Does being on the board of a bankruptcy-declaring company affect my credit rating?
The answer to your question is governed by the structure of the company and your ownership or lack thereof in the business.  Australian business can be structured the same way U.S. ones are, as a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or company.  If you are only on the board and have no equity, you cannot be affected.  You must have some amount of equity in the business to have any chance of being affected. If the business is a sole proprietorship, then the single individual running the business is personally responsible for all debt and the inability to pay obligations would result in personal bankruptcy which would in all likelihood affect your credit score (it would in the U.S.). If it is a partnership, then anyone holding stock in the company is likewise personally responsible for a portion of the debt, and can be subject to bankruptcy and credit score implications. If the business is structured as a limited liability company or a corporation, a stakeholder's personal finances are separate from the business's and their credit score cannot be affected.
"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.cato.org/publications/research-briefs-economic-policy/do-corporate-taxes-hinder-innovation) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Are these two objectives at loggerheads? Does changing corporate tax policy also affect future firm innovation? Such debates have become particularly prominent today when many governments face a trade-off between austerity - which requires more attention to government balance sheets - and future growth.  &gt; My administration released a framework that lowers the corporate tax rate and broadens the tax base in order to increase competitiveness for companies across the nation.  &gt; Given the tax deductibility of R&amp;D expenditures and the existence of R&amp;D tax credits, as well as the plethora of sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that some firms adopt, many policymakers doubt that raising the corporate tax rate actually hinders innovation in the real world.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6l4vtd/do_corporate_taxes_hinder_innovation/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~158649 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **tax**^#1 **innovation**^#2 **corporate**^#3 **firm**^#4 **change**^#5" "I am interested in seeing what happens to your report after you test this, but I don't think it's possible in practice, would not affect your credit score, and also wouldn't be worth it for you to carry a negative balance like that. Having a -1% credit utilization essentially means that you are lending the credit card company money, which isn't really something that the credit card companies ""do"". They would likely not accept an agreement where you are providing the credit to them. Having credit is a more formal agreement than just 'I paid you too much this month'. Even if your payment does post before the transaction and it says you have a negative balance and gets reported to the credit bureau like that, this would probably get flagged for human review, and a negative credit utilization doesn't really reflect what is happening. Credit utilization is 'how much do you owe / amount of credit available to you', and it's not really correct to say that you owe negative dollars. Carrying a negative balance like that is money that could be invested elsewhere. My guess is that the credit card company is not paying you the APR of your card on the amount they owe you (if they are please provide the name of your card!). They probably don't pay you anything for that negative balance and it's money that's better used elsewhere. Even if it does benefit your credit score you're losing out on any interest (each month!) you could have earned with that money to get maybe 1-2% better rate on your next home or car loan (when will that be?).  TLDR: I think credit utilization approaches a limit at 0% because it's based on the amount you owe and you don't really owe negative dollars. I am very interested in seeing the results of this experiment, please update us when you find out!" "I'm assuming that by saying ""I'm a US resident now"" you're referring to the residency determination for tax purposes. Should I file a return in the US even though there is no income here ? Yes. US taxes its residents for tax purposes (which is not the same as residents for immigration or other purposes) on worldwide income. If yes, do I get credits for the taxes I paid in India. What form   would I need to submit for the same ? I am assuming this form has to   be issued by IT Dept in India or the employer in India ? The IRS doesn't require you to submit your Indian tax return with your US tax return, however they may ask for it later if your US tax return comes under examination. Generally, you claim foreign tax credits using form 1116 attached to your tax return. Specifically for India there may also be some clause in the Indo-US tax treaty that might be relevant to you. Treaty claims are made using form 8833 attached to your tax return, and I suggest having a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) prepare such a return. Although no stock transactions were done last year, should I still   declare the value of total stocks I own ? If so what is an approx. tax   rate or the maximum tax rate. Yes, this is done using form 8938 attached to your tax return and also form 114 (FBAR) filed separately with FinCEN. Pay attention: the forms are very similar with regard to the information you provide on them, but they go to different agencies and have different filing requirements and penalties for non-compliance. As to tax rates - that depends on the types of stocks and how you decide to  treat them. Generally, the tax rate for PFIC is very high, so that if any of your stocks are classified as PFIC - you'd better talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about how to deal with them. Non-PFIC stocks are dealt with the same as if they were in the US, unless you match certain criteria described in the instructions to form 5471 (then a different set of rules apply, talk to a licensed tax adviser). I will be transferring most of my stock to my father this year, will   this need to be declared ? Yes, using form 709. Gift tax may be due. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). I have an apartment in India this year, will this need to be declared   or only when I sell the same later on ? If there's no income from it - then no (assuming you own it directly in your own name, for indirect ownership - yes, you do), but when you sell you will have to declare the sale and pay tax on the gains. Again, treaty may come into play, talk to a tax adviser. Also, be aware of Section 121 exclusion which may make it more beneficial for you to sell earlier." "Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators, and you, the student borrower, are their legal prey. They look at you and think, ""food."" My friend said she never pays her student loans and nothing has happened.  She's wrong. Something has happened. She just doesn't know about it yet. Each unpaid bill, with penalties, has been added to the balance of her loan.  Now she owes that money also. And she owes interest on it. That balance is probably building up very fast indeed. She's playing right into the hands of her student lender. They are smiling about this. When the balance gets large enough to make it worthwhile, her student lender will retain an aggressive collection agency to recover the entire balance. The agency will come after her in court, and they are likely to win.  If your friend lives in the US, she'll discover that she can't declare bankruptcy to escape this. She has the bankruptcy ""reform"" act of 2006, passed during the Bush 43 regime, to thank for this. A court judgement against her will make it harder for her to find a job and even a spouse. I'm not saying this is right or just. I believe it is wrong and unjust to make university graduates into debt slaves. But it is true. As for being paid under the table, I hope your friend intends on dying rather than retiring when she no longer can work due to age. If she's paid under the table she will not be eligible for social security payments.  You need sixteen calendar quarters of social security credit to be eligible for payments.  I know somebody like this. It's a hell of a way to live, especially on weekends when the local church feeding programs don't operate.  Paying people under the table ought to be a felony for the business owner." "As Mr. Money Money Mustache once said: IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT, YOU SHOULD FEEL LIKE YOUR HAIR IS ON   FIRE Student loan debt is different than credit card debt.  Rather than having spent the money on just about anything, it was invested in improving yourself and probably your financial future.  This was probably a good decision. However, unlike most credit card debt, if you ever have to file for bankruptcy, your student loans will not be erased.  They will follow you forever. Pay your debts off as quickly as you can.  While it may be true that ""long-term return on the stock market is about 7%"", you cannot assume that this will always be the case, especially in the short term.  What if you had made this assumption in 2007? To assume that your stocks will beat a 6.4% guaranteed return over the next few years is not really investing.  It's gambling." I am not a financial expert, but I'm pretty sure that it DOES matter.  When you take out a mortgage on a home, you are using the home itself as collateral. If you fail to make payments on that home, and go into foreclosure, the bank takes possession of your home. With that understanding, imagine you borrow $500K for a purchase of a home. If the cost of the home was $1M, the bank will have more confidence they can recover the money they lent you (by selling the home should it go into foreclosure) than they would if the house was only worth $700K. In effect, the larger your down payment, the easier it would be for the bank to recover their money should you go into foreclosure early on. As far as 50% overcoming a low credit score... that's a very open-ended question. There are just too many factors at play to give a simple yes or no answer to that. "I always hesitate to provide an answer to ""how does this affect my credit score?"" questions, because the credit agencies do not publish their formulas and the formulas do change over time. And many others have done more reverse engineering than I to figure out what factors do affect the scores. To some extent, there is no way to know other than to get your credit score and track it over time. (The credit report will tell you what the largest negative factors are.) However, let me make my prediction. You have credit, you aren't using a large percentage of it, and don't have defaults/late payments. So, yes, I think it would help your credit score and would build a history of credit. Since this is so unusual, this is just an educated guess." I didn't mean to imply that bankruptcy is a magical process. I was using that to clarify my use of conservative vs. aggressive. To be fair, I guess it can vary depending on your perspective. If you're taking the perspective of the debt-laden company, then yes, erring on the side of a higher value could be defined as aggressive. If you're taking the perspective of someone looking to acquire business, I would say erring on the side of a higher value is conservative.   if the debt is trading at, say, $0.20 on the dollar, then yes, I can agree that the market value of the debt is likely more representative of the book value. I guess I wasn't thinking of that type of extreme example. A more common scenario I'd encounter would be a) the debt trading at maybe $0.95 on the dollar and b) taking the perspective of someone looking to invest in the equity, which is why I'd say that it's more conservative to use the higher value, which is the book value.  So I'm persuaded that using market value of the debt can make sense in some cases, but I would still argue that the book value might make more sense in other cases.