TRADERS
GTT ALLIANCE FOR TRADERS

GTT Alliance for Traders – Membership Drive

Traders, investors and others are invited to join our alliance. Thank you for your support!

GTT Alliance for Traders - annual membership dues $25

Your membership dues will be used entirely to support the alliance campaign efforts.

Like all good alliances, success is based on grass roots support, so please help get the word out. Active Trader magazine positively featured our alliance in their September 2004 issue. We offer sponsorship opportunities to brokerage firms and other larger trader service companies as well.

GTT Alliance for Traders – Mission Statement, Values and Plan

Trading can be a lonely business because most traders are on their own and few have partners or employees to speak with on a daily basis. Many traders join chat rooms and communities to share ideas on trading, business and much more.

But traders are still on their own when it comes to their own finances, taxes and insurance. Unlike employees in companies, traders don’t have employers to withhold taxes, include them in company group insurance and 401(k) retirement plans, or provide them with other employee benefits.

There are lots of great tax, retirement, insurance and other benefits for traders, but unless a trader acts early on to elect, claim or structure these benefits into their business plans, they often miss out.

Our alliance’s mission is to help traders with their taxes, insurance, retirement and other benefits.

For taxes, you can use GreenTraderTax.com's education center to learn about and take advantage of all possible trader and investor tax breaks currently in the lawbooks. When it comes to taxes, our alliance is focused on federal and state tax advocacy to improve the lot of all traders in general. We need your support!

For health insurance coverage, our alliance can help traders on an individual case-by-case basis.

It’s a myth that smaller companies get lower insurance rates with group plans. Most individual-level plans are priced less than small company group plans because insurance underwriters must cover every employee (and family members) automatically in a group plan regardless of their medical history and problems. In individual-level plans, insurance companies may underwrite each applicant (review their history and problems) and deny coverage, exclude pre-existing conditions or cover pre-existing conditions at higher rates. This practice varies by state and insurance carrier.

Guaranteed coverage in a group plan is a valuable fringe benefit that companies use to attract and retain employees. Most traders don’t have employees and many will have no trouble getting individual-level plan coverage for themselves and family members at prices less than they could arrange for with a group plan. Why pay extra for features of a group plan you don't need? Group plans also offer some other key features that may or may not be of value to traders, such as unlimited lifetime benefits and coverage – in many cases never used by most people.

If you have trouble getting adequate individual-level health coverage or if you just prefer having the features of a group plan, you can have a group plan, providing you qualify as a business trader. GreenTraderTax.com CPAs can help you determine if you qualify for trader tax status. Click here to learn more about trader tax status.

Another myth is that you need a separate legal entity such as an LLC, S-Corp or partnership for a group plan. That is false. All you need is a business, and sole proprietor traders qualify. Show our brokers (or your own) your trading business Schedule C (Profit or Loss from Business), D (Capital Gains and Losses) and Form 4797 (Gains on Sale of Business Property, if a mark-to-market trader).

If you're a one-person group, you may have few or no plan choices in your state (it varies by state). If you can save money or get more options by having a larger group, consider adding your spouse, children or others to your company. A husband/wife trading partnership works well here. Click here to learn more about the best entities for traders on the GreenTraderTax Web site.

Note if you want to deduct your health insurance premiums, which are a good idea, you need "earned income." The problem is that sole proprietor business traders don't have earned income from trading gains, with one exception; commodities traders who are members of a commodities exchange have earned income from trading gains (IRC section 1402i). As explained on our entities page, a trader can create earned income with an entity by paying themselves a fee for administration.

Note: Insurance varies greatly from state to state, so our general statements above may not all apply to your home state.

An ideal health insurance strategy for many traders is to have a high-deductible individual-level plan together with a new health savings account (HSA). You get all the insurance coverage you need and save lots of money, depending on your level of expenses. In most cases, you can’t come out worse, but you can come out much better in terms of cost. Learn more about HSAs below.

When you join our alliance, you are entitled to work with our alliance insurance brokers. We highly recommend this as your first step. Our alliance brokers will interview you, find out your general medical history (it's confidential), health needs, goals and more. They will then recommend your best options and present you with several. At this time, we encourage traders to use our national health insurance site through Fortis (see below) and we are still arranging for health insurance brokers in many states. If you are a health insurance broker or a trader that wants to recommend one in your home state, please do, we need the help.

