Every year complying with tax regulations cost Americans at least $107 billion, according an estimate by the General Accountability Office. As many as 57% of all people used a brick-and-mortar tax business to file their taxes with an average of $176 for a federal return with just the standard deduction plus a state return. Unless your tax situations are complex, The Finance Buff elaborates 6 ways to do your taxes for free:
Bill Gates Set to Become the World’s First Trillionaire in 25 Years
With a fortune around $75 billion, Microsoft founder Bill Gates is already the world’s richest man. Together with the power of compounding, more money will create even more wealth. According to research by Oxfam, Bill Gates will be the world’s first trillionaire in 25 years as his total wealth grows at the expected market return of the ultra-rich portfolio. Despite giving money away, Gates’ fortune has risen 50 percent from $50 billion to $75 billion since he stepped down from working full-time at Microsoft in 2006. At the current rate, Gates is predicted to hit the trillion mark by the age of 86. “If you are already rich, you have to try hard not to keep getting a lot richer,” Oxfam notes. (oxfam.org)
Killer Debt: Too Much Debt Could Kill You
Exercise regularly, be mindful of your diet, and pay off your credit card bills? That very well may be the new mantra for a long life, as a new study finds high debt could lead to an early death. Conversely, those who owe very little are less likely to die at a younger age. Researchers looked at approximately 170,000 credit reports from the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample of U.S. consumers and their household members with information in the consumer credit data system. “It seems clear that debt resulting from a financial crisis has lasting effects on health that are substantial enough to increase mortality rates,” the authors write. The authors found a negative association between delinquent debt and health, when measured by mortality, and a positive association between credit-worthiness and health. (studyfinds.org)
How This 27-Year-Old Made $1 Million Last Year
Last year Michelle Schroeder-Gardner made almost $1 million — $979,000, to be exact. Guess how this 27 year-old made $1 million in a year. That’s right, blogging. From an article in Forbes, her ticket out of debt and into financial freedom has been her blog, Making Sense of Cents, where she offers tips on saving and making money — and publishes income reports. Schroeder-Gardner said: “I had actually started my blog in August 2011, before I graduated with my finance MBA. I got the idea one day when I was reading Cosmo and they had an article featuring the personal finance site Daily Worth. I started reading that website and I became super-interested in personal finance blogs. I started my blog as a hobby. I didn’t start it thinking I’d make an income from it. Six months later, I made my first $100 from my blog when a blogger friend who was already profiting from her blog connected me with an advertiser. I didn’t even know blogs could make money.” She keeps developing her blogging hobby into a career and her earning keeps going up: In 2013, she earned $117,000. In 2014, that increased to $164,000. In 2015, her earnings jumped to $321,000. And finally he made close to $1 million last year. (forbes.com)
Universal Basic Income for All is Coming?
If robots and machine intelligence threaten to render many white-collar jobs obsolete, then what will people do for money? Enter the concept of a ‘universal basic income’, a flat sum paid to all regardless of your existing wealth or ability to work. It is one of the rare ideas that has support from both the libertarian right — which favours tearing up the welfare state — and the left wing. In France, Benoit Hamon has emerged as the surprise Socialist candidate for April’s presidential election first round, on a radical programme that includes such an income — to be funded in part by a new tax on industrial robots. National or local governments in other countries such as Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Scotland and Brazil are already evaluating how such a revenue might work in practice. Finland is furthest down the road. On January 1 it started a two-year trial to give 2,000 unemployed Finns a monthly unconditional payment of $590. At the least, advocates argue, a basic income could replace the thicket of unemployment benefits currently on offer in many advanced economies. (yahoo.com)
Comcast Is About to Sell You Cable TV Without the Cable Box
Soon some of subscribers can watch live TV without the cost of a cable box. Lucas Shaw reported on Bloomberg: “Comcast is making its Xfinity TV service available to subscribers with Roku set-top players via a new app, paving the way for customers of the nation’s largest cable provider to watch live programming without the cost or hassle of a cable box. Roku is the first set-stop box to offer the Xfinity TV service, Comcast said in a statement Tuesday. During a test period, subscribers will have to hang on to their cable devices. When the app formally rolls out later this year, they’ll be able sign up without renting a cable box. While Comcast expects the majority of its customers to opt for the typical setup, traditional pay-TV providers are trying to be more flexible about where and how people can watch TV given the popularity of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and the boxes that offer them. Customers with Roku players will be able to watch live TV, browse on-demand libraries and record shows, just as they can with Comcast’s boxes. Those who use the Roku as their primary device instead of Comcast’s X1 device will receive a $2.50 monthly credit, the company said.”
Is there any way to get cable TV without the cable box?
You might wonder if there’s a way to just attaching the cable wire directly to the TV to see some channels. At the moment, you need a cable box for any live cable outlet in your home. Each additional cable box will cost extra monthly fee.
Once the new Xfinity TV service becomes available, you will be able to avoid paying the monthly for these extra cable boxes. Keep in mind that you still need some kind of streaming boxes such as Roku player to use with the new service.
