vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
To me this is a tax structure that is working as it should. The tax code is providing strong incentives for Starbucks to expand. During the initial breakthrough period they are incurring significant expenses. These huge costs are being offset somewhat by the provisions in the tax code. The government in this case has provided a system by which Starbucks is encouraged to grow their volume of future taxable revenue.   Simple :-)   Edit:  After further review of the article, it's not quite as simple as I made it out to be in my above comment. I think the point is still valid however.
Interest earned over my saving only As you are Tax resident in UK, UK taxes Global income. So the interest earned in India is taxable. Further this is taxable when the interest was paid to you in India and it is not relevant whether you kept the funds in India or repatriated to UK.  It is not clear in your question as to when the interest was credited to your Indian account. If its been for few years, you are in breach of the UK tax regulation. Consult a tax advisor how this can be corrected. If it is for this year, pay taxes as per normal tax brackets.
"One of the things I have enjoyed about consulting is the exposure to multiple companies and multiple business units within those companies. In the year I have been at The Gunter Group, I have already worked with multiple clients on projects that span across the respective organizations. It has been very interesting to contrast the clients and more specifically the corporate cultures that exist within those companies. I have participated in and watched various projects being driven in different parts of a client's business and it is interesting to see which projects have been, are, and will be successful. The other day I was reading a report of some analysis done by one of the world's largest and most respected consulting firms. The analysis was essentially outlining a path for success for a broad spectrum of projects of varied scopes and complexities. The analysis, which was very good by the way, touched on a lot of elements of the business that would impact the likelihood of project success. Elements like governance, data analysis, process design, etc. The analysis and the accompanying recommendations were undoubtedly sound given the caliber of the firm, the background research done to support the report, and my own confirmation based on what I have picked up about the client. I try and get my hands on these types of reports whenever possible to see how ""the big boys"" are doing it, to shape my own thinking, and to have examples of successful presentations. I am, however, always surprised that these reports fail to mention what I consider to be a very big influence on the success of a project and ultimately the success of the organization as a whole. At their core, companies are merely people. A group of people with a collective identity; a corporate culture if you will. Reflecting back on my many interactions with the people that make up these organizations it has become very evident to me that a collaborative corporate culture is a huge discriminator in determining the success of any project. Although it is a macro factor, the collaborative spirit of an organization transcends everything that the company does and/or attempts to do. Here is an example to give context of the premise I am talking about. At client A, the project team I worked with was designing an extremely innovative, complex, and challenging system that has the potential to alter the way they do business.
The main problem is that everyone graduates from high-school, almost everyone gets accepted to college and almost nobody who put minimum efforts fails college classes. I know that! I was an adjunct professor and was told I can't fail my students except in extreme cases.  In the past, to graduate from high school was a hard accomplishment. Getting accepted to college was a hard accomplishment. Surviving the first year in college was an accomplishment and getting a degree was an accomplishment.  Those accomplishments in the past gave you excellent benefits! Benefits of assured respected jobs, income, security, and being the exception.  An example: in the past, to be a teller in the bank, you did not have to finish high-school, just be good in basic math. Today: a teller in the bank, one of the lowest paying jobs you can find, requires a Bachelor degree. Does the bachelor degree worth it?  **Basically, higher education became an industry, that accept as many people as possible, charge them as much as it can, give degrees to undeserving people, and those degrees are almost worthless. You can't do much with a Bachelor degree!**  The solution is to make the standards for high school and college much higher.  Everything will fall into place then.   Fewer students who are actually interested in studies and are qualified for their studies will mean better teaching, lower costs, and much better benefits for those deserve those benefits.  Chances of this happening? Big big zero. Actually, the chances of even lower standards for colleges and schools are 100%.  So, for my son, I explained to him to not invest much in an excellent and expensive college for [worthless] degrees. Instead, while he studies, work in the area he is interested in and learn from the masters he works with. My son is 13, but since being 11, he works (yes, he makes money) with some computer system he's interested in.  Personally, I worked since I was 13, study and worked all the time, got my Bachelor and Masters, and I am doing extremely well. I get paid for what I know, which Zero of it came from my studies and money I spent in those studies.
i mean, what equipment are you looking at? have you approached professionals in the field to borrow/accompany them? schools/universities? can you get by with sub-par or cheap-er equipment? can you pick up a part time job to start accumulating some of this equipment? have you checked around with any government organizations which do this type of work?
