Search found 3473 matches

by magellan
Tue Mar 15, 2022 7:23 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Thinking of moving to Cambridge, MA suburbs
Replies: 112
Views: 9006

Re: Thinking of moving to Cambridge, MA suburbs

I'm not sure if you'll find any better advice than you've gotten here, but the Boston reddit is pretty active and might be worth checking out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/
by magellan
Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:33 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Time to ditch Tivo?
Replies: 49
Views: 6275

Re: Time to ditch Tivo?

bluebolt wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:25 amLooks like Stremium plans now start at $10 mo./$100 yr.
Hmmm. When I scroll down on their homepage about 3/4 of the way down, they show the 25 hour plan at $5/mo and $50/yr.

Do you see something different on that page? If you do, maybe try it in a private browser window and see if that changes it. (They do also have a 50 hour plan for $10/mo $100/yr).
by magellan
Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:01 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

talzara wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:50 pm ...Delete both forms 1116, update TurboTax to the latest version, and then go through the interview again.
Just be careful with this if you have carryforwards, because deleting the F1116s seems to wipe out the carryforward history (that got imported from last year's return).
by magellan
Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:54 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Time to ditch Tivo?
Replies: 49
Views: 6275

Re: Time to ditch Tivo?

But most of our TV viewing is streaming through a Roku Ultra. ... TiVo really dropped the ball, that's a company that should have been a major tech player. Lots and lots of mistakes, but they were really ahead of he curve when it came out. We're long time Tivo users and we also use our roku more than Tivo now. One thing that bugs me though is that the Tivo is 10x better with forwarding and replay. I understand that Tivo is local and Roku is cloud, but I would have guessed by now that apps would figure out a way to buffer enough to make skipping around faster, especially for short +- 60 second skipping. Some roku apps are better than others, but none of them are anywhere near as good on this as the Tivo. Our roku ultra has a gig ethernet co...
by magellan
Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:34 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

Are you aware of any other "tricks" I might try?
Unfortunately, I'm not.

It's strange that yours had RIC in the date. Do you think TT automatically put that in or did you enter RIC yourself in the interview for the date?

In my case, I originally typed various in for the date during the interview and TT didn't complain about it either in the interview or during the review process. The way I fixed my error was to correct it in the interview and then TT corrected it on F1116

Did you go back through the interview process to fix this or did you override it on the form?
by magellan
Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:08 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Time to ditch Tivo?
Replies: 49
Views: 6275

Re: Time to ditch Tivo?

If you just want to watch local TV via streaming, you can use Locast (https://www.locast.org). It's a non-profit so you can donate if you wish. The drawback is that it does not cover the whole US yet. Thanks. It's available where I am and I already "subscribe." I do want the option of recording, so I want an OTA DVR option as well. Depending on how much DVR space you need, stremium.com might be worth checking out. They're a cloud DVR that links up with locast (and seems to have some channels of its own). The cost for 25 hours is $5/mo or $50/yr. I planned to bag cable and Tivo and did a test with locast + stremium on a roku. Stremium doesn't officially support Roku yet (in perpetual beta apparently), but aside from small hiccups ...
by magellan
Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:38 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

The error we get is "ForeignTaxesPaidOrAccruedDt" under "ForeignTaxCreditSource" according to the TurboTax software client. But I used 12/31/2020 there as suggested (since everything was withheld), so I don't understand what's going on. I've specified the country and done everything I did in previous years. Any ideas? Is this year different from last year for you? If not, I'd definitely suggest a line-by-line compare of the two forms. Also, does the error message include "Data in the return is missing or invalid" or is there other wording? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the exact wording could be a clue. The other thing I'd say is that in my case, as prd1982 observed, the cryptic error message was at ...
by magellan
Mon Feb 22, 2021 3:08 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

In TT I see that it is being tracked also in the FTC Worksheet. Is this not correct? In the worksheet it goes back quite a few years and all empty. Then AMT entry in 2019 and now a 2020 entry for Regular tax. This is how I've done it for years. TT is actually the only way I track it (no external spreadsheet, etc). This seems ok since the "print for your records" PDF that's created each year by tt includes all 10 years of data for both the regular and the amt tables. I think the tables are printed automatically with the default print settings, but double check the pdf to be sure it's there. In tt, there's a place in the interviews (for regular and AMT) where it basically asks for the whole table and prefills it based on last year'...
by magellan
Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:51 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

