Your tax world has officially changed. Here are some of the new things you’ll see – and old things you won’t see – on your 2018 tax return.

First, if your itemized deductions don’t add up to exceed the new, doubled standard deduction, your tax life will get simpler. For single filers, the new standard deduction threshold is $12,000. For married filers, it’s now $24,000.

Notably, investment fees and tax prep fees are no longer deductible. Also, the deductible portion of your combined property taxes and state income taxes is now capped at $10,000. Due to these changes, like 90% of all taxpayers, you’ll probably opt to use the new standard deduction. If so, you’ll have far fewer records to gather next year.

Second, personal exemptions no longer exist on your federal tax return. This is an especially huge loss of deductions for larger families.

However, with simplification as a big goal, what the government “taketh” away in deductions and exemptions, they “giveth” back with the doubling of the standard deduction.

Whether this tradeoff makes you a winner or a loser is an open question. On a national scale, though, it results in what tax geeks call a “broadening” or “widening” of the tax base. The bottom line is more income is now subject to federal tax.

Of course, this was officially named the Tax Cut and Jobs Act for a reason. Some major changes were included to combat this broadening of the tax base.

To start, the new law generally lowers tax rates by about 3% across the board. For example, the old 15% bracket is now 12%. The old 25% bracket is now 22%. The old 28% bracket is now 24%. You get the drift.

For lower income couples with kids, these lower tax rates may not fully offset that broadening of your personal tax base. However, the doubling of your child tax credit to $2,000 may more than make up for it. A tax cut is very likely in the cards for you.

For upper income filers, with or without kids, the lower tax rates are also more than likely to make up for the widening of your tax base. It should be said the Alternative Minimum Tax or AMT is essentially a thing of the past.

No summary of the new tax law would be complete without mentioning the major break given to many small business owners. What resulted was a highly complex business deduction of up to 20% of your business income.

Now, when I say it’s complex, I’m not exaggerating. It’s fair to say that, where the small business tax changes massively whiffed on the goal of simplicity, it doubled down on the goal of cutting taxes for many business owners!

Once again, please join us at the next Money Series on Wed., Feb 7 at 6:30pm in the McGuire Rm at the Traverse Area District Library where attorney Diane Kuhn Huff will discuss estate planning. The Money Series’ non-profit mission is to provide open-access to financial education, for all. Register at FrontStreetFoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the new tax law has dramatically lowered corporate tax rates. It could be argued that corporations were the primary beneficiaries politicians had in mind.

Wisely, rather than highlighting the billions slashed from their future corporate tax bills, the headline grabbing figure most often cited by companies has been $1,000. That’s the level of bonus that company after company has settled on sharing with their workers. It was clearly viewed by executives and board members as a nice, round figure, full of sound and fury and signifying (nearly) nothing.

The partial list of companies announcing one-time, $1,000 bonuses includes Disney, Home Depot, AT&T, American Airlines, Bank of America, Fifth Third Bank, Comcast, Jet Blue, Southwest Airlines, US Bank and Walmart.

Looking beyond the obvious PR benefits, and without completely discounting the value $1,000 is to many strapped workers, two things about it all strike me as fascinating.

First, it’s nearly impossible not to notice the “follow the leader” mindset at work in today’s executive suite. I suspect many of them went to the same business school or are members of the same social clubs. Certainly, they all watch CNBC and read the Wall Street Journal. To so quickly parrot one another, as if $1,000 was derived with forethought and analysis, is a little comical.

Second, it’s also impossible not to notice the lack of workers’ bargaining power in today’s economy. In the absence of labor unions, most workers are an outgunned and outmanned one man army.

Notably, Larry Fink, CEO of one of the largest investment managers in the world, recently sent an open letter to the leaders of today’s major corporations. Departing from the clubby world in which he no doubt lives, he courageously implored companies to act beyond their profit motives and embrace their greater “social purpose.”

He cited a “paradox” in today’s economy where companies and their investors are enjoying “high returns” and rank-and-file workers are experiencing “high anxiety.”

