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240651 | First of all an IRA is a type of account that says nothing about how your money is invested. It seems like you are trying to compare an IRA with a market ETF (like Vanguard Total Market Admiral VTSAX), but the reality is that you can have both. Depending on your IRA some of the investment options may be limited, but you will probably be able to find some version of a passive fund following an index you are interested in. The IRA account is tax advantaged, but you may invest the money in your IRA in an ETF. As for how often a non-IRA account is taxed and how much, that depends on how often you sell. If you park your money in an ETF and do not sell, the IRS will not claim any taxes from it. The taxable event happens when you sell. But if you gain $1000 in a year and a day and you decide to sell, you will owe $150 (assuming 15% capital gains tax), bringing your earnings down to $850. If your investments go poorly and you lose money, there will be no capital gains tax to pay. |
240796 | 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. |
240809 | I didn't say you can't do whatever you want, I say it's a waste to society. You and your friends spend your entire lives trying to beat each other at an imaginary game and you take home billions of dollars. That money comes from somewhere - namely all the other people who didn't make quite as much on each trade. How do you not see this? |
240844 | There has been a lot of research on the effects of stock splits. Some studies have concluded that: However note that (i) these are averages over large samples and does not say it will work on every split and (ii) most of the research is a bit dated and more recent papers have often struggled to find any significant performance impact after 1990, possibly because the effect has been well documented and the arbitrage no longer exists. This document summarises the existing research on the subject although it seems to miss some of the more recent papers. More practically, if you pay a commission per share, you will pay more commissions after the split than before. Bottom line: don't overthink it and focus on other criteria to decide when/whether to invest. |
241070 | I'll add a little to the already great advice here. It certainly sounds like you are in need of consolidation here. Having 11 different cards vying for your attention sounds like a nightmare to manage. I also concur that it is a bad idea to cash out your retirement accounts to deal with this. I know it's frustrating to have the debt hanging over your head (I have student loans I'm personally working on) but getting a loan to consolidate that level of noise sounds like a much smarter move that can help greatly if you have high interest cards (most likely the case here). Since you mentioned that you are not interested in selling the house, have you considered a home equity loan to consolidate this? Best of luck to you. |
241101 | "A good measurement would be to compare to index's. Basically a good way to measure your self would be to ask ""If I put my money somewhere else how much better or worse would I have done?"" Mutual funds and Hedge funds use the SP500 as a bench mark. Some funds actually wave their fee if they do not outperform the SP or only take a fee on the portion that has outperformed the SP500. in today's economy i dont know how to expect such a return The economy is not a good benchmark on what to expect from the stock market. For example in 2009 by certain standards the economy was worse then today but in 2009 the market rallied a great deal so your returns should have reflected that. You can use the SP500 as a quick reference to compare your returns (this is also considered the ""standard"" for a quick comparison). The way you compare your performance is also dependent on how you invest your money. If you are outperforming the SP500 you are doing well. Many mutual funds DO NOT outperform the SP500. Edit Additional Info: Here is an article with more comprehensive information on how to gauge your performance. In the article is a link to a free tool from morning star. Use the Right Benchmark to Accurately Measure Investment Performance" |
241161 | A Roth IRA is intended for retirement. Before age 59.5 (I think), you can only withdraw the amount you deposited without penalty. It's great you're saving in a Roth, but you shouldn't put savings in there that you will need before you reach sufficient age. And since it's long-term, you can invest in things you expect to grow over the long term, like equities. You should keep emergency funds either in federally insured, extremely liquid accounts (bank savings) or money market funds (which aren't insured, but are close enough to zero-risk). Yes, the interest rates are terrible right now. But anything else would potentially leave you with insufficient funds in the event of, you know, an emergency. |
241189 | Its very silly of you to have house savings while you have these debts. Your total (listed) debt is 1657, with a savings of 2000, and a tax refund of 985. I'd be done with the Apple loan and CC tomorrow. Does that accomplish the goal of making a significant difference in your debt? Yes it does. This will leave you with 1328. I'd keep 500 or so in an emergency fund, and put the rest to the car. Although 828 will not help much with the car it would probably knock a month off. Next work like crazy to pay off the car. Get a second job or work overtime. Then save a emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses as if you already owned the house. I would tend to go on the high side as I suspect you are single. Only then does it makes sense to save for a down payment. Although it is an American institution, the book The Millionaire Next Door might be helpful for you. Your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. When one handicaps that tool with payments and exorbitant lifestyle choices you greatly reduce your ability to become wealthy. These amounts are so small, you should just knock them out. |
241297 | >Could you have transfered millions of dollars worth of tulips around the world in minutes, securely and for pennies on the dollar? The only reason that is more complicated with dollars has to do with our underlying financial infrastructure. It has little to do with any real technological problems. >Authorities don't get say whether Bitcoin is *allowed* to exist or not. Why not? Criminal court cases have already found Bitcoin as something akin to a commodity. There is no reason someone in government can't regulate or outright ban it the way China did. And as the head of a major bank Dimon is in an excellent position to manipulate the value of Bitcoin and destroy it if he chose to do so. >Why would Bitcoin be better for *only* those things? Bitcoin has not done anything other than be a commodity people purchase as an investment. It's ballooned too high on value to be useful for cash transctions for any normal person. |
241433 | Most important: Any gains you make from risking this sum of money over the next few years will not be life changing, but if you can't afford to lose it, then losses can be. Rhetorical question: How can you trust what I say you should do with your money? Answer: You can't. I'm happy to hear you're reading about the stock market, so please allow me to encourage you to keep learning. And broaden your target to investing, or even further, to financial planning. You may decide to pay down debt first. You may decide to hold cash since you need it within a couple years. Least important: I suggest a Roth IRA at any online discount brokerage whose fees to open an account plus 1 transaction fee are the lowest to get you into a broad-market index ETF or mutual fund. |
241599 | "For the most part, saving money usually depends upon having a budget and being able to stick to it. The toughest part of budgeting is usually setting it up (how much do I need for X) and sticking to it each month. In regards to sticking to it, there is software that you can use that helps figure out how much you are spending and how much you have left in a given category and they all pretty much do the same thing: track your spending and how much you have left in the category. If you are good with spreadsheets you might prefer that route (cost: free) but software that you can buy usually has value in that it can also generate reports that help you spot trends that you might not see in the spreadsheet. Sticking to a budget can be tough and a lot of what people have said already is good advice, but one thing that helps for me is having ""play money"" that can be used for whatever I want. In general this should be a fairly nominal amount ($20 or $40 a week) but it is enough that if you see a new book you want or what to go out for lunch one day you can do it without impacting the overall budget in some way. Likewise, having bigger savings goals can also be useful in that if times get tough it is easier to stop putting $100 a month to the side for a vacation than it is to cut back your grocery budget." |
241807 | This is tax fraud, plain and simple. I recently wrote an article The Step Transaction Doctrine, in which I explain that a series of events may each be legal, but aggregate to one transaction and the individual steps are ignored. In this case, it goes beyond that, by accepting $5/mo you are already outside the tax code. As littleadv noted, you can't work for a legitimate business for free and not expect to have some kind of issue. The $14K/yr gift isn't a bona fide gift, but ties to that work. |
241920 | > Turns out inside updates via the SIP are received faster than the prop market data feed, and faster than updates received over an order entry connection. Under these circumstances the street knows a trade occurred before the participants in the trade. You're saying if IEX is the inside quote you see it disappear on a sip feed before you see it disappear from iex's MD feed? AND if it's your quote, even before you receive the trade report? |
242023 | What can you give them as security? 1. A fixed/floating charge over assets 2. Negative covenants/Non-subordination agreements 3. Real Mortgage 4. Chattel Mortgage 5. Personal or inter-business Guarantees Essentially a bond is just a debt agreement, it is when you sell standardised bonds over a market that regulation comes into it. Now I am from Australia, so I can't comment on US policies etc... |
