You could debate the "why"s of tax policy endlessly. There are lots of things in tax law that I think are bad ideas, and probably a few here and there that I think are good ideas. I am well aware that there are things that I think are good ideas that others think are bad ideas and vice versa. To your specific point: I suppose you could say that having a place to live is a necessity. But most people do not live in the absolute minimum necessary to give them a place to sleep and protection from the weather. You could survive with a one-room apartment with a bed on one side and a toilet and some minimal cooking facilities on the other. Most people have considerably more than that. At some point that's luxury and not necessity. And if you want to push it, you COULD live in a cardboard box under a bridge, you don't NEED a house or apartment to survive. Personally I think it's absurd that as a home-owner I get a deduction for my mortgage interest, while if someone were to rent an identical house with a monthly rental equal to exactly the same amount that I am paying on my mortgage, he would receive no deduction. The stated goal of that one was to encourage home ownership. But people who own homes are generally richer than those who rent, so the net result is that the poor are paying higher taxes to help subsidize the homes of the rich. And then the rich congratulate themselves on how they are giving these tax breaks to help make housing more affordable for poor people. To reiterate @keshlam, tax laws only makes sense when understood politically. Yes, some people have fine ideas about what is fair and just. Others simply want tax breaks that benefit their business or people with tough financial situations that just happen by chance to resemble their own. Many of the people with noble ideas have little concept of what the implications of the policies they push are. Many of the ideas that some people view as worthy and noble, others view as frivolous, counter-productive, or even evil. Then you mash all these competing groups and interest together and see what comes out.

It's legal. In fact, they are required to do this, assuming you are in fact a HCE (highly compensated employee) to avoid getting in trouble with the IRS. I'm guessing they don't provide documentation for the same reason they don't explain to you explicitly what the income thresholds are for social security taxes, etc - that's a job for your personal accountant. Here's the definition of a HCE: An individual who: Owned more than 5% of the interest in the business at any time during the year or the preceding year, regardless of how much compensation that person earned or received, or For the preceding year, received compensation from the business of more than $115,000 (if the preceding year is 2014; $120,000 if the preceding year is 2015, 2016 or 2017), and, if the employer so chooses, was in the top 20% of employees when ranked by compensation. There are rules the restrict distributions from plans like 401ks. For example, treasury reg 1.401a(4)-5(b)(3) says that a plan cannot make a distribution to a HCE if that payment reduces the asset value of the plan to below 110% of the value of the plan's current liabilities. So, after taking account all distributions to be made to HCEs and the asset value of the plan, everyone likely gets proportionally reduced so that they don't run afoul of this rule. There are workarounds for this. But, these are options that the plan administrators may take, not you. I suppose if you were still employed there and at a high enough level, a company accountant would have discussed these options with you. Note, there's a chance there's some other limitation on HCEs that I'm missing which applies to your specific situation. Your best bet, to understand, is simply ask. Your money is still there, you just can't get it all this year.

Generally speaking, you want to find goods and services that are inelastic and also require oil as a cost. Oil company stocks make record profits when oil is high, because direct demand for oil is relatively inelastic. Profit margins of oil competition should also go up, as this creates inflation in general, as people seek alternatives to the inelastic demand.

It is COMPLETELY no use to pay earlier (during a billing cycle) to better your credit score! Your credit score gets affected ONLY once a month from each creditor, and that happens when they post your monthly statement. Thus, no matter what you do or pay and how many times a month or how many days earlier than your due date, it has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your score. Anything you do will be reflected only after the statement. What you pay in between those two statements is irrelevant. So, as far as credit score goes IT DOESN'T MATTER. However, if you want to save on interest being charged, it is wise to pay as early as possible, so your balance is as low as possible for day-by-day calculation of your interest.

