Financial specialist Simon Brady asks a simple question; are your finances ready should you get divorced or your spouse were to die? Divorce and taxes; And what about your parents in their final days; will they, or YOU, outlive your money?

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Well, welcome to Practical Tax. I’m Chip Franklin. I am with co-host. Of course the host is our tax attorney, Steve Moskowitz. Steve, I hope you’re well.

Steve Moskowitz:

Doing fine Chip.

Chip Franklin:

It’s a holiday weekend and we have a lot to talk about on the show today. Coming up a little bit later, we’re going to talk about many people that are watching this, either are seniors, or they have parents that are either in nursing homes and or living with them. And a lot of that’s changing. And we want to talk a little bit about later on the show about some of the tax advantages that you can take advantage of. Obviously some of the tax, just possibilities here that you can avoid. Also, if you’re an entrepreneur or if you have side hustles, is a time to go long form. We’ll talk about some of the tips for being self-employed in our Ask Steve segment.

But first let’s talk about, well, the painful part of divorce. Joining us right now is Simon Brody. He is from www.angliaadvisors.com. He’s from London originally. He worked at the UN in Manhattan for quite a while as a Financial Advisor and a ETF specialist before going on to found Anglia Advisors. It’s a fee for service advisor firm. We’ll get to that in a few minutes as well, but they offer personal advice and consulting services to young people, couples and family, for nationals, and also suddenly single. Those are people that are coming out of divorce and in some cases, widower or widowhood, without the inevitable conflicts of interest that many times the commission compensated sales people deal with. And he’s joining us right here on Practical Tax on again, our streaming network. Simon Brody, say hello to Steve Moskowitz.

Simon Brady:

Hi Steve, how are you?

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi Simon, how you doing? It’s very impressive, the UN.

Simon Brady:

It’s certainly an interesting place. I wouldn’t say it moves along at the speed of sound. You’re probably not astonished to hear that there’s an intensely high level of bureaucracy there, but it was definitely interesting. Yeah, really.

Chip Franklin:

That’ll give us all a little room to breathe here. Okay.

Simon Brady:

There we go.

Chip Franklin:

So let’s just jump into this and talk about the suddenly single thing, because I know this is something that you both share. Steve deals with this all the time and as well as you. Can we start with you Simon? How do people and especially women begin and sustain a financial plan at that point in their lives?

Simon Brady:

Yeah, it is an extremely triggering event on all levels. A divorce or a widowhood, but sticking with divorce for the time being. Most relationships tend to have an imbalance when it comes to being the financial decision maker within the household, you very, very often have one person who is taking control of a very, very high amount of it. And therefore by definition, the other person is shut out. And that may be an arrangement they came to perfectly amicably. But what happens when the relationship ends for one reason or another is you very often have one person who is entirely overwhelmed by having to deal with all this stuff. In some cases for maybe the first time in their lives, in their late thirties, early forties having to deal with this stuff which they’d always been able to outsource internally in the relationship. I should make the point that I am a CFP, a Certified Financial Planner.

There is another designation, a CDFA, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. Those people are usually CFPs as well. And I did actually have the designation for a while. They deal with these individuals during the divorce process right up to the decree. So what they’re doing, a lot of things is making sure that the other party is being clean in their financial disclosures, helping their own clients deal with it. But once a decree is completed, the CDFA takes its hat off and then becomes a Certified Financial Planner again. So I don’t deal with individuals undergoing divorce. The day after the decree is announced, that’s when I can work with people. So I make it a part of my practice that I particularly work with what I would call the junior partner in terms of the amount of work that they were doing on the finances prior to the dissolution of the marriage.

Chip Franklin:

It’s hard stuff, Steve. Obviously this happens to you a lot. I mean, I can imagine it could be a corporate account or it could be a couple and they divorce. And what are some of the obstacles, the tax obstacles, and just in general that you find is this thing progresses?

Steve Moskowitz:

So the first thing is a determination should be made. Does the couple owe any taxes? And if the answer is yes, that amount should immediately be paid to the taxing authorities. And the reason for that is what usually happens is there’s an agreement in the MSA, Marital Settlement Agreement, or the court order. And then what happens is, and that’s what I’m going to tell you what supposed to happen and what really happens. So there’s an agreement or an order that spouse one is going to pay the taxes and he or she just doesn’t or can’t and spouse two that wasn’t supposed to pay a penny, waves that piece of paper, the IRS says, “Hey, the court ordered that my no good ex spouse is supposed to pay this. Don’t look at me”. And the IRS says that has nothing to do with the IRS. It has no effect on the IRS.

