How High Will Bitcoin Go?

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bitcoin gold investing

Wondering how high bitcoin will go? One analyst says $55,000+ by end of year 2021. Let’s keep an eye on him. Update: Analyst accountability is a big thing at Finance Gourmet. Sometimes, I wish watching, rewarding, and outing analysts was a full-time job I could get somewhere. Until then, it’s time to give out some credit, where credit is due for bitcoin analyst Michael Novogratz and his November 2020 call, as bitcoin prices hit 40,000, just below his bitcoin prediction of $55,000 by EOY 2021. Originally published 11/18/2020. Michael Novogratz – November 18, 2020: Some recent bitcoin buzz comes courtesy of Michael Novogratz who is out saying that bitcoin prices could rise to $55,000 or $60,000 by the end of 2021. With bitcoin trading near $18,000 that’s more than just being bullish. Is he right, and just how high will bitcoin go? Good Bitcoin Analysis? Unlike most financial publications, I believe in financial analyst accountability. Anyone can blurt out a prediction, hope to be right, and then go around telling people that you called it, while failing to mention any other “calls” that weren’t so good. So, let’s take a look at Mr. Novogratz’s track record as a bitcoin predictor. …

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TurboTax Debit Card Refund Review

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atm fees charges

TurboTax is a popular tax filing software package. It also offers quick tax refunds with the TurboTax debit card, or Turbo Card. There are several versions ranging from a free online basic TurboTax edition to a Home and Business TurboTax and more. They all in work in pretty much the same way. The software guides the user through a bunch of fill in the blank entry screens and does all the math and complicated tax worksheets automatically behind the scenes. For a great many Americans, using TurboTax software is just as good as paying an accountant to file taxes. But, watch out for TurboTax debit card fees if you get your refund on the TurboTax card, called the Turbo Card this year. Turbo Tax Debit Card Refund At the end of the Turbo Tax filing process, the software offers users the ability to get their tax refund via a prepaid Visa card, which is kind of like a TurboTax debit card. The Turbo Card is a Visa card offered through Green Dot Bank. Green Dot Bank is most familiar for its reloadable debit cards you can buy at 7-11 and other places, especially drug stores. There are two options for …

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Is Best Buy Stock a Buy?

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best buy stock

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya? Punk. Best Buy reports earnings next week on Tuesday 11/23/21. Is Best Buy stock a buy before earnings? As you can tell from the subheading, there is a lot of uncertainty around buying Best Buy stock here. Don’t get me wrong. Best Buy is doing really well. Sales are up. Some of that is from the pandemic. If you’re going to be stuck in your house you want a bigger TV, better speakers, a new Nintendo Switch, an Oculus VR headset. You get the idea. But, Wall Street is not stupid. They know that about Best Buy’s sales and it is all baked into expectations for the retailer. However, here is where it gets interesting. According to the Best Buy stock quote page on Yahoo Finance, the consensus projected earnings for Best Buy to report in Q4 is the same as it was for last quarter at 1.85 per share. Last quarter, Best Buy shattered that expectation by reporting 2.98 per share. So, where does that put us? There is the possibility that Best Buy and its upper management are strict, straight-arrow, by the books executives. On the other hand, there is the …

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Retirement Tax Triangle for Better Retirement Planning

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tax triangle save money in retirement

Financial advisors make their bread and butter from retirement planning. Unless you’re wealthy (or young), chances are that most of your money is in your retirement savings and home equity. That makes your retirement accounts the main interest of most financial advisors, so it’s in their best interest to make it sound complicated. Unfortunately, they are right. There are a bunch of little tricks to good retirement planning. Fortunately, most of them are easy to straighten out, like the tax triangle. Retirement Taxes Welcome to Retirement. Oh, while you’re here, we need to tax those 401(k) withdrawals. All too many new retirees find themselves surprised that withdrawals from their 401k accounts are fully taxable. It’s an easy mistake to make. After all, when you contributed money to your 401k it was tax-free (technically, pre-tax, but same difference). And, while all of that money sat in your 401k earning interest and dividends, it was tax-free. So, why wouldn’t it keep being tax-free? Unfortunately, that’s the deal you make with the IRS. A 401k plan is actually a tax-deferred account. As the name implies, the IRS allows you to defer, or wait, to pay the taxes. It is a huge advantage and …

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New 2022 Tax Numbers Released – Good News for Taxpayers

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new 2022 tax numbers

The IRS just released the new tax inflation adjustments for 2022. As you are likely aware the IRS adjusts some tax deductions and income limits for inflation each year. The new 2022 tax numbers are higher across the board thanks to higher inflation numbers than the last few years. New 2022 Standard Deduction The Trump tax changes implemented under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made the standard deduction higher and eliminated some itemized deductions. As a result, far more people take the standard deduction on taxes than did before. The law did remove the limitation for itemized deductions that do remain. 2021 standard deduction numbers can be found here. The standard deduction for 2022 for married filing jointly is $25,900. The standard deduction for 2022 for single filers is $12,950. New 2022 Tax Brackets The tax brackets for 2022, more formally known as the Marginal Rates, reflect higher starting incomes for each tax bracket in 2022. 2021 tax brackets information is here. New 2022 Tax Brackets Single Filer New 2022 Tax Brackets Married Filing Jointly New 2022 Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) Limits The new limit for Flexible Spending Accounts, or FSA accounts, is $2,850 with a maximum carryover of …

