Is a Flat Tax a Good Idea?

Joe and Al discuss the volatility of the market and how investors should react to it. Ever heard of the “3-legged stool?” It was a a term used by financial advisors to describe the three different sources of income in retirement. The 3-legged stool has changed since the term first arose. Now, the three “legs” of the stool are: Social Security, personal savings/retirement accounts and a forward-looking tax strategy. Find out how to utilize these three sources of income and why right now is the best time to develop your financial strategy for 2016. The two also discuss whether a flat tax is a good idea by running the numbers on Ben Carson’s proposal.

1:25 “When markets go up, people get complacent; when markets go down, people get freaked out”

3:48 “Markets are all over the board, it’s a very volatile time”

6:59 “Here’s what I think people should do with the information: first of all, try to ignore a lot of the media noise that you hear. A 5% drop in the overall market the first week out to shoot is pretty scary”

10:01 “Our firm has always acted as a fiduciary, so if you’re every looking to get a second opinion or advice on your overall financial planning, we highly recommend you work with a fiduciary that will be a fiduciary 100% of the time”

11:03 “Those three go-to sources of income in retirement have changed significantly”

13:48 “You have to look at where your money is coming from—is it in a retirement account, is it outside of a retirement account, is it in a Roth IRA or municipal bonds? Is it in real estate? You have to take a look at your balance sheet to determine what the best strategy is for your given goals”

16:32 “It’s a great goal to not have a mortgage and we should all strive for that, but it’s also not the end of the world and it’s not necessarily the right answer for everyone”

18:25 “If you want to do a [Roth] contribution, do it right away because then all future growth of those dollars are going to grow tax-free for you”

24:04 “There are different categories you want to invest in in a globally-diversified portfolio”

26:44 “When you get near retirement, taxes become more important than ever—you need to use a forward-looking strategy”

28:50 “I think it’s interesting to find out how this flat tax works, because it seems to come up virtually every presidential election and it never seems to go anywhere, and I’m going to explain why”

32:52 “What is our highest tax bracket right now? It’s 39.6. So for those who have huge salaries or huge ordinary income, they’re paying big tax. In this new flat tax system, they would pay a lot less”