Sorry Dave, I have a headache.

Maybe on road trips. Try driving fifty miles each way,five days a week. Gets old fast and I wouldn't mind taking a nice nap on my way home.

I must say Id be interested what school teaches in that manner. Having done my CPA prep at a Tier 1 school I felt like no stone was left unturned teaching valuable accounting skills.

Not without appearing in U.S. court which I HIGHLY doubt he wants to do! Its a catch 22 that allows his business to be wrecked without recourse.

This story is about a day old...so if you are interested I hope it still gets to you.

Without knowing your situation it is hard to say as two primary employee stock option plans exist, NSO and ISO plans. Under an NSO, if given an option to purchase stock at a fixed price you, for all intents and purposes, own the stock but are able to delay paying taxes until you want to actually purchase even if an ascertainable market value exists that would reflect the value of your options. Suppose that options to purchase the stock are exercised at a price of $2.00 a share. If, at the time of exercise, the fair market value of your company stock is $3.50 per share, then $1.50 per share (the difference between the fair market value of the stock and the exercise price) would be treated as compensation income. If the stock is held for more than one year and subsequently sold for $5.00 per share, the additional $1.50 per share of appreciation can qualify for capital gain treatment. Depending on the options available to you this may be preferable than an immediate liquidation to cover tax costs as those shares could be held longer and receive capital gain treatment which it doesn't sound like yours currently are. So many situations exist it would take me hours to cover them all but it is a starting point to think about.

It is double taxation in this sense:

Situation 1: Make $100, all put into 401k, able to buy $100 in stock. Later, stock is sold and taxes paid - 1 instance of taxation.
Situation 2: Make $100, paid out to you via your check with 10% Income Tax. Able to buy $90 in stock. Later, stock is sold and taxes paid - 2 instances of taxation.

To answer your last question, I can't explain why the tax law is like it is in regards to heirs cost basis upon inheritance, just the potential savings it entails. On a side note to that though, you'll find that good financial planners warn about variable annuities as opposed to an investment like previously mentioned because that specific type of investment burns the heirs by making them pay ordinary income tax rates on the gain. Makes it a little crazier thinking that one financial instrument gets treated so differently than another. :)

As someone with a tax accounting background (but not currently working in that field) I'll do my best to add a little clarity to the issue.

Stock compensation will require an immediate tax payment ONLY if it is without conditions. If, for example, the company granting the stock to you puts a two year period in which you must maintain employment before you can sell the stock then you can avoid immediate payment of taxes and it gives you time to take advantage of some benefits (though it gets pretty hairy from that point trying to claim value reductions or reduced value for the limitation of liquidity).

In response to your other comment about being able to take a like amount of cash and buy the stock at fair-market value to achieve the same tax rate that is not true because you would expose yourself to double taxation (which is the reason most people put a before-tax investment into their 401k). If you received a million dollars in cash you would end up paying your income taxes on that amount and then capital gains taxes on the stock as well.

As a side note, if a company is trying to reduce tax liability themselves they can compensate employees in stock, treat it as an expense akin to cash payouts, and reduce their overall burden. Corporations always win on matters like that.

One of the real brilliant things these billionaires do is, after covering basic taxes, not sell the stock at all. If you don't sell it you avoid tax consequences. Larry Ellison "borrowed" against the value of his stock to buy his giant yacht and doesn't pay a dime in taxes. If he keeps them for his whole life he can pass them to his heirs and the income tax will never have been paid (heirs only pay a tax on appreciation of value since the death of the owner, often a fraction of the true value of the stock).

-Not To Be Taken As Professional Advice, Consult A CPA/Lawyer before making any decisions.-

People learned for Apple, for a piece of that giant market. Many people learned Java for the same reason.

If you look at what you have to program in to make an iOS app (Objective C), I am pretty happy with Google's choice.

Funny comment coming from someone who finds North Korea to be on similar ground to other nations in the realm of space exploration.

Sorry dear leader doesn't allow you internet access to see the great pioneers of future technology taking hold, building electric automobiles and space capable vehicles.

Dry Ice, formations made by super heated sand getting frozen.

http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/breakghost

But at least the US can ramp up several commercial space vehicles in short order. The falcon 9 appears to be "all systems go" and quite advanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Maiden_Launch

I think he was using micro USB as an example of a standard, in comparison to the apple dock connector.

This is a bit disappointing to me, or maybe I just don't see the point? I can't forsee the carriers opening up their network infrastructure, getting qualcomm to open up their chipsets, or a move to GSM for these major CDMA carriers any time soon. With these options not possible I don't know what the point of this is (feel free to enlighten me). In the mean time we see damage to the value of the Android platform on the two best networks for Android owners. 1) Sprint has been a major player in the Android ecosystem, one of the early adopters (right alongside T-Mobile) and having rolled out the most cutting edge hardware and largest bevy of phones ahead of the others. They are also the only partner network for Google Wallet in the US. 2) Verizon, while a much more closed network, offers the fastest and most widespread 4G LTE network. Android power users (with a little cash to burn) flock to Android phones on this network for blazing speeds on the go. A frequent techies commuter dream. On the other hand, we have T-Mobile who has been limping along with the (in comparison to the other networks) under powered variant of the GS2 and no plans for the Galaxy Nexus at this time. We also have AT&T who hasn't been doing too badly but does not roll out near as many Android devices as any of the other networks, has been rated worst in customer serivce, tends to focus on their iPhone sales, and has encountered frequent network capacity issues. Just doesn't make sense to me right now.

This is going to be a little bias as I ship a lot of packages but I think to compete with cheap imported goods from other nations we should subsidize package delivery in this country. When I can order something from China for $3 including shipping something is wrong. Shipping costs account for nearly 15% of my costs and in an economy where so many items are ordered online subsidies to shipping companies would benefit us all.

Did you get it off eBay? I've had some really bad parts from no name brands.

iOS most certainly does not ship on more devices. The iPhone is the most popular single device but Android is in use far more overall.

http://mashable.com/2011/09/26/android-sales-2-to-1-iphone/