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6fcf3e263cda5701b6f8356ccff8bf62
|
Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check?
|
[
{
"docid": "23641425a136902b14a888a56d82c9b1",
"text": "Because of the way checks are processed, you can't write a check for $100 million or more: http://www.bankingquestions.com/checksyoureceived/q_limitfunds.html The field used for 'amount' has 10 digits, so anything at/above 10^10 cents (which would require 11 digits) can't be processed, at least not by normal means.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a84abc29f80cea29cc9d9ff10b3d315d",
"text": "\"Like the old American Express commercial: \"\"no preset spending limit\"\". It is really up to the bank(s) in question how big a cheque they are willing to honour. A larger amount would likely be held longer by a receiving institution to ensure that it cleared properly, but nothing written in law (in Canada, that I am aware of).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "50d8baa527dda7e3d14ef76cae41eb8f",
"text": "As long as someone is willing to take it, you can write it! I personally wrote a check for a new car. The dealership didn't bat an eye.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "37744cb356d487c24fefaa8b68df185c",
"text": "Not really. A bank will honor a million dollar check if there are funds there to let it clear.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a851a49cd357b224216792c74b6ab41d",
"text": "Many businesses will request that you get a bank-issued check for large amounts of money. The exception is often in cases where you're not going anywhere: you can write a 50,000 check for a deposit on a new house, and you'll never have a problem, but a car dealer will probably request a counter check for the same sum.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "990c695c06f83b04293bc55ff1980a6d",
"text": "I suspect @SpehroPefhany is correct and that your bank will cash a check from the US Department of the Treasury. Especially since they're the same ones who guarantee the U.S. Dollar. They may hold the funds until the check clears, but I think you'll have good luck going through your bank. Of course, fees and exchange rate are a factor. Consider browsing the IRS and US Treasury Department websites for suggestions/FAQs. I suggest you line up a way to cash it, and make sure there's enough left after fees and exchange rate and postage to get the check that the whole process is worth it, all before you ask it to be shipped to you. If there's no way to do it through your bank, through a money exchange business (those at the airport come to mind) or through your government (postal bank?), and the check is enough that you're willing to go through some trouble, then you should look into assigning power of attorney for this purpose. I don't know if it is possible, but it might be worth looking into. Look for US based banks in your area.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3d585003ac8bc7e31dd82558e215bafb",
"text": "There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "75a17c9873c8af651c812c8a390fda9c",
"text": "There is no limit on the output maximum in one year. The strength of the HSA is that if you don't spend all the money in the account, it rolls over to the next year. The benefit is that if a few years down the road you get a huge medical bill you are protected because you can pull it out of the HSA. The goal for me was to build up the account to a level that even if I had to may the maximum out of pocket for my insurance policy the money game from previous years deposits and current year deposits. Even you ever have the situation where the employer doesn't offer a high deductible plan the money for co-payments and medicines can still be pulled from the pre-existing HSA. If the government did limit you to withdraws not exceeding current year deposits the roll over feature would be worthless.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fff9f534af255ae2a8658a1a07f2e894",
"text": "You can limit the value of your checking account tied to paypal by not putting money in that account. In fact, you should always limit the balance in your checking account to what you plan to spend, plus a reasonable buffer. Anything you have above and being that should be in separate accounts (both to minimize exposure as well as maximize your interest earned).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8cb2a9643708b5505e3ebd3fc591d30f",
"text": "\"Technically it doesn't matter what size the check is. In fact, it doesn't even have to be written on paper. While writing it on a cow may not always fly, almost any object actually will. That said, more to the question asked - you can definitely use the smaller \"\"personal\"\"-sized checks for a business account. The larger checks formatted to the \"\"letter\"\" page size: if you cut it into three equal pieces with a tiny bit left for the binder holes - you'll get exactly three check-sized pieces. This is convenient for those printing checks, keeping carbon-copy records etc. Regarding the MICR line: I just checked my business check book, which is of a smaller \"\"personal\"\" size (that I got for free from the bank) - the check number is at the end.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d5d1e8cea7fd9c7f67b3b8a3b5051f7f",
"text": "Personally, I have a little checkbook program that I use to keep track of my spending and balance. Like you -- and I presume like most people -- I have certain recurring bills: the mortgage, insurance payments, car payment, etc. I simply enter these into the checkbook program about a month before the bill is due. Then I can run a transaction list that shows the date, amount, and remaining balance after each transaction. So if I want to know how much money I really have available to spend, I just look for the last transaction before my next payday, and see what the balance will be on that day. Personally, I always keep a certain amount of pad in my account so if I made a mistake and entered an incorrect amount for a check, or forgot to enter one completely, I don't overdraw the account. (I like to keep $1000 in such padding but that's way more than really necessary, it's very rare that I make a mistake of more than $100.) In my case, I don't enter electric bills or heating bills because I don't know the amount until I get the bill, and the amounts fall well within my padding, and for just two bills I can factor them in in my head. BTW I wrote this program myself but I'm sure there are similar products on the market. I used to use a spreadsheet and that worked pretty well. (Mainly I wrote the program because I have a tiny side business that I have to keep tax records for even though it makes almost no money.) You could in principle do it on paper, but the catch to that is that when you write payments on your paper ledger in advance of actually writing the check, you will often be writing down payments out of order, and so it becomes difficult to see what your balance is or was or will be on any given date. But a computer system can easily accept transactions out of order and then sort them and re-do the balance calculations in a fraction of a second.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2872c54aa6d39f2befbdf243277e0511",
"text": "\"On thing the questioner should do is review the Summary Plan Description (SPD) for the 401(k) plan. This MAY have details on any plan imposed limits on salary deferrals. If the SPD does not have sufficient detail, the questioner should request a complete copy of current plan document and then review this with someone who knows how to read plan documents. The document for a 401(k) plan CAN specify a maximum percentage of compensation that a participant in the 401(k) plan can defer REGARDLESS of the maximum dollar deferral limit in Internal Revenue Code Section 402(g). For example, the document for a 401(k) plan can provide that participants can elect to defer any amount of their compensation (salary) BUT not to exceed ten percent (10%). Thus, someone whose salary is $50,000 per year will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $5,000. Someone making $150,000 will effectively be limited to deferring, at most, $15,000. This is true regardless of the fact that the 2013 dollar limit on salary deferrals is $17,500. This is also true regardless of whether or not a participant may want to defer more than ten percent (10%) of compensation. This \"\"plan imposed\"\" limit on salary deferral contributions is permissible assuming it is applied in a nondiscriminatory manner. This plan imposed limit is entirely separate from any other rules or restrictions on salary deferral amounts that might be as a result of things like the average deferral percentage test.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9c82501a5c673b08b9acdd4929544147",
"text": "As others have pointed out in comments and answers, the 6 withdrawal limit was based on Regulation D. Banks/credit unions that offer checking-account based HSAs do exist, with no limit on the number of withdrawals (at least according to information given to me over the phone -- I didn't check the disclosure brochures). Concrete examples (I can't vouch for any of these, just found them in my research):",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee98cdc37024de3dac00fdb75f6e1d98",
"text": "Believe it or not, this is done as a service to you. The reason for this has to do with a fundamental difference between a credit card account and a checking account. With a credit card account, there is no money in the account; every charge is borrowed money. When you get to your credit limit, your credit transactions will start getting declined, but if the bank does for some reason let one get approved, it's not a big deal for anyone; it just means that you owe a little more than your credit limit. Note that (almost) every credit card transaction today is an electronic transaction. A checking account, however, has real money in it. When it is gone, it is gone. When a balance inquiry is done, the bank has no way of knowing how many checks you've written that have not been cashed yet. It is a customer's responsibility to know exactly how much money is available to spend. If you write more checks than you have money for in your account, technically you have committed a crime. Unfortunately, there are too many people now that are not taking the responsibility of calculating their own checking account balance seriously, and bad checks are written all the time. When a bank allows these transactions to be paid even though you don't have enough money in your account, they are preventing a crime from being committed by you. The fee is a finance charge for loaning you the money, but it is also there to encourage you not to spend more than you have. Even if you use a debit card, it is still tied to a checking account, and the bank doesn't know if you have written enough checks to overdraw your account or not. It is still your responsibility to keep track of your own available balance. Every time this happens to you, thank the bank as you pay this fee, and then commit to keeping your own running balance and always knowing how much you have left in your account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "8f414572f1273861b9e4d36c3ad3e02a",
"text": "As I replied to someone else who said that: I'm often having to send stuff with the check. Paperwork, a bill etc. While that would work to a person who knows me, it's usually not going to work with a business or government who needs to know why I'm sending this check.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "848f96c11dba0694cc5c7388bd4ed21b",
"text": "I am a very light TurboTax user and have expensed a laptop in the past (since it was used exclusively for work) and used the itemized deduction there and has no issues. Just not sure if there was a limit or anything of note to realize ahead of time. Thanks!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e8034a4cc4698ab17120162a58ee34d8",
"text": "The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requires that banks assist the U.S. Gov't in identifying and preventing money laundering. This means they're required to keep records of cash transactions of Negotiable Instruments, and report any such transactions with a daily aggregate limit of a value greater than (or equal to?) $10,000. Because of this, the business which is issuing the money order is also required to record this transaction to report it to the bank, who then holds the records in case FinCEN wants to review the transactions. EDITED: Added clarification on the $10,000 rule",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "536ccae68d4f08d18c19a5b3116b231e",
"text": "You probably can't deposit the check directly, but there are mechanisms in place to get your money through other means. In the US, all states and territories have an unclaimed property registry. Before you contact the company that wrote the check, you should check that registry in your state. You will have to provide proof that you are the intended recipient, having the original check in your possession should make that considerably easier.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "667d32f4e1e3404eca02464fa3df91b6",
"text": "\"Nope, anything is that has the required information is fine. At a minimum you need to have the routing number, account number, amount, \"\"pay to\"\" line and a signature. The only laws are that it can't be written on anything illegal, like human skin, and it has to be portable, not carved on the side of a building ( for example) https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20434,00.html http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/people-actually-cash-big-novelty-checks-even-possible/ That said, the MICR line and standard sizes will make things eaiser for they bank, but are hardly required. You could write your check on notebook paper so long as it had the right information, and the bank would have to \"\"cash it\"\". Keep in mind that a check is an order to the bank to give your money to a person and nothing more. You could write it out in sentence form. \"\"Give Bill $2 from account 12344221 routing number 123121133111 signed _________\"\" and it would be valid. In practice though, it would be a fight. Mostly the bank would try to urge you to use a standard check, or could hold the funds because it looks odd, till they received the ok from \"\"the other bank\"\". But.... If you rant to fight that fight....\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
acf22d3210f50ee9213ba1015c38e79c
|
So the vending machine tore my $5 in pieces. What now?
|
[
{
"docid": "05a66ebd46644cb56b19f159f1fc8477",
"text": "According to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, if you have clearly more than one-half of the current bill remaining, you should be able to take it to your bank and exchange it. But if for some reason your bank will not take it, you can submit it to Bureau of Engraving and Printing Office of Currency Standards. Question asked on http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html I have some currency that was damaged. My bank will not exchange it for undamaged currency. What can I do? The Bureau of Engraving and Printing's Office of Currency Standards processes all requests for reimbursement for damaged United States currency. They decide the redemption value of torn or otherwise unfit currency by measuring the portions of the notes submitted. Generally, they reimburse the full face value if clearly more than one-half of the original note remains. Currency fragments measuring less than one-half are not redeemable. Go to the Damaged Money section of our website for additional information and the procedures to redeem mutilated currency. However take notice of this: Any badly soiled, dirty, defaced, disintegrated, limp, torn, worn, out currency note that is CLEARLY MORE than one-half of the original note, and does not require special examination to determine its value. These notes should be exchanged through your local bank.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b65085dc8708900f96443a37afc68f3",
"text": "There is usually contact information for the owner of the machine printed somewhere on it. Call that number. If it is in a business you could always try the clerk. Whether you get your money back is up to that person, I suppose.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "5bba439b3b8024eadf6e846854484773",
"text": "\"Hypothetically, yes! From the U.S. BEP's guidelines on Damaged Currency: Under regulations issued by the Department of the Treasury, mutilated United States currency may be exchanged at face value if: \"\"50% or less\"\" includes \"\"0%\"\". However, it is probably going to be very difficult to prove that the currency existed, had a specific face value, and was completely destroyed (instead of being replaced with a decoy at the last minute.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a2d9236c42c8610b4e4068e121289415",
"text": "\"My guess would be that they sell your debt to a collection agency and don't really bother with pressing charges for 500 dollars. A collection agency can do multiple things to hold you accountable for your debt. I hate to bring it to you but it only makes sense that you should try to resolve this debt given that \"\"not being careful enough\"\" is not facebook's responsibility. I also assume they won't let you run any further ads on the same credit card. Edit: What you could possibly do is call facebook and be honest with them, tell them it was an accident and that you can't pay the current amount. Maybe they'll waive the debt or give you a settlement offer.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e1061d441654558c807b81a7fd63974e",
"text": "Typical consumerist bullshit. Post some chat transcript with some flunky as proof of how evil corporation is. Yes, I'm sure Comcast won't sell you the box. But consumerist should be seeking interviews from upper management about this issue. Flunky order-taker is probably just not in the mood to deal with some asshole who wants to buy a box. Next week Consumerist is going to post about how Burger King will not make a Big Mac, and present video of someone placing the order at a drive-through as proof of how horrible Burger King is",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2fa6c77ec9f5ee6e0d41fa3ed8b7b974",
"text": "if the gold is damaged it has to get melted first to measure the gold content. after this process you will get your money",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7a52c1107f1e1d106c521753f6423b73",
"text": "The issue yo have to consider is that under many state laws, you must give a merchant three opportunities to correct an issue before you can sue them, so check with your state before considering that option. Here's a link to the Federal Trade Commission's warranty information page, which may give you some ideas about what your options are. Keep in ind, if you let someone else work on the computer rather than the store you bought it from, you might give the guy a valid claim in court to throw out your lawsuit! Many times, warranties will spell out the conditions under which repair work can or must be done, so make sure you follow every step to the letter in order to preserve your claim. I would strongly suggest that you start creating a paper trail for your claim. Start by writing a very precise and detailed letter to the store owner, with copies of all relevant documents (your receipts, warranty papers, etc.) included. Explain the entire history, including what steps you've taken to date to get him to honor the warranty. Offer him the option to let you take the computer to another shop for repairs at his expense. Then, send the letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the store owner so that he can't deny receiving your letter. This is all in order to make the best case you can for your claim just in case you do have to sue him. Do not take the computer to anyone else until or unless he tells you in writing that he is willing to let you do that. You don't want to risk him arguing that the other shop is responsible for the problems now. I hope this helps. Good luck!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4674f552732fce8fbaa14b20469e8079",
"text": "\">Title leads one to believe that one complaint call cost a company four million bucks. Actually the title is ambiguous; it merely implies that the complain call was *worth* $4 million. You chose to *infer* that the end result was a \"\"cost\"\" rather than a \"\"gain\"\".\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0610566afa2a7e30d8b04a99c7e94284",
"text": "Have you tried your local panhandler? She/He will probably accept 50€ in small change.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "775bc1a59adf005fc27e647115a69a72",
"text": "I recently drove past Winslow, Arizona and knocked out the fuel pump in my truck. It cost $500 to repair, and the tow would have been another several hundred if I hadn't had a Good Samaritan's club card, since it was the weekend. 2-3 days would not be acceptable in this sort of scenario. And that was just the fuel pump!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "206fcc394cd42047e135996b36db0866",
"text": "\"The service processors are providing is absorbing the risk. The flow goes, roughly (and I say roughly because it's a complicated process): 1. You swipe/insert your card at Bob's House of Eatery and get charged $10 for a bucket of ramen or something. 2. The device you swipe your card in, (\"\"a terminal\"\") encodes the card number, amount, and some other transaction details and contacts a \"\"Payment Gateway\"\". 3. The gateway decodes the blob of data, and is responsible for determining the issuing financial institution (\"\"Chase\"\", \"\"US Bank\"\", etc.). 4. The gateway contacts the above and asks, \"\"Can card # 555.. charge $10?\"\" 5. The gateway also sends this answer to the processor. 5. The processor _immediately_ proxies that yes/no back to the merchant's terminal. 6. The processor, having a transaction ID, and a yes/no, sends the response to the merchant's systems so your receipt can be printed or order processed, and so on. 7. Meanwhile, the processor has a transaction ID and is busy figuring out things like interchange fees. The amount depends on a whole host of things, and almost everyone involved in the process wants their cut -- the bank, the gateway, the processor, and it all depends on the type of card, customer, rewards, and so on. 8. At the end of the day, week, whatever, the processor collects money from the issuing financial institution and is responsible for giving the right amount -- less fees -- to the merchant. The processor here also absorbs the risk and costs for things like chargebacks, as almost everyone in that chain (gateway, issuing bank) want their pound of flesh for a chargeback, and often the processor doesn't pass that full cost on to the merchant and instead does some risk analysis to determine if they think this merchant is going to be okay to do business with. That's what you're paying for.\"",
"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": "8fd388a6a7e3c32d47bb6bbb830a5d9f",
"text": "Wait I'm confused maybe you can explain I'm in the federal reserve and I buy a hundred pounds of coin material for 180 dollars. I put that material into a magic penny machine and get a hundred pounds of pennies. My hundred pounds of pennies will now have a value of 100 dollars. I had a hundred pounds of mass worth $180 and now have a hundred pounds of mass worth $100. Where did the 80 dollars go?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "563fd3982eafab1f53110dc32176382b",
"text": "\"That was a little longer than five minutes, more like twenty. Fire isn't really a \"\"product\"\". Wireless capabilities - be more specific. Theft implies that you didn't implicit mean for it to be taken. The fact that you live here, and are a citizen relays *implicit* concession to *give* that money to the government. So, let's hear it - what is this \"\"better way to collect revenue\"\"?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5d4a4277bfad0fa36c553c5b3795370a",
"text": "Just wanted to chip in on the card reader thing. If they threaten to call the cops, call their bluff; worst case you'll spend the time waiting for a copy to show up that would've been wasted driving around looking for an ATM. Also, make sure you call the company after the fact and let them know about it (as well as identifying details about when and what cab # you were in) -- some companies don't care but the ones I've had to call about generally take that seriously (i.e. management calling me back later to get as much identifying info as possible to find the drivers responsible).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f99079f68174aba1de808f5c13750a97",
"text": "\"Do you know anyone in the US, still? If so, ask them to close it for you. $2.38 is well within the \"\"if anybody I knew asked me to I would\"\" range, and probably is for anyone you know well. Offer to send them money via a wire transfer (or Western Union or whatever), but odds are if it's a friend or coworker they won't care about $2.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "276388f53db8e90d4b87333a7c07e18a",
"text": "Generally speaking no person or program is really going to be able to help you lower your current tax burden, most tax decisions are done well before you reach the tax time. You either qualify for the deduction/credit or your don't. Where a good accountant will really be able to help you out is in planning that will limit your future tax burden. Particularly if you run a small business or are very wealthy you will probably want to consider using an accountant. I would always avoid the large scale tax prep places like HR Block they provide the same or lower quality service for a higher price than the software. I run a small business and do my own taxes using turbo tax, but my business isn't overly complex Sole prop, no employees, couple 1099's simple expenses (nothing to amortize) etc.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
deb06795f770d24b02a51929fdc8f5e5
|
Are there extra fees for a PayPal Premier account?
|
[
{
"docid": "2bd9795acd7542e370e7d84be0ecdaaa",
"text": "If you are using paypal to sell items online, you need a Premier (or better) account rather than personal. Paypal states: Our fees are the same for Personal, Premier, and Business accounts. [...] If you use your PayPal account to request money from someone, you'll be charged a fee when you receive the payment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c924fc9215246f4330705654fe1c93b",
"text": "\"Summary: the fees used to differ but no longer do. Fees are the same. If you have a personal account, feel free to upgrade it to premier to get access to more features. Longer answer: the two account types USED to differ but that changed a few years ago (maybe circa 2011?). PayPal wants person-to-person payments to be free (except where they must pass along credit card charges or else they would loose their shirt) but wants to charge merchants for receiving payments. Originally PayPal required merchants to have premier (or business) accounts, and charged fees for payments made to those account types. Personal accounts had significant limitations on receiving payments, but did not pay fees upon receiving payments. Eventually PayPal decoupled the question of \"\"is this a person-to-person payment or a payment to a merchant for goods and services?\"\" from the paypal account type. So now the same account can receive both a p2p payment (e.g. splitting lunch costs), on which it will NOT pay fees, and can receive a payment for goods or services e.g. from a web checkout, on which it WILL pay fees. Regardless of the account type.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "645e83e8696b475e9bdfbcbe6a1891af",
"text": "No, because of regulations Paypal is different in India to most countries and you cannot actually spend paypal balance. You will need to verify your PAN number and connect a bank account, although this should be very quick",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f3849cc6e6e761b6cb46319f2914a9e",
"text": "\"Are you in the US? One thing you can do is prepay taxes at a rate of a 1.8% fee. Much lower than paypal. I would do this on what is \"\"left over\"\". Here are somethings that I would tend to do in your case: Those are some of the things I would be looking at. Do you care to share the details of your offer?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f1b7f7147ecf4016b8209d50d31f589d",
"text": "I have sold a few items on ebay. The biggest issue I have with ebay is all of the fees. I am not sure how much has changed recently, but when I was selling stuff it felt like ebay and paypal took a large chunk of the money. I could be wrong, but it seemed like they were getting around 35% or more of my 'profits'. Of course, you then have the shipping fees on top of that, which will run a few bucks on common items. For items that sell for around $20 on ebay, I felt like I was ending up with about $5 in my pocket. I have used Amazon to sell used books, though I haven't done that for about a year or so. They had no fees for listing items, and the item remains listed for about 90 days. If it sells, they process the payment and can deposit it into your bank account or provide an Amazon gift certificate. I forget Amazon's fees, but I remember that it didn't seem to be as frustrating as the ebay/paypal price structure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b0c3300c1be8521de497e3994688dd9",
"text": "\"PayPal has a very generous buyer protection program. That means that the buyer can dispute receiving the goods and get their money back fairly easily (compared to credit cards). For this reason Craigslist and other sites recommend not accepting PayPal payments. I know that many transactions go through them flawlessly. But unless I really trust someone, PayPal would not be an option for me unless it was the money transfer (different rules; not as easy to get the money back). However this may be breaking PayPal Terms of Service so I would read them carefully before I went this route. There have been reports of PayPal putting extended holds on funds and effectively seizing the money by refusing to release the funds. I have never had this happen (though I did have a sale on eBay reversed though the item was never returned) but there are many reports of it on the Internet. As far as the BoA option I would contact them and see what they recommend. I would find out what their policies are on reversing the transfers and on providing your account number. They may have a special deposit-only account number you could provide the buyers. But I would want to learn as much about the system as I could before I started using it. The Internet has turned the old adage of \"\"buyer beware\"\" into \"\"seller beware\"\". There are many schemes that con artists have come up with to defraud unsuspecting sellers. I received several offers from people wanting to pay me with a cashiers check for a few items I recently sold on Craigslist. It is scary how prevalent these fraudsters have become.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "58f356edc765539400f4a3ea5ef4d3b4",
"text": "Yes. I have a US based website that accepts payments via PayPal and can confirm we have many customers from India. Here is a list of countries PayPal supports. Note typically there are some additional fees associated with currency conversion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "29cf5583c86e0216a19eb093e877ba35",
"text": "Whenever you pay or withdraw some fund from your account, paypal takes approx 3% of the current currency value along with the fees. i.e. If you are paying/withdraw 100 unit of US Dollars to British pounds and if the current convertion rate is 1$=0.82GBP, then consider reducing 3% of the actual currency rate. So, the approximate magnitude will be 0.82*97% (100-3=97) = 0.7954. So, 1$=0.7954GBP. This formula will not give you 100% accurate value but will help of course. Captain",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f38fae979b904d5f9b24000f51a96e5",
"text": "Yes, PayPal allows you to add a donate button to your website. You're responsible for any tax record-keeping related to income from the donate button.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f7cc2ac0ed54ac2c5192299ce554b1a",
"text": "I have a PayPal account that I have linked to my bank account. My PayPal balance is always $0. When I make a purchase with PayPal, PayPal will automatically withdraw the funds from my bank account to make the purchase. PayPal does not ask my permission for each purchase. I probably gave them permission to do this when I linked my bank account. Or perhaps the PayPal purchase process includes this permission. I don't read the text closely. Or I should add, that I probably read it at one point, but since I do it on a regular basis, I don't read it now, and I don't recall what is on the checkout page.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9e75314738a131060b3b11bb758d4ac7",
"text": "Like Bluetie Grasper have said. Can I create a PayPal account and receive €200 (or a similar amount) without adding a bank account, credit card, or anything but my email address? The answer is No. You can transfer the money to your PayPal account but until you verify it with your personal information with at least a credit card or mostly likely a bank account, PayPal will hold those funds until otherwise. Can I then use that money to buy on Amazon, still without adding anything but my email address? If not, can I buy gift cards and use those on Amazon? Amazon does not accept PayPal.",
"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": "a33ec7445a21ab94474f38711807a86a",
"text": "If you set up two Paypal accounts (one linked to your UK bank account and one to your US bank account and get them both properly verified) you should be able to transfer the money for free as far as I know. You would have to fund the transfer directly from your UK bank account (not via a credit card).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eb9b830ba43c5a42c6f41b9e1714634b",
"text": "PayPal will be contacting you shortly, I'm sure. You'll see the reversal on their site in a few days as well as a fee from their end I bet.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f2d826274e02b2692ea231ea058cbc7d",
"text": "\"Yes, you can create a PayPal business account without having formalized a business with government filings and whatnot. At its simplest terms, \"\"having a business\"\" is simply \"\"doing business as\"\" (D/B/A) a trade name. You can use the address of a Private Mail Box such as those provided at the UPS Store. Ask any kid with a lemonade stand or a box of Girl Scout cookies - you only need to engage in government formalities like registering an LLC or getting a tax EIN when you cross certain thresholds of activity, and paying for things is generally not it. Also, some of businesses, for some relationships, will require the business formalities like an EIN, which in turn will require creating a trade name and registering it with the state. For instance if you set up a traditional credit card merchant account, they'll probably want that.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e651432466f0d37eb0787dcba0048ec2",
"text": "There is (at least) one service that allows you to convert USD, GBP and EUR at the interbank spot rate, and make purchases using a prepaid MasterCard in many more currencies (also at the interbank rate). They currently don't charge any fees (as of September 2015). You could use your US prepaid card to fund your account with Revolut and then spend them in your local currency (HRK?) without fees (you can check the current USD/HRK rate with their currency calculator); you can also withdraw to non-EUR SEPA-enabled bank accounts, but then your bank would charge you for the necessary currency conversion (both by fees and their exchange rate). If you have a bank account in EUR, you could alternatively convert your USD balance to EUR and then withdraw that to your EUR bank account. If your US prepaid card has a corresponding bank account which can be used for ACH direct debit or domestic wire transfers (ask the issuer if you are unsure), TransferWise or a similar service might also be an option; they allow you to fund a transaction using one of those methods and then credit an account in",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "abccce67ea544a8d046a838a129ac919",
"text": "\"I haven't seen anything specifically about how PayPal operates, but my guess is that they maintain relationships with banks in many countries via affiliates, and they settle the money transfers internally within the PayPal system. You basically have two types of bank transfers (there are others as well that I'm not getting into): I think PayPal is a hybrid -- they send and receive money using drafts to keep costs down, and manage the international stuff by operating a proprietary network. So if you send money from Indonesia to the US, you pay \"\"PayPal Indonesia\"\", who then tells \"\"PayPal USA\"\" to issue funds to your recipient. So they are cheaper than a wire, faster than a check, but limited in terms of transaction size and some other factors.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
02cf99ad5cfd52f53306f0fdd4127e8e
|
Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year?
|
[
{
"docid": "e7e27751dba88a72cd630751ffa52621",
"text": "I know some companies or entities have large incomes or expenses at certain times of the year, and like to close their books after these large events. For example where I work, the primary seasonal income comes after summer, so our fiscal year ends at the last days of October. This gives the accountants enough time to collect all the funds, reconcile whatever they have to, pay off whatever they have to and get working on a budget for the next year sooner than a calendar year would. There also might be tax reasons. To get all of your income at the beginning of your fiscal year, even if that is in the middle of the calendar year would allow a company to plan large deductible investments with more certainty. I am not to sure of the tax reasons.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "af08a3158906d68c230fb7a3822377d6",
"text": "I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like ending their year in October or March, in the lull between the summer and winter travel seasons with a large amount of that revenue falling within the company's fiscal Q4. Oil companies sometimes do the same because fuel prices are seasonal for much the same reasons. December is a really bad month to try to close out an entire year's accounting books. Accountants and execs are on vacation for large parts of the month, most retail stores are flooded with revenue (and then contra-revenue as items are returned) that takes time to account at the store level and then filter up to the corporate office, etc etc. It also doesn't tell the whole story for most retail outfits; December sales are usually inflated by purchases that are then returned in January after all the hullaballoo. As a result, a fiscal year end in January or even February keeps the entire season's revenues and expenses in one fiscal year.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "36a2251f0e3038728874ef6f3cf0ad31",
"text": "My grandfather owned a small business, and I asked him that very question. His answer was that year-end closeout is very time-consuming, both before and after EOY (end of year), and that they didn't want to do all that around Christmas and New Year.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c7925c388a4ae383d3f58c8a67ecb5e9",
"text": "Maybe it's just because of the foundation date. If I start a company on August 1st, I would like its FY starts on that date too, in order to track my first whole year. Would be quite useless to finish my year on December, after just five months. I want to have data of my first year after a twelve months activity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c522e1e5a10c5380d40f06148f473874",
"text": "In addition to the company-specific annual business cycle reasons and company-specific historical reasons mentioned in the other answers, there is another reason. Accounting firms tend to be very busy during January (and February and March) when most companies are closing and auditing their calendar-year books. If a company chooses its fiscal year to end at a different time of year, the accounting firms are more available, and the auditing costs might be lower.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "1679f0d2d26beadcd18ecfb9aa29f15e",
"text": "What makes you think corporations don't have to pay sales taxes or property taxes (or excise taxes, or environmental impact fees or fuel taxes or any of a million other taxes that we all end up paying) even if they lose money that year?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "77f11f50bbd997629b688c1747b28103",
"text": "The reason is in your own question. The answer is simple. They use that code to tax the product otherwise it would just be out of pocket expenses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "505fb9fe950bb7b81cfa2666c58de8e0",
"text": "Okay, but the point is that the models are the calendar-meant for long terms. They're not designed to capture short term trends. You're pointing to a calendar and telling us it's wrong because it won't tell you if it's 1:30 or 4pm.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "86e04ee7c259645ffe49a8ddb61d46d2",
"text": "For an international company, being in a different timezone seems like an advantage. The east coast is close enough to have a large overlap between normal business hours with the west coast, but expands the amount of time that they can cover with HQ workers working normal hours.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e3d56be34cfc8de0abbc03ac42ee8256",
"text": "As with most things accounting/tax related it depends. In general though yes. As an example, if the client were to buy equipment on credit before fiscal year end, in lets say December, but did not pay until the next year started in January, then under cash basis they would not have the purchase accounted for until they made payment. That means they could not claim any deductions from the purchase. Under accrual, the purchase would have been put on the books in December, when the equipment was installed, and they would have been able to claim any deductions.",
"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": "b85a80a0757c91175a58fc2bf64fda5b",
"text": "In many countries, giving something free to the employee is considered a taxable income equivalent, and taxes have to be paid on it. As it cannot be assigned to specific employees, the company pays a flat tax on it, so it actually costs the company more. Also, not all employees value it equally, or consider it as a part of their income, so reducing the salary accordingly would not be considered ok by many employees. As a result, the company can only do it as an additional offer, which is too expensive for small businesses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "29834763126125feae688d2a6584967f",
"text": "Your question is missing information. The most probable reason is that the company made a split or a dividend paid in stock and that you might be confusing your historical price (which is relevant for tax purposes) with your actual market price. It is VERY important to understand this concepts before trading stocks.",
"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": "973cb5be67f212b096e1480696eac5df",
"text": "Fuck managerial accounting to death. Anywho, I'm not sure what they mean by the variance being higher or lower in the budget. Variance in principle is the discrepancy from a budget and actual. I'll try to answer this from what I can see. The budget variance in this problem is unfavorable for Busy Community Support, mostly caused by a significant underestimating of your salaries expense in the budget.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e5048e4d9632df7eaba7dfc268e86f37",
"text": "\"Hi, accounting major here! A lot of people mentioned both tax advantages and \"\"cheap\"\" money (money you can borrow at a low interest rate). Another reason businesses do this is to reward investors. Generally people with stock in a company want to see some of its operations financed with debt, instead of all of it financed from investors' money or profit. This way the company can grow more and still pay better dividends to its investors. However, you don't want too much debt either. It's a balance, and a way to see how much debt vs equity a company has is called a leverage ratio (leverage=debt). Hope this helps!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "01dc0a97e9737837fc1a151aacdca3fe",
"text": "If the period is consistent for company X, but occurs in a different month as Company Y, it might be linked to the release of their annual report, or the payment of their annual dividend. Companies don't have to end their fiscal year near the end of the Calendar year, therefore these end of year events could occur in any month. The annual report could cause investors to react to the hard numbers of the report compared to what wall street experts have been predicting. The payment of an annual dividend will also cause a direct drop in the price of the stock when the payment is made. There will also be some movement in prices as the payment date approaches.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f67397e8aa4882f62733d4d80aaabdf3",
"text": "They need to spread the work for all customers over the whole month, and they don't work on weekends. Combine the two, and the rule becomes clear - if months have minimum of N working days, 1/N of all customers gets set on each day. You seem to be on day 5: If the month starts with a Monday, the fifth working day is the 5. (Friday); if there is a Sat or Sun in between, it will be the 6th, and if there is both a Sat and a Sun in there, it will be the 7th. However, the statement itself is not very important at all. It is just the day where they print it on paper (or even only on a PDF). You can see your bank account activity every day 24/7 by checking online, and nothing keeps you from printing it on every 1st of the month if you want (or every day, or whenever you prefer).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18fed7389ec685027120ed1f6cef8f3c",
"text": "that means fiscal year 2015,Most internal company in China or India have different fiscal year to estimate financial state when it run to the end of year",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3eb06ff7ab226eddd36864af44dba95c",
"text": "\"They could have printed 5.0T or 10.0T or 1000 quadrillion. It doesnt make any difference for the steps a Central Bank takes. They choose a figure based on balancing inflation vs interest rates. The legal powers Central Banks or IMF have do vary (i.e. to perform quantitative easing, purchasing company bonds, purchasing retail bank bonds) but they all follow that principle. Their tools are very limited and theyre legally obligated to seek certain targets like \"\"inflation between 0 to 2%\"\"\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
6d160170be2a1ee94b27ffeff97847dd
|
Can I account for start-up costs that occur before incorporation?
|
[
{
"docid": "9b5c31b8a5d6d61ea5cac6fb9c2dda21",
"text": "Yes you can. You should talk to your tax advisor re the specific expenditures that can be accounted as startup-costs (legal fees are a good candidate, for example). If they add up to significant amounts (>$5K), you'll have to capitalize them over a certain period of time, and deduct from your business' income. This is not a tax advice.:-)",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "2c0c0bbde5c283c2c693995d9bd7469b",
"text": "For months prior to going public a company has to file financial documents with the SEC. These are available to the public at www.sec.gov on their Edgar database. For instance, Eagleline is listed as potentially IPOing next week. You can find out all the details of any IPO including correspondence between the company and the SEC on Edgar. Here's the link for Eagleline (disclaimer, I have not investigated this company. It is an example only) https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001675776&owner=exclude&count=40 The most important, complex, and thorough document is the initial registration statement, usually an S-1, and subsequent amendments that occur as a result of new information or SEC questions. You can often get insight into a new public company by looking at the changes that have occurred in amendments since their initial filings. I highly advise people starting out to first look at the filings of companies they work for or know the industry intimately. This will help you to better understand the filings from companies you may not be so familiar with. A word of caution. Markets and company filings are followed by very large numbers of smart people experienced in each business area so don't assume there is fast and easy money to be made. Still, you will be a bit ahead if you learn to read and understand the filings public companies are required to make.",
"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": "bccaaf685716ac4d462b853f64b2993d",
"text": "I have a Albertan corporation and my accountant set up my shares and options for free. 1. Get a NUANS repot. 2. Go to a registry office and get the incorporation paperwork 3. Get an accountant to help you fill out that paperwork for free (they assume you will do your accounting with them after the fact) 4. Go back to a registry office and register the corporation 5. Go have a beer you' re new company 6. go get a bank account. 7. Get to work",
"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": "679eb828bed561f59847c1dff5f643c1",
"text": "No, as in just coming up start up. I'm sure that's the case but then again there must be some basic software that can make my life easier right? Like accounting softwares, etc that do not depend on the industry the startup is working in. Any?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a0af92a78e11e80bd05b2a3c99589328",
"text": "Normally, incorporation is for liability reasons. Just file your taxes as a business. This just means adding a T2125 to your personal return. There's no registering, that's for GST if over a certain threshold. There's even a section in the instructions for internet businesses. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4002/t4002-e.html#internet_business_activities This is the form you have to fill out. Take note that there is a place to include costs from using your own home as well. Those specific expenses can't be used to create or increase a loss from your business, but a regular business loss can be deducted from your employment income. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t2125/t2125-15e.pdf",
"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": ""
},
{
"docid": "ac59ace4d85551d12cfedf3a65cd4df0",
"text": "\"Your corporation would file a corporate income tax return on an annual basis. One single month of no revenue doesn't mean much in that annual scheme of things. Total annual revenue and total annual expenses are what impact the results. In other words, yes, your corporation can book revenues in (say) 11 of 12 months of the year but still incur expenses in all months. Many seasonal businesses operate this way and it is perfectly normal. You could even just have, say, one super-awesome month and spend money the rest of the year. Heck, you could even have zero revenue but still incur expenses—startups often work like that at first. (You'd need investment funding, personal credit, a loan, or retained earnings from earlier profitable periods to do that, of course.) As long as your corporation has a reasonable expectation of a profit and the expenses your corporation incurs are valid business expenses, then yes, you ought to be able to deduct those expenses from your revenue when figuring taxes owed, regardless of whether the expenses were incurred at the same approximate time as revenue was booked—as long as the expense wasn't the acquisition of a depreciable asset. Some things your company would buy—such as the computer in your example—would not be fully deductible in the year the expense is incurred. Depreciable property expenses are deducted over time according to a schedule for the kind of property. The amount of depreciation expense you can claim for such property each year is known as Capital Cost Allowance. A qualified professional accountant can help you understand this. One last thing: You wrote \"\"write off\"\". That is not the same as \"\"deduct\"\". However, you are forgiven, because many people say \"\"write off\"\" when they actually mean \"\"deduct\"\" (for tax purposes). \"\"Write off\"\", rather, is a different accounting term, meaning where you mark down the value of an asset (e.g. a bad loan that will never be repaid) to zero; in effect, you are recognizing it is now a worthless asset. There can be a tax benefit to a write-off, but what you are asking about are clearly expense deductions and not write-offs. They are not the same thing, and the next time you hear somebody using \"\"write off\"\" when they mean \"\"deduction\"\", please correct them.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "79bd1f7fa03d24bd2c00af21a84a8ba9",
"text": "isn't the answer in the question? it says the company starts officially NEXT year, yet it is asking for the net present value...i.e what that project is worth today. it could be that funds for that particular project may not be necessary for another year, but there may be other projects to evaluate against today.",
"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": "6f1d7df074289cdd5ac0a83608620c90",
"text": "I suggest to start charging slightly more than needed to cover expenses. All you need is to show profit. It doesn't have to be significant - a couple of hundred of dollars of consistent yearly profit should suffice to show a profitable business. Then you can deduct on Schedule C all the related expenses. The caveat is that the profit (after the deduction of the expenses will be a bit smaller) will be subject to not only income tax but also the self-employment tax. But at least you'll pay tax on profit that is not entirely phantom. I remember suggesting you getting a professional consultation on this matter a while ago. You should really do that - talk to a EA/CPA licensed in your state, it may be well worth the $100-200 fee they'll charge for the consultation (if at all...).",
"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": "da824642900236cf08575585381332b9",
"text": "As it stands equity contracts in startups are by default structured differently. The standard equity is shares or convertible notes. Having equity that's structured in the way you propose is a bad idea for both sides. VC don't like equity that's not done with standard equity contracts. If the lawyer of the VC has to review your equity document and understand how the exact terms work that makes it more complicated to invest money into the startup. On your end it might not be fair because a company doesn't need to make any income to be successful. Various companies manage to reduce their tax burden to next to nothing by clever accounting that results in having no taxable income. Uber brought the uber.com domain name with 2% equity at the beginning, so there are certainly deals that get made with equity. There are also other kinds of deals where domain names don't get sold for a one-time payment but with regular payment for 8 years where the domain names goes back to the seller if the company folds or otherwise doesn't want to pay anyone.",
"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": "4011b172fce1d406592088308cdc435c",
"text": "\"Umm, it depends on the transaction but a lot of transactions get done on a \"\"cash free / debt free\"\" basis. Meaning, I'll pay you 5x EBITDA (or $500) and you deliver the company without any cash or debt subject to a \"\"standard\"\" amount of working capital. Ultimately, you're confusing enterprise value and equity value. The two companies may have different purchase prices (equity values) but they should have very similar enterprise values (given the hypothetical scenario you put together).\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
db607344f021e54eec1978851e7113c7
|
How were self employed folk taxed in the U.K. before 1997
|
[
{
"docid": "0967f047ab5468c6fdd71b94d8397c67",
"text": "\"This link: http://www.ifs.org.uk/fs/articles/ewgm_feb93.pdf (from 1996, describing the proposals for the change) seems to answer the question in its description of \"\"the current system\"\" - they had to file business accounts and it was calculated by the Inland Revenue from that.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "25c3c0fedb487bda03a9b386cba5a700",
"text": "As 'anonymous' already mentioned, I think the correct answer is to go see an accountant. That said, if you are already have to fill in a tax return anyway (ie, you're already a high rate taxpayer) then I don't see why it should be an issue if you just told HMRC of your additional profit via your tax return. I never was in the situation of being employed with a side business in the UK, only either/or, but my understanding is that registering as self employed is probably more suitable for someone who doesn't PAYE already. I might be wrong on this as I haven't lived in the UK for a couple of years but an accountant would know the answer. Of course in either case, make sure that you keep each an every scrap of paper to do with your side business.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ef4e47b64b903efa22be3cfe708549a",
"text": "There are no clear guidelines. If you are selling as individual, then what ever profit you make gets added to your overall income as you pay tax accordingly. This is true for sole proprietor or partnership kind of firms. If you are registered as a Company, the profits are taxed as business income. There may be VAT and other taxes. Please consult a CA who can guide you in specifics as for eCommerce, there is no defined law and one has to interpret various other tax laws.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5fccf2c362ccdc6e673a1f0f6bb4650b",
"text": "\"I think the key point that's making the other commenters misunderstand each other here is the concept of \"\"deductions\"\". I can only speak for the UK, but that's only a concept that business owners would understand in this country. For things like child credits or low income tax credits, we don't get paid them at the end of the tax year, but into our bank accounts every couple of weeks all year round. Therefore, we have nothing to \"\"deduct\"\". If we work for a company and have business expenses, then the company pays for them. If we make interest on our savings, the bank pays it for us. We make money at our jobs, and the employer works out what taxes and national insurance we owe, based on a tax code that the government works out for us annually (which we can challenge). To be fair, it's not like we're free from bureaucracy if we want to claim these benefits. There are often lots of forms if you want child benefit or disability allowances, for instance. We just apply as soon as we're eligible, rather than waiting to get a lump sum rebate. So it appears to be a very different system, and neither is inherently better than the other (though I'm personally glad I don't usually have to fill in a big tax return myself, which I only did one year when I was self employed). I'd be interested to know, since Google has let me down, which countries use the American system, and which the British or Czech.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ed074af8df6c82582056af6264b514f1",
"text": "\"What you're asking about is called a \"\"distribution\"\" when it comes to an LLC. It's basically you paying yourself some or all of the proceeds of the business, depending on how you're set up. You can pay yourself distributions on a regular schedule, say monthly, or you can do it at the end of the year. Whatever you do in this regard, what you take out as distributions is reported on your personal income tax as taxable income. LLCs in the U.S. use pass-through taxation (unless you intentionally elect to have the LLC treated as a corporation for tax purposes, which some people do), so whatever the principals receive in distribution is personally taxable. Keep in mind that you'll have to pay ALL of the taxes normally covered by an employer, such as self-employment tax (usually about 15%), social security tax, and so on. This is in addition to income tax, so remember that. I hope this helps. Good luck!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "886ce9002e2beda8b5239fc3c002e73a",
"text": "As a sole trader you would fill out an Individual Tax Return and complete the Business and Professional Items Section P1 to P19, then enter the amounts from that section into Item 15 in the Supplementary Section of the Tax Return. Any business income as a sole trader will be included into your taxable income for the year together with other sources of income you may have earned in the same income year. Whether you get a tax refund will depend on the amount of taxable income you make, the amount of tax you have already paid in instalments throughout the year, and any tax deductions and tax offsets you can claim.",
"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": "491dd89d4c1e83d87c9a39f03e00fe85",
"text": "I know all too well how it works. That doesn't change the fact that GE didn't pay taxes. If only my personal expenses such as food, gas, car maintenance, rent could be deducted from my tax liability and then when I operate on a loss (spend more than I receive) use that to get a tax refund. If corporations were people, why do they have a separate tax code? If corporations are people, they would be subject to the same tax code people are. We have so much corporate welfare via the tax code in this country, that it exceeds the amount of social welfare for poor people.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a0216dbbefba44b03de0d6e2f4a4ac4a",
"text": "I am not an accountant, but I do run a business in the UK and my understanding is that it's a threshold thing, which I believe is £2,500. Assuming you don't currently have to submit self assessment, and your additional income from all sources other than employment (for which you already pay tax) is less than £2,500, you don't have to declare it. Above this level you have to submit self assessment. More information can be found here I also find that HMRC are quite helpful - give them a call and ask.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "73c009c7bf9683f89cbf299e3b45b5ee",
"text": "I'm also self employed. Your circumstances may be different, but my accountant told me there was no reason to pay more than 100% of last years' taxes. (Even if this years' earnings are higher.) So I divide last year by 4 and make the quarterlies. As an aside, I accidentally underpaid last year (mis-estimated), and the penalty was much smaller than I expected.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a254f084d7f18a44be22b255ec156e46",
"text": "\"You cannot \"\"claim back\"\" VAT. What happens is that if you sell goods with VAT and charge customers VAT, you would have to send that VAT straight to HMRC, but if your business itself paid VAT, then you already paid VAT, so you have to send less. As an example, if you send an invoice for £10,000 plus £2,000 VAT, and you paid yourself £500 VAT on business related expenses, then you need to send £2,000 - £500 = £1,500 to HMRC. But if you don't send invoices including VAT, then you owe HMRC £0. Any VAT you paid on business related expenses is lost; HMRC won't pay you money. BTW. Only VAT on business related expenses can be deducted. So if you want to be \"\"smart\"\", register for VAT and get the VAT on your weekly shopping bill refunded, forget it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "be55d01ea3210d4e85ba15cac77c8570",
"text": "However, if you are employed by a company that exists in a tax haven and your services are provided to an employer by that tax haven company, it is the tax haven company that gets paid, not you. Under various schemes that company need not pay you at all. For example it may make you a loan which is not taxed (ie you don't pay tax on a loan, just as you don't pay tax on the money lent you by a mortgage company). You are bound by the terms of the loan agreement to repay that loan at a rate that the company finds acceptable. Indeed the company may find eventually that it is simply convenient to write off the loan as unrecoverable. if the owners/officers of he company write off your loans, how much tax will you have paid on the money you have had as loans? The taxman can of course state that this was simply set up to avoid tax (which is illegal) so you should have a balancing scheme to show that that the loans were taken to supplement income,just as one might take a bank loan / mortgage, not replace it entirely as a tax scam. Hiring tax counsel to provide this adequate proof to HMRC has a price. Frequently this kind of loophole exists because the number of people using it were sufficiently low not to warrant policing ( if the policing costs more than the tax recovered, then it is more efficient to ignore it) or because at some stage the scheme has been perfectly legal (as in the old offshore'education' trust recommended by the government a few decades ago). When Gordon Brown set out a 75% tax rate (for his possibly ideological reasons rather than financially based ones)for those who had these accounts , he encountered opposition from MPs who were going to be caught up paying high tax bills for what was effctively retrospective taxation, so there was a built in 'loophole' to allow the funds to be returned without undue penalty. If you think that is morally wrong, consider what the response would be if a future Chancellor was to declare all IAs the work of the devil and claim that retrospective tax would need to be paid on all ISA transactions over the last few decades.eg: tot up all the dividends and capital gains made on an ISA in any year and pay 40% tax on all of them, even if that took the ISA into negative territory because the value today was low/ underperfoming. Yet this has been sggested as a way of filling in the hole in the budget on the grounds that anyone with an ISA can be represented as 'rich' to a selected party of voters.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "970641502e1adbbc30b5a05a7181a265",
"text": "\"Yes, that's right; in the end, tax is charged on the total of your income in a tax year. PAYE on employment income is just a way of making incremental payments throughout the year. Note that tax rates are marginal rates applying to bands of salary, not the entire salary. But as your employment salary would be already over the 40% threshold (£45,000 for 2017/8), the entire \"\"extra\"\" from self-employment would indeed be taxed at 40%. Note that you'll also owe National Insurance contributions. In general if your employed income is over the higher-rate tax threshold, it should be 2% Class 4 NICs on the self-employment income. However, due to various complications in the way the system works, you might be initially charged more than that and and explicitly claim the excess back from HMRC. It might also be less if your earnings are below or only slightly above the \"\"Lower Profits Limit\"\". You still get to keep 58%, only you can decide whether that is worth your time or not.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f51f8815d24aefea75c71f448c0b0100",
"text": "Source:- Registering for VAT You must register for VAT with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if your business’ VAT taxable turnover is more than £82,000. You can register voluntarily if it’s below this, unless everything you sell is exempt.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f0c44cde230f2b8dc0dd8767c3b5635c",
"text": "I know a guy on a much higher rate than me, about £500 per day, and he claims to pay around 18% tax which has me bewildered He will be showing expenses, which are deductible. Check with your accountant about expenses, which can be legally claimed as expenses. This is the main benefit of operating through a limited company. Legtimate business expenses can be claimed, which you cannot do if you are a permanent employee. Your friend might also be claiming false expenses, with a shady accountant. If HMRC does decide to give a call, he might have to pay n times the money he has saved till now. And my suggestion is always ask your accountant first. He(she) knows the legal stuff, so he(she) would give you the legally correct options. If you aren't comfortable with him(her), you can always change accountants. holiday pay, sick pay and job security You miss those that is why you are paid at a rate much higher than an employee. benefit of a limited company You can arrange your salary to pay no PAYE and take the rest as dividends. You willn't have to pay PAYE on that. Secondly if you have a partner(s), all of you can be paid dividends without paying PAYE(if you don't cross the threshold).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
69475d46ff7111483e5580ccca3b67d4
|
Can dues and subscriptions expenses be deducted 100% to calculate taxable income in an LLC company?
|
[
{
"docid": "36e19fdc2325928f5b1f1e29b9373bd8",
"text": "IRS Publication 529 is the go-to document. Without being a tax professional, I'd say if the dues and subscriptions help you in the running of your business, then they're deductible. You're on your own if you take my advice (or don't). ;)",
"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": "b45d5ec4b229bc9bf365f2b849ee8988",
"text": "\"-Alain Wertheimer I'm a hobbyist... Most (probably all) of those older items were sold both prior to my establishing the LLC This is a hobby of yours, this is not your business. You purchased all of these goods for your pleasure, not for their future profit. The later items that you bought after your LLC was establish served both purposes (perks of doing what you love). How should I go about reporting this income for the items I don't have records for how much I purchased them for? There's nothing you can do. As noted above, these items (if you were to testify in court against the IRS). \"\"Losses from the sale of personal-use property, such as your home or car, aren't tax deductible.\"\" Source Do I need to indicate 100% of the income because I can't prove that I sold it at a loss? Yes, if you do not have previous records you must claim a 100% capital gain. Source Addition: As JoeTaxpayer has mentioned in the comments, the second source I posted is for stocks and bonds. So at year begin of 2016, I started selling what I didn't need on eBay and on various forums [January - September]. Because you are not in the business of doing this, you do not need to explain the cost; but you do need to report the income as Gross Income on your 1040. Yes, if you bought a TV three years ago for a $100 and sold it for $50, the IRS would recognize you earning $50. As these are all personal items, they can not be deducted; regardless of gain or loss. Source Later in the year 2016 (October), I started an LLC (October - December) If these are items that you did not record early in the process of your LLC, then it is reported as a 100% gain as you can not prove any business expenses or costs to acquire associated with it. Source Refer to above answer. Refer to above answer. Conclusion Again, this is a income tax question that is split between business and personal use items. This is not a question of other's assessment of the value of the asset. It is solely based on the instruments of the IRS and their assessment of gains and losses from businesses. As OP does not have the necessary documents to prove otherwise, a cost basis of $0 must be assumed; thus you have a 100% gain on sale.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6ef75666739cf6561ccfe0c9579f9562",
"text": "Yes, you can do this. I do this for my own single-member LLC, but I usually do it online instead of writing a check. Your only legal obligation is to pay quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS. I'm assuming you are not otherwise doing anything shady. For example, that you have funds in your business account to pay any expenses that will be due soon or that you are trying to somehow pull a fast one on someone else...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0a61315d9ef877f3ad2f1f05b0ae0df1",
"text": "The short answer is no you can only deduct actual expenses. The long answer is that it would be impossible for the IRS to determine the value of your time and it would open the tax system to an enormous amount of fraud (think of being able to make up time spent or writing off time spent volunteering at a soup kitchen or any other charity). Now you can write off expenses you have involved in doing the work, equipment and supplies used to do the work along with any wages you paid an employee or contractor to do said work.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4ece5a4423569b60c3f64870d4bc281f",
"text": "\"I'm assuming that you're in the US. In that case, the answer is that it depends on how your company set up its reimbursement plan. The IRS recognizes \"\"accountable\"\" and \"\"nonaccountable\"\" plans. Accountable plans have to meet certain requirements. Anything else is nonaccountable. If you are reimbursed according to an accountable plan, this is not income and should not be reported to the IRS at all. If you are reimbursed under a nonaccountable plan, then this is income but you might be able to get a deduction on your tax return if you itemize. Most established companies have accountable plans for normal business expenses. More detail from IRS: http://www.tax.gov/TaxabilityCertainFringeBenefits/pdf/Accountable_v_Nonaccountable_Plans_Methods_of_Reimbursing_Employees_for_Expense.pdf\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "68a64f99ce3e7b39eb632a8f6aefc86a",
"text": "You are expected to file 1099 for each person you pay $600 a year. I.e.: not a one time payment, but the total over the course of the year. Since we don't know how much and what else you paid - we cannot answer this question. The real question you're asking is that if you're treating the enterprise as a hobby, whether you're supposed to file 1099s at all. The answer to that question is yes. You should talk to your tax adviser (a EA/CPA licensed in your state) about this, and whether it is the right thing for you to do treating this as a hobby at all.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ac59ace4d85551d12cfedf3a65cd4df0",
"text": "\"Your corporation would file a corporate income tax return on an annual basis. One single month of no revenue doesn't mean much in that annual scheme of things. Total annual revenue and total annual expenses are what impact the results. In other words, yes, your corporation can book revenues in (say) 11 of 12 months of the year but still incur expenses in all months. Many seasonal businesses operate this way and it is perfectly normal. You could even just have, say, one super-awesome month and spend money the rest of the year. Heck, you could even have zero revenue but still incur expenses—startups often work like that at first. (You'd need investment funding, personal credit, a loan, or retained earnings from earlier profitable periods to do that, of course.) As long as your corporation has a reasonable expectation of a profit and the expenses your corporation incurs are valid business expenses, then yes, you ought to be able to deduct those expenses from your revenue when figuring taxes owed, regardless of whether the expenses were incurred at the same approximate time as revenue was booked—as long as the expense wasn't the acquisition of a depreciable asset. Some things your company would buy—such as the computer in your example—would not be fully deductible in the year the expense is incurred. Depreciable property expenses are deducted over time according to a schedule for the kind of property. The amount of depreciation expense you can claim for such property each year is known as Capital Cost Allowance. A qualified professional accountant can help you understand this. One last thing: You wrote \"\"write off\"\". That is not the same as \"\"deduct\"\". However, you are forgiven, because many people say \"\"write off\"\" when they actually mean \"\"deduct\"\" (for tax purposes). \"\"Write off\"\", rather, is a different accounting term, meaning where you mark down the value of an asset (e.g. a bad loan that will never be repaid) to zero; in effect, you are recognizing it is now a worthless asset. There can be a tax benefit to a write-off, but what you are asking about are clearly expense deductions and not write-offs. They are not the same thing, and the next time you hear somebody using \"\"write off\"\" when they mean \"\"deduction\"\", please correct them.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "122f3058c852e263c160735fb876b210",
"text": "No. The equipment costs are not necessarily a direct expense. Depending on the time of purchase and type of the expenditure you may need to capitalize it and depreciate it over time. For example, if you buy a computer - you'll have to depreciate it over 5 years. Some expenditures can be expensed under Section 179 rules, but there are certain conditions to be made, including business revenue. So if your business revenue is $3K - your Sec. 179 deduction is limited to $3K even if more purchases can qualify. Not every purchase qualifies for Sec. 179 treatment, and not all the State tax rules conform to the Federal treatment. Get a professional advice from a CPA/EA licensed in your State.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa6ac06db3552d08eda4e4d6ff3339b3",
"text": "Your freelance income will not qualify you for the work-from-home deductions, for that you would need a T2200 form signed by your employer. But, you are allowed to be self employed as a sole-proprietorship while still being an employee of another company. If you take that route, you'll be able to write-off even more expenses than those you linked to. Things like a portion of your internet bill can be claimed, for example. But note that these deductions would only apply to offset the self-employment income, so if you're not earning very much from the freelance work, it might not be worth all the hassle. Filing taxes when self-employed is definitely more complicated, and many people will get professional tax preparation help - at least for the first time.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2501def977a14701dad8252d84a2c649",
"text": "\"I have done similar software work. You do not need an LLC to write off business expenses. The income and expenses go on Schedule C of your tax return. It is easy to write off even small expenses such as travel - if you keep records. The income should be reported to you on a 1099 form, filled out by your client, not yourself. For a financial advisor you should find one you can visit with personally and who operates as a \"\"fee-only\"\" advisor. That means they will not try to sell you something that they get a commission on. You might pay a few $hundred per visit. There are taxes that you have to pay (around 15%) due to self-employment income. These taxes are due 4 times a year and paid with an \"\"estimated tax\"\" form. See the IRS web site, and in particular schedule SE. Get yourself educated about this fast and make the estimated tax payments on time so you won't run into penalties at the end of the year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "e863c8d274a0822740d59a90181625e4",
"text": "Per IRS regulations, if your stipend is not paying you for qualified expenses (primarily, tuition and books; explicitly not room and board or travel), it is taxable. It doesn't require self-employment taxes (which are Medicare and FICA, normally paid in part by an employer), but it is taxable income from an income tax perspective. You can generally deduct your books and such if you have your receipts - expenses 'required' by the institution for the coursework. Do verify that the amount on the 1099-MISC reflects what you actually received in cash above and beyond the tuition waiver - don't assume the college did this the way you expect, or even properly. Your bank statements should match the amount on the form. You should definitely include it in your gross income and pay taxes on it. If you received alternate instruction, you should clarify that with the people doing the filing, and follow up with a supervisor perhaps (it's possible the volunteers helping at an event like this aren't familiar with this part of tax preparation). (Source, in addition to IRS regulations - I was my wife's tax preparer many of the years she was in her Ph.D. program.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ab9c0ecb5ebe0ffe3388effa6e6f32ee",
"text": "\"Its is considered a \"\"hobby\"\" income, and you should be reporting it on the 1040 as taxable income. The expenses (what you pay) are hobby expenses, and you report them on Schedule A (if you itemize). You can only deduct the hobby expenses to the extent of your hobby income, and they're subject to the 2% AGI threshold.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6ebb80e56d6fa2c763af9c19fca46b16",
"text": "\"If it's work you'd be producing specifically for this organization, that would not be deductable. Per Publication 526, Charitable Deductions, \"\"You can't deduct the value of your time or services, including: … The value of income lost while you work as an unpaid volunteer for a qualified organization.\"\" On the other hand, if you were say an author of a published book or something (not specifically written for this organization), you could donate a copy of the book and probably deduct its fair market value (or perhaps only your basis, if it's your business's inventory).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4feb648016f073df68bca025da36bfd5",
"text": "\"Hobby expenses are not tax deductible. Business expenses are, but only if it's a bona fide business. First they look at profitability: if you reported a net profit (i.e. paid taxes) in your first 3 years, they will believe you rant on Youtube for a living. Remember, by the time they get around to auditing you, you'll likely be well into, or through, your third year. There is an exception for farms. Other than that, if you lose money year after year, you better be able to show that you look, walk and quack like a business; and one with a reasonable business reason for delayed profitability. For instance Netflix's old business model of mailing DVDs had very high fixed infrastructure expense that took years to turn profitable, but was a very sensible model. They're fine with that. Pets.com swandived into oblivion but they earnestly tried. They're fine with that too. You can't mix all your activities. If you're an electrician specializing in IoT and smart homes, can you deduct a trip to the CES trade show, you bet. Blackhat conference, arguable. SES? No way. Now if you had a second business of a product-reco site which profited by ads and affiliate links, then SES would be fine to deduct from that business. But if this second business loses money every year, it's a hobby and not deductible at all. That person would want separate accounting books for the electrician and webmaster businesses. That's a basic \"\"duck test\"\" of a business vs. a hobby. You need to be able to show how each business gets income and pays expense separate from every other business and your personal life. It's a best-practice to give each business a separate checking account and checkbook. You don't need to risk tax penalties on a business-larva that may never pupate. You can amend your taxes up to 3 years after the proper filing date. I save my expense reciepts for each tax year, and if a business becomes justifiable, I go back and amend past years' tax forms, taking those deductions. IRS gives me a refund check, with interest!\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
74de828a0fcc584c7848373bf0268446
|
Assessing the value of an ETF
|
[
{
"docid": "a6ee4e5de0eaac8cd605fe3bd7730482",
"text": "\"You seem to be assuming that ETFs must all work like the more traditional closed-end funds, where the market price per share tends—based on supply and demand—to significantly deviate from the underlying net asset value per share. The assumption is simplistic. What are traditionally referred to as closed-end funds (CEFs), where unit creation and redemption are very tightly controlled, have been around for a long time, and yes, they do often trade at a premium or discount to NAV because the quantity is inflexible. Yet, what is generally meant when the label \"\"ETF\"\" is used (despite CEFs also being both \"\"exchange-traded\"\" and \"\"funds\"\") are those securities which are not just exchange-traded, and funds, but also typically have two specific characteristics: (a) that they are based on some published index, and (b) that a mechanism exists for shares to be created or redeemed by large market participants. These characteristics facilitate efficient pricing through arbitrage. Essentially, when large market participants notice the price of an ETF diverging from the value of the shares held by the fund, new units of the ETF can get created or redeemed in bulk. The divergence quickly narrows as these participants buy or sell ETF units to capture the difference. So, the persistent premium (sometimes dear) or discount (sometimes deep) one can easily witness in the CEF universe tend not to occur with the typical ETF. Much of the time, prices for ETFs will tend to be very close to their net asset value. However, it isn't always the case, so proceed with some caution anyway. Both CEF and ETF providers generally publish information about their funds online. You will want to find out what is the underlying Net Asset Value (NAV) per share, and then you can determine if the market price trades at a premium or a discount to NAV. Assuming little difference in an ETF's price vs. its NAV, the more interesting question to ask about an ETF then becomes whether the NAV itself is a bargain, or not. That means you'll need to be more concerned with what stocks are in the index the fund tracks, and whether those stocks are a bargain, or not, at their current prices. i.e. The ETF is a basket, so look at each thing in the basket. Of course, most people buy ETFs because they don't want to do this kind of analysis and are happy with market average returns. Even so, sector-based ETFs are often used by traders to buy (or sell) entire sectors that may be undervalued (or overvalued).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1004cf6b56fd3977ba674b6a4263bb37",
"text": "You can follow the intra-day NAV of an ETF, for instance SPY, by viewing its .IV (intra-day value) ticker which tracks it's value. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=spy http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^SPY-IV Otherwise, each ETF provider will update their NAV after business each day on their own website. https://www.spdrs.com/product/fund.seam?ticker=spy",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "75ffcd067af42e2df03285f2b01a8697",
"text": "\"From Wikipedia: Usage Because EV is a capital structure-neutral metric, it is useful when comparing companies with diverse capital structures. Price/earnings ratios, for example, will be significantly more volatile in companies that are highly leveraged. Stock market investors use EV/EBITDA to compare returns between equivalent companies on a risk-adjusted basis. They can then superimpose their own choice of debt levels. In practice, equity investors may have difficulty accurately assessing EV if they do not have access to the market quotations of the company debt. It is not sufficient to substitute the book value of the debt because a) the market interest rates may have changed, and b) the market's perception of the risk of the loan may have changed since the debt was issued. Remember, the point of EV is to neutralize the different risks, and costs of different capital structures. Buyers of controlling interests in a business use EV to compare returns between businesses, as above. They also use the EV valuation (or a debt free cash free valuation) to determine how much to pay for the whole entity (not just the equity). They may want to change the capital structure once in control. Technical considerations Data availability Unlike market capitalization, where both the market price and the outstanding number of shares in issue are readily available and easy to find, it is virtually impossible to calculate an EV without making a number of adjustments to published data, including often subjective estimations of value: In practice, EV calculations rely on reasonable estimates of the market value of these components. For example, in many professional valuations: Avoiding temporal mismatches When using valuation multiples such as EV/EBITDA and EV/EBIT, the numerator should correspond to the denominator. The EV should, therefore, correspond to the market value of the assets that were used to generate the profits in question, excluding assets acquired (and including assets disposed) during a different financial reporting period. This requires restating EV for any mergers and acquisitions (whether paid in cash or equity), significant capital investments or significant changes in working capital occurring after or during the reporting period being examined. Ideally, multiples should be calculated using the market value of the weighted average capital employed of the company during the comparable financial period. When calculating multiples over different time periods (e.g. historic multiples vs forward multiples), EV should be adjusted to reflect the weighted average invested capital of the company in each period. In your question, you stated: The Market Cap is driven by the share price and the share price is determined by buyers and sellers who have access to data on cash and debts and factor that into their decision to buy or sell. Note the first point under \"\"Technical Considerations\"\" there and you will see that the \"\"access to data on cash and debts\"\" isn't quite accurate here so that is worth noting. As for alternatives, there are many other price ratios one could use such as price/earnings, price/book value, price/sales and others depending on how one wants to model the company. The better question is what kind of investing strategy is one wanting to use where there are probably hundreds of strategies at least. Let's take Apple as an example. Back on April 23, 2014 they announced earnings through March 29, 2014 which is nearly a month old when it was announced. Now a month later, one would have to estimate what changes would be made to things there. Thus, getting accurate real-time values isn't realistic. Discounted Cash Flow is another approach one can take of valuing a company in terms of its future earnings computed back to a present day lump sum.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "94fd0ac68a72a65937095c6edeaedb74",
"text": "Thanks very much. 12b1 is a form that explains how a fund uses that .25-1% fee, right? So that's part of the puzzle im getting at. I'm not necessarily trying to understand my net fees, but more who pays who and based off of what. For a quick example, betterment bought me a bunch of vanguard ETFs. That's cool. But vanguard underperformed vs their blackrock and ssga etfs. I get that vanguard has lower fees, but the return was less even taking those into account. I'm wondering, first what sort of kickback betterment got for buying those funds, inclusive of wholesale deals, education fees etc. I'm also wondering how this food chain goes up and down the sponsor, manager tree. I'm sure it's more than just splitting up that 1%",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "66b7ccc105a31477357e8d060940712c",
"text": "This ETFchannel.com page shows which ETFs hold Wells Fargo and you can search other stocks the get the same information on that site. This the same information for Google This even tells you what percentage of an ETF is a particular stock. Be warned that this site is not entirely free. You will be limited to 6 pages in 6 hours unless you pay for a subscription. Additionally ETFdb.com offers a similar tool.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "60c9eac57d227944f7dd9dfc37899a80",
"text": "\"First, to mention one thing - better analysis calls for analyzing a range of outcomes, not just one; assigning a probability on each, and comparing the expected values. Then moderating the choice based on risk tolerance. But now, just look at the outcome or scenario of 3% and time frame of 2 days. Let's assume your investable capital is exactly $1000 (multiply everything by 5 for $5,000, etc.). A. Buy stock: the value goes to 103; your investment goes to $1030; net return is $30, minus let's say $20 commission (you should compare these between brokers; I use one that charges 9.99 plus a trivial government fee). B. Buy an call option at 100 for $0.40 per share, with an expiration 30 days away (December 23). This is a more complicated. To evaluate this, you need to estimate the movement of the value of a 100 call, $0 in and out of the money, 30 days remaining, to the value of a 100 call, $3 in the money, 28 days remaining. That movement will vary based on the volatility of the underlying stock, an advanced topic; but there are techniques to estimate that, which become simple to use after you get the hang of it. At any rate, let's say that the expected movement of the option price in this scenario is from $0.40 to $3.20. Since you bought 2500 share options for $1000, the gain would be 2500 times 2.8 = 7000. C. Buy an call option at 102 for $0.125 per share, with an expiration 30 days away (December 23). To evaluate this, you need to estimate the movement of the value of a 102 call, $2 out of the money, 30 days remaining, to the value of a 102 call, $1 in the money, 28 days remaining. That movement will vary based on the volatility of the underlying stock, an advanced topic; but there are techniques to estimate that, which become simple to use after you get the hang of it. At any rate, let's say that the expected movement of the option price in this scenario is from $0.125 to $ 1.50. Since you bought 8000 share options for $1000, the gain would be 8000 times 1.375 = 11000. D. Same thing but starting with a 98 call. E. Same thing but starting with a 101 call expiring 60 days out. F., ... Etc. - other option choices. Again, getting the numbers right for the above is an advanced topic, one reason why brokerages warn you that options are risky (if you do your math wrong, you can lose. Even doing that math right, with a bad outcome, loses). Anyway you need to \"\"score\"\" as many options as needed to find the optimal point. But back to the first paragraph, you should then run the whole analysis on a 2% gain. Or 5%. Or 5% in 4 days instead of 2 days. Do as many as are fruitful. Assess likelihoods. Then pull the trigger and buy it. Try these techniques in simulation before diving in! Please! One last point, you don't HAVE to understand how to evaluate projected option price movements if you have software that does that for you. I'll punt on that process, except to mention it. Get the general idea? Edit P.S. I forgot to mention that brokers need love for handling Options too. Check those commission rates in your analysis as well.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6473d727ce6f8ff477b24768d2c05b49",
"text": "\"Option pricing models used by exchanges to calculate settlement prices (premiums) use a volatility measure usually describes as the current actual volatility. This is a historic volatility measure based on standard deviation across a given time period - usually 30 to 90 days. During a trading session, an investor can use the readily available information for a given option to infer the \"\"implied volatility\"\". Presumably you know the option pricing model (Black-Scholes). It is easy to calculate the other variables used in the pricing model - the time value, the strike price, the spot price, the \"\"risk free\"\" interest rate, and anything else I may have forgotten right now. Plug all of these into the model and solve for volatility. This give the \"\"implied volatility\"\", so named because it has been inferred from the current price (bid or offer). Of course, there is no guarantee that the calculated (implied) volatility will match the volatility used by the exchange in their calculation of fair price at settlement on the day (or on the previous day's settlement). Comparing the implied volatility from the previous day's settlement price to the implied volatility of the current price (bid or offer) may give you some measure of the fairness of the quoted price (if there is no perceived change in future volatility). What such a comparison will do is to give you a measure of the degree to which the current market's perception of future volatility has changed over the course of the trading day. So, specific to your question, you do not want to use an annualised measure. The best you can do is compare the implied volatility in the current price to the implied volatility of the previous day's settlement price while at the same time making a subjective judgement about how you see volatility changing in the future and how this has been reflected in the current price.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "daeb68910f70be984d51f671d0e67cae",
"text": "The Creation/Redemption mechanism is how shares of an ETF are created or redeemed as needed and thus is where there can be differences in what the value of the holdings can be versus the trading price. If the ETF is thinly traded, then the difference could be big as more volume would be where the mechanism could kick in as generally there are blocks required so the mechanism usually created or redeemed in lots of 50,000 shares I believe. From the link where AP=Authorized Participant: With ETFs, APs do most of the buying and selling. When APs sense demand for additional shares of an ETF—which manifests itself when the ETF share price trades at a premium to its NAV—they go into the market and create new shares. When the APs sense demand from investors looking to redeem—which manifests itself when the ETF share price trades at a discount—they process redemptions. So, suppose the NAV of the ETF is $20/share and the trading price is $30/share. The AP can buy the underlying securities for $20/share in a bulk order that equates to 50,000 shares of the ETF and exchange the underlying shares for new shares in the ETF. Then the AP can turn around and sell those new ETF shares for $30/share and pocket the gain. If you switch the prices around, the AP would then take the ETF shares and exchange them for the underlying securities in the same way and make a profit on the difference. SEC also notes this same process.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "70591461ef9fce7e7b32b7b259bf14f6",
"text": "The quant aspect '''''. This is the kind of math I was wondering if it existed, but now it sounds like it is much more complex in reality then optimizing by evaluating different cost of capital. Thank you for sharing",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "adcbfc7ed50dda109ff508fe92da26ec",
"text": "I'm honestly not well versed on healthcare ETFs. I have seen a few mentioned here and there on various threads around /r/investing and /r/wallstreetbets. My pro-Vanguard bias would lead me to looking most closely at VHT, but there seem to be [many other great looking picks](http://etfdb.com/type/sector/healthcare/) out there such as IBB, XLV, and IHI, among others. Right now I am generally concerned about valuations in technology and perhaps simply in general, but we'll see what happens. As I craft my goals for the near and long term, I would favor the defense industry ($ITA), technology (broad definition -- $VGT, $V, $AAPL, $BABA, various video games companies short term), healthcare (above), some specific international exposure (such as $EWGS), and boring stuff ($VOO, $VTI).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6b7485e54f14bda079a021ac233b0c0d",
"text": "I think that assuming that you're not looking to trade the fund, an index Mutual Fund is a better overall value than an ETF. The cost difference is negligible, and the ability to dollar-cost average future contributions with no transaction costs. You also have to be careful with ETFs; the spreads are wide on a low-volume fund and some ETFs are going more exotic things that can burn a novice investor. Track two similar funds (say Vanguard Total Stock Market: VTSMX and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF: VTI), you'll see that they track similarly. If you are a more sophisticated investor, ETFs give you the ability to use options to hedge against declines in value without having to incur capital gains from the sale of the fund. (ie. 20 years from now, can use puts to make up for short-term losses instead of selling shares to avoid losses) For most retail investors, I think you really need to justify using ETFs versus mutual funds. If anything, the limitations of mutual funds (no intra-day trading, no options, etc) discourage speculative behavior that is ultimately not in your best interest. EDIT: Since this answer was written, many brokers have begun offering a suite of ETFs with no transaction fees. That may push the cost equation over to support Index ETFs over Index Mutual Funds, particularly if it's a big ETF with narrow spreads..",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7cda4e508cbccdc13fb6c2499982293b",
"text": "You are correct about the first two questions. At the time it was last measured those were the percent invested in the Basic Materials sector for the ETF and its benchmark. Note, this ETF will be significantly different from its benchmark as it is an equal-weight index rather than the more common capitalization-weighted index. Meaning that this ETF could have materially different performance from its benchmark. The third column is the average sector weights of all the ETFs in Morningstar's Large Blend category. These are ETFs that generally invest in a broad collection of large U.S. stocks and (weighted?) average of all of them will be generally fairly close to the benchmark.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0a7f714f0a3b50be1430a11363a34698",
"text": "Aswath Damodaran's [Investment Valuation 3rd edition](http://www.amazon.com/Investment-Valuation-Techniques-Determining-University/dp/1118130731/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1339995852&sr=8-12&keywords=aswath+damodaran) (or save money and go with a used copy of the [2nd edition](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0471414905/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used)) He's a professor at Stern School of Business. His [website](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/) and [blog](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/) are good resources as well. [Here is his support page](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/Inv3ed.htm) for his Investment Valuation text. It includes chapter summaries, slides, ect. If you're interested in buying the text you can get an idea of what's in it by checking that site out.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "afb5b4fbf1539e64167c69d8252f847b",
"text": "Use a compound interest calculator to project the difference with ETFs in the S&P 500 (or the asset mix of your choosing), and subtract the expected pension amount. If the difference is positive, or around around even, I would do it to avoid the risk of company failure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5a9de080444de75c710b8e60527623c7",
"text": "\"I'm trying to understand how an ETF manager optimized it's own revenue. Here's an example that I'm trying to figure out. ETF firm has an agreement with GS for blocks of IBM. They have agreed on daily VWAP + 1% for execution price. Further, there is a commission schedule for 5 mils with GS. Come month end, ETF firm has to do a monthly rebalance. As such must buy 100,000 shares at IBM which goes for about $100 The commission for the trade is 100,000 * 5 mils = $500 in commission for that trade. I assume all of this is covered in the expense ratio. Such that if VWAP for the day was 100, then each share got executed to the ETF at 101 (VWAP+ %1) + .0005 (5 mils per share) = for a resultant 101.0005 cost basis The ETF then turns around and takes out (let's say) 1% as the expense ratio ($1.01005 per share) I think everything so far is pretty straight forward. Let me know if I missed something to this point. Now, this is what I'm trying to get my head around. ETF firm has a revenue sharing agreement as well as other \"\"relations\"\" with GS. One of which is 50% back on commissions as soft dollars. On top of that GS has a program where if you do a set amount of \"\"VWAP +\"\" trades you are eligible for their corporate well-being programs and other \"\"sponsorship\"\" of ETF's interests including helping to pay for marketing, rent, computers, etc. Does that happen? Do these disclosures exist somewhere?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "80df8f80a32972fa0445cd1e0d529ac9",
"text": "This is the chart going back to the first full year of this fund. To answer your question - yes, a low cost ETF or Mutual fund is fine. Why not go right to an S&P index? VOO has a .05% expense. Why attracted you to a choice that lagged the S&P by $18,000 over this 21 year period? (And yes, past performance, yada, yada, but that warning is appropriate for the opposite example. When you show a fund that beat the S&P short term, say 5 years, its run may be over. But this fund lagged the S&P by a significant margin over 2 decades, what makes you think this will change?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "43740123fa97c27cf5e4af82928e3592",
"text": "But if you add a security to the index you also remove one from the index, thus both a buy and sell. If weights change some go up, some go down thus some need to be purchased and some need to be sold. So I still don't see how ETFs are net sinks beyond their simple AUM.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
fc22eb72fb7a54e1f3bad44f41372044
|
Do my parents need to pay me minimum wage?
|
[
{
"docid": "6218612dc59b0980c2ead70ffc9ac90c",
"text": "Yes they do. Here is the main page on minimum wage for the province of British Columbia. This page lists exemptions from BC minimum wage laws, but there are none for working in a family business, or for being underage. Students are exempted only if they are on approved work study. Generally all provinces apply minimum wage laws to every employee.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3ebc53826c024c667f0b10d903d8ae4f",
"text": "\"There is actually a restriction on how high a wage they can pay you. There didn't use to be, but now it has to be reasonable for the work you are doing, so they can't pay you $100/hr while other people doing the same work get minimum wage. You might ask why on earth a parent would want to pay a child way more than they're worth? The salary is tax deductible to the company. Then the child pays their \"\"expenses\"\" - hockey fees and equipment, field trips, birthday presents for their friends and so on - out of the money the company paid them. They also save for their post-secondary education. The rest of the family budget now has a little more room, and the parents can lower their own salaries if they have expensive children. This means more net money in the company and less total income tax paid by the family for the same total income. My concern is that if your parents don't know whether or not you must be paid minimum wage (you must, there's no family exemption) then they also don't know whether you should have EI deducted (probably not) and various other special cases like eligibility for summer student subsidies. The firm's accountant should be able to help with these things and the company should know all this. It's not the role of a 14 year old to ask the Internet how to run a business, the business owners should know it.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "d309c1285c4ff1de58ed745230afc016",
"text": "The problem is not just the minimum wage. It's that the minimum wage is not enough to live on, and yet it's simultaneously extremely difficult to earn more than minimum wage if you're trapped in the cycle of earning minimum wage and spending all your money and free time keeping your head above water.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c26adec9cef75f007e818799e32d911c",
"text": "Grants come in several flavors: federal aid, college aid, and independent aid. We'll immediately ignore the last option, independent aid (usually in the forms of scholarships), as these can come from all sorts of organizations for various reasons and are generally merit-based. For federal and college aid, you will need to file a FAFSA. Since your parents are divorced, you will need to use the financial information of whichever one of them you lived with more during the last 12 months. Once you submit the FAFSA, you will receive your EFC, which is the amount of money your family is estimated to be able to contribute to your education for the year. The EFC isn't an obligation, but the simplified formula to determine how much you are in need is: (tuition cost + room and board + overhead (books, transport, etc)) - EFC = estimated need. This need will then allow your school to give you an aid package which is comprised of federal loans, grants, work-study programs, and college grants/scholarships (a scholarship is based on some kind of merit, be it academic or something else, while a grant is either general or need-based). There is no good way to determine how much you will be given, so apply and find out. You may be able to talk with a financial aid officer at your school for an estimate, but it would just be an educated guess. If you have an EFC lower than your estimated yearly cost, you will generally be offered a Pell grant by the government (free money, basically) which currently has a yearly cap of $5775, though you may receive less than this. There are also a few other federal grant programs if you have exceptional financial need, but all of the grants are determined for you, you can't apply for them. Your college may also assign grants based on its own internal programs, and like federal funding you can't ask for them, they are simply given as part of an aid package. Lastly, you will probably be offered a combination of subsidized, unsubsidized, and parent loans to cover any difference in cost vs funding. There are also work-study programs you can opt in for, which is just an on-campus job in some capacity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d2b3ac3e04f16008caaa1ceb136d3ef0",
"text": "If you think that your parents' home is in danger, you might want to check what it would take to make sure their house is safe, and what the financial situation actually is. You are paying rent, there are brothers who may or may not be paying rent. We don't have the information, you have. Saving that house might be a worthwhile investment. I assume that if you moved out, either rented or by buying a house, they wouldn't get any rent from you anymore and whatever the situation is, it would be much worse.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "283aec045c7f9a9ebbd33dc6f9a26f8c",
"text": "Is your argument that a company should be responsible for paying an employee enough to support whatever lifestyle that employee chooses? Because that's definitely what it sounds like you're arguing for. The minimum wage should be exactly $0. If you don't have the skills to earn enough to support yourself, then you need better skills not laws forcing someone to pay you more money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "56366def285b890e0e187764b2691abf",
"text": "\"After doing a little research, I was actually surprised to find many internet resources on this topic (including sites from Intuit) gave entirely incorrect information. The information that follows is quoted directly from IRS Publication 929, rules for dependents First, I will assume that you are not living on your own, and are claimed as a \"\"dependent\"\" on someone else's tax return (such as a parent or guardian). If you were an \"\"emancipated minor\"\", that would be a completely different question and I will ignore this less-common case. So, how much money can you make, as a minor who is someone else's dependent? Well, the most commonly quoted number is $6,300 - but despite this numbers popularity, this is not true. This is how much you can earn in wages from regular employment without filing your own tax return, but this does not apply to your scenario. Selling your products online as an independent game developer would generally be considered self-employment income, and according to the IRS: A dependent must also file a tax return if he or she: Had wages of $108.28 or more from a church or qualified church-controlled organization that is exempt from employer social security and Medicare taxes, or Had net earnings from self-employment of at least $400. So, your first $400 in earnings triggers absolutely no requirement to file a tax return - blast away, and good luck! After that, you do not necessarily owe much in taxes, however you will need to file a tax return even if you owe $0, as this was self-employment income. If you had, for instance, a job at a grocery store, you could earn up to $6,300 without filing a return, because the store would be informing the IRS about your employment anyway - as well as deducting Medicare and Social Security payments, etc. How much tax will you pay as your income grows beyond $400? Based upon the IRS pages for Self-Employment Tax and Family Businesses, while you will not likely have to pay income tax until you make $6,300 in a year, you will still have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes after the first $400. Roughly this should be right about 16% of your income, so if you make $6000 you'll owe just under $1000 (and be keeping the other $5000). If your income grows even more, you may want to learn about business expense deductions. This would allow you to pay for things like advertisement, software, a new computer for development purposes, etc, and deduct the expenses out of your income so you pay less in taxes. But don't worry - having such things to wonder about would mean you were raking in thousands of dollars, and that's an awfully good problem to have as a young entrepreneur! So, should you keep your games free or try to make some money? Well, first of all realize that $400 can be a lot harder to make when you are first starting in business than it probably sounds. Second, don't be afraid of making too much money! Tax filing software - even totally free versions - make filing taxes much, much easier, and at your income level you would still be keeping the vast majority of the money you earn even without taking advantage of special business deductions. I'd recommend you not be a afraid of trying to make some money! I'd bet money it will help you learn a lot about game development, business, and finances, and will be a really valuable experience for you - whether you make money or not. Having made so much money you have to pay taxes is not something to be afraid of - it's just something adults like to complain about :) Good luck on your adventures, and you can always come back and ask questions about how to file taxes, what to do with any new found wealth, etc!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f548159b229a16c96b2da6206c8b433b",
"text": "Yes but the employee losing that job can be devastating because as someone who works for minimum wage (in college and living at home right now so my cost of living is low) but without that I would have no savings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "24f57d4a14e3f6a6a4a25536b8f3d554",
"text": "The fact that you're a minor really only factors into who pays the taxes, you or your parents. If you are below the age where you can legally earn money (and therefore pay taxes), then the income will be considered your parent's or guardian's income, and they will be responsible for the taxes. If you are of the age where you are legally allowed to earn your own money, then yes, you will have to pay taxes. Either way, taxes must be paid. If age were a way of escaping the taxes, every big youtuber would simply open their account in the name of one of their children or a child they know...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "949f3a4e415633760c540268921a224e",
"text": "\"This might sound harsh, but the first thing I would suggest is to stop making excuses. I wasn't able to continue due to pressure from college and family The college I went to was horrible. Employers can very easily hire foreign work-force for very cheap; for example as a citizen if I work $10 an hour, they can get someone from outside to work for $5 per hour There's no guarantee that the project will succeed. I cannot really work and at the same time develop software on my free time. Despite my failures in the past, I was not the main person that's responsible for those failures. Even if all of this is true, it's not helping you move forward and it seems to be getting in the way of creating a good action plan and motivating yourself to succeed. If you believe (based on past experiences) that you are doomed to fail, then you are indeed doomed to fail. You need to take a step back and re-evaluate your current circumstances and what you can do to reach your goals. You have a couple of things working in your favor here. It's great that you are debt free. That already puts you ahead of a lot of your peers. You have the option of living with your parents. Presumably for no rent, or at least much lower rent than you would have to pay if you move out. This is worth literally thousands of $/£/€ for every year you stay. Now, onto your questions: 1) Should I quit regular programming for a normal job because I never monetized programming so I can move out of my parents' home? Are you being paid for this \"\"regular programming\"\"? If so, are you being paid more than minimum wage? If not, it's perfectly acceptable to consider alternative ways to spend your time and generate income. However, this doesn't have to be at the expense of living with your parents. Have you thought about getting a new or second job while still living with them? If you absolutely must move out of your parent's home, consider renting a room in a house with other people to keep the rent costs to a minimum. That way, even if your main job is low paying, you should be able to put aside some money each month for future endeavors. 2) Should I monetize programming and gamble with the future? What does this mean? Are you thinking you'll write a mobile app and sell thousands of copies for 99¢ each? That would indeed be a big gamble, but maybe that's not what you meant, so you'll need to clarify. 3) Would it be wise to essentially quit programming for the sake of a minimum wage job? I'm not sure how this is different from question 1. So I'll reiterate what I said there - moving out is going to be expensive. You can still do it, but you're asking on a Personal Finance site where the focus is usually how to minimize living costs and maximize income. Without knowing more about where you live (employment opportunities, cost of living) the default recommendation is usually to save money by staying in your parents house. TLDR: Don't focus on anyone else. They are not preventing you from getting the job you want. Look at your own skills and qualifications (not just programming, consider all of your abilities). What are you good at? Who might need those skills? What is the cost of reaching those people (commute time, moving nearer)? What is the reward? If the reward exceeds the cost, start approaching those people. Show them what you can do.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2fe00a78dd66de649ffcfa0dfa140ba1",
"text": "\"Part of your first link has this statement that I suspect you are missing: However, Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for employees employed as bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees. Note that executive is in that list. As for the additional note: To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $455 per week. Generally which means, \"\"in most cases; usually.\"\" is not a universal qualifier and thus exceptions can exist. I'd imagine that restricted stock could be a way around some of the rules as there would be a monetary value there in the case of the stock for companies of a particular size.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b257a8eb2e106d7e598a1f6efa62a3ca",
"text": "AFAIU, you don't need pay any taxes for you amount in NRE account since this amount is already taxed. I also think, you do not need to pay taxes on the interest earned on NRE account. However, you need to disclose the amount in your Indian Bank(s), if at any point of time, exceed $10K (When converted from INR to $). This is FBAR. Sending money to non-NRE account would come under Indian Tax scanner. For instance, if your parents use that money to pay EMIs or any huge purchase, then that might cause an issue. Most of the times, these type of purchases go unnoticed. However, the party who is taking money, may ask for source, especially if its a financial institution or Govt bodies. Also, for non-NRE accounts, you need to pay taxes and on interest earned. Hope this helps!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8a9c0077daed80612c8241b232366478",
"text": "Here is what I was able to find: Yes, but there are special instructions for minors: Working hours: New York State labor laws are slightly more strict than the federal: https://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/nyvsfed.shtm Minimum wage: The Dept of Labor's Youth & Labor page states: Occupations such as babysitting are not subject to the minimum wage law. No supporting documentation is given. Another page describes the Youth Minimum Wage Program: A minimum wage of not less than $4.25 may be paid to employees under the age of 20 for their first 90 consecutive calendar days However, I can't find any such exception in New York State minimum wage law. According to Publication 926, Household Employer's Tax Guide: Federal income tax withholding No, I am not required to withhold federal income taxes from a household employee. If we both want them to be withheld, a W-4 should be submitted to me. State income tax withholding No, according to NYS Pub 27: Withholding income tax (federal or New York State) from wages paid to household employees is voluntary on your part and your employee Social security and medicare No, I am not required to withhold FICA taxes because when calculated wages, I should not include: An employee who is under the age of 18 at any time during the year. Exception: Count these wages if providing household services is the employee's principal occupation. If the employee is a student, providing household services is not considered to be his or her principal occupation. Unemployment insurance No, I don't think I have to pay federal unemployment tax. I think the exception for FICA applies to FUTA. For New York (according to Household Employers Guide for Unemployment Insurance), there is an exception for paying state unemployment insurance: Daytime students who attend elementary or high school (However, you must pay UI taxes on wages you pay these students if you are liable under FUTA.) I can't find any specific requirements, but aside from numbers of hours times rate of pay, you might want to consider the information required by the Wage Theft Prevention Act: Also, consider this requirements from the NY Minimum Wage Act Every employer shall keep true and accurate records of hours worked by each employee covered by an hourly minimum wage rate, the wages paid to all employees, and such other information as the commissioner deems material and necessary, and shall, on demand, furnish to the commissioner or his duly authorized representative a sworn statement of the same.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2140584e169d629a1d505262f59597bf",
"text": "Smart parents not wanting to get stuck with a student loan or co-signing on a loan. because rent is so high Are you able to live with your parents? Is there anyway to reduce the cost of rent like renting a room? Can you move somewhere where the rent is cheaper? working 25 hours per week Working 25 hours per week and taking 6 hours is a pretty light schedule. It is not even 40 hours per week. What is stopping you from working 40 hours and paying for school from your salary? In my own life I created a pretty crappy situation for myself when I was a young man. I really wanted to go to a prestigious university, but ended up going to a community college, and then to a university that was lesser known in a less expensive area. I had to work like crazy, upwards of 50 hours per week. I also took a full load in a difficult degree program. You probably don't have to go to the extremes that I went through, but you can work more. Most adults work at their jobs well more than 40 hours per week, then come home and continue to work (on the house, raising kids, trying to start a side business, etc...). So you might as well become an adult now. There are ways to become independent from your parents for FAFSA like have a baby, get married, or join the military. I'd only recommend the last one as you will also receive the GI Bill. Another option is to try and obtain a job that offers financial aid.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aaa391cfed23a79f97d9a55fbf024542",
"text": "yes and no its definitely not charitable as they are making money of off you but depending on the outside conditions if you had to pay a mortgage on that condo with only 35k in payments to start off it would more than likely exceed 500 dollars a month however there would always be a point were the mortgage would end and it dosent sound like thats going to be the case with you paying your parents so it depends on how long your going to have that condo and how much mortgage would have been.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4042edc1b15b5ef9e49fc907d8b2ba76",
"text": "\"idea that somehow people will take a lower income job and automatically grow into a higher paying one. It doesn't happen automatically. But it does happen all the time. It's climbing the corporate ladder if you will. \"\"leads to trying to have a workforce that's minimum wage with little room for growth\"\" Simply untrue at most successful companies. If you provide value, they pay you what your worth or you jump (if you are smart enough). I see it all the time. Minimum wage may or may not have kept up with inflation, by that's like saying working at McDonald's only affords me such and such lifestyle. Defined circumstances are required to solve the problem. Inflation isn't directly solved by upping the minimum wage so move on to a better solution. \"\"Jobs a worthy cry but can't be only metric to ensure people have opportunity to live decently\"\". Jobs are the opportunity. Where there is specific abuse in the workplace denying people equal job opportunity, we fight it. If you don't pay me enough, and I am forced to work for you... that's called indentured servitude which is an abuse and illegal as humans are property in such a case. But if you force me to pay you more than I want to, somehow that's okay? Goes both ways. Leave to a company that pays you what your worth if I don't pay you enough. This is how the most people grow over time to better salaries and more prestigious titles. \"\"Lots of college grads with low paying jobs\"\" Define \"\"low paying\"\". I'm a college grad. Wife is too. Lots of people I know are. What $ we make varies greatly from person to person based largely upon the opportunities we created/took not because of a mandated min wage.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3050769ddb0d2dc1ca67b52a9e6185d3",
"text": "First you need to ensure that you are not violating any Federal child labor laws. I would look at this: U.S. Dept of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Standards for 14- and 15-Year Olds in Nonagricultural Employment. These were the items that pertained to Federal Law, for 14 year olds: 14 is the minimum age for employment in specified occupations outside of school hours for limited periods of time each day and each week. Fourteen- and 15-Year-Olds May Not Be Employed: There is a section on minimum allowed wage payment to young workers, and also a list of allowed types of work for 14 and 15 year old's. The type of household helper tasks described definitely fell within what was allowed for child labor. The same page details what sort of forms need to be filled out. I think this is something that is done quite commonly. Here are specifics in New York State for minimum wage for minors and for employing 14 year olds.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
329ee44c8cdfae8e6b807b6b05dce747
|
How is a Condominium / Apartment Building fiscally identified?
|
[
{
"docid": "c5418a183ba63cd8d28a292d6aae000b",
"text": "In such cases, it has a EIN, like any business would. Even absent the rent you suggest, the condo should have reserve funds, similar to an individual's emergency account, only more codified as to level and flows. These funds should be earning interest.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "1bb1b778f82c223aa820fa2de28b54e9",
"text": "\"Aesthetics aside, laminate floor is attached to the floor and as such is a part of the building. So you depreciate it with the building itself, similarly to the roof. I believe the IRS considers these permanently attached because the foam itself is permanently attached, and is a part of the installation. To the best of my knowledge, the only flooring that is considered as a separate unit of property is tucked-in carpet or carpet pads (typically installed in commercial buildings, not homes). Everything else you'll have to prove to be an independent separate unit of property. Technically, you can take the tucked in carpet, and move it elsewhere as-is and be able to install it there assuming the size fits. You cannot do it with the foam (at the very least you'll need a new foam cover in the new location since you cannot take the foam with you from the old one). That's the difference between a \"\"separate unit of property\"\" and \"\"part of the building\"\". Note that the regulations in this area have changed significantly starting of 2014, so you may want to talk to a professional.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5744b01b567c29e20c49561da9ab4613",
"text": "Awesome info, this is what I was looking for. I live in FL so i will look into LLC laws. Is there a difference in obtaining loans for multi-unit properties, or any special requirements? This would be my first purchase so I'm trying to decide if I should start with a multi-unit or a large home. I read something about a first time home buyers and the FHA allowing one to put down less of an initial investment. Im assuming this is if you are actually going to be living in the home or property? Would it make sense to have separate entities for specific types of units? For example One separate corporation per multi-unit property, but have multiple single family homes under another single entity? Thanks for the help. *quick add-on, would you know how long the corporation would have had to exist before being able to obtain a loan? For example, would XYZ, LLC. have to have been around for 3 years prior to the loan, or could i just incorporate the month before going to the bank?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "27ad0e1d3743243190091ec762ea034c",
"text": "Yes, but how does that compare to those with multiple houses? I build homes in the Seattle area for a living and one lifestyle who own several rentals... One thing them do is use equity for their 4 homes to purchase another.. Writing off the the interest paid on the loan(s)... I'm not saying it's a deduction normal people don't use... I'm just saying that it strikes me as a deduction that the wealthiest landlords use more with better results...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f89ed67b5f0774d7905ab336c87cbb9a",
"text": "REITs can be classified as equity, mortgage, or hybrid. A security that sells like a stock on the major exchanges and invests in real estate directly, either through properties or mortgages. Trades like equity but the underlying is a property ot mortgage. So you are investing in real estate but without directly dealing with it. So you wouldn't classify it as real estate. CD looks more like a bond.If you look at the terms and conditions they have many conditions as a bond i.e. callable, that is a very precious option for both the buyer and seller. Self occupied house - Yes an asset because it comes with liabilities. When you need to sell it you have to move out. You have to perform repairs to keep it in good condition. Foreign stock mutual fund - Classify it as Foreign stocks, for your own good. Investments in a foreign country aren't the same as in your own country. The foreign economy can go bust, the company may go bust and you would have limited options of recovering your money sitting at home and so on and so forth.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "db0221308f2e18423acbf06d86c2cda6",
"text": "What you are doing is unethical and illegal but is very hard to catch and prosecute. The key thing for an unethical person to think about here is insurance. For most government incentive programs you have to have the intention to live there. It is extremely hard to prove intent - unless you ask this question under your name on a public forum that is archived by many search engines and maintains a log of all changes. For other folks, it is common for them to claim that they intended to take residence but were surprised that their finances didn't work the way they anticipated. Still, as long as the bank is paid, it is unlikely that they will investigate. However, what happens if there is a major repair needed? You have insurance - because your bank has asked for proof of insurance before they will give a mortgage. That insurance is for an owner occupied building, which you do not have. Your insurance will inspect your claim. If the circumstances do not match what you are insured for because you have lied to the insurance company, they will not pay your claim - which they are entitled to do. You are operating uninsured with tenants. This is a hidden risk you may not be considering. Tenants do not treat property with the same care as an owner - this is why they are insured differently. You are now paying for insurance that you will have a difficult time ever filing a claim on. In addition, if something were to happen that makes it time to claim the insurance value so that you can pay off the mortgage, the insurance company will investigate. They may very easily refuse to pay your fraudulent claim. They may refer you to the police for insurance fraud. The bank will want their money. If they discover that you were not occupying the property, they may just foreclose. They may also notify the government that you were not occupying the property, at which point some one might search and find that you were showing intent to defraud the program out of money that is free for you but gotten through deception. Consider a less risky unethical path like telling people you've been locked out of your car and just need a little money to pay the locksmith to open it. You promise to pay them right back once you get in your car where your wallet is. Then take their money and go find another sucker. It's ethically equivalent and you are much less likely to go to jail. However you have to face the people you are deceiving for money, so you may feel less comfortable. Good luck making your decisions!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3fca4003e45a73f2484e59a1c9047e12",
"text": "\"Look for states that have no income tax. A lot of these states supplement their revenue with higher property taxes, but if you rent and do not own property in the state, then you will have no state tax liability. Similarly, many states treat capital gains no differently than income tax, so if you make your earnings due to a large nest egg, then way you will still incur no tax liability on the state level Look for \"\"unincorporated\"\" areas, as these are administrative divisions of states that do not have a municipal government, and as such do not collect local taxes. Look for economic development perks of the new jurisdiction. Many states have some kind of formal tax credit for people that start business or buy in certain areas, but MONEY TALKS and you can make an individual arrangement with any agency, municipality etc. If the secretary at city hall doesn't know about a prepackaged formal arrangement that is offered to citizens, then ask for the \"\"expedited development package\"\" which generally has a \"\"processing fee\"\" involved. This is something you make up ie. \"\"What is the processing fee for the expedited development package, quote on quote\"\" States like Maryland and Nevada have formalized this process, but you are generally paying off the Secretary of State for favorable treatment. You'll always be paying off someone.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "96ac8d2c25a40d4602124bd1fd3a4dcc",
"text": "\"I'm assuming you're operating on the cash basis of accounting, based on your comment \"\"Cash, I think that's the only way for a sole propriator (sic)\"\" Consider: There are two distinct but similar-name concepts here: \"\"paid for\"\" (in relation to a expense) and \"\"paid off\"\" (in relation to a debt). These both occur in the case you describe: Under the cash basis of accounting, when you can deduct an expense is based on when you paid for the expense, not when you eventually pay off any resulting debt arising from paying for the expense. Admittedly, \"\"cash basis\"\" isn't a great name because things don't solely revolve around cash. Rather, it's when money has changed hands – whether in the form of cash, check, credit card, etc. Perhaps \"\"monetary transaction basis\"\" might have been a better name since it would capture the paid-for concept whether using cash or credit. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the terminology the industry established.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "818bd7c198f0113490836e80cfdaac75",
"text": "\"The founders almost certainly owe tax on the \"\"income\"\" represented by the rent they aren't being charged. It isn't clear whether the corporation also owes income tax on the rent it is not receiving back from them. You definitely want advice from a paid tax accountant, not least because that helps protect everyone should this arrangement be challenged.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d9fb33251c7fd33b97c3d2b32a52474b",
"text": "Governments only have a few ways to get income: tax income, tax consumption, tax property (cars & boats), tax real estate, or tax services (hotel & meals). The National, state, county, city, and town taxing authorities determine what is taxed and what the rate will be to get enough money to run their share of the government. In general the taxing of real estate is done by the local government, but the ability to tax real estate is granted to them by the state. In the United States the local government decides, generally through a public hearing, what the rate will be. You can usually determine the current rate and tax value of the home prior to purchase. Though some jurisdictions limit the annual growth of value of the property, and then catch it up when the property is sold. That information is also in public records. All taxes are used to build roads, pay for public safety, schools, libraries, parks.. the list is very long. Failure to pay the tax will result in a lien on the property, which can result in your losing the property in a tax sale. Most of the time the bank or mortgage company insists that your monthly payment to them includes the monthly portion of the estimated property tax, and the fire insurance on the property. This is called escrow. This makes sure the money is available when the tax is due. In some places is is paid yearly, on other places every six months. With an escrow account the bank will send the money to the government or insurance company. Here is the big secret: you have been indirectly paying property tax. The owner of the apartment , townhouse, or home you have been renting has been paying the tax from your monthly payment to them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2f0f0112350e86a22343873f72baa55b",
"text": "Yes, sorry, I should have tried to be clearer. I mean the development appraisal related to construction. Such as residential developments, mixed-use developments etc - what makes these profitable, costs, residual valuation etc.. if this is in the right ballpark",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d0255b03e9b26ac7886bc7db1ca7075a",
"text": "\"I agree with Joe Taxpayer that a lot of details are missing to really evaluate it as an investment... for context, I own a few investment properties including a 'small' 10+ unit apartment complex. My answer might be more than you really want/need, (it kind of turned into Real Estate Investing 101), but to be fair you're really asking 3 different questions here: your headline asks \"\"how effective are Condo/Hotel developments as investments?\"\" An answer to that is... sometimes, very. These are a way for you-the investor-to get higher rents per sq. ft. as an owner, and for the hotel to limit its risks and access additional development funding. By your description, it sounds like this particular company is taking a substantial cut of rents. I don't know this property segment specifically, but I can give you my insight for longer-term apartment rentals... the numbers are the same at heart. The other two questions you're implying are \"\"How effective is THIS condo/hotel development?\"\" and \"\"Should you buy into it?\"\" If you have the funds and the financial wherewithal to honestly consider this, then I am sure that you don't need your hand held for the investment pros/cons warnings of the last question. But let me give you some of my insight as far as the way to evaluate an investment property, and a few other questions you might ask yourself before you make the decision to buy or perhaps to invest somewhere else. The finance side of real estate can be simple, or complicated. It sounds like you have a good start evaluating it, but here's what I would do: Start with figuring out how much revenue you will actually 'see': Gross Potential Income: 365 days x Average Rent for the Room = GPI (minus) Vacancy... you'll have to figure this out... you'll actually do the math as (Vacancy Rate %) x GPI (equals) Effective Potential Income = EPI Then find out how much you will actually pocket at the end of the day as operating income: Take EPI (minus) Operating expenses ... Utilities ... Maintenace ... HOA ... Marketing if you do this yourself (minus) Management Expenses ... 40% of EPI ... any other 'fees' they may charge if you manage it yourself. ... Extra tax help? (minus) Debt Service ... Mortgage payment ... include Insurances (property, PMI, etc) == Net Operating Income (NOI) Now NOI (minus) Taxes == Net Income Net Income (add back) Depreciation (add back) sometimes Mortgage Interest == After-tax Cash Flows There are two \"\"quickie\"\" numbers real estate investors can spout off. One is the NOI, the other is the Cap Rate. In order to answer \"\"How effective is THIS development?\"\" you'll have to run the numbers yourself and decide. The NOI will be based on any assumptions you choose to make for vacancy rates, actual revenue from hotel room bookings, etc. But it will show you how much you should bring in before taxes each year. If you divide the NOI by the asking price of your unit (and then multiply by 100), you'll get the \"\"Cap Rate\"\". This is a rough estimate of the rate of return you can expect for your unit... if you buy in. If you come back and say \"\"well I found out it has a XX% cap rate\"\", we won't really be qualified to help you out. Well established mega investment properties (think shopping centers, office buildings, etc.) can be as low as 3-5 cap rates, and as high as 10-12. The more risky the property, the higher your return should be. But if it's something you like, and the chance to make a 6% return feels right, then that's your choice. Or if you have something like a 15% cap rate... that's not necessarily outstanding given the level of risk (uncertain vacancies) involved in a hotel. Some other questions you should ask yourself include: How much competition is there in the area for short-term lodging? This could drive vacancies up or down... and rents up or down as well How 'liquid' will the property (room) be as an asset? If you can just break even on operating expense, then it might still make sense as an investment if you think that it might appreciate in value AND you would be able to sell the unit to someone else. How much experience does this property management company have... (a) in general, (b) running hotels, and (c) running these kinds of condo-hotel combination projects? I would be especially interested in what exactly you're getting in return for paying them 40% of every booking. Seasonality? This will play into Joe Taxpayer's question about Vacancy Rates. Your profile says you're from TX... which hints that you probably aren't looking at a condo on ski slopes or anything, but if you're looking at something that's a spring break-esque destination, then you might still have a great run of high o during March/April/May/June, but be nearly empty during October/November/December. I hope that helps. There is plenty of room to make a more \"\"exact\"\" model of what your cash flows might look like, but that will be based on assumptions and research you're probably not making at this time.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5a1293a666b8079d199978def4663f03",
"text": "Getting the first year right for any rental property is key. It is even more complex when you rent a room, or rent via a service like AirBnB. Get professional tax advice. For you the IRS rules are covered in Tax Topic 415 Renting Residential and Vacation Property and IRS pub 527 Residential Rental Property There is a special rule if you use a dwelling unit as a personal residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days. In this case, do not report any of the rental income and do not deduct any expenses as rental expenses. If you reach that reporting threshold the IRS will now expect you to to have to report the income, and address the items such as depreciation. When you go to sell the house you will again have to address depreciation. All of this adds complexity to your tax situation. The best advice is to make sure that in a tax year you don't cross that threshold. When you have a house that is part personal residence, and part rental property some parts of the tax code become complex. You will have to divide all the expenses (mortgage, property tax, insurance) and split it between the two uses. You will also have to take that rental portion of the property and depreciation it. You will need to determine the value of the property before the split and then determine the value of the rental portion at the time of the split. From then on, you will follow the IRS regulations for depreciation of the rental portion until you either convert it back to non-rental or sell the property. When the property is sold the portion of the sales price will be associated with the rental property, and you will need to determine if the rental property is sold for a profit or a loss. You will also have to recapture the depreciation. It is possible that one portion of the property could show a loss, and the other part of the property a gain depending on house prices over the decades. You can expect that AirBnB will collect tax info and send it to the IRS As a US company, we’re required by US law to collect taxpayer information from hosts who appear to have US-sourced income. Virginia will piggyback onto the IRS rules. Local law must be researched because they may limit what type of rentals are allowed. Local law could be state, or county/city/town. Even zoning regulations could apply. Also check any documents from your Home Owners Association, they may address running a business or renting a property. You may need to adjust your insurance policy regarding having tenants. You may also want to look at insurance to protect you if a renter is injured.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "03792a462f43c1ce0f904af9dabfad36",
"text": "A basement unit would typically rent for less than similar space on a higher floor. Taxwise, you should be claiming the income, and expenses via schedule E, as if it were legal. Keep in mind, Al Capone was convicted on tax evasion not his other illegal activities. As long as you treat it as a legitimate business, a rental unit, you will be good with the IRS. The local building department will fine you if they find out.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f8bff4246bf5e8c9e8ded7affa5caa8",
"text": "\"Gnucash is first and foremost just a general ledger system. It tracks money in accounts, and lets you make transactions to transfer money between the accounts, but it has no inherent concept of things like taxes. This gives you a large amount of flexibility to organize your account hierarchy the way you want, but also means that it sometimes can take a while to figure out what account hierarchy you want. The idea is that you keep track of where you get money from (the Income accounts), what you have as a result (the Asset accounts), and then track what you spent the money on (the Expense accounts). It sounds like you primarily think of expenses as each being for a particular property, so I think you want to use that as the basis of your hierarchy. You probably want something like this (obviously I'm making up the specifics): Now, when running transaction reports or income/expense reports, you can filter to the accounts (and subaccounts) of each property to get a report specific to that property. You mention that you also sometimes want to run a report on \"\"all gas expenses, regardless of property\"\", and that's a bit more annoying to do. You can run the report, and when selecting accounts you have to select all the Gas accounts individually. It sounds like you're really looking for a way to have each transaction classified in some kind of two-axis system, but the way a general ledger works is that it's just a tree, so you need to pick just one \"\"primary\"\" axis to organize your accounts by.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
a22c41eecf225b5f882f56807ea47f2a
|
Can preventive health checkup be claimed as a separate expense from medical expenses?
|
[
{
"docid": "7ef300c8175fd15dbdde297494d25545",
"text": "\"There are 2 different things, As per IT Act, one can get \"\"Medical Reimbursement\"\" upto Rs 15,000 which is tax free. The way it is supposed to work is an employee submits bill and employer will \"\"Reimburse\"\" upto Rs 15,000. So if one does not submit any bills, he does not get any money. If the employer has given the employee Rs 15,000 without any bills, it would have been taxed as per the tax bracket. In practise all employer factor the Rs 15,000 in the salary to the employee. If bills are submitted, then its tax free. If bill are not submitted, partially submitted, the difference is paid as \"\"Allowance\"\" and hence becomes taxable. Apart from above there is section 80D that provides additional rebate. Upto Rs 15,000 when health insurance is taken. Upto Rs 5,000 for Health checkup. Hence if you submit the details to your employer you will get rebate in tax, on Rs 5,000 it would be Rs 1,500/-. You would not get \"\"Reimbursement\"\". I should mention 20,000 under medical expenses Nope both are under different section as such you should declare these separately.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "41af0c27799b51f664b5d90c41a4b531",
"text": "Deduction for Health Checkup is allowed under Section 80D and is allowed to everyone whether Salaried or Business/Professional. However, Exemption for Medical Reimbursement of Rs. 15000 is allowed under a different section. A salaried employee can take benefit of both Medical Reimbursement of Rs. 15,000 as well as Preventive Health Check-up of Rs. 5,000. Source: Tax Deduction for Health Check-up",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "d01e5ab3e2a2e71647553aba2f36df54",
"text": "\"The basic idea is that the average person can't deduct health care costs unless they're really onerous. But a business can, and as a self-employed person, you can deduct those costs from the businesses earnings... as long as the business is really generating enough profit to cover the health insurance costs. That's why most people get their health insurance from their employer, actually. The relevant IRS rules say: \"\"You may be able to deduct premiums paid for medical and dental insurance and qualified long-term care insurance for you, your spouse, and your dependents if you are... A self-employed individual with a net profit reported on Schedule C (Form 1040).\"\" For 2010, thanks to the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, you can even deduct the premium from your income before deducting the self-employment tax (Source). I'm sure that when you get your tax returns and instructions for 2010 this will all be spelled out.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3772f20a1d02c1a4ae8fc6aef9e9d331",
"text": "\"You can deduct what you pay for your own and your family's health insurance regardless of whether it is subsidized by your employer or not, as well as all other medical and dental expenses for your family, as an itemized deduction on Schedule A of Form 1040, but only to the extent that the total exceeds 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) (10% on tax returns for year 2013 onwards). As pointed out in KeithB's comment, you cannot deduct any health insurance premium (or other medical expense) that was paid for out of pre-tax dollars, nor indeed can you deduct any medical expense to the extent that it was paid for by the insurance company directly to hospital or doctor (or reimbursed to you) for a covered expense; e.g. if the insurance company reimbursed you $72 for a claim for a doctor's visit for which you paid $100 to the doctor, only $28 goes on Schedule A to be added to the amount that you will be comparing to the 7.5% of AGI threshold, and the $72 is not income to you that needs to be reported on Form 1040. Depending on other items on Schedule A, your total itemized deductions might not exceed the standard deduction, in which case you will likely choose to use the standard deduction. In this case, you \"\"lose\"\" the deduction for medical expenses as well as all other expenses deductible on Schedule A. Summary of some of the discussions in the comments Health care insurance premiums cannot be paid for from HSA accounts (IRS Pub 969, page 8, column 2, near the bottom) though there are some exceptions. Nor can health care insurance premiums be paid from an FSA account (IRS Pub 969, page 17, column 1, near the top). If you have a business on the side and file a Schedule C as a self-employed person, you can buy medical insurance for that business's employees (and their families too, if you like) as an employment benefit, and pay for it out of the income of the Schedule C business, (thus saving on taxes). But be aware that if you have employees other than yourself in the side business, they would need to be covered by the same policy too. You can even decide to pay all medical expenses of your employees and their families too (no 7.5% limitation there!) as an employment benefit but again, you cannot discriminate against other employees (if any) of the Schedule C business in this matter. Of course, all this money that reduced your Schedule C income does not go on Schedule A at all. If your employer permits your family to be covered under its health insurance plan (for a cost, of course), check whether you are allowed to pay for the insurance with pre-tax dollars. The private (non-Schedule C) insurance would, of course, be paid for with post-tax dollars. I would doubt that you would be able to save enough money on taxes to make up the difference between $1330/month and $600/month, but it might also be that the private insurance policy covers a lot less than your employer's policy does. As a rule of thumb, group insurance through an employer can be expected to offer better coverage than privately purchased insurance. Whether the added coverage is worth the additional cost is a different matter. But while considering this matter, keep in mind that privately purchased insurance is not always guaranteed to be renewable, and a company might decline to renew a policy if there were a large number of claims. A replacement policy might not cover pre-existing conditions for some time (six months? a year?) or maybe even permanently. So, do consider these aspects as well. Of course, an employer can also change health insurance plans or drop them entirely as an employment benefit (or you might quit and go work for a different company), but as long as the employer's health plan is in existence, you (and continuing members of your family) cannot be discriminated against and denied coverage under the employer's plan.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ded88302704edac9ccacb87a3e81e195",
"text": "Personally, I keep two regular checking accounts at different banks. One gets a direct deposit totaling the sum of my regular monthly bills and a prorated provision for longer term regular bills like semi-annual car insurance premiums. I leave a buffer in the account to account for the odd expensive electrical bill or rate increase or whatever. One gets a direct deposit of the rest which I then allocate to savings and spending. It makes sense to me to separate off regular planned expenses (rent/mortgage, utility bills, insurance premiums) from spending money because it lets me put the basics of my life on autopilot. An added benefit is I have a failover checking account in the event something happens to one of them. I don't keep significant amounts of money in either account and don't give transfer access to the savings accounts that store the bulk of my money. I wear a tinfoil hat when it comes to automatic bank transfers and account access... It doesn't make sense to me to keep deposits separate from spending, it makes less sense to me to spend off of a savings account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dea970e40a0947b28f7f7e81ee9e518c",
"text": "You're right. That's pretty much it. You get a deduction for any medical expenses above 10% of your Adjusted Gross Income. You also have to itemize your deductions; claiming the standard deduction won't do.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "12d3ba88ee852a248747e403fc5686d7",
"text": "It's up to the insurance companies that insure their businesses. Source *am CEO. Source. My insurance requires drug testing. I don't care at all, but my insurance company sure does. *edit: not health insurance, businesses run on insurance, operating machinery, to make sure mistakes don't happen, etc. health insurance costs are negligible to employers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "264cfcc14587f939448e1457d37db619",
"text": "Unfortunately you can't use your HSA to pay for expenses in year A. Qualified medical expenses for an HSA must occur after the date the HSA account was established. (Established typically means the date the account was opened in your name.) The other answers already mostly answered your other questions, but I want to really hit home some particular points that many people may not realize: The most important thing to do when you are eligible to have an HSA account, is to open an HSA account ASAP. This is true even if you don't put any money in it and you leave it empty for years. The reason is that once the account is established, all qualified medical expenses that occur after that date are eligible for distributions, even if you wait years before you fund your HSA account. The second most important thing to do is to keep track of all out of pocket medical expenses you incur after you open the HSA account. All you need is a simple spreadsheet and a place to store your receipts. Once you have the account and are tracking expenses, now you can put money into your HSA and take it out whenever you'd like. (With limits- you can't put in more than the contribution limit for a single tax year, and you can't take out more than your eligible expenses to date.) Helpful Tip: Many people don't fund their HSA because they can't afford to set aside extra money to do so. Fortunately, you don't have to. For example, suppose you have some dental work and it costs you $500. Once you get the bill, before you pay it, put the $500 into your HSA account. The next day, take the $500 back out and pay your dental bill with it. Most HSA accounts will give you a debit card to make this even easier to pay the bill. By putting the money into your HSA for 1 day you just received a $500 tax deduction. Alternatively you can always pay out of pocket like you normally would, track your receipts, and wait until the end of the year (or up until April 15 of the next year). I like this option because I can pay all of my medical bills with a credit card and get cash back. Then at the end of the year, I add up the expenses, deposit that much into my HSA, and if I'd rather put that money somewhere else I just pull it out the next day. If you decide you don't need the money right away that's even better since you can leave it in the HSA account and invest it. Like a Roth account, you don't pay tax on the growth you achieve inside of an HSA. Another Tip: if your employer offers the service of automatically making deposits into your HSA by reducing your paycheck, you should definitely try to do that if you can afford it, rather than manually making contributions as I described in the previous tip. When your employer makes the contributions for you, your wages are reduced by that amount on your W2, so you end up saving an additional 7% in FICA taxes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "89c79267825f4b73a1ce668d674e5ba3",
"text": "A medical expense is only a qualified medical expense eligible for an HSA distribution if it is not reimbursed by insurance. If you know that you will be reimbursed, do not pay for it through your HSA. Think of it this way: you can only be reimbursed for a medical expense once. Either you get reimbursed by your insurance, or you get reimbursed by your HSA, but not both. If you pay for the expense with your HSA and are later reimbursed, you need to return the money to your HSA through a mistaken distribution repayment. This is not considered a contribution, but you need to make sure to tell your HSA provider that it is a mistaken distribution repayment and not a contribution, so that it gets accounted for correctly.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e71919eebf244df80209ad6edf7db3fd",
"text": "\"While COBRA premiums are not eligible to be a \"\"business\"\" expense they can be a medical expense for personal deduction purposes. If you're itemizing your deductions you may be able to deduct that way. However, you will only be able to deduct the portion of the premium that exceeds 10% of your AGI. Are you a full time employee now or are you a 1099 contractor? Do you have access to your employers health plan?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c6b09a1c18842ba3d64088cabe20f311",
"text": "Personal story here: I ended up at the Santa Monica hospital without insurance and left with a bill of $30k-$35k. They really helped me, so I felt like I had a duty to pay them. However, close inspection revealed ridiculous markups on some items which I would have disputed, but I noticed that I had been billed for a few thousands of services not rendered. I got very mad at them for this, they apologized, told me they'd fix it. I never heard back from them and they never put it in collection either. I'm assuming they (rightfully) got scared that I'd go to court and this would be bad publicity. Sometimes I feel guilty I didn't pay them anything, sometimes I feel like they tried to screw me.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ff118bebc301134e4674c1e30f0939d9",
"text": "No. Medical bills for yourself or your human companions may be: Canada Revenue Seeing-eye dogs and the like also get special treatment Nice Doggie There are pet medical insurance policies; but as they are often priced like human policies, they might exclude your animal if it has a pre-existing condition. Good Luck Scott",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "57134808323233c6e7940de4f58cb839",
"text": "For the first four months of the year, when you were an employee, the health insurance premiums were paid for with pre-tax money. When you receive your W-2 at the end of the year, the amount in Box 1 of the W-2 will be reduced by the amount you paid for health insurance. You can't deduct it on your tax return because it has already been deducted for you. Now that you are a 1099 independent contractor, you are self-employed and eligible for the self-employed health insurance deduction. However, as you noted, the COBRA premiums are likely not eligible for this deduction, because the policy is in your old employer's name. See this question for details, but keep in mind that there are conflicting answers on that question.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b9d92a7418f20e2ef19e34d7716440d",
"text": "One possibility to consider would be making an arrangement with a registered UK charity where you would donate the necessary amount for the specific purpose of covering medical costs of that particular person. Charitable donations are expressly deductible from business profits. Some charities may be genuinely interested in helping people from developing countries get quality medical help that's not available in those countries. There may be some organizations in the proposed beneficiary's country that have contacts among the UK charities. PS. I am not a lawyer or an accountant, nor do I claim to be either. The above is not a legal or accounting advice. Consider seeking professional assistance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ec447312a423d5378550f6d87afb5a5",
"text": "\"To be deductible, a business expense must be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business. An expense does not have to be indispensable to be considered necessary. (IRS, Deducting Business Expenses) It seems to me you'd have a hard time convincing an auditor that this is the case. Since business don't commonly own cars for the sole purpose of housing $25 computers, you'd have trouble with the \"\"ordinary\"\" test. And since there are lots of other ways to house a computer other than a car, \"\"necessary\"\" seems problematic also.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c2c0ee6cdbc67b58bdec4983dbec7a49",
"text": "\"It depends on what the \"\"true\"\" reason for the trip is. If you decide to deduct the trip as a business expense, then during an audit you will be asked why you had to go there. If there was nothing accomplished via the travel (that is, you worked from the hotel, met with no clients, visited no tradeshows, etc) then the expense is unlikely to be allowed. Yes, on a business trip you can do sightseeing if you wish (though you can't deduct any sightseeing specific expenses, like admission to a tourist attraction), but if you are just working while on vacation, then the trip itself is not deductible, since there was no business benefit to traveling in the first place.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f90586bfcfdc4185d30d01836631f40",
"text": "The easiest route for you to go down will be to consult wikipedia, which will provide a comprehensive list of all US stock exchanges (there are plenty more than the ones you list!). Then visit the websites for those that are of interest to you, where you will find a list of holiday dates along with the trading schedule for specific products and the settlement dates where relevant. In answer to the other part of your question, yes, a stock can trade on multiple exchanges. Typically (unless you instruct otherwise), your broker will route your order to the exchange where it can be matched at the most favorable price to you at that time.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
f1ed3dc30df363bd45a0edc32da9f870
|
Why are prices in EUR for consumer items often the same number as original USD price, but the GBP price applies the actual exchange rate?
|
[
{
"docid": "2923139f67bc06512a813a131913ad4a",
"text": "\"The simplest answer would be: Because they can. Why charge less for something if people will pay more? One example are Apple products. While there the price number is not exactly the same in EUR and USD, they are so close that, effectively, the EUR product is more expensive. Many things go into a price. There might be reasons for products in the EU being more expensive to produce or distribute. Or people in the EU might be in general more willing to pay more for a certain product. In that case, a company would forgo profits when they offered it cheaper. Also, prices are relative. Is the USD price the \"\"correct\"\" one and the exchange rate should dictate what the EUR price is? Or vice versa?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e59a63d10df5a7548a3f8ee00b16ce53",
"text": "It's mostly VAT (value added tax or sales tax). For example an US IPad is $499 without tax, and a German IPad is EUR 499 including 17% VAT. The base price is actually only EUR 417. In addition to that, cost of business is a little higher in Europe because of tax structures and because smaller countries cause higher overheads.",
"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": "d1b4070ae8f86c7d172defb39f9cd1a7",
"text": "Rates are arrived at by the cumulative buying and selling on the foreign exchange market, much the same way that stock prices are arrived at. If there are more people wanting to buy dollars with euros, EUR/USD goes down. If more people want to buy euros with dollars, then EUR/USD goes up. The initial rate was about $1.18 per euro when it began trading on January 1st, 1999. It replaced the European Currency Unit at that time, which was a weighted basket of currencies of (more or less) the participating countries. You're correct about the printing press in the US and other countries. The exchange rates do reflect in part how much of a relative workout those printing presses get.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8947354d06ec1aace23b62b1302de55f",
"text": "You're assuming here that anything that is difficult to obtain will be highly desired. For me, value is largely determined by the buyer. Even if it takes the same effort to get 20 bushels of apples and a nugget of gold, if the majority of people find a nugget of gold to be worth 100 bushels, that will be the value of gold. Conversely, lets say there is an element buried deep in the earth that has no use whatsoever. Even if it takes the effort of 10 nuggets of gold, because nobody has any use for it, its value will be zero. Even though there is high effort to procure. I hope that clarifies your question of the exchange rate. It is determined by how much each party values the goods involved.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "942a3f398e3d98d215c135e3a7153627",
"text": "\"From my limited experience with foreign exchange... Money is a commodity.. people buy it and sell it like other products.. if \"\"money\"\" is in demand the price goes up.. this is the case when a countries stocks are hot, and you need to purchase that countries currency to buy that stock... I've also seen the currency rise on news and speculation. Many years ago, I administered foreign receivables... My job was to settle letters of credit from Britain... I remember on one ocassion Margaret Thatcher said something to upset the markets.. her remark caused the price of the UK pound to fluctuate.\"",
"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": "5f7f2fda621530a629a225dc7f9ae2dd",
"text": "Why do these fees exist? From a Banks point of view, they are operating in Currency A; Currency B is a commodity [similar to Oil, Grains, Goods, etc]. So they will only buy if they can sell it at a margin. Currency Conversion have inherent risks, on small amount, the Bank generally does not hedge these risks as it is expensive; but balances the position end of day or if the exposure becomes large. The rate they may get then may be different and the margin covers it. Hence on highly traded currency pairs; the spread is less. Are there back-end processes and requirements that require financial institutions to pass off the loss to consumers as a fee? The processes are to ensure bank does not make loss. is it just to make money on the convenience of international transactions? Banks do make money on such transactions; however they also take some risks. The Forex market is not single market, but is a collective hybrid market place. There are costs a bank incurs to carry and square off positions and some of it is reflected in fees. If you see some of the remittance corridors, banks have optimized a remittance service; say USD to INR, there is a huge flow often in small amounts. The remittance service aggregates such amounts to make it a large amount to get a better deal for themselves and passes on the benefits to individuals. Such volume of scale is not available for other pairs / corridors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f03a5a32f7df5a49a93eb16e4e7bd82",
"text": "Because the standard contract is for 125,000 euros. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/g10/euro-fx_contractSpecs_futures.html You don't want to use Microsoft as an analogy. You want to use non financial commodities. Most are settled in cash, no delivery. But in the early 80's, the Hunt brothers caused a spectacular short squeeze by taking delivery sending the spot price to $50. And some businesses naturally do this, buying metal, grain, etc. no reason you can't actually get the current price of $US/Euro if you need that much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9f133cca76377676a8232941e01f0ef7",
"text": "This would effectively be currency speculation, betting that the Pound will be stronger vs. the Euro in November (or whenever) than it is today. This would be a profitable transaction if the exchange fees are less than the swing between the two. In my (very limited) experience, exchange fees are going to be at least a few percent, and she's going to have to do the exchange twice if she wants to turn current Euros into Pounds and back into Euros later; that's at least a 6% hit. I'd recommend against this. While it's quite plausible for the two currencies to move more than 6% against each other in that time, it's also quite possible for them to move the other way, causing her a large loss. The unfortunate thing about large, heavily traded things like GBP/EUR is that you're very unlikely to have some information that the big traders don't. While lots of people think that the pound is going to become stronger, just as many people think that the Euro is going to be stronger. These two camps are constantly bidding against each other, resulting in the 1.15 Pounds/Euro exchange rate as of this writing. The current price and current direction that the line is moving in no way tells you what it's going to do next.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ef4596cc691792cd683cf0bc01b94162",
"text": "If I understand your question, you're misunderstanding the buy/sell spread, and at least in this instance seem to be in an unfortunate situation where the spread is quite large. The Polish Zloty - GBP ideal exchange rate is around 5.612:1. Thus, when actually exchanging currency, you should expect to pay a bit more than 5.612 Zloty (Zloties?) to get one Pound sterling, and you should expect to get a bit less than 5.612 Zloty in exchange for one Pound sterling. That's because you're giving the bank its cut, both for operations and so that it has a reason to hold onto some Zloty (that it can't lend out). It sounds like Barclay's has a large spread - 5.211 Buy, 5.867 Sell. I would guess British banks don't need all that many Zloty, so you have a higher spread than you would for USD or EUR. Other currency exchange companies or banks, particularly those who are in the primary business of converting money, may have a smaller spread and be more willing to do it inexpensively for you. Also, it looks like the Polish banks are willing to do it at a better rate (certainly they're giving you more Zloty for one Pound sterling, so it seems likely the other way would be better as well, though since they're a Polish bank it's certainly easier for them to give you Zloty, so this may be less true). Barclay's is certainly giving you a better deal on Pounds for a Zloty than they are Zloty for a Pound (in terms of how far off their spread is from the ideal).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dc53d9760e6493e8be78fe83c5079c90",
"text": "The company says it's out of their control - it isn't. All they have to do is to INSTRUCT HSBC to send a certain amount of GBP, and then HSBC MUST send GBP. Obviously the bank doesn't like that because they make money through the conversion. That's not your problem. When told to send GBP, they must send GBP. Depending on what your relationship with that company is, you lost money because they didn't send the GBP. At the very least, they sent you four percent less in Euros than they should have sent you. So send them a bill for the difference. It's unfortunate that your bank charged for the conversion Euro to GBP, but fact is that less than the agreed amount arrived at your bank, and that's the responsibility of the sender.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a563599240df32f6f33488f04190e1bb",
"text": "Yes. When the currency of a country appreciates, it benefits some groups and disadvantages others. In particular, exporters suffer when a currency increases in value relative to other countries. In a country like the US, where exporters are small relative to the economy, this isn't a big deal. In germany, where exporters make up a big part of the economy, a currency increasing in value leads to large numbers of layoffs and other negative net effects to the economy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e61919cc2567f96df4868a9c4de17281",
"text": "At any instant, three currencies will have exchange rates so if I know the rate between A and B, and B to C, the A to C rate is easily calculated. You need X pounds, so at that moment, you are subject to the exchange rate right then. It's not a deal or bargain, although it may look better in hindsight if the currencies move after some time has passed. But if a currency is going to depreciate, and you have the foresight to know such things, you'd already be wealthy and not visiting here.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f5bc73aa50634a8e28447a7f2f5f2eb9",
"text": "My instinct says that there should be no difference. Your instincts are right. Your understanding of math is not so much. You sold $100K at the current price of 7500000RUB, but ended up buying at 3500000, you earned 3500000RUB. That's 100% in USD (50% in RUB). You bought 7500000RUB for the current price of $100K, but sold later for $200K. You earned $100K (100% in USD), which at that time was equal 3500000RUB. You earned 3500000RUB. That's 50% in RUB. So, as your instincts were saying - no difference. The reason percentages are different is because you're coming from different angles. For the first case your currency is RUB, for the second case your currency is USD, and in both cases you earned 100%. If you use the same currency for your calculations, percentages change, but the bottom line - is the same.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9a3a4bfb1af5d188ee9d565c1c846036",
"text": "\"There's an ideological/psychological aspect of this too apart from the practical problems. Eurozone leaders keep saying the mantra: conversion to the euro is \"\"irreversible\"\". There are analogies of this in recent history, it reminds me of the soviet leaders and their belief that communism is where history ends. They genuinely thought that once a communist system is built up in a country, it would stay forever. They believed in the superiority of their system, among other things this lead to the isolation of the Soviet Union from the West and the start of the Cold War. Then, in 1956 they were proven wrong with the Hungarian revolution and while they tried to \"\"clean up\"\" the situation as fast as they could and forget about it, their downhill inevitably started. Back to the present, you can easily see the importance of keeping Greece in the EZ. If Greece exits, the illusion of the irreversibility of the Euro is gone, and it would start to fall apart.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8bd9e0b185fddf1f7f858aa463ab5619",
"text": "The exchange rate between two currencies is simply the price that the most recent market participants were able to agree on, when trading. ie: if the USDCAD is 1.36, it's because the last trade that happened where someone bought 1 USD cost 1.36 CAD. There is no one person/organization which 'decides' the rate between two currencies. The rate moves you see is just the reality of money changing hands as people in various situations trade currencies for various reasons. Just like with stocks or any other market product, foreign exchange rates can fluctuate wildly based on many things. It is very difficult to forecast where rates will go, because the biggest changes in rates can often be unpredictable news events. For example, when Brexit happened, the value of the GBP plummeted relative to other currencies, because the market traders had less faith in the UK economy, and therefore weren't willing to pay as much to buy GBP. See more here: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/76482/44232. There is a very high level of risk in the foreign exchange market; for your sake, don't get involved in any trading that you do not well understand, first.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1b5d19c84907af1282291361ec88cd5c",
"text": "\"Any clearing/ legal experts out there? Is this possible- and if so, is it that big of a deal? Here are my thoughts: 1. The EU is right to request euros to be cleared on \"\"home soil\"\" for sovereignty reasons since 2/3s of euro currency is cleared in London. 2. Moving euro clearing back to the eurozone... would just mirror US regulations. Whats the big deal?\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
d8373d63b922f9d1583ca1c3d09e6fe8
|
Restricting a check from being deposited via cell phone
|
[
{
"docid": "a6a8bc7193252f2ccfec889fe8110dcb",
"text": "No, most check deposits are processed that way. Banks transmit the pictures of the checks between themselves, and allow business customers to deposit scans for quite some time now. I see no reason for you to be concerned of a check being in a dusty drawer, it's been deposited, cannot be deposited again. If you're concerned of forgery - well, nothing new there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4bc0051425fa5f3365e51dec08592589",
"text": "I agree with you that smartphone deposits make you more vulnerable to a variety of issues. Checks are completely insecure, since anyone with your routing/account number can create a check, and individuals are less likely to shred or otherwise secure the check properly. Ways to control this risk are:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "799aa0731e7a6de6c56c5361e809857f",
"text": "I don't see any reason to worry about a check being deposited via cell phone. There isn't anything you can write on a check to make it physical deposit only or similar. If you really want to keep your check from being read electronically you could always smudge the numbers but you run the risk of the bank not cashing it and possibly getting a return check fee.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "73ce7a1209fe31f5112a211e3c68c64f",
"text": "\"It sounds like you are isolated and in a small town. Without the true ability to bank, perhaps you should move. As an alternative you could do some kind of online banking. Most banks offer the ability to deposit via mobile phone and you could obtain cash by using remote ATMs or writing checks for an amount over your purchase at the grocery store. How are you paid? If via direct deposit, that makes mobile banking even easier. Did your read your premise out loud? Using Game Stop as a bank is just silly. Are you banned from banks because of not paying child support or some other legal obligation? If so just \"\"face the music\"\". I know people that are over 40 and owed a relatively small amount of child support and the result of they lost out on order of magnitudes greater income. It was just a short-sighted move that cost them far more than if they just obeyed the court order. It would be smarter to use a check cashing store, like AmScott, to do your banking. They will cash checks for a fee, issue money orders, or even allow you to pay some bills directly through them. Never, ever use them to cash a hot check or for short term financing but using them or Walmart, or the Grocery store is a much better option than Game Stop.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d3b115181031954eaaccb2a341b09b63",
"text": "While you can print that on the check, it isn't considered legally binding. If you are concerned about a check not being deposited in a timely manner, consider purchasing a cashier's check instead. This doesn't solve the problem per se, but it transfers responsibility of tracking that check from you to the bank.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "df4f61b877d8a4b2a47ea5f22cfe2168",
"text": "\"Let's divide all bank accounts into savings and checking. The main difference is that checking is easy to get money from; savings is hard to get money from. Because of this, the federal Reserve requires that banks keep more money on hand to cover transactions in checking accounts. Here is a related question from a banking customer regarding a recent notice on their bank statement: Deposit Reclassification. It seems that the bank was moving the customer's money between hidden sub accounts to make it look like the checking account was really a savings account and thus \"\"reduce the amount of funds we are required to keep on deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank.\"\" If they didn't have to transfer the money many times the bank could keep less cash on hand. But once they did 5 hidden transactions the rest of the money in the hidden savings account would be moved by the bank. The 6 transaction limit is done to not allow you to treat savings like checking. Here is a relevant quote from the Federal Reserve Savings Deposits Savings deposits generally have no specified maturity period. They may be interest-bearing, with interest computed or paid daily, weekly, quarterly, or on any other basis. The two most significant features of savings deposits are the ‘‘reservation of right’’ requirement and the restrictions on the number of ‘‘convenient’’ transfers or withdrawals that may be made per month (or per statement cycle of at least four weeks) from the account. In order to classify an account as a ‘‘savings deposit,’’ the institution must in its account agreement with the customer reserve the right at any time to require seven days’ advance written notice of an intended withdrawal. In practice, this right is never exercised, but the institution must nevertheless reserve that right in the account agreement. In addition, for an account to be classified as a ‘‘savings deposit,’’ the depositor may make no more than six ‘‘convenient’’ transfers or withdrawals per month from the account. ‘‘Convenient’’ transfers and withdrawals, for purposes of this limit, include preauthorized, automatic transfers (including but not limited to transfers from the savings deposit for overdraft protection or for direct bill payments) and transfers and withdrawals initiated by telephone, facsimile, or computer, and transfers made by check, debit card, or other similar order made by the depositor and payable to third parties. Other, less-convenient types of transfers, such as withdrawals or transfers made in person at the bank, by mail, or by using an ATM, do not count toward the six-per-month limit and do not affect the account’s status as a savings account. Also, a withdrawal request initiated by telephone does not count toward the transfer limit when the withdrawal is disbursed via check mailed to the depositor. Examiners should be particularly wary of a bank’s practices for handling telephone transfers. As noted, an unlimited number of telephone-initiated withdrawals are allowed so long as a check for the withdrawn funds is mailed to the depositor. Otherwise, the limit is six telephone transfers per month. The limit applies to telephonic transfers to move savings deposit funds to another type of deposit account and to make payments to third parties.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fb2023fa3da69395d1fc8341076f40c1",
"text": "It might be illegal for the very reason you stated: The process of printing checks may seem like check forgery. Banks in the US are allowed to do that, and the only condition under which you can do it with your iPhone (again, in the US) is the same as the one for banks: you can produce the original check on demand. Of course, if the whole thing is legit and no-one is going to dispute the check (=no-one will demand the original from you), it might work (legal issues aside). It works in the US. Beware of several things: It might not work. Banks can demand the original. If you can't produce one on demand, especially if the transaction is reported as fraudulent, you may get into a lot of trouble. Photocopying checks might not be legal in your jurisdiction (you're not in the US, you need to check local laws). Photocopying checks may result in images that cannot be deposited (like the word VOID appearing all around). That doesn't usually happen when taking a snapshot with an iPhone, but it happens (seen that myself, when scanned checks for records) if you're scanning. Deposit by scan/picture is usually limited to low amounts (I know that Chase limits it at several hundreds, I had troubles depositing $2K checks with them through the phone).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b3d005b0ec91fddd9622700f0599a84d",
"text": "US checking accounts are not really secure, though many people use them. One form of check fraud has been highlighted by Prof. Donald Knuth and carried out by Frank Abagnale, as portrayed in the film Catch Me If You Can. Basically, anyone can write a check that would draw from your account merely by knowing your account number and your bank's ABA routing number. With those two pieces of information (which are revealed on every check that you write), anyone can print a working check, either using a laser printer with MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner, or by placing an order with a check-printing company. The only other missing element is a signature, which is a pretty weak form of authentication. When presented with such a check, your bank would probably honor it before finding out, too late, that it is fraudulent. A variant of this vulnerability is ACH funds transfers. This is the mechanism through which you could have, say, your utility company automatically withdraw money from your account to pay your bill. Unfortunately, the transfer is initiated by the recipient, and the system relies largely on trust with some statistical monitoring for suspicious patterns. Basically, the whole US checking system is built with convenience rather than security in mind, since other institutions are able to initiate withdrawal transactions by knowing just the ABA number and account number. In practice, it works well enough for most people, but if you are paranoid about security, as you seem to be, you don't want to be using checks. The European system, which has largely eliminated checks in favor of payer-initiated push transactions, is safer by design.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a2229d623673442702756d724cb1271e",
"text": "Your main concern seems to be to be accused of something called 'smurfing' or structuring. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring Depositing money amounts (cash or checks) under the 10k limit to circumvent the reporting requirement. People have been investigated for depositing under the limit, e.g. small business owners. If you're always above 10k you should be fine, as your deposits are reported and shouldn't raise IRS or FBI suspicions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7bc9bafc8f76b5eec74092070fadfde0",
"text": "There are certain standards that modern checks need to meet. These aren't required by law, but banks today generally insist on them. If you are able to meet these standards and print your own checks at home, you are allowed to do so. One way this is commonly done is with purchased check blanks and check printing software. Office supply stores sell check blanks that fit into standard computer printers. This check paper includes the necessary security features of checks, and using the check printing software, you can print your personal information, including your name & address, your bank's name and address, and your account numbers. The account numbers on the bottom of the checks are called the MICR code, which stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. Normally, these numbers were printed with special magnetic ink, which was used in automated check reading machines. Checks that you purchase from your bank still use magnetic ink; however, modern check readers are optical, and don't require magnetic ink. So you should be able to print checks with your printer using standard ink/toner, and not have a problem. Without purpose-specific check printing software, you could still buy blank check paper from the store, and with a little trial-and-error you could print using Excel. The biggest challenge with doing this would be printing the MICR code: you would probably need to install an MICR font on your computer and play around with the size and location until you get it where you want it. Doing a little Googling, I see that there are some check printing Excel templates out there, but I haven't tried any of these, and it is unclear to me whether they actually print the MICR, or whether they assume that you have blank checks with the MICR account number and check numbers already printed. Without purchasing blank check paper, you won't have any of the security features, such as microprinting, watermarks, erasure protection, anti-photocopying background, etc. As you mentioned, if you are depositing checks via mobile phone app, as some banks now allow, none of these security features are doing any good. The problem, however, is that you are not writing checks for yourself; you are writing checks to other people, and you have no way of knowing whether or not their banks are going to give them trouble with your checks. There is enough check fraud out there that lots of bank tellers are very cautious. I recommend sticking with check paper that has the security features because, if nothing else, it will make your check look more like a real check.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "108d9a48519cbc0607154a347f41e35b",
"text": "\"To answer length validity and security implications of draft checks issued and negotiated within the United States, I am heavily addressing the common erroneous assumptions of where the funds sit while they're \"\"in\"\" a draft check and how to get them out. Tl;Dr The existing answers are incomplete and in some ways dangerously misleading. Jerry can still be potentially defrauded by Tom, and even if the check is legitimately drawn and negotiable, Jerry may still experience delayed access to the funds. The funds sit in an account held by the issuing bank. As long as the bank has sufficient funds, the check does. However, there are significantly more factors that go into whether a check will be returned unpaid (\"\"bounce\"\"). If I hand you $5000 in cash, will you give me $5000 in cash? Probably, and you'd probably be pretty safe. How about I give you a $5000 draft check, will you give me $5000 in cash without doing anything except looking at it to verify the check? I hope not (Cash America sure wouldn't) but people sell expensive goods with the \"\"same as cash\"\" attitude. Remember: The only non-cash form of payment which cannot somehow be held, reversed or returned unpaid in the U.S. without consent of the receiving party is a payment order (a.k.a wire transfer)! The draft check is \"\"as good as cash\"\" in the sense that the money for a draft check is withdrawn from your account before the check is negotiated (deposited). This does NOT mean that a draft check will not bounce, so Jerry is NOT as secure in handing the goods to Tom as if Tom had handed him cash, as it is still a check. Jerry's bank will not receive the funds for Tom's draft check for an average 3 to 5 business days, same as a personal check. Jerry will probably have access to the first $5000 within two business days... provided that he deposits the draft check in person at his bank's branch or in a bank-owned ATM. In the United States, Regulation CC governs funds availability. Regarding official, draft, or tellers checks: \"\"If the customer desires next-day availability of funds from these checks, [your bank] may require use of a special deposit slip.\"\" Mobile deposit availability in the U.S. is NOT regulated in this way and will likely be subject to a longer hold on more, if not all, of the check! Draft checks, don't, as a habit, \"\"bounce\"\" in the colloquial sense of \"\"returned for insufficient funds.\"\" This is because they are prepaid and drawn upon a financial institution's account. Banks are insolvent far less frequently than other businesses or individuals. Draft checks, tellers checks, official checks, bank checks, etc CAN, however, be returned unpaid if one of the following is true: As an aside: an institution is not obligated to honor a stale dated check, but may do so at its discretion. If you have a personal check outstanding for over 6 months, it may still clear and potentially overdraw your account. In this case, contact your bank ASAP to process a reversal. The depositing bank mis-scans the check and the issuing bank refuses the resulting data. I have seen systems mis-read which data field is which, or its contents. Also, there is the possibility the image if the check will be illegible to the issuing bank. The draft check has been cancelled (stop paid). This can happen if: a) The check was fraudulently bought from the issuing bank using Tom's account b) Tom has completed an indemnification agreement that the check was lost or otherwise not used for its intended purpose, without fraud having occurred against Tom c) The draft check is escheated (paid to the state as unclaimed property). This case is a subset of case 1, but will lead to a different return reason stamped on the (image replacement document of) the check. The draft check was never any good in the first place. Because of the perception that draft checks are as good as cash (they're not but are a lot better than personal checks), forgery and attempted fraud is shockingly common. These aren't actually underwritten by a real bank, even if they appear to be. The only money \"\"in\"\" them is what the fraudster can get out of you. Jerry did not properly endorse the check before presenting it for deposit or otherwise negotiating it. In my time in banking, I most commonly saw cases 3 and 4. Unlike most counterfeit cash, case 3 will fool Jerry and Jerry's teller. Tom gets an immediate payout (a car, a wire transfer, a payday loan, etc) and Jerry's bank doesn't know the check isn't valid until they call the alleged issuing bank to verify its negotiability, or in the case of smaller checks into lower-risk accounts, it is simply returned unpaid as fraudulently drawn. To conclude: Call the alleged issuing bank's verification line before handing over the goods, always properly endorse your deposits, and address what happens if one does not receive or collect on prompt payment in your contracts.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c58f63c48f348b0012e03250a384adfd",
"text": "How? Basically all banks nowadays allow online deposits from a smartphone - you take a picture from the front and back of the check, and submit it, and that's it. You still have the paper check, and it looks pristine, but it is deposited (and the paper is worthless).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4487bc2d716631dd1c19031e66ba4423",
"text": "Must pay your bill at least 6 months consecutively for the benefit to take effect. Confirmed by customer service. The rep did tell me that she didn't know much about the new program when I asked her other questions (like is it in a form of a reimbursement or does WF pay the vendor directly). I am hoping the cellphone protection takes effect immediately. Can anyone confirm that 6 consecutive payments is a requirement?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6956d2e0cb5ed915ef5a29e8e802643e",
"text": "This is dangerous as it is a typical a scam. Trudy convinces Bob to help her avoid an ATM free or some other pretense. She writes Bob a check for $100, but is willing to take only $80 to return the favor. Bob agrees. Bob deposits the check, gives Trudy the $80 and then later finds out the check is bad. In most cases Bob will not be able to find or contact Trudy. However, in some rare cases if Trudy feels Bob is very gullible, she will do the same thing again and again as long as Bob allows. Sometimes the amounts will increase to surprisingly high levels.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d608f482e2617e674cae8ec514453434",
"text": "\"There is no \"\"reason why this cannot be done\"\", but you can tell your friend that these actions are officially shady in the eyes of the US government. Any bank transactions with a value of $10,000 or more are automatically reported to the government as a way to prevent money laundering, tax evasion, and other criminal shenanigans. \"\"Structuring\"\" bank deposits to avoid this monetary limit is a crime in and of itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a84abc29f80cea29cc9d9ff10b3d315d",
"text": "\"Like the old American Express commercial: \"\"no preset spending limit\"\". It is really up to the bank(s) in question how big a cheque they are willing to honour. A larger amount would likely be held longer by a receiving institution to ensure that it cleared properly, but nothing written in law (in Canada, that I am aware of).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "259214949481607d982ee738ff17c7a3",
"text": "Yes, those numbers are all that is needed to withdraw funds, or at least set online payment of bills which you don't owe. Donald Knuth also faced this problem, leading him to cease sending checks as payment for finding errors in his writings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c3849e3003518435903391eaf972f235",
"text": "The paper check method also allows the bank to use your money while the check is in the mail. My bank debits my account immediately, so while my $100 utility bill is traveling the U.S. Postal System for two days, they can make use of my $100 in whatever slush fund they like.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
abbfd849972076d6465e7b6d6fe4fbc1
|
How to become an investment banker?
