#10 The Truth: Part 1…The IRS is set to receive approximately $80 billion in increased funding in an effort to increase tax revenue by $203 billion. The claim by the GOP is that this will usher in an army of 87,000 new IRS agents. The truth is that there is not a set agenda to…
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Let’s start with a reminder of what a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) is: A required minimum distribution (RMD) is the amount of money that must be withdrawn from an employer-sponsored retirement plan, traditional IRA, SEP, or SIMPLE individual retirement account (IRA) by owners and qualified retirement plan participants of retirement age.1 The main question here is…
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Beginning January 2023, Social Security checks will increase a whopping 8.7%! This is the largest increase in 41 years… and comes on the heels of a 5.9% raise in 2022. To top that off, Medicare premiums will actually decrease a small amount in 2023. This is great news, but beware! Uncle Sam may think it’s…
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There are several reasons you may want to move your 401(k) to an IRA. It might simply be to consolidate your investments or to get away from unnecessary fees. It might be to make a Roth conversion. It might be to obtain an active money manager or work with a more holistic advisor. Whatever the…
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Do you have life insurance for your business and/or owned by your business? If so, the death benefit is supposed to be tax free, right? It might be. It might not be. Or worse, it could be taxed twice. Let me tell you a story about Joe. He owned a very successful business with his…
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We may not exactly be post-COVID yet, but our world is certainly settling into a new rhythm that looks a lot more normal than the past couple of years. With that being said, many Americans have made huge changes in this short time. Many companies went virtual in 2020, giving their employees the opportunity to…
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Did you know you can often choose when to pay tax? By default, you can often choose how much you will pay. There is no trick or “gotcha.” It is simply a result of understanding how taxes work for or against your situation. “The hardest thing to understand in the world is income tax.” —Albert…
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I recently read an article offering a few statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and one in particular caught my eye: Did you know that the average age of a farm operator in the U.S. is 57.5 years old?!1 At age 57, every farmer or rancher should be considering – or have already considered –…
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Refer to any news media and the headlines are teeming with news about COVID…and has been for 2 years. It is no wonder that important information about other areas of interest is getting buried. After placing a few phone calls regarding various legislation that passed at the end of 2019, I thought it might be…
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Wow! 2021 has been a whirlwind… sometimes literally in paper. It seems we have had a new proposal almost every day from lawmakers. Social Security alone has been addressed in 10 different bills this year. And taxes? Keeping up with introduced or impending changes is a full-time job. The good news is that we are…
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