Top Man essays

Top Man essays In the story Top Man; JR Ullman proves that Nace is the Top Man. He went on a dangerous journey on K3. He will to give his life to save another. Nace also have determination to go on to the mountain that took his friend. Can you image what the setting in this story must be like? Just think, mid 20th century, a huge mountain, K3, exceeding 28,000 feet, shutting out half of the sky. A mountain with no other mountain higher in British India, one of highest in the surrounding area. Sweeping glaciers running up the mountain, with enormous snowdrifts. What seems like 100 vertical cliffs, and one sharp and jagged spine. You could almost feel the soft snow and it hear the avalanches. It was cold enough to take off your nose. Then there is a grope of advancers with Osborn and Nace it was obvious of the tension between them. Nace and Osborn are the main characters that are racing to the top of K3. The internal conflict is who is the top man/the leader. K3 is the external conflict. The rising actions of the story starting when Osborn saw the mountain first, then argued if they should use their sleeping bags for the first night. Nace has also came within 500 feet of the peak of K3, but had to turn back. Another rising action is the location of the camps. Camp one and two are on a glacier, camp three is also on the upper end of the glacier, Camp four is 2,000 feet farther up the mountain from camp three, and camp six is 26,500 feet from the base of the mountain. A storm moves in and it pass over in three nights. There are two groups; the first group consists of 11 people Nace, Johns, eight porters and myself. The second group consists of ten people Osborn, Wittmer and eight porters. Osborn has been finding new shortcuts. Osborn left in the middle of the night by himself to try to make it to t he top. Nace and myself caught up to Osborn the next day, they found him stan ...

