The Sharing Economy Can Make You Money

Taxation of this Sharing Economy:

The Internet, along with its rising social media, has created some very new opportunities for people to earn extra cash. This ‘sharing economy’ theme is defined as this – Putting up some unused resource either for sale or for rent (like a skill, parked vehicle, or empty room). This might seem a bit minor at first, but according to one statistic, this sharing economy actually represents as much as a $110 Billion dollar market.

One community marketplace for finding or listing or booking lodging all over the world, is Airbnb. This is done on the Internet and by mobile phones. They carry more than 500,000 listings for 33,000 cities, in 192 countries worldwide.

The Sharing Economy
The Sharing Economy

The Benefits:

If a taxpayer rents out a property for less than 15 days a year, they don’t have to report that income or the expenses on their tax returns. This enables them to rent out property for short periods of time with NO TAX liabilities. In order to qualify for this exception, all you have to do is use your home personally for over 14 days, or for 10% of the overall number of days, that you rented it out to other people for a fair price.

Another Investment Possibility: Prosper and LendingClub

If you are not someone with a spare bedroom or car that you can share, but you have available cash sitting around, you can make some money this way. Peer to peer lending through sites like Prosper or LendingClub gives you the opportunity to earn some extra cash. They allow individuals to either lend or borrow money, with a certain degree of anonymity, using interest rates that are credit score based. Risk levels are also factored in. Both of these sites will allow investors to lend out their money in increments as low as $25.

Understanding Peer to Peer Lending

Peer to peer lending has boomed since its advent, as it has provided debtors a simple means of acquiring unsecured loans without having to pay high interest rates as with credit unions and local banks. Companies such as Prosper, Virgin Money, and Lending Club offer interest rates that could for as little as 6 percent, which is very convenient that most borrowers refinance personal loans and credit card debts into a P2P loan. If you wonder how these companies manage to offer such low interest rates even if the borrower does not have a good credit rating, it’s because they remove middlemen through their large margins and overheads.

Many peer-to-peer lending marketplaces employ the eBay design, which allows lenders and borrowers to agree on the loan without any third parties. The loan requests of borrowers could be listed through an online platform, where the desired amount, along with the loan duration and interest rate, is specified. After filtering numerous requests from borrowers, lenders then place their bids on loan listings matching their conditions for allowing investments.

Borrowers could create online profiles, where they could present their strong points financially and monthly expenses or incomes. There are a lot of lending sites that base the creditworthiness of the borrower through determining credit scores, analyzing DTI (debt-to-income) ratios, and calculating stability scores.

Registering with peer to peer lending sites is very simple and fast. You could request for loans for reasons ranging from student or business loans to travelling or marriage. In order to be funded of your requested loan, you should give justification to why you need the loan, which would be best backed by demonstrating your reliability or stability, although you could still be discreet and alter your profile’s privacy settings if you think it’s a little personal.

Peer to peer lending can provide you with several advantages for your hard-earned cash than banks and other impersonal institutions. In addition, this process makes the risk quotient associated with unsecured lending through distributing money to a series of borrowers. Clearly, markets with less risk quotients provide little returns, while those with higher risks offer better returns.

For people who find the traditional transaction processes of banks tedious or those who do not want to go through the legal responsibilities set by financial institutions, peer to peer lending may be a better choice to opt for, as it’s quicker and easier, and does not require you to pay back huge interests.

Andrew writes frequently about personal finance as well as issues effecting both consumers and small businesses, covering everything from savings to mortgages to Buys insurance deals online.

The Reverse Mortgage Disadvantages Are Whoppers

There are many retirees out there who are in a world of hurt.  The economy has all but killed the American dream of retirement.  Trying to work until they are forced out, many seniors find that they just cannot survive on the pittance of a pension that they receive and social security is little more than a stipend.  For this reason, many of them are telling their heirs that there is no such thing as Santa Clause.  It is starve or sell the home.  There is another option, however, that many are considering, the reverse mortgage.

Standing Toe To Toe

The reverse mortgages pros and cons, when stood toe to toe, look at first to be quite lopsided.  It really appears that the pros far outweigh the reverse mortgage disadvantages… at first glance, that is.  When you really get a good look at the reverse mortgage disadvantages, however, you begin to realize that the pros are fluffed up to look bigger by agents and companies that want the business.

A Bunch of Whoppers

The reverse mortgages disadvantages are whoppers, even if there are only a few of them.  You have to have reached the age of 62 to receive the loan.  The interest is really big and there are huge up front fees involved.  The reverse mortgages pros and cons have to be scrutinized with a magnifying glass to see the details, but they are right there in black and white.  On the pros side of the coin, however, you do no have to repay the loan as long as you live in the house that you cherish so much.

Better Than the Alternative

The worst of the reverse mortgage disadvantages is that your children will never get to live in the home or benefit from its equity.  This is really sad if any of the children wanted to move into the place once you were gone.  The reverse mortgages pros and cons are hard to digest, but it is better than the hardships that are its alternative.

Getting a Tax Refund Loan on the Internet

Sometimes, there are some people who are often hesitant to apply for loans over the internet for different reasons. Whatever their reasons are, I personally find online loan applications very convenient and easy. Over the internet is where I usually file for a tax return advance. Here, processing the loan will only take a few minutes and will never have me fill-out loads of paperwork as compared to offline loan applications.

Can you ever imagine what a hassle and how time-consuming applying for a loan offline is? You need to meet and talk to loan agents, fill out forms manually, and then prepare some necessary documents. By doing that it would take so much of your time. This is why I would always choose to apply for tax refund anticipation loan over the internet.

Convenience of Online Loan Application

Several lenders on the internet offer these kinds of loans at very low and reasonable interest rates. This means that using your tax refund checks as security for the loan will still let you enjoy the rest of the money apart from the nominal loan fees. There are no physical documents to be accomplished because all the processes during the entire application are done digitally. You will fill out forms over the internet and in just a few minutes you can submit these forms with just a few clicks of your mouse. Isn’t that convenient?

All the account information is secured because all the websites of the lenders are configured with security scripts. All the personal and account information are kept confidential. This is one of the good things about applying for tax refund advance online. There are also a lot of lenders over the internet with good reputation so finding one will never be hassle.

Fast Online Loan Application

Every thing is done digitally from filling out of forms to submitting the requirements for the loans when applying online. Requirements are very minimal because the lender for this kind of short-term loan will never ask for more security except for the assurance that the borrowers are anticipating a tax refund from the IRS.

In my own experience with some of the lenders for this loan, it only took me about less than an hour to accomplish all that needs to filled-out in the digital forms that are required by the lenders. They only asked a few personal and account information which I gave them and then waited from a few hours. In less than a day, a representative from the lender called me at home and announced the release of the tax refund advance amount to my personal bank account. It was really a convenient experience.