Datasets:

---

nthakur

/

bge-retrieval-data-ivf-query-pruning-fixed-50K

like 0

[ { "docid": "19a5eaff889e256c24b4d030e13e7d2c", "text": "As a general rule, you must choose between a mileage deduction or an actual expenses deduction. The idea is that the mileage deduction is supposed to cover all costs of using the car. Exceptions include parking fees and tolls, which can be deducted separately under either method. You explicitly cannot deduct insurance costs if you claim a mileage deduction. Separately, you probably won't be able to deduct the deductible for your car as a casualty loss. You first subtract $100 from the deductible and then divide it by your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from your tax return. If your deductible is over 10% of your AGI, you can deduct it. Note that even with a $1500 deductible, you won't be able to deduct anything if you made more than $14,000 for the year. For most people, the insurance deductible just isn't large enough relative to income to be tax deductible. Source", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "5abf3aeec6c19bec0614fea89f34cc6f", "text": "Business expenses reduce business income. The SE tax is paid on business income. The credit for 1/2 the SE tax is based on the amount of SE tax paid. So:", "title": "" }, { "docid": "255ced4517b0b7d6b04e2db97cfaec4c", "text": "The answer on the Canadian Government's website is pretty clear: Most employees cannot claim employment expenses. You cannot deduct the cost of travel to and from work, or other expenses, such as most tools and clothing. However, that is most likely related to a personal vehicle. There is a deduction related to Public Transportation: You can claim cost of monthly public transit passes or passes of longer duration such as an annual pass for travel within Canada on public transit for 2016. The second sleeping residence is hard to justify as the individual is choosing to work in this town and this individual is choosing to spent the night there - it is not currently a work requirement. As always, please consult a certified tax professional in your country for any final determinations on personal (and corporate) tax laws and filings.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4c0eb18c326e5065204d4fe2fa83bc4c", "text": "I can make that claim because I've dealt with negotiating with taxi insurance before. This doesn't have anything to do with the courts. This comes down to the driver and their insurance. Your regular car insurance doesn't cover commercial use. If you're using your vehicle for work, you have to tell your insurance company and then they adjust your policy. If you tell them you are running a cab service, they will straight up cancel your policy because there is an entirely separate insurance industry for cab companies. So, please, tell me more about the industry I worked in for 8 years.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7bf8250ba25bc7f34249ea8c31d7d2bb", "text": "As an individual, I am not aware of any insurance you can buy that will cover legal costs for any event that may occur (whether criminal or civil)... I imagine this is because the risk is too difficult to measure and the moral hazard too great. I do notice you mention rental property/small business needs. If your concern is truly for costs relating to some legal issue that arises out of your professional operations, then Professional liability insurance may be what you are looking for (oftentimes referred to as errors and omissions, or E&O for short). This insurance is specific to whatever business you engage in, however will typically protect you against legal claims (including defense costs) as a result of your business operations. Note however that what is actually covered will be specific to your policy. As duffbeer703 mentioned, the purpose of insurance is for covering specific losses, i.e., protecting you from legal claims that may arise during the course of business. If you are looking for a solution that will, e.g., provide you a standard set of legal documents (maybe a lease agreement) then you are not in fact looking for insurance, but instead legal services at a fixed rate. Why would an insurance company pay for services both you and it already know you need?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "316710461de83750af605d1897addf25", "text": "Chris, since you own your own company, nobody can stop you from charging your personal expenses to your business account. IRS is not a huge fan of mixing business and personal expenses and this practice might indicate to them that you are not treating your business seriously, and it should classify your business as a hobby. IRS defines deductible business expense as being both: ordinary AND necessary. Meditation is not an ordinary expense (other S-corps do not incur such expense.) It is not a necessary expense either. Therefore, you cannot deduct this expense. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Deducting-Business-Expenses", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e31d8c3f836d3ec8d604107df90b5081", "text": "For the purpose of personal finance, treating $500 as Interest Expense is sufficient. For business accounting, it involves making the $500 a contra-liability and amortizing it as interest expense over the course of life of the loan.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e1fe3430b8aac8f8a2d492cd2caaff94", "text": "Basically a company who provides health insurance for their employees provides it as part of the employee's salary package. This is an expense by the company in its pursuit of making income. In general, tax deductions are available on any expense incurred in deriving income (the exception is when social policy allows deductions for other types of expenses). If you pay for your own health insurance individually, then this expense is not an expense for you to derive your income, and as such is not tax deductible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7348a5a39e5d09a5d84942986787e34e", "text": "\"Disclaimer: This should go without saying, but this answer is definitely an opinion. (I'm pretty sure my current accountant would agree with this answer, and I'm also pretty sure that one of my past accountants would disagree.) When I started my own small business over 10 years ago I asked this very same question for pretty much every purchase I made that would be used by both the business and me personally. I was young(er) and naive then and I just assumed everything was deductible until my accountant could prove otherwise. At some point you need to come up with some rules of thumb to help make sense of it, or else you'll drive yourself and your accountant bonkers. Here is one of the rules I like to use in this scenario: If you never would have made the purchase for personal use, and if you must purchase it for business use, and if using it for personal use does not increase the expense to the business, it can be fully deducted by the business even if you sometimes use it personally too. Here are some example implementations of this rule: Note about partial expenses: I didn't mention partial deductions above because I don't feel it applies when the criteria of my \"\"rule of thumb\"\" is met. Note that the IRS states: Personal versus Business Expenses Generally, you cannot deduct personal, living, or family expenses. However, if you have an expense for something that is used partly for business and partly for personal purposes, divide the total cost between the business and personal parts. You can deduct the business part. At first read that makes it sound like some of my examples above would need to be split into partial calulations, however, I think the key distinction is that you would never have made the purchase for personal use, and that the cost to the business does not increase because of allowing personal use. Partial deductions come into play when you have a shared car, or office, or something where the business cost is increased due to shared use. In general, I try to avoid anything that would be a partial expense, though I do allow my business to reimburse me for mileage when I lend it my personal car for business use.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a2f90aea0d5c4bccafa3f3047a28797e", "text": "\"Assuming its in the US: No, it is not, and such things are usually treated as \"\"red flags\"\" for audit (and no, golf club memberships are not deductible either). The food expenses are not deductible in their entirety as well, only up to 50% of the actual expense, and only if it is directly business related. From what you've described, it sounds like if you have an audit coming you'll be in trouble. The purposes and activities of a club, not its name, will determine whether or not you can deduct the dues. You cannot deduct dues paid to: Country clubs, Golf and athletic clubs, Airline clubs, Hotel clubs, and Clubs operated to provide meals under circumstances generally considered to be conducive to business discussions.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4369868410d906a8c2a6ee3fc23dc638", "text": "It depends on the business entity. If the entity is a sole proprietorship or a general partnership, the individual are considered to be the business. There are no shares, and so yes, the owner would have to take on 75% of the expenses. For example, in the event of a lawsuit, if the claimant were awarded $1,000,000, the 75% partner would be personally liable for $750,000. In the event of a corporation, there are shares, so the responsibility is on the management of the company, not the owners, to come up with money for the expenses of the business. That money can come from the business' capital, which is the money owners have put in. Basically, for a corporate entity, the owner is not responsible for 75% of expenses, for a partnership, yes, they are.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fbe3c32df23d6bab65850a0504a96d0d", "text": "Very generally speaking if you have a loan, in which something is used as collateral, the leader will likely require you to insure that collateral. In your case that would be a car. Yes certainly a lender will require you to insure the vehicle that they finance (Toyota or otherwise). Of course, if you purchase a vehicle for cash (which is advisable anyway), then the insurance option is somewhat yours. Some states may require that a certain amount of coverage is carried on a registered vehicle. However, you may be able to drop the collision, rental car, and other options from your policy saving you some money. So you buy a new car for cash ($25K or so) and store the thing. What happens if the car suffers damage during storage? Are you willing to save a few dollars to have the loss of an asset? You will have to insure the thing in some way and I bet if you buy the proper policy the amount save will be very minimal. Sure you could drop the road side assistance, rental car, and some other options, during your storage time but that probably will not amount to a lot of money.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ade1f187fc1c0403179210d8806b6971", "text": "Yes, you will be able to claim it as an expense on your taxes, but not all in the current year. It is split into three categories: Current Expenses - Assets purchased such as inventory would be able to be claimed in the current year. Assets - Vehicles, Buildings, and equipment can be depreciated over time based on the value you purchased them for and the CCA class. Goodwill - In tax terms this is the value of the business purchase that is not eligible in 1 or 2 and is called Eligible Capital Property. This can be expensed over time. From info at CRA website: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/lf-vnts/byng/menu-eng.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "081f555c38ac6fb2c9bc41996fc7ad5a", "text": "\"Disclaimer: My answer is based on US tax law, but I assume Australian situation would be similar. The IRS would not be likely to believe your statement that \"\"I wouldn't have gone to the country if it wasn't for the conference.\"\" A two-week vacation, with a two-day conference in there, certainly looks like you threw in the conference in order to deduct vacation expenses. At the very least, you would need a good reason why this conference is necessary to your business. If you can give that reason, it would then depend on the specifics of Australian law. The vacation is clearly not just incidental to the trip. The registration for the conference is always claimable as a business expense.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "be257fcb0ae0253e58681c0f96f3d63a", "text": "\"The answer is \"\"Yes\"\", You can deduct them. As long as you showed that you put in effort to make a profit then you can deduct business expenses.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "71bd8b7bb71148feb7f19174d08ae7fa", "text": "\"When I have a question about my income taxes, the first place I look is generally the Giant Book of Income Tax Information, Publication 17 (officially called \"\"Your Federal Income Tax\"\"). This looks to be covered in Chapter 26 on \"\"Car Expenses and Other Employee Business Expenses\"\". It's possible that there's something in there that applies to you if you need to temporarily commute to a place that isn't your normal workplace for a legitimate business reason or other business-related travel. But for your normal commute from your home to your normal workplace it has this to say: Commuting expenses. You cannot deduct the costs of taking a bus, trolley, subway, or taxi, or of driving a car between your home and your main or regular place of work. These costs are personal commuting expenses. You cannot deduct commuting expenses no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work. You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commuting trip.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "475ff0dce200c39f9e5720194d86cca2", "text": "Miscellaneous income -- same category used for hobbies.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0e0ae1e5e3f2fc011f870fc4b608327e", "text": "\"You can list it as other income reported on line 21 of form 1040. In TurboTax, enter at: - Federal Taxes tab (Personal in Home & Business) - Wages & Income -“I’ll choose what I work on” Button Scroll down to: -Less Common Income -Misc Income, 1099-A, 1099-C. -The next screen will give you several choices. Choose \"\"Other reportable Income\"\". You will reach a screen where you can type a description of the income and the amount. Type in the amount of income and categorize as Tutoring.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "2fca1facc06f3225c3ebc700424e3432", "text": "Colloquially, there's no difference except for the level of risk (which is an estimate anyway). Classically, investment is creating wealth through improvement or production. Purchasing a house with the intent to renovate and sell it for a profit would be an investment, as the house is worth more when you sell than when you bought it. Speculation, on the other hand, is when you hope to make a profit through changes in the market itself. Purchasing a house, letting it sit for 6 months, and selling it for a profit would be speculation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "033b3dc786aabf615ad1a76442c0e644", "text": "\"There are moral distinctions that can be drawn between gambling and investing in stocks. First and I think most important, in gambling you are trying to get money for nothing. You put $100 down on the roulette wheel and you hope to get $200 back. In investing you are not trying to get something for nothing. You are buying a piece of a hopefully profit-making company. You are giving this company the use of your money, and in exchange you get a share of the profits. That is, you are quite definitely giving something: the use of your money for a period of time. You invest $100 of your money, and you hope to see that grow by maybe $5 or $10 a year typically. You may get a sudden windfall, of course. You may buy a stock for $100 today and tomorrow it jumps to $200. But that's not the normal expectation. Second, gambling is a zero sum game. If I gamble and win $100, then someone else had to lose $100. Investing is not a zero sum game. If I buy $100 worth of stock in a company and that grows to $200, I have in a sense \"\"won\"\" $100. But no one has lost $100 to give me that money. The money is the result of the profit that the company made by selling a valuable product or service to customers. When I go to the grocery store and buy a dozen eggs for $2, some percentage of that goes to the stockholders in the grocery store, say 5 cents. So did I lose 5 cents by buying those eggs? No. To me, a dozen eggs are worth at least $2, or I wouldn't have bought them. I got exactly what I paid for. I didn't lose anything. Carrying that thought further, investing in the stock market puts money into businesses. It enables businesses to get started and to grow and expand. Assuming these are legitimate businesses, they then provide useful products and services to customers. Gambling does not provide useful products and services to anyone -- except to the extent that people enjoy the process of gambling, in which case you could say that it is equivalent to playing a video game or watching a movie. Third -- and these are all really related -- the whole goal of gambling is to take something from another person while giving him nothing in return. Again, if I buy a dozen eggs, I give the store my $2 (or whatever amount) and I get a dozen eggs in exchange. I got something of value and the store got something of value. We both walk away happy. But in gambling, my goal is that I will take your money and give you nothing in return. It is certainly true that buying stocks involves risk, and we sometimes use the word \"\"gamble\"\" to describe any risk. But if it is a sin to take a risk, then almost everything you do in life is a sin. When you cross the street, there is a risk that you will be hit by a car you didn't see. When you drink a glass of water, there is the risk that it is contaminated and will poison you. When you get married, there is a risk that your spouse will divorce you and break your heart. Etc. We are all sinners, we all sin every day, but we don't sin quite THAT much. :-) (BTW I don't think that gambling is a sin. Nothing in the Bible says that gambling is a sin. But I can comprehend the argument for it. I think gambling is foolish and I don't do it. My daughter works for a casino and she has often said how seeing people lose money in the casino regularly reminds her why it is stupid to gamble. Like she once commented on people who stand between two slot machines, feed them both coins and then pull the levers down at the same time, \"\"so that\"\", she said, \"\"they can lose their money twice as fast\"\".)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "814386e466e2fcb8282aa0e2612cbcea", "text": "\"I am a healthcare compliance consultant making good money. I understand the logic behind ROI and education. I was trying to raise the point that choosing what to study is more than what you make when you're done with college or what the \"\"value\"\" of your degree is. Can't we value education intrinsically? Why does it have to be tied to ROI? Maybe the business sub isnt the best place for this debate, but I think its important.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "186949c06eb488b98bb884fff413d4d4", "text": "Renting a house out using a management company is mostly passive income. Earning affiliate income from companies that pay on a recurring basis is closer to passive income.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2eb9fcac14a964a1438a708467f2e8b", "text": "Why is one person more succesfull than another? At the end of the day I think it simply comes down to personal choices, some people will choose to invest their time in profitable indevours and some will not. This of course assumes people have a reasonable access to a mean of improvement (free education, vocational training, etc.)", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58f5c3b4f9fa26b9553a047ba094966b", "text": "Agreed. If you create a small sustainable biz for yourself, you create the freedom to pursue the hobby project ideas as well. You have a strong base which protects you. A software biz like ours is WAY more tolerant than a job. Like when I got sick for 3 mos and couldn't work at ALL, we didn't grow, but we didn't collapse either. It pretty much coasted. That means we have way more free time than we think we do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6adac1714e527948fccc024674e5b61a", "text": "\"I appreciate your taking the time to shoot some holes in this oft repeated statistic. However, I do disagree on some points. > Nor is there anything wrong with the person then ENDING that \"\"business\"\" and moving on... to another (different name, different field) business... or taking a job with some company There may not be anything shameful about doing that, but that scenario is, indeed, a business failure. People do not shutter a profitable (successful) business and then go to work for someone else. I believe a key contributor to the confusion is talking about the self-employed and business owners in the same breath. Someone who's self-employed basically owns a job. His income will always be directly proportional to the amount of time spent working and the company does not exist apart from himself. A business owner, on the other hand, has processes/equipment/staff/IP in place that generates income whether or not she gets out of bed in the morning. These are different people with different goals and cannot be lumped into the same demographic block.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f06119600d3aea07f3eb0978ad02434e", "text": "You would report it as business income on Schedule C. You may be able to take deductions against that income as well (home office, your computer, an android device, any advertising or promotional expenses, etc.) but you'll want to consult an accountant about that. Generally you can only take those kinds of deductions if you use the space or equipment exclusively for business use (not likely if it's just a hobby). The IRS is pretty picky about that stuff.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15f8fe31dafe995883d263bca748b91e", "text": "I know. It's crazy, if you step back and look at it. The issue is that startup media is really tabloid media. It focuses only on the big, unlikely wins, which appeals to our base instincts. We want to believe that we are Cinderella dressed up in Ruby on Rails. But the fact is, the more you read about extraordinary things, the more likely you are to think it will happen regularly, and happen to you. That's a basic cognitive bias, the availability heuristic. That, and the cooing of venture capitalists, is what leads people to believe that their hobbies or fun non-profit projects could and should make them rich.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "70959a94ab8dc442e876159289f59fd4", "text": "\"? You quoted an oft cited oft disproven false factoid. It's extremely biased. Like you seem to be. Most of those \"\"self made\"\", notice those quotes, people came from money. Their business is \"\"self made\"\", with family money. Like the article implies.