1. Year End Tax Tips:

Yes, there is still time to save money on taxes for 2020....even today.

Here is a list of some of your top options:

A) You can pay your kids up to age 18 up to $12,400 and if they have no other income, they owe NO federal taxes, but YOU get the deduction

2. Next up, you can prepay your expenses up to 1 year, using the IRS Safe Harbor:

This allows cash-basis taxpayers to prepay and deduct qualifying expenses up to 12 months in advance without challenge, adjustment, or change by the IRS.

3. Qualifying expenses include, among others:

-lease payments on business vehicles

-rent payments on offices and machinery

-and business and malpractice insurance premiums

4. Buy Office Equipment

With bonus depreciation now at 100 percent along with increased limits for Section 179 expensing,

buy your equipment or machinery and place it in service before December 31 and get a deduction for 100 percent of the cost in 2020.

5. Qualifying bonus depreciation and Section 179 purchase examples

-new and used personal property such as machinery, equipment, computers, desks, furniture, and chairs (and certain qualifying vehicles).

I'm picking up a stand up desk since someone went and filled my bin.

First Chartstravaganza of the year … hoping for a better 2021!

Please comment, like and share. And of course … follow us!

Every Sunday, twenty charts, let’s go.

20. Investment Banking

(@ft)

19. Emerging Markets Flows

(@exantedata)

18. Population Growth

(@wellsfargo)

@BrentBeshore I made my first SMB acquisition last Spring. Here are a few things I learned from the introduction until now:

1. Understanding the financial statements of a small business can be very different than what is taught in an MBA program

2. The seller isn't telling you nearly the whole story. Sometimes they don't even know the story. Account for that.

3. The business is often worse than the seller will admit and can be improved more than the seller realizes.

4. The employees that have been there the longest don't want to change and don't give a rip about your acquisition. They simply want to continue receiving a paycheck without much hassle.

5. The company competitors have been waiting on a chance to pounce on your key customers. Change of ownership presents that.

6. You'll lose sleep and won't even be able to identify the problem. It's just the pain of owning a business that keeps you up.

7. It's easy to wake up one day and realized you've been around your family but haven't been emotionally engaged in months. You'll drive down to a park during lunch last week and cry your eyes out. Did I just say that out loud?!

Reading the IFR about PPP second draw and it's got me thinking about who qualifies for second draw. Might be so many thoughts I need like several tweets in a row or a thread if you will. Warning I don't get to the real point of this until like a dozen tweets in #taxtwitter

Need 300 or less emp and a 25% decline in revenue 2020 vs 2019. There are rules about what's an employee and what's gross receipts so I don't really have any questions or deep thoughts about that part. I think we all understand how you document gross receipts went down.

Nice of them to define the gross receipts in a footnote of page 8 and on page 23. PPP loans would not be included so that's helpful and logical. These rules are not always helpful and logical so nice to see that.

Another requirement is that PPP first draw was received and has used the full amount of the PPP first draw on "eligible expenses" on or before PPP second draw is disbursed. That's interesting to me. It doesn't say that the PPP first draw will be entirely forgiven.

Eligible exp for PPP first draw are referenced back to the other new IFR on PPP first draw and it's the whole list of payroll, rent, PPE, supplier costs etc. Certainly to achieve 100% forgiveness you needed to spend 60% on payroll and spend all of it in the CP.

Thread on how easy it is to get tricked into haemorrhaging money from your bank account after an online purchase – and why financial regulators seem to be behind the curve on this.🧵💸💻

Forgive the personal story, but I think it's relevant...1/

I’m pretty careful with my money online - regularly checking my pension, combing my online bank statement for suspicious transactions, pruning unwanted subscriptions etc...2/

I’d describe this as financial hygiene – and would advise everyone to do it.

Yet it’s not always enough.

While looking through a list of transactions on my online account before Xmas I noticed a £15 payment to something called "WLY*https://t.co/tSHitonwoT" ...3/

By chance I knew for certain I’d not bought anything on that particular day, so I investigated further.

