What are 11 tax related new years resolutions I should adopt?

Ralph
00:00:00

"I never thought I'd have to choose between paying my tithes and paying my taxes." Those were some heartbreaking words from a small business owner I counseled just last month. And listen, she's not alone. Every day I hear from Christians struggling to balance their financial obligations with their faith. So today I'm going to share 11 biblical tax resolutions that transformed one business owner's $12,000 tax nightmare into a $3,000 refund, while maintaining his commitment to generous giving.

If you've ever felt that knot in your stomach when tax season approaches or wondered why others seem to get refunds while you're writing a check to the IRS, this episode is answer to your prayers. So today I'm going to answer what are 11 tax related new year's resolutions that could save you thousands while honoring your Christian values.

Podcast Announcer
00:00:51

Welcome to the Ask Ralph Podcast where listening to an experienced financial professional with over 30 years of experience can help you make sense of confusing questions, current headlines and industry trends about taxes, small business financial decision making, investment strategies, and even the art of proper budgeting. Ask Ralph makes the complex simple by sharing his real world knowledge from a Christian perspective with all things financially.

Now here's your host, Ralph Estep Jr.

Ralph
00:01:20

Well, I want to thank you for joining me today. I'm excited as I help you master your finances from a Christian perspective, and we're on this journey together. Now, if you missed yesterday's show, I talked about 5 common investment choices that kill your returns. And I think that was really an eye-opening episode. So if you missed it, I'm going to encourage you to go back and check it out because making smart investments decisions directly impacts your tax situation. I can't say it any more bluntly than that. Those smart investment decisions will directly impact your tax situation.

Well, let me start today's show with a heartfelt message from Melinda. She comes to us from Atlanta, and this is what she wrote. She said, "Ralph, I'm in tears writing this email. Last year, I got hit with a shocking $7,800 tax bill that completely drained my savings and forced me to put the rest on my credit card. I make $85,000 a year as a small business owner, and despite working harder than ever, I feel like I'm drowning in taxes. My friend Jennifer, who makes similar money somehow got a refund last year. I'm losing sleep wondering if I'm missing something obvious. With tax season approaching, my stomach is in knots thinking about what I might owe this year. My small church group suggested I reach out to you. What tax resolutions can I adopt for the new year to turn this situation around? I want to be a good steward of what God has blessed me with, but right now, I feel like I'm failing."

Well, let me start by saying this, Melinda. What a great question, and you're not failing. Let me start by saying that right from the jump. And this is a great time to discuss this as we get closer to the end of the year. People are thinking about tax planning or thinking about making those new year’s resolutions. I'm not a big fan of resolutions, but this is a good time to examine what we're doing. And I've got some game-changing ideas for you. But first, let me ask you this.

Are you struggling to balance your money and faith? Just like Melinda. Listen, I get it. Sometimes it feels like you're the only one trying to make Godly decisions in a world that pulls you in so many different directions. And that's exactly why I go live every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM Eastern time, because I want you to know you're not alone in this journey. You know what makes my heart sing? When I see members of our community having those aha moments.

And I see those time and time again during our live shows. I love it when someone finally breaks free from debt or understands how to invest while still honoring God or even better yet finds peace in their financial decisions. Those are truly the matters. These are truly the moments that matter to me. Every week

I hear stories that could be your story. Like this one, Ralph. I was drowning in debt until I found your show. Or this one, "I never thought I could invest and stay true to my faith." Or this one, "Your advice helped me save my marriage from financial stress." Well, you might be thinking, Ralph, that sounds great.

Well, here's what makes our Tuesday night special. I give you real talk about money and faith. There's no sugarcoating. If you listened to my show every day, you know I don't sugar coat things. Well, Tuesday nights live are just like that. And yes, I'm going to answer your questions and I'll help you with your specific situation. And I love the live show because it's a supportive family of believers who get what you're going through, the understanding cause they've been through it as well.

And yes, here's even a great part. I give away a $100 Amazon gift card every single week. Want to know the best part? The real magic happens in the community. So when you join us, you'll see other facing the same exact challenges you are. But the difference is they're winning. And their victories can become your inspiration. So here's what I want you to do right now.

