Plan With The Tax Man

Tony Mauro
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Financial, tax and retirement planning guidance from Tony Mauro. Tony is the original Tax Doctor, serving central Iowa. We’ll teach you how to properly plan for retirement, minimize your tax burden and attain a successful financial future.

  1. Mar 26

    Inside Your Financial Easter Basket

    Quick question before we get started... which Easter candy are you most looking forward to this year? Whatever your answer is, we're going to use it. Because today we're building a financial Easter basket and matching some of your favorite candies to the products and tools that belong in a solid retirement plan. Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1  00:00 Quick question before we get started, which Easter candy are you most looking forward to? Yeah, that's my opener for the podcast this week, because we're going to talk about financial Easter baskets. So we're going to talk about candy and what they might say about you here this week on plan with the tax man. You   Speaker 1  00:35 everybody. Welcome into the podcast. This is plan with the tax man with Tony Morrow from tax Doctor Inc, at your planning pros.com that's where you can find them, online. Your planning pros.com, and Tony, we're gonna talk candy, because you and I are in our 50s and we love candy, but it don't love us as much anymore.   Tony Mauro  00:53 That's right. And I grew up eating candy and all these things, although my favorite Easter candy is not on there.   Speaker 1  01:00 Okay, we'll add that. Get to that at the end. Yeah, we'll add that in. So what are we going to do here? Is, I want to give you some, some, you know, Easter candy in lieu of the, you know, the end of the month here and Easter upon us. And we'll do a little financial Easter basket, and let you kind of give me some sort of, we'll do some sort of an analogy. I'll set you up with something, and I'll let you kind of talk about it, so we'll have a little bit of fun. So, are you a jelly bean kind of guy? Easter time? Do you like some jelly beans? You know? I like the kind of, what I would call those artisan jelly beans that they now have come out with, you know? So I do like them. But we always used to get just to run the mill stuff. Oh, yeah. Like, like, you know, I don't know Apple Cinnamon, or, you know, I don't know pumpkin spice or something, yes, although they probably do make a pumpkin spice Jelly Bean. And people are probably like, no pumpkins for October, not for, you know, April, but so, all right, the Jelly Bean, so, lots of colors, lots of combinations, right? And so maybe you're, maybe the analogy here is the 401 k right? Maybe, maybe some combinations, or some, some different things, some variety, potentially, yeah.   Tony Mauro  02:08 I think the biggest thing for, you know, the anchor of most retirement plans is either, you know, 401 K Sep, simple, you know, you name it as the anchor for what you're trying to do as you get toward the end.   Speaker 1  02:23 True and jelly beans are probably a good staple, a good anchor in the basket, if you will.   Tony Mauro  02:27 Yeah, you know, good anchor in the basket, you know. And you find them in every basket. If you don't have this, you know, you need to be starting it. Most employers are offering something these days, and you need to get started. I can't. We're in the midst of tax season, and I'll say this as a public service announcement, I and I've been doing taxes for 30 years. Is I always when I'm reviewing a return, look at somebody's w2 and look in box 12 and see what they're contributing or not contributing to their retirement plan. And many times I see the box check that they the company offers one, I see nothing being contributed, or I see a little bit, which is better than nothing, yeah, but you got to get it going, because it's one of the best deals on the street. It's usually some free money in there. And I think you need to start those early, the use time and compounding and everything else, so that you've got this anchor for when you you know, are at the end,   Speaker 1  03:22 yeah, I don't know why. I just got hit with it. You're talking about, you know, out there on the street, I'm thinking jelly beans in the street. And also I'm like, could you imagine a funny little world where we're out there dealing jelly beans on the corner? Hey, man, right, I got some, I got some pinks. I got some yellows. I got some of those, those terrible black ones. They're those are never very good. I'm not a big fan of, maybe it's just the, maybe it's just the, like black liquors, not very good   Tony Mauro  03:47 to me. I never did like the black ones. But I think, though, to your point, with the different colors, once you start contributing to one of these, then you need to have some diversification. Most, most retirement plans will offer you, you know, an array of different choices, which is, you know, probably behooves you to work with your advisor and come up with a strategy as to what those choices should be.   Speaker 1  04:09 Now, the Jelly Bean choices in the 401 k are, it's not crazy assortment of colors, right? So, like an IRA, you're going to have a lot more to choose from, you know, because you're kind of stuck with whatever they you know, the company goes within those 401 K options. So some people, Tony, often think about, hey, look, from a workplace plan, get that match, get that free money. But then maybe let's do some contributing to an individual account or something we set up so we have more control or more options. How do you feel about that strategy as well?   Tony Mauro  04:39 I like that strategy a lot. Well, that's what we generally will say, is, is somebody comes in, we tell them to start with their 401, K, get that company match. You could certainly continue to max that out if you want. Yeah, absolutely. And then one. Once you get to that point, then you've got to turn to outside. It might be a Roth, might be a traditional something like that. But yeah, if at least get the match. And then if you want more control, total control, then you have to go to an IRA or Roth. The only, the only drawback is, is you are limited on your contribution. So if you want to do more, you got to stay in that retirement plan with some of that. But yeah, they're all three are good ideas.   Speaker 1  05:17 Okay, all right, so moving on here with our Easter basket analogy, things you might find on the Easter basket and the candy, and then how that, you know, might correlate to something. Let's talk about peeps that teach the nasty. And if you like peeps, don't yell at me yet. I'm gonna give you I'm gonna do pros and cons here. But, you know, look, when you're a kid, man, they're colorful, they're fluffy. They're marshmallowy. A lot of kids like peeps, right? They're just kind of fun. You're kind of play with them. You stretch them out a little bit, you chomp on them. They're sticky on your fingers. But as you get a little older, I don't know, they're kind of nasty, right? And they're kind of a pain a little bit. But, you know, some people grow up and they still really love them. And this, to me, is got to be life insurance, right? Because it's kind of like when you're younger, you kind of dig it, right? And then you get older, you think, why do I like this? Or why do I do I even need this anymore?   Tony Mauro  06:08 Yeah, and, and just like peeps, and I don't like peeps anymore. I used to like them, right? Just like you life insurance generally, when we start talking about planning, is not very well, I would say, understood number one or used. So it's not everybody's first choice, that's for sure. And when we start talking to them about it, you know, everybody you know is going to die. And when you're younger, obviously, you know, especially today, term insurance is peanuts to get and protect your family. My son, who's 30, you know, got a new daughter. And, you know, home, and, you know, start accumulating debt, because they're just getting started, it's important that they have coverage. Yeah, for the family, in case one of them, you know, goes down. And yes, you can get some coverage through your employer, which obviously you want to take advantage of that. But it generally is not near enough to what you need, especially as you are younger now, as we age, we get in their 50s, like me, and I'm looking at my life insurance, and as some of this kind of is set to expire in the next five or 10 years, I don't need this much anymore, because I'm, you know, I'm closer to the end, all my bills are paid off, you know, it's in my other financial You know, situation is intact. So you may not need that. Now, some people say, Well, you know what, I don't care if I don't need it. I want it. I want to know if i i think a perfect scenario is I'm at retirement. This is me talking personally. I know that if I pass away, I can, I can, while I'm living, enjoy some of my money I've worked so hard for and I know that, okay, my son, if I'm going to pass money on to him, is gonna be taken care of through life insurance. And some people like, like, like, that angle as well,   Speaker 1  07:49 just like peeps, right? I mean, in some people love it, and it's not everyone. Some it's not everyone's first choice sometimes, right? So, but it could be a useful tool, right? As far as the life insurance thing, right, to pass on that wealth. So at least consider the conversation, have a chat and discuss it, because, again, life insurance is one of those pieces of the retirement strategy that, you know, it's, it's, there's some more wiggle room in there, but there it could be, or life insurance products in general, there could be some aspects of those tools that can be beneficial. So again, talk with your financial professional about that. And of course, Tony's here to help if you've got those questions as well. All right, inside the financial Easter basket, diving back in. Here we go. Here, robin's eggs. Okay, now, we didn't get these often, but occasionally we did. We get these interesting little candy, right? Kind of a divisive candy. Some love them. Some can't stand them. Kind of like peeps, r

