Bogleheads.org

Jack FFR1846 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 11:19 am This thread completely confused me. I got unconfused here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCtobhiw_0A

Keith is a broker himself and I plan to contact him in a month or so as I'll start Medicare in July.

Is he working for the best interest of his clients in a similar way to fiduciaries? He also has to make a living.

I don't see how they would be eligible for Medicare with no work history. people who don't have enough quarters earned to qualify for RSDI (retirement, survivors, disability insurance) can still qualify for SSI (supplemental Security income). These individuals in most states qualify for medicaid (state insurance) but just like a RSDI recipient who gets RSDI because of disability would be eligible for medicare after a 24 months qualifying period: https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-other-ussi.htm https://www.ssa.gov/disabilityresearch/wi/medicare.htm the issue of whether or not the person is elgible for medicare might have more to do with being a permanent resident alien (green card). Some might be eligible for medicare, and some may not depending...

If the credit union has the best terms for the loan, is there a downside to joining? Other than what is probably a relatively small fee or annual fee? RM If there has been no activity for a certain number of years (3 years?), your account will be turned over to the "Avandoned property" of the state. Speaking from personal experience -- this did happen to us. But in the end it was far easier to claim that abandoned property from the state, and have the check deposited later into an account that is frequently used. Zero interest earned during those 3 years, of course, but easier than dealing with the credit union. I mean, I don't see the "abandoned property" as a potential negative, perhaps even a positive. NJ makes it so...

ResearchMed wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 3:10 pm If the credit union has the best terms for the loan, is there a downside to joining?
Other than what is probably a relatively small fee or annual fee?

RM

If there has been no activity for a certain number of years (3 years?), your account will be turned over to the "Avandoned property" of the state.

greg24 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:34 pm

investor_power wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:23 pmLol you want to quit work because your employer is asking you to come back to work? Employees these days....

It is truly amazing how many posters willfully ignore the fact that 83% of the department was laid off, and focus their anger on WFH.

The anger should be directed at the company.

Probably because the productivity of the department nosedived by 83% and the whole department became dysfunctional beyond hope during the wfh days.

whodidntante wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 8:22 pm I have never regretted a contribution to a tax advantaged account. I've regretted missed contributions.

I cannot think of any disadvantage of directing my money into 401k unless I am below age 59 1/2 and need it now. I am even willing to pay a fee to do it.

In market capital weighting, each dollar of the market cap carries the same weight. In equal weighting, each CEO carries the same weight. In this imperfect world, which would you rather choose, grudgingly? Neither is perfect.

retired@50 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 6:55 pm

8301 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:57 pm
The 7 day SEC yield of VCTXX is 2.42% as of today. The equivalent T-bill yield is close to 4% for me without CA tax which is a little lower than the expected T-bill rate at next auction.

I'm curious what your Federal tax bracket is and what sort of T-bill you're considering.

Regards,

32% or 35%. I may park money in 4-week T-bill and buy back VCADX.

My CA tax exempt munis (interm. & long terms) show significant long term capital losses. Are there any downsides with TLH and buying them back after a wash sale period? I badly need offset both LTCG and STCG from selling employer stock shares. Is it safe to assume that there may be no drastic price upswing of CA munis? I am in the CA 9.3% tax bracket and also subject to NIIT and Medicare surcharge. You have a few options. You can definitely tax-loss harvest out of VCADX. California allows carryover losses so it's a smart move. How much interest are you earning each month? If it's "a lot," you can tax-loss harvest into the national intermediate fund, VWIAX. That way, you'll capture the monthly dividend. If it's not "a lot...

My CA tax exempt munis (interm. & long terms) show significant long term capital losses. Are there any downsides with TLH and buying them back after a wash sale period? I badly need offset both LTCG and STCG from selling employer stock shares. Is it safe to assume that there may be no drastic price upswing of CA munis? I am in the CA 9.3% tax bracket and also subject to NIIT and Medicare surcharge. There's certainly no harm in harvesting the losses. If you're willing to sit out of the market for a while, you could consider holding the cash proceeds in the CA muni money market fund VCTXX. I have no idea what will happen to CA muni bond fund share prices in the interim. Regards, Makes sense to me, and as retire@50 eluded to, park them in...

BolderBoy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:44 pm

UpperNwGuy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:31 amIn general, using an acronym without explaining it in the first use is bad writing style.

