Something Random

[jtr1962]

In my case I was inept at doing my taxes once they became more complicated with investments and stock option sales. Now that I've seen the work done by paying a personal tax preparer, I understood what I needed to do this year to make things work on my own. In my case this person wasn't making claims of finding me all kinds of money. She was trying to get things done correctly without flirting on the edge of what the tax law allows for in regards to deductions.

I had a similar situation doing my mom's taxes last year but I just read up a bit. The only time things might be too complex to do it yourself would be selling shares of stock or mutual funds which were purchased at various prices. It then becomes a question of which purchase price and sales price do you use to determine profit? I think the rule is first in/first out but in any case none of that is applicable. I keep my investing simple. Anything more complex than a bank account is in IRAs. The Roths aren't taxable at all regardless of what happens when I start withdrawing and the traditional IRAs are fully taxable. Before I take anything out I can do whatever I want, move funds around, etc. without it having any impact on my taxes. Until last year I never had enough spare cash to worry about where to park anything beyond what might go into an IRA. Before I invest in anything, I'll carefully check how it might affect my tax situation. I always want to be able to do my own taxes so I'll avoid anything really complex like stock options. Truthfully, I don't know enough to feel comfortable investing in them, or even in individual stocks.

 

[Handruin]

I had a similar situation doing my mom's taxes last year but I just read up a bit. The only time things might be too complex to do it yourself would be selling shares of stock or mutual funds which were purchased at various prices. It then becomes a question of which purchase price and sales price do you use to determine profit? I think the rule is first in/first out but in any case none of that is applicable. I keep my investing simple. Anything more complex than a bank account is in IRAs. The Roths aren't taxable at all regardless of what happens when I start withdrawing and the traditional IRAs are fully taxable. Before I take anything out I can do whatever I want, move funds around, etc. without it having any impact on my taxes. Until last year I never had enough spare cash to worry about where to park anything beyond what might go into an IRA. Before I invest in anything, I'll carefully check how it might affect my tax situation. I always want to be able to do my own taxes so I'll avoid anything really complex like stock options. Truthfully, I don't know enough to feel comfortable investing in them, or even in individual stocks.

To provide more background, my tax situation was fairly easy for many years up until the past few years. I did them myself and it was dead simple with no tax profession help required. Then, I had the good fortune of ISO stock options expiring after sitting on them for 10 years and I had to do something with them all (which is a good problem to have, so don't get me wrong). The issue is, I've never sold stock (only purchased), let-alone an ISO stock option. On top of the sale of stock options I complicated things by saving that money into new retirement accounts. I also chose to go Roth for this occasion.

What complicated matters even more is where I directly contributed to the Roth with this money. Well, that was in-fact wrong in my situation. After exercising so many options I long-past exceeded the allowable income level to directly contribute to a Roth so I had to go through a bunch of paperwork to re-characterize the Roth into a traditional IRA and THEN convert the traditional IRA back into a Roth (Roth back door). Keeping in mind that I contributed the full Roth amount for calendar year 2011 in Oct 2011 but once I realized I screwed up I re-characterized and converted in Jan 2012 to correct the mistake. In addition to that, I contributed the full amount to a Roth for calendar year 2012 (also in Jan 2012). When one reads the paperwork trail from that clusterfuck, it looks like I contributed double to the Roth contribution of 2012.

How the hell does THAT get represented on my tax filing for a tax-inept person like myself? I figured that spending a little bit of money to make sure all this got filed properly was money worth spending because if I tried it myself, I'd spend a lot of time researching and even then I may likely mess it up. Hence I reached out to a tax professional to ensure all this got filed properly and they ended up fucking it all up. My taxes got filed as-if the contribution was done taking a deductible on both of the traditional IRAs (which it wasn't) and they claimed I owed taxes on the two years of Roth contributions. I already paid my income taxes on that money so that didn't seem right. On top of all that going on I owed a ton for the ISO stock exercising (which I had already expected and estimated that payment). I had a lot to learn in 2011/2012.

