vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Self employment is. Freelancing is the same thing as owning a shop on mainstreet.  Many small businesses are operated by a single person.  It occurs to me now there are probably people who differentiate between business ownership and freelancing because they want to diminish the achievements of freelancers. Those people are wrong and should be looked out for.  What are your motives? /u/spitinthecola
"Bank accounts are free, as are discount brokerage accounts (for stuff like IRA's).  Any time you think there might be an advantage to getting another one, go ahead and do so. I have a number of bank accounts.  Whichever has the best interest rate (typically an online bank) gets the bulk of my cash savings, whichever has the closest ATM gets as much money as I think I might want to withdraw, and I often have a bank account from which my credit cards are paid. Other banks have a token ""just in case I move"" amount of money. The only cost is that you have to check them from time to time to make sure each account has enough for its likely uses.  I use mint.com for that."
I don't think there is a legal requirement that you need a separate bank account. Just remember that you can only take money from your LLC as salary (paying tax), as dividend (paying tax), or as a loan (which you need to repay, including and especially if the LLC goes bankrupt). So make very sure that your books are in order.
As an individual freelancer, you would need to maintain a book of accounts. This should show all the income you are getting, and should also list all the payments incurred. This can not only include the payments to other professionals, but also any hardware purchased, phone bills, any travel and entertainment bills directly related to the service you are offering.  Once you arrive at a net profit figure, you would need to file this as your income.  Consult a tax professional and he can help with how to keep the records of income and expenses. i.e. You would need to create invoices for payments, use checks or online transfers for most payments, segregate the accounts, one account used for this professional stuff, and another for your personal stuff, etc. In a normal course the Income Tax Department does not ask for these records, however whenever your tax returns get scrutinized on a random basis, they would ask for all the relevant documentations.
Does your employer offer direct deposit?  Can you deposit to more than one account? Personally, I have my pay split up like this via direct deposit: From an early age I found that separating my expenses from my spending money kept me inside my spending limits and kept my savings on track.  In fact, checking account 1 and 2 are at two different banks. Get yourself a credit card to start establishing some credit.  Make a payment plan for the student loan, but before focusing completely on repaying it start to establish an emergency fund.
"Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income/expenses. You can ""explain"" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed me to put whatever I wanted as the name on the check. I think this looked a little better than having my name on the check. I don't see the need for a separate checking account for investing. The money can be kept in a separate savings account that has no fees, and can even earn a little interest. Unless you are doing a lot of investment transactions a month this has worked for me. I fund IRAs and 529 plans this way. We get paychecks 4-5 times a month, but send money to each of the funds once a month. You will need a business account if the number of transactions becomes large. If you deposit dozens of checks every time you go to the bank, the bank will want to move you to a business account."
Yes, but make sure you issue a 1099 to these freelancers by 1/31/2016 or you may forfeit your ability to claim the expenses. You will probably need to collect a W-9 from each freelancer but also check with oDesk as they may have the necessary paperwork already in place for this exact reason.  Most importantly, consult with a trusted CPA to ensure you are completing all necessary forms correctly and following current IRS rules and regulations.  PS - I do this myself for my own business and it's quite simple and straight forward.
"Why are they calling it freelance? It used to be called self-employed.  Freelance used to mean low wage or no wage gigs and was all about the experience and connections you made which would help propel you into what you wanted.   Now people are talking about it as though its the way of the future?  As an accountant, I understand the long term value of labor subcontractors. Pretty much. . . if you think your job can be done at home, it can be subcontracted out to somebody else who does not have to be a full time employee. Kinda like the, ""Can a robot take my job,"" sorta thing?  In summary, genuinely good/original talent is wasted on ""freelance,"" because the creator isn't given the tools to make his/her best work when that work is finding them. . . and lining up one after the other."
You should have a separate business account. Mixing business and personal funds is a bad practice. Shop around, you should be able to find a bank that will let you open a free checking account, especially if you are going to have minimal activity (e.g. less than 20 of checks per month) and perhaps maintain a small balance (e.g. $100 or $500).
