Investing Blog Roundup: Pay Attention to Marginal Tax Rates and Not Tax Brackets

In so many tax planning decisions (e.g., which type of retirement account to contribute to, which account(s) to spend from each year in retirement, whether to do Roth conversions, etc.), you need to know your marginal tax rate.

And, long-time readers are surely sick of hearing me say this, but your marginal tax rate is often different than just your tax bracket. Especially for somebody in retirement, doing tax planning by looking at just tax brackets is as likely to be harmful as helpful.

In an article for Advisor Perspectives this week, William Reichenstein walks readers through a variety of cases in which this distinction is important, and he points out that even respected professionals make this mistake sometimes.

• Pay Attention to Marginal Tax Rates and Not Tax Brackets from William Reichenstein

Recommended Reading

• Having Your Retirement Cake and Slicing It, Too (Christine Benz interview of Michael Finke)
• Can Money Buy a Longer Life? (Christine Benz and Jeffrey Ptak interview Laura Carstensen)
• Are Rising Interest Rates Bad for Tech Stocks? from Ben Carlson
• Grading The 25 Largest ETFs from Allan Roth
• Kitces’ XY Planning Network to SEC: Time to Revisit Who Gets to Be an ‘Advisor’ from Kenneth Corbin
• How To Deposit Paper I Bonds to TreasuryDirect Online Account from Harry Sit
• Why Buying the Dip is a Terrible Investment Strategy from Nick Maggiulli

Thanks for reading!