TRANSCRIPT FOR THE APRIL 22, 2017 “ON THE MONEY” SHOW

Hosts: Aaron Bert, CFP®, AIF®, Gary Abley, CFP®, AIF® and CPA, and Joe Bert, CFP®, AIF®

Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of On the Money with the Certified Financial Group here on News 96.5 WDBO. I am here in the studio alone. It’s so lonely in here. I don’t know where — where’s Joe and Aaron today? Joe, I’m going to turn on the remote transmitter here, let’s see if I can find them here. Joe and Aaron, where are you guys?

We are sitting in the parking lot here in our office in Altamonte Springs doing our annual shred event.

Ah, yes that’s right. Today’s the day.
This is it.

So our listeners that have been accumulating all that tax stuff, and Social Security information, and medical records; if they’d like to have it securely shredded this is your opportunity. We’re doing it right here. The shred truck is right here, the big commercial shredder. You just pull up and you’ll see it shredded right before your eyes. We do this every year as a service to our clients and friends here in Orlando. And we are at 11 Douglas Avenue in Altamonte Springs just south of 434, right around the corner from Interstate 4. You can go to our website, financialgroup.com — that’s financialgroup.com — you can see a map and we are here. We have coffee and donuts and we’re broadcasting live for the next two hours. So, if you have any stuff that you’ve been accumulating, bring it on by, say hello, we’d love to meet you. You can also have an opportunity to register for two, three tickets to the upcoming springs concert May 6th. It’s a tribute to the band ABBA where they bring in a tribute band backed up by the whole complement of the Orlando Philharmonic and that’s May 6th. You can come on by and register for two free tickets for that. So, come on by. Once again, 11 Douglas Avenue in Altamonte springs or go to our website, financialgroup.com. But that’s not the only reason we’re here. Aaron and I are here to answer any questions that you might have regarding your personal finances. As our regular listeners know, we talked about things that might be on your mind, things you need to do now as you prepare for retirement. If you’re into retirement and it just doesn’t feel quite right, it isn’t working out the way you planned, and these are the things that I, and Aaron, and the other certified financial planners at CFG do day in and day out for a fee, but on Saturday morning we do it absolutely for free. So, if you have any questions about your personal finances as they relate to stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, long-term healthcare annuities, life insurance, reverse mortgages, all that and more. And I can’t tell, Kyle, but I bet the lines are absolutely wide open and all I have to do is pick up the phone and dial these magic numbers which are:

844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. We also have the text machine up and running as well, 21232. Now, taxes are done, it’s over, they’re all in. You can head out to the shred event and not only meet Joe and Aaron, but everybody from the Certified Financial Group is out there today, right guys?

Yeah, we have a full complement of people out here. Most of our planners are out here greeting and meeting and handing out donuts and handing out coffee, and grabbing your boxes of shredding and throwing it in the commercial shredder and it’s just a great opportunity for people to come out and get to know us, and get to know our firm, and see our location, and get a service done that they would have to pay for otherwise. So, it is a great event that we have been doing — how many years have we been doing this now?

I would say six?

Yeah, six or seven years.

And every year we get smarter about how to organize this. So this is by far the best one we’ve done.

Yup, it’s a drive-through service too. You don’t even have to get out of your car.

Really?

We’re limiting it though to two banker’s boxes because the first year we did this, we had people lined up with truckloads full of medical records and all sorts of stuff that they just had wanted to shred. We had boxes, and boxes, and boxes. And actually, we filled the shredder truck that year. It was the first . So, we’re limiting it to two banker’s boxes, but you can just drive right on through and we’ll take care of your stuff for you.

Don’t even have to get out of your car. But of course you want to. You want to get out and get a donut and meet the Certified Financial Group, we have all the financial planners there. It’s absolutely a great Saturday. Now, we’re going all the way to 11:00 today, so we have plenty of time to take your phone calls, 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. And now that tax season has come and gone; the deadline was later this week, guys what are some of the things that you should be doing and planning for next year starting now?