I want you to take out your phone and add askralphpodcast.com/live to your calendar for Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern time. Make this commitment to yourself and your financial future. Don't let another week go by feeling stuck or alone. Join me in our incredible community this Tuesday night together, we'll build a strong financial future while keeping faith at the center. I'll be looking for you in the chat and hey, you might just walk away with that Amazon gift card. So see you on Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern time.

You know Melinda, your struggle with taxes reminds me of a powerful scripture. And I always like to start the show grounded in scripture, and it speaks directly to our responsibility as stewards of God's resources. We're trying to manage our tax obligations and we realize it's not just about following government regulations. That would make it simple, but it's about being faithful stewards of everything God has entrusted to us. So let's get to that Bible verse and it comes to us from 1 Timothy 5:8, and it says this. It says, "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Well, to be honest with you Melinda, I think that verse really says it all. So the question becomes, how do we get more responsible with our taxes?

Well, you're in luck because today I've got 11 resolutions that you can put into practice right away. So let's get to it. Listen, I've been doing this for 30 years as an accountant, as a tax professional. And I've helped people master their taxes and trust me, I've seen it all. Let me tell you about this situation. This is about 10 years ago. And I was sitting across from we'll call him Michael. And Melinda, his situation and your situation are very similar. He's a small business owner and he was facing this crushing $12,000 tax bill. He wasn't expecting it. He was wondering how he's going to pay for it and we dug into his documents, that's what I do when I do somebody's tax return. We reviewed everything. And listen, I saw the same anxiety that I hear from you, Melinda. He had the same anxiety. It was that overwhelming feeling of working harder but seemingly falling behind. And I was able to help him and I want to help you as well.

So let's break down these 11 resolutions with specific action items you can implement because ideas are great, actions are what matter. Number one thing you can do. Number one, maximize your retirement contributions. Whether you're employed or you're self-employed. A SEP IRA, for example, if you're self employed would allow you to contribute up to 25% of your net earnings. So that's exactly what I did for Michael. We helped him save $15,000 in taxes his very first year. And we did that through strategic retirement planning. And listen, this works for both individuals and business owners. I did a show a week or two ago about that employer match.

If you're covered by that 401k plan, make sure you're not leaving that. I said it at that time it's like you're walking down a road and there's a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. And you got to decide if you're going to bend over and pick it up or not. That's what the employer matches. If you're not doing it, do at least that, but then work out maxing out those contributions because it's going to save you taxes today and it's going to provide for your future.

So here's my first pro tip. You should calculate your maximum allowable contribution. And listen. I did a show about how much of a percentage to save. I put that in the show notes, I'm going to recommend you start with at least 15% or at least whatever your employer matches. But then what I want you to do is set up automatic monthly transfers.

Now, if you're covered by a retirement plan at work, that's pretty easy because it's going to be done through your payroll. But a lot of my small business clients, they lose out on this and they get to the end of the year, and they don't have the cash or they're making other decisions. So one of the things I'm going to encourage you to do, if you're a small business owner is set up that automatically monthly payment to that SEP IRA or that IRA, whatever you're doing.

And then the other thing I'm going to say here is consider splitting that between traditional and Roth accounts for some tax diversity, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. So that's number one, and that is maximize those retirement contributions. Let's move on to number two. And that's optimize tax advantaged accounts.

You might be saying, what is Ralph talking about here? So beyond those retirement accounts, here's some other things you can consider. How about a health savings account? Because they have that what I say triple tax advantage. I did a whole show on that. I'll put that in the show notes as well, but HSA's are something a lot of people overlook and it's a way to really sock away some money.

Now it's not going to save you thousands and thousands, but there are distinct, like I say, they're triple tax advantage to those. Second thing, FSAs. Those are the things that your employer gives you a part of a cafeteria plan. One of the big ones a lot of people miss is doing that for dependent care expenses.

So if your employer offers that, go to HR, ask them, Hey, what are the FSAs that I can do through you because what that does is that takes that right off of your federal taxable income and shelters that from federal income tax. And last but not least are those 529 plans for education savings. This is a good time to start thinking about, can I fund one of those next year?