|
[
{
"docid": "deb3573cf2384d330c38e5624e05f697",
"text": "Apply for a job/internship to get a first impression of what it means to work in investment banking. Go to a tier one business school and try to get an CFA. Most importantly: work, work, work... Get practical experience as much as possible.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "69fdbee805fdc14f64e406d7c4d71c50",
"text": "Since you are only 16, you still have time to mature what you will do with your life, always keep your mind opend. If you are really passionated about investement : read 1 book every week about investement, read the website investopedia, financial time, know about macro economic be good a math in school, learning coding and infrastructure can also be interesting since the stock is on server. learn about the history, you can watch on yoube shows about the history of money. learn accounting, the basic at least open a broker simulating account online ( you will play with a fake wallet but on real value) for 6 month, and after open a broker account with 100 real dollards and plays the penny stocks ( stock under 3 USD a share). after doing all this for 1 year you should know if you want to spend your life doing this and can choose universtity and intership accordingly. You can look on linkedin the profile of investement banker to know what school they attended. Best of luck for your future.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "182225a41b8294e457ca19256293e824",
"text": "Depends what type of finance you want to do but it boils down to being passionate and demonstrating your interest I.e. If you want to go into investing have a PA and invest it in individual stocks and understand why you're long or short something If you want to go into banking follow wsj bloomberg and understand what's going on w deals and companies in certain sectors you're interested in Etc",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "96eadc178455a9cf92b52d900c0b2eb7",
"text": "Agreed. This is such an open ended question with no real answer. I assume you're asking for recruitment into the finance industry, which honestly recruit from a wide variety of schools depending on the division within the firm and which firm location the firm is hiring for. Its more about the program in the school, than the school itself (business/finance/comp sci/electrical engineering/physics/math programs). Also bank alumni also play a large role in recruitment, and are sometimes whom you might speak with during an interviews and at career days. Most of the recent bank grads I know are from Rutgers, MIT, UPenn, Penn State, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Villanova, NYU, Stevens, etc...the trend here is North East schools close to NYC (where I work).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c5cdf0e7d50ccb07c902f60a2ad2c7a8",
"text": "This was during undergrad. If you are in undergrad, get a high GPA and study finance and accounting. Try going the investment banking or fortune 500 internal finance/M&A route. Or if you like the broker idea, interview for private wealth management at legit firms (merrill, goldman, citi, etc). If you absolutely want to be more of a broker, try interviewing for merrill lynch, wells fargo advisers, edward jones, etc. to see if you can handle it. Even at merrill you are basically cold calling, but you have a legit firm at your back with the opportunity to build a legitimate business. In general though, these cold calling broker jobs are hard to stay with. If you aren't cut out of it, you wont last more than a few months.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0602eb2408df6d73c04c5a0a08efd72a",
"text": "\"If that's your goal. Watch the entire webinar on warren buffet books by Preston Pysh first for a good intro into stocks bonds etc: https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLECECA66C0CE68B1E&v=KfDB9e_cO4k Read Dale Carnegies book \"\"How to Win Friends and Influence People\"\" in order to learn how to communicate to people effectively and create networks. The most important skill in any field you choose to go into. Read \"\"The Everything Store\"\" for essentially an MBA in business. Read \"\"The Intelligent Investor\"\" by Benjamin graham for a bachelors in finance. Then take classes that get you the very best professors in the field of finance, economics, and business at your school and make sure you never stop asking questions. Continue to develop your skills and create good saving & communication habits. And if you want great jobs, get internships. To get internships be involved in as much as you can in campus and take leadership roles (especially when you think you can't handle it) you will grow quickly as a leader and businessman if you do it right. If reading is a bit much for you, try audiobooks. And make sure you enjoy college and surround yourself with ambitious youngsters like yourself. It will help you grow. Enjoy school and be social, make mistakes and do whatever it takes to get a minimum 3.5 GPA (get old tests study groups easy teachers or GPA boosting classes if you need to) Aight that's all I got haha\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f54d1a534bba0c943b2527783f0d1bc8",
"text": "Check out research: equities, credit, fixed income, quant, ECM. Typically research analysts need the 7/63/86/87, strong financial modeling skills (VBA, other kinds of coding help here), and the necessary financial background to perform valuations. Like the other commenter suggested, starting on your Level One CFA is a good start.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e82805308ca1e1cdea140f38bb6bb07f",
"text": "Non-target undergrad in the south, but I networked with right people. Through the finance clubs I got an equity research role for the school's investment fund and leveraged that for an interview at a home developer but the partners there ultimately went with someone else. They happened to be investors at the firm I currently work at and thought my background would make me a good fit. Once I started working there, I took on as many projects/responsibilities as I could. I'm actually in the process of partnering up with the trader to take on some outside investors and get his algos running. He's been trading for ~25 years and I couldn't believe what his returns were at first, so I'm fairly excited to work with him.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9bb46b693a157d048f8549f3ba7ec1da",
"text": "I think he meant Oxford University in the UK, but he's wrong. You can still pursue a career in Investment Banking even if you do not go to the aforementioned Ivy Leagues. As long as the university you are at is well-respected and you have few summer internships and leadership activities under your belt, it is possible but harder to break into!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cee8e66ecc0b18eebd73d7ea09358281",
"text": "1) get good grades 2) get into top school 3) continue getting good grades 4) get an interview and kill it 5) enjoy the fruits of your success with copious amounts of drinking to deal with the hours Done, and I don't even need to be a banker to tell you this",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d4482b0641ed897481ee05dc5f2a629",
"text": "If you are intent on becoming a quant, I concur with most of the opinions in this thread - you will *need* a graduate degree, because it is a relatively small field, and it is densely populated with people who have graduate degrees specializing more closely in the field than Engineering will ever touch upon. However - don't give up searching for killer work opportunities, like the kind you are currently getting. If you maintain an excellent GPA, in combination with these work placements, you can easily secure a spot in a top degree program - you are placed in an 'EngSci' comparable program, meaning you will possess a top-notch understanding of math, and have demonstrated experience in business. If you plan to search for work in Canada after graduation, I would highly recommend getting your graduate degree from University of Toronto - while it is often a poorly regarded undergraduate finance school, when employers are looking for soft-skills (Ivey and Queens slaughter Rotman undergrads for job placements), absolutely no one disputes that University of Toronto students have a top-notch grasp of theory, and it is commonly regarded (from what I have heard, at least) as one of the toughest schools. At U of T, there are two degrees that might fit for your field - the [mmf](http://www.mmf.utoronto.ca/), and [MFE](http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/index.php/index/mfe). It would probably be prudent to call around, or tap people in the industry in NYC or Toronto to let you know which is preferable, or a best fit (I sense the mmf, but my opinion is next to worthless here). If you are interested in working in NYC, and have the money for a graduate degree in the States without putting yourself under a mountain of debt, get educated there - your program directors will know the Street better than those in Toronto, most likely. black_cows gave excellent advice, though I would add one thing - know that doing this work in Canada and the US are *very* different propositions, especially for the sell side. You probably know this, but look no further than places like WSO, or colleagues at internships, for horror stories related to hours, conditions, perks, pay, etc at American banks these days. (I have friends that have worked 55 hours *straight* in their offices. If you consider that a point of pride.. go crazy! Otherwise.. be wary.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d5afca16ee485c9157d01ff29ff09333",
"text": "Hey OP, Don't listen to the negative comments, they don't know what they're talking about. I just got hired as an associate i-banker at the top investment bank in my country , which is roughly at the level of American bulge bracket banks. I'm an introvert. Yes, I like to drink and socialize, and part of the interview process involved cocktails and dinner with other candidates and several ibankers at all levels . But I-bankers are just geeks in suits. As long as you are comfortable in social settings , you don't need to be an alpha male or frat jock. I recommend meeting as many ibankers as possible. Have coffee chats and learn about the people that work in the industry. Good luck.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "090860a1c544820a7adb13da0f6f543e",
"text": "\"Wikipedia says \"\"The Canadian Securities Course (CSC) offered by the Canadian Securities Institute (CSI) is the initial course required for becoming licensed to work within the Canadian securities industry (outside Quebec) as a securities dealer or securities agent.\"\" Src: Candian Securities Course EfficientMarket Canada adds \"\" You require it and further courses for other jobs in the investment industry. Generally some work experience is also required. All of this is governed by various self-regulatory agencies. The material in the course is strong on money making products, and fairly weak on material that would actually protect a consumer from harm. Passing the course is very little indication that you understand what's important about investing, for example, you won't be taught much of anything about the theory of investment, or the markets, or things like the efficient market hypothesis.\"\" Src: EfficientMarket.ca on the CSC So it appears that the CSC is necessary to work as certain types of financial agencies. That being said, I doubt it will be enough to get your foot in the door. This seems more like a prerequisite rather than a true qualification, so you'll be competing with MBAs/Finance students and other people who either have experience or training in the financial industry. I'd recommend you look into the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification as that will provide you with a rigorous knowledge of financial theory as well as asset management, which seems more appropriate for what you'd like to do. From there you'll have to network like crazy and leverage your experience to get in at a Canadian financial firm and eventually wealth management. So yes, I suppose a CSC is a good first step but more will certainly be required and I doubt it will be enough to land you a full time position. Another important factor is age - nobody expects undergrads to have extensive certifications or experience, but it's harder for a 35 year old to enter a new industry, especially finance.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4ca2586962a883481816bd35484fa4c5",
"text": "depends IB is a huge area, are they quant traders, portfolio construction researchers, ML researchers, data engineers,analysts, software engineers? One year in $150k is unlikely however if a trader, quant trader or quant researcher, software engineer certainly possible. $1m by 30 good luck I own a recruitment business for IB's, HF's, its not common to earn $1m at a bank, certainly not these days, buyside again very difficult but more likely. I work with directors/MD's predominantly and Barclays for sure will not pay that by there 30, they have some MD's on million dollar sums but they are not common. They have a hell of a long road before they get there, at Barclays he could be canned in 2 years regardless of his performance. Citi VP's are capped at $180k base if you perform exceptionally matching bonus realistically between 30-50%of base, though this can vary. Depending on the role typically goes like this: associate - 2 or 3 years, then VP 3- 5 years, director 7-10 years MD 12-15 years + depending on area, role, bank you join. Each area is different. If you go into finance research your area it's highly competitive, if you cannot explain your enthusiasm for finance and why you want to do it beside money you will find it hard. School is not that important JP hires shit tonnes from Baruch and Lafayette College its about your GPA. Learn to code Python, KDB+/Q, C++ and Matlab are decent languages that are universally used. EDIT - Citi also pay higher than Barclays generally across the board.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "151b09f1d7221a26c9ec266d34af4330",
"text": "There are well established recruiting paths into the big bulge bracket banks. They recruit heavily from target schools, both undergrad and MBA. You don't just career switch into a front office role. If you want to become a banker, you would typically enter as an Analyst, with a two or three year stint directly out of undergrad. You would have needed to get top grades from a target school and be successfully chosen from a very, very competitive recruiting pool. If you already graduated, you will need a few years at a top firm, score 700+ on the gmat, get into a top bschool, deal with similar recruiting situations, and then enter as an Associate from your target MBA. Competition is so tight I see CFA on everyone's resume. Lots of MBAs. source: i work at a BB in NYC",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6eedb8b3a548304873c6b918427e73ff",
"text": "1. It is difficult. There is no formal process outside of undergrad and MBA programs to easily gain access to interviews. At your level, its mostly about connections. If willing to start near bottom, go to your business school and start applying to bank associate programs. Sounds like you would like sales and trading more than M&A, so focus there. 2. If you got in at associate level, you would do 1-3 months of training and then get assigned a desk. Finance going through a tough time right now, so trajectory isn't what it used to be. Expect to be a VP after 2-4 years, then its all dependent on luck and skill. 3. If you land a job at a top 15 bank, you should be making total comp of 150k or more after the first year. Salaries not quite at 150k, but most VPS make over 150k salary, not to mention bigger bonus's. 4. If you did M&A you would be working very serious hours. If you go into Sales and Trading your hours will be anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week depending on the desk. Trading hours tend to be the shortest. 5. Boston isn't a hot bed for i-banking finance. NYC, London, Sing, Hong Kong tend to be the places to be. I know nobody in Boston that could help.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "33a8bde9df1866eeaec5df8c3ce0b9ae",
"text": "To quote their disclaimer: Data is provided by financial exchanges and may be delayed as specified by financial exchanges or our data providers. Google does not verify any data and disclaims any obligation to do so. That means that they buy it from a reseller such as IDC. It probably differs in source between the different exchanges depending on price and availability factors. They do specify in some cases which reseller they use and one of those happens to be Interactive Data (IDC) who are also the data provider used in my day job!",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
689a92112a972a241e857131f8c3510a
|
What is today's price of 15 000 Euro given 15 years ago?
|
[
{
"docid": "d387abbe56d3e50279201bf9aaa15371",
"text": "\"With no written agreement in place, the \"\"right\"\" rate is whatever both parties can agree to. I could argue that I could have invested the money in S&P 500 index funds and made about 9% annually over the last 15 years and the 15,000 would have been over 40,000. The \"\"fair\"\" rate would be whatever rate of return could have been expected from whatever your father would have done with the money otherwise - keep it in a bank account, pay off debt, invest in the market, start a business, whatever. Your father has the benefit of hindsight to know what would have been a good use of the funds over 15 years. Using the rate of inflation results in effectively a zero-percent loan in real interest terms (meaning no profit was made, just accounting for the time value of money). Both parties need to either decide on an amount or equivalent rate, or decide if squeezing the other for a few thousand Euros is worth the strife.\"",
"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": "ea56c922a812f0329b4a95d41ca33caa",
"text": "There's often a legal basis to answer this question. For instance, Austria (guessing from your profile) currently uses a 4% Statutory interest rate. You'll need to dig up not just the actual but also the historical rates. Note that you'll want the non-commercial interest rate - some countries differentiate between loans to businesses and loans to individuals.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "627106dadcfefbdbeeb2566b3d5e4485",
"text": "When a stock is ask for 15.2 and bid for 14.5, and the last market price was 14.5, what does it mean? It means that the seller wants to sell for a higher price than the last sale while the buyer does not want to buy for more than the last sale price. Or what if the last price is 15.2? The seller is offering to sell for the last sale price, but the buyer wants to buy for less.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d28ff1b1e9a532740365b921dbc14909",
"text": "That's a very interesting article, and something that I hadn't considered, but I have a hard time believing that the value of the dollar is really 1/4 of what it was just 15 years ago. Ounces of gold don't appreciate in ounces of gold, and you can't buy anything with them. Like it or now, gold isn't used as a currency, so its price at this time is primarily dictated by how much more that people expect its value to rise in USD.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "542f6a65b035a8b2d4c2355dadc9390b",
"text": "There are two ways to measure the value of money in the past. 1) As Victor mentioned there are inflation statistics covering the last 100 or so years that value the currency against an ever-changing basket of goods. This is sufficient when measuring general inflation over the period of the hundred years where there is data. This is how it was measured in your example. 2) For older time periods or where a value comparison is required between specific items (particularly where these were not in the basket of goods used for the inflation calculation) Historical records of the price of comparable goods can be used. This is in effect the same as mark to market valuations for illiquid financial instruments and requires poring through records to find the price of either a comparable basket of goods to one that would be used for inflation calculations today or a comparable set of items. An example of this is finding the value of a particular type of house (say a terraced house in London) in the 19th Century compared to the same house today by finding records of how much comparable houses would sell for, on average, then and now. This second measure is also used where the country in question didn't or doesn't keep reliable inflation statistics which may well be true of Colombia in the 90s. This means that there is a chance that this way of estimating Escobar's wealth in today's terms may have also been used. Another notable reason to use this methodology is that (unless you are using exchange rates in purchasing power parity terms) the value of money held in different currencies is different. This is even true today as the value of $1 in INR in India is likely to be higher than the value of a dollar in the US in terms of what you can buy. Using this methodology allows for a more accurate comparison in values where different countries and currencies are involved.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa74b4578872b3d54c02ec58e7f4d678",
"text": "If you look at the value as a composite, as Graham seems to, then look at its constituent parts (which you can get off any financials sheet they file with the SEC): For example, if you have a fictitious company with: Compared to the US GDP (~$15T) you have approximately: Now, scale those numbers to a region with a GDP of, say, $500B (like Belgium), the resultant numbers would be:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d921092e3b0e3462860f56a4e2f7cfd9",
"text": "Yahoo! Finance would list it as 3.30 for the 20 year corporate AAA bonds. This is using the criteria from the Wikipedia link you stated in the initial question.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d1138e355b81a7a8ac2647aa46a98c76",
"text": "It is interesting to consider the Netherlands which is part of the Euro zone. Germany uses 1 and 2 cent coins. Adjacent is the Netherlands where items remain priced to the cent but cash totals are rounded to the nearest 5c so 1 and 2c coins are out of circulation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3d950755a8b61ed3e9d7451cdd84b0b3",
"text": "\"Im not sure, but let me try. \"\"That person\"\" won't affect the value of currency, after two (or three) years (maybe months), agencies will report anomalies in country. Will be start the end of market. God bless FBI and NSA for prevent this. Actually, good \"\"hypothetical\"\" question.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "433e605acecb28e473e6135fbf242b06",
"text": "The biggest factor is: Are you really going to invest the difference? It is easy to say you will now, but unless you have a ton of discipline or some form of automatic investing, that is a hard thing to do in practice. Another consideration is that the 30 year loan will usually cost you more over the life of the loan because of the length of it. Another option is to take the 30 year loan and pay at the rate you would with a 15. Then you get the benefit of paying it down quickly, but have the flexibility to only make smaller than usual payments in any month where you have a financial emergency and need the extra cash.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f824dc239750bc8278f98d5476e7deee",
"text": "\"I can just get the exact same mortgage in a 30-year version, and just pay it off within whatever year window I choose This is an assumption which often does not come true. The \"\"advantage\"\" of a 15 year mortgage is you hopefully never decide you want more toys or to go out to eat and suddenly your mortgage takes 30 years to pay off instead of 15. Plus, if I get a 30-year mortgage then I have a cushion in case I run into major financial hardship. That same cushion can turn into other luxuries. Maybe you want new furniture. \"\"I won't pay extra on the mortgage this year.\"\" Suddenly it's year 22. This is not a 100% guarantee by any means, but it is something which is relatively likely. Yet everywhere I look I see people online going on about how unwise 30-year mortgages are I read a lot of online financial resources and almost never see this claim.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cef4fa3efefe86f85f703ff4e020704f",
"text": "\"If there is a very sudden and large collapse in the exchange rate then because algorithmic trades will operate very fast it is possible to determine “x” immediately after the change in exchange rate. All you need to know is the order book. You also need to assume that the algorithmic bot operates faster than all other market participants so that the order book doesn’t change except for those trades executed by the bot. The temporarily cheaper price in the weakened currency market will rise and the temporarily dearer price in the strengthened currency market will fall until the prices are related by the new exchange rate. This price is determined by the condition that the total volume of buys in the cheaper market is equal to the total volume of sells in the dearer market. Suppose initially gold is worth $1200 on NYSE or £720 on LSE. Then suppose the exchange rate falls from r=0.6 £/$ to s=0.4 £/$. To illustrate the answer lets assume that before the currency collapse the order book for gold on the LSE and NYSE looks like: GOLD-NYSE Sell (100 @ $1310) Sell (100 @ $1300) <——— Sell (100 @ $1280) Sell (200 @ $1260) Sell (300 @ $1220) Sell (100 @ $1200) ————————— buy (100 @ $1190) buy (100 @ $1180) GOLD-LSE Sell (100 @ £750) Sell (100 @ £740) ————————— buy (200 @ £720) buy (200 @ £700) buy (100 @ £600) buy (100 @ £550) buy (100 @ £530) buy (100 @ £520) <——— buy (100 @ £500) From this hypothetical example, the automatic traders will buy up the NYSE gold and sell the LSE gold in equal volume until the price ratio \"\"s\"\" is attained. By summing up the sell volumes on the NYSE and the buy volumes on the LSE, we see that the conditions are met when the price is $1300 and £520. Note 800 units were bought and sold. So “x” depends on the available orders in the order book. Immediately after this, however, the price of the asset will be subject to the new changes of preference by the market participants. However, the price calculated above must be the initial price, since otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bd59a0d6be04b9e7ff8cc04436d98108",
"text": "\"What does it mean in terms of share price? Should the share price increase by 15 cents? No, but you're on the right track. In theory, the price of a share reflects it's \"\"share\"\" of time discounted future earnings. To put it concretely, imagine a company consistently earning 15 cents a share every year and paying it all out as dividends. If you only paid 25 cents for it, you could earn five cents a share by just holding it for two years. If you imagine that stocks are priced assuming a holding period of 20 years or so, so we'd expect the stock to cost less than 3 dollars. More accurately, the share price reflects expected future earnings. If everyone is assuming this company is growing earnings every quarter, an announcement will only confirm information people have already been trading based on. So if this 15 cents announcement is a surprise, then we'd expect the stock price to rise as a function of both the \"\"surprise\"\" in earnings, and how long we expect them to stay at this new profitability level before competition claws their earnings away. Concretely, if 5 cents a share of that announcement were \"\"earnings surprise,\"\" you'd expect it to rise somewhere around a dollar.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f6f28d0b03bb284042ce431e4bb76506",
"text": "You are trying to predict the future currency fluctuations that can't be predicted. If you know for sure you are moving, convert it directly into Euros in near future rather than take a complicated route.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ce9b56fbd86948cfdf13e02213f63317",
"text": "A correction always happens every 10-12 years, but the GDP hasn't been moved because of housing this time, which had never happened before either. So just a typical correction could happen, like in 1998, and 1988 and the decades before that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "54b44fd18a6297f0e17b5868585b8a96",
"text": "You're ignoring inflation. Even if we assume the ECB sticks to its 2% inflation target, and your salary only rises in line with inflation, you will be saving considerably more in forty years' time than you are today. In fact, an interest rate of 2% and an inflation rate of 2% make the sums exceptionally easy. You need to save €25,000 per year in 2057 euros to be a millionaire by 2057, which is €11,322 in 2017 euros. Challenging, but achievable. Of course, you'll only be a millionaire in 2057 euros, which will be worth less than half as much as a euro is worth right now.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7eb31c0f654543057ea12f777a712330",
"text": "At indexmundi, they have some historical data which you can grab from their charts: It only has a price on a monthly basis (at least for the 25 year chart). It has a number of things, like barley, oranges, crude oil, aluminum, beef, etc. I grabbed the data for 25 years of banana prices and here's an excerpt (in dollars per metric ton): That page did not appear to have historical prices for gold, though.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
6b68119dd432e5613f820a00c7a98b62
|
How long does it take for a Tangerine no-fee money-transfer email to be delivered?
|
[
{
"docid": "94b2fd12e0f23935c4f35f3d4f8cfcee",
"text": "I phoned Tangerine; they enlightened me. It generally takes 2 hours for the email to arrive. Next, the recipient must open the email, click the link, and enter their bank account number. They'll generally receive the money 2-3 business days after that. This forum post suggests that the delays are due to systemic risk management, tendering, and clearing.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "3aaac569637ee8f925fa41a40404a032",
"text": "Already did yesterday, to avoid the rush and holiday downtime. Received my email confirmations this morning, transfers in progress. I had just purchased this last one a wee bit over 2 months ago, so it was basically brand new. Also spread the word to other sites and web developers to make more people aware. As soon as transfers are complete, will send my email as to why they lost my business. Didnt want them to spit in my soup, so to speak.",
"title": ""
},
{
"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": "8c4294b7324da19af5e25ba706f728e5",
"text": "Are you sure this is not a scam. It is expensive to transfer 10 EUR by SWIFT. It will cost 30 EUR in Banks fees. If this is genuine ask them to use remittance service or western union or you open a PayPal account and ask them to transfer money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5dc10522b67ce00ee6ecb2c628f3f768",
"text": "If you have the ability to pay online with a guaranteed date for the transaction, go for it. My bank will let me pay a bill on the exact date i choose. When using the mail, of course, this introduces a level of risk. I asked about rates as the US currently has a near zero short term rate. At 3.6%, $10,000, this is $30/month or $1/day you save by delaying. Not huge, but better in your pocket than the bank's.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d11cb4a3b0931a5b400b4622e812ebf8",
"text": "I am not aware of a version of Interac available in the U.S., but there are alternative ways to receive money: Cheque. The problem with mailed cheques is that they take time to deliver, and time to clear. If you ship your wares before the cheque has cleared and the cheque is bad, you're out the merchandise. COD. How this works is you place a COD charge on your item at the post office in the amount you charge the customer. The post office delivers the package on the other end when the customer pays. The post office pays you at the time you send the package. There is a fee for this, talk to your local post office or visit the Canada Post website. Money order. Have your U.S. customers send an International Money Order, not a Domestic Money Order. Domestic money orders can only be cashed at a U.S. post office. The problem here is again delivery time, and verifying your customer sent an International Money Order. It can be a pain to have to send back a Domestic Money Order to a customer explaining what they have to do to pay you, even more painful if you don't catch the error before shipping your wares. Credit Card. There are a number of companies offering credit card processing that are much cheaper than a bank. PayPal, Square, and Intuit are three such companies offering these services. After I did my investigations I found Square to be the best deal for me. Please do your own research on these companies (and banks!) and find out which one makes the most sense for you. Some transaction companies may forbid the processing of payment for e-cig materials as they my be classed as tobacco.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5706a76e215eb414bc676ff79db9c98f",
"text": "I would look for an alternative wire transfer service that will charge less. I use ofx, but note that they don't do transfers to roubles. The rate adjusts by amount being transferred and there is a $15 fee for under $5000. Upside is it is bank-to-bank. 2 days tops.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c86d14f8aa9808105813991a3ee85129",
"text": "I have taken to using the service TransferWise. I have found them to be faster and cheaper and easier than using SWIFT, given the US Banking's... antiquated system of doing things. I've made dozens of transfers between my international accounts with TransferWise over the past 18 months. Some of them very large and some of them tiny, and even when there's been an issue (I once wrote an offensive joke in my narration for the transfer and they noticed) they have handled it respectfully and quickly. Prior to transferring money to US accounts, I used the SWIFT system - but SWIFT has a pretty spotty record in the US. Some banks you can do it all online but other banks, as Dheer mentioned, you have to go into the bank and sometimes find a senior staff member before you can find someone who even knows what SWIFT is.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e75eceb1b2ab7c39bcb9e9670364114b",
"text": "This will end badly, the only question is how long it will take. Performing bank transfers is not difficult and there is no way a 3rd party would be paying her large sums of money to perform these transfers unless the purpose was illegitimate and they were taking advantage of her. In my experience it is as simple as entering the target bank account routing and account #, entering the name (this is not double-checked by the bank to associate with the target account), entering a dollar amount and then agreeing to the terms of the transfer--there are not people out there who have a lot of money but would rather pay somebody $2000+ to do 2 minutes of work in an unofficial capacity instead of just doing it themselves unless they are trying to hide something and/or take advantage of a mark.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1853626fb52451da253d4584c6a00fad",
"text": "\"I sent myself an Tangerine email money transfer. They sent me an email which took me to a website. After I entered the secret answer, they asked me for the destination bank account's details. They asked me to enter the transit number once, the institution number once, and the account number twice. They also showed a bold warning message: \"\"Please ensure that the details of your Canadian Bank Account (account number and bank information) are entered correctly.\"\" Asking for the account number twice isn't a perfect safeguard, but it's better than nothing. In some countries, bank account numbers include a \"\"check digit\"\" for typo prevention, but I was unable to find any evidence online that this is true in Canada. Tangerine's system isn't 100% mistake-proof, but it's good enough that I think I'm going to use it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9f62569be9b7c332637d6eeed835ddb2",
"text": "It depends on the bank and network. Banks are to provide outgoing data at the certain time for the processing by the central clearing house (the Federal Reserve system, for ACH), which then distributes incoming data back to the banks. All this has to be done between the closing of the business day and the opening of the next one. If the transaction hasn't completed the full path during that time - it will wait at the position it was stuck at until the next cycle - next night. That's why sometimes ACH transactions take more than 1 day to complete (if, for example, multiple Fed banks have to be involved).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "04ec40ba524d53671ccf2da3a8ecf9d8",
"text": "Your bank will convert it (taking a fee for that, of course). It might be delayed some days so it can clear (2-3 days).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "52529f12db72f8cbe206f66496498e4f",
"text": "I just thought I'd follow this up as it's now resolved. I spoke with citizens advice and they hadn't really got any advice other than they legally can't keep the money. I then contacted Barclays (as this is who was sent the money) they were very helpful and assured me that if my estate agent went into the bank with proof of transaction and their details then they'd definately follow this up and resolve it. The day after speaking to Barlcays online, my estate agent contacted me to say the money has now appeared back in their bank. So it looks like the previous letter sent back from TSB must have been an automated letter like a timeout and actually in the background Barclays must have still been processing it. Regards Liam",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e77a1e994c475bcb9e126a374154e32d",
"text": "From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_transfer: The entity wishing to do a transfer approaches a bank and gives the bank the order to transfer a certain amount of money. IBAN and BIC codes are given as well so the bank knows where the money needs to be sent. The sending bank transmits a message, via a secure system (such as SWIFT or Fedwire), to the receiving bank, requesting that it effect payment according to the instructions given. The message also includes settlement instructions. The actual transfer is not instantaneous: funds may take several hours or even days to move from the sender's account to the receiver's account. Either the banks involved must hold a reciprocal account with each other, or the payment must be sent to a bank with such an account, a correspondent bank, for further benefit to the ultimate recipient. Banks collect payment for the service from the sender as well as from the recipient. The sending bank typically collects a fee separate from the funds being transferred, while the receiving bank and intermediate banks through which the transfer travels deduct fees from the money being transferred so that the recipient receives less than what the sender sent. The last point may not be relevant in domestic transfers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5c860c30f6d51d21c2f85c2b7c1d7829",
"text": "\"Why? Because they can get away with it, of course. In short - why not? You may want to read the answers to this similar question (my answer is the one accepted by the OP). Who has the money? The banks, who else. I have found that some banks are capable of sending/receiving ACH transfers faster than others. I have accounts in two banks, lets call them A and B. If I send money (push) from A to B, it may take several days. But if I decide to pull the money from A to B by originating the transaction through my account at B - the money arrives the next day! So the actual transfer only takes a night, one business day. Its just the direction that matters - if the bank has to give the money out, it will do all it can (including taking 2-3 days for \"\"processing\"\") to keep the money as long as possible. But when another bank charges them - they have no choice but to pay. By the way, bank B behaves better - when I send the money from my account at B, it arrives to A the next day as well. Try a similar experiment. Instead of originating the transaction at the sender bank - try to originate it at the receiver bank, see how long it takes then for the money to appear on your account after it disappeared from the other one.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
d2946dbb911d410afee6705fb918f3e4
|
If I send money to someone on student visa in USA, will he need to pay taxes on that?
|
[
{
"docid": "690a912cc72c7bd23d3db330d51e0785",
"text": "First: I am not a tax lawyer. This is just an educated opinion; not a legally verified answer. Taxes are to be paid on income, not on money that you handle for someone. So if the idea is only that he gets and holds the money for you until a later point in time, there should be no tax liability. If the amount is high enough to raise a flag in the bank so the IRS might look at it, and he wants to be sure to not get in trouble, he should keep it separate, and keep a record of 'handing it to you'. Note that if he makes interest on it, or uses it to pay his credit down until you come or such, the situation changes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9797c3ae43e312e7a4e29c26a0f28f57",
"text": "If i am not wrong, any business activities such should be declared on Year End Tax filing. If your friend is going to own that website either it is commercial or nonprofit, he has to declare in the year end taxation.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "6182d56afcf0b5a8f2439fa618d15295",
"text": "\"A loan is not a taxable income. Neither is a gift. Loans are repaid with interest. The interest is taxable income to the lender, and may or may not be deductible to the borrower, depending on how the loan proceeds were used. Gifts are taxable to the donor (the person giving the gift) under the gift tax, they're not a taxable income to the recipient. Some gifts are exempt or excluded from gift tax (there's the annual exemption limit, lifetime exclusion which is correlated to the estate tax, various specific purpose gifts or transfers between spouses are exempt in general). If you trade for something of equal value, is that considered income? Yes. Sale proceeds are taxable income, however your basis in the item sold is deductible from it. If you borrow a small amount of money for a short time, is that considered income? See above. Loan proceeds are not income. does the friend have to pay taxes when they get back their $10? No, repayment of the loan is not taxable income. Interest on it is. Do you have to pay taxes if you are paid back in a different format than originally paid? Form of payment doesn't matter. Barter trade doesn't affect the tax liability. The friend sold you lunches and you paid for them. The friend can deduct the cost of the lunches from the proceeds. What's left - is taxable income. Everything is translated to the functional currency at the fair market value at the time of the trade. you are required to pay taxes on the gross amount Very rarely taxes apply to gross income. Definitely not the US Federal Income taxes for individuals. An example of an exception would be the California LLC taxes. The State of California taxes LLCs under its jurisdiction on gross proceeds, regardless of the actual net income. This is very uncommon. However, the IRC (the US Federal Tax Code) is basically \"\"everything is taxable except what's not\"\", and the cost of generating income is one of the \"\"what's not\"\". That is why you can deduct the basis of the asset from your gross proceeds when you sell stuff and only pay taxes on the net difference.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "12b4f4f7f150ce05f9d9ea84943c6811",
"text": "Whether the amount so received from my son is taxable as my income in India ? No there is no tax liability for you. The money you received from you son would be treated as Gift and would come under Gift-Tax rules. As per current Gift Tax rules, you can receive unlimited funds from close relative, like your son. Any income you generate on these funds, i.e. interest on savings account, FD, etc is taxable to you. Your son maybe liable for taxes in US as in US Gift tax is on donor [i.e. your son]. The yearly limit is $14000 per person after which it can be deducted from estate limit or taxes paid.",
"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": ""
},
{
"docid": "be92248dc7b9b608aaeb2cdb65eb2bd0",
"text": "Several things to consider: I don't see why your friend should pay any tax. It's not his income at all. And I am not sure where your income should be taxed in this scenario. Is he declaring it as his income somehow? The bank won't do it for him, the transfer as such should be transparent. On the other hand, money transiting on his account could in principle look suspicious, although €300 is unlikely to raise alarm. What I do know is that if you do pay taxes, 20% is not particularly high as such. There are four brackets of income tax (and tax-like contributions to the pension system) in the Netherlands, between 36.55% and 52%. Rates for personal taxes in the Netherlands are simply way higher than what you might be used to in Eastern Europe or what has been mentioned in comments. In fact, if anything, 20% seems too low. I am at a loss guessing what it could correspond to, you could ask your friend how he came to that number. There various tax discounts (kortingen) and deductions (aftreken) that apply to freelance work (and some that apply to all incomes). €3000 yearly is quite low and would probably not be taxed at all if you were recently registered as freelance (zzp'er) in the Netherlands and had no other sources of income. But on the other hand, if your money is treated as being part of your friend's income, these wouldn't apply, as he is probably already benefiting from them. There are special rules for copyright fees. Not sure this is necessarily 100% kosher but I have met people who got paid that way for articles they wrote in trade publications.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eba098bca015cde677f396861c4224be",
"text": "First, you'll need to find a service that can handle transferring that amount of money, whether it's using a bank, or wire transferring service. Any major Wall Street bank (Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, etc.) should be able to handle it. You could also use services such as Western Union. As for your legal and tax obligations, according to Western Union: Individuals in Canada and the U.K. don’t have any tax considerations, unless international payments are received as income or in the form of capital gains. Only then must they report it on their income taxes, says Ilyas Patel, director at Ilyas Patel Chartered Certified Accountants based in Preston, U.K., and the director of Tax Expert, a tax advice website. To that end, when considering their tax obligations, individuals should take care to look into the reporting requirements on foreign income or gifts ranging up to a certain amount. For example, in the U.S., the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires individuals who receive more than $100,000 U.S. dollars from a foreign source to report it on a Form 3520. “You may not owe taxes on the money, but it informs the IRS that you received it,” Gragg says, stressing the importance of consulting with a professional. “They’re looking for certain terrorist activities and other illegal activity.” Due to the large sum of money your transferring, it would be in your best interest to speak with a banker (maybe even a lawyer or CPA) about this.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1905f1a693b1c56269cc40d19a4bc954",
"text": "Well, that's probably not even all of it. If that stranger did his taxes properly, then he already paid about a third of it to the government because wherever he got it from it was income for him and thus it must have been taxed. Now, the remainder is in your hands and yes, according to US law it is now your income and so now you too, must pay about a third of it to the government, and yes you are supposed to explain where it came from. Be careful giving it to somebody else or it'll be taxed yet again. disclaimer: I am not a US citizen",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fb34f2e5de976f061f43e82136d3aead",
"text": "\"I'm going to post this as an answer because it's from the GoFundMe website, but ultimately even they say to speak with a tax professional about it. Am I responsible for taxes? (US Only) While this is by no means a guarantee, donations on GoFundMe are simply considered to be \"\"personal gifts\"\" which are not, for the most part, taxed as income in the US. However, there may be particular, case-specific instances where the income is taxable (dependent on amounts received and use of the monies, etc.). We're unable to provide specific tax advice since everyone's situation is different and tax rules can change on a yearly basis. We advise that you maintain adequate records of donations received, and consult with your personal tax adviser. Additionally, WePay will not report the funds you collect as earned income. It is up to you (and a tax professional) to determine whether your proceeds represent taxable income. The person who's listed on the WePay account and ultimately receives the funds may be responsible for taxes. Again, every situation is different, so please consult with a tax professional in your area. https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/204295498-Am-I-responsible-for-taxes-US-Only- And here's a blurb from LibertyTax.com which adds to the confusion, but enforces the \"\"speak with a professional\"\" idea: Crowdfunding services have to report to the IRS campaigns that total at least $20,000 and 200 transactions. Money collected from crowdfunding is considered either income or a gift. This is where things get a little tricky. If money donated is not a gift or investment, it is considered taxable income. Even a gift could be subject to the gift tax, but that tax applies only to the gift giver. Non-Taxable Gifts These are donations made without the expectation of getting something in return. Think of all those Patriots’ fans who gave money to GoFundMe to help defray the cost of quarterback Tom Brady’s NFL fine for Deflategate. Those fans aren’t expecting anything in return – except maybe some satisfaction -- so their donations are considered gifts. Under IRS rules, an individual can give another individual a gift of up to $14,000 without tax implications. So, unless a Brady fan is particularly generous, his or her GoFundMe gift won’t be taxed. Taxable Income Now consider that same Brady fan donating $300 to a Patriots’ business venture. If the fan receives stock or equity in the company in return for the donation, this is considered an investment and is not taxable . However, if the business owner does not offer stock or equity in the company, the money donated could be considered business income and the recipient would need to report it on a tax return. https://www.libertytax.com/tax-lounge/two-tax-rules-to-know-before-you-try-kickstarter-or-gofundme/\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7109782443dbe86b480761ec2425af6a",
"text": "Gifts from your parents are not treated as income for tax purposes. You should not include that in your subsidy calculation. If you are here on a student-visa and have been in the US for less than 5 years, then you are considered a non-resident alien, and you are not required to buy a qualified plan through the insurance marketplace. You might be able to get a cheaper student plan through your school, but the subsidy might be enough that it's still worth it when calculated correctly. If you are a resident-alien or you are a citizen of the US, then you are required to get coverage, though you can choose not to purchase coverage and pay the tax for not having creditable coverage. That tax cannot be collected by the IRS unless you have already had federal tax withheld. They can only confiscate your tax return money to recoup that money. I don't have enough information to recommend one way or the other what you should do, but I would bet that if you recalculated your subsidy without including your parents income it would cover the majority of the cost. You should also consider applying for Medicaid if you meet the eligibility requirements in your state.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "83df4804f6d180c21f33a8fd8381fbf1",
"text": "You don't need to file or do anything. The bank will report all transfers over 10 000, but chances are slim that it will even be looked at, if you don't do this every week. Worst case, someone will ask you about the source, and you tell them exactly what you wrote above (I had multiple international transfers over 60k and nobody ever asked). You said you paid his tuition, and he is now paying you back, so in case someone asks, you should be able to produce the documentation on the tuition payment - a bill, or your bank statement showing you paid it; and the amount should be matching, so you have proof. Note that if he pays you interest, it is taxable income. You are obligated to list it on your next tax filing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8872ea7a2ea65d86a4e2086ad3fcac2d",
"text": "In both the US and UK you are taxed on your income. Transferring your own money from one country to another does not count as income, so you won't be taxed on it. If it's not your money you are transferring that will be different. You may have to report transfers to comply with money laundering rules. You have to report large amounts of cash you bring with you.",
"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": "a92d69a63d8683745d8154be66e811f5",
"text": "Most countries tax income in its various ways, but not moving money. If this is a movement of already owned money, it is not tax-relevant. If it is a payment for services done, it is income, and it is the recipient's duty to pay taxes on it. Note that transferring large amounts of money (10k+) between countries can trigger a review, which - worst case - results in questions where it came from. The point of that is solely to verify it was legally earned money (not drug money or such). There is nothing to worry about if the money was legally earned.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "ff1680202ea7ecb2eaf5bf1e9ad9f44d",
"text": "It's the gifter who is liable for gift tax, not the recipient. The recipient just needs to file a certain form for reporting purposes if the gift exceeds a certain amount.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "44f7f02ebc9b4bba410c9a805b9ed00d",
"text": "\"If you have income - it should appear on your tax return. If you are a non-resident, that would be 1040NR, with the eBay income appearing on line 21. Since this is unrelated to your studies, this income will not be covered by the tax treaties for most countries, and you'll pay full taxes on it. Keep in mind that the IRS may decide that you're actually having a business, in which case you'll be required to attach Schedule C to your tax return and maybe pay additional taxes (mainly self-employment). Also, the USCIS may decide that you're actually having a business, regardless of how the IRS sees it, in which case you may have issues with your green card. For low income from occasional sales, you shouldn't have any issues. But if it is something systematic that you spend significant time on and earn significant amounts of money - you may get into trouble. What's \"\"systematic\"\" and how much is \"\"significant\"\" is up to a lawyer to tell you.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
ed07c6deea4d7b09eef414072a91a4e6
|
What does it mean for a normal citizen like me when my country's dollar value goes down?
|
[
{
"docid": "2a9ccb93058b7630955699cdcd88ddbd",
"text": "This may make Australian exports cheaper, which can be a good thing. However it is at the expense of making imports more expensive. Look to Japan, which is devaluing their currency, and is a large importer of energy: I wont say its bad or unnecessary to hold money in other currencies. However, keep in mind that all AUD-denominated assets will, or at least should, rise as the currency falls. If just AUD/USD falls this may not apply, but if AUD is weakened all around it should hold true. Again, look to Japan, where the Nikkei is closely correlated with the strength of the yen: Another possibility is to buy gold which should rise in AUD terms but other forces are at work with gold price so some would not agree with this.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a854b7f1fb9a4c4cbd73fad4b1fced68",
"text": "Essentially imported goods from the country (in this case the US) that is improving against your local currency will become more expensive. For the most part, that is the only practical effect on you on an individual financial level.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bdc388ae50829bf75031a59e103a78b4",
"text": "There are several possible effects: There isn't much you could do about it. If you had enough money to try to hedge by buying foreign securities, in theory you could be happy no matter what your dollar did: if it goes up, you have pain or gain from local effects (depending on whether imports or exports have a bigger effect on your life) and that is offset by your investment having gain or pain. Ditto if it goes down. In reality the amount you might have to invest to get to this point is probably not a realistic amount for an ordinary person to invest outside their country. I own a Canadian company that bills a number of US clients and I buy very little from the US (I'm big on local food, for example, and very frugal on the consumer-goods front.) When the Canadian dollar falls, I effectively get a raise, so I'm happy while all around me are wringing their hands.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2d542d9c12741601382214e526bfc569",
"text": "One more effect that's not yet been mentioned is that companies based in Australia and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, but which do most of their business overseas, will increase their earnings in AU$, since most of what they earn will be in foreign currencies. So their shares are likely to appreciate (in AU$).",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "a83c8e47219effc49996c8f7f32aec0b",
"text": "I wrote about the dynamic of why either of a lower or higher exchange rate would be good for economies in Would dropping the value of its currency be good for an economy? A strong currency allows consumers to import goods cheaply from the rest of the world. A weak currency allows producers to export goods cheaply to the rest of the world. People are both consumers and producers. Clearly, there have to be trade-offs. Strong or weak mean relative to Purchasing Power Parity (i.e. you can buy more or less of an equivalent good with the same money). Governments worrying about unemployment will try and push their currencies weaker relative to others, no matter the cost. There will be an inflationary impact (imported inputs cost more as a currency weakens) but a country running a major surplus (like China) can afford to subsidise these costs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b4940a56597daa47fcd9f02797c22a8e",
"text": "\"Once a currency loses value, it never regains it. Period. Granted there have been short term periods of deflation, as well as periods where, due to relative value fluctuation, a currency may temporarily gain value against the U.S. dollar (or Euro, Franc, whatever) but the prospect of a currency that's lost 99.99% of its value will reclaim any of that value is an impossibility. Currency is paper. It's not stock. It's not a hard commodity. It has no intrinsic value, and no government in history has ever been motivated to \"\"re-value\"\" its currency. Mind you, there have been plenty of \"\"reverse splits\"\" where a government will knock off the extraneous zeroes to make handling units of the currency more practical.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "772ad3f443b7368025491502fdf43dfe",
"text": "Fed Reserve is not responsible for devaluing the dollar, but it is run by secrecy. Should be nationalized and in control of by government. A nation has to have the power over its money printing, it can't let some private large bankers control all its central bank stock shares and the money policies of a nation. the dollar goes down during boom times, but goes up during crisis and recession. the devaluing was more due to too much debt in circulation acting as money supply. when that debt exploded in 2008 US dollar shot to the moon. M2 increased not in relations to M1 before the 2008 crisis. That proves debt/money lent out by commercial private banks was the cause for inflation, not FED base money printing. on youtube you should watch some bill still videos, ellen brown, steve keen, harry s dent, richard wolff. Do not fall for any retarded mises asstrian von hoodwink libertarian gold bug videos telling you how great gold standard or gold exchange program is. That's just plain slavery.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3aeef25d59c01d9382647746f9d7cada",
"text": "\"I would make this a comment but I am not allowed apparently. Unless your continent blows up, you'll never lost all your money. Google \"\"EUR USD\"\" if you want news stories or graphs on this topic. If you're rooting for your 10k USD (but not your neighbors), you want that graph to trend downward.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2e695a5a44676fed9b45586d7c613fde",
"text": "\"Yes, but it depends on WHICH other currencies the country's money is depreciating against, and to what extent. This is why China \"\"pegging\"\" the renminbi/yuan to the dollar is an issue, it means Chinese goods do NOT become more expensive in the US.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d2c16b059b978b071a59d1a5e39ef67",
"text": "\"Need to be very careful with this kind of discussion. The dollar has been a \"\"fraud\"\" since it went off of the gold standard. If you get people thinking too much about their currency, then could start a panic. Should really just leave it alone. -- Especially with the increasing US debt; and Trump saying something earlier about defaulting on it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2fc3014e53ce66c2041906e87955ae2e",
"text": "The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are currently very stable currencies, so storing your surpluses in them is a very good option if you want to keep your money safe. To prevent political risk, you should keep your money in countries with stable political regime, which are unlikely to 'nationalize' the savings of the citizens in predictable future. As for your existing savings in rubles, it's a hard deal. I assume, as the web developer, you have a plenty of money, which have lost a lot of value. If you convert them to euro or francs, you will preserver the current value (after the loss). You'll safe them agaist ruble falling down, but in case the ruble will return to previous value, you'll loose. Keeping savings in instable currencies is, however, speculation, like investing in gold etc. So if you can mentally accept the loss and want to sleep good, convert them. You have also option to invest in properties, for example buy an extra appartment. It's a good way to deal with financial surplus in Europe in US, however you should be aware, in Russland it's connected with the political risk. The real estates can be confiscated in any moment by the state and you can't run away with it (the savings can also be confiscated, but there's a fair chance you'll manage to rescue them if you act quickly).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d4694b1a2b6366c8246417079ec2e9f",
"text": "\"Let's say there's a product worth $10 in July and the inflation rate in August is 10%. Will it then cost $11 in August? Yes. That's basically what inflation means. However. The \"\"monthly\"\" inflation numbers you typically see are generally a year over year inflation rate on that month. Meaning August 2017 inflation is 10% that means inflation was 10% since last July 2016, not since July 2017. At the micro consumer level, inflation is very very very vague. Some sectors of the economy will inflate faster than the general inflation rate, others will be slower or even deflate. Sometimes a price increase comes with a value increase so it's not really inflation. And lastly, month over month inflation isn't something you will feel. Inflation is measured on the whole economy, but actual prices move in steps. A pear today might cost $1, and a pear in five years might cost $1.10. That's 10% over 5 years or about 2% per year but the actual price change might have been as abrupt as yesterday a pear was $1 and now it's $1.10. All of the prices of pears over all of the country won't be the same. Inflation is a measure of everything in the economy roughly blended together to come up with a general value for the loss in purchasing power of a currency and is applicable over long periods. A USD inflation rate of 3% does not mean the pear you spent $1 on today will necessarily cost $1.03 next year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b6cbf93cdf03f9730462f5dd3d3dd2d7",
"text": "\"Just to get the ball rolling, here's an answer: it won't affect you in the slightest. The pound happened to be tumbling anyway. (If you read \"\"in the papers\"\" that Brexit is \"\"making the pound fall\"\", that's as valuable as anything else you've ever read in the papers.) Currencies go up and down drastically all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it. We by fluke once bought a house in Australia when that currency was very low; over the next couple years the currency basically doubled (I mean per the USD) and we happened to sell it; we made a 1/2 million measured in USD. Just a fluke. I've had the opposite happen on other occasions over the decades. But... Currency changes mean absolutely nothing if you're in that country. The example from (2) was only relevant because we happened to be moving in and out of Aus. My various Australian friends didn't even notice that their dollar went from .5 to 1 in terms of USD (how could it matter to them?) All sorts of things drastically affect the general economy of a given country. (Indeed, note that a falling currency is often seen as a very good thing for a given nation's economy: conspiracy theorists in the states are forever complaining that ) Nobody has the slightest clue if \"\"Brexit\"\" will be good bad or indifferent for the UK. Anything could happen. It could be the beginning of an incredible period of growth for the UK (after all, why does Brussels not want your country to leave - goodwill?) and your house could triple in value in a year. Or, your house price could tumble to half in a year. Nobody has the slightest clue, whatsoever about the effects on the \"\"economy\"\" of a country going forward, of various inputs.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9c52167af80856de1ae5995c89bb1e1d",
"text": "\"This is a speculative question and there's no \"\"correct\"\" answer, but there are definitely some highly likely outcomes. Let's assume that the United States defaults on it's debt. It can be guaranteed that it will lose its AAA rating. Although we don't know what it will drop to, we know it WILL be AA or lower. A triple-A rating implies that the issuer will never default, so it can offer lower rates since there is a guarantee of safety there.People will demand a higher yield for the lower perceived security, so treasury yield will go up. The US dollar, or at least forex rates, will almost certainly fall. Since US treasuries will no longer be a safe haven, the dollar will no longer be the safe currency it once was, and so the dollar will fall. The US stock market (and international markets) will also have a strong fall because so many institutions, financial or otherwise, invest in treasuries so when treasuries tumble and the US loses triple-A, investments will be hurt and the tendency is for investors to overreact so it is almost guaranteed that the market will drop sharply. Financial stocks and companies that invest in treasuries will be hurt the most. A notable exception is nations themselves. For example, China holds over $1 trillion in treasuries and a US default will hurt their value, but the Yuan will also appreciate with respect to the dollar. Thus, other nations will benefit and be hurt from a US default. Now many people expect a double-dip recession - worse than the 08/09 crisis - if the US defaults. I count myself a member of this crowd. Nonetheless, we cannot say with certainty whether or not there will be another recession or even a depression - we can only say that a recession is a strong possibility. So basically, let's pray that Washington gets its act together and raises the ceiling, or else we're in for bad times. And lastly, a funny quote :) I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection. - Warren Buffett\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3d950755a8b61ed3e9d7451cdd84b0b3",
"text": "\"Im not sure, but let me try. \"\"That person\"\" won't affect the value of currency, after two (or three) years (maybe months), agencies will report anomalies in country. Will be start the end of market. God bless FBI and NSA for prevent this. Actually, good \"\"hypothetical\"\" question.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4301601c9481bbdd7831edb0ce599574",
"text": "A VAT means that the cost of goods in your country just went up by that VAT percentage. This would mostly effect how the poor and middle class spend their money which currently is very selective. Additional economy slow downs can generate another recession. That's what I understand, anyway. The numbers in this numbers game are very very important and is difficult to generate in theoretics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f7e3492cf4cc9b19031d374d516784f",
"text": "You have currency risk either way. The only question is deal with it now or later. No one can tell you which action is better until we look at it in hindsight. You could hedge and move some now, some later. Invest your USD in US equities and move some to EUR and invest that in EUR companies. I'd suggest having your money in the same currency as where you are living, since for the most part, you'll be in the same boat as your peers and neighbors. If you have high inflation, so will your friends and neighbors and you won't feel so bad. And if your currency gets stronger, then so will the currency of the people you are hanging out with. It's similar to betting on Don't Pass in craps. If you bet against the rest of the table, you could win when they lose, but then all your friends will be sad and you'll be happy. And vice versa, when your friends are high-fiving, you'll be in the dumps. I'd say it's better to be in the same boat as your peers since that's usually how we judge our happiness when we compare our situation to others.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d50c7fdfce08325fca77e8f189c16e91",
"text": "It's important to note that the US is also the country that taxes its expats when they live abroad, and forces foreign banks to disclose assets of US citizens. Americans are literally the property of their government. America is a tax farm and its citizens can't leave the farm. Wherever you go, you are owned. And that now appears to be true of your Bitcoin as well. Even if you spend 50 years outside the USA, your masters want a piece of what you earn. Land of the Free.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9ce931d868b678112c38d510efe1c7d3",
"text": "\"I think the important fact here is that all of our currencies are Fiat Currencies. So currency technically means nothing, because (as you mentioned) the country could print more any time it wants. Now what makes it useful is the combination of two big things: So I would say, we know they owe us 100 \"\"dollars\"\", and the dollar is just a word we use to represent value. It is not technically worth anything, beyond the fact that the government controls the amount of that currency in circulation and you trust that people still want more of that currency.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
b8b73f71a37789b1f41c746cc550a3f4
|
Will prices really be different for cash and cards?
|
[
{
"docid": "ad261ad87455c52975dbca247f47df0e",
"text": "I think the question relates to the discussion here: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2010/10/05/19449/ It was always the case that merchants could discount purchases made with cash. What wasn't allowed is allowing the merchant to charge extra for credit card transactions (presumably to cover the fees the merchants pay). These fees usually carry a flat fee per transaction, plus around 2% of the purchase price. What also wasn't allowed was them to refuse any credit transactions. People could charge a pack of gum, even if the fees put that transaction in the red. What's allowed according to this new development is different levels of discounting for different credit cards. Somewhat related to this discussion is another development that happened this summer: merchants now have the ability to refuse credit card transactions of less than $10. Here's my feeling on all of this. I think we'll see merchants imposing minimum credit transaction amounts before we see them monkeying at the 1-2% level on pricing for different types of credit cards. My feeling is that they'd be wise not to change anything, even though they can. Refusing transactions (or charging more for others) is going to come as a unpleasant shock to enough people that they may take their business elsewhere.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a6484f3b27a12e3a429a8088cd9b1973",
"text": "There are many gas stations where I live that already have different prices if you pay for cash vs. credit. In addition, some small businesses are doing this as well. My wife bought a birthday cake from a bakery. If you paid with cash, you saved 5%.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "22fe7f8483b829b7ac590f3debdbf69a",
"text": "I would say minimal price differences. Stores will need to remain competative, and the difference (if any) will likely be to cover the cost of the transaction that Visa and other card companies charge them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bdf2fe80ac62aabbb8aa1b4e141e49d6",
"text": "My guess would be for small merchants there could be a small difference. For large merchants, the cash is also at a cost equivalent to the card fees. Check for my other answer at How do credit card companies make profit?",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e36e76f1e2821544eb4742f5ed04d5b8",
"text": "\"The rate for \"\"checks and transfers\"\" is set by each bank multiple times during the day based on the market. It is as opposed to the rate for \"\"cash/banknotes\"\", also set by each bank, and the \"\"representative rate\"\" (שער היציג) set by the Bank of Israel. These rates can be found on the websites of most banks. Here is Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi. The question is which bank's rate will be used. It might be the bank that issued your card, El Al's bank, or the credit card company (ie Poalim for Isracard or Leumi for CAL). You will need to call El Al to verify, but since these are market rates, they shouldn't be too different.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a72d3d0c6af58a24af1bad27a75d7846",
"text": "If it's always the same person, you could open a joint account. Then fees are avoided altogether. How fast the funds are available depends on what you deposit. Cash is immediate.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ef274fde8ff9993d7e6a2b343d34d339",
"text": "\"You can find lots of answers to this question by googling. I found at least five pages about this in 30 seconds. Most of these pages seem to say that if you must convert cash, converting it in the destination country is probably better, because you are essentially buying a product (in this case, dollars), and it will cheaper where the supply is greater. There are more dollars in the USA than there are in Portugal, so you may be able to get them cheaper there. (Some of those pages mention caveats if you're trying to exchange some little-known currency, which people might not accept, but this isn't an issue if you're converting euros.) Some of those pages specifically recommend against airport currency exchanges; since they have a \"\"captive audience\"\" of people who want to convert money right away, they face less competition and may offer worse rates. Of course, the downside of doing the exchange in the USA is that you'll be less familiar with where to do it. I did find some people saying that, for this reason, it's better to do it in your own country where you can shop around at leisure to find the best rate. That said, if you take your time shopping around, shifts in the underlying exchange rate in the interim could erase any savings you find. It's worth noting, though, that the main message from all these pages is the same: don't exchange cash at all if you can possibly avoid it. Use a credit card or ATM card to do the exchange. The exchange rate is usually better, and you also avoid the risks associated with carrying cash.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8071b4a036f2b53f735419ea2c7a99fc",
"text": "They should not be able to tell the difference between a regular card and a secured card. The issue for a vendor is can they put a lock on the account equal to the transaction you are about to do. For a rental car company they don't have an exact idea of what your charges will be: it is based on many options some of which you don't decide until the day you return the car. Because a secured card generally is on the small end (max measured in hundreds or at most $1,000) they might not be able to put a lock of sufficient size on the card.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9dc3ecc0e155eadabf71442bf669fe56",
"text": "\"One study found that, while people using gift certificates bought no more items than those who used cash, they tended to spend more per item. In \"\"Study 3\"\" the paper \"\"Monopoly money: The effect of payment coupling and form on spending behavior\"\", sets up a case where shoppers are given $50 in cash and $50 in gift certificates (the leftover of which can be exchanged for cash). They were asked to choose different brands and types of items to buy. They study found that There was no difference in the number of items purchased as a function of payment form for scrip However means across all product categories show that participants spent more per item when they were given [the gift certificate]\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e730aab19de38394b4ebdb278b211e4a",
"text": "Credits are expensive, so it's a great advantage to pay in cash. Obviously, it's even more an advantage to pay in cash for a house or a car, of course if you can afford it. But, as annoying as it could be, there are some services, where you're out of option to pay in cash, or even to pay by bank transfer. One of the most prominent examples, Google Play (OK, as I've learned, there are prepaid cards. But Groundspeak, for example, has none.). With the further expansion of Internet and E-Economy there will be more cases like that, where paying in cash is no more an option. Booking of hotels or hostels is already mentioned. There are some that provide no other booking option that giving your credit card number. However, even if the do, for example bank transfer of, say, 20% as reservation fee, please note that international money transfer can be very expensive, and credit card is usually given only for security in case you don't come, and if you do come and pay in cash, no money is taken = no expensive fee for international money transfer and/or disadvantaging currency exchange rate.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "02f0413df7c358b8eb5703f2298318a0",
"text": "\"The fee structures are different for PIN-based transactions versus \"\"credit\"\" style transactions. Usually there is a fixed fee (around $0.50) for PIN-based transactions and a varying fixed fee plus a percentage for credit transactions (something like $0.35 + 2.5%). There are also value limits for PIN-based transactions... I believe that you cannot exceed $400 in most places. The signature feature of credit transactions isn't there to protect you, it signifies your agreement to comply with the contract you and the credit card issuer, protecting the merchant from some types of chargeback. Some merchants waive the signature for low dollar value transactions to increase convenience and speed up the lines. All of your other questions are answered elsewhere on this site.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6a4936cf131fa97770c1ae307391f7ea",
"text": "If his ATM card is operational and (assuming it is Visa/Mastercard), he can use it at grocery stores and get cashback. Typically, there is no charge for this service.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "68605b994750cda15b1b2fb7ec50bf35",
"text": "The percentage fee often depends on the type of card. Amex and rewards cards like aeroplan cards often charge 2.5-4% whereas cashback cards will charge less. That's why most places (specifically in Canada which is where I'm from) don't take Amex because they charge way too much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "970074e19cac1c9a7b1f4c54d07b115c",
"text": "You know what? Pay cash, but ask for a discount. And something fairly hefty. Don't be afraid to bargain. The discount will be worth more than the interest you'd get on the same amount of money. And if the salesman doesn't give you a decent discount, ask to speak to the manager. And if that doesn't work, try another store. Good luck with it!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4cf731e00f31def72d93bc1bbdc3cf11",
"text": "I am a carsalesman. Lets get one thing straight, we are not allowed to give people a better deal just because they pay cash, regardless of what some people say. That can be seen a discrimination as not all people are fortunate enough to have cash available. if anything, finance is better for the dealership, as we get finance commission and the finance company DOES pay us the total amount immidiatly",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "580d7128f24e08befbe78bf7c0f80f29",
"text": "Essentially speaking, when you purchase goods worth $100 using your card, the store has to pay about $2 for the transaction to the company that operates that stores' credit card terminal. If you withdraw cash from an ATM, you might be charged a fee for such a transaction. However, the ATM operator doesn't pay the credit processor such a transaction fee - thus, it is classified as a cash transaction. Additionally, performing cash advances off a CC is a rather good indicator of a bad financial health of the user, which increase the risk of default, and in some institutions is a factor contributing to their internal creditworthiness assessment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1e4bd0df6b853cc0f04744a6b8f39f76",
"text": "The cost to the store is small. They may have to pay a slightly greater fee because the transaction is now bigger. They do need additional cash on hand. Even though the majority of transactions are electronic (credit/debit) or check, the local grocery store still seems to have significant cash on hand. This is seen as a customer service. If there is a 2% fee the $50 advance costs them $1 for the minority of customers that take advantage of it. After more than 10 years of doing this they have figured this into the cost of groceries. Of course the credit card company could also waive the fee to store. My credit card online statement does tell me how much cash back was received. The line says date, store, amount ($40.00 cash over and $123.45 purchases) $163.45 total. Therefore the credit card company knows that cash back was used.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f04c572febf901d91fa7fbf164c5f1f",
"text": "Your chief problem seems to be that you're mixing Visa (credit cards) and Step2 (a European Automated Clearing House). Credit cards are primarily an American concept, but do work worldwide especially in travel&tourism industry. The Credit Card companies are financial institutions themselves and operate similar to international banks They're typically acting as intermediaries between the customer's bank and the retailer's bank, so this works even if those two banks have no existing agreements. This is expensive, though. Step2 is a cheaper European system which eliminates the middle man. It allows the consumer's bank to directly pay the retailer's bank. VISA is not a member of Step2.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c5e1289e278da7e065f8a75fc8f8c465",
"text": "One other consideration is that by paying off your mortgage early versus, for example, investing that capital in a mutual fund is that you are reducing your net liquidity to some degree. That is, if you find yourself needing an emergency infusion of cash it is easier to sell a stock/fund than to sell your house or get a equity loan. I suppose if you were planning to need a lot of cash to start a business or invest in real estate, then maybe it would make sense to keep your cash more liquid. However, in your situation I agree with Joe. Pay it off. It feels REALLY good to write that last check!",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
f74c28d000a6988504a9c837302317f8
|
How does a 2 year treasury note work?
|
[
{
"docid": "97d48afb79e4ae56b8d2b14a65b44ce4",
"text": "There is a large market where notes/bills/bonds are traded, so yes you can sell them later. However, if interest rates go up, the value of any bond that you want to sell goes down, because you now have to compete with what someone can get on a new issue, so you need to 'discount' the principal value of your bond in order for someone to want to buy it instead of a new bond that has a higher interest rate. The reverse applies if interest rates fall (although it's hard to get much lower than they are now). So someone wanting to make money in bonds due to interest rate changes, generally wants to buy at higher interest rates, and then sell their bonds after rates have gone down. See my answer in this question for more detail Why does interest rate go up when bond price goes down? To answer 'is that good' the answer depends on perspective:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "25fd54e7984e8a5af60b1f25acdb4347",
"text": "Look at this question here. In my answer there, I put a link to an Investopedia article about the bond prices. Keep in mind that speculating over a short term period is pretty dangerous, even with the Treasury notes, and the prices may be affected temporary but greatly by the ordeals like the latest Republican shenanigans in Washington.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3e9716a7dae9d0ef47a03d0a17927d78",
"text": "Notes and Bonds sell at par (1.0). When rates go up, their value goes down. When rates go down, their value goes up. As an individual investor, you really don't have any business buying individual bonds unless you are holding them to maturity. Buy a short-duration bond fund or ETF.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "72a2701b1f51d5da47456b2cbe3a98a0",
"text": "I have been charting the CPI reported inflation rate vs . the yeald on the 10-year T-note. Usually, the two like to keep pace with each other. Sometimes the T-note is a bit higher than the inflation rate, sometimes the inflation rate is a bit higher than the T-note yeald. One does not appear to follow the other, but (until recently) the two do not diverge from each other by much. But all that changed recently and I am without an explanation as to why. Inflation dropped to zero (or a bit negative) yet the yeald on the 10-year T-note seemed to seek 2%. Edit: If you give this response a downvote then please be kind enough to explain why in a comment. Edit-2: CPI and 10-year T-note are what I have tracked, and continue to track. If you do not like my answer then provide a better one, yourself.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b52a0df063c339dc6fc9d7e15fb0bea1",
"text": "\"A $1 note and four quarters are both real money, but how (and when) they become real money is different. The important thing is that the Fed's stockpile of cash that it gets from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing isn't \"\"real money\"\" (i.e. M0) yet. That cash is only used for fulfilling withdrawals from reserve accounts. You can't use it to buy a car, or a house, or to pay Janet Yellen's salary...no one, not even Janet, can use even a single dollar to buy a Diet Coke. In other words, it's not really an asset. Or a liability. Or anything but a stack of paper in the Fed's vaults that looks astonishingly like money, but isn't. The upside to this is that when the BEP makes a delivery of fresh bills to the Fed, or when the Fed destroys old, ratty bills that aren't usable anymore, the Fed's balance sheet doesn't change. That's good! Those are practical considerations, not financial ones. The downside is that there's nothing on the asset side of the sheet to explain how the Fed's liability to a bank is reduced when the bank makes a cash withdrawal from its reserve account. So the Fed balances it's balance sheet by recording an increase in a different liability: the cash in circulation. Kinda like transferring the balance on a credit card: you're paying down one liability by increasing another one. It looks a bit silly, but less silly than recording the destruction of old bills as an \"\"expense\"\" of the face value of the bills. Coins, on the other hand, become money as soon as the Treasury gets them from the Mint. If they wanted to, they could pay their employees' salaries by ordering coins from the Mint for cheap, giving them to their employees at face value, and reaping fat profits as a result. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what they do: when someone wants quarters, the Treasury mints them at less than face value and then sells them at face value. In practice the Fed does all of this buying and then distributes the coins according to demand. The important thing is that this bunch of coins is not like the Fed's stockpile of bills. It's already real money, and therefore shows up as an asset. Not much. If the Fed bought coins at the cheaper price from the Mint instead, stockpiled them like they stockpile bills, then distributed them as usual, the extra profit just goes to the Treasury anyway, like all the Fed's profit does. However, as things are, the Fed's purchases of coins are recorded on the Fed's balance sheet at face value, which is kinda silly.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d7882c298cb26a09da949ad3a233ca7",
"text": "\"Its definitely not a stupid question. The average American has absolutely no idea how this process works. I know this might be annoying, but I'm answering without 100% certainty. The Fed would increase the money supply by buying back government bonds. This increased demand for bonds would raise their price and therefore lower the interest return that they deliver. Since U.S. treasury bonds are considered to be the very safest possible investment, their rate is the \"\"risk free\"\" rate upon which all other rates are based. So if the government buys billions of these bonds, that much money ends up in the hands of whoever sold them. These sellers are the large financial organizations that hold all of our money (banks and large investment vehicles). Now, since bond rates are lower, they have an incentive to put that money somewhere else. It goes into stocks and investment in business ventures. I'm less certain about how this turns into inflation that consumers will recognize. The short answer is that there is only a finite number of goods and services for us to buy. If the amount of money increases and there are still the same number of goods and services, the prices will increase slightly. Your question about printing money to pay off debts is too complex for me to answer. I know that the inflation dynamic does play a role. It makes debts easier to pay off in the future than they seem right now. However, causing massive inflation to pay off debts brings a lot of other problems.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a0fd3892b5b4a6ff7c51355d21f1b976",
"text": "For the US government, they've just credited Person B with a Million USD and haven't gained anything (afterall, those digits are intangible and don't really have a value, IMO). Two flaws in this reasoning: The US government didn't do anything. The receiving bank credited the recipient. If the digits are intangible, such that they haven't gained anything, they haven't lost anything either. In practice, the role of governments in the transfer is purely supervisory. The sending bank debits the sender's account and the receiving bank credits the recipient's account. Every intermediary makes some money on this transaction because the cost to the sender exceeds the credit to the recipient. The sending bank typically receives a credit to their account at a correspondent bank. The receiving bank typically receives a debit from their account at a correspondent bank. If a bank sends lots of money, eventually its account at its correspondent will run dry. If a bank receives lots of money, eventually its account at its correspondent will have too much money. This is resolved with domestic payments, sometimes handled by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies. In the US, banks have an account with the federal reserve and adjust balances there. The international component is handled by the correspondent bank(s). They also internally will credit and debit. If they get an imbalance between two currencies they can't easily correct, they will have to sell one currency to buy the other. Fortunately, worldwide currency exchange is extremely efficient.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1b69527e2707e44cc701c57fc239b10a",
"text": "\"It's a form of debt issued by the United States Treasury. As the name implies, a 10-year note is held for 10 years (after which you get the face value in cash), and it pays interest twice per year. It's being used in the calculator to stand for a readily available, medium-term, nearly risk-free investment, as a means of \"\"discounting\"\" the value that the company gains. The explanation for why the discounting is done can be found on the page you linked. As a Canadian you could use the yield of comparable Canadian treasury securities as quoted by Bank of Canada (which seem to have had the bottom fall out since the new year), although I don't suppose American notes would be hard for a Canadian investor to come by, so if you wanted to be conservative you could use the US figure as long as it's higher.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ba3ab29e2ff7613adc6491c8165e6fc",
"text": "\"Total Capital This is a very old fashioned term that really is mostly only used in the finance industry today, like when everyone was obsessed with \"\"bank capital\"\". Total Capital = Preferred Equity + Common Equity + Liabilities True blue preferred shares are almost only used by financial companies, banks specifically. The more modern ones that convert to common are used by all other companies. Notes Payable This is another old fashioned term that now carries a different meaning in Generally Accepted Account Principles (GAAP). The oldest definition of a note or a promissory note is a promise to pay a fixed amount of money on a specific date. This has been modified to resemble more a bond and evolved into the zero coupon bond, a bond that makes no cash interest payments but makes one final payment that includes principal & interest. A bank note, like a One Dollar bill, is a note that pays something, in this case One Dollar, never (technically, the repayment date is simply not specified in the contract). While it pays One Dollar, it never pays it back, so it has a constant value of One Dollar. The constant nature, inflation notwithstanding, is what makes bank notes the preferred medium of exchange. GAAP has taken its' own definition to mean any debt payable within 12 months, as it is a current (<12 months) liability.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "98b361fce03eb6c8c2291c71e74e3e5e",
"text": "Sure thing - Treasuries Bonds/Bills are what the US Gov uses to borrow. However it's slightly different than taking out a loan. It's basically an agreement to give (repay) a set sum of money at a certain time in the future in exchange for a sum of funding that's determined by market forces (supply & demand). The difference between today's price and the payment in the future is the interest. For example (completely made up numbers): - Today is 08/05/2017 - The government issues a bond that say it will pay who ever owns this bond $105 on 08/05/**2018** - The market decides that $105 from the US government paid a year from now is worth $100 today. In other words the US Government is borrowing for one year at a rate of 5% (105 - 100) / 100 = .05 = 5% Now consider Saudi Arabia's petroleum company, Aramco. Because petroleum is traded in dollars, when Aramco makes a sale, its paid in USD. Some of that is going to be reinvested into the company, some paid out in dividends to share holders but inevitably some of that will be saved someplace where it can make interest. Because treasuries are traded/issued in dollars and because Aramco's businesses deals primarily in dollars, treasuries are the natural place to store that savings, especially because the market considers them extremely safe. If they exchange the USD into the Saudi currency to store the money in Saudi assets, Aramco is subject to *exchange rate risk*. If the riyal depreciates relative to the dollar, Aramco will lose wealth on the exchange back to dollars when they go to move those funds back into their business. It's in their interest to deal with assets denominated in USD (i.e. T-Bonds) in order to avoid this. So now because the Saudis want T-Bonds as well, the additional demand pushes the market price of our bond from $100 to $102. And the effective one year borrowing rate for the Government goes from 5% to 2.9%. (105 - 102)/102 = .029411 = 2.9% And there you have it, cheaper borrowing. It's also worth noting how this encourages business around the world to deal in dollars which are directly controlled by the federal reserve. This makes the US's position extremely powerful.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "34355b7409a90fc5e25f780b12d07c66",
"text": "The yield on treasury bond indicates the amount of money anyone at can make at virtually zero risk. So lets say banks have X [say 100] amount of money. They can either invest this in treasury bonds and get Y% [say 1%] interest that is very safe, or invest into mortgage loans [i.e. lend it to people] at Y+Z% [say at 3%]. The extra Z% is to cover the servicing cost and the associated risk. (Put another way, if you wanted only Y%, why not invest into treasury bonds, rather than take the risk and hassle of getting the same Y% by lending to individuals?) In short, treasury bond rates drive the rate at which banks can invest surplus money in the market or borrow from the market. This indirectly translates into the savings & lending rates to the banks' customers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ba304fbf8b1580d1a4cef5833694200f",
"text": "You've got the right idea, except that the stated interest rate is normalized for a 1-year investment. Hence if you buy a 4-week bill, you're getting something closer to 4/52 of what you've computed in your question. More precisely, the Treasury uses a 360 day year for these calculations, so you multiply the stated rate by (number of days until maturity)/360 to get the actual rate of return.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fda38f2836f6ffc43aba5c23742f35a5",
"text": "\"The simple answer is that, even though mortgages can go for 10, 15, 20 and 30 year terms in the U.S., they're typically backed by bonds sold to investors that mature in 10 years, which is the standard term for most bonds. These bonds, in the open market, are compared by investors with the 10-year Treasury note, which is the gold standard for low-risk investment; the U.S. Government has a solid history of always paying its bills (though this reputation is being tested in recent years with fights over the debt ceiling and government budgets). The savvy investor, therefore, knows that he or she can make at least the yield from the 10-year T-note in that time frame, with virtually zero risk. Anything else on the market is seen as being a higher risk, and so investors demand higher yields (by making lower bids, forcing the issuer to issue more bonds to get the money it needs up front). Mortgage-backed securities are usually in the next tier above T-debt in terms of risk; when backed by prime-rate mortgages they're typically AAA-rated, making them available to \"\"institutional investors\"\" like banks, mutual funds, etc. This forms a balancing act; mortgage-backed securities issuers typically can't get the yield of a T-note, because no matter how low their risk, T-debt is lower (because one bank doesn't have the power to tax the entire U.S. population). But, they're almost as good because they're still very stable, low-risk debt. This bond price, and the resulting yield, is in turn the baseline for a long-term loan by the bank to an individual. The bank, watching the market and its other bond packages, knows what it can get for a package of bonds backed by your mortgage (and others with similar credit scores). It will therefore take this number, add a couple of percentage points to make some money for itself and its stockholders (how much the bank can add is tacitly controlled by other market forces; you're allowed to shop around for the lowest rate you can get, which limits any one bank's ability to jack up rates), and this is the rate you see advertised and - hopefully - what shows up on your paperwork after you apply.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1b3e7446fd01d40d7513b4640655a667",
"text": "The way it actually works is that low-but-steady inflation (ie: printing of new dollars without any debt behind them) keeps the debts serviceable. In real life, unfortunately, too little of the money supply is printed rather than lent into existence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e4b0148f3cdecb6df7692dbccf3fa8ad",
"text": "An expiration 2 years out will have Sqr(2) (yes the square root of 2!) times the premium of the 1 year expiration. So if the option a year out sell for $1.00, two is only $1.41. And if the stock trades for $10, but the strike is $12, why aren't you just waiting for expiration to write the next one?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6657c05898ceb7473983e062b054aa66",
"text": "\"Thanks! Do you know how to calculate the coefficients from this part?: \"\"The difference between the one-year rate and the spread coefficients represents the response to a change in the one-year rate. As a result, the coefficient on the one-year rate and the difference in the coefficients on the one-year rate and spread should be positive if community banks, on average, are asset sensitive and negative if they are liability sensitive. The coefficient on the spread should be positive because an increase in long-term rates should increase net interest income for both asset-sensitive and liability-sensitive banks.\"\" The one-year treasury yield is 1.38% and the ten-year rate is 2.30%. I would greatly appreciate it if you have the time!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a96d28f1b6a65b9706820b297edc30f9",
"text": "Yes, you are. When someone is bankrupt their assets are being sold to satisfy the creditors. Your note is an asset, and will be sold. You'll be making payments to the entity that buys it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "09341e6010c64a265197ec01f49e1ee6",
"text": "As no one has mentioned them I will... The US Treasury issues at least two forms of bonds that tend to always pay some interest even when prevailing rates are zero or negative. The two that I know of are TIPS and I series bonds. Below are links to the descriptions of these bonds: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.htm",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
a687a094427d9471f2af9372109453a2
|
1040 or 1040NR this time?
|
[
{
"docid": "1e9be9267b7d796c28f93fb7647721d8",
"text": "\"1040 or 1040NR depends on whether you are a resident alien or nonresident alien -- 1040/1040A/1040EZ for resident aliens, and 1040NR/1040NR-EZ for nonresident aliens. Determining whether you are a resident is somewhat complex, and there is not enough information in your question to determine it. Publication 519 is the guide for taxes for aliens. (It hasn't been updated for 2014 yet, so mentally shift all the years in the publication up by one year when you read it.) Since you don't have a green card, whether you are a resident is determined by the Substantial Presence Test. The test says that if (the number of days you were in the U.S. in 2014) + 1/3 of (the number of days you were in the U.S. in 2013) + 1/6 of (the number of days you were in the U.S. in 2012) >= 183 days (half a year), then you are a resident alien for 2014. However, there are exceptions to the test. Days that you are an \"\"exempt individual\"\" are not counted toward the Substantial Presence Test. And \"\"exempt individuals\"\" include international students, trainees, teachers, etc. However, there are exceptions to the exceptions. Students are not \"\"exempt individuals\"\" for a year if they have been exempt individuals for any part of 5 previous calendar years. (Different exceptions apply for teachers and trainees.) So whether you are an \"\"exempt individual\"\" for one year inductively depends on whether you have been an \"\"exempt individual\"\" in previous years. Long story short, if before you came to the U.S. as an F-1 student, you haven't been in the U.S. on F-1 or J-1 status, then you will be a nonresident alien for the first 5 calendar years (calendar year = year with a number, not 365 days) that you've been on F-1. We will assume this is the case below. So if you started your F-1 in 2009 (any time during that year) or before, then you would have already been an exempt individual for 5 calendar years (e.g. if you came in 2009, then 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 are your 5 years), so you would not be an exempt individual for any part of 2014. Since you were present in the U.S. for most of 2014, you meet the Substantial Presence Test for 2014, and you are a resident alien for all of 2014. If, on the other hand, you started your F-1 in 2010 (any time during that year) or after, then you would still be an exempt individual for the part of 2014 that you were on F-1 status (i.e. prior to October 2014. OPT is F-1.). Days in 2014 in H1b status (3 months) are not enough for you to satisfy the Substantial Presence Test for 2014, so you would be a nonresident alien for all of 2014. If you fall into the latter case (nonresident alien), there are some alternative choices you have. If you were in the U.S. for most of those last 3 months, then you are eligible to choose to use the \"\"First-Year Choice\"\". I will not go into the steps to use this choice, but the result is that it makes you dual-status for 2014 -- nonresident until October, and resident since October. If you are single, then making this choice pretty much gives you no benefit. However, if you are married, then making this choice allows you to subsequently make another choice to become a resident for all of 2014. Being resident gives you some benefits, like being able to file as Married Filing Jointly (nonresidents can only file separately), being able to use the Standard Deduction, being able to use many other deductions and credits, etc. Though, depending on what country you're from, it may affect your treaty benefits, so check that before you consider it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d34cb5f443878184b7f7c24914d6b8db",
"text": "Since you were a nonresident alien student on F-1 visa then you will be considered engaged in a trade or business in the USA. You must file Form 1040NR. Here is the detailed instruction by IRS - http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxation-of-Nonresident-Aliens",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "c976275b07f08beafa961ce161e4872b",
"text": "NRE is better. It's a tax free account, exempt from income tax. NRE account is freely repatriable (Principal and interest earned) while the NRO account has restricted repatriability",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "856888a2499d8ea27cb454ac4c6e0f26",
"text": "Here's a description. The relevant discussion for tax year 2010 starts on page 22 of the 1040 instructions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c00a274f62e3cfc4e3f99a61e61425e",
"text": "There may be differences in different contexts, but here's my general understanding: Rate of Return (or Return on Investment) is the total gain or loss of an investment divided by the initial investment amount. e.g. if you buy stock for $100 and later sell it for $120 you have a 20% Rate of Return. You would have a 20% ROR regardless of if you sell it tomorrow or in a year. Internal Rate of Return is effectively annualized. It is the annual rate at which each of a series of cashflows is discounted that would give you a net present value of 0. Meaning if you spent $100 today and in exactly one year you received $120 back, you would have an IRR of 20%. If you received the $120 back in 6 months, your IRR would be roughly 40%. An IRR calculation can include multiple cashflows at various times, while ROR is (in my mind) the total net gain or loss relative to the investment (irrespective of the time of the cash flows). IRR is more effective when comparing investments that have different time horizons. Spending $100 to get $120 tomorrow is much better (from an IRR perspective) than getting $120 two years from now, since you could take that $20 gain and invest it for the rest of the two years.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5ee9f8d91bf9c6edf84fc8a1577ed745",
"text": "Instead of SSN, foreign person should get a ITIN from the IRS. Instead of W9 a foreigner should fill W8-BEN. Foreigner might also be required to file 1040NR/NR-EZ tax report, and depending on tax treaties also be liable for US taxes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ef3c158a705519262993c7d13c839988",
"text": "\"Besides money and time lost, it is pretty clear that most tax advisors are not well versed in non-resident taxes. It seems that their main clients are either US residents or H1B workers (who are required to file as residents). I share your pain on this one. In fact, even for H1B/green card holders or Americans with income/property abroad vast majority of advisers will make mistakes (which may become quite costly). IRS licensing exams for EA/RTRP do not include a single question on non-resident taxation or potential issues, let alone handling treaties. Same goes for the AICPA unified CPA exam (the REG portion of which, in part, deals with taxes). I'm familiar with the recent versions of both exams and I am very disappointed and frustrated by that lack of knowledge requirement in such a crucial area (I am not a licensed tax preparer now though). That said, the issue is very complicated. I went through several advisers until I found the one I can trust to know her stuff, and while at it happened to learn quite a lot about the US tax code (which doesn't make me sleep any better by the least). It is my understanding that preparing a US tax return for a foreign person without a mistake is impossible, but the question is how big is the mistake you're going to make. I had returns prepared by solo working advisers where I found mistakes as ridiculous as arithmetic calculation errors (fired after two seasons), and by big-4 firms where I found mistakes that cost me quite a lot (although by the time I figured that they cost me significant amounts, it was too late to sue or change; fired after 2 seasons as well). As you can see, it is relevant to me as well, and I do not do my own tax returns. I usually ask for the conservative interpretations from my adviser, IRS is very aggressive on enforcement and the penalties, especially on foreigners are draconian (I do not know if it ever went through a judicial review, as I believe some of these penalties are unconstitutional under the 8th amendment, but that's my personal opinion). Bottom line - its hard to find a decent tax adviser, and that's why the good ones are expensive. You get what you pay for. How do I go about locating a CPA/EA who is well versed in non-resident taxes located in the Los Angeles area (Orange County area is not too far away either) These professionals are usually active in large metropolitan areas with a lot of foreigners. You should be able to find decent professionals in LA/OC, SF Bay, Seattle, New York, Boston, and other cities and metropolises attracting foreigners. Also, look for those working in the area of a major university. Specific points: If I find none, can I work with a quaified person who lives in a different state and have him file my taxes on my behalf (electronically or via scans going back and forth) Yes. But that person my have a problem representing you in California (in case you're audited), unless he's an EA (licensed by the Federal government, can practice everywhere) or is licensed as a CPA or Attorney by the State of California. Is there a central registry of such quaified people I can view (preferably with reviews) - akin to \"\"yellow pages\"\" IRS is planning on opening one some time this year, but until then - not really. There are some commercial sites claiming to have that, but they're using the FOIA access to the IRS and states' listings, and may not have updated information. They definitely don't have updated license statuses (or any license statuses) or language/experience information. Wouldn't trust them.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d2e19aa7de5566d8a29671be19184800",
"text": "\"I am looking at a 1040A. Line 11a asks for total IRA distributions. 11b asks for the taxable amount. Enter \"\"QCD\"\" as explanation and remove the Qualified Charitable Deduction amount from 11a to get 11b which is added to your income if there's any positive balance.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a89ab2d6bd9760664b9f5741aabdd05f",
"text": "I know nothing about this, but found this link which suggests for H&R Block specifically: I kept searching and I found the section. It's at the end in the Credits section under 'other backup withholding'. Hopefully this helps someone else in the future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3f05bf56b4b293ae36f55deb39d23e24",
"text": "I have now filed my taxes and am able to report back with precisely what took place. To summarize, my situation was the following (before filing taxes): As it turns out, if I have $4x of NRTC's, it is not $4x that I can redeem. It is 15% of $4x that I can redeem to be able to get a tax refund. For the sake of simplicity, let's say I have $10x NRTC's instead of $4x NRTC's. That gives me $1.5x as the actual redeemable amount. I will get $x back on my refund since I have $1.5x available. Have I understood the system correctly? Since $x is a substantial amount, I want to know if I can factor this in as money that will be coming in. In summary, the only thing I didn't know before filing my taxes was the 15% rule!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "abd138c01e6d5a971c99c8f92350dfec",
"text": "\"That's a tricky question and you should consult a tax professional that specializes on taxation of non-resident aliens and foreign expats. You should also consider the provisions of the tax treaty, if your country has one with the US. I would suggest you not to seek a \"\"free advice\"\" on internet forums, as the costs of making a mistake may be hefty. Generally, sales of stocks is not considered trade or business effectively connected to the US if that's your only activity. However, being this ESPP stock may make it connected to providing personal services, which makes it effectively connected. I'm assuming that since you're filing 1040NR, taxes were withheld by the broker, which means the broker considered this effectively connected income.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "44f7f02ebc9b4bba410c9a805b9ed00d",
"text": "\"If you have income - it should appear on your tax return. If you are a non-resident, that would be 1040NR, with the eBay income appearing on line 21. Since this is unrelated to your studies, this income will not be covered by the tax treaties for most countries, and you'll pay full taxes on it. Keep in mind that the IRS may decide that you're actually having a business, in which case you'll be required to attach Schedule C to your tax return and maybe pay additional taxes (mainly self-employment). Also, the USCIS may decide that you're actually having a business, regardless of how the IRS sees it, in which case you may have issues with your green card. For low income from occasional sales, you shouldn't have any issues. But if it is something systematic that you spend significant time on and earn significant amounts of money - you may get into trouble. What's \"\"systematic\"\" and how much is \"\"significant\"\" is up to a lawyer to tell you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "19c1bed44c0810777064c3f77e592123",
"text": "I edited my W4 over several years, trying to get rid of my refund. It's a balancing act, just be careful to not owe more than about $1000 each year. They can hit you with a small penalty. It's never been enough to concern me, but it's there. It's also a balancing act if you get a raise, a bonus, any kind of differences in pay...",
"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": "126fd13c67264c54eded0b947f3c655d",
"text": "It's the same result either way. Say the bills are $600, and you are reimbursed $400. You'd be able to write off $400 as part of the utilities that are common expenses, but then claim the $400 as income. I'd stick with that, and have contemporaneous records supporting all cash flow. You also can take 2/3 of any other maintenance costs that most homeowners can't. Like snow removal, lawn care, etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1d4ba8a949e4138c61188e7132d74980",
"text": "You need to file IRS Form 1040-NR. The IRS's website provides instructions.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
8b07193c9db8c709979a980f3dcd927d
|
How aggressive should my personal portfolio be?
|
[
{
"docid": "2cff75e0f193b732a183a32d56f3a919",
"text": "You're completely missing the most important thing you can do: minimize fees.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fe51e686735147f0c35b913477796fe9",
"text": "\"Its important to note that aggression, or better yet volatility, does not necessarily offer higher returns. One can find funds that have a high beta (measure of volatility) and lower performance then stock funds with a lower beta. Additionally, to Micheal's point, better performance could be undone by higher fees. Age is unimportant when deciding the acceptable volatility. Its more important as to when the money is to be available. If there might be an immediate need, or even less than a year, then stick to a savings account. Five years, some volatility can be accepted, if 10 years or more seek to maximize rate of return. For example assume a person is near retirement age. They are expected to have 50K per year expenses. If they have 250K wrapped up in CDs and savings, and another 250K in some conservative investments, they can, and should, be \"\"aggressive\"\" with any remaining money. On the contrary a person your age that is savings for a house intends to buy one in three years. Savings for the down payment should be pretty darn conservative. Something like 75% in savings accounts, and maybe 25% in some conservative investments. As the time to buy approaches they can pull the money out of the conservative investments at a optimal time. Also you should not be investing without an emergency fund in place. Get that done first, then look to invest. If your friend does not understand these basic concepts there is no point in paying for his advice.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "b814e2e4f943f77864610939f302e619",
"text": "\"I find it interesting that you didn't include something like [Total Bond Market](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBMFX), or [Intermediate-Term Treasuries](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?VBIIX), in your graphic. If someone were to have just invested in the DJI or SP500, then they would have ignored the tenants of the Modern Portfolio Theory and not diversified adequately. I wouldn't have been able to stomach a portfolio of 100% stocks, commodities, or metals. My vote goes for: 1.) picking an asset allocation that reflects your tolerance for risk (a good starting point is \"\"age in bonds,\"\" i.e. if you're 30, then hold 30% in bonds); 2.) save as if you're not expecting annualized returns of %10 (for example) and save more; 3.) don't try to pick the next winner, instead broadly invest in the market and hold it. Maybe gold and silver are bubbles soon to burst -- I for one don't know. I don't give the \"\"notion in the investment community\"\" much weight -- as it always is, someday someone will be right, I just don't know who that someone is.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1cbcf770e60f79eaa8769eba124b4658",
"text": "\"Split your contributions evenly across the funds on that list with the word \"\"core\"\" or \"\"S&P\"\" in the name. Maybe add \"\"International Large Cap Index\"\". Leave it & rebalance occasionally. Read a book on Modern Portfolio Theory sometime in the next 5 years.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6ef29e3275771997bad0a65648a4bf4e",
"text": "At twenty-two, you can have anywhere between 100%-70% of your securities portfolio in equities. It is reasonable to start at 100% and reduce over time. The one thing that I would mention with that is that your target at retirement should be 70% stocks/30% bonds. You should NEVER have more than 30% bonds. Why? Because a 70/30 mix is both safer than 100% bonds and will give a higher return. Absent some market timing strategy (which as an amateur investor, you should absolutely avoid) or some complicated balancing scheme, there is never a reason to be at more than 30% bonds. A 50/50 mix of stocks and bonds or a 100% bonds ratio not only returns less than the 70/30 mix, it is actually riskier. Why? Because sometimes bonds fall. And when they do, stocks generally gain. And vice versa. Because of this behavior, the 70/30 mix is less likely to fall than 50% or 100% bonds. Does that mean that your stock percentage should never drop below 70%? No. If your portfolio contains things other than stocks and bonds, it is reasonable for stocks to fall below 70%. The problem is that when you drop stocks below 70%, you should drop bonds below 30% as well. So you keep the stock to bond ratio at 7:3. If you want to get a lower risk than a 70/30 mix, then you should move into cash equivalents. Cash equivalents are actually safer than stocks and bonds either individually or in combination. But at twenty-two, you don't really need more safety. At twenty-two, the first thing to do is to build your emergency fund. This should be able to handle six months of expenses without income. I recommend making it equal to six months of your income. The reason being that it is easy to calculate your income and difficult to be sure of expenses. Also, you can save six months of income at twenty-two. Are you going to stay where you are for the next five years? At twenty-two, the answer is almost certainly no. But the standard is the five year time frame. If you want a bigger place or one that is closer to work, then no. If you stay somewhere at least five years, then it is likely that the advantages to owning rather than renting will outweigh the costs of switching houses. Less than five years, the reverse is true. So you should probably rent now. You can max out your 401k and IRA now. Doing so even with a conservative strategy will produce big returns by sixty-seven. And perhaps more importantly, it helps keep your spending down. The less you do spend, the less you will feel that you need to spend. Once you fill your emergency fund, start building savings for a house. I would consider putting them in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). A REIT will tend to track real estate. Since you want to buy real estate with the results, this is its own kind of safety. It fell in value? Houses are probably cheap. Houses increasing in price rapidly? A REIT is probably growing by leaps and bounds. You do this outside your retirement accounts, as you want to be able to access it without penalty.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "25a5d41f82229dc1f28d077109784ca4",
"text": "This essentially depends on how you prefer to measure your performance. I will just give a few simple examples to start. Let me know if you're looking for something more. If you just want to achieve maximum $ return, then you should always use maximum margin, so long as your expected return (%) is higher than your cost to borrow. For example, suppose you can use margin to double your investment, and the cost to borrow is 7%. If you're investing in some security that expects to return 10%, then your annual return on an account opened with $100 is: (2 * $100 * 10% - $100 * 7%) / $100 = 13% So, you see the expected return, amount of leverage, and cost to borrow will all factor in to your return. Suppose you want to also account for the additional risk you're incurring. Then you could use the Sharpe Ratio. For example, suppose the same security has volatility of 20%, and the risk free rate is 5%. Then the Sharpe Ratio without leverage is: (10% - 5%) / 20% = 0.25 The Sharpe Ratio using maximum margin is then: (13% - 5%) / (2 * 20%) = 0.2, where the 13% comes from the above formula. So on a risk-adjusted basis, it's better not to utilize margin in this particular example.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f8153afd212e6e5cd6cf20c42f96389",
"text": "There is no rule of thumb (although some may suggest there is). Everybody will have different goals, investment preferences and risk tolerances. You need to figure this out by yourself by either education yourself in the type of investments you are interested in or by engaging (and paying for) a financial advisor. You should not be taking advice from others unless it is specifically geared for your goals, investment DNA and risk tolerance. The only advice I would give you is to have a plan (whether you develop it yourself or pay a financial advisor to develop one). Also, don't have all your savings sitting in cash, as long-term you will fall behind the eight ball in real returns (allowing for inflation).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "69dd9dbb23a5fbb80ce41d7c0fa951cb",
"text": "\"Making these difficult portfolio decisions for you is the point of Target-Date Retirement Funds. You pick a date at which you're going to start needing to withdraw the money, and the company managing the fund slowly turns down the aggressiveness of the fund as the target date approaches. Typically you would pick the target date to be around, say, your 65th birthday. Many mutual fund companies offer a variety of funds to suit your needs. Your desire to never \"\"have to recover\"\" indicates that you have not yet done quite enough reading on the subject of investing. (Or possibly that your sources have been misleading you.) A basic understanding of investing includes the knowledge that markets go up and down, and that no portfolio will always go up. Some \"\"recovery\"\" will always be necessary; having a less aggressive portfolio will never shield you completely from losing money, it just makes loss less likely. The important thing is to only invest money that you can afford to lose in the short-term (with the understanding that you'll make it back in the long term). Money that you'll need in the short-term should be kept in the absolute safest investment vehicles, such as a savings account, a money market account, short-term certificates of deposit, or short-term US government bonds.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "100c16089b98c6da4bdec9e3d52ba91b",
"text": "\"The raw question is as follows: \"\"You will be recommending a purposed portfolio to an investment committee (my class). The committee runs a foundation that has an asset base of $4,000,000. The foundations' dual mandates are to (a) preserve capital and (b) to fund $200,000 worth of scholarships. The foundation has a third objective, which is to grow its asset base over time.\"\" The rest of the assignment lays out the format and headings for the sections of the presentation. Thanks, by the way - it's an 8 week accelerated course and I've been out sick for two weeks. I've been trying to teach myself this stuff, including the excel calculations for the past few weeks.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f7776d8529615f03d3a1ff066204e2e5",
"text": "I have a similar plan and a similar number of accounts. I think seeking a target asset allocation mix across all investment accounts is an excellent idea. I use excel to track where I am and then use it to adjust to get closer (but not exactly) to my target percentages. Until you have some larger balances, it may be prudent to use less categories or realize that you can't come exactly to your percentages, but can get close. I also simplify by primarily investing in various index funds. That means that in my portfolio, each category has 1 or 2 funds, not 10 or 20.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "626f249ff0987f6f18b12d26da28b5a6",
"text": "A good way to measure the performance of your investments is over the long term. 25-30% returns are easy to get! It's not going to be 25-30% in a single year, though. You shouldn't expect more than about 4% real (inflation-adjusted) return per year, on average, over the long term, unless you have reason to believe that you're doing a better job of predicting the market than the intellectual and investment might of Wall Street - which is possible, but hard. (Pro tip: It's actually quite easy to outdo the market at large over the short term just by getting lucky or investing in risky askets in a good year. Earning this sort of return consistently over many years, though, is stupidly hard. Usually you'll wipe out your gains several years into the process, instead.) The stock market fluctuates like crazy, which is why they tell you not to invest any money you're likely to need sooner than about 5 years out and you switch your portfolio from stocks to bonds as you approach and enter retirement. The traditional benchmark for comparison, as others have mentioned, is the rate of return (including dividends) from the Standard and Poors 500 Index. These are large stable companies which make up the core of larger United States business. (Most people supplement these with some smaller companies and overseas companies as a part of the portfolio.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dd81a47a62701df97740f33adf7b8b22",
"text": "\"Just an FYI, this can be a risky move. Unless you have been in the industry for a while, or are extremely well averse in investment management/research, keep it pretty short. In a lot of ways, you might want to think about tailoring it more like a sell-side report. Also, make sure you understand the style of investing the PM/company you are applying to likes. The reason I say this is because every buy-side shop is different. Some do 1-2 page write-ups with models and walk through's, others will expect 60 page \"\"decks\"\" (i.e. Powerpoints). The longer the deck, the more you have that can go wrong. If one tiny thing is wrong, or you have a typo anywhere, it hurts you more than it helps that you wrote something long (I once had the wrong rating on one issuance of a bond ladder I was pitching; it's all the PM's focused on). The more important aspect is that you understand the shop you are applying to and then tailoring the pitch to them. For example, don't do a growth tech company with an 80x forward P/E if you're applying to a fundamental value shop. It shows you didn't do research on the firm you're applying to and that you won't fit the culture. This is part of why I was saying that this can be a risky move, if the firm is large enough to have an HR department, they likely have a lot of different investment styles in house. Finally, try to keep it to a small/mid-cap company. Analysts/PMs follow stocks all day long and will most likely have an opinion on 99% of large caps, no matter the sector. In summary, I'd recommend a 1-2 page sell-side style write-up with a backup model (printed excel file). KISS (keep it simple stupid), have a summary, couple years worth of historical's, 2 years forward, and a few main bullet points of why you like them. In your case, this pitch should be something to pique the interest so that you can NAIL a real pitch in the interview. If you get an interview, know everything about everything in the industry as well as that specific company. For example, lets say you do a smartphone secular theme investment. Do you know what outstanding AAPL/Android cases there are, and more importantly, how would each ruling likely affect the marketplace? This is because I can guarantee if you're pitching to another tech guy, he knows and has an educated opinion on it. Also, in many cases having a great model can mean more than a long write-up, it shows that you're good with numbers and can think about FUTURE earnings, which are all that matter. Last point, IMO you'd be better off trying to get your foot in the door through networking than HR. HR doesn't really do much on the buy-side with recruiting and won't really understand what to look for in a good pitch (they're HR after-all, not an analyst). Try to meet someone over coffee and then have a pitch READY to bring out/discuss. The buy-side is selective enough that usually when positions open up it's either because they are creating one for you or they already have an idea of who is going to fill it. This mean HR has little to no say in helping you get in. You'll have a lot more success this way than blasting to a bunch of HR emails.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "69e661b4e1154b9542f9d63bc5d62bbb",
"text": "So I did some queries on Google Scholar, and the term of art academics seem to use is target date fund. I notice divided opinions among academics on the matter. W. Pfau gave a nice set of citations of papers with which he disagrees, so I'll start with them. In 1969, Paul Sameulson published the paper Lifetime Portfolio Selection By Dynamic Stochaistic Programming, which found that there's no mathematical foundation for an age based risk tolerance. There seems to be a fundamental quibble relating to present value of future wages; if they are stable and uncorrelated with the market, one analysis suggests the optimal lifecycle investment should start at roughly 300 percent of your portfolio in stocks (via crazy borrowing). Other people point out that if your wages are correlated with stock returns, allocations to stock as low as 20 percent might be optimal. So theory isn't helping much. Perhaps with the advent of computers we can find some kind of empirical data. Robert Shiller authored a study on lifecycle funds when they were proposed for personal Social Security accounts. Lifecycle strategies fare poorly in his historical simulation: Moreover, with these life cycle portfolios, relatively little is contributed when the allocation to stocks is high, since earnings are relatively low in the younger years. Workers contribute only a little to stocks, and do not enjoy a strong effect of compounding, since the proceeds of the early investments are taken out of the stock market as time goes on. Basu and Drew follow up on that assertion with a set of lifecycle strategies and their contrarian counterparts: whereas a the lifecycle plan starts high stock exposure and trails off near retirement, the contrarian ones will invest in bonds and cash early in life and move to stocks after a few years. They show that contrarian strategies have higher average returns, even at the low 25th percentile of returns. It's only at the bottom 5 or 10 percent where this is reversed. One problem with these empirical studies is isolating the effect of the glide path from rebalancing. It could be that a simple fixed allocation works plenty fine, and that selling winners and doubling down on losers is the fundamental driver of returns. Schleef and Eisinger compare lifecycle strategy with a number of fixed asset allocation schemes in Monte Carlo simulations and conclude that a 70% equity, 30% long term corp bonds does as well as all of the lifecycle funds. Finally, the earlier W Pfau paper offers a Monte Carlo simulation similar to Schleef and Eisinger, and runs final portfolio values through a utility function designed to calculate diminishing returns to more money. This seems like a good point, as the risk of your portfolio isn't all or nothing, but your first dollar is more valuable than your millionth. Pfau finds that for some risk-aversion coefficients, lifecycles offer greater utility than portfolios with fixed allocations. And Pfau does note that applying their strategies to the historical record makes a strong recommendation for 100 percent stocks in all but 5 years from 1940-2011. So maybe the best retirement allocation is good old low cost S&P index funds!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0836a633f7ed214595e07c085c93713a",
"text": "Finance noob here. Am I reading the article right that he's saying MPT bad, active management good? If so, what is that saying about how I should manage my portfolio (assuming I am only dedicating a few hours a month)? >he suggests that if you don't have an edge, no one needs to play the game So what do I do then? Are there specific strategies? Also, could you suggest a good explanation of why MPT is bad?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "296b7a2e96d632ad86e69f69b97d10fe",
"text": "It sounds like you are soliciting opinions a little here, so I'll go ahead and give you mine, recognizing that there's a degree of arbitrariness here. A basic portfolio consists of a few mutual funds that try to span the space of investments. My choices given your pot: I like VLTCX because regular bond index funds have way too much weight in government securities. Government bonds earn way too little. The CAPM would suggest a lot more weight in bonds and international equity. I won't put too much in bonds because...I just don't feel like it. My international allocation is artificially low because it's always a little more costly and I'm not sure how good the diversification gains are. If you are relatively risk averse, you can hold some of your money in a high-interest online bank and only put a portion in these investments. $100K isn't all that much money but the above portfolio is, I think, sufficient for most people. If I had a lot more I'd buy some REIT exposure, developing market equity, and maybe small cap. If I had a ton more (several million) I'd switch to holding individual equities instead of funds and maybe start looking at alternative investments, real estate, startups, etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d5e1bde29d805bce6086b8598a343c8b",
"text": "This depends completely on your investing goals. Typically when saving for retirement younger investors aim for a more volatile and aggressive portfolio but diversify their portfolio with more cautious stocks/bonds as they near retirement. In other words, the volatility that owning a single stock brings may be in line with your goals if you can shoulder the risk.",
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
61347e706713332493aef7d05019e331
|
Minimizing loss during two-way currency transfers involving foreign entities
|
[
{
"docid": "7cd55f5e1b948a1bcbee03867034f1d4",
"text": "The solution was to get a foreign bank in each country we do business in. Get a credit card processor there, and simply make our money and keep our money in that country, and taking quarterly gains from those accounts and bringing them to the US account.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "9c7b4c73d0cfa05f6db8ec14315332e2",
"text": "Suppose you're a European Company, selling say a software product to a US company. As much as you might want the US company to pay you in Euros they might insist (or you'll lose the contract) that you agree pricing in USD. The software is licensed on a yearly recurring amount, say 100K USD per year payable on the 1st January every year. In this example, you know that on the 1st Jan that 100K USD will arrive in your USD bank account. You will want to convert that to Euros and to remove uncertainty from your business you might take out an FX Forward today to remove your currency risk. If in the next 9 months the dollar strengthens against the Euro then notionally you'll have lost out by taking out the forward. Similarly, you've notionally gained if the USD weakens against the EURO. The forward gives you the certainty you need to plan your business.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cfd59d5453f7bac8980471a1619cf26d",
"text": "Basic arbitrage is the (near-)simultaneous purchasing and selling of things that are convertible. The classic example is the international trading of equities. If someone in London wants to purchase a hundred shares of Shell for 40 GBP ea. and someone in New York wants to sell you a hundred shares of Shell for 61 USD ea., you can buy the shares from the guy in New York, sell them to the guy in London and convert your GBP back in to USD for a profit of $41.60 minus fees. Now, if after you buy the shares in New York, the price in London goes down, you'll be left holding 100 shares of Shell that you don't want. So instead you should borrow 100 shares in London and sell them at the exact same time that you buy the shares in New York, thus keeping your net position at 0. In fact, you should also borrow 4000GBP and convert them to USD at the same time, so that exchange rate changes don't get you.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9e7ade037d44f4b9595d38d7ea099389",
"text": "The website http://currencyfair.com/ provides a service which gives you both a decent exchange rate (about 1% off from mid-market rate) and a moderately low fee for the transfer: 4 USD for outgoing ACH in the US, 10 USD for same-day US wire. For the reverse (sending money from the US to EU) the fees are: 3 EUR for an ACH, 8 EUR for a same-day EUR wire. It has been online for quite a while, so I assume its legit, but I'd do a transfer for a smaller sum first, to see if there are any problems, and then a second transfer for the whole sum.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b966f04bb4be8b09e36da5757b10436",
"text": "A currency broker will give you the closest rate to the interbank rate. Retail banks and money transfer companies take a spread (the difference between the interbank rate and the rate that they charge you) that is significantly higher than a broker. So search for a broker and get quotes for the amount you wish to transfer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "67c16553eb107f3a09a363b409f3429c",
"text": "Although I do not know about US Institutions; In India Banks have adopted a mix of features that mitigate the risk. Some ways that are used are;",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c12bc3175fa0e13e7583371e1891a8ba",
"text": "In theory, when you obtained ownership of your USD cash as a Canadian resident [*resident for tax purposes, which is generally a quicker timeline than being resident for immigration purposes], it is considered to have been obtained by you for the CAD equivalent on that date. For example if you immigrated on Dec 31, 2016 and carried $10k USD with you, when the rate was ~1.35, then Canada deems you to have arrived with $13.5k CAD. If you converted that CAD to USD when the rate was 1.39, you would have received 13.9k CAD, [a gain of $400 to show as income on your tax return]. Receiving the foreign inheritances is a little more complex; those items when received may or may not have been taxable on that day. However whether or not they were taxable, you would calculate a further gain as above, if the fx rate gave you more CAD when you ultimately converted it. If the rate went the other way and you lost CAD-value, you may or may not be able to claim a loss. If it was a small loss, I wouldn't bother trying to claim it due to hassle. If it's a large loss, I would be very sure to research thoroughly before claiming, because something like that probably has a high chance of being audited.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "43a9b92312ba34413f5070c89cd8da50",
"text": "I live in europe but have been paid in usd for the last few years and the best strategy I've found is to average in and average out. i.e. if you are going in August then buy some Euro every few weeks until you go. At least this way you mitigate the risk involved somewhat.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "14c5d648e9c36963ce54c11facfab02d",
"text": "You didn't specify where in the world you account is - ScotiaBank operates in many countries. However, for large amounts where there is a currency conversion involved, you are almost guaranteed to be better off going to a specialist currency broker or payments firm, rather than using a direct method with your bank (such as a wire transfer). Based on my assumption that your account is in Canada, one provider who I have personally used with success in transferwise, but the best place to compare where is the best venue for you is https://www.fxcompared.com In the off chance that this is an account with Scotiabank in the United States, any domestic payment method such as a domestic wire transfer should do the job perfectly well. The fees don't matter for larger amounts as they are a single fee versus a percentage fee like you see with currency conversions.",
"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": "0a7ace8f106dc0b13a9d2fc529f507e6",
"text": "I doubt you're going to find anywhere that will give you free outgoing wires unless you're depositing a huge amount of money like $500K or more. An alternative would be to find a bank that offers everything else you want and use XETrade for very low cost online wires. I've used them in the past and can recommend their services. Most banks won't charge for incoming wires. I have accounts at E*Trade Bank that don't charge any fees and I can do everything online. You might want to check them out. E*Trade also offers global trading accounts which allow you to have accounts denominated in a few foreign currencies (EUR, JPY, GBP, CAD and HKD I think). I don't think there is a fee for moving money between the different currencies. If your goal is simply to diversify your money into different currencies, you could deposit money there instead of wiring it to other banks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5eef390d48857296621a5fd38aab8005",
"text": "Several possibilities come to mind: Several online currency-exchange brokers (such as xe.com and HiFx) offer very good exchange rates and no wire transfer fees (beyond what your own bank might charge you). Get French and American accounts at banks that are part of the Global ATM alliance: BNP Paribas in France and Bank of America in the USA. This will eliminate the ATM fee. Get an account at a bank that has branches in both countries. I've used HSBC for this purpose.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "10d39f80d62655e1021c876a1a6d6781",
"text": "If you buy foreign currency as an investment, then the gains are ordinary income. The gains are realized when you close the position, and whether you buy something else go back to the original form of investment is of no consequence. In case #1 you have $125 income. In case #2 you have $125 income. In case #3 you have $166 loss. You report all these items on your Schedule D. Make sure to calculate the tax correctly, since the tax is not capital gains tax but rather ordinary income at marginal rates. Changes in foreign exchange between a transaction and the conversion of the proceeds to USD are generally not considered as income (i.e.: You sold a property in Mexico, but since the money took a couple of days to clear, the exchange rate changed and you got $2K more/less than you would based on the exchange rate on the day of the transaction - this is not a taxable income/loss). This is covered by the IRC Sec. 988. There are additional rules for contracts on foreign currency, TTM rules, etc. Better talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for anything other than trivial.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b5ac2c4ff3c5d1c545838bec51ac3bb8",
"text": "\"Other responses have focused on getting you software to use, but I'd like to attempt your literal question: how are such transactions managed in systems that handle them? I will answer for \"\"double entry\"\" bookkeeping software such as Quicken or GnuCash (my choice). (Disclaimer: I Am Not An Accountant and accountants will probably find error in my terminology.) Your credit card is a liability to you, and is tracked using a liability account (as opposed to an asset account, such as your bank accounts or cash in your pocket). A liability account is just like an asset except that it is subtracted from rather than added to your total assets (or, from another perspective, its balance is normally negative; the mathematics works out identically). When you make a purchase using your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from the liability account (increasing the liability) to the expense account for your classification of the expense. When you make a payment on your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from your checking account (for example) to the credit card account, reducing the liability. Whatever software you choose for tracking your money, I strongly recommend choosing something that is sufficiently powerful to handle representing this as I have described (transfers between accounts as the normal mode of operation, not simply lone increases/decreases of asset accounts).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2c498eaf94e714f7506587ef9814f166",
"text": "\"Yes, you effectively need to \"\"double count\"\" when shifting balances between foreign accounts.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b10852d6db903034a1f3d22e669346ec",
"text": "Bingo. And remember, hedge funds are for a specific kind of investor (UHNW, institutional) as a *hedge* against when things go bad. I won't argue against the fees being exorbitant. And I certainly think that the explosion of funds has led to a lot more people just trying to beat the market (instead of providing a differentiated strategy). HFs will always get slammed in times like this because of what they charge. But any of the good ones (at least on the equities side) are always likely to struggle to beat the benchmark when the benchmark is a roaring bull. Some judgement really should be reserved for times of distress",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
753d07fd7e56f4c259a539b6c1916f3d
|
Good Percentage Return on Equity?
|
[
{
"docid": "adc58170ab394a0f0d40e7c03f1b1f41",
"text": "Yes definitely Warren Buffet averaged returns of only around 21% throughout his 40 years in business. ROE of 23% is probably more than double the ROE of most companies , whats more as the saying goes its easier to grow sales from 1 million to 100 million than to grow sales from 100 million to 10 billion",
"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": "a78b7ee9b4d58c459bbaa55b79537705",
"text": "To me it looks pretty good (10% per year is a pretty good return). Lagging behind the indexes is normal, it is hard to beat the indexes over a long period of time, the longer the period - the lesser the chances to succeed. However, half a year is a relatively short period of time, and you should check your investments a little bit deeper. I'm assuming you're not invested in one thing, so you should check per investment, how it is performing. If you have funds - check each fund against the relevant index for that fund, if you have stocks - check against the relevant industry indexes, etc. Also, check the fees you pay to each fund and the plan, they come out of your pocket, lowering the return.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b1f115f7e7215d23a3d4e254c803a6e",
"text": "\"The short answer is that it depends on the industry. In other words, margin alone - even in comparison to peers - will not be a sufficient index to track company success. I'll mention Apple quickly as a special case that has managed to charge a premium margin for a mass-market product. Few companies can achieve this. As with all investment analysis, you need to have a very clear understanding of the industry (i.e. what is \"\"normal\"\" for debt/equity/gearing/margin/cash-on-hand) as well as of the barriers-to-entry which competitors face. A higher-than-normal margin may swiftly be undermined by competitors (Apple aside). Any company offering perpetual above-the-odds returns may just be a Ponzi scheme (Bernie Maddof, etc.). More important than high-margins or high-profits over some short-term track is consistency of approach, an ability to whether adverse cyclical events, and deep investment in continuity (i.e. the entire company doesn't come to a grinding halt when a crucial staff-member retires).\"",
"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": "00e8698d18a6edb4b5965c3a58a3bfa3",
"text": "GDP growth is one of several components of nominal equity returns; the (probably not comprehensive) list includes: Real GDP/earnings growth Inflation Dividend payouts and share buybacks Multiple expansion (the market willing to pay more per dollar of earnings) Changes in interest rate expectations As other comments mention you could also see larger companies tending to deliver higher returns as for any number of reasons related to M&A, expansion into foreign markets, etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "94f4b7578a2b59e3af58c13213b7da6b",
"text": "I'll give you my quick and dirty way to value a company: A quick and dirty valuation could be: equity + 10 times profit. This quick way protects you from investing in companies in debt, or losing money. To go more in-depth you need to assess future profit, etc. I recommend the book from Mary Buffett about Warren Buffett's investing style.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa89096b34cb48b4c6033c8c5a319377",
"text": "DRiPs come to mind as something that may be worth examining. If you take the Microsoft example, consider what would happen if you bought additional shares each year by re-investing the dividends and the stock also went up over the years. A combination of capital appreciation in the share price plus the additional shares purchased over time can produce a good income stream over time. The key is to consider how long are you contributing, how much are you contributing and what end result are you expecting as some companies can have larger dividends if you look at REITs for example.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d5a298afce83af0d8164f0633e8051c1",
"text": "If the shares rise in value 50% over the next few years, you will have the same return that I would see if I bought 100 or 1000 shares. The only issue with a small purchase is that even a $5 commission is a high percent. But the rest of the math is the same.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0e144e276962b576070defb6e72a120e",
"text": "If you don't have a good knowledge of finance, maybe you should not put too much money in individual stocks. But if you really want to invest, you can just compare the rate of return of the most known stocks available to you (like the one from the S&P for the US). The rate of return is very simple to compute, it's 100*dividend/share price. For example a company with a current share price of 50.12 USD that delivered a dividend of 1.26 USD last year would have a rate of return of 100 * 1.26/50.12= 2.51% Now if you only invest in the most known stocks, since they are already covered by nearly all financial institutions and analysts: If you are looking for lower risk dividend companies, take a sample of companies and invest those with the lowest rates of return (but avoid extreme values). Of course since the stock prices are changing all the time, you have to compare them with a price taken at the same time (like the closing price of a specific day) and for the dividend, they can be on several basis (yearly, quartely, etc..) so you have to be sure to take the same basis. You can also find the P/E ratio which is the opposite indicator (= share price/dividend) so an higher P/E ratio means a lower risk. Most of the time you can find the P/E ratio or the rate of return already computed on specialized website or brokers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d7f81b996bf1dc02be851206dfcc3183",
"text": "\"Unfortunately for investors, returns for equity-based investments are not linear - you'll see (semi-random) rises and dips as you look at the charted per-share price. Without knowing what the investments are in the target date retirement fund that you've invested in, you could see a wide range of returns (including losses!) for any given period of time. However, over the long term (usually 10+ years), you'll see the \"\"average\"\" return for your fund as your gains and losses accumulate/compound over that period.\"",
"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": "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": "9d917c533e1f467fdc043cc786853554",
"text": "The ROI percentage becomes a meaningless figure at that point and would either be infinite or a very large number if you assume an equity investment of $1 or $0.01. At that point it's obviously a lucrative deal *as long as it works out* so the bigger question is what are the risks of it not working out and what's the ROIC.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "365f3ac9b47ee04cd35b18cf28973dd1",
"text": "\"If someone is guaranteeing X%, then clearly you can borrow money for less than X% (otherwise his claim wouldn't be remotely impressive). So why not do that if his 4% is guaranteed? :) Anyway, my answer would be that beating the market as a whole is a \"\"decent\"\" rate of return. I've always used the S&P 500 as a benchmark but you can use other indices or funds.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9abd734c052c72e2797dde2201b88db1",
"text": "\"If you want a ~12% rate of return on your investments.... too bad. For returns which even begin to approach that, you need to be looking at some of the riskiest stuff. Think \"\"emerging markets\"\". Even funds like Vanguard Emerging Markets (ETF: VWO, mutual fund, VEIEX) or Fidelity Advisor Emerging Markets Income Trust (FAEMX) seem to have yields which only push 11% or so. (But inflation is about nil, so if you're used to normal 2% inflation or so, these yields are like 13% or so. And there's no tax on that last 2%! Yay.) Remember that these investments are very risky. They go up lots because they can go down lots too. Don't put any money in there unless you can afford to have it go missing, because sooner or later you're likely to lose something half your money, and it might not come back for a decade (or ever). Investments like these should only be a small part of your overall portfolio. So, that said... Sites which make investing in these risky markets easy? There are a good number, but you should probably just go with vanguard.com. Their funds have low fees which won't erode your returns. (You can actually get lower expense ratios by using their brokerage account to trade the ETF versions of their funds commission-free, though you'll have to worry more about the actual number of shares you want to buy, instead of just plopping in and out dollar amounts). You can also trade Vanguard ETFs and other ETFs at almost any brokerage, just like stocks, and most brokerages will also offer you access to a variety of mutual funds as well (though often for a hefty fee of $20-$50, which you should avoid). Or you can sign up for another fund providers' account, but remember that the fund fees add up quickly. And the better plan? Just stuff most of your money in something like VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index) instead.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
63be74626233b6b19e8fc19d542594f7
|
How do I find a legitimate, premium credit repair service?
|
[
{
"docid": "df1c8f92bb939890f53041871f05d7eb",
"text": "\"Just a word of warning: Most of the companies that promise to repair your credit are scams or close to them. You could just as easily do yourself what they are going to charge you for. Essentially they write a letter to the credit agencies disputing most or all of the bad stuff on your credit report. When you do that, the credit agency sends an inquiry to the company that reported the negative information requiring them to justify it. If that company doesn't respond within x days, they remove the item from your credit report. These companies depend on the fact that some companies aren't going to hit that deadline or even respond. Perhaps they are just too busy to hassle with providing backup documentation for a $20 late payment. They are banking on getting a few of these cheap \"\"outs\"\" to your benefit and charging you for what amounts to sending out a bunch of form letters. If you don't mind writing a bunch of letters, then you can save a lot of money and get the exact same results. These companies want to pretend they have some insider knowledge or fancy lawyers that know special credit-magic, but they generally don't. The only option I'd consider legitimate and not a waste of your time is a referral from the non-profit National Federation for Credit Counseling. They aren't going to \"\"fix your credit\"\", but will give you advice on budgeting and repairing your credit on your own.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2d658ec44180f29805ca51c8ea691f81",
"text": "If the bad credit items are accurate, disputing the accuracy of the items seems at best, unethical. If the bad credit items are inaccurate, the resolution process provided by each of the 3 credit bureaus, while time consuming, seems the way to go.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e603269a11966858958015d59829137d",
"text": "\"Don't use a \"\"credit repair\"\" agency. They are scams. One of the myriad of ways in which they work is by setting you up with a bogus loan, which they will dutifully report you as paying on time. They'll pretend to be a used car dealer or some other credit-based merchant. For a time, this will actually work. This is called \"\"false reporting.\"\" The problem is, the data clearinghouses are not stupid and eventually realize some hole-in-the-wall \"\"car dealer\"\" with no cars on the lot (yes, they do physical inspections as part of the credentialing process, just sometimes they're a little slow about it) is reporting trade lines worth millions of dollars per year. It's a major problem in the industry. But eventually that business loses its fraudulent reporting ability, those trade lines get revoked, and your account gets flagged for a fraud investigation. The repair agency has your money, and you still don't have good credit. Bad news if this all goes down while you're trying to close on a house. You're better off trying to settle your debts (usually for 50%) or declaring bankruptcy altogether. The latter isn't so bad if you're in a stable home, because you won't be able to get an apartment for a while, credit cards or a good deal on auto financing. ED: I just saw what one agency was charging, and can tell you declaring bankruptcy costs only a few hundred dollars more than the repair agency and is 100% guaranteed to get you predictable results as long as you name all your debts up front and aren't getting reamed by student loans. And considering you can't stomach creditors-- well guess what, now you'll have a lawyer to deal with them for you. Anything you accomplish through an agency will eventually be reversed because it's fraudulent. But through bankruptcy, your credit will start improving within two years, the tradeoff being that you won't be able to get a mortgage (at all) or apartment (easily) during that time-- so find a place to hunker down for a few years before you declare.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cc0e489fbb93500c2943f2744bbcc5e7",
"text": "I have never seen any of my mobile phone providers report any data to any credit agency. They tend to only do that if you don't pay on time. Maybe sometimes it helps, but from my experience over the last decade - it must be some very rare times.",
"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": "98a527b30097928edd73bebb529339ae",
"text": "This discussion indicates that the accounts are not reported to credit agencies, but the post is also over a year old, and who knows how reliable the information is (it's fairly well-traveled, though). It's based on one person calling up Trans Union and E-Trade and asking people directly.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eafc2816b7f76b2cd0f5c6f80f94a649",
"text": "Monitoring your credit doesn't do much. There are some vendors that actually have staff to repair your credit/identity. Substantially all of the credit monitoring services do what they say and monitor. If you have a problem they notify you then point you to the place(s) that you can work with to repair the issue. This is not terribly valuable, definitely not worth having multiples, but the repair aspect of some IS very valuable. You sign a limited power of attorney and set loose someone else to fix the problem.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f0efef139629d337d3177362333fd3c2",
"text": "so what do you think of this article? we hope you can take the time to post your comments and reactions below. that way, we can help all those who are planning to sign up for credit repair services or are interested to take matters into their own hands in terms of paying off their credit obligations, once and for all.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d44726d840266dfc13a6eef5828b1e4",
"text": "\"Your post has some assumptions that are not, or may not be true. For one the assumption is that you have to wait 7 years after you settle your debts to buy a home. That is not the case. For some people (me included) settling an charged off debt was part of my mortgage application process. It was a small debt that a doctor's office claimed I owed, but I didn't. The mortgage company told me, settling the debt was \"\"the cost of doing business\"\". Settling your debts can be looked as favorable. Option 1, in my opinion is akin to stealing. You borrowed the money and you are seeking to game the system by not paying your debts. Would you want someone to do that to you? IIRC the debt can be sold to another company, and the time period is refreshed and can stay on your credit report for beyond the 7 years. I could be wrong, but I feel like there is a way for potential lenders to see unresolved accounts well beyond specified time periods. After all, the lenders are the credit reporting agencies customers and they seek to provide the most accurate view of a potential lender. With 20K of unresolved CC debt they should point that out to their customers. Option 2: Do you have 20K? I'd still seek to settle, you do not have to wait 7 years. Your home may not appreciate in 2 years. In my own case my home has appricated very little in the 11 years that I have owned it. Many people have learned the hard way that homes do not necessarily increase in value. It is very possible that you may have a net loss in equity in two years. Repairs or improvements can evaporate the small amount of equity that is achieved over two years with a 30 year mortgage. I would hope that you pause a bit at the fact that you defaulted on 20K in debt. That is a lot of money. Although it is a lot, it is a small amount in comparison to the cost and maintenance of a home. Are you prepared to handle such a responsibility? What has changed in your personality since the 20K default? The tone of your posts suggests you are headed for the same sort of calamity. This is far more than a numbers game it is behavioral.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a5b92a33a768b2c9518af6780efc58ef",
"text": "\"I had to apply for an American Express card, which was also rejected. Then I had searched for a Marbles Credit Card Stop applying for credit cards/loans. Doing so is just making your credit rating worse. Credit agencies will downgrade your credit rating if they see lots of signs of credit checking. It's a sign you're desperately looking for credit, which you are...! 44.9% APR This is very expensive credit. You can get personal loans on the high street for 3-4%. 44.9% is really bad value. You're simply going to make the situation worse. Am I taking off a loan from website as amingos loans to help me build up my credit rating Again this is 44% interest! You also need a guarantor. So you're not only going to get yourself in trouble but a family member too: don't do this! This will only help your credit rating if you pay it back successfully, which given your situation seems like a risk. Contact the Money Advice Service or the National Debt Line. Explain your situation in detail to them. They are a government-backed service designed for people in your situation. They will offer practical advice and can even help negotiate with your creditors, etc. Here's some general advice about getting out of debt from Money Saving Expert Traditional debt help says 'never borrow your way out of a debt problem'. But this ignores the varying cost of different debts. The MoneySaving approach is: \"\"Never borrow more to get out of a debt problem.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ecce220fa16d9537994bc292b4454923",
"text": "Call Comcast during a non-peak time (first thing in the morning?), wait on hold, and politely explain what happened and request a $50 credit. Also politely request that your premium support request be handled for free given how much hassle you've had getting disconnected. They'll be able to tell your premium request was never answered because there are no notes on your support tickets. Calling them is much easier than any of your other options.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e6e4b90fbfa61db4e507fcf4598e7660",
"text": "Here is what I did and what I sent to my daughter... Here is how to freeze your credit with the three reporting companies. 1. TransUnion (easiest and free). Go to https://freeze.transunion.com. If the site is down, you may have to try later (like late at night). You will have to register on the site to do this. I think on this one you need to also give them your previous address. 2. Equifax (not so easy, but works online), costs $10 [note your cost may vary depending on your State]. Go to https://www.freeze.equifax.com. You will have to register. I think this the one does not require the previous address (because you have been in at our location for more than 2 years) even though there is a section for it. 3. Experian (toughest one to get done, website is currently broken), costs $10 [note your cost may vary depending on your State]. You will need to do it by phone (takes 12-15 mins to get through the menus). Call 888-397-3742. Note there are LONG silent periods, so do not hang up. If they do disconnect you, it should be right at the beginning, and you just have to call back. You will need to have your credit card number ready to enter at the end (and you need to key in the digits fairly quickly, do not pause once you start entering them), and it will ask for a four-digit expiration date (for example, Aug 2019 is 0819) on the card.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f3f2aad762151eb6ec61c7d1dc1e7383",
"text": "If it costs more to fix the car than the car is worth, then those repairs are not worth it. Hit craigslist and look for another junker that runs, but is in your cash price range. Pay to get it looked at by a mechanic as a condition of sale. Use consumer reports to try and find a good model. Somebody in your position does not need a $15K car. You need a series of $2K or $4K cars that you will replace more often, but pay cash for. Car buying, especially from a dealer financed, place isn't how I would recommend building your credit back up. EDIT in response to your updates: Build your credit the smart way, by not paying interest charges. Use your lower limit card, and annually apply for more credit, which you use and pay off each and every month. Borrowing is not going to help you. Just because you can afford to make payments, doesn't automatically make payments a wise decision. You have to examine the value of the loan, not what the payments are. Shop for a good price, shop for a good rate, then purchase. The amount you can pay every month should only be a factor than can kill the deal, not allow it. Pay cash for your vehicle until you can qualify for a low cost loan from a credit union or a bank. It is a waste of money and time to pay a penalty interest rate because you want to build your credit. Time is what will heal your credit score. If you really must borrow for the purchase, you must secure a loan prior to shopping for a car. Visit a few credit unions and get pre-qualified. Once you have a pre-approved loan in place, you can let the deal try and beat your loan for a better deal. Don't make the mistake of letting the dealer do all the financing first.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa9d259510819cd62f0e479e8728860b",
"text": "\"You say your primary goal is to clean up your credit report, and you're willing to spend some cash to do it. OK. But beware: the law in this area is a funhouse mirror, everything works upside down and backwards. To start, let's be clear: Credit reports are not extortion to force you into paying. They are a historical record of your creditworthiness, and almost impossible to fix without altering history. Paying on this debt will affirm the old data was correct, and glue it to your report. Here's how credit reporting works for R-9 (sent to collections) amounts. The data is on your credit report for 7 years. The danger is in this clock being restarted. What will not restart the clock? Ignoring the debt, talking casusally to collectors, and the debt being sold from one collector to another. What will restart the clock? Acknowledging the debt formally, court judgment, paying the debt, or paying on the debt (obviously, paying acknowledges the debt.) Crazy! You could have a debt that's over 7 years old, pay it because you're a decent person, and BOOM! Clock restarts and 7 more years of bad luck. Even worse-- if they write-off or forgive any part of the debt, that's income and you'll need to pay income tax on it. Ugh! Like I say, the only way to remove a bad mark is to alter history. Simple fact: The collector doesn't care about your bad credit mark; he wants money. And it costs a lot of money, time and/or stress for both of you to demand they research it, negotiate, play phone-tag, and ultimately go to court. So this works very well (this is just the guts, you have to add all the who, what, where, signature block, formalities etc.): 1 Company and Customer absolutely disagree as to whether Customer owes Company this debt: (explicitly named debt with numbers and amount) 2 But Company and Customer both eagerly agree that the expense, time, and stress of research, negotiation, and litigation is burdensome for both of us. We both strongly desire a quick, final and no-fault solution. Therefore: 3 Parties agree Customer shall pay Company (acceptable fraction here). Payment within 30 days. To be acknowledged in writing by Company. 4 This shall be absolute and final resolution. 5 NO-FAULT. Parties agree this settlement resolves the matter in good faith. Parties agree this settlement is done for practical reasons, this bill has not been established as a valid debt, and any difference between billed and settled amount is not a canceled nor forgiven debt. 6 Neither party nor its assigns will make any adverse statements to third parties relating to this bill or agreement. Parties agree they have a continuous duty to remove adverse statements, and agree to do so within seven days of request. 7 Parties specifically agree no adverse mark nor any mark of any kind shall be placed on Customer's credit report; and in the event such a mark appears, Parties will disavow it continuously. Parties agree that a good credit report has a monetary value and specific impacts on a customer's life. 8 Jurisdiction of law shall be where the effects are felt, and that shall be (place of service) regarding the amounts of the bill proper. Severable, inseparable, counterparts, witness, signature lines blah blah. A collector is gonna sign this because it's free money and it's not tricky. What does this do? 1, 2 and 5 alter history to make the debt never have existed in the first place. To do this, it must formally answer the question of why the heck would you pay a debt that isn't real and you don't owe: out of sheer practicality; it's cheaper than Rogaine. This is your \"\"get out of jail free\"\" card both with the credit bureaus and the IRS. Of course, 3 gives the creditor motivation to go along with it. 6 says they can't burn your credit. 7 says it again and they're agreeing you can sue for cash money. 8 lets you pick the court. The collector won't get hung up on any of these since he can easily remove the bad mark. (don't be mad that they won't do it \"\"for free\"\", that's what 3 is for.) The key to getting them to take a settlement is to be reasonable and fair. Make sure the agreement works for them too. 6 says you can't badmouth them on social media. 4 and 5 says it can't be used against them. 8 throws them a bone by letting them sue in their home court for the bill they just settled (a right they already had). If it's medical, add \"\"HIPAA does not apply to this document\"\" to save them a ton of paperwork. Make it easy for them. You want the collector to take it to his boss and say \"\"this is pretty good. Do it.\"\" Don't send the money until their signed copy is in your hands. Then send promptly with an SASE for the receipt. Make it easy for them. This is on you. As far as \"\"getting them to send you an offer\"\", creditors are reluctant to mail things especially to people they don't think will pay, because it costs them money to write and send. So you may need to be proactive about running them down with your offer. Like I say, it's a funhouse mirror.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bfd3b313116132c00f1a19aa87f22e80",
"text": "You can dial the phone systems of the credit reporting agencies directly to put a freeze on your credit report account. The phone systems require quick responses or the systems will fail you out, but **this work is relatively quick** and probably easier than trying to do this on the websites that try to re-direct you to buying credit monitoring services. Here are the phone entries you will make as a guide for the phone menu of each of the credit reporting agencies: **Transunion** 888-909-8872: enter zip code press 3 to add freeze enter social security number enter date-of-birth as 8 digits MMDDYYYY enter house number from street address then # key choose a 6 digit security code credit card number for $10 charge 4 digit expiration date of credit card MMYY **Equifax** 800-685-1111: press 3 to select freezes press 1 to continue say your state then 1 to confirm enter social security number then 1 to confirm enter house number from street address then # key, then 1 to confirm press 1 to select a freeze there will be a long pause at this point but when the bot comes back it goes very fast. Write down the 10-digit pin provided XXXXXXXXXX then later, Write down the 10-digit confirmation number provided XXXXXXXXX. Press * to repeat both until you have it correct **Experian** 888 397 3742 press 2 for freeze press 2 for freeze press 1 for add freeze press 2 for no fraud report enter social security number then # key then 1 to confirm enter date-of-birth as 8 digits MMDDYYYY then 1 to confirm enter zip code then # key enter house number from street address then # key press 2 for not blind press 1 to pay by credit card wait through list of charges by state select credit card type 1 for mastercard, 2 for visa, 3 for american express, 4 for discover enter credit card #, then 1 to confirm 4 digit expiration date of credit card then # key MMYY# Cross-posted this from the megathread in r/personalfinance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b83e9ce022aee6abbedc891366578447",
"text": "You're going to have a huge problem getting approved for anything as long as you have an unpaid bill on your report. Pay it and make sure its reported as paid in full - ASAP. Once that settled, your credit will start to improve slowly. Can't do anything about that, it will take time. You can make the situation improve a bit faster by lending money to yourself and having it reported regularly on your report. How? Easy. Get a secured credit card. What does it mean? You put X amount of money in a CD and the bank will issue you a credit card secured by that CD. Your credit line will be based on the amount in that CD, and you'll probably pay some fees to the bank for the service (~$20-50/year, shop around). You might get lucky and find a secured card without fees, if you look hard enough. Secured cards are reported as revolving credit (just as any other credit card) and are easy to get because the bank doesn't take the risk - you do. If you default on your payments - your CD goes to cover the debt, and the card gets cancelled. But make absolutely sure that you do not default. Charge between 10% and 30% of the credit limit each month, not more. Pay the balance shown on your credit card statement in full every month and by the due date shown on your monthly statement. It will take a while, but you would typically start noticing the improvement within ~6-12 months. Stop applying for stuff. Not store cards, not car loans, you're not going to get anything, and will just keep dragging your scores down. Each time you have a pull on your report, the score goes down. A lot of pulls, frequent pulls - the score goes down a lot. Lenders can see when one is desperate, and no-one wants to lend money to desperate people. Optimally lenders want to lend money to people who doesn't need loans, but in order to keep the business running they'll settle for slightly less - people who don't usually need loans, and pay the loans they do have on time. You fail on both, as you're desperate for a loan and you have unpaid bills on your report.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e24bf7a39a85a27540fd6df3267e7eb0",
"text": "\"Excellent question. I'm not aware of one. I was going to say \"\"go visit some personal finance blogs\"\" but then I remembered that I write on one, and that I often get a commission if I talk about online accounts, so unless something is really bad I'm not going to post on it because I want to make money, not chase it away. This isn't to say that I'm biased by commissions, but among a bunch of online banks paying pretty much the same (crappy) interest rate and giving pretty much the same (often not crappy) service, I'm going to give air time to the ones that pay the best commissions. That, and some of the affiliate programs would kick me out if I trashed them on my blog. This also would taint any site, blog or not, that does not explicitly say that they do not have affiliate relationships with the banks they review. I suppose if you read enough blogs you can figure out the bad ones by their absence, but that takes a lot of time. Seems like you'd do all right by doing a \"\"--bank name-- sucks\"\" Google search to dig up the dirt. That, or call up / e-mail / post on their forum any questions you have about their services before sending them your money. If they're up front, they'll answer you.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
098344be07def21b293377287443a36e
|
Are there any benefits of FMLA beyond preserving your job?
|
[
{
"docid": "66f90d0fc6804953b4c245195b40a168",
"text": "How will your employer treat your pay and benefits status while you're on leave? Disability income coverage and leave policies work in tandem to solve very different problems. Disability income coverage covers your income, leave policies guarantee your status as an employee. Typically, STD coverage requires an actual loss of income and will offset it's stated benefit for any income you're receiving. In general you can't begin a STD claim after the 7 day waiting period and also draw income from vacation or sick time. Also, typically STD will cover some percentage of your covered pay (sometimes including commission/bonus income) up to some weekly maximum. FLMA requires employers to allow certain amounts of time for certain types of leave. FMLA is not necessarily an income replacement tool like STD coverage. Contrary to your post it's my understanding that if sick and vacation time accrue in to a single PTO bucket your employer is prohibited from requiring employees to exhaust accrued time prior to beginning FMLA leave. In general, you're not missing anything because the point of FMLA is to guarantee your job and status as an employee from a benefits perspective. Benefits language from the Department of Labor Website A covered employer is required to maintain group health insurance coverage, including family coverage, for an employee on FMLA leave on the same terms as if the employee continued to work.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "435f095c00fd0b097b98c27a0a57a9df",
"text": "In your situation, it sounds like the only added benefit would be insurance continuance. For employees who can't access short-term disability it is a critical protection against losing their job. I just want to emphasize that given that you are in a pretty decent employment situation.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "8528836692ef2f383dfe4333371524a4",
"text": "No, but they do have a moral obligation to give the employees that stay commensurately for the share if productivity. If a company had 100 clerks, and fired 90 with the introduction of computers, shouldn't there be a somewhat balanced share of those savings going to the computer clerks?",
"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": "8387478efeb42f07130050ef4de9134e",
"text": "almost all unions want the business they are in to survive. Most of the stories you hear are such an extreme outlier or just plain made up. Believe it or not, everyone in the union, wants the corp to survive to pay them retirement benefits. They dont want to rape the corp like corps rape resources. They want fair pay. They want pay to go up when the company does better, just like companies tend to demand pay cuts or fire people when the company does worse. quit treating people like a commodity and instead treat them like actual people helping your actual corp to actually grow.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d8727042c22aefe9e3adf5f21e60d2b2",
"text": "I recently rejected an offer at a different firm that would have provided a 14k yearly increase. The reason for the rejection was because I would have had to give up two work from home days, my commute would have been about an hour and half each way, I would have lost about 14 extra days of PTO and holiday pay, and the new company didn't match anything for 401k.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b7b691b09ae341c38fe213061e04c5eb",
"text": "Financial benefit? No. No matter whether you are paid based on a salary or by the hour, the frequency of your pay check has no effect since at the end of the year you will have received the exact same amount of money. Psychological benefit? Well, from the many answers and comments on this page that seem to think there is a difference, then apparently there is a large psychological difference. Whether that is a benefit or not, I guess, depends on your personality.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a1fbd5d6787b133fa068de9ba6ec91ab",
"text": "Other than the guaranteed 5% bonus (assuming you sell it right away), no benefits. Keep in mind that the price from which the discount is calculated is not necessarily the market price at the date of the ESPP purchase, so the actual discount may be more than 5% (depending on the volatility of the stock - much more).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9cdaa61a2421adce6c2d2297ddbb8541",
"text": "\"I write software myself and was involved in a couple of start ups. One failed, another was wildly successful, but I did not receive much in compensation. The former I received stock, but since it failed, it was worthless anyway. There should be compensation for your time in addition to equity in a company. Any agreement needs be in writing. In the later situation I was told to expect about a 17%/year bonus, but nothing could be guaranteed. Translation: \"\"It will never happen.\"\" It didn't, but I meet my lovely wife there so I have that for a bonus. Agreements need to address the bad things can happen. What happens if one of you is no longer interested in continuing? What happens if one of you die, or addicted to something? What happens if one of you gets thrown in jail or disabled? Right now you are full of optimism and hope, but bad things happen. Cover those things while you still like each other. It might be enough to have a good salary, and some stock options. You man not be interested in running the day to day business. Most of all good luck, I wish you all the best!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1540d70c6537c53cb376783708dfe6e0",
"text": "I've always been a proponent that being laid off or fired is the best thing that can happen to an individual. It's very painful and scary in the short term, but the long term results in a much better life and level of happiness. I've seen it in friends, read it in articles, and experienced it personally. This hurts today - but they're going to attain a new level of happiness and reward.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0171b4ba66d57b41b836a5166351bbce",
"text": "\"I was on a form of a retainer for a little over a year. My situation kind of sucked but there's ways in which it would be favourable. I was pretty green at the time and just agreed to what they wanted. I worked for them as an employee for over a year, but they didn't pay overtime so I asked to work part time for them instead. They bait and switched me to work contractor. I renegotiated pay to be higher to fit that. I was paid minimum 22.5 hours a week, on a monthly schedule, plus any extra hours I worked. In reality a retainer would pay in advance and you wouldn't have to actually be present for the minimum hours like I was. Still was better than being an employee. I worked as an \"\"application developer\"\". But this isn't an unheard of thing in the tech sector; former employees that built your systems to be contracted at a later date to provide their expertise at a higher rate because they are the most familiar with the system and/or have a track record of being very good at satisfying the business' specifications or needs.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "22590ba1c5c21a811a2440d8212d2517",
"text": "I don't want to argue any, either, I'll just reiterate what I was originally trying to get at: Your boss/owner/manager is dependant on you creating enough value to pay their paycheck as well. Managers do not directly create value for the company. They might bring in deals, they might 'know' someone, etc. but in the end, workers make the product. If a worker leaves, they'll just have to get another one, or that value ceases. Taken to the extreme, they'd be a company of bosses & managers, and no work at all being done. (but plenty of TPS reports done with the correct cover sheets.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "47a525b91c3d229c722e3fd90eb65dca",
"text": "\"I just don't know how else an employee gains any bargaining power without one? It seems to me in companies in my industry that those without unions bargain their own wage in secret. Then the company wins because its me vs you all the time. A union makes wages and benefits more transparent. You can pick up a copy of my collective bargaining agreement and see what everyone makes. Also you gain the backing legally with resources not available to most persons on their own. I just don't know another way employees can have any \"\"advantage\"\" in a common workplace.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f548159b229a16c96b2da6206c8b433b",
"text": "Yes but the employee losing that job can be devastating because as someone who works for minimum wage (in college and living at home right now so my cost of living is low) but without that I would have no savings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ff99d5fb81a5d32d09feec4cac7be5c8",
"text": "\"Bad employees are a risk when they are not easily replaceable or have great responsibility, neither of which apply to Subway. I am aware of the multiplier effect, but there must be a corresponding value added to the economy, otherwise you artificially inflate prices and no one is better off. Caring for good employees and their well being is not the same as giving everyone a blanket \"\"living wage\"\" which could be honestly anything, depending on the standard of living used as an index.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cec5dc93f01333c2f3239e1432657220",
"text": "Conversly, then you should not enjoy the benefits privided by being in a union then right? That seems simple enough, but that's not how it works. Unions by law have the duty of fair representaion, so even if you are not a member, you still are awarded all the benefits and protections of the contract. So, it's not that simple, because how do you balance that if not for fair share? The union still has to pay to protect you, but you don't have to pay for any of the work they do. So then, if you can get all the benefits of being in the union and not pay a dime for it, why would you? Seems logical right, it's a good deal, we all want to save money. Well as everyone stops paying and the union can't afford to operate as it did, like any organization, it restructures and lays off staff. Now the union no longer has the resources to offer you good representation, which causes the dues paying members to be frustrated and to drop out and or ditch the union entirely. Now no one in your workplace has a voice, a contract, or any protections. That may turn out to be great, but you know, the company wants to save money too.. The company is also no longer obligated to offer you the same wages or benefits that your coworkers negotiated. So now the company is free to cut wages, benefits and workforce to improve thier bottom line or executive bonuses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee4f235b4d714e73d6ee48e3cc39143b",
"text": "There is no benefit in life insurance as such (ie, death insurance.) There is a great deal of value in other types though: total and permanent disability insurance, trauma insurance (a lump sum for a major medical event), and income protection insurance (cover against a temporary but disabling medical condition). If you don't have that, you should get it right now. This is about the most important insurance you can carry. Being unable to work for the rest of your life has a far larger impact than having, say, your car stolen. ... If, later on, you acquire dependents, and you feel you ought to have life insurance, then you will have a relationship with a life insurance company, and maybe they will let you upgrade from income/TPD to income/TPD/life without too much fuss or requalification. Some do; whether yours would I don't know. But at least you have a toe in the door with them, in a way that is infinitely more immediately useful than getting life insurance that you don't actually need.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
8dc207f2a6c52f1fae196abb8ea3f709
|
What benefits do “title search companies” have over physically visiting a land records offices?
