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My adult son is filing taxes by himself

His 1099T shows 15K tuition and 10K as scholarship. He also earned ~9K as W2 income from summer.

Turbotax shows he will get a refund

We paid for his tution of 15K from his 529 plan.

Is there any double counting happening. Will we have to change our tax forms because he is filing his own taxes. For example, it seems we are paying for his tuition but it shows on his 1099T form.

Thanks

chinchin wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 12:09 am

rm wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 12:03 am I am a little confused by this primer

Say I owe $50K taxes on federal

If I pay by credit card, I will pay some extra charges (~1.85%).

My credit card is chase freedom

It gives 1% back as $s and 5% on groceries. So this won't work right?

In which case I need to apply for another credit card and use that so that I can make money on the spread.

Did I get this right?

The basic idea is you buy pre-paid $500 Visa or Mastercard debit cards at a store that qualifies under a bonus category.

Not sure I understand. (a) I'll have to buy 1000 of them (b) I don't get bonus if I buy debit cards, in fact for some of them I have to pay $4.95 charge.

I am a little confused by this primer

Say I owe $50K taxes on federal

If I pay by credit card, I will pay some extra charges (~1.85%).

My credit card is chase freedom

It gives 1% back as $s and 5% on groceries. So this won't work right?

In which case I need to apply for another credit card and use that so that I can make money on the spread.

Did I get this right?

Thanks everyone.

It will be difficult to go to all dealers in my neighborhood to find out which ones allow you to pay off lease early on with no penalty. It seems there one has to go and sit with each and everyone and go through paperwork with a fine comb. And dealers are notorious for not being very truthful So I'm trying to find the most time effective way to do this

* Can I ask dealers to just make it simple - ie ask them to sign a paper that I can actually do this as a seperate piece of paper.

So I was looking to buy hyundai ioniq5.

They give $7500 rebate but only on lease. (they don't get the rebate from US govt because they are not made in USA so they just take it of their base price)

Its only on lease

So, say I take it on lease and after 1 month just purchase the car outright. That way I get to keep the 7500$ rebate and just loose 1 month of lease payment which is okay. Any pitfalls of doing this.

We were thinking of buying a tesla EV. We do not qualify for the $7500 credit.

Someone suggested we can have our adult son buy the car and then be co-owner. Then go to DMV and get it in our name. That way when he files taxes he can claim the 7500$ credit. Does that work?

Also, does one have to have a tax hit of 7500$ to offset with the credit (ie is the credit capped by the amount of taxes you are required to pay). With a 25K income his taxes are only $3770 according to some websites.

Thanks!

2 teenage kids and 2 adults - were thinking on london + some other city.

Time: leave last week of May and return early June for 10days (Friday to Monday)

We are kinda stuck on the other city: Lisbon/Barcelona/Switzerland (either Interlaken area or Zermat/Milan area to do Glacier express). Didn't really want to do Paris or Northern Europe because I think it will be still cold out there plus have seen Eiffel tower before.

Anyone have experience comparing these 3 cities

Just to close the loop.

I called vanguard. Yes this is new this year. You do need to fill out the form W4r.

Just wanted to let everyone know.

Trying to do a backdoor Roth at Vanguard.

I bought $7500 into my IRA.
Now I press transact in my IRA and then buy-sell vanguard funds

I come to a new screen where I specify 100% sale of IRA and buy into my Roth IRA.

It brings me to a page stating 10% withholding for Federal and asks me what to fill for state. I don't remember this ever being asked. Anyway, I have to click onto a link which takes me to a new page where I state 0% withholding for Fed (form W4R). I don't remember this being the case last year.

I want to make sure I'm not making a mistake especially when it comes to IRS.

I saw my govt mm funds like SPAXX has 7 day yield of 3.97%

BND dividend yield is 2.26%
https://ycharts.com/companies/BND/dividend_yield

I'm confused how can this happen. BND has more risk than SPAXX, shouldn't we get compensated by higher yields. Should we just move our fixed income portfolio (40% of assets) to MM funds from bond funds.

