Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning everyone. My name is Martin Shields. I'm the
chief Wealth Advisor at Bruchet Finance Group, and it's great
to be your host today for Let's Talk Money. It
is an absolutely stunning day as I look out the
window here, and I will tell you this weekend's always
one of my favorites, and there's a number of reasons. One,
(00:22):
it's Travers weekend, so it is always busy in Saratoga,
a lot of energy. And then two, you know, kind
of it's a transition weekend. I've got two of our
oldest going off to college, kids getting ready for school,
maybe starting sports. And three, maybe most importantly, today in particular,
is my birthday. August twenty third is my birthday. And
(00:46):
you know, I'm one of those people that I like
my birthday still. I'm not young anymore, but I'm still
okay with it. I like to celebrate it. So it's
great to be here with you to answer any questions
you may have regarding your financial planning concerns or investment
manager concerns. I just got a text from my colleagues,
including our producer, saying happy birthday, so I didn't share
(01:09):
that with her before, but yes, it's great to be
here with you, and that shows you two things. One,
I'm not young anymore. I've actually be turning fifty. I've
just turned fifty six, so you know, back in the day,
I might be tired from going out or whatever. But
you know, we went to John Baptist last night, so
it was a pretty mellow night. And then two, you
(01:29):
know if I'm doing the show that I really love
to do the show. I wouldn't be doing this show
if I didn't love to do it. So it's great
to be here with you to answer any questions. And
I'm fortunate enough to be joined by my colleague Scott Strohecker.
Scott is in a role agent, he's a CFP, he's
one of our advisors, and not just that, but he's
a top match guy as well. So Scott is great
(01:51):
to have you with me on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Thanks Marty, it's a pleasure to be here. And happy
birthday again. I was unaware, so I'm glad to be
able to join you on your special day.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, it's good to have you here. It's good to
have you here. So a lot to discuss, as always,
on financial planning topics and also on the markets. Big
day yesterday in the markets with basically an announcement from J.
Paul that there's probably a high likelihood of a rate
cut in September. With all the industries, we're real close
(02:26):
to all time highs a little bit off. The S
and P is up about ten percent for the year,
and the NASA queues, which we're big holders of, is
up almost twelve percent for the year. So another great
year in the markets, and you know, with the Fed
potentially lowering rates, with the economic data kind of still
(02:46):
in this middle ground of some good news some bad news,
which is okay, and with corporate profits still coming in
very strong, you know, it's setting up to continue to
be another great year in the markets. But if you
have any questions, you can reach us at eight hundred
talk WI. That's eight hundred eight two five five nine
(03:06):
four nine. Again that's eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine, or you can email us at ask
Bruche at bruche dot com. That's ask Bruche at bruche
dot com. And Bouche is spelled b O U c
h e y dot com. So we always love to
(03:27):
have you call in and to chat and give us
you know, your questions over the radio over the phone,
but if you are too shy you want to email,
that's fine as well. As I always say, uh, you know,
there's no dumber, silly question except for the one you
don't ask. And you may be doing your fellow listener
(03:48):
a favor by asking that question. Right, they had that
same question, but they're a little bit too nervous or
concern or whatever, uh to actually actually go ahead and
ask that question. So again, you can email us or
give us a call, and we can give you some guidance.
Let's just chat a little bit about yesterday with Jay Powell.
So you know, it's one of those things where it's
(04:12):
interesting how much the market focuses on what the Federal
Reserve is going to do. Right, And as we've talked
about before, the Federal Reserve only controls the Federal Fund rate,
and that is the very short term rates, basically an
over nine overnight rate that with a FED lends to
banks or other banks lend the banks. The rest of
(04:33):
the rates, and what I mean by the rest of
the rates, the three months, the two year, the ten year,
the thirty year mortgages, those are actually controlled by the market. Right.
The Fed does not control those rates. Now, in general,
the FAT does have ways of somewhat manipulating those rates.
They could be doing what's called quantitative and easy, where
(04:55):
they actually are going out and buying bonds, or quantitative
tightening where they're actually selling bonds in those categories. But
as a general rule, they only control the short term rate.
And it is possible that as the FED lowers these
short term rates that it doesn't impact the long term rates.
That can actually happen, but it does start to set
(05:19):
the tone if the Fed is going to start lowering
rates that those longer data rates usually come down. And
that's a good thing, right, if you're going to go
out and buy a car, if you're going to go
out and get a mortgage, if you're a business, then
you know, having that those rates be lower, that's a
real positive. And you think about it for businesses, you know,
(05:41):
small businesses or corporations, having those rates lower is a
good thing. The other thing is when we talk about
profits and cash flow from an analysis perspective, people discount
those cash flows with interest rates, So they're looking at
future cash flows and discounting them to the current value. Well,
the lower the interest rate is that you're discounting against
(06:04):
the better those profits look. So that's another thing that
those lower rates do. So again, it's not just an
absolute given that this is going to be going to happen.
It's about an eighty percent chance now, but it's also
you know, just that anticipation that the market's railing to
this all time highs. But really one of the most
(06:24):
important reasons is that corporate profits are really quite strong.
They continue to be quite strong. Well, we're going to go
to the phone lines we have Allen from Glenville. Allen,
are you there, Yes, good morning, can you hear me?
I can. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Good? Happy birthday?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Quick question. I'm gonna piggyback a little bit about what
you're talking about with the long term rates. I was
rather shocked yesterday that the thirty year tea bill only
dropped four basis points. On that note, do you feel
(07:08):
the bond market is still pricing in a lot more
inflation to come? And just so, do you think the
Federal Reserve will retrack their decision to cut rates. We'll
send a message to the market. Inflation's a little more
worrisome than we thought. I'd like to get your thoughts and.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
All the way your answer, right, that's a great question. Alan.
So the Federal Reserve has what's called a dual mandate.
The dual mandate looks at two things. They basically are
looking for full employment, so they're really trying to make
sure that as many people are working as possible, and
we're really almost there with our current unemployment rate. It
(07:52):
can be a little bit lower, but we're really kind
of almost at that full employment level. And then the
other thing is price stabilisation, and all that means is
you want to have really not much inflation. The target
is two percent right now where it you know, it
depends on what you're looking at, but somewhere between two
point seven to three point one if you strip out
(08:13):
some elements of inflation and a little bit. That problem
with that is that it actually bumped up last month
versus the prior month. Now, the big question, and this
goes to Allen's point, which is is that just a
one time piece because of some of these tariffs, and
is that as high as it going to go? Or
(08:35):
you know, are these tariffs that are going into place,
are they going to really start kicking in? And then
what happens with that is there's a little bit of
a feedback loop, right which you start having those higher prices,
then it becomes problematic where you know, if my prices
go up because the tariffs, I might write raise prices
and then other people may fall suit with that. So
(08:56):
I think this is what I would say, Allen. I
think in general the Federal Reserve in jpol is going
to maybe lower rates because they're concerned more so about
the labor side. And also a little bit that right now,
those prices did not pop by as much as anticipated, right,
I think people were expecting inflation actually be a little
(09:19):
bit higher with the tariffs in place. But I've said
this all along. I mean, he J. Paul made a
mistake of calling it transitory back three years ago when
we had inflation, and he does not want to do
that again.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
This is what happened back in the seventies, which is,
you know, they started to get inflation under control, they
started to lower interust rates, and then inflation would pop
back up. And that happened a multiple number of times.
And you think about the seventies. Nobody looks at the
seventies said boy, that was a great economic time. That
(09:54):
was a time of stagflation, of high inflation, of limited growth.
And you know, there's a lot of difference between the seventies,
which really was an oil based economy relatively speaking, and
we had very high oil prices because we were completely
dependent upon outside producers, which is not the case now.
Now We're all things considered, we produce more oil and
(10:17):
natural gas than we consume. We're actually net exporters of
those two versus importers, so we're in a much different
environment here. But I think, Allen, I do think the
market as we talk about this, I think the market
is still concerned over two items. One inflation and where
we stand with that, and two overall debt that exists
(10:39):
both from a corporate perspective, but really from a government perspective.
You know, we've talked about this for many years now,
which is at some point, this is this is this
comment of some point has been I've been making that
statement for about probably almost ten years. At some point
the bond market is going to be concerned about how
much debt is out there, and you know how much
(11:01):
we're going to continue to add to it. And right now,
under the current budget scheme, we'll be adding trillions of
dollars of debt annally as we move forward. So you know,
I think you got those two elements. They're keeping those
higher interest rates. You know, they're pretty elevated. They're not
coming down, and that's a problem for businesses and consumers, right,
(11:23):
you know, you cannot actually you know, if you're going
to keep those mortgages higher, well, you know, it's not
going to stimulate action over in the mortgage and the
real estate market. It's just too high. So again, I
think there's a likelihood that you'll probably see a rate
cut in September. But I also think it's really contingent
(11:46):
upon where, you know, are the labor markets going and
versus where that inflation number is going, and that's that
balancing act that the Federal Reserves dealing with. And I
also think that J. Paul does not want to be
presigned over an economy that starts to overheat. Again, the
only statement I have to say, though, is you know,
he only has another six to nine months in that role,
(12:10):
and I think the next chair is going to be
much more aggressive in luring rates, and that's certainly what
President Trump is looking to do. We're going to go
to the emails. We have an email from Becky. Hello,
what are your thoughts on treasury notes in the current market.
