You should invest as though you’ll have to justify every buy and sell to your toughest high school teacher.
NO. 29: WHAT MATTERS to long-term stock investors is the market’s dividend yield and growth in earnings per share. Everything else is noise that can bully and seduce us into foolishness.
NO. 137: AIMING TO WIN means we’re more likely to lose. Yes, there’s some chance we’ll pick market-beating stocks and funds. But in all likelihood, our performance will be dragged down by the investment costs we incur. That failure often looks even worse once we factor in taxes, because active management tends to generate big annual tax bills.
NO. 10: WE ALL HAVE tasks that we dislike. Research suggests hiring others to do chores we don’t enjoy, like mowing the lawn or cleaning the house, is a great way to use money to buy happiness. In fact, paying others to do chores we dislike is a double win. Not only do we avoid the distasteful task, but also we free up time for things that we truly enjoy.
DON'T RUSH to roll over your Roth 401(k) to an IRA. Once you’re in your 70s, you used to be required to take distributions from a Roth 401(k)—but not a Roth IRA—but that requirement went away in 2024. Result? Now that a key incentive to roll over Roth 401(k)s is gone, you might opt to leave money at your old employer, especially if the plan offers low-cost funds.
NO. 29: WHAT MATTERS to long-term stock investors is the market’s dividend yield and growth in earnings per share. Everything else is noise that can bully and seduce us into foolishness.
There has been a plethora of back and forth in the HD Forum recently about what constitutes income. I hesitate to wade into these stormy seas. But what the heck. I wrote an article a while ago that discussed the various meanings of income that the tax code uses. Head there if you want a discussion of Gross income, Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), Modified AGI, Taxable income, and Combined income.
Right off the bat I’ll state that this argument will never be won.
As a recent retiree who is using my cash reserves to cross my two-year “bridge” to my SS claiming date, I need to decide from which of my tax-free accounts I should withdraw to supplement our living expenses as I move into 2025. I will have used up my taxable account funds by the end of 2024.
Given our household’s low taxable income during this period I have been doing strategic (fill up the tax bracket,
IF YOUR GOAL IS lower investment costs, the financial world has never been friendlier. Let’s say you want to buy the broad U.S. stock market. You can choose between a Schwab exchange-traded index fund that charges 0.03% of assets per year, an iShares ETF that levies 0.03% or a Vanguard mutual fund that costs 0.05%.
Those expense ratios are truly astonishing: If you had $100,000 to invest in the broad U.S. market, your annual fund expenses would be just $30 or $50.
YOU’VE HEARD OF asset allocation. But how good are you at asset location?
On that one, I’d have to give myself a failing grade, but I hope to pass the test someday. I’ve realized I could save myself hundreds of dollars a year in taxes by relocating much of my safe money to tax-advantaged accounts, while being more aggressive with stocks in my taxable account. Those moves would leave me with the same overall stock allocation,
TRAVELING DURING the holidays? As we drive east out of Ohio and into Pennsylvania, we know to fill the gas tank before we cross the border. According to the Tax Foundation, Pennsylvania has the third-highest gasoline tax in the country, behind California and Illinois, and about 20 cents per gallon higher than Ohio.
All states have to balance their budget. But they take very different approaches. This provides 50 experiments in taxation—and those taxes influence our behavior.
One option per the IRS –
Pay online and click on extension. Taxpayers simply pay what they owe using an online payment option, then click on extension as the reason for the payment. The taxpayer will receive a confirmation number of their extension for their records. There’s no need to file any additional forms.
https://www.irs.gov/payments
The failure to pay penalty is 0.5% per month. The failure to file penalty is 5.0% per month.
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