Hi all,

BND also holds treasuries and maybe other tax exempt bonds. If I was to hold a bond fund in tax free, what is the recommendation.

Likewise for taxable account, what is the recommendation for bond ETF. I am in the 50% tax bracket (highest fed and highest state - CA). I couldn't find a great muni bond etf or mutual fund.

I have vanguard and fidelity.

Thank you!

I am just leaving the money in for the next 10 years. I think in 10 years somehow the website will improve or I'll have more patience. I had put in my money in 2003 and there's no way I remember the answers. Tried a few times and keep getting locked out again. Have given up now. If someone finds a magic key, let me know.

My son has started going to college and took a role as teaching assistant (TA). He also did a summer internship for which he was paid

He will get a W2 from his college as well as W2 from his summer internship.

Whats the maximum $ he can defer taxes on and what is the optimal vehicles to put the max in.

Is his max 6K and roth IRA being the best place to park this money via VTI. Or can we do both 6K roth IRA as well as individual 401(K). His college doesn't offer 401K to teaching assistants.

I have a rental which has accumulated a lot of losses on schedule E. Mainly due to depreciation. I intend to not sell the rental and pass it on my kids. In that case they will get step up basis and won't have to care about depreciation recapture

So I am left with this massive carry forward losses.

In order to use that I think if I can get passive income then the passive income becomes tax free to me.

So how do I get passive income which comes on a K1. (Passive income which comes as stock dividends etc. is not useful to me for this purpose since that goes on schedule D). If it comes on a K1, I can put it into schedule E and offset my losses from my rental.

Is my thinking correct?

We have been ready to fatFIRE for many years from a purely financial perspective. I am 50. Wife is 45. Kids are in college. We both have worked non stop since our 20s.

However my wife loves her work and wants to continue working till she can physically. So maybe 10-15 years more.

And I am so done with working that I wanted to leave many years ago. Id like to travel the world and volunteer. My wife doesn't share a passion for long travels - she is fine with maybe 2-3 times a year for a week at a time but thats too little for me.

Have others had this situation.

My son is going to get a W2 for summer internship ~15K

He has to buy a car to go back and forth from the office. We can lease it for $5K down + $500/mo or buy outright.

I was wondering if there is anything I can do to write it off as an expense against his income.

I have a small consulting business but my business doesn't bring in any money. In fact I was planning to shut it down this year but if I can find a way to write-off the lease against the income he brings in that would be great.

Hi,
I bought some Ibonds in 2008 or so. I wanted to access them to see the amount now.

Do we really have to log into treasurydirect.com or can we move Ibonds to somewhere else like fido/vanguard etc. TreasuryDirect has so many hoops just to access my account, it seems like a fortress. And I invariably get some question answered incorrectly so they lock my account

"You have made too many invalid entries. Your account has been locked and can't be accessed. Please contact us at (844) 284-2676. Until your account is unlocked, scheduled transactions, including reinvestments, may be cancelled."

I wanted to buy some more I-bonds and is Treasury direct the only place to get them?

My son has an internship in summer paying close to 15k.
How can I minimize his taxes. We live in CA area so CA taxes also apply.
He is 18 years old so I presume he does his own taxes. He does not need health coverage etc. And I also presume that means we can't claim him on our tax return (ie can't take deduction for him being a dependent)

Yup all valid points. I guess I just have to assume that this is an efficient market like stocks. But it just seems weird in that we know rates will rise. Maybe I should just view it as that has already been factored into the current prices and the delta will happen only if rates march higher than the expected increase.

