When to Refuse Your Year-End Bonus

When to Refuse Your Year-End Bonus - It doesn’t seem right but sometimes you actually lose more money when you make more money.  That is just the way our tax code works and the last thing you want is to be caught off guard when it happens.

Most people think that it is always better to have higher income because we don’t have a 100% income tax rate on earned income. With every dollar you earn, even at the highest federal tax rate of 35% and combined state and local income tax rate of 12.7%in New York City, you are still “only” paying just under half of your income in taxes.  You’d still get to keep a little over half of what you made.

 

Yahoo! Finance/Thinkstock - briefcase cash

However, that is not always true. When high income taxpayers hit certain thresholds in adjusted gross income, they lose the ability to take some deductions. In some cases, earning $10,000 more can cause the IRS to disallow more than twice that much in deductions, so essentially you make a dollar and then lose two. You put your heart and soul into your job to help your company get ahead and to help your career, only to lose money doing it. It could actually be in your best interest not to take the bonus.

A great example is passive losses on rental real estate property, and this one is a thorn in my side as it affects me personally. Once your adjusted gross income is over $150k, the IRS only allows you to take your real estate losses of up to $25,000 – such as depreciation, association dues, mortgage interest, property taxes, maintenance etc. – against passive income such as your rental income. Any losses above and beyond the gains must be “carried forward” to future years, either when you sell it or when your income is below the threshold. So in other words, the rental loss is just about useless in the current year. 

If your adjusted gross income is $151,000, you may be shut out of any rental deductions for your current tax return and you just have to hope you can use them in the future.

Here are some income levels where deductions were recently phased out and will have an impact on married taxpayers that file jointly in 2012:

So if your adjusted gross income is over $160k, you just lost out on the tuition deduction, child credits, student loan interest, rental real estate deduction and a lot more. It could get worse going forward with the federal deficit running at $1 trillion for the fourth straight year, making our total national debt over $16 trillion dollars. Something has to be done and both parties target high income earners to pay more either by raising the top tax rates or by reducing deductions allowed.

If you are on the edge of making too much to take advantage of valuable tax deductions, what can you do about it? Here are some strategies to consider:

1.    Take the pain every other year.  Delay your bonus into the following year if you are close to a threshold. This way you have high income every other year and you may be able to take the deductions on your “low” years. This is a strategy I used in 2010. Because my company was flexible in the timing of annual bonuses, I was able to take a 2009 bonus in early 2010 and then took the 2010 year- end bonus in the same year. This helped me to become eligible for some deductions on my 2009 taxes.

2.    Max out all your pre-tax options such as your pre-tax 401(k) plan for a maximum of $17,000 in 2012 (going up to $17,500 in 2013) and if you are over 50, you can do an additional $5,500. Use your flexible spending account ($2,500 limit in 2013) or health savings account ($3,250 for single plans and $6,450 for family plans in 2013) to pay for your out-of-pocket medical costs on a pre-tax basis. It doesn’t seem like a lot but if when you add the two up, you can reduce your taxable income by $20,000 or more.

3.    Defer your compensation. Take advantage of executive deferred compensation plans your employer offers and put your bonus in this plan instead. With deferred comp, you have to select your deferral amount before the beginning of the year so you’d need to plan for next year. Also similar to a 401(k), the funds are withdrawn as ordinary income but the similarity ends in that deferred comp funds are treated as assets of the company instead of the employee. If a company went bankrupt, the executive’s funds are at risk.

4.    Ask for paid time off instead. Instead of taking a bonus, negotiate for more vacation time instead.  Imagine taking two weeks off every quarter to spend with your family or simply to recharge and regroup. If you are losing deductions by making more, instead get the best of both worlds by gaining more benefits instead. Think of it as a regular sabbatical.

5.    Take the bonus.  If you are a two income household, take the bonus but take a step back and examine your joint goals. Maybe one of you is more career oriented than the other, and would like to work less or start a business.