If that was a joint return, the IRS can collect it from either party and in full, in part, whatever they want to do. And I see that all the time in practice. People just don’t live up to that and the other spouse gets stuck. That can be avoided by paying the taxes first. But suppose you say, “Oh no, you’re watching this broadcast and it’s already done”. And that’s where you are right now. One of the things that you might want to consider is something called innocence spouse. And what innocence spouse is say to you guys, is “Okay. Look, I had no knowledge and no benefit. And therefore I shouldn’t be liable for the taxes, even though it was a joint return. Because that’s an exception, a joint return husband and wife file joint return.

And then what happens is the legal mumbo jumbo is they’re jointly in severally liable, meaning that the IRS can collect it all from one or the other or any way with the innocent spouse is saying, “Hey, don’t look at me”. And again, the two big things here, no knowledge, no benefit. So the IRS looks at that. The ideal case here is where, let’s say husband had his own business and he spent all the money on drugs or gambling or something else. And didn’t bring the money home and support the spouse. That’s your best case of walking away from these taxes called innocent spouse. There’s other things you can do too, but that’s the first one you want to take a look at?

Chip Franklin:

Is the spouse supposed to be knowledgeable of the tax liabilities as much as the earner?

Steve Moskowitz:

That’s a great question, Chip. Supposed to, or in reality, when you sign it, you’re responsible for it. Whether you know about it or not. In reality, most people don’t. I mean, think about it. You’re an intelligent man. The last time you rented a car and the car rental agency handed you this book and said, “Here you go, Mr. Franklin”. Were you really knowledgeable of all those terms Chip?

Chip Franklin:

No one reads that. It’s like the contract with AT&T or when you get your iPhone and they send you that 15 page document that even if I read it, I wouldn’t understand it.

Steve Moskowitz:

And nor would they change it. And then if something happens, some lawyer says, “Well, Mr. Franklin, here on page 97 in paragraph 3072, it clearly states and blah, blah, blah”. So the bottom line is, that’s why we call this Practical Tax. We have to be practical. I can tell you all the things that you should do to have the best possible tax situation, but you know what? That’s not real life. So if you come into us and you say, “Well, look, here’s what happened to me”, we’ll make the best of what you have. Just like a physician would do.

Chip Franklin:

Are you talking as how the IRS would be thinking or the state?

Steve Moskowitz:

The IRS just says pay up. The IRS doesn’t get into that. They just get into, “Hey, pay up or they’ll take it”. It’s the taxpayer’s job to say, “Well, wait a minute now. There’s a reason why I shouldn’t have to pay you and one reason is innocent spouse”. If innocent spouse doesn’t work for you, you have all the other defenses too, like offering compromise monthly payment plan, penalty, abatements. But I would start off with trying to completely get away from it before you say getting just partially away from them.

Chip Franklin:

Wow. Let me ask another question. Simon, jump in. So say a couple gets divorced, and they have a settlement with attorneys, and then his past catches up with him a couple years later with an audit, and say she marries a person and has some means, can the IRS come after the means that she married into?

Steve Moskowitz:

Oh, this one better go to me.

Simon Brady:

Please. Can it go to him?

Steve Moskowitz:

Oh, this and I see this in practice all the time. We have husband one and wife. Husband one is naughty. For example, he has his own business and doesn’t report all of his income. And later on gets caught. They divorce, wife marries husband two without a prenup. Let’s assume we’re in a community property state. What happens is IRS says, “Okay, husband two, essentially you’re stuck paying the taxes for what husband one didn’t pay”. Husband two is not liable for the debt of husband one. If they divorce, husband two wouldn’t owe a penny. But the problem is, in the original joint return, if wife and husband one were jointly and severally liable and wife marries husband two without a prenup, and we’re in a community property state like California, then what happens is half of husband two’s earnings belongs to wife. That’s why the IRS can seize it. But let’s assume wife doesn’t have any earnings of her own, they’re essentially taken it all from husband two. And you know, some husbands two get upset by that.

Chip Franklin:

Let me ask you this Simon. So in, and again you, Steve too, because these are all cross over each other. If say there’s a couple and they’re in their forties and one of their parents die and leave them, let’s say a million dollars. The way I understand it, if you put that money in your joint accounts as cash or in some joint financial plan, after a certain period of time, it belongs to both you. What do you guys suggest that person do when they inherit that million?