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "691ed606e941985e1cf97265ec9495c9", "text": "You could say the same thing but replace money with pacman and it would be true for the guys who are really good at pacman. Making money can be no different than any other hobby. The only difference is that you can engage in direct exchange after the fact instead of barter exchange. But make no mistake enjoying it does not make warren any more insane than the pacman guys (or more seriously most academics).", "title": "" }, { "docid": "277aeb456c68a74536054f63adc22af7", "text": "These 'issues' don't exclusively relate to the 'sharing economy', the challenge of uncertainty would exist for any small business / independent contractor. It's not as if people didn't work as independent contractors in these industries before, it's just now the industries are being enhanced and overhead lowered, from technology. For example: Uber driver vs Medallion [Leasing] Taxi Driver AirBNB landlord vs Apartment landlord, vacation rental landlord, or traditional bed & breakfast owner. PostMates messenger vs traditional bike messenger", "title": "" }, { "docid": "84ab27a123f3a72dbaf250f4d0c4b850", "text": "One owns bar/restaurants and is a millionaire, but claims he never used anything he learned from the degree. He is more of a COO so in a way he doesn't need to think about the economics of the business. He just needs to operate/maintain. The other, lost his job so parents bought him a gas station. These people never really went the corporate route so they aren't the best examples, imo.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a4753cca35c315b3f8d6cff278a55bfe", "text": "By simplifying my hobbies, I have more time for money-saving activities such as researching deals, creating an effective coupon-clipping system, and making more foods from scratch (which doubles as entertainment since I enjoy it). When I run frantically from activity to activity, I tend to mindlessly throw away more money, too. By living more intentionally, I think about my purchases more as well. On the simplifying note, never underestimate the power of less stuff in terms of being able to fit into a smaller home. That leads to less space to heat and cool, which leads to savings. Everyone has their comfort level with less, of course, and some people love space. There are just trade-offs to more stuff.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a0df265d0fc10366cd384ff52dbfec00", "text": "Possible alternative: In my case, the part-time locksmithing is a small enough portion of my I come that I just submit it as hobby income, rather than trying to track it as a separate entity.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "8e31f9a452a967f889442863ca55440f", "text": "From http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Business+Fundamentals The facts that affect a company's underlying value. Examples of business fundamentals include debt, cash flow, supply of and demand for the company's products, and so forth. For instance, if a company does not have a sufficient supply of products, it will fail. Likewise, demand for the product must remain at a certain level in order for it to be successful. Strong business fundamentals are considered essential for long-term success and stability. See also: Value Investing, Fundamental Analysis. For a stock the basic fundamentals are the second column of numbers you see on the google finance summary page, P/E ratio, div/yeild, EPS, shares, beta. For the company itself it's generally the stuff on the 'financials' link (e.g. things in the quarterly and annual report, debt, liabilities, assets, earnings, profit etc.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "ed8ac5cafaa4a0d9cf5ad7b74ff04938", "text": "\"As other people have posted starting with \"\"fictional money\"\" is the best way to test a strategy, learn about the platform you are using, etc. That being said I would about how Fundamental Analysis works . Fundamental Analysis is the very basis of learning about an assets true value is priced. However in my humble opinion, I personally just stick with Index funds. In layman's terms Index Funds are essentially computer programs that buy or sell the underlying assets based on the Index they are associated with in the portion of the underlying index. Therefore you will usually be doing as good or as bad as the market. I personally have the background, education, and skillsets to build very complex models to do fundamental analysis but even I invest primarily in index funds because a well made and well researched stock model could take 8 hours or more and Modern Portfolio Theory would suggest that most investors will inevitably have a regression to the mean and have gains equal to the market rate or return over time. Which is what an index fund already does but without the hours of work and transaction cost.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c273003dc6bb4bc0fda17ca3b38d53b0", "text": "\"Your comment is more related to economics rather than finance. You're right that with conventional, everyday goods that \"\"value\"\" is an entirely subjective thing. Economists formalize this idea with the notion that people's preferences determine market prices. In finance, though, \"\"fundamental value\"\" relates to the value of the cash-flows produced by a financial asset. In Marxian terms, we're talking about exchange value - what can I get if I take this bond/stock and sell it. The value I get should be equivalent to the monetary value of the cashflows produced by that asset over time, discounting for uncertainty, etc. So, \"\"fundamental value\"\" is a bit more objective in finance since these things produce something quasi-objective - cash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56815446ee85684b1e933f6502565d5f", "text": "Triple Bottom Line places a special focus on preserving a wide technical skill set, while retaining an exceptional level of technical expertise, which enables the company to fulfill its mission. Triple Bottom Line offers our clients a broad spectrum of mobile application development services. We have team of dedicated developers specializing in Android , iPhone, Symbian, iPad, tablets, Blackberry, JQuery, Titanium, C+, Javascript, html5, Facebook Apps, Twitter Apps, Palm, Android TV apps, Apple's iTV, and Web design and development. We can also put your app in the Barnes and Nobles' Nook, Amazon's and other bookstore's Kindle, AT&T's U-verse TV with our approved developer accounts. We are specialists in various API and SDK integration including AT&T, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Paypal, among many more. Our services create affordable development for corporate clients and development firms. We provide solutions at an affordable price with superior quality. Contact us for a quote to see how affordable it will be to complete your mobile application needs with alacrity. Visit our website @ http://tbldevelopmentfirm.com/", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4e0be7ab0b5c4a8ad8dee1636aa05953", "text": "\"Synergy is when a relationship makes its members stronger. \"\"Relationships\"\" doesn't cut it. Results and [ROI](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp) are very different. If a subordinate brings an insignificant problem to their manager, \"\"be realistic\"\" doesn't have quite the kick that \"\"deal with it\"\" does, IMO, but I'll give it to you. I'm not sure what you're getting at with \"\"Expectations? Goals?\"\", but managing expectations is conveyed in neither. Your terms do not suffice, and your lack of understanding leads me to believe that you're either really junior or not in business at all.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a3d0faea96982b5a5ffaa1971f1df44c", "text": "No. The information you are describing is technical data about a stock's market price and trading volume, only. There is nothing implied in that data about a company's financial fundamentals (earnings/profitability, outstanding shares, market capitalization, dividends, balance sheet assets and liabilities, etc.) All you can infer is positive or negative momentum in the trading of the stock. If you want to understand if a company is performing well, then you need fundamental data about the company such as you would get from a company's annual and quarterly reports.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a39b37febb386d8d25976b32ed6e7097", "text": "all of these examples are great if you actually believe in fundamentals, but who believes in fundamentals alone any more? Stock prices are driven by earnings, news, and public perception. For instance, a pharma company named Eyetech has their new macular degeneration drug approved by the FDA, and yet their stock price plummeted. Typically when a small pharma company gets a drug approved, it's off to the races. But, Genetech came out said their macular degeneration drug was going to be far more effective, and that they were well on track for approval.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "68ad2d6cc4afb29c1b2f1b4a8f0d38f1", "text": "All you have to do is ask Warren Buffet that question and you'll have your answer! (grin) He is the very definition of someone who relies on the fundamentals as a major part of his investment decisions. Investors who rely on analysis of fundamentals tend to be more long-term strategic planners than most other investors, who seem more focused on momentum-based thinking. There are some industries which have historically low P/E ratios, such as utilities, but I don't think that implies poor growth prospects. How often does a utility go out of business? I think oftentimes if you really look into the numbers, there are companies reporting higher earnings and earnings growth, but is that top-line growth, or is it the result of cost-cutting and other measures which artificially imply a healthy and growing company? A healthy company is one which shows year-over-year organic growth in revenues and earnings from sales, not one which has to continually make new acquisitions or use accounting tricks to dress up the bottom line. Is it possible to do well by investing in companies with solid fundamentals? Absolutely. You may not realize the same rate of short-term returns as others who use momentum-based trading strategies, but over the long haul I'm willing to bet you'll see a better overall average return than they do.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20f359098fd69ea33661b6f8f5533514", "text": "Google Portfolio does the job: https://www.google.com/finance/portfolio You can add transaction data, view fundamentals and much more.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0526e7431f71287e6672e599e85d48e", "text": "\"Is english not your first language? I'm not trying to be rude i just want to understand if the difficulty in communicating with you comes from a language barrier or something else. Finance and accounting knowledge are things people go to university for years for, just to learn the basics to get in the door. What you're asking requires years of experience and earned expertise. The expectation that you can just post here with some questions and suddenly have enough of a grasp to become a decision maker with respect to these situations is borderline offensive to professionals like myself. Either you need this knowledge for a practical application, or an academic pursuit. It seems to be the latter given your previous message. There are textbooks dedicated to what you're asking about, if you are really serious about learning then go pick them up and put in the hours necessary just like anyone else. Otherwise stop wasting peoples time on here. If you have one or two small questions to help clarify something you've been self studying that's fine, but honestly coming on here and asking \"\"how can a company issue bonds and what are bonds is it like a mortgage\"\" is absolutely a waste of time and reeks of laziness on your part.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "444b5c847964ff77552b194814e3ac68", "text": "\"Spoken like a true non-business person. I'm an engineer that now has an MBA. It's not \"\"fluff\"\", far from it. In fact, I'm doing more quantitative work now than I did as an engineer. I use MATLAB and Excel more than I ever did before. And I'm in marketing, one of the less quantitative MBA jobs.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "374e6710563e24b0d8106fb204e53dd2", "text": "Not sure why people are suggesting CFP or CFA to someone who hasn't graduated with a BS yet. With that said, CFA had a claritas (fundamentals course) with like 20-20 page chapters going over basic finance and investment info. Pretty sure you can still get those pdfs for free. Investopedia is also great for general concepts for banking and investments. CFA is very expensive and I wouldn't touch it until you've taken general business classes and really built up your foundation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ba5bf7b67849af2a301c29a925ef0c59", "text": "The technical skills (excel, matlab, econometrics) others posted are absolutely essential, but I have seen a ton of world class number crunchers who could not put anything in context. My advice: - Read any annual report for any company you find somewhat interesting, aim for reading 2 or 3 a week. This is the best way to learn real world macro economics and get a very strong grasp on financial accounting - Practice writing about what you learn.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6f223dd9cf545da0fdadcbc3847f769e", "text": "Basically you'd take all the companies in a given universe (like the S&P 500 or the Russell 3000) and instead of weighting them by market cap as they are currently done, you would weight by an alternative measure. Right now, if you're invested in an index that is market cap weighted, you're effectively momentum chasing. If a stock runs up, you're going to have a higher weight in your portfolio because of it (but only after the increase). An alternative that OppenheimerFunds has come up with is using revenue-weighting. That way you're using company fundamentals and only when the fundamentals are improving do you increase the weight in your portfolio. I haven't yet seen any research that explores weighting by other fundamentals. I would think that revenues aren't perfect either and that you might want to weight by Net Income. Or to go several steps further, by year over year Free Cash Flow growth. It could be a seminal paper if you are the one who empirically identifies a better weighting methodology and then have everyone else fight over the theoretical underpinnings. This is effectively what goes into Smart Beta investing: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smart-beta.asp", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2e056bfcd6c9499ce4401c581de7df5", "text": "\"Definition: Fundamental analysis involves analyzing financial statements and health, management and competitive advantages, and competitors and markets. Books are a great way to learn fundamental analysis but can be time consuming for something that really isn't very difficult. So the internet might be a better way to get started. When using fundamental analysis all you are doing is trying to figure out how much a company is worth. The vocabulary and huge range of acronyms can be intimidating but really its a fairly simple task. You can use (investopedia) for definitions and simple examples when you do not fully understand something. IE: (PEG) You can search for definitions using the search bar on the top right (google also is a good source to look for additional definitions). I recommend starting out by doing an independent analysis on a well known name such as Proctor & Gamble or Mcdonald's. Then you can compare your analysis to a professionals and see how they stack up. Books and Resources: Getting Started in Fundamental Analysis Fundamental Analysis For Dummies Fundamental analysis Wiki What Is Fundamental Analysis? - Video tut from Investopedia Fundamental Analysis: Introduction Step by Step example of fundamental analysis - It's a pretty in depth forum post. Side Notes: Personally when I first began using fundamental analysis I found it difficult to understand why something is considered undervalued or overvalued. I couldn't figure out who was the \"\"authority\"\" on saying this. Well in short the \"\"authority\"\" basically is the market. You can say you believe XYZ is undervalued but you are only proven correct if the market agrees with you over long period of time. Some key facts you should know: Many times a stock can be \"\"broken\"\" for many reasons. The price can go far beyond what would be considered a \"\"normal valuation\"\" (this is considered a bubble, e.g. the tech bubble of 1999-2000). It can also go far below a \"\"normal valuation\"\". In most cases these types of valuations are short lived and in the end a stock should return to \"\"normal valuation\"\" or at least this is the theory behind fundamental analysis.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d97e266ba12f00578992bb56628866ea", "text": "The thing about business is, it isn't engineering, medicine, or law. What value does inventing a whole other language add? When it's a shortcut, fine, but too often these phrases sprout up because MBAs want everyone to think they know something arcane and precious, and that's when cliches are a symptom of obfuscation, something engineers, doctors, and lawyers are certainly guilty of, albeit with more justification.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "c58daa07acae659b5335af1ae1dfa254", "text": "Keep in mind a good lawyer will have the contract cover the five D's: Its really best to lay these things out ahead of time. I watched, first hand, two friends start a business. When they were broke and struggling the worked very well together. Then the money started rolling in. Despite exceeding their dreams they were constantly at each other's throats fighting and bickering over stupid stuff. In the end, because they had decent legal docs, they both were able to pull money out of the business. Had that not been worked out they would have destroyed the business so that no one would have profited.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ac5f6d63f5ddfbe95132e9cb560a5580", "text": "Get involved a lawyer and Accountant. Without it you may not be sure what you are getting. What exactly will 30% mean for me? It will mean exactly what gets written in contract. It can mean you are owner of 30% of the company. If this is structured as partnership, it would also mean you are party to 30% loss. It can mean by current valuation, you get x fixed shares. In future if the directors creates more shares, your % ownership can get diluted. Or anything else. It all depends on what is written in contract and how the contract is structured. Is there anything I should I be aware of before agreeing? Get a draft and talk to a Lawyer and Accountant, they should be able to tell you exactly what it means and you can then decide if you agree to it or not; or need this contract worded differently.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "cc91ea4c757c7222136a6d2fab185128", "text": "Typically, preferred shares come with one or both different benefits - a disproportionate share of votes, say 10 votes per share vs the normal 1, or a preferred dividend. The vote preference is great for the owner(s) looking to go public, but not lose control of the company. Say, I am a Walton (of Walmart fame) and when I went public, I sold 80% of the (1000 share total) company. But, in creating the share structure, 20% of shares were assigned 10 votes each. 800 shares now trade with 800 votes, 200 shares have 10 votes each or 2000 votes. So, there are still the 1000 shares but 2800 votes. The 20% of shares now have 2000/2800 or 71% of the total votes. So, my shares are just less than half ownership, but over 78% of votes. Preferred dividend is as simple as that, buy Stock A for ownership, or (same company) Stock A preferred shares which have ownership and $1/yr dividend. Edited to show a bit more math. I use a simple example to call out a total 1000 shares. The percentages would be the same for a million or billion shares if 20% were a 10 vote preferred.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83a2cd1d21f6b2b537b411e87e0e262d", "text": "As part of this acquisition 96% of the shareholders accepted an offer for their shares This means that most of the shareholder agreed for the sale. If this was less than specified percentage, the deal would not have gone through. To make it easier, there were 2 options present to shareholder, full exchange of shares of Infinera or part shares and part cash. I failed to do so as I was unwell at the time So you cannot now choose the option. There will be a default option of getting the equivalent shares in Infinera. What options are available to me now? Contact Infinera investor relations and ask them.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a9137d9de66cb03137718ed663e40f0a", "text": "Isn't this absolute bullshit? You're basically giving him 8% interest plus 30% stake in the company for nothing other than putting up the initial shareholder capital ... which he's basically treating like a loan because he wants the money back and guaranteed dividend on the stake he's buying with it. Essentially, he's hedging himself against this not being a long continuing concern. So much for trust eh? I have absolutely no idea how the VC world evaluates things so this may be normal practice for them ... but it seems like short changing which will come back to bite you if the business takes off.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e3cb4bef3b410bfdf6c5f591b47e88eb", "text": "A private company say has 100 shares with single owner Mr X, now it needs say 10,000/- to run the company, if they can get a price of say 1000 per share, then they just need to issue 10 additional shares, so now the total shares is 110 [100 older plus 10]. So now the owner's share in the company is around 91%. However if they can get a price of only Rs 200 per share, they need to create 50 more shares. So now the total shares is 150 [100 older plus 50]. So now Mr X's equity in his own company is down to 66%. While this may still be OK, if it continues and goes below 50%, there is chances that he [Original owner] will be thrown out", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da781e6cc464fae224f7616998e5d61b", "text": "Imagine that I own 10% of a company, and yesterday my portion was valued at $1 Million, therefore the company is valued at $10 Million. Today the company accepts an offer to sell 1% of the company for $500 Thousand: now my portion is worth $5 Million, and company is worth $50 Million. The latest stock price sets the value of the company. If next week the news is all bad and the new investor sells their shares to somebody else for pennies on the dollar, the value of the company will drop accordingly.