With the number of days left to minimize tax bills for this year rapidly dwindling, six core moves now can lessen the pain from Uncle Sam. As inflation slices into paychecks and the end-2025 deadline for tax rates to increase draws closer, "you'll want to
Why pushing clients to max retirement contributions benefits advisors
Investors with a 401(k) or 403(b) — the latter for employees of public schools and nonprofits — face a tighter deadline and must kick in extra dollars for the year by Dec. 31, 2022. Savers can contribute up to $25,500, plus an additional $6,500 if they're 50 or older. Contributions reduce taxable income.
Read more:
Read more:
Wait to get paid
Deferring taxable compensation, such as a bonus, can also reduce your exposure to income and capital gains taxes and the 3.8% Medicare surtax on investment income, according to Rosenberg Rich Baker Berman & Co., an accounting and advisory firm. That's because when modified adjusted gross income — taxable income before deductions for things like student loan interest and the 15.3% self employment tax — exceeds $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples filing jointly), a 3.8% tax kicks in.
Regardless of how much they make, those who expect to land in a higher tax bracket next year
Read more:
Open the wallet
An investor who donates appreciated shares after holding them for at least one year doesn't owe federal capital gains tax, now as high as 23.8%, or state levies on the profits. The donor can write off the full fair market value of the securities at the time of donation. The corresponding deduction reduces taxable income, which lower the amount of money owed to the IRS that year.
"If you have significantly increased income,
Investors can gift up to $16,000 per recipient to as many people as they like. And each person in a married couple can gift this amount. There's no tax deduction, but the recipients won't owe taxes, and the largesse reduces the value of your estate without cutting into your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption of just over $12 million (double that for married couples). Ed Slott, an accountant and retirement expert in Rockville Centre, New York, says that a "regular"' beneficiary, like a son or daughter, to a Roth plan in 2020 or later doesn't have to take RMDs for years one through nine.
Read more:
Get your RMD ducks in order
The situation for heirs of retirement plans is different.
Before 2020, people who inherited individual retirement accounts and 401(k)s used to be able to "stretch" out distributions over their lifetimes, a timeline that allowed more money to accumulate. But since that year, recent heirs who aren't a spouse, minor child, disabled or sick person or more than 10 years younger than the original owner, such as a sibling, must drain an inherited plan within 10 years of the original owner's death.
Spouses who inherit a traditional IRA after 2019 aren't hit by the 10-year rule as long as they make a spousal rollover that stuffs the inherited plan into an existing IRA.
But non-spousal heirs must take annual distributions regardless of their age and drain the account by year 10, according to a
Wealth advisors have offered conflicting advice on whether RMDs are required for inherited Roth IRAs.
Read more:
Read more:
Plight your troth to a Roth
The big benefit of converting now comes from an unexpected place: the lousy stock market. As Morgan Stanley's global investment committee wrote in a December 2022 note, "The grueling, double-barreled bear market for stocks and bonds— catalyzed by the highest inflation in more than 40 years and a Federal Reserve response featuring one of the most rapid hiking cycles in history—has produced among the most challenging years for investment returns in the last half century."
So where's the fun in that?
"With many investments down this year,
Read more:
Read more: