I’ve been hearing that people are getting their stimulus payments in the form of an “Economic Impact Payment Card” instead of a check. I’ve checked it out: it’s not a scam, it’s really the government trying to send you money (using MetaBank as a bizarre middleman for some reason.) Here’s what you need to do if you get this: 1.) Call 1-800-240-8100 and press 1 for English, then 1 to activate the card. 2.) Punch […]
Yesterday I discovered that people who didn’t get refunds on their most recent tax return don’t seem to be getting the direct deposits, even if their banking info is on file. The IRS does not assume the account you use for making payments is the account they should direct deposit into. There are three solutions: 1.) Ignore this. If your income is over $99K as a single person, $136.5K as Single Filing as Head of […]
This morning I woke up and discovered that there’s a live tool to change your bank account with the IRS if you changed bank info since 2018 but haven’t yet filed for 2019. I had someone in that situation, so I called up and got permission to do this, and this is how it went. 1.) It’s an Intuit product, basically using the front end that TurboTax uses. You have to create a login with […]
RMDs are suspended for 2020! That means that we do not HAVE to take a distribution. You still can, of course, you just aren’t being required to. It’s still a good idea to use up low tax brackets with IRA distributions even if you’re not being forced. I’ll be revisiting this for all my ProsperiTea Planning retainers during our regular tax planning meetings. If you’ve already taken them in 2020 you can roll it back in within […]
On social media I’m hearing people complain about their refunds being lower and blaming Trump’s tax reform. There’s some confusion going on. You actually probably DID get a tax cut. Just in a ham-handed ineffective way. The issue is that the withholding tables are broken. To be honest, they’ve been broken for a long time, which is why people wait with such bated breath to find out if they’ll owe or get a refund. Withholding tables […]
Did you know that only about 6% of people have the right amount withheld from their paychecks? It’s what brings all the drama to tax-time: the uncertainty of knowing whether you had enough withheld to cover the tax bill, or if you’re going to owe more. The main reason for this is that the Federal withholding tables do not work for nearly anyone except a single person with one job. Ever try to use the […]
I’ve spent the week-end digesting what’s in this tax bill, now that it’s formed up and ready for a vote. Obviously it could still fall apart, but here are some quick thoughts. I’ve bolded the ones that could use attention in December. Standard deductions are going up, and some of you may find you have even less reason to itemize than ever before. I’ll revisit my recommendations to everyone individually this week. (Festive yule, anyone?) But […]
A friend mentioned that I ought to read something by Bogle so I trotted down to the library to fetch one the other day. Our library didn’t have any in stock so I ordered it through inter-library loan, but in the meantime I picked up a few books from the same section of the library shelves. So I just finished reading “The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed: the only personal finance system for people […]
Geez, Congress really does nail-biters. Here’s the tax code for 2015, finally. Probably a few days after the drop-dead date for ordering tax forms. Yeah. Enjoy. https://www.mypescpe.com/!FreePDFs/PATHact2015.pdf
Happy Thanksgiving! The biggest payoff comes from being good at things that are absolutely under our control. That’s the lesson I’ve learned studying economics, finance, and investment theory. That includes saving for goals, being a judicious consumer, and maintaining your relationships, your health, and your emotional wellness. One of my new gurus, Bert Whitehead, wrote a book called Why Smart People Do Stupid Things with Money: Overcoming Financial Dysfunction. He says not to put too […]
We do a really good job of leaving ourselves notes in our practice. If you don’t remember what it is we were waiting for to finish your return during tax season you can call the office at (413) 829-4832 and ask the seasonal tax assistant to go read to you what’s on the routing sheet: it’s where we leave open issues. But we also usually, almost always, write up the open issues and send them in an […]
2013 Year-End Tax Planning and Financial Wellness 2013 Thanksgiving Family Money letter November 27, 2013 Welcome to my annual Thanksgiving Family Money letter! I’m attaching the nicely formatted PDF of the letter to an email, but also including the actual text inline here, in case you don’t like to open attachments or spam filters got the email. (It’s just more readable as a PDF, I think.) I’ve recently completed several continuing education courses, […]