I'm concerning purchasing a two year Treasury note for ten
(12:32):
thousand dollars. I think, Becky, it just depends on what
your goal is with that money. Right, If you want
to lock in some of these rates for two years,
so you have that kind of set in case rates
go down and you want something very conservative, then I
think buying a two year treasury note can be great.
(12:53):
The thing to remember with treasuries is that they do
not get tax by New York State. That's a real
nice benefit that income that's produced. Uh. And they're very
liquid and very safe. Right if if if Becky had
to sell that to your treasury, there's a big market
to buy it. Uh, they're gonna there's not gonna be
(13:13):
a lot of price fluctuations like you could be with
a corporate bond. So uh, you know, I think again,
if the goal here is to kind of lock in
that rate for two years, uh, you know that ten
thousand dollars uh is not something that you need and
you wanted to be invested very conservatively. I think it's
a good approach. I think it's a good approach. Well,
let's kind of keep moving on. You know. One of
(13:36):
the other things I just want to be bringing up
is we get questions all the time regarding you know,
how should you have assets titled? Uh, you know, and
it's really from a joint perspective, and I think there's
a couple of things to appreciate. One, when you talk
about federal estate taxes, Uh, most people do not worry
(13:58):
about that these days. H if that that amount is
up over thirteen million dollars per person, so twenty six
million dollars per couple. And also that exclusion amount of
thirteen million can move back and forth between individuals and
who are married, and they don't have to worry how
it's titled. So you can title every asset in one
(14:19):
spouse's name, and you don't have to worry that, oh,
you're not going to be able to take advantage of
the thirteen million dollars that that twenty six million dollars
is really per couple. Now in New York State, though
it's different, the exclusion amount for New York State tax
is seven point let's just say seven point two million dollars.
(14:40):
But that's what's different is you can't move it back
and forth. It's based on how assets are titled. So
you have to make sure that assets are titled properly
so that if you put them all in one spouse's
name and they're up over that amount, they could you
can have a situation where you have to pay New
York estate tax even though let's say you only have
(15:02):
an estate of eight million dollars. The other thing that's
important to know is that if you are let's say
one hundred and one percent over that seven point two million,
so it's just over that, then only that slight amount
over that amount that you will have to pay state
taxes on. But if you are greater than one hundred
(15:23):
and five percent, so let's say the value of your
estate in that person's name who passes is up over
one hundred and five percent, so it's aout one hundred
and six percent, what happens New York state tax is
applied to the full amount you're the full amount of
your estate for that person gets hit with the New
York state tax. So it's this cliff. So you really
(15:43):
want to make sure that if you're as your state
grows as your network grows that your assets are titled properly.
And one of the things that I want my colleague
Scott to kind of provide some perspective on is what
happens when you have these assets tied and how are
they taxed if you pass so, Scott, could you provide
(16:04):
some color on that, whether you're owning them jointly versus
owning them individually, and what does that mean from as
far as estate taxes and also if they get a
step up in cost bases or not.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, As Marty was talking about, it is very
important to look at how you have assets titled. Whether
it's your home or a brokerage account, bank account. These
are assets that are included in one's estate depending exactly
how it's titled, and there could be large tax ramifications
(16:41):
of being over that threshold, even if you're not subject
to the estate tax, because federally it's about fourteen, you know,
million dollars per person or twenty six twenty million for couples,
and then New York State's about seven million dollars per person.
Even if that isn't an issue for you, you still want
(17:02):
to think about how to have assets titled, because you know,
upon passing, you do get a step up in cost basis.
So let me use a quick example here. If you
have a joint taxable account brokerage count it's invested. You
know you initially you and your spouse put in five
(17:23):
hundred thousand dollars. It's now appreciated or grown to a
million dollars. You have five hundred thousand dollars of gains there.
If one of you was to pass away, you would
get a half a step up because that person passed away.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So there.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Half of your game basically would be wiped away because
again you start out with five hundred thousand dollars of
cost bass two fifty for each of you, and with
having that million dollars, the person that passes away their
portion now has a new cost basis of a half
a million dollars, so it gets you do a new
cost basis of seven hundred and fifty. So you really
(18:05):
want to think about how to have it titled, because
again you do get a step up each time a
spouse passes away. And then again if you know, unfortunately
you were to both pass away at the same time.
Let's say you know you've essentially wiped away all of
the gains. So looking at how you have assets titled
is really important, whether it comes to investment accounts or
(18:29):
even property as well.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Great perspectives Scott, Yet it is people don't put enough
time to think about it. Again. You know, the more
networth you have, the larger your networth is, the more complexity,
have more different asset classes, you have more real estate,
you have different businesses. It becomes extremely important that you
have the right estate documents in place, things are titled properly.
(18:53):
I'll give you an example. We met with a couple
great clients of our has been on for almost coming
on thirty years and they have a lot of real
estate and it's rental real estate. So what we, along
with their estate planning attorney, gave guidance was for the
properties where the husband manage, put those in his name
(19:15):
and because the idea is if he were to pass
that she's going to sell them. She's not going to
manage them and she's not going to have somebody to
manage them, So put them in his name and that
way when he if you were to pass before her,
then she's going to sell them. But she's going to
get a full step up in cost basis, so there's
no capital gains to selling those positions, and so it
(19:38):
works out really nicely from both in estate planning because
then a lot of the other assets are in her
name to kind of balance that off. But from a
gains perspective and just how to handle those properties going forward,
it's a good setup. And that's something I always tell
any individuals, especially if like this where you have a rental,
(20:01):
real estate, or if you have a business, you have
to have a plan in place in case something happens
to that spouse who's managing that entity. Right, you know,
if something happens to that spouse where they're managing the business,
what happens? And actually, I'm going to throw this back
over to Scott because he's with us at our firm
(20:22):
and we're so fortunate to have him because he worked
with a another firm where it was just one individual
that owned the firm, another fee only firm, great firm,
but the individual unfortunately died very quickly and did have
a plan in place, and it left everything up in
the air. Is now to handle? Scott, why don't you
provide some perspective on that because you actually lived through
(20:44):
this and kind of what the challenges are if you
don't have that plan in place.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, as Marty talked about, prior to joining the team
here at Bouchet, I was working another fee only firm,
really small shop. I was there for about eight years,
and then you know, suddenly the owner ended up getting sick,
you know, with some cancer, and then within a couple
of months ended up passing away. You know, he had
(21:11):
started talks of you know, what is up for him,
and you know, succession planning, but you know everything hadn't
been uh worked out yet, so in the end, you know,
there wasn't a plan in place. The estate ended up
taking over and trying to figure out where to land,
you know, the business, what to do with it. And
(21:32):
because of that transition, you know, I ended up, you know,
not really having a clear future.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Fortunate enough to land with Bouchet. But having a plan
in place for everybody, you know, not only for business owners,
but even just your overall estate is really important, just
to help you know the next in line, know whether
you have employees or even family, just pick up the pieces,
or at least know what your intention is. In this case,
(22:00):
there was a bit of uncertainty and for me. You know,
I was fortunate enough to land with the team here,
But it really comes down to proper planning and making
sure that you have, you know, these plans in place
to go forward.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, we see more and more situations where we have
clients new clients coming on where it's a very couple. Uh.
We have one I love them, just amazing clients. She's
accounts payable and he accounts receivable, so she pays all
the bills and he handles all the investment accounts and everything.
But they came on and started working with us because
(22:39):
as they were getting older, he was concerned that if
something would happen to him, you know, that she would
now have to deal with all the investments and all
the nuances with that. And also from a tax perspective, uh,
you know, with a colleague like Scott On who's an
enrolled agent and we have another colleague, Vincento Testa that
with some of our clients we do tax prep for
as well. That with that, we are now doing that
(23:02):
for them. We're handling their tax planning, We're handled their
tax prep, and we manage all the portfolios with a
few exclusions. Again, we've talked about this before where for
some of our clients, we carve out what's called a
sandbox account where if that individual who used to always
manage their portfolio still wants to trade a little bit,
buy a few stocks, they can do that. And they
(23:24):
could do that they don't have to kind of worry
about what we're doing with the portfolio. But for the
bulk of the assets that we now manage. And I
will tell you know, when we see this, they're a
little reluctant to give that up at first, I mean,
which is human nature. I get it, you've been doing
this all your life. But once they work with us,
usually I always say between six months nine months in
a year, they start to have this level of confidence
(23:46):
and comfort. This as okay, this is what it looks like.
You know. I've had this that level a peace of
mind for myself, my spouse, and I will say, we've
seen it the other way around, where people don't put
this in place, and that spouse who's remained just has
so much to deal with when they're also grieving. So
it really is something very important to put in place
(24:06):
that you're not having to deal with them. Well, folks,
we're going to go to commercial break but come back
and join us as we continue the discussion. You'll listen
to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bruchet Financial Group,
where we help our clients prioritize their health while we
manage their wealth for life. Come back and join us, folks.
You can email us or give us a call with
your questions. Welcome back, folks. For those of you who
(24:30):
just joining us, my name is Martin Shields. I'm the
chief Wealth Advisor at Bruchet Financial Group and it's great
to be here with you on this scrgeous August morning
to answer any of your investment management or financial planning concerns,
and I encourage you to call in with those questions.
You can reach me at eight hundred talk WUI. That's
(24:51):
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Once again,
that's eight hundred eight two five five nine four I'm
or if you're too shy to be on the radio,
you can email me at ask Bouche at bouche dot com.
