Baseball, apple pie, mom, Chevrolet, hot dogs, and home ownership. Americana. To question any of these things is un-American. And so it becomes a largely unquestioned truth that borrowing money to buy a home is "good debt." Home ownership, after all, is just living the American dream. But as a result of accepting this good debt [...]
The financial services industry has invented and promoted many ways to rip off people. Fake bank accounts, excessive and unauthorized account churning, non-traded REITs, cross-selling high fee products, pump and dump stock schemes, egregious variable annuity sales, and probably another financial abuse strategy exposed in the business section of this morning’s newspaper. In fairness, there [...]
The following paraphrases a conversation that I have had many times before with friends and clients. It is obviously never the same dialogue but the underlying advice is the same - that you should generally not own your favorite investment or can't-miss stock idea in a traditional IRA. Me: Did you buy this stock because [...]
Last week, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed House Bill 769, expanding a Georgia tax credit that supports rural hospital organizations across Georgia. We explained the value of the rural hospital tax credit in this 2017 Astute Angle post but the recently expanded tax credit under HB 769 combined with provisions of the Tax Cuts and [...]
All three of time, interest or passion, and knowledge are required to be successful at anything. I might have the knowledge of how to mow my grass properly and I might enjoy mowing my grass but if I don’t have the time to mow my grass, then my lawn eventually becomes a mess. Alternatively, I [...]
What do Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Tyler, Stevie Nicks, Billy Crystal, and my father all have in common? At least two things. They will, God willing, all celebrate their 70 1/2 birthdays in 2018 and join the ranks of approximately 25 million others in the United States over this age (assuming, of course, that they all [...]
On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the most important speeches of his presidency at the foot of the recently-built Berlin Wall. During this speech, viewed as a turning point in the Cold War, Kennedy spoke the now famous words, "Ich bin ein Berliner." His intent was to express solidarity with [...]
Prior to 2018, the financial benefit for Georgia taxpayers to utilize the Rural Hospital Tax Credit and the Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit accrued only to those who faced alternative minimum tax (AMT). Georgia taxpayers who were not subject to AMT had the opportunity to direct the application of their state taxes to a specific [...]
The first sentence of our early November 2017 Astute Angle post read "It is November 8th, 2017 as this is written and there is no doubt that a lot will happen with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act before the end of the year." As expected, a lot did happen to the initial Tax Cuts [...]
Parents generally believe that the longer they can claim their children as dependents, the more tax savings they will accrue. This is a misleading fallacy for most high-income families. The reality is that most parents with more than $200,000 of annual income get zero tax benefit from their children and may continue to get limited [...]
