Author Archives: David John Marotta

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is notorious for misunderstanding the recharacterizations of Roth conversions.

Taking inflation into account changes nearly everything about financial planning.

While volatility can make a fund more attractive on the way up, it can also make a fund less attractive on the way down.

The University of Virginia plan includes funds sufficient to produce these excellent portfolios.

Age appropriate asset allocation for 2016 using the choices available in the University of Virginia’s Fidelity 403(b) Tax Deferred Savings Plan (TDSP).

Age appropriate asset allocation for 2016 using the choices available in several of the University of Virginia’s Fidelity Retirement Plans.

The stock is more likely to go up than down, but how volatile are the markets really?

QCDs allow individuals age 70 1/2 or older to give directly to a charity from your IRA without counting the distribution as taxable income.

The story of Liberty Farm’s struggle to survive the regulatory attack by Fauquier County government.

Here is a review of Marotta’s 2015 Vanguard Gone-Fishing Portfolio and a description of our changes for 2016.

If you are using Vanguard, we have created a gone fishing portfolio using only low-cost Vanguard mutual funds to help save money on transaction costs.

A donor advised fund makes the process of charitable giving simple and easy.

David and host Rob Schilling discuss what estate planning is, why you want to do it, and explain some of the jargon.

The gone-fishing portfolio provides suggested asset allocations for investors up to age 70 and up to $1 million.

A gone-fishing portfolio has a limited number of investments with a balanced asset allocation that should do well with dampened volatility.

Late last year, the IRS proposed asking charities to collect sensitive donor identity information for any charitable gift of more than $250.

Adding a little bit of Chile to your portfolio can boost returns and reduce volatility.

These are just some examples of the creative beneficiary designations, but the important part is to dream big about what your wishes are.

We do not recommend using stop loss orders. Now, it appears that the New York Stock Exchange agrees.

The backdoor Roth strategy involves contributing after-tax funds to a traditional IRA.

We’ve written about how to select securities but in this article we are going to apply those principles to the process of selecting a specific fund for a specific sector of the economy.

David John Marotta was interviewed on WINA’s “Real Estate Matters” show with Michael Guthrie, talking about how it is still a good time to buy a house.

While many investors say they want a low-correlation portfolio, they don’t want to actually experience a low-correlation portfolio.

Here is a simple way to think about commercial property.

While Santa Claus usually brings something positive for the markets, it isn’t enough to worry about jumping in and out of your investments.

“Nothing has provided greater risk control over the long term than equities, which are historically without principal risk over 30-year periods…”

That is a tremendous advantage for businesses in states with less regulatory burden.

For children with lower incomes, there is an opportunity to give them appreciated stock to shift the capital gains to a lower tax bracket.

Being prepared is always a good idea, but so is knowing the costs associated with being prepared.

“In 34 years as a financial advisor, he has seen many people flunk retirement, but investment performance has never been the cause.”

The kiddie tax was first added to the tax code in 1986 for children under age 14. Now, it can burden them until they are 23.

The national average life expectancy is not a good measure for our clients’ life expectancy. That means planning beyond ages 82 and 85.

Financial Christmas gifts don’t need to be a piggy bank. They can be more serious and more meaningful than that.

A fundamental fiduciary principle is to avoid self-dealing.

The Journal of Financial Planning featured a nice column by Harold Evensky entitled “These Innovative Research Papers Deserve Your Attention.”

Will substitutes sacrifice some of the customization of trusts but avoid the accounting complexities.

October showed a sharp reversal of the movements of Resource Stocks.

David Marotta was interviewed recently on radio 1070 WINA’s Schilling Show discussing some of the government’s broken promises

After you reach the age of 70 1/2, the IRS requires you to begin taking minimum distributions from your traditional retirement accounts.

Any tax which is ultimately going to be owed is owed by April 15th. Otherwise it may be subject to interest and penalties.

Examining past Bear Markets can help provide some context when we experience the next one.

Assumptions about these adjustments to your net worth should be made carefully and conservatively.

It is better to leave stock to a family member in your estate plan than to gift them the stock while you are alive.

Annual required minimum distributions must be satisfied before any additional amounts are converted to a Roth IRA.

Here are seven sage investing lessons from the J. Paul Getty era.

Carefully computing and adding your Social Security early retirement safe withdrawal rate can safely boost your early retirement standard of living without jeopardizing your future finances.

ObamaCare was always going to be a bad law and now, five years in, that should be clear to everybody.

The lessons of each bear market are visible with the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight.

We highly recommend a Donor Advised Fund for generous investors.

For a calm investor, a crash will just mean that the stocks you would have bought anyway are temporarily on sale.