Helpful Articles

Taxes

 

Truly Taxing.

http://www.humbledollar.com/2017/05/truly-taxing-2/

 

A baker’s dozen tax optimization strategies for retirement planning.  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-bakers-dozen-tax-optimization-strategies-for-retirement-planning-2017-03-10

Your Taxes Are Higher Than You Think shows that the income taxes on your real growth is much higher than the stated tax rates for investment returns. In effect, the government is taxing inflation while inflation is simultaneously reducing your real returns.

 

A National Recovery That Will Work.  Unless the Congress does things like increase the age for Social Security and Medicare as well as trims government retirement benefits and increases certain taxes, our children will end up with what could be a national debt obligation  of over $1 million per tax payer.  There is an alternative that can save them at some penalty to us now.

 

It's time to cry "Uncle!"  Without including any of the effects of the stimulus bills, we're already committed to almost a four-fold increase in our personal taxes.  By including the stimulus, state, local and personal debts, the debt payments will eventually exceed our gross income.  This article illustrates the numbers and makes some suggestions to congress to help fix the problem.

 

Can YOU afford the bailout costs?  This article gives the lifetime annual taxes the average person is likely to incur from the various bailout and future entitlement programs.  It's a shocker.

 

Heirs may get little, feds lots.  This article shows how the Federal government may make much more from your investments than your heirs, particularly if you invest in savings bonds or must pay estate taxes from an IRA or other deferred-tax account.  It also offers some ways that may help heirs get more from your estate.

 

Hidden Government Costs Hit Your Wallet  Your taxes are much, much higher then you see on sales receipts and elsewhere.  See some examples in this article.

 

Can we afford such generous government pensions?  The total of all government worker's pensions will far exceed the total of all private sector pensions in the near future even though government employees represent less than 20% of the workforce.  We're all going to pay for it with our future taxes.

 

Should retirees sell now if taxes will be greater next year?  Lots of people are concerned about increased tax rates next year or soon thereafter.  This article shows that most often you should not sell highly appreciated properties in anticipation of tax growth.

 

Another Misleading Article on Our Wealth Growth  This article exposes the government’s recent attempt to make our growth of assets look good in spite of the real facts.

 

Planning with unrealized gains  Financial planning programs seldom ask you to account for the taxes that will be due on unrealized gains, that is, the current market price less your original