Capital Gains or Losses Tax

There are certain sales made by Dave in the financial year 2015 and the task at hand is to calculate the capital gains or losses arising from it. He received 850,000 from the sale of his two storeyed house in St. Lucia which was purchased for 70,000. This means that he made a gain of 780,000 in this sale if we don’t account for the expenses incurred in the commission expenses. However, the proceeds received by Dave from sale of his residence at St Lucia is fully exempted from capital gains tax because as per ATO proceeds from a sale of personal home are fully exempted if the individual has been living it for the duration for which he/she has owned the property and the property hasn’t been generating any assessable income. The proceeds received from the forfeiture by a buyer is also application for exemption under capital gains as it as part the capital proceeds from the disposal of that asset which was exempted due it being a main residence of the taxpayer. Hence even t he forfeited amount wont attract any capital gains tax liability. The painting is not eligible for exemption as neither was it purchased under $500 nor was it acquired before 16 th September,1995 hence the net capital gains are taxable. So the net gains of 110,000 are to be taxed under capital gains tax. The figure of 110,000 dollars is the selling price less the acquiring price which are 15,000 and 125,000 respectively. The taxable amount arisen due to the benefit provided can be calculated using either of the two methods prescribed by the ATO i.e. indexing method or the discount method whichever yields the lowest value subject to the constraint that it satisfies the conditions laid down to use a particular method for discounting. Since the asset has been held for more than a year and since the asset was acquired before September,1999 he can apply the indexation method to calculate the discount. The indexation factor is given by CPI (Consumer Price Index) in which the sale was made divided by the CPI for the quarter in which the initial investmen t was made. CPI values were obtained from the website of ATO and the indexation factor calculated to the fourth decimal point is obtained as 2.6952. Since the sale was made in 3 rd quarter 1985 the indexation factor for this was 39.7 and that for the sale was 2 nd quarter 2015 for which the indexation factor was 107.Hence the cost of the painting would be increased by that factor to get the capital gain. Hence now capital gain would be 84,572 as the cost for calculating capital gain would be 40,428 dollars which is 15,000 multiplied by the indexing factor. But the discount factor gives a better result as under the discount method the capital gains are discounted by 50% hence under this method capital gains would be 55,000 dollars which is the net gains of 110,000 discounted by 50%. Since the discount method gives the better result which in this case is the lower value we would use this method to calculate the capital gain at 55,000 dollars.   The capital gain can be reduced only after all the capital losses for the income year have been applied. It is imperative to mention here that net losses from collectables can only be deducted from capital gains made from collectables, not from other capital gains. The capital loss on the boat boat which was purchased in 2004 would be calculated using the other method which would give the highest possible result of 50,000 dollars. The amount is obtained by subtracting the sale price of 60,000 dollars from the acquisition cost of 110,000 dollars. For the capital gain tax on the shares, the other method will be used. The cost base would include the cost price of shares and also the brokerage paid on the shares and the stamp duty. Hence total cost would be 71,000 dollars and since the shares were sold for 80,000 dollars the total capital gain is 9000 dollars. It’s explicitly mentioned that the interest charges are not to be included in the cost base. The net capital gain or loss is given by total capital gains for the year less the capital losses for the year further brought down by any discounts allowed. Hence, the net capital gain from sale of painting and shares is 64,000 dollars or 93,372 dollars depending on the method used for the painting. Net capital loss from sale of boat is 50,000 dollars Hence net capital gain of 14,000 dollars or 43,372 for Dave for the current year. Since Dave has had a net capital gain of 14,000 dollars he can use this to deduct the net capital loss carried forward from the previous year which amounts to 50,000 dollars. His net capital loss would now stand at 36,000 dollars as the capital gain this year would be deducted from the carried forward capital gain loss. If Dave has a net capital loss it would be added to the capital gain loss carried forward from last year. Hence now his total capital loss would stand at 50,000 dollars and the additional capital loss incurred this year Capital loss cannot be used to offset the tax liability and would be carried forward and can be used to deduct it against capital gains in the coming years. To calculate a car fringe benefit, an employer must work out the taxable value of the benefit using either of the below mentioned methods as per ATO. Even if a different method was used in the previous taxable year, the method to be used this year would be determined by the method which gives the lowest value. However, if the required documentation for the operating cost method (for example, log books) have not been kept then the statutory formula method must be used. The operating cost method requires the company to maintain a log book which specifics the usage of car in terms of business and non-business use. Since this has not been maintained the statutory method of valuation would be used to evaluate the taxable value of the fringe benefit arising from the use of the car. Under the statutory formula method, the steps involved are estimating the cost of the car, estimating the statutory rate and determining the number of days the car was used for private purpose. The taxable value is then given by A*B*C/365 where A is the base value of the car, B is the statutory rate and C is the number of days in use of the car in a given assessment year. The statutory rate for calculating the fringe benefits tax would be 20% since ATO prescribes a flat tax rate of 20% for calculating the benefit provided if kilometres travelled are less than 15,000 kilometres. In fact, for any benefits provided after 2011 the tax structure is a flat rate of 20%. The car held by Emma for a 11 month period which constituted 336 days. During the 11-month period or the 336-day period from 1 st may to 31 st March no days would be deducted in determining the number of days of usage of car as ATO clearly lists that annual maintenances are to be listed as days when it is available for use and whenever it is garaged at the employee’s house would also be not deducted, in this case when Emma was interstate would not be deducted, Keeping the above factors in consideration the tax liability would be calculated at 20% of the cost price of the car which is 33,000 and it would be factored by 336/365. Hence 6075 is the taxable value. A company is said to provide a loan fringe benefit if it extends to its employee a loan and charges no interest or a low rate of interest. Any interest rate lower than the prescribed or the benchmark interest rate qualifies as a loan fringe benefit. The  benchmark interest rate  for the Fringe Benefit Tax for the assessment year ending March 31,2015 is given as 5.95% by ATO. Hence for the given scenario since the loan is provided by Periwinkle to Emma at 4.5% it qualifies as a loan fringe benefit. The taxable value of a loan fringe benefit is the difference between: Since Emma uses the loan for purchase of a holiday home and for lending it to her husband the entire amount is to be taken into consideration. For the given scenario the taxable value of the loan fringe benefit is the difference between the two amounts 29,750 dollars and 22,500 dollars which is 7,250 dollars. While the former is the rate of interest charged by the company to Emma, the latter is the interest to be paid in accordance with the statutory rate in 2015. There is no specific information regarding cheap sale of its own products to its employees and neither is it under any exempt category but since the price Emma paid for it is anyways more than the manufacturing cost we exclude it from our scope of taking out the fringe benefits provided to Emma. Hence the total taxable value of the fringe benefits is the loan fringe befit of 7,250 dollars and the car fringe benefit of 6,075 dollars which is a total of 13,325 dollars. Hence the total fringe tax liability would be 6262.75 dollars as the fringe benefit tax is 47%. Had the 50,000 been used by Emma herself instead of being lent to the husband to buy the shares it would be eligible for deduction. ATO prescribes that the taxable value of a loan fringe benefit may be reduced in accordance with the 'otherwise deductible' rule, subject to the constraint hat the investment is made by the employee himself or herself rather than an associate which was the case in first place. Putting it simply it implies that the taxable value would be reduced to the extent to which interest payable on the loan is, or would be, allowable as an income tax deduction to the employee. We look at an example to understand the implications better. Supposing an employee uses a loan from his/her company wholly to invest in interest bearing financial instruments, then the interest that he would have to pay the company is deductible fully for tax purposes. Hence what the mentioned scenario implied is that under this rule the taxable value of the fringe benefit provided would be ze ro, irrespective of the rate of interest charged by the company on the loan. Therefore, where the otherwise deductible rule applies, the taxable value of a loan fringe benefit is: Hence for the given scenario the taxable amount under loan fringe benefit would be reduced by the differential interest paid on 50,000 dollars since this would now be deductibe for tax purposes. This would mean that the loan fringe benefit would now be 6525 dollars instead of 7250 dollars and the total taxable amount under fringe benefit tax would be 12,600 dollars. ATO, 2016. Capital Gains Tax. [Online] Available at: https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Capital-gains-tax/ ATO, 2016. Fringe benefits tax. [Online] Available at: https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Fringe-benefits-tax-(FBT)/

