Understanding Tax-Efficient Investing and Strategies
Investing can help you achieve long-term financial goals, but overlooking tax efficiency can significantly impact your overall returns. Tax-efficient investing means strategically managing your investments to minimize the tax burden on your returns and preserve more of your hard-earned wealth. By implementing these tax-efficient investing techniques, you can help maximize your tax returns.
Why is tax-efficient investing important?
Tax-efficient investing helps reduce the tax burden on your returns, which can maximize your after-tax returns. Using tax-efficient investing strategies can optimize your investment portfolio's performance for better long-term financial outcomes. Tax efficiency is especially beneficial for those in higher tax brackets, since they tend to face higher tax rates on their investment incomes. Tax-efficient investing also allows you to take advantage of various tax benefits, defer taxes on gains, and reduce the impact of taxes on your overall financial goals, like retirement planning, funding education, or achieving other long-term objectives.
What are taxable accounts?
Taxable accounts are investment and savings accounts in which earnings are subject to taxes, and no specific tax benefits exist. These include individual or joint investment accounts, brokerage accounts, trust accounts, and interest-paying bank accounts. Taxable accounts provide flexibility because they offer more investment options, don’t have contribution limits, and have no withdrawal penalties.
What are tax-advantaged accounts?
Tax-advantaged accounts are investment and savings accounts that offer tax benefits to encourage long-term saving and investing, usually for retirement or education. Examples include Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), 401(k) plans, and 529 college savings plans. These accounts provide tax-deferred growth, tax deductions, or tax-free withdrawals, depending on the account type. While they often have contribution limits and withdrawal restrictions, using tax-advantaged accounts can significantly increase your savings over time by reducing your overall tax liability and allowing your investments to grow more efficiently.
Tax-efficient investing strategies
Tax-efficient investing strategies aim to minimize tax liability and maximize after-tax returns on your investments. Below are some common tax-efficient strategies:
Allocate investments with higher tax implications, such as high-dividend stocks, to tax-advantaged accounts like IRAs or 401(k)s while placing lower-taxed investments, such as stocks with long-term capital gains, in taxable accounts.
Long-term capital gains (investments held for more than a year) are generally taxed at lower rates than short-term capital gains. You can benefit from lower tax rates on your gains by holding investments for longer periods.
Tax-loss harvesting involves selling underperforming investments to offset realized capital gains and reduce your taxable income. The losses can be used to offset gains, and any excess losses can potentially offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income per year.
Choose investment funds with low turnover rates, such as index funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as they typically generate fewer taxable events due to less frequent buying and selling of assets or structure of the investment.
Consider tax-exempt bonds or municipal bonds, which generate interest income that is typically exempt from federal income tax and, in some cases, state and local taxes.
Contribute as much as possible to tax-advantaged retirement accounts like IRAs, 401(k)s, or Roth accounts to defer or reduce taxes on your investments.
Tax-efficient investments to consider
If you’re looking to increase your after-tax returns, these tax-efficient investments can help you do that:
Also known as "munis," these bonds are issued by state and local governments. Their interest income is generally exempt from federal income tax. In some cases, they may also be exempt from state and local taxes, especially if you reside in the state where they're issued.
These investments typically have lower turnover rates than actively managed funds, resulting in fewer taxable events like capital gains distributions, making them more tax-efficient for investors.
These funds are specifically designed to minimize taxes by employing strategies such as low turnover, tax-loss harvesting, and avoiding dividend-paying stocks. They aim to provide investors with tax-efficient returns.
Companies focusing on growth and reinvesting profits into the business rather than paying dividends can be a tax-efficient investment option. This is because capital gains taxes are only added when the stocks are sold, and long-term capital gains are typically taxed at a lower rate than dividends.
These retirement accounts allow for tax-free growth, making them a tax-efficient investment option. While contributions are made with after-tax dollars, the potential tax-free growth and withdrawals can be beneficial in the long run.
These funds invest in short-term, tax-exempt securities such as municipal bonds, providing interest income that is generally exempt from federal income tax.
Consult with a financial professional
Speak with a financial professional to learn more about taxable and tax-advantaged accounts and which are best suited for your financial goals, risk tolerance, and tax situation. They can help you make informed decisions with advice tailored to your circumstances. In many cases, a combination of taxable and tax-advantaged accounts can provide a balanced approach to investing and tax efficiency.