HEADLINE: The IRS has postponed for 2024 required minimum distributions (“RMDs”) for non-spouse beneficiaries of inherited IRAs. Details here. DETAIL: In legislation passed by Congress in 2019 non-spouse beneficiaries of IRAs would need to zero out accounts within 10 years. It was interpreted to mean that no distributions could be taken for the first nine [...]
We’ve written quite a bit about how the S&P 500’s returns can be skewed by the largest stocks. For context you can read all about it here. Today we’d like to provide yet another example. YTD the S&P 500 is up 21%. That’s not to say each of the 500 stocks is up 21%. Rather [...]
How often do our brains make connections that don’t exist? More often than we think. A happened and then B happened so A caused B. Really? Hmmm... Correlation (no matter how weak/strong) and causation are two incredibly different things. Confusing the two often leads to poor decision making and erroneous conclusions. Sometimes the outcome is [...]
Stories serves many functions. One of our favorites is about a prospect who did not ultimately become an Apollo client. The husband was a physician – the wife a corporate controller (so presumably financially astute). Given their high tax bracket they were adamant their portfolio skew towards muni bonds. We explained a number of factors [...]
For most our homes are our largest asset. It’s no wonder that as values rise and cheap financing abounds consumers continue to spend spend spend. Where’s that recession we were promised?!
In Dec 2022 a Wall Street Journal survey found economists thought there was a 63% chance of a recession. Furthermore a survey of economists and investors by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed expectations that GDP would fall in the next three or four quarters. How’s that working out? Simply because economists were convinced [...]
On Friday the Internal Revenue Service announced it would continue to delay enforcing relatively new rules for inherited retirement accounts. The result of the delay is that some accountholders will be able to forgo taking a distribution for 2023. Prior to 2019 people who inherited retirement accounts could “stretch” distributions over their lifetimes. In 2019 [...]
Yesterday marked the end of the public comment period on the revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The form is traditionally available Oct 1st but given what the Department of Education called the “most ambitions and significant redesign…in decades” we shouldn’t expect to see it until Dec. One of the main goals of the [...]
Does George Costanza work at ProPublica? They sure do have a peculiar way of viewing the truth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ This article makes the case that the “wealthy” “dodge” taxes by “skirting” law. (Interesting use of coded language – thanks ProPublica!) Do the "wealthy" take advantage of tax loss harvesting? Absolutely. Know who else does? [...]