That is asked Bouche at Bouche dot com and Bouchet
(25:13):
is spelled b o U c h eu y dot com.
And it's great, as I mentioned earlier, to be with
my colleague Scott Strohecker, who is an enrolled agent that
means he's a tax expert, which he is, and he's
also a CFP and he's an advisor here in the firm.
And as I mentioned in the beginning part of the show,
today is my birthday, so it's great to be here
(25:34):
with you as well. And as I said, that's how
much I enjoy talking about finance and economics and financial
planning that I'm here spend it with you my birthday,
so it's it's great. And now when it comes to
my birthday, I like it real simple, right, I've said
this all, you know. I think keeping life simple is
very important, and there's just a few things that I love. One,
(25:57):
even though my kids are really eighteen to twenty one
years old, the only thing I asked for them is
they still make me hand drawn, hand written cards, and
that is one of the highlights of my birthday. They
do a great job with it and it's just really special.
The other thing is my birthday dinner and we always
just have it at the house and it's always the
(26:17):
same thing. It's a filet of steak. I usually with
a balsamac or like a bourbon glaze. It's scalps. You
just do those nicely, little olive oil, salt pepper on
a black skillet. You got to do them well, but
you know they're great. And then broccolini and then a
(26:38):
little red wine. And usually it's Boston cream pie and
homemade Boston cream pie is just the best. But we're
gonna deviate here, big big change. We're gonna because the
peaches are so good. We're gonna have peach and blueberry cobbler.
So it's that right there. That sums it up. That's
that's my birthday. Can't be any better with that. So
(26:59):
I'll have to ask Scott what his birthday traditions are.
But we have a caller on the line. We have
Tyler from Albany. Tyler, are you there, I'm here.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'm doing well? What can we help you with?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I was just wondering about buying gold? Is it worth
it to investments? Mom? Just some you know, heads, some gold?
Or is it better office putting that extra money into
my ron I ra or maybe something different like bonds?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah? Great question. So, Uh, we don't have any gold
in our portfolio. Uh, And you know we are just
kind of more big believers in having stocks and bonds.
We do have some alternative investments in our portfolio. Uh
you know, I will tell you one. You can put
gold in your IRA. Uh g l D is the ticker,
and uh you know, you can put that ticker uh
(27:59):
in in you know, a brokerage account or an IRA
and uh so you get exposure to gold without having
to buy the physical elements. In general, I would recommend that,
uh you know, because really, if you're gonna be buying gold,
what you want to me, what you're putting there in
for is really a hedge on uncertainty from a global perspective.
You know, it doesn't really work that well from an
(28:22):
inflation perspective, which we saw back you know, when inflation
was so high. Gold didn't do that well during that period.
It's done well more recently, but I think it's more
of a function of you know, concerns over debt with
the uh you know, and the strength of the US dollar.
I think, you know, if the dollar weekends as rates
go down, gold can do well. So you know, if
(28:43):
you want to put one, two, three four percent of
your investment assets into gold, I think that's fine. I
would put more than that, and it's really just a
hedge that if that, if you know, the the national
debt keeps going up and the dollar keeps we getting
there's a good chance goal will do well. I think
the thing you have to appreciate with gold is you're
(29:04):
looking from a historic perspective. Uh, you know, it's very volatile.
It's actually more volatile than stocks are, and there can
be real periods of underperformance relatively speaking, So you have
to be okay with that. So my suggestion to you
is you're putting gold in. It's just a long term hold.
You're not you're not thinking about trading it, and it's
(29:25):
you know, it's at a pretty elevated position right now.
So again, if you're if you're buying it, you're gonna
buy it, You're gonna hold it, and you're just gonna
keep it at you know, somewhere under five percent of
your overall and bestial assets.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Awesome, Thank you so much for a great answer.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I appreciate that you got it. You have a great day. Now.
Well I'll take care, Okay, take care. Good. Good question.
And yeah, I think you know the big element of
that anything is just not going overboard too much. I
see this. You know people have fifty percent of gold
and yeah, it's done done well. But the thing is,
you know, you could have a long period of time
(30:01):
where it's really underperforming and it can be very volatile.
She just have to be aware of that before.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We go on.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Scott, I got I gotta ask you, what's what's your
birthday thing that you do that you're like, that's that's
the highlight of the birthday.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I'm not much of a sweet sky, so I definitely
never really want any cake anything like that.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
If any god, we'll go to.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
The Italian ice route. You know. It's nice and light,
and I have a summer birthday, so it always works
well to cool off with some Italian ice.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Though.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I will have to give a quick plug for my
mother's a banana bread, so I totally am older. She
can make banana bread muffins anytime, and that can serve
as my cake.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That's awesome. I listen, I love some good banana bread.
Nothing as chocolate in there or no no chocolate.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah that's too sweet, too sweet.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Too sweet. Oh my goodness, Scott, I didn't know this
about you. What I do to Scott, He's for a
young guys. He's very health conscious, so it's not surprising.
But well, I won't hold it against you that you
don't like chocolate. That's you know. We each have our shortcomings,
but I won't hold it against you.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
As I like to say, Marty, my wife is sweet enough,
so I don't need any additional tweet.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Is she listening right now? Scott?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
She knows I'm here. I don't know if I told
her the exact way to tune in Kindling the Boys
right now?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So gotcha? Yeah? So for those who don't know, Scott
has two two of the cutest little kids, I'm telling
you these kids are cute, two boys and a lot
of energy, very little So yeah, I can see she's
probably busy right now, probably not listen to the show.
But I once move on to our next topic again.
If you have any questions, you can reach us at
(31:55):
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Again
it's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine,
or you can email us at ask Bouche at bruche
dot com. Let's ask Bouche at bouchet dot com and
bouchet is about bou h e y, I want to
(32:17):
move on to another topic that we talk about this
a lot, but I'm telling you we can't talk about
it enough. It is so important to give you an idea.
In our firm, we are constantly every Monday, we have
our Chief Compliance Officer, Dave Clark, who talks about compliance,
you know, awareness, id ideas, but also cybersecurity. If you
are not hyper aware of protecting yourself and your family
(32:41):
from cybersecurity, you're really putting yourself at jeopardy that something's
going to happen. And we see it all the time
with our clients. And the way I describe this for
our clients is on one side is our financial custodian,
Charles Schwab, and they're fantastic, they really are. They are
very conservative. They are hyper aware of protecting our clients
data and assets, which is so important. And then the
(33:03):
other side of the client and then between them is
us right. And all I mean by that is if
we see, for the most part, anything that's done with Schwab,
our clients go to us right, because that's what we're
there for. Our job is to make their life easy.
And if there's something that needs to be done with
Charles Schwab, you know, updating information, moving money, whatever it is.
They just call us and we do it from But
(33:26):
if we ever see something where they don't go through us,
which can happen if they change an email address or
an address or a phone number, right away we get
notification that's been changed and we're like, wait a second,
they didn't tell us they were changing that, So we're
going to call them and confirm, Hey, we saw this
or we saw trains in your account. Just want to
confirm that you did those or that you change that information.
(33:47):
In ninety percent of time that's the case, but occasionally
it's not right that somebody's email gets hacked, that either
phone gets hacked. The list of you know, situations that
can her and we just had a situation more recently
and between our amazing team here at our firm and Schwab,
who also did a great job, we were able to
(34:10):
find this for a client whose accounts got hacked and
his email got hacked, and we were able to say,
I mean, it was a lot of money that was
going to be moving out of their account and we
were able to protect that and save them on that.
And I just can't tell you you really need to
be hyper aware of you know, never clicking on any
link of any document that you don't know it's absolutely
(34:33):
the right document that you're expecting that that. Never will
Schwab or any big financial institution be calling you asking
for information. Well, I always tell clients if you ever
get that call, what you want to do is turn around,
immediately hang up and or don't respond that text and
call that institution right, call them on the one eight
number that's on their website. And if there is a
(34:55):
real issue or they're trying to do something, now you've
called in five the correct number, and you have to
do that. Never will they do you take that call
and certainly give them any information. And here's the thing is,
whatever it is now, it's going to get that much
more difficult when AI really starts to ramp up. So
we are constantly being educated on the cybersecurity issues. I
(35:18):
will say that's a huge role we play with our
clients protect their data and their investments and their assets,
and our clients rely upon us. And I will tell
you it's not just you know what we call more
mature clients or more you know, older clients. It is
you know individuals. There are executives in their fifties and
forties and sixties that we see this happen to. So
(35:40):
don't think that, hey, you know, I'm smart, I'm young,
this is not going to happen to me. You'd be
surprised how savvy these individuals are. And we're going to
have a webinar coming up in September on this, Scott
is anything you want to share from your perspective when
it comes to cybersecurity.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, these fraudsters really come at you in all different ways.
I mean you'll see it with phone calls, email, social
media messages. So it's really important to first of all,
just take a step back and think what is really
being asked of you. As Marty said, you know, you
typically won't have a first contact with a bank or
(36:19):
a government agency, you know, via a text message or
an email, So you definitely want to make sure what's
going on, verify the information, you know, go directly to
the institution's website, look at their information. You know, I
as an example, you know, sometimes get these text messages there.
