Wednesday, October 29, 2014

End-of-Year Tax Planning

It’s time to start making your year-end plans even though this year’s tax rules are pending in Congress and not yet finalized.  Lawmaking tax writers are waiting until the last minute to revive a series of tax breaks that lapsed at the end of 2013.  These include the deduction for state sales taxes in lieu of income taxes and direct transfers from IRAs to charity up to $100,000 for people age 70 ½ and up.  Despite the lawmakers’ reluctance to take action until after Election Day (Nov. 4) we believe many of the tax breaks will be renewed for 2014 and 2015.

The key to end-of-year tax planning is to weigh your options for both 2014 and 2015.  You want to minimize the tax impact for both years, not just one.

Some taxpayers can accelerate income into 2014 to take advantage of a lower income and tax bracket, while other taxpayers may be able to defer income into 2015 for the same reason.
State and local income tax are itemized deductions.  The decision to pay, underpay or overpay can affect either year depending on your situation.

There are a number of other deductions such as interest, charitable donations, and medical expenses that need to be considered.
Knowing your tax position before the holidays is always a good idea. Contact your Wealth Advocate to discuss your income tax concerns and end the year with a reliable plan.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Carl Richards on Happiness and Success


In the past, WFG has used ideas and images from behaviorgap.com to promote financial literacy to clients and investors through our website and other materials.  You may recognize some of them:


The man behind behaviorgap.com is Carl Richards, a well-known author and international speaker.  We like to use some of Mr. Richards’ ideas because he is often able to present complex, albeit important, financial ideas in an easily understandable way.  Below is a copy of the most recent behaviorgap.com newsletter, on success and happiness:


Are You Chasing Happiness or Success?

For the next few minutes, I want you to focus on the most successful person you know (and yes, it may be you). What makes this individual successful in your mind? Professional accomplishments? Personal wealth? Now, I want you to think of the happiest person you know.

Did you come up with the same name?

No doubt some of you did. However, I suspect many more of you ended up with two different people. We often ignore it, but we live in a world that doesn't always make it easy for success and happiness to coexist. My sense is that the problem comes back to something fairly basic.

How we currently define success and real happiness overlap very little. It may seem counterintuitive. After all, what successful person wouldn't be happy? But go back over the mental list you made for the individual you consider a success. How many of your qualifications are connected, at least in part, to owning tangible, material things?

Now, think about the happiest person you know. What makes them happy? I'm willing to bet it's because of their relationships and the things they do, not because of what they have. But why isn't there a greater alignment between what we consider success and happiness?

One of the best examples of this disconnect is the greater happiness we feel when we're living an experience versus buying a possession. Even though it seems counterintuitive (e.g., your vacation only lasts a week), people are happier both before and after an experience compared to how they feel after buying a physical product. But think about how we define success. Very often it comes back to what someone buys and owns.   

These visible reminders of success become a measuring stick, and like any measuring stick, it can be hard for some of us to measure up. Case in point, I've had more than one person tell me about how they'd like to slow down and live a different life. These are often people who would easily qualify as successful.

But as we walk through the reasons why they can't slow down, they invariably hinges on those signs of success. For instance, don't tell me you wish you had more time to coach your kid's soccer team if you just bought a luxury car that requires working overtime to make the payments. While success may come with happiness, sometimes we'll need to walk away from what everyone else defines as success to find our own happiness.

Yes, this may sound incredibly abstract and maybe even a little New Agey. But time after time, I've had conversations with clients in which they will share their goals, and their goals will be based on the idea of having "something." They focused on visible success and skipped over the happiness part. They just assumed success meant happiness. As a result, these clients were surprised to discover that after all their hard work, and despite all the possessions they'd accumulated, they weren't always happy with the outcome.

What might happen if we reordered happiness and success? What if we instead said our decisions would be based on what makes us happy? Of course, we'd be thrilled if those decisions also led to success, but our primary focus was now happiness.

How would that change the decisions you've made in the past week? Would anything be different? If not, then you've managed to find a balance between success and happiness. But if you find that more than one or two decisions would be different, then maybe it's time to ask yourself why.

Do you really think success will bring you happiness, or do you just hope that's the case?

Carl


If you would like to read more from Mr. Richards, visit behaviorgap.com and/or subscribe to the Behavior Gap newsletter for more insight.  If you would like to see Carl’s archives in the New York Times, click here