@dashrender said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Which I always avoided by letting the gov't owe me money. As long as you always do that, they never make you do all that quarterly crap.

There is a threshold where you don't get fined, but I have no idea what it is.

I've owed like $4k before with no penalty.

One off your fine, but since I owed more than $1000 last year I'm expected to make quarterly this year. The rule to handle the weird outliers (oil royalty, winning a lawsuit etc) is make sure you pay them 100% of last years return in quarterly installments (assuming last year wasn't quarterly).

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Which I always avoided by letting the gov't owe me money. As long as you always do that, they never make you do all that quarterly crap.

True, but it has to be withheld evenly. In theory paying my CPA to manage the quarterly payments means I can hold onto that cash longer and make more money with it while still fufilling my obligations. Your situation is likely easier as you have deductions (House, Kids), as you can just set your deductions to 0 and still not owe money. I have to set my withholding to 0 THEN add an extra percentage or cash amount to withhold (or write a quarterly check).

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

@travisdh1 said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

@travisdh1 said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@wrx7m said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

Yeah I get that, it's all just "income", and you get taxed on it all just the same at the end of the year. And if they take too much, you get more back.

I'm talking about what you get in your pocket then and there.

While I'm all for not giving the IRS an interest-free loan! It helps offset dealing with estimated tax payments (horay, extra quarterly payments!)

Even if you owe them money at the end of the year, at least you had some interest while you had it.

Except that I'll owe them penalties.

The problem is if you underpay, then you owe them interest (it's up to 4%, so not a huge deal honestly as you can beat that with a decent portfolio but it's something to think about).

https://proconnect.intuit.com/proseries/articles/federal-irs-underpayment-interest-rates/

Did you really just quote an Intuit article? That alone should tell you that you've completely misunderstood something. They do not charge interest till you are actively late on a payment.

Seriously? Are you just being stupid for no reason? The URL matters not because tax law doesn't change no matter what site you read about it on.

Besides do you know another clean link with a straightforward table showing the information?

This is how little I trust anything coming from Intuit, yes, seriously.

Pretty sure this is just Intuit regurgitating information from the IRS. So, if anything, the reference should be of the IRS.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-16-28.pdf
https://www.irs.gov/uac/interest-rates-remain-the-same-for-the-first-quarter-of-2017

Note, you owe taxes on a quarterly basis was my point. My point is that it's stupid to think you can just under withhold and make it up later and not have a cost basis. You effectively owe the taxes as you earn them. Even more annoyingly, if you MIGHT make a lot of money at the end of the year they want you to cost average and make the payments quarterly (Which is what makes things annoying for me in that I have to factor money I MIGHT make in Q4 on a sale of an asset that might double in price, or be cut in half).

Mint is good for basic budget/cash flow Tracking. personalcapital.com is a bit better for long term wealth tracking as it can handle 2FA accounts with eTrade etc that Mint can't.

As far as hating on Inuit. They are fine for basic 1099-EZ type stuff. If your stuff is more complicated pay a professional. $500 in tax prep saved me 8K in taxes vs. what TurboTax reported.

@wrx7m said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

Yeah I get that, it's all just "income", and you get taxed on it all just the same at the end of the year. And if they take too much, you get more back.

I'm talking about what you get in your pocket then and there.

While I'm all for not giving the IRS an interest-free loan! It helps offset dealing with estimated tax payments (horay, extra quarterly payments!)

Even if you owe them money at the end of the year, at least you had some interest while you had it.

Except that I'll owe them penalties.

The problem is if you underpay, then you owe them interest (it's up to 4%, so not a huge deal honestly as you can beat that with a decent portfolio but it's something to think about).

https://proconnect.intuit.com/proseries/articles/federal-irs-underpayment-interest-rates/

@travisdh1 said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

The owner pays out bonuses to all the employees twice yearly, but it is simply profit sharing.

Basically he keeps cash banked to handle XX months of payroll. Then as long as we have that he pays out the overage as a bonus to us based on full time / part time and how long we been here.

Yeah, and bonuses get taxed like crazy. If you get a 5k bonus, you get less than half of it in your pocket.

I'm not sure if your serious but...

...then I would tell you your wrong, way, way wrong!

about 3.5x more CA and FITW taxes taken out, than on a regular income check that's even more than the bonus.

Calculate the percentages already. I bet that "bonus" check is a lot more than you normally get in a single pay period as well. The only way the percentage is larger is if you hit a higher tax bracket (which is really easy to do.)

It's common to tax it at your marginal rate. Normal income averages all of the brackets over the year for taxes. Because bonuses are not part of this blending they get hit with marginal. Now nothing stops you from adjusting this mix, but it's really HR doing most people a favor.

