Originally posted on Facebook - 2018-12-009-001 - Property and Offering Services to Others

This morning as I awoke, I started going over in my mind some of the courses which are offered at UWI ROYTEC, which relate to property (a.k.a. Real Estate) and how they can be linked to being considered as Continuous Professional Education for Accountants and Auditors with both of them operating under different standards.

Auditors use Auditing Standards and Accountants tend to use Financial Reporting Standards and then there are things which are of interest to both sets of professionals which may be taxation and filing of returns.

So, be that as it may, let me provide an example of a person, Em, who has property and who provides accounting services.

Now Em, does not belong to a professional body such as ICATT, however she is familiar with Peachtree, Excel and a few other programmes as we have seen her read some books on publishing during her lunchtime. 

However at that time, we did not have use for those services, as the department with which she worked, being the accounting department,  our days were filled with data entry, filing, and a few other things.

During one of the years in which we worked together, we started talking about expenses which could be allocated to a home office, some of which may be similar to home expenses or rather Em, had to listen to my talking to her about the topic whether she was interested in it or not....

So, with her providing accounting services from her home, Em, had a space which was designated for accounting, meeting with clients, thus some of the rent which she paid could be allocated to this cost under her business.

I assumed everyone at the place where we worked, paid rent wherever they lived or had a mortgage which we did not talk about as it implied wealth.

Then there were the other expenses, such as sugar, coffee, tea, milk, kettle and cups. One of the concepts which we covered was:

When you are buying for your home, buy one set of items for the office and one set for your personal use.

Keep both bills to show that you were not consuming the office supplies in your home.

Over time, assets could be added to the office, such as a refrigerator to store the milk.

Depending on the income of the business as if there was not much income coming in, then the purchase of a mini refrigerator could be questioned on the basis of source of funds we could look at the other assets.

For example I had a small laptop which could have been expensed in one year or depreciated over a number of years depending on the income which was being generated during those years.

Luckily, I "worked" part time at a Parish Office and with their understanding, I was able to access the office during hours outside of their regular hours to perform accounting duties.

During that time, at the Parish Office, I had air conditioned office space, access to a refrigerator, kettle and office supplies, hence it would have been difficult for me to claim those types of expenses at my home, electricity, internet, as most of my days were spent outside of home or out of the country in some instances.

However there were times when I used the home supplies for research and writing and it may have been permitted under those occasions.

So, for those of you with home offices how does your space, the cost and the value compare to your income?

Do you include in your costs, the maid or cleaning services, access of guests or the employees to the bathroom or the entry way or other common service costs?

For those with taxis or who generate income from the use of vehicles, do you pay rent for the space or pay for water rates as part of the business costs?

Let me know your thoughts, the end of a financial year may be approaching for some of you, so get an opinion and reduce your taxes....

Originally posted on Facebook 2018-12-009-002 - Paying bills and using properties

Back to Em and one of our long talks in the office. Em, had brothers who roomed in the same house.

At times, Em wanted to get the brothers known as being accountable for expenses and contributing to same.

So it was suggested that Em and her brothers would contribute to the amount of the bill and one brother would go and pay the bill, using either their Linx or cash.

At that time, we did not discuss the concept of her brothers having credit cards as there were areas with which we did not get into conversation, since revealing some of the details would have created an impression of her brothers which neither of us wanted to get into.

So it was agreed that at a statutory authority such as T&TEC, one of Em's brothers would pay the bill using his LINX and with the reimbursements being received before he paid the bill, he could:

Deposit those amounts into his account and

Be able to be identified as being resident on the property or a contributor to the costs of the property.

Now whether Em, wanted to have some of the costs of the home absorbed by her brothers or whether she wanted them to help her out with the chores, the brothers established themselves as being responsible since the bills would be paid on time as she would need the receipts with which she was familiar, being responsible for the filing in our department.

So, do you share the costs or the work with others so that they have date and times as being in places?

Some of us use checking the balance on our bank account as a way to check the time when we are in a place and for some of us it is a way to get some air conditioning on a hot day.

So what do you do?

Originally posted on Facebook - 2018-12-028-001 Cash Based Budgets and Action Lists

For those who are working with Cash Based Budgets and Action Lists, here is my approach to this concept using the reverse method as I would call it:

1 Analyse the amounts which are to be disbursed in each category of expenditure, according to denomination and with a total for each line. Total, 100's 20's 10's, 5's, 1's. (Some persons may need cheques)

2 Insert subtotals at intervals. This allows me to see where I am, as compared to where I think I should be. Thus, if I am listing amounts by activity, then some items which may be listed by date due, may be grouped together so that the activities can be done together, such as
I) Cash a cheque
II) Pay cc
III) ...

3 "Saving" aka Store funds temporarily - UTC: Bill, Transport,

4 Keep a small float and reduce the time spent in obtaining small amounts of cash.
In this category, cash is maintained in small amounts and is intended to last a work week or six (6) days or for an activity which may occur during the week, e.g. Electricity bill contribution, house contribution.

Note that amounts which may be small in value although they are not listed above are intended to build some practical skills with respect to math calculations.

Now, if my debt repayment is being met, as outlined in my proposal, what are the chances that I can get a Tax Saving Plan at some point in time?

Also, whether I should contribute more at some point in time, is up for debate as I may not be able to meet the full costs of these expenses should I continue reporting at this level of income.

However, the Excel spreadsheet which I was trying to insert, has not appeared as I would like it to, so I will try to paste it in the comment field if anyone is interested in using a spreadsheet to try out their skills and see how the figures compare to the hand written ones.

