Announcer:
It is time now on KROS for Financial Focus, brought to you by NelsonCorp Wealth Management. The opinions voiced in this show are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Any indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Registered representative, securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member of FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisor representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and NelsonCorp Wealth Management are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax advice. Now, here’s today’s Financial Focus program.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Good morning and welcome to this week’s Financial Focus, brought to you each and every Wednesday morning right here on KROS. Well, this is Nate Kreinbrink bringing you today’s show. November, moving right along. It’s kind of mid-November here as we get into the fall season, I guess, coming right along. Big week, this week. We had Veterans Day on Monday. It’s always great to see the support in the local schools and the programs that they put on in the local businesses and what they do to give thanks to all the veterans out there to support them. So again, not just on Veterans Day, but every day, thank you to all the veterans who have served and are currently serving. Greatly appreciated. Again, as we get into this time of the year, I had kind of the first realization the other day. The youngest one came home and said they had started practicing songs for their Christmas program already, which is kind of a reality check to say, “Hey, that is not that far away,” as programs are only a couple weeks from getting underway with that.
Obviously, Thanksgiving coming up and then, again, full swing into the Christmas season. So again, if you have not even thought about starting to do your Christmas preparation, shopping, whatever it is, get started because it will go quick. Again, another exciting season with the winter sports season in high school and middle school and all those are getting underway, basketball, wrestling, and everything else. Again, exciting time. Temperatures have definitely changed, getting darker earlier. But again, it’s winter time and it will be here before we know it. So we can keep that white stuff away for a little bit longer, but we know what’s coming.
Anyways, into today’s program. The last time I was on by myself giving the program, I kind of talked about some end-of-the-year planning focused on, “Okay, saving. Where do I want to save? Where should I be saving?” basically in regards to your 401k plan or an outside IRA or Roth account. Now again, with those, there’s tax differences between where you are saving. There’s contribution limits, different depending on where you’re saving with the outside IRA or Roth. There are some qualifications from an income standpoint that you have to meet in order to be able to make those contributions, as opposed to not necessarily being present through your employer, 401k, 403B, or retirement plan at work. So again, understanding the difference in tax consequences of each, the contribution limits.
Again, with any employer plan, the first thing you need to start, and I’ll continue to harp on this every time that we talk on this subject, is that if your employer is matching anything at work, that is where you need to start to make sure that you are taking full advantage of any match that they are willing to give you. So again, if you’re looking at saving elsewhere and you’re not taking advantage of the match, max it out to get that match and then kind of regroup and decide where you want to start saving after that based off of, again, the taxes, the different type of accounts, the contribution limits, and then also, again, the funds and how you want to have that money invested.
Again, questions on that, give us a call. I’d be happy to sit down with you. Money into IRA or Roth accounts have until the tax deadline to make a prior year contribution. Those contributions to your work plan have to be done with that last paycheck there in December. So again, different contribution limits, but understanding where those are, deadlines to make those yearly contributions, and what it’s going to do to your taxes. Now is the time to literally sit down and see, “Okay, what can I do before the end of the year?” or, again, “Do I have up until the tax deadline to make those into an outside IRA or Roth account?”
What I’m going to focus on today does have that end-of-the-year deadline, so a December 31st deadline, and that is Roth conversions. And this has been a concept that we’ve talked on numerous times and it kind of intertwines with a lot of different topics that we do with our financial planning, maximizing what you have. And then also, again, when the third Wednesday of every month when I have either Andy Ferguson or Mike Van Zuiden on from NelsonCorp Tax Solutions and we kind of talk tax planning, Roth conversions are always one of the bullet points that kind of come up with that as we look at different things for your situation and what makes the most sense.
Again, a Roth conversion is essentially taking money that is in a pre-tax vehicle. So again, you put a dollar into an IRA account, you got a tax deduction, it is growing tax deferred until you take it out where you pay tax on it. A Roth conversion is converting assets that are in those tax deferred vehicles, traditional IRA, traditional 401k, traditional 403B, simple IRA, those type of accounts, and then converting them over to a Roth account. So again, in order to convert it, in order to move that from that tax deferred world over to the Roth account where it’s tax-free, again, you have to tax to get that money over there.
Now why, essentially, would you want to pay tax on that money in a year that you wouldn’t have to? Again, it’s understanding that that money that is in those tax-deferred vehicles is more than likely going to have to be taxed at some point, right? Either, again, when you convert it or later on in retirement when you take it out as far as for cashflow, or if you get to those certain ages where you are required to take money out of those accounts, it will be taxed at that time. So again, we are kind of looking at it to say, “Okay, when do I want to choose to pay tax on this money?” If you pass away and it goes to your beneficiaries, they will pay tax on it at their income level. If it’s a spouse, they basically treat it as their own. If it goes to a non-spouse beneficiary, so a kid, a sibling, whatever the case it may be, they are going to pay tax on that money and they have 10 years to get it out. So again, new rules that go into it.
