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Tax Refunds — Good or Bad?
Few of us can really say we enjoy filling out our tax forms each April. One bright spot in this process is if we have a refund coming rather than having to write Uncle Sam a check. This month we’ll take a look at whether tax refunds are really such a good thing after all. […]
SECURE 2.0 Tax Law Changes
In our January article, we talked about some of the tax law changes coming in 2023. Days before the end of the year, the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 passed the congress with bipartisan support and was signed by the president. The bill contains many provisions that are intended to strengthen the country’s retirement savings. […]
2023 Tax Law Changes
First of all, Happy New Year! As you make your plans for the coming year, it’s important to take note of the changes in contribution limits and other tax changes in 2023. Social Security Inflation creates a number of financial problems, but high inflation does signal a healthy increase in Social Security payments. Rates will […]
Tax-Loss Harvesting
Most of you know that what we pay for an investment is called its basis and what we sell an investment for is its realized gain or simply its gain. If we sell an investment at less than its basis, we produce a loss. Okay, simple enough, but what is tax-loss harvesting? It just means […]
Document Retention
Who hasn’t wondered how long we should keep various documents? Keep them too long and it becomes unwieldy and makes it hard to find what you want. Don’t keep them long enough and you may not be able to respond to the tax man or some other authority. Is an electronic copy good enough or […]
2021 Tax Law Changes
Well, it’s finally a new year. I know we’re all hoping it will be better than 2020! As you make your plans for 2021, one of the things to take note of is the change in contribution limits and other tax changes. 401(k)Let’s start with 401(k) contributions, since that’s a retirement fund that I view […]
Tax Planning 2020
Believe it or not, we’re about three months from the end of the (calendar) tax year. However, there’s still time to lower your 2020 taxes. Here are some commonly used approaches to reducing taxes. Lower Your Income via a Tax-Deferred Savings Plan Tax-deferred savings plans let you reduce your Adjusted Gross Income by the amount […]
Retirement Accounts & Taxes
You probably already know that there are several common ways to save for retirement. These include 401(k) and IRA accounts. What you might not be as familiar with, is how these various retirement vehicles are taxed. There are four concepts in the taxation of retirement accounts. First, some accounts allow you to invest money without […]
2019 End-of-Year Financial Planning
Is it really time to think about the end of the year? Well, there are only three months left and there’s the question of whether you really want to try to jam financial planning in with Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, maybe it’s a good time to think about end-of-year financial planning. Here are a few […]
Adjusting Withholding for Taxes
You probably remember that the government passed some extensive tax law changes late in 2017. These were called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Early in 2018, the IRS reduced withholding rates to account for some, but not most, of the tax law changes. (For many of us, this resulted in higher take-home pay which […]