Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange
Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [taxes]

For any question related to taxes and not otherwise covered by a more specific tag such as income-tax, sales-tax, capital-gains-tax etc. When asking about taxes, please also specify a country tag such as united-states, canada, united-kingdom, etc.

Taxes are a compulsory contribution to national, state, or local revenue. Taxes are levied by the government on workers' income, business profits, and investment appreciation, or may be added to the cost of goods, services, and transactions. Taxes are essential for funding government spending and various public expenditures. Failure to pay and evasion of taxation may be punishable by law, depending upon jurisdiction.

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Found a heap of BTC but have no documentation. What do I do?

Many years ago, I bought around 400 BTC for a few hundred dollars (?) and stored them in a hard drive. Shortly after that, I lost this hard drive, wrote it off as an "Oh well" and didn't think anything more of it. Last week I found the hard drive…
SomeGuy
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Isn't "I bought [blank] as a tax writeoff" complete nonsense?

There's a trope in movies where people do something to keep from being bumped into a higher tax bracket (For example, in The Big Lebowski: "I'll have to check with my accountant, but it might bump me up to another tax bracket"). The thing is, that…
Lord Farquaad
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I have sole custody of my child but the child's father's brother claimed him as a tax deduction

I have court papers showing that I have full and sole custody of my son and that he was with me like 99% of the year. I let my son's father have him a few weekends last year but only a handful. My son's father told his brother that he should claim…
neubert
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The USA "self-employment tax dodge" mystery

For non-US readers: In the US, for those who are self-employed, there are many specific taxes. One particular tax is the confusingly named "The Self-Employment Tax". Thus, if you are self-employed, you pay a number of specific taxes, all of which…
Fattie
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Why doesn’t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes?

The main message emerging from Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and the like, is that it is the rich, powerful and famous who make use of and benefit from tax havens. And yet, the same law that these individuals and companies use to lower their…
luchonacho
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Our friends and we often barter babysitting time with each other. Do we owe taxes?

Our friends and we have an informal agreement that we will babysit eachother's kids when necessary. We don't pay any cash to each other for the service, but we agree to "repay" by providing the same favor. An accountant friend told me just recently…
CodyBugstein
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I won a car in a poker game. How is that taxed in Canada?

For the sake of title transfer and taxes, is this a gift or a sale? This was a private game. We both tossed our keys into the pot. I won and the vehicle is now sitting on my driveway. I live in British Columbia, Canada. I don't know if this is…
user47387
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Does my tax refund need to be as close to zero dollars as possible?

Am I doing my taxes wrong? I am receiving around 1000 dollars in tax refund, and someone tells me it should be as close as to zero as possible, I thought the tax refund was government giving back most of the taxes that have been taken out of our…
andyADD
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What dissuades people from lying about where they live in order to reduce state income taxes?

Lets say you work in Chicago and live in Chicago but put your home address as somewhere in Indiana. Then every week you collect the mail that is being sent to you in Indiana. Wouldn't you save a lot of money assuming the taxes are lower? What…
alexcioby122
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Recent graduate with new job: Choose Roth 401(k), or traditional 401(k)?

I just graduated, and I'm starting a new job soon. My employer has pretty good policy for matching 401(k) contributions, so I want to invest as much as possible, especially during this first year. My question is: should I invest in a traditional…
Jay
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Can I hire my kid and start a Roth IRA for him?

I own an LLC, of which I am currently the sole member. It's my main source of income. I am wondering if there is a reason why I could not do the following: Hire my child as a part-time employee of the LLC, for an annual salary of $5500. Start a…
painter48179
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Why are businesses allowed to deduct expenses from their income, while individuals generally cannot?

In general, it's an accepted principle that businesses should be allowed to deduct expenses. How did this principle come about? And why doesn't it appear to apply to individuals to the same extent? Now I understand that businesses can't willy-nilly…
Jay
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If a kid makes money, do the parents take on the tax liability?

Suppose your kid (8 years old) decided to set up a neighborhood lemonade stand and by some freak occurrence managed to somehow make about $3,000. How does one manage the tax liability on that income? Is it counted toward the parents' income?
Kai Qing
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How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?

We're considering moving at some point in the future, and right now we have a mortgage on our home. So far we've been here about 3 years, and we're considering renting out our home. Obviously there will be costs associated with renting the home out:…
Wayne Werner
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Is Elon Musk really exploiting a loophole to avoid taxes?

I've been loosely keeping up with some of the news about Elon Musk selling TSLA shares to pay for an upcoming tax bill (for exercising options from 2012). There is a lot of discussion surrounding this news, much of which is political (regarding…
orangeneutron
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