Tax, Medicare and Social Security Updates — November 2019

  We just rolled out several significant retirement planner updates and recommend that you review your plan to see how the improved modeling impacts your forecast. Explore potential opportunities before year end. The improvements described below will allow you to explore ways to potentially save money on Federal & State taxes through strategies like Roth conversions, optimizing retirement income and relocation.

Greater Transparency into Tax Calculations

PlannerPlus Inspector allows you to deep dive into all aspects of your plan — Income, Expenses, Savings, Taxes. These reports are some of the most heavily used pages by Plus users, and we are going to give each one a facelift. Inspector > Tax is the first to be released, and with it you can see MUCH greater detail on how Federal and State taxes are being estimated. New features include:

• Gross taxable income by source, which can vary between Federal and State tax calculations
• Deduction modeling each year, either itemized or standard — whichever will reduce your estimated taxes the most
• Marginal tax rate reporting so you can identify the years when you may have the highest and lowest tax rates

Check out how your taxes are being estimated from now until goal age. Find opportunities to reduce your lifetime tax burden.

Income Tax Modeling Enhancements

All users already benefit by knowing that the Boldin Retirement Planner modeling covers a lot — current federal tax rates and deductions, realized gain modeling, Social Security state income tax modeling, and much more for Plus users including state income tax modeling. With this release, we are now:

• Modeling state income taxes on capital gains. In most cases, capital gains are treated as ordinary income, but we’ve also included the most common exceptions for Planners living or planning to move to these states — AZ, AR, HI, MT, NM, ND, SC, VT and WI.
• Starting at age 65 within the simulation, the standard deduction increases for you and your spouse, if applicable, per IRS guidelines. This change will reduce estimated taxes for those who are likely to choose the standard deduction, improving your outcomes.

Login now to see how these changes impact your lifetime tax estimates. Tax laws will change, and there are many exceptions to be considered. We will try to regularly enrich the calculations to get them as accurate as possible.

2020 Federal Tax, Medicare Cost, and Social Security Wage Limit Updates

The planner has been updated to use the latest figures available from the federal government.

• Federal Tax Rates: We’re now estimating taxes using 2020 tax brackets and deductions for single filers and married couples filing jointly.
• Medicare Estimates: Medical expenses after 65 are now based on the latest information from Medicare.gov.
• Social Security Wage Limits: For those planning to work and collect Social Security prior to full retirement age, it is important to know (and model) these wage limits which can lead to Social Security income reductions.

NB: The Boldin Retirement Planner uses inflation and medical inflation rates, appropriately, to adjust all of these figures in future years. And as soon as the states publish their tax rate updates, we’ll be sure to update the Planner. Login now to see how these changes impact your lifetime tax, medical expense, and Social Security income estimates.   [nr_wide_cta category=”retirement-calculator” header=”Boldin Retirement Planner Achieve financial security for your retirement” button=”Get Started”]