(36:42):
You know that you get a spam number that pops
up coming from you know, they leave a message and
it's from Social Security Administration in my case, just given
my age, I know, I'm not dealing with you know,
any Social Security benefits for myself, so I'm easily able
to identify its fraud. But again, they are getting better
in sophisticated in their systems that they try to get
(37:04):
information from you. And as Marty said at the beginning
of the show, you know, kids are going off to college,
you know, in the next couple of weeks, some of
them might already be there, you know, so for your
kids or grandkids, you know, some of the different schemes
that they use is you know, uh, you know, saying
that your child, their grandchild's you know, in dangers, having
(37:24):
a problem and you need to act immediately. So it's
just want to keep it in the back of your mind.
And again we really stress the importance of it. And
you know, we'll definitely have a lot of useful information
in our upcoming webinar which will be about middle of
September time, so feel free to tune into that to
get some more helpful information.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Great perspective, Scott, Yeah, So one of that's one of
the things they do is they put the sense of
urgency and uh, you know, scare into you that you're like, oh,
my gosh, I'm telling you, we've heard situations about people
getting calls that somebody's been abducted or you know, that's
some something's happening to one of your kids or grandkids.
So it is absolutely the case that that's their goal
(38:10):
is to make you feel like I've got to act now,
I've got to you know, do this right away or
this person that I love, because something can happen to them,
or something can happen to one of my accounts. And
also sometimes it's just the law. You're thinking like, oh, okay,
you know you get those texts about hey, you got
to pay the toll for the you know, the throughway
that like okay, I mean, it doesn't seem outrageous right
(38:31):
if you if your easy past wasn't working. So again,
all I'm going to tell you is whatever it is now,
it's going to ramp up. And as Scott mentioned, I
think it's also very important I did this with my
kids that you know, to go through with your kids
or grand skid kids to make sure that they are
protected right, make sure that they're even though they're tech savvy, uh,
they can also be manipulated under this, So just very
(38:53):
important let's move on some other topics, and again you
can reach us at eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine or at Askbouchet at Bruche dot com
with any questions you may have. One of the things
I want to talk about this is a really interesting idea,
which is for individuals that are still working and they
(39:16):
are over the can go ahead and get uh, put
their put their assets in their fohe K, continue to
contribute to those four and K and not have to
take an R and D in those assets. Uh. That
that's a really powerful thing. So if you think about it,
if right now the rm D AH require a minium
(39:38):
distribute distribution age for an IRA is seventy three and
in general as you start off, that R and D
amount is around three and a half percent.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
If you don't need those dollars and you can delay
taking them and you have you're still working. So again
in that regard, you probably don't need those dollars because
you're still working. Even if you're working part time and
you have access to our form and K to be
able to put it in you can you don't have
to take that rm D. So that's a great strategy
(40:11):
that we go through with our clients that are in
that situation. Now. The one thing to remember though is
the year that you actually retire, then you have to
take your rm D. So for example, if you were
going to retire this year and you're waiting till very
end of December to do it, even though that ninety
(40:31):
nine percent of that year you were working. The year
that you retire, even if it's December thirty first, you
have to take your R and D for that year.
So just a reminder with that. The other thing is
this only works where you don't own five percent of
more of the entity. So for small business owners or
if you're a partner somewhere, this does not work. If
you own more than five percent of that entity, you
(40:54):
can't do this. You're required to take your R and
D at that age. So just something to be aware
of as you you know, kind of think about, you know,
ways to reduce having to take your R and D.
But also when you make a determination as to when
you retire, we always give guidance to clients that are
in the situation to try to do it on January first,
(41:15):
versus the end of December or January, just to make
sure they don't have to take that R and D
for that year. Let's go on to a couple different topics. Again,
we talked about this. We write a lot of blogs.
If you go to our website at Bouchet dot com,
you can see those blogs. It's a lot of great
insight for myself. You can go onto my LinkedIn page.
(41:37):
I put a lot of information out there. I also
have a blog that I write on as well, because
I'd like to write quite frequently, and that's Peace of
Mind Economics is my blog, Peace of Mind Economics, And
I wrote one on expectations management. And this is a
term and an idea that I think it's just so
important in life. I talk about it with our team
(42:00):
to make sure that when we're talking with clients that
we set their expectations on whatever it is, whether it's
you know, getting them something that they request or you know,
what it means to be a client of ours for
our first year, that we set those expectations properly and
that we meet or exceed those expectations. Because what you
start to appreciate in life is that so much of
(42:22):
what your takeout is of you know, whether it's a
trip or whether it's you know, working whatever it is
in life, a meal is what your expectations are. So
if you have extremely high expectations and then the reality
is that the actual experience is only going to meet
that if the reality is that much better, right, Or
(42:44):
if you have very low expectations and the situation is
not as bad as you expect, you like that actually
wasn't that bad because you had very low expectation. So
that is something I just think is so important. I
talked to my kids about this as well, which is
just trying to manage, you know, your expectations of anything,
and in general, with our team, our goal is to
(43:05):
always exceed our client's expectation. And if you can set
the right expectations and then exceed them almost all the time,
that person that is experiencing that is going to be
very happy. The other element is this is true in
economic data and also with corporate earnings. Right. You may
see this and I get questions from clients they say, Marty,
(43:26):
you know, so and so reported earnings and it seemed
like it was good versus you know, prior months or
a year ago, And I will say yes, But there's
two elements. Either their forecast of what to expect for
the rest of the year was not what was expected, right,
so that's a problem. Or their earnings or their revenue
came in below expectations, right, And that's that really really,
(43:49):
and that's why I talk about in the blog, which
is you look at that so much of what's going
on in the markets is how are earnings performing versus
analyst expectations, and how are earnings being forecasted versus analysts expectations.
And in those situations where we're exceeding those expectations, then
that's when things really take off. And you know, with
(44:12):
these high growth companies, even if they miss earnings by
just a fraction or if they just come in just
slightly above, you can see one of those high growth
companies like Pallenteer really get hammered because people are expecting,
you know, really great things from these high growth companies,
right like Navidia. They're always even though expectations are high,
(44:33):
they usually come through and beat those expectations. So it
could even be a situation where you know, they exceed expectations,
but they don't exceed them by as much as they
have been in the past. Same thing with any economic data,
you know, the inflation report that came out for July,
as I mentioned, wasn't great. I mean it actually increased,
(44:55):
but it was below what expectations were with these tariffs
in place. And so that's just very important in every
aspect of your life. But as an investor, you have
to be aware of that is not just what is
happening with this data, but how does it compare to expectations.
And once you understand that, you know it really gives
(45:16):
you a different perspective of what that data means. And
also you know how important those expectations are to the
market's performance. So again, if you want to get a chance,
you can also I have a whole bunch of other
blogs on my blog a Peace of Mind Economics, or
through my LinkedIn page or through Bouchet dot Com. Lots
(45:37):
of great information out there. Also our webinars in our
State of the Economy presentation we put out there. So
our State of the Economy presentation is what we do
with our clients in the beginning of the year, and
it's a lunch and a dinner where we outline our
thoughts on the markets, the economy and also some tax
planning pieces to be aware of. So I would encourage
(45:58):
you to go look at those to get some good
ideas that you can incorporate in your own personal situation. Well,
we're going to be wrapping up here, but before we
do again, if you have any questions, you can reach
us at eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
But what I want to do is have Scott if
you could just share with the listeners what you think
(46:18):
are one or two highlights of the big beautiful bill.
You and Vincenzo did a great job in the webinar,
and I would encourage our listeners to go look at
that tax webinar that you guys did last month. But
what what's one or two things that most people should
be aware of from that bill that you think are
the most valuable to taxpayers? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Absolutely so. The entire bill, you know, was about seven
hundred and fifty so pages. Half of that had to
do with tax related items, so there was a lot
that was put through. But to hit some of the highlights,
you know, you probably have heard about the salt cap,
the state local taxes, and the cap you to be
(47:00):
at ten thousand dollars didn't matter whether you were single
or married. Filing jointly but now that cap has increased
up to forty thousand dollars and that's you know, starting
this year twenty twenty five and goes through twenty twenty nine,
so that is a nice increase. There is an income
(47:20):
phase out there, so you want to be aware of that,
and with a lot of these other items, I'll hit
another one, but you just want to be aware of. Okay,
there is this amount, but you know, what is the
income phase out, if any, and also how long is
it going to be in place for because some of them,
you know, similar to the salt cap, are only around
(47:42):
for a few years. We did see the income tax brackets,
you know, they were made permanent, so we go from
you know, ten percent all the way up to the
thirty seven percent tax bracket. So the other one i'll
highlight here. Addition the salt cap, we do have the
(48:02):
new senior deduction. So that's for individuals that are sixty
five and older. There's a six thousand dollars deduction that
each person over the age of sixty five of them,
you know, the tax return will receive. That doesn't matter
whether you're taking the standard deduction or itemizing as well. Again,
(48:22):
it does have a phase out, so that's another one.
But again, as Marty said, we have some great content
that we put out in a webinar and we do
have a fact sheet as well that you can find
on our website to get some more information. We're just
coming up against the end of the hour and end
of the show, so feel free to check out our
(48:43):
website for some more information there.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Thank you Scott, always great insight, and I will tell
you for our clients to have people like Scott and
vincenzol On to give them guidance on what they need
to do is invaluable. Well, folks, we spend an hour
together as always has been great. If you want, I
will be here tomorrow to do the show as well,
so join in. Then you listen to Let's Talk Money,
brought to you by a Bouchet Finance group, where we
help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their
(49:08):
wealth to life. Folks, take care of yourself and take
care of each other.
