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11654

"You will need to file a US income tax return, and declare all income world-wide. Whether this results in any tax owed depends on your particular circumstances, and the effect of any tax treaties between the US and India. There are additional requirements for the filing of information on the amounts in foreign accounts held by ""US tax persons"". Depending on the nature of these accounts, the complexity of the forms, and the penalties for non-compliance can be quite high... Short version: Consult a professional well-qualified in US/India tax matters..."

11791

I would apply extra cash left over at the end of the month as follows, in order of priority: Realize, though, that this is my take on priority. My experience has been that a liquidity crisis is much more stressful than having a mortgage or other debt -- illiquid wealth is almost useless when you need cash. So if you still have strong feelings about retiring that debt after considering the liquidity issue, go ahead and swap #3 and #4 above. Make plans to pay off the mortgage over the next 10 years. Find a mortgage payoff calculator and make extra monthly payments that keep you on a 10 year schedule. I'd strongly suggest making sure your retirement savings are on track, though. Time is on your side here, and your required monthly contribution will be low now while you're still in your 20s.

11884

The only way someone can take money out of your account using just your sort code and account number is if you set up a direct debit to pay them (or someone pretending to be you sets up the direct debit). Even with Paperless DD's this can take some time. Anyone who can process debit card transactions can take money from your account if they have your debit card number, expiry date and cvv number. Direct debits do not have an expiry date so they are normally used for paying automatic regular long term bills (like rent, rates, electricity etc). Note, anyone with an ordinary bank account can pay money into account, using your sort code and account number.

11885

Collection agencies will eventually find you if you work for an employer that uses the credit bureaus for pre-employment screening, or you sign up for utilities or services that check your credit, or you enter into public record any other way (getting arrested, buying land, etc.). Such inquiries will put you on the grid where the collection agencies can find you and/or sue you. Two years out is about the point where they're looking for blood. The next time your friend applies for an apartment, utilities or cell phone service, she's going to get some calls.

12119

"I think the math is wrong. Note that in Scenario #1, you are only out of pocket $1000, while in Scenario #2, you are out of pocket $1250; the contribution and the tax you paid with respect to it. A better concept than tax rate is ""Retention Rate"". This is the fraction of your money that the Feds let you keep. And Growth Factor is the how much the investment grows. So In Scenario #1, you multiply $1000 by the investment Growth Factor and then by the retirement Retention Rate. And in Scenario #2, you multiply the same $1000 by the current Retention Rate and then by the Growth Factor. Since in your approximation, the two GFs are the same, there is no saving..."

12140

Housing plus transportation should be about 40%, according to your given rule of thumb, and that's where yours are, so I think you're okay. Guidelines are not rules, and must be related to one's individual circumstances. That said, double-check that your transportation expenses are really zero.

12229

12318

"> but the other countries are just decline stage. I think you have a typo. Could you please explain what you mean? If I understand correctly, you are saying that the US produces ""value"" and other countries do not. As the US has tended to run a high deficit since the Reagan era (i.e. it increases its debt every year) this seems a contentious statement."

12329

Your mortgage represents a negative cash flow of $X for N months. The typical mortgage prepayment doesn't reduce your next payment, but does reduce the length of the mortgage. If you look at the amortization table of a 30 year loan, you might see a payment of $1000 but only $50 going to principal. So if on day one you send an extra $51 or so to the bank, you find that in 30 years you just saved that $1000 payment. In effect, it was a long term bond or CD, yielding the post tax rate of the mortgage. Say your loan were 7%. At 7%, money doubles every 10 years or so. 30 years is 3 doubles or 8X. If I were to offer you $1000 and ask for $7500 in 30 years, you might accept it, with an agreement to buy me out if you refinanced. For me, that would be an investment. Just like buying a bond. In fact, there is a real return, as you see the cash flow at the end. The payments 'not made' are your payback. Those who insist it's not an investment are correct in the strict sense of the word's definition, but pedantic for the fact in practice, the prepayment is a choice to be considered alongside other investment choices. When I have a mortgage, I am the mortgagor, the bank, the mortgagee. Same as a company issuing a bond, the Bank holds my bond and I'm making payments to them. They hold my bond as an investment. There is no question of that. In fact, they package these and sell them as CMOs, groups of mortgages. A pre-payment is me buying back the last coupon on my mortgage. I fail to see the distinction between me 'buying back' $10K in future coupons on my own loan or me investing $10K in someone else's loans. The real question for me is whether this makes sense when rates are so low. At 4%, I'd say it's a matter of prioritizing any high rate debt and any other investments that might yield more. But even so, it's an investment yielding 4%. Over the years, I've developed the priorities of where to put new money - The priorities are debatable. I have my opinion, and my reasons to back them up. In general, it's a balance between risk and return. In my opinion, there's something wrong with ignoring a dollar for dollar match on the 401(k) in most circumstances. Others seem to prefer being 100% debt free before saving at all. There's a balance that might be different for each individual. As I started, the mortgage is a fixed return, with no chance to just get it back if needed. If your cash savings is pretty high, and the choice is a .001% CD or prepay a 4% mortgage, I'd use some funds to pay it down. But not to the point you have no liquid reserves.

12382

I am a (small time!) Zopa user in the UK and have been for over a year. The rates that loans are accepted at on Zopa seem to me to be 0.5-1% higher than the best deals in the commercial market. The rates did used to be up at 8% even for A* short term, but now that bracket is getting about 5.5%. That's just talking about the rate offered to borrowers. My own return will be lower as there is a fee levied from Zopa (naturally) and there is the risk of default. In 13 months on the site with ~20 borrowers and ~200 payments I have not had any defaults. The total interest returned for 13 months on a staggered investment of £150 with all repayments re-loaned out has been £9.33. So maybe 5.7% return? I expect that to go down a bit as I'm now loaning out at lower rates. Bear in mind also that interest from P2P lending is taxable income.

12488

easier access to your money That can be a disadvantage for some people. Based on the number of people who tap their 401K for non-retirement reasons, or just cash it in when they change jobs; making it painful to use before retirement age does keep some people from spending it too early. They need to be able to compartmentalize the funds in order to understand the difference between funds spending, saving and investing for retirement. Roth 401K One advantage that the 401K may have is that you can in many plans invest the funds in a Roth 401K. This allows you to go beyond the Roth IRA limits. You are currently investing the maximum amount in your Roth IRA, so this could be a big advantage.

12614

Defined Benefit - the benefit you receive when you retire is defined e.g. $500 a month if you retire at age 65. It is up to the plan administrators to manage the pension fund, and ensure that there is enough money to cover the benefits based on the life expectancy of the retiree. Defined Contribution - the amount you contribute to the plan is defined. The benefit you receive at retirement depends on how well the investments do over the years.