You're missing the cost-of-carry aspect: The cost of carry or carrying charge is the cost of storing a physical commodity, such as grain or metals, over a period of time. The carrying charge includes insurance, storage and interest on the invested funds as well as other incidental costs. In interest rate futures markets, it refers to the differential between the yield on a cash instrument and the cost of the funds necessary to buy the instrument. So in a nutshell, you'd have to store the gold (safely), invest your money now, i.e. you're missing out on interests the money could have earned until the futures delivery date. Well and on top of that you need to get the gold shipped to London or wherever the agreed delivery place is. Edit: Forgot to mention that of course there are arbitrageurs that make sure the futures and spot market prices don't diverge. So the idea isn't that bad as I might have made it sound but being in the arbitrage business myself I should disclaim that profits are small and arbitraging is highly automated, so before you spot a $1 profit somewhere between any two contracts, you can be quite sure it's been taken by an arbitrageur already.

No, the stock market is not there for speculation on corporate memorabilia. At its base, it is there for investing in a business, the point of the investment being, of course, to make money. A (successful) business earns money, and that makes it valuable to its owners since that money can be distributed to them. Shares of stock are pieces of business ownership, and so are valuable. If you knew that the business would have profit of $10,000,000 every year, and would distribute that to the owners of each of its 10,000,000 shares each year, you would know to that each share would receive $1 each year. How much would such a share be worth to you? If you could instead put money in a bank and get 5% a year back, to get $1 a year back you would have to put $20 into the bank. So maybe that share of stock is worth about $20 to you. If somebody offers to sell you such a share for $18, you might buy it; for $23, maybe you pass up the offer. But business is uncertain, and how much profit the business will make is uncertain and will vary through time. So how much is a share of a real business worth? This is a much harder call, and people use many different ways to come up with how much they should pay for a share. Some people probably just think something like "Apple is a good company making money, I'll buy a share at whatever price it is being offered at right now." Others look at every number available, build models of the company and the economy and the risks, all to estimate what a share might be worth, more or less. There is no indisputable value for a share of a successful business. So, what effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock? You can only say that for some of the people who might buy or sell shares, higher earnings will, all other thing being equal, have them be willing to spend more to buy it or demand more when selling it. But how much more is not quantifiable but depends on each person's approach to the problem. Higher earnings would tend to raise the price of the stock. Yet there are other factors, such as people who had expected even higher earnings, whose actions would tend to lower the price, and people who are OK with the earnings now, but suspect trouble for the business is appearing on the horizon, whose actions would also tend to lower the price. This is why people say that a stock's price is determined by supply and demand.

1.If the compensation that I receive is over 10 lakhs, how much would be deducted as tax No tax will be deducted by the company. You have to calculate the tax and pay in Advance by yourself. There are quite a few Banks that give you online facility to pay your tax. There is no service tax. Otherwise the tax slabs are right. The current budget has slightly revised the tax brackets. 2.So are these the right taxes and % that Need to be paid? If not do let me know the correct deductions. Yes. Revised brackets for financial year 2014-2015 are NIL for first 2.5 lakhs. Other brackets are unchanged. 4.What others legal options I have to decrease the tax liability? As an employee of my ex company I had once taken an FD (that reduced my tax) The options are same as salaried, i.e. you can claim exemption under 80C or on interest of housing loan, etc. As a consultant certain expenses can also be deducted. You should also talk to a CA who can help you with this as there will be some paperwork involved.

It is possible but unlikely. Securities firms would prefer never to settle externally; rather, they prefer to wait until the liabilities can be netted. They are forced to make and take payment in three business days. The reason why is because settlement is costly in the same way as any other business would prefer to build trade credit instead of taking or making payment rapidly. The only circumstance where a financial firm would wish to take full delivery is when a counterparty is no longer trusted to be solvent.

non-resident aliens to the US do not pay capital gains on US products. You pay tax in your home country if you have done a taxable event in your country. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax.asp#axzz1mQDut9Ru but if you hold dividends, you are subject to US dividend tax. The UK-US treaty should touch on that though.

