You Should Know

33446 readers

2105 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.

Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.

Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

YSK: About your taxes if living in the US (self.youshouldknow)

submitted 2 years ago by neanderthal to c/youshouldknow

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Why: Save money and headache, not just on software or services, but on your tax bill. Software and preparation services won't necessarily teach you about deductions or credits that you can get, saving you money.

Example 1: HSAs. HDHP are popular right now which open up the possibility of an HSA. You can invest funds, tax free, in an HSA much like you would a 401k. If you reach the age 65 or become disabled, you can withdraw from it without a tax penalty. Some HSAs even let you use a standard brokerage account like TD Ameritrade or Schwab. It gets better. If your HR doesn't suck and sets it up under cafeteria rules, the money deposited doesn't even get taxed on Social Security or Medicare. If you have this option, use it before any unmatched 401 contributions. So if your federal marginal rate is 12%, your state marginal rate is 5%, and FICA is ~7.65%, you end up with with roughly 250-500 more dollars in your pocket depending on if you the single or family max applies to you.

Example 2: Retirement contribution credit. If you are lower income, you can get up to a 50% tax credit for retirement account contributions. So if your AGI is low enough, a $1000 IRA contribution only costs $500 because of the tax credit, unless your total tax bill is already 0. Then it doesn't matter. In that case, you should probably use a taxable account so you can access the money without paying a 10% penalty. You don't make nearly enough to be taxed on dividends or capital gains at this point. Understanding these things can save you big or keep you from tying up money in tax shelters unnecessarily.

The FIRE community is a great resource for this sort of thing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] stylishboar 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Would you mind linking to the FIRE community?

[–] neanderthal 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm not sure if it exists in the Fediverse. It mostly existed as a collection of blogs in the 2010s. A lot are still around. Some haven't posted in years or changed courses. Although it always existed to an extent, the OG is probably the groups talked about in Your Money or Your Life (A great book). Your Money or Your Life is originally from the early 1990s, although Vicky and Joe (the authors) promoted what they figured out before the book. The more notable blogs and forums are Early Retirement Extreme (has a book too) or Mr Money Mustache, with the latter maintaining an old school forum. I know of some other smaller blogs if you are interested. I don't feel like hunting down links, but you should have to problem finding them. I've been following the FIRE circle since around 2014. I linked to a FIRE blogger/podcaster (Mad Fientist) for the more in depth explanation of why you should absolutely max and not touch your HSA.

If I feel industrious, I could probably run a FIRE Fediverse community.