Are you sure your 1116 part II column q has a value? It should be your foreign tax from dividends. The mystery is solved and it turns out you were very close with your suggestion (same table, same row, different column). I compared last year's F1116 to this year's and the only thing I noticed was that for part II column (l), 2020 has "Various" for the date and my 2019 return had the date as 12/31/2019. So I re-ran the interview and sure enough, for that input, tt specifically says if the dividends were paid over multiple days, use 12/31/2020 for the date. I corrected that, resubmitted the return and got the acceptance within 30 minutes. Still, it would have been nice if tt's error check had caught my error, or at least if the rej...
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:06 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

prd1982 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 6:49 pmAre you sure your 1116 part II column q has a value? It should be your foreign tax from dividends.
It does and the value seems to be correct.

But thanks for trying. This has been a pretty frustrating filing year after decades of using tt with no real issues.

My guess is everything would be fine if I either start the return over or delete form 1116 and manually enter all the carryover info (30 entries x 2). I'm going to wait for another week or so in hopes that it just works itself out without having to do either of those things.
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 6:14 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

Just out of curiousity, has anyone else gotten this rejection error message and refiled successfully:
/Return/ReturnData/IRS1116/ForeignTaxCreditSource/USTaxWithheldOnDividendAmt - Data in the return is missing or invalid. Please double check your entries.
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:55 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

grok87 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:51 pmgood to hear its been fixed
I don't think it's completely fixed, at least for some of us. I'm waiting for a fix that doesn't require me to delete the form and redo the interview.

RIght now, I can complete the interview and run an error check with no errors, re-file, then get a rejection an hour later. I have all the latest updates, so this seems to be a software bug in the latest version.

To me, a real fix would properly validate the form during the error check.
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:49 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

stan1 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:41 pmYikes, I updated my post up-thread where I wrote to do that (TT did not say that was necessary).
No worries. It turned out I could just exit tt without saving and everything was there when I reloaded tt.
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:36 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

FYI, I deleted my form 1116 so it would be automatically recreated from scratch by rerunning the interview.

This seems to have erased 10 years of foreign tax credit carryover history (that was previously imported from last year's return).

Looking to restore from a backup now...
by magellan
Sun Feb 21, 2021 2:25 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?
Replies: 210
Views: 17282

Re: Has anyone had a TurboTax return that included a form 1116 accepted?

After waiting over a week in pending status, I finally got the following rejection:

/Return/ReturnData/IRS1116/ForeignTaxCreditSource/USTaxWithheldOnDividendAmt - Data in the return is missing or invalid. Please double check your entries.

I went through the foreign tax credit interview again, ran error check with no errors and refiled the return. Unfortunately, it got rejected again within an hour with the same error.

I don't see anywhere on form 1116 that mentions USTaxWithheldOnDividendAmt.

My gut feel is that if I wait a week or two and resubmit, tt will update itself and this will just work, but who knows.

(fyi - using turbotax desktop)
by magellan
Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:57 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: CARES Act penalizes early filers?
Replies: 14
Views: 1583

Re: CARES Act penalizes early filers?

nps wrote: Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:23 am
magellan wrote: Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:07 am I believe this is the text of the law as it was passed:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-con ... /3548/text
It is not. You can tell because its status is "Introduced" and not "Became Law." The correct text is here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-con ... l/748/text
Thanks for the clarifications. I thought the post above said the original senate bill was passed into law and not the house bill.

Is the final law a merge of the two bills or was it modeled mostly after the house bill after all?
by magellan
Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:07 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: CARES Act penalizes early filers?
Replies: 14
Views: 1583

Re: CARES Act penalizes early filers?

