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. The current bill is being marked up by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate is due to release its own [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Few things in our profession are more frustrating than when financial advisors deliver bad financial advice. It doesn’t have to be that bad financial advice is dishonest or delivered for the wrong reasons (like it is so often, for the benefit of the advice-provider). It is just that misguided or blatantly wrong financial advice hurts consumers and [...]
This time of year is referred to as the ‘season of giving’. Charities report that 31% of all charitable donations happen in December each year and that 12% of donations occur on the final three days of the year. There is good reason to believe that those percentages will increase dramatically in 2016. Proposed tax [...]
In a prior article about saving for college, we outlined some of the many ways to handle overfunded 529 college savings plans and why these underpublicized options justify aggressive funding of 529 plans. In the opening paragraphs of that article, we explained how the rules treat 529 account funds used for non-qualified expenses: The first [...]
High income families faced with high annual taxes are often looking for ways to reduce their taxes or save additional dollars in tax-efficient ways. Unfortunately, these well-intentioned pursuits often result in irrational behaviors (such as permitting the government to shortchange your retirement savings) or unfavorable outcomes (such as paying more taxes than you would have [...]
Since Section 529 was added to the Internal Revenue Code under the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, many families have discovered the significant advantages of the “Qualified Tuition Programs” which we collectively now refer to as 529 College Savings Plans. Among other benefits, these plans offer tax-exempt investment growth for any funds eventually [...]
