Can I write off time spent learning my trade - Two-Man S-Corp
"I'm not sure what you mean by ""writing off your time,"" but to answer your questions: Remember that, essentially, you are a salaried employee of a corporation.  So if you are spending time at your job, even if you are not billing anything to a client, you are earning your salary. If there are costs involved with these activities (maybe class fees, a book purchase, or travel expenses), the corporation should be paying the costs as business expenses.  However, the logistics of this, whether the corporation writes a business check to the vendor directly, or you put the expenses on a personal credit card and are reimbursed with an expense check from the corporation, don't matter.  Your accountant can show you the right way to do this."
"Cart's answer describes well one aspects of puts: protective puts; which means using puts as insurance against a decline in the price of shares that you own.  That's a popular use of puts.  But I think the wording of your question is angling for another strategy: Writing puts. Consider: Cart's strategy refers to the buyer of a put.  But, on the transaction's other side is a seller of the put – and ultimately somebody created or wrote that put contract in the first place!  That first seller of the put – that is, the seller that isn't just selling one they themselves bought – is the put writer. When you write a put, you are taking on the obligation to buy the other side's stock at the put exercise price if the stock price falls below that exercise price by the expiry date.  For taking on the obligation, you receive a premium, like how an insurance company charges a premium to insure against a loss. Example:  Imagine ABC Co. stock is trading at $25.00.  You write a put contract agreeing to buy 100 shares of ABC at $20.00 per share (the exercise price) by a given expiration date.  Say you receive $2.00/share premium from the put buyer.  You now have the obligation to purchase the shares from the put buyer in the event they are below $20.00 per share when the option expires – or, technically any time before then, if the buyer chooses to exercise the option early. Assuming no early assignment, one of two things will happen at the option expiration date: ABC trades at or above $20.00 per share. In this case, the put option will expire worthless in the hands of the put buyer.  You will have pocketed the $200 and be absolved from your obligation.  This case, where ABC trades above the exercise price, is the maximum profit potential. ABC trades below $20.00 per share.  In this case, the put option will be assigned and you'll need to fork over $2000 to the put buyer in exchange for his 100 ABC shares.  If those shares are worth less than $18.00 in the market, then you've suffered a loss to the extent they are below that price (times 100), because remember – you pocketed $200 premium in the first place.  If the shares are between $18.00 to $20.00, you're still profitable, but not to the full extent of the premium received. You can see that by having written a put it's possible to acquire ABC stock at a price lower than the market price – because you received some premium in the process of writing your put.  If you don't ""succeed"" in acquiring shares on your first write (because the shares didn't get below the exercise price), you can continue to write puts and collect premium until you do get assigned. I have read the book ""Money for Nothing (And Your Stocks for FREE!)"" by Canadian author Derek Foster.  Despite the flashy title, the book essentially describes Derek's strategy for writing puts against dividend-paying value stocks he would love to own.  Derek picks quality companies that pay a dividend, and uses put writing to get in at lower-than-market prices.  Four Pillars reviewed the book and interviewed Derek Foster: Money for Nothing: Book Review and Interview with Derek Foster. Writing puts entails risk.  If the stock price drops to zero then you'll end up paying the put exercise price to acquire worthless shares!  So your down-side can easily be multiples of the premium collected.  Don't do this until and unless you understand exactly how this works.  It's advanced. Note also that your broker isn't likely to permit you to write puts without having sufficient cash or margin in your account to cover the case where you are forced to buy the stock.  You're better off having cash to secure your put buys, otherwise you may be forced into leverage (borrowing) when assigned.  Additional Resources: The Montreal Exchange options guide (PDF) that Cart already linked to is an excellent free resource for learning about options.  Refer to page 39, ""Writing secured put options"", for the strategy above. Other major options exchanges and organizations also provide high-quality free learning material:" "Brokers need to assess your level of competency to ensure that they don't allow you to ""bite off more than you can chew"" and find yourself in a bad situation. Some brokers ask you to rate your skills, others ask you how long you've been trading, it always varies based on broker. I use IB and they gave me a questionairre about a wide range of instruments, my skill level, time spent trading, trades per year, etc.  