If your bonuses end up helping the IRS more than they are helping you, consider alternatives. Look for ways to defer the income in pre-tax plans or deferred comp, time it so you have lower income earning years where your deductions can hit instead of “carrying forward” each year, or look for alternatives that may enhance your life even more.  More isn’t necessarily always better. ( forbes.com )

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People who regularly exercise are more healthier, fitter and tend to have more attractive bodies

People who regularly exercise are more healthier, fitter and tend to have more attractive bodies - People who regularly exercise are more healthier, fitter and tend to have more attractive bodies - People who regularly exercise are more healthier, fitter and tend to have more attractive bodies. This should be enough motivation for folks who think that their weight is normal and hence, do not need to exercise. If the prospects of better health doesn't motivate you, perhaps exercising for the sake of better sex might. Here are some exercises that will help you to enhance your prowess in bed:

Push-ups: 

Push-ups are great for obvious reasons. They help to strengthen the arms, shoulders and stomach muscles. Sporting a paunch might be a major turn off for quite a lot of people. Having firm, sexy abs is very attractive physical attribute. Having strong abs is very useful for males especially when it comes to the man-on-top position.


Squats:

Doing squats, a lot of muscles are put to work producing greater amount of hormones, which in turn will boost your sex drive. They improve one's strength and stamina of gluteus muscles and the upper legs thereby helping to improve one's performance. Doing squats also helps one achieve a firm and attractive bottom.


Bench press:

Doing bench presses, helps to strengthen the chest and shoulder muscles. Women find chest muscles sexually appealing and it will help men to support themselves longer without getting exhausted easily. As for women, doing bench presses will make the breasts firm and seem full.


Cardio:

Whether it is doing aerobics, running or swimming, doing cardio-vascular exercises help increase blood circulation in the body. Having a good blood flow and circulation helps in the process of arousal, which is especially essential for men performance-wise. Also, doing cardio helps release of endorphins in the brain, which are known as the happy hormones.


Kegel's exercise:

Last but not the least, Doing Kegel's exercise can help make a remarkable difference in your sex life. Pubococcygeal muscles also known as PC muscles are the muscles used to stop urinating midstream. That's because, for men, regularly doing Kegel's exercises will help them to control the muscles that contract during ejaculation and therefore prolong ejaculation. As for women, doing Kegel's exercises will help you gain gain control over the vaginal muscles, thereby getting greater sexual satisfaction. ( indiatimes.com )

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How to Avoid Monkey Bites and Attacks

Monkey Bites - How to Avoid Monkey Bites and Attacks - Cute, human-like, mischievous, terrifying - whatever your opinion of monkeys, you are likely to encounter them in many parts of Southeast Asia. Their antics are enjoyable to watch and make great subjects for photographs to send home, assuming that they haven't stolen your camera by then!

Monkeys come in many types and sizes, with macaques being one of the most common species you are likely to encounter. Also found in Southeast Asia are orangutans, gibbons, proboscis monkeys, and langurs.

 

A Macaque Monkey in Ubud, Bali

Regardless of how tame and accustomed to tourists that monkeys seem, they should still be approached with caution and some simple guidelines followed.

Tips for Monkey Encounters

• Avoid smiling at them: In the mind of a monkey, showing teeth is a sign of threat and aggression. A misinterpreted smile may provoke an unnecessary attack.
• Don't play tug of war: The primary reason that tourists are bitten by monkeys is because they do not drop something that a monkey has grabbed. Camera straps, backpacks, and water bottles are major temptations. Let go as soon as a monkey grabs something, chances are they will examine it and drop it anyway.
• Don't offer food: Having food around monkeys is a bad idea anyway, but feeding one will attract many more that may take your refusal to feed them as a sign to attack.
• Don't show fear: Monkey clans usually follow a well-established caste system with larger males being alpha.
• Be Careful Taking Pictures: A monkey seeing its own reflection in the lens of your SLR camera may trigger an attack.

Monkey Behavior

Monkeys are extremely curious and may become intrigued by something that you are carrying. A majority of encounters are peaceful, so don't panic if one decides to become friendly. Immediately let go of anything that they grab, or better yet, don't present easy targets such as dangling camera straps in the first place.