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a1931fcfb31aace0fe69344184134370", "text": "\"Simply paying him back the 50K to reduce \"\"his equity\"\" back to 30% doesn't necessarily mean that he still doesn't have a higher liq pref upon a liquidation event. You don't need the legal language to know...I deal with term sheets all the time, I don't deal in the legal language, we cut the deal with the term sheet and leave the legal language to the lawyers.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75d0ef524784e39bf4b944ea1d459050", "text": "number of shares is finite Yes it is I would assume that the repurchase numbers exceed the numbers of created shares Number of shares repurchased by company would never exceed in theory the total number of shares. It can become Zero, however its unlikely as it would run on its own and its not possible. In practise company generally repurchase a small percentage say 5% - 10% of the outstanding shares. The number of shares additional created is irrelevant. Its the total shares that is relevant. Edit: A company starts with say 100 shares, over the period it creates new shares [via various mechanisms, Rights issue, split, Additional shares, etc] say to the extent of 50. So now the company has total shares of 150. This lets say is held by 15 entities. The company can buy back say 15 shares in a year, and keep doing this, next year another 10 etc. However a company if it purchased all 150 of its own shares is unlikely as the Majority shareholders will not like this to happen and loose control. There are 2 different things, buying out of minority shareholders, typically different percentage of the shares are held by non-promoters and available for trade can range from 10% to 70% ... there are also listing norms. Quite a few stock-exchange need atleast 10% shares to be available for trade [held by non-promotors]. In case a company has a small number of shares held by non-promoters, it can buy back the shares and delist the company from the exchange.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0781346fa724fd4cdd54d85a61f25b62", "text": "I almost agree. I am not completely sure about the ownership of stock, but to have the majority ownership of any company you must own more than 50% of a company's outstanding shares. Although a board in majority, could out vote a majority shareholder in most cases depending on the company policy regarding shareholders and the general law of the country, and to how the company is managed.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c12ee0e61851a3b1e3a942a83af67044", "text": "\"I think your question might be coming from a misunderstanding of how corporate structures work - specifically, that a corporation is a legal entity (sort of like a person) that can have its own assets and debts. To make it clear, let's look at your example. We have two founders, Albert and Brian, and they start a corporation called CorpTech. When they start the company, it has no assets - just like you would if you owned nothing and had no bank account. In order to do anything, CorpTech is going to need some money. So Albert and Brian give it some. They can give it as much as they want - they can give it property if they want, too. Usually, people don't just put money into a corporation without some sort of agreement in place, though. In most cases, the agreement says something like \"\"Each member will own a fraction of the company that is in proportion to this initial investment.\"\" The way that is done varies depending on the type of corporation, but in general, if Albert ends up owning 75% and Brian ends up owning 25%, then they probably valued their contributions at 75% and 25% of the total value. These contributions don't have to be money or property, though. They could just be general \"\"know-how,\"\" or \"\"connections,\"\" or \"\"an expectation that they will do some work.\"\" The important thing is that they agree on the value of these contributions and assign ownership of the company according to that agreement. If they don't have an agreement, then the laws of the state that the company is registered in will say how the ownership is assigned. Now, what \"\"ownership\"\" means can be different depending on the context. When it comes to decision-making, you could \"\"own\"\" one percentage of the company in terms of votes, but when it comes to shares of future profits, you could own a different amount. This is why you can have voting and non-voting versions of a company's stock, for example. So this is a critical point - the ownership of a company is independent of the individual contributions to the company. The next part of your question is related to this: what happens when CorpTech sees an opportunity to make an investment? If it has enough cash on hand (because of the initial investment, or through financing, or reinvested profits), then the decision to make the investment is made according to Albert and Brian's ownership agreement, and they spend it. The money doesn't belong to them individually anymore, it belongs to CorpTech, and so CorpTech is spending it. They are just making the decision for CorpTech to spend it. This is why people say the owners are not financially liable beyond their initial investment. If the deal is bad, and they lose the money, the most they can lose is what they initially put in. On the other hand, if CorpTech doesn't have the money, then they have to figure out a way to get it. They might decide to each put in an amount in proportion to their ownership, so that their stake doesn't change. Or, Albert might agree to finance the deal 100% in exchange for a larger share of ownership. Or, he could agree to fund all of it without a larger stake, because Brian is the one who set the deal up. Or, they might take out a loan, and not need to invest any new money. Or, they might find an investor who agrees to put in the needed money in exchange for a a 51% share, in which case Albert and Brian will have to figure out how to split the remaining 49% if they agree to the deal. The details of how all of this would work depend on the structure (LLC, LLP, C-corp, S-corp, etc), but in general, the idea is that the company has assets and debts, and the owners can have voting rights, equity rights, and rights to future profits in any type of split that they want, regardless of what the companies assets and debts are, or what their initial investment was.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "00d21b3746e0c66b39ff8538ccd42fcd", "text": "\"Owning more than 50% of a company's stock normally gives you the right to elect a majority, or even all of a company's (board of) directors. Once you have your directors in place, you can tell them who to hire and fire among managers. There are some things that may stand in the way of your doing this. First, there may be a company bylaw that says that the directors can be replaced only one \"\"class\"\" at a time, with three or four \"\"classes.\"\" Then it could take you two or three years to get control of the company. Second, there may be different classes of shares with different voting rights, so if e.g. \"\"A\"\" shares controlled by the founding family gives them ten votes, and \"\"B\"\" shares owned by the other shareholders, you may have a majority of total shares and be outvoted by the \"\"A\"\" shares.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4369868410d906a8c2a6ee3fc23dc638", "text": "It depends on the business entity. If the entity is a sole proprietorship or a general partnership, the individual are considered to be the business. There are no shares, and so yes, the owner would have to take on 75% of the expenses. For example, in the event of a lawsuit, if the claimant were awarded $1,000,000, the 75% partner would be personally liable for $750,000. In the event of a corporation, there are shares, so the responsibility is on the management of the company, not the owners, to come up with money for the expenses of the business. That money can come from the business' capital, which is the money owners have put in. Basically, for a corporate entity, the owner is not responsible for 75% of expenses, for a partnership, yes, they are.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4a7cb335aa2cfc013f8504d25232875e", "text": "\"It is not clear when you mean \"\"company's directors\"\" are they also majority owners. There are several reasons for Buy; Similarly there are enough reasons for sell; Quite often the exact reasons for Buy or Sell are not known and hence blindly following that strategy is not useful. It can be one of the inputs to make a decision.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "67d7dfb2f82a21b6f3921d03126aca1a", "text": "The power of selling skills. Jonathan convinced him that at 100% it was not truly in the investors best interest because he would lose what made the company grow, him... Example at 100% equity (A buyout) the company would lose its CEO the driving force behind the product. Maybe because of this it only makes a million in sales and value. But at 35% plus 4% in sales Jonathan will continue to put his heart, soul and passion into the company and in the long term maybe the company becomes worth 10 million. And at 35% this deal is worth 3.5 million to the investor, all because he was convinced of Jonathan's tenacity. A truly beautiful display of knowing your stuff and sticking to your guns.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1bf921ce7872ac844b4b36aba18cec4d", "text": "From my memory of CFA Level 2 accounting: * If Company A buys 50% or more of company B, they must consolidate 100% of Company B on their financial statements. The % of the business they don't own is multiplied by net income every year, and the resulting number is added to minority interest on the balance sheet. * If Company A buys more than 20% but less than 50%, use the equity method of accounting. This involves creating an asset for the purchase price paid for the stake in Company B. The asset increases in value by dividends received, that's it. * If Company A buys 20% or less, the investment is held in Marketable securities or something similar on the balance, and is marked-to-market.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e0654e7730a0c6596f36a97d8f2e0cc7", "text": "You actually have a few options. First, you can do a share split and then sell an equal number of shares from both you and your wife to maintain parity. Second, you can have the company issue additional shares/convert shares and then have the company sell the appropriate percentage to the third party while the rest is distributed to you and your wife. Third, you can have the company issue a separate class of stock. For example there are companies that have voting stock and non-voting stock. Depending on your goal, you could just issue non-voting stock and sell that. Best bet is to contact a lawyer who specializes in this type of work and have them recommend a course of action. One caveat that has not been mentioned is that what/how you do this will also depend on the type of corporation that you have created.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "26380e834a3f492cf088ecc635f89079", "text": "You can just buy the items personally and then submit an expense report to the company to get reimbursed. Keep all the receipts. Paying with a company check is also fine, but you might run into problems with stores not accepting checks.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "eb1508ea931882b83665fb6c454f4549", "text": "For an individual its not automatic. One needs to ask the Bank, return the check. For Corporate Customer depending on how big the relationship is, many a times this is given as a service and there is an automatic return", "title": "" }, { "docid": "51fb633f62e19dd495c87a1636237e4e", "text": "\"To put a positive spin on the whole thing, maybe it's a small family shop, and having the check made out to \"\"cash\"\" means that your barber can hand it to someone else without the need to countersign. Or maybe his last name is \"\"Cash\"\" - there was a pretty famous singer who fit that description. Either way, it's not your place to nanny his finances.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "06fd20bef0c8c90a7bd03c63416a8f8e", "text": "They sure can. They are two different legal entities, so why not? You can even write a check to yourself, and then deposit it back into your own account. (Not very useful, but you can). The tax implications are a very different question, as this might constitute taking money out of the company. Edit: In some countries, when the business hires someone to work for them, it is forbidden by law to do that, unless he/she is explicitly allowed to do it in his contract. The business owner himself however, can always 'allow' himself to do that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2776b9b713efad071e2df5b19058b5d5", "text": "According to the TN DOL FAQ, the employer can choose how to pay wages. Other options include checks and cash. However, it is the employer's choice, not the employees, on how to pay the wages. In case of direct deposit, the employee can choose the bank at which to receive the money. Why would opening an account be unpractical is beyond me. You can also use services like AMEX Serve, NetSpend, or even Walmart's MoneyCard.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5abd0f2e06b8bb729315dc0610738cf5", "text": "Generally it goes by when they receive the check, not when they cash the check. Though if the check was received prior to midnight on December 31st, but after the bank closes, they would probably let the tax payer decide to count it for the next year. Of course if the check is from person A to person B then the only issue is gift tax, or annual limit calculations. If it is company to person then income tax could be involved. The IRS calls this Constructive receipt Income Under the cash method, include in your gross income all items of income you actually or constructively receive during your tax year. If you receive property or services, you must include their fair market value in income. Example. On December 30, 2011, Mrs. Sycamore sent you a check for interior decorating services you provided to her. You received the check on January 2, 2012. You must include the amount of the check in income for 2012. Constructive receipt. You have constructive receipt of income when an amount is credited to your account or made available to you without restriction. You do not need to have possession of it. If you authorize someone to be your agent and receive income for you, you are treated as having received it when your agent received it. Example. Interest is credited to your bank account in December 2012. You do not withdraw it or enter it into your passbook until 2013. You must include it in your gross income for 2012. Delaying receipt of income. You cannot hold checks or postpone taking possession of similar property from one tax year to another to avoid paying tax on the income. You must report the income in the year the property is received or made available to you without restriction. Example. Frances Jones, a service contractor, was entitled to receive a $10,000 payment on a contract in December 2012. She was told in December that her payment was available. At her request, she was not paid until January 2013. She must include this payment in her 2012 income because it was constructively received in 2012. Checks. Receipt of a valid check by the end of the tax year is constructive receipt of income in that year, even if you cannot cash or deposit the check until the following year. Example. Dr. Redd received a check for $500 on December 31, 2012, from a patient. She could not deposit the check in her business account until January 2, 2013. She must include this fee in her income for 2012. In general it is best not to cut it close. If the check is to be counted as an January event it is best to send it in January. If it is to be December event it is best to send it early enough to be able to say with confidence that the check arrived at the destination before the end of the year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "20f1faf11e9fc76bc2216ed86c83a0e7", "text": "\"I know this an old thread, but one that caught my interest as I just moved to the USA from Australia. As per the OP I had never written a check in my whole life, and upon arriving in the US I was surprised as to their proliference. In Australia pretty much all bills you receive can be paid in a number of ways: For small amounts between friends cash is probably used most, but for larger amounts direct transfer is popular. Your friend/landlord will give you their bank account number and BSB number, which identifies their bank, and then you transfer the money in. We don't have a SSN like some other countries. Cheques are still used by some however, esp by the older generations. Now that I'm in the US initially I had tried to set up direct transfer to pay my rent however the bank has a $1000 daily transfer limit. I contacted the bank to get this increased however I was informed that this limit applies to ALL accounts at the bank. I asked how do people pay their rents with this low limit and was told that most people used cheques. (This explains the strange look I got from my landlord when I asked for their bank account details so I could pay the rent!) I now have some bills to pay here and I use online banking. You enter the biller's name and address and then the bank actually prints off a cheque and posts it to the biller on your behalf! My first couple of pays here were also cheques, which were the first actual \"\"paychecks\"\" I had ever received.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "166d9d8c192fb1848d9c77fa7c96305e", "text": "\"There are benefits associated with a cash only business (the link states a few). However checks made out to \"\"cash\"\" don't reap those benefits listed. For anyone on SE to say your barber hides revenue from the IRS would just be speculation. With that said there are a great number of disadvantages for a cash only business. And from my experience, a business that goes out of their way to take cash only can be a little suspicious. Luckily you are not committing any crimes or fraud by paying her cash.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d0ba3a3f52735f9f8f5be47d45351fa7", "text": "\"If you wish to lend them the money, make the check payable to the order of \"\"loan\"\", not directly to your son or daughter.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a7e80a491ca2b9845cca45332bc34640", "text": "\"If you sign the check \"\"For Deposit Only\"\", the bank will put it in your account. You may need to set up a \"\"payable name\"\" on the account matching your DBA alias. However, having counted offerings for a church on several occasions, I know that banks simply have no choice but to be lax about the \"\"Pay to the Order Of\"\" line on checks. Say the church's \"\"legal name\"\" for which the operating funds account was opened is \"\"Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church of Red Bluff\"\". You'll get offering checks made out to \"\"Saint Barnabas\"\", \"\"Saint B's\"\", \"\"Episcopal Church of Red Bluff\"\", \"\"Red Bluff Episcopal\"\", \"\"Youth Group Fund\"\", \"\"Pastor Frank\"\", etc. The bank will take em all; just gotta stamp em with the endorsement for the church. Sometimes the money will be \"\"earmarked\"\" based on the payable line; any attempt to pay the pastor directly will go into his \"\"discretionary fund\"\", and anything payable to a specific subgroup of the church will go into their asset account line, but really all the cash goes directly to the same bank account anyway. For-profit operations are similar; an apartment complex may get checks payable to the apartment name, the management company name, even the landlord. I expect that your freelance work will be no different.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7ef100bc0d7e435fdc5fbb103eef4366", "text": "\"It's a scam. The cashier's check will be forged. Craigslist has a warning about it here (item #3). What kind of payment do you think is not fakable? Or at least not likely to be used in scams? When on craigslist - deal only locally and in person. You can ask to see the person's ID if you're being paid by check When being paid by check, how can seeing his/her ID help? In case the check isn't cashable, I can find that person by keeping record of his/her ID? If you're paid by check, the payers details should be printed on the check. By checking the ID you can verify that the details match (name/address), so you can find the payer later. Of course the ID can be faked too, but there's so much you can do to protect yourself. You'll get better protection (including verified escrow service) by selling on eBay. Is being paid by cash the safest way currently, although cash can be faked too, but it is the least common thing that is faked currently? Do you recommend to first deposit the cash into a bank (so that let the bank verify if the cash is faked), before delivering the good? For Craigslist, use cash and meet locally. That rules out most scams as a seller. What payment methods do you think are relatively safe currently? Then getting checks must be the least favorite way of being paid. Do you think cash is better than money order or cashier order? You should only accept cash. If it is a large transaction, you can meet them at your bank, have them get cash, and you receive the cash from the bank. Back to the quoted scam, how will they later manipulate me? Are they interested in my stuffs on moving sale, or in my money? They will probably \"\"accidentally\"\" overpay you and ask for a refund of some portion of the overpayment. In that case you will be out the entire amount that you send back to them and possibly some fees from your bank for cashing a bad check.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ecef843666d67bbc24fc04bf1cc0d6d", "text": "\"I really have to use the business card for personal expenses, please assume that in your answer. This is very hard to believe. You must do that? Why not just have the company pay you $1600 each month? Then you can use that money for whatever you want. Why can't you do this? (I cannot think of a legitimate reason...) How to integrate the personal expenses in company? Anyway, to answer your question, what I've done when I accidentally used my corporate card for a personal expense is to code the expense as a payment to me similar to if a check had been written to me. If you aren't ever paying yourself, then you should just pay the company back the $1600 every month. As a side note, I highly recommend you don't do this. By doing this on a regular basis you are opening the door for piercing the corporate veil. This means that the financial protections provided by the LLC could potentially be stripped away since personal and corporate funds are being mixed. The unfortunate end result is that personal assets could end up being fair game too in a judgement against the company. Even if you aren't an owner, your relative could be considered to be \"\"using business money for personal expenses\"\", namely, letting a relative spend business funds for personal use. How to show more expenses and lessen the profit? If you're referring to the personal expenses, then you absolutely do not want to do this! That's illegal and worthy of stiff penalties, which possibly include jail time for tax evasion. Better to just have the company pay you and then the entire payment is deductible and reduces the profit of the company.