@wrx7m said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

Yeah I get that, it's all just "income", and you get taxed on it all just the same at the end of the year. And if they take too much, you get more back.

I'm talking about what you get in your pocket then and there.

Not relevant is the point. You still owe taxes based on the total when it is all said and done.

It is relevant when I get paid, because I make sure my deductions are set so that I don't have to pay anything and so I get a little back. I don't need them "shorting" me on a bonus then, to give it back later. I'm already putting money in savings, 401k, etc... I don't need an "extra" holding when I get a bonus.

Only so relevant as you can modify that individual paycheck to not do that. That's at your discretion. The taxes don't change, only the deductions do and those are at your discretion. If you chose to do it differently, you'd see more money coming to you rather than less. But it would all be the same once it switches from deductions to taxes.

Technically you only control the federal taxes withholding. There is variability on the up for Medicare because my joint filing is too high (If you don't drop your tax liability at a point you run the risk of paying a penalty extra rate on my marginal for Medicare) and on the down for social security (I've stopped paying it for the year as I've hit the $7,886.40 maximum the government will withhold for the year). Kinda nice getting a big spike on your paycheck part way through the year.

If you are paying more up front to the government, you are ripping yourself off- Giving them a free loan. No thanks.

This is true if you don't have income outside of salary. Due to stock compensation, dividends, and other fun things I have to withhold extra/pay quarterly estimated taxes.

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

Yeah I get that, it's all just "income", and you get taxed on it all just the same at the end of the year. And if they take too much, you get more back.

I'm talking about what you get in your pocket then and there.

While I'm all for not giving the IRS an interest-free loan! It helps offset dealing with estimated tax payments (horay, extra quarterly payments!)

@scottalanmiller I don't know how anyone puts up with taxes being that high. I did the math on moving to Portland. I could buy a decent Japanese Sedan for the yearly tax liability.

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

Yeah I get that, it's all just "income", and you get taxed on it all just the same at the end of the year. And if they take too much, you get more back.

I'm talking about what you get in your pocket then and there.

Not relevant is the point. You still owe taxes based on the total when it is all said and done.

It is relevant when I get paid, because I make sure my deductions are set so that I don't have to pay anything and so I get a little back. I don't need them "shorting" me on a bonus then, to give it back later. I'm already putting money in savings, 401k, etc... I don't need an "extra" holding when I get a bonus.

Only so relevant as you can modify that individual paycheck to not do that. That's at your discretion. The taxes don't change, only the deductions do and those are at your discretion. If you chose to do it differently, you'd see more money coming to you rather than less. But it would all be the same once it switches from deductions to taxes.

Technically you only control the federal taxes withholding. There is variability on the up for Medicare because my joint filing is too high (If you don't drop your tax liability at a point you run the risk of paying a penalty extra rate on my marginal for Medicare) and on the down for social security (I've stopped paying it for the year as I've hit the $7,886.40 maximum the government will withhold for the year). Kinda nice getting a big spike on your paycheck part way through the year.

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Bonuses aren't even a real thing to the IRS, it's literally just part of your pay. At least that's how it has always been where I have gotten bonuses. It's just a paycheck with a larger amount in it that normal, the IRS doesn't have a "this is a bonus" checkbox to even know that it is a bonus to be taxed differently. At the end of the year, your bonus is just part of your pay, it can't be taxed differently because there is nowhere for it to show up.

It's different in that they have different schedules for the recommended amount for an employer to withold for you (Top Marginal, vs. something arbitrary like 25%),

It's not different at the end of the tax year (as you are talking about) that it gets piled under all under wages, Tips and Other Comp (Box 1).

We are not arguing that they withhold more by default in your state, we are arguing that at the end filing your taxes you would owe the exact same amount of money, and have the same in your bank account no matter if you made 50K base and bonus 50K, or you made 100K base.

Now I will point out that there is variable compensation that a company can give you that has variable tax implications. If I hold onto my RSU's for 1-year past vestment then I'm going to end up paying less (much less!). This is why executives get paid in millions in stock, and maybe only 500K in cash. This is why honestly I'd be OK if I never got another raise and they just kept giving me more large budgets of stock (but hell I'll take both).

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

The owner pays out bonuses to all the employees twice yearly, but it is simply profit sharing.

Basically he keeps cash banked to handle XX months of payroll. Then as long as we have that he pays out the overage as a bonus to us based on full time / part time and how long we been here.

Yeah, and bonuses get taxed like crazy. If you get a 5k bonus, you get less than half of it in your pocket.

I tell the accountants to mark me exempt for the week. You can change your status a few times a year without causing issues.

At a prior job (and before I was married with kids) I would calculate my yearly income taxes out and then change payroll in november to exempt once I knew I had met my expected pay in.