Every trader and family has different medical histories, needs, concerns and goals, and when it comes to health insurance, plans offered cover the gamut and they vary greatly by state.

Our alliance can not offer group rates to its members on health insurance
A few years ago alliances and associations were allowed by law to have their own insurance group plans available to their membership. This was abused when people who were denied coverage in individual-level plans joined alliances to get guaranteed group coverage. So the laws changed and alliances may no longer have group plans for health insurance.

Alliances still may have group plans for other types of insurance such as life, disability and long-term care. We plan to pursue these types of group plans soon.

Our alliance can help our members get health insurance on a member-by-member basis. Again, if a member is denied individual-level plan coverage or it's far too expensive because of pre-existing conditions, we can probably arrange for you to have a group plan on your own, providing you have trader tax status (business treatment).

Rather than have a one-person group (also covering family members), it may be better rate- and tax-wise to hire your spouse and children in your trading business, or have a family trading partnership. Click here to learn more about these types of entities on the Greentradertax.com Web site. GreenTraderTax CPAs can also consult you on and form your entities to execute these and other tax-savings strategies (retirement plans).

We have been told that if our alliance grows to a large number of members (figure around 10,000 members), we may be able to arrange savings on health-insurance plans through general agents and insurance companies (but still not as an alliance group health-insurance plan, which is not permitted by law).

Get a quote on our health insurance and HSA Web site
Currently, our alliance is offering health insurance through the second largest national health insurance provider, Fortis, and their top broker, J.L.Barnes Group. Visit our alliance website at http://assurantaffinity.com/gthealth; it's a section of their main insurance site and their insurance agents provide support.

Fortis is not licensed in NY, NJ, ME, MA and HI. Our alliance insurance brokers are arranging other plans and options for those states.

Fortis handles many of the largest alliances in the country, such as the National Hockey League Players Association – and the NHL players really need good health insurance!

Alliance membership is not required to visit our health-insurance site or to purchase this insurance. You can get these same quotes through Fortis on your own. Joining the alliance will get you access to our password-protected alliance area, which we plan to add soon. That area will contain many tips and strategies for the solutions we suggest most for traders. That's where the savings is! Remember, membership has advantages far in excess of health-insurance results and we appreciate your overall support, so please join.

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
For some traders this may be the preferred solution – adding an individual-level HSA plan on top of an existing "high-deductible" (and low-cost) individual-level health insurance plan. Click here to learn more about HSAs on the GreenTrader Health Benefits website. Click here for more information about HSAs.

Note: If you want an HSA, you are required to first have an underlying health-insurance plan in place. Currently, HSAs are only available for individual-level plans. Group HSA plans are expected in October 2004, and that will be a boon for larger companies. You will hear much more about them then.

What's especially interesting for traders with HSAs is that you can trade an HSA actively in a similar manner as a retirement plan. Click here for our ground breaking article (in Active Trader and the Fidelity newsletter) for trading your retirement plan. We will soon publish more information about special trading and tax strategies using HSA accounts.

Fortis is a leading provider of HSAs (only a few companies offer them) and you can learn more on our health site at http://assurantaffinity.com/gthealth/msa.htm.

Our Alliance can make the documentation and paperwork process an easier process
Insurance underwriters, bankers and brokers generally ask for documentation for salaries, fees or business “earned income.” Most traders don’t have this type of information to provide. Some business traders form entities and pay themselves a salary or a fee, giving them the proper documentation. Click here to learn more about trader entities.

More insurance companies are reckoning with the needs of sole proprietor traders and some will now accept a business trader's individual tax return, Schedules C, D, Form 4797 and 6781 for documentation on group plans. Income documentation is usually not needed for individual-level plans.

Whether you are filling out the paperwork for insurance coverage, a mortgage or a loan, our alliance can help. We can ask the vendors to customize their paperwork for our trader members and we can provide guidance for how to fill it out. We can also fill it out for you.

If a vendor requires a fee, salary or other earned income, we can provide guidance and even the services you need (through our affiliate GreenTraderTax) to form an entity and structure the earned income you need. Click here to learn more.

We can pre-arrange with vendors to waive their normal requirements for documentation and accept trading gains to satisfy their needs.

Our Alliance will offer a variety of savings plans
Although alliances and associations may no longer arrange for group rates on health insurance for their members, they still offer attractive group rate benefits to their members on plenty of other products and services. We plan to arrange lower group rates on life, disability and long-term care insurance, travel, and much more.

