt;As the value of gold increases over time, the government taxes the increased value as \"\"capital gains tax\"\". It's only taxed at a 15.5% rate, IIRC. You'd probably come out ahead.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da970b33c88bfcf180ba2e428bd05130", "text": "\"There are gold index funds. I'm not sure what you mean by \"\"real gold\"\". If you mean you want to buy physical gold, you don't need to. The gold index funds will track the price of gold and will keep you from filling your basement up with gold bars. Gold index funds will buy gold and then issue shares for the gold they hold. You can then buy and sell these just like you would buy and sell any share. GLD and IAU are the ticker symbols of some of these funds. I think it is also worth pointing out that historically gold has a been a poor investment.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e982406e455a21ee8d4ffd1cd6d92687", "text": "The article fails to mention that if Paul has invested like this since the 1970s, in keeping with his long-held economic views, then he'd have lost in a big way. The gold bugs of the 70s got killed over the following two decades.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e99561df31a588a4c5bc1887c090010d", "text": "\"Invest in gold. Maybe will not \"\"make\"\" money but at least preserve the value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6772c658a9ce2de9ba987109f7782764", "text": "\"Gold may have some \"\"intrinsic value\"\" but it cannot be accurately determined by investors by any known valuation techniques. In fact, if you were to apply the dividend discount model of John Burr Williams - a variation of which is the basis of Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis and the basis of most valuation techniques - gold would have zero intrinsic value because it produces no cash flow. Legendary focus investor Warren Buffett argues that investing in gold is pure speculation because of the reason mentioned above. As others have mentioned, gold prices are affected by supply and demand, but the bigger influence on the price of gold is how the economy is. Gold is seen as a store of value because, according to some, it does not \"\"lose value\"\" unlike paper currency during inflation. In inflationary times, demand increases so gold prices do go up, which is why gold behaves similar to a commodity but has far less uses. It is difficult to argue whether or not gold gains or loses value because we can't determine the intrinsic value of gold, and anyone who attempts to justify any given price is pulling blinders over your eyes. It is indisputable that, over history, gold represents wealth and that in the past century and the last decade, gold prices rise in inflationary conditions as people dump dollars for gold, and it has fallen when the purchasing power of currency increases. Many investors have talked about a \"\"gold bubble\"\" by arguing that gold prices are inflated because of inflation and the Fed's money policy and that once interest rates rise, the money supply will contract and gold will fall, but again, nobody can say with any reasonable accuracy what the fair value of gold at any given point is. This article on seeking alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/112794-the-intrinsic-value-of-gold gives a quick overview, but it is also vague because gold can't be accurately priced. I wouldn't say that gold has zero intrinsic value because gold is not a business so traditional models are inappropriate, but I would say that gold *certainly * doesn't have a value of $1,500 and it's propped so high only because of investor expectation. In conclusion, I do not believe you can accurately state whether gold is undervalued or overvalued - you must make judgments based on what you think about the future of the market and of monetary policy, but there are too many variables to be accurate consistently.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53797b151ae0daf43edf5e83c4fc64bd", "text": "The problem I have with gold is that it's only worth what someone will pay you for it. To a degree that's true with any equity, but with a company there are other capital resources etc that provide a base value for the company, and generally a business model that generates income. Gold just sits there. it doesn't make products, it doesn't perform services, you can't eat it, and the main people making money off of it are the folks charging a not insubstantial commission to sell it to you, or buy it back. Sure it's used in small quantities for things like plating electrical contacts, dental work, shielding etc. But Industrial uses account for only 10% of consumption. Mostly it's just hoarded, either in the form of Jewelry (50%) or 'investment' (bullion/coins) 40%. Its value derives largely from rarity and other than the last few years, there's no track record of steady growth over time like the stock market or real-estate. Just look at what gold prices did between 10 to 30 years ago, I'm not sure it came anywhere near close to keeping pace with inflation during that time. If you look at the chart, you see a steady price until the US went off the gold standard in 1971, and rules regarding ownership and trading of gold were relaxed. There was a brief run up for a few years after that as the market 'found its level' as it were, and you really need to look from about 74 forward (which it experienced its first 'test' and demonstration of a 'supporting' price around 400/oz inflation adjusted. Then the price fluctuated largely between 800 to 400 per ounce (adjusted for inflation) for the next 30 years. (Other than a brief sympathetic 'Silver Tuesday' spike due to the Hunt Brothers manipulation of silver prices in 1980.) Not sure if there is any causality, but it is interesting to note that the recent 'runup' in price starts in 2000 at almost the same time the last country (the Swiss) went off the 'gold standard' and gold was no longer tied to any currency (or vise versa) If you bought in '75 as a hedge against inflation, you were DOWN, as much as 50% during much of the next 33 years. If you managed to buy at a 'low' the couple of times that gold was going down and found support around 400/oz (adjusted) then you were on average up slightly as much as a little over 50% (throwing out silver Tuesday) but then from about '98 through '05 had barely broken even. I personally view 'investments' in gold at this time as a speculation. Look at the history below, and ask yourself if buying today would more likely end up as buying in 1972 or 1975? (or gods forbid, 1980) Would you be taking advantage of a buying opportunity, or piling onto a bubble and end up buying at the high? Note from Joe - The article Demand and Supply adds to the discussion, and supports Chuck's answer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd8e5ca4888ff871a3b76ce481bb3bd5", "text": "\"First of all, bear in mind that there's no such thing as a risk-free investment. If you keep your money in the bank, you'll struggle to get a return that keeps up with inflation. The same is true for other \"\"safe\"\" investments like government bonds. Gold and silver are essentially completely speculative investments; over the years their price tends to vary quite wildly, so unless you really understand how those markets work you should steer well clear. They're certainly not low risk. Repeatedly buying a property to sell in a couple of years time is almost certainly a bad idea; you'll end up paying substantial transaction fees each time that would wipe out a lot of the possible profit, and of course there's always the risk that prices would go down not up. Buying a property to keep - and preferably live in - might be a decent option once you have a good deposit saved up. It's very hard to say where prices will go in future, on the one hand London prices are very high by historical standards, but on the other hand supply is likely to remain severely constrained for years to come. I tend to think of a house as something that I need one of for the rest of my life, and so in one sense not owning a house to live in is a gamble that house prices and rents won't go up substantially. If you own a house, you're insulated from changes in rent etc and even if prices crash at least you still have somewhere to live. However that argument only works really well if you expect to keep living in the same area under most circumstances - house prices might crash in your area but not elsewhere.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1780c956b6e79156a96d46a6b5e1ce97", "text": "\"Remind him that, over the long-term, investing in safe-only assets may actually be more risky than investing in stocks. Over the long-term, stocks have always outperformed almost every other asset class, and they are a rather inflation-proof investment. Dollars are not \"\"safe\"\"; due to inflation, currency exchange, etc., they have some volatility just like everything else.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "23b6f3349410a9cd46532acb781c86ea", "text": "The point of what you heard is likely that gold is thought by some to hold its value well, when the money market would provide negative interest rates. These negative interest rates are a sign of deflation, where cash money is worth more in the future than it is today. Normally, under inflation, cash money is worth less in the future than it is today. Under 'normal' circumstances where inflation exists, interest paid by the bank on money held there generally keeps up with inflation + a little bit extra. Now, we are seeing many banks offering interest rates in the negatives, which is an acknowledgement of the fact that money will be worth more in the future than it is today. So in that sense, holding physical gold 'fights' deflation [or, negative interest rates], in the same way that holding physical cash does [because if you hold onto a $10k bundle of bills, in 10 years you can walk into a bank and it will be worth $10k in future dollars - which in a deflationary market would be more than it is worth today]. Some view gold as being better at doing this than just holding cash, but that discussion gets into an analysis of the value of paper money as a currency, which is outside the scope of this answer. Suffice to say, I do not personally like the idea of buying gold as an investment, but some do, and partly for this reason.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "952ac70b676849106cfb5454fc5c0eba", "text": "He's made a profit on gold the same way you make money on any commodity, because demand (largely as an inflation hedge) has outpaced supply. It has nothing to do with using gold as a currency (which no one is doing.) I'm not saying gold can't have value as money, but that's not where we're at right now. Dollars are accepted to settle transactions all over the world, and inflation is negligible. A lot of speculators buying gold that sits in vaults is not the same thing as a return to specie based currency.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f82eef360c642b80cbd1041bd8dcd02", "text": "\"Gold is not an investment. Gold is a form of money. It and silver have been used as money much longer than paper. Paper money is a relatively recent invention (less than 350 years old) with a horrible track record of preserving wealth. When I exchange my paper US dollars for gold I'm exchanging one form of money for another. US dollars, or US Federal Reserve Notes to be more precise, can be printed ad nauseam by one bank that is totally private and is never audited. Keeping all of your savings in US dollars is ignoring history, it is believing the US Federal Reserve has your best interest in mind, it is hoping that somehow things will be different this time, it is believing that the US dollar will somehow magically be the first fiat currency to last a person's lifetime. TIPS may seem like a good hedge against inflation. However, the government offering TIPS is also the same government that is calculating the inflation rate used to adjust TIPS. What a great deal. If you do some research you discover that the method for calculating the consumer price index is always \"\"modified\"\" since it is always found to over estimate inflation. It is never found to under estimate inflation. Imagine that. Here is a chart showing the inflation rate as if it were calculated the same way as it was calculated in 1980. Buying any government debt is also a way to guarantee you or your children will be taxed in the future since the government will have to obtain the money from someone to pay back bonds. It's like voting for future taxes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f175d50b874cfd98fd91db1fb224437", "text": "\"I am reminded of a dozen year old dialog. I asked my 6 year old, \"\"If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?\"\" She replied, \"\"Four, you can call it anything you want, but the dog still has four legs.\"\" Early on in my marriage, my wife was heading out to the mall, and remarked that she was \"\"going to invest in a new pair of shoes.\"\" I explained to her that while I was happy she would have new shoes to wear, words have meaning, and unless she was going to buy the ruby red slippers Dorothy wore in the Wizard of Oz, or Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes, her's were not expected to rise in value and weren't an investment. Some discussion followed, and we agreed even the treadmill, which is now 20 years old, was not an 'investment' despite the fact that it saved us more than its cost in a combined 40 years of gym memberships we did not buy. In the end, no one who is financially savvy calls a lottery ticket an investment, and few who buy them acknowledge that it's simply throwing money away.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edf4fba292caeb83937280fef7ca1934", "text": "\"The general argument put forward by gold lovers isn't that you get the same gold per dollar (or dollars per ounce of gold), but that you get the same consumable product per ounce of gold. In other words the claim is that the inflation-adjusted price of gold is more-or-less constant. See zerohedge.com link for a chart of gold in 2010 GBP all the way from 1265. (\"\"In 2010 GBP\"\" means its an inflation adjusted chart.) As you can see there is plenty of fluctuation in there, but it just so happens that gold is worth about the same now as it was in 1265. See caseyresearch.com link for a series of anecdotes of the buying power of gold and silver going back some 3000 years. What this means to you: If you think the stock market is volatile and want to de-risk your holdings for the next 2 years, gold is just as risky If you want to invest some wealth such that it will be worth more (in real terms) when you take it out in 40 years time than today, the stock market has historically given better returns than gold If you want to put money aside, and it to not lose value, for a few hundred years, then gold might be a sensible place to store your wealth (as per comment from @Michael Kjörling) It might be possible to use gold as a partial hedge against the stock market, as the two supposedly have very low correlation\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "feb21810230b9f43fca6b46a596cab28", "text": "\"I am lucky enough to have chosen a flexible mortgage that allows me to change payment amounts at certain, very lenient intervals (to a minimum amount). So when I was laid off, the first thing I did was call my bank to lower my payments to a level that allowed me some breathing room, at my new, lower income. If and when my family's income increases, I'll re-adjust my payments to a higher amount. But if you're concerned about the \"\"what if\"\"s in this economy, I'd definitely choose a mortgage that allows for flexibility so that you don't lose your house if you don't have to, particularly if your situation is temporary.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
8b9b32d7f2bea1cb1f07706e6ce25446
Pre-valuation of the company
[ { "docid": "3045b540feb9f49fe398d1594def0733", "text": "The value of the company is ill-defined until it actually has some assets and/or product. You give the investors whatever equity stakes you and they negotiate as appropriate for their investment based on how convinced they are by your plan and how badly you need their money.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "2b91ea9ba00641d019c71d2986da2f19", "text": "the financial information is generally filed via SEDAR (Canada) or SEC (US) before the conference call with the investment community. This can take before either before the market opens or after the market closes. The information is generally distribute to the various newswire service and company website at the same time the filing is made with SEDAR/SEC.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "227085867cf45b9715b131058918dc42", "text": "Thank you very much for this thoughtful response. In my opinion the judges care more about the why behind your valuation rather than a how. Anyone can use a formula, but it takes so much more to understand why to use the formula. Personally, the 'why' is going to be the toughest part for me understand and wrap my head around. Once again thank you for the advice and the tip.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79c9faa04877ce178ce2d7046116d8ac", "text": "Lets say the hurdle rate for this company is 10% and the current return on assets is 8%. A linear increase in revenue and earnings would actually destroy some value as projects that have a 9% return are accepted even though they destroy value for the shareholder. hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81274911372a5638c5f3fdc2923a01e8", "text": "Yes, an investment can be made in a company before IPO. The valuation process is similar as that done for arriving at IPO or for a normal listed company. The difference may be the premium perceived for the idea in question. This would differ from one investor to other. For example, whether Facebook will be able to grow at the rate and generate enough revenues and win against competition is all a mathematical model based on projections. There are quite a few times the projection would go wrong, and quite a few times it would go correct. An individual investor cannot generally borrow from banks to invest into a company (listed or otherwise) (or for any other purpose) if he does not have any collateral that can be kept as security by the bank. An individual can get a loan only if he has sufficient collateral. The exceptions being small personal loans depending on one's credit history. The Private Equity placement arm of banks or firms in the business of private equity invest in start-up and most of the time make an educated guess based on their experience. More than half of their investments into start-ups end up as wiped out. An occasional one or two companies are ones that they make a windfall gain on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0656add052a98a8db4a16389833068c", "text": "Source, see if you have access to it Convertible notes are often used by angel investors who wish to fund businesses without establishing an explicit valuation of the company in which they are investing. When an investor purchases equity in a startup, the purchase price of the equity implies a company valuation. For example, if an investor purchases a 10 per cent ownership stake in a company, and pay $1m for that stake, this implies that the company is worth $10m. Some early stage investors may wish to avoid placing a value on the company in this way, because this in turn will affect the terms under which later-stage investors will invest in the company. Convertible notes are structured as loans at the time the investment is made. The outstanding balance of the loan is automatically converted to equity when a later equity investor appears, under terms that are governed by the terms set by the later-stage equity investor. An equity investor is someone who purchases equity in a company. Example:- Suppose an angel investor invests $100,000 using a convertible note. Later, an equity investor invests $1m and receives 10% of the company's shares. In the simplest possible case, the initial angel investor's convertible note would convert to 1/10th of the equity investor's claim. Depending on the exact structure of the convertible note, however, the angel investor may also receive extra shares to compensate them for the additional risk associated with being an earlier investor The worst-case scenario would be if the issuing company initially performed well, meaning that the debt would be converted into shares, and subsequently went bankrupt. The converted shares would become worthless, but the holder of the note would no longer have any recourse. Will twitter have to sell their offices and liquidate staff to close this debt? This depends on the seniority(priority) of the debt. Debt is serviced according to seniority. The higher seniority debts will be paid off first and then only the lower seniority debts be serviced. This will all be in the agreements when you enter into a transaction. When you say liquidate staff you mean sell off their assets and not sell their staff into slavery.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b648eff366f6e5637857115c7754cff1", "text": "Other metrics like Price/Book Value or Price/Sales can be used to determine if a company has above average valuations and would be classified as growth or below average valuations and be classified as value. Fama and French's 3 Factor model would be one example that was studied a great deal using an inverse of Price/Book I believe.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ada391b851e4f03449e58bdfff9259c", "text": "\"Many thanks for thedetailed response, appreciate it. But I am still not clear on the distinction between a public company and the equity holders. Isn't a public company = shareholders + equity holders? Or do you mean \"\"company\"\" = shareholders+equity holders + debt holders?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e91d8c0dcb863fc4b14459f62a081534", "text": "\"Complex matter that doesn't boil down to a formula. The quant aspect could be assessed by calculating WACCs under various funding scenarii and trying to minimize, but it is just one dimension of it. The quali aspects can vary widely depending on the company, ownership structure, tax environment and business needs and it really can't be covered even superficially in a reddit comment... Few examples from the top of my mind to give you a sense of it: - shareholders might be able to issue equity but want to avoid dilution, so debt is preferred in the end despite cost. Or convertible debt under the right scenario. - company has recurring funding needs and thinks that establishing a status on debt market is worth paying a premium to ensure they can \"\"tap\"\" it whenever hey need to. - adding debt is a way to leverage and enhance ROI/IRR for certain types of stakeholders (think LBOs) - etc etc etc Takes time and a lot of experience/work to be able to figure out what's best and there isn't always a clear answer. Source: pro buy side credit investor with experience and sizeable AuMs.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1541a350f6310fe53e41eb6404a5a15", "text": "Our company gives the best business valuation services. If you want to any business valuation service, then you can come to our company website. When it comes to obtaining a business valuation, business owners are faced with a myriad of choices of the business valuation services. Kirk Kleckner valuation businesses need understanding and analysis of a variety of complex factors including detailed technical knowledge of value drivers and in-depth industry knowledge.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7fb2ffdbc44f0f39716c4966623450b3", "text": "\"First, you mentioned your brother-in-law has \"\"$100,000 in stock options (fully vested)\"\". Do you mean his exercise cost would be $100,000, i.e. what he'd need to pay to buy the shares? If so, then what might be the estimated value of the shares acquired? Options having vested doesn't necessarily mean they possess value, merely that they may be exercised. Or did you mean the estimated intrinsic value of those options (estimated value less exercise cost) is $100,000? Speaking from my own experience, I'd like to address just the first part of your question: Have you treated this as you would a serious investment in any other company? That is, have you or your brother-in-law reviewed the company's financial statements for the last few years? Other than hearing from people with a vested interest (quite literally!) to pump up the stock with talk around the office, how do you know the company is: BTW, as an option holder only, your brother-in-law's rights to financial information may be limited. Will the company share these details anyway? Or, if he exercised at least one option to become a bona-fide shareholder, I believe he'd have rights to request the financial statements – but company bylaws vary, and different jurisdictions say different things about what can be restricted. Beyond the financial statements, here are some more things to consider: The worst-case risk you'd need to accept is zero liquidity and complete loss: If there's no eventual buy-out or IPO, the shares may (effectively) be worthless. Even if there is a private market, willing buyers may quickly dry up if company fortunes decline. Contrast this to public stock markets, where there's usually an opportunity to witness deterioration, exit at a loss, and preserve some capital. Of course, with great risk may come great reward. Do your own due diligence and convince yourself through a rigorous analysis — not hopes & dreams — that the investment might be worth the risk.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ebb41def0224a718e83f9f53e5a8e812", "text": "\"The textbook answer would be \"\"assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit\"\". A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing); or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP/code/patents/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf235feacbb58cfe83d07179e16d57dc", "text": "What this abbreviated balance sheet tells you is that this company has negative equity. The liabilities are greater than the value of the assets. The obvious problem for the company who wants to do business with you is that they are going to have a real hard time accessing credit to pay off any debts that they incur with doing business with you. In this case, the recommended course would be to ask them put cash up front instead of putting them on account. You don't really need to look at the income statement to see that they are currently underwater. If their income statement turns out to be splendid, then you can wait for them to get their liabilities under control before you set up an account for them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "13eebc93749f883f4ed2b7a6c5550e65", "text": "If the cash flow information is complete, the valuation can be determined with relative accuracy and precision. Assuming the monthly rent is correct, the annual revenue is $1,600 per year, $250/mo * 12 months - $1,400/year in taxes. Real estate is best valued as a perpetuity where P is the price, i is the income, and r is the rate of interest. Theoreticians would suggest that the best available rate of interest would be the risk free rate, a 30 year Treasury rate ~3.5%, but the competition can't get these rates, so it is probably unrealistic. Anways, aassuming no expenses, the value of the property is $1,600 / 0.035 at most, $45,714.29. This is the general formula, and it should definitely be adjusted for expenses and a more realistic interest rate. Now, with a better understanding of interest rates and expenses, this will predict the most likely market value; however, it should be known that whatever interest rate is applied to the formula will be the most likely rate of return received from the investment. A Graham-Buffett value investor would suggest using a valuation no less than 15% since to a value investor, there's no point in bidding unless if the profits can be above average, ~7.5%. With a 15% interest rate and no expenses, $1,600 / .15, is $10,666.67. On average, it is unlikely that a bid this low will be successful; nevertheless, if multiple bids are placed using this similar methodology, by the law of small numbers, it is likely to hit the lottery on at most one bid.", "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": "bbd20f7c83f683c9d6750e463c9f06b3", "text": "Aside of the other (mostly valid) answers, share price is the most common method of valuating the company. Here is a bogus example that will help you understand the general point: Now, suppose that Company A wants to borrow $20 Million from a bank... Not a chance. Company B? Not a problem. Same situation when trying to raise new funds for the market or when trying to sell the company or to acquire another", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
314e52feda4307185bd480a2050370c8
How to save money for future expenses
[ { "docid": "c2c08bc875b91c7ae9d48feef6e07b0e", "text": "First, talk to your husband about this. You really need to persuade him that you need to be saving, and get him to agree on how and how much. Second, if you husband is not good at saving, work on getting something set aside automatically - ideally deducted from a paycheck or transferred to a savings account automatically. If he is the kind of person who might dip into that account, try to make it a place he can't withdraw from Third, get some advice, possibly training, on budgeting. Buy a book, take a video course: even start by watching some TV shows on getting out of debt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf01e253616ce320607d90114b8e5412", "text": "how can I save money for the future The fact that you are worrying is good. This is the first step. Follow this up with a plan. One way is first get hold of your income [its fixed you know the salary]. Maintain expenses, then see which costs can be cut down. Create individual goals and start investing for these. The best way for first timer is to invest into a Recurring Deposits or SIP in mutual fund, i.e. kind of forced saving so that you don't spend what is available in bank Account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "755d904dc0e25dbe9535427109bf1407", "text": "You can't force a horse to eat carrots. You have to make him hungry... It's good that you're ready to start saving. The hardest part about building wealth is that most people live in denial. They think a bigger hat is wealth. That said, you need to get your husband excited about the idea of saving. If you're capable of sparking a little passion in him for saving then you'll see your wealth grow almost over night. So, how do you make someone excited about something as boring as saving? Great question. If you find a way, write a book. Honestly, I think it's different for everyone. For me it was like someone turned on a light. I was blind but then I saw. If he is a reader then I would suggest the following books in this order. If he makes it through those and has any argument at all against saving then write a book about him haha. Now I want to be clear, the other two answers above mine were also spot on. If you can't get him passionate about it then you need to take the initiative and start doing it yourself. I can't stress enough though that you both need to be engaged in order to do it quickly and efficiently. Good luck!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42316c01d24d3b14292c14cd4bcae9c8", "text": "\"My answer will suck but it comes from someone who has been married: You can't control another person or convince them to do something. What you can do is identify what they value and show how saving money increases their opportunities in what they value, but understand that the person could see what you're saying as invalid too. If you're single and reading this, this is why you verify that the person has similar values to you. Think of it like someone who wants good gas mileage: you show them a car that gets 60MPG, and immediately they say, \"\"Well, but that's not a cool car.\"\" So their value isn't the miles per gallon, and you may find the same is true with your spouse. India is paying more interest than the US and Europe in their savings accounts (I believe the benchmark interest rate is 7.5%), so - assuming your spouse values more money - showing him how to use money in savings to passively earn money might be a technique that works. But it may mean nothing to him because it's (1) not his actual value or (2) isn't enough to matter in his mind. In other words, this is all sales and whatever you do (and this is regardless of gender), don't manipulate, as in the long run that tends to build resentment. If there is a specific problem that you know he sees as a major issue and saving money can help, I'd recommend showing how savings would help with that problem. People generally like solutions to problems; just remember, what you think he sees as a problem may not be what he sees as a problem. This is why I chuckle when I see single people give married people advice; you can't just \"\"convince the person enough\"\" because you are not that person; we have to speak their language and we should be careful to avoid creating resentment. The part that sucks (or doesn't depending on who you ask) is that if we can't convince others to do it, we should do it ourselves. Either (1) earn money independently yourself when applicable (realizing that you are about to have a child and may be limited), or (2) save the money that you and your spouse have agreed that you're allotted, if this applies to your situation (a few spouses divide income even when one is an earner).\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "94ea24f9daf0be1aa8cc556f394a7c9f", "text": "\"Don't mind the percentages. They are highly misleading. First, \"\"saving\"\" is making available for future use. It might be \"\"hoarding\"\", \"\"investing\"\" or a combination thereof. It might be for a specific use (a car, a college education, retirement, etc.), or for a non-specific use (for an emergency, for when you decide to spend some of those savings, or just for lack of a compelling use as of the moment). In first case, whatever you save should be available by the date you intend to use it. In second case, it might be prudent to have savings (and investments, see below) of various liquidity (cash you have at hand, bank account you can draw next day, mutual fund account you can draw in a month, maybe something you can only cash in a year etc.). You will see that the actual percentages you \"\"save\"\" fluctuate enormously throughout your life, varying with the progress of your career, changes of marital status and family cmposition, etc., etc. What you should really do is to come up with a rough plan of how you expect, from right now and to the end of your life at whatever age, have enough money for whatever level of comfort you plan for each period of your life, allowing for some specified level of perturbations. Then you just execute that plan or change it as you go.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd862e04a2e145e96152e31acf77ebaa", "text": "\"First, you must prioritize what a \"\"need\"\" and what a \"\"want\"\" is. This is different for everyone but generally, I think most people will agree that impulse items are \"\"want\"\" items. Look at the item, hold it, put it back and wait 30 days. Put the money that the item costs $x into your savings account (transfer from checking, straight deposit, etc) Come back to the store and hold the item again and as \"\"did I miss the fact that I didnt get it 30 days ago?\"\". 95% of the time, the answer is no. You saved $x for 30-days, and received what is a tiny bit of interest for it. This is cause for celebration! If you repeat this for every item you THINK you \"\"need\"\" or \"\"want\"\" then you'll be amazed at what you saved. Dont waste this money on a vacation to the islands either! Keep saving. There will be plenty of rainy days when you'll have wanted to trade that island vacation (or the impulse items you bought that you used once or twice and are lost in your garage somewhere) to pay for some unexpected emergency. Trust me on this!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b17769ae176dec951f352f9edcad1a0c", "text": "\"According to your numbers, you just stated that you spend approximately $1500 in discretionary expenditures per month, yet are unable to save. I fully realize that living in a big city is usually expensive, but on your (presumably after-tax) salary, I think you can easily save a substantial portion of your income. As others have already noted, enforcing saving of a significant portion of your discretionary income is the most obvious step. It's easy to say, but I suspect that if you are like most people who have difficulty saving, the psychological impact of quitting your previous spending habits \"\"cold turkey\"\" is likely to be very harsh, all the more so if you have an active social life. You may find yourself becoming depressed or resentful at \"\"having\"\" to save. You may lose motivation to work as hard because you might think that you're putting away all this money for the distant future, whereas you are young now and want to enjoy life while you can. It is in this context, then, that I looked at your other financial obligations. Paying $1300/month to your parents is a lot. It's over 20% of your after-tax salary. You do not specify the reasons for doing this other than a vague sense of familial duty, but my recommendation is to see if this could be reduced somewhat. If you can bring it down to $1000/month, that $300 would go into your savings, and you would psychologically feel a lot better about putting, say, $600 of your own discretionary income into savings as well. Now you have, all told, about $1000/month of savings without severely curtailing your extra expenditures. But I would start with that $1500/month of luxury spending first. And yes, you do need to view it as luxury spending. The proper frame of mind is to compare your financial situation to someone who is truly unable to save because their entire income is spent on actual necessities: food and shelter; their effective tax rate is 0% because they earn too little; and they usually find themselves in debt because they cannot make ends meet. Now look back at that $1500/month. Can you honestly say that you cannot afford to cut that spending?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f64638bc09f0ef72ed1083f5cd0918a8", "text": "Talk freely about what you can now do because of saving. If you plan to retire sooner than most, or more comfortably than most, and can tie that to something you want them to do, show them that. If you buy a very nice car, or install a pool, and they wish they could afford that, tell them it took 5 or 10 or 20 years to save up for it, at x a week, and now you have it with no loan. Or be a cautionary tale: wish you had something, and regret not having saved for it. Young adults are generally well served by knowing more of parental finances than they did while they were dependents. Ask them if they will want or need to fund parental leaves, make a down payment for a house, own vacation property, put a child through post secondary education (share the cost of theirs including living expenses if you paid them), or go on amazing vacations fairly regularly. Tell them what those things cost in round figures. Explain how such a huge sum of money can accumulate over 2, 5, 10 years of saving X a month. for example $10 a week is $500 a year and so on. While they may not want to save 20 years for their downpayment, doing this simple math should let them map their savings amounts to concrete wishes and timeframes. Finally, if this is your own child and they live with you, charge them rent. This will save them from developing the habit of spending everything they earn, along with the expensive tastes and selfish speaking habits that come with it. Some parents set the rent aside and give it back as a wedding or graduation present, or to help with a downpayment later, but even if you don't, making them live within their true means, not the inflated means you have when you're living rent-free, is truly a gift.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd0dd85bad94d6fbb950e2764c032786", "text": "\"I posted a comment in another answer and it seems to be approved by others, so I have converted this into an answer. If you're talking about young adults who just graduated college and worked through it. I would recommend you tell them to keep the same budget as what they were living on before they got a full-time job. This way, as far as their spending habits go, nothing changes since they only have a $500 budget (random figure) and everything else goes into savings and investments. If as a student you made $500/month and you suddenly get $2000/month, that's a lot of money you get to blow on drinks. Now, if you put $500 in savings (until 6-12 month of living expenses), $500 in investments for the long run and $500 in vacation funds or \"\"big expenses\"\" funds (Ideally with a cap and dump the extra in investments). That's $18,000/yr you are saving. At this stage in your life, you have not gotten used to spending that extra $18,000/yr. Don't touch the side money except for the vacation fund when you want to treat yourself. Your friends will call you cheap, but that's not your problem. Take that head start and build that down payment on your dream house. The way I set it up, is (in this case) I have automatics every day after my paychecks come in for the set amounts. I never see it, but I need to make sure I have the money in there. Note: Numbers are there for the sake of simplicity. Adjust accordingly. PS: This is anecdotal evidence that has worked for me. Parents taught me this philosophy and it has worked wonders for me. This is the extent of my financial wisdom.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4992b5f2a877c27f50d8e5551f1fb18d", "text": "Firstly assumption is that Now if expense is from your savings", "title": "" }, { "docid": "57bb8b6769fa2a80637f073875142798", "text": "You need to know loans are not free; and they are not a way to solve budget issues. If you are having problems with making your income last over your expenses, you do not need to add another expense (in the form of a loan) What you really need to do is create a budget, track and understand your expenses, and then decide if you should focus on raising your net income level or cutting down expenses. Keep up with your budget. You can reduce the frequency, but you need to track your spending really for the rest of you life. It is just a good habit, like personal hygiene. Once you understand your money (via your budget), you can start to save money into an emergency fund that will cover you during the times of zig zags. I say it very plainly as if it is super easy; but it requires will power and the foresight to understand that if you don't manage your money, nobody else will. Being sane with your money is one of the most important things you can do now to improve your future. IMPROVEMENT NathanL has an excellent first step with budgeting: Allocate money to be spent for the next month from money made during the previous month. This will build a cushion into your budget and alleviate the fear that the OP mentioned", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bbe2c6e26e76716c03bd47bd0569e344", "text": "\"Some things are nearly universal, and have been mentioned already. My \"\"favorite\"\" forseeable expenses in this category are: However, I also advocate saving for expenses that are specific to you. Look back on your expenses for the last 12 months, minimum (18 or 24 may be better). Ask yourself these questions: I ask about large expenditures because you may make enough that you can \"\"eat\"\" these lapses in budgeting, as I did for many years. It is not an emergency now, but it turned into an emergency down the road as my spending went out of control. Look at all expenditures over a certain level, say $100 or $200. Some personal examples of expenses that aren't quite so universal, but turned into small emergencies: This last one was rather unexpected. It is the reason why I ask the question \"\"why didn't I budget for it?\"\" These fees and dues are for my professional-level certifications. In my industry, they are \"\"always\"\" paid for by the company. A year ago, they weren't paid by my former employer because they planned to lay me off. This year, they weren't paid by my present employer because I am technically a temporary worker (4 years is temporary?). So, from now on, I plan to save for this expense. If my employer pays my dues, then I stop saving for the expense, but keep the money I've saved.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fc56353f6036f61ed99a145d1a6acdec", "text": "\"The principle to follow is called \"\"pay yourself first\"\". Have your savings deducted from your paycheck before it hits your checking account. You spending will change to accommodate the reduction. If you have a 401(k) available from your employer, start saving some money via that. If not, figure out a way to have something moved out of your checking account to a separate savings account when your paycheck hits. Then as you get raises, up the amount of automatic savings by half of the raise. You will find this hurts less than you think and it will let you build an emergency fund, which is the first thing you need. When the emergency fund is 6 months of normal spending, then you can start to invest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2aee2f45e6e92de4cf4cfe1c7c1d28f3", "text": "\"There are many tactics you can use. If your biggest problem is regretting your larger purchases, I'd suggest giving yourself rules before making any purchases over a certain minimum dollar amount that you set for yourself. For example, if that amount is $50 for an item, then any item starting at an average price of $51 would be subject to these rules. One of your long-term goals ought to be to become the kind of person who finds joy in saving money rather than spending it. Make friends with frugal people - look for those who prefer games nights and potlucks to nights out at the club buying expensive drinks and dinners at the newest steak joint in town. Learn the thrill of a deal, but even more learn the thrill of your savings growing. You don't want to enjoy money in the bank for the purposes of becoming a miser. Instead you want to realize that money in the bank helps you achieve your goals — buying the house you want, donating a significant amount of money to a cause you ardently support, allowing you to take a dream vacation, letting you buy with cash the car you always wanted, the possibilities are endless. As Dave Ramsey says, \"\"Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e7c5f632da708af4b9140aa819ccbf3", "text": "What you put that money into is quite relevant. It depends on how soon you will need some, or all, of that money. It has been very useful to me to divide my savings into three areas... 1) very short term 'oops' funds. This is for when you forget to put something in your budget or when a monthly bill is very high this month. Put this money into passbook savings. 2) Emergency funds that are needed quite infrequently. Used for such things as when you go to the hospital or an appliance breaks down. Put this money in higher yeald savings, but where it can be accessed. 3) Retirement savings. Put this money into a 401-K. Never draw on it till you retire. Make no loans against it. When you change jobs roll over into a self-directed IRA and invest in an ETF that pays dividends. Reinvest the dividend each month. So, like I said, where you put that money depends on how soon you will need it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef082fd9f0274dc21b86a1c9cf21dd9b", "text": "I think you might benefit from adopting a zero-sum budget, in which you plan where each dollar will be spent ahead of time, rather than simply track spending or worry about the next expense. Here's a pretty good article on the subject: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget. This is the philosophy behind a popular budgeting tool You Need a Budget, I am not advocating the tool, but I am a fan of the idea that a budget is less about tracking spending and more about planning spending. That said, to answer your specific question, one method for tracking your min-needed for upcoming expenses would be to record the date, expense, amount due, and amount paid as shown here: Then the formula to calculate the min-needed (entered in E1 and copied down) would be: As you populate amounts paid, the MinNeeded is adjusted for all subsequent rows. You could get fancier and only populate the MinNeeded field on dates where an expense is due using IF().", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e754092dce0e9259fb1f7f794e7fea88", "text": "\"Another way to look at budgeting: give yourself an explicit \"\"allowance\"\" -- possibly in a separate account -- and if something isn't a clear necessity it must be paid for out of your allowance, saving up first if necessary. You can get those concert tickets, but only if you cut down on expensive meals and toys and other entertainment for a while. You can have anything you want, but not everything and not immediately unless you learn to maintain an adequate balance in this account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9d7a0be34f0bd2647e9851eab9b0752", "text": "someone is paid a certain sum each month, and wants to spend only a certain amount each month, can he spend more and then take it out of next month's payment? Using the example 100 month 1, 60 first month. Save 40 Second Month, 100 salary, spend 70. Save 30. Overall Savings 70 Third month, 100 salary, spend 50. Save 50. Overall Savings 120 So in short term or once a while doing this is fine. However if [and this depends on individuals] it goes beyond control, i.e. you keep spending say 90 every month, you would have to save for quite a few months to get back to normal. A better way would be to reverse this. Using the example 100 month 1, 60 first month. Save 40 Second Month, 100 salary, spend 50. Save 50. Overall Savings 90 Third month, 100 salary, spend 70. Save 30. Overall Savings 120 i.e. save more first and then spend, rather than spending now and saying you will save in future. Generally this is the trap quite a few fall into specially when saving for retirement, they keep putting it to future and very soon realize that they can't get back to the goal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18ead45b814ad3a32cd4d35a50601349", "text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-08/yellen-bet-on-pulling-workers-back-to-labor-force-is-paying-off) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Even as U.S. unemployment crept lower in recent years, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen stuck with a glacial pace of policy tightening that she justified with a powerful message: there were still millions of potential workers to pull in from the labor market&amp;#039;s sidelines. &gt; If workers hadn&amp;#039;t come back, the strategy could have spurred an overly-tight labor market that sent wages and inflation up too quickly. &gt; The surge of job holders coming from outside the labor force &amp;quot;Speaks to the reduction in slack in the labor force,&amp;quot; said Tom Simons, a senior economist at Jefferies LLC in New York. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6m5f49/yellen_bet_on_pulling_workers_back_to_labor_force/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~162709 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*: **labor**^#1 **works**^#2 **rate**^#3 **market**^#4 **force**^#5\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ea82170442857e7afbfbfac55953cf16
Figuring out if I receive US income?
[ { "docid": "2f818f835a176225fd3edc867faa7131", "text": "I believe the answer is no, since your income from royalties and app sales would fall under FDAP income. (another conformation of this would be the fact that Apple and Google requested a W8-BEN form from you and not a W8-ECI form) Generally, All income EXCEPT FDAP income (fixed or determinable annual or periodical income) are ECI income. FDAP income includes income from interest, rent, dividends etc. IRS link to a list of all Income classified under FDAP below:- https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fixed-determinable-annual-periodical-fdap-income https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8eci.pdf (page 3 - under effectively connected income)", "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": "7717ff5a58ac270f1675ec5d99061ff6", "text": "\"Income is income... it depends how it's structured.. personal or corporate.. but still you need to pay taxes... if you get audited, the tax man could look at your bank statements and ask, \"\"where is this money coming from\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17e126114c46110deff1db290cfa3225", "text": "If you have income in the US, you will owe US income tax on it, unless there is a treaty with your country that says otherwise.", "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": "3d7833f48df0b9d829546e90aeb990ef", "text": "\"I have a related issue, since I have some income which is large enough to matter and hard to predict. Start with a best guess. Check what tax bracket you were in last year and withhold that percentage of the expected non-withheld income. Adjust upward a bit, if desired, to reflect the fact that you're getting paid more at the new job. Adjust again, either up or down, to reflect whether you were over-withheld or under-withheld last year (whether the IRS owed you a refund or you had to send a check with your return). Repeat that process next year after next tax season, when you see how well your guess worked out. (You could try pre-calculating the entire tax return based on your expected income and then divide any underpayment into per-paycheck additional withholding... but I don't think it's worth the effort.) I don't worry about trying to get this exactly correct. I don't stress about lost interest if I've over-withheld a bit, and as long as your withholding was reasonably close and you have the cash float available to send them a check for the rest when it comes due, the IRS generally doesn't grumble if your withholding was a bit low. (It would be really nice if the IRS paid us interest on over-withholding, to mirror the fact that they charge us interest if we're late in returning our forms. Oh well.) Despite all the stories, the IRS really is fairly reasonable; if you aren't deliberately trying to get away with something, the process is annoying but shouldn't be scary. The one time they mail-audited me, it was several thousand dollars in my favor; I'd forgotten to claim some investment losses, and their computers noticed the error. Though I still say the motto of the next revolution will be \"\"No taxation without proper instructions!\"\"\"", "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": "f73167c4ae92bc96c2e6c11bcc3033b9", "text": "\"My employer decided to pay my salary in India after I submit a form W-8BEN. This means that the wages / salary is deemed accrued for work from India. Hence your employer need not withhold and pay taxes on this wage in US. Is this payment taxable in the States since I am staying outside of States? Should I declare this income to IRS in case if I go back to the States later this year? No tax is due as the work is done outside on US. If you go back this would be similar to as you had gone first. Depending on your \"\"tax residency status\"\" you would have to declare all assets. If my US employer wires my US salary to my NRE account is that taxable in India? This is still taxable in India. It is advised that you have the funds transferred into a regular savings account. Please note you have to pay taxes in advance as per prescribed due dates in Sept, Dec, March. how does the Indian tax man identify if it is a taxable income and not just the regular remittance. This question is off topic here. Whether income taxes finds out about this is irrelevant. By law one is required to pay taxes on income earned in India.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e8993bf1bc83d21a96cef05e404c7127", "text": "Most countries tax income, but not a transfer of already taxed money, so you have nothing to worry about. You need to be prepared - if asked - to proof that the money was legally earned, and that you paid taxes for the income when you originally got it. Chances are small that anyone asks though, if you are not being investigated for other reasons already.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fb5105cef9bf56d1edb545ff9441e282", "text": "The data provided in your question is irrelevant. The data that you provided in the comments (that you're physically present in the US while doing the work) is the only relevant information needed to answer your question. You will need to pay taxes in the US for the earnings. The company invoicing the US client will also need to pay taxes in the US for its earnings from these invoices. You can transfer between bank accounts and deposit whatever you want anywhere you want, no-one cares (with respect to the US taxes, check with Indian tax accountant about Indian requirements).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "04b3ee3f698ca5b4f450524d8a56f4aa", "text": "\"Am I eligible for declaring my earnings to the IRS? You're always eligible. You're probably asking whether you're required. In the US it doesn't matter where you deposit the money, it matters where you earn it. Money is earned where the services are provided. This is called \"\"sourcing\"\". So if you are working in a foreign country - you're only subject to the US laws to the extent you're a US citizen/permanent resident or qualify for the substantial presence test.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d945f60dc70338f915c42b0e43fabc1", "text": "\"If a person is not a U.S. citizen and they live and work outside the U.S., then any income they make from a U.S. company or person for services provided does not qualify as \"\"U.S. Source income\"\" according to the IRS. Therefore you wouldn't need to worry about withholding or providing tax forms for them for U.S. taxes. See the IRS Publication 519 U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens.\"", "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": "50fe9ddf775a60078442663c5e992797", "text": "Follow the instructions on the W-4. It says exactly how you are supposed to calculate the number of allowances. You shouldn't have to figure out how to get the right number. Just follow the instructions. The only part at all complex is if you have large deductions. In that case you're supposed to subtract a standard amount from your actual deductions -- for 2017, $12,700 if married filing jointly -- divide by $4,050, and then add the result to the number of allowances. In general, following the instructions on the W-4 should result in slightly more tax being withheld from your paycheck than you actually owe, so that you get a modest refund next April 15. In the long run it doesn't matter if you have too much withheld, as you'll get it all back eventually anyway. I suppose the withholding could be so high that it doesn't leave you enough to live on while waiting for your refund, but that shouldn't normally be the case. If you pay too little, you could be subject to penalties and interest, so you really want to avoid that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98e4a30799ac22fdf632c7ade120ac85", "text": "\"The decision whether this test is or is not met seems to be highly dependent on the specific situation of the employer and the employee. I think that you won't find a lot of general references meeting your needs. There is such a thing as a \"\"private ruling letter,\"\" where individuals provide specific information about their situation and request the IRS to rule in advance on how the situation falls with respect to the tax law. I don't know a lot about that process or what you need to do to qualify to get a private ruling. I do know that anonymized versions of at least some of the rulings are published. You might look for such rulings that are close to your situation. I did a quick search and found two that are somewhat related: As regards your situation, my (non-expert) understanding is that you will not pass in this case unless either (a) the employer specifies that you must live on the West Coast or you'll be fired, (b) the employer would refuse to provide space for you if you moved to Boston (or another company location), or (c) you can show that you could not possibly do your job out of Boston. For (c), that might mean, for example, you need to make visits to client locations in SF on short-notice to meet business requirements. If you are only physically needed in SF occasionally and with \"\"reasonable\"\" notice, I don't think you could make it under (c), although if the employer doesn't want to pay travel costs, then you might still make it under (a) in this case.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbc54297aa25d0a851d8421cd7854b7c", "text": "\"In the Income Statement that you've linked to, look for the line labeled \"\"Net Income\"\". That's followed by a line labeled \"\"Preferred Dividends\"\", which is followed by \"\"Income Available to Common Excl. Extra Items\"\" and \"\"Income Available to Common Incl. Extra Items\"\". Those last two are the ones to look at. The key is that these lines reflect income minus dividends paid to preferred stockholders (of which there are none here), and that's income that's available to ordinary shareholders, i.e., \"\"earnings for the common stock\"\".\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
4ffa5ab7a898ab7e5fdbf786f6da9a64
What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp?
[ { "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": "f515ab4e63b3d4bf3815179d89b29356", "text": "\"Subchapter S Corporations are a special type of corporation; the difference is how they are taxed, not how they relate to their vendors or customers. As a result, they are named the same way as any other corporation. The rules on names of corporations vary by state. \"\"Corporation\"\" and \"\"Incorporated\"\" (and their abbreviations) are allowed by every state, but some states allow other names as well. The Wikipedia article \"\"Types of business entity\"\" lists an overview of corporation naming rules for each state. The S-Corp that I work for has \"\"Inc.\"\" at the end of its name.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "686ecacb36c2729a0beeb11c5f64af68", "text": "\"I really wish they'd change the title to \"\"corporations\"\". Companies aren't the only thing that can be corporations and avoid jail. Other organizations that operate as partnerships or sole proprietors in effect operate as people that can be arrested and put in jail and can't hide the owners and can't contribute unlimited amounts to candidates.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3888310130e7db43d4af9b3324cf9def", "text": "I think I may have figured this out but if someone could double check my reasoning I'd appreciate it. So if my company makes $75000 and I decide to pay myself a $30000 salary, then the quarterly payment break down would be like this: 1040ES: Would pay income tax on non salary dividend ($45000) 941: Would pay income tax, SS, medicare on salary ($30000) (I'm the only person on payroll) So I think this answers my question in that after switching from filing as LLC to S-corp, I won't have to pay as much on 1040ES because some of it will now be covered on payroll.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "806e9a3ed65f7aa9a2cea31e6a32d23f", "text": "\"I don't know what you mean by \"\"claim for taxes,\"\" I think you mean pay taxes. I'm not sure how corps function in Canada but in the US single owner limited liability entities typically pass the net income through to the owner to be included in their personal tax return. So it seems all of this is more or less moot, because really you should probably already be including your income sourced from this project on your personal taxes and that's not really likely to change if you formed something more formal. The formal business arrangements really exist to limit the liability of the business spilling over in to the owner's assets. Or trouble in the owner's life spilling over to interrupt the business operation. I don't know what kind of business this is, but it may make sense to set up one of the limited liability arrangements to ensure that business liability doesn't automatically mean personal liability. A sole proprietorship or in the US we have DBA (doing business as) paperwork will get you a separate tax id number, which may be beneficial if you ever have to provide a tax ID and don't want to use your individual ID; but this won't limit your liability the way incorporating does.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4286585f14be963a8f314ca32f310036", "text": "\"This is actually quite a complicated issue. I suggest you talk to a properly licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). Legal advice (from an attorney licensed in your State) is also highly recommended. There are many issues at hand here. Income - both types of entities are pass-through, so \"\"earnings\"\" are taxed the same. However, for S-Corp there's a \"\"reasonable compensation\"\" requirement, so while B and C don't do any \"\"work\"\" they may be required to draw salary as executives/directors (if they act as such). Equity - for S-Corp you cannot have different classes of shares, all are the same. So you cannot have 2 partners contribute money and third to contribute nothing (work is compensated, you'll be getting salary) and all three have the same stake in the company. You can have that with an LLC. Expansion - S-Corp is limited to X shareholders, all of which have to be Americans. Once you get a foreign partner, or more than 100 partners - you automatically become C-Corp whether you want it or not. Investors - it would be very hard for you to find external investors if you're a LLC. There are many more things to consider. Do not make this decision lightly. Fixing things is usually much more expensive than doing them right at the first place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "96aefa42c9120412e688d4e47ccabd3c", "text": "Street name is not what you think it is in the question. The broker is the owner in street name. There is no external secondary owner information. I don't know if there is available independent verification, but if the broker is in the US and they go out of business suddenly, you can make a claim to the SIPC.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e773d0aa02456d51473a32d0d58d4c3", "text": "I think you can solve the problem of different wordings by having a lookup with a table of all the different ways companies spell the same words that returns a standard format that you use. That way you only need to update the table every time you come across a new company and you wont have to type it out all the time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff8f7a486adf61b296339b15fb9d2700", "text": "Thanks for that, it did help. I think my issue is I don't work in finance itself, I'm a lawyer, and 'capital' generally has a very specific meaning in English company law, where it refers exclusively to shareholder capital. I realise capital in finance terms includes both debt and equity investment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73cccbaae914b8dac683a086c810dac6", "text": "These are all factually correct claims. S-Corporation is a pass-through entity, so whatever gain you have on the corporate level - is passed to the shareholders. If your S-Corp has capital gains - you'll get your pro-rata share of the capital gains. Interest? The same. Dividends? You get it on your K-1. Earned income? Taxed as such to you. I.e.: whether you earn income as a S-Corp or as a sole proprietor - matters not. That's the answer to your bottom line question. The big issue, however, is this: you cannot have more than 25% passive income in your S-Corp. You pass that limit (three consecutive years, one-off is ok) - your S-Corp automatically converts to C-Corp, and you're taxed at the corporate level at the corporate rates (you then lose the capital gains rates, personal brackets, etc). This means that an S-Corp cannot be an investment company. Most (75%+) of its income has to be earned, not passive. Another problem with S-Corp is that people who work as self-proprietors incorporated as S-Corp try to abuse it and claim that the income they earned by the virtue of their own personal performance shouldn't be taxed as self-employed income. IRS frowns upon such a position, and if considerable amounts are at stake will take you all the way up to the Tax Court to prove you wrong. This has happened before, numerously. You should talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA/Attorney licensed in your state) to educate you about what S-Corp is and how it is taxed, and whether or not it is appropriate for you.", "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": "18e5ae8298e346338d69d4bfd5e80117", "text": "Well it depends on whether or not your differentiating against. If its capital stock or stock as in a share certificate in the company. If its a share in the company then in my opinion using Equity would be best as it is a form of an asset and does refer to a piece of ownership of the entity. I wouldn't consider a share of stock a service, since the service to you is say Facebook or the broker who facilitates the transaction of buying or selling FB stock. I also would not consider it a Capital Good, as the Capital Good's would be the referring to the actual capital like the servers,other computer equipments etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf38dce82645ae04c92ffe7f51c40d0a", "text": "An S-corp doesn't pay income tax -- taxation is pass-through. This being the case, there are no tax deductions it could take for charitable giving. The solution would be for you to make the contribution out of your own pocket and then personally claim the deduction on your own taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2c43bf2a8cae781baa20f76e00826ef", "text": "\"Presumably it means they're paying with normal money rather than paying with stock. Shareholders will receive money rather than any shares of AMZN when the deal goes through. \"\"Cash\"\" doesn't necessarily mean \"\"currency\"\" a la bills and coins. When you have money in your brokerage that isn't tied up in a security, for example, you're holding \"\"cash\"\" even though you don't physically have \"\"currency\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "907c06c0b11341ee4ff7f1ae8fad9493", "text": "Having an EIN does not make the LLC a corporation -- your business can have an EIN even when treated like a sole proprietorship. An EIN is required to have a Individual 401(k), for example. But you can still be an LLC, taxed as a sole proprietor, and have a 401(k). You would need to file a Form 2553 with the IRS to elect S Corporation status. If you don't do that, you're still treated as a disregarded LLC. Whether or not you should make the election is another question.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb98230292e4dc41833451410c889127", "text": "You're confusing a lot of things here. Company B LLC will have it's sales run under Company A LLC, and cease operating as a separate entity These two are contradicting each other. If B LLC ceases to exist - it is not going to have it's sales run under A LLC, since there will be no sales to run for a non-existent company. What happens is that you merge B LLC into A LLC, and then convert A LLC into S Corp. So you're cancelling the EIN for B LLC, you're cancelling the EIN for A LLC - because both entities cease to exist. You then create a EIN for A Corp, which is the converted A LLC, and you create a DBA where A Corp DBA B Shop. You then go to the bank and open the account for A Corp DBA B Shop with the EIN you just created for A Corp. Get a better accountant. Before you convert to S-Corp.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5adcb66b7facb23889a1bb9856a5e2d9", "text": "\"It sounds like maybe you want an \"\"investment club\"\". As defined by the SEC: An investment club is a group of people who pool their money to make investments. Usually, investment clubs are organized as partnerships and, after the members study different investments, the group decides to buy or sell based on a majority vote of the members. Club meetings may be educational and each member may actively participate in investment decisions. These \"\"typically\"\" do not need to register: Investment clubs usually do not have to register, or register the offer and sale of their own membership interests, with the SEC. But since each investment club is unique, each club should decide if it needs to register and comply with securities laws. There's more information from the SEC here: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/invclub.htm The taxes depend on how you organized the club, i.e. if you organize as a partnership, I believe that you will be taxed as a partnership. (Not 100% sure.) Some online brokerages have special accounts specifically for investment clubs. Check around.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
511f647aa9e7ea70119f54bf2a3663d6
How did Bill Gates actually make his money?
[ { "docid": "b06dbc7ce5a82c30fc8a0c8b1ccf8fd5", "text": "Bill was the founder of Microsoft, so he did indeed have a large number of shares as the company was growing exponentially. He has previously donated a large share of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, so his fortune would be even greater were it not for the philanthropy. He is still a large holder of Microsoft stock at about $12B according to your link, but it wouldn't be wise to hold his entire fortune in one company, so he has diversified. You can see that his investment portfolio at Cascade includes ~$28B in Televisa and ~$7B in Berkshire Hathaway. http://www.tickerspy.com/pro/Bill-Gates---Cascade-Investment And you can keep track of whether he stays at the top by watching the bloomberg billionaires list. http://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0deb603a0ea8f5758bbd77421d151e0d", "text": "Bill gates is founder of microsoft along with his friend allen.in microsoft as its vast empire increasing the wealth and enormous property of bill gates is increasing", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "db8b1714a47d047e039ee0a498b8ef5a", "text": "You seem to be confused - try answering these: 1. Whom do the traders work for? 2. What are the traders trading and how do they acquire those vehicles? 3. How does a company make money and how does that money get deployed? Google will be crucial for these, but will answer your questions. If you choose to get in finance, remember the golden rule: if you have a question, Google it first.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "470818f415974e8f12818ad3b1a7978a", "text": "\"&gt; Identifying and supporting products good for the business If a gray person comes with a great idea or innovation, any idiot can \"\"identify\"\" and \"\"support\"\" that product. And you want to bet how many great ideas and products Steve and CEOs said \"\"No!\"\" and it turned out to be huge mistakes? Do you know the story of Bill Gates/Microsoft Internet Explorer versus Steve Jobs/Macintosh? Hint: eventually, Steve had to cave in and ask Bill Gates to make a version of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. In this respect, Bill Gates was much much better than Steve Jobs in identifying and supporting new products and ideas.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2472f1f12e24f238ed3c47e4e4436671", "text": "where did all this money come from? Investing in a currency, whether it's bitcoin, gold, USD, or another country's currency, is a risky investment because the average trader loses money (after transaction fees). This is not true of the stock market, since successful companies actually produce wealth. So in short, money made from selling bitcoin comes from the people buying your bitcoins. why has bitcoin performed so well over the past year? This is an extremely difficult question to answer, but I can point out some of the most prominent factors. This last point is one of the biggest. With all the recent hype, more and more people want to try to get in on the action. No one can tell when or if the bubble will pop, though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15126f103a2667dba90dba966a855cc1", "text": "\"I don't think they \"\"actually\"\" turned a profit, did they? As I understand it, this is an accounting method/trick, it's not as if they generated more income by using this system. They just made their monetary value visible rather than implicit. Which is not the same as turning a profit... or am I missing something?\"", "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": "4aa71bc5470147597db83be59cdb3e56", "text": "\"The scenario you mention regarding capital gains is pretty much the core of the issue. Here's a run-down from PolitiFact.com that explains it a bit. It's important to focus on it being the tax rate, not the tax amount (which I think you get, but I want to reinforce that for other readers). Basically, most of Buffett's income comes from capital gains and dividends, income from investments he makes with the money he already has. Income earned by buying and selling stocks or from stock dividends is generally taxed at 15 percent, the rate for long-term capital gains and qualified dividends. Buffett also mentioned that some of the \"\"mega-rich\"\" are hedge fund managers \"\"who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as 'carried interest,' thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate.\"\" We don't know the taxes paid by Buffett's secretary, who was mentioned by Obama but not by Buffett. Buffet's secretary would have to make a high salary, or else typical deductions (such as the child tax credit) would offset taxes owed. Let's say the secretary is a particularly well-compensated executive assistant, making adjusted income more than $83,600 in income. (Yes, that sounds like a lot to us, too, but remember: We're talking about the secretary to one of the richest people in the world.) In that case, marginal tax rates of 28 percent would apply. Then, there would be payroll taxes of 6.25 percent on the first $106,800, money that goes to Social Security, and another 1.45 percent on all income, which goes to Medicare. The secretary’s overall tax rate would be lower than 28 percent, since not all the income would be taxed at that rate, only the income above $83,600. Buffett, meanwhile, would pay very little, if anything, in payroll taxes. In the New York Times op-ed, Buffett said he paid 17.4 percent in taxes. Thinking of the secretary, it gets a little complicated, given how the tax brackets work, but basically, people who make between $100,000 and $200,000 are paying around 20 percent in federal taxes, including payroll and income taxes, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. So in this case, the secretary's rate is higher because so much of Buffett's income comes from investments and is taxed at the lower capital gains rate. Here's Buffet's original Op-Ed in the NYT for those of you that aren't familiar.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca81db9a63449674261e9745be87404d", "text": "\"It's called being smart. I spent 2+ years building a business that now brings me \"\"passive income\"\". IE: It runs itself online and I only need to put a couple of hours/week. Have you ever tried a \"\"turnkey operation\"\"? Anything easy is so saturated that you will most likely never make money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cdb67751d24e889a71f4402990cfddd0", "text": "\"Yes, you're right, the whole system of venture capital is all about creating a great work environment. So are all those articles about how Jack Dorsey works two 8-hour job back to back, and Michael Arrington the venture capitalist and tabloidist telling you to \"\"quit crying\"\" -- and Paul Graham, the venture capitalist, telling you how hackers are god's gift to the earth and how, for a hacker, working a job is like being \"\"a caged lion.\"\" It's not about the money at all. Nooo. They're telling you this for the good of their widdle souls.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "355134dc7106c021184cf1ba965be9a2", "text": "\"An individual's net worth is the value of the person's assets minus his debt. To find your net worth, add up the value of everything that you own: your house, your cars, your bank accounts, your retirement investments, etc. Then subtract all of your debt: mortgage, student loans, credit card debt, car loans, etc. If you sold everything you own and paid off all your debts, you would be left with your net worth. If Bill Gates' net worth is $86 Billion, he likely does not have that much cash sitting in the bank. Much of his net worth is in the form of assets: stocks, real estate, and other investments. If he sold everything that he has and paid any debts, he would theoretically have the $86 Billion. I say \"\"theoretically\"\" because in the amounts of stock that he owns, he could cause a price drop by selling it all at once.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c766b03621430efa069852fc839217ef", "text": "A great deal of the money was made abroad. I imagine they paid some tax in those respective countries. I heard that they and other large Co's were trying to get a deal bring the money home. If they did they would be taxed again.", "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": "8d6ad7b4bb3d7a75db8e7658f0390b3e", "text": "\"For example, Biff Spoiles started an animation studio and production developing company to produce animations -- something in the ballpark of $12,000,000.00 U.S.D. -- and he had a $12K/yearly salary. I have no clue what you mean, as others have mentioned. (I'm not sure what the \"\"12 million\"\" refers to? Do you mean \"\"total cost of animations created by the company in a year\"\" or? If so, \"\"12 million\"\" would amount to say 5 to 20 major, brand name TV commercials, for example. Do you mean the \"\"cost of plant\"\" - so, for a \"\"TV commercial production company\"\" you mean purchasing desks, drawing pads, Porsches, and so on?) Your specific example of a \"\"film or TV-commercial production company\"\" is a bad example, it's not really a \"\"business\"\" - that is to say, it does not rely on capital and return on capital. The way famous \"\"film or TV-commercial production companies\"\" happens is precisely like this: A young guy/girl G (perhaps a designer or filmmaker) is working, just as you say, for a menial wage at a film company. (G got that first job perhaps out of art school.) G gets a chance at doing a photo shoot, animation, or helping direct a TV commercial. G does a fantastic job. Later that year, a large important animation or commercial job arrives at the company; due to the earlier excellent result, G is allowed to work on the new one. G again he does a fantastic job. Soon, within that company, G is a highly-regarded animator or director and has attracted fame amongst colleagues and clients. Eventually, G hears of a company (XYZ Hotel) that needs a TV ad made. (Or an animation, or whatever.) G says to XYZ, look, you could spend $230,000 with a production company, and in reality they'd have me direct it anyway. I'm leaving to work independently, so I will do your job for only $190,000. In a word, XYZ says \"\"Yes\"\" and hands over a cheque for $190,000. G spends $160,000 on the usual actors, cameramen, editing, etc, and uses 2 months of G's own time, and pockets $5000 after tax. G then doesn't get a job for a couple months, and then gets three more in the new year. Because the commercial for XYZ was so good, XYZ gave him another couple to do, for another product line. Eventually G has just enough money coming in that he \"\"hires\"\" a few freelance people for a few weeks here and there ... a cameraman, illustrator, gopher, and so on. Eventually G has enough TV ads solidly booked G can risk actually hiring long-time friend P as a producer. P spends most of her time actually bringing in more work - and it builds from there. Eventually. You have a very busy, well-known in the industry, TV commercial production company with many staff and endless clients (example, say, http://rsafilms.com) It might be at some point in there (say, around year three), G would like to borrow the odd million bucks to basically \"\"help with cashflow.\"\" The answer to that is nothing more than \"\"through business contacts, G knows a wealthy dentist/whoever who is prepared to do that.\"\" But note carefully that at that point, G's company is already very firmly established, famous for doing 20 spectacular animations/commercials, and so on. (Note too that 999 times out of 1000 when this happens, the money evaporates and the dentist D never sees a penny back. In that case G \"\"apologizes\"\".) Only much much later once the company has many, many staff and great cashflow, could the production company actually borrow from a bank, or perhaps from \"\"actual investors\"\", which is more what you have in mind. regarding your four categories. Numbers 1 and 3 are totally wrong; they do not work at all like you are asking. indeed the very simple answer is: \"\"borrow money\"\" to start a category 1 or 3 type of business. It's totally inconceivable. (The only exception would be if you literally just have an extremely rich Uncle, who loans you a few million to \"\"start an animation studio\"\" - which would be completely whacky. Because in that example: company XYZ could not care less if you \"\"have\"\" an animation studio (ie: your Uncle has given you a platinum card, and you bought a building, some drawing pads, and a few dozen Macs). XYZ just couldn't care less. All they care about is your folio of work. In this example, RSA would get the job :) ) My guess is you're thinking people somehow magically go around \"\"borrowing money\"\" to get businesses like that started. (Your examples 1 and 3.) The simple answer is they don't and can't - your fears are assuaged! :)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32a72c979ff699546c6d7d4d2da204b2", "text": "I don't know about the Saudi part of your point, but generally these are estimations based on the ownership stake of X person's main enterprise (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Berkshire). Even if Bezos made millions one year investing in, whatever, McDonald's franchises, it's a rounding error compared to his ~$80bn stake in Amazon, so they don't need pour over tax returns to get exact info.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a8684858339cf2b2fcef9ec073368bd", "text": "\"As others have stated, CEO's often make more than 200K, and when they do, they're compensated with stock options and other lucrative bonuses and deals that allow them to build wealth above and beyond the face value of their salary. However, remember that having wealth makes it easier to build further wealth. As Victor pointed out, having wealth allows you to increase your wealth in different kinds of investments. Also, it gives you access to more human capital, e.g. wealth management services at firms like Northern Trust, a greater ability to diversify into investments like hedge funds, more abilities to invest abroad through foreign trusts, etc. Also, you have to realize that wealthier people often pay a lower percentage in taxes than people who earn a salary. In the US, long-term capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than income, so wealthy individuals who earn much of their money from long-term investments won't pay nearly as high a rate. In my case, my current salary places me at the top of the 25% tax bracket (in the US), but if I earned all of my income through long-term capital gains instead of salary, I would only pay around 15-20% in taxes. Plus, I could afford numerous tax accounting firms to help me find ways to pay fewer taxes. It's not altruism that causes CEOs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to take a $1 salary. This isn't directly related to CEOs, and I'm not leveling accusations of corruption against high net worth individuals, but I remember spending a few months in a small town in a country known for its corruption. The mayor had recently purchased a home worth the equivalent of several million dollars, on his annual civil servant salary of approximately $20K. One of the students asked him how he managed to afford such a sizable property, and he replied \"\"I live very frugally.\"\" This is probably a relatively rare case (I'm sure it depends on the country), but nevertheless, it illustrates another way that some people build wealth.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "025adc914ef3b24720ad4fd4af995e8d", "text": "\"I did once read a book titled \"\"How I made a million dollars on the stock market\"\". It sounded realistic enough to be a true story. The author made it clear on the first page that (a) this was due to some exceptional circumstances, (b) that he would never again be able to pull off something like this, and (c) you would never be able to pull of something like this, except with extreme luck. (The situation was small company A with a majority shareholder, other small company B tries to gain control by buying all the shares, the majority shareholder of A trying to prevent this by buying as many shares as possible, share price shooting up ridiculously, \"\"smart\"\" traders selling uncovered shorts to benefit when the price inevitably drops, the book author buying $5,000 worth of shares because they were going up, and then one enormous short squeeze catching out the traders. And he claimed having sold his shares for over a million - before the price dropped back to normal). Clearly not a matter of \"\"playing your cards right\"\", but of having an enormous amount of luck.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
19c3a42952bd4e0d709b70c036b3b115
Calculating NPV for future cash inflows
[ { "docid": "37b6ad0518ebc7f4b83f9bd343b4f4fd", "text": "When calculating the NPV, is there anything I need to do in between the project start date outlay (Nov 2017), and the first cash inflow (July 2019). Do I need to discount the cashflow to the present, and if so, how? Yes, you need to discount every cash flow to the present time, not just the first one. When discounting cash flows, the appropriate discount rate needs to represent the opportunity cost of the initial cash outlay. Meaning if you were to use that money for something else, what rate of return would you expect? You could be safe and assume only a risk-free return (like 2-3%) or use the average rate of return of other investments (e.g. 10-15%). Another common approach is to use your cost of capital if you're raising funds for the project, or would instead have use the funds to pay off existing debt. Once you find a relevant discount rate, then just discount each cash flow by dividing them by e^rt, where r is the annualized discount rate (e.g. 0.10 for 10%) and t is the decimal number of years between now and the cash flow (e.g. 1.5 for 18 months)", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d9ce05ddb40dc946e759da0253008cb9", "text": "The short answer is you'd be much better off paying up front in this case. The present value of $2,500 plus 12 $500 monthly payments is $8,128 at a 12% discount rate, which is much higher then the $6,000 you could pay now. The long answer is how you get that present value. How can I use time value of money to find the present value of money if I choose to go with option A? First of all, I'd question your discount rate. A 12% discount rate means that you can safely reinvest the money that you're not spending today at a 12% annual (1% monthly) rate, which seems very high. Normally for short-term spending decisions you'd use a risk-free rate, which would be closer to 1%-2%. However, to discount at 1% monthly you'd just divide each monthly payment by 1 plus the discount rate raised to the power of the number of periods until each payment. So the total is which is $8,127.54 You could also use the NPV function in Excel. It seems like to get an accurate answer the calculation of the interest rate should take into account compounding period as well? Correct, and in the example above the compounding is assumed to be monthly since that's the periodicity of the cash flows. You could calculate it with a different compounding period but it gets much more complicated and probably wouldn't make a significant difference. The discount rate does take compounding into effect, meaning if you saved the $5,628 (the PV of $8,128 minus the $2,500 initial payment), you'd earn 1% interest on $5,628 the first month, $5,128 plus that interest the second month, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d96196ef83d94bf00b3b41436799afda", "text": "**Using your Time Value of Money functions on your calculator** N = 3x2 = 6 PV = -914 PMT = (.16 x 1000)/2 = 80 FV = 1000 Compute I/Y Or **Step by step calculations** 1) Compute the PV of **(FV of Bond)**1000 in **(3x2)**6 periods at **(16%/2)**8% with no payments 2) Compute the PV of an Annuity of **(.16/2x1000)**$80 payments over **(3x2)**6 periods with an interest rate of **(16%/2)**8% and 0 Future Value 3) Combine the values from Steps 1 and 2", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34df5ec1c05afd8af852ecb3db4b3b77", "text": "\"I got $3394.83 The first problem with this is that it is backwards. The NPV (Net Present Value) of three future payments of $997 has to be less than the nominal value. The nominal value is simple: $2991. First step, convert the 8% annual return from the stock market to a monthly return. Everyone else assumed that the 8% is a monthly return, but that is clearly absurd. The correct way to do this would be to solve for m in But we often approximate this by dividing 8% by 12, which would be .67%. Either way, you divide each payment by the number of months of compounding. Sum those up using m equal to about .64% (I left the calculated value in memory and used that rather than the rounded value) and you get about $2952.92 which is smaller than $2991. Obviously $2952.92 is much larger than $2495 and you should not do this. If the three payments were $842.39 instead, then it would about break even. Note that this neglects risk. In a three month period, the stock market is as likely to fall short of an annualized 8% return as to beat it. This would make more sense if your alternative was to pay off some of your mortgage immediately and take the payments or yp pay a lump sum now and increase future mortgage payments. Then your return would be safer. Someone noted in a comment that we would normally base the NPV on the interest rate of the payments. That's for calculating the NPV to the one making the loan. Here, we want to calculate the NPV for the borrower. So the question is what the borrower would do with the money if making payments and not the lump sum. The question assumes that the borrower would invest in the stock market, which is a risky option and not normally advisable. I suggest a mortgage based alternative. If the borrower is going to stuff the money under the mattress until needed, then the answer is simple. The nominal value of $2991 is also the NPV, as mattresses don't pay interest. Similarly, many banks don't pay interest on checking these days. So for someone facing a real decision like this, I'd almost always recommend paying the lump sum and getting it over with. Even if the payments are \"\"same as cash\"\" with no premium charged.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9dc01201aa4269618c5e42e2e8990c96", "text": "Both are correct depending on what you are really trying to evaluate. If you only want to understand how that particular investment you were taking money in and out of did by itself than you would ignore the cash. You might use this if you were thinking of replacing that particular investment with another but keeping the in/out strategy. If you want to understand how the whole investment strategy worked (both the in/out motion and the choice of investment) than you would definitely want to include the cash component as that is necessary for the strategy and would be your final return if you implemented that strategy. As a side note, neither IRR or CAGR are not great ways to judge investment strategies as they have some odd timing issues and they don't take into account risk.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0244ad7d7f3b3a9289ef05a741c226ee", "text": "O boy you can take an entire on this. Here are the basics. Project future cash flows on a series of underlying assumptions such as growth rate and risk free rate. You then have to adjust top line items such as depreciation and come up with FCF. Then discount everything back with a terminal value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f7bfbd56d669e0399eb055e331c64dd", "text": "Set your xirr formula to a very tall column, leaving lots of empty rows for future additions. In column C, instead of hardcoding the value, use a formula that tests if it's the current bottom entry, like this: =IF(ISBLANK(A7),-C6, C6) If the next row has no date entered (yet), then this is the latest value, and make it negative. Now, to digress a bit, there are several ways to measure returns. I feel XIRR is good for individual positions, like holding a stock, maybe buying more via DRIP, etc. For the whole portfolio it stinks. XIRR is greatly affected by timing of cash flows. Steady deposits and no withdrawals dramatically skew the return lower. And the opposite is true for steady withdrawals. I prefer to use TWRR (aka TWIRR). Time Weighted Rate of Return. The word 'time' is confusing, because it's the opposite. TWRR is agnostic to timing of cashflows. I have a sample Excel spreadsheet that you're welcome to steal from: http://moosiefinance.com/static/models/spreadsheets.html (it's the top entry in the list). Some people prefer XIRR. TWRR allows an apples-to-apples comparison with indexes and funds. Imagine twin brothers. They both invest in the exact same ideas, but the amount of cash deployed into these ideas is different, solely because one brother gets his salary bonus annually, in January, and the other brother gets no bonus, but has a higher bi-weekly salary to compensate. With TWRR, their percent returns will be identical. With XIRR they will be very different. TWRR separates out investing acumen from the happenstance timing of when you get your money to deposit, and when you retire, when you choose to take withdrawals. Something to think about, if you like. You might find this website interesting, too: http://www.dailyvest.com/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e1edf407c3b96a5274a68e07beae9b48", "text": "If you mean the internal rate of return, then the quarterly rate of return which would make the net present value of these cash flows to be zero is 8.0535% (found by goal seek in Excel), or an equivalent compound annual rate of 36.3186% p.a. The net present value of the cash flows is: 10,000 + 4,000/(1+r) - 2,000/(1+r)^2 - 15,125/(1+r)^3, where r is the quarterly rate. If instead you mean Modified Dietz return, then the net gain over the period is: End value - start value - net flow = 15,125 - 10,000 - (4,000 - 2,000) = 3,125 The weighted average capital invested over the period is: 1 x 10,000 + 2/3 x 4,000 - 1/3 x 2,000 = 12,000 so the Modified Dietz return is 3,125 / 12,000 = 26.0417%, or 1.260417^(1/3)-1 = 8.0201% per quarter, or an equivalent compound annual rate of 1.260417^(4/3)-1 = 36.1504%. You are using an inappropriate formula, because we know for a fact that the flows take place at the beginning/end of the period. Instead, you should be combining the returns for the quarters (which have in fact been provided in the question). To calculate this, first calculate the growth factor over each quarter, then link them geometrically to get the overall growth factor. Subtracting 1 gives you the overall return for the 3-quarter period. Then convert the result to a quarterly rate of return. Growth factor in 2012 Q4 is 11,000/10,000 = 1.1 Growth factor in 2013 Q1 is 15,750/15,000 = 1.05 Growth factor in 2013 Q2 is 15,125/13,750 = 1.1 Overall growth factor is 1.1 x 1.05 x 1.1 = 1.2705 Return for the whole period is 27.05% Quarterly rate of return is 1.2705^(1/3)-1 = 8.3074% Equivalent annual rate of return is 1.2705^(4/3)-1 = 37.6046% ========= I'd recommend you to refer to Wikipedia.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "efc0e864bbf6af6afaa295022d4b712f", "text": "Illustrating with a shorter example: Suppose I deposit 1,000 USD. Every year I deposit another 100 USD. I want to know how much money will be on that savings account in 4 years. The long-hand calculation is Expressed with a summation And using the formula derived from the summation (as shown by DJohnM) So for 20 years Note in year 20 (or year 4 in the shorter example) the final $100 deposit does not have any time to accrue interest before the valuation of the account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e21331efcf4b1348c1afe3ad08025a41", "text": "\"When you're calculating the cash flows used to compute an IRR, with regard to the expenses used to calculate those cash flows: Do you assume that expenses are going to be higher than they would be today, by using an assumed inflation rate? Or is everything (all cash flows) assumed to be in today's dollars, and you account for inflation's effect on your actual returns at \"\"the end\"\" by subtracting off the inflation rate from the IRR?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cbc08ca586bb6481b02839029c3f7d0", "text": "What you are looking here is the cost of capital, because that is what you are effectively giving up in order to invest in those loans. In a discounted cash-flow, it would be the *i* in the denominator (1+*i*). For instance, instead of purchasing those loans you could have lent your money at the risk-free rate (not 100% true, but typical assumption), and therefore you are taking a slight risk in those loans for a higher return. There are several ways to compute that number, the one most often used would be the rate if the bank were to lend that money. In this way, it would be the Fed Funds rate plus some additional risk premium.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abdd072491ef76018f5ae6da88ba5c38", "text": "The solution is x = 8.92. This assumes that Chuck's six years of deposits start from today, so that the first deposit accumulates 10 years of gain, i.e. 20*(1 + 0.1)^10. The second deposit gains nine years' interest: 20*(1 + 0.1)^9 and so on ... If you want to do this calculation using the formula for an annuity due, i.e. http://www.financeformulas.net/Future-Value-of-Annuity-Due.html where (formula by induction) you have to bear in mind this is for the whole time span (k = 1 to n), so for just the first six years you need to calculate for all ten years then subtract another annuity calculation for the last four years. So the full calculation is: As you can see it's not very neat, because the standard formula is for a whole time span. You could make it a little tidier by using a formula for k = m to n instead, i.e. So the calculation becomes which can be done with simple arithmetic (and doesn't actually need a solver).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1169f9db654b7e89de8d8bc0a26b24e1", "text": "The preparation for starting up of the company has lasted already more than 2 years. Let's say the company starts officially in January next year. So, in January 2014... 8 million USD is invested to purchase the equipments and the company will start selling their prdocuts right away. Imagine the company will be selling the same amount of products each year at the same price for 5 years. After 5 years it will sell the equipments for 6 million USD and cease to exist. The depreciation of equipments is divided into those 5 years. So, each year the depreciation of equipments is 400.000 USD. In despite of this, the company will make 500.000 USD per year as a profit before tax. So, the equipments are bought in Januardy 2014 (first month of the existence of the company) and sold in December 2018 (last month of the existence of the company). This is the NPV that I calculated. Is it correct?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "11bf7e54ddc4e7c2844243fea04bbcb9", "text": "I feel like IRR is the tool you want to use for this, then you can look at your output and determine if it's higher than what your discount rate is likely to be. Similarly, you can just do a traditional NPV analysis and then examine the sensitivity by changing the discount rate. If you're safely in profitable territory then you're probably fine despite not knowing the discount rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d8467aae09feacb8c5a1c9b2663bd24e", "text": "The MWRR that you showed in your post is calculated incorrectly. The formula that you use... ($15,750 - $15,000 - $4,000) / ($15,000 + 0.5 x $4,000) Translates into a form of the DIETZ formula of (EMV-BMV-C)/(BMV + .5 x C) The BMV is the STARTING balance. And as a matter of fact, the starting balance was NOT 15,000. It was IN FACT 11,000. See, the starting value for a month MUST BE the ending value of the prior month. So the BMV of 11,000 would give you the correct answer. Because if you added 4,000 at the start of the month (on day 1), it would have to have been ADDED to the 11,000 of the PRIOR month's ENDING value. Make sense? That would also mean that the addition of 4000 to the 11000 would imply that you started day 1 with 11,000. Make sense? Summary: When doing the calculations, you may use the ending value on the last day of the month to get your EMV. BUT YOU MAY NOT take the ending value on day 1 to get the BMV. That simply can not make sense since you already added a bunch of money during the day. Think about it. Davie", "title": "" }, { "docid": "134a2b54f8d2ddefd07691afbcb16bc6", "text": "The short answer is that you would want to use the net inflow or net outflow, aka profit or loss. In my experience, you've got a couple different uses for IRR and that may be driving the confusion. Pretty much the same formula, but just coming at it from different angles. Thinking about a stock or mutual fund investment, you could project a scenario with an up-front investment (net outflow) in the first period and then positive returns (dividends, then final sale proceeds, each a net inflow) in subsequent periods. This is a model that more closely follows some of the logic you laid out. Thinking about a business project or investment, you tend to see more complicated and less smooth cashflows. For example, you may have a large up-front capital expenditure in the first period, then have net profit (revenue less ongoing maintenance expense), then another large capital outlay, and so on. In both cases you would want to base your analysis on the net inflow or net outflow in each period. It just depends on the complexity of the cashflows trend as to whether you see a straightforward example (initial payment, then ongoing net inflows), or a less straightforward example with both inflows and outflows. One other thing to note - you would only want to include those costs that are applicable to the project. So you would not want to include the cost of overhead that would exist even if you did not undertake the project.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
09c55ceb3e3155bf91987625da123c0a
Foreign currency conversion for international visitors to ecommerce web site?
