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The Limited Significance of Your Money: Exploring its True Value
There are only four things you can do with your money: pay taxes, spend it, invest it, or give it away. That’s it. Not very exciting, is it. What is important, is how you use your money to get the life you want.
How to Use Roth Accounts
I like to call Roth Accounts the “Never Taxed Again” account because you are taxed on the money you put in, but you are not taxed when you take it out nor are you taxed on the earnings.
The Three Types of Account Taxability
We have many choices when investing. Today, we are going to look at the different ways an account may be taxed: now, in the future, and never again. Given these choices, we might think the “never taxed again” structure is best and the “taxed now” is worst, but there’s much more to the story.
Consider Taxes When Making Withdrawals
I know that might sound odd as we tend to save throughout our working life and even sometimes well into our retirement years. But there will be times you need to withdraw your savings and it’s important to consider the tax implications.
Use a Professional Tax Preparer
I’m guessing that you don’t love to do your own taxes, but even if you do that’s no reason to take the risk that comes with preparing your own taxes. I’ve seen some very smart people who make a lot of money cost themselves literally tens of thousands of dollars because they were trying to save an $800 bill from a CPA.
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.
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.
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 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.
3 Things to Know About Your Company Stock
You’ve worked for a great company for a while and have stock that has built up over time. What do you need to know to get the most out of it? Here are three things you need to know about your company stock.
When to Sell Your RSUs
RSUs, restricted stock units, are sometimes issued by your employer’s company as a form of a delayed bonus. Since it’s a paid bonus received as compensation in the form of stock, it’s up to you to sell the stock and receive the cash.