What is W-8BEN form?

You need to fill up this form if you have a trading/brokerage account in the US. If you don't fill this up, the super efficient IRS (Internal Revenue Services) will hunt you down like a dog... :P Just kidding, basically, if you don't fill this up, the IRS can hold up to 30% of your dividend, interest, royalty, etc. Basically , this rate is what the IRS can withhold for a foreign person. If you filled this up, you are excluded from this withholding provided you are a non-resident alien. US residents and permanent residents do not need to fill this form as they are always subject to taxes.

Non-resident alien - generally means person that is not staying for a US for a long duration and has permanent residency outside US.

Every 3 years you need to fill up and resubmit this W-8BEN form. It is either thru electronically or using the manual way to sending the form to the US. (I hate this method but Thankfully, the stamp fees have been paid by for)

Reading the W-8BEN FAQ spreadsheet can be confusing for 1st time as the language used is tax and accounting centric.

Here is a summary what to fill:

Part 1:

Line 1: Fill up your name according to your account. Note that US naming convention is "First Name , Last Name".

Line 2:  Leave it blank as you are filling it up as an individual

Line 3: Pick individual

Line 4: Your address where you claim to be resident and paying tax. Put your Malaysian address here.

Line 5: Fill it above if Line 4 is not your mailing address.

Line 6: Leave empty if you don't have social security number aka the identity card number for the US.

Line 7: Optional. Leave blank. No need to fill our LHDN info into it.

Line 8: Account number for your trading/brokerage account. I put down my name also to be more complete. The reason is that I have multiple US trading account hence they need to know which account that I am filling.

In theory , I believe that you only need to submit one W-8BEN for all your account you have since you are practically giving them the same duplicate info. But i think because the brokerage firms does not sync-up the W-8BEN forms between their rivals, hence the need to do multiple jobs.

Part II

Line 9a,b,c,d,e & Line 10 - Leave untick as Malaysia does not have a tax treaty with US. And the rest does not apply for a non-resident alien and individual account holders.

Part III

You don't need to tick this as you like the average foreign US stock buyer do not dabble in interest swaps aka "notional principal contract" (such a fancy name). Unless if you are a private hedge fund manager?? 

Part IV - Just sign your autograph at the bottom and affixed a date and THE END :)

SEND the W-8BEN to your US brokerage firms if manual posting is needed.

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

I never really take notice of the tagline used by fellow blogger & engineer, ChampDog until today... 

" To be financially independant by the age of 40"

Now I been thinking hard on how to achieve it since I am just a normal employee aka working for someone else. Day in day out working hard, which i don't think can make me a millionaire or at least financially independent when I reach retirement age. These days having a RM1 million is not enough to close shop and retire early with the rising cost of living. Everything is rising.. Only your salary will not increase dramatically to cope.

People say that breaking the middle income trap is hard. I guess we just need to break out of the comfort zone and strive to reach a higher echelon by doing things different. 

"If you do the same thing day in and day out, you cannot expect it to produce a different result"

What are you thoughts on how to achieve "financial independant by the age of 40? "

- Is it through investment route like what ChampDog is doing? 

- Business?

- Buying lottery?

- Or marrying a rich spouse :P haha

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

Here is the list of EPF approved funds under the CIMB Wealth Advisors. Since this is not a Public Mutual Fund, remember you can get very very low charges if you buy them under CIMBCLICKs thru CIMBCLICKEINVEST. Click on the link here to see the step by step to do this.

It is an easy and CHEAP way to buy mutual funds under CIMB and other funds besides Public Mutual. See here. Link.

