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April, 2014:

Book Review: Facing the Finish–A Roadmap for Aging Parents and Adult Children

One of life’s only sureties, we all will eventually come face-to-face with the end of our life.  Sometimes it comes quickly with no warning, and sometimes end of life comes more slowly, over the course of many months or years.  In either case, after life there are many things to deal with (for those that remain) – and in the cases where the final chapter of our life is a lengthy one, there are many more decisions to make and situations to deal with. Regardless of how swiftly or drawn out the event is, we can all benefit from planning out many of the inevitable decisions in advance. This book is an excellent guide for folks who are either nearing that final transition in life (referred to by the author as Older Adults), or who are helping our parents or grandparents with this transition (referred to as Adult Children).  Most […]

Do I Need My Life Insurance Through Work?

Many employees have access to employer provided benefits such as health insurance, a retirement savings plan disability insurance and life insurance. Generally the coverage is group term coverage that will pay a specified death benefit up to a certain amount that is usually based on a multiple of the employee’s salary. An employee making $50,000 per year may have group term life insurance that pays a death benefit of $40,000. Generally the employer will pay the premium for coverage up to a certain death benefit amount. Usually this amount is $50,000. The reason why is the IRS allows the employer to pay the premiums on a group life insurance policy up to a face amount of $50,000 without the employee having to include the amount the employer pays for premiums in gross income. Sometimes the employee can elect to have coverage for a higher amount but will most likely have […]

Be Careful When Converting

When converting from a 401(k), traditional IRA, 403(b), SIMPLE IRA, SEP or 457(b) to a Roth IRA there are some important tax considerations to keep in mind. First, converting from a tax deferred plan to a tax free plan it’s not always the best idea. Generally, it’s going to make sense to convert if the tax payer believes that he or she will be in a higher income tax bracket in retirement. For example, John, age 28 has a 401(k) and recently left his employer. He’s currently in the 15% bracket but expects to be in the 28% bracket or higher in retirement. It may make sense for John to convert his 401(k) to his Roth IRA. This makes sense for John because when he converts from a pre-tax, employer sponsored plan like the 401(k) it’s money that has not yet been taxed. If he converts while in the 15% […]

Tax Time is Over. Maybe.

For most folks tomorrow marks the one week anniversary of filing their 2014 tax return. Not much needs to be done after they’ve filed except for deciding to have more withheld in 2014 for those folks who had to write a check to Uncle Sam or deciding what to do with the refund (hint: put it in an IRA) for those folks who got a refund. What happens when the return may have been submitted with mistakes or perhaps costly errors? Generally, if the error is minor the IRS will correct errors or accept returns without certain forms or schedules attached. For those returns that have a change in filing status, income, deductions, and credits then filing an amended return will most likely be appropriate. For those folks needing to file an amended return they are allowed to file using form 1040X. Form 1040X will allowing corrections to earlier filed […]

Do Unto Others?

In the financial services industry there has been considerable discussion on the application of the fiduciary standard of care for clients versus the suitability standard of care. There are generally two sides to the argument: on the fiduciary side the standard of care is to act in the best interests of the client (the standard that Jim and I are held to and embrace) and the other side which is a suitability standard of care in which the recommendation needs to be suitable, but not necessarily in the best interest of the client. This is where things get sticky. Acting in the best interest of the client is pretty cut and dry. After extensive questioning and gathering of information a recommendation is made to the client based on what is best for their situation. This means recommending keeping the current course of action, following a designed and carefully thought out […]

Obamacare and Your 2013 Tax Return

So – you’re considering your income tax return (or maybe you’ve already filed) and you’re wondering if there are things you need to know with regard to Obamacare.  Fortunately, it’s not much (for most folks), for your 2013 return anyhow.  Next year will be a different story. The IRS recently produced their Health Care Tax Tip HCTT-2014-10 which lists some tips about how the health care law impacts your 2013 tax return.  The actual text of the Tip is below: What do I need to know about the Health Care Law for my 2013 Tax Return? For most people, the Affordable Care Act has no effect on their 2013 federal income tax return.  For example, you will not report health care coverage under the individual shared responsibility provision or claim the premium tax credit until you file your 2014 return in 2015. However, for some people, a few provisions may […]