Why stop there! Set it to exempt for the whole year!

@tim_g said in Company Benefits:

@jaredbusch said in Company Benefits:

The owner pays out bonuses to all the employees twice yearly, but it is simply profit sharing.

Basically he keeps cash banked to handle XX months of payroll. Then as long as we have that he pays out the overage as a bonus to us based on full time / part time and how long we been here.

Yeah, and bonuses get taxed like crazy. If you get a 5k bonus, you get less than half of it in your pocket.

I'm not sure if your serious but...

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

Free fruit, and bagels, cereal, and fruits and snacks.

My QA department would throw an absolute conniption fit over this. Food brings in bugs, which is a risk for them.

The fruit is thrown out every day by the cleaning staff, the dried figs, and dates and stuff are all sealed in containers (Checked twice a day as it gets refilled).

Other benefits we have are Pinball machine break rooms, foosball, table tennis. Free fruit, and bagels, cereal, and fruits and snacks. The M&M's they tried to remove, led to the great M&M engineering riots of 2009 the rumor goes. Now they refill the M&M canisters twice a day. We have cofve machines so complicated that I have to seek someone out to operate them.

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

Common tactic for start ups is to offer stock that isn't public so can't be traded (or traded easily.) It sounds great but often leaves you with stock worth nothing. Have to be very careful with this. What is great in a large public company can be a totally bad move in a small one

It's worse than that. You may get options that when you exercise them to generate a tax event. So you PAY money to the IRS for something that ends up worthless!

@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:

@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

They call it a bonus because we have a set salary/wage and the bonus is added on, depending on how the company did or how long you have worked at the company.

This is TECHNICALLY profit sharing. You should just codify the exact rules (20% of Net Profits go into the employee benefits pool, and employee's shares are weighted based on years at the company or something blah blah blah).

Yes, profit sharing is mostly fine, bonuses are very different and are subjective.

Other things that get mislabeled as bonuses are commissioned, and just general variable compensation.

Does it have clear rules that are enforceable in law? I'd argue it's not a bonus. Is it based on subjective interpretations and is kinda arbitrary based on what your boss thinks? Bonus!

The general non-rule rule I hear on bonuses for us is in order for you not to get 100% it requires one of a few things...

1. Your BU is falling apart and possibly going to be sold so it's not getting the bonus pool funded to 100%.
2. You have to be warned to the point that it's in your HR file twice for non-performance. In this case, the money going to the bonus for you is LIKELY going to a team member who was covering your slack to make up for them having to do that.

In either case, you should see this coming and be more worried about having a job than not getting a bonus. The only case I've ever heard of someone at our company having their boss give them 0% and it likely be biased, the boss was pushed out within the next bonus cycle.

The company culture and budgets will determine the "reality" of bonuses. Note if a company doesn't pay bonus's out and screw's employee's a lot it will show up on Anonymous feedback on GlassDoor. (Read some of the storage startups, it's hilarious).

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

HOLY TOLEDO!! Where does your wife work and are they currently accepting applications? (Not because of your wife, because of the benefits of the company, of course.)

I'd like to point out that benefits at large companies can easily be anywhere from 50-120% of the compensation depending on your role, and field. This is an area where a lot of small companies just suck (especially for IT practitioners). They MIGHT get close to paying comparable salary. Once you remove all the benefits they just become laughably low on compensation.

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

HOLY TOLEDO!! Where does your wife work and are they currently accepting applications? (Not because of your wife, because of the benefits of the company, of course.)
Company is private, so there is no stocks to speak of, but there is also no SEC looking over us.
403(b) is just like a 401(k) but for non-profits. Doesn't apply here.

My wife's just the bottom stuff, most of that is mine (She also has access to an annuity type option but I'm going to go with Fidelity because I hate TIAA for their 10 years to get money out nonsense). She works for A large Children's hospital. I figure if I can max the 18K or whatever it is into each account I can defer a ton of taxable income Note there is no match on any of them it's just the x% put into the 401A.
Throw in a back door Roth conversation on top of maxing out those 3 accounts and I'm likely going to likely keep most of her income from getting spent this year (or taxed).

A company being private can mean there are stock and stock options. Veeam and Spiceworks employee's get stock for instance. It just means that the liquidity is generally very low (It's harder to sell) and often has rules (first right of refusal on a price is held by the company). Private company share holders also have far fewer rights than the public as the SEC doesn't rule with an iron fist so it's not as valuable. If a company is growing and values it's employee's they will do this.

I work for a large software company based in Palo Alto California (I work in Texas from home though as my wife was in medical education here).

@nerdydad said in Company Benefits:

They call it a bonus because we have a set salary/wage and the bonus is added on, depending on how the company did or how long you have worked at the company.