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd2b03ed3cd4d1e068eb182200ec4848", "text": "\"What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing. One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not income. Keep the pay stubs for the year, or the pdf files if they don't give you a physical stub. Pay attention to the YTD numbers on each stub to make sure they aren't sneaking in the expenses as income. If they continue to do this, ask about ownership of the items purchased, since you will be paying the tax shouldn't you own it? You can in the future tell them \"\"I was going to buy X like the customer wanted, but I just bought a new washer at home and their wasn't enough room on the credit card. Maybe next month\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3d585003ac8bc7e31dd82558e215bafb", "text": "There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8cb2a9643708b5505e3ebd3fc591d30f", "text": "\"Technically it doesn't matter what size the check is. In fact, it doesn't even have to be written on paper. While writing it on a cow may not always fly, almost any object actually will. That said, more to the question asked - you can definitely use the smaller \"\"personal\"\"-sized checks for a business account. The larger checks formatted to the \"\"letter\"\" page size: if you cut it into three equal pieces with a tiny bit left for the binder holes - you'll get exactly three check-sized pieces. This is convenient for those printing checks, keeping carbon-copy records etc. Regarding the MICR line: I just checked my business check book, which is of a smaller \"\"personal\"\" size (that I got for free from the bank) - the check number is at the end.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f037e925896d678b10bbe59832cb7e56", "text": "\"If you want to deposit checks or conduct business at a window, you should look at a local savings bank or credit union. Generally, you can find one that will offer \"\"free\"\" checking in exchange for direct deposit or a minimum balance. Some are totally free, but those banks pay zippo for interest. If you don't care about location, I would look at Charles Schwab Bank. I've been using them for a couple of years and have been really satisfied with them. They provide free checking, ATM fee reimbursement, free checks and pre-paid deposit envelopes. You also can easily move money between Schwab brokerage or savings accounts. Other brokers offer similar services as well.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "b24c2f47bab3406acbccee0f70ab1d59", "text": "\"This is a great question! I've been an entrepreneur and small business owner for 20+ years and have started small businesses in 3 states that grew into nice income streams for me. I've lived off these businesses for 20+ years, so I know it can be done! First let me start by saying that the rules, regulations, requirements and laws for operating a business (small or large) legally, for the most part, are local laws and regulations. Depending on what your business does, you may have some federal rules to follow, but for the most part, it will be your locality (state, county, city) that determines what you'll have to do to comply and be \"\"legal\"\". Also, though it might be better in some cases to incorporate (and even required in some circumstances), you don't always have to. There are many small businesses (think landscapers, housekeepers, babysitters, etc.) that get income from their \"\"business operations\"\" and do so as \"\"individuals\"\". Of course, everyone has to pay taxes - so as long as you property record your income (and expenses) and properly file your tax returns every year, you are \"\"income tax legal\"\". I won't try to answer the income tax question here, though, as that can be a big question. Also, though you certainly can start a business on your own without hiring lawyers or other professionals (more on that below), when it comes to taxes, I definitely recommend you indeed plan to hire a tax professional (even if it's something like H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, etc). In some cities, there might even be \"\"free\"\" tax preparation services by certain organizations that want to help the community and these are often available even to small businesses. In general, income taxes can be complicated and the rules are always changing. I've found that most small business owners that try to file their own taxes generally end up paying a lot more taxes than they're required to, in essence, they are overpaying! Running a business (and making a profit) can be hard enough, so on to of that, you don't need to be paying more than you are required to! Also, I am going to assume that since it sounds like it would be a business of one (you), that you won't have a Payroll. That is another area that can be complicated for sure. Ok, with those generics out of the way, let me tackle your questions related to starting and operating a business, since you have the \"\"idea for your business\"\" pretty figured out. Will you have to pay any substantial amount of money to attorneys or advisors or accountants or to register with the government? Not necessarily. Since the rules for operating a business legally vary by your operating location (where you will be providing the service or performing your work), you can certainly research this on your own. It might take a little time, but it's doable if you stick with it. Some resources: The state of Florida (where I live) has an excellent page at: http://www.myflorida.com/taxonomy/business/starting%20a%20business%20in%20florida/ You might not be in Florida, but almost every state will have something similar. What all do I need to do to remain on the right side of the law and the smart side of business? All of the answers above still apply to this question, but here are a few more items to consider: You will want to keep good records of all expenses directly related to the business. If you license some content (stock images) for example, you'll want to document receipts. These are easy usually as you know \"\"directly\"\". If you subscribe to the Apple Developer program (which you'll need to if you intend to sell Apps in the Apple App Stores), the subscription is an expense against your business income, etc. You will want to keep good records of indirect costs. These are not so easy to \"\"figure out\"\" (and where a good accountant will help you when this becomes significant) but these are important and a lot of business owners hurt themselves by not considering these. What do I mean? Well, you need an \"\"office\"\" in order to produce your work, right? You might need a computer, a phone, internet, electricity, heat, etc. all of which allow you to create a \"\"working environment\"\" that allows you to \"\"produce your product\"\". The IRS (and state tax authorities) all provide ways for you to quantify these and \"\"count them\"\" as legitimate business expenses. No, you can't use 100% of your electric bill (since your office might be inside your home, and the entire bill is not \"\"just\"\" for your business) but you are certainly entitled to some part of that bill to count as a business expense. Again, I don't want to get too far down the INCOME TAX rabbit hole, but you still need to keep track of what you spend! You must keep good record of ALL your income. This is especially important when you have money coming in from various sources (a payroll, gifts from friends, business income from clients and/or the App Stores, etc.) Do not just assume that copies of your bank deposits tell the whole story. Bank statements might tell you the amount and date of a deposit, but you don't really know \"\"where\"\" that money came from unless you are tracking it! The good news is that the above record keeping can be quite easy with something like Quicken or QuickBooks (or many many other such popular programs.) You will want to ensure you have the needed licenses (not necessarily required at all for a lot of small businesses, especially home based businesses.) Depending on your business activity, you might want to consider business liability insurance. Again, this will depend on your clients and/or other business entities you'll be dealing with. Some might require you to have some insurance. Will be efforts even be considered a business initially until some amount of money actually starts coming in? This might be a legal / accountant question as to the very specific answer from the POV of the law and taxing authorities. However, consider that not all businesses make any money at all, for a long time, and they definitely \"\"are a business\"\". For instance, Twitter was losing money for a long time (years) and no one would argue they were not a business. Again, deferring to the attorneys/cpas here for the legal answer, the practical answer is that you're performing \"\"some\"\" business activity when you start creating a product and working hard to make it happen! I would consider \"\"acting as\"\" a business regardless! What things do I need to do up-front and what things can I defer to later, especially in light of the fact that it might be several months to a couple years before any substantial income starts coming in? This question's answer could be quite long. There are potentially many items you can defer. However, one I can say is that you might consider deferring incorporation. An individual can perform a business activity and draw income from it legally in a lot of situations. (For tax purposes, this is sometimes referred to as \"\"Schedule-C\"\" income.) I'm not saying incorporation is a bad thing (it can shield you from a lot of issues), but I am saying that it's not necessary on day 1 for a lot of small businesses. Having said that, this too can be easy to do on your own. Many companies offer services so you can incorporate for a few hundred dollars. If you do incorporate, as a small business of one person, I would definitely consider a tax concept called an \"\"S-Corp\"\" to avoid paying double taxes.) But here too, we've gone down the tax rabbit hole again. :-)\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "aacf84abf0e15e48cd79c9cdb7a0e26c", "text": "\"Yes. There are several downsides to this strategy: You aren't taking into account commissions. If you pay $5 each time you buy or sell a stock, you may greatly reduce or even eliminate any possible gains you would make from trading such small amounts. This next point sounds obvious, but remember that you pay a commission on every trade regardless of profit, so every trade you make that you make at a loss also costs you commissions. Even if you make trades that are profitable more often than not, if you make quite a few trades with small amounts like this, your commissions may eat away all of your profits. Commissions represent a fixed cost, so their effect on your gains decreases proportionally with the amount of money you place at risk in each trade. Since you're in the US, you're required to follow the SEC rules on pattern day trading. From that link, \"\"FINRA rules define a “pattern day trader” as any customer who executes four or more “day trades” within five business days, provided that the number of day trades represents more than six percent of the customer’s total trades in the margin account for that same five business day period.\"\" If you trip this rule, you'll be required to maintain $25,000 in a margin brokerage account. If you can't maintain the balance, your account will be locked. Don't forget about capital gains taxes. Since you're holding these securities for less than a year, your gains will be taxed at your ordinary income tax rates. You can deduct your capital losses too (assuming you don't repurchase the same security within 30 days, because in that case, the wash sale rule prevents you from deducting the loss), but it's important to think about gains and losses in real terms, not nominal terms. The story is different if you make these trades in a tax-sheltered account like an IRA, but the other problems still apply. You're implicitly assuming that the stock's prices are skewed in the positive direction. Remember that you have limit orders placed at the upper and lower bounds of the range, so if the stock price decreases before it increases, your limit order at the lower bound will be triggered and you'll trade at a loss. If you're hoping to make a profit through buying low and selling high, you want a stock that hits its upper bound before hitting the lower bound the majority of the time. Unless you have data analysis (not just your intuition or a pattern you've talked yourself into from looking at a chart) to back this up, you're essentially gambling that more often than not, the stock price will increase before it decreases. It's dangerous to use any strategy that you haven't backtested extensively. Find several months or years of historical data, either intra-day or daily data, depending on the time frame you're using to trade, and simulate your strategy exactly. This helps you determine the potential profitability of your strategy, and it also forces you to decide on a plan for precisely when you want to invest. Do you invest as soon as the stock trades in a range (which algorithms can determine far better than intuition)? It also helps you figure out how to manage your risk and how much loss you're willing to accept. For risk management, using limit orders is a start, but see my point above about positively skewed prices. Limit orders aren't enough. In general, if an active investment strategy seems like a \"\"no-brainer\"\" or too good to be true, it's probably not viable. In general, as a retail investor, it's foolish to assume that no one else has thought of your simple active strategy to make easy money. I can promise you that someone has thought of it. Trading firms have quantitative researchers that are paid to think of and implement trading strategies all the time. If it's viable at any scale, they'll probably already have utilized it and arbitraged away the potential for small traders to make significant gains. Trust me, you're not the first person who thought of using limit orders to make \"\"easy money\"\" off volatile stocks. The fact that you're asking here and doing research before implementing this strategy, however, means that you're on the right track. It's always wise to research a strategy extensively before deploying it in the wild. To answer the question in your title, since it could be interpreted a little differently than the body of the question: No, there's nothing wrong with investing in volatile stocks, indexes, etc. I certainly do, and I'm sure many others on this site do as well. It's not the investing that gets you into trouble and costs you a lot of money; it's the rapid buying and selling and attempting to time the market that proves costly, which is what you're doing when you implicitly bet that the distribution of the stock's prices is positively skewed. To address the commission fee problem, assuming a fee of $8 per trade ... and a minimum of $100 profit per sale Commissions aren't your only problem, and counting on $100 profit per sale is a significant assumption. Look at point #4 above. Through your use of limit orders, you're making the implicit assumption that, more often than not, the price will trigger your upper limit order before your lower limit order. Here's a simple example; let's assume you have limit orders placed at +2 and -2 of your purchase price, and that triggering the limit order at +2 earns you $100 profit, while triggering the limit order at -2 incurs a loss of $100. Assume your commission is $5 on each trade. If your upper limit order is triggered, you earn a profit of 100 - 10 = 90, then set up the same set of limit orders again. If your lower limit order is triggered this time, you incur a loss of 100 + 10 = 110, so your net gain is 90 - 110 = -20. This is a perfect example of why, when taking into account transaction costs, even strategies that at first glance seem profitable mathematically can actually fail. If you set up the same situation again and incur a loss again (100 + 10 = 110), you're now down -20 - 110 = -130. To make a profit, you need to make two profitable trades, without incurring further losses. This is why point #4 is so important. Whenever you trade, it's critical to completely understand the risk you're taking and the bet you're actually making, not just the bet you think you're making. Also, according to my \"\"algorithm\"\" a sale only takes place once the stock rises by 1 or 2 points; otherwise the stock is held until it does. Does this mean you've removed the lower limit order? If yes, then you expose yourself to downside risk. What if the stock has traded within a range, then suddenly starts declining because of bad earnings reports or systemic risks (to name a few)? If you haven't removed the lower limit order, then point #4 still stands. However, I never specified that the trades have to be done within the same day. Let the investor open up 5 brokerage accounts at 5 different firms (for safeguarding against being labeled a \"\"Pattern Day Trader\"\"). Each account may only hold 1 security at any time, for the span of 1 business week. How do you control how long the security is held? You're using limit orders, which will be triggered when the stock price hits a certain level, regardless of when that happens. Maybe that will happen within a week, or maybe it will happen within the same day. Once again, the bet you're actually making is different from the bet you think you're making. Can you provide some algorithms or methods that do work for generating some extra cash on the side, aside from purchasing S&P 500 type index funds and waiting? When I purchase index funds, it's not to generate extra liquid cash on the side. I don't invest nearly enough to be able to purchase an index fund and earn substantial dividends. I don't want to get into any specific strategies because I'm not in the business of making investment recommendations, and I don't want to start. Furthermore, I don't think explicit investment recommendations are welcome here (unless it's describing why something is a bad idea), and I agree with that policy. I will make a couple of points, however. Understand your goals. Are you investing for retirement or a shorter horizon, e.g. some side income? You seem to know this already, but I include it for future readers. If a strategy seems too good to be true, it probably is. Educate yourself before designing a strategy. Research fundamental analysis, different types of orders (e.g., so you fully understand that you don't have control over when limit orders are executed), different sectors of the market if that's where your interests lie, etc. Personally, I find some sectors fascinating, so researching them thoroughly allows me to make informed investment decisions as well as learn about something that interests me. Understand your limits. How much money are you willing to risk and possibly lose? Do you have a risk management strategy in place to prevent unexpected losses? What are the costs of the risk management itself? Backtest, backtest, backtest. Ideally your backtesting and simulating should be identical to actual market conditions and incorporate all transaction costs and a wide range of historical data. Get other opinions. Evaluate those opinions with the same critical eye as I and others have evaluated your proposed strategy.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf6d612e979609c1cd11106e9f1d1353", "text": "\"Rather than thinking of becoming a landlord as a passive \"\"investment\"\" (like a bank account or mutual fund), it may be useful to think of it as \"\"starting a small part-time business\"\". While certainly many people can and do start their own businesses, and there are many success stories, there are many cases where things don't work out quite as they hoped. I wouldn't call starting any new business \"\"low risk\"\", even one that isn't expected to be one's main full-time job, though some may be \"\"acceptable risk\"\" for your particular circumstances. But if you're going to start a part-time business, is there any particular reason you'd do so in real estate as opposed to some other activity? It sounds like you'd be completely new to real estate, so perhaps for your first business you're starting you'd want it to be something you're more familiar with. Or, if you do want to enter the real estate world (or any other new business), be sure to do a lot of research, come up with a business plan, and be prepared for the possibility of losing money as with any investment or new business.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2c7280ef2f9b1af1a1f051cf8bd8c9ac", "text": "A good idea is try use your weekends to develop your business/plans at first. Most business startups don't boom overnight, it takes time to build. Dont quit your job, that is revenue you can build your business with. The most important thing is to have a sound business plan, not too ambitious, not too realistic.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5a97fec0eb191f632c8ff032120cc7e9", "text": "I'm currently in process. I work full time for one big local company and side Hustle in my free time. U must have some income, so I belive this is good path. In future, when I could live from my own company I will quit my current job. But that means that you should work at least 14-16 h/day. It is hard but it will be worth one day. Make some product, find clients etc. Start small, find some co-founder(s) and just start.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "043e8b96e188a71c3356cd717f395661", "text": "\"I worked for a plumbing/heating business in a management position for the past 3 years and I learned a few things: You need a web presence STAT. Yellow page ads while effective at reaching older clients are EXPENSIVE and effective web marketing can be created at a fraction of the cost. Social media is an AMAZING tool use it. Flat rate pricing. Quote your prices before you get the work and get a signature before you start. Make sure it is very very clear that you expect to be paid on completion. Be known for cleanliness. Wealthy clients WILL spread your name around if you take the time and care to respect their property. Carpet runners, boot covers and cleaning supplies will pay off. Pick a company name and get a PROFESSIONAL graphic designer to make your logo. Plaster it on all sides of your vehicle and you now have a mobile billboard. Find something to specialize in.... for example boiler repair is a dying art. If you can be \"\"The boiler guy\"\" you will have lots of yearly maintenance work. Speaking of which offer yearly maintenance contracts as a way to get back into the house and develop a business relationship. Get some sales training. You can be and effective salesman and still be honest it is just a matter of understanding the customer. Nexstar might be something worth looking into. But the membership fee is not cheap. Setup some sort of inventory tracking system NOW. Have it in place so when he wants to grow it will be easy. The company I worked for while not doing all of the things I mentioned here still managed to do 7 million a year in revenue. PM me if you want to know anything else.