William Perry

Comments

• Your comment about cell phones reminds me of a famous movie line from Quigley Down Under spoken by Tom Selleck a while back - "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it."  Thanks for commenting.

  Post: ID.me

  Link to comment from July 18, 2025

• Fill the oil, check the gas.

  Post: Flexing the Retirement Spending Muscle

  Link to comment from July 17, 2025

• Hi John, I have read a couple of different books authored or co-authored by Dr. Lawrence Kotlikoff, PhD in Economics at BU. Those books encouraged me to decide to wait until age 70 to claim my earned SS benefit, as you plan to do, and I enjoy his writing and much, but not all, of his economic thinking. The good professor also has a company named Maxifi Planner that has a Roth Conversion Optimizer. If I were in the market for a advanced Roth conversion calculator that is where I would start my search. You ask the question "What am I missing?" and gave the HD community a lot of your data but I think it is likely we need to know more about your goals to help you with our thinking about Roth conversions. For example- Do you plan to make large qualified charitable distributions when you reach your required beginning date for IRA / 401(k) distributions? Do you plan to have a qualified annuity in your retirement assets? Will you leave all of your tax deferred accounts to your spouse, children, charities, other? Those different beneficiaries would likely impact your decision on Roth conversions as they each likely have different tax ramifications. Are you coordinating your Roth conversion decisions with the decisions your wife is making regarding her tax deferred accounts? Your wife is much younger than you but bad health events can and do happen. Conversely, if you should die an early death then your spouse may be forced into a much higher tax bracket as with her taxes would then be determined as a single filer. Typically there is a period after work ends and before you claim SS benefits and RMD's begin that is a good period to make Roth conversions if your goal is to smooth the taxes you pay over your lifetime. I will be 75 this year and I plan to make Roth contributions or conversions for 2025 to 2028 as I expect my federal tax rate will go up when the OBBBA short term tax breaks go away. I doubt that anyone can currently predict what taxes will look like after 2028.You have a much longer runway that I do. You will at least have some certainty about what will congress actually does about funding social benefits when the trust fund is gone. I hope my thoughts help. My default factor in my tax decisions is what I expect is best for my wife and then my adult children in the event things go poorly. Best, Bill

  Post: Roth Conversion Timing and Amounts to Maximize Benefits

  Link to comment from July 17, 2025

• I often watch Friends Talk Money which covers a lot of topics mostly about money in retirement. A couple of years back the episode topic was annuities which I thought was worth the watch for me. Tax deferral is a major consideration in my comment but other considerations are lifetime income and mortality credits as part of the positives regarding annuities. I chose to not buy an annuity. If you are interested in watching the video a link follows - https://friendstalkmoney.org/podcast/annuities-for-retirement-income/ Best, Bill

  Post: New Bonus Senior Deduction Impact

  Link to comment from July 17, 2025

• Hi Mark. I enjoyed your telling of the wedding dress for your daughter by another mother. A little over 46 years ago my wife and I married. Money was really tight then and my wife had sewing skills so she made her own wedding dress. Fast forward to about nine years ago when our daughter was getting married. The dress my wife made and wore at our wedding was repurposed by disassembly and professionally recreated into a new wedding dress for my daughter. I was happy to pay the seamstress for the wonderful new dress and the memories doing so has created for us. I expect you will cherish the memory of your generous act and maybe some future day the dress you funded will be given new life again. You may even be called upon for a second speech.

  Post: Flexing the Retirement Spending Muscle

  Link to comment from July 17, 2025

• Hi Kathy, The OBBBA was passed under the Byrd rule where only a simple majority is required to pass a reconciliation bill in the Senate as I understand the rule. It seems unlikely that outside of the Byrd rule that there is the political will to get 60 votes in the Senate to currently do what is needed to fix the funding for social security to pay the projected scheduled benefits beyond 2032 or so. As for your RMD being fixed have you considered a Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract (QLAC) which lowers your asset base the RMD is computed on until the QLAC becomes effective, which is required to start no later than age 85 as I understand the requirement?

  Post: New Bonus Senior Deduction Impact

  Link to comment from July 17, 2025

• Ed, Christine Benz at Morningstar had a 7/14/25 analysis of parts of the OBBBA where she also commented under a subheading, Gifting, about the new 2026 savings account for children-

  Regarding whether to fund a “Trump account” for a child or contribute to some other vehicle such as a 529 plan, the 529 looks a bit better from a tax standpoint.

  https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/what-new-tax-laws-mean-your-retirement-plan

  Rob Berger in his weekly newsletter recommended a newsletter article by Andy Panko who also offered his opinion under the subheading Creation of “Trump” savings accounts for individuals under 18

  https://static.twentyoverten.com/5d252702a03bfb38f263a72e/Zl4tW6UyHh7/Tenon-Financial-Newsletter-OBBBA-20250707.pdf?ck_subscriber_id=2905781418&utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Investor%27s%20Newsletter%20-%2018273941

  I hope these articles help.

  Post: New Bonus Senior Deduction Impact

  Link to comment from July 16, 2025

• Great analysis Rick and a lot of work on your part. Bravo. I would highlight two matters in your commentary which I think deserves particular emphasis. First, you correctly note one criteria for the extra 6K senior bonus per spouse 2025 personal deduction with the short comment - Additionally, the site indicates that married couples must file jointly to be eligible for the bonus deduction. If a 65+ x 2 couple's marriage is on the rocks (or other reasons) and they cannot agree to file a joint return they would end up filing married filing separately and could each be giving up their $6K senior deduction. Ouch. Second, in your fifth column example, MFJ with $50K of long term capital gains, the tax changes $3,240 with the additional two senior deductions totaling $12,000. 3,240 / 12,000 = 27%. This demonstrates in calculating taxes that the long term capital gains rate brackets stack on top of the ordinary income rates. Ordinary income dropped $12K x 12% = $1,440 in tax savings. The long term capital capital gains did not change but the capital gain bracket they fall in moved from the 15% bracket to the 0% bracket and saved $12K x 15% = $1,800. Thus the total tax savings is $1,440 + $1,800 = $3,240 as shown in your analysis. The 27% change is the marginal tax rate. Your analysis shows the value of a formal analysis and I hope your work encourages the readers of your article to make such an analysis so they may make good tax decisions. Thank you Rick.

  Post: New Bonus Senior Deduction Impact

  Link to comment from July 16, 2025

• I also have a login.gov account. The Login.gov is the government, the ID.me is a private company that identity verification has been outsourced to. I have mixed feelings about our government outsourcing ID verification. The process was time consuming for me because of original documentation I was lacking. My main objective in writing this forum piece is giving HD readers a heads up to get this task done if will apply to them.

  Post: ID.me

  Link to comment from July 16, 2025

• The National Law Review in 2012 issued a long white paper titled - Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) Fees – A Primer on the Tax Treatment of Entrance and Monthly Fees The paper concludes in part - CCRCs provide valuable lifestyle and medical options for the elderly in a tax-efficient manner. For residents, portions of entrance and membership fees paid to these facilities may be deductible under IRC § 213 to the extent they are attributable to medical expenses. I laughed when I read the footnote stating - It is said in some circles that, if you have seen one CCRC, you have seen one CCRC meaning each CCRC is unique. I would expect that the written annual estimate of deductible medical expenses provided by the CCRC to the resident is currently sufficient evidence to support a itemized medical expense on the resident's federal tax return.

  Post: Bankruptcies in continuing care

  Link to comment from July 14, 2025