William Perry

Comments

• It is unclear to me why Vanguard had taken the position they did in regards to previously not allowing beneficiaries to be appropriately named on their jointly owned taxable accounts. I feel the same way towards my state laws that still does not allow us an option for a transfer on death in our deed as many states do. I know that we could have a revocable living trust to accomplish the same objective upon our deaths, I just do not understand why the large organizations do not allow the simple options.

  Post: Vanguard’s Transfer on Death Plan Kit

  Link to comment from March 8, 2026

• I am glad I learned of the change and that sharing the change was helpful. Best, Bill

  Post: Vanguard’s Transfer on Death Plan Kit

  Link to comment from March 7, 2026

• In the other potential income sources grouping part-time work can provide a lot of tax decision flexibility. For 2025 I was able to choose to make deductible IRA and spousal IRA contributions to the extent of my 2025 earned income and to do so in 2026 after knowing our exact taxable income items and after mid year 2025 tax changes, in our case the $6K age 65 and over senior deductions.

  Post: Tax Smart Retirement

  Link to comment from March 7, 2026

• I am uncertain if I will choose LDRI or a treasury inflation product such as VTIP in the future and thus I used like in my statement. For now I plan to continue to annually buy 10 year TIPS at auction for our rolling ladder. The real return on 10 year TIPS currently is 0.50% or more higher than either LDRI or VTIP and I am assuming that better yield difference will continue because of the longer duration. I am building our TIPS ladder inside our Roth IRAs to cover specific contingencies I am concerned about and other factors. The first contingency occurs when either my wife or I dies. I will likely predecease my spouse but whichever of us dies first the survivor will then receive a SS benefit based on the higher earning spouse's benefit and my wife's current lower spousal benefit amount will effectively end upon the death of the first spouse. I am hopeful that the 10 years TIPS ladder proceeds paid out from Roth's to whichever of us survives will be adequate to replace the SS benefit money that goes away when the first spouse dies and given how TIPS work should provide an inflation adjusted cash flow on a income tax free basis to the surviving spouse. The second contingency I am concerned about is if somewhere around the year 2032 or so the SS trust fund becomes depleted and I need to replace the decrease in our social security benefit. One other factor I am considering is that by limiting our TIPS ladder to 10 years is that our children, who are our Roth beneficiaries, have, under current tax rules, 10 years to withdraw the remaining assets in the inherited Roth IRAs and such beneficiary distributions, if any, should be income tax free to them.

  Post: New to building a CD or Bond Ladder?

  Link to comment from March 5, 2026

• Hi Mark. Is your taxable account ownership joint? That might be the difference.

  Post: Vanguard’s Transfer on Death Plan Kit

  Link to comment from March 4, 2026

• Thanks Howard. Here is a link to LDRC at Morningstar. A 0.10% net expense ratio and a effective duration of 2.71 looks great to me for a bond fund. I am still buying TIPS at auction but there will be a point in life when I will likely stop buying individual TIPS and just choose to use a low cost short duration TIPS fund like LDRI (0.10% ER, 2.74 effective duration).

  Post: New to building a CD or Bond Ladder?

  Link to comment from March 4, 2026

• That was the case when I opened our joint taxable at Vanguard. Here is a link to the Boglehead's Forum that got me looking at the issue again.

  Post: Vanguard’s Transfer on Death Plan Kit

  Link to comment from March 4, 2026

• Per KFF commentary it would appear to me that having a bronze plan does take precedence.

  Post: HSA Tips

  Link to comment from March 3, 2026

• The federal link takes you to a similar link for NY. I would expect that NY would have been on top of changes in Notice 2026-5 but you may want to actual use the NY lookup features and the actual plan she signed up for to see if her plan is listed as HSA eligible or not. It may just be that the plan your daughter signed up for is not an eligible plan for some reason. Asking AI about if there are HSA eligible available I got this response - Yes, the NY State of Health Marketplace (nystateofhealth.ny.gov) offers ACA-compliant health plans that are Health Savings Account (HSA) eligible. As of 2026, all Bronze and Catastrophic plans on the Marketplace are HSA-eligible. These plans must be paired with a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). I hope this helps. Best, Bill

  Post: HSA Tips

  Link to comment from March 2, 2026

• I wonder if you or your daughter could make use of healthcare.gov to determine if the plan she is enrolled in makes her HSA eligible? I agree with you that the level of tax complexity regarding health care is unreasonable.

  Post: HSA Tips

  Link to comment from March 2, 2026