How Tax Deductions Work

"You can deduct that." "You can write that off." "Deductible expenses."

You've probably heard these phrases a hundred times. But what do they mean? What are tax deductions and how do they work? And why are tax deductions so important?

The purpose of tax deductions is to decrease your taxable income, thus decreasing the amount of tax you owe to the federal government. There are hundreds of ways to use deductions to reduce your taxable income, but many people don't know about them or know how to take advantage of them. According to H&R Block, over 4 million people don't claim the tax deductions for which they're eligible.

To find out how you can maximize your deductions, it's best to talk to a tax professional, such as a tax prepare or lawyer. It's their job to know about tax deductions, and they can guide you to use deductions efficiently and legally. The earlier in the year you learn about possible deductions, the easier it will be to take advantage of them. This article will teach you the basics so that you'll have a good understanding of the deductions that may apply to you.

A lot of people think that deductions are just for the rich and famous. That's not so. A wealth of tax deductions and credits are available to middle- and lower-income taxpayers. The biggest dividing line in the world of deductions is itemizing. Whether or not you can itemize plays an enormous role in the world of deductions.

In this article, we'll find out what itemizing is, exactly. We'll also discuss how to claim deductions on your federal income tax return, even if you don't itemize. Finally, we'll go through a number of examples of deductions to help you save on your taxes every year.

Home / Money / Personal Finance / Financial Planning How do stock options work?

Job ads in the classifieds mention stock options more and more frequently. Companies are offering this benefit not just to top-paid executives but also to rank-and-file employees. What are stock options? Why are companies offering them? Are employees guaranteed a profit just because they have stock options? The answers to these questions will give you a much better idea about this increasingly popular movement.

Let's start with a simple definition of stock options:

Stock options from your employer give you the right to buy a specific number of shares of your company's stock during a time and at a price that your employer specifies.

Both privately and publicly held companies make options available for several reasons:

• They want to attract and keep good workers.
• They want their employees to feel like owners or partners in the business.
• They want to hire skilled workers by offering compensation that goes beyond a salary. This is especially true in start-up companies that want to hold on to as much cash as possible.

Go to the next page to learn why stock options are beneficial and how they are offered to employees.

Understanding Health Insurance

In 2006, almost 43 million Americans had no health insurance, which translates into nearly 15 percent of the American population. This might be attributed to the fact that health care costs can be very expensive, and the cost of even the most basic care is steadily rising. Today, the amount Americans spend on health care is four times as much as the government spends on national defense. So it's no surprise that along with increased health care cost comes increased health insurance premiums. Employers typically bear the brunt of the expense for health insurance, but individuals are paying more and more each year as well. In 2006, employer insurance premiums increased 7.7 percent, twice the rate of inflation.

But what exactly is it you're paying for? Where does your monthly premium go if you don't get sick or go to the doctor? What do you do if you're not working or you're self-employed? What's the difference between all of the various plans there are to choose from? The maze of information you have to wade through about claims, co-pays, co-insurance,deductibles and more is enough to make your head swim.

In this article, we'll break down the main types of plans and explain their differences. Keep in mind that there are always variations in individual plans, but we'll at least give you a head start when you're trying to select the right plan and coverage for you.

How Employee Compensation Works

If you own your own business, your employee compensation and benefits package can be the deciding factor for many potential employees. And it's not just the money. To make your company competitive and attractive to job candidates, you have to offer an exceptional total benefits package. That makes it a very important part of your business planning and management process if you hope to hire (and keep) top employees.

So how do you make your benefits package attractive and competitive without financially jeopardizing the success of your business? How do you get the best deals on insurance? What perks can you offer that won't cost you additional money, but will mean a lot to your employees? Are stock options the way to go? How do you set salaries? What benefit costs are tax deductible? There are probably 100 more questions popping into your head as you start thinking about how to set up and manage these policies.

In this article, we will answer some of those questions and direct you to resources to help you find answers to the ones we don't get to here.

First-million story #7 - Invest a little and let it grow

Neil McCarthy started investing in the stock market when he was 34, in the depths of the 1970s bear market. "It got scary for a while," he recalls, "but my philosophy was to invest a little bit and let it grow. When stocks went down, I would buy more."

McCarthy contributed the maximum to both his IRA and his 401(k) at Union Carbide, where he started as a research chemist and got a boost from a 100% employer match. He and his wife, Maureen, who worked as a teacher for several years, continued to save for retirement, even while they were paying for their two sons' college educations.

Their big payoff came with the 1990s bull market. "Everything kept adding up and compounding, and then it doubled in three or four years," says Neil. "It was $500,000, and suddenly it was $1 million."

The McCarthys invested mostly in stock funds, but avoided technology companies. "People were going wild with Internet stocks, but it didn't make sense to me," says Neil, who did financial analysis when he worked in marketing for Union Carbide. "When I saw P/E ratios of 200 to 300, I thought it was absolute nonsense."

Their practical investing style preserved their millionaire status when the market crashed. They also benefited from a bit of fortuitous timing when Neil, who spent the last 14 years of his career working for BP Amoco, retired in 2000. He took his retirement payout as a lump sum and invested part of the money in an immediate annuity just before interest rates started to fall, getting a bigger payout than if he had chosen the company's pension annuity.

Neil, 65, and Maureen, 61, have $1.3 million in savings, which they haven't had to touch. Counting the annuity and Neil's pension from his 20 years with Union Carbide, they have a net worth of about $2.1 million. And that doesn't include their house in Roswell, Ga., valued at about $525,000, which is almost paid off.

The McCarthys are classic stock-market millionaires, reaping the benefit of steady investing through bull and bear markets. But one piece of simple advice made all the difference: "If you wait to save out of what's left over from your salary, it's not going to happen. Pay yourself first."

How Stocks and the Stock Market Work

For a new investor, the stock market can feel a lot like legalized gambling. "Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets! Randomly choose a stock based on gut instinct and water cooler chatter! If the price of your stock goes up -- and who knows why? -- you win! If it drops, you lose!" Isn't that why so many people got rich during the dot-com boom -- and why so many people lost their shirts (not to mention their retirement savings) in the recent recession?

Not exactly. But unfortunately, that's how many new investors think of the stock market -- as a short-term investment vehicle that either brings huge monetary gains or devastating losses. With that attitude, the stock market is as reliable a form of investment as a game of roulette. But the more you learn about stocks, and the more you understand the true nature of stock market investment, the better and smarter you'll manage your money.

The stock market can be intimidating, but a little information can help ease your fears. Let's start with some basic definitions. A share of stock is literally a share in the ownership of a company. When you buy a share of stock, you're entitled to a small fraction of the assets and earnings of that company. Assetsinclude everything the company owns (buildings, equipment, trademarks), andearnings are all of the money the company brings in from selling its products and services.

Why would a company want to share its assets and earnings with the general public? Because it needs the money, of course. Companies only have two ways to raise money to cover start-up costs or expand the business: It can either borrow money (a process known as debt financing) or sell stock (also known asequity financing).

The disadvantage of borrowing money is that the company has to pay back the loan with interest. By selling stock, however, the company gets money with fewer strings attached. There is no interest to pay and no requirement to even pay the money back at all. Even better, equity financing distributes the risk of doing business among a large pool of investors (stockholders). If the company fails, the founders don't lose all of their money; they lose several thousand smaller chunks of other people's money.

Perhaps the best way to explain how stocks and the stock market work is to use an example. For the remainder of this article, we'll use a hypothetical pizza business to help explain the basic principles behind issuing and buying stock. We'll start on the next page with the reasons why a restaurant owner would issue stock to the public.

How to Make a Million Dollars

Millionaire Success Stories

Here are two stories of ordinary people who became millionaires. If it could happen to them, it could happen to you:

Neil McCarthy

Research chemist Neil McCarthy started investing in the stock market when he was 34, in the 1970s. Today he has a net worth of about $2.1 million. When stocks went down, he bought more. He contributed the maximum to both his IRA and his 401(k) and his employer matched 100 percent. That's truly free money -- no risk. The big payoff came during the 1990s bull market when his stock doubled in three or four years, suddenly reaching $1 million.

He avoided technology companies because it didn't make sense to him. He saw price-earnings ratios of 200 to 300 and "thought it was absolute nonsense." This practical investing style saved his millionaire status when the market crashed. When he retired in 2000, McCarthy took his retirement payout as a lump sum. Just before interest rates started to fall, he invested part of the money in an immediate annuity and earned a bigger payout than if he had chosen the company's pension annuity.

His number one piece of advice that made all the difference is this: "If you wait to save out of what's left over from your salary, it's not going to happen. Pay yourself first" [source: Million Dollar Ideas].

Sheri Schmelzer

In 2005, Sheri Schmelzer was a 40-year-old stay-at-home mom when she decided to get creative with her family's multiple pairs of Crocs shoes. The plastic slip-on shoes have ventilation holes across the top and Schmelzer, armed with clay and rhinestones, created mix-and-match designs that would fit in the holes.

Schmelzer came up with the idea just for fun and credits her husband with seeing the sparkly designs' potential. Within weeks, the two had set up a Web site for their new company, Jibbitz, and had started selling the Croc add-ons to the masses, tapping into a home equity loan for capital. Before long, the accessories were sold in stores, too. By August 2006, Jibbitz sales had reached $2.2 million. And, just three months later, the Schmelzers sold their company to Crocs for $10 million, with another $10 million promised if the accessories hit a specified sales goal."If you have good customer service then your customers are going to talk about you," said Schmelzer. "We didn't do any marketing or advertising at all; it was all organic growth" [