Good morning everyone. My name is Martin Shields. I'm the
chief Wealth Advisor at Bruchet Finance Group, and it's great
to be your host today for Let's Talk Money. It
is an absolutely stunning day as I look out the
window here, and I will tell you this weekend's always
one of my favorites, and there's a number of reasons. One,
(00:22):
it's Travers weekend, so it is always busy in Saratoga,
a lot of energy. And then two, you know, kind
of it's a transition weekend. I've got two of our
oldest going off to college, kids getting ready for school,
maybe starting sports. And three, maybe most importantly, today in particular,
is my birthday. August twenty third is my birthday. And
(00:46):
you know, I'm one of those people that I like
my birthday still. I'm not young anymore, but I'm still
okay with it. I like to celebrate it. So it's
great to be here with you to answer any questions
you may have regarding your financial planning concerns or investment
manager concerns. I just got a text from my colleagues,
including our producer, saying happy birthday, so I didn't share
(01:09):
that with her before, but yes, it's great to be
here with you, and that shows you two things. One,
I'm not young anymore. I've actually be turning fifty. I've
just turned fifty six, so you know, back in the day,
I might be tired from going out or whatever. But
you know, we went to John Baptist last night, so
it was a pretty mellow night. And then two, you
(01:29):
know if I'm doing the show that I really love
to do the show. I wouldn't be doing this show
if I didn't love to do it. So it's great
to be here with you to answer any questions. And
I'm fortunate enough to be joined by my colleague Scott Strohecker.
Scott is in a role agent, he's a CFP, he's
one of our advisors, and not just that, but he's
a top match guy as well. So Scott is great
(01:51):
to have you with me on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Thanks Marty, it's a pleasure to be here. And happy
birthday again. I was unaware, so I'm glad to be
able to join you on your special day.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, it's good to have you here. It's good to
have you here. So a lot to discuss, as always,
on financial planning topics and also on the markets. Big
day yesterday in the markets with basically an announcement from J.
Paul that there's probably a high likelihood of a rate
cut in September. With all the industries, we're real close
(02:26):
to all time highs a little bit off. The S
and P is up about ten percent for the year,
and the NASA queues, which we're big holders of, is
up almost twelve percent for the year. So another great
year in the markets, and you know, with the Fed
potentially lowering rates, with the economic data kind of still
(02:46):
in this middle ground of some good news some bad news,
which is okay, and with corporate profits still coming in
very strong, you know, it's setting up to continue to
be another great year in the markets. But if you
have any questions, you can reach us at eight hundred
talk WI. That's eight hundred eight two five five nine
(03:06):
four nine. Again that's eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine, or you can email us at ask
Bruche at bruche dot com. That's ask Bruche at bruche
dot com. And Bouche is spelled b O U c
h e y dot com. So we always love to
(03:27):
have you call in and to chat and give us
you know, your questions over the radio over the phone,
but if you are too shy you want to email,
that's fine as well. As I always say, uh, you know,
there's no dumber, silly question except for the one you
don't ask. And you may be doing your fellow listener
(03:48):
a favor by asking that question. Right, they had that
same question, but they're a little bit too nervous or
concern or whatever, uh to actually actually go ahead and
ask that question. So again, you can email us or
give us a call, and we can give you some guidance.
Let's just chat a little bit about yesterday with Jay Powell.
So you know, it's one of those things where it's
(04:12):
interesting how much the market focuses on what the Federal
Reserve is going to do. Right, And as we've talked
about before, the Federal Reserve only controls the Federal Fund rate,
and that is the very short term rates, basically an
over nine overnight rate that with a FED lends to
banks or other banks lend the banks. The rest of
(04:33):
the rates, and what I mean by the rest of
the rates, the three months, the two year, the ten year,
the thirty year mortgages, those are actually controlled by the market. Right.
The Fed does not control those rates. Now, in general,
the FAT does have ways of somewhat manipulating those rates.
They could be doing what's called quantitative and easy, where
(04:55):
they actually are going out and buying bonds, or quantitative
tightening where they're actually selling bonds in those categories. But
as a general rule, they only control the short term rate.
And it is possible that as the FED lowers these
short term rates that it doesn't impact the long term rates.
That can actually happen, but it does start to set
(05:19):
the tone if the Fed is going to start lowering
rates that those longer data rates usually come down. And
that's a good thing, right, if you're going to go
out and buy a car, if you're going to go
out and get a mortgage, if you're a business, then
you know, having that those rates be lower, that's a
real positive. And you think about it for businesses, you know,
(05:41):
small businesses or corporations, having those rates lower is a
good thing. The other thing is when we talk about
profits and cash flow from an analysis perspective, people discount
those cash flows with interest rates, So they're looking at
future cash flows and discounting them to the current value. Well,
the lower the interest rate is that you're discounting against
(06:04):
the better those profits look. So that's another thing that
those lower rates do. So again, it's not just an
absolute given that this is going to be going to happen.
It's about an eighty percent chance now, but it's also
you know, just that anticipation that the market's railing to
this all time highs. But really one of the most
(06:24):
important reasons is that corporate profits are really quite strong.
They continue to be quite strong. Well, we're going to go
to the phone lines we have Allen from Glenville. Allen,
are you there, Yes, good morning, can you hear me?
I can. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Good? Happy birthday?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Quick question. I'm gonna piggyback a little bit about what
you're talking about with the long term rates. I was
rather shocked yesterday that the thirty year tea bill only
dropped four basis points. On that note, do you feel
(07:08):
the bond market is still pricing in a lot more
inflation to come? And just so, do you think the
Federal Reserve will retrack their decision to cut rates. We'll
send a message to the market. Inflation's a little more
worrisome than we thought. I'd like to get your thoughts and.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
All the way your answer, right, that's a great question. Alan.
So the Federal Reserve has what's called a dual mandate.
The dual mandate looks at two things. They basically are
looking for full employment, so they're really trying to make
sure that as many people are working as possible, and
we're really almost there with our current unemployment rate. It
(07:52):
can be a little bit lower, but we're really kind
of almost at that full employment level. And then the
other thing is price stabilisation, and all that means is
you want to have really not much inflation. The target
is two percent right now where it you know, it
depends on what you're looking at, but somewhere between two
point seven to three point one if you strip out
(08:13):
some elements of inflation and a little bit. That problem
with that is that it actually bumped up last month
versus the prior month. Now, the big question, and this
goes to Allen's point, which is is that just a
one time piece because of some of these tariffs, and
is that as high as it going to go? Or
(08:35):
you know, are these tariffs that are going into place,
are they going to really start kicking in? And then
what happens with that is there's a little bit of
a feedback loop, right which you start having those higher prices,
then it becomes problematic where you know, if my prices
go up because the tariffs, I might write raise prices
and then other people may fall suit with that. So
(08:56):
I think this is what I would say, Allen. I
think in general the Federal Reserve in jpol is going
to maybe lower rates because they're concerned more so about
the labor side. And also a little bit that right now,
those prices did not pop by as much as anticipated, right,
I think people were expecting inflation actually be a little
(09:19):
bit higher with the tariffs in place. But I've said
this all along. I mean, he J. Paul made a
mistake of calling it transitory back three years ago when
we had inflation, and he does not want to do
that again.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
This is what happened back in the seventies, which is,
you know, they started to get inflation under control, they
started to lower interust rates, and then inflation would pop
back up. And that happened a multiple number of times.
And you think about the seventies. Nobody looks at the
seventies said boy, that was a great economic time. That
(09:54):
was a time of stagflation, of high inflation, of limited growth.
And you know, there's a lot of difference between the seventies,
which really was an oil based economy relatively speaking, and
we had very high oil prices because we were completely
dependent upon outside producers, which is not the case now.
Now We're all things considered, we produce more oil and
(10:17):
natural gas than we consume. We're actually net exporters of
those two versus importers, so we're in a much different
environment here. But I think, Allen, I do think the
market as we talk about this, I think the market
is still concerned over two items. One inflation and where
we stand with that, and two overall debt that exists
(10:39):
both from a corporate perspective, but really from a government perspective.
You know, we've talked about this for many years now,
which is at some point, this is this is this
comment of some point has been I've been making that
statement for about probably almost ten years. At some point
the bond market is going to be concerned about how
much debt is out there, and you know how much
(11:01):
we're going to continue to add to it. And right now,
under the current budget scheme, we'll be adding trillions of
dollars of debt annally as we move forward. So you know,
I think you got those two elements. They're keeping those
higher interest rates. You know, they're pretty elevated. They're not
coming down, and that's a problem for businesses and consumers, right,
(11:23):
you know, you cannot actually you know, if you're going
to keep those mortgages higher, well, you know, it's not
going to stimulate action over in the mortgage and the
real estate market. It's just too high. So again, I
think there's a likelihood that you'll probably see a rate
cut in September. But I also think it's really contingent
(11:46):
upon where, you know, are the labor markets going and
versus where that inflation number is going, and that's that
balancing act that the Federal Reserves dealing with. And I
also think that J. Paul does not want to be
presigned over an economy that starts to overheat. Again, the
only statement I have to say, though, is you know,
he only has another six to nine months in that role,
(12:10):
and I think the next chair is going to be
much more aggressive in luring rates, and that's certainly what
President Trump is looking to do. We're going to go
to the emails. We have an email from Becky. Hello,
what are your thoughts on treasury notes in the current market.