12623

I would say your decision making is reasonable. You are in the middle of Brexit and nobody knows what that means. Civil society in the United States is very strained at the moment. The one seeming source of stability in Europe, Germany, may end up with a very weakened government. The only country that is probably stable is China and it has weak protections for foreign investors. Law precedes economics, even though economics often ends up dictating the law in the long run. The only thing that may come to mind is doing two things differently. The first is mentally dropping the long-term versus short-term dichotomy and instead think in terms of the types of risks an investment is exposed to, such as currency risk, political risk, liquidity risk and so forth. Maturity risk is just one type of risk. The second is to consider taking some types of risks that are hedged either by put contracts to limit the downside loss, or consider buying longer-dated call contracts using a small percentage of your money. If the underlying price falls, then the call contracts will be a total loss, but if the price increases then you will receive most of the increase (minus the premium). If you are uncomfortable purchasing individual assets directly, then I would say you are probably doing everything that you reasonably can do.

12729

No, you can't claim personal expenses as business expenses. What is the alternative to paying someone to do your chores? Letting the chores go undone. How does it affect your business if your household chores go undone? It doesn't; it only affects your personal life--that's why they are personal expenses.

12822

avoid corporation tax There aren't many avenues to save on corporation tax legally. The best option you can try is paying into a generous pension for yourself, which will save some corporation tax. Buying a house You can claim deduction for the mortgage payments, but profits on selling the house will require paying capital gains tax on the profit. You can rent it out, this will be decided between your mortgage provider and your company, but the rent will go towards as income. Buying a car Not worth it. You will have to pay Class 1A NI contribution for benefits in kind. Any sane accountant will ask you to buy the car yourself and expense the mileage. Any income generated from the cash you have is taxable. Even the interest being paid on your money is taxable.

13209

You're technically 'allowed' to do other investments with your Roth, but you get taken to the cleaners by the financial 'services' community who wants to take a slice. Non-securities investments from a Roth typically require a 'custodian' or other intermediary to handle your investment, e.g. buying silver coins and paying someone else to hold them. Buy these with cash and hold them yourself, assuming you trust yourself more than some stranger.

13596

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.

13631

The answer provide by @mbhunter is correct, however there are contexts, shorting in spot market and carrying the position over settlement usually does not entail payment of dividend to the broker, one of the reason being post ex-date the price of the share downward adjusts to the extent of the dividend, so practically if you have shorted at 100 and post ex-date (assuming a dividend of 2 and no movement of the stock price), the price would slide to 98, the party who longed the stock @ 100 now is sitting on a price of 98 and received a dividend of 2 which equates to 100. The above is also contextual to the law of the country governing the exchange and the security exchange board regulations.

13656

The first thing I assess when looking at new credit cards is whether it has no annual fee, the second thing I look at is how long the interest free period is. I always pay my credit card off in full just before the due date. Any rewards program is a bonus. My main credit card is with CBA, I have a credit limit of $20K and pay no annual fee. I get a bonus point for every $ I spend on it, for which I exchange for store gift cards to help with my everyday spending. Approximately 3500 point would get me a $25 gift card. But my main reward with the card is the interest I save by keeping my own money in a Home Loan Offset account whilst I spend with the Bank's money. Then I pay the full amount off by the due date so I do not pay any interest on the credit card. I only use my credit cards for purchases I would usually make anyway and to pay bills, so my spending would be the same with or without a credit card. I can usually save over $500 each year off my Home Loan interest and get about $350 worth of gift cards each year. If I didn't have any Home Loans then I would keep my money in a high interest depost account so I would be increasing my interest payments each year. Sure you can probably get credit cards with more generous rewards programs, but how much are you paying each year in annual fees, and if you don't have an interest free period and you don't pay off all the amount due each month how much are you paying in interest on the card? This is what you need to way up when looking at rewards programs on offer. Nothing is for free, well almost nothing !

13908

"The ""par value"" is a technicality that you can ignore in this case, and it has nothing directly to do with the merger. When a company issues stock, it puts a ""par value"" on the shares. If it later issues more shares, they cannot be issued at less than par value. The rest of the notice seems to be as you said: If you hold until the merger takes effect, they are going to give you $25/share and your shares will be gone. As always, you can try to sell on the open market before that time instead, although you can bet that not too many people are going to want to give you more than $25/share at this point."

13975

"Imagine that, a car dealership lied to someone trusting. Who would have thought. A big question is how well do you get along with your ""ex""? Can you be in the same room without fighting? Can you agree on things that are mutually beneficial? The car will have to be paid off, and taken out of his name. The mechanics on how to do this is a bit tricky and you may want to see a lawyer about it. Having you being the sole owner of the car benefits him because he is no longer a cosigner on a loan. This will help him get additional loans if he chooses, or cosign on his next gf's car. And of course this benefits you as you ""own"" the car instead of both of you. You will probably have to refinance the car in your name only. Do you have sufficient credit? Once this happens can you pay off the car in like a year or so? If you search this site a similar questions is asked about once per month. Car loans are pretty terrible, in the future you should avoid them. Cosigning is even worse and you should never again participate in such a thing. Another option is to just sell the car and start over with your own car hopefully paid for in cash."

14111

If you've already used TurboTax on your 2015 taxes, you can use the numbers TurboTax gave you as your reasonable estimate. Line 4 is your estimate of total tax liability for 2015. This would be line 63 of form 1040. This is Federal income tax only, not Social Security tax. Line 5 is the total of tax payments you made last year. You should be able to read this off your W-2 forms, Box 2. It corresponds to line 74 on the 1040. Line 6 is the difference between lines 4 and 5. You can't claim a refund on the extension, so if line 5 is more than line 4, enter 0. Otherwise, subtract line 5 from line 4, and enter it in line 6. This is the amount you should send in with the form to minimize any penalty due with your taxes later. The TurboTax software can generate this extension form automatically, I believe. Also, don't forget to give a copy of this extension form to your tax preparer. He will need to know the amount you sent in.

14185

Your link is pointing to managed funds where the fees are higher, you should look at their exchange traded funds; you will note that the management fees are much lower and better reflect the index fund strategy.

14313

It is true that it may be somewhat of a loss. I would not lose any money with the other options as I have already made my money back but I would be at a loss as far as time investment goes. I agree number 1 is most logical but emotionally my heart is just not in it anymore that is why I put 2 and 3 in there too.

14364

Yes, you would have to report the gain. It is not relevant that you traded the stock previously, you still made a profit on the trade-at-hand. Imagine if for some reason this type of trade were exempt. Investors could follow the short term swings of volatile stocks completely tax-free.

14382

"I can guarantee you that no one in IBanking and consulting is pulling in a 110k base. Even 75 is really pushing it in this market. 70k base is standard on the street and some bansk have been dropping it to 65. And you won't be working at a ""legit"" hedge fund or prop shop straight out of undergrad. Source: I work in the industry."