+1.

Technically, "CS" is not an acronym, but a simple abbreviation. Abbreviations should be spelled out on first usage in a writing.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/acronym

I'm guilty of not following writing style rules, too.

I received such an admonition by a physics professor on my dissertation committee. I learned a lesson.

Thank you for confirming that TLH is the way to go. T-bills look attractive in the short term.

NYGiantsFan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:59 am One benefit for Pitt is that your son can take course at CMU next door. CMU is number 1 ranked in CS. Just a caution - CS courses at CMU are extremely tough
https://pittcs.wiki/academics/registrat ... -register/

Extremely tough? Compare against quantum field theory at, e.g., Stony Brook? If a handful go through successfully a year, it will be a bumper crop.

My CA tax exempt munis (interm. & long terms) show significant long term capital losses. Are there any downsides with TLH and buying them back after a wash sale period? I badly need offset both LTCG and STCG from selling employer stock shares. Is it safe to assume that there may be no drastic price upswing of CA munis? I am in the CA 9.3% tax bracket and also subject to NIIT and Medicare surcharge.

You have good income. Does the combined income of $400k include the bonus of $50-100k? Since you feel confident of keeping the income level going forward and you have a decent investment asset close to $2M, the price range is well within your means. Considering the ages of your household 47/46/15/10, this may be about the last moment of your life to benefit from a large home. What's the point of moving to a larger house after your girls are all grown up or a retirement starts to feel real? If you like your town with an excellent schhol system and your house has an adequate lot size, expansion is another good option.

Make hay while the sun shines.

My employer's ESPP has a holding period of 6 months. I cannot sell them within 6 months since purchase. Most of the shares are not transferrable for a long, long time. They range from over 20 years to over 80 years. Is it a common practice? Why do they impose such long blackout period for transfer? I don't understand those two comments: You can't sell within 6 months since purchase Most shares aren't transferrable for 20 to 80 years. The can't sell for a certain amount of time, sadly, does exist for some plans. I've worked for a number of different employers, but never had this restriction. I could sell the day the shares showed up in my account. In fact that's what I always do. I wouldn't participate in any plan that had a sell restrictio...

Work-life balance is a catch word for getting paid while staying home or wherever. I belong to a large advanced R/D group (not S/W) including Western Europe and East Asia. The arrangement is not for cheap labor. The majority in the foreign countries hold advanced degrees and many of them are highly experienced. They are as good as those in the US and well paid, but the cost is still lower. I see no downside in shifting more workloads abroad. In light of the wfh rage, it is about time for employers to take a fresh look. 8301, It goes both way. At OP's pay level of 70K per year, it is not worthwhile for OP to stay at a job with a lousy work life balance. Does anyone in your team work at this pay level? It is time for the employee to take a f...

Seems the return to work has got you flustered. Pre pandemic I assume you weren’t wfh, so can’t the company leverage a more collaborative environment and ask folks to return to the office? I sense this issue has got you pretty tripped up. If you don’t like it leave and find a wfh job, but at your age with a young family I’d vote for more years earning money. No question. A lot of employers realize that requiring a return to office will cause some people to quit. And they’re totally okay with it. And some are doing it intentionally, seeing it as a quick easy way to reduce headcount. I don't understand. If you wish to get paid, you have to do what your employer asks you to do within reason. Utility workers, road crews, airline workers,... Ev...

privateer79 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:56 pm is this some kind of private company whose share's aren't publicly traded???

I've never heard of something like this for publicly traded shares.

It is a public company with a market cap of triple digits billions. When ESPP shares are sold, the discount on purchase has to be added to a W-2 form. I assume the brokerage house is supposed to report the sale to the company. I think it is easier to track the movement of the shares if the shares are locked in the brokerage where they were issued.

My employer's ESPP has a holding period of 6 months. I cannot sell them within 6 months since purchase. Most of the shares are not transferrable for a long, long time. They range from over 20 years to over 80 years. Is it a common practice? Why do they impose such long blackout period for transfer? I don't understand those two comments: You can't sell within 6 months since purchase Most shares aren't transferrable for 20 to 80 years. The can't sell for a certain amount of time, sadly, does exist for some plans. I've worked for a number of different employers, but never had this restriction. I could sell the day the shares showed up in my account. In fact that's what I always do. I wouldn't participate in any plan that had a sell restrictio...

