BodeTree gets $1.85 million to quadruple small biz user base / BodeTree syncs with QuickBooks & Xero to create an online analytics dashboard for financial reports & insights

Carlin Sack for Built In Colorado writes: Financial analytics company BodeTree just announced a $1.85 million round to prepare for “a heavy scaling mode that we’re entering into,” CEO Chris Meyers said.

The round, which was led by existing investors Green Line Ventures and what Meyers calls “a suite of new high-net individuals,” brings the company’s total funding to $3.25 million since it was founded in late 2010.

Today, BodeTree has about 50,000 users of its dashboard that gives small businesses financial analytics reports and insights - but the team is looking to quadruple that number in the next 12 to 18 months.

“Our primary channel for growth is partnering with aggregators and trade organizations,”  Meyers said. “We go to them and say, ‘Let’s roll this out to all your members’ to get past the initial hesitation.”

Hesitation, the status quo and a “feeling of apathy” from small businesses are BodeTree’s biggest hurdles to jump as it reaches these expansion goals, Meyers said.

“We don’t really have any direct competitors, but we are competing with deeply entrenched bad habits,” Meyers said, referring to small business owners’ routines of hiring expensive consultants or using various analytics platforms to supplement QuickBooks.

This behavior of clinging to status quo isn’t really a surprise: the small business world has historically been a challenging place to serve, Meyers said. That’s why BodeTree is relying on small business associations that already have the trust of business owners to introduce them to the web app.

BodeTree currently has about 14 employees split between Denver and Phoenix. The 10 employees working from Phoenix will be moving to Denver shortly, just as Meyers himself did to be closer to co-founder Matt Ankrum: “Phoenix is very transitional. Denver is a much better environment for what we do.”

“Our team is made up of highly-qualified finance people and creative people with a strong human approach,” Meyers said.

With its users in mind, BodeTree is careful to stand at the “intersection of a humanistic approach and heavy data,” by building in educational content, QuickBooks integration, report building with Zero and loan application features.

“Our platform is automated, scalable, yet deeply personal; every data point is actually a nurtured process,” Meyers said. “The innovation really lies in connecting these dots.”

New tax law pushes record number of Americans to renounce US citizenship

RT.com writes:A record number of Americans are renouncing their citizenship as they seek to remove the burden of filing complicated and costly tax returns simply for living in another country.  According to Bloomberg News, just over 1,000 Americans gave up their nationality in the three months from January to March. That’s a significant increase from the 670 who did so in the same time span last year, and it’s already one third of the way to matching the total number of Americans who renounced their citizenship in 2013.

Last year, data from the Internal Revenue Service showed that approximately 3,000 Americans gave up their passports – a number that tripled the average of the previous five years.

Although the reasons for doing so can range from one individual to another, many of the cases have been linked to the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, which has been gradually taking effect since it was passed in 2010. Looking to crack down on tax dodgers and institutions that help make that behavior possible, Congress passed the legislation in the hopes that it would bring in hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

Since the US is one of the few countries that taxes its citizens regardless of where they live, however, the law has ended up ensnaring all Americans who live and work overseas and use foreign accounts to pay bills at home. As of 2012, all banks working with the US are now required to divulge information on their accounts held by American citizens.

"[Congress] said to all of these institutions, 'You need to follow this set of criteria to determine all of the Americans who are your clients," Wisconsin financial adviser David Kuenzi told National Public Radio,"and you need to report directly to us on their holdings.' "

This has caused headaches for many foreign banks – including UBS AG and Credit Suisse – who are being forced to decide between incurring high compliance costs for each American account holder and simply ending their relationship with them. As noted by Bloomberg, making sure overseas Americans are filing the right tax forms costs banks about $7,000 per person, while individuals themselves can pay out $4,000 to remain on the right side of the law.

“I feel caught in the battle between the government and the banks,” John Annen, a 46-year-old American mathematician who has lived for more than decade in Switzerland, said to Bloomberg. “The U.S. government is the biggest threat to my style of living.”

As a result, some foreign banks are declining to do business with overseas Americans and canceling accounts, while increasing numbers of US citizens are contemplating giving up their nationality.

“Those banks have been checking through accounts and informing clients they have a big tax problem,” US tax lawyer Matthew Ledvina said. “The number of people renouncing their citizenship will probably rise as the banks enforce U.S. tax rules.”

According to NPR, there are so many Americans in Switzerland looking to give up their passports that the US Embassy there has a waiting list.

Despite this, many Americans said the money owed is not the overriding issue, but rather the hassle of dealing with all the new regulations, as well as the fact that they are now dealing with foreign banks that no longer want their business.

"They've become so complicated -- the increased filing obligations over the years," tax lawyer Brad Westerfield said to CNN in February. "You see more people giving up their citizenship or relinquishing their green cards ... Individuals [are] wanting to simplify their financial affairs, and just pay tax and report to one jurisdiction."

ShipStation announces a strategic partnership with Cloud Cart Connector, a software that provides a bridge between shopping carts and shipping software to QuickBooks.