|
[
{
"docid": "e17ffc2a0f6e9a51037f2a78ea0f3f8a",
"text": "Title agencies perform several things: Research the title for defects. You may not know what you're looking at, unless you're a real-estate professional, but some titles have strings attached to them (like, conditions for resale, usage, changes, etc). Research title issues (like misrepresentation of ownership, misrepresentation of the actual property titled, misrepresentation of conditions). Again, not being a professional in the domain, you might not understand the text you're looking at. Research liens. Those are usually have to be recorded (i.e.: the title company won't necessarily find a lien if it wasn't recorded with the county). Cover your a$$. And the bank's. They provide title insurance that guarantees your money back if they missed something they were supposed to find. The title insurance is usually required for a mortgaged transaction. While I understand why you would think you can do it, most people cannot. Even if they think they can - they cannot. In many areas this research cannot be done online, for example in California - you have to go to the county recorder office to look things up (for legal reasons, in CA counties are not allowed to provide access to certain information without verification of who's accessing). It may be worth your while to pay someone to do it, even if you can do it yourself, because your time is more valuable. Also, keep in mind that while you may trust your abilities - your bank won't. So you may be able to do your own due diligence - but the bank needs to do its own. Specifically to Detroit - the city is bankrupt. Every $100K counts for them. I'm surprised they only charge $6 per search, but that is probably limited by the State law.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "930d2dd6856311a88438bb17a60e944f",
"text": "\"Basically what @littleadv said, but let me amplify what I think is the most important point. As he/she says, one thing you're paying them for is their expertise. If the title on record at the county office had a legal flaw in it, would you recognize it? In a way your question is like asking, Why should I go to a doctor when I could just make my own medicine out of herbs I grow in my garden and treat myself? Maybe you could. But the doctor and the pharmacist have years of training on how to do this right. You probably don't. Is it possible for you to learn everything you need to do it right? Sure. But do you want to spend the time to study all that for something that you will do -- buy a house -- maybe once every ten years? Will you remember it all next time or have to learn it all over? But really most important is, title companies offer insurance in case the title turns out to be flawed. That, to me, is the big reason why I would use a title company even if I was paying cash and there was no bank involved to insist on it. If there's some legal flaw in the title and it turns out that someone else has a claim to my house, and I lose in court, I would be out about $100,000. Your house might be costing you much more. That's a huge risk to take. Paying the couple of hundred dollars for insurance against that risk seems well worth it to me. And by the way, I don't think the \"\"due diligence\"\" is easy. It's NOT just a matter of making sure a title is really on file at the court house and has the proper stamp on it. It's all about, Does someone else have a legal claim to this property? Like, maybe three owners ago someone forged a signature on a deed, so the sale is fraudulent, and now the person who was defrauded or his heirs discover the issue and claim the property. Or maybe the previous owner failed to pay a contractor who did repairs on the house, and now he goes to court and gets a lien on the property. It's unlikely that you have the expertise to recognize a forged document. You almost surely have no way to recognize a forged signature of someone you never met on an otherwise valid-looking document. And you'd have to do a lot of research to find every contractor who ever worked on the house and insure none of them have a claim. Etc.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "abed55baf048eefe97f2ddadb318c77d",
"text": "Some examples where an HOA is a positive thing: 1) Amenities: Maybe it is professionally maintained landscaping at the front of the subdivision, or a playground, or community pool. An HOA provides a convenient way to have things like that and share the costs among all the people who benefit. 2) Legal Advocacy: I live in a neighborhood (rural) without an HOA. My neighbor decided to start an auto-repair shop on his property which was CLEARLY a violation of the covenants. There isn't really a Government body you can report them to that will swoop in and make them stop a neighbor from destroying your property values even if they signed an agreement when they bought it to the contrary. You need to hire a lawyer and sue them and that costs money and time. Also, in many cases if you wait too long they can get an exception grandfathered in because no one raised an issue about it. An HOA exists to watch for this kind of thing and nip it in the bud rather than making homeowners have to hassle with the time/expense. 3) Independence: Assuming no HOA, and assuming you are okay with suing your neighbor over violating a covenant. That makes for a very uncomfortable situation between you and that neighbor. Having a neutral 3rd party take action on your behalf anonymously can greatly help that situation. It's not all about making people ditch their basketball goals, or garden gnomes. They also protect you from other obnoxious stuff like junky mobile homes in high-end neighborhoods, the guy who blocks half the street permanently with his RV/Boat parked on the curb, three foot tall grass that is an eyesore and a fire hazard, a taco stand opening in your neighbors garage, etc.",
"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": "115ffc4a1e702919e0b5eb98226b394a",
"text": "@MichaelBorgwardt gave an excellent answer. Let me add a little analogy here that might help. Suppose you bought a car from Joe's Auto Sales. You pay your money, do all the paperwork, and drive your car home. The next day Joe's goes bankrupt. What affect does that have on your ownership rights to your car? The answer is, Absolutely none. Same thing with stocks and a stock exchange. A stock exchange is basically just a store where you can buy stock. Once you buy it, it's yours. That said, there could potentially be a problem with record keeping. If you bought a car from Joe's Auto Sales, and Joe went out of business before sending the registration paperwork to the state, you might find that the state has no record that you legally own the car and you could have difficulty proving it. Likewise if a stock exchange went out of business without getting all their records properly updated, their might be an issue. Actually I think the bigger concern here for most folks would be their broker and not the stock exchange, as your broker is the one who keeps the records of what stocks you own long term. In practice, though, most companies are responsible enough to clean up their paperwork properly when they go out of business, and if they don't, a successor company or government regulators or someone will try to clean it all up.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0a0ad0deb270b252db9bdeb58f22d331",
"text": "\"Title insurance protects you from losing rights to your property in case of a court decision. Let's look at an example I recently found in local newspapers. One old woman sold her apartment to person A. The deed was attested by a notary public who verified that indeed in was that old woman putting her signature on the deed. Then person A sold the apartment to person B, etc, then after several deals some unfortunate Buyer bought that apartment. The deal looked allright, so he's got a mortgage to pay for the apartment. Later it turned out that the old lady died three months before she \"\"sold\"\" the apartment and the notary public was corrupt. Old lady's heirs filed a lawsuit and the deal was void. So the ultimate Buyer lost all rights to the apartment although he purchased it legally. This is the case when title insurance kicks in. You need one if there's a chance for a deal to be deemed void.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "30027b1c4f087c6113a9f335c856edd9",
"text": "For various reasons, real estate prices exhibit far more memory than stock prices. The primary reason for this is that real estate is much less liquid. Transaction costs for stock trading are on the order of 10 basis points (0.1%), whereas a real estate transaction will typically have total costs (including title, lawyers, brokers, engineers, etc.) of around 5% of the amount of the transaction. A stock transaction can be executed in milliseconds, whereas real estate transactions typically take months. Thus today's behavior is a much better indicator of future price behavior for real estate than for stocks.",
"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": "c63354cffacbd0dd596f593b412164d3",
"text": "\"There are very few circumstances where forming an out of state entity is beneficial, but a website is within these circumstances in certain instances. Businesses with no physical operations do not need to care what jurisdiction they are registered in: your home state, a better united state or non-united state. The \"\"limited liability\"\" does it's job. If you are storing inventory or purchasing offices to compliment your online business, you need to register in the state those are located in. An online business is an example of a business with no physical presence. All states want you to register your LLC in the state that you live in, but this is where you need to read that state's laws. What are the consequences of not registering? There might be none, there might be many. In New York, for example, there are no consequences for not registering (and registering in new york - especially the city - is likely the most expensive in the USA). If your LLC needs to represent itself in court, New York provides retroactive foreign registrations and business licenses. So basically, despite saying that you need to pay over $1000 to form your LLC \"\"or else\"\", the reality is that you get the local limited liability protection in courts whenever you actually need it. Check your local state laws, but more times than not it is analogous to asking a barber if you need a haircut, the representative is always going to say \"\"yes, you do\"\" while the law, and associated case law, reveals that you don't. The federal government doesn't care what state your form an LLC or partnership in. Banks don't care what state you form an LLC or partnership in. The United States post office doesn't care. Making an app? The Apple iTunes store doesn't care. So that covers all the applicable authorities you need to consider. Now just go with the cheapest. In the US alone there are 50 states and several territories, all with their own fee structures, so you just have to do your research. Despite conflicting with another answer, Wyoming is still relevant, because it is cheap and has a mature system and laws around business entity formation. http://www.incorp.com has agents in every state, but there are registered agents everywhere, you can even call the Secretary of State in each state for a list of registered agents. Get an employer ID number yourself after the business entity is formed, it takes less than 5 minutes. All of this is also contingent on how your LLC or partnership distributes funds. If your LLC is not acting like a pass through entity to you and your partner,but instead holding its own profits like a corporation, then again none of this matters. You need to form it within the state you live and do foreign registrations in states where it has any physical presence, as it has becomes its own tax person in those states. This is relevant because you said you were trying to do something with a friend.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "205ba635b6f74b720d5e8402c38e5b58",
"text": "Moreover to make items easier, company owners can uncover several expert neighborhood company listing support providers inside the industry nowadays. The professionals support increases the effects of [local business listing](http://come2ourdeals.com.au) with the aid of Seo Google Maps and numerous others. Why is that this crucial? Given below would be the 5 rewards.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f70a67d924690e27c7d881ed024bb809",
"text": "From my experience, I opened a business account to handle my LLC which owns a rental property. The account process and features were similar to shopping for a personal checking account. There would be fees for falling below a minimum balance, and for wanting a paper statement. In my case, keeping $2000 avoids the fee, and I pull the statements online and save the PDFs. Once open for a certain amount of time, you might be able to get credit extended based on the money that flows through that account. The online access is similar to my personal checking, as is the sending of payments electronically.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ba04448badcb9bc41ad6831c7f60a19d",
"text": "I agree with mhoran_psprep's answer, but would like to add a few additional points to consider. TurboTax and the professional it will send to represent you in case of a tax audit have no more information about your tax return than what you entered into the program. Now, there are three (or four) different kinds of audits. The correspondence audit is the most common kind where IRS sends a letter requesting copies of documents supporting a deduction or tax credit that you have claimed. Representation is hardly necessary in this case. The office audit is more serious where you have to make an appointment and go to the local IRS office with paperwork that the examining agent needs to see physically, and to answer questions, etc. It would be better to be accompanied by a representative at these meetings. But, office audits are not as common as correspondence audits, and, because they are expensive for the IRS, usually occur when the IRS is fairly sure of recovering a substantial sum of money. If you have been cutting corners and pushing the envelope in taking large enough deductions to make it worthwhile for the IRS to go after you, you probably should not have been using TurboTax to file your income tax return but should have been using an accountant or tax preparer, who would be representing you in case of an audit. If the reason that you used TurboTax is that no accountant was willing to prepare a tax return with the deductions that you wished to claim, I doubt that having TurboTax's representative with you when you go to the IRS office will help you all that much. An example of a field audit is when the IRS agent comes to your home to see if you actually have a space set aside to use exclusively as your home office as you claimed you did etc. A Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program (TCMP) audit is where the IRS randomly chooses returns for statistical checks that taxpayers are complying with the regulations. The taxpayer has to prove every line of the return. You claim to be filing as Married Filing Jointly? Bring in your marriage certificate. Submit birth certificates and Social Security cards of your dependent children. And so on. Yes, having TurboTax represent you for only $49.95 will help, but not if you are not married and cannot provide the IRS with a marriage certificate etc. So, pay the fee for peace of mind if you like, and as insurance as littleadv suggests. But be sure you understand what you might be getting for the money. Most tax returns selected for audit are selected for what the IRS believes are good reasons, not at random. If what you said If my tax return is randomly selected for audit they will represent me. is interpreted literally, TurboTax will represent you only if your return is selected for examination under the TCMP program, not if it is selected for audit because the IRS believes that something is fishy about your return. And as always, you get what you pay for.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18cd8234a214ff8a7f311bcf36715bc1",
"text": "If you need to shop coins, you could do your personal improvement, however, this may be tricky because of even easy documentation errors fee extra. For many little employer proprietors, the high-quality picks the use of a business enterprise company, which is a fee-powerful preference to make sure your documentation is accurate and filed right away with conditions. If you're concerned in Delaware LLC with as little quotes as viable, begin with the aid of considering conditions wherein you'll include. You do no longer require work within the state you select, however it may be more reasonable for pick out your home circumstance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2373055bf573b0f842fdadd7e95d5969",
"text": "Linear Title provides high quality title and escrow services to companies in the real estate industry, but Linear Title’s service orientation doesn’t end there—Linear Title is proud to support its community through philanthropic efforts, including most recently Linear Title’s involvement in the Eastern 4H Country Fair, Rhode Island.The contributions of sponsors such as Linear Title help defray the expenses of the fair so that it can remain affordable for the families who participate in it",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f19b8f09b463f28517e582674f13ebc4",
"text": "You might think it as a simple multi-page document, but the fact is that property related contracts are very complicated with hundreds of terms that are beyond the understanding of a common man. In such circumstances, these professionals can be very helpful; as they will go through the contact and help you understand the terms and conditions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "77b59558c9d957cfd8149d31f8d1c34c",
"text": "Disadvantage is that tenant could sue you for something, and in an unfavorable judgement they would have access to your house as property to possess. You could lose the house. Even if you make an LLC to hold the house, they'll either sue you or the LLC and either way you could lose the house. This might be why the landlord is moving to Florida where their house cannot be possessed in a judgement because of the state's strong homestead exemption ;)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b6282e3f8f1250824493ca2c1516ab5b",
"text": "Google Maps and Craig’s List are easy wins and free. I would offer free inspections and estimates. What about getting into one of those new mover mailings. That is when most people will be updating their fixtures.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
6184edbcc7ae078a3e66b484fa6db27b
|
Hourly rate negotiation tips for paid internship
|
[
{
"docid": "d459e150ca648cfee8e5b0562028f8cf",
"text": "Interns are not hired to do work, they are hired so that people at the company can get a look at their abilities in a real situation (not an interview) before hiring them for real. This way instead of 30% of your new hires being a dud, it's more like 5%, because the bad ones were filtered out in the intern process. If you are self-motivated and good enough, then it's quite possible that you will start getting real work while you're at the company, as opposed to throwaway assignments that nobody cares about. Once you're in that position, it means they trust you to actually accomplish something, and you will be viewed as a hopeful hire. Assuming you like the company, getting into that position is half the value of the internship. So I'd take it as-is with one caveat - ask them about schedule flexibility ahead of time, explicitly for the purpose of making sure your class schedule works. If they're a decent place to work for they will probably grant you that point outright. EDIT: One more note. If you've got a favor to burn, save it. Use it if you like the place and need to ask them for an H1B sponsorship, or any other kind of immigration assistance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ec1d0cde477f4f5b3cbf886bfe067706",
"text": "\"I am not sure if I would get any benefit besides the hourly payment as an intern. What are the benefits I can expect while working for this company (or any other software company) Probably none. Changes from company to company but usually only full-time employees are entitled for benefits. For example, could I ask them to reimburse my bus fare or fuel costs in addition to the hourly pay? You can always ask:-) If it's not in the offer - better ask now, you'll get paid what is written in the offer you accepted. Highly unlikely though. What kind of an \"\"employee\"\" is an intern? (Read about exempt and non-exempt employee, but that's all very confusing) As intern you're non-exempt. As a professional (i.e.: Not part of internship) you would be exempt. Since this is the second time, since my interview, that I have requested, and been offered a higher rate, should I continue to ask them for a value near a $35/hr rate Have you asked them for $35? Or just for more? Anyway, I don't think that if they raised the offer from $17 to $21.75 that there's a chance for you to get $35 from them.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "10d048445713a9cb28d60e32239f5683",
"text": "They likely have an intern (job title) pay-scale that maxes out somewhere below $30/hr in order to meet the FLSA (that exempt vs non-exempt stuff you were seeing). As a PhD student, you could probably negotiate up into the ~$25/hr range, but from a benefits standpoint, they might not be able to pay you $35/hr without making you an exempt, full-time employee.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "9ad7770881b0bdd14d914bab9fe10349",
"text": "10 years into my career. Here are my notes: 1. Don't work overtime as a salaried employee. If there's more work than people then management needs to hire more people. Sure, there are times when shit hits the fan and there's no other option, but that should be a 'once every two years' event, not a 'once every week' event. 2. Be a rockstar. If you're spending time 'looking busy' because you finished a 3 hour job in 1 hour ship the results to your manager and ask for more. Those results will be noticed and will move you from entry-level to mid-level to senior. 3. Skills pay the bills. Always work on learning new things to bring value to your employer. This is also required to move up the chain in your career, and leads into my #4. 4. Get paid what you're worth. Maintain an understanding of what similar skillsets are paying in your area and either maintain or exceed that. Your employer has an incentive to pay you as little as possible. Show them comparable salaries for the same position paying more and make them match it. If they won't match it find someone who will. 5. Don't correct your boss/salesperson when they are presenting to management/customers. Instead, let them know after the meeting. Your #2 points (both of them) are something that I struggled with when I was new in my career. It was incredibly frustrating to *know* something, but not have anyone listen due to the fact that I was a 'kid'. Unfortunately it's a part of life. If you can do #2 and #3 on my list for a couple of years people will start listening. It's a great feeling being a 24 year old kid in a room full of my boss's bosses, and my boss's boss's bosses and having them listen and consider my opinion, but it's not something that's given to everyone. You need to earn it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b9146230498e72a23efa47896bcf62b6",
"text": "\"Hi guys, hopefully someone reads this even though this thread has gotten kind of old. Might ask again next week. Anyway, I'm a finance student and currently an intern for a big FS company. My internship is pretty fun and I'm learning a lot, but very little technical skills (the internship is in compliance and that's not where I want to end up after I graduate). My question is, over the summer, what should I learn? As in, take online courses on coursera or by reading a book. I know you'll probably answer \"\"Whatever interests you\"\", but with limited knowledge on the matter, it all seems equally interesting to me. Should I try myself at programming? What language? Should I learn excel modelling? Does anyone have any suggestions?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ddd428be039237dadd3db4178599ba5e",
"text": "But I'm not choosing to forgo negotiating on my own. Someone else with ties to the listings is giving special access to my negotiations. Given access I can't get. I'd rather negotiate on my own, usually adding someone in the middle of a conversation between 2 individuals is bad for everyone. I'm not being given the option to negotiate on my own, I either take the artificially inflated rate or skip investing all together because I can't get the access that HFT's have, nor can I negotiate around them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bcb7fc910fe1d242fcc4a395828b5462",
"text": "\"This isn't negotiations anymore. They are trying to change the deal after the fact. Stop negotiating and tell them they are bound to the agreement they signed. They are leaning on you because they know you are small and likely can't fight them. Document every conversation. Do not allow them to keep pushing after they've signed the agreement. They accepted your bid (after giving your pricing to a competitor, which is shitty and should have been your first red flag). Then they started working on you. At that point your answer should have been \"\"we have a verbal agreement of x services for y price. A different scope of work is not scalable and would require a new quote.\"\" At this point you can either accept that they will continue to beat you up, or you can jam the contract down their throats until they agree or walk away. I've been in a situation like this before. A major multinational asked for bid pricing that was agreed to be estimated only based on very loose requirements. Then they handed us a contract with that pricing included as \"\"not to exceed\"\". We ended up walking away. It sounds like you may want to do the same if you can. Big companies often will have legal and payables departments that basically exist to fight any obligation to pay out money. In our case shortly after we ran into someone in our industry who'd worked with that company, and they said to assume that company would reject 30% of all invoices we sent. If nothing else, to delay payment just a bit longer so they could keep earning interest on the money. Also, in the future I wouldn't turn away work until you are under a signed contract for a big project like this. You can't rely on such a contract to come through. If they drag feet and your schedule is full that's on them, or you bring in additional help or subcontract the work to deliver.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "19b5d2be7698c11847c1aefa1ecc9f81",
"text": "This guy is doing you a *huge* favor by taking his time out to talk to you. These people are under enormous time constraints and you need to act accordingly. Don't babble on about what you're doing as an intern; the company could have hundreds of interns doing this exact same thing, and it's probably boring as hell. Focus on asking high level questions about his career, his lessons learned, and his vision for the company. This man is going to be a treasure trove of advice and knowledge. Don't waste it talking about the LBO model you cranked out last week.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0851e27e6bc92edd842cea594ac6dc7c",
"text": "Tons of resources out there for you. Look up guides on wallstreetoasis, vault, or mergersandinquisitions. Think of it this way. People tied to market hours aka trading floors have the best work life balance. The people working extreme hours are those in IB. Those are the guys doing M&A, IPOs, debt issuances etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3c00b6ea2dfa1281ae1da6b4e899e44d",
"text": "I'm in America on student visa and I can have 12 months of paid internship. I'd rather not waste the 12 months on a sophomore internship, you know? Of course, I'd still love to be paid for what I do and think that might make me try harder.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8a84a8dd53d74f2da29b8bc18246c0b6",
"text": "As a developer in a former life, I would not even get out of bed for $50 an hour. My normal charge out rate for ANY computer work at all is $100/hour + 15% tax. Don't want to pay that much? Find someone else. I never ever had anyone ever try to negotiate a deal, and I only ever worked on an hourly basis. And only when it suited me. I struggle to understand how anyone could ever accept any kind of coding job for $15 an hour - *even if they lived in India*.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "75019fd7b1f430fe4279514984cefb53",
"text": "\"You have to be firm. Refuse to work excessive overtime. This is why I switched to consulting. 16 hour days suck, but if you're billing for 16 hours, it makes it more bearable. I've recently switched to the \"\"I only care about money\"\" mode of thinking, and switched to hourly pay after being salaried for almost 10 years. And it's not that it's the only thing that matters, but a lot of the rest of this stuff falls into place. It really simplifies things. You don't work for free. Your time is seen as a commodity. You are given goals and targets. You're not dragged into unnecessary meetings. Your opinion is respected. If you have to work saturday, you're sure as hell billing for it. If I take off at 2pm because I want to watch a hockey game, I just stop billing at 2 and there isn't this \"\"I'm not getting my money's worth!\"\" feeling from the manager.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fca1725d17739eccc4c807de579783cc",
"text": "The sense of entitlement absolutely horrors me. Suck it up, do whatever work they need you to do for the time being. You're an intern. AND you're getting paid. Believe you me, there are a million others that would kill for a position like that and are in much worse circumstances. Don't take it for granted.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "37f5dc066f7d6400ebc49c8427eaee4c",
"text": "What are your alternatives? If you have something else lined up that is better than this internship, then yes, you should jump ship. Remember, you are your first priority. Don't worry about getting burned, and don't necessarily trust someone's promises. Many people in your life will overpromise and underdeliver. With that said, if you don't have something to fall back on (that can provide relevant experience that you're looking for), then stick it out. Selling (including cold-calling) is an extremely important skill to have; there will be many times in the future where you will have to sell something, whether it's yourself, or an idea, or some other product. Use this internship as an opportunity to improve your sales skills, your English, and overcome your shyness. Take time to learn as much as you can - whether it's about running a business, your boss's previous experience, or anything else that may come in handy in the future. Good luck!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "12ede1663d77bf7b591554ba306421cb",
"text": "Also, take advantage of off-season times. I say this because anyone from senior associates (fancy way of saying second years isn't it?) to managers will have free time for a little chat here and there. These brief moments helped me get an e-mail or some way of contacting them after I left the internship. Definitely helps.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c2d726af75eecdf0ffefcd93f9e2625d",
"text": "Rule of thumb: Double your hourly rate to get a yearly salary (in thousands). Halve your yearly salary to get your hourly rate. (assuming a 40hr/week job). eg: $50k/year = $25/hr.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eea277229a31bb3a52cb07a41ce3bd35",
"text": "\"If you're really a part-time worker, then there are some simple considerations.... The remote working environment, choice of own hours, and non-guarantee of work availability point to your \"\"part-time\"\" situation being more like a consultancy, and that would normally double or triple the gross hourly rate. But if they're already offering or paying you a low hourly figure, they are unlikely to give you consultant rates.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b13237716708f98ebcff94c5faa2671e",
"text": "Good deal - glad to help. It seems little is discussed and even less is actually known about this part of the back office. I've found a bit of recon and certain other ops exposure is invaluable no matter where you want to end up in a firm. [FINRA 4523 \\(pdf\\)](http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p123733.pdf) was the latest buzz at the office earlier this year.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
13f13bf569fcd55b72f8f719e7c86276
|
“Debt Settlement Order” Text Spams – How do they work?
|
[
{
"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": "7f38ebc3c2705a7f4104fe2406963d63",
"text": "This sounds like a shady trick. I would consult with a consumer debt lawyer in your area. Most county bar associations in the US have a referral service, where they recommend a local lawyer and there is a reduced fee for the initial visit. I think the statute of limitations is 10 years in most cases, but it depends on where you live. From these bare details,I think they don;t have much of a case. Go see a lawyer and don't let them harrass you.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4343d69b98c82e18a62d67a5bf7d42d0",
"text": "This shows the impact of the inquiries. It's from Credit Karma, and reflects my inquiries over the past two years. In my case, I refinanced 2 properties and the hit is after this fact, so my score at 766 is lower than when approved. You can go to Credit Karma and see how your score was impacted. If in fact the first inquiry did this, you have cause for action. In court, you get more attention by having sufficient specific data to support your claim, including your exact damages.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa9d259510819cd62f0e479e8728860b",
"text": "\"You say your primary goal is to clean up your credit report, and you're willing to spend some cash to do it. OK. But beware: the law in this area is a funhouse mirror, everything works upside down and backwards. To start, let's be clear: Credit reports are not extortion to force you into paying. They are a historical record of your creditworthiness, and almost impossible to fix without altering history. Paying on this debt will affirm the old data was correct, and glue it to your report. Here's how credit reporting works for R-9 (sent to collections) amounts. The data is on your credit report for 7 years. The danger is in this clock being restarted. What will not restart the clock? Ignoring the debt, talking casusally to collectors, and the debt being sold from one collector to another. What will restart the clock? Acknowledging the debt formally, court judgment, paying the debt, or paying on the debt (obviously, paying acknowledges the debt.) Crazy! You could have a debt that's over 7 years old, pay it because you're a decent person, and BOOM! Clock restarts and 7 more years of bad luck. Even worse-- if they write-off or forgive any part of the debt, that's income and you'll need to pay income tax on it. Ugh! Like I say, the only way to remove a bad mark is to alter history. Simple fact: The collector doesn't care about your bad credit mark; he wants money. And it costs a lot of money, time and/or stress for both of you to demand they research it, negotiate, play phone-tag, and ultimately go to court. So this works very well (this is just the guts, you have to add all the who, what, where, signature block, formalities etc.): 1 Company and Customer absolutely disagree as to whether Customer owes Company this debt: (explicitly named debt with numbers and amount) 2 But Company and Customer both eagerly agree that the expense, time, and stress of research, negotiation, and litigation is burdensome for both of us. We both strongly desire a quick, final and no-fault solution. Therefore: 3 Parties agree Customer shall pay Company (acceptable fraction here). Payment within 30 days. To be acknowledged in writing by Company. 4 This shall be absolute and final resolution. 5 NO-FAULT. Parties agree this settlement resolves the matter in good faith. Parties agree this settlement is done for practical reasons, this bill has not been established as a valid debt, and any difference between billed and settled amount is not a canceled nor forgiven debt. 6 Neither party nor its assigns will make any adverse statements to third parties relating to this bill or agreement. Parties agree they have a continuous duty to remove adverse statements, and agree to do so within seven days of request. 7 Parties specifically agree no adverse mark nor any mark of any kind shall be placed on Customer's credit report; and in the event such a mark appears, Parties will disavow it continuously. Parties agree that a good credit report has a monetary value and specific impacts on a customer's life. 8 Jurisdiction of law shall be where the effects are felt, and that shall be (place of service) regarding the amounts of the bill proper. Severable, inseparable, counterparts, witness, signature lines blah blah. A collector is gonna sign this because it's free money and it's not tricky. What does this do? 1, 2 and 5 alter history to make the debt never have existed in the first place. To do this, it must formally answer the question of why the heck would you pay a debt that isn't real and you don't owe: out of sheer practicality; it's cheaper than Rogaine. This is your \"\"get out of jail free\"\" card both with the credit bureaus and the IRS. Of course, 3 gives the creditor motivation to go along with it. 6 says they can't burn your credit. 7 says it again and they're agreeing you can sue for cash money. 8 lets you pick the court. The collector won't get hung up on any of these since he can easily remove the bad mark. (don't be mad that they won't do it \"\"for free\"\", that's what 3 is for.) The key to getting them to take a settlement is to be reasonable and fair. Make sure the agreement works for them too. 6 says you can't badmouth them on social media. 4 and 5 says it can't be used against them. 8 throws them a bone by letting them sue in their home court for the bill they just settled (a right they already had). If it's medical, add \"\"HIPAA does not apply to this document\"\" to save them a ton of paperwork. Make it easy for them. You want the collector to take it to his boss and say \"\"this is pretty good. Do it.\"\" Don't send the money until their signed copy is in your hands. Then send promptly with an SASE for the receipt. Make it easy for them. This is on you. As far as \"\"getting them to send you an offer\"\", creditors are reluctant to mail things especially to people they don't think will pay, because it costs them money to write and send. So you may need to be proactive about running them down with your offer. Like I say, it's a funhouse mirror.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3d5daf9cc17e40cfa669930d0cc5de79",
"text": "Request verification in writing of the debt. They are required to provide this by law. Keep this for your records. Send them a notice by certified mail stating that this is not your debt and not to contact you again. Indicate that you will take legal action if they continue to try and collect. Keep a log of if/when they continue to call or harass you. Contact counsel about your rights under the fair debt collection laws, but if they keep harassing you after being provided proof of your identity, they are liable. You could win a judgement in court if you have proof of bad behavior. If your identity is stolen, you are not legally responsible for the charges. However it is a mess to clean up, so pull your credit reports and review your accounts to be sure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "80ff743892623ae50d1e5ca836fc4400",
"text": "\"She claimed that she makes money. When you wanted to make some too, she asked for your account credentials - which are only needed to take money away, never to give. The simplest explanation would be loan scam: Even if you have only $10 on your account, you can lose much more - the trick is that someone using your credentials can take an online loan in your name, and steal that money. If the scheme is long-running, she'll be taking new loans and using the money to pay back the earlier ones, building up credit history for her victims - only to allow taking even bigger loans. Her victims see the incoming transfers and are happy about the scheme \"\"working\"\". Until she decides that the pot is big enough to cash it in and disappear, leaving everyone deep in debt. Those who fell for this could be already defaulting loans they have no idea about and the loan companies have no way of notifying them, because she redirected the contact details. Never reveal your password. Nobody needs your password for any legitimate purpose.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c08b8d8c7c8e00e387c0743a7a55121f",
"text": "You can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service in Australia. I've never used them in particular but generally organizations will respond much faster once you get the ombudsman involved. However, since you say they've now kept their promises, the ombudsman is unlikely to do much more than listen sympathetically.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1ea12d08b27c305c365845315d008efb",
"text": "This is called a fraudulent conveyance because its purpose is to prevent a creditor from getting repaid. It is subject to claw back under US law, which is a fancy way of saying that your friend will have to pay the bank back. Most jurisdictions have similar laws. It is probably a crime as well, but that varies by jurisdiction.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3aa73616af3f7a1e40c6ed37c63ab375",
"text": "\"As a former debt collector myself, I can tell you that we did occasionally get someone claiming that they weren't who they really were. However, it was pretty obvious who was telling the truth after a while. Above all else, just be calm and polite. Technically, you can also say \"\"do not call this number again\"\" and they have to stop calling, but I wouldn't do this right off the bat. Its best if they are convinced that you aren't the guy they're looking for. Calmness and politeness are traits that debtors usually lack, sometimes because they are just normal people overwhelmed with their situation, and sometimes because they are irrational loser (sorry, but its true). Either way, if you are consistently calm and unconcerned about their threats, they will either give up or realize you aren't the guy. Eventually they will stop calling you (or at least I know I would have stopped calling you).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c15816a0b00f6eee6143953eeca0884a",
"text": "\"Sue the debt collectors in small claims court. There are several example stories around the internet, but this is a well written one from the consumerist. If your phone is a cell phone: \"\"it is against the law for a company to leave a pre-recorded message on your cell phone.\"\" In fact, the call frequency increased once they realized they had reached a live person. I called each of these companies multiple times, and though I was given assurances each time that my number would be taken off of their lists, the calls continued, morning, noon and night. At my wits end, I decided the only way to have the harassing calls stop was to file suits against the collection companies. It's very important to understand that it is against the law for a company to leave a pre-recorded message on your cell phone. Armed with this knowledge, I filed suit against several of the collection companies. I filed in small claims court so I did not need to hire an attorney, and the process was as simple as completing a paragraph on a complaint form. For evidence, I had over a hundred Google Voicemail transcripts showing the times the companies called and the text of the pre-recorded messages. Mysteriously, the calls all stopped immediately on the same date the collection companies received the certified letters stating they were being sued. Then a new flurry of calls began pouring in. This time it was their attorneys. The attorneys representing these out of state collection companies were all desperate to settle out of court. hey did not want to incur the expense of traveling for court or hiring a local law firm who wasn't on retainer. They also understood they had no justifiable defense for the calls. To make a long story short, so far I have successfully sued 3 of these collection companies and settled for more than $5,000 out of court. All it cost me was $35 and 20 minutes per suit. Making these companies pay is the only incentive for them to stop their illegal and harassing practices. If more consumers knew their rights and actually took a few minutes to stand up for them, it would become less profitable for these companies to conduct business the way they do now. -Source And whether you have a cell phone or land line, It is illegal for the debt collectors to tell you they are calling to collect a debt for someone else under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (wikipedia, ftc docs). What Remedies Are Available If The Debt Collector Violates The Law Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you have the right to sue a debt collector in state or federal court within one year from the date of the violation. If you win, you may recover damages in the amount of any losses you suffered as a result of the violation, plus an additional amount of up to $1,000.00. You may also be able to recover court costs and attorney fees. If the same debt collector has engaged in unlawful conduct with a number of consumers, it may be possible to find a lawyer who will file a class action lawsuit. -Source With regard to whether you can sue under FDCPA if you are not the debtor, one FDCPA lawyer (take with grain of salt) says yes: Did you know that it doesn't matter if you owe the account the debt collector is calling you about or not? If a debt collector violates the FDCPA (the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 USC 1692 et. seq.) that debt collector could be liable to pay you statutory damages, actual damages, attorney's fees, and court costs. -Source\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "022e5bdbc1a6959fb1bafc31923db57d",
"text": "If they're making 100k a month in sales, why do they need your 92k so badly that they're willing to pay 200% annual interest? Going to a loanshark or the mob would be cheaper, to say nothing of all the legal options available to them. Or they could just wait three weeks for revenue to cover it. Nothing about this adds up to anything other than a scam. Your friend might be well-meaning, but someone along the line is looking for a sucker.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e7c4de12c012960ae2f30380ae29cab3",
"text": "\"I don't have a crystal ball but chances are your tenant is definitely lying. Rent was late and now the money intended to cover the rent; miraculously is lost in the mailbox. Anyhow, you were already nice to tolerate the late \"\"payment\"\". Keshlam's option 1.5 in the comments above is the ideal way to settle in which both parties have learned a lesson and are at a loss. Demand the rent payment but settle for half as a one time courtesy. If this continues or this tenant has shown shady predicaments such as this, you should look for legal means to evict this tenant. College students are very creative and who's to say this won't happen again? \"\"The neighbors dog took my wallet.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4e41ab5f9d9f6e13cf1e4fe2b019eb8d",
"text": "Someone else might be able to provide more details - but generally yes, of course. International corporations can pursue debt collection across borders - whether or not they do is a matter of convenience rather than law. My understanding is that a company's ability to report on your credit report is dependent on their membership in Equifax, USA etc. - so while most of your credit is country by country, international companies or companies with any relationship in other countries can follow you cross-border if they find out your new address and report the debt w/ that address. Since virtually every major company has some American affiliate, I wouldn't hold my breath that you can escape it indefinitely ESPECIALLY since you don't already have the debt, and have the power to actually pay for the service that you're using. Also - this is an incredibly scummy thing to do, and no matter how you dress it up as a financial decision it's just theft. Would you leave the country without paying your landlord? Without paying for groceries or other physical goods? Why is stealing from a telecom company any different?",
"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": "83b726abb06b3facfd6be7b430d842bc",
"text": "Good! The article says it was some kind of collateral protection insurance that customers were signed up for despite it being unrequired for the loan. The accusations is that WF racketeered about 800,000 loans by bundling in this bunk insurance cost as part of the loan structure. I'm glad you're not caught up in it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7472e8cf6efbfb7589c2c05575b11d70",
"text": "Eric is right regarding the tax, i.e. ordinary income on discount, cap gain treatment on profit whether long term or short. I would not let the tax tail wag the investing dog. If you would be a holder of the stock, hold on, if not, sell. You are considering a 10-15% delta on the profit to make the decision. Now. I hear you say your wife hasn't worked which potentially puts you in a lower bracket this year. I wrote Topping off your bracket with a Roth Conversion which would help your tax situation long term. Simply put, you convert enough Traditional IRA (or 401(k) money) to use up some of the current bracket you are in, but not hit the next. This may not apply to you, depending on whether you have retirement funds to do this. Note - The cited article offers numbers for a single person, but illustrates the concept. See the tax table for the marginal rates that would apply to you.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
0a49539d7d6cc4275c99958e17506f91
|
Solo-401k interaction with employer sponsored 401k. Limits of contribution from Schedule C income
|
[
{
"docid": "447c3f654c405b11900b5814b150328a",
"text": "Alright, team! I found answers to part 1) and part 2) that I've quote below, but still need help with 3). The facts in the article below seem to point to the ability for the LLC to contribute profit sharing of up to 25% of the wages it paid SE tax on. What part of the SE tax is that? I assume the spirit of the law is to only allow the 25% on the taxable portion of the income, but given that I would have crossed the SS portion of SE tax, I am not 100%. (From http://www.sensefinancial.com/services/solo401k/solo-401k-contribution/) Sole Proprietorship Employee Deferral The owner of a sole proprietorship who is under the age of 50 may make employee deferral contributions of as much as $17,500 to a Solo 401(k) plan for 2013 (Those 50 and older can tack on a $5,500 annual catch-up contribution, bringing their annual deferral contribution to as much as $23,000). Solo 401k contribution deadline rules dictate that plan participant must formally elect to make an employee deferral contribution by Dec. 31. However, the actual contribution can be made up until the tax-filing deadline. Pretax and/or after-tax (Roth) funds can be used to make employee deferral contributions. Profit Sharing Contribution A sole proprietorship may make annual profit-sharing contributions to a Solo 401(k) plan on behalf of the business owner and spouse. Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(3) states that employer contributions are limited to 25 percent of the business entity’s income subject to self-employment tax. Schedule C sole-proprietors must base their maximum contribution on earned income, an additional calculation that lowers their maximum contribution to 20 percent of earned income. IRS Publication 560 contains a step-by-step worksheet for this calculation. In general, compensation can be defined as your net earnings from self-employment activity. This definition takes into account the following eligible tax deductions: (1) the deduction for half of self-employment tax and (2) the deduction for contributions on your behalf to the Solo 401(k) plan. A business entity’s Solo 401(k) contributions for profit sharing component must be made by its tax-filing deadline. Single Member LLC Employee Deferral The owner of a single member LLC who is under the age of 50 may make employee deferral contributions of as much as $17,500 to a Solo 401(k) plan for 2013 (Those 50 and older can tack on a $5,500 annual catch-up contribution, bringing their annual deferral contribution to as much as $23,000). Solo 401k contribution deadline rules dictate that plan participant must formally elect to make an employee deferral contribution by Dec. 31. However, the actual contribution can be made up until the tax-filing deadline. Pretax and/or after-tax (Roth) funds can be used to make employee deferral contributions. Profit Sharing Contribution A single member LLC business may make annual profit-sharing contributions to a Solo 401(k) plan on behalf of the business owner and spouse. Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(3) states that employer contributions are limited to 25 percent of the business entity’s income subject to self-employment tax. Schedule C sole-proprietors must base their maximum contribution on earned income, an additional calculation that lowers their maximum contribution to 20 percent of earned income. IRS Publication 560 contains a step-by-step worksheet for this calculation. In general, compensation can be defined as your net earnings from self-employment activity. This definition takes into account the following eligible tax deductions: (i) the deduction for half of self-employment tax and (ii) the deduction for contributions on your behalf to the Solo 401(k). A single member LLC’s Solo 401(k) contributions for profit sharing component must be made by its tax-filing deadline.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "52fa6334a9bac8de7c2dcf1d70f5f971",
"text": "\"Because 401k's are also used by self employed. A person who has a schedule C profitable income can open a 401k and \"\"match\"\" in whatever ratio he wants, up to 25% of the net profits or the limits you stated. This allows self-employed to defer more income taxes to the future. Why only self-employed? Good question. Ask your congressman. My explanation would be that since they're self-employed they're in much more danger of not having income, especially later in life, if their business go south. Thus they need a bigger cushion than an average W2 employee who can just find another job.\"",
"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": "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": "ed589d10853e24ff7f9704b582eb7a33",
"text": "I can only address this part of it: For instance with a 10k net income, 9293 is the limit for 401k from employee. How is this calculated? I believe this limit is total for all sources too, which I'm confused about. How it's calculated is that when you are self-employed you also pay the employer portion of the FICA taxes. This comes off above the line and is not considered income. The 401k contribution limit takes this into account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cbbfc879484a5c782cd5cbeb1f9eb132",
"text": "You cannot contribute directly to that 401k account if you no longer work at the sponsoring company - you have to be on their payroll. You can, however, roll the 401k over into an IRA, and contribute to the IRA. Note that in both cases, you are only allowed to contribute from earned income (which includes all the taxable income and wages you get from working or from running your own business). As long as you are employed (and have made more than $5k this year) you should have no problem. I am not certain whether contributing your $5k to a roth IRA would help you achieve your tax goals, someone else here certainly can advise.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5126dea88a1255985cad7b47b0b23c47",
"text": "\"From the poster's description of this activity, it doesn't look like he is engaged in a business, so Schedule C would not be appropriate. The first paragraph of the IRS Instructions for Schedule C is as follows: Use Schedule C (Form 1040) to report income or loss from a business you operated or a profession you practiced as a sole proprietor. An activity qualifies as a business if your primary purpose for engaging in the activity is for income or profit and you are involved in the activity with continuity and regularity. For example, a sporadic activity or a hobby does not qualify as a business. To report income from a nonbusiness activity, see the instructions for Form 1040, line 21, or Form 1040NR, line 21. What the poster is doing is acting as a nominee or agent for his members. For instance, if I give you $3.00 and ask you to go into Starbucks and buy me a pumpkin-spice latte, you do not have income or receipts of $3.00, and you are not engaged in a business. The amounts that the poster's members are forwarding him are like this. Money that the poster receives for his trouble should be reported as nonbusiness income on Line 21 of Form 1040, in accordance with the instructions quoted above and the instructions for Form 1040. Finally, it should be noted that the poster cannot take deductions or losses relating to this activity. So he can't deduct any expenses of organizing the group buy on his tax return. Of course, this would not be the case if the group buy really is the poster's business and not just a \"\"hobby.\"\" Of course, it goes without saying that the poster should document all of this activity with receipts, contemporaneous emails (and if available, contracts) - as well as anything else that could possibly be relevant to proving the nature of this activity in the event of an audit.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "126b716be4a8d598b0d3a01391be7562",
"text": "You read it right. Todd's warning is well taken. I don't know the numbers involved, but have a brilliant suggestion that may help. A Solo 401(k) is simple to qualify for. Any bit of declared side income will do. Once the account is set up, a transfer from IRAs is simple. The Solo 401(k) can offer a loan provision as any other 401(k), and you can borrow up to 50% (max of $50K) for any reason with a 5 year payback. The standard rate is Prime+1%, the fee is minimal usually $50-$100. All the warnings of IRA 'loans' apply, but the risk of job loss (the largest objection to 401 loans) isn't there. The fact that you have 6 months to set this up is part of what prompts this suggestion. Note: Any strategies like this aren't for everyone. There are folk who need to access quick cash, and this solves the issue in two ways, both low rate and simple access. Phil already stated he is confident to return the money, the only thing that prompted my answer is there's real risk the 60 days a bit too short for any business deal.",
"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": "d1615745da3647b443c39582cb81ad81",
"text": "If you're simply trading with your own money and have not incorporated, then you are not eligible for a solo 401(k). Nerdwallet has an excellent Q&A on the topic here for example. Solo 401(k) is only allowed to be funded with earned income, and capital gains are not earned income. From the IRS page on One Participant 401(k) plans: Elective deferrals up to 100% of compensation (“earned income” in the case of a self-employed individual) up to the annual contribution limit Earned income is defined by the IRS here: But not including: Even more clearly, that page notes: There are two ways to get earned income: You work for someone who pays you or You own or run a business or farm Capital gains are certainly neither of these. Now, I have read several articles suggesting one way to go about using the Solo 401k. All of them suggest that you would need to incorporate in some fashion that would require a Schedule C tax return, though, and be trading with the company's money rather than your own, and then pay yourself a wage from that. In that case you would be eligible for a Solo 401(k), and you might even be better off as a result of all that maneuvering (even though you'll be taxed at a higher rate for any income you do keep, likely, and have to pay self-employment tax).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fa11d10a577fa344fa379fb29980e60f",
"text": "For the 1st part of your question. Yes the other taxes still apply. You are only deferring your income tax, not the other taxes. Read the 3rd paragraph: http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Sponsor/401(k)-Resource-Guide-Plan-Sponsors-401(k)-Plan-Overview",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "95531953b169263ad599ef40a1d6aad4",
"text": "\"Yes, you can deduct up to your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) or your contribution limit, whichever is lower. Note that this reduces your taxable income, not your taxes. This is self-employment income, which is included as compensation for IRA purposes. You still have to pay self-employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare) though. You pay those before calculating AGI. So this won't entirely shield your 1099 income from taxes, just from income taxes. Note that if you have both W-2 and 1099-MISC income, you don't get to pick which gets \"\"shielded\"\" from taxes. It all gets mixed together in the same bucket. There may be additional limitations if you are covered by a retirement plan at work.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b15d163a90235fed85ed81ab71d178ac",
"text": "\"Do I understand correctly, that we still can file as \"\"Married filing jointly\"\", just add Schedule C and Schedule SE for her? Yes. Business registration information letter she got once registered mentions that her due date for filing tax return is January 31, 2016. Does this prevent us from filing jointly (as far as I understand, I can't file my income before that date)? IRS sends no such letters. IRS also doesn't require any registration. Be careful, you might be a victim to a phishing attack here. In any case, sole proprietor files a regular individual tax return with the regular April 15th deadline. Do I understand correctly that we do not qualify as \"\"Family partnership\"\" (I do not participate in her business in any way other than giving her money for initial tools/materials purchase)? Yes. Do I understand correctly that she did not have to do regular estimated tax payments as business was not expected to generate income this year? You're asking or saying? How would we know what she expected? In any case, you can use your withholding (adjust the W4) to compensate.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a448d95f22d848cd9953392e69d8a3c6",
"text": "If you exceed the income limit for deducting a traditional IRA (which is very low if you are covered by a 401(k) ), then your IRA options are basically limited to a Roth IRA. The Cramer person probably meant to compare 401(k) and IRA from the same pre-/post-tax-ness, so i.e. Traditional 401(k) vs. Traditional IRA, or Roth 401(k) vs. Roth IRA. Comparing a Roth investment against a Traditional investment goes into a whole other topic that only confuses what is being discussed here. So if deducting a traditional IRA is ruled out, then I don't think Cramer's advice can be as simply applied regarding a Traditional 401(k). (However, by that logic, and since most people on 401(k) have Traditional 401(k), and if you are covered by a 401(k) then you cannot deduct a Traditional IRA unless you are super low income, that would mean Cramer's advice is not applicable in most situations. So I don't really know what to think here.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15ad22bcdc1ba71d64e2cdba622599e3",
"text": "Do not mix personal accounts and corporate accounts. If you're paid as your self person - this money belongs to you, not the corporation. You can contribute it to the corporation, but it is another tax event and you should understand fully the consequences. Talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). If they pay to you personally (1099) - it goes on your Schedule C, and you pay SE taxes on it. If they pay to your corporation, the corporation will pay it to you as salary, and will pay payroll taxes on it. Generally, payroll through corporation will be slightly more expensive than regular schedule C. If you have employees/subcontractors, though, you may earn money which is not from your own performance, in which case S-Corp may be an advantage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a9655e5ec9ff750829ca0cdedef74ff4",
"text": "\"According to IRS Bulletin 2007-39, you can elect the maximum contribution allowed by your new employer (please note that though the IRS allows a maximum limit on Health FSA of $2,600, your employer's plan can limit that to a lower amount) so long as both employers are not part of a \"\"controlled group.\"\" The complicated part of this is that your wife is covered by HDHP w/ HSA. Under IRS Publication 969, you cannot make contributions to an HSA if you are covered by any other health care coverage. Since your spouse would also be covered by your FSA, that would disqualify your spouse from making any contributions towards her HSA.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
b3e1cabe6816b9bb1e33bbb1d6b46c9f
|
What is the point of the stock market? What is it for, and why might someone want to trade or invest?
|
[
{
"docid": "d09fd123da8fdc790fbee54b044ccc79",
"text": "The stock market is just like any other market, but stocks are bought and sold here. Just like you buy and sell your electronics at the electronics market, this is a place where buyers and sellers come together to buy and sell shares or stocks or equity, no matter what you call it. What are these shares? A share is nothing but a portion of ownership of a company. Suppose a company has 100 shares issued to it, and you were sold 10 out of those, it literally means you are a 10% owner of the company. Why do companies sell shares? Companies sell shares to grow or expand. Suppose a business is manufacturing or producing and selling goods or services that are high in demand, the owners would want to take advantage of it and increase the production of his goods or services. And in order to increase production he would need money to buy land or equipment or labor, etc. Now either he could go get a loan by pledging something, or he could partner with someone who could give him money in exchange for some portion of the ownership of the company. This way, the owner gets the money to expand his business and make more profit, and the lender gets a portion of profit every time the company makes some. Now if the owner decides to sell shares rather than getting a loan, that's when the stock market comes into the picture. Why would a person want to trade stocks? First of all, please remember that stocks were never meant to be traded. You always invest in stocks. What's the difference? Trading is short term and investing is long term, in very simple language. It's the greed of humans which led to this concept of trading stocks. A person should only buy stocks if he believes in the business the company is doing and sees the potential of growth. Back to the question: a person would want to buy stocks of the company because: How does a stock market help society? Look around you for the answer to this question. Let me give you a start and I wish everyone reading this post to add at least one point to the answer. Corporations in general allow many people come together and invest in a business without fear that their investment will cause them undue liability - because shareholders are ultimately not liable for the actions of a corporation. The cornerstone North American case of how corporations add value is by allowing many investors to have put money towards the railroads that were built across America and Canada. For The stock market in particular, by making it easier to trade shares of a company once the company sells them, the number of people able to conveniently invest grows exponentially. This means that someone can buy shares in a company without needing to knock door to door in 5 years trying to find someone to sell to. Participating in the stock market creates 'liquidity', which is essentially the ease with which stocks are converted into cash. High liquidity reduces risk overall, and it means that those who want risk [because high risk often creates high reward] can buy shares, and those who want low risk [because say they are retiring and don't have a risk appetite anymore] can sell shares.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b8a581c0063de09e5ee99a240460a4e7",
"text": "I rather like The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson. This comes in several formats. There's a video version, a written version (ISBN-13: 978-1594201929), and an audio version. This book covers the history of financial instruments. It covers the rise of money, the history of bonds and stocks, insurance and hedge funds, real-estate, and the spread of finance across the world. It is a great introduction to finance, though its focus is very definitely on the history. It does not cover more advanced topics, and will not leave you with any sort of financial plan, but it's a great way to get a broad overview and historical understanding of money and markets. I strongly recommend both the video and the written or audio version.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f0cb1b299c8902d05de659c56af9285",
"text": "\"In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified \"\"banknote\"\" frequently called a \"\"share\"\". Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in \"\"units\"\". Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units. This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "5454e160157a86cd1775242c0efdbbb4",
"text": "Your understanding of the stock market is absolutely correct theoretically. However there is a lot more to it. A stock on a given day is effected by a lot of factors. These factors could really be anything. For example, if you are buying a stock in an agricultural company and there was no rainfall this year, there is a big chance that your stock will lose value. There is also a chance that a war breaks out tomorrow and due to all the government spending on the war, the economy collapses and effects the prices of stocks. Why does this happen? This happens because bad rainfall or war can get people to lose confidence in a stock market. On the other hand GDP growth and low unemployment rates can make people think positive and increase the demand in a stock driving the prices up. The main factor in the stock market is sentiment(How people perceive certain news). This causes a stock to rise or fall even before the event actually happens. (For example:- Weather pundits predicted good rainfall for next year. That news is already known to people, so if the weather pundit was correct, it might not drive the prices up. However, if the rainfall was way better than people expected it to be it would drive the price up and vice versa. These are just examples at a basic level. There are a lot of other factors which determine the price of the stock. The best way to look at it(In my personal opinion) is the way Warren Buffet puts it, i.e. look at the stock as a business and see the potential growth over a long period of time. There will be unexpected events, but in the long run, the business must be profitable. There are various ways to value a company such as Price to earnings ratios, PEG ratios, discounted cash flows and you can also create your own. See what works best for you and record your success/failure ratio before you actually put money in. Good Luck,",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8accfe15c696a664fe3605ddf9390c52",
"text": "Most likely economics then. What I'm looking to gain is an understanding of how the market works so that I may take that knowledge and use it to make investments, buy stocks, or possibly start a business. I have a very large amount of time between my studies for my classes and I think it would be a waste to not learn these tools (to give you a reason for my interest in this).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee77ed54bd1eff8264dd44dd0dfa186a",
"text": "Perhaps someone has an investment objective different than following the market. If one is investing in stocks with an intent on getting dividend income then there may be other options that make more sense than owning the whole market. Secondly, there is Slice and Dice where one may try to find a more optimal investment idea by using a combination of indices and so one may choose to invest 25% into each of large-cap value, large-cap growth, small-cap value and small-cap growth with an intent to pick up benefits that have been seen since 1927 looking at Fama and French's work.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "32f8621bb2dbd2b0f0f4b28ba3bab59a",
"text": "The only sensible reason to invest in individual stocks is if you have reason to think that they will perform better than the market as a whole. How are you to come to that conclusion other than by doing in-depth research into the stock and the company behind it? If you can't, or don't want to, reach that conclusion about particular stocks then you're better off putting your money into cheap index trackers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d4c6716db876ed27f5199f7148298af8",
"text": "\"Stock price is determined by the buyers and sellers, correct? Correct! \"\"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it\"\"-Publius Syrus What causes people to buy or sell? Is it news? earnings? stock analysis and techniques? All of these things influence investors' perception of how much a stock is worth. If AMZN makes a lot of money one quarter, then the price might go up. But maybe public perception of AMZN changes because of a large scandal. This could cause the share price to decline even with the favorable earnings report. Why do these 'good' or 'bad' news make people want to buy/sell a stock? People invest to make money. If it looks like a company is going to take a turn for the worst, people will sell. If it looks like the company has a bright, cash-laden future in front of them, people will buy. News is one of the many factors people use to determine how well a company will do. Theoretically could a bunch of people short AMZN and drive down the price regardless of how well it is doing? Say investors wanted to boycott AMZN in order to drive down the cost and get some cheap shares. This is pretty silly, but say for the sake of the argument that everyone who owned AMZN decided to sell their shares and no other investor was willing to buy the shares for less than $0.01, then AMZN shares would be \"\"worth\"\" $0.01 in that aspect. That is extremely unlikely to happen, though, for two reasons:\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4ce1510db724098278202fb69a59c5a2",
"text": "people buy stocks because there is more to Return on Investment than whether dividends are issued or not. Some people want ownership and the ability to influence decisions by using the rights associated with their class of stock. Another reason would be to park capital in a place that would grow faster than the rate of inflation. these are only a few of many reasons why people would buy stock.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3acf275d77964f6b617beee49dcc0d64",
"text": "There are those who would suggest that due to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stocks are always fairly valued. Consider, if non-professional posters on SE (here) had a method that worked beyond random chance, everyone seeking such a method would soon know it. If everyone used that method, it would lose its advantage. In theory, this is how stocks' values remain rational. That said, Williams %R is one such indicator. It can be seen in action on Yahoo finance - In the end, I find such indicators far less useful than the news itself. BP oil spill - Did anyone believe that such a huge oil company wouldn't recover from that disaster? It recovered by nearly doubling from its bottom after that news. A chart of NFLX (Netflix) offers a similar news disaster, and recovery. Both of these examples are not quantifiable, in my opinion, just gut reactions. A quick look at the company and answer to one question - Do I feel this company will recover? To be candid - in the 08/09 crash, I felt that way about Ford and GM. Ford returned 10X from the bottom, GM went through bankruptcy. That observation suggests another question, i.e. where is the line drawn between 'investing' and 'gambling'? My answer is that buying one stock hoping for its recovery is gambling. Being able to do this for 5-10 stocks, or one every few months, is investing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0c7b7bc49b3a18d2c21e9f2ddc23d02c",
"text": "A share of stock is a small fraction of the ownership of the company. If you expect the company to eventually be of interest to someone who wants to engineer a merger or takeover, it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay to help make that happen or keep it from happening. Which means it will almost always track the company's value to some degree, because the company itself will buy back shares when it can if they get too cheap, to protect itself from takeover. It may also start paying dividends at a later date. You may also value being able to vote on the company's actions. Including whether it should offer a dividend or reinvest that money in the company. Basically, you would want to own that share -- or not -- for the same reasons you would want to own a piece of that business. Because that's exactly what it is.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f34458f083eae68c8949828e68620000",
"text": "A stock market is just that, a market place where buyers and sellers come together to buy and sell shares in companies listed on that stock market. There is no global stock price, the price relates to the last price a stock was traded at on a particular stock market. However, a company can be listed on more than one stock exchange. For example, some Australian companies are listed both on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the NYSE, and they usually trade at different prices on the different exchanges. Also, there is no formula to determine a stock price. In your example where C wants to buy at 110 and B wants to sell at 120, there will be no sale until one or both of them decides to change their bid or offer to match the opposite, or until new buyers and/or sellers come into the market closing the gap between the buy and sell prices and creating more liquidity. It is all to do with supply and demand and peoples' emotions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "96085ed5e9764b4c6311102d80047902",
"text": "Ideally, stock price reflects the value of the company, the dividends it is expected to pay, and what people expect the future value of the company to be. Only one of those (maybe one and a half) is related to current sales, and not always directly. Short-term motion of a stock is even less directly linked, since it also reflects previous expectations. A company can announce disappointing sales and see its stock go up, if the previous price was based on expecting worse news.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "27c4e69d2f392f68687ad026b2b9ae91",
"text": "The stock market's principal justification is matching investors with investment opportunities. That's only reasonably feasible with long-term investments. High frequency traders are not interested in investments, they are interested in buying cheap and selling expensive. Holding reasonably robust shares for longer binds their capital which is one reason the faster-paced business of dealing with options is popular instead. So their main manner of operation is leeching off actually occuring investments by letting the investors pay more than the recipients of the investments receive. By now, the majority of stock market business is indirect and tries guessing where the money goes rather than where the business goes. For one thing, this leads to the stock market's evaluations being largely inflated over the actual underlying committed deals happening. And as the commitment to an investment becomes rare, the market becomes more volatile and instable: it's money running in circles. Fast trading is about running in front of where the money goes, anticipating the market. But if there is no actual market to anticipate, only people running before the imagination of other people running before money, the net payout converges to zero as the ratio of serious actual investments in tangible targets declines. By and large, high frequency trading converges to a Ponzi scheme, and you try being among the winners of such a scheme. But there are a whole lot of people competing here, and essentially the net payoff is close to zero due to the large volumes in circulation as opposed to what ends up in actual tangible investments. It's a completely different game with different rules riding on the original idea of a stock market. So you have to figure out what your money should be doing according to your plans.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c91297683206cb39dec045727fa5d288",
"text": "The stock market exists for two reasons. It lets companies raise money to invest, and it lets company owners cash out and get money instead of part-ownership of a company when they are ready to do so. But to accomplish these goals effectively, it needs many more transactions than just those kinds of transaction, because you have to be able to find a buyer when you need one and to have a market price. So there are also a lot of transactions that are just to try to make short-term profit. But we need those transactions to provide the market liquidity to let the stock market work properly for its actual purposes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ca40f9b445156190dec0799d8d34b5f7",
"text": "\"I always liked the answer that in the short term, the market is a voting machine and in the long term the market is a weighing machine. People can \"\"vote\"\" a stock up or down in the short term. In the long term, typically, the intrinsic value of a company will be reflected in the price. It's a rule of thumb, not perfect, but it is generally true. I think it's from an old investing book that talks about \"\"Mr. Market\"\". Maybe it's from one of Warren Buffet's annual letters. Anyone know? :)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ede6a47dd7289c2b8990c723b09625da",
"text": "A stock is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If it trades different values on different days, that means someone was willing to pay a higher price OR someone was willing to sell at a lower price. There is no rule to prevent a stock from trading at $10 and then $100 the very next trade... or $1 the very next trade. (Though exchanges or regulators may halt trading, cancel trades, or impose limits on large price movements as they deem necessary, but this is beside the point I'm trying to illustrate). Asking what happens from the close of one day to the open of the next is like asking what happens from one trade to the next trade... someone simply decided to sell or pay a different price. Nothing needs to have happened in between.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "91d757f3506cda4e6a14d708282d8c13",
"text": "Rather large, incorrect assumption for someone who wants to chat about logic. I think it's a clickbait article that doesn't articulate anything other than defending Damore, *which isn't the point of the article, based on the title.* Please, if you're going to suggest the CEO of Google should resign over this manifesto in the NYT, you better have something more than some emotional digs and crying about leadership by someone who doesn't have the slightest clue of what it entails in total. That's why I don't think he should write another piece, sure as hell not on this subject. But I appreciate your armchair analysis bub.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
1852f3a9090309a004af89b460a8066c
|
VAT and German freelance working on international project
|
[
{
"docid": "6af2d7c818f1572b426e4c57f8e217fe",
"text": "\"11 / 111 / 11111 looks like the (old) tax number: it is used by the tax office to know who you are, it isn't good at all for the spanish company. It would even change when you move inside Germany. VAT IDs are not exclusive to GmbHs (but a GmbH always has one). As freelancers you can get at VAT ID but you don't always have to. The tax office offers a \"\"small business\"\" treatment (§ 19 UStG) for freelancers, kind of an opt-out for the VAT ID. As you do not have a VAT ID, this is probably your case. It means So what to do? If I were you, I'd write them that according to §19 UStG and the European Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, TITLE XII CHAPTER 1 \"\"Special scheme for small enterprises\"\" you were not assigned a VAT ID, and VAT is not applicable to your bill. The fact that VAT is not applicable in this case does not mean that they are allowed to refuse payment. I heard a rumour (but don't really know) that a number similar to the VAT ID is planned also for freelancers (Wirtschafts-IDNr.). You could go to your tax office and ask them about. Maybe that yields a number that satisfies spanish burocracy. AFAIK, you can go to your tax office and ask them to give you a real VAT number. But careful: that has the serious drawback that you have to do do an advance VAT estimate and pay that to the tax office at least quarterly (for bigger business monthly). And (AFAIK) you are not allowed to change back to the small business treatment for several years.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c9b48ed7f140ddf25940da79b0bba86",
"text": "The VAT number should be equivalent from the point of view of your client. The fact that you are a sole trader and not a limited liability doesn't matter when it comes down to pay VAT. They should pay the VAT to you and you will pay it to the government. I'll guess that their issue is with tax breaks, it is a bit more tricky to receive a tax break on paid taxes if you buy something abroad (at least it is here in Finland). If they won't pay you because of that, you could open a LTD or contract the services of a 'management company' which will do the job of invoicing, receiving the money and passing it back to you, for a fee.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e64e4e41b617d2c494ffa890cb6abe93",
"text": "After a bit of rooting around the HMRC sites, I found this page which says this: One key difference is that digitised products are classed as electronically-supplied services for VAT and customs duties. These services are: For VAT purposes, the place of supply of these services is the country in which the customer lives. If you supply electronic services to a business customer in another European Union (EU) country, the customer accounts for any VAT due in that country. You should not charge UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country, you have to account for UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to anyone in a country outside the EU, you don't pay any VAT. If, as a UK business, you buy electronic services from a company outside the UK, you have to account for VAT. If I read this correctly, I as the supplier of the website need to account for VAT only if the sponsor is a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country. It is not covered in this site, but I assume I must also account for VAT for a customer based in the UK. So in answer to the original question, a customer from Canada (which is currently outside the EU) would account for the VAT themselves, and I would simply charge the gross amount.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2e2e6106a973d42de10c86d789345266",
"text": "Yes you do. You're under the jurisdiction of at least one country where you're resident, or where you're citizen. You may be under jurisdiction of more than one country. Each country has its own laws about what and how should be taxed and countries have treaties between them to resolve jurisdiction issues and double taxation situations, so you should talk to a tax accountant licensed to provide you with an advice.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f05fb26a8310550af2f484a24017dcea",
"text": "\"I'll assume that you would work as a regular (part-time) employee. In this case, you are technically a Grenzgänger. You will need a specific kind of Swiss permit (\"\"Grenzgängerbewilligung\"\") allowing you to work in Switzerland. Your employer typically takes care of this - they have more experience than you. You being non-EU might make matters a bit more complicated. Your employer will withhold 4.5% of your gross income as source taxes (\"\"Quellensteuer\"\"). When you do your tax declaration, your entire income will be taxed in Germany, since this is where you live. This will happen after your first year of work. Be prepared for a large tax bill (or think of this as an interest-free loan from Germany to you). However, due to the Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen (DBA), the 4.5% you already paid to Switzerland will be deducted from the taxes you are due in Germany. Judging from my experience, the tax authorities in Germany are not fluent in the DBA - particularly in areas far away from the Swiss border. I had to gently remind them to deduct the source taxes, explicitly referring to the DBA. The bill was revised without problems, but I strongly recommend making sure that your source taxes are correctly deducted from your German tax liability. Once your local German tax office understands your situation, you will be asked to make quarterly prepayments, which will be calculated in a way to minimize your later overall tax liability. Budget for these. You didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway: social security will normally be handled by Switzerland as the country of employment - not the country of residence. Your employer will automatically deduct old age, unemployment and accident insurance and contribute to a pension plan, all in Switzerland. However... ... if you do a lot of your work in Germany (>25%), which certainly applies if you plan on mostly working remotely, your social security will be handled by your country of residence. This is a major pain for your employer, because now your Swiss employer needs to understand the German social security system, how much and to whom to co-pay and so forth. This is a major area of study, and your employer may not want to spend all this effort. My employer has looked at this and requires anyone living outside of Switzerland to limit working from home to less than 25%, because by extension, they would some day also need to do the same for employees living in France, Italy, Austria... or even the UK. They don't want to dig through half the EU states' social security regulations. Therefore, you would not be able to work remotely from Germany for my employer. This is actually a fairly recent development that only entered in force at the beginning of 2015 (before that, this was all a bit of a gray area). Your prospective employer may not be aware of all details. So you will need to think about whether you actively want to point them at this (possibly ruining your plans of working remotely), or not (and possibly getting major problems and post-payments years later). Finally, I think you can choose whether you want to have your health insurance in Switzerland or in Germany (unless your Swiss obligation to be insured is waived because of your part-time status). Some Swiss health insurers offer plans where they cooperate with German health insurers, so you can go to German doctors just like a German resident. Source: I have been a Grenzgänger from Germany into Switzerland off and on for over ten years now. I can't say anything about whether your German visa restricts you from working in Switzerland. You may want to ask about this at Expatriates.SE, but I'd much rather ask your local German authorities than random strangers on the internet.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2f60fb76c08ea1f64395a9964f0a8970",
"text": "I suspect that the new VATMOSS rules come in to play here. So you owe VAT for donations from EU countries, providing you are below £81k there would be no UK vat payable though, however then you couldn't recoup the vat you paid out. Note I am not an accountant but I did speak to one this week about a similar issue.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "be92248dc7b9b608aaeb2cdb65eb2bd0",
"text": "Several things to consider: I don't see why your friend should pay any tax. It's not his income at all. And I am not sure where your income should be taxed in this scenario. Is he declaring it as his income somehow? The bank won't do it for him, the transfer as such should be transparent. On the other hand, money transiting on his account could in principle look suspicious, although €300 is unlikely to raise alarm. What I do know is that if you do pay taxes, 20% is not particularly high as such. There are four brackets of income tax (and tax-like contributions to the pension system) in the Netherlands, between 36.55% and 52%. Rates for personal taxes in the Netherlands are simply way higher than what you might be used to in Eastern Europe or what has been mentioned in comments. In fact, if anything, 20% seems too low. I am at a loss guessing what it could correspond to, you could ask your friend how he came to that number. There various tax discounts (kortingen) and deductions (aftreken) that apply to freelance work (and some that apply to all incomes). €3000 yearly is quite low and would probably not be taxed at all if you were recently registered as freelance (zzp'er) in the Netherlands and had no other sources of income. But on the other hand, if your money is treated as being part of your friend's income, these wouldn't apply, as he is probably already benefiting from them. There are special rules for copyright fees. Not sure this is necessarily 100% kosher but I have met people who got paid that way for articles they wrote in trade publications.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "90f2ea577546aa2ca83613733b43b7bd",
"text": "I don't know enough about international tax law to dispute what you say, but I would think that if it were illegal we would be seeing more repurcussions for nearly EVERY multinational company using these practices. How can you prove that the licensing deal between bluehat9 llc and bluehat9 lp (cayman) is illegitimate?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "21d4e1e1342a71f70549aee9c0eb3e5b",
"text": "IANAL, I have not been VAT registered myself but this is what I have picked up from various sources. You might want to confirm things with your solicitor or accountant. As I understand it there is a critical difference between supplying zero-rated goods/services and supplying exempt goods/services. If the goods/services are zero-rated then the normal VAT rules apply, you charge VAT on your outputs (at a rate of 0%) and can claim back VAT on your inputs (at whatever rate it was charged at, depending on the type of goods.. If the goods/services are exempt you don't charge and VAT on your outputs and can't claim back any VAT on your inputs. (Things get complicated if you have a mixture of exempt and non-exempt outputs) According to http://oko.uk/blog/adsense-vat-explained adsense income is a buisness to buisness transaction with a company in another EU country and so from a supplier point of view (you are the supplier, google is the customer) it counts as a zero-rated transaction.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "47fbaf740dacac037b1f7a8f5dfa294b",
"text": "This answer is assuming you're in the US, which apparently you're not. I doubt that the rules in the EU are significantly different, but I don't know for sure. In case of an IRS control, is it ok to say that I regularly connect remotely to work from home although in the work contract it says I must work at client's office? No. Are there any other ways I can prove that this deduction is valid? No. You can't prove something is valid when its not. You can only deduct home office expense if it is used exclusively for your business, and your bedroom obviously is not.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1c63acd0b8f3d76f9dd620dc9995123e",
"text": "There are just too many variables here... Will you legally be considered a permanent resident from the moment you move? Will you work from home as a contractor or as an employee? Those are not questions you can answer yourself, they really depend on your circumstances and how the tax authorities will look at them. I strongly encourage you to speak to an advisor. Very generally spoken, at your place of residence you pay taxes for your worldwide income, at the place of your work base (which is not clear if this really would be Turkey) you pay taxes on the income generated there. If it's one and the same country, it's simple. If not, then theoretically you pay twice. However, most countries have double taxation treaties to avoid just that. This usually works so that the taxes paid abroad (in Turkey) would be deducted from your tax debt at your place of residence. But you might want to read the treaty to be sure how this would be in your specific case (all treaties are publicly available), and you should really consider speaking to a professional.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b8cabcfb79bae49fcb9ee46fc5926a3",
"text": "VAT is charged to consumers and passed on to the Government. Income tax is paid by the employees. Corporate tax on income is the true tax on corporate value add, which isn't reflected in this practice. That being said, there is nothing unique or illegal to what Starbucks is doing, pretty much all global corporations have entities setup for the exclusive purpose of licensing IP/brands. The entity just needs to demonstrate an arm's length in transactions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3829f2bd93fbc08fcf8d58ebe3c01c34",
"text": "\"ITR1 or ITR2 needs to be filed. Declare the income through freelancing in the section \"\"income from other sources\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ad545957f5af34e852059d84dd928377",
"text": "\"Finally, I got response from finance center: \"\"It doesn't matter where do you study, what does matter is where you live. So, once you live in Germany, you pay taxes in Germany. And it doesn't matter who you work for.\"\" So, there are two options to pay taxes: it's paid by an employer or an employee: If I would work for Swiss company, I need to show how much money I make every month (or year) to Finance Center.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5bbb5414747ce9d5812c9eb7c8af0030",
"text": "Yes, you can. That the books were purchased from abroad is irrelevant: you incurred an expense in the course of earning your income. If the books are expensive (>$300 per set iirc) you will need to deprecate them over a reasonable life time rather than claiming the entire amount up front. It doesn't matter whether what you got was a VAT Invoice; as long as you have some reasonable documentation of the expense you're ok.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "076e0d5e64e17e91c7161a310b3c440e",
"text": "\"AFAIK, there are two kinds of taxes your web freelancing income may be subject to in Quebec: On the income taxes: The net income you realize from your web freelancing activities would be considered taxable income. Assuming you are not operating as an incorporated business, you would need to declare the freelancing income on both your federal and provincial tax returns. You should be able to deduct certain costs related to your business – for instance, if you paid for software, hosting, domain name registration, etc. That is, only the profit from your business would be subject to income tax. With income and expenses arising from self-employment, you may want to use a professional to file your taxes. On the sales taxes: You may also need to charge federal GST and provincial QST (Quebec Sales Tax) on your services: You must enroll and charge GST and QST once you exceed the \"\"small supplier\"\" revenue threshold of $30,000 measured over four consecutive quarters. (You can still choose to enroll for GST/QST before you reach that amount, but over that amount enrollment becomes mandatory. Some businesses enroll before the threshold is reached so they can claim input tax credits for tax paid on expenses, but then there's more paperwork – one reason to perhaps avoid enrolling until necessary.) In Quebec, the Ministère du Revenu du Québec administers both GST (on behalf of the federal government) as well as provincial QST. Be sure to also check out their informative booklet, Should I Register with Revenu Quebec? (PDF). See also General Information Concerning the QST and the GST/HST (PDF).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "19f228cae894db3fedd7230e5d7d2fc4",
"text": "\"I think you should really start a limited company for this. It'll be a lot simpler to spread the income over multiple years if your business and you have completely separate identities. You should also consult an accountant, if only once to understand the basics of how to approach this. Having a limited company would also mean that if it has financial problems, you don't end up having to pay the debts yourself. With a separate company, you would keep any money raised within the company initially and only pay it to yourself as salary over the three years, so from an income tax point of view you'd only be taxed on it as you received it. The company would also pay for project expenses directly and there wouldn't be any income tax to pay on them at all. You would have to pay other taxes like VAT, but you could choose to register for VAT and then you'd be able to reclaim VAT on the company's expenses but would have to charge VAT to your customers. If you start making enough money (currently £82,000/year) you have to register for VAT whether you want to or not. The only slight complication might be that you could be subject to corporation tax on the surplus money in the first year because it might seem like a profit. However, given that you would presumably have promised something to the funders over a three year period, it should be possible to record your promises as a \"\"liability\"\" for \"\"unearned income\"\" in the company accounts. In effect you'd be saying \"\"although there's still £60,000 in the bank, I have promised to spend it on the crowdfunded thing so it's not profit\"\". Again you should consult an accountant at least over the basics of this.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
f2ec7e5d61c2fa9e4d8eac61ddb0d9ff
|
Best way for for soon to turn 18 to learn about money?
|
[
{
"docid": "0c3222f7e7299fa077a176bf2df9e034",
"text": "\"Excellent questions! Asking such questions indicates something special about yourself. The desire to learn and adjust your beliefs will increase your chance of success in your life. I would use a wide variety of authors to increase your education. Myself I prefer Dave Ramsey to Clark Howard, but I think Clark is very good. The first thing you should focus on is learning how to do and live by a budget. Often times, adults will assume that you are on a budget because you are broke. It happens with my friends and my youngest child is older than you. Nothing could be further from the truth. A budget is simply a plan on how you will spend your income so you don't run out of money before you run out of month. Along with budgeting I would also focus on goal setting. This is the type of \"\"investing\"\" you should be doing at your age. For example if your primary goal was to become an engineer, my recommendation is to hold off buying stocks/mutual funds and using your current income to get through school with little or no student loans. Another example might be to open your own HVAC business. Your best bet might be to learn the trade, working for someone else, and take night classes for business management. Most 18 year olds have very little earning power. Your focus at this point should be increasing your income and learning how to manage the income you have. Please keep in mind that most debt is bad. It robs you of your income which is your greatest wealth building tool. Car loans and credit card debt is just plain stupid. Often times a business case can be made for reasonable student loans. However, why not challenge yourself to take none. How much further ahead could you be if you graduate, with a degree, when your peers are strapped with a 40K loan? Keep up the good work and keep asking questions.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "35b68904bb743b2710abc0b2670b6233",
"text": "Do you have a smart phone? Check out the Clark Howard Podcast. I listen every day. Of course you can listen from your computer but its far easier to consume from a pod catcher",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "1db35e8bb017eb451eefdecf893b4c9d",
"text": "\"The most common way to handle this in the US is with a UTMA account. UTMA is the Uniform Transfers / Gifts to Minors Act (\"\"UTMA\"\" or \"\"UGMA\"\") which is a standard model law that most states have passed for special kinds of accounts. Once you open an account, anyone can contribute. Usually parents and grandparents will contribute $13,000 or less per year to make it a tax free transfer, but you can transfer more. The account itself would just be a standard brokerage account of any sort, but the title of the account would include your son's name, the applicable law depending on your state, and the name of the custodian who would control the account until your son turned 18. When your son does turn 18, the money is his. Until then, the money is his, but you control how it's invested. I'm a huge fan of Vanguard for UTMA/UGMAs. You may prefer to diversify a bit away from one company by selling the GE shares and buying an index mutual fund so that your child's education is not jeopardized by a rogue trader bringing down General Electric sometime in the next decade...\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8add9881577b24388f6d952cf3f5936a",
"text": "To me, the most important thing for young people to learn about personal finance is the connection between service and income. Most, rightly look for a way to earn money and advance the lifestyle of their home life. How does one do that? Grinding it out in a 9-5 does not seem attractive while living the lifestyles of those on TV would be awesome. The temptation is to try all these tricks to get money, but absent from their plan is how they serve their fellow man in order to receive that money. Stars, like the Kardashians are a marketing machine despite the carefree life displayed on the TV. They have served many budding companies well by selling their products to certain demographics. Most young people do not make that connection. So they try things like trading Forex, gold or whatever the latest thing is. It does not work as there is no service to their fellow man. They get a job at a fast food chain and complain about their pay in accordance with their work. Well sure, but again they are serving such few people that one can only expect a small income. The better and more people one can serve, in general, the higher a person's income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15a4a36ca9115c7c592c71c45a605560",
"text": "\"Just speaking from my experience here. When I was younger (lol only 23 now), I didn't really get pocket money. If I wanted something I had to work for this, luckily at 13 I scored a paper round gaining £10 per week. I would personally say to encourage children to do some \"\"work\"\", whether its a paper round, or even just house chores. I learned early on, that to get money you have to work for it. I've always had a job since 13, most of my college years I held 2 jobs at a time, even 3 at 1 point. Many of my friends didn't work for their pocket money, they relied on handouts, quite a few of these friends have later on in life taken the easy route, not working and rely on state (pocket money), or still have mummy and daddy pay for everything So my moral is; don't just give out willy-nilly, teach some value to money and it will go a long way ;) /2 cents\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "91e8bcfb1597f1dd879bb0546c4bce4e",
"text": "If you have no immediate need for the money you can apply the Rule of 72 to that money. Ask your parent's financial advisor to invest the money. Based on the rate of return your money will double like clockwork. At 8% interest your money will double every 9 years. 45 years from now that initial investment will have doubled 5 times. That adds up pretty fast. Time is your best friend when investing at your age. Odds are you'll want to be saving for a college education though. Graduating debt free is by far the best plan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "732b1d87850d18987f69ce516b933752",
"text": "\"This Stack Exchange site is a nice place to find answers and ask questions. Good start! Moving away from the recursive answer... Simply distilling personal finance down to \"\"I have money, I'll need money in the future, what do I do\"\", an easily digestible book with how-to, multi-step guidelines is \"\"I Will Teach You To Be Rich\"\". The author talks about setting up the accounts you should have, making sure all your bills are paid automatically, saving on the big things and tips to increase your take home pay. That link goes to a compilation page on the blog with many of the most fundamental articles. However, \"\"The World’s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts\"\" is a particularly key article. While all the information is on the free blog, the book is well organized and concise. The Simple Dollar is a nice blog with frugal living tips, lifestyle assessments, financial thoughts and reader questions. The author also reviews about a book a week. Investing - hoping to get better returns than savings can provide while minimizing risk. This thread is an excellent list of books to learn about investing. I highly recommend \"\"The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing\"\" and \"\"The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need\"\". The world of investment vehicles is huge but it doesn't have to be complicated once you ignore all the fads and risky stuff. Index mutual funds are the place to start (and maybe end). Asset allocation and diversification are themes to guide you. The books on that list will teach you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6353322ad3183b95f792c73fe495d6b4",
"text": "As AskAboutGadgets notes, there's no lower age limit. You current age (24) is a pretty good one; you'll have four decades or so for your money to grow and compound, allowing it to become a veritable fortune when you're ready to retire if you invest it fairly aggressively.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ecb0540437b5bb2ef2925238b1a3ff69",
"text": "Pre-finance major here and new to this sub. Quick background, I’m 18 and I’m starting school at the University of Iowa in January. My question is: what resources are out there that you would recommend to help me get introduced to the world of finance? Could be books, online courses, videos, etc. and could be on any subject within the umbrella of finance. Thanks in advance for any recommendations!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d4ad0c93e416a8ca9c94448e846829a7",
"text": "Also, my wealth manager doesn't like to discuss my money with me. To some extent, I understand this because finances are not my forte This is akin to porn surfing all day at your job instead of writing code, fire him ASAP. For now I would stick it in a bank account until you are comfortable and understand the investments you are purchasing. Here are some options to consider: The last one is tricky. You might have to interview several in order to find that one gem. With you being so young it is unlikely any of your friends have a need for such a service. I would concentrate on asking older work colleagues or friends of your parents for recommendations. Ask if they are educated by their adviser. In the end it would really pay for you to educate yourself about finances. No one can quite do as good as a job as you can in this area. You recognize that there was a problem with your current guy, that shows wisdom. If you have an interest in this area, I would recommend attending a Financial Peace University class. All my kids (about your age and older) are required to take it. It will help you navigate debt, mortgages, insurance, and investing and will cost you about $100. If you don't learn enough the first time, and you won't, you can repeat the course as many times as you wish for no additional cost.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c6a9e919222d50155f265ee9a1dfe37c",
"text": "As a young investor, you should know that the big secret is that profitable long term investing is boring. It is is not buying one day and selling the next and keeping very close tabs on your investments and jumping on the computer and going 'Buy!' , 'Sell'. That makes brokers rich, but not you. So look at investments but not everyday and find something else that's exciting, whether it's dirt biking or WOW or competitive python coding. As a 19 year old, you have a ton of time and you don't need to swing for the fences and make 50% or 30% or even 20% returns every year to do well. And you don't have to pick the best performing stocks, and if you do, you don;t have to buy them at their lowest or sell them at their highest. Go read A Random Walk's guide to Investing by Burton Malkiel and The only Investment Guide you'll ever need by Andrew Tobias. Buy them at used bookstores because it's cheaper that way. And if you want more excitement read You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel GreenBlatt, One up On Wall Street By Peter Lynch, something by Warren Buffet and if you want to be really whacked, read Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Talib, But never forget about Tobias and Malkiel, invest a regular amount of money every month from 19 to 65 according to what they write and you'll be a wealthy guy by 65.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "26939aa6eeca2b834916babe29f760bf",
"text": "At this stage of the game your best investment is yourself. Rather than putting it in stocks, use any spare money you have to get yourself the best education you can. See if you can drop that part-time job and give yourself more time to study. Or maybe you can go to a better, more expensive college. Or maybe college will give you some opportunity to travel and learn more that way. You don't want to exclude yourself from those opportunities by not having enough spare cash. So in short, spend what you need to get yourself the best education you can, and keep any spare money you have somewhere you can use it to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3048767f63dd94d3d400c5ef3cc67c92",
"text": "If you're trying to teach them the value of money and quantifying the dollar difference between prices, one very effective way to do this is by using bar charts. For instance, if a toy is $5, and movie they really want to see is $10, and a vacation they want to go on costs $2000, it can be a useful tool to help explain how the relative costs work.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e1616d8bf5ea75501f47408abdac52ee",
"text": "\"Although my kid just turned 5, he's learning the value of money now, which should help him in the future. First thing, teach him that you exchange money for goods and services. Let him see the bills, and explain what they're for (i.e. \"\"I pay ISP Co to give us Internet; that lets us watch Youtube and Netflix, as well as play games with Grandma on your GameStation\"\"). After a little while, they will see where it goes, and why. Then you have your automatic bills, such as mortgage payments. I make a habit of taking out the cash after I get paid, and my son comes with me to the bank where I deposit it again (I get paid monthly, so it's only one extra withdraw). He can physically see the money, and understand that if the stack is gone, it's gone. Now that he is understanding things cost money, he wants to make money himself. He volunteers to help clean up the kitchen and vacuum rooms in the house, usually without being asked. I give him a dollar or two for the simple chores like that. Things like cleaning his room or his own mess, he does not get paid for. He puts all his money into his piggy bank, and he has some goals in mind: a big fire truck, a police helicopter, a pool, a monster truck, a boat. Remember he's only 5. He has his goals, and we have the money he's been saving up. We calculate how many times he needs to vacuum the living room, or clean up dishes, to get there, and he realizes it takes a long time. He looks for other ways to make money around the house, and we come up with solutions together. I am hoping in a year or two that I can show him my investments and get him to understand why they make or lose money. I want to get him in to the habit of investing a little bit every few months, then every month, to help his income grow, even if he can't touch the money quite yet.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3f4d2782016a99449f0364ecead401b2",
"text": "https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/most-important-finance-books-2017-1 Bloomberg, finacial times, chat with traders, calculated risk, reuters, wsj, cnbc(sucks), bnn (if canadian) Audio books on youtube helped me read a lot of finance books in a short amount of time, listen while working out. One thing that helped me stand out at my student terms (4th year here) was learning outside of the classroom and joining an investment club. Learning programming can help if thats a strength, but its really not needed and it can waste time if yoi wont reach a point to build tools. Other than that at 18 you have more direction than i did, good luck!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "af223850d5c390d6a986d4bdb93cfedf",
"text": "Establish good saving and spending habits. Build up your savings so that when you do buy a car, you can pay cash. Make spending decisions, especially for housing, transportation and entertainment, that allow you to save a substantial portion of your income. The goal is to get yourself to a place where you have enough net worth that the return on your assets is greater than the amount you can earn by working. (BTW, this is basically what I did. I put my two sons through top colleges on my dime and retired six years ago at the age of 56).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "07c4b462447a984829ccd4f74b9b84a2",
"text": "\"Everyone buys different kinds of goods. For example I don't smoke tobacco so I'm not affected by increased tobacco prices. I also don't have a car so I'm not affected by the reduced oil prices either. But my landlord increased the monthly fee of the apartment so my cost of living per month suddenly increased more than 10% relative to the same month a year before. This is well known, also by the statistical offices. As you say, the niveau of the rent is not only time- but also location specific, so there are separate rent indices (German: Mietspiegel). But also for the general consumer price indices at least in my country (Germany) statistics are kept for different categories of things as well. So, the German Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt) not only publishes \"\"the\"\" consumer price index for the standard consumer basket, but also consumer price indices for oil, gas, rents, food, public transport, ... Nowadays, they even have a web site where you can put in your personal weighting for these topics and look at \"\"your\"\" inflation: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Service/InteraktiveAnwendungen/InflationsrechnerSVG.svg Maybe something similar is available for your country?\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
965b6a556595afe9d7101e757955a877
|
2 houses 450k each or one 800k?
|
[
{
"docid": "9dcde1f44c58e9694cf6dd845c37d03b",
"text": "Having someone else paying you rent is always going to be the better deal financially. The question is, what does $450k buy in the neighborhood in which you want to live, vs $800k? I'm going to assume you can afford either option (buying a $450k home and not selling, or an $800k home and selling your current one) whether someone's paying you rent or not. Let's make up some numbers here; a $450k home, financed 80/20 (360k principal) at 4% for 30 years will cost you about $1720 in P&I payments per year (plus escrows such as RE taxes, PMI, and homeowners insurance where applicable). An $800k home financed 80/20 (640k principal) at 4% for 30yr will give you payments of about $3,055/mo before taxes and insurance. So, the worst case overall is that you buy a 450k home in the new neighborhood and are not, at any given time, collecting rent on the old property. That would (assuming the mortgage terms on both home loans were comparable) cost you $3440/mo and you'd be living in a $450k home in a neighborhood where 450k may not buy a home as nice as the one you moved out of. The question as I stated above is this; assuming you had a reliable tenant in your home for the entire remaining life of the loan on your current home, which is more acceptable to you: buying $450k of home (which might be a downgrade in sqft or amenities) and paying $2020 in P&I, or paying about a grand more ($3055/mo) for a much nicer home in the new location? Strictly from a money perspective, the renter is going to be the best option, IF you get reliable tenancy for the entire life of the mortgage on that house; you'll be paying $2020/mo for 30 years, which is $727,200, to end up with $950k of total home value (plus adjustments for actual home value appreciation/depreciation). That's the only way you'll come out ahead on any mortgage; have someone else pay most of it for you. If you don't rent, the $800k home will cost you $1,099,800, while two $450k homes will cost you $1,454,400. The percentage of home value over total payments for the 800k home would be 72% (you will have paid 137% of the value of the home), while you will have paid 153% of the value of two 450k homes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e4bf0dcb96ce68979ca1b604142bb2d7",
"text": "\"Forget the math's specifics for a moment: here's some principles. Additional housing for a renter gives you returns in the form of money. Additional housing for yourself pays its returns in the form of \"\"here is a nice house, live in it\"\". Which do you need more of? If you don't need the money, get a nicer house for yourself. If you need (or want) the money, get a modest house for yourself and either use the other house as a rental property, or invest the proceeds of its sale in the stock market. But under normal circumstances (++) don't expect that buying more house for yourself is a good way to increase how much money you have. It's not. (++ the exception being during situations where land/housing value rises quickly, and when that rise is not part of a housing bubble which later collapses. Generally long-term housing values tend to be relatively stable; the real returns are from the rent, or what economists call imputed rent when you're occupying it yourself.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5c85b73eb81446ba89b3ae191aac44b1",
"text": "Because it appears you have in the neighborhood of 30 years remianing on your mortgage for the first house, If you can sell it you will likely be better off in the end. While renting has the potential for greater income it is a business. And like any business there are risks, expenses, and work required to make it successful. There will be times where you can not find a renter immediately and will be responsible for making both payments, maintaining both houses, the insurance(which for an owner is higher for a rental property than a domicile), and paying the applicable taxes. You need to look at your best and worst case numbers. If your best case numbers leave you in the hole 300/month then that is not the sort of business you want to run. Your investment should build your savings and retirement funds not deplete them. Further you are more likely to fall between your best and worst case scenerios. So you need to be able to thrive at that level. If something in the middle is going to take you into bankruptcy then sell the property. If you are not willing to put the time into your business that it will need (My rental home took about 10-30 hours a month despite renters being responsible for basic upkeep and maintenance. Finally your plan B: A home with 800k value will have higher costs and higer expenses and maintenance. If the 800k home is the home you and your family needs then by all means go for it. But if it can do just as well in the 450k Home then go there. Pay the home off early by making the payments you would be making for the 800k home. In this way you pay less in total cost of the home and set your self up for the greatest chance of success. Once that home is paid off the break even point for renting goes way down as well. So the rental option could be in the future. I would just aviod it now if possible.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "35d19da976c557e53da33983f6993199",
"text": "I live in suburban Washington DC. The houses in my old neighborhood that used to sell for $500K to $600K were renting for about $2,500 because that's all the market could bear. My mortgage was about $3,100 but I could never have rented it out for that. Owners were taking a loss every month just to keep the house. Like I said earlier though, that same house is now only worth $328K. They're still renting for the same $2,500 per month that they did before the value plummeted. I did downsize a bit when I moved to my new house. Went from 4 very large bedrooms to 4 moderate bedrooms (1 is kinda small) and went from 3 bathrooms to 2. But the plot is much larger now than my previous house. Before felt like a McMansion and now it feels like a cozy cottage but I'm sure a lot of that is my perception of the whole situation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e84a8b4c47e19de7bbbad138cef6c93c",
"text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/real-estate-prices-housing-inequality-by-robert-j--shiller-2017-07) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In some cities, higher-priced homes may tend to turn over more rapidly than in others. > Some cities may be inhabited by larger families, implying bigger houses than in other cities. > Using satellite data for major US cities, the economist Albert Saiz of MIT confirmed that tighter physical constraints - such as surrounding bodies of water or land gradients that make properties unsuitable for extensive building - tend to correlate with higher home prices. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6os52x/shiller_on_housing_prices/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~172691 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*: **city**^#1 **home**^#2 **price**^#3 **housing**^#4 **income**^#5\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "df70fab408e657760c2377580cfb5e79",
"text": "You can hire a builder to build for you on a lot that you would be happy to live on with utilities already connected. Subdividing a large piece of land gets a little more complicated. What easements exist, and what new easements would need to be created when connecting utilities? Would all of the lots already have street access, or do you need to dedicate some of the land to building a new road in the subdivision? Also, I edited your post because 83,000sqft is 1.9 acres. Building homes on .19 acre parcels (assuming no need for a road to take another 15% of the lot) reduces the value of the homes that you are building. You should run the numbers with 6 houses and see how attractive the math looks. Also, you should look for updated numbers on cost to build. Custom homes are likely closer to $275-$350 (where an architect is involved with drawing the plans).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d752be341408de731a2bc853084a3a67",
"text": "You should very much nail down your planned expenses and profit. However beyond that you may have some better options to avoid taxation assuming all your plans go well. You should take into account the ability to avoid taxes on the sale of a primary residence. You could build the spec house, then move into the spec house. You could then sell the primary (avoiding any profit less than $500k filing jointly, assuming you meet the Home Sale Tax Exclusion requirements). You can then in another two years or so sell the spec house if you want and again avoid up to $500k in profit. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-250000500000-home-sale-tax-exclusion.html",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f6ed8bf407fec3f473e98f309f972ee",
"text": "The breakeven amount isn't at 8 years. You calculated how many years of paying $500 it would take to break even with one year of paying $4000. 8 x 10 years = 80 years. So by paying $500/year it will take you 80 years to have spent the same amount ($40000 total) as you did in 10 years. At this point it may seem obvious what the better choice is. Consider where you'll be after 10 years: In scenario #1 you've spent $5000 ($500*10) and have to continue spending $500/year indefinitely. In scenario #2 you've spent $40000 ($4000*10) and don't have to pay any more, but you currently have $35000 ($40000 - $5000) less than you did in scenario #1. If you had stayed with scenario #1 you could invest that $35000 at a measly 1.43% annual return and cover the $500 payments indefinitely without ever dipping into your remaining $35000. Most likely over the long term you'll do better than 1.43% per year and come out far ahead.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8b839d729f83a276ef9f64f6ca8539a4",
"text": "A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner. It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "76b0bc30e0178a8627847743ff0ae369",
"text": "\"Say you're buying a 400K house. Your relative finances 120K (30%). Say I'm optimistic, but the real-estate market recovers, and your house is worth 600K in 5-6 years (can happen, with the inflation and all). The gain is 200K. Your relative gets 100K. You repay him 220K on 120K loan for 5 years. Roughly, 16% APR. Quite an expensive loan. I'm of course optimistic, it seems to me that so is your relative. The question is: if the house loses value in that term, does your relative take 50% of the losses? Make calculations based on several expected returns (optimistic, \"\"realistic\"\", loss case, etc), and for each calculate how much in fact will that loan cost. It will help you to decide if you want it. Otherwise your relationships with your relative might go very bad in a few years. BTW: Suggestion: it's a bad idea to mix business and friend/family you don't want to lose.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3007ba4951c53c091d51a0fa105e1cdb",
"text": "I was down in San Diego recently and talking with a friend while at dinner. I was complaining that the housing in my area had gone up and a starter 3/2 was getting into the ~415k range. I guess houses in not even good parts of SD are in the 600k range minimum.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9af55094839c6d10fccdf320dad52f9c",
"text": "Another vote for a bigger downpayment, for the reasons Benjamin mentions. Also, from experience, I would save up at least a small pile as a separate house emergency fund because you will find things that are wrong and/or that got bodged by the previous owner and it's probably not going to last past the first few months of home ownership. In my case, the home inspector missed - amongst other things - that the shower on the 2nd floor was leaking both into the adjoining bedroom and the living room below. That added a little unexpected expenditure as you might guess.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b3c6a45aea4d9f4080a1225c5a2cd167",
"text": "First the good news: based on the time involved, and the amount of potential profits; you will not owe any tax on the sale of the house no matter which option you pick. Now the details. When determining if there are any capital gains the IRS cares about the difference between the sale price and the purchase price. The amount of the loan, the final balance of the loan, or the lack of loan don't factor into the calculation. To complicate matters the government does factor into the equation any improvements you have made to the house (like a new deck) and the cost of buying and selling the house (real estate agents). If a single person has less than 250K in capital gains and has used the house as their main residence for 2 of the the previous 5 years their tax is zero. For a couple the tax free gain is $500K. For your situation since the sale price is less than $250K, the capital gains will also be less than $250K. You do have one potential area of concern. If the house is worth significantly more than $150K, the government could claim that the difference between what you charged your parents and what you could have charged was a gift. Assuming that there are no other factors that you didn't include in the original question it would appear that you will not face any taxes. Regarding your two options, neither will impact the taxes. Though draining your savings or investments could make it difficult to meet an emergency during the time between the sending of the $95K to the mortgage company and the closing on the deal with your parents. If the money came from retirement account it could have an even greater impact on your taxes and retirement situation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c36be7dadeacd4e48979890060af57f0",
"text": "You are being ripped off on several counts. 1) 40k is 26% not 25%. 2) Why should you pay them $500 rent? they bought a share of the property, they should fund it if they intend to keep 75% 3) Why do you need to pay them for the 75%? why dont they need to pay you for the 25%? You are better off getting a loan for the 75% and going solo so you get to buy equity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e3825f236f55ce6c0cc79c0570948647",
"text": "If you buy a townhouse, you often are in a condominium arrangement in the US (when you're really in a rowhouse in particular). So that's a downside right away: you have to have a HOA, or at least some sort of common agreement, though it might not have formal meetings. Everyone who owns an interest in the entire group of townhouses gets some say in landscaping and such. Beyond that though, townhouses (and similarly, condominiums) are often easier to own (as they don't have as much maintenance that you have to do), but more expensive because you pay someone to do it (the landscaping, the external repairs, etc.). You likely don't have as much control over what the external looks like (because you have to be in agreement with the other owners), but you also don't have to do the work, unless your agreement is to collectively do the mowing/landscaping, which you should know in advance. I wouldn't underestimate the value of easier, by the way; it's very valuable to not have to deal with as many repairs and to be able to go a week without thinking about mowing or watering. In that sense it can be a nice transition into ownership, getting some-but-not-all of the obligations. But if that's something you really value, doing the landscaping and mowing and whatnot, that's relevant too. You can always tell your realtor to look for townhouses where the owners do some/all of the landscaping, though that opens up a different can of worms (where you rely on others to do work that they may not do, or do well). They're also somewhat noisier; you may be sharing a wall (but not necessarily, air-gap townhouses do exist) and either way will be closer to your neighbors. Does noise bother you? Conversely, are you noisy? In a college town this is probably something to pay attention to. Price wise, of course stay well within your means; if being close to the city center is important, that may lead you to buy a townhouse in that area. If being further out isn't a problem, you'll probably have similar choices in terms of price as long as you look in cheaper areas for single family homes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2da3d0954e3914fc9220ceba6955c704",
"text": "I live in MA. Median price value here is $410K. Depending on location a $410K house here can be a ranch from 1950 needing a complete overhaul, a 1970's split level, a 4 bedroom Colonial in Central MA or a condo somewhere close to Boston. These homes are decidedly nothing special, and certainly not where the 1% live. There are plenty of houses that list in the $750s in my town that go on and off the market really quickly, generally purchased by a two-earner family making decent (but not 1%er) money. Think engineers, doctors, sales and marketing execs, managers. Source : https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/07/25/median-home-price-massachusetts-tops-for-first-time/rVsP7BwWZCtKwP9BqZQOKJ/story.html",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1ab5fbddc232cbe6f468ada3377e5260",
"text": "A lot depends on whether your mortgage payments are interest only or 'repayment' and what the remaining term is on each of the mortgages. Either way I suspect that the best value for the money you put in will be had by making payments to the larger, newer mortgage. This is because the quicker you reduce the capital owed the less interest you will pay over the whole term of the mortgage and you've already had the older mortgage for sometime (unless you remortgaged) so the benefit you can get from an arbitrary reduction in the capital is inevitably less than you will get from the same reduction in the capital of the newer mortgage. Even if the two mortgages are the same age then the benefit of putting money into the one on the new house is greater due to the greater interest charged on it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "990df5d54f35fc76dac95ac6c32c752c",
"text": "\"Another problem with this plan (assuming you get past Rocky's answer somehow) is that you assume that $50K in construction costs will translate to $50K in increased value. That's not always true; the ROI on home improvements is usually a lot less than 100%. You'd also owe more property taxes on your improvements, which would cut into your plan somewhat. But you also can't keep doing this forever. Soon enough, you'd run out of physical and/or legal space to keep adding additions to the house (zoning tends to limit how much you can build, unless you're in the middle of nowhere, and eventually you'd fill the lot), even if you did manage to keep obtaining more and more loans. And you'd quickly reach the point of diminishing returns on your expansions. Many homebuyers might be prepared to pay more for a third or fourth bedroom, but vanishingly few in most markets will pay substantially more for a second billiards room or a third home theater. At some point, your house isn't a mansion, it's \"\"that ridiculous castle\"\" only an eccentric would want, and the pool of potential buyers (and the price they'll pay for it) diminishes. And the lender, not being stupid, isn't going to go on financing your creation of a monstrosity, because they are the ones who will be stuck with the place if you default.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
070776ec47af2e831d041d0fb80ef1b8
|
Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?
|
[
{
"docid": "f573cc1a292826d1bce978f3d56e90e9",
"text": "\"Sensitive topic ;) Inflation is a consequence of the mismatch between supply and demand. In an ideal world the amount of goods available would exactly match the demand for those goods. We don't live in an ideal world. One example of oversupply is dollar stores where you can buy remainders from companies that misjudged demand. Most recently we've seen wheat prices rise as fires outside Moscow damaged the harvest and the Russian government banned exports. And that introduces the danger of inflation. Inflation is a signal, like the pain you feel after an injury. If you simply took a painkiller you may completely ignore a broken leg until gangrene took your life. Governments sometimes \"\"ban\"\" inflation by fixing prices. Both the Zimbabwean and Venezuelan governments have tried this recently. The consequence of that is goods become unavailable as producers refuse to create supply for less than the cost of production. As CrimonsX pointed out, governments do desperately want to avoid deflation as much as they want to avoid hyperinflation. There is a \"\"correct\"\" level and that has resulted in the monetary policy called \"\"Inflation targetting\"\" where central banks attempt to manage inflation into a target range (usually around 2% to 6%). The reason is simply that limited inflation drives investment and consumption. With a guaranteed return on investment people with cash will lend it to people with ideas. Consumers will buy goods today if they fear that the price will rise tomorrow. If prices fall (as they have done during the two decades of deflation in Japan) then the result is lower levels of investment and employment as companies cut production capacity. If prices rise to quickly (as in Zimbabwe and Venezuela) then people cannot save enough or earn enough and so their wealth is drained away. Add to this the continual process of innovation and you see how difficult it is to manage inflation at all. Innovation can result in increased efficiency which can reduce prices. It can also result in a new product which is sufficiently unique to allow predatory pricing (the Apple iPhone, new types of medicines, and so on). The best mechanism we have for figuring out where money should be invested and who is the best recipient of any good is the price mechanism. Inflation is the signal that investors need to learn how best to manage their efforts. We hide from it at our peril.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c21cdd06b9477dc251795891cc4072e1",
"text": "\"Basically, in any financial system that features fractional reserve banking, the monetary supply expands during times of prosperity. Stable, low inflation of 2-4% keeps capital available while keeping the value of money stable. It also discourages hoarding of wealth. Banks aren't vaults. They take deposits and make an explicit promise to repay the depositor on demand. Since most depositors don't need to withdraw money regularly, the lend out the money you deposited and maintain a reserve sufficient to meet daily cash needs. When times are good, banks lend to people and businesses who need capital, who in turn do things that add value to the overall economy. When times are bad, people and businesses either cannot get capital or pay more for it, which reduces the number of times that money changes hands and has a negative impact on the wider economy. People who are trying to sell you commodities or who have a naive view of how the economy actually works decry the current monetary system and throw around scary words like \"\"fiat currency\"\" and \"\"inflation is theft\"\". What these people don't realize is that before the present system, where the value of money is based on promises to repay, the gold and silver backed systems also experienced inflation. With gold/silver based money, inflation was driven by discoveries of gold and silver deposits\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "315c115a101fd22f8e85ab9353b3178d",
"text": "\"Inflation, like trade deficits or surpluses, have winners and losers in an economy. Clear losers are people who are on a fixed income, as they often have a fixed income and a prices keep on going up, meaning they can afford less. Numerous articles on the internet discuss the inflation of the 1970s, here are Google's results. I'm not so sure that governments want \"\"some inflation\"\" as much as they desperately want to avoid deflation. Deflation means that the price for today's product, like a car, will decrease in price tomorrow (or a month from now) which creates a powerful incentive for people to put off a purchase until later, which brings consumer demand down in a country's economy.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "75dd423db9fa528737a4fe446df58da4",
"text": "\"Although there are some good points made here as to the cause of inflation (mostly related to supply and demand), azcoastal does head in a different direction, one which I myself was going to take. Let me give a different angle, however. Another cause of inflation is the printing of money by the government (not simply replacing old money with new, but adding to the total money in circulation). If the government doubles the amount of currency in circulation (for the sake of argument and easy math), the value of all money decreases by a factor of 2. That's inflation, and the way G. Edward Griffin in The Creature From Jekyll Island puts it, it's really tantamount to a hidden tax. In a nutshell, the federal government wants to buy some cool stuff like new tanks or planes, or they want to give a bunch of food stamps to poor people, or they want to fly their private jets around, but they don't have enough money from taxes. So, they print money and spend it and buy their stuff. Because they've just increased the money in circulation, however, money loses its value. For example, your savings has dropped in value by half, despite the fact that the same number of dollars is in your savings account. This is just a way the government can tax you without taxing you. They buy stuff and you now have less money (i.e., your retirement is worth less) and you don't even know you just got taxed. Makes me sick that we let our \"\"leaders\"\" get away with this.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "82c5c06d4f9b16f922b7813e5e0ba120",
"text": "Inflation is what happens, it is not good or bad in and of itself. But consider the following. In a thriving economy with low unemployment, people are buying, buying, buying. People are not saving for later, they are buying now. Industry is also making purchases. Now. From economics 101: high demand for goods/services leads to relative scarcity leading to higher prices. Inflation tends to be one byproduct of a thriving economy. Governments want the thriving economy that brings inflation with it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ba326d329c8e239ec41ea6590f2d3269",
"text": "\"The classic definition of inflation is \"\"too much money chasing too few goods.\"\" Within a tight range, say 1-3%, inflation is somewhat benign. There's a nice inflation widget at The Inflation Calculator which helps me see that an item costing $1000 in 1975 would now (2010) be about $4000, and $1000 from 1984 till now, just over $2000. I chose those two years to make a point. First, I am 48, I graduated college in 1984, so in my working life I've seen the value of the dollar drop by half. On the other hand it only took 9 years from 75-84 to see a similar amount of inflation occur. I'd suggest that the 26 year period is far more acceptable than the 9. Savers should be aware of their real return vs what was a result of inflation. I'm not incensed either way but logically have to acknowledge the invisible tax of inflation. I get a (say) 6% return, pay 2% in tax, but I'm not ahead by 4%, 3% may be lost to inflation. On the flip side, my mortgage is 3.5%, after taxes that's 2.625%, but less than 0% after (long term) inflation. So as a debtor, I am benefiting by the effect of inflation on what I owe. Interesting also to hear about deflation as we've grown used to it in the case of electronics but little else. Perhaps the iPad won't drop in price, but every year it will gain features and competitors will keep the tablet market moving. Yet people still buy these items. Right now, there's not enough spending. I'd suggest that, good financial advice aside, people as a whole need to start spending to get the economy moving. The return of some inflation would be a barometer of that spending starting to occur.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b4e6745bb53021059877c09c744beb4",
"text": "\"In general the consensus is that a small amount of inflation (usually 1.5-2% per year) is desirable. That is why the Federal Reserve sets its inflation target in that range. The reasons why are quite complex though. One reason is \"\"wage stickiness\"\" - ie., the observed phenomenon that employers don't like to cut wages. Having a small rate of inflation means that when wages are steady in nominal terms, they are actually falling in real terms. This gives employers more flexibility.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "038cc37e389042cc197373214ff6003f",
"text": "Inflation is an increase in the money supply. Increases in consumer prices follow from inflation. It's not the same as inflation. Some inflation is necessary for a growing economy. If your gross national product is only $1,000, then you can get away with having less money than if your gross national product is $1 trillion. Inflation beyond this, though, is used to allow governments to live beyond their means. If there is more money chasing the same amount of goods, prices will rise. There is truth in what azcoastal says about this kind of inflation. It's theft. Governments like inflation because it allows them to pay off their debts with cheaper money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa118ec88d6ba97d72957cf867b37be7",
"text": "If there's no inflation (or alternately there's deflation) people would tend to sit on money and wait for the prices to drop. This in pretty bad for pricier stuff like real estate/housing industry where a few percent can make a big difference. For a growing economy a small inflation is good as people would go out and buy new stuff when they want it knowing they will not get a better deal if they wait a year or so.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8624a478d3b506cdf049b07052759cf7",
"text": "\"Inflation is a bad thing. It makes it much more difficult for people to compare prices and prosperity over a long period of time. This causes people to ignore the wisdom of their elders (who remember prices from a long time ago). Back in my day, you could get a burger and fries for 15 cents -- a dime for the burger, and a nickel for the fries. But the minimum wage was only a quarter an hour! That doesn't help me decide if things have gotten better or worse. How long is \"\"a long period of time\"\"? That depends on the inflation rate. At 1 percent per year, 50 or 100 years is \"\"a long time\"\". At 10 percent per year, 5 or 10 years. At 100 percent per year, a few months. Because of the Spanish conquests of gold and silver mines in Mexico and Peru, prices in the sixteenth century rose by a factor of 5.5 during the century. This inflation was recognized as causing lots of social and governmental problems. Note that this means an average inflation rate of 2 percent per year for a century is known to be a very bad thing. There are several reasons that most governments want some inflation:\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "53f31679e3888eada41157f5cbe307b5",
"text": "Inflation is theft! It is caused when banks lend money that someone deposited, but still has claim to - called fractional reserve banking. On top of that, the Federal Reserve Bank (in the US) or the Central Bank of the currency (i.e. Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, etc.) can increase the monetary base by writing checks out of thin air to purchase debt, such as US Treasury Bonds. Inflation is not a natural phenomenon, it is completely man-made, and is caused solely by the two methods above. Inflation causes the business cycle. Lower interest rates caused by inflation cause long-term investment, even while savings is actually low and consumption is high. This causes prices to rise rapidly (the boom), and eventually, when the realization is made that the savings is not there to consume the products of the investment, you get the bust. I would encourage you to read or listen to The Case Against the Fed by Murray N. Rothbard - Great book, free online or via iTunes.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "03a4b24c6aa6c38203ae620e6cd57088",
"text": "Good points. I'd like to add some more: 6. Automation is deflationary 7. Low birth rate is deflationary 8. Declining educational level is deflationary 9. Migration of uneducated people is deflationary 10. Declining EROI is deflationary The printing press only inflates the valuation of assets, causing the inequality to rise. For people who do not have assets, life becomes more and more unaffordable. Redistribution of wealth cannot solve this problem, as the financial markets require a growing money base. Otherwise, Hyperinflation would be an inevitable consequence. Economic decline is merciless.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b61eb81f67a953cfb6e04afe443616a9",
"text": "Huh? I don't see how this effects inflation in practice.... (only in theory) Basically, I sell short end bonds and buy longer end bonds pocketing the difference in yield and increasing my duration. GLD and mining are hedges against inflation, markets are stupidly short term looking and care only about current expectations, if the current macro situation deteoriates we see prices fall.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f41628a42fd424dfa5ff0a80e13edf5",
"text": "You can't really avoid inflation. As the population grows, the amount of money needed will grow as well (because the people will grow up and go to work and earn money, and someone has to create it to pay them). One of the definitions of inflation is increasing amount of money. Increasing amount of money causes devaluation (for example, if instead of 1000 dollars we now have 2000 dollars in circulation, because the population tripled in the last 50 years, while in Russia the population remained the same and they have the same 1000 rubles as they had 50 years ago - 1 ruble will no longer cost 1 dollar, but rather 2, i.e.: prices rise). This is very simplified of course, and there are a lot of causes and triggers for inflation. Inflation, when controlled and within certain limits is necessary for growth, as mentioned, but when uncontrolled and very high it causes a lot of damage, and that's what troubles people about inflation, not its mere existence. As to bringing the prices down- the prices don't go down, the gallon of gas will not go back to $0.25. It's just the buying power of the money goes down, because of inflation. You could buy a gallon of gas for 0.25 50 years ago, but you had to work for 1/2 hour to earn these 0.25. Now you have to pay $4, but if you still need to work for 1/2 hour for that, then the price didn't rise, effectively.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c9b973d796d5ecad6f9f3d29421ce941",
"text": "There is empirical evidence of a correlation between independence of central banks and lower unemployment, lower inflation, and more stable prices. The argument as to why this is comes from when govts control central banking more stongly, then politicians get involved, and they vote for more/easier money, which looks good in the short run, thereby getting them votes, but causes inflation/unemployment/price volatility in the long run. When governments control banking you sometimes end up with Zimbabwe stlye inflation (well, not as bad as Zimbabwe often, but without the govt able to add money at will it is much harder). A significant feature of most successful modern central banks is to remove the control from the hands of ametuers, i.e., politicians, and put control into the hands of skilled economists. Ever notice the Fed chairman (and many of the board) are actually very well trained economists? Full transparency is also bad since some areas of monetary policy need knowledge to be kept from the markets in order to be effective, otherwise the Fed loses some of the tools they need to try and target inflation. Finally, there are quite a lot of regulations that the Fed does follow, including regular outside audits, that keep them in check.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "511d0076eb13439460e7ae3d17d7bec1",
"text": "\"Inflation means that the more money you create, the less it has value. To that I say, \"\"Meh.\"\" A funnier way of gaining wealth, which is the ultimate goal to stealing currency, would be to gain a great deal of money (through robbery or other means) then attempt to trigger a deflationary spiral while sitting on the cash. Sure it might be difficult, but I'm pretty sure the key is jacking up Fed interest rates and blowing up money printers.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b5118f81051f23c2de558ebb01684b73",
"text": "\"Inflation is an attempt to measure how much less money is worth. It is a weighted average of some bundle of goods and services price's increase. Money's value is in what you can exchange it for, so higher prices means money is worth less. Monthly inflation is quoted either as \"\"a year, ending on that month\"\" or \"\"since the previous month\"\". As the values differ by more than a factor of 10, you can usually tell which one is being referred to when they say \"\"inflation in August was 0.4%, a record high\"\" or \"\"inflation in August was 3.6%\"\". You do need some context of the state of the economy, and how surprised the people talking about the numbers are. Sometimes they refer to inflation since the last month, and then annualize it, which adds to the confusion. \"\"Consumer Inflation\"\"'s value depends on what the basket of goods is, and what you define as the same \"\"good\"\". Is a computer this year the same as the last? If the computer is 10x faster, do you ignore that, or factor it in? What basket do you use? The typical monthly consumables purchased by a middle class citizen? By a poor citizen? By a rich citizen? A mixture, and if so which mixture? More detailed inflation figures can focus on inflation facing each quntile of the population by household income, split durable goods from non-durable goods from services, split wage from non-wage inflation, ignore volatile things like food and energy, etc. Inflation doesn't directly cause prices to raise; instead it is a measure of how much raise in prices happened. It can easily be a self-fullfilling prophesy, as inflation expectations can lead to everyone automatically increasing the price they charge for everything (wages, goods, etc). Inflation can be viewed as a measurement of the \"\"cost of holding cash\"\". At 10% inflation per year, holding a million dollars in cash for a year costs you 100,000$ in buying power. At 1% inflation it costs 10,000$. At 0.1% inflation, 1000$. Inflation of 10% in one year, followed by 10% the next, adds up to 1.1*1.1-1 = 21% inflation over the two years. For low inflation numbers this acts a lot like adding; the further from 0% you get the more the lower-order terms make the result larger. 1% inflation for two years adds up to 2.01%, 10% over two years 21%, 100% over two years 300%, 1000% over two years 12000%, etc. (and yes, some places suffer 1000% inflation)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9fd2abbe8153ffbff95970ca5c3d394d",
"text": "The reason is governments print extra money to cause inflation (hopefully reasonable) so that people don't just sit comfortably but do something to make money work. Thus inflation is an artificial measure which leads to money value gradually decreasing and causing people invest money in one way or another to beat inflation or maybe even gain some more money. Printing money is super cheap unlike producing any kind of commodity and that makes money different from commodities - commodities have their inherent value, but money has only nominal value, it's an artificial government-controlled product.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fefb2bebc863d73f23a0dfeed3af1802",
"text": "Question: So basically the money created in this globalized digital world where capital is free to roam, it is referring to digital money and not actual physical cash. So the goldbugs that talk about america becoming weimar republic is delusional, since there isn't enough physical cash in relations to how big the economy is. And it is actually the debt lending that acts as a derivative of cash money that goes around posing as the money supply or the blood supply of an economy, and that feels like inflation, but when the debt is defaulted on or destroyed, underwritten or even paid back closing the circuit then it's deflationary? But does defaulting on ones debt create inflation since that money is still in the system and not being paid off? You know, when debts are paid off they are taken out of the system.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2eb573161fb05e0424582e3be1785ea3",
"text": "\"There are several causes of inflation. One is called cost push — that is, if the price of e.g. oil goes up sharply (as it did in the 1970s), it creates inflation by making everything cost more. Another is called demand pull: if labor unions bargain for higher wages (as they did in the 1960s), their wage costs push up prices, especially after they start buying. The kind of inflation that the banks cause is monetary inflation. That is, for every dollar of deposits, they can make $5 or $10 of loans. So even though they don't \"\"print\"\" money (the Fed does) it's as if they did. The result could be the kind of inflation called \"\"too much money chasing too few goods.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "154d7f5c99eb49598a76e1db747b22f3",
"text": "I'm not sure what point you think I was making. It looks like you think I'm supporting the idea that QE causes inflation, which it doesn't. At least not when it is being used as it has been. What it does seem to have done is depress interest rates and create a speculative market that doesn't match up with economic reality. It has also created a ridiculous profit loop for investment banks selling bonds to the Fed. You can't talk about QE without mentioning that banks are now incentivized to hold onto reserves because they can collect interest. So the banks screwed up, were heavily subsidized under the pretense of it being best for the taxpayer, and were then rewarded for sitting on all of that money. If I support any viewpoint it is this. The government agreed to give the banks a thin veneer of solvency by granting them enormous sums in a short period. Obviously if that much currency went straight into the market it would be a disaster, so it put a mechanism in place to reward them for holding onto it. All QE did was massively increase the debt burden of the government, which will be passed on to taxpayers in the form of taxes, fines, fewer benefits, worsening infrastructure, and more restrictions. QE may have not caused inflation, but it certainly didn't help the vast majority of Americans who will simply see their standard of living decline at a quicker pace. I'm sure this will get blamed on immigrants or something instead of the reality that our government is tacitly rewarding banks for not lending to individuals. Why would they? An individual might not pay them back, but the government always will by simply extracting more out of those very individuals.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c213852bbd84536d7d530f5163e37c72",
"text": "Any such number would depend on the country, the market, and the economic situation - especially inflation ratio. Generally, if you are not in a booming or a dying technology, getting a raise above the inflation ratio is 'good'; anything below is poor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c315f7f93fe5809761da6de1f2350eab",
"text": "u just dont understand how money works. u think u do, but u dont. u dont even understand the problem. the govt printed over 7 trillion, where is the hyperinflation? explain to me what caused the inflation from 2001 to 2007 up until the bubble collapse and financial collapse of 2008. and don't say fed 'money printing' coz it ain't true. don't say fractional reserve multiplier effect, coz that ain't true either. see u don't even know. if u keep arguing with me ur gonna get embarassed. if u ask nicely, maybe i'll tell u.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "663112925ee04cb3694812a81d60eeba",
"text": "\"I don't think QE \"\"masks\"\" inflation. The upward wage pressures to create inflation simply aren't there, and for that reason an increase in the monetary base is non-inflationary (as we've seen). Only during the exit, if the banks flood the economy with their excess reserves, could we see higher-than-moderate inflation\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "595c37029f889dceb75e71aab18e1658",
"text": "The problem is that at full employment demand in the market is supposed to increase as people spend money. More money in the market means more inflation, but because wages have not risen even at full unemployment inflation is not rising. If it is not rising the problem is that it might really be deflating, deflation is the enemy of the rich as the price for goods, services and assets decline.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d2b6fbe48101ebb881deb9bc368cca2",
"text": "Inflation is bad for people with lots of cash assets. It's good for debtors, particularly debtors with unsecured debt.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
94252672c382371c469ac5222b62e486
|
What are the costs to establish an LLC and to maintain it?
|
[
{
"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": "72684d4f21bf2b2b5d71ece186c61e17",
"text": "\"I'll answer in general terms, since I'm not familiar with the price ranges in Florida. The LLC formation costs $125 (state fee). In addition you'll need a registered agent. Registered agent could be your CPA/EA/bookkeeper/property manager/local friend, or you can pay firms specializing in providing registration and agents services such as NorthWestern or LegalZoom (there are many others). You'll need to pay an annual fee of ~$140 in Florida. If you are using someone to do the formation, they'll charge more (usually the on-line services are cheaper than a local CPA or attorney, by $100-$300). Bookkeeping will probably be charged by the hour, but some bookkeepers charge flat fees for small accounts. Per hour would be probably in the range of $40-$80. You'll have to pay taxes - both in Florida (where the property is) and on the Federal level to the IRS. You'll be paying them as a non-Resident individual. Your CPA/EA will charge you anywhere between $150 to $500 for that (if they charge more - run away, unless there's some specific complication that requires extra costs). You will need a ITIN for that, your CPA/EA can help you get one or you can apply yourself. Be careful with all those people selling cr@p about organizing in Delaware/Wyoming/Nevada (like CQM in his answer). Organizing in a state other than where the properties are located (or off-shore) won't save you a dime, and not only that - it will add to the costs. Because you'll have to pay to the state where you organized (CQM mentioned Wyoming - $50/year), keep registered agent in the state of organization (+$99) and also do all the things I've described above about Florida - as a \"\"Foreign\"\" (out of state) entity, which may mean higher fees. It won't save you any taxes as well, because you pay taxes to the state from which you derive income, which is Florida, either way. Remember that what you call LLC in Italy may be in fact a \"\"Corporation\"\" as defined in the US, and there's a huge difference. You should probably not put a real-estate property in a Corporation in the US. You must get a legal advice from a (Florida) lawyer ($0-$500/hr consultation), and a tax advice from a (Florida) CPA/EA ($0-$200/hr consultation). Do not consider anything I write here as a legal or tax advice, because it is not. You need a professional to help you because as an Italian, you don't know how things work exactly and relying on rumours and half-truths that you may find and get over the Internet may end up costing you significantly in damages. Also, talk to a reliable real estate agent and property manager before making any purchases.\"",
"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": "18cd8234a214ff8a7f311bcf36715bc1",
"text": "If you need to shop coins, you could do your personal improvement, however, this may be tricky because of even easy documentation errors fee extra. For many little employer proprietors, the high-quality picks the use of a business enterprise company, which is a fee-powerful preference to make sure your documentation is accurate and filed right away with conditions. If you're concerned in Delaware LLC with as little quotes as viable, begin with the aid of considering conditions wherein you'll include. You do no longer require work within the state you select, however it may be more reasonable for pick out your home circumstance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1f9dfe3f3a6fb4891b0208bcc8d08440",
"text": "\"Technically filing fee is probably a \"\"startup cost\"\", but yes - its a kind of an expense. The yearly recurring fee is an expense.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c63354cffacbd0dd596f593b412164d3",
"text": "\"There are very few circumstances where forming an out of state entity is beneficial, but a website is within these circumstances in certain instances. Businesses with no physical operations do not need to care what jurisdiction they are registered in: your home state, a better united state or non-united state. The \"\"limited liability\"\" does it's job. If you are storing inventory or purchasing offices to compliment your online business, you need to register in the state those are located in. An online business is an example of a business with no physical presence. All states want you to register your LLC in the state that you live in, but this is where you need to read that state's laws. What are the consequences of not registering? There might be none, there might be many. In New York, for example, there are no consequences for not registering (and registering in new york - especially the city - is likely the most expensive in the USA). If your LLC needs to represent itself in court, New York provides retroactive foreign registrations and business licenses. So basically, despite saying that you need to pay over $1000 to form your LLC \"\"or else\"\", the reality is that you get the local limited liability protection in courts whenever you actually need it. Check your local state laws, but more times than not it is analogous to asking a barber if you need a haircut, the representative is always going to say \"\"yes, you do\"\" while the law, and associated case law, reveals that you don't. The federal government doesn't care what state your form an LLC or partnership in. Banks don't care what state you form an LLC or partnership in. The United States post office doesn't care. Making an app? The Apple iTunes store doesn't care. So that covers all the applicable authorities you need to consider. Now just go with the cheapest. In the US alone there are 50 states and several territories, all with their own fee structures, so you just have to do your research. Despite conflicting with another answer, Wyoming is still relevant, because it is cheap and has a mature system and laws around business entity formation. http://www.incorp.com has agents in every state, but there are registered agents everywhere, you can even call the Secretary of State in each state for a list of registered agents. Get an employer ID number yourself after the business entity is formed, it takes less than 5 minutes. All of this is also contingent on how your LLC or partnership distributes funds. If your LLC is not acting like a pass through entity to you and your partner,but instead holding its own profits like a corporation, then again none of this matters. You need to form it within the state you live and do foreign registrations in states where it has any physical presence, as it has becomes its own tax person in those states. This is relevant because you said you were trying to do something with a friend.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9dadcaf1b7aff5c3555a19c51de29974",
"text": "The CPA's mention of $2,500 is probably referring to the recently increased de minimis safe harbor under the final tangible property regulations (used to be $500) without an applicable financial statement. The IRS will not challenge your choice of expense or capitalization on amounts on or below $2500 if you elect the de minimis safe harbor election on your return. However, you must follow whatever you're doing for your books. (So if you are capitalizing your laptops for book purposes, you would also need to capitalize for tax purposes). Section 179 allows you to expense property that you would have otherwise have had to capitalize and depreciate. Section 179 can be annoying, especially if your LLC is treated as a passthrough, because there are recapture provisions when you dispose of the asset too early. For the tax return preparer, it makes the return preparation much more simple if there are no fixed assets to account for in the first place, which is quite possible if you are expensive all items/invoices less than $2,500.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "983b96518395d2dd077ddb166149f582",
"text": "or just input it in my accounting software along with receipts, and then when I'm doing taxes this would go under the investment or loses (is it somewhere along that line)? Yes, this. Generally, for the long term you should have a separate bank account and charge card for your business. I started my business (LLC) by filing online, and paying a fee for a registration, and that makes it a business cost right? Startup cost. There are special rules about this. Talk to your tax adviser. For the amounts in question you could probably expense it, but verify.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f4290ed479d97b76cb8e3e8ecc89e8f",
"text": "Starting and running a business in the US is actually a lot less complicated than most people think. You mention incorporation, but a corporation (or even an S-Corp) isn't generally the best entity to start a business with . Most likely you are going to want to form an LLC instead this will provide you with liability protection while minimizing your paperwork and taxes. The cost for maintaining an LLC is relatively cheap $50-$1000 a year depending on your state and you can file the paperwork to form it yourself or pay an attorney to do it for you. Generally I would avoid the snake oil salesman that pitch specific out of state LLCs (Nevada, Delaware etc..) unless you have a specific reason or intend on doing business in the state. With the LLC or a Corporation you need to make sure you maintain separate finances. If you use the LLC funds to pay personal expenses you run the risk of loosing the liability protection afforded by the LLC (piercing the corporate veil). With a single member LLC you can file as a pass through entity and your LLC income would pass through to your federal return and taxes aren't any more complicated than putting your business income on your personal return like you do now. If you have employees things get more complex and it is really easiest to use a payroll service to process state and federal tax with holding. Once your business picks up you will want to file quarterly tax payments in order to avoid an under payment penalty. Generally, most taxpayers will avoid the under payment penalty if they owe less than $1,000 in tax after subtracting their withholdings and credits, or if they paid at least 90% of the tax for the current year, or 100% of the tax shown on the return for the prior year, whichever is smaller. Even if you get hit by the penalty it is only 10% of the amount of tax you didn't pay in time. If you are selling a service such writing one off projects you should be able to avoid having to collect and remit sales tax, but this is going to be very state specific. If you are selling software you will have to deal with sales tax assuming your state has a sales tax. One more thing to look at is some cities require a business license in order to operate a business within city limits so it would also be a good idea to check with your city to find out if you need a business license.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "300c2b236171618b127627cb296130ad",
"text": "Through your question and then clarification through the comments, it looks like you have a U.S. LLC with at least two members. If you did not elect some other tax treatment, your LLC will be treated as a partnership by the IRS. The partnership should file a tax return on Form 1065. Then each partner will get a Schedule K-1 from the partnership, which the partner should use to include their respective shares of the partnership income and expenses on their personal Forms 1040. You can also elect to be taxed as an S-Corp or a C-Corp instead of a partnership, but that requires you to file a form explicitly making such election. If you go S-Corp, then you will file a different form for the company, but the procedure is roughly the same - Income gets passed through to the owners via a Schedule K-1. If you go C-Corp, then the owners will pay no tax on their own Form 1040, but the C-Corp itself will pay income tax. As far as whether you should try to spend the money as business expense to avoid paying extra tax - That's highly dependent on your specific situation. I'd think you'd want to get tailored advice for that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d07379d9352e2084e5156e5ebf7d3235",
"text": "In GA, LLC fees are $50 a year. Incorporating is a one time $100 fee. This information is current as of September 2013.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2cf41b3998449312536891cb10ff7e6a",
"text": "Looks like it's $500 to start (certificate of organization) and $500 per year after that (for an annual report). Start here: http://1.usa.gov/haxLUB And that's just for the state to recognize you as an LLC.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0a998ba4e2f818772ac51100aeaa986e",
"text": "I am from India. I visited US 6-8 times on business VISA and then started 2 Member LLC. Myself and My wife as LLC Members. We provide Online Training to american students from India. Also Got EIN number. Never employed any one. Do i need to pay taxes? Students from USA pays online by Paypal and i am paying taxes in India. Do i need to pay Taxes in US? DO i need to file the Tax returns? Please guide me. I formed LLC in 2010. I opened an Office-taken Virtual office for 75 USD per month to open LLC in 2010. As there is physical virtual address, am i liable for US taxes? All my earning is Online, free lancing.",
"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": "521ca52299c5af07b7cf3157b6a45764",
"text": "\"TL;DR: Get a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for tax issues, and a lawyer for the Operating Agreement, labor law and contract related issues. Some things are not suitable for DIY unless you know exactly what you're doing. We both do freelance work currently just through our personal names. What kind of taxes are we looking into paying into the business (besides setup of everything) compared to being a self proprietor? (I'm seeing that the general answer is no, as long as income is <200k, but not certain). Unless you decide to have your LLC taxed as a corporation, there's no change in taxes. LLC, by default, is a pass-through entity and all income will flow to your respective tax returns. From tax perspective, the LLC will be treated as a partnership. It will file form 1065 to report its income, and allocate the income to the members/partners on schedules K-1 which will be given to you. You'll use the numbers on the K-1 to transfer income allocated to you to your tax returns and pay taxes on that. Being out of state, will she incur more taxes from the money being now filtered through the business? Your employee couldn't care less about your tax problems. She will continue receiving the same salary whether you are a sole proprietor or a LLC, or Corporatoin. What kind of forms are we looking into needing/providing when switching to a LLC from freelance work? Normally we just get 1099's, what would that be now? Your contract counterparts couldn't care less about your tax problems. Unless you are a corporation, people who pay you more than $600 a year must file a 1099. Since you'll be a partnership, you'll need to provide the partnership EIN instead of your own SSN, but that's the only difference. Are LLC's required to pay taxes 4 times per year? We would definitely get an accountant for things, but being as this is side work, there will be times where we choose to not take on clients, which could cause multiple months of no income. Obviously we would save for when we need to pay taxes, but is there a magic number that says \"\"you must now pay four times per year\"\". Unless you choose to tax your LLC as a corporation, LLC will pay no taxes. You will need to make sure you have enough withholding to cover for the additional income, or pay the quarterly estimates. The magic number is $1000. If your withholding+estimates is $1000 less than what your tax liability is, you'll be penalized, unless the total withholding+estimates is more than 100% of your prior year tax liability (or 110%, depending on the amounts). The LLC would be 50% 50%, but that work would not always be that. We will be taking on smaller project through the company, so there will be times where one of us could potentially be making more money. Are we setting ourselves up for disaster if one is payed more than the other while still having equal ownership? Partnerships can be very flexible, and equity split doesn't have to be the same as income, loss or assets split. But, you'll need to have a lawyer draft your operational agreement which will define all these splits and who gets how much in what case. Make sure to cover as much as possible in that agreement in order to avoid problems later.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d51b2368c61b4de2a5d784f5ba5fdea4",
"text": "\"Like you said, it's important to keep your personal assets and company assets completely separate to maintain the liability protection of the LLC. I'd recommend getting the business bank account right from the beginning. My wife formed an LLC last year (also as a pass-through sole proprietorship for tax purposes), and we were able to get a small business checking account from Savings Institute and Trust that has no fees (at least for the relatively low quantity of transactions we'll be doing). We wrote it a personal check for startup capital, and since then, the LLC has paid all of its own bills out of its checking account (with associated debit card). Getting the account opened took less than an hour of sitting at the bank. Without knowing exactly where you are in Kentucky, I note that Googling \"\"kentucky small business checking\"\" and visiting a few banks' web sites provided several promising options for no-fee business checking.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
82a83671772515131ebe5bc12113d7cf
|
When does it make financial sense to take advantage of employer's tuition reimbursement program?
|
[
{
"docid": "786cf9872594cfd472204fe209f10512",
"text": "\"If you have decided to do the degree, and are simply deciding whether to accept employer funding for it or not, take the funding. I see no difference between \"\"my employer doesn't pay my tuition\"\" and \"\"my employer paid my tuition but I had to pay it back because I moved on\"\". Therefore there is no downside to letting them pay the tuition. If you want to move on before the two years (or whatever) is up, you pay back that interest free loan. You are still ahead over self funding the degree. If you have not decided to do the degree, and are letting the employer-funded tuition figure into your decision process, stop that right now. Doing a degree is hard work. You will either work much longer hours than you do now, or live on a lower salary, or more likely both. You might enjoy it, you might be worth more afterwards, and it might open the door to a raft of careers available only to those with the degree. The actual cost of the tuition is unlikely to be significant in this decision process. Removing it (by assuming the employer pays it) should still not be done. If it's worth doing when you self fund, then do it and relax knowing you won't feel trapped at your employer even if you let them pay it (or lend you the money for it if you end up leaving.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "276f2d9f5e360c3c23e8e092a020d02c",
"text": "If you know that you want that advanced degree; And there is a way to have your employer pay for some of it or all of it; And you are reasonably certain that you will not be quitting for X years after completing the degree; Then it is financially sound to consider having the company pay for it. If you are interested in finding out if an advanced degree in that field is possible/feasible for you; but you aren't 100% sure; And it is possible for your company to pay for the first few classes; then it is financially sound to consider having them pay for the first semesters worth of classes. The key is to determine if the company has a requirement that you must complete the degree, or you will owe them the money. In many cases you are not committed to having them pay for all semesters. I have known employees who used the company to pay for the early classes, then paid for the last few on their own. Keep in mind that most employers only pay you for the classes that you have good grades; they require you to submit paperwork before the semester; but don't pay you back until after the semester. Because of a rolling time frame you can protect yourself by keeping in reserve the maximum amount that you would have to repay the employer if you quit. For the companies I have worked for you only had to stay an extra year, you would only have owed them for that last year if you quit. Keeping a years tuition in reserve allows you to mitigate the risk of having to quit. If the question is about risk, then hedging make sense.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "9036427a7e173705638693fae915e13e",
"text": "I don't believe there exists a tax-advantage for paying employees a bonus instead of increased salary. It's all expense to the employer, it's all income to you, and it's taxed the same (bonus checks might have more withheld, but your end of year tax burden doesn't change). It does benefit your employer to delay a significant portion of your pay until the end of the year, delaying payment provides buffer in case of delays in getting paid by the client. Your employer could even put the extra money to work earning more money over the year. It would depend on your contract, but are you due your bonus if you were to leave your job before year-end? If not, that's a great reason to delay payment, because it makes you less likely to leave mid-year, and should you not work out they can keep the difference.",
"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": "ab20e0c34ff1bdde1076e3eeab76ecfb",
"text": "\"There are a number of bona fide reasons to consider here. If there is a cost to discharging a security packet, or a mortgage, it may not be convenient if we are advanced in the repayment schedule. Early exit fees may apply, or the interest may be \"\"pre-determined\"\". As a rule of thumb, when we are talking about rates above 10% p.a. then arrangements should be short (bridging finance - keep it short and charge 'em heaps), and for personal arrangements, small.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d172f6eed07cb3c3941c0f5738845d8a",
"text": "\"Essentially, yes. Any and all decisions a business make are for one reason: $$$ Your paid vacation? That's an incentive to get better, more productive workers. Your company has done a cost/benefit analysis and they've figured out that it's worth their money to pay you to do nothing for a week because that paid vacation is a perk of the job that will get them better job applicants. OR they want you taking a vacation because you'll come back rested and refreshed. And that makes them money. (See also: every other job benefit.) \"\"Oh, well my company is a great civic member who does good work for the community.\"\" And I bet they never pass up an opportunity to tell people about it. Because they don't care about feeding the homeless kittens. They care about customers KNOWING they feed the homeless kittens. Because it makes them money. The point of a business is to make money, not employ people.\"",
"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": "e4ad5de991424ab48e01a72ac5cbd3ac",
"text": "\"I'll assume you live in the US for the start of my answer - Do you maximize your retirement savings at work, at least getting your employer's match in full, if they do this. Do you have any other debt that's at a higher rate? Is your emergency account funded to your satisfaction? If you lost your job and tenant on the same day, how long before you were in trouble? The \"\"pay early\"\" question seems to hit an emotional nerve with most people. While I start with the above and then segue to \"\"would you be happy with a long term 5% return?\"\" there's one major point not to miss - money paid to either mortgage isn't liquid. The idea of owing out no money at all is great, but paying anything less than \"\"paid in full\"\" leaves you still owing that monthly payment. You can send $400K against your $500K mortgage, and still owe $3K per month until paid. And if you lose your job, you may not so easily refinance the remaining $100K to a lower payment so easily. If your goal is to continue with real estate, you don't prepay, you save cash for the next deal. Don't know if that was your intent at some point. Disclosure - my situation - Maxing out retirement accounts was my priority, then saving for college. Over the years, I had multiple refinances, each of which was a no-cost deal. The first refi saved with a lower rate. The second, was in early 2000s when back interest was so low I took a chunk of cash, paid principal down and went to a 20yr from the original 30. The kid starts college, and we target retirement in 6 years. I am paying the mortgage (now 2 years into a 10yr) to be done the month before the kid flies out. If I were younger, I'd be at the start of a new 30 yr at the recent 4.5% bottom. I think that a cost of near 3% after tax, and inflation soon to near/exceed 3% makes borrowing free, and I can invest conservatively in stocks that will have a dividend yield above this. Jane and I discussed the plan, and agree to retire mortgage free.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ad0028567b8dc2822bbcb30238ef587a",
"text": "\"Concise answers to your questions: Depends on the loan and the bank; when you \"\"accelerate\"\" repayment of a loan by applying a pre-payment balance to the principal, your monthly payment may be reduced. However, standard practice for most loan types is that the repayment schedule will be accelerated; you'll pay no less each month, but you'll pay it off sooner. I can neither confirm nor deny that an internship counts as job experience in the field for the purpose of mortgage lending. It sounds logical, especially if it were a paid internship (in which case you'd just call it a \"\"job\"\"), but I can't be sure as I don't know of anyone who got a mortgage without accruing the necessary job experience post-graduation. A loan officer will be happy to talk to you and answer specific questions, but if you go in today, with no credit history (the student loan probably hasn't even entered repayment) and a lot of unknowns (an offer can be rescinded, for instance), you are virtually certain to be denied a mortgage. The bank is going to want evidence that you will make good on the debt you have over time. One $10,000 payment on the loan, though significant, is just one payment as far as your credit history (and credit score) is concerned. Now, a few more reality checks: $70k/yr is not what you'll be bringing home. As a single person without dependents, you'll be taxed at the highest possible withholdings rate. Your effective tax rate on $70k, depending on the state in which you live, can be as high as 30% (including all payroll/SS taxes, for a 1099 earner and/or an employee in a state with an income tax), so you're actually only bringing home 42k/yr, or about $1,600/paycheck if you're paid biweekly. To that, add a decent chunk for your group healthcare plan (which, as of 2014, you will be required to buy, or else pay another $2500 - effectively another 3% of gross earnings - in taxes). And even now with your first job, you should be at least trying to save up a decent chunk o' change in a 401k or IRA as a retirement nest egg. That student loan, beginning about 6 months after you leave school, will cost you about $555/mo in monthly payments for the next 10 years (if it's all Stafford loans with a 50/50 split between sub/unsub; that could be as much as $600/mo for all-unsub Stafford, or $700 or more for private loans). If you were going to pay all that back in two years, you're looking at paying a ballpark of $2500/mo leaving just $700 to pay all your bills and expenses each month. With a 3-year payoff plan, you're turning around one of your two paychecks every month to the student loan servicer, which for a bachelor is doable but still rather tight. Your mortgage payment isn't the only payment you will make on your house. If you get an FHA loan with 3.5% down, the lender will demand PMI. The city/county will likely levy a property tax on the assessed value of land and building. The lender may require that you purchase home insurance with minimum acceptable coverage limits and deductibles. All of these will be paid into escrow accounts, managed by your lending bank, from a single check you send them monthly. I pay all of these, in a state (Texas) that gets its primary income from sales and property tax instead of income, and my monthly payment isn't quite double the simple P&I. Once you have the house, you'll want to fill the house. Nice bed: probably $1500 between mattress and frame for a nice big queen you can stretch out on (and have lady friends over). Nice couch: $1000. TV: call it $500. That's probably the bare minimum you'll want to buy to replace what you lived through college with (you'll have somewhere to eat and sleep other than the floor of your new home), and we're already talking almost a month's salary, or payments of up to 10% of your monthly take-home pay over a year on a couple of store credit cards. Plates, cookware, etc just keeps bumping this up. Yes, they're (theoretically) all one-time costs, but they're things you need, and things you may not have if you've been living in dorms and eating in dining halls all through college. The house you buy now is likely to be a \"\"starter\"\", maybe 3bed/2bath and 1600 sqft at the upper end (they sell em as small as 2bd/1bt 1100sqft). It will support a spouse and 2 kids, but by that point you'll be bursting at the seams. What happens if your future spouse had the same idea of buying a house early while rates were low? The cost of buying a house may be as little as 3.5% down and a few hundred more in advance escrow and a couple other fees the seller can't pay for you. The cost of selling the same house is likely to include all the costs you made the seller pay when you bought it, because you'll be selling to someone in the same position you're in now. I didn't know it at the time I bought my house, but I paid about $5,000 to get into it (3.5% down and 6 months' escrow up front), while the sellers paid over $10,000 to get out (the owner got married to another homeowner, and they ended up selling both houses to move out of town; I don't even know what kind of bath they took on the house we weren't involved with). I graduated in 2005. I didn't buy my first house until I was married and pretty much well-settled, in 2011 (and yes, we were looking because mortgage rates were at rock bottom). We really lucked out in terms of a home that, if we want to or have to, we can live in for the rest of our lives (only 1700sqft, but it's officially a 4/2 with a spare room, and a downstairs master suite and nursery/office, so when we're old and decrepit we can pretty much live downstairs). I would seriously recommend that you do the same, even if by doing so you miss out on the absolute best interest rates. Last example: let's say, hypothetically, that you bite at current interest rates, and lock in a rate just above prime at 4%, 3.5% down, seller pays closing, but then in two years you get married, change jobs and have to move. Let's further suppose an alternate reality in which, after two years of living in an apartment, all the same life changes happen and you are now shopping for your first house having been pre-approved at 5%. That one percentage point savings by buying now, on a house in the $200k range, is worth about $120/mo or about $1440/yr off of your P&I payment ($921.42 on a $200,000 home with a 30-year term). Not chump change (over 30 years if you had been that lucky, it's $43000), but it's less than 5% of your take-home pay (month-to-month or annually). However, when you move in two years, the buyer's probably going to want the same deal you got - seller pays closing - because that's the market level you bought in to (low-priced starters for first-time homebuyers). That's a 3% commission for both agents, 1% origination, 0.5%-1% guarantor, and various fixed fees (title etc). Assuming the value of the house hasn't changed, let's call total selling costs 8% of the house value of $200k (which is probably low); that's $16,000 in seller's costs. Again, assuming home value didn't change and that you got an FHA loan requiring only 3.5% down, your down payment ($7k) plus principal paid (about another $7k; 6936.27 to be exact) only covers $14k of those costs. You're now in the hole $2,000, and you still have to come up with your next home's down payment. With all other things being equal, in order to get back to where you were in net worth terms before you bought the house (meaning $7,000 cash in the bank after selling it), you would need to stay in the house for 4 and a half years to accumulate the $16,000 in equity through principal payments. That leaves you with your original $7,000 down payment returned to you in cash, and you're even in accounting terms (which means in finance terms you're behind; that $7,000 invested at 3% historical average rate of inflation would have earned you about $800 in those four years, meaning you need to stick around about 5.5 years before you \"\"break even\"\" in TVM terms). For this reason, I would say that you should be very cautious when buying your first home; it may very well be the last one you'll ever buy. Whether that's because you made good choices or bad is up to you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b8518ab561569554ce809f6be732522a",
"text": "\"I haven't dealt with this kind of thing in any way, but I found some quotes from IRS publications which I think are relevant and hopefully help. Your scenario sounds to me like a Qualified Tuition Reduction as described in Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education. It appears the rules are different for graduate study as opposed to pre-graduate work, though I don't see anything about any dollar amount limit. There are various requirements and exceptions, so hopefully reading through that section of the publication can help you understand whether the benefit is supposed to be taxable. If taxable, it should show up on your W-2 like any other income: Any tuition reduction that is taxable should be included as wages on your Form W-2, box 1. Report the amount from Form W-2, box 1, on line 7 (Form 1040 or Form 1040A) or line 1 (Form 1040EZ). It doesn't appear that there is any special designation or box for the tuition reduction as opposed to \"\"normal\"\" work, it just is income that's been earned like any other. If you need guidance on how much of the income is for \"\"normal\"\" work and how much is for the tuition reduction, you probably need to see if you can figure it out from her pay stubs, or contact the university's HR department. Well, looking through the credits I see in Publication 970, there appear to be two possible credits: The \"\"American opportunity credit\"\" section, under \"\"No double benefit allowed\"\", says things like (my emphasis added): You can't do any of the following. ⋮ My understanding from reading through the section is that expenses are only excluded if they were tax-free, so that there can't be a double-dipping of benefits. If they're included as taxable income, I think they would count under your second interpretation, that the employer paid them like any other income, and your wife spent them as educational expenses just like other students, and they would qualify for educational credits. In fact, it explicitly states: Don't reduce qualified education expenses by amounts paid with funds the student receives as: Which sure sounds to me that anything that counts as W-2 Box 1 \"\"Wages\"\" would be payments received that then the expenses were logically paid separately from. The other credit, the \"\"Lifetime Learning Credit\"\", appears to use identical language (No double benefits; and don't reduce by wages). Obviously this is just from my looking through Publication 970; there may be more nuances here and for \"\"real\"\" advice you may want to speak more to the university HR department (who perhaps have dealt with this before) and/or a real tax advisor. You might also see if you can get any sort of a \"\"receipt\"\" or even a Form 1098-T from the university of what amount was paid on your wife's behalf, to help document it is truly that she was just paid more wages and spent them on classes as far as tax law is concerned.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a4db30f5527ac491782383a88de3bb97",
"text": "As an international student, the tuition is sky high. Typically, most students take loans for Education and start paying it back once they get a job. If you have exhausted your OPT period and have not got H1B, your options are either to go for further education(Hint: Phd), you can hope to cover living expense by part-time on campus job. This will give you additional time to look for a job and try for H1B again!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a03156df5f0b04b4961d56ac075f92a1",
"text": "I think you are overcomplicating the scenario by assuming a benefit that doesn't exist. Assume an employee earns 50k, before considering the MSP. The corporation wants to cover the MSP. They have two options: increase the salary to $50,900, or keep the salary the same and pay for the MSP directly. Both options increase the employee's taxable income by $900. Both options decrease the corporation's income by $900. Net tax for each is unchanged. *Note - I couldn't find any specific reference to the MSP in income tax documentation on either BC Finance's or CRA's website. I am assuming that it is treated as a regular cash benefit, though I am not 100% convinced this is the case. If I am wrong in this please provide a comment below.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e0eb8fd7848105c6f127549bf3f6cd33",
"text": "Here in Germany there is a special case. I am studying (and working a little on the side) and still receiving child benefits from the state which is like 190€/m. Because I am getting this I don't have to pay tuition which is 1k/y. If my side income would get over the boundary (which is like 9k/y) I would lose those benefits (~3.3k) and would have to pay insurance myself (I dont know how much that would be. 50-100/m I guess.) So getting a raise from 8k to 10k sounds nice as it is a 25% raise, but it actually means getting less.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b76696d67db305603bb641ac789dbae7",
"text": "Wouldn't this just have the same effect as student loans (ie: rising tuition costs)? If I'm a for-profit school and my students are now getting paid $X per semester for attending, why not just raise tuition by $X?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5431c2cab3cce56d9fee60d53221b49b",
"text": "(1). Is this right? Pretty much, though this is a really rudimentary way to think about it. (2). If it is, why is it that extensive services are provided by high margin companies competing for talent, rather then lower margin businesses looking to boost their profits by reducing their expenditures on employees (by cutting out the government)? It's the polar opposite of that. Google (and companies like that) do things like have a day care center on premises. The company staffs a day care center which has costs, then lets employees use it for free. This is a business expense for Google, and in relative terms, a considerably large business expense that a lower margin business could no afford. Employer healthcare is a tax protected expense for employees via section 125 of the tax code. The company portion of the healthcare costs are a deductible business expense to the company, as expected. Healthcare is different than most other expenses because the employee can forego income before it's effectively received which negates it from taxable income. This doesn't work for something like food purchased at a cafe on a Google complex. If employee money is being spent at a corporate cafe, it's taxable income being spent (though the cost of running the cafe is a tax deductible business expense to the company). There have been discussions in congress to assess a value as income to employees for services like on site child care and no cost employee cafeterias. To address your new example: For example, suppose John Doe makes $100,000 a year taxed at a rate of 20%, for a take home pay of $80,000. He spends $10,000 on food. His employer Corporation decides to give him all of his food and deduct it as a business expense - costing them $10,000. But now they can pay John Doe an amount so his take home pay will be reduced by $10,000 - $87,500 The company is now spending $97500 employing John Doe, for a savings of $2500$. This would be an audit prone administrative nightmare. Either You need John to submit receipts for reimbursement up to the $10,000 agreed upon amount which would require some kind of administrative staff, or After a very short period of time John forgets the abstract value of the food cost arrangement, that is only really benefiting the employer in the form of lower payroll expense, and is enticed away for more pay somewhere else anyway. The company may be saving $2,500, though again there will be an additional administrative expense of some sort, but John is only saving $500 ($97,500 * 0.20 - $100,000 * 0.20).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b3346a1b229db484ce324244ae755a29",
"text": "There is no document that I know of that stipulates otherwise. This can also be corroborated by the fact that RESP withdrawals are considered as income in the name of the student. Thus, so long as the student pays tuition and receives a T2202A slip from the educational institution, they should be able to claim tuition, education, and textbook amounts.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "37f715964f295b38201311d1f8d9b039",
"text": "In many ESPP programs (i.e. every one I've had the opportunity to be a part of in my career), your purchase is at a discount from the lower of the stock prices at the start and end of the period. So a before-tax 5% return is the minimum you should expect; if the price of the stock appreciates between July 1 and December 31, you benefit from that gain as well. More concretely: Stock closes at $10/share on July 1, and $11/share on December 31. The plan buys for you at $9.50/share. If you sell immediately, you clear $1.50/share in profit, or a nearly 16% pre-tax gain. If the price declines instead of increases, though, you still see that 5% guaranteed profit. Combine that with the fact that you're contributing every paycheck, not all at once at the start, and your implied annual rate of return starts to look pretty good. So if it was me, I'd pay the minimum on the student loan and put the excess into the ESPP.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
55decbabcf1ff5d7ea4da5af55edc020
|
How to get a credit card as a minor?
|
[
{
"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": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1589d69152a6c39b837a4cbea6147ad",
"text": "I have a job and would like to buy equipment for producing music at home and it would be easier for me to pay for the equipment monthly I just want to address your contention that it would be easier to pay monthly, with an interest calculation. Lets say you get a credit card with a very reasonable rate of 12% and you buy $2,500 of equipment. A typical credit card minimum payment is interest charges + 1% of the principle. You can see how this is going. You've paid nearly $200 to clear about $100 off your principle. Obviously paying the minimum payment will take forever to wipe out this debt. So you pay more, or maybe you get 0% interest for a while and take advantage of that. Paying $100 per month against $2,500 at 12% per year will take 29 months and cost about $390 in interest. At $200 per month it'll take 14 months and cost $184 in interest. Also note, you'll probably get an interest rate closer to 16 or 17%. It's always easier to pay small amounts frequently than it is to pay a lot of money all at once, that ease has a cost. If you're buying the gear to start a little business, or you already have a little business going and want to upgrade some gear, great; disciplined debt handling is a wonderful skill to have in business. If you want to start yourself in to a new hobby, you should not do that with debt. If interest rates are low enough financing something can make sense. 0.9% apr on a car, sure; 15% apr on a mixing board, no. Credit card interest rates are significant and really should not be trifled with.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "db39d960adc97bf1d05e0c089f4b5395",
"text": "If you've never had a credit card before a likely reason can be due to lack of credit history. You can apply for a department store card. Nordstroms, Macy's, Target will often grant a small line of credit even with no history. Target would be my first attempt as they have a wide selection of every day items, improving your usage on the card. If you've been denied due to too many applications, then you need to wait 18-24 months for the hard pulls to drop off your credit report before you apply again.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0659a4bed498947c7ee0553fab7d390c",
"text": "Consider getting yourself a gas card. Use it for a year. Make your payments on time. Then reapply for a credit card.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1bbc34e4d32a5731d1a209476eba084e",
"text": "Go to the states on vacation. Get a virtual (or friend's) address. Get an ITIN from the IRS. Open a bank account. Get a secured credit card on your next trip from Capital One – add as much money as you can afford. One year later, you should have a decent credit score.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d0741eee12de03a7beb55b8a9fe3b40",
"text": "Set up a meeting with the bank that handles your business checking account. Go there in person and bring your business statements: profit and loss, balance sheet, and a spreadsheet showing your historical cash flow. The goal is to get your banker to understand your business and your needs and also for you to be on a first-name basis with your banker for an ongoing business relationship. Tell them you want to establish credit and you want a credit card account with $x as the limit. Your banker might be able to help push your application through even with your credit history. Even if you can't get the limit you want, you'll be on your way and can meet again with your banker in 6 or 12 months. Once your credit is re-established you'll be able to shop around and apply for other rewards cards. One day you might want a line of credit or a business loan. Establishing a relationship with your banker ahead of time will make that process easier if and when the time comes. Continue to meet with him or her at least annually, and bring updated financial statements each time. If nothing else, this process will help you analyze your business, so the process itself is useful even if nothing comes of it immediately.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0276920227cc0ceab7fc64798c89867b",
"text": "\"GreenLight offers a paid service for $5 per month that requires an adult primary account holder, and then unlimited accounts, including minors, as part of that service. I saw no minimum age requirement (see section \"\"Minors as Sub-Account Cardholders\"\"). https://www.greenlightcard.com/index.html Disclaimer: I haven't tried this service\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "65d9835f86fa210b70fdb53be783b9df",
"text": "\"I answered a similar question, How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score?, in which I show a graph of how utilization impacts your score. In another answer to Should I keep a credit card open to maintain my credit score?, I discuss the makeup of your score. From your own view at Credit Karma, you can see that age of accounts will help your score, so now is the time to get the right cards and stay with them. My background is technology (electrical engineer) and MBA with a concentration in finance. I'm not a Psychology major. If one is undisciplined, credit can destroy them. If one is disciplined, and pays in full each month, credit is a tool. The quoting of billionaires is a bit disingenuous. I've seen people get turned away at hotels for lack of a credit card. $1000 in cash would not get them into a $200/night room. Yes, a debit card can be used, but the rental car and hotel \"\"reserve\"\" a large amount on the card, so if you don't have a high balance, you may be out of town and out of luck. I'll quote another oft-quoted guru: \"\"no one gets rich on credit card rewards.\"\" No, but I'm on track to pay for my 13 year old's last semester in college with the rewards from a card that goes right into her account. It will be great to make that withdrawal and not need to take the funds from anywhere else. The card has no fee, and I've not paid them a dime in interest. By the way, with 1-20% utilization ideal, you want your total available credit to be 5X the highest monthly balance you'd every hit. Last - when you have a choice between 2% cash reward, and the cash discount Kevin manages, take the discount, obviously.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c79f2e2c120b60e4f3b95c05270dbedf",
"text": "See what your current card requires for additional cards. When my daughter turned 16, and I ordered a card for her, I realized the issuer didn't ask for her social security number, only a name and address. That's when I also ordered a card with my pseudonym. Which I believe is what you're looking for. I realize that you prefer no name at all, but any online site where you place an order will require you to fill in that name field .",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6b225d028539fb9f6cdad851859747e3",
"text": "Get a credit card is NOT the answer. The reason people have a bad (or no) credit score is often because they're new to the country, have just turned 18, have previously fallen into arrears or are just bad with money. Getting a credit card is risky because, if you don't stay on top of your payments, it'll just damage your score even more. Now, it sounds like I hate credit cards - but I don't, and they do have their benefits. But avoid them if possible because they can be more hassle than they're worth (ie, paying the credit back on-time, cancelling accounts when the interest comes in, moving money in and out of accounts). It's risky borrowing money from anywhere whether it's a payday lender, a bank, a credit card, etc., so use them as a last resort. If you've got your own income then that's amazing!, try not to live outside of your means and your credit score will look after (and increase) itself. It takes time to build a good credit score, but always make sure you pay the people you owe on time and the full amount. I'd stick with paying your phone provider (and any other direct debits you have setup) and avoid getting a credit card. I'd recommend Noddle to keep track of your credit score and read their FAQ on how to help build it. Unlike Experian, it's free forever so not quite as detailed... but Noddle are owned by CallCredit - one of the biggest Credit Reference Agencies in the UK so they should have the latest information on yourself. In conclusion, if you already have financial commitments like a mobile phone bill, gym membership, store cards, anything that gets paid monthly by direct debit... your credit score will increase (provided you pay the full-amount on time). I hope this helps. PS. I don't work for any of the companies here, but I've been working in the finance sector (more specifically, short-term loans) for 3+ years now.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "61b0685c3c238b673e542d11a009bcaf",
"text": "I'm not certain if you can get a debit card with it, but if you have a PNC in your area, they have a special kind of account designed around teaching financial literacy to children: https://www1.pnc.com/sisforsavings/tour.html . I'm not sure if you can get a debit card for the child or not, but the custodian gets one I believe, and the child gets a special online login to manage the money, so if you don't mind the name issue, it might be worth looking into. If you don't have PNC, maybe one of the banks in your area have a similar program?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "953b47450cda011d6803d18a238445f0",
"text": "When you start living in US, it doesn't actually matter what was your Credit history in another country. Your Credit History in US is tied to your SSN (Social Security Number), which will be awarded once you are in the country legally and apply for it. Getting an SSN also doesn't guarantee you nothing and you have to build your credit history slowly. Opening a Checking or Savings account will not help you in building a credit history. You need to have some type of Credit Account (credit card, car loan, mortgage etc.) linked to your SSN to start building your credit history. When you are new to US, you probably won't find any bank that will give you a Credit Card as you have no Credit history. One alternative is to apply for a secured credit card. A secured credit card is one you get by putting money or paying money to a bank and open a Credit Card against that money, thereby the bank can be secure that they won't lose any money. Once you have that, you can use that to build up your credit history slowly and once you have a good credit history and score, apply for regular Credit Card or apply for a car loan, mortgage etc. When I came to US 8 years ago, my Credit History was nothing, even though I had pretty good balance and credit history back in my country. I applied for secured credit card by paying $500 to a bank ( which got acquired by CapitalOne ), got it approved and used it for everything, for three years. I applied for other cards in the mean time but got rejected every time. Finally got approved for a regular credit card after three years and in one year added a mortgage and car loan, which helped me to get a decent score now. And Yes, a good Credit Score is important and essential for renting an apartment, leasing a car, getting a Credit Card etc. but normally your employer can always arrange for an apartment given your situation or you need to share apartment with someone else. You can rent a car without and credit score, but need a valid US / International Drivers license and a Credit Card :-) Best option will be to open a secured credit card and start building your credit. When your wife and family arrives, they also will be assigned individual SSN and can start building their credit history themselves. Please keep in mind that Credit Score and Credit History is always individual here...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5c6e66187675209e5b49f55a3dded01b",
"text": "A bank or credit card agency can deny your application for pretty much any reason. That said, it's extremely unlikely they'd do so for a secured credit card. This is because the credit is secured. If your sister is to get a card with, say, a $1000 limit, she will have to provide $1000 in security. This means the banks risk practically nothing. That said, I have found one reference that claims you need a score of above 600 to qualify for a secured credit card, though this is hard to believe. Secured credit cards are a reasonable way of building your credit back up. Just about the only other way for her credit rating to improve is for her history of bad debt to fall off the credit report, but that's going to take quite some time. She should be working hard to provide positive credit history to replace the old negative history, assuming her credit rating is important to her. It may not be; it's only important if she plans on taking on debt in the future. Honestly, a credit rating of around 500 is so bad that I wouldn't even worry much about lowering it. It's already low enough as to make it all but impossible to qualify for (unsecured) credit or loans. A single denial is unlikely to significantly affect the score, except in the very short term. With two bankruptcies, I encourage credit counselling for your sister. There are a number of good books available, too. Credit counselling should go into detail on credit scores, unsecured credit, proper budgeting, and all that sort of useful information.",
"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": "49b743482fb6c3ce7ded4219b2149524",
"text": "Three things prevent you from doing this: Credit cards generally don't accept other credit cards as payment. You could do this with a cash advance or balance transfer, but Cash advances and balance transfers usually have fees associated with them, negating any reward you might earn. Your card might have a no-fee balance transfer promotion going, but Cash advances and balance transfers generally aren't eligible for rewards.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6ec5bf02eb05a8458978817549471a9f",
"text": "\"When I was in high school, my mom got me a joint credit account with both of our names on it for exactly this reason. Well, that, and to have in case I found myself in some sort emergency, but it was mostly to build credit history. That account is still on my credit report (it's my oldest by a few years), and looking at the age of it, I was 17 at the time we opened it (and I think my younger sister got one around the same time). In my case, I now have an \"\"excellent\"\" credit score and my weakest area is the age of my accounts, so having that old account definitely helps me. I don't think I've really taken advantage of it, and I'm not sure if I'd really be worse off if my mom hadn't done that, but it certainly hasn't hurt. And I plan on buying a house in the next year or so, so having anything to bump up the credit score seems like a good thing.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cd8535f2a21689319c494ef19e6fb189",
"text": "\"Most banks offer prepaid cards nowadays that should fit the bill here. I would recommend first checking with your bank to see what they offer, as that's probably the easiest, and perhaps cheapest, option. My bank, for example, has an entirely fee-free prepaid card that, while marketed towards teens, is entirely applicable for this case. Other banks seem to offer similar products; some of them have more or less fees, but almost all that I've seen are better than the commercial products you'd find in a grocery store. As an example (and I don't know anything about it so I don't specifically recommend this, just exemplifying what I mean): Note that the fees vary, some should be able to be used without ever incurring fees and some have fees you won't avoid. Most seem to have the concept of \"\"sponsor\"\", or NFCU inverts it (you are the cardholder, your dad would be the \"\"companion cardholder\"\"), but in either way it means you can load money (and generally would be the sole money loader) and your dad could then spend it. If your bank doesn't offer what you want, you may want to consider getting an account with a provider that offers what you're looking for, so to make deposits easier. Most of these allow deposits from other sources than checking accounts with that bank, but in many cases you may incur a fee or take longer for the money to clear.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
bc0125dd2bdb71846e58ebc7aa687d45
|
Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord?