    20 min

  2. Mar 12

    Tax Mistakes New Retirees Make

    Nobody likes tax season. But for new retirees, it can come with a few unwelcome surprises. The rules have changed, the income sources have shifted, and strategies that made sense during your working years may no longer apply. Today, we're looking at some of the biggest tax mistakes retirees make, as discussed in a recent Kiplinger article, and whether these match what we see in the real world.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1  00:01 Nobody likes tax season, and certainly not even Tony Morrow here on playing with the tax man. But for new retirees, it can also come with a few unwelcome surprises. So this week on the podcast, let's talk about tax mistakes new retirees make. Look up in the sky. It's a bird.   Nick  00:17 It's a plane. No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero, but Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for plan with the tax man.   Speaker 1  00:32 Everybody welcome into the podcast. Thanks for playing tour. Thanks for hanging out with us here on plan with the tax man. If I can get my thoughts together, Tony, it is tax season. And I made the joke there in the intro that not even you like taxes, even though it is obviously something you've been doing for a long time as a CPA and a CFP and an EA of 30 plus years. But it is a it is a hectic, confusing time, for sure, every year, isn't it? It really is. And as we're taping this, we're right in the midst of it. And it seems to me, you know, I mean, we like helping clients, but this truly is, you know, compliance season, you know, and the tax planning has to go on before after this. And so what I find, ever since covid, it seems like taxpayers, our clients anyway, tend to really just kind of put it off. And, you know, we're down to kind of where we prepare tax. Most of our tax returns is March and April. It used to be kind of from mid January on, but yeah, stuff gets out later and everything's slower, yeah,   Tony Mauro  01:31 yep, yeah. So it is a hectic time. And I understand, from a taxpayer standpoint, nobody likes to gather all their stuff and they put it off and yeah, you know,   Speaker 1  01:40 yeah, yeah. So yeah. But we were just talking before we started the podcast, folks, and I was saying, I got to get my stuff over to my CPA. And of course, you know, he was like, Well, why isn't toning your CPA? Well, we're in two different parts of the country, so that's the beauty of the internet. But, but, and he's, you know, he's like, look, my public service announcement to everybody out there is, get them this information as soon as possible, so they have time. And I was like, Okay, I'll get it over there. So I got scolded. So not that, not that we, all, you know, don't do it right from time to time, Tony, but yeah, the sooner we can get it in, the better, right? But it is. Let's talk about tax mistakes for new retirees, specifically on this week's podcast. Okay, because there's a recent article from Kiplinger, we'll put a link into it there, talking about big mistakes that tax retiree new retirees make. And so we'll focus on some of those comments there, and just kind of get your thoughts on it and see how it matches up with what you see, you know, in the real world, right, from just you know, from just an author as an article standpoint, versus what you see in the trenches. So starting the conversation with ignoring the upcoming RMDs, especially if it's your first one, right? Yeah, so you got to be careful here. So talk to me a little bit about that, and some of the stuff you   Tony Mauro  02:49 see, well, some of the stuff we see, and we, you know, base what we see, because a lot of our retail tax clients are retirees or nearing retirement, and so we do see a lot of these things come up, rather than, you know, working with the younger crowd who don't have these problems yet, but they will. But yeah, ignoring the RMDs. I mean, RMD is required minimum distribution, you know, for those that are unaware. And so you you may have an IOU to the government for these, and they're going to come knocking and say, hey, look, once you reach a certain age, at 73 now and 75 for people like me, born after 1960 you need to start taking money out of your tax deferred accounts, because the government says you have to, because they want their their tax. They want their cut. That's right, they want their cut. So it's important that you work with your advisor or figure this out, because there is a large penalty if you delay this past the date you're supposed to do it, so you don't want to get in that situation, and then you have to start taking this money out every year, which creates a little bit of a tax problem, because you're going to, you're going to have some taxes due on this and whatnot. But the kind of, the hidden problem is, is the government will allow you to defer this a little bit past your full retirement age or your RMD age, but you got to be careful, because then you could end up taking two in one year if you wait till the last minute. So you want to plan this carefully,   Speaker 1  04:08 and you can do that the first time, right. Tony, you can push it back on that first one, but to your point, you'd have to take two, and that could cause you to bump a tax bracket if you're not careful, right? If you're   Tony Mauro  04:20 not careful, depending on how much you have to take out, you hate to go into the next tax bracket and pay some extra tax needlessly, when just a little bit of planning could have saved you. That Gotcha. So I would stay, you know, stay ahead of that and work with your advisor. So, you know, these important dates coming up and your options, yeah, you know.   Speaker 1  04:37 And of course, we're off conversion conversations, and are going to can fall into there. And, you know, just again, getting efficient with it and getting handled is just gonna remove some of that stress. And people are always the question always comes back, I don't need it. Why do I gotta take it? Well, we said it a minute ago. The government wants their cut, right, right? They want their cut. There's no way around it. People often ask that question to Tony. They're. Like, how do I get out of the RMDs? It's like, well, you don't, well, I heard a Roth conversion gets me out of it. No, you're just convert. You're still paying the taxes. You're just moving it to an account that you want, that your heirs won't have to deal with, or, you know, later on,   Tony Mauro  05:12 that's right. And Roth conversions really can be a really powerful tool. We use them all throughout the age brackets, depending on your stance on, you know, if you want it, you know, tax free forever, or tax deferred, and worry about it later. But Roth conversions, if done correctly, you know, and you gradually do them over, you know, especially your early retirement years. So really, what that means is, all you're doing is taking money out before your RMD, paying taxes on it now, no penalties, right? And filling up the tax bracket you're in not going into the next one, so you're not paying tax needlessly. And then you got, you've got that money out of Uncle Sam's crosshairs for the tax IOU, because it's, it's now tax free forever, the earnings, and, of course, the principal,   Speaker 1  05:57 yeah, and keep So, yeah, yeah. And definitely keep in mind, I say, like the state you're in, right, their state, lower tax, state issues. You know, people often think about moving as part of that equation when thinking about Roth's right, or the Social Security factors, Irma right, triggering the Irma cost. So just make sure that if you are considering a conversion, you're doing it correctly.   Tony Mauro  06:16 Yeah, and all of those points are good points, because all that stuff comes into play. I get a lot of seniors. Do they get tripped up on the higher Medicare costs, because all of a sudden, you know, their income is way high, and then they get a bigger Medicare bill. Course, it's coming out of their Social Security. And then they're mad. You could file some forms and do some things there to get it back lowered, but it's just more work and more, you know, and it's tricky too, Tony, because it's a two year. Look back. Two year, look back. Yeah, so it's, again, a little planning goes a long way in this area, you know, going back to my first point, all of these require some planning, but it's not difficult. It's just you got to have the conversations.   Speaker 1  06:54 Well, you and I were chatting when we first kicked things off that people are owing a bit this year. You're doing some returns, and people are, you know, and you know, and you were kind of surprised to see a few more people owing, which is interesting, because, you know, we were seeing a lot of reports in February that, you know, with the new tax law changes and things that they expect more people to get, you know, returns and so some confusion, again, around the whole social security piece. So again, as a new retiree, that's our conversation point today, getting blindsided by Social Security taxes is a thing, and unfortunately, the confusion around what happened with the passing of the Oba is still tripping some people up. Right? They did not remove taxation on Social Security. They added a senior deduction, right? Added a senior   Tony Mauro  07:39 deduction, which is helpful for the seniors who don't have a lot of other income outside of Social Security and a few other sources, but it's not as helpful to the higher income retirees, because it does get phased out. They don't mention that. And what happens? What I've been seeing this year as we were talking is I see a lot of people that are at their full retirement age or beyond, and starting to take out and spend some of their money, which is great, sur

