Ep. 76 | Top 3 Parent Tax Strategies
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John Tripolsky:Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Today on episode 76, we are gonna look at those top three parental tax strategies. So before we do that, as always, let's take a brief moment and thank our episode sponsor.
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John Tripolsky:Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Exactly as I said here in that intro. But as always, we have a great topic we are gonna look at today, especially related to those who are parents. So it's about time those kids start paying you back a little bit, you know, as, they always make you feed them and take care of them. And, frankly, you gotta keep those little buggers alive, you know, from from birth till, well, some of us, until you get much, much older.
John Tripolsky:But without further ado, let's dive into this very, very interesting topic to me because I have a toddler, of course. So, Chris Pacquero, welcome back, man. How you doing?
Chris Piccurrio:I am amazing. How are you doing, mister Johnny t?
John Tripolsky:Hey. I'm doing good, man. I got you know, my little toddler's at daycare right now, probably, you know, finger painting all over herself. So it's a it's a good topic I think we're gonna touch on today.
Chris Piccurrio:Well, John John, interestingly enough, we've had many conversations about the day care situation and how you absolutely love all the notifications of everything that your daughter does. And you could love when your phone goes off every time she sneezes and the daycare is letting you know that she ate 4 of her 6 apple slices and kindly threw the other 2 away in a napkin.
John Tripolsky:Hey. It's better than, you know, she ate 4 out of 6 of her boogers. So let's although I'm sure though you know what? I this is awful to admit this, you know, that. Usually, those notifications are off only because, again, we know that our wives do not listen to this show, or at least let's hope they don't because I will be in trouble after this one.
John Tripolsky:I always know my wife babysits that app, and she loves every notification that goes off. So if it's, you know, an urgent thing, like, you know, she fell off a swing or, you know, she ate a rock or something like that, my wife will call me and then
Chris Piccurrio:I can say, oh, yeah. I see that. I'm right on it. So kinda play into it. But Exactly.
Chris Piccurrio:We know we know that usually there's one parent that's a that's a little more tuned in to the to the micro activities of the toddlers. That you
John Tripolsky:know what? I think we mentioned this in our, our event that we did last week. So it was the, you know, the q and a with the CPA, which thank you everybody that chimed in for that, all of our premium members. Great, great, event again as always. And, Chris, I think we refer to a lot of things as situationally dependent.
John Tripolsky:Right? Correct. So instead of saying, oh, well, it depends. Right? So, you know, now that I get in these conversations, it's like, well, you know, situationally dependent.
John Tripolsky:Let's talk about those little, I I was gonna say something else. But the little people that are dependent on us for their well-being. So let's let's tie this in. Obviously, this is a tax related podcast. So let's talk about, we'll call it tax benefits, tax opportunities, etcetera in here.
John Tripolsky:But I know we got 3 of them. Them. So I'll let you get us kicked off with this one. I know you got a couple, that one's definitely not toddlers. I remember when they were on your end.
John Tripolsky:But let's talk about this. Some people may not know. Some people, you know, they may have 1, 2, or or multiple children, and they think that the only thing they can do is check that box, you know, when it comes time for tax preparation saying that they have dependents. So let's talk about some of these top 3 or not say some of them. Let's talk about the top three tax strategies for parents.
Chris Piccurrio:Yes. So there are many tax strategies for parents. We're gonna focus on parents of younger children, at this point. You know, some of these could actually could be used for older children, but these are gonna be parents of younger children, let's say, age 20 and and and younger. So the first one, John, in no particular order, of course, would be con contributing to a Roth IRA.
Chris Piccurrio:Now we know oh, shameless plug. There's an episode about Roth IRA conversions. There's an episode about difference between tax free income and growth and tax deferred. So if you are scratching your head right now thinking, dang. I missed those episodes.
Chris Piccurrio:Pause and go download those and throw a 5 star review in. But let's move forward. On the Roth Roth contribution, you might be thinking, that's an odd one. Well, I want you guys to think about this. You know, we know that that it's very important for tax free money to grow tax free and tax deferred.
Chris Piccurrio:So let me paint a picture. Let's say your child works you know, I I have my oldest child. He's 5th just turned 15. He just applied for a job at Kroger. Okay?
