Episode Transcript
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Gregory Ricks (00:00):
Hey, welcome. I'm
your host Gregory Rick's a
financial advisor here to answeryour questions and help you win
with your money.
Podcast Intro / Outro (00:10):
On
today's episode of the Ask
Gregory podcast, Gregory isjoined by Jude Heath of J Heath
& Co CPAs. Together, they'regoing to be discussing who
should be considering rothconversions. Also, we've got a
complimentary download waitingfor you on this topic. If you go
to gregryricks.com/podcast85.
Again, thatisgregryricks.com/podcast85
Gregory Ricks (00:33):
And the
conference I was at last week.
And I do this a couple times.
But ad slot want to say one ofthe foremost Ira trainers out
there on qualified plans. I'vebeen a member of that group for
(00:53):
years, and I credit a lot of myknowledge to that exposure. And
we were near the end. And one ofthe individuals asked him said,
look, what about that top taxbracket? You know, what we kind
(01:16):
of focus on this 22 to 24%.
Sweet Spot, but you got somepeople that make more money. And
as well as could they get pushedinto higher tax brackets, and
should the tops tax brackets,which currently is 37% from the
(01:40):
brackets, but there's a littlebit more added on there as well,
situational. But that top taxbracket looks like going to
revert back to 39.6%. And that'sat 470,000 or more. Remember,
I'm rounded, rounded downslightly. But that 37% currently
(02:04):
is 640,000 or more. But let'sjust say you're somebody that
said that 32 or 35%. And theywere asking was should these top
tax brackets convert? And yeah,they're gonna pay more in taxes,
what his response was, if you'rein high income earner now,
(02:30):
you're probably going to alwaysbe a high income earner. And
whenever you hear discussionsfrom a government standpoint, we
don't have to name names. Butyou know, what generally is
they're talking about, who dothey want to raise taxes on?
It's the high income earners. SoEd basically said, if you're a
(02:56):
high income earner, you'reprobably always going to be one.
And he said, Yes, you shouldconvert, you're not going to end
up in lower taxes, you're goingto end up in higher and get that
money to growing tax free, andyour taxes are likely to be
going up, they're not goingdown. So he said even if you're
(03:19):
in those brackets, it makessense to start converting money
to Roth and create a strategy tostart chipping away at that we
don't have to. And regardless ofwhether you're in 12% 2435 37, I
think it's a plan of chippingaway at it, we're not going to
(03:41):
Oh, convert my whole milliondollar IRA or convert my
$400,000 401 K, it is a plan tochip at it, it might not make
sense to convert the whole thingprobably rarely does. But it
does make sense to startchipping at it to where if
you've got some March and and itmight shift 10,000 A year or
(04:04):
30,000 a year. And it might onlybe a window that works for you
for a few years. But those arethe situations that you know,
we've worked with people in thepast that done it every year for
a decade to where they've prettymuch made a really big dent in
their qualified money. It's justwe know we're not moving into
(04:24):
favorable tax times because wedon't have a government like, oh
my gosh, citizens of the USguess why? We're bringing in
more revenue than we spend. It'sredacted and we're piling up
money so we're gonna pass italong to you. That's never
happened in the history has it?
No. You're laughing over there.
(04:46):
Buddy like citizens. We gotgreat news. We have excess
revenues. We're cutting taxesmore it's not happening. Not
going to they're they're notwired that way too. If they're
getting in more, they're gonnaspend more than they're getting.
So if they increase revenueswant the guy to spend some more
(05:06):
there. So the point is, you'vegot to consider at chipping away
with that. And that's onereason.
We run a tax efficiency strategyat the firm and create those
conversations and people need torun it through you or talk to
you. And if they're not using aprofessional, I said, Well, you
(05:27):
got to start using Jude Heath onthis, but we want them to that
ticks, tax efficiency analysis,taking a forward look at what
are efficiencies out there, whatare opportunities. And if you're
selling property or selling abusiness, you need to look ahead
(05:49):
to see how to handle that thereare opportunities, you know,
there's tip there situationwhere maybe a charitable
remainder trust could be usefuldonor advisor funds, you know,
you've got to look at impact orhow to structure the cells to
make that work efficiently foryou these Roth conversions,
(06:12):
where are their opportunities?
One of the things I look at whenwe run our tax efficiency
analysis is, is there any marginleft I hate wasting tax
opportunity there, that would bean example of somebody's income.
And let's just use the 12%, forexample, that there, you know,
(06:34):
when it said, done their taxableincome, and we'll just call it
50,000, whether it's 33,000 ofmargin left there in that 12%
tax break, the why I bring thatup, is, gosh, we can convert
some money from traditional IRAqualified to a Roth account at a
(06:54):
12% bracket and allow that moneyto grow and create tax free
benefits in the future. Ifyou're in the 22% bracket. And
let's say your your income is100,000. Well, there's 78,000 a
margin there, like is there anopportunity to shift some money
(07:17):
to create efficiency for thefuture? So that's kind of one
reason we do that to see whereare the efficiencies? Your
thoughts on what I just sharedwith you?