|
[
{
"docid": "9b9b6bd0da39b12ed4ac17e04daefd67",
"text": "\"Here are the issues, as I see them - It's not that I don't trust banks, but I just feel like throwing all of our money into intangible investments is unwise. Banks have virtually nothing to do with this. And intangible assets has a different meaning than you assume. You don't have to like the market, but try to understand it, and dislike it for a good reason. (Which I won't offer here). Do your 401(k) accounts offer company match? When people start with \"\"we'd like to reduce our deposits\"\" that's the first thing we need to know. Last - you plan to gain \"\"a few hundred dollars a month.\"\" I bet it's closer to zero or a loss. I'll return to edit, we have recent posts here that reviewed the expenses to consider, and I'd bet that if you review the numbers, you've ignored some of them. \"\"A few hundred\"\" - say it's $300. Or $4000/yr. It would take far less work and risk to simply save $100K in your retirement accounts to produce this sum each year. The investment may very well be excellent. I'm just offering the flip side, things you might have missed. Edit - please read the discussion at How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? The answers offer a good look at the list of expenses you need to consider. In my opinion, this is one of the most important things. I've seen too many new RE investors \"\"forget\"\" about so many expenses, a projected monthly income reverts to annual losses.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "07879fbd5435f8dae93d0837a5e1bb5e",
"text": "As a general rule, diversification means carrying sufficient amounts in cash equivalents, stocks, bonds, and real estate. An emergency fund should have six months income (conservative) or expenses (less conservative) in some kind of cash equivalent (like a savings account). As you approach retirement, that number should increase. At retirement, it should be something like five years of expenses. At that time, it is no longer an emergency fund, it's your everyday expenses. You can use a pension or social security to offset your effective monthly expenses for the purpose of that fund. You should five years net expenses after income in cash equivalents after retirement. The normal diversification ratio for stocks, bonds, and real estate is something like 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate. You can count the equity in your house as part of the real estate share. For most people, the house will be sufficient diversification into real estate. That said, you should not buy a second home as an investment. Buy the second home if you can afford it and if it makes you happy. Then consider if you want to keep your first home as an investment or just sell it now. Look at your overall ownership to determine if you are overweighted into real estate. Your primary house is not an investment, but it is an ownership. If 90% of your net worth is real estate, then you are probably underinvested in securities like stocks and bonds. 50% should probably be an upper bound, and 20% real estate would be more diversified. If your 401k has an employer match, you should almost certainly put enough in it to get the full match. I prefer a ratio of 70-75% stocks to 25-30% bonds at all ages. This matches the overall market diversification. Rebalance to stay in that range regularly, possibly by investing in the underweight security. Adding real estate to that, my preference would be for real estate to be roughly a quarter of the value of securities. So around 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% real estate. A 50% share for real estate is more aggressive but can work. Along with a house or rental properties, another option for increasing the real estate share is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). These are essentially a mutual fund for real estate. This takes you out of the business of actively managing properties. If you really want to manage rentals, make sure that you list all the expenses. These include: Also be careful that you are able to handle it if things change. Perhaps today there is a tremendous shortage of rental properties and the vacancy rate is close to zero. What happens in a few years when new construction provides more slack? Some kinds of maintenance can't be done with tenants. Also, some kinds of maintenance will scare away new tenants. So just as you are paying out a large amount of money, you also aren't getting rent. You need to be able to handle the loss of income and the large expense at the same time. Don't forget the sales value of your current house. Perhaps you bought when houses were cheaper. Maybe you'd be better off taking the current equity that you have in that house and putting it into your new house's mortgage. Yes, the old mortgage payment may be lower than the rent you could get, but the rent over the next thirty years might be less than what you could get for the house if you sold it. Are you better off with minimal equity in two houses or good equity with one house? I would feel better about this purchase if you were saying that you were doing this in addition to your 401k. Doing this instead of your 401k seems sketchy to me. What will you do if there is another housing crash? With a little bad luck, you could end up underwater on two mortgages and unable to make payments. Or perhaps not underwater on the current house, but not getting much back on a sale either. All that said, maybe it's a good deal. You have more information about it than we do. Just...be careful.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18a41c6e82cb828cc6beeb5ccba6f277",
"text": "\"With a healthy income its quite possible to contribute too much into 401Ks/IRAs. For example, if your retired today and had 3 million or so, how much more would you need? Would an extra million materially change your life? Would it make you happier if you invested that extra in some rental properties or perhaps a business like a sandwich or ice cream shop where you have more direct control? This kind of discussion is possible as you indicate that you have taken care of your life financially. It seems at odds with the negative press describing the woefully condition of the standard person's finances. These articles ignore a very simple fact: its because of bad behavior. You, on the contrary, have behaved well and are in the process of reaping rewards. This is where I feel your \"\"mental gymnastics\"\" originates. Looking to engage in the rental market is no different then buying a franchise. You are opening a business of your own. You'll have to educate yourself and are likely to make a few mistakes that will cause you to write checks to solve. Your goal is to minimize those mistakes. After all, what do you know about the rental home business? I am guessing not much. Educate yourself. Read and spend some money on taking knowledgeable people out for coffee. In the end you should understand that although a poor decision may cost you money you cannot really make a bad decision. Lets say you do buy a rental property, things go south, you sell for a loss, etc.... In the end the \"\"butchers bill\"\" is 50K or so. Will that materially change your life? Probably not. The worst case is perhaps you have to work a year or two beyond the anticipated retirement age to make up that money. No big deal.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1a29ce550ddfbbadce743b145cad0a2",
"text": "This is going to seem pretty far off the beaten path, but I hope when you finish reading it you'll see the point... Suppose someone offered you a part time job: Walk their dog once per day for at least 20 minutes, and once per week pick up the dog poo from their lawn. Your compensation is $300/month. Now suppose instead you are given two choices for a job: Your preference probably has more to do with your personality and interests than the finances involved.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "9c6049b7f0f02c8b3d88fd94a38a84ea",
"text": "I kind of hate piling on with another opinion, but this is too long for a comment. I did what you are thinking of doing, I would at least try renting it for a couple years so long as: The primary risks of renting are mostly related to unexpected costs and bad tenants, you've got a very healthy income, so as long as you maintain a nice emergency fund it doesn't sound like keeping this property as a rental will be too much risk. If the rental market is strong where your house is, then you have a better chance of avoiding bad tenants. I like to keep my rent a little lower than the max I think it could go for, to attract more applications and hopefully find someone who will be a good longer term tenant. Tax-free gains So long as you lived in your house 2 of the last 5 years, you can sell without paying capital gains tax on your profit, so you could try renting it for 2 years and then sell. That was a key for me when I converted my first house to a rental. I liked that flexibility, there's still the typical renting risks associated, but it's not a lifelong commitment. You can get 2 years of increased equity/appreciation tax-free, or you could find you enjoy it and keep it for the long haul.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e9608373ac4641fd3bf118810516a650",
"text": "\"In asnwer to your questions: As @joetaxpayer said, you really should look into a Solo 401(k). In 2017, this allows you to contribute up to $18k/year and your employer (the LLC) to contribute more, up to $54k/year total (subject to IRS rules). 401(k) usually have ROTH and traditional sides, just like IRA. I believe the employer-contributed funds also see less tax burden for both you and your LLC that if that same money had become salary (payroll taxes, etc.). You might start at irs.gov/retirement-plans/one-participant-401k-plans and go from there. ROTH vs. pre-tax: You can mix and match within years and between years. Figure out what income you want to have when you retire. Any year you expect to pay lower taxes (low income, kids, deductions, etc.), make ROTH contributions. Any year you expect high taxes (bonus, high wage, taxable capital gains, etc.), make pre-tax payments. I have had a uniformly bad experience with target date funds across multiple 401(k) plans from multiple plan adminstrators. They just don't perform well (a common problem with almost any actively managed fund). You probably don't want to deal with individual stocks in your retirement accounts, so rather pick passively managed index funds that track various markets segments you care about and just sit on them. For example, your high-risk money might be in fast-growing but volatile industries (e.g. tech, aerospace, medical), your medium-risk money might go in \"\"total market\"\" or S&P 500 index funds, and your low-risk money might go in treasury notes and bonds. The breakdown is up to you, but as an 18 year old you have a ~50 year horizon and so can afford to wait out anything short of another Great Depression (and maybe even that). So you'd want generally you want more or your money in the high-risk high-return category, rebalancing to lower risk investments as you age. Diversifying into real estate, foreign investments, etc. might also make sense but I'm no expert on those.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1baa35d090f2f92a23c1fdeacd016e8c",
"text": "\"Does your current 401(k) have low fees and good investment choices? If so you might be able to \"\"roll-in\"\" your rollover IRA to your 401(k), then do a backdoor Roth IRA contribution. A Roth IRA would be far more useful than a non-deductible traditional IRA.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "908961df089838354f7ea512ee03d06e",
"text": "\"I would like to buy hubby a beer and talk some sense into him. Do you have 2 years gross income saved as your retirement balance? That's about where he should be at age 30. I wrote about this in an article Retirement Savings Ratio. Blowing the 401(k) for anything less than an extreme emergency is downright foolish. The decision whether to roll it to an IRA or the new account isn't so simple. If you roll it to new plan, yes you can borrow, up to 60 months at a low rate, 4% or so. Taking the cash and then making an IRA deposit just means paying the penalty for nothing, unless you manage it just right, depositing the amount within 60 day, etc. You don't mention what he wants to do with it. You need to sit down and have a long \"\"money talk.\"\" Keep in mind, if you oversave, it's easy to retire early, or at 50 just stop saving, spend every new dime. But it's something else to turn 50 and realize you will have to work till you die. I've seen both situations. (I am 48, the Mrs, 54 our multiple is now 13. The target is 20 to retire. The house is not counted as it can't be spent. The mortgage IS counted as it must be paid) Edit - as I read this again, I see the OP asked about opening an IRA in the same year they withdraw the 401(k) and pay tax and penalty. Wow. I also see her user reverted to generic, which means, I think, she's never returned. I hope they made the right decision, to keep the money in retirement accounts. Hubby never even said what he wanted the money for.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "54c8b95482efb17d27bb5df4bdffc267",
"text": "My answer would be yes. In addition, I'm not sure that anything requires you to roll your current 401(k) into a new one if you don't like the investment options. Keeping existing funds in your current 401(k) if you like their investment options might make sense for you (though they obviously wouldn't be adding funds once you're no longer an employee). As for the terms of the potential new 401(k), the matching percentage and vesting schedule match what I've seen at past employers. My current employer offers the same terms, but there's no vesting schedule.",
"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": "b4a947c1b4a02e26f333a174d8090296",
"text": "If your employer does not offer contribution matching, and you don't like the range of investment options provided by the company 401k, then you probably are better off investing in your own IRA instead. In an IRA held at a bank or brokerage, you can invest in multiple stocks or funds and move money around within the IRA pretty freely in most cases. If your company is doing well and is actually sharing profit into the 401k, you might consider leaving your 5% contribution to the 401k where it is and put the other 5% you are planning to contribute into a new IRA of your own. This straddles the risk of you losing money if your company 401k tanks (or profit sharing dries up) and your missing out on profit sharing if it continues to pay well.",
"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": "20663595c8334d2587d0d9cec3ca94f7",
"text": "The plan is perfectly valid and legal as tax rules currently stand. There is no limit to the amount you can rollover or convert to Roth. Assuming your 401(k) is traditional pre-tax, you'll have to pay income taxes on the amount you convert above personal exemption + standard deduction, which is currently about $10k/year for single filers. The other caveat is you'll need funds to live off of while your conversion money is seasoning for 5 years in your Roth IRA. If you start the conversion while you are still working, you'll be paying taxes on it in your marginal bracket, which will negate much of the benefit of the pre-tax 401(k). If your living expenses are low, you can convert about $10k/year without federal income taxes, while living off capital gains from a taxable account which have a 0% rate in the 15% income tax bracket (goes up to about $37k/year).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "048dbe98016d45e8ce3e54b597459f48",
"text": "\"As long as you're willing to pay the taxes and the penalties, once you're no longer employed you're allowed to do whatever you want. You can always do an \"\"direct roll-over\"\" (See IRC Sec. 401(a)(31)(A) which mandates this) and then withdraw from another qualified account, thus creating a withdrawal, if they refuse to just mail you a check (Why would they care? Don't know). The match may have some vesting restrictions, though. Your own contributions - are yours to do with whatever you feel like. That said, just pointing out the obvious - it's a very bad idea. Unless you expect to die before you're 60 and don't want to leave a dime to your heirs, you would probably be better off leaving it in a tax-sheltered account. If the custodian is bad - just roll over elsewhere, there's tons of excellent IRA providers.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "158a63615addb9a4abf5b13f930e9c11",
"text": "It is great that you came up with a plan to own a rental home, free and clear, and also move up in home. It is also really good of you to recognize that curtailing spending has a profound effect on your net worth, many people fail to acknowledge that factoid and prefer to instead blame things outside their control. Good work there. Here are some items of your plan that I have comments on. 11mo by aggressively curtailing elective spending How does your spouse feel about this? They have to be on board, but it is such a short time frame this is very doable. cashing out all corporate stock, This will probably trigger capital gains. You have to be prepared to pay the tax man, but this is a good source of cash for your plan. You also have to have an additional amount that will likely be due next April 15th. redirecting all contributions to my current non-matched R401(k) This is fine as well because of the short time frame. withdrawing the principal from a Roth IRA This I kind of hate. We are so limited in money that we can put into tax favored plans, that taking money out bothers me. Also it is that much more difficult to save in a ROTH because of the sting of taxes. I would not do this, but would favor instead to take a few extra months to make your plan happen. buy home #2 How are you going to have a down payment for home #2? Is your intention to pay off home and save a while, then purchase home #2? I would do anything to avoid PMI. Besides I would take some time to live in a paid for house. Overall I would grade your plan a B. If take a bit longer, and remove the withdrawing from the ROTH, it then becomes an A-. With a good explanation of how you come up with the down payment for house 2, you could easily move to an A+.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f98e2c40271286a1f613521f95a2ab21",
"text": "Unless you plan to sell your home and live in a box during your retirement I wouldn't consider it an investment that is a viable replacement for a retirement account. Consider this: Even if housing prices DO go way up, you still need a place to live. When you sell that house and try to buy another one to live in, you will find that the other houses went up in price too, negating your gain. The only way this might work is if you buy a much bigger house than you will need later and trade down to pull out some equity, or consider a reverse-mortgage for retirement income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "00b9e39c2ab056cafe629fed477dab86",
"text": "Do not borrow to invest in real estate. The interest payments will eat up most of your profit (the property management fees might eat up the rest), and you will have significant risk with tenant issues, property value, etc. Many people have made it work - many also lose everything. Real estate can be a great investment, but you can't even afford a house of your own yet, let alone investment property. Keep saving up until you have 20% down to buy a house of your own (ideally that you can put on a 15% fixed mortgage), and pay it off as quickly as you can. Then you can start saving for your first rental property. If that process isn't fast enough for you, you have two options. Increase your income or reduce your expenses. There's no shortcut to wealth-building without taking significant risks. At most I would scale back the 401(k) to the 5% match you get, but you should scale that back up once you have enough for a down payment.",
"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": "321f8df72cabe30c161471135e16fa5e",
"text": "There is a process called a backdoor IRA. You now have effectively made a Roth IRA contribution in a year where technically you aren't eligible. You do not have to pay taxes on earnings with a Roth IRA. You are limited to the normal annual contribution to the IRA (Roth or traditional). If you don't convert your traditional IRA contribution to a Roth IRA, then you are right. That gains nothing except enhanced protection in bankruptcy. Only do this if you are taking advantage of the Roth rollover. I'm ignoring rolling over a 401k into an IRA, as that doesn't increase the amount you can contribute. This does. You can contribute the full $18,000 to the 401k and still make a full contribution to the backdoor IRA. This is the tax advantaged form of an IRA. This avoids double taxation. Let's assume that your investment can go into something with a 5% annual return and you pay a 25% tax rate (doesn't matter as it drops out). You are going to invest for thirty years and then withdraw. You initially have $1000 before taxes. With a regular investment: You now have $2867.74. With a pre-tax IRA. You now have $3241.45 (it is not an accident that this is almost the same as the amount before the capital gains tax in the example without an IRA). You avoided the $373.72 capital gains tax. Even though you paid a lot more tax, you paid it out of the gains from investing the original $250 that you would have paid in tax. This helps you even more if the capital gains tax goes up in the future. Or if your tax bracket changes. If you currently are in the 25% bracket but retire in the 15% bracket, these numbers will get even better in your favor. If you currently are in the 15% bracket and worry that you might retire in the 25% bracket, consider a Roth instead. It also avoids double taxation but its single taxation is at your current rate rather than your future rate.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4fb84aac7b6078eaa11ec13c19956bfe
|
How to report Canadian income from a small contract job?
|
[
{
"docid": "e78b35365288cf3823c4ae0b5e8b957f",
"text": "\"It's pretty easy. In the Interview Setup for Ufile, check the box for \"\"Self-employment business income\"\". Then during the process of filling everything out, you'll get a Self-Employment screen. It'll ask for the name of your business, but just put your own name since you don't have one. For the 6-digit classification code, click the ? button and look through the list for the industry that best matches the one for whom you wrote the technical report. Or you can go with 711500: Independent artists, writers and performers. It doesn't really matter that much so don't worry if it's a poor match. It will also ask you for your income and expenses. I don't know exactly what costs you might have incurred to write your report, but you can likely claim a very tiny amount of \"\"home office\"\" expenses. Costs like rent (or mortgage interest + property tax), utilities, and home insurance can be claimed, but they have to be pro-rated for the time you were actually doing the work, and are based on the amount of space you used for the work. For example, if you paid $1000 rent and $200 utilities for the month in which the work was done, and it took you 20 of the 31 days in that month to actually do the work, and you used a room that makes up about 10% of the square footage of your home, then you can claim: $1200 * 20/31 * 0.1 = $77.42 for your home office expenses. If you also used that room for non-business purposes during that time, then you reduce it even further. Say, if the room was also used for playing video games 50% of the time, then you'd only claim $38.71\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "4f23189bc5ab93bc85fe590c711b5301",
"text": "If you want to subcontract some of your excess work to somebody else, you better be in business! While some kinds of employees (e.g. commissioned salespeople) are permitted to deduct some expenses on their income tax, generally only a real business can deduct wages for additional employees, or the cost of services provided by subcontractors. Do you invoice your clients and charge HST (GST)? Or do you tell your clients each pay period how many hours you worked and they compensate you through their payroll system like everybody else that walks through the door? If you're not invoicing and charging HST (GST) (assuming you exceed the threshold, and if you have too much work, you probably do!), then perhaps your clients are treating you as an employee – by default – and withholding taxes, CPP, and EI so they don't get in trouble? After all, Canada Revenue Agency is likely to consider any person providing a service to a company to be an employee unless there is sufficient evidence to the contrary, and when there isn't enough evidence, it's the company paying for the services that would be on the hook for unpaid taxes, CPP, and EI. Carefully consider what form of business you are operating, or were intending to operate. It's essential for your business to be structured appropriately if you want to hire or subcontract. You ought to be either self-employed as a sole proprietor, or perhaps incorporated if it makes more sense to your situation. Next, act accordingly. For instance, it's likely that your business should be taking care of the source deductions, CPP, and EI. In fact, self-employed individuals shouldn't even be paying into EI – an independent contractor wouldn't qualify to make an EI claim if they lost a contract. As an independent, one doesn't have a job, one has a business, and EI doesn't cover the business itself, only the employees that the business deals with at arm's length. As a business owner, you would be considered non-arms-length, and exempt from EI. Growing your business in the way that you are suggesting is an important enough a step that you should seek professional advice in advance. Find a good accountant that deals with self-employed individuals & small businesses and run all this by him. He should be able to guide you accordingly. Find a lawyer, too. A lawyer can guide you on how to properly subcontract others while protecting you and your business. Finally, be mindful of what it is you agreed to in your contract with your client: Do they expect all services to be performed by you, personally? Even if it wasn't written down who exactly would be performing the services, there may be an assumption it's you. Some negotiation may be in order if you want to use subcontractors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b2c2a2438b925a7ca203cf52bfabeaf3",
"text": "You really shouldn't be using class tracking to keep business and personal operations separate. I'm pretty sure the IRS and courts frown upon this, and you're probably risking losing any limited liability you may have. And for keeping separate parts of the business separate, like say stores in a franchise, one approach would be subaccounts. Messy, I'm sure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ccde069c7755ed62ee56a93b5a2fb5fd",
"text": "I would suggest that you try ClearCheckbook. It is kind of like Mint, but you can add and remove things (graphs, features, modules) to make it as simple or diverse as you need it to be. It should be a workable solution for simply tracking both income and expenses, yet it will also provide extra features as needed. There is a free option as well as a paid option with added features. I have not used ClearCheckbook before, but according to their features page it looks like you may have to upgrade to the paid option if you want to have complete tagging/custom field flexibility.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fd27658674e7d86ccf10bc37cd400f6c",
"text": "\"I can say that I got X dollars from an account like \"\"Income:Benefits\"\"... but where do I credit that money to? \"\"Expenses:Groceries\"\" Yes doesn't feel right, since I never actually spent that money on food, You did, didn't you? You got food. I'm guessing there's an established convention for this already? Doubt it. Established conventions in accounting are for businesses, and more specifically - public companies. So you can find a GAAP, or IFRS guidelines on how to book benefits (hint: salary expense), but it is not something you may find useful in your own household accounting. Do what is most convenient for you. Since it is a double-booking system - you need to have an account on the other side. Expenses:Groceries doesn't feel right? Add Expenses:Groceries:Benefits or Expenses:Benefits or whatever. When you do your expense and cash-flow reports - you can exclude both the income and the expense benefits accounts if you track them separately, so that they don't affect your tracking of the \"\"real\"\" expenses.\"",
"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": "b018fe2ddb7dcc9bf08e6fffdb96fb4f",
"text": "\"Get an accountant. Now. There are many subtle things that you do not know especially if you are just starting with your own corporation. There is also an issue of corporate tax return that you will have to face pretty soon. You should be looking for accountant that does accounting for corporations, there are companies specializing in small business. I do not think you can \"\"just\"\" transfer money to your personal account. They have to be treated as dividends and treated as such for income tax purposes. Or, as you described, you may pay yourself a salary, but then you have to pay CPP and EI on top of that. When you pay yourself dividends your corporation will need to issue T5 slip for you (accountant will do that) that you will need to use when preparing personal tax return. If you pay yourself salary, corporation will need to give you T4 In terms of tax treatment, if we do not take RRSP contributions dividend tax treatment will leave little bit more money in your hands. I'd say if you have RRSP room and/or TFSA room, pay yourself dividends and then do contributions as you see fit, if you need RRSP room, pay yourself salary. TFSA room does not depend on the type of income, so if you have room there, consider filling it first.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "be8d414a0fd1c029f1c9ad663a449c4d",
"text": "I do NOT know the full answer but I know here are some important factors that you need to consider : Do you have a physical location in the United States? Are you working directly from Canada? With a office/business location in the United States your tax obligation to the US is much higher. Most likely you will owe some to the state in which your business is located in Payroll Tax : your employer will likely want to look into Payroll tax, because in most states the payroll tax threshold is very low, they will need to file payroll tax on their full-time, part-time employees, as well as contractor soon as the total amount in a fiscal year exceeds the threshold Related to No.1 do you have a social security number and are you legally entitled to working in the States as an individual. You will be receiving the appropriate forms and tax withholding info Related to No.3 if you don't have that already, you may want to look into how to obtain permissions to conduct business within the United States. Technically, you are a one person consulting service provider. You may need to register with a particular state to obtain the permit. The agency will also be able to provide you with ample tax documentations. Chances are you will really need to piece together multiple information from various sources to resolve this one as the situation is specific. To start, look into consulting service / contractor work permit and tax info for the state your client is located in. Work from state level up to kick start your research then research federal level, which can be more complex as it is technically international business service for Canada-US",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1f72824ef2b3072f154a0d2fa565ef4",
"text": "Depending on what software you use. It has to be reported as a foreign income and you can claim foreign tax paid as a foreign tax credit.",
"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": "5f1ba13982a5807efb36ceba54ef5776",
"text": "Hmm, let's see, I always get Credit and Debit mixed up, but I'll try: Signing of the contract: Receiving 500 deposit: When you are done Accounts Receivable will have $500 (because you are owed $500), Revenue will have $1000 (because you made $1000 on an accrual basis), and Cash will have $500 (because you have $500 in your pocket).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "96dd6e5df1c97fbe6e67dfe48966cbbf",
"text": "It doesn't make much difference in the end. Imagine you have $100 of revenue in your company. You can either pay it to yourself as salary, meaning that you don't pay corporate tax on it, or you can keep it in the company, pay corporate tax on it, then pay yourself a dividend of what is left. While that dividend will be treated better than salary, remember that the company already paid tax on it. You paying less on what's left doesn't equate to paying less overall. Go ahead and run the numbers using your actual corporate tax rate and your personal income tax rate. Try doing your whole salary as dividends - not dollar for dollar, but as how much the company would have as profit to give you a dividend if it didn't spend (and deduct) salary money on you. You are unlikely to see any difference at all. The net final money in your pocket, and the amount that went to the government, will probably be the same. If paying dividends keeps your earned income low, you may find that you can't use RRSP or childcare deductions. You are also not getting CPP credit. That's an argument for salary, or at least a certain minimum amount of salary. You have to deduct taxes at source on salary and send it along to the government, which is an argument for dividends if you feel you could invest that money and use it well before the taxes get around to being due. Possibly you may discover an edge case where you move a few thousand from one marginal tax rate to another and clear a few hundred extra as a result. I don't discourage you from doing the math, I just point out that the various percentages (tax rates, grossups, deductions etc) have all been carefully chosen so that it pretty much works out the same, or gives a small preference to salary. We give excess money to ourselves as bonus rather than dividend having run the numbers a few times. There's no secret trick here.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a7e2a606c97bfc5cfbd40ad6d732d447",
"text": "Generally, report your $150,000. If/when the the tax collectors notice the anomaly, they'll attempt to contact you to remedy it. I can't speak for Canada, but in the US, it's pretty orderly. The IRS requests additional information or proof and only open it up into a full blown audit if the suspect wrongdoing. In your case, you could show a business agreement detailing the revenue split proving you correctly reported. This is only for your consideration. I strongly recommending finding and keeping a professional tax advisor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f4c85a0ec524834a22e73607839809b",
"text": "I wrote a small Excel-based bookkeeping system that handles three things: income, expenses, and tax (including VAT, which you Americans can rename GST). Download it here.",
"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": "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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
ac532e838088bc52390e4ca57f0b0bfe
|
What is value investing? What are the key principles of value investing?
|
[
{
"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": "6185b178bed99afd98ae1c4d60cc2cee",
"text": "\"Fama-French would be a couple of names if you want to look at this from a value/growth dichotomy. A simplified form of this was to take the stocks with a lower Price/Book Value that would be the value stocks while the others would be the growth. The principle is that some of the beaten-down stocks will appreciate more than the growth stocks will. 6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today also makes note of the \"\"growth vs value\"\" split if you want another reference that way. Historically, growth has been more volatile and produced lower returns, though past performance isn't necessarily always going to hold as some people like to invest in what is known as a \"\"slice & dice\"\" portfolio where a portion in invested in each of 4 corners: Large-growth, large-value, small-growth, and small-value. Some may add in bonds, REITs, and foreign stocks but the idea is that in different years, different parts of the market will do better and this is a way to capture that in a sense.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "100c16089b98c6da4bdec9e3d52ba91b",
"text": "\"The raw question is as follows: \"\"You will be recommending a purposed portfolio to an investment committee (my class). The committee runs a foundation that has an asset base of $4,000,000. The foundations' dual mandates are to (a) preserve capital and (b) to fund $200,000 worth of scholarships. The foundation has a third objective, which is to grow its asset base over time.\"\" The rest of the assignment lays out the format and headings for the sections of the presentation. Thanks, by the way - it's an 8 week accelerated course and I've been out sick for two weeks. I've been trying to teach myself this stuff, including the excel calculations for the past few weeks.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a8f4d0b823ec45f1f14ee70df1183374",
"text": "It sounds to me like you may not be defining fundamental investing very well, which is why it may seem like it doesn't matter. Fundamental investing means valuing a stock based on your estimate of its future profitability (and thus cash flows and dividends). One way to do this is to look at the multiples you have described. But multiples are inherently backward-looking so for firms with good growth prospects, they can be very poor estimates of future profitability. When you see a firm with ratios way out of whack with other firms, you can conclude that the market thinks that firm has a lot of future growth possibilities. That's all. It could be that the market is overestimating that growth, but you would need more information in order to conclude that. We call Warren Buffet a fundamental investor because he tends to think the market has made a mistake and overvalued many firms with crazy ratios. That may be in many cases, but it doesn't necessarily mean those investors are not using fundamental analysis to come up with their valuations. Fundamental investing is still very much relevant and is probably the primary determinant of stock prices. It's just that fundamental investing encompasses estimating things like future growth and innovation, which is a lot more than just looking at the ratios you have described.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6bfdc5b647b5f94ef5ffe18b4b174c9a",
"text": "\"Despite Buffett's nearly perfect consistent advice over the past few decades, they don't reflect his earliest days. His modern philosophy seemed to solidify in the 1970s. You can see that Buffett's earliest days grew faster, at 29.5 % for those partners willing to take on leverage with Buffett, than the last half century, at 19.7%. Not only is Buffett limited by size, as its quite difficult to squeeze one half trillion USD into sub-billion USD investments, but the economy thus market is far different than it was before the 1980s. He would have to acquire at least 500 billion USD companies outright, and there simply aren't that many available that satisfy all of his modern conditions. The market is much different now than it was when he first started at Graham-Newman because before the 1960s, the economy thus market would collapse and rebound about every few years. This sort of variance can actually help a value investor because a true value investor will abandon investments when valuations are high and go all in when valuations are low. The most extreme example was when he tried to as quietly as possible buy up an insurance company selling for something like a P/E of 1 during one of the collapses. These kinds of opportunities are seldom available anymore, not even during the 2009 collapse. As he became larger, those investments became off limits because it simply wasn't worth his time to find such a high returner if it's only a bare fraction of his wealth. Also, he started to deviate from Benjamin Graham's methods and started to incorporate Philip Fisher's. By the 1970s, his investment philosophy was more or less cemented. He tried to balance Graham's avarice for price with Fisher's for value. All of the commentary that special tax dodges or cheap financing are central to his returns are false. They contributed, but they are ancillary. As one can see by comparing the limited vs general partners, leverage helps enormously, but this is still a tangent. Buffett has undoubtedly built his wealth from the nature of his investments. The exact blueprint can be constructed by reading every word he has published and any quotes he has not disavowed. Simply, he buys the highest quality companies in terms of risk-adjusted growth at the best available prices. Quantitatively, it is a simple strategy to replicate. NFLX was selling very cheaply during the mid-2000s, WDC sells frequently at low valuations, up and coming retailers frequently sell at low valuations, etc. The key to Buffett's method is emotional control and removing the mental block that price equals value; price is cost, value is revenue, and that concept is the hardest for most to imbibe. Quoting from the first link: One sidelight here: it is extraordinary to me that the idea of buying dollar bills for 40 cents takes immediately to people or it doesn't take at all. It's like an inoculation. If it doesn't grab a person right away, I find that you can talk to him for years and show him records, and it doesn't make any difference. They just don't seem able to grasp the concept, simple as it is. A fellow like Rick Guerin, who had no formal education in business, understands immediately the value approach to investing and he's applying it five minutes later. I've never seen anyone who became a gradual convert over a ten-year period to this approach. It doesn't seem to be a matter of IQ or academic training. It's instant recognition, or it is nothing. and I'm convinced that there is much inefficiency in the market. These Graham-and-Doddsville investors have successfully exploited gaps between price and value. When the price of a stock can be influenced by a \"\"herd\"\" on Wall Street with prices set at the margin by the most emotional person, or the greediest person, or the most depressed person, it is hard to argue that the market always prices rationally. In fact, market prices are frequently nonsensical. and finally Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing. There is almost no information on any who has helped Buffett internally or even managed Berkshire's investments aside from Louis Simpson. It is unlikely that Buffett has allowed anyone to manage much of Berkshire's investments considering the consistent stream of commentary from him claiming that he nearly does nothing except read annual reports all day to the extent that he may have neglected his family to some degree and that listening to others will more likely hurt performance than help with the most striking example being his father's recommendation that he not open a hedge fund after retiring from Graham-Newman because he believed the market was topping, and he absolutely idolized his father.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e3203580708f5da3c2fd8f0e3fa45ffb",
"text": "\"Every investment comes with a risk. There is also a bit of speculation involved. In there is an anticipation that one expects the value to go up in normal course of events. By your definition \"\"If I buy this equipment, I could produce more widgets, or sell more widgets,\"\" as an investment. Here again there is an anticipation that the widgets you sell will give you more return. If you are investing in stock/share, you are essentially holding a small portion of value in company and to that extent you are owining some equipment that is producing some widget .... Hence when you are purchasing Stocks, it would be looked as investment if you have done your home work and have a good plan of how you want to invest along with weiging the risk involved. However if you are investing only for the purpose of making quick bucks following so called hot tips, then you are not investing but speculating.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a43792daa2607f4f44803d30544cc574",
"text": "\"Thanks. This is super simplified as I said. It gets much deeper when you start looking at costs of capital, country risk premiums (for projects in emerging markets), \"\"risk free rate of return\"\" (putting cash in guaranteed returns such as a us treasury note), mutually exclusive projects, etc. But the basic concept is... what is the minimum required return on a project to justify choosing to pursue it. If you borrow money via loan at 10%, your required rate of return on whatever project you invest it in has to be at least that 10%. Otherwise you're better off just not doing anything.\"",
"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": "4ca0852fdce161b965d5715975eb9a33",
"text": "\"As foundational material, read \"\"The Intelligent Investor\"\" by Benjamin Graham. It will help prepare you to digest and critically evaluate other investing advice as you form your strategy.\"",
"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": ""
},
{
"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": "3adfcbe31a6b9bb6731237d8769eecb4",
"text": "For the mechanices/terms of stock investing, I recommend Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch. I also like The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle. It explains why indexing is the best choice for most people. For stock picking, a good intro is The Little Book of Value Investing by Chris Brown. And then there is The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham. IMO, this is the bible of investing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f50607ffadab1c7bacb18fce2adec8de",
"text": "\"The way I've implemented essentially \"\"value averaging\"\", is to keep a constant ratio between different investment types in my portfolio. Lets say (in a simple example), 25% cash, 25% REIT (real estate), 25% US Stock, 25% Foreign stock. Lets say I deposit a set $1000 per month into this account. If the stock portion goes up, it will look like I need more cash & REIT, so all of that $1000 goes into cash & the REIT portion to get them towards their 25%. I may spend months investing only in cash & the REIT while the stock goes up. Of course if the stock goes down, that $1000 per month goes into the stock accounts. Now you can also balance your account if you'd like, regularly selling stock (or the REIT), and making the account balanced. So if the stock goes down, you'd use the cash & REIT to purchase more stock. If the stock went up, you'd sell the stock, and buy REIT & leave more in cash.\"",
"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&message=Excludeme&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": "695d9044391183d088ac37025b39cdb2",
"text": "If it's money you can lose, and you're young, why not? Another would be motifinvesting where you can invest in ideas as opposed to picking companies. However, blindly following other investors is not a good idea. Big investors strategies might not be similar to yours, they might be looking for something different than you. If you're going to do that, find someone with similar goals. Having investments, and a strategy, that you believe in and understand is paramount to investing. It's that belief, strategy, and understanding that will give you direction. Otherwise you're just going to follow the herd and as they say, sheep get slaughtered.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "76c6225dc5f0d9e48a5430310a5a8e41",
"text": "This is only a rule of thumb. Peter Lynch popularized it; the ratio PE/growth is often called the Lynch Ratio. At best it's a very rough guideline. I could fill up this page with other caveats. I'm not saying that it's wrong, only that it's grossly incomplete. For a 10 second eyeball valuation of growth stocks, it's fine. But that's the extent of its usefulness.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bdcc2b65eb978ffd08c5dbe18108ebc4",
"text": "Disclosure: I am not an agent. Yes you can negotiate a lower price if the seller doesn't have to pay a buyers' agent's commission, but you probably won't save the full commission, since the buyer will want to take some of those savings in exchange for the extra risks involved. Thinks about some of the things that buyers' agents do on your behalf: I expect even a good buyer's agent has some incentive for the sale price to be higher rather than lower, as their commission is greater with higher sales price. True, but their main incentive is to make a sale or they get nothing. Since their commission is relatively low, even a 10% increase in the offer only gives them a 0.3% increase in their commission. It usually isn't enough for them to encourage you to make a bad deal, which could hurt their reputation. Does the answer change depending on whether the seller is using an agent or not? Some FSBO sellers are more willing to work with non-agent buyers, but the same risks above apply. The bottom line is: you can buy a house without an agent, but you need to make sure that you can replace their expertise and time spent working for you, and that the savings are worth the additional work and risks.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
588674949f07f1cfaf8e1cc9c0d2a088
|
Why would someone want to sell call options?
|
[
{
"docid": "8a7d5bb9f5b02c43dd51ea2a03fdac26",
"text": "You appear to be thinking of option writers as if they were individuals with small, nondiversified, holdings and a particular view on what the underlying is going to do. This is not the best way to think about them. Option writers are typically large institutions with large portfolios and that provide services in all sorts of different areas. At the same time as they are writing calls on a particular stock, they are writing puts on it and options on other stocks. They are buying and selling the underlying and all kinds of different derivatives. They are not necessarily writing the option because they are expecting or hoping to benefit from a price move. It's just small part of their business. They write the option if the option price is good enough that they think they are selling it for very slightly more than it's worth. Asking why an option writer creates a call is like asking why a grocery store keeps buying groceries from their distributors. Don't they know the price of food may not always rise? Sure, but their business is selling the food for slightly more than they pay for it, not speculating on what will happen to its price. Most option writers are doing the same thing, except what they are buying and selling is sets of cash flows and risk. As a general rule, the business model of option writers is to profit from the few cents of spread or mispricing, not from aggregate changes in the price of the underlying. They should and often do maintain balanced portfolios so their option writing activities don't expose them to a lot of risk. Also note that there could be lots of reasons for writing options, even if you do have a particular view. For example, perhaps the option writer thinks volatility of the underlying will decrease. Writing a call could be part of an overall strategy that profits from this view.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3c5b5925153a18d5096370e6a655ef1d",
"text": "\"Covered calls, that is where the writer owns the underlying security, aren't the only type of calls one can write. Writing \"\"uncovered calls,\"\" wherein one does NOT own the underlying, are a way to profit from a price drop. For example, write the call for a $5 premium, then when the underlying price drops, buy it back for $4, and pocket the $1 profit.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d3cf1863509b8c42a3d70a5e28392a36",
"text": "I do this often with shares that I own - mostly as a learning/experience-building exercise, since I don't own enough individual stocks to make me rich (and don't risk enough to make me broke). Suppose I own 1,000 shares of X. I don't expect my shares to go down, but I want to be compensated in case they do go down. Sure, I could put in a stop-loss order, but another option is to sell a call above where the stock is now (out-of-the-money). So I get the premium regardless of what happens. From there three things can happen: So a covered call essentially lets you give up some upside for some compensation against downward moves. Mathematically it's roughly equivalent to selling a put option - you make a little money (from the premium) if the stock goes up but can lose a lot if the stock plummets. So you would sell call options if:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "325b30fb598f679f0d3dc954b0dbdfdf",
"text": "I have an example of a trade I made some time ago. By entering the position as a covered call, I was out of pocket $5.10, and if the stock traded flat, i.e. closed at the same $7.10 16 months hence, I was up 39% or nearly 30%/yr. As compared to the stock holder, if the stock fell 28%, I'd still break even, vs his loss of 28%. Last, if the stock shot up, I'd get 7.50/5.10 or a 47% return, vs the shareholder who would need a price of $10.44 to reflect that return. Of course, a huge jump in the shares, say to $15, would benefit the option buyer, and I would have left money on the table. But this didn't happen. The stock was at $8 at expiration, and I got my 47% return. The option buyer got 50 cents for his $2 bet. Note, the $2 option price reflected a very high implied volatility.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "4215d59595db6fef019e68352fc63517",
"text": "\"This is a really bad idea. You are asking to be forced to pay for something at a time when you most likely NOT want to buy it. Why? There is no stability (much less any degree of predictability) to give up the right to control when and for how much you would be willing to own the S&P500. Just don't do it.....\"\"generate stable income\"\" and \"\"selling puts\"\" is an oxymoron. ===retired investment advisor\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5d7ecf7c5d091ee8984b5ed7a27e6fa4",
"text": "So, child, your goal is to make money? This is usually achieved by selling goods (say, lemonade) at a price that exceeds their cost (say, sugar, water and, well, lemons). Options, at first, are very much same in that you can buy the right to engage in a specific future trade. You make money in this situation if the eventual returns from the scheduled trade cover the cost of purchasing the option. Otherwise you can simply opt out of the trade -- you purchased the right to trade, after all, not any type of obligation. Makes sense? Good. Because what follows is what makes options a little different. That is, if you sell that same right to engage in a specific trade the situation is seemingly reversed: you lock in your return at the outset, but the costs aren't fully realized until the trade is either consumed or declined by the owner of the option. And keep in mind that it is always the owner of the option who is in the driver's seat; they may sell the option, hold on to it and do nothing, or use it to engage in the anticipated trade. And that's really all there's to it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "12a44f72bcc6e299b061b76187cd394b",
"text": "\"Great answer by @duffbeer. Only thing to add is that the option itself becomes a tradeable asset. Here's my go at filling out the answer from @duffbeer. \"\"Hey kid... So you have this brand-new video game Manic Mazes that you paid $50 for on Jan 1st that you want to sell two months from now\"\" \"\"Yes, Mr. Video Game Broker, but I want to lock in a price so I know how much to save for a new Tickle Me Elmo for my baby sister.\"\" \"\"Ok, for $3, I'll sell you a 'Put' option so you can sell the game to me for $40 in two months.\"\" Kid says \"\"Ok!\"\", sends $3 to Mr Game Broker who sends our kid a piece of paper saying: The holder of this piece of paper can sell the game Manic Mazes to Mr Game Broker for $40 on March 1st. .... One month later .... News comes out that Manic Mazes is full of bugs, and the price in the shops is heavily discounted to $30. Mr Options Trader realizes that our kid holds a contract written by Mr Game Broker which effectively allows our kid to sell the game at $10 over the price of the new game, so maybe about $15 over the price in the second-hand market (which he reckons might be about $25 on March 1st). He calls up our kid. \"\"Hey kid, you know that Put option that Mr Game Broker sold to you you a month ago, wanna sell it to me for $13?\"\" (He wants to get it a couple of bucks cheaper than his $15 fair valuation.) Kid thinks: hmmm ... that would be a $10 net profit for me on that Put Option, but I wouldn't be able to sell the game for $40 next month, I'd likely only get something like $25 for it. So I would kind-of be getting $10 now rather than potentially getting $12 in a month. Note: The $12 is because there could be $15 from exercising the put option (selling for $40 a game worth only $25 in the second-hand market) minus the original cost of $3 for the Put option. Kid likes the idea and replies: \"\"Done!\"\". Next day kid sends the Put option contract to Mr Options Trader and receives $13 in return. Our kid bought the Put option and later sold it for a profit, and all of this happened before the option reached its expiry date.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4a4e169b5eea3cfb86085c017abf222b",
"text": "Here is a quick and dirty explanation of options. In a nutshell, you pay a certain amount to buy a contract that gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price at some date in the future. They come in a few flavors: I'll give you $100 if you let me buy 10,000 shares of XYZ for $10 more per share than it is trading at today any time before August 10th. I'll give you $100 if you promise to buy 10,000 shares of XYZ from me for $10 less per share than it is trading at today if I ask before August 10th. There are also two main types based on the expiration behavior: There are lots of strategies that employ options, too many to go into. Two key uses are.. Leverage: Buying Call options can give you a much higher return on your investment than just investing in the actual stock. However, with much higher risk of losing all of your investment instead of just some of it when the stock drops. Hedging: If you already own the underlying stock, put options can be used to buy down risk of serious drops in a holding.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d07b7887dc667881835e9251cf86b105",
"text": "> The only problem I see with stock options is that they expire You're on to something: the reason why some prefer to write (sell) options instead of buying. Neutral to bullish on crude oil? Sell puts on /CL at 90-95% probability OTM. You keep your money if the underlying moves up or does nothing, within the days to expiration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ebf74e54b59ea99d8e2245b5c5a37902",
"text": "\"With stocks, you can buy or sell. If you sell first, that's called 'shorting.' As in \"\"I think linkedin is too high, I'm going to short it.\"\" With options, the terminology is different, the normal process is to buy to open/sell to close, but if you were shorting the option itself, you would first sell to open, i.e you are selling a position to start it, effectively selling it short. Eventually, you may close it out, by buying to close. Options trading is not for the amateur. If you plan to trade, study first and be very cautious.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4ba855945cfa8e9af71a8036def16481",
"text": "\"Bull means the investor is betting on a rising market. Puts are a type of stock option where the seller of a put option promises to buy 100 shares of stock from the buyer of the put option at a pre-agreed price called the strike price on any day before expiration day. The buyer of the put option does not have to sell (it is optional, thats why it is called buying an option). However, the seller of the put is required to make good on their promise to the buyer. The broker can require the seller of the put option to have a deposit, called margin, to help make sure that they can make good on the promise. Profit... The buyer can profit from the put option if the stock price moves down substantially. The buyer of the put option does not need to own the stock, he can sell the option to someone else. If the buyer of the put option also owns the stock, the put option can be thought of like an insurance policy on the value of the stock. The seller of the put option profits if the stock price stays the same or rises. Basically, the seller comes out best if they can sell put options that no one ends up using by expiration day. A spread is an investment consisting of buying one option and selling another. Let's put bull and put and spread together with an example from Apple. So, if you believed Apple Inc. AAPL (currently 595.32) was going up or staying the same through JAN you could sell the 600 JAN put and buy the 550 put. If the price rises beyond 600, your profit would be the difference in price of the puts. Let's explore this a little deeper (prices from google finance 31 Oct 2012): Worst Case: AAPL drops below 550. The bull put spread investor owes (600-550)x100 shares = $5000 in JAN but received $2,035 for taking this risk. EDIT 2016: The \"\"worst case\"\" was the outcome in this example, the AAPL stock price on options expiry Jan 18, 2013 was about $500/share. Net profit = $2,035 - $5,000 = -$2965 = LOSS of $2965 Best Case: AAPL stays above 600 on expiration day in JAN. Net Profit = $2,035 - 0 = $2035 Break Even: If AAPL drops to 579.65, the value of the 600 JAN AAPL put sold will equal the $2,035 collected and the bull put spread investor will break even. Commissions have been ignored in this example.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "52981c665fee7c5690b99f2b7cb7e0d2",
"text": "The important thing to realize is, what would you do, if you didn't have the call? If you didn't have call options, but you wanted to have a position in that particular stock, you would have to actually purchase it. But, having purchased the shares, you are at risk to lose up to the entire value of them-- if the company folded or something like that. A call option reduces the potential loss, since you are at worst only out the cost of the call, and you also lose a little on the upside, since you had to pay for the call, which will certainly have some premium over buying the underlying share directly. Risk can be defined as reducing the variability of outcomes, so since calls/shorts etc. reduce potential losses and also slightly reduce potential gains, they pretty much by definition reduce risk. It's also worth noting, that when you buy a call, the seller could also be seen as hedging the risk of price decreases while also guaranteeing that they have a buyer at a certain price. So, they may be more concerned about having cash flow at the right time, while at the same time reducing the cost of the share losing in value than they are losing the potential upside if you do exercise the option. Shorts work in the same way but opposite direction to calls, and forwards and futures contracts are more about cash flow management: making sure you have the right amount of money in the right currency at the right time regardless of changes in the costs of raw materials or currencies. While either party may lose on the transaction due to price fluctuations, both parties stand to gain by being able to know exactly what they will get, and exactly what they will have to pay for it, so that certainty is worth something, and certainly better for some firms than leaving positions exposed. Of course you can use them for speculative purposes, and a good number of firms/people do but that's not really why they were invented.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "78e6e2f957a987d119a5a5707da97c33",
"text": "I think the best answer that doesn't make the buyer look like a moron is this. Buyer had previously sold a covered call. They wanted to act on a different opportunity so they did a closing buy/write with a spread of a couple cents below asking for the stock, but it dipped a couple cents and the purchase of those options to close resolved at 4 cents due to lack of sellers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a27c61433e34654034b7d34f192f6750",
"text": "Put options are contracts to sell. You pay me a fee for the right to put the stock (or other underlying security) in my hands if you want to. That happens on a specific date (the strike date) and a specified price (the strike price). You can decide not to exercise that right, but I must follow through and let you sell it to me if you want to. Put options can be used by the purchaser to cap losses. For example: You purchase a PUT option for GE Oct19 13.00 from me. On October 19th, you can make me let you sell your GE stock to me for $13.00 a share. If the price for GE has fallen to $12.00, that would be a good idea. If its now at $15.00 a share, you will probably keep the GE or sell it at the current market price. Call options are contracts to buy. The same idea only in the other direction: You pay me a fee for the right to call the stock away from me. Calls also have a strike date and strike price. Like a put, you can choose not to exercises it. You can choose to buy the stock from me (on the strike date for the strike price), but I have to let you buy it from me if you want to. For example: You purchase a CALL option for GE Oct19 16.00 option from me. On October 19th, you can buy my GE stock from me for $16.00 a share. If the current price is $17.50, you should make me let you buy if from me for $16.00. If its less than $16.00, you could by it at the current market price for less. Commonly, options are for a block of 100 shares of the underlying security. Note: this is a general description. Options can be very complicated. The fee you pay for the option and the transaction fees associated with the shares affects whether or not exercising is financially beneficial. Options can be VERY RISKY. You can loose all your money as there is no innate value in the option, only how it relates to the underlying security. Before your brokerage will let you trade, there are disclosures you must read and affirm that you understand the risk.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "de44418b1a4e0c4e0b86ac2e3c8cc274",
"text": "\"During market hours, there are a lot of dealers offering to buy and sell all exchange traded stocks. Dealers don't actually care about the company's fundamentals and they set their prices purely based on order flow. If more people start to buy than sell, the dealer notices his inventory going down and starts upping the price (both his bid and ask). There are also traders who may not be \"\"dealers\"\", but are willing to sell if the price goes high enough or buy if the price goes low enough. This keeps the prices humming along smoothly. During normal trading hours, if you buy something and turn around and sell it two minutes later, you'll probably be losing a couple cents per share. Outside normal market hours, the dealers who continue to have a bid and ask listed know that they don't have access to good price information -- there isn't a liquid market of continuous buying and selling for the dealer to set prices he considers safe. So what does he do? He widens the spread. He doesn't know what the market will open tomorrow at and doesn't know if he'll be able to react quickly to news. So instead of bidding $34.48 and offering at $34.52, he'll move that out to $33 and $36. The dealer still makes money sometimes off this because maybe some trader realized that he has options expiring tomorrow, or a short position that he's going to get a margin call on, or some kind of event that pretty much forces him to trade. Or maybe he's just panicking and overreacting to some news. So why not trade after hours? Because there's no liquidity, and trading when there's no liquidity costs you a lot.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b04f790ab2bc20075ad02ef249001c1e",
"text": "\"The two dimensions are to open the trade (creating a position) and to buy or sell (becoming long or short the option). If you already own an option, you bought it to open and then you would sell it to close. If you don't own an option, you can either buy it to open, or sell it (short it) to open. If you are already short an option, you can buy it back to close. If you sell to open covered, the point is you're creating a \"\"covered call\"\" which means you own the stock, and then sell a call. Since you own the stock, the covered call has a lot of the risk of loss removed, though it also subtracts much of the reward possible from your stock.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d9969d9ad2a8fe4ee382ed3c75e664ca",
"text": "There is less liquidity because they are less volatile. Option traders aren't exactly risk averse (read: are degenerate gamblers) and the other market participants that use options don't have much use for deep in the money options. Also, just trade more liquid assets and equities if you want liquid options. At-the-money options, and at-the-money options strategies have hundreds and thousand percent payoffs on relatively mundane price changes in the underlying asset.",
"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": "9aacb0fcfba729270213c796ce604bd8",
"text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-19/oil-s-slide-stalls-as-investors-weigh-stockpiles-against-libya) reduced by 70%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The amount of oil stored in tankers reached a 2017 high of 111.9 million barrels earlier this month, according to Paris-based tracking company Kpler SAS. Oil has slipped below $45 a barrel as supplies in the U.S. remain plentiful and drillers continue to add rigs, raising concerns output cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia won&#039;t succeed in draining bloated stockpiles. > Crude stockpiles remain more than 100 million barrels above the five-year average, according to data from the EIA. American production has climbed to 9.33 million barrels a day through June 9, near the highest since August 2015. > Libya is pumping about 900,000 barrels a day, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified for lack of authority to speak to the media. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6ietvj/oil_prices_are_tumbling_more_than_2_toward_43/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~148648 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*: **barrel**^#1 **percent**^#2 **August**^#3 **U.S.**^#4 **Oil**^#5\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
e3f3dcf3596b726c4b921b7687f2f526
|
Money transfer from Australia to India - avoid receiving ends service tax
|
[
{
"docid": "48aa72e0f6ae4c58204f8d146c9af0b7",
"text": "All Bank fees were included in the service tax ambit [For example Check bounce, issue of duplicate statement, fees charged for remittance etc]. However as quite a few Banks structured the Remittance Business to show less charges and cover the difference in the Fx rate involved, the Govt has redone the service tax and one needs to pay Rs 120 for an amount of Rs 100,000. There is no way to avoid service tax on remittance if you are using a remittance service.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "2335c529b2a79cd1f83f13f9d7143e9a",
"text": "You can receive money directly into your savings bank account. It is perfectly legal. FYI the Bank as part of regulation would report this to RBI. As the funds are received for the services you have rendered, You are liable to pay tax on the income. The income is taxed as professional income similar to the income of Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. If you are paying your colleagues, it would be treated as expense. Not only this, you can also treat any phone calls you make, or equipment your purchase [laptop, desk etc] as expense. The difference become your actual income and you would be taxed as per the rate for individuals. It's advisable you contact an accountant who would advise you better for a nominal fee [few thousand rupees] and help you pay the tax and file the returns. With or without accountant It is very important for you to record all payments and expenses in a book of accounts.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bcb797f0257368d53877684887860347",
"text": "I want to transfer around $2000 to another bank account (which is under my name ) in India. As much as I know you cannot instruct to transfer money from your travel card to a Bank Account. You can withdraw cash at ATM or swipe it. On return you can encash the balance. Will this have any tax implications? The money provided to you by the company is meant as an allowance for your expense in US. As per law any money you save and not spend has to be declared as additional income and taxes paid accordingly. Is there any difference if I send it to my parents account? There is no difference if you transfer the funds to your account or to your parents accounts or keep the cash. If you haven't spent the allowance, its additional benefit and taxable.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e0bf34ac54598a3f51260216cac11426",
"text": "You have not mentioned the dates when you left India. If you leave before Oct 2 then the income is taxable, else it is not. Taxability is not depended on whether you transfer the funds to India or NOT. It is dependent on whether you are NRI for tax purposes for the given financial year. Refer to this question for more details Will it be taxable if I transfer money from UK account to India account?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9afe0ecf6ad92a9a8156e9eed777076d",
"text": "how could I transfer the money from UK There are multiple ways, walk into your Bank and ask them to wire transfer to the Bank Account in India. You would need the SWIFT BIC of Bank in India, Account Number, etc. Quite a few Banks [State bank of India, HDFC, ICICI etc] also offer remittance service. Visit their website for more details. does it cost the tax and how much Assuming your status is NRI [Non Resident], there is no tax implications of this in India.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b3d4e54fbfdda7e693969894287cb6f",
"text": "For the financial year 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016, as you will be spending more than 182 days you would be deemed Non-Resident Indian for tax purposes. Hence the income you earn outside India would be tax free in India. You can transfer funds into India or keep it in China, this does not change the tax situation. Ensure that you have converted your Savings accounts in India as NRO and opened an NRE account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1c7cadf0b0fd235d9b5877c5e4eec04",
"text": "India and the United States have a tax treaty agreement whereby double taxation is avoided. However check with your accountant in the US who should be able to guide you further in this regard. It is now easier to transfer money out of India. As long as the source of the money is legal and can be verified. So if you decide to sell a property, get payments by way of documented bank transactions like cheques and avoid cash deals. Once taxes are paid money can usually be transferred out.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4bc6f91fe7edad1c5665a4051f60710d",
"text": "Can I transfer these money to India in my saving account? What will be tax implication to me? Yes you can. Whether you transfer to India or not does not change your tax obligation. If I understand correctly you are being paid an allowance in UK to cover your expense. If you are saving; then the saving portion is treated as income and you have to self declare this and pay tax according to you tax bracket. Can I transfer these money to my wife's account as a gift? What will be tax implication to me and my wife? There is no tax obligation to your wife. The tax obligation remain same to you as in first point. What if i transfer these money as loan refund to my friend? What will be tax implication for these to me and my friend? If there is proper paper trial to show your friend loaned you a sum at zero percentage and you have paid back; amounts are not to large; then there is no tax obligation to your friend. The tax obligation remains same to you as in point 1.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "57d4489b43813e8a8647b8eae5668e65",
"text": "From what I understand, you have money earned in US and after paying taxes that are due in the US, you have transferred a portion of this to your brother. As you have earned this money outside India, there is not tax liability of this amount in India. Your giving it to your brother would at best be treated as GIFT [and not Income]. As you are giving it to your brother there is no limit on the amount of money that can be gifted. There is no tax liability for your brother. For more details read the http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/tax/gift-tax-whatsa-gift_664238.html http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/bline/blnri/exp-tax.htm",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1825a10ce557999cf31ffd0c2d25d5aa",
"text": "Yes you need to pay Capital Gains tax in India. Further transfer of money out of India from Ordinary account requires some formalities / paperwork. A CA should be able to guide you.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "19da4235bb5b11c1d9518c851550e211",
"text": "Disclaimer: it's hard to be definitive as there may be some law or tax rule I'm not aware of. From a UK perspective, this should be perfectly legal. If it's just a one-off or occasional thing for personal reasons, rather than being done in the course of a business, there probably aren't any tax implications. In theory if there's an identifiable profit from the transaction, e.g. because you originally obtained the INR at a lower exchange rate, then you might be liable to capital gains tax. However this is only payable above approximately £10K capital gains (see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/cgt.htm) so unless this is a very large transaction or you have other gains in the tax year, you don't need to worry about that. I would only recommend doing this if you trust each other. If one side transfers the money and the other doesn't, the international nature will make it quite hard in practice to enforce the agreement legally, even though I think that in theory it should be possible. If the sums involved are large, you may find that the transaction is automatically reported to the authorities by your bank under money laundering regulations, or they may want documentation of the source of the funds/reason for the transaction. This doesn't automatically mean you'll have a problem, but the transaction may receive some scrutiny. I think that reporting typically kicks in when several thousand pounds are involved.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4972d02c5cb0088e316851b3f20b2dee",
"text": "Tax is due in India as you offered services from India. So whether the International Client pays via Credit Card, Bank Transfer, Paypal or any other means is not relevant. Even if the International Client pays you in a account outside India; it is still taxable in India.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "191bdd877407e143a5e4e2ae516a95b3",
"text": "Yes, as you are Indian resident for Tax purposes, you have to pay Tax in India for the amount you have earned in Singapore. So essentially add the income from 1st April to Mid 2014 with the eq SGD earned in Singapore till 31st March 2015. Apply the tax brackets like you normally do, claim the exemptions you would normally do 80 C etc. As India and Singapore has a Dual Tax Avoidance Treaty, you can claim the portion the tax already paid in Singapore and pay only the balance. For example if the tax works out to be Rs 30, you have already paid Rs 20 in Singapore, you would have to pay only Rs 10 in India and mention that you have already paid Rs 20 to Singapore IRS. It is irrelevant whether you transfer the funds to India or not, the tax is applicable in the financial year you have earned. More on DTAA",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "48d078eaeee0aa1923acf87fffb4f798",
"text": "1.What are the tax implications - income tax, gift tax, wealth tax etc. for the money credited in the NRO Account? As the funds are transferred by your wife to you, there is NO Income. Hence Income Tax rules don't apply. It would be treated as GIFT and come uder Gift Act. As per gift Act, one can transfer unlimited amount between close releatives. The defination of close relative as per Income Tax includes parents, spouse, siblings etc. The interest you earn in NRO account is taxable in India. 2.Can I transfer this money to my parents and would that attract any tax?. I understand my parents will have bear any tax based on income they earn on my transfer... Are there any tax implications for me? You can transfer this money to your parents. This will not be taxable to you. It will not be taxable to your parents as its Gift. Any income earned by your parents on this will ofcourse be taxable. 3.Can I move this money to NRE account and what is the process for that and how easy it is? Its best if you had your wife send funds into NRE account. Direct transfer as much as know is not allowed. Having said that, it is possible to transfer funds out of India via proper paperwork, there is also a limit [quite large] on the amount that can be transferred a year. Get a CA to help you with the paperwork.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3da6581a70d5dbae8ecdb677ea0df69d",
"text": "\"The Option 2 in your answer is how most of the money is moved cross border. It is called International Transfer, most of it carried out using the SWIFT network. This is expensive, at a minimum it costs in the range of USD 30 to USD 50. This becomes a expensive mechanism to transfer small sums of money that individuals are typically looking at. Over a period of years, the low value payments by individuals between certain pair of countries is quite high, example US-India, US-China, Middle-East-India, US-Mexico etc ... With the intention to reduce cost, Banks have built a different work-flow, this is the Option 1. This essentially works on getting money from multiple individuals in EUR. The aggregated sum is converted into INR, then transferred to partner Bank in India via Single SWIFT. Alongside the partner bank is also sent a file of instructions having the credit account. The Partner Bank in India will use the local clearing network [these days NEFT] to credit the funds to the Indian account. Option 3: Other methods include you writing a check in EUR and sending it over to a friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically very nominal costs. Typically one month of timelines. Option 4: Another method would be to visit an Indian Bank and ask them to issue a \"\"Rupee Draft/Bankers Check\"\" payable in India. The charges for this would be higher than Option 3, less than Option 1. Mail this to friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically couple of days timelines for transfer to happen.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ffba2432d7a3d925dc9489f2fa0dfb87",
"text": "\"Says who? Or is this just something you *think* makes sense, because on first glance it does. Many studies show privatizing basic government functions like waste removal, prisons etc. to contractors ends up costing the government more. Recent study that shows that its more expensive: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html Specifically on government military private contractors, via this link, bottom of the page: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/contractors/ceff.html Steven Schooner Professor, The George Washington University Law School; expert on government contracting \"\"I don't think there's any question that no one knows whether it's cheaper or not. One of the best studies we've seen on whether outsourcing saves money is the RAND study, which is now a few years old. And what the RAND study says is there's the potential for immense cost-saving in outsourcing. But it hasn't been proven yet. There's a number of episodic studies since, but there has not been a compelling case made that government outsourcing, particularly this type of outsourcing, saves money.\"\" Full interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/interviews/schooner.html He makes your point however that the savings is thought to come from savings in paying someone before and keeping them on payroll when we're not in a military activity that requires their services. No pension after, no payroll before. Thus the increase in compensation is a lot higher. However it doesn't mean its conclusive to show that it *does*save money.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
33df29c7b2b01c85609d6c1281399281
|
Possibility of donations in an educational site
|
[
{
"docid": "a8bf89a0d530f2ee38e176a9f9378954",
"text": "You can have a way for people to pay, i.e. some kind of payment gateway. Run as Business: Best create a company and get the funds there. This would be treated as income of the website and would be taxed accordingly. One can deduct expenses for running the website, etc. Run as Charity: Register as one, however the cause should be considered as charitable one by the tax authorities. Only then the donations would be tax free.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "c192d27c9016708470d14d6d7cf7fe62",
"text": "It's a good question. We can't know for sure, but here are some things to think about. Paypal advertises a discounted transaction rate for non-profit organizations. In the U.S. at least, the rate they advertise is 2.2% + 0.30 USD. There are lots of things that can come into play here, such as international rates or any special deal that Wikimedia has struck with Paypal, but it seems reasonable to guess that of your 2€ donation, Wikipedia sees perhaps 1.65€. Note that most of the fee is a flat rate; of the next 2€ in your donation, Wikipedia gets 1.96€. Direct debit probably has lower fees. Paypal has to account for some credit card transaction fees in their fee structure, and direct debit does not. Therefore, I would guess that to maximize your gift, direct debit might result a little better than Paypal. Charities, in general, don't want to tell you the best way to donate, because they want it to be as easy for you as possible, and don't want to discourage any type of donation at all. They are very happy to get any donation, even if one method over another results in slightly higher fees. Wikimedia, in particular, offers many different options for donating.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "20eeb824009e437a54f03ea54aed8ee4",
"text": "\"> The best teachers make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, in private educational institutions. 1. I am sure some teachers do, and that these teachers are far better than average. But teacher pay correlates with a lot of other things, like seniority. 2. \"\"Education\"\" is not just one thing, and it is sometimes closer to a private good and sometimes closer to a [public good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good). Education-as-status is a private good (which is why private schools can afford to pay prestige-bringing teachers a lot of money). Education-as-human-capital is in some cases also a private good (e.g., most of the benefits for graduate business education accrues to the student, so externalities are negligible); but in other cases it is probably not (e.g., it's better for everyone if everyone else is literate and numerate, so there are externalities involved in basic education). And civic education is an almost public good (the benefits of voting thoughtfully only exist if many people do it, and they are spread largely evenly throughout society). Right now the government has a hand in funding all of these. This may or may not be a good idea (whether from the standpoint of pure efficiency or from the taxation-is-theft). But in your opinion, which of the above educations could plausibly be funded adequately without taxation? Edit: fixed link\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b9d92a7418f20e2ef19e34d7716440d",
"text": "One possibility to consider would be making an arrangement with a registered UK charity where you would donate the necessary amount for the specific purpose of covering medical costs of that particular person. Charitable donations are expressly deductible from business profits. Some charities may be genuinely interested in helping people from developing countries get quality medical help that's not available in those countries. There may be some organizations in the proposed beneficiary's country that have contacts among the UK charities. PS. I am not a lawyer or an accountant, nor do I claim to be either. The above is not a legal or accounting advice. Consider seeking professional assistance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6824a94d1bb6405c0a1cb9c114b590e3",
"text": "Why limit yourself to $28K per year? If you pay the tuition directly to the institution, it does not count against your annual or lifetime gift-giving totals. You could pay the entire tuition each year with no tax consequences. The only thing you can't do if you want to go this route is give the money to your children; that's what causes the gift tax to kick in. The money must be paid directly to the school.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a1e55ef07f1ec2dcf24c23fb3b93f488",
"text": "Economic efficiency is overrated. I would rather give money to a charity that spent 15% on human resources and 10% on marketing to get $10 million in incoming donations than to a charity with an 8% expense rate that receives $1 million in incoming donations.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "02fc74037147deb4142ef946e110d69c",
"text": "I worked at a for-profit school, one associated with Full Sail University. I can say this from experience: -Most of the people receiving stipends (loan money from federal or private sources) are black and from low-income neighborhoods. -In SOME instances the people enrolled in the school were obviously mentally ill and very likely homeless. -Most of the people receiving stipends either drop out themselves or are dropped for poor academic progress and attendance. This is after a hefty debt is built up. -The school goes to extraordinary lengths to enroll military vets. I can't say anything about admission tactics other than they check to see if you have a high school degree. Personally I would never go to these type of schools.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d9303a97a7532a9f39858d68b75bf2a",
"text": "Without knowing the specifics it is hard to give you a specific answer, but most likely the answer is no. If they limit the participation in the site to accredited investors, this is probably not something they are doing willingly, but rather imposed by regulators. Acredited investors have access to instruments that don't have the same level of regulatory protection & scrutiny as those offered to the general public, and are defined under Regulation D. Examples of such securities are 144A Shares, or hedgefunds.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6b32954549a0aca1e2742405e0d273d5",
"text": "There is no doubt that a good, quality early education is one of the base for becoming successful person in future. And Jumbobookmarks.net will provide all the articles related to education and college. If you are a writer then you can bookmark your latest findings for free and use it later.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "21db1c5902c3904dcba5e7cddfd17f69",
"text": "You are thinking of something similar to [Patreon](www.patreon.com) then but more automated? I don't quite think automation works for this because you might not want to give every site you visit money, even if you visit it often in a short period of time (e.g. while doing research into cults you might not want to give the WBC money).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8a24030f7d2965aba4b9fc552d7aa5c3",
"text": "For larger items such as cars this is certainly possible; I've donated a car before (in Canada) and got a tax receipt that was probably worth more than I would have got from a dealer for the car. However with donations of this kind there are two obstacles: Two other options for you to consider. Most medium towns have used book shops which you can sell them to. If the used book shops don't want them then your books really aren't worth enough to be worrying about, in which case see option two: give the books to a charity or thrift shop and don't worry about the receipt. Sometimes a nice feeling is the best return you will get.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "019b88a3ca0231446bbe14a304b499fd",
"text": "In the. US, i'd suggest hitting the Charity Navigator website for evaluation of how efficiently various charities will use your money. At this point I won't donate money to anything that gets less than three stars unless I know the organization very well indeed -- and I've been progressively swapping out 3-star groups for 4-star organizations in the same category. Many of the groups reviewed by CN are international, so you might find it useful even if you're donating from/to elsewhere.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c775494620aeef8bee1dab5754abcf17",
"text": "If you have a software company, that can produce a box of software for $5, but the box sells for $100. (You have to make a profit and cover development costs) But then you give these boxes to charity, that is a cost of $5 each and a tax rebate of $100 x 40% = $40. A profit of $35 per donation of $5. Note: You can only do this if you have taxable profit to offset it against.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f62ac4aa1bf452b003ae5b0df6d20dd8",
"text": "Not sure how authoritative it is, but according to this site, yes: Can a corporation, partnership or other non-living entity make the contribution to an ESA? Yes. The tax law does not restrict the ability to make contributions to living individuals. Corporations and other entities may make contributions without regard for the usual donor income limit. However, the same site indicates that you can just give the child the $2K and have them contribute to their own ESA, so yes, the income limit is pretty easy to get around.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fd647bbb6075195664a28da2dd0b438d",
"text": "If I were donating money to a charity, i.e. an organization set up to help others, I would simply send them the money and ask that my name not be used in publicity. That would mean that the person(s) actually benefiting from my donation didn't know who I was. The charity would know, but they don't themselves benefit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f17ea3ea13adcec5a67e063bb2b58a9f",
"text": "Yes, it's considered the students asset, regardless of the custodian aspect. I don't know how you'd propose to put it in a retirement account, even with the earned income to facilitate this, the limit is $5500/yr. The larger issue is parental income. That and parental assets. Tough to game that part of the system to get aid. In the end, one should look to scholarships, both merit and non merit based to maximize college support.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
c203eb3d93c4016ced07e9489a32298b
|
How long should I keep an uncleared transaction in my checkbook?
|
[
{
"docid": "dfc8b4ac66841b0a87d38e2d924bfa1c",
"text": "\"Typically I'll carry the charge for quite awhile, up to a year. If it hasn't cleared by then, I contact the institution that should have received the money to see what they want to do about it. If they tell me not to worry about it, then I change the payee to be \"\"Overdraft Protection\"\", and consider it as having been spent. That way I build up (slowly) a cushion in my checking account.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "59fe505bfb67584052eb8f6565a634ac",
"text": "With a check, there are limits on cashing the stale check, but that is set by the banks involved. With a debit card transaction, it will be up the the debit card company and your bank. Imagine a situation where a person finds an old check and tries to cash it at their bank. If the bank considers the check stale, they might reject it, or put a longer hold on the check. When the check writers bank gets the transaction, they will also decide what to do. If they reject it, the first bank will reverse the transaction. You can't count on a 90 day, or 180 day limit; most banks will ask you to put a stop payment on an old check that you don't want cashed. This is especially important step if you write a replacement check. Because there is no check number to put a stop payment on, in fact the temporary hold will fall off after a few days. There doesn't appear to be a way to stop an old transaction. Be careful if you do contact the restaurant, you could end up double paying for the meal if they swipe your card again. Your best option may be just to keep the transaction as pending.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fc9e6fa705358329c493d5f29d33399b",
"text": "\"Why would you consider it null and void? It might be that something went wrong and the business \"\"lost\"\" the transaction one way or another. It might be something else. It might never appear. It might appear. In one of the questions a while ago someone posted a link of a story where an account was overdrawn because of a forgotten debit card charge that resurfaced months later. Can't find the link right now, but it can definitely happen.\"",
"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": ""
},
{
"docid": "3c3423be0fdb44cbd018bfe813fda469",
"text": "ACH transfers are reversible and traceable. So what's stopping them is the ease and the speed with which they would be caught. When you give a check - you have to provide some information to the payee so that they could cash it. You can't withhold the bank or the account number - how would they charge you? So it has to be on it, and if it is on it - it can be put on any other (fake) check. That is why checks come also with your signature, and are always available for you to inspect when they're cashed. If you notice something out of the ordinary (check you didn't give? ACH transfer you didn't authorize?) on your statement - it is your responsibility to notify the bank within X period of time (60 days, I think) of the statement, and it will be dealt with. So the best way to protect yourself would be to keep an eye on your account and verify that the transactions that you see are all authorized, and do it frequently. Keeping large amounts of cash on your checking account is never a good idea, regardless. Also, since checks are inherently unsafe - try to only give checks to people you trust, and use bill-pay or credit cards with anyone else.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2e2e4c513c369d0d8a217c9df92d8cc8",
"text": "Have you tried contacting them via phone or e-mail to follow up? If not, definitely do that first. If no response, you can keep this simple: Close your old account, write a personal check from your new one, and send the check with an explanatory note via Certified Mail. That will get you proof that it was delivered successfully (or not). Leave the money in your account for 180 days. Your check should be void after that and cannot be cashed (check with your bank on this) and if it's still unclaimed they will need to contact you to request payment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4726389971e8ff52e63f8ca632c0f16a",
"text": "What I'm reading is that they subtracted the $85 you owe them and they're cutting you a cashier's check for the rest. Ethically speaking, you owed them the money, they subtracted it and made you a check for the rest. Once you cash that check, nobody owes anyone anything in this equation. Sounds like they're in the clear. Legally speaking, I have no idea, since I'm not a lawyer, but even if it was not legal, good luck getting the $85 back without spending far more in retaining a lawyer and fighting it in court. Even fighting it in small claims court will take more of your time than $85 is worth. If it's your time that is the problem, 12 days is not horrible in banking terms. Yes, we're spoiled now by ACH transfers and same day deposit availability, but since you're retired, I'm sure if you think back you'll remember when it used to take two business weeks to clear a check... TLDR; cancel future deposits to that bank, find a new bank, then forget this fiasco and get your revenge by enjoying your life.",
"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": "de3465af8fb591518d665a2084219520",
"text": "One's paycheck typically has a YTD (year to date) number that will end on the latest check of the year. I am paid bi-weekly, and my first 2012 check was for work 12/25 - 1/7. So, for my own balance sheet, brokerage statements and stock valuations end 12/31, but my pay ended 12/24. And then a new sheet starts.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e339935505ff7647b0dee5d8055b07e5",
"text": "\"Your bank has discretion to honor checks after 6 months, so you should talk to your bank about their specific policy. In general, banks won't accept \"\"large\"\" stale checks. The meaning of \"\"large\"\" varies -- $25,000 in NYC, as little as $2k in other places. Banks that service high-volume check issuers (like rebate companies) reject checks at 180 days. For business purposes, I think some banks will create accounts for specific mailings or other purposes as well. (i.e. 2011 refund account) The accounts close after a year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e9e8f1ee96ea1cf4023d0c344ae4d35d",
"text": "The check clears when the receiving bank successfully pulled the money from the issuing account. However, the receiving bank may hold the money for an additional time before giving it to you. Sometimes this is done for good reasons (to prevent Check kiting) and sometimes this is about the bank having the money interest free for a bit, or just their own processing convenience.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2fb9aa8d4e4bb2f455a40c424889d31e",
"text": "Given you mention a check clearing, in addition to debit card holds as JoeTaxpayer notes, you may also have funds that are on hold for that reason. While the bank may have stated it would be a one day hold, some banks may mean business days (Monday-Friday), and so it will become available on Monday. This is because checks are not always instantly withdrawn from the other account (although this is becoming much more common post-electronic check reform), so the bank wants to make sure it actually is getting the money from the check; after all, if the check you deposited bounces, the bank doesn't want to end up footing the bill. The bank allows you some portion up front, largely as a customer service; the amount varies from bank to bank, but it's generally a small amount they don't mind risking. $200 is a pretty good amount, actually; back when I was just out of college and frequently spending the last $50 in my account, the pre-clearance amount was usually $50. If the bank does this to you regularly and you feel that it is unfair in how long it holds checks, you might consider shopping around; different banks have different hold policies, or might allow you a larger amount up front. In particular, online banks tend to have more favorable terms this way.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6bf38299a224a2ca9d6a6c7ecb4498dd",
"text": "\"This is the sad state of US stock markets and Regulation T. Yes, while options have cleared & settled for t+1 (trade +1 day) for years and now actually clear \"\"instantly\"\" on some exchanges, stocks still clear & settle in t+3. There really is no excuse for it. If you are in a margin account, regulations permit the trading of unsettled funds without affecting margin requirements, so your funds in effect are available immediately after trading but aren't considered margin loans. Some strict brokers will even restrict the amount of uncleared margin funds you can trade with (Scottrade used to be hyper safe and was the only online discount broker that did this years ago); others will allow you to withdraw a large percentage of your funds immediately (I think E*Trade lets you withdraw up to 90% of unsettled funds immediately). If you are in a cash account, you are authorized to buy with unsettled funds, but you can't sell purchases made on unsettled funds until such funds clear, or you'll be barred for 90 days from trading as your letter threatened; besides, most brokers don't allow this. You certainly aren't allowed to withdraw unsettled funds (by your broker) in such an account as it would technically constitute a loan for which you aren't even liable since you've agreed to no loan contract, a margin agreement. I can't be sure if that actually violates Reg T, but when I am, I'll edit. While it is true that all marketable options are cleared through one central entity, the Options Clearing Corporation, with stocks, clearing & settling still occurs between brokers, netting their transactions between each other electronically. All financial products could clear & settle immediately imo, and I'd rather not start a firestorm by giving my opinion why not. Don't even get me started on the bond market... As to the actual process, it's called \"\"clearing & settling\"\". The general process (which can generally be applied to all financial instruments from cash deposits to derivatives trading) is: The reason why all of the old financial companies were grouped on Wall St. is because they'd have runners physically carting all of the certificates from building to building. Then, they discovered netting so slowed down the process to balance the accounts and only cart the net amounts of certificates they owed each other. This is how we get the term \"\"bankers hours\"\" where financial firms would close to the public early to account for the days trading. While this is all really done instantly behind your back at your broker, they've conveniently kept the short hours.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a10fe96aca42c4058c474f1aea797326",
"text": "Even going to small claims court the burden would be on you to prove that they never paid you. The 13 year gap would be the core of the argument by the company that they have no obligation to keep records from 13 years ago. That is far longer than they need to keep them for tax purposes. Even if they sent you a replacement check the next year, that happened to me once, the record of that transaction would have been 12 years ago. The bank will not cash it because of the date being 13 years ago. As we move forward with more and more of the checks being deposited via phone/scanner the banks will be even less likely to handle stale checks because the fact you have the check in your hand doesn't mean it wasn't cashed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e5bd30df315f45d3433c7b6140119124",
"text": "\"I'm no accounting expert, but I've never heard of anyone using a separate account to track outstanding checks. Instead, the software I use (GnuCash) uses a \"\"reconciled\"\" flag on each transaction. This has 3 states: n: new transaction (the bank doesn't know about it yet), c: cleared transaction (the bank deducted the money), and y: reconciled transaction (the transaction has appeared on a bank statement). The account status line includes a Cleared balance (which should be how much is in your bank account right now), a Reconciled balance (which is how much your last bank statement said you had), and a Present balance (which is how much you'll have after your outstanding checks clear). I believe most accounting packages have a similar feature.\"",
"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": "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": "8db1c181bc68dc201970efb4f4b3abab",
"text": "\"There's nothing you can do. If he has indeed deposited the check, it would appear on your account fairly quickly - I've never seen it taking more than 2-3 business days. However, a check is a debt instrument, and you cannot close the account until it clears, or until the \"\"unclaimed property\"\" laws of your state kick in. If he claims that he deposited the check, ask it in writing and have your bank (or the bank where it was deposited) investigate why it takes so long to clear. If he's not willing to give it to you in writing - he's likely not deposited it. Whatever the reason may be, even just to cause you nuisance. Lesson learned. Next time - cashier's check with a signed receipt. Re closing the LLC: if you're the only two partners - you can just withdraw yourself from the LLC, take out your share, and drop it on him leaving him the only partner. Check with your local attorney for details.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
a70e44b83d880dd5a492895b0a30a657
|
PayPal wants me to “add a bank account”, another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why?
|
[
{
"docid": "96ffb13a982db73087976ced7d534403",
"text": "I'm guessing that you've reached the value limit of a payment that can be made without linking your account to a bank account. While you want privacy, PayPal wants to not be a money launderer. You may need to seek an alternative way to pay for this if you're trying to be private about it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b12ced4b2c65310a56ef71aa69c0bb5",
"text": "Visit paypalblows.org to find out more reasons. PayPal wants your bank account info on file before they allow you to take payment. So setup a bank account strictly for this service, and if they give you trouble or suspend your account, simply never use them again and tell others of your experience. I think the only reason why PayPal wants a bank account is so they can dip into it and take chargeback money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "67b16b5e59401865bd13b1b65a0a47fd",
"text": "Have you checked to make sure that your card isn't at the limit, or at risk of expiring soon? Maybe PayPal has a policy to reject credit cards with expiry dates that fall within their buyer/seller protection periods? But to answer your question, no, I've never had this happen to me before.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "740ca590b0233f0eb8e4fdbb08c353c3",
"text": "I would guess that this is due to the card issuer, not Paypal. Credit card transactions are tagged with a code describing the type of purchase, and some issuers disallow certain types (such as gambling).",
"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": "e817c6ac14aee27f38a313a4b564c0ad",
"text": "I'm pretty sure it's merchant-dependent. If a credit card transaction doesn't go through, PayPal will automatically charge your bank account. Some merchants may want that extra insurance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d22fa9d8d1f7a79d793e3c41110f867",
"text": "I've used PayPal for my business for a long time. Sometimes PayPal doesn't trust credit cards. Debit or direct bank transfer are reliable. There is also a charge for using a credit card but I don't think that is the reason. You may be trying to purchase a high value item. That would be a possible reason why PayPal allowed you to use credit cards in the past, but will not allow you to do so now, for these particular transactions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "51788755f7176dffdb025f6ef5264772",
"text": "It's always a good idea to check your credit history on a regular basis - try checking your credit score from one of the independent providers recently (like Equifax) ? Maybe that will offer a clue what PayPal is doing.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "0f1df7e4f7aa6193075c0a9d820d7d96",
"text": "I was having issues with transferring money from my UK bank (HSBC) to my paypal... HSBC was asking for an IBAN code to complete the transaction. I couldn't find an IBAN code listed anywhere on my Paypal acct. What finally solved it for me was when I entered the last 4 digits of the Paypal account number, HSBC then threw up a message saying that payee was listed in my payees and to do a search for payees. (I had never manually entered my Paypal as a payee, but it was there in a huge list of companies already known and listed by HSBC.) Then all I had to do was put in the reference number Paypal had given and the amount. It was in my paypal account within minutes. Hope this helps :)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "087c2c58da445cb09a11861be55ecdea",
"text": "There's never been a good micropayment system on the internet. Credit card and paypal transaction costs are too high, and the whole thing takes too long. The hassle of a credit card transaction only makes sense if you are making a major (5$ and up) purchase. For micropayments there should be no lower limit on amounts, and contributing should take under a second. Like a button that contributes 5 cents.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1e48346505bbfa9c6c2211e74bf594c8",
"text": "The answer is no. Paypal will always ask for permission before adding or withdrawing money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "39c5a95ee4710cbcd2a36edb902728c8",
"text": "Just create him a regular PayPal account, then so to the Pay Pal prepaid card page, https://www.paypal-prepaid.com, order a card an attach it to his personal paypal account. Unlike student account, you have to do 2 transfers, one into his paypal account, and then to the prepaid card. That is an answer! Unlike those of use with teenagers under 18 who now have their student accounts jacked from them and there really isn't a good option. Not happy with PayPal right now.I am sure there is a government bureaucrat somewhere behind this decision.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fad9d64626f90023c966ca639615a523",
"text": "Every reward program has to have a funding source. If the card gives you x percent back on all purchases. That means that their business is structured to entice you to pump more transactions through the system. Either their other costs are lower, or the increased business allows them to make more money off of late fees, and interest. If the card has you earn extra points for buying a type of item or from a type of store (home stores improvement in the Spring), they are trying to make sure you use their card for what can be a significant amount of business during a small window of time. Sometimes they cap it by saying 5% cash back at home improvement stores during the spring but only on the first $1500 of purchases. That limits it to $75 maximum. Adding more business for them, makes more money for them. Groceries and gas are a good year round purchase categories. Yes there is some variation depending on the season, and the weather, but overall there is not an annual cliff once the season ends. Gas and groceries account for thousands of dollars a year these are not insignificant categories, for many families are recession proof. If they perceive a value from this type of offer they will change their buying behavior. My local grocery store has a deal with a specific gas station. This means that they made a monetary deal. Because you earn points at the grocery store and spend points at the gas station, the grocery store is paying some compensation to the gas station every time you use points. The gas station must be seeing an increase in business so theoretically they don't get 100% compensation from the grocery store. In cases where credit cards give airline miles, the credit card company buys the miles from the airline at a discount because they know that a significant number of miles will never be used.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9e75314738a131060b3b11bb758d4ac7",
"text": "Like Bluetie Grasper have said. Can I create a PayPal account and receive €200 (or a similar amount) without adding a bank account, credit card, or anything but my email address? The answer is No. You can transfer the money to your PayPal account but until you verify it with your personal information with at least a credit card or mostly likely a bank account, PayPal will hold those funds until otherwise. Can I then use that money to buy on Amazon, still without adding anything but my email address? If not, can I buy gift cards and use those on Amazon? Amazon does not accept PayPal.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1814c245d4338917dc48e0ed8e42ba48",
"text": "\"Paypal has an account called \"\"micropayments\"\" for those who have a lot of transaction under $10 with \"\"better\"\" commission structure, 5%+5c per transaction (rather than 2.9% + 30c with regular merchant accounts)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cd3098f5ce3f088f602a2d1842ad0caa",
"text": "Opening Bank Account in US without physically being present is difficult. I'm having number of clients in USA to pay for my work, but I’m really confused to get money from my clients to my saving bank account. You can get money via PayPal or if they are repeat customers, ask them to send via remittance services like Money2India or Remit2India etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f04c572febf901d91fa7fbf164c5f1f",
"text": "Your chief problem seems to be that you're mixing Visa (credit cards) and Step2 (a European Automated Clearing House). Credit cards are primarily an American concept, but do work worldwide especially in travel&tourism industry. The Credit Card companies are financial institutions themselves and operate similar to international banks They're typically acting as intermediaries between the customer's bank and the retailer's bank, so this works even if those two banks have no existing agreements. This is expensive, though. Step2 is a cheaper European system which eliminates the middle man. It allows the consumer's bank to directly pay the retailer's bank. VISA is not a member of Step2.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fd2f1fc30829819c8c5653ecd6f4f808",
"text": "As an Indian resident you can open an Resident Foreign Currency Account, i.e. an USD account. This facility is provided by all major banks. I am not sure if PayPal would transfer money to these accounts or would convert. The alternative is to give this account number along with other Bank details to the company in US and ask them to send money via remittance services.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9bf1be9ecafff749ac8c6c74984f9a25",
"text": "If you have a deposit account (like a checking account) and a credit card at the same bank, it is common for the bank to have a clause that lets them make automatic payments to the credit card. I've also seen this happen in the case of death where the deceased person had $2,000 in a checking account and owed some on a credit card. Upon death, the bank took the $2,000 and applied it to the credit card without asking.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "98ba8154a4fdeb826cdd6ef732faaf67",
"text": "In most cases, a debit card can be charged like a credit card so there is typically no strict need for a credit card. However, a debit card provides weaker guarantees to the merchant that an arbitrary amount of money will be available. This is for several reasons: As such, there are a few situations where a credit card is required. For example, Amazon requires a credit card for Prime membership, and car rental companies usually require a credit card. The following does not apply to the OP and is provided for reference. Debit cards don't build credit, so if you've never had a credit card or loan before, you'll likely have no credit history at all if you've never had a credit card. This will make it very difficult to get any nontrivially-sized loan. Also, some employers (typically if the job you're applying for involves financial or other highly sensitive information) check credit when hiring, and not having credit puts you at a disadvantage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5732591aae33f59231af5cb46932ab57",
"text": "A credit card is not a bank account. It is, essentially, a contract to extend a line of credit on an as needed basis through a process accepted by the provider(purchase through approved vender, cash advance, etc). There is no mechanism for the bank to accept or hold a deposit. While most card issuers will simple retain the money for a period of up 30-60 days to apply toward transactions, I have had a card that actually charged a fee for having a negative balance in excess of $10 for more than 30 days(the fee was $10/month). So no you can not DEPOSIT money on any credit card. You need an account that accepts deposits to make a deposit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "470eedf873888a1c251d256f1b7c710f",
"text": "\"We also have a \"\"minimum daily balance\"\" account that requires a decent balance, but I'd much prefer to have my money elsewhere, growing little to any interest, versus sitting around collecting dust. Ours is a daily average, so you could have a lots in there for a few days to help make up the days when you're under.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3ca33c5438a226b77697ac71c63cfd6f",
"text": "\"In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as \"\"- PAYMENT RECEIVED -\"\", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
9b4555bca63f9ac69095d2590816d7df
|
Definition of gross income (Arizona state tax filing requirements)
|
[
{
"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": "9438f2630d7f0c5e6cdb291a7a68cca1",
"text": "\"I would suggest reading through page 1 of the Arizona Nonresident form instructions at the web address below: https://www.azdor.gov/Portals/0/ADOR-forms/TY2015/10100/10177_inst.pdf To quote: \"\"You are subject to Arizona income tax on all income derived from Arizona sources. If you are in this state for a temporary or transitory purpose or did not live in Arizona but received income from sources within Arizona during 2015, you are subject to Arizona tax. Income from Arizona sources includes the following: ...the sale of Arizona real estate...\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "698111cd921bcfd014d15bcf5d87ae5c",
"text": "Many states have a simple method for assessing income tax on nonresidents. If you have $X income in State A where you claim nonresident status and $Y income overall, then you owe State A a fraction (X/Y) of the income tax that would have been due on $Y income had you been a resident of State A. In other words, compute the state income tax on $Y as per State A rules, and send us (X/Y) of that amount. If you are a resident of State B, then State B will tax you on $Y but give you some credit for taxes paid to State A. Thus, you might be required to file a State A income tax return regardless of how small $X is. As a practical matter, many commercial real-estate investments are set up as limited partnerships in which most of the annual taxable income is a small amount of portfolio income (usually interest income that you report on Schedule B of Form 1040), and the annual bottom line is lots of passive losses which the limited partners report (but do not get to deduct) on the Federal return. As a result, State A is unlikely to come after you for the tax on, say, $100 of interest income each year because it will cost them more to go after you than they will recover from you. But, when the real estate is sold, there will (hopefully) be a big capital gain, most of which will be sheltered from Federal tax since the passive losses finally get to be deducted. At this point, State A is not only owed a lot of money (it knows nothing of your passive losses etc) but, after it processes the income tax return that you filed for that year, it will likely demand that you file income tax returns for previous years as well.",
"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": "eaf49cfcd2a5ddfdcc47d4ebf7667b29",
"text": "I'm not confident that the requirements for 2017 are up yet, but assuming they don't change much from those of 2016, then probably not if you have no other earnings this year. If you make $500 a month, then you will make $6,000 this year. This is below the filing requirements for most taxpayers, unless you are married but filing separately. At the end of 2017 you should tally up your earnings (including earnings from other sources) find which category you find yourself in on the table, and make a final determination of whether you'll need to file.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9bd1a5f5aeb95f5ac87bf992d454e1c0",
"text": "\"While this does fall under the \"\"All-inclusive income\"\" segment of GI (gross income), there are two questions that come up. I invested in a decentralized bitcoin business and earned about $230 this year in interest from it Your wording is confusing here only due to how bitcoin works.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0ddf5935ce37f66c96defd0182a0c28d",
"text": "\"This may be closed as not quite PF, but really \"\"startup\"\" as it's a business question. In general, you should talk to a professional if you have this type of question, specifics like this regarding your tax code. I would expect that as a business, you will use a proper paper trail to show that money, say 1000 units of currency, came in and 900 went out. This is a service, no goods involved. The transaction nets you 100, and you track all of this. In the end you have the gross profit, and then business expenses. The gross amount, 1000, should not be the amount taxed, only the final profit.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a3b95031eb506b30bf9d5cc055cbaba9",
"text": "You should consult a US CPA to ensure your situation is handled correctly. It appears, the money is Israel source income and not US source income regardless if you receive it while living in the U.S. If you file the correct form, I suspect the form is 1040NR and your state form to disclose your income, if any, in 2015 and 2016, it should not be a problem. Having said that, if you do earn any type of income while in the U.S. , you are required to disclose it to both the IRS and state.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d19500998654ae4a95b5adbfe8450b8",
"text": "\"P/E is price to earnings, or the price of the company divided by annual earnings. Earnings, as reported, are reported on accrual basis. Accrual basis accounting is...without going too deep, like taking a timeline, chopping it up and throwing different bits and pieces of every year into different piles. Costs from 2008 might show up in 2011, or the company might take costs in 2011 that aren't necessarily costs until 2012. Examples would include one-time charges for specific investments, like new shipping centers, servers for their hosting services, etc. Free cash flow is the amount of cash Amazon is generating from its operations. Free cash flow is almost always different from earnings because it's the amount of Earnings + adjustments for non-cash activities - capital expenditures (long-term investments.) Earnings is one thing. Cash generation is a completely different animal. There are plenty of companies that \"\"earn\"\" billions, but only have a few hundred million in cash to show for it because their earnings have to be reinvested into new stuff to grow/maintain the business. To have a free cash flow yield of 2.5% is to have a company valued at $40 for each $1 of free cash flow that the company generates each year. $1/$40 = 2.5%. SGA = Selling, General, & Administrative expenses. These are the costs of running the company - paying salaries, advertising, etc. This cost is second only to COGS, which is Cost of Goods Sold. Currently, Amazon pays $.774 for every $1 product it sells. Its operations add another ~$.20 to that total. After taxes, Amazon keeps about 2 cents of every dollar's worth of product it sells. This 2 cents is Amazon's net margin of 2%. Net margin is (net income)/(sales). If Amazon earned $3 for every $100 in sales it would have a net margin of 3%. Let me know if this makes no sense. If there's anything in particular that is especially confusing, definitely reply and I'll better clarify on specific items. Fire away with any questions, also. I love to discuss finance and accounting.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f2320cc41b8540a4e2b442d41f6f2f1a",
"text": "\"Without divulging too many specifics. Net income is 73k. Total income is 136k. Filed as an S-Corp. Using Quickbooks to classify expenses etc. I know its not much information but I don't know what to look out for, like \"\"whoa, net income is 73k, you gotta spend that!\"\" I have a CPA but isn't offering much in the terms of \"\"help\"\" and \"\"explanation\"\". Thanks for your time!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8083b22ff58709c2a3914067c123417b",
"text": "Here's how the CBO says the top 1% got their income in 2013 (latest data): Source|% from source :--------|---------: Cash Wages and Salaries|33.4% Business Income|23.2% Capital Gains|19.1% Capital Income|11.2% Corporate Tax Borne by Capital|7.3% Other Income|3.2% Employer's Share of Payroll Taxes|0.9% Employee's Contributions to Deferred Compensation Plans|0.7% Employer's Contributions to Health Insurance|0.5% And here are there definitions of the types of income: * Labor income—Cash wages and salaries, including those allocated by employees to 401(k) plans; employer-paid health insurance premiums; the employer’s share of Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment insurance payroll taxes; and the share of corporate income taxes borne by workers. * Business income—Net income from businesses and farms operated solely by their owners, partnership income, and income from S corporations. * Capital gains—Profits realized from the sale of assets. Increases in the value of assets that have not been realized through sales are not included in the Congressional Budget Office’s measure of market income. * Capital income (excluding capital gains)—Taxable and tax-exempt interest, dividends paid by corporations (but not dividends from S corporations, which are considered part of business income), positive rental income, and the share of corporate income taxes borne by owners of capital. * Other income—Income received in retirement for past services and other sources of income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "616eeb050776c24607530a993d6be9d5",
"text": "\"New York will want to you to pay taxes on income from \"\"New York sources\"\". I'm not sure what this means to a freelance web developer. If your wife is doing freelance web development under the same business entity as she did in New York (ie. a New York sole proprietor, corporation, etc), you probably do need to file. From nonresident tax form manual: http://tax.ny.gov/pdf/2011/inc/it203i_2011.pdf If you were a nonresident of New York State, you are subject to New York State tax on income you received from New York State sources in 2011. If you were a resident of New York State for only part of 2011, you are subject to New York State tax on all income you received while you were a resident of the state and on income you received from New York State sources while you were a nonresident. To compute the amount of tax due, use Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return. You will compute a base tax as if you were a full-year resident, then determine the percentage of your income that is subject to New York State tax and the amount of tax apportioned to New York State.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c9fd3b5f25bb9d6af63423130795181e",
"text": "\"Do I have to explain the source of all income on my taxes? \"\"Yes, you do\"\", say the ghosts of Ermenegildo and Mary Cesarini. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/general/what-to-know-about-taxes-on-found-property/L9BfdKz7N The Cesarinis argued to the IRS that the money wasn’t income, and so it should not be taxed as such. The IRS wasn’t swayed by the couple’s argument. The case went to federal court, and the IRS won. “Found” property and money has been considered taxable income ever since. The IRS plainly states that taxpayers must report “all income from any source,\"\" even income earned in another country, unless it is explicitly exempt under the U.S. Tax Code. This covers a wide range of miscellaneous income, including gambling winnings. According to the Cesarini decision, money you find isn’t explicitly exempt. The tax impact won’t be significant if you find an item of property with a fair market value of only $500 and are in the 25% tax bracket. You’ll owe the IRS $125 ($500 x .25 = $125). However, if you are a finder and keeper of $10,000, your tax burden will be $2,500 ($10,000 x .25 = $2,500).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d62b0de44db8893a1aed6549889899b",
"text": "\"The Form 1040 (U.S. tax return form) Instructions has a section called \"\"Do You Have To File?\"\". Below a certain income, you are not required to file a tax return and pay any tax. This amount of income at which you are required to file depends on several things, including your dependency status (you are a dependent of your parents), your marital status, and other factors. The instructions have charts that show what these numbers are. You would fall under Chart B. Assuming that you are under age 65, unmarried, and not blind, you only have to file when you reach the following conditions: Your unearned income was over $1,050. Your earned income was over $6,300. Your gross income was more than the larger of— $1,050, or Your earned income (up to $5,950) plus $350. (Note: Income from YouTube would count as \"\"earned income\"\" for the purposes above.) However, if you are producing your own videos and receiving revenue from them, you are technically self-employed. This means that the conditions from Chart C also apply, which state: You must file a return if any of the five conditions below apply for 2015. As a self-employed person, you can deduct business expenses (expenses that you incur in producing your product, which is this case is your videos). Once your revenue minus your expenses reach $400, you will need to file an income tax return.\"",
"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": "e24013fc2d8a69a7b3cba05a99e5eb8f",
"text": "When you enter your expected gross income into the worksheet - just enter $360000 and leave everything else as is. That should give you the right numbers. Same for State (form DE-4).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ca9561fce46ca68de2a189227d7c91b2",
"text": "\"ITR-4 is for incorporated business. For freelancing, You can fill ITR 2 and declare the freelancing income as \"\"income from other source\"\". Refer to the Income Tax website for more details\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f4aa07f26f949b47c07d71acff501526",
"text": "Unfortunately, you are required, but most states do have agreements with neighboring states that let the states share the collected taxes without the person having to pay double taxes. So being as this is your first tax return in your current situation, you might be wise to have a professional fill it out for you this year and then next year you can use it as a template. Additionally, I really would like to see someone challenge this across state lines taxation in court. It sure seems to me that it is a inter-state tariff/duty, which the state's are expressly forbidden from doing in the constitution.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
377bc939fce64794a6a37a1a5f17efeb
|
How is Discover different from a Visa or a MasterCard?
|
[
{
"docid": "733a24dc9aff8589d4a617d2d8f05503",
"text": "Each of those is a network. Merchants displaying their logos - participate in their network and will accept cards that bear the same logo. Most merchants participate in more than one network. Discover is mostly used in the US, while Visa, Mastercard and American Express are more widely spread in the world (Amex less, Visa and MC are much more widely spread). In addition to being widely spread in the US, Discover is accepted everywhere where UnionPay is accepted (mostly in China) and Diners Club (mostly in EMEA). Advantages/disadvantages? You'll have to compare specific cards, but if you're a traveler in the world - then Discover will probably not be as appealing as Visa or Mastercard.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f93fd74f2d65e782d5bdbb814f1f3226",
"text": "From the business side of credit cards, Discover and American Express carry their own risk. AmEx has lent their logo to banks such as Bank of America (BofA) to use the AmEx transaction network, but the financial risk and customer service is provided by BofA. Visa and MasterCard let banks use their logo and process through their respective networks for a fee. The financial risk of fraud, non-payment from merchants, etc is the risk that the individual banks carry.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "bb5469222c16ac4039cbea26d8475e07",
"text": "I guess it depends on your bank. My bank (Rabobank) recently did introduce this feature. You don't get a card per category, though. Instead you set up rules to match each expenditure to one of the existing pots.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f47a81ac4e95a651ae91ff4749699af",
"text": "\"As others have stated, credit (signature required) is processed through their respective networks (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express). A \"\"debit\"\" card tied to your checking account, still go through the same credit network even though the funds are guaranteed from your checking rather than a free loan 30-60 days which has the potential to be unpaid. This type of debit card purchase may be eligible for a lower processing rate for less risk. Debit cards can also be processed through the debit network (PIN required, no signature). This is typically a straight fee such as $0.35. Fees vary, but let me give you a simple comparison: Say you are at the supermarket and buy $50 worth of groceries with a debit card with Visa logo. You are asked \"\"credit\"\" or \"\"debit\"\": At my supermarket, this is why I am given the option to enter my PIN first. If I want to pay by credit, I have to tap Cancel to process via credit signature.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "397050bf496379d0b5e27f6d329f1278",
"text": "\"you could get a discover card and then just \"\"freeze\"\" it. you might need to unfreeze it for a few minutes when you sign up for a new service, but it is unlikely an ongoing subscription would process a charge in that window. i believe merchants are charged a small fee for a transaction even if it is declined, so they won't try constantly forever. discover account freeze faq capitalone offers this freeze feature on their \"\"360\"\" debit cards. you can even freeze and unfreeze your card from their mobile app. this feature is becoming more common at small banks and credit unions too. i know of 2 small local banks that offer it. in fact, almost any bank can give you a debit card, then set the daily POS limit to 0$, 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": "b6e0300830e19caf1b13f8bd9eb5c947",
"text": "In my experience dealing with credit cards and store cards, you may find that the store card is much more flexible than the credit card in terms of the enforcement of the card agreement. For instance, I've missed payments on credit cards and only been 1 day late and saw a rate increase, but on a store card when the same thing happened, it was like they didn't even notice. Granted, this was a 100% store card with no VISA/MC logo on it, and it was through their bank. This may not be true of all store cards and your experience may differ, but I felt like the store card was more of a tool for acquiring the merchandise and helping the store make a sale than it was for some big bank to make money off of my interest. With credit cards, you are the product, and the bank makes money purely from interest. The store, on the other hand, makes money from selling the product, and credit helps increase sales. My suggestion is to avoid credit altogether as all debt is risk, but if you must use credit, you may have a better experience with the store card. Of course, don't forget to consider the interest rates, payment plan, and other fees that may apply as they may affect your decision in terms of which to go with.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "56e3871e37ab13e6f1243588f2f7f8be",
"text": "Back when they started, Discover undercut Visa and Amex fees by about a point. This was also true when I worked for a mail-order computer retailer in the '90s: if a customer asked us which credit cards we took, we were told to list Discover first (and AmEx last) because Discover had the lowest merchant charges. Possibly this is no longer true today, but for quite a while it was a significant selling point of the Discover card to merchants, and a reason why many did sign on. (A reason some stores did not sign on was that Discover was owned by Sears, and many businesses that competed with Sears didn't like the idea of sending any of their profits to the competition.) Today, Discover also owns Diners Club and the fees for those cards are higher.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a7af83dec07deef1a5cd58c68bc6ad1c",
"text": "The truth is that Visa does not require a merchant to enter the cvv number before authorizing a transaction. The only information that is really needed is the credit card number and expiration date.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "58798764a5f701a63768787f72841c06",
"text": "Chip and Pin cards are popular in Europe, however in the US we don't have them. Visa/MC and Amex can issue chip and pin cards but no merchants or machines are set up here to take them. Only certain countries in Europe use them and since you could possibly have a US visitor or a non-chip and pin person using your machine or eating at your restaurant they usually allow you to sign or just omit the pin if the card doesn't have a chip. It is definitely less secure, but the entire credit card industry in the US is running right now without it, so I don't think the major credit card companies care too much (they just pass the fraud on to the merchants anyway).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e37fee42606d87823a1ba83b3875c0bc",
"text": "\"These days, just about any bank has the ability to schedule payments for free. I usually use this. My wife has a Chase MasterCard, because they used to automatically credit the 1% cash back monthly. Now they \"\"improved\"\" the card, and you need to go online and redeem the rewards, either in $20 increments, or to pay off a previous purchase, which seems to be a real gimmick. They probably get back the 1% cash back for that purchase if you use this feature. Weird people.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9ad235adbc365a7f267a915eb6b63ab2",
"text": "Per their merchant agreements, Visa and MasterCard say that the signature on the back of the card is the proper way to identify the card holder. If a card is not signed, the merchant is supposed to check your ID and make you sign the card before accepting it for payment. Merchants are not allowed the require an ID for paying with a signed card. Of course, store employees rarely know all these things. Some will gladly accept an unsigned card. Some will try to make you show your ID.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "842d702d0a16587e75274be26c6e911e",
"text": "One reason why some merchants in the US don't accept Discover is that the fee the store is charged is higher than the average. Generally a portion of transaction fee for the network and the issuing bank goes to the rewards program. In some cases a portion of the interest can also be used to fund these programs. Some cards will give you more points when you carry a balance from one month to the next. Therefore encouraging consumers to have interest charges. This portion of the program will be funded from the interest charges. Profits: Rewards: Some rewards are almost always redeemed: cash once the amount of charges gets above a minimum threshold. Some are almost never redeemed: miles with high requirements and tough blackout periods. Credit cards that don't understand how their customers will use their cards can run into problems. If they offer a great rewards program that encourages use, but pays too high a percentage of points earned can lead to problems. This is especially true when a great percentage of users pay in full each month. This hurt Citibank in the 1990's. They had a card with no annual fee forever, and a very high percentage never had to pay interest. People flocked to the card, and kept it as an emergency card, because they knew it would never have a annual fee.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "227705b1e7b874ef3bfe5cb2eac46111",
"text": "You can check your score through your discover card account (only credit card) 2 month difference Nothing has changed. Have gone about regular business with no dramatic increase in spending I'm 21 and I'm almost exactly a year into my first card",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5decb6a6d267bdd7e47d67861b736515",
"text": "The only card I've seen offer this on credit card purchases is Discover. I think they have a special deal with the stores so that the cash-over amount is not included in the percentage-fee the merchant pays. (The cash part shows up broken-out from the purchase amount on the statement--if this was purely something the store did on its own without some collaboration with Discover that would not happen). The first few times I've seen the offer, I assumed it would be treated like a cash-advance (high APR, immediate interest with no grace period, etc.), but it is not. It is treated like a purchase. You have no interest charge if you pay in full during the grace period, and no transaction fee. Now I very rarely go to the ATM. What is in it for Discover? They have a higher balance to charge you interest on if you ever fail to pay in full before the grace period. And Discover doesn't have any debit/pin option that I know of, so no concern of cannibalizing their other business. And happier customers. What is in it for the grocer? Happier customers, and they need to have the armored car come around less often and spend less time counting drawers internally.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ff658878eb559cffbb618b78cfe1ff60",
"text": "http://www.andrewsfcu.org/ is one of the only US financial institutions to issue a low or no annual fee chip and pin visa or mastercard.. Andrews is primarily for civilian employees of the Andrews Air Force Base but is available to members of the American Consumer Council, which offers free membership, see http://www.andrewsfcu.org/page.php?page=330 . The chip and pin card is a visa with $0 annual fee and charges a 1% foreign transaction fee. Getting one is modestly difficult because you have to first join the credit union then apply for the card, then go through underwriting as if it were a personal loan rather than a revolving credit account. Still, for travelers, it is probably worth it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "777609ebf107f439f7d88abfd8f47406",
"text": "\"In the end, all these fees hurt the average consumer, since the merchant ultimately passes cost to consumer. Savvy consumers can stay at par or get ahead, if they put in the effort. It's a pain, but I rotate between 4 cards depending on time of year and type of purchase, to optimize cash back. My cards are: 1. 5% rewards card on certain categories, rotates each quarter 2. 2% travel/dining card (fee card, but I travel a bunch so it's worth it, no foreign transaction fees) 3. 1.5% rewards card for everything else 4. Debit card (swiped as a CC) for small purchases (i.e. lunches) at credit union for \"\"enhanced\"\" high interest checking account, requiring certain # swipes/month. This alone returns to me ~$800/yr.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2b853421a575ea6105a8dea6baec6e29",
"text": "From experience, Mastercard and Visa charge vendors about the same (around 2%-5%) while American Express and Diners Club are astonishingly expensive (6%-10%) and you'll find that few small retailers are very comfortable accepting these. The variation comes from the volume of trade that vendors provide. A big retailer will negotiate a very low rate while smaller businesses will be hit with higher charges.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
ad5878800ba3ecfed3cb29eae1c1a2f2
|
Transfer money from a real estate sale in India to the US
|
[
{
"docid": "97e9259c518f4940289b7fbc3d202c9b",
"text": "How would I go about doing this? Assuming you had purchased the house by funding from your NRE account, you can easily move back the 30K into NRE Account and out of India from NRI Account. The 30K profit would be taxed in India as per capital gains and can only be moved into NRO account. A CA would need to certify that appropriate taxes have been withheld before the bank will release the funds for repatriation out of India. There is also a limit [large 1 million USD] on how much funds can be moved out of India. Consult a CA who would help you with the formalities. If you have not funded the purchase from NRE account, the entire proceeds should be into NRO account and then move funds from there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f6402f4647bbd723317bbe4ea5e5179f",
"text": "How would I go about doing this? Are there any tax laws I should be worried about? Just report it as a regular sale of asset on your form 8949 (or form 4797 if used for trade/business/rental). It will flow to your Schedule D for capital gains tax. Use form 1116 to calculate the foreign tax credit for the taxes on the gains you'd pay in India (if any).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15679e9fd10ad61388766e59a8aed1ec",
"text": "If you are using the money to invest in a property (even abroad) then you can claim tax exemption. while some people will tell you that the reinvestment should be in India only, it have been ruled that the property can be purchased abroad too..",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "3bb072e755ce59b9c53a54cf0cfeffd8",
"text": "\"Transferring the money or keeping it in US does has no effect on taxes. Your residency status has. Assuming you are Resident Alien in US for tax purpose and have paid the taxes to IRS and you are \"\"Non-Resident\"\" Indian for tax purposes in India as you are more than 182 outside India. How would it effect my Tax in US and India If you are \"\"Non-Resident\"\" in India for tax purposes, there is no tax liability of this in India. I have transferred an amount of approx 15-20k$ to Indian Account (not NRE) By RBI regulation, if you are \"\"Non-Resident\"\" then you should get your savings account converted to \"\"NRO\"\". You may not may not choose to open an NRE account. To keep the paper work clear it helps that you open an NRE account in India. Any investment needed ? Where do i need to declare if any ? These are not relevant. Note any income generated in India, i.e. interest in Savings account / FDs / Rent etc; taxes need to be paid in India and declared in US and taxes paid in US as well. There is some relief under DTAA. There are quite a few question on this site that will help you clarify what needs to be done.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "113b8719c3b38c3c58e18fcdbf173cf9",
"text": "There is no tax liability for your brother in India as under gift tax,t there is no cap on amount. The transaction may be taxable to you in US, as there is a limit of USD 14000 per year per person.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "41ee3561cef74975b242ec5e0bf15f49",
"text": "Online money transfer facility from Axis Remit is a quick and easy way to transfer money from USA to India. AxisRemit is Axis Bank's flagship inward remittance service enables you to transfer money to your beneficiaries through the most efficient channels like online money transfer, exchange houses and money transfer operators.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "591b432268ebed771ecbba83aded949d",
"text": "There are quite a few details missing. What was your status in India when the property was purchased. How was the property funded? As your status now is PIO, assuming you have registered as PIO, and the purchase was funded from NRE account; You can credit the original purchase price into NRE account and repatriate. The capital appreciation has to be credited to NRO, tax paid and apply for repatriation. A certificate from qualified chartered accountant is required. Essentially it certifies you have paid tax and are compiling with FEMA (Foreign exchange management act) If you are not registered as PIO, you would need to apply to RBI (Reserve Bank of India, similar to fed) for permission to sell as this transaction falls under FEMA. You would in any case need a CA. A lawyer would also help. Assuming you were reporting this property in your US IRS returns ... You are liable for taxes in US. India and US have some amount of DTAA( dual tax avoidance agreement)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa6b5fd3a2691763e0186d3daa30563b",
"text": "Buyer A didn't send money to the US government, Buyer A sent money to Seller B, a US resident. I think the most common way to facilitate a transaction like this is a regular old international wire transfer. Buyer A in India goes to their bank to exchange X INR to $1mm USD. $1mm USD is then wire transferred to Seller B's bank account. The USD was sold to Buyer A, either by funds held by Buyer A's bank, or foreign exchange markets, or possibly the US government. Seller B may owe taxes on the gain derived from the sale of this thing to Buyer A, but that taxation would arise regardless of who the buyer was. Buyer A may owe an import tax in India upon importing whatever they bought. I don't think it's common to tax imported money in this sort of transactional setting though.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "fa74f9772e688a7311fdd7a91a3b9504",
"text": "Are there any IRS regulations I should be aware of when sending money to India? None. As long as you are following the standard banking channels. You are also declaring all the accounts held outside US in your tax returns. FBAR. Is it legal to do so? Yes it is legal. do I have to declare how much I am investing and pay extra taxes? As part of FBAR. Income earned [including interest, capital gains, etc] needs to be paid in India [there are some exemptions for example interest on NRE accounts] as well as in the US [relief can be claimed under DTAA Indian version here and US here]. So if you already have paid taxes on salary and say transfer USD 10K to India; there is no tax on this 10K. If this 10K generates an income of say 2K; this 2K is taxable as per normal classification and rules.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c75d0c4b25992b394197d4d4feaa9f05",
"text": "As I understand it, capital gains from real estate sales in India can be shielded from income tax entirely if the proceeds of the sale are invested in certain specific types of bonds (Rural Highway Contruction Authority of India?) for a period of three years beginning no later than x months (6 months?) after completion of the sale. Perhaps this applies to sales of inherited real estate only and not to commercial property or residential property acquired by purchase since there is no step-up of basis on death as occurs in the US, and in all likelihood, records of the purchase price of the inherited property are lost in the mists of time, and so the basis of the investment is effectively zero (or treated as such by the revenue authorities) The interest paid by these bonds is included in taxable income. Perhaps @Dheer will be willing to correct any mistakes in the above. So, it may be necessary to check whether (a) the interest income from the bonds was declared on Form 1040 Schedule B for each year (b) whether the appropriate boxes (the ones that ask whether the taxpayer has signature authority over foreign accounts etc) were checked on Schedule B or not, (c) whether Form TD 90-22.1 was filed each year or not (this is the FBAR requirement) Note that if the total value of the accounts is less than US $10K during the entire year, then the taxpayer is supposed to check NO on Schedule B and need not file Form TD 90-22.1. Also, there is a separate requirement to file a Form 8938 for certain specific types of investments. There was a two-part article describing these rules in Forbes magazine some time ago, and this is available on-line (Part 1 and Part II) As @superjessi says, the IRS might be lenient if the only issue is not filing the forms in timely fashion, and the taxpayer is voluntarily coming into compliance even though the filing is late. They are likely to be less forgiving if the foreign income was not reported, and still remains unreported even after filing the various forms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fa50b3447866754944dd49e44d0b667d",
"text": "You friend would only be able to deposit this in NRO account. You may have to explain the source of money. If you declare it as gift, then you would need to pay gift tax. What you are doing is converting USD to INR outside the normal banking network and this maybe in volition of FEMA [Foreign Exchange Management Act].",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b7c69995a03600169bdd569cdbd3f7af",
"text": "I can't find anything specifically about holding international real estate as a US taxpayer, but the act of transferring the money to (I presume) an account of yours in Italy, and any other associated accounts, will trigger requirements for reporting under FBAR and FACTA. Even with this, it is primarily a reporting requirement. I do not believe you will incur any additional taxes unless you do rent out the property (or allow someone not a reported dependent to make use of the property). Note that if you do not report and should, the penalties are quite steep, so please do comply. NOTE: I am not a tax expert, nor a lawyer, nor an accountant, nor an agent of the IRS. Please consult one or all of these before making any decisions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7f88fcb019da809facd934c61dfe7b09",
"text": "On my recent visit to the bank, I was told that money coming into the NRE account can only be foreign currency and for NRO accounts, the money can come in local currency but has to be a valid source of income (e.g. rent or investments in India). Yes this is correct as per FMEA regulation in India. Now if we use 3rd party remittances like Remitly or Transferwise etc, they usually covert the foreign currency into local currency like INR and then deposit it. The remittance services are better suited for transferring funds to Normal Savings accounts of your loved ones. Most remittance services would transfer funds using a domestic clearing network [NEFT] and hence the trace that funds originated outside of India is lost. There could be some generic remittance that may have direct tie-up with some banks to do direct transfers. How can we achieve this in either NRE/NRO accounts? If not, what are the other options ? You can do a Wire Transfer [SWIFT] from US to Indian NRE account. You can also use the remittance services [if available] from Banks where you hold NRE Account. For example RemittoIndia from HDFC for an NRE account in HDFC, or Money2India from ICICI for an NRE account in ICICI or QuickRemit from SBI etc. These would preserve the history that funds originated from outside India. Similarly you can also deposit a Foreign Currency Check into Indian Bank Account. The funds would take around month or so to get credited. All other funds can be deposited in NRO account.",
"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": "19248cdc1d94e3e6ce721efcdf3161b9",
"text": "Assuming that your friend is residing in India, any money that he returns to you cannot be deposited into your NRE (NonResident External) account; it must go into your NRO (NonResident Ordinary) account. You don't have an NRO account, only ordinary savings accounts in India that you established before leaving the country and becoming an NRI (NonResident Indian) ? Well, you are in violation of FEMA regulations and need to convert all those ordinary savings accounts into NRO accounts as soon as possible. Your bank will help you in doing this (by letting you hold ordinary accounts while you have NRI status, the bank too is in violation of FEMA regulations). With regard to taxation, unless you have created a paper trail by documenting the money sent to the builder as a loan to your friend, the entire amount (less INR 50,000 exemption) that your friend will return to you will be considered a gift from your friend to you, and it will be taxable income to you in India, and possibly taxable income to you in your country of residence, though there may be tax treaties that will let you pay taxes in one country only. If you do have a paper trail, then only the excess of what your friend returns to you is interest income to you; the bulk is just repayment of the loan principal, and is nontaxable. If you are residing in the US, I do hope that you have reported the fact that you had foreign bank account(s) totaling more than US$10K in value to the IRS and the US Treasury as per FBAR regulations; because if not, you have many more tax issues to worry about. The fines for not filing these reports are onerous.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ddf52fea02a2127de2b6cecea9f0f877",
"text": "\"Most personal loans in the US are for the purpose of purchasing some tangible object (usually a house or car) and that object is the collateral for the loan. Indeed, the loan proceeds are usually paid directly to the seller without passing through the bank account of the borrower, and the seller delivers the title of the car to the lender, or a mortgage lien is recorded on the real property. Except possibly in the case of a refinance of a home mortgage, there is not much cash from such a loan to send to a friend to invest in his business, whether in the US or in India. These types of loans are \"\"relatively easy\"\" to get. Much harder to get are unsecured personal loans. Unless your friend has a very friendly banker, getting an unsecured loan of, say, $20,000 \"\"just for the heck of it\"\" is not easy. Some reasonably well-off people do manage to get such loans and use the money to invest in the stock or bond markets, in which case, the interest paid on such loans can be deducted on Schedule A (but only to the extent of the actual investment income; any extras can be carried over to the next year). So, will your friend be investing in your business or making a loan to your business? and do you anticipate that your business will generate any investment income or interest for your friend? If not, and your friend still wants to finance your business (while making payments on the loan in the US), then your friend must really like you a lot (or have faith that a few years down the road, you will be able to sell your business to GoAppTel for mucho big bucks and pay him off very handsomely).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8678ed4f912e6edb926d4ad3c93d5ea7",
"text": "Shareholders have voting rights, and directors have fiduciary obligations to shareholders. Sure, shareholders have rights to the dividends, but stock confers decisionmaking powers. I'm not really sure what your answer to this is, or how you are differentiating the concept of ownership from this.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
16d0efea5a3d5d165e30247a32dde287
|
Best way to day trade with under $25,000
|
[
{
"docid": "1623a2eb8a76a355435bac24727d8667",
"text": "\"The T+3 \"\"rule\"\" relates only to accounting and not to trading. It does not prevent you from day trading. It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade. When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the information you need to know the cash amounts that will hit your account three business days later. In a cash account, cash postings that arise from trading are treated as unsettled (for three days), but this does not mean that these funds are available for further trading. If you have $25,000 in your account on day 1, this does not mean that you will be able to trade more than $25,000 because your cash account has not yet been debited. Most cash accounts will include an item detailing \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". This will net out any unsettled business transacted. For example, if you have a cash account balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you purchase $10,000 worth of shares, then pending settlement in your cash account you will only have $15,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\". Similarly, if you have a cash balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you \"\"day trade\"\", purchasing $15,000 and selling $10,000 worth of shares, then you will have the net of $20,000 \"\"Cash available for trading\"\" ($20,000 = $25,000 - $15,000 + $10,000). If by \"\"prop account\"\" you mean an account where you give discretion to a broker to trade on your behalf, then I think the issues of accounting will be the least of your worries. You will need to be worried about not being fleeced out of your hard earned savings by someone far more interested in lining their own pockets than making money for you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c38fdb9c7f76677a4614faf0eaf2598a",
"text": "\"You avoid pattern day trader status by trading e-mini futures through a futures broker. The PDT rules do not apply in the futures markets. Some of the markets that are available include representatives covering the major indices i.e the YM (DJIA), ES (S&P 500) and NQ (Nasdaq 100) and many more markets. You can take as many round-turn trades as you care to...as many or as few times a day as you like. E-mini futures contracts trade in sessions with \"\"transition\"\" times between sessions. -- Sessions begin Sunday evenings at 6 PM EST and are open through Monday evening at 5 PM EST...The next session begins at 6 pm Monday night running through Tuesday at 5 PM EST...etc...until Friday's session close at 5 PM EST. Just as with stocks, you can either buy first then sell (open and close a position) or short-sell (sell first then cover by buying). You profit (or lose) on a round turn trade in the same manor as you would if trading stocks, options, ETFs etc. The e-mini futures are different than the main futures markets that you may have seen traders working in the \"\"pits\"\" in Chicago...E-mini futures are totally electronic (no floor traders) and do not involve any potential delivery of the 'product'...They just require the closing of positions to end a transaction. A main difference is you need to maintain very little cash in your account in order to trade...$1000 or less per trade, per e-mini contract...You can trade just 1 contract at a time or as many contracts as you have the cash in your account to cover. \"\"Settlement\"\" is immediate upon closing out any position that you may have put on...No waiting for clearing before your next trade. If you want to hold an e-mini contract position over 2 or more sessions, you need to have about $5000 per contract in your account to cover the minimum margin requirement that comes into play during the transition between sessions... With the e-minis you are speculating on gaining from the difference between when you 'put-on' and \"\"close-out\"\" a position in order to profit. For example, if you think the DJIA is about to rise 20 points, you can buy 1 contract. If you were correct in your assessment and sold your contract after the e-mini rose 20 points, you profited $100. (For the DJIA e-mini, each 1 point 'tick' is valued at $5.00)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "666debe67dd0fd4ebc35e1abff7339dd",
"text": "One way a lot of people bypass the pattern trading equity requirement is to open multiple brokerage accounts. You have $10k, put $5k in one and $5k in another. Although I don't recommend it!",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "32e71fb321d39a1fceb84c0481f32a5c",
"text": "Put £50 away as often as possible, and once it's built up to £500, invest in a stockmarket ETF. Repeat until you retire.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "14dc35868b7480da0985d6b8c5fec786",
"text": "\"I think you have a really good idea, kudos to it. It will be difficult to break eve, and while you stressed the fact that you are ready to part with this money, it would be interesting for you not to part with this money just for the sake of trading. You will be frustrated because you are \"\"winning\"\" and breaking even or even losing money in the process. Think about that. For somebody with limited experience the derivatives market carries a very high risk also as everything in this matters carries high or very high yield. Trading futures on margin can actually work but I think you will need a bit more money. Check the mini contracts of infinity futures and calculate the commissions. You will be paying more for a contract, yes. you will need more money for your maintenance margin, yes, but if you day-trade and you have a cheapo broker this will be substantially lower. Gold contracts pay about 10 to 1 so a mini contract of 33 ounces will pay you 33 dollars per 1 dollar move. Your commissions will be about 4/5 usd in a discount broker and you will need to pay some exchange house fees, maybe about 15% of your trade will be fees. Check the contract specs and costs. As somebody said before, they wouldn't recommend trading on margin but with an account of that side I wouldn't know anything else. Trading physical gold on margin could also be an option. Just my 2 cents.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "45110418c6c3d820f2eec63227754dd6",
"text": "\"If you have at least $25,000, Wells Fargo is the place to be, as you get 100 free trades per account. I have three investment accounts with them and get 100 free trades in each a year, though I only ever actually use 10-20. i can't vouch for their phone service as I've never needed it, but free is very hard to beat in the \"\"value for money\"\" department. Update: Apparently in some states the requirement is $50,000. However, they count 10% of your mortgage as well as all deposit and investment accounts toward that balance.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18543e60700a8898c04bf944bba4737f",
"text": "As I recall, the Scottrade minimum is only $500. (By the way, Scottrade has a feature to automatically reinvest any dividends which the securities pay) Once you have an account, you can buy into an index fund. SPY tracks the S&P 500. It is also currently paying nearly 2% in dividends. You can shop for other alternatives here: http://seekingalpha.com/insight/etf_hub/etf_guide/selector/article/39431-core-building-blocks-large-mid-small-cap-us-etfs",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e29195a125f800f05e4931e59d0e7e93",
"text": "\"It's impossibly difficult to time the market. Generally speaking, you should buy low and sell high. Picking 25% as an arbitrary ceiling on your gains seems incorrect to me because sometimes you'll want to hold a stock for longer or sell it sooner, and those decisions should be based on your research (or if you need the money), not an arbitrary number. To answer your questions: If the reasons you still bought a stock in the first place are still valid, then you should hold and/or buy more. If something has changed and you can't find a reason to buy more, then consider selling. Keep in mind you'll pay capital gains taxes on anything you sell that is not in a tax-deferred (e.g. retirement) account. No, it does not make sense to do a wash sale where you sell and buy the same stock. Capital gains taxes are one reason. I'm not sure why you would ever want to do this -- what reasons were you considering? You can always sell just some of the shares. See above (and link) regarding wash sales. Buying more of a stock you already own is called \"\"dollar cost averaging\"\". It's an effective method when the reasons are right. DCA minimizes variance due to buying or selling a large amount of shares at an arbitrary single-day price and instead spreads the cost or sale basis out over time. All that said, there's nothing wrong with locking in a gain by selling all or some shares of a winner. Buy low, sell high!\"",
"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": "e4f65c14cb339c610df2f430761c3248",
"text": "The lowest cost way to trade on an exchange is to trade directly on the exchange. I can't speak to the LSE, but in the US, there is a mandated firewall between the individual and the exchange, the broker; therefore, in the US, one would have to start a business and become a broker. If that process is too costly, the broker or trade platform that permits individuals to trade with the lowest commissions is the next lowest.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "92174efaea066aa7b16d666a6d03c5b8",
"text": "\"I think I understand what you're trying to achieve. You just want to see how it \"\"feels\"\" to own a share, right? To go through the process of buying and holding, and eventually selling, be it at a loss or at a gain. Frankly, my primary advice is: Just do it on paper! Just decide, for whatever reason, which stocks to buy, in what amount, subtract 1% for commissions (I'm intentionally staying on the higher side here), and keep track of the price changes daily. Instead of doing it on mere paper, some brokers offer you a demo account where you can practice your paper trading in the same way you would use a live account. As far as I know, Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank offer such demo accounts, go look around on their web pages. The problem about doing it for real is that many of the better brokers, such as the two I mentioned, have relatively high minimum funding limits. You need to send a few thousand pounds to your brokerage account before you can even use it. Of course, you don't need to invest it all, but still, the cash has to be there. Especially for some younger and inexperienced investors, this can seduce them to gambling most of their money away. Which is why I would not advise you to actually invest in this way. It will be expensive but if it's just for trying it on one share, use your local principal bank for the trade. Hope this gets you started!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e0a671734512500e733a71357cfd6b3b",
"text": "If you aren't familiar with Norbert's Gambit, it's worth looking at. This is a mechanism using a Canadian brokerage account to simultaneously execute one stock trade in CAD and one in USD. The link I provided claims that it only starts potentially making sense somewhere in the 10,000+ range.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "973f7eacf416c4b3e28ab38eeeb4fdda",
"text": "\"I recommend a Roth IRA. At your age you could turn 25K into a million and never pay taxes on these earnings. Of course there are yearly limits (5.5k) on the amount your can contribute to a Roth IRA account. If you haven't filed your taxes this year yet ... you can contribute 5.5K for last year and 5.5K for this year. Open two accounts at a discount brokerage firm. Trades should be about $10 or less per. Account one ... Roth IRA. Account two a brokerage account for the excess funds that can't be placed in the Roth IRA. Each year it will be easy transfer money into the Roth from this account. Be aware that you can't transfer stocks from brokerage acct to Roth IRA ... only cash. You can sell some stocks in brokerage and turn that into cash to transfer. This means settling up with the IRS on any gains/losses on that sale. Given your situation you'd likely have new cash to bring to table for the Roth IRA anyway. Invest in stocks and hold them for the long term. Do a google search for \"\"motley fool stock advisor\"\" and join. This is a premium service that picks two stocks to invest in each month. Invest small amounts (say $750) in each stock that they say you should buy. They will also tell you when to sell. They also give insights into why they selected the stock and why they are selling (aka learning experience). They pick quality companies. So if the economy is down you will still own a quality company that will make it through the storm. Avoid the temptation to load up on one stock. Follow the small amount rule mentioned above per stock. Good luck, and get in the market.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "31c10b2d23beea4ec3e15b5f62854008",
"text": "I would never trade after hours and I have 30 years of trading experience. It is a very volatile emotion driven market without a lot of the big players that arbitrage wrong pricing. If I were you I would simply use limit orders you input while the market is closed. If you want to get kute you can put in low-ball offers (and vice versa) to see if they get filled in the volatility at market open. Then check in (when?) when you wake up (or before you go to bed, etc) and revise the limit if not filled. In other words don't 'trade'. Know what your company is worth and put in orders that reflect that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "795835496c8e45d42558433f2339eb59",
"text": "The day trader in the article was engaging in short selling. Short selling is a technique used to profit when a stock goes down. The investor borrows shares of a stock from someone else and sells them. After the stock price goes down, the investor buys the shares back and returns them, pocketing the difference. As the day trader in the article found out, it is a dangerous practice, because there is no limit to the amount of money you can lose. The stock was trading at $2, and the day trader thought the stock was going to go down to $1. He borrowed and sold 8,400 shares at $2. He hoped to buy them back at $1 and earn $8,400 profit. Instead, the stock went up a lot, and he was forced to buy back the shares at $18.50 per share, or about $155,400. He had had $37,000 with E-Trade, which they took, and he is now over $100,000 in debt.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0c09988011d193a13211bcb4d3109c7d",
"text": "Sharpe ratio can work but is often too complex for retail traders. Consider using R-Multiples, where R is the amount risked on the trade. If you're risking 100 and you make 200, that's a 2R trade. There's no right R multiple and it's dependent on your trading style. Van Tharp's books help describe it better.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "80e8a3b98c99786bb08a6abaf46fe10f",
"text": "Well, sorry to hear about your struggles! For your question, $15,000 is sadly not enough money to build a career on investing for yourself, if you’re referring to the stock market. Unfortunately you need I believe $25,000 to even have a day trading account, plus the best investors in the world probably net 5-10% which is only tops $2,500 per year! On the other hand, $15,000 maybe you could use an FHA loan and buy a small condo that you could renovate and flip. FHA lenders only require 3.5% down plus closing costs. I would need more information on what type of investing you’re referring to.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a4e020ecbb12d4579e669c3e5f2d283",
"text": "You are looking for arbitrage, not in real terms, and you may lose heavily. Big banks would suck out all profit before you get a chance to react. There are thousands of algorithmic trading systems in banks, which specifically predict such situations and try to make money from such moves. If you can invest in such a system, probably you can make a killing, else best is to forget about it. Remember that somebody before you has surely thought about it and put a system in place, so that somebody else cannot make money out of it before he/she does.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
87d95502b4a55d97b77c58a55384f46c
|
Is there such a thing as a deposit-only bank account?
|
[
{
"docid": "28e1f72ba698af26332cbfc0cb7960dc",
"text": "Do you write checks? You are giving your bank account and routing number to anybody you have ever given a check to. Your employer is paying taxes on your behalf, so they need your social security number so they can pay your social security taxes. Account and routing numbers are how deposits are made. If you are concerned, create a free checking account, collect the direct deposit and each payday go to the bank and withdraw your money to put it where you like. Nothing is deposit only because you will want your money back. Finally, you would be shocked at how little it takes to make a draft on your account in the US. Certainly not your SSN, Address, or even your name.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c96289c6f10cf5dd3412d213afde0f90",
"text": "Usually the most significant risk scenarios here are: Third parties can abuse your routing/account numbers to initiate debits, but this is a type of fraud that is easily traced. It can happen, but it is more likely that it would be a scenario where you were specifically targeted vs. the victim of some random fraud. Defending against someone who is specifically going after you is very difficult, especially if you don't know about it. Your SSN isnt used for the bank transfer, you are providing it so that the entity making the payments can report on payments to you for tax purposes. If you are truly worried about this type of scenario, I suggest setting up a dedicated savings account for the purpose of receiving these payments and then sweeping (either manually or automatically) the funds into another account. Most stock brokers will allow you to automate this, and most banks will let you do this manually.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e66a88b7cf69b7bdd8106cc680cc8d92",
"text": "\"I would suggest opening a bank account that you use to accept deposits only, and then get a system set up where it automatically transfers the money over to your main account. If not instantly it could transfer the money hourly or daily. Of course you would have to pay a premium for this \"\"peace of mind\"\" ;)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "74e6723b2a4656386b468664716c80ac",
"text": "\"There is such a thing as Deposit Only. This will allow the individual's account to function only for collection of monetary deposits. NO ONE will be able to withdraw...only deposit. The account holder may still physically withdraw at their banking institution. Think of it as taking your account from a \"\"public\"\" profile to a \"\"private\"\" profile. Doing this is beneficial for ppl who may have been scammed into a program or product where there account is bieng fraudulently overdrafted, or simply to protect your funds from bieng drafted without your approval or despite your requests for ceasing the drafts. When making your account a deposit only account it's a good idea to open a NEW account at a Different banking institution, because some banks will still allow an account that is \"\"attached\"\" to the deposit only account to be drafted from it. WIth the new account you can utilize that one for paying day to day bills and just transfer funds from the deposit only account to the new account. A deposit only account is also a good way to build up a nice nest egg for yourself or even a young adult! source- Financial Adivsor 4years-\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d07c9ed262166e73524913c4e1f6dd60",
"text": "Legally, no one else can withdraw from your account. If you suspect the direct-deposit websites are making withdrawals, you can monitor your account balance and dispute any transactions that were not made by you. But realistically, any company that did that would soon be out of business and in so much legal trouble that it wouldn't be worth the money they could get from you.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "aaa8aad4c12291860d68cfacd8f7b6ed",
"text": "I found out there is something called CDARS that allows a person to open a multi-million dollar certificate of deposit account with a single financial institution, who provides FDIC coverage for the entire account. This financial institution spreads the person's money across multiple banks, so that each bank holds less than $250K and can provide the standard FDIC coverage. The account holder doesn't have to worry about any of those details as the main financial institution handles everything. From the account holder's perspective, he/she just has a single account with the main financial institution.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c834716aad22d334e869df10ff610d73",
"text": "Without access to the ATM/debit card and with almost nothing in savings, you will probably have to visit a branch to make a cash deposit. If it is too far to drive you might be able to turn the cash into a money order and mail it to the bank, but I would check with the bank to see if that would work. Of course mail will take a day or two.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dd33cf6470421860ee098c213b08e658",
"text": "\"I opened several free checking accounts at a local credit union. One is a \"\"Deposit\"\" account where all of my new money goes. I get paid every two weeks. Every other Sunday we have our \"\"Money Day\"\" where we allocate the money from our Deposit account into our other checking accounts. I have one designated as a Bills account where all of my bills get paid automatically via bill pay or auto-pay. I created a spreadsheet that calculates how much to save each Money Day for all of my upcoming bills. This makes it so the amount I save for my bills is essentially equal. Then I allocate the rest of my deposit money into my other checking accounts. I have a Grocery, Household, and Main checking accounts but you could use any combination that you want. When we're at the store we check our balances (how much we have left to spend) on our mobile app. We can't overspend this way. The key is to make sure you're using your PIN when you use your debit card. This way it shows up in real-time with your credit union and you've got an accurate balance. This has worked really well to coordinate spending between me and my wife. It sounds like it's a lot of work but it's actually really automated. The best part is that I don't have to do any accounting which means my budget doesn't fail if I'm not entering my transactions or categorizing them. I'm happy to share my spreadsheet if you'd like.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2b0575f84d48dc745cabb99f48049fcd",
"text": "No, in your situation it is not possible. Mostly, only three types of accounts are available to individuals: So, a complete foreigner can open account in India, only if he is working in India, a type of Savings account, and that account too will be linked to his resident status. If he leaves work, he needs to close this account. Edit: There are business accounts, and current accounts, but those are available only to businesses. Further read at SBI gives a good snapshot",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "591374af295eea181078c11fff644f7f",
"text": "How often do you need to actually go to a bank? atm's, debit and credit cards work where ever. you can even deposit checks by taking a picture of them. dealing with cash would be more troublesome though.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "057b35fdb4e173c7a329dcd6da86e19a",
"text": "\"The account you are looking for is called a \"\"Positive Pay\"\" account. It generally is only for business accounts, you provide a list of check numbers and amounts, and they are cross-referenced for clearing. It normally has a hefty monthly fee due to the extra labor involved.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6b722f7ab18aa74ea0ca2f4cbd589dfb",
"text": "Of course its possible. Under what terms and with what fees depends on your bank/country regulations, but generally speaking - loaning is the major source of income for banks, especially short-term account overdrafts (which is essentially a loan, usually at a high rate). In the US you can (now, since the new regulations kicked in) instruct the bank not to pay checks/decline debit card purchases if you don't have sufficient funds on the account. Otherwise you can instruct them to pay (at their discretion) to avoid bouncing checks, and accept NSF fees (usually pretty high). Some banks provide overdraft lines of credit (then you won't have NSF fees, and will just pay interest when tapping into that line), others provide option to automatically withdraw the missing amount from a linked account (checking or credit card).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a4caf6fa7e8a372ad3dc873529deed51",
"text": "Many banks will allow you to open multiple accounts. Create a secondary checking account that has no automatic withdrawals and doesn't allow overdraft. This is the account you'll use for you discretionary spending. Get an account with a debit card and always use it as a debit card (never as a credit card, even if it allows that). Your employer may allow you to split your direct deposit so that a certain amount of money goes into this account each month. When it gets to $0, you have to stop spending. It will automatically refill when you get your paycheck.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c41887f452951ca0fff3e00ea632073a",
"text": "The security concept of minimising attack surface could be stretched to apply here, especially if closing the account would mean the end of your relationship with that bank. Essentially more routes into your finances or personal information means more opportunities for fraud, more accounts to keep an eye on, more logins to remember/store, and even more paperwork/idle cards to check (for unexpected activity and T&C changes), store and eventually shred. However I had a couple of online-only savings accounts with zero balance for a few years, at a bank where I have other accounts, and I didn;t worry in the slightest. (You can open the accounts online but have to phone to close them and sitting on hold is too much of a chore for me. Eventually they realised their mistake, brought in a minimum balance requirement, and after giving notice closed accounts with less that that in them)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d9b8106c6faa5826c974441dda0bf78",
"text": "Almost any financial institution has the technical ability to do this (simply called sweeps, auto sweeps, or deposit sweeps); the issue you face is finding an institution that is willing to do it for you. I think you will have the most luck at your primary financial institution where you currently keep the majority of your banking relationship. You will have better luck at small-town banks and credit unions. The mega banks will likely not waver from their established policies. Deposit sweeps are common for business accounts. They are usually tied to a savings account, which is usually held within the same institution, however this is not a requirement. The sweep can send money to any US bank if you can provide the routing number and account number. The sweep will establish a peg balance, or floor balance, on the checking account. At the end of the day, any amount above the peg is swept into the savings account automatically. I doubt you will find what you’re asking for within an online banking system. You will likely have to go into a branch and speak with a personal banker. Explain to them you want to establish a sweep on your checking account and want to send the funds to another financial institution. You will have better luck asking for a peg of $100, or some other small amount. They may not take your request seriously if you want to completely empty the checking account to zero.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "25865b998a68af259bbb602ce40e0cda",
"text": "I know that many HSBC ATMs at branches in the US and Canada offer this service (they actually scan and shred checks as you deposit them). Perhaps they do same in Germany... but not all ATMs offer this feature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "592ad3963c42c459197267cc2ced76b4",
"text": "I keep several savings accounts. I use an online-only bank that makes it very easy to open a new account in about 2 minutes. I keep the following accounts: Emergency Fund with 2 months of expenses. I pretend this money doesn't even exist. But if something happened that I needed money right away, I can get it. 6 6-month term CDs, with one maturing every month, each with 1 month's worth of expenses. This way, every month, I'll have a CD that matures with the money I would need that month if I lose my job or some other emergency that prevents me from working. You won't make as much interest on the 6-month term, but you'll have cash every month if you need it. Goal-specific accounts: I keep an account that I make a 'car payment' into every month so I'll have a down-payment saved when I'm ready to buy a car, and I'm used to making a payment, so it's not an additional expense if I need a loan. I also keep a vacation account so when it's time to take the family to Disneyland, I know how much I can budget for the trip. General savings: The 'everything else' account. When I just NEED to buy a new LCD TV on Black Friday, that's where I go without touching my emergency funds.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c47466f7880e9e6b6d3a19c680ce234d",
"text": "Bank and most Credit Union deposit accounts (including CDs) are guaranteed by the Federal government by the FDIC and NCUA, respectively. Some state-chartered credit unions use private insurance, you'll want to be careful about storing lots of money in those institutions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c55c405c834c45e2dcf101bef19613ad",
"text": "The answer to this question can be found in the related question Is there any online personal finance software without online banking?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c7cf03316171ccd1ef7f305ef2953a99",
"text": "Sure; you can deposit cash. A few notes apply: Does the source of cash need to be declared ? If you deposit more than $10,000 in cash or other negotiable instruments, you'll be asked to complete a form called a Currency Transaction Report (here's the US Government's guidance for consumers about this form). There's some very important information in that guidance document about structuring, which is a fairly serious crime that you can commit if you break up your deposits to avoid reporting. Don't do this. The linked document gives examples. Also don't refuse to make your deposit and walk away when presented with a CTR form. In addition, you are also required to report to Customs and Border Protection when you bring more than $10,000 in or out of the country. If you are caught not doing so, the money may be seized and you could be prosecuted criminally. Many countries have similar requirements, often with different dollar amounts, so it's important to make sure you comply with their laws as well. The information from this reporting goes to the government and is used to enforce finance and tax laws, but there's nothing wrong or illegal about depositing cash as long as you don't evade the reporting requirements. You will not need to declare precisely where the cash comes from, but they will want the information required on the forms. Is it taxable ? Simply depositing cash into your bank account is not taxable. Receiving some forms of income, whether as cash or a bank deposit, is taxable. If you seem to have a large amount of unexplained cash income, it is possible an IRS audit will want an explanation from you as to where it comes from and why it isn't taxable. In short, if the income was taxable, you should have paid taxes on it whether or not you deposit it in a bank account. What is the limit of the deposit ? There is no government limit. An individual bank may have their own limit and/or may charge a fee for larger deposits. You could always call the bank and ask.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
f9e0e2f8071c6682dceccbe94ebac7bc
|
Do you know of any online monetary systems?
|
[
{
"docid": "16eec6bc9a13b3023ebff90f47c4410f",
"text": "I recently came across bitcoin, it is what I was really looking for at the time.",
"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": "929c9780f0983ec66c646c287e974ea4",
"text": "\"Congratulations! You see the problem. You can't get away from unstable currencies. The other problem is that the US will shut down anything that appears to be providing a replacement for the US Dollar. Once a token or medallion or gift certificate or whatever starts being used outside the confines of one business or one network of businesses, it will be shut down, quickly. It happened with Las Vegas gambling tokens. Another more recent attempt was with the Liberty Dollar, gold and silver coins and certificates that not only had precious metal backing, but whose proponents encouraged taking them to retailers and paying with them as if they were US Dollars. There were other problems with this idea, but it was the competitive stature of the Liberty dollar that got the headquarters raided and the main site shut down. Basically, all signs point toward dealing with currencies and their state of being systematically eroded over time. If you do find one that appears to exist, be wary, because the rules can change at any time, and the \"\"money\"\" will be nowhere near as liquid as a proper currency.\"",
"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": "e120a8aa8686f6e32f4e42440d7ee222",
"text": "I'm the equivalent of the FED at ROBLOX. I run a virtual economy there worth millions of dollars. Even though we are in the business of printing our own money, we've seen much more stability in our currency than in the USD. It actually appreciates over time. I don't think it would make a good investment though, nor would any of the online virtual currencies that I am aware of.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6057489b63d4a6078034e2f58b3fe5f7",
"text": "I'm not sure, but I think the monetary system of Second Life or World of Warcraft would correspond to what you are looking for. I don't think they are independent of the dollar though, since acquiring liquidity in those games can be done through exchange for real dollars. But there can be more closed systems, maybe Sim type games where this is not the case. I hope this helps.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "81d0c81787160b143b2e02fe98f99bfd",
"text": "This site lets people deposit gold into an account. Once you have an account setup you can pay others in gold online. I haven't used it or know of anyone who has so I cannot provide any feedback to how well it works.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "6ffed1ba7c7a5456be4234ae36bda59c",
"text": "Online banks are the future. As long as you don't need a clerk to talk to (and why would you need?) there's nothing you can't do with an online bank that you can with a brick and mortar robbers. I use E*Trade trading account as a checking account (it allows writing paper checks, debit card transactions, ACH in/out, free ATM, etc). If you don't need paper checks that often you can use ING or something similar. You can always go to a local credit union, but those will wave the fee in exchange for direct deposit or high balance, and that you can also get from the large banks as well, so no much difference there. Oh where where did Washington Mutual go....",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "65c0e3b68efbc4fd3788f304e00d70b7",
"text": "\"I'm currently using You Need A Budget for this. It lets you track spending my category and \"\"save\"\" money in particular accounts from month to month. They also have some strong opinions about how one should manage one's cashflow, so check it out to see if it'll work for you. It's neither web-based nor free, but the licensing terms are very reasonable.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e2762d545460a22c939b7c8db3bd238a",
"text": "\"Uh, have you tried google docs? Start off simple. Other than that, for the moment I use GNUCash. Some day I might try to write my own, but for now it works well enough. I have a number of scheduled transactions in GNUCash, and it records them days in advance. You talk about \"\"I should have how much money\"\", but GNUCash offers a slightly better format: Future Minimum Balance. If you want to know whether you can spend money in an account without triggering a chain reaction, that's the number you want. Being web-based so that it can be accessed from any OS. GNUCash is cross platform, with Windows, OSX and Linux clients. It also supports mysql/postgres database backends, so while it's not \"\"Web based\"\", you can keep your data \"\"in the cloud\"\".\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f192e3451471bd51285576936d970749",
"text": "If I understand correctly, you're actually asking why there isn't a society whose members generally accept/use any currency for transactions, and just like, Google the exchange rate or something. The answer is because it's exceptionally inconvenient. Can you imagine having a wallet with 200 pouches for all the different currencies? Why would you want to deal with exchange rates all the time? What if the value of a currency changes? (A single currency at least has the illusion of being stable). Et cetera.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "57d81d7a88f068400691d7daa7e77615",
"text": "I think it's interesting to look at bitcoin not as a get-rich quick scheme, but rather a tool to study socio-economics through looking how areas in developing countries view this type of model (and the entire world at large of course). The entire crypto-coin scene has a variety of different algorithms which replicate different monetary policies to promote the most value and high functioning societies. *For example: dogecoin was meant as a quick laugh but has now developed into an inflation based coin to encourage high velocity through tipping. This micropayment model and friendly community hope to gain adoption through spreading it far and wide*. Bitcoin looks at the properties that made gold a useful state-less trade asset and tried to adapt that to the web. It solved traditional problems which made this impossible before without a central party and thus now experiments and studies can be done. Who knows what happens. Gavin, the chief engineer of the bitcoin core development group says, > I still say that it's an experiment, and the whole thing could implode. Coming from the guy who is literally making the edits to the code, I think it's safe to take off the wary of it being used to scam people and instead look at it from a more academic light to see what could be gleaned from bitcoin to improve current institutions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fefb2bebc863d73f23a0dfeed3af1802",
"text": "Question: So basically the money created in this globalized digital world where capital is free to roam, it is referring to digital money and not actual physical cash. So the goldbugs that talk about america becoming weimar republic is delusional, since there isn't enough physical cash in relations to how big the economy is. And it is actually the debt lending that acts as a derivative of cash money that goes around posing as the money supply or the blood supply of an economy, and that feels like inflation, but when the debt is defaulted on or destroyed, underwritten or even paid back closing the circuit then it's deflationary? But does defaulting on ones debt create inflation since that money is still in the system and not being paid off? You know, when debts are paid off they are taken out of the system.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e24bf7a39a85a27540fd6df3267e7eb0",
"text": "\"Excellent question. I'm not aware of one. I was going to say \"\"go visit some personal finance blogs\"\" but then I remembered that I write on one, and that I often get a commission if I talk about online accounts, so unless something is really bad I'm not going to post on it because I want to make money, not chase it away. This isn't to say that I'm biased by commissions, but among a bunch of online banks paying pretty much the same (crappy) interest rate and giving pretty much the same (often not crappy) service, I'm going to give air time to the ones that pay the best commissions. That, and some of the affiliate programs would kick me out if I trashed them on my blog. This also would taint any site, blog or not, that does not explicitly say that they do not have affiliate relationships with the banks they review. I suppose if you read enough blogs you can figure out the bad ones by their absence, but that takes a lot of time. Seems like you'd do all right by doing a \"\"--bank name-- sucks\"\" Google search to dig up the dirt. That, or call up / e-mail / post on their forum any questions you have about their services before sending them your money. If they're up front, they'll answer you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cd78bc9c9eaffdab15fa29d6837f52a5",
"text": "I can personally recommend MoneyWell. I've been using it for about a month now, and version 1.5 that was just released is a great upgrade from the previous version. The developer was very responsive during the open beta period, and from what I understand an iPhone version is in the works. (and no, I don't work for the publisher!) That aside, I've used a few other packages. I tried out iBank, which was fairly nice, but the account downloading functionality left a lot to be desired. I come from a MS Money background, and I am used to a seamless, reliable download scheme, and iBank's was (unfortunately) neither. Otherwise the interface was very nice. I had settled on MoneyDance before I found MoneyWell, and it's a pretty nice package. Unfortunately it's a Java application and doesn't adhere to most OSX interface practices. While the account downloading is substantially better than iBank's, the ugly interface made moving away from it fairly easy once I found something that had feature parity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "38cd1a59d0f8f14eff54b8eda1bcd1c2",
"text": "\"Thinkorswim's ThinkDesktop platform allows you to replay a previous market day if you wish. You can also use paper money in stocks, options, futures, futures options, forex, etc there. I really can't think of any other platform that allows you to dabble around in so many products fictionally. And honestly, if all that \"\"make[s] the learning experience a bit more complicated\"\" and demotivates you, well thats probably a good thing for your sake.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0221b08de55ce6d99cfc7df8255d9b26",
"text": "Hey thanks for your response. The commodity is actually electricity, so definitely not able to store. Would you mind giving me a short summary of your thought process or an example of how you compare liquid markets vs illiquid ones when looking at more traditional commodities? If that is a bit much to ask, as I am sure it could get quite involved do you have any reading recommendations? This little project has sparked an interest.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aaa1d8c94a118a1ba028060fb12e85c4",
"text": "\"1. As I said, the above is not actually anything like a genuine history of how money emerged, it's an explain-it-to-a-five-year-old parable to answer \"\"where does the money go in an economic contraction?\"\" 2. It's also not defense/endorsement/apology for any particular set of policies or historical theory of money. It's a picture-book describing the workings of an internal combustion engine using cartoon characters, not a treatise on the social and environmental implications of American car-culture. That said, in the parable, the reasons why the simplified caricatures in the town chose to accept the fiat currency are pretty straightforward, and are actually explained: - They were previously using a system of a whole bunch of separate, privately-issued currencies, each with complex and hard-to-evaluate credit risks (Bob's potato certificate versus Jane's Potato certificate versus your apple-certificate versus my deer certificate). This was causing problems and confusion about how much any given certificate was actually worth. - The system proposed was proposed in a way that was *at least* as credible as the best existing system. - Last but not least, they accepted the new currency for *exactly the same reason* that you accept dollar, euros, or whatever: because everyone else does. There was no law preventing any of them from still trading apple IOUs (in fact, we still traded them, later in the example, except denominated in loddars). I could have asked you for the last note to denominated in apples, but that would probably have been harder to trade than the currency that everyone else is using. I said I wouldn't get into the gold-standard debate, and I won't, and here's why: the debate hinges entirely and solely on whether you believe that a \"\"good\"\" fiat currency is possible and realistically sustainable. If you do, then fiat currency makes a lot more sense in every respect. If you don't, then fiat currency is always just a catastrophe waiting to happen. My parable shows the mechanics of how money works. It doesn't say whether the system is good or bad, or whether they should have accepted the fiat system proposed, or held out for a better one, or rejected it altogether. You can argue that internal combustion engines are bad, or that much better alternatives are available, or that nobody should use them, but that doesn't make a description of they work incorrect.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0fcdba0856699d55e25ac1188f0d2b4a",
"text": "Bitcoin could work fairly well. Each site can just give you a wallet to dump money into. Can also do micro-payments where you could pay per-article. With a shared private key on a wallet you keep topped up, they could remove the money as you browse. I can imagine businesses that sell you hard-drive space based on the amount you use rather than a cap, calculate the cost of transmitting each packet of data. You can have one program to manage all the wallets for all your sites. But it would need more penetration before that happens.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f83fd4e12068a3dd80172e8afb3afef",
"text": "In addition to TransferWise that @miernik answered with and that I successfully used, I found CurrencyFair which looks to be along similar lines and also supports US$.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8a7daaffd734a8e08623aa63eb141ba9",
"text": "I know you've already lost interest, but i just wanted to respond to this: >money is a store of value No, it is not. Money is a very poor store of value. Money is intended as a means to transfer value from one to another. >You appear to be afraid of what would happen if people were allowed to voluntarily choose what money to use, without government interference. I repeatedly encouraged you to use alternative currencies, i don't know where you get this from.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "970074e19cac1c9a7b1f4c54d07b115c",
"text": "You know what? Pay cash, but ask for a discount. And something fairly hefty. Don't be afraid to bargain. The discount will be worth more than the interest you'd get on the same amount of money. And if the salesman doesn't give you a decent discount, ask to speak to the manager. And if that doesn't work, try another store. Good luck with it!",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
b18dec5a57fd4db4c31e17c72987d492
|
Is buying and selling Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrency) legal for a student on F-1 Visa doing OPT in USA?