Well, one actually interesting conversation we had earlier this week was with a client who had already — someone had come in to see us, had already filed her taxes, and they had a substantial IRA, but they had some tax free income that they were receiving and really they had no tax bill this year. They were in the 0% tax bracket, paid absolutely no taxes. And we had the conversation to them about converting — or taking money out of their IRA so that they didn’t have to pay any taxes on those withdrawals. It’s basically taking a certain amount of the traditional IRA, realizing as a taxable income, but keeping it underneath the limits so they still didn’t have to pay any taxes to basically get tax free income out of a traditional IRA. So, that’s one of those things where people who have IRA assets that don’t have a lot of income, that’s the type of planning that needs to be done before you file your taxes, not after you file your taxes. So, those are the same things we saw this week as people were coming in to see us.

And actually you want to do it if you’re going to do that Roth conversion. You want to do it before the year closes, because once the year closes it’s too late to do that Roth conversion from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. But as Aaron said, it’s a great opportunity to convert, but it would what would normally be taxable income, get it out tax free, roll into a Roth, these people didn’t need the income, but then turned it into something that will continue to grow for them tax free for their beneficiaries tax free. So, it’s one of those things. We are here, it’s what we do for our clients, but you’ve got to see us beforehand. So, if that situation applies to you, keep — mark it on the calendar, come by and see us before the year closes, and we’ll do the calculation for you and show you how much you can take out of your IRA and not pay any taxes.

The other thing we’re seeing right now are people who have paid a lot of taxes this year and they are trying to figure out ways to minimize their tax bill. So, we are meeting with either small business owners who don’t have a retirement plan in place and figuring out ways so we can minimize their overall tax picture. Also, with individual just employees — W-2 employees — what they can do now to minimize their taxes for next year as well.

What are some of those —

ways to do that.

Well, the number way that you can always minimize your taxes if you’re just — if you’re an employee — is to contribute the maximum to your 401k plan. So, 401k plan by far and away is the best way to save for retirement for people who are not self-employed. And your limits; if you’re under 50 are $18,000 a year, and if you’re over 50 they go up to $24,000 a year. And then your spouse can also put money away for themselves depending on your overall income either into an IRA or if they have a 401k maxing that out as well. So, far and away the best way is through the 401k plan. But, if you’re self-employed the world opens up to you as well. So, there are a lot of strategies for self-employed people to put significantly more than $24,000 away into a plan for themselves and so those are the types of people right now that are really licking their wounds because a lot of time they don’t realize all the taxes they have to pay like self-employment tax and then income tax and then they usually get hit by a pretty big tax bill at the end of the year that they weren’t expecting. So, that type of advanced planning is something that we can put into place now to help minimize their income and put away a lot of money for themselves tax deferred in a retirement plan.

And there’s something that very few small business owners know about. And this situation it flies particularly well, it works particularly well I should say, for the small business owner that is up in years, let’s say in his 50s, her in her 50s, and has a handful of employees, maybe younger employees, and they’re making a lot of money. And they’re looking at their tax bill and what can I do? Well, the good news is you have the ability to set up what we call a cash balance plan, which is tied into a 401k and a profit-sharing plan, and between the two plans you can put aside almost $300,000 on a pre-tax basis, get a tax deduction for up to $300,000, let that money grow for you until retirement, and you can accumulate several million dollars very, very quickly. But a lot of people don’t know about this, it takes some calculations to do it, we work with an actuary to do that kind of stuff. But, that’s the kind of planning that we do day in and day out at the Certified Financial Group, we’re certified financial planners and it’s how we distinguish ourselves from those people that want to sell you another annuity and move on down the highway.

If you’ve got a question for Joe and Aaron, it’s 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. We’re talking to then while they are out at the Certified Financial Group office. It’s the shred event. Our weekend guys, where are you guys located today. We want to get so many cars out there so we can see it, so many people through the drive-through today. What is the address I can put in my GPS, come see you guys this morning?

We are located at 11 Douglas Avenue, just off of 434 and I-4 in Altamonte Springs. So, Douglas Avenue, between 436 and 434, but we’re closer to the 434 side, 11 Douglas Avenue. And we’re also posting pictures of the event on our Facebook page, so if you search Certified Financial Group on Facebook, you can see the event, see we’re out here shredding — or see pictures of us here broadcasting as well. So, if you just want to get a good idea of what the event is all about, you can get information on our Facebook page as well.

Yeah, if you’re cleaning out the office, the home office, getting rid of all the tax returns, remember, what is it seven years they — is that what they say — that they recommend to keep your tax returns for?

Well —

Is that the rule? No?