Steve Moskowitz:

I think I better answer this one too. And first of all, normally this depends on State Law. So I’m going to be talking specifically about California. Let’s assume the couple does not have a prenuptial agreement and inheritance is separate property. So suppose the husband received the money and the next day they divorce, wife can’t touch it. That’s his separate property. What you’re talking about Chip is they put the money in the bank, but let’s make it more complicated. It’s not just one bank account that sits there, because that’s still able to identify it. “Hey, that’s my separate property and it remains my separate property”.

What you’re talking about, what you have to worry about is something called a transmutation and what a transmutation is, is where let’s say that was your regular checking account. And let’s assume it sat there for years and both parties deposited their paychecks and they withdrew normal monthly expenses and everything that a couple does years pass. Well, let’s assume you said the husband was the recipient of the gift. Wife’s attorney says, “Well, wait a minute. This money has lost its character as separate. It’s been so mixed and intertwined, we can’t separate it anymore. So now it’s going to be community”. So the bottom line is, and here’s where romance and finance really have to see if they can get together or not. Because usually they don’t mix too well and-

Chip Franklin:

They rhyme.

Steve Moskowitz:

But they rhyme. Nothing like a rhyming lawyer, I always say. And you know, there was a judge that wrote his pieces in poetry. It was beautiful. This guy was just a genius. All his things were beautiful prose and poetry, but that’s-

Chip Franklin:

I love it. I love it.

Steve Moskowitz:

Anyway, going back to your question here is what I’ve noticed over the years when I deal with couples, there’s two basic types that I’ve found. One type is the traditional idea of marriage, which is we’re a union, two become one. It’s us. It’s our debt. It’s our assets. It’s we. It doesn’t matter who originally put it into the pot. We share it equally. And you know what? If you didn’t pay some taxes before you married me, it’s our debt. That’s one group. There’s another group that says, you know what? Even though we’re married, what’s yours is yours and mine is mine. Don’t you dare touch my stuff and they probably do have a prenup. They probably do keep their assets separate. And then what happens if somebody gets into tax trouble they say, “Hey, that’s your problem. You deal with it”.

And these are two distinct types. And I see this all the time in practice. And when this happens, that’s the first question I ask a couple is they say, “Which group are you in? Are you in the, it’s all ours or it’s, there’s yours and there’s mine”? And then you proceed accordingly. And then you see, depending on what they say, if they’re the separate couple, have they set up things such that the IRS agrees its separate or is it mixed and the IRS goes after everything? So that’s why it’s important. Again, I know it’s not romantic, but it’s a good idea financially if the couple sits down and discusses these things, because I’ve seen so many problems here. It’s like I’ve seen couples that get married, there’s disparity of income, and then the one with the higher income says to the one with the lower income that he expects the spouse to share everything equally. And that just doesn’t work.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Hey Simon, do you see… I mean, my mother told me put money in the bank and in a 401K, whatever, when you’re in your twenties, but nobody does it. And what is the age that you find people start looking at and start getting that, “Oh, crap moment. I really should have been doing this”. And what can they do short of buying a home. Can you catch up in your forties by the time you’re going to retire?

Simon Brady:

I think it is possible. But what I find to be the most triggering moment is the birth of a child. That triggers so much within our relationship, whether it’s married or not. Because then there’s no excuse anymore, not to have estate documents. You can bumble your way along until you have a kid, giving yourself excuses why you need to have a will or a trust or anything. Once you have a kid and there’s guardianship issues at stake, then it becomes non-negotiable. Life insurance becomes an issue that you have to start thinking about. If you have been able to put that off prior to having a child, you really cannot at that stage and college planning, which is another big part of what I do. Given the amounts of money we’re talking about these days, that needs to be… I have clients who open up 529 accounts before the kids even born.

So it’s immensely triggering. It can also trigger a real estate event. If you’re in a small place where there’s, particularly in the big cities, where it’s perfectly good for a couple, but “Oh my God, now we need to move”. So there isn’t much that triggers more than the birth of a first child and to a lesser degree, second child. So that’s generally what I find wakes people up, gives them that aha moment. And I actively seek out clients in of that demographic and at that stage of life, because there’s so much I can do for them. And to your question, not always, but usually this stage of life occurs early enough. If we’re talking late twenties, early to mid thirties, whereby if their previous recklessness or their previous-

Steve Moskowitz:

Living.