14463

"You really don't know how credit scoring works. Let's think about the purpose of a credit score: to assess whether you're a high default risk. A lender wants to know, in this order: Utilization factors into the solvency assessment. If you are at 100% utilization of your unsecured credit, you're insolvent -- you can't pay your bills. If you are at 0%, you're as solvent as you can be. Most people who use credit cards are somewhere in the middle. When a bank underwrites a large loan like a mortgage or car loan, they use your credit score an application information like income and employment history to figure out what kind of loan you qualify for. Credit cards are called ""revolving"" accounts for a reason -- you're supposed to use them to buy crap and pay your bill in full at the end of the month. My advice to you:"

14472

This is very insightful, I think. As an open question, consider what *downside* a nation (or bank) has to acknowledging bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Obviously nations may lose some monetary control by endorsing bitcoin, but I don't know if there's much of a downside for banks considering bitcoin's easy conversion in to USD. If anything, I feel like most of the problems for banks surrounding cryptos would be regulatory.

14538

Of course you don't need to take a mortgage - if you happen to have enough cash (or other assets) to pay your sister her share, or if she is willing to take it in installments over the next years. Mortgages are not needed to buy houses, but to pay for them - subtle difference. If you can pay - in whichever agreed way - without a mortgage, you won't need one.

14609

"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"

14699

I suppose it depends on how liquid you need, and if you're willing to put forth any risk whatsoever. The stock market can be dangerous, but there are strategies out there that will allow you to insure yourself against significant loss, while likely earning you a decent return. You can buy and sell options along with stocks so that if the stock drops, your loss is limited, and if it goes up or even stays where it's at, you make money (a lot more than 1% annually). Of course there's risk of loss, but if you plan ahead, you can cap that risk wherever you want, maybe 5%, maybe 10%, whatever suits your needs. And as far as liquidity goes, it should be no more than a week or so to close your positions and get your money if you really need it. But even so, I would only recommend this after putting aside at least a few thousand in a cash account for emergencies.

14732

"You uncle is liable to pay ""Capital-Gains"" tax. Essentially the sale price less of cost would be treated as gains. The gains are taxed at 10% without indexation and 20% with Indexation. The capital gains tax can be avoided if your uncle invests the gains into specified ""Infrastructure bonds"" or buys another property within a period of 3 years. The funds need to be kept in a separate ""Capital Gains"" account and not a regular savings account till you buy another property within 3 years."

14745

My assumption here is that you paid nearly 32K, but also financed about 2500 in taxes/fees. At 13.5% the numbers come out pretty close. Close enough for discussion. On the positive side, you see the foolishness of your decision however you probably signed a paper that stated the true cost of the car loan. The truth in lending documents clearly state, in bold numbers, that you would pay nearly 15K in interest. If you pay the loan back early, or make larger principle payments that number can be greatly reduced. On top of the interest charge you will also suffer depreciation of the car. If someone offered you 31K for the car, you be pretty lucky to get it. If you keep it for 4 years you will probably lose about 40% of the value, about 13K. This is why it is foolish for most people to purchase a new vehicle. Not many have enough wealth to absorb a loss of this size. In the book A Millionaire Next Door the author debunks the assumption that most millionaires drive new cars. They tend to drive cars that are pretty standard and a couple of years old. They pay cash for their cars. The bottom line is you singed documents indicating that you knew exactly what you were getting into. Failing any other circumstances the car is yours. Talking to a lawyer would probably confirm this. You can attempt to sell it and minimize your losses, or you can pay off the loan early so you are not suffering from finance charges.

14967

you'll need 25k to start or 2k in multiple accounts, that way you have access to margin, and don't have to worry about Pattern day trading limits. Be right more than you are wrong. Go up look for 3x potential up vs down risk. Compound daily. you can't double a penny every day every day for a month it becomes to difficult. but you can do 1%/day or maybe better. 2k compounded 1% every day becomes 75k at the end of a year (but you'll likely have to take weekends off, or look for other markets)

14989

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.

15169

"The difference between dividend and growth in mutual funds has to do with the types of stocks the mutual fund invests in. Typically a company in the early stages are considered growth investments. In this phase the company needs to keep most of its profits to reinvest in the business. Typically once a company gets a significant size the company's growth prospects are not as good so the company pays some of its profits in the form of a dividend to the shareholders. As far as which is the best buy is totally a personal choice. There will be times when one is better then the other. Most likely you will want to ""diversify"" and invest in both types."

15270

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.

15385

I do this very thing, but with asset allocation and risk parity in mind. I disagree with the cash or bust answers above, but many of the aforementioned facts are valuable and I don't mean to undermine them in anyway. That said, let's look at two examples: Option 1: All-in For the sake of argument let's say you had $100k invested in the SPY (S&P 500 ETF) in early 2007, and you kept it there until today. Your lowest balance would have been about $51k, and at this point the possibility of you losing your job was probably at a peak. Today you would be left with $170k assuming no withdrawal. Option 2: Risk Parity BUT if you balanced your investments with a risk parity approach, using negatively correlated asset classes you avoid this dilemma. If you had invested 50% in XLP (Consumer Staples Sector ETF) and 50% in TLT ( Long Term Treasury ETF) your investments low point would have been $88k, and your lowest annual return would be +0.69%. Today you would be left with $214k assuming no withdrawals. I chose option #2 and it hasn't failed me yet, even in 2016 so far the results are steady and reliably given the reward. My general opinion is simple: when you have money always grow it. Just be sure to cover your ass and prepare for rain. Backtesting for this was done at portfoliovisualizer.com, the one caveat to this approach is that inflation and a lack of international exposure are a risk here.

15473

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.

15728

I trust the 401(k) was a traditional, pre tax account. There was no tax paid, and any withdrawals would be taxable. The account could go to zero, and there's no write off, sorry. I have to ask - were there any withdrawals along the way? What was it invested in that lost 90% of its value? Edit - I'm sorry the OP came and went. It would be great to have closure on some of these issues. Here, I'm thinking as Duff said, malpractice, or perhaps a 401(k) that was 100% in company stock. Seems we'll never know.

15824

"The danger of overdrawing the account via the use of a debit card, and the exorbitant fees that can result make me hesitant to use a debit card. The ability to cover all the transactions with one payment is why I use a credit card for these ""debit"" transactions. Yes there is a risk of a late payment, but that can be easily avoided within the three week grace period. The ability to electronically transfer the money to pay off the card makes this even easier."

16175

"The best strategy for RSU's, specifically, is to sell them as they vest. Usually, vesting is not all in one day, but rather spread over a period of time, which assures that you won't sell in one extremely unfortunate day when the stock dipped. For regular investments, there are two strategies I personally would follow: Sell when you need. If you need to cash out - cash out. Rebalance - if you need to rebalance your portfolio (i.e.: not cash out, but reallocate investments or move investment from one company to another) - do it periodically on schedule. For example, every 13 months (in the US, where the long term cap. gains tax rates kick in after 1 year of holding) - rebalance. You wouldn't care about specific price drops on that day, because they also affect the new investments. Speculative strategies trying to ""sell high buy low"" usually bring to the opposite results: you end up selling low and buying high. But if you want to try and do that - you'll have to get way more technical than just ""dollar cost averaging"" or similar strategies. Most people don't have neither time nor the knowledge for that, and even those who do rarely can beat the market (and never can, in the long run)."