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Tesla Shares Fall as Musk Offers To Sell

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Tesla Shares Fall as Musk Offers To Sell 1

People are always saying things like Bill Gates is worth $XX billion based upon the current Microsoft share price times the number of shares Bill Gates owns. While this is a reasonable approximation –and unless Gates is going to throw open his books, the only one we have– it is actually completely unrealistic. The same thing is true of Elon Musk, even though he has two big chunks of stock. Big Sells Equal Big Falls One of the problems with deciding that anyone is worth their shares times the share price is that the reality is that their shares are at once worth both more, and less, than the current share price. Ever wonder is Zelle a scam? In sort of a Schrödinger’s Cat of stock prices one can see how someone like Musk’s stock is worth both more and less than the current price per share. We got a nice example of the “less” thanks to Musk’s weekend tweet. On Saturday, Musk proposed selling 10% of his Tesla stock, if the people voted for it. By the time the poll ended, over 3.5 million people had voted (or more specifically 3.5 million Twitter accounts had voted). The result was …

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Medical Expenses Deduction 2021

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medical-taxes

Can you deduct medical expenses in 2021? Are your medical expenses tax deductible? Yes… but… Medical Expenses Tax Deduction Limit Medical expenses are tax deductible for 2021, but only after they exceed 7.5% of your income. You also must itemize your deductions to claim the medical expenses tax deduction. Finally, medical expenses are deductible in the year you PAY them, not when they happen. If you’re going to hit the medical threshold in 2021, then pay as many as you can by December 31. If you are not going to hit the threshold, push as many medical expenses as you can into 2022. What does this all mean exactly? Let’s dig in. Check out my Grifin review The tax deduction for medical expenses has a floor of 7.5% of income. By income, the IRS means your adjusted gross income (AGI). Usually, when the IRS has rules or regulations that refer to income, they mean your AGI. Your AGI is calculated on your Form 1040. Your adjusted gross income shows up on Line 11. Your total income is basically all of your income from wages, capital gains, interest, dividends, Social Security, business income (if any) and pensions added together. Your adjusted …

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Retirement Saver’s Credit 2021

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savers tax credit

Update: The 2022 Retirement Saver’s Credit income limits have been announced. Remember, these are the Savers Credit limits for your income in 2022, for the taxes you will file in early 2023. You will still use the numbers below for the income taxes you file in early 2022. The 2022 Retirement Savings Contribution Credit income limits for married filing jointly will be $68,000, up from $66,000. For single fillers, $34,000, up from $33,000. The Retirement Saver’s tax credit is a huge bonus for taxpayers who qualify. If you qualify for the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit, or Savers’ Credit, you can get a tax credit of $1,000 on your 2021 income taxes. The maximum Retirement Saver’s tax credit for 2021 is 50% of the contributions you make to a retirement plan like a 401k, or an individual retirement plan like a Roth IRA or traditional IRA, up to $2,000 for a maximum tax credit of $1,000. Retirement Saver’s Credit Qualify The Saver’s Credit is designed to encourage lower-income Americans to save for retirement. To qualify for the Saver’s Credit you must be 18 years or older, not claimed as a dependent on anyone else’s tax return, and not a student. In …

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Dell Spins Off VMware

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It was kind of weird when Dell bought VMware in the first place. It was billed as sort of a move to get Dell into the enterprise space by having sort of an inside track with VMware. If that wasn’t weird enough the mechanics of the merger were even weirder, where Dell basically bought a lot of shares of VMware, but not all of them, allowing VMware to continue trading on the stock market, even though it was functionally a part of Dell… or sometime. Ironically, just when it seemed like VMware would be a significant part of the future of enterprise computing, it was made superfluous by the rise of cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft providing their own virtual hypervisor platforms and management systems. Much of VMware’s market share these days is simply the inertia of companies that haven’t moved on. Anyway, Dell spun off VMware today by giving the 81% of VMware stock that it owned to Dell shareholders. For each share of Dell stock, shareholders get 0.440626 shares. In lieu of fractional shares, the company will pay out cash, so if you have 100 Dell shares, you’ll get 44 shares of VMware and cash for …

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What Is The Flippening?

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What is the Flippening? What does Flippening mean? When you get a word like that, you know it comes from the “new school” investors. Maybe it’s the meme-investors. Maybe it’s a new retire early term. When Is The Flippening Going to Happen? You just knew something like the Flippening would be about crypto. Is Acorns a scam? Now, I don’t usually do a lot of crypto advice here because, honestly, I think everyone is still figuring it out, and I’m not trying to build a cutting edge crypto reputation or anything like that. However, I cannot resist a good acronym or term, and the Flippening is just too good to pass up. The Flippening sounds sort of horror movie-ish, and you aren’t wrong, per se. The Flippening refers to the potential future event when another cryptocurrency, likely ether, overtakes bitcoin in market capitalization. In other words, when bitcoin and ether “flip” places as the #1 and #2 cryptocurrencies. Why Is There a Flippening? You have to really dig into cryptonetworks and how they work to get a full answer, but the short-version is that a recent upgrade to the ethereum network makes it more likely that ether, ethereum’s native token, …

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