Avoiding Mistakes on Your Tax Return

When filing your tax return you want to make sure that you don’t make mistakes.  Mistakes can be costly in terms of additional tax and penalties, as well as the extra time and grief they can cause you.  Most of the time using e-filing software can help you to avoid these mistakes, but you should check over the return anyhow to make certain you haven’t fat-fingered something or if something didn’t go wrong with the software. The IRS recently issued their Tax Tip 2014-46, which lists out 8 common mistakes that folks make on their tax return, and how to avoid them where possible.  The actual text of the Tip follows below: Eight Common Tax Mistakes to Avoid We all make mistakes.  But if you make a mistake on your tax return, the IRS may need to contact you to correct it.  That will delay your refund. You can avoid […]

Capital Gains and Losses and Your Tax Return

When you own certain kinds of assets and you sell them, you may incur a capital gain or loss that is applicable to your income tax preparation.  If the original purchase price plus applicable expenses associated with the asset (known as the basis) is less than the proceeds that you receive from the sale of the asset, you have incurred a capital gain.  On the other hand, if the basis of your asset is greater than the proceeds from the sale, you have incurred a capital loss. Capital gains are taxable to you, using a separate tax rate – and capital losses can be deducted from your capital gains for the year.  Excess capital losses (above your capital gains for the year) can be used to reduce your income by up to $3,000 per year, carried forward until used up (or for your lifetime). The IRS recently produced their Tax […]

Simplified Home-Office Deduction Available

Beginning with your 2013 tax return you have a new option available for calculating the Home-Office deduction – based solely on the square footage of the dedicated space used for the home office. Instead of having to maintain records that are directly and indirectly associated with your home office, you can use the simplified method, which applies a flat $5 rate per square foot to the home office space, up to a maximum of $1,500. The record-keeping and tax preparation simplification is very beneficial: Form 8829 (the usual home-office deduction form) can cause a lot of headaches to prepare, especially if you have more than one home office and you itemize your home mortgage interest and real estate taxes.  For a single home office your tax preparation software will do much of the work for you, but complications like a second home office (not that uncommon in these days of […]

Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Early?

As individuals pursue the American Dream of buying their first or next home the question may arise on whether or not it’s a good idea to pay down the mortgage and have no mortgage debt or pay the normal monthly payment and invest the extra money that would have gone to pay down the mortgage early in a place (the stock market) that offers the potential for higher returns over the long run. There are many fierce advocates for paying off debt, any debt early. While this is a wise choice regarding high interest debts such as credit cards, student loans and other high interest loans it may not necessarily be the case for home mortgage debt. Here’s a situation where for some folks it may make sense to pay down early and for others they may wish to consider invested the extra money elsewhere. Generally, the younger a person […]

Further Guidance on the One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule for IRAs

As a follow-up to the recent post on this blog The One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule: Revised, the IRS has recently released some additional guidance on the subject, via Announcement 2014-15. As previously mentioned, the IRS has determined to begin using the one-rollover-per-year rule applied to ALL IRAs that the taxpayer owns, rather than only the affected IRAs that have been involved in a rollover. According to the Announcement, the IRS fully acknowledges that the previous understanding of the rule was that it applied on an IRA-by-IRA basis.  In fact, there was a Proposed Regulation § 1.408-4(b)(4)(ii) on the books that was to further define the rule as applied only to the involved IRAs.  Ever since the Tax Court decided otherwise in the case Bobrow v. Commissioner (TC Memo 2014-21), the rule has been changed. According to the recent announcement though, this will not take affect across the board until January 1, 2015.  […]