Unsure if Municipals right for me

UpQuark

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Apr 11, 2016
Messages
177
I'm newly considering whether municipal bonds are right for me. I've never had any. When I run a Taxable Equivalent Yield calculator on Fidelity, it looks like they'd need to pay almost a percent better than I am seeing muni bonds having, but I don't know if the calculator takes into account that Treasury interest makes more of my Social Security taxable.

Also, this coming year 2025 looks like my last best chance to do capital gain harvesting (because its my last chance to push off taking distributions from an inherited IRA that I really must do to avoid having to pile those on top regular RMDs that will start in 2029), so I imagine minimizing Treasury interest income would improve how much I can harvest in 2025.

How does a person know for sure that a particular Muni bond is not taxable for them? Is it enough to filter the secondary Munis by my state, or do I have to also stick to ones that are for my local county (our local taxes are by county so I want to avoid fed+state+county taxes)?

I'm thinking of putting the money I need for the third and fourth quarters of 2025 in Munis that mature at mid-year and before last quarter.

Am I making a mistake considering Munis?
 
We have a ladder of 24-municipal bonds. What's not to like? Interest is not federally taxable and may not be taxable at the state level. We only buy top rated munis. Very safe.
 
I live in a high tax state, so a big fan. Pretty safe, but I find this report gives some good perspective on the areas and ratings that have been historically most safe. I have never heard of a local county having different criteria than the state, but I suppose it is possible.....IMO, if you buy from your state, I think you should be fine.

If you are buying for such a short term, maybe also consider some municipal CEFs that are trading at good discount with above average yield. I personally own NVG (slowly taking my LT cap gains to lower my portfolio %) and BLE......only issue is these may not help with state / local taxes.
 
Do you have county income tax? Some Michigan cities have income tax but it's easy to live in the suburbs
 
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