Finances Archives - Youth Guide

Miles Grady

With such a title as “Miles Grady”, you might wonder what this is all about. We love to reach out to our fellow LGBT members of the community on a wide variety of issues, not just stuff involving “our issues”. Finance matters as well.

Since we have an international audience, I felt that it was important to warn you about the scams going on with Miles Grady and the Paymatters LLC group as a whole. This is a company that specializes in debt management and debt settlement, which means that they work things out with you and your credits. Unfortunately, they ended up hurting the public by including VAT, when they didn’t need to collect it in the first place. When you don’t inform the public of such a thing, we call that fraud.

It’s absolutely disgusting, and we wanted to reach out to let you know about it. Debt management is a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts, because debt hurts people. All people. Teens, young adults, older adults, children. It hurts even the children because when they are looking at how the adults handle their problems. So when you’re swindled by a debt management company, things start going downhill pretty fast.

There’s no reason to feel angry at yourself. If you’ve been scammed by Miles Grady and the rest of the PayMatters LLC team, the truth is that you can’t blame yourself. Remember that these are people with superior information of the law and the way finances work in general. When you are drowning in debt and someone tells you that they have a solution, it’s very tempting to listen to them. You feel like they have something good to offer you. You start thinking that there’s no need to worry or double check. We put a lot of trust in organizations to help us, of course.

There’s something important to be said about the process here. As long as you’re moving towards a better future, it doesn’t matter what people think. So you were harmed by a company. Fight back and don’t worry about who tells you to be reasonable. Don’t worry about who tells you to relax and take it easy. You are not going to take this lying down. You need to stand up for yourself — something that many members of the LGBT understand instinctively, better than anyone else I’d say. Good luck!

Filing Taxes – Here’s a Few Things that You Need to Know as a Gay Couple

By Webmaster

Trying to figure out taxes is hard enough if you’re in a regular heterosexual relationship. However, what happens when you’re in a gay relationship that’s pretty serious? What happens when you get married in a state where gay marriage is legal? You need to understand what type of taxes you’re going to have to face. This doesn’t mean that it’s easy for you to figure all of this stuff out. The truth is that the federal government makes same sex marriage still illegal at the federal level. States, however, can decide for themselves whether to make same sex marriage legal or not.

If you live in a community property state, this is even more difficult.

Are you totally lost? Well, we were too. At this point you might want to hire a Tax agent to take care of everything. If you can afford it, I highly recommend you to do so. You might also want to take some online classes. Who knows, that might help you a lot. Knowledge has always been a key to success, even in order to take care of your taxes. Plus, you can find a lot of programs online, which makes it much easier to take. You will be able to learn about the Federal, State and Local taxation laws, as well as the tax practice, procedures and standards. You might even want to changes career after that (Check out at the end of the article to find out more). However if you do not have the chance to afford an agent, we tried to explain everything you need to know for now below, and we truly hope it helps.

First and foremost, you need to realize that if you are going to file federal tax returns, you cannot check “married” or “married filing separately”. You are not considered married for federal tax purposes.

You also cannot use the head of household filing status, unless you have more than one dependent who isn’t your same sex partner.

What about children? Qualifying children can really change a couple’s taxes. However, with same sex couples you cannot both claim the child on your income tax returns. The IRS will treat the child as the qualifying child of the parent that has the child for the longer period of time. If this is a “tie,” then the IRS will grant the child to the parent with the higher adjusted gross income (AGI).

There is some good here — you can itemize your deductions or claim the standard deduction. You’re not blocked by what your same sex partner actually decides to do. This is different from married couples in the eyes of the federal government, who cannot get a standard deduction if their partner claims the itemized deduction.

Another piece of good news — both members of a gay couple who adopt a child can get the adoption credit. The maximum credit for each adopted child is $13,360. You cannot exceed that maximum for any reason. There are special needs adoptions that relax the rules a bit, but you still need to make sure that you’re documenting as much as possible.

It can be difficult to navigate what’s “OK” and not OK in terms of taxation when you’re a gay couple. Since you lose many of the marriage-provided benefits that straight couples enjoy, you can expect to pay higher taxes. What a shame. Going with an accountant that has experience with gay couples is always a good thing. Check it out today!