I downloaded my entire statement for the year and discovered I’d made a payment to this entity for the
same amount every month for 14 months, so £210 in total...4/

I did an online search & found a club called Complete Savings (@completesave), that offers cashback on online purchases in return for £15 a month membership fees.

This is not, to put it mildly, the kind of scheme I would ever knowingly sign up to....5/

I don't always like that freedoms are enshrined in process; checks & balances. It's not perfect; sometimes those processes are used to oppress (voting in the South). The principle though is freedom that goes through process prevents passions of mobs (yesterday's domestic terror)

Can process be misused? Yes, absolutely, thus the need for well-informed voters/participants in civic life. But are the people who attacked the Capitol oppressed by misused process? Even many other Republicans say, no; by end of day that number had grown.

Their sense of grievance is real - and preyed upon. For other circumstances in their lives it's possible sense of grievance is justified; rust belt poverty is brutal for instance. But feeling wronged & being wronged are different.

There isn't evidence of the will of the people being suppressed in this election. It is a nauseating twist to witness, that a group of people carrying Confederate flags into the Capitol building claim oppression by broken process.

In the C-Span livestream & photos yesterday, & the footage that emerged shortly after, it was apparent the crowd was a mix of near-tourist rural supporters, known white supremacists, & militia-like aggressors. At least 1 of those groups isn't interested in sharing fair process.

1/ We have already considered some protocols with their own systems for maintaining token values at the $1 peg. Let’s look at @fraxfinance and speak about the price stability of its token.

Why You Should Give Out Your Best Content for FREE to Land More Clients and $$$ (In ONE PDF)

If you’ve taken @PaikCapital “The Agency Course” this is a MUST READ

-THREAD-

What the hell are you talking about?

Yes, you heard me, you will get more clients when giving out your best content for free.

And it’s all in ONE pdf.

Hang with me..

Now, here’s why you should do this

Basically…

You will create an authority feeling around yourself as an agency to your niche when you do this.

You will be the go-to agency in this area.

People will then WANT to work with you

You will be the master among the people who do the same thing as you.

That's why you want to give it all away, reveal all your “super-secrets”.

In one pdf.

Let’s take an example

Let’s say that you’re running an agency that’s helping eCommerce businesses increase sales with Facebook ads.

When prospects (eCommerce owners) come onto your landing page, you want to collect their email addresses because they can become future clients, right?

On Monday, we submitted a letter to the US Treasury on the proposed rulemaking by FinCEN. We are committed to working with FinCEN to facilitate the adoption of digital assets along with widespread compliance and AML regulations.

Some highlights from the letter:

The limited time to provide comment deprives FinCEN of important feedback from the industry, resulting in less effective rules that create significant barriers to widespread compliance. This is a sharp departure from ordinary comment procedures and established practice.

The proposed rule raises serious practical and technical concerns that reveal robust industry feedback and industry engagement is necessary before effective implementation is possible. Some key concerns raised in our letter include….

The recordkeeping and reporting requirements mandate that Virtual Asset Service Providers differentiate between hosted and “unhosted” wallets without defining these terms and acknowledgement of the challenges faced in differentiating transactions that involve unhosted wallets.

A mandate that VASPs obtain name, address, and other unique counterparty info to unhosted wallet transactions would be the first Bank Secrecy Act rule commanding an institution to obtain specific info about customers’ counterparties with whom the institution has no relationship.

1/ Some people on the left have this magical thinking problem when it comes to why our ideas don't often carry the day within the Dem Party. We act like it's all "big Pharma money" etc. And yes, that money is corrupting. But it's not magic...

2/ If a Rep knew the majority of THEIR constituents (not Dem voters from other parts of the country but THEIR constituents) supported more left policies *and would actually show up & vote against them if they didn't vote for those policies* they would vote for them, obviously.

3/ A major goal of a Rep is to keep being one, so no one would go against the wishes of the majority of their constituents just to get contributions, if that would cost them the job. But it WON'T. Either bc the folks who could punish them don't bother to vote, or, more likely...

4/ bc most voters are savvy enough to care about more than one issue, so even if a Rep doesn't fight for M4A, they might be good on other things voters care about and much better than the GOP alternative. Now, if these are progressive districts where the D is sure to win..