We have already negotiated excellent discounts on mortgages and loans for our members. We have also negotiated significant discounts on courier services. As our membership alliance grows, we will negotiate many other excellent savings programs.

Our Alliance members benefit from affiliation with GreenTraderTax and GreenTraderLaw
Market research groups survey the American public every year on ‘whom they trust most in their financial affairs,’ and every year CPAs come out on top. It makes great sense to have the No. 1 alliance for traders be affiliated with the leading CPA, tax and law firms for traders, GreenTraderTax and GreenTraderLaw.

GreenTraderTax started a tax advocacy campaign for traders a few years ago. Click here to learn more. Our alliance can continue these efforts. Certainly, traders continue to need tax relief and reform.

Traders also need legal support and GreenTraderLaw is at the forefront here. GreenTraderLaw is expanding into shareholder litigation for corporate fraud, which has caused many traders to lose large amounts of money. GreenTraderLaw works with other law firms to uncover fraud and seek remedies for shareholders through litigation, often at no cost to the shareholder. Traders who believe they have lost money because of fraud should seek relief through the alliance and GreenTraderLaw.

Some proprietary trading firms have gone out of business. Click here to learn more. If your firm goes out of business and does not pay back your capital, our alliance can fight for you to get paid before others do.

Traders often go into mediation with brokerage firms for disputes. Our alliance can go to bat for you to get a better settlement.

Our GTT Alliance for Traders will be a powerful force for savings and protection
From help with health insurance to savings on life and disability premiums to savings on mortgages and loans to ease of the application process to savings on plenty of other services to protection with our law firm to fighting for you in Washington for tax relief and reform, our alliance is the one to join.

Like any other membership alliance, we are only as strong as our membership. Membership growth brings more helpful voices and greater strength in negotiations with providers and tax authorities.

GreenTraderTax and GreenTraderLaw have the media attention, but we also need your grass-roots support
Our writers dominate the media and we have their support. Active Trader magazine is featuring a positive story on the GTT Alliance for Traders in their September 2004 issue. Click here to learn more about our media support.

But like any successful alliance, we need to build the membership alliance with grass-roots support. We need each member to spread the word in their chat rooms, message board communities, with their brokerage firms, with their friends and contacts and in their posts anywhere and everywhere on the Internet.

The GTT Alliance for Traders has a home on the Internet at GTT
Please use www.greencompany.com/Traders/Advocacy.shtml for all your communications with others on the Internet and otherwise.

We will have PalTalks specially scheduled for our members. To build our alliance in the best manner possible, we need excellent and continual feedback from our members.

GTT's founder and CEO Robert A. Green, CPA, will be the CEO and President of the GTT Alliance for Traders.

Bottom Line
Thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of traders can get great values as members of our GTT Alliance for Traders. From cost savings to community to protection, our alliance can be the premiere (and possibly only) alliance that really fights for the special needs of traders. GreenTraderTax and GreenTraderLaw have earned their right and mandate to lead this alliance and have the most to offer any trader alliance. We will give plenty of our time pro-bono, have some opportunity to profit in an affiliate and add to our brand name, and benefit by leading the premiere alliance. One thing will be absolutely clear and you can bank on it: We never do anything unless it helps traders first and foremost, and after we deliver plenty of savings (tax or other savings plans in the alliance), we make our living from excellent work and our fees come from savings.

Join us and let’s build our alliance, based on the many voices of our membership.

Just picture a world where traders have clout in Washington with brokerage firms, insurance companies, banks and much more. Continue to trade and thrive as an individual, but join our alliance to have clout as the “great trader-class.” Brokers, banks and insurance companies all have clout and industry alliance groups to fight for them. Who fights for traders? Everyone knows Green can fight and now he will fight and lead the GTT Alliance for Traders.

If you want to join now or have more questions, please e-mail us at advocacy@greencompany.com or call us.

GTT Alliance for Traders - annual membership dues $25

Your membership dues will be used entirely to support the alliance campaign efforts.

Join our weekly PalTalks, discuss our alliance on our message boards and spread the word today. Ask your brokers and Web sites to link to us at www.greencompany.com/Traders/Advocacy.shtml. Let us know what you have done to help; we will keep track of this in this Alliance area.

Thank you for your support.