|
[
{
"docid": "68d069f48a9bebbba5227acc3570bd26",
"text": "Given your clarification that you re only intending to use cryptocurrency as a capital asset & a long term investment vehicle, and not as a business day trading or trading for others, I would say this definitely is NOT illegal. The tax man says cryptocurrency is property. The IRS made this clear in Notice 2014-21. As long as you report it every time you do transfer it and an income loss/gain is triggered, I see nothing wrong here.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "302477bcb2eda09a78915b86bcdbb8b0",
"text": "Could you not just say that you had bought it when it was pennies on the dollar and made the millions that way? There isn't much of a transaction record, is there? I also just realized that I don't understand how taxes work in that situation. If you have a different currency from the U.S. Dollar, and it increases in value greatly, do you have to pay tax on that increased value relative to the U.S. dollar? They don't when it's minimal increases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8443d335e20f00c96cb1f90cc4204670",
"text": "You can use Skrill or any other service like paypal or SWIFT wire. There is no legal restriction to bring money into India. You need to pay taxes depending on how you earned the income, of course the assumption is you earned the money in a legal way.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1ebe64ae34acfabbb767ba96a5b00dc0",
"text": "If the vendor accepts cryptocurrencies, this may be your only option. It's not clear if exporting cryptocurrency violates Ethiopian law, but at least cryptocurrencies have not yet been banned. If you can find someone who can trade you cryptocurrency, you can send it anywhere. Because cryptocurrencies are still extremely price volatile, I recommend you use Ripple, the fastest I can find. It can 100% confirm transactions on average within 10 seconds. This will keep your exposure to price volatility at a minimum if you send the cryptocurrency as soon as you buy it. If you choose this route, please take precausions. Your government may retroactively ban it and pursue you. Considering the Ethiopian government's history, this is not unlikely, and banning cryptocurrencies outright is.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a8733d681a4084e4ea7750776f7b865",
"text": "you dont need any permits or be inside the US to trade the exact same securities on US exchanges. you can literally move your bitcoin from a chinese exchange to us exchange in seconds. i don't see how you can possibly run into legal issues if anyone from outside the country can trade bitcoins on an exchange inside the country without any permit. a lot of these exchanges dont ask for ID or social security number anyways. none of it is government regulated. also trading anything is never a passive income. theres no such thing as an easy or obvious investment. there are always risks- and the actual risk is often deceivingly low",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b82e1c887e57becc9926c67a2e731720",
"text": "And directly from IRS notice 2014-21 FAQ: Q-1: How is virtual currency treated for federal tax purposes? A-1: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. Q-6: Does a taxpayer have gain or loss upon an exchange of virtual currency for other property? A-6: Yes. If the fair market value of property received in exchange for virtual currency exceeds the taxpayer’s adjusted basis of the virtual currency, the taxpayer has taxable gain. The taxpayer has a loss if the fair market value of the property received is less than the adjusted basis of the virtual currency.… Q-8: Does a taxpayer who “mines” virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? A-8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully “mines” virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4d68b02956c1463e5ab11e1d4619687b",
"text": "Any thoughts? I would love to hear your feedback. I have been making more on my cryptocurrency investments than I have in trading options. I am falling more and more in love with the cryptocurrency market. There's is nothing like it out there. I tell people, it's like investing in the internet 17 years ago!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3a0c34a974fc83ec220c2e820d5825cc",
"text": "What kind of retirement money? 401k? Withdraw it, take the tax hit, buy Bitcoin. Done. I know one person that has sold their nice, paid off car back to the dealer, used the cash to buy bitcoin, and then taken out a loan on a used beater for 5 years. they still have a car to get around in and a positive indication that bitcoin will value more than the interest they are paying on the loan. IMO, that's much safer than putting sheltered money into it. although, it would be hard to get evidence of capital gains on any bitcoin profits 5 years from now.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3f3aa8fd0a6ba5aa0a4e2c3c5d10e7c2",
"text": "Any profits you realize are considered a long term capital gain by the IRS since you have held the asset for longer than a year. The IRS guidance on virtual currency considers bitcoins to be a form of personal property. Gains from selling bitcoins are considered a capital gain. See the IRS guidance on reporting capital gains (Schedule D).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5a2a4ad5fa2be3994552ddc2dd2da1e6",
"text": "\"Well I disagree with the economists who claim Bitcoin can't (or wouldn't) be a currency. As far as I'm concerned, Bitcoin is the best-established digital \"\"unit of account\"\", and in the event of a Dollar/Euro crisis you are likely to see some entrepreneurs figure out ways to speed its adoption. I don't own any Bitcoin now, and I wouldn't put more than 15% of my total portfolio in it, simply because it's not possible to predict if something like that would catch on. But I own a ton of silver (about 20% of which is physical and the other 80% is via Sprott's ETF). I also don't own physical gold, but I own a lot of Swiss Francs, which in my view are a good proxy for gold and a safe haven given the fact Switzerland owns so much gold-per-capita. You get the benefits of gold AND a captive, skilled tax-livestock. Soros indicated recently he thinks the Euro won't last much longer than a few months. I'm always amazed by how the elite can push things off, though. So I hold about 50% of my savings as cash USD. In the event of market turmoil (you'll know it when you see it, like 2008) you can use this to scoop up some cheap stocks and gold/silver coins. Don't beat yourself up over missing opportunities, though. The main thing is just to steer clear of government bonds and the stock market. If you do that, you're going to come out in the top 20% over the next few years.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "544eb1bcffeaaacdcebfcc13687c3d13",
"text": "I used to trade on Nasdaq using a US broker from the UK, you need a way to convert your money into US $s and have the cost of international money transfers. I don’t know if there are any laws in Turkey that will stop you using a US broker. You are also on your own if anything goes wrong, as the Turkish police will not be interested, and the US police will be very hard to deal with from Turkey. This all depends on Turkey not unplugging the internet on the day you wish to trade on!!! (I used tdameritrade, but it was a VERY long timer ago, as UK brokers are now as cheap, you should also consider UK based brokers as they will also let you trade outside of the USA.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bd6817e4cdc5230ba683aa08909bea15",
"text": "I would certainly hope to make the transfer by wire - the prospect of popping cross the border with several million dollars in the trunk seems... ill fated. I suppose I'm asking what sort of taxes, duties, fees, limits, &c. would apply Taxes - None. It is your money, and you can transfer it as you wish. You pay taxes on the income, not on the fact of having money. Reporting - yes, there's going to be reporting. You'll report the origin of the money, and whether all the applicable taxes have been paid. This is for the government to avoid money laundering. But you're going to pay all the taxes, so for transfer - you'll just need to report (and maybe, for such an amount, actually show the tax returns to the bank). Fees - shop around. Fees differ, like any other product/service costs on the marketplace.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f8cfc4bcf3a436ab0da9f2e1c49bf3f7",
"text": "It's safe in the sense that there is no counter party risk involved when holding bitcoins but it is still too early to call it a safe haven. However it could become very useful if strict capital controls are enforced around Europe.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d50c7fdfce08325fca77e8f189c16e91",
"text": "It's important to note that the US is also the country that taxes its expats when they live abroad, and forces foreign banks to disclose assets of US citizens. Americans are literally the property of their government. America is a tax farm and its citizens can't leave the farm. Wherever you go, you are owned. And that now appears to be true of your Bitcoin as well. Even if you spend 50 years outside the USA, your masters want a piece of what you earn. Land of the Free.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "af3575f1faff6c617daffd493faa8815",
"text": "Lets look at possible use cases: If you ever converted your cryptocurrency to cash on a foreign exchange, then **YES** you had to report. That means if you ever daytraded and the US dollar (or other fiat) amount was $10,000 or greater when you went out of crypto, then you need to report. Because the regulations stipulate you need to report over $10,000 at any point in the year. If you DID NOT convert your cryptocurrency to cash, and only had them on an exchange's servers, perhaps traded for other cryptocurrency pairs, then NO this did not fall under the regulations. Example, In 2013 I wanted to cash out of a cryptocurrency that didn't have a USD market in the United States, but I didn't want to go to cash on a foreign exchange specifically for this reason (amongst others). So I sold my Litecoin on BTC-E (Slovakia) for Bitcoin, and then I sold the Bitcoin on Coinbase (USA). (even though BTC-E had a Litecoin/USD market, and then I could day trade the swings easily to make more capital gains, but I wanted cash in my bank account AND didn't want the reporting overhead). Read the regulations yourself. Financial instruments that are reportable: Cash (fiat), securities, futures and options. Also, http://www.bna.com/irs-no-bitcoin-n17179891056/ whether it is just in the blockchain or on a server, IRS and FINCEN said bitcoin is not reportable on FBAR. When they update their guidance, it'll be in the news. The director of FinCEN is very active in cryptocurrency developments and guidance. Bitcoin has been around for six years, it isn't that esoteric and the government isn't that confused on what it is (IRS and FinCEN's hands are tied by Congress in how to more realistically categorize cryptocurrency) Although at this point in time, there are several very liquid exchanges within the United States, such as the one NYSE/ICE hosts (Coinbase).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "82a1de33a2e64a523ba56e8e1b2a00b7",
"text": "It is absolutely legal. While studying on a F-1 you would typically be considered a non-resident alien for tax purposes. You can trade stocks, just like any other foreigner having an account with a US- or non-US based brokerage firm. Make sure to account for profit made on dividends/capital gain when doing your US taxes. A software package provided by your university for doing taxes might not be adequate for this.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
fec591b3b1a5709c27e09a61e916a890
|
High dividend stocks
|
[
{
"docid": "951b9b0fce84b385eb005e407056b51a",
"text": "Like almost all investing question: it depends! Boring companies generally appreciate slowly and as you note, pay dividends. More speculative investing can get you some capital gains, but also are more likely to tank and have you lose your original investment. The longer your time horizon, and the more risk you are willing to take, then it is reasonable to tilt towards, but not exclusively invest in, more speculative stocks. A shorter horizon, or if you have trouble sleeping at night if you lose money, or are looking for an income stream, would then tend towards the boring side. Good Luck",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0ce312654651c17ef797718657bfc4f8",
"text": "\"Future tax increases on dividends are likely. The Wall Street Journal says. \"\"The millions of Americans who receive dividend income ... need to begin adjusting their investment strategy accordingly.\"\" (ref) \"\"Last week the Senate Budget Committee passed a fiscal 2011 budget resolution that includes an increase in the top tax rate on dividends to 39.6% from the current 15%—a 164% increase.\"\" ... \"\"You can expect fewer businesses either to offer or increase dividend payouts.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "34dd146d5dc37e1b2ec68b29106277b3",
"text": "You might want to look up Dividend Yield Trap. Many stocks with high dividend yields got that way not because they decided to increase their dividend, but because their prices have dropped. Usually the company is not in good shape and will reduce their dividend, and you're stuck with a low-yield stock which has also decreased in price.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "472d859ac9e683dca392918550d040e1",
"text": "I had read a book about finance, and it had mentioned that you can gain big profits from investing in the best companies in the most boring markets, like the funeral business for example. These markets are slow growing, but the companies pay a good dividend. Many books recommend investing in dividends because of the compound growth and stable income. Remember that at the end of the day, you should put the same amount of research into buying a stock as you would buying the entire company. With that being said, you may find a great company that may or may not offer dividends, but it should not be of great significance since you feel you are buying into a great company at a fair price. Though dividend growth is a great tool to use to see if a company is doing well.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "743d2e65a512c9a50e965e0a1b4a80f0",
"text": "\"Dividends telegraph that management has a longer term focus than just the end of quarter share price. There is a committment to at least maintain (if not periodically increase) the dividend payout year over year. Management understands that cutting or pausing dividends will cause dividend investors in market to dump shares driving down the stock price. Dividends can have preferential tax treatment in some jurisdictions, either for an individual compared to capital gains or compared to the corporation paying taxes themselves. For example, REITs (real estate investment trusts) are a type of corporation that in order to not pay corporate income tax are required to pay out 95% of income as dividends each year. These are not the only type, MLP (master limited partnerships) and other \"\"Partnership\"\" structures will always have high dividend rates by design. Dividends provide cash flow and trade market volatility for actual cash. Not every investor needs cash flow, but for certain investors, it reduces the risks of a liquidity crisis, such as in retirement. The alternative for an investor who seeks to use the sale of shares would be to maintain a sufficient cash reserve for typical market recessions.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b1f115f7e7215d23a3d4e254c803a6e",
"text": "\"The short answer is that it depends on the industry. In other words, margin alone - even in comparison to peers - will not be a sufficient index to track company success. I'll mention Apple quickly as a special case that has managed to charge a premium margin for a mass-market product. Few companies can achieve this. As with all investment analysis, you need to have a very clear understanding of the industry (i.e. what is \"\"normal\"\" for debt/equity/gearing/margin/cash-on-hand) as well as of the barriers-to-entry which competitors face. A higher-than-normal margin may swiftly be undermined by competitors (Apple aside). Any company offering perpetual above-the-odds returns may just be a Ponzi scheme (Bernie Maddof, etc.). More important than high-margins or high-profits over some short-term track is consistency of approach, an ability to whether adverse cyclical events, and deep investment in continuity (i.e. the entire company doesn't come to a grinding halt when a crucial staff-member retires).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0c504887992c7acc59ad707ecd200e98",
"text": "I use the following method. For each stock I hold long term, I have an individual table which records dates, purchases, sales, returns of cash, dividends, and way at the bottom, current value of the holding. Since I am not taking the income, and reinvesting across the portfolio, and XIRR won't take that into account, I build an additional column where I 'gross up' the future value up to today() of that dividend by the portfolio average yield at the date the dividend is received. The grossing up formula is divi*(1+portfolio average return%)^((today-dividend date-suitable delay to reinvest)/365.25) This is equivalent to a complex XMIRR computation but much simpler, and produces very accurate views of return. The 'weighted combined' XIRR calculated across all holdings then agrees very nearly with the overall portfolio XIRR. I have done this for very along time. TR1933 Yes, 1933 is my year of birth and still re investing divis!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d1ea51f3ed86b6d3207389c9309adb06",
"text": "Your cons say it all. I would not be buying stocks based soley on a high dividend yield. In fact companies with very high dividend yields tend to do poorer than companies investing at least part of their earnings back into the company. Make sure at least that the company's earnings is more than the dividend yield being offered.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "709d76dc519d425b8b5da7e48547fd43",
"text": "\"Dividend yields can also reflect important information about the company's status. For example, a company that has never lowered or stopped paying dividends is a \"\"strong\"\" company because it has the cash/earnings power to maintain its dividend regardless of the market. Ideally, a company should pay dividends for at least 10 years for an investor to consider the company as a \"\"consistent payer.\"\" Furthermore, when a company pays dividend, it generally means that it has more cash than it can profitably reinvest in the business, so companies that pay dividends tend to be older but more stable. An important exception is REIT's and their ilk - to avoid taxation, these types of funds must distribute 90% of their earnings to their shareholders, so they pay very high dividends. Just look at stocks like NLY or CMO to get an idea. The issue here, however, is two fold: So a high dividend can be great [if it has been paid consistently] or risky [if the company is new or has a short payment history], and dividends can also tell us about what the company's status is. Lastly, taxation on dividend income is higher than taxation on capital gains, but by reinvesting dividends you can avoid this tax and lower your potential capital gain amount, thus limiting taxes. http://www.tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/highdiv_research.pdf is an excellent paper on dividend yields and investing.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "28fd1acdbc2eb2164ba1402e0d88a13a",
"text": "There are dividend newsletters that aggregate dividend information for interested investors. Other than specialized publications, the best sources for info are, in my opinion:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1af8f838d7041ba6c1066ea564d306ff",
"text": "\"In the case of mutual funds, Net Asset Value (NAV) is the price used to buy and sell shares. NAV is just the value of the underlying assets (which are in turn valued by their underlying holdings and future earnings). So if a fund hands out a billion dollars, it stands to reason their NAV*shares (market cap?) is a billion dollars less. Shareholder's net worth is equal in either scenario, but after the dividend is paid they are more liquid. For people who need investment income to live on, dividends are a cheap way to hold stocks and get regular payments, versus having to sell part of your portfolio every month. But for people who want to hold their investment in the market for a long long time, dividends only increase the rate at which you have to buy. For mutual funds this isn't a problem: you buy the funds and tell them to reinvest for free. So because of that, it's a prohibited practice to \"\"sell\"\" dividends to clients.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee000eda9fda8d9a922a0c33865f3118",
"text": "There can be the question of what objective do you have for buying the stock. If you want an income stream, then high yield stocks may be a way to get dividends without having additional transactions to sell shares while others may want capital appreciation and are willing to go without dividends to get this. You do realize that both Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline are companies that the total stock value is over $100 billion yes? Thus, neither is what I'd see as a growth stock as these are giant companies that would require rather large sales to drive earnings growth though it may be interesting to see what kind of growth is expected for these companies. In looking at current dividends, one is paying 3% and the other 5% so I'm not sure either would be what I'd see as high yield. REITs would be more likely to have high dividends given their structure if you want something to research a bit more.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3c4b1904fafa3ab88a40e26f539a6fc4",
"text": "\"Yes, they are, and you've experienced why. Generally speaking, stocks that pay dividends will be better investments than stocks that don't. Here's why: 1) They're actually making money. They can finagle balance sheets and news releases, but cash is cash, it tells no lies. They can't fake it. 2) There's less good they can do with that money than they say. When a business you own is making money, they can do two things with it: reinvest it into the company, or hand it over to you. All companies must reinvest to some degree, but only a few companies worth owning can find profitable ways of reinvesting all of it. Having to hand you, the owner, some of the earnings helps keep that money from leaking away on such \"\"necessities\"\" like corporate jets, expensive printer paper, or ill-conceived corporate buyouts. 3) It helps you not freak out. Markets go up, and markets go down. If you own a good company that's giving you a nice check every three months, it's a lot easier to not panic sell in a downturn. After all, they're handing you a nice check every three months, and checks are cash, and cash tells no lies. You know they're still a good company, and you can ride it out. 4) It helps others not freak out. See #3. That applies to everyone. That, in turn means market downturns weigh less heavily on companies paying solid dividends than on those that do not. 5) It gives you some of the reward of investing in good companies, without having to sell those companies. If you've got a piece of a good, solid, profitable, growing company, why on earth would you want to sell it? But you'd like to see some rewards from making that wise investment, wouldn't you? 6) Dividends can grow. Solid, growing companies produce more and more earnings. Which means they can hand you more and more cash via the dividend. Which means that if, say, they reliably raise dividends 10%/year, that measly 3% dividend turns into a 6% dividend seven years later (on your initial investment). At year 14, it's 12%. Year 21, 24%. See where this is going? Companies like that do exist, google \"\"Dividend Aristocrats\"\". 7) Dividends make growth less important. If you owned a company that paid you a 10% dividend every year, but never grew an inch, would you care? How about 5%, and it grows only slowly? You invest in companies, not dividends. You invest in companies to make money. Dividends are a useful tool when you invest -- to gauge company value, to smooth your ride, and to give you some of the profit of the business you own. They are, however, only part of the total return from investing -- as you found out.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d24cb9f4769b32ce990e3c75882230d5",
"text": "The highest growth for an investment has historically been in stocks. Investing in mature companies that offer dividends is great for you since it is compound growth. Many oil and gas companies provide dividends.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7073c8abdac940794381ca8c2ea69bbd",
"text": "You are comparing apples and oranges: the charts show the capital appreciation excluding dividends. If you include dividends and calculate a total return over that period you see VSMAX up 132% vs. FSEVX up 129%, i.e. quite close. That residual difference is possibly due to a performance difference between the two benchmarks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f1e0b52faea7370ea2b0a4b35a7a7269",
"text": "Investopedia has a good definition. Stock dividends are similar to cash dividends; however, instead of cash, a company pays out stock. Stock splits occur when a company perceives that its stock price may be too high. Stock splits are usually done to increase the liquidity of the stock (more shares outstanding) and to make it more affordable for investors to buy regular lots (a regular lot = 100 shares).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0e144e276962b576070defb6e72a120e",
"text": "If you don't have a good knowledge of finance, maybe you should not put too much money in individual stocks. But if you really want to invest, you can just compare the rate of return of the most known stocks available to you (like the one from the S&P for the US). The rate of return is very simple to compute, it's 100*dividend/share price. For example a company with a current share price of 50.12 USD that delivered a dividend of 1.26 USD last year would have a rate of return of 100 * 1.26/50.12= 2.51% Now if you only invest in the most known stocks, since they are already covered by nearly all financial institutions and analysts: If you are looking for lower risk dividend companies, take a sample of companies and invest those with the lowest rates of return (but avoid extreme values). Of course since the stock prices are changing all the time, you have to compare them with a price taken at the same time (like the closing price of a specific day) and for the dividend, they can be on several basis (yearly, quartely, etc..) so you have to be sure to take the same basis. You can also find the P/E ratio which is the opposite indicator (= share price/dividend) so an higher P/E ratio means a lower risk. Most of the time you can find the P/E ratio or the rate of return already computed on specialized website or brokers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "21b0a09f26272db9528e08a4a7e3437a",
"text": "\"This has been answered countless times before: One example you may want to look at is DGRO. It is an iShares ETF that many discount brokers trade for free. This ETF: offers \"\"exposure to U.S. stocks focused on dividend growth\"\".\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "012503b8167ce91b6e004e7ff6370191",
"text": "IBM is famous for spending lots of money on stock buyback to keep the stock price higher. The technique works, and investors in growth stocks generally prefer a high market prices to a taxable dividend payment. Dividends are ways to return shareholder value when a company generates a lot of cash, but doesn't have alot of growth. Electric and gas companies are a classic example of high-dividend companies.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
f00aeed499d5c3ccce987ab42892e5b1
|
W8-BEN for an Indian Citizen
|
[
{
"docid": "3045b1ad7e9c1c05dfbe5e0f484b250c",
"text": "According to the Form W-8BEN instructions for Part II, Line 10: Line 10. Line 10 must be used only if you are claiming treaty benefits that require that you meet conditions not covered by the representations you make on line 9 and Part III. For example, persons claiming treaty benefits on royalties must complete this line if the treaty contains different withholding rates for different types of royalties. In tax treaties, some of the benefits apply to every resident of a foreign country. Other benefits only apply to certain groups of people. Line 10 is where you affirm that you meet whatever special conditions are necessary in the treaty to obtain the benefit. If you are claiming that Article 15 of the U.S.-India Tax Treaty, you could use Line 10 to do this. It is important to remember that this form goes to the company paying you; it does not actually get sent to the IRS. Therefore, you can ask the company themselves if filling out Line 9 only will result in them withholding nothing, or if they would need you to fill out Line 10.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e13974d259cda98754292d466271b891",
"text": "For filling out the W8-BEN form, please refer to the instructions in the document named: Instructions for Form W-8BEN Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "6ecb079d5e8248976f441b805bda8aab",
"text": "Each country will have different rules. I can only speak about the Netherlands. There, there are two options as a resident to open an account. You needed a BSN (Dutch ID number) or a strong reference from an international company sponsoring your residence there at a bank branch that dealt frequently with foreign customers. It was not possible to open an account as a nonresident although high wealth customers probably get special treatment. Recent US reporting requirements have made European banks very unwilling to deal with US people. I have received a letter from my Dutch bank saying they will continue my current products but not offer me anything new. If I call the bank, the normal staff cannot see anything about my accounts. I need to call a special international department even for mundane questions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a7e3d7a58663bf7892905e74ddb6346a",
"text": "\"I'm mostly guessing based on existing documentation, and have no direct experience, so take this with a pinch of salt. My best understanding is that you need to file Form 843. The instructions for the form say that it can be used to request: A refund or abatement of a penalty or addition to tax due to reasonable cause or other reason (other than erroneous written advice provided by the IRS) allowed under the law. The \"\"reasonable cause\"\" here is a good-faith confusion about what Line 79 of the form was referring to. In Form 843, the IRC Section Code you should enter is 6654 (estimated tax). For more, see the IRC Section 6654 (note, however, that if you already received a CP14 notice from the IRS, you should cross-check that this section code is listed on the notice under the part that covers the estimated tax penalty). If your request is accepted, the IRS should issue you Notice 746, item 17 Penalty Removed: You can get more general information about the tax collection process, and how to challenge it, from the pages linked from Understanding your CP14 Notice\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f41ce7e0d2fa9c6ff52ac387f7808299",
"text": "The committee folks told us Did they also give you advice on your medication? Maybe if they told you to take this medicine or that you'd do that? What is it with people taking tax advice from random people? The committee told you that one person should take income belonging to others because they don't know how to explain to you which form to fill. Essentially, they told you to commit a fraud because forms are hard. I now think about the tax implications, that makes me pretty nervous. Rightly so. Am I going to have to pay tax on $3000 of income, even though my actual winning is only $1000? From the IRS standpoint - yes. Can I take in the $3000 as income with $2000 out as expenses to independent contractors somehow? That's the only solution. You'll have to get their W8's, and issue 1099 to each of them for the amounts you're going to pay them. Essentially you volunteered to do what the award committee was supposed to be doing, on your own dime. Note that if you already got the $3K but haven't paid them yet - you'll pay taxes on $3K for the year 2015, but the expense will be for the year 2016. Except guess what: it may land your international students friends in trouble. They're allowed to win prizes. But they're not allowed to work. Being independent contractor is considered work. While I'm sure if USCIS comes knocking, you'll be kind enough to testify on their behalf, the problem might be that the USCIS won't come knocking. They'll just look at their tax returns and deny their visas/extensions. Bottom line, next time ask a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) before taking advice from random people who just want the headache of figuring out new forms to go away.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "63238e9d664cfacc3ece2a668d6ff64e",
"text": "The DTAA (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement) Article 20 will apply to the Provident Fund money received while you were a resident in the US. Yes, you will add the Interest received on PF (Interest only for the year/s when you were a resident of US, and not when you were a Resident in India) in your 1040 and claim exemption under the treaty. Do not add all of your PF contribution for last 10 years or 10 years of interest to 1040, as this was not contributed/earned when you were a US Resident. Consider, just the Interest Earned in the year when you become a Resident of US and then claim exemption under the treaty.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b4631de9bda8f2ebb39cce887c51539a",
"text": "Yes, you can still file a 1040nr. You are a nonresident alien and were: engaged in a trade or business in the United States Normally, assuming your withholding was correct, you would get a minimal amount back. Income earned in the US is definitely Effectively Connected Income and is taxed at the graduated rates that apply to U.S. citizens and resident aliens. However, there is a tax treaty between US and India, and it suggests that you would be taxed on the entirety of the income by India. This suggests to me that you would get everything that was withheld back.",
"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": "cbf6046e290aff0c298d409f0eaf7fa9",
"text": "As you have income from Business / Profession, you would need to use form ITR4S",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "115d0a051dd222f63829ad5e3d860058",
"text": "You should not form a company in the U.S. simply to get the identification number required for a W-8BEN form. By establishing a U.S.-based company, you'd be signing yourself up for a lot of additional hassle! You don't need that. You're a European business, not a U.S. business. Selling into the U.S. does not require you to have a U.S. company. (You may want to consider what form of business you ought to have in your home country, however.) Anyway, to address your immediate concern, you should just get an EIN only. See businessready.ca - what is a W8-BEN?. Quote: [...] There are other reasons to fill out the W8-BEN but for most of you it is to make sure they don’t hold back 30% of your payment which, for a small company, is a big deal. [...] How do I get one of these EIN US taxpayer identification numbers? EIN stands for Employer Identification Number and is your permanent number and can be used for most of your business needs (e.g. applying for business licenses, filing taxes when applicable, etc). You can apply by filling out the Form SS-4 but the easier, preferred way is online. However, I also found at IRS.gov - Online EIN: Frequently Asked Questions the following relevant tidbit: Q. Are any entity types excluded from applying for an EIN over the Internet? A. [...] If you were incorporated outside of the United States or the U.S. territories, you cannot apply for an EIN online. Please call us at (267) 941-1099 (this is not a toll free number) between the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So, I suggest you call the IRS and describe your situation: You are a European-based business (sole proprietor?) selling products to a U.S.-based client and would like to request an EIN so you can supply your client with a W-8BEN. The IRS should be able to advise you of the correct course of action. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Consider seeking professional advice.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "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": ""
},
{
"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": "164754ff32a53d90a39c6fbc20049715",
"text": "I can't answer from the Indian side but on the UK side, if you and your friend are not related then there is no tax implication - you are effectively giving each other gifts - other than a possible inheritance tax liability if one of you dies within 7 years of the transfer and has an estate above the IHT allowance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cbcd9ea50347e19d0428f324b99d1f49",
"text": "The PAYE tax and NI will be deducted as usual. Send HMRC a P85 form to tell them you're emigrating, and they will refund the tax.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5dd925a91e357540cf7e594b636f361c",
"text": "I want to send some money to Indian in my saving account but I haven't any NRO/NRE account. It is advisable to Open an NRE account. As an NRI you cannot hold a savings account. Please have this converted into NRO account ASAP. Process or Transaction charges or Tax (levied by Indian bank) on money what I'll send to my saving account in India. I know the process or transaction charges (applied by UK banks) from UK to India. There will be a nominal charge levied by banks in India. If you use dedicated Remittance services [Most Leading Indian Banks offer this], these are mostly free. Is there any limit to get rid off tax? Nope there isn't any limit. This depends on service provider. What types of paper work I'll need to do for showing that income is sent from UK after paying tax. If you transfer to NRE account. There is no paperwork required. It is implicit. If not you have to establish that the funds are received from outside India, keep copies of the transfer request initiated, debits to the Bank Account in UK, your salary slips, Passport stamps etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1f25479f190827e2f71cd707d83300a",
"text": "One of my friend is sending 100000 pounds to India, Although you haven't asked, this is a large amount of funds and depending on why it is, there could be taxes to you or lot of paperwork. He is asking for RIB and IBAN and I am not aware of it. India does not have IBAN. IBAN is mostly in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. You would need to give Bank Account Number and SWIFT BIC. The details can be found here. Best talk to your Branch to understand.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
01bebc0abfa30c0610d18e764eaefd87
|
Is there any truth to the saying '99% of the world's millionaires have become rich by doing real estate'?
|
[
{
"docid": "8dbf1e3859ea0f37d09621daca437b12",
"text": "\"I can name far more non-real estate millionaires than those who are. That statistic isn't only not valid, it's not even close. Update: The correct quote is \"\"90% of all Millionaires become so through owning Real Estate\"\" and it's attributed to Andrew Carnegie. Given that he was born in 1835, I can imagine that his statement was true at he time, but not today.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b8b8662496d3ff734aa0b957108abe71",
"text": "\"This quote has it almost backwards. Thomas J. Stanley's recent book (he's one of the duo who researched and wrote about The Millionaire Next Door) claims that the top occupation of millionaires is \"\"business owner / self-employed\"\" (28%). \"\"Real estate investor\"\" is lumped in with \"\"other\"\" (9%), and if the ordering is correct in the list, it's no more than 2% of the total. (source)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d72d8ae713e16d5c9e86727c71e0c4b1",
"text": "78.84% of statistics are made up on the spot.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b06fcb490c0ad1c25fd7df94477fd28",
"text": "Most millionaires became millionaires by being very frugal and living well below their means, all the time.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e0d5da798f1bcf302989d8b0d01cc12e",
"text": "\"Private equity firms have a unique structure: The general partners (GP's) of the firm create funds and manage the investments of those funds. Limited partners (LP's) contribute the capital to the funds, pay fees to the GP's, and then make money when the funds' assets grow. I believe the article is saying that ultra high net worth individuals participate in the real estate market by hiring someone to act as a general partner and manage the real estate assets. They and their friends contribute the cash and get shares in the resulting fund. Usually this GP/LP structure is used when the funds purchase or invest in private companies, which is why it is referred to as \"\"private equity structure,\"\" but the same structure can be used to purchase and manage pools of real estate or any other investment asset.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "74a8f28c7eb659da142b94cda4f6a897",
"text": "Isn't that a deduction mostly used by the top 1%? There seem to be mostly 2 types of people, those who own many homes, And those that rent them... I always thought the mortgage interest deduction was used substantially more by the wealthy than the middle class... (Luxury homes also offer higher deductions right?)",
"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": "1649617dc85a5c9b69fe9840f4e87f17",
"text": "\"The crazy thing about this is that $30 million in annual salary and compensation really isn't the end of the story for rich guys. I worked for a REIT a few years back and the guy that founded that REIT made a few million in salary a year. I thought the number seemed a bit low for his lifestyle. He had many properties in the US for his own personal use (around 6-8 BIG homes). He also had a garage that was insane. He had over 25 very expensive cars. My co-workers would say \"\"Nick is airing out his garage\"\" when he drove one to work every day for a month without driving the same vehicle twice in one month. It turns out he owned 30 million shares of stock that paid him $1.00 per share per year. So while his annual compensation was \"\"only\"\" a few million per year, his dividend income was many, many, times that. Think about that next time you see a CEO's annual income and you think that it really isn't as much as you expect.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "29a6d40bb337ba3ee5de2c2edec0be53",
"text": "Not really. I benefit from the very rich and so do you. 2/3 of the 1% are self-made or semi-self made billionaires, and we all benefit from the technologies, businesses, and organisations etc. they have created and continue to create. They are some of the most productive people on earth. Secondly, by investing their assets - they enable other's to get investments for their businesses to grow, because they are willing to take risks, most of us can't or won't. You can rob them once for a small time gain, many countries have attempted this, and then found out with the smartest people disincentivized to work, the country grinds to a halt, and slips towards poverty.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "24b82d946ddcb53abe69edbe767f483b",
"text": "\"> Asset prices are high and not matched by real world performance. See, I know a lot of people are saying this, but I'm not entirely sure this is true. Even if some tech stocks are \"\"artificially\"\" boosting the market to crazy levels, can you say it's not warranted? The potential for many are far beyond what we see today. I don't see the current tech stock boom being unable to fulfill like the 1990s boom, and subsequent bust. The infrastructure and logistics weren't there in 1999. They are now. Beyond tech, businesses are doing pretty well. Up and down, earnings reports are looking good. Stocks are high, but still somewhat based on real numbers. Same could be said for real estate. The demand is real, the prices are high, but it's based on demand. The danger is what we're missing, just like in 2008. Chances are, there is a fiction out there. Maybe the fiction is in these tech stocks. Maybe it is on mortgages again. I'm not seeing it. There were people prior to 2008 sounding alarm bells about the real estate market. I haven't seen the equivalent today. In fact, I've seen more people trying to figure out how the heck the next correction will come, and nobody really can answer it. At this rate, there might not be a \"\"built in\"\" cause, and might come externally like Trump going nuts and launching nukes, or another terrorist attack.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e237eca5c9c774578b10e20a3e6b594c",
"text": "The decline in what kind of house you get for $600k is why a lot of people making $100k don't feel rich. I'm amazed at how many houses in my area go for that much, especially when you consider that only 5% of families have the income to consider that affordable.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4422108668aabeccfe4f5110d9c5ce8f",
"text": "\"I think you came up with a worthy Masters/PhD research project, it is a great question. This is in Australia so it is difficult for me to have complete perspective. However, I can speak about the US of A. To your first point relatively few people inherit their wealth. According to a brief web search about 38% of billionaires, and 20% of millionaires inherited their wealth. The rest are self-made. Again, in the US, income mobility is very common. Some act like high level earners are just born that way, but studies have shown that a great deal of income mobility exists. I personally know people that have grown up without indoor plumbing, and extremely poor but now earn in the top 5% of wage earners. Quid's points are valid. For example a Starbucks, new I-Phone, and a brake job on your car are somewhat catastrophic if your income is 50K/year, hurts if your income is 100K, and an inconvenience if you make 250K/year. These situations are normal and happen regularly. The first person may have to take a pay day loan to pay for these items, the second credit card interest, the third probably has the money in the bank. All of this exaggerates the effect of an \"\"emergency\"\" on one's net worth. To me there is also a chicken-and-egg effect in wealth building and income. How does one build wealth? By investing wisely, planning ahead, budgeting, delaying gratification, finding opportunities, etc... Now if you take those same skills to your workplace isn't it likely you will receive more responsibility, promotions and raises? I believe so. And this too exaggerates the effect on one's net worth. If investing helps you to earn more, then you will have more to invest. To me one of the untold stories of this graph is not just investing, but first building a stable financial base. Having a sufficient emergency fund, having enough and the right kind of insurance, keeping loans to a minimum. Without doing those things first investments might need to be withdrawn, often at an inopportune time, for emergency purposes. Thanks for asking this!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e59d3ee39f5427e4e9cec68ac43462da",
"text": "I don’t understand why people think its okay to write these kinds of articles that mislead the public. First of all, wage mobility in the US is always fluctuating. People move in and out of the 1% all within a lifetime. Secondly, go to Bls.gov there are statistics showing that MOST of the 1% are actually self-made first generation millionaires. Though coming from a wealthy family helps set up the child to a better future it isn’t typically because of inherited money, but is because of the fact that richer parents better educate their kids in FINANCIAL LITERACY. Just remember its easier to spend the wealth empire that your parents built than it is to actually maintain it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b4e6968d25044482947fb299c8d5000f",
"text": "\"The first red flag of your \"\"facts\"\": One of the article's sources is an Atlantic article with the title, \"\"Entrepreneurship: The Ultimate White Privilege?\"\". The article rants on and on about politically correct SJW nonsense. Red flag 2: The Andrew J. Oswald \"\"What Makes an Entrepreneur?\"\" study that is cited to prove access to capital is a helping factor (Your daddy money argument) is from 1998. A hell of a lot has changed since then. Forbes reported a 32% jump (up to 70%) of self-made millionaires from 1982 to 2012. Red flag 3: The article was trash, mainly used as a tool to attack \"\"white privileged males\"\". The article only said, \"\"Hey, look a study!\"\" and didn't mention any data. The only actual mention of data in the article is \"\"more than 80% of funding for new businesses comes from personal savings and friends and family.\"\" Well, yeah. That's where most businesses look for their first small investment. Actual facts: [60% of billionaires are self-made](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269593) [70%+ percent of millionaires are self-made](http://www.thomasjstanley.com/2014/05/america-where-millionaires-are-self-made/) Btw, thanks for the laugh. Didn't know anyone took Qz serious!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "913d6e60dc683f93657a78cf4adb14a9",
"text": "Can't pretend to be an expert in construction or real estate but I'm pretty sure that you can approach the people you know and pay them on a per job basis. I'm pretty sure finding other workers on a per job basis will be easy. I wouldn't say its common but its not uncommon either.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "221da09473d75488fbfed0cc19d08d56",
"text": "\"I'm sorry, but if one of your goals is to \"\"get the small house together at the manor\"\", you're already a huge success by almost the entire world's standards. I don't care if [this](https://gregzavitz.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/1103-linden.jpg) is the \"\"manor\"\" and [this](https://www.theposhshedcompany.co.uk/uploads/products/listings/De_Lange_210317_2_-_Copy.jpg) is the \"\"small house\"\", you're still beating out A LOT of people on the ladder of success.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "94e274d66650337c888a371d404e2d7b",
"text": "People just love becoming more well-off than they currently are, and one of the ways they do it is with leverage. Leverage requires credit. That desire is not exclusive to people who are not already well-off. For a well-off person who wants to become more well-off by expanding their real estate ventures, paying cash for property is a terrible way to go about it. The same goes for other types of business or market investment. Credit benefits the well-off even more greatly than it benefits the poor or the middle-class.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e3feabf3c5377f19e11874057aade2f8",
"text": "\"This article is also light on sources. It overstates inherited wealth. People who work with rich people know the saying \"\"shirtsleeve to shirtsleeve in three generations\"\". There is a proclivity of rich descendants to squander their fortune, which totally negates a majority of this article. In sum, this article and news source insists on itself\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a4634d7a68d41488344228497ee382d2",
"text": "Look, the richest guy I know personally is the first college grad in his family, and he is the first generation of natural-born citizens in his family. He worked (and lucked) his way from almost nothing to rich as fuck, but the fact that I happen to know him personally doesn't nullify his status as a statistical outlier.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
5f54477a6e198fe0a7c091c8a007f641
|
How do credit card banks detect fraudulent transactions without requiring a travel advisory?
|
[
{
"docid": "f8aa47beede59c8ab5527ab55e505aa7",
"text": "One bank is more willing to risk losses and customer hassle in exchange for lower processing costs than the other bank is. It's strictly a business decision. Regarding how they detect suspicious transactions: Patten detection based on your past usage history. I've gotten calls asking me to confirm that I just placed a large order with a company I'd never bought from before, or in a country that I haven't previously visited, or...",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "b0c63f8ceefa08c9cd94e5324d84bd46",
"text": "\"Having worked in the financial industry, I can say 9:10 times a card is blocked, it is not actually the financial industry, but a credit/credit card monitoring service like \"\"Falcon\"\" for VISA. If you have not added travel notes or similar, they will decline large, our of country purchases as a way to protect you, from what is most likely fraud. Imagine if you were living in Sweden and making regular steady purchases, then all of a sudden, without warning your card was used in Spain. This would look suspicious on paper, even it was obvious to you. This is less to do with your financial institution, and more to do with increased fraud prevention. Call your bank. They will help you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4837617bdf0a9de560e77cea4a5805b7",
"text": "\"Along with the commercials for \"\"frog\"\" protection from Discover, most credit card issuers provide fraud protection and zero liability for any unauthorized purchases. As was mentioned in one of the comments, many issuers also will allow temporary \"\"virtual cards\"\" that can be used in places that may not appear to be as reputable. Depending on the type of pre-paid card you are using, you're likely paying some form of a fee for it, and you're certainly not taking advantage of the benefits that a credit card can provide, cash back being a big one. There are no annual fee cards out there that get 2% cash back on every purchase.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2e739a62468debe92fb55e23d02905ae",
"text": "I would recommend pre-paid debit cards. Every quarter a fixed amount of money is loaded onto the card (or a new card is issued). This prevents any large-scale fraud from occurring.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "477e66a58e8ff22d07263518157ef28a",
"text": "Well following your train of thought, if someone used the Visa/Amex/MC gift cards to buy something at another store, couldn't Visa/Amex/MC go to those stores and ask for evidence of who used the cards and then go after those people? The rabbit hole could go pretty deep, but if the amount was large enough they might be motivated to at least make examples of some people to discourage this in the future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "80519dc892a32a27903d0d13fdc93213",
"text": "It comes down to liability - if a fraudulent transaction takes place with a debit card, you are out $$ until it is resolved - while as with a credit card, the credit lender is out $$ - the credit lender does not like losing $$, and therefore would like to be paid extra $$ for assuming this risk, and they found the merchant as the one most willing to pay. Sometimes the merchant will pass on this cost to the consumer, but often times the credit card company has a contract with the merchant preventing such a fee, because then they would be at a price disadvantage when compared to debit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2c682ef5283bb51dbcdf86854fba99e8",
"text": "Yes, but note that some credit card companies let you create virtual cards--you can define how much money is on them and how long they last. If you're worried about a site you can use such a card to make the payment, then get rid of the virtual number so nobody can do dirty deeds with it. In practice, however, companies that do this are going to get stomped on hard by the credit card companies--other than outright scams it basically does not happen. (Hacking is another matter--just pick up the newspaper. It's not exactly unusual to read of hackers getting access to credit card information that they weren't supposed to have access to in the first place.) So long as you deal with a company that's been around for a while the risk is trivial.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "79f31adf9ba96bc685681684d0bfdc6a",
"text": "Banks and credit unions are constantly required to improve their detection methods for suspicious transactions. It's not just big transactions anymore, it's scattered little ones, etc. Our credit union had to buy software that runs through transactions sniffing for suspicious patterns. More regulations and more costs that ultimately get passed on to customers in one way or another. Some of your transactions probably tripped a wire where there was none before.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2afdb7895ff858324e1611105b470a98",
"text": "\"Bad plan. This seems like a recipe for having your money taken away from you by CBP. Let me explain the biases which make it so. US banking is reliable enough for the common citizen, that everyone simply uses banks. To elaborate, Americans who are unbanked either can't produce simple identity paperwork; or they got an account but then got blacklisted for overdrawing it. These are problems of the poor, not millionaires. Outside of determined \"\"off the grid\"\" folks with political reasons to not be in the banking and credit systsm, anyone with money uses the banking system. Who's not a criminal, anyway. We also have strong laws against money laundering: turning cash (of questionable origin) into \"\"sanitized\"\" cash on deposit in a bank. The most obvious trick is deposit $5000/day for 200 days. Nope, that's Structuring: yeah, we have a word for that. A guy with $1 million cash, it is presumed he has no choice: he can't convert it into a bank deposit, as in this problem - note where she says she can't launder it. If it's normal for people in your country to haul around cash, due to a defective banking system, you're not the only one with that problem, and nearby there'll be a country with a good banking system who understands your situation. Deposit it there. Then retain a US lawyer who specializes in this, and follow his advice about moving the money to the US via funds transfer. Even then, you may have some explaining to do; but far less than with cash. (And keep in mind for those politically motivated off-the-financial-grid types, they're a bit crazy but definitely not stupid, live a cash life everyday, and know the law better than anybody. They would definitely consider using banks and funds transfers for the border crossing proper, because of Customs. Then they'll turn it into cash domestically and close the accounts.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "31fa6913dcce1b5d529f2d45eb778025",
"text": "What sort of amount are we talking about here, and what countries are you travelling to? As long as it's not cash, most countries will neither know or care how much money is in your bank account or on your credit card limit, and can't even check if they wanted to. Even if they can, there are very few countries where they would check without already suspecting you of a crime. I think you're worrying over nothing. Even if it's cash, most countries have no border control anyway, and those who do (UK, Ireland) allow up to £10,000 or so cash without even having to declare it... Just open a second bank account and don't take the card (or cut the card up). Use online banking to transfer money in smaller chunks to your main account. Alternately (or additionally) take a credit card or two with a smaller limit (enough to make sure you're comfortably able to deal with one month plus emergency money). Then set up your regular bank account to pay this credit card off in full every month. If I was really concerned, I'd open a second bank account and add a sensible amount of money to it (enough to cover costs of my stay and avoid questions about whether I can afford my stay, but not so much it would raise question). Then I'd open two credit cards with a limit of perhaps $1000-2000: one covers the costs of living wherever I'm going, the other is for emergencies or if I misjudge and go over my amount per month. Set up your bank to pay these off each month, and you're sorted Honestly, I think you're worrying over nothing. People travel inside Europe every day with millions in the bank and raise no questions. You're legally allowed to have money!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "422e6a852c0f6568b2848a07cab29dfa",
"text": "\"File a John Doe lawsuit, \"\"plaintiff to be determined\"\", and then subpoena the relevant information from Mastercard. John Doe doesn't countersue, so you're pretty safe doing this. But it probably won't work. Mastercard would quash your subpoena. They will claim that you lack standing to sue anyone because you did not take a loss (which is a fair point). They are after the people doing the hacking, and the security gaps which make the hacking possible. And how those gaps arise among businesses just trying to do their best. It's a hard problem. And I've done the abuse wars professionally. OpSec is a big deal. You simply cannot reveal your methods or even much of your findings, because that will expose too much of your detection method. The ugly fact is, the bad guys are not that far from winning, and catching them depends on them unwisely using the same known techniques over and over. When you get a truly novel technique, it costs a fortune in engineering time to unravel what they did and build defenses against it. If maybe 1% of attacks are this, it is manageable, but if it were 10%, you simply cannot staff an enforcement arm big enough - the trained staff don't exist to hire (unless you steal them from Visa, Amex, etc.) So as much as you'd like to tell the public, believe me, I'd like to get some credit for what I've done -- they just can't say much or they educate the bad guys, and then have a much tougher problem later. Sorry! I know how frustrating it is! The credit card companies hammered out PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards). This is a basic set of security rules and practices which should make hacking unlikely. Compliance is achievable (not easy), and if you do it, you're off the hook. That is one way Amy can be entirely not at fault. Example deleted for length, but as a small business, you just can't be a PCI security expert. You rely on the commitments of others to do a good job, like your bank and merchant account salesman. There are so many ways this can go wrong that just aren't your fault. As to the notion of saying \"\"it affected Amy's customers but it was Doofus the contractor's fault\"\", that doesn't work, the Internet lynch mob won't hear the details and will kill Amy's business. Then she's suing Mastercard for false light, a type of defamtion there the facts are true but are framed falsely. And defamation has much more serious consequences in Europe. Anyway, even a business not at fault has to pay for a PCI-DSS audit. A business at fault has lots more problems, at the very least paying $50-90 per customer to replace their cards. The simple fact is 80% of businesses in this situation go bankrupt at this point. Usually fraudsters make automated attacks using scripts they got from others. Only a few dozen attacks (on sites) succeed, and then they use other scripts to intercept payment data, which is all they want. They are cookie cutter scripts, and aren't customized for each site, and can't go after whatever personal data is particular to that site. So in most cases all they get is payment data. It's also likely that primary data, like a cloud drive, photo collection or medical records, are kept in completely separate systems with separate security, unlikely to hack both at once even if the hacker is willing to put lots and lots of engineering effort into it. Most hackers are script kiddies, able to run scripts others provided but unable to hack on their own. So it's likely that \"\"none was leaked\"\" is the reason they didn't give notification of private information leakage. Lastly, they can't get what you didn't upload. Site hacking is a well known phenomenon. A person who is concerned with privacy is cautious to not put things online that are too risky. It's also possible that this is blind guesswork on the part of Visa/MC, and they haven't positively identified any particular merchant, but are replacing your cards out of an abundance of caution.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "194a463e003ad34bcefb85ba8217cd32",
"text": "While Rocky's answer is correct in the big picture there is another factor here to keep in mind: The disruption while you're waiting to resolve it. If a fraudster gets your card and drains your account you'll get your money back--but there will be a period while they are investigating that it won't be available. For this reason I avoid debit card transactions and only use credit cards. If the fraudster gets your credit card you might lose access while they investigate but you don't lose access to your bank account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d145cb58025d07fff4622110a9142fbb",
"text": "Just to put in one more possibility: my credit card can have a positive balance, in which case I earn interest. If more money is due, it will automatically take that from the connected checking account. If that goes into negative, of course I have to pay interest. I chose (argued with the bank in order to get) only a small credit allowance. However, I'll be able to access credit allowance + positive balance. That allows me within a day or so to make larger amounts accessible, while the possible immediate damage by credit card fraud is limited at other times. Actually, the credit card pays more interest than the checkign account. Nevertheless, I don't keep high balance there because the risk of fraud is much higher for the credit card.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0fea71233abf6dbb5f87e8322d8f21fd",
"text": "\"An international Outlook (in this case Sweden in European Union). According to laws and regulations large cash transactions are considered conspicuous. The law makers might have reasoned is that cash transactions can be used in as example: - financing terrorism - avoiding taxes - buying or selling illegal goods such as drugs or stolen items - general illegal transactions such as paying bribes Starting there, all banks (at least in Europe) are required to report all suspicious transactions to the relevant authorities (in Sweden it is Finanspolisen, roughly the Financial Police). This is regardless of how the transactions are performed, in cash or otherwise. In order to monitor this all banks in Sweden are required to \"\"know the customers\"\", as example where does money come from and go to in general. In addition special software monitors all transactions and flags suspicious patterns for further investigation and possibly notification of the police. So, at least in Sweden: there is no need to get permission from the FBI to withdraw cash. You will however be required to describe the usage of the Money and your description will be kept and possibly sent to the Financial police. The purpose is not to hinder legitimate transactions, but to Catch illegal activities.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6479d2f2685bc1c6a0174388d1d0c22e",
"text": "I don't have much to add other than your signature is not required to process a charge. Signatures are kept on file for validity in the event you dispute a charge. Your signature isn't held in some magical database with signature recognition software. If you draw an shark in the signature section of a receipt that won't stop the charge from processing. In fact, many merchants don't even bother requiring the signature below a certain threshold. There are loads of behind the scenes processing improvements offered by the EMV chip; namely prevention of card number skimming and duplication via encrypted transaction signing. While requiring a PIN adds an additional layer of security, simply processing via chip dramatically improves the network fraud prevention tools in a manner that is almost completely transparent to the user. To your point, if your wallet is lost and an imposer holds your physical card there is no anti-fraud improvement. At any rate, you have zero fraud liability in the US.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "237b046a1a504aac7ff28b5d4f68910b",
"text": "lol- yeah, I know how banks work. My point is EVERY transaction should be recorded somewhere. Banks have both internal and external auditors who's only job it is to monitor the transactions to make sure everything adds up. It just doesn't make sense that the CEO of the company would have so little idea of what is going on. Shades of Enron to me.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
03d26415d8c1766c984e1a45789803eb
|
What is expense growth in this diagram?
|
[
{
"docid": "b6bd677c1e3ea129e086763705a7bdad",
"text": "\"The \"\"c.\"\" is probably circa, or \"\"about.\"\" Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means \"\"business as usual\"\" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "53dd714fdcde93886c79bef5635ec6a9",
"text": "\"First, please allow me to recommend that you do not try gimmickry when financials do give expected results. It's a sure path to disaster and illegality. The best route is to first check if accounts are being properly booked. If they are then there is most likely a problem with the business. Anything out of bounds yet properly booked is indeed the problem. Now, the reason why your results seem strange is because investments are being improperly booked as inventory; therefore, the current account is deviating badly from the industry mean. The dividing line for distinguishing between current and long term assets is one year; although, modern financial accounting theorists & regulators have tried to smudge that line, so standards do not always adhere to that line. Therefore, any seedlings for resale should be booked as inventory while those for potting as investment. It's been some time since I've looked at the standards closely, but this used to fall under \"\"property, plant, & equipment\"\". Generally, it is a \"\"capital expenditure\"\" by the oldest definition. It is not necessary to obsess over initial bookings because inventory turnover will quickly resolve itself, so a simple running or historical rate can be applied to the seedling purchases. The books will now appear more normal, and better subsequent strategic decisions can now be made.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "41e12b6dc6a67d21c7f6eaa5ea3656a4",
"text": "\"There are a couple of misconceptions I think are present here: Firstly, when people say \"\"interest\"\", usually that implies a lower-risk investment, like a government bond or a money market fund. Some interest-earning investments can be higher risk (like junk bonds offered by near-bankrupt companies), but for the most part, stocks are higher risk. With higher risk comes higher reward, but obviously also the chance for a bad year. A \"\"bad year\"\" can mean your fund actually goes down in value, because the companies you are invested in do poorly. So calling all value increases \"\"interest\"\" is not the correct way to think about things. Secondly, remember that \"\"Roth IRA fund\"\" doesn't really tell you what's \"\"inside\"\" it. You could set up your fund to include only low-risk interest earning investments, or higher risk foreign stocks. From what you've said, your fund is a \"\"target retirement date\"\"-type fund. This typically means that it is a mix of stocks and bonds, weighted higher to bonds if you are older (on the theory of minimizing risk near retirement), and higher to stocks if you are younger (on the theory of accepting risk for higher average returns when you have time to overcome losses). What this means is that assuming you're young and the fund you have is typical, you probably have ~50%+ of your money invested in stocks. Stocks don't pay interest, they give you value in two ways: they pay you dividends, and the companies that they are a share of increase in value (remember that a stock is literally a small % ownership of the company). So the value increase you see as the increase due to the increase in the mutual fund's share price, is part of the total \"\"interest\"\" amount you were expecting. Finally, if you are reading about \"\"standard growth\"\" of an account using a given amount of contributions, someone somewhere is making an assumption about how much \"\"growth\"\" actually happens. Either you entered a number in the calculator (\"\"How much do you expect growth to be per year?\"\") or it made an assumption by default (probably something like 7% growth per year - I haven't checked the math on your number to see what the growth rate they used was). These types of assumptions can be helpful for general retirement planning, but they are not \"\"rules\"\" that your investments are required by law to follow. If you invest in something with risk, your return may be less than expected.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "35124c3aee792df13fe3a69a181155f4",
"text": "\"Here is where I am confused. On the income statement I am looking at it has a line item in cogs that is \"\"change in jobs in progress\"\". Change in JIP = (Starting raw materials, wip, and finished goods) - (Ending raw materials, wip, and finished goods) for the accounting period. From what I researched cost of goods manufactured is added to cogs: \"\"The formula for the cost of goods manufactured is the costs of: direct materials used + direct labor used + manufacturing overhead assigned = the manufacturing costs incurred in the current accounting period + beginning work-in-process inventory - ending work-in-process inventory. A manufacturer's cost of goods sold is computed by adding the finished goods inventory at the beginning of the period to the cost of goods manufactured and then subtracting the finished goods inventory at the end of the period.\"\" So it isnt wip that is in the income statement it is change in inventory. Why do they include the \"\"change of inventory\"\" in cogs? Wont this just be material and labor that should be in for the next accounting period cog calculation?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "00df1661bbb7f46e4761ef8d1b612ca9",
"text": "I don't understand the logic of converting a cost of funds of 4% to a monthly % and then subtracting that number from an annual one (the 1.5%). Unfortunately without seeing the case I really can't help you...there was likely much you have left out from above.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9dce0b157b2a2d90afcda05c20b8bd8a",
"text": "I mean isn't it implied that cash flows increase by the amount of the benefit of the investment each year? I'm a little shaky on cash flows tbh. My scope may be limited compared to yours I've never taken a financial management class but just from financial accounting knowledge since I recently finished that, it seems like cash flows would be increased if revenues are increased. Unless the revenue increase is for some reason solely in the form of accounts receivable or some asset other than cash.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "552c97f6a717f65fe5560ea03fd90c76",
"text": "\"I think we'd need to look at actual numbers to see where you're running into trouble. I'm also a little confused by your use of the term \"\"unexpected expenses\"\". You seem to be using that to describe expenses that are quite regular, that occur every X months, and so are totally expected. But assuming this is just some clumsy wording ... Here's the thing: Start out by taking the amount of each expense, divided by the number of months between occurrences. This is the monthly cost of each expense. Add all these up. This is the amount that you should be setting aside every month for these expenses, once you get a \"\"base amount\"\" set up. So to take a simple example: Say you have to pay property taxes of $1200 twice a year. So that's $1200 every 6 months = $200 per month. Also say you have to pay a water bill once every 3 months that's typically $90. So $90 divided by 3 = $30. Assuming that was it, in the long term you'd need to put aside $230 per month to stay even. I say \"\"in the long term\"\" because when you're just starting, you need to put aside an amount sufficient that your balance won't fall below zero. The easiest way to do this is to just set up a chart where you start from zero and add (in this example) $230 each month, and then subtract the amount of the bills when they will hit. Do this for some reasonable time in the future, say one year. Find the biggest negative balance. If you can add this amount to get started, you'll be safe. If not, add this amount divided by the number of months from now until it occurs and make that a temporary addition to your deposits. Check if you now are safely always positive. If not, repeat the process for the next biggest negative. For example, let's say the property tax bills are April and October and the water bills are February, May, August, and November. Then your chart would look like this: The biggest negative is -370 in April. So you have to add $370 in the first 4 months, or $92.50 per month. Let's say $93. That would give: Now you stay at least barely above water for the whole year. You could extend the chart our further, but odds are the exact numbers will change next year and you'll have to recalculate anyway. The more irregular the expenses, the more you will build up just before the big expense hits. But that's the whole point of saving for these, right? If a $1200 bill is coming next week and you don't have close to $1200 saved up in the account, where is the money coming from? If you have enough spare cash that you can just take the $1200 out of what you would have spent on lunch tomorrow, then you don't need this sort of account.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fc579ea31e6452ce928ecef5dce15590",
"text": "\"Something I found helpful when I learned this, is to just use Excel to expand the series. So start with A1 as \"\"175\"\", then in A2 put \"\"=175+(A1*1.004308)\"\" and paste that same formula down for a few hundred rows. You'll find your answer on A216. Most non-math-centric people don't have an intuitive grasp of how exponents (aka \"\"compounding\"\"... and never mind the natural logarithms this is all derived from) behave; but you can play with the numbers \"\"unrolled\"\" in Excel to get a better idea of how they work. That formula is just applying 0.4308% interest every period (row), and adding in a fresh $175.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6185b178bed99afd98ae1c4d60cc2cee",
"text": "\"Fama-French would be a couple of names if you want to look at this from a value/growth dichotomy. A simplified form of this was to take the stocks with a lower Price/Book Value that would be the value stocks while the others would be the growth. The principle is that some of the beaten-down stocks will appreciate more than the growth stocks will. 6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today also makes note of the \"\"growth vs value\"\" split if you want another reference that way. Historically, growth has been more volatile and produced lower returns, though past performance isn't necessarily always going to hold as some people like to invest in what is known as a \"\"slice & dice\"\" portfolio where a portion in invested in each of 4 corners: Large-growth, large-value, small-growth, and small-value. Some may add in bonds, REITs, and foreign stocks but the idea is that in different years, different parts of the market will do better and this is a way to capture that in a sense.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b5e65391762cad073c42a9fac453c4d",
"text": "The issue I run into with that is that it does nothing to change the cash flows over the five years because it doesn't change any of the numbers across the board. This course has the worst worded assignments I have ever seen and I appreciate your assistance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c51c006f9bf44c2e7d5785762db1797",
"text": "He didn't lock in a growth rate of 4%. He locked in a yield of 4%. That's the amount the bond pays in interest on his original investment each year. If he just spends that money the bond will continue to pay 4% each year, but there's no growth. In order to get growth he has to reinvest the interest as it comes in; if he puts it into bonds, the return on that new money, and hence the growth, depends on the prevailing interest rate at the time that the interest is paid. That interest rate can be higher or lower than the original 4%; there's no connection between the two.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8685de0fcc65597ee7162ebf237035d2",
"text": "\"It's likely impossible to determine why premiums are increasing in a meaningful way; not only is the interrelationship between the various data points very complex, but some of the increases are likely due to decisions by people who do not and will not publicly post what they decided and why. However, it is possible to compare health insurance premium increases over time to see if the increases in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are comparable or not to the pre-ACA timeframe. Since the ACA phased in over a few years, we can compare the period 2008-2010 \"\"pre-ACA\"\" and 2013-2015 \"\"post-ACA\"\", ignoring 2011-2012 as being unclearly affected by the ACA phase-in. For this, I will look at single coverage premiums only for the purpose of simplifying the analysis. I found a good table of 2008-2010 premiums from the NCSL; they list the following: Kaiser Permanente had a good list for 2013-2015 here: From 2008-2010, the average growth was around 6% per year. From 2013-2015, the growth averaged about 3%. In both of these cases we are comparing total premiums (sum of employer and employee contributions). So, from a data-driven look, it seems that the premium growth is lower post-ACA than pre-ACA, so it's unlikely that the ACA could be accused of causing increased premium growth. Of course, this is US-wide average, and on a state-by-state basis there may well be significant differences that may or may not be related to the ACA. One thing that is covered on the NCSL page linked above that is interesting: while the premium growth has slowed significantly (about 50% of the growth pre-ACA), health insurance premiums are a higher proportion of employee's wages, and that growth is continuing - because wage growth has not kept pace with inflation post-2008 recession. Employee contributions also may be higher post-recession; many companies reduced their contribution percentage (as my then employer did, for example). Finally, increases in the ACA plans are also commonly overstated. They largely are in line with employer plans or even less. In 2015, premiums were basically flat, decreasing slightly in fact - see the KFF analysis here. 2016 saw a 3.6% by this methodology (see the 2016 analysis). It's very easy to cherrypick examples that are favorable to any interpretation from the data, though; there are such big swings as a result of the different conditions in the marketplaces that it's easy to pick a few that have high swings and claim the ACA has massive premium increases, or pick a few that have low swings and claim it's reducing costs.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dbbbfb16fb026b997f1c90807b69104e",
"text": "Is the following correct? The firm needs $20,000 for the investment. It borrows $6,000 @ 7%, and supplies $14,000 in equity. The interest expense on the borrowing is $420 ($6,000 times 7%). After one year, the firm receives $26,500 from its investment. Subtract $6,420 (return borrowings plus interest). The firm is left with $20,080. Divide by starting equity of $14,000. Subtract 1 from the ratio. **Levered return on equity is 43.4%.**",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d517dc0ccab516b86af746f5066ab44",
"text": "http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/oct/16/tax-biggest-us-companies-uk#zoomed-picture Has a nice infographic (and an actual infographic, not merely a diagram or picture as too many people on this sight seem think infographics are) on a bunch of large US companies with their turnover, net profits tax paid and percentage of net profit paid as tax.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "034637720f6e64814a0c384bef75b209",
"text": "The headline is totally misleading. Construction costs have risen by 30% according to the statistic. This is not construction wage growth by 30%. They don't address how much construction wage growth has actually occurred. This increase in cost will be pushed onto the consumer. Increase in cost by 30% means people will have to get used to paying 30% more for construction services.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "acd8a7913f2befd6deceb28ab90cc67b",
"text": "Honestly, I’m not sure I understand your point. The figures suggest to me that the business invests (higher capex and amortisation) and grows it’s revenues and cash flow. D&A can be higher than new capex for a number of reasons including accelerated amortisation for tax purposes. Why is D&A contribution (actually i prefer to separate the concepts of P&L and cash flow) to operating cash flow a problem or why does it evidence manipulation?",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
221a9a668cbd2ab8e563c595be02dce6
|
Is per diem taxable?
|
[
{
"docid": "7c2d9916f948b4c6693e43b7dd9400e4",
"text": "Per-diem is not taxable, if all the conditions are met. Conditions include: You can find this and more in this IRS FAQ document re the per-diem.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "81ab7c9d49e66e287f971b92d3c14a58",
"text": "?? Edit: that's what I thought. Unless there is some specific tax code that I don't know about, there's no way to pass through money to the next year. But if someone on Reddit is saying something and quoting a tax law, I'd at least like to see it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "01146bc5aa9569a2197f4c8911640786",
"text": "\"According to this post on TurboTax forums, you could deduct it as an \"\"Unreimbursed Employee\"\" expense. This would seem consistent with the IRS Guidelines on such deductions: An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense does not have to be required to be considered necessary. Office rent is not listed explicitly among the examples of deductible unreimbursed employee expenses, but this doesn't mean it's not allowed. Of course you should check with a tax professional if you want to be sure.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15a68028202202a61ad5b69ba02c6f16",
"text": "Yes, you can deduct from your taxable profits (almost) any expenses incurred in the course of your business. See here for HMRC's detailed advice on the subject. The fact that you have salaried PAYE employment as well makes no difference.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c6959426bd997ccef966bf5cc436b54",
"text": "You need to fill out form 8606. It's not taxable, but you still need to report it",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c9071f33291146ae94561b8f6f6e5442",
"text": "\"It will count as income, and you can deduct as much of your moving expenses as allowed by tax laws. If you also count it as a reimbursement, then you're double-taxed - once for the income and again by reducing your moving deduction. The \"\"reimbursement\"\" amount is designed for when you get literally reimbursed for exact expenses directly, bypassing the tax on that compensation. The only difference will be that you (and your employer) pay FICA and medicare on the \"\"relocation bonus\"\" that you wouldn't if you were reimbursed. Also, with a reimbursement you are not incentivized to minimize the cost of your relocation (since it's not your money you're spending). With a bonus, since you get to keep whatever is left over, you have a vested interest in keeping your expenses down.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a29abe11d3792ac3fa82a44f4a5d3a09",
"text": "Here is an IRS citation to support my comment above - Exceptions. The 10% tax will not apply if distributions before age 59 ½ are made in any of the following circumstances: Made to a beneficiary (or to the estate of the participant) on or after the death of the participant, Made because the participant has a qualifying disability, Made as part of a series of substantially equal periodic payments beginning after separation from service and made at least annually for the life or life expectancy of the participant or the joint lives or life expectancies of the participant and his or her designated beneficiary. (The payments under this exception, except in the case of death or disability, must continue for at least 5 years or until the employee reaches age 59½, whichever is the longer period.), Made to a participant after separation from service if the separation occurred during or after the calendar year in which the participant reached age 55, Made to an alternate payee under a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO), Made to a participant for medical care up to the amount allowable as a medical expense deduction (determined without regard to whether the participant itemizes deductions), Timely made to reduce excess contributions, Timely made to reduce excess employee or matching employer contributions, Timely made to reduce excess elective deferrals, or Made because of an IRS levy on the plan. Made on account of certain disasters for which IRS relief has been granted.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cf29d354336d2585c9fbaef99b4ae97e",
"text": "\"The bill proposed to \"\"Under existing law, employers may take tax deductions for the costs associated with moving jobs out of the country. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that, and used the resulting new revenue to fund a 20 percent tax credit for the costs companies run up \"\"insourcing\"\" labor back into the U.S.\"\" From http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=16816660 as found by beermethestrength. I will explain this in an example below. Lets use allen edmonds. I manufacture shoes and sell them in the US. The facts we will assume is Revenue or sales is $100. Manufacturing cost is $50. Tax rate is 10%. Therefore, Profit before tax is $100 -$50 = $50. Tax is $5. Net profit is $45. However, suppose offshoring to Canada saves money. They say please and thank you at every opportunity and the positive work environment allows them to work faster. Correspondingly to make the same number of shoes our costs has decreased because we pay less for labour. The manufacturing cost decreases to $30. However, we incur costs to move such as severance payments to layoff contracted employees. (I promise to hire you and pay $1 a year for 2 years. I fire you at the end of the first year. To be fair, I pay you $1) However, it can be any legitimate expense under the sun. In this case we suppose this moving cost is $10. Revenue or sales is $100. Manufacturing cost is $30. Moving cost is $10. Tax rate is 10%. Profit before tax is $100 -$40 = $60. Tax is $6. Net profit is $54. Yay more jobs for Canadians. However, the legislation would have changed this. It would have denied that moving expense if you were moving out of the country. Therefore, we cannot consider $10 worth of expenses for tax purposes. Therefore Revenue or sales is $100. Manufacturing cost is $30. Tax rate is 10%. Profit before tax for tax purposes is $100 - $30 = $70. Tax is $7. Net profit for tax purposes is $63. However, my accounting/net/real profit is $53. I must deduct the $10 associated with moving. The difference between the two scenarios is $1. In general our net profit changes by our moving cost * our tax rate. There is no tax break associated with moving. In Canadian tax, any business expense in general can be deducted as long as it is legitimate and not specifically denied. I am uncertain but would assume US tax law is similar enough. Moving expenses in general are legitimate and not specifically denied and therefore can be deducted. Offshoring and onshoring are seen as legitimate business activities as in general companies do things to increase profit. (forget about patriotism for the moment). The bill was to make offshoring more expensive and therefore fewer companies would find offshoring profitable. However, republicans defeated this bill in congress. Most likely the house For completeness let us examine what would happen when we onshore (bring jobs from canada to us :( ). In our example, silly unions demand unrealistically high wages and increase our cost of manufacturing to $50 again. We decide to move back to the US because if it is the same everywhere for the sake of silly national pride we move our jobs back to the US. We incur the same moving cost of $10. Therefore we have Revenue or sales is $100. Manufacturing cost is $50. Moving cost of $10. Tax rate is 10%. Profit before tax for tax purposes is $100 - $60 = $40. Tax is $4. However, we are given a 20% tax credit for moving expense. $10 * .2 = 2. The government only assess us tax of 2. Net profit is $38. Tax credits are a one time deal so profit in the future will be $100 -$50 - $5 = $45. Same as the first example. insourcing = onshoring , outsourcing = offshoring for the purposes of this article. Not quite the same in real life.\"",
"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": "a87688fb747cdc8f66ebfc69393bdf18",
"text": "This is taxed as ordinary income. See the IRC Sec 988(a)(1). The exclusion you're talking about (the $200) is in the IRC Sec 988(e)(2), but you'll have to read the Treasury Regulations on this section to see if and how it can apply to you. Since you do this regularly and for profit (i.e.: not a personal transaction), I'd argue that it doesn't apply.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2b3eb961fe4796f80757fdd694888379",
"text": "IRS Publication 463 is a great resource to help you understand what you can and can't deduct. It's not a yes/no question, it depends on the exact company use, other use, and contemporaneous record keeping.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "719f35b28cb051d605fcb396a7a2589f",
"text": "If the $5000 is income, then you need to pay income taxes on it. That's simply the way it works. Hourly rate has nothing to do with whether or not you pay taxes. If it helps, try to think of the $5000 as the first $5000 you make for the year. Now it's covered by your standard deduction and you're not paying taxes on it.",
"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": "8b27a63bdb0730b88a8c021fafa174de",
"text": "Both US GAAP and IFRS are accrual basis frameworks. 99.9% of businesses report under those frameworks (or their local gaaps, but still accrual based). Usually it's public sector entities which are cash-basis in my experience. Anyway, accrual basis has more to do with revenue recognition, not taxation, so that's not really relevant here. The value date of an invoice (ie in which moment it becomes taxable) depends on tax legislation (which sets the rules to determine the so called date of taxable event), not so much on accounting principles. In many cases taxable rules are intertwined with cash collection/payment, however, to prevent creative accounting for tax evasion purposes. For example, provisions for various uncertain future events might be required by accounting rules, but the corresponding expenses are generally not deductible for tax purposes (so you won't be able to deduct them until the event actually occurs and you pay).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d19da4db1e61fc1df456ca82329d5d1",
"text": "Get answers from your equivalent of the IRS, or a local lawyer or accountant who specializes in taxes. Any other answer you get here would be anectdotal at best. Never good to rely on legal or medical advice from internet strangers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c85af7c03bb033ad3f29d889b656daee",
"text": "Currently certain money back policies are tax free and a vast majority are taxable. There are revised guidelines that would govern which policies are tax free. At a broad level the rule is that the sum assured under the policy should be 10 times the premium paid. There is no distinction of single premium or yearly. Hence certain policies of single premium are taxable. Further there is a TDS also in place from this year. This article gives a good overview. You should consult the documentation of your specific policy and check with your insurance company or CA.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
9a0b5f0120916a716a0fdf3cfd8d9725
|
Mortgage interest income tax deduction during year with a principal residence change
|
[
{
"docid": "7aab38b3269000319e156bc95984f607",
"text": "http://www.irs.gov/publications/p936/ar02.html#en_US_2010_publink1000229891 If you still own it, you get to deduct all of it. In my taxes I did online with TaxAct, it asked if I lived there or not and it just mattered which form it filed for me. With having tenants it was a 'business' form and I assume it would be a standard schedule A for personal. Either way the deductions are still mine to take.",
"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": "1445b89ab44471005c83df5b57ed7abe",
"text": "If your deductions are higher than the standard deduction, you will be able to subtract property taxes from your income. In your example, that means that taxes are computed based on $95,000. In 2011, the standard deduction varies between $5,800 (single filer) and $11,600 (married filing jointly). Tax credits are subtracted from your tax obligation. The most common tax credit for most people is student loan interest. If you pay $500 in student loan interest, that sum is subtracted from your tax bill.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fdec197055dffa8e1c0dea64c9353ba1",
"text": "If you mess with the interest deduction, you take away one of the main reason for home ownership. So without the deduction we will become a nation of renters. This will only hurt communities because renters have less at stake when it comes to community prosperity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "62e19fc212bb3018ffc2b2faf371bbf9",
"text": "No one has considered the tax write off at the end of the year? Will the house be in the parent's name or his, and can one of them take a write off for taxes and interest at the end of each year? On a small salary this may mean he has no tax liability for the four years, and can possibly make up the extra buying costs.... also, look at the comps in the area for the past five years and see if home values have increased and turnover rate for the area will tell you if people are buying in that area...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "05b5668a792f490a1eda8dc402f8125e",
"text": "\"DirectGov has a good overview here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/TaxOnPropertyAndRentalIncome/DG_4017814 and answers to your specific questions here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/TaxOnPropertyAndRentalIncome/DG_10013435 In short, you do need to declare the rental income on your tax return and will need to pay tax on it (and note that only the mortgage interest (not the full repayment) is deductible as an \"\"allowable expense\"\", see the full list of what is deductible here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/TaxOnPropertyAndRentalIncome/DG_10014027 ).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9a730624c13434ec84e3a67975f3dd2a",
"text": "First, the basis is what was paid for the house along with any documented upgrades, any improvements not consider maintenance. Any gain from that point is taxable. This is the issue with gifting a house before one passes. It's an awful mistake. The fact that there was a mortgage doesn't come into play here nor does the $15K given away. Your question is great, and the only missing piece is what the house cost. Keep in mind, depending on the state, you MIL may have gotten a step-up on the passing of her husband. On a very personal note - my grandparents bough a family house. 4 apartments. 1938 at a cost of $4000. My grandmother transferred 1/2 share to my father well before she died. And before my father's death it was put into my mother's name. Now that she's in her last years, I explained that since moved it to my sister's name already, there's no step up in basis. This share is now worth over $600,000, and after 4 deaths, no step up. When my sister sells, she will have a gain on nearly 100% of the sale price. In my opinion, there's a special place in hell for lawyers that quit claim property like this. For a bit of paperwork, the house could have been put into a trust to avoid probate, avoid being an asset for medicaid, and still get the step up. Even a $2000 cost for a good lawyer to set up a trust would yield a return of nearly $100,000 in taxes avoided. (And as my sister's keeper, I'd have paid the $2,000 myself, no issue that she gets the house. She needs it, I don't. And when the money's gone, I'm all she has anyway.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9760eb01c9865d9e976ff2bb5d0ca757",
"text": "I'm not an attorney, nor am I a licensed tax adviser. I suggest you talk to these two types of professionals. From my limited knowledge, without proper documentation/organization, I can't see how the IRS/State will not consider this as a rent payment. The mortgage responsibility is of the person signing the mortgage contract, and you're under no obligation to pay that person anything. Had you not lived at the property, you might argue that it was a gift (although I'm not sure if it would stand), but since you do live in the property - it is quite obviously a rent payment. Putting your name on the deed may mitigate this slightly but I'm not sure how much - since you're still not obligated to pay the mortgage. However this is probably moot since it is unlikely for a bank to give a mortgage on a property to person A when it is also owned by a person B, without that person B being side to the mortgage contract.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "538da02b9cbfb6a9472db2e0cb3bf217",
"text": "I think it's safe to say that removing the deduction will do a lot more than hurt the housing market. Consumer discretionary income will decrease and most likely hamper the growth in the economy we have seen since 2008. Seems like shitty policy to move when republicans are also trying to cut corporate taxes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a16cdeba56a7edbdb8277e7c90b16dce",
"text": "\"You can exclude up to $250000 ($500000 for married filing jointly) of capital gains on property which was your primary residence for at least 2 years within the 5 years preceding the sale. This is called \"\"Section 121 exclusion\"\". See the IRS publication 523 for more details. Gains is the difference between your cost basis (money you paid for the property) and the proceeds (money you got when you sold it). Note that the amounts you deducted for depreciation (or were allowed to deduct during the period the condo was a rental, even if you chose not to) will be taxed at a special rate of 25% - this is called \"\"depreciation recapture\"\", and is discussed in the IRS publication 544.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "266260faec9cc263180d42275dbabe8c",
"text": "Those choices aren't mutually exclusive. Yes, most discussion of the mortgage interest deduction ignores the fact that for a standard itemizer, much, if not all of this deduction can be lost. For 2011, the std deduction for a single is $5,800. It's not just mortgage interest that's deductible, state income tax, realestate tax, and charitable contributions are among the other deductions. If this house is worth $350K, the property tax is about $5K, and since it's not optional, I'd be inclined to assume that it's the deduction that offsets the std deduction. Most states have an income tax, which tops off the rest. You are welcome to toss this aside as sophistry, but I view it as these other deductions as 'lost' first. I'm married, and our property tax is more than our standard deduction, so when doing the math, the mortgage is fully deductible, as are our contributions. In your case, the numbers may play out differently. No state tax? Great, so it's the property tax and deductions you'd add up first and decide on the value the mortgage deduction brings. Last, I don't have my mortgage for the deduction, I just believe that long term my other investments will exceed, after tax, the cost of that mortgage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4e9aa8fec1c4ee7274257bfb57bcf9d3",
"text": "\"The mortgage tax deduction can at most apply to two mortgages. IRS Publication 936 lays this out pretty clearly. There might be other deductions available if you are using the houses as a commercial entity, but that's more \"\"corporate taxes\"\" than \"\"personal taxes\"\". I know there are tax laws for dealing with interest, depreciation, capital expenses that businesses use.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f5d03797d7499736c830449098a393c1",
"text": "\"Is all interest on a first time home deductible on taxes? What does that even mean? If I pay $14,000 in taxes will My taxes be $14,000 less. Will my taxable income by that much less? If you use the standard deduction in the US (assuming United States), you will have 0 benefit from a mortgage. If you itemize deductions, then your interest paid (not principal) and your property tax paid is deductible and reduces your income for tax purposes. If your marginal tax rate is 25% and you pay $10000 in interest and property tax, then when you file your taxes, you'll owe (or get a refund) of $2500 (marginal tax rate * (amount of interest + property tax)). I have heard the term \"\"The equity on your home is like a bank\"\". What does that mean? I suppose I could borrow using the equity in my home as collateral? If you pay an extra $500 to your mortgage, then your equity in your house goes up by $500 as well. When you pay down the principal by $500 on a car loan (depreciating asset) you end up with less than $500 in value in the car because the car's value is going down. When you do the same in an appreciating asset, you still have that money available to you though you either need to sell or get a loan to use that money. Are there any other general benefits that would drive me from paying $800 in rent, to owning a house? There are several other benefits. These are a few of the positives, but know that there are many negatives to home ownership and the cost of real estate transactions usually dictate that buying doesn't make sense until you want to stay put for 5-7 years. A shorter duration than that usually are better served by renting. The amount of maintenance on a house you own is almost always under estimated by new home owners.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "64d3ed9bdd8bc785d306c43ab39bcb18",
"text": "\"No one has addressed the fact that your loan interest and property taxes are \"\"deductible\"\" on your taxes? So, for the first 2/3 years of your loan, you will should be able to deduct each year's mortgage payment off your gross income. This in turn reduces the income bracket for your tax calculation.... I have saved 1000's a year this way, while seeing my home value climb, and have never lost a down payment. I would consider trying to use 1/2 your savings to buy a property that is desirable to live in and being able to take the yearly deduction off your taxes. As far as home insurance, most people I know have renter's insurance, and homeowner's insurance is not that steep. Chances are a year from now if you change your mind and wish to sell, unless you're in a severely deflated area, you will reclaim at minimum your down payment.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c10ace4aedb72bf50cc35dc0869e866d",
"text": "\"I'm not an attorney or a tax advisor. The following is NOT to be considered advice, just general information. In the US, \"\"putting your name on the deed\"\" would mean making you a co-owner. Absent any other legal agreement between you (e.g. a contract stating each of you owns 50% of the house), both of you would then be considered to own 100% of the house, jointly and severally: In addition, the IRS would almost certainly interpret the creation of your ownership interest as a gift from your partner to you, making them liable for gift tax. The gift tax could be postponed by filing a gift tax return, which would reduce partner's lifetime combined gift/estate tax exemption. And if you sought to get rid of your ownership interest by giving it to your partner, it would again be a taxable gift, with the tax (or loss of estate tax exemption) accruing to you. However, it is likely that this is all moot because of the mortgage on the house. Any change to the deed would have to be approved by the mortgage holder and (if so approved) executed by a title company/registered closing agent or similar (depending on the laws of your state). In my similar case, the mortgage holder refused to add or remove any names from the deed unless I refinanced (at a higher rate, naturally) making the new partners jointly liable for the mortgage. We also had to pay an additional title fee to change the deed.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8269934f559d54722a958a104b6e191d",
"text": "The interest rate will probably be better for your primary residency, however the risk is higher too. In the event you can't pay it off - you probably would rather lose the second home and not the primary home. Re the tax benefit - it will be attached to the rental you're buying, since that's what the loan is for. However, if you have a HELOC on your primary residency, you can deduct interest on up to $100K on your Schedule A regardless of what you're doing with the money. This can be useful if the rental is losing money and you don't want to accumulate the interest deduction as passive loss.",
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
19cfe7f2e027412e932ad350e789edc7
|
Moving savings to Canada?
|
[
{
"docid": "916d8876cb4f852df639d4a317cef3d9",
"text": "\"The simplest, most convenient way I know of to \"\"move your savings to Canada\"\" is to purchase an exchange-traded fund like FXC, the CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust, or a similar instrument. (I identify this fund because I know it exists, not because I particularly recommend it.) Your money will be in Canadian currency earning Canadian interest rates. You will pay a small portion of that interest in fees. Since US banks are already guaranteed by the FDIC up to $250,000 per account, I don't really think you avoid any risks associated with the failure of an individual bank, but you might fare better if the US currency is subject to inflation or unfavorable foreign-exchange movements - not that such a thing would be a direct risk of a bank failure, but it could happen as a result of actions taken by the Federal Reserve under the auspices of aiding the economy if the economy worsens in the wake of a financial crisis - or, for that matter, if it worsens as a result of something else, including legislative, regulatory, or executive policies. Read the prospectus to understand additional risks with this investment. One of them is foreign-exchange risk. If the US economy and currency strengthen relative to the Canadian economy and its currency, you may lose substantial amounts of purchasing power. Additionally, one of the possible results of a financial crisis is a \"\"flight to safety\"\"; the global financial markets still seem to think the US dollar is pretty safe, and they may bid it up as they have done in the past, resulting in losses to your position (at least in the short term). I do not personally recommend moving all your savings to Canada, especially if it deprives you of income from more profitable investments over the long term, but moving some of your savings to Canada at least isn't a stupid idea, and it may turn out to be somewhat profitable. Having some Canadian currency is also a good idea if you plan to spend the money that you are saving on Canadian goods in the intermediate future.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0bce2a4b42da3308b91bc62b75237674",
"text": "Yes, you can put assets in Canadian banks. Will it protect your wealth to a greater extent than the FDIC protection provided by the US Government? Probably not. If you do business or spend significant time in Canada, then having at least some money in Canada makes sense. Otherwise, you're trying to protect yourself against some outlying risk of a US banking collapse, while subjecting yourself to a very real currency exchange risk.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ce4f2edeea1c5ed88eb36d44644fc5c0",
"text": "It is absolutely feasible to move your savings into Canada. There are a few ways you can do it. However it is unlikely you will benefit or avoid risk by doing so. You could directly hold your savings in the CAD. Investing in Canadian bonds achieves a similar goal as holding your money in the CAD. By doing so you will be getting re-payed with CAD. Some Canadian companies also trade on US markets. In addition some brokerage firms allow you to trade on Canadian markets. The problem with any of the options is the assumption that Canadian banks will fare better then US banks. The entire globe is very dependent on each other, especially the more developed nations. If large US banks were to fail it would create a domino effect which would spiral into a global credit crunch. It wouldn't matter if your invested in Canadian companies or US companies they would all suffer as would the global economy. So it would probably be more valid to refer to your question - enter link description here If you are referring to weather the Canadian bonds would be a safer investment over US Treasuries it would all depend on the scenario at hand. Investors would probably flock to both treasuries.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "d92cf4a2c8499ba7bb4c375c7444f3dc",
"text": "India has Foreign Exchange Management Act. Under the liberalized scheme, there are limits for individuals to move funds out of India for specific purposes. Any such transfer require a CA certificate, so it would be advisable to talk to a CA to understand the specifics of your case.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c22ddc6666d604975f4b2b01bdbd3979",
"text": "Given that we live in a world rife with geopolitical risks such as Brexit and potential EU breakup, would you say it's advisable to keep some of cash savings in a foreign currency? Probably not. Primarily because you don't know what will happen in the fallout of these sorts of political shifts. You don't know what will happen to banking treaties between the various countries involved. If you can manage to place funds on deposit in a foreign bank/country in a currency other than your home currency and maintain the deposit insurance in that country and not spend too much exchanging your currency then there probably isn't a downside other than liquidity loss. If you're thinking I'll just wire some whatever currency to some bank in some foreign country in which you have no residency or citizenship consideration without considering deposit insurance just so you might protect some of your money from a possible future event I think you should stay away.",
"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": "bb7552c1ff46cd7722042c55aa395f87",
"text": "RoyalBank provides a no fee transfer service (no fee in the sense that there is no per transfer fee aside from the spread). There is monthly fee if you keep less than 1500 or so on the american side. http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/usbanking/cross-border-transfer.html",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c12bc3175fa0e13e7583371e1891a8ba",
"text": "In theory, when you obtained ownership of your USD cash as a Canadian resident [*resident for tax purposes, which is generally a quicker timeline than being resident for immigration purposes], it is considered to have been obtained by you for the CAD equivalent on that date. For example if you immigrated on Dec 31, 2016 and carried $10k USD with you, when the rate was ~1.35, then Canada deems you to have arrived with $13.5k CAD. If you converted that CAD to USD when the rate was 1.39, you would have received 13.9k CAD, [a gain of $400 to show as income on your tax return]. Receiving the foreign inheritances is a little more complex; those items when received may or may not have been taxable on that day. However whether or not they were taxable, you would calculate a further gain as above, if the fx rate gave you more CAD when you ultimately converted it. If the rate went the other way and you lost CAD-value, you may or may not be able to claim a loss. If it was a small loss, I wouldn't bother trying to claim it due to hassle. If it's a large loss, I would be very sure to research thoroughly before claiming, because something like that probably has a high chance of being audited.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c86b0d267984e7b5f0929fb77b2bd8f7",
"text": "Most US banks don't allow you the ability to draft a foreign currency check from USD. Though, I know Canadian banks are more workable. For instance, TD allows you to do this from CAD to many other currencies for a small fee. I believe even as a US Citizen you can quite easily open a TD Trust account and you'd be good to go. Also, at one time Zions bank was one of the few which lets US customers do this add-hoc. And there is a fee associated. Even as a business, you can't usually do this without jumping thru hoops and proving your business dealings in foreign countries. Most businesses who do this often will opt to using a payment processor service from a 3rd party which cuts checks in foreign currencies at a monthly and per check base. Your other option, which may be more feasible if you're planning on doing this often, would be to open a British bank account. But this can be difficult if not impossible due to the strict money laundering anti-fraud regulations. Many banks simply won't do it. But, you might try a few of the newer British banks like Tesco, Virgin and Metro.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a03e11b09578cfefddc3909b61c1c49",
"text": "\"Federal taxes are generally lower in Canada. Canada's top federal income tax rate is 29%; the US rate is 35% and will go to 39.6% when Bush tax cuts expire. The healthcare surcharge will kick in in a few years, pushing the top bracket by a few more points and over 40%. State/provincial taxes are lower in the US. You may end up in the 12% bracket in New York City or around 10% in California or other \"\"bad\"\" income-tax states. But Alberta is considered a tax haven in Canada and has a 10% flat tax. Ontario's top rate is about 11%, but there are surtaxes that can push the effective rate to about 17%. Investment income taxes: Canada wins, narrowly. Income from capital gains counts as half, so if you're very rich and live in Ontario, your rate is about 23% and less than that in Alberta. The only way to match or beat this deal in the US in the long term is to live in a no-income-tax state. Dividends are taxed at rates somewhere between capital gains and ordinary income - not as good a deal as Bush's 15% rate on preferred dividends, but that 15% rate will probably expire soon. Sales taxes: US wins, but the gap is closing. Canada has a national VAT-like tax, called GST and its rate came down from 7% to 5% when Harper became the Prime Minister. Provinces have sales taxes on top of that, in the range of 7-8% (but Alberta has no sales tax). Some provinces \"\"harmonized\"\" their sales taxes with the GST and charge a single rate, e.g. Ontario has a harmonized sales tax (HST) of 13% (5+8). 13% is of course a worse rate than the 6-8% charged by most states, but then some states and counties already charge 10% and the rates have been going up in each recession. Payroll taxes: much lower in Canada. Canadian employees' CPP and EI deductions have a low threshold and top out at about $3,000. Americans' 7.65% FICA rate applies to even $100K, resulting in a tax of $7,650. Property taxes: too dependent on the location, hard to tell. Tax benefits for retirement savings: Canada. If you work in the US and don't have a 401(k), you get a really bad deal: your retirement is underfunded and you're stuck with a higher tax bill, because you can't get the deduction. In Canada, if you don't have an RRSP at work, you take the money to the financial company of your choice, invest it there, and take the deduction on your taxes. If you don't like the investment options in your 401(k), you're stuck with them. If you don't like them in your RRSP, contribute the minimum to get the match and put the rest of the money into your individual RRSP; you still get the same deduction. Annual 401(k) contribution limits are use-it-or-lose-it, while unused RRSP limits and deductions can be carried forward and used when you need to jump tax brackets. Canada used to lack an answer to Roth IRAs, but the introduction of TFSAs took care of that. Mortgage interest deduction: US wins here as mortgage interest is not deductible in Canada. Marriage penalty: US wins. Canadian tax returns are of single or married-filing-separately type. So if you have one working spouse in the family or a big disparity between spouses' incomes, you can save money by filing a joint return. But such option is not available in Canada (there are ways to transfer some income between spouses and fund spousal retirement accounts, but if the income disparity is big, that won't be enough). Higher education: cheaper in Canada. This is not a tax item, but it's a big expense for many families and something the government can do about with your tax dollars. To sum it up, you may face higher or lower or about the same taxes after moving from US to Canada, depending on your circumstances. Another message here is that the high-tax, socialist, investment-unfriendly Canada is mostly a convenient myth.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "144cce3a1c93590519217a7e460232ff",
"text": "There are a few options that I know of, but pretty much every one of them will cost more than you want to pay in fees, probably. You should be able to write a check/cheque to yourself. You might check with your US bank branch to see how much of a limit they'd have. You can also use a Canadian ATM card at a US ATM. The final option would be to use a Canadian credit card for all of your purchases in the US, and then pay the bill from the Canadian bank account. I don't recommend the last option because if you're not careful to pay off the bill every month, you're running up debt. Also, it's hard to pay some kinds of expenses by credit card, so you'd want a way to have cash available. Another option would be to use a service like Paypal or Hyperwallet to send yourself the money. Again, you'd be paying fees, but these might be cheaper than what the bank would charge. There may be other options, but these are the ones I'm aware of. Whatever you choose, look carefully at what the fees would be, and how long you'd have to wait to get the money. If you can plan ahead a bit, and take larger chunks of money at a time, that should help keep the fees down a bit. I believe there's also a point where you start having to report these transfers to the US government. The number $10,000 stick in my head, but they may have changed that recently.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f726f809f97b359ec75b22e77941d0cb",
"text": "Transfers can be made from U.S. pension plans to Canadian RRSPs, if the following conditions are met: Way more details here: http://www.howlandtax.com/answers/05Sept21.htm And googling 'transfer 401k to rrsp' yields much fruit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1a404654ead22b2255f0566d521035db",
"text": "\"@sdg's answer is spot-on with the advice to avoid repeated conversions, but I'd like to provide some specifics on the fees involved: Each time you round-trip Canadian dollars (CAD) through a U.S.-dollar (USD) priced security at TD Waterhouse and leave your proceeds in CAD, you're paying a total foreign exchange fee – implied in their rate spread – of about 3%, give or take. That's ~3% per buy & sell combination, or ~1.5% on each end. You can imagine if you trade back & forth frequently, you can quickly lose a lot of money. Do it back and forth ten times in a year and you're out ~30% on the fees alone! The TD U.S. Money Market Fund (TDB166) that TD Waterhouse is referring to has no direct commission to buy or sell, but it does have a Management Expense Ratio (MER) of 0.20% per year – basically a fee which is deducted from the fund's returns (which, today, are also close to zero.) Practically speaking, that's a very slim fee to hold some USD in your Canadian dollar TFSA. While 0.20% is cheap, a point to keep in mind is if you maintain a significant USD balance, you are maintaining currency risk: You can lose money in CAD terms if the CAD appreciates vs. USD. Additional references: Canadian Capitalist describes TD Waterhouse and the use of TDB166 and \"\"wash trades\"\" at How to \"\"Wash\"\" Your Trade? He's referring to RRSPs, but the same applies to TFSAs, which came out after the post was written. Canadian Couch Potato has two relevant articles: Are US-listed ETFs Really Cheaper? and Lowering Your Currency Exchange Fees.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0ab3fee36c996ad778cc4618cca18011",
"text": "\"Assuming that the assets in the \"\"old\"\" TFSA are in cash, you could simply withdraw the money and redeposit it in the \"\"new\"\" TFSA, in the following year!!. The yearly limit is on your gross deposits for the year, not the net. This method obviously works best near the end of December. You should expect the new TFSA to briefly question the amount; they don't want to help you make a costly mistake. At other times, the direct transfer in @Grade EhBacon's answer would be better.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a336e432920f71cf5cf7ca918fa8eb41",
"text": "I have a bank account in the US from some time spent there a while back. When I wanted to move most of the money to the UK (in about 2006), I used XEtrade who withdrew the money from my US account and sent me a UK cheque. They might also offer direct deposit to the UK account now. It was a bit of hassle getting the account set up and linked to my US account, but the transaction itself was straightforward. I don't think there was a specific fee, just spread on the FX rate, but I can't remember for certain now - I was transfering a few thousand dollars, so a relatively small fixed fee would probably not have bothered me too much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f8f5fa9a7144cf472c4d3c3c924557d",
"text": "\"The point here is actually about banks, or is in reference to banks. They expect you know how a savings account at a bank works, but not mutual funds, and so are trying to dispel an erroneous notion that you might have -- that the CBIC will insure your investment in the fund. Banks work by taking in deposits and lending that money out via mortgages. The mortgages can last up to 30 years, but the deposits are \"\"on demand\"\". Which means you can pull your money out at any time. See the problem? They're maintaining a fiction that that money is there, safe and sound in the bank vault, ready to be returned whenever you want it, when in fact it's been loaned out. And can't be called back quickly, either. They know only a little bit of that money will be \"\"demanded\"\" by depositors at any given time, so they keep a percentage called a \"\"reserve\"\" to satisfy that, er, demand. The rest, again, is loaned out. Gone. And usually that works out just fine. Except sometimes it doesn't, when people get scared they might not get their money back, and they all go to the bank at the same time to demand their on-demand deposits back. This is called a \"\"run on the bank\"\", and when that happens, the bank \"\"fails\"\". 'Cause it ain't got the money. What's failing, in fact, is the fiction that your money is there whenever you want it. And that's really bad, because when that happens to you at your bank, your friends the customers of other banks start worrying about their money, and run on their banks, which fail, which cause more people to worry and try to get their cash out, lather, rinse repeat, until the whole economy crashes. See -- The Great Depression. So, various governments introduced \"\"Deposit Insurance\"\", where the government will step in with the cash, so when you panic and pull all your money out of the bank, you can go home happy, cash in hand, and don't freak all your friends out. Therefore, the fear that your money might not really be there is assuaged, and it doesn't spread like a mental contagion. Everyone can comfortably go back to believing the fiction, and the economy goes back to merrily chugging along. Meanwhile, with mutual funds & ETFs, everyone understands the money you put in them is invested and not sitting in a gigantic vault, and so there's no need for government insurance to maintain the fiction. And that's the point they're trying to make. Poorly, I might add, where their wording is concerned.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e30e4fb242f8e042d3c4cc995bc4986e",
"text": "Canada, like other second-rate economies with weak currencies, provides USD accounts. It is not the same vice versa. It is rare to find a direct deposit foreign currency account in the US as it is the world-leading currency.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8400613fe1604536e0f9484699465382",
"text": "You should check this with a tax accountant or tax preparation expert, but I encountered a similar situation in Canada. Your ISA income does count as income in a foreign country, and it is not tax exempt (the tax exemption is only because the British government specifically says so). You would need to declare the income to the foreign government who would almost certainly charge you tax on it. There are a couple of reasons why you should probably keep the funds in the ISA, especially if you are looking to return. First contribution limits are per year, so if you took the money out now you would have to use future contribution room to put it back. Second almost all UK savings accounts deduct tax at source, and its frankly a pain to get it back. Leaving the money in an ISA saves you that hassle, or the equal hassle of transferring it to an offshore account.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
a8328a5559e7c31f3f18aec61ca09032
|
searching for historic exchange rate provider which meets this example data
|
[
{
"docid": "73f0f5884654654b0658b3caef2f0620",
"text": "You will most likely not be able to avoid some form of format conversion, regardless of which data you use since there is, afaik, no standard for this data and everyone exports it differently. One viable option would be, like you said yourself, using the free data provided by Dukascopy. Please take into consideration that those are spot currency rates and will most likely not represent the rate at which physical and business-related exchange would have happened at this time.",
"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": "8ad88c6e02a19df554b969904c287526",
"text": "\"The prices quoted are for currency pairs traded on the foreign exchange market. For currencies traded on these exchanges, the exchange rates of a given currency pair are determined by the market, so supply and demand, investor confidence, etc. all play a role. EBS and Reuters are the two primary trading platforms in the foreign exchange market, and much of the data on exchange rates comes from them. Websites will usually get their data either from these sources directly or from a data provider that in turn gets it from EBS, Reuters, or another data source like Bloomberg or Haver Analytics. These data sources aren't free, however. In the US, many contracts, transactions, etc. that involve exchange rates use the exchange rate data published by the Federal Reserve. You might see this in contracts that specify to use \"\"the exchange rate published by the Federal Reserve at 12 pm (noon) on date --some date--\"\". You can also look at the Federal Reserve Economic Data, which maintains data series of historical daily, weekly, and monthly exchange rates for major currency pairs. These data are free, although they aren't realtime. Data for each business day is mostly updated the next business day.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee83cf1681351e0bbe55dd42652e9db8",
"text": "You can view certain US economic data with FRED Graph or download the data to play with FRED download. Here is some example tax data:",
"title": ""
},
{
"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": "f7ff0489f0eabd8d4d808b9215088b15",
"text": "You can get this data from a variety of sources, but likely not all from 1 source. Yahoo is a good source, as is Google, but some stock markets also give away some of this data, and there's foreign websites which provide data for foreign exchanges. Some Googling is required, as is knowledge of web scraping (R, Python, Ruby or Perl are great tools for this...).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0044afa440570181fb34cb566eaab389",
"text": "I found the zephyr database, which does the job. Nonetheless if someone knows other (open) sources, be welcome to answer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a84f16ada81922d72884f228646ce307",
"text": "I spoke to HMRC and they said #1 is not allowable but #2 is. They suggested using either their published exchange rates or I could use another source. I suggested the Bank of England spot rates and that was deemed reasonable and allowable.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6db30f454c040ad0bfefaf7151447a71",
"text": "Good day! Did a little research by using oldest public company (Dutch East India Company, VOC, traded in Amsterdam Stock Exchange) as search criteria and found this lovely graph from http://www.businessinsider.com/rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11?IR=T : Why it is relevant? Below the image I found the source of data - Global Financial Data. I guess the answer to your question would be to go there: https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/index.html Hope this helps and good luck in your search!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "49be636cb79217a992a2a5337909c617",
"text": "\"See my comment below about the official exchange rate. There is no \"\"official\"\" exchange rate to apply as far as I'm aware. However the bank is already applying the same exchange rate you can find in the forex markets. They are simply applying a spread (meaning they will add some amount to the exchange rate whichever way you are exchanging currency). You will almost certainly not find a bank that doesn't apply a spread. Of course, their spread might be large, so that's why it is good to compare rates. By the way, 5 GBP/month seems reasonable for a foreign currency (or any) acct. The transaction fees might be cheaper in a different \"\"package\"\" so check. You should consider trying PayPal. Their spread is quite small - and publicly disclosed - and their per-transaction fees are very low. Of course, this is not a bank account. But you can easily connect it to your bank account and transfer the money between accounts quickly. They also offer free foreign currency accounts that you can basically open and close in a click. Transfers are instantaneous. I am based in Germany but I haven't had a problem with clients from various English-speaking countries using PayPal. They actually seem to prefer it in many instances.\"",
"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": "12c634220fc3e2dc46fc247bc28c4557",
"text": "I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the link in your question. Vanguard also sent me a link to the methodology Barclay's uses when constructing this index, which you might find interesting as well. I haven't heard from Barclays, but I presume the story is the same; even if they've been collecting data on Canadian bonds since before the inception of this index, they probably didn't aggregate it into an index before their contract with Vanguard (and if they did, it might be proprietary and not available free of charge).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5596b89a7503739bfe1ed3ba97b4b993",
"text": "Robert Shiller has an on-line page with links to download some historical data that may be what you want here. Center for the Research in Security Prices would be my suggestion for another resource here.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b1e6e328ddefd77d0000e46e8212a7af",
"text": "To answer your original question: There is proof out there. Here is a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that might be worth a read. It has a lot of references to other publications that might help answer your question(s) about TA. You can probably read the whole article then research some of the other ones listed there to come up with a conclusion. Below are some excerpts: Abstract: This article introduces the subject of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market, with emphasis on its importance for questions of market efficiency. “Technicians” view their craft, the study of price patterns, as exploiting traders’ psychological regularities. The literature on technical analysis has established that simple technical trading rules on dollar exchange rates provided 15 years of positive, risk-adjusted returns during the 1970s and 80s before those returns were extinguished. More recently, more complex and less studied rules have produced more modest returns for a similar length of time. Conventional explanations that rely on risk adjustment and/or central bank intervention do not plausibly justify the observed excess returns from following simple technical trading rules. Psychological biases, however, could contribute to the profitability of these rules. We view the observed pattern of excess returns to technical trading rules as being consistent with an adaptive markets view of the world. and The widespread use of technical analysis in foreign exchange (and other) markets is puzzling because it implies that either traders are irrationally making decisions on useless information or that past prices contain useful information for trading. The latter possibility would contradict the “efficient markets hypothesis,” which holds that no trading strategy should be able to generate unusual profits on publicly available information—such as past prices—except by bearing unusual risk. And the observed level of risk-adjusted profitability measures market (in)efficiency. Therefore much research effort has been directed toward determining whether technical analysis is indeed profitable or not. One of the earliest studies, by Fama and Blume (1966), found no evidence that a particular class of TTRs could earn abnormal profits in the stock market. However, more recent research by Brock, Lakonishok and LeBaron (1992) and Sullivan, Timmermann an d White (1999) has provided contrary evidence. And many studies of the foreign exchange market have found evidence that TTRs can generate persistent profits (Poole 6 (1967), Dooley and Shafer (1984), Sweeney (1986), Levich and Thomas (1993), Neely, Weller and Dittmar (1997), Gençay (1999), Lee, Gleason and Mathur (2001) and Martin (2001)).",
"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": "55bd82392b9f03e4190e3d4436bb95c2",
"text": "Thank you. Added to my list. This is very very helpful. I knew about the blockchain and the currency. Unfortunately, I'm not a pedant about differentiating between them with capitalising the first letter. I do not, however, understand Ethereum very well at all. So will read up.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
ceffddc3b25b377b685620a387e0a477
|
Any specific examples of company valuations according to Value Investing philosophy?
|
[
{
"docid": "59246ae9b4f3f7ec846b8c47640bb308",
"text": "\"I highly recommend http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/ Professor Damodaran. He's written some of the best valuation books in existence (my favorite, simply \"\"Investment Valuation\"\"). On his website you'll find a big pile of spreadsheets, that are models for working the various approaches to valuing a company. Also, he teaches an MBA-level valuation course at Stern School of Business in NYC. And he videotapes it and you can watch it for free. Very smart, kind, generous man.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d513872a89d3375d7b33660846180649",
"text": "Buffet is in a different league from other value investors. He looks for stable companies with no debt and good management. Then he looks to deeply understand the industries of candidate companies, and looks for companies that are not in commodity businesses or sell commodities that can be bought for 25% of the valuation that he believes reflects the true value of the company. Deeply understanding the market is really the key. Consider the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, which Buffet purchased last year. Railroads benefit from higher oil prices, as they can transport cargo much cheaper than trucks. They also tend to have natural monopolies in the regions they operate in. Buffet bought the railroad just as production of oil and natural gas in North Dakota started picking up. Since pipeline capacity between North Dakota and refineries in Texas/Oklahoma is very limited, the railroad is making alot of money transporting crude.",
"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": "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": "63bc244c29598b0de41cdc7a48443d51",
"text": "\"I hate to be the guy that says this but if you are indeed competing in the CFAI Research Challenge it is probably important. Remember you cannot use CFA as a noun (CFA's) you can only use it as an adjective ie a CFA charterholder. As far as you question, what was provided below is pretty much all you need. Security Analysis, anything from the NYU professor and Greenwald stuff (although Greenwald, like someone already mentioned, is balance sheet focused) will get you where you need to go. I am not sure what you mean by \"\"exotic valuation\"\" methods. As far as I know, the three most accepted and used valuation models by practitioners are the DCF model, the multiple model and the residual income model. DCF uses short term cash flows and a terminal value discounted to today at some discount rate. The multiple model puts some multiple on earnings, book value, cash flow to arrive at a fair value. The residual model is the opposite of the DCF. One starts with the assets book value, then accrues all income generated in excess of WACC from all future periods. Find some CFAI Level 2 books on equity and bond valuation. They pretty much cover it all. And for a closing note, to perform well in investing and valuing companies it is not about what valuation model you use. Focus on WHY an asset should be worth what you think it is worth, not HOW you get to some valuation of that asset. Just my two cents.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a39b37febb386d8d25976b32ed6e7097",
"text": "all of these examples are great if you actually believe in fundamentals, but who believes in fundamentals alone any more? Stock prices are driven by earnings, news, and public perception. For instance, a pharma company named Eyetech has their new macular degeneration drug approved by the FDA, and yet their stock price plummeted. Typically when a small pharma company gets a drug approved, it's off to the races. But, Genetech came out said their macular degeneration drug was going to be far more effective, and that they were well on track for approval.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2f56ae1095f00461fba1809cd285a175",
"text": "\"You should distinguish between the price and the value of a company: \"\"Price is what you pay, value is what you get\"\". Price is the share price you pay for one share of the company. Value is what a company is worth (based on fundamental analysis, one of the principles of value investing). I would recommend selling the stock only if the company's value has deteriorated due to fundamental changes (e.g. better products from competitors, declining market) and its value is lower than the current share price.\"",
"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": "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": "0a7f714f0a3b50be1430a11363a34698",
"text": "Aswath Damodaran's [Investment Valuation 3rd edition](http://www.amazon.com/Investment-Valuation-Techniques-Determining-University/dp/1118130731/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1339995852&sr=8-12&keywords=aswath+damodaran) (or save money and go with a used copy of the [2nd edition](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0471414905/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used)) He's a professor at Stern School of Business. His [website](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/) and [blog](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/) are good resources as well. [Here is his support page](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/Inv3ed.htm) for his Investment Valuation text. It includes chapter summaries, slides, ect. If you're interested in buying the text you can get an idea of what's in it by checking that site out.",
"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": "278f315a77e4a4a26c0a02e978f6be6f",
"text": "This fortune article is referenced in his either 2003 or 2004 annual report in which he does say that the market will not likely return much in the future and generally talks numbers. I am also a value investor, such that I can be in this environment and believe there is a bit of value in knowing where you think the market is headed but the real value is in underwriting each deal. In long, I agree with you",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b731769f380d1dbc187594d1070e9701",
"text": "I was thinking that the value of the stock is the value of the stock...the actual number of shares really doesn't matter, but I'm not sure. You're correct. Share price is meaningless. Google is $700 per share, Apple is $100 per share, that doesn't say anything about either company and/or whether or not one is a better investment over the other. You should not evaluate an investment decision on price of a share. Look at the books decide if the company is worth owning, then decide if it's worth owning at it's current price.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "164f357b28487a92dd220457fa1bda24",
"text": "\"I tell you how I started as an investor: read the writings of probably the best investor of the history and become familiarized with it: Warren Buffett. I highly recommend \"\"The Essays of Warren Buffett\"\", where he provides a wise insight on how a company generates value, and his investment philosophy. You won't regret it! And also, specially in finance, don't follow the advice from people that you don't know, like me.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8b82fb1b960b241080e16afd01ce6551",
"text": "\"Each company has X shares valued at $Y/share. When deals like \"\"Dragon's Den\"\" in Canada and Britain or \"\"Shark Tank\"\" in the US are done, this is where the company is issuing shares valued at $z total to the investor so that the company has the funds to do whatever it was that they came to the show to get funding to do, though some deals may be loans or royalties instead of equity in the company. The total value of the shares may include intangible assets of course but part of the point is that the company is doing an \"\"equity financing\"\" where the company continues to operate. The shareholders of the company have their stake which may be rewarded when the company is acquired or starts paying dividends but that is a call for the management of the company to make. While there is a cash infusion into the company, usually there is more being done as the Dragon or Shark can also bring contacts and expertise to the company to help it grow. If the investor provides the entrepreneur with introductions or offers suggestions on corporate strategy this is more than just buying shares in the company. If you look at the updates that exist on \"\"Dragon's Den\"\" or \"\"Shark Tank\"\" at least in North America I've seen, you will see how there are more than a few non-monetary contributions that the Dragon or Shark can provide.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18f714e37c58c5709f088dfa8fe323b8",
"text": "I could argue Amazon. And Facebook the other way. Before the down-vote brigade appears, I'll just say I said I could *argue* those points. Also, I haven't done valuation in years, and definitely not for tech because while I am a big techie, the industry itself seems likes a clown lottery with respect to valuation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2b6a35f1951cf41e56a1603955d3ac58",
"text": "As I have worked for H&R Block I know for a fact that they record all your activity with them for future reference. If it is their opinion that you are obligated to use their service if you use some other service then this, most likely, will affect your future dealings with them. So, ask yourself this question: is reducing their income from you this year worth never being able to deal with them again in future years? The answer to that will give you the answer to your question.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
878b2b8959b4cbe93b44e0411a13322e
|
How can I make a one-time income tax-prepayment to the US Treasury?
|
[
{
"docid": "dd96b5b2a38b28fa6a4a9581dda69b19",
"text": "\"You can make estimated tax payments on Form 1040-ES. Most people who make such payments need to do it quarterly because the typical reasons for making estimated payments is something like self-employment income that a person will get throughout the year. If you have a one-time event like a single, large sale of stock, however, there's nothing wrong with doing it just one quarter out of the year. When it comes time to file your taxes, part of the calculate is whether you were timely quarter-by-quarter not just for the entire year, so if you do have a big \"\"one-time\"\" event mid-year, don't wait until the end of the year to file an estimated payment. Of course, if the event is at the end of the year, then you can make it a 4th quarter estimated payment.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "7156a9fde48c1a3aec096bab435c99e9",
"text": "Yes, you can do what you are contemplating doing, and it works quite well. Just don't get the university's payroll office too riled by going in each June, July, August and September to adjust your payroll withholding! Do it at the end of the summer when perhaps most of your contract income for the year has already been received and you have a fairly good estimate for what your tax bill will be for the coming year. Don't forget to include Social Security and Medicare taxes (both employee's share as well as employer's share) on your contract income in estimating the tax due. The nice thing about paying estimated taxes via payroll deduction is that all that tax money can be counted as having been paid in four equal and timely quarterly payments of estimated tax, regardless of when the money was actually withheld from your university paycheck. You could (if you wanted to, and had a fat salary from the university, heh heh) have all the tax due on your contract income withheld from just your last paycheck of the year! But whether you increase the withholding in August or in December, do remember to change it back after the last paycheck of the year has been received so that next year's withholding starts out at a more mellow pace.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f0b2c79bb09d455414ec58c07ec0f51",
"text": "\"Yes, it is, but first let me address this sentence: my current withholding on my W4 is already at 0 so I can't make it lower You definitely can make it lower. On W4, in addition to the allowances (that what you meant by \"\"already at 0\"\"), there's also a line called \"\"additional withholding\"\". There, you put the dollar amount that you want your payroll to withhold from your paycheck each pay period. So the easiest way to \"\"send\"\" a one time payment to the IRS, if you're a W2 employee, would be to adjust that line with the amount you want to send, and change it back to 0 next pay period. You can also send a check directly to the IRS - follow the instructions to form 1040-ES. That is exactly what that form is designed to be used for.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3fe97da3da12776e31cfb58e16e57f81",
"text": "\"It's likely you don't have to make estimated tax payments if this is your first year of contracting (extra income), and your existing salary is already having taxes withheld. If you look at the 1040-ES: General Rule In most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2014 if both of the following apply. This is easier to understand if you look at the worksheet. Look at line 14b/14c and the associated instructions. 14b is your required annual payment based on last year's tax. 14c is the lesser of that number and 14a, so 14b is your \"\"worst case\"\". 14c is the amount of tax you need to prepay (withholding counts as prepayment). I'm going to apply this to your situation based on my understanding, because it's not easy to parse:\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "28e724bb8a999cbde510325dd4f5afad",
"text": "\"The pure numbers answer says you want the refund to be close to $0. You can even argue, as some answers have, that you want to try to maximize the payment without receiving any sanctions for underpaying during the year. If you trace the money, it's easy to see why. Let's say you get a paycheck. Tag some of the dollars for Uncle Sam. These are the dollars that, eventually, will be given to the IRS. Now consider the following scenarios: From the raw numbers like this, its clear that you lose utility by setting yourself up for a large refund check. The money was yours the entire time, but you chose to give it to Uncle Sam instead. However, the raw numbers are only part of the puzzle. If you're a cold steely-gazed numbers person, they're the part that matters. When the billionares are playing their tax evasion games, this is the only thing they are paying attention to. However, real humans have a few psychological reasons they may choose to lose utility in terms of raw dollars in exchange for psychological assistance: These attitudes exist, and may be ideal for any one person. Obviously the financially savvy answer of \"\"minimize your refund\"\" is the ideal answer from a dollars and cents perspective, but its up to you to see whether that attitude is right when you account for all of the non-measurable things, like stress. In general, I would lead anyone to \"\"minimize your refund,\"\" but I would be remiss if I didn't include the very real psychological reasons people choose to deviate from it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e14cb4c06d785d9ab927ff0914196dcc",
"text": "This is wrong. It should be or Now, to get back to self-employment tax. Self-employment tax is weird. It's a business tax. From the IRS perspective, any self-employed person is a business. So, take your income X and divide by 1.0765 (6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare). This gives your personal income. Now, to calculate the tax that you have to pay, multiply that by .153 (since you have to pay both the worker and employer shares of the tax). So new calculation or they actually let you do which is better for you (smaller). And your other calculations change apace. And like I said, you can simplify Q1se to and your payment would be Now, to get to the second quarter. Like I said, I'd calculate the income through the second quarter. So recalculate A based on your new numbers and use that to calculate Q2i. or Note that this includes income from both the first and second quarters. We'll reduce to just the second quarter later. This also has you paying for all of June even though you may not have been paid when you make the withholding payment. That's what they want you to do. But we aren't done yet. Your actual payment should be or Because Q2ft and Q2se are what you owe for the year so far. Q1ft + Q1se is what you've already paid. So you subtract those from what you need to pay in the second quarter. In future quarters, this would be All that said, don't stress about it. As a practical matter, so long as you don't owe $1000 or more when you file your actual tax return, they aren't going to care. So just make sure that your total payments match by the payment you make January 15th. I'm not going to try to calculate for the state. For one thing, I don't know if your state uses Q1i or Q1pi as its base. Different states may have different rules on that. If you can't figure it out, just use Q1i, as that's the bigger one. Fix it when you file your annual return. The difference in withholding is going to be relatively small anyway, less than 1% of your income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "51b98857496db91ad880cc721db0c57c",
"text": "\"That's a very clear explanation, thanks! So a few additional things if anyone will humor my curiosity... 1. By \"\"one-time\"\" tax, does that mean a company that has, say, $5B overseas could bring that back into the US and just be taxed $500M, then keep the remaining $4.5B? 2. Could a company choose a percentage of their overseas money to transfer into the US? Like, only bring in 8% of that $5B ($400M) and be taxed $40M, while keeping all the rest outside the US? Or would it be mandatory to bring it all over? 3. Would most companies just start that same practice of routing to tax havens again after this tax is implented?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bd6eecc9738b213f4a0e3ccc7411900f",
"text": "You have two different operations going on: They each have of a set of rules regarding amounts, timelines, taxes, and penalties. The excess money can't be recharacterized except during a specific window of time. I would see a tax professional to work through all the details.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ea582ead73b55789e8dd68ef14643254",
"text": "I don't believe you can do that. From the IRS: Finally, certain types of property are specifically excluded from Section 1031 treatment. Section 1031 does not apply to exchanges of: I highlighted the relevant items for emphasis.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7195053464f2555973061c1a472f0ed3",
"text": "You should probably get a professional tax advice, as it is very specific to the Philipines tax laws and the US-Philippine tax treaty. What I know, however, is that if it was the other way around - you paying a foreigner coming to the US to consult you - you would be withholding 30% of their pay for the IRS which they would be claiming for refund on their own later. So if the US does it to others - I'm not surprised to hear that others do it to the US. Get a professional advice on what and how you should be doing. In any case, foreign taxes paid can be used to offset your US taxes using form 1116 up to some extent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a41026f655a49f32a9b2a065fe080f00",
"text": "\"You can simply use the previous year's tax liability as your basis for payments. Take the amount of tax you owed the previous year, divide by four, and use that amount for your estimated payments. As long as you're paying 100% of what you owed last year, you won't have any penalty. Except if your AGI is above a certain limit ($150k for married filing jointly in 2011), then you have to pay 110%. See IRS Pub 505 for details (general rule, special rule, under \"\"Higher Income Taxpayers\"\"). (H/T to @Dilip Sarwate for pointing out the 110% exception in a comment below.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "278761b17fa57982144a46c66491ce57",
"text": "Like-kind of exchanges have a list of requirements. The IRS has not issued formal guidance in the matter. I recommend to be aggressive and claim the exchange, while justifying it with a good analogy to prove good faith (and persuade the IRS official reading it the risk of losing in tax court would be to high). Worst case the IRS will attempt to reject the exchange, at which point you could still pony up to get rid of the problem, interest being the only real risk. For example: Past tax court rulings have stated that collectable gold coins are not like kind to gold bars, and unlike silver coins, but investment grade gold coins are like kind to gold bars. So you could use a justification like this: I hold Bitcoin to be like-kind to Litecoin, because they use the same fundamental technology with just a tweak in the math, as if exchanging different grades of gold bars, which has been approved by tax court ruling #xxxxx. Note that it doesn't matter whether any of this actually makes sense, it just has be reasonable enough for you to believe, and look like it is not worth pursuing to an overworked IRS official glancing at it. I haven't tried this yet, so up to now this is a guess, but it's a good enough guess in my estimation that I will be using it on some rather significant amounts next year.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ca45fdfb71adf33769492b71c096b555",
"text": "There is a shortcut you can use when calculating federal estimated taxes. Some states may allow the same type of estimation, but I know at least one (my own--Illinois) that does not. The shortcut: you can completely base your estimated taxes for this year on last year's tax return and avoid any underpayment penalty. A quick summary can be found here (emphasis mine): If your prior year Adjusted Gross Income was $150,000 or less, then you can avoid a penalty if you pay either 90 percent of this year's income tax liability or 100 percent of your income tax liability from last year (dividing what you paid last year into four quarterly payments). This rule helps if you have a big spike in income one year, say, because you sell an investment for a huge gain or win the lottery. If wage withholding for the year equals the amount of tax you owed in the previous year, then you wouldn't need to pay estimated taxes, no matter how much extra tax you owe on your windfall. Note that this does not mean you will not owe money when you file your return next April; this shortcut ensures that you pay at least the minimum allowed to avoid penalty. You can see this for yourself by filling out the worksheet on form 1040ES. Line 14a is what your expected tax this year will be, based on your estimated income. Line 14b is your total tax from last year, possibly with some other modifications. Line 14c then asks you to take the lesser of the two numbers. So even if your expected tax this year is one million dollars, you can still base your estimated payments on last year's tax.",
"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": "bc9c200f6660dd9981ab887eb936190c",
"text": "I think the IRS doc you want is http://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2010_publink100010601 I believe the answers are:",
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
644367ad873791a363ea0223e75febfe
|
In the USA, why is the Free File software only available for people earning less than $62k?
|
[
{
"docid": "8d0726e7822140462fdaf8646b5ac184",
"text": "\"It is very helpful to understand that Free File is not actually \"\"by\"\" the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS does indeed offer access to the program through their website, but Free File is actually a public-private partnership program operated and maintained by the Free File Alliance. Who is the Free File Alliance? Well, according to their members list: 1040NOW Corp., Drake Enterprises, ezTaxReturn.com, FileYourTaxes, Free Tax Returns, H&R Block, Intuit, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax, OnLine Taxes, TaxACT, TaxHawk, and TaxSlayer. Why the income restriction? Well, that's part of the deal the IRS struck - the program is \"\"dedicated to helping 70 percent of American taxpayers prepare and e-file their federal tax returns\"\". Technically the member companies are offering their own software to handle tax preparation, and the rule is that 70% of American's must 'qualify' for at least one product, so this adjusted gross income limit changes periodically so that 70% of the population can use it. Why restrict it at all? This was part of the give and take involved in negotiation with the businesses involved. If the program was \"\"everyone files for free\"\", then it is presumed that many reputable businesses that make the program valuable would choose not to continue to participate. In other words, they want to be able to not give away their services for free to customers who are - at least by income definition - more than capable of paying them. The IRS has said it does not want to be in the tax prep software business, so they are not offering their own free software to do the job that private companies would otherwise charge for. However, there are other restrictions to being in the program - like the fact that no business in the program can offer \"\"refund anticipation loans\"\", offer commercial services more than a certain amount of times (so they can't hound you to upgrade), and so on. Some businesses were making a killing off these, though they are pretty much solely developed to be predatory on people with the lowest incomes (and education levels, and IQ, and with cognitive disabilities, and basically anyone they could sucker into paying what were effectively absurd rates for short term loans along with inflated filing/preparation fees). Finally, Free File was partly developed as an initiative to increase the amount of digitally filed taxes and reduce the paper-based burdens of accepting and processing turns. In other words: to cut government costs, not to be a government welfare program. Even if it were, one can generally obtain commercial software for $30-$100, so the benefit to those above gross income levels is pretty minor; yearly costs to file taxes with such software for those payers would be less than 0.001% of their yearly expenses. Compared to the benefits obtainable by households living below the poverty line, fighting to cover an extra 5-30% of the population at the potential expense of having the whole program be a failure probably seemed like a more than worthwhile trade-off.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "71f5a8da0a217a73a8b71543c603a16d",
"text": "Free File is not software by the IRS. Free File is actually a partnership between the IRS and the Free File Alliance, a group of tax software companies. The software companies have all agreed to provide a free version of their tax software for low-income taxpayers. According to the Free File Alliance FAQ, the Alliance was formed in 2002 as part of a Presidential initiative to improve electronic access to government. You can read all the excruciating details of the formal agreement (PDF) between the IRS and the Alliance, but basically, the participating software companies get exposure for their products and the possibility of up-selling services, such as state tax return software.",
"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": "d704dd591f7062fb614c343df2296ace",
"text": "Whoever wrote this article is an idiot. $112,000 income in NY makes you barely middle class. 529 plans and 401k plans are two of very few actually sensible pieces of tax policy this burning dumpster fire of a country has. Come to Brooklyn and tell the high school janitor who makes $100k that he is too affluent to get college savings tax credits and be prepared to get punched in the face.",
"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": "ced09ab3262b25c1ad703326db8ecd26",
"text": "\"So it seems like a lot of people here aren't exactly sure about why this works and its financial implications. So what you are referring to is in Finance something called Funds Transfer Pricing or FTP (often referred to as just Transfer Pricing). Like anything else, FTP has its place. Most companies; however, don't use it properly. FTP, theoretically, has one primary purpose (although it's developed a second): to properly allocate opportunity costs across divisions. Let's say Company A produces widgets. They sell these widgets for $200 at a TOTAL COST of $150 and book profits of $50. Now to produce the widget Division 1 makes a computer chip at a cost of $50 that it then \"\"sells\"\" to Division 2 for $60. Division 1 then books a profit of $10. Division 2 then makes some plastic stuff and assembles the device. This is labor intensive so Division 2's costs are $100. Company A sells the completed device for $150. Division 2 subsequently books profits of $40, and appears much more profitable than Division 1, on the surface. The problem arises when Division 1 could sell the chip to the open market for $125. Now it costs them $50 to produce, and they could make a theoretical profit of $75. This is MORE than the company makes AS A WHOLE on the entire device. By having Division 2 pay effectively \"\"fair market price\"\" for that chip, you realize that Division 2 is really operating at a loss (the *opportunity cost* of not selling the chip to market is greater than producing the completed device). Company A would be better off getting rid of Division 2 and solely focusing on Division 1. In a good FTP system, Division 2 would pay the fair market price of $125. If done properly, management would hopefully realize it should divest Division 2. That's the ***fundamental premise*** behind FTP. In actuality things get much more complicated because of economics, the company itself, branding, IT, operations, management, PPE, labor laws, etc. Thats why most companies screw it up. All that other stuff falls under whats called cost allocation accounting. It gets VERY complex and entire masters courses are dedicated to it (different methods, etc.) The other thing you can do with FTP is get crazy tax breaks due to various tax laws. The simplified explanation is that divisions pay taxes on profits to the government ***that division*** is located in (this works on the state level, too btw.). GE does a lot of this and it's a big part of why they pay almost no-taxes. Again, it gets more complicated when you involve audits as there's some grey area legally. For simplicity, assume tax rates are 40% in the US and 10% in India. So let's say GE makes an airplane engine in the US but \"\"finishes\"\" manufacturing in India. These specific engines costs $5,000,000 for the US division to make, up to a certain point. The US division can then sell the engine at a break even to India. So India \"\"pays\"\" $5,000,000 for the engine. The US division then books no profit. India finishes the manufacturing with additional costs of $1,000,000. The India division then sells the engine to the open market for $9,000,000 . Therefore, the India division books a profit of $3,000,000 and pays taxes of $300,000. Now GE as a whole makes a profit of $3,000,000 less taxes of $300,000 = net profit of $2,700,00. Further, let's say the fair market value of the engine, as is, when the US sells to India is $7,000,000. That would mean US ***should*** book profits of $2,000,000 and India ***should*** book profits of $1,000,000. Total taxes by GE are now $800,000 (US) + $100,000 (India) = $900,000. However, what's important is that NET PROFIT is now $2,100,000. ***GE just saved $600,000 in taxes by doing this***. The beauty of this is, divisions are supposed to charge fair market value for products FTP'd internationally; however, it's REALLY hard for the IRS to say what the value of an unfinished product really is (heck, you could be offering bulk discounts, etc.)... The fact is, often, US divisions have skilled labor that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. They just show US divisions operating at losses to make the company as a whole better. The problem, again, arises when top management don't fully appreciate or understand the reasoning behind this stuff. They end up making cuts to US labor because it's \"\"unprofitable\"\" without thinking about the entire story. I know this is very long winded but hope it helps! ***tldr; companies FTP to recognizes profitability and opportunity costs of divisions as well as use it for overseas tax breaks.*** Side note: Politically speaking, people who know how this works are pissed off about it in the U.S. (don't worry though, most politicians on both sides don't have a clue). We have high corporate tax rates relative to other countries and IRS loopholes allow this kind of thing (lobbying $$). It's also why, economically, you can't just raise ***corporate*** tax rates to increase domestic tax reciepts as more companies will just implement this process (it's complicated to do properly). Also, please don't say 50 years ago tax rates were higher and raising taxes increased receipts. The fact is most companies couldn't even FATHOM doing this 50 years ago, no less even 20. edit: some clarification in wording\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4fe7ff9314d00f0e13a670dbd1099e0c",
"text": "\"This article acts like it's the fault of the person for not making enough money to pay for rent, food, insurance, and gas - \"\"Surely if I just tried hard enough I could make $280,000 a year and put 30% of it into investments.\"\" No financial software is going to change the labor market.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b10baf24c0aa7867791b8ae4fe55005",
"text": "In a nutshell, there are significant entrance hurdles, legally and especially financially. The fixed cost and effort to get it set up is high (although later, the proportional cost and efforts are negligible). Therefore, this is only of interest for taxable amounts of seven digits or more - which most people don’t reach.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5500dfda716ea63d53a060a18e04c4d3",
"text": "It might not be leniency for first time payers, but they do have programs, some federal some local, that help the poor and elderly complete their tax forms. There are also programs that allow the poor to file electronically for free. For most people the first time they file their taxes they are using the EZ form. Which is rather easy to do, even without the use of either web based or PC based software. The software tools all ask enough questions on the EZ forms to allow the user to know with confidence when their life choices have made it advantageous to use the more complex forms. The web versions of the software allow the taxpayer to start for free, thus reducing their initial investment for the software to zero. Because the first time filer is frequently a teenager the parents are generally responsible for proving that initial guidance. The biggest risk for a young taxpayer might be that the first year that itemizing deductions might be advantageous. They might never consider it, so they over pay. Or they discover in April that if they had only kept a receipt from a charity six months ago they could deduct the donation, so they are tempted to claim the donation without proof. Regarding leniency and assistance there is an interesting tax credit. The Earned Income Tax Credit. it gives a Tax credit to the working poor. They alert people that they need to Check Your Eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit They know that significant numbers of taxpayers fail to claim it. EITC can be a boost for workers who earned $50,270 or less in 2012. Yet the IRS estimates that one out of five eligible taxpayers fails to claim their EITC each year. The IRS wants everyone who is eligible for the credit to get the credit that they’ve earned. The rules for getting the credit are simple, all the information needed to claim it is already on the basic tax forms, but you have to know that you need a separate form to get the credit. But instead of making the credit automatic they say: If you use IRS e-file to prepare and file your tax return, the software will guide you and not let you forget this important step. E-file does the work and figures your EITC for you! and then : With IRS Free File, you can claim EITC by using brand name tax preparation software to prepare and e-file your tax return for free. It's available exclusively at IRS.gov/freefile. Free help preparing your return to claim your EITC is also available at one of thousands of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites around the country. To find the volunteer site nearest to you, use the VITA locator tool on IRS.gov. But if you don't use free file you might never know about the form. Apparently it escapes 20% of the people who could claim it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b708f531bc49a23069b670d394a624c2",
"text": "I'm talking about household income. $300k is a huge amount of money for a single person to make, but $150k is certainly doable for most doctors/lawyers/engineers. If your spouse is also a high earner that will help put over the 1% threshold.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "68374631dbe08064568d05a07edd091b",
"text": "Looks like you can get a PO box online for $62 per year: https://www.usps.com/manage/get-a-po-box.htm",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3993d8b9c1fff59ee034e7a0bedd2b4a",
"text": "\"The problem with these services is that they resell a random assortment of programs at a pretty high price. Buying the programs a la carte adds up quick, especially when a SD stream of varying quality costs as much or more than the DVD set when it is released (don't get me started on the HD up-charges). That's per show, per season. It makes it really expensive to catch up on a season, when you are essentially \"\"buying the seasons\"\" to stream them, when all you want to do it \"\"rent them\"\" instead. The way this is not like steam, and the point I think OP is trying to make, is that stuff is all over the place. People don't want to have to jump between Hulu, CBS.com, iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, etc. Plus, some places have some things for free, some charge a monthly fee, some charge per-view (rent), some charge once per show/season/movie (buy), etc. Some offerings that are free are actually sold for a fee through other services. Right now, it's sort of a mess. I'm not even sure what the right model is (buy, rent, season pass, ad-supported, etc) and I'm sure there will be competing models for the foreseeable future.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f6d3f5dd4ace3c97945ce237fe7a8e57",
"text": "\"Usually... if you can't figure the business model for a cheap or \"\"free\"\" product it's because you ARE the product and just don't know it. In this case, moviepass has found a buyer who will pay more for the data on your movie watching habits than they have to fork out for movie tickets. This is why the price dropped from $60 to $10. It's a data play now. Don't worry... You're giving Google and Facebook way more for access to their \"\"free\"\" technologies, I assure you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6389f2a53a3081caf9172010bf0cf22c",
"text": "Office 365 has all of the sharing/editing/browser access that you would want as a consumer - plus it is FAR more useful in an enterprise setting because of better permissions settings. What people don't seem to realize is that Microsoft doesn't make their nut on consumer software. They ultimately are failing at porting REALLY GOOD enterprise packages to the consumer - which is a totally different issue.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "573d1dd0b2c5c0fb9398b4a1d101a5ef",
"text": "Because salaries aren't high enough. If the salaries were higher more people would pursue that field. I'm not going to begrudge anyone making billions, but Microsoft is raking in cash, and it's obvious that they'd rather horde it than spend it on talent. Well, ask a professional sports team about that equation. Just because salaries are in the 100s of thousands doesn't mean that they're too high. Especially when you look at these companies financial filings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a471c4c58c07ed7ca866cff9414c8695",
"text": "There isn't one. I haven't been very happy with anything I've tried, commercial or open source. I've used Quicken for a while and been fairly happy with the user experience, but I hate the idea of their sunset policy (forced upgrades) and using proprietary format for the data files. Note that I wouldn't mind using proprietary and/or commercial software if it used a format that allowed me to easily migrate to another application. And no, QIF/OFX/CSV doesn't count. What I've found works well for me is to use Mint.com for pulling transactions from my accounts and categorizing them. I then export the transaction history as a CSV file and convert it to QIF/OFX using csv2ofx, and then import the resulting file into GNUCash. The hardest part is using categories (Mint.com) and accounts (GnuCash) properly. Not perfect by any means, but certainly better than manually exporting transactions from each account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15b8790c8e70783945c7ac626dfa0e19",
"text": "You can choose to pay your mortgage instead of another bill, or vice versa. Your net will change from month to month while your gross is relatively static. I can make a bunch of promises to my load officer about my expenses, but it is very difficult to verify. Moreover, it is pretty hard to give your net income and plan for emergencies. So for the sake of reliability, verifiability, and general ease a lender will look at your gross. YOU should definitely look at your net when deciding if you can afford a loan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "39efca8110c7d497f195cadf2e5cc2fe",
"text": "I think you have a good start understanding the ESA. $2k limit per child per year. The other choice is a 529 account which has a much higher limit. You can deposit up to 5 years worth of gifting per child, or $65k per child from you and another $65k from your wife. Sounds great, right? The downside is the 529 typically has fewer investment options, and doesn't allow for individual stocks. The S&P fund in my 529 costs me nearly 1% per year, in the ESA, .1%. the ESA has to be used by age 30, the 529 can be held indefinitely.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4d8ac841b2c504de46d78d0641b40d12
|
Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges? (Deferred capital gains tax)
|
[
{
"docid": "3e22751def8b89bb10e4d0bed0c140c5",
"text": "\"In June 2016 the American Institute of CPAs sent a letter to the IRS requesting guidance on this question. Quoting from section 4 of this letter, which is available at https://www.aicpa.org/advocacy/tax/downloadabledocuments/aicpa-comment-letter-on-notice-2014-21-virtual-currency-6-10-16.pdf If the IRS believes any property transaction rules should apply differently to virtual currency than to other types of property, taxpayers will need additional guidance in order to properly distinguish the rules and regulations. Section 4, Q&A-1 of Notice 2014-21 states that “general tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency,” which is guidance that is generally helpful in determining the tax consequences of most virtual currency transactions. However, if there are particular factors that distinguish one virtual currency as like-kind to another virtual currency for section 1031 purposes, the IRS should clarify these details (e.g., allowing the treatment of virtual currency held for investment or business as like-kind to another virtual currency) in the form of published guidance. Similarly, taxpayers need specific guidance of special rules or statutory interpretations if the IRS determines that the installment method of section 453 is applied differently for virtual currency than for other types of property. So, at the very least, a peer-reviewed committee of CPAs finds like-kind treatment to have possible grounds for allowance. I would disagree with calling this a \"\"loophole,\"\" however (edit: at least from the viewpoint of the taxpayer.) At a base technological level, a virtual currency-to-virtual currency exchange consists of exchanging knowledge of one sequence of binary digits (private key) for another. What could be more \"\"like-kind\"\" than this?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e042e3439f9834513f29dee86999b6e3",
"text": "Just a thought because this is a really good question: Would the buying and selling of blockchain based digital currency, using other blockchain based digital currencies, be subject to like kind treatment and exempt from capital gains until exchanged for a non-blockchain based good or service (or national currency) Suppose someone sells 1 bitcoin to buy 100 monero. Monero's price and bitcoin's price then change to where the 100 monero are 3 bitcoins. The person gets their bitcoin back and has 66.67 monero remaining. This scenario could be: Suppose someone sells 1 bitcoin at $1000 to buy 100 monero at $10. Bitcoin crashes 80% to $200 while monero crashes to only $6 per monero. $6 times 100 is $600 and if the person gets their bitcoin back (at $200 per bitcoi), they still lost money when measured in US Dollars if they move that bitcoin back to US dollars. In reading the IRS on bitcoin, they only care about the US dollar value of bitcoin or monero and in this example, the US dollar value is less. The person may have more bitcoins, but they still lost money if they sell.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "278761b17fa57982144a46c66491ce57",
"text": "Like-kind of exchanges have a list of requirements. The IRS has not issued formal guidance in the matter. I recommend to be aggressive and claim the exchange, while justifying it with a good analogy to prove good faith (and persuade the IRS official reading it the risk of losing in tax court would be to high). Worst case the IRS will attempt to reject the exchange, at which point you could still pony up to get rid of the problem, interest being the only real risk. For example: Past tax court rulings have stated that collectable gold coins are not like kind to gold bars, and unlike silver coins, but investment grade gold coins are like kind to gold bars. So you could use a justification like this: I hold Bitcoin to be like-kind to Litecoin, because they use the same fundamental technology with just a tweak in the math, as if exchanging different grades of gold bars, which has been approved by tax court ruling #xxxxx. Note that it doesn't matter whether any of this actually makes sense, it just has be reasonable enough for you to believe, and look like it is not worth pursuing to an overworked IRS official glancing at it. I haven't tried this yet, so up to now this is a guess, but it's a good enough guess in my estimation that I will be using it on some rather significant amounts next year.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e4400a7636443a8fdf6a27512a0d7910",
"text": "I would think you need proof that you actually bought it when it was cheaper, but that's a guess. You are supposed to pay the capital gains tax on bitcoin gains, same as if you made money on a stock https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/21/if-you-traded-bitcoin-you-should-report-capital-gains-to-the-irs/amp/",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f72e4c4ced09e034dd3fe9a774d88945",
"text": "\"You're right. I did include \"\"is it reasonable\"\" in the title. Therefore that brings in the acceptability of those taxes. However I am making the case that I would like capital gains to be taxed most similarly to regular income (or at least in a parallel bracket), which is independent of the amount needed to be brought in. I think parallel brackets would be the most productive since it would encourage people to both produce and invest, because you would get the lowest taxes by maximizing both.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "011e9897d17a8fb2bdf51334643d8c69",
"text": "1031 is a section of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code that allows investors to defer capital gains taxes on any exchange of like-kind properties for business or investment purposes. Taxes on capital gains are not charged on the sale of a property if the money is being used to purchase another property - the payment of tax is deferred until property is sold with no re-investment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f824112e5846e465882fb442b9ec6dd2",
"text": "\"As an exercise, I want to give this a shot. I'm not involved in a firm that cares about liquidity so all this stuff is outside my purview. As I understand it, it goes something like this: buy side fund puts an order to the market as a whole (all or most possibly exchanges). HFTs see that order hit the first exchange but have connectivity to exchanges further down the pipe that is faster than the buy side fund. They immediately send their own order in, which reaches exchanges and executes before the buy side fund's order can. They immediately put up an ask, and buy side fund's order hits that ask and is filled (I guess I'm assuming the order was a market order from the beginning). This is in effect the HFT front running the buy side fund. Is this accurate? Even if true, whether I have a genuine issue with this... I'm not sure. Has anyone on the \"\"pro-HFT\"\" side written a solid rebuttal to Lewis and Katsuyama that has solid research behind it?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3fa31b1975e0d7a3e9f65372d31635a5",
"text": "Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. When capital gains and losses are reported from the tax return, the taxpayer must first categorize all gains and losses between long and short term, and then aggregate the sum total amounts for every single regarding the four categories. Then the gains that are long-term losses are netted against each other, therefore the same is done for short-term gains and losses. Then your net gain that is long-term loss is netted against the net short-term gain or loss. This final net number is then reported on Form 1040. Example Frank has the following gains and losses from his stock trading for the year: Short-term gains - $6,000 Long-term gains - $4,000 Short-term losses - $2,000 Long-term losses - $5,000 Net short-term gain/loss - $4,000 ST gain ($6,000 ST gain - $2,000 ST loss) Net long-term gain/loss - $1,000 LT loss ($4,000 LT gain - $5,000 LT loss) Final net gain/loss - $3,000 short-term gain ($4,000 ST gain - $1,000 LT loss) Again, Frank can only deduct $3,000 of final net short- or long-term losses against other types of income for that year and must carry forward any remaining balance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9c913aa51881967e18ada87b98694a77",
"text": "\"It sounds like this is an entirely unsettled question, unfortunately. In the examples you provide, I think it is safe to say that none of those are 'substantially identical'; a small overlap or no overlap certainly should not be considered such by a reasonable interpretation of the rule. This article on Kitces goes into some detail on the topic. A few specifics. First, Former publication 564 explains: Ordinarily, shares issued by one mutual fund are not considered to be substantially identical to shares issued by another mutual fund. Of course, what \"\"ordinarily\"\" means is unspecified (and this is no longer a current publication, so, who knows). The Kitces article goes on to explain that the IRS hasn't really gone after wash sales for mutual funds: Over the years, the IRS has not pursued wash sale abuses against mutual funds, perhaps because it just wasn’t very feasible to crack down on them, or perhaps because it just wasn’t perceived as that big of an abuse. After all, while the rules might allow you to loss-harvest a particular stock you couldn’t have otherwise, it also limits you from harvesting ANY losses if the overall fund is up in the aggregate, since losses on individual stocks can’t pass through to the mutual fund shareholders. But then goes to explain about ETFs being very different: sell SPY, buy IVV or VTI, and you're basically buying/selling the identical thing (99% or so correlation in stocks owned). The recommendation by the article is to look at the correlation in owned stocks, and stay away from things over 95%; that seems reasonable in my book as well. Ultimately, there will no doubt be a large number of “grey” and murky situations, but I suspect that until the IRS provides better guidance (or Congress rewrites/updates the wash sale rules altogether!), in the near term the easiest “red flag” warning is simply to look at the correlation between the original investment being loss-harvested, and the replacement security; at correlations above 0.95, and especially at 0.99+, it’s difficult to argue that the securities are not ”substantially identical” to each other in performance. Basically - use common sense, and don't do anything you think would be hard to defend in an audit, but otherwise you should be okay.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b3371f553b12a1b7800b33aa60fbd97b",
"text": "Yes (most likely). If you are exchanging investments for cash, you will have to pay tax on that - disregarding capital losses, capital loss carryovers, AGI thresholds, and other special rules (which there is no indication of in your question). You will have to calculate the gain on Schedule D, and report that as income on your 1040. This is the case whether you buy different or same stocks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "be6286192952ce5f265cd62cc87a30a8",
"text": "\"For restricted stock, I think the vesting date meets the requirements of the second wash sale trigger from IRS Pub 550: Wash Sales: Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade I base this on these two quotes from IRS Pub 525: Restricted Property: any income from the property, or the right to use the property, is included in your income as additional compensation in the year you receive the income or have the right to use the property. - Until the property becomes substantially vested, it is owned by the person who makes the transfer to you, usually your employer. So on the vest date: The transfer is taxable Ownership is transferred to you That seems close enough to \"\"a fully taxable trade\"\" for me. Maybe this changes if you pay the tax on the stock on the grant date. See Pub 525: Restricted Property: Choosing to include in income for year of transfer. Obviously, if this is important you should consult your tax advisor. Technicalities aside, I don't think it passes the sniff test. You're getting salable shares when the restricted stock vests. If you're selling other shares at a loss within 30 days of the vesting date, that smells like a wash sale to me.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "473172c8942be1448d8003049b914273",
"text": "short answer: no, not to my knowledge long answer: why do you want to do that? crypto are very volatile and, in my opinion, if you are looking for a speculative exercise, you are better off seeking to understand basic technical analysis and trading stocks based on that",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7272c31978e10ac0038691e7e9e1f605",
"text": "\"The only \"\"authoritative document\"\" issued by the IRS to date relating to Cryptocurrencies is Notice 2014-21. It has this to say as the first Q&A: Q-1: How is virtual currency treated for federal tax purposes? A-1: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. That is to say, it should be treated as property like any other asset. Basis reporting the same as any other property would apply, as described in IRS documentation like Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses and Publication 551, Basis of Assets. You should be able to use the same basis tracking method as you would use for any other capital asset like stocks or bonds. Per Publication 550 \"\"How To Figure Gain or Loss\"\", You figure gain or loss on a sale or trade of property by comparing the amount you realize with the adjusted basis of the property. Gain. If the amount you realize from a sale or trade is more than the adjusted basis of the property you transfer, the difference is a gain. Loss. If the adjusted basis of the property you transfer is more than the amount you realize, the difference is a loss. That is, the assumption with property is that you would be using specific identification. There are specific rules for mutual funds to allow for using average cost or defaulting to FIFO, but for general \"\"property\"\", including individual stocks and bonds, there is just Specific Identification or FIFO (and FIFO is just making an assumption about what you're choosing to sell first in the absence of any further information). You don't need to track exactly \"\"which Bitcoin\"\" was sold in terms of exactly how the transactions are on the Bitcoin ledger, it's just that you bought x bitcoins on date d, and when you sell a lot of up to x bitcoins you specify in your own records that the sale was of those specific bitcoins that you bought on date d and report it on your tax forms accordingly and keep track of how much of that lot is remaining. It works just like with stocks, where once you buy a share of XYZ Corp on one date and two shares on another date, you don't need to track the movement of stock certificates and ensure that you sell that exact certificate, you just identify which purchase lot is being sold at the time of sale.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2344c287634cb6e22a4b35f37aee3997",
"text": "Sale of a stock creates a capital gain. It can be offset with losses, up to $3000 more than the gains. It can be deferred when held within a retirement account. When you gift appreciated stock, the basis follows. So when I gifted my daughter's trust shares, there was still tax due upon sale. The kiddy tax helped reduce but not eliminate it. And there was no quotes around ownership. The money is gone, her account is for college. No 1031 exchange exists for stock.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b2ba7e62423d2a5034918ec4625a3eab",
"text": "It looks like it has to deal with an expiration of rights as a taxable event. I found this link via google, which states that Not only does the PSEC shareholder have a TAXABLE EVENT, but he has TWO taxable events. The net effect of these two taxable events has DIFFERENT CONSEQUENCES for DIFFERENT SHAREHOLDERS depending upon their peculiar TAX SITUATIONS. The CORRECT STATEMENT of the tax treatment of unexercised PYLDR rights is in the N-2 on page 32, which reads in relevant part as follows: “…, if you receive a Subscription Right from PSEC and do not sell or exercise that right before it expires, you should generally expect to have (1) taxable dividend income equal to the fair market value (if any) of the Subscription Right on the date of its distribution by PSEC to the extent of PSEC’s current and accumulated earnings and profits and (2) a capital loss upon the expiration of such right in an amount equal to your adjusted tax basis (if any) in such right (which should generally equal the fair market value (if any) of the Subscription Right on the date of its distribution by PSEC).” Please note, for quarterly “estimated taxes” purposes, that the DIVIDEND taxable events occur “ON THE DATE OF ITS DISTRIBUTION BY PSEC (my emphasis),” while the CAPITAL LOSS occurs “UPON EXPIRATION OF SUCH RIGHT” (my emphasis). They do NOT occur on 31 December 2015 or some other date. However, to my knowledge, neither of the taxable events he mentions would be taxed by 4/15. If you are worried about it, I would recommend seeing a tax professional. Otherwise I'd wait to see the tax forms sent by your brokerage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8958b5c15f7245431cc66cdfeca66ed0",
"text": "Questrade is a Canada based broker offering US stock exchange transactions as well. It says this right on their homepage. ETFs are traded like stocks, so the answer is yes. Why did you think they only offered funds?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "891a71c4b58b0b1d82e65a1683241bf6",
"text": "As long as the tax rate is below 100%, there is still money to make. You pay taxes on your gain, not on your trading volume. Taxed income is still income - many people seem to get that wrong.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "174500b2d286ea36587834083f1490ed",
"text": "Different exchanges sometimes offer different order types, and of course have different trading fees. But once a trade is finished, it should not matter where it was executed.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
d8d603fd8b4ba8817bac8af2ec736a54
|
What are the differences among all these different versions of Vivendi?