Communication Game Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Communication Game - Essay Example ses into words when acting so, before the game starts, you can give them time to plan on their secret codes like showing the ring, middle and point fingers up to denote ‘W’ for word and making a fist to tell the group members that they are to guess for a phrase. Sticking out the point finger can mean the first word or syllable and raising two fingers mean the second word or syllable, and so on. No actor is allowed to make sounds or let his/her group mates read his/her lips, that is the lips of the actor should never move. Pointing to a thing to give away an answer is to the teacher or host’s discretion if it is allowed or not. The time limit for each actor should be given. Three minutes is ideal or can be adjusted to cater to all participants at a given period of time. If there many participants, you can lessen the time for each participant to act. To reach the aim of improving verbal communications of the participants, guesses can be required to be in sentences and not just words. For example, instead of just saying ‘word’, the guessers should say, ‘Is this a word?’. Appropriate punishments must be explained before the game starts to avoid misunderstandings during the game like, if an actor is caught moving his mouth, the group will have deductions from their score. Scoring should also be well-defined. For instance, a group guesses correctly in two minutes and one second to three minutes, they will have a score of 1, if they correctly guess the answer in one minute and one second to two minutes, they will be credited 3 points but get 5 points if they answer correctly in one minute or less. More punishments can be imposed depending on the discipline the teacher or host would like to draw from the participants. After giving all the instructions and rules, the game can start with one actor from each team playing alternately until all have acted. The actor picks a strip of paper where a word or phrase is written. The actor is the only one allowed

An examination of the efficacy of Behavioral Finance Essay

An examination of the efficacy of Behavioral Finance - Essay Example 383) -The weak form hypothesis asserts that stock prices already reflect all information that can be derived by examining market trading data such as the history of past prices, trading volume, or short interest. Numerous papers have demonstrated that early identification of new information can provide substantial profits. Insiders who trade on the basis of privileged information can therefore make excess returns, violating the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. Even the earliest studies by Cowles (1933,1944), however, make it clear that investment professionals do not beat the market. It has already been stated that an efficient market is one where the prices of securities fully reflect all available information, but then what are the sufficient conditions for capital market efficiency? In an idealized world, such conditions would be The debate about market efficiency has resulted in thousands of empirical studies and literature attempting to determine whether particular markets are in fact ‘efficient’, and if so to what degree. In fact, the majority of studies and researches of technical theories have gone to the result that it is difficult to predict prices. Moreover, the random walk theory indicates that price movements will not follow any trends and so by knowing the past price movements it’s not possible to predict the future price movements. All these state that markets are in fact efficient. However, researchers have also exposed many stock market anomalies that seem to be inconsistent with the efficient market hypothesis. Trading strategies seem to be widespread among fund managers and there is little evidence that they would generate excess returns in practice (Malkiel, 2003). Evidence proof that the use of trading strategies might be closely related to behavioural anomalies. It is impossible to consistently make abnormal returns using a

English literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

English literature - Essay Example He finds his job degrading with long working hours and little time for sleep and rest. His boss is a woman and â€Å"It was funny to have a white woman for a boss in a plant like this one† (Petry n.p.). His lack of interest in work often infuriates his boss. Their stern and hostile behavior makes him angry and it gets hard for him to resist the urge to beat her white employer, saying that he would never beat a woman. Further in the story, Mr. Johnson encounters a white girl working at a coffee shop who refuses to serve him just because he is black; it could be solely Mr. Johnson’s thinking that made him to think that every white person hates the black person. However, he resists his anger with his heart pounding to beat her but somehow; he learns to control his angers and walks out of the coffee shop. Anne Petry further explores how the bad sense of humor that Mae possesses makes Johnson to think that he is a black man with no respect in the society. She jokingly calls him a â€Å"nigger† (Petry n.p.). Her bad sense of humor provokes him to take out his anger, frustration and humiliation he encountered the entire day on her. The story projects that how the evils of racism was a bitter part of reality in American society in 1946. The story revolves around two main themes such as racial discrimination and domestic abuse. The domestic abuse that Mae faced was the outcome of the psychological aggression that was brought into Mr. Johnson due to the humiliation he faced by the hands of two white women. He hated to raise his fist against a woman but his aggression let him do that but this led to the death of his family’s belief, not to hit on any female. Anne Petry explains how our bottled aggressions and frustrations make us to do things that we consider immoral. Johnson is a colorful example of a man who fails to control motions unwinding his sheets of anger and frustration on his

International Security in the Global Era Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International Security in the Global Era - Essay Example of invulnerability of the basic vital interests of the global community, the interests, for protecting of which it will rather start the war, than look for compromises. In other words, global security is a strategy, directed at providing the vitally important interests of the global community. This is the classical realistic approach to the issue. (Buzan 2003, p. 11) It should be reminded, that from the viewpoint of political realism, international relations always exist in the shadow of the war. Thus, the main means of achieving and protecting international security in realism and neorealism is supposed to be force (in its military and political dimension) and the main instrument for guaranteeing international security – is the balance of forces. (Lawrence 1998, p. 49) There also exists and is developed the understanding of the international security based on the liberal-idealistic paradigm. One of the central notions of this paradigm is the idea of international cooperation, based on universal values and general human interests. From these positions, the threat is presented by those participants of international relations, which refuse from cooperation and break the generally accepted moral and legislative norms. Collective security is the only way for overcoming the security dilemma, which goes through creation and strengthening of international institutions, further improvement of international law and following the generally accepted moral norms. (Buzan 2003, p. 44) The notion of collective security is the main and the most operational in the total security complex. Collective security is the situation, under which all members of certain community refuse from applying force in relations with each other and agree to give any assistance to each participating state, which has been attacked by any state of the mentioned community. International security at present time should meet a number of conditions, which are very difficult to accomplish. They may be

The challenges, benefits and trade-offs of expanding the reach of Essay

The challenges, benefits and trade-offs of expanding the reach of international law - Essay Example The essay will discuss what is done normatively, touching upon individual rights and responsibilities at the institutional level. Benefits A number of things have evolved normatively and also at the institutional level to incorporate individual responsibilities and rights in international law. This has led to the significant advancements and benefits for individuals. Firstly, the individual rights are recognized in a more formal and appropriate capacity, as it is evident within the context of the Universal Declaration of The Human Rights. It identifies the people’s dignity and also the equal and inseparable rights of individuals, such as freedom of belief and speech. These rights should be protected by the rule of law. It became adopted in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It indicated that member-countries had to publicize the Declaration text, disseminate, display, and have it revised principally in all educational institutions, without distinctions based o n the status of the political mood of nations or territories. This has enabled the education of individuals about their rights on a global scale (Diehl, 2009). The fact that there is the documentation of the rights and they have become codified provided people with confidence to step forward and seek protection when their rights are violated. For example, the Geneva Convention and its two added protocols regulate the behaviour in an armed conflict. It is now common for soldiers globally to treat each and every person injured in combat with the same respect and dignity even if he or she is an enemy. The more people become aware of their fundamental human rights, the easier it is to take steps in cases of abuse. Citizens who have their rights violated with no action taken by their government will become aware that justice is possible within the framework of the International Law (Sharon, 2010). Not only is the International Law efficient or effective but it also is a departure point, and it contains extensive potentials. In different instances, individuals seek compensation for injuries and are able to help other sufferers in the future. There are other instances where individuals do not have their government on their behalf. For example, when the 16 year old Michael Dominiques sentenced to death for committing murder in the state of Nevada lost his appeal in 2000 at the Supreme Court, he took it forward to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. His state had failed to protect the third article of the United Nations Charter, the right to life. He had the opportunity of taking the law into his own hands and claiming that the application of the death penalty would violate the United States treaty and the customary international law refusing the execution of juveniles. Based on the fact that the execution of criminal offenders under the age of 18 was considered an issue of jus cogens in international customary law, the sitting judge concluded that executing a minor would be a grave and irreparable violation. Dominique’s life was spared due to the international law. Also, with the help of Roper versus Simmons case, by 2005 America changed its stance and proclaimed that the death penalty for minors would be considered