I'm concerning purchasing a two year Treasury note for ten
(12:32):
thousand dollars. I think, Becky, it just depends on what
your goal is with that money. Right, If you want
to lock in some of these rates for two years,
so you have that kind of set in case rates
go down and you want something very conservative, then I
think buying a two year treasury note can be great.
(12:53):
The thing to remember with treasuries is that they do
not get tax by New York State. That's a real
nice benefit that income that's produced. Uh. And they're very
liquid and very safe. Right if if if Becky had
to sell that to your treasury, there's a big market
to buy it. Uh, they're gonna there's not gonna be
(13:13):
a lot of price fluctuations like you could be with
a corporate bond. So uh, you know, I think again,
if the goal here is to kind of lock in
that rate for two years, uh, you know that ten
thousand dollars uh is not something that you need and
you wanted to be invested very conservatively. I think it's
a good approach. I think it's a good approach. Well,
let's kind of keep moving on. You know. One of
(13:36):
the other things I just want to be bringing up
is we get questions all the time regarding you know,
how should you have assets titled? Uh, you know, and
it's really from a joint perspective, and I think there's
a couple of things to appreciate. One, when you talk
about federal estate taxes, Uh, most people do not worry
(13:58):
about that these days. H if that that amount is
up over thirteen million dollars per person, so twenty six
million dollars per couple. And also that exclusion amount of
thirteen million can move back and forth between individuals and
who are married, and they don't have to worry how
it's titled. So you can title every asset in one
(14:19):
spouse's name, and you don't have to worry that, oh,
you're not going to be able to take advantage of
the thirteen million dollars that that twenty six million dollars
is really per couple. Now in New York State, though
it's different, the exclusion amount for New York State tax
is seven point let's just say seven point two million dollars.
(14:40):
But that's what's different is you can't move it back
and forth. It's based on how assets are titled. So
you have to make sure that assets are titled properly
so that if you put them all in one spouse's
name and they're up over that amount, they could you
can have a situation where you have to pay New
York estate tax even though let's say you only have
(15:02):
an estate of eight million dollars. The other thing that's
important to know is that if you are let's say
one hundred and one percent over that seven point two million,
so it's just over that, then only that slight amount
over that amount that you will have to pay state
taxes on. But if you are greater than one hundred
(15:23):
and five percent, so let's say the value of your
estate in that person's name who passes is up over
one hundred and five percent, so it's aout one hundred
and six percent, what happens New York state tax is
applied to the full amount you're the full amount of
your estate for that person gets hit with the New
York state tax. So it's this cliff. So you really
(15:43):
want to make sure that if you're as your state
grows as your network grows that your assets are titled properly.
And one of the things that I want my colleague
Scott to kind of provide some perspective on is what
happens when you have these assets tied and how are
they taxed if you pass so, Scott, could you provide
(16:04):
some color on that, whether you're owning them jointly versus
owning them individually, and what does that mean from as
far as estate taxes and also if they get a
step up in cost bases or not.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, As Marty was talking about, it is very
important to look at how you have assets titled. Whether
it's your home or a brokerage account, bank account. These
are assets that are included in one's estate depending exactly
how it's titled, and there could be large tax ramifications
(16:41):
of being over that threshold, even if you're not subject
to the estate tax, because federally it's about fourteen, you know,
million dollars per person or twenty six twenty million for couples,
and then New York State's about seven million dollars per person.
Even if that isn't an issue for you, you still want
(17:02):
to think about how to have assets titled, because you know,
upon passing, you do get a step up in cost basis.
So let me use a quick example here. If you
have a joint taxable account brokerage count it's invested. You
know you initially you and your spouse put in five
(17:23):
hundred thousand dollars. It's now appreciated or grown to a
million dollars. You have five hundred thousand dollars of gains there.
If one of you was to pass away, you would
get a half a step up because that person passed away.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So there.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Half of your game basically would be wiped away because
again you start out with five hundred thousand dollars of
cost bass two fifty for each of you, and with
having that million dollars, the person that passes away their
portion now has a new cost basis of a half
a million dollars, so it gets you do a new
cost basis of seven hundred and fifty. So you really
(18:05):
want to think about how to have it titled, because
again you do get a step up each time a
spouse passes away. And then again if you know, unfortunately
you were to both pass away at the same time.
Let's say you know you've essentially wiped away all of
the gains. So looking at how you have assets titled
is really important, whether it comes to investment accounts or
(18:29):
even property as well.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Great perspectives Scott, Yet it is people don't put enough
time to think about it. Again. You know, the more
networth you have, the larger your networth is, the more complexity,
have more different asset classes, you have more real estate,
you have different businesses. It becomes extremely important that you
have the right estate documents in place, things are titled properly.
(18:53):
I'll give you an example. We met with a couple
great clients of our has been on for almost coming
on thirty years and they have a lot of real
estate and it's rental real estate. So what we, along
with their estate planning attorney, gave guidance was for the
properties where the husband manage, put those in his name
(19:15):
and because the idea is if he were to pass
that she's going to sell them. She's not going to
manage them and she's not going to have somebody to
manage them, So put them in his name and that
way when he if you were to pass before her,
then she's going to sell them. But she's going to
get a full step up in cost basis, so there's
no capital gains to selling those positions, and so it
(19:38):
works out really nicely from both in estate planning because
then a lot of the other assets are in her
name to kind of balance that off. But from a
gains perspective and just how to handle those properties going forward,
it's a good setup. And that's something I always tell
any individuals, especially if like this where you have a rental,
(20:01):
real estate, or if you have a business, you have
to have a plan in place in case something happens
to that spouse who's managing that entity. Right, you know,
if something happens to that spouse where they're managing the business,
what happens? And actually, I'm going to throw this back
over to Scott because he's with us at our firm
(20:22):
and we're so fortunate to have him because he worked
with a another firm where it was just one individual
that owned the firm, another fee only firm, great firm,
but the individual unfortunately died very quickly and did have
a plan in place, and it left everything up in
the air. Is now to handle? Scott, why don't you
provide some perspective on that because you actually lived through
(20:44):
this and kind of what the challenges are if you
don't have that plan in place.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, as Marty talked about, prior to joining the team
here at Bouchet, I was working another fee only firm,
really small shop. I was there for about eight years,
and then you know, suddenly the owner ended up getting sick,
you know, with some cancer, and then within a couple
of months ended up passing away. You know, he had
(21:11):
started talks of you know, what is up for him,
and you know, succession planning, but you know everything hadn't
been uh worked out yet, so in the end, you know,
there wasn't a plan in place. The estate ended up
taking over and trying to figure out where to land,
you know, the business, what to do with it. And
(21:32):
because of that transition, you know, I ended up, you know,
not really having a clear future.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Fortunate enough to land with Bouchet. But having a plan
in place for everybody, you know, not only for business owners,
but even just your overall estate is really important, just
to help you know the next in line, know whether
you have employees or even family, just pick up the pieces,
or at least know what your intention is. In this case,
(22:00):
there was a bit of uncertainty and for me. You know,
I was fortunate enough to land with the team here,
But it really comes down to proper planning and making
sure that you have, you know, these plans in place
to go forward.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, we see more and more situations where we have
clients new clients coming on where it's a very couple. Uh.
We have one I love them, just amazing clients. She's
accounts payable and he accounts receivable, so she pays all
the bills and he handles all the investment accounts and everything.
But they came on and started working with us because
(22:39):
as they were getting older, he was concerned that if
something would happen to him, you know, that she would
now have to deal with all the investments and all
the nuances with that. And also from a tax perspective, uh,
you know, with a colleague like Scott On who's an
enrolled agent and we have another colleague, Vincento Testa that
with some of our clients we do tax prep for
as well. That with that, we are now doing that
(23:02):
for them. We're handling their tax planning, We're handled their
tax prep, and we manage all the portfolios with a
few exclusions. Again, we've talked about this before where for
some of our clients, we carve out what's called a
sandbox account where if that individual who used to always
manage their portfolio still wants to trade a little bit,
buy a few stocks, they can do that. And they
(23:24):
could do that they don't have to kind of worry
about what we're doing with the portfolio. But for the
bulk of the assets that we now manage. And I
will tell you know, when we see this, they're a
little reluctant to give that up at first, I mean,
which is human nature. I get it, you've been doing
this all your life. But once they work with us,
usually I always say between six months nine months in
a year, they start to have this level of confidence
(23:46):
and comfort. This as okay, this is what it looks like.
You know. I've had this that level a peace of
mind for myself, my spouse, and I will say, we've
seen it the other way around, where people don't put
this in place, and that spouse who's remained just has
so much to deal with when they're also grieving. So
it really is something very important to put in place
(24:06):
that you're not having to deal with them. Well, folks,
we're going to go to commercial break but come back
and join us as we continue the discussion. You'll listen
to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bruchet Financial Group,
where we help our clients prioritize their health while we
manage their wealth for life. Come back and join us, folks.
You can email us or give us a call with
your questions. Welcome back, folks. For those of you who
(24:30):
just joining us, my name is Martin Shields. I'm the
chief Wealth Advisor at Bruchet Financial Group and it's great
to be here with you on this scrgeous August morning
to answer any of your investment management or financial planning concerns,
and I encourage you to call in with those questions.
You can reach me at eight hundred talk WUI. That's
(24:51):
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Once again,
that's eight hundred eight two five five nine four I'm
or if you're too shy to be on the radio,
you can email me at ask Bouche at bouche dot com.
