Written by James Royal – 4 min read – Edited By Brian Beers
Taxpayers have any number of deductions and credits that they can take to reduce their tax burden, but those looking to get a break for their investing activities have a more limited menu of choices. If you’re an investor, you’ll want to optimize your tax situation with strategies beyond the traditional ones – earned income credits, interest write-offs and the like. And the deadlines for making these moves are key to remember if you want to lock in your tax break for this year.
Here are five unusual year-end tax strategies for investors to reduce what they owe.
Strategies to slash your taxes
The traditional 401(k) and the traditional IRA are both well-known ways to save for retirement and reduce your taxes (though the traditional IRA does have some limitations.) Certainly these are great moves for investors to make if they haven’t already done so, and those looking for the best and easiest ways to reduce their tax bill will get the most mileage from these strategies.
But if you’ve taken advantage of these avenues fully, here are some more unusual ways to beat the tax man.
1. Check out a donor-advised fund
A donor-advised fund is a great way to work around the relatively high standard deduction on taxes, which may limit your ability to gain additional write-offs for your charitable contributions.
By making a charitable contribution to a donor-advised fund (before year end), you’re able to deduct that amount from your taxes this year. Meanwhile you can distribute the funds in later years, and the money can even grow tax-free in the fund, providing more benefit to the charity.
“From the perspective of the organizations you support, nothing changes, but the donor-advised fund allows you to control the timing and amount of your charitable tax deduction,” says Mark Brown, CFP and managing partner at Brown and Co. in the Denver area.
The donor-advised fund has many advantages, including flexibility and simplicity.
2. Give directly from your IRA
A donor-advised fund is optimal if you’re able to exceed the standard deduction, but if you’re not able to reach that threshold and want to give anyway, then you can give straight from your IRA.
“For those who are of required minimum distribution age and might not be itemizing taxes, qualified charitable contributions are a great way to give directly to the charity from your IRA,” says Michael Kojonen, founder and owner of Principal Preservation Services in St. Croix County, Wisconsin.
Normally, investors with a traditional IRA and subject to a required minimum distribution (RMD) could use the qualified charitable contributions rule to exempt their distributions from tax.
You’ll need to take care of your charitable giving by the end of the calendar year.
3. Convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA
And if you’re able to get out of a required minimum distribution from your traditional IRA, it may be a good time to convert that fund to a Roth IRA. You can save on taxes that you might otherwise have paid if you converted in a normal year. The calendar year that you make the conversion will determine when you’re taxed.
“Some retirees may have an unusually low tax rate this year, since their RMDs are subject to ordinary income tax rates and can often be a big source of taxation in retirement,” says Brown. He suggests that if you’re in a lower bracket it may make sense to convert a portion of your traditional IRA into a Roth, reducing the tax liability that usually accompanies the conversion.
The Roth IRA remains one of the most popular retirement plans because of its tax-free benefits.
4. Look into trusts
Trusts can be an effective way to achieve all kinds of goals when you’re planning your estate. Given a relatively favorable tax regime – and the potential that the Biden administration may make it less favorable – it might make sense to establish a trust to sidestep future tax increases.
With the lifetime gift exemption amount at a historically high $11.7 million per person (in 2021) and $12.06 million (in 2022), Brown suspects the amount will decline in the future.
“It makes sense to consider strategies like grantor retained annuity trusts and intentionally defective grantor trusts,” says Brown. “The intention is to get future capital appreciation out of your estate and avoid estate taxes.”
“The current low interest rate environment can make these wealth transfer strategies even more appealing,” says Brown.
5. Older workers can still contribute to an IRA
While contributing to an IRA is a typical game plan to reduce your taxes – and you have until April 15 of the subsequent calendar year to do so – the SECURE Act removed the maximum age for contributing to a traditional IRA.
“It allows those over [age] 70 ½ who are still earning income to contribute to a traditional IRA,” says Morgan Hill, CEO and owner of Hill & Hill Financial in Woodstock, Georgia. “
You can also contribute to a Roth IRA, but it won’t reduce your taxable income. Regardless of which type of IRA you contribute to, you have until tax day to deposit your money.
6. Consider selling some of your losing investments
If you’re an investor scrambling for that last-minute tax savings idea, one of your last, best hopes is writing off investment losses, also known as tax-loss harvesting. With tax-loss harvesting you recognize a loss on an investment and can deduct that against other gains or from your ordinary income, up to a net $3,000 loss each year. The result of this write-off: tax savings.
You’ll want to be careful that you follow the rules closely, the major one being that you can’t repurchase the investment within a 30-day period and still claim the tax benefit. That’s called a wash sale, and it will delay your ability to claim the write-off to a future year.
Bottom line
When prepping your taxes, it’s important to begin before the calendar year ends, because some tax moves must be made before the new year. Meanwhile, others can wait until Tax Day. It’s key to know which moves can be made when and then act fast to get them done by the deadline.
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