Simon Brady:

Financial hedonism. Yeah, living, whatever it was, had not involved any responsible retirement saving, you can turn things around in your early thirties and still get away with it. Now, the people who come to me at 52 and say, “I need to start thinking about retirement”, or the ones with-

Chip Franklin:

But you say, you better hope you live to be a hundred, right?

Simon Brady:

Yeah. Buy a lottery ticket. Or the ones who come to me with 16 year olds and saying, “I want to start thinking about college planning”. I mean, those people are lost causes, but-

Steve Moskowitz:

Scholarship, how’s your football playing?

Simon Brady:

Yeah. Get her out in the swimming pool.

Steve Moskowitz:

And make sure you really swim.

Chip Franklin:

Hey guys, this is a great. We’re running out of time, but Simon I want to get you back at some point and talk about the benefits of marriage and Steve, obviously, with having kids as well, the periods in life, where you find yourself traveling through and the financial opportunity that comes with them. Because everybody always thinks it’s always a bad side, but as we know with kids, you can still deduct kids, right?

Simon Brady:

Yep. I mean, there’s definitely upside to it, but the biggest upside is you get your shit together. Right. Please do. Because up to-

Chip Franklin:

I still haven’t done that, Simon. I’m still working on that, but I hear you. Thank you so much for your time Simon. Again, will you come back, please?

Simon Brady:

I’d be delighted to, thank you.

Steve Moskowitz:

That was great meeting you. I enjoyed working with you. We have a lot of overlap in our stuff.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. We’re going to do this again. Thank you, Simon. Be well.

Simon Brady:

I’d love to take care, guys.

Chip Franklin:

Take care of the UN for us, will you? Get down there-

Simon Brady:

Give them away.

Chip Franklin:

Fix it. We need some help. All right. Be well, thank you. Again, Simon Brady. At the end of this podcast, if you want to reach any of these people, we’ll have their email address and you can always email us at www.moskowitzllp.com and we’ll get that to you as well. And now it’s time for Ask Steve where we ask Steve a basic question, stuff that he knows inside out, but a lot of people really don’t. What are the tax advantages of a side hustle? Does it open up other opportunities to save?

Steve Moskowitz:

All kinds of opportunities. The first one I take a look at, is opening up a retirement account. There’s over 20 different types of retirement accounts. And what we’re looking to do is if possible, wipe out the earnings that we’ve made and possibly wipe out or reduce the earnings you’ve made from other areas, your main job, investments, spouses earnings, and there’s all different types of ways to do that. So the bottom line is, our last major round, the real big one, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, basically what it did was it took away tax benefits from wage earners and just gave business owners tremendous benefits. So when you have that side hustle, you are now a business owner and there’s all types of stuff that you can do that the Fortune 500’s doing.

Chip Franklin:

We’ll get into more detail on a future Practical Tax on that, but you don’t have to be IBM. You can just be whatever business you set up. I know you’ve taught me a bunch of that stuff already, about the benefits of a long form and just the things it more than offsets, whatever it might cost with an accountant or a tax attorney.

Steve Moskowitz:

Oh, many times over.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Many times over. Okay. So coming up in just a second, we’re going to talk about something that everybody at some point in their life has to deal with. And that’s either your own slow demise as you become a senior and you stop working and you’re trying to save, and of course it’s not easy. There’s so many things going on now, or it could be your parents that are with you know, and that is a difficult thing. And this is, I’ve read this, by the year 2050, nearly 20% of the US population’s going to be 65 or older compared to 15% today. And as we age experts are telling us that the increase in the aging population will mean workplace, economy, healthcare and senior living change dramatically. Nearly 60% of nursing corps in the US are operating at a financial loss and three quarters are concerned about possible closures. This is obviously of great concern to many people watching it. Joining us right now is Brian Levy. He is a Senior Care Expert and nice enough to be with us on Practical Tax with Steve Moskowitz. Hello, Brian.

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi Brian.

Brian Levy:

Good afternoon.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. You’re in the Midwest. You’re in Dallas right now, right?

Brian Levy:

I’m in Dallas.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Warm?

Brian Levy:

Little toasty, little toasty. Yeah. 12 days of summer, as they say.

Chip Franklin:

Well, tell us, how bad is it out there for seniors and their families?

Brian Levy:

It’s getting better. It’s not as bad as it was six months ago or a year and a half ago. We’re coming out of the pandemic and things are starting to smooth out with regards to staffing. And we’re getting back in the groove.