That is asked Bouche at Bouche dot com and Bouchet
(25:13):
is spelled b o U c h eu y dot com.
And it's great, as I mentioned earlier, to be with
my colleague Scott Strohecker, who is an enrolled agent that
means he's a tax expert, which he is, and he's
also a CFP and he's an advisor here in the firm.
And as I mentioned in the beginning part of the show,
today is my birthday, so it's great to be here
(25:34):
with you as well. And as I said, that's how
much I enjoy talking about finance and economics and financial
planning that I'm here spend it with you my birthday,
so it's it's great. And now when it comes to
my birthday, I like it real simple, right, I've said
this all, you know. I think keeping life simple is
very important, and there's just a few things that I love. One,
(25:57):
even though my kids are really eighteen to twenty one
years old, the only thing I asked for them is
they still make me hand drawn, hand written cards, and
that is one of the highlights of my birthday. They
do a great job with it and it's just really special.
The other thing is my birthday dinner and we always
just have it at the house and it's always the
(26:17):
same thing. It's a filet of steak. I usually with
a balsamac or like a bourbon glaze. It's scalps. You
just do those nicely, little olive oil, salt pepper on
a black skillet. You got to do them well, but
you know they're great. And then broccolini and then a
(26:38):
little red wine. And usually it's Boston cream pie and
homemade Boston cream pie is just the best. But we're
gonna deviate here, big big change. We're gonna because the
peaches are so good. We're gonna have peach and blueberry cobbler.
So it's that right there. That sums it up. That's
that's my birthday. Can't be any better with that. So
(26:59):
I'll have to ask Scott what his birthday traditions are.
But we have a caller on the line. We have
Tyler from Albany. Tyler, are you there, I'm here.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'm doing well? What can we help you with?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I was just wondering about buying gold? Is it worth
it to investments? Mom? Just some you know, heads, some gold?
Or is it better office putting that extra money into
my ron I ra or maybe something different like bonds?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah? Great question. So, Uh, we don't have any gold
in our portfolio. Uh, And you know we are just
kind of more big believers in having stocks and bonds.
We do have some alternative investments in our portfolio. Uh
you know, I will tell you one. You can put
gold in your IRA. Uh g l D is the ticker,
and uh you know, you can put that ticker uh
(27:59):
in in you know, a brokerage account or an IRA
and uh so you get exposure to gold without having
to buy the physical elements. In general, I would recommend that,
uh you know, because really, if you're gonna be buying gold,
what you want to me, what you're putting there in
for is really a hedge on uncertainty from a global perspective.
You know, it doesn't really work that well from an
(28:22):
inflation perspective, which we saw back you know, when inflation
was so high. Gold didn't do that well during that period.
It's done well more recently, but I think it's more
of a function of you know, concerns over debt with
the uh you know, and the strength of the US dollar.
I think, you know, if the dollar weekends as rates
go down, gold can do well. So you know, if
(28:43):
you want to put one, two, three four percent of
your investment assets into gold, I think that's fine. I
would put more than that, and it's really just a
hedge that if that, if you know, the the national
debt keeps going up and the dollar keeps we getting
there's a good chance goal will do well. I think
the thing you have to appreciate with gold is you're
(29:04):
looking from a historic perspective. Uh, you know, it's very volatile.
It's actually more volatile than stocks are, and there can
be real periods of underperformance relatively speaking, So you have
to be okay with that. So my suggestion to you
is you're putting gold in. It's just a long term hold.
You're not you're not thinking about trading it, and it's
(29:25):
you know, it's at a pretty elevated position right now.
So again, if you're if you're buying it, you're gonna
buy it, You're gonna hold it, and you're just gonna
keep it at you know, somewhere under five percent of
your overall and bestial assets.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Awesome, Thank you so much for a great answer.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I appreciate that you got it. You have a great day. Now.
Well I'll take care, Okay, take care. Good. Good question.
And yeah, I think you know the big element of
that anything is just not going overboard too much. I
see this. You know people have fifty percent of gold
and yeah, it's done done well. But the thing is,
you know, you could have a long period of time
(30:01):
where it's really underperforming and it can be very volatile.
She just have to be aware of that before.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We go on.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Scott, I got I gotta ask you, what's what's your
birthday thing that you do that you're like, that's that's
the highlight of the birthday.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I'm not much of a sweet sky, so I definitely
never really want any cake anything like that.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
If any god, we'll go to.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
The Italian ice route. You know. It's nice and light,
and I have a summer birthday, so it always works
well to cool off with some Italian ice.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Though.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I will have to give a quick plug for my
mother's a banana bread, so I totally am older. She
can make banana bread muffins anytime, and that can serve
as my cake.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
That's awesome. I listen, I love some good banana bread.
Nothing as chocolate in there or no no chocolate.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah that's too sweet, too sweet.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Too sweet. Oh my goodness, Scott, I didn't know this
about you. What I do to Scott, He's for a
young guys. He's very health conscious, so it's not surprising.
But well, I won't hold it against you that you
don't like chocolate. That's you know. We each have our shortcomings,
but I won't hold it against you.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
As I like to say, Marty, my wife is sweet enough,
so I don't need any additional tweet.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Is she listening right now? Scott?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
She knows I'm here. I don't know if I told
her the exact way to tune in Kindling the Boys
right now?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So gotcha? Yeah? So for those who don't know, Scott
has two two of the cutest little kids, I'm telling
you these kids are cute, two boys and a lot
of energy, very little So yeah, I can see she's
probably busy right now, probably not listen to the show.
But I once move on to our next topic again.
If you have any questions, you can reach us at
(31:55):
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Again
it's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine,
or you can email us at ask Bouche at bruche
dot com. Let's ask Bouche at bouchet dot com and
bouchet is about bou h e y, I want to
(32:17):
move on to another topic that we talk about this
a lot, but I'm telling you we can't talk about
it enough. It is so important to give you an idea.
In our firm, we are constantly every Monday, we have
our Chief Compliance Officer, Dave Clark, who talks about compliance,
you know, awareness, id ideas, but also cybersecurity. If you
are not hyper aware of protecting yourself and your family
(32:41):
from cybersecurity, you're really putting yourself at jeopardy that something's
going to happen. And we see it all the time
with our clients. And the way I describe this for
our clients is on one side is our financial custodian,
Charles Schwab, and they're fantastic, they really are. They are
very conservative. They are hyper aware of protecting our clients
data and assets, which is so important. And then the
(33:03):
other side of the client and then between them is
us right. And all I mean by that is if
we see, for the most part, anything that's done with Schwab,
our clients go to us right, because that's what we're
there for. Our job is to make their life easy.
And if there's something that needs to be done with
Charles Schwab, you know, updating information, moving money, whatever it is.
They just call us and we do it from But
(33:26):
if we ever see something where they don't go through us,
which can happen if they change an email address or
an address or a phone number, right away we get
notification that's been changed and we're like, wait a second,
they didn't tell us they were changing that, So we're
going to call them and confirm, Hey, we saw this
or we saw trains in your account. Just want to
confirm that you did those or that you change that information.
(33:47):
In ninety percent of time that's the case, but occasionally
it's not right that somebody's email gets hacked, that either
phone gets hacked. The list of you know, situations that
can her and we just had a situation more recently
and between our amazing team here at our firm and Schwab,
who also did a great job, we were able to
(34:10):
find this for a client whose accounts got hacked and
his email got hacked, and we were able to say,
I mean, it was a lot of money that was
going to be moving out of their account and we
were able to protect that and save them on that.
And I just can't tell you you really need to
be hyper aware of you know, never clicking on any
link of any document that you don't know it's absolutely
(34:33):
the right document that you're expecting that that. Never will
Schwab or any big financial institution be calling you asking
for information. Well, I always tell clients if you ever
get that call, what you want to do is turn around,
immediately hang up and or don't respond that text and
call that institution right, call them on the one eight
number that's on their website. And if there is a
(34:55):
real issue or they're trying to do something, now you've
called in five the correct number, and you have to
do that. Never will they do you take that call
and certainly give them any information. And here's the thing is,
whatever it is now, it's going to get that much
more difficult when AI really starts to ramp up. So
we are constantly being educated on the cybersecurity issues. I
(35:18):
will say that's a huge role we play with our
clients protect their data and their investments and their assets,
and our clients rely upon us. And I will tell
you it's not just you know what we call more
mature clients or more you know, older clients. It is
you know individuals. There are executives in their fifties and
forties and sixties that we see this happen to. So
(35:40):
don't think that, hey, you know, I'm smart, I'm young,
this is not going to happen to me. You'd be
surprised how savvy these individuals are. And we're going to
have a webinar coming up in September on this, Scott
is anything you want to share from your perspective when
it comes to cybersecurity.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, these fraudsters really come at you in all different ways.
I mean you'll see it with phone calls, email, social
media messages. So it's really important to first of all,
just take a step back and think what is really
being asked of you. As Marty said, you know, you
typically won't have a first contact with a bank or
(36:19):
a government agency, you know, via a text message or
an email, So you definitely want to make sure what's
going on, verify the information, you know, go directly to
the institution's website, look at their information. You know, I
as an example, you know, sometimes get these text messages there.