Well, three years for most of the stuff, seven years for — what you really want to do is keep that stuff that’s where you have transactions. People keep goofy stuff like their utility bills and which aren’t deductible at all. The most important thing is to keep your pay stubs, keep the transactions of any investments that you’ve made because you have to have — but really today, your custodian whether it’s Fidelity, or TD Ameritrade, or Charles Schwab, or some mutual fund company, they have what they call a cost basis. So, when you sell that stuff, they send you a 1099 in January, so you want to keep that. But there really is not a lot of records that you need to keep. In fact, you can go to our website, what to shred and what to keep — I think that’s still up there — and there’s a whole list of what you can keep and how long you should keep it for.

Alright.

So that’s the scoop there.

Well that’s a good idea so — because I — I’m looking around. Okay, alright, what do I shred because I just though seven years and I’ve kept everything — I didn’t keep my electric bills or anything, but that does have account information on it. Something you might want to consider shredding. If you can fit it all in the banker’s box and head down to the Certified Financial Group today out there on Douglas in Altamonte Springs. It’s a gorgeous day.

Looks like traffic’s picking up too. We’ve had a steady flow of cars pulling into the parking lot, pulling around and dropping their stuff off.

Yeah, we might even set up a microphone so if anybody has a question, you want to ask it face-to-face, we’ll be — we can do that out there. We’ll get Chris to set up a mic.

We can do that.

Yeah, we’ll get Chris to set up a mic right there and you want to get out of your car, say hello, and then ask a question right there on the air, yeah, we’ll do that too today.

But nothing too hard.

No, well, there’s nothing too hard. Every time I hear a caller call in or somebody ask you guys a question, I’m like man, that’s going to be a tough one, you guys nail it every time. I’m not worried about that.

Well, if we can’t nail it, we know who can.

That’s it.

That’s the secret to success.

That’s it. But it is just a regular On the Money show, so, let’s give out the phone number here; 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. It’s still a regular On the Money. Just because they’re out there on location doesn’t mean they’re not taking your phone call. We’re also taking your tax questions as well, 21232. That’s 21232. Just keep it to about 150 characters, that’s all we can see on our screen. I’ll ask it to the guys and we’ll get your question answered here on the radio today.

Now, this week, I was just about to tell you, Kyle, yesterday Aaron and I met with some clients of ours that we had planned for a couple years ago and they’re a couple years away from retirement. They want to come in just for kind of a tune-up to be sure they’re still on track and they just got a letter from his former employer of 30 years ago letting him know that he’s entitled to a pension which was found money. So, what we want to do is let our listeners know that if you’ve worked for a company, generally for 10 years or more, many years ago, you may be entitled to a pension that you’re not aware of. And they had to track him down and he’s going to get a pension from this company that he wasn’t aware of. So, if you have worked for — particularly, that generally applies to a publicly traded company. So, somebody whose stock is listed and publicly traded, not your neighborhood grocer or something like that, you may be entitled to a pension. So, what you want to do is follow up with that company and sometimes companies change hands. You may need to do a little research to figure out who the new owner is, check with HR, give them your Social Security number, and you may find some lost money that you didn’t know you had. So, there’s oftentimes — those little surprises are nice to have.

Yeah, and how would that affect you should I just come and call you guys immediately or should I put it away in savings, should I just claim it, can I get around it. What would be my first step if I got that letter in the mail?

Well, are you asking what they should do with the extra income?

No, what would be — if you’re talking about things — if I’m retired, do I report it as income to — those types of things.

Yeah, so in this particular case with the pension that they’re receiving, there’s a lot of choices that go in the pension. So, we hadn’t — he hadn’t gotten the letter yet saying how much it was going to be, but in general whenever you have a pension, there’s options. So, you’re going to have to choose when you want to start it. Usually, the longer you delay it’s going to grow a little bit, so if you started at 60 versus at 70, you can get more at 70 versus at 60. You’re going to have to figure out what the interest rate is and see if it makes sense maybe to start it earlier versus later. You have survivor options that you have to be concerned about, so whether you get the single life, which means that if something happens to you it stops and your spouse doesn’t get anything, or whether you put some sort of survivor option on it. I mean, that’s all the type of analysis that has to be done on any type of pension, whether it’s found money or a school pension, or a firefighter’s pension, or any pension in general. There’s always an analysis that needs to be done to figure out what is the best option that they need to choose. But yeah, normally pension will come in as taxable in to you, so you’ll have to report it on your tax return. But found money is — it’s not 100% taxable, so obviously you’re going to be keeping some of that as well. So that was a good thing for them.