242478 | The rounding should always follow the same rule. If the value ends in .01 or .02 then you round to .00. Doesn't matter if it's 10.01 rounding to 10.00 or 0.01 to 0.00. The decision on what a company wants to do if an invoice total is $0.01 or $0.02 would be up to the company. The POS system should follow the rule and round to $0.00 if the method of payment is cash, but the company has the right to not give things away for free. They can impose a minimum cash invoice amount of $0.05. But you would do this by requiring the customer to add more items to their purchase. You couldn't just round the invoice up to $0.05 and to charge them $0.05 for a $0.01 item It would be similar to companies having a minimum purchase amount when paying by credit card. If their minimum amount is $10.00 and you want to buy something that's $5.00, you either pay cash or add something to your order. They don't just charge you $10.00 for your $5.00 item. I think this would be a extreme edge case where you have an invoice with a total of $0.01 or $0.02, without any discounts, partial payments, etc. If the customer's total was $10.01 and they paid with a $10.00 gift card, the final amount owing of $0.01 would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't owe any more. If they had paid cash, the total would have rounded to $10.00 anyway. Similarly, if the customer returned an item and bought a new item, or used coupons, and the total owing was $0.01 or $0.02, then you would round down to $0.00 and they wouldn't pay anything. As BobbyScon said, you can implement some options to allow the company to decide how they want to handle this. You could have an option that doesn't allow a sale to be processed if the total amount is less than $0.03 and the sale doesn't include any discounts, returned items, coupons, etc. The option could be to completely block the sale, require a supervisor override, or just display a warning to the cashier. Best bet is to talk to as many of your current or potential clients as you can to see how they would like this edge case handled. For many, it's probably a mute case since they wouldn't have items that have a unit price less than $0.03. Maybe a place like a hardware store that sells individual nuts, bolts, and washers. |
242849 | Simple math. Take the sale proceeds (after trade expenses) and divide by cost. Subtract 1, and this is your return. For example, buy at 80, sell at 100, 100/80 = 1.25, your return is 25%. To annualize this return, multiply by 365 over the days you were in that stock. If the above stock were held for 3 months, you would have an annualized return of 100%. There's an alternative way to annualize, in the same example above take the days invested and dive into 365, here you get 4. I suggested that 25% x 4 = 100%. Others will ask why I don't say 1.25^4 = 2.44 so the return is 144%/yr. (in other words, compound the return, 1.25x1.25x...) A single day trade, noon to noon the next day returning just 1%, would multiply to 365% over a year, ignoring the fact there are about 250 trading days. But 1.01^365 is 37.78 or a 3678% return. For long periods, the compounding makes sense of course, the 8%/yr I hope to see should double my money in 9 years, not 12, but taking the short term trades and compounding creates odd results of little value. |
243855 | You will not necessarily incur a penalty. You can potentially use the Annualized Income Installment method, which allows you to compute the tax due for each quarter based on income actually earned up to that point in the year. See Publication 505, in particular Worksheet 2-9. Form 2210 is also relevant as that is the form you will use when actually calculating whether you owe a penalty after the year is over. On my reading of Form 2210, if you had literally zero income during the first quarter, you won't be expected to make an estimated tax payment for that quarter (as long as you properly follow the Annualized Income Installment method for future quarters). However, you should go through the calculations yourself to see what the situation is with your actual numbers. |
244061 | The tax is only payable on the gain you make i.e the difference between the price you paid and the price you sold at. In your cse no tax is payable if you sell at the same price you bought at |
244278 | "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." |
244303 | "I made an investing mistake many (eight?) years ago. Specifically, I invested a very large sum of money in a certain triple leveraged ETF (the asset has not yet been sold, but the value has decreased to maybe one 8th or 5th of the original amount). I thought the risk involved was the volatility--I didn't realize that due to the nature of the asset the value would be constantly decreasing towards zero! Anyhow, my question is what to do next? I would advise you to sell it ASAP. You didn't mention what ETF it is, but chances are you will continue to lose money. The complicating factor is that I have since moved out of the United States and am living abroad (i.e. Japan). I am permanent resident of my host country, I have a steady salary that is paid by a company incorporated in my host country, and pay taxes to the host government. I file a tax return to the U.S. Government each year, but all my income is excluded so I do not pay any taxes. In this way, I do not think that I can write anything off on my U.S. tax return. Also, I have absolutely no idea if I would be able to write off any losses on my Japanese tax return (I've entrusted all the family tax issues to my wife). Would this be possible? I can't answer this question but you seem to be looking for information on ""cross-border tax harvesting"". If Google doesn't yield useful results, I'd suggest you talk to an accountant who is familiar with the relevant tax codes. Are there any other available options (that would not involve having to tell my wife about the loss, which would be inevitable if I were to go the tax write-off route in Japan)? This is off topic but you should probably have an honest conversation with your wife regardless. If I continue to hold onto this asset the value will decrease lower and lower. Any suggestions as to what to do? See above: close your position ASAP For more information on the pitfalls of leveraged ETFs (FINRA) What happens if I hold longer than one trading day? While there may be trading and hedging strategies that justify holding these investments longer than a day, buy-and-hold investors with an intermediate or long-term time horizon should carefully consider whether these ETFs are appropriate for their portfolio. As discussed above, because leveraged and inverse ETFs reset each day, their performance can quickly diverge from the performance of the underlying index or benchmark. In other words, it is possible that you could suffer significant losses even if the long-term performance of the index showed a gain." |
244749 | Is selling Vested RSU is the same as selling a regular stock? Yes. Your basis (to calculate the gain) is what you've been taxed on when the RSUs vested. Check your payslips/W2 for that period, and the employer should probably have sent you detailed information about that. I'm not a US citizen, my account is in ETrade and my stocks are of a US company, what pre arrangements I need to take to avoid tax issues? You will pay capital gains taxes on the sale in Israel. Depending on where you were when you earned the stocks and what taxes you paid then - it may open additional issues with the Israeli tax authority. Check with an Israeli tax adviser/accountant. |
244986 | "I support the strategy to buy a less expensive car at the outset and then save for that more expensive car. You mentioned that you would be able to save $9000 by the time you had to start making payments. That sounds like a great budget for car shopping. For $9k you can get a dependable used car. If you find the right high-yield savings account you can get around 2% on your $500/month direct deposit. That's a difference of about 5% when you add in the 2.9% interest that you would have been paying on the loan. (You can't find such a low risk investment that would yield 5% these days.) Also, at that rate (2%) you would have $27k saved up in less than 52 months, or over $31k in 60 months. Then you could buy a BMW with cash! And I'm sure they would give you a cash discount. Alternatively you could be just finishing paying off the loan and might already be looking at the next car you'll take a loan out for. The point is not that you have to completely deprive yourself for the rest of your life. But by not taking out a loan you were certainly come out ahead in 5-10 years time. Also, one common mistake that new grads make is thinking that they are rich right out of college. Yes, you definitely have a nice salary and ""could afford it"" by most people's standards. I have a coworker that graduated and started work a year ago. He first bought a brand new Subaru. Why Subaru I do not know, but that is what he thought he wanted. After driving the car for a few months he decided for a few reasons that it was not what he wanted. So he sold the car (for a loss) and bought a slightly used Nissan Z. He has since decided that he needs a more practical car for day to day driving to minimize the abuse that his Z takes. So he has bought another car. This time a low budget Honda. Had he started with a low budget car he could be driving the same car to work right now, but have a good chunk of savings for a new car instead of a loan and a car that he drives only occasionally." |
245122 | Talk to a tax professional. The IRS really doesn't like the deduction, and it's a concept (like independent contractors) that is often not done properly. You need to, at a minimum, have records, including timestamped photographs, proving that: Remember, documentation is key, and must be filed and accessible for a number of years. Poor record keeping will cost you dearly, and the cost of keeping those records is something that you need to weigh against the benefit. |