|
[
{
"docid": "35aaffba3f98b7aff50ff88169631ef8",
"text": "\"VIV.PA - is Vivendi listed on a stock exchange in Paris VIVEF - is Vivendi listed on the OTC Other Exchange. VIVHY - is Listed on the OTC:Pink Sheets. A company can be listed on multiple exchanges, they are known as a dual-listed company. It's a corporate structure in which two corporations function as a single operating business through a legal equalization agreement, but retain separate legal identities and stock exchange listings. Pretty much all DLCs are cross-border, and have tax advantages for the corporations and their stockholders. When a DLC is created, in essence two companies are created and have two separate bodies of shareholders, but they agree to share all the risks and rewards of the ownership of all their operating businesses in a fixed proportion, laid out in a contract called an \"\"equalization agreement\"\". The shares of a DLC parents have claim to the exact same underlying cash flows. So in theory the stock prices of these companies should move exactly the same. However in practice there can be differences between these prices. More info on OTC exchanges can be found here - keep in mind this info is from the company that runs these listings. Over the counter stocks are held to a FAR lesser regulation standard. I would recommend doing further interdependent research before pursuing any action.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "6f0d1e3a8dd15b888066fde636118e1f",
"text": "What's wrong with WIX? I've heard some good and bad about it. I signed up for it because it's cheap concerning how I didn't know how well this would even do at all. I was going to move to Shopify if I got bigger and had more funds to start. For the last response, how would I research how competitive the market is for organic search? Again, I'm such a noob and am starting from little knowledge, please bear with me here. Haha.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a7b97c67c2ebbaa8d104825ed1ff287d",
"text": "Satya has amazingly turned MS around. They were the laughing stock of most developers for many years but have picked up a number of big name developers, released a lot of great developer tools and are starting to be relevant again. It's an amazing transformation and for the first time in my life I'm looking forward to what they do next.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b1fca134a9157d368e70fe5b9e4b30b",
"text": "Did I have a reading comprehension fail? What I got out of the article as the fact that they're shedding users, but nothing about *why*. It is a fairly deep question, their games were incredibly popular, and addictive, a few months ago. It could say something profound about the way people use casual games and social networks. Or maybe it because Zynga's method of doing A/B testing on minor variations of the game, then choosing the version that captured more of the ~~victim~~ user's time and testing another minor variation the next day, doesn't make their games entertaining for long. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure anyone who plays Farmville by choice is fundamentally immune to boredom.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b6142904211a069630ec65e91a718b8b",
"text": "\"Wait a second, I can't be the first to notice this, near the top of the article: The internal contents, however, were often the exact same English words being read by their classmates buying high-priced US editions. but later farther down: In cases where goods were actually produced abroad— this brings up the very definition of *produced* for \"\"intellectual property\"\", to my mind the mere fact that it is printed outside of the country is simply a logistical convenience. If in fact it was written by a U.S. author living in the U.S. then it *wasn't* actually produced abroad. Same goes for U.S. *produced* software in foreign manufactured goods.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "57c101ec08c7c5e233db5fa74279c298",
"text": "I quit the company during the Nadella transition. I was a Site Reliability Engineer, and my entire discipline was gutted and tossed at the company, as were the testers. Maybe it's been good for consumers, but the way it was handled internally, with an indefinite stream of reorganizations and middle management competition, just made it a terrible place to work. When I left, I had been through 9-10 reorganizations in as many months. Every time I'd get a project or a service to work on, we'd get moved. Most of my coworkers left for Amazon, some left the field entirely. I hope it's better now, nobody deserves that. Windows Server 2016 was one of the worst builds I've ever worked with, and I have been really happy to stop supporting the OS entirely. The docker gaps in particular in the windows ecosystem seem pretty significant, and languages that don't run on Linux seem antiquated and useless because of pressures from cloud platforms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5d76fadccd5c00848bce6f788765e133",
"text": "The website likely has no differentiation. I am hoping, however, the service does. I'm not looking to break down a fledgling business plan, I am just looking for information on how and where to build or buy a website that performs thusly: Company creates account and posts the service they can provide, Consumer applies for said service, I deal with some required middle-man work which is at the cost of the consumer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dd61977d4cd678ac0b628f96eb76b590",
"text": "For our company, we use Microsoft Enterprise E5 as it allows us to communicate easier, manage projects and information, assign tasks, etc. As there's only 3 of us it works well but comes at a cost of £30 each per month. As it sounds as though it's only you on your own you should check out Trello. We were using Trello previously but communication between us wasn't great on there and it got too cluttered way too fast. For setting personal goals and tasks it's perfect, especially as the basic account is free.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8917d2a97c7a8b005cb913c4040f4cd6",
"text": "Are you asking me for my review? The iPad3 feels *generally* buggy and slow. The iPad2 is faster. It also felt like a proper evolution of the iPad. The iPad3 doesn't. It doesn't feel like a better iPad2. It's noticeably heavier and slower, and mine has crashed twice in the last week. The fact that I have an iPad3 and iPad2 side-by-side leaves me disappointed. The Playbook is lighter than the iPad3- it's about half the size. The picture isn't as nice. It doesn't have Skype. The user interface is nicer. It has a better spreadsheet and email client and ssh client. It doesn't require a separate SIM (it tethers to my phone). It has a good *feel* to it, and is comfortable in my hands. It hasn't crashed on me yet. On my commute I use the playbook, and not the iPad3. The iPad3 gets used largely for Facetime and Skype while at my office. I generally *enjoy* using the Playbook over the iPad3.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "307cd4608de31d374355449865dc6e2e",
"text": "It takes some time for folks to renegotiate contracts and adjust policies in the commercial realm. It's never as easy as simply going to a different web page. The different buearus have slightly different ways of scoring people, different APIs to integrate with everyone's software, and take somewhat different things into account. That takes some time to change.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f826f42e4b7454bfedd1142631d13ff8",
"text": "Without giving away any important details needlessly, I was pointing out that there are some fundamental things that we will offer. After speaking with a user experience strategist, we came to an interesting market research finding, which reported that the majority of service providers are registered to a multiple number of platforms. As well as this we are targeting a niche that will offer us the ability to be dominant, eventually phasing in new sectors/industries.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5e7c3a26b6153ffe8a35dd1c43fe2530",
"text": "I have encoded videos that we watch via Apple TV XBMC on our overpriced Sony Bravia LCD in one room and a cheap Acer LCD in another. They look amazingly different on these two screens. Same movie, same playback unit, same HDMI connection, different TVs. The Sony presents a smooth display with few artifacts. Good motion, clean image on pause, etc. The Acer displays tons of MPEG encoding artifacts, palletized chunks in what should be smooth gradients, visible in motion as well as paused. I'm just saying that there is a different in what you get when you pay more.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "91c4b2e51e9bb05737984e4cc571f52e",
"text": "The quality of the discs generated through this process is definitely higher than the quality of the discs produced through duplication. On the contrary, in the process of CD/DVD replication, each disc is paid individual attention and the result is no compatibility issues and no lags too.Some clients might take this as lack of professionalism, but on the contrary, there is no such issue related to those being replicated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e23758d4894ddc7d8ede41c7cbf96ffa",
"text": "Al igual que la fidelidad del cliente, la “lealtad” a una marca está cuestionada. Cómo valora el público tus marcas está cambiando, garantía de desempeño y diferenciación se están volviendo más relevantes. Las variaciones en los hábitos de consumo y en las relaciones empresa-cliente afectan estas valuaciones. El principal activo de tu marca es la garantía que le provee al consumidor sobre la satisfacción de sus expectativas. Proporciona seguridad en el proceso de decisión de compra, lo hace más fácil. Antes la gente adquiría una marca “conocida” pues brindaba confianza en su desempeño y el costo de conseguir referencias sobre productos sustitutos era alto. Hoy la información satura la Internet y los medios de comunicación, las opiniones positivas y negativas se diseminan rápidamente en la web. La publicidad pierde credibilidad y solo satisfacer al cliente mejor que la competencia cada día te permitirá mantener el valor de tu marca.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "10933bb99c626acdbfe828d99f8773ce",
"text": "I have found that using the online version can help determine the correct product. Try Deluxe online, you can upload the data from last year. When you get to the key forms see what happens if you don't switch. Then switch to Premiere. Compare the results.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "954276916601e045c4af374e917586a0",
"text": "Yes you are right. The cannibalisation comment was for opening up every pricing point. The article is quite specific to app pricing published by an individual. It doesn't apply to say a food product or a durable being brought to the market. A thing on the last comment. Wondows may sell three versions but the distinction is there and clear. A light version, a regular version and an enterprise version. They are labelled pretty much the same as Home, Professional and Enterprise. Good marketing or names to distinguish between the products. Different needs for different products. An app is priced much less and uses can be trivial (yet invovled).",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
5cc9a7a0ec3ab04f8075335baf8b8745
|
Ongoing Automatic Investment Fee
|
[
{
"docid": "918130a1c8eeb5200beae8679af18034",
"text": "Reading the plan documentation, yes, that is what it means. Each purchase by bank debit, whether one-time or automatic, costs $2 plus $0.06 per share; so if you invested $50, you would get slightly less than $48 in stock as a result (depending on the per-share price). Schedule of Fees Purchases – A one-time $15.00 enrollment fee to establish a new account for a non-shareholder will be deducted from the purchase amount. – Dividend reinvestment: The Hershey Company pays the transaction fee and per share* fee on your behalf. – Each optional cash purchase by one-time online bank debit will entail a transaction fee of $2.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. – Each optional cash purchase by check will entail a transaction fee of $5.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. – If funds are automatically deducted from your checking or savings account, the transaction fee is $2.00 plus $0.06 per share* purchased. Funds will be withdrawn on the 10th of each month, or the preceding business day if the 10th is not a business day. – Fees will be deducted from the purchase amount. – Returned check and rejected ACH debit fee is $35.00.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "27422fabde8fe2c027e46f3b8a9091c2",
"text": "Wealthsimple lists their prices as follows: Those are the fees you pay over and above what you pay for the underlying ETFs' management fees. But why not just invest in the ETFs yourself? The Canadian Couch Potato website shows some sample portfolios. The ETF option has an average Management Expense Ratio very similar to that of the ETFs used by Wealthsimple, but without the additional management fee. Rebalance once or twice a year and you cut your fees from approximately 0.57% (if investing mid-six-figures) to 0.17%, for very little work. Is it worth it to you? Well, that depends on how much you have to invest, and how much effort you are willing to put in. Wealthsimple isn't particularly unreasonable with their fees, but the fees do look a bit high once you are in to the six figures of investing. On the other hand, I often recommend Tangerine's mutual funds to my friends who are looking at investing for retirement. Those mutual funds, last time I checked, cost 1.09%. That's about twice what Wealthsimple is charging. But they are easy to understand and easy to invest in; a good choice for my friends looking to invest $1,000 - $50,000 in my opinion. So, and understanding this is just my personal opinion, I think Wealthsimple fits in a niche where Tangerine mutual funds carry too high a cost for you, but you don't want to do all the management yourself, even if this is just an hour or so of work, a couple of times a year. I wish they were cheaper, but their pricing makes sense for a lot of people in my opinion. Do they make sense for you? If you are looking at investing less than $10,000, I'd stick with an option like Tangerine, only because that's an easier option. If investing more than $100,000 or $200,000, I think you are paying a bit much for what they offer. But, many people pay much, much, much more for their investments.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e60c30bb513745a94722a086cfa2fad4",
"text": "\"What you seem to want is a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). That's typically offered by the broker, not by the ETF itself. Essentially this is a discounted purchase of new shares when you're dividend comes out. As noted in the answer by JoeTaxpayer, you'll still need to pay tax on the dividend, but that probably won't be a big problem unless you've got a lot of dividends. You'll pay that out of some other funds when it's due. All DRIPs (not just for ETFs) have potential to complicate computation of your tax basis for eventual sale, so be aware of that. It doesn't have to be a show-stopper for you, but it's something to consider before you start. It's probably less of a problem now than it used to be since brokers now have to report your basis on the 1099-B in the year of sale, reducing your administrative burden (if you trust them to get it right). Here's a list of brokerages that were offering this from a top-of-the-search-list article that I found online: Some brokerages, including TD Ameritrade, Vanguard, Scottrade, Schwab and, to a lesser extent, Etrade, offer ETF DRIPs—no-cost dividend reinvestment programs. This is very helpful for busy clients. Other brokerages, such as Fidelity, leave ETF dividend reinvestment to their clients. Source: http://www.etf.com/sections/blog/23595-your-etf-has-drip-drag.html?nopaging=1 Presumably the list is not constant. I almost didn't included but I thought the wide availability (at least as of the time of the article's posting) was more interesting than any specific broker on it. You'll want to do some research before you choose a broker to do this. Compare fees for sure, but also take into account other factors like how soon after the dividend they do the purchase (is it the ex-date, the pay date, or something else?). A quick search online should net you several decent articles with more information. I just searched on \"\"ETF DRIP\"\" to check it out.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4cd26d742c20c768e4ca24448d556523",
"text": "If you are going to the frenzy of individual stock picking, like almost everyone initially, I suggest you to write your plan to paper. Like, I want an orthogonal set of assets and limit single investments to 10%. If with such limitations the percentage of brokerage fees rise to unbearable large, you should not invest that way in the first hand. You may find better to invest in already diversified fund, to skip stupid fees. There are screeners like in morningstar that allow you to see overlapping items in funds but in stocks it becomes trickier and much errorsome. I know you are going to the stock market frenzy, even if you are saying to want to be long-term or contrarian investor, most investors are convex, i.e. they follow their peers, despite it would better to be a concave investor (but as we know it can be hard). If the last part confused you, fire up a spreadsheet and do a balance. It is a very motivating activity, really. You will immediately notice things important to you, not just to providers such as morningstar, but alert it may take some time. And Bogleheads become to your rescue, ready spreadsheets here.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eb84e724bb226333f80ea5fc01b6df45",
"text": "\"In many cases the expenses are not pulled out on a specific day, so this wouldn't work. On the other hand some funds do charge an annual or quarterly fee if your investment in the fund is larger than the minimum but lower than a \"\"small balance\"\" value. Many funds will reduce or eliminate this fee if you signup for electronic forms or other electronic services. Some will also eliminate the fee if the total investment in all your funds is above a certain level. For retirement funds what you suggest could be made more complex because of annual limits. Though if you were below the limits you could decide to add the extra funds to cover those expenses as the end of the year approached.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a0af1c2c1b6c26dbc6f6d137d149688",
"text": "There are several things being mixed up in the questions being asked. The expense ratio charged by the mutual fund is built into the NAV per share of the fund, and you do not see the charge explicitly mentioned as a deduction on your 401k statement (or in the statement received from the mutual fund in a non-401k situation). The expense ratio is listed in the fund's prospectus, and should also have been made available to you in the literature about the new 401k plan that your employer is setting up. Mutual fund fees (for things like having a small balance, or for that matter, sales charges if any of the funds in the 401k are load funds, God forbid) are different. Some load mutual funds waive the sales charge load for 401k participants, while some may not. Actually, it all depends on how hard the employer negotiates with the 401k administration company who handles all the paperwork and the mutual fund company with which the 401k administration company negotiates. (In the 1980s, Fidelity Magellan (3% sales load) was a hot fund, but my employer managed to get it as an option in our plan with no sales load: it helped that my employer was large and could twist arms more easily than a mom-and-pop outfit or Solo 401k plan could). A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, my first ever IRA contribution of $2000 into a no-load mutual fund resulted in a $25 annual maintenance fee, but the law allowed the payment of this fee separately from the $2000 if the IRA owner wished to do so. (If not, the $25 would reduce the IRA balance (and no, this did not count as a premature distribution from the IRA). Plan expenses are what the 401k administration company charges the employer for running the plan (and these expenses are not necessarily peanuts; a 401k plan is not something that needs just a spreadsheet -- there is lots of other paperwork that the employee never gets to see). In some cases, the employer pays the entire expense as a cost of doing business; in other cases, part is paid by the employer and the rest is passed on to the employees. As far as I know, there is no mechanism for the employee to pay these expenses outside the 401k plan (that is, these expenses are (visibly) deducted from the 401k plan balance). Finally, with regard to the question asked: how are plan fees divided among the investment options? I don't believe that anyone other than the 401k plan administrator or the employer can answer this. Even if the employer simply adopts one of the pre-packaged plans offered by a big 401k administrator (many brokerages and mutual fund companies offer these), the exact numbers depend on which pre-packaged plan has been chosen. (I do think the answers the OP has received are rubbish).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8f94c2aedfcae7a40f3f9d639c2e702a",
"text": "Your investment is probably in a Collective Investment Trust. These are not mutual funds, and are not publicly traded. I.e. they are private to plan participants in your company. Because of this, they are not required* to distribute dividends like mutual funds. Instead, they will reinvest dividends automatically, increasing the value of the fund, rather than number of shares, as with dividend reinvestment. Sine you mention the S&P 500 fund you have tracks closely to the S&P Index, keep in mind there's two indexes you could be looking at: Without any new contributions, your fund should closely track the Total Return version for periods 3 months or longer, minus the expense ratio. If you are adding contributions to the fund, you can't just look at the start and end balances. The comparison is trickier and you'll need to use the Internal Rate of Return (look into the XIRR function in Excel/Google Sheets). *MFs are not strictly required to pay dividends, but are strongly tax-incentivized to do so, and essentially all do.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f9f85f2ca6676707e825954304d4e8ed",
"text": "You have to read the fine print of the pension wrapper (Standard Life), and of the new fund you want to invest into to find out. Typically here is were the fee feast could happen So you can manage actively your pension pot. But if you choose to do so you need to be mindful of the fees you have to pay. You should better find a pension wrapper with low fees and find funds with low fees If you change all your funds 4 times a year and you get a 1% charge each time, then you pay 4% of your assets. If your investments return for that year is 8%, then you wiped 50% of your return for that year! Good luck with the reading",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b7c8115416ff9f0bb1c0fe23627ab8ab",
"text": "The creation mechanism for ETF's ensures that the value of the underlying stocks do not diverge significantly from the Fund's value. Authorized participants have a strong incentive to arbitrage any pricing differences and create/redeem blocks of stock/etf until the prices are back inline. Contrary to what was stated in a previous answer, this mechanism lowers the cost of management of ETF's when compared to mutual funds that must access the market on a regular basis when any investors enter/exit the fund. The ETF only needs to create/redeem in a wholesale basis, this allows them to operate with management fees that are much lower than those of a mutual fund. Expenses Due to the passive nature of indexed strategies, the internal expenses of most ETFs are considerably lower than those of many mutual funds. Of the more than 900 available ETFs listed on Morningstar in 2010, those with the lowest expense ratios charged about .10%, while those with the highest expenses ran about 1.25%. By comparison, the lowest fund fees range from .01% to more than 10% per year for other funds. (For more on mutual fund feeds, read Stop Paying High Fees.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "55a0bf6bc65d807b555cb98d1d2a6053",
"text": "Your best bet is to remove the excess contribution. Your broker should have forms to do that. There is a 6% tax on the excess contributions for each year that it remains uncorrected. It would be better to just eat the $25 fee and get rid of any future headaches.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b18dfb2f980c7c6e0d47ae978440fba3",
"text": "\"The definition you cite is correct, but obscure. I prefer a forward looking definition. Consider the real investment. You make an original investment at some point in time. You make a series of further deposits and withdrawals at specified times. At some point after the last deposit/withdrawal, (the \"\"end\"\") the cash value of the investment is determined. Now, find a bank account that pays interest compounded daily. Possibly it should allow overdrafts where it charges the same interest rate. Make deposits and withdrawals to/from this account that match the investment payments in amount and date. At the \"\"end\"\" the value in this bank account is the same as the investment. The bank interest rate that makes this happen is the IRR for the investment...\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8ab91520c2ca608ff5b18cef8bc8bc97",
"text": "\"What are reasonable administrative fees for an IRA? was recently discussed here. My answer was zero. An IRA is not an investment, it's a container representing the tax status of an account. Once you decide what to actually invest it in, you'll likely incur additional fees. Mutual funds, for instance can range from .05% per year to 2.00% or more. In your case, you are telling us you are spending 2% per year even before you decide what to invest in. The real question I'd like to see answered is \"\"what value can an advisor bring to one's retirement account to deserve a 2%/year fee?\"\" My final thought - most financial types had been suggesting that a retiree can target a 4% per year withdrawal after retiring. This rule of thumb has been debated since the lost decade of 2000-2009, and the safe number may be lower. If an advisor is taking 2% off the top, you are basically sharing half your income with him. A million dollar IRA, you get $20K, he gets $20K?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5c5700d815d1ffe9510d788c7d2f1a85",
"text": "Yes, assuming that your cash flow is constantly of size 5 and initial investment is 100, the following applies: IRR of 5% over 3 years: Value of CashFlows: 4.7619 + 4.5351 + 4.3192 = 13.6162 NPV: 100 - 13.6162 = 86.3838 Continuous compounding: 86.3838 * (1.05^3) = 100",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "767b1dc8168c2f5921549d593189f0dc",
"text": "\"One reason is that it is not possible (at Vanguard and at many other brokerages) to auto-invest into ETFs. Because the ETF trades like a stock, you typically must buy a whole number of shares. This makes it difficult to do auto-investing where you invest, say, a fixed dollar amount each month. If you're investing $100 and the ETF trades for $30 a share, you must either buy 3 shares and leave $10 unspent, or buy 4 and spend $20 more than you planned. This makes auto-investing with dollar amounts difficult. (It would be cool if there were brokerages that handled this for you, for instance by accumulating \"\"leftover\"\" cash until an additional whole share could be purchased, but I don't know of any.) A difference of 0.12% in the expense ratios is real, but small. It may be outweighed by the psychological gains of being able to adopt a \"\"hands-off\"\" auto-investing plan. With ETFs, you generally must remember to \"\"manually\"\" buy the shares yourself every so often. For many average investors, the advantage of being able to invest without having to think about it at all is worth a small increase in expense ratio. The 0.12% savings don't do you any good if you never remember to buy shares until the market is already up.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d1eee4f33571648fb95733b26e6f5736",
"text": "\"Here's an example that I'm trying to figure out. ETF firm has an agreement with GS for blocks of IBM. They have agreed on daily VWAP + 1% for execution price. Further, there is a commission schedule for 5 mils with GS. Come month end, ETF firm has to do a monthly rebalance. As such must buy 100,000 shares at IBM which goes for about $100 The commission for the trade is 100,000 * 5 mils = $500 in commission for that trade. I assume all of this is covered in the expense ratio. Such that if VWAP for the day was 100, then each share got executed to the ETF at 101 (VWAP+ %1) + .0005 (5 mils per share) = for a resultant 101.0005 cost basis The ETF then turns around and takes out (let's say) 1% as the expense ratio ($1.01005 per share) I think everything so far is pretty straight forward. Let me know if I missed something to this point. Now, this is what I'm trying to get my head around. ETF firm has a revenue sharing agreement as well as other \"\"relations\"\" with GS. One of which is 50% back on commissions as soft dollars. On top of that GS has a program where if you do a set amount of \"\"VWAP +\"\" trades you are eligible for their corporate well-being programs and other \"\"sponsorship\"\" of ETF's interests including helping to pay for marketing, rent, computers, etc. Does that happen? Do these disclosures exist somewhere?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "62805ccdb9c6fbf48715ce3709ffaa39",
"text": "I think the main question is whether the 1.5% quarterly fee is so bad that it warrants losing $60,000 immediately. Suppose they pull it out now, so they have 220000 - 60000 = $160,000. They then invest this in a low-cost index fund, earning say 6% per year on average over 10 years. The result: Alternatively, they leave the $220,000 in but tell the manager to invest it in the same index fund now. They earn nothing because the manager's rapacious fees eat up all the gains (4*1.5% = 6%, not perfectly accurate due to compounding but close enough since 6% is only an estimate anyway). The result: the same $220,000 they started with. This back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests they will actually come out ahead by biting the bullet and taking the money out. However, I would definitely not advise them to take this major step just based on this simple calculation. Many other factors are relevant (e.g., taxes when selling the existing investment to buy the index fund, how much of their savings was this $300,000). Also, I don't know anything about how investment works in Hong Kong, so there could be some wrinkles that modify or invalidate this simple calculation. But it is a starting point. Based on what you say here, I'd say they should take the earliest opportunity to tell everyone they know never to work with this investment manager. I would go so far as to say they should look at his credentials (e.g., see what kind of financial advisor certification he has, if any), look up the ethical standards of their issuers, and consider filing a complaint. This is not because of the performance of the investments -- losing 25% of your money due to market swings is a risk you have to accept -- but because of the exorbitant fees. Unless Hong Kong has got some crazy kind of investment management market, charging 1.5% quarterly is highway robbery; charging a 25%+ for withdrawal is pillage. Personally, I would seriously consider withdrawing the money even if the manager's investments had outperformed the market.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
eee4b912e677f16de963453c4926ba99
|
why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?
|
[
{
"docid": "66a7fd9c6e89a27c21e0f26e9c8e3d06",
"text": "\"Emergency funds have a very specific and obvious benefit; you'll have money sitting around in case you need it. A lot of people think a big car repair or some unexpected home repair is an emergency, and that's fine. Emergency also expands up to \"\"I lost my job four months ago and we're a year in to a recession, the stock market is down 30% and I need to pay my rent or mortgage.\"\" Sure, you could just sell some of your stocks that have lost 30% and pay your rent. I know nobody likes to think about it, but the stock market can go down. I know nobody likes to think about it, but the economy can slink in to a recession. In fact, here's a small list of recent U.S. recessions: No competent investment adviser would advise that your emergency funds should be subject to market volatility because that completely defeats the purpose of an emergency fund. It's possible that this manager wants you to indicate a separate emergency fund to allocate a portion of your account to a low volatility US Treasury fund or something of the like, this would be materially different than investing in a broad market/large cap fund like VOO or VTI. The effects of inflation are not so bad that you should put your emergency money in the market. Who cares what inflation was if you have to sell an asset at a loss to pay rent? One last point. Index fund ETFs are not \"\"safe.\"\" Investing in diversified funds is safER than buying individual company stocks.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e42eb3ea9a05e96191e2a1ab5b50adcb",
"text": "My take on this is that this reduces your liquidity risk. Stocks, bonds and many other investment vehicles on secondary markets you may think of are highly liquid but they still require that markets are open and then an additional 3-5 business days to settle the transaction and for funds to make their way to your bank account. If you require funds immediately because of an emergency, this 3-5 business days (which gets longer as week-ends and holidays are in the way) can cause a lot of discomfort which may be worth a small loss in potential ROI. Think of your car breaking down or a water pipe exploding in your home and having to wait for the stock sale to process before you can make the payment. Admittedly, you have other options such as margin loans and credit cards that can help absorb the shock in such cases but they may not be sufficient or cause you to pay interest or fees if left unpaid.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "61c009824d600a359938973082715984",
"text": "\"There are a few major risks to doing something like that. First, you should never invest money you can't afford to lose. An emergency fund is money you can't afford to lose - by definition, you may need to have quick access to that money. If you determine that you need, for example, $3000 in emergency savings, that means that you need to have at least $3000 at all times - if you lose $500, then you now only have $2500 in emergency savings. Imagine what could've happened if you had invested your emergency savings during the 2008 crash, for example; you could easily have been in a position where you lost both your job and a good portion of your emergency savings at the same time, which is a terrible position to be in. If the car breaks down, you can't really say \"\"now's a bad time, wait until the stock market bounces back.\"\" Second, with brokerage accounts, there may be a delay before you can actually access the money or transfer it to an account that you can actually withdraw cash from or write checks against (but some of this depends on the exact arrangement you have with your bank). This can be a problem if you're in a situation where you need immediate access to the money - if your furnace breaks in the middle of winter, you probably don't want to wait a few days for the sale and transfer to go through before you can have it fixed. Third, you can be forced to sell the investments at an unfavorable price because you're not sure when you're going to need it. You'd also likely incur trading fees and/or early withdrawal penalties when you tried to withdraw the money. Think about it this way: if you buy a bond that matures in 5 years, you're effectively betting that you won't have an emergency for the next 5 years. If you do, you'll have to either sell the bond or, if you're allowed to get the money back early, you'll likely forfeit a good amount of the interest you earned in the process (which kind of kills the point of buying the bond in the first place). Edit: As @Barmar pointed out in the comments, you may also have to pay taxes on the profits if you sell at a favorable price. In the U.S. at least, capital gains on stuff held for less than a year is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate and stuff held longer than a year is taxed at the long-term capital gains tax rate. So, if you hold the investment for less than a year, you're opening yourself up to the risks of short-term stock fluctuations as well as potential tax penalties, so if you put your emergency fund in stocks you're essentially betting that you won't have an emergency that year (which by definition you can't know). The purpose of an emergency fund is just that - to be an emergency fund. Its purpose isn't really to make money.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3bf43f2321a84a27029a6e197426ed56",
"text": "You're absolutely correct. If you have maxed out your retirement investment vehicles and have some additional investments in a regular taxable account, you can certainly use that as an emergency source of funds without much downside. (You can borrow from many retirement account but there are downsides.) Sure, you risk selling at a loss when/if you need the money, but I'd rather take the risk and take advantage of the investment growth that I would miss if I kept my emergency fund in cash or money market. And you can choose how much risk you're willing to take on when you invest the money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f694ed0f5dd14110332cd21255788977",
"text": "From a budgeting perspective, the emergency fund is a category in which you've budgeted funds for the unexpected. These are things that weren't able to be predicted and budgeted for in advance, or things that exceeded the expected costs. For example you might budget $150 per month for car maintenance, and typically spend some of it while the rest builds up over time for unexpected repairs, so you have a few hundred available for that. But this month your transmission died and you have a $3,000 bill. You'll then fund most of this out of your emergency fund. This doesn't cover where to store that money though, which leads me to my next point. Emergencies are emergencies because they come without warning, without you having a chance to plan. Thefore the primary things you want in an emergency fund account are stability and quick access. You can structure investments to be whatever you think of as safe or stable but you don't want to be thinking about whether it's a good time to sell when you need the money right now. But the bigger problem is access. When you need the funds on a weekend, holiday, anytime outside of market hours, you're not going to be able to just sell some stocks and go to an ATM. This is the reason why it's recommended to have these funds in a checking or savings account usually. The reason I mentioned the budgeting side first is because I wanted to point out that if you're budgeting well, most of the unexpected expenses you have should have been expected in a sense; you can still plan for something without knowing when or if it will happen. So in the example of a car repair, ideally you're already budgeting for possible repairs, if you own a home you're budgeting for things that would go wrong, budgeting for speeding tickets, for surprise out of pocket medical costs, etc. These then become part of your normal budget: they aren't part of the emergency fund anymore. The bright side about budgeting for something unexpected is that you know what that money is for, and do you likely also know how quickly you'll need it. For example you know if you have unexpected medical costs that happen very quickly, you're not likely you need a bag of cash on a moment's notice. So those last two points lead to the fact that your actual emergency fund, the dollars that are for things you simply could not foresee, will be relatively small. A few thousand dollars or so in most cases. If you've got things structured like this, you'll be happy to have a few grand available at a moment's notice. The bulk of the money you would use for other surprise expenses (or things like 6 months of living expenses) is represented in other specific categories and you already know the timeframe in which you need it (probably enough time that it could be invested, risk to taste). In short: by expecting the unexpected, you can sidestep this issue and not worry so much about missed returns on the emergency fund.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6c33bf1dbc4fda12b28dadf262162d4b",
"text": "\"Given that the 6 answers all advocate similar information, let me offer you the alternate scenario - You earn $60K and have an employer offering a 50% match on all deposits. All deposits. (Note, I recently read a Q&A here describing such an offer. If I see it again, I'll link). Let the thought of the above settle in. You think about the fact that $42K isn't a bad salary, and decide to deposit 30%, to gain the full match on your $18K deposit. Now, you budget to live your life, pay your bills, etc, but it's tight. When you accumulate $2000, and a strong want comes up (a toy, a trip, anything, no judgement) you have a tough decision. You think to yourself, \"\"after the match, I am literally saving 45% of my income. I'm on a pace to have the ability to retire in 20 years. Why do I need to save even more?\"\" Your budget has enough discretionary spending that if you have a $2000 'emergency', you charge it and pay it off over the next 6-8 months. Much larger, and you know that your super-funded 401(k) has the ability to tap a loan. Your choice to turn away from the common wisdom has the recommended $20K (about 6 months of your spending) sitting in your 401(k), pretax deposited as $26K, and matched to nearly $40K, growing long term. Note: This is a devil's advocate answer. Had I been the first to answer, it would reflect the above. In my own experience, when I got married, we built up the proper emergency fund. As interest rates fell, we looked at our mortgage balance, and agreed that paying down the loan would enable us to refinance and save enough in mortgage interest that the net effect was as if we were getting 8% on the money. At the same time as we got that new mortgage, the bank offered a HELOC, which I never needed to use. Did we somehow create high risk? Perhaps. Given that my wife and I were both still working, and had similar incomes, it seemed reasonable.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2862e6c7df5b16e84cf1d1eb56291d89",
"text": "I treat the concept of emergency funds as a series of financial buffers. One layer is that I have various credit cards with a small positive balance, that I can max out in an emergency should I go broke and not be in employment (those have saved me once or twice) My final level of emergency funds, is kept at home in the form of cash, I've never needed it, but it protects against getting locked out of the financial system (I lose my debit cards, banking system freezes all withdrawals, zombie invasion). It also doubles as my destitution fund, as if all else fails I still have raw cash to buy food and thus I won't starve (at least for a few months).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0756241e8bf8cc0afd2d37e379c09505",
"text": "Let me first start by defining an emergency fund. This is money which is: Because emergency's usually need to be deal with ASAP, boiler breaks, gears box in a car. Generally you need these to be solved as soon as possible, because ou depend on these things working and you can't budget for this type of expenditure using just your monthly salary. This is a personal opinion but I prefer investment types that don't have another fee on access. I really don't like having another fee on top on money that I need right now. Investment Options: Market based investments should be seen as long term investments, therefore they do not really satisfy requirement one, they can also have broker fees, therefore you might pay a small extra charge for taking money out, and so do not satisfy requirement two. Investment Options for Emergency Funds You want to get the best return on your money even if it's your emergency fund. So use regular saving accounts, but from you emergency fund or use tax effective savings accounts, like a cash ISA if based in the UK. Don't think of an emergency money as just sitting there, you have options just makes sure the options fit the requirements. UPDATE Given feedback I appreciate there are levels of emergency fund, the above details things which might be about 1-2 month salary in cost, car repairs, leaks, boiler repairs. Now I have another fund which is in P2P funds which is higher risk than a deposit account but then gives me a better return and is less subject to market fluctuations and it would be the place I go to for loss of job level emergencies say 6 months of salary, this takes a bit longer to access but given I have the above emergency fund I have given myself time to get the money from the P2P account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "82a400b4e1f10bedb37481dda36b702a",
"text": "It all depends on the liquidity of your investments some examples: You can mitigate only the risk that you can control. It is always good to have:",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "5d7f244020437e6a98abac60a57ca848",
"text": "While it’s your personal choice on HOW you save for later its essential that you save. My sister works in a bank and recommended me not to put any money into retirement plans since the tax-advances seem fine but have to paid back when you take the money out of the accounts (in Switzerland, don't know about the united states). Many reasons exist that you suddenly need the money: Buying a house, needing a new car, health issues or just leaving the country forever (and the government trying to make it as hard as possible for you to get your money back). I recommend putting it on a savings account on a different bank that you normally use, without any cards and so on. In short: It can be dangerous to have money locked away – especially if you could easily have it at your hands and you know you're able to manage it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "55bcedf9148ed62eafa72d0c3547db05",
"text": "\"The mix how how you present this feels contradictory. You would pull a 'major' portion from the emergency fund (EF), but at the same time, you'll replace it in a month. The first bit scares me, this is not the purpose of that fund, and the issue is the aspect of money that's psychological. Money is a habit, if you justify this use of the EF now, it gets progressively easier for this purchase or that, and the fund loses its intended purpose. If the second half is accurate, that your income would replace that money in a month, i'd say the fund wasn't fully funded to its proper level, 6-9 months of all expenses to get you though issues as bad as a job loss. The great thing I see in your question is what's missing. You're not looking to buy a car with a loan. That puts you in a good situation, and should push those answering to cut you some slack on the one month \"\"bridge loan\"\" from your own savings. Edit - OP add 2 key points, His EF is 3 years expenses (wow, kudos to him!), but he's living like a student (i.e. with parents, which keeps his costs low). If this latter observation seems judgmental, I'll re-edit. The finances of everyone would be far better off if we adopted multigenerational living. The young could save as Fahad is doing, and when parents retire, they can know they are cared for. In the US, I'd say \"\"when you move out, your expenses will go up drastically,\"\" but in this case, that may not happen, or not soon. This is my observation the world is a big place and our answers need to fit the OP's situation, not assume our own standards apply to all. Buy the better car. You saved. You earned it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "36e643c89da53b0e2d4622950dd89045",
"text": "I would disagree with your analysis. To me there are two purposes for a money market (MM): Your emergency fund should be from 3 to 6 months of expenses. Think of it of an insurance policy against Murphy. You may want to have some money designated for big expenses, or even sinking funds. For example, I keep some money in a MM for a car as both the wife, daughter, and I driver older vehicles. I may need to replace them. If you were planning on making a larger purchase car, house, boat, engagement ring I would put the money in a MM fund so you are not subject to the whims of the market. After that you are free to invest all your money. Its likely that you should have some money outside of tax advantaged funds so if you want to start a business you will not have to do high cost withdrawals.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "289135f42bf8602686098991399ef023",
"text": "When it comes down to it, long-term investments pay better than short-term ones. If nothing else, there's less administration and less financial risk for the provider. That's why 2, 3 or 5 year savings accounts pay better than instant access ones. Higher-risk investments pay more interest (or dividends) than low-risk ones. They have to, or nobody would invest in them. So by locking yourself out of any long term and/or risky investments, you're stuck with a choice of low-interest short term ones. There are plenty of investment funds that you can sell at short notice if you want to. But they are volatile, and if you cash out at the wrong time, you can get back less than you invested. The way you lower risk is either to invest in a fund that covers a broad range of investments, or invest in several different funds.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b9a659ee68b3baea3494b9c715fafe6",
"text": "\"For me, the emergency fund is meant to cover unexpected, but necessary expenses that I didn't budget for. The emergency fund allows me to pay for these things without going into debt. Let's say that my car breaks down, and I don't have any money in my budget for fixing it. I really need to get my car fixed, so I spend the money from my emergency fund. However, cars break down periodically. If I was doing a better job with my budget, I would allocate some money each month into a \"\"car repair/maintenance\"\" category. (In fact, I actually do this.) With my budgeting software, I can look at how much I've spent on car repairs over the last year, and budget a monthly amount for car repair expenses. Even if I do this, I might end up short if I am unlucky. Emergency fund to the rescue! If I'm budgeting correctly, I don't pay any regular bills out of this fund, as those are expected expenses. Car insurance, life insurance, and property tax are all bills that come on a regular basis, and I set aside money for each of these each month so that when the bill comes, I have the money ready to go. The recommended size of an emergency fund is usually listed as \"\"3 to 6 months of expenses.\"\" However, that is just a rough guideline. As you get better with your budget, you might find that you have a lower probability of needing it, and you can let your emergency fund fall to the lower end of the guideline range. The size of my own emergency fund is on the lower end of this scale. And if I have a true crisis (i.e. extended unemployment, severe family medical event), I can \"\"rob\"\" one of my other savings funds, such as my car replacement fund, vacation fund, etc. Don't be afraid to spend your emergency fund money if you need it. If you have an unexpected, necessary expense that you have not budgeted for, use the emergency fund money. However, your goal should be to get to the point where you never have to use it, because you have adequately accounted for all of the expenses that you can reasonably expect to have in the future.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b06e7307088dc7210864a5d44d88371",
"text": "I am understanding the OP to mean that this is for an emergency fund savings account meant to cover 3 to 6 months of living expenses, not a 3-6 month investment horizon. Assuming this is the case, I would recommend keeping these funds in a Money Market account and not in an investment-grade bond fund for three reasons:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a688bd683b9434c0fed89aadcbbb9cb3",
"text": "\"The purpose of the emergency fund is to enable you to pay for unplanned necessary expenses without going into debt. You know that cars don't last forever and eventually need to be replaced. Ideally, you would have a \"\"car replacement fund\"\" which you contribute to a little every month. (Essentially, it is a car payment to yourself.) Then when it comes time to get a replacement car, you have money set aside for this purpose and know exactly how much you can spend. However, in your case it seems that you don't have enough money in your car replacement fund for the car that you want. There are a few different causes that might have led to this situation: Due to unforeseen circumstances, you need a replacement car before you thought you would need it. You find that your planning was not quite right, and you weren't saving as much as you need. You are trying to buy a more expensive car than you need. If a replacement car is a necessity, two of these are emergencies, one is not. If you don't have enough cash set aside for a car, it is certainly better to spend your emergency fund and pay cash than to borrow money to buy the car. Only you can decide if the car you are looking at is appropriate for you, or if you should be looking at a less expensive car. After you purchase the car, build your emergency fund back up first, then start saving for your next car.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b4cea859a9848373c95e16a60f3aeadd",
"text": "Why can't you have both? If you do have both credit and an emergency fund, and an emergency occurs, you can draw from the line of credit first. Having debt + cash is a much more stable situation than having neither, because then you have the option to use the cash to pay off the debt, or use the cash to pay other expenses. If you just have cash, when you spend it it's gone and there's no guarantee anyone is going to lend you any money at that point.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f6ece7c89aeb6cab3a15d9aec09963b",
"text": "Before starting with investing, you should make sure you are saving enough. Living in a welfare country (France) does not exempt you from potentially needing to save large amounts of money. You state that you do not need much of an emergency day fund, but this is not true. Being dismissed unjustly from your job is not the only way to become unemployed and not all roads lead to unemployment pay. Being fired for cause or leaving your job voluntarily are two work related causes that will leave you without an income source. Unexpected major expenses are another reason you might need to dip into your emergency fund. If your emergency fund is in order, the next thing to investigate is your pension and saving for retirement. In a country with a strong pension system, you need to check how comfortable you are with its sustainability (Greece anyone?) and also whether it will adequately meet your needs. If not, there are no 401ks or IRAs in France, but there is a relatively new personal supplementary pension plan (PERP) that you might investigate contributing to. If you're comfortable with your emergency fund and your retirement savings, then preparing for buying a house is likely your next savings goal. A quick search shows that to get a mortgage to buy a house in France, banks will commonly require a downpayment of 20% plus various closing costs. See for example here. This is 40,000+ euro for a 200k euro house, which will take you several years at the rate of 500 euro / month. France has special plans (Plan d’Epargne Logement) with tax-exempt interest for saving up for a house that you might want to investigate. In your other question, you also ask about buying a cheap car. As you get older and possibly start a family, having a car will likely become more of a necessity. This is another goal you can save for rather than having to take a loan out when you buy one.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "151ec6d3e24b890cc9732e88649dfd6e",
"text": "\"What you're describing makes sense. I'd probably call the non-liquid portion something besides my \"\"emergency fund\"\", but that's semantics mostly. If you have 3 months of \"\"very liquid\"\" cash in this emergency fund and you're comfortable that this amount is good for your situation, then I don't see why you can't have additional savings in more or less liquid vehicles. Whatever you set up, you'll want to think about how to tap it when you need it. You might have a CD ladder with one maturing every three months. That would give you access to these funds after your liquid funds dry up. (Or for a small/short term emergency, you'll be able to replenish the liquid fund with the next-maturing CD.) Or set up a T Bill ladder with the same structure. This might provide you with a tax advantage.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e32fa977d20156bc3c089162770bd973",
"text": "\"It's a spin on the phrase \"\"making your money work for you\"\". before sending your money off to do the heavy lifting, you'll want to have an emergency savings account of about six months of living expenses stored in cash. Basically, he is saying before you start to invest make sure you have sufficient emergency savings.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9e8d85d78ecbeb8f53dec0110eed30fe",
"text": "There's something very important no one else has mentioned... times when the stock market falls dramatically are often the times when you're most likely to lose your job, and when it's hardest to get loans. So if you ever do need your emergency fund, it will more than likely be related to a dip in the stock market.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1344b296a3240da9185bf0b8287c5358",
"text": "The biggest problem is what happens when you make a withdrawal if an emergency occurs. If the money was a contribution from a past year, you will not be able to put those funds back into the fund until a later date. Assume the following scenario: The limits regarding maximum annual contribution and windows when you can contribute make this an inefficient way to operate the emergency fund/retirement fund. Retirement and emergency funds are both important. Don't co-mingle them, it leads to double counting the money when you guesstimate where you are regarding your financial goals.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c0364ea9ed924d97f3b4e2d2d2f20006",
"text": "This is a somewhat subjective question, but if you are following a particular personal finance methodology, just do whatever they recommend. For example, I believe that Dave Ramsey's program calls for the emergency fund to be in a different account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8965f489cca99abdd4001c2050f1b79a",
"text": "I know this is heresy but if you have funds for significantly more than 6 months of expenses (let's say 12 months), how risky would it be to put it all into stock index funds? Quite risky as if you do need to dip into it, how fast could you get the cash? Also, do you realize the tax implications when you do sell the shares should you have an emergency? In the worst-case scenario, let's say you have a financial emergency at the same time the stock market crashes and loses half its value. You could still liquidate the rest and have sufficient funds for 6 months. Am I underestimating the risks of this strategy? That's not worst case scenario though. Worst case scenario would be another 9/11 where the markets are closed for nearly a week and you need the money but can't get the funds converted to cash in the bank that you can use. This is in addition to the potential wait for a settlement in the case of using ETFs if you choose to go that way. In the case of money market funds, CDs and other near cash equivalents these can be accessed relatively easily which is part of the point. A staggered approach where some cash is kept in house, some in accounts that can easily accessed and some in other investments may make sense though the breakdown would differ depending on how much risk people are willing to take. If it truly is an emergency fund then the odds of needing it should be very slim, so why live with near zero return on that money? Something to consider is what is called an emergency here? For some people a sudden $1,000 bill to fix their car that just broke down is an emergency. For others, there could be emergency trips to visit family that may have gotten into accidents or gotten a diagnosis that they may pass away soon. Consider what do you want to call an emergency here as chances are you may not be considering all that people would think is an emergency. There is the question of what other sources of money do you have to cover should issues arise.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
09b2ecc55cb521c90cf545576b88580c
|
2 401k's and a SEP-IRA
|
[
{
"docid": "0980ca2d1a7e51b55220dd25da641b4f",
"text": "question #2 - yes, 25% of your 1099 income. Good idea. It adds up quickly and is a good way to reduce taxable income.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "1286da8a6b6708506c4ec2759ac83219",
"text": "\"While I can appreciate you're coming from a strongly held philosophy, I disagree strongly with it. I do not have any 401k or IRA I don't like that you need to rely on government and keep the money there forever. A 401k and an IRA allows you to work within the IRS rules to allow your gains to grow tax free. Additionally, traditional 401ks and IRAs allow you to deduct income from your taxes, meaning you pay less taxes. Missing out on these benefits because the rules that established them were created by the IRS is very very misguided. Do you refuse to drive a car because you philosophically disagree with speed limits? I am planning on spending 20k on a new car (paying cash) Paying cash for a new car when you can very likely finance it for under 2% means you are loosing the opportunity to invest that money which can conservatively expect 4% returns annually if invested. Additionally, using dealership financing can often be additional leverage to negotiate a lower purchase price. If for some reason, you have bad credit or are unable to secure a loan for under 4%, paying cash might be reasonable. The best thing you have going for you is your low monthly expenses. That is commendable. If early retirement is your goal, you should consider housing expenses as a part of your overall plan, but I would strongly suggest you start investing that money in stocks instead of a single house, especially when you can rent for such a low rate. A 3 fund portfolio is a classic and simple way to get a diverse portfolio that should see returns in good years and stability in bad years. You can read more about them here: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio You should never invest in individual stocks. People make lots of money to professionally guess what stocks will do better than others, and they are still very often wrong. You should purchase what are sometimes called \"\"stocks\"\" but are really very large funds that contain an assortment of stocks blended together. You should also purchase \"\"bonds\"\", which again are not individual bonds, but a blend of the entire bond market. If you want to be very aggressive in your portfolio, go with 100-80% Stocks, the remainder in Bonds. If you are nearing retirement, you should be the inverse, 100-80% bonds, the remainder stocks. The rule of thumb is that you need 25 times your yearly expenses (including taxes, but minus pension or social security income) invested before you can retire. Since you'll be retiring before age 65, you wont be getting social security, and will need to provide your own health insurance.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "88007f153863a929907440c785d151b1",
"text": "\"The limit on SEP IRA is 25%, not 20%. If you're self-employed (filing on Schedule C), then it's taken on net earning, which in your example would be 25% of $90,000. (https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/retirement-plans-for-self-employed-people) JoeTaxpayer is correct as regards the 401(k) limits. The elective deferrals are per person - That's a cap in sum across multiple plans and across both traditional and Roth if you have those. In general, it's actually across other retirement plan types too - See below. If you're self-employed and set-up a 401(k) for your own business, the elective deferral is still aggregated with any other 401(k) plans in which you participate that year, but you can still make the employer contribution on your own plan. This IRS page is current a pretty good one on this topic: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/one-participant-401k-plans Key quotes that are relevant: The business owner wears two hats in a 401(k) plan: employee and employer. Contributions can be made to the plan in both capacities. The owner can contribute both: •Elective deferrals up to 100% of compensation (“earned income” in the case of a self-employed individual) up to the annual contribution limit: ◦$18,000 in 2015 and 2016, or $24,000 in 2015 and 2016 if age 50 or over; plus •Employer nonelective contributions up to: ◦25% of compensation as defined by the plan, or ◦for self-employed individuals, see discussion below It continues with this example: The amount you can defer (including pre-tax and Roth contributions) to all your plans (not including 457(b) plans) is $18,000 in 2015 and 2016. Although a plan's terms may place lower limits on contributions, the total amount allowed under the tax law doesn’t depend on how many plans you belong to or who sponsors those plans. EXAMPLE Ben, age 51, earned $50,000 in W-2 wages from his S Corporation in 2015. He deferred $18,000 in regular elective deferrals plus $6,000 in catch-up contributions to the 401(k) plan. His business contributed 25% of his compensation to the plan, $12,500. Total contributions to the plan for 2015 were $36,500. This is the maximum that can be contributed to the plan for Ben for 2015. A business owner who is also employed by a second company and participating in its 401(k) plan should bear in mind that his limits on elective deferrals are by person, not by plan. He must consider the limit for all elective deferrals he makes during a year. Notice in the example that Ben contributed more that than his elective limit in total (his was $24,000 in the example because he was old enough for the $6,000 catch-up in addition to the $18,000 that applies to everyone else). He did this by declaring an employer contribution of $12,500, which was limited by his compensation but not by any of his elective contributions. Beyond the 401(k), keep in mind that elective contributions are capped across different types of retirement plans as well, so if you have a SEP IRA and a solo 401(k), your total contributions across those plans are also capped. That's also mentioned in the example. Now to the extent that you're considering different types of plans, that's a whole question in itself - One that might be worth consulting a dedicated tax advisor. A few things to consider (not extensive list): As for payroll / self-employment tax: Looks like you will end up paying Medicare, including the new \"\"Additional Medicare\"\" tax that came with the ACA, but not SS: If you have wages, as well as self-employment earnings, the tax on your wages is paid first. But this rule only applies if your total earnings are more than $118,500. For example, if you will have $30,000 in wages and $40,000 in selfemployment income in 2016, you will pay the appropriate Social Security taxes on both your wages and business earnings. In 2016, however, if your wages are $78,000, and you have $40,700 in net earnings from a business, you don’t pay dual Social Security taxes on earnings more than $118,500. Your employer will withhold 7.65 percent in Social Security and Medicare taxes on your $78,000 in earnings. You must pay 15.3 percent in Social Security and Medicare taxes on your first $40,500 in self-employment earnings and 2.9 percent in Medicare tax on the remaining $200 in net earnings. https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10022.pdf Other good IRS resources:\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7ef2977f65d04dc67aaf2fec39004624",
"text": "I looked a bit at the first 3, .24% expense. There's a direction to not discuss individual investments here, so the rest of my answer will need to lean generic. I see you have 5 funds. I'm surmising it's an attempt at 'diversifying'. I'll ask you - what do these five, when combined, offer that a straight S&P 500 index (or some flavor of extended market) doesn't? I've gone through the exercise of looking at portfolios with a dozen funds and found overlap so great that 2 or 3 funds would have been sufficient. There are S&P funds that are as low as .05%. this difference may not seem like much, but it adds over time. To your last point, I'd consider a Solo 401(k) as you're self employed. One that offers the Roth option if you are in the marginal 15% bracket.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "afb5b4fbf1539e64167c69d8252f847b",
"text": "Use a compound interest calculator to project the difference with ETFs in the S&P 500 (or the asset mix of your choosing), and subtract the expected pension amount. If the difference is positive, or around around even, I would do it to avoid the risk of company failure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1e55b9e38a7bc2e8300c9d6d1f3214e7",
"text": "As I commented, there's confusion on withholding. The 20% pertains to 401(k) accounts, not IRAs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5a2cb7d76c579655e90db636cdc2c738",
"text": "There's no one answer. You need to weigh the fees and quality of investment options on the one side against the slowly vesting employer contribution and tax benefits of 401k contributions in excess of IRA limits.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6167f63bc9252ad2217dda31cefa0496",
"text": "\"I separate them out, simply because they're for different purposes, with different goals and time-frames, and combining them may mask hidden problems in either the retirement account or the regular account. Consider an example: A young investor has been working on their retirement planning for a few years now, and has a modest amount of retirement savings (say $15,000) allocated carefully according to one of the usually recommended schemes. A majority exposure to large cap U.S. stocks, with smaller exposures to small cap, international and bond markets. Years before however, they mad an essentially emotional investment in a struggling manufacturer of niche personal computers, which then enjoyed something of a renaissance and a staggering growth in shareholder value. Lets say their current holdings in this company now represent $50,000. Combining them, their portfolio is dominated by large cap U.S. equities to such an extent that the only way to rebalance their portfolio is to pour money into bonds and the international market for years on end. This utterly changes the risk profile of their retirement account. At the same time, if we switch the account balances, the investor might be reassured that their asset allocation is fine and diversified, even though the assets they have access to before retirement are entirely in a single risky stock. In neither case is the investor well served by combining their funds when figuring out their allocation - especially as the \"\"goal\"\" allocations may very well be different.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3f19942416d82aad508dc98501458cb1",
"text": "Your assumption, the need for two distinct accounts is correct. Are you sure that the deposit was made to the same account? Since a 401(k) doesn't really have an account number, just your social security number, it may be they report it to you as though it were aggregated, but it's improper for it to be so. With respect (I mean this literally, I have the utmost respect) to littleadv's answer - the aggregation of the two accounts cannot be legitimate. If I wish to invest my Roth side into investments that grow far greater than the Traditional side, the mixing of accounts destroys this possibility. Something is either wrong, or misunderstood.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "24c4ccec7c561cd627638fa08b200dcf",
"text": "You can contribute to both but the total contribution is capped: More than one plan. If you contribute to a defined contribution plan (defined in chapter 4), annual additions to an account are limited to the lesser of $53,000 or 100% of the participant's compensation. When you figure this limit, you must add your contributions to all defined contribution plans maintained by you. Because a SEP is considered a defined contribution plan for this limit, your contributions to a SEP must be added to your contributions to other defined contribution plans you maintain. Source: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p560.pdf on page 6.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b24c9a7d92256bd10cb736a31dce103",
"text": "I'm concerned about your extreme focus on Roth. In today's dollars it would take nearly $2 million to produce enough of an annual withdrawal to fill the 15% bracket. If you are able to fund both 401(k)s and 2 IRAs (total $43K) you're clearly in the 25% bracket or higher. If you retire 100% with Roth savings, and little to no pretax money, you miss the opportunity to receive withdrawals at zero(1), 10, and 15% brackets. Missing this isn't much better than having too much pretax and being in a higher bracket at retirement. One factor often overlooked is that few people manage a working life with no gaps. During times when income is lower for whatever reason, it's a great time to convert a bit to Roth. (1)by zero bracket, I mean the combined standard deduction and exemptions. For two people this is currently (for 2017) $20,800 total. And it goes up a bit most years.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "db335a248bc9fc882e92419a5ed646ff",
"text": "I am assuming that you are talking about rolling a 401k over to an IRA since if you were rolling over to another 401k you probably would not have a choice as to where it would be. Ameriprise will generally have lower fees than JPMorgan. (Probably why your husband's mutual fund is with Ameriprise.) Additionally having both accounts with Ameriprise will better allow them to assist you with your long term financial planning. For these two reasons I would recommend rolling your account over to Ameriprise. No, I do not work for Ameriprise",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "158a63615addb9a4abf5b13f930e9c11",
"text": "It is great that you came up with a plan to own a rental home, free and clear, and also move up in home. It is also really good of you to recognize that curtailing spending has a profound effect on your net worth, many people fail to acknowledge that factoid and prefer to instead blame things outside their control. Good work there. Here are some items of your plan that I have comments on. 11mo by aggressively curtailing elective spending How does your spouse feel about this? They have to be on board, but it is such a short time frame this is very doable. cashing out all corporate stock, This will probably trigger capital gains. You have to be prepared to pay the tax man, but this is a good source of cash for your plan. You also have to have an additional amount that will likely be due next April 15th. redirecting all contributions to my current non-matched R401(k) This is fine as well because of the short time frame. withdrawing the principal from a Roth IRA This I kind of hate. We are so limited in money that we can put into tax favored plans, that taking money out bothers me. Also it is that much more difficult to save in a ROTH because of the sting of taxes. I would not do this, but would favor instead to take a few extra months to make your plan happen. buy home #2 How are you going to have a down payment for home #2? Is your intention to pay off home and save a while, then purchase home #2? I would do anything to avoid PMI. Besides I would take some time to live in a paid for house. Overall I would grade your plan a B. If take a bit longer, and remove the withdrawing from the ROTH, it then becomes an A-. With a good explanation of how you come up with the down payment for house 2, you could easily move to an A+.",
"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": "7c4e586ff0130e9e3fbab06b0e51fd03",
"text": "Post-tax (i.e. non-retirement account) investing is nothing to ignore. You don't mention a spouse, so for a start, you still have the $5500 to put in an IRA. The remaining investment funds will earn dividends, if any, at a tax preferred rate, and then the gain on sale will be taxed at 15% if the code doesn't change again. The gains accumulate tax deferred, and you control the timing of the sale. With a 401(k) all withdrawal are taxable as income. In your case, just the gain is taxed at a potential long term cap gain rate. Hopefully the new job pays more than the old one and the loss of 401(k) is compensated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c7efc2dd021ddf9a2a03b9622a11cf2a",
"text": "I have managed two IRA accounts; one I inherited from my wife's 401K and my own's 457B. I managed actively my wife's 401 at Tradestation which doesn't restrict on Options except level 5 as naked puts and calls. I moved half of my 457B funds to TDAmeritrade, the only broker authorized by my employer, to open a Self Directed account. However, my 457 plan disallows me from using a Cash-secured Puts, only Covered Calls. For those who does not know investing, I resent the contention that participants to these IRAs should not be messing around with their IRA funds. For years, I left my 401k/457B funds with my current fund custodian, Great West Financial. I checked it's current values once or twice a year. These last years, the market dived in the last 2 quarters of 2015 and another dive early January and February of 2016. I lost a total of $40K leaving my portfolio with my current custodian choosing all 30 products they offer, 90% of them are ETFs and the rest are bonds. If you don't know investing, better leave it with the pros - right? But no one can predict the future of the market. Even the pros are at the mercy of the market. So, I you know how to invest and choose your stocks, I don't think your plan administrator has to limit you on how you manage your funds. For example, if you are not allowed to place a Cash-Secured Puts and you just Buy the stocks or EFT at market or even limit order, you buy the securities at their market value. If you sell a Cash-secured puts against the stocks/ETF you are interested in buying, you will receive a credit in fraction of a dollar in a specific time frame. In average, your cost to owning a stock/ETF is lesser if you buy it at market or even a limit order. Most of the participants of the IRA funds rely too much on their portfolio manager because they don't know how to manage. If you try to educate yourself at a minimum, you will have a good understanding of how your IRA funds are tied up to the market. If you know how to trade in bear market compared to bull market, then you are good at managing your investments. When I started contributing to my employer's deferred comp account (457B) as a public employee, I have no idea of how my portfolio works. Year after year as I looked at my investment, I was happy because it continued to grow. Without scrutinizing how much it grew yearly, and my regular payroll contribution, I am happy even it only grew 2% per year. And at this age that I am ready to retire at 60, I started taking investment classes and attended pre-retirement seminars. Then I knew that it was not totally a good decision to leave your retirement funds in the hands of the portfolio manager since they don't really care if it tanked out on some years as long at overall it grew to a meager 1%-4% because they managers are pretty conservative on picking the equities they invest. You can generalize that maybe 90% of IRA investors don't know about investing and have poor decision making actions which securities/ETF to buy and hold. For those who would like to remain as one, that is fine. But for those who spent time and money to study and know how to invest, I don't think the plan manager can limit the participants ability to manage their own portfolio especially if the funds have no matching from the employer like mine. All I can say to all who have IRA or any retirement accounts, educate yourself early because if you leave it all to your portfolio managers, you lost a lot. Don't believe much in what those commercial fund managers also show in their presentation just to move your funds for them to manage. Be proactive. If you start learning how to invest now when you are young, JUST DO IT!",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
cbba0cf458a4b7db927c4ce7d576821a
|
Are there guidelines for whom you should trust for financial advice (online, peer, experts, only myself, etc)
|
[
{
"docid": "15a8d776bf4427047a8a551633407a1b",
"text": "\"You need to understand how various entities make their money. Once you know that, you can determine whether their interests are aligned with yours. For example, a full-service broker makes money when you buy and sell stocks. They therefore have in interest in you doing lots of buying, and selling, not in making you money. Or, no-fee financial advisors make their money through commissions on what they sell you, which means their interests are served by selling you those investments with high commissions, not the investments that would serve you best. Financial media makes their money through attracting viewers/readers and selling advertising. That is their business, and they are not in the business of giving good advice. There are lots of good investments - index funds are a great example - that don't get much attention because there isn't any money in them. In fact, the majority of \"\"wall street\"\" is not aligned with your interests, so be skeptical of the financial industry in general. There are \"\"for fee\"\" financial advisors who you pay directly; their interests are fairly well aligned with yours. There is a fair amount of good information at The Motley Fool\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cdf7ac62637421a1a1321ae8cdd080a4",
"text": "Nothing beats statistics like that found on Morning Star, Yahoo or Google Finance. When you are starting out, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Pick a couple of mutual funds with good track records and start there. Keep in mind the financial press, to some degree, has a vested interest in having their readership chase the next hot thing. So while sites like Seeking Alpha, Kiplingers, or Money do provide some good advice, there is also an element that placates their advertisers. The only peer-to-peer lending I would consider is Lending Club. However, you are probably better off in the long run investing in mutual funds. One way to get involved in individual stocks without getting burned is to participate in Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs). Companies that have them tend to be very well established, and they are structured to discourage trading. Buying is easy, dividend reinvestment is easy, dividend payouts are easy; but, starting and selling is kind of a pain. That is a good thing.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "1fa75ab8a23b7d77ea05b2bba4111506",
"text": "\"You want a fee-only advisor. He charges like an architect or plumber: by the hour or some other \"\"flat fee\"\". That is his only compensation. He is not paid on commission at all. He is not affiliated with any financial services company of any kind. His office is Starbucks. He does not have a well lit office like the commission broker down the street. He does not want you to hand him your money - it stays in the brokerage account of your choice (within reason - some brokerage accounts are terrible and he'll tell you to get out of those). He never asks for the password to your brokerage account. Edit: The UK recently outlawed commission brokers. These guys were competitive \"\"sales types\"\" who thrive on commissions, and probably went into other sales jobs. So right now, everyone is clamoring for the few proper financial advisors available. High demand is making them expensive. It may not be cost-effective to hire an advisor; you may need to learn it yourself. It's not that hard. Ever hear of a plumber who works totally for free, and makes his money selling you wildly overpriced pipe? That's what regular \"\"financial advisors\"\" are. They sell products that are deliberately made unnecessarily complex. The purpose is first, to conceal sales commissions and high internal fees; and second to confuse you, so the financial world feels so daunting that you feel like you need their help just to navigate it. They're trying to fry your brain so you'l just give up and trust them. Products like whole life and variable annuities are only the poster children for how awful all of their financial products are. These products exist to fleece the consumer without quite breaking the law. Of course, everyone goes to see them because they have well lit offices in every town, and they're free and easy to deal with. Don't feel like you need to know everything about finance to invest. You don't need to understand every complex financial product that the brokerage houses bave dreamed up: they are designed to conceal and confuse, as I discuss above, and you don't want them. The core of it is fairly simple, and that's all you really need to know. Look at any smaller university and how they manage their endowments. If whole life, annuities and those complex financial \"\"products\"\" actually worked, university endowments would be full of them. But they're not! Endowments are generally made of investments you can understand. Partly because university boards are made of investment bankers who invented those products, and know what a ripoff they are. Some people refuse to learn anything. They are done with college and refuse to learn anything more. I hope that's not you. Because you should learn the workings of everything you're investing in. If you don't understand it, don't buy itl And a fee-only financial advisor won't ask you to. 1000 well-heeled, well-advised university endowments seek the most successful products on the market... And end up choosing products you can understand. That's good news for you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1669fbab3ed90f4ba241a6bf435ff3a1",
"text": "Sir, although I am quiet inexperienced speaking in this subject but being an undergraduate in financial engineering, I feel the title is suited very well since providing unbiased financial advice is the last and greatest thing that any financial adviser would ever do....",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "304b9221d2ada7e5d6cf98f57419d1a4",
"text": "You have received much good advice, but based on 53 years investing and the first 25 getting my nose bloodied and breaking even I very strongly offer the following. Before doing so let me first offer this caveat: I am not questioning your broker or the advice, but it is only valuable to you if history proves correct. No one, not even Bernanke can predict how stock will perform in the future. Maybe if he sees a depression. My advice to someone new to stock investing is to purchase a index fund from a discount broker, e.g. Fidelity or Vanguard, and then study the market and economics. The Wall Street Journal and the web are my favorites. I started with a hell of a lot less than you have saved, I would not turn $200K over to anyone until you know exactly the risk and cost involved. Also, I wouldn't depend on one person or firm to advise or manage my money. I like to balance one against the other. I do not recall different firms recommending the same stocks. One must remember everyone in the business of recommending stock or any investment is selling something and must be compensated. That's how they earn a living.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1d983d0990780aed6e30220bbab12b25",
"text": "The way this works, as I understand it, is that financial advisers come in two kinds. Some are free to recommend you any financial products they think fit, but many are restricted in what they can recommend. Most advisers who work for finance companies are the second kind, and will only offer you products that their company sells. I believe they should tell you up front if they are the second kind. They should certainly tell you that if you ask. So in essence, your Scotiabank advisor is not necessarily making bad decisions for you - but they are restricted in what they will offer, and will not tell you if there is a better product for you that Scotiabank doesn't sell. In most cases, 'management fees' means something you pay to the actual managers of the fund you buy, not to the person who sells you the fund. You can compare the funds you are invested in yourself, both for performance and for the fees charged. Making frequent unnecessary changes of investment is another way that an advisor can milk you for money, but that is not necessarily restricted to bank-employed advisors. if you think that is happening to you, ask question, and change advisors if you are not happy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "418560ccfabd92b6f509f8e16d8243ea",
"text": "Anyone who claims they can consistently beat the market and asks you to pay them to tell you how is a liar. This cannot be done, as the market adjusts itself. There's nothing they could possibly learn that analysts and institutional investors don't already know. They earn their money through the subscription fees, not through capital gains on their beat-the-market suggestions, that means that they don't have to rely on themselves to earn money, they only need you to rely on them. They have to provide proof because they cannot lie in advertisements, but if you read carefully, there are many small letters and disclaimers that basically remove any liability from them by saying that they don't take responsibility for anything and don't guarantee anything.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "12b806671cb1b52fd455e729cbb9e107",
"text": "The nature of this question (finding a financial adviser) can make it a conundrum. Those who have little financial experience are often in the greatest need of a financial adviser and at the same time are the least qualified to select one. I'm not putting you or anyone in particular in this category. And of course it's a sliding scale: In general the more capable you are of running your own finances the more prepared you are to answer this question. With that said, I would recommend backing up half a step. Consider advisers other than strictly fee-only advisers. Perhaps you have already considered this decision. But perhaps others reading this have not. My (Ameriprise) adviser charges a monthly (~$50) fee, but also gets percentage-based portions of certain investments. Based on a $150/hr rate that amounts to four hours per year. Does he spend four hours per year on my account? Well so far he does (~2 yrs). But that is determined primarily by how much interaction I choose to have with him. (I suppose I could spend more time asking him questions and less time on this forum. :P) I have never fully understood the gravitation towards fee-based advisers on principle. I guess the theory is they are not making biased decisions about your investments because they don't have as much of a stake in how well your investments to do. I don't necessarily see that as an advantage. It seems they would have less of an incentive to ensure the growth of your investments. Although if you're nearing retirement then growth isn't your biggest concern. Perhaps a fee-based adviser makes more sense in that scenario. Whatever pay structure your adviser uses, it would seem to make sense to consider a successful adviser with a good client base. This implies that the adviser knows what he/she is doing. (But it could also just be a sign that they are good at marketing themselves.) If your adviser has a good base of wealthy clients then choosing a strictly-fee based adviser would mitigate the risk of your adviser having less incentive to consider your portfolio vs that of more wealthy clients. To more directly answer your question I suggest asking several of your adviser candidates for advice on choosing an adviser. I suspect you will get some good advice as well as good insight on the integrity and honesty of the adviser.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1c89e9a5530170e982dfbeca5e1dd434",
"text": "\"Fred is correct ... MOST financial advisors (but not all) are paid either for managing your assets or for selling you financial products. But success at anything, especially building wealth, is all about PROCESS, not products. I applaud your desire to find a financial advisor to help you because this is not something that most people have the education, experience or capacity to do themselves (it is impossible to get the perspective you need to make the best choices). Start with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional - they have an ethical duty to do what is in your best interests ahead of their own (the \"\"fiduciary standard\"\"). You might interview two or three. Work with the one who is transparent about how they are paid and whose process is focused on helping you achieve your goals ... not following any rule of thumb or standard boilerplate. Your goals are different. Your financial life is different. Find someone who can help YOU follow YOUR agenda ... not their own.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "39fac01405b61176cd3e961c7a2eb120",
"text": "\"Legally ok? Sure. Friends frequently discuss financial matters, and share advice. This is quite far from taking money from them and managing it, where at some point you need to be licensed for such things. If you're concerned about giving bad advice, just stay generic. The best advice has no risk. If I offer a friend a stock tip, of course there's the chance the stock goes south, but when I tell a friend who asks about the difference between Mutual Funds and ETFs, and we discuss the expenses each might have, I'm still leaving the decision as to which ETF to him. When I offer the 'fortune cookie' soundbites like \"\"If you are going to make a large purchase, delay it a week for each $100 of value. e.g. if you really want a $1000 TV, sleep on it for a few months\"\" no one can mis-apply this. I like those two sites you mentioned, but the one-on-one is good for the friend and for you. You can always learn more, and teaching helps you hone your skills.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "87da2357c61d0267338d13fbd7c6e88e",
"text": "\"Genuine (nearly) passive income can be had from some kinds of investing. Index funds are an example of a mostly self-managing investment. Of course investment involves some risk (the income is essentially paying you for taking that risk) and returns are reasonable but proportional to the risk -- IE, not spectacular unless the risk is high. If someone is claiming they can get you better than market rate of return, look carefully at what they are getting out of it and what the risks are. Fees subtract directly from your gains, and if they claim there is no additional risk, they need to prove that. You are giving someone your money. Be very sure you are going to get it back. If it isn't self-evident where the income comes from, it's probably a scam. If someone is using the term \"\"auto-pilot\"\", it is almost certainly a scam. If they are talking about website advertising and the like, it is far from autopilot if you want to make any noticable amount of money (though you may make money for them).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cf54036c6776fec58c6975a58b2792a0",
"text": "A financial advisor is a service professional. It is his/her job to do things for you that you could do for yourself, but you're either too busy to do it yourself (and you want to pay somebody else), or you'd rather not. Just like some people hire tax preparers, or maids, or people to change their oil, or re-roof their houses. Me, I choose to self-manage. I get some advise from Fidelity and Vanguard. But we hired somebody this year to re-roof our house and someone else to paint it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e33025156ccff105618c180e01c176c4",
"text": "They've asked you, so your advice is welcome. That's your main concern, really. I'd also ask them how much, and what kind of advice. Do they want you to point them to good websites? On what subjects? Or do they want more personal advice and have you to look over their bank accounts and credit card statements, provide accountability, etc.? Treat them the same way you'd want to be treated if you asked for help on something that you were weak on.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b86e24022f172c2b6a6d0cd4b4287f16",
"text": "In the case of an investment strategy, if you don't retain custodianship over your funds, or at least determine who is the custodian, then walk away. You should be able to get accurate account statements from a trustworthy third party at all times.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "901f587ef6b4da5a2caa0612bf66b160",
"text": "I think following the professional money managers is a strategy worth considering. The buys from your favorite investors can be taken as strong signals. But you should never buy any stock blindly just because someone else bought it. Be sure do your due diligence before the purchase. The most important question is not what they bought, but why they bought it and how much. To add/comment on Freiheit's points:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7375b487322935638688af71c2a9a918",
"text": "\"The statement \"\"Finance is something all adults need to deal with but almost nobody learns in school.\"\" hurts me. However I have to disagree, as a finance student, I feel like everyone around me is sound in finance and competition in the finance market is so stiff that I have a hard time even finding a paid internship right now. I think its all about perspective from your circumstances, but back to the question. Personally, I feel that there is no one-size-fits-all financial planning rules. It is very subjective and is absolutely up to an individual regarding his financial goals. The number 1 rule I have of my own is - Do not ever spend what I do not have. Your reflected point is \"\"Always pay off your credit card at the end of each month.\"\", to which I ask, why not spend out of your savings? plan your grocery monies, necessary monthly expenditures, before spending on your \"\"wants\"\" should you have any leftovers. That way, you would not even have to pay credit every month because you don't owe any. Secondly, when you can get the above in check, then you start thinking about saving for the rainy days (i.e. Emergency fund). This is absolutely according to each individual's circumstance and could be regarded as say - 6 months * monthly income. Start saving a portion of your monthly income until you have set up a strong emergency fund you think you will require. After you have done than, and only after, should you start thinking about investments. Personally, health > wealth any time you ask. I always advise my friends/family to secure a minimum health insurance before venturing into investments for returns. You can choose not to and start investing straight away, but should any adverse health conditions hit you, all your returns would be wiped out into paying for treatments unless you are earning disgusting amounts in investment returns. This risk increases when you are handling the bills of your family. When you stick your money into an index ETF, the most powerful tool as a retail investor would be dollar-cost-averaging and I strongly recommend you read up on it. Also, because I am not from the western part of the world, I do not have the cultural mindset that I have to move out and get into a world of debt to live on my own when I reached 18. I have to say I could not be more glad that the culture does not exist in Asian countries. I find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with living with your parents and I still am at age 24. The pressure that culture puts on teenagers is uncalled for and there are no obvious benefits to it, only unmanageable mortgage/rent payments arise from it with the entry level pay that a normal 18 year old could get.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5f1566f3bcced560b9b1cdda113c0d40",
"text": "The common advice you mentioned is just a guideline and has little to do with how your portfolio would look like when you construct it. In order to diversify you would be using correlations and some common sense. Recall the recent global financial crisis, ones of the first to crash were AAA-rated CDO's, stocks and so on. Because correlation is a statistical measure this can work fine when the economy is stable, but it doesn't account for real-life interrelations, especially when population is affected. Once consumers are affected this spans to the entire economy so that sectors that previously seemed unrelated have now been tied together by the fall in demand or reduced ability to pay-off. I always find it funny how US advisers tell you to hold 80% of US stocks and bonds, while UK ones tell you to stick to the UK securities. The same happens all over the world, I would assume. The safest portfolio is a Global Market portfolio, obviously I wouldn't be getting, say, Somalian bonds (if such exist at all), but there are plenty of markets to choose from. A chance of all of them crashing simultaneously is significantly lower. Why don't people include derivatives in their portfolios? Could be because these are mainly short-term, while most of the portfolios are being held for a significant amount of time thus capital and money markets are the key components. Derivatives are used to hedge these portfolios. As for the currencies - by having foreign stocks and bonds you are already exposed to FX risk so you, again, could be using it as a hedging instrument.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
8f7b078113cc1569bf1920568a137d14
|
Interest on security deposits paid to landlords, in Michigan?
|
[
{
"docid": "818145ff77d44ceac220a0c1f13d4f20",
"text": "NO. The legislation requires the landlord to deposit it in a bank. Check out pages 7-10 of the linked document. There is no mention of interest. The second clause, I believe, is probably for large landlords who hold hundreds of thousands of dollars of security. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/publications/tenantlandlord.pdf Q4 Once collected, what must the landlord do with the security deposit? The landlord must either: a) Deposit the money with a regulated financial institution (e.g., bank), OR b) Deposit a cash bond or surety bond, to secure the entire deposit, with the Secretary of State. ( Note: If the landlord does this, he or she may use the money at any time, for any purpose.) The bond ensures that there is money available to repay the tenant’s security deposit",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cfd81576bb7bf35d9fa0c764680262f3",
"text": "\"No. The full text of the Landlord-Tenant Act (specifically, section 554.614 of Act 348 of the year 1972) makes no mention of this. Searching the law for \"\"interest\"\" doesn't yield anything of interest (pardon the pun). Specifically, section 554.604 of the same law states that: (1) The security deposit shall be deposited in a regulated financial institution. A landlord may use the moneys so deposited for any purposes he desires if he deposits with the secretary of state a cash bond or surety bond written by a surety company licensed to do business in this state and acceptable to the attorney general to secure the entire deposits up to $50,000.00 and 25% of any amount exceeding $50,000.00. The attorney general may find a bond unacceptable based only upon reasonable criteria relating to the sufficiency of the bond, and shall notify the landlord in writing of his reasons for the unacceptability of the bond. (2) The bond shall be for the benefit of persons making security deposits with the landlord. A person for whose benefit the bond is written or his legal representative may bring an action in the district, common pleas or municipal court where the landlord resides or does business for collection on the bond. While it does sound like the landlord is required to deposit the money in a bank or other secured form, e.g. the Secretary of State, he/she isn't required to place it in an account that will earn interest.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "789692ce410ddf6b795a1358e414f744",
"text": "You don't pay any interest until a few weeks after you receive your statement, when the payment is due. Simply set up a direct debit with Halifax for the statement balance and they will take the correct amount (whatever you spent that month) from your bank account on the payment due date. Problem solved!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ef3aeab66bcdc9f0fea169a0f2397abc",
"text": "This happens to my dad all the time. He requires a deposit up front, but sometimes he'll let people slide without a deposit, or they refuse to pay the balance or something. After he has called and harrassed them about it, he boxes up the files of people that don't pay and hands it off to a lawyer. He has a deal worked out where he provides the lawyer with all the paperwork and the lawyer gets to keep 20% of whatever he can collect. The rest is just written off. The key thing is determining how much time and money you want to sink trying to get that money back. You don't know the likelihood of actually collecting that money, and every hour you spend on it is an hour you could spend generating more business",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b79473bb909aae086d116bb059928e44",
"text": "To be absolutely sure you should call the agent and check That said I have been renting accommodation through both agencies and directly through landlords for seven years (I live in London) and this is quite a common situation. It normally means that the deposit is being securely held by a third party so that it cannot be taken or depleted without the agreement of both parties. The deposit protection scheme ( https://www.depositprotection.com/ ) is one way that deposits are securely held in this manner. As a third party they will have different account details. It may be the case that the agency is protecting the deposit and you are paying rent to the landlord directly. This means that your deposit goes to the agency's account and the rent goes to the landlord's account. Obviously your landlord and agency have different accounts. A little colour to brighten your day: I am currently paying my rent to the agency who also took the deposit but, because of the way they handle deposits versus rent, the deposit was sent to a different account held by the same agent. In my previous flat I paid the deposit to an agency and the rent directly to the landlord. This resulted in an issue one time where I got the two accounts confused and paid rent to the agency who, after giving me a small slap on the wrist, transferred it to my landlord. In the flat before that I paid rent and the deposit to my landlords' holding company. That is one of the few times that I paid rent and the deposit into the same account. Again check with the agent that one of these situations is the case but this is absolutely normal when renting through an agency.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b7f66d0deb3fe87aea9a853975b835d",
"text": "I'm an Aussie and I purchased 5 of these properties from 2008 to 2010. I was looking for positive cash flow on properties for not too much upfront investment. The USA property market made sense because of the high Aussie $$ at the time, the depressed property market in the US and the expensive market here. I used an investment web-site that allowed me to screen properties by yield and after eliminating outliers, went for the city with the highest consistent yield performance. I settled on Toledo, Ohio as it had the highest yields and was severely impacted by the housing crisis. I bought my first property for $18K US which was a little over $17K AUD. The property was a duplex in great condition in a reasonable location. Monthly rentals $US900 and rents guaranteed and direct deposited into my bank account every month by section 8. Taxes $900 a year and $450 a year for water. Total return around $US8,000. My second property was a short sale in a reasonable area. The asking was $US8K and was a single family in good condition already tenanted. I went through the steps with the bank and after a few months, was the proud owner of another tenanted, positive cash flow property returning $600 a month gross. Taxes of $600 a year and water about the same. $US6K NET a year on a property that cost $AUD8K Third and fourth were two single family dwellings in good areas. These both cost $US14K each and returned $US700 a month each. $US28K for two properties that gross around $US15K a year. My fifth property was a tax foreclosure of a guy with 2 kids whose wife had left him and whose friend had stolen the money to repay the property taxes. He was basically on the bones of his butt and was staring down the barrel of being homeless with two kids. The property was in great condition in a reasonable part of town. The property cost me $4K. I signed up the previous owner in a land contract to buy his house back for $US30K. Payments over 10 years at 7% came out to around $US333 per month. I made him an offer whereby if he acted as my property manager, i would forgo the land contract payments and pay him a percentage of the rents in exchange for his services. I would also pay for any work he did on the properties. He jumped at it. Seven years later, we're still working together and he keeps the properties humming. Right now the AUD is around 80c US and looks like falling to around 65c by June 2015. Rental income in Aussie $$ is around $2750 every month. This month (Jan 2015) I have transferred my property manager's house back to him with a quit claim deed and sold the remaining houses for $US100K After taxes and commission I expect to receive in the vicinity of AUD$120K Which is pretty good for a $AUD53K investment. I've also received around $30K in rent a year. I'm of the belief I should be buying when everybody else is selling and selling when everybody else is buying. I'm on the look-out for my next positive cash flow investment and I'm thinking maybe an emerging market smashed by the oil shock. I wish you all happiness and success in your investment. Take care. VR",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fab868581152d6464183e52963bacff7",
"text": "\"To the best of my knowledge, in California there's no such thing as registering a place as a business. There's zoning (residential/commercial/mixed/etc), and there's \"\"a business registered at a place\"\". But there's no \"\"place registered as a business\"\". So you better clarify what it is that you think your landlord did. It may be that the place is used for short term rentals, in which case the landlord may have to have registered a business of short term rentals there, depending on the local municipal or county rules. Specifically regarding the deposit, however, there's a very clear treatment in the California law. The landlord must provide itemized receipt for the amounts out of the deposit that were used, and the prices should be reasonable and based on the actual charges by the actual vendors. If you didn't get such a receipt, or the amounts are bogus and unsubstantiated - you have protection under the CA law.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "849865233681cf162c72b2fb2ed4fc5a",
"text": "\"Do you now own your new home, or are you renting? This is a classic case of a mortgage ready to blow up. These 7/1 interest only would have a low rate, say 3%. So on $200K, the payment is $500/mo, but no principal paydown. Even if the rate were still 3% (it won't be) the 23 yr amortization means a payment of $1004 after the 7 years end. At 4%, it's $1109. 5%, $1221. I would take this all into account as you decide what to do. If you now own a new house, you should consider the morally questionable walk-away. I believe you were sold an unethical product. mb wrote \"\"shoot up considerably.\"\" This is still an understatement. A product whose payment is certain to double in a fixed time is 'bad.' 'Bad' in the biblical sense. You have no obligation to keep any deal with the devil, which is exactly what you have. There are some banks offering FHA products that might help you. I just received an offer from the bank holding a mortgage on my rental property. It's 4.5% for a refinance up to 125% of current value. There's a cost of $1800, but I owe so little, and am paying it off faster than the time left, I'm not bothering. You may benefit from such a program, but I'd still question if you can make a go of a house that even 2% underwater. Do some math, and see if you started now with a 30 year loan how the numbers work out. (Forgive my soapbox stance on this. There are those who criticize the strategic defaulters. I think you fall into a group of innocent victims who were sold a product that was nothing less than a financial time bomb. I am very curious to know the original \"\"interest only\"\" rate, and the index/margin for the rate upon adjustment. If you include the original balance, I can tell you the exact payments based on the new rates pretty easily.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e807c92da46aa5593ceb19e23329ecb6",
"text": "Michigan's 529 plan offers a wide variety of investment options, ranging from a very conservative guaranteed investment option (currently earning 1.75% interest) to a variety of index-based funds, most of which are considered aggressive. You said that you are unhappy with the 5% you have earned the past year, and that you thought you should be able to get 8% elsewhere. But according to your comment, you have 30% of your money earning a fixed 1.75% rate, and another 40% of your money invested in one of the moderate balanced options (which includes both stocks and bonds). You've only got 30% invested in the more aggressive investments that you seem to be looking for. If you want to be invested more agressively (which is reasonable, since your daughter won't need this money for many years), you can select more aggressive investments inside the 529. Michigan's 529 offers you the ability to deduct up to $10,000 (if you are married filing jointly) of contributions off your Michigan state income tax each year. In addition, the earnings inside the 529 are federally tax-free if the money is spent on college education.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "31720da99062e7b85434b76a2d139dc8",
"text": "\"I have never seen anything that suggest it's illegal to charge \"\"fair\"\" interests on loans, personally or commercially. Even CRA has long allowed the use of properly written \"\"promissory notes\"\" as the proof for personal loans between individuals, as long as the rates are consistent with their current \"\"subscribed rate\"\" (think bank's prime rate, if you don't want to having to look it up on CRA site). Loan Shark is someone or some entity that charges significantly higher interests than the rates posted by FI's. We are talking about 30+% versus the bank's 10%. Yes, we can argue the FI's are acting like Loan Shark when it comes to credit card interest rates, but that's another discussion.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "64b5152109801f6c7a91e2afffa778a4",
"text": "\"Loans do not carry an \"\"interest balance\"\". You can not pay off \"\"all the interest\"\". The only way to reduce the interest to zero is to pay off the loan. Otherwise, the interest due each month is some percentage of the outstanding principal. Think of it from the bank's perspective: they've invested some amount of money in you, and they expect a return on that investment in the form of interest. If you somehow paid in 16 years all the interest the bank expected to receive in 30 years, you've been scammed.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "716556dc8e2ec8e89a0b9229f91bd0c6",
"text": "You're asking all the right questions, and if I worked for my landlord's company I might have an answer! I imagine they're capitalizing on people's laziness. I live in the Bay Area where some people probably don't mind paying $35 to not have to walk 100 feet to the office and drop off a check.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "83b726abb06b3facfd6be7b430d842bc",
"text": "Good! The article says it was some kind of collateral protection insurance that customers were signed up for despite it being unrequired for the loan. The accusations is that WF racketeered about 800,000 loans by bundling in this bunk insurance cost as part of the loan structure. I'm glad you're not caught up in it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b2b8f0ca38cc525fda0918c857ec66d7",
"text": "Yes it most cases it is legal. Plus depending on how you look at it, the last payment of 1000 can be principal paid and interest was paid in initial installments.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "531c24fc4799a873aaae9d2509686043",
"text": "What are you using the analysis for? If your analyzing your interest rate risk then you want to determine decay rates for your non-maturity deposits. Assuming your bank uses ALM software to produce your Earnings-at-Risk (EAR) and Economic Value of Equity (EVE) metrics, the decay rate assumptions make a big difference in those numbers. Most ALM models have default assumptions that may not be correct for your institution, and as a result are giving you EAR and EVE numbers that are not at all accurate. Basically you want to have some analysis that proves how you are bucketing your NMDs (3,6,9, 12, 24 months?). Are your deposits sticky or are they affected by small changes in interest rates? You can look at historical numbers to determine how your deposits behave, but be sure to go back more than 3-4 years as deposit behavior has been pretty abnormal since 2008 with rates near zero. Similarly, you may want to try and identify 'surge' deposits that came into your bank due to the low rate environment and as soon as rates rise they will move into higher earning assets (stocks, bond, money markets).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bc86e5c2e5f05a875a6661be66ed5bcb",
"text": "Sometimes invested capital is expected to earn interest, I've seen this be a stipulation in LLC operating agreements and Corporate bylaws. I thought this arrangement looks a little less than fair. BTW I'm a college freshman, though I do the finances for my parents' regulatory compliance and governance consulting company. Anyhow, that's just my two cents.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "07853fa175f861e90859a420391f7217",
"text": "\"You get paid interest on deposits because banks only keep a fraction of the deposits on-hand. The rest is put to other uses, such as loaning money to others. If you deposit money and yield 1% interest, the bank is able to fund an auto loan, at 5%. By saving, you are actually making more capital available in the marketplace. \"\"Fixed\"\" or \"\"durable\"\" assets like gold, real property, or durable goods are different -- their value is based on attributes such as demand (gold, oil) or location (real property). If you bought an apartment in Manhattan in 1975, it appreciated greatly in value over the course of 30 years... but it did so because demand for apartments in New York City grew, while the supply of apartments grew more slowly. The government prints money for two core reasons: Think of it this way: Money is valuable because it is money.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
7f918f31fd3334723fc414c4b2631f2e
|
Bank of the Sierra: Are they legit? How can the checking interest APY be so high?
|
[
{
"docid": "50f5a406ae63d09915ea626bbcf6eaac",
"text": "The FDIC is pretty confident about them being legit. http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/main_bankfind.asp (type in Bank Of The Sierra in the name field and search on that) You got to realize how much money they will make if you use them per the agreement. Every credit card / debit transaction gets them some cash. Businesses get between 1 and 5% of each transaction even on debit cards. Then there is a flat fee the merchant pays for accepting the credit card between .25 and .50 per transaction. Even at 12 transactions a month, the bank is looking at making around $6/month. Probably more because who uses a debit card just 12 times a month. It would be convenient for most people to juse use it all the time. Does 4.09% APY beat $6/month? You would have to keep a balance of $2000 plus to cost more than you earn. And if you keep more than $2k in the account, they have other ways to make money off of you. I would also assume they make money on the bill pay and direct deposit side of things, but I can't speak for certain about that. Bottom line is this seems like a good deal to attract customers, they would rather make a bit less profit then BofA to grow their business. They are betting their offer restrictions will change your habits and make you more profitable to them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a9bc8164220c18ba77ee593c6382400f",
"text": "\"I believe MrChrister's answer is correct: Since they're FDIC insured, they are \"\"legit.\"\" Second, on the seemingly too-good-to-be-true rate: They're basically making up the difference on other fees (not necessarily paid by you) in order to offer you the higher-than-market rate. I'd like to point out two things not mentioned about the current rate offer, though: The high 4.09% APY advertised is only on balances up to $25,000; anything over that threshold is at a lower 1.01% APY. The offer also states in the footnotes: \"\"Rates may change after the account is opened.\"\" You might want to see if they have a good history of paying higher than average interest rates. You wouldn't want to switch only to find out the promotional rate was a teaser that soon gets reduced.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "31fc9c275253a8a25056530c6bdd76d5",
"text": "I read an article where this website did an interview with them and concluded its very sketchy and possibly illegal. They refused to give out their FDIC number and they got the high interest rate by selling personal customer information to third parties",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "63149c46d2348ca9f7ea75989331bfee",
"text": "From what I Understand, people put up with BofA because it's convenient in that there are branches everywhere in the country. Not sure if it's worth it, but if you're a normal banking customer, your won't face any of those fees.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cb4162c5533d3365d1aae1ce002dad60",
"text": "Check your calculation of A**. I was able to duplicate their calculations using excel. Make you sure have accounted for all the terms, it can be easy to be one off. They are making a guess at the interest rate which will be wrong, then they are adjusting it to see how wrong it is, then making another adjustment. They will repeat until they see no movement in the guesses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0529995b24384305ac69fd7a28a6cf01",
"text": "I had a modest car loan with Chase. I always felt like they were trying to fuck me over. They charged for electronic payments, would mail the payment coupon (the bill) less than two weeks before it was due each month, the payment schedule seemed to wander, etc. I was constantly stressing that I was going to miss a payment and incur a large late fee. This was on just a small car loan. I've heard they've gotten better (electric payments don't cost extra anymore) but it definitely made me feel very adversarial with banks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6c7a46fe492c59213577f579bccc7310",
"text": "Yes it should be a ACH or other electronic transfer. However, it not unusual to have checks sent for large amounts in corporate banking. Large companies don't give large checks to tellers, they have it sent to a lockbox. However, lockboxes are suited for payment of invoices and I never heard of a billion dollar invoice. edit: Also, I believe that some of the bailouts were done in checks, but honestly I'm not 100% on that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "32d1ce2d6b5eb89c3d4d17ff96505c4a",
"text": "\"Let me guess, it's a fairly large amount of money, a few thousand at least. This is a scam. This is a variation on the many fake check scams out there. You deposit the check and you think it \"\"cleared\"\" your bank, but it didn't clear. A clever fake check can take a couple weeks to bounce and the bank will demand the money back. Any money you wire back to the fraudster in the meantime will be lost forever.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3440392865922705522359d6a305d0c9",
"text": "I concur with the answers above - the difference is about the risk. But in this particular case I find the interest level implausible. 11% interest on deposits in USD seems very speculative and unsustainable. You can't guarantee such return on investment unless you engage in drug trade or some other illegal activity. Or it is a Ponzi scheme. So I would suspect that the bank is having liquidity problems. Which bank is it, by the way? We had a similar case in Bulgaria with one bank offering abnormal interest on deposits in EUR and USD. It went bust - the small depositors were rescued by the local version of FDIC but the large ones were destroyed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "20f44923b11f478b4343fc8dcecd6bdd",
"text": "Go to your local credit union and open an account there! Why do people put up with banks? Big banks are for business not for regular folks, they will nickel and dime you all the time, and that's the honest ones, the scum like WF will just trash you.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "da7ca13310fe4d4a7607b6123f0a1b8a",
"text": "I would suggest a high interest checking account if you qualify, or if you don't, an Investor's Deposit Account (IDA).",
"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": "e6062d1d56fd7a847048feadf670efed",
"text": "I think part of the reason people overdraft is because the online banking app/website doesn't show a true indication of your account balance. I've had mine (at Bank of America) adjust to $30 less than it told me I had when I checked due to processing payments being altered.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a861a9efd39b0ae336560628fd4300fa",
"text": "Mango is legit, there are some other forums out there with some reviews and discussion about whether or not it's worth the effort of setting it up and following the rules to realize the maximum benefit. The main downside is that Mango is fee-heavy: ATM fees, monthly fees, etc. One person did a calculation that if you follow all the rules and minimize fees, your maximum benefit above what you can get at other online banks with enticing rewards or interest rates is about $250/yr. Is $250 worth the hassle of following the Mango rules? You'll have to decide.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2bb927370e4c9c826f2438fd12069a89",
"text": "\"This is another version of an old scam -- \"\"let me have a check deposited in your account because I can't open one for some reason, and I'll share some of the money with you.\"\" Here the scammer is promising to \"\"start a business\"\" with you as a way to gain your confidence and trust. The first danger sign is that you only know this person from online. They are not someone you are friends with in the \"\"real\"\" world. They could be anybody. They used the name of a big company as a way to make what they're doing sound legitimate, but it's all a fraud. They could be depositing a faked Exxon check into your account, which could land YOU in huge trouble. Here's the thing -- The only way Exxon (or any other company) can deposit money in a bank under someone's name is if that person provides the account and routing numbers to an account that already exists. No company can just create an account in another person's name. That's Hollywood movie stuff, but it's not how banking works. To open an account, the bank would need identification on the account holder, so your \"\"friend\"\" already has an account if Exxon has allegedly deposited money. Further, Exxon isn't going to take back money that has already been deposited. In fact, they can't take it back. If the account is in his name, they can't do anything to the account or with the account. This is a situation you should run away from and never look back. Nothing about this story sounds right or legitimate, but this is one of the oldest scams out there since the beginning of the Internet. You would be well advised to stay VERY far away from your supposed friend, because they're anything but your friend. You are being SCAMMED. Don't be a victim. Stop communicating with this person immediately, and DON'T give them any personal information of any kind. They're crooks! I hope this helps. Good luck!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e1ad7031369090557f0e17e239c0db35",
"text": "And this is why we calculate actual yield and not just coupons. Nobody pays par for high yield notes. If the company performs well, the price of your note goes up and you can realize a gain when is called or your sell it. High yield works exactly like equity, and in a lot of cases it's better because it spits out cash in the meantime. I'm not even allowed to call the interest I get on my HY notes as interest. All realized gain.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bdfc3e853580c00d5da19e51a2631af0",
"text": "\"Based on what you asked and your various comments on other answers, this is the first time that you will be making an offer to buy a house, and it seems that the seller is not using a real-estate agent to sell the house, that is, it is what is called a FSBO (for sale by owner) property (and you can learn a lot of about the seller's perspective by visiting fsbo.com). On the other hand, you are a FTB (first-time buyer) and I strongly recommend that you find out about the purchase process by Googling for \"\"first-time home buyer\"\" and reading some of the articles there. But most important, I urge you DO NOT make a written offer to purchase the property until you understand a lot more than you currently do, and a lot more than all the answers here are telling you about making an offer to buy this property. Even when you feel absolutely confident that you understand everything, hire a real-estate lawyer or a real-estate agent to write the actual offer itself (the agent might well use a standard purchase offer form that his company uses, or the State mandates, and just fill in the blanks). Yes, you will need to pay a fee to these people but it is very important for your own protection, and so don't just wing it when making an offer to purchase. As to how much you should offer, it depends on how much you can afford to pay. I will ignore the possibility that you are rich enough that you can pay cash for the purchase and assume that you will, like most people, be needing to get a mortgage loan to buy the house. Most banks prefer not to lend more than 80% of the appraised value of the house, with the balance of the purchase price coming from your personal funds. They will in some cases, loan more than 80% but will usually charge higher interest rate on the loan, require you to pay mortgage insurance, etc. Now, the appraised value is not determined until the bank sends its own appraiser to look at the property, and this does not happen until your bid has been accepted by the seller. What if your bid (say $500K) is much larger than the appraised value $400K on which the bank is willing to lend you only $320K ? Well, you can still proceed with the deal if you have $180K available to make the pay the rest. Or, you can let the deal fall apart if you have made a properly written offer that contains the usual contingency clause that you will be applying for a mortgage of $400K at rate not to exceed x% and that if you can't get a mortgage commitment within y days, the deal is off. Absent such a clause, you will lose the earnest money that you put into escrow for failure to follow through with the contract to purchase for $500K. Making an offer in the same ballpark as the market value lessens the chances of having the deal fall through. Note also that even if the appraised value is $500K, the bank might refuse to lend you $400K if your loan application and credit report suggest that you will have difficulty making the payments on a $400K mortgage. It is a good idea to get a pre-approval from a lender saying that based on the financial information that you have provided, you will likely be approved for a mortgage of $Z (that is, the bank thinks that you can afford the payments on a mortgage of as much as $Z). That way, you have some feel for how much house you can afford, and that should affect what kinds of property you should be bidding on.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
b6af8237ff2f2a571a27fa70f6d6fdc5
|
are there any special procedures for managing non-petty cash?
|
[
{
"docid": "9e0bf969138d5735f61a8ebd7bdc190b",
"text": "\"You manage this account just as any other account. \"\"Petty cash\"\" refers to accounts where the cash money is intended for ad-hoc purchases, where you store an amount of cash in your drawer and take it out as needed. However, other than naming it \"\"petty cash\"\", there's nothing petty about it - it's an account just as any other. Many choose to just \"\"deduct\"\" the amount transferred to \"\"Petty Cash\"\" account and not manage it at all. Here the amount matters - some smaller amounts can fall under \"\"de minimis\"\" rules of the appropriate regulatory authority. Since you told nothing about where you are and what your business is - we can't tell you what the rules are in your case. If you track the usage of this account (and from your description it sounds like you are) - then the name \"\"Petty Cash\"\" is meaningless. It's an account just like any other. Since you have an employee dealing with this cash you should establish some internal audit procedures to ensure that there's no embezzlement and everything is accounted for. You will probably want to reconcile this account more often than others and check more thoroughly on what's going on with it. Since its a \"\"personal finance\"\" forum, I'm assuming you're a sole proprietor or a very small business, and SEC/SOX rules don't apply to you. If they do - you should have a licensed accountant (CPA or whatever public accountancy designation is regulated in your area) to help you with this.\"",
"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": "c1e5f7c7acf12b8ee23c673cd73e1487",
"text": "How do I withdraw a large sum from my bank and give it to a money management firm? Either write a check to the Money Management firm or wire transfer the funds to the account mentioned.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "595edcd219da19b00009f7a9338b5f10",
"text": "I'm not a finance professional by any means, but my understanding of cashier's checks is that they're more in favour of the person receiving. They're essentially guaranteeing that you have the money in your account to provide payment to the recipient. The advice I've always received is to treat cashier's checks and money orders as straight up cash, because that's essentially what they are. Hopefully someone else can come in with a better background, but I figured I'd pitch in.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d209a5d245c3051134b821bb1c03f58c",
"text": "1 Primary acct. Receive and distribute money to all other accts. For security do not permit debit cards to touch or payment pull from this account. All joint bills paid here. Attach a savings acct and credit card to this account for accruing taxes vacation money blah blah. This will facilitate managing instead of storing your funds. 2 Push distributions to one or two other individual accounts on whatever basis works. Cash groceries incidentals. Debit cards here.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8f6d0075e62e2c655b39f049dba249df",
"text": "Structuring, as noted in another answer, involves breaking up cash transactions to avoid the required reporting limits. There are a couple of important things to note. And, the biggest caveat - there have been many cases of perfectly legitimate transactions that have fallen foul of the reporting requirements. One case springs to mind of a small business that routinely deposited the previous day's receipts as cash, and due to the size of the business, those deposits typically fell in the $9,000-$9,500 range. This business ended up going through a lot of headaches and barely survived. Some don't. A single batch of transactions, if it is only 2 or 3 parts and they are separated by reasonable intervals, is not likely in and of itself to be suspicious. However, any set of such transactions does run the risk of being flagged. In your case, you also run afoul of the Know Your Customer rules, because it's not even you depositing the cash - it's your friend. (Why can your friend not simply write you a check? What is your friend doing with $5k of cash at a time? How do you know he's not generating illegal income and using you to launder it for him?) Were I your bank, you can be very certain I'd be reporting these transactions. Just from this description, this seems questionable to me. IRS seizes millions from law-abiding businesses",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f5827ececad5a61f0f7966888a3a9d00",
"text": "\"You state \"\"Any info will be appreciated\"\", so here's some background information on my answer (you can skip to my answer): When I worked for banks, I was required to submit suspicious activity to the people above me by filling out a form with a customer's name, SSN, account number(s) and ID. You may hear in media that it is $10K or sometimes $5K. The truth is that it could be lower than that, depending on what the institution defines as suspicious. Every year we were required to take a \"\"course\"\" which implied that terrorists and criminals use cash regularly - whether we agree or disagree is irrelevant - this is what the course implied. It's important to understand that many people use cash-only budgets because it's easier than relying on the banking system which charges overdraft fees for going over, or in some cases, you pay more at merchants because of card usage (some merchants give discounts for cash). If someone has a budget of $10K a month and they choose to use cash, that's perfectly fine. Also, why is it anyone's business what someone does with their private property? This created an interesting contrast among differently aged Americans - older Americans saw the banking system as tyrannical busybodies whereas young Americans didn't care. This is part of why I eventually left the banking system; I felt sick that I had to report this information, but it's amazing how quick everyone is to accept the new rules. Notice how one of the comments asks you what you intend to do with the money, as if it's any of their business. Welcome to the New America©! My answer: If you withdraw $100,000, here is what will more than likely happen: Now, watch the anger at this answer because I'm telling you the truth. This article will explain why. Your very question had a negative 1, as if asking what you're asking is wrong (see the absurdity)! If Joseph Stalin ran for president in the United States, the majority of Americans would welcome him. You have good reason to be concerned; others at this site have noticed this as well.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dcf7b6129f6a8a9145f65dc426f9870e",
"text": "PocketSmith is another tool you might like to consider. No personal banking details are required, but you can upload your transactions in a variety of formats. Pocketsmith is interesting because it really focus on your future cash flow, and the main feature of the interface is around having a calendar(s) where you easily enter one off or repetitive expenses/income. http://www.pocketsmith.com/",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4a18480745da1c3493c5bb28789f8041",
"text": "\"A money order is basically a pre-paid check. The physical cash would probably get deposited into a \"\"master\"\" custodial bank account. Each money order has a different bank account number on the check where the funds are available as you have paid-for already. With the routing number as well, your traditional bank account will be able to process it as a deposit. For USPS money orders though, they can be cashed directly at their retail locations.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a8aa234932951e462e9c75416d5fab0",
"text": "If you want to keep any consistent standard, you need to knuckle down and make those transaction entries. Honestly, this is a lot faster doing in bulk than doing day-by-day. But change how you account so it isn't annoying. I minimize my bookable transactions. For instance I deposit all income whole (for tracking) but stop tracking when the money is converted to cash or gift card money - I log adding $50 to a McDonalds gift card, but not the individual meals. I only use cash for the myriad small things I do not want to track - fast food, parking meters, etc. Anything big or that I want to track goes on a credit card. Then it's easy to reconcile credit cards to accounting system. (Cathy) Ryan's Law: if it wasn't written down, it didn't happen.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "af96ec7a1e4299588ed56d7a931f9717",
"text": "That is definitely where my intuition went as well. I know we wouldn't meet certain requirements. I expect to have to jump through hoops to make it happen. I was mostly asking what hoops I will jump through, and if we will have to jump through fewer if we are not planning on handling other people's cash.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7e6ce529c96e20905f0789621c8fcfea",
"text": "The easiest options appear to be to open an account with one of the large multinational banks like Citi. They have options such as opening two separate checking accounts, one in each currency, and Citi in particular has an international account that appears to make mutli-currency personal banking easier. All of the options have minimum balance requirements or fees for conversion, but if you need quick access this seems to be the best bet. Even if this is a one-time event and you don't need the account, a bank like Citi may be able to help you cash the check and get access to the funds quicker than a national or local bank. http://www.citibank.com/ipb-global/homepage/newsite/content/english/multi_cap_bank_depo.htm Alternatively if you know anyone with a US bank account you can deposit it with them and take the cash withdrawal from their account, assuming they agree, the check isn't too large, etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1577e21bf4ad3391c4631197ed104014",
"text": "I would say when starting with Gnucash to start with the level of granularity you are comfortable with while sticking to the double entry bookkeeping practices. So going through each one: Refund for Parking Pass. Assuming you treat the Parking Pass as a sunk cost, i.e. an Expense account, its just a negative entry in the Expense account which turns into a positive one in your Bank account. Yes it may look weird, and if you don't like it you can always 'pay from Equity' the prior month, or your Bank Account if you're backfilling old statements. Selling physical items. If you sold it on eBay and the value is high enough you'll get tax forms indicating you've earned x. Even if its small or not done via eBay, treat it the same way and create a 'Personal Items/Goods' Income account to track all of it. So the money you get in your Bank account would have come from there. Found jacket money would be an Equity entry, either Opening Balances into Cash or Bank account. Remember you are treating Equity / Opening Balances as the state before you started recording every transaction so both the value going into Assets (Banks,Stock,Mutual Funds) and Liabilities (Mortgage, Student Debt, Credit Card Debt) originate from there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bd6eecc9738b213f4a0e3ccc7411900f",
"text": "You have two different operations going on: They each have of a set of rules regarding amounts, timelines, taxes, and penalties. The excess money can't be recharacterized except during a specific window of time. I would see a tax professional to work through all the details.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "259214949481607d982ee738ff17c7a3",
"text": "Yes, those numbers are all that is needed to withdraw funds, or at least set online payment of bills which you don't owe. Donald Knuth also faced this problem, leading him to cease sending checks as payment for finding errors in his writings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2e739a62468debe92fb55e23d02905ae",
"text": "I would recommend pre-paid debit cards. Every quarter a fixed amount of money is loaded onto the card (or a new card is issued). This prevents any large-scale fraud from occurring.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e2762d545460a22c939b7c8db3bd238a",
"text": "\"Uh, have you tried google docs? Start off simple. Other than that, for the moment I use GNUCash. Some day I might try to write my own, but for now it works well enough. I have a number of scheduled transactions in GNUCash, and it records them days in advance. You talk about \"\"I should have how much money\"\", but GNUCash offers a slightly better format: Future Minimum Balance. If you want to know whether you can spend money in an account without triggering a chain reaction, that's the number you want. Being web-based so that it can be accessed from any OS. GNUCash is cross platform, with Windows, OSX and Linux clients. It also supports mysql/postgres database backends, so while it's not \"\"Web based\"\", you can keep your data \"\"in the cloud\"\".\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4ff3d800c7514df78fef62e54143e374
|
Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership?
|
[
{
"docid": "55ecbdac9f18f81e364770a802b869ce",
"text": "No you can't buy direct from Toyota. Largely because of many states' laws (assuming you're in the US) requiring a dealer relationship for car purchasing, read about Tesla's struggles with direct to customer sales. Secondly because Toyota corporate simply isn't set up to sell a car directly to a customer. I know there are services that help people through the buying process. If you're finding Toyota dealerships to be this difficult you may consider just buying something from someone who wants to sell to you. If the buying process is this difficult imagine the service relationship. Edit: Additionally, it's important to remember when financing a car that there are essentially two transactions taking place. First you're negotiating the price of the car. Then you negotiate the price of the money (the interest rate). The money does not need to come from the dealership, you can secure your financing rate from a separate bank or local credit union. You should definitely pursue alternate financing if they're quoting you 7.99% with a FICO of 710. But don't tell the dealership you've already got your financing lined up until you're happy with the price of the car.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8cb7522d6ca3e9bda5671deadac30edc",
"text": "I feel your pain. It probably depends on your state, but two things we've tried with some benefit:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2d233f6bf99fad1cc8751ba1049fd362",
"text": "You could consider buying a fairly recent used car from CarMax. They have fixed pricing, and you'd save a good amount of money on the car (since cars lose tons of value in their first year or so).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "10b547be9d05268240b4754171364205",
"text": "Any car manufacturer that undercuts their own dealer network would have that network fall apart quickly. Tesla is using a dealer-free distribution model from the start, so they don't have that problem. Toyota doesn't work that way, though. GM imposed a uniform no-haggling policy with their Saturn brand, but that policy was coupled with local monopolies for dealers to make it work. Lexus has also experimented with no-haggling and online ordering (with delivery still taking place at a dealership). The rest of Toyota doesn't work that way, though. Some car manufacturers, such as BMW and Audi, allow you to take delivery of your new car at the factory for a discount. But even then, the transaction still takes place through a dealer. Toyota doesn't work that way, though. For one thing, they work at a different scale. If you buy a Camry in the US, it might be produced in Kentucky, Indiana, or Aichi, depending on business conditions. You say that you want to cut out the middleman, but the fact is that you do require someone to deliver a Toyota to you, like it or not. If you're interested in saving money, consider trying various well documented tips, such as negotiating by e-mail before showing up, pitting dealerships against each other. If you don't want to negotiate, you might be able to take advantage of pre-negotiated dealer prices through Costco. You mentioned that the dealership offered you a 7.99% interest rate for your 710 FICO score. That sounds insanely high — I'd expect deals more like 2% advertised by buyatoyota.com. (Remember, Toyota Motor Credit Corporation exists to help Toyota Motor Corporation sell more cars cheaply.) You can also seek alternate financing online (example) or through your own bank.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "742133d583b237c209e3e151a9afde1f",
"text": "\"If there's one reasonably close to you, you could go to a no-haggle dealership. Instead of making you haggle the price downward, they just give a theoretically fixed price that's roughly what the average customer could negotiate down to at a conventional dealer. Then just do your best broken record impression if they still try to sell you dubious addons: \"\"No. No. No. No. No...\"\" The last time I bought a new car (06), a no haggle dealer offered the second best deal I got out of 4 dealerships visited. The one I ended up buying with made an exceptional offer on my trade (comparable to 3rd party sale bluebook value). - My guess is they had a potential customer looking for something like my old car and were hoping to resell it directly instead of flipping it via auction.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "546e467b6c8c0761735740fb3cae79cf",
"text": "sadly, it is illegal in most states to buy a car directly from the manufacturer. as such, most manufacturers do not offer the option even where it is legal. if you really do know exactly what you want (model, color, options, etc.) i recommend you write down your requirements and send it to every dealer in town (via email or fax). include instructions that if they want your business, they are to reply via email (or fax) with a price within 7 days. at least one dealer will reply, and you can deal with whoever has the best price. notes:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3afa01632d0806e42be788925051b20c",
"text": "You can buy a new Toyota from a non-dealer, but not from Toyota directly as they have no retail distribution capability. There is no need to buy directly from Toyota if you want to get a new car without going through a dealer. In many cases people buy new cars but have to sell them immediately for one reason or another.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a4035dd53cf08a9a1e6622434653193",
"text": "As someone who was just recently a salesman at Honda, I'd recommend buying a Honda instead :). If you really prefer your Toyota, I always found quote-aggregation services (Truecar, I'm blanking on others) very competitive in their pricing. Alternatively, you could email several dealerships requesting a final sale price inclusive of taxes and tags with the make, model, and accessories you'd wish to purchase, and buy the vehicle from them if your local dealership won't match that price. Please keep in mind this is only persuasive to your local dealership if said competitors are in the same market area (nobody will care if you have a quote from out-of-state). As many other commenters noted, you should arrange your own financing. A staple of the sales process is switching a customer to in-house financing, but this occurs when the dealership offers you better terms than you are getting on your own. So allow them the chance to earn the financing, but don't feel obligated to take it if it doesn't make sense fiscally.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9e0ebf802f468d7208c1171a500b2fb2",
"text": "As others have addressed the legality in their answers, I want to address the idea of the dealership being 'a middleman'. A dealership serves more of a purpose than just 'middlemanning' a car to a consumer. Actually, they consume a great deal of risk. Let's remember that a dealership is really an extension of the OEM, albeit independently owned and operated, the dealership must still answer to the brand they represent, if people have a bad experience with a dealership, a customer might go to another of the same brand, but more often than not they will go to the competition out of spite. Therefore, it's in the dealership's best interest to represent the brand as best as possible, but unfortunately that doesn't always happen. While the internet has made a certain part of a salesman's role null and void, and since this is a finance (read money) Q/A site let's take a moment to consider the risk assume and therefore the value added by a dealership: Test Drive. A car is a huge purchase, and while it's okay to buy a pair of shoes online without trying them on, a car is a bit different of course, we want to make sure it 'fits' before we shell out several thousand dollars. Yes, you (meaning consumers) can look at car pictures and specs online, but if you want to see how that vehicle handles on your town's roads, if it fits in your garage and/or driveway, then you need to take it for a test drive. It's not feasible for OEMs to have millions of people showing up to car plants for a test drive, right? Scalability aside, some business that is handled in automotive plants are confidential and not for the general public to know about. A dealership provides an opportunity for those who live locally to see and experience the car without flying or driving wherever the car was assembled. They provide this at a risk, banking on the fact that a good experience with the vehicle will lead to a sale. Service. A car is a machine, and no machine is perfect, neither will it last forever without proper service. A dealership provides a place for people to bring their vehicles when they need to be serviced. Let's set aside the fact that the service prices are higher than we'd like, because the fact remains most of it is skilled (and warrantied) labor that the majority of people don't want to do themselves. Trade Ins. It is not in an OEMs best interest to accept a vehicle just to sell you another vehicle, especially if that vehicle is from another brand. Dealership's assume this risk, and often offer incentives to do so, hoping it will lead to a sale. That trade in was an asset to you, but is a liability to them, because they now have to liquidate that trade in, just so that you can purchase a car. Sure, you could sell your car yourself, and now you would assume that risk: What if your car is not in perfect shape, or has a lot of miles for it's age? Would it do well in the used car market? What if it takes too long to sell and you miss that Memorial Day car sale at the dealer? This might be okay for some, but generally speaking most people would rather avoid the risk and trade it in at the dealer toward the purchase of a new car rather than the headache of selling it themselves. I'm sure there are more, but those are the one's that immediately sprung to mind. Just like Starbucks, there are terrible dealerships out there and there are great ones, and very few of us venture to farms and jungles just for fresh coffee beans :-)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e",
"text": "",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "37049d5b4651ff2d2b07af518e8d9f81",
"text": "You already got good answers on why you can't buy a Toyota from the factory, but my answer is regarding to the implied second part of your question: how to avoid haggling. I found a good way to avoid the haggling at a car dealership can be simply to not haggle. Go in with a different attitude. The main reason car dealers list inflated prices and then haggle is that they expect the customers to haggle. It is fundamentally based on distrust on both sides. Treat the sales person as your advisor, your business partner, as somebody you trust as an expert in his field, and you'll be surprised how the experience changes. Of course, make sure that the trust is justified. Sales reps have a fine line to walk. Of course they like to sell a car for more money, but they also do not want a reputation of overcharging customers. They'd rather you recommend them to your friends and post good reviews on Yelp. In the end, all reputable dealers effectively have a fixed-price policy, or close to it, even those who don't advertise it, and even for used cars. Haggling just prolongs the process to get there. And sales reps are people. Often people who hate the haggling part of their job as much as you do. I was in the market for a new (used) car a few months ago. In the end, it was between two cars (one of them a Toyota), both from the brand-name dealer's respective used car lots. In both cases, I went in knowing in advance what the car's fair market value was and what I was willing to pay (as well as details about the car, mileage, condition etc. - thanks to the Internet). Both cars were marked significantly higher. As soon as the sales rep realized that I wasn't even trying to haggle - the price dropped to the fair value. I didn't even have to ask for it. The rep even offered some extras thrown into the deal, things I hadn't even asked for (things like towing my old car to the junk yard).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b4ad89634ccd5f55d903dad9e63ee78e",
"text": "Yes, nothing is impossible! :) You can buy it directly from the factory of manufacturer, but then you will have to pay for sea shipping of this car. E.g. you can buy it directly from Japanese Toyota but then you will have to pay to sea cargo ship to deliver your car in container from Japan. Since this car is already your property, before importing to US, I doubt that you would need to pay any custom fees. In the end, the total payment might be a lot cheaper that you can buy there, but you need to be prepared to all this hassle",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "1998aad62501d90096f94e435b798ef6",
"text": "The advice given at this site is to get approved for a loan from your bank or credit union before visiting the dealer. That way you have one data point in hand. You know that your bank will loan w dollars at x rate for y months with a monthly payment of Z. You know what level you have to negotiate to in order to get a better deal from the dealer. The dealership you have visited has said Excludes tax, tag, registration and dealer fees. Must finance through Southeast Toyota Finance with approved credit. The first part is true. Most ads you will see exclude tax, tag, registration. Those amounts are set by the state or local government, and will be added by all dealers after the final price has been negotiated. They will be exactly the same if you make a deal with the dealer across the street. The phrase Must finance through company x is done because they want to make sure the interest and fees for the deal stay in the family. My fear is that the loan will also not be a great deal. They may have a higher rate, or longer term, or hit you with many fee and penalties if you want to pay it off early. Many dealers want to nudge you into financing with them, but the unwillingness to negotiate on price may mean that there is a short term pressure on the dealership to do more deals through Toyota finance. Of course the risk for them is that potential buyers just take their business a few miles down the road to somebody else. If they won't budge from the cash price, you probably want to pick another dealer. If the spread between the two was smaller, it is possible that the loan from your bank at the cash price might still save more money compared to the dealer loan at their quoted price. We can't tell exactly because we don't know the interest rates of the two offers. A couple of notes regarding other dealers. If you are willing to drive a little farther when buying the vehicle, you can still go to the closer dealer for warranty work. If you don't need a new car, you can sometimes find a deal on a car that is only a year or two old at a dealership that sells other types of cars. They got the used car as a trade-in.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c7577a8c25ed9cc6e1deef21bd12ed1a",
"text": "One point I don't see above: Consumer's Union (the nonprofit which publishes Consumer Reports) has a service where, for a small fee, they'll send you information about how much the car and each option cost the dealer, how much the dealer is getting back in incentive money from the manufacturer, and some advice about which features are worthwhile, which aren't, and which you should purchase somewhere other than the dealer. Armed with that info, you can discuss the price on an equal footing, negotiating the dealer's necessary profit rather than hiding it behind bogus pricing schemes. Last time I bought a new car, I got this data, walked into the dealer with it visible on my clipboard, offered them $500 over their cost, and basically had the purchase nailed down immediately. It helped that I as willing to accept last year's model and a non-preferred color; that helped him clear inventory and encouraged him to accept the offer. ($500 for 10 minutes' work selling to me, or more after an hour of playing games with someone else plus waiting for that person to walk in the door -- a good salesman will recognize that I'm offering them a good deal. These days I might need to adjust that fair-profit number up a bit; this was about 20 years ago on an $8000 car... but I'm sure CU's paperwork suggests a current starting number.) It isn't quite shelf pricing. But at least it means any haggling is based on near-equal knowledge, so it's much closer to being a fair game.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c03c89b9c8a7b1f7dc27747751e1c316",
"text": "\"This is completely disgusting, utterly unethical, deeply objectionable, and yes, it is almost certainly illegal. The Federal Trade Commission has indeed filed suit, halted ads, etc in a number of cases - but these likely only represent a tiny percentage of all cases. This doesn't make what the car dealer's do ok, but don't expect the SWAT team to bust some heads any time soon - which is kind of sad, but let's deal with the details. Let's see what the Federal Trade Commission has to say in their article, Are Car Ads Taking You for a Ride? Deceptive Car Ads Here are some claims that may be deceptive — and why: Vehicles are available at a specific low price or for a specific discount What may be missing: The low price is after a downpayment, often thousands of dollars, plus other fees, like taxes, licensing and document fees, on approved credit. Other pitches: The discount is only for a pricey, fully-loaded model; or the reduced price or discount offered might depend on qualifications like the buyer being a recent college graduate or having an account at a particular bank. “Only $99/Month” What may be missing: The advertised payments are temporary “teaser” payments. Payments for the rest of the loan term are much higher. A variation on this pitch: You will owe a balloon payment — usually thousands of dollars — at the end of the term. So both of these are what the FTC explicitly says are deceptive practices. Has the FTC taken action in cases similar to this? Yes, they have: “If auto dealers make advertising claims in headlines, they can’t take them away in fine print,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “These actions show there is a financial cost for violating FTC orders.” In the case referenced above, the owners of a 20+ dealership chain was hit with about $250,000 in fines. If you think that's a tiny portion of the unethical gains they made from those ads in the time they were running, I'd say you were absolutely correct and that's little more than a \"\"cost of doing business\"\" for unscrupulous companies. But that's the state of the US nation at this time, and so we are left with \"\"caveat emptor\"\" as a guiding principle. What can you do about it? Competitors are technically allowed to file suit for deceptive business practices, so if you know any honest dealers in the area you can tip them off about it (try saying that out loud with a serious face). But even better, you can contact the FTC and file a formal complaint online. I wouldn't expect the world to change for your complaint, but even if it just generates a letter it may be enough to let a company know someone is watching - and if they are a big business, they might actually get into a little bit of trouble.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ee60151939fc8a15f134d44755e021c1",
"text": "$27,000 for a car?! Please, don't do that to yourself! That sounds like a new-car price. If it is, you can kiss $4k-$5k of that price goodbye the moment you drive it off the lot. You'll pay the worst part of the depreciation on that vehicle. You can get a 4-5 year old Corolla (or similar import) for less than half that price, and if you take care of it, you can get easily another 100k miles out of it. Check out Dave Ramsey's video. (It's funny that the car payment he chooses as his example is the same one as yours: $475! ;) ) I don't buy his take on the 12% return on the stock market (which is fantasy in my book) but buying cars outright instead of borrowing or (gasp) leasing, and working your way up the food chain a bit with the bells/whistles/newness of your cars, is the way to go.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "af8b96a7087be6ba42486f0208c688a7",
"text": "I have had it two way now: I got pre-approval from my credit union which just so happened to be one of the bigger vehicle lenders in the metro area. What I found out was that the dealership (which was one of the bigger ones in the metro area) had a computer system that looked up my deal with the credit union. Basically, I signed some contracts and the CU and the dealership did whatever paperwork they needed to without me. I bought a used car and drove it off of the lot that night, and I didn't ever go back (for anything financial) Both my wife and her sister received blank checks that were valid up to a certain amount. In the case of my sister in law, she signed the check, the dealership called to confirm funds and she drove off. In the case of my wife, she ended up negotiating a better deal with dealer finance, but I was assured she only had to sign the check, get it verified and drive the car home.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "277d4423be680399e5c346d4177ce244",
"text": "In the UK at least, dealers definitely want you to take finance. They get benefits from the bank (which are not insubstantial) for doing this; these benefits translate directly to increased commission and internal rewards for the individual salesman. It's conceivable that the salesman will be less inclined to put himself out for you in any way by sweetening your deal as much as you'd like, if he's not going to get incentives out of it. Indeed, since he's taking a hit on his commission from you paying in cash, it's in his best interests to perhaps be firmer with you during price negotiation. So, will the salesman be frustrated with you if you choose to pay in cash? Yes, absolutely, though this may manifest in different ways. In some cases the dealer will offer to pay off the finance for you allowing you to pay directly in cash while the dealer still gets the bank referral reward, so that everyone wins. This is a behind-the-scenes secret in the industry which is not made public for obvious reasons (it's arguably verging on fraud). If the salesman likes you and trusts you then you may be able to get such an arrangement. If this does not seem likely to occur, I would not go out of my way to disclose that I am planning to pay with cash. That being said, you'll usually be asked very early on whether you are seeking to pay cash or credit (the salesman wants to know for the reasons outlined above) and there is little use lying about it when you're shortly going to have to come clean anyway.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "438bad75d87d85c9b5fcb2144e7da298",
"text": "Ideally you would negotiate a car price without ever mentioning: And other factors that affect the price. You and the dealer would then negotiate a true price for the car, followed by the application of rebates, followed by negotiating for the loan if there is to be one. In practice this rarely happens. The sales rep asks point blank what rebates you qualify for (by asking get-to-know-you questions like where you work or if you served in the armed forces - you may not realize that these are do-you-qualify-for-a-rebate questions) before you've even chosen a model. They take that into account right from the beginning, along with whether they'll make a profit lending you money, or have to spend something to subsidize your zero percent loan. However unlike your veteran's status, your loan intentions are changeable. So when you get to the end you can ask if the price could be improved by paying cash. Or you could try putting the negotiated price on a credit card, and when they don't like that, ask for a further discount to stop you from using the credit card and paying cash.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fea3ea7f147f19c235bfbfaee7241797",
"text": "They'll refund your money (though maybe with a small service charge). I'm sure they regularly deal with new car sales gone wrong.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ac5e3eceb0f3f7efed7542521895e212",
"text": "I have gotten a letter of credit from my credit union stating the maximum amount I can finance. Of course I don't show the dealer the letter until after we have finalized the deal. I Then return in 3 business days with a cashiers check for the purchase price. In one case since the letter was for an amount greater then the purchase price I was able drive the car off the lot without having to make a deposit. In another case they insisted on a $100 deposit before I drove the car off the lot. I have also had them insist on me applying for their in-house loan, which was cancelled when I returned with the cashiers check. The procedure was similar regardless If I was getting a loan from the credit union, or paying for the car without the use of a loan. The letter didn't say how much was loan, and how much was my money. Unless you know the exact amount, including all taxes and fees,in advance you can't get a check in advance. If you are using a loan the bank/credit Union will want the car title in their name.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "16696d4e713c86fc723d4c7c989523ee",
"text": "I have in the last few years purchased several used cars from dealers. They have handled it two different ways. They accepted a small check ~$1,000 now, and then gave me three business days to bring the rest as a cashiers check. They also insisted that I submit a application for credit, in case I needed a loan. They accepted a personal check on the spot. Ask them before you drive to the dealer. Of course they would love you to get a loan from them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ec6e5622ee2d1e17cd611a3b30c31072",
"text": "My suggestion would be to keep it. The value of a new car is that you get to drive it around when it's still new and shiny, and that you know its history. If you maintain it in good condition, both mechanically and cosmetically, then you can have both of those benefits for the life of the car. Your question merges the old car sale and new car purchase transactions together, but that's not correct. The value of your 2010 car has no relationship to the value of any new car you might buy, except incidentally through the market forces that act on each. The car dealership is likely to be skilled at making you feel like your most important criteria are satisfied, but they will try to construct the deal to maximize the money you pay them while making you feel like you're the one maximizing your value. Also note that the dealership cannot give you maximum value for your car, because it costs them money to sell it and they take all the risk. Some of the difference between typical direct-sale and trade-in prices is the commission you are paying them to both sell it for you and absorb the risks in the transaction.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b605715d4578ff53e0f1b6bc6e390df0",
"text": "The car deal makes money 3 ways. If you pay in one lump payment. If the payment is greater than what they paid for the car, plus their expenses, they make a profit. They loan you the money. You make payments over months or years, if the total amount you pay is greater than what they paid for the car, plus their expenses, plus their finance expenses they make money. Of course the money takes years to come in, or they sell your loan to another business to get the money faster but in a smaller amount. You trade in a car and they sell it at a profit. Of course that new transaction could be a lump sum or a loan on the used car... They or course make money if you bring the car back for maintenance, or you buy lots of expensive dealer options. Some dealers wave two deals in front of you: get a 0% interest loan. These tend to be shorter 12 months vs 36,48,60 or even 72 months. The shorter length makes it harder for many to afford. If you can't swing the 12 large payments they offer you at x% loan for y years that keeps the payments in your budget. pay cash and get a rebate. If you take the rebate you can't get the 0% loan. If you take the 0% loan you can't get the rebate. The price you negotiate minus the rebate is enough to make a profit. The key is not letting them know which offer you are interested in. Don't even mention a trade in until the price of the new car has been finalized. Otherwise they will adjust the price, rebate, interest rate, length of loan, and trade-in value to maximize their profit. The suggestion of running the numbers through a spreadsheet is a good one. If you get a loan for 2% from your bank/credit union for 3 years and the rebate from the dealer, it will cost less in total than the 0% loan from the dealer. The key is to get the loan approved by the bank/credit union before meeting with the dealer. The money from the bank looks like cash to the dealer.",
"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": "5948efbabe7fdd53df8937b6699b9306",
"text": "Many reasons So in general you are paying more for peace of mind when you buy a new car. You expect everything to be working and if not you can take it back to the dealer to have them fix it for free.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e82d50ce566fea13d4c4b7bd3bb77f65",
"text": "I still think it will be rather difficult. Best bet is to call around to the five or so closest dealers and express you are considering the car contingent on price (NOT PAYMENT). Ask for them to send you their best out-the-door price on a base model. Then when you get quotes from each of them, shop the lowest price around. Usually dealers will budge a few hundred bucks to beat other dealers. But a 2018 STI will be difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate a few grand under MSRP. Understand that the people that buy this car are not doing so because it is a great bargain. So dealers can usually push this car at or near MSRP. Lastly, do not set foot in a dealership until you have a firm out-the-door price. They will play sales tricks until you give up on negotiation and will pay anything just to get out of there. The only time you should go to the location is to sign papers and drive away with the car. Do not worry about being nice and congenial with the salesperson. This advice got me my current vehicle at about 15% below the lowest True Car estimate. I don't claim this is the best advice out there but it works.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
8faa349691d00fb8eea39b2aa66e1a0b
|
Pending euro payment to a usd account
|
[
{
"docid": "7d9579caffe876adaaec0604f08c7549",
"text": "Currency exchange is rather the norm than the exception in international wire transfers, so the fact that the amount needs to be exchanged should have no impact at all. The processing time depends on the number of participating banks and their speeds. Typically, between Europe and the US, one or two business days are the norm. Sending from Other countries might involve more steps (banks) which each takes a bit of time. However, anything beyond 5 business days is not normal. Consider if there are external delays - how did you initiate the sending? Was it in person with an agent of the bank, who might have put it on a stack, and they type it in only a day later (or worse)? Or was it online, so it is in the system right away? On the receiver side, how did you/your friend check? Could there be a delay by waiting for an account statement? Finally, and that is the most common reason, were all the numbers, names, and codes absolutely correct? Even a small mismatch in name spelling might trigger the receiving bank to not allocate the money into the account. Either way, if you contact the sender bank, you will be able to make them follow up on it. They must be able to trace where they money went, and where it currently is. If it is stuck, they will be able to get it ‘unstuck’.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "36094ade5ebd58a72431950f9e483f7d",
"text": "This is not allowed, and there is a name for it: IBAN discrimination. Searching for that term will give you some pointers what to do about it. The EU regulation that prohibits this is 260/2012, article 9, paragraph 2: A payee accepting a credit transfer or using a direct debit to collect funds from a payer holding a payment account located within the Union shall not specify the Member State in which that payment account is to be located, provided that the payment account is reachable in accordance with Article 3. You can report this at the relevant national authorities. In the Netherlands, this is De Nederlandsche Bank, which has a special e-mail address for this: [email protected]",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "43a9b92312ba34413f5070c89cd8da50",
"text": "I live in europe but have been paid in usd for the last few years and the best strategy I've found is to average in and average out. i.e. if you are going in August then buy some Euro every few weeks until you go. At least this way you mitigate the risk involved somewhat.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b213dd622dfb92ca43339dad0d9a256",
"text": "\"Your bank is maintaining different states for transactions, and changing the state depending on real-world events and the passage of time. withdraw €100 from my bank account on 30 September […] my bank does not process the transaction until 2 October. The bank probably have that transaction marked as “pending” on 30 September, and “cleared” on 2 October. transfer €100 from Bank A to Bank B, Bank A's statement dates the transaction on 20 September, but Bank B dates it as coming in on 22 September. Similarly, bank A will have the transaction marked as “pending” initially. Bank B won't have a corresponding transaction at all, until later; they'll have it “pending” too, until they confirm the transfer. Then (probably at different times from each other) the banks will each mark the corresponding transactions “cleared”. The bookkeeping software that I use doesn't seem to allow for this \"\"transfer time\"\" between accounts. When I enter a transfer from one account to another, they both have to have the same date. You may want to learn about different bases of accounting. The simpler option is “cash-based” accounting. The simplification comes from assuming transactions take no time to transfer from one account to another, and are instantly available after that. Your book-keeping software probably books using this simpler basis for your personal finances. The more complex “accrual-based” accounting tracks each individual transaction through multiple states – “pending”, “transfer”, “cleared”, etc. – with state changes at different times – time of trade, time of settlement, etc. – to more accurately reflect the real world agreements between parties, and different availability of the money to each party. So if your book-keeping program uses “cash basis”, you'll need to pick which inaccuracy you want: book the transfer when you did it, or book the transfer when the money is available at the other end.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "14a8a916279398241896fc0082a61796",
"text": "I don't see how Paypal can stop you from transferring USD funds from your paypal account to a USD account held with a bank. Just tell them to do the transfer to your account. The issue could be around USD onshore / offshore regulation. Is the US government preventing EU citizens from taking USD income offshore? If that's the case then you need a correspondent bank. So in other words, like using your friend. But what you can do is ask your bank who is their correspondent bank in the US, and whether they have the license required to transfer USD funds offshore. So you shift the regulation issues to your bank, and then you have to accept your bank's exchange rate - which is going to be better than paypal, who charges too much for FX transactions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "513c294394934b6882b8506b9d15ffa4",
"text": "All Indian Banks are offering USD accounts known as multicurrency account, where you can hold your fund, this account also permits you to book the USD to INR rates in advance if you require. You can keep your money in this account and also can remit the same back to source or other destination country.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9fbd618f21167b6f2ca0204c0cb3d4ed",
"text": "I ended up just trying. I gave A the IBAN of B's account, which I calculated online based on the bank code and account number (because B claimed IBAN won't work, so didn't give it to me), and B's name. A was able to transfer the money apparently without extra difficulties, and it appeared on B's account on the same day. Contrary to some other posts here, IBAN has nothing to do with the Euro zone, nor is it a European system. It started in Europe, but it has been adopted as an ISO standard (link). As usual of course some countries don't see the urgency to follow an international standard :) XE.com has a list of all IBAN countries; quite a few are non-European. Here is even the list formatted specially for the European-or-not discussion: link.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "29cf5583c86e0216a19eb093e877ba35",
"text": "Whenever you pay or withdraw some fund from your account, paypal takes approx 3% of the current currency value along with the fees. i.e. If you are paying/withdraw 100 unit of US Dollars to British pounds and if the current convertion rate is 1$=0.82GBP, then consider reducing 3% of the actual currency rate. So, the approximate magnitude will be 0.82*97% (100-3=97) = 0.7954. So, 1$=0.7954GBP. This formula will not give you 100% accurate value but will help of course. Captain",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aebb3e042d059f38512e55259f13f42e",
"text": "Deutsche Bank states here (couldn't find it in english) that SEPA transfers (all transfers in EUR to EU states that have EUR) are free. So you could just transfer the money. Your custom daily transfer limit (by default 1000€ for online banking transfers) applies. You can change the limit online or by going to one of their branches. You would then transfer your money over the course of several days. You need the SWIFT and BIC code of your new account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c4294b7324da19af5e25ba706f728e5",
"text": "Are you sure this is not a scam. It is expensive to transfer 10 EUR by SWIFT. It will cost 30 EUR in Banks fees. If this is genuine ask them to use remittance service or western union or you open a PayPal account and ask them to transfer money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e1dac56971cd12de901cc898d434ef11",
"text": "Why not open an USD account or subaccount in Czechia and then transfer the money using an UAE bank that supports transfers in USD. If you don't want to open an USD account in Czechia, it'll get converted when received there into the currency of your account but at their conversion rate which probably isn't good. Alternatively, use Transferwise which might or might not be cheaper.",
"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": "28e02a87e6118dfc2685339589467995",
"text": "The best way to do this would be to exchange the funds into USD and wire the funds to your bank account in the US. It is up to you whether you want to hold USD or Euros. Depends if you plan to invest money in the US.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "457d622371d738723f400eaa2f67c280",
"text": "frostbank.com is the closest thing I've found, so accepting this (my own) answer :) EDIT: editing from my comment earlier: frostbank.com has free incoming international wires, so that's a partial solution. I confirmed this works by depositing $1 (no min deposit requirement) and wiring $100 from a non-US bank. Worked great, no fees, and ACH'd it to my main back, no problems/fees. No outgoing international wires, alas.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "017a7de71720f3ddd4ec7b363fcd2bec",
"text": "Transfer it as International wire, there will be some fees. Check with your Bank in Turkey. Turkey has not yet joined SEPA, else this would have been a low cost alternative.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0878af8aa13a09e310192c9020de479d",
"text": "For those who are interested, I am answering my own question: We used Postbank and transferred 6000 Euro, we chose to Transfer in US$, and selected Shared Fees. There were three fees in total: All in all, I paid ~37$; this is about half of what I expected; and I got a perfect exchange rate. Postbank might have its downsides, but it seems they are still a good deal.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4077a94b66af04d414f99862cd53313c
|
Meaning of capital market
|
[
{
"docid": "c9835dfc7ec0b879d7bda361cc073ffa",
"text": "\"Just to clarify, In wikipedia when it says It is defined as a market in which money is provided for periods longer than a year They are referring to the company which is asking for money. So for example the stock market provides money to the issuing company of an IPO, indefinitely. Meaning the company that just went public is provided with money for a period longer than a year. The definition in Investopedia basically says the same thing Wikipedia does it is just phrased slightly different and leaves out the \"\"for periods longer than a year\"\". For example Wikipedia uses the term \"\"business enterprises\"\" and \"\"governments\"\" while Investopedia uses the term private sector and public sector, in this context \"\"business enterprise\"\" is \"\"private sector\"\" and \"\"governments\"\" is \"\"public sector\"\" So in the sense of the length debt is issued yes, money market would be the opposite of a capital market but both markets still offer a place for governments and companies to raise money and both are classified as financial markets.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "86002c2881dc80cdb1d691a332a2557e",
"text": "\"1) Are the definitions for capital market from the two sources the same? Yes. They are from two different perspectives. Investopedia is looking at it primarily from the perspective of a trader and they lead-off with the secondary market. This refers to the secondary market: A market in which individuals and institutions trade financial securities. This refers to the primary market: Organizations/institutions in the public and private sectors also often sell securities on the capital markets in order to raise funds. Also, the Investopedia definition leaves much to be desired, but it is supposed to be pithy. So, you are comparing apples and oranges, to some extent. One is an article, as short as it may be, this other one is an entry in a dictionary. 2) What is the opposite of capital market, according to the definition in investopedia? It's not quite about opposites, this is not physics. However, that is not the issue here. The Investopedia definition simply does not mention any other possibilities. The Wikipedia article defines the term more thoroughly. It talks about primary/secondary markets in separate paragraph. 3) According to the Wikipedia's definition, why does stock market belong to capital market, given that stocks can be held less than one year too? If you follow the link in the Wikipedia article to money market: As money became a commodity, the money market is nowadays a component of the financial markets for assets involved in short-term borrowing, lending, buying and selling with original maturities of one year or less. The key here is original maturities of one year or less. Here's my attempt at explaining this: Financial markets are comprised of money markets and capital markets. Money is traded as if it were a commodity on the money markets. Hence, the short-term nature in its definition. They are more focused on the money itself. Capital markets are focused on the money as a means to an end. Companies seek money in these markets for longer terms in order to improve their business in some way. A business may go to the money markets to access money quickly in order to deal with a short-term cash crunch. Meanwhile, a business may go to the capital markets to seek money in order to expand its business. Note that capital markets came first and money markets are a relatively recent development. Also, we are typically speaking about the secondary (capital) market when we are talking about the stock or bond market. In this market, participants are merely trading among themselves. The company that sought money by issuing that stock/bond certificate is out of the picture at that point and has its money. So, Facebook got its money from participants in the primary market: the underwriters. The underwriters then turned around and sold that stock in an IPO to the secondary market. After the IPO, their stock trades on the secondary market where you or I have access to trade it. That money flows between traders. Facebook got its money at the \"\"beginning\"\" of the process.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "26add6882c3b0f92d535fd869f8d55ee",
"text": "\"Market caps is just the share price, multiplied by the number of shares. It doesn't represent any value (if people decide to pay more or less for the shares, the market cap goes up or down). It does represent what people think the company is worth. NAV sounds very much like book value. It basically says \"\"how much cash would we end up with if we sold everything the company owns, paid back all the debt, and closed down the business? \"\" Since closing down the business is rarely a good idea, this underestimates the value of the business enormously. Take a hairdresser who owns nothing but a pair of scissors, but has a huge number of repeat customers, charges $200 for a haircut, and makes tons of money every year. The business has a huge value, but NAV = price of one pair of used scissors.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "22f70c08e60d9f5b1375bca604d8599f",
"text": "It is ALWAYS possible for a company's valuation in the market to be larger than the market it serves, and in fact it is not uncommon. There's valid argument that Uber would be a good example of this, with a market cap of more than $60 billion. Market cap is the total value of all shares outstanding. Keep in mind that what a company's shares trade for is less a reflection of its past (or, to some degree, even present) revenue activity and more of a speculative bet on what the company will do in the future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "02d1f2933881ff961545fe3768fdee86",
"text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://jacobinmag.com/2017/10/finance-capital-shareholders-profit-market) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The term financialization is used all over the place, but it&#039;s usually defined in a pretty circular way: financialization means &quot;More finance,&quot; more things controlled by finance. > The role of finance in enforcing a certain kind of policy on the state, a certain kind of logic, a certain kind of organization - whether it&#039;s the bond market or whoever else we imagine here - is even more clear-cut. > To me, that&#039;s a narrower, more specific, and maybe more fruitful way of thinking about financialization than just &quot;There&#039;s more finance.\"\" ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/78t6so/the_disruptors_jacobin_magazine_via/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~235206 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*: **logic**^#1 **More**^#2 **finance**^#3 **way**^#4 **corporation**^#5\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "66e0f00ac4ddfe238ea77d6e34291c88",
"text": "Stock markets are supposed to be about investment and providing capital to companies for operations and research. High frequency trading is only about gaming the market and nothing else. Arguments that this provides more capital or liquidity don't make any sense because the speed of trading is such that listed companies cannot take advantage and only high frequency traders are served.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6f0cb1b299c8902d05de659c56af9285",
"text": "\"In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified \"\"banknote\"\" frequently called a \"\"share\"\". Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in \"\"units\"\". Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units. This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "52fa2db38c2736e1635ef757ef6cea8a",
"text": "\"As someone that works in and with the ag and commodity markets, my understanding, is limited but I hope it helps. Aside from needing an infrastructure built to maintain the vast amounts of data, communication, pricing, banking information, having a closing time for our markets helps to ensure value and fair trade. Capitalism is centralized around creating a fair value for ventures to sell, where prospective buyers opt to purchase or invest. For example, where I attended university, there were many coffee shops close to campus, but only one stayed open all night, and as such had operational cost much higher than other shops, forcing them to charge more for a cup of coffee. While this example is crude, the idea is the same. By maintaining\"\"bank\"\" hours, product or strategies and developments meant to increase projected value are allowed to occur. I imagine that if the markets did not close, my coffee prices would skyrocket for an increased demand, that of which the supply chsin, and farmers, would struggle to meet. The same would be said of grain, salt, oils, etcetera.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "26bc7f91b8e382b3c90f5c302e9fee61",
"text": "\"Very often, the word secondary market is used synonymously with the stock market as we all know it. In this case, the primary market would be the \"\"closed\"\" world of VCs, business angels, etc to which stock market investors do not have access, e.g. the securities are not trading on a public stock market.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "796e59cd78f34a9c70642f63ecf4b371",
"text": "\"Buying (or selling) a futures contract means that you are entering into a contractual agreement to buy (or sell) the contracted commodity or financial instrument in the contracted amount (the contract size) at the price you have bought (or sold) the contract on the contract expire date (maturity date). It is important to understand that futures contracts are tradeable instruments, meaning that you are free to sell (or buy back) your contract at any time before the expiry date. For example, if you buy 1 \"\"lot\"\" (1 contract) of a gold future on the Comex exchange for the contract month of December 2016, then you entering into a contract to buy 100 ounces (the contract size) of gold at the price at which you buy the contract - not the spot price on the day of expiry when the contract comes to maturity. The December 2016 gold futures contract has an expiry date of 28 December. You are free to trade this contract at any time before its expiry by selling it back to another market participant. If you sell the contract at a price higher than you have purchased it, then you will realise a profit of 100 times the difference between the price you bought the contract and the price you sold the contract, where 100 is the contract size of the gold contract. Similarly, if you sell the contract at a price lower than the price you have purchased it, then you will realise a loss. (Commissions paid will also effect your net profit or loss). If you hold your contract until the expiry date and exercise your contract by taking (or making) delivery, then you are obliged to buy (or sell) 100 ounces of gold at the price at which you bought (or sold) the contract - not the current spot price. So long as your contract is \"\"open\"\" (i.e., prior to the expiry date and so long as you own the contract) you are required to make a \"\"good faith deposit\"\" to show that you intend to honour your contractual obligations. This deposit is usually called \"\"initial margin\"\". Typically, the initial margin amount will be about 2% of the total contract value for the gold contract. So if you buy (or sell) one contract for 100 ounces of gold at, say, $1275 an ounce, then the total contract value will be $127,500 and your deposit requirement would be about $2,500. The initial margin is returned to you when you sell (or buy) back your futures contract, or when you exercise your contract on expiry. In addition to initial margin, you will be required to maintain a second type of margin called \"\"variation margin\"\". The variation margin is the running profit or loss you are showing on your open contract. For the sake of simplicity, lets look only at the case where you have purchased a futures contract. If the futures price is higher than your contract (buy) price, then you are showing a profit on your current position and this profit (the variation margin) will be used to offset your initial margin requirement. Conversely, if the futures price has dropped below your contracted (buy) price, then you will be showing a loss on your open position and this loss (the variation margin) will be added to your initial margin and you will be called to put up more money in order to show good faith that you intend to honour your obligations. Note that neither the initial margin nor the variation margin are accounting items. In other words, these are not postings that are debited or credited to the ledger in your trading account. So in some sense \"\"you don't have to pay anything upfront\"\", but you do need to put up a refundable deposit to show good faith.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8accfe15c696a664fe3605ddf9390c52",
"text": "Most likely economics then. What I'm looking to gain is an understanding of how the market works so that I may take that knowledge and use it to make investments, buy stocks, or possibly start a business. I have a very large amount of time between my studies for my classes and I think it would be a waste to not learn these tools (to give you a reason for my interest in this).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5871566697910ffc03fc7f607eb651c9",
"text": "\"Market cap is speculative value, M = P * W, where W is stock (or other way of owning) percentage of ownership, P - price of percentage of ownership. This could include \"\"outside of exchange\"\" deals. Some funds could buy ownership percentage directly via partial ownership deal. That ownership is not stock, but fixed-type which has value too. Stock market cap is speculative value, M2 = Q * D, where D is free stocks available freely, Q - price of stock, in other words Quote number (not price of ownership). Many stock types do NOT provide actual percentage of ownership, being just another type of bond with non-fixed coupon and non-fixed price. Though such stocks do not add to company's capitalization after sold to markets, it adds to market capitalization at the moment of selling via initial price.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0390f2d24db9cccefd2200541646e809",
"text": "\"Market cap is the current value of a company's equity and is defined as the current share price multiplied by the number of shares. Please check also \"\"enterprise value\"\" for another definition of a company`s total value (enterprise value = market cap adjusted for net nebt). Regarding the second part of your question: Issuing new shares usually does not affect market cap in a significant way because the newly issued shares often result in lower share prices and dilution of the existing share holders shares.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f8192a8b59e7dc34d8ba75d13043d01f",
"text": "\"So, the term \"\"ready market\"\" simply means that a market exists in which there are legitimate buy/sell offers, meaning there are investors willing to own or trade in the security. A \"\"spot market\"\" means that the security/commodity is being delivered immediately, rather at some predetermined date in the future (hence the term \"\"futures market\"\"). So if you buy oil on the spot market, you'd better be prepared to take immediate delivery, where as when you buy a futures contract, the transaction doesn't happen until some later date. The advantage for futures contract sellers is the ability to lock in the price of what they're selling as a hedge against the possibility of a price drop between now and when they can/will deliver the commodity. In other words, a farmer can pre-sell his grain at a set price for some future delivery date so he can know what he's going to get regardless of the price of grain at the time he delivers it. The downside to the farmer is that if grain prices rise higher than what he sold them for as futures contracts then he loses that additional money. That's the advantage to the buyer, who expects the price to rise so he can resell what he bought from the farmer at a profit. When you trade on margin, you're basically borrowing the money to make a trade, whether you're trading long (buying) or short (selling) on a security. It isn't uncommon for traders to pledge securities they already own as collateral for a margin account, and if they are unable to cover a margin call then those securities can be liquidated or confiscated to satisfy the debt. There still may even be a balance due after such a liquidation if the pledged securities don't cover the margin call. Most of the time you pay a fee (or interest rate) on whatever you borrow on margin, just like taking out a bank loan, so if you're going to trade on margin, you have to include those costs in your calculations as to what you need to earn from your investment to make a profit. When I short trade, I'm selling something I don't own in the expectation I can buy it back later at a lower price and keep the difference. For instance, if I think Apple shares are going to take a steep drop at some point soon, I can short them. So imagine I short-sell 1000 shares of AAPL at the current price of $112. That means my brokerage account is credited with the proceeds of the sale ($112,000), and I now owe my broker 1000 shares of AAPL stock. If the stock drops to $100 and I \"\"cover my short\"\" (buy the shares back to repay the 1000 I borrowed) then I pay $100,000 for them and give them to my broker. I keep the difference ($12,000) between what I sold them for and what I paid to buy them back, minus any brokerage fees and fees the broker may charge me for short-selling. In conclusion, a margin trade is using someone else's money to make a trade, whether it's to buy more or to sell short. A short trade is selling shares I don't even own because I think I can make money in the process. I hope this helps.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b7df2f8533eb68741d6c2c8395f6fd4",
"text": "The economic utility of markets results from price discovery (and the corresponding capital allocation.) Information which changes the material value of a business can come to light, be processed by sentient beings capable of rational thought, and conveyed to the market in the form of a price in an hour. That can't happen in a millisecond. And don't try to argue about liquidity, because HFT liquidity evaporates in milliseconds in adverse conditions (i.e. when liquidity matters.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8586796e8d64cc6ebeb5ef6bc6cc0f27",
"text": "Yes and no, P2P Capital Markets is similar concept but is more geared towards business loans. Community Lend used to offer this service but has stopped.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "55cc730f8d9d75acf4c420503348d4c4",
"text": "HFT allows those with access to leverage sub-second propagation delays in pricing, which screws those without access to HFT systems. And since market-based capital gains are a ponzi scheme, this means that HFT essentially creates a money funnel from those without to those with. I honestly don't see how HFT benefits the market at all - it only benefits those with HFT systems to the detriment of those without. A transaction tax that makes HFT untenable simply removes HFT systems from the equation. The markets stay liquid; stocks stay fungible. The markets ran just fine for almost a century without HFT.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
7c9fd2412551a474223c579549055bb2
|
Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?