It's not non-zero but, in a resource extraction economy, the prices of those resources is critical.  Alberta, which produces a lot of expensive oil, needs the prices to be above a certain amount or there are major problems.    Prior to 2008, everything was wine and roses.  After the crash, the elected government has been crying.  Instead of funding everything through oil royalties in a surplus, they've made cutbacks and run a sizeable deficit most every year since.  The lower prices has resulted in slowed construction and cancelled projects on the oil sands, which reduces the jobs, which undercuts the only positive to practically giving the oil away.  This is with $32 billion is subsidies for oil and gas each year.  Reduced jobs and money means less demand for real estate, which tripled between 2003 and 2008 and has mostly held steady since then.  With rising interest rates on the horizon, many Albertans could lose 25%-50% of their wealth.  If an oil produces wanted to hurt Alberta, increasing production enough to drop the price of oil by $5-$10 could do it.  I know it's a tall order but there are certain countries and/or organizations that could do it.  The US govt, for example, could have its oil barons and military hawks team up to subsidize production enough to sink Russia in the name of national security.  It may not make much sense but neither does ethanol from corn and look where that is.
If you did not receive your income evenly throughout the year (for example, your income from a shop you operated at a marina was much larger in the summer than it was during the rest of the year), you may be able to lower or eliminate your penalty by figuring your underpayment using the annualized income installment method. Emphasis added. In order to take advantage of this, you'll need to send in a Schedule AI at the end of the year along with a Form 2210. The downside to this is that you're basically racking up underpayment penalties throughout the year, then at the end of the year you're asking the IRS to rescind your penalty. The other risk is that you still pay estimated taxes on your Q2 - Q4 earnings in Q1, you just pay much less than 25%. So if you have a windfall later in the year, I think you could get burned on your Q1 underpayment."
My opinion is that in general, it is probably not a good idea to borrow at a cost in order to make your RRSP contribution.  Banks, of course, have an interest in loaning you money.  Don't expect their literature to be objective on the matter!  They are selling you a product and the advice is biased.  What better way to double-dip than to get guaranteed interest payments from you, as well as ongoing fees for (probably also) getting your loan money invested in their high-fee mutual funds? A year's RRSP contribution room allowance isn't use it or lose it — unlike 401k contribution allowances in the U.S.. That is, unused RRSP contribution room accumulates and you can take advantage of it in later years. If we couldn't carry our RRSP contribution room over, I might feel different about the general case for RRSP loans. Yet there are two specific cases I can think of where it may make sense to borrow and pay back: (a possible case) ... if your tax rate is currently in a high bracket (e.g. 46%), and you anticipate being in a lower income and bracket next year (e.g. 35%), then it would make sense to take advantage of the higher tax savings in the current tax year.  If you waited until the following year to take the deduction, you'd lose out on 11% of the deducted amount.   For a typical person whose income is level or increasing from year to year, this isn't likely to be applicable, but it could help somebody who is going on leave or otherwise has irregular income. (a foolish case) ... if you knew, somehow, that you could realize a return on your invested RRSP money exceeding the pre-tax earnings required to pay the interest on the RRSP loan.  However, I would suggest this is foolish bet to make.  The interest you pay is guaranteed, but the return you are expected to get is probably not (or if it is, it is probably a return lower than what your bank wants to charge on the loan.) If for some reason it does make sense for you, take the money and invest it somewhere better than the high-fee mutual funds the bank is also pushing.
In my opinion, the fee is criminal.  There are ETFs available to the public that have expenses as low as .05%. The index fund VIIIX an institution level fund available to large 401(k) plans charges .02%. I'll pay a total of under 1% over the next 50 years,  Consider that at retirement, the safe withdrawal rate has been thought to be 4%, and today this is considered risky, perhaps too high. Do you think it's fair, in any sense of the word to lose 30% of that withdrawal?  Another angle for you - In my working years, I spent most of those years at either the 25% or 28% federal bracket taxable income. I should spend my retirement at 15% marginal rate. On average, the purpose of my 401(k) was to save me (and my wife) 10-13% in tax from deposit to withdrawal. How long does it take for an annual 1.1% excess fee to negate that 10% savings? If one spends their working life paying that rate, they will lose half their wealth to those managing their money.  PBS aired a show in its Frontline series titled The Retirement Gamble, it offers a sobering look at how such fees are a killer to your wealth.