Trump Pledges to Work with Big Pharma to Lower Drug Prices
Good news for consumers as President Trump pledges to work with Big Pharma to lower drug prices. His message to pharmaceutical company executives: bring your production back to the United States and the Trump administration will lower regulations for you. “So you have to get your companies back here. We have to make products … We have to get rid of a tremendous number of regulations,” Trump said. “I know you have some problems where you cannot even think about opening up new plants. You can’t get approval for the plant and then you can’t get approval to make the drugs.” Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, issued a joint statement shortly after the meeting saying they hope Trump “really” takes on the pharmaceutical industry. (cnn.com)
Amazon Starts to Collect Sales Tax in Smaller States
Many online shoppers in the United States have for years had to pay state sales taxes whenever they buy goods from Amazon except in some small states. Well, that’s quickly changing this year. Matt O’Brien reports: “Amazon customers in at least 10 states will begin paying sales taxes on their website purchases for the first time this winter. Tax collection begins Wednesday in Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Vermont. It already started this month in Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Utah, and begins in Wyoming on March 1.” (abcnews)
America’s 10 Richest Gain $16 Billion During Trump’s First Week
“Donald Trump’s first week as president was nothing short of explosive, with millions of people expressing anger over new tax proposals, slated changes to healthcare coverage and a planned multibillion-dollar border wall. One group with little to complain about? American billionaires, who have profited hugely off of record-high stock prices during Trump’s first seven days in office. In the last week, the 10 wealthiest Americans added $15.8 billion to their combined net worth. Each one of them got richer in the seven days following Trump’s inauguration. Warren Buffett enjoyed the biggest gain of any person in the country; his net worth climbed by more than $2.5 billion to $74 billion. He is currently the planet’s second-richest person, according to FORBES’ real-time rankings of the world’s billionaires, trailing only Bill Gates ($85 billion). Buffett’s surge was nearly matched by Mark Zuckerberg, whose fortune grew by $2.1 billion this week thanks to Facebook’s soaring market cap.” (forbes.com)
Stock Research Moves Past PDFs as Customers Demand More for Their Money
“With investment firms cutting costs and portfolio managers combating a barrage of information, financial research shops around the globe are looking for new ways to keep their product relevant,” write Anna Irrera and Olivia Oran on Reuter. “A raft of startups have launched to support that effort, offering tools that can use Google search data to get an edge on retail sales, deploy drones to examine oil supplies or allow investors to rank analysts and bid on their reports, like a Netflix or eBay of research. Whether these innovations will lead to smarter investments, or be used widely enough to prop up research budgets, is yet to be seen. But the startups are forming alliances with banks, brokerages and investors by the dozen. People who use and sell the tools say the trend is changing how research is financed, distributed and consumed for the first time in decades. ‘We are coming up on a very different age for equity research,’ said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research. Investors now see research as a product that must stand on its own rather than a freebie offered as part of a broader relationship with an investment bank, Sokolin said. Technology can improve the quality and distribution of research, he said….Perhaps most importantly, investors say they are sick of their inboxes piling up with run-of-the-mill reports each day. At a time when people share snippets of information through WhatsApp and Slack and a tweet can move a stock in seconds, sharing loads of PDF files through email is not only passe, but makes it hard to know what is worth reading, industry sources said.” (reuters.com)
Self-Made Millionaire: The Single Biggest Investment Mistake You Can Make
Getting rich can be straightforward. Mostly, it requires making smart choices, like committing to paying yourself first and setting aside at least 10% of your pretax income in a retirement account, says financial adviser and self-made millionaire David Bach. “With this in mind, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out the single biggest investment mistake you can make: Not using your retirement plan and not maxing it out,” Bach writes in his book, The Automatic Millionaire. (cnbc.com)
Why is Work Making Us Miserable?
Office life is better than ever before, but why dissatisfaction is rising? Lucy Kellaway writes: “Now, not only are offices bright and beautiful, we do not even have to go to them if we do not feel like it — we can work at home instead. Bosses have been taught not to shout. There are gyms and free fruit. And if you happen to be a woman, things have improved beyond recognition.” So why is work making us miserable? “The biggest reason for unhappiness is that we expect too much. Office jobs may have improved, but our expectations have far outstripped them.” (ft.com)
How to Join Navy Federal Credit Union
Harry Sit at The Finance Buff explains on how to join Navy Federal Credit Union without military affiliation. By joining Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in the U.S, you can benefit from its great rates on CDs and loans. The first step is to become a member of the Navy League, a non-profit organization that supports America’s sea services, by paying $25 tax-deductible membership fee online. (thefinancebuff.com)
Parents, Save Up: It Costs $233,610 to Raise a Kid
Expecting a baby? Congratulations! Better put plenty of money in your savings account. The estimated cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is $233,610 — or as much as almost $14,000 annually, the Department of Agriculture says. That’s the average for a middle-income couple with two children. It’s a bit more expensive in urban parts of the country, and less so in rural areas. (cbsnews.com)
How to Determine Exchange Rates
Exchange rates are never constant in the global market. They keep changing from time to time. In fact they are constantly changing every minute as viewed in the stock market graphs. The stock brokers and the foreign exchange experts always keep their eyes on the constant changes on the graphs on how the markets keep behaving. This allows them to know when to make purchases and sales of the money in order to change from one foreign currency to the other. The factors that affect the behavior of currencies in the international market mainly are the supply and demand at any given time. The factors that determine the supply and demand can be political stability in a country, the economic stability in a country and the security that exists within the borders of a particular country. [Read more…]
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