16187

The business and investment would be shown on separate parts of the tax return. (An exception to this is where an investment is related and part of your business, such as futures trading on business products) On the business side of it, you would show the transfer to the stocks as a draw from the business, the amount transferred would then be the cost base of the investment. For taxes, you only have to report gains or losses on investments.

16270

In Houston, Texas USA where I went to a private high school they had a half-semester class in personal finance, but it was optional and didn't give you any credits towards graduation. You are right though, it should be a standard class. After all, who doesn't need that information in their adult lives, and not everyone goes to college.

16626

"Here's a number-crunching example of how the ""Zero interest rate"" offer is misleading. Suppose the offer is that a car ""costs $24,000.00 with zero percent financing over 24 months"" or as an alternative, ""$3,000.00 off for cash"". Ignore the hype: the quoted prices and the quoted interest rates. Look at what really happens to two people who take advantage of the two offers, One person hands over $21,000.00 cash, and leaves with the new car. The second promises to make 24 payments of $1000.00, one a month, starting in one month's time, and also leaves with the same make and model new car. The two people have received exactly the same benefit, so the two payment schemes must have the same value. A mortgage program will tell you that paying off a $21,000.00 loan by making 24 monthly payments of $1000.00 requires an interest rate of 1.10% a month, or an effective annual rate of 14.03%."

16924

It depends on why the stocks crashed. If this happened because interest rates shot up, bonds will suffer also. On the other hand, stocks could be crashing because economic growth (and hence earnings) are disappointing. This pulls down interest rates and lifts bonds.

17081

Very true. Just open your eyes. We no longer have soup lines, they just pass out debit cards now. You want to see it first hand try a job as a grocery checker in middle america, that is if you can find one to begin with.

17208

See my comment for some discussion of why one might choose an identical fund over an ETF. As to why someone would choose the higher cost fund in this instance ... The Admiral Shares version of the fund (VFIAX) has the same expense ratio as the ETF but has a minimum investment of $10K. Some investors may want to eventually own the Admiral Shares fund but do not yet have $10K. If they begin with the Investor Shares now and then convert to Admiral later, that conversion will be a non-taxable event. If, however, they start with ETF shares now and then sell them later to buy the fund, that sale will be a taxable event. Vanguard ETFs are only commission-free to Vanguard clients using Vanguard Brokerage Services. Some investors using other brokers may face all sorts of penalties for purchasing third-party ETFs. Some retirement plan participants (either at Vanguard or another broker) may not even be allowed to purchase ETFs.

17215

The answer seems to depend on where you live. Perhaps you already found this, but the summary from the IRS is: The insurance laws in some states do not allow a corporation to purchase group health insurance when the corporation only has one employee. Therefore, if the shareholder was the sole corporate employee, the shareholder had to purchase his health insurance in his own name. The IRS issued Notice 2008-1, which ruled that under certain situations the shareholder would be allowed an above-the-line deduction even if the health insurance policy was purchased in the name of the shareholder. Notice 2008-1 provided four examples, including three examples in which the shareholder purchased the health insurance and one in which the S corporation purchased the health insurance. Notice 2008-1 states that if the shareholder purchased the health insurance in his own name and paid for it with his own funds, the shareholder would not be allowed an above-the-line deduction. On the other hand, if the shareholder purchased the health insurance in his own name but the S corporation either directly paid for the health insurance or reimbursed the shareholder for the health insurance and also included the premium payment in the shareholder’s W-2, the shareholder would be allowed an above-the-line deduction. The bottom line is that in order for a shareholder to claim an above-the-line deduction, the health insurance premiums must ultimately be paid by the S corporation and must be reported as taxable compensation in the shareholder’s W-2. https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/S-Corporation-Compensation-and-Medical-Insurance-Issues I understand this to mean that you can only get the deduction in your case (having purchased it in your own name) if your state does not allow your S-Corp to purchase a group health plan because you only have one employee. (I don't know specifically if Illinois fits that description or not.) In addition, there are rules about reporting health insurance premiums for taxes for S-Corp share members that you should also check. Personally, I think that it's complicated enough that advice from a CPA or other tax advisor specific to your situation would be worth the cost.

17488

Absolutely. The overhead for a product based business like that is particularly high. Service based businesses tend to have much better profit margins. But if she was running a plant nursery she has to pay huge heating costs, renting the area she operates in, not to mention inventory and employees. That $300k vanishes pretty fast. This article talking about disappearing middle class is a bad argument. This sounds much more about how the recession hurts a small business. Assuming of course it is the recession. I know a coffee shop near me that isn't doing that great and says the economy is hurting them bad. They apparently don't realize that being blatantly rude to their customers drives them away. There are often other sides to the story besides the economy, whether the fault of the business owner or some other factor outside their control that may not be covered in these kinds of posts.

17528

It's monopoly money. Everybody treats it like that. Of course it doesn't work. It would be vastly different if you had you budget **plus** (a) freedom of choice for the supplier, internal or external, (b) your group could spend any budget surplus on whatever they wanted (well, for the office). But that will never happen because company policy.

17680

The company struck a truce with Elliott. They elected 3 of Elliott's nominees to the board, agreed to annual board elections, and placed Elliott on the committee for the firm's CEO search (Elliott targeted their previous CEO trying to push change and he had to resign after sending a threatening letter to Elliott).

17759

Yes -- you can refund the sales tax and adjust your return. Make sure you have a copy of your customer's reseller permit on file. If the item sold was for their own use (instead of resale), then sales tax is due, so you might want to check with the customer and ask them what they want to do.

17795

You should apply for 83(b) within 30 days. 10 months is too late, sorry.

