If you need more incentive to generate passive income in order to give yourselves more freedom to do what you want, then look no further than the below two charts.
The short-term capital gains tax rate is equivalent to your federal marginal income tax rate. Once you hold your investments for longer than a year, the long-term capital gains tax rate kicks in and goes way down.
Capital Gains Tax Rates By Income For Singles
If you’re single, the largest tax spread difference between short-term and long-term is if you make $200,001 – $425,800 in capital gains. We’re talking a 20% lower tax rate (35% vs 15%).
To generate $200,001 – $425,800 in capital gains you could earn a 4% rate of return on $5,000,000 – $10,645,000 in capital, earn qualified dividends at the same rate with the same amount of capital, take profits on long-term holdings, or you can do a combination of everything.
For the 2018 tax year, you will not need to pay any taxes on qualified dividends as long as you have $38,600 or less of ordinary income. If you have between $38,600 and $425,800 of ordinary income, then you will pay a tax rate of 15% on qualified dividends. The rate for $425,801 or more is 20%.
Unfortunately, sometimes dreams don’t come true. In my quest to simplify life, I was blinded by the belief that the rental property I bought in 2003 would also be eligible for the full $250,000 / $500,000 tax-free profit exclusion if I moved back in tomorrow and lived in it for the next two years before selling.
For the past several years I’ve filed a tax extension. A tax extension allows taxpayers to file for a six-month extension if they need more time to prepare their tax returns. The neat thing is that you can obtain an extension for any reason, so long as you submit Form 4868 electronically or on paper by the April filing deadline.
If you decided to sell your house to simply life, lock in gains, downsize, or relocate for a job, this article will help you minimize your tax bill.
This post is sponsored by H&R Block.
In the past, I used to wonder why two individuals with high incomes or two individuals with a large income differences would ever want to get married. Paying thousands of dollars in marriage penalty taxes didn’t make sense. It seemed obvious that the government wanted one spouse to give up his or her career to stay at home, even if there were no children to raise.
One big goal on Financial Samurai is to highlight to readers what is financially possible. Once you know what is possible, you minimize your limiting beliefs and tend to strive much farther. Through close to eight hours of research and production, this post will explain how you can add more than $100,000 every year pre-tax to your retirement account if you have the right employer and proper strategic money making mindset.
I firmly believe tax policy changes behavior. The higher your taxes go, the BETTER your life becomes! Why? Because at the margin, the less money you keep, the less motivated you’ll be to work. Since the love of money is the root of all evil, the less time you spend chasing money, the happier you will be.
I used to despise property taxes because the city would raise them even when property prices were collapsing during the financial crisis. It was/and still is up to property owners to fill out a complicated form, find comparable homes that have dropped in price within a certain radius, make sure the comparable sales fit within a certain timeframe, and pay a $60 fee to do so with no guarantee you’ll win!
Here are the key points from the now passed Trump administration’s tax plan for 2018 and beyond.