I got a commentary from my DFA advisor on state of the market. " The vang total bond market fund and ETFs yield 1.94%, still not above inflation and VBTLX normally fluctuates in price 5%-8% and its yield is still below inflation. A rise in interest rate will cause VBTLX to decline significantly in price. In contrast there is very little price fluctuations in short-term treasuries." In other words the yield on total bond market doesn't compensate for risk so go to short-term I don't understand fixed markets that well but since I hold target retirement accounts in 529, 401ks etc. its important for me to understand because then instead of 60-40 split between VTI and BND, maybe I should go 60-40 VTI and VGSH (vang short term treasury ...

kayak is great!

Hi all,

I am planning to do backdoor roth IRA with vanguard. I have a SEPIRA with vanguard and no other IRAs.

I think you are not supposed to have any other IRA with vanguard if you want to do backdoor roth because it will cause extra taxes in the conversion. I have my company 401k with fidelity. I was planning to rollover my SEPIRA into the 401k with fidelity and then do backdoor roth. Anyone see any issues with this?

Thank you!

We have to withdraw 529 money from VG to funds kids college education for the first time

We can withdraw into parents account (via electronic transfer) or in kids account (via check). The former is easier but I hear the latter is better to prevent audit. Does anyone have advice based on their research?

Thank you

Thank you all. a) I realize HYSA is better yield but that I had hoped to keep my money in brokerage account. HYSA will require me to move money out of my brokerage and then linking it back to brokerage and then having to wait xx days for money to transfer. Is there a better way to have higher yield as well as instant liquidity as needed. Keeping it all at one place just makes AA easier IMO. b) For retirement accounts can I still do high yield savings account? I have kept all my retirements in 401ks, IRAs etc. at fido and vang (just like my non-retirement). Stable value funds sound very interesting - had always dismissed them because I never took time to understand. Now I do and see the great benefits with zero downside for the fixed part of...

After taking care of emergency funds, I still have a lot of cash that is just lying around. I'd like to put it into liquid instruments which pays more than cash. This will of course entail some more risk and I was thinking a maximum drop of 5% will be tolerable for me. I have highest tax bracket for both federal and state (california) So, I was thinking of the following Retirement VGSH Vanguard Short-Term Treasury Index Fund ETF Non-retirement iShares Short-Term National Muni Bond ETF (SUB) If others in similar situation as me have some thoughts would love to hear them. I understand that they might have sudden drops during black swan events but it seems that the federal reserve is able to provide sufficient support to bring them to parity s...

Hi
I am just trying to get a handle on how asset classes have performed over specific periods WITH DIVIDEND re-invested (because thats how I invest). I typically just use google finance and the corresponding ETFs.Example: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/SP ... SDAQ%3ABND
However I think this only takes NAV into account and not dividends.

Does anyone know if you pay the full price for prescription drugs with HDHP (high deductible health plans) vs PPO. In the latter I know we only pay the contracted rate. In the former do you pay the full price till you get to your deductible and then you pay nothing.

My kids require asthma medication which is quite expensive. Till now they were on PPO and I am thinking of switching to HDHP

With offices coming back online in early 2022, thinking of buying an EV to take advantage of the carpool lane. All decals expire on January 1, four years after the first year they were issued. So I think this is the perfect time to buy.

Tesla seems to have a big wait time. Any others people like - we were recommended Leaf or Hyundai.

Thank you all.

BTW if parents just buy cars/house/travel for kids or transfer their houses to kids does anyone track this? It seems strange that US govt would need to be notified for transactions between parents and kids.
This seems like a very easy one time way to transfer assets to heirs.

[Thread merged into here --admin LadyGeek] We are thinking of some sort of estate planning. My criterion is to make it as simple as possible with least amount of paperwork/tracking (ie set it and forget it). I think gifting to our 2 kids to reduce estate tax bite seems like a good idea. Wanted to get your second opinions. As I understand I and my spouse can contribute 15K/kid every year and not worry about gift tax a) Where do you park this money. So thats 30K/kid. I don't want to put in bank account with 0% interest. My CPA suggested buy them a whole life policy. It'll be cheap and they won't have access to the funds to fritter away. I know whole life policy has bad rap (righfully so) but would it make sense in this case since kids cannot...