Deleted to avoid confusing anyone. See comments below...
by magellan
Sun Feb 23, 2020 4:50 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Quicken 2019 and forward
Replies: 1061
Views: 114293

Re: Quicken 2019 and forward

Saving$ wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:25 amDid you also experience portfolio view problems of:
a. Not being able to see the account values as of a certain date?
b. Not being able to see total shares owned?
The account values as of a certain date isn't a deal breaker for me. For total shares owned, as long as you just want total shares within a single account, account "portfolio view" tab shows that.
by magellan
Tue Jan 07, 2020 7:31 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Quicken 2019 and forward
Replies: 1061
Views: 114293

Re: Quicken 2019 and forward

After a 2 year hiatus with Moneydance, I just switched back to Quicken. Details are in this Quicken 2017 post . I'm in the middle of converting 3 files, so it'll be a while until I have the reports and reminders configured the way I like. I saw your other posts about the problems you had with the portfolio view in Moneydance reporting only current share balances vs as-of-date share balances. Was that the only problem you had with Moneydance or were there other things too? I switched to Moneydance over the summer and imported 25+ years of Quicken history. The import took probably 10-20 hours of manual adjusting to get everything right, but other than that I'm very happy with Moneydance overall. I did have to install a couple of extensions a...
by magellan
Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:30 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Xfinity Mobile ?
Replies: 19
Views: 3136

Re: Xfinity Mobile ?

I don't use Xfinity Mobile, but I regularly use the wifi hotspots on both my mobile phone and my laptop. In New England at least, the hotspot network is very robust and the service works well for me. For context, Comcast offers free access to their Xfinity hotspot network to all broadband subscribers with the performance tier level of service or greater. To use the free service, I downloaded an Xfinity app on my phone and I entered my Comcast username/password into it. Now, anytime an Xfinity hotspot is within range, the app automatically connects to it. Comcast's hotspot network is very robust because by default, most Comcast Internet customers automatically host an Xfinity hotspot node. Customers can turn the feature off if they want, but...
by magellan
Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:56 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Connecticut is charging sales tax on out of state purchases
Replies: 40
Views: 4682

Re: Connecticut is charging sales tax on out of state purchases

CT tax folks have also been known to stake out MA liquor stores near the border and watch for large purchases of liquor especially at holiday time and then report license numbers back to CT authorities who stopped the cars on the return trip. The same thing happened at the NH/ME border back in the 80s. It was so bad that many ME restaurants regularly bought all their alcohol in NH because of the lower taxes. Maine fought back by periodically sending undercover troopers to stake out the parking lot of the NH liquor store and radio license plates of ME offenders to other troopers waiting at the state line. The governor of NH was miffed that ME law enforcement invited themselves into the state without permission and notified Maine's governor ...
by magellan
Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:01 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

munemaker wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:12 amI agree. This is not "insurance" in the usual sense of the word because there is little recognition of risk. When signing up, An Olympic athlete pays the same rate as a stage 3 cancer patient, all other factors being equal.
I suppose it depends on how you define "usual." This happens to exactly describe the way health insurance works for the vast majority of Americans who get employer provided health insurance.
by magellan
Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:16 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

I was just experimenting with last year's Turbo Tax to better understand MAGI and qualifying for the premium tax credit. From form 1040, starting on line 25, below are some of the allowed adjustments to gross income that are used to generate AGI: 1) HSA contributions 2) SEP, SIMPLE, IRA contributions 3) if self employed - 1/2 Self employment tax 4) if self employed - health insurance premiums paid 5) early withdrawal penalty on savings Numbers 1 and 4 are particularly interesting. If you're just over the limit for qualifying for the premium tax credit, you may be able to push yourself under by getting an HSA plan and making an HSA contribution. If you're self employed, you could go in a different direction and lower your AGI by choosing the...
by magellan
Sun Oct 29, 2017 9:08 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Replies: 18
Views: 4050

Re: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Here's the table again, but this time with type=1 in the formula so it exactly matches whitecoatinvestor's result. setting type=1 indicates that the payment is made at the end of the period rather than at the beginning. I'm actually surprised this makes so much of a difference. For the return column, I used the formula =RETURN(LE-current_age, payment percent*100000, -100000,1) So for age 50, payment percent was 5.23% and LE was 82, so the formula would be: =Return(82-50,.0523*100000, -100000,1) -> 3.8% The LE+5 and LE-5 columns add or subtract 5 to the first parameter, for example: =Return(5+82-50,.0523*100000, -100000,1) ->4.3% Here's the update table (now matches whitecoatinvestor): Age Payment LE Payment Return LE+5 LE-5 50 5.23% 82 1673...
by magellan
Sun Oct 29, 2017 8:45 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Replies: 18
Views: 4050