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4cde17aa6b9aefc3d4e12718987fbf44", "text": "\"This kind of investment is called \"\"sweat equity\"\". It is sometimes taken into account by lenders and other investors. Such investors look at the alleged value of the input labor with a very skeptical eye, but they often appreciate that the entrepreneur has \"\"skin in the game\"\". The sort of analysis described by the original poster is useful for estimating \"\"economic profit\"\" -- how much better off was the entrepreneur than if he had done something else with his time. But this sort of analysis is not applicable for tax purposes for most small businesses in the United States. It is usually not in the entrepreneur's interest to use this method of accounting for tax purposes, for three reasons: It requires setting up the business in such a way that it can pay him wages or salaries for his time. The business might not have enough cash resources to do so. Furthermore, setting up the business in this way requires legal and accounting expertise, which is expensive. If the entrepreneur does set up the business like this, the wages and salaries will be subject to tax. Wage and salary tax rates are often much higher than capital gains tax rates, especially when one considers taxes like Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, and Business & Occupation taxes. If the entrepreneur does set up the business like this, the taxes on the wages and salaries would be due long before the hoped-for sale of the company. The sale of the company might never happen. This results in a time-value-of-money penalty, an optionality penalty, and a risk penalty.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "543e117902d82e0eb8e27fd78b200947", "text": "\"I can pretty much guarantee you that the vast majority of new small companies will NOT grow to have 50 workers (they probably won't even have 49 workers, or 48, or even 47). Once they approach 40, other \"\"solutions\"\" -- even beyond the \"\"part time employees\"\" suggested by the author (a thing I would expect will be \"\"addressed\"\" by a change in the detailed regulations -- the Federal government will attempt to stop this obvious loophole by redefining what constitutes a \"\"full time employee\"\") -- MANY other solutions will be executed (dividing the company into two or three distinct entities with slightly different ownership {for example wife owns one location, husband another, etc}, plus the obvious expanded use of temp agencies, contract and/or subcontract workers, subbing work {especially generic administrative work} out to other firms, etc). Any and all of those will probably cost far LESS than $40k a year (which is probably a woefully underestimated number).\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e7ce461be6d4661f109b01f01956fe10", "text": "The doing of it, the actual floral design part, is a small part of what that business is going to need. The needs of a small business are huge and varied. For instance, somebody will need to do the Quickbooks, handle the register and cash, handle clients and follow-up. Do payroll even if it is just the two of you. Handle insurance. Place orders for inventory, develop relationships with suppliers to keep costs down. Do marketing. Calculate profitability and use that to determine pricing, specials, and discounting on bulk orders. Clean the shop and enable your flower arranger to work effeciently. Need employees? Then get ready for applications, interviews, onboarding, reviews, coaching, and firing. Create checklists and best practices. The Small Business Association is your friend. It's a government program that is already paid for by you, and the employees are generally successful entrepreneurs that just don't feel like doing the 80 hours a week anymore. They will be so happy to mentor you and can really assist if you are looking for a loan to start up. Small business isn't for everybody. I think most people would rather work 40 hours a week for somebody else. If none of this scares you off, you might have what it takes. Starting and running a business is incredibly rewarding for me emotionally and financially and I wouldn't trade it for any job on the planet.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "05e5d1a20d3484b1fab76875ae508a79", "text": "In now days beginning a business, website optimization daddy can enable you to begin a web business, to do you know the intricate details of web crawlers and have aptitudes in stages like Google Analytics? The proprietors of a ton of littler organizations don't understand the amount of an effect website, streamlining SEO can have on their business. We teach those entrepreneurs on the energy of starting an internet business to help change their sites into a more SEO-accommodating property. We have master abilities to the stage proprietors how to peruse and utilize their examination information the correct way, and how to legitimately utilize watchwords and structure substance to get more movement.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65a6928ffa6063ef95e3639adfb57bbc", "text": "Yeah, not all small businesses are barely scraping by. On another note, I know in some places restaurants, regulations and laws have been introduced which lowers minimum wage for tip earners (like servers). It's an interesting thought but I'm not sure how well it works.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7f75872c71535e7c7f0a90f3b86887dc", "text": "For this type of business a sole tradership would seem appropriate. You might then want to register as a limited company at a later date if you were growing significantly, taking on premises, seeking debt etc, as that would then shield you from liability.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "56941f61022dfec7fea49b5f306ff12e", "text": "\"You can certainly try to do this, but it's risky and very expensive. Consider a simplified example. You buy 1000 shares of ABC at $1.00 each, with the intention of selling them all when the price reaches $1.01. Rinse and repeat, right? You might think the example above will net you a tidy $10 profit. But you have to factor in trade commissions. Most brokerages are going to charge you per trade. Fidelity for example, want $4.95 per trade; that's for both the buying and the selling. So your 1000 shares actually cost you $1004.95, and then when you sell them for $1.01 each, they take their $4.95 fee again, leaving you with a measly $1.10 in profit. Meanwhile, your entire $1000 stake was at risk of never making ANY profit - you may have been unlucky enough to buy at the stock's peak price before a slow (or even fast) decline towards eventual bankruptcy. The other problem with this is that you need a stock that is both stable and volatile at the same time. You need the volatility to ensure the price keeps swinging between your buy and sell thresholds, over and over again. You need stability to ensure it doesn't move well away from those thresholds altogether. If it doesn't have this weird stable-volatility thing, then you are shooting yourself in the foot by not holding the stock for longer: why sell for $1.01 if it goes up to $1.10 ten minutes later? Why buy for $1.00 when it keeps dropping to $0.95 ten minutes later? Your strategy means you are always taking the smallest possible profit, for the same amount of risk. Another method might be to only trade each stock once, and hope that you never pick a loser. Perhaps look for something that has been steadily climbing in price, buy, make your tiny profit, then move on to the next company. However you still have the risk of buying something at it's peak price and being in for an awfully long wait before you can cash out (if ever). And if all that wasn't enough to put you off, brokerages have special rules for \"\"frequent traders\"\" that just make it all the more complicated. Not worth the hassle IMO.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f69a1160d0806abe01e9fa3064037448", "text": "Based on the additional comment you gave, I would recommend that you keep the capital from the businesses separate as much as possible. It sounds like you won't get into any trouble legally if you make 'loans' or transfers of capital from one business into the other. But I would suggest that you keep detailed records of any transfers that you do make. The reason why is that in any business, it is important to know the economics of how your business makes money. If you find yourself making transfers repeatedly, then your business model may be bad. Even if your transfers are only to deal with the cost of poor customers, it could still mean that your business model needs to be adjusted. But if it's a question of the timing of cash flows, then there's really nothing wrong with taking some of the money from your successful pants operation and building up more working capital in your stationery shop.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0559a5f8e99aaed4115bf99f13583c7b", "text": "http://www.legalzoom.com/business-management/starting-your-business/turn-your-calling Answering this, but I expect an expert to give an answer with some insight too There are many more steps, but not having done them personally I suggest you read the legalzoom.com site.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "83d700ae94fb9917fc1904ecdd1d0877", "text": "\"If you're really interested in the long-term success of your business, and you can get by in your personal finances without taking anything from the business for the time being, then don't. There is no \"\"legal requirement\"\" to pay yourself a prevailing wage if doing so would put the company out of business. it is common for a company's principals not to draw wages from the business until it is viable enough to sustain payroll. I was in that situation when I first began my business, so the notion that somehow I'm violating a law by being fiscally responsible for my own company is nonsense. Be wise with your new business. You didn't state why you feel the need to take some kind of payment out, but this can be a crucial mistake if it imperils your business or if that money could be better spent on marketing or some other areas which improve revenues. You can always create a salary deferral agreement between yourself and your own company which basically states that the company owes you wages but you are, for the time being, willing to defer accepting them until such time that the company has sufficient revenues to pay you. That's one solution, but the simplest answer is, if you don't need the money you're thinking of paying yourself, don't do it. Let that money work for you in the business so that it pays off better in the long run. Good luck!\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "576f7d951a779bdf0f9e1097102fbb92", "text": "There is nothing fair / unfair in such deals. It is an art than a science. what kind of things should be considered, to work out what would be a fair percentage stake A true fair value is; take the current valuation of the company [This can be difficult if it is small and does not maintain proper records]. Divide by number of shares, that is the value of share and you should 20K worth of such shares. But then there is risk premium. You are taking a risk that an small start-up may do exceedingly well ... or it may close off. This risk premium is what is negotiated. It depends on how desperate the owner of the small company is; who all are interested in this specific deal ... if you want 30% share; someone else is ready to offer 20K for 15% of share. Or there is no one willing to lend 20K as they don't believe it will make money ... and the owner is desperate, you may even get 50%.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ecb00e05bf09c78b463c0b7c134741d3", "text": "\"It should be pretty obvious that without knowing what sort of assets the company owns, and what sort of net earnings are being generated it's impossible to say what a $20k equity investment should get you in terms of ownership percentage. With that said, you want to look at a few to several years of books, look for trends. Some things to understand that might be subtle red flags: It's extremely common for early stage investors to essentially make loans rather than strictly buying shares. In the worst case scenario creditors get to participate in liquidation proceedings before shareholders do. You may be better off investing in this business via a loan that's convertible to equity at your discretion. Single owner service companies are difficult because all of the net earnings go to the proprietor and that person maintains all of the relationships. So taking something like 5 years of net earnings as the value of the company doesn't make much sense because you (or someone else) couldn't just step in and replace the owner. Granted, you aren't contemplating taking over the business, but it negates using an X years of net earnings valuation method. When you read about valuation there is a sort of overriding assumption that no single person could topple the operation which couldn't be farther from the truth in single employee service companies. Additionally, understand that your investment in a single owner company hinges completely on one person's ability and willingness to work. It's really vital to understand the purpose of the funds. Someone will be hired? $20,000 couldn't be even six months of wages... Put things in to perspective with a pad, pen and calculator. Don't invest in the pipe dream of a friend of yours, and DEFINITELY don't hand this person the downpayment for their new house. The first rule of investing is \"\"don't lose money,\"\" this isn't emotional, this is a dollars and cents pragmatic process. Why does the business need this money? How will you be paid back? Personally, I think it would be more gratifying to put $20k in a blender and watch it blend, this is probably a horrible investment. The risk should just be left to credit card companies.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "f0656add052a98a8db4a16389833068c", "text": "Source, see if you have access to it Convertible notes are often used by angel investors who wish to fund businesses without establishing an explicit valuation of the company in which they are investing. When an investor purchases equity in a startup, the purchase price of the equity implies a company valuation. For example, if an investor purchases a 10 per cent ownership stake in a company, and pay $1m for that stake, this implies that the company is worth $10m. Some early stage investors may wish to avoid placing a value on the company in this way, because this in turn will affect the terms under which later-stage investors will invest in the company. Convertible notes are structured as loans at the time the investment is made. The outstanding balance of the loan is automatically converted to equity when a later equity investor appears, under terms that are governed by the terms set by the later-stage equity investor. An equity investor is someone who purchases equity in a company. Example:- Suppose an angel investor invests $100,000 using a convertible note. Later, an equity investor invests $1m and receives 10% of the company's shares. In the simplest possible case, the initial angel investor's convertible note would convert to 1/10th of the equity investor's claim. Depending on the exact structure of the convertible note, however, the angel investor may also receive extra shares to compensate them for the additional risk associated with being an earlier investor The worst-case scenario would be if the issuing company initially performed well, meaning that the debt would be converted into shares, and subsequently went bankrupt. The converted shares would become worthless, but the holder of the note would no longer have any recourse. Will twitter have to sell their offices and liquidate staff to close this debt? This depends on the seniority(priority) of the debt. Debt is serviced according to seniority. The higher seniority debts will be paid off first and then only the lower seniority debts be serviced. This will all be in the agreements when you enter into a transaction. When you say liquidate staff you mean sell off their assets and not sell their staff into slavery.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "2ca4fe8511e65b7cb8ff2d94ddb5fe0e", "text": "What you have to remember is you are buying a piece of the company. Think of it in terms of buying a business. Just like a business, you need to decide how long you are willing to wait to get paid back for your investment. Imagine you were trying to sell your lemonade stand. This year your earnings will be $100, next year will be $110, the year after that $120 and so on. Would you be willing to sell it for $100?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "7e6a5a540c60faee2f81e922e2fa4a79", "text": "There are many ways to value a business. Here is a simple method to get a ball park number on most businesses. This business is made of two parts. For the real estate: For the business: I would consider this type of small business riskier than the stock market and so you should expect a higher return. Maybe 15 or 20%? If the rental business makes $50k profit (not revenue) and that is 20% return of your investment, the business is worth $250k. If the business makes no money or if they only make money because they don't take a salary then this is a hobby and not a business. There's no business to buy here and you are just bidding on the real estate to do with what you please. The assets worth $600k and the business worth $250k would be added together for a fair sale price of $850k. Adjust for your actual numbers and you should be able to get a ball park of what you think the business is worth. If you do the math and it works out that you'll make 1-3% on your business, compare that to investing in other places. If it works out that you'll make 40% on your money that's pretty awesome too.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0dba28ff9b2908da6f4be7d5ec49557e", "text": "Let's take a step back. My fictional company 'A' is a solid, old, established company. It's in consumer staples, so people buy the products in good times and bad. It has a dividend of $1/yr. Only knowing this, you have to decide how much you would be willing to pay for one share. You might decide that $20 is fair. Why? Because that's a 5% return on your money, 1/20 = 5%, and given the current rates, you're happy for a 5% dividend. But this company doesn't give out all its earnings as a dividend. It really earns $1.50, so the P/E you are willing to pay is 20/1.5 or 13.3. Many companies offer no dividend, but of course they still might have earnings, and the P/E is one metric that used to judge whether one wishes to buy a stock. A high P/E implies the buyers think the stock will have future growth, and they are wiling to pay more today to hold it. A low P/E might be a sign the company is solid, but not growing, if such a thing is possible.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ea277e4ed379486c09e3bbc1d31fd249", "text": "Your analysis is correct. The income statement from Google states that LinkedIn made $3.4 million in 2010 - the same number you backed into by using the P/E ratio. As you point out, the company seems overvalued compared to other mature companies. There are companies, however, that posts losses and still trade on exchanges for years. How should these companies be valued? As other posters have pointed out there are many different ways to value a company. Some investors may be speculating on substantial growth. Others may be speculating on IPO hype. Amazon did not make a profit until 2003. Its stock had been around for years before that and even split many times. If you bought the stock in 1998 and still have it you would be doing quite well.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "235d9911f024b3047fa915c0789caa18", "text": "There are different ways to determine the value of a company: When an entrepreneur starts a new company himself and owns 100% of the company, the Fair Market value is unknown. He has put his own money into the company, so it has a high Investment value to him, meaning he has a lot at stake in the company. The Asset value is probably less than the Investment value, meaning if he closed the company, he would lose some of the money he invested. Now, using your example, a Venture Capitalist comes along and takes a look at the company. She believes that the company has a great future potential to make money, which means that she believes that the Intrinsic value is very high. She decides to invest $1 Million in the company for a 10% stake, and the founder agrees. The Fair Market value of the company at that moment is $10 Million. The VC believes that the Intrinsic value of the company is more than $10 Million and that she is making a good investment. The Asset value of the company just went up by $1 Million. To answer your question, the $1 Million is not the founder's to spend on a new house. It is the company's money. However, the founder owns 90% of the company. The new capital will allow the company to buy whatever assets the company needs to meet the potential that the founder and the VC see in it, and make the company grow and earn money for the two investors. A crooked founder could, theoretically, close down the company immediately and pocket 90% of the new cash, but there are certainly legal protections in the contract they signed when the investment was made that prevent him from doing that.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "98ec745c6a8e74d555e9e026298ed9a2", "text": "It is difficult to value a private company. Most of the valuations is based on how one feels the idea would translate into revenue in some future time. The VC firms take into account various factors to determine the price, but more often then not, its their hunch. Even VC don't make money on all picks, very few picks turn out to be stars, most picks lose money they have invested. Few picks just return their money. So if you feel that the idea/product/brand/people are great and would someday make good money, invest into it. Else stay away.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b731769f380d1dbc187594d1070e9701", "text": "I was thinking that the value of the stock is the value of the stock...the actual number of shares really doesn't matter, but I'm not sure. You're correct. Share price is meaningless. Google is $700 per share, Apple is $100 per share, that doesn't say anything about either company and/or whether or not one is a better investment over the other. You should not evaluate an investment decision on price of a share. Look at the books decide if the company is worth owning, then decide if it's worth owning at it's current price.