And I'm going to put that in the show notes as well. Because here's the key. The key is maximizing these accounts early in the year so that you can benefit from that compound growth. And this is the great time to get that started. It's not too late. You can start. Hey Jessica, with January 1st, I'm going to start putting that money into the HSA.

I'm going to put more money into the FSAs. I'm going to do that 529 plan. So that was number two. And that was optimize those tax advantaged accounts. Let's look at number three. And this is something that a lot of people overlook. A lot of people misses even brokers. And that's what I call strategic tax loss harvesting. What does that mean? What that means basically is if you're looking at your portfolio of investments, it's not just about selling, losing, losing investments.

It's about, this is a time to maybe match up those gains and those losses to net those out so that you don't have a tax burden. So let's use a really simple example. Let's say you've got a real winner in a stock. It's appreciating the value, it's gone up. You're showing a sizable capital gain. And you might be saying to your broker, your broker saying to you, Hey Ralph, this might be a good time to drop this investment.

It might be getting ready to go down. Well, then you don't necessarily want to sell that because then you're going to have that capital gain. But what if you have some lose in your portfolio? Not everyone's a home run. Sometimes we make decisions that don't quite work out. So that's where you talk to your broker and match those gains with those losses. And you might be thinking, well, how do I make that happen?

Well, here's the key to the whole thing. I'm going to encourage you if you work with a broker, go meet with your broker or do a zoom meeting or a telephone call at least quarterly and understand what's in your portfolio. And then you want to document that cost basis carefully. Now a lot of the brokerage houses are going to do this for you.

They're going to keep track of that because you don't want to have to scramble a tax on it. It was 20 years ago when I was doing taxes. This was a lot more complicated because the IRS didn't require the brokers to really keep that cost basis information. You also want to sit with your broker and understand wash sales rules, and I'm not going to get into that today. But you might want to think about that. And last but not least consider offsetting gains with losses strategically. I said, sit down with your broker, have that discussion.

So that's number three. That's what I call strategic tax loss harvesting. Let's move on to number four. And that's what I'll say is smarter asset location. This is where you keep an eye on those tax advantage accounts. It's all the time to being strategic. Investments aren't a thing that you just set it and forget it.

You've got to always keep an eye on those things. So let me get back to Michael. One of the things I worked with his broker, and we did these things, we switched Michael to some gross stocks, but we moved them into his Roth accounts. That way there's no tax on those dividends. His broker also, he has some traditional IRAs and he used those to buy some bonds and what they call REITs.

We also did some tax efficient index funds in some taxable accounts, because those are tax efficient. So we don't have a tax issue to worry about. And think about this. By doing this optimization, you can save thousands in taxes annually, but like I said, you got to be strategic about it. Sit down with your broker.

This isn't a time for that do it yourself plan. Be strategic, structure everything in a way that gets that better tax efficiency. And this is a great time to talk about that. Because maybe you've got some harvesting you can do for those losses, or maybe you can make some changes to a portfolio going into the new year that will be better for your overall tax situation.

So that was number four and that's what I call smarter asset location. Let's move on to number five. And that's what I call the long-term investment strategy. A lot of people get hung up on this. A lot of people think they're day traders and they want to do this day trading. And most of the time when I see people doing that, they lose their shirt doing that. So instead of that frequent trading, I think you need to think about it like this. Focus on quality investments that you're going to hold for a year or more.

You might be saying, Ralph, why is that? Well it's because you're going to qualify, now this under current tax so I don't know this is going to change, but it could. Under current tax law, if you hold something for at least a year, you get what they call capital gains tax on that. You might be saying, Ralph, what's the point of that?

Well, here's the point of that. That capital gains tax at the most is going to be 15% instead of your ordinary income. So if you're in a higher tax bracket, let's say you're in a 24% or the 32%, if you hold those investments for a year or more and you go sell them, then you're going to pay a much lower tax. And that's another thing we could talk about here.

This long-term investment strategy is put those dividend paying stocks and tax advantaged accounts. So you're not getting hit with that tax every year on those dividends. So by those, in those IRAs or in those Roth IRAs, you might want to also look at low turnover index funds. And this all comes down to regular rebalancing without excessive trading, because think about this. You're going to have that urge.