ShipStation, the leading web-based e-commerce shipping solution, announces a strategic partnership with Cloud Cart Connector, a software that provides a bridge between shopping carts and shipping software to QuickBooks.

"Cloud Cart Connector makes it simple to automatically sync customers, products, and orders to QuickBooks Online or desktop editions," says Joseph Anderson, President of JMA Web Technologies. "Partnering with ShipStation allows our customers to save time and money on their shipping process, too."

"Shipping and accounting are traditionally time-consuming and manual aspects of any eCommerce business," says ShipStation's VP of Marketing, Robert Gilbreath. "While ShipStation endeavors to help online sellers efficiently fulfill their orders, we've partnered with Cloud Cart Connector to help reduce the burden associated with the accounting side of things."

About ShipStation
ShipStation is the leading web-based shipping software that is built to help online retailers organize and process their orders, while fulfilling and shipping them quickly and easily. With automatic order importing from over 40 shopping carts and marketplaces, including eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Bigcommerce, Volusion, Squarespace, Stich Labs, and more, and automation features like custom hierarchical rules and product profiles, ShipStation helps online retailers ship out their orders from wherever they sell, however they ship. For more information, visit http://www.shipstation.com.

About Cloud Cart Connector
Cloud Cart Connector is middleware that connects your order management, mobile POS, and shipping solution to QuickBooks. The connector synchronizes customers, inventory, products, and orders with QuickBooks automatically by date, number, and order status. Learn more at https://www.cloudcartconnector.com/.

Tax efficiency of Vanguard Total International Stock fund ?

Over at Bogleheads we came across the following discussion: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by co49d0x » Mon May 12, 2014 12:57 pm

I've been reading the Bogleheads Guide to Investing, All About Asset Allocation and The Four Pillars of Investing.

I believe in all 3 they mention that the Vanguard Total International Stock fund should be held in a tax-sheltered account. Is this still accurate in 2014?

Looking at the fund profile, it seems it has around ~70% qualified dividends, a turnover rate of 4.9% (which I'm hoping the ETF can reduce) and is eligible for foreign tax credit.

I favor bonds/REITs in my tax-sheltered space, so I don't have much room for putting international stocks in there. Is it a sin to have VXUS in taxable account?

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by niceguy7376 » Mon May 12, 2014 1:08 pm

I have int stocks in taxable account in VTIAX. Could you explain how an ETF reduces the turnover compared to Mutual Fund?

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by JDDS » Mon May 12, 2014 1:10 pm

co49d0x wrote:I favor bonds/REITs in my tax-sheltered space, so I don't have much room for putting international stocks in there. Is it a sin to have VXUS in taxable account?

Nope, I hold it in taxable.

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Vanguard ... tributions

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by ogd » Mon May 12, 2014 1:20 pm

co49d0x wrote:I believe in all 3 they mention that the Vanguard Total International Stock fund should be held in a tax-sheltered account. Is this still accurate in 2014?

I don't have the books handy, but are you sure this is the case? Is this about the former structure of the fund as a fund of funds which disallowed the foreign tax credit? That's not the case anymore.

Anyway, in 2014 it's a mixed bag. The common wisdom is that VXUS should be the first investment to go in taxable because of the foreign tax credit, but it's also the case that most international markets are depressed vs the US and have much higher dividends as a %. I'd still put it in taxable, because the high dividends may not persist, but the foreign tax credit situation is likely long term; later on it might be very expensive to switch back.

niceguy7376 wrote:I have int stocks in taxable account in VTIAX. Could you explain how an ETF reduces the turnover compared to Mutual Fund?

No difference, particularly because VTIAX and VXUS are actually the same fund. Read http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/ETFs_vs_mutual_funds for more info.

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by DadofTwo » Mon May 12, 2014 1:36 pm

If one is still trying to max out tax advantaged space, is it better to put VXUS in Roth or in a Taxable account?

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by ogd » Mon May 12, 2014 1:37 pm

DadofTwo wrote:If one is still trying to max out tax advantaged space, is it better to put VXUS in Roth or in a Taxable account?

Roth. This applies to any investment, until you max it out. It also applies to tax-deferred accounts.

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Re: Tax efficiency of VXUS?

by House Blend » Mon May 12, 2014 2:50 pm

co49d0x wrote:I favor bonds/REITs in my tax-sheltered space, so I don't have much room for putting international stocks in there. Is it a sin to have VXUS in taxable account?

You're doing it the right way. VXUS is fine in taxable.

It is reasonably tax efficient. In the past few years it has had a relatively high dividend yield, so depending on your tax bracket, it may cause more tax-leakage than (say) TSM. That hasn't always been true, and might not be true now if you are in the 15% Federal bracket.

I've never read any Boglehead books, but it's possible that those passages were written before Total International was eligible to pass on the foreign tax credit to share holders. Even if that were true today, that's not IMO a reason to force Total International into tax-advantaged space regardless of other considerations. It just tilts marginal decisions a little bit more away from holding it in taxable, in favor of either some other more efficient asset class such as TSM (when you have the choice), or some other international fund that does offer the FTC.