There is normally a policy at the organisation that would restrict trades or allow trades under certain conditions. This would be in accordance with the current regulations as well as Institutions own ethical standards. Typical I have seen is that Technology roles are to extent not considered sensitive, ie the employees in this job function normally do not access sensitive data [unless your role is analyst or production support]. An employee in exempt roles are allowed to trade in securities directly with other broker or invest in broad based Mutual Funds or engage a portfolio management services from a reputed organisation. It is irrelevant that your company only deals with amounts > 1 Million, infact if you were to know what stock the one million is going into, you may buy it slightly earlier and when the company places the large order, the stock typically moves upwards slightly, enough for you to make some good money. That is Not allowed. But its best you get hold of a document that would layout the do' and don't in your organisation. All such organisation are mandated to have a written policy in this regard.

I assume that mutual funds are being discussed here. As Bryce says, open-ended funds are bought from the mutual fund company and redeemed from the fund company. Except in very rare circumstances, they exist only as bits in the fund company's computers and not as share certificates (whether paper or electronic) that can be delivered from the selling broker to the buying broker on a stock exchange. Effectively, the fund company is the sole market maker: if you want to buy, ask the fund company at what price it will sell them to you (and it will tell you the answer only after 4 pm that day when a sale at that price is no longer possible unless you committed to buy, say, 100 shares and authorized the fund company to withdraw the correct amount from your bank account or other liquid asset after the price was known). Ditto if you want to sell: the mutual fund company will tell you what price it will give you only after 4 pm that day and you cannot sell at that price unless you had committed to accept whatever the company was going to give you for your shares (or had said "Send me $1000 and sell as many shares of mine as are needed to give me proceeds of $1000 cash.")

The compound interest argument is a good one. While you are young, it is important to save, since time is on your side for compounding of interest. I think the 401K is a good idea, but not for all of your savings. Think about saving a percentage of your income, but put it in a couple places. Your Roth is also a great thing, since you'll be able to remove money without paying tax again. The 401k (tax deferred) is a good idea if your company matches any of it (FREE MONEY!), and because it lowers your taxable income now, and it's taken out of your check before you see it, so you don't miss it. It's still important to save other money that you can have for ready cash (unexpected dead car, for example, or medical bills, or what have you.) I find that I don't want to be managing my investments from minute to minute, or doing my own trades (I'd rather do other things), so I have a mix (Roth, 401k, cash savings) of automated contributions for savings, and I think hard before buying new stuff. The point is to save, and if possible, try to save at least 10% of your income.

The hospital likely has a contract with your insurance company which makes them obligated to bill the insurance before billing you! I had a similar occurrence that was thrown out when my insurance company provided a copy of a contract with the hospital to the judge. So if there is an agreement they must file with the insurance in timely manner.

My answer is that when confronted with the obvious, the most common human reaction is to seek reasons for it, because things have to be right. They have to have a reason. We don't like it when things suck. So when finding out that you are being ripped off every day of your life, your reaction is "There must be a logical reason that perfectly explain why this is. After all, the world is fair, governments are working in our best interest and if they do it this way, they must have a very good reason for it." Sorry, but that not the case. You have the facts. You are just not looking at them. Economics, as a subject, is the proper management of resources and production. Now, forget the fancy theories, the elaborate nonsense about stocks and bonds and currencies and pay attention to the actual situation. On our planet, most people earn $2,000 per year. Clean water is not available for a very sizable percent of the world's population. Admittedly, 90% of the world's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the most wealthy 10%. A Chinese engineer earns a fraction of what a similarly qualified engineer earns in the States. Most people, even in rich countries, have a negative net value. They have mortgages that run for a third of their lifetimes, credit card debts, loans... do the balance. Most people are broke. Does this strike you as the logical result of a fair and balanced economic system? Does this look like a random happenstance? The dominant theory is "It just happened, it's nobody's fault and nobody designed it that way and to think otherwise is very bad because it makes you a conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy theorists are nuts. You are not nuts are you?" Look at the facts already in your possession. It didn't just happen. The system is rigged. When a suit typing a few numbers in a computer can make more money in 5 minutes than an average Joe can make in 100 lifetimes of honest, productive work, you don't have a fair economic system, you have a scam machine. When you look at a system as broken as the one we have, you shouldn't be asking yourself "what makes this system right?" What you should be asking yourself is more along the lines of "Why is it broken? Who benefits? Why did congress turn its monetary policy over to the Federal reserve (a group of unelected and unaccountable individuals with strong ties in the banking industry) and does not even bother to conduct audits to know how your money is actually managed? This brilliant movie, Money as debt, points to a number of outrageous bugs in our economic system. Now, you can dream up reasons why the system should be the way it is and why it is an acceptable system. Or you can look at the fact and realize that there is NO JUSTIFICATION for an economic system that perform as badly as it does. Back to basics. Money is supposed to represent production. It's in every basic textbook on the subject of economics. So, what should money creation be based on? Debt? No. Gold? No. Randomly printed by the government when they feel like it? No (although this could actually be better than the 2 previous suggestions) Money is supposed to represent production. Index money on production and you have a sound system. Why isn't it done that way? Why do you think that is?