Re: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I guess what i am questioning is the rosy +4% return for the 60 year old. feels wrong to me I see what you're getting at. First, here's the whitecoatinvestor post where the table came from. It has a bit more detail, but not much: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/spia-the-good-annuity/?print=pdf I tried to replicate the return numbers in excel. It was close, but not exact, so I'm not sure if I made a mistake (EDIT: I found it, need to use type=1 in the formula to match whitecoatinvestor result - see next post). For the return column, I used the formula =RETURN(LE-current_age, payment percent*100000, -100000) So for age 50, payment percent was 5.23% and LE was 82, so the formula would be: =Return(82-50,.0523*100000, -100000) -> 3.5% The LE+...
by magellan
Sun Oct 29, 2017 7:17 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Replies: 18
Views: 4050

Re: 2017 Bogleheads Conference - Annuities: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

it seems to suggest that annuities become a worse deal the older one is. I wasn't at the conference, but imo there are two things to consider. The first is what you're trying to optimize. If you're trying to protect against living too long, it probably makes more sense to compare using the LE+5 column than the "Return" column. Second, I don't think the "Return" column is adjusted for inflation risk and my guess is the annuities used to build the table aren't inflation adjusted. If you were to create an "Inflation risk adjusted return" column that deducts a hypothetical inflation risk penalty from each return (based on how long the payment stream goes on), I suspect buying early would always be a worse option c...
by magellan
Sat Oct 28, 2017 10:31 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

...and if you offer a premium product like you describe, most of the people who will pay the premium aren't people like yourself who want a little extra security of a better network of doctors "just in case". ... no insurance premium is enough to offset the adverse selection costs of Obamacare's guaranteed issue requirement . This is why most PPOs are gone and the better networks are rapidly disappearing or shrinking, and this is especially true of off-exchange offerings. :annoyed Yeah, I suppose that's right. For me, even though I'm healthy now, it's all about feeling secure that top notch care is available if I ever need it. I guess I'll have to come to terms with the fact that these markets aren't set up for folks like me :(
by magellan
Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:57 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

I agree the networks can be very narrow. I live in a big city and with my plan I can only go to around 15% of the hospitals within 10 miles. I used to have two or three very expensive off exchange options with great networks. Sure, they cost maybe 30% more compared to crappy networks, but that was fine by me. Given that insurers get more profit from higher premiums, why wouldn't they want to keep offering these expensive plans as long as anyone was willing to buy them? The networks in these expensive off exchange plans were generally duplicates of employer networks that the insurers were already maintaining, so keeping the option alive shouldn't have been an admin burden. There must be something else driving this that I don't understand.
by magellan
Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:42 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

This thread has been very disheartening. For someone who plans on early retirement it is downright frightening to do so. Why? If you can manage your MAGI and get a subsidy, it helps a lot of early retirees. If the premium goes up 30% the subsidy goes up too. IMO, for many early retirees the biggest risk from Obamacare isn't high premiums, it's the crappy medicaid-like provider networks that have taken over individual markets around the country. It gets worse each year and now there are many markets where you can't buy a policy that gives you access to top tier providers, either on or off the exchange. I live within an hour of some of the best medical care in the world, but none of the individual policies available have these top centers in...
by magellan
Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:37 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

Duplicate post deleted.
by magellan
Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:36 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA rates now live....
Replies: 228
Views: 24540

Re: 2018 ACA rates now live....