|
[
{
"docid": "a2b34353f037de897b420fd6ac257afe",
"text": "\"Should you negotiate? Yes, what harm can it possibly do? The landlord is unlikely to come back and say \"\"Because you tried to negotiate, I'm putting the rent up by 10% instead.\"\", or to evict a paying tenant merely because they tried to negotiate. Is the proposed rent increase \"\"normal\"\"? Yes. Landlords will generally try to get as high a rent as they can.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "161d32c11caf8d199a69bc1f6f0a40e0",
"text": "There could be a number of reasons for a rent increase. The only information I can offer is how I calculate what rent I will charge. The minimum I would ever charge per unit (Mortgage payment + Water) / Number of units This number is the minimum because it's what I need to keep afloat. Keep in mind these are ballpark numbers The target rent ((Mortgage payment + Water) / Number of units)*1.60 I mark up the price 60% for a few reasons. First, the building needs a repair budget. That money has to come from somewhere. Second, I want to put away for my next acquisition and third I want to make a profit. These get me close to my rental price but ultimately it depends on your location and the comparables in the area. If my target rent is 600 a month but the neighbors are getting 700-800 for the same exact unit I might ask more. It also depends on the types of units. Some of my buildings, all of the units are identical. Other buildings half of the units are bigger than the other half so clearly I wouldn't charge a equal amount for them. Ultimately you have to remember we're not in the game to lose money. I know what my renters are going to pay before I even put an offer in on a building because that's how I stay in business. It might go up over the years but it will always outpace my expenses for that property.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c548c8f369622eaa6e0093a5f0b5d4ea",
"text": "\"There has been almost no inflation during 2014-2015. do you mean rental price inflation or overall inflation? Housing price and by extension rental price inflation is usually much higher than the \"\"basket of goods\"\" CPI or RPI numbers. The low levels of these two indicators are mostly caused by technology, oil and food price deflation (at least in the US, UK, and Europe) outweighing other inflation. My slightly biased (I've just moved to a new rental property) and entirely London-centric empirical evidence suggests that 5% is quite a low figure for house price inflation and therefore also rental inflation. Your landlord will also try to get as much for the property as he can so look around for similar properties and work out what a market rate might be (within tolerances of course) and negotiate based on that. For the new asked price I could get a similar apartment in similar condos with gym and pool (this one doesn't have anything) or in a way better area (closer to supermarkets, restaurants, etc). suggests that you have already started on this and that the landlord is trying to artificially inflate rents. If you can afford the extra 5% and these similar but better appointed places are at that price why not move? It sounds like the reason that you are looking to stay on in this apartment is either familiarity or loyalty to the landlord so it may be time to benefit from a move.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "21e37b58efe357aa7b863ccf54074853",
"text": "Yes, automatic rate increases are typical in my experience (and I think it's very greedy, when it's based on nothing except that your lease is up for renewal, which is the situation you are describing). Yes, you should negotiate. I've had success going to the apartment manager and having this conversation: Make these points: Conclude: I am not open to a rate increase, though I will sign a renewal at the same rate I am paying now. This conversation makes me very uncomfortable, but I try not to show it. I was able to negotiate a lease renewal at the same rate this way (in a large complex in Sacramento, CA). If you are talking to a manager and not an owner, they will probably have to delay responding until they can check with the owner. The key really is that they want to keep units rented, especially when units are staying empty. Empty units are lost income for the owner. It is the other empty units that are staying empty that are the huge point in your favor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "722fd08d51966a10d0d4d086565ddc80",
"text": "What happened in the past, the rent you paid last year, is in the past. You shouldn't be concerned with the percentage increase, but with whether you want that apartment at the new rent for the coming year. If your rent had been half what it was last year and the new proposal were to double it, you would be outraged at the doubling, but really you got a steal last year. Going forward, you have three options. You can accept the new rent, you can decline it and move, or you can try to negotiate a better rate. It sounds like the landlord is hoping you will find the hassle of moving enough to accept the new rent. If you do negotiate, you should know what your preferred alternative is, which you should use to set your walkaway point. If you make a counterproposal, it is often useful to show what a comparable apartment is renting for to justify the rent you suggest.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "27ea2555942f63ee9fc3405229350cb3",
"text": "\"If it is true that for the same price, you could get a better place (or that for a lower price you could get an equivalent place), you should do some soul-searching to decide what monetary value you would place on the hassle of moving to such an alternative. You should then negotiate aggressively for a rent that is no more than the rent of the alternative place plus your hassle costs, and if the landlord does not meet your price, you should refuse to renew your lease, and instead move out to an alternative. (Of course, you might also want to double-check your research to ensure you really can get such a good alternative, and that your new landlords won't try a similar bait-and-switch and force you to move again in a year.) Barring local ordinances such as rent control laws, I don't think it's worth it to worry about whether the increase is \"\"normal\"\". If you can get a better deal somewhere else, then what your landlords are asking is too much. If you have a good relationship with them on a personal level you may be able to tell them this in a nice way and thus get them to make a more reasonable offer. Otherwise, the landlords will learn that their expectations are unreasonable when all their tenants move out to cheaper places.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "856face9300fed062ca0ae3aed648da1",
"text": "I think people are missing the most obvious thing. The yearly rate increases are just part of the landlord schtick and it is good business for them. My grandmother owned several large apartment complexes. She would raise rates for any resident that had been there between 1-5 years by 5-7% a year. Even when she had vacancies and property values didn't go up. For the following reasons: So yes it is not only normal but just part of the business. If there are better apartments for less money I suggest you move there. Soon those other apartments will even out and if they are better they will be much more. So if you see a gap take advantage of it. If you would rather stay, then simply say you will not pay the increase. There is no use arguing about why. The landlord will either be OK with it or say no. Probably the biggest factors include whether you will tell other tenants (or their perception if you would) and how good of a tenant/risk they feel you are.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b34c71355beffb1257541b77c01a297",
"text": "Absolutely yes. Just because a lease provides an option for renewal does not mean that a tenant cannot try to re-negotiate for better terms. You should always negotiate the rent. And start this conversation as soon as possible. Offer to pay three months’ rent in advance (of course, if you have enough means).",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "5143aeb0b0a00bf3eeba177754bca3aa",
"text": "\"Without the specifics of the contract, as well as the specifics of the country/state/city you're moving to, it's hard to say what's legal. But this also isn't law.se, so I'll answer this from the point of view of personal finance, and what you can/should do as next steps. Whenever paying an application fee or a deposit, you need to ensure that you have in writing exactly what you're applying for or putting a deposit in for. Whether this is an apartment, a car, or a loan, before any money changes hands, you need to get in writing exactly what you're putting that money to. So for a car, you'd want to have the complete specifications - make, model, year, color, extra packages, and any relevant loan information if applicable. You wouldn't just hand a dealer $2000 for \"\"a Toyota Camry\"\", you'd make sure it was specified which one, in writing, as well as the total you're expecting to pay. Same for an apartment: you should have, in writing (email is fine) the specific unit you are putting a deposit for, and the specific rate you'll be paying, and the length of time the lease is for. This is to avoid a common tactic: bait and switch, which is what it looks like you've run into. A company puts forth a \"\"nice\"\" model, everything looks good, you get far enough in that it seems like you're locked in - and then it turns out you're really getting a less nice model that's not as ideal as whatever you signed up for. Now if you want to get what you originally signed up for you need to pay extra - presumably \"\"something was wrong in the original ad\"\", or something like that. And all you can hear in the background is Darth Vader... \"\"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.\"\" So; what do you do when you've been bait-and-switched? The best thing to do is typically to walk away. Try to get your application fee back; you may or may not be able to, but it's worth a shot, and even if you cannot, walk away anyway. Someone who is going to bait-and-switch on you is probably not going to be a good landlord; my guess is that rent is going to keep going up beyond the level of the market, and you probably can kiss your security deposit goodbye. Second, if walking away isn't practical for whatever reason, you can find out what the local laws are. Some locations (though very few, sadly) require advertised prices to be accurate; particularly the fact that they re-advertised the unit again for the same rate suggests they are falling afoul of that. You can ask around, search the internet, or best yet talk to a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing; some of them will be willing to at least answer a few questions for free (hoping to score your business for an easy, profitable lawsuit). Be aware that it's not exactly a good situation to be in, to be suing your landlord; second only to suing your employer, in my opinion, in terms of bad things to do while hoping to continue the relationship. Find an alternative as soon as you can if you go this route. In the future, pay a lot of attention to detail when making application fees. Often the application fee is needed before you get into too much detail - but pick a location that has reasonable application fees, and no extras. For example, in my area, it's typical to pay a $25 application fee, nonrefundable, to do the credit check and background check, and a refundable $100-$200 deposit to hold the unit while doing that; a place that asks for a non-refundable deposit is somewhere I'd simply not apply at all.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6a811ba05b575681ba2d20adffe6a2fc",
"text": "This is something you are going to have to work out with the leasing company because your goal is to get them to make an exception to their normal rules. I'm a little surprised they wouldn't take 6 months pre-payment, plus documentation of your savings. One option might be to cash in the bonds (since you said they are mature), deposit them in a savings account, and show them your account balance. That documentation of enough to pay for the year, plus an offer to pay 6 months in advance would be pretty compelling. Ask the property manage if that's sufficient. And if the lease is for one year and you're willing to pay the entire year in advance, I can't see how they would possibly object. If your employment prospects are good (show them your resume and explain why you are moving and what jobs you are seeking) a smart property manager would realize you'll be an excellent, low-risk tenant and will make an effort to convince the parent company that you should live there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "07c4b462447a984829ccd4f74b9b84a2",
"text": "\"Everyone buys different kinds of goods. For example I don't smoke tobacco so I'm not affected by increased tobacco prices. I also don't have a car so I'm not affected by the reduced oil prices either. But my landlord increased the monthly fee of the apartment so my cost of living per month suddenly increased more than 10% relative to the same month a year before. This is well known, also by the statistical offices. As you say, the niveau of the rent is not only time- but also location specific, so there are separate rent indices (German: Mietspiegel). But also for the general consumer price indices at least in my country (Germany) statistics are kept for different categories of things as well. So, the German Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt) not only publishes \"\"the\"\" consumer price index for the standard consumer basket, but also consumer price indices for oil, gas, rents, food, public transport, ... Nowadays, they even have a web site where you can put in your personal weighting for these topics and look at \"\"your\"\" inflation: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Service/InteraktiveAnwendungen/InflationsrechnerSVG.svg Maybe something similar is available for your country?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "316aaea6c0c834ddb9550880f0674583",
"text": "In any case, for sure, the wages went up... a lot... and most likely wage increases are most of the 30% increase in costs. As for consumers paying more, maybe they will get better quality, maybe they will be able to afford it now with extra income and maybe they will not raise the prices as they already have huge margins, people have choices and the real estate prices is only based on relative price of neighboring houses, used or new.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "84b029911c2abe552de6f08d3481d437",
"text": "Funny all the landlord forums are all giddy about raising rents to eat up that extra income, but Im sure you know better being all what is it you do again arm chair economist? https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/08/23/the-minimum-wage-in-cities/#11e65f016153 http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-minimum-wage-housing-20150327-story.html http://www.phillyvoice.com/does-raising-minimum-wage-raise-rents/ https://www.ezlandlordforms.com/articles/news/556/how-does-raising-the-minimum-wage-affect-rents/",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b3e94cc42dcf1f9e62f72f804069018e",
"text": "Seems like a bad deal to me. But before I get to that, a couple of points on your expenses: Onward. You value a property by calculating its CAP rate. This is what you're calculating, except it does NOT include interest like you did -- that's a loan to you, and has no bearing on whether the unit itself is a good investment. It also includes estimations of variable expenses like maintenance and lack of income from vacancies. People argue vociferously on exactly how much to calculate for those. Maintenance will vary by age of the building and how damaging your tenets are. Vacancies vary based on how desirable the location is, how well you've done the maintenance, and how low the rent is. Doing the math based on your numbers, with just the fixed expenses: 8400 rent - 2400 management fee - 100 insurance = 5900/year income. 5900/150000 = 0.0393 = 3.9% CAP rate. And that's not even counting the variable expenses yet! So, what's a good CAP rate? Generally, 10% CAP rate is a good deal, and higher is a great deal. Below that you have to start to get cautious. Some places are worth a lower rate, for instance when the property is new and in a good location. You can do 8% on these. Below 6% CAP rate is usually a really bad investment. So, unless you're confident you can at least double the rent right off the bat, this is a terrible deal. Another way to think about it You're looking to buy with your finances in just about the best position possible -- a huge down payment and really low interest. Plus you haven't accounted for maintenance, taxes (if any), and vacancies. And still you'd make only a measly 1.2% profit? Would you buy a bond that only pays out 1.2%? No? What about a bond that only pays 1.2%, but also from time to time can force YOU to pay into IT a much larger amount every month?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b91d9fa21e5371a5211d87591ab49f95",
"text": "\"Average rent rates will typically rise and fall, and are market-dependent just like real estate. In the short term, a collapse in housing like the one we saw in 2008 can induce a spike in rental costs as people walk away or get foreclosed on, and move back into apartments. That then tends to self-adjust, as the people who had been in the apartments find a deal on a foreclosed house and move out. However, one thing I've seen to be near-constant in the apartment business is that a landlord will offer you a deal to get in, then increase the rent on you from year to year until you get fed up and move. This is a big reason I didn't have the same address for two years in a row until I bought my house. The landlord is basically betting that you won't want to deal with the hassle of moving, and so will pay the higher rent rate, even if, when you do the math, it makes more sense to move even to maintain the same rent rate. Eventually though, you do get fed up, look around, find the next good deal, and move, \"\"resetting\"\" your rent rate. I have never, not once in my life, seen or heard of any landlord offering a drop in rent as a \"\"loyalty\"\" move to keep you from going somewhere else. It's considered part of the game; retailers will price match, but most service providers (landlords, but also utility providers) expect a large amount of \"\"churn\"\" in their customer base as people shop around. It averages out.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f7aef2095e5f82842bc4a94843166f5c",
"text": "IMO this means one of two things: the bank thinks that 3 months from now, the interest rates it plans to offer will be lower than 1%; after 180 days, it will go up again. the bank needs more short-term cash than mid-term cash right now, so it offers you a better deal. In either case, it is unlikely that your 90 day intrest rate will be available 90 days from now, and most likely it will be below 1% unless the bank yet again needs short-term cash from its customers. With those proposed rates, I would go for half in 90 days and half in 270 days. Disclaimer: am no economist, just spent a lot of time the past year fretting over the same kind of questions. Feel free to tell me where I'm wrong if you think I am.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5462c5440487993203311af78d85f3d5",
"text": "\"We change it every so often to reduce fraud. If you're absolutely sure you didn't just send money to a scammer impersonating a landlord, this has nothing to do with fraud-- they're playing a game with you. By changing the account number frequently, it makes it more likely you make a mistake in entering the payment account. When they come back to you a few days past due saying \"\"we never received your rent,\"\" you'll eventually realize it got sent to the wrong account. Now you owe them late fees, and there's really nothing you can do about it-- you did not in fact pay them on time; you sent it to the wrong account! It's an easy way for them to collect an additional few thousand dollars a year. Anytime a small business or landlord says they have to do something \"\"weird\"\" to reduce fraud, chances are it's a pretense to you getting hosed in some way.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "309c10f2a6884e26bd4a929c0c333744",
"text": "\"Things I would specifically draw your attention to: the contract typically allows for an \"\"option\"\" to purchase; it does not typically compel purchase, although this is seen the purchase price is negotiated before anything gets signed the option to buy is typically available to the renter for the period of the lease contract (ie., if it's a 12 month contract the renter can opt to buy at any time in that 12 months) the amount of rent paid over time that will be applied to the purchase price is negotiated up-front before anything gets signed rent is paid at a slight premium (as Joe notes, if the rent should be $1000 per month, expect to pay $1200 per month) if the renter walks away they walk away empty handed; they do not get back the premium Having said all that - it's a contract negotiated between renter and seller and all of this is negotiable. See also, ehow for a good overview.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cb6f6bc4fa9e00b4ee5c1c7be3883648",
"text": "\"Thanks to the joint lease, I guess you're still contractually on the hook for the remainder of the rent. Did the apartment owners actually contact you before sending the debt collectors after you? As you do technically owe the money, they can sue you if you don't pay, so it's not \"\"just\"\" on your credit report. That said, if they haven't contacted you before sending the goons in, I'd try to negotiate the collection fee - 40% sounds a tad excessive to me.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4052d02b9a2b396dffce36705c050f28",
"text": "\"Basically, you have purchased 25% of the condo for $40,000, and your parents bought 75% of the condo for another $115,000. We imagine for a moment that it wasn't you who lived in the condo, but some unrelated person paying rent. You are paying $7,500 a year for tax and fees, plus $6,000 a year, so there is $13,500 leaving your wallet. If $15,500 a year was a reasonable rent, then the tax and fee would be paid out of that, there would be $8,000 left, of which you would get 25% = $2,000. If you were officially \"\"renting\"\" it, you would pay $15,500 a year, and get $2,000 back, again $13,500 leaving your wallet. So you are in exact the same situation financially as you would be if you paid $15,500 rent. Question: Is $15,500 a year or $1,290 a month an appropriate rent for your condo? If a neighbour is renting his condo, is he or she paying $1,290 or more or less? Could you rent the same place for the same money? If $1,290 is the correct rent then you are fine. If the rent should be lower, then you are overpaying. If the rent should be higher, then you are making money. Keep in mind that you will also be winning if rents go up in the future.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "20ae132d01516ae7c708aed732a616e1",
"text": "Surely the yield should be Yield = (Rent - Costs) / Downpayment ? As you want the yield relative to your capital not to the property value. As for the opportunity cost part you could look at the risk free rate of return you could obtain, either through government bonds or bank accounts with some sort of government guarantee (not sure what practical terms are for this in Finland). The management fee is almost 30% of your rent, what does this cover? Is it possible to manage the property yourself, as this would give you a much larger cushion between rent and expenses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c5d854e67e9fba192599f0a95bde7d7e",
"text": "It's so that your total mortgage payment stays the same every month. Obviously, the interest due each month decreases over time, as part of the principal is paid off each month, and so if the proportion of interest and principal repayments were to stay the same then your first payment would be very large and your last payment would be almost nothing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5ce9dc303f7b78f4535fe5dc72d28a7d",
"text": "It is a fool's errand to attribute abnormal option volume or volatility to any meaningful move in the stock. One side of the chain is frequently more expensive than the other. The relationship between historical volatility and implied volatility is dubious at best, and also a big area of study.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
845fa32bbce22effec7c36ff5a0e15ce
|
California resident, Delaware C-Corp - Taxes for 1-person software freelancer?
|
[
{
"docid": "d383f879b0dd06a28fdc794ad67eb32d",
"text": "Supposedly this also means that I am free from having to pay California corporate taxes? Not in the slightest. Since you (the corporate employee) reside in CA - the corporation is doing business in CA and is liable for CA taxes. Or, does this mean I am required to pay both CA taxes and Delaware fees? (In this case, minimal, just a paid agent from incorporate.com) I believe DE actually does have corporate taxes, check it out. But the bottom line is yes, you're liable for both CA and DE costs of doing corporate business (income taxes, registered agents, CA corp fee, etc). Is there any benefit at all for me to be a Delaware C-Corp or should I dissolve and start over. Or just re-incorporate as California LLC Unless you intend to go public anytime soon or raise money from VCs/investors - there's no benefit whatsoever in incorporating in DE. You should seek a legal advice with an attorney, of course, since benefits are legal issues (usually related to choosing jurisdiction for litigation etc). If you're a one-person freelancer, doing C-Corp was not the best decision as well. Tax-wise you'd be much better off with a S-Corp, or a LLC - both pass-through and have no (Federal) entity-level taxes. Corporate rates are generally higher than individual rates, and less deductions can be taken. In California, check with a CPA/EA licensed in the State, since both S-Corp and LLC would be taxed, and taxed differently.",
"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": "272c1189f6b81cda441a31fe99abf709",
"text": "You can use the ITR 1 and declare the income from freelancing as income from other sources. As part of freelancing, certain expenses can be deducted provided they are directly related to work and have proper records. Please consult a CA who can advice you on how to do this. The Actual income shown should be less of the expenses.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ef4e47b64b903efa22be3cfe708549a",
"text": "There are no clear guidelines. If you are selling as individual, then what ever profit you make gets added to your overall income as you pay tax accordingly. This is true for sole proprietor or partnership kind of firms. If you are registered as a Company, the profits are taxed as business income. There may be VAT and other taxes. Please consult a CA who can guide you in specifics as for eCommerce, there is no defined law and one has to interpret various other tax laws.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d5a7e6714172567de547d1bb7a74903d",
"text": "\"What is the right way to handle this? Did you check the forms? Did the form state $0 tax due on the FTB LLC/Corp form (I'm guessing you operate as LLC/Corp, since you're dealing with the Franchise Tax)? The responsibility is ultimately yours. You should cross check all the numbers and verify that they're correct. That said, if the CPA filled the forms incorrectly based on your correct data - then she made a mistake and can be held liable. CPA filing forms from a jurisdiction on the other end of the country without proper research and knowledge may be held negligent if she made a grave mistake. You can file a law suit against the CPA (which will probably trigger her E&O insurance carrier who'll try to settle if there's a good chance for your lawsuit to not be thrown away outright), or complain to the State regulatory agency overseeing CPAs in the State of her license. Or both. Am I wrong for expecting the CPA should have properly filled out and filed my taxes? No, but it doesn't shift the responsibility from you. How can I find out if the CPA has missed anything else? Same as with doctors and lawyers - get a second opinion. Preferably from a CPA licensed in California. You and only you are responsible for your taxes. You may try to pin the penalties and interest on the CPA if she really made a mistake. California is notorious for very high LLC/Corp franchise tax (cost of registering to do business in the State). It's $800 a year. You should have read the forms and the instructions carefully, it is very prominent. It is also very well discussed all over the Internet, any search engine would pop it up for you with a simple \"\"California Franchise Tax for LLC/Corp\"\" search. CA FTB is also very aggressive in assessing and collecting the fee, and the rules of establishing nexus in CA are very broad. From your description it sounds like you were liable for the Franchise tax in CA, since you had a storage facility in CA. You may also be liable for sales taxes for that period.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "300c2b236171618b127627cb296130ad",
"text": "Through your question and then clarification through the comments, it looks like you have a U.S. LLC with at least two members. If you did not elect some other tax treatment, your LLC will be treated as a partnership by the IRS. The partnership should file a tax return on Form 1065. Then each partner will get a Schedule K-1 from the partnership, which the partner should use to include their respective shares of the partnership income and expenses on their personal Forms 1040. You can also elect to be taxed as an S-Corp or a C-Corp instead of a partnership, but that requires you to file a form explicitly making such election. If you go S-Corp, then you will file a different form for the company, but the procedure is roughly the same - Income gets passed through to the owners via a Schedule K-1. If you go C-Corp, then the owners will pay no tax on their own Form 1040, but the C-Corp itself will pay income tax. As far as whether you should try to spend the money as business expense to avoid paying extra tax - That's highly dependent on your specific situation. I'd think you'd want to get tailored advice for that.",
"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": "8fe6f7a9cad2f4520ed898b0c39b47ba",
"text": "\"I assume your employer does standard withholding? Then what you need to do is figure what bracket that puts you in after you've done all your normal deductions. Let's say it's 25%. Then multiply your freelance income after business expenses, and that's your estimated tax, approximately. (Unless the income causes you to jump a bracket.) To that you have to add approximately 12-13% Social Security/Medicare for income between the $90K and $118,500. Filling out Form 1040SSE will give you a better estimate. But there is a \"\"safe harbor\"\" provision, in that if what you pay in estimated tax (and withholding) this year is at least as much as you owed last year, there's no penalty. I've always done mine this way, dividing last year's tax by 4, since my income is quite variable, and I've never been able to make sense of the worksheets on the 1040-ES.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "d66d0b01848a465509e0c72e6739c3a7",
"text": "I don't think anyone can give you a definitive answer without knowing all about your situation, but some things to consider: If you are on a 1099, you have to pay self-employment tax, while on a W-2 you do not. That is, social security tax is 12.4% of your income. If you're a 1099, you pay the full 12.4%. If you're W-2, you pay 6.2% and the employer pays 6.2%. So if they offer you the same nominal rate of pay, you're 6.2% better off with the W-2. What sort of insurance could you get privately and what would it cost you? I have no idea what the going rates for insurance are in California. If you're all in generally good health, you might want to consider a high-deductible policy. Then if no one gets seriously sick you've saved a bunch of money on premiums. If someone does get sick you might still pay less paying the deductible than you would have paid on higher premiums. I won't go into further details as that's getting off into another question. Even if the benefits are poor, if there are any benefits at all it can be better than nothing. The only advantage I see to going with a 1099 is that if you are legally an independent contractor, then all your business expenses are deductible, while if you are an employee, there are sharp limits on deducting employee business expenses. Maybe others can think of other advantages. If there is some reason to go the 1099 route, I understand that setting up an LLC is not that hard. I've never done it, but I briefly looked into it once and it appeared to basically be a matter of filling out a form and paying a modest fee.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "014eed84264edbbd345b926d91b2fd96",
"text": "Delaware LLC requires that each business entity have and hold an enterprise Registered in the State of Delaware who can be both a character resident or enterprise entity this is legal to do business in the Wilmington, Delaware. the Delaware LLC has offered the same asset protections and tax advantages that a corporation offers. Often the LLC is the simpler, more flexible choice for small businesses. This small amount of required information not only makes it easy to start an LLC in Delaware, but it also helps to keep your identity and personal information secure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ff2c8d04f80b637da2b51de86a1c16e",
"text": "First, determine the workload he will expect. Will you have to quit your other work, either for time or for competition? How much of your current business will be subsumed into his business, if any? Make sure to understand what he wants from you. If you make an agreement, set it in writing and set some clear expectations about what will happen to your business (e.g. it continues and is not part of your association with the client). Because he was a client for your current business, it can blur the lines. Second, if you join him, make sure there is a business entity. By working together for profit, you will have already formed a partnership for tax purposes. Best to get an entity, both for the legal protection and also for the clarity of law and accounting. LLCs are simplest for small ventures; C corps are useful if you have lots of early losses and owners that can't use them personally, or if you want to be properly formed for easy consumption by a strategic. Most VCs and super-angels prefer everybody be a straight C. Again, remember to define, as necessary, what you are contributing to be an owner and what you are retaining (your original business, which for simplicity may already be in an entity). As part of this process, make sure he defines the cap table and any outstanding loans. Auntie June and Cousin Steve might think their gifts to him were loans or equity purchases; best to clear this issue up early before there's any more money in it. Third, with regard to price, that is an intensely variable question. It matters what the cap table looks like, how early you are, how much work he's already done, how much work remains to be done, and how much it will pay off. Also, if you do it, expect to be diluted by other employees, angels, VCs, other investors, strategics, and so on. Luckily, more investors usually indicates a growing pie, so the dilution may not be at all painful. But it should still be on your horizon. You also need to consider your faith in your prospective partner's ability to run the business and to be a trustworthy partner (so you don't get Zuckerberg'd), and to market the business and the product to customers and investors. If you don't like the prospects, then opt for cash. If you like the business but want to hedge, ask for compensation plus equity. There are other tricks you could use to get out early, like forced redemption, but they probably wouldn't help either because it'd sour your relationship or the first VC or knowledgeable angel to come along will want you to relinquish that sort of right. It probably comes down to a basic question of your need for cash, his willingness to let you pursue outside work (hopefully high) and your appraisal of the business' prospects.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c8cb781b721834ee11d37597b7ec7030",
"text": "There is no tax code I know that would grant you such a privilege. And it just isn't practicable. In your examples, you always sold your product and were thus able, in retrospect, to give a value to your work. What if you don't sell your product? What if in one case your worked hour is reimbursed with one price, with the next product at another (i.e. difference in margin)? No, it won't work like that. And by the way, I think you might have got some definitions upside down. What you want is a salary that your own company pays out to yourself and you can deduct from other profits. But as long as you can't afford to pay yourself a salary, and you don't have access to investors who are willing to front you the money, the time invested is your personal investment and cannot be deducted anywhere - though it might pay off nicely in the long run. That's the risk entrepreneurs take.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "931a993bbca15ff8d3295790b1a2a68a",
"text": "Looking at the numbers quickly, if he makes this amount for the entire year, single, no kids, no investment income, standard deduction only, his taxable income will be about $110,000.* That puts him in the 28% tax bracket. His federal tax would be: $18,481.25 plus 28% of the amount over $90,750 Which comes out to about $23,800 in tax liability. His federal withholding is $26,047 for the year, so with absolutely no deductions whatsoever, he will be getting a tax refund of about $2200. I'm not very familiar with the California tax return, but it is entirely possible that he would get a decent sized refund from the state as well. This means that his tax refund could be about the size of an extra paycheck. He may want to consider increasing his allowances, which would make his paychecks bigger and his tax refund smaller. That having been said, taxes are high, no doubt about it. Remember that when you are in the voting booth. :) * Here is how I got the taxable income number for the year:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "67b68ecf5c993aeea42bb178987d334d",
"text": "Yes, you are the proprietor of the business and your SSN is listed on Schedule C. The information on Schedule C is for your unincorporated business as a contractor; it is a sole proprietorship. You might choose to do this business under your own name e.g. Tim Taylor (getting paid with checks made out to Tim Taylor) or a modified name such as Tim the Tool Man Taylor (this is often referred to as DBA - Doing Business as), under a business name such as Tool Time etc. with business address being your home address or separate premises, and checking accounts to match etc. and all that is what the IRS wants to know about on Schedule C. Information about the company that paid you is not listed on Schedule C.",
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
71bcef2e882b95a5b4d93cea0bb535bf
|
Do I need to prove 'Garage Sale' items incurred a loss
|
[
{
"docid": "a17707555387cb5ceb0dd41a193f5ae5",
"text": "\"This is what this sounds like to me: https://www.thebalance.com/having-a-garage-sale-or-yard-sale-what-to-do-first-399030 also: http://blogs.hrblock.com/2012/07/25/garage-sale-money-does-the-irs-need-to-know/ Selling a personal item at a loss is generally not a taxable event. You cannot report it as a loss, and the IRS can't tax a transaction like that. If you really want to include these as sales as part of your LLC, you'll probably have to pay tax if you list it as income. I'm just confused as to why you'd want to do that, if you know that you're selling these particular items at a loss, and you also know that you have no documentation for them. I just wouldn't report anything you sold at a loss and treat it as \"\"garage sale items\"\" separate from your business.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b45d5ec4b229bc9bf365f2b849ee8988",
"text": "\"-Alain Wertheimer I'm a hobbyist... Most (probably all) of those older items were sold both prior to my establishing the LLC This is a hobby of yours, this is not your business. You purchased all of these goods for your pleasure, not for their future profit. The later items that you bought after your LLC was establish served both purposes (perks of doing what you love). How should I go about reporting this income for the items I don't have records for how much I purchased them for? There's nothing you can do. As noted above, these items (if you were to testify in court against the IRS). \"\"Losses from the sale of personal-use property, such as your home or car, aren't tax deductible.\"\" Source Do I need to indicate 100% of the income because I can't prove that I sold it at a loss? Yes, if you do not have previous records you must claim a 100% capital gain. Source Addition: As JoeTaxpayer has mentioned in the comments, the second source I posted is for stocks and bonds. So at year begin of 2016, I started selling what I didn't need on eBay and on various forums [January - September]. Because you are not in the business of doing this, you do not need to explain the cost; but you do need to report the income as Gross Income on your 1040. Yes, if you bought a TV three years ago for a $100 and sold it for $50, the IRS would recognize you earning $50. As these are all personal items, they can not be deducted; regardless of gain or loss. Source Later in the year 2016 (October), I started an LLC (October - December) If these are items that you did not record early in the process of your LLC, then it is reported as a 100% gain as you can not prove any business expenses or costs to acquire associated with it. Source Refer to above answer. Refer to above answer. Conclusion Again, this is a income tax question that is split between business and personal use items. This is not a question of other's assessment of the value of the asset. It is solely based on the instruments of the IRS and their assessment of gains and losses from businesses. As OP does not have the necessary documents to prove otherwise, a cost basis of $0 must be assumed; thus you have a 100% gain on sale.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "345c2baf918ace1490b4ed2bc707d123",
"text": "Even if you can afford the loss of the boat because you have other housing options available, can you also afford to lose all your possessions if the boat sinks or is stolen? All of your clothing, electronics, etc can add up to thousands of dollars easily. A significant fraction of that amount are things you'd need to replace quickly, even if you're confident of having somewhere else to live for as long as it takes you get a new boat/apartment/etc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa831d64b6ce98632cf7a569efbab6f6",
"text": "Unfortunately this is something that should have been determined prior to the book tour. Your tax advisor or accountant could have assisted you in making sure you collected the documentation you needed. You are going to have to sit down with your advisor with the documentation you have and determine what you can prove.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0831ba49c07783c11cda19799c2448d6",
"text": "If I sell it for $50 can I write off the $50 loss. Only if you can establish that it is a normal part of your business and that you did not get $50 worth of use out of it. That's the technical, legal argument. As a practical matter, it's unlikely that they'll ding you for selling something after using it, as they won't know. If they did catch you, you would be in trouble. You can't deduct loss due to personal use. The larger problem is that if you sell one TV for a $50 loss, they aren't going to believe that you are in the business of selling TVs. If you sell a larger amount for a loss, then they still are unlikely to believe that you are in business. If you sell a large amount for an overall gain, they are unlikely to notice that you took a loss on one TV. They could only notice that if they were already auditing you, as that wouldn't be visible in your tax forms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3cef4b15724a32fdbb940c05a10463e0",
"text": "I don't think there's much you can do. Losses from the sale of personal-use automobiles (used for pleasure, commuting, etc) are not deductible as capital losses. See IRS Tax Topic 409, end of the first paragraph. The expenses you incurred in owning and operating the car (insurance, fuel, maintenance, service plans, etc) are not deductible either. If you used it partly for business, then some of your expenses might be deductible; see IRS Tax Topic 510. This includes depreciation (decline in value), but only according to a standard schedule; you don't generally just get to deduct the difference between your buying and selling price. Also, you'd need to have records to verify your business use. But anyway, these deductions would apply (or not) regardless of whether you sell the car. You don't get your sales tax refunded when you resell the vehicle. That's why it's a sales tax, not a value-added tax. Note, however, that if you do sell it, the sales tax on this new transaction will be the buyer's responsibility, not yours. You do have the option on your federal income tax return to deduct the state sales tax you paid when you bought the car; in fact, you can deduct all the sales taxes you paid in that year. (If you have already filed your taxes for that year, you can go back and amend them.) However, this takes the place of your state income tax deduction for the year; you can't deduct both. See Tax Topic 503. So this is only useful if your sales taxes for that year exceeded the state income tax you paid in that year. Also, note that state taxes are not deductible on your state income tax return. Again, this deduction applies whether you sell the car or not.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "afde488a531ae9dc216700acfc01f10a",
"text": "I was not able to find any authority for the opinion you suggest. Wash sale rules should, IMHO, apply. According to the regulations, you attribute the newly purchased shares to the oldest sold shares for the purposes of the calculation of the disallowed loss and cost basis. (c) Where the amount of stock or securities acquired within the 61-day period is less than the amount of stock or securities sold or otherwise disposed of, then the particular shares of stock or securities the loss from the sale or other disposition of which is not deductible shall be those with which the stock or securities acquired are matched in accordance with the following rule: The stock or securities acquired will be matched in accordance with the order of their acquisition (beginning with the earliest acquisition) with an equal number of the shares of stock or securities sold or otherwise disposed of. You can resort to the claim that you have not, in fact, entered into the contract within 30 days, but when you gave the instructions to reinvest dividends. I don't know if such a claim will hold, but to me it sounds reasonable. This is similar to the rules re short sales (in (g) there). In this case, wash sale rules will not apply (unless you instructed to reinvest dividends within the 30 days prior to the sale). But I'd ask a tax professional if such a claim would hold, talk to a EA/CPA licensed in your state.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "915ee91396f3b08a0d4af728c8f3d5da",
"text": "\"According to the IRS, you must have written confirmation from your broker \"\"or other agent\"\" whenever you sell shares using a method other than FIFO: Specific share identification. If you adequately identify the shares you sold, you can use the adjusted basis of those particular shares to figure your gain or loss. You will adequately identify your mutual fund shares, even if you bought the shares in different lots at various prices and times, if you: Specify to your broker or other agent the particular shares to be sold or transferred at the time of the sale or transfer, and Receive confirmation in writing from your broker or other agent within a reasonable time of your specification of the particular shares sold or transferred. If you don't have a stockbroker, I'm not sure how you even got the shares. If you have an actual stock certificate, then you are selling very specific shares and the purchase date corresponds to the purchase date of those shares represented on the certificate.\"",
"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": "2d258d9865dc769c64e985ecef06366c",
"text": "1: Gambling losses not in excess of gambling winnings can be deducted on Schedule A, line 28. See Pub 17 (p 201). Line 28 catches lots of deductions, and gambling losses are one of them. See Schedule A instructions. 2: If the Mississippi state tax withheld was an income tax (which I assume it was), then it goes on Schedule A, line 5a. In the unlikely event it was not a state or local tax on income, but some sort of excise on gambling, then it may be deductible on line 8 as another deductible tax. It probably is not a personal property tax, which is generally levied against the value of things like cars and other movable property but not on receipts of cash; line 7 probably is not appropriate. The most likely result, without researching Mississippi SALT, is that it was an income tax. See Sched A Instructions for more on the differences between the types of taxes paid. Just to be clear, these statements hold if you are not engaging in poker as a profession. If you are engaging in poker as a business, which can be difficult to establish in the IRS' eyes, then you would use Schedule C and also report business and travel expenses. But the IRS is aware that people want to reduce their gambling income by the cost of hotels and flights to casinos, so it's a relatively high hurdle to be considered a professional poker player.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ae96ebf7c42b5aa8611e7c1b9890c299",
"text": "First - get a professional tax consultation with a NY-licensed CPA or EA. At what point do I need to worry about collecting sales taxes for the city and state of New York? Generally, from the beginning. See here for more information on NYS sales tax. At what point do I need to worry about record-keeping to report the income on my own taxes? From the beginning. Even before that, since you need the records to calculate the costs of production and expenses. I suggest starting recording everything, as soon as possible. What sort of business structures should I research if I want to formalize this as less of a hobby and more of a business? You don't have to have a business structure, you can do it as a sole proprietor. If you're doing it for-profit - I suggest treating it as a business, and reporting it on your taxes as a business (Schedule C), so that you could deduct the initial losses. But the tax authorities don't like business that keep losing money, so if you're not expecting any profit in the next 3-4 years - keep it reported as a hobby (Misc income). Talk to a licensed tax professional about the differences in tax treatment and reporting. You will still be taxed on your income, and will still be liable for sales tax, whether you treat it as a hobby or as a business. Official business (for-profit activity) will require additional licenses and fees, hobby (not-for-profit activity) might not. Check with the local authorities (city/county/State).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "df72925f51029c060510200978db244d",
"text": "Yes. This income would be reported on schedule SE. Normally, you will not owe any tax if the amount is less than $400. Practically, $100 in a garage sale is not why the IRS created the form SE. I wouldn't lose sleep over keeping track of small cash sales over the course of a year. However, if you have the information I'm not going to tell you not to report it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "69244fe41231d70ad9024bb0c7344d57",
"text": "It sounds like the items shipped directly from the vendor need to be recorded into your system when the order is confirmed, that way cost of goods sold and revenue don't get lost. You'll have a record of re-orders and cancels and other such things too.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "998c6bb64e219b1c2a9fa3c93102ef7f",
"text": "If you were a business, all your assets would have a dollar value, so when you sold them you'd decrease the amount of assets by that amount and increase in cash, and if there was a profit on the sale it would go in as income, if there was loss it would count as a cost (or a loss)... so if there was a profit it would increase Equity, a loss then it would decrease Equity. Since it's not really worthwhile doing a estimated cost for everything that you have, I'd just report it as income like you are doing and let the amount of equity increase proportionately. So, implicitly you always had roughly that amount of equity, but some of it was in the form of assets, and now you're liquidating those assets so the amount shows up in GnuCash. When you buy new things you might sell later, you could consider adding them as assets to keep track of this explicitly (but even then you have problems-- the price of things changes with time and you might not want to keep up with those price changes, it's a lot of extra work for a family budget) -- for stuff you already have it's better to treat things as you are doing and just treat the money as income-- it's easier and doesn't really change anything-- you always had that in equity, some of it was just off the books and now you are bringing it into the books.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c9ce99cbf2297731cc659b420f44965c",
"text": "Could be. I haven't read the law or how its written nor am I a lawyer. Just saying there's usually a way around these things. They could also make the business decision that the risk of lost sales is worth the potential lawsuit loss. We're all just pontificating here ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8e68970aacbf14e3736a013bdb688412",
"text": "In the terms of profit, you're most likely not going to make any. The other posters had good suggestions about donating and I say the same. The fact that you had no business insurance leads me to believe that you may just have an expensive hobby and not an actual business. Talk to your accountant/tax preparer and see what and how much loss can be deducted, although that doesn't help in the present. This is a hard lesson to learn but I hope it sticks. **Always** have business insurance, especially in an area such as yours where hurricanes are relatively normal. It's absurdly foolish and unacceptable not to have insurance. I hope all works out.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d1a7f1944348ed00e9367a5fcb54ad7",
"text": "\"Well, I'd probably need to buy a lot more [Tide](http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1) to hide any purchases I don't want Uncle Sam to know about (not just drugs, either - When's the last time you paid sales tax at a yard sale?). Other than that, I doubt it would matter much. 99.9% of my financial transactions are *already* on plastic, and I regularly keep the same \"\"emergency $20 bill\"\" in my wallet for months at a time.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
a71123dda525e994d8a7b4cf5cb74266
|
Where can I find definitive terms for a preferred share?
|
[
{
"docid": "29aa93d3c3af81a6236d2e1905ada5a1",
"text": "This site has the best information I could find, other than a Bloomberg terminal: Quantumonline.com QUANTUMONLINE.COM SECURITY DESCRIPTION: SCANA Corp., 2009 Series A, 7.70% Enhanced Junior Subordinated Notes, issued in $25 denominations, redeemable at the issuer's option on or after 1/30/2015 at $25 per share plus accrued and unpaid interest, and maturing 1/30/2065 which may be extended to 1/30/2080. Interest distributions of 7.70% ($1.925) per annum are paid quarterly on 1/30, 4/30, 7/30 & 10/30 to holders of record on the record date which is the business day prior to the payment date (NOTE: the ex-dividend date is at least 2 business days prior to the record date). Distributions paid by these debt securities are interest and as such are NOT eligible for the preferential 15% to 20% tax rate on dividends and are also NOT eligible for the dividend received deduction for corporate holders. Units are expected to trade flat, which means accrued interest will be reflected in the trading price and the purchasers will not pay and the sellers will not receive any accrued and unpaid interest. The Notes are unsecured and subordinated obligations of the company and will rank equally with all existing and future unsecured and subordinated indebtedness of the company. See the IPO prospectus for further information on the debt securities by clicking on the ‘Link to IPO Prospectus’ provided below.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "2051b0442778b10df3a99b7fb3ac4b96",
"text": "\"That share class may not have a ticker symbol though \"\"Black Rock MSCI ACWI ex-US Index\"\" does have a ticker for \"\"Investor A\"\" shares that is BDOAX. Some funds will have multiple share classes that is a way to have fees be applied in various ways. Mutual fund classes would be the SEC document about this if you want a government source within the US around this. Something else to consider is that if you are investing in a \"\"Fund of funds\"\" is that there can be two layers of expense ratios to consider. Vanguard is well-known for keeping its expenses low.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "62018e52ddd02eed1e4c34166f6a7ae2",
"text": "\"There are several such \"\"lists.\"\" The one that is maintained by the company is called the shareholder registry. That is a list that the company has given to it by the brokerage firms. It is a start, but not a full list, because many individual shareholders hold their stock with say Merrill Lynch, in \"\"street name\"\" or anonymously. A more useful list is the one of institutional ownership maintained by the SEC. Basically, \"\"large\"\" holders (of more than 5 percent of the stock) have to register their holdings with the SEC. More to the point, large holders of stocks, the Vanguards, Fidelitys, etc. over a certain size, have to file ALL their holdings of stock with the SEC. These are the people you want to contact if you want to start a proxy fight. The most comprehensive list is held by the Depositary Trust Company. People try to get that list only in rare instances.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "135120000e9b25f90f97beb69b319bff",
"text": "How to 'use' your shares: If you own common shares in a company (as opposed to a fund) then you have the right (but not the obligation) to excersize one vote per share on questions put before the shareholders. Usually, this occurs once a year. Usually these questions regard approval of auditors. Sometimes they involve officers such as directors on the board. You will be mailed a form to fill out and mail back in. Preferred shares usually are not voting shares,but common shares always are. By the way, I do not recommend owning shares in companies. I recommend funds instead,either ETFs or mutual funds. Owning shares in companies puts you at risk of a failure of that company. Owning funds spreads that risk around,thus reducing your exposure. There are, really, two purposes for owning shares 1) Owning shares gives you the right to declared dividends 2) Owning shares allows you to sell those shares at some time in the future. (Hopefully at a profit) One obscure thing you can do with owned shares is to 'write' (sell) covered put options. But options are not something that you need to concern yourself with at this point. You may find it useful to sign up for a free daily email from www.investorwords.com.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "eec00fac4023bd89d4a52ab034993c41",
"text": "If you want to go far upstream, you can get mutual fund NAV and dividend data from the Nasdaq Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). This isn't for end-users but rather is offered as a part of the regulatory framework. Not surprisingly, there is a fee for data access. From Nasdaq's MFQS specifications page: To promote market transparency, Nasdaq operates the Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). MFQS is designed to facilitate the collection and dissemination of daily price, dividends and capital distributions data for mutual funds, money market funds, unit investment trusts (UITs), annuities and structured products.",
"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": "36347183e3c2c8963ed56ec4fa8468dc",
"text": "If the share is listed on a stock exchange that creates liquidity and orderly sales with specialist market makers, such as the NYSE, there will always be a counterparty to trade with, though they will let the price rise or fall to meet other open interest. On other exchanges, or in closely held or private equity scenarios, this is not necessarily the case (NASDAQ has market maker firms that maintain the bid-ask spread and can do the same thing with their own inventory as the specialists, but are not required to by the brokerage rules as the NYSE brokers are). The NYSE has listing requirements of at least 1.1 million shares, so there will not be a case with only 100 shares on this exchange.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ccc65bbb1614f209f9f526eccf3e7119",
"text": "\"The term you're looking for is yield (though it's defined the other way around from your \"\"payout efficiency\"\", as dividend / share price, which makes no substantive difference). You're simply saying that you want to buy high-yield shares, which is a common investment strategy. But you have to consider that often a high-yielding share has a reason for the high yield. You probably don't want to buy shares in a company whose current yield is 10% but will go into liquidation next year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "daee5006ebc47e993c1da7252b2bdb37",
"text": "Preferred stocks are, err... Preferred. The whole point of preferred stocks is that they have some preference over other classes of stocks (there may be more than 2, by the way). It can be more voting rights, more dividends or priority on dividends' distribution (common with VC investments), or priority on liquidations (in bankruptcy, preferred stock holders are ranked higher than common). Many times initial or critical investments are made on preferred terms, and the stocks are converted to common when certain thresholds are met. Obviously all these benefits require a premium on the price.",
"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": "93fab222b68576800518b5b1a4e554ec",
"text": "Coca Cola doesn't seem to have any preferred shares outstanding. From the annual report, it does say that the number of common shares outstanding was 2,294,316,831 as of February 22, 2011. (cover page, right before the horizontal break) But normally, you can find it either toward the beginning of the document or in the statement of shareholder's equity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "864377bc38eace23fc5c87a8d9cd31bd",
"text": "True blue preferred shares are considered loose hybrids of credit and equity. They are more senior than common equity in bankruptcy liquidation but pay out a dividend which is not mandatory. Financial institutions issue the bulk of genuine preferred shares because of their need for more flexibility than a bond but not so much that they can afford the cost to shareholders by diluting common equity. Since it is a credit-like security that receives none of the income from operations but merely pays out a potentially unpredictable yet fixed amount of income, it will perform much more like a bond, rising when interest rates fall and vice versa, and since interest rates do not move to the extent of common equity valuations, preferreds' price variances will correspond much more to bonds than common equities. If the company stops paying the preferred dividend or looks to become in financial trouble, the price of the preferred share should be expected to fall. There are more modern preferred however. It has now become popular to fund intermediate startups with convertible preferred shares. Because these are derivatives based upon the common equity, they can be expected to be much more variant.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7a53c5f4ce1cf486607686d161248249",
"text": "\"The official source is the most recent Form 13F that Berkshire Hathaway, which is filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on a quarterly basis . You can find it through the SEC filing search engine, using BRKA as the ticker symbol. and then looking for the filings marked 13-FR or 13-FR/A (the \"\"/A\"\" indicates an amended filing). As you can see by looking at the 13-F filed for the quarter ending September 30 , the document isn't pretty or necessarily easy to read, hence the popularity of sites such as those that Chad linked to. It is, though, the truly official source from which websites tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio derive their information.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b891f946fa4bcd62c8d9379a78d169d9",
"text": "I agree that a random page on the internet is not always a good source, but at the same time I will use Google or Yahoo Finance to look up US/EU equities, even though those sites are not authoritative and offer zero guarantees as to the accuracy of their data. In the same vein you could try a website devoted to warrants in your market. For example, I Googled toronto stock exchange warrants and the very first link took me to a site with all the information you mentioned. The authoritative source for the information would be the listing exchange, but I've spent five minutes on the TSX website and couldn't find even a fraction of the information about that warrant that I found on the non-authoritative site.",
"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": "9b42ee8b333f4eda0048aaa07d6c5a1c",
"text": "Edgar Online is the SEC's reporting repository where public companies post their forms, these forms contain financial data Stock screeners allow you to compare many companies based on many financial metrics. Many sites have them, Google Finance has one with a decent amount of utility",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
5f8bb341fa74065e28374670d69d6b43
|
Does investing money in other currencies help pad losses in case of a stock market crash?
|
[
{
"docid": "5fc6449416d4cd15fa5c851bc0040ca0",
"text": "If the equity market in the USA crashed, its very likely equity markets everywhere else would crash. The USA has a high number of the world's largest businesses and there are correlations between equity markets. So you need to think of equities as a global asset class, not regional. Your question is then a question about the correlation between equity markets and currency markets. Here's a guess: If equity markets crashed, you would see a lot of panic selling of stocks denominated in many currencies, but probably the most in USD, due to the large number of the world's largest businesses trading on US stock exchanges. Therefore, when the rest of the world sells US equities they receive cash USD, which they might sell for their local currency. That selling pressure would cause USD to fall. But, when equity markets crash there's a move to safety of the bond markets. The world's largest bond markets are denominated in which currency? Probably USD. So those who receive USD for their equities are going to spend that USD on bonds. In which case there is probably no correlation between equity markets and currency markets at all. A quick google search shows this kind of thing",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "45c3cb28491d6b35f3219f442d3100a6",
"text": "\"These have the potential to become \"\"end-of-the-world\"\" scenarios, so I'll keep this very clear. If you start to feel that any particular investment may suddenly become worthless then it is wise to liquidate that asset and transfer your wealth somewhere else. If your wealth happens to be invested in cash then transferring that wealth into something else is still valid. Digging a hole in the ground isn't useful and running for the border probably won't be necessary. Consider countries that have suffered actual currency collapse and debt default. Take Zimbabwe, for example. Even as inflation went into the millions of percent, the Zimbabwe stock exchange soared as investors were prepared to spend ever-more of their devaluing currency to buy stable stocks in a small number of locally listed companies. Even if the Euro were to suffer a critical fall, European companies would probably be ok. If you didn't panic and dig caches in the back garden over the fall of dotcom, there is no need to panic over the decline of certain currencies. Just diversify your risk and buy non-cash (or euro) assets. Update: A few ideas re diversification: The problem for Greece isn't really a euro problem; it is local. Local property, local companies ... these can be affected by default because no-one believes in the entirety of the Greek economy, not just the currency it happens to be using - so diversification really means buying things that are outside Greece.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7847578cee6631c25a5d983b43d22e33",
"text": "\"On contrary of what Mike Scott suggested, I think in case of EURO DOOM it's a lot safer if your savings were changed into another currency in advance. Beware that bringing your money into an EURO CORE country (like Finland, Austria, Germany, Nethereland) it's useful if you think those banks are safer, but totally useless to avoid the conversion of your saving from Euro into your national currency. In case of EURO CRASH, only the Central Bank will decide what happens to ALL the Euro deposited wherever, single banks, even if they are Deutsche Bank or BNP or ING, can not decide what to do on their own. ECB (European Central Bank) might decide to convert EURO into local currencies based on the account's owner nationality. Therefor if you are Greek and you moved your saving in a German bank, the ECB might decide that your Euro are converted into New Dracma even if they sit in a German bank account. The funniest thing is that if you ask to a Finland bank: \"\"In case of Euro crash, would you convert my Euro into New Dracma?\"\", they sure would answer \"\"No, we can't!\"\", which is true, they can not because it's only the ECB (Europe Central Bank) the one that decides how an ordered Euro crash has to be manged, and the ECB might decide as I explained you above. Other Central Banks (Swiss, FED, etc.) would only follow the decisions of the ECB. Moreover in case of EURO DOOM, it's highly probable that the Euro currency looses a tremendous value compared to other currencies, the loss would be huge in case the Euro Crash happens in a disordered way (i.e. a strong country like Germany and their banks decides to get out and they start printing their own money w/o listening to the ECB anymore). So even if your saving are in Euro in Germany they would loose so much value (compared to other currencies) that you will regreat forever not to have converted them into another currency when you had the time to do it. Couple of advises: 1) If you want to change you savings into another currency you don't need to bring them into another bank/country (like US), you could simply buy US Shares/Bonds at your local bank. Shares/Bonds of a US company/US gov will always be worth their value in dollars no matter in what new pathetic currency your account will be converted. 2) But is there a drawback in converting my saving into another currency (i.e. buying dollars in the form of US treasury bonds)? Unfortunately yes, the drawback is that in case this Euro drama comes finally to an happy ending and Germans decide to open their wallets for the nth time to save the currency, the Euro might suddenly increase its value compared to other currencies, therefor if you changed your saving into another currency you might loose money (i.e. US dollars looses value against the Euro).\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b1226b18f17ae68a16316ef098513605",
"text": "Very likely this refers to trading/speculating on leverage, not investing. Of course, as soon as you put leverage into the equation this perfectly makes sense. 2007-2009 for example, if one bought the $SPX at its highs in 2007 at ~$1560.00 - to the lows from 2009 at ~$683.00 - implicating that with only 2:1 leverage a $1560.00 account would have received a margin call. At least here in Europe I can trade index CFD's and other leveraged products. If i trade lets say >50:1 leverage it doesn’t take much to get a margin call and/or position closed by the broker. No doubt, depending on which investments you choose there’s always risk, but currency is a position too. TO answer the question, I find it very unlikely that >90% of investors (referring to stocks) lose money / purchasing power. Anyway, I would not deny that where speculators (not investors) use leverage or try to trade swings, news etc. have a very high risk of losing money (purchasing power).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "39992fa71ba6c1794c6d2f65443b5d45",
"text": "\"Unless you are buying a significant value of your goods in USD then the relative strength of USD versus your local currency will have little to no effect on what the value of your investments is worth to you. In fact only (de|in)flation will effect your purchasing power. If your investments are in your local currency and your future expenses (usage of the returns on the investments) will be in your local currency FX has no effect. To answer your question, however, since all investments involve flows of money there can be no investment (other than perhaps gold which is really a form of currency) that isn't bound to at least one currency. In general investments are expected to be valued against the investor's home currency (I tend to call it \"\"fund currency\"\" as I work with hedge funds) as the return on the investment will be paid out in the fund currency and returns will be compared on the same basis. If investments are to be made internationally then it is necessary to reduce, or \"\"hedge\"\" the exchange rate risk. This is normally done using FX swaps or futures that allow an exchange rate in the future to be locked in today. Far from being unbound from FX moves these derivatives are closely bound to any moves but crucially are bound in the opposite direction to the hoped for FX move. an example of this would be if I'm investing 100GBP (my local currency) in a US company XYZ corp which I expect to do well. Suppose I get 200USD for my 100GBP and so buy 1 * 200USD shares in XYZ. No matter what happens to XYZ stock any move in GBP/USD will affect my P&L so I buy a future that allows me to exchange 200USD for 100GBP in 6 month's time. If GBP rises I can sell the future and make money on both the higher exchange rate and the increase in XYZ corp. If GBP falls I can keep the future until maturity and exchange the 200USD from XYZ corp for 100GBP so I only take the foreign exchange hit on any profits. If I expect my profits to be 10USD I can even buy futures such that I can lock in the exchange rate for 110USD in 6 months so that I will lose even less of my profit from the exchange rate move.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e92639dfe3b96ba834caa1456ea2c9d2",
"text": "Cash would be the better alternative assuming both stocks take a major hit in ALL categories AND the Fed raise rates at the same time for some reason. Money market funds that may have relatively low yields at the moment would likely be one of the few securities not to be repriced downward as interest rates rising would decrease bond values which could be another crash as I could somewhat question how broad of a crash are you talking here. There are more than a few different market segments so that while some parts may get hit really hard in a crash, would you really want to claim everything goes down? Blackrock's graphic shows in 2008 how bonds did the best and only it and cash had positive returns in that year but there is something to be said for how big is a crash: 20%, 50%, 90%?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d62e3a39316e279e4ee8a1655d33359f",
"text": "\"If you don't use leverage you can't lose more than you invested because you \"\"play\"\" with your own money. But even with leverage when you reach a certain limit (maintenance margin) you will receive a margin call from your broker to add more funds to your account. If you don't comply with this (meaning you don't add funds) the broker will liquidate some of the assets (in this case the currency) and it will restore the balance of the account to meet with his/her maintenance margin. At least, this is valid for assets like stocks and derivatives. Hope it helps! Edit: I should mention that\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a86ac339b5503e4547a79a0d3386e8dc",
"text": "There are also currency hedged ETFs. These operate similarly to what gengren mentioned. For example, a currency hedged Japan equities ETF has an inherent short yen/usd position on it in addition to the equity position, so the effects of a falling yen are negated. Note that it will still be denominated in dollars, however. AED is pegged to the dollar though, isnt it? If your broker is charging you a crazy price maybe try again a different day, or get a new broker. http://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/hedge-currency-impact",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f6b490195aee0c5351658b1edfd90ba3",
"text": "If you're referring to investment hedging, then you should diversify into things that would profit if expected event hit. For example alternative energy sources would benefit greatly from increased evidence of global warming, or the onset of peak oil. Preparing for calamities that would render the stock market inaccessible, the answer is quite different. Simply own more of things that people would want than you need. A list of possibilities would include: Precious metals are also a way to secure value outside the financial markets, but would not be readily sellable until the immediate calamity had passed. All this should be balanced on an honest evaluation of the risks, including the risk of nothing happening. I've heard of people not saving for retirement because they don't expect the financial markets to be available then, but that's not a risk I'm willing to take.",
"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": "28fed650e9e4cc59a4dba20e8648f303",
"text": "Typically, the higher interest rates in local currency cover about the potential gain from the currency exchange rate change - if not, people would make money out of it. However, you only know this after the fact, so either way you are taking a risk. Depending on where the local economy goes, it is more secure to go with US$, or more risky. Your guess is as good as anyone. If you see a chance for a serious meltdown of the local economy, with 100+% inflation ratios and possibly new money, you are probably better off with US$. On the other hand, if the economy develops better than expected, you might have lost some percentage of gain. Generally, investing in a more stable currency gets you slightly less, but for less risk.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0f7e3492cf4cc9b19031d374d516784f",
"text": "You have currency risk either way. The only question is deal with it now or later. No one can tell you which action is better until we look at it in hindsight. You could hedge and move some now, some later. Invest your USD in US equities and move some to EUR and invest that in EUR companies. I'd suggest having your money in the same currency as where you are living, since for the most part, you'll be in the same boat as your peers and neighbors. If you have high inflation, so will your friends and neighbors and you won't feel so bad. And if your currency gets stronger, then so will the currency of the people you are hanging out with. It's similar to betting on Don't Pass in craps. If you bet against the rest of the table, you could win when they lose, but then all your friends will be sad and you'll be happy. And vice versa, when your friends are high-fiving, you'll be in the dumps. I'd say it's better to be in the same boat as your peers since that's usually how we judge our happiness when we compare our situation to others.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "df23c140202eec107b9a1e27a3e56147",
"text": "This is the exactly wrong thing to do especially in the age of algorithmic trading. Consider this event from 2010: Chart Source Another similar event occurred in 2015 and there was also a currency flash crash in that year. As you can see the S&P 500 (and basically the entire market) dropped nearly 7% in a matter of minutes. It regained most of that value within 15 minutes. If you are tempted to think that 7% isn't that big of a deal, you need to understand that specific securities will have a much bigger drop during such events. For example the PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility ETF (SPLV) was down 45% at one point on Aug 24, 2015 but closed less than 6% down. Consider what effect a stop loss order would have on your portfolio in that circumstance. You would not be able to react fast enough to buy at the bottom. The advantage of long-term investing is that you are immune to such aberrations. Additionally, as asked by others, what do you do once you've pulled out your money. Do you wait for a big jump in the market and hop back in? The risk here is that you are on the sidelines for the gains. By missing out on just a small number of big days, you can really hurt your long-term returns.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "51876fb7fa8f2f1b1c5fc654650a5ef4",
"text": "The other obvious suggestion I guess is to buy cheap stocks and bonds (maybe in a dollar denominated fund). If the US dollar rises you'd then get both the fund's US gains plus currency gains. However, no guarantee the US dollar will rise or when. Perhaps a more prudent approach is to simply diversify. Buy both domestic and foreign stocks and bonds. Rebalance regularly.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e9479291259074533e355387dc6805eb",
"text": "\"The difference is in the interrelation between the varied investments you make. Hedging is about specifically offsetting a possible loss in an investment by making another related investment that will increase in value for the same reasons that the original investment would lose value. Gold, for instance, is often regarded as the ultimate hedge. Its value is typically inversely correlated to the rest of the market as a whole, because its status as a material, durable store of value makes it a preferred \"\"safe haven\"\" to move money into in times of economic downturn, when stock prices, bond yields and similar investments are losing value. That specific behavior makes investing in gold alongside stocks and bonds a \"\"hedge\"\"; the increase in value of gold as stock prices and bond yields fall limits losses in those other areas. Investment of cash in gold is also specifically a hedge against currency inflation; paper money, account balances, and even debt instruments like bonds and CDs can lose real value over time in a \"\"hot\"\" economy where there's more money than things to buy with it. By keeping a store of value in something other than currency, the price of that good will rise as the currencies used to buy it decrease in real value, maintaining your level of real wealth. Other hedges are more localized. One might, for example, trade oil futures as a hedge on a position in transportation stocks; when oil prices rise, trucking and airline companies suffer in the short term as their margins get squeezed due to fuel costs. Currency futures are another popular hedge; a company in international business will often trade options on the currencies of the companies it does business in, to limit the \"\"jitters\"\" seen in the FOREX spot market caused by speculation and other transient changes in market demand. Diversification, by contrast, is about choosing multiple unrelated investments, the idea being to limit losses due to a localized change in the market. Companies' stocks gain and lose value every day, and those companies can also go out of business without bringing the entire economy to its knees. By spreading your wealth among investments in multiple industries and companies of various sizes and global locations, you insulate yourself against the risk that any one of them will fail. If, tomorrow, Kroger grocery stores went bankrupt and shuttered all its stores, people in the regions it serves might be inconvenienced, but the market as a whole will move on. You, however, would have lost everything if you'd bet your retirement on that one stock. Nobody does that in the real world; instead, you put some of your money in Kroger, some in Microsoft, some in Home Depot, some in ALCOA, some in PG&E, etc etc. By investing in stocks that would be more or less unaffected by a downturn in another, if Kroger went bankrupt tomorrow you would still have, say, 95% of your investment next egg still alive, well and continuing to pay you dividends. The flip side is that if tomorrow, Kroger announced an exclusive deal with the Girl Scouts to sell their cookies, making them the only place in the country you can get them, you would miss out on the full possible amount of gains you'd get from the price spike if you had bet everything on Kroger. Hindsight's always 20/20; I could have spent some beer money to buy Bitcoins when they were changing hands for pennies apiece, and I'd be a multi-millionaire right now. You can't think that way when investing, because it's \"\"survivor bias\"\"; you see the successes topping the index charts, not the failures. You could just as easily have invested in any of the hundreds of Internet startups that don't last a year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "30152e0feec6c0a9cef953d3c3199026",
"text": "The collapse of the US economic system is one of the many things I am preparing for. To answer the how, me personally I am doing some investing in gold and silver. However I am investing more in the tools, goods and gear that will help me be independent of the system around me. In short nothing will change for me if the US dollar goes belly up. A book I recommend is Possum Living (http://www.possumliving.net/). Other than that I am investing in trade goods such as liquor, cigarettes, medical supplies.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
7e3be371ae5e138c2da41c1538febd51
|
How to measure the cost/value of an Asset in the Financial Statement
|
[
{
"docid": "aba782590d5f1712aaaa8e5e9895a03b",
"text": "I suggest that you use your own judgement on this. You can assign a reasonable percentage since it is impossible to monitor the hours using those assets. Example: 40 personal and 60 for business. It's really your call. I also suggest that you should be conservative on valuing the assets. Record the assets at it's lowest value. This is one of the most difficult scenarios in making your own financial statements. You can also use this approach, i will record the assets at its original cost then use a higher depreciation rate or double declining method of depreciation. If the assets have a depreciation rate of 20% per year (useful life of 5 years), i will make it 30%. the other 10% will add more expense and helps you not to overstate your Financial Statement. You can also use the residual value of the asset, but if you do this, you should figure out the reliable amount. I understand that this is not for tax reporting purposes. Therefore, there's no harm if you overstate your Financial statement. And even if you overstate, you can still adjust the cost of the asset. Along the way (in the middle of the year or year end), you will figure out the cost of the asset if it's over valued once the financial statement is done.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f766087d13ac15a104961a481536a7af",
"text": "Does the friend fix your electrical wiring and the engine of your car? If you need a professional advice - ask a professional. In this case - an accountant (not necessarily a CPA, but at least an experienced bookkeeper). Financial Statements (official documents, that is) must be signed by a public accountant (CPA in the US) or the principle (you). I wouldn't take chances and would definitely have an accountant do that. You need to consider the asset useful life, and the depreciation. The fact that you use it for non-business purposes may be recorded in various ways. One that comes to mind is accounting as a supplement for depreciation: You depreciate the percentage that is used for business, and record as a distribution to owner the rest (which is accounting for the personal use). This way it would also match the tax reporting (in the US, at least). Bottom line: if you're preparing an official financial statement (that you're going to submit to anyone other than yourself) - get a professional advice.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "680f18bf6027e733e8d1925af9eb13b8",
"text": "Understandably, it appears as if one must construct the flows oneself because of the work involved to include every loan variation. First, it would be best to distinguish between cash and accrued, otherwise known as the economic, costs. The cash cost is, as you've identified, the payment. This is a reality for cash management, and it's wise that you wish to track it. However, by accruals, the only economic cost involved in the payment is the interest. The reason is because the rest of the payment flows from one form of asset to another, so if out of a $1,000 payment, $100 is principal repayment, you have merely traded $100 of cash for $100 of house. The cash costs will be accounted for on the cash flow statement while the accrued or economic costs will be accounted on the income statement. It appears as if you've accounted for this properly. However, for the resolution that you desire, the accounts must first flow through the income statement followed next instead of directly from assets to liabilities. This is where you can get a sense of the true costs of the home. To get better accrual resolution, credit cash and debit mortgage interest expense & principal repayment. Book the mortgage interest expense on the income statement and then cancel the principal repayment account with the loan account. The principal repayment should not be treated as an expense; however, the cash payment that pays down the mortgage balance should be booked so that it will appear on the cash flow statement. Because you weren't doing this before, and you were debiting the entire payment off of the loan, you should probably notice your booked loan account diverging from the actual. This proper booking will resolve that. When you are comfortable with booking the payments, you can book unrealized gains and losses by marking the house to market in this statement to get a better understanding of your financial position. The cash flow statement with proper bookings should show how the cash has flowed, so if it is according to standards, household operations should show a positive flow from labor/investments less the amount of interest expense while financing will show a negative flow from principal repayment. Investing due to the home should show no change due to mortgage payments because the house has already been acquired, thus there was a large outflow when cash was paid to acquire the home. The program should give some way to classify accounts so that they are either operational, investing, or financing. All income & expenses are operational. All investments such as equities, credit assets, and the home are investing. All liabilities are financing. To book the installment payment $X which consists of $Y in interest and $Z in principal: To resolve the reduction in principal: As long as the accounts are properly classified, GnuCash probably does the rest for you, but if not, to resolve the expense: Finally, net income is resolved: My guess is that GnuCash derives the cash flow statement indirectly, but you can do the entry by simply: In this case, it happily resembles the first accrued entry, but with cash, that's all that is necessary by the direct method.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1dbb5cae6181f36ed255b92b5c7e7977",
"text": "You should also update your Net Worth Statement as well as an inventory of all your assets. Unfortunately these are extremely time consuming, but in the event that you pass away your loved ones will know all of your finances and it will be easier for them in a very difficult time. The Net Worth Statement compiles just that, your net worth. The net worth is compiled by subtracting your liabilities from you assets. Assets include things such as cash, money in accounts, all estimated value of your household items, any life insurance, bonds, mutual bonds, and retirement money. The liabilities include amounts such as your mortgage, second mortgage, car loans, unsecured loans, credit cards, student loans, and life insurance loans. This statement is a great way to track year to year how you are doing on your finances and if you are where you need to be in order to retire when you would like. The Inventory is also very important. This is used in the event that you have a fire or some sort of disaster that requires you to give a statement of any items you had in your home. This is a very difficult thing to go through, and having this statement ready to hand over only makes thing easier. There are a couple ways to do this. Some people take pictures of everything they have in their house and make notes of prices and values, some people take a video of the whole house, and some people write down item by item on the computer or on a piece of paper. Whatever way you would like to do it is fine, what works for one person does not necessarily work for the other.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f63cceb091fed668aefa3680076af07f",
"text": "\"To know if a stock is undervalued is not something that can be easily assessed (else, everybody would know which stock is undervalued and everybody will buy it until it reaches its \"\"true\"\" value). But there are methods to assess the value of a company, I think that the 3 most known methods are: If the assets of the company were to be sold right now and that all its debts were to be paid back right now, how much will be left? This remaining amount would be the fundamental value of your company. That method could work well on real estate company whose value is more or less the buildings that they own minus of much they borrowed to acquire them. It's not really usefull in the case of Facebook, as most of its business is immaterial. I know the value of several companies of the same sector, so if I want to assess the value of another company of this sector I just have to compare it to the others. For example, you find out that simiral internet companies are being traded at a price that is 15 times their projected dividends (its called a Price Earning Ratio). Then, if you see that Facebook, all else being equal, is trading at 10 times its projected dividends, you could say that buying it would be at a discount. A company is worth as much as the cash flow that it will give me in the future If you think that facebook will give some dividends for a certain period of time, then you compute their present value (this means finding how much you should put in a bank account today to have the same amount in the future, this can be done by dividing the amount by some interest rates). So, if you think that holding a share of a Facebook for a long period of time would give you (at present value) 100 and that the share of the Facebook is being traded at 70, then buy it. There is another well known method, a more quantitative one, this is the Capital Asset Pricing Model. I won't go into the details of this one, but its about looking at how a company should be priced relatively to a benchmark of other companies. Also there are a lot's of factor that could affect the price of a company and make it strays away from its fundamental value: crisis, interest rates, regulation, price of oil, bad management, ..... And even by applying the previous methods, the fundemantal value itself will remain speculative and you can never be sure of it. And saying that you are buying at a discount will remain an opinion. After that, to price companies, you are likely to understand financial analysis, corporate finance and a bit of macroeconomy.\"",
"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": "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": ""
},
{
"docid": "9f910dd25fe2c3ef06ed799d1f813b10",
"text": "\"It's very hard to measure the worth of an abstract concept like money, particularly over long periods of time. In the modern era we have things like the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United States, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics literally sends \"\"shoppers\"\" out to find prices of things and surveys people to find out what they buy. This results in a variety of \"\"indexes\"\" which variously get reported by media outlets as \"\"inflation\"\" (or \"\"deflation\"\" if the change in value goes the other way). There are also other measurements available like the MIT Billion Prices Project which attempt to make their own reading of the \"\"worth\"\" of currencies. Those kinds of things are about the only ways to measure a currency's change in \"\"value to itself\"\" because a currency is basically only worth what one can buy with it. While it isn't \"\"all the world's currencies combined\"\", there is a concept of the International Monetary Fund's \"\"Special Drawing Rights (SDR)\"\", which is a basket of five currencies used by world central banks to help \"\"back\"\" each other's currencies, and is (very) occasionally used as a unit of currency for international contracts. One might be able to compare the price of one currency to that of the SDR, or even to any other weighted average of world currencies that one wanted, but I don't think it's done nearly as often as comparing currencies to the basket of goods one can buy to find \"\"inflation\"\". Even though one might think what would be important to measure would be overall Money Supply Inflation, much more often people care more about measuring Price Inflation. (Occasionally people worry about Wage Inflation, but generally that's considered a result of high Price Inflation.) In order to try to keep this on topic as a \"\"personal finance\"\" thing rather than an \"\"economics\"\" thing, I guess the question is: Why do you want to know? If you have some assets in a particular currency, you probably care most about what you'll be able to buy with them in the future when you want or need to spend them. In that sense, it's inflation that you're likely caring about the most. If you're trying to figure out which currency to keep your assets in, it largely depends on what currency your future expenses are likely to be in, though I can imagine that one might want to move out of a particular currency if there's a lot of political instability that you're expecting to lead to high inflation in a currency for a time.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c1140caa8335ae427e6326430838e159",
"text": "\"Market cap is synonymous with equity value, which is one way of thinking of a company's \"\"worth.\"\" The alternative would be enterprise value, which is calculated as follows: Enterprise Value = Market Value of Equity + Market Value of Debt - Cash and Equivalents - Non-Operating Assets Enterprise value is essentially \"\"how much is the firm worth to ALL providers of capital.\"\" It can be viewed as \"\"if I wanted to buy the *entire* company, debt and all, what would I have to pay?\"\"\"",
"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": "75ffcd067af42e2df03285f2b01a8697",
"text": "\"From Wikipedia: Usage Because EV is a capital structure-neutral metric, it is useful when comparing companies with diverse capital structures. Price/earnings ratios, for example, will be significantly more volatile in companies that are highly leveraged. Stock market investors use EV/EBITDA to compare returns between equivalent companies on a risk-adjusted basis. They can then superimpose their own choice of debt levels. In practice, equity investors may have difficulty accurately assessing EV if they do not have access to the market quotations of the company debt. It is not sufficient to substitute the book value of the debt because a) the market interest rates may have changed, and b) the market's perception of the risk of the loan may have changed since the debt was issued. Remember, the point of EV is to neutralize the different risks, and costs of different capital structures. Buyers of controlling interests in a business use EV to compare returns between businesses, as above. They also use the EV valuation (or a debt free cash free valuation) to determine how much to pay for the whole entity (not just the equity). They may want to change the capital structure once in control. Technical considerations Data availability Unlike market capitalization, where both the market price and the outstanding number of shares in issue are readily available and easy to find, it is virtually impossible to calculate an EV without making a number of adjustments to published data, including often subjective estimations of value: In practice, EV calculations rely on reasonable estimates of the market value of these components. For example, in many professional valuations: Avoiding temporal mismatches When using valuation multiples such as EV/EBITDA and EV/EBIT, the numerator should correspond to the denominator. The EV should, therefore, correspond to the market value of the assets that were used to generate the profits in question, excluding assets acquired (and including assets disposed) during a different financial reporting period. This requires restating EV for any mergers and acquisitions (whether paid in cash or equity), significant capital investments or significant changes in working capital occurring after or during the reporting period being examined. Ideally, multiples should be calculated using the market value of the weighted average capital employed of the company during the comparable financial period. When calculating multiples over different time periods (e.g. historic multiples vs forward multiples), EV should be adjusted to reflect the weighted average invested capital of the company in each period. In your question, you stated: The Market Cap is driven by the share price and the share price is determined by buyers and sellers who have access to data on cash and debts and factor that into their decision to buy or sell. Note the first point under \"\"Technical Considerations\"\" there and you will see that the \"\"access to data on cash and debts\"\" isn't quite accurate here so that is worth noting. As for alternatives, there are many other price ratios one could use such as price/earnings, price/book value, price/sales and others depending on how one wants to model the company. The better question is what kind of investing strategy is one wanting to use where there are probably hundreds of strategies at least. Let's take Apple as an example. Back on April 23, 2014 they announced earnings through March 29, 2014 which is nearly a month old when it was announced. Now a month later, one would have to estimate what changes would be made to things there. Thus, getting accurate real-time values isn't realistic. Discounted Cash Flow is another approach one can take of valuing a company in terms of its future earnings computed back to a present day lump sum.\"",
"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": "2737555cec11157babb0aff5bd578d75",
"text": "\"the \"\"how\"\" all depends on your level of computer savvy. Are you an Excel spreadsheet user or can you write in programming languages such as python? Either approach have math functions that make the calculation of ROI and Volatility trivial. If you're a python coder, then look up \"\"pandas\"\" (http://pandas.pydata.org/) - it handles a lot of the book-keeping and downloading of end of day equities data. With a dozen lines of code, you can compute ROI and volatility.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2062d8a92e3151241257c925fd0c2a15",
"text": "One way that is common is to show the value over time of an initial investment, say $10,000. The advantage of this is that it doesn't show stock price at all, so handles splits well. It can also take into account dividend reinvestment. Fidelity uses this for their mutual funds, as can be seen here. Another option would be to compute the stock price as if the split didn't happen. So if a stock does a 2:1 split, you show double the actual price starting at that point.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2c0ae24ba33f029d528764a03af25505",
"text": "Yep, but it you didn't answer my question (edit: I know it was phrased as a question, but I do know youre supposed to model changes in cash). When bankers calculate all three approaches, how do they compare them? From what I see, the conclusion of each approach gives us: * Public Company Approach: Enterprise Value * Transaction Approach: Enterprise Value * Discounted Cash Flow Approach: Enterprise Value + Minimum Level of Operating Cash Does an investment banker subtract out that minimum level of operating cash at the end of the calculation to get to a value that he can then compare?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "50f1ca05abaa0bcb89d9ef694f692a8d",
"text": "Broadly, there's a bunch of stuff you need to be accounting for that's not reflected in the above, which will impact the A/D profile of an acquisition: * Consideration paid (all cash on substantially the same terms is going to be more accretive than an all-stock transaction...because in the latter, your denominator is much bigger) * Shares outstanding (including repurchases, in-kind dividends and option exercise) * Financing / interest expense * Upside / base / downside case for all of your assumptions - best to have a toggle based on a CHOOSE function that will allow the user to easily toggle between these I'm not sure what EBITDA is getting you. EPS accretion/dilution typically looks at earnings, but you could also look at Cash EPS A/D which measures OCF/shares outstanding. The point is, this really depends on how back of the envelope you want the A/D computation to be. At a minimum, you need an earnings schedule projected over the next 2-3 years, and you need a schedule reflecting outstanding shares over the same time period. Your earnings buildout can have varying degrees of granularity. You can project cost synergies over the forecast period, which most obviously is going to affect your earnings, but you can also drill down further. Financing, transaction fees, etc. Your writeups and writedowns from your B/S combination may result in certain deferred tax items that will affect your bottom line over the forecast period. Your share schedule can also have varying degrees of complexity. One way to do it is to just presume that the company will not issue any more shares, and will not repurchase any shares, and that there will be no options exercised, over the forecast period. This is a bad series of assumptions. It is likely that as options vest, if in the money, they will be exercised, resulting in dilution for existing shareholders. It is also likely that certain preferred shareholders and optionholders are going to experience adjustments to the conversion prices based on antidilution provisions in their securities. These may be but are not always disclosed in the 10K. Last point - models are tools. What are you trying to build an accretion/dilution model for? This will affect and determine the degree of granularity you'll want to go into.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6d19500998654ae4a95b5adbfe8450b8",
"text": "\"P/E is price to earnings, or the price of the company divided by annual earnings. Earnings, as reported, are reported on accrual basis. Accrual basis accounting is...without going too deep, like taking a timeline, chopping it up and throwing different bits and pieces of every year into different piles. Costs from 2008 might show up in 2011, or the company might take costs in 2011 that aren't necessarily costs until 2012. Examples would include one-time charges for specific investments, like new shipping centers, servers for their hosting services, etc. Free cash flow is the amount of cash Amazon is generating from its operations. Free cash flow is almost always different from earnings because it's the amount of Earnings + adjustments for non-cash activities - capital expenditures (long-term investments.) Earnings is one thing. Cash generation is a completely different animal. There are plenty of companies that \"\"earn\"\" billions, but only have a few hundred million in cash to show for it because their earnings have to be reinvested into new stuff to grow/maintain the business. To have a free cash flow yield of 2.5% is to have a company valued at $40 for each $1 of free cash flow that the company generates each year. $1/$40 = 2.5%. SGA = Selling, General, & Administrative expenses. These are the costs of running the company - paying salaries, advertising, etc. This cost is second only to COGS, which is Cost of Goods Sold. Currently, Amazon pays $.774 for every $1 product it sells. Its operations add another ~$.20 to that total. After taxes, Amazon keeps about 2 cents of every dollar's worth of product it sells. This 2 cents is Amazon's net margin of 2%. Net margin is (net income)/(sales). If Amazon earned $3 for every $100 in sales it would have a net margin of 3%. Let me know if this makes no sense. If there's anything in particular that is especially confusing, definitely reply and I'll better clarify on specific items. Fire away with any questions, also. I love to discuss finance and accounting.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
ad4660bd5a1b7db887a3ebea36348ae0
|
Is building a corporation a good option?
|
[
{
"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": "b1d966d38507f2431e2031ce742cfa87",
"text": "Compared with a Sole Proprietorship, the main disadvantages of an S-Corporation or an LLC are that it adds a lot of management overhead (time, and possibly money if you don't do it all yourself), and there are fees you must pay to incorporate, as well as additional yearly maintenance fees which vary by state. You should be able to weigh the tax savings and liability protection against the extra costs and hassle, and see which way the scales tip. As a rule of thumb, the bigger your business gets or the more income you make, the more attractive incorporating becomes. Note there are some additional taxes that certain jurisdictions impose on business income. For example, IL and CA charge 1.5% tax, NY is less, but NYC is 8.85%! In NYC specifically, you could actually end up paying slightly more tax as an S-Corp than you would as a Sole Proprietorship. In most places though, the nominal local taxes will still be less than the FICA taxes you could potentially save.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "f38781d51f018d03d48fa9ad598f6afa",
"text": "And more than that it would encourage people to invest in companies for the long term, allowing Executives and CEO's and such the breathing space to make a tough decision that's bad in the short term but good in the long term... Rather than hiring a psychopath CEO that's only trying to boost short term stock value for his own bonus/salary",
"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": "56af5c7d291d4343dcfe0da0f6194335",
"text": "How about having him make you CEO (and/or president, depending on structure), and keep him as an advisor. Then over the next year you can evaluate if you want to be the owner and/or if costs justify it. You can use your first year as training.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4b1d182c75a57338e88d245630fdb6c2",
"text": "If you happen to be looking around one of the most secured business investment Opportunity, Franchise Business investment Opportunity is one of the best options to look at. A franchise is a single platform where you can explore your area of interest and nurture it safely. Moreover, it gives you the opportunity to step ahead with the world's leading companies, and earn a market reputation easily.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "42bb64664ad39c4ddb15eb14658076b3",
"text": "We offer a variety of business enterprise formation applications designed to make putting in a private organization as simple and straightforward as feasible. They range from the simple Digital Package - providing the minimum prison requirements for reputable Company formation - to the All Inclusive, which includes a variety of beneficial extras, including a prestigious registered office, a commercial enterprise provider. This corporation shape is usually utilized by non-earnings Company inside the United States. It protects the private finances of the business enterprise owners in a comparable manner as a corporation limited via stocks. Instead of getting shareholders and stocks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3def845bcb1297284720017265a548ac",
"text": "Crony capitalism isn't capitalism. It is basically a case where the government turns a blind eye to wealthy individuals breaking the law, or is even complicit in giving away taxpayer money in the form of no-bid contracts. This is much more prevalent in China's state-sponsored capitalism. Their system is textbook crony capitalism. We still have it but to a lesser degree. Don't blame capitalism for the government's failure. Crony capitalism absolutely requires a complicit strong central government in order to flourish. And there is a difference between the suburbs around Las Vegas and Chinese ghost cities. The Las Vegas suburbs were at least built with buyers in mind, even though this turned out to be a mistake. It was a mistake on the part of a few individuals. Absolutely a mis-allocation of capital, and I didn't mean to imply that capitalism is perfectly efficient in allocating capital. But the Chinese ghost cities are a centrally planned project made for the intention of moving rural Chinese people into them in future 5-year plans. Whether that turns out to be a good investment has yet to be seen, but it seems like it will involve moving lots of people against their will. But does it not make more sense to gradually build up a city according to what is currently needed, as capitalism tries to do, rather than spend lots of money building an entire city, much of which may never be needed? There are so many imbalances brewing under the surface in China, it seems like only a matter of time before they all come to a head.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0eaa489227b57eec5f75fc86beefaa81",
"text": "You are absolutely correct, incorporation and the fiduciary responsibility that comes with it almost always leads to a sacrifice in product quality and long-term business principles. I always think of the difference between McDonalds and In-n-Out hamburgers as examples of where each road leads.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c14b4881f89e813dcec5a551b30856b2",
"text": "2 very viable options. Real Estate is cheap now and if you hold a few properties for the long term the price should rise. You can use them as rental properties to supplement your income. In addition agriculture is also very viable. How else you gunna feed 7 billion? Might as well cash in on that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dec41fd2fd4de93670cbe6efed4c292d",
"text": "On a company level ROCE over WACC would be more meaningful in my view but the end result should be be pretty much the same. This concept is closely related to value creation. Value can only be created when a company's ROCE is exceeding its cost of funding - WACC. This is also tightly related with the NPV concept. Value is only created when the NPV on a project is >0. And to directly answer OP. Study in detail WACC. (weighted average cost of capital). Focus on the Modigliani–Miller theorem with taxes and financial distress costs. Good luck.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a8cf9eff8d6d8222f23e1649b7d3e58e",
"text": "\"You'd be mistaken to this there is any morality involved in (most) corporations - neither positive nor negative; running a business is amoral. Some business missions have a moral intent - such as pharmaceuticals, health organization, etc. - but all have an amoral underbelly. It's fairly simplistic - the purpose of a business is to produce a profit. At some point, all successful, well functioning businesses will work down their list of ways to produce a profit - after they've established market share, a lasting brand, customer loyalty, finances well in the black - and eventually look towards capital preservation. In most bodies with a large monetary wealth, capital preservation becomes a key focus (in other words, once you master the art of making money, you then need to master the art of keeping it). Thus the ability to then focus on these things. To continue to just pay taxes is like running an efficient, but leaky ship. The more you preserve, the longer you'll be around and the more power you'll yield to stick around. This last point is also important to keep in mind - unlike you or I - a company will basically last forever (well at least until society collapses). You or I are only here until we die - and whatever wealth we have we may try to preserve for our kids or next of kin. A corporation is always here, the people in the corporation & it's owners change hands, but the corporation survives. Frankly any business that isn't aiming to make a profit, is either going to fail quickly or is by definition a \"\"non-profit\"\". Here is where I would believe the government plays a balancing role - to reign in the power of corporations (lest they rival their own). But, any good corporation will handle that problem as well (Regulatory capture, anyone?). Also, consider that for the most wealthy among us, it's probably not about the money anymore. It's now probably about the game. This is certainly where the psychopaths get that manic edge on the rest of us.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cc7f67e8b4e045efd3adf0d6e8579c9b",
"text": "In addition to asking an accountant, I would also ask a lawyer. When exploring the same question for myself, I found that one of the benefits of incorporating or forming an LLC is that your personal assets are better protected. Including asset protection, here are 5 reasons to incorporate: Initially, I thought that as I had so few assets, I should not be concerned. I was glad I was able to do a free consult with a lawyer who advised me to look into forming an LLC. (Ultimately, my planned business idea never panned out. So, I never went the incorporation/LLC route.) Hope this helps!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cbd83f94ead8881e137fb659c8babb07",
"text": "I would listen to chrissundberg below. Most professionals I meet and interact with in accounting firms, law firms, lending, and others are by the book, smart, professional, and honest in their business dealings. Of course I have also run into a small minority that try to avoid contractual obligations or pull a fast one on the auditors, but these guys are known quickly throughout the business community and avoided. You need to reevaluate your thoughts on government's role in business and the finance industry, which you are clearly interested in joining. Quite frankly you won't last a week coming in most companies if you vocalize the government should do audits and business is amoral.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e30c1a9481ded4a26c6feb5502718faa",
"text": "My understanding is you can create a company 0 value. Then you need to either loan the company the money to buy the building (it will still have 0 value as it will have a debt equal to it's assets) or sell share to investors at any price you like to raise the money to buy the building. Once shares have value (as valued by a chartered accountant - not anyone can do this) then anyone recieving shares will have to pay income tax. This is why keeping the shares as no value for as long as possible can be preferable. Also a benefit of using share options. talk to your investors, see what they require.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "01dd98454df723d9121bf03883bafa71",
"text": "* Yes, you should incorporate if you plan on seriously investing in real estate. This not only limits liability in terms of paying back the debt but also in case your tenants sue you. * Pass-through entities. Typically an LLC but it depends on the state if they have good or bad LLC laws. Pennsylvania is a state where you would not want to incorporate as an LLC. Other options include S-corps and LPs. * Loans are taken out by corporations against the property. Typically mortgage loans are non-recourse. If you set up a company for each property, this further insulates you against the bank capturing other properties within the pool. However, recourse carveouts can still end up getting you on the hook personally for the loans. These typically include voluntary bankruptcy. You would very rarely have to file for bankruptcy anyway for your real estate investments. At worst, it will end in foreclosure but banks typically would prefer deed-in-lieu just because it is faster and easier for them too. You just turn over the keys and walk away. It will have very little impact on your personal finances or record. Everyone in real estate walks away from properties and leaves them with the bank. It's a fact of doing business and your lender should have been comfortable owning your property at the basis they lent money to you. If they weren't, they were just stupid. * Yes, every real estate investment requires equity in the property. Typically it's a 20% equity check but if the lender underwrites the property to a lower value than what you purchased it for, you may have to line up more expensive financing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f70e9b1546375e881102b39de8ec53ba",
"text": "Whether it's wise or not depends on what you think and what you should consider are the risks both ways. What are the risks? For Let's say that the company produces great value and its current price and initial price are well below what it's worth. By investing some of your money in the company, you can take advantage of this value and capitalize off of it if the market recognizes this value too, or when the market does (if it's a successful company it will be a matter of when). Other reasons to be for it are that the tech industry is considered a solid industry and a lot of money is flowing into it. Therefore, if this assumption is correct, you may assume that your job is safe even if your investment doesn't pay off (meaning, you don't lose income, but your investment may not be a great move). Against Let's say that you dump a lot of money into your company and invest in the stock. You're being paid by the company, you're taking some of that money and investing it in the company, meaning that, depending on how much you make outside the company, you are increasing your risk of loss if something negative happens to the company (ie: it fails). Other reasons to be against it are just the opposite as above: due to the NSA, some analysts (like Mish, ZeroHedge, and others) think that the world will cut back on doing IT business with the United States, thus the tech industry will take a major hit over the next decade. In addition to that, Jesse Colombo (@TheBubbleBubble) on Twitter is predicting that there's another tech bubble and it will make a mess when it pops (to be fair to Colombo, he was one of analysts who predicted the housing bubble and his predictions on trading are often right). Finally, there is a risk of lost money and there is also a risk of lost opportunity. Looking at your past investments, which generally hurt more? That might give you a clue what to do.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
de35212d222bbda52102fed318f7bbfb
|
In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?
|
[
{
"docid": "d7bb1920277a6e3077f9af827c5ce15d",
"text": "One explanation is that movie patrons are considering their total willingness to pay for the movie experience so that if the ticket price plus the market price of popcorn is less than their willingness to pay (WTP), the theater has an opportunity to extract more consumer surplus by charging higher than market prices for the popcorn (that is, price discrimination). There is a working paper on the subject by Gill and Hartmann (2008), the abstract of which reads: Prices for goods such as blades for razors, ink for printers and concessions at movies are often set well above cost. Theory has shown that this could yield a profitable price discrimination strategy often termed “metering.” The idea is that a customer’s intensity of demand for aftermarket goods (e.g. the concessions) provides a meter of how much the customer is willing to pay for the primary good (e.g. admission). If this correlation in tastes for the two goods is positive, a high price on the aftermarket good allows firms to extract a greater total price (admissions plus concessions) from higher type customers. This paper develops a simple aggregate model of discrete-continuous demand to motivate how this correlation can be tested using simple regression techniques and readily available firm data. Model simulations illustrate that the regressions can be used to predict whether aftermarket prices should be above, below or equal to their marginal cost. We then apply the approach to box-office and concession data from a chain of Spanish theaters and find that high priced concessions do extract more surplus from customers with a greater willingness to pay for the admission ticket. Locay and Rodriquez (1992) make a similar argument in a JPE article. They essentially argue that purchases of things like movie tickets are made by groups; once individuals are constrained by the group's choice, the firm has additional market power: We present models in which price discrimination in the context of a two-part price can occur in some competitive markets. Purchases take place in groups, which choose which firms to patronize. While firms are perfectly competitive with respect to groups, they have some market power over individual consumers, who are constrained by their groups' choices. We find that firms will charge an entry fee that is below marginal cost, and the second part of the price is marked up above marginal cost. The markup not only is positive but increases with the quality of the product. The quote you are looking for is similar, and again attributes the discrepancy to price discrimination. From the Armchair Economist (p. 159): The purpose of expensive popcorn is not to extract a lot of money from customers. That purpose would be better served by cheap popcorn and expensive movie tickets. Instead, the purpose of expensive popcorn is to extract different sums from different customers. Popcorn lovers, who have more fun at the movies, pay more for their additional pleasure. That is, some people like popcorn more than others. The latter idea is that the movie experience for popcorn lovers is worth more than the sum of its parts: that a movie ticket + popcorn is worth more than either of them separately for some people.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "84b575d8fb24b84aca6dfd02fb8cbd46",
"text": "\"A multiplex is a concession stand which happens to show movies in order to lure you into range of the smell of their popcorn. It has nothing to do with movie theater monopolies. As it was explained to me by my manager, back when I worked in a movie theater in a small Midwestern chain, for every movie, the studios take some percentage cut of gross ticket sales, varying from movie to movie. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 1999 was the first film for which the studio demanded 90% of gross ticket price — continuing a long-standing trend of raising the take which possibly began with the original first Star Wars movie. The other studios quickly followed suit and raised their take to 90%, especially for the big blockbusters — the textbook term is \"\"oligopoly pricing\"\" — and since then the percentage has inched ever closer to 100%. I forget exactly what it was on the second Matrix movie or Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, both of which premiered while I was at the theater, but the number that sticks in my head is 94%. Obviously the studios can't directly capture any revenue from the sale of popcorn — unlike the movie, it's not their product — so every time they raise their take, the theater compensates for lost revenue by raising the price of popcorn. This trend hasn't reversed with 3D and IMAX and all the new technologies coming down the pike. The only reason they're attractive to the theaters is that the theater can charge $15 a ticket rather than $10. Even on a small percentage share, that's a 50% jump in revenue, and covers the not insignificant cost of the projection equipment. 3D is also currently getting more butts in seats than 2D was, leading to somewhat more concessions sales — going to the movies is an outing and an event again — though that's tapering off as it becomes less and less of a novelty. The ticket prices aren't coming down, though. Moral of the story: like razors or printers, theaters lose a ton of money to show you movies due to studio oligopoly pricing, and make it up on popcorn.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1125a00e20fcce7a54f20f4a30e98c35",
"text": "\"To add to Jason's answer; a further mechanism is that of monopoly rents which you mention in your question. Movie theatres are often in shopping complexes (which themselves may offer a particular cinema exclusivity), or physically remote from each other, making price comparison more difficult. Different companies may not offer the same movies (similar to the way phone companies offer difficult-to-compare contract pricing). Once you've paid for your movie ticket, if you're suddenly thirsty or peckish, the theatre is the only place selling snacks. Many theatres (including film theatres) discourage (or refuse) patrons from consuming products purchased elsewhere on site. A sense of \"\"capture\"\" is reinforced with ticket collection at the entrance or some form of barrier (inside vs outside the cordon). A theatre can thus capture their patrons and then leverage that access in order to discriminate amongst the higher-paying consumers mentioned by Jason.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "bac6fb82079eb594958328de09f62c77",
"text": "Movie theater popcorn concessions are not really a competitive market.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "615805aad595c950ff380c27d30f25b0",
"text": "\"With all due respect to economics everywhere and the armchair economist. I think they overlook one very basic fact. The alternative to buying popcorn at the cinema is buying it cheaper at the store, or making your own and bringing it to the cinema. Cinemagoing is something you tend to do with a date (and sometimes your friends) and who wants to look cheap to their date (and perhaps their spouse/friends) bringing popcorn to the cinema? This \"\"cheapo-gentlemens\"\" effect together with convenience is probably the reason why popcorn can remain so expensive at cinemas.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f67d16b648ae2dcaddcbc3ecf9201539",
"text": "I think this question has more to do with the business model of cinema. If I remember correctly. Most of the money from ticket sales goes back to the studios. Something like the newer a movie is the greater percentage goes back to the movie studios and the older a movie is the greater percentage of ticket price goes to the cinema. So high priced popcorn and candy is often the only place where the individual theaters make any money. This may not be true for every movie but I believe it was the case for films like James Cameron's Avatar.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "aa6ea3cedd16816577a2685b74d5c499",
"text": "\"It's called extracting consumer surplus. Basically I have a bunch of movie goers (who have paid a lot for their tickets). Some of them don't like popcorn, and some do. Of the people in the latter group, there are some who are willing to pay a lot for it. That's partly because I have a select group (rich movie goers) and partly because some of these people would be willing to pay more for popcorn with a movie than without. If I were just selling \"\"popcorn,\"\" I'd have to charge a competitive price. But I'm really selling movies, which have more than covered my costs (rent, heat, etc.) So my costs of selling popcorn are less than that of a non-movie popcorn seller, and I don't really \"\"need\"\" to sell it. Ironically, it means that I can \"\"take my chances\"\" and sell a relatively small amount at a high price, thereby maximizing my UNIT profit. I don't mind having people NOT buy popcorn because I've already made my profit from them with the movie. From the point of view of the consumer, most consumers see popcorn as an \"\"afterthought.\"\" They will seldom think, \"\"I can buy popcorn $2.00 cheaper at Theater A than Theater B, and there's a 20 percent chance that I will want to buy popcorn, so Theater A is 40 cents ($2.00*.20) cheaper than Theater B.\"\" Instead, most make the decision to buy the popcorn after they've arrived at Theater B, because it as \"\"impulse item.\"\" And even if they do the \"\"40 cents\"\" calculation, Theater B might be selected because other factors (convenience, location, etc.) outweigh the 40 cent extra cost of popcorn (purchased \"\"sometimes\"\"). Put another way, the cost of popcorn is (usually) heavily discounted because of its \"\"remoteness\"\" to other facets of the decision.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "35e20f6d7121dc7b7980251dbd5f8b8b",
"text": "Theaters make pennies off the tickets if any money at all. Their profits come from the concession stand. If a theater priced their popcorn 50 cents less than a nearby competing theater the few if any customers that notice and seek those small savings would be far less than the losses due to charging less. They compete to get you there: providing better sound systems, seating, screens -- even taking a loss on tickets with special deals (like Tuesday bargains). Once inside profit is made by customers willing to pay the concession price premium, and sour patch kids for 15 cents more isn't going to be a deal breaker.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a734a8af4ec3f4733f7c46d5e0dbfd2",
"text": "In my experience, there's usually only one or two theatres within a small city. Maybe a few more in larger cities, but those are also larger areas. So there really isn't much competition. Sure, there are other places to get popcorn, but not movie theatre popcorn. It won't be lathered with 4000 calories worth of tasty butter and salt. Even if you make it at home that can be difficult to accomplish (and then you have to invest the time to make it). Besides, when I go to the movies, I don't go just to see a movie. If I just want to see a movie I can watch it at home. The junk food they sell is part of the experience. Even then, people do smuggle their own food into theatres all the time - but it's hard to smuggle in a bag of popcorn, and again, ordinary popcorn just isn't the same. So, I think the answer boils down to: it's expensive because people are willing to pay for it. And they're willing to pay for it because it's not really available elsewhere at any better price, and it's part of what they come for.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2adcc92518c75e466df647a816251f3a",
"text": "I'm kind of shocked that no formal behavioral modeling has been proposed as an explanation yet. One such model would be steep (hyperbolic, quasi-hyperbolic) discounting. Consumers would rather pay for popcorn later than for an expensive movie ticket now. For instance, consumers might when purchasing the ticket see a low value of popcorn and view the ticket price as the whole price because they do not predict purchasing popcorn. Then when entering the theater, the present value of popcorn is very high and they purchase it. There might therefore be a market for a commitment device (such as a popcornless theater) to make the appropriate decision ex-ante. Another commitment device that seems to be practiced is when individuals sneak their own popcorn into the theater. They may not actually want the popcorn, but by bringing their own they ensure they do not purchase the theater's.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e3f5abd2acfb1265fc3d3a319711a1c4",
"text": "You're looking at this too rationally. People can not resist eating junk food, especially when they have to sit for 2-3 hours to watch a movie. It's pure biology, not economics. People don't always act according to economic logic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4358e99254d6af312389bce07cbf9e75",
"text": "I think a labor management issue explains the high cost of popcorn. Some weeks theaters are loaded with patrons and other weeks there are many fewer patrons. If popcorn were priced so that most patrons bought some the theater manager would have to have lots of employees to sell popcorn on the really busy days. The manager would have to cover the cost of wages on the slow days. A simple solution would be to adjust employee hours. To a certain extent I suspect this is done. If you look at the situation from the standpoint of the employee being sent home early or being told not to work tomorrow or, perhaps for the next week because the theater has a bunch of bombs, is not a good situation. A job in popcorn sales is probably not a high paying job so the employees may just quit and they may do this, not by giving notice, but rather by not showing up for a scheduled shift. The result of this is that managers determine the maximum number of employees they can hire if there theater has low drawing movies and they set the price of popcorn so that when the theater is filled this number of employees will not be overwhelmed by patron buying popcorn. At least not to the extent that the start of the movie has to be delayed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "472746e140cc4590c6522725079cff7d",
"text": "John R. Lott, Jr. and Russell D. Roberts argue that popcorn in movie theaters has a price commensurate with its much higher cost. See also Lott's criticism of the Gil and Hartmann paper.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0c91f424b67f5a8969c651b558c8d18a",
"text": "The cost of the popcorn is simply the hidden extension of the price the consumer pays for the movie ticket. Similar to the tips in the restaurant. And movie theaters do not compete by lowering the unit price. Instead to maintain the revenue per customer they try to offer more value - bigger screen, better sound, more comfortable seats, etc. That is why the price of the popcorn just like the price of the ticket itself does not go down in the competitive market.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f437c961113c02977dce3155993b2a5c",
"text": "In the theater, it's a person who can afford to buy expensive pop corn, cause he can buy the expensive movie ticket too... Also sitting at one place will make him feel hungry and buy something to eat... So maximum chances are that in the theater, that guy is your potential customer... Otherwise if the popcorn seller is somewhere outside the theater, they may charge you less. That's because of a different target audience... They would be targeting anyone who comes near the theater, who would not be willing to pay for expensive snacks or movie tickets... So very few customers around will be actually potential customers... To maximize their profits, they will keep the prices low and supply as much as they can... I know this is going against the normal Price Elasticity of Demand and Supply graph, but if the prices are low there will be high demand, so if the PED is more than 1, the supplier should supply as much as they can, to maximize profits... Its all based on the target audience... That's what I think should be the case of expensive popcorn in movie theaters...",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "148b802970bd102897d3ec2d9f9fd92d",
"text": "It's because true competition does not exist in the movie theater business. If you wanted to open up a competing theater whose competitive advantage was cheaper popcorn, you couldn't do it - the studios would never give you rights to screen popular new release movies. I know this because there are indie movie theaters that constantly struggle to acquire screening rights, because the Regals and AMCs of the world work hard to maintain their monopoly by having exclusive licensing deals with studios. Effectively, studios and a couple major theater chains have gotten together and agreed to fix the price of popcorn. So if you want cheaper popcorn, there are theaters where you'll find it - you just won't be watching Hollywood blockbuster new releases while you're eating it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fa01bf9e3616fae31adabfd6b920145b",
"text": "\"A better question would be to ask \"\"Why don't movie theaters charge to use the bathroom?\"\", or \"\"Why don't movie theaters charge for parking?\"\". In America, either government regulation or the mall itself forbids charging for parking, or limits the amount that can be charged for parking. This tends to be more true in suburban areas where land is cheap, but less true downtown in cities. The nearest theater to me is in a mall that is also on a metro line. Those who arrive by metro to see the movie are effectively subsidizing those who arrive via automobile and park. I don't know of any place in America that charges to use the bathroom, but the practice is still common in Europe. I saw the second The Matrix film in Brussels, and had to pay to pee. I'm not sure why this isn't the case in the U.S. Maybe there are widespread regulations against this. Or maybe it's a cultural thing, that we would be so offended by this that we would never go back to the theater.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b32243e607432b727df4fd2d87fdc4a2",
"text": "I think because that high price and the fact that you anyway have a limited time to buy it before the movie starts maximizes their revenue.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "30bdd6c7622b38d322cb6dfd4202f5d4",
"text": "While many answers correctly cite the effect of monopoly power.... there is a cost issue that no one has yet posted. I first recall seeing this cost effect in a managerial econ textbook, perhaps Ivan Png's. The theater must clean up the popcorn mess. The sales of popcorn elsewhere does not usually include the costs of disposal because that cost is not borne by the vendor. In a theater the cost of disposal -- which is a variable cost depending on the amount and type of foodstuff sold -- is borne by the vendor, who must pay employees to clean up between shows and at the end of the night. While most people are responsible with popcorn, there is a long tail of more and more costly messes left by the customer... and if the theater shirks the cost of cleaning the messes then rats with long tails will bite into future customer demand for tickets. Whether this cost effect is as large as the monopoly power effect and the synergy in willingness-to-pay between entertainment and refreshments is not clear. All of these effects may be in operation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a928b3d680b32ac10d860d1f71d28168",
"text": "People have moods, that mean they don't have the same level of demand for luxuries every day. There might be some days when I'm feeling a bit poor, or feel like I need to save money, and the price I'm prepared to pay for a box of popcorn might be 50c. There might be other days, for example, the day after I receive my wages, when I feel rich and I don't care how much I spend on things. On such a day, the price I'm prepared to pay for a box of popcorn might be $10. Now, when a supermarket sells popcorn, they're not really able to price discriminate between these two groups. People come through their doors in all kinds of mood, so the profit-maximising price for popcorn is going to be somewhere in the middle. But the only people who go to a movie theatre are people who are already in the right mood to spend money on needless luxuries. So the very fact of being in a movie theatre means that a popcorn stall, whether affiliated to the theatre or not, is open only to the high-spending end of the market. They have already caught me when I'm in the mood to spend, so their profit-maximising price will be much higher than that of the supermarket.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "a386d52e8820cd77a4acb592f43dbff4",
"text": "A subsidy is a payment made by a group (usually the state) to individuals or corporations in order to shift the balance if the rational economic decision for the individual would be detrimental to the group as a whole otherwise. For example, if there are different quality kinds of crops that can be planted, for example a GM maize that brings in high yields but can only be processed to High Fructose Corn Syrup or a naturally bred corn that brings lower yields but tastes well enough for direct consumption, then if demand for both exceeds supply, the economic choice for the individual farmer is to plant the former. If the claims that HFCS contribute to obesity are founded, then it is in the public interest to produce less of it, and more alternative foods. Given that a market rather than a planned economy is desired, this cannot be achieved by decree, but rather money is used as an incentive. In the long term, this investment may very well pay off through reduced health care costs, so it is a rational economic decision from the state's point of view. In a world where all actors make decisions that are fully in their self interest, in principle subsidies would not be needed as consumers would demand healthy rather than cheap foods, and market mechanisms would provide these.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "98be0b7da15a614bf57d1e37be2a0bd3",
"text": "Generally I drink the free water that they provide. What I am saying is that if they lowered the price of the food and drinks, they might get more people in the door. When it costs $50+ to go to the movies for a family of three, that family tends to not go out much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8309ae39d299c5eb07bed04b95508f21",
"text": "At the base of it all is the massive demand side subsidization of the health care industry primarily through Medicaid and Medicare. It's econ 101 that massive demand side subsidization drives prices up, but nobody wants to emphasize this point because too many pockets are being filled by the subsidization.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f7faca27d33ae3ecfe15a85dd4e6d74b",
"text": "\"McDonalds has some more expensive items, but their \"\"Dollar Menu\"\" is ridiculously popular and supposedly a huge draw. They've been trying to get rid of it for years because it's really hard to get anything decent for $1, but it's just too popular to cut. (According to the random articles I've read about it.) Other places don't really have anything like it. At McDonalds you can get two $1.xx cheeseburgers and fill up pretty good for the cost of going to a vending machine. While I very rarely go to any of these places, I do not agree that food is bad. Tastes are subjective and what you get used to eating tastes good to you. I remember that I used to absolutely love Taco Bell. Then - after a few years of not going there - I went there and found everything to be absolutely disgusting. But for a time, I thought it was the best stuff out there and there are a lot of people who like so called \"\"fast food\"\". I do think the overarching point is true; customer tastes are fluid. In the past 10-ish years, we've come to see a lot of \"\"gourmet\"\" burger places spreading like wildfire, for example. But as long as fast food is cheap, they will continue to fill the market for cheap food.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "306972ad346f16ce6a4b32a1864311fb",
"text": "> It costs as much to project for one guy as for a packed house. I don't have specific knowledge about movie licensing, but I'd be VERY surprised if the number of tickets to a given showing didn't factor into the actual price paid to the rights holder. I mean, we live in a world where ASCAP charges bars for jukebox plays based on an estimate of how many people in the bar could hear the song.....",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c95a3f96955c131806f5b56e19a89780",
"text": "That is true. Since commodities are basically a futures contract, their actual price is not reflected in grocery stores. It is more of a supply and demand issue with your grocer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "646958d497c01038e06c9619f0169def",
"text": "In some country's even retail competitors set up a cartel like scheme and they pressure the fuck out of farmer and producers to drop prices, and obey to their promotion's. It's like they give them the volume to expand, and now that you are in a whole other level of production cut down prices or you'll be left with perishable goods with a limited shelf life, and no one to buy them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c9e20507bb9e2bcaf472d84fa53290d5",
"text": "It's not actually fighting the paradox of choice, it's lowering the costs of supply chain management. A regular supermarket, for example, has to source 50 different varieties of hot sauce from different manufacturers. Trader Joe's has a couple of varieties of their own sauce, and it's delivered in the same truck that delivers 99% of their food. People overlook this fact a lot - Trader Joes is a business that is vertically integrated, unlike any other supermarket.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a683aa7dc1eeb98a212a8cfccf42858b",
"text": "It's the combination of lower earning power and new technologies/trends. Like you said, why spend $100 on a sit down meal for two and cinema tickets, when you can spend 1/3 of that, get an online delivery and watch Netflix (and chill)?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "87f0b86fbb1c384cb4dbca3819c29e0a",
"text": "\"This is known as \"\"Zone Pricing\"\" or \"\"Geographical Pricing\"\". http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jun/19/business/fi-calprice19 Such price variations may seem odd, but they are not unique to Anaheim. On any given day, in any major U.S. city, a single brand of gasoline will sell for a wide range of prices even when the cost to make and deliver the fuel is the same. The primary culprit is zone pricing, a secret and pervasive oil company strategy to boost profits by charging dealers different amounts for fuel based on traffic volume, station amenities, nearby household incomes, the strength of competitors and other factors. It's a controversial strategy, but the courts have thus far deemed it legal, and the Federal Trade Commission recently said the effect on consumers was ambiguous because some customers got hurt by higher prices while others benefited from lower ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_pricing Zone pricing, as practiced in the gasoline industry in the United States, is the pricing of gasoline based on a complex and secret weighting of factors, such as the number of competing stations, number of vehicles, average traffic flow, population density, and geographic characteristics. This can result in two branded gas stations only a few miles apart selling gasoline at a price differential of as much as $0.50 per gallon. But the short answer is \"\"because they can\"\". It's legal, provided that some people are paying less while others are paying more. Essentially the larger, richer audience is subsidizing the product for other areas. It's not terribly different than the way most drugs are priced in the world.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "73546c29cd824959056a3bf34e60ee69",
"text": "I think they have a solid model, most theaters are empty most hours, so if this puts butts in seats, it's better than them going empty, and the theater mainly makes its money at the concession stand, so more people into the theater, more chances of making money off the concession. Only thing is that it might be too cheap. I enjoy going to the movies and I'd have paid upwards of $50 for this even if I'd only go two-five times a month. This is just far too cheap and would necessitate having a ridiculous amount of people signed up for it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5147a957c33e626687cd2ef5cccf6fea",
"text": "Don't discount regulatory issues (the mess that was CableCard, Tru2Way, tuning adapters, and the lack of AllVid) and monopolistic pressure (the cable companies liked receiving $5/box/month and don't want to give any of that income up, combined with fear of becoming the dumb pipe they really are so they applied as much pressure as possible against good regulations).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "25c24377f1738666a0983f2ecea7887a",
"text": "The key is that you need to use your debit card to earn the higher interest rate. The bank can offer a higher interest rate on accounts connected with a debit card because: They earn additional income through debit card fees charged towards account holders, among other things. They offer the higher interest rate specifically to encourage people to use their debit cards. By offering a joint checking/savings account that requires you to use your debit card, the bank is assuming that you'll keep more money in your account than you would in a standard checking-only account. Your higher balance translates into more money the bank can loan out or invest, which usually leads to higher profit for them. Businesses pay fees to the bank to accept debit cards. These fees represent another source of profit for the bank. The more you use your debit card, the more the bank earns in fees, so the bank encourages you to use your debit card more frequently through incentives like a higher interest rate or waiving fees on your account if you use your card enough. Plus, since it's likely that an individual who maintains a fairly high balance in an account linked to a debit card is going to spend more (simply because they can spend more), banks will sometimes waive fees on the consumer side for balances over a certain amount.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6913ee4ec4b8cc12d1a45e16e86dc931",
"text": "\"E) Spend a small amount of that money on getting advice from a paid financial planner. (Not a broker or someone offering you \"\"free\"\" advice; their recommendations may be biased toward what makes them the most money). A good financial planner will talk to you about your plans and expectations both short and long term, and about your risk tolerance (would a drop in value panic you even if you know it's likely to recover and average out in the long run, that sort of thing), and about how much time and effort you want to put into actively managing your portfolio. From those answers, they will generate an initial proposed plan, which will be tested against simulations of the stock market to make sure it holds up. Typically they'll do about 100 passes over the plan to get a sense of its probable risk versus growth-potential versus volatility, and tweak the plan until the normal volatility is within the range you've said you're comfortable with while trying to produce the best return with the least risk. This may not be a perfect plan for you -- but at the very least it will be an excellent starting point until you decide (if you ever do decide) that you've learned enough about investing that you want to do something different with the money. It's likely to be better advice than you'll get here simply because they can and will take the time to understand your specific needs rather than offering generalities because we're trying to write something that applies to many people, all of whom have different goals and time horizons and financial intestinal fortitude. As far as a house goes: Making the mistake of thinking of a house as an investment is a large part of the mindset that caused the Great Recession. Property can be an investment (or a business) or it can be something you're living in; never make the mistake of putting it in both categories at once. The time to buy a house is when you want a house, find a house you like in a neighborhood you like, expect not to move out of it for at least five years, can afford to put at least 20% down payment, and can afford the ongoing costs. Owning your home is not more grown-up, or necessarily financially advantageous even with the tax break, or in any other way required until and unless you will enjoy owning your home. (I bought at age 50ish, because I wanted a place around the corner from some of my best friends, because I wanted better noise isolation from my neighbors, because I wanted a garden, because I wanted to do some things that almost any landlord would object to, and because I'm handy enough that I can do a lot of the routine maintenance myself and enjoy doing it -- buy a house, get a free set of hobbies if you're into that. And part of the reason I could afford this house, and the changes that I've made to it, was that renting had allowed me to put more money into investments. My only regret is that I didn't realise how dumb it was not to max out my 401(k) match until I'd been with the company for a decade ... that's free money I left on the table.)\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4e57eee3747034815cab3fb9393e795e
|
using credit card and paying back quickly
|
[
{
"docid": "26d4263e60fe27d2025df0336303a83d",
"text": "Yes, however you would have to wait for the $900 to actually be available in your credit card account if making the transaction from an account from another bank or provider, as it usually might take one to two business days for this to happen. If both the chequing account and credit card account are with the same bank, then usually this will go through straight away, and you will be able to make your next purchase on the same day, but I would check your credit card balance first before making that purchase.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "441fd07c422b3adfdc1129414374847f",
"text": "\"I can't speak for every credit card, but I know two of mine don't have overage fees. The transaction either goes through, or gets denied. Check your card agreement and look for the fee section. One other thing to consider, sometimes when you make an online payment to a credit card, you will notice that the \"\"Available Balance\"\" number on the account will increase right away even if the payment is not reflected on your \"\"Current Balance\"\". If this is the case, and you are positive that your payment will be successfully posted to the account, I say go for it.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "11892ed9e5d1eccc37a4e36c24e5b22a",
"text": "Correct. By putting expenses on to a credit card which does not charge interest during the grace period, and paying that balance every month, in effect you earn interest on money you've already spent. However, first, savings account interest is something like .05% right now depending on your bank. Yeah it's money, but seriously, that's 4 cents per month on $1000. Second, two things can make this very wrong. If you carry a balance, you'll pay much more in interest than you'd get from practically any investment you could make with the cash in the meantime. Second, a debit card can be used to get cash you already have from an ATM (not everyone takes credit, you know), and it'll cost you little or nothing. Use a credit card for the same purpose and you're paying 40% from the second the money comes out of the machine. Also correct. Rewards cards earn you more the more they're used. That's because the card issuer makes money based on usage; they get 3% of each transaction. They're happy to turn 1% of that, up to a limit or subject to a spending floor, back around to you. Again, check the terms and conditions. Most cards have a limit on total rewards. Many of them also have fees, either while you hold the card or when you try to redeem the rewards. Look for a card with high limits or no limits on rewards from spending, and with no annual fee or reward redemption fee. In addition to the above, you build good credit history with good spending patterns. However, your credit score can fluctuate wildly, because on one day you have very low leverage (percent of credit limit used), and on the next you've bought $200 in groceries and so your leverage went up 20% on a card with a $1000 limit. Leverage under 10% is good, leverage under 40% is OK and leverage over that starts looking bad. With a $1000 limit, with you maxing it out and then paying it off, your credit score can fluctuate by 30 points on any given day.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "25289ea61944e5b4bafd9ae395d2a347",
"text": "\"never carry a balance on a credit card. there is almost always a cheaper way to borrow money. the exception to that rule is when you are offered a 0% promotion on a credit card, but even then watch out for cash advance fees and how payments are applied (typically to promotional balances first). paying interest on daily spending is a bad idea. generally, the only time you should pay interest is on a home loan, car loan or education loan. basically that's because those loans can either allow you to reduce an expense (e.g. apartment rent, taxi fair), or increase your income (by getting a better job). you can try to make an argument about the utility of a dollar, but all sophistry aside you are better off investing than borrowing under normal circumstances. that said, using a credit card (with no annual fee) can build credit for a future car or home loan. the biggest advantage of a credit card is cash back. if you have good credit you can get a credit card that offers at least 1% cash back on every purchase. if you don't have good credit, using a credit card with no annual fee can be a good way to build credit until you can get approved for a 2% card (e.g. citi double cash). additionally, technically, you can get close to 10% cash back by chasing sign up bonuses. however, that requires applying for new cards frequently and keeping track of minimum spend etc. credit cards also protect you from fraud. if someone uses your debit card number, you can be short on cash until your bank fixes it. but if someone uses your credit card number, you can simply dispute the charge when you get the bill. you don't have to worry about how to make rent after an unexpected 2k$ charge. side note: it is a common mis-conception that credit card issuers only make money from cardholder interest and fees. card issuers make a lot of revenue from \"\"interchange fees\"\" paid by merchants every time you use your card. some issuers (e.g. amex) make a majority of their revenue from merchants.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e8ff59ea2c23ffa7b310d9932d2fd828",
"text": "\"I also feel it's important to NOT get a credit card. I'm in my mid 30's and have had credit cards since I was 20, as has everyone I know. Every single one of those people, with the exception of my dad, is currently carrying some amount of credit card debt - almost always in the thousands of dollars. Here is the essential problem with credit cards. Everyone sets out with good intentions, to use the credit card like a debit card, and pay charges off before interest accrues. However, almost no-one has the discipline to remember to do this, and a balance quickly builds up on the card. Also, it's extremely easy to prioritize other bill payments before credit card payments, resulting in a balance building up on the card. It's almost magical how quickly a balance will build up on a credit card. Ultimately, they are simply too convenient, too tempting for most human beings. The world, and especially the North American world, is in a massive debt crisis. It is very easy to borrow money these days, and our culture is at the point where \"\"buy now pay later\"\" is an accepted practice. Now that I have young children, I will be teaching them the golden rule of \"\"don't buy something until you have cash to pay for it in full!\"\" It sounds like an over simplification but this one rule will save you an incredible amount of financial grief over time.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0705011a94c6f42e4594a8b2d3c5aafb",
"text": "\"The key part of your question is the \"\"so far\"\". So you didn't need a credit card today, or yesterday, or last month - great! But what about tomorrow? The time may come when you really need to spend a little more than you have, and a credit card will let you do that, at a very modest cost if you pay it off promptly (no cost, if paid within 30 days). I learned this when I was traveling and stranded due to bad weather. I had almost nothing in my bank account at the time, and while I actually did have a small student-type credit card, I came really close to having to sleep at the train station when I didn't have enough for another night in a hotel. As an example, if you have close friends or family living across the country, and something tragic were to happen, would you be able to pay for a flight to attend the funeral? What if you'd recently had an accident and a big medical bill (it doesn't take much, a broken arm can cost $10,000)? Perhaps you have a solid nest egg, but breaking a CD ahead of schedule or taking short-term capital gains on a mutual fund will usually cost more than one or two months of interest payments.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "60f197fcd24ac4a0004f929ef51fa4a2",
"text": "This strategy will have long lasting effects since negative items can persist for many years, making financing a home difficult, the primary source of household credit. It is also very risky. You can play hard, but then the creditor may choose you to be the one that they make an example out of by suing you for a judgement that allows them to empty your accounts and garnish your wages. If you have no record of late payments, or they are old and/or few, your credit score will quickly shoot up if you pay down to 10% of the balance, keep the cards, and maintain that balance rate. This strategy will have them begging you to take on more credit with offers of lower interest rates. The less credit you take on, the more they'll throw at you, and when it comes time to purchase a home, more home can be bought because your interest rates will be lower.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fdc4fb5e150939da5af1384a61a75eeb",
"text": "On the face, this appears a sound method to manage long run cumulative interest, but there are some caveats. Maxing out credit cards will destroy your credit rating. You will receive no more reasonable offers for credit, only shady ones. Though your credit rating will rise the moment you bring the balance back down to 10%, even with high income, it's easy to overshoot the 8 months, and then a high interest rate kicks in because of the low credit rating. Further, maxing out credit cards will encourage credit card lenders to begin cutting limits and at worse demand early payment. Now, after month 6 hits, your financial payment obligations skyrocket. A sudden jolt is never easy to manage. This will increase risk of missing a payment, a disaster for such hair line financing. In short, the probability of decimating your financial structure is high for very little benefit. If you are confident that you can pay off $4,000 in 8 months then simply apply those payments to the student loan directly, cutting out the middle man. Your creditors will be pleased to see your total liabilities fall at a high rate while your utilization remains small, encouraging them to offer you more credit and lower rates. The ideal credit card utilization rate is 10%, so it would be wise to use that portion to repay the student loans. Building up credit will allow you to use the credit as an auxiliary cushion when financial disaster strikes. Keeping an excellent credit rating will allow you to finance the largest home possible for your money. Every percentage point of mortgage interest can mean the difference between a million USD home and a $750,000 one.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e138ff6defe2d6a89d15ee865e23745f",
"text": "\"Credit card interest rates are obscene. Try to find some other kind of loan for the furnishings; if you put things on the card, try to pay them off as quickly as possible. I should say that for most people I do recommend having a credit card. Hotels, car rental agencies, and a fair number of other businesses expect to be able to guarantee your reservation by taking the card info and it is much harder to do business with them without one. It gives you a short-term emergency fund you can tap (and then immediately pay back, or as close to immediately as possible). Credit cards are one of the safer ways to pay via internet, since they have guarantees that limit your liability if they are misused, and the bank can help you \"\"charge back\"\" to a vendor who doesn't deliver as promised. And if you have the self-discipline to pay the balance due in full every month, they can be a convenient alternative to carrying a checkbook or excessive amounts of cash. But there are definitely people who haven't learned how to use this particular tool without hurting themselves. Remember that it needs to be handled with respect and appropriate caution.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cb8152e2f225941fdaf15f1f09e1f37d",
"text": "I'm not sure if you are including the use of credit cards in the intent of your quesiton. However, I will give you some good reasons I use them even when I can pay cash: 1) I get an interest free loan for almost 30 days as long as I don't carry balances. 2) I get a statement detailing where I am spending my money that is helpful for budgeting. I'd never keep track to this level of detail if I were using cash. 3) Many cards offer reward programs that can be used for cash back. 4) It helps maintain my credit rating for those times I NEED to buy something and pay it off over time (car, house, etc.) 5) Not so much an issue for me personally, but for people that live paycheck to paycheck, it might help to time your cash outflows to match up with your inflows. For a business, I think it is mostly a cash flow issue. That is, in a lot of B2B type businesses customers can pay very slowly (managing their own cash flows). So your revenue can sometimes lag quite a bit behind the expenses that were associated with them (e.g payroll). A business line of credit can smooth out the cash flow, especially for companies that don't have a lot of cash reserves.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a92bb207b3777dc38b829f77f1fa689",
"text": "If you can use and pay off your credit card in full every month, there are plenty of benefits including improved credit, reward points and more. Many fall into the trap of just making the minimum payments and facing high interest charges or missing payments and getting a hit on their credit reports. To start off, put something small that you know you can pay off every month. It could be your Netflix or your gas. Make sure you pay it off before any interest is accrued. Over time, you can ask for higher limits to boost your utilization rate.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f858b32f420e644bcc515ce8d8da0566",
"text": "\"Most credit cards allow you to take \"\"cash advances\"\", but the fees and limits for cash advances are different than for regular purchases. You can buy stock after taking a cash advance from your credit card. When you make a cash advance, you normally pay the credit card company a fee. When you make a regular purchase, the merchant (ie, the stockbroker) pays a fee. Additionally, credit card companies can make merchants wait up to 3 months to actually receive the money, in case the transaction is disputed. Your stockbroker is unlikely to want to pay the fee, accept the delay in receiving the funds, and risking that you will dispute the transaction. Having said that, many FOREX brokers will accept credit card deposits (treated as purchases), although FOREX can be considerably riskier than the stock market. Of course, if you max out your credit cards and lose all your money, you can normally negotiate to pay back the debt for less than the original amount, especially since it's unsecured debt.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d724a1c1594d6e523fb271b54f2175ab",
"text": "When you pay off a loan early, you pay the remaining principal, and you save all of the remaining interest. So you do save on interest, but it's the interest you would have paid in the future, not the interest you have paid in the past. (Your remaining balance when you pay off the loan only includes the principal, not the projected interest.) Interest is a factor of the amount borrowed, the interest rate and the amount of time you borrow the money. The sooner you repay the money, the less interest you pay. Imagine if you had taken a 30 year loan at 4% interest but were allowed to make no payments until the loan term ended. If you waited 15 years to make your first payment, you wouldn't owe the same money as if you'd made payments every month. No, instead of owing ~$64k, you'd owe ~$182k, because you had borrowed $100k for 15 years (plus the interest due) rather than borrowing a declining sum. So that's why you don't get a refund on interest for previous months. If you had started with a 16 year loan, then you would have been paying more principal every month, and your monthly amount due would have been higher to reflect that. As you paid the principal off faster, the interest each month would drop faster. Paying a huge portion of the principal at the end of the loan is not the same as steadily paying it down in the same time frame. You will pay a lot more interest in the former case, and rightfully so. It might help to consider a credit card payment in comparison. If you run up a balance and pay only the minimum each month, you pay a lot of interest over time, because your principal goes down slowly. If you suddenly pay off your credit card, you don't have to pay any more interest, but you also don't get any interest back for previous months. That's because the interest accrued each month is based on your current balance, just like your mortgage. The minimum payments are calculated differently, but the interest accrued each month uses essentially the same mechanism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2f1ba347564bf022cb2ff4282dfce309",
"text": "As long as you can be trusted with a Credit Card i find that if you have a setup that uses three accounts: 1. your Credit Card, 2. 2. a high interest internet account (most of these accounts don’t have fees), 3. a savings account. The Method that works for me is: 1st i calculate my fixed monthly bills i.e Rent and utilities and then transfer it into my high interest account. for the month whenever i make a purchase i transfer the money into the high interest account ( this way I can keep a running balance of what money I have left to spend in the month. Then when the Credit Card bill comes I transfer the money out of the high interest account across to pay off the Credit Card ( this way you generate interest on the money which you would have spent throughout the month and still maintain $0 of interest from the Credit Card) over a year you can generate at least enough money in interest to go out for dinner on one of free flights!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9b57b79376f59df43a6a51ee2b861ac6",
"text": "A credit card is essentially a contract where they will loan you money in an on demand basis. It is not a contract for you to loan them money. The money that you have overpaid is generally treated as if it is a payment for a charge that you have made that has not been processed yet. The bank can not treat that money as a deposit and thus leverage it make money them selves. You can open an account and get a debit card. This would allow you to accrue interest for your deposit while using your money. But if you find one willing to pay you 25% interest please share with the rest of us :)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "cf06e8134e17f22ae500482c03ac0d3a",
"text": "\"It is going to save you more money in the long run to pay at once with cash. If you take out a loan, you will pay interest on the balance, costing you money. If you pay off the balance immediately, there is no difference between the options and your question becomes irrelevant. There is no credit rating benefit to placing large purchases on your cards, especially since your credit is fine. My advice is to pay in cash in this case, mostly because it makes you 'feel' the purchase. This is what you are describing in your question. This instinct helps you recognize potential problems, instead of masking them with debt. Questions like: \"\"Do I need this?\"\" \"\"Am I overextending myself financially with this purchase?\"\" \"\"Am I holding enough cash-on-hand for emergencies?\"\" You may be fine in these areas, but I would still argue that cash makes you a better buyer because the expense feels much more significant, making you more cautious and discerning. You are right to feel these things before dropping a large sum of money. Let it inform you and help you make better decisions. Don't mask it or be paralyzed by it!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d2ec2555cc2ad70761dec8b1d77383c1",
"text": "\"There are always little tricks you can play with your credit card. For example, the due date of your statement balance is not really set in stone as your bank would like you to believe. Banks have a TOS where they can make you liable to pay interest from the statement generation date (which is a good 25 days before your due date) on your balance, if you don't pay off your balance by your due date. However, you can choose to not pay your balance by your due date upto 30 days and they will not report your late payment to credit agencies. If they ask you to pay interest, you can negotiate yourself out of it as well (although not sure if it will work every-time if you make it a habit!) Be careful though: not all banks report your credit utilization based on your statement balance! DCU for example, reports your credit utilization based on your end-of-the-month balance. This can affect your short term credit score (history?) and mess around with your chances of pulling off these tricks with the bank CSRs. These \"\"little tricks\"\" can effectively net you more than 60 days of interest free loans, but I am not sure if anyone will condone this as a habit, especially on this website :-)\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
96e36db56c2649809d9229ed7922a5d5
|
Form as LLC or S Corp to reduce tax liability
|
[
{
"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": "d4027d20a9a9396d21be3ac1bc4cf610",
"text": "An LLC or an S corp will result in the same tax obligations because both are pass-through tax entities. An LLC is more flexible for the situation you describe because the member and manager responsibilities can be detailed in the operating agreement. You really should get a business attorney to help you get your operating agreement in order. There's also a startups beta site on Stack Exchange that may be able to help you with questions about ways to handle your operating agreement.",
"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": "6e5c72f2f75b888eb1f9b13f75672b55",
"text": "It seems that you're complicating things quite a bit. Why would you not create a business entity, open one or more bank accounts for it, and then have the money wired into those accounts? If you plan on being a company then set up the appropriate structure for it. In the U.S., you can form an S-corporation or an LLC and choose pass-through taxation so that all you pay is income tax on what you receive from the business as personal income. The business itself would not have tax liability in such a case. Co-mingling your personal banking with that of your business could create real tax headaches for you if you aren't careful, so it's not worth the trouble or risk.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b1d966d38507f2431e2031ce742cfa87",
"text": "Compared with a Sole Proprietorship, the main disadvantages of an S-Corporation or an LLC are that it adds a lot of management overhead (time, and possibly money if you don't do it all yourself), and there are fees you must pay to incorporate, as well as additional yearly maintenance fees which vary by state. You should be able to weigh the tax savings and liability protection against the extra costs and hassle, and see which way the scales tip. As a rule of thumb, the bigger your business gets or the more income you make, the more attractive incorporating becomes. Note there are some additional taxes that certain jurisdictions impose on business income. For example, IL and CA charge 1.5% tax, NY is less, but NYC is 8.85%! In NYC specifically, you could actually end up paying slightly more tax as an S-Corp than you would as a Sole Proprietorship. In most places though, the nominal local taxes will still be less than the FICA taxes you could potentially save.",
"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": "ce251ce6d31823ac7124eae816392f7c",
"text": "Do you have any insight on average *effective* rates paid by SE owners? As a counterpoint to your (very valid) links, filing as S-corp allows for taxes on distributions to be exempt from payroll tax and taxed at much lower rates. Also, being SE allows for various deductions not possible for wage earners. There's probably other examples not immediately coming to mind. Also, SE taxes equal taxes otherwise paid by employer + employee. It's just that those employer taxes don't appear on the employee's paystub so not everyone realizes this.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "614098cccc7c2833b8fc3c2452d2e12c",
"text": "\"Ditto @GradeEhBacon, but let me add a couple of comments: But more relevantly: GradeEhBacon mentioned transaction costs. Yes. Many tax shelters require setting up accounts, doing paperwork, etc. Often you have to get a lawyer or accountant to do this right. If the tax shelter could save you $1 million a year in taxes, it makes sense to pay a lawyer $10,000 to set it up right. If it could save you $100 a year in taxes, paying $10,000 to set it up would be foolish. In some cases the tax savings would be so small that it wouldn't be worth the investment of spending $20 on a FedEx package to ship the paperwork. Inconvenience. Arguably this is a special case of transaction costs: the cost of your time. Suppose I knew that a certain tax shelter would save me $100 a year in taxes, but it would take me 20 hours a year to do the paperwork or whatever to manage it. I probably wouldn't bother, because my free time is worth more than $5 an hour to me. If the payoff was bigger or if I was poorer, I might be willing. Complexity. Perhaps a special case of 3. If the rules to manage the tax shelter are complicated, it may not be worth the trouble. You have to spend a bunch of time, and if you do it wrong, you may get audited and slapped with fines and penalties. Even if you do it right, a shelter might increase your chance of being audited, and thus create uncertainty and anxiety. I've never intentionally cheated on my taxes, but every year when I do my taxes I worry, What if I make an honest mistake but the government decides that it's attempted fraud and nails me to the wall? Qualification. Again, as others have noted, tax shelters aren't generally, \"\"if you fill out this form and check box (d) you get 50% off on your taxes\"\". The shelters exist because the government decided that it would be unfair to impose taxes in this particular situation, or that giving a tax break encourages investment, or some other worthy goal. (Sometimes that worthy goal is \"\"pay off my campaign contributors\"\", but that's another subject.) The rules may have unintended loopholes, but any truly gaping ones tend to get plugged. So if, say, they say that you get a special tax break for investing in medical research, you can't just declare that your cigarette and whiskey purchases are medical research and claim the tax break. Or you talked about off-shore tax havens. The idea here is that the US government cannot tax income earned in another country and that has never even entered the US. If you make $10 in France and deposit it in a French bank account and spend it in France, the US can't tax that. So American companies sometimes set up bank accounts outside the US to hold income earned outside the US, so they don't have to bring it into the US and pay the high US tax rate. (US corporate taxes are now the highest of any industrialized country.) You could, I suppose, open an account in the Caymans and deposit the income you earned from your US job there. But if the money was earned in the US, working at a factory or office in the US, by a person living in the US, the IRS is not going to accept that this is foreign income.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4bb25289d82cc6137c37ac317104b946",
"text": "\"Agreed on all points. You're still not saving a TON of money, given that you have to have a reasonable balance of salary/distributions, but an S-corp is the way to go if you're making substantial profit in order to save tax money. I'll reiterate (my wife is a CPA and she guides me on my business) - you can't legally save \"\"untaxed earnings\"\" for next year.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e8c6bd900f8d5b7b20accdc0347b2060",
"text": "Is the business an S-Corp, LLC or Sole Prop? I am going to guess based on the question that it is an LLC that you never closed with the state and you live in a state (NY) that charges a fee for having an LLC in the state in which case you owe those fees to the state. I am not aware of any taxes on the mere existence of a business by the IRS. I think you are going to find out that the are no taxes owed to the IRS for this nonexistent activity.",
"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": "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": "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": "2d11e107b45fdc610c799bfd97e53ba5",
"text": "\"This seems to depend on what kind of corporation you have set up. If you're set up as a sole proprietor, then the Solo 401k contributions, whether employee or employer, will be deducted from your gross income. Thus they don't reduce it. If you're set up as an S-Corp, then the employer contributions, similar to large employer contributions, will be deducted from wages, and won't show up in Box 1 on your W-2, so they would reduce your gross income. (Note, employee contributions also would go away from Box 1, but would still be in Box 3 and 5 for FICA/payroll tax purposes). This is nicely discussed in detail here. The IRS page that discusses this in more (harder to understand) detail is here. Separately, I think a discussion of \"\"Gross Income\"\" is merited, as it has a special definition for sole proprietorships. The IRS defines it in publication 501 as: Gross income. Gross income is all income you receive in the form of money, goods, property, and services that is not exempt from tax. If you are married and live with your spouse in a community property state, half of any income defined by state law as community income may be considered yours. For a list of community property states, see Community property states under Married Filing Separately, later. Self-employed persons. If you are self-employed in a business that provides services (where products are not a factor), your gross income from that business is the gross receipts. If you are self-employed in a business involving manufacturing, merchandising, or mining, your gross income from that business is the total sales minus the cost of goods sold. In either case, you must add any income from investments and from incidental or outside operations or sources. So I think that regardless of 401(k) contributions, your gross income is your gross receipts (if you're a contractor, it's probably the total listed on your 1099(s)).\"",
"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": "e3690f57050d3a70467bddf10e4f5f4c",
"text": "\"It might be best to step back and look at the core information first. You're evaluating an LLC vs a Corporation (both corporate entities). Both have one or more members, and both are seen similarly (emphasis on SIMILAR here, they're not all the same) to the IRS. Specifically, LLC's can opt for a pass-through tax system, basically seen by the IRS the same way an S-Corp is. Put another way, you can be taxed as a corporate entity, or it's P/L statements can \"\"flow through\"\" to your personal taxes. When you opt for a flow-through, the business files and you get a separate schedule to tie into your taxes. You should also look at filing a business expense schedule (Schedule C) on your taxes to claim legitimate business expenses (good reference point here). While there are several differences (see this, and this, and this) between these entities, the best determination on which structure is best for you is usually if you have full time employ while you're running the business. S corps limit shares, shareholders and some deductions, but taxes are only paid by the shareholders. C corps have employees, no restrictions on types or number of stock, and no restrictions on the number of shareholders. However, this means you would become an employee of your business (you have to draw monies from somewhere) and would be subject to paying taxes on your income, both as an individual, and as a business (employment taxes such as Social Security, Medicare, etc). From the broad view of the IRS, in most cases an LLC and a Corp are the same type of entity (tax wise). In fact, most of the differences between LLCs and Corps occur in how Profits/losses are distributed between members (LLCs are arbitrary to a point, and Corps base this on shares). Back to your question IMHO, you should opt for an LLC. This allows you to work out a partnership with your co-worker, and allows you to disburse funds in a more flexible manner. From Wikipedia : A limited liability company with multiple members that elects to be taxed as partnership may specially allocate the members' distributive share of income, gain, loss, deduction, or credit via the company operating agreement on a basis other than the ownership percentage of each member so long as the rules contained in Treasury Regulation (26 CFR) 1.704-1 are met. S corporations may not specially allocate profits, losses and other tax items under US tax law. Hope this helps, please do let me know if you have further questions. As always, this is not legal or tax advice, just what I've learned in setting several LLCs and Corporate structures up over the years. EDIT: As far as your formulas go, the tax rate will be based upon your personal income, for any pass through entity. This means that the same monies earned from and LLC or an S-corp, with the same expenses and the same pass-through options will be taxed the same. More reading: LLC and the law (Google Group)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "49af7aa1976b53feba7306586aa787c1",
"text": "You may be able to, depending on what state you're in, but it is going to be 10x more complicated than just forming a new LLC. I don't see an advantage to this approach - if you're imagining it will be cheaper, you are imagining wrong.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
db45fcefffdf8c68e85f7a5fe04bf366
|
Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment?