I have substantial accounts at Fidelity and Vanguard. I was concerned mainly about someone robbing me of my money (via cybercrime etc). My assesment is that it is very very unlikely: When I asked my Fidelity they pointed me to this website: https://www.fidelity.com/why-fidelity/safeguarding-your-accounts In addition, if you own bank FIDC cash you have FDIC coverage. For SIPC brokerage coverage: The SIPC will cover up to $500,000 in securities, including a $250,000 limit for cash held in a brokerage account. For Excess brokerage coverage: Total aggregate excess of SIPC coverage available through Fidelity's excess of SIPC policy is $1 billion. And your retirement 401K & Rollover IRA is covered under ERISA. So Fidelity’s insolvency does no...

Hi My son is joining college this year in CA. I have vanguard 529 (Nevada) plan. I need to pay for (a) tuition, (b) dorm and (c) food/books. The university doesn't allow me to link my Vang 529 account with their administrative offices account. A) Can I just pay for (a),(b),(c) out of my bank checking account and take the money from 529 into my checking account. B) Do I get a form from Vang which also goes to IRS showing how much was withdrawn. I don't see any 529 plan requirements in 1040. So I presume its an honor system where I show IRS records in case they ever audit me. C) Is there a limit to how much I can withdraw from 529 plan. For (c) above I can just say I paid a large amount towards food and withdraw money tax-free. Oh one more th...

With the potential decrease in estate tax exemption, whats the best way to pass on money to heirs.

We have large assets as (a) equity in taxable (b) IRA, roth IRA tax-deferred (c) 2 houses.

Is there a place to get unbiased information. I have most of my assets in fidelity and vanguard and have been DIY since the beginning.

We have this situation where a few members of the household already got vaccinated. However, one of the family members is younger than 16 years so will not be vaccinated for some time I guess.

We are so looking forward to travel and are okay with wearing masks (have been doing that throughout this crisis). However, we cannot travel because the kid still could contract the virus, theoretically.

Anyone has any thoughts on how to navigate such situations.

Hi

Is there anyone on this forum who invests in real estate LLC firms. These firms pool in money from investors, buy big appartment complexes, renovate them and re-fi to return money and then sell them for a profit. I have done investments previously in them as a means of diversification.

I was planning to invest in such an LLC which seemed quite good but the rising interest rates is giving me pause. Till now have only invested when rates were going down ie the past years. The sponsors say that is not an issue. So asking others who may have gone through this before.

Thanks

Hi

I am planning to do a little more value tilt compared to growth while keeping my overall stock allocation at 65% constant. During the past year run-up I had bought quite a bit of S&P 500 and QQQ in my 65% allocation.

Any ideas on how to move the money from these to more value oriented funds such as VTV without incurring large tax hits. These are more short term gains.

Since you can contribute more towards retirement accounts once you turn 50, can I start early in the year. I turn 50 in november but wanted to do the backdoor roth contribution in Jan (7000 vs 6000) or do I have to 6k and the additional 1K in November.

My company is refusing to allow me to contribute more towards megaback door Roth IRA even though its below IRS limit

I switched jobs in the middle of this year. I had maxed out 19K 401k with previous employer.
With present employer, they allow you to contribute 19K and match 50% so 9.5K. IRS limits is 57K so they say you can only contribute 57K - 19K - 9.5K.
I tell them - look I can't do 19K in your plan so I can't avail of the 9.5K, can I at least contribute extra 9.5K and they refuse - they have put a hard limit to all employees at 28.5K

Can I directly contribute the 9.5K out of my personal checking account to the brokerage who is managing this account. This is with vanguard.

Ask them to not charge for closing costs. If its the same lender and you have good credit history, they may agree. I have done that successfully before by threatening them that a broker called me to offer the same rate but no points and no closing costs.

I have refinanced maybe 6-7 times from 2005 purchase and never ever paid any closing costs. Who knows next year the rates may be even lower.

