Bulls, Bears and Ballots
During a presidential election year, investors tend to seek a connection between who wins the White House and which way stocks will go.
In our last piece, we introduced some of the tools of the tax-planning trade. These include tax-sheltered accounts for saving toward retirement, healthcare, and education, as well as tax-efficient tools for charitable giving, emergency spending, and estate planning.
It’s one thing to have the tools. It’s another to make best use of them. After all, the same paintbrush can create a valuable work of art, or a clashing mess on canvas. It all depends on how you use the brush.
In other words, your tax-planning techniques matter at least as much as the tools. They’re also more enduring—especially if you combine them into a unified strategy across your varied financial interests. Tax breaks come and go, and are beyond our control. But with a tailored, tax-wise strategy in place, it’s easier to adjust as needed, rather than having to start all over whenever something changes.
Not unlike that fine painting, your best tax-planning efforts include meticulous attention to the details, as well as to how each action contributes to your big picture.
We view effective tax planning as a way to reduce your lifetime tax bill – or beyond, if you’re preparing for a tax-efficient wealth transfer to your heirs.
One of the most powerful ways to ward off excess taxes is to be tax-wise about your investing every step of the way. And yet, few investors take full advantage of the many opportunities available at every level. These levels include how you manage your investment accounts, select individual holdings, and buy and sell those holdings along the way.
As you manage your investment accounts…
Are you doing all you can to build, manage, and spend down your taxable and tax-sheltered accounts for maximum lifetime tax-efficiency?
As you select individual holdings…
Are you being deliberate about selecting tax-efficient vehicles? Even when different funds share identical investment objectives, some may be considerably better than others at managing their underlying holdings. Seek out fund managers with solid tax-management practices, including:
As you buy and sell holdings…
Like the fund managers you choose, are you also being patient and deliberate about your trading? Do you avoid excessive trading and short-term capital gains (currently taxed at higher rates)? Are you guided by a personalized investment plan? Bottom line, the fewer trades required to stick to your investment plan, the better off you’re likely to be when taxes come due.
Having an investment plan also facilities your or your advisor’s ability to identity and make best use of tax-loss and tax-gain harvesting opportunities when appropriate.
Tax-loss harvesting typically involves:
You can then use any realized capital losses to offset current or future capital gains, without significantly altering your portfolio mix.
It’s worth noting, tax-loss harvesting typically lowers a harvested holding’s cost basis. So contrary to popular belief, you’re usually postponing rather than eliminating taxable gains entirely. Why bother? More time gives you more control over when, how, or even if you’ll realize the gains. For example, you could wait until tax rates are more favorable, or reduce embedded gains over time through gifting, charitable, or estate planning tactics.
Tax-gain harvesting involves selling appreciated holdings to deliberately generate taxable income. Why would you do that? Remember, your goal is to minimize lifetime taxes paid. So, especially once you’re tapping your portfolio in retirement, you may intentionally generate taxable income in years when your tax rates are more favorable, and preserve your tax-favored income for years when your rates are higher. Basically, you’re sacrificing a tax return battle or two, hoping to win the tax-planning “war.”
Next Up: Tax-Wise Financial Planning
Managing for tax-efficient investing is just one way we help families reduce their lifetime taxes. We also help integrate all of the above into your broad financial interests. We’ll cover that next. In the meantime, please be in touch if you’d like to discuss improving on your own tax-wise financial pursuits.
This post was prepared and first distributed by Wendy J. Cook.
Shore Point Advisors is an investment adviser located in Brielle, New Jersey. Shore Point Advisors is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Registration of an investment adviser does not imply any specific level of skill or training and does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission. Shore Point Advisors only transacts business in states in which it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration. Insurance products and services are offered through JCL Financial, LLC (“JCL”). Shore Point Advisors and JCL are affiliated entities.
During a presidential election year, investors tend to seek a connection between who wins the White House and which way stocks will go.
What do you do if you receive a big bonus at work, inherited some money or enjoyed a recent windfall you would like to invest?
Unfortunately, as human beings, we are prone to behavioral tendencies and mental shortcuts that do not always work in our favor.
The trade-off between risk and reward is a key part of any investment strategy. But risk means different things to different people.