Happy New Year once again! We have three important administrative items for you today:

Roth IRA Contributions (and yes, you can still do for 2020)

The eligibility “phase-out” AGI (adjusted gross income) has been increased for 2021

• For taxpayers filing jointly, the phase-out AGI range has been increased: $198K to $208K (from $196K to $206K in 2020)
• For single/head of household taxpayers, the AGI phase-out range has been increased: $125K to $140K (from $124K to $139K in 2020)
• The maximum contribution remains at $6000 ($7000 for taxpayers over 50)
• Remember that you can make 2020 Roth IRA contributions until April 15, 2021. Let us know if you want to do this, so we can advise how to provide instructions to Ameritrade to ensure the contribution is applied to the correct year.

2020 1099’s from Ameritrade (we know you can hardly wait)

As usual, 1099’s will be available in waves

• The documents should be posted online on January 14, February 4 and February 11. Accounts with real estate funds will likely be in the last wave.
• The mailed copies should be received 5 to 7 days after the online posting
• There will be the usual rounds of corrected 1099’s for weeks and months
• You will not get a 1099 from IRA’s of any type unless you took a distribution or withdrawal

Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) are at record breaking levels

• Your 2021 RMD is based on your IRA account value at the market close on 12.31.2020. As you probably remember from two weeks ago, despite what was the 2020 market rollercoaster, the end was pretty darn good.
• You got a year older in the last year – and your RMD as percentage of your account value goes up every year
• Many of you did not take a RMD in 2020 since the CARES Act removed the RMD requirement so your account balance got even higher – hopefully.

You can take your RMD’s in cash, shares or charitable contributions. Some states (like NC) require state income taxes to be withheld, regardless of which distribution option you select.

It is not yet clear whether RMD’s will actually be required for 2021 (although we have heard that the government needs tax revenue, so it’s likely that they will be required in 2021). If you do not need the cash right now, we advise waiting until path forward is confirmed. We will work with you individually on the process here.

As always, we are happy to help with any of the above!

As promised earlier in the month, we are now going to re-introduce you to Roth IRAs, but this time, as great financial gifts for your lucky and hard-working children or grandchildren. As I said earlier, there are very few investments which grow tax free, but 529 plans and Roth IRAs do just that!

Many of you are familiar with Roth IRAs, but for those of you that are not, here is a brief overview:

Roth IRAs were created by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 to help Americans save for retirement. These IRA’s have become enormously popular in the last 20 years but there are some important considerations:

• The dollar contribution limits are the same for Roth IRAs and traditional IRAs. Eligibility for a Roth IRA requires “earned income,” subject to an income cap which is not present for traditional IRAs.
• Contributions are made with after-tax dollars, unlike those in traditional IRAs or most company sponsored retirement plans
• Because the contributions are made with after-tax dollars, the contributions can be withdrawn at any time, without tax or penalty. This might be important for young investors like your children or grandchildren who might need the money they invested before retirement
• Unlike traditional retirement plans, the earnings can also be withdrawn tax-free, subject to owner age and account duration rules, and there is no requirement for distributions to begin at 72 years of age

As I said above, there is a requirement for the Roth IRA account holder to have “earned income” in order to be able to contribute BUT the actual contribution can be funded by anyone (YOU in this case) as long as the dollar amount of the contribution does not exceed the owner’s earned income or annual maximum allowed.

Head spinning? How about an example? You have a 19 year old grandson who worked over the summer stocking shelves in the middle of the night for Kroger. He earned $2000 and will receive a W-2 from Kroger. I am guessing he probably can’t invest this $2000 in a Roth IRA because he is saving every penny for college, BUT you can fund it for him. You have until April 2021 to make this 2020 Roth contribution. We will help you understand eligibility requirements and then help you actually pull this off.

Want to read more about Roth IRA’s?  See attached link. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rothira.asp

Back by popular demand, the next two Bernie’s BLOG posts will provide info on some great financial holiday gifts for you, your children or grandchildren. This blog will cover 529 educational plans and the next one will re-introduce many of you to Roth IRAs. By the way, we are not suggesting that you forego fun gifts for your offspring, but we really like the idea of longer term not nearly as “fun” gifts to help secure the financial futures of your lucky family members.

As many of you know, there are very few investments which grow tax-free but 529 plans and Roth IRA’s do just that, at least for now.

529 plans are state run educational savings plans which can be used for very broadly defined educational expenses for adults or children. These funds can be used for pre-college, trade school or college tuition/fees. The investments in a 529 plan can be made by anyone, subject to gift tax requirements, and are made with after-tax dollars although some states offer a state tax credit to parents who contribute in their state of residence (North Carolina does not offer this credit at this time). The funds in a 529 plan can be moved to another child and the funds do not have to be used in the state in which the plan was funded. Unlike other investments, 529 plans are controlled by the account “owner”, not by the child. Taxes and penalties are due if money is not used for educational expenses, but again, the definition of educational expenses is quite broad and usually includes computers, books, and room and board.

These plans carry low management fees because they tend to be “target date” funds where the investment mix is automatically re-balanced as the child gets closer to college age.

Although 529 plans are not LFS managed assets, we would be happy to assist you in starting one for your children or grandchildren, or even yourself! There is no minimum dollar requirement to open an account and dollars can be added throughout the year.

If you want to read up, see link below, or feel free to call us to talk more.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/529plan.asp

We decided everyone could use a little laugh right now. We’ll be back to our normal dry financial stuff in December!

First of all, thanks to all of you who have checked in with us regarding the Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine trial which Marci and I are both participating in. We appreciate your interest and we did promise updates!