Almost 3 years later I got my refund. I tried numerous times to get my issue rectified with the tax firm but each new person I worked with still didn't understand my situation after explaining it and a complicated timeline so I finally gave up on them. After finding a friend who knew a good tax preparer, I paid them to help me file the amendment to the other tax-payers mistakes which took 8+ months for the IRS to mail me my refund check. I've since learned my expensive lesson and now know how to file the paperwork from now on.

 

[jtr1962]

I was reading up just now on back door Roth IRAs and I got a major headache. The whole thing doesn't seem to make a bit of sense to me. You put money in a nondeductible traditional IRA. Since the money wasn't deducted you pay taxes on it. Then when you convert to a Roth you have to pay taxes on part of the conversion amount??? That sounds like you're taxing the same money twice.

Honestly, all this to me points more to a need to reform the tax system than anything else. Bring on a national sales tax instead of the income tax. It makes more sense to tax consumption instead of production (i.e. wages) anyway. And you wouldn't need an army of accountants like you do now. The fact that professionals didn't understand your situation speaks volumes about how tax laws have gotten way too complex.

 

[Mercutio]

Sales taxes are highly regressive. They penalize people at lower incomes to a much greater degree based on percentage of income. Do you really want single mothers and elderly people on a fixed income giving any more of their money back just because they're not bringing in a living wage of $15/hour?

 

[Striker]

Just don't tax necessities then. Certain foods, milk etc.
If they spend all their money on cars, tv's, blue rays or whatever, that is on them.
Maybe the country would stop having such a bad case of keeping up with the Joneses. Who am I kidding, that probably still won't happen.

 

[Stereodude]

Sales taxes are highly regressive. They penalize people at lower incomes to a much greater degree based on percentage of income. Do you really want single mothers and elderly people on a fixed income giving any more of their money back just because they're not bringing in a living wage of $15/hour?

That's because they're consumption (sales) taxes, not income taxes. Obviously there is no direct connection to your income.

Single mothers and elderly people on a fixed income spend more of their money on groceries, gas, & utilities too.

 

[jtr1962]

Sales taxes are highly regressive. They penalize people at lower incomes to a much greater degree based on percentage of income. Do you really want single mothers and elderly people on a fixed income giving any more of their money back just because they're not bringing in a living wage of $15/hour?

I've heard this before but most of the things poor people buy like food aren't taxed now and wouldn't be taxed under a sales tax scheme. Also, isn't the current combined 15.3% FICA tax highly regressive?

BTW, in NYC a living wage would be more like $75K and up, not $15 an hour.

They'll never get rid of the income tax anyway due to the accountant lobby but if they did poor people would probably come out way ahead just by not having the FICA tax.

 

[Clocker]

I was reading up just now on back door Roth IRAs and I got a major headache. The whole thing doesn't seem to make a bit of sense to me. You put money in a nondeductible traditional IRA. Since the money wasn't deducted you pay taxes on it. Then when you convert to a Roth you have to pay taxes on part of the conversion amount??? That sounds like you're taxing the same money twice.

Honestly, all this to me points more to a need to reform the tax system than anything else. Bring on a national sales tax instead of the income tax. It makes more sense to tax consumption instead of production (i.e. wages) anyway. And you wouldn't need an army of accountants like you do now. The fact that professionals didn't understand your situation speaks volumes about how tax laws have gotten way too complex.

Jtr- The contribution to the IRA is not tax deductible. It is made with after tax money. Because the contribution was not deductible, you do not have to pay tax on the conversion. You would only have to pay tax on any appreciation in the money that takes place between the date of the contribution and the conversion. However, if you roll it into the Roth the next day, there is none. It is simply a loophole in the existing law, useful to people who make too much money to be able to directly contribute to a Roth.

Here's a good explanation: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/ans...income-too-high-make-direct-contributions.asp

If you have an existing IRA balance, funded with deductible contributions, it is more complicated because you would have to pay tax for the conversion. You can get around this by rolling it into another similar tax deductible account (i.e. 401k - like I did). There may be other options than 401k but I'm not sure (see Situation 4 at the link above).

