Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Short-Term And Long-Term Capital Gains Tax Rates By Income

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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.

Here are the tax rates for 2019 and beyond.

Capital Gains Tax Rates By Income For Singles

Long-term capital gains tax rates by income for single filers

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 2019 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%.

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The Main Reasons To File A Tax Extension Beyond Late K-1s

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The main reasons to file a tax extensionFor 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.

By filing a tax extension, you’ll also avoid failure-to-file penalties, which can add up to 25% of the tax due. That said, you must still pay your estimated taxes if you owe anything by the April deadline, despite getting an extension.

So why the heck would anybody file an extension? Here are the main reasons.

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What Happens If I Don’t Pay My Taxes? Penalties And Solutions

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My poker winnings after starting off with $100.Updated for 2020 and beyond.

If you are like me and millions of other screwed Americans, you owe taxes by April 15. I used to think that it was always better to owe taxes each year, but that was when the 10-year yield and CDs were providing a healthy 4% annual return.

Nowadays, you’re lucky to get a 2% return on either instrument. We won’t even talk about the average money market savings rates at 0.1-0.2%. As a result of such low risk-free opportunity costs, I’ve been an advocate of folks getting a small tax refund since 2009 when the world was ending.

After doing my own taxes for the 16th time this year and always getting a small refund, I will finally be sending in a check for a vomit inducing five figure amount on top of an already six figure amount in taxes paid for 2012. So what happened that caused me to make such an erroneous calculation since I should be an expert at doing my own taxes by now? I didn’t make a mistake. Instead, the government and the voters of California got me.

PROPOSITION 30 PASSES: IF ONLY EVERYBODY COULD PITCH IN

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When Should You File A Tax Extension? The IRS Recommends Getting Into Debt To Pay On Time

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Filing a tax extension buys you time to get your documents in orderSome people have asked me whether they should file a tax extension (tax form 4868) if they can’t afford to pay their tax bill. Unfortunately, being unable to pay your taxes isn’t a reason the government accepts to file an extension. Neither is procrastination.

The only reason I can think of for filing an extension is if there’s a delay in receiving one of your tax documents that will materially alter your taxable income. The most common form that’s sometimes late is the K-1 form from a business partnership, S corp, or trust and estate beneficiary. You should always be able to receive your 1099s and W2s on time.

The K-1 form from my venture debt investment won’t be coming out until the summer. As a result, I’m forced to file an extension because there’s several thousand dollars in pass through income I’ll receive, which requires tax payments. I’m owed refunds of about $1,000 from both Federal and California, so waiting several more months to file isn’t a big deal. If I owed, then I’d still have to pay at least 90% of what I think I owe to avoid penalties. Extension filers have until October 15 to submit their returns. Inline image 1

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The Average Tax Refund And What To Do With It

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The average tax refund is around $1,850 in America according to the IRS for 2018. That’s down 8.5% from the year prior due to Trump’s Tax Cuts And Jobs Act which raised taxes on Middle Class Americans.

Since saving, or not spending $154 a month is difficult for many, I’m OK with such a refund.

With basic savings interest rates around 2.4%, your opportunity cost is not huge.

If we are to compare the average tax refund to the average per capita income in America of $61,000 (~$40,000 after tax), $1,850, or roughly 3% of income is a pretty meaningful number.

Your goal should be to not only max out all your retirement plans (401K/IRA), but to also then save another 20%+ if you’ve been a long time reader of this site.  With 7% out of 20% down, you’ve only got to find a way to save 13% more!  Not bad at all.

There’s a big debate on whether you should have a tax refund at all, given that simply means you overpaid our incredibly inefficient and wasteful government.

Since most people can’t save for cookies, I’m of the opinion that a tax refund is good for most people.

A QUICK MENTAL EXERCISE ON YOUR TAX REFUND

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Five Lessons From Doing My Taxes For Over 10 Years

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Lessons from doing my own taxes for over 10 yearsThis post is sponsored by H&R Block.

In 2000, I paid a CPA $500 to file my incredibly simple tax return because I had no idea what I was doing. Granted, I had a lot of trades in 1999 to calculate since it was the dotcom mania back then.