Robert A. Green, CPA & CEO
Leader of the GTT Alliance for Traders

More information about HSAs.

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

Recent tax-law changes have created attractive new options for dealing with health insurance and medical-expense reimbursement. Before these changes, one had fewer options: to buy (or not buy) health insurance (self insurance) and how big a deductible to take. This affected the amount of your annual health-insurance premiums.

With the creation of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), taxpayers received many new advantages. Tax-deductible contributions to HSAs are similar to deducting health insurance premiums from AGI (adjusted gross income). You have more control and flexibility over paying medical expenses, and most importantly a better chance to save money and not overpay your insurance company for benefits you never get. With HSAs, you own the unused premiums – they don't go to the insurance companies.

Here is how HSAs work: First, you need to have a high-deductible health insurance plan as your base plan, so you are not fully self-insured. This high-deductible plan allows you to obtain much lower insurance premium rates (whether you are in a group plan or not). In lieu of higher premiums, you pay the difference (give or take) to your own HSA account.

Note HSAs were originally available for individual-level plans only and HSAs for group plans are being rolled out starting now (as of July 2004).

It’s sort of like a hybrid health insurance and self-insurance plan, sanctioned by the IRS with tax-deferral benefits.

The IRS patterns this concept off the IRA (Individual Retirement Account), where you provide for your own retirement funds with tax advantages.

After paying your high-deductible premiums (which are much lower than before), you next fund your own HSA account. Like an IRA, an HSA account is in your own name and the money in the account belongs to you, not an insurance company. So, any money left over after paying eligible medical expenses belongs to you – and that’s how you better your chances at winning the insurance game! Instead of giving all your money to the insurance company in premiums, you divide up the money and pay some to the insurance company. The rest goes to your HSA account.

If you have a serious medical problem and the bills are outrageously large, no problem – the insurance company pays those bills, above the $1,000 (single) or $2,000 (family) deductible amounts. These are the minimum deductibles; you can have higher ones as you see fit. In some plan designs, the insurance carrier pays for preventive care up front without you having to dip into your HSA account.

Like an IRA, you get a tax-deduction for your contributions to your HSA, which is not really an advantage over AGI deductions for health-insurance premiums. Traders have the same problem of needing earned income for either deduction. Also, like an IRA, an HSA has the tax advantage of tax-free build up of assets.

The worst tax scenario for taxpayers is going out of pocket on medical expenses without any insurance, HSA or HRA plan, and then not being able to get any tax deduction for those expenses because of itemized deduction limitations. Medical expenses are only deductible if in excess of 7.5 percent of AGI, and they are not deductible at all for alternative minimum tax (AMT) taxes.

Note many HSA providers may only pay interest on HSA accounts and it may not be possible to trade an HSA account. Find out beforehand. If you can trade your HSA that is an added plus for traders.

The main purpose of your HSA account is to pay for your "eligible medical expenses" (see IRS guidelines), which are not paid by the insurance company. Those expenses are not submitted above your deductible amount.

All existing MSAs will be converted to HSAs during 2004. HSAs through GreenTrader Health Benefits are an excellent way to pay for health care and save money. Click here to learn more about HSAs on the GreenTrader Health Benefits website.

HSAs are fairly new so it's important to follow the latest developments.

HSA Frequently Asked Questions from the IRS. Click here to view IRS Notice 2004-50 dated July 2004.

HSA plan designs are coordinated between US Department of Treasury and IRS. Click here to read
JS-1748 from June 2004. Here are some other links on that www.ustreas.gov page.
Model Health Savings Custodial Account http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/d5305c.pdf.
Model Health Savings Trust Account http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/d5305b.pdf.

Health Savings Accounts - Interaction with other health arrangements, IRS Rev. 2004-45. This applies to you if you have a health flexibile spending account (FSA) or a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA). Click here to read Revenue Ruling 2004-45 published in May 2004. Click here to learn more about FSAs and HRAs on our fringe benefit page in our Tax Center. Our alliance health site offers HRA accounts, click here http://assurantaffinity.com/gthealth/hra.htm to learn more.

HSA Frequently Asked Questions from US Department of Treasury http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/public-affairs/hsa/faq1.html.

US Department of Treasury Issues Additional Guidance on Health Savings Accounts (HSAS). Click here to read JS-1278 from March 30, 2004.

Original guidance from the IRS on HSAs. Click here to read IRS Notice 2004-2.