Ummm...how do you get PPP loan if you have no employees.

I thought PPP was only if you had employees.

Last year (2019) my business made about ~12K. This is a consulting business where I worked out of my home. No employees. Could I apply for PPP. IF so, how much loan could I get that gets forgiven?
This year I will make ~0 because of covid.

For #2) There is no harm in being upfront in asking. Megacorps have a structured process to do so. In fact, I have heard of people who were open about the stress and desire to retire. The company asked them to do part-time and train their replacement before quiting. In return they got a large severance. This depends upon how good a relationship you have with your boss so that you can be open. I asked for severance after I resigned. My boss tried but there was no severance program going on otherwise I'm sure he would have fought to get me one because of the length of my service... In a megacorp, the boss doesn't loose if you get more money. In a small company watching every c, they worry that giving you extra money means less money for the c...

I have a primary home and rental. I have paid off most of primary home so broker is not able to do re-fi (~212K) at lower rate with no point no fee loan. I have a large mortgage (~370K) on my rental but the re-fi rates on rental are bad. My broker suggested this... You can combine 2 loans to one loan and tie to primary property. Keep closing paper to show the cash amount amount it to payoff rental property. The portion of cash out amount can be applied to rental interest expense. Does this make sense. Are there tax implications of such a thing. I am not a lawyer, or an accountant or any thing even remotely related to those fields. I dont even have rental properties though have considered getting one. Having said that, I dont see how the ca...

I have a primary home and rental. I have paid off most of primary home so broker is not able to do re-fi (~212K) at lower rate with no point no fee loan. I have a large mortgage (~370K) on my rental but the re-fi rates on rental are bad.

My broker suggested this...
You can combine 2 loans to one loan and tie to primary property. Keep closing paper to show the cash amount amount it to payoff rental property. The portion of cash out amount can be applied to rental interest expense.

Does this make sense. Are there tax implications of such a thing.

Jeffery Archer
All his short stories are awesome. Some of his main books are also good - fast paced with a good arc (Prodigal daughter, not a penny more not a penny less)

Oscar Wilde

My CPA mentioned you can reverse the 401k contribution with your old employer in 2020. The old employer matching with stay with you.

Then when you contribute the 19500 with the new employer you can get the matching there as well.

This way you get 2 matching and not run afoul of IRS

I have an iphone6s...works fine. No complaints

I am curious if anyone upgraded from iphone6s to the latest iphone. What benefits did they see in their day to day life.

For instance, I don't care about water-proofing. However I will care about things that make me more productive (I use work email on iphone and have a heavy email/research website kind of techie job).

ps: Spending money is not a determining factor here. I am mainly looking for new things that people found out with the new iphones that they couldn't experience in a satisfying manner with older iphones.

Have you thought about renting exotic cars when you want them. There are quite a few websites which allow you to rent for a week. Then you can just use when you want and also try out different cars.

OP is not looking to become a money burning snob. OP is looking for a vocabulary like this. There’s nothing wrong with learning how to describe the flavors you do and do not enjoy https://modernthirst.com/2014/08/06/the-bourbon-tasting-wheel/ https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/wine-topics/wine-educational-questions/davis-aroma-wheel/ https://counterculturecoffee.com/learn/resource-center/coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel Thats very enlightening. I think thats what was missing. Need a common vocabulary to compare different scotch for myself at least The below seems the most quoted one for scotch (of course, there are many other variants https://malt-review.com/2015/09/10/whisky-flavour-wheels-and-colour-charts/ This seems simpler and probably w...

bluesky50 wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 10:23 pm Steelcase Leap chair
Sit/Standing work desk
High quality leggings as work from home clothes

Looking for a good Sit/Stand work desk. Mind sharing your recommendation

The roomba is a life saver...

A lot of food - started trying costco veggies since we could get deliveries. Now hooked onto them.

Learnt bodyweight exercise.