And in many cases today, you can roll that pension into an IRA and continue the tax deferral on it. Then take it out when the government says you have to take it out at 70 and a half. So, you can take a lump sum and the benefits of that is that then you control the money because with your pension as Aaron said, if you take the single life option, you pass away, the money stops. If you take a survivor benefit, that means that your survivor will get something and then when he or she passes away, the money stops. But if you take the lump sum, that money is always there that you can draw from. And then the question is what’s the trade off, what kind of return will the pension provide you? But more importantly is how secure is the pension. Unless you work for a government entity — even today, look at Chicago, look at Detroit. Major cities are — look at California. Those pensions are in jeopardy because they’ve been underfunded for many years. So, some people are of the mind, let’s take the money and be sure that we have it 20 years down the road that they’re going to have to make changes. In fact, my father-in-law, who works in the steel mills for many years in Cleveland, retired with a pension from Public Steel. And Public Steel filed bankruptcy and the pension was underfunded and unfortunately my mother-in-law had to deal with an unfunded pension situation and it changed their retirement situation. So, all the things entered into the decision making process is what we do day in and day out at the Certified Financial Group. We analyze that stuff. Should you take the lump sum, should you take the payment, the guaranteed side of the pension is very nice, but once again you run the risk, as I said, of perhaps the whole thing going up on you. So that’s what we do day in and day out for a fee, but if you have any questions as I said this morning, we’re here to answer your questions for free. And the good news is the lines are still wide open and all I have to do is dial these magic numbers, right Kyle?

That’s it. 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. Text machine is up and running as well, 21232. We will continue to take your calls with Joe and Aaron Bert as they are broadcasting live from the offices — or I should say the parking lot — of the Certified Financial Group for the shred event. Go by and see them on Douglas Avenue, but right now we pause to get the three big things you need to know. Hey, welcome back to On the Money here on News 96.5 WDBO’s Ask the Experts weekend. We are taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965 with Joe and Aaron Bert with the Certified Financial Group. But, they are not in the studio today. They are out in the parking lot at the Certified Financial Group offices. Why, guys?

Well, we have our annual shredding event, so right after tax time we like to offer our service to the community. People can come out and just get rid of any old records that they may have that they don’t want to just throw in the garbage because of identity theft issues have become more and more prevalent. So, bring it by. You can see it get destroyed in a commercial shredder right in front of your eyes and we are going to be here until noon shredding stuff. So, if you’re interested, 11 Douglas Avenue right off of 434 and I-4. We will be here until noon.

11 Douglas Avenue, that’s where they will be. But, we are still taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965. So, let’s get back to our phone lines and talk to Cathy in Orlando. Cathy, you’re on with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

Great. I was wondering if it was allowable — and I heard it might be beneficial because you don’t get taxed on the interest — to contribute to either a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA even if you maxed out of your 401k and you’re phased out of the range deduction for income limitations.

So, let me be sure I understand your question. You’re saying that you’re phased out —

Correct.

And you can’t take the standard — the regular deduction for a deductible IRA. And the question is should you at least do an IRA or a non-deductible IRA?

Correct.

Is that your question?

Correct.

Alright. Aaron, what do you suggest?

Well, you have some options. Do you have an IRA outside — so, do you have just the 401k and no other IRA accounts, correct?

I have an old IRA account from like 15 years ago that I stopped contributing to.

Right, but you’ve maxed out your 401k and the question is what do you do with the extra money that you have? Should you do a non-deductible IRA or a Roth IRA?

Correct.

Well, where I was going is that if you did not have another IRA, I would suggest doing a non-deductible IRA and then doing a Roth conversion. But that doesn’t necessarily work because you have an existing IRA. So, if you do a Roth conversion then you have to include — if you have an existing IRA and then you do a non-deductible IRA, and then you do a Roth conversion, you have to include your deductible IRA assets in the Roth conversion. So, it doesn’t make sense to be doing that. It gets very complicated.