    15 min

  3. Feb 26

    From Zero Savings to a Million-Dollar Exit

    For many business owners, retirement savings don’t show up neatly in a 401(k) or IRA. They’re tied up in the business itself. Today’s listener question comes from a couple facing a sudden transition from “almost nothing saved” to managing a large lump sum late in the game. And they’re wondering if it’s enough.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1  00:00 For many business owners, retirement savings doesn't show up neatly in a 401, K or an IRA. It's tied up in the business itself. Well, this week, we're going to tackle a question from a listener dealing with the possibility of selling a business and what that might look like for their retirement. Look up in the sky. It's a bird,   Nick  00:22 it's a plane. No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero, but Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for plan with the tax man.   Speaker 1  00:36 Hey, everybody. Welcome into the podcast. This is plan with the tax man, with Tony Morrow from tax, dr, Inc, find them online at your planning pros.com that's your planning pros.com where you can drop a line into the team and get yourself some time onto the calendar, and, you know, ask your questions, get some things answered. And we're going to take a listener question here this week on the program Tony, about selling a business. And I know you've as a business owner, you've also got a lot of business clients, and so a lot of people do find themselves in this position in America, a lot of small business owners. So we're going to tackle this here a second. But first, how you doing? I've been doing real well. You know, I like this topic because it's near and dear to my heart, and we have a lot of clients that I've seen experienced this exact thing we're going to talk about. So I'm excited to talk about that. And Spring is almost on us, so things are good, good. Well, yeah, let's dive in. Let's because there's quite a few additional pieces that is kind of a lot of lot to unpack here for if we want to dive in. And we'll try to keep this within our normal timeframe here, but see if we can help some folks out, if they might be in a similar situation. So here's the setup. The listener says, Look, I'm 60 years old. My husband's 58 we're definitely behind when it comes to retirement savings, because we have basically nothing saved, but we put it all into the business, and we're going to be selling our business soon for just under a million bucks. I'm very nervous about dealing with this large sum of money, since we don't have any investing experience. Wondering where should we start, and Will this be enough to retire? On any pointers you can help would be great. So I guess we can start with a couple of pieces of this Tony. So when you're, when you're selling a, you know, a business, and you've not saved anything, I mean, it is very it's awesome that the business is, first of all, I guess, sellable, enough that you're, they're selling it and making this money, right, right? That's the first step. I think for a lot of business owners, it's like realizing, hey, is this valuable? Is it sellable? You know, is there value there? And then, if you do sell it, now, what do you do? So what's some things to think about here?   Tony Mauro  02:27 Well, I think the first thing to think about is, and we see this a lot, is, I'll tell you, what they all say is, when we start talking about retirement and whatnot, they all that's what they say is, look, I'm not saying for retirement. My retirement my retirement is gonna be my business, and I'm putting all my money into the business. And so when we that's how the conversation starts. And then in this case, you know, I'd love to know more about it, but I'm gonna make an assumption here that they are gonna be at a million. I don't know what just under a million means. Yeah, let's, let's round it off for easy. Yeah. We'll just, yeah, we'll round it off. But what a lot of people don't realize is, if it's a service business like mine, or they don't owe anything on it, you sell a business for a million and you have no basis, which is kind of like, you know what you paid for your stock, then all of that potential money could be taxable, and if you're getting or giving up, say, 20% of it to the feds, another three or four to the state, you could end up with maybe 750,000 total after taxes. And then you also, you know, you got to factor in selling costs and things like that. So I'm just going to use 750,000 so it's not the million you think, because you're going to owe some taxes. Now, there's a lot that goes into that, because that capital gains, Tony, that's capital gains, yes, capital gains, taxes, and so you know, at first glance, you're 60 years old, and you've got 750,000 net to to, let's say, you know, save for retirement. Are you going to retire now or not? Or because I don't to me on the surface this probably, I don't know if it's enough or not. Depends a lot on their lifestyle and what they want out of life. Well, I don't know, yeah, what enough means?   Speaker 1  04:10 Let's break that down for a second. Okay, so based on your question, there is a million enough, or even 750,000 Well, first of all, the ages were 60 and 58 so you can't even access social security yet for either person, and you certainly can't access medical. So those are two pieces that certainly have to pop up, and if you've done no saving at all, then you're basically rocking this 750 grand for at minimum two years before the first person can turn it on for Social Security, Tony and and five for medical right? So that could be a huge problem. You know, in eating away that 750 may not last for someone's lifetime of 20 years more, I definitely don't think it'll last person's lifetime for sure, because if you know it just isn't going to work again, unless you're going to what you. Retirement to you is, you know, 3040, $50,000 a year total. But let's say, like you were saying, You got to go two or three years with spending, let's say 50,000 including, you know, paying for your for your medical and all of that. Well. Now you're down to, you know, 600,000   Tony Mauro  05:18 and you know, you're, yeah, or less. And you know that's not gonna last you 20 years. You know it just won't even at 50,000 a year. Even if you're earning, say, four to 6% on it, it's it's definitely not gonna be enough. I think it's good. You might know that now, yeah, and hopefully, if maybe the sale is not final, right now you're just thinking, maybe you keep it for a while and build it up and or save and then sell it later. That's a possibility. But I think let's say they're going to sell it now anyway. I think what you definitely need to do is get all these numbers with your advisor and start thinking about, you know, spending. I think you should think about, well, what are we going to do for the next 10 or 15 years? Because we really can't, other than this, we don't have any more income coming in. How are we going to save more?   Speaker 1  06:11 Because, yeah, you've got to get a plan together. I mean, you just mentioned, like, if you're making 4% off of the 750 that'd be the first question for someone like this, who doesn't know even where to start. Where do they park it? To get seven, you know, to get 4% right? So you want to get with an advisor. Are you looking at maybe some in an annuity? Are you putting some in the market, you know? Because you need to be a bit more aggressive, because you don't have any other money saved. I mean, there's a, this is where a financial strategy really comes in handy.   Tony Mauro  06:37 I think so. And I hit on a good point I was going to mention, is, I'm not a huge proponent of annuities, but they have their place, and this might be one of them, if, you know, you talk with your advisor and you figure out, I need an income I can't   Speaker 1  06:51 outlive, right? That's what I was thinking. Was the guaranteed income putting, you know, I don't know, you know, 200,000 or something of that into something that generates income. Yeah, it   Tony Mauro  07:00 generates income, and, you know, you can't outlive it, because I think that's the biggest fear with this couple, or biggest threat, I should say that they'll face is outliving this income. And if you've got nothing else coming in, eventually it's just gonna be down to Social Security, which is a meager existence, right?   Speaker 1  07:18 Yeah, so and that. So the whole question of what's Enough? Enough? Well, that's lifestyle. And, you know, all those pieces go into it. So, Tony, if you were, if you if this person came into your office and said, help us out, right? So you would start with, you start putting, kind of the, you know, the strategy together. Start putting an income piece and expenses right. Is, do they is, do they have a home? Is it paid for? That? That changes things, right? Changes things so there's a lot of data that would then go into hopefully helping somebody like this kind of see in black and white, are, where are we? Are you behind? Do you have a shortfall? And how much   Tony Mauro  07:52 exactly a client like this? This is why I love this topic. This is a very, I want to say, complex, but a very in depth conversation you need to have with somebody, with your advisor, because you have to lay all this out, and then you as the client got to be able to picture this. This is what it's going to look like. I've seen it before. And are you okay with that, or do you need to make us, you know, maybe make a change. But I think if you're going to go through it, that you really got to, you know, buckle it down. And, you know, figure this stuff out, the income needs, the expectations on longevity, all that kind of stuff. And so you are not going to get there. And because I've seen t

