Free From Broke

A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks

Kevin Mulligan

Do You Have to Pay Tax on Airline Miles?

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You’ve been earning rewards for signing up for a credit card or using it to earn airline miles.

Are those miles now considered taxable income?

You would think not, but some Citibank customers received a 1099-MISC for airline miles they were awarded for signing up for an account in 2011.  These customers are understandably upset as there was no clear documentation as to the impact of accepting the extra miles.

The Internal Revenue Service hasn’t been clear on how they treat airline miles, either.

Some reports say taxpayers who fail to include the reported 1099-MISC income will not be pursued by the IRS, but do you really want to chance an audit over 20,000 airline miles?

Are Airline Miles Taxable Income?

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Withdrawing Money From a Roth IRA: How Does It Work and When Can I Do It?

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Withdrawing money from your retirement account is something you only really want to do in retirement.

That’s obvious.

What is also obvious is there are definitely times in life when you find yourself with a significant cash crunch and that nest egg looks ripe for the harvest.

Unfortunately for a majority of your retirement account options any early withdrawals are disastrous.

You get hit with fees and taxes; your overall withdrawal can easily be reduced by 25-40%… which means you just have to withdraw even more money to get to the amount that you actually need to use.

It’s a lose-lose situation: you’re paying a lot in fees and taxes while also losing out on potential growth of the account in the future.

…unless you’re using a Roth IRA.

Withdrawing Money from a Roth IRA

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New Federal Regulation for 401k Fee Transparency Rules

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Do you know how much it costs you on an annual basis to simply participate in an employer-sponsored 401k plan?

If you’re savvy, you probably already know that the mutual funds you select within your 401k plan have expense ratios.  That number shows how much out of every dollar invested you give to the mutual fund company to manage the fund.

On average actively managed mutual funds cost around 1% of invested assets (or $100 for every $10,000 invested).

But if you think that is the only fee being charged to you, prepare for a shock.

New 401k Fee Transparency Rules

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