245228 | In my mind you would get all the money. You owned 100% when that transaction occurred. S/He gets 10% then on everything after. I usually go to an extreme case to figure out the answer. So... If S/He bought 100% of the company it wouldn't go to the company it would go to you. I would be open to criticism on this answer I am answering from common sense not because I really know the answer. |
245447 | "For simplicity, let's start by just considering cash back. In general, cash back from credit cards for personal use is not taxable, but for business use it is taxable (sort of, I'll explain later). The reason is most personal purchases are made with after tax dollars; you typically aren't deducting the cost of what you purchased from your personal income, so if you purchase something that costs $100 and you receive $2 back from the CC company, effectively you have paid $98 for that item but that wouldn't affect your tax bill. However, since businesses typically deduct most expenses, that same $100 deduction would have only been a $98 deduction for business tax purposes, so in this case the $2 should be accounted for. Note, you should not consider that $2 as income though; that would artificially inflate your revenue. It should be treated as a negative expense, similar to how you would handle returning an item you purchased and receiving a CC refund. Now for your specific questions: Part 1: As a small business owner, I wish to attend an annual seminar to improve my business. I have enough credit card reward points to cover the airfare, hotel, and rental car. Will those expenses still be deductible at the value displayed on the receipt? Effectively no, these expenses are not deductible. If you deduct them they will be completely counter-acted by the ""refund"" you receive for the payments. Part 2: Does it matter if those points are accrued on my personal credit card, rather than a business credit card? This is where it gets hairy. Suppose your company policy is that employees make purchases with their own personal credit cards and submit receipts for reimbursement. In this case the employer can simply reimburse and would not know or care if the employee is racking up rewards/points/cashback. The trick is, as the employee, you must always purchase business related items normally so you have receipts to show, and if you receive cashback on the side there seems to be a ""don't ask, don't tell"" rule that the IRS is OK with. It works the same way with heavy business travelers and airline miles- the free vacations those users get as perks are not treated as taxable income. However, I would not go out of my way to abuse this ""loophole"". Typically, things like travel (airfare, hotel, car rental, meals) are expected. But I wouldn't go purchase 100 company laptops on your personal card and ask the company to reimburse you. The company should purchase those 100 laptops on a company card and effectively reduce the sale price by the cashback received. (Or more realistically, negotiate a better discount with your account rep and just cut them a check.) Part 3: Would there be any difference between credit card points and brand-loyalty points? If the rental car were paid for with points earned directly on the rental car company's loyalty system (not a CC), would that yield a different result? There is no difference. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. This is why when you volunteer and work 10 hours for a charity, you can't call that a ""donation"" of any amount of money because there is no actual payment made that would show up on a bank statement. Instead you could have billed the charity for your 10 hours of work, and then turned around and donated that same amount back to them, but it ends up being a wash." |
245484 | I've not gotten an answer so far. Since I've started my search for a new financial planner here are the criteria I am using: |
245532 | China is in the middle of a residential housing bubble, and now is probably a horrible time to invest in real estate in China. Even if China wasn't near the peak of its bubble it would probably still be a bad idea because owning real estate in a foreign country is expensive and risky. There are real currency risks, think what would happen if the yuan declined significantly against the dollar. There is also the risk of the government seizing foreign held investments (not extremely likely but plausible). Another consideration is that it would be next to impossible for you to get a loan to purchase a property US banks wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole and I doubt Chinese banks would be very interested in lending to foreigners. |
245616 | "First off, the answer to your question is something EVERYONE would like to know. There are fund managers at Fidelity who will a pay $100 million fee to someone who can tell them a ""safe"" way to earn interest. The first thing to decide, is do you want to save money, or invest money. If you just want to save your money, you can keep it in cash, certificates of deposit or gold. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, gold tends to hold its value over time and will always have value. Even if Russia invades Switzerland and the Swiss Franc becomes worthless, your gold will still be useful and spendable. As Alan Greenspan famously wrote long ago, ""Gold is always accepted."" If you want to invest money and make it grow, yet still have the money ""fluent"" which I assume means liquid, your main option is a major equity, since those can be readily bought and sold. I know in your question you are reluctant to put your money at the ""mercy"" of one stock, but the criteria you have listed match up with an equity investment, so if you want to meet your goals, you are going to have to come to terms with your fears and buy a stock. Find a good blue chip stock that is in an industry with positive prospects. Stay away from stuff that is sexy or hyped. Focus on just one stock--that way you can research it to death. The better you understand what you are buying, the greater the chance of success. Zurich Financial Services is a very solid company right now in a nice, boring, highly profitable business. Might fit your needs perfectly. They were founded in 1872, one of the safest equities you will find. Nestle is another option. Roche is another. If you want something a little more risky consider Georg Fischer. Anyway, what I can tell you, is that your goals match up with a blue chip equity as the logical type of investment. Note on Diversification Many financial advisors will advise you to ""diversify"", for example, by investing in many stocks instead of just one, or even by buying funds that are invested in hundreds of stocks, or indexes that are invested in the whole market. I disagree with this philosophy. Would you go into a casino and divide your money, putting a small portion on each game? No, it is a bad idea because most of the games have poor returns. Yet, that is exactly what you do when you diversify. It is a false sense of safety. The proper thing to do is exactly what you would do if forced to bet in casino: find the game with the best return, get as good as you can at that game, and play just that one game. That is the proper and smart thing to do." |
245702 | "It appears that there's a confusion between the different types of average. Saying ""the average investor"" generally means the most common type of small-scale unsophisticated investor - the mode (or possibly median) investor. However, while this class of investors is numerous, each of them has assets that are quite small compared to some other types of investors; and the market average performance is determined proportionally to the amount of assets held, not to the number of holders; so the performance of large investors ""counts"" that much more. For any measure, the mode of performance can be (and often is) different from the mean performance - in this case, Dalbar is saying that the most common results are lower than the (weighed) average results." |
245746 | Read the terms and conditions very carefully. Many zero percent deals have a requirement that you pay back at a certain date, and if you don't, you'll have to pay some enormous percentage. Nobody will remind you of the date, because the lender has the secret hope that you will forget. |
245753 | Yes, You will have to pay the taxes at least initially but you'll most probably get a refund when you will file returns depending upon the amount and tax brackets in the UK. |
245786 | Don't frett to much about your retirement savings just put something towards it each year. You could be dead in ten years. You should always try to clear out debt when you can. But don't wipe yourself out! Expedite the repayment process. |
245867 | I strongly suggest you go to www.investor.gov as it has excellent information regarding these types of questions. A mutual fund is a company that pools money from many investors and invests the money in securities such as stocks, bonds, and short-term debt. The combined holdings of the mutual fund are known as its portfolio. Investors buy shares in mutual funds. Each share represents an investor’s part ownership in the fund and the income it generates. When you buy shares of a mutual fund you're buying it at NAV, or net asset value. The NAV is the value of the fund’s assets minus its liabilities. SEC rules require funds to calculate the NAV at least once daily. Different funds may own thousands of different stocks. In order to calculate the NAV, the fund company must value every security it owns. Since each security's valuation is changing throughout the day it's difficult to determine the valuation of the mutual fund except for when the market is closed. Once the market has closed (4pm eastern) and securities are no longer trading, the company must get accurate valuations for every security and perform the valuation calculations and distribute the results to the pricing vendors. This has to be done by 6pm eastern. This is a difficult and, more importantly, a time consuming process to get it done right once per day. Having worked for several fund companies I can tell you there are many days where companies are getting this done at the very last minute. When you place a buy or sell order for a mutual fund it doesn't matter what time you placed it as long as you entered it before 4pm ET. Cutoff times may be earlier depending on who you're placing the order with. If companies had to price their funds more frequently, they would undoubtedly raise their fees. |
