An important consideration in divorce and estate planning that often gets ignored, underappreciated, or just poorly evaluated is the relative comparison of different account types: tax free accounts, tax deferred accounts, and taxable accounts. While many people tend to think of $100,000 as $100,000, the account type in which the money resides can make a [...]
The Astute Angle tackles a question that we commonly receive in conversations with clients. The question comes in many forms but often resembles the following: I have an emergency reserve (or cash stored up for a future home/car/asset purchase) that I want to keep safe but I also want to make a little return on [...]
Earlier this month, we published an article explaining why investors would be well served to organize their portfolios like their kitchens. This process, one that the finance industry calls ‘asset location’, is simply intended to make the most of the existing tax code. The IRS sets the rules with different tax treatment for different account types [...]
Oxyphenbutazone is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug used mostly in eye-drops that was pulled from markets worldwide in the mid-1980’s for its link to bone marrow depression. More interestingly, but perhaps just as trivial, Oxyphenbutazone represents the highest possible scoring play in Scrabble. Play it across three triple word score squares and eight already-played, perfectly positioned [...]
Note that an updated explanation of the tax impact under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act exists here. We wrote this article in 2015 about a simple tax credit (the QEE Tax Credit) that provided an opportunity for taxpayers in Georgia who face alternative minimum tax (AMT) to reduce their tax liability by $700. The [...]
The history of the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) feels a lot like the 'Friends' relationship of Rachel and Ross. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. There has been enough disruption in the availability of this tax-saving opportunity that it has been hard to remember if it is on or off. Good news...it's on. The brief history goes [...]
Let’s start with a debatable, but widely held fundamental concept of investing: the best predictor of future returns for stocks is the current valuation. This is generally true of a single stock, a sector, or an entire country’s stock market. Academics and practitioners debate whether important factors like gross profitability, price momentum, earnings momentum, yield, [...]
You probably do not know who Jim Simons is. He likes it that way. Simons is a quiet figure who is not interested in self-promotion and does not need to be told how great he is. Despite undoubted countless interview requests over the past 35 years, Simons has largely declined the opportunity to tell his [...]
Over the past two months, this blog has attacked guaranteed income annuities and the purported advantages of leasing a vehicle, assuredly triggering ill sentiment from annuity salespeople and auto dealerships. Given the recent string of controversial opinions and analysis, what better time to address the Department of Labor’s “fiduciary rule”? The fiduciary rule has been a [...]
“Congratulations. I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.” -Yogi Berra in a telegram to Johnny Bench after Bench broke Berra's record for most home runs as a catcher. We recently explained why the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a terrible, no good, very bad index. In spite of our best [...]