With inherited accounts, you have 10 years to take that money out and starting next year, you have to start taking money out each year. So again, you look at it to say, “Okay, I have this money. Somebody’s going to pay tax on it.” You look at it to say, “Where am I at on it tax bracket-wise?” And again, when we look at Roth conversions, what we’re looking at is, “Does it make sense to pay tax today to not have to pay tax going forward, or is it better to defer that tax later on?” So again, when we start to look to see which one is the best route, again, understanding what taxes are today. That is a known.
We know if we do that Roth conversion this year, we know what the tax rate is. We know that every dollar that we convert over to a Roth account, we know what it’s going to cost us in tax, as opposed to, again, with a lot of these tax deferral accounts, we keep kicking that tax can out into the future to an unknown time period where we have no idea what taxes are going to be down the road five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years if you’re that far away from taking money out of it. So again, it’s kind of known versus unknown and looking at it from that standpoint, understanding where you are at in the tax bracket. If I am in a 12% tax bracket and I still have room left before I cross over that threshold up into the 22% tax bracket, it may make sense to start converting over whatever that amount is to fill up that 12% tax bracket.
Knowing where we are at with taxes, understanding the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that went into effect in 2018, that if it is not changed, will set to sunset at the end of next year, 2025. So you go to bed on New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 2025, you wake up New Year’s Day of 2026. If it is not extended, there will be a 3% tax hike basically reverting back to what the old tax brackets were. Now again, this could be extended and then we’d have further years down the road with it. But again, as it sits right now, that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is set to expire on December 31st, 2025.
So again, now we’re start looking at, “Okay, 12% versus 15% if it doesn’t expire.” Again, a 3% savings, depending on what amounts you’re going to do, is going to add up to, again, a tax savings for you and less to the IRS. And again, so when you start looking at things like that, again, it makes sense to have these discussions and to have these planning parts where we’re looking at it to say, “Okay, how am I going to maximize the assets that I have?” And again, getting money, paying tax on it, getting it over to that tax-free world and a lot of times makes sense. Again, not every situation. If you’re in a very high tax bracket now looking to retire in a couple years and going to drop tax brackets, then again it may make sense to wait to a later time period where you’re in a lower tax bracket to do those Roth conversions.
So again, it’s looking at all these different things. But again, at the end of the day, choosing when you are going to pay tax on that money, as opposed to being forced to pay tax on that money later on when you need it. And again, when you start looking at the planning, the more options you have, the better off you’re going to be. And when I say options, having different buckets that are taxed differently. So again, if I’m in retirement and I just have a traditional IRA account and all of a sudden a catastrophe happens and I need to replace my roof to replace the garage door, washing machine goes down, and I need a chunk of money coming out, if I take that out of all of the IRA, I know that my income is going to go up by whatever I take out. If I need 20,000, I’m going to have to take out more than that, more than likely, to offset the tax liability that’s going to go with that.
So again, I either take it out and pay the tax when I take the money out of the account or I settle up when I file my taxes for that year. Whereas if we’ve done some Roth conversions systematically over the years and we’ve created a bucket, again, in the tax-free world in the Roth account, now I can start looking at it to say, “Okay, how much income can I take to maintain my current tax bracket?” and I take that amount out of the IRA account knowing that it’s going to be taxable. The remaining of it, we may look at a Roth account to maintain taxes. Again, Medicare is based off of your income. So again, if you’re having income that is pushing you close to those thresholds, an unexpected expense that we have to take out of our IRA account could push us over that threshold. Meaning in two years down the road, we may be paying more for our Medicare premiums because of that because our income went over that threshold.
So there’s a lot that goes into the planning. It’s not just, again, the taxes. But again, unexpected increases in Medicare premiums and additional taxes and all that goes into it when you make those decisions. So again, if you’re not looking at that, I think you’re kind of doing yourself a little disservice as far as maximizing the assets that you have in controlling your tax, as opposed to being forced to pay the tax later on. Again, questions on this, looking at your situation, I’d be happy to sit down and help kind of navigate through that and get you on the track to have a plan as to when you’re going to kind of take those distributions in those taxes. Give us a call. We’d be happy to help.
I did want to mention real quick here, before we do run out time, that every Friday, NelsonCorp Wealth Management and NelsonCorp Tax Solutions are wearing jeans for charity. Money raised in the month of November will be donated to the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program of Clinton County. Again, this is Nate Kreinbrink bringing you this week’s Financial Focus. Thanks for tuning in and have a great rest of your week.
Announcer:
Financial Focus is a production of NelsonCorp Wealth Management in Clinton and Davenport. The opinions voiced in the show are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Any indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Registered representative, securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member of FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisor representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and NelsonCorp Wealth Management are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax advice. For more information, visit our website at www.nelsoncorp.com.