The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 gave most Americans a break on their upcoming taxes – but you don’t need legislation to cut your taxes even further with sound investment strategies that focus on tax optimization.
Here are a few ways to help yourself at Uncle Sam’s expense.
1. Shift Toward Capital
Bonds
If you are one of the fortunate few who have a defined benefit retirement plan, you have more predictability in your retirement income than most. You can calculate your combined pension benefits and any Social Security benefits that you have earned and have a clear idea of your annual income throughout retirement – assuming you
The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) gave most Americans a break on their upcoming taxes – but you don’t need legislation to cut your taxes even further with sound investment strategies that focus on tax optimization.
Here are a few ways to help yourself at Uncle Sam’s expense.
1. Shift Toward Capital
Do you consider yourself a financial risk-taker? If so, what is the standard that you use to analyze risk? If you don’t fully understand risk, you may be looking at the wrong criteria to make the best financial decisions for you and your family.
A recent survey by AMG Funds suggests that very few investors
Municipal bonds have long been a popular fixed-income investment option. They are issued by state and local governments and their agencies to raise money for public projects like schools, hospitals, roads and bridges.
The issuer agrees to make interest payments to bondholders at a fixed rate and repay the principal amount in full on a
One of the biggest mistakes many investors make is not considering the effects of taxes on their returns. Local, state and federal taxes can take a big bite out of your investment earnings.
This makes it critical to formulate strategies for minimizing the impact of taxes on your investments. Here are six strategies that can
As much fun as it is to hold your tax refund check in your hands and rub them together with glee, direct deposit is a simpler and faster method of receiving your refund. It may be safer as well. Not only will you be spared the possibility of someone stealing your check out of the
When picking retirement funds, it’s easy to get confused by the different options available. For many households, saving for the next month is difficult enough, let alone thinking further into the future. To enjoy a happy and financially stable retirement, however, it’s crucial to make the right investments.
Most Americans use a combination of bonds
The end of a year is a time to assess what happened over the past 12 months and look forward to the promise of new opportunities. That is true with most aspects of life, and your financial portfolio should be no exception. Give your holdings a year-end review and consider these strategies as you do
Are lottery tickets a component of your retirement program? Then you sound like an extreme risk-taker when it comes to investing. Do you throw up every time you hear that the stock market dropped? Then odds are you are a conservative investor.
All kidding aside, it is wise to take time to seriously assess your
Let’s say we offer to hold 10,000 dollars of your money and pay you back $9,900 after five years. Why would you agree to a deal like that?
That is the very sort of thing that is happening in Europe, with bonds that are literally generating negative interest rates. Germany, France, Sweden, and Denmark all
What does it mean when a bond has a negative return? It simply means that a bond is worth less at maturity than its value at purchase.
As strange as it may sound, negative nominal (face value) bond yields have occurred in the past. Investors can accept such a rate to maintain a low risk
Although government bond yields dropped in the past week, lenders have continued to hold mortgage interest rates steady. On Thursday, the 10-year yield on bonds dropped to 1.387 percent, while the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.41 percent. The difference of 2.02 percent is higher than it has been since the
You can finally see retirement in the horizon – lounging on the beach, jetting around the world, or puttering around in your backyard. Whatever your goals are, you will soon be realizing them, assuming you have saved and invested wisely. How should your investments be rebalanced as you approach your retirement goals? The answer to
Asset allocation models usually refer to the mix of three asset classes in your investment portfolio: stocks, bonds and cash – although cash is sometimes unwisely lumped in with bonds.
The three major issues in picking an asset allocation model are:
Goal – What is your investing goal? As the saying goes, if you don’t
A New Year typically brings hope that if things were difficult last year, they may improve this year – and if things were good last year, they’ll surely get even better! However, if you don’t plan and act appropriately, you’ll soon be lamenting 2016 and longing for a better 2017.
To get you started in
The term “market correction” is unsettling to most investors, but it really should not be. If you take the longer view of investing and resist overreacting, you may be able to capitalize on the correction and make long-term lemonade out of short-term lemons.
A correction is generally defined as a relatively short-term loss of 10%
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are securities issued by the government that adjust for inflation based on the value of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Unlike other fixed-income investments, the face value (and therefore the interest income) varies over time based on the amount of inflation adjustment. This makes TIPS a good choice for a laddering
An investment is considered “triple-tax-free” if it is exempt from taxes at all three levels of government – federal, state and municipal. What kind of investment gives you that sort of a sweet deal? The answer is municipal bonds.
Generally, a state or a municipality offers the bonds with tax-free interest payments to promote investments
Regardless of the amount of money you have, it’s important to keep a portion of it in liquid assets that are readily accessible to pay bills and other debts. The simplest and most common way to maintain liquidity is through cash kept in a savings or checking account through a bank or credit union. However,