If you are the only contributor to the premiums, you will not owe income taxes on the benefits. Only the portion of the benefits you receive which were paid by your employer are taxable. Source: IRS 'Life Insurance & Disability Insurance Proceeds' Question: I am receiving long-term disability. Is it considered taxable? If you pay the entire cost of a health or accident insurance plan, do not include any amounts you receive for your disability as income on your tax return EDIT: In regards to @NateEldredge's comment: If you are inquiring about the premiums, then yes, you have to pay income tax on the portion of income that pays the premiums (it's a post-tax expense and is not tax-deductible)
&gt; I believe transparency when it comes to our food is important.   Totally agreed. Here's my amateur solution:  All food companies are required to have the answers to a set of questions available, via email or website, phone, or standard mail. Those questions are determined by a combination of independent panel and consumer polling. What those questions are may change over time, allowing for a reasonably generous grace period for the companies to prepare.  For example, if consumers really have to know what GM ingredients are in their food, for whatever (asinine) reasons, then fine. Require the company to answer. If consumers really want to know what color shoes the workers wear, then so be it.  I also think we need a series of third party organizations, rather than the USDA Organic system we have. What's acceptable and what isn't is super arguable, and rather than just taking the standard that exists (which IMO is not meaningful), folks can choose which standard they wish to head. Combined with the mandated transparency above, this would lower costs by removing the need for active investigation, and lead to more informed decision making on the part of the consumers.
There is a much simpler explanation. Resources unlike human labor are scarce. As we use up resources the price for these resources rises. In an effort to keep prices low, wages are not increased. This leads to effectively less spending income. Automation and advancement only slow the process. Labor is in no short supply, the price of labor will continue to fall in order to keep the price of final goods lower.
As I understand it, US federal gift tax doesn't kick in at all until one person gives more than about $14,000 in a single year. (So a couple can give someone $28,000.) If you want to give more than that in a lump sum while avoiding gift tax, one workaround is to structure it as an intra-family loan. Basically, you write (and formally register) a loan for the amount, then gift them with up to the limit for them to pay off that loan. The IRS requires that you charge interest on this loan, but the rates are pretty minimal and of course you can incorporate that in the gift. The downside is that the interest income you're required to take is taxable, but that's a comparitively small sum. (On the other hand, if the loan is a mortgage against real property, and properly filed as such, the interest paid may be deductable for the person you're giving the money to.) Doing this properly requires a tax accountant or lawyer who has a clue about the right legalese to make it work. However, there are starting to be some services which specialize in this, doing it for a fixed fee. I used one of those recently, which is why I'm somewhat familiar with this process; they made it about as much of a fill-out-the-forms process as they could, but it still took a few weeks for me to figure out which options were best for my needs.
You can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service in Australia.  I've never used them in particular but generally organizations will respond much faster once you get the ombudsman involved. However, since you say they've now kept their promises, the ombudsman is unlikely to do much more than listen sympathetically.
I wouldn't only consider the entry/exit cost per trade. That's a good comparison page by the way. I would also consider the following. This depends if you are planning on using your online broker to provide all the information for you to trade. I have lower expectations of my online broker, not meant to be harsh on the online brokers, but I expect brokers to assist me in buying/selling, not in selecting. Edit: to add to the answer following a comment. Here are three pieces of software to assist in stock selection
Honestly I don't mind that they make money off of my resume. Where the rubber hits the road I put my resume out into the world in order for potential employers to find me. That's why I had a Monster profile and a Careerbulder oen as well. In fact, the best and most stabel jobs I have had have coem from employers reachign out to me as opposed to the other way around.
You don't seem to have any particular question to be answered. Your understanding of RRSPs seems to be very good.  Have you considered whether you might be better off putting your retirement savings into a TFSA instead? Both types can protect your growth from taxation (provided you reinvest the refund from the RRSP). The main way in which the RRSP is better than TFSA is that you can pay the tax on the contribution at a time when your income is lower, and thus have a lower marginal tax rate. Most people retire with a lower income than during their earning years, but it's a matter of tax brackets. If you think you'll be in the same bracket (same marginal tax rate) when you retire, then the TFSA and RRSP work out even in that regard. So in your case, the question you want to ask yourself is: when I retire, will I have an income (including CPP, OAS, pension payments, etc) that exceeds $45,282 worth of today's dollars? If so, your RRSP holds no advantage over the TFSA. In fact, the RRSP may even be worse, since the withdrawals count as income and reduce the amount of OAS and perhaps GIS payments that the government gives you - at least under current regulations. If you're unsure, I suggest you try this calculator from taxtips.ca that runs both scenarios and helps you see which one is more beneficial. It even factors in the OAS/GIS clawbacks.