 

[ddrueding]

If you want a flat tax with a progressive effect that is easy to calculate, make it a wealth tax. Bottom 20% won't pay anything (due to negative net worth), top 20% responsible for 50%+. Want to lower your tax burden? Put that money back into the economy.

 

[Stereodude]

If you want a flat tax with a progressive effect that is easy to calculate, make it a wealth tax. Bottom 20% won't pay anything (due to negative net worth), top 20% responsible for 50%+. Want to lower your tax burden? Put that money back into the economy.

That's a terrible idea... Probably as bad as the system we have now. Everyone needs to have skin in the game, and why should the tax system be progressive?

 

[Mercutio]

That's a terrible idea... Probably as bad as the system we have now. Everyone needs to have skin in the game, and why should the tax system be progressive?

Because the people who have the most are also making most use of government services.

 

[Stereodude]

Because the people who have the most are also making most use of government services.

You mean like welfare, food stamps, WIC, Obamacare subsidies, earned income tax credits, etc...? Oh wait... No, high income wage earners don't collect any of those.

 

[LunarMist]

Can we cut out the left wing and right wing stuff to another thread?

 

[Stereodude]

Can we cut out the left wing and right wing stuff to another thread?

It's not random enough for you?

 

[ddrueding]

It's not random enough for you?

It just moves really fast and is likely to bury actually random stuff before people revisit the site.

 

[snowhiker]

You mean like welfare, food stamps, WIC, Obamacare subsidies, earned income tax credits, etc...? Oh wait... No, high income wage earners don't collect any of those.

You forgot the Military Industrial Complex. No wait. That's only for the rich.

 

[Clocker]

When I have a head cold, I love to use my Neti-Pot....a lot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXjYW4qnrDY

 

[Stereodude]

You forgot the Military Industrial Complex. No wait. That's only for the rich.

Huh? Are we talking about mythical things now like Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman now?

 

[jtr1962]

You mean like welfare, food stamps, WIC, Obamacare subsidies, earned income tax credits, etc...? Oh wait... No, high income wage earners don't collect any of those.

Actually Walmart is a famous example of how government programs benefit the wealthy. If the programs you mentioned didn't exist, Walmart and McDonald's and many other companies which pay low wages would have to pay more, which in turn would mean the wealthy owners would get less. And practically all employers benefit from these programs in one way or another, especially from public education and health care. You don't have to directly collect something or use it to be a beneficiary. I benefit from public streets even though I don't own a car. I would benefit even if I didn't ride a bike on those streets, or take buses which use those streets, simply because the streets provide for efficient delivery of goods/services I do use.

I personally think a wealth tax is a great idea. Even Bill Gates does. Tax any wealth over maybe $10 million at something like 8% or 10%. The wealthy could then do two things-continue to hoard it and watch it evaporate, or put it into ventures where the return is greater than the wealth tax rate. I'm not against amassing wealth but at the same time doing so only benefits society at large if that wealth is invested in productive ventures, not sitting in offshore bank accounts. The other nice thing is a wealth tax would likely have popular support. It would mean the end of the income tax for everyone. Few would object to that except maybe accountants. And most people wouldn't be affected by it so the popular support would be there. Those who would be might ultimately benefit if the productive ventures they were incentivized to invest in ended up doing better than their Swiss bank accounts.

 

[Mercutio]

You mean like welfare, food stamps, WIC, Obamacare subsidies, earned income tax credits, etc...? Oh wait... No, high income wage earners don't collect any of those.

The US Legal system. Who benefits from how our laws are structured? It's not the people who needed the ACA and WIC. But people who own patents or have interests in corporate governance certainly do. And do remember that our legal system in the US also believes that corporations have the same rights as human beings.
The US Military. Which, yes, employs a tremendous number of people. What do they do? Well, mostly it serves US economic interests in the form of pork-barrel spending in every congressional district in the USA and in its missions abroad.
Even relatively simple things like Interstate highways, federal aviation control and national parks, much as we might say they exist for everyone are disproportionately of benefit to wealthy people. Somebody who makes minimum wage isn't taking a trip to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.

