Tuesday, February 17, 2015

What Home Improvements Are Tax Deductible?

Gregg Cantor for MurrayLampert.com writes: When tax time rolls around, many homeowners wonder if any of their expensive home improvements from the year are valuable to mention on their returns. In most cases, home improvement costs are not tax deductible, but they are still financially valuable in other ways. 
 
Some common home improvements that generally do not qualify for a tax deduction include:
  • Painting the interior or exterior of a home
  • Landscaping projects
  • Comparable replacements for appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers
  • Replacing a window, a toilet, or carpet
There are some home improvements that do qualify for certain tax exemptions, though, and it is good to review those in order to be sure to get back what you deserve when you file your taxes.

Energy-Related Improvements
Homeowners who make improvements to their homes to make them more energy efficient may qualify for specific federal tax credits. Many ENERGY STAR designated products qualify their owners for a tax credit (but not all of them).

Homeowners can get a one-time tax credit for 30% of the cost of qualifying wind turbines, solar panels, solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps, or fuel cells. All of these energy improvements apply to principal and secondary residences, except for fuel cells where only principal residences qualify. 30% is a pretty hefty credit—be sure to take advantage of it if you have implemented any of energy-efficient solutions in your home.

Casualty Losses
When a property that you own is lost/destroyed through theft, an accident, or natural disaster, you may qualify for a tax deduction for whatever insurance does not cover on the item (or items). Some examples of casualty loss deductions include fire, vandalism, car accidents, and flooding. Personal belongings, like a necklace that is accidentally thrown in the trash, are not included in this type of tax deduction. Progressive property deterioration, like moth or termite damage, is also not included in this type of deduction.  You can read more of the specifics of casualty loss deductions by checking out the official position from the IRS on Casualty, Disaster and Theft Losses.
Major Improvements 
The IRS does not generally recognize home improvements for tax purposes unless they substantially increase the value of your home from its purchase price.  A “major” home improvement will adapt your home to new uses, prolong the life of your home or add material value to it. Some specific of examples of what the IRS considers a major home improvement include:
  • Making a home completely handicap accessible
  • Adding a room, porch or driveway
  • Redoing plumbing or rewiring a home to get it up to the proper code
  • Adding a permanent pool
  • Upgrading a roof or water heater
  • Installing wall-to-wall tile, wood, or carpet flooring
Even in these cases, a homeowner may not have a case for a tax deduction. It is still important to keep accurate records as they will help you avoid paying capital gain taxes later on.
The best time to put money into home improvements is when a home is first purchased because you can roll it into the mortgage, and that interest is tax deductible. If you already have your mortgage in place, do not be discouraged about the lack of tax deductions available for home improvement projects. Smart home improvements will improve the value of your property and that is money you can recoup down the road.
What home improvement projects will you take on in 2015?
Posted on 7:50 PM | Categories:

Tax Efficiency of Fund Allocation: Question...

       Over at Bogleheads we came across the following discussion:
           
Postby Winterjp123 » Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:28 pm
                       
Trying to simplify my reading over the past few days...I've recently ditched Ameriprise in favor of a low cost 3 fund portfolio from Vanguard. I plan to adopt the 80/20 strategy that I've read so much about. At 39 I've accumulated around 520k in taxable and tax advantaged accounts, I feel pretty comfortable instituting a Total Stock, Total Bond and International Stock split with the following:

520k - Total Portfolio

200k in Taxable Brokerage

287k in Tax Advantage IRA

33k in tax free Roth

On a very fundamental level, my question is if I allocate 104k or 20% according to my reading I should buy all Total Bond in the Roth and put the rest under the tax advantaged IRA account in order to remain most tax efficient? The remaining 416k in Stock Funds I will put into the two buckets left. I realize this is a somewhat basic question and I may have not asked it clearly but I'm trying to keep it simple for educational purposes. Thank you in advance for any input
                   
                   
                Winterjp123            
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:03 am
           
        ________________________________________________
   
       
       
       
                       