Also, as mentioned before, many programs have been developed to help you take online classes while having a full time job. If you are naturally curious to learn more, are looking to change career and simply upgrade your taxes skills, you might want to join the Master of Law in Taxation. This program will open the door on a high demand profession, allowing you to become an international legal advisor, governmental officials or simply figure out how to do your taxes for you and your partner without feeling completely lost each year.

How Do Same-Sex Couples Treat Their Tax Returns

By Webmaster

Trying to plan for a same sex partnership is already difficult, but the pressure of tax season makes it even worse. As much as you love being with your partner, you probably have a hard time dealing with the trouble brewing around your income taxes. Even if you live in a state that recognizes same sex marriage or domestic partnership, you will still have to deal with federal tax issues. The state tax returns are based off of federal tax return information. And thanks to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the government does not recognize same-sex marriage nationwide, and neither does the IRS. So this means that couples cannot file jointly, which is definitely making tax life complicated. Same sex couples have to shell out a lot more money to be protected, which takes away money from the shared household.

And community property states mean even more complications. Many couples fear their returns being rejected because all of the numbers don’t match up all of the time. The preparer has to use a mock joint federal tax return, then use the “mock” return to prepare a joint state tax return. There’s still the danger of things being rejected, but it’s a risk many couples just have to take.

Refunds are also not very quick. Most same sex couples have to file paper returns, which slows down their refund dramatically — some couples have even had to wait nearly 10 months just to get their return. That’s a very long time, and it can really add up when you’re trying to really get bigger things done in your life.

Everything seems higher — health insurance costs, tax preparer costs, and the time that you have to wait for your refund. However, there are some light at the end of the tunnel. This is a problem that’s spiraling out of control, and many advocacy groups are now fighting hard for change sin tax legislation. So there could come a day where taxes flow as smoothly as they do for heterosexual married couples.

Is it possible? Yes. Will change come slowly? It often does. Hang in there!

Is Gaming Hurting Youth Finance?

By Webmaster

There are many things that gaming has been associated to over the years, both in a positive light and in a negative light, and in recent years in particular gaming has been picked up in a huge way by a much wider audience, and particularly for those who haven’t been all that interested in gaming before too. At the same time, there has been a shift in gaming during this same period of time, and it is a change that many have started to deem as a huge problem, and something that has been pushing for change for quite some time. [Read more…]

Handling Your Finances As a Gay Teenager

By Webmaster

Going to college or even just going out into the real world can be scary for any teenager, but there are other issues at stake when you are a gay teen. Let’s face it — people are indeed going to look at you differently. You will need to make sure that you really go out of your way to ensure that you take care of things in a way that makes sense for your life and no one else’s. You don’t want to find that you can’t get into the apartment that you want or even the job you want because you don’t have money.

Thinking about your finances is something that matters because no one else will do it for you. In fact, a lot of people will assume that they can take advantage of you if you don’t have a specific plan — don’t give into this at all!

If you want to make sure that you are financially stable to the best of your ability, you’ll need to make sure that you build a plan that’s going to help you get that done. The last thing that you want to do is find that you have no plan and you don’t know of anyone that can actually. help you do that.

Here’s what you need to know.

If you’re going to be with someone, you should realize that they have no legal right to your money. Even if they say that they want to be with you and become domestic partners, that doesn’t mean that your money is suddenly their money. This is something that happens sometimes in the gay community, but it doesn’t have to happen to you.

If you are going to live with someone, you need to make sure that all of your expectations and guidelines are spelled out. If you try to just stick to the honor system, you will eventually find someone that will hurt you. That’s not a good thing at all, and you need to make sure that you focus on the bigger picture. No one is going to fight harder for you than, well, YOU!

When you don’t have any credit but you have a job, you shouldn’t be surprised to find that you will indeed find many credit offers circling around you. That’s not to say that they aren’t a good thing to check out. In case of an emergency, credit is a decent source to tap. It’s obviously not the best source to tap but it can be a good hedge in a hurry. It’s often better than payday loans, because the interest rate is a lot lower.

So, where do you go from here? Get a pen and paper and really write out the things that you want. Do you want a new car? Do you want a house? When do you want these things? The more detailed that you are, the more likely it is that you’re going to get the things that you want. There’s no reason in the world to think that you have to go without the things that matter to you — good luck out there and build the financial plan that meets YOUR needs!