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15f7e3886208561d239ceac550001b11", "text": "\"Okay, I'm going to give you my opinion based on experience; not any technical understanding. The options - by themselves - are pretty meaningless in terms of determining their value. The business plan going forward, their growth expectations, the additional options to be authorized, the additional preferred stock offers they anticipate, even current estimated value of the company are some of the pieces of data you will be needing. I also want to say something cynical, like \"\"to hell with the stock options give me cold hard\"\" but that's just me. (My experience two-times so far has shown stock options to be worth very very little.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "135ab65269bd06b6073c0509e2cb3856", "text": "Since you are talking about a small firm, for the long term, it would be advisable to invest your money into the expansion - growth, diversification, integration - of your business. However, if your intention is to make proper use of your earnings in the short term, a decent bank deposit would help you to increase the credit line for your business with the benefit of having a high enough liquidity. You can also look at bonds and other such low risk instruments to protect your assets.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "053fc9bcde5b00d378e822f216f521bb", "text": "Let's use an example: You buy 10 machines for 100k, and those machines produce products sold for a total of 10k/year in profit (ignoring labor/electricity/sales costs etc). If the typical investor requires a rate of return of 10% on this business, your company would be worth 100k. In investing terms, you would have a PE ratio of 10. The immediately-required return will be lower if substantially greater returns are expected in the future (expected growth), and the immediately required return will be higher if your business is expected to shrink. If at the end of the year you take your 10k and purchase another machine, your valuation will rise to 110k, because you can now produce 11k in earnings per year. If your business has issued 10,000 shares, your share price will rise from $10 to $11. Note that you did not just put cash in the bank, and that you now have a higher share price. At the end of year 2, with 11 machines, lets imagine that customer demand has fallen and you are forced to cut prices. You somehow produce only 10k in profit, instead of the anticipated 11k. Investors believe this 10k in annual profit will continue into the forseable future. The investor who requires 10% return would then only value your company at 100k, and your share price would fall back from $11 to $10. If your earnings had fallen even further to 9k, they might value you at 90k (9k/0.1=$90k). You still have the same machines, but the market has changed in a way that make those machines less valuable. If you've gone from earning 10k in year one with 10 machines to 9k in year two with 11 machines, an investor might assume you'll make even less in year three, potentially only 8k, so the value of your company might even fall to 80k or lower. Once it is assumed that your earnings will continue to shrink, an investor might value your business based on a higher required rate of return (e.g. maybe 20% instead of 10%), which would cause your share price to fall even further.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "55007fd29e85f7c0371128de9781b4b8", "text": "\"Think about the implications if the world worked as your question implies that it \"\"should\"\": A $15 share of stock would return you (at least) $15 after 3 months, plus another $15 after 6 months, plus another after 9 and 12 months. This would have returned to you $60 over the year that you owned it (plus you still own the share). Only then would the stock be worth buying? Anything less than $60 would be too little to be worth bothering about for $15? Such a thing would indeed be worth buying, but you won't find golden-egg laying stocks like that on the stock market. Why? Because other people would outbid your measly $15 in order to get this $60-a-year producing stock (in fact, they would bid many hundreds of dollars). Since other people bid more, you can't find such a deal available. (Of course, there are the points others have brought up: the earnings per share are yearly, not quarterly, unless otherwise noted. The earnings may not be sent to you at all, or only a small part, but you would gain much of their value because the company should be worth about that much more by keeping the earnings.)\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "27329adb821354bfbb68c192b1454180", "text": "You could also look at your growth in online subscribers as a metric for valuing your company. A progressive increase in subscribers is one of the signs of a healthy online business, and vice versa. Your subscriber growth, site visitations, returning customer percentages and other subscriber based metrics should not be ignored when valuing your company.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6df12d93516abeff8fd5bd05200b87b4", "text": "\"Since you have no sales, I'd likely question how well could you determine the value of the company's assets in a reasonable fashion. You may be better to estimate sales and discount that back to a current valuation. For example, insurance companies could determine that if you wanted to be paid $x/month for the rest of your life, the present day value of that is $y. There are similar mechanisms for businesses but this does get tricky as the estimates have to be somewhat conservative and you have to be prepared for some other scenarios. For example, if you got the $200,000 then would you really never have to ask for more external equity financing in the future or is it quite likely that you'd want another infusion down the road? While you can mark it at $1,000,000 there will be questions about why that value that you'd have to answer and saying, \"\"Cause I like big round numbers,\"\" may not go over well. My suggestion is to consider what kind of sales will the company have over the next 5 years that you could work back to determine a current price. If you believe the company can have $5,000,000 in sales over the 5 years then it may make sense to place the current valuation of $1,000,000 on it. I wouldn't look too much into the money and time you've invested as that isn't likely to go over well with investors that just because you've put in what is worth $x, the business may or may not be worth that. The challenge is that without sales, it is quite difficult to get an idea of what is the company worth. If it makes billions, then it is worth a lot more than a company that never turns a profit. Another way to consider this is the question of what kind of economic output do you think you could do working here for the next 5 years? Could you do thousands of dollars of work, millions of dollars or just a few bucks? Consider how you want this to be seen where if you want some help look up episodes of TV shows like \"\"Dragon's Den\"\" or \"\"Shark Tank\"\" as these give valuations often as part of the pitch which is what you are doing.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62077bd6249e2f08079161e4588f0f94", "text": "\"Will the investment bank evaluate the worth of my company more than or less than 50 crs. Assuming the salvage value of the assets of 50 crs (meaning that's what you could sell them for to someone else), that would be the minimum value of your company (less any outstanding debts). There are many ways to calculate the \"\"value\"\" of a company, but the most common one is to look at the future potential for generating cash. The underwriters will look at what your current cash flow projections are, and what they will be when you invest the proceeds from the public offering back into the company. That will then be used to determine the total value of the company, and in turn the value of the portion that you are taking public. And what will be the owner’s share in the resulting public company? That's completely up to you. You're essentially selling a part of the company in order to bring cash in, presumably to invest in assets that will generate more cash in the future. If you want to keep complete control of the company, then you'll want to sell less than 50% of the company, otherwise you can sell as much or as little as you want.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "ab8e5625963dace403b25188bb017acc", "text": "\"No, not on schedule C, better. Its an \"\"above the line\"\" deduction (line 29 on your 1040). Here's the turbo tax article on it. The instructions for this line set certain limitations that you must take into the account, and yes - it is limited to the net profit from the business. One of the following statements must be true. You were self-employed and had a net profit for the year. You were a partner with net earnings from self-employment. You used one of the optional methods to figure your net earnings from self-employment on Schedule SE. You received wages in 2011 from an S corporation in which you were a more-than-2% shareholder. Health insurance premiums paid or reimbursed by the S corporation are shown as wages on Form W-2. The insurance plan must be established under your business. Your personal services must have been a material income-producing factor in the business. If you are filing Schedule C, C-EZ, or F, the policy can be either in your name or in the name of the business.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "15034ead9413735215f730cb5e1fe918", "text": "\"HSAs as they exist today allow a person to contribute tax deductible money (like a traditional IRA) to a savings account. The funds in the savings account can be spent tax free for qualified expenses. If the money is invested it also grows tax free. This means a discount on your cash health expenses of the amount you would have paid in taxes, which given your relative's income isn't likely to be very much. As HSAs exist today they must be paired to a qualified High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). Many plans have a deductible that meets or exceeds the level set by the regulations but many plans waive the deductible for things like X-Rays; waiving the deductible causes most \"\"high deductible\"\" plans to not qualify for HSA accounts. There are other qualified HSA expenses like Long Term Care (LTC) insurance premiums that can also be spent tax and penalty free from HSA funds. At age 60 with low income an HSA serves little purpose because the tax savings is so marginal and an HDHP is required. That does not however mean that the scope of HSA availability should not be expanded. Just because this is not a silver bullet for everyone does not mean it is of no use to anyone.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5e56a48a9311e628a53102f33e136054", "text": "Child care expenses aren't exactly deductible without the FSA, but if you can't use the FSA and end up paying them with after tax dollars, you can use these expenses to qualify for the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, which, depending on your circumstances, could save you more money than the FSA would have saved you.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ecbb430ddfcedf05f360e137448ae3c5", "text": "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.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c3c0944e9e65e420b692ee0e47cded0d", "text": "As others have pointed out, post-tax dollars are what you'll use. Just as a quick note, as you'll be using post-tax dollars; in the past, I've refused to take contractor plans because they almost always are inferior to what I've been able to get off the private exchange ehealthinsurance. A few people have written excellent articles on Get Rich Slowly here and here about them in detail if you want more information. Generally, contractors (and sometimes employees) are offered a few plans (3-4), and this health exchange gives you a little more freedom to pick your plan, which in your situation may help. It isn't always cheaper, but depending on your needs, you may obtain a better deal. Forgot to add this: this option has also made switching jobs easy as well since I don't have to pay COBRA. While it depends on the situation, this can sometimes come out significantly cheaper. For instance, if I were to take the employer health plan next year, I would lose ~$450 a month, whereas the private exchange option is ~$300. But, if I were to switch jobs, decide to opt for self-employment, or a layoff, the COBRA would be even higher than ~$450.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5ff1af280caefca969392dcb82bd928c", "text": "First off, you should contact your health plan administrator as soon as possible. Different plans may interact differently with Medicare; any advice we could provide here would be tentative at best. Some of the issues you may face: A person with both Medicare and a QHP would potentially have primary coverage from 2 sources: Medicare and the QHP. No federal law addresses this situation. Under state insurance law an individual generally cannot collect full benefits from each of 2 policies that together pay more than an insured event costs. State law usually specifies how insurance companies will coordinate health benefits when a person has primary coverage from more than one source. In that situation, insurance companies determine which coverage is primary and which is secondary. It’s important to understand that a QHP is not structured to pay secondary benefits, nor are the premiums calculated or adjusted for secondary payment. In addition, a person with Medicare would no longer receive any premium assistance or subsidies under the federal law. While previous federal law makes it illegal for insurance companies to knowingly sell coverage that duplicates Medicare’s coverage when someone is entitled to or enrolled in Medicare Part A or Part B, there has been no guidance on the issue of someone who already has individual health insurance and then also enrolls in Medicare. We and other consumer organizations have asked state and federal officials for clarification on this complicated situation. As such, it likely is up to the plan how they choose to pay - and I wouldn't expect them to pay much if they think they can avoid it. You may also want to talk to someone at your local Medicare branch office - they may know more about your state specifically; or someone in your state's department of health/human services, or whomever administers the Exchanges (if it's not federal) in your state. Secondly, as far as enrolling for Part B, you should be aware that if she opts not to enroll in Part B at this time, if your wife later chooses to enroll before she turns 65 she will be required to pay a penalty of 10% per 12 month period she was not enrolled. This will revert to 0 when she turns 65 and is then eligible under normal rules, but it will apply every year until then. If she's enrolling during the normal General Enrollment period (Jan-March) then if she fails to enroll then she'll be required to pay that penalty if she later enrolls; if this is a Special Enrollment Period and extends beyond March, she may have the choice of enrolling next year without penalty.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "061c88bc7c25999f41e8622fc2c2bd64", "text": "The rebate amount is a non-qualified distribution: IRS Pub 969 describes how the HSA works: Reporting Distributions on Your Return How you report your distributions depends on whether or not you use the distribution for qualified medical expenses (defined earlier). If you use a distribution from your HSA for qualified medical expenses, you do not pay tax on the distribution but you have to report the distribution on Form 8889. However, the distribution of an excess contribution taken out after the due date, including extensions, of your return is subject to tax even if used for qualified medical expenses. Follow the instructions for the form and file it with your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. If you do not use a distribution from your HSA for qualified medical expenses, you must pay tax on the distribution. Report the amount on Form 8889 and file it with your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. If you have a taxable HSA distribution, include it in the total on Form 1040 or Form 1040NR, line 21, and enter “HSA” and the amount on the dotted line next to line 21. You may have to pay an additional 20% tax on your taxable distribution. I looked at several plans regarding how to handle mistaken distributions: example A What if I accidentally use my HSA Visa debit card for a non-qualified expense? To fix this problem, just bring that same amount into any local branch and tell us it was a Mistaken Distribution. We can then put the funds back into your HSA and correct the problem. example B You’re allowed to correct mistaken HSA withdrawals when there is clear and convincing evidence that amounts were distributed from an HSA because of a mistake of fact due to reasonable cause. You can correct the mistake by repaying the withdrawal no later than April 15 following the first year that you knew or should have known that the withdrawal was a mistake. When a correction is made, the mistaken withdrawal does not have to be included in gross income or be subject to the 6 percent additional tax, and the repayment does not count as an excess contribution. If an error is made by SelectAccount in its role as the administrator, SelectAccount will be responsible for taking appropriate corrective action. Check with your plan trustee on their procedure to fix the mistaken withdrawal.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f0a4ee5d36563070fdd99129bf077a2e", "text": "COBRA premiums are not deductible on 1040 line 29; to qualify, the IRS says the insurance plan must be in your name (COBRA is in your former employer's name). H&R Block confirms this.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b2ec0e4cfbb63734217e34fd4fd9f04d", "text": "You are in business for yourself. You file Schedule C with your income tax return, and can deduct the business expenses and the cost of goods sold from the gross receipts of your business. If you have inventory (things bought but not yet sold by the end of the year of purchase), then there are other calculations that need to be done. You will have to pay income tax as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes (both the employee's share and the employer's share) on the net profits from this business activity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f2ff641ca5fb5d9705c767b1ebe02e52", "text": "I don't think you're stupid, evil, bad or anything like that. I'm sure in fact that you are an intelligent, nice person who only wants the best for everyone. I just think that you are in a willful mannor refusing to understand the difference between insurance and healthcare. It's not that you are incapable, it is that you simply refuse to do so. You are doing so to justify making the bad guy out of an industry whose goal is to make health-care accessible to as many people as possible by spreading out the cost of health-emergencies over time, which is mis-directed anger. I fully appreciate and understand that most health-care is payed for via insurance. However, this is entirely an artifact of business-tax deductions which make it cheaper for individuals to accept part of their compensation in the form of health insurance benefits. Health care and insurance aren't intrinsically inseparable, they are bound together in the US due to the tax code. So what you should be arguing for is the removal of business health-care tax deductions, and direct financial assistance for the poor. This would make insurance and healthcare a more competitive market, which would in turn drive costs down, and by giving the money directly to the impoverished more of the benefit would reach them, rather than creating some huge bureaucracy that it has to be filtered through first. But instead you are choosing to vilify a industry for not handing out free health-care, which is misguided at best.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "d04d1455d5b8090206ebb4e035f20e7e", "text": "\"Short answer, yes. But this is not done through the deductions on Schedule A. This can happen if the employer creates a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for its employees. This can be created for certain approved uses like medical and transportation expenses (a separate account for each category). You can contribute amounts within certain limits to these accounts (e.g. $255 a month for transportation), with pre-tax income, deduct the contributions, and then withdraw these funds to cover your transportation or medical expenses. They work like a (deductible) IRA, except that these are \"\"spending\"\" and not \"\"retirement\"\" accounts. Basically, the employer fulfills the role of \"\"IRA\"\" (FSA, actually) trustee, and does the supporting paperwork.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3e534876010df78449bbca157d503e14", "text": "\"Chris, Joe's table helps. but think this way: there are two ways you can pay the taxes for your side-gig: either you can send a check quarterly to the Feds, OR, you can overwithhold at your real job to cover taxes at your sidegig. I'd do this in \"\"arrears\"\" -- after you get your first paycheck from sidegig, then adjust your real job's withholding. Except (and Joe neglected this), you're still responsible for Social Security / Medicare Tax from your sidegig. I suspect your income at real-job is high enough that you stop paying Social Security Tax, so at least at this time of year you won't be subject to 15.4% Social Security Tax. However, that's NOT true for the 2.9% Medicare Tax. Remember that because you're an independent contractor being payed without withholding, YOU are responsible not only for the Medicare (and Social Security) taxes you'd be responsible for if a regular employee, but you're also responsible for what your employer's share as well.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "58e9f8e3ec0964b68da6ac0df0d26c12", "text": "While the OP disses the health insurance coverage offered through his wife's employer as a complete rip-off, one advantage of such coverage is that, if set up right (by the employer), the premiums can be paid for through pre-tax dollars instead of post-tax dollars. On the other hand, Health insurance premiums cannot be deducted on Schedule C by self-employed persons. So the self-employed person has to pay both the employer's share as well as the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes on that money. Health insurance premiums can be deducted on Line 29 of Form 1040 but only for those months during which the Schedule C filer is neither covered nor eligible to be covered by a subsidized health insurance plan maintained by an employer of the self-employed person (whose self-employment might be a sideline) or the self-employed person's spouse. In other words, just having the plan coverage available through the wife's employment, even though one disdains taking it, is sufficient to make a Line 29 deduction impermissible. So, AGI is increased. Health insurance premiums can be deducted on Schedule A but only to the extent that they (together with other medical costs) exceed 10% of AGI. For many people in good health, this means no deduction there either. Thus, when comparing the premiums of health insurance policies, one should pay some attention to the tax issues too. Health insurance through a spouse's employment might not be that bad a deal after all.