If you think that you are getting a tax cut, as most if not all the credible US media reporting, you may be surprised. One less known and reported change is the $10k local tax deduction cap. If you live in one of the states that has high property as well as state income tax, you will be f*cked.
Oh! What I want to write is the Amtrek derailment. Why are all the media focus on the safety device that hasn't deployed? This is the virgin trip. How the hell can this happen? It is not only the engineer (the idiot that drives the locomotive), but all that are involved with this changed route that save number of minutes. Where are the due diligence and safeguard? There are countless people and entities to blame for this gross negligence - and this including, Amtrak management, (real) engineers, mechanics, supervisors, regulators, and you the NTSB.
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Dec 16, 2017
This has to be the best news of the day. Small investors just averted an unfair rule change on stock investments. That is if you own individual stocks instead of stock funds. I know, it is a boring news, but boring pays bills and give me freedom to pursue things I love.
The little known, let alone covered by US press was the GOP senate version of the tax bill which changes the rule for small investors. If passed it would require stock sales by FIFO. Almost immediately Wall Street lobbyists kicked into action and the rule change was modified to exempt funds from this rule change, except small investors like me would stand to get shafted.
As the house and senate bills have been reconciled this week and is poised to be passed, I went and look for the current status. There is no mention in any major US media I checked. I have to search with the right phase and found this small article on Bloomberg:
"Investors have dodged a rule change that could have raised their tax bills when they sell stock.
The Senate-passed version of the GOP tax bill would have limited investors’ flexibility when selling shares. If investors bought shares of a company over time, the “first-in, first-out,” or “FIFO,” rule would have required that investors sell their oldest shares first when making a stock sale.
The revised GOP tax bill unveiled Friday doesn’t include the FIFO rule. That lets investors keep the flexibility to sell whichever shares they want, generally those that would create the smallest capital gains tax bill.
In a statement, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins said she advocated for dropping the “provision that would have increased taxes on small investors by dictating the order in which stocks could be sold.”
Brokers and wealth managers argued the rule would be difficult to administer, and it might have been circumvented by opening multiple brokerage accounts for different batches of shares."
Sometimes one cannot be too careful just to trust one source. Here is a similar article that was posted on Dec 14. It leaves me not all at ease as it seems the title was revised, base on one source.
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Dec 5, 2017
He claims to be an artist - it is like Hobby Lobby claims to be supplier for artists. No more farfetched than Fox News being purveyor of news.
"artist" at work with his masterpiece - Trump should order a cake from this bigot
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Dec 3, 2017
Cry me a river. An ex-executive with a name like Schmidt. I understand how he feels, as his colleagues and VW Group threw him under the bus. But you are a goddamned senior executive. I look forward to his sentencing. Even at max penalty (faces up to seven years in prison and a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000) the punishment is till too light. I am sure there are many culpable senior executives will escape prosecution here and in Germany.
oh, and my friend sent me this
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Nov 23, 2017
While most are busy shopping, one business news that didn't escape me is Koch brothers bought Time Inc. I was quite sure New York Times is not a part of Time Inc. Then I saw an article on NYT and I thought may be I am wrong, and if true it would be another endangered credible national news company goes down the drain. I immediately went and check all the publications of Time Inc. To my relief there are nothing, including Time Magazine, that I care.
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Nov 26, 2017
I try to figure out how I can have a running updates of this post, while keeping the older content. I thought I will try circumvent what I can with Google Blogger's editing feature of a post that has been released. That is by reverting it back to draft, appending the new stuff that I want to add and then release as new. Here it is to see if this work.
There are many dirty secrets with the Republican's proposed tax reform (tax cut for the richest at the expense of most). Many will adversely affect middle and low income citizens. One that will impact the financially responsible Americans is the FIFO treatment of your stock holdings. I will not get into the less than obvious situations at retail investors like me can get screwed. I just want to point out when the change first surfaced, the Wall Street special interest also found it objectionable. However, in no time the plan was changed to exempt the banks and hedge funds from this FIFO change. This is the not so fun fact of the day. Do not fall for their dirty bait and switch schemes.
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Nov 23, 2017
This has to be the most boring post that I've ever written, but boring pays bills.
What is 'Earned Income'
Earned income is income derived from active participation in a trade or business, including wages, salary, tips, commissions and bonuses. This is the opposite of unearned income.
BREAKING DOWN 'Earned Income'
Earned income includes any income that a person or company receives for work they have done – AKA "personal efforts". If you collect regular dividends from a stock, or receive a monetary gift, that money would be considered unearned income because you didn't do anything to earn it.
Sounds like some of my income falls into the latter category - LOL. However I disagree that I didn't do anything.
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