Phil Recommends
FINANCE
Money Magazine
http://money.cnn.com/
Check stock quotes and track the day’s financial news.
Yahoo! Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/
My personal favorite financial site for stock research and information.
Charles Schwab & Co.
https://www.schwab.com/
I am including the sites for Schwab & Fidelity because they are the two top service oriented discount brokerages. Even if not an account holder, you can do a lot of free research on stocks, mutual funds and ETFs. This paragraph applies equally to both sites.
Fidelity Investments
https://www.fidelity.com/
Please refer to Schwab description above.
T. Rowe Price
https://individual.troweprice.com/public/Retail?src=CorpHome
If you want to invest in mutual funds directly with one company, I believe they are one of the finest. Many of their funds are rated 4 & 5 star by Morningstar.
NEWS
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
Complete financial news service offers personalized news and market quotes.
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
A good source for national and world news.
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/
Stay up-to-date with Bay Area news stories.
MSNBC – Microsoft & NBC
http://www.msnbc.com/
MSNBC is a good place for up to the minute news. Many of the news articles have audio and video clips.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security Administration
http://www.ssa.gov/
Social Security Administration administers retirement, Medicare, disability, and other benefits.
BUSINESS
U.S. Small Business Administration
https://www.sba.gov/
Programs and services to help you start, grow, and succeed.
California Secretary of State
http://www.sos.ca.gov/
All you need to know about business entities, Registered Domestic Partners, and a lot of other things. If you need to file your annual statement of information for your entity, you can find it here.
TAX-RELATED SITES
California State Board of Equalization
http://www.boe.ca.gov/
All information for sales tax and use tax can be found on this site
Alameda County Property Tax Lookup
http://www.acgov.org/propertytax/
If you do not know how much you paid and want to save some time in our office, you can look up your property tax here. Please be aware that the two payments you make in any given year are generally not the same.
Internal Revenue Service
http://www.irs.gov/
Home of the IRS on the web. The IRS has done an excellent job on their website. There is a plethora of information here.
IRS W-4 Form
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf
This form is used to determine the level of federal income tax withholding you want at your place of employment.
California DE 4 Form
http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de4.pdf
CA equivalent of a W-4. Not all employers will give you this and depending on their payroll provider, your CA withholding could be incorrect if employer is just trying to translate from a W-4.
New York State Dept. of Taxation
http://www.tax.ny.gov/
NY State tax site.
IRS Approved Charities
http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Search-for-Charities
A special section IRS has recently added to their site which allows you to search for an organization and confirm that it is approved and that your contribution will be deductible.
ENTERTAINMENT
Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/
Resource information about films, directors, actors, etc.
Rolling Stone Magazine
http://www.rollingstone.com/
A lot of excellent info on music, movies, TV, and Politics. Political reporting is very cutting edge.