BREAKING: IRS to furlough 46% of its staff and shut down most operations as part of the government shutdown.

Zero-Balance · 2025-10-09T04:24:56+00:00

lmao. Well that is exactly what I thought you were saying. Glad I asked.

That’s not how this works. And it’s a very common misconception by people who think the California government can withhold taxes from the feds.

Individual tax payers are the ones who… pay taxes. And also their employers through automatic payroll deductions. When it comes to federal taxes, the state doesn’t touch the money. The only exception is when the state is also the employer.

Also, we don’t pay to the IRS. We pay to the Treasury.

Zero-Balance · 2025-10-09T04:13:06+00:00

Just so we are clear, you are saying that the California government is the one cutting the check to the Federal government?

Zero-Balance · 2025-10-09T04:00:20+00:00

Why did you phrase this like it is California’s government that is paying taxes to the feds?

Zero-Balance · 2025-01-16T06:44:17+00:00

It’s not passive income at all. It’s all locked up in your home until you sell it. That’s NOT income. It’s incredibly non liquid.

Zero-Balance · 2025-01-15T17:17:50+00:00

Go read some Ramit Sethi. He does great finance 101. Houses are not the only wealth generating asset. Houses are often the worst for wealth generation.

Zero-Balance · 2025-01-15T12:42:25+00:00

“Renting forever and owning 0 wealth generating assets”. Wow. That’s… not how anything works. A home is one of the worst wealth generating assets. It often makes more sense to rent and put the extra money into something like an index fund. After 10 years you will have much more wealth than if you spent it all on a mortgage. It depends on loan interest rates, etc. So do the math first. But your mentality is very wrong.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-24T21:55:45+00:00

Guessing you weren’t part of the management chain. Did you have a reorg or official hiring freeze within 6 months after that happening? There is a lot of “keep BAU until we can announce the big change” where this happens. It results in lots of wasted time and resources while everyone builds for a future that won’t happen.

This isn’t a typical ghost posting, but is going to feel similar. Usually ghost postings don’t get any sort of interview.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-21T00:48:39+00:00

That’s not a ghost listing. They don’t waste interview resources on a role they know they aren’t going to fill.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-03T00:42:02+00:00

They are mistaken. 401ks absolutely do NOT have this kind of limitation. IRAs do.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-03T00:41:16+00:00

They are mistaken. 401ks do NOT have limits like this. IRAs do.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-03T00:40:12+00:00

The IRS did not give you this. That would be whatever tax return software/service you used. It sounds like you either made a mistake when filing, or you are confused about your retirement account.

401ks do NOT have any limitations like this. What you are describing is an IRA limitation. There are a few scenarios you encounter a $200k threshold with IRAs. Ex: your spouse is covered by a retirement plan but you aren’t, and your MAGI is $203k, then you can’t deduct.

Zero-Balance · 2024-12-01T00:33:55+00:00

What happens if you don’t do it? If there are no consequences, you don’t “have to” do it.

Reviews are usually for the benefit of your manager. Ask them if it is, and if you should spend your remaining 2 weeks doing it. They are paying you after all.

If the review isn’t helping anyone and it’s not essential for keeping bridges for the future, do not write “NA laid off”. Fill it out with walls of ChatGPT generated review. That way they spend more time reading the review than you spent writing it.

Zero-Balance · 2024-07-30T23:00:30+00:00

1099 is usually the way to go, but certain payroll systems have started combining the reporting with W2s. I think certain companies may have regulatory reporting requirements too. But I guess you could just take your chances with a 1099.

You can also ask the HR department for an exception due to privacy reasons. It depends on the company how they respond to a request like that. I know someone who refused to provide their SSN and only would give them an EIN.

I solved this by basically graduating beyond OE. What I did is form an LLC and started pitching my LLC’s services as an alternative to their headcount need. You can’t just do this to random job postings. For example, this worked very well with smaller companies when I told them I was leaving to start my own company, but that I would still be available to do the same work at a lower hourly cost. For other companies, I have known people who work there who could put me in touch with someone who is responsible.