    18 min

  4. Feb 12

    Financial Hot Takes Under the Microscope

    Everyone’s got an opinion about money (especially the people with a book deal or a TV show). Some of that advice is useful. Some of it sounds better on a stage than it works in real life. Let’s break it down.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Marc: Everyone has got an opinion about money, especially people pushing a book deal or a TV show. And sometimes maybe that advice is useful and sometimes it's not, it works better on a sound stage than in real life. Let's break it down and have Tony react to some controversial financial takes here on Plan With The Tax Man.   Hey, everybody. Welcome into the podcast. This is Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro, here in Des Moines professional alternative at Tax Doctor, Inc. Hanging out with me to do a little reaction type podcast this week, Tony, we'll get your take on some interesting hot takes from some financial talking heads out there and see what you think about it and practice in the real world. Because you see clients and help people every day and of course are governed and have rules that you have to follow where a lot of these talking heads don't, they can say whatever they want. We'll talk about that a little bit this week.   How are you doing, buddy?   Tony Mauro: I've been doing good. As were taping this, we're getting into our tax season so getting busy with a lot of new tax changes and whatnot that's hitting everybody.   Marc: Yeah, a lot of changes with the OBBBA. You got to be on your toes, right?   Tony Mauro: Mm-hmm.   Marc: And we talked a lot about that on some of the prior podcasts.   Tony Mauro: We did, yeah.   Marc: Yeah. If you guys aren't a little sure about some of those things, make sure you go check those out and you can find us at whatever podcasting app you like, Plan With The Tax Man. Just type that in the search box or just go to yourplanningpros.com. But if you need some help, of course, reach out to Tony as tax season is upon us again at yourplanningpros.com.   All right. My friend, let's dive in and have some fun with these.   Tony Mauro: Sure.   Marc: All right. You're probably familiar, maybe a lot of our listening audience is with Robert Kiyosaki. A number of years back, he wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Really good book, actually. Quite helpful.   Tony Mauro: [inaudible 00:01:51] yes.   Marc: Yeah, quite helpful for a lot of people. But he's since gotten a lot more aggressive and interesting in some of his stances and takes. And again, a lot of that is the demographic I think he's marketing himself to and pushing and things of that nature. But let's talk about this take here more recently. He said people shouldn't work for a company and save in that retirement plan, instead should launch their own startups or maybe buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin, or all of the above. At the time we're talking, Tony, it's early February and gold and silver and Bitcoin, we're doing pretty good last year and earlier into the year this year, but not so great right this minute. At the time we're talking, there was a recent 30% downturn in gold and silver so that didn't age so well.   Tony Mauro: No. And I think it's interesting you pick this one because I have read his books and I think by and large the Rich Dad, Poor Dad, especially the Rich Dad, Poor Dad Cashflow Quadrant are great books for people. And this strikes me because... Don't get me wrong, I like people being in business for themselves. We serve a lot of those businesses.   Marc: Absolutely.   Tony Mauro: And the tax planning and accounting capacity and the financial end as well.   Marc: But I bet they got their own SEPs and things, they've got their own retirement accounts they're doing.   Tony Mauro: We've got them in almost anybody that will listen and take us up on it, whether it's through us or somebody else. Yes, they have their own retirement plan of some kind.   Marc: Yeah. Not saving in a retirement plan just seems crazy, especially if you are working for somebody else, Tony. Because if nothing else, take the free money.   Tony Mauro: It's free money. And that's exactly it, it's free money if you're working for somebody else. I think depending on who he's trying to market this measures to, not everybody is cut out for having a business for themselves. They may be good at it but they don't... A lot of them tend to get themselves into trouble, whether it's tax-wise or lack of planning, lack of cash flow, that kind of thing, let alone the headaches. Again, I love small business. It's my favorite thing so it's somewhere deep in me. I say, I get it. I get what you're saying. Yeah, I think everybody should work for themselves but not...   Marc: Everybody doesn't have the right temperament though.   Tony Mauro: They don't. They don't. They don't have the right temperament. And I definitely think if they're working for themselves or if they're working for a company, they should be in a retirement plan of some kind.   Marc: Yeah. And to just invest in gold, silver, and Bitcoin, come on, that's crazy. Have some if you want but...   Tony Mauro: I agree. That goes against every financial prudent planning aspect that I know of, that's some diversification...   Marc: 150 years?   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Marc: Right.   Tony Mauro: Like you say, you can have some but I think you've got to have some diversification, you got to have a plan. I'd love to hear what his rationale for that.   Marc: Well, I've watched some shorts and some reels he's had out there recently. And I do think he's targeting the younger generation right now, this kind of mindset of we're not going to work 50 years for somebody and then retire, we want to make all our money in our 20s by being aggressive in technology and this, that, and the other. I think he's pandering a little bit to that crowd. Maybe not. Maybe he's totally on board with it. But it just seems like a big departure from some of his previous stuff.   Tony Mauro: It does. Yeah, it's a real departure from his books.   Marc: Yeah. Anyway, interesting hot take there. Look, if you want some gold and some silver and some Bitcoin, hey, cool. Talk with your advisor about that, make sure being prudent though to Tony's point. Don't get crazy.   We were joking the other day. I was talking with an advisor, Tony. The Dow just hit 50,000 at the end of last week at the time we're taping this for the first time ever, right? And the comment was, "Hey, the Dow hit 50,000." And somebody goes, "Yeah, so did Bitcoin." Of course, it started at 100,000.   Tony Mauro: Right. Right.   Marc: Because it's not had a very good couple of weeks.   Tony Mauro: No. And that just goes to show you the volatility there.   Marc: Massive, yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. Having all your eggs in those three baskets, definitely very aggressive.   Marc: It could be, for sure. Yeah. All right. Let's go to a different take here from Suze Orman, host of Women and Money, recently suggested and this is... If Robert was getting a little crazy and aggressive, Suze is maybe getting a little too conservative. Tell me what you think about this, Tony. She suggests retirees set aside three to five years worth of living expenses. Not six months, right? Not three to five months. Just in case bank accounts crash or stock market crashes, things of that nature. Three to five years, a little too conservative? What do you think?   Tony Mauro: In my opinion, yes. I think that's far, far too conservative because assuming, again, if you're a retiree and you have a diversified portfolio, hopefully if you are in stocks that are high yielding, good quality individual companies. But most people don't have that, they have mutual funds and a variety of things. And even in a market downturn, if you look at 3, 5, 10-year periods, there's not very many that last very long. And if you take it in 10-year periods, there never is over the entire period so that seems very, very conservative.   And who in their right mind is going to take a large chunk of their portfolio and stick it in a 2%, 3% yielding vehicle when they're trying to live off of the income? I don't know where she's coming from with that at all. And again, these people sell a lot of books and whatnot. But keep in mind, I always like to point out that... And they have a lot of followers, they've made a lot of money. But sometimes if you're listening to some of this stuff, you might want to bounce it off your financial advisor as well, just see what they think because I don't agree with that one at all.   Marc: Yeah, it's a little too... And again, if you got... I don't know. I guess if you're worth $100 million, putting aside three years worth of money is a little easier than most folks, right?   Tony Mauro: Right. Right.   Marc: It's three years. I can hardly put side six or eight months, let alone three years worth. And again, interesting takes. And of course, these folks are talking heads out there in the landscape and pushing their books or their programs or things. And while technically, Tony, doing a podcast makes us a talking head, we're a smaller talking head.   Tony Mauro: True.   Marc: But again, you're in the trenches. You're a CPA, a CFP, an EA, you work with clients day in and day out. These folks don't do that so that's a little different there.   Tony Mauro: No. Yeah.   Marc: Kevin O'Leary and his amazing suits, his very colorful, interesting suits he wears. This one might be the most realistic, Tony, of everything on my list today. And this one is still a little bit too much, I think. But what do you think? He insists that if you don't know your net worth at all times, you're being irresponsible with money. He promotes constant tracking, optimization, and performance measurement.   Tony Mauro: Some

    21 min

  5. Jan 29

    Would You Trade $600 a Month to Protect Your Spouse?

