Company requires me to use my personal cell phone to work. Writeoff?
Not authoritative, but according to TurboTax: If your new cell phone acts as both your business and personal phone, you are only allowed to deduct the portion used for business from your taxable income. It’s important for you to hang on to your itemized phone bill and receipts to ensure that you’re deducting the right amounts and to keep records of your deduction. Since the usage you're describing sounds like a very small amount of the overall usage, it will probably be difficult to justify a business expense deduction.
"It is called ""Credit card installments"" or ""Equal pay installments"", and I am not aware of them being widely used in the USA. While in other countries they are supported by banks directly (right?), in US you may find this option only in some big stores like home improvement stores, car dealerships, cell phone operators (so that you can buy a new phone) etc. Some stores allow 0% financing for, say, 12 months which is not exactly the same as installments but close, if you have discipline to pay $250 each month and not wait for 12 months to end. Splitting the big payment in parts means that the seller gets money in parts as well, and it adds risks of customer default, introduces debt collection possibility etc. That's why it's usually up to the merchants to support it - bank does not care in this case, from the bank point of view the store just charges the same card another $250 every month. In other countries banks support this option directly, I think, taking over or dividing the risk with the merchants. This has not happened in US. There is a company SplitIt which automates installments if stores want to support it but again, it means stores need to agree to it. Here is a simple article describing how credit cards work: https://www.usbank.com/credit-cards/how-credit-cards-work.html In general, if you move to US, you are unlikely to be able to get a regular credit card because you will not have any ""credit history"" which is a system designed to track each customer ability to get & pay off debt. The easiest way to build the history - request ""secured credit card"", which means you have to give the bank money up front and then they will give you a credit card with a credit limit equal to that amount. It's like a ""practice credit card"". You use it for 6-12 months and the bank will report your usage to credit bureaus, establishing your ""credit score"". After that you should be able to get your money back and convert your secured card into a regular credit card. Credit history can be also built by paying rent and utilities but that requires companies who collect money to report the payments to credit bureaus and very few do that. As anything else in US, there are some businesses which help to solve this problem for extra money." "Do you know if you were approached by a carrier or a tower vendor?  Edit/addendum:  As someone in the telecommunications industry, I will say that you should NOT lease to a vendor who will sublease the space to the phone companies for a profit.  Depending on the availability of space, the population of the area, and the value of the location, and the amount and size of hardware to be installed, the rental pricing can vary wildly.  A cell site on a choice tall building in Chicago, NYC, Boston, LA, etc., can go for over $25000 per year (more in the case of rental of inside equipment room).  On the other hand, renting space on a church steeple in the middle of a low population rural town, with the equipment installed in a gated paddock at ground level, may only net around $1500 per month.  A ""small cell"" site, which is actually small enough to put on a lamp post or utility pole, can go for around $250-750 per month.  A turf contractor/tower vendor actually leasing a chunk of land to build a structure whose space will be leased out to telecoms should be expected to pay between $2500 and 8000 per month depending on the value of your site.  This value is determined by land form details like elevation, nearby tall forests (can the tower ""see"" over the tree line), terrain contours, and need (local population/tourist/traveler numbers).  Carriers prefer to lease from vendors rather than building their own structures, but roof top sites are a different story.  Carriers are generally more than happy to work with you to lease a portion of your tall building's roof.  FYI...  If they offer to compensate you for the electrical requirements if they cannot get their own meter in, don't worry.  A cell site uses less than 1000 watts, which translates to about $.10-15 per hour in most locations." If I have an iPhone for work purposes only (paid for by IBM through voucher or whatever) then I don't give a fuck what they tell me to do. If all I can do is run the phone app then fine, it's their money, I can always get my own phone.   But if I have my own iPhone and I volunteer to use it (instead of being out of communication from 5pm - 8am) and they turn around and tell me that a device that I bought and use for personal reasons is limited to whatever they decide to allow me to use, well forget that.   Edit: Also, this article points out that IBM is behind the times again. It blows my mind that a technology company didn't have a well thought out and communicate an external technology policy prohibiting the use of software like dropbox or gmail for work stuff. Really the policy hasn't been updated in 2 years? Did it only cover MegaUpload before? And now the cats out of the bag so they have to be heavy handed in their approach. I can also see why some of the outrage exists over the 'no cloud but ours'. Having been forced to work in a LotusNotes and Sametime office I can only imagine how awful IBMs corporate cloud offering is. You probably need a TN3270 emulator to access your files :D Cheapest is one thing.  You can absolutely shop in the market and find the lowest possible price.  I can think of three places to shop, each with an up and downside. I would think that what you really mean is the best price for the service.  Just like shopping for a car you have to decide what you need vs what is nice to have. Decide what features you need.  Do you need long distance?  Do you need caller id?  Do you need to call technophobic friends and family? Find out what you have available to you through associations.  Often schools, work or a club you belong to have deals for service discounts.  Look at your insurance plan or AAA membership for the crazy discounts. Decide what kinds of service will meet your needs. Buy the cheapest service. DO NOT ENTER A CONTRACT.  Even if the price is slightly lower.  At least not at first.  If you try out your service and love it, enter the contract if and only if the total price measured over length of the contract is less.  