Monkeys have an impeccable sense of smell and will even detect unopened food. That granola bar in your backpack may seem harmless, but any monkeys in the area will know that it is there.

In places such as Ubud, Bali, monkeys may even climb onto your shoulders. Don't panic and don't reach for the monkey, it will jump off when it is ready.

In places with a large monkey population such as Krabi, Thailand and the Batu Caves in Malaysia, monkeys may decide to rummage through bags left unattended on the beach. More than one tourist has come in from a swim to find the contents of their backpack scattered all over the beach. Yes, monkeys do know how to work zippers!

Monkey Bites

A monkey bite, no matter how trivial, can quickly turn dangerous. Monkeys are regular carriers of rabies; even the ones not rabid can create dangerous infections and fevers thanks to the high level of bacteria in their mouths.

Macaque monkey bites have been known to cause infections such as Bacteroides, Fusobacterium, Streptococci, Enterococci and Eikenella Corrodens - all are as unpleasant as they sound.

Every bite must be checked by a local doctor who will probably recommend getting a tract of painful and expensive rabies vaccinations. You have little choice, rabies has no early symptoms and is fatal if not treated immediately.

What to Do if You are Threatened by a Monkey

If a monkey acts particularly aggressive, stand your ground, wave your arms, or pick up a stick if there are any available. If you must retreat, back away slowly while still facing the monkey; running or showing fear will boost their confidence rather than causing them to back down.

What to Do if You are Bitten by a Monkey

Monkeys bites should immediately be scrubbed with clean water and soap for 15 minutes. Seek help from a doctor who will probably start antibiotics and may suggest measures against rabies.

Any bite or scratch from the claws requires medical attention.

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“My funniest dating disaster”

“My funniest dating disaster” - While most put the brakes on a budding love affair, every once in awhile, Cupid’s arrow manages to hit its mark despite such ruinous situations. We asked men and women who consider themselves to be relationship veterans to recall their best (or worst) dating disasters, and here’s what they told us:

Disaster #1: An alarming disappearing act

“I was having an OK time when my date excused herself, saying she had to use the bathroom,” recalls Austin, 30, of Evanston, IL. “The next thing I knew, sirens blared, and we were told everyone had to evacuate the building. I ran to the women’s room to make sure my date was all right, only to discover she was the one who’d set off the alarm. Apparently, she was so desperate to ditch me that she ran out through the emergency exit. The EMTs who arrived only had my ego to resuscitate.”

Disaster #2: Technical difficulties? Please hold...

“I’d ended the day with a particularly tough call,” notes Steve, a tech support specialist in San Jose, CA. “While I waited to meet my blind date, I tried hard to forget about the belligerent woman who’d given me such a hard time about such a simple problem. I was grateful when my date arrived, and I made small talk by asking about her day. As she recounted how she’d been on the phone for an hour with an ‘incompetent nincompoop’ from tech support, I slowly began to recognize her voice. I never confessed the truth about who I was, but I bailed after one drink. There was no way I was going to date her.”

Disaster #3: Damages for pain(t) and suffering

“A cute gal from the rock-climbing wall asked me out for a paintball game,” recalls Santa Fe, NM resident Chaz, 37. “It seemed unorthodox, but fun. Just before the end of the ‘battle,’ she opened fire on my ‘demilitarized zone.’ It was no mistake — she clearly took aim and then ran off.” Unsure if the fire was friendly or not, Chaz crawled off the course and hitched a ride back to town.

Disaster #4: Victor’s secret — half off!

“Things were getting a little hot and heavy, and I was ready to make a bold move,” says Sue, 27, of Denver, CO. “I undid the first few buttons of his shirt only to see pink lace. He was wearing women’s undergarments! I didn’t stick around long enough to see what other surprises awaited me.”

How one couple turned their disaster into a smashing romantic success:

“Our second date was at a very chi-chi restaurant on the Upper East Side,” remembers Manhattan resident Shari, 44. “We had just gotten our entrees when my date saw his godparents come in. He got up to greet them and somehow managed to knock over the table — onto me. There I sat in my best dress covered with filet mignon and asparagus tips.”

