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[quote=ucodegen][quote=Coronita]
Why is it this complicated, I have no idea… But again, yes another first world problem.

Morale of the story. If you want to do a backdoor Roth IRA, don’t ever rollover a previous employer’s 401k account into a IRA… Either keep the 401k or roll it into your existing employer’s 401k plan.[/quote]
It is still possible. What you are referring to is called the pro-rata rule. It is not too bad if you ONLY put pre-tax money into IRAs. It gets messy when you have both pre-tax and after tax IRAs. — basically it is an attempt to screw those that put money into after tax IRAs… and prevent people from rolling the after tax contributions only into a Roth.

See pro-rata rule:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/backdoor-roth-ira-high-income-how-to-guide/%5B/quote%5D

Are you sure this is right, I read the link and it seems to me that the problem is if you have an IRA of pretax money (like converting from a standard 401k) It’s just too complicated.

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I’ve come to the realization that deferring taxes into a 401K is shortsighted and I’m probably going to end up paying an even higher rate when RMD kicks. Just switched to a Roth 401k instead but it’s too late, having maxed out contributions to 401k for a long time already.

Fidelity 401ks have something called brokeragelink where you can invest into whatever you wish. That seems a better option than rolling into an IRA since you can still do a backdoor ROTH this way.

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[quote=ucodegen]I would rather have it than not. Too many problems when you don’t have it.

I have a lot of my portfolio in long term holdings, which mean selling it will kill me in taxes.

The more interesting question in all of this is how do the brokerages then make money if the transaction costs are zero?[/quote]

Long term gains in taxable account are the perfect way to retire early. I’ve got it all calculated out. Sell 25K ordinary income and 80K long term per year has an effective tax rate of 0 fed and 3.09 CA! Problem though is I don’t think I can sell it all off before my 401K RMD hits. I think brokerage make money on some market maker fees. But it is getting really hard to get money from the brokerages for depositing money. I don’t think they are doing well without commisions.

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Too bad you owe money. I usually overpay considerably every year and get it back since I don’t want to pay a penalty. Worked out well for me this year, I just got the direct deposit of the refund and it was over $100 more than I expected. Seems like they have to pay 5% interest on the refund due to the delayed filing due date. If I knew that earlier, I should have waited till today to file to maximize the interest payment. Getting free money from the government is great.

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I suppose it could be a raccoon but thought it would be too large to get in but who knows. I know there is a raccoon nearby getting into my food deliveries if I wait too long to bring my packages in.

I suppose I should just let experts take care of it. Alpha Wildlife Removal has great reviews. Researching, I saw that rats would leave if there was no food to get to. I was hoping the animal would just leave if there is no food. I think there might be leftover dead bees after the bee removal guy took out a hive last year from the attic.

Thanks

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I try to pick tech companies with a strong moat but can always be wrong. Just can’t sell and will let it ride and hope for the best. It’s not like every stock I own are FANG. It’s just FANG does the best and is becoming a much larger part of my portfolio since I do not sell winners.

I can’t imagine Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon going under but anything is possible. They are up 3, 4, and 2 percent just today. How can you sell?

AMD I never understood and lost money twice on it. But this time I’m holding it. Maybe Apple not using Intel anymore, people assume they are licensing stuff from AMD? I think you just have to own companies run by Bezos, Lisa Su and jensen huang.

Anyway more pressing problems than the overheated stock market. I think I have a rat inside by wall since there’s been noise inside it all night. My pest control company sucks. Anyone have a good experience with a pest control company for rats?

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I didn’t mean to say it wasn’t hard work, it just seems to me since stocks usually go up if you buy any stock, you should make money statistically long term. I’ve learned to avoid the small caps and stick with large caps and not sell when it goes down because it will go up some day. So if there is a market crash, just hold and don’t sell and a few years later you should be back. Buying chip and software stocks and FANG is the way to go I think. Playing it safe with large dividend stocks was a big mistake. I only know how to buy stocks and hold long term. No idea how to do options and don’t want to even try.

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Only started seriously doing stocks about 4 years ago so never went though a crash (close this year). so never had huge losses. Seems so easy to make money as I’ve only experienced a bull market till this year.

