This article is mainly focused on California taxes related to real estate, including property, transfer and capital gains taxes, but it is a good list of items to check into across the country before buying or selling a home. Kathleen Pender, writing in SFGate, gives you the details: http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/Real-estate-taxes-soar-along-with-home-prices-5673040.php Some of the taxes here are paid by the seller of the real estate and some by the buyer, but you always need to be aware of them so you don’t get surpised. For financial, accounting and tax musings, You can count on us to count for you! Email: bstonercpa@sbcglobal.net Phone: 818-317-6035 Website: www.briantstonercpa.com Android and the IPhone: Has been Featured On https://twitter.com/bstonercpa
Burbank CPA Financial Musings: Summer Job? Time to Start a Roth IRA
It seems like the kids are really beginning to grow up faster and faster – now they are in high school and looking at colleges and have part-time jobs in the summer and/or after school. Well, now is the time for the kids to start saving for retirement by setting up a Roth IRA. No tax deduction, but the investments grow tax free until retirement and can then be withdrawn tax free as needed. See this posting in the New York Times by Ron Lieber for more details and some long term projections of the investments: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/your-money/individual-retirement-account-iras/for-teenagers-starting-and-saving-in-a-roth-ira.html?_r=0 If someone starts a Roth and contributes $5,500 each year until age 65 and earns a 5% return, starting 6 years earlier (19 instead of 25) will generate over $250,000 more in earnings for the additional $33,000 investment, so it is better to start younger (the old compound earnings story, of course.) The key is starting early. For financial, accounting and tax musings, You can count on us to count for you! Email: bstonercpa@sbcglobal.net Phone: 818-317-6035 Website: www.briantstonercpa.com Android and the IPhone: Has been Featured On https://twitter.com/bstonercpa
CPA Financial Musings: Investing Tips Part 5 of 5 – How It All Works Together!
This is a reprint of a five part series on investing I wrote about a year ago – tips to let your winners run and protect your downside. Okay, now how does this all work together? First, select the investments you want, making sure you diversify between assets and across industries. Now pick somewhere between 20 and 25 investments and put equal amounts in all of them (keeping position sizes between 4 and 5 percent of assets.) Keep track of your stop losses – either 20% or 25% of the investment. The worst case situation – an investment drops below your stop loss. If you follow your stop and sell at the open the next day, with the position size of 4-5% your worse loss will be 1 to 1 1/2% percent of your assets. A few of these will probably hurt a little, but you have small losses to deal with rather than big ones. If a couple of investments take off, you can let your winners run, using the stops to stay in the investment and then tighten your stop loss and when you sell you will protect most of your profits. Best of all, you can do [...]