A lot of the potential value in an ESPP is not the discount off the purchase price but in any potential lookback pricing you can get. At my company, if we buy into the ESPP and then make our first purchase at, say, 0.95 * $X, then we can keep buying at 0.95 * $X for a certain number of purchases if the stock price is at or above $X on the purchase days. This can be really lucrative if the stock goes up. If it goes down to $Y, then on my program, you buy in again at 0.95 * $Y and reset, so there isn’t much risk there, except that the stock price does tend to go down in the days after the ESPP purchase, because people naturally will dump their ESPP shares ASAP, so there’s a decent chance of losing money if you’re only benefitting from the discount.
I don’t know how your program compares on those aspects, but those are the really important things to know.
with the divorce i’m going to get fucked on taxes this year because i’ll be filing separately and yet my withholding all year is going to be really low from what we had it at when married.
So I know I’m going to owe a good bit. my question is I’ve read there is a penalty or something for owing a bunch at tax time? What is that and how is it calculated? is there anyway to avoid this?
I am not an expert, but I would have to imagine that there are rules and exceptions that account for this scenario. Not sure how good a source this is, but here’s something from a couple of years ago, indicating how a change of marital status is handled vis a vis potential underpayment penalties: IRS Underpayment Penalty and Making Estimated Tax Payments in 2019
Edit: I also saw the “unusual circumstance” exception spider notes below, but 10 seconds of Googling didn’t reveal anything about marital status change qualifying.
Not a tax lawyer, but yes there’s a penalty for underpaying your estimated taxes. However, the IRS has ability to waive that penalty if, “The underpayment was due to a casualty, disaster, or other unusual circumstance, and it would be inequitable to impose the penalty.”
The second page of this form describes how to request that waiver:
I believe if you pay 100% or 110% of last years taxes (depending on income level) and 90% of last year’s taxes you are safe harbored from additional penalties. You “catch up” so to speak through estimated tax payments during the year in addition to withholdings, usually made quarterly.
Who Must Pay the Underpayment Penalty In general, you may owe the penalty for 2020 if the total of your withholding and timely estimated tax payments didn’t equal at least the smaller of: 1. 90% of your 2020 tax, or 2. 100% of your 2019 tax. Your 2019 tax return must cover a 12-month period
so seems like I would be covered from my 2019 taxes being low? I can easily pay whatever I owe once I get money from my ex out of the divorce which will be next couple of months so that shouldn’t be an issue to payoff next year.
Well for tax year 2021 would be based on 2020. I didnt know about that other provision, but should be good, check for income requirements too I think there are different requirements once income is above a certain point.
EDIT: Sorry, reread this, your 2020 tax being low would cover you. Otherwise you have to have paid 90% of 2021 tax owed. 2019 has no bearing on this now for 2021 filing.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I don’t think it works exactly like this - I don’t believe you can compare the payments/withholdings in 2021 as a now-single filer to the taxes you owed in 2020 as a married filer.
My withholdings for 2019 and 2020 were low and I got hit with a big tax payment both years, 2019 being a much bigger bill than 2020. There wasn’t a penalty for 2019 and the penalty for 2020 was $331.
The penalty is usually not much as they charge interest at the statutory rate, which is super low. You have to owe a lot in taxes for it to be more than a few hundred bucks.
Has anyone sold a car recently? I have an import economy car that rarely sees the road that I’d like to flip while prices are insane. Matched for specs / condition, the big used car sites are listing them for $2k more than I paid eight years ago. Do I just spam these places first and see what the offers look like? I don’t really have time for all of the Mickey Mouse bullshit involved in a private sale.
Just sold one 4 days ago. Like you I didn’t want to spend a lot of time. I did some online research and it said that the car was worth about 7.2K. I got online quotes from Carvana, Vroom and Carmax. Offers were $4.8K, $4.8K, and $6.8K respectively. I would have preferred one of the first two as they would have come to my house and picked it up. But 2K for a 40 mile round trip is nothing to sneeze at.
I drove down to Carmax and they checked out the car. They said they would give me the $6.8K that was quoted online, so I took the deal. The whole process took about 1.5 hrs.
Yeah I’ve sold to Carmax before and am a bit hesitant to go back. It should have gone smoothly but a Karen in license / title invented a fake problem that took several hours to sort out. I’d do it for the right price though. Any idea how the $7.2k valuation compared to what Carmax was listing for?
I just tried their tool and it offered me $5,500 for a car they’re currently listing at $14,000. I’m not talking about similar car–it’s an identical comp with mileage that differs by less than 1,000. Maybe they’re drunk or got hacked. I’ll sleep on it and spam every one of these sites and all of the local dealerships tomorrow.
my dad’s vehicle was some stupid ass f150 he had leased. He had some contracted price he could buy it for at the end of the lease. He could sell it for more than that on various websites, so he bought it and flipped it for a few grand.
