Posts by Bruce Starks, CPA, CFP®
BENEFITS OF BECOMING A CFP® PROFESSIONAL
CFP® Certificants in the News Successfully passing the CFP Board exam and meeting the other certification requirements is cause for celebration, especially for intrepid career changers. Certification in hand, the next challenge for many is building a career. CFP Board recognizes this challenge and offers a starting point. According to CFP Board’s resource entitled WHY…
Read MorePercentage of Completion Method
Course: Income Tax PlanningLesson 10: Recognition of Expenses, Losses, and Deductions Student Question: Hi- Question 5 (below) did not make sense to me. I started out by breaking down by year — 400,000/2,100,000*3,000,000 and so forth, but did not arrive at the correct answer. So then I tried adding up 3 year — 400+650+700/2100000*3,000,000. That…
Read MoreHow to Avoid Paying An Extra $2.4 Million in Gift and Estate Tax.
Good to Know A married couple, both U.S. citizens, can jointly gift or bequeath as much as an astounding $24,120,0001 in 2022 without paying gift, estate, or generation-skipping transfer taxes. Each spouse has a $12,060,000 exclusion for gift and estate tax plus a generation-skipping transfer tax exemption of that same amount for 2022. These exclusions…
Read MoreGuide to Careers in Financial Planning
CFP® Certificants in the News CFP Board’s CENTER FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING publishes an intriguing series of insights into career paths for the new certificant, career changer, and even experienced certificants. These insights can be found in the GUIDE TO CAREERS IN FINANCIAL PLANNING. The GUIDE identifies over six career paths, helps clarify the types of…
Read MoreInvestments Held by Exchange Traded Funds
Course: Insurance PlanningLesson 19: Immediate Annuities – A Tax-Advantaged Income Planning Tool Student Question: Hi- The text on this page says the annuities don’t hold mutual funds or ETFs. What are they holding to provide an S&P “type return?” The text goes on to discuss components that sound a lot like ETFs (mid value, large…
Read MoreNot All Christmas Presents are Welcome: Four Potential Tax Changes to Monitor
Good to Know Let’s face it—it may be easier to handicap who’ll win the Presidency in 2024 than to forecast how, or even if, your taxes will change over the next few months. This blog will point out a select few areas that could change your tax landscape dramatically, including: Paying more capital gains tax,…
Read MoreReal Estate Income and IRA Contributions
Course: Retirement PlanningLesson 1: Using IRAs to Build and Distribute More Retirement Income Student Question: Good morning! This page states that rental income is not included in the definition of earned income. If the client is a professional real estate developer whose income is derived mainly from rental income, would they be able to contribute…
Read MoreDistributable Net Income Application
Course: Estate PlanningLesson 9: Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates Student Question: Hi Bruce When a Trust has an income accumulation year, must the Trust pay taxes on that accumulation of DNI in the year of accumulation? If so, why do that – why would a Trust hold income at the confiscatory Trust income tax…
Read MoreHow to Correct a Faulty Claiming Age Decision
Good to Know You may find yourself advising clients and prospects that were either misinformed or unaware of the consequences of claiming Social Security benefits too early. A potential, if not common, client angst is the realization that age 62 was NOT a wise claiming age decision. A client could face three unwelcome results from…
Read MoreLoan Impact on Basis in a Modified Endowment Contract
Course: Insurance PlanningLesson 15: Income Taxation of Life Insurance Student Question: Hello, Can you help me better understand the difference between policy basis in a normal policy and policy basis on a modified endowment contract. From the Coursework: But for MEC purposes, the basis is increased by any portion of loans that were considered taxable…
Read More