5/ ...it's different. THERE it makes sense to push hard for those Reps to do the left thing. But that means running good candidates in primaries, so those Reps feel the heat. Twitter shaming them or forcing floor votes to "expose" people means nothing w/o a viable alternative...

Senate Democrats just killed the push today for $2000 checks.

A few Senators--namely Sanders and Markey--wanted to hold up the NDAA as leverage to push for a vote on $2000.

Democratic leadership rejected this--including Vice President elect Harris.

Let’s be real: McConnell is the one at fault for refusing to put a vote for the $2000 on the floor in the first place and being fifty shades of hypocritical along the way.

But Democratic leadership has, once again, folded to Republicans without attempting to fight for us.

If Democratic leadership is actually serious about getting $2000 checks to people, they would do one of two things:

a.) Find another leverage against McConnell and Senate Republicans

b.) Take McConnells offer on the combined bill of $2000 checks and Trump wishlist items

McConnell has made it clear today that he is not interested in putting a vote for $2000 checks on the floor unless it’s through his bill—which includes repealing Section 230 and putting together a committee to study “election fraud” in the 2020 election.

The argument that Dem leadership will make is that getting this NDAA through is vital, and can't be held up as leverage.

This is precisely why Sanders & Markey wanted to hold it up as leverage.

Dem leadership better have a Plan B if they are serious about helping people.

□■□■ Islamic Banking □■□■
In 1983, the first Islamic Bank (the Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad) was established in Malaysia through the introduction of the Islamic Banking Act. They are not recognised by a number of non-Islamic nations, including India.

In late 2008, a committee on Financial Sector Reforms, headed by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, had stressed on the need for a closer look at the issue of interest-free banking in the country and supported Islamic Banking system in India.

The RBI had in February, 2016 sent a copy of the IDG report to the finance ministry and recommended an "Islamic window" in conventional banks for gradual introduction of Sharia-compliant banking.

As per report:-
"In our considered opinion, given the complexities of Islamic finance and various regulatory and supervisory challenges involved in the matter and also due to the fact that Indian banks have no experience in this field, Islamic banking may be introduced in India.

"Initially, a few simple products which are similar to conventional banking products may be considered for introduction through Islamic window of the conventional banks after necessary notification by the government," it had said in a letter to the ministry.

@BORIS_WATCH @Joe_Mayes Non-tariff barriers are other conditions/criteria which, even though are not tariffs, may end-up having a tariff-like effect, that is an increase of costs and, thus, of the price paid by the buyer (e.g. a theoretical example, a requirement that all beer exported to Belgium) 1/

@Joe_Mayes 2/ In the theoretical example, a beer exporter would be forced to change his supplier of bottles or to invest in a separate bottling line for its production deemed for export to Belgium. Hence, the extra costs that will have to be covered (usually by the end-customer).

@Joe_Mayes 3/ Even though it might seem ridiculous, there are many real examples of such „disguised restrictions”. Under the EU Law they are prohibited in the relations between the EU member states because they hamper the free movement of goods.

@Joe_Mayes 4/ Coming back to the confusion created by the foggy official communication, this comes probably from the terminology used (sometimes incorrectly), insufficiently explained and superimposed on the promises made in 2016 (we will have the same conditions like we were in the SM etc)

@Joe_Mayes 5/ So, in international trade, charging import/export tariffs is the norm. There are also quotas and contingents (e.g. the quantities of a given product the exporters from country A are allowed to export to country). The quotas are also used by the EU.

Looks like an interesting house, right?
And hey, it’s reasonably priced. $157K, on 2/3rds of an acre.
High speed cable broadband should be available.
Lots of light, parking, deck...

https://t.co/8TEyzhNi8E

Not a murder house, not even a little!

Uh... maybe... wait...
That’s an interesting trim choice.
Door’s a little dated but not too bad.

Oh, shit.

More. Shag.
In. The. Kitchen.
WHY?
Have you never cooked??

(And we will talk about the seam from Cocoa Beach Blue to Violet Vale later.)