Chris Piccurrio:Oh, I shouldn't have said that name because they're not a sponsor of this podcast, although they should deeply consider that. That being said, there's something, and I mentioned this before, called the rule of 72. And that means that you take your average rate of return divided that or 72 by that number and you get the amount of time it takes money to double. So if the average rate returns 8%, every 9 years, money will double. So if my son's 15 years old, that money will double 5 times before he's 60.
Chris Piccurrio:Right? So now at 5 times let's say he worked at Kroger, made 3 grand. And I say, alright. I'm gonna put $2,000 into a Roth IRA for in his behalf. Now this works because he has something called earned income.
Chris Piccurrio:So if he's self employed or has w two wages, now he can contribute that much to a Roth. There's no tax benefit today for contributing to $2,000, but he's not paying any federal tax on that anyway. But that $2,000 doubled 5 times would be 4, 8, 16, 32, $64,000 in a Roth account tax free for him just for that contribution now. So contributing to a Roth IRA for your child is the first of 3 parent tax strategies that I would deeply consider. Now there's there's another aspect to this.
Chris Piccurrio:A sub a a sub strategy would be if yourself if you own a business or you're self employed, many people have children that work in the business, and assuming the child is doing a a job that and they they're paid fairly, there's income shifting to that child, which could help your tax situation, meaning taking it from your marginal tax rate, that income, into the child's marginal tax rate. That paired with contributing to a Roth can also be very powerful. So remember that Roth IRA, you have to make sure you have earned income, but it grows tax free and tax deferred until a qualified distribution.
John Tripolsky:And, Chris, too, I could be wrong on this one, but there is no age minimum for a Roth. Correct? So it could be 1 year, 6 months, 19 years. Correct? Absolutely.
John Tripolsky:You are correct, John. As long as the the child has earned income. And the so this could really be one of those that, you could start earlier on in things. Because obviously, like you had mentioned, kind of a, a sub benefit or however you referenced it as, you know, paying a, paying a a child for working within your business isn't really feasible if you own a auto repair shop and you have a a 1 year old. Right?
John Tripolsky:The 1 year old's probably not doing legitimate work in there, so you don't wanna poke the bear. But doing the Roth, obviously, that's a legitimate legitimate strategy.
Chris Piccurrio:Absolutely. I mean, you could have a child, I would say, probably as early as, you know, 10, 11, and up if you had an auto repair shop that could could potentially help out. Now they might not be doing the repairs, but they could they could be bringing you know, being there in the office with you when you're there. Maybe they're bringing you, you know, when you're out of the vehicle, bringing you some tools, learning, helping out with some basic oil changes, little stuff like that. It's it's absolutely possible that you would you could have legitimate employment for those those children.
John Tripolsky:Or it's paybacks. Right? When those kids were always like, I want milk. I want a bottle. I want this.
John Tripolsky:It's you know, you go grab me a beverage from the fridge. Not legit. I didn't say that, did I? That's awful. Awful parenting tip.
Chris Piccurrio:Well, that so that for Roth contributions could be very, very powerful. So that is that is a great strategy, and essentially that tax free income and growth could be amazing. So the second one pertains to education. We have a lot of content out there. We get a ton of questions on, college savings plans, and those are referred to as 529 plans.
Chris Piccurrio:So a 529 plan is a tax advantage savings plan designed to encourage saving for your future educational costs. Now it used to be where those educational costs had to be higher educational costs, meaning college or trade school, but now you could actually take 5 29 plain distributions, I believe, up to $10,000 per year for private school tuition. Now like a Roth, contributions in the 5 29 plain grow tax deferred, and as long as you withdraw it for qualified expenses, they're tax free. So you don't have to have earned income for the 5 29 plan contribution, and anyone can contribute to someone's 529 plan. So once your child once you have a child, creating a 529 plan account is a is a good tax planning tool, and especially when they're really young, John, and you know they don't have any concept, 1, 2, 3 years old of maybe at 3 they realize they're getting a toy for their toy or, Opus stuffed animal, when family members give them birthday gifts or holiday gifts or whatever type of gift, it's really nice when you can slap that into a 5 29 plan and allow it to grow tax deferred and this and then, essentially, tax free.
