Your Money, Your Wealth

Original publish date February 20, 2016 (hour 1). Note that content may be outdated as rules and regulations have changed. In episode 3 of YMYW, Joe tells us about the most significant financial strategies to start implementing now; Surprising things the government wants to tax you on; and the return of "Tax Chat" as Big Al shares a couple of tax tips. 02:40 "You can't control the stock markets, you can't control interest rates, you can't control the price of oil..." 06:00 "You want to make sure you have enough capital in your overall portfolio to maintain that [retirement] lifestyle" 10:25 "We've been doing this radio show for over 10 years, we teach a lot of retirement courses at local universities and community colleges. If you go to our website we have a learning center with over 200 videos. What we try to do is make sure we empower people" 15:39 "Educate yourself to understand how much risk you're taking in the portfolio" 17:10 "Taxes are something that you actually do have some control over, as long as you know how to manipulate and utilize the tax code to your advantage" 31:29 "A lot of you are in the sandwich generation, and what the sandwich generation means is that you have elderly parents that you are caring for and then you still might have kids on the payroll, so money is going every which way except your retirement" 31:50 "One of the biggest financial risks to retirement is your own grown children"

Original publish date February 14, 2016 (hour 2). Joe and Big Al discuss negative interest rates and how they could affect you. Plus, the President released this year's budget proposal! Big Al and Joe break it down and explain what the changes could mean for you and your beneficiaries. 4:24 "If you work an extra two years, it means that's two years less that you're taking from your portfolio and that's two years more that you're deferring your overall Social Security benefits" 10:22 "There are significant changes going on with Social Security; we are doing a webinar [on February 23rd, 2016] if you'd like to sit in the comfort of your own home and listen for an hour" 11:43 "For a long time economists believed that nominal interest rates or the amount of money received for depositing money was theoretically bound to zero" 12:05 "Lately, however, central banks from Europe to Japan have implemented a negative interest rate policy in order to stimulate economic growth" 19:18 "Here's what they're trying to eliminate: the backdoor Roth IRA, the stretch IRA, and step-up in cost basis at death" 19:55 "Here's how it [step-up in cost basis] works: when you pass away, your assets get stepped up to whatever they're worth at the date of death. Let's just say you bought a home for $100,000 and now it's worth $1 million and you pass away--you didn't sell it. When your kids get it and if they sell it for $1 million, do they have to pay gains on the $900,000 gain? The answer is no - it's a step-up in basis so it's as if your children bought that asset for $1 million. It works with stocks, real estate and anything outside of your retirement account, it gets that step-up in basis" 22:02 "Here's another change: adding RMDs at age 70 1/2 for Roth accounts" 24:08 "If it's a large account, your non-spouse beneficiaries are going to pay a ton of tax in those accounts if you have a large balance in those accounts" 26:47 "You want to convert while assets are down because if you convert now, the recovery with the future growth in the IRA is all tax-free" 28:22 "What you need to do right now is have a forward-looking tax strategy created so you can figure out what steps you need to do this year, next year and the future so you can stay out of higher tax brackets coming" 30:02 "If you have more than $3.4 million in a retirement account, you will no longer be able to contribute to retirement accounts. You can still save money but it won't be sheltered from tax" 31:25 "Capital gains is a lot lower rate than ordinary income rate, in fact capital gains for most people is 15%, but ordinary income tax rates go as high as 39.6% so it can be a huge tax savings"

Original publish date February 14, 2016 (hour 1). Welcome to the Your Money, Your Wealth® podcast: retirement planning, investing, and tax reduction made fun. Hosts Joe Anderson, CFP®, and Alan "Big Al" Clopine, CPA of Pure Financial Advisors have been providing financial education on the Your Money, Your Wealth® radio show in Southern California since 2008, and on the Your Money, Your Wealth® television show in San Diego since 2014! In this, the first episode of the YMYW podcast, Big Al tries to stump Joe with the financial literacy test that Forbes says 80% of participants failed. 3:08 "Just because the balance of your overall portfolio goes down, that doesn't necessarily mean you lost money – that's volatility; that is normal in any type of market cycle" 7:03 "Another thing you should be doing is tax loss harvesting, so you want to harvest some of the losses if you have down positions. Sell those and buy something similar to take those losses on your tax return" 8:05 "An article out of Forbes Magazine reveals that 81% of Americans failed a basic financial literacy test" 8:44 "Planning for your retirement can be scary, but when you think you know what you're doing and you really don't, the final outcome could be really scary" 12:22 "What's interesting about this is a lot of folks who took the test were very confident in their abilities to retire successfully (yet 80% failed the test)" 20:59 "Which of the following types of long-term bonds typically have the highest yield? Triple A-rate corporate bonds, B-rated corporate bonds or treasury bonds?" 24:56 "Anything that comes out of a retirement account that you took a deduction for is going to be paid full ordinary income tax and the state of California tax" 26:11 "As a CPA I would honestly say, it's been 30 years+ in the business and it does amaze me how many people fail to get the message about tax planning until they make a mistake that costs them thousands of dollars" 32:10 "There is an age limitation on IRAs, so after 70 ½ you can no longer contribute to an IRA, however if you're over 70 ½ you can still contribute to your employer-sponsored plan" 34:06 "When do you want to do your Roth conversions? When the market is down!"