Originally posted on Facebook - National Budget & Taxation

Budget Statement 2016 T&T Page 36 Extract "BUSINESS FUND LEVY


Madam Speaker, in order to spread the burden of
adjustment across the society, I propose to increase
the Business Levy from 0.2 percent per quarter to
0.6 percent per quarter. This measure will increase
revenue by $327.5 million and will take effect from
January 1, 2016.

• GREEN FUND LEVY

Madam Speaker, for similar reasons, I propose to

increase the rate of contribution to the Green
Fund from 0.1 percent per quarter to 0.3 percent
per quarter. This measure will increase revenue by
$544.5 million and will take effect on January 1,
2016."

Originally posted on Facebook - Financial Planning Tip - 2017-12-005-01 Planning for Two months at a time

Today we received our first calendar for 2018 ( Ramco - gas distributor) and I started updating my "Planning Book" with:

A summary of the days in the months of the year

The dates of Public Holidays in Trinidad and Tobago,

The dates of Full Moon (good for planting persons, limers and such)

Months with the 5 Mondays in them.

Now Jan 2018 and Dec 2018 are months when there are 5 Mondays.

For those who work with a fixed income, in a month with 5 Mondays, they receive a little less take home pay as they pay an additional amount for National Insurance and Health Surcharge for that extra Monday which occurs in the month.

When persons forget that there is that extra deduction, coming right after Christmas, it can make a period when you are full of good resolutions extremely challenging...

So how about if you decide on at least 3 areas where you can plan for 2 months from now.. Some easy areas or stretchers are:

Food - Buy enough staples for an extra half of the month and put some of the Dec funds earmarked for that purpose into a UTC account specially designed for that purpose;

Switch to a "cheaper vegetable" or plant some greens from which you can use the leaves as the plant grows... It is not too late as you have about six weeks to mid Jan 2018 when the crunch really hits.

Buy some extra peas and beans and see how soups based on beans can fit into your life.

Transport - Buy some Bus Tickets in small denominations and see if you can use the bus a little more... The savings in gas can be placed in another UTC account.. That way, you can keep an extra backup...

Gift giving - At this time, if you have a list of gifts to give then consider delaying your gift giving into Jan 2018...

Again put the money into another UTC account where there are no charges and you can take out as little or as much as you need...

Now I know that there are many persons who are extremely disciplined with their cash, credit cards and ability to commit...

However for those who may wish to say no nicely, consider a safety deposit box with a bank where you can place most of your easy access stuff for a period of time. That way, you do not have to worry about where you placed them.

Originally posted on Facebook - Busting the Budget 2018-08-01-001

Having stuck to a purchasing plan when it came to groceries, I busted my budget at least twice and for what I thought were good reasons:

Buy one, get one free on Pastrami @ Massy Stores West Mall (container(s) with a plastic red cover about TT$43.00) and

Buy one, get one free on Ham @ Tru Valu ( container(s) with a plastic blue cover at about TT$34.00)

Now if I wanted, I could have easily asked for TT$10 in ham or pastrami at any one of these supermarkets and been a little more within my budget on both occasions.

However I decided that since I will be splitting the costs evenly, I get:

2 containers with covers,

Some accounts receivable,

Ham, potato salad and pelau, (I can leave the chicken for someone else),

Bread and ham or roti and ham.

Now at this time and over the next few months, as the containers are new, it is easier to:

Take a sandwich in my new container when I am running around or

Take lunch somewhere or

Separate food for several meals in my containers

Having broken my bowl which was my carry all, my easy storage item and knowing that I did not want to pay $40+ for a dish in which I can bake, at this time, I will:

Use the flat covers of baking dishes for pies, potato that is,

Change my food consumption to peas and rice while the ham lasts.

Originally posted on Facebook - 2018-12-028-002 Values which are Material or important to us

In this post, I am using values to mean dollars and cents and material is used quantitatively and qualitatively. So here goes:


Recently I started using Money Market Funds as a savings spot after:

~Not meeting the criteria to earn interest on my funds via other sources and

~Not being willing to expend funds on the transaction costs at this time.

Thus, seeing TT$0.83 as interest earned; was a material amount as it represents a change in where I was and I now had funds which could compound in a short space of time (3 months),

Now this interest was not earned easily. It meant:

~A huge adjustment towards my attitude towards accessing funds,

~Making a tough choice to access funds which I had put away to meet an upcoming bill and

~ Leaving other funds which I was supposed to use during the month, to earn possibly, $0.01 in interest and to continue to be held in other accounts so that I could hope that I could meet a payment.

Another material amount which I dealt with recently was a TT$13.00 deposit to an account to keep it active and to create a buffer to meet upcoming bank charges,

This account is now held at a Mall rather than in easy access of the neighbourhood and rather than incur transaction charges to go to POS to deposit the funds, I decided to:

Locate the branch and the ATM's for ease of access in the future.

I await the delight of the branch staff who now have to deal with a deposit of TT$13.00,. Yes, there were 3 singles as we call one dollar notes and I did not go up so that there was some extra for the account.

However, as I can be in the neighbourhood of an ATM which belongs to my regular bank, I can start making small deposits to my account in the hope that in time, the funds will reach a level to earn interest.

Yet another material amount which I am going to schedule at some point in time, is a weekly National Insurance payment for a part time person.

Now in reality, the salary bands for National Insurance start at about TT$200 per week, so in a month with 4 Mondays, the total contribution may reach about TT$120 or so.

However the benefits are:

~I can continue to prepare NI forms,

~ I can prepare TD4's at the end of the year

~ I can obtain a photo ID & proof of address of a person via an old TD4 or an old drivers permit. I can rely on a person's representations as to the class to which they belong, that is either Z or regular and document the conversation.

So, there are different types of materiality and what may be material today, may not be seen as material tomorrow. However, that story is for another day.