Tom cringes at the memory, adding: “I thought it was over.” The next day, he dispatched a dry cleaner to pick up the dress and sent a huge bouquet of flowers. The card read: You wore the filet mignon, but I’m the one with egg on my face. Sincerest apologies, Tom.

“How could I resist that?” Shari says. “I called him immediately and we’ve been together ever since.”

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How to square budget cuts, need for aging research

How to square budget cuts, need for aging research – A disease standoff may be brewing: How can Alzheimer's research receive more scarce dollars without cutting from areas like heart disease or cancer?

In one of the stark realities of the budget crisis, scientists' chances of winning research dollars from the National Institutes of Health for any condition have dipped to a new low.

"We are clearly not able to support a lot of great science that we would like to support," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told senators last week. This year, for every six grant applications that NIH receives, "five of them are going to go begging."

That's down from nearly 1 in 3 grants funded a decade ago, and 1 in 5 last year. And it comes before the looming fight over how much more to cut in overall government spending for next year, and where to make those cuts.

Already, a new report says one of the biggest losers is aging research, despite a rapidly graying population that promises a worsening epidemic of dementia, among other illnesses.

"Nobody wants to say Alzheimer's is worse than diabetes or heart disease or cancer," says Dr. Sam Gandy, a prominent neuroscientist at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Graphic shows projected number - Graphic shows projected number of people age 65 and over in the U.S. with Alzheimer’s disease; includes percent increase of the disease between 2000-2008 compared to other diseases

But "part of the problem now with all the pressure to cut the budget ... is that for Alzheimer's to get more, something else has to lose," adds Gandy. His own lab is scrambling for funds to study a potential dementia drug after losing out on an NIH aging grant.

The NIH pays for much of the nation's leading biomedical research. Republicans and Democrats alike have long been staunch supporters. But the agency's nearly $31 billion budget offers an example of the hard choices facing lawmakers, especially if they're to meet House calls for a drastic scale-back of overall government spending.

Consider aging issues.

The NIH spends about $469 million on Alzheimer's research, says a new report from the Alzheimer's Foundation of America that criticizes overall aging research as "a minuscule and declining investment."

About 5.4 million Americans now have Alzheimer's disease, and studies suggest health and nursing home expenditures for it cost more than $170 billion a year, much of it paid by Medicare and Medicaid.

NIH's Collins told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that there's a "very frightening cost curve." In 2050, when more than 13 million Americans are projected to have Alzheimer's, the bill is expected to reach a staggering $1 trillion. But he said that cost could be halved merely by finding a way to delay people getting Alzheimer's by five years.

Monday, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich jumped into the debate, saying that over the next four decades Alzheimer's could cost the government a total of $20 trillion. He suggested selling U.S. bonds to raise money for research rather than have the disease compete each year for a share of the federal budget.

"We are grotesquely underfunded," Gingrich said of health research dollars.

The Alzheimer's Foundation report goes beyond dementia, finding that the National Institute on Aging receives 3.6 cents for every dollar Congress sends to the NIH. Cancer and heart disease get nearly three to four times as much. Despite the tough economic times, the foundation has joined with other groups lobbying for an extra $300 million for the aging institute's overall work next year, to boost its budget to $1.4 billion.

Competition for today's dollars is fierce, with applications up 60 percent at the aging division alone since 2003. Aging chief Dr. Richard Hodes says last year, his institute couldn't pay for about half of what were ranked as the most outstanding applications for research projects. Still, he hopes to fund more scientists this year by limiting the number who get especially large grants.

What's the squeeze? Congress doubled the NIH's budget in the early 2000s, an investment that helped speed the genetic revolution and thus a host of new projects that scientists are clamoring to try. But in more recent years, economists say NIH's budget hasn't kept pace with medical inflation, and this year Congress cut overall NIH funding by 1 percent, less than expected after a protracted battle.

The Obama administration has sought nearly $32 billion for next year, and prospects for avoiding a cut instead are far from clear. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the issue, warns that under some early-circulating House plans to curb health spending, "severe reductions to NIH research would be unavoidable. That doesn't make sense."