It appears that neither insurer will let me keep my primary doctor that I've had for over a decade now. Paying cash to your out of network primary doctor might be worth considering. If you're healthy, it'd maybe add $200-400 to your annual out of pocket cost. Even if you get a serious condition, you'd be very unlikely to pay more than a thousand or two for primary care. With premiums plus deductible running at $10k-$20k for many of us, that's not a crazy amount of extra risk to take on, especially if you have a doctor you like and trust. The only snag with this approach is if your plan requires a referral from your primary care doctor to see a specialist. If that's the case, you probably have to go with an in-network primary care doctor, u...
by magellan
Sat Oct 21, 2017 12:13 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: HDHP vs PPO (baby in 2017) [High Deductible vs. Preferred Provider plans]
Replies: 20
Views: 7538

Re: HDHP vs PPO (baby in 2017) [High Deductible vs. Preferred Provider plans]

So back to the OP. Because a HDHP can either be a PPO or an HMO, it's important to check whether both options use the same network rules (eg are they both PPOs), use the same provider networks, and the same drug formularies. Most people carefully consider differences in deductibles and co-pays, but sometimes differences in provider networks, drug formularies, and plan design can have a much bigger impact on your total out of pocket costs. If the two plans are from the same insurer, have the same network rules, and the same drug formularies, it's probably ok to focus more on deductible and copay differences and the HSA considerations. However, if there are other differences between the plans, especially provider network differences, it's imp...
by magellan
Sat Oct 21, 2017 12:04 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: HDHP vs PPO (baby in 2017) [High Deductible vs. Preferred Provider plans]
Replies: 20
Views: 7538

Re: HDHP vs PPO (baby in 2017) [High Deductible vs. Preferred Provider plans]

First, a perhaps pedantic mini-rant about the confusing HDHP vs PPO terminology that's often used by corporate HR people. If you've read posts I've done about this in the past, please feel free to skip this one. The HDHP vs PPO terminology is commonly used by corporate HR folks, but it's incorrect and very confusing. It's a little bit like asking if you are want to buy a car or would instead rather buy a sedan. Laypeople use the term HDHP to just mean a plan with a high deductible. However, in the insurance business, the abbreviation "HDHP" usually means "a health plan that meets the legal requirements to be used with a Health Savings Account (HSA)." But here's the really confusing part, a HDHP can be a PPO and it's also...
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:24 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA costs arrived
Replies: 88
Views: 16447

Re: 2018 ACA costs arrived

This article discusses paying the individual mandate penalty: https://www.healthinsurance.org/faqs/ive-heard-that-the-government-wont-really-be-able-to-enforce-the-penalty-for-not-having-health-insurance-is-this-true/ Thanks for the extra info. You got me to do some googling and surprisingly, the IRS's current position is that they will not process returns in 2018 if that information isn't provided. Also, it looks like people who didn't supply that information on their 2016 tax returns will receive a letter from the IRS asking them to provide that information. Here's a link: https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/aca-information-center-for-tax-professionals For the upcoming 2018 filing season, the IRS‎ will not accept electronically filed t...
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 3:26 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA costs arrived
Replies: 88
Views: 16447

Re: 2018 ACA costs arrived

michaeljc70 wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:48 amAs I understand it, you no longer have to specify on your tax return if you have insurance. The IRS will accept your return without it so there is no way they can figure out if you owe a penalty or not.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but as I understand it, willfully misrepresenting the refund you're entitled to get is a felony and I personally wouldn't want that hanging over my head.

We're living in unusual times right now and the current administration may be willing to look the other way, however, if the IRS can somehow prove you left that box unchecked so you could claim a refund you weren't entitled to get, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:30 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA costs arrived
Replies: 88
Views: 16447

Re: 2018 ACA costs arrived

1) Look at short term insurance which can be purchased up to a year at the time with the new EO. These plans are non-ACA compliant, but probably there will be no tax penalty with the guidance under the new EO. I'd be careful assuming they'll be no tax penalty. The tax penalty provision is part of the law and can't be waived by the executive branch. The executive branch can temporarily tell the IRS to suspend enforcement of the penalty, but I don't think they can eliminate the tax obligation. Also, the IRS currently tracks cumulative penalties owed for each taxpayer and will withhold all future tax refunds until the penalty is cleared. The second issue to be aware of with short term policies is that you have to really read the fine print ca...
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:45 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Help me understand what happens with the new law and ACA subsidies
Replies: 80
Views: 9365

