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Long time, no see--Are you guys and gals still financial whizzes?


               
2020 Apr 14, 1:29pm   1,826 views  15 comments

by CL   follow (1)  

Questions I have about opportunities, some Covid-related. :)

1) My parents were working last year (at a homeless shelter), and my mom, who was a Professor prior to this, found it too physically taxing and has since "retired" (although may return to teaching). Dad is still working there, and plans to until death, although the Covid-risk is high among that population, so ya never now.

1) Idea: take their stimulus check(s) plus some canceled "vacation to the west coast" cash and put it in a Roth. Given their employment situation, I can figure they could drop 7K each in for 2019, and 7K for my dad in 2020 for a total of 21k. I could gift them the difference.

1) Questions: Is that a crazy-ass idea? Would it harm future medicaid eligibility, if needed? Would I introduce taxes to myself if the money comes back to me, either as we withdrew, or through inherited IRA fine print? Would I get "double taxed" somehow?

2) Given the mods in the CARES act, can one get access to their 401k/IRAs penalty-free and put that money to use, only to repay it later (like in the 3+ years they allow). Especially pertinent to question 1, because there might be an opportunity for the folks to use their own IRA, fund the Roth, pay it back through the growth.

3) Given the drop in the market, is it a good time for some/all to do Roth conversion? I already do the backdoor Roths for me, but my wife has a former employer 401k I wouldn't mind improving upon. It would seem so with the drop in value and historically low taxes that are bound to go up.

Any other smart idears?

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1   Shaman   2020 Apr 14, 1:45pm  

Invest in America.
We’ll be back.

Can you imagine how great you’d have done if you put everything into Amazon stock when stocks were at their nadir? That stock is now at record highs.
2   CL   2020 Apr 14, 2:00pm  

Shaman says
Invest in America.
We’ll be back.

Can you imagine how great you’d have done if you put everything into Amazon stock when stocks were at their nadir? That stock is now at record highs.

Of course, I'm just trying to maximize opportunities, like tax advantages!
3   EBGuy   2020 Apr 14, 2:10pm  

CL says
1) Questions: Is that a crazy-ass idea? Would it harm future medicaid eligibility, if needed?

Probably a better question for the recently returned @ellliemae, but here's my hot take. For your parents to become eligible for medicaid, they'll have to spend down most of their assets (including that Roth money you gifted them). Don't do it.
BTW, just did a spit take as a certain house in the Oakland hills just sold for a million bucks. Sorry to bring back bad memories. Yikes, that place may be cursed.
4   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2020 Apr 14, 2:38pm  

I dont know if Roth is better than traditional IRA depending on the age. However, whenever stocks are down, its not complicated to buy and wait a few month to get 20-30% gains, after that reinvest into long term. That's what I'm doing now. I'm just straight up buying stocks, its not Roth account, simple stock trader account online.

Been buying stocks for my kids too, so far those stocks have grown over years, its the best savings account you can have for them.

Hope all this helps in some way, I know its pretty simple
5   clambo   2020 Apr 14, 2:49pm  

Roth IRA absolutely. It’s a great investment account to have.

It’s annoying to pay taxes while you are working; it’s maddening when you are retired and living from your investments.

I’m going to convert some of my investments to Roth but with caution, because the conversion is considered income, and is taxed.

If your parents are under 65, have them get a Fidelity Health savings account, those are awesome.
Invest in stock mutual funds in the HSA and let it ride.

I don’t understand the medicaid part of the question , this assumes that someone is very low income.
6   Patrick   2020 Apr 14, 8:24pm  

Shaman says
Invest in America.
We’ll be back.

Can you imagine how great you’d have done if you put everything into Amazon stock when stocks were at their nadir? That stock is now at record highs.


Amazon may be up, but it seems like the majority of what they ship to Americans is made in China, putting Americans out of work.

Buying Amazon stock isn't really investing in America. It's more like investing in China.
7   ignoreme   2020 Apr 15, 12:51pm  

Eh, the time to invest was march 23. Market is only 10% down from the start of the year at this point. We might see another drop, might not.

Roth vs traditional is very complicated and involves making a lot of assumptions about the future.

Your parents sound like they don’t have much saved. The best advice I could give is stop worrying about market timing and taxes. They need to start saving NOW, regularly, and for a long period. Everything else is details that won’t make more then a few percent difference in the end.
8   SunnyvaleCA   2020 Apr 15, 1:22pm  

clambo says
It’s annoying to pay taxes while you are working; it’s maddening when you are retired and living from your investments.
I'm no tax expert, but it seems more annoying to pay 9.3% California income tax for the money going into your ROTH than it does to pay 0% Florida income tax on the money coming out of a conventional IRA after you have fled the state after retirement. Conversely, if you plan on moving INTO California for retirement then the ROTH would be a good idea (and, please get your head examined, too!).
9   clambo   2020 Apr 15, 2:15pm  

Sunnyvale has a point, but I assumed that they had been considering buying a RothIRA with income which was taxed anyway before they received it.

By coincidence I was just in Florida for several years, and I may go back if I hate California taxes too much someday.
10   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2020 Apr 15, 2:31pm  

ignoreme says
Eh, the time to invest was march 23. Market is only 10% down from the start of the year at this point. We might see another drop, might not.

Roth vs traditional is very complicated and involves making a lot of assumptions about the future.

Your parents sound like they don’t have much saved. The best advice I could give is stop worrying about market timing and taxes. They need to start saving NOW, regularly, and for a long period. Everything else is details that won’t make more then a few percent difference in the end.


Quoting this because this is really good advice. Just save what you can, everything else is almost trivial and won't be important enough.

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