Seems the return to work has got you flustered. Pre pandemic I assume you weren’t wfh, so can’t the company leverage a more collaborative environment and ask folks to return to the office? I sense this issue has got you pretty tripped up. If you don’t like it leave and find a wfh job, but at your age with a young family I’d vote for more years earning money. No question. A lot of employers realize that requiring a return to office will cause some people to quit. And they’re totally okay with it. And some are doing it intentionally, seeing it as a quick easy way to reduce headcount. I don't understand. If you wish to get paid, you have to do what your employer asks you to do within reason. Utility workers, road crews, airline workers,... Ev...

kchico wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:10 pm My company eliminated 10 people in a team 12 and I now have a crazy work load and I am being forced to go back to the office which I am not a fun off after really enjoying working from home for a few years after Covid.

Your company is smarting up. Party is over.

chinchin wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 4:13 pm

Journeyman510 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:49 pm I'll just chime in that I spent 5 years at Cornell which has brutal winters. I came from Florida and never even saw snow before moving to Ithaca. I survived.

Well, an Ivy League school might be worth it.

For those who complain of weather, they should realize that the weather is not the problem, but the school is.

If he is used to the Upper Midwest climate, then Minnesota might be a good fit. If not, that's a potential issue - winter in that part of the world has to be experienced to be understood. Not that different from the Northeast. Mid 70s in September and May, 60 in October and April, mid 40s in November and March, upper 20s in December and February, low 20s in January, for high temperatures. Not sure what you mean by the northeast, but I’ll use Boston as a proxy Average high in Boston in Jan is 37. Average for Minneapolis is 25. I’d say a 12 degree average temp difference is pretty different. Now a person might not care, but it’s definitely different Boston is brutal in winter because of the very thing which moderates the temperature. The Nor...

jm1495 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:46 am

SmileyFace wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:21 am Are you sure you can contribute $40K annually?
My understanding is that IRS limits ESPP programs to $25K annually (and that is pre discount).
I would still participate- max up to the $25K. I don't get the $40K

I am certain that I can contribute up to $40k per the plan documentation. The maximum benefit is $6k $6k/.15 = $40k

$25k pre-discount per calendar year.

A good school is the number one thing one can do to help our kids. I think I’d go for it and I think you can afford it. It may delay that early retirement. Thanks for the confirmation. That is our thinking as well, if we can afford to give our children the best school in the area, we should. Even if it does delay early retirement. Assuming this argument is true, there are other ways to secure a good school. Buying a new house and moving is one of (potentially the) most expensive way to achieve this objective. Private is the easiest lever to pull, then there are charters (or variations thereof), and homeschooling (including homeschool groups which are becoming more of a thing). And there's a difference between school districts, and the scho...

DH 31, DW 32 1 kid almost 2 (likely to have a second) Income DW:178k + 45k bonus DH: 172k + 8k bonus + 240k RSUs DH side income: 10k DH works from home. DW WFH mostly full time, goes in one day a month which company would like to be one day a week. We currently live an hour from DWs work. RSUs would be a nice bonus but don't want to count on it paying out. Current house: Expected to sell for 430k Expected net from sell: ~ 200k Townhome 2,300 sq feet current PITI: 2,250 New house: 800k 2800 sq feet, 0.8 acre Expected PITI (rate of 6.7%): 4,900 This would be a nice house in the school district we want, do not want to pay for private school. Emergency fund: 50k Investments: ~1.5 million 401k: 500k Roth IRA: 268k Brokerage: 600k HSA: 39k 529: ...

Northern Flicker wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:09 am

t24b350 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:39 pm My son gets admissions from U. Minnesota (Twin Cities), SUNY Stony Brook and Arizona State, all in Computer Science.
Cost aside, which one is the best to attend?

Purely on academics for CS:

1. Stony Brook
2. Minnesota
3. Arizona State

This may not matter much to engineering or CS. The famed Brookhaven National Lab. is near Stony Brook and there may be a special relationship between them. A notable theoretical physicist C.N. Yang, a 1957 Nobel Laureate for his ground shattering work on parity violation (broken parity symmetry) with T.D. Lee was hired from IAS, Princeton University to Stony Brook a while ago.

My employer's ESPP has a holding period of 6 months. I cannot sell them within 6 months since purchase. Most of the shares are not transferrable for a long, long time. They range from over 20 years to over 80 years. Is it a common practice? Why do they impose such long blackout period for transfer?