[ { "docid": "bd7f2b503ced211bf1dc76b6d304183f", "text": "Central banks don't generally post exchange rates with other currencies, as they are not determined by central banks but by the currency markets. You need a source for live exchange rate data (for example www.xe.com), and you need to calculate the prices in other currencies dynamically as they are displayed -- they will be changing continually, from minute to minute.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "db751b9cc469f547550a323044b23d8e", "text": "For manual conversion you can use many sites, starting from google (type 30 USD in yuan) to sites like xe.com mentioned here. For programmatic conversion, you could use Google Calculator API or many other currency exchange APIs that are available. Beware however that if you do it on the real site, the exchange rate is different from actual rates used by banks and payment processing companies - while they use market-based rates, they usually charge some premium on currency conversion, meaning that if you have something for 30 dollars, according to current rate it may bet 198 yuan, but if he uses a credit card for purchase, it may cost him, for example, 204 yuan. You should be very careful about making difference between snapshot market rates and actual rates used in specific transaction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "47b1fe6ea3938c0a89565d110d6fdfd8", "text": "You probably can get away with only updating the exchange rates once a day and specify that any prices quoted in units other than your home currency are estimates only. If you're planning to accept more than one currency as payment, I'd (a) see about whatever regulations there are for doing so, and (b) build in a nice spread for yourself if you're allowed to, since it is a service you're providing to your customers. If you Google currency converter the first result is just that: a currency converter.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "ff8c228fa00407ba410e26d425901054", "text": "\"For the purposes of report generation, I would recommend that you present the data in the currency of the user's home country. You could present another indicator, if needed, to indicate that a specific transaction was denominated in a foreign currency, where the amount represents the value of the foreign-denominated transaction in the user's home country Currency. For example: Airfare from USA to London: $1,000.00 Taxi from airport to hotel: $100.00 (in £) In terms of your database design, I would recommend not storing the data in any one denomination or reference currency. This would require you to do many more conversions between currencies that is likely to be necessary, and will create additional complexity where in some cases, you will need to do multiple conversions per transaction in and out of your reference currency. I think it will be easier for you to store multiple currencies as themselves, and not in a separate reference currency. I would recommend storing several pieces of information separately for each transaction: This way, you can create a calculated Amount for each transaction that is not in the user's \"\"home\"\" currency, whereas you would need to calculate this for all transactions if you used a universal reference currency. You could also get data from an external source if the user has forgotten the conversion rate. Remember that there are always fees and variations in the exchange rate that a user will get for their home country's currency, even if they change money at the same place at two different times on the same day. As a result, I would recommend building in a simple form that allows a user to enter how much they exchanged and how much they got back to calculate the exchange rate. So for example, let's say I have $ 200.00 USD and I exchanged $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00, and there was a £ 3.00 fee for the exchange. The exchange rate would be 0.6, and when the user enters a currency conversion, your site could create three separate transactions such as: USD Converted to £: $100.00 £ Received from Exchange: £ 60.00 Exchange Fee: £ 3.00 So if the user exchanged currency and then ran a balance report by Currency, you could either show them that they now have $ 100.00 USD and £ 57.00, or you could alternatively choose to show the £ 57.00 that they have as $95.00 USD instead. If you were showing them a transaction report, you could also show the fee denominated in dollars as well. I would recommend storing your balances and transactions in their own currencies, as you will run into some very interesting problems otherwise. For example, let's say you used a reference currency tied to the dollar. So one day I exchange $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00. In this system I would still have 100 of my reference currency. However, if the next day, the exchange rate falls and $ 1.00 USD is only worth £ 0.55, and I change my £ 60.00 back into USD, I will get approxiamately $ 109.09 USD back for my £ 60.00. If I then go and buy something for $ 100.00 USD, the balance of the reference currency would be at 0, but I will still have $ 9.09 USD in my pocket as a result of the fluctuating currency values! That is why I'd recommend storing currencies as themselves, and only showing them in another currency for convenience using calculations done \"\"on the fly\"\" at report runtime. Best of luck with your site!\"", "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": "84f9ed475e99f6abf8d39d2368a0b62c", "text": "\"Does some official tell the Foreign Exchange the the new exchange rate for the yuan is 0.98 * the current exchange rate? For China (and other countries with fixed/controlled exchange rates) - that's exactly how it happens. Does it just print more? This is the way to go for fully convertible currencies (like the USD, EUR, GBP, and handful of others, there're about 20 in the world). Flood the market and as with any commodity - flooding the market leads to a price drop. Obviously \"\"just print more\"\" is much harder to do than picking up the phone and saying \"\"Now you're buying/selling dollars at this price and if you don't I'll have you executed\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bc6e266b59ecc292bde5266b4226db53", "text": "\"The solution I've come up with is to keep income in CAD, and Accounts Receivable in USD. Every time I post an invoice it prompts for the exchange rate. I don't know if this is \"\"correct\"\" but it seems to be preserving all of the information about the transactions and it makes sense to me. I'm a programmer, not an accountant though so I'd still appreciate an answer from someone more familiar with this topic.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67fe623c1bd326a05f16c1beb2e452db", "text": "In the EU prices on consumer-focussed sites* are quoted inclusive of VAT. In the USA prices are quoted exclusive of sales tax. Consumer pricing is usually driven at least partly by psychological concerns. Some pricepoints are more appealing to certain types of buyers than others. The Euro vs dollar exchange rate has fluctuated a bit over the years but it's generally averaged somewhere around 1.2 dollars per Euro over the last decade. VAT has varied around 15%-20% in most cases. Put these things together and the same headline price points are generally appropriate in both the USA and the Eurozone. OTOH the Brisith pound has been worth substantially more than the dollar or the Euro. So it makes sense to have a lower headline price in the UK. * B2B focussed sites often quote prices exclusive of VAT, you need to be aware of this when comparing prices.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d55d842e506aca1a0bab26aac7e5778a", "text": "Cross-listing shouldn't be an issue, as the sole reason stocks would behave differently on different exchanges would be due to exchange rates (sure, noise and time differences, but weekly data should take care most of that). If you're using MSCI World index figures in USD, you either have to convert stocks denominated in other currencies to USD at their historical fx rates, or just save a lot of time and use data from stocks listed in the US, when available.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccef86861b5918e8ad02925f6b4ea9c4", "text": "Is there not some central service that tracks current currency rates that banks can use to get currency data? Sure. But this doesn't matter. All the central service can tell you is how much the rate was historically. But the banks/PayPal don't care about the historical value. They want to know the price that they'll pay when they get around to switching, not the last price before the switch. Beyond that, there is a transaction cost to switching. They have to pay the clearinghouse for managing the transaction. The banks can choose to act as a clearinghouse, but that increases their risk. If the bank has a large balance of US dollars but dollars are falling, then they end up eating that cost. They'll only take that risk if they think that they'll make more money that way. And in the end, they may have to go on the currency market anyway. If a European bank runs out of US dollars, they have to buy them on the open market. Or a US bank might run out of Euros. Or Yen. Etc. Another problem is that many of the currency transactions are small, but the overhead is fixed. If the bank has to pay $5 for every currency transaction, they won't even break even charging 3% on a $100 transaction. So they delay the actual transaction so that they can make more than one at a time. But then they have the risk that the currency value might change in the meantime. If they credit you with $97 in your account ($100 minus the 3% fee) but the price actually drops from $100 to $99, they're out the $1. They could do it the other way as well. You ask for a $100 transaction. They perform a $1000 transaction, of which they give you $97. Now they have $898 ($1000 minus the $5 they paid for the transaction plus the $3 they charged you for the transaction). If there's a 1% drop, they're out $10.98 ($8.98 in currency loss plus a net $2 in fees). This is why banks have money market accounts. So they have someone to manage these problems working twenty-four hours a day. But then they have to pay interest on those accounts, further eating into their profits. Along with paying a staff to monitor the currency markets and things that may affect them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5fce550f56f3a412fa76cafacb45bd6a", "text": "Take a look at Google Checkout but keep in mind that there is a different list of countries that they support as sellers vs. buyers. The buyer list is much more comprehensive, and I believe covers CIS (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) while the seller list does not (yet) which means that your client will need to create a U.S. or U.K. based entity to accept payments, however they will be able to accept payments from buyers both in CIS and internationally. Удачи.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b0eea496577f21e08aba1c08f0120db3", "text": "\"I've been doing a bunch of Googling and reading since I first posed this question on travel.SE and I've found an article on a site called \"\"thefinancebuff.com\"\" with a very good comparison of costs as of September 2013: Get the Best Exchange Rate: Bank Wire, Xoom, XE Trade, Western Union, USForex, CurrencyFair by Harry Sit It compares the following methods: Their examples are for sending US$10,000 from the US to Canada and converting to Canadian dollars. CurrencyFair worked out the cheapest.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8def29393e303b6be727289894f80600", "text": "\"FYI, just found this (https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full#8) \"\"8.9 Currency Conversion Currency Conversion 2.5% added to the exchange rate The Currency Conversion spread applies whenever a currency conversion is required to complete your transaction. The exchange rate is determined by a financial institution and is adjusted regularly based on market conditions. Adjustments may be applied immediately and without notice to you. When your payment is funded by a debit or credit card and requires a currency conversion, you consent to and authorize PayPal to convert the currency in place of your debit or credit card issuer. You have the right to have your card issuer perform the currency conversion and can choose this option during checkout on your transaction review page before you complete the transaction.\"\" 2.5%!! Can this be true?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9502308b68e5cffb5c3f0fbd260caeb6", "text": "Chinese suppliers can quote their price in CNY rather than USD (as has been typical), and thus avoid the exchange risk from US dollar volatility- the CNY has been generally appreciating so committing to receive payments in US dollars when their costs are in CNY means they are typically on the losing end of the equation and they have to pad their prices a bit. Canadian importers will have to buy RMB (typically with CAD) to pay for their orders and Canadian exporters can take payment in RMB if they wish, or set prices in CAD. By avoiding the US dollar middleman the transactions are made less risky and incur less costs. Japan did this many decades ago (they, too, used to price their products in USD). This is important in transactions of large amounts, not so much for the tiny amounts associated with tourism. Two-way annual trade between China and Canada is in excess of $70bn. Of course Forex trading may greatly exceed the actual amounts required for trade- the world Forex market is at least an order of magnitude greater than size of real international trade. All that trading in currency and financial instruments means more jobs on Bay Street and more money flowing into a very vital part of the Canadian economy. Recent article from the (liberal) Toronto Star here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f556ec1a4b3445c80dd443fbfc037af", "text": "I prefer to use a Foreign Exchange transfer service. You will get a good exchange rate (better than from Paypal or from your bank) and it is possible to set it up with no transfer fees on both ends. You can use an ACH transfer from your US bank account to the FX's bank account and then a SEPA transfer in Europe to get the funds into your bank account. Transfers can also go in the opposite direction (Europe to USA). I've used XE's service (www.xe.com) and US Forex's service (www.usforex.com). Transferwise (www.transferwise.com) is another popular service. US Forex's service calls you to confirm each transfer. They also charge a $5 fee on transfers under $1000. XE's service is more convenient: they do not charge fees for small transfers and do not call you to confirm the tramsfer. However, they will not let you set up a free ACH transfer from US bank accounts if you set up your XE account outside the US. In both cases, the transfer takes a few business days to complete. EDIT: In my recent (Summer 2015) experience, US Forex has offered slightly better rates than XE. I've also checked out Transferwise, and for transfers from the US it seems to be a bit of a gimmick with a fee added late in the process. For reference, I just got quotes from the three sites for converting 5000 USD to EUR:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "40853e4dfaf1a2a3ce25732cd544dd0a", "text": "While in the UK and travelling to Europe, I heard of the FairFX euro card from the website Money Supermarket (affiliate link which waives the sign-up fee). The link also includes many other alternative prepaid euro cards which may be better suited for your uses. The FairFX card is available in both GBP and EUR, and both products come with chip and pin. They also charge relatively little as compared to most bank cards (no currency conversion on use, $2~ withdrawal charges from ATM). I generally had a good experience with this card, and was able to purchase items both in person as well as online using it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf9423b9d4b925b1d38d1d09b0f2d4a8", "text": "\"My solution when I lived in Singapore was to open an account with HSBC, who at the time also had branches in the US. When I was home, I used the same debit card, and the bank only charged a nominal currency exchange fee (since it never had to leave their system, it was lower than had it left their system). Another option, though slightly more costly, is to use Paypal. A third option is to cash-out in CAD and convert to USD at a \"\"large\"\" institution - the larger your deposit/conversion balance, the better the rate you can get. To the best of my knowledge, this shouldn't be taxable - presuming you've paid the taxes on it to start with, and you've been filing your IRS returns every year you've been in Canada.\"", "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
6040051dfba5128a8d0448de85922814
Equity or alternative compensation in an LLC?
[ { "docid": "28a548b853776d6e465185cd77a0edb2", "text": "I'm not sure 1099-MISC is what you should expect. Equity means ownership, and in LLC context it means membership. As an LLC member, you'll get distributions and should receive a K-1 form for tax treatment, not 1099 or W2. If the CEO is talking about 1099 it means he's going to hire you as a contractor which contradicts the statement about equity allocation. That's an entirely different situation. 1) Specifically, would the 1099-MISC form be used in this case? 1099-MISC is used to describe various payments. Depending on which box is filled, the tax treatment may be as of employment income (subject to SE taxes) or passive income (royalties, rents, etc - subject to various limitations in the tax code). 3) If this is the only logical method of compensation (receiving a % of real estate sales), how would it be taxed? That would probably be a commission and taxed as employment income. I suggest to get a professional tax adviser consultation on this issue, with specific details, numbers, and kinds of deals involved. You can get gain or lose a lot of money just because you're characterized as a contractor and not LLC member or employee (each has its own benefits and disadvantages, and you have to consider them all). 4) Are there any advantages/disadvantages to acquiring and selling properties through the company as opposed to receiving a % of sales? Yes. There are advantages and there are disadvantages. For example, if you're using a corporation, you can get salary, if you're a contractor you cannot. There are a lot of issues hidden in this distinction (which I've just discussed with KeithS in this argument).", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3d718680b0cd151f64d4cb4d777842e0", "text": "\"Oh, I understand now -- we're having an absurd, meaningless conversation about an obscure theoretical point. When you can tell me how you can determine a \"\"minimum cash\"\" level from a public company's filings, we can continue the discussion. Otherwise, make a simplifying assumption and move on. I misunderstood -- I thought we were actually trying to understand the difference between enterprise value and equity value / understand the implication of an enterprise value multiple.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b33577499acb3264d1dc538082acaa9f", "text": "\"IANAL, but if you're planning to sell shares in your LLC you may be disappointed in the protection granted. I looked into this corporate structure for the same purpose myself, and my attorney said something like, \"\"If an owner of one of the shares of your company is driving to look at one of the properties, and gets into a wreck for which they were found negligent, the injured party can sue the corporation.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "01a8d67d87bc2e887865b146dfa421d3", "text": "There are some nuances with HCE definition. To answer your questions. It's compensation as defined by the plan. Usually it's gross comp, but it can exclude things like fringe benefits, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, etc. The compensation test is also a look-back test, meaning that an EE is determined to be an HCE in the current year if their compensation in the previous year was over the limit. I'm not sure how stock options affect this, but I expect they would be counted. Probably have an ESOP plan at that point too which is a whole other can-o-woms. The 5% owner test applies to the current year and also has a one-year look-back period. If at ANY point, even for a day, an employee was more than 5% owner, they are HCE for that year and next. Yes there is a limit. A company may limit the amount of HCE's to the top 20% of employees by pay like Aganju said. They can also disregard employees that may otherwise have been excluded under the plan using statutory exclusions. Example, they can disregard employees under 21 years and with less than 1 year of service. Hahaha, the IRS does not like to concisely define things. You can look here, that's probably as concise as you'll get. Hope this helps!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "36546d11d900062f0daed28ba6f6186a", "text": "I was merely trying to be helpful - Conceptually, you have dump this idea that something is skewed. It isn't. Firm A sold for $500 (equity value aka purchase price to shareholders) + debt (zero) - cash (50) for 450. Enterprise value is the cash free, debt free sale price. The implied ev multiple is 4.5x on A - that is the answer. The other business sold for a higher multiple of 5x. If you would pile on more cash onto A, the purchase price would increase, but the EV wouldn't. The idea is to think hard about the difference between equity value and enterprise value when examining a transaction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1931fcfb31aace0fe69344184134370", "text": "\"Simply paying him back the 50K to reduce \"\"his equity\"\" back to 30% doesn't necessarily mean that he still doesn't have a higher liq pref upon a liquidation event. You don't need the legal language to know...I deal with term sheets all the time, I don't deal in the legal language, we cut the deal with the term sheet and leave the legal language to the lawyers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4286585f14be963a8f314ca32f310036", "text": "\"This is actually quite a complicated issue. I suggest you talk to a properly licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). Legal advice (from an attorney licensed in your State) is also highly recommended. There are many issues at hand here. Income - both types of entities are pass-through, so \"\"earnings\"\" are taxed the same. However, for S-Corp there's a \"\"reasonable compensation\"\" requirement, so while B and C don't do any \"\"work\"\" they may be required to draw salary as executives/directors (if they act as such). Equity - for S-Corp you cannot have different classes of shares, all are the same. So you cannot have 2 partners contribute money and third to contribute nothing (work is compensated, you'll be getting salary) and all three have the same stake in the company. You can have that with an LLC. Expansion - S-Corp is limited to X shareholders, all of which have to be Americans. Once you get a foreign partner, or more than 100 partners - you automatically become C-Corp whether you want it or not. Investors - it would be very hard for you to find external investors if you're a LLC. There are many more things to consider. Do not make this decision lightly. Fixing things is usually much more expensive than doing them right at the first place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2fd0badcf019badaaa17e36fff9fa597", "text": "Pool their money into my own brokerage account and simply split the gains/losses proportional to the amount of money that we've each contributed to the account. I'm wary of this approach due to the tax implications and perhaps other legal issues so I'd appreciate community insight here. You're right to be wary. You might run into gift tax issues, as well as income tax liability and appropriation of earnings. Not a good idea at all. Don't do this. Have them set up their own brokerage account and have them give me the login credentials and I manage the investments for them. This is obviously the best approach from a tracking and tax perspective, but harder for me to manage; to be honest I'm already spending more time than I want to managing my own investments, so option 1 really appeals to me if the drawbacks aren't prohibitive. That would also require you to be a licensed financial adviser, at least to the best of my understanding. Otherwise there's a lot of issues with potential liability (if you make investments that lose money - you might be required to repay the losses). You should do this only with a proper legal and tax advice - from an attorney and/or CPA/EA licensed in your state. There are proper ways to do this (limited partnership or LLC, for example), but you have to cover your ass-ets with proper operating agreements in place that have to be reviewed by legal counsel of each of the members/partners,", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbc54297aa25d0a851d8421cd7854b7c", "text": "\"In the Income Statement that you've linked to, look for the line labeled \"\"Net Income\"\". That's followed by a line labeled \"\"Preferred Dividends\"\", which is followed by \"\"Income Available to Common Excl. Extra Items\"\" and \"\"Income Available to Common Incl. Extra Items\"\". Those last two are the ones to look at. The key is that these lines reflect income minus dividends paid to preferred stockholders (of which there are none here), and that's income that's available to ordinary shareholders, i.e., \"\"earnings for the common stock\"\".\"", "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": "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": "0ada391b851e4f03449e58bdfff9259c", "text": "\"Many thanks for thedetailed response, appreciate it. But I am still not clear on the distinction between a public company and the equity holders. Isn't a public company = shareholders + equity holders? Or do you mean \"\"company\"\" = shareholders+equity holders + debt holders?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3888310130e7db43d4af9b3324cf9def", "text": "I think I may have figured this out but if someone could double check my reasoning I'd appreciate it. So if my company makes $75000 and I decide to pay myself a $30000 salary, then the quarterly payment break down would be like this: 1040ES: Would pay income tax on non salary dividend ($45000) 941: Would pay income tax, SS, medicare on salary ($30000) (I'm the only person on payroll) So I think this answers my question in that after switching from filing as LLC to S-corp, I won't have to pay as much on 1040ES because some of it will now be covered on payroll.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e18de0fd8f9319a9c913d4939e763d4", "text": "\"It's actually the other way around. Distributions in an LLC are usually based on each member's equity share, although the operating agreement can specify how often such distributions are made. Shareholders in a corporation can receive dividends, but those are determined by the corporation's board and can vary depending on the class of stock each shareholder owns. Preferred-class shareholders, who may hold a smaller overall fraction of the company's outstanding shares than the common stock shareholders, may receive disproportionately larger dividends per share than common stock shareholders, which is one of the (many) reasons that preferred stock is a better choice when it is available. Take, for instance, what Berkshire Class \"\"A\"\" shareholders receive in dividends per year compared to Class \"\"B\"\" shareholders. Here's a good link from LegalZoom that can explain what you're asking about: Explanation of LLC distributions I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "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": "f22a212586d8b23b70bd6ceb830ee793", "text": "I'm not sure why you think that it matters that the distribution goes to an S-Corp vs an individual tax payer. You seem to think it has any relevance to your question, but it doesn't. It only confuses your readers. The situation is like this: LLC X is deriving income in State #2. It has two members (I and S) residents of State #1. Members I and S pay all their taxes to State #1, and don't pay taxes to State #2. State #2 audited member I and that member now needs to pay back taxes and penalties to State #2 on income derived from that State. Your question: Does that mean that member S should be worried, since that member was essentially doing the exact same thing as member I? My answer: Yes.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0df63d51072567cd957dcfb158d453c0
How to get a grip on finance?
[ { "docid": "a363af68e58e52989a953606175bb805", "text": "\"I think this question is perfectly on topic, and probably has been asked and answered many times. However, I cannot help myself. Here are some basics however: Personal Finance is not only about math. As a guy who \"\"took vector calculus just for fun\"\", I have learned that superior math skills do not translate into superior net worth. Personal finance is about 50% behavior. Take a look at the housing crisis, car loans, or payday lenders and you will understand that the desire to be accepted by others often trumps the math surrounding a transaction. Outline your goals What is it that you want in life? A pile of money or to retire early? What does your business look like? How much cash will you need? Do you want to own a ton of rental properties? How does all this happen (set intermediate goals). Then get on a budget A budget is a plan to spend your money in advance. Stick to it. From there you can see how much money you have to implement various goals. Are your goals to aggressive? This is really important as people have a tendency to spend more money then they have. Often times when people receive a bonus at work, they spend that one bonus on two or three times over. A budget will prevent this from happening. Get an Emergency Fund Without an emergency fund, you be subject to the financial whims of people involved in your own life and that of the broader marketplace. Once you have one, you are free to invest with impunity and have less stress in a world that deals out plenty. Bad things will happen to you financially, protect against them. The best first investments are simple: Invest in yourself. Find a way to make a very healthy income with upward mobility. Also get out and stay out of debt. These things are not sexy, but they pay off in the long run. The next best investment is also simple: Index funds. These become the bench mark for all other investments. If you do not stand a good chance of beating the S&P 500 index fund, why bother? Just dump the money in the fund and sleep well at night.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3b2bf07e63994720b13da84861816442", "text": "\"To me, your question emphasizes something I've heard many times before: personal finance is as much or more about behavior than it is about mathematics or \"\"head knowledge\"\". Sure, you know you shouldn't be wasting a lot of money on something you will use very infrequently, but how do you make this behavior stick? Here are a few tricks that might help: The other aspects of your question really touch more on psychology than finance. But getting yourself into a discipline habit with money will help. And realizing the full cash price of items in relation to how much your disposable income is will help you get control of your impulses, as you review your budget monthly, and keep limit yourself using the envelope system. But honestly, everybody wants stuff they don't have, it's human nature. The key is finding ways to put physical limits and guards on yourself to keep you from obeying the self-destructive impulses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "48de6126e09b4d109fb35118ec96977d", "text": "Become genuinely passionate about the subject and the knowledge/experience will guide you. If you're really desperate to get a position in finance ASAP, i would recommend a financials sales path. Sales is usually the most avoided path, as well as one of the most important skill sets to have. Most people don't even know that the top investment banking positions are sales, lol.....", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cedbdc99a922a2cb2d174e2739d79074", "text": "The Khan Academy has a huge series on finance (Sal Khan used to work at a hedge fund before he started his magnum opus): http://www.khanacademy.org/#core-finance Some are pretty basic stuff, but he does have some interesting commentary and snippets of more interesting topics. They're all very low-commitment and bite-sized.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "269de36d0cb782f86311de26506bb5a1", "text": "Frederic Mishkin wrote a few text books on financial concepts that are widely used in colleges. If you're not looking for a textbook - I'd really recommend Khan Academy on YouTube. He's got some great videos on supply and demand - bonds, exchange rates - monetary policy by the federal reserve. All academically sound. They're very easy to digest and watch over again for reference.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba6dfeb344202e59f5c6b285133567aa", "text": "A couple of good books I enjoyed and found very understandable (regarding the stock market): As for investment information you can get lost for days in Investopedia. Start in the stock section and click around. The tutorials here (free) give a good introduction to different financial topics. Regarding theoretical knowledge: start with what you know well, like your career or your other interests. You'll get a running start that way. Beyond that, it depends on what area of finance you want to start with. If it's your personal finances, I and a lot of other bloggers write about it all the time. Any of the bloggers on my blogroll (see my profile for the link) will give you a good perspective. If you want to go head first into planning your financial life, take a look at Brett Wilder's The Quiet Millionaire. It's very involved and thorough. And, of course, ask questions here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8bc156c5134f5fe7829656a97aba97a5", "text": "Your question just doesn't make sense in terms of finance. The reason I recommended those questions is because it'll make yours more coherent. There's deep confusion in your question, put another way. I don't think you're thinking about money properly, specifically the ownership and it doesn't appear you've read much about trading. If you're interested in a financial career, you need to be very willing to learn independently. I think my questions are a good place to start. Honestly, you should buy a finance textbook and just go through it. It's insanely complex at the top levels so reinforcing the foundation stuff is extremely beneficial.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1ff0975850d918373a5f7ab0599dbcb3", "text": "Just by chance I recently encountered this link - Do It Yourself MFE, which describes an attempt to self-educate to the level of Master of Financial Engineering. It lists books, online courses, etc. which I think may be interesting for you too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ef08f8282500399d92fa6386732c2dcf", "text": "as someone who made a fair attempt at understanding money subjects, I'd like some more writing from you. I took high school level Marketing; Business economics; commercial law. it took six months on top of my previous High school ( with high level maths). during those months I got medium grades, and failed in- can you believe it - marketing. I had a go at The intelligent investor. I made it to page 96. But honestly I felt like I needed a lot of background in order for me to understand it. English is my second language. Sure I can understand words like liability vs assets. but to this day i still can't remember the difference between a bull and bearish market. I know its about risk assesment on a national/ global level. So who honestly gave finance a go but got their ass kicked. What would you say? any books?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a55b948c4865ccff37eec744d416be8e", "text": "\"The first thing you have to do is to decided what area in finance you want to get into. For example, investment banking and quant are very different jobs. Learning all the CFA material is useful, so you might as well take the exams too while you are at it. You may be able to get into financial IT or some type of financial programming job. That is one step closer to your goal because at least you will be at a finance company and you can network with people that are in the field. Also, if you want to go into the buy side like I did, I recommend you invest your own money and manage your own portfolio. That way you would have some intimate familiarity with some companies/strategies. You can't get this from a textbook. There is something a little wrong with someone who wants to manage other people's money when he doesn't manage his own. That is a tough sell. You can't be too picky about where you get in. Getting in the door is the most important. I got a lot of quant interviews because I was an engineer. Those interviews consist of a lot of math and brain teaser type questions. For fundamental analyst positions, they will typically want to figure out how you think about businesses/companies. You can typically steer the interview any way you want, which is why I think it is important that you invest your own money. If you say \"\"the largest position I hold is in XYZ company\"\", you can be 99% certain that they will be asking about that investment for the next 15 minutes (at least). That is your opportunity to show how you can add value. Most companies prefer students for entry level, because why hire a guy who is already working in another field when you can get someone fresh? I stood out in the interviews because I could say \"\"I put $50k into this position because...\"\". It's not the only way to do it, but I can only provide you with my anedoctal experience.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "09efcb12d81aef7948756b5a63c6b944", "text": "The book HOLD: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth by Chader et al. was one of the best I've read on the subject. It has all of the basics, explanations, examples, and gives you real-life assumptions for your inputs when you do your analysis. It does contain some less-relevant information now that was more realistic before 2007, but it's a worthwhile read (or listen). They have some good starter worksheets, as well, on their website to help you do your analysis, which I found useful despite already having my own.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "076f5a3cca12c675ad2748addcff763e", "text": "The free Yale Course taught by Bob Shiller called Financial Markets is really good. Find it on youtube, iTunes U, academic earth, or yale's site.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80a96267a5a8e0c55503489088c27d01", "text": "What is the best way to get into knowledge about the financial world? I have been reading some guides on investopedia, discussing the financial world with others, and looking at some tutorial videos. Are there any good books/websites that are for a newcomer to the financial world? Any help would be greatly appreciated", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c39b287e6e52e6ae88ebd09f9d643f31", "text": "Get really good at Excel. Make it a goal to have it become a specialty of yours. Practice the basics, learn to create models, read books on it, watch videos etc. As far as publications, just try and get to the usual suspects on a daily basis. WSJ, Economist, CNN Money, Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39901689d87f33aa1067214b33177033", "text": "Buy an accounting for MBA's book and go through that. It's the absolute base of finance. I can't see how you can even wrap your head around most of the articles in FT or in the Economist if you don't know what a balance sheet, income statement, cashflow statement or statement of shareholders equity is. This is absolutely a requirement for any understanding of the finance sector, or you'll become just another schmoe on CNBC.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7189f7907d27222a59722b0d8241f95", "text": "What are your goals? Managing your finances is not the same for everyone. For example, do you want a more hands-off approach to finance or more hands-on? Are you looking at investments as well or just saving money? Those types of questions.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0993c183c1b917576497318629f6d459
How should one refuse to father in law (Chinese) when he wants to borrow money?
[ { "docid": "5a709748c1e96a752fe134116569609c", "text": "\"In these situations, one solution is to use the \"\"I was just about to ask you the same thing...\"\" response. This is kind of a famous way to deal with people asking you for money, whether it's someone asking to borrow \"\"$10 at lunch time\"\" or \"\"$3000 for a car\"\" or the like. So: Person X asks you for money, say $2000. Your reply: Ah, that's bad luck, I was just about to ask you the same thing... Follow this immediately - just keep talking - by launching in to a really incredibly detailed discussion of why you need to borrow money (pick a slightly larger amount, slet's ay $3500). Just \"\"keep talking\"\" and don't let the other person get a word in. Go in to great detail about just what you need the $3500 for and why. It's a good trick.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0a8334685586359d464d1eee78129ba8", "text": "\"Assuming United States; rules may be wildly different elsewhere... The \"\"family loan\"\" trick essentially lets you amortize a gift over multiple years of gift allowance and hopefully dodge gift tax, at the cost of having to pay income tax on the interest you must charge on the loan. The main advantage is that it lets you transfer all the money up front, rather than in $17,000-a-year-per-person-per-person chunks. Let's take the normal case first. Any one person can give any one person up to a specified amount (currently $17k, I believe,) without incurring gift tax. Note that this is counted per person, not per household; you and your spouse could each give $17k per year to each of your son and his spouse under this rule, adding up to $68k per year total. The family loan dodge consists of making them a loan of the money at the mandated minimum interest rate to make it a legal loan (something like 0.3% APR last time I looked), setting the repayment schedule so their payments each year including interest come out to less than you can gift them with tax-free, and then making that gift by paying (yourself) those payments on their behalf. You do need to pay income tax on the portion of those payments that represents interest income, but at that low rate this is a minor cost for the convenience. You'd also want to set up your will to cover what happens if you die with them still owing money on the loan. And this, I believe, is where you will really need expert advice if you go this route, to minimize the government's cut at that time. There may be better answers. If you are talking about this much money, you owe it to yourself to purchase expert advice from someone who has training and experience n this area, rather than taking free advice from the Internet that is likely to cost you much more in the long run. This is a situation where you can't afford not to hire a pro. (For example, I have no idea how trusts might or might not fit your needs.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ea0d2729ad6a4532f928aabff6b2bd6", "text": "If your intentions are honorable and you intend to pay it back in full and with interest, doesn't matter where you borrow the money from. But as a rule, family/friends and money don't mix.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd08117069dd39c471f4e395776830a6", "text": "You are using interchangeably borrow/loan and gift. They are very different. For the mortgage company, they would prefer that the money from friends and family be a gift. If it is a loan, then you have an obligation to pay it back. If they see money added to your bank accounts in the months just before getting the loan, they will ask for the source of the money. Anything you claim as a gift will be required to be documented by you and the person making the gift. You don't want to lie about it, and have the other person lie about it. They will make you sign documents, if they catch you in a lie you can lose the loan, or be prosecuted for fraud. If the money from friends and family is a loan, the payments for the loan will impact the amount of money you can borrow. From the view of the IRS the gift tax only comes into play if during one calendar year a person makes a gift to somebody else of 14,000 or more. There are two points related to this. It is person-to-person. So if your dad gives you 14K, and your mom gives you 14K, and your dad gives your wife 14k and your mom gives your wife 14K; everything is fine. So two people can give 2 people 56K in one year. Please use separate checks to make it clear to the IRS. If somebody gives a gift above the exclusion limit for the year, they will have to complete IRS form 709. This essentially removes the excess amount from their life time exclusion, in other words from their estate. Nothing to worry about from the IRS. The bank wants to see the documentation. Also you are not a charity, so they can't claim it as a donation. Why do you have 6,000 in cash sitting around. The mortgage company will want an explanation for all large deposits so you better have a good explanation. From the IRS FAQ on Gift Taxes: What can be excluded from gifts? The general rule is that any gift is a taxable gift. However, there are many exceptions to this rule. Generally, the following gifts are not taxable gifts. Number 3 on the list is the one you care about.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0f422c0f802ac7f1df127f96a2e1c1e2", "text": "It's perfectly legal for your brother to make a loan to you. However those two transactions are separate. If he defaults on the LC loan because you didn't pay him, it's his responsibility. If you default on your loan with him, you've got big problems. Money + family/friends = scary.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9fabb1dae4afdd4f326ff0595b5be42", "text": "Echoing the others, never lend money to a friend or family member, just give it to them. If you must have a contract in place then consider it a pay it forward type contract where the friend simply gives the same amount to someone in need at a future date. The value of the friendship can never be measured, but it surely will be diminished by the amount of the loan between the two of you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "471cf77dadff4da873d468a9f47e4634", "text": "Trying to forcefully reclaim the money will ruin the relationship. In general it's bad practice to loan money to family.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "147d3f1cc3989a3f208c573d1303da36", "text": "I recently lent some money to my sister. While I generally agree with Phillip that lending to family and friends should be avoided, I felt I needed to make an exception. She really needed the cash, and my husband and I agreed that we would be ok without it. Here are some guidelines I used that may be helpful to others: In the end, I think lending to family and friends should be avoided, and certainly should not be done lightly, but by communicating clearly and directly, and keeping careful records, I think you can help someone out and still avoid the lingering awkwardness at future Thanksgivings when one person is convinced that the other owes one more payment, and the other swears it was paid in full.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d77db73e41b716cd2cce4a56d9ae8161", "text": "What you are positioning as a loan was not a loan at all. Your father bought something to be delivered in the future. Your aunt does not want to deliver it, so she should buy it back at whatever the current market value is. What is the price that your dad believes her share of the inheritance is currently worth? Is that based on actual appraisals and some sort of objective audit? If so, your aunt doesn't have much of a case. If not, then she could seek an audit to bolster her bargaining position. How much did your aunt benefit from having a place to live for the last 15 years. Was that benefit greater than some larger amount of money at an unknown future date? That's probably why she sold her inheritance 15 years ago. Now that the inheritance looks like it is going to be available soon, she wants to trade back after having enjoyed the use of your father's money. That might be okay, but simply paying back the original sum with inflation, but without interest, doesn't seem fair to your father. She may not be able to afford to give any more than what she is offering, in which case, she might want to consider offering the original sum now and some portion of her inheritance as interest on that original sum. I'm not taking sides in this one. If it were one of my siblings, I'd be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and take a smaller amount back if I felt that the lesson was learned (and if I felt that he/she would make wise use of my gift to him/her). I have no idea what your father's current economic situation is, nor am I aware of any other baggage that might influence his feelings about his sister. It's as likely as not that money isn't really what is bothering him, in which case, the amount she repays may have little to do with bridging the divide between them. You might need to ask different questions in the Interpersonal Skills stack if you want to help your father feel better.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "daaca503aa30d95ef943eb99ce5fbee2", "text": "There are two Questions: Financial institutions do not care about your nationality, only your ability to pay over time. For long term debt the lender will want assurances that the borrower has the ability and means to pay the debt over time. A legal resident in the US should have no more difficulty obtaining financing than a citizen under similar life circumstances. The Lender is also under legal obligation to confirm that the borrower is who they say they are, will have the ability to pay over time AND have no malicious intent in the purchase. Persons who do not have legal status in the US, AND who do not have the means to pay for property outright will have difficulty obtaining financing as they will have trouble establishing the requirements of the Lender. This is simple math, a lender will be reluctant to lend to any person who is more likely to have difficulty paying the obligation than another. In your case Your father would be an unlikely candidate for a mortgage because he cannot establish his legal status nor can he guarantee that he will have the legal right to earn a means to pay the loan back. This puts the lender at risk both of losing the money lent AND losing the right to repossess the property if the borrower doesn't pay. Despite all of the obstacles I have indicated above, it is still possible for your father to purchase property legally, but the risk and the cost go way up for him as a borrower. There may be sellers willing to finance property over time, but your father's status puts him at a disadvantage if the seller is not honest. There may be community coalitions which can help you work through the challenges of property ownership. Please see these related articles", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b24150f078a397284069287170be6afd", "text": "&gt; My wife is trying to start a business. She has no experience at all. Don't put in too much money. Use this as a chance to learn because she's going to have a bad experience. &gt; She is working with the husband of a friend who is importing products from China. Red flag #1. &gt; He is in China and his wife is in the USA on a tourist visa (no work allowed but she works) Red flag #2. &gt; I have caught this guy lying or being way less than transparent many times. You're telling me that a guy using his wife to illegaly conduct business in the US isn't above board? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. &gt; I think he thinks others are stupid and can not easily see his misdeeds. That could be a red flag, or he could be correctly reading the situation. You said your wife has no experience in this arena, so why would he listen to her? &gt; “You tried to screw with me and my wife too many times so F you” Red flag #3. Don't mix business with emotions. &gt; I am asking for a settlement or I will do everything in my power to totally screw up his life Red flag #4. &gt; It will never stop or improve if the second party has a less than acceptable level of honesty and transparency. This is why contracts and lawyers exist. In business, everyone thinks they're making out better than the person on the other end of the table. If they didn't, they would ask for more. There can be mutually beneficial situations, but showing all of your cards is a great way for them to be used against you during negotations. &gt; It is a startup not big money, but us being in the USA as lawful citizens (me USA born, my wife naturalized Chinese ), we hold the risk here. Yeah, don't knowingly break the law. The risk is too high for you. &gt; I lived in China for ten years. Over there, the Chinese do, in almost all cases, all they can do to screw foreigners Red flag #5. Why do you want to be in business with a group you think will almost always exploit you? &gt; My wife thinks that because they are Chinese (the other party), I should be willing to accept this behavior. I totally disagree. Red flag #6. Don't use stereotypes to make judgment calls. &gt; My wife wants to have her own company very badly and she is very disappointed. Life is full of disappointment, and you can't wish for success. Well, you can, but you end up in situations like these. &gt; Do you agree when dealing with lying business “partners” if the offenses continue, even after a warning, that all bets should be off and one should change into “screw them” mode and claw back all possible money/power via all available legal resources? Say it with me. CONTRACTS! CONTRACTS! CONTRACTS! I'm not talking about a quick signature on a napkin. I'm talking about vetted and formalized. You have clear expectations. You have remediation. You have timeframes. If they don't deliver the promised expectation then you sue them. If you act on emotions then you are likely to do yourself more harm than good. If you don't think you can recover what you're due, you shouldn't be in business with a shady operator to begin with. &gt; Comments? Talk to a lawyer. You need to understand your risk and liability. If you're fine, stop investing money into this venture. You'll be taken for all you're worth.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f095485f8cb5da37475c27ba9a17d51", "text": "I say to always say yes when asked to loan money to a friend or family member as long as you have the money to do it with. That is the key: having th emoney to do it with. And - don't expect to get it back ever. If you do, great. When you don't, your expectation was met. Although not often, I've lent money to friends and most of the time have been paid back. $10, $300, more. For the times when I was not, I do remember but I don't hold it against the person. Money is only money, after all. Friends are precious and worthy of your aid, support, and respect. If they weren't, then one must ask if they are really a friend. - I have also had to borrow money once for a non-trivial amount. My family, who can easily afford it, refused but a friend helped me at a critical juncture. I offered to make a contract but my friend said no, pay me back when you can. I have tried to start paying back a couple of times but my friend refused telling me to wait until I was more financially stable. - If I am ever lucky enough to be in the position my friend is in, I will emulate this behavior and do the very same thing - and love doing it all the while.", "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": "0d0c732d4120cc999a357aa7c502dc79", "text": "Yea, honestly taking in debt is pretty much never a good idea. Even borrowing from your own family can cause issues. It better be a very serious issue if you're trying to borrow and use money you don't have. Especially if we're talking about figured that are high relative to your income stream and/or that of the person you're borrowing from if it's not an official entity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f62e1d6e5427c04a8259add514d801be", "text": "I struggle to see the value to this risk from the standpoint of your mother-in-law. This is not a small amount of money for a single person to lend to a single person ignoring your personal relationship. Right now, using a blended rate of about 8% and a 5 year payment period, your cost on that $50,000 is somewhere in the neighborhood of $11,000 with a monthly payment around $1,014. Using the same monthly payment but paying your MIL at 5% you'll complete the loan about 3.5 months sooner and save about $5,000, she will make about $6,000 in interest over 5 years against a $50,000 outlay. Alternatively, you can just prioritize payments to the more expensive loans. It's difficult to work out a total cost comparison without your expected payoff timelines and amount(s) you're currently paying toward all the loans. I'm sure a couple hours with a couple of spreadsheets could yield a plan that would net you a savings substantially close to the $5,000 you'd save by risking your mother in law's money. A lot of people think personal lending risk is about the relationship between the people involved, but there's more to it than that. It's not about you and your wife separating, it's not about the awkward dinner and conversations if you lose your job. Something might physically happen to you, you could become disabled or die. Right now, that's an extremely diversified and calculated risk taken by a gigantic lender. Unless your mother in law is very wealthy, this is not nearly enough reward to assume this sort of risk (in my opinion). Her risk FAR outpaces your potential five year savings. IF you wanted to pursue this as a means of paying interest to a family member rather than the bank, I'd only borrow an amount I budgeted and intended to pay within this single year. Say $10,000 against the highest interest loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1165f18fe6b2faae232ce9041dd42660", "text": "I suppose it depends on the circumstances, but I wouldn't advise it. If you default on a loan to the bank it might ruin your credit, if you default to a family member it has the potential for much more damage in the form of fostering bad feelings and hurt the relationship.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ee50e68d3dd6e6ab7ccc97c212458bda
Save money in company for next year
[ { "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": "cfc47ffc8876a35795d33d3b1eec2905", "text": "It's important to remember what a share is. It's a tiny portion of ownership of a company. Let's pretend we're talking about shares in a manufacturing company. The company has one million shares on its register. You own one thousand of them. That means that you own 1/1000th of the company. These shares are valued by the market at $10 per share. The company has machinery and land worth $1M. That means that for every dollar of the company you own, 10c of that value is backed by the physical assets of the company. If the company closed shop tomorrow, you could, in theory at least, get $1 back per share. The other $9 of the share value is value based on speculation about the future and current ability of the company to grow and earn income. The company is using its $1M in assets and land to produce goods which cost the company $1M in ongoing costs (wages, marketing, raw cost of goods etc...) to produce and make $2M per year in sales. That means the company is making a profit of $1M per annum (let's assume for the sake of simplicity that this profit is after tax). Now what can the company do with its $1M profit? It can hand it out to the owners of the company (which means you would get a $1 dividend each year for each share that you own) or it can re-invest that money into additional equipment, product lines or something which will grow the business. The dividend would be nice, but if the owners bought $500k worth of new machinery and land and spent another $500k on ongoing costs and next year we would end up with a profit of $1.5M. So in ten years time, if the company paid out everything in dividends, you would have doubled your money, but they would have machines which are ten years older and would not have grown in value for that entire time. However, if they reinvested their profits, the compounding growth will have resulted in a company many times larger than it started. Eventually in practice there is a limit to the growth of most companies and it is at this limit where dividends should be being paid out. But in most cases you don't want a company to pay a dividend. Remember that dividends are taxed, meaning that the government eats into your profits today instead of in the distant future where your money will have grown much higher. Dividends are bad for long term growth, despite the rather nice feeling they give when they hit your bank account (this is a simplification but is generally true). TL;DR - A company that holds and reinvests its profits can become larger and grow faster making more profit in the future to eventually pay out. Do you want a $1 dividend every year for the next 10 years or do you want a $10 dividend in 5 years time instead?", "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": "f0e9b6eb1bb4818486d9d4637a157a6c", "text": "It appears your company is offering roughly a 25% discount on its shares. I start there as a basis to give you a perspective on what the 30% matching offer means to you in terms of value. Since you are asking for things to consider not whether to do it, below are a few considerations (there may be others) in general you should think about your sources of income. if this company is your only source of income, it is more prudent to make your investment in their shares a smaller portion of your overall investment/savings strategy. what is the holding period for the shares you purchase. some companies institute a holding period or hold duration which restricts when you can sell the shares. Generally, the shorter the duration period the less risk there is for you. So if you can buy the shares and immediately sell the shares that represents the least amount of relative risk. what are the tax implications for shares offered at such a discount. this may be something you will need to consult a tax adviser to get a better understanding. your company should also be able to provide a reasonable interpretation of the tax consequences for the offering as well. is the stock you are buying liquid. liquid, in this case, is just a fancy term for asking how many shares trade in a public market daily. if it is a very liquid stock you can have some confidence that you may be able to sell out of your shares when you need. personally, i would review the company's financial statements and public statements to investors to get a better understanding of their competitive positioning, market size and prospects for profitability and growth. given you are a novice at this it may be good idea to solicit the opinion of your colleagues at work and others who have insight on the financial performance of the company. you should consider other investment options as well. since this seems to be your first foray into investing you should consider diversifying your savings into a few investments areas (such as big market indices which typically should be less volatile). last, there is always the chance that your company could fail. Companies like Enron, Lehman Brothers and many others that were much smaller than those two examples have failed in the past. only you can gauge your tolerance for risk. As a young investor, the best place to start is to use index funds which track a broader universe of stocks or bonds as the first step in building an investment portfolio. once you own a good set of index funds you can diversify with smaller investments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e974e9c76ecdd9f3ffe8704ae2d3f48", "text": "\"How can I avoid this, so we are taxed as if we are making the $60k/yr that we want to receive? You can't. In the US the income is taxed when received, not when used. If you receive 1M this year, taking out 60K doesn't mean the other 940K \"\"weren't received\"\". They were, and are taxable. Create a pension fund in the corporation, feed it all profits, and pay out $60k/yr of \"\"pension\"\". I doubt that the corporation could deduct a million a year in pension funding. You cannot do that. You can only deposit to a pension plan up to 100% of your salary, and no more than $50K total (maybe a little more this year, its adjusted to inflation). Buy a million dollars in \"\"business equipment\"\" of some sort each year to get a deduction, then sell it over time to fund a $60k/yr salary. I doubt such a vehicle exists. If there's no real business purpose, it will be disallowed and you'll be penalized. Your only purpose is tax avoidance, meaning you're trying to shift income using your business to avoid paying taxes - that's illegal. Do crazy Section 79 life insurance schemes to tax-defer the income. The law caps this so I can only deduct < $100k of the $1 million annually, and there are other problems with this approach.\\ Yes. Wouldn't go there. Added: From what I understand, this is a term life insurance plan sponsored by the employer for the employee. This is not a deferral of income, but rather a deduction: instead of paying your term life insurance with your own after tax money, your employer pays with their pre-tax. It has a limit of $50K per employee, and is only available for employees. There are non-discrimination limitations that may affect your ability to use it, but I don't see how it is at all helpful for you. It gives you a deduction, but its money spent, not money in your pocket. End added. Do some tax avoidance like Facebook does with its Double Irish trick, storing the income in some foreign subsidiary and drawing $60k/yr in salary to be taxed at $60k/yr rates. This is probably cost-prohibitive for a $1MM/yr company. You're not Facebook. What works with a billion, will not work with a million. Keep in mind that you're a one-man business, things that huge corporations like Google or Facebook can get away with are a no-no for a sole-proprietor (even if incorporated). Bottom line you'll probably have to pay the taxes. Get a good tax professional to help you identify as much deductions as possible, and if you can plan income ahead - plan it better.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f03d187b00e10733007a280dd18faf3", "text": "\"Create a meaningful goal for yourself which would distract you from impulsively spending all your money and help you to direct it towards something more meaningful. Maybe you're curious about just how little money you can live off of in one year and you're up for a challenge. Maybe you want to take a whole year off from work. A trip around the world. Or create a financial independence account, the money that is put into this account should NEVER be touched, the idea is to live off of the interest that it throws off. I strongly suggest that you listen to the audio book \"\"PROSPERITY CONSCIOUSNESS\"\" by Fredric Lehrman. You can probably find a copy at your local library, or buy if off of amazon.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f01eeea150ed6a5edaa8031d9c0b963", "text": "I would pass on their deal if they will only match if you invest in their stock. Think about when/if the company falls on bad times. What happens to the stock of a company when bad times come? The board of directors will reduce or eliminate the dividend payout. Current and potential investors will take notice. Current owners of the stock will sell. Potential investors will avoid buying. The price of the stock with go down. And, quite likely, the company will lay off workers. If/when that happens you would find yourself without a job and holding (almost) worthless stock as your savings. That would be quite a bad situation to be in.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90848ee492ed12e798b2a01864b58888", "text": "There are two dates that matter for vesting in this situation: If you left the company on 12/31/16, you would be entitled to none of the company contributions. If you left on 1/1/17, you would be entitled to all $20k. This is sometimes known as a cliff vesting schedule. Some companies do a stair step - 20% after year 1, 40% after year 2, etc. This is known as graded vesting. But, that is not the case based on the language here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "973efb2615fc09cc62ad3a78fe4e99bd", "text": "Yes. Not doing so would be like turning down a raise. The best advice in almost every situation is to at least contribute up to the amount that the company will match so you get the full benefit. One thing to clarify that you might not be understanding. The vesting period is only for the money the company matches, not your own investment. Even if you leave the company before the account is vested or fully vested, you can transfer to a 401k at your new employer, or roll over into an IRA, or take as taxable income (and pay a penalty if it is an early withdrawal), all your contributions together with any investment gains or losses that have occurred. Ditto whatever part of your employer match that has vested by the time you leave. Often, the employer matching contributions are invested in the same funds in the same proportions that you have chosen for your own contributions and thus will have incurred the same gains or losses as your own contributions, but what you are entitled to take with you is the part that has vested. Also, you mention that it is unlikely that you will stay the entire 5 years. However, if you plan to at least stay a couple of years it makes sense to get the 20%, 40%, etc. of the match that you vest during your stay. Again, it's free money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a63dbcf8f968a3dd4df94575189af90c", "text": "Find out what your take home pay will be. There should be someone in the company who can give you an idea there. Once you know that, setting up a budget is pretty straight forward. You need Subtract the sum of all that from the take home pay. If you are negative, you will have to supplement with your savings. If you are positive, you can have some fun (or use surplus savings to have fun).", "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": "fa7e7edc134d1f760a8caf1500128104", "text": "The thing about this, is that it isn’t one or two big decisions. It’s the thousands of smaller decisions. It’s the choice not to fund cost saving projects because spending cash looks bad this second. It’s not filling critical individual contributor roles and having too many levels of management. I can give you plenty of examples that show death by 1000 cuts but I think the best example is this: Internal projects (in general) need to be completed within the same calendar year. Any money that you do not spend in 2017 will not be there for you in 2018. So there is a mad rush in the beginning of the year to spend money and by September all the cash has been used up. Productivity takes a big hit and a significant amount of effort is spent jockeying for next years funding. GE is a financial company that makes things. It’s run by accountants not by logic.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a29275f2331ec196b0117951cdf72f42", "text": "Short answer is to put the max 15% contribution into your ESPP. Long answer is that since you want to be saving as much as you can anyway, this is a great way to force you to do it, and pick up at least a 15% return every six months (or however often your plan makes a purchase). I say at least because sometimes an ESPP will give you the lower of the beginning or end period stock price, and then a 15% discount off of that (but check the details of your plan). If you feel like your company's stock is a good long term investment, then hold onto the shares when purchased. Otherwise sell as soon as you get them, and bank that 15% return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b979c17b0d319f3a93a4e6014825f2e", "text": "If you use tax software to prepare your taxes, most packages have a planner for the next year. You could use that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7204946de596496e2375d774802378fe", "text": "Saving money for the future is a good thing. Whether spending those savings on a business venture makes sense, will depend on a few factors, including: (1) How much money you need that business to make [ie: will you be quitting your job and relying on the business for your sole income? Or will this just be a hobby you make some pocket change from?] (2) How much the money the business needs up front [some businesses, like simple web design consulting, might have effectively $0 in cash startup costs, where starting a franchise restaurant might cost you $500k-$1M on day 1] (3) How risky it is [the general stat is that something like 50% of all new businesses fail in their first year, and I think for restaurants that number is often given as 75%+] But if you don't have a business idea yet, and save for one in the future but never get that 'perfect idea', the good news is that you've saved a bunch of money that you can instead use for retirement, or whatever other financial goals you have. So it's not the saving for a new business that is risky, it's the spending. Part of good personal financial management is making financial goals, tracking your progress to those goals, and changing them as needed. In a simpler case, many people want to own their own home - this is a common financial goal, just like early retirement, or starting your own business, or paying for your kids' college education. All those goals are helped by saving money, so your job as someone mindful of personal finances, is to prioritize those goals in accordance to what is important for you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06edc42d5a3851e7bfe9f66ff48e7c06", "text": "In your journal entry, debit the appropriate expense account (office supplies, etc) and credit your equity account. The equity account should be called something like Partner Investments or something like that. You can choose to enter these all separately, on the specific dates listed, or as one entry. Some people choose to summarize the expenses they've paid personally and only enter one entry per month or so, to minimize data entry time and also because the end effect is the same. Of course, the above is assuming you are considering these purchases to be investments in the company, and not expecting the company to repay you. If you are expecting repayment, you could enter a bill instead, or credit an account like 'Loan from Shareholder' rather than the equity account.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3a5ec322dab34daa1742b42efa81b91a
Schedule C: where to deduct service fees on income?
