Is there a big difference in fees between the two? I heard some 529 plans have high management fees that eat into returns.

Fees vary widely. Some state 529 plans are quite reasonable (Utah, Nevada, and New York have low-cost index fund options around 0.15-0.20% expense ratios). Others can be over 1% when you include all the administrative fees. With Coverdell accounts, your fees depend on where you open the account and what you invest in. If you open one at a low-cost brokerage like Fidelity or Vanguard and choose low-cost ETFs, you can keep total fees under 0.1%. If you trade individual stocks frequently, transaction costs could add up, though many brokerages now offer free stock trades.

Wait really?? So if my kid doesn't go to college or gets scholarships, they can just roll the 529 into a Roth? Are there restrictions on this? This would totally change my decision if true.

Thanks for the insight! Yeah this tax season has been all over the place. I'm hoping once I see that 846 code things will move faster. Fingers crossed Chime comes through with the early deposit! 🙏

Same here! I was so excited when I heard about the early deposit feature but turns out it's just marketing hype for tax refunds. At least now I know to just track it through WMR like everyone else instead of getting my hopes up. Live and learn I guess! 🤷‍♂️

But how do you use a resale certificate on eBay? They don't exactly have a place to upload that during checkout. Is there some special process for marketplace platforms?

You're right that eBay doesn't have a standard way to upload resale certificates during checkout. For marketplace platforms like eBay, you typically have a few options: 1. Contact individual sellers directly after purchase to request a refund of the sales tax portion (providing your resale certificate) 2. Some states allow you to claim a credit on your sales tax return for tax paid on items purchased for resale 3. Look for sellers who specifically mention they can handle resale certificates in their listings The easiest approach is usually option 2 - just keep good records of what you paid in sales tax on inventory purchases and claim it as a credit when you file your sales tax returns. Your state's department of revenue can tell you the specific process for your state. It's definitely worth pursuing since those small amounts add up quickly when you're buying inventory regularly!

This is really valuable advice about getting the documentation before continuing sales. I'm actually dealing with a similar situation right now with another buyer who purchases my refurbished electronics. They keep telling me they'll "get back to me" about the resale certificate but it's been weeks. Should I stop selling to them until I get the proper documentation? I'm worried about losing the business relationship, but I'm also getting nervous about the potential tax liability. How strict are most states about this kind of thing during audits? @Raúl Mora - when you say technically "liable for uncollected tax, does" that mean you had to pay that amount out of pocket, or were you able to resolve it once you got the proper certificates?

Great questions! I can speak to the update frequency since we've been on OneSource for about 2 years now. Thomson Reuters typically pushes out updates quarterly, usually timed around tax season deadlines. Most updates are behind-the-scenes tax law changes that don't affect your workflow much. The more disruptive updates happen 1-2 times per year when they add new features or change the interface. They give plenty of advance notice though, and we've found it's best to implement updates right after completing a quarter-end provision rather than in the middle of one. For audit trail features, our auditors love the automatic documentation of who made what changes and when. Every journal entry, rate change, or manual adjustment gets logged with timestamps and user IDs. They can also see the calculation methodologies for each jurisdiction without having to trace through Excel formulas. The "variance analysis" reports have been particularly helpful - they show period-over-period changes with explanations, which used to take us days to compile manually. Can't help much with transfer pricing documentation though - we handle that separately through a different system. Would be interested to hear if others have integrated that workflow successfully.

Regarding transfer pricing documentation, we've had mixed success integrating it into OneSource. The system can track your intercompany transactions and generate some basic reports, but for detailed TP documentation (especially for countries like Brazil or India that have strict requirements), we still use a separate specialized system. However, OneSource does help with the data consistency aspect - since all your entity-level information is in one place, it's much easier to pull the financial data you need for your TP studies. We export transaction details monthly to our TP documentation system, which has eliminated a lot of the manual data gathering we used to do. One thing to consider: if you have significant related-party transactions, make sure you map those relationships correctly in OneSource during implementation. The system can automatically flag potential TP issues in your provision calculations if you set it up right, which has been helpful for our compliance team. For what it's worth, Thomson Reuters also offers a separate OneSource Transfer Pricing product that some companies integrate with the Tax Provision module, though we haven't gone that route yet.

Great question about Pillar Two compliance! We're actually just starting to deal with this ourselves since the rules kicked in for 2024. OneSource has been rolling out updates to handle the Global Minimum Tax calculations, but it's still evolving. They released an initial Pillar Two module last year, but we found it needed some customization for our specific fact pattern. The good news is that having all your entity data already structured in OneSource makes implementing these new requirements much easier than if you were still on Excel. When the Pillar Two rules hit, we were able to identify our in-scope entities and start building the calculations relatively quickly because the underlying data was already clean and organized. Regarding external consultants - we used one for our initial implementation and it was absolutely worth it. Even with Thomson Reuters support, having someone who's done multiple OneSource implementations helped us avoid common pitfalls and set up best practices from day one. The consultant cost about $25K for our engagement, but probably saved us 2-3 months of trial and error. Given how stretched your team already is, I'd definitely recommend it. One tip: if you do engage a consultant, make sure they have recent experience with companies similar to your size and industry. Manufacturing companies have some unique requirements (like inventory valuation differences) that not all tax technology consultants fully understand.