Chris Piccurrio:Awesome. Awesome. And that's another good one, you know, that
John Tripolsky:I think a lot of people, you know, probably don't think about. Really, it's you know, maybe they see it mentioned in a publication or on a podcast like this. And really, like everything else we do here, our goal is really just get it out, you know, get this information in people's hand or I should say in their hands and their ears, and get the get the wheels turning. Right? Because this all falls into, you know, what we always talk about at teaching tax law and that's tax planning and strategy.
John Tripolsky:So part of that plan is obviously knowing what you can and what you can't do and when you can do it and when you can't do it. And all this really say, marries into a bigger picture, but it does. Right? It's all it's all a cog in the tax planning wheel, if we will.
Chris Piccurrio:So Yes. And with 5 29 plans, it's important to remember that typically the parent is the account owner. The child is the beneficiary. So if you have 3 children, you could have, like, we my wife and I do have 3529 plans. It's also important to remember that you can change the beneficiary without tax implications.
Chris Piccurrio:So let's say your child is is, you know, doesn't doesn't utilize the money or let's say they're, you know, baseball star and they get a full scholarship. You could you could just change the beneficiary on that or you can you know, if they end up having a family, you can move one of their children into the beneficiary role. And, actually, there's a there's a a new rule that came out, and that's a little restricted. You have to have the assets in the 5 29 plan for at least 15 years. So the we we might dive into that on another episode, where where you can actually convert the 529 plan assets into a Roth IRA.
Chris Piccurrio:Again, these are this is some new there's there's a very new rule and there's some guidance still coming out on that, But the the theme is this with the 529 plan contributions is there's much more flexibility now than there was before. When those plans first came out, they were designated for typically tuition and fees, and and now the expansion of what we consider an educational cost could include technology. You know, college kids don't really buy books anymore. A lot of times, they just buy an ebook or they buy the course, materials online, but also the ability to take some of that money out of 5 29 plans and use it for private high school, private middle school, or elementary school. Now there's some limitations, but that's a huge, that's a huge win, I think, for 5 29 plan owners.
Chris Piccurrio:And, honestly, what I found in working with clients for way too many years is that when when someone establishes a 5 29 plan for their child, typically grandma, grandpa, maybe the great uncle, is a little more generous during the holidays if they know the money is going towards an educational plan.
John Tripolsky:And, you know, it's not like they're gonna run into the bank with a couple 100 pennies, but they might. You know? So you bring up a good point too, Chris. I think just the, you know, from the beneficiary, aka the the child standpoint, but also the the, I guess, you say that I don't even know what the term is. What is called grandparents or parents?
Chris Piccurrio:No. They're the beneficiary with the
John Tripolsky:So who's who's the one that actually gives it then, actually? So if there's a this is a really dumb question that either I'm having a complete brain freeze on or what, but there's a beneficiary. But then who's the person that's giving it? It's like a not a beneficial or, obviously, isn't the right term.
Chris Piccurrio:It'd be a, I guess, a a contributor.
John Tripolsky:There you go. Really?
Chris Piccurrio:So So you would contribute to the plan. There's another special rule, John, because there are some rules with gift taxing. We're gonna actually talk about that in a moment. But there's a so, typically, you can only gift someone approximately 15,000, $16,000 per year without having any type of gift tax implications. That being said, if someone was to contribute $50,000, let's say, right, that would be over the gift tax exclusion for a given year.
Chris Piccurrio:That being said, there's a special rule with 529 plans, that you can take that gift and average it over 5 years. And so in that case, you would say it's the $50,000 gift, It'd be $10,000 per year, and now you've you haven't gone over that gift tax exemption, which we're gonna talk about next. Good segue.
John Tripolsky:And that's a great piece of advice, and we yeah. We won't dive into that. We'll talk about that in our in our next little segment here, but that's also something I think that, you know, people myself included a while ago. Right? Like, we didn't if you don't know that there is a limit on that, right, you you could go way over, but then it's almost until it's too late.
John Tripolsky:And then you're you know, obviously, there's tax involved in that, which, again, moral of the story is to keep the taxes or keep the dollars in your pocket, not shelling them out or making it rain obviously on the Internal Revenue Service. So let's let's dive into that one. So so number 3, I know we talked about it before we jumped on this recording, is very interesting because it is something that is utilized a lot. Sometimes, I wouldn't say unintentionally, but I think there's a lot of questions on this one specifically. People know it's know it exists, but they might not know a lot of the information limitations, etcetera, around it.
