New and potential real estate investors, unfortunately, often fall into one or more serious tax traps. Accordingly, the discussion that follows identifies these traps, or mistakes, and then ways to side-step the trouble. Some of the material covered in the paragraphs that follow is a little, … [Read more...] about Real Estate Tax Traps: The Three Biggest Mistakes
Finance
Calculating a Business’s Break-Even Points
Break-even analysis allows you to determine the business revenue necessary to pay all your expenses. Break-even analysis is a simple and powerful financial-management technique related to business profits. At the break-even point, a business doesn’t make any money, but it also doesn’t lose any … [Read more...] about Calculating a Business’s Break-Even Points
How to Compare Rental Property Investments
Analyzing real estate investments is important. By doing so, you’re likely both to make smarter investments—and to avoid costly mistakes. Unfortunately, most individual real estate investors have no idea of where to even begin. That’s too bad. In many cases, the analysis isn’t difficult. Step 1: … [Read more...] about How to Compare Rental Property Investments
Early Mortgage Repayment: Pros and Cons
When you work through the numbers, the savings that stem from early repayment of a loan can seem almost too good to be true. Can a few dollars a month really add up to, for example, $25,000 of savings? Well, sort of. When you save money over long periods of time and let the interest compound, … [Read more...] about Early Mortgage Repayment: Pros and Cons
Financial Planning for a Windfall in Wealth
So I’ve lived in this community for, gosh, nearly three decades. In that time, as a CPA serving thousands of business owners and affluent taxpayers, I’ve seen a pattern repeat itself time and time again when someone receives a big financial windfall. A giant bump in income from Microsoft or … [Read more...] about Financial Planning for a Windfall in Wealth
Determining How Much Life Insurance You Need
When considering life insurance, you’re planning and preparing for an event most of us would rather not think about. But life insurance represents a critical step in managing your personal finances and ensuring your family’s well-being. The Two Approaches to Life Insurance You can use one of two … [Read more...] about Determining How Much Life Insurance You Need