Regardless of the specifics of Fink’s letter, the lasting impression of his letter for me was just how far the pendulum has swung in the direction of corporate interests when an insider feels the need to send that message at all.

To close with a burning question, when corporations start getting asked to fulfill a greater social purpose, is it appropriate for us to ask if our elected officials have lost
sight of their own?

It all reminds me of my kids’ pre-school days in response to them always wanting a little more; “You get what you get and you don’t get upset!”

Speaking of fulfilling a greater social purpose, you are invited to the upcoming Money Series presentation by local attorney, Diane Kuhn Huff, where she’ll provide an invaluable (and free) lesson on estate planning on Wed.,February 7 at 6:30pm in the McGuire Rm. at the Traverse Area District Library. To register, visit www.FrontStreetFoundation.org or
call (231) 714-6459.

Have you ever dreamed of being a half-millionaire? It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Well, the fact is, if you are retired or are nearing retirement, thanks to Social Security, you can probably make this claim!

Social Security is just like – actually, even better than – having a pension or owning a private annuity. For a retiree to receive an inflation-indexed monthly benefit of $2,000 it would require an investment of about $500,000. Knowing that, people receiving Social Security benefits of that size can rightfully declare themselves to be a half-millionaire.

For millions of our oldest citizens, Social Security literally secures their financial independence and helps to keep them out of poverty. Given its importance, understanding your filing options, the program’s features, rules and quirks is a wise move.

As a small preview into what’s quickly becoming a perennial topic of the Front Street Foundation’s Money Series, here are just two features of Social Security we’ll discuss at our next program on Wednesday, January 10th.

First, waiting to collect can pay dividends. While the earliest you can file is age 62, for each year you delay in filing, you get a lifetime benefit boost of 8%. That annual boost can build all the way until age 70. The benefit difference between a person filing at age 62 and age 70 is huge.

A sad reality is that a large proportion of Social Security beneficiaries file at the earliest possible moment. That decision results in 32% less each month compared to filing at age 66, the current official full retirement age.

Of course, don’t forget, if you don’t think you will survive for at least 12 more years – and your spouse won’t either, if you’re married – giving up a year’s worth of Social Security benefits won’t pay off.

For example, if you are 65 and decide to wait another year to file, that 8% benefit boost will finally make up for your one year’s worth of forgone benefits by the time you reach your upper 70s. While that’s a pretty solid bet for many readers, it is certainly not a sure bet for everyone.

Second, an old trick that couples use to maximize their combined Social Security benefits is slowly expiring. If you are age 64 or older at the start of 2018, when you file at your official full retirement age you are still allowed to restrict your filing to receive just your spousal benefit. This restricted application allows your own benefit – the one based on your own life’s work – to remain untapped and growing. If you happen to be under age 64 at the start of 2018, the trick is long gone.

To learn more about Social Security, listen to Jason P. Tank, CFA present and answer questions for the non-profit Money Series on Wed., January 10th at 6:30pm in the McGuire Rm. at the Traverse Area District Library. To register, visit www.FrontStreetFoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.

Register

With year-end tax planning underway, now is the perfect time to bring up a perennial tax trick; making a charitable donation directly from your IRA. This is known as a qualified charitable distribution.

Perhaps you’ve already received that annual letter from your favorite charity where it says you can support your cause while simultaneously satisfying your required minimum distribution from your IRA. Better yet, you can pull off this feat and lower your tax bill!

To begin to understand this pitch, we need to first quickly review what a required minimum distribution is and how it typically affects your tax bill.

When you reach the magical age of 70.5, the IRS expects you to start paying some taxes on your tax-deferred accounts. These include all of your IRAs, 401(k) accounts and any other accounts that were funded with pre-tax earnings.

For example, if you’ve saved $500,000 across all of your tax-deferred accounts, at age 70.5 the government expects you to distribute a minimum of close to $20,000 that very first year. It’s normally considered taxable income to you.

