Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Thursday, April 03, 2008 Tax Spam Season  You know the income tax filing deadline (April 15th) is nearing when tax-prep companies rev up their spam engines. This one from H&R Block is offering half-off their regular prices. Obviously trying to push through a few more sales before the filing season is over and they are back in the lull period. I'm sure I'll get a few more of these unbeatable deals right up to April 15th. Thanks, but no thanks guys. This year I used TaxAct and it had a great price right from the start, free. *Note: My endorsement of TaxAct is completely unsolicited. I just liked the product and the fact that it cost nothing. income tax,taxes,taxcut,taxact,irs Labels: business-finance, tax <Tax Spam Season> // posted by rh 0 comments Monday, March 31, 2008 Prospectus Paper Waste  Like many people I have a 401(k) account through my employer, invested in a few mutual funds. I can appreciate that by law mutual fund companies have to send their clients their prospectuses (prospecti?) whenever there is a change in their investment strategies, but I was getting tired of receiving these booklets in the mail. I would just give them a cursory look and then toss them in the trash. I assume many people do the same. I doubt even a small number of people would actually read these from cover to cover and then promptly file them with their important documents. So when the retirement management company gave us the option to receive these documents via email, I jumped at the chance. Alas, I'm still getting these tree-killers, like a large one arriving today via mail weighing in at 70 pages. Makes me wonder why I even bothered signing up for the electronic format. Now I know these companies are erring on the side of caution. With so much fraud and mismanagement swirling around the financial institutions, they reckon it's better to be safe than sorry. So they just keep mailing the stuff, hoping to avoid a small chance of someone accusing them of hiding material facts. That's all fine and good, but in this day and age of green living and electronic transactions, shouldn't they at least try to respect the wishes of those of us who opted in for email and adapt their systems? If they're incapable or unwilling to join the digital revolution, they can hire a bunch of Nigerian spammers to handle the task. The Nigerian scammers figured out years ago how to conduct their businesses via email and apparently they are very successful at it. Even the U.S. government, the paragon of technical backwardness, has been going digital with programs such as e-Filing income taxes. It's about time mutual fund companies learned how to save those documents in PDF and attach them to email. mutual funds,email,pdf,taxes,spam,nigerian scams Labels: business-finance, email, tax <Prospectus Paper Waste> // posted by rh 0 comments Sunday, March 02, 2008 TaxAct Bests TurboTax and TaxCut  Evil or not, paying the IRS (U.S. Internal Revenue Service) is just a part of life. With the April 15th deadline rapidly approaching I decided to file a little earlier and get the drudgery out of the way, especially since there was a refund to be claimed. Why leave that on the table too long? The package I used this year was TaxAct, and I'm confident I'll be using it again next year. Years ago when I was single, had no assets, made a paltry salary, and my home state (Connecticut) was income tax-free, paper forms served the IRS filing just fine. I think the whole process took less than an hour for me. Made a photocopy, licked a stamp and off it went. A couple of weeks after came the meager refund and the process was over. As life and finances became inevitably more complicated, and tax preparation software packages gained traction, I switched to TurboTax (from Intuit) and was a satisfied customer for a number of years. Then came 2003 and Intuit's spyware fiasco when under the guise of DRM (Digital Rights Management) they bundled an elusive spyware with TurboTax. Thankfully, the spyware was widely reported before I purchased the product, and TurboTax lost my trust forever. That year, TaxCut (from H&R Block) probably saw a surge in their market share and I also ended up as one of their happy customer. TaxCut had the same quality as TurboTax. What I also liked about TaxCut was the ability to prepare my entire tax return before I was asked for payment before printing or e-filing. There was also a full rebate to e-file the tax return which made the product even more enticing. But then TaxCut decided to commit the cardinal sin of charging upfront for the product. This year when I received my TaxCut CD and popped it into the drive, I was accosted by the payment demand before I could run the program. While considering forking over the money, I saw an online ad for TaxAct touting their free tax product and free IRS e-file to boot. I had seen their ads in the past and had wondered about their quality and their honesty, but