[ { "docid": "2dd158484be3298885447d00cdb0af66", "text": "\"Putting them on line 10 is best suited for your situation. According to Quickbooks: Commissions and Fees (Line 10) Commissions/fees paid to nonemployees to generate revenue (e.g. agent fees). It seems like this website you are using falls under the term \"\"nonemployees\"\".\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "5581a60e50161d4d3ba607cddf4e983e", "text": "Tax regulations vary from country to country - some permitting more deductions, some less - but here are a few guidelines. As regards the home-office: As regards the deductions: Think of it like this: in order to have space for a home-office you needed a bigger home. That leads to increased rates, heating, insurance and so on. Many tax regulators recognise that these are genuine expenses. The alternative is to rent a separate office and incur greater expenses, leading to increased deductions and less overall tax paid (which won't finance the deficit). The usual test for deductions is: was the expense legitimately incurred in the pursuit of revenue? The flexibility permitted will vary by tax authority but you can frequently deduct more than you expected.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3bdd2e14dc990aa712c3092fbe817087", "text": "I received a $2,000 bonus... Gross Income is income from whatever source derived, including (but not limited to) “compensation for services, including fees, commissions, fringe benefits, and similar items.” Adjusted Gross Income is defined as gross income minus adjustments to income. My question is, must I still report this money on my tax return and if so, how? Yes, and it would be on line 21 of your 1040 with supporting documentation. Are these legal fees deductible as an expense, and where would I list them? Yes, you would aggregate your deductible expenses and place these on your Schedule A. Instructions here. Good Luck. Edit: As Ben Miller pointed out in the comments, the deduction would be placed in either line 23 or 28 depending on the nature of the attorney (investment related or not).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f7072d45f9d0dd97853ebaa4a124af40", "text": "You deduct expenses when you incur them (when you pay the hospital, for example). Medical expenses are deducted on Schedule A, subject to 7.5% AGI threshold. Financed or not - doesn't matter. The medical expense is deductible (if it is medically necessary), the loan interest is not.", "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": "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": "cecc860897423d6c529366fcac3bc914", "text": "\"You need to hire a tax professional and have them sort it out for you properly and advise you on how to proceed next. Don't do it yourself, you're way past the stage when you could. You're out of compliance, and you're right - there are penalties that a professional might know how to mitigate, and maybe even negotiate a waiver with the IRS, depending on the circumstances of the case. Be careful of answers like \"\"you don't need to pay anything\"\" that are based on nothing of facts. Based on what you said in the question and in the comments, it actually sounds like you do have to pay something, and you're in trouble with the IRS already. It might be that you misunderstood something in the past (e.g.: you said the business had filed taxes before, but in fact that might never happened and you're confusing \"\"business filed taxes\"\" with \"\"I filed schedule C\"\") or it might be the actual factual representation of things (you did in fact filed a tax return for your business with the IRS, either form 1120 of some kind or 1065). In any case a good licensed (CPA or EA) professional will help you sort it out and educate you on what you need to do in the future.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d75f727e95bfa59418f027d41e92665", "text": "\"My suggestion would be\"\"inclusive/ including 2% service charge\"\" or \"\"2% deductible towards service charge would apply\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ab8e5625963dace403b25188bb017acc", "text": "\"No, not on schedule C, better. Its an \"\"above the line\"\" deduction (line 29 on your 1040). Here's the turbo tax article on it. The instructions for this line set certain limitations that you must take into the account, and yes - it is limited to the net profit from the business. One of the following statements must be true. You were self-employed and had a net profit for the year. You were a partner with net earnings from self-employment. 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. The insurance plan must be established under your business. Your personal services must have been a material income-producing factor in the business. If you are filing Schedule C, C-EZ, or F, the policy can be either in your name or in the name of the business.\"", "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": "5abf3aeec6c19bec0614fea89f34cc6f", "text": "Business expenses reduce business income. The SE tax is paid on business income. The credit for 1/2 the SE tax is based on the amount of SE tax paid. So:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e58d99883593d6d12f8032f38a42982d", "text": "If your business is a Sole Proprietorship and meets the criteria, then you would file form Schedule C. In this case you can deduct all eligible business expenses, regardless of how you pay for them (credit/debit/check/cash). The fact that it was paid for using a business credit card isn't relevant as long as it is a true business expense. The general rules apply: Yes - if you sustain a net loss, that will carry over to your personal tax return. Note: even though it isn't necessary to use a business credit card for business expenses, it's still an extremely good idea to do so, for a variety of reasons.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "90b272b16d3db982961db359ed6ecedc", "text": "Very simple. If it wasn't rented, it's deductible as a schedule A home mortgage interest. If it was rented, you go into Schedule E land, still a deduction along with any/every expense incurred.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e066e481ce1dc4ba46306df1ed00eb97", "text": "I'm a CPA and former IRS agent and manager. Whether you are a cash or accrual basis taxpayer, you get to deduct the expense when your card is charged. Think of it this way: You are borrowing from the credit card company or bank that issued the credit card. You take that money to make a purchase of a product or service. You now have an expense and a liability to a third party. When you pay off the liability, you do not get to take a deduction. Your deduction is when you pay for the expense. Depending on what you purchased, you may have to capitalize it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b573d3167787931ca68ccd809c08eea9", "text": "PSB taxed at higher rates. PSB is taxed at 39.5% in Ontario, as the article mentioned. But if you pay all the net income to yourself as salary, you expense it and zero it out on the corporate level. So who cares what tax rate it is if the taxable income is zero? No-one. Same goes for the US, by the way. Personal Service Corporations are taxed at flat 35% Federal tax rate. But if you pour all the income into your salary - its moot, because there's no net income to pay tax of. If it's too complicated to figure out, maybe it would be wise to hire a tax accountant to provide counsel to you before you make decisions about your business.", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
7fe2adece03a542541107e1c2c05ffed
If the former owner of my home is still using the address, can it harm me?
[ { "docid": "786c59e47191338a9ea67a111bbb1567", "text": "Give it to your mailman to return to sender. For this kind of material, return service is always requested, and it will let the bank know that they have incorrect address information. If the owner needs the cards, he'll contact the bank, or the bank will contact him to verify the address. Either way, as long as its not in your name, I don't think you should be worried.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "679dd002de68db29b51e24052c1384c2", "text": "Don't worry about it. One of the big banks who like to whine a lot about defaulting borrowers is sending credit cards to a former resident of my home. The guy died in the late 90s.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0572d8145317a4ad82e1ea9467de9d01", "text": "I have prepared a report on scam's like this. I'd be happy to deliver a copy of the report to your home. Just give me your address and mail me the keys to your house and I'll drop by and leave it in your home. Oh, and tell me a time when you won't be home, so I won't bother you when I come by. It might also be helpful if you tell me if you have any cash, jewelry, or other valuables in the house and where you keep them, so I can give you advice on security measures. :-)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2b7e8ecc80023da253d521cf2d0df719", "text": "The use of an old address would make me suspect that your data was stolen from some database you had registered to long ago with the old address. I would think that contacting your credit rating firm and the credit card company is urgent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c082f5ecaa21f07ffca04ffe9e7f91d4", "text": "A person name Matthew Drury or a similar name owes money on their loan, and it has gone to collections. The collections company is trying to match the account to a real person with money. They sent a letter to somebody (your grandmother) with the same last name. The debtor may have even lived in that town at sometime. The reason you received the letter is because your grandmother forward it on. Because the rest of your info (SSN and birth date) don't match the loan it is unlikely they can attach the debt to you. Unless you provided your address to the company you could in the future receive a letter from them. But I doubt they are going to send letters to everybody with the same name. I would not worry about it unless they actually send a letter or call you directly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2f9abc71d89c073026cd22c98399860", "text": "Generally when items go to collection you will receive a letter in the mail not an email. You can try to dispute the charge with the credit companies (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian) showing that the charge came after you left the country. Like the answer above me said, disputing it may cause the 7 year clock to restart which leaves it on your account longer. It may just be simpler to try to improve your credit score instead. You can check your credit score as often as you want using Credit Karma online or on your phone.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c5cc6a65fe0e84aeb7e427dd8dd776c", "text": "Cash should never have been placed in the mailbox in the first place; this is what checks are for. I would be a bit surprised if that constitutes your accepting payment, but I Am Not A Lawyer. You need local legal advice; this is the sort of thing where local rulings matter. Definitely report the missing money to the police, no matter what else you do. You do not have to give them an opinion on whether this was a theft or an attempted fraud; just give them the facts that the tenant says they left money in the box but you didn't find it there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b75e922955ba35d021aa1fdbfdaeebc", "text": "\"There are several areas of passive fraud by being unclear on what you are doing. When a citizen buys a house, the mortgage lender wants all the details as to how the buyer rounded up the money. That is so they can use their own formulas to assess the buyer's creditworthiness and the probability that the buyer will be able to keep up on payments, taxes and maintenance; or have they overextended themselves. The fraud is in the withholding of that info. By way of tricking them into making a favorable decision, when they might not have if they'd had all the facts. Then there's making this sound all lovey-dovey, good intentions, no strings attached, no expectations. You're lying to yourself. What you've actually done is put money between yourselves, because you have not laid down FAIR rules to cover every possibility. You're not willing to plan for failure because you don't want to admit failure is possible, which is vain. Once you leap into this bell jar, the uncertainty of \"\"what happens if...\"\" will intrude itself into everyone's thoughts, slowly corroding your relationship. It's a recipe for disaster. That uncertainty puts her in a very uncomfortable position. She has to labor to make sure the issue doesn't explode, so she's tiptoeing around you to avoid fights. Every fight, she'll wonder if you'll play the breakup card and threaten to demand the money back. The money will literally come between you. This is what money does. Thinking otherwise is a young person's mistake of inexperience. Don't take my word on it, contact Suze Orman and see what she says. Your lender is also not going to like those poorly defined lovers' promises, because they've seen it all before, and don't want to yet again foreclose on a house that fighting lovers trashed. (it's like, superhero battles are awesome unless you own the building they trashed.) This thing can still be done, but to remove this fraud of wishful thinking, you need to scrupulously plan for every possibility, agree to outcomes that are fair and achievable, put it in writing and share it with a neutral third party. You haven't done it, because it seems like it would be awkward as hell - and it will be! - Or it will test your relationship by forcing direct honesty about a bunch of things you haven't talked about or are afraid to - and it will! - And to be blunt, your relationship may not be able to survive that much honesty. But if it does, you'll be in much better shape. The other passive fraud is taxes. By not defining the characteristics of the payment, you fog up the question of how your contribution will be taxed (if it will be taxed). A proper contract with each other will settle that. (there's an argument to be made for involving a tax advisor in the design of that contract, so that you can work things to your advantage.) As an example, defining the payment as \"\"rent\"\" is about the worst you could do, as you will not be able to deduct any home expenses, she will need to pay income tax on the rent, but she can cannot take landlord's tax deductions on anything but the fraction of the house which is exclusively in your control; i.e. none.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0a4893b71dec99934e4e67dee7a5b8c", "text": "I walked away from a house last year and don't regret it a single bit. I owed $545,000 and the bank sold it a month after moving out for $328,900. So technically I guess I can be on the hook to someone for the missing $216,100 for many years to come. Oh well. They can come after me if they want and I'll declare bankruptcy then.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f364aab021845547452178a44d83fa4", "text": "The issue is that the lender used two peoples income, debts, and credit history to loan both of you money to purchase a house. The only way to get a person off the loan, is to get a new loan via refinancing. The new loan will then be based on the income, debt, and credit history of one person. There is no paperwork you can sign, or the ex-spouse can sign, that will force the original lender to remove somebody from the loan. There is one way that a exchange of money between the two of you could work: The ex-spouse will have to sign paperwork to prove that it is not a loan that you will have to payback. I picked the number 20K for a reason. If the amount of the payment is above 14K they will have to document for the IRS that this is a gift, and the amount above 14K will be counted as part of their estate when they die. If the amount of the payment is less than 14K they don't even have to tell the IRS. If the ex-souse has remarried or you have remarried the multiple payments can be constructed to exceed the 14K limit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c45066b63198035b22930c8c25a63c2", "text": "Sit down with professional with knowledge about eldercare issues. Know how your options regarding the property ownership can impact the services they qualify for. Even making a change in ownership can impact their eligibility for certain programs. Some of which can reach back to events in the recent past. Also if you own it but she will get some of the profits when you sell, she could still be considered an owner, which can impact eligibility for programs. This is in addition to the issues with the lender, the IRS, and your estate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf81a4ba6b9b12171f818ca09c08f24a", "text": "Yes. As a general case, insurance proceeds are repaying you for the damage that you have already incurred, not specifically for fixing anything. Since you have the legal right to sell the house as-is, without fixing it up at all, then you have the legal right to spend the insurance proceeds how you see fit. You can upgrade, downgrade, alter or replace your deck in any reasonable way... or do nothing. You should call your agent and make sure that there is nothing unusual in your policy, but this kind of homeowner decision - what materials or methods to fix damage to a home... is very normal and unremarkable, so your agent will probably reassure you and end the conversation without a second's thought.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "28cccf2259032e396246ffa281454d93", "text": "\"Can I rent a mailbox at UPS Store and use it as a physical business address? Depending on the type of business, this may not be allowed. However, there's no blanket restriction, so you need to check if for business of the type that you have this is not forbidden. In any case, there's \"\"business address\"\" and there's \"\"address of records\"\". The former can, for most part, be a PO box. The latter usually cannot. Check if Virginia requires \"\"address of records\"\" to be provided. Can I use my home address as a registered agent address? If yes, would my house be considered as a business property? or registered address is just an address that gonna receive mails from the government state? Yes, you can be your LLCs registered agent. The registered agent must be able to accept official deliveries during the regular business hours. PO box cannot be used for that purpose, it must be a physical address where there's someone present to sign for you when you're served with lawsuits and notices. If you are not at home during the regular business hours - you cannot provide your home address for that purpose. You will be using your home for business purposes, whether you're serving as your own registered agent or not. So depending on your county/city laws - it is likely that your home will be considered place of business either way. Can I use UPS mailbox store for both business address and registered agent? See above. What other options should I consider? You can hire a register agent in your State, it is usually $50-$100/year. They will scan whatever they receive and forward to you, usually within hours. Some also provide mail forwarding service (i.e.: they'll forward any mail for you, not only official correspondence), but that usually costs extra.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9af1751c7dbb6409ff531858519a3344", "text": "You should probably consult an attorney. However, if the owner was a corporation/LLC and it has been officially dissolved, you can provide an evidence of that from your State's department of State/Corporations to show that their request is unfeasible. If the owner was a sole-proprietor, then that may be harder as you'll need to track the person down and have him close the plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65e4389f5e6ff887ee174604124f633d", "text": "According to this Q&A by a Houston law professor: The law, however, is not designed to interfere with an individual's right to stop payment on a valid check because of a dispute with someone. If he didn't deliver as promised, you do not owe the money and have the right to stop payment. Assuming that you had enough money in the bank to cover the check, stopping payment is not a crime. I found several other pages essentially saying the same thing. All the usual disclaimers apply, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. In particular, laws might vary by state. Basically, though, it doesn't seem there's any reason why you can't stop payment on the check just because you feel like it. If you then provide a cashier's check for the payment, your ex-partner will not really have anything to complain about. If you're worried about annoying him by doing this, that's a separate issue, but given the situation you describe, I don't see why you should be. If you feel he is being a pain in the neck, feel free to be a pain in the neck right back and force him to accept the payment in the manner you decide, instead of allowing him to string you along. Note two things: obviously if you have reason to believe the guy will sue you, you should act with caution. Also, I'm not suggesting withdrawing payment completely, only stopping the check and issuing a new payment that you don't have to wait on (e.g., cashier's check).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7140611637ffc227408550e614481205", "text": "As far as I understand, equifax collects data about individuals and scores their credit worthiness. The ceo did Jack shit about keeping all that private data safe, so they got hacked and all that data is now in someone else's hands. The possible implications? Large scale identify fraud of anyone whose details got stolen, since it encompasses everything that is needed for that. And that is besides the privacy violation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "faeb796265f2a3e6cade0b664a70f96f", "text": "Who are the enforcers? That sounds like a government. So we have to wait until someone gets murdered at a house before we then ostracize that house from society? That's seems horribly inefficient. A bad company could just change their address and name over and over to avoid being ostracized. And how is a company's brand going to be hurt when it's private security company disputes every crime that company commits? Why should a company care about its brand so long as its making tons of money (think about Comcast, for example)?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6ea8f454fe303160b9afcd14a508cbad
I want to invest in a U.S.-based company with unquoted stocks, but I am a foreigner. How to do this?
[ { "docid": "067b64b62ef5863866fda766820f65ae", "text": "\"The recommendation is not to make the investment. In general, a company does not have to sell their shares to you or allow you to become an investor, because, as you have stated, it is a private company not quoted on the stock market. If everyone were trustworthy, you could buy the tools for $11000 -- so that you own the tools -- and sign a lease of the tools to the company whereby they pay you $X/month. The lease should be reviewed by a lawyer before it is signed, and perhaps give the buyer the right to demand back the tools at any time. However, even this arrangement is very risky, because the \"\"company\"\" could simply steal or damage the tools and disappear. It is not an investment that I would make, because it sounds too good to be true. $2800/mo steady cash flow for $11,000 invested. No, I don't think so. The following information may also be useful, either to you, or future readers: If you still want to make this investment, then you should know that: The offering for sale of shares by companies located in the USA is subject to a wild array of complex laws. This is true in many other countries as well. These laws, called securities laws or regulations, can require certain disclosures, require that investors have a high net worth so that they can afford to lose the money or conduct their own investigations and legal actions, or require that the investors know the company founders personally, and can prohibit or limit resale by the buyer/investor. Promoters who say you can still invest and are ignoring or disobeying the securities laws are being at least negligent, but more likely are dishonest and probably criminal. Even if you trust in the investment, can you trust negligent managers to do a good job executing that investment? What about dishonest managers? What about criminals and thieves?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e71aab4db2eebd2a6cc2e519ded63c7", "text": "\"Life would be nicer had we not needed lawyers. But for some things - you better get a proper legal advice. This is one of these things. Generally, the United States is a union of 50 different sovereign entities, so you're asking more about Texas, less about the US. So you'd better talk to a Texas lawyer. Usually, stock ownership is only registered by the company itself (and sometimes not even that, look up \"\"street name\"\"), and not reported to the government. You may get a paper stock certificate, but many companies no longer issue those. Don't forget to talk to a lawyer and a tax adviser in your home country, as well. You'll be dealing with tax authorities there as well. The difference between \"\"unoted\"\" (never heard of this term before) and \"\"regular\"\" stocks is that the \"\"unoted\"\" are not publicly traded. As such, many things that your broker does (like tax statements, at source withholding, etc) you and your company will have to do on your own. If your company plans on paying dividends, you'll have to have a US tax ID (ITIN or SSN), and the company will have to withhold the US portion of the taxes. Don't forget to talk to a tax adviser about what happens when you sell the stock. Also, since the company is not publicly traded, consider how will you be able to sell it, if at all.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "a9175d6a35bb2a1f359699e4473e2b56", "text": "I don't want to get involved in trading chasing immediate profit That is the best part. There is an answer in the other question, where a guy only invested in small amounts and had a big sum by the time he retired. There is good logic in the answer. If you put in lump sum in a single stroke you will get at a single price. But if you distribute it over a time, you will get opportunities to buy at favorable prices, because that is an inherent behavior of stocks. They inherently go up and down, don't remain stable. Stock markets are for everybody rich or poor as long as you have money, doesn't matter in millions or hundreds, to invest and you select stocks with proper research and with a long term view. Investment should always start in small amounts before you graduate to investing in bigger amounts. Gives you ample time to learn. Where do I go to do this ? To a bank ? To the company, most probably a brokerage firm. Any place to your liking. Check how much they charge for brokerage, annual charges and what all services they provide. Compare them online on what services you require, not what they provide ? Ask friends and colleagues and get their opinions. It is better to get firsthand knowledge about the products. Can the company I'm investing to be abroad? At the moment stay away from it, unless you are sure about it because you are starting. Can try buying ADRs, like in US. This is an option in UK. But they come with inherent risk. How much do you know about the country where the company does its business ? Will I be subject to some fees I must care about after I buy a stock? Yes, capital gains tax will be levied and stamp duties and all.", "title": "" }, { "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": "d1a109c26a029ec8504ceeeeb3d37240", "text": "As other people have said they should register with a broker in the country they reside in that can deal in US stocks, then fill out a W8-BEN form. I have personally done this as I am from the Uk, it's not a very complicated process. I would assume that most US brokers don't allow foreign customers due to the person having to pay tax where they reside and the US brokers don't want to have to keep approximately 200 different tax codes in track.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a39855dd76f6d71894d271408f6887b", "text": "Yes. There are exceptions under the pre-JOBS laws to allow unaccredited investors (off the top of my head I don't remember the limit, but 35 sounds right). However, it increases the amount of information the company has to give to those investors. Post-JOBS you're allowed to have up to 500 unaccredited investors and as far as I know, it doesn't really change the information the company has to give.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8ad8c31cf38ded9ae11e02d78b881164", "text": "\"Thank you for the in-depth, detailed explanation; it's refreshing to see a concise, non verbose explanation on reddit. I have a couple of questions, if that's alright. Firstly, concerning mezzanine investors. Based on my understanding from Google, these people invest after a venture has been partially financed (can I use venture like that in a financial context, or does it refer specifically to venture capital?) so they would receive a smaller return, yes? Is mezzanine investing particularly profitable? It sounds like you'd need a wide portfolio. Secondly, why is dilution so important further down the road? Is it to do with valuation? Finally, at what point would a company aim to meet an IPO? Is it case specific, or is there a general understanding of the \"\"best time\"\"? Thank you so much for answering my questions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a96857cf8f4229f9687b18538caa3dcc", "text": "\"Are most big US based financial institutions and banks in such a close relationship with USCIS (United States Citizenship And Immigration Services) so they can easily request the information about market traders? Yes. They must be in order to enforce the laws required by the sanctions. What online broker would you suggest that probably won't focus on that dual citizenship matter? \"\"Dual\"\" citizenship isn't actually relevant here. Nearly anyone in the world can invest in US banks except for those few countries that the US has imposed sanctions against. Since you are a citizen of one of those countries, you are ineligible to participate. The fact that you are also a US citizen isn't relevant in this case. I believe the reasoning behind this is that the US doesn't encourage dual citizenship: The U.S. Government does not encourage dual nationality. While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and permitting Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government also recognizes the problems which it may cause. Claims of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other. In addition, their dual nationality may hamper efforts of the U.S. Government to provide consular protection to them when they are abroad, especially when they are in the country of their second nationality. If I had to guess, I'd say the thinking there is that if you (and enough other people that are citizens of that country) want to participate in something in the US that sanctions forbid, you (collectively) could try to persuade that country's government to change its actions so that the sanctions are lifted. Alternatively, you could renounce your citizenship in the other country. Either of those actions would help further the cause that the US perceives to be correct. What it basically boils down to is that even though you are a US citizen, your rights can be limited due to having another citizenship in a country that is not favorable in the current political climate. Thus there are pros and cons to having dual citizenship.\"", "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": "9daac524bddb7ad59fcf8b78ff44ab6f", "text": "Since you seem determined to consider this, I'd like to break down for you why I believe it is an incredibly risky proposition: 1) In general, picking individual stocks is risky. Individual stocks are by their nature not diversified assets, and a single company-wide calamity (a la Volkswagen emissions, etc.) can create huge distress to your investments. The way to mitigate this risk is of course to diversify (invest in other types of assets, such as other stocks, index funds, bonds, etc.). However, you must accept that this first step does have risks. 2) Picking stocks on the basis of financial information (called 'fundamental analysis') requires a very large amount of research and time dedication. It is one of the two main schools of thought in equity investing (as opposed to 'technical analysis', which pulls information directly from stock markets, such as price volatility). This is something that professional investors do for a living - and that means that they have an edge you do not have, unless you dedicate similar resources to this task. That information imbalance between you and professional traders creates additional risk where you make determinations 'against the grain'. 3) Any specific piece of public information (and this is public information, regardless of how esoteric it is) may be considered to be already 'factored into' public stock prices. I am a believer in market efficiency first and foremost. That means I believe that anything publically known related to a corporation ['OPEC just lowered their oil production! Exxon will be able to increase their prices!'] has already been considered by the professional traders currently buying and selling in the market. For your 'new' information to be valuable, it would need to have the ability to forecast earnings in a way not already considered by others. 4) I doubt you will be able to find the true nature of the commercial impact of a particular event, simply by knowing ship locations. So what if you know Alcoa is shipping Aluminium to Cuba - is this one of 5 shipments already known to the public? Is this replacement supplies that are covering a loss due to damaged goods previously sent? Is the boat only 1/3 full? Where this information gets valuable, is when it gets to the level of corporate espionage. Yes, if you had ship manifests showing tons of aluminum being sold, and if this was a massive 'secret' shipment about to be announced at the next shareholders' meeting, you could (illegally) profit from that information. 5) The more massive the company, the less important any single transaction is. That means the super freighters you may see transporting raw commodities could have dozens of such ships out at any given time, not to mention news of new mine openings and closures, price changes, volume reports, etc. etc. So the most valuable information would be smaller companies, where a single shipment might cover a month of revenue - but such a small company is (a) less likely to be public [meaning you couldn't buy shares in the company and profit off of the information]; and (b) less likely to be found by you in the giant sea of ship information. In summary, while you may have found some information that provides insight into a company's operations, you have not shown that this information is significant and also unknown to the market. Not to mention the risks associated with picking individual stocks in the first place. In this case, it is my opinion that you are taking on additional risk not adequately compensated by additional reward.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "60a9f5107226f646e8d26736cf930801", "text": "\"Don't do it until you have educated yourself enough to know what you are doing. I hope you won't take this personally, but given that you are wandering around asking random strangers on the Internet how to \"\"get into investing,\"\" I feel safe in concluding that you are by no means a sophisticated enough investor to be choosing individual investments, nor should you be trusting financial advisors to choose investments for you. Believe me, they do not have your interests at heart. I usually advise people in your position to start by reading one book: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. Once you've read the book by Malkiel you'll understand that the best strategy for all but the most sophisticated investors is to buy an index fund, which simply purchases a portfolio of ALL available stocks without trying to pick winners and losers. The best index funds are at Vanguard (there is also a Vanguard site for non-US residents). Vanguard is one of the very, very, very few honest players in the business. Unlike almost any other mutual fund, Vanguard is owned by its investors, so it has no profit motive. They never try to pick individual stocks, so they don't have to pay fancy high-priced analysts to pick stocks. If you find it impossible to open a Vanguard account from wherever you're living, find a local brokerage account that will allow you to invest in the US stock market. Many Vanguard mutual funds are available as ETFs which means that you buy and sell them just like any other stock on the US market, which should be easy to do from any reasonably civilized place.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3932cc2002b359f9b9105bc0e28a203", "text": "You can invest upto $200K per year abroad, and yes, you can buy Google as a stock. Consider opening an international account with a broker like interactive brokers (www.interactivebrokers.co.in) which allows you to fund the account from your local Indian account, and then on, buy shares of companies listed abroad.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "065db451d8f3c8bfac3ce4d576a099a7", "text": "There's no limitation on what you can invest in, including trading stocks (as long as trading is not a business activity, like day-trading or investing for others). You just need to make sure you have a tax ID (either ITIN or SSN) and pay taxes on all the gains and dividends. Also, consider your home country tax laws, since you're still tax resident in your home country (most likely).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92f0b60388d535a8b24ec5ee5eac7417", "text": "\"Take a look at FolioFN - they let you buy small numbers of shares and fractional shares too. There is an annual fee on the order of US$100/year. You can trade with no fees at two \"\"windows\"\" per day, or at any time for a $15 fee. You are better off leaving the stock in broker's name, especially if you live overseas. Otherwise you will receive your dividends in the form of cheques that might be expensive to try to cash. There is also usually a fee charged by the broker to obtain share certificates instead of shares in your account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b30ca28a9511d1c987202b799849f608", "text": "\"The fact that your shares are of a Canadian-listed corporation (as indicated in your comment reply) and that you are located in the United States (as indicated in your bio) is highly relevant to answering the question. The restriction for needing to be a \"\"qualified institutional buyer\"\" (QIB) arises from the parent company not having registered the spin-off company rights [options] or shares (yet?) for sale in the United States. Shares sold in the U.S. must either be registered with the SEC or qualify for some exemption. See SEC Fast Answers - Securities Act Rule 144. Quoting: Selling restricted or control securities in the marketplace can be a complicated process. This is because the sales are so close to the interests of the issuing company that the law might require them to be registered. Under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, all offers and sales of securities must be registered with the SEC or qualify for some exemption from the registration requirements. [...] There are regulations to follow and costs involved in such registration. Perhaps the rights [options] themselves won't ever be registered (as they have a very limited lifetime), while the listed shares might be? You could contact investor relations at the parent company for more detail. (If I guessed the company correctly, there's detail in this press release. Search the text for \"\"United States\"\".)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "21b890429ad52c9daf27275afc511a82", "text": "I personally am from Canada and use my local bank to trade stocks. Contact your local bank and they will tell you how to do it, since rules depend on country of residency. If you are not close to a bank, e-mail the major bank in the country of your residence.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "89301bf904b266e986a2adae98def27f", "text": "\"Intrinsic value is a myth. There is no such thing. Subjective human demand is the only thing that gives anything value. This subjectivity is different person to person and can change very quickly. Historically there are two main uses for gold: jewelry and money. How can you tell when a particular type of money is undervalued? It disappears from circulation since people prefer to use money that is overvalued. This phenomenon is paraphrased in Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good money. The Coinage Act of 1792 established the US dollar as 371.25 grains of silver or 24.75 grains of gold. This established a government ratio of 15 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold. In the late 18th century there was a large production of silver from Mexico and the market ratio of silver to gold increased to 15.75 to 1 by 1805. The government ratio, however, was still 15 to 1. This was enough incentive for people to exchange their silver coins for gold coins at the government ratio, melt the gold, and sell the gold bullion overseas at the market value. Thus, gold coins disappeared from circulation as people either hoarded the gold or sent it abroad. People used the overvalued silver coins (i.e. the \"\"bad\"\" money) domestically and gold coins disappeared from the market. In an attempt to correct the problem of disappearing gold coins the Coinage Act of 1834 was enacted. It kept the US dollar at 371.25 grains of silver but changed the definition to 23.2 grains of gold which established a government ratio of 16 to 1. This was close to the market ratio of gold to silver at the time so both gold and silver coins appeared in circulation again. The gold rush of 1849 produced a lot of gold and the market ratio of silver to gold became 15.46 to 1. Now gold was overvalued so people began exchanging their gold coins for silver coins at the government ratio, melt the silver, and sell the silver bullion overseas at the market value. People used the overvalued gold coins (i.e. the \"\"bad\"\" money) domestically and silver coins disappeared from the market. When you see gold circulating everywhere you will know it is overvalued compared to other types of money. Paper money always drives gold out of circulation since the market ratio of paper to gold severely under values gold. Source here.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
ccc8d32634b455de813d4ca8b10bf628
IRS “convenience of the employer” test when employee lives far from the office
[ { "docid": "98e4a30799ac22fdf632c7ade120ac85", "text": "\"The decision whether this test is or is not met seems to be highly dependent on the specific situation of the employer and the employee. I think that you won't find a lot of general references meeting your needs. There is such a thing as a \"\"private ruling letter,\"\" where individuals provide specific information about their situation and request the IRS to rule in advance on how the situation falls with respect to the tax law. I don't know a lot about that process or what you need to do to qualify to get a private ruling. I do know that anonymized versions of at least some of the rulings are published. You might look for such rulings that are close to your situation. I did a quick search and found two that are somewhat related: As regards your situation, my (non-expert) understanding is that you will not pass in this case unless either (a) the employer specifies that you must live on the West Coast or you'll be fired, (b) the employer would refuse to provide space for you if you moved to Boston (or another company location), or (c) you can show that you could not possibly do your job out of Boston. For (c), that might mean, for example, you need to make visits to client locations in SF on short-notice to meet business requirements. If you are only physically needed in SF occasionally and with \"\"reasonable\"\" notice, I don't think you could make it under (c), although if the employer doesn't want to pay travel costs, then you might still make it under (a) in this case.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b00dcf0b2faaae67c0b38a657cffcb20", "text": "\"I'm not a tax professional, but as I understand it, you are not expected to commute from San Francisco to Boston. :) If your employer has not provided you with an external office, then yes, you have very likely met the \"\"convenience of the employer\"\" test. However, to take the home office deduction, there are many requirements that have to be met. You can read more at the Nolo article Can You Deduct Your Home Office When You're an Employee? (Thanks, keshlam) The home office deduction has many nuances and is enough of an IRS red flag that you would be well-advised to talk to an accountant about it. You need to be able to show that it is exclusively and necessarily used for your job. Another thing to remember: as an employee, the home office deduction, if you take it, will be deducted on Schedule A, line 21 (unreimbursed employee expenses), among other Miscellaneous Deductions. Deductions in this section need to exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income before you can start to deduct. So it will not be worth it to pursue the deduction if your income is too high, or your housing expenses are too low, or your office is too small compared to the rest of your house, or you don't itemize deductions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd880ce59cf2fa8ab5caedc3c00013d1", "text": "If your employer does not provide you with a place to work but nevertheless expects you to get work done, then having a place to work is a condition of employment.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "039519230ab375aea3fdd45fc09a3a49", "text": "\"The short answer is yes you can, but you have to make sure you do it correctly. If you are employed by a tech company that does contract work at a separate location and you don't get reimbursed by your employer for travel expenses, you can claim the mileage between your home and location B as a business expense, but there's a catch - you have to subtract the mileage between your home and location A (your employer). So if it's 20 miles from your house to your employer (location A), and 30 miles from your house to the business you're contracting at (location B), you can only claim 10 miles each way (so 20 miles total). Obviously if the distance to location B is closer than your employer (location A), you're out of luck. You will have to itemize to take this deduction, by filling out a Schedule A for itemized deductions and Form 2106 to calculate how much of a deduction for travel expenses you can take. Google \"\"should i itemize\"\", if you're unsure whether to take the Standard Deduction or Itemize. Sources:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0c8b81f8345d86c56215b7b3dd6e4a8c", "text": "Here's an answer received elsewhere. Yes, it looks like you have a pretty good understanding the concept and the process. Your wife's income will be so low - why? If she is a full-time student in any of those months, you may attribute $250 x 2 children worth of income for each of those months. Incidentally, even if you do end up paying taxes on the extra $3000, you won't be paying the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare (7.65%) or state disability on those funds. So you still end up saving some tax money. No doubt, there's no need to remind you to be sure that you submit all the valid receipts to the administrator in time to get reimbursed. And a must-have disclaimer: Please be advised that, based on current IRS rules and standards, any advice contained herein is not intended to be used, nor can it be used, for the avoidance of any tax penalty that the IRS may assess related to this matter. Any information contained in this email, whether viewed or subsequently printed, cannot be relied upon as qualified tax and accounting advice. ... Any information contained in this email does not fall under the guidelines of IRS Circular 230.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e477d83f05f0972355b5b26f40f70211", "text": "You are going to have to talk to your benefits office to understand all the deadlines and rules for their program. While the IRS does enforce the law, there are enough local variations in the rules to make it quite complex. The first thing you need to know is the source of the funds: the employer or the employee. Then you need to know the deadline for applying for the program, how you specify the monthly expenses in advance, and when the funds expire. The way you pay for commuting and parking makes a difference: per-ride on the subway, van pool, monthly transit pass; daily parking at a lot, monthly hang tag, or at meter; These options determine how to expend the funds and how they give you the funds. You can't get money for missed months. So you need to know what you have to do in October to get money for November.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "255ced4517b0b7d6b04e2db97cfaec4c", "text": "The answer on the Canadian Government's website is pretty clear: Most employees cannot claim employment expenses. You cannot deduct the cost of travel to and from work, or other expenses, such as most tools and clothing. However, that is most likely related to a personal vehicle. There is a deduction related to Public Transportation: You can claim cost of monthly public transit passes or passes of longer duration such as an annual pass for travel within Canada on public transit for 2016. The second sleeping residence is hard to justify as the individual is choosing to work in this town and this individual is choosing to spent the night there - it is not currently a work requirement. As always, please consult a certified tax professional in your country for any final determinations on personal (and corporate) tax laws and filings.", "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": "891ee310b6317fc6582703bb35ca4b5f", "text": "You need an ITIN. Follow the instructions on the IRS page to apply. You might be better off getting an on-campus employment authorization and getting an SSN, though, as the ITIN process is not really convenient.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c980bab86b11f8a11a08b697e3987cf5", "text": "The I-9 form is required because you are working. It is kept by the employer as proof that you have the proper documents to work. If the government was to inspect their records they can be fined if they don't have those document, in fact they have to keep them for several years after your employment is done. A w-4 form is a federal tax form. There also was probably a state version of the form. When you completed the w-4 it is used by your employer to determine how much in taxes need to be withheld. Employers don't know your tax situation. Even though you are on work study, you still could have made enough money over the summer to pay taxes. But if this is your only job, and you will not make enough money to have to pay taxes, you can fill out the form as exempt. That means that last year you didn't make enough money to have to pay taxes, and you don't expect to make enough to have to pay taxes this year. If you are exempt, no federal income tax will be withheld. They might still withhold for social security and medicare. The state w-4 can also be used to be exempt from state taxes. If they withhold any income taxes you have to file one of the 1040 tax forms to get that income tax money back. You will have to do so for the state income tax withholding. A note about social security and medicare. If you have an on campus job, at the campus you attend, during the school year; they don't withhold money for social security and medicare. That law applies to students on work study jobs, and on non-work-study jobs. for single dependents the federal threshold where you must file is: > You must file a return if any of the following apply. Your gross income was more than the larger of— a. $1,000, or b. Your earned income (up to $5,850) plus $350.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fca05dd02f506c3c1b809979ec8410e5", "text": "It looks like the resource to deciding these is here Concerning the meals, the law seems a bit vague to me. You can exclude the value of meals you furnish to an employee from the employee's wages if they meet the following tests. This exclusion does not apply if you allow your employee to choose to receive additional pay instead of meals. If the whole point of google providing meals is to benefit Google as such people will not leave the googleplex when to obtain meals elsewhere causing increased productivity for Google, then this is covered as a business expense. (Even if it wasn't, Google would have to notify you that it was providing you a non-expensable benefit, i.e. compensation, by giving you a 1099 at the end of the year). Concerning the other benefits, the only way I could see those items not being taxable benefits is if one of the two applies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53bc18ef51b467033d38893df7051ce4", "text": "\"Your best bet might be to visit a local IRS office in person. To find your local office, use the IRS office locator page. After you enter your zip code and find your nearest office, click on the \"\"hours and services\"\" link, which will show you a list of every office in your state. For each office, you can click on the \"\"services provided\"\" link to make sure that they handle \"\"payment arrangements\"\" at your selected office. Finally, you should probably call the local office first to see if you need an appointment, so you don't have to wait.\"", "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": "8a56238e87f61f08084fe4d8d5f824ad", "text": "Go through the IRS Publication 521. Generally, relocation assistance is given either as : or", "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": "f55d808ccf87a99e2a6100e95f2e63ec", "text": "\"New York State is one of a few states that will go after telecommuter taxes (such that some people may end up paying double tax even if they don't live in NY). There are a few ways that you can avoid this. If you NEVER come to NY for work, and your employer can stipulate that your position is only available to be filled remotely, you will likely be covered. But there are a myriad of factors relating to this such as whether the employer reimburses you for your home office and whether you keep \"\"business records\"\" at your office. Provided you can easily document the the factors in TSB-M-06(5)I, you shouldn't have to pay NYS taxes. (source: I've worked with a NYS tax attorney as an employer to deal with this exact scenario).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b54f359812447b459ce484e396958a5f", "text": "Alright, IRS Publication 463: Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses Business and personal use. If you use your car for both business and personal purposes, you must divide your expenses between business and personal use. You can divide your expense based on the miles driven for each purpose. Example. You are a sales representative for a clothing firm and drive your car 20,000 miles during the year: 12,000 miles for business and 8,000 miles for personal use. You can claim only 60% (12,000 ÷ 20,000) of the cost of operating your car as a business expense Obviously nothing helpful in the code. So I would use option 1, weight the maintenance-related mileage by the proportion of business use. Although if you use your car for business a lot (and perhaps have a spouse with a car), an argument could be made for 3. So I would consider my odds of being audited (even lower this year due to IRS budget cuts) and choose 1 or 3. And of course never throw anything away until you're room temperature.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9a780decda5c8e8bb9f5fa69add811c", "text": "\"Even though you will meet the physical presence test, you cannot claim the FEIE because your tax home will remain the US. From the IRS: Your tax home is the general area of your main place of business, employment, or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. Your tax home is the place where you are permanently or indefinitely engaged to work as an employee or self-employed individual. Having a \"\"tax home\"\" in a given location does not necessarily mean that the given location is your residence or domicile for tax purposes. ... You are not considered to have a tax home in a foreign country for any period in which your abode is in the United States. However, your abode is not necessarily in the United States while you are temporarily in the United States. Your abode is also not necessarily in the United States merely because you maintain a dwelling in the United States, whether or not your spouse or dependents use the dwelling. ... The location of your tax home often depends on whether your assignment is temporary or indefinite. If you are temporarily absent from your tax home in the United States on business, you may be able to deduct your away from home expenses (for travel, meals, and lodging) but you would not qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. If your new work assignment is for an indefinite period, your new place of employment becomes your tax home, and you would not be able to deduct any of the related expenses that you have in the general area of this new work assignment. If your new tax home is in a foreign country and you meet the other requirements, your earnings may qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. If you expect your employment away from home in a single location to last, and it does last, for 1 year or less, it is temporary unless facts and circumstances indicate otherwise. If you expect it to last for more than 1 year, it is indefinite. If you expect your employment to last for 1 year or less, but at some later date you expect it to last longer than 1 year, it is temporary (in the absence of facts and circumstances indicating otherwise) until your expectation changes. For guidance on how to determine your tax home refer to Revenue Ruling 93-86. Your main place of business is in the US and this will not change, because your business isn't relocating. If you are intending to work remotely while you are abroad, you should get educated on the relevant laws on where you are going. Most countries don't take kindly to unauthorized work being performed by foreign visitors. And yes, even though you aren't generating income or involving anyone in their country, the authorities still well may disapprove of your working. My answer to a very similar question on Expatriates.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
6f2e431e76d9274338fe9b333dcb9600
How much total salary to allocate to defer $17,500 to 401(k)?
[ { "docid": "0f6be042e05c1e3e41ac07a983a02f85", "text": "You're on the right track, and yes, that small difference is subject to income taxes. Do you use a payroll service? I do the same thing and use my payroll software to tweak the salary until the paycheck is just a few dollars every month (we run payroll once a month), with the rest going to the 401(k) and payroll taxes. So we're rounding up just a bit just so there's an actual paycheck with a positive number, and a bit does get withheld for fed/state income tax. Also keep in mind you can make a company match. If your plan is a solo 401(k) with just you and your wife as the sole employees, consider the 25% match for both of you. The match is not subject to payroll taxes because it is a company expense. IRS web page: http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/One-Participant-401(k)-Plans", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "ab91f5820357315c56dddded387455a5", "text": "While tax deferral is a nice feature, the 401k is not the Holy Grail. I've seen plenty of 401k's where the investment options are horrible: sub-par performance, high fees, limited options. That's great that you've maxed out your Roth IRA. I commend you for that. As long as the investment options in your 401k are good, then I would stick with it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "909eae1d15d84e2380144c2af50e1f14", "text": "My observations is that this seems like hardly enough to kill inflation. Is he right? Or are there better ways to invest? The tax deferral part of the equation isn't what dominates regarding whether your 401k beats 30 years of inflation; it is the return on investment. If your 401k account tanks due to a prolonged market crash just as you retire, then you might have been better off stashing the money in the bank. Remember, 401k money at now + 30 years is not a guaranteed return (though many speak as though it were). There is also the question as to whether fees will eat up some of your return and whether the funds your 401k invests in are good ones. I'm uneasy with the autopilot nature of the typical 401k non-strategy; it's too much the standard thing to do in the U.S., it's too unconscious, and strikes me as Ponzi-like. It has been a winning strategy for some already, sure, and maybe it will work for the next 30-100 years or more. I just don't know. There are also changes in policy or other unknowns that 30 years will bring, so it takes faith I don't have to lock away a large chunk of my savings in something I can't touch without hassle and penalty until then. For that reason, I have contributed very little to my 403b previously, contribute nothing now (though employer does, automatically. I have no match.) and have built up a sizable cash savings, some of which may be used to start a business or buy a house with a small or no mortgage (thereby guaranteeing at least not paying mortgage interest). I am open to changing my mind about all this, but am glad I've been able to at least save a chunk to give me some options that I can exercise in the next 5-10 years if I want, instead of having to wait 25 or more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0797aab185d2e515f18e819fd107ed3", "text": "You're correct about the 401(k). Your employer's contributions don't count toward the $18k limit. You're incorrect about the IRAs though. You can contribute a maximum of $5500 total across IRA and Roth IRA, not $5500 to each. There are also limits once you reach higher levels of income. from IRS.gov: Retirement Topics - IRA Contribution Limits: For 2015, 2016, and 2017, your total contributions to all of your traditional and Roth IRAs cannot be more than:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6e8e873ae7e17639e49b6536f6f2130d", "text": "The range is fine. It's ~ 1-2X your annual income. First, and foremost - your comment on the 401(k), not knowing the fees, is a red flag to me. The difference between low cost options (say sub .25%) and the high fees (over .75%) has a huge impact to your long term savings, and on the advice I'd give regarding maximizing the deposits. At 26, you and your wife have about 20% of your income as savings. This is on the low side, in my opinion, but others suggest a year's salary by age 35 which implies you're not too far behind. Given your income, you are most likely in the 25% federal bracket. I'd like you to research your 401(k) expenses, and if they are reasonable, maximise the deposit. If your wife has no 401(k) at work, she can deposit to an IRA, pre-tax. It's wise to keep 6 months of expenses as liquid cash (or short term CDs) as an emergency fund in case of such things as a job layoff. They say to expect a month of job hunting for each $10K you make, so having even a year to find a new job isn't unheard of. One thing to consider is to simply kill the mortgage. Before suggesting this, I'd ask what your risk tolerance is? If you took $100K and put it right into the S&P, would you worry every time you heard the market was down today? Or would you happily leave it there for the next 40 years? If you prefer safety, or at least less risk, paying off the mortgage will free up the monthly payment, and let you dollar cost average into the new investments over time. You'll have the experience of seeing your money grow and learn to withstand the volatility. The car loan is a low rate, if you prefer to keep the mortgage for now, paying the car loan is still a guaranteed 3%, vs the near 0% the bank will give you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8a64117d96c277d1c5691678a3221d1f", "text": "\"You are legally able to contribute more than 4% to your 401(k) (unless you've hit the actual limit). There is no reason you need to pull out your \"\"extra\"\" contribution. So basically they just want their $27.50 back. So offer (via email or writing) to send them a check. You obviously don't work there any more, so if they insist it comes from your IRA or are not willing to accept a check, tell them to @%#&* off (OK, not really, that would be unprofessional, but that's the general idea). They overpaid you by $27.50, and you are legally bound to return the extra pay, but not to put up with their BS. Tell them you've offered to pay, and if they don't want to accept a check, they can sue you for it to try to get it in the form they prefer (which they won't do, and even if they did, at most the judge would just tell you to write a check - which you offered from the outset, so they'd probably owe your legal fees).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6456689474126d52bc57b6a42210921", "text": "Please note that if you are self employed, then the profit sharing limit for both the SEP and Solo 401(k) is 20% of compensation, not 25%. There is no need for a SEP-IRA in this case. In addition to the 401(k) at work, you have a solo-401(k) for your consulting business. You can contribute $18,000 on the employee side across the two 401(k) plans however you wish. You can also contribute profit sharing up to 20% of compensation in your solo 401(k) plan. However, the profit sharing limit aggregates across all plans for your consulting business. If you max that out in your solo 401(k), then you cannot contribute to the SEP IRA. In other words, the solo 401(k) dominates the SEP IRA in terms of contributions and shares a limit on the profit-sharing contribution. If you have a solo 401(k), there is never a reason to have a SEP for the same company. Example reference: Can I Contribute to a solo 401(k) and SEP for the same company?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "175c2b5e3b93c09019d2e8d5c996204d", "text": "\"There are two types of 401(k) contributions: \"\"elective contributions,\"\" which are the part put in by the employee and \"\"nonelective contributions,\"\" which are the part put in by the company. Elective contributions are summed across all the plans she is contributing to. So she can contribute $18,000 minus whatever she put in her 403(b). Additionally she can contribute 20% of the net profit of the company (before the elective contributions) as nonelective contributions (these contributions must be designated as such). You will notice that the IRS document says 25%, but that's what you can do if her business is incorporated. For a sole proprietorship, nonelective contributions ends up being limited at 20% of profit. Additionally, the sum of these two and her contribution to her 403(b) cannot exceed $53,000. Example: line 31 of her schedule C is $30,000 and she has contributed $10,000 to her 403(b). Maximum contribution to her solo 401(k) is ($18,000 - $10,000) + 0.2 * $30,000 = $14,000 Her total contributions for the year are $10,000 from her 403(b) plus $14,000 in her solo 401(k). This is less than $53,000 so this limit does not bind. If she made a ton of 1099 money, her contribution maximum would follow the above until it hit $53,000 and then it would stop there. The IRS describes this in detail in Publication 560, which also has a worksheet for figuring out your maximum explicitly. It's unpleasant reading and the worksheets are painful, but if you do it right, it will end up being as I just described it. Using the language of that publication, hers is a \"\"qualified plan\"\" of the \"\"defined contribution\"\" variety.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9cb6f639cc02d9fa95f1f7e8dd31186", "text": "Probably the biggest tax-deferment available to US workers is through employee-sponsored investment plans like the 401k. If you meet the income limits, you could also use a Traditional IRA if you do not have a 401k at work. But keep in mind that you are really just deferring taxes here. The US Government will eventually get their due. :) One way which you may find interesting is by using 529 plans, or other college investment plans, to save for your child's (or your) college expenses. Generally, contributions up to a certain amount are deductible on your state taxes, and are exempt from Federal and State taxes when used for qualifying education expenses. The state deduction can lower your taxes and help you save for college for your children, if that is a desire of yours.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fec1087f096889c0e2f7d49d8e0c4ca4", "text": "One possible downside is contribution limit. The 401K contribution limit is $18,000 for 2016, which is more than three times the limit for IRA contributions ($5,500).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bafeb59bf5ba1c14558200300f70f0b3", "text": "Another option to a human advisor is FutureAdvisor, a web service that (if it supports your 401k plan) gives personalized algorithmic advice on what you should hold in your 401(k) and other retirement accounts. If it doesn't support your 401(k) plan just yet you can sign up to be emailed when your plan is added. [Disclosure: I work here, but I believe in the product and it's designed to solve this exact problem so I'm mentioning it here] Note from JoeTaxpayer - bolu's disclosure is much appreciated. The fee is $39/yr, with a free trial. Consider that a commissions based advisor won't even take on a $10K level account, and at $100K, you'd be hard pressed to gain by more than his 1% fee. So while I've not dug deeper into this site, a rules-based methodology is likely to be worth the cost if over time it gains you even a fraction of a percent compared to what you'd have done blindly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6087a9d2467ed3970de52e8333b8321a", "text": "On re-reading the question, I see that you're self-employed, decent income, but only have an IRA. Since the crux of the question appears to be related to your wanting to put aside more money, I suggest you open a Solo 401(k) account. The current year limit is $17,000, and you can still have an IRA if you wish.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53c1bb6b0713aa08599a51f7782a9999", "text": "In addition to the normal limits, A Solo 401(k) allows you to contribute up to 20% of net profits (sole proprietor) or 50% of salary (if a corporation), up to $49,000. Note that the fees for 401(k) accounts are higher than with the IRA. See 401(k)s for small business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1688f9cf850d8748e0e64f5e5f7b0f5a", "text": "If you were looking to maximize your ability to save in a qualified plan, why not setup a 401K plan in Company A and keep the SEP in B? Setup the 401K in A such that any employee can contribute 100% of their salary. Then take a salary for around 19K/year (assuming under age 50), so you can contribute and have enough to cover SS taxes. Then continue to move dividends to Company A, and continue the SEP in B. This way if you are below age 50, you can contribute 54K (SEP limit) + 18K (IRA limit) + 5500 (ROTH income dependent) to a qualified plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58f374b3ac883e18ece5a9fca4e36f9d", "text": "\"You're getting great wisdom and options. Establishing your actionable path will require the details that only you know, such as how much is actually in each paycheck (and how much tax is withheld), how much do you spend each month (and yearly expenses too), how much spending can you actually cut or replace, how comfortable are you with considering (or not considering) unexpected/emergency spending. You mentioned you were cash-poor, but only you know what your current account balances are, which will affect your actions and priorities. Btw, interestingly, your \"\"increase 401k contributions by 2% each year\"\" will need to end before hitting the $18K contribution limit. I took some time and added the details you posted into a cash-flow program to see your scenario over the next few years. There isn't a \"\"401k loan\"\" activity in this program yet, so I build the scenario from other simple activities. You seem financially minded enough to continue modeling on your own. I'm posting the more difficult one for you (borrow from 401k), but you'll have to input your actual balances, paycheck and spending. My spending assumptions must be low, and I entered $70K as \"\"take-home,\"\" so the model looks like you've got lots of cash. If you choose to play with it, then consider modeling some other scenarios from the advice in the other posts. Here's the \"\"Borrow $6500 from 401k\"\" scenario model at Whatll.Be: https://whatll.be/d1x1ndp26i/2 To me, it's all about trying the scenarios and see which one seems to work with all of the details. The trick is knowing what scenarios to try, and how to model them. Full disclosure: I needed to do similar planning, so I wrote Whatll.Be and I now share it with other people. It's in beta, so I'm testing it with scenarios like yours. (Notice most of the extra activity occurs on 2018-Jan-01)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e5bfae12d3cb58ae5a235d930c94ce8d", "text": "First a few comments: Other benefits: It may not be possible for everybody to max out the 401K on an income of 100K. It would depend on family size, other income, other expenses, other debts...", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
da0c2d02397c7723c95192308a4c95b4
From ACH direct debit to Prepaid card?
[ { "docid": "9e3ad626fb4216b52b8186349ee49440", "text": "This would be exactly the sort of product that a thief would want, if they had got ahold of some account numbers and wanted to steal the money from those accounts, in a way that would let them spend it as conveniently as possible. That should explain why I think it's unlikely that any such product exists.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "c8cd652bd2f53b2835c5439fdddf5dad", "text": "I contacted Virgin Money to ask if the prepaid card you mentioned offers a Swift/BIC code, and they gave me this response: We do not have a Swift or BIC number for the Virgin Prepaid Card. You are unable to transfer funds from the Prepaid Card to another bank but you can set up a bank transfer to the Prepaid Card. Once you receive your card you can log onto your online account and you will have a form you can print off. On the form you will have an account number, sort code and a unique reference number for your bank to set up the transfer. This may work for your purposes, or it may not. If you want more information about that specific card, your best bet is to contact them and ask any other specific questions you have. The same strategy should work for any prepaid card company. Just call or email them, describe your situation, and ask if their card will work.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7644dd12efd99f9946a2a08c0327b5e1", "text": "Automated Clearing House transactions are used in the US for direct deposit of pay checks and direct debit of many payments for accounts such as mortgages, credit cards, car loans, insurance premiums, etc. The reason they take one or more business days to clear is that the transactions are accumulated by each processor in the network during the day and processed as a batch at the end of each business day. The ACH network processes 20+ billion transactions per year worth $40 trillion, (estimates based on 2012 figures).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb5b5d4ab25c5fd56512c2a407edd05e", "text": "Typically, a direct debit is set up by the company who will be receiving the money, not by you or your bank. So you need to contact your credit card company, and ask them to set up the direct debit.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "202dc5cefb400162d5f5ac4b27711e5d", "text": "You cannot directly transfer money from your Bank Account. You can use Debit Card to make payments to your paypal account. Just enter the details of the payment and amount, it would make the necessary deduction from your debit card. Indian regulations do not allow you to store value in your paypal account. This credits have to be transfered to a Bank account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32062a8ccc2d04e06e6d0bc000eab399", "text": "If your old bank has online billpay, you might be able to either use that to send a check to yourself, or do an ACH transfer directly into your new account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50b54ee0f2d50fba4547d1c2c497b452", "text": "A debit card takes the funds right from your account. There's no 'credit' issued along the way. The credit card facilitates a short term loan. If you are a pay-in-full customer, as I am, there's a cost to lend the money, but we're not paying it. It's part of the fee charged to the merchant. Thus the higher transaction cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b5543fc7de511e560dc5d64047c671a", "text": "1% is below interchange, so you either 1) take mostly debit, 2) have someone willing to literally lose money paying the banks for you, or 3) have hidden/padded fees somewhere else. Edit: Or 4) Have customers pay the fees through surcharging.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c95752656e288fe9a71376c50558312", "text": "In case the other ATM is visa enabled, many bank allows transfer to visa card through their ATM. More details about your banks are required for a very specific answer. I suppose both banks are Indian Bank, which bank ?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c9b27a19b0086ba941085e3b3ad0c19", "text": "\"A couple of thoughts and experiences (Germany/Italy): First of all, I recommend talking to the Belgian bank (and possibly to a Dutch bank of your choice). I have similar conditions for my German bank accounts. But even though they talk about it as salary account (\"\"Gehaltskonto\"\") all they really ask for is a monthly inflow of more than xxxx € - which can be satisfied with an automatic direct transfer (I have some money automatically circulating for this reason which \"\"earns\"\" about 4% p.a. by saving fees). In that case it may be a feasible way to have a Belgian and a Dutch bank account and set up some money circulation. Experiences working in Italy (some years ago, SEPA payments were kind of new and the debits weren't implemented then): My guess with your service providers is that they are allowed to offer you contracts that are bound to rather arbitrary payment conditions. After all, you probably can also get a prepaid phone or a contract with a bill that you can then pay by wire transfer - however, AFAIK they are allowed to offer discounts/ask fees for different payment methods. Just like there is no law that forces the store around your corner to accept credit cards or even large EUR denominations as long as they tell you so beforehand. AFAIK, there is EU regulation saying your bank isn't allowed to charge you more for wire transger to foreign country within the SEPA zone than a national wire transfer.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a5e939bbdb2af0a83c4b7ba97595017", "text": "Unfortunately not. Even if the credit card balance is positive (i.e. customer has overpaid the credit card account), you cannot withdraw cash (for free) - as any cash withdrawal is subject to 12.9% interest - even if repaid in full at the end of the month! The clarity credit card is one of the best cards for overseas spending, as its load free (no fees for purchases abroad) and it gives near perfect exchange rates. If your balance is positive, you start at £0, then fund that credit card account from your bank account £500. You can then spend on your credit card, and when your next bill is due at the end of the month - they will use that extra £500 sitting in your account first, and ask for the remainder from you. i.e. scenario1: scenario 2: It is better in my opinion, to set up a direct debit to always clear out the full amount on your credit card. That way, you have cash in your bank account for emergencies (getting £500 back from a credit card will take a few days to process as opposed to having the ability to withdraw cash from the cashpoint 24/7). And once the direct debit is paid automatically at the end of the month, there are no fees - voila your credit card is almost like a debit card, spend on it when you like, it gets paid automatically, no hassle, no worries. This approach does take a careful mindset though, as you need to know your credit limits and also you need to ensure your bank account has enough to pay off the direct debit at the end of the month. Otherwise those darn fees will get you (and hurt your credit rating). For cash spending, you will want to either take cash with you (check online here for best rates & get the money well in advance to avoid fees). Also in some countries the exchange rate is better there, than in the UK, google will help you here. If you dont like the idea of carrying large sums of cash with you can use a prepaid card like CaxtonFX, which is one of the better ones out there. The other well known ones are FairFX and Travelex Cash Passport.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0fcc289f55e8fd85bb987f6f218ff4fe", "text": "If you are solvent enough, and organised enough to pay your credit card bill in full each month, then use the credit card. There are no disadvantages and several plus points, already mentioned. Use the debit card when you would be surcharged for using the credit card, or where you can negotiate a discount for not subjecting the vendor to credit card commission.", "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": "931a71617c6cce67916cc5fe4ce1592a", "text": "Debit cards are the dumbest development ever. I now have a piece of plastic that allows any yahoo to cause me to bounce my mortgage. Great. Throw away the debit card. Use a credit card and exercise some self control. Take out a sufficient amount of cash to cover your weekly incidental expenses under $50. If you want something that costs more than $50, wait a week and use the credit card. You'll find that using cash at places like the convenience store or gas station will cause you to not spend $3 for a slim jim, lotto ticket, donut or other dumb and unnecessary item.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c821cbc5791e732fc523618aae7a12f4", "text": "Credit cards always charge for withdrawing cash, because if they didn't then you could have an indefinite loan and pay no interest simply by withdrawing enough cash each month to pay off the previous month's bill before the due date. It's nothing to do with using an ATM -- they'll charge you for getting a cash advance over the counter as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5759dc301691bcfa16fe5a327d1ce25c", "text": "\"It sounds like what you are looking for are sites that offer pre-paid debit cards as rewards. A number of survey/get-paid-to sites do offer these as a potential reward; they are more irritating than having the money in a bank account or paypal balance, as they expire if not used within some amount of time, and generally come with restrictions on what you can use them on (they work like credit cards, but the site providing the card can reject your request if it doesn't like the site you're trying to pay.). Plus, you can only use a single debit card per purchase, so if you have two $20 prepaid cards, you can't use them both to make a $40 dollar purchase. Still, this does satisfy your requirements, assuming the game you want to transfer to and the provider of the prepaid card you're being rewarded with are willing to work together. You can use SurveyPolice to search for sites that offer the type of reward you want - filtering by offered reward type is an option under their \"\"pick-a-perk\"\" page. Though it's likely many of those sites also require you to be at least 18 as well, as that's a pretty common restriction - you'll have to verify that part yourself. For that matter, you would want to check age restrictions on the sites those sites partner with to offer prepaid cards, as well.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d22eb91da77474571f6bae3f45bb4325
Dec 31 accounting for S Corp - what to do with loss?
[ { "docid": "268e69dc5931c26a823eba881d202228", "text": "Conceptually, the entries are: Yes. And since you're the sole owner, your basis will equal to the equity balance on the balance sheet. Keep in mind the book and tax basis will probably be different, so you may want to keep a separate calculation to track the tax basis. There is no journal additional journal entry for this. If you're using bookkeeping software, be sure to research its book-closing/closing entries feature, as it is handled differently depending on the software. For example Quickbooks doesn't explicitly close its books, but re-computes the balance sheet dynamically depending on the selected date range.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "c356e65fae1f20d399d29664a93e6301", "text": "Here's the best explanation I found relating to why your T4 box 39 might not have an amount filled in, even when box 38 has one: Department of Finance – Explanatory Notes Relating to the Income Tax Act [...]. It's a long document, but here's the part I believe relevant, with my emphasis: Employee Stock Options ITA 110(1) [...] Paragraph 110(1)(d) is amended to include a requirement that the employee [...] exercise the employee’s rights under the stock option agreement and acquire the securities underlying the agreement in order for the deduction in computing taxable income to be available [...] ensures that only one deduction is available in respect of an employment benefit. In other words, if employee stock option rights are surrendered to an employer for cash or an in-kind payment, then (subject to new subsections 110(1.1) and (1.2)) the employer may deduct the payment but the employee cannot claim the stock option deduction. Conversely, where an employer issues securities pursuant to an employee’s exercise of stock options, the employer can not deduct an amount in respect of the issuance, but the employee may be eligible to claim a deduction under paragraph 110(1)(d). Did you receive real shares based on your participation in the ESPP, or did you get a cash payment for the net value of shares you would have been issued under the plan? From what I can tell, if you opted for a cash payment (or if your plan only allows for such), then the part I emphasized comes into play. Essentially, if conditions were such that your employer could claim a deduction on their corporate income tax return for the compensation paid to you as part of the plan, then you are not also able to claim a similar deduction on your personal income tax return. The money received in that manner is effectively taxed in your hands the same as any bonus employment income would be; i.e. it isn't afforded tax treatment equivalent to capital gains income. Your employer and/or ESPP administrator are best able to confirm the conditions which led to no amount in your box 39, but at least based on above you can see there are legitimate cases where box 38 would have an amount while box 39 doesn't.", "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": "983e84eb31d74702554938415b8ccc43", "text": "One approach would be to create Journal Entries that debit asset accounts that are associated with these items and credit an Open Balance Equity account. The value of these contributions would have to be worked out with an accountant, as it depends on the lesser of the adjusted basis vs. the fair market value, as you then depreciate the amounts over time to take the depreciation as a business expense, and it adjusts your basis in the company (to calculate capital gains/losses when you sell). If there were multiple partners, or your accountant wants it this way, you could then debit open balance equity and credit the owner's contribution to a capital account in your name that represents your basis when you sell. From a pure accounting perspective, if the Open Balance Equity account would zero out, you could just skip it and directly credit the capital accounts, but I prefer the Open Balance Equity as it helps know the percentages of initial equity which may influence partner ownership percentages and identify anyone who needs to contribute more to the partnership.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22dcd0ba9de89e97f557a7a9a927f198", "text": "Thanks for this, great in depth answer. I had previously calculated a WACC and have used it for my discount rate. As part of your last point on revenue vs. cash, I've set a accounts receivable period of 30 days, and then applied a factor of 30/365 * revenue to understand what portion of my revenue is not cash in hand. Does that make sense?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf38dce82645ae04c92ffe7f51c40d0a", "text": "An S-corp doesn't pay income tax -- taxation is pass-through. This being the case, there are no tax deductions it could take for charitable giving. The solution would be for you to make the contribution out of your own pocket and then personally claim the deduction on your own taxes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69cae92454c28e2e4d04cda5494408f7", "text": "That's really not something that can be answered based on the information provided. There are a lot of factors involved: type of income, your wife's tax bracket, the split between Federal and State (if you're in a high bracket in a high income-tax rate State - it may even be more than 50%), etc etc. The fact that your wife didn't withdraw the money is irrelevant. S-Corp is a pass-through entity, i.e.: owners are taxed on the profits based on their personal marginal tax rates, and it doesn't matter what they did with the money. In this case, your wife re-invested it into the corp (used it to pay off corp debts), which adds back to her basis. You really should talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) to learn how S-Corps work and how to use them properly. Your wife, actually, as she's the owner.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd1d479b3ef0591db81ed22afc57b378", "text": "\"I'm not personally familiar with this, but I had a look at the Companies House guidance. Unfortunately, it seems you've done things in the wrong order. You should have first got the funds out, distributed them to yourself as a dividend or salary, and then closed the account, and then wound up the company. Legally speaking, the remaining funds now belong to the government (\"\"bona vacantia\"\"). It's possible you could apply to have the company restored, but I think that might be difficult; I don't think the administrative restoration procedure applies in your situation. Given the amount involved, I'd suggest just forgetting about it.\"", "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": "b5dca99a685e3a33d3939c04c8107c93", "text": "From the instructions: If you do not need to make any adjustments to the basis or type of gain or loss (short-term or long-term) reported to you on Form 1099-B (or substitute statement) or to your gain or loss for any transactions for which basis has been reported to the IRS (normally reported on Form 8949 with box A checked), you do not have to include those transactions on Form 8949. Instead, you can report summary information for those transactions directly on Schedule D. For more information, see Exception 1, later. However, in case of ESPP and RSU, it is likely that you actually do need to make adjustments. Since 2014, brokers are no longer required to track basis for these, so you better check that the calculations are correct. If the numbers are right and you just summarized instead of reporting each on a separate line, its probably not an issue. As long as the gains reported are correct, no-one will waste their time on you. If you missed several thousand dollars because of incorrect calculations, some might think you were intentionally trying to hide something by aggregating and may come after you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ef47ed887fa8f884430c6b071e1e720", "text": "This answer assumes you're asking about how to handle this issue in the USA. I generally downvote questions that ask about a tax/legal issue and don't bother providing the jurisdiction. In my opinion it is extremely rude. Seeing that you applied for an LLC, I think that you somehow consider it as a relevant piece of information. You also attribute some importance to the EIN which has nothing to do with your question. I'm going to filter out that noise. As an individual/sole-proprietor (whether under LLC or not), you cannot use fiscal years, only calendar years. It doesn't matter if you decide to have your LLC taxed as S-Corp as well, still calendar year. Only C-Corp can have a fiscal year, and you probably don't want to become a C-Corp. So the year ends on December 31, and whether accrual or cash - you can only deduct expenses you incurred until then. Also, you must declare the income you got until then, which in your case will be the full amount of funding - again regardless of whether you decided to be cash-based or accrual based. So the main thing you need to do is to talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) and learn about the tax law relevant to your business and its implications on your actions. There may be some ways to make it work better, and there are some ways in which you can screw yourself up completely in your scenario, so do get a professional advice.", "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": "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": "e283bf3970ba22d343d192d4c3512665", "text": "If this was a public corporation (stock) and the investment was made in a non-registered account, then you can claim a capital loss. Capital losses are claimed against capital gains (not income), and can be carried back 3 years or carried forward indefinitely. Here's an article I've written on how to claim capital losses that may help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de92587f4c34d0733ffc73a07c95127c", "text": "FICA/SE taxes are not 30%. They are at most ~15%, including the employer portion. Employer also pays FUTA tax, and has additional payroll expenses (like fees and worker compensation insurance). The employee's FICA portion is limited up to a certain level of earnings (110100 this year, IIRC). Above it you only pay medicare taxes, not social security. S-Corp earnings are not taxed at 15%, these are not dividends. They're taxed at your ordinary income rate. You don't pay SE taxes on it, that's the only difference. I hope you're talking about tax treatment decision, because there are entirely different factors to keep in mind when you're organizing a business and making a decision between being it a LLC or a corporation. I believe you should pay some money to get a real advice that would apply to you, from a EA/CPA who would be doing the number-crunching (hopefully correctly). I'm a tax practitioner, 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": "ed78f35d2db90200e5a3c241f8caba8d", "text": "In addition to the adjustment type in NL7's answer, there are a host of others. If there are any adjustments, form 8949 is required, if not, the gains can be separated into short and long-term and added together to be entered on Schedule D. Anything requiring an adjustment code in column F of the 8949 requires an entry in column G. Some other example entries for column F include: (see the 8949 instructions for a complete list) **A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you: Buy substantially identical stock or securities, Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade, Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities, or Acquire substantially identical stock for your individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA. (from Pub17)", "title": "" } ]
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bfa214a47d01c1d8798759033e3b7e71
Does borrowing from my 401(k) make sense in my specific circumstance?
