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Cloks posted:Here's something from reddit... Isn't your first 10k of income tax free on a progressive tax scale?
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Dec 24, 2015 13:39
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Krispy Kareem posted:Isn't your first 10k of income tax free on a progressive tax scale? I think it's 10%. Though I have no idea how that works with the standard deduction. Ironically that dude is a huge trump fan.
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Dec 24, 2015 14:04
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Krispy Kareem posted:Isn't your first 10k of income tax free on a progressive tax scale? No
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Dec 24, 2015 14:13
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You get about $10k in the personal and standard deduction so in practice it should be.
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Dec 24, 2015 14:19
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asur posted:You get about $10k in the personal and standard deduction so in practice it should be. You must pay self employment tax on your first dollar of net income from any small business venture you operate. You pay payroll taxes on the first dollar of wages you earn for that matter. So there is really no such thing as tax free income in the progressive taxation schedule of the US, even if the part of your overall tax burden called "income tax" is reduced to zero by deductions. Keep in mind that most states impose an additional income tax, typically on a flat or nearly flat rate, and to spend your money that you've already paid taxes on you most often have to pay sales taxes.
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Dec 24, 2015 14:38
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How much of an effect, if any, do you think it would have on people's finances if paychecks had to clear like a normal check? (I imagine some have to, but humor me here) I realize that: 1. You should be entitled to your money as soon as it's released to you. 2. People sometimes need their money ASAP for emergencies 3. People BWM would just adjust to getting paid a few days later. Those who are BWM are conditioned to spend their money as soon as they get paid, but maybe seeing it pending, without the ability to spend it, might give them some time to think it over.
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Dec 24, 2015 15:00
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Moneyball posted:How much of an effect, if any, do you think it would have on people's finances if paychecks had to clear like a normal check? (I imagine some have to, but humor me here) I see my direct deposit pending for a few days before it shows up
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Dec 24, 2015 15:20
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Moneyball posted:How much of an effect, if any, do you think it would have on people's finances if paychecks had to clear like a normal check? (I imagine some have to, but humor me here) Paychecks actually do have to clear just like normal checks. It's just a fair assumption most people make that their employer's checks are good as long as the business is operating and their checks have been good in the past. Check r/pf and r/legaladvice for "help, my paycheck bounced" stories, though.
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Dec 24, 2015 15:21
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Cloks posted:Here's something from reddit... That is good advice though. As long as they haven't received any tax documents from paypal there's almost no chance of being audited. Ironically, the stupidest thing they did was ask for advice
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Dec 24, 2015 15:39
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Are we in favour of tax evasion in this thread now? Just trying to keep track.
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Dec 24, 2015 15:44
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Only when it's nontrivial to get caught, apparently. "I pay enough in taxes, I don't give a poo poo" is a lovely attitude to have, in any case
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Dec 24, 2015 16:05
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I've got another BWM story about a friendship that got ruined over it, but I've got some work to do and will post later. Also gotta ramp up the drama 
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Dec 24, 2015 16:21
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Noyemi K posted:I've got another BWM story about a friendship that got ruined over it, but I've got some work to do and will post later. Also gotta ramp up the drama You'll be in our hearts and prayers, goonspeed little goon.
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Dec 24, 2015 16:50
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Series DD Funding posted:That is good advice though. As long as they haven't received any tax documents from paypal there's almost no chance of being audited. Ironically, the stupidest thing they did was ask for advice EBay will tell the IRS about accounts that exceed certain minima, I think 200 sales and $20k in sales. Even before that, if your profits are in the hundreds or low thousands per year you'll likely owe nothing if you actually file, if you pay for (or have) expertise in small business tax filing. You can deduct tons of stuff: product costs, mileage gathering supplies, food on days you devote to it, packaging materials, EBay fees, etc. On the other hand, if you get bigger and suddenly the IRS does care, you're looking at potential for fines and possibly legal fees. Just pay the small amount for the tax specialist at least one year. I strongly suspect if he's not tracking his costs, he's making way less profit than he thinks anyway. EBay and PayPal take ~10% of the top, but in a bill that comes later and is easy to discount mentally. Then there are the nontrivial shipping costs if you're buying boxes, driving around, etc. That's not even touching on time cost, assuming he's not paying himself a salary. I do the same thing as a hobby (buy high end clothes at estate sales and thrift stores and sell on eBay) and it's a fun hobby, but not insanely profitable unless you really commit a huge amount of time and effort to it. berzerker fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 17:56
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asur posted:You get about $10k in the personal and standard deduction so in practice it should be. Maybe the deduction does it in a round-about sort of way. I remember looking up my marginal tax rates and I could have sworn the first 10k was not taxed - but now that I look at it again it is 10%.
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Dec 24, 2015 20:45
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Subjunctive posted:Are we in favour of tax evasion in this thread now? Just trying to keep track.
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Dec 24, 2015 21:33
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Yeah - people recommend all sorts of tax-dodging strategies in BFC, like 401ks. That's tax avoidance, not evasion. It reduces the amount of the legal tax liability. It doesn't avoid paying (or filing) what's legally required, which was the advice given to the auction entrepreneur.