having nothing to lose I decided to give TaxAct a try this year. I refuse to do my taxes online, so I opted for the download version and went to work. TaxAct surpassed all my expectations for a free product. I dare say it was nearly on par with TurboTax and TaxCut. There was the burden of entering all the personal information (there is no import facility, at least with the free version) and there were a good number of up-selling and cross-selling attempts which could get irritating at times. The help screens were somewhat drab, possibly lifted right out of the IRS publications, and in one instance I had to refer to my last year's TaxCut worksheet to understand a question, but the rest of the process was as smooth as that of the competitive products. The interview questions were relevant and easy to comprehend, there were real-time calculations, error-checking was a breeze and the IRS e-file went without a hitch. The only true limitation was the disabled print-to-PDF option (available with the paid versions). But even that wasn't much of a limitation since I already had a PDF printer driver, so I generated PDF copies of my tax return by printing to that device. As for filing the state tax return, TaxAct offers a paid upgrade version of their product to handle that. But these days most states have web-filing available, and the process is much simpler than the federal return. For most people their state tax is a figure based on their AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) save a couple of deductions. One hardly needs a tax software product for that. If you believe that software should be free, but have had misgivings about free tax preparations products, give TaxAct a try. They made a believer out of me, free and high-quality. And if they had a donation option, I would have definitely kicked a few bucks their way. taxact,turbotax,taxcut,irs,income tax,taxes,tax refund,tax software,agi,tax return Labels: financial, tax <TaxAct Bests TurboTax and TaxCut> // posted by rh 2 comments Sunday, March 04, 2007 Houses, Roofs, and Snow  There's an old Persian adage that states: "The bigger one's roof, the more one's snow". Living on America's east coast the adage doesn't really apply. The roofs are generally pitched and snow simply thaws and slides off. Back in Iran where most roofs are flat and building structures are of questionable soundness, people are forced to shovel the snow off the tops or else face a collapse or at least water damage, so the phrase fits well. But what the metaphorical phrase tries to convey is that bigger assets bring bigger hassles. Ironically this wisdom also fits the recent trend in the US housing market. America is a culture of consumers, the bigger and the more luxurious, the better. Some may argue that it is the consumer that drives the mammoth economy here, but considering the troubles brewing in the subprime mortgage markets, there is also a dark side to out-of-bounds consumerism. For the past few years the housing market has been one of seemingly endless growth. That lulled many to jump into the market without much consideration for a possible downside. Bigger homes (known as McMansions) sprang up everywhere and builders couldn’t keep up. People kept snapping up ever bigger and more expensive homes. The general belief was to hold on to the house for a short period, then sell for a handsome profit, rinse and repeat. Now that the housing market has gone limp, it has dragged many into hard times and many may owe more than the current value of their homes, the so called upside-down position. Owning a bigger home is not necessarily an American invention. People do it all over the world, but many fail to consider the real cost of having a bigger home if they are forced into a long-term ownership. The general financial approach is a foolishly simple one. You look at the price, then figure out the monthly payments and if it seems to fit one's monthly income, then it's a go. But there is quite a bit more there than meets the eye. Let's take a quick inventory: Initial fees: For that bigger house you will be paying higher fees to the real estate broker, the mortgage banker, the inspector, and the lawyer, just to name a few. Mortgage payments: Unless you're locked in a long-term fixed mortgage (like a 30-year variety), the assumption should be that the variable rate will eventually kick in and in most instances that means higher monthly payments. In some cases the monthly payments could outpace one's income quickly. Taxes: A bigger home means higher taxes. Even if you know what your tax liability is at the time of purchase, there is no chance it'll stay the same for long. There are two forces working against you there. The higher the assessed price of your home goes, the more your town will charge you in property taxes. Also tax rates (known as mill rates around here) never stay in one spot. As the town cost rises, so does the mill rate. It's inevitable. Energy: the bigger the house, the