[ { "docid": "4b348c5aa2e214107ae6320010955db9", "text": "Your comment regarding your existing finances is very relevant and helpful. You need to understand that generally in personal finance circles, when a strong earning 22 year-old is looking for a loan it's usually a gross spending problem. Their car costs $1,000 /month and their bar tabs are adding up so the only logical thing to do is get a loan. Most 22-year-olds don't have a mortgage soaking up their income, or a newborn. With all of this in mind I essentially agree with DStanley and, personally, and many people here would probably disagree, I'd stop the 401(K) contribution and use that money to pay the debt. You're still very young from a retirement standpoint, let the current balance ride and forego the match until the debt is paid. I think this is more about being debt free at 22 quickly than it's about how much marginal money could be saved via 401(k) or personal loan or this strategy or that strategy. I think at your age, you'll benefit greatly from simply being debt free. There are other very good answers on this site and other places regarding the pitfalls of a 401(k) loan. The most serious of which is that you have an extremely limited time to pay the entire loan upon leaving the company. Failure to repay in that situation incurs tax liability and penalties. From my quick math, assuming your contribution is 8% of $70,000 /year, you're contributing something in the neighborhood of $460/month to your 401(k). If you stopped contributing you'd probably take home a high $300 number net of taxes. It'll take around 20 months to pay the loan off using this contribution money without considering your existing payments, in total you're probably looking at closer to 15 months. You'll give up something in the neighborhood of $3,500 in match funds over the repayment time. But again, you're 22, you'll resume your contributions at 24; still WAY ahead of most people from a retirement savings standpoint. I don't think my first retirement dollar was contributed until I was about 29. Sure, retirement savings is important, but if you've already started at age 22 you're probably going to end up way ahead of most either way. When you're 60 you're probably not going to bemoan giving up a few grand of employer match in your 20s. That's what I would do. Edit: I actually like stannius's suggestion in the comments below. IF there's enough vested in your plan that is also available for withdrawal that you could just scoop $6,500 out of your 401(k) net of the 10% penalty and federal and state taxes (which would be on the full amount) to pay the debt, I'd consider that instead of stopping the prospective contributions. That way you could continue your contributions and receive the match contributions on a prospective basis. I doubt this is a legitimate option because it's very common for employers to restrict or forbid withdrawal of employee and/or employer contributions made during your employment, but it would be worth looking in to.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6564b2294945d1dccb8083ccda4e5f40", "text": "The set of circumstances that 401k loans make sense, are very small. As you would expect yours is not one of them. You make 70K per year and need 6500. Interest rate is not your problem, budgeting is the problem. Pay this off in three months not the 48 you are proposing. Why is borrowing from your 401K a bad idea, especially in this case? Look, been there done that, been the over spender. The sooner that you learn how to handle your money the better. I was in my 40s when I learned, if you can do this now you can be really wealthy by the time you get to be my age. Dream a bit. How much margin would you have in your life if you were able to pay this off in 3 months? How much better would your life be? Go forth and do great things. I believe in you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e2942910561dfc31946780b57e43f77f", "text": "I completely agree with Pete that a 401(k) loan is not the answer, but I have an alternate proposal: Reduce your 401(k) contribution down to the 4% that you get a match on. If you are cash poor now and have debts to be cleaned up, those need to be addressed before retirement savings. You'll have plenty of time to make up the lost savings after you get the debts paid off. If your company matches 50% (meaning you have to contribute 8% to get the 4% match), then consider temporarily stopping your 401(k) altogether. A 100% match is very hard to give up, but a 50% match is less difficult. You have plenty of years left ahead of you to make up the lost match. Plus, the pain of knowing you're leaving money on the table will incentivize you to get the loans paid as quickly as possible. It seems to me that I would be reducing middle to high interest debt while also saving myself $150 per month. No, you'd be deferring $150 per month for an additional two years, and not reducing debt at all, just moving it to a different lender. Interest rate is not your problem. Right now you're paying less than $30 per month in interest on these 3 loans and about $270 in principal, and at the current rate should have them paid off in about 2 years. You're wanting to extend these loans to 4 years by borrowing from your retirement savings. I would buckle down, reduce expenses wherever possible (cable? cell phone? coffee? movies? restaurants?) until you get these debts paid off. You make $70,000 per year, or almost $6,000 per month. I bet if you try hard enough you can come up with $1,100 fairly quickly. Then the next $1,200 should come twice as fast. Then attack the next $4,000. (You can argue whether the $1,200 should come first because of the interest rate, but in the end it doesn't matter - either one should be paid off very quickly, so the interest saved is negligible) Maybe you can get one of them paid off, get yourself some breathing room, then loosen up a little bit, but extending the pain for an additional two years is not wise. Some more drastic measures:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "913bdf1f8cd101e41e733ce3a8daf864", "text": "I see you've marked an answer as accepted but I MUST tell you that STOPPING your 401k contribution all together is a bad idea. Your company match is 100% rate of return(or 50% depending on structure). I don't care what market you look at, or how bad a loan you take out, you will not receive 100% rate of return, or be charged 100% interest. Further, taking out a loan against your 401k effectively does two things: It is a loan that must be repaid according to the terms of your 401k AND in every 401k I've ever encountered, you cannot make contributions to the 401k until the loan is repaid. This in effect stops your contributions, and will almost certainly save you very little on your interest rates on your current loans. I have 4 potential solutions that may help achieve your goal without sacrificing your 401k match and transferring the debt from one lender to another, but they are conditional. Is your company match 100% up to 4% of your salary, or 50% of your contribution (up to a limit you have not yet reached)? This is important. If it is 100% up to 4%, stop committing the additional 4% and use that to pay down your debt...and after ward set up that 4% as auto pay into an IRA, not into the 401k. An IRA will make you more money because YOU have control over its management, not your employer. If it is 50% match, contribute until the match is met because you cannot get 50% rate of return anywhere, then take your additional monies and get an IRA. As far as your debt, in this scenario simply suck it up and pay it as is. You will lose far more than you gain by stopping your contributions. If you simply must reduce your expenses by 150$ month try refinancing the mortgage and rolling the 6500$ into it. If you get a big enough drop in the interest rate you could still end up paying less. OR If you cannot make the gain there, try snowballing the three payments. You do this by calling your student loan vendor and telling them you need to make much smaller payments, like even zero depending on the type of loan. Then take ALL of the money you are currently spending on the 3 loans and put into the car payment. When it's gone, roll the whole thing into the higher interest student loan, then finally roll it all into the last student loan. You'll pay it off faster, and student loans have lots of laws and regulations regarding working with payers to keep them paying something without breaking them. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT STOP YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. 50% OR 100%, THAT MONEY IS GUARANTEED AT A HIGHER RATE OF RETURN THAN YOU CAN GET ANYWHERE, ESPECIALLY GUARANTEED.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58f374b3ac883e18ece5a9fca4e36f9d", "text": "\"You're getting great wisdom and options. Establishing your actionable path will require the details that only you know, such as how much is actually in each paycheck (and how much tax is withheld), how much do you spend each month (and yearly expenses too), how much spending can you actually cut or replace, how comfortable are you with considering (or not considering) unexpected/emergency spending. You mentioned you were cash-poor, but only you know what your current account balances are, which will affect your actions and priorities. Btw, interestingly, your \"\"increase 401k contributions by 2% each year\"\" will need to end before hitting the $18K contribution limit. I took some time and added the details you posted into a cash-flow program to see your scenario over the next few years. There isn't a \"\"401k loan\"\" activity in this program yet, so I build the scenario from other simple activities. You seem financially minded enough to continue modeling on your own. I'm posting the more difficult one for you (borrow from 401k), but you'll have to input your actual balances, paycheck and spending. My spending assumptions must be low, and I entered $70K as \"\"take-home,\"\" so the model looks like you've got lots of cash. If you choose to play with it, then consider modeling some other scenarios from the advice in the other posts. Here's the \"\"Borrow $6500 from 401k\"\" scenario model at Whatll.Be: https://whatll.be/d1x1ndp26i/2 To me, it's all about trying the scenarios and see which one seems to work with all of the details. The trick is knowing what scenarios to try, and how to model them. Full disclosure: I needed to do similar planning, so I wrote Whatll.Be and I now share it with other people. It's in beta, so I'm testing it with scenarios like yours. (Notice most of the extra activity occurs on 2018-Jan-01)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1d0c8618a8d82e57dc6c026b11c70958", "text": "\"Since most of the answers are flawed in their logic, I decided to respond here. 1) \"\"What if you lose your job, you can't pay back the loan\"\" The point of the question was to reduce the amount paid per month. So obviously it would be easier to pay off the 401k loan rather than the 3 separate loans that are in place now. Also it's stated in the question that there's a mortgage, a child with medical costs, a car loan, student loans, other debt. On the list of priorities the 401k loan does not make the top 10 concerns if they lost their job. 2) \"\"Consider stopping the 401k contribution\"\" This is such a terrible idea. If you make the full contribution to the 401k and then just withdraw from the 401k rather than getting a loan you only pay a 10% penalty tax. You still get 90% of the company match. 3) \"\"You lose compound interest\"\" While currently the interest you get on a 401k (depending on how that money is invested) is higher than the interest you pay on your loans (which means it would be advantageous to keep the loans and keep contributing to the 401k), it's very unreliable and might even go down. I think you actually have a good case for getting a loan against the 401k if a) You have your spending and budget under control b) Your income is consistent c) You are certain that the loan will be paid back. My suggestion would be to take a loan against the 401k, but keep the current spending on the loans consistent. If you don't need the extra $150 per month, you really should try to pay off the loans as fast as you can. If you do need the $150 extra, you are lowering the mental threshold for getting more loans in the future.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0297d5dd35783ea82356968be4f1090a", "text": "You need to talk to the 401(k) administrator, or HR, for the exact details. Typically, you can only borrow 50% of your balance, and can pay it back up to a ten year term. Some plans have different rules, this is just a common offering. The larger issue is whether the loan prevents you from making further deposits till repaid. This would cost you not just the growth in the account, but the matched deposits for those years. That would be a deal killer for me. If that were the case, I'd drop my deposits to only get the match, and save for a real deposit without the loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7515b32ac0cc666f93929353cfda8291", "text": "\"A) Yes, it does accomplish the goal of adding more money, but the money is in lieu of any return you can earn while the loan is outstanding. If you somehow knew exactly which periods where going to run negative, and you took a 401k loan during that time, you'd be in pretty good shape, but if you had that information you'd probably be ruling the world in short order and wouldn't care much about a measly 401k. B) It's a nice idea, but unfortunately you are not allowed to set your own interest rate. (If you could your idea would work perfectly.) The interest rate is bank specific, and is typically 1-2 points over prime. But if your plan was to leave your money sitting in cash or low interest bearing accounts anyway, the loan does actually achieve the goal of \"\"getting more money in there\"\". Though it's your money; you aren't \"\"earning\"\" it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56aca2aa766b7e980642a5b02da78a3b", "text": "\"If the difference in performance is worth it, consider \"\"borrowing\"\" from your 401k to put into the Roth. You pay it back, but you can stretch it out over time, and the interest charged is actually yours, because you borrowed from yourself. But you can only borrow half of the account and you have to pay it back before you can do another loan.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2aa789aea4a70ef0c2b8cac83d5563e", "text": "Rather than rolling the 401(k) to a new employer's plan, you should roll it into a traditional IRA. You get more options for the money, there's no limit on how much you can roll over, and you have more control over the money. If you do a direct rollover, there's no taxes or penalties involved. I'd recommend against taking any money out of the 401(k). With the numbers you give above, it's like borrowing money at 31.5% interest, which is pretty high, and you're sacrificing your future retirement. If you leave that money alone to grow with compounding, you'll have a lot more when you retire. If you're not familiar with the concept of compound interest, it's worth reading up on - the numbers will blow you away. At the very least, if you desperately need to get $3000 out of it, take out just enough to net $3000 after taxes and penalties (not quite $4400 using the numbers you give) and do a rollover with the rest. At least that way, you're keeping more in the IRA (just over $8600, vs the $5000 in your proposed scenario). Overall, I really recommend you find a way to accomplish your goals without touching your retirement savings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0f6d3adb971e2094c20937301b78ed8", "text": "My opinion is that in general, it is probably not a good idea to borrow at a cost in order to make your RRSP contribution. Banks, of course, have an interest in loaning you money. Don't expect their literature to be objective on the matter! They are selling you a product and the advice is biased. What better way to double-dip than to get guaranteed interest payments from you, as well as ongoing fees for (probably also) getting your loan money invested in their high-fee mutual funds? A year's RRSP contribution room allowance isn't use it or lose it — unlike 401k contribution allowances in the U.S.. That is, unused RRSP contribution room accumulates and you can take advantage of it in later years. If we couldn't carry our RRSP contribution room over, I might feel different about the general case for RRSP loans. Yet there are two specific cases I can think of where it may make sense to borrow and pay back: (a possible case) ... if your tax rate is currently in a high bracket (e.g. 46%), and you anticipate being in a lower income and bracket next year (e.g. 35%), then it would make sense to take advantage of the higher tax savings in the current tax year. If you waited until the following year to take the deduction, you'd lose out on 11% of the deducted amount. For a typical person whose income is level or increasing from year to year, this isn't likely to be applicable, but it could help somebody who is going on leave or otherwise has irregular income. (a foolish case) ... if you knew, somehow, that you could realize a return on your invested RRSP money exceeding the pre-tax earnings required to pay the interest on the RRSP loan. However, I would suggest this is foolish bet to make. The interest you pay is guaranteed, but the return you are expected to get is probably not (or if it is, it is probably a return lower than what your bank wants to charge on the loan.) If for some reason it does make sense for you, take the money and invest it somewhere better than the high-fee mutual funds the bank is also pushing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d056a5ebd67c4f992912e9eea5b149a4", "text": "The other answers assumed student loan debt -- and for that, it's rarely worth it (unless your company only offers managed plans w/ really bad returns, or the economy recovers to the point where banks are paying 5% again on money market accounts) ... but if it's high rate debt, such as carrying a credit card debt, and the current rate of returns on the 401k aren't that great at the time, it would be worth doing the calculations to see if it's better to pay them down instead. If you're carrying extremely high interest debt (such as 'payday loans' or similar), it's almost always going to be worth paying down that debt as quickly as possible, even if it means forgoing matching 401k payments. The other possible reason for not taking the matching funds are if the required contributions would put you in a significant bind -- if you're barely scraping by, and you can't squeeze enough savings out of your budget that you'd risk default on a loan (eg, car or house) or might take penalties for late fees on your utilities, it might be preferable to save up for a bit before starting the contributions -- especially if you've maxed your available credit so you can't just push stuff to credit cards as a last resort.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c6f6677d20e230c40d920a308650385e", "text": "This is a purely numerical statement that you should be able to check (and you CPA friend should be able to prove, if true). The general advice, I think, is that you should not use your retirement funds this way, but general advice does not apply equally well to everyone. You didn't give enough information for us to compute the answer, so you're on your own there. If you do this (or have the CPA do it), make sure that it accounts for all pluses and minuses that you'll have. On the minus side, you get any direct penalties in addition to potential loss of right to contribute for a period of time, so make sure you consider both aspects, especially to any degree that you would lose an employer contribution or match. Also consider the fact that the money already in is tax advantaged, and you won't be able to replace that amount later. So there will be a compounding effect to what was lost. (This may or may not be balanced by a mortgage interest deduction down the road - My guess is that it will not, but, again, the details of your situation may dictate a different path. The mortgage interest deduction decreases each year as you pay more principal whereas the compounding from being tax deferred tends to increase each year.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "945f99b0a08fd83e7d63c95edc350f09", "text": "Would I be taxed at my personal income tax rate upon withdrawal of the funds for this loan from my professionally managed, balanced 401k (not Roth funds)? Yes. This is a regular distribution. Why wouldn't you be taxed? What's gifting has to do with anything? If taxable, this would move me to the next higher tax bracket. Depending on your other income - it may, or may not. Whether or not taxable when pulling funds out of the investment account, when I'm repaid, do I owe Federal tax only on the interest income portion of repayment funds or on the lump sum & interest received (all of which which would return to my retirement account in lump)? Only interest. And you will not return it to your retirement account. Not in a lump and not in installments and not in any other way.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00155b67fc1e919484a70eadd7488566", "text": "It would help if we had numbers to walk you through the analysis. Current balance, rate, remaining term, and the new mortgage details. To echo and elaborate on part of Ben's response, the most important thing is to not confuse cash flow with savings. If you have 15 years to go, and refinance to 30 years, at the rate rate, your payment drops by 1/3. Yet your rate is identical in this example. The correct method is to take the new rate, plug it into a mortgage calculator or spreadsheet using the remaining months on the current mortgage, and see the change in payment. This savings is what you should divide into closing costs to calculate the breakeven. It's up to you whether to adjust your payments to keep the term the same after you close. With respect to keshlam, rules of thumb often fail. There are mortgages that build the closing costs into the rate. Not the amount loaned, the rate. This means that as rates dropped, moving from 5.25% to 5% made sense even though with closing costs there were 4.5% mortgages out there. Because rates were still falling, and I finally moved to a 3.5% loan. At the time I was serial refinancing, the bank said I could return to them after a year if rates were still lower. In my opinion, we are at a bottom, and the biggest question you need to answer is whether you'll remain in the house past your own breakeven time. Last - with personal finance focusing on personal, the analysis shouldn't ignore the rest of your balance sheet. Say you are paying $1500/mo with 15 years to go. Your budget is tight enough that you've chosen not to deposit to your 401(k). (assuming you are in the US or country with pretax retirement account options) In this case, holding rates constant, a shift to 30 years frees up about $500/mo. In a matched 401(k), your $6000/yr is doubled to $12K/year. Of course, if the money would just go in the market unmatched, members here would correctly admonish me for suggesting a dangerous game, in effect borrowing via mortgage to invest in the market. The matched funds, however are tough to argue against.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da8c84c95dbf3d06800a6611c57b1596", "text": "\"The original question was aimed at early payment on a student loan at 6%. Let's look at some numbers. Note, the actual numbers were much lower, I've increased the debt to a level that's more typical, as well as more likely to keep the borrower worried, and \"\"up at night.\"\" On a $50K loan, we see 2 potential payoffs. A 6 year accelerated payoff which requires $273.54 extra per month, and the original payoff, with a payment of $555.10. Next, I show the 6 year balance on the original loan terms, $23,636.44 which we would need to exceed in the 401(k) to consider we made the right choice. The last section reflects the 401(k) balance with different rates of return. I purposely offer a wide range of returns. Even if we had another 'lost decade' averaging -1%/yr, the 401(k) balance is more than 50% higher than the current loan debt. At a more reasonable 6% average, it's double. (Note: The $273.54 deposit should really be adjusted, adding 33% if one is in the 25% bracket, or 17.6% if 15% bracket. That opens the can of worms at withdrawal. But let me add, I coerced my sister to deposit to the match, while married and a 25%er. Divorced, and disabled, her withdrawals are penalty free, and $10K is tax free due to STD deduction and exemption.) Note: The chart and text above have been edited at the request of a member comment. What about an 18% credit card? Glad you asked - The same $50K debt. It's tough to imagine a worse situation. You budgeted and can afford $901, because that's the number for a 10 year payoff. Your spouse says she can grab a extra shift and add $239/mo to the plan, because that' the number to get to a 6 year payoff. The balance after 6 years if we stick to the 10 year plan? $30,669.82. The 401(k) balances at varying rates of return again appear above. A bit less dramatic, as that 18% is tough, but even at a negative return the 401(k) is still ahead. You are welcome to run the numbers, adjust deposits for your tax rate and same for withdrawals. You'll see -1% is still about break-even. To be fair, there are a number of variables, debt owed, original time for loan to be paid, rate of loan, rate of return assumed on the 401(k), amount of potential extra payment, and the 2 tax rates, going in, coming out. Combine a horrific loan rate (the 18%) with a longer payback (15+ years) and you can contrive a scenario where, in fact, even the matched funds have trouble keeping up. I'm not judging, but I believe it's fair to say that if one can't find a budget that allows them to pay their 18% debt over a 10 year period, they need more help that we can offer here. I'm only offering the math that shows the power of the matched deposit. From a comment below, the one warning I'd offer is regarding vesting. The matched funds may not be yours immediately. Companies are allowed to have a vesting schedule which means your right to this money may be tiered, at say, 20%/year from year 2-6, for example. It's a good idea to check how your plan handles this. On further reflection, the comments of David Wallace need to be understood. At zero return, the matched money will lag the 18% payment after 4 years. The reason my chart doesn't reflect that is the match from the deposits younger than 4 years is still making up for that potential loss. I'd maintain my advice, to grab the match regardless, as there are other factors involved, the more likely return of ~8%, the tax differential should one lose their job, and the hope that one would get their act together and pay the debt off faster.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1636550ce3e207462a8bd1aff3e49301", "text": "The first step is to contact the company you are considering using as an administrator. Ask if they have a loan provision. For what it's worth, I looked at Schwab, and it seems to indicate they do not offer loans against this type of 401(k). That doesn't mean no one does, just that you may need to look around.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73cb4a5a8b550837de047e034d0e4582", "text": "One should fund a 401(k) or matched retirement account up to the match, even if you have other debt. Long term, you will come out ahead, but you must be disciplined in making the payments. If one wants to point out the risk in a 401(k), I'd suggest the money need not be invested in stocks, there's always a short term safe option.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8278b4e51960984a764e5fa69a584add", "text": "401K accounts, both regular and Roth, generally have loans available. There are maximum amounts that are based on federal limits, and your balance in the program. These rules also determine the amount of time you have to repay the loan, and what happens if you quit or are fired while the loan is outstanding. In these loan programs the loan comes from your 401K funds. Regarding matching funds. This plan is not atypical. Some match right away, some make you wait. Some put in X percent regardless of what you contribute. Some make you opt out, others make you opt in. Some will direct their automatic amounts to a specific fund, unless you tell them otherwise. The big plus for the fund you describe is the immediate vesting. Some companies will match your investments but then only partially vest the funds. They don't want to put a bunch of matching funds into your account, and then have you leave. So they say that if you leave before 5 years is up, they will not let you keep all the funds. If you leave after 2 years you keep 25%, if you leave after 3 years you keep 50%... The fact they immediately vest is a very generous plan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "86e0bb3dc4107664219376ebcca5c4d4", "text": "\"To answer the first part of your question: yes, I've done that! I did even a bit more. I once had a job that I wasn't sure I'd keep and the economy wasn't great either. In case my next employer wouldn't let me contribute to a 401(k) from day one, and because I didn't want to underfund my retirement and be stuck with a higher tax bill - I \"\"front-loaded\"\" my 401(k) contributions to be maxed out before the end of the year. (The contribution limits were lower than $16,500/year back then :-)) As for the reduced cash flow - you need of course a \"\"buffer\"\" account containing several months worth of living expenses to afford maxing out or \"\"front-loading\"\" 401(k) contributions. You should be paying your bills out of such buffer account and not out of each paycheck. As for the reduced cash flow - I think large-scale 401(k)/IRA contributions can crowd out other long-term saving priorities such as saving for a house down payment and the trade-off between them is a real concern. (If they're crowding out basic and discretionary consumer expenses, that's a totally different kind of problem, which you don't seem to have, which is great :-)) So about the trade-off between large-scale 401(k) contributions and saving for the down payment. I'd say maxing out 401(k) can foster the savings culture that will eventually pay its dividends. If, after several years of maxing out your 401(k) you decide that saving for the house is the top priority, you'll see money flow to the money-market account marked for the down payment at a substantial monthly rate, thanks to that savings culture. As for the increasing future earnings - no. Most people I've known for a long time, if they saved 20% when they made $20K/year, they continued to save 20% or more when they later made $100K/year. People who spent the entire paycheck while making $50K/year, always say, if only I got a raise to $60K/year, I'd save a few thousand. But they eventually graduate to $100K/year and still spend the entire paycheck. It's all about your savings culture. On the second part of your question - yes, Roth is a great tool, especially if you believe that the future tax rates will be higher (to fix the long-term budget deficits). So, contributing to 401(k) to maximize the match, then max out Roth, as others suggested, is a great advice. After you've done that, see what else you can do: more 401(k), saving for the house, etc.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3c3f7d8b8ea34d9e2946cdc47094ef5", "text": "What you are seeing is the effects of inflation. As money becomes less valuable it takes more of it to buy physical things, be they commodities, shares in a company's stock, and peoples time (salaries). Just about the only thing that doesn't track inflation to some degree is cash itself or money in an account since that is itself what is being devalued. So the point of all this is, buying anything (a house, gold, stocks) that doesn't depreciate (a car) is something of a hedge against inflation. However, don't be tricked (as many are) into thinking that house just made you a tidy sum just because it went up in value so much over x years. Remember 1) All the other houses and things you'd spend the money on are a lot more expensive now too; and 2) You put a lot more money into a house than the mortgage payment (taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.) I'm with the others though. Don't get caught up in the gold bubble. Doing so now is just speculation and has a lot of risk associated with it.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
15a49ed6668a8938c801788f232d3a58
Taxes and withholding on unpaid salary
[ { "docid": "34fe1827bcc69fdc3fcd8379b228bad4", "text": "As others have said, make sure you can and do file your taxes on a cash basis (not accrual). It sounds like it's very unlikely the company is going to issue you a 1099 for invoices they never paid you. So you just file last year's taxes based on your income, which is the money you actually received. If they do pay you later, in the new year, you'll include that income on next year's tax return, and you would expect a 1099 at that time. Side note: not getting paid is unfortunately common for consultants and contractors. Take the first unpaid invoice and sue them in small claims court. After you win (and collect!), tell them you'll sue them for each unpaid invoice in turn until they pay you in full. (You might need to break up the lawsuits like that to remain under the small claims limit.)", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "7d23aa8b3c8e5452c14ca9f7b33ec803", "text": "Most countries with income tax, including the USA, design their withholding system so that in straightforward cases, tax is withheld from each month's paycheck on an annualized basis: tax for a month is calculated on the assumption that you will keep earning the same monthly amount for the rest of the year, and the withholding is set so that the tax is spread evenly across the year. Another way of putting that is that in practice you only get the tax brackets allocated proportionately throughout the year - so up till the end of August you'll only have been assigned 8/12 of the $37450 bracket, and so on. So if your income doesn't change and your general tax affairs don't change, your paycheck also shouldn't change. If your income is irregular or changes during the year then things can get more complicated. As other answers have noted, withholdings are calculated according to tables that normally just take into account that specific month's income. There are various possible changes to your tax affairs that might cause the withholdings to change. For example there'd be an impact from any change in your contributions to tax advantaged things like health insurance or retirement, health or education savings. You might also use form W-4 to change your withholdings yourself. Note that even with a regular income that doesn't change through the year, you might find yourself either owing money or being owed a refund when you file your taxes after the end of the year. It's worth making sure that your W-4 accurately records the allowances you are entitled to, to minimize or eliminate this adjustment.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "80dade3f36a370d1af885e3af8e01083", "text": "\"H.R. basically consults Publication 15 (this is the link to 2015) to determine how much to hold, based on filing status, exemptions, and pay amount. What's described here is a form of estimation, or, in other words, H.R. withholds what would be your actual taxes, dividing across the number of paychecks you receive. Assuming your gross pay and exemptions do not change, this usually results in a zero-sum for taxes owed (you will receive nothing, and owe nothing). As you can see from the charts, the year is basically broken down into equal tax units that reflect how much you would owe if you worked at that bracket all year. This estimation works best when you have steady hours from check to check. In other words, your taxes are based on the estimate of what you'd make if you earned that much all year, scaled down to the time frame (e.g. 1/52 if you are paid weekly, or 1/26 if you paid biweekly). They do not go \"\"up\"\" near the end of the year, because they're estimated in advance. You don't move up a tax bracket, but are instead taxed at a particular bracket every paycheck. There's also other forms of estimation mentioned there, but basically follow the same scheme. Note that all estimation forms are just that-- estimates. It's best to use a calculator and compare your current taxes whenever a significant change occurs-- a raise, a new child, getting married or divorced, etc. You'll want to be able to alter your exemptions so that enough taxes are coming out. That's also the reason for the \"\"withhold extra\"\" box, so that you can avoid owing. For example, if you're making $44 a week for the first 26 weeks, and then you make $764 a week for the second 26 weeks of the year, you'll end up with an actual tax liability of $2,576.6, but end up paying only $2,345.20. You would owe $231.40. Of course, the actual math is a lot more complicated if you're an employee paid by the minute, for example, or you have a child, go to college, etc. Paychecks that vary wildly, like $10,000 one week and $2,000 the next tend to have the hardest-to-predict estimates (e.g. jobs with big commission payouts). You should avoid living check-to-check with jobs that pay this way, because you'll probably end up owing taxes. Conversely, if you've done your estimates right and you're paid salary or exactly the same number of hours every week, you'll find that the taxes are much easier to predict and you can usually easily create a refund situation simply by having the correct exemptions on your check. So, in summation, if your check falls in the 25% category (which is, of course, 25% above the tax bracket break point), you're already paying the correct amount, and no further drop in your check would be expected.\"", "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": "" }, { "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": "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": "fae69e7d322207780b9156a7653b9a3e", "text": "As @Dilip suggested in the comments, the problem is the accountability of the reimbursement plans. In order for the reimbursement to be non-taxable, there has to be a reimbursement plan and policy set up by the employer, it has to be done per receipt, and accounted for correctly. If the employer just cuts you a check - the conditions may not be met, and as such - the reimbursement becomes taxable. In your case, it seems like the employer has not set up a proper (accountable) reimbursement plan, thus your reimbursements are taxable. @Joe pointed out that since the employer also doesn't withhold taxes (as he should), you may have an unexpected tax bill on April 15. This Chron article describes the distinction between the accountable and non-accountable plans. Only with the accountable plans the reimbursements are non-taxable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aa2346b32ae0252269f355721595bec4", "text": "For federal taxes the rule is fairly straight forward, assuming that nothing else changes during the year. If you know your marginal tax rate (the rate that your last dollar of income is taxed at) last year then adding or subtracting an allowance on the w-4 form will move the amount withheld by rate x Personal exemption amount. The personal exemption for federal taxes in 2017 is $4,050. Lowering the number of allowances on the Federal W-4 increases the amount of money withheld during the year. So for your federal W-4 form lowering the number of allowances by one if you are in the 25% bracket will cause an additional 25%x4050 or ~$1012 a year to be withheld. Of course making the change 5/12ths of the way trough the year will mean that it will only increase the the amount withheld the rest of the year by (7/12) * $1012 or ~$590 for the rest of the year. State taxes can be more complex due to issues regarding tax brackets, and the differences in how they calculate their taxes. Most state websites have a worksheet for making an adjustment to their version of the W-4. Here is the form DE-4 form for California In your situation getting the numbers on the federal and state forms will be much more complex, because your combined income for 2017 will be significantly different than your combined income for 2016. In the case of multiple incomes getting the withholding correct is much harder even with stable income. The trick is that making the adjustment on the job with the highest income may not move the amount withheld as much as you expect. For example if the largest income is only withheld at the 15% rate but your combined income from all your combined jobs results in you being in the 25% bracket, then the above calculation would only move the amount withheld by $354 instead of $590. A couple of notes: the number of allowances on the federal and state W-4 forms don't have to match. Mine almost never do. The number of allowances on the W-4 forms doesn't have to match the number of exemptions on the 1040 form.", "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 A*X + (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": "56f67bbeaa7ca7107ea754648e799f3b", "text": "The reciprocity agreement in the Washington DC area means that you only pay income taxes where you live, not where you work. Because you live in Maryland you only need to pay income taxes to Maryland. You need to do the following things. Line 3. If you are not subject to Virginia withholding, check the box on this line. You are not subject to withholding if you meet any one of the conditions listed below. Form VA-4 must be filed with your employer for each calendar year for which you claim exemption from Virginia withholding. (a) You had no liability for Virginia income tax last year and you do not expect to have any liability for this year. ... (d) You are a domiciliary or legal resident of Maryland, Pennsylvania or West Virginia whose only Virginia source income is from salaries and wages and such salaries and wages are subject to income taxation by your state of domicile. My company has its only office in Maryland, and conducts all of its business there. Several of our employees are Virginia residents who commute to work on a daily basis. Are we required to withhold Virginia income tax from their wages? No. Because your company is not paying wages to employees for services performed in Virginia, you are not required to withhold Virginia tax. If you would like to withhold the tax as a courtesy to your employees, you may register for a Virginia withholding tax account online or by submitting a Registration Application. Additional withholding per pay period under agreement with employer. If you are not having enough tax withheld, you may ask your employer to withhold more by entering an additional amount on line 2.", "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": "c10e214548196928e0dcb64923a2b50f", "text": "According to this, if your employer will not refund FICA taxes withheld in error, you need to file forms 843 and 8316 with IRS. Unfortunately, I have heard that it sometimes takes years for them to respond to those.", "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": "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": "aeaa11d893d521e8b1d6f18c1a28b6c2", "text": "What you need to do is to reduce the withholding from your wages, or pay a smaller amount in your quarterly payments of estimated tax (if you are self-employed). To reduce withholding from wages, fill out a new W4 form (available from your employer's HR department). There is a worksheet in the form that will help you figure out what to write on the various lines. As a single person, you are entitled to claim an exemption for yourself, and if you have not been claiming that exemption, doing so will reduce your withholding, and presumably your tax refund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "40ee8d78fb5cb443d63ed80bde9b7c91", "text": "\"I'm not familiar with the Dupire model; I'll have to take a look at (it sounds cool though). I think that all arbitrage-free models are \"\"incomplete\"\" in the sense that they don't say, \"\"This is a price that doesn't imply any arbitrage opportunities *anywhere*,\"\" but instead say, \"\"This is a price that doesn't imply any arbitrage opportunities within a specific set of securities.\"\" What set you're using will vary from one model to another, and I'd say (although other people might reasonably disagree) that taking a volatility structure as given is as much no-arbitrage as taking a term structure as given. As a side note, I'd say that what (theoretically) distinguishes an equilibrium model is that you're supposed to *know* the parameters, not guess at them or observe them from the real world. By that definition, a really complete CAPM or Black-Scholes would explain how to derive the correct beta or volatility from fundamental analysis. Also, I've upvoted you elsewhere for some really good comments you made about intrinsic value.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
678dca02e07dcaf35e9689a2cb3fe067
Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account
[ { "docid": "2e35f9c35dc1300bc4e6f9d6ab4c05d0", "text": "Thank you for your service. My first suggestion since your car is a planned for the near future is keep that amount in savings and just pay cash. There are plenty of attractive offers to entice you to finance your vehicle but there really is no compelling reason to do it considering the savings you have. Second I would keep an additional portion of savings as a rainy day emergency fund. How much is based mostly on what you feel comfortable with. The number of possible emergencies that can come up is limited and your expenses are limited which is normal given your age. This fund might be for something such as emergency travel for a sick family member, cover a deductible for an auto accident, whatever unforseen event might occur (hence the name emergency fund). What investments you are comfortable with will be determined by risk tolerance. While in the military individual stocks that are aggressive risky investments may not be a good idea because of the extra attention they require and you can't really babysit a portfolio while deployed but there are many good low or no cost mutual funds or ETFs that you could get into. I would look into setting up a recurring purchase with a set dollar amount monthly so you will continue to accumulate whatever option you are investing in regularly even if you are deployed. Which fund or ETF you pick will depend on your goals and risk tolerance but you could very easily pick several for diversity. Good luck and thank you again for your service.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1403c0dc25f5e605961b289b5b269a59", "text": "\"If you have already maxed your TSP contributions, the \"\"401k\"\" for military folks, you could consider a Traditional IRA contribution. They are tax-deductible, based on some limits, so it may reduce your tax liability. Many online services (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.) offer quick and free setup of Traditional IRA accounts. If you have already maxed the Traditional IRA as well, you could look at making taxable investments through an online service. Like homer150mw, I would recommend low-cost funds. For reasons why, see this article by John Bogle.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "416ef7846826a6105c8771f921f2ad33", "text": "\"You don't state a long term goal for your finances in your message, but I'm going to assume you want to retire early, and retire well. :-) any other ideas I'm missing out on? A fairly common way to reach financial independence is to build one or more passive income streams. The money returned by stock investing (capital gains and dividends) is just one such type of stream. Some others include owning rental properties, being a passive owner of a business, and producing goods that earn long-term royalties instead of just an immediate exchange of time & effort for cash. Of these, rental property is probably one of the most well-known and easiest to learn about, so I'd suggest you start with that as a second type of investment if you feel you need to diversify from stock ownership. Especially given your association with the military, it is likely there is a nearby supply of private housing that isn't too expensive (so easier to get started with) and has a high rental demand (so less risk in many ways.) Also, with our continued current low rate environment, now is the time to lock-in long term mortgage rates. Doing so will reap huge benefits as rates and rents will presumably rise from here (though that isn't guaranteed.) Regarding the idea of being a passive business owner, keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean starting a business yourself. Instead, you might look to become a partner by investing money with an existing or startup business, or even buying an existing business or franchise. Sometimes, perfectly good business can be transferred for surprisingly little down with the right deal structure. If you're creative in any way, producing goods to earn long-term royalties might be a useful path to go down. Writing books, articles, etc. is just one example of this. There are other opportunities depending on your interests and skill, but remember, the focus ought to be on passive royalties rather than trading time and effort for immediate money. You only have so many hours in a year. Would you rather spend 100 hours to earn $100 every year for 20 years, or have to spend 100 hours per year for 20 years to earn that same $100 every year? .... All that being said, while you're way ahead of the game for the average person of your age ($30k cash, $20k stocks, unknown TSP balance, low expenses,) I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to diversify quite yet. For one thing, I think you need to keep some amount of your $30k as cash to cover emergency situations. Typically people would say 6 months living expenses for covering employment gaps, but as you are in the military I don't think it's as likely you'll lose your job! So instead, I'd approach it as \"\"How much of this cash do I need over the next 5 years?\"\" That is, sum up $X for the car, $Y for fun & travel, $Z for emergencies, etc. Keep that amount as cash for now. Beyond that, I'd put the balance in your brokerage and get it working hard for you now. (I don't think an average of a 3% div yield is too hard to achieve even when picking a safe, conservative portfolio. Though you do run the risk of capital losses if invested.) Once your total portfolio (TSP + brokerage) is $100k* or more, then consider pulling the trigger on a second passive income stream by splitting off some of your brokerage balance. Until then, keep learning what you can about stock investing and also start the learning process on additional streams. Always keep an eye out for any opportunistic ways to kick additional streams off early if you can find a low cost entry. (*) The $100k number is admittedly a rough guess pulled from the air. I just think splitting your efforts and money prior to this will limit your opportunities to get a good start on any additional streams. Yes, you could do it earlier, but probably only with increased risk (lower capital means less opportunities to pick from, lower knowledge levels -- both stock investing and property rental) also increase risk of making bad choices.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6b474a0d47dd8050a1213e49e01afbc4", "text": "Thanks for your service. I would avoid personal investment opportunities at this point. Reason being that you can't personally oversee them if you are deployed overseas. This would rule out rentals and small businesses. Revisit those possibilities if you get married or leave the service. If you have a definite time when you would like to purchase a car, you could buy a six or twelve month CD with the funds that you need for that. That will slightly bump up your returns without taking much risk. If you don't really need to buy the car, you could invest that money in stocks. Then if the stock market tanks, you wait until it recovers (note that that can be five to ten years) or until you build up your savings again. That increases your reward at a significant increase in your risk. The risk being that you might not be able to buy a car for several more years. Build an emergency fund. I would recommend six months of income. Reason being that your current circumstances are likely to change in an emergency. If you leave the service, your expenses increase a lot. If nothing else, the army stops providing room for you. That takes your expenses from trivial to a third of your income. So basing your emergency fund on expenses is likely to leave you short of what you need if your emergency leaves you out of the service. Army pay seems like a lot because room (and board when deployed) are provided. Without that, it's actually not that much. It's your low expenses that make you feel flush, not your income. If you made the same pay in civilian life, you'd likely feel rather poor. $30,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it really isn't. The median household income is a little over $50,000, so the median emergency fund should be something like $25,000 on the income standard. On the expenses standard, the emergency fund should be at least $15,000. The $15,000 remainder would buy a cheap new car or a good used car. The $5000 remainder from the income standard would give you a decent used car. I wouldn't recommend taking out a loan because you don't want to get stuck paying a loan on a car you can't drive because you deployed. Note that if you are out of contact, in the hospital, or captured, you may not be able to respond if there is a problem with the car or the loan. If you pay cash, you can leave the car with family and let them take care of things in case of a deployment. If you invested in a Roth IRA in January of 2016, you could have invested in either 2015 or 2016. If 2015, you can invest again for 2016. If not, you can invest for 2017 in three months. You may already know all that, but it seemed worth making explicit. The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) allows you to invest up to $18,000 a year. If you're investing less than that, you could simply boost it to the limit. You apparently have an extra $10,000 that you could contribute. A 60% or 70% contribution is quite possible while in the army. If you max out your retirement savings now, it will give you more options when you leave the service. Or even if you just move out of base housing. If your TSP is maxed out, I would suggest automatically investing a portion of your income in a regular taxable mutual fund account. Most other investment opportunities require help to make work automatically. You essentially have to turn the money over to some individual you trust. Securities can be automated so that your investment grows automatically even when you are out of touch.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "6fc9945af9c41291f054e379070cc7d6", "text": "That expense ratio on the bank fund is criminally high. Use the Vanguard one, they have really low expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd95be1f34ff8792c8faad39fb544908", "text": "I would focus first on maxing out your RRSPs (or 401k) each year, and once you've done that, try to put another 10% of your income away into unregistered long term growth savings. Let's say you're 30 and you've been doing that since you graduated 7 years ago, and maybe you averaged 8% p.a. return and an average of $50k per year salary (as a round number). I would say you should have 60k to 120k in straight up investments around age 30. If that's the case, you're probably well on your way to a very comfortable retirement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a849a576e82b7dbc8249212d2e914783", "text": "The advice to invest in yourself is good advice. But the stock market can be very rewarding over the long pull. You have about 45 years to retirement now and that is plenty long enough that each dollar put into the market now will be many dollars then. A simple way to do this might be to open a brokerage account at a reputable broker and put a grand into a very broad based all market ETF and then doing nothing with it. The price of the ETF will go up and down with the usual market gyrations, but over the decades it will grow nicely. Make sure the ETF has low fees so that you aren't being overcharged. It's good that you are thinking about investing at a young age. A rational and consistent investment strategy will lead to wealth over the long pull.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a6cd61ce8fa41b425943eed0b91bad2", "text": "Investing is really about learning your own comfort level. You will make money and lose money. You will make mistakes but you will also learn a great deal. First off, invest in your own financial knowledge, this doesn't require capital at all but a commitment. No one will watch or care for your own money better than yourself. Read books, and follow some companies in a Google Finance virtual portfolio. Track how they're doing over time - you can do this as a virtual portfolio without actually spending or losing money. Have you ever invested before? What is your knowledge level? Investing long term is about trying to balance risk while reducing losses and trying not to get screwed along the way (by people). My personal advice: Go to an independent financial planner, go to one that charges you per hour only. Financial planners that don't charge you hourly get paid in commissions. They will be biased to sell you what puts the most money in their pockets. Do not go to the banks investment people, they are employed by the banks who have sales and quota requirements to have you invest and push their own investment vehicles like mutual funds. Take $15k to the financial planner and see what they suggest. Keep the other $5K in something slow and boring and $1k under your mattress in actual cash as an emergency. While you're young, compound interest is the magic that will make that $25k increase hand over fist in time. But you need to have it consistently make money. I'm young too and more risk tolerant because I have time. While I get older I can start to scale back my risk because I'm nearing retirement and preserve instead of try to make returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "515d2284f6f0b2b40aac463a34dff86d", "text": "This advice will be too specific, but... With the non-retirement funds, start by paying off the car loan if it's more than ~3% interest rate. The remainder: looks like a good emergency fund. If you don't have one of those yet, you do now. Store it in the best interest-bearing savings account you can find (probably accessible by online banking). If you wish to grow your emergency fund beyond $14-20,000 you might also consider some bonds, to boost your returns and add a little risk (but not nearly as much risk as stocks). With the Roth IRA - first of all, toss the precious metals. Precious metals are a crisis hedge and an advanced speculative instrument, not a beginner's investment strategy for 40% of the portfolio. You're either going to use this money for retirement, or your down payment fund. If it's retirement: you're 28; even with a kid on the way, you can afford to take risks in the retirement portfolio. Put it in either a targe-date fund or a series of index funds with an asset allocation suggested by an asset-allocation-suggestion calculator. You should probably have north of 80% stocks if it's money for retirement. If you're starting a down-payment fund, or want to save for something similar, or if you want to treat the IRA money like it's a down-payment fund, either use one of these Vanguard LifeStrategy funds or something that's structured to do the same sort of thing. I'm throwing Vanguard links at you because they have the funds with the low expense ratios. You can use Vanguard at your discretion if it's all an IRA (and not a 401(k)). Feel free to use an alternative, but watch the expense ratios lest they consume up to half your returns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15494e74be9bc86dd2485cbda946271b", "text": "I would definitely recommend putting some of this in an IRA. You can't put all $30K in an IRA immediately though, as the contribution limit is $5500/year for 2014, but until April 15 you can still contribute $5500 for 2013 as well. At your income level I would absolutely recommend a Roth IRA, as your income will very likely be higher in retirement, given that your income will almost certainly rise after you get your Ph.D. Your suggested asset allocation (70% stocks, 30% bonds) sounds appropriate; if anything you might want to go even higher on stocks assuming you won't mind seeing the value drop significantly. If you don't want to put a lot of energy into investment choices, I suggest a target retirement date fund. As far as I am aware, Vanguard offers the lowest expenses for these types of funds, e.g. this 2050 fund.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7aeabd118c53ff1aaef73230b6c4861b", "text": "With 30 years until retirement I would not be very concerned about the 3% cash rule. If you do want to follow that advice I would just keep that money in a cash equivalent like a money market fund or short term cd.", "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": "f0e9b6eb1bb4818486d9d4637a157a6c", "text": "It appears your company is offering roughly a 25% discount on its shares. I start there as a basis to give you a perspective on what the 30% matching offer means to you in terms of value. Since you are asking for things to consider not whether to do it, below are a few considerations (there may be others) in general you should think about your sources of income. if this company is your only source of income, it is more prudent to make your investment in their shares a smaller portion of your overall investment/savings strategy. what is the holding period for the shares you purchase. some companies institute a holding period or hold duration which restricts when you can sell the shares. Generally, the shorter the duration period the less risk there is for you. So if you can buy the shares and immediately sell the shares that represents the least amount of relative risk. what are the tax implications for shares offered at such a discount. this may be something you will need to consult a tax adviser to get a better understanding. your company should also be able to provide a reasonable interpretation of the tax consequences for the offering as well. is the stock you are buying liquid. liquid, in this case, is just a fancy term for asking how many shares trade in a public market daily. if it is a very liquid stock you can have some confidence that you may be able to sell out of your shares when you need. personally, i would review the company's financial statements and public statements to investors to get a better understanding of their competitive positioning, market size and prospects for profitability and growth. given you are a novice at this it may be good idea to solicit the opinion of your colleagues at work and others who have insight on the financial performance of the company. you should consider other investment options as well. since this seems to be your first foray into investing you should consider diversifying your savings into a few investments areas (such as big market indices which typically should be less volatile). last, there is always the chance that your company could fail. Companies like Enron, Lehman Brothers and many others that were much smaller than those two examples have failed in the past. only you can gauge your tolerance for risk. As a young investor, the best place to start is to use index funds which track a broader universe of stocks or bonds as the first step in building an investment portfolio. once you own a good set of index funds you can diversify with smaller investments.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fe391156b6c7fcd72d28e3cbe7b1f35e", "text": "A savings account is your best bet. You do not have the time frame to mitigate/absorb risks. The general guideline for investment is 5 years or more. As you state you are no where near close to that time frame.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8252f119c4f67b1a6d985f5543019804", "text": "The numbers you have quoted don't add up. For Rs 30,000 / month is 3,60,000 a year. The tax should be around 11,000 again this will be reduced by the contributions to PF. You have indicated a tax deductions of 18,000. There are multiple ways to save taxes. Since you are beginner, investments into section 80C should give you required tax benefits. Please read this article in Economic Times", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8aea3fd2ed6a452833e4113135fef07", "text": "So I will attempt to answer the other half of the question since people have given good feedback on the mortgage costs of your various options. Assumptions: It is certain that I am off on some (or all) of these assumptions, but they are still useful for drawing a comparison. If you were to make your mortgage payment, then contribute whatever you have left over to savings, this is where you would be at the end of 30 years. Wait, so the 30 year mortgage has me contributing $40k less to savings over the life of the loan, but comes out with a $20k higher balance? Yes, because of the way compounding interest works getting more money in there faster plays in your favor, but only as long as your savings venue is earning at a higher rate than the cost of the debt your are contrasting it with. If we were to drop the yield on your savings to 3%, then the 30yr would net you $264593, while the 15yr ends up with $283309 in the bank. Similarly, if we were to increase the savings yield to 10% (not unheard of for a strong mutual fund), the 30yr nets $993418, while the 15yr comes out at $684448. Yes in all cases, you pay more to the bank on a 30yr mortgage, but as long as you have a decent investment portfolio, and are making the associated contributions, your end savings come out ahead over the time period. Which sounds like it is the more important item in your overall picture. However, just to reiterate, the key to making this work is that you have an investment portfolio that out performs the interest on the loan. Rule of thumb is if the debt is costing you more than the investment will reliably earn, pay the debt off first. In reality, you need your investments to out perform the interest on your debt + inflation to stay ahead overall. Personally, I would be looking for at least an 8% annual return on your investments, and go with the 30 year option. DISCLAIMER: All investments involve risk and there is no guarantee of making any given earnings target.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fedc731ab6ca2dc898e6b0f3972279a9", "text": "\"Put it in a Vanguard fund with 80% VTI and 20% VXUS. That's what you'll let set for 10-15 years. For somebody that is totally new to investing, use \"\"play money\"\" in the stock market. It's easy for young people to get dreams of glory and blow it all on some stock tip they've seen on Twitter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "adcb7cb80bc15e69a3f853fbeb045fd2", "text": "Even with a good investment strategy, you cannot expect more than 8-10% per year in average. Reducing this by a 3% inflation ratio leaves you with 5 - 7%, which means 15k$ - 21k$. Consider seriously if you could live from that amount as annual income, longterm. If you think so, there is a second hurdle - the words in average. A good year could increase your capital a bit, but a bad year can devastate it, and you would not have the time to wait for the good years to average it out. For example, if your second year gives you a 10% loss, and you still draw 15k$ (and inflation eats another 3%), you have only 247k$ left effectively, and future years will have to go with 12k$ - 17k$. Imagine a second bad year. As a consequence, you either need to be prepared to go back to work in that situation (tough after being without job for years), or you can live on less to begin with: if you can make it on 10k$ to begin with (and do, even in good years), you have a pretty good chance to get through your life with it. Note that 'make it with x' always includes taxes, health care, etc. - nothing is free. I think it's possible, as people live on 10k$ a year. But you need to be sure you can trust yourself to stay within the limit and not give in and spent more - not easy for many people.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6149934da913dd25086282f4d6cf05e", "text": "While the US tax code does not directly impose an obligation to pay estimated taxes, it does impose a penalty on individuals for failure to pay enough taxes either through withholding or estimated tax. USMTG Anyone can choose how s/he wants to pay their taxes but they better deal with any consequences of not paying them instead of just complaining about it like most people do. Most people get the hatred towards the IRS but most complaints are misdirected and should be directed towards Congress who creates and messes around with the US Tax Code. Some people actually do not make estimated payments and pay any possible taxes with their returns knowing that there may be underpayment penalty. For those people, the penalty is relatively small compared to what they can do with the cash over a year's time (i.e. investing or paying down debt). It's their choice!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
abf724c0e3464511f54e4608f0c70512
US Foreign-Owned LLC that owes no income tax - Do I have to file anything?
[ { "docid": "ddc4567aaa01aa91837cb7c8690619ea", "text": "\"If you intend to do business \"\"outside the country\"\", why establish an LLC \"\"here\"\" at all? You should establish a business in your home country if you desire business organization for sequestering liabilities or something. With or without a business organization, you will presumably be taxed for domestic income \"\"there\"\", wherever that is.\"", "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": "d402dc885d5d6ef6afda8b49de969880", "text": "You're doing business in the US and derive income from the US, so I'd say that yes, you should file a non-resident tax return in the US. And in Connecticut, as well, since that's where you're conducting business (via your domestic LLC registered there). Since you paid more than $600 to your contractor, you're probably also supposed to send a 1099 to him on that account on behalf of your LLC (which is you, essentially, if you're the only member).", "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": "9ef174b33606cc48292303fe2a920126", "text": "This is a complicated question that relies on the US-India Tax Treaty to determine whether the income is taxable to the US or to India. The relevant provision is likely Article 15 on Personal Services. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/india.pdf It seems plausible that your business is personal services, but that's a fact-driven question based on your business model. If the online training is 'personal services' provided by you from India, then it is likely foreign source income under the treaty. The 'fixed base' and '90 days' provisions in Article 15 would not apply to an India resident working solely outside the US. The question is whether your US LLC was a US taxpayer. If the LLC was a taxpayer, then it has an obligation to pay US tax on any worldwide income and it also arguably disqualifies you from Article 15 (which applies to individuals and firms of individuals, but not companies). If you were the sole owner of the US LLC, and you did not make a Form 8832 election to be treated as subject to entity taxation, then the LLC was a disregarded entity. If you had other owners, and did not make an election, then you are a partnership and I suspect but cannot conclude that the treaty analysis is still valid. So this is fact-dependent, but you may be exempt from US tax under the tax treaty. However, you may have still had an obligation to file Forms 1099 for your worker. You can also late-file Forms 1099 reporting the nonemployee compensation paid to your worker. Note that this may have tax consequences on the worker if the worker failed to report the income in those years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54f174f29e2d2d7d644ab1b8ced2a5f7", "text": "Form 10-K is filed by corporations to SEC. You must be thinking of form 1065 (its schedule K) that a partnership (and multi-member LLC) must file with the IRS. Unless the multi-member LLC is legally dissolved, it must file this form. You're a member, so it is your responsibility, with all the other members, to make sure that the manager files all the forms, and if the manager doesn't - fire the manager and appoint another one (or, if its member managed - chose a different member to manage). If you're a sole member of the LLC - then you don't need to file any forms with the IRS, all the business expenses and credits are done on your Schedule C, as if you were a sole propriator.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "21f92446dfd048a11ba3713e97294bf3", "text": "\"No, there are no issues. When you form the corp in DE, you pick a business there to serve as your \"\"agent\"\" (essentially someone who knows to get in contact with you). The \"\"agent\"\" will notify you about taxes and any mail you get, but besides the fee they charge you for being the agent, you should file all the taxes directly with DE (franchise tax is easy to file on the web) instead of going through the agent and paying a surcharge. When your LLC files taxes, you'll do so in DE and then the LLC will issue you a federal and state K1. You'll file taxes where you reside and use the federal K1, but I think you might have to file DE state taxes (unsure about this part, feel free to edit or comment and I'll correct).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f085e2fe7f632284bbea9f6955ebc0e", "text": "If it is a sole proprietorship and you didn't make another mistake by explicitly asking the IRS to treat it as a corporation - there are no IRS forms to fill. You'll need to dissolve the LLC with your State, though, check the State's department of State/Corporations (depending on the State, the names of the departments dealing with business entities vary).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6448d72794b93dcc59f4c095e6589e8a", "text": "One other consideration. If you are a US citizen or Resident Alien, you are going to owe US income taxes regardless of where you earn the money. Here it is straight from the horse's mouth: Tax guide for US Citizens living abroad", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6848e7ec4c1f2dd2f1436826fa588d0b", "text": "I'll start with the bottom line. Below the line I'll address the specific issues. Becoming a US tax resident is a very serious decision, that has significant consequences for any non-American with >$0 in assets. When it involves cross-border business interests, it becomes even more significant. Especially if Switzerland is involved. The US has driven at least one iconic Swiss financial institution out of business for sheltering US tax residents from the IRS/FinCEN. So in a nutshell, you need to learn and be afraid of the following abbreviations: and many more. The best thing for you would be to find a good US tax adviser (there are several large US tax firms in the UK handling the US expats there, go to one of those) and get a proper assessment of all your risks and get a proper advice. You can get burnt really hard if you don't prepare and plan properly. Now here's that bottom line. 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! That's actually not a trivial question. Depending on the ownership structure and your legal status within the company, all the company's bank accounts may be reportable on FBAR (see link above). You may also be required to file form 5471. 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!? All US forms are in English. If you're required to provide supporting documentation (during audit, or if the form instructions require it with filing) - you'll need to translate it, and have the translation certified. Depending on what you need, your accountant will guide you. 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. Q) Is this correct!? No. You will be liable to pay income tax. The rate of the tax depends on the kind of property and the period you held it for. It may be 15%, it may be 39%. Depends on a lot of factors. It may also be 0%, in some cases. I also understand that any tax paid (on selling) in Switzerland will be deducted from the 15%!? May be. May be not. What you're talking about is called Foreign Tax Credit. The rules for calculating the credit are not exactly trivial, and from my personal experience - you can most definitely end up being paying tax in both the US and Switzerland without the ability to utilize the credit in full. Again, talk to your tax adviser ahead of time to plan things in the most optimal way for you. 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!? Of course. If you need to present it (again, most likely only in case of audit), you'll have to have a translation. Translating stuff is not a problem, usually costs $5-$20 per page, depending on complexity. Unless a lot of money involved, I doubt you'll need to translate more than balance sheet/bank statement. I know this is a very unique set of questions, so if you can shed any light on the matter, it would be greatly appreciated. Not unique at all. You're not the first and not the last to emigrate to the US. However, you need to understand that the issue is very complex. Taxes are complex everywhere, but especially so in the US. I suggest you not do anything before talking to a US-licensed CPA/EA whose practice is to work with the EU/UK expats to the US or US expats to the UK/EU.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b785bcf974c97d43b0f71c871e9a9f2a", "text": "No, even businesses pay taxes quarterly. So if you formed Nathan, LLC, or otherwise became self employed, you'd still have to file quarterly estimates and make tax payments. This would cause taxes to be a much more high touch part of your life. However, you should ensure that you're claiming the proper exemptions etc to avoid excessive withholding.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c2718faab7ee5008d2257c0669ca216", "text": "\"I'm assuming that by saying \"\"I'm a US resident now\"\" you're referring to the residency determination for tax purposes. Should I file a return in the US even though there is no income here ? Yes. US taxes its residents for tax purposes (which is not the same as residents for immigration or other purposes) on worldwide income. If yes, do I get credits for the taxes I paid in India. What form would I need to submit for the same ? I am assuming this form has to be issued by IT Dept in India or the employer in India ? The IRS doesn't require you to submit your Indian tax return with your US tax return, however they may ask for it later if your US tax return comes under examination. Generally, you claim foreign tax credits using form 1116 attached to your tax return. Specifically for India there may also be some clause in the Indo-US tax treaty that might be relevant to you. Treaty claims are made using form 8833 attached to your tax return, and I suggest having a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) prepare such a return. Although no stock transactions were done last year, should I still declare the value of total stocks I own ? If so what is an approx. tax rate or the maximum tax rate. Yes, this is done using form 8938 attached to your tax return and also form 114 (FBAR) filed separately with FinCEN. Pay attention: the forms are very similar with regard to the information you provide on them, but they go to different agencies and have different filing requirements and penalties for non-compliance. As to tax rates - that depends on the types of stocks and how you decide to treat them. Generally, the tax rate for PFIC is very high, so that if any of your stocks are classified as PFIC - you'd better talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about how to deal with them. Non-PFIC stocks are dealt with the same as if they were in the US, unless you match certain criteria described in the instructions to form 5471 (then a different set of rules apply, talk to a licensed tax adviser). I will be transferring most of my stock to my father this year, will this need to be declared ? Yes, using form 709. Gift tax may be due. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). I have an apartment in India this year, will this need to be declared or only when I sell the same later on ? If there's no income from it - then no (assuming you own it directly in your own name, for indirect ownership - yes, you do), but when you sell you will have to declare the sale and pay tax on the gains. Again, treaty may come into play, talk to a tax adviser. Also, be aware of Section 121 exclusion which may make it more beneficial for you to sell earlier.\"", "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": "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": "cecc860897423d6c529366fcac3bc914", "text": "\"You need to hire a tax professional and have them sort it out for you properly and advise you on how to proceed next. Don't do it yourself, you're way past the stage when you could. You're out of compliance, and you're right - there are penalties that a professional might know how to mitigate, and maybe even negotiate a waiver with the IRS, depending on the circumstances of the case. Be careful of answers like \"\"you don't need to pay anything\"\" that are based on nothing of facts. Based on what you said in the question and in the comments, it actually sounds like you do have to pay something, and you're in trouble with the IRS already. It might be that you misunderstood something in the past (e.g.: you said the business had filed taxes before, but in fact that might never happened and you're confusing \"\"business filed taxes\"\" with \"\"I filed schedule C\"\") or it might be the actual factual representation of things (you did in fact filed a tax return for your business with the IRS, either form 1120 of some kind or 1065). In any case a good licensed (CPA or EA) professional will help you sort it out and educate you on what you need to do in the future.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b99725932ea29bc40671448a4319ab71", "text": "IANAL, I am married to someone in your situation. As a US citizen age 26 who has not had any contact with the IRS, you should most definitely be worried... As a US citizen, you are (and always have been) required to file a US tax return and pay any tax on all income, no matter where earned, and no matter where you reside. There are often (but not always) agreements between governments to reduce double taxation. The US rule as to whether a particular type of income is taxable will prevail. As a US citizen with financial accounts (chequing, saving, investment, etc.) above a minimum balance, abroad, you are required to report information, including the amounts in the account, to the US government annually (Look up FBAR). Failure to file these forms carries harsh penalties. A recent law (FATCA) requires foreign financial institutions to report information on their US citizen clients to the US, irrespective of any local banking privacy laws. It's possible that your application triggered these reporting requirements. You will not be allowed to renounce your US citizenship until you have paid all past US taxes and penalties. Good new: you are eligible in ten years or so to run for President. Don't believe any of this, or that nothing has been missed; you must consult with a local tax expert specializing in US/UK tax laws.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
52052958fbad7566ee7853d334a54ff7
Friend was brainwashed by MLM-/ponzi investment scam. What can I do?