• The update is that all is going according to plan, at least Pfizer’s plan, as far as we can tell. Both of us are 6+ weeks past our second injection and aside from slightly sore arms and more sore bottoms from doing the long drive to the clinic several times in Atlanta traffic, we have experienced no injection side effects. And neither has anyone else we know in the trial. As a reminder, we have no idea if we got the vaccine or the saltwater placebo. With all of you, we are hoping for a positive announcement from Pfizer followed by a positive announcement from the FDA, after all the efficacy and safety data are submitted and reviewed.
• I’m sure most of you got the (exciting) email from Ameritrade announcing that the merger with Schwab is now legally complete. As we all know however, now is when the real work begins. We are continuing to be told that the systems integration will take 18 to 36 months and that there will not be any significant changes until then. We are keeping a watchful eye. And we remain committed to do whatever is required so that the work for you is minimal or non-existent during this transition. Feel free to bounce back questions. Our sense is that the Ameritrade operations team knows very little at this point, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions anyway.
• And because Ameritrade has nothing else to do, they are retiring the “classic” Advisorclient.com at the end of the month. This change is to enable features which are not supported by the old technology. If you are using the old site, you will be automatically redirected to the new site. It looks different and takes a little getting used to, but the new functionality is good. And you will be able to screen share with us which will make troubleshooting much easier. None of your automatic transactions will be impacted. There is an online demonstration video and we are happy to help too.

This is obviously another very complex topic but let’s try to cover the easiest scenarios and then share what we are thinking as the election draws closer and the end of 2020 is in sight.

Disclaimer: I am sure I got some of the facts wrong so I apologize in advance for that. Feel free to correct me.

What is clear is that whoever wins the November presidential election will have a monumental job – leading the country’s economic recovery after a global pandemic which has created unemployment rates which this country has not seen in 90 years. The expectation is that once the virus is contained, the economy will quickly recover, but whether or not that is really the case, remains to be seen. For our purposes today, we will assume this is indeed true!

Of course, we must remember that whether or not any of these scenarios actually comes to pass depends in large part on whether the president’s party also controls the legislative branch, as Congress does get a say in these policies. We won’t go down the rabbit hole on this part but just recognize that this fact certainly adds additional uncertainty. There are also definitely pundits out there who believe individual income taxes will increase regardless of election outcomes, due to the level of new federal debt which has been created this year alone.

Let’s start with the scenario that Trump retains the White House as this is the easiest scenario to play out even though the full plan is still being developed.

What may happen to individual income taxes, subject to Congressional support:

• The 2017 individual income tax cuts may be extended, along with other provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act legislation, which also included an increased standard deduction and higher dependent tax credits. This Act is currently set to expire in 2025.
• Q4 employee paid payroll taxes (primarily social security) which had been deferred until 2021 may be forgiven. There is also some talk of a permanent payroll tax cut.
• Individual tax rates for middle class Americans might be reduced from 22% to 15%.
• There is talk about reducing the long term capital gains rate (which is currently 0%, 15% or 20% depending on your income) or indexing it to inflation.
• There are possible additions of tax credits tied to school choice or domestic travel.

Now let’s look at the scenario that Biden wins the White House.

What may happen to individual income taxes, subject to Congressional support:

• The components of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would likely be rolled back, at least for high income earners. The income tax rate for Americans earning more than $400K would go from 37% to 39.6%.
• Payroll taxes of 12.4% might be applied to earners on income over $400K, split between employers and employees. Today this tax is applied to income up to $137,700.
• Dividends and long term capital gains might be taxed as ordinary income, at a rate of 39.6%, for incomes above $1 million. Today these dollars are taxed at 20% for this set of filers. Remember this does not impact IRA’s because your RMDs are already taxed at your full tax rate.
• The step up cost basis for capital gains taxation might be eliminated as wealth is transferred to future generations.
• Tax credits for child and dependent care, earned income, children and first time home-buyers might be added/increased.

Our thoughts (with lots of input from Bernie of Bernie’s Blog fame):

The election will hopefully be decided before the end of the year so we have time to execute some tasks, but now is the time to talk about what we might want to do….

• Regardless of election outcome, a Roth Conversion is still a great strategy for those of you who have a traditional IRA and can free up some cash to pay the taxes in April 2021. As many of you know, a Roth conversion means that you convert pre-tax assets in your traditional IRA to post-tax assets in your Roth IRA. We can pick which assets to transfer so we can choose those which generate high capital gains/dividends and which may also be still recovering from the 2020 market downturn. Because these transferred assets are taxed at your full tax rate, this option is even better if Biden wins since tax rates for high income earners may increase. Many of you have already done a Roth conversion this year but there is no limit to how much you can convert, as long as you are willing to write the IRS a bigger check. If you want to do more, let’s talk about it.
• If Biden wins, you have big gains in a taxable account, and you will need cash anyway in the next 12 to 18 months, we may want to sell some of those assets this year in case the capital gains tax rate increases from 15%/20% to your ordinary income tax rate. If Trump wins, capital gains taxes might go down, so there is no income tax reason to do this year, although we will do our usual end of the year re-balancing.
• This has not been discussed yet, BUT dad believes that Biden may want to really limit Roth contributions in the future. He doesn’t believe that anyone will change the tax treatment of existing Roth accounts, but there is a possibility that the maximum income level will be reduced sufficiently that the tax benefit essentially disappears. So what that means is that if you can contribute to a Roth for 2020, you should be doing it because it might not be possible in the future. Remember that you have until April 2021 to make your 2020 Roth contribution but let us know if you want to do so we can ensure that the contribution gets assigned to the correct year.