With cell phones especially, it is absolutely possible to save money buying month to month vs a 2 year contract.  Even when you buy equipment for full price up front. Ask for the bare minimum service from your local phone company. Because phone companies are often regulated monopolies, they might have a bare minimum level of service they are required to offer by the municipality.  They probably don't advertise it or push it, but it might exist if you call and ask.  You basically get a dial tone. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/local-local-toll-and-long-distance-calling Price is dictated by a government board, so you don't have to worry about shopping for deals Not the cheapest possible solution This is popular plan the youth oriented market, but more and more people of all demographics are using their cellphones only.  There are downsides (911, etc) and shopping for the best cell phone plan can be a full time job, but it does offer a way to save money by simply not having home phone service. Might be possible to score organizational discounts through work or groups you belong to Cellphones require batteries, and can go dead (not good for emergencies) Voice over Internet Protocol uses your existing Internet connection.  You can buy a cheap regular phone and plug it into the VOIP box and use it like any other phone.  VOIP can either be very inexpensive for all the features you get, or just plain inexpensive.  There are providers who sell a monthly service, yearly service or no service plan at all. (You buy a device and get service as long as you own the device.)  Taxes to the government are always due, so nothing is ever free. Sometimes the provider is just computer software, so a minimalist would like that. Emergency services are more reliable than cellular (if you follow extra steps to set them up) Can be confusing to buy.  Some require contracts, some special devices, some require a bit of technical know how to setup.  Be sure to evaluate the total cost of ownership when comparing prices Does anybody here have experience with company songs?  I just can't relate to this article.  I have no particular loyalty to my employer - but nor do I bear them ill will.  They compensate me fairly for doing work that I mostly enjoy.  I can't imagine being asked to sing a company song.  When I work extra hours, I do it for the love my craft, not for the love of my company.  Also, as a salaried employee, it is my job to complete certain tasks.  I understand that this may occasionally entail night or weekend work.  However, if this happens too frequently, it is my responsibility to escalate to my management so that my tasks can be prioritized.  Consistent and unending night and weekend work is just a recipe for burning people out and reducing overall long-term productivity. "I made a throwaway for this...   I work in IT for the government. I was tasked with finding a vendor that provided a particular kind of software. My bosses expected it would take me 4-6 months to source out companies, go through all the paperwork and process to work with them, try to get them to understand what we need, and them aid them in implementing their software on our stack.   Well, that seemed like an enormous waste of time (and ridiculously boring), so instead I wrote the software on my own time over the course of 4 months, built a subscription model around it, and incorporated a company. I've since sold the subscription based model to a number of other government bodies and clients. The government body I work for has around 250 employees, and I recently sold a subscription to a peer government body with over 1500 employees.   I built a free subscription tier that my current company uses so that i'm not taking any payment from them, to avoid any conflicts of interest, and built the entire project on my own time and resources.   The funny thing is, the software product I built easily beat out all the competitors in blind tests, and no one that I work for could ever imagine that I am capable of even being employed by such a company, forget building the whole stack and founding the company. In fact, all of upper management has been impressed with the software I ""found"", and how well it has worked... there has been a ton of positive feedback on it since it was launched.   I'm basically just sitting on this project (that is mostly self sustaining), until I can just cash out - which should be quite soon.   **Edit** to the people warning me what i'm doing is illegal, a few key points    - 1) The public sector can't legally profit from anything, my job is to limit cost, not make a profit... which leads to...    - 2) I'm not charging the government body I work for, it's a free implementation devoid of contract. I also ensured I do all the work on my own time, not company time. I live somewhere where most government employees work multiple jobs, so this isn't uncommon. In fact, my government body actually does often hire contractors who are also employed. So not only did I create the service on my own time, I gave it to my employer for free (other companies pay, of course)    - 3) I don't live in the US, things are different where I am. It is certainly not illegal, and I would even argue that (given this is the public sector) it is even somewhat ethical. My work saved my employer (the tax payer) a significant amount of money, which is a net positive. The service is of high quality, and I did not break any employment agreements or laws in the process.     - 4) I hired a lawyer to double check everything.     - 5) I absolutely am not in any way using any proprietary information for profit. I'm not even using my contacts through work as leverage for sales - everything so far has been cold calls and positive references from other clients. This was a key part of the project." "IT actually doesn't have the issue with the charg enumber thing because the Manhour allocation charge covers IT support so we don't bill our time out.  It is mostly just people who work direct for projects that pull the ""give me a charge number"" business. Also, it isn't everyone either. Mostly just the douchebags.  Additionally, a department policy like you suggest actually sounds like a great Idea. I think I like you. However, in a company our size, it would get abused more than it would be respected. Great programs and policies like that always get bombed in my company because of a a 20% group of dickbags." At my company, we set up a secondary WiFi for cell phones/personal devices that is segregated from our primary network. And most people have two phones, a work phone and a personal phone (although you are allowed to use your work phone for personal calls). It's just being smart - if you quit or are fired and you've only been using your work phone, say goodbye to your contacts.