Jude Heath (07:34):
Absolutely. I think
anybody approaching retirement,
or worried about the two thingsthat you just talked about? If
they've got some money left overin their bracket, there's
they're asking the question, areour tax rates gonna go up? And
given where we are with thespending, and it's not going to
(07:59):
go down, it's a safe bet toassume that the middle brackets
are going to take a hit, it'snot all going to fall on the on
the 35 at the 37% bracket, myGregory's saying that at least
the 20 brackets that are in the20s are going to take a nice
(08:20):
hit, regardless of theexpiration of the lower
brackets, with the Trump lawsunsetting. It's just going to
take some some extra tax moneyto be able to take care of the
of the government spending. Andso we're costing those clients
that come in and say, Hey, doyou think taxes are going up?
(08:43):
I've got a little bit of moneyleft over in my bracket, I'd
like to think about trying toconvert over. Yes, those are
absolutely smart ideas. That'ssomething we should look at.
Because every year that clicksby is the year that you left a
little money on the table.
Gregory Ricks (09:02):
And bn, you know
one of those rules out there 872
for qualified money, you have tostart taking required minimum
distributions, and that's goingto escalate through retirement.
So if you've converted thatmoney to Roth, it takes it off
the table. There's no requiredminimum distributions on Roth
accounts. So you're not going tobe forced to take maybe money
(09:25):
that you don't need. But ifwe've got opportunity, it goes
to the compounding of money. Ifwe could just say, shift 100,000
over a few years, just keep themath simple. 100,000 If you can
average 7.2% You're taking andgrowing tax free money you've
taken 100,000 shifted it to theRoth side. If you could let it
(09:48):
work for 10 years,hypothetically get that return.
Now you've got $200,000 And ifit could work another 10 years
now you've got $400,000 Ifyou've you've grown $300,000 of
assets that Uncle Sam is notgoing to ever tax you on when
(10:08):
you die and leave it on, they'renot going to tax it. And I
believe everybody's got moretime than they think, you know,
average, if you make it a couplemakes it to 65 Average life
expectancy for the males, late80s, early 90s for the female.
So when you think about yourmoney is going to have time, and
(10:32):
you're going to need it. Andguess what if it's not taxed,
what is it goes further down theline. So we're Pro, taking
advantage of theseopportunities. So we've got a
window. And this window we'retalking about, I just gave you
20, and I'm around the 22%through 24% is a range of 83,000
(10:54):
to $340,000, where there's justa 2% difference, that you could
shift money now converting it,there's a problem with
converting it, it's going tocreate a tax bill. So you either
have savings to pay that or youhave that paid through the
(11:16):
conversion process, take some ofthat money to pay the tax bill.
But what you're doing is if thatif you can give that money time,
you're growing tax free money,and you got to think more, I
believe on the compounding sideof that. For the future. You
agree?
Jude Heath (11:36):
Yes, we encourage
clients that are going to make
this conversion to pay theirtaxes up front and don't take it
away from the compounding.
Gregory Ricks (11:47):
Now, what is this
going to in 2026? Based on law,
and number articles, Wall StreetJournal MarketWatch, Barron's a
number of articles on my blogreference that that blogs, the
news blog over at Gregory Rick'sdot com and we regularly post up
(12:11):
articles that I read andreference on the show. But that
22% bracket I spoke of that's83,200 78,000 is going to be 25%
with a range of 75,250 3000.
That 24% is going to 28% with arange of 153,000 to 233,000. So
(12:33):
they've locked not only is that24 going to 28. They've lopped
100,000 off of that bracket, andthey lowered the entry point
from 178 to 153. I'm not sayingthey've lowered it, that's what
it was. And it's set to go backto how do we avoid this going
(12:55):
back is is how does that happen?
Can we avoid it? Something wecan do?
Jude Heath (13:07):
No. What they've
done is they've they've sort of
shorten the brackets so thatyou're into the higher brackets
sooner. So not only have theyadd to the rate, they've
shortened the brackets, and sothat that's kind of like a
double sting.
Gregory Ricks (13:23):
So I don't run
out of time here. How do the
listeners reach out to J Heath &Co? Well, they can call your
office. Absolutely, we will hookthem up.
Jude Heath (13:36):
Right and then my
website is Jay Heath cpa.com
Gregory Ricks (13:40):
Okay. And my
website is Gregory Rick's dot
com and on the winning at lifepage the in the media tab we
have information about the showcontributors and you're one of
them along with Wes Blanchardand Dwayne Stein that regularly
contribute to the show. So ifthey're looking for some help
(14:03):
along those lines, thanks somuch for listening to ask
Gregory where we answer yourfinancial questions. You can
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Podcast Intro / Outro (14:24):
And don't
forget we've got a complimentary
download waiting for you on thistopic if you go to
gregryricks.com/podcast85 Againthat is
gregryricks.com/podcast85Gregory Ricks & Associates is an
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(14:45):
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(15:06):
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