The Monday Read

A sad tale

As I descend deeper into insane business (I wonder if the spelling of ‘business’ comes from ‘busy-ness’?) this week’s Monday Read has 2.5 links in it, which is a new record (low)…

Spoke to the Freakonomics Podcast team today about a topic they are considering, but unfortunately didn’t get an invitation to be on the show -maybe next time 😉

Please keep sending in the blog post suggestions -we’re building up quite a list of potential topics.

Here are this week’s links:

  1. Mister Money Mustache has a YouTube channel now.
  2. Nice write-up of Peter Thiel’s Zero to One.

Sadly that is it for this week. No new books either.

We should be back to normal in a few weeks. Thanks for your patience until then!

3 Responses

  1. Not really anything to do with the topic but useful nonetheless.

    Those Americans holding foreign accounts of over $10,000 must submit what the government calls and FBAR. Find the form here: https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/NoRegFBARFiler.html. Incidentally, the yen/dollar rate for 2018 is Y110.424. The form must be filed online separately from your taxes by April 15, 2019.

    1. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

      “The Act also mandates a maximum six-month extension of the filing deadline. To implement the statute with minimal burden to the public and FinCEN, FinCEN will grant filers failing to meet the FBAR annual due date of April 15 an automatic extension to October 15 each year. Accordingly, specific requests for this extension are not required.”

      Also, the FBAR is easy. Don’t be bamboozled by someone who wants to charge you for doing it, or who claims it’s an extra “service” when they do your taxes.

    2. Very timely reminder. I would add that you have some flexibility on the average exchange rate (e.g. Federal Reserve Board published an average rate of 110.40 some weeks ago) you just have to cite your source when filing taxes. Also agree with Captainspoke that the FBAR can be knocked out quickly and doesn’t need “professional” help. The hardest thing for me has been getting the addresses for the institutions holding the accounts because they keep changing.