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., pushed Collins to make the case that investments in medical research really can pay off.

Collins' response: Four decades of NIH-led research revealed how arteries get clogged and spurred development of cholesterol-fighting statin drugs, helping lead to a 60 percent drop in heart-disease deaths. Averaged out, that research cost about $3.70 per person per year, "the cost of a latte, and not even a grande latte," Collins told lawmakers. ( Associated Press )

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Tips to improve hair health and appearance

Tips to improve hair health and appearance - A dermatologist has offered tips on how you should take care of your hair. Dermatologist Zoe D. Draelos, MD, FAAD, consulting professor at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., discussed the most common sources of hair damage and tips to reverse damage and maintain healthy, lustrous hair.

“One of the most common misconceptions about hair is that it is alive, when in fact hair is nonliving and does not heal itself once it is injured,” Dr. Draelos said. “For this reason, once the hair is damaged it cannot heal itself except through new hair growth at the scalp.

“Women need to understand that the very things that they do to hair to make it appear beautiful, such as using hair dyes, perms and products that straighten the hair, will eventually end up damaging the hair’s structure and ultimately affect its appearance,” she stated.

To keep healthy hair looking its best, Dr. Draelos provided the following tips:

• The less you do to your hair, the better. Avoid over-styling or processing hair.
• Be sure to wash the scalp, which is where the oil is, and then let shampoo run through the hair. Shampoo is meant to clean the scalp primarily and can damage the hair if overused.
• Let how oily your scalp is, determine how often you wash your hair. If your scalp is oily, wash hair more frequently than if the scalp was drier.
• Conditioner should be used on the ends of the hair, not on the scalp, for best results.
• Pick a shampoo and conditioner based on your hair shape, such as curly or straight, and your hair condition, such as damaged, fine, or frizzy. These products don’t need to be expensive to work well for your hair.
• Wear a hat to protect hair from ultraviolet (UV) radiation. ( hindustantimes.com )

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Facebook Offers Tips On Being Popular

Facebook Offers Tips On Being Popular - Want to be the most popular person on Facebook? All you have to do is write longer status updates, talk about music and sports, don't be overly emotional, don't talk about your family, don't refer to time and use the word "you" a lot. That's according to a recent Facebook study that took a look at the way people write and react to status updates.

Facebook analyzed the word usage for about one million status updates from its US English speakers. The social network said all identifiable information was stripped from the status updates before they were analyzed, and Facebook team members did not read your status updates for the purposes of this study.

Once the updates were anonymized, the words were organized into 68 different word categories based on the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)--a text analysis software program created by James W. Pennebaker, Roger J. Booth, and Martha E. Francis. Some examples of word categories used in the study include past tense verbs, prepositions, religion and positive feelings.

Here's a look at some of the study's findings.
Angry Youth

Facebook youth are an angry, foul-mouthed, selfish bunch, according to the Facebook study. The company found that young people express more negative emotions than their elders, swear more and use personal pronouns such as "I" and "Me" more often.

Older Facebook folk, meanwhile, write longer prose in their updates, talk about others more often and pepper their language with more prepositions (to, in, at) and articles (a, the, some).

Morning People

Turns out, most folks on Facebook are morning people. The study found that status updates expressing positive emotions were highest in the morning, and became increasingly negative as the day wore on. So basically, we Facebook users--at least the U.S. English speakers, anyway--start the day in a good mood, but as the day goes on and the coffee wears off we become increasingly demoralized. How clichéd can you get?

The Blogger's Secret

Facebook's study also confirms something that bloggers and Fox News have known for years: negative comments produce more online activity. Sure, Facebook users might click the like button more often on updates expressing positive emotion. But Facebook found you can't beat negativity for user engagement, as dismal status updates garnered more comments than positive ones.

People are also less likely to comment on religious status updates, and rarely comment or like status updates referring to sleep. Confirming that it's best to avoid religious topics when in polite company, and that no one else you know is ever awake when you are dealing with a bout of insomnia. ( .yahoo.com )

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