Re: Tax Efficiency Question

           
Postby DSInvestor » Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:35 pm
                       
Winterjp123 wrote:Trying to simplify my reading over the past few days...I've recently ditched Ameriprise in favor of a low cost 3 fund portfolio from Vanguard. I plan to adopt the 80/20 strategy that I've read so much about. At 39 I've accumulated around 520k in taxable and tax advantaged accounts, I feel pretty comfortable instituting a Total Stock, Total Bond and International Stock split with the following:

520k - Total Portfolio

200k in Taxable Brokerage

287k in Tax Advantage IRA

33k in tax free Roth

On a very fundamental level, my question is if I allocate 104k or 20% according to my reading I should buy all Total Bond in the Roth and put the rest under the tax advantaged IRA account in order to remain most tax efficient? The remaining 416k in Stock Funds I will put into the two buckets left. I realize this is a somewhat basic question and I may have not asked it clearly but I'm trying to keep it simple for educational purposes. Thank you in advance for any input

You didn't say how much international you wanted but let me use this AA- 60% US 20% INTL 20% bonds.

OPTION 1:
Taxable brokerage 40% of portfolio
40% Total Stock Market Index Admiral (very tax efficient)

Tax Advantage IRA 55% of portfolio (largest account - Hold all asset classes)
20% Total Bond Market Index Admiral (your entire bond allocation)
20% Total International Stock Market Index Admiral (your entire international allocation)
15% Total Stock Market Index Admiral.

Roth IRA 5%
05% Total Stock Market Index Admiral (set and forget)

Portfolio is simple, very easy to manage and very tax efficient. The entire portfolio can be rebalanced by trading in the big IRA.

OPTION 2
If you'd like to hold some bonds in the Roth IRA to reduce the volatility of the Roth IRA balance, you could hold 10K of Total Bond Index there. It would look something like this:
Taxable brokerage 40% of portfolio
40% Total Stock Market Index Admiral (very tax efficient)

Tax Advantage IRA 55% of portfolio (largest account - Hold all asset classes)
18% Total Bond Market Index Admiral (reduced because of TBM holding in Roth IRA)
20% Total International Stock Market Index Admiral (your entire international allocation)
17% Total Stock Market Index Admiral (increased because of reduced Roth holding)

Roth IRA 5%
03% Total Stock Market Index Admiral (reduced to make room for TBM)
02% Total Bond Market Index Admiral (10K to qualify for Admiral shares)

OPTION 2 is just as tax efficient as option1.
                           
Last edited by DSInvestor on Mon Feb 16, 2015 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.                                    
           
       
                   
                DSInvestor            
Posts: 6937
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:42 am
           
       
   
        ________________________________________________
                       
                       

Re: Tax Efficiency Question

           
Postby Winterjp123 » Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:47 pm
                       
Got it...that's simple enough. Much appreciated!
                   
Posted on 7:45 PM | Categories:

KillerStartups Interviews ONDiGO! , A Mobile CRM Solution For Your Business On-The-Go / A look @ ONDiGO!

Roger Samson Jr. for KillerStartups writes: Getting the right tools for small businesses is essential. You need to make sure that they fit the way you do things and that you get what you want from them. Take for example ONDiGO, an easy-to-use, on-the-go mobile CRM that helps you interact with customers, take important notes, and organize data to help you manage your business better.


Ohad Oren, CMO and Co-Founder of ONDiGO, visits with KillerStartups to share his inspiration to be the change he wanted to see though this revolutionary mobile app. Check this out! It might just change your life.

What’s your company about? What do you do? Who are your customers?

ONDiGO is a Mobile CRM for Micro Businesses. ONDiGO adapts to the way people actually work nowadays, disrupting the way customer databases are built – automatically, from day-to-day interactions conducted on mobile devices.

What’s the greatest thing about your company/website? Why is it better than the competition?