In ye olden days (before 2009), it's likely that some BHs sliced and diced their international in taxable accounts so that they could capture the FTC (and perhaps a bit more TLH). I didn't bother--I was content to use TotInt in taxable. But when VG started the FTSE Large fund, which added Canada to the mix, and was FTC eligible, I switched over as soon as the market crash offered me the added inducement of some tax losses to harvest.

Then TotInt switched to a better index, became FTC-eligible, and started offering Admiral shares. After waiting for another market panic (I think it was the debt ceiling terror in 2011, or something equally short sighted), I was able to switch back.

Investor tax tips: four things you need to do to protect your returns

Yahoo Finance has the following Blog Postings today: This post was written by Jim O'Shaughnessy, chairman, CEO and CIO at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management and by Scott Bartone, principal and portfolio manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. You can follow Jim on Twitter here > @jposhaughnessy.

Thank heaven, tax season is over for now. Time to put taxes in the back of your mind until next year, right?  Well actually, no, not if you want to reduce taxes paid on your investments next year.  There are tactics that you can start using today to help minimize your tax bill in 2015.

The Problem

Taxes can significantly erode investment returns if an individual investor or money manager is not accounting for them.  Since short-term gains are taxed at a higher rate than long-term gains or qualified dividends, it is better to avoid triggering short-term gains if you can’t offset those gains with short-term losses.  Look at the hypothetical portfolio assumptions in the table below.  In this year, 50% of the positions were sold at some point, creating taxable impact.  What the table below tells us is that while taxes can detract from returns, we can mitigate their impact by paying attention to whether we sell the positions at a gain or loss, and whether those gains or losses are short or long-term.  We believe that smart and disciplined management does add value over just holding passive ETFs, but smart tax management is a key factor in any strategy.

View gallery

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What You Can Do to Minimize Your Tax Bill

Rather than simply waiting until the end of the year to sell losing positions, tax management is something that should be done throughout the year and should be incorporated into your investment strategy.  By waiting until the end of the year to sell off your losers, you will likely drift away from your investment strategy.  What’s more, you’ll likely not be the only one selling off losers at year’s end, and this negative momentum could push prices down further.  The better plan is to remain invested in your strategy and review your cost basis any time you are looking to trade.  Reviewing your unrealized gains and losses throughout the year—rather than just the year’s end—will give you more “point in time” observations and more opportunities to harvest in your portfolio.  If you have a well-diversified portfolio (as you should!), there are likely stocks that are at a loss throughout the year.  Look at the S&P 500 over the past five years.  If you only review it on an annual basis you only see positive returns, making it difficult to realize offsetting losses.  However, if we look at returns on a monthly basis, we see that in 18 of 60 months, the S&P 500 had negative returns, and some of them were significant.  Even in years when the S&P 500 has strong returns, there are always inflection points when markets turn downward.  To offset gains for tax purposes, investors should take advantage of these periods to realize some losses in their portfolios.

Here's four techniques to use throughout the year:

1. Defer the realization of taxable gains until they go long term – Whenever possible, restrict the sale of a stock that is in a short-term gain position so as not to impose the higher short-term tax rate.  It is often worth delaying the sale of a winning position until you have owned it for more than a year, since the difference in tax rates is substantial.  The short-term tax rate is almost 20% higher (for top earners), so even if your investment has negative performance until it goes long term, you still may end up with more money on an after-tax basis then if you had sold it short term.

2. Target short-term losses within the portfolio to sell – Review your portfolio throughout the year and seek to strategically target sell short-term losses so you can use these as an offset.  Short-term losses can foil short-term gains that you may have earned across your other investments.  If you still have short-term losses after you have netted out your short-term gains, you can then use those losses against your long-term gains.  Finally, if there are still losses left, you can use them as a carry-forward to future tax years.  Again, doing this throughout the year rather than just at the end of the year will give you more chances to find losses in your portfolio.

3. Avoid wash sales when possible – In order to realize the tax benefit of realizing a loss, wash sale rules must be obeyed.  A wash sale occurs when a stock is sold at a loss, and within 30 days before or after sale, you also purchase the same stock.  Should a wash sale trigger, you will not be able to apply losses as an offset.

4. Gifting Securities – If you have a charity that is near and dear to you, gifting a security that has had significant gains can be a way to give to a good cause and also help your tax bill.  By gifting shares that you have held for longer than a year, you can avoid paying taxes on the gains and can also claim the full market value of the shares gifted as a charitable deduction at the end of the year.  Consult the charity of your choice to see if they have a mechanism in place to receive security gifts.

Take the time throughout the year to look at where your portfolio is positioned -  If you have generated significant gains throughout the year or think you will, look for opportunities to sell losses within your portfolio.  Taxes can be a significant drag on returns for individual investors.  You should apply the same rigor to both your investment strategy and your tax strategy to maximize your portfolio’s net performance.