17823

"I'd suggest you start by looking at the mutual fund and/or ETF options available via your bank, and see if they have any low-cost funds that invest in high-risk sectors. You can increase your risk (and potential returns) by allocating your assets to riskier sectors rather than by picking individual stocks, and you'll be less likely to make an avoidable mistake. It is possible to do as you suggest and pick individual stocks, but by doing so you may be taking on more risk than you suspect, even unnecessary risk. For instance, if you decide to buy stock in Company A, you know you're taking a risk by investing in just one company. However, without a lot of work and financial expertise, you may not be able to assess how much risk you're taking by investing in Company A specifically, as opposed to Company B. Even if you know that investing in individual stocks is risky, it can be very hard to know how risky those particular individual stocks are, compared to other alternatives. This is doubly true if the investment involves actions more exotic than simply buying and holding an asset like a stock. For instance, you could definitely get plenty of risk by investing in commercial real estate development or complicated options contracts; but a certain amount of work and expertise is required to even understand how to do that, and there is a greater likelihood that you will slip up and make a costly mistake that negates any extra gain, even if the investment itself might have been sound for someone with experience in that area. In other words, you want your risk to really be the risk of the investment, not the ""personal"" risk that you'll make a mistake in a complicated scheme and lose money because you didn't know what you were doing. (If you do have some expertise in more exotic investments, then maybe you could go this route, but I think most people -- including me -- don't.) On the other hand, you can find mutual funds or ETFs that invest in large economic sectors that are high-risk, but because the investment is diversified within that sector, you need only compare the risk of the sectors. For instance, emerging markets are usually considered one of the highest-risk sectors. But if you restrict your choice to low-cost emerging-market index funds, they are unlikely to differ drastically in risk (at any rate, far less than individual companies). This eliminates the problem mentioned above: when you choose to invest in Emerging Markets Index Fund A, you don't need to worry as much about whether Emerging Markets Index Fund B might have been less risky; most of the risk is in the choice to invest in the emerging markets sector in the first place, and differences between comparable funds in that sector are small by comparison. You could do the same with other targeted sectors that can produce high returns; for instance, there are mutual funds and ETFs that invest specifically in technology stocks. So you could begin by exploring the mutual funds and ETFs available via your existing investment bank, or poke around on Morningstar. Fees will still matter no matter what sector you're in, so pay attention to those. But you can probably find a way to take an aggressive risk position without getting bogged down in the details of individual companies. Also, this will be less work than trying something more exotic, so you're less likely to make a costly mistake due to not understanding the complexities of what you're investing in."

17923

Passive implies following an index. Your question seems to ask about a hypothetical fund that starts, say, as an S&P fund, but as the index is adjusted, the old stocks stay in the fund. Sounds simple enough, but over time, the fund's performance will diverge from the index. The slight potential gain from lack of cap gains will be offset by the fund being unable to market itself. Keep in mind, the gains distributed each year are almost exclusively long term, taxed at a favorable rate.

18001

You are wildly over-estimating your taxes. First, remember that your business expenses reduce your gross income. Second, remember that taxes are progressive, so your flat 35% only applies if you're already making a high salary that pushed you into the higher brackets of US and CA. I think the deeper problems are: 1) you are expecting a super early start-up (with no finished product) to pay you the same as a steady job, including health insurance, and 2) you are expecting Kickstarter to independently fund the venture. The best source of funding is yourself. If you believe in this venture and in your game design abilities, then pay for most of the costs out of your own savings. Cut your expenses to the extent you can. You may want to wander over to startups.SE to get more perspective and ideas on your business plan.

18065

"I looked into the ""We buy houses"" people when I was trying to sell my house a few years back. The amount they are normally willing to pay is far below value. If I was going to take that little, I would just set the price at that amount and sell it to somebody, maybe making a young couple really happy getting into a house they couldn't otherwise afford."

18200

The best thing is to diversify across multiple currencies. USD and EUR seem reliable. But not 100% reliable to keep all your investments in this types of currencies. Invest part of your savings in USD, part - in EUR, and part in your home country's currency. Apart from investing I recommend you to have certain sum in cash and certain on your bank account.

18257

Never co-sign a loan for someone, especially family Taking out a loan for yourself is bad enough, but co-signing a loan is just plain stupid. Think about it, if the bank is asking for a co-signer its because they are not very confident that the applicant is going to be paying back the loan. So why would you then step up and say I'll pay back the loan if they don't, make me a co-signer please. Here is a list of things that people never think about when they cosign a loan for somebody. Now if you absolutely must co-sign a loan here is how I would do it. I, the co-signer would be the one who makes the payments to ensure that the loan was paid on time and I would be the one collecting the payment from the person who is getting the loan. Its a very simple way of preventing some of the worst situations that can arise and you should be willing to make the payments anyway after all thats what it means to cosign a loan. Your just turning things around and paying the loan upfront instead of paying after the applicant defaults and ruins every ones credit. (Source: user's own blog post Never co-sign a loan for someone, especially family)

18388

You should pull your credit report from all the credit reporting agencies annually to make sure only the accounts you know of are being reported.

18436

Dollar cost averaging is an great way to diversify your investment risk. There's mainly 2 things you want to achieve when you're saving for retirement: 1) Keep your principal investment; 2) Grow it. The best methods recommended by most financial institutions are as follows: 1) Diversification; 2) Re-balance. There are a lot of additional recommendations, but these are my main take away. When you dollar cost average, you're essentially diversifying your exchange risk between the value of the funds you're investing. Including the ups and downs of the value of the underlying asset, may actually be re-balancing. Picking your asset portfolio: 1) You generally want to include within your 401k or any other invest, classes of investments that do not always move in total correlation as this allows you to diversify risk; 2) I'm making a lot of assumptions here - since you may have already picked your asset classes. Consider utilizing the following to tell you when to buy or sell your underlying investment: 1) Google re-balance excel sheet to find several examples of re-balance tools to help you always buy low and sell high; 2) Enter your portfolio investment; 3) Utilize the movement to invest in the underlying assets based on market movement; and 4) Execute in an emotionless way and stick to your plan. Example - Facts 1) I have 1 CAD and 1 USD in my 401k. Plan I will invest 1 dollar in the ratio of 50/50 - forever. Let's start in 2011 since we were closer to par: 2010 - 1 CAD (value 1 USD) and 1 USD (value 1 USD) = 50/50 ratio 2011 start - 1 CAD ( value .8 USD) and 1 USD (value 1 USD) = 40/60 ratio 2011 - rebalance - invest 1 USD as follows purchase .75 CAD (.60 USD) and purchase .40 USD = total of 1 USD reinvested 2011 end - 1.75 CAD (value 1.4USD) and 1.4 USD (value 1.4 USD) - 50/50 ratio As long as the fundamentals of your underlying assets (i.e. you're not expecting hyperinflation or your asset to approach 0), this approach will always build value over time since you're always buying low and selling high while dollar averaging. Keep in mind it does reduce your potential gains - but if you're looking to max gain, it may mean you're also max potential loss - unless you're able to find A symmetrical investments. I hope this helps.

18539

Here are the general guidelines on what you should report and pay - but the overall rule is that if it's not a business-related cost then you can't claim it. In your example, a client meeting may warrant a claim for 'entertaining clients' which could be claimed as a business cost - but buying yourself a coffee to get out of the house isn't a business cost.

18551

Subprime Auto Loan Defaults on the Rise [https://youtu.be/4XrdNmgon2c] Jul 30, 2017 Bill Black the white collar criminologist says It is a very severe problem for consumers who are going to lose not only their cars, but their credit ratings

18671

Despite a fair number of views, no one besides @mbhunter answered, so I'll gather the findings of my own research here. Hopefully, this will help others in similar situations. If you spot any errors, please let me know!