Re: Help me understand what happens with the new law and ACA subsidies

I don't want to repost everything I said on a different thread about this, so here's a link: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=229476&start=50#p3573510 The most important thing is to know is how your state's insurance regulators have instructed insurers to handle things if the CSR reimbursements get halted (which they have now). Here's a link that details how each state is handling it: https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/10/12/csr-wont-be-paid/ Most states instructed insurers to increase premiums just on silver plans. Notable exceptions include Colorado, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. In these states, regulators bucked the national trend and instead instructed insurers to spread the premium increases across all p...
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:53 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA costs arrived
Replies: 88
Views: 16447

Re: 2018 ACA costs arrived

A Federal court ruled that those CSR payments were illegal. So who sabotaged it? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-court-ruling-20160512-snap-story.html "Federal judge rules Obamacare is being funded unconstitutionally" The reimbursement issue is much more complicated than that. There is almost no doubt in anyone's mind that these payments are an obligation of the US government. The law seems to be 100% clear on that. The issue is that congress refused to allocate the funds to pay this obligation. The legal case is sort of like if you refused to write a check to pay your mortgage and your friend, thinking you were being unwise, wrote the check for you and signed your name. If you sued over the illegal check, a court w...
by magellan
Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:10 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: 2018 ACA costs arrived
Replies: 88
Views: 16447

Re: 2018 ACA costs arrived

Here's a map showing how regulators in each state instructed insurers to handle the costs of unreimbursed CSR subsidies: https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/10/12/csr-wont-be-paid/ Most state regulators are telling insurers to recover the costs by increasing silver plan premiums only. One odd side effect is that people in these states who earn between 250% and 400% of the poverty level may see a 20% increase in the size of their premium tax credit that they can use to buy a non-silver plan that won't be subject to a premium increase. It's basically a 20% windfall to them. The reason is that premium tax credits for everyone are tied to the cost of the second cheapest silver plan. Since silver plan premiums are increasing across the board to c...
by magellan
Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:09 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: how to destroy hard disk with personal info
Replies: 99
Views: 14564

Re: how to destroy hard disk with personal info

All of these physical destruction methods are inferior to a simple wipe, and then secure erase If you 0 out every bit on the drive, there is nothing to read This may work a lot of the time, but it's simply impossible to 0 out every bit on a disk drive. Disk drives ship with unmapped extra physical space that's used to replace bad spots that develop on the drive over time. The way this works is that the drive maintains a mapping of externally addressable logical disk sectors to internally addressable physical disk sectors. When the drive does too many retries reading from or writing to a specific spot, its controller will automatically remap the logical sector to use a new physical spot on the drive. The old data is left behind on the now i...
by magellan
Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:01 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: LMP at age 50 (help with TIPS Ladder)
Replies: 33
Views: 5159

Re: LMP at age 50 (help with TIPS Ladder)

Is anyone serious (goldbugs disqualified) actually forecasting double digit inflation in the US any time in the near-medium turn? My comment was just to illustrate the considerable risk in the real cash flows from a TIPS portfolio held in a taxable account. It wasn't meant as a prediction. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect inflation to hit 5-10% at over the next 40-50 years. A liability matched portfolio is intended to be a near zero risk way to fund essential retirement expenses by matching real cash inflows to real cash outflows. The taxation of TIPS makes it tough to do this with any degree of certainty if the TIPS have to be held in a taxable account. If you were to back test this strategy using historical data in th...
by magellan
Tue Jul 04, 2017 2:29 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Should I move abroad to minimize health care costs?
Replies: 80
Views: 10530

Re: Should I move abroad to minimize health care costs?

For the OP, one thing to consider is that depending on where you live, you may be able to get more stability and security just by moving to a different state. Several states have reasonably well-functioning individual insurance markets that are backstopped by a state level commitment to keeping things running smoothly. Most of the talk about Obamacare focuses on worst-case scenarios or nationwide averages. These can obscure very large differences in how individual markets are functioning from state to state. As an example, Massachusetts had Romneycare and its own individual mandate before it had Obamacare. It seems fairly likely that MA would do whatever it takes to keep its individual market functional, regardless of what happens at the fe...
by magellan
Tue Jul 04, 2017 2:00 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Should I move abroad to minimize health care costs?
Replies: 80
Views: 10530

Re: Should I move abroad to minimize health care costs?

delamer wrote:We are a non-Medicare family of four. Last year we spent $8300 on medical care, including health/dental insurance. That included one minor surgery and medication for two chronic conditions.

