Controlling What We Can in Unusual Times

This is an unusual time and our thoughts and prayers go out to those of you most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are monitoring your investments and we continue to keep our eye on the ball when it comes to your financial plan. Tax planning is an area that we look for opportunity, especially during times of volatility. Today, it was announced that the tax filing deadline for federal returns has been postponed to July 15^th.

Here are a couple of action items as we head into the extended tax season:

1. When your taxes are complete and you have filed with the IRS and the appropriate state agency, please upload a copy of your tax return to the Shared Documents folder in the Vault of your Seaside Portal so we can review it for planning opportunities. To do this you will login to your Seaside Portal => Vault => Shared Documents => Tax Returns => Upload => Files => select your file.
2. If you would like your Tax Professional to have access to the Tax Returns Folder only in the vault of your Seaside Portal, we can arrange that for you. We control the username and password for your tax professional and this will allow them to upload your return to the vault, saving you time. Please let us know if you are interested in this feature.
3. If you are missing 1099’s from your accounts under our management at Seaside, please let us know and we can get those to you right away.
4. If you contributed to a Roth IRA in 2019 and find yourself above the income threshold for contributing, please remove your contributions to avoid an excise tax from the IRS. The income threshold is below:

1. Conversely, if you find that you are eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA or Traditional IRA and you have not done so yet for 2019, you still have time.
2. Market volatility provides a great opportunity to convert some of your Traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. The conversion takes place at lower prices allowing the growth to occur in the Roth IRA.
3. Review your current mortgage rate and contact your lender to see if it makes sense to refinance.
4. With the recent volatility in the stock market, we are looking for tax loss harvesting opportunities in our portfolios at Seaside. If you have capital gains in taxable accounts outside of our management, please contact our office for planning opportunities.

We look forward to working with you on tax planning strategies in 2020, meeting with you in person again and helping you create peace around the issue of money!