    One of the biggest retirement decisions people make doesn’t involve the stock market at all. It’s a choice hidden inside their pension paperwork.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1  00:00 Hey, time once again, to plan with the tax man, and we are going to talk about the biggest retirement decisions people make that doesn't involve the stock market or could make, right? So it's a choice hidden inside the pension paperwork. Let's get into it. Would you trade $600 a month to protect your spouse? Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane.   Speaker 2  00:21 No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero, but Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for plan with the tax man.   Speaker 1  00:34 Welcome into the podcast, folks. This is another edition of plan with the tax man, with Tony Morrow from tax doctor. Inc, and you can find them online@yourplanningpros.com and again, yourplanningpros.com and Tony, this week, we've got a listener question, a variation. Anyway, I'll change it up just a little bit. And you've been getting some of these lately yourself as well. And so we want to talk about this, the pension trade off conversation. And so we'll, I'll just set it up. Let me read the email and then, and then we'll dive into it. All right, okay, all right. So with my pension, the person says I can get $3,500 a month, but the wife gets nothing when I die, or I can take 2900 a month and she'll continue to get all of it after I'm gone. As always, I'm wondering which is better and Tony. It seems cut and dried, like the spouse is sitting there, probably listening, going, duh, take the one where I get money after you die. But let's, at least, for the sake of the conversation, talk about, you know, the pros and cons of both ways. And I think that's what people need to think about when this situation comes up, right? It's not Yes, probably 80% of the time, it probably does make sense to take the spousal continuation, but maybe not always. So let's discuss it. How you doing?   Tony Mauro  01:47 I'm doing good. I've been doing good since first year. So getting ready to dwell into tax season. And we do get this question a lot. And you know what I find with tax clients is I find more of the clients that I've talked to, they actually take the higher amount not knowing. They don't read over their paperwork. Very, very well true. And you know, so I find that, you know, make sure you're before you even dwell into this read this paperwork, make sure you understand before you check boxes. And make sure that you get some advice you have any questions on it, yeah, because one can, you know, really devastate you if you pick the wrong one, but you're, you know, in this case, and this is a topic of mine, because as I get a little closer to the end, my wife has worked for the government for it'll be probably 47 years, but she goes, Oh, wow. And so we'll have this choice in our public retirement plan called IPERs, and, you know, so yeah, me, as a spouse, I'm just like you said, you know, let's take the lower amount, because I want to make sure you know that if something happens to you, that I've got this till I die, right? But the nice part about IPERs, in our case in Iowa, is, if I go first and we're at the lower amount, she can actually bump herself back up to the higher amount. Oh, it's rained or her life. So, yeah, you know, that works. But what a lot of people need to take a look at in this and make some decisions and talk to their advisors about is, you know, the very first thing is, what kind of longevity does the covered person, meaning the you know, person that's going to get this benefit, have within their lifetime? And you know, use that, you know, to make this decision, because obviously, you know, the higher payout shifts the risk to the surviving spouse, correct, and you know that that's kind of a risk. And so that's why we kind of titled this, you know, is this reduction or this $600 a month worth it? Because it does act like a little bit of insurance, you know,   Speaker 1  03:38 if, yeah, for sure, it's like a little insurance policy and that. And I guess we can skip around a little bit, because that really it's easy for us to walk to that conversation piece, because that's what a lot of people tend to think. They go, Well, why don't I take the bigger amount, the 3500 in this example, and invest that $600 difference, and I'll buy my own life insurance, right? And so that's certainly something that people think, and I in their statistics that show I can probably do better and leave some tax free money, because it'll be in a tax in a life insurance policy. And that's fine, that's totally possible, but you need to run the math first and see, and to your point about longevity, that's going to play into that. Because if you don't really have longevity on your side, and you go that route, you may not live long enough to fund that policy exactly. You may not live long enough, and you may not be healthy enough at 6570, they're even going to issue a policy another, I don't think, you know, 600 a month may not buy you a whole lot at that time, because you might, you know, hey, if you can get the policy, it's gonna be well more than that pending.   Tony Mauro  04:35 And, you know, you may not be even insurable. So again, conversation to have, but that is a that's an option, which is why you want to have these conversations, you know, which I think is good   Speaker 1  04:47 well, so you think about, Okay, a couple of different things, right? So let's just go with the standard statistics. Male passes first, the females right behind, typically goes, guys pass away first. So a couple things happen, right? So this, this the shift you talked about, the risk. Shifts to the spouse? Well, a couple of things big, big things happen right off the bat. One is you're going to higher tax bracket. You weren't expecting that, right? So you've got that. You're going to lose one social security, so you're going to go to the higher one. So if you don't have this spousal option checked in on, can you survive the lower income hit right? Depending on what your other assets and the other things you have in place. So talk a little bit about some of those things and how you've seen that. So again, this is it's case by case specific.   Tony Mauro  05:26 Case by case specific. Is exactly it, because you hit all the topics and it needs to be discussed. Because if you have the assets where none of that you just mentioned, it matters, and you still gonna have plenty of income and everything, well then maybe the higher amount, you know, is a better option for you, but more times than not, in our case, exactly what you said happens, expenses don't drop, income drops, and now all of a sudden you've got higher taxes, more you know, same expenses, less income. And you know, then you've underestimated the impact of all this, and by taking that higher amount, you still may not have enough to cover things, and then all of a sudden the whole retirement plan shifts and changes on you. And, you know, do you really want that? You know? And so that's why I think it needs to be discussed. Yeah.   Speaker 1  06:14 And there's a lot of little pieces to that, right? So there's those different pieces. And I think sometimes Tony people kind of fall into that factor of, well, they've heard it forever. Well, they're only going to need half the money coming in when one of us dies anyway, right? So, so we're good any if, even if we did take the bigger amount, because we've got plenty. But half is a misnomer. It's, it's not, it's more like 85% I   Tony Mauro  06:36 think it's, yeah, at least that. I don't. People always say that to me. I said I've never seen it happen. Expenses don't drop to half. Everybody that I've I've worked with, I haven't seen one yet at best, yeah, they dropped 10 to 15. I had one case dropped about 20, but not half. And luckily, in his case, everything else he had, it didn't really matter too much, because he was pretty well off. I mean, he had not only social security, but he had a big pension of his own and a big portfolio, you know, things like that. But I think all those other things you need to have the discussion to figure out where this fits in the rest of your overall plan, right? I mean, with everything else, because that's going to really guide you on what to take, well, you know, or which way to   Speaker 1  07:19 go, yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, how the pension fits in with the rest of the overall plan, right? I mean, that's really going to be a big key. So this is where, again, why not stress test the situation? If this is on your radar, if you're eligible for our pension, right? If you've got somebody in the in the family that's going to possibly be getting one, go sit down with somebody and say, let's look at the different options. Because Tony, just like Social Security, you well, actually, even worse than Social Security, they typically don't come with colas, and there's no do over there's   Tony Mauro  07:45 no do over on this, no. And I think a lot of us, as you get into retirement, I mean, for me personally, I like to, what I value is, I want to make sure that my and my wife's income, you know, it's monthly income, is the way I look at it, is not is going to be the same regardless of who dies first, and the remaining person can be here and have the same income coming in, you know, if one of us is gone. Now, I mean, yes, we've got the nest egg over here that's funding that income, and then Social Security and some other things. But to me that I want more certainty than, you know, a little bit higher monthly amount? Yeah, I mean that, like, say that's just me and for us, you know, I'm gonna assume I'm gonna die first,

    13 min

  6. Jan 15

    Trump Accounts: Free Money or Future Headache?

