August 4, 2025 • 24 mins
Managing your money Tampa wealth management
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Ask The Experts Florida is broadcast live Mondays at 9AM ET and Thursdays at 5PM ET on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Ask The Experts Florida is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Ask The Experts Florida Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W FOURCY
Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you educational
information from top local experts in the fields of legal, help,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing, laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now here are
your hosts, Spivo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, good morning, Sunny Florida. Welcome to another sc expert show.
Will we bring you the top experts in the field
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. Hey, this is
the first Monday of the month and that means provis
Management Group and I got to tell you I received
(01:15):
We start promoting the show on Friday, and I got
to the office this morning and I had seven emails
waiting for me saying, make sure you ask Ray about
the big Beautiful Bill. Everybody wants to know is it
still the big beautiful bill? Now? I got to tell
(01:37):
you there is no one on this earth that I
trust more than Ray Ferrara when it comes to questions
like this and anything about the economy. Good morning, Ray.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well Steve, good morning. Nice to be with you as
always on the first and the third Monday of the month.
And thank you for the very nice words and wonderful
to hear that people were writing in and asking about
the one big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
People trust you, Ray. You know I don't trust any
of the media anymore, any of them. And it's so
nice and refreshing to have a show like yours. Even
I was just asking Ray. I was in the grocery
store yesterday. We're doing the show here in Florida, and
Publix is probably the biggest grocery store here, and coffee
(02:29):
has gone up like seven dollars and I thought it
was because of the tariffs, and I asked Ray, and
Ray starts telling me about what's going on with coffee.
But Ray, I got to tell you, people really appreciate
your knowledge. I'm in all what you did with Provised
Management Group, it's amazing. Tell people first of all about
(02:54):
Provised Management Group. Well.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Steven provis is a financial planning and investment management firm
with emphasis on financial planning. We see investment management a
subset of a financial plan, along with a state planning,
retirement planning, education planning, budgeting, risk tolerance, all the different
types of insurance that we have to have, automobile homeowner's
(03:19):
life disability, long term care, all of those things we
see as a subset of the financial plan. And unlike
most firms where people call themselves financial planners, we actually
do the financial planning. We're serving about eleven hundred families
across thirty plus states here in the United States, and
(03:41):
we're managing right at about two billion dollars of assets
as of the end of June. So we always offer
the listeners of this show an opportunity to get to
know us with a complementary one hour consultation in our
Clearwater or Tampa office, And if that's not convenient, we
(04:02):
because we deal with people in over thirty states. We
do an awful lot of zooming around these days, so
we always make available a zoom interview as well. And
if people would like to take advantage of that, all
they have to do is to call our offices at
eight hundred six three three three zero four nine. That's
(04:24):
one eight hundred six three three three zero four nine.
And while we're talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,
whether you want to take advantage of the complementary our
consultation or not, we have prepared a total report on
the One Big Beautiful Bill. So when you call, if
(04:45):
you will just ask for it and give us your
email address, we will email it to you so that
you can read the entire our entire summation at a
personal level of the nine hundred page Act.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, Ray, first of all, I got to tell you, uh,
we just got a text in. It's a Ron DeSantis
governor Ron DeSantis question. He wants to know you think
Governor DeSantis is getting to get rid of the property tax.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Uh. So certainly the governor has talked about trying to
find a way to do that. The property tax.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Property taxes are primarily a tax at the local level
and you think of all of our county, city town governments,
much of how they are funded is through property taxes.
So if they're able to do that, they're going to
(05:46):
also have to come up with a solution as to
how these local governments are going to be able to
create revenue and anurse. So it's not like we're going
to eliminate taxes. We're just going to elimit. He would
like to eliminate it based on property and then do
it on something else. Will that happen. I think it's
(06:08):
going to be tough for him to get that through
the legislature. The legislature has certainly shown some reluctance to
embrace the governor this past year the way they have
in his previous six years as governor. He will be
a lame duck governor during this session, which weakens his
(06:33):
position even more. And there's certainly opposition, vocal opposition, and
strong political opposition to the idea, certainly in the House.
So I think it's going to be hard pressed to
get it done. I do think it's a very good
conversation to have, and we'll just have to see how
(06:53):
this all all shakes out.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, right, we're still talking about the One Big
Beautiful Bill, and because people trust you your knowledge, how
would you grade it so far?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Well, it's way too early to give it a grade.
