The idea of saving as much as possible during your career while making wise investments to have a comfortable retirement is nothing new for workers. But if you don’t consider a tax strategy with that plan, it can derail any retirement. Many workers are able to get company stock either as part of their compensation or through the company’s 401(k) program and these are the stocks you want to pay attention to so you don’t lose money in taxes. Typically, when people retire, they roll all of their 401(k) to an IRA and everything you paid for that company stock inside the 401(k) and all the appreciation through your working years will be taxed at your personal income rate when you take money out to supplement your retirement. Instead, if you use the Net Unrealized Appreciation – or NUA – rules, you can roll the stock out of the 401(k) and pay ordinary income taxes only on the cost basis, or what you paid for the stock through the years. Then, if done correctly, you can have the appreciation of the stock taxed at the much lower capital gains rates. For most people, this could cut your tax bill almost in half. For example, let’s say that you have $300,000 of company stock in your 401(k), that you paid $100,000 for. You roll the stock out of your 401(k) to a non-IRA account. You will pay taxes on the first $100,000 at your ordinary income rate, but the additional $200,000 would be taxed at your capital gain rate, which ca
Most people have heard of a prenup – or prenuptial – agreement, but a new law in Ohio will now allow for a postnuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement is an agreement a couple enters into before marriage describing how their assets will be divided on divorce or death. However, once you were married, you could not amend or terminate the prenuptial agreement or enter into any agreement regarding the division of assets. Until now, all other states besides Ohio and Iowa allowed for an agreement after marriage to either amend the prenuptial agreement or have a whole new agreement describing how assets will be divided on divorce or death. But now that Senate Bill 210 has been signed into law, married couples in Ohio can go forward with a postnuptial agreement. There are a couple of scenarios that a postnuptial agreement could lend itself to. For example, at the beginning of a marriage, the husband and wife were about equal in finances and agreed in a prenuptial agreement that each would keep their own assets. Then they have three children and for twenty years the wife stays at home raising the family and the husband grows his business to be a very valuable asset. The wife might want some part of those assets since she lost the opportunity to grow her assets. In that case, a postnuptial agreement could provide that she shares in some of the growth of the husband’s assets. In another scenario, let’s say parents want to give a