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "95aa4d5b9f66c9d973aae8887df04cbd", "text": "It is important to remember that the tax brackets in the U.S. are marginal. This means that the first part of your income is taxed at 10%, the next part at 15%, next at 25%, etc. Therefore, if you find yourself just on the edge of a tax bracket, it really does not make any difference which side of that line you end up falling on. That having been said, of course, reducing your taxable income reduces your taxes. There are lots of deductions you can take, if you qualify. Depending on what type of health insurance coverage you have, a Health Savings Account (HSA) is a great way to shelter some income from taxes. Charitable contributions are also an easy way to reduce your taxes; you don't really personally benefit from them, but if you'd rather send your money to a good cause than to Uncle Sam, that's an easy way to do it.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e6be25a6e20691553af8ecd7cda74ce5", "text": "You have two options for deducting childcare expenses in the US. Both are discussed in Publication 503. You can claim the Childcare Tax Credit using Form 2441, which has instructions here. First, you can enroll in a dependent care FSA. You enroll in this through your employer; either you or your spouse can. $5000 can be deducted pre-tax from your paycheck to pay for childcare this way. This does not have income limits. Second, you can claim a credit based on expenses up to $3000 per child, up to two children ($6000 total), for the Child Care Tax Credit. This is combinable with the FSA, only for the last $1000 if you have 2+ children (so $6000 total between the two). That has income limits to claim over 20% of the credit; so if you are in the 25% bracket, you will only get to claim 20% of the total, either $200 if you have an FSA or $1200 if you do not. Both spouses must work full time or have other qualifying details (such as being a full time student) in order to qualify for the credit; see publication 503 above for more information.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b9f0d0ad1f69afb5a32d75cd2a711659", "text": "Moody's came out with an analysis today saying the requirement could be slightly good for for-profit hospitals (Bad-debt charges will decline. The expansion of healthcare coverage under the law will lessen for-profit hospital operators’ exposure to bad debts, which in turn will improve margins and cash flow. However, we expect that the growth rate of Medicare reimbursements will also slow down, offsetting the benefit of lower bad-debt expense and making the overall credit impact of the ruling neutral to slightly positive), negative for pharmaceutical cos. (Pharmaceutical companies will continue to pay for the full adoption of the Affordable Care Act in the form of higher rebates to the government for Medicaid drug costs, discounts to seniors covered under Medicare Part D drug plans and a new industry fee) and slightly negative for medical device firms (Beginning Jan. 1, 2013, US medical-device product sales will be subject to a 2.3% excise tax; the excise tax will be tax-deductible, resulting in an estimated effective tax rate of 1.5% on US device revenues).", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "27be59dd2f4445169ef9d91862353b69", "text": "It would be unusual but it is possible that the expenses could be very high compared to your income. The IRS in pub 529 explains the deduction. You can deduct only unreimbursed employee expenses that are: Paid or incurred during your tax year, For carrying on your trade or business of being an employee, and Ordinary and necessary. An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense doesn't have to be required to be considered necessary. The next part lists examples. I have cut the list down to highlight ones that could be large. You may be able to deduct the following items as unreimbursed employee expenses. Damages paid to a former employer for breach of an employment contract. Job search expenses in your present occupation. Legal fees related to your job. Licenses and regulatory fees. Malpractice insurance premiums. Research expenses of a college professor. Rural mail carriers' vehicle expenses. Tools and supplies used in your work. Work clothes and uniforms if required and not suitable for everyday use. Work-related education. If the term of employment was only part of the year, one or more of the these could dwarf your income for the year. Before deducting something that large be sure you can document it. I believe the IRS computers would flag the return and I wouldn't be surprised if they ask for additional proof.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "b288f4246d6d89e0c58cf716df4993bd", "text": "\"$500, this is called \"\"cash basis\"\" accounting. A large company might handle it otherwise, counting shipments/billings as revenue. Not you. Yet.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bae6e8d76b98b2ba96a5520be36c2c8f", "text": "I believe moving reimbursement has to be counted as income no matter when you get it. I'd just put it under miscellaneous income with an explanation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "8f5439eccba9927dbad2c3edb01e31dd", "text": "Such activity is normally referred to as bartering income. From the IRS site - You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 and Amended Returns for information on filing an amended return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "316710461de83750af605d1897addf25", "text": "Chris, since you own your own company, nobody can stop you from charging your personal expenses to your business account. IRS is not a huge fan of mixing business and personal expenses and this practice might indicate to them that you are not treating your business seriously, and it should classify your business as a hobby. IRS defines deductible business expense as being both: ordinary AND necessary. Meditation is not an ordinary expense (other S-corps do not incur such expense.) It is not a necessary expense either. Therefore, you cannot deduct this expense. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Deducting-Business-Expenses", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ae579dcb50cc14bc3da84900f50b83ed", "text": "I'm no tax expert by any means. I do know that a disreagarded entity is considered a sole proprietor for federal tax purposes. My understanding is that this means your personal tax year and your business tax year must be one and the same. Nevertheless, it is technically possible to have a non-calendar fiscal year as an individual. This is so rare that I'm unable to find a an IRS reference to this. The best reference I could find was this article written by two CPAs. If you really want to persue this, you basically need to talk with an accountant, since this is complicated, and required keeping propper accounting records for your personal life, in addition to your business. A ledger creqated after-the-fact by an accountant has been ruled insufficent. You really need to live by the fiscal year you choose.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bd2b03ed3cd4d1e068eb182200ec4848", "text": "\"What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing. One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not income. Keep the pay stubs for the year, or the pdf files if they don't give you a physical stub. Pay attention to the YTD numbers on each stub to make sure they aren't sneaking in the expenses as income. If they continue to do this, ask about ownership of the items purchased, since you will be paying the tax shouldn't you own it? You can in the future tell them \"\"I was going to buy X like the customer wanted, but I just bought a new washer at home and their wasn't enough room on the credit card. Maybe next month\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "87c9d0ed048118e676a8196605eb034b", "text": "A computer is a special case because the IRS thinks that you might be using it for personal applications. You may need to keep a log, or be able to state that you also have another computer for non-business use. That said, if your schedule C shows a small profit then you don't need to itemize expenses, just state the total.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "251c9013285d126814056298950fb80e", "text": "If you have a single-member LLC that is treated as a disregarded entity (i.e. you didn't elect to be taxed as a corporation), and that LLC had no activity, you're off the hook for federal reporting. The LLC's activity would normally be reported on your personal tax return on a Schedule C. If the LLC had under $400 in taxable earnings, no Schedule C is needed. So an inactive LLC does not have a tax reporting requirement. (If you had taxable income but under $400, you include that amount on your 1040 but don't need a Schedule C.) In Texas, you still must file a Texas franchise tax report every year, even for a single-member LLC with no activity.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "f8c14645e80f7cd3b2ebaab6c67c182e", "text": "\"My number one piece of advice is to see a tax professional who can guide you through the process, especially if you're new to the process. Second, keep detailed records. That being said, I found two articles, [1] and [2] that give some relevant details that you might find helpful. The articles state that: Many artists end up with a combination of income types: income from regular wages and income from self-employment. Income from wages involves a regular paycheck with all appropriate taxes, social security, and Medicare withheld. Income from self-employment may be in the form of cash, check, or goods, with no withholding of any kind. They provide a breakdown for expenses and deductions based on the type of income you receive. If you get a regular paycheck: If you've got a gig lasting more than a few weeks, chances are you will get paid regular wages with all taxes withheld. At the end of the year, your employer will issue you a form W-2. If this regular paycheck is for entertainment-related work (and not just for waiting tables to keep the rent paid), you will deduct related expenses on a Schedule A, under \"\"Unreimbursed Employee business expenses,\"\" or on Form 2106, which will give you a total to carry to the schedule A. The type of expenses that go here are: If you are considered an independent contractor (I presume this includes the value of goods, based on the first quoted paragraph above): Independent contractors get paid by cash or check with no withholding of any kind. This means that you are responsible for all of the Social Security and Medicare normally paid or withheld by your employer; this is called Self-Employment Tax. In order to take your deductions, you will need to complete a Schedule C, which breaks down expenses into even more detail. In addition to the items listed above, you will probably have items in the following categories: Ideally, you should receive a 1099 MISC from whatever employer(s) paid you as an independent contractor. Keep in mind that some states have a non-resident entertainers' tax, which is A state tax levied against performers whose legal residence is outside of the state where the performance is given. The tax requires that a certain percentage of any gross earnings from the performance be withheld for the state. Seriously, keep all of your receipts, pay stubs, W2's, 1099 forms, contracts written on the backs of napkins, etc. and go see a tax professional.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "b29218638d78e9b10227d3fdda3655af", "text": "\"I am very late to this forum and post - but will just respond that I am a sole proprietor, who was just audited by the IRS for 2009, and this is one of the items that they disallowed. My husband lost his job in 2008, I was unable to get health insurance on my own due to pre-existing ( not) conditions and so we had to stay on the Cobra system. None of the cost was funded by the employer and so I took it as a SE HI deduction on Line 29. It was disallowed and unfortunately, due to AGI limits, I get nothing by taking it on Sch. A. The auditor made it very clear that if the plan was not in my name, or the company's name, I could not take the deduction above the line. In his words, \"\"it's not fair, but it is the law!\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "177452e08f5bcd1a5ccb6fada4720bcd", "text": "\"(Insert the usual disclaimer that I'm not any sort of tax professional; I'm just a random guy on the Internet who occasionally looks through IRS instructions for fun. Then again, what you're doing here is asking random people on the Internet for help, so here goes.) The gigantic book of \"\"How to File Your Income Taxes\"\" from the IRS is called Publication 17. That's generally where I start to figure out where to report what. The section on Royalties has this to say: Royalties from copyrights, patents, and oil, gas, and mineral properties are taxable as ordinary income. In most cases, you report royalties in Part I of Schedule E (Form 1040). However, if you hold an operating oil, gas, or mineral interest or are in business as a self-employed writer, inventor, artist, etc., report your income and expenses on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040). It sounds like you are receiving royalties from a copyright, and not as a self-employed writer. That means that you would report the income on Schedule E, Part I. I've not used Schedule E before, but looking at the instructions for it, you enter this as \"\"Royalty Property\"\". For royalty property, enter code “6” on line 1b and leave lines 1a and 2 blank for that property. So, in Line 1b, part A, enter code 6. (It looks like you'll only use section A here as you only have one royalty property.) Then in column A, Line 4, enter the royalties you have received. The instructions confirm that this should be the amount that you received listed on the 1099-MISC. Report on line 4 royalties from oil, gas, or mineral properties (not including operating interests); copyrights; and patents. Use a separate column (A, B, or C) for each royalty property. If you received $10 or more in royalties during 2016, the payer should send you a Form 1099-MISC or similar statement by January 31, 2017, showing the amount you received. Report this amount on line 4. I don't think that there's any relevant Expenses deductions you could take on the subsequent lines (though like I said, I've not used this form before), but if you had some specific expenses involved in producing this income it might be worth looking into further. On Line 21 you'd subtract the 0 expenses (or subtract any expenses you do manage to list) and put the total. It looks like there are more totals to accumulate on lines 23 and 24, which presumably would be equally easy as you only have the one property. Put the total again on line 26, which says to enter it on the main Form 1040 on line 17 and it thus gets included in your income.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0fb8ad9020bf14fbf901fe9c1f18a4c4", "text": "\"If you receive a 1099-MISC from YouTube, that tells you what they stated to the IRS and leads into most tax preparation software guided interviews or wizards as a topic for you to enter. Whether or not you have a 1099-MISC, this discussion from the IRS is pertinent to your question. You could probably elect to report the income as a royalty on your copyrighted work of art on Schedule E, but see this note: \"\"In most cases you report royalties in Part I of Schedule E (Form 1040). However, if you ... are in business as a self-employed writer, inventor, artist, etc., report your income and expenses on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040).\"\" Whether reporting on Schedule E or C is more correct or better for your specific circumstances is beyond the advice you should take from strangers on the internet based on a general question - however, know that there are potentially several paths for you. Note that this is revenue from a business, so if you paid for equipment or services that are 100% dedicated to your YouTubing (PC, webcam, upgraded broadband, video editing software, vehicle miles to a shoot, props, etc.) then these are a combination of depreciable capital investments and expenses you can report against the income, reducing the taxes you may owe. If the equipment/services are used for business and personal use, there are further guidelines from the IRS as to estimating the split. These apply whether you report on Sch. E, Sch. C, or Sch C-EZ. Quote: \"\"Self-Employment Income It is a common misconception that if a taxpayer does not receive a Form 1099-MISC or if the income is under $600 per payer, the income is not taxable. There is no minimum amount that a taxpayer may exclude from gross income. All income earned through the taxpayer’s business, as an independent contractor or from informal side jobs is self-employment income, which is fully taxable and must be reported on Form 1040. Use Form 1040, Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business, or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ, Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship) to report income and expenses. Taxpayers will also need to prepare Form 1040 Schedule SE for self-employment taxes if the net profit exceeds $400 for a year. Do not report this income on Form 1040 Line 21 as Other Income. Independent contractors must report all income as taxable, even if it is less than $600. Even if the client does not issue a Form 1099-MISC, the income, whatever the amount, is still reportable by the taxpayer. Fees received for babysitting, housecleaning and lawn cutting are all examples of taxable income, even if each client paid less than $600 for the year. Someone who repairs computers in his or her spare time needs to report all monies earned as self-employment income even if no one person paid more than $600 for repairs.\"\"\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a7145ec3e498ec494ec69fc53741a7b", "text": "According to page 107 of the instructions for schedule A for form 1040 : Include taxes (state, local, or foreign) paid on real estate you own that was not used for business. ... If you want to make a business out of her property and be her agent in the management, you might be able to work with an accountant on this, but it won't be a valid personal deduction.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "16581677e644eac47253d3d85e446f77", "text": "I suggest you have a professional assist you with this audit, if the issue comes into questioning. It might be that it wouldn't. There are several different options to deal with such situation, and each can be attacked by the IRS. You'll need to figure out the following: Have you paid taxes on the reimbursement? Most likely you haven't, but if you had - it simplifies the issue for you. Is the program qualified under the employers' plan, and the only reason you're not qualified for reimbursement is that you decided to quit your job? If so, you might not be able to deduct it at all, because you can't take tax benefits on something you can be reimbursed for, but chose not to. IRS might claim that you quitting your job is choosing not to get reimbursement you would otherwise get. I couldn't find from my brief search any examples of what happened after such a decision. You can claim it was a loan, but I doubt the IRS will agree. The employer most likely reported it as an expense. If the IRS don't contest based on what I described in #2, and you haven't paid taxes on the reimbursement (#1), I'd say what you did was reasonable and should be accepted (assuming of course you otherwise qualify for all the benefits you're asking for). I would suggest getting a professional advice. Talk to a EA or a a CPA in your area. This answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer", "title": "" }, { "docid": "061c88bc7c25999f41e8622fc2c2bd64", "text": "The rebate amount is a non-qualified distribution: IRS Pub 969 describes how the HSA works: Reporting Distributions on Your Return How you report your distributions depends on whether or not you use the distribution for qualified medical expenses (defined earlier). If you use a distribution from your HSA for qualified medical expenses, you do not pay tax on the distribution but you have to report the distribution on Form 8889. However, the distribution of an excess contribution taken out after the due date, including extensions, of your return is subject to tax even if used for qualified medical expenses. Follow the instructions for the form and file it with your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. If you do not use a distribution from your HSA for qualified medical expenses, you must pay tax on the distribution. Report the amount on Form 8889 and file it with your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. If you have a taxable HSA distribution, include it in the total on Form 1040 or Form 1040NR, line 21, and enter “HSA” and the amount on the dotted line next to line 21. You may have to pay an additional 20% tax on your taxable distribution. I looked at several plans regarding how to handle mistaken distributions: example A What if I accidentally use my HSA Visa debit card for a non-qualified expense? To fix this problem, just bring that same amount into any local branch and tell us it was a Mistaken Distribution. We can then put the funds back into your HSA and correct the problem. example B You’re allowed to correct mistaken HSA withdrawals when there is clear and convincing evidence that amounts were distributed from an HSA because of a mistake of fact due to reasonable cause. You can correct the mistake by repaying the withdrawal no later than April 15 following the first year that you knew or should have known that the withdrawal was a mistake. When a correction is made, the mistaken withdrawal does not have to be included in gross income or be subject to the 6 percent additional tax, and the repayment does not count as an excess contribution. If an error is made by SelectAccount in its role as the administrator, SelectAccount will be responsible for taking appropriate corrective action. Check with your plan trustee on their procedure to fix the mistaken withdrawal.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "2ec447312a423d5378550f6d87afb5a5", "text": "\"To be deductible, a business expense must be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business. An expense does not have to be indispensable to be considered necessary. (IRS, Deducting Business Expenses) It seems to me you'd have a hard time convincing an auditor that this is the case. Since business don't commonly own cars for the sole purpose of housing $25 computers, you'd have trouble with the \"\"ordinary\"\" test. And since there are lots of other ways to house a computer other than a car, \"\"necessary\"\" seems problematic also.