For Financial Planners – How to help your client’s tax professional have a great tax season
The tax professional field has been a hard one to be in for several years now, and even more so since March 2020. It unfortunately is expected to continue to be a rough tax season in 2023. In this post, you will receive some perspective of what it’s like to…
SECURE Act 2.0 – what it means for you
The piece of legislature known as the SECURE Act 2.0 has been passed by both the US Senate (Thursday) and House (Friday), and is waiting for the signature of President Biden (presumably after the holidays). The SECURE Act 2.0 is actually part of the 2023 omnibus spending bill – the…
Need a financial discussion stimulator?
Certified Financial Planner Louis Barajas has presented in some of the education I’ve attended, and I’ve respected his community boosting attitude, so when I heard he was in a new PBS video series “Opportunity Knock$”, I decided to check it out:https://www.pbs.org/video/episode-1-Vhe6XZ/ I had my kids sit down with me to…
New car costs are at new highs
Have you been putting off replacing a car? We have been, but we’re getting closer to the point where that’s not going to be such a good idea anymore. As I’m starting to look at car costs, there’s a lot of unhappy numbers out there, for anyone buying with cash…
State specific tax traps
The tax word “conformant”, or more commonly “nonconformant”, is what makes state income taxes so complicated. Every state has its own ability to adopt, or not adopt, changes in federal income tax code, as well as to develop its own taxation strategies. Some states tend to adopt IRS code changes,…
What did October 2022’s new segment rate release mean for my pension lump sum?
First, what is a segment rate? A segment rate is based on the corporate bond rate yield curve – in other words, the change in corporate loan interest rates. When interest rates go down, as they did for the past few years, then the amount a pension lump sum has…
Should you pre-elect to sell PTO?
Some companies have unlimited vacation policies, which as I’ve been explaining to my children lately, is likely a trap. Other companies offer vacation packages, but then the “needs of the business” still don’t allow you to take your vacation. Or maybe you have more vacation than you need. In the…
Have you made your open enrollment elections?
Open Enrollment is ending soon! For many, it ends on Tuesday, November 15th, 2023. Make sure you check out all of my articles on open enrollment, so that you make educated decisions for next year.
Have you done your 2023 math yet?
Last month I posted all of the 2023 account limit information. Yesterday I prodded some of the people I love, reminding them that the information exists. Today one of those people got back to me to announce they’d done the math, determined how much they planned to put away next…