GeMoney wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:10 pm As a former stock plan administrator I always refer people to TurboTax's excellent articles regarding taxes. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/in ... /L8NgMFpFX

You will receive the 1099-B next year.

Thank you for the clarification.
I also remember filing an ESPP disposition survey of my employer in 2022. If I fail to respond in time, "The transferred shares may be considered disposed of and income may be added to W-2." It looks like taxes are assessed not on a transfer but on a subsequent sale.

In 2022, I transferred (gifted) ESPP shares and received a form 3922 from my employer. The shares were held for over 2 years before the transfer. The shares were subsequently sold in 2023. I have not received a form 1099-B. Do I owe 2022 taxes on the discount on the purchase? Is the discount included in my 2022 W-2? Which is the taxable event of the discount on purchase, the transfer of ESPP shares from my possession or subsequent sale?

Journeyman510 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:26 pm

mark_in_denver wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:51 pm

twh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:23 pm After a few years working no one cares where you graduated from.

Exactly.
Same thing at my work and my wife's work.

This may be true for low level roles with low level salaries. But it is less true at executive levels where comp is north of 1m which is where I'm coming from.

A completely useless comment. Executive levels are completely different story. Throw books away and play football all day long.

Peter Foley wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 10:44 am Your premise is that your tax rate does not change.

I would suggest thinking in slightly different terms. Will you have the ability/flexibility to manage your savings so that you "could" lower your tax rate in retirement? With savings in taxable, tax free, and tax deferred one has a fair amount of control over annual taxes - especially early in retirement.

If you compare Roth (tax free) vs. taxable, Roth is always better under all tax rate changes except TLH and some restrictions on the availability of the fund in the near future. Why do you even have to consider taxable? It is simply because there is a limit to how much you can contribute to tax deferred + tax free annually.

According to College Scorecard, the median salary for CS majors at OSU is $80,252. At Northeastern, it is $108,000. It seems that because of the co-ops, NEU CS grads make significantly more than OSU CS grads. Whether that is worth an additional year of school and the higher tuition is up to the OP. It could mean that. Or it could mean that median salaries in Boston are higher than they are in Ohio. I’d guess that grads from either school, who work the same employers are paid comparably. That's a good point. Most NEU grads end up in the Boston area, which might be an issue. Although it could be because of coops. If an OSU student did two 6 month coops, they might have higher starting salaries. But salaries are not everything. Do you want to...

I like to ask the recruiter/HR person for the compensation of a position during the initial screening. With multi-round interviews so common, this can save you a lot of time. It is law they disclose this for a few states. It's almost certain they have created a budget for the position when they created it. If you're at the point of having an onsite, then you'll have to wait for an offer. You'll need to understand the market to see if it's fair. They probably will have some wiggle room, but not a lot. Playing hardball (that some people strongly advocate for) can get an offer rescinded as they likely have a pool of candidates to choose from. An outstanding must-not-to-lose candidate is the exception rather than the rule.

Journeyman510 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:47 pm Unlike many people on this site, I don't have a knee jerk reaction against private school. I'm an Ivy League graduate and would have no qualms paying for any of my kids to attend a private school of that caliber.

NEU is not academically better than OSU in my opinion so it isn't worth the added cost.

^^^
I would choose a decent state college over an average private college even at the same cost unless my goal is to form a network with those who are well connected.
Example:
UCLA vs. USC
Georgia Tech vs. Emory
Lehigh vs. Penn State

If I can gift up to the annual exemption limit every year for the rest of my life, what is the downside of making occasional (much) larger gifts on top of the annual exemption limit? Is filing a form 709 an onerous task? This way, I will not "waste" any annual maximum exemption.

If you acquired RSU and ESPP around the same time, ESPP shares tend to have lower cost basis if there is a discount on ESPP purchase. If there is a look back on discount, the discount may be even larger. The discount is subject to ordinary income taxes when you dispose of ESPP shares. In other words, taxes are deferred.

SnowBog gave a nice recommendation above.