In general, currency has no expiration date. Specifically, in Canada, the Bank of Canada has been issuing banknotes since 1935, and these are still considered legal tender, even though they don't look much like the modern banknotes. Before that, Canadian chartered banks issued currency, and these also still have value. However, there are a few things to note. First of all, with currency of that age, it often has more value as a collector's item than the face value. So spending it at a store would be foolish. Second, store clerks are not experts in old currency, and will not accept a bill that they do not recognize. If you want the face value of your old currency, you may need to exchange it for modern currency at a bank. Having said all that, there are certainly cases where currency does expire. Generally this happens when a country changes currency. For example, when the Euro was introduced, the old currencies were discontinued. After a window of exchange, the old currency in many cases lost its value. So if you have some old French Franc notes, for example, they can no longer be exchanged for Euros. These types of events cannot be predicted in the future, of course, so it is impossible to say when, if ever, the Canadian currency you have today will lose its spending value in Canada.

Do not mix personal accounts and corporate accounts. If you're paid as your self person - this money belongs to you, not the corporation. You can contribute it to the corporation, but it is another tax event and you should understand fully the consequences. Talk to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). If they pay to you personally (1099) - it goes on your Schedule C, and you pay SE taxes on it. If they pay to your corporation, the corporation will pay it to you as salary, and will pay payroll taxes on it. Generally, payroll through corporation will be slightly more expensive than regular schedule C. If you have employees/subcontractors, though, you may earn money which is not from your own performance, in which case S-Corp may be an advantage.

I am lucky enough to have chosen a flexible mortgage that allows me to change payment amounts at certain, very lenient intervals (to a minimum amount). So when I was laid off, the first thing I did was call my bank to lower my payments to a level that allowed me some breathing room, at my new, lower income. If and when my family's income increases, I'll re-adjust my payments to a higher amount. But if you're concerned about the "what if"s in this economy, I'd definitely choose a mortgage that allows for flexibility so that you don't lose your house if you don't have to, particularly if your situation is temporary.

If anything, the price of an ETF is more tightly coupled to the underlying holdings or assets than a mutual fund, because of the independent creation/destruction mechanism. With a mutual fund, the price is generally set once at the end of each day, and the mutual fund manager has to deal with investments and redemptions at that price. By the time they get to buying or selling the underlying assets, the market may have moved or they may even move the market with those transactions. With an ETF, investment and redemption is handled by independent "authorized participants". They can create new units of the ETF by buying up the underlying assets and delivering them to the ETF manager, and vice versa they can cancel units by requesting the underlying assets from the ETF manager. ETFs trade intraday (i.e. at any time during trading hours) and any time the price diverges too far from the underlying assets, one of the authorized participants has an incentive to make a small profit by creating or destroying units of the ETF, also intraday.