After realizing $500 was expensive, I paid $250 for an H&R Block CPA to do my taxes and show me the ropes for a couple years. After getting comfortable with all the forms and jargon, I started doing my taxes myself using H&R Block’s tax software. They started with a CD-ROM that I had to buy at an electronics retailer, but now everything is online, thank goodness.

I’m probably never going to pay a CPA to do my taxes again because H&R Block’s tax preparation software is so easy to use from home. It will ask you questions about your situation before getting started so it has the right forms for you to fill out. Further, the tax software is always up to date with the latest tax rules.

For those of you who want to have a H&R Block tax professional do your taxes remotely (because who wants to go to an office), they’ve come up with the H&R Block Tax Pro Go program. I tried them for one year because I had questions regarding a couple K-1 filings from my private investments. It was very helpful to talk to a tax professional who inputted the information for me when I was stuck.

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Investing Your Tax Refund For A 1,000% Return

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Mauna Kea, HawaiiIn the article, “How To Get Over Your Fear Of Investing” I mention how your risk tolerance decreases the more capital you accumulate. When you were rocking a $100,000 net worth as a 30-year-old, you had no problems investing 30% of your net worth in your employer’s promising stock. But now that you’re 50 and less enthusiastic about working for decades more, investing 30% of your $1 million nest egg doesn’t seem like a good idea.

The tax refund actually provides for a great opportunity to swing for the ROI fences every single year, no matter your age or net worth. Given that the average tax refund is only around $3,000, many people just blow it on material things like shoes, clothing, gadgets, and LED TVs. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to use your “bonus” money to buy something tangible: any of these things can provide solid utility until next year’s refund. Alternatively, going the traditional route of paying down debt or increasing a depleted emergency fund is also fine, just terribly unexciting.

Now if your tax refund was a whopping $100,000, I’m willing to be that your approach to spending it would be substantially different! Some would unwisely go out and spend the money instantly on a luxury automobile; most, however, would probably give considerably more thought to the question of how to deploy such a large sum. Things like paying down a mortgage, investing for retirement, buying a home, putting money away for a child’s education, or helping out a loved one all come to mind with this level of money. But most people will never receive such a large refund, so the point is moot (sorry!). The $100k refund simply provides a mental exercise that highlights how our spending habits shift when dealing with different levels of money.

Although a tax refund often feels like a nice windfall each year, it’s actually been your money all along. And how boring it is to just invest that money (now that you finally have it) in the stock market for a potential 8% historical return. Of course if you’ve got revolving credit card debt with interest rates in the teens or higher, certainly give that a whack. But as a Financial Samurai reader, I’m thinking you guys are savvier than this.

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What’s The Right Ratio Between Salary And Distribution To Save On Taxes And Avoid An Audit?

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Salary Versus DistributionEvery year I like to ask my tax accountant: What’s the least amount I can pay myself in salary and bonus before the IRS comes knocking? Every year, he comes up with a slightly different answer because he observes the IRS focus on different type of situations to audit.

You might ask yourself, why I would want to be paid the least amount possible by my business? The answer lies in the self-employment tax (FICA + Medicare). As a S-Corp business owner, I’ve got to pay the employee’s and employer’s portion of the self-employment tax on salary. This equates to a 15.3% tax (12.4% for Social Security tax + 2.9% for Medicare tax = 15.3%). If you’re an employee, you only pay 6.2% Social Security tax and 1.45% tax for Medicare. Spend some time looking at your pay stub next time and marvel!

Social Security taxes are applied to income up to $132,900 for 2019. This income limit goes up by around 2% a year on average.

There is no income limit to the Medicare tax, and there’s actually an extra 0.9% Medicare tax if you make over $200,000. The maximum Social Security tax for a self-employed individual is therefore $20,334 in 219.

Meanwhile, any money left over after operating expenses, retirement contribution, and salary may be paid out in the form of a distribution. Distribution pays 0% self-employment tax.

Disclosure: Financial Samurai has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Samurai and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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