• Finance

    A Baby’s Roth IRA

    Planning ahead is important, and I consider the Roth IRA a useful tool for every person who qualifies. That includes babies, who, like everyone else, should think about saving for their future. Because babies are not capable of comprehending what this is, their parent has to think for them. For the 2023 tax year, you can contribute $6,500 if under age 50 or $7,500 if age 50 or older. There are income limits involved, but I doubt any babies even approach it. Even a mere $300 per year for the child’s entire childhood, with no further contributions made past age…

  • Finance - Travel

    What are the QR codes I get with my receipts in Taiwan?

    Whenever you buy anything in Taiwan and are given a receipt, you may receive a physical printed out QR ticket along with your receipt. If you are a resident, you have the opportunity to not take a physical printout but instead have it added digitally to your collection. These are entries to a government lottery that was started to incentivize reporting sales and therefore allow the government to collect more of the sales tax owed to them. These QR lottery entries are done as a straight entry into the lottery, not a multiplier. It has led to silly situations such…

  • Finance

    Share Spinoff Sales at Tax Time

    Pfizer (PFE) did a share spinoff into Viatris (VTRS) by joining Mylan with Pfizer’s Upjohn. I received a few shares, whole and fractional, and my brokerage sold the fractional. At tax time, my brokerage provided me with a .pdf which I loaded into Turbotax, but the .pdf did not provide the “cost basis” for the fractional 0.021 Viatris share sold and which I was credited for with $0.32. An error was detected and I was requested to add the missing information. How would I do that? As far as I understand, it goes something like this: When we say that…

  • Finance

    Don’t Buy Shares in a Partnership

    If you do your own taxes, that is. In 2019, I had the most irritating experience of getting a K-1 for taxes. Dealing with a K-1 was more complicated than the meager amount I received was worth, so I sensibly sold the 3 units (the equivalent of stocks) I owned after doing my 2019 taxes. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to deal with the sale of those shares in my 2020 taxes. I soon discovered that this was even more annoying than the previous year. Most of the information was simple enough to complete from the K-1 and my…