To be fair I do think that most of those things should exist, but if you're so short-sighted that you think the only direct government benefits that people get are from social programs that you don't like, that's just factually incorrect.

 

[Stereodude]

The US Legal system. Who benefits from how our laws are structured? It's not the people who needed the ACA and WIC. But people who own patents or have interests in corporate governance certainly do. And do remember that our legal system in the US also believes that corporations have the same rights as human beings.
The US Military. Which, yes, employs a tremendous number of people. What do they do? Well, mostly it serves US economic interests in the form of pork-barrel spending in every congressional district in the USA and in its missions abroad.
Even relatively simple things like Interstate highways, federal aviation control and national parks, much as we might say they exist for everyone are disproportionately of benefit to wealthy people. Somebody who makes minimum wage isn't taking a trip to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.

To be fair I do think that most of those things should exist, but if you're so short-sighted that you think the only direct government benefits that people get are from social programs that you don't like, that's just factually incorrect.

I certainly won't argue that we don't have a problem with Crony Capitalism. There are way too many companies get in bed with the gov't like GE who paid no corporate income taxes while collecting green energy subsidies. Or the revolving door between the SEC & other gov't entities and big financial institutions like Goldman Sachs.

IMHO, you're mostly grasping at straws with regard to infrastructure. Everyone has equal access to the roads & national parks. Everyone who lives in the US benefits from military, border patrol, FBI, etc. You're really claiming that infrastructure spending is a unfair benefit to the rich because not everyone uses them equally? How do you propose to fix that "problem"? Prevent the rich from using infrastructure too much? Mandate the poor use it at least a minimum amount?

Further, even without a progressive tax system the rich would pay far more in taxes than the poor. Even if they are utilizing certain parts of the gov't more... Getting more of an indirect benefit than the poor, who get direct benefits, they'd still be paying vastly more for it.

 

[Clocker]

I think the problem is that there is a big difference between the 'rich' and people like us, who are in the middle, that get shafted.

 

[Handruin]

I think the problem is that there is a big difference between the 'rich' and people like us, who are in the middle, that get shafted.

Something as simple as the government not making my life more challenging by having to come up with crafty ways and loopholes to save more money for retirement would be a nice start. I would love the caps to be doubled or tripled for 401k and IRA contributions.

 

[Stereodude]

I think the problem is that there is a big difference between the 'rich' and people like us, who are in the middle, that get shafted.

You are the "rich". When you hear politicians talking about the rich, they're not talking about Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they're talking about the upper middle class (and above). Most people in that category don't think of themselves as rich, but the politicians have other ideas.

 

[Clocker]

Yes. My point exactly.

 

[snowhiker]

I think the problem is that there is a big difference between the 'rich' and people like us, who are in the middle, that get shafted.

You are the "rich". When you hear politicians talking about the rich, they're not talking about Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they're talking about the upper middle class (and above). Most people in that category don't think of themselves as rich, but the politicians have other ideas.

When I say "rich" I mean people making at least 5-10m year. Not people who have a business that's "worth" 5m but actually make 200k/y but actual 10m/y paycheck people.

Yes. My point exactly.

Yep.

 

[sedrosken]

Swapped the Radeon HD 3650 for my trusty old GeForce GT 610. It isn't quite as fast, but it works with far less troubles and is actually supported for GPU folding.

On one of those Ars Technica stories I was tempted to say something to the effect of, "Everyone's all on about these Broadwell i5s and i7s, and the Core M CPUs, meanwhile I'm still living in 2008 with my Core 2 Quad that still does everything that I ask of it without complaining."

Had our first thunderstorm of the year last night. It woke me up at about 3 AM! :crap: I usually sleep through those. Dunno what happened. It wasn't particularly loud or flashy at all.

 

[time]

Swapped the Radeon HD 3650 for my trusty old GeForce GT 610. It isn't quite as fast, but it works with far less troubles and is actually supported for GPU folding.