18727

Will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Will a bank convert a check to cash? In my experience, no. Even for small checks. Unless you happen to have a VERY good relationship with your banker (read as: have an existing large bank balance.) The exception is if you go to the bank the check is drawn on. But even then, I doubt they'll cash a $2M dollar check. Can you deposit a $2M dollar check? Most definitely. How long will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Depends on your bank's policies, relationship with you, and the origination of the check. You'll need to talk to the exact bank in question to find out. Some guidelines from my own experiences: Out of country checks will take quite awhile, say 4 weeks, even for trivial amounts. I'm not sure what a $2M size would do. Beyond that situation, it will likely depend on whether you have more money than the check's worth in your bank accounts. If so, they may be willing to give you cash in a few days. Or if you only want some of the money as cash in a few days, that might be possible. If the bank couldn't cash for him, will the bank give him some of cash for example, $500,000 for now, and the rest wait to be cash at later time like 24 hours or 1 week? Unless you already have a lot of money in your relationship with the bank, I think it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they will let you have ANY of the money in 24 hours. You MIGHT get some of it in a week. The issue will be that such a large check will be viewed as having a high chance of being fraudulent, so they will want to be exceptionally conservative.

18792

"You are confining the way you and the other co-founders are paid for guaranteeing the loan to capital shares. Trying to determine payments by equity distribution is hard. It is a practice that many small companies particularly the ones in their initial stage fall into. I always advise against trying to make payments with equity, weather it is for unpaid salary or for guaranteeing a loan such as your case. Instead of thinking about a super sophisticated algorithm to distribute the new shares between the cofounders and the new investors, given a set of constraints, which will most probably fail to make the satisfactory split, you should simply view the co-founders as debt lenders for the company and the shareholders as a capital contributor. If the co-founders are treated as debt lenders, it will be much easier to determine the risk compensation for guaranteeing the loan because it is now assessed in monetary units and this compensation is equal to the risk premium you see fit ""taking into consideration the probability of default "". On the other hand, capital contributors will gain capital shares as a percentage of the total value of the company after adding SBA loan."

18805

The CBOE had a great article on this. I will search for it and edit. The normal dividends are not adjusted. Which is why you see early exercise of just out of the money options sometimes. To get that dividend. A special dividend, say a $50 stock with $1/yr dividend but now has a $3 one time dividend would likely result in an option strike adjustment.

18844

This is either laundering money or laundering non-money. All the other answers point out how a cheque or bank transfer will take days to actually clear. That is a red herring! There are lots of ways to illegally transfer real money out of existing accounts. Stolen cheque books, stolen banking details (partly in connection with stolen smartphones and credit cards) and cards, money transfers from other people duped in a similar manner as you are: it is much easier to steal money than invent it, and it takes quite longer until stolen rather than invented money will blow up at the banks. All of those payments will likely properly clear but not leave you in actual legal possession of money. People will notice the missing money and notify police and banks and you will be on the hook for paying back all of it. Cheques and transfers from non-existing accounts, in contrast, tend to blow up very fast and thus are less viable for this kind of scam as the time window for operating the scam is rather small. Whether or not the cheque actually clears is about as relevant of whether or not the Rolls Royce you are buying for $500 because the owner has an ingrown toe nail and cannot press down the accelerator any more has four wheels. Better hope for the Rolls to be imaginary because then you'll only be out of $500 and that's the end of it. If it is real, your trouble is only starting.

18850

The IRS Guidance pertaining to the subject. In general the best I can say is your business expense may be deductible. But it depends on the circumstances and what it is you want to deduct. Travel Taxpayers who travel away from home on business may deduct related expenses, including the cost of reaching their destination, the cost of lodging and meals and other ordinary and necessary expenses. Taxpayers are considered “traveling away from home” if their duties require them to be away from home substantially longer than an ordinary day’s work and they need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of their work. The actual cost of meals and incidental expenses may be deducted or the taxpayer may use a standard meal allowance and reduced record keeping requirements. Regardless of the method used, meal deductions are generally limited to 50 percent as stated earlier. Only actual costs for lodging may be claimed as an expense and receipts must be kept for documentation. Expenses must be reasonable and appropriate; deductions for extravagant expenses are not allowable. More information is available in Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses. Entertainment Expenses for entertaining clients, customers or employees may be deducted if they are both ordinary and necessary and meet one of the following tests: Directly-related test: The main purpose of the entertainment activity is the conduct of business, business was actually conducted during the activity and the taxpayer had more than a general expectation of getting income or some other specific business benefit at some future time. Associated test: The entertainment was associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business and occurred directly before or after a substantial business discussion. Publication 463 provides more extensive explanation of these tests as well as other limitations and requirements for deducting entertainment expenses. Gifts Taxpayers may deduct some or all of the cost of gifts given in the course of their trade or business. In general, the deduction is limited to $25 for gifts given directly or indirectly to any one person during the tax year. More discussion of the rules and limitations can be found in Publication 463. If your LLC reimburses you for expenses outside of this guidance it should be treated as Income for tax purposes. Edit for Meal Expenses: Amount of standard meal allowance. The standard meal allowance is the federal M&IE rate. For travel in 2010, the rate for most small localities in the United States is $46 a day. Source IRS P463 Alternately you could reimburse at a per diem rate

18900

The only consequence I could see is that they have your money until they pay you back. I'd just do what JoeTaxpayer says and get it back.

18939

Average rates of return usually assume compounding, so your formula would be for annual compounding ,or for continuous compounding.

18950

I don't know the term sole trader but usually the trade off is a corporation allows for shield from liability (i.e. creditors) more flexibility with respect to personal tax management, but higher operating costs (incorporation, financial statements, etc). I always incorporate.