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Dec 24, 2015 21:36
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Yeah....legitimate tax avoidance by using things like tax deferred retirement accounts which are set up in the law expressly to allow people to do that. That is totally the same thing as not reporting income.
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Dec 24, 2015 21:37
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I dunno, I guess I hear people talk about "loopholes" all the time that let one evade taxes, is that really different? Maybe that's not even a real thing and I'm caught up on a colloquialism, but I don't think ethics are the same as legality and where the line should be drawn is fuzzy. I agree that straight up not declaring income is categorically different, but to what extent is using the law to avoid taxes a good thing? Is the world worse off if this guy doesn't declare his ebay profits, especially given that he hasn't accounted for his costs? That's kind of hard for me to say as well.
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Dec 24, 2015 21:43
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It's the difference between legally putting the money into an account that you will pay taxes on to use and straight up not reporting the money. Crime of omission.
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Dec 24, 2015 22:06
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Series DD Funding posted:That is good advice though. As long as they haven't received any tax documents from paypal there's almost no chance of being audited. Ironically, the stupidest thing they did was ask for advice It's not good advice, it's tax evasion. The illegal kind, in case anybody was wondering. Personally I think the tax system in the US is extremely unethical but it sure is legal!
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Dec 24, 2015 22:11
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Well, we could debate the morals of taxation (or using the law to reduce taxes, though law is the only reason there are taxes at all), and perhaps page Wesley Snipes to the thread for his perspective. I believe, for example, that the US tax credit for mortgage interest is bad fiscal and social policy. (Though it would be substantially to my benefit if I were staying in the US.) The fact remains that tax evasion is a crime, while claiming deductions is not. If people believe that tax policy should be different, then with other policy they should vote that way. Even accounting for civil disobedience, a retailer hiding a few thousand dollars of profit is ineffective because it's invisible. If he wants to Occupy eBay, he should be proclaiming his rebellion, not hoping the IRS doesn't notice. I think advocating criminal activity is giving bad financial advice.
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Dec 24, 2015 22:21
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I dunno, I guess I hear people talk about "loopholes" all the time that let one evade taxes, is that really different? Maybe that's not even a real thing and I'm caught up on a colloquialism, but I don't think ethics are the same as legality and where the line should be drawn is fuzzy. I agree that straight up not declaring income is categorically different, but to what extent is using the law to avoid taxes a good thing? Is the world worse off if this guy doesn't declare his ebay profits, especially given that he hasn't accounted for his costs? That's kind of hard for me to say as well. The difference between avoidance and evasion is a pretty bright line in most cases. The ethics code for CPAs actually requires tax accountants to avoid tax liability for their client to the greatest extent the law and their professional ability allows. It is not the taxpayer's job to voluntarily "fix" the tax code that was intentionally broken for the benefit of a few wealthy political donors.
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Dec 24, 2015 23:24
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quote:My wife is a secondary credit card holder to simplify her purchasing needs (food, petrol, coffee). help my wife spends $4k-5k a month (and we only earn $6k), how can i reduce the foreign transaction fees she will incur if i try to limit her spending?
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Dec 24, 2015 23:38
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I like the "utilities" that range from $100 to $3000 / month. They must fire up a small nuclear reactor during a few months a year.
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Dec 25, 2015 00:37
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Could be filling a large heating oil tank? I seem to remember that being pretty costly.
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Dec 25, 2015 03:41
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This is not a budget problem, this is a "my spouse is a crazy rear end in a top hat and doesn't take my very real needs into account" problem. Jfc divorce her rear end.
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Dec 25, 2015 04:07
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Thesaurus posted:I like the "utilities" that range from $100 to $3000 / month. Silly! Then they'd be making energy not wasting it!
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Dec 25, 2015 04:24
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Gotta build that cancer equity somehow.
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Dec 25, 2015 04:29
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I think that's just a typo, guys. Probably $100-$300 per month.
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Dec 25, 2015 04:31
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Noggin Monkey posted:I think that's just a typo, guys. Probably $100-$300 per month. No, someone says the 3000$ amount sounds crazy and he says: Reddit posted:it can add up. I guess when I say 'utilities', I'm refering to regular bills I pay just for simplicity. eg. Water bill electric bill council rates gas vehicle rego kids school fees house insurance car insurance etc etc He's lumping a lot of other bills under utilities.
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Dec 25, 2015 04:38
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Less fun than horse chat, but better than tax chat, another report that most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.
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Dec 25, 2015 10:35
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Tyro posted:Yeah....legitimate tax avoidance by using things like tax deferred retirement accounts which are set up in the law expressly to allow people to do that. That is totally the same thing as not reporting income. Have you ever wondered why the bedrock of American retirement program has such an odd name? 401(k) was part of a law passed in '78 that was abused by an accountant in the early 80s to create a retirement arrangement for the employees of the company he was going work for, and it caught on like crazy*. It's all above board now, but to call it "set up in the law expressly to allow people to do that" is stretching the reality of the situation a bit. It's one of a few loopholes available to the common man, but it's a loophole none the less. *afterwards with other companies, because the first company choose not to use his plan due to fear of the IRS raping them.