245917 | >wasn't told he still needed to pay back the difference in the loan once he did Ouch. Even though sometimes you dont have to pay the difference if the collateral wasnt sold in a commercially reasonable manner. Its been a while since ive read title 9, but there are a lot if rules about selling collateral after repossession. It sounds like the collection company really screwed him over by selling way under market. |
245926 | Well, premium is the least of my worries. I would rather worry about that than have to worry about a margin call. I hate debt, and so this is the draw for me. I will check on that. I have a few books on options and derivatives, and I find it quite fascinating! I would really like a specific book on future options, but I will take a look through the books I have. Thanks! |
245975 | What is the interest rate on the balance you'll be carrying? Even at a modest interest rate of only 10% (many cards can be double that) means you'll pay $500 in interest if you carry the $5000 balance for a year. At 20% you'll pay $500 interest in just six months. You also mentioned this would be $5000 MORE than you usually spend in this time, so I imagine your balance could be higher. |
246058 | Hey, no worries at all. Like any business practice there are proper uses and abuses. First and foremost, companies should engage in allocation of capital that best serves their uses given prospects of 'returns' in a broad sense (this could very well include employee remuneration). After that, all excess funds should be distributed (through buybacks or dividends). There is without a doubt overincentivizing going on (i.e. buybacks preceding prudent capex or other investments) to boost C-suite pay. In other cases it is actually used to hide declining performance altogether (declining earnings compensated by decreasing outstanding shares). This is simply poor management using these tools. They would have most likely used others were these not made available to them (e.g underpaying/understaffing). It's an investors job to allocate capital that rewards good management practice. The problem is that this is an ideal made harder by obfuscation on the part of management, lack of governance and even the rise of passive management among others. I'm in private equity myself (with a strong focus on prudence and longevity of companies), so these are considerations that go without saying. I'm sometimes quite astonished what public companies get away with, but you can't blame tools for being used poorly or being available. |
246221 | ESPP tax treatment is complicated. If you received a discount on the purchase of your stock, that discount is taxable as ordinary income when you sell the stock. Any profit about the market value when the stock was purchased is taxed based upon the holding period of the stock. If you have held the stock less than a year, the profit is taxed at your marginal tax rate (ie taxed as ordinary income). If the stock is held for more than a year, it is taxed at a special capital gains tax rate, which ranges from 0-20% depending on your marginal tax rate (most people pay 15%). |
246453 | "J - Approaching the answer from the W4 perspective (for calculation purposes) may be more trouble that it's worth. I'd strongly suggest you use tax software, whether it's the 2016 SW or a current year one, on line, to get an estimate of your total tax bill for the year. You can then look at your current run rate of tax paid in to see if you are on track. If you have a large shortfall, you can easily adjust your withholdings. If you are on track to get a large refund, make the adjustment so next year will track better. Note, a withholding allowance is equal to a personal exemption. Some think that ""4"" means 4 people in the house, but it actually means ""don't tax 4 x $4050"" as I have $16200 in combined people or tax deductions." |
246461 | In the US, you can only take a tax deduction on expenses to the extent that they offset income. For an S corp or LLC, if the business had no income, there's no deduction to take. If you have a sole proprietorship, these expenses can offset other income. You can also carry-forward net operating losses to future years when you have more income. See the article How to Carry Over Business Expenses |
246522 | The idea is great but US securities laws impose a huge burden on these businesses. Specifically [Rule 502(c)](http://taft.law.uc.edu/CCL/33ActRls/rule502.html) of Reg D prohibits 'general solicitation and advertising' - such as using the internet. There is currently pending legislation to amend the [US Securities act of 1933 sec. 4(2)](http://taft.law.uc.edu/CCL/33Act/sec4.html) regarding public offerings to help reduce such barriers, but as it stands there are significant barriers to entry in the market. SEC filing and reporting requirements, especially after Dodd-Frank, are onerous to say the least, and running direct lending services are at the moment largely cost prohibitive due to these requirements. |
246529 | Basically isn't this like if they loaned a bank 400b with 401b due tomorrow, and then the bank took the same loan the next day? Gross exaggeration I know, but I just want to make sure that is the way this works. |
246586 | Brokerage firms are required to report the number of shares being shorted. This information is reported to the exchange (NYSE of NASDAQ) and is made public. Most financial sites indicate the number of shares being shorted for a particular stock. The image below from Yahoo finance shows 3.29 million shares of CMG were being shorted at the close of 9-28-2012. This is over 12% of the total outstanding shares of CMG. For naked short selling additional information is tracked. If the brokerage is unable to borrow shares to deliver before the settlement date of a short sale then the transaction is recorded as fails-to-deliver. No money or shares are exchanged since the brokerage is unable to deliver the shares that were agreed upon. A large amount of fails-to-deliver transactions for a stock usually indicates an excessive amount of naked shorting. When investors and brokerage firms start to aggressively short a stock they will do so without having borrowed the shares to sell. This will result in a large amount of naked short selling. When there are a large number of naked short sellers not all the sellers will be able to borrow the necessary shares before the settlement date and many fails-to-deliver transactions will be recorded. The SEC records the number of fails-to-deliver transactions. The table below summarizes the fails-to-deliver transactions from 1-1-2012 through 9-14-2012 (data obtained from here). The “Ext Amount” column shows the total dollar value of the transactions that failed ( i.e. Fail Qty * Share price ). The “Volume” column is the total number of shares traded in the same time period. The “% Volume” shows the percentage of shares that failed to deliver as a percentage of the total market volume. The table orders the data in descending order by the quantity of shares that were not delivered. Most of the companies at the top of the list no longer exist. For many of these companies, the quantity of shares that failed to deliver where many multiples of the number of shares traded during the same time period. This indicates massive naked short selling as many brokerages where unable to find shares to borrow before the settlement date. More information here. |
246791 | Thank you for responding. This all happened Friday night and I've been doing the job alone this weekend to offset the cost. I do very itemized invoices and planned on showing the difference there but, honestly, wasn't wanting to verbalize it to the client out of embarrassment. I knew it would have been an unprofessional move not to say anything and, admittedly, hoped I could find a way around it. But, you're right and I'll go ahead and do both. Note: 10 years I've been doing this and I feel like my 12 year old self putting my terrible report card on the dining table for my mom to see and sign as I head out the door for school:( |
246882 | I would say generally, the answer is No. There might be some short term relief to people in certain situations, but generally speaking you sign a contract to borrow money and you are responsible to pay. This is why home loans offer better terms then auto loans, and auto loans better than credit cards or things like furniture. The better terms offer less risk to the lender because there are assets that can be repossessed. Homes retain values better than autos, autos better than furniture, and credit cards are not secured at all. People are not as helpless as your question suggests. Sure a person might lose their high paying job, but could they still make a mortgage payment if they worked really hard at it? This might mean taking several part time jobs. Now if a person buys a home that has a very large mortgage payment this might not be possible. However, wise people don't buy every bit of house they can afford. People should also be wise about the kinds of mortgages they use to buy a home. Many people lost their homes due to missing a payment on their interest only loan. Penalty rates and fees jacked up their payment, that was way beyond their means. If they had a fixed rate loan the chance to catch up would have not been impossible. Perhaps an injury might prevent a person from working. This is why long term disability insurance is a must for most people. You can buy quite a bit of coverage for not very much money. Typical US households have quite a bit of debt. Car payments, phone payments, and either a mortgage or rent, and of course credit cards. If income is drastically reduced making all of those payments becomes next to impossible. Which one gets paid first. Just this last week, I attempted to help a client in just this situation. They foolishly chose to pay the credit card first, and were going to pay the house payment last (if there was anything left over). There wasn't, and they are risking eviction (renters). People finding themselves in crisis, generally do a poor job of paying the most important things first. Basic food first, housing and utilities second, etc... Let the credit card slip if need be no matter how often one is threatened by creditors. They do this to maintain their credit score, how foolish. I feel like you have a sense of bondage associated with debt. It is there and real despite many people noticing it. There is also the fact that compounding interest is working against you and with your labor you are enriching the bank. This is a great reason to have the goal of living a debt free life. I can tell you it is quite liberating. |
