Money Making Schemes

Nagesh answers:

Ive never heard of shopnpay,but my mom is a huge e-bayer,she is retired also.She shops garage and estate sales here and there and even thrift stores,and basically sales junk online,on auctions at ebay,they only charge like .10 to .30 cents to advertise for 2 weeks,so there is no bank breaking…sometimes she even buys clearence stuff at walmart for like a buck and on e-bay itll sale for like 5 to 10.,remember you sale to the world!!china uk etc,are junk is gold else where…I also have a friend who sales re-condtioned computers/and makes a killing…you should investigate it,e-bay.com I shop e-bay for everything…ps,thers no tax issues and your in controll,your the boss..My mom has an acual store,on e-bay,she swears by it (no overhead) she racks in on average $250 to $500 a month.Good luck..pss,be careful of these quick money maker scheme web sites!!!…check them out 1st…if it sounds to good…you know the rest,heck wed all stay home and get rich online…hahaha,

Nagesh answers:

Taxes in the US are not a lot different in application from taxes in Europe, however the tax RATES are much lower than in Europe. I speak from first-hand experience having lived in Europe for about 10 years.

Incomes are taxed at the Federal level on all citizens and residents. The rates vary from 10% to 35% however a significant portion of most people’s income is not taxed at all. For example, a “typical” family of four earning less than about $43,000 pays no Federal income tax at all once the various credits, deductions, and exemptions are taken into account.

44 of the 50 States levy income taxes as well, with rates varying from about 2% to a high of 10%. The credits, exemptions and deductions at the State level are typically much lower so it’s not unusual for a family to pay $0 in Federal income taxes but still have to pay State income taxes.

A few Cities and Counties also levy income taxes but the rates are very low, typically less than 2%.

Virtually every local juriscition levies property taxes on real and sometimes personal property. These are based upon the value of the property, unlike the occasional European occupancy taxes such as “Rates” in the UK. The tax rates are all over the scale and tend to be highest in the few states without a State income tax, such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Washington, etc.

All but a few states levy sales taxes on most retail sales. These are similar to VAT levied in most of the world but are typically at a MUCH lower rate, the highest being a hair over 10% and the average around 6%. Contrast that with European VAT rates of 17% to 22% or more!

Some goods are taxed separately from the sales tax system or in addition to the sales tax system. Items such as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, and motor fuel are taxed at both the Federal and State level. Rates vary widely but again are generally much lower than similar European levies on similar goods. For example, gasoline (petrol) taxes cap out at less than 50 cents per gallon in most of the country, compared to over $3.00 per gallon in most of Europe.

A tax refund is simply the return of an overpayment of a tax to the taxpayer. It’s most commonly associated with income taxes but in theory could apply to any tax. Income taxes are withheld from wages under a “Pay as You Earn” scheme not unlike most European systems however it is not as tightly controlled as it is in Europe. There is a mandatory rendering at the end of the tax year — the filing of the dreaded tax returns — where the taxpayer settles up with the government on their final tax liability. If you’ve overpaid your tax liability then the government returns the excess to you. If you’ve underpaid your tax liability, then you have to pay up.

Most taxpayers look forward to a tax refund but as the government does not pay interest on the excess taxes paid in, it’s actually in the taxpayer’s best interest to carefully manage their taxes throughout the year and actually have a small tax debt to settle at the end of the year. That way the taxpayer has control over their funds exclusively instead of making an interest-free loan to the government.

Most Americans think that they pay too much in taxes. However the truth is that US taxes are the lowest of all major industrialized nations and some of the lowest of all first-world and second-world nations when taken as a whole.

That should do for a quick “thumbnail view” of taxes in the US.

BTW, please ignore the rant about the so-called “Fair Tax” as one poster comments on. Total tax rates are FAR lower than 33% for all but the wealthiest Americans. Under that heinous national sales tax at 30%, the family of four mentioned earlier that pays $0 in Federal income taxes would pay over $12,000 in Federal taxes that they do not pay currentlly. How anyone could call that “Fair” is beyond me.

And there’s not a “large group of Americans” pushing for it either. They can’t even get it out of committee in the House of Representatives where it’s languished for about 10 years. Hardly a groundswell, IMHO, as most Americans recognize it for the cash grab by the wealthy that it actually is.

Nagesh answers:

Most schemes you see advertised are not legitimate. I’d say making your own products at home to sell would be a good idea. Figure out and start making something that you think you could sell at these craft places, like something attractive looking, trendy, or usefull. You could even make accessories to items that are already sold there. I’ve heard you can do something like medical transcriptions from home, which I believe takes some training but not too much. You should ignore any programs that you have to buy into, or where you sell a product out of your home or door to door… Or where you have to get your friends and family to join for you to make money.