    A new government-backed savings account for kids is coming. On the surface, it sounds like a win. Free money for newborns, long-term investing, and a head start on adulthood. But once you look under the hood, Trump Accounts raise some real questions about taxes, flexibility, and whether they beat existing options. Today, we’re walking through the pros and cons and asking if this new account is worth the effort.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  00:00 A new government backed savings account for kids is coming. We've all heard about this, and on the surface it sounds like a win free money for newborns and long term investing and a head start on adulthood. But when you look under the hood, the Trump accounts raise some questions about taxes flexibility and whether they beat existing options. So this week on plan with the tax man, let's break it down. Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero, but Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for plan with the tax man. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. This is planned with the tax man, with Tony Morrow from tax Dr Inc and Tony. Let's talk about the free money, or the future headache of the pros and cons of the new quote, unquote Trump accounts, and just kind of see if we can kind of give some, you know, back and forth, a little bit on some of these things, because there's a lot of interesting ideas, but there's also some conundrums as well. So we'll dive into that. How you doing? My friend, doing good. You know, New year, new goals. Hopefully everybody's got some new goals and feeling good. And so, yeah, we're looking forward to, course, tax season starting for us shortly as we as we're taping this right, right? So we've got that coming about. Get busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so let's break into this. Let's chat on this conversation here a little bit. So I guess let's kind of start with big picture, right? So this was part of the Oba the one, and they launched this year. So this stuff, if it all goes through again, this would start this year in July of 2026 give us some some highlights here, some big picture. Yeah, so the big picture. And the reason I wanted to talk about this because we're starting to get some questions. Some questions from tax clients. I think they're hearing things, you know, out on the news and things in Google and whatnot, but I still think there's a lot of people that don't know anything about it. That's why I want to at least try to reach as many people as possible. But you know what they did? And you know, again, putting all politics aside whether this is right wrong, we have the money, but this is what's going on, and you got to decide whether or not you know you want, can take advantage of it. So what they did was they're basically saying that starting in July 26 children born between 25 and 28 so we're only talking 25 at the moment, 26 to be but they got to keep this in mind, the government's going to give each of these children, if they open up a Trump account, $1,000 free money, which, on the surface sounds good, and what happens is, is the child owns the account. The parent is the custodian, till they're 18, other people, like grandparents, parents, friends, all that contribute up to $5,000 a year to this account in total. And even employers could throw in 2500 but it's not, I don't know. See a whole lot of that happening, but who knows? Maybe. And then what they're going to do, what the federal government is going to do, is take this money invested in low cost US equity funds are probably going to be ETFs and index funds, things like that. It's very low cost. All of this interest in gain is going to grow tax deferred, and then when the child's 18, they do have the opportunity to withdraw this amount, but they don't have to any withdrawals. It's treated just like any other retirement account. It comes out taxed at ordinary income, and they could face penalties there and whatnot. That's kind of the big, big picture of that. And you know, we'll continue to move on, and I'll go over some numbers that I ran before we got this on here, and just to kind of give some people some numbers to put with it. But I think the big thing they're what they're looking at, in my opinion, is, again, I think a lot of times the government sometimes means, well, they rush things out, don't think it through. I think their big you know idea here is, let's start something for newborns, so that if they save this money and end up with it all the way till they retire, that maybe you know, if we don't have the programs we have now, that they're going to be okay, in other words, less reliant on the government. But that's my opinion of that, because I you know they know that not enough Americans are saving on the regular, and I think that's, that's their primary motivation, yeah. And I think there's two pieces to that, Tony, and thank you for breaking that down, good and concise, good stuff there. I think one is to get people saving. Or, I think these are really three. There's really threefold, really right? One is to get people saving from a young age, teach in the value or the power of compounding, as you know, is massive, right? Absolutely. And so I think that's one piece. I think another piece is get people making kids, because we're going to have a real shortage of workforce, not only our country, but a lot of countries. And I think, I think there's some of this is a leftover Elon kind of feel right with with Trump and with the administration, because he's a huge proponent of we are going to have major shortfalls in society, in the workplace in about 2025, 30 years, right? And so if you look at China, they're going to have huge workforce problems as well. So I think it's that and that, and then tax revenue. And the reason I say that about the tax revenue and I'm going to have you buy.   05:00 Break this down for us is because they're a little sticky, right? There's, there's some criticisms here about how it works. So why don't you break down some of the the cons, some of the negatives of this, some of the negatives really, you know is, and this is what, what I didn't even know until we started really dwelling into it, is, if somebody like me. So the reason this is near and dear to my heart because I had my first grandchild. First grandchild in 25 so, you know, I want my son to open up this account get the 3000 I'm gonna I'm planning on putting the $5,000 a year in for her, and we'll get back to that. But one of the cons is, is these contributions don't qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion. A lot of people don't know that when they give gifts away of cash and other things, there's an annual gift tax exclusion, and after that, you have to file a tax form using some of your lifetime exemption. These don't qualify for the exclusion. So therefore, when I do this, I'm going to have to file a gift tax return, which is a form 709, which is not terribly difficult, because obviously I know how to do them, but people that don't know how to do them are gonna have to go pay somebody two. To go pay somebody to do them, or they could get themselves in trouble, you know, with the IRS. The other thing too, is, and I just found this out before, well probably a couple weeks ago, is this is not supported this form by DIY tax software, you know, so half of America is using DIY tax software. You're going to need to pay someone like ourselves to do this for you, which just means a little more money out of your pocket. The other thing too is there's no tax deduction for these contributions, because it's not, you know, not a qualified charity or anything like that. Withdrawals are taxable, unlike Roth's and other types of things. And then there's limited flexibility, I feel like, for me personally, I don't mind assuming this all comes off like they talk about letting the government run the account until she's 18, but after that, if I were to convince her, if I'm still around, and not to let the government hold that, we move that into something, you know, a rollover IRA, something like that, that we can Control outside of the government hands. That's just me personally, but so I think there's some of those. Are some of the criticisms. I would say people have to watch out for some of the cons. But I think the pros, you know, really are number one. Government's handing out 3000 bucks right of a child you know, born between 25 and 28 you might as well take it if you have a child. But even if you don't do anything else, you might as well take the free money. Granted, we don't, maybe not have the money to do it, but they're going to hand it out. So, you know, why not take that? I think that's one. I think two, like you were talking about, really gives the child early on some sense of, you know, investing, using compounding things like that, the investments are going to be very low, and you don't have to make any decisions about them. It's just going to be invested in index types of funds. And I ran the numbers before we got on so you know, if you take advantage of this, if you have a child, and you just open one up and the government puts the 1000 bucks in you, nothing else, right? If you leave it like that, and let's say that these funds earn roughly 7% you know, not, not very high, but I they probably gonna do better than that over 18 years. But so you would have, for that child $3,379   08:15 you know, it's not a ton, but it's free money. I ran, I think I ran it Tony. And if you go out something crazy, like 40 years, just, just the I ran that one, right? Yeah. Did you run that one too? I ran that one. Go ahead. Took the same 1000 bucks and you left it so you're 3379 and 18. You took it out another 48 years till they were 65 that person would have an 81,250   08:3

    17 min

  7. 12/18/2025

    I’m 62: Should I File For Social Security Or Wait?