This is TECHNICALLY profit sharing. You should just codify the exact rules (20% of Net Profits go into the employee benefits pool, and employee's shares are weighted based on years at the company or something blah blah blah).

@nerdydad Curious why BYOD failed?

Base, plus growth structure - can it grow? Is there an org chart with clear steps to moving up and getting bumps in pay? Does everyone get 2% and stagnate till they leave?

OTE Bonus. I get paid an extra multiplier based on my base pay based. Mine isn't actually tied to metrics (I prefer this) and is completely based on my boss's assessment of me doing my job. While there is an "On Target Earnings" nothing stops you from getting over 100%. While when accepting the offer I weighted the bonus at 50%, I will say "it's not virtual". The biggest way to see how real this is is go check with GlassDoor and existing employees who've been there 4-5 years.

RSU (Restricted Stock Units)'s - If you keep getting these every year on a standard 2-5 (Depends on company and grant window) year vestment schedule, you eventually end up with a rather nice kicker. This also is really nice if your stock doubles within a given year (Well except for capital gains). The longer you stay the stickier these become, and the more a company likes you the more they will give you to "handcuff" you to the company. The more a company wants you to stay the more you get these (i know people with solid 7 figure piles). A decent 6 figure pile of this is nice and can be used in leverage with a company who wants to poach on you why they better give you a bigger base (or a bigger pile of them!).

Education School, College, Certifications, Classes. I can take a pretty limitless number of certifications and classes. Wishing my wife had this as the never ending amount of certifications she has gets fun..

Sabatacle In our company you can apply for 3-month transfers to wildly different jobs to learn about how that role functions. You can do a 1 week education track (Go take education in something unrelated).

Stock Options - Inversely if you work for a startup you might get stock options. These are a LONG shot gambling game (like 2% pay off) but I know some guys who their stock is trading in the 30's and their options were in the $2 range so assuming they make it to lockout I expect to get a call to hang out on their yacht....

ESPP - Buy stock at a discount (See above comments). Note these are generally bought at a 10-15% discount based on the beginning or ending window (Whichever is lower) so its a game of heads I win, tails you loose against the market and can pay pretty well (or just be a nice couple grand of cash). I've had windows where I made 15%, sometimes I've made 115%. Either way, making 15% on a 6 month time period on the market with 100% certainty can't be beaten.

Paternity leave - 18 weeks full pay, maternity, paternity, and adoption leave. Per kid and against my salary if you take 18 weeks of my pay that's the equivalent of 2 years of tuition at the local state school in town. My sisters is 6 months (she's taken twice now!).

vacation Unlimited. Just got done with 4 weeks traveling Asia, spent a week in Mexico, and have another week or two in India later this year on top of some 3 day weekends.

Work from home/anywhere Sometimes I just leave town on Wen/Thursday and go to a beach house to finish working out the week.

Travel Points and status - Traveling for work a lot adds up. Note this is a NON-taxable (Weird exclusion). So when traveling I can get hotel points and airline points. With SoutWest I have a companion pass (My wife flies free with me), and with Marriot, I get free cocktails and appetizers in the afternoon and breakfast in the morning in the executive lounge. I get free upgrades with Marriot when traveling so that $150 small room can turn into a 40th-floor suite sometimes. I just stayed a week in bali at a 5 star hotel without having to pay for the rooms or $30 breakfasts.

Expense
Do they let you do your own booking, do they require a corporate credit card (no points can be brutal, to the point of $20-30K easily for some people in compensation) Can you expense travel lounges (Sooo nice). With customers, I can pay for fairly nice meals/drinks etc without issue. I have Uber and Lyft integrated into my expense account so I've managed to cut my travel in my own car to ~600-700 miles in 6 months.

Travel
Travel Policy - Do they make you fly 18 hours, 5 hops to save $100?
Do they put you in first class if the flight is over 4 hours?
Do you stay in the Motel 8 and have to share a room (or PAY for your spouse's 1/2 of the room if they happen to travel with you!).
Do they make you fly in the morning you are presenting when it's 12 times zones away, or do they put you up in the hotel for the weekend to adjust to the time zone, and be a tourist for the weekend?
When you're at a conference in Vegas can you boss write off $150 tickets to see Billy Idol.

My wife's got some other weirder stuff

non-profit/public retirement options.

401A - Like a 401K match but you don't have to put money in, they just put x% of your salary.

457(b) - Can withdraw from it without early penalty if you no longer work for said employer.

403B - A lower overhead 401K plan with no match.

allowance for continuing education.

Equipment allowance. She can spend money on books of stethoscopes.

By strategically maxing out withholding on all this, she can massively reduce her taxable salary.