[ { "docid": "288d276228f14c790a00ed38f2cbcab0", "text": "Go to the police. This is fraud and is illegal. Sure, this will hurt your friend but better now then when he starts abusing of his position to fraud even more people... Original comment by Bakuriu sorry for not giving credit", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5b93a0cb7b43428d2589f99299d68934", "text": "\"If this is your friend, and he that convinced he will \"\"get rich\"\" from this then there's really nothing you CAN do. You've obviously done your best to explain the situation to him, but he's been caught up in their sales pitch, and that's more convincing to him. I worked in sales for many years, and the answers he gives you (the one about not needing to know the details of how your smartphone works is a classic variation of typical objection-handling that salespeople are taught) proves that he has been sucked in by their scheme. At this stage, all you're going to do is ruin your friendship with him if you continue to press the matter, because he has made it clear he can't be convinced that this is anything other than legitimate. The reality is, he is probably in too deep at this stage to just walk away from it, so he has to convince himself that he made a wise choice. Schemes like this use a \"\"scarcity\"\" approach (there's only so much to go around, and if you don't get yours now then someone else will get it) coupled with ego-boosting (boy, Mr. Prospect, this is such a great opportunity, and you're one of only a few who are sophisticated enough to understand and take advantage of it) to get people to lower their guard and not ask a whole lot of probing questions. Nobody wants to feel stupid, and they don't want others to think they're stupid, so these schemes will present the information in such a way that ordinarily prudent questions come across as sounding dumb, making the questioner seem not so smart. Rather than walking away from it, peoples' pride will sometimes make them double down on it, and they'll just go along with it to come across as though they get it, even when they really don't. The small payouts at early stages are a classic sign of a Ponzi scheme. Your friend will never listen to you as long as those little checks continue to come in, because to him they're absolute proof he's right and you're wrong. It's those checks (or payouts, however they're doing it) that will make him step up his efforts to recruit other people into the scheme or, worse yet, invest more of his own money into this. Keep in mind that in the end, you really have no power to do anything in this situation other than be his friend and try to use gentle persuasion. He's already made it clear that he isn't going to listen to your explanations about why this is a scam, for a couple reasons. First (and probably greatest), it would be an admission that he's dumb, or at least not as smart as you, and who wants that? Second, he continues to get little checks that reinforce the fact this must be \"\"real\"\", or why else would he be getting this money? Third, he has already demonstrated his commitment to this by quitting his job, so from his point of view, this has become an all-or-nothing ticket to wealth. The bottom line is, these schemes work because the sales pitch is powerful enough to overcome ordinary logic for people who think there just has to be an easy way to Easy Street. All you can do is just be there as his friend and hope that he sees the light before the damage (to himself and anyone else) gets too great. You can't stop him from what he's doing any more than you can stop the sun from rising as long the message (and checks) he's getting from other people keep him convinced he's on the right path. EDIT After reading the comments posted in this thread, I do want to amend my statements, because many good points have been raised here. You obviously can't just sit by and do nothing while your friend talks others into taking the same (or worse) risks that he is. That's not morally right by any measure At the same time however, be VERY careful about how you go about this. Your friend, as you stated, sounds pretty much like he's all in with this scheme, so there's definitely going to be some serious emotional commitment to it on his part as well. Anyone and everything that threatens what he sees as his ticket to Easy Street could easily become a target when this all comes crashing down, as it inevitably will. You could very well be the cause of that in his eyes, especially if he knows you've been discouraging people from buying into this nightmare. People are NOT rational creatures when it comes to money losses. It's called \"\"sunken costs\"\", where they'll continue to chase their losses on the rationale they'll make up for it if they just don't give up. The more your friend committed to this, the worse his anxieties about losing, so he'll do whatever he has to in order to save his position. This is what gamblers do and why the house does so well for itself. Some have suggested making anonymous flyers or other means of communicating that don't expose you as the person spreading the message, and that's one suggestion. However, the problem with this is that since the receiver has no idea who sent the message, they're not likely to give it the kind of credibility or notice that they would to something passed to them by a person they know and trust, and your anonymous message will have little weight in the face of the persuasive pitch that got your friend to commit his own money (and future). Another problem, as you've noted, is that you don't travel in the same circles as the people he's likely to recruit, so how would you go about warning them? How would they view their first contact with you when it comes with a message not to trust what someone else they already know is about to tell them? Would they write it off as someone who's butty? Hard to tell. Another huge ploy of these schemes is that they tend to preemptively strike at what you propose doing -- that is, warning people to stay away. They do this by projecting the people giving the warnings as losers who didn't see the opportunity for themselves and now want to keep others away from their own financial success. They'll portray you as someone who isn't smart enough to see this \"\"huge opportunity\"\", and since you can't understand it, you don't think anyone else does either. They'll point out that if you were so good with finances, why aren't you already successful? These guys are very good, and they have an answer for every objection you can raise, whether its to them or to someone else. They've spent a long time honing their message, which makes it difficult for anyone to say something persuasive enough to sway others away from being duped. This is a hard path, no doubt. I hope you are able to warn others away. Just be aware that it may come at a cost to you as well, and be prepared for what that might be. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "138650c4890cb9a76d2737a5d6ab1288", "text": "\"I will disagree with some of the other answers here. In my view, the most important dimension of the situation is not your friend's potential loss but the potential losses of the people he may convince by using his position as youth group leader, etc., to draw more them into the scam. Exactly how to handle this depends on many factors that aren't mentioned in your question (and probably rightly so, as this aspect of the situation moves beyond personal finance). For instance, if your friend is a \"\"pillar of the community\"\" who is widely trusted, and you are not, there may be little you can do, since people will believe him and not you. If you have some influence over the groups he is trying to recruit, you can attempt to provide a counterweight to his recruitment activities. Again, how to do this depends on other factors, such as how he is recruiting them. If he is just privately contacting individuals and inviting them to these meetings, you may have to just keep your eyes peeled for anyone who seems tempted and try to dissuade them before they suffer the \"\"brainwashing\"\". If he actually tries to do some sort of public recruitment (e.g., holding a meeting himself), you could try to inject doubt by, e.g., attending and asking probing questions to expose the dangers. If you think the danger is widespread, you could consider taking some more public action, like writing a column in a local paper about this organization. Of course, another major factor is how much you think people stand to lose by this. However, in your question you indicated that your friend has invested \"\"multiple month or years of income\"\". If he intends to pressure others to invest similar amounts, this sounds to me like enough danger to warrant some preventive action. Few people can afford to lose months or years of income, and sadly those most vulnerable to a scammer's siren song are often those who can least afford it. It doesn't sound like a situation where you'd have to devote your life to the cause of stopping it, but if I knew that dozens of people in my community stood to lose years of income, I'd want to make at least a small effort to stop them, rather than just keep my mouth shut. In doing this, you may lose your friendship. However, you stated that your goal is to resolve the situation in a way that is \"\"best with lowest loss of money for everybody\"\". If you really take this utilitarian view, it is likely that you may have to give up on the friendship to prevent other people from losing more money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bdff9ed0ed8e5a4578c05b5668c99b8", "text": "\"Even though this is really a psychology question, I'll try to give you an answer. You do nothing but stay away. What's going on is too small to matter. Bernie Madoff took investor's money and scammed them for $15B. That's B, billion, 9 zeros (Yes, I realize the UK Billion has 12, these are US Billion). Harry Markopolos was on to him, and presented his evidence to the government, but \"\"No one would listen.\"\" In quotes because that's the title of the book he published on his experience. Even Barron's had an article suggesting that Madoff's returns were impossible. Eventually, it came to light. In my own experience, there was a mortgage acceleration product called \"\"Money Merge Account.\"\" It claimed to help you pay off your mortgage in a fraction of the time \"\"with no change to your budget.\"\" For two years or so, I was obsessed with exposing this scam, and wrote articles, nearly every week discussing every aspect of this product. Funny how even though mortgages are math that's pretty easy to explain, few sellers wanted to talk about the math. Using the same logic that you don't need to understand how a car works as long as you know how to drive. There were some people that would write to tell me I saved them the $3500 cost of that product, but mostly I argued with sellers who dismissed every word I wrote as if the math were incomprehensible to anyone but the software guys who wrote it. In the end, I had compiled a PDF with over 60 pages of my writing on the topic, and decided to call it quits. The product was recycled and now is sold as \"\"Worth Unlimited,\"\" but the software is the same. This is all a tangent to your problem. It simply offers the fact that the big scam, Bernie, continued for a long time, and people who were otherwise intelligent, fell for his promises, and didn't want to believe otherwise. The mortgage software had many bloggers writing. Searching on the web found a lot of discussion, very easy to find. People will believe what they wish. Tell an Atheist that God exists, or a believer that He doesn't, and your words will fall on deaf ears. Unfortunately, this is no different.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dc94e748641fbea1f9ec537de1b992ba", "text": "\"First, there are MLM businesses that are legitimate and are not Ponzi schemes; I actually work with one (I will not name it lest I give the impression of trying to sell here). One thing I learned was how to respond when a prospect raises objections related to the actual scams, which are abundant; the answer being to point out, and you mentioned this yourself, that in an illegitimate scheme, there is no actual product being offered - the only thing money is ever spent on is the expectation of a future profit. Ask your friend, \"\"Would you buy the product this company sells, at the price they ask, if there were not a financial opportunity attached to it?\"\" If not, \"\"How can you expect anyone else to buy it from you?\"\" There are only 3 ways he can respond to this question: he can realize that you're right and get out now; he can change the subject to the concept of making money by climbing the ranks and earning off of a salesforce, in which case it's time to educate him on Ponzi; or he can claim to be able to sell something he doesn't believe in, in which case you should run fat, far away. If he does indicate that he would be a customer even without the chance to sell the product, then offer him the chance to prove it, by giving you one sales pitch on the condition that he is not allowed to breathe a word about joining the business. Do him the courtesy of listening with an open mind, and decide for yourself whether you could ever be a customer. If the possibility exists, even if not today, he has found one of the few legitimate MLM companies, and you should not try to stop him. If not, you'll have to determine whether it's because the product just isn't for you, or because it's inherently worthless, and whether you should encourage or discourage your friend going forward.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0bc1ec1dffc69de084d9bb843f03b221", "text": "\"So here's the sad truth. He might actually be making a return on his investment. Not because it's right or because the system works, but in all these schemes there are a range of people that actually do make money. In addition to that, there is that fact that he \"\"believes\"\" that he is doing a good thing, and is unwilling to discuss it. So, if he is making, even a tiny return, and really believes that he is making a large return, or that that large return is just around the bend, your never going to convince him otherwise. You have two real options; If he will listen, go though and look at money in v.s. money out. If money out is larger then money in, your screwed. Make sure to point out that he should look at real money in (left a bank account) and real money out (deposited to a bank account). Again be prepared for the fact that he is actually making money. Some people in the pyramid will make money, it's just never as much, or as many people as they make it out to be. Don't attack the system, attack other aspects. Try and argue liquidity, or FDIC insurance. Again not trying to show why the system is bad, but why a investment in foo instead may be better. If nothing else, go with diversify. Never put all your money in one spot, even if it's a really good spot. At least in that case he will have some money left over in the end. That said, your friend may not go for it. May just put on blinders, and may just stick finger in ears. Move to option two. Respect his wishes, and set boundaries. \"\"Ok, I hear you, you like system X, I won't bring it up again. Do me a favor, don't you bring it up again either. Let's just leave this with religion and politics.\"\" If he continues to bring it up, then when he does, just point out you agreed not to discuss the issue, and if he continues to push it, rethink your friendship. If you both respect one another, you should be able to respect each others' decisions. If you can't then, sadly, you may need to stop spending time with one another.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7164feb9ee4f3426bd83df83e9784f9", "text": "I believe the only thing you haven't mentioned to him is the possibility that his activity is criminally fraudulent. I would sit him down, and say something substantially similar to the following: We've talked about your investment before, and I know you believe it's fine. I just want to make sure you understand that this is very likely fraudulent activity. I know you believe in it, but you've said you don't understand how or why it works. The problem with that is that if it is a fraud you can't protect yourself from criminal prosecution because you didn't understand what you were doing. The prosecutor will ask you if you asked others to give you or the organization money, and then they will convict you based on trying to defraud others. It doesn't matter whether you did it on purpose, or just because you believed the people you are investing in. So I very strongly advise you to understand exactly what the system is, and how it works, and then make sure with a lawyer that it's legal. If it is, then hey, you've learned something valuable. But if it's not, then you will save yourself a whole lot of trouble and anguish down the road if you step away before someone you attract to the investment decides to talk to their accountant or lawyer. A civil lawsuit may be bad, but if you're criminally prosecuted it will be so much worse. Now that I've said my piece, I won't talk to you about it anymore or bother you about it. I wish you luck, and hope that things work out fine. I wouldn't talk to the police or suggest that I'd do anything of that nature, without proof then there's no real way to start an investigation anyway, and unfortunately scams like this are incredibly hard to investigate, so the police often spend little to no time on them without a high level insider giving up evidence and associates. Chances are good nothing would happen to your friend - one day the organization will disappear and he won't recover any more money - but there's a distinct possibility that when that happens, the people below him will come for him, and he won't be able to look further up the chain for help. Perhaps the threat of illegal activity will be enough to prevent him from defrauding others, but if not I think at least you can let it go, and know that you've done everything for him that might work.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f606940b8bf3f1e2be77666f0e26ffe5", "text": "The title of your question basically asks: What can I do? And you state this regarding the meeting and “advice” they gave towards criticism of their method: While this they also indoctrinated that you should avoid talking to people talking bad about it (or say it is scam) because you gain no money from them and they just want to destroy your business. First, you really cannot do anything to “save” your friend if they have bought this nonsense. You are right, it’s a scam. But past stating as such to your friend, there is not much you can do past shielding yourself. The reality is this: Any scenario you are in where you cannot ask basic questions and get a reasonable response or are given—at least—the option to walk away unscathed or uninsulated is basically a cult-like mentality. Simple as that. If the first thing someone tells you is “Don’t listen to others, just listen to me…” then you need to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom or something and just leave. From my personal experience meeting people who are successful and have power, they always—and I mean always—ask questions and are critical of things they invest in… Whether that investment is time, money or just basic mental energy. Rich people are just like you and me! Except they have more money so they can take bigger risks. Critical thinking and the ability to walk away from something are key life skills. Now others have talked salesman psychology which is on point. But here is something else you brought up in your question: He also wants to use his position as respected member of multiple local youth and other communities to get their members as referals or in his words “…to give them the oppurtunity to also simply earn money.” Okay, so you can set personal boundaries between you and this clown, but you cannot stop him. But if he plans on targeting people and organizations in your community, you can warn them about him and his behavior and this scam. Chances are other people will know right away it’s a scam, but honestly if you feel the need to help others, that’s the most reasonable thing you can do to help them. But whatever you do, don’t take any of this emotional crap personally. If anything, maybe you can learn some reverse salesman techniques to get this “friend” to disengage. Such as only meeting with them in public and if they say something really vile to you, repeating what they said back to them as a question… Maybe even louder so everyone can hear. Remember a harsh reality of life: Public shaming can work to change someone’s behavior but you never want to do something like that unless you have utterly no choice. That last bit of advice is pretty harsh, but the reality is at some point you need to do something to “smack” reality into the situation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3cbe5453859af2169916484557119e0e", "text": "As others have stated, it will be very difficult for you to turn your friend around. He has already demonstrated great commitment. What can I do? There may be other people (perhaps mutual friends of you and this man) who are in danger. He may try to get them into this (as he apparently tried to with you). If this was me, I would try to warn the mutual friends of me and him. It's easier to get to them before they have been exposed to the brainwashing. So I would: Yes, I realize this means you're going behind his back, talking to his friends, etc. But I believe these people also deserve to be warned. They are in danger of being adversely affected by what he is doing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dec1ba6f3dd47b30b895677f50e5cfc8", "text": "Chances are high your friend isn't in it for the money, but the community or some vague dream of having a future income-generating side business because he can't get a loan for a 7-11 franchise. I run a few successful online businesses and had an import/export so naturally I run into these guys looking for advice on selling their MLM wares easier. I always point out they can make a lot of money cutting out the middle man MLM distributor and buy the same products from eBay or the same local supplier the MLM uses for a fraction of costs...then collect all the profit sans kickbacks to their host MLM goon/sponsor/father. I've never had anyone that bailed on the MLM, but I could see their eyes gloss over after they realized their own middle man is holding them back from making a lot of money (assuming they could offload that stuff). People actually in it for the money tend to bail (better sales job exist, MLM dreams don't pay rent, etc.) so you'll probably just need to isolate your friend from these losers somehow. You could investigate his sponsor and find out how much money he's actually making....if he tells your friend he's rich, but you find out he lives in the slums with his mom, your friend might bail on friendship/association with the group out of sheer disgust. It's the friends, not the logic you need to attack. His MLM friends would consider it a betrayal if he left them so you need to show him it's the MLM group that's betrayed his friendship. Point out all the long-term members driving junky cars to events who brag about their $$$. Laugh at the piss poor finance credentials of the local group leaders....ask where the investor perks are and suggest the sponsor/leaders are just hording them. Point out that he's a success and the fellow team members are just milking him to prop up their failing investments/sales/recruitment numbers. Nobody wants to let a team down....but the team isn't good enough for him. Deep down he knows the logic is questionable or at least risky/improbable, but his faith in the good intentions of his MLM cohorts is high.....crush that faith and all he's left with is bad finance tips or cheap protein shakes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7972dd39bc25c4136e567baa0e8857d9", "text": "The one thing your friend needs to understand is for every dollar paid out, there is somebody paying that dollar in. The mark of a Ponzi scheme is that it feeds on itself. The stock market has trade volumes where it almost meets the definition of a Ponzi scheme. However, it deals with shares in actual production facilities (rather than only financial institutions) and provides means of production in return for large amounts of the profits. So there is someone legitimately expecting to pay back more than he gets out, in return for the availability of money at a time where he could not finance matters except by credit. With your friend's scheme, there is nobody expected to pay more than he gets out. Nail him down with that: every dollar paid out has to be paid in. Who is the one paying? At this point of time, it sounds like there will be two possible outcomes. You'll be visiting your friend in debtors' prison, or you'll visit him in criminal prison. If you highly value your friendship, you might get him out of the former with your own money. You won't be able with the latter. And if you let him exploit his standing for scamming his community, make no mistake, it will be the latter. I don't envy you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22a8ad978393dbd6e80020a151f705f7", "text": "If this 'scam' has a name, address and/or phone number, I forward it to the FBI anonymously. That is my advice. You may also wish to consult a lawyer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6ee8d4a941cc76b83c804066b7e40877", "text": "Your friend is investing time & money in a business that does not list an address or phone number on its website, not even in its 'press kit'. Even when they make a press release about moving into a new building, it does not list the address or even the street! C'mon, this is obviously a scam. No real business acts like this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7dbf1ca1216e00be176e51ba0e68045c", "text": "I don't want to repeat things that have already been said as I agree with most of them. There's just one little thing I'd like to add: If things go the way we're all expecting, this guy will eventually be in desperate need of a friend as he is extremely likely to lose most of his friends sooner or later. Perhaps all you can do is signal that you will not support him now (for obvious reasons), but that you'll be there for him when he may need you in the future...", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "74a47b8b12f7afd06fd333b7b5426df5", "text": "The thing that gets so many people is that multilevel marketing isn't inherently a scam. It has all of the potential that they try to sell you on. It just so happens that every friend you have doesn't have an infinite supply of friend networks completely unrelated to anyone you know, so once you get three or four people in the same area in on an MLM, or if you try to join not realizing that there are already people in on it, and ESPECIALLY if you get in on MLM without knowing ANYTHING about he product aside from the MLM opportunities for your potential marks, or without knowing anything about sales in general, then people start getting screwed. MLM is cancer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cb78796e5f2623079542684e26439d8e", "text": "I feel like the new mlm schemes are 'pay a thousand dollars for my blue print which will help you develop the business of your dreams and earn 100k a month!' A lady contacted me about training because she couldn't afford one of those 'courses'. And I was like a) I have ten years experience in this I did not decide to do it overnight and b) it's high pressure and stressful as f.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d85f2317a218c57cbb8d3f379432d4f9", "text": "Sadly, the Executive and BOD cashed-in on this a long time ago. History tells us that any claw-backs that the courts seek will represent just a tiny fraction of the overall gains taken in by the scam. Equally sad, any further fines and penalties levied against WF will be taken out of the hides of the lowest level investors and employees.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "895e63c8636a4fec7a755864ecc4eefb", "text": "There are lots of answers here, but I'll add my two cents... The best way to win is not to play. MLM is not a viable business model. Don't go in thinking you'll beat the system by trying harder than everyone else. The only way you'll make any money is by recruiting lots of people, and selling products that can be obtained for cheaper elsewhere at a normal store. If your friend already committed to the decision and they're wise as to what's going on, yet gullible enough to try anyways, have them think about the ethics of exploiting the people down the pyramid from them. Maybe that will change their mind. All of the other answers about not investing too much of your own money remain true. You don't want to blow your life savings on a pipe dream.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6ea9d616b30c9973b74157e9df43187", "text": "Guaranteed 8.2% annual return sounds too good to be true. Am I right? Are there likely high fees, etc.? You're right. Guaranteed annual return is impossible, especially when you're talking about investments for such a long period of time. Ponzi (and Madoff) schemed their investors using promises of guaranteed return (see this note in Wikipedia: In some cases returns were allegedly determined before the account was even opened.[72]). Her financial advisor doesn't charge by the hour--he takes a commission. So there's obviously some incentive to sell her things, even if she may not need them. Definitely not a good sign, if the advisor gets a commission from the sale then he's obviously not an advisor but a sales person. The problem with this kind of investment is that it is very complex, and it is very hard to track. The commission to the broker makes it hard to evaluate returns (you pay 10% upfront, and it takes awhile to just get that money back, before even getting any profits), and since you're only able to withdraw in 20 years or so - there's no real way to know if something wrong, until you get there and discover that oops- no money! Also, many annuity funds (if not all) limit withdrawals to a long period, i.e.: you cannot touch money for like 10 years from investment (regardless of the tax issues, the tax deferred investment can be rolled over to another tax deferred account, but in this case - you can't). I suggest you getting your own financial advisor (that will work for you) to look over the details, and talk to your mother if it is really a scam.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "af7c5e4e1d4dac0d2cd9ce2faf49df5d", "text": "\"Sounds like a Ponzi scheme, amplified by social media. Ponzi schemes always rely on some \"\"winners\"\" to say they are winners, so they can grow the pot. If you put in $100 and got out $120, that's the $20 the operator pays so that the next guy who puts in $100 gets back... zero.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aad964023bfe20997bec03f865987ce6", "text": "\"Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage \"\"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is\"\", and to stick to relatively large companies, since they have more auditing requirements and fraud is much harder to hide at scale (but not impossible, see Enron). Edit: and, of course, diversify. This kind of thing is rare, and not systematic, so diversification is a very good protection.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb23133354ef50cc316f1e26656eef42", "text": "Its not about her trying to fuck you over. Its about yourself, herself and her brother not taking into account the risk and assuming this is easy money. Legality is the easy part. Competing in the market and coming out on top is the hard part. There are probably hundreds of people just like her brother thinking that setting up a weed shop is a get rich quick scheme.", "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": "d6cd64b327e02bb97e1b3893e3d5adb2", "text": "Apparently this stuff is through Amway, which screws all of the little guys over to help make somebody else a bunch of money. It's a load of bs you don't want to get involved with. Glad I found that out.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9d329e887d7499a6cd163013dc560b17", "text": "\"The first question I have to ask is, why would your \"\"friend\"\" even be considering something so ridiculous? There are so many variations of the banking scam running around, and yet people can't seem to see them for what they are -- scams. The old saying \"\"there's no such thing as a free lunch\"\" really comes into play here. Why would anyone send you/your friend $3,000.00 just because they \"\"like you\"\"? If you can't come up with a rational answer to that question then you know what you (or your friend) should do -- walk away from any further contact with this person and never look back! Why? Well, the simple answer is, let's assume they DO send you $3,000.00 by some means. If you think there aren't strings attached then all hope is lost. This is a confidence scam, where the scammer wins your trust by doing something nobody would ever do if they were trying to defraud you. As a result, you feel like you can trust them, and that's when the games really begin. Ask yourself this -- How long do you think it will be (even assuming the money is sent) before they'll talk you into revealing little clues about yourself that allow them to develop a good picture of you? Could they be setting you up for some kind of identity theft scheme, or some other financial scam? Whatever it is, you'd better believe the returns for them far outweigh the $3,000.00 they're allegedly going to send, so in a sense, it's an investment for them in whatever they have planned for you down the road. PLEASE don't take the warnings you get about this lightly!!! Scams like this work because they always find a sucker. The fact that you're asking the question in the first place means you/your \"\"friend\"\" are giving serious thought to what was proposed, and that's nothing short of disaster if you do it. Leave it be, take the lesson for what it's worth before it costs you one red cent, and move on. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "14fbd60f61528b74f681f6033acfc003", "text": "The risk besides the extra interest is that you might be upside down on the loan. Because the car loses value the moment you drive off the lot, the slower you pay it off the longer it takes to get the loan balance below the resale value. Of course if you have a significant down payment, the risk of being upside down is not as great. Even buying a used car doesn't help because if you try to sell it back to the dealer the next week they wont give you the full price you paid. Some people try and split the difference, get the longer term loan, but then pay it off as quickly as the shorter term loan. Yes the interest rate is higher but if you need to drop the payment back to the required level you can do so.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9c509c589da4a1113de7886d63dc888", "text": "Firstly, you haven't traded long enough. Secondly, you have just had a lot of luck that most of your trades came back. Thirdly, you should develop a trading strategy having entry rules, exit rules and risk management rules (never trade on margin without risk management or stop losses). Lastly, never trade on intuition or your emotions, stick to your plan, cut your losses small and early, and let your profits run.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
82dd046714e2eb2cb2aa71dd410eae0e
How to invest with a low net worth
[ { "docid": "274f148b0a145f15618ebf92b4b0a936", "text": "\"You most definitely can invest such an amount profitably, but it makes it even more important to avoid fees, um, at all costs, because fees tend to have a fixed component that will be much worse for you than for someone investing €200k. So: Edit: The above assumes that you actually want to invest in the long run, for modest but relatively certain gains (maybe 5% above inflation) while accepting temporary downswings of up to 30%. If those €2000 are \"\"funny money\"\" that you don't mind losing but would be really excited about maybe getting 100% return in less than 5 years, well, feel free to put them into an individual stock of an obscure small company, but be aware that you'd be gambling, not investing, and you can probably get better quotes playing Roulette.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e489042542faae2282f064257d66c6f", "text": "I'm of the opinion that speculating is for young people like you, because they can afford to lose it all. Avoiding losses becomes necessary once you have to sustain a family, and manage a somewhat large retirement funds. Even if you lose all your money when speculating, you'll probably be better off later, because you make less costly mistakes once you have larger amounts of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8e045cba2e5d73fed29f265fb029987", "text": "You might want to consider 'investing' a portion of that money into educating yourself. The payoff might not be as immediately obvious or gratifying but with appropriate determination, in the long term it will generate you a much greater return. If you would like to learn about investing, a great starting point would be to buy and read the book 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham. This will be a great barometer for how ready you are to invest in the stock market. If you are able to understand the concepts discussed and comprehend why they are important, you will have gone far in ensuring that you will make adequate returns over your lifetime and will - more importantly - increase the odds of safeguarding your capital.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76ac0ccef92f402277009b4b0bb59ed5", "text": "I have an opposite view from all the other contributions here. Why not consider starting your own business. With the little money you have the return will most times be much higher than stocks return. The business is yours; you keep the business and the profit streams in the long term. Simply find businesses you can even start with a 100 or 200 euros and keep the rest with your bank. this is a sure way to become millionaire my friends.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "3ea390af4c36f7d00ae4953829b23ff9", "text": "I like your enthusiasm and initiative. However, there are a few things you need to consider that you haven't yet thought about. First, it is important to remember that trading with fake money is not the same as trading with real money. In the fake world, you have $100k. With this fake money, you can do reckless things with it, such as put it all on one stock. If you lose, it costs you nothing, so you don't have an emotional attachment to it. With real money, it will feel different, and that is something you haven't experienced yet. Second, you mentioned that you are good at making picks. With all due respect, I suggest that you aren't old enough to make that determination. You haven't been trading for long enough to determine if you are doing well at it. :) That having been said, I don't want to completely discourage you from trying something new. Third, you mentioned long-term investing, but you also said that you need to make your money back quick and mentioned trading daily. Those things aren't really compatible. I wouldn't consider what you are doing as long-term investing. With the type of investing you are doing, picking individual stocks and hoping for the value to go up in a relatively short time-frame, it is similar to gambling. The risk of losing is very much there, and you shouldn't be investing money this way that you aren't prepared to lose. If you need the money for something soon, don't put it in the stock market. Never forget this. What can happen is that you start with small amounts of money, do well, and then, thinking that you are good at this, put in larger amounts of money. You will eventually lose. If you put in money that you need for something else, you have a problem. If you are trying this out for education and entertainment purposes, that is great. But when it starts to get serious, make sure that you are aware of the risks. Educate yourself and be smart. Here is what I would suggest: If you want to try this short-term day-trading type investing, and you understand that the money can easily be lost, I would balance that with investing in a more traditional way: Set aside an amount each month to put in a low-expense index mutual fund. Doing this will have several benefits for you: As for your specific questions about stock trading with small amounts: Yes, you can trade with small amounts; however, every time you trade, you will be paying a commission. Even with a discount broker, if you are trading frequently, the commissions you will be paying will be very significant at the dollar amounts you are talking about. The only way I can see around this would be to try the Robinhood app, which allows you to trade without paying sales commission. I have no experience with that app.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "147702b696d74f38ad96ef0b2785ada8", "text": "Compound interest is your friend. For such a low amount of cash, just pop it into savings accounts or deposits. When you reach about 1.500€ buy one very defensive stock that pays high dividends. With deposits, you don't risk anything, with one stock, you can lose 100% of the investment. That's why it's important to buy defensive stock (food, pharma, ...). Every time you hit 1.500€ after, buy another stock until you have about 10 different stock in different sectors, in different countries. Then buy more stock of the ones you have in portfolio. You're own strategy is pretty good also.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da4d9bd8bb3891fc78d8965d83723ad1", "text": "TL:DR: You should read something like The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, and read some of the popular questions on this site. The main message that you will get from that research is that there is an inescapable connection between risk and reward, or to put it another way, volatility and reward. Things like government bonds and money market accounts have quite low risk, but also low reward. They offer a nearly guaranteed 1-3%. Stocks, high-risk bonds, or business ventures (like your soda and vending machine scheme) may return 20% a year some years, but you could also lose money, maybe all you've invested (e.g., what if a vandal breaks one of your machines or the government adds a $5 tax for each can of soda?). Research has shown that the best way for the normal person to use their money to make money is to buy index funds (these are funds that buy a bunch of different stocks), and to hold them for a long time (over 10-15 years). By buying a broad range of stocks, you avoid some of the risks of investing (e.g., if one company's stock tanks, you don't lose very much), while keeping most of the benefits. By keeping them for a long time, the good years more than even out the bad years, and you are almost guaranteed to make ~6-7%/year. Buying individual stocks is a really, really bad idea. If you aren't willing to invest the time to become an expert investor, then you will almost certainly do worse than index funds over the long run. Another option is to use your capital to start a side business (like your vending machine idea). As mentioned before, this still has risks. One of those risks is that it will take more work than you expect (who will find places for your vending machines? Who will fill them? Who will hire those who fill them? etc.). The great thing about an index fund is that it doesn't take work or research. However, if there are things that you want to do, that take capital, this can be a good way to make more income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "764dee227ea830455f3ebacea7bd0685", "text": "Patience is the key to success. If you hold strong without falling to temptations like seeing a small surge in the price. If it goes down it comes up after a period of time. Just invest on the share when it reaches low bottom and you could see you money multiplying year after year", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b21e111173e3ecdcd7780e47437aa2b", "text": "\"There are two things going on here, neither of which favors this approach. First, as @JohnFx noted, you should be wary of the sunk-cost fallacy, or throwing good money after bad. You already lost the money you lost, and there's no point in trying to \"\"win it back\"\" as opposed to just investing the money you still have as wisely as possible, forgetting your former fortune. Furthermore, the specific strategy you suggest is not a good one. The problem is that you're assuming that, whenever the stock hits $2, it will eventually rebound to $3. While that may often happen, it's far from guaranteed. More specifically, assuming the efficient market hypothesis applies (which it almost certainly does), there are theorems that say you can't increase your expected earning with a strategy like the one you propose: the apparent stability of the steady stream of income is offset by the chance that you lose out if the stock does something you didn't anticipate.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d407dde09a02878064db1dc11e7a5df2", "text": "\"JoeTaxpayer's answer is dead on... but let me give my own two cents with a little bit of math. Otherwise, I personally find that people talking about diversified portfolios tends to be full of buzzwords. Let's say that Buffett's investments are $10 million. He would like to earn ≥7% this year, or $700,000. He can invest that money in coca-cola//underwear, which might return: Or he can invest in \"\"genius moves\"\" that will make headlines: (like buying huge stakes in Goldman Sachs), which might return: And he makes plays for the long haul based on the expected value of the investments. So if he splits it 50/50... ($5 million/ $5 million), then his expected value is 822,250: By diversifying, he does reduce the expected value of the portfolio... (He is not giving $10 M the chance to turn into $1.5 million or $2 million for him!). The expected value of that shock-and-awe portfolio with all $10 million invested in it is $1.2M. By taking less risk... for less reward... his expected return is lower. But his risk is lower too. Scale this example back up into the $100 million or billion range that Buffett invests in and that extra margin makes the difference. In the context of your original article, the lower-risk 'cake and underwear' investments let Buffett go big on the things that will make 20%+ returns on billions of dollars, without completely destroying his investment capital when things take a turn for the worse.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "883c1dcbb0385662c5cdd009952764cc", "text": "Dollar Cost Averaging would be the likely balanced approach that I'd take. Depending on the size of the sum, I'd likely consider a minimum of 3 and at most 12 points to invest the funds to get them all working. While the sum may be large relative to my net worth, depending on overall scale and risk tolerance I could see doing it in a few rounds of purchasing or I could see taking an entire year to deploy the funds in case of something happening. I'd likely do monthly investments myself though others may go for getting more precise on things.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6dd7a2645f242a961291a46e6da89f8", "text": "\"There are several brokerages which have lower minimum deposits (often $500) and allow purchase of index ETFs. I won't name them to avoid advertising. The best way to find out is to go to your bank, and ask to see a financial advisor. Then explain your difficulty to the advisor (who should caution you about the issues with investing such a small amount) and ask for advice on where to find a suitable broker. Also, sometimes banks offer services where you can buy shares of a fund through your bank account. This is probably not \"\"as good\"\" as the brokerage (performance may be not as good, fees may come out higher), but especially for small amounts and for convenience, this may be easier. Again, you should inquire at your institution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f18f367b4b8b041cb81a43befb98db03", "text": "I'm not aware of any method to own US stocks, but you can trade them as contract for difference, or CFDs as they are commonly known. Since you're hoping to invest around $1000 this might be a better option since you can use leverage.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5790337078c1c0fd24948a1f5458e974", "text": "Your idea is a good one, but, as usual, the devil is in the details, and implementation might not be as easy as you think. The comments on the question have pointed out your Steps 2 and 4 are not necessarily the best way of doing things, and that perhaps keeping the principal amount invested in the same fund instead of taking it all out and re-investing it in a similar, but different, fund might be better. The other points for you to consider are as follows. How do you identify which of the thousands of conventional mutual funds and ETFs is the average-risk / high-gain mutual fund into which you will place your initial investment? Broadly speaking, most actively managed mutual fund with average risk are likely to give you less-than-average gains over long periods of time. The unfortunate truth, to which many pay only Lipper service, is that X% of actively managed mutual funds in a specific category failed to beat the average gain of all funds in that category, or the corresponding index, e.g. S&P 500 Index for large-stock mutual funds, over the past N years, where X is generally between 70 and 100, and N is 5, 10, 15 etc. Indeed, one of the arguments in favor of investing in a very low-cost index fund is that you are effectively guaranteed the average gain (or loss :-(, don't forget the possibility of loss). This, of course, is also the argument used against investing in index funds. Why invest in boring index funds and settle for average gains (at essentially no risk of not getting the average performance: average performance is close to guaranteed) when you can get much more out of your investments by investing in a fund that is among the (100-X)% funds that had better than average returns? The difficulty is that which funds are X-rated and which non-X-rated (i.e. rated G = good or PG = pretty good), is known only in hindsight whereas what you need is foresight. As everyone will tell you, past performance does not guarantee future results. As someone (John Bogle?) said, when you invest in a mutual fund, you are in the position of a rower in rowboat: you can see where you have been but not where you are going. In summary, implementation of your strategy needs a good crystal ball to look into the future. There is no such things as a guaranteed bond fund. They also have risks though not necessarily the same as in a stock mutual fund. You need to have a Plan B in mind in case your chosen mutual fund takes a longer time than expected to return the 10% gain that you want to use to trigger profit-taking and investment of the gain into a low-risk bond fund, and also maybe a Plan C in case the vagaries of the market cause your chosen mutual fund to have negative return for some time. What is the exit strategy?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "22d57b67ca815daf49301d978bbff5b9", "text": "\"You may want to look into robo-investors like Wealthfront and Betterment. There are many others, just search for \"\"robo investor\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "355134dc7106c021184cf1ba965be9a2", "text": "\"An individual's net worth is the value of the person's assets minus his debt. To find your net worth, add up the value of everything that you own: your house, your cars, your bank accounts, your retirement investments, etc. Then subtract all of your debt: mortgage, student loans, credit card debt, car loans, etc. If you sold everything you own and paid off all your debts, you would be left with your net worth. If Bill Gates' net worth is $86 Billion, he likely does not have that much cash sitting in the bank. Much of his net worth is in the form of assets: stocks, real estate, and other investments. If he sold everything that he has and paid any debts, he would theoretically have the $86 Billion. I say \"\"theoretically\"\" because in the amounts of stock that he owns, he could cause a price drop by selling it all at once.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "778006d5a019572e5ed98df5e0526ad3", "text": "If you have little investing experience, you shouldn't involve yourself in leveraged investments or short-term speculation at all. You will probably just lose money. If not, is there a better way to invest with a small amount of money? If you have little investing experience, you should not attempt to make a lot of money on a small investment at all. You will probably just lose money. The best way to invest with a small amount of money is to put it in a low-cost, mainstream investment product (like an index fund), and wait and save money until you have more. By that time, you may decide that leaving the money in a low-cost index fund is actually the best thing to do anyway. (Incidentally, I don't know if fund minimums are different in the UK, but in the US, an amount equivalent to £100 might not even be enough to start, so you might have to just put it in a savings account until you save enough to even buy into a mutual fund.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fedc731ab6ca2dc898e6b0f3972279a9", "text": "\"Put it in a Vanguard fund with 80% VTI and 20% VXUS. That's what you'll let set for 10-15 years. For somebody that is totally new to investing, use \"\"play money\"\" in the stock market. It's easy for young people to get dreams of glory and blow it all on some stock tip they've seen on Twitter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "733bdfd0269c974184d15a1ad82c5f9a", "text": "For a non-technical investor (meaning someone who doesn't try to do all the various technical analysis things that theoretically point to specific investments or trends), having a diverse portfolio and rebalancing it periodically will typically be the best solution. For example, I might have a long-term-growth portfolio that is 40% broad stock market fund, 40% (large) industry specific market funds, and 20% bond funds. If the market as a whole tanks, then I might end up in a situation where my funds are invested 30% market 35% industry 35% bonds. Okay, sell those bonds (which are presumably high) and put that into the market (which is presumably low). Now back to 40/40/20. Then when the market goes up we may end up at 50/40/10, say, in which case we sell some of the broad market fund and buy some bond funds, back to 40/40/20. Ultimately ending up always selling high (whatever is currently overperforming the other two) and buying low (whatever is underperforming). Having the industry specific fund(s) means I can balance a bit between different sectors - maybe the healthcare industry takes a beating for a while, so that goes low, and I can sell some of my tech industry fund and buy that. None of this depends on timing anything; you can rebalance maybe twice a year, not worrying about where the market is at that exact time, and definitely not targeting a correction specifically. You just analyze your situation and adjust to make everything back in line with what you want. This isn't guaranteed to succeed (any more than any other strategy is), of course, and has some risk, particularly if you rebalance in the middle of a major correction (so you end up buying something that goes down more). But for long-term investments, it should be fairly sound.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
bed0643c15a9ec570b321cf9b990951a
How can I get a wholesaler ID number?
[ { "docid": "bd7e5ea67bc1b84b5b1359938fb2969a", "text": "This is a state by state thing, and I'm cheating because I know you are in New York State:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "035e03018aa1d2da9746f0c75cd7ad7f", "text": "Seems like it's more dependent on who you want to be your supplier. The times I've been involved in requesting this, each company had its own application form. They usually need proof of business activity, which gets back to SpecKK's answer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ccda3c10d1457e510a53677e221bec9c", "text": "\"Small businesses are often governed by local regulations and state law. In a low liability small quantity arena, you should be able to get away with a DBA (doing business as) arrangement, such as DBA \"\"Jay's Gem's\"\". A small business license may come with a state Tax ID and satisfy your supplier, but a Federal EIN can be obtained from the IRS, and may be necessary to apply for the business license. It wouldn't hurt to talk to the local chamber of commerce or state small business agencies if you have questions about local requirements.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4746c7f0338bf0b473f7030d7e6dc408", "text": "You can obtain a stocklist if you file a lawsuit as a shareholder against the company demanding that you receive the list. It's called an inspection case. The company then has to go to Cede and/or the Depository Trust Company who then compiles the NOBO COBO list of beneficiary stockholders. SEC.gov gives you a very limited list of people who have had to file 13g or 13d or similar filings. These are large holders. To get the list of ALL stockholders you have to go through Cede.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a195bc1db3e3089f9216fa4126fd4007", "text": "\"Yes, you can do that, but you have to have the stocks issued in your name (stocks that you're holding through your broker are issued in \"\"street name\"\" to your broker). If you have a physical stock certificate issued in your name - you just endorse it like you would endorse a check and transfer the ownership. If the stocks don't physically exist - you let the stock registrar know that the ownership has been transferred to someone else. As to the price - the company doesn't care much about the price of private sales, but the taxing agency will. In the US, for example, you report such a transaction as either a gift (IRS form 709), if the transaction was at a price significantly lower than the FMV (or significantly higher, on the other end), or a sale (IRS form 1040, schedule D) if the transaction was at FMV.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa817f125eef754152e85342f8955a9c", "text": "Voip Business Become a reseller or card seller i have good quality mobile dialer and pc2phone reseller available.zonefone, 1legcall, fonefamily,cool dialer, trivigo dialer, talk dialer, new voiz,TaTa voiz, 24 dialer, web dialer, kwickcannect dialer, klaamclear dialer, fring and nimbuzz sip dialer. Rates&gt;&gt;&gt; BD silver 01———————– 0.0196$ BD gold 0880 ——- 0.0185$ BD IGW ——- 0.0365$ BD WHITE PREMIUM 00880—-0.0357$ INDIA 91 LAND——————— 0.0142$ INDIA 919 MOBILE—————– 0.0112$ INDIA 9194 BSNL—————– 0.0143$ PAKISTAN92———————— 0.0253$ PAKISTAN MOBILE923————0.0162$ For more countries call rate please contact with us. Thanks and Regards Masum [email protected] [email protected] Mobile: 08801711062213, 8801673706969", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0cc2ee8bcf8cd7e18ceef9936872781", "text": "\"You need to negotiate with your broker to allow you to do more exotic order types. One in particular I recommend is a \"\"hidden\"\" aka iceberg order. You enter two numbers. The first is the number of shares for your entire order, the second is the amount that will be displayed in the book (this is the tip of the iceberg, the remaining shares are hidden below the surface). The maker/taker rule applies as follows: The amount displayed will receive the rebate for providing liquidity. The amount hidden will be charged the fee for taking liquidity. Example: You want to sell 10,000 shares total. You enter a hidden order for 10,000 shares with 1,000 displayed. On the level 2 screen traders will see 1,000 shares, and those shares will stay displayed there until the entire order is filled. You receive a rebate for 1,000 shares, you pay the brokerage fee for 9,000 shares. Also, like one of the previous posters mentioned, only trade high liquidity stocks. Large market cap companies with high volume. This is why day traders love Tesla, Amazon, Netflix, etc. Large market cap, high volume, and high volatility. Easy to catch $10+ moves in price. Hope this helps Happy trading\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c24117a6125a241d64c995c3bdacbc71", "text": "I actually have a bit of experience with the supplier side of this. Having worked with other people attempting to get the business launched, I can shed a bit of insight. The primary reason for the pricing is that there simply isn't enough competition to warrant dropping the price any lower than it already is. Large companies such as Hallmark will typically buy card designs at 5% of the card's selling price. With their existing distribution network, this makes bringing in new and varied designs much easier for large companies that are already well established. Having talked with such designers in the past, someone working full time producing designs makes on average 30-60k annually from this, which is worth it to someone who doesn't want to jump through the hoops of actually getting into the business independently. The primary issue stifling competition is actually getting your product into stores. There are topics here that I cannot discuss due to NDA, but I can break down the overall outline for you: You need to start with a large number of designs, with enough variety that companies think could sell well. If you bring a handful of designs with you, no company is going to take your business venture seriously enough. You need to find a company that can stamp out a large production process for you. The company is going to need to be nice enough to take smaller purchase orders on the magnitude of several hundred cards, but also be capable of scaling that production to several hundreds of thousands of cards very quickly. For cards specifically, most companies want you to ship custom racks with your cards. Some companies may provide their own racks for stocking your product, but not all of them will. This will also cost a lot of money up front. You need to find a buyer for a company you want to sell your product to. This is important, and what killed our original business plans. Think Wal-Mart, Target, or even CVS Pharmacy. These big companies are going to have people who's entire job is to buy new products to put on their shelves. This is where networking is key, you need to find people with connections to these buyers if you're not already well established with them. You will also likely fail several times, either getting outright ignored, or through a broker that can't meet expectations. For example, we had a broker that introduced us to a buyer for a large store chain, and after several months of work we found out that this broker was just pulling our strings. Typically a company will want to test your product in a handful of stores to see if it will sell. For example, Target may want to test your product in 100-200 stores over 3 months and expect your product to sell at a minimum rate. Finally, you need to be able to scale your production. Suddenly you'll be asked to go from supplying 100 stores to supplying 1,800 stores with a deadline in 2 weeks. Buyers will even turn you down at this point if they don't think you can meet the production. All of this work takes at least a year, and typically takes several years to go from an initial product to having your product in every store. Without breaking the numbers down too much, we could make a profit of ~$1.60 for every $3 card that sold. That number doesn't cover the cost of racks and other overhead, that's just the per-card profit. Even then, people are more likely to go view the Hallmark or other big-name cards over your offering. Only when another company becomes a big powerhouse to be competitive will these companies be forced to drop their prices.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6dab9d3aa01fd09de0f45339785fb7f0", "text": "\"There are likely to be two approaches: An autodialer of any description would be more than capable of sending an SMS or initiating a direct telephone call with any set of telephone numbers. Such autodialiers can run off a personal computer via VoIP or some such third-party. As to getting the numbers, it can be either from a purchased list (if they're serious about this and are obeying any call opt-out lists) or simply a number range dialed sequentially, whether they work or not. In a more serious operation, any returns are fed directly to a call centre where real human beings then initiate direct contact. Otherwise it is simply a fishing expedition and any valid numbers can then be sold to other agencies as a screened list (and, therefore, more valuable). From an SMS perspective, anyone can purchase a vendor-level SMS Gateway subscription (of which there are loads of vendors - and note the number that allow \"\"web-to-SMS\"\") which permits you to receive and respond to any SMS received. This is always about the \"\"law of large numbers\"\". If they can get in the hundreds of thousands of valid numbers and a small number respond then they can make money. Like any spam, because a few are gullible, the rest of us are targets too. Update: A few searches for \"\"software auto sms\"\" and similar results in a fair number of prospects. As I don't wish this to become too much of a \"\"how-to\"\" I'm not going to link.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "44af08055d48e693a18420ab4ad25f92", "text": "\"You need to run awareness campaign on Facebook even something like $2/day can have a huge impact on letting people know you exist. Then post frequently, at least 1 daily picture of something for sale in the shop. Second collect emails at the counter a simple pen and paper list works surprisingly well. Get a free MailChimp email account and email coupons once a week. In the beginning you'll want strong offers as you are building the list don't waste peoples time with lame or no offers, come hard with a huge coupon or they will unsubscribe after the first email. This might cost you some money but don't think of it as selling something for a loss think of it as a marketing expense. Try Groupon, you are desperate this is where desperate local businesses go. Make a smart offer limit how they can spend it. I would suggest focusing it on the cold brew as that has enough margin. Partner with local bakeries/coffee roasters/cup cake shops pretty much any one who will have you and give them free shelf space and get them to market to their Facebook/IG/Twitter followers about your location and that they can buy stuff there also. This is huge and you can capitalize your local market. Finally get over the attitude of \"\"no one supports local\"\" people don't owe your mom their business just because she's local she has to compete on price, service, and selection just like anyone else even Amazon. So reevaluate your prices your profit margins and start talking to the customers to see what they want in the store.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "79c3728c1f0ccc150b51ba0e8b86e4fc", "text": "ip to ip voip i have good quality mobile dialer and pc2phone reseller available.zonefone, 1legcall, fonefamily,cool dialer, trivigo dialer, talk dialer, new voiz,TaTa voiz, 24 dialer, web dialer, kwickcannect dialer, klaamclear dialer, fring and nimbuzz sip dialer. Reseller available. Rates&gt;&gt;&gt; BD silver 01———————– 0.0196$ BD gold 0880 ——- 0.0185$ BD IGW ——- 0.0365$ BD WHITE PREMIUM 00880—-0.0357$ INDIA 91 LAND——————— 0.0142$ INDIA 919 MOBILE—————– 0.0112$ INDIA 9194 BSNL—————– 0.0143$ PAKISTAN92———————— 0.0253$ PAKISTAN MOBILE923————0.0162$ MASUM SARKER Contact email:- [email protected], [email protected] Contact phone:- +8801711062213,01673706969", "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": "35d7b7bfa64a908279a2976bd2f45da3", "text": "The old school way would have been to identify some wealthy zip codes and cold call like a mofo. At present I would prefer to find some retiring advisor and buy his book (that may mean leaving your current firm).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c240c669c84fae3384bc00a734d9bd7", "text": "voip voip i have good quality mobile dialer and pc2phone reseller available., we sell new voiz,TaTa voiz, 24 dialer, itel mobile dialer, fring and nimbuzz sip dialer., if you need reseller panel or calling card, you may contact with us. we believe quality service with long time relationship business. Rates&gt;&gt;&gt; BD silver 01———————– 0.0196$ BD gold 0880 ——- 0.0185$ BD IGW ——- 0.0365$ BD WHITE PREMIUM 00880—-0.0357$ INDIA 91 LAND——————— 0.0142$ INDIA 919 MOBILE—————– 0.0112$ INDIA 9194 BSNL—————– 0.0143$ PAKISTAN92———————— 0.0253$ PAKISTAN MOBILE923————0.0162$ MASUM SARKER Contact email:- [email protected], [email protected] Contact phone:- +8801711062213,01673706969", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c86c54bd1492322b09e5ca4a7d6c2b9e", "text": "\"You can see all the (millions) of trades per day for a US stock only if you purchase that data from the individual exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, ARCA, ...), from a commercial market data aggregator (Bloomberg, Axioma, ...), or from the Consolidated Tape Association. In none of that data will you ever find identifying information for the traders. What you are recalling regarding the names of \"\"people from the company\"\" trading company stock is related to SEC regulations stating that people with significant ownership of company stock and/or controlling positions on the company board of directors must publicize (most of) their trades in that stock. That information can usually be found on the company's investor relations website, or through the SEC website.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d80b33775084481e3cce09445f2b3a83", "text": "I don't think that you will be able to find a list of every owner for a given stock. There are probably very few people who would know this. One source would be whoever sends out the shareholder meeting mailers. I suspect that the company itself would know this, the exchange to a lesser extent, and possibly the brokerage houses to a even lesser extent. Consider these resources:", "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": "24bb18e4837526c4fedf26ad190601c7", "text": "Yup, if he/she is talking about a broker/dealer, but if he's talking to an RIA and is trying to find out who the custodian is then he won't have a statement yet. I don't think he has opened the account yet, but I'm not sure and could be totally misunderstanding the question.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d3c34f32c868f8f69a88fdaf90df260d
Start a Holding Company?
[ { "docid": "de0cb9aa92c18b05a351ad3b895cfe13", "text": "If you are trying to invest in closely held / private companies (things that don't trade on the stock market), you will run into a variety of regulatory problems. For various reasons, most private companies only raise funds with accredited investors. To be an accredited investor you basically have to have $1,000,000 in net worth - NOT including your primary residence, OR you have to make over $200,000 a year for the last two years and expect to keep making that much. This is a class distinction the Federal government created, you will see different but similar wealth and investment classes worldwide. So your best most organized opportunities are left out, unless you do qualify as an accredited investor. There are tons of other companies, things you will find locally, that will let you invest in their smaller time operations. (Think like a local yoga studio looking for $20,000 and willing to split the profits with you). But the problem here is lack of accountability, where partners skip town or just stop answering your calls, and the legal remedies cost you more than your claim. That being said there are people that provide capital to smaller publicly traded companies on the bulletin boards and pink sheets. They have opportunities do much better than the actual stock market investors in these companies, because you can negotiate contracts that let you cash out in their inevitable financing death spirals with very little risk to you. You can do these things as an individual or as a holding company, but the holding company will limit your liability to the amount your holding company invested, instead of your personal assets, in case your financing starts to incur liability with the company.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "b150e9c76963f936b4a6cfa0b2a5ae48", "text": "\"I'll skip the \"\"authorizing....\"\" and go right to uses of new shares: Companies need stock as another liquid asset for a variety of purposes, and if not enough stock is available, then may be forced to the open market to acquire, either by exchanging cash or taking on debt to get the cash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55cab6c8c047f51ea5f0380b2fb3c27b", "text": "\"Watch out for PO financing. A lot of those contracts have nasty terms like \"\"I agree that SCAM CAPITAL will be my sole source of credit for the next 2 years.\"\" that can get in the way of using bank debt or credit cards. They may even tell you otherwise to get you to sign, but they are the payday lenders of the business world. It can be great when it works, but there are a lot of shark men. While you can grow your company on po financing, understand that those companies exist to suck all the profit out of small, non-innovative companies, who needed a hand and their terms reflect that. If your business is that good maybe you can get someone to buy in instead? The second benefit to this is that if things go tits-up, then you don't have any personal guarantee. You will likely have to guarantee PO financing in most parts of the country.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3c367ad374da420b8a8c5cb6d2191b80", "text": "Your strategy of longing company(a) and shorting company(b) is flawed as the prices of company(a) and company(b) can both increase and though you are right , you will lose money due to the shorting strategy. You should not engage in pair trading , which is normally used for arbitrage purposes You should just buy company(a) since you believed its a better company compared to company(b) , its as simple as that", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b93de284953fa5486669f0c77bcc3907", "text": "You seem to think that the term “held”is used correctly. There lies your logical fallacy. I made no such assumption. In my question I test both the use of the term “US economy” AND the term “held”. It is obvious you can’t “hold” income but if you want to get down to technicalities, both asset and income/expenses are types of accounts while the notion of “trust” is a legal construct to limit the rights of external creditors.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b1fd26ee58a9ba5d07e635ce82827285", "text": "Good questions. I can only add that it may be valuable if the company is bought, they may buy the options. Happened to me in previous company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9c2486bf10b899839d0c29cb649f96a3", "text": "Yes, but only if they're looking for investors. You would need to contact them directly. Unless you're looking to invest a significant sum, they may not be interested in speaking with you. (Think at least 6 figures, maybe 7 depending on their size and needs). This is otherwise known as being a Venture Capitalist. Some companies don't want additional investors because the capital isn't yet needed and they don't want to give up shares in the profit/control. Alternatively, you could try and figure out which investment groups already have a stake in the company you're interested in. If those companies are publicly traded, you could buy stocks for their company with the expectation that their stock price will increase if the company you know of does well in the long run.", "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": "e1b714e80a55045e5bde9b68b2342ed6", "text": "\"Seems like no one in this thread has heard of \"\"treasury stocks\"\", which indeed allow a company to own and sell its own stock. Think about it. When there is a stock buy-back funded by excess profits, where does that stock go?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "167e7ba61ac8b036dc0a477a9e81d0df", "text": "Don't start by investing in a few individual companies. This is risky. Want an example? I'm thinking of a big company, say $120 billion or so, a household name, and good consistent dividends to boot. They were doing fairly well, and were generally busy trying to convince people that they were looking to the future with new environmentally friendly technologies. Then... they went and spilled a bunch of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it wasn't a pretty picture if BP was one of five companies in your portfolio that day. Things would look a lot better if they were one of 500 or 5000 companies, though. So. First, aim for diversification via mutual funds or ETFs. (I personally think you should probably start with the mutual funds: you avoid trading fees, for one thing. It's also easier to fit medium-sized dollar amounts into funds than into ETFs, even if you do get fee-free ETF trading. ETFs can get you better expense ratios, but the less money you have invested the less important that is.) Once you have a decent-sized portfolio - tens of thousands of dollars or so - then you can begin to consider holding stocks of individual companies. Take note of fees, including trading fees / commissions. If you buy $2000 worth of stock and pay a $20 commission you're already down 1%. If you're holding a mutual fund or ETF, look at the expense ratio. The annualized real return on the stock market is about 4%. (A real return is after adjusting for inflation.) If your fee is 1%, that's about a quarter of your earnings, which is huge. And while it's easy for a mutual fund to outperform the market by 1% from time to time, it's really really hard to do it consistently. Once you're looking at individual companies, you should do a lot of obnoxious boring stupid research and don't just buy the stock on the strength of its brand name. You'll be interested in a couple of metrics. The main one is probably the P/E ratio (price/earnings). If you take the inverse of this, you'll get the rate at which your investment is making you money (e.g. a P/E of 20 is 5%, a P/E of 10 is 10%). All else being equal, a lower P/E is a good thing: it means that you're buying the company's income really cheap. However, all else is seldom equal: if a stock is going for really cheap, it's usually because investors don't think that it's got much of a future. Earnings are not always consistent. There are a lot of other measures, like beta (correlation to the market overall: riskier volatile stocks have higher numbers), gross margins, price to unleveraged free cash flow, and stuff like that. Again, do the boring research, otherwise you're just playing games with your money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4ae38af3242ec23e15bb3730a65c228", "text": "\"I think you've got basics, but you may have the order / emphasis a bit wrong. I've changed the order of the things you've learned in to what I think is the most important to understand: Owning a stock is like owning a tiny chunk of the business Owning stock is owning a tiny chunk of the business, it's not just \"\"like\"\" it. The \"\"tiny chunks\"\" are called shares, because that is literally what they are, a share of the business. Sometimes shares are also called stocks. The words stock and share are mostly interchangeable, but a single stock normally means your holding of many shares in a business, so if you have 100 shares in 1 company, that's a stock in that company, if you then buy 100 shares in another company, you now own 2 stocks. An investor seeks to buy stocks at a low price, and sell when the price is high. Not necessarily. An investor will buy shares in a company that they believe will make them a profit. In general, a company will make a profit and distribute some or all of it to shareholders in the form of dividends. They will also keep back a portion of the profit to invest in growing the company. If the company does grow, it will grow in value and your shares will get more valuable. Price (of a stock) is affected by supply/demand, volume, and possibly company profits The price of a share that you see on a stock ticker is the price that people on the market have exchanged the share for recently, not the price you or I can buy a share for, although usually if people on the market are buying and selling at that price, someone will buy or sell from you at a similar sort of price. In theory, the price will be the companies total value, if you were to own the whole thing (it's market capitalisation) divided by the total number of shares that exist in that company. The problem is that it's very difficult to work out the total value of a company. You can start by counting the different things that it owns (including things like intellectual property and the knowledge and experience of people who work there), subtract all the money it owes in loans etc., and then make an allowance for how much profit you expect the company to make in the future. The problem is that these numbers are all going to be estimates, and different peoples estimates will disagree. Some people don't bother to estimate at all. The market makers will just follow supply and demand. They will hold a few shares in each of many companies that they are interested in. They will advertise a lower price that they are willing to buy at and a higher price that they will sell at all the time. When they hold a lot of a share, they will price it lower so that people buy it from them. When they start to run out, they will price it higher. You will never need to spend more than the market makers price to buy a share, or get less than the market makers price when you come to sell it (unless you want to buy or sell more shares than they are willing to). This is why stock price depends on supply and demand. The other category of people who don't care about the companies they are trading are the high speed traders. They just look at information like the past price, the volume (total amount of shares being exchanged on the market) and many other statistics both from the market and elsewhere and look for patterns. You cannot compete with these people - they do things like physically locate their servers nearer to the stock exchanges buildings to get a few milliseconds time advantage over their competitors to buy shares quicker than them.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "035d6bea1dd42ac71c51671df2da59f4", "text": "\"Read the book, \"\"Slicing Pie: Fund Your Company Without Funds\"\". You can be given 5% over four years and in four years, they hire someone and give him twice as much as you, for working a month and not sacrificing his salary at all. Over the four years, the idiot who offered you the deal will waste investors money on obvious, stupid things because he doesn't know anything about how to build what he's asking you to build, causing the need for more investment and the dilution of your equity. I'm speaking from personal experience. Don't even do this. Start your own company if you're working for free, and tell the idiot who offered you 5% you'll offer him 2% for four years of him working for you for free.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1709c5e813a70930b917308ebffc9a16", "text": "If it's a small one person business he will have to sign a personal guarantee no matter what he does with respect to incorporating. Not saying your idea isn't worth looking into but no bank will lend him money without a personal guarantee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c13eba07f2fd4614e44c02219fb55b0d", "text": "Someone I know had an idea to open a savings account as an LLC or corporation to receive better interest rates on savings, and set up a system where anyone can pool money in and receive a larger cut through savings interest than with a personal account. Is this legal/feasible in any way?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5332ab4fcf9969669a3adebdc5e92194", "text": "\"Bloomberg suggests that two Fidelity funds hold preferred shares of Snapchat Inc.. Preferred shares hold more in common with bonds than with ordinary stock as they pay a fixed dividend, have lower liquidity, and don't have voting rights. Because of this lower liquidity they are not usually offered for sale on the market. Whether these funds are allowed to hold such illiquid assets is more a question for their strategy document than the law; it is completely legal for a company to hold a non-marketable interest in another, even if the company is privately held as Snapchat is. The strategy documents governing what the fund is permitted to hold, however, may restrict ownership either banning non-market holdings or restricting the percentage of assets held in illiquid instruments. Since IPO is very costly, funds like these who look to invest in new companies who have not been through IPO yet are a very good way of taking a diversified position in start-ups. Since they look to invest directly rather than through the market they are an attractive, low cost way for start-ups to generate funds to grow. The fund deals directly with the owners of the company to buy its shares. The markdown of the stock value reflects the accounting principle of marking to market (MTM) financial assets that do not have a trade price so as to reflect their fair value. This markdown implies that Fidelity believe that the total NPV of the company's net assets is lower than they had previously calculated. This probably reflects a lack of revenue streams coming into the business in the case of Snapchat. edit: by the way, since there is no market for start-up \"\"stocks\"\" pre-IPO my heart sinks a little every time I read the title of this question. I'm going to be sad all day now :(.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f0d832f5d7b871a5be90f876c28da0d", "text": "A cautionary tale: About 25 years ago I decided that I should try my hand at investing in some technology companies. I was in the computer biz but decided that I might suffer from myopia there, so I researched some medical startups. And I did some reasonably good research, given the available resources (the Internet was quite primitive). I narrowed things down to 4-5 companies, studying their technology plans, then researched their business plans and their personnel. In the end I picked a drug company. Not only did it have a promising business plan, but it had as it's CEO a hotshot from some other company, and the BOD was populated buy big names from tech companies and the like. AND the company had like $2 of cash for every $1 of outstanding share value, following their recent IPO. So I sold a bit of stock I had in my employer and bought like $3000 worth of this company. Then, taking the advice I'd seen several places, I forgot about it for about 6 months. When I went back to look their stock value had dropped a little, and the cash reserves were down about 20%. I wasn't too worried. 6 months later the cash was down 50%. Worrying a little. After I'd had the stock for about 2 years the stock price was about 10% of what I'd paid. Hardly worth selling, so I hung on for awhile longer. The company was eventually sold to some other company and I got maybe $50 in stock in the new company.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b4d8dba5123eef99eda457ffb74221ab
Can I default on my private student loans if I was an international student?
