Paid a financial planner $500 and it saved me from a huge tax mistake

I was about to sell some stock I got from an old job, thinking I'd just take the cash. My planner looked at my situation and pointed out I was in a higher tax bracket this year. She showed me how to spread the sale over two years instead. That one meeting, which cost about $500, saved me over $3000 in taxes I would have paid. I never would have caught that on my own. Has anyone else had a planner catch something simple that made a big difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

river_wright9d ago

Totally, my guy @river183 nailed it, my planner caught a similar timing thing with my bonus.

river1839d ago

That's the thing about experts, they see the whole board when you're just looking at one piece. It's like when a mechanic hears a weird noise and knows it's a specific belt, not the whole engine. You pay for the pattern recognition they built over years. A good tax person or planner spots those timing things normal people would never even know to ask about.