Let’s back up. we had someone come to see us several months ago now who was advised to do a non-deductible IRA and do what we call a backdoor Roth, which is basically what Aaron is alluding to where you do a non-deductible IRA and then you immediately convert it to a Roth to allow for the tax free build-up. The problem was he had an existing deductible IRA and that really messes things up. So, what Aaron is pointing to is if you have an existing IRA that you took a deduction for, you don’t want to do a non-deductible IRA and convert it to a Roth. You’re better off in your situation to just do the Roth.

Okay.

Depending on your income. Because you may, with the income limitations, not be able to do the Roth. So, you have to know what those income limitations are as well because you could get phased out on the Roth. Sounds like we’re going to get cut out here, but what you can do is take your IRA and put it into your 401k, and then do the Roth conversion as well. So, if you’re interested in doing that, call our office and we can help walk you through the mechanics of how that works.

Appreciate — yeah, that’s a great point. Let’s circle back to that at the break. I didn’t think of that, but Aaron, that’s a great idea —

we’ll continue with this call in just moment, Kathy. Hang on there, we’ll pick you back up. But right now, we’ve news, weather and traffic. we’ve got Harry in Longwood coming up after Kathy and if you want to get behind Harry, it’s 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. We are planning tomorrow today. With the Certified Financial Group on location live on WDBO. Hey, welcome back to On The Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965, WDBO. Ask the experts weekend, we are taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965. That’s 844-220-0965 with Joe and Aaron Bert who are broadcasting live from the parking lot. the Certified Financial Group there on Douglas Avenue for the shred event, gentlemen. How do we find you? How do we get there?

We are located at 1111 Douglas Avenue, which is in Alcamon Springs right off of 434 and I-4. And we are out here, we have our company flags out front so you can see our driveway. And basically have a drive-through system set up where you circle around the building and we have people there to get your stuff and dump it into the industrial bin. Then you can see it load right up into the big truck and destroyed forever, ever and ever and ever.

Fantastic.

So we are doing it until noon.

And we actually just went live on Facebook as well, I want to point out. So if you want to see what we look like as we’re sitting here in our parking lot, it’s really exciting. And we’ve got some people that are joining in here if you want to see what we look like here. You can go to our Facebook page, search Certified Financial Group on Facebook and we are live right now on there. And if you like us, you can get updates whenever we go live, which we will be doing at the spring concert as well. We’re going to try to do a 360 from the stage, we have a 360 degree camera set up, it’ll be broadcasting live from the stage and I’ll keep drone footage live at the concert as well.

We’re listening to the music of addle , when is this event?

It’s May the 6th, two weeks from today at the Springs Community in Longwood. It’s a tribute to the band, Abba. They bring in a wonderful tribute band backed up by the full complement to the Orlando Philharmonic. Bring your blanket, bring your adult beverage, kick back and relax under the stars. You can come by office this morning and register for two free tickets for that or you can go to our website, financialgroup.com. I understand there’s a handful of tickets left of that. So once, go to our website, financialgroup.com and it’ll direct you right there how to buy some tickets. Or you can by our office and register. And once again as Aaron said, we’re broadcasting live on the radio but we’re one Facebook live this morning. This is an absolutely first for us that you can see us here. When people tune in, we see people who was one of our long-standing clients, Lenny in North Carolina is watching us this morning live. So this is incredible what you can do with just technology, just blows my mind. In fact, we’re watching it here on Aaron’s cell phone. And the video is just — it’s mind-boggling. It’s absolutely mind-boggling what can be done. So if you want to tune in, you go to our Facebook page, Certified Financial Group and pull it up and you can check us out that way.

Now I’m watching you guys here in the studio, it’s awesome. I can see — like I’m out there with you in the parking lot. I see the coffee, it’s pretty awesome.

But we want to circle back to Kathy.

We still have Kathy on the line if we want to bring her back in.

Kathy, you still there?

I am.

Okay, so let’s recap our listeners that just might have tuned in. You’re maxing out your 401k plan and you had a question as to whether or not you should do a non-deductible IRA or contribute to a Roth IRA. And Aaron alluded to the fact that if becomes problematic if you have an existing IRA that you took a tax deduction for. And then using non-deductible IRA which you later convert to a Roth. We had a client come in to see us several months ago that did that and really had a mess on his hands tax-wise. So Aaron’s idea, which I should have thought of myself, however, is what Aaron?