I think we can give it a grade on the
hope of the One Big Beautiful Bill, and the hope
is is that it will result in lower taxes, income
taxes for many individuals. Certainly, the break on overtime pay,
(07:29):
the break on tips is very good. The additional six
thousand dollars extra deduction for seniors being sixty five and older,
just to name a few, are going to put more
money into the hands of people. But that's not going
to really begin happening until for the most part, until
(07:51):
next year. All of those things starting in the next year,
so it's going to take time for us to really
be able to judge it. And the interesting thing will
be when you and I are together next August and
we are closing in in another ninety days on the
election or the entire House of Representatives and for one
(08:13):
third of the Senate. If the economy is moving in
a positive direction, then clearly the President and the Republicans
are going to say, see what we did with the
One Big Beautiful Bill and the Democrats are going to
find themselves in a very difficult position. On the other hand,
you can fully expect that if the economy is slowing
(08:36):
or has slowed and hasn't recovered yet, that the Democrats
are going to be all over the One Big Beautiful
Bill regardless of what happens. And this is what people
really need to understand. Regardless of what happens in the
elections next year, the One Big Beautiful Bill is here
for the next at least or maybe even five years. Why,
(08:57):
even if the Democrats were to take control of both houses,
the president would veto anything that came out to change it.
And assuming that it doesn't change over the next three
and a half years, you go through another election cycle,
and let's assume that there's a suitep by the Democrats
of both Houses of Congress and the and the White House.
(09:20):
It's going to take six to twelve months to pass
a new bill to get rid of it. So you
just is whether you like it or whether you don't,
just accept the fact that it is most likely here
for at least four more years, and more likely five
more years. So let's just deal with it today the
way it is, and then we'll see what happens in
the future.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Ray, How are a state tax is affected by this
one big, beautiful bill.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Well, they're touched on in a number of different ways, Steven,
and I think to the I think to the better.
You know that the the Democratic Party talks about that
this is all about the billionaires. Well, frankly, as far
as the estate tax provisions are concerned, it might be
for some millionaires, but it is certainly not for billionaires.
(10:07):
And it affects a significant amount of what I'll call
the rich, but not the ultra rich families. So take
an entrepreneur who builds a company up, pays taxes all
(10:28):
the way along, et cetera, and builds up a nice
net worth let's say it's ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty
million dollars, and then to die and then have to
give forty percent of it back to the government just
seems a bit unfair. So what this bill does is
that it will raise the amount that you can give
(10:50):
away during your lifetime or at death the fifteen million
dollars per person, so thirty million dollars for a couple.
It will be adjusted for inflation going going forward. And
as long as you're giving letting inheritance pass of less
than thirty million dollars, there'll be no estate tax, And candidly,
(11:13):
I believe that that's a fair way to approach and
reward people who build businesses successfully and to be able
to pass it on to their errors. In addition to
all of that, it also kept the rate at forty percent.
There was a lot of concern that the rate might
(11:33):
the rate might change. So for the next four or
five years, as we just chatted about, it's going to
be a minimum of thirty million dollars that can be
passed on, and I think that's a good thing. One
of the things that all folks, whether they have to
worry about estate taxes or not, but particularly those that
(11:56):
are under the thirty million dollars limit. As a couple
fifteen for an individual, you need to really start doing
some tax planning around anything in your portfolio that has
significantly high capital gains to it and try to manage
those capital gains. And that's one thing that we should
also mention, and it affects the States, is they left
(12:18):
in place the step up and basis at death, which
means if you bought some shares of stock at one
hundred dollars a share, and they've appreciated the two hundred
and fifty dollars a share. That capital gain that you
have of one hundred and fifty dollars per share gets
stepped up, and so the errors get the money at
(12:39):
a cost basis of two hundred and fifty dollars per share.
