Planning Article

May 2024 – By Tom Rueger CFP^®

The tax code provides some favorable provisions for homeowners, one of which is the exclusion from taxation on the gain on some or even all of your primary home. However, as the price of homes continues to rise at a fairly substantial pace, more homeowners are or could be finding themselves in a situation where they have to pay tax on some of that gain when they sell their homes. An exclusion from taxation of gains was passed back in 1997 and the intent was to not have people that lived in their homes for a long time have to pay a potentially sizable tax when they finally did move out. However, unlike a lot of other provisions in the tax code, the exclusion has not been indexed to inflation and the gain in value of the home could now cause a tax liability.

Market Memo

May 2024 – By Bob Veres

It seems like every news cycle includes an article about how the Social Security trust fund is about to run out of money.  ‘About’ may be somewhat of a misnomer.  Estimates vary, and change as the economy goes through its ups and downs, but the latest estimate suggests that the trust fund will run out of money by 2035, in 11 years.

Market Minute

May 2024 – By Bob Veres

You might think that hourly wages and worker compensation closely tracks the inflation rate, but as you can see from the graphic, the two are in a constant tug-of-war; wages sometimes rise faster than inflation, and often they lag.  Over the last year, wages have been winning this particular race; hourly wages are up 4.5% from this time last year, while the inflation rate, again over the past year, has come in at 3.4%.  In March, the last month where we have statistics, the difference was 4.7% annualized (wages) vs. 3.5% annualized (inflation).

Market Memo

April 2024 – By Kyle Rohrwasser

Gifting and charitable contributions are a common occurrence for many of us. No matter if it is a large nonprofit organization or the local shelter down the street, we all have our own calls to action. We here at Vantage look to optimize that by gifting appreciated securities to avoid capital gain tax and reduce taxes via increased itemized deductions. We use a DAF (Donor Advised Funds) account which allows us to do this simply and efficiently. It is a wonderful tool that allows for convenient gifting as well as multi-year contributions in single tax years for some additional tax planning. Since you can keep the funds/cash in the account you can do large one-time gifts and distribute it over the course of years.