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That’s one big tax hit. I don’t sell since I hate paying taxes. My plan is to sell after I quit my job or get laid off. Thanks to progressive tax rates, I plan on paying zero fed taxes on 105K of income each year. Most of my stock gains are long term now so I should be able to sell 80K in long term gains tax free and 25K in short term tax free (standard deduction).

If I was going to sell it all at one. you are looking 23.8 percent fed tax on long term.

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[quote=Coronita]that sucks. Hopefully you’re wiping down the groceries you get from some random person delivering groceries to you, since there’s no way if telling if the person is infected or not, instacart isnt screening people, and the virus can remain on surfaces for a longer time than people think.

I only order boxed food item or items that come prepackaged with a plastic bag, snd spray them disinfectant or rubbing alcohol, and unbox all cereal , packaged items outside into a container. No raw veggies or undercooked food. Have not ordered take out from anywhere because you don’t know how the handler of the food is guaranteeing food safety. Employees at Seafood city were infected while still serving food from the takeout. Now weeks later, they shut down the entire supermarket.

There are a few supermarkets around that people don’t show around as much about without the lines. Between 11-12pm, not many people, plenty of stocked food. Wear a mask and disposable gloves, bring your own plastic or paper bags and bag it yourself, toss the plastic bags (so much for the environment in the short term). Toss the disposable gloves, take a wet wipes and wipe down the steering wheel (that’s a gross event in itself). open doors by kicking it with your foot, or by hand with a wrapped paper towel. Fortunately, I was already a germa-phobe before all of this, so nothing really has changed. Aldi’s aren’t that well known and plenty of food, US grown, very little lines around noon when everyone else is eatting.[/quote]

That’s very good advice. Kind of scared to go shopping except for Costco since the ethnic store I usually go to didn’t change anything but Costco did so much to keep people safe. So Aldi’s is safe? Never been there before. Or maybe I should try Vons? I doubt I could trust stores like 99 Ranch and Hmart.

I haven’t been anywhere but Costco since the lockdwon. Would the safety ranking be like Costco > Aldi > Vons > 99 Ranch?

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Congrats flu! Just paid of my mortgage as well on Tuesday. Didn’t make sense to keep the mortgage even if it was only 3% since I’m doing standard deduction now so can’t write off the mortgage.

Feels good to be debt free.

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SDCCU has a promotional 2.5% 16mo cd that is tempting. That should pretty good right? Don’t have to open an account in some internet bank.

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I would never try to do this but I think theoretically it is possible but tricky since you have to charge at least fair market rent. Suppose you get a mortgage such that the interest plus depreciation of the home is equal to the rent. Then there is no income to pay taxes on but you can deduct the interest and property taxes.

I suppose you would have to sell within 2 years or stop renting for three years before selling to get the cap gains exclusion.

As an extra benefit, all repairs would be deductible as well as well as new appliances. Could write off the gardener as well. I wonder if you could rent it furnished so you can write of cable, telephone, sdg+e, and water!

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My tax rate was lower as well this year even though I had more income. The main reason was no longer paying AMT and the increase in the standard deduction. AMT doesn’t allow deductions for state and property tax so I never did get hit by the 10K limit in SALT this year. Also on the tail end of my mortgage so there isn’t much interest to deduct. Standard 24K deduction much higher than what I would have gotten from itemizing.

So I think the new tax plan is lower this year unless you didn’t pay AMT last year and could have itemized a large amount of SALT and mortgage interest.

Interesting concept that the new tax rules are more advantageous to being a landlord vs being a home owner. By being a landlord taxes and mortgage are completely deducted while a homeowner would be limited by 10K SALT and mortgage deduction might not be enough to itemize.

Is it possible to rent to yourself?

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I got the amazon prime card about a year ago. I only use it on Amazon or purchases outside the US. No foreign transaction fees which work out well since I bought stuff from Amazon in UK, Germany and Italy. Shipping is surprisingly cheap but slow. Just bought 29 3d blurays yesterday from Amazon Germany.

No regrets about having the card. Only drawback is that its another thing preventing you from ever dropping Amazon prime but I don’t plan on doing so.

Most of the time I use the Costco Citi card.

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