A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks
When you sell an investment, your gains or losses depends on your cost basis.
If you sell for more than your cost, you end up owning capital gains taxes on the increase. If you sell at a loss, you don’t have to pay taxes on the difference; instead, you might be able to claim a tax deduction for your investment loss.
[Read more…] about Cost Basis Reporting – How it Affects Your Taxes
My boys received a copy of the game Dominion as a Christmas present.
It’s a super game. You acquire cards with powers. The different powers work together in lots of interesting ways, but of course you must acquire them on a limited budget and have limited time in which to get as strong as you need to be.
Making good choices requires effective strategizing.
After playing the game two times, I wanted to learn more about how to play well. I typed the words “Dominion strategy” into the Google search box to see what I could find.
It pained me to see what turned up.
Dominion has only been around for a few years. And of course it is only a game. So it wouldn’t be a big deal if there were no good materials available. I quickly found lots of outstanding materials. In 30 minutes, I was a much improved Dominion player.
The painful part is in considering the contrast with stock investing.
[Read more…] about Playing Dominion vs. Playing the Market
We normally think of mutual funds as investment vehicles—which they are—but they can also offer valuable ways to save money on income taxes this spring and beyond.
There are steps you can take with mutual funds right now that can lower your tax liability either for the 2011 tax year or, failing that, for 2012. Yes, there are ways to save on taxes with mutual funds!
Some of these are time sensitive, so you’ll want to either make your moves now, or position yourself to be able to take advantage when tax time comes around next year. The important thing is to move on this — the windows close quickly.
[Read more…] about 4 Ways to Save on Taxes with Mutual Funds
No one likes to lose money on their investments.
However, in some cases, it is unavoidable. If you are looking at some investment losers, though, you might consider how you can use them to your advantage.
Tax harvesting your losses allows you to get a deduction when you sell for less than you bought for. As you get close to the end of the year, and you begin planning to maximize your tax deductions, consider how your investments losses can reduce your tax liability:
[Read more…] about Investment Losses? Harvest them for a Tax Deduction
Most of us have a pretty good idea what mutual funds are about, so maybe the more relevant question is, what are the best ways to invest in mutual funds?
There are different ways to own them, different times and methods to invest, and even other assets we might like to hold in addition to mutual funds.
Properly used, mutual funds can increase investment returns substantially.
But view them as passive, invest-and-forget vehicles, and they may be no better than owning individual stocks.
[Read more…] about What Are the Best Ways to Invest in Mutual Funds?