You're going to time the market. And I've talked about this on the shows the last couple of weeks. But this is not for the faint at heart. You want to make sure that you're not playing that game a time in the market. I think it was the other day; I talked about one of my clients that lost 30% of her retirement because she was playing this game and time in the market. It's not a worthy thing to do.

So number five, like I said, is that long-term investment strategy and most brokers will tell you. You got to invest for the long-term. Now, listen, if you're 70 years old, maybe you don't have as much long-term, but let's move on to number six and that's a I'll call this one enhanced itemized deductions.

So well I looked at Michael, we'll get back to Michael for a second, I looked at his tax documents, we found several things that he was overlooking. And listen, these are things that many of my listeners miss. So here are some powerful deductions you might be missing. Now I'm going to say to you ahead of time. With the Trump tax cuts, when they doubled the standard deduction, the idea of itemized deductions got a little bit more complicated because, and if you don't understand it, somebody just take a minute and explain this. So you basically have the option of itemizing deductions, which is a listing of medical expenses, property taxes, state taxes, charitable contributions, or you can take the standard deduction.

Well, you're obviously going to want to take the one that's greater. Well, when the standard deduction for a married couple, I think this year was 27,700, a lot more people were unable to itemize, but this is still not the time to just abandon that. A lot of my clients that came in, they said, Ralph, I haven't even kept track of it. I still want you to keep track of it because you might find that there's a year or a couple of years where you're able to itemize.

So what are some heavy hitters here? Medical expenses. I hope you don't have these, but keep track of every single medical expense during the year because if you have those medical expenses, now there's a floor, want to lose here by a minutia, but there's a floor of seven and a half percent of your adjusted gross income, but keep track of those expenses cause you might not be able to itemize for your federal return. But here in Delaware, they offer itemized deductions. And I have a lot of clients that we're able to itemize on the state return, but not on the federal. And in that you want to keep track of travel, you want to keep track of any medical expenses, all those specialized pieces of medical equipment, any prescriptions you take. Any of those things. Keep track of those things.

If you have a long-term care program or if you pay, we say you're retired and you're paying that supplemental policy. Keep track of all those things, because you might find in a particular year, like I've had clients would have extensive dental work done, or maybe they had a heart attack or something like that.

And their medical expenses went up. So keep track of that. Another thing you can think about here in the itemized deduction thing is what I call property tax planning. And that may be strategically timing your property tax payments between calendar years because you might be able to maximize your deduction potential.

Now this one is you got to be really careful with, because what you don't want to do, and I've seen a client do this is not pay your property taxes with the thought of, well, you know I'll skip this year's property tax, and I'll just pay it next year. That way I have a double deduction. The problem with doing that is number one, there's a $10,000 limit on state local income taxes. So you might already be there anyway. But the second thing is your local tax agent, she might find you like crazy. You might save a couple bucks on your taxes, but you may end up paying more in penalties. Another thing a lot of people don't think about and that is mortgage points.

So if you refinanced your mortgage or you've purchased a new home, these are often forgotten deductions. One of the things that I ask every single client that comes in the door, did you buy or sell a resonance this year? If you did, I want to see that settlement sheet. A lot of people are like, Ralph, why do you need that?

Well, there are things on that settlement sheet, I kind of call like a discovery sheet because again, it depends on your particular situation, but there are things that we might be able to deduct. While we're talking about this, let's look at state and local income taxes. Now this has been that salt thing you've heard talked about on the news. They are capped at $10,000. But you can strategically plan around when these payments can maximize your benefit.

So those are another things you can look at. So let's get back to Michael's story. So we looked at his charitable contributions. And we found he'd been writing checks to the church, and he hadn't kept proper documentation. So one of the things we did for him is we implemented a tracking system. I showed him how to keep track of this, so that by the time we got to the end of the year, he'd have that information for those charitable contributions.

And I also showed him how his giving aligned with his faith journey, and he found value in that because he said, you know, Ralph, one of the things that I missed was, you know, I can be more generous because there's this tax benefit, but it all comes down to property documenting those charitable contribution. And then you combine those with those other ones we talked about. And it turned out what would have been a standard deduction for Michael, we were able to itemize because of these tax saving things. And listen, the key isn't just knowing these deduction exists. That's great, but you've got to create a system to track them throughout the year. So for Michael, we made it really simple.