Chip Franklin:

Good. Steve, if you have a senior parent living with you or you are a senior dealing with issues of care, are there tax advantages here or is it a state by state thing? How do the feds deal with it?

Steve Moskowitz:

Oh, there’s all kinds of tax advantages. And you know what, what I’m going to tell you is oftentimes true, if the person is living with you or not. So the first thing is with taxes, there’s four basic categories. Single, married filing separately, married filing jointly, and head of household. They’ll have different tax brackets. So suppose you have somebody single that’s supporting mom or dad, we can move them into a different tax bracket. That’s a lower tax bracket. Then there’s all kinds of things that we can deduct for them. So we say, “Well, what can we deduct”?

Classic medical, doctors and dentists and medicine. People pretty much know that, but there’s a lot of other things that they don’t, for example, activities for older people with special needs, acupuncture, adult daycare. And a lot of times what you’re looking for is, is the primary purpose of where this person is medical? For example, assisted living costs that essentially you’re incurred for medical reasons. And then we talk about co-payments and deductibles and eyeglasses and hearing aids, not to mention home and vehicle modifications. And there’s all kinds of things with the modifications. You could have something simple, like you have to put up those handrails for somebody to get up the steps or one of those chairs to go up the steps, or you can get something fancier where the doctor says, “Look, you got to swim every day. And if you don’t, you’re not going to be able to walk”.

You know, you can actually have a deduction for the swimming pool and the maintenance of swimming pool. So there’s all kinds of things here. And then not to mention physical therapy, that’s a big one. A lot of people don’t realize, when you think about a traditional physician or prescription medication, physical therapy is something different, but that all counts. And that’s an important part of medical and transportation back and forth to the medical care or the physical therapy. And the bottom line is, I could go on and on and on, but if I do, our guest is going to say, “Why’d you invite me and hang up”.

Chip Franklin:

Well, let me ask a question.

Steve Moskowitz:

You know, when I start talking about taxes, I get excited and I just keep going and going so back to our guest.

Chip Franklin:

So Brian and Steve, is there a different… Let me run this real quick at you first, Steve, can I deduct as much if my parents are in a home as if they’re in my own home and I’m caring for them? Is it a straight across deduction or is it differ for if they’re in your home?

Steve Moskowitz:

Well, depends what you’re deducting. So for example-

Chip Franklin:

Well, the cost. Say it’s $2,000 a month or whatever it would cost. Brian, what is an average cost to keep a person over 70 in a nursing home?

Brian Levy:

$7,500 to 10 grand a month.

Chip Franklin:

Wow. Okay.

Steve Moskowitz:

Basically what we’re looking for is that the primary purpose of that is for medical. And if the primary purpose is for medical, then yes, we have a tax deduction.

Chip Franklin:

Okay, boy, this is obviously, as we know that the world is getting older, Brian as we speak, the three of us. What are some of the obstacles? Everything I read about this was a bummer although some of the stuff that Steve covers, it made me feel good. I did a lot of research on this. 36 states with an income tax, allow some exemption for private or public pension benefits so they can save on some of the money they get coming in. I always thought it was such a screw, Steve, that we work our lives, we pay into social security and then they tax us on it again. It’s like a double tax. They take it from us and tax us again.

Steve Moskowitz:

Well, a little modification there. It depends what your earnings are. Because if you’re sufficiently low earnings, they don’t. As you get up there, they do. But it depends with social security. A lot of people look at it as sacred, but some politicians are looking to take it away or take it away if you make more than a certain amount. But my prediction is if you touch that, “Oh, there’s going to be a howling from the public”. And as you said, the population is aging and the other politicians say, “I won’t take it away”. And when you touch social security, it’s like a major religious thing. Boy, you’re in for a big fight.

Chip Franklin:

Brian, what’s it like in most nursing homes today? We’ve heard the horrible stories. Are they improving? My mom was in one and I’d give it a B plus. She passed in one, two years ago at 98. And ironically, the people that I cherish the most, were the frontline people. These women from Ghana working in there, just really loved my mom. And is there a national consensus of where we’re headed with nursing homes?

Brian Levy:

Nursing homes, that’s a broad term because there’s large facilities with 20, 25 to one ratio. And then you go into the smaller care home concept that we have at Manchester, which each of our care homes have, they have eight private suites. So when you’re looking at high level, high acuity, care need residents, the four to one ratio makes a big difference.