(36:42):
You know that you get a spam number that pops
up coming from you know, they leave a message and
it's from Social Security Administration in my case, just given
my age, I know, I'm not dealing with you know,
any Social Security benefits for myself, so I'm easily able
to identify its fraud. But again, they are getting better
in sophisticated in their systems that they try to get
(37:04):
information from you. And as Marty said at the beginning
of the show, you know, kids are going off to college,
you know, in the next couple of weeks, some of
them might already be there, you know, so for your
kids or grandkids, you know, some of the different schemes
that they use is you know, uh, you know, saying
that your child, their grandchild's you know, in dangers, having
(37:24):
a problem and you need to act immediately. So it's
just want to keep it in the back of your mind.
And again we really stress the importance of it. And
you know, we'll definitely have a lot of useful information
in our upcoming webinar which will be about middle of
September time, so feel free to tune into that to
get some more helpful information.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Great perspective, Scott, Yeah, So one of that's one of
the things they do is they put the sense of
urgency and uh, you know, scare into you that you're like, oh,
my gosh, I'm telling you, we've heard situations about people
getting calls that somebody's been abducted or you know, that's
some something's happening to one of your kids or grandkids.
So it is absolutely the case that that's their goal
(38:10):
is to make you feel like I've got to act now,
I've got to you know, do this right away or
this person that I love, because something can happen to them,
or something can happen to one of my accounts. And
also sometimes it's just the law. You're thinking like, oh, okay,
you know you get those texts about hey, you got
to pay the toll for the you know, the throughway
that like okay, I mean, it doesn't seem outrageous right
(38:31):
if you if your easy past wasn't working. So again,
all I'm going to tell you is whatever it is now,
it's going to ramp up. And as Scott mentioned, I
think it's also very important I did this with my
kids that you know, to go through with your kids
or grand skid kids to make sure that they are
protected right, make sure that they're even though they're tech savvy, uh,
they can also be manipulated under this, So just very
(38:53):
important let's move on some other topics, and again you
can reach us at eight hundred eight two five five
nine four nine or at Askbouchet at Bruche dot com
with any questions you may have. One of the things
I want to talk about this is a really interesting idea,
which is for individuals that are still working and they
(39:16):
are over the can go ahead and get uh, put
their put their assets in their fohe K, continue to
contribute to those four and K and not have to
take an R and D in those assets. Uh. That
that's a really powerful thing. So if you think about it,
if right now the rm D AH require a minium
(39:38):
distribute distribution age for an IRA is seventy three and
in general as you start off, that R and D
amount is around three and a half percent.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
If you don't need those dollars and you can delay
taking them and you have you're still working. So again
in that regard, you probably don't need those dollars because
you're still working. Even if you're working part time and
you have access to our form and K to be
able to put it in you can you don't have
to take that rm D. So that's a great strategy
(40:11):
that we go through with our clients that are in
that situation. Now. The one thing to remember though is
the year that you actually retire, then you have to
take your rm D. So for example, if you were
going to retire this year and you're waiting till very
end of December to do it, even though that ninety
(40:31):
nine percent of that year you were working. The year
that you retire, even if it's December thirty first, you
have to take your R and D for that year.
So just a reminder with that. The other thing is
this only works where you don't own five percent of
more of the entity. So for small business owners or
if you're a partner somewhere, this does not work. If
you own more than five percent of that entity, you
(40:54):
can't do this. You're required to take your R and
D at that age. So just something to be aware
of as you you know, kind of think about, you know,
ways to reduce having to take your R and D.
But also when you make a determination as to when
you retire, we always give guidance to clients that are
in the situation to try to do it on January first,
(41:15):
versus the end of December or January, just to make
sure they don't have to take that R and D
for that year. Let's go on to a couple different topics. Again,
we talked about this. We write a lot of blogs.
If you go to our website at Bouchet dot com,
you can see those blogs. It's a lot of great
insight for myself. You can go onto my LinkedIn page.
(41:37):
I put a lot of information out there. I also
have a blog that I write on as well, because
I'd like to write quite frequently, and that's Peace of
Mind Economics is my blog, Peace of Mind Economics, And
I wrote one on expectations management. And this is a
term and an idea that I think it's just so
important in life. I talk about it with our team
(42:00):
to make sure that when we're talking with clients that
we set their expectations on whatever it is, whether it's
you know, getting them something that they request or you know,
what it means to be a client of ours for
our first year, that we set those expectations properly and
that we meet or exceed those expectations. Because what you
start to appreciate in life is that so much of
(42:22):
what your takeout is of you know, whether it's a
trip or whether it's you know, working whatever it is
in life, a meal is what your expectations are. So
if you have extremely high expectations and then the reality
is that the actual experience is only going to meet
that if the reality is that much better, right, Or
(42:44):
if you have very low expectations and the situation is
not as bad as you expect, you like that actually
wasn't that bad because you had very low expectation. So
that is something I just think is so important. I
talked to my kids about this as well, which is
just trying to manage, you know, your expectations of anything,
and in general, with our team, our goal is to
(43:05):
always exceed our client's expectation. And if you can set
the right expectations and then exceed them almost all the time,
that person that is experiencing that is going to be
very happy. The other element is this is true in
economic data and also with corporate earnings. Right. You may
see this and I get questions from clients they say, Marty,
(43:26):
you know, so and so reported earnings and it seemed
like it was good versus you know, prior months or
a year ago, And I will say yes, But there's
two elements. Either their forecast of what to expect for
the rest of the year was not what was expected, right,
so that's a problem. Or their earnings or their revenue
came in below expectations, right, And that's that really really,
(43:49):
and that's why I talk about in the blog, which
is you look at that so much of what's going
on in the markets is how are earnings performing versus
analyst expectations, and how are earnings being forecasted versus analysts expectations.
And in those situations where we're exceeding those expectations, then
that's when things really take off. And you know, with
(44:12):
these high growth companies, even if they miss earnings by
just a fraction or if they just come in just
slightly above, you can see one of those high growth
companies like Pallenteer really get hammered because people are expecting,
you know, really great things from these high growth companies,
right like Navidia. They're always even though expectations are high,
(44:33):
they usually come through and beat those expectations. So it
could even be a situation where you know, they exceed expectations,
but they don't exceed them by as much as they
have been in the past. Same thing with any economic data,
you know, the inflation report that came out for July,
as I mentioned, wasn't great. I mean it actually increased,
(44:55):
but it was below what expectations were with these tariffs
in place. And so that's just very important in every
aspect of your life. But as an investor, you have
to be aware of that is not just what is
happening with this data, but how does it compare to expectations.
And once you understand that, you know it really gives
(45:16):
you a different perspective of what that data means. And
also you know how important those expectations are to the
market's performance. So again, if you want to get a chance,
you can also I have a whole bunch of other
blogs on my blog a Peace of Mind Economics, or
through my LinkedIn page or through Bouchet dot Com. Lots
(45:37):
of great information out there. Also our webinars in our
State of the Economy presentation we put out there. So
our State of the Economy presentation is what we do
with our clients in the beginning of the year, and
it's a lunch and a dinner where we outline our
thoughts on the markets, the economy and also some tax
planning pieces to be aware of. So I would encourage
(45:58):
you to go look at those to get some good
ideas that you can incorporate in your own personal situation. Well,
we're going to be wrapping up here, but before we
do again, if you have any questions, you can reach
us at eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
But what I want to do is have Scott if
you could just share with the listeners what you think
(46:18):
are one or two highlights of the big beautiful bill.
You and Vincenzo did a great job in the webinar,
and I would encourage our listeners to go look at
that tax webinar that you guys did last month. But
what what's one or two things that most people should
be aware of from that bill that you think are
the most valuable to taxpayers? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Absolutely so. The entire bill, you know, was about seven
hundred and fifty so pages. Half of that had to
do with tax related items, so there was a lot
that was put through. But to hit some of the highlights,
you know, you probably have heard about the salt cap,
the state local taxes, and the cap you to be
(47:00):
at ten thousand dollars didn't matter whether you were single
or married. Filing jointly but now that cap has increased
up to forty thousand dollars and that's you know, starting
this year twenty twenty five and goes through twenty twenty nine,
so that is a nice increase. There is an income
(47:20):
phase out there, so you want to be aware of that,
and with a lot of these other items, I'll hit
another one, but you just want to be aware of. Okay,
there is this amount, but you know, what is the
income phase out, if any, and also how long is
it going to be in place for because some of them,
you know, similar to the salt cap, are only around
(47:42):
for a few years. We did see the income tax brackets,
you know, they were made permanent, so we go from
you know, ten percent all the way up to the
thirty seven percent tax bracket. So the other one i'll
highlight here. Addition the salt cap, we do have the
(48:02):
new senior deduction. So that's for individuals that are sixty
five and older. There's a six thousand dollars deduction that
each person over the age of sixty five of them,
you know, the tax return will receive. That doesn't matter
whether you're taking the standard deduction or itemizing as well. Again,
(48:22):
it does have a phase out, so that's another one.
But again, as Marty said, we have some great content
that we put out in a webinar and we do
have a fact sheet as well that you can find
on our website to get some more information. We're just
coming up against the end of the hour and end
of the show, so feel free to check out our
(48:43):
website for some more information there.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Thank you Scott, always great insight, and I will tell
you for our clients to have people like Scott and
vincenzol On to give them guidance on what they need
to do is invaluable. Well, folks, we spend an hour
together as always has been great. If you want, I
will be here tomorrow to do the show as well,
so join in. Then you listen to Let's Talk Money,
brought to you by a Bouchet Finance group, where we
help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their
(49:08):
wealth to life. Folks, take care of yourself and take
care of each other.
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