Sacha Blumen has proposed using superannuation for home deposits and was interested in how the US handles withdrawing money from the
401K which is the American equivalent of Superannuation.
Tim Dunlop posted an entry on Blogocracy discussing Labor's policy for a first home buyer saving scheme. I do not like the first home grant at all and a separate saving scheme seems complex when most people already have a mandated default saving scheme in Superannuation. In the United States you can withdraw or borrow money from your 401k.
The 401K is named after the relevant section of the tax code and is one of several different tax advantageous ways to save. Others being the IRA and Roth IRA which either defer tax upfront or tax on removal/recovery. These make the process unnecessarily complex unfortunately. When I moved from being an employee to a consultant I had to roll over my 401K into a traditional IRA.
The 401K is done through their employer with a set percentage being taken out of an individuals paycheck and added to the 401K. Tax is deferred until the money is withdrawn from the 401k. Often, but not always, employers do matching contributions. 401K's are not compulsory either, they are optional, as is the level of contribution an employee and employer can make.
The penalties against withdrawing from the 401k are high to discourage people withdrawing money from the fund constantly. However the tax code defines hardship where penalties are waived or reduced. Hardships can include; buying a primary residence, avoiding foreclosure, tertiary education, medical expenses and a couple of others.
Since the 401k is employer guided, not all employers support those hardship clauses, though nearly all do. The amount withdrawn for hardship still comes under income tax for the individuals year of earning but there is no additional penalties such as the extra 10% tax for withdrawing prior to age 60.
Depending on the employer's plan the 401k can usually be borrowed against. There are limitations on the loan, such as it being a maximum of five years in length, but taking a loan against the 401k avoids the extra 10% tax penalty. It is intended to give short term access to the 401k money for emergencies. There are also tax penalties for not repaying the loan.
Prior to all the cheap credit of the last five years or so it was standard practice in the US to save up a down payment of 20% on a property as proof you could afford the loan as well as get better interest rates. My wife and I withdrew money from our 401k to buy our first place.
Superannuation should adopt the withdraw and borrowing aspects of the American 401k. It would be simpler than establishing new default savings accounts each time a party has a new policy.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