    Turning 62 might not feel like a milestone birthday… until you realize the Social Security clock just started ticking. Filing now could put money in your pocket sooner or cost you tens of thousands over a lifetime. How do you pick the right strategy? Let’s break down how to think through one of the biggest retirement decisions you’ll ever make.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1: Turning 62 might not feel like a milestone birthday until you realize the social security clock just started ticking. Filing now could put money in your pocket sooner or cost you tens of thousands over your lifetime. So which is the right strategy? Let's break it down.   Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. This is Plan with the Tax Man, with Tony Mauro and myself to talk, "Hey, I'm 62. Should I file or wait?" That's the big conversation, Tony, that happens all the time. I imagine you probably have this chat with new prospects virtually every single time you meet with somebody.   Speaker 2: Every time. Yes. And I picked this topic this week because I've been getting a lot of questions on it. There's been a lot of chatter on social media about it. So I wanted to address it again because it is important.   Speaker 1: And it's complicated for people, but you could talk big money here. So I mean, why do it? Why file at 62? There's a plethora of reasons. If you take out the just actual need it, okay, it's like I ran the numbers and we actually do need to turn it on. Oftentimes it's things like, "Well, it's mine. I want it back." Or whatever. Understandable, but what's some other things you've heard?   Speaker 2: Well, I hear things such as, "My parents didn't live very long, so therefore I want to collect it while I still got some time." Okay. And by the way, as we talk about this, we could sit, if I had 10 listeners on the podcast as a call in, we would all have different opinions. And you could get into some serious arguments about this. So a lot of this depends upon each individual situation, like most things financial planning do. But that being said, besides worried about longevity, they want to basically take the money and invest it in themselves. Some want to give it to their heirs a little earlier.   Some are, of course, like you said, they're just ready to get out. They've worked for somebody else forever. They want to retire now and they need the income now is always the biggest one, but there are some drawbacks to that, which we'll get to. But those are the things I find most people want to take it early. And most people, when they want to take it early, they've given it no though other than those things. They haven't run any projections. They haven't done any type of planning for this, which we'll talk about here in a second.   Speaker 1: Okay. Well, why wait until FRA, full retirement age? So there's some compelling reasons to do so. First, it's what, about 6% annually. If you were to do the numbers from 62 every year you're waiting, it's about 6% up to full retirement age. Yeah?   Speaker 2: It is. So when you take it early, of course, you have to take a reduction in benefits.   Speaker 1: Yeah, like 30%.   Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a cap on how much you can earn if you're still wanting to go out and do some work. Now, if you wait till full retirement age, not only is your benefit higher, but you can go out and earn as much as you want and they won't reduce your social security benefit. Yeah, you're still taxed on it and all of that. But that's one of the reasons why people might want to wait. They want the higher benefit. They might want to use some sophisticated planning and coordinate with spouse benefits and maybe have the lower amount or the lower earning person take theirs earlier and the higher earning take theirs later. And then of course, like I said, maybe-   Speaker 1: You should definitely think about doing that, right?   Speaker 2: Absolutely.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of the biggest ones. And a lot of times you get this full retirement age statistically showing both men and women, if your health is fairly decent, you plan on living quite a bit longer up to at least the averages. At least that's, again, that's an assumption. But those are some reasons why. And if you start running some numbers and you take a look at, I ran my own before we got on the podcast. And if I took mine at 62 versus 67 is my full retirement age, by the time that I, if I lived, I used both scenarios. This is just for example, and this is what the planning software can do for you. If I lived until 83, if I waited until 67 versus 62, I would've collected $72,700 more if I waited. And so you have to decide and you should run some of these numbers.   And I also would say to all the listeners, you at very least should be out and have yourself a login and username to the social security website so you can see your reports and look at some of this stuff. It's free. They've actually done a nice job with it. So the question becomes like, in my case, is it important enough for me to delay? Because I could die between 62 and 67. Who knows?   Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.   Speaker 2: But do I want to take that chance and maybe get 72, $73,000 more I live in the same amount of time? And I think that is what the real planning stage is. And there's really no right or wrong answer because for some people, yes, maybe they do need it at 62, but for a lot of us, if you don't need the income, it generally is better to wait.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, think about it. 6% from 62 to 67 is... And it's a safer investment because somebody would say, to one of the arguments, "Well, I want to just take it now and I'll reinvest that money." Especially if the argument is that, "I'm doing it, I'm turning it on, but I don't actually need the income." So let's just take, I need the income off the table because if you need it, you need it. But if you're turning it on because you just want to turn it on for whatever other reason, and you're saying, "Well, I can invest in myself." Okay, maybe you're going to get a guaranteed 6% year over year with very little risk. That's one piece. Now you might look at the market right now year to date, the S&P, Tony, while we're talking is like up 16%. Somebody said, "Well, yeah, I could get 16%." Well, fine, but that's 100% at risk.   Speaker 2: That's 100% at risk. I just saw not too long ago, which led me to even pick this topic this week is somebody on Facebook sent me a clip of what appeared to be a financial advisor or some annuity person talking about it's never better to wait. Always take it at 62. And I listened to it and I would love to debate that with a gentleman, at least for every case. I mean, he does make some compelling arguments as to why some people should take it at 62, but most of what he was talking about was, "Well, they need the income now and they can reinvest it." Well, okay, yes, that is right, but you can't just sit there and tell everybody never to wait because there are some compelling arguments in some cases to wait.   Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And to your point. So you ran those numbers at $70,000 or whatever. Did you think about the spousal piece? Sometimes people, they don't necessarily do that. It's like, okay, don't forget, the higher of the two is what the person that's left behind is going to get. So you mentioned earlier doing that option. So if you're in a situation where one member of the family, one of the couple there is making more and you want to turn the lower one on at 62, that's a fine strategy for many people still run the numbers first to see. But again, you got to kind of factor all that stuff in there. You can't just claim it without some intentionality in there.   Speaker 2: No, you do need to be intentional with it. You do need to talk to your advisor about it because that's one thing that we use a lot is we have the lower earning spouse, if they do want some money now, okay, let's claim that now, but let's let the higher earning spouses ride a little bit and then that way you've got kind of a little bit of best of both worlds. You're getting some money now because that's what you said you wanted, but you want to get some higher benefits and generally the women live longer and if the man dies, then she can reclaim and get his higher benefit, which will benefit her later by him waiting. And so I think that's one thing that we generally try to do as far as that goes. But we use some good software just like most advisors have to be able to at least show people and run a lot of different scenarios very quickly so they can at least have all of the facts to make the best decision for them.   Speaker 1: And you know, Tony, it can go the other way too. I was just talking with another advisor earlier and he was sharing an interesting story that he had some new clients that were in prior, right before Thanksgiving, saying that they were in, they were starting to do the preliminaries and everything and they were like, "No, no, we've already identified a lot of stuff and we're going to both wait until we're 70." They wanted to do the total maximization. And he said, "Cool, but let's go through the exercise of running stuff and just see what those," Like you kind of did, "What some of those projections lay out." And he was able to show them for a myriad of reasons why, and again, he's like, "It's not my job. If you want to go 70, we'll go 70. But if we turn it on, in your case, specifically both of you at 67, you're actually going to fare better." So there is times when it can go one way or the other, but you don't know that until you get into the math of it.   Speaker 2: You don't. And that advisor probably showed them something they probably never had dreamed of and probably going to-

