Find treasure in your tax buckets!
Chances are, you're not planning for those retirement years as strategically as you need to be, when it comes to shifting income into lower brackets and making sure you don't get taxed at the highest brackets.
Watch this video for more about retirement income strategies, and Roth conversions specifically.
Q: What are some of the best ways to minimize taxes when cashing out of my retirement plan?
A: This will depend on a few different factors. Be aware that, as a starting point, retirement distributions are taxed as ordinary income, and could trigger a penalty if accessed early. Keep in mind though, when you withdraw in a low-income year, those penalties are lessened by that fact. Outside investments that generate passive income losses, such as oil & gas and rental properties, can be a good way to blunt the effects of cashing out of the retirement plan. Best practice is of course is to run all this by your advisor and get a qualified, second opinion.
Do you find yourself asking "when should I apply for social security?"
Well, in this video I'll help you answer that question. We'll discuss retirement income planning from the standpoint of claiming social security benefits, as well as social security disability taxes.
Have you done adequate retirement investment planning?
In this video, I'll continue to expand on the Roth conversion discussion from previous videos, and branch off into the following discussion areas:
-- retirement income planning
-- how much annual income you'll need
-- maximizing enjoyment of retirement
-- managing risks associated with retirement
Q: What are some of the best ways to minimize taxes when cashing out of my retirement plan?
A: This will depend on a few different factors. Be aware that, as a starting point, retirement distributions are taxed as ordinary income, and could trigger a penalty if accessed early. Keep in mind though, when you withdraw in a low-income year, those penalties are lessened by that fact. Outside investments that generate passive income losses, such as oil & gas and rental properties, can be a good way to blunt the effects of cashing out of the retirement plan. Best practice is of course is to run all this by your advisor and get a qualified, second opinion.
Have you been planning for retirement beyond just banking on Social Security? If not, read this article right away.
Welcome to self directed investing! In this video, we'll cover topics like:
-- retirement investment planning
-- retirement income strategies
-- self-directed investments
-- IRA explained
-- 401k explained
-- unrelated business income tax (UBIT)
-- unrelated debt financed income (UDFI)
A couple of weeks ago, ProPublica released an update on the story it first ran about Roth IRAs and Peter Thiel's $5B Roth account. (We released articles here on this blog on June 30 and July 14 on this story, as well.) Their latest article focused on Congress' desire to investigate the issue and the perceived abuses of the law, triggered by the revelation that approximately 28,000 Americans have $5M or more in their Roth or traditional IRA.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
"Roth IRAs were established in 1997 to incentivize middle-class Americans to save for retirement. Congress imposed strict limits, including a cap on how much can be contributed to the accounts each year, which today stands at $6,000 for most Americans. The average Roth account was worth $39,108 at the end of 2018.
But a select set of the ultrawealthy have managed to get around limits set by Congress and transformed the vehicle into a powerful onshore tax shelter. One way they’ve done that is...
Freelance work and the gig economy have taken the nation by storm. A study commissioned by the Freelancers Union and freelance platform Upwork revealed that the gig economy’s work force reached an eye-popping 57 million Americans in 2019, with increasing numbers likely to join in the future. You can choose freelancing as your sole source of income or you can do it in your spare time for extra money, but whatever path you choose, you need to pay attention to how you’re managing your money — otherwise you’re liable to end up facing costly consequences. Here are seven personal finance tips that can benefit every person working as part of the freelance economy.
Being your own boss is a common dream, but it isn’t easy. When you go out on your own as a freelancer or gig worker, you need to be able to gauge how much income you need in order to make it both worthwhile and feasible. To make that determination, you start with how...
For those of you who’ve been following the ProPublica series on taxes and the wealthy class in America, you would have likely seen the article that dropped last week about Peter Thiel and his $5 billion Roth IRA. You also probably thought, “how the heck can he do that?”
In short, Thiel assigned a very low value to his shares of PayPal stock in the late 1990’s, placed them into a Roth at a total valuation under $2000, then watched as the company went public and was eventually acquired by eBay. His IRA value exploded commensurately, and is now worth around $5B. A debate could be had about whether this was an appropriate use of a Roth in the first place, but that’s for another discussion.
You might then ask, “what does this have to do with me, Manish?” Well, the answer lies in another part of the article that discusses Roth IRA conversions. Check out this excerpt from the article:
“[A Roth IRA...
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