[ { "docid": "7554414804749280c33547386889a22d", "text": "What are the consequences if I ignore the emails? If you ignore the emails they will try harder to collect the money from you until they give up. Unlike what some other people here say, defaulting on a loan is NOT a crime and is NOT the same as stealing. There is a large number of reasons that can make someone unable to pay off a loan. Lenders are aware of the risk associated with default; they will try to collect the debt but at the end of the day if you don't have money/assets there is not much they can do. As far as immigration goes, there is nothing on a DS-160 form that asks you about bankruptcies or unpaid obligations. I doubt the consular officer will know of this situation, but it is possible. It is not grounds for visa ineligibility however, so you will be fine if everything else is fine. The only scenario in which unpaid student loans can come up relevant in immigration to the US is if and when you apply for US Citizenship. One of the requirements for Citizenship is having good moral character. Having a large amount of unpaid debt constitutes evidence of a poor moral character. But it is very unlikely you'd be denied Citizenship on grounds of that alone. I got a social security number when I took up on campus jobs at the school and I do have a credit score. Can they get a hold of this and report to the credit bureaus even though I don't live in America? Yes, they probably already have. How would this affect me if I visit America often? Does this mean I would not ever be able to live in America? No. See above. You will have a hard time borrowing again. Will they know when I come to America and arrest me at the border or can they take away my passport? No. Unpaid debt is no grounds for inadmissibility, so even if the CBP agent knows of it he will not do anything. And again, unpaid debt is not a crime so you will not be arrested.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "913fd9900fd961dcd169ed3b3edaac1d", "text": "You signed a contract to pay the loan. You owe the money. Stories of people being arrested over defaulted student loans are usually based in contempt of court warrants when the person failed to appear in court when the collection agency filed suit against them. Explore student loan forgiveness program. Research collections and bankruptcy and how to deal with collection agencies. There are pitfalls in communicating with them which restart the clock on bad debt aging off the credit report, and which can be used to say that you agreed to pay a debt. For instance, if you make any sort of payment on any debt, a case can be made that you have assumed the debt. Once you are aware of the pitfalls, contact the collection agency (in writing) and dispute the debt. Force them to prove that it is your debt. Force them to prove that they have the right to collect it. Force them to prove the amount. Dispute the fairness of the amount. Doubling your principal in 6 years is a bit flagrant. So, work with the collectors, establish that the debt is valid and negotiate a settlement. Or let it stay in default. Your credit report in the US is shot. It will be a long time before the default ages off your report. This is important if you try to open a bank account, rent an apartment, or get a job in the US. These activities do not always require a credit report, but they often do. You will not be able to borrow money or establish a credit card in the US. Here's a decent informational site regarding what they can do to collect the loan. Pay special attention to Administrative Wage Garnishment. They can likely hit you with that one. You might be unreachable for a court summons, but AWG only requires that the collectors be able to confirm that you work for a company that is subject to US laws. Update: I am informed that federally funded student loans are not available to international students. AWG is only possible for debts to the federal government. Private companies must go through the courts to force settlement of debt. OP is safe from AWG.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d2f672f4d952b54b5b747e72909d1ce", "text": "What are the consequences if I ignore the emails? That would depend on how much efforts the collection agency is ready to put in. I got a social security number when I took up on campus jobs at the school and I do have a credit score. Can they get a hold of this and report to the credit bureaus even though I don't live in America? Possibly yes, they may already be doing it. Will they know when I come to America and arrest me at the border or can they take away my passport? For this, they would have to file a civil case in the court and get an injunction to arrest you. Edit: Generally it is unlikely that the court may grant an arrest warrant, unless in specific cases. A lawyer advise would be more appropriate. End Edits It is possible that the visa would also get rejected as you would have to declare previous visits and credit history is not good.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "512d7c4e1f8831007a9b824440f78073", "text": "Only if (or to put it even more bluntly, when) they default. If your friend / brother / daughter / whoever needs a cosigner on a loan, it means that people whose job it is to figure out whether or not that loan is a good idea have decided that it isn't. By co-signing, you're saying that you think you know better than the professionals. If / when the borrower defaults, the lender won't pursue them for the loan if you can pay it. You're just as responsible for the loan payments as the original borrower, and given that you were a useful co-signer, probably much more likely to be able to come up with the money. The lender has no reason to go after the original borrower, and won't. If you can't pay, the lender comes after both of you. To put it another way: Don't think of cosigning as helping them get a loan. Think of it as taking out a loan and re-loaning it to them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2fb2f58dbd04dbe88f23a6ab7b8993b0", "text": "\"I'd check the terms of the student loan. It's been a long time since I had a student loan, but when I did it had restrictions that it could only be used for educational expenses, which they pretty clear spelled out meant tuition, books, lab fees, I think some provision for living expenses. If your student loan is subsidized by the government, they're not going to let you use it to start a business or go on vacation ... nor are they likely to let you invest it. Even if it is legal and within the terms of the contract, borrowing money to invest is very risky. What if you invest in the stock market, and then the stock market goes down? You may find you don't have the money to make the payments on the loan. People do this sort of thing all the time -- that's what \"\"buying on margin\"\" is all about. And some of them lose a bundle and get in real trouble.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "39e2e45e8bcc7adf720d1c39d4c7aa85", "text": "\"Is a student loan a type of loan or just a generic name used to refer to a loan for someone who is going back to school? A student loan from the federal government is a specific type of loan used for education purposes (i.e. attending college). They have guidelines associated with them that are very flexible as compared to a student loan from a private bank. If a student loan is a different type of loan, does it only cover the costs of going to the school? Every student at a university has a \"\"budget\"\" or the \"\"cost of attendance\"\". That includes direct and indirect costs. Direct costs are ones billed directly to you (i.e. tuition, room and board - should you choose to live on campus, and associated fees). Indirect costs are such things like books, travel expenses (if you live out of state), and personal things. Direct costs are controlled by the school. Indirect costs are estimated. The school will usually conduct market research to determine the costs for indirect items. Some students go above that, and some go below. For example, transportation is an indirect cost. A school could set that at $500. There are students who will be above that, and some below that. If you choose not to live on campus, then rent and food will become an indirect cost. Student loans can cover up to 100% of your budget (direct and indirect added together). If your total budget is $60,000 (tuition, room and board, transportation, books, supplies, etc.) Then you are able to borrow up to that amount ($60,000). However, because your budget is both direct and indirect costs, you will only be billed for your direct costs (tuition, etc.). So if your direct costs equal $50,000 and your student loan was certified for $60,000, then you will get that $10,000 back in the form of a refund from the school. That does not mean you don't have to pay it back - you still do. But that money is meant for indirect costs (i.e. books, rent - if you're not staying on campus, etc.). If your school is on semesters vs quarters, then that amount is divided between the terms. Summer term is not factored in, that's another process. Also with student loans, there are origination costs - the money associated with processing a loan. A good rule of thumb is to never borrow more than you need. Source: I used to work in financial aid at my college.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e41502ddaa414a3b7489fe0c4064fca9", "text": "I would be surprised if a bank cared about an undergraduate major. Usually, such things are only important if it is a professional degree, like a law degree or medical degree. The big issue is that if you are not a US citizen, a US bank would be unlikely to make an unsecured loan because you could just return to your country and renege on the loan and they would have no way to collect. Therefore, a bank in your own country might be more logical. If you get accepted by a top Ivy school, they all have financial policies that will allow you to attend regardless of how rich or poor you are, so if you are applying to a top school (Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Yale) and get accepted, they will fully finance your attendance. The only exception is if (A) they find out you lied about something, or (B) your parents/family are wealthy and they refuse to pay anything. As long as neither of these two things is true, all of the schools listed GUARANTEE they will provide sufficient financial aid. Princeton even has a no-loan policy, which means not only will they fund your attendance, they will do so without you having to take on any loans.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "779300a60e57ff333c291551940b1bbd", "text": "\"Please clarify your question. What do you mean by \"\"..loan in Greece\"\"? If you are referring to taking a mortgage loan to purchase residential property in Greece, there are two factors to consider: If the loan originates from a Greek bank, then odds are likely that the bank will be nationalized by the government if Greece defaults. If the loan is external (i.e. from J.P. Morgan or some foreign bank), then the default will certainly affect any bank that trades/maintains Euros, but banks that are registered outside of Greece won't be nationalized. So what does nationalizing mean for your loan? You will still be expected to pay it according to the terms of the contract. I'd recommend against an adjustable rate contract since rates will certainly rise in a default situation. As for property, that's a different story. There have been reports of violence in Greece already, and if the country defaults, imposes austerity measures, etc, odds are there will be more violence that can harm your property. Furthermore, there is a remote possibility that the government can attempt to acquire your private property. Unlikely, but possible. You could sue in this scenario on property rights violations but things will be very messy from that point on. If Greece doesn't default but just exits the Euro Zone, the situation will be similar. The Drachma will be weak and confidence will be poor, and unrest is a likely outcome. These are not statements of facts but rather my opinion, because I cannot peek into the future. Nonetheless, I would advise against taking a mortgage for property in Greece at this point in time.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "148f0f976110c67e4db7052db46b5637", "text": "\"Without all the details it's hard to tell what options you may have, but none of them are good. When you cosign you are saying that, you believe the primary signer will make good on the loan, but that if he doesn't you will. You are 100% responsible for this debt. As such, there are some actions you can take. First, really try to stress to your friend, that they need to get you outta this loan. Urge them to re-finance with out you if they can. Next look for \"\"better\"\" ways of defaulting on the loan and take them. Depending on what the loan is for you could deed-in-lue or short sale. You may just have to admit default. If you work with the bank, and try not to drag out the process, you will likely end up in a better place down the line. Also of importance is ownership. If you pay the loan, do you get ownership of the thing the loan was secured against? Usually not, but working with an attorney and the bank, maybe. For example, if it's a car, can the \"\"friend\"\" sign over the car to you, then you sell it, and reduce your debt. Basically as a cosigner, you have some rights, but you have all the responsibilities. You need to talk to an attorney and possibly the bank, and see what your options are. At this point, if you think the friend is not that much of a friend anymore, it's time to make sure that any conversation you have with them is recorded in email, or on paper.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3ee988439f40ec0a196798f8437c0e5", "text": "a) Talk to the financial aid counselors at your school. There's a very good chance they have at least a partial solution for you. Let them know your dependency status has changed (if it has). I declared myself to be financially independent from my parents (I really was) and qualified for more aide. b) How much austerity are you willing to endure? I once spent two years eating beans & rice twice a day (lots of protein and other nutrients) while I worked full-time and went back to school to pursue a second degree part-time. I also shunned all forms of recreation (not even a movie) to save money (and so I could focus on staying current with assignments). During another period in my life, I gave up cable, cell-phone, land-line (and used Skype only), and avoided unnecessary use of my car, so I could clear a debt. You'd be amazed at how much you can squeeze from a budget if you're willing to endure austerity temporarily. c) Consider going to school part-time, taking as few as one course at a time if allowed. It's a lot easier to pay for one or two courses than to pay for 4 or 5. It may take longer, but at least you won't lose your credits and it won't take forever.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1165f18fe6b2faae232ce9041dd42660", "text": "I suppose it depends on the circumstances, but I wouldn't advise it. If you default on a loan to the bank it might ruin your credit, if you default to a family member it has the potential for much more damage in the form of fostering bad feelings and hurt the relationship.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00b6bde49e1b1a7faf3b2b014491a62f", "text": "I got a credit card as a student with no income, not even a part time job. They called me, I agreed to one thing and they did another and now I have an old credit history. They don't do this anymore. But technically, student loan debt is unsecured?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3e58d223a5031306e05985a5cbdf450", "text": "\"No idea what you are trying to say here. You default on a loan, student or otherwise, by not paying. That is what creates the default, but you still owe it. Student loans actually can be discharged, but it is very uncommon and an uphill battle. You have to prove \"\"undue hardship\"\" which has a rather high standard. The last firm I worked at did manage to get a large amount of student loans discharged for someone who was in a car wreck and became a quadriplegic after incurring the student loan. And even that was not an easy case, my old firm was actually rather pleased at their success.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ce090248b34fd727d07721bd7a15640", "text": "I completely agree with requirements, like GPA. I think that weeds some bad loans out, and is a much better version of tough love than non-dischargable debt once you are out of school. The non-discharged debt problem is tough, and I think this aspect ties into the college cost inflation: If you, as a lender, basically have a perpetual lien on someone because they can't discharge the debt, then you (lender) can issue riskier loans, and more of them. I haven't heard the term 'subprime loans' used to describe student debt, but I think the term is just as applicable to bad student creditors as it was to bad home creditors in the housing bubble. There seems to be moral hazard involved for lenders that have non-discharge covenants, and so they lend, even after government lenders tell people 'no more.'", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e24b171d757ef9cc138878484923fbde", "text": "\"You promised to pay the loan if he didn't. That was a commitment, and I recommend \"\"owning\"\" your choice and following it through to its conclusion, even if you never do that again. TLDR: You made a mistake: own it, keep your word, and embrace the lesson. Why? Because you keep your promises. (Nevermind that this is a rare time where your answer will be directly recorded, in your credit report.) This isn't moralism. I see this as a \"\"defining moment\"\" in a long game: 10 years down the road I'd like you to be wise, confident and unafraid in financial matters, with a healthy (if distant) relationship with our somewhat corrupt financial system. I know austerity stinks, but having a strong financial life will bring you a lot more money in the long run. Many are leaping to the conclusions that this is an \"\"EX-friend\"\" who did this deliberately. Don't assume this. For instance, it's quite possible your friend sold the (car?) at a dealer, who failed to pay off this note, or did and the lender botched the paperwork. And when the collector called, he told them that, thinking the collector would fix it, which they don't do. The point is, you don't know: your friend may be an innocent party here. Creditors generally don't report late payments to the credit bureaus until they're 30 days late. But as a co-signer, you're in a bad spot: you're liable for the payments, but they don't send you a bill. So when you hear about it, it's already nearly 30 days late. You don't get any extra grace period as a co-signer. So you need to make a payment right away to keep that from going 30 late, or if it's already 30 late, to keep it from going any later. If it is later determined that it was not necessary for you to make those payments, the lender should give them back to you. A less reputable lender may resist, and you may have to threaten small claims court, which is a great expense to them. Cheaper to pay you. They say France is the nation of love. They say America is the nation of commerce. So it's not surprising that here, people are quick to burn a lasting friendship over a temporary financial issue. Just saying, that isn't necessarily the right answer. I don't know about you, but my friends all have warts. Nobody's perfect. Financial issues are just another kind of wart. And financial life in America is hard, because we let commerce run amok. And because our obsession with it makes it a \"\"loaded\"\" issue and thus hard to talk about. Perhaps your friend is in trouble but the actual villain is a predatory lender. Point is, the friendship may be more important than this temporary adversity. The right answer may be to come together and figure out how to make it work. Yes, it's also possible he's a human leech who hops from person to person, charming them into cosigning for him. But to assume that right out of the gate is a bit silly. The first question I'd ask is \"\"where's the car?\"\" (If it's a car). Many lenders, especially those who loan to poor credit risks, put trackers in the car. They can tell you where it is, or at least, where it was last seen when the tracker stopped working. If that is a car dealer's lot, for instance, that would be very informative. Simply reaching out to the lender may get things moving, if there's just a paperwork issue behind this. Many people deal with life troubles by fleeing: they dread picking up the phone, they fearfully throw summons in the trash. This is a terrifying and miserable way to deal with such a situation. They learn nothing, and it's pure suffering. I prefer and recommend the opposite: turn into it, deal with it head-on, get ahead of it. Ask questions, google things, read, become an expert on the thing. Be the one calling the lender, not the other way round. This way it becomes a technical learning experience that's interesting and fun for you, and the lender is dreading your calls instead of the other way 'round. I've been sued. It sucked. But I took it on boldly, and and actually led the fight and strategy (albeit with counsel). And turned it around so he wound up paying my legal bills. HA! With that precious experience, I know exactly what to do... I don't fear being sued, or if absolutely necessary, suing. You might as well get the best financial education. You're paying the tuition!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4d2cba2470a3995bf4629d10ac0cb853", "text": "It looks like your visa being refused is entirely irrelevant. What happens in bankruptcy is that all the assets of the bankrupt entity are taken over, liquidated, and the proceeds are distributed to the creditors. You're one of the creditors, and as you've been told - the proceeds are not enough to pay all the creditors in full. This is quite common in bankruptcies. What you can do is sue in court and demand priority over other creditors, but... a. You're exactly the same as many other creditors (rest of the students), so why would you get a priority? b. Suing costs money and even if you get more, you'll pay way more for legal fees and expenses. What else can you do? If you paid with a credit card - your credit card company may be able to reverse charges. Sometimes that works, depending on how fast you move. If you paid with a check - your bank may similarly be able to stop payment on the check. This provided it hasn't been settled yet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8700cf158da8042aaddd73f9043e4aef", "text": "\"This election only applies to payments that you make within 120 days of your having received loan money. These wouldn't be required payments, which is why they are called \"\"early\"\" payments. For example, let's say that you've just received $10,000 from your lender for a new loan. One month later, you pay $500 back. This election decides how that $500 will be applied. The first choice, \"\"Apply as Refund,\"\" means that you are essentially returning some of the money that you initially borrowed. It's like you never borrowed it. Instead of a $10,000 loan, it is now a $9,500 loan. The accrued interest will be recalculated for the new loan amount. The second choice, \"\"Apply as Payment,\"\" means that your payment will first be applied to any interest that has accrued, then applied to the principal. While you are in school, you don't need to make payments on student loans. However, interest is accruing from the day you get the money. This interest is simple interest, which means that the interest is only based on the loan principal; the interest is not compounding, and you are not paying interest on interest. After you leave school and your grace period expires, you enter repayment, and you have to start making payments. At this point, all the interest that has accrued from the time you first received the money until now is capitalized. This means that the interest is added to your loan principal, and interest will now be calculated on this new, larger amount. To avoid this, you can pay the interest as you go before it is capitalized, which will save you from having to pay even more interest later on. As to which method is better, just as they told you right on the form, the \"\"Apply as Refund\"\" method will save you the most money in the long run. However, as I said at the beginning, this election only applies if you make a payment within 120 days from receiving loan funds. Since you are already out of school and in repayment, I don't think it matters at all what you select here. For any students reading this and thinking about loans, I want to issue a warning. Student loans can ruin people later in life. If you truly feel that taking out a loan is the only way you'll be able to get the education you need, minimize these as much as possible. Borrow as little as possible, pay as much as you can as early as you can, and plan on knocking these out ASAP. Great Lakes has a few pages that discuss these topics:\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fcf00c058fb795ee2b66e94a51bb9c79", "text": "\"According to the FAFSA info here, they will count your nonretirement assets when figuring the EFC. The old Motley Fool forum question I mentioned in my comment suggests asking the school for a \"\"special circumstances adjustment to your FAFSA\"\". I don't know much about it, but googling finds many pages about it at different colleges. This would seem to be something you need to do individually with whatever school(s) your son winds up considering. Also, it is up to the school whether to have mercy on you and accept your request. Other than that, you should establish whatever retirement accounts you can and immediately begin contributing as much as possible. Given that the decision is likely to be complicated by your foreign income, you should seek professional advice from an accountant versed in such matters.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
0ab4298b8106d259eeb42659318b2134
How to handle missing W2 from failed direct deposit only company?
[ { "docid": "55b2e971e9b595c7abcc28b01ad0078c", "text": "Yes, there's a way. I actually wrote a blog post about it. Its a new service from the IRS which allows you pulling your account online. IRS also has an instruction page just for this case here.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "34fe1827bcc69fdc3fcd8379b228bad4", "text": "As others have said, make sure you can and do file your taxes on a cash basis (not accrual). It sounds like it's very unlikely the company is going to issue you a 1099 for invoices they never paid you. So you just file last year's taxes based on your income, which is the money you actually received. If they do pay you later, in the new year, you'll include that income on next year's tax return, and you would expect a 1099 at that time. Side note: not getting paid is unfortunately common for consultants and contractors. Take the first unpaid invoice and sue them in small claims court. After you win (and collect!), tell them you'll sue them for each unpaid invoice in turn until they pay you in full. (You might need to break up the lawsuits like that to remain under the small claims limit.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4b2c3fb6b0acfe156e828ef4e037b3c7", "text": "What? My last room mate was a teller, and I can tell you this isn't the case. If you're given a bad payroll cheque or a bounced cheque the bank will know before its transferred. If payroll bounces find a new job because you're fucked. If you're working for a company that makes over 1 million a year, they can issue paper cheques but choose not too for whatever reason.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41faca718c8433eb62c37726c8cf2c99", "text": "\"As far as the banker himself goes, it's a customer service issue. WF is not going to tell you about their internal discipline (or oughtn't, anyway), other than potentially to confirm that the banker does or does not still work there; that's the closest they should get to telling you about it. I'm a (very) former retail manager, and that's absolutely the most I'd ever do in a case like this; and trust me, even with good customer service reps, you get requests to fire someone a lot, sometimes valid, sometimes not. You did the correct thing from your end: you brought the issue to their attention. Despite the quota, it's (hopefully) not permitted to sign people up without their permission (since that's illegal!), and I can say that in my retail experience, with these promotions with great incentive to cheat in this manner, one of the main things our loss prevention department did was to monitor data to see if people were illicitly signing people up for cards or otherwise cheating the system. That could be a very bad thing from a customer service point of view and from a legal point of view. What you should have done (or possibly did, but it's not clear in your post) is, after you reported the issue, asked for a re-contact on a particular date in the future - not \"\"after you've looked into it\"\", but \"\"Next friday I would like to get a call from you to discuss the resolution.\"\" Again, they're not going to tell you the discipline, but they should tell you at least that they've investigated it and will make sure it doesn't happen again, or similar. It's possible they will want more information from you at this point, and this is a useful way to make sure that request doesn't fall off of their plate. They should be able to, at least, tell you if there was a perceived issue on their end - it might be something meaningless to you, like \"\"He thought you said to sign up\"\", or something more descriptive, like \"\"He pushed the button to send you a notice, but our computer system screwed that up and made it an application\"\". You never know these days how easy it is to screw these things up. Now, they certainly should have fixed the issues on your end. Hopefully they did whatever you needed them to do banking-wise, or else you withdrew your money and went somewhere else. If not, follow up with that supervisor's supervisor, or go up a level or two to a regional director or equivalent. They may not be able to cancel the card for you, but the other banking-related things they certainly should fix. The card you probably just have to cancel and be done with. As far as the misuse of personal information, one thing I'd consider doing is placing a freeze on your credit report. Then this could never have happened - you would have to lift it to have your report pulled to be given the card. This is not free, though, so consider this before doing this.\"", "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": "65c68a828b7a4907e8704f5296b345ee", "text": "If you're under audit - you should get a proper representation. I.e.: EA or CPA licensed in California and experienced with the FTB audit representation. There's a penalty on failure to file form 1099, but it is with the IRS, not the FTB. If I remember correctly, it's something like $50 or $100 per instance. Technically they can disqualify deductions claiming you paid under the table and no taxes were paid on the other side, however I doubt they'd do it in a case of simple omission of filing 1099 forms. Check with your licensed tax adviser. Keep in mind that for the IRS 2011 is now closed, since the 3-year statute of limitations has passed. For California the statute is 4 years, and you're almost at the end of it. However since you're already under audit they may ask you to agree to extend it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca7d8dfd97eb2966bce100d8c393e62e", "text": "You should be receiving monthly P&amp;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": "b76688b2a41aa08caa2425ee232c376b", "text": "I actually think your boss is creating a problem for you. Of course it's taxable. The things IRS will look at (and they very well might, as it does stand out) what kind of payment is that. Why did it not go through payroll? The company may be at risk here for avoiding FICA/FUTA/workers' compensation insurance/State payroll taxes. Some are mandatory, and cannot be left to the employee to pay. On your side it raises your taxable income without the appropriate withholding, you may end up paying underpayment penalties for that (that is why you've been suggested to keep proofs of when you were paid). Also, it's employment income. If it is not wages - you're liable for self-employment taxes (basically the portion of FICA that the employer didn't pay, and your own FICA withholding). When you deposit the check is of no matter to the IRS, its when you got it that determines when you should declare the income. You don't have a choice there. I suggest asking the company payroll why it didn't go through them, as it may be a problem for you later on.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "982b04c5e536ff4051aaacf79f34c438", "text": "Some lenders will work with you if you contact them early and openly discuss your situation. They are not required to do so. The larger and more corporate the lender, the less likely you'll find one that will work with you. My experience is that your success in working out repayment plan for missed payments depends on the duration of your reduced income. If this is a period of unemployment and you will be able to pay again in a number of months, you may be able to work out a plan on some debts. If you're permanently unable to pay in full, or the duration is too long, you may have to file bankruptcy to save your domicile and transportation. The ethics of this go beyond this forum, as do the specifics of when it is advisable to file bankruptcy. Research your area, find debt counselling. They can really help with specifics. Speak with your lenders, they may be able to refer you to local non-profit services. Be sure that you find one of those, not one of the predatory lenders posing as credit counselling services. There's even some that take the money you can afford to pay, divide it up over your creditors, allowing you to keep accruing late/partial payment fees, and charge you a fee on top of it. To me this is fraudulent and should be cause for criminal charges. The key is open communication with your lenders with disclosure to the level that they need to know. If you're disabled, long term, they need to know that. They do not need to know the specific symptoms or causes or discomforts. They need to know whether the Social Security Administration has declared you disabled and are paying you a disability check. (If this is the case, you probably have a case worker who can find you resources to help negotiate with your creditors).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58d6c18a52088f40b5002b373f456cae", "text": "If you leave without having met all the obligations in the contract they could sue you for the money. The size of the company may mean that they are experienced in collecting their debts. The insurance they made you pay for, may pay them back if they meet all the requirements in the policy. That means that you will have to read the terms of the policy to see if the insurance company will come after you for the losses. It is likely that your skipping out early while owing money will be attached to your credit history without your SSN.", "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": "4e67a63703b2ce3423d76eebfd689f7b", "text": "The bottom line is something in your story is not adding up. You had two checks one that is voided, and one that is not. Lets say they are both written against your account for $100. Lets also assume that have exactly $100 in your account. You give the Liquor Store the voided one, they give you $100, but when they attempt to cash the check at their bank they are denied and assessed a $20 fee. You spend the $100 they gave you; however, you still should have $100 in your account as the check was not cashed. You want to make things right with the liquor store. You should be able to withdraw the $100 you still have in the bank and give them that much. While they will still be out the $20 fee, that should make them feel much better about you as a customer. Tell them when you will be paid and that you will give them the $20 on that date. Then do so. The only way this problem is not solvable is that you spent the $100 that was left in the bank. In that case, the Liquor store is correct you stole the money. More accurately you spent money that wasn't yours.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83b0ba3e5841488f99a591f1984b9dc7", "text": "\"Your question does not say this explicitly, but I assume that you were once a W-2 employee. Each paycheck a certain amount was withheld from your check to pay income, social security, and medicare taxes. Just because you did not receive that amount of money earned does not mean it was immediately sent to the IRS. While I am not all that savvy on payroll procedures, I recall an article that indicated some companies only send in withheld taxes every quarter, much like you are doing now. They get a short term interest free loan. For example taxes withheld by a w-2 employee in the later months of the year may not be provided to the IRS until 15 January of the next year. You are correct in assuming that if you make 100K as a W-2 you will probably pay less in taxes than someone who is 100K self employed with 5K in expenses. However there are many factors. Provided you properly fill out a 1040ES, and pay the correct amount of quarterly payments, you will almost never owe taxes. In fact my experience has been the forms will probably allow you to receive a refund. Tax laws can change and one thing the form did not include last year was the .9% Medicare surcharge for high income earners catching some by surprise. As far as what you pay into is indicative of the games the politicians play. It all just goes into a big old bucket of money, and more is spent by congress than what is in the bucket. The notion of a \"\"social security lockbox\"\" is pure politics/fantasy as well as the notion of medicare and social security taxes. The latter were created to make the actual income tax rate more palatable. I'd recommend getting your taxes done as early as possible come 1 January 2017. While you may not have all the needed info, you could firm up an estimate by 15 Jan and modify the amount for your last estimated payment. Complete the taxes when all stuff comes in and even if you owe an amount you have time to save for anything additional. Keep in mind, between 1 Jan 17 and 15 Apr 17 you will earn and presumably save money to use towards taxes. You can always \"\"rob\"\" from that money to pay any owed tax for 2016 and make it up later. All that is to say you will be golden because you are showing concern and planning. When you hear horror stories of IRS dealings it is most often that people spent the money that should have been sent to the IRS.\"", "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": "1ab01f6b877e2fecbd87017f51f0d487", "text": "She filed for 0 withholdings in her W4, so my (unprofessional) guess was that she'd be owed money, and therefore the IRS wouldn't care much if she didn't file her taxes.† Maybe, but doesn't she want that money back? Is she at as much risk as any other individual of being audited and penalized to the same degree if she skips filing her taxes? Audited and penalized are not the same. She's at the same risk of being audited, and even slightly higher since the IRS got reports of her wages, but didn't get the matching report from her. They may want to ask why. But it doesn't mean she's going to be penalized for anything. Being audited doesn't mean you did something wrong. Or does the IRS tend to overlook such individuals. The IRS might want to overlook because they're the ones owning money. She cannot get a refund without filing a tax return. She'd file her taxes today if she could, but the worry is that time's running out Filing an extension is free and it postpones the deadline to file till OCTOBER!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b17812fbcc51ba2eaa7f18c455796b30", "text": "Should I have a W-2 re-issued? A W-2 can be corrected and a new copy will be filed with the IRS if your employer incorrectly reported your income and withholding on a W-2 that they issued. In this case, though the employer didn't withhold those taxes, they should not reissue the W-2 unless they plan to pay your portion of the payroll taxes that were not withheld. (If they paid your share of the taxes, that would increase your gross income.) Who pays for the FICA I should have paid last year? Both you and your employer owe 7.65% each for FICA taxes. By law your employer is required to pay their half and you are required to pay your half. Both you and your employer owe additional taxes because of this mistake. Your other questions assume that your employer will pay your portion of the taxes withheld. You employer could decide to do that, but this also assumes that it was your employer's fault that the mistakes were made. If you transitioned to resident alien but did not inform your employer, how is that your employer's fault?", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
3cac4356d42a494ef48aaca78a27703b
When a publicly traded company splits into two how are common shares fairly valued, distributed?
[ { "docid": "8611f8cbadc0cf3ddc4051b954763ed2", "text": "How are shareholders sure to receive a fair percentage of each company? At the time the split occurs, each investor owns the same proportion of each new company that they owned in the first. What the investor does with it after that (selling one, for example) is irrelevant from a fairness perspective. Suppose company A splits into companies B and C. You own enough stock to have 1% of A. It splits. Now you have a bunch of shares of B and C. How much? Well, you have 1% of B and 1% of C. What if all the profitable projects are in B? Then shares of B will be worth more than those of C. But it should be the case that the value of your shares of B plus the value of your shares of C are equal to the original value of your shares of A. Completely fair. In fact, if the split was economically justified, then B + C > A. And the gains are realized proportionally by all equityholders. Remember, when a stock splits, every share splits so that everyone owns both companies in the same proportion as everyone else. Executives don't determine what the prices of the resulting companies are...that is determined by the market. A fair market will value the child companies such that together they are worth what the original was.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8d3cb1fb84201278601a6f61c5feedfc", "text": "What I know about small companies and companies who are not listed on the stock markets is this: If a small company has shares issued to different people either within an organization or outside the value of the shares is generally decided by the individual who wants to sell the share and the buyer who wants to buy it. Suppose my company issued 10 shares to you for your help in the organization. Now you need money and you want to sell it. You can offer it at any price you want to to the buyer. If the buyer accepts your offer thats the price you get. So the price of the share is determined by the price a buyer is willing to buy it at from you. Remember the Face value of the shares remains the same no matter what price you sell it for. Now annual profit distribution is again something called dividends. Suppose my company has 100 shares in total out of which I have given you 10. This means you are a 10% owner of the company and you will be entitled to 10% of the net profit the company makes. Now at the end of the year suppose my company makes a 12,000 USD net profit. Now a panel called board of directors which is appointed by share holders will decide on how much profit to keep within the company for future business and how much to distribute about share holders. Suppose they decide to keep 2000 and distribute 10,000 out of total profit. Since you own 10% shares of the company you get 1000. The softwares you are talking are accounting softwares. You can do everything with those softwares. After-all a company is only about profit and loss statements.", "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": "1eebb6fe1711a3950d7b67ffa1a5a0a6", "text": "Well, if one share cost $100 and the company needs to raise $10000, then the company will issue 100 shares for that price. Right? However, say there's 100 shares out there now, then each share holder owns 1/100th of the company. Now the company will remain the same, but it's shared between 200 shareholders after the issuing of new shares. That means each share holder now owns 1/200th of the company. And hence only gets 1/200th of their earnings etc.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f3be9d78a26a139925ceadf3aa625988", "text": "The bonus share also improves the liquidity however there is some difference in treatment. Lets say a company has 100 shares, of $10 ea. The total capital of the compnay is 100*10 = 1000. Assuming the company is doing well, its share is now available in the market for $100 ea. Now lets say the company has made a profit of $1000 and this also gets factored into the price of $100. Lets say the company decides to keep this $1000 kept as Cash Reserve and is not distributed as dividends. In a share split say (1:1), the book value of each share is now reduced to $5, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital stays at 200*5 = 1000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea. In a Bonus share issue say (1:1), the funds $1000 are moved from Cash Reserve and transferred to share capital. The book value of each share will remain same as $10, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital increases to 200*10 = 2000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea. So essentially from a liquidity point of view both give the same benefit. As to why some companies issue bonus and not a split, this is because of multiple reasons. A split beyond a point cannot be done, ie $10 can be split to $1 ea but it doesn't look good to make it $0.50. The other reason is there is adequate cash reserve and you want to convert this into share holders capital. Having a larger share holders capital improves some of the health ratios for the compnay. At times bouns is used to play upon that one is getting something free.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9c2c0c7b002d89409c6869f93afb653", "text": "\"It's called \"\"dilution\"\". Usually it is done to attract more investors, and yes - the existing share holders will get diluted and their share of ownership shrinks. As a shareholder you can affect the board decisions (depends on your stake of ownership), but usually you'll want to attract more investors to keep the company running, so not much you can do to avoid it. The initial investors/employees in a startup company are almost always diluted out. Look at what happened to Steve Jobs at Apple, as an example.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0a4756367c596b3fda74b485d5ea1a0", "text": "\"See Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) (The Class A shares) and it will all be clear to you. IMHO, the quote for the B shares is mistaken, it used earning of A shares, but price of B. strange. Excellent question, welcome to SE. Berkshire Hathaway is a stock that currently trades for nearly US$140,000. This makes it difficult for individual investors to buy or sell these shares. The CEO Warren Buffet chose to reinvest any profits which means no dividends, and never to split the shares, which meant no little liquidity. There was great pressure on him to find a way to make investing in Berkshire Hathaway more accessible. In June '96, the B shares were issued which represented 1/30 of a share of the Class A stock. As even these \"\"Baby Berks\"\" rose in price to pass US$4500 per share, the stock split 50 to 1, and now trade in the US$90's. So, the current ratio is 1500 to 1. The class B shares have 1/10,000 the voting rights of the A. An A share may be swapped for 1500 B shares on request, but not vice-versa.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41d5bfb7a9d47b8e32ca6736772ca243", "text": "\"Yes and no. There are different classes of shares - Some have voting rights, some *don't*. Some take precedence over others in a bankruptcy. Some get larger dividends. \"\"Common\"\" isn't really a useful description of your stake in the company. You *do* have a \"\"stake\"\" in the company, but not all shares are equal.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "43d013fef9929ac7a88224abd9e987c9", "text": "Some companies like Royal Dutch Shell have multiple share classes to suit the tax regimes in Holland and the UK the A shares have dutch withholding tax applied and the B shares dont. Also some split capital investment trusts have multiple share classes http://www.trustnet.com/Education/Split.aspx?ms=1", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4230bc9749d09b9fad10599e79b40ef", "text": "\"I don't have anything definitive, but in general positions in a company are not affected materially by what is called a corporate action. \"\"Corp Actions\"\" can really be anything that affects the details of a stock. Common examples are a ticker change, or exchange change, IPO (ie a new ticker), doing a split, or merging with another ticker. All of these events do not change the total value of people's positions. If a stock splits, you might have more shares, but they are worth less per share. A merger is quite similar to a split. The old company's stock is converted two the new companies stock at some ratio (ie 10 shares become 1 share) and then converted 1-to-1 to the new symbol. Shorting a stock that splits is no different. You shorted 10 shares, but after the split those are now 100 shares, when you exit the position you have to deliver back 100 \"\"new\"\" shares, though dollar-for-dollar they are the same total value. I don't see why a merger would affect your short position. The only difference is you are now shorting a different company, so when you exit the position you'll have to deliver shares of the new company back to the brokerage where you \"\"borrowed\"\" the shares you shorted.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0654e7730a0c6596f36a97d8f2e0cc7", "text": "You actually have a few options. First, you can do a share split and then sell an equal number of shares from both you and your wife to maintain parity. Second, you can have the company issue additional shares/convert shares and then have the company sell the appropriate percentage to the third party while the rest is distributed to you and your wife. Third, you can have the company issue a separate class of stock. For example there are companies that have voting stock and non-voting stock. Depending on your goal, you could just issue non-voting stock and sell that. Best bet is to contact a lawyer who specializes in this type of work and have them recommend a course of action. One caveat that has not been mentioned is that what/how you do this will also depend on the type of corporation that you have created.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfea65956e6385a78c8890560327b685", "text": "/ in relative to the Tesla's performance, and current inflation. They can split and reverse split at anytime the board decides without any regard to inflation or performance. OP points to Tesla at 350- he doesn't point to PE. It makes no differences what the price of one share is. If they split 10 for 1 it would be 35- but what difference does that make- the PE remains the same. OP does not understand value- only price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3aeb17bf4b73d0f13117216075ec7f99", "text": "\"What you are describing is a very specific case of the more general principle of how dividend payments work. Broadly speaking, if you own common shares in a corporation, you are a part owner of that corporation; you have the right to a % of all of that corporation's assets. The value in having that right is ultimately because the corporation will pay you dividends while it operates, and perhaps a final dividend when it liquidates at the end of its life. This is why your shares have value - because they give you ownership of the business itself. Now, assume you own 1k shares in a company with 100M shares, worth a total of $5B. You own 0.001% of the company, and each of your shares is worth $50; the total value of all your shares is $50k. Assume further that the value of the company includes $1B in cash. If the company pays out a dividend of $1B, it will now be only worth $4B. Your shares have just gone down in value by 20%! But, you have a right to 0.001% of the dividend, which equals a $10k cash payment to you. Your personal holdings are now $40k worth of shares, plus $10k in cash. Except for taxes, financial theory states that whether a corporation pays a dividend or not should not impact the value to the individual shareholder. The difference between a regular corporation and a mutual fund, is that the mutual fund is actually a pool of various investments, and it reports a breakdown of that pool to you in a different way. If you own shares directly in a corporation, the dividends you receive are called 'dividends', even if you bought them 1 minute before the ex-dividend date. But a payment from a mutual fund can be divided between, for example, a flow through of dividends, interest, or a return of capital. If you 'looked inside' your mutual fund you when you bought it, you would see that 40% of its value comes from stock A, 20% comes from stock B, etc etc., including maybe 1% of the value coming from a pile of cash the fund owns at the time you bought your units. In theory the mutual fund could set aside the cash it holds for current owners only, but then it would need to track everyone's cash-ownership on an individual basis, and there would be thousands of different 'unit classes' based on timing. For simplicity, the mutual fund just says \"\"yes, when you bought $50k in units, we were 1/3 of the year towards paying out a $10k dividend. So of that $10k dividend, $3,333k of it is assumed to have been cash at the time you bought your shares. Instead of being an actual 'dividend', it is simply a return of capital.\"\" By doing this, the mutual fund is able to pay you your owed dividend [otherwise you would still have the same number of units but no cash, meaning you would lose overall value], without forcing you to be taxed on that payment. If the mutual fund didn't do this separate reporting, you would have paid $50k to buy $46,667k of shares and $3,333k of cash, and then you would have paid tax on that cash when it was returned to you. Note that this does not \"\"falsely exaggerate the investment return\"\", because a return of capital is not earnings; that's why it is reported separately. Note that a 'close-ended fund' is not a mutual fund, it is actually a single corporation. You own units in a mutual fund, giving you the rights to a proportion of all the fund's various investments. You own shares in a close-ended fund, just as you would own shares in any other corporation. The mutual fund passes along the interest, dividends, etc. from its investments on to you; the close-ended fund may pay dividends directly to its shareholders, based on its own internal dividend policy.\"", "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": "76320099a37d8f9f9b4281d18080ef8b", "text": "Simple: Do a stock split. Each 1 Ordinary share now = 100 Ordinary shares (or 100,000 or whatever you choose). Then sell 20 (or 20,000) of them to your third party. (Stock splits are fairly routine occurrence. Apple for example has done several, most recently in 2014 when 1 share = 7 shares). Alternatively you could go the route of creating a new share class with different rights, preferences etc. But this is more complicated.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69997fc43a30d7d136f11e2c6cccf3ba", "text": "Initially, Each company has 10k shares. Company B has $500k money and possibly other assets. Every company has stated purpose. It can't randomly buy shares in some other firm. Company A issued 5k new shares, which gives it $500k money. Listed companies can't make private placements without regulatory approvals. They have to put this in open market via Public issue or rights issue. Company B does the same thing, issuing 5k shares for $500k money. Company A bought those 5k shares using the $500k it just got There is no logical reason for shareholder of Company B to raise 5K from Company A for the said consideration. This would have to increase.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
aa6dc38c2d30f295fbd18af5c039694e
When to register for a bank account for a C-Corp with no official money
[ { "docid": "d146a6977cc30bc9a7693a2d74881d0e", "text": "Technically, it's only when you need to pass money through. However consider that the length the account has been open builds history with the financial institution, so I'd open ASAP. Longer history with the bank can help with getting approved for things like business credit lines, business cards, and other perks, though if you're not making money with that business, seek out a bank that does not charge money to have a business account open with them.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "2aebc3236bf05398c43612ad19dc8249", "text": "Well first off, I would advice you to do this research yourself. You should not base your selection off someone's opinion such as mines. With that being said, these are some factors I suggest you consider and research before talking to an offshore bank account: Now, when opening an offshore account most offshore banks do not require you to be present at all. You can open an account simply by calling them or filling out their application online. However, be prepared to provide them with some information to verify who you are and the nature of your business such as a notarized passport along with other various forms of information that they may require. Just think of what your local bank requires is generally what they will ask as well. Here is a compiled list of offshore bank accounts to consider: These banks overall have a range between $0 - $1 million (domestic currency) minimum deposits. Most of them ranging from $1000-$5000. It all depends on the type of account, the nature of the account, and the business associated with the account.", "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": "ec5ecd031c5e4778c6e9e73e08aae470", "text": "Since you're not loaning the company the money, the correct category is Equity. It's not an income type account, rather it represents the balance of Assets - Liabilities = Owner's Equity So you'd put down £100 as the starting balance of Owner's Equity, and then a Cash Balance of £100 in a cash account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9529029f13f40974e65a101d74200652", "text": "Do you have a separate bank account for your business? That is generally highly recommended. I have a credit card for my single-member LLC. I prefer it this way because it makes the separation of personal and business expenses very clear. Using a personal credit card, but using it for only business expenses seems to be a reasonable practice. You may be able to do one better though... For your sole proprietorship, you can file a DBA which establishes the business name. The details of this depend on your state. With a DBA, I believe you can open a bank account in the name of your business and you may also be able to open a credit card account in the name of the business. I'm not sure what practical difference it makes, but it does make the personal/business distinction clearer. Though, at that point, you might as well just do the LLC...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9757bb5c63f8eaefdd7cb9c62f6da0b4", "text": "\"The HMRC has a dedicated self-help/learning site that is helpful here: It's important to tell HMRC that you are self-employed as soon as possible. If you don't, you may have to pay a penalty. You don't want to pay more to HMRC than you have to as it is a waste of your money. Your business has started when you start to advertise or you have a customer to buy your goods or services. It is at this point that your business is 'trading'. You cannot register before you start trading. For example, if you advertise your business in the local newspaper on 15 January but do not get your first customer until 29 March; in this case, you have been trading since 15 January. You must tell HMRC within six months of the end of the tax year in which you start self-employment. You must therefore register by 5 October. But it's best to register well before this so that you do not forget to do so. The HMRC also has a YouTube channel with help videos, and \"\"Am I Trading or Not?\"\" might be of particular interest to you. Most of the registration is based around the concept of starting to work with the intent to make a profit. By the letter of law and regulations, you should register within six months of the end of the tax year you started to avoid any potential penalty. However note that the situation is different based upon your intent. If you begin making/putting up videos online as a hobby with the hope that you can make something to help you defray the basic costs involved, and the total amount you make is relatively small (say, less than 500 pounds), you will not be classified as \"\"trading\"\" and likely have no need to register with HMRC. As soon as you begin to get in regular payments, maybe a single payment of a significant size, or multiple payments for a similar service/item, you are vastly more likely to need to register. From my reading you would likely be safe to begin putting up videos without registration, but if you begin spending a large portion of your time over an extended period (multiple months) and/or begin getting payments of any notable size then you should likely register with the appropriate services (HMRC, etc). As is the case in both the USA and UK, simple registration is pretty cheap and the costs of little/no income are usually pretty minor. Also note that the HMRC trading and self-employment regulations are unusual compared to many US laws/institutions, in that you are explicitly permitted to begin doing something and only register later. So if you start doing videos for an entire tax year + 5 months and make nothing significant, you'd seemingly be fine to never register at all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "52aaee75b08b0c88c36e1e088f32cdcc", "text": "No. Current account is not a requirement. You can use savings account. You would need to pay taxes on interest. Savings account have limitation on number of withdrawal in a quarter, hence most sole proprietorship have current account.", "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": "5ff4ccbc0346de375ade7ff30060923d", "text": "Get a lawyer. I've incorporated in Alberta without one which was fine because I'm the only employee and it's pretty simple. If you're hiring someone and especially since you have a business partner, spend the money and get a lawyer. They can help with proper contracts and stuff too. Also, consider an accountant as well. Lots of papers to keep organized and taxes aren't always simple. Best of luck!!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "692ae1c3e6eb2eca7e42bcebfcb1293a", "text": "Mods decided to leave it here, so I'll summarize some of my answers on this question given @OnStartups. You can find them here, here and here. Your options are : You and your business are one and the same. You report your income and expenses for taxes on a Schedule C (for each sole proprietorship a separate schedule), and taxed at your personal rates. There's no liability protection or legal separation between you and your business, and you don't need to have any bureaucratic overhead of managing an entity. You can use your own bank account and have checks written to you directly. You can register for DBA if you want a store-front name to be different from your own name. Depending on State, can cost a lot or close to nothing. Provides certain liability protection (depending on State, single-member and multi-member LLC's may have different liability protections). You can chose to be taxed as either a sole-proprietor (partnership, for multi-member) or as a corporation. You have to separate your activities, have a separate bank account, and some minimal bureaucracy is required to maintain the entity. Benefits include the limited liability, relatively easy to add partners to the business or sell it as a whole, and provides for separation of your personal and business finances. Drawbacks - bureaucracy, additional fees and taxes (especially in CA), and separation of assets. Corporation is an entirely separate entity from yourself, files its own tax returns, has separate bank accounts and is run by the board of directors (which in some cases may require more than 1 person to be on the board, check your state laws on that). As an officer of the corporation you'll have to pay salary to yourself. S-Corp has the benefit of pass-through taxation, C-Corp doesn't and has double taxation. Benefits - liability protection, can sell shares to investors, legally distinct entity. Disadvantages - have to deal with payroll, additional accounting, significant bureaucracy and additional layer of taxes for C-Corp (double taxation). Selling corporate assets is always a taxable event (although in your case it is probably not of an importance). You have to talk to a lawyer in your state about the options re the liability protection and how to form the entities. The formation process is usually simple and straight forward, but the LLC/Partnership operating agreements and Corporation charters/bylaws must be drafted by a lawyer if you're not going to be the sole owner (even if you are - better get a lawyer draft something for you, its just easier to fix and change things when you're the sole owner). You have to talk to a CPA/EA in your state about the taxes and how the choice of entity affects them.", "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": "3952f02414674a677415876312af53fe", "text": "First, yes, your LLC has to file annual taxes to the US government. All US companies do, regardless of where their owners live. Second, you will also probably be liable to personally file a return in the US and unless the US has a tax treaty with India (which I don't believe it does) you may end up paying taxes on your same income to both countries. Finally, opening a US bank account as a foreign citizen can be very tricky. You need to talk to a US accountant who is familiar with Indian & US laws.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4eaac7f1133b542fea46afb67ae8bcac", "text": "You need your transit, branch account and SWIFT code. Example, CIBC: To get this information as it pertains to you, it is best to go to your bank in person.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c06dd8658a400808f0995c1905f5a6bd", "text": "This depends on the practise and applications available with the Beneficiary Bank. For a corporate customer, the details are show. For Retail customers they are generally not shown.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a279ca195fb059cdc40775cca8a0e5d3", "text": "As an LLC you are required to have a separate bank account (so you can't have one account and mix personal and business finances together as you could if you were a sole trader) - but there's no requirement for it to be a business bank account. However, the terms and conditions of most high street bank personal current accounts specifically exclude business banking, so unless you could find one that would allow it, you'd have to open a business bank account.", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
223554a0130f77d8fb3bc0fc596a1da5
Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership?
[ { "docid": "e8984908037a8aab9f9934b96eed01f9", "text": "\"Shady isn't quite the right word. They know that most of their customers are going to quit soon after they begin -- as in \"\"before the end of January\"\" -- so they lock you in while you're motivated. And of course they're going to make it difficult for you to quit. No choice but to read their contract, understand it completely, follow their rules, and meet their deadlines. There's lots of freedom for them and lots of restrictions for you. It's like this if you're not the one writing up the contract. However ... do you have a YMCA around? Our YMCA has an initiation fee, but beyond that it's month to month. Most flexible gym membership I've heard of. If you lapse for too long they'll make you pay another initiation fee to rejoin, but there's no penalty for canceling. Not all Y's are like that, but check around to see.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f71e2344b72cf6232a9eecd06ce04e5", "text": "\"I've worked in gyms for 9 years. Here's a few things I've seen: 1)Contracts aren't necessarily a terrible thing if you know that you are going to stay for a while, just know the terms you're signing up for. 2)Be aggressive and relentless with the membership salesman, don't be afraid to put your own price out there and if you don't get it walk away. Don't want the super high sign-up fee, say you wont join unless that is gone or lower. (often these sign-up fees are commissions for the salesman, one time i had a guy slip me a $100 under the table to drop the sign-up fee and monthly rate saving him at least $500 a year) 3)Pick newer gyms because they will be more in a need of new memberships thus giving in to lower prices. 4)If you don't want to sign a contract just say so, you'd be amazed how often someone gets out of signing a contract just because they asked and threatened not to join because of it. 5)Be aware of annual fees, a trend in the industry now is to have a super low membership dues but charge the member an annual \"\"gym improvement\"\" or \"\"rate guarantee fee\"\". 6)Join with a buddy, ask for a buddy discount if you sign-up at the same time. 7)Finally consider why you are joining a gym, I've seen it so often that someone joins a gym and then gets frustrated because they never use it because they weren't getting the results you wanted. Maybe your better off spending a little more and going to a private personal training studio or a group exercise studio. Independent bootcamps are a hot now. Ultimately it's about you getting what you want out of it, so do what is going to give you the best chance to get the results you want.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8dc02c817c798f53a098e1f8c3943822", "text": "I've often encountered the practices you describe in the Netherlands too. This is how I deal with it. Avoid gyms with aggressive sales tactics My solution is to only sign up for a gym that does not seem to have one-on-one sales personnel and aggressive sales tactics, and even then to read the terms and conditions thoroughly. I prefer to pay them in monthly terms that I myself initiate, instead of allowing them to charge my account when they please. [1] Avoid gyms that lack respect for their members Maybe you've struggled with the choice for a gym, because one of those 'evil' gyms is very close to home and has really excellent facilities. You may be tempted to ask for a one-off contract without the shady wording, but I advise against this. Think about it this way: Even though regular T&C would not apply, the spirit with which they were drawn up lives on among gym personnel/management. They're simply not inclined to act in your best interest, so it's still possible to run into problems when ending your membership. In my opinion, it's better to completely avoid such places because they are not worthy of your trust. Of course this advice goes beyond gym memberships and is applicable to life in general. Hope this helps. [1] Credit Cards aren't very popular in the Netherlands, but we have a charging mechanism called 'automatic collection' which allows for arbitrary merchant-initiated charges.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "902f852ca41553e7a3a25e503d3692f3", "text": "New York state actually has laws protecting gym members from predatory gym membership pricing. Your state may also have laws like that as well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "41ce0cdd50585d84d49c66f244490db6", "text": "Quite often the local university has decent gym facilities with super-competitive rates, even if you are not a student there, and you can usually join for a single term and pay by cash. They lack some of the fancier things and might be not as shiny, but I want my membership fees to pay for equipment, not interior design.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e8d6afbb3d51e12044732847e7ad0b6", "text": "\"I once was reviewing one of those contracts with plenty of bad clauses in it, sitting across from the salesman whose commission depending on me signing it. I started crossing out all the bad clauses, initialed them and said I would sign it if he'd initial the changes as well. Oh, and there was one clause that said something like \"\"THIS CONTRACT MAY NOT BE MODIFIED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT...\"\" Of course, I crossed it out as well. I signed, he signed. Everyone was happy. Fortunately I never had to deal with any of the issues, but what's the worse they could do?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7652e2f584251f50695aa3f7c08d5635", "text": "The safest way is to not sign contracts with terms that are onerous to you.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d98599e2bb8795a543c46c226255323c", "text": "If you're determined to save money, find ways to integrate exercise into your daily routine and don't join a gym at all. This makes it more likely you'll keep it up if it is a natural part of your day. You could set aside half the money you would spend on the gym towards some of the options below. I know it's not always practical, especially in the winter, but here are a few things you could do. One of the other answers makes a good point. Gym membership can be cost effective if you go regularly, but don't kid yourself that you'll suddenly go 5 times a week every week if you've not done much regular exercise. If you are determined to join a gym, here are a few other things to consider.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c8be4f69d437e28f0d7e164653cab264", "text": "If this chargeback failed then would it negatively affect my credit score? A credit score is a measure of how dependable of a borrower you are. Requesting a refund for not receiving goods not delivered as promised, whether it is successful or it fails, should not impact your credit score since it has no implications on the likelihood that you will pay back debts. The last time I used that gym was the 13th January 2017, and I rejoined on the 20th December, so I have used it for less than a month. Therefore I do not think I should have to pay for two months Keep in mind that you purchased a membership to the gym. Whether or not you actually use the gym you are liable to pay for every month that you retain the membership. Although it probably won't hurt to try to get a refund for the period where you didn't take advantage of your gym membership, you weren't actually charged for a service that you never received (like in the last case where they charged you after you cancelled your membership).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "12ee84e78b6f77c64553d4f2a7455e29", "text": "so you and your friend are trying to make a federal case over the fact that he's going to have to pay $1-3 in a month's time? [they had this rather popular series of self-help books a while back.](http://www.amazon.com/Sweat-Small-Stuff---small-Series/dp/0786881852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339809567&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=don%27t+sweat+the+small+stuff) perhaps the two of you should explore it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c85b3b1d6b3408c34933fabb60592ed0", "text": "Yes, it is safe, we have been doing it for years. We prefer our tenants to make their rent payments in this manner. In fact, we prefer that they set up an automatic payment for the rent, either through their online banking or through their bank directly. Apart from getting your rent on time, this method also has the added benefit of both parties having their own records of rent payments through their bank statements, in case there is a dispute about the rent sometime down the track. Having a separate bank account just for the rent does make sense as well, it makes it easier for you to check if rent has come in, it makes it easier if you need to compare your statement without having to highlight all the rent payments amongst all other payments (you might not want to show your other incomes and spending habits to others), and you can withdraw the rents to your other account (which might offer higher interest) after it has come in, leaving a small balance most of the time in your rent account.", "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": "917519aee04c7ac99b8a7679d7d9289e", "text": "I've been using online billpay for years, at three different banks. Two were local (a bank and a credit union), and the other is ING Direct. I haven't had any problems with any of them that weren't self-inflicted (forgetting to enter the bill). The credit union's system is pretty clunky, but the other two are fine. One thing to make sure of is to leave enough time for the bill to arrive, just like you would do if mailing a check. Just have the bill sent a week before its due, and you should be fine. I usually do this soon after I get the bill, so I don't forget about it. ING will actually receive bills from some companies automatically, if you wish. So all you need to do is go online and click pay, and it will know when the due date is and the amount to pay. For bills that have the same amount each month (mortgage, insurance premiums, etc.), you can set it up to pay automatically each month so you don't have to do anything. Its a bit of a hassle moving banks, and reentering the account numbers, addresses, etc. Stopping a bill is as easy as clinking delete in the online system. My current setup is to have all my bills paid through ING, and my paycheck direct deposited. I can transfer money to/from my local bank in a couple of days if I have checks to deposit, or to use the local ATM. I short, I would never go back to writing paper checks.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "072ab5a8527fb892849afb4c791d89f7", "text": "\"If you do it, be sure to read what you sign. They'll sign you up on some type of \"\"credit insurance\"\" and not tell you about it. It costs like $10 a month. If you don't sign up for that, you should be fine. I bought my HDTV this way, though I wish I would have saved and paid up front. I'm moving more towards the \"\"cash only\"\" mindset.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "500b7456fba0a4e19d2370a332e03b75", "text": "First thing that popped into my head was tanning salons. You can be a member at differing levels of service (for different qualities of tanning beds) and you can also pay a one-time fee at an inflated price. Basically, for the price of three (services) you could have unlimited access (to beds of the same type) by paying up front for a month. All memberships in this arena come with pages of legal contract to sign, so having training in place for the documentation of this is important. Enrolling individuals during peak business hours can be labor intensive, so prices insentivize individuals to 1) return hassle-free for more services and 2) pay all at once for said services.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "950898f483d9ce6377d07e9f54f1e44b", "text": "\"Understand that buying a Starbucks gift card at the grocery store to receive 6% back on your coffee rather than 6% back on your groceries is an exploit of a flaw in the benefits program, not a feature. It's definitely not a blanket yes or no answer, the only way to find out is to try. Separately, I don't know why you would find this \"\"concerning.\"\" This will vary greatly between merchants and cards. There will always be new points churning exploits, they don't last forever and you can't expect every customer service rep to be well versed in methods employed to juice cardmember programs. Hell, a number of years ago one person figured out that he could buy rolls of $1 coins from the US treasury with free shipping and no additional fees. This guy was literally buying thousands of dollars of cash each month to deposit and pay his credit card bill; completely against the terms of the treasury program for distributing the $1 coins. A number of people had their cards and points/cash back revoked for that one.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67955db21dbfb96a180172cd2e0940c5", "text": "\"I would suggest having your money auto-deposited into a savings account. Then use cash weekly to pay for everything you purchase. Forget the ATM card, because you can burn through your whole paycheck and then run out. Set a certain budget (say $200 per week, just making up a number), and that's all you get. Withdraw $200 from the bank / ATM, and then walk away. No buying online (because it isn't restricted), no buying on a card. All expenses (beyond utilities) comes out of that cash. When you want to spend more, you need to wait until your next cash \"\"paycheck\"\". If you want to spend more (on whatever you end up splurging on), you will need to cut back in other areas (cheaper food, etc). As others have mentioned, freeze that ATM card, and don't use it at all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7c5323e59281a492ec9aed7109f2d6f5", "text": "So far I am doing mint.com for a few minutes a couple of times a week, despite my security concerns, and that's working fairly well as practice until my job starts. I'm hoping to get my bank to allow up to date transaction download, and then I'm considering using YNAB once I start my job. I will update this as I go along.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "73263b07ceab7ff831dd179b39735b74", "text": "Atm machine and my Credit Union account. Low fees (often zero, if the machine is on any of the same networks) and decent exchange rate, and no need to carry cash or traveler's checks to be exchanged. Alternatively, pay by credit card, though there is a foreign transaction fee on that.", "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": "2539bf77b34ceeb3c9a919dc1a7a2889", "text": "\"Under the assumption you're not looking for a particular credit union/bank (since that'll make this question off topic), you can apply for a secure credit card. That's where you essentially put up a sum of money as collateral. That would be the safe way for someone with \"\"little or no credit history\"\" and wants to build credit. Any big bank (Wells Fargo, Chase, etc.) should be able to do that for you. You can also do that online provided you have the means to transfer money into the account.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "768a733f6a582830c2f31f82e6345803", "text": "Honestly, having seen their trial and cancelation process, it seems they're betting that the Planet Fitness model will work for cinema tickets. It's cheap enough that it seems like a great deal, but in practice most people won't even see a movie a month and won't bother to cancel. Every time I've been about to sign up for a subscription cinema ticket, I've challenged myself to actually go to the cinema at least twice a month for 3 months. I always drop off!", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
177b0b0c300354788ec352b832fb7f4d
How to minimize damage from sale of savings account
[ { "docid": "4fa9a958bcecfdec736a47e992d6ebfd", "text": "\"Bank of America has been selling off their local branches to smaller banks in recent years. Here are a few news stories related to this: Along with the branch buildings, the local customers' savings and checking accounts are sold to the new bank. It is interesting that you were told that your savings account is being sold, but that your checking account will remain with BofA. I guess it depends on the terms of the particular sale. Here are your options, as I see it: Let the savings account move to the new bank, and see what the new terms are like. You might actually like the new bank. If you don't, you can shop around and close your account at the new bank after it has been created. Close your account now, before the move. If you have a different bank you'd like to move to, there is no need to wait. Since your checking account is apparently staying with BofA, you could move all your money from your savings account to your checking account, closing your savings account. Then after \"\"mid August\"\" when the local branch switches to the new bank and everyone else's savings account has moved, you can call up BofA and tell them you want to move some of the money from your checking account into a new savings account. If you really have your heart set on staying with BofA, option 3 looks like a good, easy choice. To address your other concerns: Bank of America is a big credit card company, so I doubt that your credit card is being sold off. Your credit card account should stay as-is. Even if your savings account and checking account are at a different bank, there is no need to switch credit cards. Your savings and checking accounts have nothing to do with your credit report or score, so there is no concern there. If you end up wanting to switch to a new credit card with a different bank, there are minor hits to your credit score involved with applying for a new card and closing your current card, but if I were you I would not worry about your credit score in this. Switch credit cards if you want a change, and keep your credit card if you don't.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "65d0e65fc15b89d957ea8f4aacf84849", "text": "Brokerages are supposed to keep your money separate from theirs. So, even if they fail as a company, your money and investments are still there, and can be transferred to another brokerage. It doesn't matter if it's an IRA or taxable account. Of course, as is the case with MF Global, if illegally take their client's money (i.e., steal), it may be a different story. In such cases, SIPC covers up to $500K, of which $250K can be cash, as JoeTaxpayer said. You may be interested in the following news item from the SEC. It's about some proposed changes, but to frame the proposal they lay out the way it is now: http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-128.htm The most relevant quote: The Customer Protection Rule (Rule 15c3-3). This SEC rule requires a broker-dealer to segregate customer securities and cash from the firm’s proprietary business activities. If the broker-dealer fails, these customer assets should be readily available to be returned to customers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed78f35d2db90200e5a3c241f8caba8d", "text": "In addition to the adjustment type in NL7's answer, there are a host of others. If there are any adjustments, form 8949 is required, if not, the gains can be separated into short and long-term and added together to be entered on Schedule D. Anything requiring an adjustment code in column F of the 8949 requires an entry in column G. Some other example entries for column F include: (see the 8949 instructions for a complete list) **A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you: Buy substantially identical stock or securities, Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade, Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities, or Acquire substantially identical stock for your individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA. (from Pub17)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cf3bc8530ff8a4c61381016dc51ebae5", "text": "In most cases of fraud, your liability is limited to $50 if you report it within certain number of days (I think 2). After that the liability grows to something like $500. You are covered even if your negligence has caused the breach. In addition VISA guarantees credit cards - in most cases you have 0 liability. Finally checking & savings accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000 in case the bank goes bankrupt. The $250,000 is a total for all accounts at the given bank. It's up to you to report and ask for refund though and sometimes you have to jump through hoops to get it but usually it's fairly straightforward and it usually takes only 2 or 3 days.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ab63ebccd465e91061835ecbb7464e7b", "text": "First, what's the reason? Why do you have that much in cash at all - are you concerned about market volatility, are you planning to buy a house, do you have tens of millions of dollars and this is your slush fund? Are you a house flipper and this is part of business for you? If you need the money for short term use - ie, you're buying a house in cash next month - then as long as you're in a sound bank (one of the big national ones, for example) it seems reasonable. You can never predict a crash like 2008, but it seems unlikely that Chase or Citibank will go under in the next few weeks. If you like to have a cash position, then split the money among multiple banks. Buy a CD at one major bank with some of the amount. My in-laws have a trust which is partially invested in CDs, and they use multiple banks for this purpose to keep their accounts fully insured. Each separate bank you're covered up to 250k, so if you have $150k at Chase and $150k at a local bank, you're covered. (You're also covered in a much larger amount - up to 1MM potentially - if you are married, as you can have a separate account each for $250k and a joint account up to $500k.) Otherwise, why do you have that much in cash? You should invest it in something that will return more than inflation, at a minimum... Edit post-clarifications: $350k is around my level of 'Maybe, maybe not'. You're risking $100k on a pretty low risk (assuming this isn't a small local bank, and even those are pretty low still). In order to remove that risk you have to do something active - ie, take 100k somewhere else, open a new bank account, etc. - which isn't exactly the hardest thing in the world, but it does take effort. Is it worth the 0.001% chance (entirely made up) you lose the 100k? That's $10, if you agree with that risk chance. Up to you. It wouldn't be particularly hard, though, to open an account with an online bank, deposit $100k in there in a 6 month CD, then pay the IRS from your other account and when the 6 month CD expires take the cash back into your active account. Assuming you're not planning on buying a house in the next six months this should be fine, I'd think (and even then you'd still have $150k for the downpayment up front, which is enough to buy a $750k house w/o PMI). Additionally, as several commenters note: if you can reasonably do so, and your money won't be making significant interest, you might choose to pay your taxes now rather than later. This removes the risk entirely; the likely small interest you earn over 3 months may be similar to the amount you'd spend (mostly of your time, plus possibly actual expenses) moving it to another bank. If you're making 2% or 3% this may not be true, but if you're in a 0.25% account like my accounts are, $100k * 0.25% * 0.25 is $62.50, after all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0d1e91dd9b70da76f6ad1b4bb1a86ab0", "text": "Personally I solve this by saving enough liquid capital (aka checking and savings) to cover pretty much everything for six months. But this is a bad habit. A better approach is to use budget tracking software to make virtual savings accounts and place payments every paycheck into them, in step with your budget. The biggest challenge you'll likely face is the initial implementation; if you're saving up for a semi-annual car insurance premium and you've got two months left, that's gonna make things difficult. In the best case scenario you already have a savings account, which you reapportion among your various lumpy expenses. This does mean you need to plan when it is you will actually buy that shiny new Macbook Pro, and stick to it for a number of months. Much more difficult than buying on credit. Especially since these retailers hate dealing in cash.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de221977a5faed5782a2a51442850873", "text": "Banks work pretty hard to make themselves a big part of your life with bill pay, auto-deposit, loans and other services. You need to carefully unwind each one and be on the lookout for fees. If you close a savings account, will your checking account suddenly have fees? If you stop auto deposit, will there suddenly be a fee? Do you have a business that deposits money? A Google Ad sense account? PayPal or the equivalent? These all might be tied to your bank accounts. Wait a couple of months, leaving enough cash in the old back to prevent fees if possible. If two months go by and there isn't any activity on the account, you can probably close it. After you are sure all the written checks have cleared, go to the back and get a counter check for the balance of the account. You could alternately just write yourself one more check for the remaining balance and call the bank to close the account. You could electronically transfer the funds if you wanted too. HOWEVER, it is important to be careful of the timing, the last thing you want to do is write a check or transfer the money after the account is closed. (per Dilip Sarwate) If you do the check and phone call thing, make sure you do it in a short enough period of time that you don't incur a fee. Having and closing regular bank accounts won't have any tax implications in the US.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "29079941bcf673433726120d468485ea", "text": "If you have multiple accounts, you have to empty them all before you can deduct any losses. Your loss is not a capital loss, its a deduction. It is calculated based on the total amount you have withdrawn from all your Roth IRA's, minus the total basis. It will be subject to the 2% AGI treshhold (i.e.: if your AGI is > 100K, none of it is deductible, and you have to itemize to get it). Bottom line - think twice. Summarizing the discussion in comments: If you have a very low AGI, I would guess that your tax liability is pretty low as well. Even if you deduct the whole $2K, and all of it is above the other deductions you have (which in turn is above the standard deduction of almost $6K), you save say $300 if you're in 15% tax bracket. That's the most savings you have. However I'm assuming something here: I'm assuming that you're itemizing your deductions already and they're above the standard deduction. This is very unlikely, with such a low income. You don't have state taxes to deduct, you probably don't spend a lot to deduct sales taxes, and I would argue that with the low AGI you probably don't own property, and if you do - you don't have a mortgage with a significant interest on it. You can be in 15% bracket with AGI between (roughly) $8K and $35K, i.e.: you cannot deduct between $160 and $750 of the $2K, so it's already less than the maximum $300. If your AGI is $8K, the deduction doesn't matter, EIC might cover all of your taxes anyway. If your AGI is $30K, you can deduct only $1400, so if you're in the 15% bracket - you saved $210. That, again, assuming it's above your other deductions, which in turn are already above the standard deduction. Highly unlikely. As I said in the comments - I do not think you can realistically save on taxes because of this loss in such a manner.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e92a5e3cfe7db5a782b9931710ff389d", "text": "\"You might find some of the answers here helpful; the question is different, but has some similar concerns, such as a changing economic environment. What approach should I take to best protect my wealth against currency devaluation & poor growth prospects. I want to avoid selling off any more of my local index funds in a panic as I want to hold long term. Does my portfolio balance make sense? Good question; I can't even get US banks to answer questions like this, such as \"\"What happens if they try to nationalize all bank accounts like in the Soviet Union?\"\" Response: it'll never happen. The question was what if! I think that your portfolio carries a lot of risk, but also offsets what you're worried about. Outside of government confiscation of foreign accounts (if your foreign investments are held through a local brokerage), you should be good. What to do about government confiscation? Even the US government (in 1933) confiscated physical gold (and they made it illegal to own) - so even physical resources can be confiscated during hard times. Quite a large portion of my foreign investments have been bought at an expensive time when our currency is already around historic lows, which does concern me in the event that it strengthens in future. What strategy should I take in the future if/when my local currency starts the strengthen...do I hold my foreign investments through it and just trust in cost averaging long term, or try sell them off to avoid the devaluation? Are these foreign investments a hedge? If so, then you shouldn't worry if your currency does strengthen; they serve the purpose of hedging the local environment. If these investments are not a hedge, then timing will matter and you'll want to sell and buy your currency before it does strengthen. The risk on this latter point is that your timing will be wrong.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a44357a6b5943b6df883337c72a62eb3", "text": "Basically you need to use a time-value-of-money equation to discount the cashflows back to today. The Wikipedia formula will likely work fine for you, then you just need to pick an effective interest rate to use in the calculation. Run each of your amounts and dates though the formula (there are various on-line calculators to pick from, and sum up the values. You did not mention your location or jurisdiction, but a useful proxy for the interest rate would be the average between the same duration mortgage rate and fixed-deposit rate at your bank; it should be close enough for your purposes - although if an actual lawsuit is involved and the sums high enough to have lawyers, it might be worth engaging an accountant as well to defend the veracity of both the calculation and the interest rates chosen.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20c9e9ae8c397b3bcdda3a75e314265a", "text": "You can write industry loss warrants. This is the closest thing I’ve found since I’ve been interested in this side of the ILS trade. Hedge funds and asset managers can do this. From what I understand it’s you selling the risk. Want to start a fund? 🤔", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b8f51c43a5fa771837a820a123c39f00", "text": "In the United States taxes on the sale of a principal residence are based on the difference between the sale price and the cost of the home. Assuming you meet the requirements you can shelter 250,000 or 500,000 of gains from the sale of your principal residence. This calculation is not related to the loan balance. The basic equation is sales price minus purchase price. It get a little more complex because some costs to purchase and sell the home are included in the calculation, or if you made renovations to the house that will increase your costs and decrease your gains. Trying to decrease the loan balance just before selling the house would just be paying yourself that money at the settlement table. It could save you some money on interest between now and settlement but emptying your bank account to save a few bucks doesn't seem worth it. I would also prefer to have the money in the bank to pay for some expenses that will popup getting the house sold, you moving, and the settlement date.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "18709a398b2b7066a205463a07181a42", "text": "There's a couple issues to consider: When you sell your primary home, the IRS gives you a $500k exemption (married, filing jointly) on gain. If you decide not to sell your current house now, and you subsequently fall outside the ownership/use tests, then you may owe taxes on any gains when you sell the house. Rather than being concerned about your net debt, you should be concerned about your monthly debt payments. Generally speaking, you cannot have debt payments of more than 36% of your monthly income. If you can secure a renter for your current property, then you may be able to reach this ratio for your next (third) property. Also, only 75% of your expected monthly rental income is considered for calculating your 36% number. (This is not an exhaustive list of risks you expose yourself to). The largest risk is if you or your spouse find yourself without income (e.g. lost job, accident/injury, no renter), then you may be hurting to make your monthly debt payments. You will need to be confident that you can pay all your debts. A good rule that I hear is having the ability to pay 6 months worth of debt. This may not necessarily mean having 6 months worth of cash on hand, but access to that money through personal lines of credit, borrowing against assets, selling stocks/investments, etc. You also want to make sure that your insurance policies fully cover you in the event that a tenant sues you, damages property, etc. You also don't want to face a situation where you are sued because of discrimination. Hiring a property management company to take care of these things may be a good peace-of-mind.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "aad7d81d0864ae51527e037701783ac4", "text": "\"Your objectives are contradictory and/or not possible. Eliminating the non-taxable objective: You could divide the $100K in 5 increments, making a \"\"CD ladder\"\" $25K in 3mo CD (or savings a/c) $25K in 6 mo CD $25K in 9mo CD $25K in 1 yr CD or similar structure (6mo also works well) Every maturing CD you are able to access cash and/or invest in another longest maturity CD, and earn a higher rate of interest. This plan also works well to plan for future interest rates hikes. If you are forced to access (sell CD's) ALL the $$$ at any time, you will only lose accrued interest, none of the principal. All FDIC guaranteed. If non-taxable is the highest priority, \"\"invest\"\" in a tax-free money market fund....see Vanguard Funds. You will not have FDIC guarantee.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f35493317b0fa9767a0827ede4a4505", "text": "I appreciate it. I didn't operate under selling the asset year five but other than that I followed this example. I appreciate the help. These assignments are just poorly laid out. Financial management also plays on different calculation interactions so it is difficult for me to easily identify the intent at times. Thanks again.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9261b5cc8faec072e234aace913f48c3", "text": "@BlackJack does a good answer of addressing the gains and when you are taxed on them and at what kind of rate. Money held in a brokerage account will usually be in a money-market fund, so you would own taxes on the interest it earned. There is one important consideration that must be understood for capitol Losses. This is called the Wash Sale Rule. This rule comes into affect if you sell a stock at a LOSS, and buy shares of the same stock within 30 days (before or after) the sale. A common tactic used to minimize taxes paid is to 'capture losses' when they occur, since these can be used to offset gains and lower your taxes. This is normally done by selling a stock in which you have a LOSS, and then either buying another similar stock, or waiting and buying back the stock you sold. However, if you are intending to buy back the same stock, you must not 'trigger' the Wash Sale Rule or you are forbidden to take the loss. Examples. Lets presume you own 1000 shares of a stock and it's trading 25% below where you bought it, and you want to capture the loss to use on your taxes. This can be a very important consideration if trading index ETF's if you have a loss in something like a S&P500 ETF, you would likely incur a wash sale if you sold it and bought a different S&P500 ETF from another company since they are effectively the same thing. OTOH, if you sold an S&P500 ETF and bought something like a 'viper''total stock market' ETF it should be different enough to not trigger the wash sale rule. If you are trying to minimize the taxes you pay on stocks, there are basically two rules to follow. 1) When a gain is involved, hold things at least a year before selling, if at all possible. 2) Capture losses when they occur and use to offset gains, but be sure not to trigger the wash sale rule when doing so.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
b695ffa51ce4d82e85af785e546e62ee
Reconciling transactions reimbursing myself for expenses as self-employed (UK)
[ { "docid": "149e6975ec0ef8dc8574c0e317133818", "text": "\"For anyone that's curious, I had a number of chats with Quickbooks who recommended I import only the relevant business transactions from my personal account & personal credit card in order to lower the tax liability. This way money \"\"paid\"\" from the business account to myself rightly shows up as a transfer and not as income. This means when generating a tax report, it calculates the correct rate of tax to be paid based on income minus allowable expenses, regardless which account they came from.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f6e1bec4500da2d024b84b66bd887863", "text": "Any money that ScottMcGready gives to the company is a personal loan that must be repaid by the company at some point without tax consequences. Any money that the company gives to ScottMcGready is either salary (Scott pays income tax, company counts this as cost), or a dividend (Scott pays dividend tax), or a loan (Scott must repay the loan).", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "d12eafeff696a9084ff5c95ad615c099", "text": "Given your clarifying points, it sounds like you are running both businesses as one combined business. As such, you should be able to get just a single HST number and use that. However, let me please urge you to contact a professional accountant and possibly a lawyer, as it is very unusual to be performing these services without a business license, and you may be exposing yourself to civil penalties and placing your personal assets (e.g. your house) at risk. Additionally, it may be beneficial for you to run these as businesses as you can likely write off (more of) your expenses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd1d479b3ef0591db81ed22afc57b378", "text": "\"I'm not personally familiar with this, but I had a look at the Companies House guidance. Unfortunately, it seems you've done things in the wrong order. You should have first got the funds out, distributed them to yourself as a dividend or salary, and then closed the account, and then wound up the company. Legally speaking, the remaining funds now belong to the government (\"\"bona vacantia\"\"). It's possible you could apply to have the company restored, but I think that might be difficult; I don't think the administrative restoration procedure applies in your situation. Given the amount involved, I'd suggest just forgetting about it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a36ebec5f995e73425f1d8eab546d735", "text": "Only if your work on the side is making you at least £60,000 profit a year. The overheads are just not worth it if you make less. Working as a sole trader, you can still claim for expenses incurred in the course of your business. You can also claim a percentage of your computer costs, even though you may use the computer for gaming. This is not unreasonable as the computer is necessary for your work. The Inland Revenue accept the fact that some assets are part work-related. In your case, as a web and mobile phone developer, I expect the percentage to be at least half, if not a lot more. If you need to travel in the course of your work you can claim a percentage for your car. You can include other small expenses such as telephone, stationery, electricity etc but don't go overboard. The important point to remember is that you must be able to defend the expenses claimed as work-related, so long as you can do this there is no problem. Remember to keep good records of all your expenses. This is on-going throughout the year and is much more work than filling out your tax return. The software on the IR self-assessment site is excellent, so it's conceivable that you may not need an accountant if you are prepared to do your own tax return. However, if you feel unsure employ an accountant initially and take it from there.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ea83557af9a5d48e3d8b1794e9161bd", "text": "If this is a business expense - then this is what is called reimbursement. Reimbursement is usually not considered as income since it is money paid back to you for an expense you covered for your employer with your after-tax money. However, for reimbursement to be considered properly executed, from income tax stand point, there are some requirements. I'm not familiar with the UK income tax law specifics, but I reason the requirements would not differ much from places I'm familiar with: before an expense is reimbursed to you, you should usually do this: Show that the expense is a valid business expense for the employer benefit and by the employer's request. Submit the receipt for reimbursement and follow the employer's procedure on its approval. When income tax agent looks at your data, he actually will ask about the £1500 tab. You and you'll employer will have to do some explaining about the business activity that caused it. If the revenue agent is not satisfied, the £750 that is paid to you will be declared as your income. If the required procedures for proper reimbursement were not followed - the £750 may be declared as your income regardless of the business need. Have your employer verify it with his tax accountant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "848ab8b6c4f59f784f99de5bb5c720c8", "text": "Unless you're running a self-employed business with a significant turnover (more than £150k), you are entitled to use cash basis accounting for your tax return, which means you would put the date of transactions as the payment date rather than the billing date or the date a debt is incurred. For payments which have a lag, e.g. a cheque that needs to be paid in or a bank transfer that takes a few days, you might also need to choose between multiple payment dates, e.g. when you initiated the payment or when it took effect. You can pick one as long as you're consistent: You can choose how you record when money is received or paid (eg the date the money enters your account or the date a cheque is written) but you must use the same method each tax year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f705f1eb2aeeb97dadbb0ee795a4f29", "text": "No, as a director normally you can't. As a director of a Limited company, all those payments should be accounted for as directors' remuneration and have been subject to PAYE and NIC, even if you are self-employed. Currently there is no legislation which prevents a director from receiving self-employment income from a company in which he is a director, however the default position of HMRC's is that all the payments derived from the directorship are subject to PAYE. In other words, it's possible only invoice from an unconnected business or in a consultancy role that's not directly related to the trade of business. But it really depends on the circumstances and the contracts in place. Sources: Monsoon at AAT forum, David Griffiths at UKBF, Paula Sparrow and Abutalib at AW More sources: If a person does other work that’s not related to being a director, they may have an employment contract and get employment rights. Source: Employment status as director at Gov.uk In principle, it is possible for an employee or office holder to tender for work with their employer outside their normal duties, in circumstances where that individual will not be providing service as an employee or office holder but as a self-employed contractor. Where there is any doubt about whether service is provided constitutes employment or self-employment, see the Employment Status Manual (ESM). Source: Section 62 ITEPA 2003 at HMRC", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2a66654d7a42bfb250a552ea508b3c3f", "text": "You should not open a company unless and until you want to continue operating your company for the longer term. If it is only for a year so so, refrain from opening a company. I am an IT contractor and operate through a limited company. Believe me it isn't that difficult to operate through a limited company. If you are afraid of doing your books, get an accountant and he will do it for you. Should not cost you more than a £1000 - 1500 or so. Regarding what you can claim as an expense, it depends on how you can confirm that the expenses you incurred are for the company. Your accountant can help you out on that. If you claim false expenses and are caught, you have to forgo a lot to the HMRC. Google is the best option, there are loads of sites which can help you on that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "91b639f038d29486bfe83e57212810c9", "text": "In the UK is perfectly acceptable to use your personal bank account as a business account if your a sole trader, although it can be messy. Just record and keep all relevant transaction invoices etc documents for self assessment time. At self assessment time they will tell you the amount of tax you need to pay when you fill out the forms. Not sure how it is Canada. If you get bigger get an accountant.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65d356f1ceb92551df5df086488317a0", "text": "Here are the general guidelines on what you should report and pay - but the overall rule is that if it's not a business-related cost then you can't claim it. In your example, a client meeting may warrant a claim for 'entertaining clients' which could be claimed as a business cost - but buying yourself a coffee to get out of the house isn't a business cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a00d5959b32ca0bc12b319ae14ed2da", "text": "IRS pub 521 has all the information you need. Expenses reimbursed. If you are reimbursed for your expenses and you use the cash method of accounting, you can deduct your expenses either in the year you paid them or in the year you received the reimbursement. If you use the cash method of accounting, you can choose to deduct the expenses in the year you are reimbursed even though you paid the expenses in a different year. See Choosing when to deduct, next. If you deduct your expenses and you receive the reimbursement in a later year, you must include the reimbursement in your income on Form 1040, line 21 This is not unusual. Anybody who moves near the end of the year can have this problem. The 39 week time test also can be an issue that span over 2 tax years. I would take the deduction for the expenses as soon a I could, and then count the income in the later year if they pay me back. IF they do so before April 15th, then I would put them on the same tax form to make things easier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7384ba26029dc697a612316e7d27c1e7", "text": "You are either VAT registered or you are not VAT registered. If you are not VAT registered, then you are not allowed to charge customers VAT, and you cannot reclaim VAT that you are paying. You are however allowed to deduct the cost of goods including VAT from your expenses. So if you buy a computer for £1000 + £200 VAT, and you can deduct the computer as an expense to reduce your profits that you pay income tax for, then the expense is £1,200 and not just £1,000. If you are VAT registered, then you MUST charge every customer 20% VAT. Business customers don't mind at all, but private customers will be happier if you don't charge VAT because your bills will be a lot lower. You take all the VAT that you received, then subtract all the VAT that you paid for business expenses and that you have invoices for, and send the remainder to HMRC four times a year. (The reason that businesses don't mind paying VAT is because they can in turn deduct the VAT they pay you from the VAT that they received and for every pound they give you, they give one pound less to HMRC). Note that when you have expenses that are deductible from your profits, you can now only deduct the cost excluding VAT. On the other hand, the VAT you receive doesn't count as income and doesn't lead to profits that you need to pay income tax for. It's your decision whether you want to be VAT registered or not, unless your revenue exceeds some limit (somewhere between £70,000 and £80,000 per year) where you must register for VAT.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ca75b97e085b17ef6c1513cfadd48375", "text": "The Government self-assessment website states you can ask HMRC to reduce your payments on account if your business profits or other income goes down, and you know your tax bill is going to be lower than last year. There are two ways to do this:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3cd89c0d64142d65db6089237dac981", "text": "How do I account for this in the bookkeeping? Here is an example below: This is how you would accurately depict contributions made by an owner for a business. If you would want to remove money from your company, or pay yourself back, this would be called withdrawals. It would be the inverse of the first journal entry with cash on the credit side and withdrawals on the debited side (as it is an expense). You and your business are not the same thing. You are two different entities. This is why you are taxed as two different entities. When you (the owner) make contributions, it is considered to be the cash of the business. From here you will make these expenses against the business and not yourself. Good luck,", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e48693bde300c48d90869879df069e1", "text": "\"I don't think it really matters, my understanding is that as a sole trader there is no distinction between your personal and business tax affairs. The distinction between your personal and business account is mainly for your own personal benefit to make it easier to differentiate between \"\"wages\"\" and retained earnings. If you want to maintain this distinction with regard to tax then you need to somehow differentiate between tax paid on your \"\"wage\"\" and tax paid on retained earnings. You could then either make two payments, or pay from either and transfer the difference from the other. Either way, it's just a matter of perspective rather than something with a physical difference.\"", "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": "" } ]
fiqa
45d01c430e6f2c78c84b9598c8fedb87
Economics: negative consumer sentiment following failure to upsell
[ { "docid": "154cb6245aee325ab80547c1a4c2849a", "text": "There are several different participants in the transaction, and you may not be aware of all the issues: In some business (fast food) they are required to ask if you want to super size, they are expected to do this at every transaction, but aren't paid more if you buy more. The employee can also decide that too much pressure to up-sell may push you to purchase the item online. That will cost them a commission, the store location a sale, and maybe drive you to a different company. It is also possible they don't have the training to be able to explain the difference between the items.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "4414f0a0fc68c5b95cb31cd937b5e0d0", "text": "\"This actually works for some products, e.g. people are OK with paying a premium for \"\"fair trade\"\". There are also \"\"buy one give one\"\" programmes where people pay an extra to feel good about their purchase. It works if you have clear marketing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa198fe372bf5e515ee638848090d10e", "text": "Yes it can, assuming that the margins on what you sell can actually support paying for the support staff required to do this properly. If you already sell cheap crap, having good support is pointless. If you're selling quality stuff that people enjoy, then hell yes you need good support.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d383abc1634ecf42dcf5300f89e058e5", "text": "Not surprised. This is on the back of several news stories of UK Businesses' complaints about the company. The now infamous stories of how a business was overwhelmed by customers, how the deal was poorly structured, and the most damage revelation that there is rarely an increase in business post-deal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8c3ee87ffe4f71b761fa889e40ed282c", "text": "I think that kind of separates Amazon as a product though (at least during its growth, obviously many companies are trying to compete now). Even though it's still retail, I don't need to spend time, gas, etc to go to the store, and the upsell is worth it. I think a better analogy here is Lyft vs public transit. I can take the bus, it gets me home, but $4 gets me a lyft line there and the convenience is worth the price difference.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e941cb541e58965fe42c58d6e05ec09e", "text": "\"That's a pretty good question for a six-year-old! In addition to the good answers which point out that expectations are priced in, let's deny the premises of the question: Sales do not increase the value of a company; a company could be, for example, losing money on every sale. Share prices are (at least in theory) correlated with profits. So let's suppose that company X is unprofitable 320 days a year and is relying upon sales in late November and December to be in the black for the year. (Hence \"\"black Friday\"\".) Carefully examine the supposition of this scenario: we have a company that is so unprofitable that it must gamble everything on successfully convincing bargain hunting consumers in a weak economy to buy stuff they don't actually need from them and not a competitor. Why would this inspire investor confidence? There are plenty of companies that fail to meet their sales targets at Christmas, for plenty of reasons.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5d94d2180091572ed176a9aa4f77b59", "text": "i dont think this is cynical at all, Announce you won't do aomething cheap and easy, cause 3 day outrage, reverse course.. Customer feels like their voice will always be heard and its still cheap and easy. Pacifism 101", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a912e43b1aa212bfcbbbe9a218286758", "text": "Fighting scammers to the point that you drive away a significant volume of customers is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Treating customers like they're acting in good faith and fighting scammers on the back end is the right way to do it. Ebay and Amazon need to step up those back end efforts, though.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba430ee51c258438610f3de2e81d74c5", "text": "There are a lot of outside considerations for why the grocery would be failing. What's her location relative to housing? Big chain stores? Small business competition? Location can make or break a brick and mortar business. (Do you mind pming a link to the site? There could be ways of increasing online sales.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c39f1bdb2a4800bdcd26ebbcf798d1e", "text": "Chiming in with other answers that incriminate market segmentation attempts, I would like to offer this Seth Godin video where (among other things) he speaks about breakage, the art of making coupon redemption so difficult that most people get it wrong and do not redeem them. Oh, and when comparing/deciding which/whether to buy, I always use the up-front price. Don't want to encourage the wrong behavior.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9a25ae63179d9b5a919d19144d7fceb1", "text": "My recent Sears experience was exactly that: depressing. I had an aging Willy Loman-esque sales clerk who begged us to give him good feedback on the survey or he'd get written up. The desperation made me really uncomfortable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d548dfab650da351f25dd51212badb2e", "text": "Sounds like 'up-selling'. You can harden yourself into being a 'tough sell' but it takes time and a lot of shopping. The quickest way to put up a defense is to never ever make a purchase over $100 without 'sleeping on it'. Just walk away, tell them you'll think it over, and go do some more research. Don't go back into a dealership or store that has hit you with guilt or pressure or a crazy price or whatever. Find a no-haggle or no-frills source, or even a source to buy a used version of the item you want.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e31e7d60e9441a2190b1cd555f49a977", "text": "No. Empirically no. The issue at hand has little to do with market confidence. This loss of confidence is the effect of the problem. It's cause is the result of a wholly inadequate fiscal transfer mechanism that is incapable of addressing demand shocks. While there are relevant political and ideological parameters worthy of analysis, they render themselves moot because of the structural constraints of monetary union. My two cents.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3dd91d6bdcbb96ba3d298a9e1793054", "text": "No. Supply takes 5yrs to come on line from planting to harvesting. The issue on the supply side has been twofold: 1) vanilla bean prices have been falling for some time so many farmers switched to other crops, 2) 50%+ of all vanilla bean is grown in Madasgar, which experienced a typhoon, which damaged a bunch of the existing crop. On the demand side, people are switching from artificial flavoring to more natural ingredients, which actually taste much better too. So, there's a significant demand/supply imbalance which will utilitmately correct but it could take a long time to do so. My problem is figuring out a viable shorting mechanism as the commodity is not publicly traded and the timeframe is long", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7acc0cc7b924cbf49ca9a80edd4ec788", "text": "The satisfaction from gains packs less of an emotional impact than the fear of loss. It's very difficult for many people to overcome this fear, so when prices begin to fall, many investors sell to minimize their potential loss. This causes a further drop, which can lead to more selling as other investors reach their emotional threshold for loss. This emotion-based selling keeps the market inefficient in the short term. If there aren't enough value investors waiting to scoop up the stock at the new discount, it can stay undervalued for a long time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d1ae446b6658b9fd7ddafba5ac736a69", "text": "In and of itself it wasn't. But could the ill will it left with the general investing public make people more wary of future IPOs and thus, lower their potential starting points? Thereby leading to a drought of IPOs as companies don't see themselves getting as much.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
f175b565719d451e10271e532a540f80
What options exist to make money in the US on a work-restricted visa?