more the cost of heating and cooling it. Unless, of course, you cordon off parts of the house, in which case what's the point of living in a bigger house to begin with? Water and sewer: Many water companies charge homes for water and sewer services based on square footage, not actual usage. In any case, if you are in a bigger home, you will use more water and produce more waste. Just think of watering a larger front lawn as one instance. Repairs: A bigger home simply contains more stuff and therefore more chances for breaks and malfunctions. It's the law of probability. More toilets, more electrical wiring, more piping, more doors and windows, etc. And each one adds an additional risk of needing repair at some point. Maintenance: A bigger property requires more maintenance (think of the snow metaphor.) More gutters to clean, more windows to wipe, more rooms to dust, more lawn to mow, and more driveway to plow. You might need to hire a helping hand or two to cover the maintenance, thus having to part with more money. Furnishings: A roomier house means more volume to fill. That leads to trips to furniture stores to buy more couches, a bigger TV, and more decorative items to hang on the bare walls or fill the corners, or more rugs to throw on the bare floors. Even more closet space means more shopping for clothes and shoes and accessories, and of course more organizers to sort them by color or size. Don't laugh, this is just human nature. I know, I know, enough already. I'm sure this list is not even close to being complete. But there is no escaping the consequences of owning a bigger home. And if more snow won't faze you, the bigger pile of dead leaves in autumn will. homes,mortgage,subprime mortgage,tax,money,housing market Labels: business-finance, money, mortgage, tax <Houses, Roofs, and Snow> // posted by rh 1 comments Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Tax Break Myth  Republicans like to pride themselves in supporting lower taxes. That is indeed a great ideal. The problem is that today such a view is plain false. I'm a middle class citizen, and I can speak with authority that the tax breaks have meant very little in terms of helping me achieve fiscal success. In fact, adjusted for my age, I am poorer today than when Clinton was in the White House. Don’t believe me? Let's take an inventory: - It is true that lower federal taxes put a bit more money in my pocket, but at what cost? When the government takes in less tax money, it can do one of two things to adjust: cut programs or borrow more. The US government has done both and the result has been fewer services and more debt. Is that worth the few dollars I get to pocket every year? Not. When services are cut, I have to pay (out of pocket) for those no longer available (roads, schools, police, etc.) And those Treasury holders will need to get paid at some point too. The bond Ponzi scheme can only go so far, and guess who'll be making the payments. - Have you looked at your energy bills lately? Bet you're paying a lot more than you used to. More for electricity, for gasoline, for heating oil or gas. That's money leaving your pocket while the oil companies get richer. - Sure, your home might be worth more, but who can be happy with the higher property taxes. And to add more pain, those lofty prices encouraged so many to tap their home equity. It was fun while it lasted, but now that home prices are falling and interest rates are rising, little chance those property taxes will get rolled back, and it's payback time for those HELOC and interest-only deals. - Every year people pay more for medical insurance and get shrinking benefits. And that's for the lucky ones who actually have medical insurance. Some 50 million Americans don’t even have medical insurance and that number keeps growing. - If you haven't heard of AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax), you will soon. It's basically the government's way of making sure they get a certain amount of tax money from each person, no matter what. AMT is snaring more people every year and it's one of the greatest government money scams going. Sure, we give you tax breaks, but oops, sorry, you don’t qualify. The above list is far from comprehensive, but by itself is enough for an average person to realize that the measly tax breaks are the proverbial smoke and mirror and have done nothing for the middle class except to squeeze them more year over year. The tax relief agenda is nothing more than a platform for political posturing and maneuvering to swindle the citizens for their votes. So let me implore the government to raise my taxes, but give me services and better medical coverage, lower my property taxes and energy costs, and abolish AMT. But that means helping the middle class. Never mind then. middle class,republicans,tax,amt,property tax,insurance,gas prices Labels: business-finance, tax <Tax Break Myth> // posted by rh 0 comments

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