The end of 2018 marked the completion of 6 full years of early retirement and world travel.
It’s been a fun ride so far… we’ve traveled a bit, had a few good meals, and taken many naps.
But how effective have these 6 years been in terms of implementing our tax minimization strategies? Are Roth IRA Conversions, Capital Gain Harvesting, and nomadic strategery just fantasies we keep while working, or do they actually produce results in the real world?
Let’s do a financial check-up and see how we are doing.
There are a lot of great comments on this site and on the forum. Here is one of them that deserves a longer response:
“Hey GCC, thanks for sharing your tax returns each year. How do you decide in a given year whether to do a Roth IRA conversion, harvest capital gains, or both? How do you prioritize?’
It is all a function of other income, long-term tax minimization progress, and short term spending needs.
Over the past few weeks I’ve replied to numerous comments and questions, loosely paraphrased as:
“I’ve read that you aren’t a big fan of Roth accounts, but in your post about not paying taxes for 5 years you show how you routinely contribute to Roths. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?
The end of 2017 marked the completion of 5 full years of early retirement and world travel.
It’s been a fun ride so far… we’ve traveled a bit, had a few good meals, and taken many naps.
But how effective have these 5 years been in terms of implementing our tax minimization strategies? Are Roth IRA Conversions and Capital Gain Harvesting just fantasies we keep while working, or do they actually produce results in the real world?
Let’s do a financial check-up and see how we are doing.
Here it is folks, the post exactly 3 of you have been waiting for… our 2017 tax return. Just in time for the October 15th deadline.
It’s an interesting one this year; 2017 is the first time we claimed the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) which allowed us to once again have income in excess of $100,000 and pay $0 in income tax.
Details on the FEIE were difficult to come by, and examples either lacking or confusing, so this FEIE example is for posterity.
