By: Jeff Bullock
Three Things to Ask Your Advisor in November
Being a wealth advisor is a lot like navigating a ship through the ocean. While you can prepare for all the different types of elements you may encounter, ultimately, you have to navigate in whatever weather appears that day. Without a doubt, 2022 has been an unprecedented year for ‘financial weather’ disrupting many portfolios and personal goals. Despite what has happened, a great wealth advisor is always adjusting and will see the landscape as it appears today, and make decisions based on the present situation. As we near the end of the year, there are potentially a few things that can be done to re-position your portfolio for next year.
Everything starts with good communication with your wealth advisor. I would suggest you call your advisor this month, and along with other questions you might have, ask them these three questions:
- Have you done any tax-loss harvesting in my portfolio this year?
- The current tax code allows you to “carry forward” capital losses indefinitely into the future, as well as deduct up to $3,000 of those losses in the current year. After a year like this where many financial securities are down, harvesting losses can be an effective strategy to get a small deduction today, while also banking those losses for use against gains in future years.
- Are you helping me mitigate capital gains distributions?
- At the end of every year, many mutual funds and some ETFs will distribute something called a “capital gains distribution.” This is where the fund will pass through a portion of the proceeds from sales that occurred within the fund, to the fund holder. If you own a mutual fund or ETF that does this type of distribution, then it will be a taxable event, which in a year like this feels even worse. There are strategies to mitigate these types of distributions that your advisor should already should be implementing.
- Does a Roth IRA conversion make sense this year?
- Perhaps you have money in a Traditional IRA that you’ve always wanted to convert to a Roth IRA, but have never wanted to pay the tax. With the market being down so much this year, it might make sense to ask your advisor if this is a good year to convert these funds to a Roth IRA. There will be a tax associated with this conversion, but this may be an opportunity to explore if it makes sense for your tax situation.
Before you get too busy with holiday gatherings and other year-end events, call your advisor and check-in on your portfolio. Despite the difficult year in markets, there are still ways that you can set your investments up for a better tomorrow.
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