Well the idea is basically get rid of your traditional IRA by rolling them into your 401k at work if your employer will allow it. Most employer plans allow for roll-in, either of other 401ks or of traditional IRAs directly into the plan. And if you can get that money into the plan, then the backdoor Roth option is a definite consideration for you. And that’s a way to see putting money into a non-deductible IRA and then converting that immediately into a Roth as a way to basically side-step the Roth phase-out rule which are currently in effect. Because there are no phase-out rules for Roth conversions. However, there are phase-out rules for Roth contributions. But you can backdoor that and that’s why they call it a backdoor Roth by doing a non-deductible IRA and then converting that into a Roth IRA.

So once again, if your income is too high, you’d be able to use a Roth IRA as a way to basically to a Roth IRA and avoid the tax consequences. So Aaron’s I did ask is great, Kathy. You can roll that IRA that you have into your current 401k, avoid all of the taxes. And then the appropriate time, do the non-deductible IRA and then do the backdoor Roth conversion, that’ll work for you.

Great, thank you.

You’re welcome, Kathy.

You’re very welcome Kathy.

Alright Kathy, appreciate the phone call. If you want Kathy’s line, it’s 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. Go to Harry in Longwood. Harry, you’re on with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

Hello.

Good morning, Harry.

Hey Harry.

How can we help you?

Well now you’ve got me asking two questions: First, what is a non-deductible IRA? That’s not my question, but that’s the quick one you were just talking about.

Okay.

And the second one

Sure, well first of all a non-deductible IRA is an individual retirement account that you set up but which you don’t take a tax deduction. And it’s still subject to the limitations, how much you can put into , if you’re over 50 years old it’s $6,500, or $5,500 if you’re under. And then you do not take a tax deduction. It’ll accumulate for you on a tax-deferred basis. And then when you take it out, then you have to do a calculation as to how much was in after-tax and then how much accumulated on a tax-deferred basis. But the ideal thing is if you don’t have an existing deductible IRA is to do the backdoor Roth. So you have — as Aaron said, if you — there’s no income limitation so you set up that non-deductible IRA and then you convert it to a Roth and then it grows for you on a tax-free basis. But we want to emphasize what you want to do if you’re in a tax bracket of 15% or more, you want to grab that tax-deduction. Where there’s an IRA or a 401k. Don’t be doing the stuff unless you’ve already maxed out your tax-deductible contributions. So does that answer your question for you?

Part of it, it feeds into my other questions.

Sure, go ahead.

I know I’m working a partial year, making $24,000 a 401k. Do you have to do that — can you do that if you’re only working a partial year, putting that much in? Or do you have to spread it over a certain paycheck?

No, you can do it all in one month if you can afford to do it. We’ve seen people — yeah, you don’t have to do — that’s the limit for the year. Most people spread it out equally over their paycheck. But if you can do it in six months, yeah, you can put away $24,000 within that six months. Assuming your over 50.

And it has to come out of your paycheck, you can’t write a check to your IRA. It has to come through payroll deduction.

Okay, gotcha.

You want to get with HR and figure out how many months left you’re going to work and how much of your paycheck has got to go into the 401k to get that maximum deduction.

Alright. So related to that, I get a Roth IRA, I have my 401k, and I could still do a — there’s so I can do a deductible IRA. But could I — can myself, can I do a Roth IRA as well non-deductible IRA? Or can you only do one of those.

You can only do one.

Okay, okay.

So you may want to do the Roth if possible. And if you can’t do the Roth because your income is too high, then you’ll do the backdoor Roth as we talked about. Assuming you don’t have an existing deductible IRA.

Okay, okay.

Alright?

Perfect, well thank you much.

, thanks for the call. You’re in Longwood, by the way. You can swing by our office if you have any stuff that you need to be shredded. We’re going to be here until 12:00.

Harry’s gone, but go ahead and give the address the Certified Financial Group.

Once again, 1111 Douglas Avenue in Alcamon Springs just south of 434, just around the corner from I-4. And you can go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com. Financialgroup.com and then you can get a map there and we’re sitting here in the parking lot. In fact, we’re on Facebook live, this morning. So if you have a Facebook account, you can pull us up and see Aaron and me sitting here smiling at you and waving at you. And come on by for coffee and doughnuts.

