Business Innovators Radio - Episode #63 – Benefits of Filing Taxes Early – The 15 Minute Financial Feast Podcast – With Mark Triplett & Troy Westendorf

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

We believe that every dollar has a purpose and a timeline. When and how your retirement assets will be used should be understood before making important financial decisions.The Triplett-Westendorf Purpose and Timeline 5 Step Planning Process (PT5) begins with Discovery.Understanding where you are now, and then defining where you want to go (Your Purpose) and when you want to get there (Your Timeline), programs your financial GPS. Our Purpose and Timeline 5-step process (PT5) programs your financial GPS.Learn more: http://triplett-westendorf.com/ | https://mypt5.com/The 15 Minute Financial Feast Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-15-minute-financial-feast-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-63-benefits-of-filing-taxes-early-the-15-minute-financial-feast-podcast-with-mark-triplett-troy-westendorf

Welcome to the 15-minute financial feast podcast, bringing you 15-minute segments to help you retire with purpose on time. We're serving up food for thought and bread for the head. Are you hungry to learn? Here are your hosts, Mark Triplett and Troy Westendorf. Welcome to another episode of the 15-minute financial feast. Today, you are listening to the audio from a live television interview where one of our favorite local news station anchors asked us questions about a financial feast. topic on the minds of many hardworking folks in our community who are trying to make good decisions and get ahead. If there is one thing people love putting off until the last minute,

it is paying our taxes, but there are benefits to filing sooner rather than later. Don't tune us out. Local financial professional Mark Triplett from Triplett Westendorf Financial joins us now. Yeah, Mark, we hear it all the time, but why should we file our taxes early? First time I'm doing it early this year, my life is much better for it. So the expected 2023 average tax return is about $3,000. That alone should be enough reason for everybody to jump on and file early so they get their return faster. However, nearly one third of Americans are expected to delay the last minute. Millennials are actually statistically likely to procrastinate the most. And one recent Serbia I came across indicated that 61% of Americans,

feel like very, very stressed out by the tax season so much that 16% of those respondents so they'd rather have a root canal. So waiting can really take a toll on your mental well-being. Wow. I would, I think I'd rather do my taxes than get a miracle now. A lot of people don't realize it, but like the IRS usually starts accepting returns in January. So again, like there's so much opportunity to get a head start on this. I did learn something this year while I was filing that is a good reminder for millennials like myself, especially with student loans. I needed to get the student loan, the credits, like tally up all the money I had put into my student loans. And that was actually a game changer. Can you speak on that?

You know, for some people, they're paying back loans for the first time since the freeze over the pandemic. Well, just in general, collecting all of the documents necessary to get all of the tax credits that are available to you can be pretty, daunting. Many of the certified public accountants that I worked with over the years will have these massive checklists of all the documents that you might need to get, and then it's kind of up to you to go through and pull all those together. But the faster you pull those documents together and the faster you can get your refund, or pardon me, your taxes done, the faster you can get your refund. We highly encourage filing electronically and then signing up for direct deposit, so you get that refund a little bit faster. One of the big costly mistakes is missing

documents that you would otherwise need to represent. And I think last year is one of the first years, Samantha, where you really earned interest on bank accounts, CDs, savings accounts, all of those different accounts that you may have earned interest on. You've got to collect from those financial institutions the documents necessary to file your taxes. Simple math errors can also be a big mistake that people make that end up either reducing their refund or requiring them to pay unnecessary taxes. You know, I've noticed too, so many people are doing kind of the gig economy, Venmo transfers, cash app, they sell, they repurpose things online, and you need to keep track of those too, because what is it, over $600, it's all taxable, right?

Yeah, if you're in the gig economy and you're using Venmo to collect payment, you do need to be keeping track of that. If you're making, I think it is 600 is the limit. If you're over that, you do have to report that as taxable income. And a lot of folks, they forget some of those, different income sources that they might have. And you have your, maybe you work for an employer and you have W2 income and you get the W2 at the end of the year. But if you made distributions from taxable accounts, if you're retired, for example, you get a 1099 from those institutions.

So we get a lot of calls in our office this time of year where folks are just kind of concerned, did I get all of the documents that I needed from all the financial institutions that hold my assets? And sometimes they think they're going to get documents when they're not. If you make a contribution to an IRA, or you just have an account like that, but you didn't make any contributions or distributions, you're not going to get a tax document from that custodian on that account. It's only when you're moving money out of that account. Mark, thank you so much for your time. Really important. And we're coming

up on that deadline. So I hope everyone at home watching this got it done. Thank you so much again. You've been listening to the 15-minute Financial Feast podcast. Remember, every dollar has a purpose and every dollar has a timeline. If you have questions about today's topic, schedule a call with a team member. Visit www. www.com. Until next time, be sure you're taking steps to retire with purpose

on time. Mark Triplett is an investment advisor representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Nothing contained in this program should be considered an offer to buy or sell securities. Different investments have different risks associated with

them, and not all investments are appropriate for all investors.