Bogleheads.org

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I read it many years ago - and am reading again. Very enjoyable. RM http://www.amazon.com/Irreverent-Thoroughly-Incomplete-History-Everything/dp/0880292318/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359695159&sr=1-2&keywords=inco...

"The Grey Seas Under", by Farley Mowat. Yep, I've got it on order from my local library. :thumbsup If you like humor, try his THe Boat Who Wouldn't Float next. I laughed myself sore over his description of going out to the outhouse on the "stage" over the water and looking down ...

"The Grey Seas Under", by Farley Mowat. Great factual story about the operations of a North Atlantic rescue/salvage tug during the 1930's-40's. Hard to imagine what the crewmen endured, working in conditions from gales to hurricanes. Do pick up The Serpent's Coil. Just as good. I think I ...

The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 , William Manchester's Vol. 3 of his "The Last Lion" work on the life and times of English Prime Minister Winston Churchill, largely completed by Paul Reid after Manchester's death. You'll be fighting the war from the perspective of the Engl...

My bedtime reading has been rereading The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters. Now that I'm older, I appreciate an entirely different slant in these letters, and I just love George (Lyttelton). When I was younger, I was wow'd by Hart-Davis's lifestyle, but now it is George I adore. Wikipedia has an entry o...

Was the transfer part of a divorce settlement? The basis of property transferred to you or transferred in trust for your benefit by your spouse (or former spouse if the transfer is incident to divorce), is the same as your spouse's adjusted basis. But does it change long to short? At the time of th...

If ex-hubby was never the tax-payer of record, what do I need to provide him with? There are two passages I quoted from the IRS from different points of view, his and yours. the transferor must give you the records This you is you, the transferor is he. He gives you records. When you transfer prope...

Was the transfer part of a divorce settlement? The basis of property transferred to you or transferred in trust for your benefit by your spouse (or former spouse if the transfer is incident to divorce), is the same as your spouse's adjusted basis. But does it change long to short? At the time of th...

z3r0c00l wrote:Are you sure you did not reinvest dividends? Those purchases become short term lots, imho.

No way one quarter of dividends added up to 30K of stock to sell. The amount they listed as short term is exactly the number of shares I moved from JT TEN to just mine.

I just got my yearly statement from Vanguard and they listed a chunk of some stock I sold as short term gain (and some of the same stock as long term gain). I have had all the stock for over 10 years, but this year I got my ex's name off the certificate (it was in JT TEN) so that it was only in my n...

Can you moonlight some and pay off those loans? To quote Ben Franklin or somesuch person: those that strive arise at 5, those that have striven arise at 7.

When I was your age I was working 50+ hours a week most weeks to make ends meet.

If a person has over 50K in, say, a Roth, and has it invested in a fund that requires 50K minimum, and THEN they roll some money over into a tIRA, but it isn't 50K, can they buy the same fund? Or is it 50K per each account a person has, rather than per a person's complete holdings?
Thanks!

Thank you all for the info so far. it looks like i was correct. im in a deeper ocean with more valleys than i can count. i will have to do alot of reading. this is like work... does it ever get fun.... or is fun only gauged by success in the market. The human mind, I am convinced, is hard-wired to ...

Maybe just a typo on your part fickle, but it is not the basis that is taxed, but the (selling price - the basis). If the basis was 5K on a 100K sale the tax would be based on the 95K gain. The tax would be more like 95,000 x .15 = 14,250. What I meant was that if the c.b. turned out to be 5K, and ...

IMO, everyone is making this much too complicated. Make a reasonable good faith estimate of the cost, which you appear to have already done, and use that figure. Do you really think the IRS is going to question the basis on a sale when 95% of the proceeds is reported as LTCG? If you were claiming $...

Okay, another question. This was a privately held company for the first 20 years. This is when my benefactor got his shares (it was basically a start up by one man who borrowed some money, and brought on some Bright Young Men who took a risk that paid off well). It "went public" in the 198...

... You need to know what the original person paid for it. An alternative that is accepted by the IRS is the market value on the day it was bought by the original person. Then you have to run through all the calculations for splits etc.... ... unless they also received the shares as a gift and coul...

You may want to go to your local library and someone there may be able to look up old stock value data. I think you should exercise your due diligence in order to substantiate your cost basis on the tax returns. I don't know the various dates the stock was gotten by my benefactor. I believe it was ...

Sidney wrote:I

If you want to give it to charity, the relevant number is the market value when you donate it -- that is the value of the potential deduction.

A ha! The dawn comes up.

Since no one is rushing with a simple answer on how to find out cost basis, I'm assuming this is a complex as I fear.

You mean you do not pass this on and give it away to someone else or to charity? That's what you were supposed to do in order to avoid this problem. Perhaps you can give $5,000 away to charity to get the tax deduction of more than $750. Wouldn't I have to show (or know) that the cost basis is 5K? I...

This is a slightly odd situation, but here goes: Many, many years ago I was given stock (as a certificate... an actual piece of paper) by someone who got it as part of their compensation many years before that. I sold it this year for around 100K. I am not about to bother this generous person, who i...

My boglehead is bobbing in agreement.

I'm sure each of us might come up with a different list of 6. But I do think it is important to note that 1 of his recommended books is a history book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowds. Dave This is a wonderfully amusing book. It was in my brother's library and I read it one we...

I had enough boors to convince me the old-fashioned informal potluck makes more people more happy than my carefully planned feasts. Perhaps if I ran in more elite circles! Then I'd probably be too run down at the heels for them.

I used to have a lot of wood and tile floor. I found that quieter and more effective was something I got at Home Depot. Imagine a thinnish broom handle going down to a swivel-joint holding a 10x15 flat panel with some grippy foam on the bottom. Over this bottom you place a microfiber cover or a terr...