In most jurisdictions, you want to split the transactions. Why? Because you want to report capital gains on your investment income, and this will almost always be taxed at a lower rate than employment income. See Wikipedia's article for more information about capital gains. In Canada, you pay tax on 50% of your realized capital gains. There are also ways to shelter your gains from tax; in Canada, TFSA, in the US, I believe these are 'roth' accounts. I actually think you have to split the transactions, at least in Canada and the U.S., though I'm not absolutely sure. Regardless, you want to do so if you plan on making money with your investments. If you plan on making a loss, please contact me as I'm happy to accept the money you are planning on throwing away.
"I was there a couple weeks ago minding my own business and this short little overweight lady waddled up to me and asked for help. (Which I'm used to, I'm [tall](/r/tall). *""Can you reach that for me?""* and the like.)   But this was a Walmart employee picking an order for an online customer. She had a regular shopping cart and was trying to load a *heavy* ""wooden"" entertainment center in the cart. I was trying to be the nice human that I usually am and help, but it was all I could do to muscle this thing in the cart. She needed a flatbed cart.    (But oh what a delicious payday that would've been if a customer had hurt himself loading an order at the request of a paid Walmart employee! :eyeroll:)"
In all probability, having lower coverage levels will result in higher premiums. As my insurance agent explained to me, the higher your coverages, the lower the insurance company believes your risk to be - because you think about insurance smartly, you're less likely to make spurious claims. I have my coverages run at various levels every 18-24 months, and it is almost always true that higher coverages result in lower premiums. Also, there is no guarantee you'll still be employed by the same company if an injury happens. Or that they'll continue to offer the same plans every year. Insurance is a calculated risk on the part of the insurer, and a means of sharing/deflecting risk (at a cost known as your premium) on the part of the insured. Even if your premiums are slightly higher (on the order of a couple dollars per month, for example), do you really want to save a couple dollars and then be surprised when your health insurance company doesn't want to cover something?
My take is there's room for a lot of models on the Internet, just as there is room for nonprofits, for-profit businesses and other types of organizations in the brick and mortar world. The Internet is a flexible medium that can be used a number of ways. The best part of it to me is that people vote by their actions --- if I hate ad-supported sites, I can ignore them. If I'm willing to pay for, say, news, I can do that, too.
As has been mentioned, it's largely up to the landlord. I'm in Texas, USA, and my landlord's payment service permits it, but they charge an exorbitant fee of 22%  plus 0.50 in order to do so. My rent is $895/month. If I chose to use a credit card, I pay $1092.40. The miles aren't worth that kind of money.
That definitely hit home. I'd be thinking the same thing every time I submitted an online application and its quite frustrating. I'm beginning to realize I shot my self in the foot after graduation when a friend put me in contact with a friend of his who works at a large aerospace firm. The contact seemed more than willing to help me out and I figured at the very least i'd get an interview. So I dedicated all my time prepping for the position and following up with my contact. 2 months later it all fell through when the firm changed the requirements for the position. I asked my contact what happened and he basically said oh well. So yeah  I spent all this time so focused on one job that I thought I would get and it didn't work out. In school I learned what to do in a job but due to my circumstances (working 30 hours a week in a bar in order to pay for school) I never learned HOW to get a job.  given that, I appreciate your suggestions and although everything you said seems obvious now, I think I've mainly been in denial and don't want to give up on what I really want. But thankfully I do have connections in other industries and friends who are more than willing to give mock interviews. I have the tools but as you said now its up to me to stop sulking and take the initiative. Thanks for the response, definitely needed to hear that. I will also send you my resume if you don't mid taking a quick look.
My in-laws are pressuring me to buy a home.  I don't really have much financial experience. In fact, I'm a nightmare with finances. I almost have my student loans payed off from school.  My in-laws and husband are great with finances and with real-estate.  My husband has a good job and $200k in savings.  I have a good job too, and still have some debt from school. (approx $60k left of 180k).   They say the house will be available in Jan or February for purchase, and that we should really try to buy it (prob $2-3 mil).   My guess is they want to make it available to us off the market (which is a huge benefit in this area,  there are really no houses available lately) .   The problem is:  I am uncomfortable because I don't have all of my loans payed off,  I could divert money away from paying off the loans in order to save for a larger downpayment. I just got a bonus of $35k (after taxes)   I don't think I'll have all of my loans payed off by January. Should I save my money for the downpayment or focus on my loans, should I go for the house?  I don't know how to weigh these options against each other with such little experience.