Micro business owners rarely have time to sit down and punch in data about each interaction with their customers. However, they still need this information readily available. Staying in A-Game mode with customers is extremely important, especially since researches show that 80% of a company’s future revenue comes from existing customers. To solve this pain, ONDiGO offers a solid solution: * No learning curve – knowing how to use a mobile device is all that’s required to use ONDiGO * A customer database built automatically from day-to-day interactions * Important details can be accessed exactly when needed – in a click

How’d you come up with the name for your company?

ONDiGO for Busy on-the-go small business owners :-)


What was your first computer? How old were you when you first got on the world wide web?

My first computer was the commodore 64, and I was around 16 when I first got on the www.

What time do you usually start work each day? How many hours a day do you usually work?

I start to work at 8am, on the way to the office, and end my usually around 2 am, when I take a break at the evening to be with my wife and my amazing kids.

When’s the last time you went on vacation and where did you go?

Oh… that’s hard to tell. Alone? With my parents? I think it was a two week tour of Spain and Portugal.

What’s the very first thing you do at work every day?

Check my email.

When do your best ideas come to you? In bed in the morning? During dinner? On your third beer?

My inspiration usually comes late at night, when everything is quiet and the rest of the world is sleeping..

How many people did you start the company with and how many people work for you now?

When we started we were 3. Now we’re 6 full time, 2 half time and about to expand.



A lot of people have big ideas. What gave you the confidence to actually go after yours?

I have always been running my own businesses, and could tell the difference between talkers and doers. I believe I’m a doer. It’s great to dream, but it’s not enough. The real challenge is to go after your dreams. And the biggest credit has to be given to our amazing wives and families, for all the support we’ve been getting..

Remember the early days of starting up? Describe the struggles you went through.

It’s not that far away ;-) Just to convince ourselves to continue everyday. Doing the same things. Looking at the money at the bank running out. Answering questions of friends and family: “Yes, I still doing that!!” But the hardest thing is continue to work and push everyday when you don’t know what tomorrow brings and what will happen in the future..

How do you handle frustration? What has been your biggest professional frustration?

I believe that everything happens the way it should happen, and everything has a reason. It makes things easier. The frustration comes after you work so hard and you see that what you’ve done is not enough. People still don’t get it. Don’t understand your product. It’s a huge challenge, but you just need to continue perfecting your product to the point it will do for others what it does to you.



What’s your office environment like? Do you listen to music? Watch movies? Play video games?

Sometimes it’s busy, crowded and noisy, and on other days it’s all quiet and empty.. I listen to music, watch short videos. Don’t really play video games anymore..

How do you picture your company in 5 years?

Known as the salesforce for the small businesses of the world. And as the technology will progress, ONDiGO will be able to do even more things automatically, thus becoming a turn key solution helping small businesses manage their business from anywhere and anytime.

Who or what inspires YOU? Role models? Quotes? Running? Video games? Snack food?

I’m inspired by powerful spiritual people who changed the world to what we see it today. For example: Mahatma Gandhi – “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” and “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” But he us not the only one, just a very good example..

How’d you fund this venture? VC? Self-funding? Crowdfunded? Where’d you get the money, man?

We’ve been working hard most of our adult lives, and self funded ONDiGO for a very long time. Recently we received a little funds from angel investors to help us grow, and we’re currently raising our seed from angel investors.

Got any great bootstrapping tips for the lean startups out there?

Never stop dreaming. Believe in yourself. Listen to everybody but don’t lose your head – these are just other opinions. Make sure you have some money in your pocket before you begin, it will take longer then you expect. And one technical advise, search for the free tools of the world – there are a lot of them and can get you more then you dream.


What other advice do you have for other entrepreneurs struggling to get started?

Share your ideas. Collaborate. Talk to people.

What would you do if you had a year off and $500,000 to spend (on something other than work)?

Probably spent a lot less, living off some quiet place with lots of trees, lakes and beaches, taking a lot of family and friend to visit us, and having good time.

Do you consider yourself a successful entrepreneur? If not, what’ll make you feel successful?

Yes, I consider myself successful entrepreneur, and successful person in general. I set myself goals and make sure they happen.

Top 5 websites you couldn’t live without and why?

