M Paquette
Moderator Emeritus
And there will be plenty to worry about, especially new taxes.
And falling asteroids. I don't wanna get smooshed!
And there will be plenty to worry about, especially new taxes.
If taxes were to return to the average they have held for the past 40 years (tax revenue % of GDP) I would be much less worried, not more.And there will be plenty to worry about, especially new taxes.
Just a quick glance around the web and see in 2008 Roths accounted for less than 5% of all IRA funds.
I also believe it is a virtual certainty that Roth's will be taxed in some way. However, I also think it is likely that they will still be taxed favorably compared to other ways in which the assets could have been held. But since there can be no certainty about how future tax laws will be structured, my prudent approach is to not take any extreme position that counts on optimizing one scenario. By holding some Roth, some Traditional IRA and some taxable, I will not get the maximum benefit of unknowable future tax treatments, but I will hopefully also not get maximum exposure to any unfavorable development. My goal is not to maximize my holdings, my goal is to maximize the odds that my holdings will be enough.
I am pretty sure that he was referring to not only rich people who spend out of their wealth but retirees who spend their accumulated savings.
That make no sense. Most retirees collect taxable dividends and people who have deferred savings are taxed at income rates. So who is the retiree that is spending savings that are not taxed? (I rather doubt that there are a lot of retirees out there with huge Roths at this time.) Then when they spend they have sales tax, etc.
You're right, of course. But then would Stockman be referring to the wealthy who have a lot of cash that they spend every year? If some sort of tax was initiated, then wouldn't the wealthy just find some hard assets to buy? His statement really puzzled me at the time and I've been trying to figure it out.
Oldbabe, you are correct in your take on Stockman's comments. The idea is to tax spending. A retiree holds one million bux. He/she spends, say, $30k of principal yearly with no tax due at the Fed level. Stockman would like to tax that spending. So you, Ms Retiree, cash in a CD to buy a car. Mr. Stockman would like that transaction to be taxed at the Fed level in addition to state and local sales taxes.