But still you want to manage that capital gain during
your lifetime.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What about the Wroth conversions or is that still a
good option.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
So, as is often the case, the answer is both
yes and no. Yes, it's good to consider it, but
no because of some of the provisions that exist relative
to your income levels. So one of the complicated things
(13:12):
about this bill is that there are different years in
which the tax changes come into play. Some this year,
some have to wait till next year. That's kind of
number one. Number two, we have to look at it
because there are a lot of things that phase out
depending upon how much money you're making. For instance, with
(13:33):
tips and overtime, there's phase outs to that, but there
are two different phase outs. They're not the same for
both the tips and the overtime. The same is true
of the six thousand dollars extra deduction for seniors. So
you have to really manage to the extent that you
(13:55):
can your income to be able to take advantage of
the different provisions that are there, including still doing a
Roth conversion. So yes, it's still is worth considering, and
then depending upon your income, it'll make it help make
a determination as to whether it's worthwhile or not.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Let's talk about state and local taxes salt, which you know,
I think.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It was Henry Ford who said, anybody who assaults their
meal before they taste it, I don't want to do
business with. Well, clearly this is a salty issue, and
the Congress struggled with it because there were senators and
members of the House whose constituents in high property tax areas,
(14:48):
including here in Florida, that were limited to only ten
thousand dollars per year regardless of what they paid in
property taxes. If you paid property taxes of thirty five
thousand dollars, you could only deduct ten thousand of that,
So that gate in a tax bracket of thirty percent.
(15:14):
You know that would that would give about five thousand
dollars more in taxes to the government. So what they
did is they raised the limit to forty thousand dollars
They only raised it for the next three years, so
it'll apply to twenty five, twenty six, and twenty seven,
(15:34):
but in twenty eight it'll go back down to ten
thousand dollars unless Congress changes it. That's one part you
have to consider. The other part that you have to
consider is again there's a threshold of income, and if
you exceed those thresholds, then you will start losing money
of your property taxes and state and local income taxes
(15:59):
and you'll start losing but you can never go below
ten thousand dollars. So it's there for three years. There
are limits on income as to the full deductibility of
the of the amount that you that you take that
you take down, and then you could lose all of
that increase, but you still would always get ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
You know, before the show, Ray and I do a
little show prep. It's amazing. One of the things we
talked about. We just got a viewer from like camera
reads anyway, it's about thirty seven. Ray, Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
So this is another interesting provision that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Reach from I'm sorry, Yeah, the texture is from is
Norman from Winter Park?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Well, Norman. This is a very complicated part of the
bill I have. I struggled to figure out why they
why they did this. I guess it was one way
of trying to reduce the noise around that this is
for billionaires. But essentially, what it says is that if
(17:17):
you are in the top tax bracket, which is thirty
seven percent, then you are going to lose part of
your itemized deductions for an amount equal to whatever your
income is over the top bracket, which is memory serves
(17:40):
me as like anybody over six hundred and fifty thousand
dollars or six hundred and seventy thousand dollars of income.
And so the effect of the two thirty seventh is
that you're in the thirty seven percent tax bracket, but
you can only deduct thirty five percent of that two
percent less against your taxes. So it's saying, I'm going
(18:03):
to let you deduct these amounts at thirty five percent,
Why you're going to tax you with thirty seven percent?
So it increases the taxes for somebody in the in
the upper upper bracket.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Why did they do that?
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Stephen? You know, the easier way to have done that
would have been to raise the top tax bracket so
much either it may have been politically unpopular because people
don't understand two thirty sevens, but they do understand an
increase from thirty seven to thirty eight percent or thirty
nine percent. But it's been so much easier if they
(18:41):
had done it that way as opposed to the way
they're doing it. So again, you can deduct it at
as if you're in a thirty five percent tax bracket,
or the amount over the maximum for the thirty seven
percent bracket, but you're going to get taxed at thirty
seven percent.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, I always brag on your crystal Ball Ray.
You know, we talked about the Feds and the interest rates,
and you said they're not going to touch them. You're right,
they didn't touch them. Again. What's going to happen in September?
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Well, you know, how that question might have gotten answered
before last Friday would be different the way it is
going to be answered this Monday. There was a going
into last Friday, there was a fifty to fifty chance
that they would raise the rate in September's meeting. I
think we're going to see that continue to move up
(19:36):
between now and the September September meeting and the primary
reason is the jobs report that came out last week,
and that essentially was that new jobs created were seventy
three thousand, where one hundred thousand were anticipated. So that
was a week report. But what really set the parody
(20:01):
on their on their fannies was the fact that there
was a revision from the previous two months of over
a quarter of a million jobs, which actually were more
jobs than were said to have been created. Nobody's talking
about that, just they're talking about the big number. And
of course this has led to the President firing the
(20:25):
head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who is a
political employee appointee. He's entitled to do that. It also
causes some concern about if we come out next month
and the numbers jumped way back up again, is that
number any more legitimate than the number that we had before.