247085 | "People who rent an apartment will typically pay by check. Probably 90% of the checks I have written are for rent. To some extent this falls under the previously mentioned ""payments to another person"" rule." |
247486 | This means that if your capital under my management ends up turning a profit, I will keep half of those profits, but if I lose you money, I will cover half those losses. The bold part is where you lose me. This absolutely exists with the exception of the loss insurance. It just requires a lot more than the general retail consumer investor has to contribute. Nobody wants to take on the responsibility of your money then split 50% of the gross proceeds of your $10,000 (or whatever nominal amount of money you're dealing with) investment and return it all to you after a year. And NO money manager will insure that the market won't decline. Hedge funds, PE Firms, VC Firms, Investment Partnerships, etc all basically run the way you're describing (again without your loss insurance). Everyone's money is pooled and investments are made. Everyone shares the spoils and everyone shares the losses. And to top it off, the people making investment decisions have their money invested in the fund. All of them have to pay rent and accountants and other costs associated with running the fund and that will eat in to the proceeds to some degree; because returns are calculated on net proceeds. With enough money you can buy yourself in to a hedge fund, for the rest of us there are ETFs and other extremely fee-reasonable investment options. And if you don't think the performance and preservation of assets under management is not an incentive to treat the money with care you're kidding yourself (your first bullet point). I'll add that aside from skewing the manager's risk tolerance toward guaranteed returns I doubt you would fair favorably over the long term compared to simply paying even an egregious 1% expense ratio on an ETF. If you look at the S&P performance for 10 or 20 or however many years, I'd venture that a couple good years of giving up half of your gains would have you screaming for your money back. The bad years would put the money manager out of business and the good years would squander your gains. |
247709 | "Short answer: No. Longer answer: The only reason to move would be to get out of the condo and into a SFR of equal cost because condos can be quite difficult to sell and you don't really want that potential burden later on. Moving is expensive though and you can't afford to spend more when you are already living on the financial edge. Speaking of living on the edge, that's a recipe for disaster. I make, ratio-wise, a similar sort of income. Even accounting for the generous college tuition, you should be able to save at least $20K per year...at a bare minimum. And if you were careful, I figure you should be able to save $40K/year. You need to figure out where you are dumping all of your money and cut WAY back on spending and focus entirely on saving money. 1) Stop eating out. Make your own meals. I average about $2 per meal per person - no junk food. Eating out is 6 to 30 times as expensive as making meals at home. Do the math: $10 * 2 people * number of times you eat out per week * 52 ($1,040 per year for each time/week!) vs $2 * 2 people * 21 (3 meals per day) * 52 ($4,368 per year for both of you...maximum). Now I know some meals are more expensive to prepare, but the math is not unrealistic - I spend about $140 per month on groceries and make the bulk of my own food. Eating out is sticker shock for me. The food I prepare is nutritionally balanced and complete. Now I'm not a complete health-nut. I love the occasional deep-fried treat or hamburger, but those are ""once every couple of months"" sort of things, which makes them special. 2) Stop going to Starbucks or wherever you habitually go. It takes fuel to get there. It's also expensive when you get there. Bring your own drink if you are hanging out with friends. 3) Drop golf. Or whatever expensive sport you are sinking money into. Invest in some cheap running clothes and focus on cardio-based workouts. Heart health is more important than anything else. If you can't live without your sport, then find an alternate sport that is ""equal""-ish in challenge but a ton cheaper to play. For example, if you like playing golf, play discgolf instead (most cities have courses) - there's no cost beyond a couple of discs and the challenge is still there. 4) Drop entertainment. Movies at the theater are expensive. Drop your cable subscription (you are getting financially raped for $1,500/year). Get a Netflix subscription and find shows via free online streaming services. Buy some dominoes, card games, and a couple of classic board games. Keep entertainment simple and cheap. 5) Drop your cell phone's data plan. Republic Wireless is the only decent cellular provider and even their $12/month plan is living a luxury lifestyle. If you spend more than $10/month/person for phone service, you are spending too much. 6) Stop driving everywhere. Gas is expensive. Cars are expensive. If you have more than two cars, sell the extras. If your car is worth more than $20,000, sell it and get something cheaper. 7) Stop drinking alcohol. Alcohol impairs mental functions, is addictive, smells terrible, and is ridiculously expensive. There's no actual need to consume it either. By the way, don't go and make major financial changes without the wife's sign-off. Finances are the #1 reason for divorce. So get her ""OK"" on this stuff. Hopefully you already knew that. The above are just some common financial pitfalls where people sink thousands and thousand of dollars and gain nothing. You can still have a full and complete life with just a minimum of the above. There is no excuse for living on the edge financially. Your story is one I'm going to share with those who give me the same excuse because they are ""poor"". You are ""I want to punch you in the face"" wealthy and you spend every last penny because you think that's how money works. You are wrong. One final piece of advice: Find a financial adviser. It is clear to me that you've been managing money wrong your whole life. A financial adviser will look at your situation and help you far more than someone on the Internet ever can. If you attend a church, many churches have the excellent Crown Financial Ministries program available which teaches sound financial management principles. The education system doesn't show people how to manage money, but that's not an excuse either. Once you dig yourself out of the financial hole you've dug for yourself, you can pass the knowledge on how to correctly manage money onto other people." |
247778 | It's sad. My mother lost her job after a brutal divorce. BOA bought up Countrywide, then when my mother pleaded for assistance BOA said they could not help her unless she was behind/in default of her mortgage. She tried to do a deed-in-lieu with a lawyer and BOA refused to accept the deed-in-lieu many times. Then BOA sold her mortgage to Green Tree (?) and they refused her deed-in-lieu as well. This went on for over 2 years and they foreclosed on the house. I told my mother to sue because they should have accepted her deed-in-lieu because it was approved by the court in her bankruptcy but she was tired of trying to save her house that she just walked away. 6 months after she left and moved in with my sister Green Tree called her offering a refinance at a lower rate and a mortgage payment that was less than a typical car payment. Now 5 years later my mom is just going to pay cash for her house and never do a mortgage again. |
247870 | No, if you are trading options to profit solely off the option and not own the underlying, you should trade it away because it costs more to exercise: |
247902 | If you buy puts, there are no guaranteed proceeds though. If you short against the box, you've got immediate proceeds with a nice capital loss if it doesn't work out. Conversely, you could write a covered call, take the contract proceeds, and write off the long position losses. Nobody ever factors tax consequences into the equation here. |
247952 | You should actually contact the company, not just try to. There are ways to do this. For example, show up in person, send registered mail. All other advice is moot until you actually contact the company. |
248108 | You need to see that prospectus. I just met with some potential new clients today that wanted me to take a look at their investments. Turns out they had two separate annuities. One was a variable annuity with Allianz. The other was with some company named Midland Insurance (can't remember the whole name). Turns out the Allianz VA has a 10 year surrender contract and the Midland has a 14 year contract. 14 years!!! They are currently in year 7 and if they need any money (I'm hoping they at least have a 10% free withdrawal) they will pay 6% surrender on the Allianz and a 15% surrender on the other. Ironically enough, they guy who sold this to them is now in jail. No joke. |
248269 | It really depends. If it is offered as compensation (ie in leiu of, or in addition to salary or cash bonus) then it would be reportable income, and if sold later for a profit then that would be taxable as gains. If this share is purchased as an investment at current value then it would be treated like other securities most likely gains realized at sale. Any discount could be considered income but there are some goofy rules surrounding this enacted to prevent tax evasion and some to spur growth. That is the answer in a nut shell. It is far more complicated in reality as there are somewhere around 2000 pages of regulations deal with different exceptions and scenerios. |
