Blog

  • How are Social Security benefits computed, and what are WEP and GPO?

    Social Security. Perhaps the most successful government program ever, Social Security was put in place as a form of “social insurance” in order to protect against people who’d worked their entire lives ending up in poverty in their old age. Before diving into various details about benefits, there are a few things to clear up Read more

  • What You Need To Know About Property Taxes in California

    What You Need To Know About Property Taxes in California   Property taxes in the US are generally proportional to the value of one’s property.  The more valuable the property, the higher the taxes…   Except in California.  This is because in 1978, California enacted Prop 13 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)&gt; which limited increases in the taxes on Read more

  • Obamacare and Your Taxes (2014 and beyond)

    The Affordable Care Act has a wide ranging list of tax effects, some of which apply to individuals, some to corporations, some intended to provide incentives for individuals or businesses to get insurance, some to provide funding which helps keep other parts of the law up and running. Before you get worried, though, or dive Read more

  • How to lose a $1million bet (and also how to compare apples and oranges)

    Ted Seides, CIO of Protege Partners, explains why he’s losing his bet against Warren Buffett. The bet, for $1million, was over which would outperform over 10 years – an S&P500 index fund (Buffett’s choice) or a fund of hedge funds (i.e., what Protege Partners does). Now I want to point out, at the outset, that Read more

  • High Income Year or Low Income Year

    To be more precise, we are talking about whether one’s taxable income is high or low in a given year — relative to expected income in future years.  And what we can do to take advantage of the fact that some folks are going to have higher or lower incomes now versus in the future. In Read more

  • I am a “Top Financial Planner” – but don’t just take my word for it…

    I am a “Top Financial Planner”! Or, so I was told by a solicitation I got in the mail from a company called “SLD Industries”. It’s one of, apparently, many such fake promotions designed to convince me to spend upwards of $200 on a fancy plaque or award to display in my office. Folks, don’t Read more