The biggest issue I think for the Bureau of Labor
(20:46):
Statistics is that their sampling size, ever since COVID has
gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Less people,
less businesses are reporting back to the to the government,
and with less data, you're you're going to end up
with more variability. It's the old garbage in, garbage out routine.
So I think that you know, the President says he
(21:08):
wants to quote modernize it, whatever that means. But I
think what they really need to do is to find
a way to compel businesses to report the data as
something that is required, maybe even as a public disclosure
month by month, through the through the SEC. So coming
(21:28):
back to the basic question, I think that we're going
I think the odds of a increase UH are are there,
particularly if the numbers are low again in September, Because
the Fed has two mandates. One is to keep inflation down,
but the other is to have a full full employment.
(21:48):
So I'm I'm right now leaning towards them raising the
rate in September a quarter of a point.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Trump, If I said raising, I'm I misspoke. I think
I did say raising. I think they're going to reduce
interest rates by a quarter.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Oh okay, I was gonna say. Trump would have a cow.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I need I need more of that expensive coffee, I
think for this month.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
So do you think in September they might lower?
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah, I do. I think I think there's a very
good possibility of that. I wouldn't be a bit surprised
that by the time the jobs report comes out in
early September, which is well before their meeting in the
middle part of the middle to the latter part of
the month, I think we're going to see the odds
(22:38):
being somewhere between seventy and eighty percent in favor of
a rate decrease of.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
A quarter of a point quarter of a point, right, Ray,
tell people how they can reach you.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Sure. First of all, you can go to our website,
which is provised dot com. That's p R O v
I S dot com, or give us a call at
eight hundred six three three three zero four nine. Don't
forget we have a synopsis of the One Great, Big,
Beautiful Bill Act that is all about personal taxes. So
(23:13):
if you'd like to have a copy of that, just
call and we will email it out. Email it out
to you, or if you want to take advantage of
our one hour complementary consultation in our clear Water or
Tampa office or by zoom, you can schedule that again
by calling eight hundred six three three three zero four nine.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Ray. We are so lucky to have you. Ray's going
to be back with us in two weeks and Ray,
I can't thank you enough, have a wonderful week. God
bless you.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Thank you, Steve, you have a great week as well.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And that's Ray fer Our, Covis Management Group. We're going
a quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on W four c Y Radio and Talk for TV.
To then next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
estate planning, medicare, and many other topics in the areas
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. See you next week.
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W FOURCY
Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you educational
information from top local experts in the fields of legal, help,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing, laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now here are
your hosts, Spivo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, good morning, Sunny Florida. Welcome to another sc expert show.
Will we bring you the top experts in the field
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. Hey, this is
the first Monday of the month and that means provis
Management Group and I got to tell you I received
(01:15):
We start promoting the show on Friday, and I got
to the office this morning and I had seven emails
waiting for me saying, make sure you ask Ray about
the big Beautiful Bill. Everybody wants to know is it
still the big beautiful bill? Now? I got to tell
(01:37):
you there is no one on this earth that I
trust more than Ray Ferrara when it comes to questions
like this and anything about the economy. Good morning, Ray.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well Steve, good morning. Nice to be with you as
always on the first and the third Monday of the month.
And thank you for the very nice words and wonderful
to hear that people were writing in and asking about
the one big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
People trust you, Ray. You know I don't trust any
of the media anymore, any of them. And it's so
nice and refreshing to have a show like yours. Even
I was just asking Ray. I was in the grocery
store yesterday. We're doing the show here in Florida, and
Publix is probably the biggest grocery store here, and coffee
(02:29):
has gone up like seven dollars and I thought it
was because of the tariffs, and I asked Ray, and
Ray starts telling me about what's going on with coffee.
But Ray, I got to tell you, people really appreciate
your knowledge. I'm in all what you did with Provised
Management Group, it's amazing. Tell people first of all about
(02:54):
Provised Management Group. Well.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Steven provis is a financial planning and investment management firm
with emphasis on financial planning. We see investment management a
subset of a financial plan, along with a state planning,
retirement planning, education planning, budgeting, risk tolerance, all the different
types of insurance that we have to have, automobile homeowner's
(03:19):
life disability, long term care, all of those things we
see as a subset of the financial plan. And unlike
most firms where people call themselves financial planners, we actually
do the financial planning. We're serving about eleven hundred families
across thirty plus states here in the United States, and
(03:41):
we're managing right at about two billion dollars of assets
as of the end of June. So we always offer
the listeners of this show an opportunity to get to
know us with a complementary one hour consultation in our
Clearwater or Tampa office, And if that's not convenient, we
(04:02):
because we deal with people in over thirty states. We
do an awful lot of zooming around these days, so
we always make available a zoom interview as well. And
if people would like to take advantage of that, all
they have to do is to call our offices at
eight hundred six three three three zero four nine. That's
(04:24):
one eight hundred six three three three zero four nine.