248615 | "As Mr. Money Money Mustache once said: IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT, YOU SHOULD FEEL LIKE YOUR HAIR IS ON FIRE Student loan debt is different than credit card debt. Rather than having spent the money on just about anything, it was invested in improving yourself and probably your financial future. This was probably a good decision. However, unlike most credit card debt, if you ever have to file for bankruptcy, your student loans will not be erased. They will follow you forever. Pay your debts off as quickly as you can. While it may be true that ""long-term return on the stock market is about 7%"", you cannot assume that this will always be the case, especially in the short term. What if you had made this assumption in 2007? To assume that your stocks will beat a 6.4% guaranteed return over the next few years is not really investing. It's gambling." |
248629 | If you have no net income or loss, you can usually get away without filing a tax return. In Illinois, the standard is: Filing Requirements You must file Form IL-1120 if you are a corporation that has net income or loss as defined under the IITA; or is qualified to do business in the state of Illinois and is required to file a federal income tax return (regardless of net income or loss). http://tax.illinois.gov/Businesses/TaxInformation/Income/corporate.htm Just keep your filing fee and any business licenses up to date, paying those fees personally and not out of business money (that would make for a net loss and trigger needing a tax return). Frankly, with how easy it is to register a new corp, especially an LLC which has many simplicity advantages from an S-corp in certain cases, you might still be better off shutting it down until that time. |
248677 | Speculation means putting your money on a hunch that some event may occur, depending on current circumstances and some future circumstances. So either you win huge or lose a lot. Investment is a conscious decision made on well defined research and grounded on good reasons i.e. economy, industry, company reports etc. Here is a link on wikipedia with more details on Speculation. |
248761 | You can claim a deduction only if all of your business is conducted from the home, i.e. your home is your principal place of business - not just if you work from home sometimes. The CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) has pretty strict guidelines listed here, but once you're sure you qualify for a deduction, the next step would be to determine what portion of your home qualifies. You cannot attempt to deduct your entire mortgage simply because you run your business out of your home. The portion of your mortgage and other related & allowable home expense deductions has to be pro-rated to be equal to or less than the portion of your home you use for business. Simply put, if your business is operated out of a 120 sq-ft self-contained space, and your home's total square-footage is 2400 sq-ft, you can deduct 5% of your expenses (120/2,400 = 0.05). Hope this helps! |
248853 | The trend in ETFs is total return: where the ETF automatically reinvests dividends. This philosophy is undoubtedly influenced by that trend. The rich and retired receive nearly all income from interest, dividends, and capital gains; therefore, one who receives income exclusively from dividends and capital gains must fund by withdrawing dividends and/or liquidating holdings. For a total return ETF, the situation is even more limiting: income can only be funded by liquidation. The expected profit is lost for the dividend as well as liquidating since the dividend can merely be converted back into securities new or pre-existing. In this regard, dividends and investments are equal. One who withdraws dividends and liquidates holdings should be careful not to liquidate faster than the rate of growth. |
248935 | Organize your expenses in order of the rate of return, and pay them in that order. By far the highest rate of return on your list is: Nowhere else are you going to see an immediate 100% return (or 50%, depending on the company's matching policy) on every dollar you allocate to this pot. Second would probably be: Money that you do not allocate here will usually incur a 15%-29% penalty. Outside of large expenses like a home, education, or a reasonable car, you never want to pay to use your own money (and borrowed money is still yours, remember that someday you have to pay all of it back). Avoiding a negative rate of return (interest) can be just as beneficial as finding a high positive rate of return on an investment. Continue down the list determining what must be paid first, and what the highest rates are in the immediate future and the long run. Meanwhile, live within your means, and set aside a portion of your monthly income towards things like a rainy day fund (up to a level which is not touched when reached). Additional savings through work or your personal investments should not be neglected (money saved early and compounded is worth many times what a dollar saved down the road will gain) especially if you are young in your career. |
249063 | I'd take the match, but I wouldn't contribute beyond your match, for two reasons: |
249158 | Realize that not everyone has the ability to save like that. If someone can save money, that means they are being paid (slightly) more than they need to survive. Many employers (too many) take that as a sign that they are over paying their workforce, and can easily replace them with people who get paid less, since they can also make it work by not setting anything significant aside. A lot of these people are only making it work by relying on credit too. It's easier than you might think to get trapped in a debt spiral, and a lot harder to get out when you cant take classes or even re-education courses to help you move up. |
249228 | You can use it for medical expenses even if you don't have a high deductible policy. It can cover prescriptions, copays, deductibles, co-insurance, dentist, orthodontics... As long as it is being used for an approved medical expense there is no tax or penalty. Yes it doesn't save you on the monthly service charges but it does allow you to cut your medical expenses for a while. |
249320 | While there are many very good and detailed answers to this question, there is one key term from finance that none of them used and that is Net Present Value. While this is a term generally associate with debt and assets, it also can be applied to the valuation models of a company's share price. The price of the share of a stock in a company represents the Net Present Value of all future cash flows of that company divided by the total number of shares outstanding. This is also the reason behind why the payment of dividends will cause the share price valuation to be less than its valuation if the company did not pay a dividend. That/those future outflows are factored into the NPV calculation, actually performed or implied, and results in a current valuation that is less than it would have been had that capital been retained. Unlike with a fixed income security, or even a variable rate debenture, it is difficult to predict what the future cashflows of a company will be, and how investors chose to value things as intangible as brand recognition, market penetration, and executive competence are often far more subjective that using 10 year libor rates to plug into a present value calculation for a floating rate bond of similar tenor. Opinion enters into the calculus and this is why you end up having a greater degree of price variance than you see in the fixed income markets. You have had situations where companies such as Amazon.com, Google, and Facebook had highly valued shares before they they ever posted a profit. That is because the analysis of the value of their intellectual properties or business models would, overtime provide a future value that was equivalent to their stock price at that time. |
249587 | That's true the system does effectively give HFT a right of first refusal to everything it sees. If HFT is willing to take all comers at your price for longer than you are willing to wait then you are indeed out of luck. OK it's cheating :) |
249604 | Note: that the New Zealand CPI in 2014 Q2 is 1.6% Year on Year, that is it is the inflation rate from 2013 Q2 to 2014 Q2. The quarterly change from 2014 Q1 to 2014 Q2 is 0.3%. Check out this Inflation Calculator. At the same time the Official Interest Rate in New Zealand was just raised on 24th July 2014 by 25 basis points to 3.5%. So your savings in the bank at a rate of 4.5% is beating inflation, but once you deduct any tax from the interest earned, you are just beating the current inflation rate, which is not really a good long term investment choice. |
249628 | "The homeowner gets all the profit from the price rise, because it's their asset. The bank will charge early repayment fees, but these are often a small fraction of the profits. This is why homeownership in rising markets is so popular: it offers the benefits of ""gearing"" a financial investment so that you can make profits that are a very large fraction of your principal (initial equity)." |
250007 | An overvalued blue chip is likely to retain some value if things go the wrong way.. Derivatives are a different game altogether. He said the average investor, which is accurate.. a slightly more inclined amateur will go for strategies such as value/growth.. but amateurs don't usually touch complex CDS/swaps/collars/etc. I get where you're coming from, and I agree, being an institution in itself doesn't guarantee better results.. but you're fooling yourself if you think they don't have advantages over retail investors. |
250038 | My go-to response whenever anyone asks me this is the Monevator table of platform fees. It looks a little complicated at first, but scroll past the table for a couple of paragraphs of useful info to help narrow down your search. The general tone of the page is geared more towards investors in index funds, but the fees on share-dealing are right there in the table too. There are also special notes if there are discounts for frequent traders and that sort of thing, so not too much passive-investor elitism on show! |