...But $10,000 buys all the healthcare needed for many people/families.
Actually, it often doesn't.

My guess is that the cost for your family's health insurance and healthcare last year was north of $20k, probably closer to $25k. The thing you're missing is that your employer paid somewhere around $15k to your insurance company on your behalf. You've gotta add that back in when calculating how much healthcare was purchased for your family last year.
by magellan
Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:56 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Best Way To Code A Text Parser
Replies: 27
Views: 3633

Re: Best Way To Code A Text Parser

You didn't mention what operating system you'd like to do this with.

If I'm on Windows and for whatever reason don't want to use a batch file, I use a portable c compiler called lcc. For stuff like this on Windows, I prefer compiled languages like C because the result is a self-contained executable that's not dependent on other tools.

The lcc compiler is lightweight and for me it's a workable way to accomplish little jobs like this without very much fuss.

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

According to the license terms, the tool is free for personal use, but costs 30 Euros for commercial use.
by magellan
Mon Jun 05, 2017 7:04 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Recommendation of Security Cameras for Exterior of House
Replies: 47
Views: 18850

Re: Recommendation of Security Cameras for Exterior of House

I agree with others that wired is the way to go if it's at all feasible. I also recommend BlueIris, especially if you'd like to control multiple cameras from a single application. One big advantage of Blue Iris compared to a DVR package is that you're not locked into one camera brand. The software supports most IP cameras on the market. I run it on an older laptop with an i7 processor and a 4TB drive for continuous recording of several cameras. I have several brands of cameras in my system. I got a Hikvision DS-2CD2142FWD-I 4MP dome and to me, it's just ok. The IR lights reflect off the dome glass and the night image isn't very clear. If I had it to do again, I'd go with a turret design instead of a dome to avoid this problem. If you're a b...
by magellan
Sat May 27, 2017 7:11 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Paying someone to build a website
Replies: 28
Views: 3951

Re: Paying someone to build a website

Globalviewer58 wrote:The benefit for using GoDaddy is that they update the WordPress on your website when the software is updated at no extra charge.
Most wordpress installations can be set up to auto-update regardless of who's hosting the site. In fact, auto-update is really best practice now to be sure your site gets security updates as soon as possible.
by magellan
Thu May 18, 2017 6:35 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Cheshire County New Hampshire: Which town for retirement?
Replies: 14
Views: 2813

Re: Cheshire County New Hampshire: Which town for retirement?

When considering property taxes in NH, research the tax base in each town, historical tax rates, and recent major expenditures.

In many cases you'll see a step function in tax rates from town to town. One town will build a new school and their rates will be considerably higher than nearby towns for a couple of years until those towns also do upgrades that drive their rates up.

Sometimes tax rate differences are from structural factors (eg Seabrook has nuke plant and large commercial sector), but sometimes the differences are just temporary and there's a reversion to the mean.
by magellan
Thu May 18, 2017 6:06 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Window tint (film) on house windows?
Replies: 24
Views: 6506

Re: Window tint (film) on house windows?

I applied DIY solar film on the inside of 2 velux skylights about 5 years ago and overall I've been very happy with the result.

Unfortunately, the air seal on one of the skylights blew and this has dramatically reduced its insulating capability in the winter. It's very noticeable after a snowfall. The 'good' skylight will be fully covered with snow but the skylight with the blown seal will be almost completely clear.

There's no way to know if the seal failure was caused by the window tint but I think it's a real possibility.
by magellan
Sun Apr 09, 2017 10:05 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric
Replies: 79
Views: 11887

Re: Bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric

I am sorry but solar is just not the choice for base load electricity. Natural gas wins easily in the US. Natural gas definitely wins on both cost and flexibility. However, I'd suggest that the idea of as base load electricity has outlived its usefulness. The concept of base load generation was created by grid designers to handle the inherent inflexibility of coal and nuclear power generation. Unlike say oil, diesel, natural gas and hydro, coal and nuclear are fundamentally flawed generation sources because they lack an ability to do what the grid naturally wants them to do, which is follow load as it changes. In the twentieth century, grid operators were willing to deal with the inflexibility of coal and nuclear because they were so cheap...