Financial Update – Dec 2019

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Another month, another update. A few random comments. Good Reads/Listens/Watches Bill Gates on the need for increased taxation on wealthy at the Federal and State level (link). His main argument is that, to close the deficit (and thus the federal debt level), we should increase taxes on the wealthy to fix it. He argues that … Read more

Free $1,500 HSBC bonus came through

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A few months back, I blogged about a free $1.5k opportunity (link). Well, it worked. I get paid at the end of the month. I dumped $5k to HSBC via my employer’s direct deposit. The following day I pulled the $5k from HSBC to my Fidelity CMA/Brokerage on an automated schedule. Consequently, there was only … Read more

5 kids; $169,817 income; $0 taxes

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I was doing some thinking today (a dangerous activity). I was marveling at the amount of income that can be realized tax-free, a-la Go-Curry-Cracker. It is well known that investments (long term capital gains (LTCG) + dividends) are taxed preferentially: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/capital-gains-tax-rates/ So let’s go through a few scenarios here given 2019 tax parameters after accounting … Read more

Financial Update – Nov 2019

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Another month, another update. A few random comments. Good Reads/Listens/Watches WSJ opinion piece on the state of income inequality in the U.S. (link). The authors claim that, on an after-tax-and-transfer basis, the five quintiles of income earn a net of $50k, $55k, $65k, $80k, and $190k. While the ratio of gross incomes of the top … Read more

2019 Tax Calculator

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I’ve been dragging my feet on the release of my 2019 tax calculator for a while now. I think I updated it several months ago but I wanted to wait until TurboTax & TaxAct updated their tools so I could validate my spreadsheet against theirs. As of today, however, neither site has been updated for … Read more

Financial Update – Oct 2019

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Another month, another update. A few random comments. Good Reads/Listens/Watches The Biggest Little Farm (link). Our friends saw this indie film at a local theater and highly recommended it to us. It documents the journey of a couple as they embark on an ambitious plan to change careers to become farmers. In the process, they … Read more