Dr. Harold Wong Just before Thanksgiving in 2024, legendary investor Warren Buffett, worth $147.5 billion, offered a deeply personal letter. He talks about crucial principles for the successful transfer of assets to the next generation and ways to preserve family harmony. The vast majority of folks will not have even 1/100th of one percent of…
Tag: Dollars & Sense
Features, January 2025
Dollars & Sense: Do Kids Need College to Become Successful?
Dr. Harold Wong Now that we are in the holiday season, the greatest gift to your kids would be to offer a different path than expensive college so that they can be financially successful. I met a lady who had settled in Scottsdale, was divorced, and owned five rental houses that took 20 years to…
Features, May 2024
Dollars & Sense: Advanced Tax Strategies Allow You to Retire Comfortably
Dr. Harold Wong In an April 9, 2024, article by Megan Henney found in www.foxbusiness.com, “The ‘magic number’ to retire comfortably hits a new all-time high.” It cites a Northwestern Mutual study that Americans believe they need $1.46 million to retire comfortably, up 15% from the $1.27 million number in 2023. “This has surged 53%…
Features, April 2024
Dollars & Sense: Fight Inflation and Afford Your Bucket List Dreams
Dr. Harold Wong Historically, the major American financial dreams are to live in a decent house, help kids with college expenses, and afford bucket list dreams (travel is the number-one bucket list dream in retirement). Since January of 2021, with the Biden presidency, overall inflation has increased 16%. However, inflation has had a different impact…
Features, February 2023
Dollars & Sense: Strategies for Combating the Impact of Inflation
Dr. Harold Wong In 2022 the U.S. inflation rate hit the highest since 1981. According to U.S. Labor Department data, the annual inflation rate was 7.1% for the 12 months ending in November, 2022. Some reports indicate that 60-70% of American families are living paycheck to paycheck. Before the November 2022 election, surveys showed that…
Features, February 2021
Dollars & Sense: DBK Bookkeeping and Tax – A Few 2020 Tax Updates
Peggy LaShier 2020 Charitable Contributions Previously, charitable contributions could only be deducted if taxpayers itemized their deductions. However, taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions may take a charitable deduction of up to $300 for cash contributions made in 2020 to qualifying organizations. For the purposes of this deduction, qualifying organizations are those that are religious, charitable,…