It takes about 30 minutes a week and I usually do it while watching a movie or TV. Pardon a naive questions from someone who doesn't use financial software: what do you get back for your 26 hours a year, i.e. what is the benefit? I understand the idea if you run a business or have long, complicated...

Marketing dollars spent to exploit the human emotions of fear and greed. It really is that simple. And ignorance and peer pressure. There are plenty of people who fall like 9 pins when given a forceful "pitch". Especially when the pitch is from the grandson of your parent's best friends f...

This is a very basic question: ING right now is offering 0.75% interest and no fee. Money Market accounts have an e.r. (Vanguards went down to 0.16 today). Are the books I am reading just a couple of years out of date, and the MM are no longer the best place to keep your emergency stash? None of the...

snip- snip-- So if I were you I'd set aside at least $5K or perhaps as much as $8K to help pay for a move when you graduate (and/or interviews for residency programs), All of the above is excellent. Remember, if you are going into something competitive, you'll have quite a bit of travel and applica...

Thanks for the responses. I definitely need to read more on taxes. I have never had to personally pay taxes in my life and pretty much all of my education has been in science, so I'm definitely a novice. I will read the suggested literature that you mentioned. I am not paying back any of my loans r...

What interest are you paying on the loans?

So Lem is telling us something about modern society under communist rule, and its future. Some of his work. Chain of Chance is really rather about chance in our life. The only "space" connection is the man is a retired space pilot. The Futurological Congress is something of a Brave New Wo...

I can't find this on the IRS website and both times I called to ask I was informed my wait would be at least 30 minutes. I thought I'd ask the helpful people here. I have a lot of capital gains to pay taxes on for 2012. The money to cover this is piddling around doing just about nothing, and I'd rat...

I "halved it all" about 2 years ago, and every now and then I regret a little thing here or there gone, but for the most part it is so NICE. I try to go through every room yearly and get brutal about things I just never get around to using. Do I really need a staple remover? I remove a sta...

I just re-read His Master's Voice by S. Lem (I read it in the 80s). Not all novels I enjoyed in my 20s have had staying power for me, but this one has. Wikipedia has a good description of it, if a few spoilers. I don't mind spoilers but some do, however, if you can restrain yourself to just the open...

[quote="baw703916"]I'm pretty sure the merger will be a taxable event for you (at least, that was the case for every individual stock that I ever owned that ended up being a merger target). The information to shareholders regarding the merger should say if it is a "taxable event"...

My complete newb answer is based on these thoughts: 1) that the larger US companies have more and more international economic influence in them (I think I read this in Swedroe, and it made sense.) 2) that a few percent EM reduce volatility. 3) that I'm heavier in stocks than typical for my age (due ...

Clever_Username wrote:R

However, owning JEF is clearly a high risk, anxiety-producing situation for you.

In an amusing thought, owning it for more than a decade has not produced any anxiety in me. It's the selling that is stressing me out.

It will depend on your children's ages of course, but I think the best recommendation for the appropriate graphic novel on financial literacy for kids should come from your librarian. Sadly, most books I want I have to get through interlibrary loan. Additionally, our library is following a trend I ...

Short of clairvoyance there is no right answer for this, but I am trying to make sure my unknowns are all unknowns, and there are no knowns I'm missing because I'm such a newb. I'm trying, of course, to balance gain with risk, but the end of the year is approaching and I'm weighing the now vs. 2013....

Oooh, a book thread. ... P.S. It's always nice to hear what readers think of their books so others can decide whether they'd also like to read it. Well, if this is the spot for book junkies, any graphic novel type books for kids on the world of finance? (I know this is a long shot....)? Something l...

Oooh, a book thread.

I'm reading The Snake and the Fox: An Introduction to Logic by Mary Haight
and
Prelude to Mathematics by W.W.Sawyer, a man I dearly wish I'd met.

I bet you are just *loving* your decision to fund the GET 529. The rate of return has been spectacular for a safe instrument. As long as the state doesn't default on it, this will be the best thing I ever tripped over and fell into. I don't think it is a great deal buying it now, but I was fortunat...

This gives you a simple, broadly diversified, low cost portfolio in your desired asset allocation, using just seven funds, with tax efficient fund placement. You should be able to manage the portfolio and do most rebalancing to keep to your desired asset allocation by the way you direct your future...

In addition, if you sell it now, you avoid the risk that capital gains tax rates will go up in 2013. Okay, I poked around the news some and decided that while no one can say for certain what the rates will be in 2013, it is likely they won't go DOWN, so I sold a good chunk of those that were really...

ETA: I have posted the link to the website that has the pdfs in my original post.

I cannot find them matching up with funds at BlackRock's own website. I do notice that the bond fund is heavier on the Baa funds than its benchmark. That stands out right off.

Oh, how I agree! But selling even half would be dumping 50K into my 2012 income, bumping me up into the next tax bracket, and costing me 7.5K in capital gains. The tax bracket won't be affected. You pay tax on your regular income at varying rates which determine your bracket, and then qualified div...

No single stock should be more than 5% of your portfolio, as you are taking an unnecessary risk, and even more so with a stock which is small-cap and highly volatile. I would sell at least half the small-cap stock, possibly all of it if it doesn't fit your portfolio. In addition, if you sell it now...

I can find no tickers. I went back and put the titles in the fund info pdfs in quotes in my most recent editions. The pdfs note BlackRock in the upper right hand corner, and rather generic names such as "Global Equity Index Fund", and under that Benchmark-- MSCI ACWI Investable Market Inex...

Okay, I have edited (in parentheses with the ETA lead) my original post. None of my stock is showing a loss at this time, so there is nothing to harvest. My options in my company pre-tax plans seem to be all Blackrock, which means nothing to me, other than that the name seems modern. My single large...