"ITR-4 is for incorporated business. For freelancing, You can fill ITR 2 and declare the freelancing income as ""income from other source"". Refer to the Income Tax website for more details"
"IANAL, but. As you note, when you open a new account, they give you temporary checks that are usually blank in the upper left. I've used such checks and the bank has honored them. Therefore, I conclude that there must not be any legal requirement for anything to appear there, nor does the bank require it. Businesses are often reluctant to accept such temporary checks, for the obvious reason that anyone could go to the bank, open an account with $10, write checks for thousands of dollars, and disappear. At least if they've waited long enough to get the permanent checks in, there's some reason to believe that they plan to stick around.  In any case, it's not clear what you are trying to accomplish. You want to hand-write either your business name or your personal name depending on whether the check is for personal or business purposes? I don't see what that gains. You could always use a personal check for business purposes. If you're afraid someone will say, ""Hey, that doesn't look very professional, what kind of fly-by-night company is this that uses personal checks?"", surely a hand-written company name would look even less professional. Why not just open a business account and have your personal checks printed with your personal name and your business checks with your business name? I don't know where you live, but I have a business account on which I pay zero fees. The only cost is getting checks printed. There's the small hassle of having to make one trip to the bank to open the account. Well, the biggest hassle I have is that the bank won't let me transfer money between my personal and business accounts over the Internet, so I have to either go to the bank to move money back and forth, or I have to write a check from one account to the other and deposit through an ATM."
No, to follow up on your example First Direct won't care (and I suspect won't even know) how long you held the account you are switching to them so if you don't want to switch your main current account to them you can just open a new one and switch that. To get the bonus you just need to make sure you meet the requirements imposed which in First Direct's case seem to simply be: have not held a First Direct account before pay in at least £1000 within 3 months of opening the account Once the First Direct bonus is paid, which they say should be within 28 days of you meeting the criteria, it is yours to keep.  You are then free to close the First Direct account or transfer it on to another bank (and potentially claim another switching bonus).
"You are right on track with your idea of setting up a separate account for invoiced income. Create a new account with the type other asset and call it ""Receivables"" (or something similar). Every time you invoice a client, enter a credit to this account with the amount of the invoice. Once the client pays and you deposit a check, enter a transfer from the ""Receivables"" account to the bank account. EDIT I overlooked that you wish to account for not-yet-invoiced income. I think that's a bad idea. It will become confusing and will give you the false sense that your financial condition is better than it really is. There are plenty of stories about businesses that have stellar sales, but fail because of lack of cash flow (the business' bills become due before it gets paid by its own customers)."
For reporting to the IRS, every bank account has a primary tax ID number associated with it. When there are multiple joint owners, they  (the owners) usually pick a person at random to be the primary, unless there is a large amount of interest involved, in which case I would suggest consulting a tax attorney. As for the online banking, it depends on your institution's software. My institution allows every individual to have a separate ID; if this is important to you (and it would be to me), then look for another bank that offers it.
What did you sign when the account was opened? What did you sign when you left the company, to transfer those responsibilities? Unless the bank has a record of someone else being responsible, they are correct in billing the one who signed their paperwork.  Of course this also probably means you still have access to the account, so your ex-partners should be Highly Motivated to help you fix this. If you want a legal opinion, try over in the Law area, or (better) ask a real lawyer in your jurisdiction. That's out of scope here.
Idk if I would ask on reddit, personal finance will tell you the only way is joint bank accounts and relationship advice will tell you to break up. Personally I will always want my own bank account, with a joint account for a mortgage or utilities. I think it depends on if you are both financially savvy, if one of you aren't you might want to have a joint account to keep an eye on spending.  I think this site give you a good pro/con: https://www.thebalance.com/should-you-have-joint-or-separate-bank-accounts-1289664
SurePay is not designed to send money from one person to himself.  It is designed to transfer money from one person to someone else. What SurePay does, is allow you to link an account to a name/email/phone number.  Then, when someone else, who's also linked an account to a name/email/phone number, selects your name/email/phone number to send money to, the money is transferred.  This doesn't buy you anything when transferring money to another of your own accounts.  I won't say it's impossible to use SurePay to do so, but it's definitely not designed to do so, and may not be permitted.   If you could use it for that purpose, you would have to separately register your two accounts, using a separate email for each, and then use the first email to send to the second email; each will have been tied to a different account, so you'll know which is which. My suggestion would be to follow Wells Fargo's instructions here: Can I transfer funds to or from my accounts at another institution? You can transfer money between your Wells Fargo checking and savings accounts and accounts you may have at other U.S. financial institutions. Wells Fargo gives you greater flexibility, convenience, and control to transfer funds where and when you need it. Sign on to Wells Fargo Online and click the Transfers tab to learn more about transferring funds to your account at another financial institution. As that should give you the official answer, at least.