19107

"Envelope budgeting is pretty simple. It's easy enough that you can teach it to children, and flexible enough you can use it as an adult. The general idea is that you take your cash money (no bank accounts involved in the simple version), and stick it in envelopes marked for what it's supposed to be for. So for example, you get paid, you cash your paycheck and you put $100 in an envelope marked food. Now when you go out to eat, you go get the money out of your food envelope, and spend it on food. When your food envelope is empty you go hungry. In the simple version you have envelopes for things like ""food"", ""candy"", ""toys"", ""games"". etc. (simple version is usually taught to kids.) So you want a $60 game, and your game envelope only has $5. Well you can't get the game. You need to add more money to the game envelope. You need to eat so you have to put money there, but maybe you don't need toys. So you can divert some incoming money from toys to games. Sure it's still going to take a while to get to $60, but now with some simple kid friendly math you can see how long, and more importantly, you can make decisions on what is more important. Candy or Toys? In the adult version things are much the same. We just have more envelopes. We have Rent, Car Payment, Gas, Food, Electric. Then we need some envelopes for ""savings"" and ""retirement"". etc. Now when you get your Paycheck you prioritize your money and you stuff it in the envelopes. How much you put in each envelope is easy. Enough to pay for that thing. Savings and Retirement meet different goals. You want $6,000 savings. Well just like that game in the kid version, you're not going to get there all at once. But you can see and make decisions on what is most important. You want $1,000,000 to retire on. Sure, but that envelope is going to take a while to fill up. At it's core, the important parts are that: Let me explain the rent example, as it's the oddest. You get $500 a week, and you need $1000 for rent. This means you're spending from your envelopes. During week 1 and 2 you're spending last months week 3 and 4. You DO NOT do: This is important because if you lose your paycheck in week 3 or 4 you are homeless. Finally, in general, you stick stuff in savings envelope. And you want to reach a savings envelope goal of 6 months of your average pay checks. Once you reach this goal, then you're in good shape, and a job loss doesn't mean you're homeless. You can always just pull from savings. It's important when using these envelopes to understand that you only make the decision of what is more important when you're sticking money in, not when you're taking money out, and that you only work with the money you have right now today (in your hand). Now what you think you're going to get tomorrow. Money in the bank can be split into virtual envelopes. Money in savings can be in any vehicle, but generally you want a short term emergency envelope (savings account) and a long term envelope (CDs for example). Take a look at YNAB.com they used to provide free lessons in using their software to manage an envelope system. And the I know it's going to get comments section. The rent v.s. homeless is a real example. You should not take money from, say, the food envelope, to cover the rent. This may seem silly, but if you're doing that then you made poor decisions when deciding where the money goes. Use the emergency fund envelope to cover the rent, and next time put less money into food. It's this ""rule"" that makes envelope budgeting work well. You may be homeless, but you can eat, drive to work, put gas in your car, and pay your bills. Taking money from different envelopes usually results in a spiral, where you attempt to do the sensible thing, but in the end, you're worse off. Migrating to envelope budgeting (in the strict sense) is hard. The best way I have taught people to do it is to only envelope budget an increasing part of their income until their envelopes are full enough for one month. That means that you might only envelope budget 10% of your income at first. But unless your situation is such that you can cover all your bills with one paycheck, it's not going to be possible to transition without breaking the ""don't take money from other envelope"" rules."

19184

I agree with this. I like to buy stocks that are priced low according to value investing principles but set limits to sell if the stock happens to get priced at a point that exceeds X% annualized return, for instance 15% or 30% depending on preference. If the price goes up, I cash out and find the next best value stock and repeat. If the price does not go up, then I hold it which is fine because I only buy what I'm comfortable with holding for the long term. I tend to prefer stocks that have a dividend yield in the 2-6% range so I can keep earning a return. Also I too like the look of MCD. GE looks good as well, from this perspective.

19245

You're not subject to the US tax laws, and since the income is not US-sourced, it is not subject to withholding. Your employer doesn't need any form, but if they insist - you can provide them a W8-BEN to certify your non-resident status. Keep in mind that if you do come to the US, the money you earn while in the US is US-sourced and subject to the US taxes and withholding, even if you're non-resident.

19794

Systems to research that may help you out: Less Accounting and Wave are great because they can import data from banks / credit cards. I know you said your bank doesn't export it but it seems like something as a small business you would want.

19999

You need the Present Value, not Future Value formula for this. The loan amount or 1000 is paid/received now (not in the future). The formula is $ PMT = PV (r/n)(1+r/n)^{nt} / [(1+r/n)^{nt} - 1] $ See for example http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/financial/loan-calculator.php With PV = 1000, r=0.07, n=12, t=3 we get PMT = 30.877 per month

20036

That's really not something that can be answered based on the information provided. There are a lot of factors involved: type of income, your wife's tax bracket, the split between Federal and State (if you're in a high bracket in a high income-tax rate State - it may even be more than 50%), etc etc. The fact that your wife didn't withdraw the money is irrelevant. S-Corp is a pass-through entity, i.e.: owners are taxed on the profits based on their personal marginal tax rates, and it doesn't matter what they did with the money. In this case, your wife re-invested it into the corp (used it to pay off corp debts), which adds back to her basis. You really should talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) to learn how S-Corps work and how to use them properly. Your wife, actually, as she's the owner.

20054

See the Mortgage Professor's calculators (#3). Go to bankrate and look up rates so you know what to punch in to those calculators.

20076

The shareholders have a claim on the profits, but they may prefer that claim to be exercised in ways other than dividend payments. For example, they may want the company to invest all of its profits in growth, or they may want it to buy back shares to increase the value of the remaining shares, especially since dividends are generally taxed as income while an increase in the share price is generally taxed as a capital gain, and capital gains are often taxed at a lower rate than income.

20140

"Not sure what your needs are or what NIS is: However here in the US a good choice for a single fund are ""Life Cycle Funds"". Here is a description from MS Money: http://www.msmoney.com/mm/investing/articles/life_cyclefunds.htm"

20261

"A ""balance transfer"" is paying one credit card with another. You probably get offers in the mail to do this all of the time. As other posters have noted, however, this usually comes with finance fees rather than the rewards that you get for normal purchases because it's written into your credit card agreement as a different class of transaction with different rules. I'm not sure if it's urban legend or true, but I have heard stories that suggest there were some ""loop holes"" in the earliest credit card reward plans that allowed for something like what you want. I doubt that any plan ever allowed exactly what you've written, but I've heard stories about people buying gift cards from merchants and then using the gift cards to pay their bill. This loop hole (if it ever existed) is closed now, but it would have allowed for essentially infinite generation of rewards at no cost to the cardholder. The banks and credit card companies have a lot of years of experience at this sort of thing now, so the threshold for you finding something that works and conforms with the cardholder agreement is pretty small."

20335

"The textbook answer would be ""assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit"". A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing); or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP/code/patents/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more."

20504

that's just it, though - they are splitting up the 1%! and in most cases, especially vanguard, they are splitting up far less. ETFs don't have 12b-1 fees. explaining why you're experiencing different returns for ETFs will almost certainly involve something other than their expense. again, this is especially true for vanguard. they have the cheapest ETFs around (though i think schwab beats them on a few now). i can only guess at the full compensation structure. betterment likely earns money on cash reserves and securities hypothecation (i guess?). they also charge a small fee from what i understand. finance is very slim these days. i guess i'm wondering what your ultimate question is. if it's the inter corporate compensation structure, above is my best guess. if it's about performance, then we need to compare the ETFs you are looking at. if it's about the fees on funds, i think we covered that! as an advisor, it's my experience that very specific inquiries about fees have a deeper concern. people hear a lot about being overcharged so cost is a very standard place for clients to initially look when trying to compare performance of portfolios or securities.

20529

I meant bitcoin. The issuer is the designer of the currency, which I have stated multiple times, has structural issues. The exchanges are the banks, which have been shown to be susceptible to hacking. Bitcoin is also a fiat currency, just like every other currency, just one with no faith or guarantees behind it and no one to hold accountable when things go sideways. No thanks.

20539

"Note that it isn't always clear that ""turning it all into an annuity"" is the right answer. Annuities are essentially insurance policies -- you're paying them a share of your income to guarantee a specific payout. If you outlive the actuarial tables, that may be a win. If the market crashes, that may be a win. But I'm increasingly hearing the advice that staying in investments (albeit in a very conservative position) may pay better longer. There are tools which will do monte-carlo modelling based on what the market has done in the past. You give them your estimate of how much in today's dollars would be needed to ""maintain your lifestyle"", and they'll tell you how much savings you need -- and what form you might want to keep those savings in -- to have good odds of being able to live entirely off the earnings and never touch the capital My employer makes such a tool available to us, and in fact Quicken has a simpler version built into it; it's nice that the two agree."