[ { "docid": "6e74fea104e655bf02e315036375f80b", "text": "\"Income generated from online sales is not considered \"\"passive income\"\", so you need to be authorized to work in the U.S. Those without work authorization can acquire passive income (through investments, lending, competition/contest earnings, etc.) In order to sell products on eBay (the description you've given leads me to believe that this is operated as a business), you need to be authorized to work in the U.S., and register a business. See:\"", "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": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "cd457dc2775f548272da666b546bbfaf", "text": "Unless you started a bank or other kind of a financial institution (brokerage, merchant processor, etc etc), the page you linked to is irrelevant. That said, there's enough in the US tax code for you to reconsider your decision of not living in the US, or at least of being a shareholder of a foreign company. Your compliance costs are going to go through the roof. If you haven't broken any US tax laws yet (which is very unlikely), you may renounce your citizenship and save yourself a lot of money and trouble. But in the more likely case of you already being a criminal with regards the US tax law, you should probably get a proper tax advice from a US-licensed CPA/EA who's also proficient in the Japanese-American tax treaty and expats' compliance issues resolution.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d9cb6f639cc02d9fa95f1f7e8dd31186", "text": "Probably the biggest tax-deferment available to US workers is through employee-sponsored investment plans like the 401k. If you meet the income limits, you could also use a Traditional IRA if you do not have a 401k at work. But keep in mind that you are really just deferring taxes here. The US Government will eventually get their due. :) One way which you may find interesting is by using 529 plans, or other college investment plans, to save for your child's (or your) college expenses. Generally, contributions up to a certain amount are deductible on your state taxes, and are exempt from Federal and State taxes when used for qualifying education expenses. The state deduction can lower your taxes and help you save for college for your children, if that is a desire of yours.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6335dc2c13c1699721868158f6084e78", "text": "\"Yes you can, but to do so successfully, you need lots of money. You also need to be able to meet the criteria for being classified as a \"\"professional trader\"\" by the IRS. (If not, you'll be buried in paperwork.) The fact that you're asking about it here probably means that you do not have enough money to succeed at HFT.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e221b3f895dcbb6a21d65bc301badaf", "text": "\"Since you're also looking for alternative means of funding, have you considered doing part-time work -- during the holidays or on some of the weekends? With this kind of financing you have to watch out that the work does not interfere with your study. On the other hand it can be valuable work experience that can come in handy later in your life, such as when applying for your first \"\"real\"\" job. The kind of work you can do will depend a lot on the subject you are studying and what qualifications you have. For example, if you are studying computer science, there are a lot of freelance opportunities in programming. One of these could lead right to your first job after university. The two broad types of work you can do are: For freelance: Try searching for \"\"[subject] student freelance\"\" and look at sites like oDesk. Read up on tax concerns, research how to price your time, and start doing! For employment: Browse the job boards at your university. Contact businesses to ask for part-time opportunities. Hope this helps to open one of the alternative paths here. If you go down this road, remember to keep your priorities in mind. Especially the freelance work can easily interfere with your study and delay you unnecessarily. Good luck!\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ec7a96693ca65aa885de59ddd1eb7c0e", "text": "\"There are two parts to the hack you describe. One is moving to a high-cost, high-pay country to work, and the other is moving to a low-cost, low-pay country to retire. As Dilip mentioned in a comment, the first part is not so easy in many cases. You can't just take a plane to the USA and start making big bucks immediately. In the first place, it's illegal to work without special visa permissions. Even if you manage to secure that permission (or take the risk of trying to work illegally), there's no guarantee you'll get a job, let alone a high-paying one. The same is true in most other high-paying countries. As for the second part, that takes considerable willpower as well. After spending X years getting used to a country, investing time and money, you must then have the resolve to uproot your life a second time and move to another country. For the most part, countries are expensive for a reason. Even if you in principle reject the cost-benefit tradeoffs of a particular country, it can be difficult to give up some of those benefits when the time comes (e.g., trains running on time, reliable electricity, donut shops, or whatever). You might \"\"get soft\"\" or become co-opted by the rich-country rat race and find it difficult to extricate yourself. All of these problems are compounded if, as in many cases, you happened to start a family while in the expensive country. At the least, moving would require uprooting not just you but your family. Also, quality of education is often one of the main reasons people immigrate permanently to expensive countries. Even a person who personally would prefer to retire to a cheaper country may be unwilling to transplant their children into that country's education system. (Of course, they could wait until the children are self-supporting, but that makes the wait longer, and may result in them living far away from their children, which they may not want.) As JoeTaxpayer notes, the same reasons may work on smaller levels, even within a country. In theory it's perfectly possible to power through a brief, lucrative career in Silicon Valley and then retire to Idaho, but it doesn't seem to happen as often as the plain numbers might suggest. A simple way to put it might be that the kind of person who would be happy living in a cheap environment often cannot or will not endure a lengthy \"\"tour of duty\"\" in an expensive environment. Either you like the expensive environment and stay, or you leave, not as a planned lifehack, but because you realize you don't like it.\"", "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": "ef7a47a8fe5879cd9952b85f49221800", "text": "\"I am a female that works for a photo studio in berlin. I work \"\"part time\"\" (as in, I started at four hours per day and now I can work up to 8 if there is enough work). I make 8 euro per hour (not a lot but I don't speak fluent German and I scan photos), I have health insurance, I have sick and vacation time (24 days). I am married to a German with a full time job so, of course, I have it better. However, if we didn't make enough money you can go and apply to get help from the government. My husband said they would give him at least 300euro per month. Trick is that since I am a US citizen and looking for a permanent visa in three years they check to make sure you haven't gotten any government aid. They don't want to support more people that can't or don't want to work. That being said my mother-in-law cannot work due to medical reasons and she lives very comfortably in a good apartment. Our last apartment was a studio/one room apartment and we paid 230 euro per month. Even making the money I do without my husband I could afford the basics. Even now we pay 57 euro for electricity. About 20 euro a month for our phones. 20 euro a month for internet. It is way less expensive than the USA. My mom pays about $90 per month (my aunt sometimes has $1,000 electricity bills). Water is another $30. Cellphone another $60, cable and internet another $120. I would say that living in the USA is far more expensive. Edit: to put it very simply. I used to make on my own in the USA about what my husband and I both make, combined, in Germany. In the USA I could barely make ends meet. I lived with my mom and sister. Paid as little rent as I could, barely had enough for food. I had a good job! I was lucky to have health insurance but it was still really expensive to go to the doctor. Here, in berlin, we have a large apartment in a nice neighborhood. With paying rent and all of our must haves every month we have over 500 euro left. That is pretty good. In the USA I was lucky if I had $20 by the end of the pay period.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b01a421429388d4440dfa1ad69ed3c9", "text": "Your wife could open a non-registered margin trading account with a Canadian full-service or discount broker. An account at one of the top Canadian brokers should provide access to trade U.S.-listed options. I've traded both Canadian and U.S.-listed options with my own broker. On the application, you'd need to indicate an interest in trading options, and more specifically, what kind of option trades; e.g. long puts and calls only, covered writing, combination trades, etc. And yes, part of the application approval process (at least when I went through it) is to answer a few questions to prove that the applicant is aware of the types of risks with trading options. Be sure to do some research on the fees and currency/fx aspects before you choose a broker. If you plan to exercise any options purchased or expect to be assigned for any you write, be aware that those fees are often different from the headline cost-per-trade advertised by brokers. For instance, I pay in excess of $40 when a call option I write gets assigned, vs. ~$10 that I'd pay if I just plain sold the stock. One other thing to investigate is what kind of online option trading research and order entry tools are available; not every broker has the same set of features with respect to options — especially if it isn't a big part of their business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0152ba06545b89e5d1178360243f5d4b", "text": "\"If you live outside the US, then you probably need to deal with foreign tax credits, foreign income exclusions, FBAR forms (you probably have bank account balances enough for the 10K threshold) , various monsters the Congress enacted against you like form 8939 (if you have enough banking and investment accounts), form 3520 (if you have a IRA-like local pension), form 5471 (if you have a stake in a foreign business), form 8833 (if you have treaty claims) etc ect - that's just what I had the pleasure of coming across, there's more. TurboTax/H&R Block At Home/etc/etc are not for you. These programs are developed for a \"\"mainstream\"\" American citizen and resident who has nothing, or practically nothing, abroad. They may support the FBAR/FATCA forms (IIRC H&R Block has a problem with Fatca, didn't check if they fixed it for 2013. Heard reports that TurboTax support is not perfect as well), but nothing more than that. If you know the stuff well enough to fill the forms manually - go for it (I'm not sure they even provide all these forms in the software though). Now, specifically to your questions: Turbo tax doesn't seem to like the fact that my wife is a foreigner and doesn't have a social security number. It keeps bugging me to input a valid Ssn for her. I input all zeros for now. Not sure what to do. No, you cannot do that. You need to think whether you even want to include your wife in the return. Does she have income? Do you want to pay US taxes on her income? If she's not a US citizen/green card holder, why would you want that? Consider it again. If you decide to include here after all - you have to get an ITIN for her (instead of SSN). If you hire a professional to do your taxes, that professional will also guide you through the ITIN process. Turbo tax forces me to fill out a 29something form that establishes bonafide residency. Is this really necessary? Again in here it bugs me about wife's Ssn Form 2555 probably. Yes, it is, and yes, you have to have a ITIN for your wife if she's included. My previous state is California, and for my present state I input Foreign. When I get to the state tax portion turbo doesn't seem to realize that I have input foreign and it wants me to choose a valid state. However I think my first question is do i have to file a California tax now that I am not it's resident anymore? I do not have any assets in California. No house, no phone bill etc If you're not a resident in California, then why would you file? But you might be a partial resident, if you lived in CA part of the year. If so, you need to file 540NR for the part of the year you were a resident. If you have a better way to file tax based on this situation could you please share with me? As I said - hire a professional, preferably one that practices in your country of residence and knows the provisions of that country's tax treaty with the US. You can also hire a professional in the US, but get a good one, that specializes on expats.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "63a56308a95aeff53e47b12fe249d161", "text": "\"You may look into covered calls. In short, selling the option instead of buying it ... playing the house. One can do this on the \"\"buying side\"\" too, e.g. let's say you like company XYZ. If you sell the put, and it goes up, you make money. If XYZ goes down by expiration, you still made the money on the put, and now own the stock - the one you like, at a lower price. Now, you can immediately sell calls on XYZ. If it doesn't go up, you make money. If it does goes up, you get called out, and you make even more money (probably selling the call a little above current price, or where it was \"\"put\"\" to you at). The greatest risk is very large declines, and so one needs to do some research on the company to see if they are decent -- e.g. have good earnings, not over-valued P/E, etc. For larger declines, one has to sell the call further out. Note there are now stocks that have weekly options as well as monthly options. You just have to calculate the rate of return you will get, realizing that underneath the first put, you need enough money available should the stock be \"\"put\"\" to you. An additional, associated strategy, is starting by selling the put at a higher than current market limit price. Then, over a couple days, generally lowering the limit, if it isn't reached in the stock's fluctuation. I.e. if the stock drops in the next few days, you might sell the put on a dip. Same deal if the stock finally is \"\"put\"\" to you. Then you can start by selling the call at a higher limit price, gradually bringing it down if you aren't successful -- i.e. the stock doesn't reach it on an upswing. My friend is highly successful with this strategy. Good luck\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f424b6101ae3d715402a19f6895b7ae4", "text": "Well I am kind of looking for a way to make it little bit more official if I can ... :D I have no toruble for paying taxes to US and anything ... Just don't want to spend 4000$ on 2 year VISA for a model that will stay in NYC for 3 weeks ... Doesn't make sense ...", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6848e7ec4c1f2dd2f1436826fa588d0b", "text": "I'll start with the bottom line. Below the line I'll address the specific issues. Becoming a US tax resident is a very serious decision, that has significant consequences for any non-American with >$0 in assets. When it involves cross-border business interests, it becomes even more significant. Especially if Switzerland is involved. The US has driven at least one iconic Swiss financial institution out of business for sheltering US tax residents from the IRS/FinCEN. So in a nutshell, you need to learn and be afraid of the following abbreviations: and many more. The best thing for you would be to find a good US tax adviser (there are several large US tax firms in the UK handling the US expats there, go to one of those) and get a proper assessment of all your risks and get a proper advice. You can get burnt really hard if you don't prepare and plan properly. Now here's that bottom line. 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! That's actually not a trivial question. Depending on the ownership structure and your legal status within the company, all the company's bank accounts may be reportable on FBAR (see link above). You may also be required to file form 5471. 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!? All US forms are in English. If you're required to provide supporting documentation (during audit, or if the form instructions require it with filing) - you'll need to translate it, and have the translation certified. Depending on what you need, your accountant will guide you. 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. Q) Is this correct!? No. You will be liable to pay income tax. The rate of the tax depends on the kind of property and the period you held it for. It may be 15%, it may be 39%. Depends on a lot of factors. It may also be 0%, in some cases. I also understand that any tax paid (on selling) in Switzerland will be deducted from the 15%!? May be. May be not. What you're talking about is called Foreign Tax Credit. The rules for calculating the credit are not exactly trivial, and from my personal experience - you can most definitely end up being paying tax in both the US and Switzerland without the ability to utilize the credit in full. Again, talk to your tax adviser ahead of time to plan things in the most optimal way for you. 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!? Of course. If you need to present it (again, most likely only in case of audit), you'll have to have a translation. Translating stuff is not a problem, usually costs $5-$20 per page, depending on complexity. Unless a lot of money involved, I doubt you'll need to translate more than balance sheet/bank statement. I know this is a very unique set of questions, so if you can shed any light on the matter, it would be greatly appreciated. Not unique at all. You're not the first and not the last to emigrate to the US. However, you need to understand that the issue is very complex. Taxes are complex everywhere, but especially so in the US. I suggest you not do anything before talking to a US-licensed CPA/EA whose practice is to work with the EU/UK expats to the US or US expats to the UK/EU.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "706f67d0d5dc56796e24af80837f47ae", "text": "Here is the solution: any money made inside the United States will be taxed under US tax law. You want to do business here, open up a US headquarters that handles all the sales tracking and reporting. No tax dollars, no operations inside the US. The united states carries such bulk buying power that companies will be forced to abide by its rules.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9b349f6a566fb61b24d8bf171a8c021b", "text": "You should talk to a lawyer who's familiar with the matter. I'm not such a lawyer. For the best of my understanding, at least with regards to the US, the answer to all three of your questions is no. Legally, a US company cannot employ Iranian residents and transfer money to Iran. However, I know of Iranians working in the US. So if you manage to secure a H1b visa and move to the US - you can work and earn money here. What you do with it after you earned it - is your business.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "92f01bd42f07d82fc39253b3b4c301f8", "text": "If you are assigned a US Social Security number, you can apply for credit while you are here. Making small purchases and paying them off will help with your length of credit history, which is a part of FICO, but inactivity will eventually lead to those accounts being closed. Additionally, many revolving credit companies will charge you annual fees to keep your accounts open, and will require you to maintain a US address, and most want a residential address, not a mail-drop or PO Box. TL;DR: you can do it, but it will likely require an investment of both in time and money that won't make it worth it. Footnote: If you plan on opening US banking or investment accounts, there are regulations that make it difficult for foreign nationals to maintain accounts due to IRS categorization of US Taxpayers vs Foreign Nationals. Unless you have a lot to invest or deposit, most firms won't want to bother with Foreign taxpayer certification (see w8ben).", "title": "" } ]
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How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage?
[ { "docid": "8018eefd837fd80fcc3c6bd9a4cb2eb5", "text": "\"JoeTaxpayer's answer mentions using a third \"\"house\"\" account. In my comment on his answer, I mentioned that you could simply use a bookkeeping account to track this instead of the overhead of an extra real bank account. Here's the detail of what I think will work for you. If you use a tool like gnucash (probably also possible in quicken, or if you use paper tracking, etc), create an account called \"\"Shared Expenses\"\". Create two sub accounts under that called \"\"his\"\" and \"\"hers\"\". (I'm assuming you'll have your other accounts tracked in the software as well.) I haven't fully tested this approach, so you may have to tweak it a little bit to get exactly what you want. When she pays the rent, record two transactions: When you pay the electric bill, record two transactions: Then you can see at a glance whether the balances on \"\"his\"\" and \"\"hers\"\" match.\"", "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": "9a898839170eac251d76c0ad96338106", "text": "Being new does not allow me yet to vote on your question, but what a good question it is. We share our opinion in separating finances in our very well going mariage. Currently I have found a sort of okay solution in two websites. These are http://www.yunoo.nl and http://www.moneytrackin.com/. You can actually tag spendings with multiple tags. I don't like the idea that the data is on a remote server, but since I have not found a proper local software solution, I just naively trust their promise that your data is save. Then again our financial situation is not that special.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84624381b7624dde4f8ca75a69dde84c", "text": "Websites like neobudget dot com or mint dot com can help you see where your money is going, especially if you use mostly checks, debit cards, or credit cards for your purchases. They are less useful if you use cash often.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c22272852da2e6c84646ec8f569de306", "text": "I'd say its time to merge finances!", "title": "" }, { "docid": "76204033de2f58b69cede37525d3fd94", "text": "Call me old fashioned, but that sounds less like a marriage and more like a business partnership. Maybe there are business tools that would be useful.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "8ecad338e1109d173bd965ba1f489795", "text": "\"What I've found works best when working on my personal budget is to track my income and spending two different ways: bank accounts and budget categories. Here is what I mean: When I deposit my paycheck, I do two things with it: It goes into my checking account, so the balance of my checking account goes up by the amount of my paycheck. I also \"\"deposit\"\" the money from my checking account into my various budget category balances. This is separate from my bank account balances. Some of my paycheck money goes into my groceries category, some goes into clothing, some into car fuel, entertainment, mortgage, phone, etc. Some goes into longer range bills that only happen once or twice a year, such as car insurance, life insurance, property tax, etc. Some goes into savings goals of ours, such as car replacement, vacation, furniture, etc. Every dollar that we have in a bank account or in cash in our wallets is also accounted for in a budget category. If you add up the balances of our bank accounts and cash, and you add up the balances of our budget categories, they add up to the same number. When we make a purchase, this also gets accounted for twice: The appropriate bank account (or cash wallet) balance gets reduced by the purchase amount. The appropriate budget category gets reduced by the purchase amount. In this way, we don't really need to worry about having separate bank accounts for different purposes. We don't need to put our savings goal money in a separate bank account from our grocery money, if we don't want to. The budget category accounting keeps track of how much money is allocated to each purpose. Now, the budget category amounts are not spent yet; the money in them is still in our bank account, and we can move money around in the categories, if we change our mind on how to allocate them. For example, if we don't spend all of our gas money for the month, we can either keep that money in the gas category, or we can move it to a different category, such as the car replacement category or the vacation category. If the phone bill is more than we expect, we can move money around from a different category to cover it. Now, back to your question: We allocate some money from each paycheck into our furniture category. But the money is not really spent until we actually buy some furniture. When we do, the furniture category balance and bank account balance both go down by the amount of the purchase. All of this can be kept track of on the computer in a spreadsheet. However, it's not easy to keep track of so many categories and bank balances. An easier solution is custom budgeting software designed for this purpose. I use and recommend YNAB.\"", "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": "3230ced50890e9ff193c42bbecc20c96", "text": "This would be my suggestion: I would approach the problem thinking about the loss of monthly income you (as a couple) will be facing due to your wife's change to a part time job and divide that loss between the two of you. This means that if she goes from 2200 to 1100 monthly, you'd be losing 1100 per month. To share this loss, you could repay your wife your part of the loss (550) so both of you are 550 euro down. However, this 550 loss is a bigger burden for your wife than it is for you, so this amount could be adjusted to make up for this inequality. To make calculations simple and avoid developing a complicated model, you could give the 800 euro above your 3k to your wife for as long as she has to work part time.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3950f1ad4e77c82d99f9948bacb7260b", "text": "These earnings will likely have tax implications, depending on where in the world you are. So, your budget concerns not nearly as important as having an honest conversation about money with your husband. Better for him to be mad about the truth than to continue the lie, and potentially have this become a much larger legal, not just marital, problem.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4f7f94e3e875f0372c59f6f6d08ac30f", "text": "\"Before you are married, I recommend keeping your finances separate. However, once you are married, I recommend combining your finances completely. In my opinion, marriage works best when you work together as a team, a single unit. You no longer have \"\"his money\"\" and \"\"her money,\"\" or \"\"his income\"\" and \"\"her income.\"\" Nor is there \"\"his debt\"\" and \"\"her debt.\"\" There is only \"\"our money,\"\" \"\"our income,\"\" \"\"our debt,\"\" and \"\"our budget.\"\" Indeed, if you are the one with less debt, isn't it in your household's best interest to help eliminate your spouse's debt as fast as possible? If you are the one with more income/employment, how do you quantify the monetary value of the spouse who stays at home more and manages the household? You can't, and it is best not to try. Instead, pool together all income and expenses, and work together to meet common goals. To do this, open up a joint bank account and close your individual accounts. Meet on a regular basis to decide your household budget. If you do that, it doesn't matter who is responsible for the mechanics of paying the bills or balancing the budget. These tasks just get assigned to someone, just like any other household chore. Usually, one of you will be more financially minded than the other, and that person will take the lead in setting the budget, paying the bills, balancing the checkbook, etc. However, it is important that both people are aware of what is going on and have access to the financial information. In our house, I am the one who takes the lead on financial matters. I pay the bills (out of our joint accounts) and set the monthly budget using YNAB software. However, my wife has the ability to look at YNAB at any time to see the budget, and she can log into the bank website to see the transactions there as well. No secrets. To be clear, we each have a small amount of cash/fun money that we can spend without worrying about checking in with the spouse on every little thing. But this is a small percentage of our budget, and we talk to each other before spending any significant amount of money.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ff94a74f6bff825a00d09b2a42624887", "text": "\"Have her chip in for the regular expenses, utilities, food, etc., and a bit for \"\"rent.\"\" Then tell her to be sure to deposit to her retirement account, preferably a matched 401(k). It's admirable to want her to build 'equity' but it's pretty convoluted. You can't actually give her ownership, and in the event you break up (I know you won't, but this is to help other readers) you'll have to pay her back a lump sum when she moves out. That might not be so easy.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d7b6bb090df4748ab7fa0ddccdc38a7", "text": "For example: Dinner together: DR Food 50 DR Spouse 50 CR Credit Card 100", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f9ba9aa9426ce230ecdcf7d11dfdf82", "text": "If it makes your finances easier, why not? My wife and I had his/hers/our since before we were married. I also have an account to handle transactions for my rental property, and one extra for PayPal use. I was paranoid to give out a checking account number with authorization for a third party to debit it, so that account has a couple hundred dollars, maximum. All this is just to explain that your finances should be arranged to simplify your life and make you comfortable.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "590852108b061575c8815783e9c46e36", "text": "\"My suggestion would be that you're looking at this the wrong way, though for good reasons. Once you are a family, you should - and, in most cases I've seen, will - think of things differently than you do now. Right now, your post above is written from a selfish perspective. Not to be insulting, and not implying selfish is a bad thing - I don't mean it negatively. But it is how you're defining this problem: from a self-interested, selfish point of view. \"\"Fair\"\" and \"\"unfair\"\" only have meaning from this point of view; something can only be unfair to you if you come from a self-centered viewpoint. Try to think of this from a family-centric viewpoint, and from your significant other's point of view. You're absolutely right to want both of you to be independent financially as far as is possible; but think about what that means from all three points of view (your family's, yours, and hers)? Exactly what it means will depend on the two of you separately and together, but I would encourage you to start with a few basics that make it likely you'll find a common ground: First of all, ensure your significant other has a retirement account of her own that is funded as well as yours is. This will both make life easier if you split up, and give her a safety net if something happens to you than if you have all of the retirement savings. I don't know how your country manages pensions or retirement accounts, but figure out how to get her into something that is as close to equal to yours as possible. Make sure both of you have similar quality credit histories. You should both have credit cards in your own names (or be true joint owners of the accounts, not just authorized users, where that is possible), and both be on the mortgage/etc. when possible. This is a common issue for women whose spouse dies young and who have no credit history. (Thanks @KateGregory for reminding me on this one) Beyond that, work out how much your budget allows for in spending money for the two of you, and split that equally. This spending money (i.e., \"\"fun money\"\" or money you can do whatever you like with) is what is fundamentally important in terms of financial independence: if you control most of the extra money, then you're the one who ultimately has control over much (vacations, eating out, etc.) and things will be strained. This money should be equal - whether it is literally apportioned directly (each of you has 200 a month in an account) or simply budgeted for with a common account is up to you, whatever works best for your personal habits; separate accounts works well for many here to keep things honest. When that money is accounted for, whatever it is, split the rest of the bills up so that she pays some of them from her income. If she wants to be independent, some of that is being in the habit of paying bills on time. One of you paying all of the bills is not optimal since it means the other will not build good habits. For example, my wife pays the warehouse club credit card and the cell phone bill, while I pay the gas/electric utilities. Whatever doesn't go to spending money and doesn't go to the bills she's personally responsible for or you're responsible for (from your paycheck) should go to a joint account. That joint account should pay the larger bills - mortgage/rent, in particular - and common household expenses, and both of you should have visibility on it. For example, our mortgage, day-care costs, major credit card (which includes most of our groceries and other household expenses) come from that joint account. This kind of system, where you each have equal money to spend and each have some household responsibilities, seems the most reasonable to me: it incurs the least friction over money, assuming everyone sticks to their budgeted amounts, and prevents one party from being able to hold power over another. It's a system that seems likely to be best for the family as a unit. It's not \"\"fair\"\" from a self-centered point of view, but is quite fair from a family-centered point of view, and that is the right point of view when you are a family, in my opinion. I'll emphasize here also that it is important that no one party hold the power, and this is set up to avoid that, but it's also important that you not use your earning power as a major arguing point in this system. You're not \"\"funding her lifestyle\"\" or anything like that: you're supporting your family, just as she is. If she were earning more than you, would you cut your hours and stay at home? Trick question, as it happens; regardless of your answer to that question, you're still at the same point: both of you are doing the thing you're best suited for (or, the thing you prefer). You're both supporting the family, just in different ways, and suggesting that your contribution is more valuable than hers is a great way to head down the road to divorce: it's also just plain incorrect. My wife and I are in almost the identical situation - 2 kids, she works part time in the biological sciences while spending plenty of time with the kids, I'm a programmer outearning her significantly - and I can tell you that I'd more than happily switch roles if she were the bread earner, and would feel just as satisfied if not more doing so. And, I can imagine myself in that position, so I can also imagine how I'd feel in that position as far as how I value my contribution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42316c01d24d3b14292c14cd4bcae9c8", "text": "\"My answer will suck but it comes from someone who has been married: You can't control another person or convince them to do something. What you can do is identify what they value and show how saving money increases their opportunities in what they value, but understand that the person could see what you're saying as invalid too. If you're single and reading this, this is why you verify that the person has similar values to you. Think of it like someone who wants good gas mileage: you show them a car that gets 60MPG, and immediately they say, \"\"Well, but that's not a cool car.\"\" So their value isn't the miles per gallon, and you may find the same is true with your spouse. India is paying more interest than the US and Europe in their savings accounts (I believe the benchmark interest rate is 7.5%), so - assuming your spouse values more money - showing him how to use money in savings to passively earn money might be a technique that works. But it may mean nothing to him because it's (1) not his actual value or (2) isn't enough to matter in his mind. In other words, this is all sales and whatever you do (and this is regardless of gender), don't manipulate, as in the long run that tends to build resentment. If there is a specific problem that you know he sees as a major issue and saving money can help, I'd recommend showing how savings would help with that problem. People generally like solutions to problems; just remember, what you think he sees as a problem may not be what he sees as a problem. This is why I chuckle when I see single people give married people advice; you can't just \"\"convince the person enough\"\" because you are not that person; we have to speak their language and we should be careful to avoid creating resentment. The part that sucks (or doesn't depending on who you ask) is that if we can't convince others to do it, we should do it ourselves. Either (1) earn money independently yourself when applicable (realizing that you are about to have a child and may be limited), or (2) save the money that you and your spouse have agreed that you're allotted, if this applies to your situation (a few spouses divide income even when one is an earner).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "69f20bd44d5ef7300d1080dd2bf9ccce", "text": "\"There are different approaches, but here is what we do and what I recommend. Now that you are officially a married couple, open a joint bank account, and eliminate your individual accounts. There are several reasons for this. Having a joint account promotes unity and teamwork. When you only have a joint account, you do not have \"\"your income\"\" and \"\"her income,\"\" or \"\"your expenses\"\" and \"\"her expenses.\"\" You work together in everything. You discuss your goals and set your household budget together. If one of you makes more money than the other, that person is no longer \"\"worth more,\"\" because your incomes are pooled together. If one person with a higher income has more in their account than the other person does, it can lead to envy, which you do not want in your marriage. Having a joint account is more efficient and makes more sense. With separate accounts, who pays the rent/mortgage? Who pays the utilities, or buys the food? If you have separate accounts, it takes a lot of work to worry about what is \"\"fair\"\" when deciding how to divide up the expenses. With a single household budget and a joint account, you decide together what the household expenses are, and they get paid from one account. If one of you has debt, you both have debt. You work together to get it paid off and strengthen your financial situation in the process. Having a joint account forces you to discuss your finances together. Working toward common financial goals together is crucial in a strong marriage, but if you maintain your separate accounts, you might be tempted to put off these discussions until you are forced to by life circumstances. It is better to work together from the start, and joining your finances facilitates that. You are intending your marriage to last. Live your financial life like you believe that you are a team for life. If you live in a community property state, separate accounts are a fiction anyway; everything is treated as if it was pooled together in the event of a divorce. I understand that if you are used to having your own money, it can be difficult to give up that sole control over your income, but in my opinion, it is worth it. You will certainly hear of examples from couples who maintain separate accounts and make it work. In my humble opinion, combining your finances completely is easier to do right.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3ac3834ecfdcdd0f6bcca73ae4e4620", "text": "First: great job on getting it together. This is good for your family in any respect I can think of. This is a life long process and skill, but it will pay off for you and yours if you work on it. Your problem is that you don't seem to know where you money goes. You can't decide how whacky your expenses are until you know what they are. Looking at just your committed expenses and ignore the other stuff might be the problem here. You state that you feel you live modestly, but you need to be able to measure it completely to decide. I would suggest an online tool like mint.com (if you can get it in your country) because it will go back for 90 days and get transactions for you. If you primarily work in cash, this isn't helpful, but based on your credit card debt I am hoping not. (Although, a cash lifestyle would be good if you tend to overspend.) Take the time and sort your transactions into categories. Don't setup a budget, just sort them out. I like to limit the number of categories for clarity sake, especially to start. Don't get too crazy, and don't get too detailed at first. If you buy a magazine at the grocery store, just call it groceries. Once you know what you spend, then you can setup a budget for the categories. If somethings are important, create new categories. If one category is a problem, then break it down and find the specific issue. The key is that you budget not be more than you earn but also representative of what you spend. Follow up with mint every other day or every weekend so the categorization is a quick and easy process. Put it on your iPhone and do it at every lunch break. Share the information with your spouse and talk about it often.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ee53d9a7fe08b101f6f574f62e7ee25e", "text": "\"I think the best way to handle her fears is to explain the income and expenses of the household overall, then explain the savings and investment strategies, retirement projections, and then finally explain a concrete number for allowable monthly or annual discretionary expenses (including charity, entertainment, vacations, etc.). You may have delicate relationship reasons for not doing this, but if you want a reasonable discussion, I would leave it this way. Please do not open with the question \"\"how much do you think we make\"\" or anything similar because that comes off as a trick or a quiz. It sounds very condescending and highlights how much more you know about finances than she does. It also highlights subconsciously how little mental control she has over the finances, which is likely to make her feel greater anxiety. You should emphasize how secure things are and explain why all the savings and investments you're using are conservatively likely to keep her financially secure. This sets the ground for her to be comfortable with the fact that she now has money, in contrast to perhaps a less financially secure personal history. After that, charitable expenses come out of the expense budget, same as vacations, recreation, etc. If it does not implicate financial security, then it's not dangerous to spend on charity. The alternate approach is to avoid the big financial talk and just propose a few small contributions this year. Then increase it every year incrementally. That may be easier to swallow once there's a psychological track record of donating without incident. Please go into the discussion remembering three things: But above all, please do not open up with a quiz. Have a simple discussion with her. Give her time to consider the expenses budget relative to the savings budget as a proportion of income. And then allow for the fact that she may place a strong premium on savings and a strong discount on charity.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cfb67b87411b8ab1a0a5d43f0907389", "text": "In my view you are going through quite a bit of logistics to achieve this. Best is drop this idea. If all of you are paying equally, then there is virtually no gain. A better pact is not to gift each other on wedding. We want to open a joint fixed deposit account in name of each one of us which should be locked-in till 2020 Yes it is possible to have Joint Account with multiple names. Ideally all should be present or a Power of Attorney can be created to include names of people who are not present. We want our money to be risk free and secured. Risk free and secured will mean Fixed Deposits.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "81b2ae9f0162027b20065683189591a2", "text": "Option three is our preferred method, and we never argue about money. First we did a budget to work out ALL monthly joint out-goings (mortgage, bills, grocery etc). Then we each agreed who would pay what into the joint or household account - at the moment, I earn more than my wife, so I pay more, but we sit down every three or four months, to see if it needs adjusting. This way, we each keep our own individual accounts private, but pay what is necessary into the household account. We also set up a joint savings account; often at the end of the month, we'll have a little extra left in the household acount, and we siphon that off into joint savings to cover future unexpected costs - looks like our tumble dryer is on its last spin cycle at the moment, for example, and the joint savings account will be able to cover the cost of replacement. it all takes a bit of administration - but, as I say, we've never had a cross word about money, so the system seems to work.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
dd22e723cf1cc27a63ee885cf96a7776
What tax year does my income get assigned to if my client sends the payment in December but I receive it in January?
[ { "docid": "9dd31869c4426125f4661274ce6acfe0", "text": "Confused? see your CPA", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "a4bd4532cbf311f482521dedb9c34ea4", "text": "\"As long as you paid 100% of your last year's tax liability (overall tax liability, the total tax to pay on your 1040) or 90% of the total tax liability this year, or your underpayment is no more than $1000, you won't be penalized as long as you pay the difference by April 15th. That's per the IRS. I don't know where the \"\"10% of my income\"\" came from, I'm not aware of any such rule.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "42491be125040c117b0ed28d837d1b74", "text": "Form 1099-misc reports PAYMENTS, not earnings. This does not imply the EARNINGS are not taxable in the year they were earned.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1b9bce9854b27eaf8e901277ae0536e3", "text": "If you're paying a foreign person directly - you submit form 1042 and you withhold the default (30%) amount unless the person gives you a W8 with a valid treaty claim and tax id. If so - you withhold based on the treaty rate. From the IRS: General Rule In general, a person that makes a payment of U.S. source income to a foreign person must withhold the proper amount of tax, report the payment on Form 1042-S and file a Form 1042 by March 15 of the year following the payment(s). I'd suggest to clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) who's familiar with this kind of issues, and not rely on free advice on the Internet or DIY. Specific cases require specific advice and while the general rule above holds in most cases - in some there are exceptions.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5408e30c2d6c43f2afb3f4f8abe26f3", "text": "Why would the IRS be coming after you if you reported the income? If you reported everything, then the IRS will use the 1099 to cross-check, see that everything is in order, be happy and done with it. The lady was supposed to give you the 1099 by the end of January, and she may be penalized by the IRS for being late, but as long as you/wifey reported all the income - you're fine. It was supposed to be reported on Schedule C or as miscellaneous income on line 21 (schedule C sounds more suitable as it seems that your wifey is in a cleaning business). But there's no difference in how you report whether you got 1099 or not, so if you reported - you should be fine.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7774c2bceeeac395e113b4bb31b43ee7", "text": "Many of the custodians (ie. Schwab) file for an extension on 1099s. They file for an extension as many of their accounts have positions with foreign income which creates tax reporting issues. If they did not file for extension they would have to send out 1099s at the end of January and then send out corrected forms. Obviously sending out one 1099 is cheaper and less confusing to all. Hope that helps,", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8eee794d1fa47d5da44a6d71f612dcd0", "text": "Well, consult with a CPA, but I guess you don't have to pay taxes on 2012 with a correct accounting system since this is the money you are going to completely earn within 2013 so you can record it as future earning which is called deferred revenue or advance payments or unearned revenue.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "de9f45b8acc39f4bc9c42744ee75b90b", "text": "I remember reading in an earlier version of Pub 590 (or possibly the Instructions for Form 8606) that timely contributions for Year X to an IRA are deemed to have been made on January 1 of Year X regardless of when they were actually made, but I don't seem to be able to find it now in current versions of Pubs 590a or 590b and so cannot include a citation of chapter and verse. Be that as it may, the calculations on on Form 8606 Part I effectively track basis on an annual basis rather than on a daily basis, and so the fact that the Traditional IRA has a zero balance (and basis 0 too) at some time during the year doesn't matter in the least. In detail (though you didn't ask for it) Note that the whole $6500 that you put in remains non-deductible in its entirety, but you owe taxes on only $93,900 of that $100K that you rolled over into a Roth IRA and not on the whole $100K as you were assuming would have been the case. So, in effect, of that $6500 nondeductible contribution to your Traditional IRA, you did really get to deduct $6100 from your taxable income for 2016, and make only a $400 nondeductible contribution, exactly equal to your basis in your Traditional IRA as per the Form 8606 calculations. I can only assume that the software package that you are using reproduces the above calculations exactly and does what the IRS says you must do on Form 8606 rather than what you get by tracking the basis on a daily basis. IRS regulations and instructions are not necessarily the same as what the tax law says; they are interpretations of the tax law based on what the IRS understands the tax law to say. People have challenged various specific IRS regulations and interpretations as being different from what the law says in Tax Court and been successful in some cases and failed in others. If you believe that tracking basis on a daily basis is what the law says (instead of just being reasonable and rational: reasonableness and rationality are not required either of Congress in the laws that they write or the IRS regulations that interpret the laws), you should take up the matter with the IRS or the Tax Court.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a00d5959b32ca0bc12b319ae14ed2da", "text": "IRS pub 521 has all the information you need. Expenses reimbursed. If you are reimbursed for your expenses and you use the cash method of accounting, you can deduct your expenses either in the year you paid them or in the year you received the reimbursement. If you use the cash method of accounting, you can choose to deduct the expenses in the year you are reimbursed even though you paid the expenses in a different year. See Choosing when to deduct, next. If you deduct your expenses and you receive the reimbursement in a later year, you must include the reimbursement in your income on Form 1040, line 21 This is not unusual. Anybody who moves near the end of the year can have this problem. The 39 week time test also can be an issue that span over 2 tax years. I would take the deduction for the expenses as soon a I could, and then count the income in the later year if they pay me back. IF they do so before April 15th, then I would put them on the same tax form to make things easier.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "653e490ace6c1b315324cea013d7d9ef", "text": "Not correct. First - when you say they don't tax the reimbursement, they are classifying it in a way that makes it taxable to you (just not withholding tax at that time). In effect, they are under-withholding, if these reimbursement are high enough, you'll have not just a tax bill, but penalties for not paying enough all year. My reimbursements do not produce any kind of pay stub, they are a direct deposit, and are not added to my income, not as they occur, nor at year end on W2. Have you asked them why they handle it this way? It's wrong, and it's costing you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "45315a7f2e7a30b391efa8918d80a94a", "text": "\"We will bill our clients periodically and will get paid monthly. Who are \"\"we\"\"? If you're not employed - you're not the one doing the work or billing the client. Would IRS care about this or this should be something written in the policy of our company. For example: \"\"Every two months profits get divided 50/50\"\" They won't. S-Corp is a pass-through entity. We plan to use Schedule K when filing taxes for 2015. I've never filled a schedule K before, will the profit distributions be reflected on this form? Yes, that is what it is for. We might need extra help in 2015, so we plan to hire an additional employee (who will not be a shareholder). Will our tax liability go down by doing this? Down in what sense? Payroll is deductible, if that's what you mean. Are there certain other things that should be kept in mind to reduce the tax liability? Yes. Getting a proper tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) to explain to you what S-Corp is, how it works, how payroll works, how owner-shareholder is taxed etc etc.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0882286a3e1d74b65a3bac64fc370be1", "text": "I think you should consult a professional with experience in 83(b) election and dealing with the problems associated with that. The cost of the mistake can be huge, and you better make sure everything is done properly. For starters, I would look at the copy of the letter you sent to verify that you didn't write the year wrong. I know you checked it twice, but check again. Tax advisers can call a dedicated IRS help line for practitioners where someone may be able to provide more information (with your power of attorney on file), and they can also request the copy of the original letter you've sent to verify it is correct. In any case, you must attach the copy of the letter you sent to your 2014 tax return (as this is a requirement for the election to be valid).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83b0ba3e5841488f99a591f1984b9dc7", "text": "\"Your question does not say this explicitly, but I assume that you were once a W-2 employee. Each paycheck a certain amount was withheld from your check to pay income, social security, and medicare taxes. Just because you did not receive that amount of money earned does not mean it was immediately sent to the IRS. While I am not all that savvy on payroll procedures, I recall an article that indicated some companies only send in withheld taxes every quarter, much like you are doing now. They get a short term interest free loan. For example taxes withheld by a w-2 employee in the later months of the year may not be provided to the IRS until 15 January of the next year. You are correct in assuming that if you make 100K as a W-2 you will probably pay less in taxes than someone who is 100K self employed with 5K in expenses. However there are many factors. Provided you properly fill out a 1040ES, and pay the correct amount of quarterly payments, you will almost never owe taxes. In fact my experience has been the forms will probably allow you to receive a refund. Tax laws can change and one thing the form did not include last year was the .9% Medicare surcharge for high income earners catching some by surprise. As far as what you pay into is indicative of the games the politicians play. It all just goes into a big old bucket of money, and more is spent by congress than what is in the bucket. The notion of a \"\"social security lockbox\"\" is pure politics/fantasy as well as the notion of medicare and social security taxes. The latter were created to make the actual income tax rate more palatable. I'd recommend getting your taxes done as early as possible come 1 January 2017. While you may not have all the needed info, you could firm up an estimate by 15 Jan and modify the amount for your last estimated payment. Complete the taxes when all stuff comes in and even if you owe an amount you have time to save for anything additional. Keep in mind, between 1 Jan 17 and 15 Apr 17 you will earn and presumably save money to use towards taxes. You can always \"\"rob\"\" from that money to pay any owed tax for 2016 and make it up later. All that is to say you will be golden because you are showing concern and planning. When you hear horror stories of IRS dealings it is most often that people spent the money that should have been sent to the IRS.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2d85c285b00fc847c24726b4047723ea", "text": "This is a common occurrence, I know people who moved and then only remember the next spring during tax season that they never filed a new state version of a W-4. Which means for 3 or 4 months in the new year money is sent to the wrong state capital, and way too much was sent the previous year. In the spring of 2016 you should have filed a non-resident tax form with Michigan. On that form you would specify your total income numbers, your Michigan income numbers, and your other-state income numbers; with Michigan + other equal to total. That should have resulted in getting all the state taxes that were sent to Michigan returned. It is possible that the online software is unable to complete the non-resident tax form. Not all forms and situations can be addressed by the software. So you may need to fill out paper forms. You should be able to find what you need on the state of Michigan website for 2015 Taxes. A quick read shows that you will probably need the Michigan 1040, schedule 1 and Schedule NR You may run into an issue if your license, car registration, voter registration, and other documentation point to you being a resident for the part of the year you earned that income. That means you will have to submit Form 3799 Statement to Determine State of Domicile You want to do this soon because there are deadlines that limit how far back you can files taxes. The state may also get tax information from the IRS and could decide that all your income from 2015 should have applied to them, so they will be sending you a tax bill plus penalties for failure to file.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f8d9c0e276776b3ddd1f8b084e6b365", "text": "In the United States the general policy is that the IRS would consider it income when you have access to the money. I work for a company that has a contract with another company. Near the end of the year I turn in a time card that has my hours that I worked as of that date. Because they don't pay me until early January the money on the check is counted in the new year. I couldn't touch the money until they issued the check. If they had paid me on December 31st it would have counted as the old year, even if I only had a short window to have access to it before the year ended. It would even count as old year money if I held on to the December check, but didn't deposit it until March. So it would become income when you could use it. So If you could access it via a check, or debit card, or transfer it to the bank it is now income. Of course that is in the United States. You would need to see what the situation is in Singapore.... The edge cases always depend on the country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dae50b5d6c8199652419e5dd726b2aa", "text": "I will answer this question broadly for various jurisdictions, and also specifically for the US, given the OP's tax home: Generally, for any tax jurisdiction If your tax system relies on periodic prepayments through the year, and a final top-up/refund at the end of the year (ie: basically every country), you have 3 theoretical goals with how much you pre-pay: Specifically, for the U.S. All information gathered from here: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes. In short, depending on your circumstance, you may need to pay quarterly estimated tax payments to avoid penalties on April 15th. Even if you won't be penalized, you, may benefit from doing so anyway (to force yourself to save the money necessary by April 15th). I have translated the general goals above, into US-specific advice:", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
10a093d07d924050436ee05b9991cb0a
Back of Check Images are Blank and not Endorsed
[ { "docid": "a604457a8b2691dc2a260e9b318da026", "text": "\"In general, a lack of endorsement (meaning nothing written by the receiver on the back of the check) is equivalent to it being endorsed \"\"as deposit only\"\" to a bank that the depositor has an account with. (See Uniform Commercial Code §4-205.) That is, the bank that receives a deposit without any endorsement promises to the banks that process the check along the line all the way back to your bank, that they properly deposited the money into the account of the entity that the check was made out to. With checks being processed with more and more automation, it's getting fairly common for there to be little writing needed on the check itself, as the digital copy gets submitted to the banking system for clearing. If you're concerned about there being some sort of fraud, that perhaps the entity that you're sending money to isn't the ones that should be getting it, or that they're not actually getting the money, or something like that, that's really an entirely different concern. I would expect that if you were saying that you paid something, and the payee said that you hadn't, that you would dispute the transaction with your bank. They should be able to follow the electronic trail to where the money went, but I suspect they only do so as part of an investigation (and possibly only in an investigation that involved law enforcement of some type). If you're just curious about what bank account number your deposit went into, then it just looks like you're the one trying to commit some sort of fraud (even if you're just being curious), and they don't have much incentive to try to help you out there.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "071b3b8ff236f00fddadf437f90e4066", "text": "Let me get this straight. I would stand my ground. Your son negotiated in good faith. Either they messed up, or they are dishonest. Either way your son wasn't the one supposed to know all the internal rules. I don't think it matters if they cashed the check or not. I would tell them if they have cashed it, that is even more evidence the deal was finalized. But even if they they didn't cash it, it only proves they are very disorganized. If for some reason your son feels forced to redo the deal, have him start the negotiations way below the price that was agreed to. If the deal for some strange reason gets voided don't let him agree to some sort of restocking fee.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "636702411ab0de17d342fc29a006e2d7", "text": "\"1.Why is there no \"\"United States Treasury\"\" endorsement? Why should there be, and what do you think it would look like? Some person at Treasury sitting at a desk all day signing \"\"Uncle Sam\"\"? At most you would expect to see some stamp, because it's clear that no person is going to sign all of these checks. 2.Can I have the check returned for proper endorsement? No, this is none of your business unless you have some serious reason to believe that someone other than the treasury cashed your check. (If that were really your concern, then you'd have a bigger issue than the endorsement.) 3.If I am required to endorse checks made out to me, why isn't the US Treasury? As others have noted, an endorsement is often not required as long as the name on the check matches a name on the account to which it is deposited. Individual banks may have stricter rules, but that's between you and your bank.\"", "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": "" }, { "docid": "da1a151451e9fea0a7fda6d5b8185a0f", "text": "It's not the legitimate checks or bounced checks that are the problem, it's phony checks issued against real accounts with actual money in them. All the security measures on the check don't amount to crap if someone can print up some legitimate looking checks with bogus amounts on them, or even just steal some printed checks and sign something resembling the authorized signature.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "793e34f55011f78eca9d55f9b33a457b", "text": "If the check is made out to him, he will have to endorse it. Which means that at some point he will have to physically have the check in his hands. At which point, he could probably just deposit it himself. If there's some problem getting the check to him for him to sign it, you could call the bank and ask if they'll accept it for deposit to his account without a signature. I understand some banks will do this. I would be very surprised if they would let you deposit a check made out to your son to your account. They'd have no way of knowing if your son was agreeable to this or if you were stealing his money. Traditionally, the person the check was made out to could endorse it, give the check to someone else, and then the second person could endorse it and deposit it to their (the second person's) account. That is, the endorsement would have your son's signature, and below that, your signature. But I understand some banks won't accept this any more, so you'd be best to check before trying it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b08d9cfb180251cd9d2a024e09a96934", "text": "If it doesn't seem that important, why bother blacking the name out? For the effort, it might cost you less in your time to have the checks reprinted. There's no way to know what all banks would do with a check that has a name crossed out, but most would ignore it. Most checks are processed automatically. Signatures are not verified, post-dated checks can usually still be deposited. Occasionally you'll have a bank or merchant reject a check, but don't expect that to be the norm.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fd86c575bf2a438ab2443e2b0eaf8ea1", "text": "So my wife was at work today and got yelled at by both a cop and her managers for simply LOOKING at the card. I don't understand I also work in retail and of course I must see the card to ensure it is a real card, it is a very strict policy that we must have a valid physical card to run any credit/debit transactions. People put skimmers everywhere you use your card and can pick up the info off the strip and put it onto another card and use it without you noticing right away. With the right equipment they can put their name on it or the name on their fake I.d. so the only red flag would be them trying to use several different cards", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8632e74a64993d3efaae90929599b200", "text": "\"In absence of complete information, I can only speculate that your phrases We both endorsed the cheque, and especially since the name on the cheque doesn't seem to be the name of the person I spoke with. mean that the check was payable to Jane Doe but was endorsed by someone you know as Wade Roe using language such as \"\"Pay to the order of user6344\"\" and then you endorsed it as something like \"\"For deposit only to Acct# 1234567890\"\" and gave it to the bank teller with a deposit slip for Acct# 1234567890. Presumably Wade Roe did not accompany you to the bank and the bank teller did not notice that the check was not endorsed to you by Jane Doe, or she did go with you to the bank but the teller did not check her ID when she endorsed the check. In any case, you, as a customer of the bank, are definitely on the hook in the sense that you in effect guaranteed the validity of Wade Roe's endorsement of the check payable to Jane Doe. You presented the check to the bank as a legitimate check that you were legitimately entitled to deposit in your account. In effect, if fraud was committed, you committed the fraud by depositing a bum check. As all the other answers have said, you need to go down to the bank and talk to a bank officer, preferably the manager, right away. Don't go to a teller (even though in many banks, the tellers have job titles like assistant vice-president.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dbc64c870685d9d3c4e4e506ee4e6c5f", "text": "I do know that a blank check has all the information they need for the electronic transfer. They probably add it as a customer service to streamline future payments. Though I don't think automatically adding it makes good business sense. It is possible that the form used to submit the check included a line to added the account to the list of authorized accounts. He might have been lucky he didn't set up a recurring payment. I would check the website to see if there is a tool to remove the account info from the list of payment options. There has to be a way to edit the list so that if you change banks you can update the information, yet not keep the old accounts on the list. Talk to customer service if the website doesn't have a way of removing the account. Tell them that you have to edit the account information. And give them your info. If they balk at the change tell them that they could be committing fraud if the money is pulled from an unauthorized account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dd604ea54d8a648a31fca92060615986", "text": "First, if your account has been closed you should not be able to use your debit card in any format. As you mentioned that you are able to use that so your back account is active. So this indicates it is a scam In case account is closed, bank confirms your address and will send you a cheque for the amount in your account. Don't worry. You money will never be lost", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1619a2901c8114a352d54227320b8370", "text": "\"It is not allowed to pay refunds to anyone other than the taxpayer. This is due to various tax return fraud schemes that were running around. Banks are required to enforce this. If the direct deposit is denied, a check will be issued. In her name, obviously. What she does with it when she gets it is her business - but I believe that tax refund checks may not be just \"\"endorsed\"\", the bank will likely want to see her when you deposit it to your account, even if it is endorsed. For the same reason.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d2acf99226ed0dfb29bdfd1c8bfa6d16", "text": "\"In the US, Section 3.114 of the Uniform Commercial Code sets the rules for how any confusion in checks or other business transactions is handled: “If an instrument contains contradictory terms, typewritten terms prevail over printed terms, handwritten terms prevail over both, and words prevail over numbers.” If there was any ambiguity in the way you wrote out the amount, the institution will compare the two fields (the written words and the courtesy box (digits)) to see if the ambiguity can be resolved. The reality is that the busy tellers and ATM operators typically are going to look at the numeric digits first. So even if they happen to notice the traditional \"\"and...\"\" missing, it seems highly unlikely that such an omission would cause enough ambiguity between these the two fields to reject the payment. Common sense dictates here. I wouldn't worry about it.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "34c5df8f8b00302d391ffb103ec61cd7", "text": "\"&gt; Every credit card has a space on the back for a signature. And for decades, retailers would check the signature on your ID ... This worked for a long time, until retailers ... For decades, retailers never compared signatures on credit cards to the person's signature. Impractical and not even worth it as anyone can copy a signature on a card. Neither do banks bother to check for signature. They don't even have a \"\"signature on-file\"\" anymore. Try it! Deposit a check or buy with a credit card and scribble something unrelated as a signature! The deposit or credit card transaction will go through. I guarantee you that! **Please try it! Let me know if it did not work!** I know what I am talking about because I deal with credit cards a lot, professionally, in IT. The only sure thing is to ask for a PIN. But, alas, credit cards use a chip, so if I steall your card, I can buy with it with no problems. But not if I still your ATM card - I don't know your PIN. The PIN is in your head and I can't get it. The credit card companies don't really care.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b23adf899f548a3c82473c536b1caaca", "text": "You purchased the check from the bank. Your funds have been transferred. If the recipient never cashed the check, the money continues to be the bank's, just as if you had written s normal check that didn't get cashed the money would sit in your account.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e7513119ee46fe0559c8aa9b8f93617", "text": "I have been using Bill Pay from BoA, Chase, and a local Credit Union, all for at least five years (maybe even 10), and never had any issues with lost checks. Sometimes, an address given to me was incorrect, and what happens is either nothing (meaning, after 90 days, the check is considered outdated and the money gets reimbursed in the account) the bank notifies me after about two weeks that the check was returned as 'recipient not found at that address' or 'invalid address', and the money gets restored right then. That is no guarantee, of course, that nothing will ever happen. But banks are not supposed to accept checks where the recipient name does not match. Also, you should consider using 'Quick Pay' or 'Pay an individual' instead, whatever your bank calls it. That will transfer the money same or next day to your other account, without ever mailing a check. You do not need to enter account information across banks, it works by both banks contacting you through your logins/emails.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
4fe94d762bb7818b22f857c356cf3bc4
Pros/cons of drawing income in retirement from sole-owner corporation vs. sole-proprietorship?