Now, when you make a donation to a qualified charity directly out of your IRA, the government says it’s okay to count it against your required minimum distribution and it’s also okay to not count it as taxable income. It’s as if the IRS officially turns a blind eye to the whole transaction. None of that IRA distribution has to be reported by you as income and, of course, no charitable deduction will be allowed by you either. It looks like a wash.

This begs the question, how can making the donation from your IRA be better than simply writing a normal check to your charity and taking the normal charitable deduction on your tax return? The short answer is, it may or may not. It depends on your tax situation.

There are two primary deductions on your tax return that are affected by your level of income, including IRA distribution income. They both reside on Schedule A, where you itemize your various deductible expenses.

First, you can deduct your out-of-pocket medical and dental expenses. However, only the amount that exceeds 10% of your income is deductible. Second, you can similarly deduct various miscellaneous expenses, such as the fees you pay your accountant and investment adviser. That deductible threshold is 2% of your income.

Naturally, if you make a donation directly from your IRA, being able to ignore that income on your tax return lowers those thresholds and allows an incrementally greater amount of your medical expenses and professional fees to qualify as deductible. Alas, you see a lower tax bill, however slight it might be.

But, what if your typical income is already so high – even before considering the income from your IRA distributions – that you aren’t allowed to deduct any of your medical expenses and professional fees anyway?

If this is your situation, going through the hassle of making a charitable donation directly from your IRA is no better than writing a check. If this is still confusing to you, just ask your investment adviser or tax preparer. Beware, they might charge you a fee, non-deductible, of course!

Any program impacting over 55 million people is worth reviewing at least once a year. This is so obvious that even our divided government officials can agree!

With its annual open enrollment deadline fast approaching, your window to learn about your choices in Medicare coverage is closing quickly.

In total, Medicare costs around $700 billion a year and it’s growing. Together with Social Security’s greater than $900 billion in annual distributions, these two critical social safety nets make up a whopping 40% of our federal budget. This is one reason the Front Street Foundation’s Money Series is holding educational programs on each topic over the next few months.

To kick it off, Fred Goldenberg of Senior Benefit Solutions will be discussing all facets of Medicare. This will include the specifics of Medicare’s coverages, its costs and how to handle your out-of-pocket responsibilities.

Medicare and the choices you face unfortunately sound like a bland bowl of alphabet soup. For example, within basic Medicare, there is Part A for hospital services, Part B for medical services, like doctor visits, and Part D for prescription drug coverage.

However, you should know that Medicare leaves you with a gap of financial risk because it will only pays for 80% of your service costs. Without the protective layer of a private Medigap policy, it’s possible unreimbursed medical expenses could eat up a big chunk of your life savings. In his upcoming presentation, Mr. Goldenberg will discuss the options you have to help protect your nest egg.

Predictably, this means you have more letters to consider! Medigap policies come in the enticing government-standardized flavors of Plan A to Plan N. Don’t ask about the missing letters, E, H, I and J!

Curiously, despite their standardization, monthly premium levels for Medigap policies do vary from insurance company to insurance company. As always, shopping around is important. However, switching around can get complicated. While you can always renew your current Medigap policy, there’s no guarantee you’ll pass the medical underwriting standards of a new insurer.

To simplify things, among other reasons, the government created Medicare Part C. This allows for a bundled package of the basic parts of Medicare along with the standardized elements of a Medigap policy and more. Part C is better known as a Medicare Advantage plan. Take note, it’s the only thing named with some marketing flair behind it.

Like anything else, choosing the one-stop shopping experience of a Medicare Advantage plan does minimize the number of moving parts. On the flip side, given the fact that bundled products do create less transparency, it does require a little more thought.

The good thing is the annual enrollment period for Medicare opened only two short weeks ago. This still provides you enough time to learn more by attending the upcoming Money Series presentation on Thursday, Nov. 9 at 6:30pm in the McGuire Rm of the Traverse Area District Library. To register, visit FrontStreetFoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.