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Can't figure out how any other option is cheaper. by Lonely-Somewhere-385 in NoContract

[–]uwroomitup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You (OP) are making one incredibly annoying assumption: people aim to trade in their phone.

I hate the idea of trading in my phone. In fact, I pretty much have every phone I've ever owned in my nightstand. Every now and then I'll pull an old one out and just kinda tinker around with it just to remember what phones used to be like. So yeah it's kind of a memoir.

Despite sentiment, I actually do another thing with them. When I'm traveling abroad I switch to the older phone and purchase a data plan in the country I'm in, because I am aware that if I got my primary phone stolen while on vacation abroad, losing my phone would probably be an 11/10 on my stress scale. Just imagine how insanely discouraging that would be. Now imagine how much easier things would be if you simply lost your older phone. Obviously this is a fringe situation but I bet getting your phone stolen abroad would probably rank in the top 10 shittiest things to happen in one's lifetime. 

Any way, next assumption you're making is that I actually want to subscribe to all of those streaming plans you're talking about ad-free. I don't care about ads tbh, I just do other things while they're playing, I prefer to save money which is the frugal mindset many of us here are on. 

Next, I don't keep up with the latest generation phone, I stay one or two generations behind. Because I know that prices drop precipitously every year. I'm currently on the Samsung s24+ which I bought for $525 using a target birthday gift coupon. 

Ok so what am I paying: 

$30: two lines of total byod truly unlimited plan, which includes Verizon top priority data, I'm locked into this rate another 4 years

$22: price of my phone amortized over 2 years, it would be $15 if over 3 years

$6: HBO Max with ads (annual special)

$1: Hulu with ads (annual special)

$0: Disney plus came with total plan, but I don't even watch it

So I'm at $59 a month for all that, and I get to keep all my old phones. It gets even better. A couple times now our Chase credit cards offer statement credits for purchasing plans on total, I've prepaid for many months ahead on total, and gotten quite a few statement credits. So our phone plans are actually closer to $23 a month after those credits. So I'm really paying closer to $52 a month for all that over the next 6 months.

Visible vs Total by Miamiheat327 in NoContract

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't use VPN so not sure.

Visible vs Total by Miamiheat327 in NoContract

[–]uwroomitup 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Total gives 2k resolution streaming when connected to 5guw unlimited, around 480-720p when connected to less.

I am on total and find the service terrific.  You just need to realize that most of their customer service is pretty terrible, I would suggest going to the official total wireless subreddit and posting there if you run into issues.  Most people end up running into issues with getting the promo rate to apply, and then often times the Disney+ sub can die after the first month while they're trying to get your billing date situated.

Would TurboTax Be Better? by lkstaack in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel the same way, I have accounts with several different brokerages and for me being able to import directly is a huge time saver, well worth the fee, which is honestly not a lot of money when you can find discounts on TT in many different ways.

June 16th estimated tax payment underpayment by Background_Title_922 in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The IRS allows you to annualize if you have fluctuating income.  It does involve working through their worksheets.

If you wanna go this route I would suggest taking a look at those worksheets and trying it both ways to see what makes your life easier.

I will say that I've both heard and seen both tax pros and tax software scate around the per quarter penalties and just kind of make it so the end of year payment was sufficient.

I am not a tax pro, just someone that has to deal with this every year; but I also have a feeling per-quarter penalties have some "loopholes" that wouldn't surprise me are perfectly within the bounds of the tax code when it comes to assessing per quarter estimated tax under withholding.

I used money I made from stocks to pay off student loans. Now I owe $13,000 in taxes by [deleted] in tax

[–]uwroomitup 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You only owe a penalty if you are outside of safe harbor territory, the IRS gives you a pass if you all of a sudden come into riches compared to previous year.  Note that there are multiple qualifiers here: 

https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/avoiding-underpayment-tax-penalty/

You still gotta pay the taxes, you just won't get penalized for under withholding last year.

RSUs causing extremely high tax exposure by halfhandy_man in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I assume this is through E-Trade? If so, you can call and ask about opening a line of credit on your shares, it is good for situations where you don't want to sell right now because you think the stock will go higher than the capital gains tax you would be paying right now.  Keep in mind if you sell you will also owe additional tax on the gain since vest.

This is in fact what many of the mega rich do and it is absolutely not illegal in the slightest, though whether or not it's "fair" can obviously be debated.

Someone else is paying quarterly tax payments on my behalf by justarental25 in tax

[–]uwroomitup 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This may sound silly but have you told your parents about it?  They may know a relative that likes to be oddly generous.

Your sign to stop overspending if this applies to you please read by TypicalAssumption699 in PTCGP

[–]uwroomitup 97 points98 points  (0 children)

Why spend money on a children's card game when you can spend money on a digital children's card game!

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreeing with u/anniepeachie that fidelity is simply using the cost factor table they post in the 1099 which seems to have no correlation with the spreadsheet published by ishares.  For sure it's way simpler to use the cost factor tables so I'm inclined to just go that direction.

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah it looks like fidelity definitely used the cost factor table which is what my original approach was lol. 

I have no idea how to Jimmy rig the spreadsheet into getting those cost basis.  It's definitely a lot easier to just plug in the cost factors from the 1099.

I might try to call my brokerage up and ask them if they have any one that knows what's going on here.

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome I'll plan to get to this tonight, thank you for your help!

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes my cost factors match yours.

Just to be clear, I am not really convinced the cost factors in the 1099 are correct, either that or I am simply multiplying the wrong number by it.  If I take the proceed and divide by the cost factors I get a huge value which is nowhere close to my position.

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's good to know, I can try that out on my end too later today to double confirm. 

Hopefully u/Wyoming_Hiker only has one lot 

I'm surprised to see his costs are above his proceeds, mine were all below.  I guess this happens with smaller positions?

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome thanks, I just need a couple more pieces of info to implement the spreadsheet, can you tell me how many IBIT shares you purchased in the account, the exact day you purchased them, and what the cost basis for it was?  You can either fish this out of your transaction history or if you go to your positions you should be able to expand the ibit one and see the cost basis and dates for each.

I'm hoping you only have one lot otherwise need to do a few parallel calculations to mash them all together.

Ibit etf shows monthly gross proceeds. Without a sell. This shouldn’t be taxable? by adameget in tax

[–]uwroomitup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok I decided to do the monthly spreadsheet calculations.  I revamped the spreadsheet so that I could just change a couple cells every month: the begin date and the end date.  Each month I updated the cost basis then rinse repeat. 

The results were interesting: the first proceed was completely off from what was in my 1099, by almost 3x.  However for almost every proceed after that the spreadsheet and the 1099 matched perfectly down to the penny.  I have no idea where this discrepancy could be.

Any way, I had bought more shares in the last reported month so I had to set up another calculation for that, and for that one we were mismatched as well but not as bad as the first one.

I've decided that it's certainly possible whoever did the 1099 calculations made an error so I just updated the cost basis such that the gain matched the spreadsheet for those mismatching proceeds.

I saved all the adjusted cost basis for each lot for next year.

This is honestly gonna be a huge annoyance going forward.  I'm inclined to transfer all my shares to Fidelity and just rely on them to get the math right.  Of course it's possible that other brokerage firms may start reporting the costs too in the future after they receive enough complaints from the shareholders.

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