Nagesh answers:

Talk to all your relatives, ask to see old photographs, records of birth, baptism, death and marriage, family Bibles, funeral service sheets, etc, and make copies. Find out where all your deceased relatives are buried, visit the graves, transcribe the information on the gravestones and take photographs. If you don’t know where people are buried or are unable to visit the graves, you may find them on www.findagrave.com

Too many of us family historians regret not questioning the oldies closely before they popped their clogs, so get all the names, dates and places you can and then check these against the official records. Then work back one generation at a time, using birth/baptism, death/burial and marriage records, and the census.

The national indexes of birth, marriage and death up to about 1930 can be consulted at freebmd. Civil registration was introduced in England and Wales on 1st July 1837, although registration of births was not compulsory until 1875:- http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

Some local registration offices are putting their indexes online:- http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/

The census returns from 1841 to 1911 are held at the National Archives at Kew and you can access the census images and transcriptions via the links on their website:-
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census/default.htm?WT.hp=Census
Only the 1881 census is available free online. All the others are on paid sites although you can consult the indexes for free.

Volunteers are busy transcribing the other censuses to make them freely available and this site has completed some counties for some years:- http://www.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Some Parish Registers are online and the main free online resource for these is the International Genealogical Index (IGI) at the LDS site:- http://www.familysearch.org/ENG/search/igi/search_igi.asp

If the LDS don’t have the Parish Registers you need, try the Online Parish Clerks for the relevant county:- http://onlineparishclerks.org.uk/
This is a fairly new scheme run by volunteers so not many counties are included yet, some such as Sussex have parish register and census transcripts online, others do look ups.

Another free site that is in process of putting parish registers online is http://www.freereg.org.uk/

You might like to search the free World Connect project to see if anyone has already done research on your ancestors (view these trees with caution as much of the ‘research’ is suspect – verify anything you find online by consulting the original records before incorporating the data into your family tree):- http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

If you want more, these are directories of links to genealogy sites, some of which will be free:- http://www.cyndislist.com/
www.worldgenweb.com
http://www.genuki.org.uk/

The Probate Office at First Avenue House, High Holborn (opposite Chancery Lane) has the annual indexes of all probated Wills and Administrations in England and Wales. No booking is required and it is free. There is a charge for ordering a Will but the indexes give quite a lot of information.

The LDS Family History Centre is in Exhibition Road, South Kensington, near the Science Museum. Your nearest main reference library will have the civil registration indexes on microfiche – other resources will depend of the library. The London Metropolitan Archives and the Guildhall Library will only be of use to you if your ancestors also came from London.

Nagesh answers:

Hi,

I have to agree with you, not about policy changes but the fact that two bodies are now running the country acting as one.

When the situation arose, the coalition should have been put to public vote, yes or no.

For the two leading parties to take it upon themselves to form the coalition was wrong, public vote may have opted for a different pairing to form a majority.

As for reforming the welfare system mainly unemployment and disability benefits, it is no good moving people off one benefit onto another to make the figures look good.

The government just have to face the fact that there are not enough jobs to go around as it is and those that are there for your unskilled worker pay that low a wage the government end up subsidising their income anyway.

A few years back a politician worked out that if all workers over 55 were pensioned off and replaced by fit individuals who were claiming unemployment benefit the coffers would soon swell, mainly because of the extra benefits claimed to support dependents would drop. (not many over 55 have young families in tow).

Instead of trying this the government are increasing the age of retirement, why?

They say it is because we are living longer and want to work the extra years, that is a load of bulls**t.
The reason they want to keep the older person at work is because they have c**ked up the system.

How many companies do you know with an apprenticeship scheme, to train toolmakers, setters, general machinists?
At one time they were everywhere, now hardly any.

So when the old bloke down the road quits his job as a tool maker, draftsman, or tool setter there is no one to replace him, no one trained and ready to step up. That is why they want him to work till he is seventy, 5 more years of his skilled knowledge, no other reason.

What the government should look at is the unemployed person walking down the road smoking, going into pubs nightly, buying beer from the off license, talking on their new iphone and wearing £100 trainers, in other words doing and having the things a genuinely employed person cannot afford to do or have.

They should look into where their money comes from?

Skip

It does not matter who is in power, as a voter you give your vote not to the party but to your local MP, and that is what is wrong.
Your MP has his own opinions about what is right and wrong and he follows his/her own feelings when it comes to issues.

We vote and pick politicians to represent us based on his/her opinion on a handful of issues, that we also agree with, but there are votes in parliament taken on hundreds of issues and that one MP speaks for 1000’s of voters and that is where the problem lies.

An MP should only be allowed to vote on issues he has presented his/her opinions on to the voters, anything else should be put back to a public vote.

I will give you an example, how many MP’s state their views on corporal punishment on their little fliers or at rallies??

I would guess that at least two thirds of the UK’s population would like to see the return of corporal punishment and the death penalty, especially in the cases of child abuse, yet when parliament vote on such issues I would say that less than a quarter MP’s would be in favour.

How does that represent the UK voters point of view?