250294 | "You should certainly look into investments. If you don't expect to need the money until retirement, then I'd put it in an IRA so you get the tax advantages. It makes sense to keep some money handy ""just in case"", but $23k is a very large amount of money for an emergency fund. Of course much depends on your life situation, but I'm hard pressed to think of an unexpected emergency that would come up that would require $23k. If you're seriously planning to go back to school, then you might want to put the money in a non-retirement fund investment. As I write this -- September 2015 -- the stock market is falling, so if you expect to need the money within the next few months, putting it in the stock market may be a mistake. But long term, the stock market has always gone up, so it will almost certainly recover sooner or later. The question is just when. Investing versus paying off debts is a difficult decision. What is the interest rate on the debt? If it's more than you're likely to make on an investment, then you should pay off the debt first. (My broker recently told me that over the last few decades, the stock market has averaged 7% annual growth, so I'm using that as my working number.) If the interest rate is low, some people still prefer to pay off the debt because the interest is certain while the return on an investment is uncertain, and they're unwilling to take the risk." |
250500 | I can make that election to pay taxes now (even though they aren't vested) based on the dollar value at the time they are granted? That is correct. You must file the election with the IRS within 30 days after the grant (and then attach a copy to that year's tax return). would I not pay any taxes on the gains because I already claimed them as income? No, you claim income based on the grant value, the gains after that are your taxable capital gains. The difference is that if you don't use 83(b) election - that would not be capital gains, but rather ordinary salary income. what happens if I quit / get terminated after paying taxes on un-vested shares? Do I lose those taxes, or do I get it back in a refund next year? Or would it be a deduction next year? You lose these taxes. That's the risk you're taking. Generally 83(b) election is not very useful for RSUs of established public companies. You take a large risk of forfeited taxes to save the difference between capital gains and ordinary gains, which is not all that much. It is very useful when you're in a startup with valuations growing rapidly but stocks not yet publicly trading, which means that if you pay tax on vest you'll pay much more and won't have stocks to sell to cover for that, while the amounts you put at risk are relatively small. |
250503 | "I'm not sure if they're required to do so, but I have been neglecting to sign my cards for some time now. If they do check, that triggers an ID check, where they'll find my signature. I know of at least one person that writes ""see ID"" instead of signing their cards. He began that practice over 10 years ago." |
250623 | Assuming you purchased shares that were granted at a discount under the ESPP the 50% exemption would not apply. It's pretty unusual to see a US parent company ESPP qualify for the 110(1)(d) exemption, as most US plans provide for a discount |
250640 | With a limited company, you'll have to pay yourself a salary through PAYE. With income from your other job taking you over the higher-rate threshold, you should inform HMRC of this and get a tax code of DO for the second job, meaning 40% tax (and also both employer's and employee's National Insurance) will be deducted from the whole amount of the salary. See here. Dividends should be like any other dividend -- you won't pay extra tax when you receive them, but will have to declare them on your tax return and pay the tax later. See the official information here. You'll get a £5,000 tax allowance for dividends, but they'll still count as income for purposes of hitting the higher-rate threshold. I think in practice this means the first £5,000 will be tax-free, and the rest will be taxed at 32.5%. But note that you have to pay yourself at least the minimum wage as salary, not as dividend. I can't see IR35 being an issue. However, I'm not a professional, and this situation is complicated enough to need professional advice. Talk to an accountant or a tax advisor. |
250761 | "Stock prices are set by bidding. In principle, a seller will say, ""I want $80."" If he can't find anyone willing to buy at that price, he'll either decide not to sell after all, or he'll lower his price. Likewise, a buyer will say, ""I'll pay $70."" If he can't find anyone willing to pay that price, he'll either decide not to buy or he'll increase his price. For most stocks there are many buyers and many sellers all the time, so there's a constant interplay. The typical small investor has VERY little control of the price. You say, ""I want to buy 10 shares of XYZ Corporation and my maximum price is $20."" If the current trending price is below $20, your broker will buy it for you. If not, he won't. You normally have some time limit on the order, so if the price falls within your range within that time period, your broker will buy. That is, your choice is basically to buy or not buy, or sell or not sell, at the current price. You have little opportunity to really negotiate a better price. If you have a significant percentage of a company's total stock, different story. In real life, most stocks are being traded constantly, so buyers and sellers both have a pretty good idea of the current price. If the last sale was ten minutes ago for $20, it's unlikely anyone's going to now bid $100. They're going to bid $20.50 or $19.25 or some such. If the last sale was for $20 and your broker really came to the floor and offered to buy for $100, I suppose someone would sell to him very quickly before he realized what an outrageous price this was. I use TD Ameritrade, and on their web site, if I give a price limit on a buy that's more than a small percentage above the last sale, they reject it as an error. I forget the exact number but they won't even accept a bid of $80 if the stock is going for $40. They might accept $41 or $42, something like that." |
250798 | (I am making the assumption that this is a US based question). Keep in mind that the alternative is to amend your tax forms from 2010, and 2011. The IRS and the State will want their money, they might not to wait for 78 paychecks. That is 3 years. Ask for lots of documentation, so you understand what they are doing. |
250844 | There are some nuances with HCE definition. To answer your questions. It's compensation as defined by the plan. Usually it's gross comp, but it can exclude things like fringe benefits, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, etc. The compensation test is also a look-back test, meaning that an EE is determined to be an HCE in the current year if their compensation in the previous year was over the limit. I'm not sure how stock options affect this, but I expect they would be counted. Probably have an ESOP plan at that point too which is a whole other can-o-woms. The 5% owner test applies to the current year and also has a one-year look-back period. If at ANY point, even for a day, an employee was more than 5% owner, they are HCE for that year and next. Yes there is a limit. A company may limit the amount of HCE's to the top 20% of employees by pay like Aganju said. They can also disregard employees that may otherwise have been excluded under the plan using statutory exclusions. Example, they can disregard employees under 21 years and with less than 1 year of service. Hahaha, the IRS does not like to concisely define things. You can look here, that's probably as concise as you'll get. Hope this helps! |
250873 | The best thing to do to avoid this is not to sell as you've described. What purpose does it solve? If you're speculating, set a price at which you want to cash out and put a limit order. If you're a long term investor, then unless something fundamental has changed - why would you sell? |
251265 | so you and your friend are trying to make a federal case over the fact that he's going to have to pay $1-3 in a month's time? [they had this rather popular series of self-help books a while back.](http://www.amazon.com/Sweat-Small-Stuff---small-Series/dp/0786881852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339809567&sr=8-1&keywords=don%27t+sweat+the+small+stuff) perhaps the two of you should explore it. |
251466 | For what its worth, I recently closed on a 30 year refinance mortage with an agent I found through Zillow. The lender has a perfect 5/5 reputation score, whose office was located within 5 miles of my house, and as suggested by justkt on MrChrister's response, I checked out the business on the better business bureau and its online presence prior to going forward with the bank. The process was relatively painless, and the APR and closing costs were less than my previous loan with a federal credit union which I've used in the past. I can't say if the bank I'll be using going forward is as good as the one I've used in the past, but overall I'm quite happy with it. I never met the individual in person but this saved both of us a fair amount of time honestly. |
251642 | Paying down your mortgage saves lots of interest. With a long term mortgage you end up paying twice us much to the bank than the sales price of the house. Even low mortgage interests are higher than short term bonds. The saving of those interest are as much an investment as the interest you get from a bond. However, before paying off a mortgage other higher interest loans should be paid off. Also it should be considered if the mortgage interest create a tax reduction in the comparison with any other options. |
251649 | "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." |
251704 | Ignoring brokerage fees and the wash-sale rule (both of which are hazardous to your health), and since the 15% LTCG tax is only on the gain, the stock would have to drop 15% of the gain in price since you originally purchased it. |
251837 | It's OK if he has good reasons not to invest. This has happened before and this will happen again. What's not cool in my book is saying stuff like 'people who are bullish on India haven't been to India'. Really? I mean have you been to Russia? Try to venture outside Moscow during late hours Or try to drive a rental vehicle. |