We did a simple digital folder system. And every month, he would go into, he created a folder each month and he would drop everything into those folders so that by the time he got to the end of the year, he knew what he was working with. So that was number six and that was enhanced itemized deductions.

Let's move on to number seven. And number seven is what, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one, but this is education benefits. This is a time to maximize those things. You know there's the American opportunity credit but look into other things. The American opportunity credit.

That's your first two years. But there's also the lifetime learning credit. You can deduct student loan interest. Again, subject to certain situations. Some 529 plans, actually all for state tax benefits. Delaware is not one of those, but some of the states that surround us like Maryland will actually give you a deduction for making those.

And then also look at those work-related education expenses. Like I said, I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about education benefits. But these are one of the ones you don't want to overlook. Let's move on to number eight. And that's what I'm going to call home related tax advantages. And you don't want to miss these opportunities.

Maybe you did some energy efficient things. In the last year or so of the Biden administration, they've pushed more of these energy efficient credits. Maybe you've got a home office deduction. Again, that's a big red flag one. I've done some shows about that. So just make sure you're doing the right thing. Again, let's talk about mortgage interest tracking because that's part of this tax advantage home thing, and also that property tax.

So that's number eight. That's those home-related tax advantages. It's another great. Now this isn't necessarily a tax situation, but this is a way to get started. You know, I always talk in the show about creating habits. So number nine is documentation system development. What I mean with that is create a system that helps you get ready for tax time. Maybe you want to do some digital receipt capture.

There are some really cool tools and apps out there that will help you do that. And as part of that, it'll help you start to categorize those things. I've got a couple of clients that use Quicken or Simplify, and they come in and get their taxes done. They've got a report for me. Ralph, here's how much I spent on medical expenses, and I've got it broken down by here's my prescriptions.

Here's our travel. Here's the mileage for that. That is a great thing to do because then you have that information right at your fingertips. You're not scrambling and you forgetting about it. Another thing while I'm talking about this is you might look at some cloud storage options for tax documents.

Ralph Estep, Jr.: One of the things that we do in our practice is we use a product called Smart vault. So any client that we do any work for, we put a copy out there in the cloud storage. Just think about it like this. Smart vault is a filing cabinet that's on the cloud where you can get those yourself and keep track of those documents.

So that's number nine, a great time to create that documentation system. Let's look at number 10. Professional guidance. Now listen, I've served as both an accredited tax advisor or a registered tax preparer. I'm a local public accountant. So, you know I have a bias. But I can't stress enough the importance of professional help. This is so very vital. You don't know all the tax code. And I don't expect you to.

So look for a person that can help you with those regular tax planning meetings. I say this all the time to clients. When you come in and get your taxes done, I can do a great job of putting those taxes together. Yes. I can prove you for things that happened last year. There's value in that, but the greater value isn't those tax planning meetings, because that's a place where we can be proactive.

We can create a strategy. And listen, I've got industry specific expertise in different industries, and you also want to look for somebody that's available year-round. I'm not poking fun at some of these places like the annual place, like the H and R blocks and the Jackson units. But listen, most of those people, they come in and they fill out taxes for a couple of months and they're gone. So, if you're looking for that relationship, find somebody that's going to meet with you regularly. They're going to provide you some strategy because that's where the value is.

It's in like right now, I'm meeting with clients about year-end ideas. Like I just met with a client yesterday. He's done a ton of overtime this year. One of the things he said to me, Ralph, he says, I'm not sure I might owe a lot of money this year. And I said, well, send me over your year to date pay stubs.

He just bought a new house. I said, send me your settlement statement and let's take a look at where you are now, because maybe there's some things you can do before the end of the year. So that's number 10. That's my professional guidance recommendation. And last but not least number 11 is what I call the quarterly review system. You want to implement a system that does these things.