John Tripolsky:So I look forward to this one.
Chris Piccurrio:Right. Right. So the final one might seem odd, but it's not, is gift, gifting assets to a child. So that has potentially positive implications on on both parties. Let's talk about the person giving the gift.
Chris Piccurrio:Each year, someone can give, and this is in for 2014, up to $18,000 per year. Now this is always this changes each year. It's indexed for inflation, but it's in general indexed for inflation, not officially, but it's it's in the tax law that it goes up each year and it gets adjusted. But $18,000 per year could be gifted to a, to anyone. So a grandparent, a parent could gift 18,000 without having to report anything tax wise.
Chris Piccurrio:It's just under what we call the annual exemption amount. Okay? So that's so that could be a strategy. Then there's a lifetime, estate tax. Right?
Chris Piccurrio:There's an estate tax exemption. And if you go over the $18,000 a year of gifting, then you start eating at your lifetime estate tax exemption. Now that estate tax exemption is at the highest it's ever been. It's about 13 and a half $1,000,000. So not too many people are running around with that amount, that they're concerned about hitting that state tax exemption.
Chris Piccurrio:That being said, as early as 2011, the estate tax exemption was $5,000,000. So once the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed, it doubled. And there's a chance it goes down. Right? Because we know the the government is is, is in debt quite a bit.
Chris Piccurrio:And when they look at how to tax people, it's a lot easier for laws to pass to tax people that have passed away than people that are living. It's just just easier to pass those laws. Right? It's easier to get support out of those. So the point is if you have a significant amount of assets in your estate and you don't want and you're trying to get under that estate tax exemption, because if you're over it when you pass away, you're gonna pay, depending on what state you live in, up to a 50% tax.
Chris Piccurrio:Then gifting those assets to a to a a child starts making sense. So you're getting you're you're taking that out of your state tax exposure. Even though that limit's over 13,000,000 now, we have an there's an election year, It could be a third of that next year. Reasonably. I mean, and so that's why gifting could work for the person giving the gift.
Chris Piccurrio:Now there's other advantages too. The person getting the gift does not have a negative consequence. They just inherit the prop. They just have the prop. Now remember when we did our episode on step up in basis, we talked about some positives and minuses of assets.
Chris Piccurrio:Typically, you're gonna wanna do this with cash, potentially appreciated assets, and I'm gonna explain that in a moment. So gifting strategy number 3. The another advantage for the child would be that they are in general in a lower marginal tax bracket than the than the parent giving the gift. So if the child is paying tax, on a capital gain, for instance, instead of the parent, that tax could be significantly less. So that's where there's a couple things.
Chris Piccurrio:There's that estate tax. You know, we see legally and ethically reduce the tax you pay in your lifetime. It's not all about income tax. It could be about estate tax as well. So this is a good estate tax planning strategy, then potentially shifting the capital gains.
Chris Piccurrio:Because let's say I bought a stock for $10 and it's worth a $100 per share, and now I gift it to my child and my child sells it. My child actually reports the $90,000 worth of income, not me. So there's some advantages as far as maybe shifting capital gains to a child or creating something called a custodial account, something called an UGMA or ATMAA, which stands for universe gift uniform gifts to minors act or uniform transfers to minors act. So those are the those type of are the types of accounts that are typically used when assets are gifted to a child. Now the one thing I'm gonna say, there's a funny word, John.
Chris Piccurrio:When I told you about this, you chuckled. There is something called a kiddie tax. There are special kiddie tax rules that could have a negative consequence with the strategy that they they that goes beyond the scope of this podcast, but gifting could have a positive estate and income tax, effect on someone's situation.
John Tripolsky:Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'm glad we hit on these 3. Honestly, again, you know, as I mentioned a little bit earlier on too, it's it's very important, I think, for people to understand these. Even if it's something that you say, you know what?
John Tripolsky:I'm not gonna do this right now, but I'm gonna do it next year. I'm gonna do it in 2 years. Chris, you made a really, really good point of, you know, these could change, especially during an election year that these could change significantly. Right? So, again, I I know we mentioned this in a lot of episodes, you know, when when you consider tax planning as, you know, a a task, if you will.