The problem with your profession is that it is hard to distinguish those activities as 'services rendered' or just a 'pastime hobby'. If you believe that both of those activities constitutes a 'service rendered in a professional capacity', then you should include it into the 'Goods and services for your own use' field. However, should you believe that those services rendered was not in a professional capacity and it was in a personal one (i.e. helping out), you need not include it in the field. In addition, should you feel that the pro-bono services rendered overlaps with your professional freelance work in any way, you might want to consider the service rendered to your dad and yourself as a 'professional service' and include it in Goods and services for your own use. Such examples include (but not limited to): It might be wise to call up the HMRC to clarify on your particular situation. But what I know is, this box was created to ensure that such services rendered should be considered a profit (i.e. an advantage, adds value) and not a loss (or no value).
Do I need to declare it to IRS? The account? No. You do need to file a form W8-BEN with the bank though and make sure you maintain the correct information on it (it has your address there, so if you move - update it). Your account may be frozen until the form is provided, especially if it has activity on it. The 2-nd and 3-rd scenario would come as a result of some freelancing   activity done while I am out of the US (definitely would qualify for   Non-Resident Alien status). This you do have to report to the IRS. I'm guessing the payer is in the US, and would not know that you're a foreigner. In this case you're liable for taxes (if the payer knows you're a foreigner - they must withhold the taxes on your behalf). The payer will report payments to the IRS, so you have to submit your own tax return for a match. If there's activity on your account that might be suspicious, it will be reported to money laundering unit in the US Treasury Department, that may come after you through the treaties the US might have with your home country (tax treaty, extradition treaty, etc).
Another good reason: if you have to replace a card due to damage, loss, or identity theft it's nice to have a backup you can use until the new card for your primary account arrives. I know folks who use a secondary card for online purchases specifically so they can kill it if necessary without impacting their other uses, online arguably being at more risk. If there's no yearly fee, and if you're already paying the bill in full every month, a second card/account is mostly harmless. If you have trouble restraining yourself with one card, a second could be dangerous.
Au contraire. I do freelance financial journlism and have to put things in a positive light all too often because that is what my clients want. So I need to unload when I am not doing it for them.
"You should have separate files for each of the two businesses.  The business that transfers money out should ""write check"" in its QB file.  The business that receives money should ""make deposit"" in its QB file. (In QB you ""write check"" even when you make the payment by some other means like ACH.)  Neither business should have the bank accounts of the other explicitly represented.   On each side, you will also need to classify the payment as having originated from / gone to some other account - To know what's correct there, we'd need to know why your transferring the money in the first place and how you otherwise have your books established.  I think that's probably beyond the scope of what's on-topic / feasible here. Money into your business from your personal account is probably owner's equity, unless you have something else going on.  For example, on the S Corp you should be paying yourself a salary.  If you overpay by accident, then you might write a check back to the company from your personal account to correct the mistake.  That's not equity - It's probably a ""negative expense"" in some other account that tracks the salary payments."
"There are different approaches, but here is what we do and what I recommend.  Now that you are officially a married couple, open a joint bank account, and eliminate your individual accounts.  There are several reasons for this. Having a joint account promotes unity and teamwork.  When you only have a joint account, you do not have ""your income"" and ""her income,"" or ""your expenses"" and ""her expenses.""  You work together in everything.  You discuss your goals and set your household budget together.  If one of you makes more money than the other, that person is no longer ""worth more,"" because your incomes are pooled together.  If one person with a higher income has more in their account than the other person does, it can lead to envy, which you do not want in your marriage. Having a joint account is more efficient and makes more sense.  With separate accounts, who pays the rent/mortgage?  Who pays the utilities, or buys the food?  If you have separate accounts, it takes a lot of work to worry about what is ""fair"" when deciding how to divide up the expenses.  With a single household budget and a joint account, you decide together what the household expenses are, and they get paid from one account.  If one of you has debt, you both have debt.  You work together to get it paid off and strengthen your financial situation in the process. Having a joint account forces you to discuss your finances together.  Working toward common financial goals together is crucial in a strong marriage, but if you maintain your separate accounts, you might be tempted to put off these discussions until you are forced to by life circumstances.  It is better to work together from the start, and joining your finances facilitates that. You are intending your marriage to last.  Live your financial life like you believe that you are a team for life.  If you live in a community property state, separate accounts are a fiction anyway; everything is treated as if it was pooled together in the event of a divorce. I understand that if you are used to having your own money, it can be difficult to give up that sole control over your income, but in my opinion, it is worth it.  You will certainly hear of examples from couples who maintain separate accounts and make it work.  In my humble opinion, combining your finances completely is easier to do right."