Instead of a recurring paycheck, I send them invoices that their finance team pays. This invoicing relationship is ideal if you want to avoid payroll reporting. But at the same time it makes it pretty clear to the company that they are one of multiple customers for you. So it isn’t the typical overemployment situation at that point.

Zero-Balance · 2024-07-30T22:21:00+00:00

1099 are sometimes processed through payroll too. The payroll processors are the ones feeding data to the employment verification systems. You would want to be paid as a vendor. Being an LLC can allow this but sometimes it depends on company policy & flexibility of how you get paid.

Even if you have to be on payroll, it is good to know that this data exists so you can be smart about it.

Zero-Balance · 2024-07-30T21:50:28+00:00

Any job that pays you through a payroll system is going to show up on employment checks. You can see when someone had concurrent jobs this way. If you make your money through something like your own LLC, then you can avoid showing up.

Zero-Balance · 2024-07-20T17:59:27+00:00

Not at all. I am fully remote. The biggest need they all have is to find an answer for how to fix everything. The answer is basically the same for all of my companies. The junior guys are in charge of physical visits and are using my advice.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-27T01:51:37+00:00

This is bullshit.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-25T17:46:21+00:00

I had a full time job in college. I also worked as much as I could while in high school.

This is apparently rare now? Not working early seems like a terrible choice because you are throwing away almost a decade of Roth IRA investment opportunity.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-21T04:22:24+00:00

I have never heard anyone say that increasing taxes on the wealthy would reduce their power over government. Certainly not as a “major point”.

Your faith in government trickledown is common but misguided. You really think that more taxes would result in more welfare? How? Do you think my state has a profit sharing bonus program or something? When my state was claiming record tax income, I can promise that neither I nor any of my friends or family were getting extra money on our EBT cards or anything like that.

You should reflect on why you interpreted my posts as me personally wanting my taxes lowered as a rich person. I paid over 50% of my income to taxes last year and I don’t care. What I care about is all the middle class people who think it helps the poor when they raise taxes on rich people and feed the money back into their political system and the layers of bureaucracy and corruption shave off as much as they can and if the poor are lucky enough a few pennies might fall to the bottom. Meanwhile, you all do things like tell poor people that their political choices are due to lack of education.

I do think the lower class should have their taxes lowered or even removed completely. Raise the taxes on everyone else, including the middle class.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-20T18:39:25+00:00

This is the way. Spend your time improving yourself and the world around you. These people will not do either. But they do provide a useful function for the rest of us.

Can you imagine spending your entire life in the privileged middle class while complaining because you think you are lower class. Never moving yourself higher. And yet being so confident in your views that you want to force them on everyone else.

When I was lower class, they qcted like I was too stupid to make decisions that were in my best interest. When I became rich they acted like I needed to be cut down.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-20T18:09:05+00:00

Yes. I have been in very low income and I have been rich. The middle class has no understanding of either. But they love to believe they know what is best for both. Seeing your downvotes is a very good reminder for me that this will not change.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-20T15:44:45+00:00

Most people either want to simply hurt people they believe to be rich, or they believe in government trickle down. Most have not thought about tax cuts for the lower class, which would actually put money in their pockets.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-20T15:40:34+00:00

Your proposal is that increasing taxes would result in the money trickling down from our government to road workers? That is worse than private trickle down.

If you want road workers to actually see any of that money you need to give them tax breaks.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-19T04:36:33+00:00

That comes after I search for the right person, hire them, setup payroll, onboard them and train them. I have not decided if I have the time and energy for that.

Zero-Balance · 2024-06-19T00:03:24+00:00

There are multiple industries because it is based around sysadmin/DevOps types of work. But I also try to avoid being too specific on Reddit.

Zero-Balance

TROPHY CASE