That’s it. And then if you want to ask your question right there at the table, we have a microphone set up. So if you want to be on the — put the headset on and talk to Joe and Aaron face-to-face on the radio, we’ll have that opportunity to do that today as well. But those of you who just can’t make it out today, we’ve got the phone lines up and running. 844-220-0965. That’s 844-220-0965. Text machine is up and running as well. 21232. Carter in Titusville has dialed us up. Carter, you’re on the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

Good morning, Carter.

Yeah I had a question about a health savings account. Being a self-employed person, do I have any — is there a tax advantage? Is there a tax savings for me to continue to an HSA?

Yes, yes definitely. HSAs for those listeners who are not aware, it stands for health savings account. You can only contribute to an HSA if you have a qualifying high-deductible healthcare plan. Which means that your deductible is over — I don’t know what the limit is, I think you got to be over —

10 — 10,000?

No, I think lower. It’s like $3,000, $4,000 is considered a nowadays. So you have a plan qualifying high deductible plan and then you can contribute to an HSA. An HSA allows you to put money in and get a tax deduction. There are no income limitations on the HSA tax — on the tax deduction side. And if you use that money for medical expenses, it comes out tax-free. So it’s like the best world of a traditional IRA where you get a tax deduction and a Roth IRA where it comes out tax-free if used for medical expenses. So yes, I strongly consider anyone who has an HSA to maximize the HSA to make sure that you at least get the tax deduction. And then what we’ve also been recommending to clients is that you don’t spend the money, especially if you have the ability to invest the HSA and you have extra money available to pay your medical bills. So if you can accumulate your HSA and allow it to start growing, you can start to build up what we’re calling a medical IRA. That as you get older, you know that you’re going to be tapping into which will be extremely valuable to you in the future. So that’s kind of what we’ve been recommending to clients, if you can contribute to an HSA. Maximize it, don’t spend it, keep your medical receipts though because what we know as well is that you are able to reimburse yourself in the future if you do need to tap into that money in the future, assuming that you have medical receipts to back up the withdrawal. So that’s what we’ve been recommending to clients. But go ahead, do you have more that you want to add onto that? Any other questions?

Well, I just wondered, how does that deduction come out? Is that just part of an itemized deduction?

No, when you complete your taxes they ask if you did an HSA contribution. It comes out just like an IRA deduction. itemized deduction.

Alright, thank you very much.

Okay, well thanks for call.

Thanks for the call.

Alright, Carter thanks so much for the phone call. If you want Carter’s line, it’s 844-220-0965. We are doing the on the money show broadcasting live from the Certified Financial Group. has been going all the way to 11:00 today with the shred event going on. We thought we’d take your close all the way to 11:00, so plenty of time to get your question answered. 844-220-0965. Before we get to the three big things you need to know, let’s go ahead — Dylan in Daytona. Dylan, you’re on with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

Hey, good morning gentlemen. Thanks for taking my call.

Good morning Dylan.

Hey.

Do you hear me?

Hey, how can I help you? Yeah, go ahead.

Hi. My current employer does a 3% match and I’m going to be transitioning to a new employer. And they said something about matching 3% up to 100% and then 3% up to 50%. I wasn’t really clear what they were talking about or referencing. Can you explain that a little bit?

Sure, that’s what we call a Safe Harbor plan. And for those listening that might not be familiar with that, what that means is that your company is putting in a match that can give you 100% of the first 3% of your income that you put in. Okay, you following me so far? And then 50% of the next two. So just — it comes out to 4%. So they will match up to 4% of your income. If you put in 5%, they will put in four. So if your income is let’s say — just make the math easier, $100,000. And if you put in 5,000, they’ll put in 4%.

Okay.

So basically that’s an 80% return on your money. When you put in 500, you get 400. Or if you put in 5,000, then you get 4,000, that’s an 80% return of your money. Anybody that isn’t using the match as a minimum, you’re nuts. Because that is in fact free money. And of course that is your money from day one. That’s what’s called a Safe Harbor. And then when you do that , you can roll that into your new plan.