Equity

1)      CIMB Islamic DALI Equity Growth Fund

2)      CIMB Islamic DALI Equity Theme Fund

3)      CIMB Islamic Small Cap Fund

1)      CIMB-Principal Equity Aggressive Fund 1

2)      CIMB-Principal Equity Aggressive Fund 3

3)      CIMB-Principal Equity Fund

4)      CIMB-Principal Equity Fund 2

5)      CIMB-Principal KLCI-Linked Fund*

6)      CIMB-Principal Small Cap Fund 

Mixed Assets

4)      CIMB Islamic Balanced Growth Fund

5)      CIMB Islamic Balanced Fund

7)      CIMB-Principal Income Plus Balanced Fund 

8)      CIMB-Principal Balanced Income Fund 

Sukuk/Bond

6)      CIMB Islamic Sukuk Fund

9)        CIMB-Principal Bond Fund

10)     CIMB-Principal Strategic Bond Fund

Money Market

7)      CIMB Islamic Money Market Fund

11)     CIMB-Principal Deposit Fund

**All funds with the word "Islamic" as part of their naming convention is Shariah compliant.

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

When I got a call from bank, it is usually those never give-up cold calling receptionists trying to get me to do balance transfer on my credit card. 

So, I am the at the verge of saying "I am not interested", before the receptionist mentioned that there is an ongoing contest by public bank. At first, i thought I was about to being told that i was the lucky winner. It is very rare that the bank will call up the customers just to tell them about a contest. (It might be a scam or etc so i decided to hang on.) Looks like Public Bank still don't really fully utilize Facebook or Twitter to spread the word around.

As i found out, looks like the caller is genuine. To enter the contest, you must at least have an average monthly RM1,000 in Public Bank savings or current account. Each RM1000 is entitled to 30 draws to win monthly prizes.

The contest will run from 15 March 2011 to 30 September 2011.

Just go to this link for more details. The prizes and conditional is quite tier like. If you analyze these contest, the marketing guys is really clever at Public Bank.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Public Bank encourages you to put as much money to get the most draws (30 draws for RM1,000 savings account) at the start of the campaign both. Not surprisingly, the prize for April is 10 winners x RM6,800. Fast forward to September where each RM1,000 in saving account will only entitle you for 10 draws only.  If you were so gungho to put your nest egg from April to September, you might get the lowest possible return in attempt to strike a jackpot. Putting money in FD has better returns than this. Nevertheless, you never know that you might the lucky one strike the prize.

2. On the long run, this contest is actually encouraging more people to open a savings or current account at Public Bank. The stratagem employed by Public Bank is actually.....

Public Banks wants to tap into the saving/fixed deposit market (very stable revenue stream and to boost their cash reserves), as most probably the housing/consumer loans  market are getting dried up as property prices in Malaysia reached bubble like scenarios. It might get risky if they continue to aggressively loan out money to house buyers who already have like 2-3 properties or using his/her spouse name to buy more property. 

Nowadays, I see valuer are valuing properties as over-valued for secondary market home buyers. This rating usually don't augur well to the customer's chance to borrow money from the bank if the customer is not that financially strong.

Well, above is just my ramblings..there is no conspiracy theory involved here. Public Bank like any bank is in the business of making money not charity/throwing money away :P

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

Never in my wildest dream that I saw a real movie making in production during all my travels throughout the years. At the film shooting site, we were looking around to get a glimpse for any famous actor/actress that might be there. The scene were a little strange as all I see is that the cameramen crew were shooting/or hanging around a helicopter landing site, and I don't see any actor/actress there!?

Nevertheless, I managed to get to know and have a short chat with one of the stars of the movie. She is ..... Brenda Londoh. Spotted her while she was covering her head up with a thick scarf, presumably trying to avoid a sun tan on her very very fair skin!!. (I already got a sunburn for this trip due to my love of the beaches) At first we were reluctant to approach her.., but what the heck right, it is not everyday that we managed to spot a celebrity :P 

To our nervous relief, she is a very down to earth and friendly girl!!. She told us that she is a singer for the film's opening music soundtrack. (Maybe she is there to shoot a music video?!, hmm..i am not sure.) We snapped a few personal photos of her for remembrance of our trip. (who want to miss a chance to take photo with a lenglui celebrity...hehe :P)

Below is my picture of her, and some of the pics from her Facebook fanpage.