Many brokers will use your self-reported experience to choose what types of instruments you can trade. Some will only allow you to start with stocks and restrict access to forex, options, futures, etc. until you ask for readiness and, for some brokers, even pass a test of knowledge. Options are very commonly restricted so that you can only go long on an option when you own the underlying stock when you are a ""newbie"" and scale out from there. Many brokers adopt a four-tiered approach for options where only the most skilled traders can write naked options, as seen here. It's important to note that all of this information is self-reported and you are not legally bound to answer honestly in any way. If, for example, you are well aware of the risks of writing naked options and want to try it despite never trading one before, there is nothing stopping you from saying you've traded options for 10 years and be given the privilege by your broker. Of course, they're just looking out for your best interest, but you are by no means forced into the scheme if you do not wish to be." We have a lot of debt - at this point I don't even know how much This is your problem. Find out, and while you're at it find out how much income you have and also what your total expenditures are. You seem to be facing up to the problem, but not looking it in the eyes. You just need to take some time, and a little bravery, to get all your financial documentation together and lay it all out so you know what your situation actually is. Its not hard to do this, get a box and put all (old) bills and statements in that you can find, and at the end of a month, pick them out and write down the totals. Then work out your income and all that you've spent that month. This is known as a Statement of Affairs and there are calculators to help you. Then you can work out how much you need to pay off, and how much spare money you have to do this with. You can also start to cut down on all the really unnecessary stuff to increase your spare money that you can use to pay off the debts. Hopefully this won't take too long, and you can easily (if boringly) work the debt off over time. If it really is unsurmountable there are things you can do to help - firstly contacting your creditors and seeing what they can do to either part write off the debt, or freeze it as you pay it off (most creditors understand that if you're desperate enough to talk to them (!) then they may not see any of their debt back and are at least willing to help you pay them back). Generally though, it sounds like you are not in a total mess as you can pay it off. There are people in far worse states than you! But you really do need to be fully aware of your financial situation. Sit down and 'count your money' one lazy Sunday. There are links to help. Try the Motley Fool's guide, and its dealing with debt forum, both of which are very practical (if UK based, the Fool has a US site too, see for yourself if there's the same stuff on it, but this kind of thing tends to be fundamental to people of all nations). "I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were ""sunk"" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations:" Of course not. You had another job for which you earned money. What does the corporation have to do with it? Corporation is a separate entity from your person, and since it was in no way involved in the transaction - there's no justification to funnel money through it. Doing so may pierce the corporate veil and expose you to liability which you created the corporation to shield yourself from. Not to mention the tax evasion, which is the reason you are asking the question to begin with.... Yes, an overall $500 loss on the stock can be claimed. Since the day trader sold both lots she acquired, the Wash Sale rule has no net impact on her taxes. The Wash Sale rule would come into play if within thirty days of second sale, she purchased the stock a third time. Then she would have to amend her taxes because claiming the $500 loss would no longer be a valid under the Wash Sale rule. It would have to be added to the cost basis of the most recent purchase. This is a complicated question that relies on the US-India Tax Treaty to determine whether the income is taxable to the US or to India.  The relevant provision is likely Article 15 on Personal Services. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/india.pdf It seems plausible that your business is personal services, but that's a fact-driven question based on your business model.  If the online training is 'personal services' provided by you from India, then it is likely foreign source income under the treaty.  The 'fixed base' and '90 days' provisions in Article 15 would not apply to an India resident working solely outside the US. The question is whether your US LLC was a US taxpayer.  If the LLC was a taxpayer, then it has an obligation to pay US tax on any worldwide income and it also arguably disqualifies you from Article 15 (which applies to individuals and firms of individuals, but not companies).  If you were the sole owner of the US LLC, and you did not make a Form 8832 election to be treated as subject to entity taxation, then the LLC was a disregarded entity.  If you had other owners, and did not make an election, then you are a partnership and I suspect but cannot conclude that the treaty analysis is still valid. So this is fact-dependent, but you may be exempt from US tax under the tax treaty.  However, you may have still had an obligation to file Forms 1099 for your worker.  You can also late-file Forms 1099 reporting the nonemployee compensation paid to your worker.  Note that this may have tax consequences on the worker if the worker failed to report the income in those years. The IRS' primary reference Pub 519 Tax Guide for Aliens -- current year online (current and previous years downloadable in PDF from the Forms&Pubs section of the website) says NO: Students and business apprentices from India.   A special rule applies .... You can claim the standard deduction .... Use Worksheet 5-1 to figure your standard deduction. If you are married and your spouse files a return and itemizes deductions, you cannot take the standard deduction. Note the last sentence, which is clearly an exception to the 'India rule', which is already an exception to the general rule that nonresident filers never get the standard deduction. Of course this is the IRS' interpretation of the law (which is defined to include ratified treaties); if you think they are wrong, you could claim the deduction anyway and when they assess the additional tax (and demand payment) take it to US Tax Court -- but I suspect the legal fees will cost you more than the marginal tax on $6300, even under Tax Court's simplified procedures for small cases.