--- the subscriber area has no ads and those above are not selected or endorsed by this site ---


on retirement, charitable giving, and Intel

08:34 01-Jan-20


Hello Bud,

My own solution to RMDs has been to take the tax hit early and move all retirement funds to a Roth each year.  Then I enjoy tax-free growth.  I am not a tax advisor, but I believe there is no age limit on opening and converting to Roth accounts.  It also seems that Roth IRAs do not have RMDs while the owner is alive.  Many of Trump's individual income tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, if not undone sooner.

That doesn't directly answer your question, but it seems relevant to the context you provided.

As for the actual investing, almost all of the CW coverage is focused on investments that should see substantial appreciation in 5-years, or often much less...

Finally, as a programmer, I'd be happy to discuss semiconductors further with you, if you desire.  In particular, I think I understand why MTSI is valued as it is.  However, the market isn't usually that far ahead of the game, and I still wish I had better sources of information on its progress with ST Micro.  Also, as you may have read, I'm fairly bearish on Intel for the time being, but convertible bonds are just about my favorite investment vehicle.  They are as close to buy and hold forever as it gets with me.

I hope that helps, and please let me know your thoughts about whether or not to make FIT public,

Esekla

On 12/31/19 1:36 AM, Bud wrote:
Greetings Esekla,

I have subscribed to Crowdwisers for almost a year and have enjoyed your writings and ideas.  Tonight I spent some time reviewing your background and investment concepts.  My wife and I are in our high 80’s and have invested in stocks since the 1960s with some success.  

In our Trust account, our best investment was INTC in early 1980s with cost basis of $0.43.  We have used that investment over the years as a convenient means to give shares to charity, but we still hold 10k shares.  But the poorest investment decision was selling the 5% Intel convertible bonds that I held in my retirement account.

We both have high value IRAs which uncomfortably require increasing RMDs at our age, making our required income very high...
My work experience was in semiconductors, never worked at Intel; but many good friends did. I never worked at startup with big stock options, but had my own business for 27 years, hence a pension converted to an IRA in 1990.  The 1990s were good investment years.

We always give the allowed 50% of AGI to charity and have always given $100k from each of our IRAs tax-free to charity.  When we die, our assets will go to charities. Our kids get annual asset transfers now.  I enjoy investing to increase the value of our Trust Account for gifts to charities, but wish we were not saddled with our increasing RMDs.  For 2020 my RMD divisor is 12, next year 11.4, etc.

I just modified a spread sheet calculation to assume only a 2% annual growth for our IRAs and come up with our combined RMDs dropping to 500k by 2030 when I will be 99!  I hope I live that long.

How would you invest 5 million IRA cash, with increasing fraction going to RMD each year?  

Best regards,
Bud