You want to look at your income and expenses, track those things. You want to look at estimated tax payments. You don't want to get that when you come in to meet with someone like me or having somebody do your taxes and they say, oh, Mr. Jones, great, you owe $5,000 in tax and here's a little secret that you didn't know. You also owe a $200 tax penalty because you should've been making estimated taxes throughout the year. You don't want that. So as part of that review system, keep track of those quarterly payments. Also keep track of those retirement contributions. Like I said, if you're doing it through your work, and you have a W2 job, it's a lot easier. But if you're self-employed, at least quarterly take a look at where your contributions are and at the same time, this is a great time to look at your investment performance. And I'm telling you, you do this stuff quarterly. And let me tell you again, let's go back to Michael. His transformation wasn't just about numbers. Although, I mean, listen, there I'm a brag a little bit here. Turning a $12,000 tax bill, that's what he owed the IRS, into a $3,000 refund was significant. And he was very appreciative that, but it's his money. It was his decisions. I tell people this all the time they come in.

They're so excited. They got a refund. And that's fantastic, but the IRS has been keeping your money all year. So with tax planning, we try to get that number down to as little as possible in either directions. So for Michael, it was about creating peace of mind. That's what he was looking for. And he wanted to align his financial decisions with his values and listen, these strategies work together synergistically. And that's the thing you need to understand. And as a financial steward,

It's about making intentional choices. Those are the choices you want to make. You want to do those choices that honor both your financial goals and your faith. And listen. Think about it for a second. If you implement these resolutions systemically, you could achieve what Michael did. And it wasn't just about that swap of, I mean, that's a $15,000 flip.

If you think about it, he owed 12 and he's getting three back. So you can achieve what he did and not just save taxes. And that's part of it, but you can find that true financial peace. And that piece is something a lot of people look for. Now before I share some specific action steps, let me ask you this. Do you feel like you're drowning in debt and have financial stress? Are you living paycheck to paycheck?

Are you struggling to align your finances with your faith? And do you feel alone in your financial journey? Well, let me assure you, friend, you are not alone. Thousands have walked this path before you and found their way to financial freedom. So I want to introduce you to the Ask Ralph show insiders group.

This is a Facebook group that I created a few months ago. It's a supportive community of like-minded believers with access to proven financial solutions. And in that group, we learned faith-based money management strategies, connect with others who understand your journey. You're not alone illness. As a lot of people are facing the same things. And it can help you transform that financial stress into peace of mind. Let me tell you right now, your breakthrough is waiting.

Our members are already doing this. These are the things our members are already doing. They're breaking free from debt. They are building lasting wealth. They're living their financial dreams. And most importantly, they're finding peace in their finances. So I'm going to encourage you right now. Take that first step towards financial freedom.

Go to askralphpodcast.com/group. There's going to be a quick questionnaire there and join our thriving community. Don't let another day pass in financial uncertainty. Your future self will thank you. Again, that's at askralphpodcast.com/group. Now I promise you some action steps and here they are because as you know, intentions are great, actions are what matter.

Number one thing, schedule a meeting with a tax professional before year end. You've got time to do that. My calendar is filling up. You can book a call with me on Zoom, and I can look at your situation and give you some ideas. Second thing. Set up those automatic contributions to retirement accounts.

If you're self-employed do it now set that up so that it's being done each month or each week, or however you want to do it. And then number three, create that tax document organization system. You'll thank yourself later when it comes to tax time and you're not trying to dig through boxes and Manila folders and envelopes and try to figure out what happened. And then the last but not least thing.

Number four, review your investment strategy to make sure it's tax efficient. Go meet with your broker. Get in front of that person. Maybe it's a phone call. If you don't have one, go find one. So I know we've covered a lot today. We covered 11 crucial tax resolutions that can transform your financial future.

Now, tomorrow we're going to build on this discussion. Tomorrow, it's going to be more suited towards business customers or businesspeople. But I'm going to give you 9 specific steps that you can take right now for a better tax situation next year. So you don't want to miss that. So today’s show was about those resolutions and things you can do before the end of the year. Tomorrow is going to build on that.

So you'll have 20 of those things by the time you listen to tomorrow, so don't want to miss that. Remember, my passion is to help you achieve financial success. This is why I do what I do. I want you to live out your dreams, and I want you to grow in your faith because I know working together, we can master your finances from that Christian perspective. So as I always end the show, stay financially savvy out there and God bless you.

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