And while we're talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,
whether you want to take advantage of the complementary our
consultation or not, we have prepared a total report on
the One Big Beautiful Bill. So when you call, if
(04:45):
you will just ask for it and give us your
email address, we will email it to you so that
you can read the entire our entire summation at a
personal level of the nine hundred page Act.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, Ray, first of all, I got to tell you, uh,
we just got a text in. It's a Ron DeSantis
governor Ron DeSantis question. He wants to know you think
Governor DeSantis is getting to get rid of the property tax.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Uh. So certainly the governor has talked about trying to
find a way to do that. The property tax.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Property taxes are primarily a tax at the local level
and you think of all of our county, city town governments,
much of how they are funded is through property taxes.
So if they're able to do that, they're going to
(05:46):
also have to come up with a solution as to
how these local governments are going to be able to
create revenue and anurse. So it's not like we're going
to eliminate taxes. We're just going to elimit. He would
like to eliminate it based on property and then do
it on something else. Will that happen. I think it's
(06:08):
going to be tough for him to get that through
the legislature. The legislature has certainly shown some reluctance to
embrace the governor this past year the way they have
in his previous six years as governor. He will be
a lame duck governor during this session, which weakens his
(06:33):
position even more. And there's certainly opposition, vocal opposition, and
strong political opposition to the idea, certainly in the House.
So I think it's going to be hard pressed to
get it done. I do think it's a very good
conversation to have, and we'll just have to see how
(06:53):
this all all shakes out.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, right, we're still talking about the One Big
Beautiful Bill, and because people trust you your knowledge, how
would you grade it so far?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Well, it's way too early to give it a grade.
I think we can give it a grade on the
hope of the One Big Beautiful Bill, and the hope
is is that it will result in lower taxes, income
taxes for many individuals. Certainly, the break on overtime pay,
(07:29):
the break on tips is very good. The additional six
thousand dollars extra deduction for seniors being sixty five and older,
just to name a few, are going to put more
money into the hands of people. But that's not going
to really begin happening until for the most part, until
(07:51):
next year. All of those things starting in the next year,
so it's going to take time for us to really
be able to judge it. And the interesting thing will
be when you and I are together next August and
we are closing in in another ninety days on the
election or the entire House of Representatives and for one
(08:13):
third of the Senate. If the economy is moving in
a positive direction, then clearly the President and the Republicans
are going to say, see what we did with the
One Big Beautiful Bill and the Democrats are going to
find themselves in a very difficult position. On the other hand,
you can fully expect that if the economy is slowing
(08:36):
or has slowed and hasn't recovered yet, that the Democrats
are going to be all over the One Big Beautiful
Bill regardless of what happens. And this is what people
really need to understand. Regardless of what happens in the
elections next year, the One Big Beautiful Bill is here
for the next at least or maybe even five years. Why,
(08:57):
even if the Democrats were to take control of both houses,
the president would veto anything that came out to change it.
And assuming that it doesn't change over the next three
and a half years, you go through another election cycle,
and let's assume that there's a suitep by the Democrats
of both Houses of Congress and the and the White House.
(09:20):
It's going to take six to twelve months to pass
a new bill to get rid of it. So you
just is whether you like it or whether you don't,
just accept the fact that it is most likely here
for at least four more years, and more likely five
more years. So let's just deal with it today the
way it is, and then we'll see what happens in
the future.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Ray, How are a state tax is affected by this
one big, beautiful bill.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Well, they're touched on in a number of different ways, Steven,
and I think to the I think to the better.
You know that the the Democratic Party talks about that
this is all about the billionaires. Well, frankly, as far
as the estate tax provisions are concerned, it might be
for some millionaires, but it is certainly not for billionaires.
(10:07):
And it affects a significant amount of what I'll call
the rich, but not the ultra rich families. So take
an entrepreneur who builds a company up, pays taxes all
(10:28):
the way along, et cetera, and builds up a nice
net worth let's say it's ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty
million dollars, and then to die and then have to
give forty percent of it back to the government just
seems a bit unfair. So what this bill does is
that it will raise the amount that you can give
(10:50):
away during your lifetime or at death the fifteen million
dollars per person, so thirty million dollars for a couple.