OP may take a recent one as a case study.
viewtopic.php?t=399481

I use my big bank as a hub which may be accessed by credit card companies, credit unions, and investment houses. Fund transfer may be initiated only by spokes, but not the hub. If an account is compromised, the damage will be limited to the account and the hub, I assume. So, if I’m reading this right, you pay everything from the hub but you don’t ever push money from the hub to the spokes? You always do a pull? And, probably a dumb question, but do you have other bank accounts as spokes or are your spokes the credit cards, investment houses, etc.? If you do have “spoke” banks/credit unions, is there a specific purpose and have you tried to optimize to minimize the number of spoke banks/CUs? I ask because this is my issue - I struggle with ...

fireman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:52 pm
There are also so many little tax things that get phased out, or tacked on, at OP's income level at the federal level. Examples include phase out of child tax credit(s), add-on of additional Medicare tax, add-on of net investment tax, alternative minimum tax (less impact these days), etc.

Wait. Those two add-on taxes pay for the Bogleheads' all-time favorites, ACA subsidies.

From online:
Federal law: Postal regulations provide that "(c)arriers may cross lawns while making deliveries if patrons do not object and there are no particular hazards to the carrier."

I use my big bank as a hub which may be accessed by credit card companies, credit unions, and investment houses. Fund transfer may be initiated only by spokes, but not the hub. If an account is compromised, the damage will be limited to the account and the hub, I assume.

TomatoTomahto wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:48 am

piper wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:39 am

cchrissyy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:38 pm I've never understood moving to save income taxes by the exact people who make so much the taxes can't impact their lifestyle.
Live wherever you like! You can afford it.

For many people getting taxed at around 50 percent of income, How does that NOT impact their lifestyle?

We are taxed at 50% (or more, depending on how you're counting), but the net is still much more than we need. So, we choose to stay in Massachusetts in spite of the complicated tax and estate considerations.

Massachusetts does not take 50% from you as income taxes. Our state income taxes are about 1/3 of the federal taxes. I-5 is much longer than I-90.

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 4:27 pm One thing to keep in mind about the impact of fees is that when interest rates and expected nominal returns are high, fees matter less.

This is what convinced me to stop worrying about ways to reduce my 0.7% tax cost of holding global equities in taxable.

Let's use numbers.
Assume
r=9%: return per year
f=1%: fee
n=30: number of years

A=(1+r)^n: w/o fee
B=(1+r-f)^n: w/ fee
B/A = 2.71^(-n*f)=0.74: insensitive to r (approx. expression)
B/A=(1+r-f)^n/(1+r)^n=0.76

Fees matter no matter what! Bogle is right.

rockstar wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 11:34 am TINA. When rates got really low, I was nearly 100% equities. Bonds didn’t make any sense beyond holding for more than a year. And at that duration, you couldn’t keep up with inflation. This is the issue. You’re pretty much stuck buying all equities and having more volatility in your portfolio.

TIPS also were all negative real as well across the entire curve.

Rates going down is good for bonds that you already hold as you can sell them before maturity and make a gain on top of your already collected interest. But once they’re near zero, they no longer make sense.

Because of taxes, savers are hurt more by high interest rates and high inflation than by low interest rates and low inflation.

runner540 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:45 am

Cranberry44 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:14 am Hi All,

The recent news of failing banks has made me wonder: is my 403b account insured at the FDIC limit of 250k?

What are the important things to know here?

Thanks!

These plans are also heavily regulated by the ERISA laws.

Not all 403b plans are ERISA plans.

worthit wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:26 am Thanks all for responding.

My employe (mega corp) does allow after-tax contributions and they are ACP tested as far as I understand. So not worried even if it fails on a rare occasion. I will get my funds back.

8301 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:40 pm Correct. I also try to fill $73,500 within 1% of my base salary.

What do you mean by within 1% of your base salary? Can you clarify please?

Thanks.

All the contributions from me and employer may be integer multiples of my biweekly base pay. If it is $1,000, then the allowed contributions will be $10, $20, $30,..., but not $21 or 22, ...

Correct. I also try to fill $73,500 within 1% of my base salary.

Silk McCue wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:29 pm

runner3081 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:23 pm

Silk McCue wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:36 pm That sounds unrealistic to me and would likely be a turnoff to a prospective employer. You might need to hang in a bit longer at the current job if the vacation is a top priority.

Cheers

Disagree. Most new hires that I have brought on before the summer have pre-planned vacations and ask for the time off. Never an issue. Why would it be?

You would certainly know better than me.

Cheers

I once took 6 weeks off before starting a new job. Employers know that new hires start with zero accrued vation time. Fairly common.