Your Wealth Reserve: Sell your stock or home without gains tax!

You can sell your long-held stock or home without gains tax!

If you have stocks that have gained a lot and now you fear selling because of the capital gains tax, one solution is to wait till your income is under $80,000 (MFJ). At that stage, the tax is 0%. To avoid future tax on this money, put up to $6,000 a year into a Roth IRA for each of you ($7,000 over age 50). If you have owned your home for a long time and now wish to sell, you can avoid the tax on $500,000 capital gains for joint owners. In most cases you don’t even have to report the sale and gain unless your real estate person files an unnecessary form. If your gain is over $½ million you can’t avoid the gain by doing a 1035 asset exchange. However, you can use the exclusion more than once.

Avoid future taxes: https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Tax-Shelter-Avoid-taxes/dp/1985448300

Is a charitable remainder trust a viable alternative to the Stretch IRA?

First name a charitable remainder trust as the beneficiary of your IRA to avoid the taxes due on your tax-deferred account. Second, name the trust beneficiaries, such as children or grandchildren, so they will collect the fixed payouts for life or for a set number of years. Third, name the charity to get what’s left (a minimum of 10% of the initial value of trust must be donated). Do the heirs have taxes to pay each fixed payout? Yes, just like inheriting an IRA except the tax can be paid out over a longer period of time. Make sure your trust is legal in your state.

https://www.amazon.com/What-your-RMD-much-spend/dp/1718946716

Insurers win again

Lobbyists for the insurance companies are most responsible for the end of the estate plan of leaving your kids your retirement fund, IRA and Roth IRA. Employers will ‘encourage’ their employees to buy an insurance product (annuity) to pay income to heirs over time. Insurers will be given $ trillions by retirees on the promise of ‘guaranteed funds for life.’ This ‘guarantee’ is what most people say they want. Trouble comes when inflation cuts the value of each monthly payment by HALF. Annuity benefits are set at purchase even when interest rates are low. Insurers will have our money whether we live for 30 years or 5 years. Some insurers will ‘pass away’ before their annuitants do: some heirs will get little. Employers receive a benefit too. They will not be liable if something goes wrong with the plan. We will be fighting an insurance conglomerate not our employer for the rest of our payout. We give up our principal even if we die in a year after purchase. Most annuities have no refund option.

Consider alternatives: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Retirement-Income-Checklist-TrumpWorld/dp/1544703260

Vanguard or Fidelity?

Study: Vanguard was able to run their funds in a more tax-efficient manner. The research clearly found that Fidelity was the winner on expense ratios. This was true across the board. The result is perhaps surprising given Vanguard’s record of historical cost leadership within the industry. Still it’s clear in the data that Fidelity holds the lead on fees. The researchers found that Vanguard funds were, on average, slightly more diversified. Generally, either Fidelity or Vanguard funds appear reasonable picks for most investors, with the investment strategy being perhaps the more important question. But the Johnson family still makes money from its clients.

Vanguard is owned by its shareholders: https://www.amazon.com/Vanguards-Top-Ten-mutual-funds/dp/150073909X

Taxes: from you’all to the tax-credit class

Look at the effect of the tax breaks of 2017 and 2019: US increased the deficit to $1 TRILLION for the 1^st time. Billionaires and corporation pay less than we do: 17%-21% vs 32.9% for us. The social safety net for us is being cut: SS disability, food stamps, SS benefit reduction, loss of national free space, loss of clean air and water, loss of independent justice, loss of voting opportunities, loss of credibility in world. Subsidies to corporations going up with OpZone Zero tax plan, coal/gas/mining subsidies, bank subsidies, corn/farm/tariff subsidies, Boeing subsidies, ExIm bank subsidies, hedge fund subsidies. ZERO tax US corporations include Netflix, Amazon, Chevron, Delta Airlines, Eli Lilly, General Motors, Gannett, Goodyear, Halliburton, IBM, Jetblue Airways, Principal Financial, Salesforce.com,

Steel, and Whirlpool. There were 60 in 2018, Trump is the US authoritarian ‘socialist’ like Putin. All the tax benefits go to the top elite class just like in Russia. Like the USSR oligarchs, US oligarchs move their money offshore to avoid taxes. We already have socialism: those who have more pay least for American society. Working people pay 32.9% while rich pay 17% or less.

https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Socialism-Rich-little-people-pay/dp/1535218584

Why stocks are the best long-term investment even with market corrections

Warren Buffett has to be one of the all time successful investors. His company (Berkshire Hathaway) owns many other companies and the returns from owning its stocks are 20% double that of the market overall at 10%. Mr Buffett explains how he is successful in his letter to shareholders. It is worth reading because it is written in high-school level English not broker-speak. Most of his shareholders are not finance people. He explains how wealth is created by using compounded earnings. He explains why he is a ‘buy and hold’ investor. DALBAR, the firm that keeps score, shows that active trading investors earn just 3.79% whereas buy and hold index investors earn 10-11%. This is why the largest money managers have attracted more index investors from the brokerage business. Study after study shows that over time index investors who don’t trade earn more even in downturns. Sure, there are hedge funds that have done well during certain times but we don’t know which ones and when it will happen. Buffett put his $1 million bet behind his advice and beat 5 popular hedge funds from 2008 to 2017.

Trust Buffett: https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffett-Your-Investment-Advisor/dp/1518690963

File your taxes for free

TurboTax and other for-profit tax prep firms are due to raise prices soon. If you have your documents, use your favorite software now and pay your tax due on April 15. The payment, if any, can be in April; the filing should not. The federal and state can cost you nothing at https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/. Another site has no cost or restrictions: https://www.creditkarma.com/tax. And remember you can usually reduce income and thus tax by making a deductible contribution to your IRA.

Save for a long life: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Plan-Live-Age-100/dp/1548180793

**********ACCOUNTABILITY**************

Like 1776, this period is a test of democracy—do we really want ‘low-IQ’ Mobster?

“I am chief law enforcement officer of the country”

We don’t need judges/juries anymore: Mob Boss will decide for US

His judges will carry out his wishes: One says abolish SS benefits.

Asks only HIS Supreme Court justices to judge him

Mob Boss getting all his felon friends/co-conspirators out of jail

I love wikiLeaks and I am giving him a pardon if recants.

How Govt wastes our money: Congress spends another 1.7 Trillion we don’t have!

How a bully out bullies a Mobster: Manipulation that puts Putin to shame.

Trump to cut disabled person’s $1,258 a month to pay for tax cuts to wealthy