It will be adjusted for inflation going going forward. And
as long as you're giving letting inheritance pass of less
than thirty million dollars, there'll be no estate tax, And candidly,
(11:13):
I believe that that's a fair way to approach and
reward people who build businesses successfully and to be able
to pass it on to their errors. In addition to
all of that, it also kept the rate at forty percent.
There was a lot of concern that the rate might
(11:33):
the rate might change. So for the next four or
five years, as we just chatted about, it's going to
be a minimum of thirty million dollars that can be
passed on, and I think that's a good thing. One
of the things that all folks, whether they have to
worry about estate taxes or not, but particularly those that
(11:56):
are under the thirty million dollars limit. As a couple
fifteen for an individual, you need to really start doing
some tax planning around anything in your portfolio that has
significantly high capital gains to it and try to manage
those capital gains. And that's one thing that we should
also mention, and it affects the States, is they left
(12:18):
in place the step up and basis at death, which
means if you bought some shares of stock at one
hundred dollars a share, and they've appreciated the two hundred
and fifty dollars a share. That capital gain that you
have of one hundred and fifty dollars per share gets
stepped up, and so the errors get the money at
(12:39):
a cost basis of two hundred and fifty dollars per share.
But still you want to manage that capital gain during
your lifetime.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What about the Wroth conversions or is that still a
good option.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
So, as is often the case, the answer is both
yes and no. Yes, it's good to consider it, but
no because of some of the provisions that exist relative
to your income levels. So one of the complicated things
(13:12):
about this bill is that there are different years in
which the tax changes come into play. Some this year,
some have to wait till next year. That's kind of
number one. Number two, we have to look at it
because there are a lot of things that phase out
depending upon how much money you're making. For instance, with
(13:33):
tips and overtime, there's phase outs to that, but there
are two different phase outs. They're not the same for
both the tips and the overtime. The same is true
of the six thousand dollars extra deduction for seniors. So
you have to really manage to the extent that you
(13:55):
can your income to be able to take advantage of
the different provisions that are there, including still doing a
Roth conversion. So yes, it's still is worth considering, and
then depending upon your income, it'll make it help make
a determination as to whether it's worthwhile or not.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Let's talk about state and local taxes salt, which you know,
I think.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It was Henry Ford who said, anybody who assaults their
meal before they taste it, I don't want to do
business with. Well, clearly this is a salty issue, and
the Congress struggled with it because there were senators and
members of the House whose constituents in high property tax areas,
(14:48):
including here in Florida, that were limited to only ten
thousand dollars per year regardless of what they paid in
property taxes. If you paid property taxes of thirty five
thousand dollars, you could only deduct ten thousand of that,
So that gate in a tax bracket of thirty percent.
(15:14):
You know that would that would give about five thousand
dollars more in taxes to the government. So what they
did is they raised the limit to forty thousand dollars
They only raised it for the next three years, so
it'll apply to twenty five, twenty six, and twenty seven,
(15:34):
but in twenty eight it'll go back down to ten
thousand dollars unless Congress changes it. That's one part you
have to consider. The other part that you have to
consider is again there's a threshold of income, and if
you exceed those thresholds, then you will start losing money
of your property taxes and state and local income taxes
(15:59):
and you'll start losing but you can never go below
ten thousand dollars. So it's there for three years. There
are limits on income as to the full deductibility of
the of the amount that you that you take that
you take down, and then you could lose all of
that increase, but you still would always get ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
You know, before the show, Ray and I do a
little show prep. It's amazing. One of the things we
talked about. We just got a viewer from like camera
reads anyway, it's about thirty seven. Ray, Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
So this is another interesting provision that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Reach from I'm sorry, Yeah, the texture is from is
Norman from Winter Park?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Well, Norman. This is a very complicated part of the
bill I have. I struggled to figure out why they
why they did this. I guess it was one way
of trying to reduce the noise around that this is
for billionaires. But essentially, what it says is that if
(17:17):
you are in the top tax bracket, which is thirty
seven percent, then you are going to lose part of
your itemized deductions for an amount equal to whatever your
income is over the top bracket, which is memory serves
(17:40):
me as like anybody over six hundred and fifty thousand
dollars or six hundred and seventy thousand dollars of income.