    14 min

  8. 12/04/2025

    Am I Behind In My Retirement Savings? What To Do If You Are

    Nothing will mess with your financial confidence faster than comparing your savings to your brother, your coworkers, or that guy on YouTube who claims he retired at 38. Your retirement number isn’t a competition. Let’s talk about what really matters when you’re trying to figure out if you’re behind on your savings goals…and what to do if you actually are.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1: Nothing will mess with your financial confidence faster than comparing yourselves to your brother, your coworkers, or that guy on YouTube that claims he retired at 38. Your retirement number isn't a competition, so let's talk about what really matters this week on the podcast.   Hey everybody, welcome into Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro and myself to talk investing, finance, and retirement. And am I behind in my retirement savings and what to do if you are, that's the topic of conversation this week. Tony, my friend, what's going on, buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm doing well. And just back from the Thanksgiving break, trying to get reignited for this last month of the year.   Speaker 1: Yeah, it's upon us and always fast and furious, always something going on, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: So we got to dive in and tackle the work, get it done, especially right after holiday break. It seems like everybody's always like, "Oh my God, I'm so overloaded."   Tony Mauro: That's right. Everybody's got a ton of stuff to do.   Speaker 1: Yeah, got to catch up from the half the week you're off or whatever. So listen, we got an email question in. And so it kind of sparked the conversation here, Tony. So we'll throw this up here. I'll state it for the listeners and then let's just kind of break it down a little bit. So the person says, "Look, I thought I did a good job saving over the years, but it seems as though I'm behind. My brother's got nearly two million saved and it seems that a lot of my colleagues or coworkers are in that similar kind of stratosphere. The husband and I barely have over a million bucks and now we're in our early 60s and wondering what do we got to do to get caught up?"   So it's kind of like, well, is a million not enough? With all these conversations period, so whatever the number, forget the number for a second, what to do if you're feeling behind, period. So where do we start with this? How do we identify the real issue, Tony?   Tony Mauro: Well, I think the real issue, and this is a good topic for this time of year, because I think everybody, at least the clients that we serve and prospective clients are all looking at their financial situation. Another year's gone by, another year older and people start to ask these questions. And so I think some of the real issues here probably in this writer's email is basically they're trying to, just like you said, they're trying to compare themselves in a number to other people. And you don't want to do that. You want to get with your advisor and really talk about where you're at with your plan because just because... Well, I guess I can back it up and say, somebody's always going to have more than you, whether it's money, whether it's this, that, things, you've got to really hone in on the real issue of, in your situation, are you going to be ready?   And you got to... I mean, the number is important, yes, but it's not the primary factor, I don't think. A lot of times, because, for example, client A might be very happy and very well off with a million dollars, client B, not so much, which I think we're going to talk about a little bit more in depth here. So really the only benchmark is what you're doing with your plan and what it requires and try to figure out then from there, is what you have enough?   Speaker 1: Great point. So you've got to really kind of break each of those pieces down and look at all of them and get the numbers. I mean, ultimately, you've got to have this conversation based on numbers and not how you feel about it, and we'll talk about that in just a second. But if you're reframing the conversation, so what is enough, Tony? What's enough for you? Everybody's different.   Tony Mauro: Everybody's different, so you really have to, again, get with your advisor. I think I've said it before, it's where an advisor lends a lot of value is to take you through these exercises for answering what's enough for you. It really is dependent a lot on type of lifestyle that you want to lead, what your monthly expenses are going to be in retirement, do you have any outstanding debts and other commitments, things like that. You also got to think about too, how long you're going to live. Obviously nobody knows that for sure, but you can kind of make some estimated guesses based on your family heritage and whatnot, who's still maybe alive. And then I think lastly, when it's all over, what kind of legacy do you want to leave? When it's your turn, I think all of these things have to come into play to answer what's enough for you. Because again, what might be enough for one person is definitely not enough for another and not enough for another. So this is where you got to have some good conversations.   Speaker 1: Well, again, so are you behind or are you assuming you are? So to this person's question, they didn't really state, "We're probably behind," is one of the words that was used. We're barely over the million dollar mark and probably behind. So have you truly run your projections out? And this goes for anybody listening, how do you know if you're behind if you don't truly know where you stand, period?   Tony Mauro: I agree. And I think that a lot of people fixate on that big number of the nest egg. But what the writer didn't tell us is, they assume they're behind, but a lot of times we find out when clients tell us this is that, "Well, let's say you may only have a million dollars saved," but, "Oh, by the way, you've got this pension that you can't outlive over here," and they don't factor that in, but that's a monthly income that you can't outlive, so that's very much a factor in, do you have enough to retire? So I like to focus on not the number at the end, but what's your monthly expenses? How much do you want to have to not only pay that, but still be able to go out and have fun? That's the number we're looking at. Now then we have to back into, okay, do we have enough over here with all sources of income coming in, including Social Security and pensions and our investments to figure that out?   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, find those targets, get those numbers specifically and then talk about lifestyle, fixed expenses, those financial commitments, the longevity, all those pieces that we talk about often and then you've got a much better piece of black and white right in front of you, so you kind of know what's going on.   But let's just assume, Tony, for the sake of the argument that you are behind. Well, now, so what's some catch up strategies? What's some things to be thinking about when it comes to how to tackle these and how to maybe shorten that gap? So obviously we should start with you're over 50, most likely, because we're talking about retirement, this listener was in their 60s, so take advantage of the opportunities there, max out.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, you want to max out things like if you've got a 401k at work, if you don't have that, or even if you do, IRAs, got your HSAs in there, you certainly could, and this all comes down to planning, of course, you don't want to just, throwing these out there, you've got to get with your advisor and check some of this stuff out. But you may want to say, "Well, okay, based on the amount I can safely set aside every month with what I have," maybe you need to delay retirement a little bit. Maybe we just need to move it back a bit to even things out. Maybe it's a fact of we do all of the above and we start cutting back just a little bit, we reduce some things to maybe save more. I mean, without feeling like your retirement savings poor. Maybe we need to reassess our risk. Maybe we need to maybe invest a little more aggressively than you have been depending on how things are looking if you're behind.   Speaker 1: That's a good point. Now as the advisor, okay, if you have to say that-   Tony Mauro: [inaudible 00:07:35] to say.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so if you're the advisor and you say, "Okay, look, you are behind. You want to make up this ground, whatever. One of these places is that you have been very conservative with your portfolio." You don't just move to the higher risk if you're behind because you need to take into account not only as the end user, the client, but also as the advisor, how are they going to feel about this, can they stomach taking that extra risk?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, can they stomach it and how much will that risk tend to be? How much longer do we really have, because that plays into it as well. But it's weird for an advisor to say, "Well, you might need to take on a little more risk." Most of the time we're saying, "Nah, maybe take a little less," especially towards retirement. But it's an option that you might want to consider if you're getting close and you're behind.   And then the last one is, and I think a lot of people don't give this enough merit is maybe you just take on some part-time work, some mindless type work in your retirement to help fund things with not too much stress, maybe not full-time. And maybe you can pick up 20, $30,000 a year extra just doing that and you might have to find something you really like to do.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I think ultimately, if you got to do some catch up things, there's these pieces. Obviously we got the catch-up contributions, Tony. Now if you are 60 to 63, you've got this new little funky window that they've added.

    14 min
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About

Financial, tax and retirement planning guidance from Tony Mauro. Tony is the original Tax Doctor, serving central Iowa. We’ll teach you how to properly plan for retirement, minimize your tax burden and attain a successful financial future.

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  • Creator
    Tony Mauro
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    98
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    Clean
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    © Copyright Tony Mauro
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    Plan With The Tax Man