Sean
Sunday, May 2, 2021
3 short talking points
- Tax efficiency – A financial process (set of transactions) is said to be tax-efficient if it is taxed at a lower rate than an alternative financial process that achieves the same end. An example of tax efficiency is retirement investing using a 401(k) rather than a standard brokerage account. Investing in a 401(k) is more tax-efficient because it is tax-deductible.
- Tax shelter – A tax shelter is a place to legally store money or assets so that current or future tax liabilities are minimized. A tax shelter is a tax minimization strategy, and shouldn’t be confused with the illegal practice of tax evasion. Examples of potential tax shelters include:
- Retirement accounts
- Certain insurance products
- Real estate investments
- Tax evasion – Tax evasion is an illegal activity in which a person or business deliberately avoids paying their true tax liability. It usually entails taxpayers misrepresenting the true state of their financial affairs when they file their taxes.
2 long talking points
- Apple has bought about 100 companies in the past six years, which works our to them buying a company every three to four weeks. Their strategy is to buy small small companies, often only employing a few people, primarily for their staff, who become employees at Apple. They have gone on acquisition shopping sprees picking up multiple firms in fields such as AR/VR, AI, maps, health, and semiconductors. They bought an app called Workflow, which is the basis for the Shortcuts app. They also bought Texture, which emerged as Apple News+, its news subscription service in the Apple News app. Even Siri, its voice assistant, was the result of a 2010 acquisition.
- The US is suspending almost all travel from India beginning May 4 due to the devastating Covid-19 surge in India. There has been a rise of more than 1 million in the past week alone. The travel ban won’t apply to US citizens or permanent residents and their spouses. India is also restricting incoming flights. Can people from the US travel to India? What about Indian citizens?