  1. Google – Well it’s kind of obvious. Just the ability to search and actually find what you’re looking for is awesome.
  2. Youtube – Accessible videos, how-to’s etc.
  3. Fiverr – Cheap marketing ( or just about anything ) tools.
  4. Gmail – ( Before I used Yahoo mail ) – connecting to other people.
  5. Skype - it’s more of a service then a site, but it changed my life being able to connect to my family and friends from afar.

Top 5 mobile apps you’re in love with and why?

  1. WhatsApp – connecting, massaging, group messaging.
  2. Feedly (used to be google reader ) – this is how I get my updates from the world.
  3. Facebook – This is how I’m getting updates about my circles.
  4. Evernote – getting my notes synchronised between my devices.
  5. Waze – for navigation.


What is your music streaming player of choice, and what are you listening to right now?

Soundcloud – Listening to music friend upload. I listen to variety of styles.

Number 1 country you’ve always wanted to visit but haven’t yet? (And why that country?)

Brazil – Never had the chance to visit. Amazing beaches, awesome people. Great weather.

Three people (other than you) we should follow on Twitter and why?

  1. Tristan Kromer – Leading the lean startup circle in SF and in general a great guy.
  2. Aaron Levie – don’t know if he comes up with his Twitter content or not, but it’s great.
  3. Buffer – Great service, great ideas, great posts.

Please share some specific numbers (funding, revenue, visitors) that highlight your growth.

As of today raised $120,000. Got 2500 small business that are using our service regularly, and a few partnerships in place.

Where Can Our Readers Find You Online?



 ________________

Ondigo Launches In Battlefield With A Magic Automated Mobile CRM Tool

Jonathan Shieber for TechCrunch writes:  From starting one of the first clubs in Tel Aviv to hanging out in front of a Home Depot in Palo Alto, Calif. in 2013 handing out doughnuts for surveys and running from the cops, it’s been a long road for the founders of mobile CRM tool ONDiGo, which has been in stealth beta and is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe conference today.

The company is also launching ONDiGo for Salesforce, which integrates all of the information collected on the mobile phone back into Salesforce automatically, and is now available for iOS and Android.

“All of us founders, we’ve either owned small businesses in our past or worked at them,” says chief executive Yoni Dariel. “My partner, Ohad Oren, did retail and wholesale in Spain and the UK, and Nir Keren, the chief technology officer, previously started two startups Grepper and Cloudsync.”

So the three founders developed an application that provides automated customer relationship management tools for small businesses and business owners on the go.
The three met in Israel’s special forces and remained friends ever since. “We ran businesses, and we had customers but we were basing our businesses on sticky notes and excel spreadsheets,” says Dariel.

Dariel moved on from nightclubs to consulting for startups and during that process he got acquainted with Salesforce.com and its customer relationship management tools.

“It’s an amazing tool…. It’s hard to work with, but it’s an amazing tool,” Dariel says. “If we had had those tools when were young and stupid and making cash we would have done much better. So we thought, how can we make this accessible to the stupidest people like ourselves.”

That’s when development started for ONDiGo in 2011. The company’s customer relationship management tool automates all of the hard parts of data entry and integration with traditional hosted CRM tools, says Dariel. “We make on-boarding of the CRM as easy as downloading an app,” he says. “The second thing is, I’m stupid and lazy, so we manage to make it a zero-data-entry product.”

In fact, the product automatically builds customer databases by capturing every interaction through email, calendars, phone calls, and text messages.

The company already has partners including ZoomInfo, and Wicks, and is in the process of becoming a Salesforce partner.

In stealth beta for the past year, Ondigo is coming out for the first time on the Disrupt stage.
“In the boring CRM world, we are the cool, funky kids,” says Dariel. “We emphasize three things: simplicity, automation and design. Currently there’s a division between consumer applications and business applications. With us, all of the magic happens under the hood, so you’re left with a cool user experience which is intuitive, like a consumer application for business.”
Posted on 7:19 PM | Categories:
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