Doesn't this sum up the whole AMD vs Nvidia dilemma from the customer perspective?

 

[ddrueding]

...except that in a lot of cases the nVidia card is faster as well as more stable. Though I have no complaints about the 290Xs.

 

[LunarMist]

The expired bars are just awful.

 

[timwhit]

The expired bars are just awful.

Gold doesn't expire.

 

[ddrueding]

The Titan Xs arrived, but no SLI bridge to be found. One point for ATI for not requiring a bridge of any kind.

 

[Handruin]

My SLI bridge has always come with the motherboard. Is the Titan X supposed to come with these now?

 

[ddrueding]

Nope. Normally ship with the board, but I don't keep all that stuff most of the time. Next time I go by my office I'll go through the parts boxes and find one.

 

[Handruin]

Nope. Normally ship with the board, but I don't keep all that stuff most of the time. Next time I go by my office I'll go through the parts boxes and find one.

I can see why that would happen. If you're not used to keeping that stuff because you don't typically use it, then it gets tossed or put into a parts bin somewhere. I am curious if there is a performance downside in AMD's implementation when using the PCIe bus to do crossfire vs using one of the SLI bridge adapters.

 

[ddrueding]

From what I understand, the nature of how AMD divides the load means there is less data between the cards. Therefore no bottleneck. Of course, performance can't be directly compared as no single type of card can use both technologies.

 

[sedrosken]

Well, my old Radeon 9550 card worked beautifully for what it was used for. I had absolutely no troubles with it besides a single blue-screen during driver installation on Win7. Though as a result of that, I'm always waiting for AMD drivers to blue-screen during the install process now. ... But then, I never tried playing DirectX 11 games on my Radeon 9550...

AMD cards have always been more cost-effective, in my opinion, as nVidia cards of the current generation command outrageous premiums in comparison. Remember that my new computer budget is never any more than $500 at the most.

To be fair to the HD 3650, I kind of was using what AMD considered beta drivers. But, in my defense, they were the only ones that actually worked with Windows 8.1. The GT 610, though, should have complete Windows 10 support when it comes out, where I was using beta drivers to get Windows 8.1 support with the HD 3650.

Given the right amount of money, I will go with an nVidia GPU over AMD any day, like how I would go with an Intel CPU over AMD CPU/APU any day.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't know what BSODs you're referring to on ATI driver installation.

Examples of legitimate ATI driver weirdness: ATI under-scales TV displays connected via HDMI on Windows. This has to be fixed in the registry or in the driver settings on EVERY boot.
I've found that ATI mobility Radeon 3xxx and 4xxx for some reason are not detected and installed properly on 64-bit Windows Vista using any download or media dated later than 2012. That's particularly aggravating on machines with widescreen displays since the standard VGA driver on Vista only supports 4:3 and 5:4 video modes.
In my experience, Flash crashes more frequently on ATI graphics than nvidia, though the question of whom to blame is likely a hole with no bottom in that particular case.

On the other hand, I've replaced hardware or tossed systems with nvidia graphics hardware overwhelmingly more often. I still believe that nvidia's reference cooling solutions are not generally adequate to the needs of hardware, particularly for sub-$150 GPUs, though the matter may be settled in the current generation given the efficiency of Maxwell cores.

Both ATI and nVidia have reliability problems. You just get to pick whether you'd rather they be hardware or software issues.

 

[sedrosken]

I have a small question.

Why do most motherboards these days still ship with PS/2 ports, but the only kind of mouse/keyboard that's commonly sold anymore are all USB/wireless of some nature? Are they expecting people to use their old keyboards and mice with new hardware? I can't say much, of course -- throwing stones from glass houses and all. The only keyboard I have available to me at the moment is a PS/2 Dell pack-in from before XP launched, and that's what I'm using with a PS/2 to USB adapter.

 

[Mercutio]

Because there are still shit-tons of PS/2 keyboards out in the world and there's nothing wrong with them.