|
[
{
"docid": "8fbdbd395d7ba348eadeda32c83ba4d7",
"text": "Ally bank has a free billpay service where you have the option of paying bills via eBills. Though I use Ally's billPay service (and I write about my experience with Ally in my blog), I haven't used eBills, but from reading your question, looks like this is what you are looking for. From Ally's site: What are eBills? An eBill is an online version of a bill or statement that can replace a traditional paper copy. Many large companies, like your electric, phone, cable and major credit card companies have the ability to send you eBills. To receive eBills at Ally, you must already receive your bill online at the biller's website. Ally will ask for the biller's website credentials to set up an eBill. Hope this helps.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c6ec4c6e33b1f072622f1c14cf686071",
"text": "Paytrust seems to be the only game in town. We've changed banks several times over the last 15 years and I can tell you that using a bank's bill pay service locks you in, big time. I loved paytrust because I could make one change if we changed banks. If you're using a bank directly for your bills, the ides of recreating your payee list is daunting.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1c93766cffbed678cdc07a21a5894f72",
"text": "Something you may want to consider if you are still choosing a bill-paying service is the contingency policies of the service. I just suffered an extended stay in a hospital and my officially (in writing) designated Power of Attorney was NOT granted access to my PAYTRUST account. Thus they could NOT take care of my finances easily. After my discharge, I contacted PAYTRUST and they had canceled my account and would not reactivate it. This is after over fifteen years of loyalty. Needless to say there was much financial chaos in my life due to their negligence. They were staunch in their policy and said officially that if they need to acknowledge a Power of Attorney, the ONLY thing they will allow the POA to do is close the PAYTRUST account. How's that for customer service?! Caveat Emptor. I am now seeking another service and will be asking about their POA policies.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fd2b69e057bd9770c1cfe1a77a862bb5",
"text": "\"An old question... but the recent answer for me turned out to be Check (formerly Pageonce) https://check.me/ (NOTE: Check was recently purchased by Intuit and is now MintBills) The only thing Check doesn't do that PayTrust did was accept paper bills from payees that couldn't do eBill... but that's a rare problem anymore (for me anyways). I went through each of my payees in PayTrust and added them into Check, it found almost all of them... I added my security info for their logins, and it was setup. The few that Check couldn't find, it asked me for the details and would contact them to try and get it setup... but in the meantime I just added them to my bank's billpay system with automatic payment rules (my mortgage company was the only one it couldn't find, and I know what my mortgage is every month so it's easy to setup a consistent rule) Check does so much more than PayTrust will ever do... Check has a MOBILE APP, and it is really the centerpiece of the whole system... you never really log into the website from your desktop (except to setup all the payees)... most of the time you just get alerts on your phone when a bill is due and you just click \"\"pay\"\" and choose a funding source, and bam you're done. It's been awesome so far... I highly recommend dumping PayTrust for it! FYI: Check is clearly winning at this point, but some of the competition are are http://manilla.com (not sure if you can pay your bills through them though) and DoxoPay ( https://www.doxo.com/posts/pay-your-bills-on-the-go-with-mobile-doxopay-new-android-app-and-an-updated-iphone-app/ )\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4d7f2372eac414d801f4c68ed0695462",
"text": "(Six years later...) I've used CheckFree for over 20 years, and my uncle started using it back in the early 1980s through a 300 baud modem. It has e-bills, EDI bills that you schedule yourself, and will also mail checks to people and small businesses. You can make your payments from an unlimited number of banks, can schedule multiple recurring payments for the same bill (I find that useful for when buying large/expensive items by CC: I create a different payment schedule for each), plus ad hoc payments.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "fd38139ef1ff50c0c080ab457dd92245",
"text": "How about finding a friend with Paypal and sending them the money so they can pay your bill using a card? Withdrawals from Paypal are typically instant now.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3231c7537fb00691c38e465d9885fe0c",
"text": "Um really, you expect US to know the answer? Why not ask Wells Fargo? Unless someone here happens to work for WF and has access to the right people, this is more likely a question to send to their support people than to get an answer here that is anything other than a SWAG (and in that line of reasoning, and as a software tester by trade, my money is on the already offered reasoning that it's doing some kind of primative 'bad word' search (probably a regular expression match) and getting a hit on tit. ) In the meantime I suggest an alternative term, how about 'offering'",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5dbc0ccde74d0121531d8cff7849f96d",
"text": "What qualifies as a transaction? Does the bill pay count? Otherwise, not sure what you'd do to get 12. If this requires you to actively do something 12x per month, not worth it. But I can easily set up 12 online bill payments.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ed212fdfbc12e3eee785a6b795226751",
"text": "A desktop application that has the same features (although as already stated, nothing will be identical but if you are looking for functionality then certainly there will be) and pretty simple to use was Microsoft Money, however, Microsoft stopped supporting it with newer versions and while the existing versions will work, I still use mine, there will be no future updates. I like the interface, its simple to use and has all the features you want. They abandoned it in favor of Intuit's Quicken but personally I am not a fan of the Quicken interface. They still had a more extensive and probably too much for the average user application called Office Accounting, but they abandoned future updates and supports on that in favor of Intuit's Quickbooks. Again, I am not a fan of the interface but they are very feature rich including invoicing and payroll, again overkill for the average user. They still have the Small Business Accounting in the form of Microsoft Dynamics, but that is utterly overkill for personal use. I generally don't trust online or cloud based accounting solutions like Mint or even Quicken online because I don't trust my information security to some third party without knowing how they are securing it and what will happen to me if/when they are leaked due to breach. So I like to keep everything local to myself and that's a good move for you, you should do that. It seems at the moment the market standard without much competition is Quicken for personal use and Quickbooks for small business. I would recommend you start with Quicken and if your needs increase in the future, you can easily transfer into Quickbooks to scale up as they are fully compatible with each other. Check it out here and compare their products to see what works best for your needs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7f27667221cca30f0a98511cc22f04d9",
"text": "I'm always hesitant to use local credit unions because I love accessing all atms fee free, having services available 24/7, having robust, safe and audited online services, and having a big enough bank that all major third party tools interface with it. Joe Schmo Local Credit Union has a lot of good services, but audited and secure online banking? No fee nationwide ATMs? Native interfacing to major tools? I just don't see it often. I shudder to think of the security at small bank websites, frankly.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f124aa4001a9d7b601f65bc11e8e9b50",
"text": "Intuit Quicken. Pros: Cons:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7488478ce920b35c3d40540eac3f9dfc",
"text": "Most modern bank accounts can be set up to automatically pay bills for anyone, even someone who has no control over the account. This account would be in a trustee's name for the untrustworthy party. An automatic transfer could be set up from the source account to the irresponsible party's bank account to pay their allowance. It would be wise to remove all overdraft capability from the recipients account, but the whole system might help them learn some responsibility. There are more formal legal structures for forming a long term care-taking trust (with spendthrift provisions to protect the trust from legal action). The trust would need to be maintained by a trustee, resulting in maintenance fees on the principle. It might also help to know if there are legally recognized factors that impair the beneficiaries ability to take care of themselves (substance abuse, depression, age, mental impairment, etc.), but depending on state law, trusts can be designed very flexibly to cover the lifetime of an heir and even their heirs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8695e8030ee3269d15f22929ed6fbf9f",
"text": "I know of websites that do this, but I don't know of banks that do. Is there any reason you want to do this at a bank rather than use a service? My main concern with using a bank for this would be the risk of overdraft fees",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a3cb261d0561cda92eabd6e103677895",
"text": "I use Banktivity. It's very much not free, but it automatically downloads all my bank and credit card activity and has excellent reporting options.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "052232e262f151f330a66cf775562616",
"text": "I personally use mint.com and find the alerting feature to be handy. The reports and ledger are nice for a web page and attractive, but I use Quicken for really keeping track of my money and budget. Mint.com just doesn't offer the depth I want; but a lack of depth is a feature for some people. The one thing I do is to check my accounts online every couple of days (not just via mint's interface). I am still protected from fraud if someone steals my money regardless of the vector of attack. So mint's fault or not, I have to keep on top of my outgoing and incoming transactions with frequency so I can stop problems before they get too deep. summary: the security is important, but being secure or not doesn't absolve me of being aware of all the transactions on my account. I will still be protected by consumer laws (as much protection as that is) but I can't expect mint to fix any problems it might cause.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "532e4e5bd3d0b1ddd617f24d5e5b2c74",
"text": "Both Wells Fargo and Chase are participants in clearXchange, which enables the various QuickPay type services to work with each other. They may be using this system rather than an ACH wire transfer to transfer your money (and to verify the account).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ae462f9a04f15b5f88d1fcf85cf53f7d",
"text": "\"Software or any online service fits this category I suppose. There are two apps I pay for that are \"\"free.\"\" Evernote and Pandora. Evernote is free for 40MB, $45/yr for 500MB/mo transfer. Pandora is free for 40hrs/mo, $36/yr unlimited. When I use a free product and hit the limit it's a sign to me that I value that product and the owners deserve to get paid. To me, both products provide value that's well above the cost they are asking. In this case, both products are annual subscriptions, but offer monthly as well. You don't mention the type of product you have, the two I listed are similar in billing type, but very difference end uses. The question is - How do you provide value and make your customers want to pay you? BTW - the ~$40/yr give or take, seems a good price point. Under $50, it feels a fair price to pay for a useful product.\"",
"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": "46bc1213fb52a6c9ecdc1047f6d59daa",
"text": "For double entry bookkeeping, personal or small business, GnuCash is very good. Exists for Mac Os.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f162c873c93008892be6d4e5e9f6351f",
"text": "They have recently launched an iphone app 'Billguard' in UK which does accounts aggregation which is similiar to mint.com. You can also use try 'Ontrees' iphone app which is another account aggregation software. I am using Yodlee Money center Website for past 4 years which support lot of bank internationally including all major UK banks and creditcards.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
820596a78a7fe0d6b46d722297e21031
|
Money put down on home
|
[
{
"docid": "1e1a0d7d396eb26d24b09d1bad7690a2",
"text": "I cannot emphasize enough how important it is, when you buy a house with someone you are not married to, to make a legal agreement on how the money should be divided when you sell. I know it's too late for you, but I write this for anyone else reading this answer. From a legal point of view, if you made no agreement otherwise, you each own 50% of the house. If you want to divide it any other way, you will have to agree what an appropriate division is. Dividing according to the amount each of you paid towards it is a good way. Decide for yourselves if that means just mortgage payments, or also taxes, repairs, utilities etc. You should also be aware that if you have been living together a long time, like more than a year, some jurisdictions will allow one party to sue the other as if they were getting divorced. Then the courts would be involved in the division of property.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "587070af410b39e29a6ef113da901b37",
"text": "You should have drafted a contract of purchase that stipulated out equity stake in the home based of his down payment and yours, along with future monthly payments. But morally, if the house sells, yielding 100,000 profit (after fees/taxes/etc), you should get ( To Calculate Your Cut: (20,000 + Your Total Mortgage Payments Applied to Principle) / (1,900 + His Total Mortgage Payments Applied to Principle Only) * Profit on Sale of House After All Fees = Your Cut His would be: (1,900 + His Total Mortgage Payments Applied to Principle Only) / (20,000 + Your Total Mortgage Payments Applied to Principle) * Profit on Sale of House After All Fees = His Cut You'd then take mortgage payment totals for each; and calculate the payments made towards interest; and claim the correct amount each of you paid on payments for the mortgage interest deduction when you file your taxes. Although, depending on how the loan is written, the banks may issue 1099s which dont reflect actual payments made... Talk to an accountant.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "669f6bb07efee1a77100075f82dd5da0",
"text": "\"To quote Judge Judy: \"\"Our courts are not in the business of settling assets of couples who decide to play house\"\". This is one of the reasons we put off buying houses with a partner until we are married. The courts have rules for couples who marry, then split, but none for those who don't. In the scenerio you spelled out, you are at the mercy of your ex-boyfriend as far as getting your downpayment back. Legally, you are entitled to 50% of the funds remaining after the sale and expenses.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "19cee018f7319046d2a12068ecb47663",
"text": "There is a fundamental flaw in this statement: For example, a home bought cash $100,000 would have to be sold $242,726.247 30 years later just to make up with inflation, and that would be a 0% return. You forgot to deduct rent from your monthly carrying costs. That changes the calculations significantly. Your calculations are valid ONLY if you were to buy a house, and let it sit empty, which is unlikely. Either you are going to live in it, and save yourself $1000 a month in rent, or, you are going to rent it out to someone, and earn an income of $1000 a month. Either way, you're up $1000 a month and this needs to be included.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9603a0a9d4512d6fff36ef5f330d02a4",
"text": "It seems very risky have all of your net worth in this one home. If I were to buy the house, I'm not sure I would put that much down, consider 20% and keep cash on hand, in retirement assets, etc. I would look at how much a mortgage, plus interest, taxes, insurance, etc. would cost with 50% down and with 20% down and see how that impacts your cash flow. Renting may make more sense, it's hard to tell without more specifics (NYTimes Rent/Buy calculator is a nice tool), but regardless, I would not want to have so much net worth tied into one asset and so would opt for less money down if I were to buy. Focus on rebuilding some retirement assets.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c4142872216d91d5acbe45068cf97c5c",
"text": "\"We’re buying the home right over $200,000 so that means he will only need to put down (as a ‘gift’) roughly $7000. I'm with the others, don't call this a gift unless it is a gift. I'd have him check with the bank that previously refused him a mortgage if putting both of you on a mortgage would allay their concerns. Your cash flow would be paying the mortgage payment and if you failed to do so, then they could fall back on his. That may make more sense to them, even if they would deny each of you a loan on your own. This works for them because either of you is responsible for the whole loan. It works for him because he was already willing to be responsible for the whole loan. And your alternative plan makes you responsible for the whole loan, so this is just as good for you. At what percentage would you suggest splitting ownership and future expenses? Typically a cash/financing partnership would be 50/50, but since it’s only a 3.5% down-payment instead of 20% is that still fair? Surprisingly enough, a 3.5% down-payment that accumulates is about half the equity of a 20% down-payment. So your suggestion of a 25%-75% split makes sense if 20% would give a 50%-50% split. I expected it to be considerably lower. The way that I calculated it was to have his share increase by his equity share of the \"\"rent\"\" which I set to the principal plus interest payment for a thirty year loan. With a 20% down-payment, this would give him 84% equity. With 3.5%, about 40% equity. I'm not sure why 84% equity should be the equivalent of a 50% share, but it may be a side effect of other expenses. Perhaps taking property taxes out would reduce the equity share. Note that if you increase the down-payment to 20%, your mortgage payment will drop substantially. The difference in interest between 3.5% and 20% equity is a couple hundred dollars. Also, you'll be able to eliminate any PMI payment at 20%. It could be argued that if he pays a third of the monthly mortgage payment, that that would give him the same 50% equity stake on a 3.5% down-payment as he would get with a 20% down-payment. The problem there is that then he is effectively subsidizing your monthly payment. If he were to stop doing that for some reason, you'd have what is effectively a 50% increase in your rent. It would be safer for you to handle the monthly payment while he handles the down-payment. If you couldn't pay the mortgage, it sounds like he is in a position to buy out your equity, rent the property, and take over the mortgage payment. If he stopped being able to pay his third of the mortgage, it's not evident that you'd be able to pick up the slack from him much less buy him out. And it's unlikely that you'd find someone else willing to replace him under those terms. But your brother could construct things such that in the face of tragedy, you'd inherit his equity in the house. If you're making the entire mortgage payment, that's a stable situation. He's not at risk because he could take over the mortgage if necessary. You're not at risk because you inherit his equity share and can afford the monthly payment. So even in the face of tragedy, things can go on. And that's important, as otherwise you could lose your equity in the house.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18749a80f9c64913855cdf4a33c8e616",
"text": "Some part of the payment is probably also going for tax escrow, insurance payments, probably PMI if you aren't putting at least 20% down. Get a complete breakdown of the costs. Remember to budget for upkeep. And please see past discussion of why buying a home at this point in your career/life may be very, very premature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ad9c8354dd526a1f94c6ca1f2ff3a52c",
"text": "A bigger down payment is good, because it insulates you from the swings in the real estate market. If you get FHA loan with 3% down and end up being forced to move during a down market, you'll be in a real bind, as you'll need to scrape up some cash or borrow funds to get out of your mortgage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2b8397488b963b5b724d80738998b573",
"text": "The more you put down now, the less money you are borrowing. 30yrs of interest adds up. Even paying a small amount at the beginning of the mortgage can turn into a huge savings over the life of the loan. That's why you'll find advice to make extra mortgage payments in the beginning. The question is: Do you have a better use for that money? In particular, do you have any higher-interest debt (higher APR than your mortgage) that needs to be paid off? You generally want to take care of those first. Beyond that can you invest the extra down payment money elsewhere (eg stock market) and get a better return than your mortgage rate? (don't forget about taxes on investment profits). If so, that money will do more good there.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "131dd4b5ab278fb180995c846a2cc23e",
"text": "Good answer, I'm painfully aware of how much money that is for how long, but I think we're getting the runaround here. We're going to find a way to reduce that rate and increase our down payment. It's the only way I see of getting myself into a house",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8b839d729f83a276ef9f64f6ca8539a4",
"text": "A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner. It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8154fd100f804520d75c6fcbf83c9936",
"text": "I'm surprised to even hear this question with the current state of devaluation of real estate. One thing I'll add to the other answers is to make sure you are doing a true apples/apples comparison to other investments when considering real estate. You can't just take subtract the purchase price from the sales price to get your ROI. Real estate has very heavy carry costs that you need to factor into any ROI calculation including: One more point: A house that you live in shouldn't be considered an investment, but rather an expense. You have to be able to liquidate an investment and collect your return. Unless you plan to move back in with your parents, you are always going to need a place to live so you can never really cash out on that investment, except perhaps by downgrading your lifestyle or a reverse mortgage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "64d3ed9bdd8bc785d306c43ab39bcb18",
"text": "\"No one has addressed the fact that your loan interest and property taxes are \"\"deductible\"\" on your taxes? So, for the first 2/3 years of your loan, you will should be able to deduct each year's mortgage payment off your gross income. This in turn reduces the income bracket for your tax calculation.... I have saved 1000's a year this way, while seeing my home value climb, and have never lost a down payment. I would consider trying to use 1/2 your savings to buy a property that is desirable to live in and being able to take the yearly deduction off your taxes. As far as home insurance, most people I know have renter's insurance, and homeowner's insurance is not that steep. Chances are a year from now if you change your mind and wish to sell, unless you're in a severely deflated area, you will reclaim at minimum your down payment.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "699785d1cb3f24db24145681487e024e",
"text": "\"From what I've read, paying down your mortgage -- above and beyond what you'd normally pay -- is indeed an investment but a very poor form of investment. In other words, you could take that extra money you'd apply towards your mortgage and put it in something that has a much higher rate of return than a house. As an extreme example, consider: if I took $6k extra I would have paid toward my mortgage in a single year, and bought a nice performing stock, I could see returns of 2x or 3x. Now, that implies I know which stock to pick, etcetera.. I found a \"\"mortgage or investment\"\" calculator which could be of use as well: http://www.planningtips.com/cgi-bin/prepay_v_invest.pl (scroll to bottom to see the summary and whether or not prepay or invest wins for the numbers you plugged in)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fe42f4891bb8abe1c35dea12d56d0e78",
"text": "Save up a bigger downpayment. The lender's requirement is going to be based on how much you finance, not the price of the house.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7a16e7a60d19912d82df48675bb490c6",
"text": "\"I second DJClayworth's suggestion to wait and save a larger down-payment. I'll also add: It looks like you neglected to consider CMHC insurance in your calculation. When you buy your first home with less than 20% down, the bank will require you to insure the mortgage. CMHC insurance protects the bank if you default – it does not protect you. But such insurance does make a bank feel better about lending money to people it otherwise wouldn't take a chance on. The kicker is you would be responsible for paying the CMHC insurance that's protecting the bank. The premium is usually added on to the amount borrowed, since a buyer requiring CMHC insurance doesn't, by definition, have enough money up front. The standard CMHC premium for a mortgage with 5% down, or as they would say a \"\"95% Loan-to-Value ratio\"\" is 2.75%. Refer to CMHC's table of premiums here. So, if you had a down-payment of $17,000 to borrow a remaining $323,000 from the bank to buy a $340,000 property, the money you owe the bank would be $331,883 due to the added 2.75% CMHC insurance premium. This added $8883, plus interest, obviously makes the case for buying less compelling. Then, are there other closing costs that haven't been fully considered? One more thing I ought to mention: Have you considered saving a larger down-payment by using an RRSP? There's a significant advantage doing it that way: You can save pre-tax dollars for your down-payment. When it comes time to buy, you'd take advantage of the Home Buyer's Plan (HBP) and get a tax-free loan of your own money from your RRSP. You'd have 15 years to put the money back into your RRSP. Last, after saving a larger downpayment, if you're lucky you may find houses not as expensive when you're ready to buy. I acknowledge this is a speculative statement, and there's a chance houses may actually be more expensive, but there is mounting evidence and opinion that real estate is currently over-valued in Canada. Read here, here, and here.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f86aff035b0ccc3e9a474f3878d5a5d1",
"text": "\"If you are investing in a mortgage strictly to avoid taxes, the answer is \"\"pay cash now.\"\" A mortgage buys you flexibility, but at the cost of long term security, and in most cases, an overall decrease in wealth too. At a very basic level, I have to ask anyone why they would pay a bank a dollar in order to avoid paying the government 28 - 36 cents depending on your tax rate. After all, one can only deduct interest- not principal. Interest is like rent, it accrues strictly to the lender, not equity. In theory the recipient should be irrelevant. If you have a need to stiff the government, go ahead. Just realize you making a banker three times as happy. Additionally the peace of mind that comes from having a house that no banker can take away from you is, at least for me, compelling. If I have a $300,000 house with no mortgage, no payments, etc. I feel quite safe. Even if my money is tied up in equity, if a serious situation came along (say a huge doctors bill) I always have the option of a reverse mortgage later on. So, to directly counter other claims, yes, I'd rather have $300k in equity then $50k in equity and $225k in liquid assets. (Did you notice that the total net worth is $25k less? And that's even before one considers the cash flow implication of a continuing mortgage. I have no mortgage, and I'm 41. I have a lot of net worth, but the thing that I really like is that I have a roof over my head that no on e can take away from me, and sufficient savings to weather most crises). That said, a mortgage is not about total cost. It is about cash flow. To the extent that a mortgage makes your cash flow situation better, it provides a benefit- just not one that is quantifiable in dollars and cents. Rather, it is a risk/reward situation. By taking a mortgage even when you have the cash, you pay a premium (the interest rate) in order to have your funds available when you need it. A very simple strategy to calculate and/or minimize this risk would be to invest the funds in another investment. If your rate of return exceeds the interest rate minus any tax preference (e.g. 4% minus say a 25% deduction = 3%), your money is better off there, obviously. And, indeed, when interest rates are only 4%, it may may be possible to find that. That said, in most instances, a CD or an inflation protected bond or so won't give you that rate of return. There, you'd need to look at stocks- slightly more risky. When interest rates are back to normal- say 5 or 6%, it gets even harder. If you could, however, find a better return than the effective interest rate, it makes the most sense to do that investment, hold it as a hedge to pay off the mortgage (see, you get your security back if you decide not to work!), and pocket the difference. If you can't do that, your only real reason to hold the cash should be the cash flow situation.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7eef0d2655e34152349d76720329f339",
"text": "\"Well, I suppose it depends on your idea of a \"\"lost cause\"\". Are you planning to lose the house to foreclosure? If so, then yes, it's a lost cause. Don't waste your money paying down the principal. In any other scenario* you should absolutely pay down the principal to the extent that you'd pay down any loan with nearly 9% interest (in other words, moderately aggressively). The fact is, you owe someone $265,000 unless you plan on losing the home to foreclosure. You can manage the amount of interest you pay while you hold that debt by paying it down. * Short sale and bankruptcy would be special conditions as well, but not exactly the same effect as foreclosure.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
96ab81f586446afed26493b67fc5acfe
|
Saving for retirement without employer sponsored plan
|
[
{
"docid": "dbd67df0ff9ed5862653c42553791904",
"text": "I'm looking for ways to geared to save for retirement, not general investment. Many mutual fund companies offer a range of target retirement funds for different retirement dates (usually in increments of 5 years). These are funds of funds, that is, a Target 2040 Fund, say, will be invested in five or six different stock and bond mutual funds offered by the same company. Over the years and as the target date approaches closer, the investment mix will change from extra weight given to stock mutual funds towards extra weight being given to bond mutual funds. The disadvantage to these funds is that the Target Fund charges its own expense ratio over and above the expense ratios charged by the mutual funds it invests in: you could do the same investments yourself (or pick your own mix and weighting of various funds) and save the extra expense ratio. However, over the years, as the Target Fund changes its mix, withdrawing money from the stock mutual funds and investing the proceeds into bond mutual funds, you do not have to pay taxes on the profits generated by these transactions except insofar as some part of the profits become distributions from the Target Fund itself. If you were doing the same transactions outside the Target Fund, you would be liable for taxes on the profits when you withdrew money from a stock fund and invested the proceeds into the bond fund.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "473bea867c1ec882bb7dd4adaa25a42a",
"text": "Variable Annuities would be one option though there are SEC warnings about them, for an option that is tax-deferred and intended to be used for long-term investing such as retirement. There is a bit of a cost to gain the tax-deferral which may not always make them worthwhile.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a67a6ab7b645e0b531b9bf3203845161",
"text": "\"You might consider working on getting your new employer to sponsor a 401k, there may be options where you can invest and they aren't required to add anything as a match (which gives you higher limits). If they don't match, they may just be liable for some administration fees. If you have any side business that you do, you might also be eligible for other \"\"self-employed\"\" options that have higher limits (SEP, Simple - I think they may go up to $15k) although, I'm not sure the nitty gritties of them.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "f6f282218f40e8d1f7fdc94c153f7f47",
"text": "While you have found a way to possibly gain $1275 in tax free income, you are also risking $1275 if you end up not using the money you contributed. You will have to find a way to have that much in medical expenses by your retirement date or you will leave some money in the Flexible Spending Account. There are risks you take with these accounts (use it or lose it) and risks the company takes (leave with a deficit in the account). Many times we get questions about how to spend all that the employee contributed before the last day of work, or the end of the plan year. You can play it more fair by selecting the maximum amount per check to be taken from your pay check, then waiting until the retirement date to decide how much you will withdraw from the FSA. Your last day of work is your last day to incur a medical expense but you are given a window to submit your claims that extends beyond your last day of work. I have not personally heard of an employer requiring a former employee to pay back the money when there is a deficit in their FSA. Remember people are fired, or laid off with little or no warning trapping their money in a FSA. The fact that you have the ability to plan for this event and considered your options, is a great position to be in.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d207ee331864241d260bee9c73f4be88",
"text": "If you can afford it, there are very few reasons not to save for retirement. The biggest reason I can think of is that, simply, you are saving in general. The tax advantages of 401k and IRA accounts help increase your wealth, but the most important thing is to start saving at an early age in your career (as you are doing) and making sure to continue contributing throughout your life. Compound interest serves you well. If you are really concerned that saving for retirement in your situation would equate to putting money away for no good reason, you can do a couple of things: Save in a Roth IRA account which does not require minimum distributions when you get past a certain age. Additionally, your contributions only (that is, not your interest earnings) to a Roth can be withdrawn tax and penalty free at any time while you are under the age of 59.5. And once you are older than that you can take distributions as however you need. Save by investing in a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. You won't get the tax advantages of a retirement account, but you will still benefit from the time value of money. The bonus here is that you can withdraw your money whenever you want without penalty. Both IRA accounts and mutual fund/brokerage accounts will give you a choice of many securities that you can invest in. In comparison, 401k plans (below) often have limited choices for you. Most people choose to use their company's 401k plan for retirement savings. In general you do not want to be in a position where you have to borrow from your 401k. As such it's not a great option for savings that you think you'd need before you retire. Additionally 401k plans have minimum distributions, so you will have to periodically take some money from the account when you are in retirement. The biggest advantage of 401k plans is that often employers will match contributions to a certain extent, which is basically free money for you. In the end, these are just some suggestions. Probably best to consult with a financial planner to hammer out all the details.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "980789da5abf6464c0e7ff07ef72bc5e",
"text": "\"You have several questions in your post so I'll deal with them individually: Is taking small sums from your IRA really that detrimental? I mean as far as tax is concerned? Percentage wise, you pay the tax on the amount plus a 10% penalty, plus the opportunity cost of the gains that the money would have gotten. At 6% growth annually, in 5 years that's more than a 34% loss. There are much cheaper ways to get funds than tapping your IRA. Isn't the 10% \"\"penalty\"\" really to cover SS and the medicare tax that you did not pay before putting money into your retirement? No - you still pay SS and medicare on your gross income - 401(k) contributions just reduce how much you pay in income tax. The 10% penalty is to dissuade you from using retirement money before you retire. If I ... contributed that to my IRA before taxes (including SS and medicare tax) that money would gain 6% interest. Again, you would still pay SS and Medicare, and like you say there's no guarantee that you'll earn 6% on your money. I don't think you can pay taxes up front when making an early withdrawal from an IRA can you? This one you got right. When you file your taxes, your IRA contributions for the year are totaled up and are deducted from your gross income for tax purposes. There's no tax effect when you make the contribution. Would it not be better to contribute that $5500 to my IRA and if I didn't need it, great, let it grow but if I did need it toward the end of the year, do an early withdrawal? So what do you plan your tax withholdings against? Do you plan on keeping it there (reducing your withholdings) and pay a big tax bill (plus possibly penalties) if you \"\"need it\"\"? Or do you plan to take it out and have a big refund when you file your taxes? You might be better off saving that up in a savings account during the year, and if at the end of the year you didn't use it, then make an IRA contribution, which will lower the taxes you pay. Don't use your IRA as a \"\"hopeful\"\" savings account. So if I needed to withdrawal $5500 and I am in the 25% tax bracket, I would owe the government $1925 in taxes+ 10% penalty. So if I withdrew $7425 to cover the tax and penalty, I would then be taxed $2600 (an additional $675). Sounds like a cat chasing it's tail trying to cover the tax. Yes if you take a withdrawal to pay the taxes. If you pay the tax with non-retirement money then the cycle stops. how can I make a withdrawal from an IRA without having to pay tax on tax. Pay cash for the tax and penalty rather then taking another withdrawal to pay the tax. If you can't afford the tax and penalty in cash, then don't withdraw at all. based on this year's W-2 form, I had an accountant do my taxes and the $27K loan was added as earned income then in another block there was the $2700 amount for the penalty. So you paid 25% in income tax for the earned income and an additional 10% penalty. So in your case it was a 35% overall \"\"tax\"\" instead of the 40% rule of thumb (since many people are in 28% and 35% tax brackets) The bottom line is it sounds like you are completely unorganized and have absolutely no margin to cover any unexpected expenses. I would stop contributing to retirement today until you can get control of your spending, get on a budget, and stop trying to use your IRA as a piggy bank. If you don't plan on using the money for retirement then don't put it in an IRA. Stop borrowing from it and getting into further binds that force you to make bad financial decisions. You don't go into detail about any other aspects (mortgage? car loans? consumer debt?) to even begin to know where the real problem is. So you need to write everything down that you own and you owe, write out your monthly expenses and income, and figure out what you can cut if needed in order to build up some cash savings. Until then, you're driving across country in a car with no tires, worrying about which highway will give you the best gas mileage.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8f84614007906bfba1c9fddd39f429e2",
"text": "This is what I'm planning on. Retirement would be difficult, if not impossible, without the expected SS payments. In terms of current retirement planning, it's the difference between putting 20% of my income aside for retirement, and 35% of my income aside. It's one thing to keep the wealthy happy and tax free, it's another to deny 80% of the population something that they will have to have at some point.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b889451312f36ac447ef241b9b309b29",
"text": "\"There are so many people who did not save throughout their work careers largely because they had a safe and secure pension to count on. Many of these people turned down other more lucrative opportunities and gave generously from whatever saving they had. They did this because they had a state pension that they could count on. Apart from a tiny SS amount, the \"\"untouchable\"\" and thought-to-be, guaranteed pension was the only retirement plan. Suddenly and with no time to save money to replace pension shortfalls, their earnings could be greatly reduced, or completely wiped out. Tragic.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b6a14735718b5db9645179bf66da501",
"text": "\"There is a basic difference between saving for voluntary retirement (i.e. choosing to do things other than work even though you could still work) and the need to save for later in life in general. Regardless of how much you like your job, a time will eventually come when you are no longer able to work, and you will need an alternate source of income to live from at that point. Unfortuately, this is also the time when most people generally have the highest medical bills as well, and may need other services such as long-term nursing home care. So even if you plan to work as long as possible, a retirement fund is an excellent way to plan for these needs as it is tax-advantaged and many companies offer matching contributions. I would simply recommend that you see \"\"retirement accounts\"\" as a good way to accomplish your goals - you don't have to use them to create a \"\"typical\"\" retirement. Once you've taken advantages of the match and tax subsidies, you may also wish to consider saving for an annuity. Fees can be high, so you will need to do your homework (generally, you want to wait and buy an immediate annuity), but this is another way to turn savings into guaranteed income once you need to stop working. Best of luck!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0a7256c869390ae3442a3831d5568b59",
"text": "If you have kids, there are also 529 funds to consider. They aren't pre-tax, but do have tax advantages. If your employer doesn't have a 401k, chances are they don't offer Health Savings Accounts, but that is another thing to look at.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "17d8e4f29e00cd50db0ad51da51ed795",
"text": "\"Your retirement PLAN is a lifelong plan and shouldn't be tied to your employer status. Max out your 401(k) contribution to the maximum that your employer matches (that's a 100% ROI!) and as much as you can afford. When you leave the work force rollover your 401(k) to an IRA account (e.g.: you can create an IRA account with any of the online brokerage firms Schwab, E-Trade, Sharebuilder, or go with a brick-and-mortar firm like JP Morgan, Stifel Nicolaus, etc.). You should have a plan: How much money do you need/month for your expenses? Accounting for inflation, how much is that going to be at retirement (whatever age you plan to retire)? How much money do you need to have so that 4.5% of that money will provide for your annual living expenses? That's your target retirement amount of savings. Now figure out how to get to that target. Rule #1 Invest early and invest often! The more money you can sock away early in your career the more time that money has to grow. If you aren't comfortable allocating your investments yourself then you could go with a Targeted Retirement Fund. These funds have a general \"\"date\"\" for retirement and the assets are allocated as appropriate for the amount of risk appropriate for the time to retirement.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "438545110087a3379434531a7350b942",
"text": "\"To be honest, I think a lot of people on this site are doing you a disservice by taking your idea as seriously as they are. Not only is this a horrible idea, but I think you have some alarming misunderstandings about what it means to save for retirement. First off, precious metals are not an \"\"investment\"\"; they are store of value. The old saying that a gold coin would buy a suit 300 years ago and will still buy a suit today is pretty accurate. Buying precious metals and expecting them to \"\"appreciate\"\" in the future because they are \"\"undervalued\"\" is just flat-out speculation and really doesn't belong in a well-planned retirement account, unless it's a very small part for the purposes of diversification. So the upshot to all of this is the most likely outcome is you get zero return after inflation (maybe you'll get lucky or maybe you'll be very unlucky). Next you would say that sure, you're giving up some expected return for a reduction in risk. But, you've done away with diversification which is the most effective way to minimize risk... And I'm not sure what scenario you're imagining that the stock market or any other reasonable investment doesn't make any returns. If you invest in a market wide index fund, then the expected return is going to be roughly in proportion with productivity gains. To say that there will be no appreciation of the stock market over the next 40 years is to say that technological progress will stop and/or we will have large-scale economic disruptions that will wipe out 40 years of progress. If that happens, I would say it's highly questionable whether silver will actually be worth anything at all. I'd rather have food, property, and firearms. So, to answer your question, practically any other retirement savings plan would be better than the one that you currently outlined, but the best plan is just to put your money in a very low-cost index fund at Vanguard and let it sit until you retire. The expense ratios are so stupidly small, that it's not going to meaningfully affect your return.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f35317548c0342e1ecd3c69b1d7c2e3e",
"text": "\"A trick that works for some folks: \"\"Pay yourself first.\"\" Have part of your paycheck put directly into an account that you promise yourself you won't touch except for some specific purpose (eg retirement). If that money is gone before it gets to your pocket, it's much less likely to be spent. US-specific: Note that if your employer offers a 401k program with matching funds, and you aren't taking advantage of that, you are leaving free money on the table. That does put an additional barrier between you and the money until you retire, too. (In other countries, look for other possible matching fundsand/or tax-advantaged savings programs; for that matter there are some other possibilities in the US, from education savings plans to discounted stock purchase that you could sell immediately for a profit. I probably should be signed up for that last...)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "202c53d0be008d1d7d0ed008a4c644c8",
"text": "\"Are you not allowed the y5 option? I'm no guru, but one thing that sticks out to me in that plan is the vesting period of 5yrs as opposed to 10, so the money is \"\"yours\"\" in half the time....so if after 5yrs, you find a better gig, you can roll those benefits into another account and manage them on your own (or just leave and draw on them when you are eligible) Then again, knowing that many municipalities are in shit shape due to their pension benefit liabilities, they may be pushing to the longer vesting period to a) encourage you to stay employed there and/or b) allow them to keep the money should you leave before that 10yr period Like I said, though- I'm def no guru, and that is only one aspect of these plans. I'd personally reach out to a financial planner so they can game it all out for you and equip you with the info to make the best choice\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f8b413ac5350b149280bf7267b6012d0",
"text": "I agree that to take the money from the defined benefit plan you are saying that you can get a better return than the plan. You are taking all the risk if you take the lump sum. But there are two more risks that you are taking by keeping the money in the plan even though you are decades from retirement. Funding risk: companies and state/city/county governments have underfunded their pension programs due to budget pressure. In some cases they have skipped payments when the market was good, because they felt they were ahead of their obligations. They also delayed or skipped contributions when they had a budget shortfall, and wanted to not end the government/company fiscal year in the red. The risk is that they can get so far behind that they change their promises to current and former employees. This was one of the issues with the city of Detroit this year. Bankruptcy: even though their are guarantees regarding pension benefits, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation does set a maximum benefit. If the company goes bankrupt or the plan is terminated you might not get all the money you were expecting. While the chances of taking a haircut generally impacts people who have a long career, because they are entitled to a large benefit, it can impact people who don't expect it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a1d69eb985a4d50a9c80952015d3bf59",
"text": "\"Why? Simply: because it has been mandated as law, and so you may have no choice in the matter whether to contribute or not. Quoting from GOV.UK – Workplace pensions: ‘Automatic enrolment’ A new law means that every employer must automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme if they: Next: even if you think you will work \"\"until you die\"\", you can still access the money saved in the pension scheme when you attain the required minimum age for withdrawals under your scheme. For instance, that may be age 55, but it may also vary by scheme. Becoming fully retired — as in stopping all work — is not a requirement to access retirement income from your pension scheme. In the eyes of a pension scheme, retirement is typically when you elect to take your income benefits according to the established rules of the scheme. Quoting from nidirect – Working past State Pension age: Continuing in work and your workplace pension If you reached the age at which you can start claiming your workplace pension scheme, you don't need to stop work in order to claim. You have a number of options, including taking some of the pension you've built up while continuing to work for the same employer. As to why things are set up this way: While some younger folk may, today, expect to continue working until death, for a variety of reasons that isn't always possible. Two typical such reasons are: disability, and involuntary unemployment (i.e. willing and able but still can't land the next job). Moreover, plans change. Young workers with health and vitality may expect they'll always feel invincible, but end up learning otherwise over time, and may come to appreciate the savings that were forced upon them. The \"\"forced savings\"\" aspect of state and state-sponsored pension schemes are meant to provide some safety net for those later years when it is a strong possibility that one can't continue to work. The alternative is to be a 100% burden on family and/or society.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c4ec080f48901e5d1591782ca087bcba",
"text": "The Trinity study looked at 'safe' withdrawal rates from retirement portfolios. They found it was safe to withdraw 4% of a portfolio consisting of stocks and bonds. I cannot immediately find exactly what specific investment allocations they used, but note that they found a portfolio consisting largely of stocks would allow for the withdrawal of 3% - 4% and still keep up with inflation. In this case, if you are able to fund $30,000, the study claims it would be safe to withdraw $900 - $1200 a year (that is, pay out as scholarships) while allowing the scholarship to grow sufficiently to cover inflation, and that this should work in perpetuity. My guess is that they invest such scholarship funds in a fairly aggressive portfolio. Most likely, they choose something along these lines: 70 - 80% stocks and 20 - 30% bonds. This is probably more risky than you'd want to take, but should give higher returns than a more conservative portfolio of perhaps 50 - 60% stocks, 40 - 50% bonds, over the long term. Just a regular, interest-bearing savings account isn't going to be enough. They almost never even keep up with inflation. Yes, if the stock market or the bond market takes a hit, the investment will suffer. But over the long term, it should more than recover the lost capital. Such scholarships care far more about the very long term and can weather a few years of bad returns. This is roughly similar to retirement planning. If you expect to be retired for, say, 10 years, you won't worry too much about pulling out your retirement funds. But it's quite possible to retire early (say, at 40) and plan for an infinite retirement. You just need a lot more money to do so. $3 million, invested appropriately, should allow you to pull out approximately $90,000 a year (adjusted upward for inflation) forever. I leave the specifics of how to come up with $3 million as an exercise for the reader. :) As an aside, there's a Memorial and Traffic Safety Fund which (kindly and gently) solicited a $10,000 donation after my wife was killed in a motor vehicle accident. That would have provided annual donations in her name, in perpetuity. This shows you don't need $30,000 to set up a scholarship or a fund. I chose to go another way, but it was an option I seriously considered. Edit: The Trinity study actually only looked at a 30 year withdrawal period. So long as the investment wasn't exhausted within 30 years, it was considered a success. The Trinity study has also been criticised when it comes to retirement. Nevertheless, there's some withdrawal rate at which point your investment is expected to last forever. It just may be slightly smaller than 3-4% per year.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8e33d3966285f67dd5f2d0f6ae221bcf",
"text": "401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, IRAs etc all require more paperwork than a non-tax-advantaged investment. As a result, most such plans (with Vanguard as well as with other management companies) offer only a small set of investment options, and so it costs the plan sponsor (you wearing your Employer hat) money if you want to add more investment options for your Solo 401(k) plan). Note that with employer-sponsored retirement plans, investments in each mutual fund might be coming in small amounts from various employees, much less than the usual minimum investment in each fund, and possibly less than the minimum per-investment transaction requirement (often $50) of the fund group. Taking care of all that is expensive, and it is reasonable that Vanguard wants to charge you (the Employer) a fee for the extra work it is doing for you. When I was young and IRAs had just been invented (and the annual contribution limit was $2000 for IRAs), I remember being charged a $20 annual fee per Vanguard fund that I wanted to invest in within my IRA but this fee was waived once my total IRA assets with Vanguard had increased above $10K.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
d97dff19586dfd0270e664faf56757a1
|
Lend money at a rate linked to the prime rate
|
[
{
"docid": "03eefa72a1390fb78982f750e40bfd7f",
"text": "Yes. In the US these are called certificates of deposit or savings accounts. Every run-of-the-mill bank offers them. You give the bank money and in return they pay you an interest rate that is some fraction of or (negative) offset from the returns they expect to make from your money. Since most investments that a bank makes (say, loaning money to a local business) are themselves based on some multiple of or (positive) offset from the prime rate, in return the interest rate that they offer you is also mathematically based on the prime rate. You can find lists of banks offering the best returns on CDs or savings accounts at sites like BankRate.",
"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": "51ace463ec495857250cc8631b9ee890",
"text": "I got that notion from Max Kaiser, his ideas about that are mostly about interest rate apartheid - banks and rich people get money at zero interest, we pay 9, 10, 30%. I think it involves everything from how we are seen in the eyes of the law to assuming risk, etc. We are expected to play by the rules and they are not.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2c0081f11b746bf57c7e9a1076671560",
"text": "Basically, what you describe exists in many countries - not in the USA though. In Europe, people have checking accounts with allowed overdraft, typically three month net salaries. You can just this money any day as you like, and pay it back - completely or partially - any day as you like. Interest is calculated for each day on the amount used that day; and the collateral is 'future income', predicted / expected from previous income. In the USA, credit cards have taken its place, with stricter different rules and limitations. In addition, many of the extra rules in loans were invented to take advantage of the ignorance or situation of the borrower to make even more money. For example, applying extra payments to future due payments instead of to the principal makes that principal produce more interest while the extra payments just sit around.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7bd327e9066516fa1c01300257f23a07",
"text": "It's easiest to get your payment from the PMT function in Excel or Google Sheets. So a $100,000 30 year mortgage at 3% looks like this: The basic calculation is pretty simple. You take the annual interest rate, say 3%, divided by 12, times the existing principal balance: The idea is that borrowers would like to have a predictable payment. The earlier payments are proportionally more interest than principal than later payments are but that's because there is much more principal outstanding on month 1 than on month 200.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "08ae45c25bb27e5167d571d0f6f23ba3",
"text": "\"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/business/dealbook/libor-fca-banks-andrew-bailey.html) reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The one-year Libor, which represents the rate of interest on a loan between banks to be paid back within a year, is the most commonly used index for mortgages in the United States, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. > &quot;And while we have given our full support to encouraging panel banks to continue to contribute and maintaining Libor over recent years, we do not think markets can rely on Libor continuing to be available indefinitely.\"\" > Mr. Bailey said that the regulator had agreed with the panel banks to sustain Libor through 2021 to smooth a transition to new rates. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6r14fz/libor_brought_scandal_greatest_financial_scandal/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ \"\"Version 1.65, ~180937 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*: **Libor**^#1 **rate**^#2 **bank**^#3 **over**^#4 **Financial**^#5\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "33580f0327e95b794853dd6c811a609b",
"text": "Generally, if you watch for the detail in the fine print, and stay away from non-FDIC insured investments, there is little difference, so yes, pick the highest you can get. The offered interest rate is influenced by what the banks are trying to accomplish, and how their current and desired customer base thinks. Some banks have customer bases with very conservative behavior, which will stick with them because they trust them no matter what, so a low interest rate is good enough. The disadvantage for the bank is that such customers prefer brick-and-mortar contact, which is expensive for the bank. Or maybe the bank has already more cash than they need, and has no good way to invest it. Other banks might need more cash flow to be able to get stronger in the mortgage market, and their way of getting that is to offer higher interest rates, so new customers come and invest new money (which the bank in turn can then mortgage out). They also may offer higher rates for online handling only. Overall, there are many different ways to make money as a bank, and they diversify into different niches with other focuses, and that comes with offering quite different interest rates.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0728c771610b8d73857743160db5d244",
"text": "This is of course using 'new math'. Namely, if I lend you $100 and you keep it for a month, I've lent you $100. In fact, if I loan you $100 for a year I've loaned you $100. But if I lend you $100 overnight, you pay me back in the morning, I lend you $100 overnight, you pay me back in the morning and we repeat that for a month, I've supposedly lent you $3,000. That's some interesting math for sure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5fc1b6f50dab7b6be9ad8ae72e29381d",
"text": "\"My answer is specific to the US because you mentioned the Federal Reserve, but a similar system is in place in most countries. Do interest rates increase based on what the market is doing, or do they solely increase based on what the Federal Reserve sets them at? There are actually two rates in question here; the Wikipedia article on the federal funds rate has a nice description that I'll summarize here. The interest rate that's usually referred to is the federal funds rate, and it's the rate at which banks can lend money to each other through the Federal Reserve. The nominal federal funds rate - this is a target set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). When you hear in the media that the Fed is changing interest rates, this is almost always what they're referring to. The actual federal funds rate - through the trading desk of the New York Federal Reserve, the FOMC conducts open market operations to enforce the federal funds rate, thus leading to the actual rate, which is the rate determined by market forces as a result of the Fed's operations. Open market operations involve buying and selling short-term securities in order to influence the rate. As an example, the current nominal federal funds rate is 0% (in economic parlance, this is known as the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB)), while the actual rate is approximately 25 basis points, or 0.25%. Why is it assumed that interest rates are going to increase when the Federal Reserve ends QE3? I don't understand why interest rates are going to increase. In the United States, quantitative easing is actually a little different from the usual open market operations the Fed conducts. Open market operations usually involve the buying and selling of short-term Treasury securities; in QE, however (especially the latest and ongoing round, QE3), the Fed has been purchasing longer-term Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). By purchasing MBS, the Fed is trying to reduce the overall risk of the commercial housing debt market. Furthermore, the demand created by these purchases drives up prices on the debt, which drives down interest rates in the commercial housing market. To clarify: the debt market I'm referring to is the market for mortgage-backed securities and other debt derivatives (CDO's, for instance). I'll use MBS as an example. The actual mortgages are sold to companies that securitize them by pooling them and issuing securities based on the value of the pool. This process may happen numerous times, since derivatives can be created based on the value of the MBS themselves, which in turn are based on housing debt. In other words, MBS aren't exactly the same thing as housing debt, but they're based on housing debt. It's these packaged securities the Fed is purchasing, not the mortgages themselves. Once the Fed draws down QE3, however, this demand will probably decrease. As the Fed unloads its balance sheet over several years, and demand decreases throughout the market, prices will fall and interest rates in the commercial housing market will fall. Ideally, the Fed will wait until the economy is healthy enough to absorb the unloading of these securities. Just to be clear, the interest rates that QE3 are targeting are different from the interest rates you usually hear about. It's possible for the Fed to unwind QE3, while still keeping the \"\"interest rate\"\", i.e. the federal funds rate, near zero. although this is considered unlikely. Also, the Fed can target long-term vs. short-term interest rates as well, which is once again slightly different from what I talked about above. This was the goal of the Operation Twist program in 2011 (and in the 1960's). Kirill Fuchs gave a great description of the program in this answer, but basically, the Fed purchased long-term securities and sold short-term securities, with the goal of twisting the yield curve to lower long-term interest rates relative to short-term rates. The goal is to encourage people and businesses to take on long-term debt, e.g. mortgages, capital investments, etc. My main question that I'm trying to understand is why interest rates are what they are. Is it more of an arbitrary number set by central banks or is it due to market activity? Hopefully I addressed much of this above, but I'll give a quick summary. There are many \"\"interest rates\"\" in numerous different financial markets. The rate most commonly talked about is the nominal federal funds rate that I mentioned above; although it's a target set by the Board of Governors, it's not arbitrary. There's a reason the Federal Reserve hires hundreds of research economists. No central bank arbitrarily sets the interest rate; it's determined as part of an effort to reach certain economic benchmarks for the foreseeable future, whatever those may be. In the US, current Fed policy maintains that the federal funds rate should be approximately zero until the economy surpasses the unemployment and inflation benchmarks set forth by the Evans Rule (named after Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who pushed for the rule). The effective federal funds rate, as well as other rates the Fed has targeted like interest rates on commercial housing debt, long-term rates on Treasury securities, etc. are market driven. The Fed may enter the market, but the same forces of supply and demand are still at work. Although the Fed's actions are controversial, the effects of their actions are still bound by market forces, so the policies and their effects are anything but arbitrary.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f7f27dfffa398fe03986c118eb595efc",
"text": "The Fed controls the base interest rate for lending to banks. It raises this rate when the economy is doing well to limit inflation, and lowers this rate when the economy is doing poorly to encourage lending. Raising the interest rate signals that the Fed believes the economy is strong/strengthening. Obviously it's more complicated than that but that's the basic idea.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b67743cb4e5d07b3227567e526be37de",
"text": "\"The interest rate offered by a bond is called the nominal interest rate. The so-called real interest rate is the nominal interest rate minus the rate of inflation. If inflation is equal to or greater than the nominal rate at any given time, the REAL interest rate is zero or negative. We're talking about a ten year bond. It's possible for the real interest rate to be negative for one or two years of the bond's life, and positive for eight or nine. On the other hand, if we have a period of rising inflation, as in the 1970s, the inflation rate will exceed the (original) interest rate in most years, meaning that the real interest rate on the ten year bond will be negative over its whole life. People lost \"\"serious\"\" money on bonds (and loans) in the 1970s. In such situations, the BORROWERS make out. That is, they borrow money at low rates, earn inflation (plus a little more) pay back inflated dollars, and pocket the difference. For them, the money is \"\"free.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "09341e6010c64a265197ec01f49e1ee6",
"text": "As no one has mentioned them I will... The US Treasury issues at least two forms of bonds that tend to always pay some interest even when prevailing rates are zero or negative. The two that I know of are TIPS and I series bonds. Below are links to the descriptions of these bonds: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.htm",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b681511148f7950613ac99ca0cd0f0fd",
"text": "\"The \"\"pure play\"\" would be using interest rate options. http://www.cboe.com/Products/InterestRateOptionsSpecs.aspx\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "55a4f389f97a24cc60821597a105d24a",
"text": "In the EU, you might be looking for Directive 2000/35/EC (Late Payment Directive). There was a statutory rate, 7% above the European Central Bank main rate. However, this Directive was recently repealed by Directive 2011/7/EU, which sets the statutory rate at ECB + 8%. (Under EU regulations, Directives must be turned into laws by national governments, which often takes several months. So in some EU countries the local laws may still reflect the old Directive. Also, the UK doesn't participate in the Euro, and doesn't follow the ECB rate)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e16b834629cbf3ea7dbfc65ce2a43ca4",
"text": "\"In the United States, if someone refers to the \"\"interest rate\"\", especially if heard on news or talk radio in particular, they are almost always referring to the federal funds rate, a rate set forth and maintained by the United States Federal Reserve (the \"\"fed\"\" for short). If the fed opts to raise or lower this rate, it subsequently effects all interest rates, whether by being directly connected in a chain of loans or by market demand through the efficiency of financial markets in the case of bond auctions. The FOMC meets eight times each year to determine the target for the federal funds rate. The federal funds rate effects all interest rates because it is the originating rate of interest on all loans in the chain of loans. Because of this significance as a benchmark for all interest rates, it is the rate most commonly referred to as \"\"interest rate\"\" when used alone. That is why other rates are specified by what they actually are; e.g., mortgage rates; 10 year & 30 year (for 10 year treasury and 30 year treasury bond yields respectively); savings rate, auto rate, credit card rate, CD rate—all rates of interest effected by the originating loan that is the federal funds rate. This is true in the United States but will vary for other countries. In general though, it will almost always refer to the originating rate for all loans in a given country, institution, etc. Note that bonds have yields that are based on market demand that is, in turn, based on the federal funds rate. It is because of the efficiency of financial markets that the demand, and thus the yields, are correlated to the federal funds rate.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "735cdacb94f03923d7db3c732b06db0f",
"text": "\"These rates are so low because the cost of money is so low. Specifically, two rates are near zero. The Federal Reserve discount rate, which is \"\"the interest rate charged to commercial banks and other depository institutions on loans they receive from their regional Federal Reserve Bank's lending facility--the discount window.\"\" The effective federal funds rate, which is the rate banks pay when they trade balances with each other through the Federal Reserve. Banks want to profit on the loans they make, like mortgage loans. To do so, they try to maximize the difference between the rates they charge on mortgages and other loans (revenue), and the rates they pay savings account holders, the Federal Reserve or other banks to obtain funds (expenses). This means that the rates they offer to pay are as close to these rates as possible. As the charts shows, both rates have been cut significantly since the start of the recession, either through open market operations (the federal funds rate) or directly (the discount rate). The discount rate is set directly by the regional Federal Reserve banks every 14 days. In most cases, the federal funds rate is lower than the discount rate, in order to encourage banks to lend money to each other instead of borrowing it from the Fed. In the past, however, there have been rare instances where the federal funds rate has exceeded the discount rate, and it's been cheaper for banks to borrow money directly from the Fed than from each other.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
8b2110ab0e49ecdd936fd11ec0aed9b6
|
Taxation from variations in currency
|
[
{
"docid": "3200217e7939b7c9eb0a82e4a1124feb",
"text": "Here is the technical guidance from the accounting standard FRS 23 (IAS 21) 'The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates' which states: Exchange differences arising on the settlement of monetary items or on translating monetary items at rates different from those at which they were translated on initial recognition during the period or in previous financial statements shall be recognised in profit or loss in the period in which they arise. An example: You agree to sell a product for $100 to a customer at a certain date. You would record the sale of this product on that date at $100, converted at the current FX rate (lets say £1:$1 for ease) in your profit loss account as £100. The customer then pays you several $100 days later, at which point the FX rate has fallen to £0.5:$1 and you only receive £50. You would then have a realised loss of £50 due to exchange differences, and this is charged to your profit and loss account as a cost. Due to double entry bookkeeping the profit/loss on the FX difference is needed to balance the journals of the transaction. I think there is a little confusion as to what constitutes a (realised) profit/loss on exchange difference. In the example in your question, you are not making any loss when you convert the bitcoins to dollars, as there is no difference in the exchange rate between the point you convert them. Therefore you have not made either a profit or a loss. In terms of how this effects your tax position; you only pay tax on your profit and loss account. The example I give above is an instance where an exchange difference is recorded to the P&L. In your example, the value of your cash held is reflected in your balance sheet, as an asset, whatever its value is at the balance sheet date. Unfortunately, the value of the asset can rise/fall, but the only time where you will record a profit/loss on this (and therefore have an impact on tax) is if you sell the asset.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7bbe8dd439c3cc40c4de8b119a3b33d4",
"text": "According to the answers to this question, you generally aren't taxed on gains until you sell the asset in question. None of those answered specifically for the U.K., so perhaps someone else will be able to weigh in on that. To apply those ideas to your question, yes your gains and losses are taxable. If you originally traded something worth $100 for the bitcoins, then when you converted back to dollars you received $200, you would have a $100 gain, simply on the foreign exchange trade. That is, this $100 of income is in addition to any income you made from your business (selling goods).",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "d1138e355b81a7a8ac2647aa46a98c76",
"text": "It is interesting to consider the Netherlands which is part of the Euro zone. Germany uses 1 and 2 cent coins. Adjacent is the Netherlands where items remain priced to the cent but cash totals are rounded to the nearest 5c so 1 and 2c coins are out of circulation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5712bdc7208402f56051e2fd71d54a61",
"text": "Let me restate question for clarity. Facts: Question: Are there any taxes for this transaction? Answer: (Added improvements provided by Eric) Generally No. Generally, it is not considered income until you sell and the sale price is greater than the purchase price. But with currency differences, there is an additional complication, section 988 rules apply. It could result in ordinary income or loss.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8568a818f3a0c4a7473017be99a53d48",
"text": "\"I found an answer by Peter Selinger, in two articles, Tutorial on multiple currency accounting (June 2005, Jan 2011) and the accompanying Multiple currency accounting in GnuCash (June 2005, Feb 2007). Selinger embraces the currency neutrality I'm after. His method uses \"\"[a]n account that is denominated as a difference of multiple currencies... known as a currency trading account.\"\" Currency trading accounts show the gain or loss based on exchange rates at any moment. Apparently GnuCash 2.3.9 added support for multi-currency accounting. I haven't tried this myself. This feature is not enabled by default, and must be turned on explicity. To do so, check \"\"Use Trading Accounts\"\" under File -> Properties -> Accounts. This must be done on a per-file basis. Thanks to Mike Alexander, who implemented this feature in 2007, and worked for over 3 years to convince the GnuCash developers to include it. Older versions of GnuCash, such as 1.8.11, apparently had a feature called \"\"Currency Trading Accounts\"\", but they behaved differently than Selinger's method.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "67363603df95dbf02c5c4c322d2c4a61",
"text": "It should be very obvious that getting X Euro cash in your hand is better than deducting them from taxable income. You would need to have a tax rate of over 100% to do better otherwise.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ca7c97032d41c46ad8353113e3ff60a4",
"text": "Having taxes in USD gives the USD intrinsic value. The US government already fights any attempt to have the petrodollar undermined (foreign exchanges that trade oil in currency other than USD). It will have to exactly 0 interest in undermining itself by accepting anything but USD in taxes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6057489b63d4a6078034e2f58b3fe5f7",
"text": "I'm not sure, but I think the monetary system of Second Life or World of Warcraft would correspond to what you are looking for. I don't think they are independent of the dollar though, since acquiring liquidity in those games can be done through exchange for real dollars. But there can be more closed systems, maybe Sim type games where this is not the case. I hope this helps.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3048fcd106371966f419a784a95ddf8e",
"text": "The closest thing that you are looking for would be FOREX exchanges. Currency value is affected by the relative growth of economies among other things, and the arbritrage of currencies would enable you to speculate on the relative growth of an individual economy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "410f540b4ab654bf8bda42f5bd8443f1",
"text": "If you make money in currency speculation (as in your example), that is a capital gain. A more complicated example is if you were to buy and then sell stocks on the mexican stock exchange. Your capital gain (or loss) would be the difference in value in US dollars of your stocks accounting for varying exchange rates. It's possible for the stocks to go down and for you to still have a capital gain, and vice versa.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a84f16ada81922d72884f228646ce307",
"text": "I spoke to HMRC and they said #1 is not allowable but #2 is. They suggested using either their published exchange rates or I could use another source. I suggested the Bank of England spot rates and that was deemed reasonable and allowable.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d0924928f7f5f7194bd15333e140dbae",
"text": "\"In 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. In that notice, the answer to the first question describes the general tax treatment of virtual currency: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. As it's property like any other, capital gains if and when you sell are taxed. As with any capital gains, you're taxed on the \"\"profit\"\" you made, that is the \"\"proceeds\"\" (how much you got when you sold) minus your \"\"basis\"\" (how much you paid to get the property that you sold). Until you sell, it's just an asset (like a house, or a share of stock, or a rare collectible card) that doesn't require any reporting. If your initial cryptocurrency acquisition was through mining, then this section of that Notice applies: Q-8: Does a taxpayer who “mines” virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? A-8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully “mines” virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable income. That is to say, when it was mined the market value of the amount generated should have been included in income (probably on either Line 21 Other Income, or on Schedule C if it's from your own business). At that point, the market value would also qualify as your basis. Though I doubt there'd be a whole lot of enforcement action for not amending your 2011 return to include $0.75. (Technically if you find a dollar bill on the street it should be included in income, but usually the government cares about bigger fish than that.) It sounds like your basis is close enough to zero that it's not worth trying to calculate a more accurate value. Since your basis couldn't be less than zero, there's no way that using zero as your basis would cause you to pay less tax than you ought, so the government won't have any objections to it. One thing to be careful of is to document that your holdings qualify for long-term capital gains treatment (held longer than a year) if applicable. Also, as you're trading in multiple cryptocurrencies, each transaction may count as a \"\"sale\"\" of one kind followed by a \"\"purchase\"\" of the other kind, much like if you traded your Apple stock for Google stock. It's possible that \"\"1031 like kind exchange\"\" rules apply, and in June 2016 the American Institute of CPAs sent a letter asking about it (among other things), but as far as I know there's been no official IRS guidance on the matter. There are also some related questions here; see \"\"Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges?\"\" and \"\"Assuming 1031 Doesn't Apply To Cryptocurrency Trading\"\". But if in fact those exchange rules do not apply and it is just considered a sale followed by a purchase, then you would need to report each exchange as a sale with that asset's basis (probably $0 for the initial one), and proceeds of the fair market value at the time, and then that same value would be the basis of the new asset you're purchasing. Using a $0 basis is how I treat my bitcoin sales, though I haven't dealt with other cryptocurrencies. As long as all the USD income is being reported when you get USD, I find it unlikely you'll run into a lot of trouble, even if you technically were supposed to report the individual transactions when they happened. Though, I'm not in charge of IRS enforcement, and I'm not aware of any high-profile cases, so it's hard to know anything for sure. Obviously, if there's a lot of money involved, you may want to involve a professional rather than random strangers on the Internet. You could also try contacting the IRS directly, as believe-it-or-not, their job is in fact helping you to comply with the tax laws correctly. Also, there are phone numbers at the end of Notice 2014-21 of people which might be able to provide further guidance, including this statement: The principal author of this notice is Keith A. Aqui of the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Income Tax & Accounting). For further information about income tax issues addressed in this notice, please contact Mr. Aqui at (202) 317-4718\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e83d0a17d6016f0a1252a86909c2d29e",
"text": "\"Well there are a couple reasons that people from various countries use specific currencies: 1. Government courts will recognize the settlement of contracts if they are paid with their local currency. So even if you wanted to be paid in Swiss Francs, your contracting partner can choose to pay you in USD instead. This artificially inflates the value of the local currency by increasing demand for it. 2. You're only allowed to pay your taxes in the local currency. This also artificially increases the demand for it, and it's the \"\"root value\"\" of the currency - people clamor for bits of green paper because if they don't have enough of it to pay off the tax man, they'll go to jail.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b33cbf727f004a084bf7f74b3a932a74",
"text": "\"Bingo, great question. I'm not the original poster, \"\"otherwiseyep\"\", but I am in the economics field (I'm a currency analyst for a Forex broker). I also happen to strongly disagree with his posts on the origin of money. To answer your question: the villagers are forced to use the new notes by their government, which demands that their income taxes be paid with the new currency. This is glossed over by otherwiseyep, which is unfortunate because it misleads people who are new to economics into believing the system of fiat money we have now is natural/emergent (created from the bottom-up) and not enforced from the top-down. Legal tender laws enforced in each nation's courts mean that all contracts can be settled in the local fiat currency, regardless of whether the receiver of the money wants a different currency. These laws (and the income tax) create an artificial \"\"root demand\"\" for the fiat currency, which is what gives it its value. We don't just *decide* that green paper has value. We are forced to accumulate it by the government. Fiat currencies are not money. We call them money, but in fact they are credit derivatives. Let me explain: A currency's value is inextricably tied to the nation's bond market. When investors buy a nation's bonds, they are loaning that nation money. The investor expects to receive interest payments on the bonds. The interest rate naturally rises as the bonds are perceived to be more-risky, and naturally falls as the bonds are perceived to be less-risky. The risk comes from the fact that governments sometimes get really close to not being able to pay their interest payments. They get into so much debt, and their tax-revenue shrinks as their economy worsens. That drives up the interest rate they must pay when they issue new bonds (ie add debt). So the value of a currency comes from tax revenue (interest payments). If a government misses an interest payment, or doesn't fully pay it, the market considers this a \"\"credit event\"\" and investors sell their bonds and freak out. Selling bonds has the effect of driving interest rates even higher, so it's a vicious cycle. If the government defaults, there's massive deflation because all debt denominated in that currency suddenly skyrockets due to the higher interest rates. This creates a chain of cascading defaults - one person defaults, which leads another person, and another, and so on. Everyone was in debt to everyone else, somewhere along the chain. In order to counteract this deflation (which ultimately leads to the kind of depression you saw in 1930's US), governments will print print print, expanding the credit supply via the banks. So this is what you see happening today - banks are constantly being bailed out all over the Western world, governments are cutting programs to be able to meet their interest payments, and central banks are expanding credit supplies and bailing out their buddies. Real money has ZERO counterparty risk. What is counterparty risk? It's just the risk that the guy who owes you something won't honor his debt. Gold and silver and salt and oil aren't IOU's. So they can be real money.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "22c0f2cf46cd1c218084c88abdbc96d4",
"text": "This is bullshit. The US government requires taxes to be paid in USD. There's your intrinsic value. If you want to be compliant with the federal law, your business and you as an individual are required to convert assets or labor into USD to pay them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "470c40758858a423b7448ad297cbb8b1",
"text": "\"No, Skiffbug is not English. Second, it's very clear that the type of method considered \"\"special\"\" by the tax code is clearly not labor, but capital gains and gains from \"\"carried interest\"\". If you actually take 3 seconds to read my comment, I am saying both should be treated in exactly the same way, and taxed at the same progressive scale.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "10d39f80d62655e1021c876a1a6d6781",
"text": "If you buy foreign currency as an investment, then the gains are ordinary income. The gains are realized when you close the position, and whether you buy something else go back to the original form of investment is of no consequence. In case #1 you have $125 income. In case #2 you have $125 income. In case #3 you have $166 loss. You report all these items on your Schedule D. Make sure to calculate the tax correctly, since the tax is not capital gains tax but rather ordinary income at marginal rates. Changes in foreign exchange between a transaction and the conversion of the proceeds to USD are generally not considered as income (i.e.: You sold a property in Mexico, but since the money took a couple of days to clear, the exchange rate changed and you got $2K more/less than you would based on the exchange rate on the day of the transaction - this is not a taxable income/loss). This is covered by the IRC Sec. 988. There are additional rules for contracts on foreign currency, TTM rules, etc. Better talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) for anything other than trivial.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
290cc4c0b282c739148336d0e2c17353
|
Rental Property - have someone look for you
|
[
{
"docid": "c7731e40d5fa360c012393e2c997616f",
"text": "Many real estate agents will assist with an apartment hunt, for a suitable fee. In a hot market that may be worth the money. Then again, my best finds were always through co-workers, after the first two.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "248fc9946966154f50ac26871b0d8361",
"text": "\"Actually sounds like an interesting concept for a business, potentially! (grin) You know, depending on where you live and how big the market is, you might see if there's a local \"\"concierge\"\" service. These are companies that will act like personal shoppers/assistants for you in all kinds of ways. I can't speak to the quality of their services or the pricing they use, but it would be a great place to start. I'm sure you can find listings of them on the web.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "78becc0932c47c865cd73ac9b9f78f5b",
"text": "The moment that you start to rent your car to strangers you are talking about using your car as a business. Will it be financially advantageous? If you can convince somebody to rent your vehicle for more than your required monthly payments then it might be. Of course you have to determine what would be the true cost of ownership for you. It could include your auto loan, and insurance, but you would be saving on the garage costs. Of course if you don't have it rented 100% of the time you will still have some costs. Your insurance company will need to know about your plan. They charge based on the risk. If you aren't honest about the situation they won't cover you if something goes wrong. The local government may want to know. They charge different car registration fees for businesses. If there are business taxes they will want that. Taxes. you are running a business so everybody from the federal governemnt to the local government may want a cut. Plus you will have to depreciate the value of the item. Turning the item from a personal use item to a business item can have tax issues. If you don't own it 100% the lender may also have concerns about making sure their collateral survives. Is it safe? and from the comments to the question : Should I do a contract or something that would protect me? Nope. it isn't safe unless you do have a contract. Of course that contract will have to be drawn up by a lawyer to make sure it protects you from theft, negligence, breach of contract.... You will have to be able to not just charge rent, but be able to repossess the car if they don't return it on time. You will have to be able to evaluate if the renter is trustworthy, or you may find your car is in far worse shape if you can even get it back.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8daccb4c7d1963417fafccde3f1149a4",
"text": "There are many property management companies are available in India. You can easily find trusted companies just searching on the google. They manage all these things legally. You just try this",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a11b3faa4f2d442093ab3f4f0a497ccc",
"text": "\"If your meaning of \"\"asset protection\"\" is buying gold and canned food in the name of a Nevada LLC because some radio guy said so, bad idea. For a person, if you have assets, buy appropriate liability limits with your homeowner/renter insurance policy or purchase an \"\"umbrella\"\" liability policy. This type of insurance is cheap. If you don't have assets, it may not be worth the cost of insuring yourself beyond the default limits on your renter's or homeowner's policy. If you have a business, you need to talk to your insurance agent about what coverage is appropriate for the business as a whole vs. you personally. You also need to talk to your attorney about how to conduct yourself so that your business interests are separated from your personal interests.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d9403bb9d1a39b292f8692b5bc67126",
"text": "\"Have you been rejected from a rental for a specific reason (leading to this question)? Landlords are in the business of exchanging space for regular payments with no drama. Anything they ask in an application should be something to minimize the risk of drama. The \"\"happy path\"\" optimistic goal is that you pay your rent by the due date every month. If your income is not sufficient for this, demonstrating you have assets and would be able to pay for the full term of the lease is part of the decision to enter into the lease with you. In the non-happy-path, say you fall off the face of the earth before ending the lease. The landlord could be owed several months of rent, and could pursue a legal judgment on your assets. With a court order, they can make the bank pay out what is owed; having bank information reduces the landlord's cost and research efforts in the event the story has degenerated to this point (in the jargon of landlording, this means the tenant is \"\"collectable\"\"). While of course you could have zeroed out your accounts or moved money to a bank you didn't tell the landlord in the meantime, if you are not the bad actor in this story, you probably wouldn't have. If you get any kind of \"\"spidey-sense\"\" about a landlord or property at all there is probably a better rental situation in your city. You also want to minimize drama. If the landlord is operating like a business, they're not in this to perform identity theft. If the landlord is sloppy, or has sloppy office workers, that would be different. In the event sharing your asset information truly bothers you, and the money is for rental expense anyway, you could offer to negotiate a 1 year prepaid rental (of course knock another 5%-10% off for time value of money and lower risk to landlord) if you're sure you wouldn't want to leave early.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f30788f8fb761d716f81b5eca3e2ce50",
"text": "\"This might be a good idea, depending on your personality and inclinations. Key points: How close is the building to you? Do not buy any building that is more than 20 minutes travel from where you are. Do you have any real hard experience with doing construction, building maintenance and repair? Do you have tools? Example: do you have a reciprocating saw? do you know what a reciprocating saw is? If your answer to both those questions is \"\"no\"\", think twice about acquiring a property that involves renovation. Renovation costs can be crushing, especially for someone who is not an experienced carpenter and electrician. Take your estimates of costs and quadruple them. Can you still afford it? Do you want to be a landlord? Being a landlord is a job. You will be called in the middle of the night by tenants who want their toilet to get fixed and stuff like that. Is that what you want to spend your time doing, driving 20 minutes to change lightbulbs and fix toilets?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "70f7ff51ab5fbb6c5c09eb6c69e86b50",
"text": "Don't over analyze it - check with some local landlords that are willing to share some information and resources Then analyze the Worst Case Scenarios and the likelihood of them happening and if you could deal with it if it did happen Then Dive In - Real Estate is a long term investment so you have plenty of time to learn everything..... Most people fail.... because they fail to take the first leap of faith !!!",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "89d4b3d5f9ba6b37bb8a4966cf06ef82",
"text": "I wrote this in another thread but is also applicable here. In general people make some key mistakes with property: Not factoring in depreciation properly. Houses are perpetually falling down, and if you are renting them perpetually being trashed by the tenants as well - particularly in bad areas. Accurate depreciation costs can often run in the 5-20% range per year depending on the property/area. Add insurance to this as well or be prepared to lose the whole thing in a disaster. Related to 1), they take the index price of house price rises as something they can achieve, when in reality a lot of the house price 'rise' is just everyone having to spend a lot of money keeping them standing up. No investor can actually track a house price graph due to 1) so be careful to make reasonable assumptions about actual achievable future growth (in your example, they could well be lagging inflation/barely growing if you are not pricing in upkeep and depreciation properly). Failure to price in the huge transaction costs (often 5%+ per sale) and capital gains/other taxes (depends on the exact tax structure where you are). These add up very fast if you are buying and selling at all frequently. Costs in either time or fees to real estate rental agents. Having to fill, check, evict, fix and maintain rental properties is a lot more work than most people realise, and you either have to pay this in your own time or someone else’s. Again, has to be factored in. Liquidity issues. Selling houses in down markets is very, very hard. They are not like stocks where they can be moved quickly. Houses can often sit on the market for years before sale if you are not prepared to take low prices. As the bank owns your house if you fail to pay the mortgage (rents collapse, loss of job etc) they can force you to fire sale it leaving you in a whole world of pain depending on the exact legal system (negative equity etc). These factors are generally correlated if you work in the same cities you are buying in so quite a lot of potential long tail risk if the regional economy collapses. Finally, if you’re young they can tie you to areas where your earnings potential is limited. Renting can be immensely beneficial early on in a career as it gives you huge freedom to up sticks and leave fast when new opportunities arise. Locking yourself into 20 yr+ contracts/landlord activities when young can be hugely inhibiting to your earnings potential. Without more details on the exact legal framework, area, house type etc it’s hard to give more specific advise, but in general you need a very large margin of safety with property due to all of the above, so if the numbers you’re running are coming out close (and they are here), it’s probably not worth it, and you’re better of sticking with more hands off investments like stocks and bonds.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d01de865749f62ff09394ef2f320b50f",
"text": "Don't forget the risk of not finding tenants and having your property be empty. Or having bad tenants who destroy the place. Or just spending all your time (because time is money) on general upkeep/maintenance (or, if you subcontract that out, making sure a decent job was done)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "15c73bd272efaeeb6eb5ac9ddf6df9f1",
"text": "You need to get some thing called landlord insurance, tenants only covers his belongings. Any property damage caused deliberately or unknowingly is not covered in this, its upon the owner to get landlord insurance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "daeffb1714d8e8a6204b007f0b5e978a",
"text": "Fellow Torontonian here - I'm seeing the same things you're seeing, but what worries me the most is the sheer number of people I know in my professional circles who can't so much as use a wrench, and have no clue what extra surprises you might run into when owning, but are attracted by the low mortgage rates into buying 2-3 properties and using them as rental properties purely as an investment. It's not so bad for the detached homes (which tend to be bought up by developers/contractors), but the semidetached and condos are rife with this type of owner. They don't realize that being a landlord is _a job_: things break, you're responsible, and you definitely can't rely on your tenants always acting as reasonable, promptly-paying people. I move to somewhere else in Toronto about once every 1.5 years, each time researching many units online, and seeing ~20 in person, and while there may be an increase in quality for the detached homes, every other type of rental property's quality is in steep decline as the market fills with all these non-expert, get-rich-quick types of owners.",
"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": "6d70f2cae68608a83cef66fb85788404",
"text": "@Pete B.'s answer is good, but there's an important note to consider for tax purposes. It's too large for a comment, so I'm adding it as an answer. And that is: you cannot claim the property as a rental property under certain conditions. This affects things like claiming mortgage interest (which you don't have), and depreciation in value (which a rental is allowed). See IRS topic 415 for details, but I've included an important excerpt below with emphasis added: If you rent a dwelling unit to others that you also use as a residence, limitations may apply to the rental expenses you can deduct. You're considered to use a dwelling unit as a residence if you use it for personal purposes during the tax year for more than the greater of: ... A day of personal use of a dwelling unit is any day that it's used by: Talk to a tax accountant to better understand the ramifications of this, but it's worth noting that you can't just rent it to her for a paltry sum and be able to take tax advantages from this arrangement.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e17ffc2a0f6e9a51037f2a78ea0f3f8a",
"text": "Title agencies perform several things: Research the title for defects. You may not know what you're looking at, unless you're a real-estate professional, but some titles have strings attached to them (like, conditions for resale, usage, changes, etc). Research title issues (like misrepresentation of ownership, misrepresentation of the actual property titled, misrepresentation of conditions). Again, not being a professional in the domain, you might not understand the text you're looking at. Research liens. Those are usually have to be recorded (i.e.: the title company won't necessarily find a lien if it wasn't recorded with the county). Cover your a$$. And the bank's. They provide title insurance that guarantees your money back if they missed something they were supposed to find. The title insurance is usually required for a mortgaged transaction. While I understand why you would think you can do it, most people cannot. Even if they think they can - they cannot. In many areas this research cannot be done online, for example in California - you have to go to the county recorder office to look things up (for legal reasons, in CA counties are not allowed to provide access to certain information without verification of who's accessing). It may be worth your while to pay someone to do it, even if you can do it yourself, because your time is more valuable. Also, keep in mind that while you may trust your abilities - your bank won't. So you may be able to do your own due diligence - but the bank needs to do its own. Specifically to Detroit - the city is bankrupt. Every $100K counts for them. I'm surprised they only charge $6 per search, but that is probably limited by the State law.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5c0f2b4fc4ce9963d3f9157bd0fd33a4",
"text": "I would suggest the use of a management company to handle a rental property. They will take care of things like collecting rent, coordinating repairs and all the little things that come up when dealing with a renters. They typically charge a percentage of the rent or a flat fee, so make sure you include that in your rent calculation. You take a little bit of a financial hit, but save a lot of head aches - especially if you decide to acquire multiple properties in the future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "122d68290fbabfe0f17c8406271bf9f1",
"text": "Based on what you've said I think buying a rental is risky for you. It looks like you heard that renting a house is profitable and Zillow supported that idea. Vague advice + a website designed for selling + large amounts of money = risky at the very least. That doesn't mean that rental property is super risky it just means that you haven't invested any time into learning the risks and how you can manage them. Once you learn that your risk reduces dramatically. In general though I feel that rental property has a good risk/reward ratio. If you're willing to put in the time and energy to learn the business then I'd encourage you to buy property. If you're not willing to do that then rentals will always be a crap shoot. One thing about investing in rental property is you have the ability to have more impact on your investment than you do dropping money in the stock market which is good and bad.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
1c99cdbfa36e28eb90984e35bd0a0bf3
|
How do I get a Tax Exemption Certificate for export from the US if I am in another country?
|
[
{
"docid": "e6bc39b53fb5cdee06c5ef1a03a1b326",
"text": "Assuming you are being charged sales tax, it all depends on where you take possession of the shipment. Are your suppliers shipping to a US address, say your freight forwarder, from where you handle the ongoing shipment, or directly to you in South America? If the latter, per Michael Pryor's answer, you should not be charged sales tax. If the former, if the address is in a state in which your supplier has a physical location they will have to charge sales tax. That said, your freight forwarder should be able to furnish your supplier with a letter stating that the goods have been exported (with a copy of the relevant Bill of Lading) which will allow your supplier to refund you the taxes (a company I was at before would allow refunds up to two years past the date of sale per various tax regulations). Alternatively, you could see if just a letter of intent from your freight forwarder is enough to not charge you in the first place, but that's technically not proof of exportation. You might be able to get a refund or an exception from the state's tax department directly, but I would recommend going through your supplier - much less hassle.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a377f67fb9ea0522d326e45b041eb6d5",
"text": "How do you know you are playing their cost plus tax? Retailers in the US currently only collect state sales tax on purchasers who are based in the same state they are in. For example, our business is in NY so we charge NY state sales tax. We do not charge sales tax for anyone living in any other state (or country). If your shipping address is in South America, the people you are buying from in the US should not be charging you any tax. You may have to pay customs duties and fees, but these are not sales tax.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8a36f5394cf6bbe4093906c74e603f2f",
"text": "Depends on the state, in Texas you should charge sales tax because the shipment is going to a freight forwarder in Texas. That being said, once you have the bill of lading you can have your tax credited by the vendor. It is one of the documents the state will except in lieu of sales tax for exports. There are five. You can find this info at the Comptrollers website. I would validate that you are being charged sales/use tax and not withholding tax, withholding would be related to your country. Doc requirements for export vary from state to state.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "aa6b5fd3a2691763e0186d3daa30563b",
"text": "Buyer A didn't send money to the US government, Buyer A sent money to Seller B, a US resident. I think the most common way to facilitate a transaction like this is a regular old international wire transfer. Buyer A in India goes to their bank to exchange X INR to $1mm USD. $1mm USD is then wire transferred to Seller B's bank account. The USD was sold to Buyer A, either by funds held by Buyer A's bank, or foreign exchange markets, or possibly the US government. Seller B may owe taxes on the gain derived from the sale of this thing to Buyer A, but that taxation would arise regardless of who the buyer was. Buyer A may owe an import tax in India upon importing whatever they bought. I don't think it's common to tax imported money in this sort of transactional setting though.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": ""
},
{
"docid": "eb6a63bb1abd8ee6d5c4b1cde0087a9f",
"text": "I took littleadv's advice and talked to an accountant today. Regardless of method of payment, my US LLC does not have to withhold taxes or report the payment as payments to contractors (1099/1042(S)) to the IRS; it is simply a business expense. He said this gets more complicated if the recipient is working in the US (regardless of nationality), but that is not my case",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "810d4842bdc077402c3b1d10247a8e7f",
"text": "If your gross income is only $3000, then you don't need to file: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf That said, pay careful attention to: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayers-living-abroad You should be reporting ALL income, without regard to WHERE you earned it, on your US taxes. Not doing so could indeed get you in trouble if you are audited. Your level of worry depends on how much of the tax law you are willing to dodge, and how lucky you feel.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "6930ffd3459df51d2e594465b3b8a9f1",
"text": "There's nothing wrong with your reasoning except that you expect the tax laws to make perfect sense. More often than not they don't. I suggest getting in touch with a professional tax preparer (preferably with a CPA or EA designation), who will be able to understand the issue, including the relevant portions of the French-US tax treaty, and explain it to you. You will probably also need to do some reporting in France, so get a professional advice from a French tax professional as well. So, in my tax return, can I say that I had no US revenue at all during this whole year? I doubt it.",
"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": "c1f72824ef2b3072f154a0d2fa565ef4",
"text": "Depending on what software you use. It has to be reported as a foreign income and you can claim foreign tax paid as a foreign tax credit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "071a251118a8b48aa4362f2e706e4b35",
"text": "Tax Refund: The US generally does not refund tax like other countries. For larger sales, you might want to try state tax refunds, check here: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/373/~/how-to-obtain-a-refund-of-sales-tax-paid-while-visiting-the-united-states US Customs: You never pay US customs when you leave, they don't care about what you take out of the country. You might have to pay customs in your arrival country afterwards, and the rules depend on the country you arrive in. Most countries have a limit on how much you can bring for free, typically in the range of 500 $, but that varies a lot. Also, some countries do not count used articles, so if you wear your new clothing once, it does not count against the limit anymore.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7195053464f2555973061c1a472f0ed3",
"text": "You should probably get a professional tax advice, as it is very specific to the Philipines tax laws and the US-Philippine tax treaty. What I know, however, is that if it was the other way around - you paying a foreigner coming to the US to consult you - you would be withholding 30% of their pay for the IRS which they would be claiming for refund on their own later. So if the US does it to others - I'm not surprised to hear that others do it to the US. Get a professional advice on what and how you should be doing. In any case, foreign taxes paid can be used to offset your US taxes using form 1116 up to some extent.",
"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": "551209fba299aa15ed4dd94754ca16ad",
"text": "Use prepaid cards. You only have to declare, or mention, or convert CASH. You can get as many $500 prepaid cards as you like and carry them across. US Code only mentions cash, so even if customs thought it was peculiar that you had one thousand prepaid cards in your trunk, it isn't something they look into. Prepaid cards come with small transaction fees though. And of course, you could also use a bank account in America and just withdraw from an ATM in canada. Finally, the FBAR isn't that much of a hassle, in case you did decide to get a canadian bank account. The US Federal Gov't doesn't care about all these crafty things you might do, as long as you are using POST-TAX money. If your foreign account earns interest, then you have some pre-tax money that the US Federal Gov't will care about.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fb0647f840b95233af703f5eabf08a32",
"text": "\"1. What forms do I need to file to receive money from Europe None. Your client can pay you via wire transfer. They need to know your name, address, account number, and the name of your bank, its SWIFT number and its associated address. The addresses and names are required to make sure there are no typos in the numbers. 2. What forms do I need to file to pay people in Latin America (or any country outside the US) None. 1099s only need to be filled out when the contractor has a US tax ID. Make sure they are contractors. If they work for you for more than 2 years, that can create a problem unless they incorporate because they might look like \"\"employees\"\" to the IRS in which case you need to be reporting their identitites to the IRS via a W-8BEN form. Generally speaking any foreign contractor you have for more than 2 years should incorporate in their own country and you bill that corporation to prevent employee status from occurring. 3. Can I deduct payments I made to contractors from other countries as company expense Of course.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d96a217cfd999cfcfdccb979a8068a15",
"text": "\"Q) Will I have to submit the accounts for the Swiss Business even though Im not on the payroll - and the business makes hardly any profit each year. I can of course get our accounts each year - BUT - they will be in Swiss German! You will have to submit on your income from the business. The term \"\"partnership\"\" refers to a specific business entity type in the U.S. I'm not sure if you're using it the same way. In a partnership in the U.S. you pay income tax on your share of the partnership's income whether or not you actually receive income in your personal account. There's not enough information here to know if that applies in your case. (In the U.S., the partnership itself does not pay income tax - It is a \"\"disregarded entity\"\" for tax purposes, with the tax liability passed through to the partners as individuals.) Q) Will I need to have this translated!? Is there any format/procedure to this!? Will it have to be translated by my Swiss accountants? - and if so - which parts of the documentation need to be translated!? As regards language, you will file a tax return on a U.S. form presumably in English. You will not have to submit your account information on any other form, so the fact that your documentation is in German does not matter. The only exception that comes to mind is that you could potentially get audited (just like anyone else filing taxes in the U.S.) in which case you might need to produce your documentation. That situation is rare enough that I wouldn't worry about it though. I'm not sure if they'd take it in German or force you to get a translation. I was told that if I sell the business (and property) after I aquire a greencard - that I will be liable to 15% tax of the profit I'd made. I also understand that any tax paid (on selling) in Switzerland will be deducted from the 15%!? Q) Is this correct!? The long-term capital gains rate is 15% for most people. (At very high incomes it is 20%.) It sounds like you would qualify for long-term (held for greater than 1 year) capital gains in this case, although the details might matter. There is a foreign tax credit, but I'm not completely sure if it would apply in this case. (If forced to guess, I would say that it does.) If you search for \"\"foreign tax credit\"\" and \"\"IRS\"\" you should get to the information that you need pretty quickly. I will effectively have ALL the paperwork for this - as we'll need to do the same in Switzerland. But again, it will be in Swiss German. Q) Would this be a problem if its presented in Swiss German!? Even in this case you will not need to submit any of your paperwork to the IRS, unless you get audited. See earlier comments.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "44f7f02ebc9b4bba410c9a805b9ed00d",
"text": "\"If you have income - it should appear on your tax return. If you are a non-resident, that would be 1040NR, with the eBay income appearing on line 21. Since this is unrelated to your studies, this income will not be covered by the tax treaties for most countries, and you'll pay full taxes on it. Keep in mind that the IRS may decide that you're actually having a business, in which case you'll be required to attach Schedule C to your tax return and maybe pay additional taxes (mainly self-employment). Also, the USCIS may decide that you're actually having a business, regardless of how the IRS sees it, in which case you may have issues with your green card. For low income from occasional sales, you shouldn't have any issues. But if it is something systematic that you spend significant time on and earn significant amounts of money - you may get into trouble. What's \"\"systematic\"\" and how much is \"\"significant\"\" is up to a lawyer to tell you.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c6959426bd997ccef966bf5cc436b54",
"text": "You need to fill out form 8606. It's not taxable, but you still need to report it",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
5a4474e7b9c152f03af9ee93c261ad56
|
Should I take contributions out of my Roth IRA to live off of?
|
[
{
"docid": "5a1142ff30560242d9fe0cb9b51e059e",
"text": "Take another job. From a personal finance perspective this is the wrong reason to dip into a retirement account. You will lose so much ground towards actually retiring. Sure you won't be taxed, but you will be missing so much opportunity where that money won't be working for your retirement. The off-topic answer to take to the start-ups stackexchange site is: don't quit your day job until your business plan is written out and you have an idea of where to get your startup capital.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c93bcfadf72babd57eae98f63c332b0a",
"text": "That's up to you, but I wouldn't play around with my retirement money if I was in your situation. Your earning potential during your retirement years will likely be at its nadir. Do you really want to risk being forced to be a Wal-Mart greeter when you are 80? Also, considering your earning potential now is probably at or near the peak, your opportunity cost for each hour of your life is much higher now than it will be later. So ultimately you'd be working a little harder now or a lot harder later for less money.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "7845cc0b4cdf7296a0263f061fbd2046",
"text": "It doesn't matter if you aren't maxing out your IRA contributions anyway. If you are maxing out IRA contribution and you still have extra money to deposit then yes you better have all the money inevested, but if you aren't maxing out your contribution then it doesn't really mattter where you stick your emergency savings. But if you fall into money later you will be glad you put your emergency in a roth.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d056febf8af3e97adf1ac2c9590b44d",
"text": "Lets imagine two scenarios: 1) You make 10.4k (40% of total income) yearly contributions to a savings account that earns 1% interest for 10 years. In this scenario, you put in 104k and earned 5.89k in interest, for a total of 109.9k. 2) You make the same 10.4k yearly contribution to an index fund that earns 7% on average for 10 years. In this scenario you put in the same 104k, but earned 49.7k in interest*, for a total of 153.7k. The main advantage is option 1) has more liquidity -- you can get the money out faster. Option 2) requires time to divest any stocks / bonds. So you need enough savings to get you through that divestment period. Imagine another two scenarios where you stop earning income: 1-b) You stop working and have only your 109.9k principal amount in a 1% savings account. If you withdraw 15.6k yearly for your current cost of living, you will run through your savings in 7 years. 2-b) You stop working and have only 20k (2 years of savings) in savings that earns 1% with 153.7k in stocks that earns 7%. If you withdraw your cost of living currently at 15.6k, you will run through your investments in 15 years and your savings in 2 years, for a total of 17 years. The two years of income in savings is extremely generous for how long it starts the divestment process. In summary, invest your money. It wasn't specified what currency we are talking about, but you can easily find access to an investment company no matter where you are in the world. Keep a small amount for a rainy day.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "18a41c6e82cb828cc6beeb5ccba6f277",
"text": "\"With a healthy income its quite possible to contribute too much into 401Ks/IRAs. For example, if your retired today and had 3 million or so, how much more would you need? Would an extra million materially change your life? Would it make you happier if you invested that extra in some rental properties or perhaps a business like a sandwich or ice cream shop where you have more direct control? This kind of discussion is possible as you indicate that you have taken care of your life financially. It seems at odds with the negative press describing the woefully condition of the standard person's finances. These articles ignore a very simple fact: its because of bad behavior. You, on the contrary, have behaved well and are in the process of reaping rewards. This is where I feel your \"\"mental gymnastics\"\" originates. Looking to engage in the rental market is no different then buying a franchise. You are opening a business of your own. You'll have to educate yourself and are likely to make a few mistakes that will cause you to write checks to solve. Your goal is to minimize those mistakes. After all, what do you know about the rental home business? I am guessing not much. Educate yourself. Read and spend some money on taking knowledgeable people out for coffee. In the end you should understand that although a poor decision may cost you money you cannot really make a bad decision. Lets say you do buy a rental property, things go south, you sell for a loss, etc.... In the end the \"\"butchers bill\"\" is 50K or so. Will that materially change your life? Probably not. The worst case is perhaps you have to work a year or two beyond the anticipated retirement age to make up that money. No big deal.\"",
"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": "e6fe9ae348a26ed418c12d2a37ad8fac",
"text": "You should simply withdraw the excess contributions by April 15. You have until October 15 if you go through the extra step of filing an amended tax return. https://investor.vanguard.com/ira/excess-contribution It unnecessary for you to pay the 6% penalty. You should wait until you can estimate your 2016 accurately before making your 2016 contribution. If your income is too high for the Roth IRA, you might instead pursue the backdoor Roth IRA strategy: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Backdoor_Roth_IRA",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f0bdfad4151cf82ea92285025dd4b5ee",
"text": "First thing to note is that contributions (i.e. the total of all the amounts that you directly contributed into Roth IRA at any point in time) to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn at any time, without needing any reason, without any tax or penalty. Early withdrawal (early because you are under 59.5) of earnings, on the other hand, will incur tax and penalty. (I didn't go into withdrawal of conversions as those are a little more complex.) When you withdraw, contributions come out first, so as long as you don't withdraw more than the amount of past contributions, you won't have any tax or penalty. And if it's not going to have tax, it doesn't really matter if you do it this year or next year. If you need to dip into the earnings, however, then maybe it would be better to do this year so it will be taxed at lower rates.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2154894e784fa76977d182c90058d00e",
"text": "Well this is not the best situation. Sorry to your friend. First off ROTHs are out, you need earned income. Secondly, I don't think the focus should be on retirement planning until there is again an earned income. Thirdly, this person is just in a bad spot. Lets assume that you can find some really good mutual funds, that consistently return 10% per year. At best this person can only pull out 10K per year without touching principle. At that income level, taxes are not much of a concern; not as much as surviving. If this person knows anything about investing, they know funds don't work like this. They could be down 5%, down 5%, up ~40% in three years to give an average of 10% return. Which of course further complicates matters. This person (IMO) should seek to start a different career. One that can cater to any long term issues this person has with pain/disability. The money could be used toward training/education in order to get money flowing again. That is not to say the full amount should be used for a BA in Russian Folk Literature, but some minimum training to get a career that starts earning real money.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "44161b0790cc3caf122100fa4e7dbfda",
"text": "You're right, of course - But that's not something you would ever want to do *accidentally*. Five years from now, the OP may well decide to convert some of his traditional funds to Roth; for now, even though Roth was his original intent, that would mean a tax bloodbath come next April. As an aside, the biggest reason (for most people) to have Roth funds **isn't** because you expect to make more (inflation - or more importantly, tax-code - adjusted) in retirement than now. If that were the case, the entire concept would be almost worthless - Who the heck makes more *after* retiring than *before*? The best reason to have substantial Roth funds in your retirement portfolio is the way that Social Security is taxed. If you can keep your AGI under $25k (note that includes half of your SS benefits, but since the standard deduction is roughly $10k, those more-or-less cancel each other out), you don't pay a dime in taxes on your SSI. So, if you have a solid budget, take your yearly expenses, subtract out $25k, and that's what you should (sustainably) have in Roth funds. The remaining $25k is what you should have in traditional funds.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "1a623fd663710ec8e383dcf5d15970c4",
"text": "Putting money into a Roth IRA or 401(k) will save you money if your taxes this year will be lower than your taxes in retirement. See also the Wikipedia retirement-savings matrix.",
"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": "6530438ecc6e9d694d90f6f51a6c221e",
"text": "You are mistaken about a Roth IRA. You can take out your contributions at any time with no penalty as long as you don't touch the gains. Also, if the money has been in for 5 years you can withdraw for a first time home purchase. Your concerns about locking up the money are troublesome. You need discipline to save for retirement. That is a known massive expense you will have and it takes a LONG time of saving up to prepare. Be sure to account for the taxes you may owe on the winnings before you start spending the money. Before you sink the money into a down payment on a house, make sure you have several (preferrably) six months of living expenses in savings. If you don't have investment experience, steer away from individual stocks. Invest in index funds with low expense ratios and don't actively trade.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "808d119ccef312246efb4ee461f710cb",
"text": "If he moves his 401K to a Roth all in one go, all the money will be considered income for the year he moves it, and he will have to pay taxes on that income. If he keeps it in his 401K or rolls it into a traditional IRA, he will only pay taxes on the money as he withdraws it. Bottom line, converting to Roth is almost certainly a bad idea.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e4f9de5dd97850b3d692707d252fb75a",
"text": "There are a few things to consider. The answers others gave here are correct, but I'll offer some reasons you may not want to roll to an IRA:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "39da3ac1fff30b7f7baa37b7025907cf",
"text": "\"I think it would be worth it for you to look into something called a \"\"Self-directed IRA\"\" before you make any decisions. Sometimes the costs can be a little higher, but you may find the flexibility worth it. Basically, instead of being limited to a small set of mutual funds from which to choose, having the money in a self-directed IRA would let you branch out into real estate, gold, or other vehicles that aren't part of the usual 401K landscape. And count me as another vote for not taking the cash. MrChrister is right, there are plenty of other ways to pay that off without the penalty.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "810eceab7edb6216ea4133d029874089",
"text": "\"I humbly disagree with #2. the use of Roth or pre-tax IRA depends on your circumstance. With no match in the 401(k), I'd start with an IRA. If you have more than $5k to put in, then some 401(k) would be needed. Edit - to add detail on Roth decision. I was invited to write a guest article \"\"Roth IRAs and your retirement income\"\" some time ago. In it, I discuss the large amount of pretax savings it takes to generate the income to put you in a high bracket in retirement. This analysis leads me to believe the risk of paying tax now only to find tHat you are in a lower bracket upon retiring is far greater than the opposite. I think if there were any generalization (I hate rules of thumb, they are utterly pick-apartable) to be made, it's that if you are in the 15% bracket or lower, go Roth. As your income puts you into 25%, go pretax. I believe this would apply to the bulk of investors, 80%+.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
d7308026f0f971a68919c4388fb4bf93
|
Withdraw USD from PayPal without conversion to my home currency of EUR?
|
[
{
"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": "5bb11528f43919b506fbdf9a93c675b3",
"text": "Look for EU banks that have US branches. Open an account there and look for the SWIFT code of your bank in US. Withdraw money using SWIFT US code.",
"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": "311332c16f52022baed996f2c7cdfc26",
"text": "You could use paypal to transfer money. You can pay with paypal and your UK contact could transfer the money to his bank account through paypal. I just received money this way from the US and paid 9 EUR for this. Receiving the funds is as quickly as clicking a button on the paypal site. Transfering it (without costs) took 1-3 days). It is by far the easiest way. If you are uncomfortable using paypal, the other option would be through your own bank account, where you would transfer using IBAN/SWIFT. The SWIFT bank account is usually the IBAN code plus a branch code. Often it is difficult to find the branch code, in that case you can use the IBAN+XXX. In the latter things might be delayed, but I actually haven't noticed the delay yet, since international transfer always seem to take between 1 and 10 days. The international transfering of money costs, except if it is within the EU region. The way to transfer money through Internet banking differs, from bank to bank. They keywords you need to look for are: SEPA, SWIFT, IBAN or international transfer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "81736205bbbb2bef19b6b96f71dcb2db",
"text": "\"You might convert all your money in local currency but you need take care of following tips while studying abroad.Here are some money tips that can be useful during a trip abroad. Know about fees :- When you use a debit card or credit card in a foreign country, there are generally two types of transaction fees that may apply: Understand exchange rates :- The exchange rate lets you know the amount of nearby money you can get for each U.S. dollar, missing any expenses. There are \"\"sell\"\" rates for individuals who are trading U.S. dollars for foreign currency, and, the other way around, \"\"purchase\"\" rates. It's a smart thought to recognize what the neighborhood money is worth in dollars so you can comprehend the estimation of your buys abroad. Sites like X-Rates offer a currency converter that gives the current exchange rate, so you can make speedy comparisons. You can utilize it to get a feel for how much certain amount (say $1, $10, $25, $50, $100) are worth in local currency. Remember that rates fluctuate, so you will be unable to suspect precisely the amount of a buy made in a foreign currency will cost you in U.S. dollars. To get cash, check for buddy banks abroad:- If you already have an account with a large bank or credit union in the U.S., you may have an advantage. Being a client of a big financial institution with a large ATM system may make it easier to find a subsidiary cash machine and stay away from an out-of-system charge. Bank of America, for example, is a part of the Global ATM Alliance, which lets clients of taking an interest banks use their debit cards to withdraw money at any Alliance ATM without paying the machine's operator an access fee, in spite of the fact that you may at present be charged for converting dollars into local currency used for purchases. Citibank is another well known bank for travelers because it has 45,000 ATMs in more than 30 countries, including popular study-abroad destinations such as the U.K., Italy and Spain. ATMs in a foreign country may allow withdrawals just from a financial records, and not from savings so make sure to keep an adequate checking balance. Also, ATM withdrawal limits will apply just as they do in the U.S., but the amount may vary based on the local currency and exchange rates. Weigh the benefits of other banks :- For general needs, online banks and even foreign banks can also be good options. With online banks, you don’t have to visit physical branches, and these institutions typically have lower fees. Use our checking account tool to find one that’s a good fit. Foreign banks:- Many American debit cards may not work in Europe, Asia and Latin America, especially those that don’t have an EMV chip that help prevent fraud. Or some cards may work at one ATM, but not another. One option for students who expect a more extended stay in a foreign country is to open a new account at a local bank. This will let you have better access to ATMs, and to make purchases more easily and without as many fees. See our chart below for the names of the largest banks in several countries. Guard against fraud and identity theft:- One of the most important things you can do as you plan your trip is to let your bank know that you’ll be abroad. Include exact countries and dates, when possible, to avoid having your card flagged for fraud. Unfortunately, incidents may still arise despite providing ample warning to your bank. Bring a backup credit card or debit card so you can still access some sort of money in case one is canceled. Passports are also critical — not just for traveling from place to place, but also as identification to open a bank account and for everyday purposes. You’ll want to make two photocopies and give one to a friend or family member to keep at home and put the other in a separate, secure location, just in case your actual passport is lost or stolen.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "96be13de93592923809ea5d881ff9459",
"text": "\"The simple answer would be - if you want to take Euros from Germany to Spain as cash and deposit them, you're not breaking any laws, there is nothing to declare to customs (you're still in the EU), it is not \"\"income\"\" so there is nothing to tax, and your bank should be able to receive it without issue (no currency conversion after all). It does however come with the risk of loss/theft en route. So it really depends on how comfortable you are walking around with that much on your person. If you don't want to carry that much around and your banks are imposing unreasonable fees, here's something you could investigate further (I have not tested it myself): Transferwise offers a service that lets people send money to foreign accounts (in different currencies) for a small fee, at mid-market rates. However, they also offer a \"\"request money\"\" feature which allows EUR-EUR transfers (and some other same currency transfers). So perhaps you could use this feature to simply request money from yourself. The requester puts in how much they want to receive. Then they send a generated link to the other party. When clicked, that link sets up a transaction for the requested amount, and sometimes a nominal fee (I created a link for a GBP-GBP transfer and it wanted 1 pound extra, but when I did the same for EUR-EUR it didn't want any extra). I assume you would need two Transferwise accounts, though maybe not? And I'm not sure whether doing this is technically allowed in their terms of service, so you should read those to be sure. The advantage, if this works, is that neither bank sees it as a \"\"transfer\"\". Rather, the originating bank makes a payment to Transferwise, and then Transferwise makes a deposit to the receiving account. So I can't imagine either bank would be able to impose their foreign-bank-transfer fees for the transaction. https://transferwise.com/request-money I have used Transferwise for currency conversions, but not the request money feature, maybe other users could chime in if they have used it.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7402ad5fe06144d975d78da88844f93d",
"text": "If you are a Russian citizen a much easier and common solution would be a USD or EUR withdrawal from your Webmoney account to your Cyprus bank account. You will need to create a Webmoney account (www.webmoney.ru), get a primary certificate in your local Webmoney office in Russia (The list is available at the website), create WMZ (for USD) and WME (for EURO) accounts in Webmoney (done online). Then you can easily top up your Webmoney WMR (Rubles) account (created automatically) with Rubles, convert the sum into USD (According to the Webmoney rate, which is only slightly different from the official central bank rate) and then withdraw the money from your USD Webmoney account to your Cyprus bank account. The money will be transfered to your Cyprus bank account from UK Webmoney dealer. The transaction description would say that this sum is transfered according to the contract of sale of securities. This method prevents any Russian regulatory authorities from seeing your transactions. And the best thig in Webmoney is that they have stable exchange rates and they use classic currencies such as USD, RUR, EUR, etc. Webmoney also has WMG accounts (Gold) and WMX accounts (Bitcoin). Non-Russian residents can also open a Webmoney accounts. You can get one even in Cyprus, by the way:)",
"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": "5e378ee1d0052e8237391cc8a26c5555",
"text": "How should we disregard leverage when it's the leverage that creates the 'wipe-out' potential? If you simply convert 100K EUR to USDollars, you dollars might then fluctuate a few thousand, maybe even 10K over a year, but the guy that only put up 1000 EUR to do this has a disproportionally higher risk.",
"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": "eefc2de9693868d1aea53b7a9f8281ef",
"text": "You can calculate your exposure intuitively, by calculating your 'fx sensitivity'. Take your total USD assets, let's assume $50k. Convert to EUR at the current rate, let's assume 1 EUR : 1.1 USD, resulting in 45.5k EUR . If the USD strengthens by 1%, this moves to a rate of ~1.09, resulting in 46k EUR value for the same 50k of USD investments. From this you can see that for every 1% the USD strengthens, you gain 500 EUR. For every 1% the USD weakens, you lose 500 EUR. The simplest way to reduce your exchange rate risk exposure, is to simply eliminate your foreign currency investments. ie: if you do not want to be exposed to fluctuations in the USD, invest in EUR only. This will align your assets with the currency of your future expenses [assuming you intend to continue living in Europe].This is not possible of course, if you would like to maintain investments in US assets. One relatively simple method available to invest in the US, without gaining an exposure to the USD, is to invest in USD assets only with money borrowed in USD. ie: if you borrow $50k USD, and invest $50k in the US stock market, then your new investments will be in the same currency as your debt. Therefore if the USD strengthens, your assets increase in relative EUR value, and your debt becomes more expensive. These two impacts wash out, leaving you with no net exposure to the value of the USD. There is a risk to this option - you are investing with a higher 'financial leverage' ratio. Using borrowed money to invest increases your risk; if your investments fall in value, you still need to make the periodic interest payments. Many people view this increased risk as a reason to never invest with borrowed money. You are compensated for that risk, by increased returns [because you have the ability to earn investment income without contributing any additional money of your own]. Whether the risk is worth it to you will depend on many factors - you should search this site and others on the topic to learn more about what those risks mean.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f83fd4e12068a3dd80172e8afb3afef",
"text": "In addition to TransferWise that @miernik answered with and that I successfully used, I found CurrencyFair which looks to be along similar lines and also supports US$.",
"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": "11c080592426edb765b2bbb6e1a28c84",
"text": "\"From personal experience of having been abroad for a while for work, I found the simplest method to be to Paypal it to myself from one country to the other. Yes, you incur a transaction fee - but it was always less expensive than \"\"real\"\" bank fees for me. Also - if you use a bank that has offices in both countries, adding an authorized user with a debit card and having them visit the bank every X often and making a withdrawal is a viable route.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a336e432920f71cf5cf7ca918fa8eb41",
"text": "I have a bank account in the US from some time spent there a while back. When I wanted to move most of the money to the UK (in about 2006), I used XEtrade who withdrew the money from my US account and sent me a UK cheque. They might also offer direct deposit to the UK account now. It was a bit of hassle getting the account set up and linked to my US account, but the transaction itself was straightforward. I don't think there was a specific fee, just spread on the FX rate, but I can't remember for certain now - I was transfering a few thousand dollars, so a relatively small fixed fee would probably not have bothered me too much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "e651432466f0d37eb0787dcba0048ec2",
"text": "There is (at least) one service that allows you to convert USD, GBP and EUR at the interbank spot rate, and make purchases using a prepaid MasterCard in many more currencies (also at the interbank rate). They currently don't charge any fees (as of September 2015). You could use your US prepaid card to fund your account with Revolut and then spend them in your local currency (HRK?) without fees (you can check the current USD/HRK rate with their currency calculator); you can also withdraw to non-EUR SEPA-enabled bank accounts, but then your bank would charge you for the necessary currency conversion (both by fees and their exchange rate). If you have a bank account in EUR, you could alternatively convert your USD balance to EUR and then withdraw that to your EUR bank account. If your US prepaid card has a corresponding bank account which can be used for ACH direct debit or domestic wire transfers (ask the issuer if you are unsure), TransferWise or a similar service might also be an option; they allow you to fund a transaction using one of those methods and then credit an account in",
"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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
01fdf9fbdb210fa4af831df9f0c5aa22
|
Buying a home with down payment from family as a “loan”
|
[
{
"docid": "76b0bc30e0178a8627847743ff0ae369",
"text": "\"Say you're buying a 400K house. Your relative finances 120K (30%). Say I'm optimistic, but the real-estate market recovers, and your house is worth 600K in 5-6 years (can happen, with the inflation and all). The gain is 200K. Your relative gets 100K. You repay him 220K on 120K loan for 5 years. Roughly, 16% APR. Quite an expensive loan. I'm of course optimistic, it seems to me that so is your relative. The question is: if the house loses value in that term, does your relative take 50% of the losses? Make calculations based on several expected returns (optimistic, \"\"realistic\"\", loss case, etc), and for each calculate how much in fact will that loan cost. It will help you to decide if you want it. Otherwise your relationships with your relative might go very bad in a few years. BTW: Suggestion: it's a bad idea to mix business and friend/family you don't want to lose.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "839709aa6287a3c0bdadf5e399de228d",
"text": "I would recommend against loans from family members. But if you decide to go down that path take care of the basics: This is a business decision so treat it like one. I would add that the situation you describe sounds extremely generous to your family member. I'd look at standard loan agreements (ie. in the marketplace) and model your situation more on them - if you do this, even with you paying a premium, you'd never come up with something as generous as what you have described.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "97346439b9bda6cb87eaf6f87a228137",
"text": "Keep in mind that lenders will consider the terms of any loans you have when determining your ability to pay back the mortgage. They'll want to see paperwork, or if you claim it is a gift they will require a letter to that effect from your relative. Obviously, this could effect your ability to qualify for a loan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "0d2d02163258915703d7cc13ec404b8d",
"text": "In effect, you are paying for 70% of the house but he gets half the gain. On the flip side, you're living there, so that probably makes up this difference. It will be toughest if the house jumps in value, to the point you might be forced to sell. You might want to think about that a bit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "dd865e96fd492e3189f843200cf4f59a",
"text": "Lenders pay attention to where your down payment money comes from. If they see a large transfer of money into your bank account within about a year before your purchase, this WILL cause an issue for you. Down payments are not just there to make the principal smaller; they are primarily used as an underwriting data-point to assess your quality as a borrower. If you take the money as loan, it will count against your credit worthiness. If you take the money as a gift, it will raise some other red flags. All of this is done for a reason: if you can't get a down payment, you are a higher credit risk (poor discipline, lack of consistent income), even if you can (currently) pay the monthly cost of a mortgage. (PS - The cost of home ownership is much higher than the monthly mortgage payment.) Will all this mean you WON'T get a loan? Of course not. You can almost always get SOME loan. But it will likely be at a higher rate than you otherwise would qualify for if you just waited a little bit and saved money for a down payment. (Another option: cheaper house.) EDIT: The below comments provide examples where gifts were/are NOT a problem. My experience from buying a house just a few years ago (and my several friends who bought house in the same period, some with family gifts and some without) is that it IS an issue. Your best bet is to TALK, IN PERSON with an actual mortgage broker in your area who can go through the options with you, and the downsides to various approaches.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "17b2928bee6da11bfcbf89b118b27938",
"text": "I'll compare it to a situation that is different, but will involve the same cash flow. Imagine the buyer agrees that you buy only 70% of the house right now, and the remaining 30% in 7 years time. It would be obviously fair to pay 70% of today's value today, pay 30% of a reasonable rent for 7 years (because 30% of the house isn't owned by you), then pay 30% of the value that the house has in 7 years time. 30% of the value in 7 years is the same as 30% of the value today, plus 30% of whatever the house gained in value. Instead you pay 70% of today's value, you pay no rent for the 30% that you don't own, then in 7 years time you pay 30% of today's value, plus 50% of whatever the house gained in value. So you are basically exchanging 30% of seven years rent, plus interest, for 20% of the gain in value over 7 years. Which might be zero. Or might be very little. Or a lot, in which case you are still better off. Obviously you need to set up a bullet proof contract. A lawyer will also tell you what to put into the contract in case the house burns down and can't be rebuilt, or you add an extension to the home which increases the value. And keep in mind that this is a good deal if the house doesn't increase in value, but if the house increases in value a lot, you benefit anyway. A paradoxical situation, where the worse the deal turns out to be after 7 years, the better the result for you. In addition, the relative carries the risk of non-payment, which the bank obviously is not willing to do.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "8226861e999d5309617e09affbc81fb2",
"text": "\"It's a little unusual, but I don't think the financial terms are completely unreasonable on their face. What you describe is similar to an interest-only loan, where you make payments that only cover the interest due each month, and the entire principal is due as a single \"\"balloon payment\"\" on a specified date (in this case, the date on which the condo is sold). Your monthly payment of $500 on a principal of $115K is equivalent to an annual interest rate of 5.22%, which at least is not completely usurious. With a traditional mortgage you might pay a rate as low as 3%, if you had sufficient income and excellent credit - but I don't know, from what you've said, whether that's the case. Did you make the current arrangement because you were unable to get a loan from a bank? The main difference here is that instead of the balloon payment being a fixed $115K, it's \"\"75% of the gross proceeds of the sale\"\". If the condo eventually sells for $155K, that would be $116,250, so that's slightly advantageous to them (assuming that \"\"gross proceeds\"\" means \"\"before deducting commissions for either the buyers' or sellers' realtors or any other costs of the sale\"\"), and thus slightly disadvantageous to you. If the condo appreciates in value, that's more of a win for them and more of a relative loss for you. But it's also possible that the value of the condo goes down, in which case this arrangement is better for you than a fixed balloon payment. So this deal does prevent you from getting a larger share of any gains in the value of the property, but it also helps insulate you from any losses. That's important to keep in mind. There's also the issue of needing their consent to sell. That's potentially problematic - usually in a joint ownership scheme, either owner has the right to demand to be bought out or to force a sale. I guess it depends on whether you think your parents would be likely to consent under reasonable circumstances, or to insist on holding the property against your best interests. It's true that you aren't building equity with this arrangement, and if you thought you were, you are mistaken or misled. But let's compare it with other options. If you would qualify for a traditional 30-year fixed mortgage at 3%, your monthly payment would be slightly lower ($484), and you would be building some equity because your payments would reduce the principal as well as paying the interest. But a 30-year loan builds equity very slowly at first - after 7 years you'd have only about $20,000 in principal paid down. If we assume that 5.2% represents the interest rate you'd otherwise pay based on your creditworthiness, then your monthly payment would be $631. So compared to that, you have an extra $130 per month that you can save or invest in whatever you want - you're not forced to invest it in your house. Note that in either case you'd still be paying the condo fees, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance yourself. So we might as well eliminate those from consideration. It might be a good idea to find out what other options you would have - perhaps try to get an interest rate quote on a traditional mortgage from a bank, based on your income and credit history. Then you can decide what to do, taking into account: your financial situation; how much of a monthly payment could you afford? your relationship with your parents; are they likely to be reasonable about renegotiating? Do they in general tend to respect your wishes? Would it harm your relationship if you tried to get out of the deal, and how important is that to you? To what extent do you actually want to pay for equity in this property? Do you really believe it's a good investment, and have evidence to support that? Your options include: Try to renegotiate the terms of the loan from your parents Try to \"\"refinance\"\" the loan, by getting a loan from a bank and paying off some agreed-upon amount of principal to your parents Try to force the sale of the condo and move to another house, financing it some other way Consult a lawyer as to whether your agreement with your parents is legally enforceable. For instance, do they have a lien on the property?\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c8ced5ef0976741c68a65d54e9169b35",
"text": "Second mortgages were also a popular way for home buyers without a down payment to borrow 100% of the money, but avoid certain extra fees if they borrowed all the money from a single lender. For example, to borrow $100,000 on a house would incur something called PMI (private mortgage insurance). So to borrow $100,000 to buy my house, my payment might be $800/month, but I would have an additional $100/month of PMI to pay. (These numbers are totally made up and not based in math in any way) So instead of that, borrows might get a first mortgage for $80,000 so they don't have to pay the PMI and get a second mortgage for the difference. This can be beneficial if the second mortgage payment is less than the PMI for borrowing 100%. As far as I know they aren't as easy to get these days, like any loan you need to be qualified and I think 100% financing is probably harder to come by. The negative connotation is no worse than any other loan. I am personally against borrowing money, but if you had big medical expenses, major home repairs or some other emergency I could see it justified. Probably not for a big vacation or for new car though.",
"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": "37ed914eade031022145bd219bbcf1e4",
"text": "I think you need to go to a local bank and ask. The key thing is paper trail. For any mortgage I've gotten on a new purchase, the bank needs to see where the down payment came from and how it got to the seller. In this case, it can go either way. If the value is truly 100% to the 80% you are looking to finance, and the paper trail is legit, this may work just fine. The issue others seem to have is that simply buying at a 20% discount is not a legit way to finance the 80%. Here, it appears to me that the 20% came from you in installments, via the rent.",
"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": "049447e698bc3a74b9f5938b8d8f921e",
"text": "No. As long as you live in the house for 3 years, it's yours to keep. Financing has nothing to do with that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "16e013dd52ed1d3c03a5c5567b83da8c",
"text": "\"I'm guessing since I don't know the term, but it sounds like you're asking about the technique whereby a loan is used to gather multiple years' gift allowance into a single up-front transfer. For the subsequent N years, the giver pays the installments on the loan for the recipient, at a yearly amount small enough to avoid triggering Gift Tax. You still have to pay income tax on the interest received (even though you're giving them the money to pay you), and you must charge a certain minimum interest (or more accurately, if you charge less than that they tax you as if the loan was earning that minimum). Historically this was used by relatively wealthy folks, since the cost of lawyers and filing the paperwork and bookkeeping was high enough that most folks never found out this workaround existed, and few were moving enough money to make those costs worthwhile. But between the \"\"Great Recession\"\" and the internet, this has become much more widely known, and there are services which will draw up standard paperwork, have a lawyer sanity-check it for your local laws, file the official mortgage lien (not actually needed unless you want the recipient to also be able to write off the interest on their taxes), and provide a payments-processing service if you do expect part or all of the loan to be paid by the recipient. Or whatever subset of those services you need. I've done this. In my case it cost me a bit under $1000 to set up the paperwork so I could loan a friend a sizable chunk of cash and have it clearly on record as a loan, not a gift. The amount in question was large enough, and the interpersonal issues tricky enough, that this was a good deal for us. Obviously, run the numbers. Websearching \"\"family loan\"\" will find much more detail about how this works and what it can and can't do, along with services specializing in these transactions. NOTE: If you are actually selling something, such as your share of a house, this dance may or may not make sense. Again, run the numbers, and if in doubt get expert advice rather than trusting strangers on the web. (Go not to the Internet for legal advice, for it shall say both mu and ni.)\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8c153ea4b906a889e5d80fc7a3b0859f",
"text": "Two years ago, I wrote an article titled Student Loans and Your First Mortgage in response to this exact question posed by a fellow blogger. The bottom line is that the loan payment doesn't lower your borrowing power as it fits in the slice between 28% (total housing cost) and 38% (total monthly debt burden) when applying for a loan. But, the $20K is 20% down on $100K worth of house. With median home prices in the US in the mid-high $100Ks, you're halfway there. In the end, it's not about finance, it's a question of how badly you want to buy a house. If I got along with the parents, I'd stay as long as I was welcome, and save every dollar I could. Save for retirement, save for as large a downpayment as you can, and after you buy the house, pay the student loan aggressively. I moved out the week after I graduated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "241f4865e904c4cb490fc953274884e1",
"text": "\"First off; I don't know of the nature of the interpersonal relationship between you and your roommate, and I don't really care, but I will say that your use of that term was a red flag to me, and it will be so to a bank; buying a home is a big deal that you normally do not undertake with just a \"\"friend\"\" or \"\"roommate\"\". \"\"Spouses\"\", \"\"business partners\"\", \"\"domestic partners\"\" etc are the types of people that go in together on a home purchase, not \"\"roommates\"\". Going \"\"halvsies\"\" on a house is not something that's easily contracted; you can't take out two primary mortgages for half the house's value each, because you can't split the house in half, so if one of you defaults that bank takes the house leaving both the other person and their bank in the lurch. Co-signing on one mortgage is possible but then you tie your credit histories together; if one of you can't make their half of the mortgage, both of you can be pursued for the full amount and both of you will see your credit tank. That's not as big a problem for two people joined in some other way (marriage/family ties) but for two \"\"friends\"\" there's just way too much risk involved. Second, I don't know what it's like in your market, but when I was buying my first house I learned very quickly that extended haggling is not really tolerated in the housing market. You're not bidding on some trade good the guy bought wholesale for fifty cents and is charging you $10 for; the seller MIGHT be breaking even on this thing. An offer that comes in low is more likely to be rejected outright as frivolous than to be countered. It's a fine line; if you offer a few hundred less than list the seller will think you're nitpicking and stay firm, while if you offer significantly less, the seller may be unable to accept that price because it means he no longer has the cash to close on his new home. REOs and bank-owned properties are often sold at a concrete asking price; the bank will not even respond to anything less, and usually will not even agree to eat closing costs. Even if it's for sale by owner, the owner may be in trouble on their own mortgage, and if they agree to a short sale and the bank gets wind (it's trivial to match a list of distressed mortgaged properties with the MLS listings), the bank can swoop in, foreclose the mortgage, take the property and kill the deal (they're the primary lienholder; you don't \"\"own\"\" your house until it's paid for), and then everybody loses. Third, housing prices in this economy, depending on market, are pretty depressed and have been for years; if you're selling right now, you are almost certainly losing thousands of dollars in cash and/or equity. Despite that, sellers, in listing their home, must offer an attractive price for the market, and so they are in the unenviable position of pricing based on what they can afford to lose. That again often means that even a seller who isn't a bank and isn't in mortgage trouble may still be losing thousands on the deal and is firm on the asking price to staunch the bleeding. Your agent can see the signs of a seller backed against a wall, and again in order for your offer to be considered in such a situation it has to be damn close to list. As far as your agent trying to talk you into offering the asking price, there's honestly not much in it for him to tell you to bid higher vs lower. A $10,000 change in price (which can easily make or break a deal) is only worth $300 to him either way. There is, on the other hand, a huge incentive for him to close the deal at any price that's in the ballpark: whether it's $365k or $375k, he's taking home around $11k in commission, so he's going to recommend an offer that will be seriously considered (from the previous points, that's going to be the asking price right now). The agent's exact motivations for advising you to offer list depend on the exact circumstances, typically centering around the time the house has been on the market and the offer history, which he has access to via his fellow agents and the MLS. The house may have just had a price drop that brings it below comparables, meaning the asking price is a great deal and will attract other offers, meaning you need to move fast. The house may have been offered on at a lower price which the seller is considering (not accepted not rejected), meaning an offer at list price will get you the house, again if you move fast. Or, the house may have been on the market for a while without a price drop, meaning the seller can go no lower but is desperate, again meaning an offer at list will get you the house. Here's a tip: virtually all offers include a \"\"buyer's option\"\". For a negotiated price (typically very small, like $100), from the moment the offer is accepted until a particular time thereafter (one week, two weeks, etc) you can say no at any time, for any reason. During this time period, you get a home inspection, and have a guy you trust look at the bones of the house, check the basic systems, and look for things that are wrong that will be expensive to fix. Never make an offer without this option written in. If your agent says to forego the option, fire him. If the seller wants you to strike the option clause, refuse, and that should be a HUGE red flag that you should rescind the offer entirely; the seller is likely trying to get rid of a house with serious issues and doesn't want a competent inspector telling you to lace up your running shoes. Another tip: depending on the pricepoint, the seller may be expecting to pay closing costs. Those are traditionally the buyer's responsibility along with the buyer's agent commission, but in the current economy, in the pricepoint for your market that attracts \"\"first-time homebuyers\"\", sellers are virtually expected to pay both of those buyer costs, because they're attracting buyers who can just barely scrape the down payment together. $375k in my home region (DFW) is a bit high to expect such a concession for that reason (usually those types of offers come in for homes at around the $100-$150k range here), but in the overall market conditions, you have a good chance of getting the seller to accept that concession if you pay list. But, that is usually an offer made up front, not a weapon kept in reserve, so I would have expected your agent to recommend that combined offer up front; list price and seller pays closing. If you offer at list you don't expect a counter, so you wouldn't keep closing costs as a card to play in that situation.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9bcc0c9036c690555368b96512ef7ed8",
"text": "\"A Tweep friend asked me a similar question. In her case it was in the larger context of a marriage and house purchase. In reply I wrote a detail article Student Loans and Your First Mortgage. The loan payment easily fit between the generally accepted qualifying debt ratios, 28% for house/36 for all debt. If the loan payment has no effect on the mortgage one qualifies for, that's one thing, but taking say $20K to pay it off will impact the house you can buy. For a 20% down purchase, this multiplies up to $100k less house. Or worse, a lower down payment percent then requiring PMI. Clearly, I had a specific situation to address, which ultimately becomes part of the list for \"\"pay off student loan? Pro / Con\"\" Absent the scenario I offered, I'd line up debt, highest to lowest rate (tax adjusted of course) and hack away at it all. It's part of the big picture like any other debt, save for the cases where it can be cancelled. Personal finance is exactly that, personal. Advisors (the good ones) make their money by looking carefully at the big picture and not offering a cookie-cutter approach.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f95199bb23a6a4f41cb7bd60ecc340f8",
"text": "It is possible for him to get a loan against the house as long as the deeding all takes place at the same time as the loan is closing. Basically you and your brother will both have paperwork to sign, and the title company will not send out checks until the loan funds from the mortgage company. For that deeding to take place, the estate will generally have to be fully settled. That can take time, but you might wish to retain a lawyer to be certain your interests are completely protected. Many people feel like getting legal representation will strain family relationships, but I find the opposite to be true. They often grease the wheels and get the process finished quickly and fairly which ultimately reduces such strain. I would view it as a good sign if he is paying off large debts, because that means he will be in a better position to take a mortgage to pay you your share, but that assumes he is acting in good faith.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "252fb12b2398e3e815babe758c4075bf",
"text": "\"It would have to be made as a \"\"gift\"\", and then the return would be a \"\"gift\"\" back to you, because you're not allowed to use a loan for a down payment. This is not to evade taxes. This is to evade a credit check. The problem is that banks don't like people to have too much debt. The bank could void the loan and go after your friends for damages under certain circumstances, as this is a fraud on the bank. Perhaps you might be guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud or similar. I'm willing to assume for the sake of argument that there is zero chance of your friend not paying you back intentionally. But even so, there are still potential problems. What if your friends end up without the money to pay? Worse, what if something happens to them? This is an off-books transaction. You couldn't make a claim against the estate, as there can't be a paper trail. You'd be left out the money in those circumstances. You'd both be safer if your friends saved up for the next opportunity rather than trying to grab this one. An alternative would be to buy a share of their current rental house. That would give them the necessary money and would give you paper showing your money. It's not a gift, it's a purchase. You'd have to pay capital gains tax on the 15% profit that they're promising you. But you'd both be above board and honest.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c4142872216d91d5acbe45068cf97c5c",
"text": "\"We’re buying the home right over $200,000 so that means he will only need to put down (as a ‘gift’) roughly $7000. I'm with the others, don't call this a gift unless it is a gift. I'd have him check with the bank that previously refused him a mortgage if putting both of you on a mortgage would allay their concerns. Your cash flow would be paying the mortgage payment and if you failed to do so, then they could fall back on his. That may make more sense to them, even if they would deny each of you a loan on your own. This works for them because either of you is responsible for the whole loan. It works for him because he was already willing to be responsible for the whole loan. And your alternative plan makes you responsible for the whole loan, so this is just as good for you. At what percentage would you suggest splitting ownership and future expenses? Typically a cash/financing partnership would be 50/50, but since it’s only a 3.5% down-payment instead of 20% is that still fair? Surprisingly enough, a 3.5% down-payment that accumulates is about half the equity of a 20% down-payment. So your suggestion of a 25%-75% split makes sense if 20% would give a 50%-50% split. I expected it to be considerably lower. The way that I calculated it was to have his share increase by his equity share of the \"\"rent\"\" which I set to the principal plus interest payment for a thirty year loan. With a 20% down-payment, this would give him 84% equity. With 3.5%, about 40% equity. I'm not sure why 84% equity should be the equivalent of a 50% share, but it may be a side effect of other expenses. Perhaps taking property taxes out would reduce the equity share. Note that if you increase the down-payment to 20%, your mortgage payment will drop substantially. The difference in interest between 3.5% and 20% equity is a couple hundred dollars. Also, you'll be able to eliminate any PMI payment at 20%. It could be argued that if he pays a third of the monthly mortgage payment, that that would give him the same 50% equity stake on a 3.5% down-payment as he would get with a 20% down-payment. The problem there is that then he is effectively subsidizing your monthly payment. If he were to stop doing that for some reason, you'd have what is effectively a 50% increase in your rent. It would be safer for you to handle the monthly payment while he handles the down-payment. If you couldn't pay the mortgage, it sounds like he is in a position to buy out your equity, rent the property, and take over the mortgage payment. If he stopped being able to pay his third of the mortgage, it's not evident that you'd be able to pick up the slack from him much less buy him out. And it's unlikely that you'd find someone else willing to replace him under those terms. But your brother could construct things such that in the face of tragedy, you'd inherit his equity in the house. If you're making the entire mortgage payment, that's a stable situation. He's not at risk because he could take over the mortgage if necessary. You're not at risk because you inherit his equity share and can afford the monthly payment. So even in the face of tragedy, things can go on. And that's important, as otherwise you could lose your equity in the house.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c17aff7f263c74b9a7f8eb3c8981ca68",
"text": "Owing money to family members can create serious problems. Taking out a purchase-money mortgage to pay your sister for her share is the best way to avoid future friction and, possibly, outright alienation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2aed869cd16df85e36dd933d8d121c8c",
"text": "Close-end funds just means there's a fixed number of shares available, so if you want to buy some you must purchase from other existing owners, typically through an exchange. Open-end funds mean the company providing the shares is still selling them, so you can buy them directly from the company. Some can also be traded on exchanges as well.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
93d61c9c1f5a5414cb8b70feeb6e71c8
|
Why don't some places require a credit card receipt signature, and some do?
|
[
{
"docid": "855e6133093fb51ca06e352973a96378",
"text": "This is basically done to reduce costs and overhead, with agreement of the credit card issuers. When the card is physically present and the charge is low, the burden of keeping the signed receipts and of additional delays at the cash register is not worth the potential risk of fraud. Depending on the location and the specific charge-back history of the business, the limit above which signature is required differs. In one supermarket in the area I live they require signatures only on charges above $50. In another, 10 miles away from the first one, they require signatures on charges above $25.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d18beb46cb0338a631f4fa4b4b77fcea",
"text": "My understanding it that the signature requirement is at the retailer's discretion. If the merchant decides to require a signature it protects them against fraudulent charge-back claims, but increases their administrative costs. In some situations it just isn't practical for a retailer to require a signature. Consider for example mail-order or online purchases, which I've never had to sign a credit card slip for.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3965daf949211362f1d94cdbbca9e553",
"text": "Merchants apply in advance for the program, and the amount is limited to less than $25.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "62b3abd6bf7c68cf869c27668c3dd32d",
"text": "Rational reason. They like this method of paying. There is a delay between writing the check and having the money removed from the account. Their checkbook makes a carbon copy of the check, so they can update their balance easier. They can leave the store and update their checkbook register, or the spreadsheet or their Quicken or budget application data. They don't have to try and remember the amount, store name or date.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3da1291762d8a2d0cae24144a0b1e1a0",
"text": "Like email and spam, fighting creditcard fraud is a cat and mouse game, with technology and processes constantly being developed to reduce fraud. The CVV on the back of the card is just one more layer of security. Requiring the CVV generally requires you to physically have access to the card. CVV should not be stored by any merchant. This frustrates card skimming fraud as the CVV is not present in the track data and fraud caused by database compromises. You should never use your PIN online. MC/VISA both have implementations of 3D-Secure (SecureCode for MC and Verified by VISA) which require a password / code to confirm card ownership. Depends on both Issuer and Merchant implementing the standard. Regarding not needing a PIN at the airport, some low value transactions no longer need PINs, depending on the Issuer and Scheme (VISA/MC). MasterCard PayPass or VISA PayWave enable low value contactless transactions without PIN. In Australia, the maximum value for a contactless transactions is $100 AUD. At some merchants (McDonalds for example) a PIN is not required for for meals purchased with VISA (at least, for the cheeseburger I bought there as a test). This makes sense - if you don't need a PIN for a contactless purchase, why do you need it for a chip based purchase? So - why allow PIN free transactions? On average customers report stolen credit cards / wallet very quickly and the losses are correspondingly small. As card issuers are always online, cards can be cancelled very quickly after being reported lost / stolen. Finally, by performing transactions for just a few cents or pennies, the merchant (Spotify) can likely validate you are the owner of the card as you'd need access to your online bank to confirm the transactions. PayPal do this with bank account to confirm ownership. (Unless I've misunderstood your statement).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7b66fd4860d6465b06aeccfdb814d3cd",
"text": "Deposit on a Debit Card have a different effect, and many people don't understand it (and make a big stink), or cannot afford it (or both). Either of it results in lots of trouble for the business: In addition, having a credit card showes that some bank trusts the customer with an unsecured credit of this height, which is some reassurance for the business. A debit card proves only that he was able to get a checking account, which needs much less liquidity and stability.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "da786484da35c61111564223a3e58038",
"text": "Because large stores do not pay their cashiers enough that the companies can dock the employees' pay if they allow a bad credit card to go through. So most cashiers at large stores won't take the extra effort to check the card properly. As a result, large stores come up with other ways to handle potential credit card fraud. For example, they calculate a certain amount of fraud as expected and include it in their price calculations. Or they can use cameras to catch fraudsters. At small stores, there is a much higher chance that the cashier is either the owner or a relative of the owner. And even those who are unrelated tend to be hired by the owner directly. The owners do have their pay docked if a bad credit card is accepted, as their pay is the profit from the business. So they tend to create protocols that, at least in their mind, reduce the chance of taking a bad credit card. The cashier is often the only employee in the store to check anything. Another issue is that small stores have a harder time getting approved to accept credit cards. The companies that process the credit cards can take back their machine if there is a lot of fraud. So the companies can require more from small stores than they can from big stores. Those companies can't stop processing cards for Safeway, because they need Safeway as much if not more than Safeway needs them. So the processors have more leverage to make small stores do what they want. And small stores can feasibly fire (non-owner) cashiers who do not comply. Owners of course can't be fired. But they are far more vulnerable to business losses. So it is really important to an owner to keep the credit card machine. And it is pretty important to avoid losses, as it is their money directly. Relatives of owners may be safe from firing, but they are not safe from family retaliation like taking away television privileges. And they may also think of the effect of business losses on the family. Large stores can fire cashiers, but they are chronically understaffed and almost none of their cashiers will consistently follow a strict protocol. Since fraudsters only need to succeed once, an inconsistent application is almost as bad as no application. They might charge the cashiers for fraud, but then they would have to pay the cashiers more than minimum wage specifically for that reason (e.g. a $50 a month bonus for no fraud). For many of them, it's cheaper to risk the fraud. And large stores can't mix owners and relatives of owners into the mix. It's hard to say who owns Safeway. And even if you could, the relationship between one fraud transaction and the dividend paid on one share of stock is tiny. It would take thousands of shares to get up to a penny.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "34c5df8f8b00302d391ffb103ec61cd7",
"text": "\"> 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": "1cec70cc00bb8c53e22e44981323cbee",
"text": "I'm not an expert in the field, but I'm pretty sure they *do*, its just that the customers arent us, but rather the landlords/cc companies/car dealerships/etc. who pay them for credit checks. Those parties do choose to do business with them and have alternatives.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c84f0f572bfc3e7a3e4c9442340d5088",
"text": "Given that the laws on consumer liability for unauthorized transactions mean no cost in most cases, the CVV is there to protect the merchant. Typically a merchant will receive a lower cost from their bank to process the transaction with the CVV code versus without. As far as the Netflix case goes, (or any other recurring billing for that matter) they wouldn't care as much about it because Visa/MC/Amex regulations prohibit storage of the CVV. So if they collect it then it's only used for the first transaction and renewals just use the rest of the card info (name, expiration date, address). Does the presence of CVV indicate the merchant has better security? Maybe, maybe not. It probably means they care about their costs and want to pay the bank as little as possible to process the transaction.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f92d29b145907a0e067d913ff84eeed4",
"text": "\"The confusion comes from ambiguity in popular belief -- that businesses are required to accept x_y_x as payment. In reality, a business can state the terms of a transaction to their pleasure. On the other hand, debt is different -- no lender can refuse cash or other legal tender for repayment of debt. Sometimes, people try to split hairs and argue \"\"Well, if I eat a steak and I owe the restaurant $100, they should have to accept my $100 as tender for the debt of my meal.\"\" Not true. The restaurant isn't giving you a line of credit, they're billing you after services rendered, and your payment is due on their terms.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "58798764a5f701a63768787f72841c06",
"text": "Chip and Pin cards are popular in Europe, however in the US we don't have them. Visa/MC and Amex can issue chip and pin cards but no merchants or machines are set up here to take them. Only certain countries in Europe use them and since you could possibly have a US visitor or a non-chip and pin person using your machine or eating at your restaurant they usually allow you to sign or just omit the pin if the card doesn't have a chip. It is definitely less secure, but the entire credit card industry in the US is running right now without it, so I don't think the major credit card companies care too much (they just pass the fraud on to the merchants anyway).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "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": "8d8819c51eab55c52cda73e5c6a79af8",
"text": "\"Chip and Signature cards do not substantially alter the paradigm you mention in your question. The chip alters how the machine obtains your account number and transmits it for authentication, but it does not significantly alter the interaction with the clerk. It is solely intended to reduce \"\"skimming\"\" and similar card-number-stealing and card-forging attacks. Specifically, a clerk is still welcome to ask to see the card to verify the signature if they wish, and/or to ask to see an ID to use the card. Some changes occurred around the same time as introducing Chip and Signature that meant that clerks will be less likely to ask for signatures for certain purchases (raising the dollar amount for no-signature-required purchases, mostly), but those changes are distinct from the introduction of EMV (chip) authentication.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "98ba8154a4fdeb826cdd6ef732faaf67",
"text": "In most cases, a debit card can be charged like a credit card so there is typically no strict need for a credit card. However, a debit card provides weaker guarantees to the merchant that an arbitrary amount of money will be available. This is for several reasons: As such, there are a few situations where a credit card is required. For example, Amazon requires a credit card for Prime membership, and car rental companies usually require a credit card. The following does not apply to the OP and is provided for reference. Debit cards don't build credit, so if you've never had a credit card or loan before, you'll likely have no credit history at all if you've never had a credit card. This will make it very difficult to get any nontrivially-sized loan. Also, some employers (typically if the job you're applying for involves financial or other highly sensitive information) check credit when hiring, and not having credit puts you at a disadvantage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5b0d95869358bf04e59f28abbe0058a2",
"text": "\"Ever wonder why certain businesses won't accept certain credit cards? (The sign above the register saying \"\"Sorry, we don't accept AmericanExpress\"\"). It's because they don't want to pay that credit card company's transaction fees. One of the roles of the credit card company is to facilitate the transaction process between the customer (you) and the store. And now that using credit cards over cash or check is so ingrained in our culture, it creates extra work for the customer to make purchases at an establishment that is cash-only. Credit card companies know this, and so do businesses. So businesses will partner with credit card companies so that customers can use their cards. This way, everything is handled electronically (this can also benefit the business, since there's added security as they're not dealing with cash directly, and they don't have to manually count as much cash later). However a business may only budget a certain amount of their profits they want taken by credit card transactions. So if a company's fees are too high (say AmericanExpress, for example) and they are banking on you already having a Visa card, the company isn't going to go out of its way to provide the AmericanExpress option for you. If it were free for the business to use a credit card company's service at their stores, then they would all just provide the option for every card! So the credit card company making money is all contingent on you spending your money by using their credit card. You use the card, and the store pays the company for the transaction.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f472d86bd1eb1c5c60c5e4aa2368c75b",
"text": ">> Hey! Do you mind giving your credit card to the waiter... > I'm not especially fond of that, but it's easy to report fraud to the bank and most of the time the bank will reverse the charges. No kidding! Of course, even I give credit cards to waiters. What do I care? **As you said, you are not liable to any fraud on your credit card.** None at all!!!! It's only Merchant, not the credit card company, that pay the price for fraud... **and you pay higher prices to cover for losses from fraud.** > The PIN situation is different because a mugging is life-threatening. Nonsense! Mugging at the ATM is so rare, each ATM has a camera. **In any case, I am not talking about using PIN to withdraw money!** I am talking about PIN to authorize charges on a credit card or ATM card. >> We already determined that nobody even care about signatures or check them. > You can't use a stolen card at an ATM with a signature. Huh? You totally got it wrong what I said, or, you argue for the sake of argument. **I am saying that cards that require you to enter a PIN cannot be used used when stolen or copied. Yes or no?** **On the other hand, cards that require signature can be used when stolen or copied because signature is a worthless method to validate the charge. Yes or no?** LASTLY, my Costco credit card has a picture of me on it. **Question for you, since for some reason you argue so much against PINs: Wouldn't a picture on the card better than a signature?** Yes or no? Do you see? There are so many ways to make this system so much more secure and fraud proof... but, ON PURPOSE, the credit card companies don't want that... because they are not liable for fraud. Simple as that.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "fc2ade6041922447eedfb53677d9184a",
"text": "\"Here's another rational reason: Discount. This typically works only in smaller stores, where you're talking directly to the owners, but it is sometimes possible to negotiate a few percent off the price when paying by check, since otherwise they'd have to give a few percent to the credit card company. (Occasionally the sales reps at larger stores have the authority to cut this deal, but it's far less common.) Not worth worrying about on small items, but if you're making a large purchase (a bedroom suite, for example) it can pay for lunch. And sometimes the store's willing to give you more discount than that, simply because with checks they don't have to worry about chargebacks or some of the other weirdnesses that can occur in credit card processing. Another reason: Nobody's very likely to steal you check number and try to write themselves a second check or otherwise use it without authorization. It's just too easy to steal credit card info these days to make printing checks worth the effort. But, in the end, the real answer is that there's no rational reason not to use checks. So it takes you a few seconds more to complete the transaction. What were you going to do with those seconds that makes them valuable? Especially if they're seconds that the store is spending bagging your purchase, so there's no lost time... and the effort really isn't all that different from signing the credit card authorization. Quoting Dean Inge: \"\"There are two kinds of fool. One says 'this is old, and therefore good.' The other says 'this is new, and therefore better.'\"\"\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
9ba201995c06b938f00d2259a636a71a
|
What's the fuss about Credit Score / History?
|
[
{
"docid": "ce31e7752ac62c2cb7cf8c6e0c236329",
"text": "Simply staying out of debt is not a good way of getting a good credit score. My aged aunt has never had a credit card, loan or mortgage, has always paid cash or cheque for everything, never failed to pay her utility bills on time. Her credit score is lousy because she has never had any debts to pay off so there is no credit history data for her. To the credit checking agencies she barely exists. To get a good score (UK) then get a few debts and pay them off on time.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "9d8a11f7aa80ddcfd0cca4cc69810b00",
"text": "Since we seem to be discussing credit score and credit history interchangeably, if I can add credit report as the third part of the puzzle, I have another point. Your credit score and credit report can be effective tools to notice identity theft or fraud in your name. Keeping track of your report will allow you to not only protect your good name (which is apparently in dispute here) but also those businesses who ultimately end up paying for the stolen goods or services.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ec9e45be1741b1a7422e93d3c91707e0",
"text": "Your credit score, for better or worse, is increasingly about more than just getting loans. For example insurance companies can use it to some extent to determine your rates,.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c8de64f43f236a024a2c5165f1f2c0c5",
"text": "\"If human beings were Homo Economicus, i.e. textbook rational and self-interested economic-minded beings, as opposed to simply human, then yes, simple advice like \"\"just stay out of debt and your credit score will take care of itself\"\" could work. Your simplification would be very persuasive to such a being. However, people are not perfectly rational. We buy something we shouldn't have, we charge it on a credit card, we can't afford to pay it off at the end of the month. We lose our job. Our furnace breaks down, or our roof leaks, and we didn't anticipate the replacement cost. Some of this is our fault, some of it isn't – basically, shit happens .. and we get into debt... maybe even knowing all the while we shouldn't have. Our credit history and score takes a hit. Only then do we find out there are consequences! Our interest rates go up, our insurance companies raise premiums, our prospective new employers or landlords run credit checks and either deny us the job or the apartment. Telling a person who asks for help about their credit history/score that they shouldn't have taken on debt in the first place is like telling the farmer he should have kept the barn door shut so the horse wouldn't run out. While it is not \"\"bad\"\" advice, it's not the only kind of advice to offer when somebody finds themselves in such a situation. Adding advice about corrective actions is more helpful. The person probably already know that they shouldn't have overspent in the first place and got into debt. Yes, remind them of the value of being sensible about debt in the first place – it's good reinforcement – but add some helpful advice to the mix. e.g. \"\"So you're in debt. You shouldn't have lived beyond your means. But now that you are in this mess, here's what you can do to improve the situation.\"\"\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7786fd5249c1fe12f386442f4b5858b3",
"text": "I justed rented a new house, and they ran my credit to see if I am a reliable person.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "4f7d7b47297fe882b41f5d99354d601a",
"text": "\"Credit Unions have long advocated their services based on the fact that they consider your \"\"character.\"\" Unfortunately, they are then at a loss to explain how they determine the value of your character, other than to say that you're buddies & play pool together so they'll give you a loan. Your Credit History / Score is as accurate a representation of your character in business dealings as can be meaningfully quantified. It tracks your ability to effectively use and manage debt, and your propensity to pay it back responsibly or default on obligations. While it isn't perfect, it is certainly one of the best means currently available for determining someone's trustworthiness when it comes to financial matters.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "7ae92e0852a50dba2e8e27b7ef038c67",
"text": "Use credit and pay your bills on time. That's really about it. If you do that, you don't need to think about credit score. It's really a big distraction that is dwelled on too much.",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "e18a6ca79cdbe05daed214257d18350c",
"text": "\"This is somewhat unbelievable. I mean if you had a business of collecting debts, wouldn't you want to collect said debts? Rather than attempting to browbeat people with these delinquent debts into paying, you have someone volunteering to pay. Would you want to service that client? This would not happen in just about any other industry, but such is the lunacy of debt collecting. The big question is why do you need this cleared off your credit? If it is just for a credit score, it probably is not as important as your more recent entries. I would just wait it out, until 7 years has passed, and you can then write the reporting agencies to remove it from your credit. If you are attempting to buy a home or similarly large purpose and the mortgage company is insisting that you deal with this, then I would do the following: Write the company to address the issue. This has to be certified/return receipt requested. If they respond, pay it and insist that it be marked as paid in full on your credit. I would do this with a money order or cashiers check. Done. Dispute the charge with the credit reporting agencies, providing the documentation of no response. This should remove the item from your credit. Provide this documentation to the mortgage broker. This should remove any hangup they might have. Optional: Sue the company in small claims court. This will take a bit of time and money, but it should yield a profit. There was a post on here a few days ago about how to do this. Make part of any settlement to have your name cleared of the debt. It is counterproductive to fall into the trap of the pursuit of a perfect credit score. A person with a 750 often receives the same rate options as a person with 850. Also your relationship with a particular lender could trump your credit score. Currently I am \"\"enjoying\"\" the highest credit score of my life, over 820. Do you know how I did it? I got out of debt (including paying off the mortgage) and I have no intentions of ever going into debt for anything. So why does it matter? It is a bit ridiculous.\"",
"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": "323b38fed41115e09a03ec6940c82db9",
"text": "While one credit provider (or credit reference agency) might score you in one way, others may score you differently including treating different things that contribute to your score differently. Different credit providers may also not see all of your credit score as potentially some data may not be available to all credit suppliers. Further too many searches may trigger systems that recognise behavior that is a sign of possible fraudulent activity (such as applying for many items of credit in a short space of time). Whether this would directly affect a score or trigger manual checks is also likely to vary. In situations like this a person could have applied for (say) a dozen credit cards, with all the credit checks being performed before there is any credit history for any of those dozen cards.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c0a73935bc6dc247beaced5699dbfe8b",
"text": "The SCHUFA explicitly says on their website that their scoring system is a secret. However, if your goal is to be credit-worthy for example to get financing for a house or a car or whatever, just pay any loans and your credit card back on time and you'll be fine. There is no need to build a credit history. I just got a mortgage on a new house without any real credit history. I have one credit card which I only use on vacations because some countries don't take my debit card, and I always put money on it before I use it, so I've technically never borrowed money from a bank at all. My banker looked at my SCHUFA with me and we saw that there was nothing in there except for the credit card, which has a 500€ limit and if I maxed it out, the monthly interest would be 6,80€ so he added that 6,80€ to my expenses calculation and that was it. If you're having trouble getting a loan and you don't know why, you can ask the SCHUFA for the data they have on you and you can correct any mistakes they might have made. Sometimes, especially when you have the same full name and birth date as somebody else, the SCHUFA does get things mixed up and you have to sort it out.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b50015184d26417081fa585c7503fdaf",
"text": "'Perfect' credit would be defined by your credit score. You may have a perfect repayment history, but that is only one factor in your credit score. Paying off a loan early doesn't by itself cause your score to go down. A lack of history, however, will result in a lower score. Lenders use the score because the general consensus is that what you have done in the past is the best indicator of what you will do in the future. In essence, your credit score tells a potential creditor what type of risk they are taking by lending you money. If you have very little history, the risk is not necessarily higher, but it is less predictable, so you have a lower score. These pages explain what makes up your credit score: http://www.myfico.com/credit-education/whats-in-your-credit-score/ https://www.cnbc.com/id/36737279 https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/help/5-parts-components-fico-credit-score-6000.php",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "d924152e21fea9126d8690a43f98daaa",
"text": "\"I always hesitate to provide an answer to \"\"how does this affect my credit score?\"\" questions, because the credit agencies do not publish their formulas and the formulas do change over time. And many others have done more reverse engineering than I to figure out what factors do affect the scores. To some extent, there is no way to know other than to get your credit score and track it over time. (The credit report will tell you what the largest negative factors are.) However, let me make my prediction. You have credit, you aren't using a large percentage of it, and don't have defaults/late payments. So, yes, I think it would help your credit score and would build a history of credit. Since this is so unusual, this is just an educated guess.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "c35c24cbc8809e65c7ff48d0b0d02406",
"text": "But cash talks. If you can save yourself a grand or two a month in mortgage overpayment, and have the cash for 1st and last month's rent plus deposit, a job or two, etc. That crap means more than a credit score. Plus don't rent from people you can't talk to about with what is going on in your life. My personal credit has always been shit (because the morality associated with debt is complete bullshit) since my 20s and I have never had a problem renting, because I let my landlords know I am human and that paying rent on time and in full is my top bill to pay. People are beginning to realize that FICO scores are pretty meaningless in this Lesser Depression. e: prepositional indifference",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "061be53a5ccdf30b62fe64def74bd484",
"text": "Typically one wants to see a credit score, just because you may have money in the bank and decent income does not mean your going to pay, there are plenty of people who have the money but simply refuse to cough it up. Credit is simply a relative way of seeing where one fits against another in a larger group, it shows that this person not only can pay, but does pay. While not having a credit history should make no difference, I can and hopefully easily posited above why it can be necessary to have one. Not all landlords will require a credit check, I was not required to give one, I did not have much credit to begin with, given that, I was forced to cough up a higher degree of a security deposit.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "b00e4f18eac0639c755f68cc84ba5a55",
"text": "Paying on time is the most critical factor. Paying ahead on the loan will not help you from a credit score POV, but it will not hurt you either. In general, to maintain a good credit history, don't bother focusing on credit scores. Frankly, there is very little reason for you to even know what your score is. Just do the following: Lenders want to deal with people with long histories of paying debts back on time.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "40bf7a851f7bd21f9d2e7a3d28c953dc",
"text": "\"Great explanation. I want to add 2 thing: 1) Credit rating agencies played there role in messing up the economy, by giving subprime (higher risk) mortgage backed securities AAA rating. 2) \"\"Other banks saw this happening and were forced to lower their requirements for issuing mortgages.\"\" Well not banks, but mortgage brokers lowered there requirement from issuing mortgages. They even started to issue NINA (no income verification, no assets verification) loans!\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "5170094437efc2bd510f0477e0209077",
"text": "\"Dan's link (he deleted his answer, BTW) is fine, it showed the components of the score FICO offers. Each input has data behind it, a bell curve of the behaviors and risk of the person behind it. For example, we've discussed utilization many time here. The ideal utilization is not 0%, but 1-19%. This does not mean paying interest, or carrying charges from month to month. Say I had just one card with a $10K limit. I'd want to be sure I never ran a bill above $2000. If I did, I'd see a slight drop in my score, and next month, it would go back to normal. In my case, I have enough available credit that going over 20% is rare, and if it happened, I'd pay the bill down before the bill was issued, just make a mid-cycle payment. FICO decided that those who go over 20% have a higher risk of default. And it gets higher as it goes up. Same with every aspect of the score's components. You are comparing US to non US use. In the US, it seems far more common to use our cards. In my family's case, we use very little cash, and run most of our spending through our cards. As far as The David is concerned, one should separate those who carry a balance from those who pay in full. The pay in full users are better off for their habits and responsible card use. In the US, it's not easy to rent a car or book a hotel with no card. Cards offer a cash rebate that adds up fast, and purchase protection from fraudulent vendors. They also offer extended warranty coverage. The David, and others, claim that \"\"studies prove those using cards spend 10-15% more than cash buyers.\"\" This is a proven fact from scientific studies. Only they don't exist. The best I've seen proves that college kids given a $20 bill spend more carefully than those given a $20 credit card. This doesn't extrapolate to a family budget, and never will. But that quote has a way of being repeated as fact. Yes, it's non-sense, thank you for reading and quoting my blog, I recognize the quote. The report also shows accounts that have gone to collection. An electric bill isn't a regularly reported item, it's assumed your lights are on. But if you stop paying the bill and they send your account to a collection agency, you'll see it hit your report. In response to the comment below - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied article titled Monopoly Money: The Effect of Payment Coupling and Form on Spending Behavior runs 13 pages but on the first page offers \"\"Do consumers spend differently when using one payment mode relative to another mode? For example, do consumers spend more when they receive $50 in the form of a gift card than in the form of cash? If indeed they do, then why? This research addresses these issues.\"\" $50? A $50 gift card is a nuisance, I try to use it up within hours of getting one. As I stated above, the behavior of a person with such a card doesn't scale to a many-thousand-per-month budget. Such articles, in my opinion, are nonsense, proving nothing. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a tangent to the original question, and if I put up a stand-alone \"\"Is it a fact that people spend more if using a card than cash?\"\" the question would result in being closed as one that's seeking opinions, not facts.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2a7deb3d6c5891fea008a3d261740e7d",
"text": "\"Credit scores are not such a big deal in Canada as they are in the US and even some European countries. One reason for this: the Social Insurance Number (SIN number) isn't used for so many purposes like the Social Security Number (SSN) in the US. The SIN number isn't even required to get credit (but with some exceptions it is needed to open an interest-bearing savings account, so that the interest income can be reported). You can refuse to provide the SIN number to most private companies. Canada also has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates of any large country, so new arrivals are expected, and services are geared up for them. Most of the banks offer special deals for \"\"New Canadians\"\". You should get a credit card (even if just a secured credit card) through them with one of these offers to start a credit file anyway, but there's no need to actually use it much. Auto-paying a utility bill through the card, and paying it off in full each month, is one way to keep it active. No need to ever pay any interest. Most major apartment rental firms will expect a good proportion of their renters to be new to Canada, so should have procedures in place to deal with it (such as a higher deposit). You should not give them your SIN for a credit check, even when you're more established. Same for utilities, they can just charge a higher deposit if they can't credit check you. For private landlords, everything is negotiable (but see the laws link at the end of this answer). You will later need a credit rating for a mortgage on a house (if not paying cash), so it's worth getting that one token credit card. Useful for car rental also. Here's a fairly complete summary of the laws on renting in Canada, which includes the maximum deposits that can be asked for, and notice periods.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f226011def59447bb6d6e392fde76909",
"text": "If your accounts have an overdraft facility, then every open account is classed as available credit which has a negative effect on your credit score. It's not normally a major concern but it is a factor. (nb. this definitely applies to the UK, maybe not where you are)",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "2ffbb4a564a62c8a471a983d723cac5d",
"text": "\"Had they made a billion dollars it still wouldn't be arbitrage. The definition of arbitrage is \"\"the simultaneous purchase and sale of similar commodities in different markets to take advantage of price discrepancy\"\". What they did was take advantage of a loophole where they took free money to buy more free money. I believe the American government calls that Quantitative Easing. Bazinga.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "f773014a6042d754ea2057697b5efa0f",
"text": "So, couple of things. Firstly, every international ETF includes risk disclosure language in the prospectus covering both market disruption events as well as geopolitical risk, so the sponsor would be pretty well insulated from direct liability for anything. If the Russian market were truly shut down there are true-up mechanisms in place but in the scenario you're describing the market is still open, it's just only a few participants can trade in it. First thing to do is shut down creates- that is, allow no new money to come into the fund. This at least prevents your problem from getting bigger. Second you're going to switch all redemptions to in kind only. MV itself can't trade in the underlying so they're kind of jammed here. An ETF sponsor can't really refuse your redemption request (can delay, but only for a short time), but they can control the form in which they respond to it. What theoretically should happen here is an AP not subject to sanctions will step in and handle redemptions. Issue is, they'll probably charge for this so you should expect the fund to start trading at a discount to NAV (you, as an investor, sell to them cheaply, they submit a redemption request, then sell the stocks locally). Someone else has pointed that market makers will start stat arbing the fund using correlated/substitute instruments, which totally will help keep things in line, but my guess is that you'd still see the name trading away from NAV regardless. Driver of this will be the amount of money desperate to get out - if investors are content to wait the sanctions out who knows.",
"title": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
4d8af30f381cf7f076c0ff1a16b6990c
|
Can I use FOREX markets to exchange cash?
|
[
{
"docid": "4f03a5a32f7df5a49a93eb16e4e7bd82",
"text": "Because the standard contract is for 125,000 euros. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/g10/euro-fx_contractSpecs_futures.html You don't want to use Microsoft as an analogy. You want to use non financial commodities. Most are settled in cash, no delivery. But in the early 80's, the Hunt brothers caused a spectacular short squeeze by taking delivery sending the spot price to $50. And some businesses naturally do this, buying metal, grain, etc. no reason you can't actually get the current price of $US/Euro if you need that much.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "683686c0406e2aa612ec99dabbea69f6",
"text": "\"As far as I understand, OP seems to be literally asking: \"\"why, regarding the various contracts on various exchanges (CBE, etc), is it that in some cases they are 'cash settled' and in some 'physically settled' -?\"\" The answer is only that \"\"the exchange in question happens to offer it that way.\"\" Note that it's utterly commonplace for contracts to be settled out physically, and happens in the billions as a daily matter. Conversely zillions in \"\"cash settled\"\" contracts play out each day. Both are totally commonplace. Different businesses or entities or traders would use the two \"\"varieties\"\" for sundry reasons. The different exchanges offer the different varieties, ultimately I guess because they happen to think that niche will be profitable. There's no \"\"galactic council\"\" or something that enforces which mode of settlement is available on a given offering - ! Recall that \"\"a given futures contracts market\"\" is nothing more than a product offered by a certain exchange company (just like Burger King sells different products). I believe in another aspect of the question, OP is asking basically: \"\"Why is there not, a futures contract, of the mini or micro variety for extremely small amounts, of currency futures, which, is 'physically' settled rather than cash settled ..?\"\" If that's the question the answer is just \"\"whatever, nobody's done it yet\"\". (Or, it may well exist. But it seems extremely unlikely? \"\"physically\"\" settled currencies futures are for entities operating in the zillions.) Sorry if the question was misunderstood.\"",
"title": ""
}
] |
[
{
"docid": "2bd492a29d94dd3739c66c7cf4cf0976",
"text": "\"With Forex trading - physical currency is not involved. You're playing with the live exchange rates, and it is not designed for purchasing/selling physical currency. Most Forex trading is based on leveraging, thus you're not only buying money that you're not going to physically receive - you're also paying with money that you do not physically have. The \"\"investment\"\" is in fact a speculation, and is akin to gambling, which, if I remember correctly, is strictly forbidden under the Islam rules. That said, the positions you have - are yours, and technically you can demand the physical currency to be delivered to you. No broker will allow online trading on these conditions, though, similarly to the stocks - almost no broker allows using physical certificates for stocks trading anymore.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3e3ffaf0a9e4b4df9c8dc75f87d57b1b",
"text": "You can do this via many online FOREX brokers. All you need to do is set up and fund an account with them and then trade via their online platform. Some examples of brokers that do this are:",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "8f3e70ed5e0c4430e5d7b145efd7b51c",
"text": "The vast majority of retail Forex brokers are market makers, rather than ECNs. With that said, the one that fits your description mostly closely is Interactive Brokers, is US-based, and well-respected. They have a good amount of exoitcs available. Many ECNs don't carry these because of the mere fact that they make money on transactions, versus market makers who make money on transactions and even more on your losses. So, if the business model is to make money only on transactions, and they are as rarely traded as exotics are, there's no money to be made.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ddc38e15fc5715dc19993ad0cc132abc",
"text": "This would depend on what transfer methods your Forex broker allows. Most will allow you to have a check or wire transfer sent...best thing would be to call/email your broker and ask how to get the money into your account. Keep in mind, many brokers will force you to withdraw using the same funding method you used to deposit, up to the amount of the deposit. For example, if I fund my Forex account with $500 on a credit card and make $500 profit, I now have $1,000 sitting in my Forex account. The broker will force me to withdraw $500 as a credit to my credit card before allowing me to use another withdrawal method. This is an anti-money laundering precaution.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "212b89c0dfad33c644815e8141a0949d",
"text": "With your experience, I think you'd agree that trading over a standardized, regulated exchange is much more practical with the amount of capital you plan to trade with. That said, I'd highly advise you to consider FX futures at CME, cause spot forex at the bucket shops will give you a ton of avoidable operational risks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "a2835b6174f6b3e73ae2a2cdda2658eb",
"text": "Quite a few stock broker in India offer to trade in US markets via tie-up brokers in US. As an Indian citizen, there are limits as to how much FX you can buy, generally very large, should be an issue. The profits will be taxed in US as well as India [you can claim relief under DTAA]",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ef274fde8ff9993d7e6a2b343d34d339",
"text": "\"You can find lots of answers to this question by googling. I found at least five pages about this in 30 seconds. Most of these pages seem to say that if you must convert cash, converting it in the destination country is probably better, because you are essentially buying a product (in this case, dollars), and it will cheaper where the supply is greater. There are more dollars in the USA than there are in Portugal, so you may be able to get them cheaper there. (Some of those pages mention caveats if you're trying to exchange some little-known currency, which people might not accept, but this isn't an issue if you're converting euros.) Some of those pages specifically recommend against airport currency exchanges; since they have a \"\"captive audience\"\" of people who want to convert money right away, they face less competition and may offer worse rates. Of course, the downside of doing the exchange in the USA is that you'll be less familiar with where to do it. I did find some people saying that, for this reason, it's better to do it in your own country where you can shop around at leisure to find the best rate. That said, if you take your time shopping around, shifts in the underlying exchange rate in the interim could erase any savings you find. It's worth noting, though, that the main message from all these pages is the same: don't exchange cash at all if you can possibly avoid it. Use a credit card or ATM card to do the exchange. The exchange rate is usually better, and you also avoid the risks associated with carrying cash.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "ac121912dc1c747d695b32eb58af4f23",
"text": "\"The way I am trading this is: I am long the USD / EUR in cash. I also hold USD / EUR futures, which are traded on the Globex exchange. I am long US equities which have a low exposure to Europe and China (as I expect China to growth significantly slower if the European weakens). I would not short US equities because Europe-based investors (like me) are buying comparatively \"\"safe\"\" US equities to reduce their EUR exposure.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "06e4704418d257227d647692a04fec2e",
"text": "If you are restricting yourself to Scotiabank (Both retail banking and iTrade), your choices are pretty limited. If you are exchanging more than CAD$25,000 to EUR without margin, you can call Scotiabank and ask for a quote with much lower spread than the published snapshots. The closest ETF that you are talking about is RWE.B on TSX, which is First Asset MSCI Europe Low Risk Weighted ETF (Unhedged). You will be exposed to huge equity market risk and you should do it only if you intend to hold it for 3-5 years. Another way of exchanging cash is without opening an account is through a currency exchange broker (search “toronto currency exchange” for relevant companies). First you send an email asking for a quote for the amount you wanted, then you send the CAD to them via cheque, and they would convert to EUR and deposit it to your EUR account at Scotiabank (retail banking). This method costs around 0.7% compared to 2.5% charged by Scotiabank. An example of these brokers is Interchange Currency Exchange in Toronto. If you are hedging more than 125000 EUR, the proper method is to open an account that supports trading Currency Futures on Globex (US CME group). You can long Euro/Canadian Dollar Futures on margin. The last method is to open an account at Interactive Brokers, put CAD in it, then borrow more CAD to buy EUR. This method costs a few dollars upon trading and the spread is negligible. You need to pay 2.25% per year margin interest through.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "38983f5811ca126fbb64a7d8027e265a",
"text": "Stick with stocks, if you are not well versed in forex you will get fleeced or in over your head quickly. The leverage can be too much for the uninitiated. That said, do what you want, you can make money in forex, it's just more common for people to not do so well. In a related story, My friend (let's call him Mike Tyson) can knock people out pretty easy. In fact it's so easy he says all you have to do is punch people in the face and they'll give you millions of dollars. Since we are such good friends and he cares so much about my financial well-being, he's gotten me a boxing match with Evander Holyfield, (who I've been reading about for years). I guess all I have to do is throw the right punches and then I'll have millions to invest in the stock market. Seems pretty easy, right ?",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "3c34a78467249df07b75663f47cedef8",
"text": "Crazy idea but... on the offchance your friend is near one of Europe's few bitcoin ATM's ... buy some bitcoin, transfer them to your friend, and they can presumably cash them in at the ATM. I've no idea how much bid-offer spreads will eat into the transfer or whether you can tolerate bitcoin volatility though. Unless there are money laundering regulations that mean anyone wanting to use one of these ATM's has to agree some ID checks that your friend can't satisfy (I don't actually know much about bitcoin at all). If not a bitcoin ATM, maybe there are other ways your friend can convert bitcoin value to something more useful (bitcoin to mobile-phone top-ups seem to be possible, for example).",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "94946e8ad98c7dee3b7fafa8b1ee8f00",
"text": "Many people trade the currency markets via brokers who have developed online apps with live forex prices and many currency pairs. You can trade on your phone, iPad or PC / Mac.",
"title": ""
},
{
"docid": "edb1f705ad85940e241269d785bb0f6b",
"text": "Originally dollars were exchangeable for specie at any time, provided you went to a govt exchange. under Bretton Woods this was a generally fixed rate, but regardless there existed a spread on gold. This ceased to be the case in 71 when the Nixon shock broke Bretton woods.",
"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": "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": ""
}
] |
fiqa
|
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