{"id":2914,"date":"2017-02-21T10:45:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T10:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/2017\/02\/what-youre-missing-with-seo-that-will-make-a-world-of-difference\/"},"modified":"2019-03-14T16:07:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T16:07:32","slug":"what-youre-missing-with-seo-that-will-make-a-world-of-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/?p=2914","title":{"rendered":"5 Tax Tips for 2018 and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"usmf-new article-header\">\n<header>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular;\">There&#8217;s no avoiding taxes. Here&#8217;s how to manage yours.<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/header>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"main-col\">\n<section class=\"usmf-new article-body\">\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\"><strong>1. Max out your retirement plan contributions<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"caption\"><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\">Any time you fund a traditional IRA or 401(k), the money you put in is exempt from taxation for the year you make that contribution. In other words, if you put $1,000 into your 401(k) this year, you won&#8217;t pay taxes on that $1,000 of income when you file your 2018 return. Better yet, if you manage to max out your IRA or 401(k) for the year, you&#8217;ll shield that much more money from the IRS..<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\">Right now, you can contribute up to $5,500 a year to an IRA and $18,500 to a 401(k) if you&#8217;re under 50. If you&#8217;re 50 or older, these limits increase to $6,500 and $24,500, respectively. There&#8217;s also a good chance these limits will continue to rise over time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\">How much savings might you reap from maxing out? Imagine your effective tax rate is 25% and you sock away $18,500 this year in your 401(k). That would bring your actual tax savings to $4,625, which is hardly a bad deal.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\"><strong>2. Report all of your income<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\">These days, side hustles are growing increasingly popular, with an estimated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/retirement\/2017\/07\/16\/heres-how-44-million-americans-are-getting-richer.aspx\">44 million Americans<\/a> holding down a second job. But if you&#8217;re going to do work on the side, don&#8217;t make the mistake of thinking you&#8217;ll get to pocket your earnings in their entirety. The reality is that the IRS is entitled to a piece of <em>all<\/em> of your income, whether it comes in the form of a paycheck at work or a personal check you get from the family you babysit for. And if you fail to report your earnings, the consequences could be significant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: PT Serif Regular; font-size: 18px;\">Any time you earn $600 or more from a given employer, you&#8217;ll receive a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/retirement\/2017\/02\/27\/6-types-of-1099-forms-you-should-know-about.aspx\">1099 form<\/a> summarizing those payments. Don&#8217;t throw those forms away &#8212; what you may not realize is that for each one you get, the IRS also is sent a copy. If your tax return doesn&#8217;t show income the agency has on file, you could land in hot water.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s no avoiding taxes. Here&#8217;s how to manage yours. 1. Max out your retirement plan contributions Any time you fund a traditional IRA or 401(k), the money you put in is exempt from taxation for the year you make that contribution. In other words, if you put $1,000 into your 401(k) this year, you won&#8217;t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3456,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions\/3456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisondigitaldesign.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}