Can you tell I'm having fun with this question? Here's another great list, from Finally Frugal, which includes the above items, but also these gems: Avoid idling. Now, this just annoys me. Walking past a line of idling cars at the transit center waiting for their human 'pickup', makes me crazy! It makes me want to knock on the window, shake my finger, and give 'em a piece of my mind. I don't do it, because I don't have a death wish. Turn the car off when you're not driving it. Combine trips. I used to be one of those people who would run to Target, go home, remember something I needed at the grocery store and go out for that, come home again, then run out to the library. All of these places are within a two mile radius of my house. Making lists before leaving the house has helped me to group my errands within one trip, meaning fewer back and forth trips. Slow down. Your parents were right. Slow is better. Not only is it safer to drive the speed limit, you'll be increasing your car's efficiency and reducing the amount of fuel your vehicle uses.

Answers: 1: No, Sections 1291-1298 of the IRC were passed in the Reagan adminstration. 2: Not only can a foreign company like a chocolate company fall afoul of the definition of PFIC because of the "asset test", which you cite, but it can also be called a PFIC because of the "income test". For example, I have shares in a development-stage Canadian biotech which is considered a PFIC because it has no income at all, except for a minor amount of bank interest on its working capital. This company is by no means "passive" (it has run 31 clinical trials in over 1100 human research subjects, burning $250M of investor's money in the process) nor is it an "investment company", but the stupid IRS considers it to be a "passive foreign investment company"! The IRS looks at it and sees only the bank account, and assumes it is a foreign shell corporation set up to shield the bank interest from them. 3: Yes, a foreign mutual fund is EXACTLY what congress intended to be a PFIC when passed IRC 1291-1298. (Biotechs, candy factories, ect got nailed as innocent bystanders.) Note that if you hold a US mutual fund then every year you'll get a form 1099 in the mail. The 1099 will report your share of the mutual fund's own income and capital gains, which you must report on your taxes. (You can also have capital gains from selling your shares of the mutual fund, but that's a different thing.) Now suppose that there was no PFIC law. Then the US investors in the mutual fund would do better if the mutual fund were in a foreign country, for two reasons: a) The fund would no longer distribute 1099's. That means the shareholders wouldn't have to pay tax every year on their proportions of the fund's own income/gains. The money that would have sooner gone to the IRS can sit around for years earning interest. b) The fund could return profits to shareholders exclusively through capital gains rather than dividends, thus ensuring that all of the investors' income on the fund would be taxed at <15%-20% rather than up to 39%. The fund could do this by returning cash to shareholders exclusively through buybacks. However, the US mutual fund industry doesn't want to move the industry to Canada, and it only takes a few newspaper articles about a foreign loophole to make congress spring to action. 4) It depends. If you have a PEDIGREED QEF election in place (as I do for my biotech shares) then form 8621 takes a few minutes by hand. However, this requires both the company and the investor to fully cooperate with congress's vision for PFICs. The company cooperates by providing a so-called "PFIC annual information sheet", which replaces the 1099 form for a US mutual fund. The investor cooperates by having a "QEF election" in place for EACH AND EVERY TAX YEAR in which he held the stock and by reporting the numbers from the PFIC annual information sheet on his return. (Note that the QEF election persists once made, until revoked. There are subtleties here that I am glossing over, since "deemed sale" elections and other means may be used to modify a share's holding period to come into compliance.) Note that there is software coming out to handle PFICs, and that the software makers will already run their software to make your form 8621 for $75 or so. I should also warn you that the blogs of tax accountants and tax lawyers all contradict each other on the basic issue of whether you can take capital losses on PFICs for which you have no form 8621 elections. (See section 2.3 of my notes http://tinyurl.com/mh9vlnr for commentary on this mess.) I do not know if the software people will tell you which elections are best made on form 8621, though, or advise you if it's time to simply dump your investment. The professional software is at 8621.com, and the individual 8621 preparation is at http://expattaxtools.com/?page_id=242. BTW, in case you're interested, I wrote up a very careful analysis of how to deal with the PFIC situation for the small biotech I invested in in certain cases. It is posted http://tinyurl.com/mh9vlnr. (For tax reasons it was quite fortunate that the share price dipped to near an all-time low on Jan 1, 2015, making the (next) 2015 tax year ripe for a so-called "deemed sale" election. This was only possible because the company provides the necessary "PFIC annual information statements", which your chocolate factory may or may not do.)