John Tripolsky:So, I mean, it's very important. The the out the outcome of it is tremendous if done right, but it's not something that you can just kinda set it and forget it. You can't say, you know what? I'm gonna do this for my child, with my child in 5 years from now, but then you don't pay attention to it for 5 years because heck in 2, 3 years, even 1 year, it may almost become irrelevant to the bigger picture for your situation. So I I really appreciate diving into these 3, you know, as a as a parent of my little toddler.
John Tripolsky:There's always something fun in that mix.
Chris Piccurrio:Oh, my my pleasure, John. And I just want you to think about this. You know, we could probably post in the show notes some information about the estate tax. John, as early as 20 years ago, the estate tax was $1,000,000, estate tax exemption, with the estate top estate tax rate at 50%. And I want you to think about these are real stories where imagine a couple a a mature aged couple lives in San Diego, California.
Chris Piccurrio:They don't have much as far as assets. Right? Maybe they got they have a couple $100,000. They're on Social Security. They bought a home for 300,000 30, 40 years ago.
Chris Piccurrio:Right? Well, now that house is worth 2 and a half $1,000,000. They pass away. Okay? Their estate owes tax on $1,500,000 well, it actually more than that if they have 200,000.
Chris Piccurrio:So let's say it's in an IRA, so now they've got 2 $700,000 of assets. They're gonna owe a 50% tax on $1,700,000. Half of 1,700,000 is a lot of money. So 6, 6 1.7 a lot of them, $850,000 And if they take any money out of their IRA, it's their the state's gonna pay tax on it. That's where it gets scary.
Chris Piccurrio:Right? Even though that state tax exemption maximum is high right now, it can go down in a hurry. Now and that's why I'm gonna not to plug another episode, but a lot of times when you have a situation like that, you can hedge against the estate tax by by purchasing life insurance, and that life insurance policy now secures that family property and and it is really there to pay the estate tax. So I can't stress more. If you have questions, we are here to help.
Chris Piccurrio:We don't we love doing this podcast, but we're we're doing it as a service, as a giving back to people, our listeners and our teaching tax law community because, unfortunately, just financial and and tax education and literacy is just not taught as much as it should be. Spot on. Spot on. And Chris to
John Tripolsky:that point too as we wrap up here, a little birdie told me that teaching tax flow may have just created a LinkedIn private group. So I don't know where that I I have no idea where that news came from. It just fell from a tree. Right?
Chris Piccurrio:We'll have to put that in the show notes, John, and get that out. I I think that would be a great idea to do.
John Tripolsky:Absolutely. Absolutely. And we literally just did it, folks. So there you go. Like, within a matter of an hour of now.
John Tripolsky:So by the time you listen to this tomorrow morning, it won't even be 24 years old. Unlike this, being episode 76, I don't you can't even really calculate dog years if something's 76 because what's the dog? Like, a 1000 years old? I think most dog year calculators stop at, like, 20 or something. So all joking aside, I know we're talking about dependence.
John Tripolsky:You should be very dependent on the next couple episodes. We got a couple great ones coming up. Everybody be on the lookout for those. As always, we will see you back here next week, same time, different topic here on the Teaching Tax Flow podcast. Hey, everybody.
John Tripolsky:John Tripolsky here from Teaching Tax Flow team. Thanks for hanging out with Chris and myself here again on episode 76 as we really, you know, dove into those top three strategies for parents. So, you know, all joking aside, as as I mentioned earlier, you know, we I will say we always poke fun at our little ones. Right? But, you know, they are they are very dependent on us, and, you know, we could do a lot for them.
John Tripolsky:So go back and share this episode if you will, but listen to it a couple times, you know, the the topics we touched on it, obviously, we just skimmed the service. There's a lot of detail we could go in on each and every one of those and stressing it one more time before we let you go. Things change, they could change often, and they could change very, very drastically. So be sure to consult your tax professional on any questions you have or drop us a line on social media, that private Facebook group. And as mentioned, if you look below or to the side, usually to the right or right below us, here, that link to that new LinkedIn group.
John Tripolsky:So be sure to join either of those, and always, the only dumb question is the question that goes unasked. So we will see you next week.
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