Empowering You to Live Your Best Financial Life
Our expertise in financial, investment, and retirement planning will guide your path to financial fulfillment.
Work Your HSA
This tip is not for everyone, but if you are happy using a high deductible health plan, then you have access to a Health Savings Account or HSA. Further, if you have excess savings and you have cash piling up in your savings account, you should be using this accumulation strategy with your HSA.
When to Consider a 1031 Exchange
A 1031 exchange allows you to exchange a piece of real estate for another piece of real estate without paying capital gains taxes. Consider a 1031 exchange ONLY when continuing to hold property in your portfolio makes the most sense BEFORE considering taxes.
Manage Your Gifts in a Taxwise Manner
We don’t usually think of managing gifts for tax purposes, but as you begin thinking about how you want to share your wealth it becomes very important. There are two types of gifts I’m thinking about here, charity and the gifts to your heirs.
Maximize the Use of Your Retirement Plans
I know retirement plans can be confusing, but they are very powerful tools for saving in a tax optimized way. You really have to dig into the specifics to understand the best tax strategy for yourself, but it will be well worth it in the long run.
Take Advantage of Lower Capital Gains Tax Rates
We all know we get taxed many different ways, and it’s important to understand them all at least to some degree. I want to focus on the capital gains tax and how we can use these rates to our advantage.
Consider Using a Donor Advised Fund
If you regularly give to charity and have income that fluctuates, I’m going to show you something that is going to save you money. As I’m sure you know, your charitable contributions are deductible from your income for tax purposes.
Consider Making Roth Conversions Regularly
Last week we talked about the three types of accounts we can use for our Long-Term Portfolio and I said it’s important to have balances in all three types. The Already-Taxed or Roth account is the most difficult to contribute to so I want to talk this week about how we can get money into a Roth by making conversions.
Use All 3 Tax Structures for Your Long-Term Portfolio
We want to use all three of these when investing our Long-Term Portfolio and I’ll tell you why in a moment. But first, I want to talk through how each of them works.
Level Your Income to Minimize Your Taxes
Our tax structure is progressive which means the more you make then the more as a percentage that you will pay in tax. If we knew how much money we will make in our lives and we could control when we will make it, there seems to be an optimal strategy to pay minimal tax.
Pay Your Taxes and Be Happy
The goal with taxes is not to pay the least amount of tax – it’s to keep as much as you possibly can. There are lots of strategies out there designed to minimize taxes, and unfortunately, many of them also minimize what you take home.
Have a Long-Term Portfolio Strategy in Place for Your Cash from Selling Company Stock
Once you have a plan in place to sell your Company Stock over time, be sure that money has some place to go. We don’t ever want our money to be without a job and the cash you get from your Company Stock is no exception.
Have a Strategy for Each Block of Vesting Shares
No longer should we simply let these (newly vested shares) drift into our portfolio without a strategy or reason to hold vs. sell. Instead, we are going to develop a strategy for each block of vesting shares.