Chip Franklin:

Steve, if I lived near Texas or Florida and I decided to move into the State to avoid income tax, that’s a State income tax, right. Would that help seniors at all in States that have no income tax?

Steve Moskowitz:

Sure. You talk about California, you’re talking about a 13.3 of your income and California’s considering making it higher. And California also has some rules, if you go over a million bucks, extra problems. So again, it depends on your income level. If you’re low income, it’s beneficial. California’s very generous, they give you all kinds of things. So you take a look at that. And then if you want to go to the other extreme, you say, “Well, we’re just talking about state income taxes”. Texas, Florida, other places, but you consider living in Puerto Rico that has tremendous federal benefits with their Acts 20 and 22, that there are a lot of people don’t know about that, but it’s great because you’re still a US citizen, but you’re legally avoiding all kinds of federal income taxes.

So again, when one of our clients says “I want to move to”, and the favorite places are Texas, Florida, Washington, a few other places. I said, “Well, how much taxes do you want to save”? You came in here, talking about State taxes. Are you interested in saving on federal taxes, big time? And if the answer is, yes, let’s talk about Puerto Rico. So we could do all types of stuff on that. The bottom line is, there’s all kinds of things you can do.

Brian Levy:

Now we have the mass exit to the Texas.

Steve Moskowitz:

I’m sorry. You broke up. Say that again. What?

Brian Levy:

Now we have the mass Exodus from California to Texas. So we have all of these corporations moving here and they’re bringing their parents with them.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah.

Brian Levy:

So we’re still-

Chip Franklin:

You know what we say in California to that, don’t you? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Let me ask you this though. Early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia. Steve, if I have a mother say, that’s in her late fifties and I have to care for her. Does the age matter when I can deduct, when they’re living with me? Do they have to be 65?

Steve Moskowitz:

No, the age doesn’t matter, because we’re talking about a dependent. So it could be somebody young.

Chip Franklin:

Interesting. So anytime-

Brian Levy:

We’re seeing them younger and younger and younger. It’s awful.

Chip Franklin:

It is hard. And it’s obviously one of those areas that we continue to try to understand and progress our-

Steve Moskowitz:

Not to mention accidents. You can be 21 years old, getting an accident and need assisted care for the rest of your life.

Chip Franklin:

So I guess the real message out there to the people watching, if you have someone that’s in your family that has been either injured or are that part of their lives where they can’t take care of themselves, if they’re in your home or whether they go into one of the great facilities like Brian works with, then there are options. There are things that they should know about and they should consult.

Steve Moskowitz:

And even your parents, if they’re living in Brian’s home, you still may have all kinds of deductions for them because even though they’re not living with you, there’s all kinds of special benefits for them.

Brian Levy:

I would just say plan ahead. Plan, plan, plan.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Obviously we think we plan for everything. We were talking earlier about financial planning and it’s difficult and it’s a good thing to teach young people today, right Steve.

Steve Moskowitz:

Sure. You know, it’s a big part of planning. Planning is great and we do tax planning all the time and it really works. But leave that pocket for the unexpected, because no matter how much you plan, it’s like you can have the neatest house in the world, but everybody has that junk drawer.

Brian Levy:

Right.

Steve Moskowitz:

And something is going to happen that really the best planning would be able to take care of something you didn’t plan for. So that’s part of your plan.

Brian Levy:

I tell people this is what the rainy day fund is for.

Chip Franklin:

Exactly. Brian, speaking of which, you came with us at the last minute and we really appreciate you being on the show with us. Www.manchesterliving.com, that’s where he is a Senior Care Expert, you can learn more. Again, we’ll get your information to anybody that wants to, we’ll have it up at the end of the show. Thank you. You stay well, okay. And have a great 4th of July weekend. Thank you so much.

Steve Moskowitz:

Thank you very much.

Brian Levy:

Good to be with y’all. Thank you.

Chip Franklin:

See you buddy. All right. That’s it for this edition of Practical Tax. That’s Steve Moskowitz. I’m Chip Franklin. You can go to www.moskowitzllp.com anytime and view these, or you can download them as an audio file and listen to them when you’re tooling around town. Steve, great job. Thank you.

Steve Moskowitz:

Thanks Chip.

Outro:

Thanks for joining us on the Practical Tax podcast with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. To hear more and view more podcasts, go to moskowitzllp.com/practicaltax.