Okay, so I just — you recommend just matching out contributions to that plan then

We recommend that you max out your allowable deductible contributions which under the age of 50 is 18,000, and over 50 is 24,000. So that’s — you know you’re going to work up to that 18,000 when you do the match. And then beyond that, that’s your money going in of course. But you get the tax deduction, goes in there, grows without being taxed. The objective for everybody listening today is your objective — if you want a decent retirement, maximize your contribution to your 401k plan over and above what your company matches. And if your company doesn’t match, so what? You’ve got to save money for your retirement. Put the money in your 401k, the 403b, the 457, the 401a. And if you don’t have that — as a minimum do an IRA. If you’re self-employed, do a SEP-IRA. But there are ways to get tax deductions and have money grow for you without being taxed. If you don’t save for your retirement, ladies and gentlemen, the only thing you’re going to have is Social Security and that’s not a pretty picture.

Hey, would you recommend rolling in my personal IRA that’s not employer-funded into this account?

It all depends on what the options are in your new plan. What’s look at, Aaron.

We’ll — really got to look at the expenses, what you’re currently invested in and how much you’re paying with your current plan or your current IRA that you have. I mean there’s some comparisons that you would want to do. Normally, when people — so we see a lot of people with 401k plans and they have worked at multiple employers and they have 401k plans that they have left to all their employers. So one of the jobs that — or one of the things that we always encourage is that people either consolidate it into their 401k or consolidate to an IRA as they move along. So a lot of times, people will have an IRA where they’ve consolidated all of their 401ks and then they have a 401k with their current employer. The problem people run into is that if you have stuff here and there you can’t get it all working in the same direction. It’s very hard to coordinate all of those types of investments and keep track or everything that you have. So it’s not as easy as a yes or a no without doing some sort of an analysis to see what you currently have in your IRA versus what’s offered in your current 401k plan.

There’s a lot variables, particularly if what you have — this might be very good. And with the 401k plan through your employer, might not be as good in terms of what the investment options are, in terms of what the expenses are built into it. One of the things that we caution our clients about particularly if you work to a small or medium-sized company, is if your 401k is offered by an insurance company, those generally are very expensive plans. So you may not want to do that. If you work for a larger company, chances are you’re buying directly with the mutual fund and you’re getting that — that fund as a very, very low cost. But the insurance company plans — and the way you tell, here’s how you tell. When you get your statement and you see the fund name in there, if you can’t find that share price that they’re showing — what the share price is on the fund or you go online. And if it doesn’t correlate, go to yahoo.com and look for the same fund. If the share price is not similar, very close within a couple of pennies, chances are you have one of those insurance company plans and those are very, very expensive.

Alright, thank you for taking my call.

.

Yep.

Okay, thanks for the call.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate, Dylan. Thanks so much. If you want Dylan’s line, it’s 844-220-0965. I know you’re looking at the clock, 9:53, you guys usually leave at 10:00. No, not today. We’re go all the way to 11:00am.

Not today.

So if you got a question for the panel, give us a call at 844-220-0965. We have to get the three big things you need to know.

Now, the three big things you need to know.

Three.

night wildfires are driving thousands of people from their homes all across Florida in the news at 10:00. I’ll check on the chances we could have rain this weekend.

Two.

Highway patrol now investigating after a motorcyclist strikes and kills a teenager playing on a street in Orlando.

One.

A few light coastal showers left of I-95 in Volusia County. On news 965 WDBO with weather radar, it’s sunny right now. 76 in Orlando.

And welcome back to On The Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965 WDBO. We are two minutes away from the latest news, weather, and traffic with Dave Walt and a whole ‘nother hour of on the money. So if you didn’t get a chance to get your question answered, you’re looking at the clock and saying ah it’s almost 10:00 — no no, we’re going to 11:00 today because Joe live broadcasting from the parking lot of Certified Financial Group from their big shred event. Joe, how do we get out there?

Once again, get in your car and bring two boxes of shredding to office in Alcamon Springs, 1111 Douglas Avenue just south of 434, just around the corner from I-4. It’s absolutely free, you’ll see your important documents shredded right before your eyes. Come by for some hot coffee and a doughnut, and then you can come on by and see us broadcast right live from our studio — from our studio — from our parking.

.

Which is our studio. And go to our website. go to our website, financialgroup.com. You get all of the details, and if you’re interested, you can also watch us this morning on Facebook live. Go on our Facebook, Certified Financial Group, and you can see Gary Abley who’s doing for the next hour.

Yep Gary,

If you’re not , Gary’s a CPA and as well as a certified financial planner. And we are here to take your calls. If you have any questions, get in line right now and it’s the top of the hour and

Dictation made on 4/25/2017 11:41 AM EDT.

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