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "bacbe17f21b09d058f277e0c87cc31a0", "text": "Keep this rather corny acronym in mind. Business expenses must be CORN: As other posters have already pointed out, certain expenses that are capital items (computers, furniture, etc.) must be depreciated over several years, but you have a certain amount of capital items that you can write off in the current tax year.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "65d356f1ceb92551df5df086488317a0", "text": "Here are the general guidelines on what you should report and pay - but the overall rule is that if it's not a business-related cost then you can't claim it. In your example, a client meeting may warrant a claim for 'entertaining clients' which could be claimed as a business cost - but buying yourself a coffee to get out of the house isn't a business cost.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "cd7306a60bf14d01085ce39d5567c46d", "text": "Two adages come to mind. Never finance a depreciating asset. If you can't pay cash for a car, you can't afford it. If you decide you can finance at a low rate and invest at a higher one, you're leveraging your capital. The risk here is that your investment drops in value, or your cash flow stops and you are unable to continue payments and have to sell the car, or surrender it. There are fewer risks if you buy the car outright. There is one cost that is not considered though. Opportunity cost. Since you've declared transportation necessary, I'd say that opportunity cost is worth the lower risk, assuming you have enough cash left after buying a car to fund your emergency fund. Which brings me to my final point. Be sure to buy a quality used car, not a new one. Your emergency fund should be able to replace the car completely, in the case of a total loss where you are at fault and the loss is not covered by insurance. TLDR: My opinion is that it would be better to pay for a quality, efficient, basic transportation car up front than to take on a debt.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "a57851d680f06d0d027cbc370f7c762e", "text": "I contacted Stephen Fishman, J.D., the author of Home Business Tax Deductions, to let him know that this question was missing from his book. He was kind enough to send a reply. My original phrasing of the question: If your car is used for both business and personal use, and you deduct via the actual expense method, do trips to the mechanic, gas station, and auto parts store to service or repair the car count as business miles, personal miles, or part-business-part-personal miles? What about driving the newly-purchased car home from the dealership? And his response: Good question. I can find nothing about this in IRS publication or elsewhere. However, common sense would tell us that the cost of driving to make car repairs should be deductible. If you use your car for business, it is a business expense, just like transporting any other piece of business equipment for repairs is a business expense. This should be so whether you use the standard mileage rate or actual expense method. You should probably reduce the amount of your deduction by the percentage of personal use of the car during the year. The same goes for driving a car home from the dealer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "c5077001ffd4ef92ac752c81dde2867a", "text": "Approximately 25% of all cars sold last year were leased, which is the highest on record. When you are leasing you don't own the car, instead you are basically renting it for a fixed term, and turning it back to the dealership. It is very cost effective, because the manufacturers have a keen interest in making lots of cars. They are often subsidizing the lease by giving incentives to the dealer. They are gambling on the future value of their cars. They can lose on that gamble. The car business has turned into a financial nightmare for the car companies; they have huge development costs as the cars become more like mobile computing platforms loaded with sensors, and software that is constantly changing. They can't hold a model for 20 years like Mercedes was able to do in the past. Now they have to constantly update their products. The only way to survive as a car maker is to pump out volume, and the leasing programs, which are quietly being underwritten by the manufacturers help them increase the production quantities, which helps lower the fixed development costs. If only the defense contractors could do this! they are stuck spending billions to build 20 planes, and so each one has a staggering price tag. In the future, the car companies that will survive are those that have terrific credit, and low borrowing costs. That means Japanese and Germans will own the car business entirely in the end, and countries with higher borrowing costs (like America and Brasil) will not be competitive. Luckily Ford is so frugal, due to the lingering spirit of its founder, that they can hold out. One thing strongly in favor of leasing is that you have zero maintenance costs typically. The repair risk is significant in luxury cars. When you buy a 10 year old BMW, and when the tranny goes, it costs a fortune. Having a superb car for 30 months for a few hundred bucks a month is something a lot of people enjoy doing. Who can blame them? you spend an hour or 2 a day in your car, and why not live in a nice place?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "9fe54d3599894d568a96ea2e88b22f60", "text": "You've got two options. Deduct the business portion of the depreciation and actual expenses for operating the car. Use the IRS standard mileage rate of $.575/mile in 2015. Multiply your business miles by the rate to calculate your deduction. Assuming you're a sole proprietor you'll include a Schedule C to your return and claim the deduction on that form.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "3a24e8c7fb56eacce57030b2d4d34c3c", "text": "For stocks, bonds, ETF funds and so on - Taxed only on realised gain and losses are deductible from the gain and not from company's income. Corporate tax is calculated only after all expenses have been deducted. Not the other way around. Real estate expenses can be deducted because of repairs and maintenance. In general all expenses related to the operation of the business can be deducted. But you cannot use expenses as willy nilly, as you assume. You cannot deduct your subscription to Playboy as an expense. Doing it is illegal and if caught, the tours to church will increase exponentially. VAT is only paid if you claim VAT on your invoices. Your situation seems quite complicated. I would suggest, get an accountant pronto. There are nuances in your situation, which an accountant only can understand and help.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fab076774b036cd9084c4f5e2bad63c9", "text": "I'm not an expert, but here's my $0.02. Deductions for business expenses are subject to the 2% rule. In other words, you can only deduct that which exceeds 2% of your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income). For example, say you have an AGI of $50,000, and you buy a laptop that costs $800. You won't get a write-off from that, because 2% of $50,000 is $1,000, and you can only deduct business-related expenses in excess of that $1,000. If you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy a $2,000 laptop, you can deduct a maximum of $1,000 ($2,000 minus 2% of $50,000 is $2,000 - $1,000 = $1,000). Additionally, you can write off the laptop only to the extent that you use it for business. So in other words, if you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy that $2,000 laptop, but only use it 50% for business, you can only write off $500. Theoretically, they can ask for verification of the business use of your laptop. A log or a diary would be what I would provide, but I'm not an IRS agent.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "6d864190cdecc0a7b03e663b49b5604b", "text": "It's my understand that leasing is never the better overall deal, with the possible exception of a person who would otherwise buy a brand new car every 2 or 3 years, and does not drive a lot of miles. Note: in the case of a company car, Canadian taxes let you deduct the entire lease payment (which clearly has some principal in it) if you lease, while if you buy you can only deduct the interest, and must depreciate the car according to their schedule. This can make leasing more attractive to those buying a car through a corporation. I don't know if this applies in the US. The numbers you ran through in class presumably involved calculating the interest paid over the term of the loan. Can you not just redo the calculation using actual interest and lease numbers from a randomly chosen current car ad? I suspect if you do, you will discover leasing is still not the right choice.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "fa004f6659916743d7a9cfa6c7fcb905", "text": "Also, depending where you buy the car in the US, you have to pay property tax every year for just having purchased the car.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ed9e547c7fe50befd984c0eaa6a63f05", "text": "The best way to do this is to pay for the entire car, including gas, insurance, and repairs, from S-corp funds, then meticulously track how many miles are used for personal and how many miles for business. If you pay with S-corp funds, you will claim the personal miles as a taxable benefit from the S-corp on your personal return. The S-corp can then claim all the expenses and depreciation on the vehicle, reducing the S-corp's tax liability.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "53a20d80b0a4b1fc95cd358082d398ce", "text": "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.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "ade1f187fc1c0403179210d8806b6971", "text": "Yes, you will be able to claim it as an expense on your taxes, but not all in the current year. It is split into three categories: Current Expenses - Assets purchased such as inventory would be able to be claimed in the current year. Assets - Vehicles, Buildings, and equipment can be depreciated over time based on the value you purchased them for and the CCA class. Goodwill - In tax terms this is the value of the business purchase that is not eligible in 1 or 2 and is called Eligible Capital Property. This can be expensed over time. From info at CRA website: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/lf-vnts/byng/menu-eng.html", "title": "" }, { "docid": "62e95a628269a92d9a6eb88cf35f5c91", "text": "\"Partly I suspect this is selection bias. You say you see so many luxury cars go by. But if you're looking for them, you're going to notice them. Have you calculated the actual percentage? Do they make up 50% of the cars that pass a specific point in a specific period of time? Or just 10% if you really counted? You say you live in Baltimore county, Maryland. That's a relatively wealthy area, so I'd expect the percentage of luxury cars to be higher than the national average. You'd likely see considerably fewer in the backwoods of Mississippi. That said, some people who own luxury cars can't really afford them. I'm reminded of a wonderful TV commercial I saw recently where a man is showing off all his material goods, he talks about his big house, and his swimming pool, and his fancy car, with a big smile on his face, standing tall, and generally looking proud and happy. And then he says, \"\"How do I do it?\"\" And suddenly his expression changes to complete despair, he slumps down, and says, \"\"I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.\"\" It turns out to be a commercial for a debt-counseling service. Some people put very high value on owning a fancy car and are willing to sacrifice on other things. If having a big fancy car is more important to you then, say, having a nice house or the latest computer or a big screen TV or dining out more often or going on more expensive vacations or whatever you have to give up to get the car, well, that's your decision. Personally I don't care much about a fancy car, I just want something that gets me where I want to go. And I've always figured that with an expensive car, you have to constantly worry about getting in an accident and damaging or destroying it. If you put your money into a big fancy house, at least houses rarely collide with each other. Personally, I make a nice income too. And I have a $500/month mortgage and zero car payment because I drive a 2003 pickup that I bought with cash. But I have two kids in college and I'm trying to get them through with no debt, that's where all my money is going.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "75656afe53e2639b2f91fdf7f2c72eff", "text": "\"Using a \"\"vehicle\"\" is a common technique to isolate project-specific risk from the remainder of the company. There's not any problem with the vehicle making zero paper profits, it was only ever a paper company. The dodgy bit is when they start offering remuneration to participants based on the vehicle's profits - anyone with any sense goes on gross. Or when they are artificially shifting the profits around for tax reasons.\"", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "aa7b71cc6b057f22d94322cc900cc157", "text": "What about web-hosting fees? Cost of Internet service? Cost of computer equipment to do the work? Amortized cost of development? Time for support calls/email? Phone service used for sales? Advertising/marketing expenses? Look hard--I bet there are some costs.", "title": "" } ]

[ { "docid": "8f5439eccba9927dbad2c3edb01e31dd", "text": "Such activity is normally referred to as bartering income. From the IRS site - You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 and Amended Returns for information on filing an amended return.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "acd654eae7418dd216190d5896a774df", "text": "That would be like requiring the IT department in you company to be self sufficient. You're IT department doesn't exist to earn a profit. It exists to enable the rest of the company to earn a profit. Your IT department runs a deficit, it sucks money from the bottom line of your company. Hopefully, it boosts other departments in your company like sales, or engineering, and enables them to make more money than IT consumes.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bef76491f4599f1b8889d9f2abd79de6", "text": "I think his conclusions apply only to sole proprietorships that provide cheap, commoditized services. My story is a little different. I've been a sole proprietor, writing software and providing services related to that software, for 15 years. Over that time, I closed two IP sales to large competitors. One of those was an 8-figure deal. I never provided commodity services, saved as much of my consulting income as possible, toughed out the fallow periods, invested years of unpaid time inventing new ideas and writing new software, treated my customers very well, and always negotiated hard for value.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e606f789dca0425270c4351a21c6ce39", "text": "you: >Pleading ignorance, what is the difference between revenue and sales? me: >[ignorance doesn't cut it in your case](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sales+vs+revenue) Or does your ignorance include ignorance of hyperlinks too? Hint: click the link and use this problem solving approach in the future when you again encounter something you don't understand.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "e1ce8250eb72a7472e0fcb696d1dc384", "text": "\"In general, when dealing with quantities like net income that are not restricted to being positive, \"\"percentage change\"\" is a problematic measure. Even with small positive values it can be difficult to interpret. For example, compare these two companies: Company A: Company B: At a glance, I think most people would come away with the impression that both companies did badly in Y2, but A made a much stronger recovery. The difference between 99.7 and 99.9 looks unimportant compared to the difference between 100,000 and 40,000. But if we translate those to dollars: Company A: Y1 $100m, Y2 $0.1m, Y3 $100.1m Company B: Y1 $100m, Y2 $0.3m, Y3 $120.3m Company B has grown by a net of 20% over two years; Company A by only 1%. If you're lucky enough to know that income will always be positive after Y1 and won't drop too close to zero, then this doesn't matter very much and you can just look at year-on-year growth, leaving Y1 as undefined. If you don't have that guarantee, then you may do better to look for a different and more stable metric, the other answers are correct: Y1 growth should be left blank. If you don't have that guarantee, then it might be time to look for a more robust measure, e.g. change in net income as a percentage of turnover or of company value.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1953236f5be7555ca9b4258a6797b362", "text": "You do actually have some profits (whatever is left from donations). The way it goes is that you report everything on your Schedule C. You will report this: Your gross profits will then flow to Net Profit (line 31) since you had no other expenses (unless you had some other expenses, like paypal fees, which will appear in the relevant category in part II), and from line 31 it will go to your 1040 for the final tax calculation.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "bf5acddc43a0238671cbdafe6502ab8d", "text": "\"Neither. Why would you have to classify startups as value or growth? A startup is its own category. You can find startups at \"\"classic\"\" valuations (price/book... Etc) that would make investors' eyes water... But that happens because many startups are early stage and so revenue or book value or other classic valuations don't quite suit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "da9b004b1196832b883c4c17a86b14f0", "text": "The primary revenue streams are site management and recycling. We've basically fallen off the face of Google with the last website redesign because the person had absolutely no clue what they were doing and used a template. So we're getting torn to shreds by companies that have properly designed websites and a social media presence. Because who the hell looks in a newspaper anymore for business services?", "title": "" }, { "docid": "15126f103a2667dba90dba966a855cc1", "text": "\"I don't think they \"\"actually\"\" turned a profit, did they? As I understand it, this is an accounting method/trick, it's not as if they generated more income by using this system. They just made their monetary value visible rather than implicit. Which is not the same as turning a profit... or am I missing something?\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "abf616c3123c474f8459d5c623759525", "text": "\"Capitalization rate and \"\"Net Profit margin\"\" are two different things. In Capitalization rate note that we are taking the \"\"total value\"\" in the denominator and in Net profit margin we are taking \"\"Revenue/Sales\"\". Capitalization Rate: Capitalization Rate = Yearly Income/Total Value For example (from Investopedia: ) if Stephane buys a property that will generate $125,000 per year and he pays $900,000 for it, the cap rate is: 125,000/900,000 = 13.89%. Net Profit margin: Net Profit margin = Net Profit/Revenue For example (from finance formulas): A company's income statement shows a net income of $1 million and operating revenues of $25 million. By applying the formula, $1 million divided by $25 million would result in a net profit margin of 4%. Although the formula is simplistic, applying the concept is important in that 4% of sales will result in after tax profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "5d76fadccd5c00848bce6f788765e133", "text": "The website likely has no differentiation. I am hoping, however, the service does. I'm not looking to break down a fledgling business plan, I am just looking for information on how and where to build or buy a website that performs thusly: Company creates account and posts the service they can provide, Consumer applies for said service, I deal with some required middle-man work which is at the cost of the consumer.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "4478326e08817e1c19391c1f9412df4f", "text": "I'll address one part of your question: There are other taxes that companies pay as well, such as income tax, but don't charge to the customer as a fee. So, why are gross receipts taxes charged to the customer? Things like income tax can't be passed on to the consumer in a direct way, because there's no fixed relationship between the amount of the tax and the price of an individual product. Income tax is paid on taxable income, which will incorporate deductions for the costs the company incurred to do business. So the final amount of corporate income tax can depend on things unrelated to the price of goods sold, like whether the business decided to repave their parking lot. Gross receipts taxes, by definition, are charged on the total amount of money taken in, so every dollar you spend on an item at the store will be subject to the gross receipts tax, and hence will cost the business 7 cents (or X% where X is the tax rate). This means there is a direct link between the price you pay for an individual item and the tax they pay on that transaction. The same is true for sales taxes, which are also often added at the time of sale. Of course, businesses could roll all of these into the posted price as well. The reason they don't is to get their foot in the door and make the price seem lower: you're more likely to buy something if you see it for the low, low, one-time-only price of $99.99, act now, save big, and then find out you owe an extra $7 at the register than if you saw $107 on the price tag.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "0ddf5935ce37f66c96defd0182a0c28d", "text": "\"This may be closed as not quite PF, but really \"\"startup\"\" as it's a business question. In general, you should talk to a professional if you have this type of question, specifics like this regarding your tax code. I would expect that as a business, you will use a proper paper trail to show that money, say 1000 units of currency, came in and 900 went out. This is a service, no goods involved. The transaction nets you 100, and you track all of this. In the end you have the gross profit, and then business expenses. The gross amount, 1000, should not be the amount taxed, only the final profit.\"", "title": "" }, { "docid": "357f1cc25dd74cf4a74ebde1173c86e9", "text": "Fair enough and I appreciate the advice. But I think in some cases we have a duty to point out contradictory statements, especially if they could be misleading to the average person. I don't want some poor kid who scraped together a few bucks, sees the big revenue numbers and assumes it's a sure thing.", "title": "" }, { "docid": "1defa2bcf6bda85ad0dc8280d65617a5", "text": "I don’t get how companies can keep saying this. Profit is by definition money you didn’t spend on anything (like research). I realize that profit could be used on research in future years, but presumably you will also have excess income in future years to use for that expense. That’s a bum deal though because you will have to pay 35% tax. Making a profit at all means you chose not to invest that money in research but instead to bank the money (pay shareholders).", "title": "" } ]