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Dec 25, 2015 11:01
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Delta-Wye posted:Have you ever wondered why the bedrock of American retirement program has such an odd name? That's pretty interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Any books or articles you would recommend on that story?
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Dec 25, 2015 13:28
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Tyro posted:That's pretty interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Any books or articles you would recommend on that story? https://www.ebri.org/pdf/publications/facts/0205fact.a.pdf has the history, but it's pretty dry.
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Dec 25, 2015 13:35
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Dry but short, it will be something to look at when I have a few minutes to kill. Thanks.
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Dec 25, 2015 13:41
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As promised, a tale of BWM from this year involving the loss of a friend. I'll try not to sound too dry recounting it but this is BFC anyway, not loving E/N, so here goes: For reasons too complicated to get into here, I had to leave my parents' home this summer and I did so under the cover of a LAN party before attending an entertainment convention. A close friend of the time offered I could be smuggled away in a room his mom was renting (well, it was effectively half the house) under the condition that I pay $400 directly to her in August, cook dinner each night, and help the family cut back on spending at the grocery store. It wound up being a train wreck for several reasons: 1) Their spending was out of control. Like, it was enough that $160 a week on groceries for two loving people was not out of the ordinary, plus multiple outings to eat per week. When I arrived I tried to wrench the spending down instead of up, but it went up because of the assumption of an extra mouth and an inability to listen to my advice. Such as: don't buy 4 cases of soda, frozen foods are a waste of money, eat dinner when I cook it, etc. 2) My friend at the time did not yet begin work at his new job, and his mom makes 19k a year before taxes. They had a great deal on rent, I believe they were charged $200/room or so and had effectively half the (large) suburban home to themselves. 3) I learned that the property owner found out about my existance anyway, didn't seem too bothered, and probably would have served me a lease had I asked, where I would have paid $200/month to him instead of $400/month to my friend's mom. He was quite odd and avoided travelling through areas I was occupying, but ultimately harmless. This guy wanted them out, because of all the noise they kept up. 4) My friend's mom frequently and openly discussed manipulating her own daughter into paying some of her costs, such as a substantial portion of the security deposit on a new apartment. They treated her as a traitor for going to live her own life. Whenever my friend discussed leaving her himself to go live with his (then) girlfriend, she'd guilt him to the point of tears. 5) My friend had lied to his mother about the nature of my income. At the time I was getting some money from my boyfriend, a bit from patreon to develop a game and create sound programs, and the rest was freelance income. He told her I was getting money sent to me from my family, so automatically she strongly resented me for not having to "work" for my money. This spite towards me was palpable, and I didn't know why until he'd revealed it a week before my departure. 6) The spite towards me came to a head when, on a sunday, his wasteful, manipulative dullard of a mother discovered her account was dry and asked me for all my money sometime in late august. Bank was closed, so she couldn't yet deposit the check for all the money in my account ($110 or so, I said I'd pay the remaining 300 at the end of the month) so it was purely a move of malice towards me for perceived wrongs, such as failing to "coupon enough" to save them money on unnecessary purchases. 7) Sometime before I left, I found out his mother had a problem both with me being transgender and me being black, and I was told not to dress as a woman out with her anymore. Nobody else gave a half a poo poo and I had assumed that she knew beforehand that I'm one of them queers, considering I've never had a girlfriend. I wound up losing him as a friend (or maybe vice versa) because I caught on to him being used as a tool to manipulate me, and I wouldn't have it. I wound up refusing to be extorted and went elsewhere, and though I do sometimes regret this course of action it would have left me broke come the beginning of September anyway. There was an additional leg of the journey between there and me arriving, basically broke and with little more in possessions than clothes and a PC, here in Austin. That was more of a Bad Luck/Bad With Life tale than a BWM story though. Noyemi K fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Dec 25, 2015 |
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Dec 25, 2015 14:40
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You were paying 400 to live in part of a unit they were renting for 200? Those are crazy numbers.
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Dec 25, 2015 15:12
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Yeah, they got a great deal on rooms in a nice suburb in a nice town with primarily upper middle class people, and managed to consistently drain the account by the end of the month. As I mentioned though, I managed to not pay that $400, only $110. I can guarantee it didn't go to the property owner anyway, which is who I should have been dealing with to begin with. They were renting at around $400/month themselves from what I can recall (two rooms, roughly $200 each), so I was effectively meant to pay twice as much and didn't get a room of my own, because they'd convinced me the owners weren't interested in renting to me.
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Dec 25, 2015 15:21
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That story reminds me that everyone getting into a long-term relationship should make sure your future in-laws are stable financially. One of my exes had a retard mother that kept overdrafting her checking account because she couldn't balance a checkbook, and I had to float her money to pay her bills a few times.
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Dec 25, 2015 15:37
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