JoeTaxpayer

I’m surprised that Social Security isn’t a more widely discussed topic than it seems to be. All kinds of investing advice, retirement planning with 401(k) or IRAs, but not as much focus on Social Security. Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough? Either way, it my pleasure to start this week’s roundup with 7 Secrets Social Security Won’t Tell You, an article by Maggie at Square Pennies. One of the ways i judge whether an article is worth a mention is to decide if I learned something new from it. In this case, I learned quite a bit. For example, I didn’t know that one needs to be married for 10 years to collect a benefit on the spouses earnings if they divorce. Nice job, Maggie, and a worthwhile read.

At Money Rates, I read Is inflation making a comeback? I wonder about any premature sightings of inflation. Inflation is measured by rising prices, of course, but its true momentum has to be demand driven. In other words, “too much money chasing too few goods” as classic definition is what I subscribe to.
The rise in oil prices is actually deflationary, as it throttles other activity. Less vacation travel, less pleasure driving, etc. In fact, Walmart statistics show that rising gas costs reduce their store activity. A drop in gas prices to sub-$3 levels could actually be the catalyst for improving consumer confidence that actually does spur more spending and demand driven inflation.

My Money Design asks Is 2 Percent the New Safe Retirement Withdrawal Rate? If so, we are all in some serious financial trouble. Most of us who actually do a bit of planning have used 4% as the safe withdrawal rate when determining our “number.” That number is tough to reach and doubling it means retirement is even further off.

Miranda answers the important question Can You Still Do a Roth IRA Conversion in 2012? And I won’t ruin the punchline, you’ll have to head over and read her article for yourself. The use of IRAs and Roth can help you save quite a bit on your total lifetime taxes, great to understand these accounts.

Ginger at Girls Just Wanna Have Funds (Ha! I love that blog name) wrote 3 Reasons Why Your Home Is A Crappy Investment. I think she got it right, and more so, summarized it in a brief article. I think it would take a book of analysis, 295 pages at least, to come to the same conclusion. Save the $24.95 and read this article.

In the oddest post I read this week, Shawanda Greene discusses the License to…Steal? It’s a strange series of how people rationalize that stealing is okay in certain situations. Me, I’d rather earn every cent, but to each his own. An interesting insight into what others are thinking as they steal.

After looking at all the restrictions there are on the use of your home and property. Kevin at Out of Your Rut asks Do You Ever REALLY Own Your Home? His point is well taken, there are many things you can’t do due to zoning issues, and you still have property tax to pay. In many cases, the property tax alone is over $10,000 per year. So in a sense, sure I own it, but it’s still not ‘free and clear,’ it will always be an expense.

Today’s roundup title come from the fact that in the US, we move the clocks forward an hour during the night (2am to be precise). We lose an hour of sleep, they say, but not me, I’ll sleep an hour later. We do gain an hour of light at night but give it up in the morning. By the way, it’s daylight saving time, not “savings” even though everyone seems to say that.

This week, Apple introduced the next generation iPad. It added some incremental features including Retina Display (this references the fact that your eye can only distinguish a certain pixel density, any higher densities are unnoticed) as well as LTE connectivity. Unfortunately, no Siri on iPad just yet. A perhaps minor twist to this story, is Apple did not number this iPad 3 or even name it iPad HD. So, if you are buying any iPad on the internet be sure you know your you’re buying. Is an electronic implant in out future? Tough to say. I can imagine some intelligent glass lenses that have built in augmented reality, along with face recognition. Imagine meeting someone for the second time and never worrying about remembering their name.  You look their way and the name pops up in front of your eyes along with any other key details. I’d like a pair of those glasses.

An article Arrested for breaking the law of large numbers caught my eye this week. Have you heard the financial talking heads go on about how large companies’ growth must slow due to the Law of Large Numbers? It’s a complete misuse of this phrase and this article does a great job to explain why.

As we get closer to tax day in the US, April 17th, it’s only appropriate to share Kay Bell’s Wild, wacky and illegal tax deductions. Now that Jane 2.0 (my daughter) has convinced us to buy a dog, it’s timely to find out he doesn’t come with a tax deduction for us. Too bad.

Nelson Smith guest posted at Canadian Finance Blog about The 9 Biggest Rip-Offs Ever. I don’t know if it should count as ‘biggest’ but I agree with Nelson that the movie popcorn is up there. I know what the signs say, but I still pack my own snack to go see a show on the big screen.

Reuters asked the rhetorical question, Who could be against Obama’s tax break on RMDs? Last month, congress was going to tinker with the beneficiary rules on IRAs (not good), but the 2013 budget had this buried perk in there.  Retirees with less than $75,000 in their IRAs might be able to void a required distribution.

Clever Dude wrote Don’t let your kids grow up to…work from home. An interesting take on why the office cube might be missed if you’re working from home.

My Friend Neal Frankle asks (and answers) Should You Create an IRA Trust? Of course, it depends. The trust is a great way to throttle the withdrawals if the beneficiary is bad with money, and an even better way to avoid the tragic mistakes an uninformed beneficiary can make.

At Couple Money, Elle explained the difference between Tax Brackets (Marginal Rate) and Effective Tax Rates. Many still don’t understand the difference, and Elle explains it in a way that should leave no doubt.

A personal note on today’s post title – a few weeks back, our daughter presented a Keynote Slide Show, multimedia style, on why she deserved a dog. Part of my agreeing to it was that she write a few posts for me, first describing her approach and, after we pick up the dog, an update on how the first weeks go. So, in few weeks, we will be a dog family. And I don’t even get a tax break for it.

I am shocked that Mr Santorum has made it this far in the process. The GOP may look for anyone but Romney, but also not Santorum. I predict another candidate will be the Republican nominee.