251846 | I am only familiar with American banks, but generally speaking, they will work with you if you can demonstrate that you have an adequate average income over a period of time. It is likely they will want a record of your income for at least the last 24 months (more would be better). The terms of the individual contracts (i.e. termination clauses, etc.) shouldn't be important as long as you have a demonstrated history of making a good income. I'd recommend finding a bank that performs manual underwriting, i.e. they actually have someone on staff that will look at your credit history, income, debt ratios, as opposed to them just generating an offer based on a computer model. Lending standards can vary quite a bit from bank to bank, and you have not listed your average annual income, so it is difficult to say whether they will offer you a mortgage, or for what amount, but you have a significant down payment. However, assuming that your numbers are good and that you can find someone intelligent to work with, it's unlikely that they will deny you simply because your income is uneven. Best of luck! |
252097 | "If you wish to lend them the money, make the check payable to the order of ""loan"", not directly to your son or daughter." |
252417 | Thank you for the links I definitely appreciate the help. It looks like there won't be anything free that will be too helpful I just don't want to spend all that money when it's going to be provided to me anyways. I even tried the library and there's a single book in my state that has three holds before me. |
252496 | 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. |
252737 | Does this plan make sense mathematically? - No not really. The housing market can be fairly volatile (depending on your location), and it is really a good market for buying right now. You're going to make 1 or 2% on your money over the next year and risk paying 10% more for the house (or more). Even if you had a loan at 5% - that would be 5% of what you still owe, not the full value of the house. Does it make sense in terms of the common rules about paying a mortgage off early? - Yes, though make sure you have at least 80% of the house value so you don't get nailed with PMI (which may have a fixed duration). Is there a better strategy that I am overlooking? - Yes, investigate buying a house now. I'm not saying rush into it - shop around and find a really good deal. Get a 15-year mortgage (or less) and put what you're able to down (maybe 80% down). You can then payoff the mortgage over the next year or two and not have the risk of the volatility of the market raising the prices on houses and you getting less for your money. |
252843 | FICA taxes are separate from federal and state income taxes. As a sole proprietor you owe all of those. Additionally, there is a difference with FICA when you are employed vs. self employed. Typically FICA taxes are actually split between the employer and the employee, so you pay half, they pay half. But when you're self employed, you pay both halves. This is what is commonly referred to as the self employment tax. If you are both employed and self employed as I am, your employer pays their portion of FICA on the income you earn there, and you pay both halves on the income you earn in your business. Edit: As @JoeTaxpayer added in his comment, you can specify an extra amount to be withheld from your pay when you fill out your W-4 form. This is separate from the calculation of how much to withhold based on dependents and such; see line 6 on the linked form. This could allow you to avoid making quarterly estimated payments for your self-employment income. I think this is much easier when your side income is predictable. Personally, I find it easier to come up with a percentage I must keep aside from my side income (for me this is about 35%), and then I immediately set that aside when I get paid. I make my quarterly estimated payments out of that money set aside. My side income can vary quite a bit though; if I could predict it better I would probably do the extra withholding. Yes, you need to pay taxes for FICA and federal income tax. I can't say exactly how much you should withhold though. If you have predictable deductions and such, it could be lower than you expect. I'm not a tax professional, and when it comes doing business taxes I go to someone who is. You don't have to do that, but I'm not comfortable offering any detailed advice on how you should proceed there. I mentioned what I do personally as an illustration of how I handle withholding, but I can't say that that's what someone else should do. |
252914 | A few things: time in trade, price maximum move against you during that time, price maximum move for you during that time, Where you got out in relation to maximum of the move (how much of the move did you capture in that trade -- from lowest to highest), what was your risk to return (R) -- return / risk. |
252918 | "Target Date Funds automatically change their diversification balance over time, rebalancing and reassigning new contributions to become progressively more protective of what you've already earned. (As opposed to other funds which continue to maintain the same balance of investments until you explicitly move the money around.) You can certainly make that same evolution manually; we all used to do that before target funds were made available, and many of us still do so. I'm still handling the relative allocations by hand. But I'm also close to my retirement target, so a target fund wouldn't be changing that much more anyway, and since I'm already tracking the curve... Note that if you feel a bit braver, or a bit more cautious, than the ""average investor"" the target fund was designed for, you can tweak the risk/benefit curve of a Target Date Fund by selecting a fund with a target date a bit later or earlier, respectively, than the date at which you intend to start pulling money back out of the fund." |
252978 | Capital One 360. No minimums balance, no fees. Everything's online. Make deposits using an app or an image of the check. ATMs are free almost everywhere. |
253045 | Obviously you don't know the full extent of our company, but I'd be forgoing my salary for a year. Is that worth it to get 10%? I mean assuming it becomes a 1 Million Dollar Idea, I'd get 100k while he gets 700k, working the same amount of time. Then i'd get put on salary. |
253210 | This may not exactly answer your question but, as a small business owner, I would highly recommend having a professional handle your taxes. It is worth the money to have it done correctly rather than doing something wrong and getting audited or worse having penalties assessed and owing more than you thought would be possible. I would recommend this especially if this is how you make your primary income, you can always write it off as a business expense. |
253369 | "The key phrase in your post is that the options are ""in a good position now"". They may be worthless in three months or a year. If I was you I would cash in the options and pay off the debt. Cash in enough to also cover taxes. You may want to cash them all in." |
253373 | What is my best course of action, trying to minimize future debt? Minimizing expenses is the best thing you can do. The first step to financial independence is making do with less. Assuming I receive this $3500, am I better off using the bulk to pay off my credit cards, or should I keep as much cash available as I can? This would depend on the interest rate that is associated with the credit cards and the $3500. If the $3500 has a higher interest rate than your credit cards, then do not use any of it to pay your credit cards. Paying back the money you borrow hurts but it's the interest rate that does you in. If the interest rate for the $3500 is lower than the credit card interest, then placing some of it on the credit cards may be a wise course of action. But this depends on how long you are out of work. If you could be out of work for an extended period of time, I would recommend holding on to all of the funds. Note on saving I know this goes against the grain, but I would actually not recommend saving several months worth of funds (maybe one month though). Most employers offer some type of retirement savings account (401(k), Thrift Savings Plan, etc.). I contribute 5% to this fund instead of putting the money in savings. This is an especially effective strategy if your employer offers matching contributions such as mine. Because the divedends for a savings account are so low, it is not a wise place to store your money in the long run. If I had placed my Thrift Savings Plan contributions in a standard savings account, I would now be $12,000 poorer. In addition to this, most long term investment accounts allow you to withdraw the money early in case of emergency, such as being without work. (I also find it too temping to have huge amounts of funds on hand). |
253391 | 401(k) contributions are pre-tax dollars, but at the cost of locking the money up. So you wouldn't have to pay taxes on it, but the funds wouldn't be available either. |
253563 | "In addition to all the points made in other answers, in some jurisdictions (including the UK where I live) the consumer credit laws require the lender to allow the borrower to pay off the loan at any time. If the lender charges interest and the borrower pays off the loan early then the lender loses the interest that would have been paid during the rest of the loan period. However if the actual interest is baked into the sale price of an item and the loan to pay for it is nominally ""0%"" then the borrower still pays all the interest even if they pay off the loan immediately. If you think this game is being played then you can ask for a ""cash discount"" (or similar wording: I once had problems with a car salesman who thought I meant a suitcase full of used £20s), meaning you want to avoid paying the interest as you are not taking a loan." |
253791 | Okay but still three people at $12/hr is $16 more per hour than one person at $20/hr. And if anything paying taxes and benefits for one employee is cheaper than doing so for three. I still don't see how u/NEVERDOUBTED asserts that the three at $12/hr cost less. Where's the math, man??? |