And so the effect of the two thirty seventh is
that you're in the thirty seven percent tax bracket, but
you can only deduct thirty five percent of that two
percent less against your taxes. So it's saying, I'm going
(18:03):
to let you deduct these amounts at thirty five percent,
Why you're going to tax you with thirty seven percent?
So it increases the taxes for somebody in the in
the upper upper bracket.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Why did they do that?
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Stephen? You know, the easier way to have done that
would have been to raise the top tax bracket so
much either it may have been politically unpopular because people
don't understand two thirty sevens, but they do understand an
increase from thirty seven to thirty eight percent or thirty
nine percent. But it's been so much easier if they
(18:41):
had done it that way as opposed to the way
they're doing it. So again, you can deduct it at
as if you're in a thirty five percent tax bracket,
or the amount over the maximum for the thirty seven
percent bracket, but you're going to get taxed at thirty
seven percent.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, I always brag on your crystal Ball Ray.
You know, we talked about the Feds and the interest rates,
and you said they're not going to touch them. You're right,
they didn't touch them. Again. What's going to happen in September?
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Well, you know, how that question might have gotten answered
before last Friday would be different the way it is
going to be answered this Monday. There was a going
into last Friday, there was a fifty to fifty chance
that they would raise the rate in September's meeting. I
think we're going to see that continue to move up
(19:36):
between now and the September September meeting and the primary
reason is the jobs report that came out last week,
and that essentially was that new jobs created were seventy
three thousand, where one hundred thousand were anticipated. So that
was a week report. But what really set the parody
(20:01):
on their on their fannies was the fact that there
was a revision from the previous two months of over
a quarter of a million jobs, which actually were more
jobs than were said to have been created. Nobody's talking
about that, just they're talking about the big number. And
of course this has led to the President firing the
(20:25):
head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who is a
political employee appointee. He's entitled to do that. It also
causes some concern about if we come out next month
and the numbers jumped way back up again, is that
number any more legitimate than the number that we had before.
The biggest issue I think for the Bureau of Labor
(20:46):
Statistics is that their sampling size, ever since COVID has
gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Less people,
less businesses are reporting back to the to the government,
and with less data, you're you're going to end up
with more variability. It's the old garbage in, garbage out routine.
So I think that you know, the President says he
(21:08):
wants to quote modernize it, whatever that means. But I
think what they really need to do is to find
a way to compel businesses to report the data as
something that is required, maybe even as a public disclosure
month by month, through the through the SEC. So coming
(21:28):
back to the basic question, I think that we're going
I think the odds of a increase UH are are there,
particularly if the numbers are low again in September, Because
the Fed has two mandates. One is to keep inflation down,
but the other is to have a full full employment.
(21:48):
So I'm I'm right now leaning towards them raising the
rate in September a quarter of a point.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Trump, If I said raising, I'm I misspoke. I think
I did say raising. I think they're going to reduce
interest rates by a quarter.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Oh okay, I was gonna say. Trump would have a cow.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I need I need more of that expensive coffee, I
think for this month.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
So do you think in September they might lower?
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah, I do. I think I think there's a very
good possibility of that. I wouldn't be a bit surprised
that by the time the jobs report comes out in
early September, which is well before their meeting in the
middle part of the middle to the latter part of
the month, I think we're going to see the odds
(22:38):
being somewhere between seventy and eighty percent in favor of
a rate decrease of.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
A quarter of a point quarter of a point, right, Ray,
tell people how they can reach you.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Sure. First of all, you can go to our website,
which is provised dot com. That's p R O v
I S dot com, or give us a call at
eight hundred six three three three zero four nine. Don't
forget we have a synopsis of the One Great, Big,
Beautiful Bill Act that is all about personal taxes. So
(23:13):
if you'd like to have a copy of that, just
call and we will email it out. Email it out
to you, or if you want to take advantage of
our one hour complementary consultation in our clear Water or
Tampa office or by zoom, you can schedule that again
by calling eight hundred six three three three zero four nine.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Ray. We are so lucky to have you. Ray's going
to be back with us in two weeks and Ray,
I can't thank you enough, have a wonderful week. God
bless you.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Thank you, Steve, you have a great week as well.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And that's Ray fer Our, Covis Management Group. We're going
a quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on W four c Y Radio and Talk for TV.
To then next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
estate planning, medicare, and many other topics in the areas
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. See you next week.
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