20844

In all honesty, the best solution I've come across is Microsoft's now defunct Money.

20880

>Falls Church VA Falls Church is an independent city. It has no county to levy taxes. The FY2017 budget shows a 1% city and 4% restaurant tax. Then you've got 4.3% VA state tax, and 0.7% Northern Virginia regional tax. Totaling 10%.

20988

I'll point out that you don't actually have to pay your income taxes on time, just make sure to file on time. You will be charged interest (currently 5% ann., compounded daily). This is no big deal, I know plenty of people who do this. Note that if they pay you interest you have to report it on your taxes, but if you pay them it's not deductible.

20994

"This functionality is widely available, not only on brokerage sites, but also financial management and even financial information sites. For instance, two of the latter are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance. If you are logged in, they let you create ""portfolios"" listing your stocks and, optionally, the size of your holdings in that stock (which you don't need if you are just ""watching"" a stock). Then you can visit the site at any time and see the current valuations."

21313

An oxymoron is something that contradicts itself. Inside trading is sharing information that isn't public. How the fuck do you think these hedge funds and investment banks can offer almost 50% returns during these times in our economy??? Oh yea it's called inside trading. Reason why it's an oxymoron is because trading information is considered ilegal yet that what everyone does on the market, rules are made to give off fear but past that it's all open roads and deep pockets. And if you really don't believe that stock market isn't rigged then there is no reason for me to explain myself on that because it would be like taking to a wall. And I thank you for being one of those people that thinks it's not rigged because you help my portfolio look good from your dumb investments.

21468

"If you've already got emergency savings sufficient for your needs, I agree that you'd be better served by sending that $500 to your student loan(s). I, personally, house the bulk of my emergency savings in CDs because I'm not planning to touch it and it yields a little better than a vanilla savings account. To address the comment about liquidity. In addition to my emergency savings I keep plain vanilla savings accounts for miscellaenous sudden expenses. To me ""emergency"" means lost job, not new water pump for my car; I have other budgeted savings for that but would spend it on a credit card and reimburse myself anyway so liquidity there isn't even that important. The 18 month CDs I use are barely less liquid than vanilla savings and the penalty is just a couple months of the accrued interest. When you compare a possible early distribution penalty against the years of increased yield you're likely to come out ahead after years of never touching your emergency savings, unless you're budgeted such that a car insurance deductible is an emergency expense. Emergency funds should be guaranteed and non-volatile. If I lose my job, 90 days of accrued interest isn't a hindrance to breaking open some of my CDs, and the process isn't so daunting that I'd meaningfully harm my finances. Liquidity in 2017 and liquidity in whatever year a text book was initially written are two totally different animals. My ""very illiquid"" brokerage account funds are only one transaction and 3 settlement days less liquid than my ""very liquid"" savings account. There's no call the bank, sell the security, wait for it to clear, my brokerage cuts a check, mail the check, cash the check, etc. I can go from Apple stock on Monday to cash in my hand on like Thursday. On the web portal for the bank that holds my CDs I can instantly transfer the funds from a CD to my checking account there net of a negligible penalty for early distribution. To call CDs illiquid in 2017 is silly."

21688

> If you're saddled with a ton of debt and also don't have a degree to show for it, I'd say it's much more likely you're going to have trouble paying it off. This is how generational poverty continues.

21695

"I believe money market ""funds"" (ie a mutual fund) would pay dividends, and you would get a 1099-DIV. A money market ""account"" however is probably actually a bank account, and you would get a 1099-INT for that. It depends how the broker has set it up. I have one of each with different brokers. If your ""money market"" statements mention anything about FDIC coverage, it is likely an ""account"" (ie a bank account) and will pay interest, not dividends."

21846

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.

21883

"Insufficient funds will cause a check to bounce. If there is evidence that you ""kited"" the check deliberately, that's a potential fraud charge. If the vendor accepts that you were just stupid/careless, you'll probably just have to pay a penalty processing fee in addition to making good the payment. It is your responsibility to track your account balance and not write bad checks. If the timing could be bad, don't write the check yet. If you insist on paying with money you may not have, talk to your bank about setting up overdrafts to draw from another account, or automatic overdraft loans... or use a credit card rather than paying by check."

21957

"I don't understand the OP's desire "" I'd love to have a few hundred dollars coming in each month until I really get the hang of things. "" When growing your wealth so that it will be large enough in retirement to throw off enough profits to live on ... you must not touch the profits generated along the way. You must reinvest them to earn even more profits. The profits you earn need not show up as 'cash'. Most investments also grow in re-sale value. This growth is called capital gains, and is just-as/more important than cash flows like interest income or dividends. When evaluating investing choices, you think of your returns as a percent of your total savings at any time. So expecting $100/month equals $1,200/year would require a $12,000 investment to earn 10%/yr. From the sounds of it the OP's principal is not near that amount, and an average 10% should not be expected by an investment with reasonable risk. I would conclude that 'There is no free lunch'. You need to continually save and add to your principal. You must invest to expect a reasonable return (less than 10%) and you must reinvest all profits (whether cash or capital gains). Or else start a business - which cannot be compared to passive investing."

22067

You keep a copy of the dashed check, and tell him to pound sand. If he contacts you again, you tell him that you will charge him with fraud. By accepting the check and cashing it, he acknowledged the debt is paid.

22425

"From IRS Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education Note: Qualified tuition programs (QTPs) are also called ""529 plans."" Changing the Designated Beneficiary There are no income tax consequences if the designated beneficiary of an account is changed to a member of the beneficiary's family. See Members of the beneficiary's family , earlier. Members of the beneficiary's family. For these purposes, the beneficiary's family includes the beneficiary's spouse and the following other relatives of the beneficiary. regarding ownership changes: Rollovers Any amount distributed from a QTP isn't taxable if it is rolled over to another QTP for the benefit of the same beneficiary or for the benefit of a member of the beneficiary's family (including the beneficiary's spouse). An amount is rolled over if it is paid to another QTP within 60 days after the date of the distribution. Don't report qualifying rollovers (those that meet the above criteria) anywhere on Form 1040 or 1040NR. These aren't taxable distributions. Example. When Aaron graduated from college last year, he had $5,000 left in his QTP. He wanted to give this money to his younger brother, who was in junior high school. In order to avoid paying tax on the distribution of the amount remaining in his account, Aaron contributed the same amount to his brother's QTP within 60 days of the distribution. So it appears that as far as the IRS in concerned the rollover could be done to change ownership as long as the beneficiary was in the same family. It is possible that there could be a state tax issue with the change of ownership, if it changed from a plan in state A to one in state B; and state A treated the original contributions as a tax deduction. So check the guidelines for the specific 529 plan."