My Picture of Brenda Londoh

The Girl Next Door

Striking Pose

I did a little google research and found out that she is an upcoming local singer. Here is some profile info.

Her real name is Brenda Anura Lundo Jumin a Rungus-Dusun hailing from Kudat, Sabah. So Brenda Londoh is her stage name. She is under the recording company , eRama , a local Sabahan company. Age is unknown...lol..I think she is still very young as she like Naruto!!! (yeah!! a fellow anime lover)

Not much info 'yet' on her on the internet sphere, but with a beautiful voice it is a matter of time before she is on the radar screen of the music industry or magazines. She just released a single that managed to reach top of Sabah charts. 

Curious why the single is called "Mulut Longkang  Brenda" as she has bee stung lips like Angelina Jolie :P

Her music:
Click to listen.

P.S Brenda Londoh, I hope I manage to get your bio correct and do say hi in my blog if one day you managed to chance upon it.  Next time I meet you in the future (not sure when?? lol), I want to ask for your autograph!! :P

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

From my milestone tab, you will notice the reason why I cash out my entire Public Mutual Fund. (see link here). I think i forget to mentioned that I still have some funds from the money I extracted from my EPF. Hence, those funds bought with EPF money cannot be withdrawn out, its either switching or return the money back to EPF.

So I did some switching. The fund that I switched into, must also complied with the funds approved by EPF. See my post here for the complete list. http://www.knowthymoney.com/2011/06/public-mutual-funds-approved-by-epf.html

The fund that I switched into is Public Balanced Fund (PBF). It is considered a conservative fund but with a special feature aka INSURANCE FEATURE--> Group Term Life & Personal Accident with Total and Permanent Disability insurance coverage!!!

Below is the statement from a letter i got after i done the switching.

The amount of insurance coverage is equal to the number of units invested in the ration of RM1 insurance coverage for each unit subject to a maximum amount of RM100,000 per unitholder. The coverage is valid for a holder of a minimum of 5,000 units at any point in time.

Public Balanced Fund NAV = 0.7455

KnowThyMoney: What the statement above tells you that it is the number of units that determine the value of your coverage. Lets say I have 10,000 units , it means I have RM10,000 of coverage. :) (It is not the total value of your units that determine the value of coverage)

Hence with PBF trading at NAV=0.7455, you are getting a cheap discount for every RM1 protection that 1 unit of PBF provides. Do you get what i mean here?!  

For example, now by buying 1 unit of PBF at NAV=0.7455 , I get RM1 protection.

What is good about this feature is:

-->Don't need to get a medical checkout to get this coverage.

--> For older person, you would get hammered to the high premium due to old age.

Note: There are a few funds with these feature for Mutual Fund, do search it out and ask your agent!! They are paid to answer your questions.

Cons:

Public Balanced Fund might not provide a higher return as compared to more aggressive natured funds based on equity, etc. 

Nevertheless, it is my standby place to get back into equity based funds when the market tanks while getting this beneficial feature of insurance coverage.

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

Honestly I never seen a USD50 bill until recently I went to a money changer. I am cautious as the bills that he gave me was crisp new. I did some googling and found that the bill denomination is valid. Even my American contacts acknowledged that they seldom seen this bill before, some heck never saw it in their entire life.

Here is the USD50 bill for real?? The gentleman on the bill is General Ulysses, the hero of the US civil war (a victorious war hero) and a former President. (not a very illustrious career as President)

Read More >>

loading..

Share |

Some sidetrack, as KnowThyMoney was super duper busy these past few week with work.

Here is the finalist for Miss Malaysia ICT 2011 (sponsored by Kapersky antivirus), that i saw in Facebook. Here are the finalist. I am going to list them according to my TOP 3 favorite picks to win the title. Go and vote for them if you wish.

Long Haired Cutie Face

Devilish Stats For Someone So Young

Seductive glances

Looks shy

Girl next door

Click below to see more eye candy.

Read More >>

loading..

Read more »

Share |