Today typically a Business needs to hold accounts in more than one currency. Banks in certain countries are offering what is called a dual currency account. It is essentially 2 accounts with same account number but different currency. So One can have an account number say 123456 and have it in say AUD and USD. So the balance will always show as X AUD and Y USD. If you deposit funds [electronic, check or cash] in USD; your USD balance goes up. Likewise at the time of withdrawal you have to specify what currency you are withdrawing. Interest rates are calculated at different percentage for different currencies.  So in a nutshell it would like operating 2 accounts, with the advantage of remembering only one account number. Designate a particular currency as default currency. So if you don't quote a currency along with the account number, it would be treated as default currency. Otherwise you always quote the account number and currency. Of-course bundled with other services like free Fx Advice etc it makes the entire proposition very attractive. Edit: If you have AUD 100 and USD 100, if you try and withdraw USD 110, it will not be allowed; Unless you also sign up for a auto sweep conversion.  If you deposit a GBP check into the account, by default it would get converted into AUD [assuming AUD is the default currency]
A technique that is working pretty well for me: Hide the money from myself: I have two bank accounts at different banks. Let's call them A and B. I asked my employer to send my salary into account A. Furthermore I have configured an automatic transfer of money from account A to account B on the first of each month.  I only use account B for all my expenses (rent, credit card, food, etc) and I check its statement quite often. Since the monthly transfer is only 80% of my salary I save money each month in account A. I don't have a credit card attached to the savings account and I almost never look at its statement. Since that money is out of sight, I do not think much about it and I do not think that I could spend it. I know it is a cheap trick, but it works pretty well for me.
We want to be able to get two cards (related: is it difficult to ask the credit card issuer for two cards, even if the account belongs to one person?) with the best credit limits and perks. No, it's actually quite common to have authorized users on your account.  They typically get a separate card with their name on it, but it's attached to your account and may or may not have the same number. Would it be better for me to apply for the card on my own, or would there be an advantage to having her co-sign? Probably faster/easier to just apply yourself and add her an an authorized user.  I know some issuers even offer additional sign up bonuses for adding an authorized user. As an afterthought, as her credit improves she can apply for the card and add you as an authorized user to again reap some more signup bonuses.
Is it difficult to ask the credit card issuer for two cards, even if the account belongs to one person? You can most definitely get two cards for one account. People do it all the time. You just have to add her on as an authorized user.  Would it be better for me to apply for the card on my own, or would there be an advantage to having her co-sign? It depends. If she co-signed, then that means she is also responsible for the credit card payments - which can help her credit score. If its is just you applying, then you are the only one responsible. If you don't want her lower credit score to impact what you could be approved for, then only you should apply. However, if you are the sole account holder, then you are responsible for the payments, which means, if in the event you guys break up and she maxes out the card before you cancel it, then you are on the hook for what she spend.  As for improving her credit score, I do know that some banks report to the credit bureaus for the authorized user as well, so that could help her out too.
"(Selling apps is AFAIK business, not freelancing - unless the type of app you produce is considered a freelancing subject. The tax office will give you a questionnaire and then decide).  As Einzelunternehmer, you can receive the payments for the apps to the same account where your wages go. However, there are lots of online accounts that do not cost fees, so consider to receive them on a separate account so you have the business and private kind of separate (for small Einzelunternehmer, there is no legal separation between business and private money - you have full liability with your private money for the business).  The local chamber of commerce can tell you everything about setting up such a business, ask them (you'll probably have to become a member there anyways). They have information as well on VAT (Umsatzsteuer, USt) which you need to declare unless you get an exemption (probably possible), and about Gewerbesteuer (the income tax of the business) etc. For the tax, you have ""subforms""  for the income tax e.g. for wages and for business income, so you just submit both with the main form. You'll get an appropriate tax number when registering the business.  Social security/insurance: as long as the app selling is only a side business, the social insurance payments for your main job completely cover the side job as well. You need to make sure that your employment contract is compatible with the app business, though.  A quick search indicates that there is a tax treaty between Germany and the Ukraine, Wikipedia says there are no contracts about social insurance in effect (yet)."