[ { "docid": "18119c60e17d718132faa1012fcc402c", "text": "\"Not really, no. The assumption you're making—withdrawals from a corporation are subject to \"\"[ordinary] income tax\"\"—is simplistic. \"\"Income tax\"\" encompasses many taxes, some more benign than others, owing to credits and exemptions based on the kind of income. Moreover, the choices you listed as benefits in the sole-proprietor case—the RRSP, the TFSA, and capital gains treatment for non-registered investments—all remain open to the owner of a small corporation ... the RRSP to the extent that the owner has received salary to create contribution room. A corporation can even, at some expense, establish a defined benefit (DB) pension plan and exceed individual RRSP contribution limits. Yes, there is a more tax-efficient way for small business owners to benefit when it comes time to retirement. Here is an outline of two things I'm aware of: If your retirement withdrawals from your Canadian small business corporation would constitute withdrawal from the corporation's retained earnings (profits), i.e. income to the corporation that had already been subject to corporate income tax in prior years, then the corporation is able to declare such distributions as dividends and issue you a T5 slip (Statement of Investment Income) instead of a T4 slip (Statement of Remuneration Paid). Dividends received by Canadian residents from Canadian corporations benefit from the Dividend Tax Credit (DTC), which substantially increases the amount of income you can receive without incurring income tax. See TaxTips.ca - Non-eligible (small business) dividend tax credit (DTC). Quote: For a single individual with no income other than taxable Canadian dividends which are eligible for the small business dividend tax credit, in 2014 approximately $35,551 [...] could be earned before any federal* taxes were payable. * Provincial DTCs vary, and so combined federal/provincial maximums vary. See here. If you're wondering about \"\"non-eligible\"\" vs. \"\"eligible\"\": private small business corporation dividends are generally considered non-eligible for the best DTC benefit—but they get some benefit—while a large public corporation's dividends would generally be considered eligible. Eligible/non-eligible has to do with the corporation's own income tax rates; since Canadian small businesses already get a big tax break that large companies don't enjoy, the DTC for small businesses isn't as good as the DTC for public company dividends. Finally, even if there is hardly any same-year income tax advantage in taking dividends over salary from an active small business corporation (when you factor in both the income tax paid by the corporation and the individual), dividends still allow a business owner to smooth his income over time, which can result in a lower lifetime average tax rate. So you can use your business as a retained earnings piggy bank to spin off dividends that attract less tax than ordinary income. But! ... if you can convince somebody to buy your business from you, then you can benefit from the lifetime capital gains exemption of up to $800,000 on qualifying small business shares. i.e. you can receive up to $800K tax-free on the sale of your small business shares. This lifetime capital gains exemption is a big carrot—designed, I believe, to incentivize Canadian entrepreneurs to develop going-concern businesses that have value beyond their own time in the business. This means building things that would make your business worth buying, e.g. a valued brand or product, a customer base, intellectual property, etc. Of course, there are details and conditions with all of what I described, and I am not an accountant, so please consult a qualified, conflict-free professional if you need advice specific to your situation.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "955e605d7d9e30b65de3ac4aae14081b", "text": "you can begin drawing retirement income from 401k, ira and roth accounts at any age. the key is that it must be retirement income. you can't blow it all on an epic party, but you can withdraw a modest amount every year while preserving enough capital to last the rest of your life. there are 3 common strategies for doing this: side notes: techinical details: roth conversion ladder: substantially equal periodic payment plans:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa823f87dc7c9574d811c0030e7ece80", "text": "Generally, unless you explicitly elect otherwise, LLCs are transparent when it comes to taxes. So the money in the LLC is your money for tax purposes, there's no need to pay yourself a salary. In fact, the concept of salary for LLC members doesn't exist at all. It is either distributions or guaranteed payments (and even that is mostly relevant to multi-member LLCs). The only concern is the separation of personal and LLC finances - avoiding commingling. Mixing your personal and business expenses by using the same accounts/cards for both business and personal spending may cause troubles when it comes to the liability protection in case of a lawsuit. I'd suggest discussing this with a FL-licensed attorney. Bottom line - technically the withdrawal is just writing yourself a check from the business account or moving money between your personal and business accounts. If you're a sole member - you need not more than that. Make sure the operating agreement explicitly empowers you to do that, of course. There are no tax consequences, but as I mentioned - there may be legal consequences.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bb4dc2382fe36b9c9d01a1e44edaee35", "text": "IANAL (and nor am I an accountant), so I can't give a definitive answer as to legality, but AFAIK, what you propose is legal. But what's the benefit? Avoiding corporation tax? It's simplistic – and costly – to think in terms like that. You need to run the numbers for different scenarios, and make a plan. You can end up ahead of the game precisely by choosing to pay some corporate tax each year. Really! Read on. One of the many reasons that self-employed Canadians sometimes opt for a corporate structure over being a sole proprietor is to be able to not pay themselves everything the company earns each year. This is especially important when a business has some really good years, and others, meh. Using the corporation to retain earnings can be more tax effective. Example: Imagine your corporation earns, net of accounting & other non-tax costs except for your draws, $120,000/year for 5 years, and $0 in year 6. Assume the business is your only source of income for those 6 years. Would you rather: Pay yourself the entire $120,000/yr in years 1-5, then $0 in year 6 (living off personal savings you hopefully accumulated earlier), subjecting the $120,000/yr to personal income tax only, leaving nothing in the corporation to be taxed? Very roughly speaking, assuming tax rates & brackets are level from year to year, and using this calculator (which simplifies certain things), then in Ontario, then you'd net ~$84,878/yr for years 1-5, and $0 in year 6. Overall, you realized $424,390. Drawing the income in this manner, the average tax rate on the $600,000 was 29.26%. vs. Pay yourself only $100,000/yr in years 1-5, leaving $20,000/yr subject to corporation tax. Assuming a 15.5% combined federal/provincial corporate tax rate (includes the small business deduction), then the corp. is left with $16,900/yr to add to retained earnings in years 1-5. In year 6, the corp. has $84,500 in retained earnings to be distributed to you, the sole owner, as a dividend (of the non-eligible kind.) Again, very roughly speaking, you'd personally net $73,560/yr in years 1-5, and then on the $84,500 dividend in year 6, you'd net $73,658. Overall, you realized $441,458. Drawing the income in this manner, the average tax rate on the $600K was 26.42%. i.e. Scenario 2, which spreads the income out over the six years, saved 2.84% in tax, or $14,400. Smoothing out your income is also a prudent thing to do. Would you rather find yourself in year 6, having no clients and no revenue, with nothing left to draw on? Or would you rather the company had saved money from the good years to pay you in the lean one?", "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": "e7c53800da86c53cc3a8b7a9c9ae3974", "text": "There are many aspects to consider in deciding what sort of company you want to form. Instead of an S-corporation, you should determine whether it would be better to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC), Limited Partnership (LP) or even a professional company (PC). Littleadv is correct: There is minimal benefit in forming an S-corp with you and your wife as the shareholders, if you will be the only contributor-worker. There are costs associated with an S-corporation, or any corporation, that might outweigh benefits from more favorable tax treatment, or personal protection from liability: Filing fees and disclosure rules vary from state to state. For example, my father was a cardiologist who had no employees, other than my grandmother (she worked for free), in a state with income taxes (NM). He was advised that a PC was best in New Mexico, while an S-Corp was better in Florida (there are no personal income taxes in Florida). The only way to know what to do requires that you consult an accountant, a good one, for guidance.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0798aa4e5d06e0deb5d8c966f0f35db5", "text": "I see a lot of people making the mistake or being given bad advise in structuring a new business. If you have more than one shareholder, then by all means an S Corporation is a better structure for lower taxes; avoid double taxation. If, however, this is a one shareholder S Corp, then you had better 1099 yourself as a consultant or look into sole proprietorship. The tax benefits are much better either way. Dr. Suraiya Shaik Ali", "title": "" }, { "docid": "40d3eb1c81f085cd157f373631b1f4c2", "text": "\"The major pros tend to be: The major cons tend to be: Being in California, you've got state income tax to worry about as well. It might be worth using some of that extra cash to hire someone who knows what they're doing to handle your taxes the first year, at least. I've always maxed mine out, because it's always seemed like a solid way to make a few extra dollars. If you can live without the money in your regular paycheck, it's always seemed that the rewards outweighed the risks. I've also always immediately sold the stock, since I usually feel like being employed at the company is enough \"\"eggs in that basket\"\" without holding investments in the same company. (NB: I've participated in several of these ESPP programs at large international US-based software companies, so this is from my personal experience. You should carefully review the terms of your ESPP before signing up, and I'm a software engineer and not a financial advisor.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "54102d9b014f0b259219b94ee8a59e3c", "text": "To answer your question 2, I can't think of any advantage of using your SSN over an EIN, but there are some advantages to having an EIN as a sole proprietor. So depending on the answer to question 1, you may want to consider either keeping your existing EIN or getting a new one, even if you are allowed to use your SSN instead.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "07840ca3531beffb6cc1cd5266218a0c", "text": "\"In the US, dividends are presently taxed at the same rates as capital gains, however selling stock could lead to less tax owed for the same amount of cash raised, because you are getting a return of basis or can elect to engage in a \"\"loss harvesting\"\" strategy. So to reply to the title question specifically, there are more tax \"\"benefits\"\" to selling stock to raise income versus receiving dividends. You have precise control of the realization of gains. However, the reason dividends (or dividend funds) are used for retirement income is for matching cash flow to expenses and preventing a liquidity crunch. One feature of retirement is that you're not working to earn a salary, yet you still have daily living expenses. Dividends are stable and more predictable than capital gains, and generate cash generally quarterly. While companies can reduce or suspend their dividend, you can generally budget for your portfolio to put a reliable amount of cash in your pocket on schedule. If you rely on selling shares quarterly for retirement living expenses, what would you have done (or how much of the total position would you have needed to sell) in order to eat during a decline in the market such as in 2007-2008?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b4c4472436470581adf08370392e7add", "text": "\"The obvious advantage is turning your biggest liability into an income-generating asset. The downside are: (1), you have to find tenants (postings, time to show the place, credit/background check, and etc) (2), you have to deal with tenants (collection of rent, repairs of things that broke by itself, complaints from neighbors, termination, and etc) (3), you have to deal with the repairs In many ways, it's no different from running another (small) business, so it all boils down to how much time you are willing to invest and how handy you are in doing reno's and/or small repairs around the house. For profitability/ROI analysis, you want to assume collection of 11 months of rent per year (i.e. assume tenant doesn't renew after year, so you have the worst case scenario) and factor in all the associated expense (be honest). Renting out a second property is a bit tricky as you often have to deal with a large operating expense (i.e. mortgage), and renting a basement apartment is not bad financially and you will have to get used to have \"\"strangers\"\" downstairs.\"", "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": "537d0a768beb6bac683f1268f73aaecf", "text": "Creating a corporation is not necessarily less taxes. In fact, you'll face the problem of double taxation, and since you must pay yourself a reasonable salary, if your corporation doesn't earn much to give you as dividend after the salary, and/or your tax bracket is low, you'll in fact may end up paying more taxes. Also there's a lot of bureaucracy involved in managing a corporation. Liability on the other hand is important, and what's more important - is asset separation and limiting the liability to the corporation assets, keeping your personal assets safe. To achieve that, you don't have to create a corporation, but you can create a Limited Liability Company (LLC). LLC are disregarded entities for tax purposes (i.e.: you won't have to pay taxes twice, only once as a sole proprietor/partner), but provide the liability limitation and asset separation. LLC's are much less formal, and require much less paperwork reducing the risk of corporate veil piercing because of non-compliance. I myself decided to manage my investments through LLC's for that very reason (asset separation).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1edca5b9b17bb709dc2829c540f211a5", "text": "\"Those advantages you've described (tax treatment and employee match) are what you receive in exchange for \"\"locking up\"\" the money. Ultimately it's a personal choice of whether that tradeoff makes sense for you situation (I'll echo the response that the real answer to your question is planning). Roth options (either 401K or IRA) may be good compromises for you, since you can withdraw those contributions (but not the earnings) without any penalty, since you've already paid taxes on them. Another avenue to explore may be a self-directed IRA or a Solo 401(k), depending on your circumstances and eligibility. In both cases, there are plan providers that structure the plan to allow you to use the money to invest in things besides traditional stocks, bonds, and mutual funds (often referred to as \"\"checkbook control\"\" accounts). They are very commonly used among Real Estate investors (this thread from BiggerPockets has quite a bit of info). You'd want to consult with an accountant or financial adviser before going down that path.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8139827df5aa181c2aa883974232b178", "text": "Something that's come up in comments and been alluded to in answers, but not explicit as far as I can tell: Even if your marginal tax rate now were equal to your marginal tax rate in retirement, or even lower, a traditional IRA may have advantages. That's because it's your effective tax rate that matters on withdrawls. (Based on TY 2014, single person, but applies at higher numbers for other arrangements): You pay 0 taxes on the first $6200 of income, and then pay 10% on the next $9075, then 15% on $27825, then 25% on the total amount over that up to $89530, etc. As such, even if your marginal rate is 25% (say you earn $80k), your effective rate is much less: for example, $80k income, you pay taxes on $73800. That ends up being $14,600, for an effective rate in total of 17.9%. Let's say you had the same salary, $80k, from 20 to 65, and for 45 years saved up 10k a year, plus earned enough returns to pay you out $80k a year in retirement. In a Roth, you pay 25% on all $10k. In a traditional, you save that $2500 a year (because it comes off the top, the amount over $36900), and then pay 17.9% during retirement (your effective tax rate, because it's the amount in total that matters). So for Roth you had 7500*(returns), while for Traditional the correct amount isn't 10k*(returns)*0.75, but 10k*(returns)*0.821. You make the difference between .75 and .82 back even with the identical income. [Of course, if your $10k would take you down a marginal bracket, then it also has an 'effective' tax rate of something between the two rates.] Thus, Roth makes sense if you expect your effective tax rate to be higher in retirement than it is now. This is very possible, still, because for people like me with a mortgage, high property taxes, two kids, and student loans, my marginal tax rate is pretty low - even with a reasonably nice salary I still pay 15% on the stuff that's heading into my IRA. (Sadly, my employer has only a traditional 401k, but they also contribute to it without requiring a match so I won't complain too much.) Since I expect my eventual tax rate to be in that 18-20% at a minimum, I'd benefit from a Roth IRA right now. This matters more for people in the middle brackets - earning high 5 figure salaries as individuals or low 6 figure as a couple - because the big difference is relevant when a large percentage of your income is in the 15% and below brackets. If you're earning $200k, then so much of your income is taxed at 28-33% it doesn't make nearly as much of a difference, and odds are you can play various tricks when you're retiring to avoid having as high of a tax rate.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7463e6b01c2f38e523cd6ba482a29b8a", "text": "\"A couple of distinctions. First, if you were to \"\"invest in real estate\"\" were you planning to buy a home to live in, or buy a home to rent out to someone else? Buying a home as a primary residence really isn't \"\"investing in real estate\"\" per se. It's buying a place to live rather than renting one. Unless you rent a room out or get a multi-family unit, your primary residence won't be income-producing. It will be income-draining, for the most part. I speak as a homeowner. Second, if you are buying to rent out to someone else, buying a single home is quite a bit different than buying an REIT. The home is a lot less liquid, the transaction costs are higher, and all of your eggs are in one basket. Having said that, though, if you buy one right and do your homework it can set you on the road for a very comfortable retirement.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
79702e6ca780835570a542fd0b17bafa
Is the MBA an overrated degree/qualification?
[ { "docid": "861b30cbf96958570789286d2028629b", "text": "\"For some situations, an MBA can be overrated in the sense that given the cost of time and money, it isn't going to be a great return in some cases. There can be tens of thousands of dollars and a couple of years to get an MBA that some people believes should automatically make them worth $x more in their salary and life should be simple. I'd likely inquire as to what expectations do you have for what an MBA will do for you. Are you expecting to make connections in getting the degree? Are you expecting to learn about how to run a business from the coursework? Are you expecting something else? Depending on what you are expecting, I could see MBA as being anything from a great choice to a lousy choice for people. As noted by Pete Belford's comment, an MBA from a \"\"degree mill\"\" would be all but worthless. Where you go can reflect the value of the education as some universities are known for their program about this such as Ivy League schools.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bab2889767c18715a2a95569821f7ac5", "text": "The quality of the MBA is really what decides if it's worth it. You have to make sure the school where you are going to is highly regarded or even prestigious. There is a big difference between what you find prestigious and others find prestigious. The student believing it is an awesome school is not enough, the companies and recruiters must believe it too. Make sure you do your homework on the ranking of the MBA program. Additionally, your undergraduate plays a role how well your MBA is perceived. A decent undergraduate degree complemented with an MBA from a highly ranked school will put you in a trajectory for a high salary and a management position.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cfccd74639a2963691ce0b45a6d06862", "text": "There is a distinct difference between 'having a degree' and 'being genuinely smart and business savvy'. If you're genuinely smart and business savvy you could theoretically break into the business world with no degree and make a decent salary. The trouble there is that many people aren't smart and business savvy until they get a degree. On the other hand, it's very possible to get a degree and be completely oblivious about how to conduct your career (poor resume / interviewing skills, no business sense etc). In that case an MBA might not be totally useful (but probably still will be to a degree). However, if you ARE smart about how you conduct your career, an MBA should help you immensely.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "50dc383bb6d53e0d880a0d14fe7763a4", "text": "It depends on what you want it for If it is just salary then maybe not, for instance, some MBA programs may suggest their graduates make $100,000 per year, but you work in an oil field barely finishing high school and make $300,000 a year. If you go for the MBA right now, you may miss your chance to work in the oil industry for another few years (or weeks), but at the same time, the MBA lasts forever (although, real world experience is also relevant) and it may give you a leg up when you are 50 years old in the unemployment line (or maybe not, because you are overqualified) everything in life is a cost/benefit analysis Passing the GRE lasts for five years, so keep that in mind", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "0681be109399381fe948ecb67b895dda", "text": "If you can get into the top school, it's a no-brainer to go that route. An MBA at a top school will not only give you an education taught by world-renowned professors but also a large network of students and alumni.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9c570c0829a187db8ac975d38fed142", "text": "\"With any institution or organization, you're always going to have top, middle, and bottom performers. I don't think we should select prospective employees based on schools or brands, but the world is a vast place and having those things like brands as markers or indicators serves as a practical heuristic for recruiters. However, Many of my past colleagues from non \"\"top brand\"\" institutions are just as smart and capable. The idea is that the more selective the educational institution, the more likely it is to filter for top candidates who can then be fed into companies down the road. But the reality is that the filter is very narrow due to class size and school size so a lot of equally qualified candidates also get filtered out of the school because of marginal differences or sometimes just random luck. Therefore these incredible students end up attending their next top choice. That's the reason we shouldn't only hire from top schools. More talented people overflow to other schools. As a side note, Malcolm Gladwell is like the Myth Busters tv show, but for books. Entertaining, but ultimately flawed in several ways that he analyzes statistics and interprets data. Source: HBS MBA class of 2015. Currently interning at Amazon for summer. Will provide proof if required.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b7b429380409f445a03ac58e0b447a98", "text": "I can't speak for all business schools but only my personal experiences as a student and then working professional. I graduated from a program ranked in the top 5 nationally and interviewed with several top companies (Intel, Ford, Sandisk, BP) right out of college before selecting the firm I began my career with. As I've moved on to other jobs having this degree has definitely opened doors for me and landed me interviews I might not otherwise have gotten. Plus the program I was in was heavily focused on case studies which is far superior to just lectures and note taking.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c37d4ffd623dc8f5e66a09a8b048068d", "text": "\"Why? I did comp sci and have an MBA. I also do EMT work as a volunteer in a rural community. Do my toes are in both pools. I would really question deeply the motives from moving to business from medicine. Despite the articles you see, an MBA is hardly the road to riches. Most do okay. Top tier grads are making very good money. These are also a small % of people out there working. Even those making good money sacrifice that for really shitty hours and shit work for a while until they break into the higher earning spots. The \"\"models and bottles\"\" is exaggerated to beg in with, and less and less common every year. When someone asks me about getting an MBA or finance I ask why. What us their real reason. If its money, don't do it. Do it because you actual ly love the business of business. I have traded stocks since I was 12. Its always been interesting. If I forced myself to do it for the money, I'd be poor and miserable. I am not rich. But I am comfortable and I live the life and schedule I want. None of that is from that slip of paper. The knowledge I could have (and did) get on my own. I trade the markets, do real estate, and have 1-3 entrepreneural projects at any given time. Its the life I created for myself. I found it was really the only way for me to get what I wanted. My goals never fit we all with institution goals. TL;DR- what's your motivation? Its probably a shitty move.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "26882f438edc69e359e71c6684c06d3b", "text": "\"No, getting a liberal arts degree at a non-prestigious university is worthless. You can graduate from an Ivy League school or LAC equivalent with a degree in history/philosophy/English/etc. and go work on Wall Street or in MBB consulting. There very few fields where you have to be able to step in day 1 and have great technical knowledge. Mostly your degree and school are about signalling* that you can learn what's thrown at you. EDIT: \"\"Signalling\"\" and typos I couldn't correct on my phone.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "85a7b4fe93b1eb94564c72924929b44e", "text": "\"I have a BA in Economics from the University of North Texas and I think it's a wonderful degree. I paired it with a finance minor. As others have said, the BA degree has more theory and less quantitative skills, but I found the quant skills I learned in my BA (through multiple regression/time series) to be a great start for an entry level job out of college. I'll also say that while it's not a \"\"business\"\" degree, it has major implications in business. No, you won't know accounting, but the theory you learn in economics is applied in accounting, in operations, in finance, in marketing, etc. Honestly, if you're smart and you know how to apply what you learn in Econ, you can do whatever you want.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "32a0db6c00812f8e1a420ecbb7ee3f94", "text": "No studies are cited about the education of corporate management. I bet you'd find a lot of those MBA's have undergrad degrees in engineering and science. The company presidents where I worked were all former scientists or engineers with MBA's, including two astronauts. Other aerospace companies were the same. The more technical the business, the more I bet this is true.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6163023ef181f37dd937c24b217759ed", "text": "\"Couple things, I will admit I was wrong about the total graduates at each of those programs; however, numbers taper out the lower the program is down to about 250-300 a class. Also, cut each of those numbers down to about 1/2 - 1/3 and you get the group that's actually focused on finance. Many MBAs do consulting, marketing, product development, etc nowadays. Also I'm a bit offended by you saying I don't understand the CFA. Couldn't be more mistaken boss, I'm siting for L3 in June like you. The requirement is only 2 years in an \"\"investment decision\"\" role, this also means A LOT of back office risk guys qualify. That's a pretty fungible qualification, you don't have to be a PM to qualify. I have a buddy who qualified having done 2 years in fund accounting, not exactly sell-side ER. I'm also going to guess you're a trader/brokerage/Cap Markets guy? If you wanna throw titles around I'm in a front office role at a BB, too, and worked at worked on buy-side research at a &gt;$150bn value shop. CFA is definitely more desired in sell-side markets focused as opposed to IBD where an MBA is more useful (more strategy focused). The CFA is vital for boning up on quantitative skills an MBA won't cover, I'll absolutely give you that. But a lot of people fall into the trap of assuming a CFA is their ticket to bigger and better things. If you're working in back office risk management, getting a CFA doesn't immediately qualify you to do ER (which is a VERY common pitfall I see). Like an MBA it teaches everyone how to do the same type of analysis, too (another reason the title means less and less). Last weekend I had a conversation with a friend of a friend about this very thing! He's sitting for L3 CFA, works back office at a very notable HF, and expects to be moved up (without any indication that he will) to research when he's done. I asked his opinions about things like the European situation, fiscal cliff, and a hard landing in china. Not only was he not familiar these concepts he didn't even know what HFT was. The CFA gives you the tools to analyze the impacts of pension liabilities on EPS, but it still takes a passion about the markets, as well as creative/analytical judgement, to make it to ER. My only point is an MBA and CFA are very similar in many ways. Both tend to hold their noses way to high, too. It's about what you chose to get out of it and too often people care more about the title than the process, which is why they are still stuck in mediocrity after completing the designations. Go through a list of the biggest PMs in the business, most don't have either MBAs or CFAs! They achieved alpha by not following standard quantitative models but exploring creative and strategic avenues others undervalue while maintaining strict discipline. A model is a tool to better describe behavior and understanding of markets, it's not a solution.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b6c38f90732ad52a095e7778f0e22cb7", "text": "Agreed my friend, and the UK is the country that is the furthest away from the European reality. You have schools charging 1 to 8k for a full years tuition. I know a case of someone having to sell his home to afford a top MBA in Europe (obviously it paid off), which goes to show how hard for europeans it is to afford US prices for education, meanwhile in the US they just hand it over to you. The problem comes when the Navients of the world come knocking on your door and you can't even save a penny", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a8ca7eb8bc25b6b3e66e95e79a88a3ca", "text": "I second the above post. I am a CFA charterholder, and have an MBA. The CFA Charter is the gold standard for asset management and investment research. Plus, it is a self-study program. You can sit for the Level I exam as a Senior in undergraduate, and this is a huge positive signal to prospective employers.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "49c3bdca8231cd96261c8b730b808dc6", "text": "Did you go to bschool? You actually do learn a lot. There are a lot of things that I do know that some of my fellow BA's in Business don't know. (business plan writing, how to properly read a financial statement, promotional strategy creation). Also, I got hooked up with a really cool internship that got me in front of some big VC's. There is value, is it worth the results? No. But let's be honest here, neither is law school (unless you go to a T14). Have you seen the job market? Brutal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a5f8eea00fb62278790e63b033b88d19", "text": "&gt;What, specifically, do you believe it is about the MBA experience (2 semesters of core business skills, and 2 semesters of electives, all taken on top of a bachelors degree) that causes the problem? Business degrees are incredibly over-rated, I'm speaking as a business owner with quite a few employees here. I speak to a lot of business owners, some with degrees, some without, and most of them say the same - business cannot be taught in a classroom. The theory side to business is obviously helpful but in no way ensures you will become successful, and they really shouldn't be held with such high regard. In my own company I tend to try and avoid hiring people with business degrees, they tend to be incredibly arrogant (in my experience) and believe they deserve to be treated on the same level as entrepreneurs just because they have a degree.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "238c94b81f6ac5b93957b99aede75c33", "text": "\"Why not both? I have been working and studying at the same time since I was 13... for all purposes, when I finished high school, I was working and studying part time... until I got my B.Sc in Computer Science and Masters in Business Administration (MBA)... developed my career and now I am a senior executive making excellent money and supervising many people. In retrospect, I want to tell you that the degrees did not help me at all in my career in the sense that did not teach me anything of significance for real work and career life, nor did they lend me my first jobs. However(!!!), without a degree (piece of paper), I could not advance to my current position because \"\"degree required for this position\"\". One more thing, very important: when I studied for my MBA, and worked full(!) time, I had no choice but to take night classes (City University of NY, Baruch College, one of the best business schools in the country). **This was the best experience I had in all the of my college studies!** Why? Because all(!) the professors who teach in the night were working in the morning in their normal jobs - none of them were tenured professors. They were real business people, grounded, know what they are talking about, and they were teaching because they loved to teach and share the experience and knowledge. **Do you understand what I am saying here?** So, I did not get the theoretical nonsense from them. They actually taught us what really happens, the real approach to things, and the real issues to address. P/S: My son is following my way. Since he was 11, he works in the areas he like (Minecraft) and he made money since then, running classes, getting to know people in the field, getting experience, getting work ethics, etc. If he wants to go to Harvard, fine with me, but I think he just need to go to \"\"reasonable\"\" low cost college to get those pieces of papers called \"\"Diplomas\"\".\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b239ecbe22ac4293f7f0df722ed82b8e", "text": "You cannot deduct. Even if you could, unless you also hold the mortgage, it's unlikely that you would have sufficient deductions to exceed the standard deduction for a married couple.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d6d52b842cc2405c33403cbfcbd53cbb", "text": "\"The root of the advice Bob is being given is from the premise that the market is temporarily down. If the market is temporarily down, then the stocks in \"\"Fund #1\"\" are on-sale and likely to go up soon (soon is very subjective). If the market is going to go up soon (again subjective) you are probably better in fictitious Fund #1. This is the valid logic that is being used by the rep. I don't think this is manipulative based on costs. It's really up to Bob whether he agrees with that logic or if he disagrees with that logic and to make his own decision based on that. If this were my account, I would make the decision on where to withdraw based on my target asset allocation. Bob (for good or bad reasons) decided on 2/3 Fund 1 and 1/3 Fund 2. I'd make the withdraw that returns me to my target allocation of 2/3 Fund 1 and 1/3 Fund 2. Depending on performance and contributions, that might be selling Fund 1, selling Fund 2, or selling some of both.\"", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
c170c5057f05904125d55a5e6c66516b
What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]
[ { "docid": "b9a82cc5ffdef264b2df11525bdba9a3", "text": "Dividends are not fixed. A profitable company which is rapidly expanding, and thus cash-strapped may very well skip dividends, yet that same fast growth makes it valuable. When markets saturate, and expansion stops, the same company may now have a large free cash flow so it can pay dividends.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c22c52e4aaebff770a0c2e1acd89cf3", "text": "\"A share of stock is a share of the underlying business. If one believes the underlying business will grow in value, then one would expect the stock price to increase commensurately. Participants in the stock market, in theory, assign value based on some combination of factors like capital assets, cash on hand, revenue, cash flow, profits, dividends paid, and a bunch of other things, including \"\"intangibles\"\" like customer loyalty. A dividend stream may be more important to one investor than another. But, essentially, non-dividend paying companies (and, thus, their shares) are expected by their owners to become more valuable over time, at which point they may be sold for a profit. EDIT TO ADD: Let's take an extremely simple example of company valuation: book value, or the sum of assets (capital, cash, etc) and liabilities (debt, etc). Suppose our company has a book value of $1M today, and has 1 million shares outstanding, and so each share is priced at $1. Now, suppose the company, over the next year, puts another $1M in the bank through its profitable operation. Now, the book value is $2/share. Suppose further that the stock price did not go up, so the market capitalization is still $1M, but the underlying asset is worth $2M. Some extremely rational market participant should then immediately use his $1M to buy up all the shares of the company for $1M and sell the underlying assets for their $2M value, for an instant profit of 100%. But this rarely happens, because the existing shareholders are also rational, can read the balance sheet, and refuse to sell their shares unless they get something a lot closer to $2--likely even more if they expect the company to keep getting bigger. In reality, the valuation of shares is obviously much more complicated, but this is the essence of it. This is how one makes money from growth (as opposed to income) stocks. You are correct that you get no income stream while you hold the asset. But you do get money from selling, eventually.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "88bad5cf03d3a2c8d04785fcf5589fec", "text": "\"One way to value companies is to use a Dividend discount model. In substance, it consists in estimating future dividends and calculating their present value. So it is a methodology which considers that an equity is similar to a bond and estimates its current value based on future cash flows. A company may not be paying dividends now, but because its future earnings prospects are good may pay some in the future. In that case the DDM model will give a non-zero value to that stock. If on the other hand you think a company won't ever make any profits and therefore never pay any dividends, then it's probably worth 0! Take Microsoft as an example - it currently pays ~3% dividend per annum. The stock has been listed since 1986 and yet it did not pay any dividends until 2003. But the stock has been rising regularly since the beginning because people had \"\"priced in\"\" the fact that there was a high chance that the company would become very profitable - which proved true in the long term (+60,000% including dividends since the IPO!).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8298d7869d0f0edb85f3c152d7d4f565", "text": "\"Also note that a share of voting stock is a vote at the stockholder's meeting, whether it's dividend or non-dividend. That has value to the company and major stockholders in terms of protecting their own interests, and has value to anyone considering a takeover of the company or who otherwise wants to drive the company's policy. Similarly, if the company is bought out, the share will generally be replaced by shares in whatever the new owning company is. So it really does represent \"\"a slice of the company\"\" in several vary practical ways, and thus has fairly well-defined intrinsic value linked to the company's perceived value. If its price drops too low the company becomes more vulnerable to hostile takeover, which means the company itself will often be motivated to buy back shares to protect itself from that threat. One of the questions always asked when making an investment is whether you're looking for growth (are you hoping its intrinsic value will increase) or income (are you hoping it will pay you a premium for owning it). Non-dividend stocks are a pure growth bet. Dividend-paying stocks are typically a mixture of growth and income, at various trade-off points. What's right for you depends on your goals, timeframe, risk tolerance, and what else is already in your portfolio.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "edc7ef593efc8e63c3943b0bccda0122", "text": "Instead of giving part of their profits back as dividends, management puts it back into the company so the company can grow and produce higher profits. When these companies do well, there is high demand for them as in the long term higher profits equates to a higher share price. So if a company invests in itself to grow its profits higher and higher, one of the main reasons investors will buy the shares, is in the expectation of future capital gains. In fact just because a company pays a dividend, would you still buy it if the share price kept decreasing year after year? Lets put it this way: Company A makes record profits year after year, continually keeps beating market expectations, its share price keeps going up, but it pays no dividend instead reinvests its profits to continually grow the business. Company B pays a dividend instead of reinvesting to grow the business, it has been surprising the market on the downside for a few years now, it has had some profit warnings lately and its share price has consistently been dropping for over a year. Which company would you be interested in buying out of the two? I know I would be interested in buying Company A, and I would definitely stay away from Company B. Company A may or may not pay dividends in the future, but if Company B continues on this path it will soon run out of money to pay dividends. Most market gains are made through capital gains rather than dividends, and most people invest in the hope the shares they buy go up in price over time. Dividends can be one attractant to investors but they are not the only one.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "361690718a70866828f1ed57f6cc28ba", "text": "A Company start with say $100. Lets say the max it can borrow from bank is $100 @ $10 a year as Interest. After a years say, On the $200 the company made a profit of $110. So it now has total $310 Option 1: Company pays back the Bank $100 + $10. It further gave away the $100 back to shareholders as dividends. The Balance with company $100. It can again start the second year, borrow from Bank $100 @ 10 interest and restart. Option 2: Company pays back the Bank $100 + $10. It now has $200. It can now borrow $200 from Bank @ $20. After a year it makes a profit of $250. [Economics of scale result $30 more] Quite a few companies in growth phase use Option 2 as they can grow faster, achieve economies of scale, keep competition at bay, etc Now if I had a share of this company say 1 @ $1, by end of first year its value would be $2, at the end of year 2 it would be $3.3. Now there is someone else who wants to buy this share at end of year 1. I would say this share gives me 100% returns every year, so I will not sell at $2. Give me $3 at the end of first year. The buyer would think well, if I buy this at $3, first year I would notionally get $.3 and from then on $1 every year. Not bad. This is still better than other stocks and better than Bank CD etc ... So as long as the company is doing well and expected to do well in future its price keeps on increasing as there is someone who want to buy. Why would someone want to sell and not hold one: 1. Needs cash for buying house or other purposes, close to retirement etc 2. Is balancing the portfolio to make is less risk based 3. Quite a few similar reasons Why would someone feel its right to buy: 1. Has cash and is young is open to small risk 2. Believes the value will still go up further 3. Quite a few similar reasons", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8be243534531945387a55667d9391d39", "text": "\"As an owner of a share of a business you also \"\"own\"\" profits made by the business. But you delegate company management to reinvest those profits, on your behalf, to make even more profits. So your share of the business is a little money-making machine that should grow, without you having to pay taxes on the dividends and without you having to decide where to reinvest your share of the profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3ce1b8ea4794c2ad88e45f2f68c45be1", "text": "\"Yes, I agree with you. Saying that the value of the stock will grow as the company grows and acquires more assets ... I don't see why. Okay, I'm a nice guy and I want to see other people do well, but what do I care how much money they're making if they're not giving any of it to ME? Frankly I think it's like people who buy commemorative plates or beanie babies or other \"\"collectibles\"\" as an investment. As long as others are also buying them as an investment, and buying and reselling at a profit, the value will continue to go up. But one day people say, Wait, is this little stuffed toy really worth $10,000? and the balloon bursts. Confer Dutch tulips: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-dutch-tulip-bubble-of-1637/ As I see it, what gives a non-dividend-paying stock value is mostly the expectation that at some time in the future it will pay dividends. This is especially true of new start-up companies. As you mentioned, there's also the possibility of a takeover. It wouldn't have to be a hostile takeover, any takeover would do. At that point the buying company either buys the stock or exchanges it for shares of their own. In the first case you now have cash for your investment and in the second case you now have stock in a dividend-paying company -- or in another non-dividend-paying company and you start the cycle over.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "972477431e58893d9d8e5cb7f9dea618", "text": "\"Most companies are taken over. One can reasonably guess that company X will be taken over for a price P, at some future point in time. Then the company has a value today, that is less than price P, by a large enough margin so that the investor will likely \"\"make out\"\" when the company finally is taken over at some unknown point in time. The exception is a company like Microsoft or Apple that basically grow too large to be taken over. But then they eventually start paying dividends when they become \"\"mature.\"\" Again, the trick, during the non-dividend paying period (e.g. ten or fifteen years ago) is to guess what dividends will be paid in some future time, and price the stock low enough today so that it will be worthwhile for the buyer.\"", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "e5fd2fc3ea79e1c5c3779c8ed00a42f8", "text": "\"Yes, there are non-stock analogs to the Price/Earnings ratio. Rental properties have a Price/Rent ratio, which is analogous to stocks' Price/Revenue ratio. With rental properties, the \"\"Cap Rate\"\" is analogous to the inverse of the Price/Earnings ratio of a company that has no long-term debt. Bonds have an interest rate. Depending on whether you care about current dividends or potential income, the interest rate is analogous to either a stock's dividend rate or the inverse of the Price/Earnings ratio.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "dde8f7266f2819fb673198020fc362f7", "text": "\"A dividend is one method of returning value to shareholders, some companies pay richer dividends than others; some companies don't typically pay a dividend. Understand that shareholders are owners of a company. When you buy a stock you now own a portion (albeit an extremely small portion) of that company. It is up to you to determine whether holding stock in a company is worth the risk inherent to equity investing over simply holding treasury notes or some other comparable no risk investment like bank savings or CDs. Investing isn't really intended to change your current life. A common phrase is \"\"investing in tomorrow.\"\" It's about holding on to money so you'll have it for tomorrow. It's about putting your money to work for you today, so you'll have it tomorrow. It's all about the future, not your current life.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8275ea015abe08b1d099c7fdeb640a42", "text": "It is just a different category of stock issued by a company that gives its owners different treatment when it comes to dividend payment and a few other financial transactions. Preferred stock holders get treated with some preference with regard to the company's profits and assets. For example, dividends are typically guaranteed to preferred stock holders whereas the leadership in the company can elect at any time not to pay dividends to common stockholders. In the event the company is liquidated, the preferred stockholders also get to be in line ahead of common stockholders when the assets are distributed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7260e33a94f0592cc40cc223803db899", "text": "There are books on the subject of valuing stocks. P/E ratio has nothing directly to do with the value of a company. It may be an indication that the stock is undervalued or overvalued, but does not indicate the value itself. The direct value of company is what it would fetch if it was liquidated. For example, if you bought a dry cleaner and sold all of the equipment and receivables, how much would you get? To value a living company, you can treat it like a bond. For example, assume the company generates $1 million in profit every year and has a liquidation value of $2 million. Given the risk profile of the business, let's say we would like to make 8% on average per year, then the value of the business is approximately $1/0.08 + $2 = $14.5 million to us. To someone who expects to make more or less the value might be different. If the company has growth potential, you can adjust this figure by estimating the estimated income at different percentage chances of growth and decline, a growth curve so to speak. The value is then the net area under this curve. Of course, if you do this for NYSE and most NASDAQ stocks you will find that they have a capitalization way over these amounts. That is because they are being used as a store of wealth. People are buying the stocks just as a way to store money, not necessarily make a profit. It's kind of like buying land. Even though the land may never give you a penny of profit, you know you can always sell it and get your money back. Because of this, it is difficult to value high-profile equities. You are dealing with human psychology, not pennies and dollars.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c9b6e76052a90103ff5a9ddac9ac31a5", "text": "\"Baseball cards don't pay dividends. But many profitable companies do just that, and those that don't could, some day. Profits & dividends is where your analogy falls apart. But let's take it further. Consider: If baseball cards could somehow yield a regular stream of income just for owning them, then there might be yet another group of people, call them the Daves. These Daves I know are the kind of people that would like to own baseball cards over the long term just for their income-producing capability. Daves would seek out the cards with the best chance of producing and growing a reliable income stream. They wouldn't necessarily care about being able to flip a card at an inflated price to a Bob, but they might take advantage of inflated prices once in a while. Heck, even some of the Steves would enjoy this income while they waited for the eventual capital gain made by selling to a Bob at a higher price. Plus, the Steves could also sell their cards to Daves, not just Bobs. Daves would be willing to pay more for a card based on its income stream: how reliable it is, how high it is, how fast it grows, and where it is relative to market interest rates. A card with a good income stream might even have more value to a Dave than to a Bob, because a Dave doesn't care as much about the popularity of the player. Addendum regarding your comment: I suppose I'm still struggling with the best way to present my question. I understand that companies differ in this aspect in that they produce value. But if stockholders cannot simply claim a percentage of a company's value equal to their share, then the fact that companies produce value seems irrelevant to the \"\"Bobs\"\". You're right – stockholders can't simply claim their percentage of a company's assets. Rather, shareholders vote in a board of directors. The board of directors can decide whether or not to issue dividends or buy back shares, each of which puts money back in your pocket. A board could even decide to dissolve the company and distribute the net assets (after paying debts and dissolution costs) to the shareholders – but this is seldom done because there's often more profit in remaining a going concern. I think perhaps what you are getting hung up on is the idea that a small shareholder can't command the company to give net assets in exchange for shares. Instead, generally speaking, a company runs somewhat like a democracy – but it's each share that gets a vote, not each shareholder. Since you can't redeem your shares back to the company on demand, there exists a secondary market – the stock market – where somebody else is willing to take over your investment based on what they perceive the value of your shares to be – and that market value is often different from the underlying \"\"book value\"\" per share.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0619eb0ed1ee60b67556347fb051ff16", "text": "There are many reasons for buying stock for dividends. You are right in the sense that in theory a stock's price will go down in value by the amount of the dividend. As the amount of dividend was adding to the value of the company, but now has been paid out to shareholder, so now the company is worth less by the value of the dividend. However, in real life this may or may not happen. Sometimes the price will drop by less than the value of the dividend. Sometimes the price will drop by more than the dividend. And other times the price will go up even though the stock has gone ex-dividend. We can say that if the price has dropped by exactly the amount of the dividend then there has been no change in the stockholders value, if the price has dropped by more than the value of the dividend then there has been a drop to the stockholder's value, and if the price has gone up or dropped by less than the value of the dividend then there has been a increase to the stockholder's value. Benefits of Buying Stocks with Good Dividends: What you shouldn't do however, is buy stocks solely due to the dividend. Be aware that if a company starts reducing its dividends, it could be an early warning sign that the company may be heading into financial troubles. That is why holding a stock that is dropping in price purely for its dividend can be a very dangerous practice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d68fc2a7722d857c5ffbe80888669754", "text": "\"There are a LOT of reasons why institutional investors would own a company's stock (especially a lot of it). Some can be: The company is in one of the indices, especially big ones. Many asset management companies have funds that are either passive (track index) or more-or-less closely adhere to a benchmark, with the benchmark frequently being (based on/exactly) an index. As such, a stock that's part of an index would be heavily owned by institutional investors. Conclusion: Nothing definitive. Being included in an equity index is usually dependent on the market cap; NOT on intrinsic quality of the company, its fundamentals or stock returns. The company is considered a good prospect (growth or value), in a sector that is popular with institutional investors. There's a certain amount of groupthink in investing. To completely butcher a known IT saying, you don't get fired for investing in AAPL :) While truly outstanding and successful investors seek NON-popular assets (which would be undervalued), the bulk is likely to go with \"\"best practices\"\"... and the general rules for valuation and analysis everyone uses are reasonably similar. As such, if one company invests in a stock, it's likely a competitor will follow similar reasoning to invest in it. Conclusion: Nothing definitive. You don't know if the price at which those institutional companies bought the stock is way lower than now. You don't know if the stock is held for its returns potential, or as part of an index, or some fancy strategy you as individual investor can't follow. The company's technicals lead the algorithms to prefer it. And they feed off of each other. Somewhat similar in spirit to #2, except this time, it's algorithmic trading making decisions based on technicals instead of portfolio managers based on funamentals. Obviously, same conclusion applies, even more so. The company sold a large part of the stock directly to institutional investor as part of an offering. Sometimes, as part of IPO (ala PNC and BLK), sometimes additional capital raising (ala Buffett and BAC) Conclusion: Nothing definitive. That investor holds on to the investment, sometimes for reason not only directly related to stock performance (e.g. control of the company, or synergies). Also, does the fact that Inst. Own % is high mean that the company is a good investment and/or less risky? Not necessarily. In 2008, Bear Stearns Inst Own. % was 77%\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "292eac97244e913ab4153315d2e1571a", "text": "Stock acquired through a (non-taxable) stock dividend has the same holding period as the stock on which the dividend was paid.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "df968b0dad2a0f72bf0e625b8d5e3fa0", "text": "\"There is one other factor that I haven't seen mentioned here. It's easy to assume that if you buy a stock, then someone else (another stock owner) must have sold it to you. This is not true however, because there are people called \"\"market makers\"\" whose basic job is to always be available to buy shares from those who wish to sell, and sell shares to those who wish to buy. They could be selling you shares they just bought from someone else, but they also could simply be issuing shares from the company itself, that have never been bought before. This is a super oversimplified explanation, but hopefully it illustrates my point.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9ff4b83c8e5627b710d84964fc9b0a85", "text": "\"This answer will expand a bit on the theory. :) A company, as an entity, represents a pile of value. Some of that is business value (the revenue stream from their products) and some of that is assets (real estate, manufacturing equipment, a patent portfolio, etc). One of those assets is cash. If you own a share in the company, you own a share of all those assets, including the cash. In a theoretical sense, it doesn't really matter whether the company holds the cash instead of you. If the company adds an extra $1 billion to its assets, then people who buy and sell the company will think \"\"hey, there's an extra $1 billion of cash in that company; I should be willing to pay $1 billion / shares outstanding more per share to own it than I would otherwise.\"\" Granted, you may ultimately want to turn your ownership into cash, but you can do that by selling your shares to someone else. From a practical standpoint, though, the company doesn't benefit from holding that cash for a long time. Cash doesn't do much except sit in bank accounts and earn pathetically small amounts of interest, and if you wanted pathetic amounts of interests from your cash you wouldn't be owning shares in a company, you'd have it in a bank account yourself. Really, the company should do something with their cash. Usually that means investing it in their own business, to grow and expand that business, or to enhance profitability. Sometimes they may also purchase other companies, if they think they can turn a profit from the purchase. Sometimes there aren't a lot of good options for what to do with that money. In that case, the company should say, \"\"I can't effectively use this money in a way which will grow my business. You should go and invest it yourself, in whatever sort of business you think makes sense.\"\" That's when they pay a dividend. You'll see that a lot of the really big global companies are the ones paying dividends - places like Coca-Cola or Exxon-Mobil or what-have-you. They just can't put all their cash to good use, even after their growth plans. Many people who get dividends will invest them in the stock market again - possibly purchasing shares of the same company from someone else, or possibly purchasing shares of another company. It doesn't usually make a lot of sense for the company to invest in the stock market themselves, though. Investment expertise isn't really something most companies are known for, and because a company has multiple owners they may have differing investment needs and risk tolerance. For instance, if I had a bunch of money from the stock market I'd put it in some sort of growth stock because I'm twenty-something with a lot of savings and years to go before retirement. If I were close to retirement, though, I would want it in a more stable stock, or even in bonds. If I were retired I might even spend it directly. So the company should let all its owners choose, unless they have a good business reason not to. Sometimes companies will do share buy-backs instead of dividends, which pays money to people selling the company stock. The remaining owners benefit by reducing the number of shares outstanding, so they own more of what's left. They should only do this if they think the stock is at a fair price, or below a fair price, for the company: otherwise the remaining owners are essentially giving away cash. (This actually happens distressingly often.) On the other hand, if the company's stock is depressed but it subsequently does better than the rest of the market, then it is a very good investment. The one nice thing about share buy-backs in general is that they don't have any immediate tax implications for the company's owners: they simply own a stock which is now more valuable, and can sell it (and pay taxes on that sale) whenever they choose.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ca1c1d902376642b2036114196a52f8", "text": "Imagine that a company never distributes any of its profits to its shareholders. The company might invest these profits in the business to grow future profits or it might just keep the money in the bank. Either way, the company is growing in value. But how does that help you as a small investor? If the share price never went up then the market value would become tiny compared to the actual value of the company. At some point another company would see this and put a bid in for the whole company. The shareholders wouldn't sell their shares if the bid didn't reflect the true value of the company. This would mean that your shares would suddenly become much more valuable. So, the reason why the share price goes up over time is to represent the perceived value of the company. As this could be realised either by the distribution of dividends (or a return of capital) to shareholders, or by a bidder buying the whole company, the shares are actually worth something to someone in the market. So the share price will tend to track the value of the company even if dividends are never paid. In the short term a share price reflects sentiment, but over the long term it will tend to track the value of the company as measured by its profitability.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7da8771edbf816b4663db5e5ab68588d", "text": "Stock basically implies your ownership in the company. If you own 1% ownership in a company, the value of your stake becomes equal to 1% of the valuation of the entire company. Dividends are basically disbursal of company's profits to its shareholders. By holding stocks of a company, you become eligible to receiving dividends proportional to your ownership in the company. Dividends though are not guaranteed, as the company may incur losses or the management may decide to use the cash for future growth instead of disbursing it to the shareholders. For example, let's say a company called ABC Inc, is listed on NYSE and has a total of 1 million shares issued. Let's say if you purchase 100 stocks of ABC, your ownership in ABC will become Let's say that the share price at the time of purchase was $10 each. Total Investment = Stock Price * Number of Stocks Purchased = $10 * 100 = $1,000 Now, let's say that the company declares a dividend of $1 per share. Then, Dividend Yield = Dividend/Stock Price = $1/$10 = 10% If one has to draw analogy with other banking products, one can think of stock and dividend as Fixed Deposits (analogous to stock) and the interest earned on the Fixed Deposit (analogous to dividend).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f56bfa4b4678efd8cc9806a01578457", "text": "Would you mind adding where that additional value comes from, if not from the losses of other investors? You asked this in a comment, but it seems to be the key to the confusion. Corporations generate money (profits, paid as dividends) from sales. Sales trade products for money. The creation of the product creates value. A car is worth more than General Motors pays for its components and inputs, even including labor and overhead as inputs. That's what profit is: added value. The dividend is the return that the stock owner gets for owning the stock. This can be a bit confusing in the sense that some stocks don't pay dividends. The theory is that the stock price is still based on the future dividends (or the liquidation price, which you could also consider a type of dividend). But the current price is mostly based on the likelihood that the stock price will increase rather than any expected dividends during ownership of the stock. A comment calls out the example of Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway is a weird case. It operates more like a mutual fund than a company. As such, investors prefer that it reinvest its money rather than pay a dividend. If investors want money from it, they sell shares to other investors. But that still isn't really a zero sum game, as the stock increases in value over time. There are other stocks that don't pay dividends. For example, Digital Equipment Corporation went through its entire existence without ever paying a dividend. It merged with Compaq, paying investors for owning the stock. Overall, you can see this in that the stock market goes up on average. It might have a few losing years, but pick a long enough time frame, and the market will increase during it. If you sell a stock today, it's because you value the money more than the stock. If it goes up tomorrow, that's the buyer's good luck. If it goes down, the buyer's bad luck. But it shouldn't matter to you. You wanted money for something. You received the money. The increase in the stock market overall is an increase in value. It is completely unrelated to trading losses. Over time, trading gains outweigh trading losses for investors as a group. Individual investors may depart from that, but the overall gain is added value. If the only way to make gains in the stock market was for someone else to take a loss, then the stock market wouldn't be able to go up. To view it as a zero sum game, we have to ignore the stocks themselves. Then each transaction is a payment (loss) for one party and a receipt (gain) for the other. But the stocks themselves do have value other than what we pay for them. The net present value of of future payments (dividends, buyouts, etc.) has an intrinsic worth. It's a risky worth. Some stocks will turn out to be worthless, but on average the gains outweigh the losses.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "17afa73737a789d0d8c3f1ddca93da58", "text": "\"Stock has value to the buyer even if it does not currently pay dividends, since it is part ownership of the company (and the company's assets). The owners (of which you are now a part) hire managers to make a \"\"dividend policy decision.\"\" If the company can reinvest the profits into a project that would earn more than the \"\"minimum acceptable rate of return,\"\" then they should do so. If the company has no internal investment opportunities at or above this desired rate, then the company has an obligation to declare a dividend. Paying out a dividend returns this portion of profit to the owners, who can then invest their money elsewhere and earn more. For example: The stock market currently has, say, a 5% rate of return. Company A has a $1M profit and can invest it in a project with an expected 10% rate of return, so they should do so. Company B has a $1M profit, but their best internal project only has an expected 2% rate of return. It is in the owners' best interest to receive their portion of their company's profit as a dividend and re-invest it in other stocks. (Others have pointed out the tax deferrment portion of dividend policy, so I skipped that)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20ff5cb24583d12967d4db5e7d7eea81", "text": "Buybacks do not increase the company's value. Cash is traded for outstanding shares. This is similar to a dividend, but instead of cash, investors receive a rising share-price. Whether an investor prefers a cash dividend or capital gains is less important than the outcome that their investment is gaining value for them.", "title": "" } ]
fiqa
d2b17e46810349445b4ed23d1626aaf3
American taxes if living outside the US and get paid by US company on a US bank account
[ { "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": "62d4d02c96f3c835c9f5f8998ccd9e9d", "text": "Technically, if you earn in US (being paid there, which means you have a work visa) and live in other country, you must pay taxes in both countries. International treaties try to decrease the double-taxation, and in this case, you may pay in your country the difference of what you have paid in US. ie. your Country is 20% and USA is 15%, you will pay 5%, and vice-versa. This works only with certain areas. You must know the tax legislation of both countries, and I recommend you seek for advisory. This site have all the basic information you need: http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion Good luck.", "title": "" } ]
[ { "docid": "85896178999fb87373832224dfd7bb96", "text": "\"The short answer is that there is no US tax due if all you are doing is moving assets held abroad to the US. Whether you are a \"\"returning\"\" US citizen (or will continue your residence in the Philippines) is not relevant to this. The long answer is that you may be liable for a lot of other fines and taxes if you have not been doing any of several things correctly. As a US citizen, you are required to declare your worldwide income on your US income tax returns. Have you been filing US income tax returns during your time abroad? and have you been declaring the income that you have received from non-US sources each year? This includes wages, interest, dividends, capital gains, rental income from real estate, gambling income, lottery winnings, Nobel prizes, everything. If you have been paying income tax to other countries on this income, then it is generally possible to get a deduction for this tax payment from the income that will be taxed by the US (or a credit for the tax payment against your US Federal income tax liability) depending on the existence of tax treaties or (when the US Senate refuses to approve a tax treaty) a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between the US and other countries. In some cases, foreign earned income up to a certain limit is not taxed by the US at all. Even if you have been filing US income tax returns correctly, and can thus account for the $45,000 in your savings account, or you received that money as a gift or inheritance and can account for it on that basis, have you been filing reports with the US Treasury since the year when the total value of all your foreign bank accounts and other financial assets (stocks and bonds etc but not real estate) first exceeded $10,000? In prior years, this was a matter of filling out and submitting Form TD F 90-22.1 but more recently (since 2010?), you need to fill out and submit FinCEN Form 114. Have you been submitting the required documentation all along? Note that there are severe penalties for failure to fine FinCEN Form 114, and these penalties do not get waived by tax treaties. In summary, you might (or you might not) have several other tax or legal issues to worry about than just taxes on the transfer of your money from the Philippines to the US.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1208ebc915c575fdffa0a2486c77dab", "text": "Well according to US logic, an individual can be born outside the US to an American parent, never have even stepped foot in the US or even be aware of their American citizenship, but still owe taxes and reporting to the IRS. There are no true international corporations as each country has to have its own subsidiary in order to follow local laws. (well EU being common market can just have one EU) Those subsidiaries are owned by whatever percentage by the headquarters, but are distinct companies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "feb2ecb57b9ac11c3fe943205c63ea0f", "text": "As the name says, its for income earned in a Foreign country. If you have been paying US income tax on this while living in the US, nothing is going to change here. You should be informing yourself on how to avoid double taxation in your new country of residence. Passive income earned abroad (dividends, interest) also do not fall under this exemption. The purpose of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is to make it easy for expats who work abroad to avoid double income taxation without going through the complicated process of applying for tax credits. The US is the only industrial country that taxes its residents regardless of where they reside. That is also why it only goes to about $100,000 a year. If you are a high earner, they want to make it more difficult. Also as a side note, since you are going to be abroad for a year. I will point out that if you have more than $10,000 in foreign accounts at any point in the year you need to declare this in an FBAR form. This is not advertised as well as it should be and carries ridiculous penalties for non-compliance. I can't count the number of times I have heard a US expat say that they were unaware of this.", "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": "37feddb6cb3a7bb862d4267ba2ae404f", "text": "I'm not missing the point. Canada will still charge you/a corporation income taxes on worldwide income so long as you are resident in Canada. If you are incorporated in Canada but resident elsewhere, you are only subject to tax on Canadian-sourced income. In the US, where you are incorporated is the method of determining liability. Why is one method of determining jurisdiction correct and not the other? If you are a corporation residing in Canada, you still pay Canadian taxes on worldwide income, even if that income is sourced in another country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "caf5c4379954fbdcf10d0bc39778f4e7", "text": "This often occurs because of misrepresentation of the corporation income. Most of the income in the US is payed at or a little below the 35% rate... But when the figure is calculated non-US income is counted alongside US income. For some reason, in the US it makes sense for corporations to pay income taxes in the countries they actually made the income in AND the US. Mind you... Only USA and Eritrea have this sort of backwards thinking. So yeah... If they make $100 worldwide income, out of which $50 is US income, and the company reports $15 in US taxes, they get represented as paying 15% effective tax rate when in reality they payed 30% on US taxes for their US income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f358501a7f9abf6f372a1afd9f0f7be5", "text": "except that most companies are small companies and most business owners end up as families at some point. I'm starting a business abroad and will be taxed at 35% in the USA even if I don't live there. There's ways to get around it, but I'm not sure exactly how to do it yet nor am I making enough money yet to justify the up front expense of doing this", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3f8d9c0e276776b3ddd1f8b084e6b365", "text": "In the United States the general policy is that the IRS would consider it income when you have access to the money. I work for a company that has a contract with another company. Near the end of the year I turn in a time card that has my hours that I worked as of that date. Because they don't pay me until early January the money on the check is counted in the new year. I couldn't touch the money until they issued the check. If they had paid me on December 31st it would have counted as the old year, even if I only had a short window to have access to it before the year ended. It would even count as old year money if I held on to the December check, but didn't deposit it until March. So it would become income when you could use it. So If you could access it via a check, or debit card, or transfer it to the bank it is now income. Of course that is in the United States. You would need to see what the situation is in Singapore.... The edge cases always depend on the country.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c1f3dacf4ab2b77562a40c470a5c78f4", "text": "Your bank doesn't care about your immigration status, it cares about your tax status. You're a US tax resident and will open a US-resident account, not an international account (regardless of where the money comes from).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1f7667a2760ae4f21cf8be02f371e524", "text": "\"Its not for US citizens - its for US residents. If the US considers you as a tax resident - you'll be treated the same as a US citizen, regardless of your immigration status. The question is very unclear, since it is not mentioned whether your US sourced income \"\"from the Internet\"\" is sales in the US, sales on-line, services you provide, investments, or what else. All these are treated differently. For some kinds of US-sourced income you should have paid taxes in the US already, regardless of where you physically reside. For others - not. In any case, if you become US tax resident, you'll be taxed on your worldwide income, not only the $10K deposited in the US bank account. ALL of your income, everywhere in the world, must be declared to the US government and will be taxed. You should seek professional advice, before you move to the US, in order to understand your responsibilities, liabilities and rights. I suggest looking for a EA/CPA licensed in California and experienced with taxation of foreigners (look for someone in the SF or LA metropolitan areas). Keep in mind that there may be a tax treaty between the US and your home country that may affect your Federal (but not California) taxes.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3952f02414674a677415876312af53fe", "text": "First, yes, your LLC has to file annual taxes to the US government. All US companies do, regardless of where their owners live. Second, you will also probably be liable to personally file a return in the US and unless the US has a tax treaty with India (which I don't believe it does) you may end up paying taxes on your same income to both countries. Finally, opening a US bank account as a foreign citizen can be very tricky. You need to talk to a US accountant who is familiar with Indian & US laws.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3c276445f1d5db3e000e6ae79c6709e", "text": "And if you need to pay business taxes outside of the regular US 1040 form, you can use the IRS' Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). Basically, you enroll your bank accounts, and you can make estimated, penalty, etc. payments. The site can be found here.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f9589a3228d51c680546c138e8a52d9b", "text": "Do I pay tax to the US and then also pay it in India for my income, or does my American partner, who holds 15% of the monthly income, pay tax in the US for his income? Of course you do, what kind of question is this? You have income earned in the US by a US entity, and the entity is taxed. Since LLC is a disregarded entity - the tax shifts to you personally. You should file form 1040NR. You should also talk to a tax professional who's proficient in the Indo-US tax treaty, since it may affect your situation.", "title": "" }, { "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": "026253eb0466607bb63f7801dcfa4d32", "text": "As Mhoran said, the risks of buying a bankrupt company are huge, and even successful bankruptcy turnarounds don't involve keeping the same stock. For instance, the GM bankruptcy was resolved by the company more or less selling all its valuable assets (brands, factories, inventory) to a new version of itself, using that money to pay off what liabilities it could, and then dissolving. The new company then issued new stock, and you had to buy the new stock to see it rise; the old stock became worthless. AA could have gone the same way; Delta could have bought it out of bankruptcy and consumed it outright, with any remaining shareholders being paid off at market value. That's probably the best the market was hoping for. Instead, the deal is a much more equal merger; AMR brings a very large airport network and aircraft fleet to the table, and Delta brings its cash, an also-considerable fleet and network, and a management team that's kept that airline solvent. The stockholders, therefore, expect to be paid off at a much higher per-share price, either in a new combined stock, in Delta stock, or in cash.", "title": "" } ]
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