Surprises

Two surprising things Mom’s financial advisor told us the week before Christmas:

- Mom might be able to pay $300 a month to secure long-term care insurance.

- The way tax brackets work is not that, when your income goes up from let’s say $10,000 to $20,000, you jump up from the 10 percent tax bracket to the 20 percent tax bracket. Instead, you pay federal taxes at 10 percent on the first $10,000 (or whatever) and then at 20 percent at just the rest of the year’s income.

The realtor also called us back to tell us that getting a house on the market by April before the $8,000 tax break for first-time homeowners expires would be good, but she hasn’t talked with that many clients who used this. In Louisville, many house for-sale signs include an extra sign about the tax credit; we’ve yet to see such a sign in Tallahassee (even though on a short dog walk earlier this week Frisco and I saw NINE houses and one lot for sale!).

For more information on Mom’s financial advisor, see: https://my.hdvest.com/clements
Her office is located in the shadow of the old Tallahassee Community Hospital (pictured above), where Mom nearly died 14 years ago.

-- Perry