Your mid-year tax checkup

Liz Miller, Founder and President of Summit Place Financial Advisors, joins TheStreet to give a mid-year tax checkup.

Transcript

00:00Let's talk about the broader taxpayer, right? In terms of a mid-year financial update,

00:07what should all taxpayers be looking at as we are in the middle of the year?

00:14Okay, a couple big things we always want to talk about. Let's start just with your income.

00:19You want to take your latest W-2, and you want to look at what has been withheld so far this year,

00:24and you want to compare it to last year. You want to say, well, what were my taxes last year

00:29at this point, and am I far ahead? If you work with an accountant, send them that W-2,

00:35because what we're trying to figure out is, am I withholding enough? This is the time of year

00:39to make an adjustment to say, whoa, I don't think I'm keeping enough out of my paycheck,

00:44and I don't want to have a big amount I have to pay Uncle Sam next April. So first look at your

00:50W-2 earnings so far this year compared to last year, and how much taxes have been withheld in

00:55your state and federal so far this year. If you feel like you need more to be taken out,

01:00then contact your human resources people, your benefit people, whoever helps you make those

01:05changes, and ask about, how can I get more taxes withheld from my paycheck? So number one is your

01:11income. Then with that, maybe you have to pay estimated taxes, and you realize that you're

01:16going to have to owe more. That, you probably work with an accountant who maybe told you what

01:20your estimated taxes are. Send them your W-2 and say, hey, here's how much we've paid so far in

01:27April and June. Am I on track? Should I be paying a little more in September and next January to

01:33make sure I've paid enough in my tax planning? Then finally, we're going to go to our portfolio,

01:39and you do want to look at, well, what have my gains been so far this year? If you have individual

01:43stocks and they've been traded, if you're working with an advisor, ask for an update on what your

01:48capital gains are so far this year. If you're doing it yourself, most of the websites will show

01:54you what your realized gains, they call it, for the year. What have been your realized gains and

01:58losses so far this year? So that, again, you can kind of see, am I going to have to pay taxes? So

02:05realized gains and losses, depending on your income, you're going to pay anywhere from 15%

02:09on that to up to 25% plus, depending on your income level.