I think the IRS is only looking to have brokers track dividends to ensure tax reporting in the year that they're generated. There's nothing that says they have to track reinvested dividends over the years to add into your cost basis when you sell. And it appears they are NOT doing that. Cost basis f...

Thanks bedraggled! I think that answers my question. It is Scenario #2, and you WILL be double taxed on the dividends unless you track them and provide the records to the IRS when you go to sell. That's a headache I think I'd rather not deal with, and I bet the federal government is scoring big time...

I have a tax question for the well-informed folks on the board: what are the implications of reinvesting dividends in a taxable account on later sales of shares? Specifically: let's say you buy 100 shares of a stock, and get a 1 share dividend per quarter. You pay tax on that dividend, but have it r...

The cruise option is definitely pricey and scheduling is severely limited (1 trip/month), but I will absolutely keep it in mind for my next trip to Europe. I'd only use it for the outbound leg, which is where I try to get first class upgrades wherever possible. It is SO worth it: you get a seat that...

Thanks Desert! Let's hope that the bull market continues long enough to build up your portfolio for an extra safety margin. And then the crash will come just as I'm getting ready to retire, of course ;D Your posts make me think about strategies too. Like, I have an idea that if my portfolio grows la...

It depends how often you have to sell assets during a drawdown. The math gets really nasty when that happens: Starting portfolio = $100,000; let's say there's an immediate 20% drawdown so it's now worth $80,000. You now withdraw $5,000 --> portfolio now stands at $75,000. In order for the portfolio ...

Yes, but think of all he gets for that $12k! There's, um, hmm, I'm pretty sure there is something! By comparison, we pay about $2k a year in real estate taxes, for which we get: 1. Publik skools, which we have never used and will never use (most of the taxes); 2. County roads and sheriff services, ...

We've had discussions on this in the past and definitely it's time for another one! Starting with your example: Let's assume that you're just starting retirement, and your portfolio is exactly 25x annual expenses, i.e. expenses are 4% of the portfolio size. So your 2% assumes that you keep no more t...

Sort of like cash. Strong emphasis on 'deep cash', as in you never want rebalance out of them. Take them into retirement and cash them in when you're ready to deal with the tax implications. I use 1/3 of total cash as my rule of thumb, so I don't buy I bonds every year.

I remember Medium Tex proposing something very similar back in the epic Bogleheads thread. I don't exactly remember how much gold he was talking about - maybe 10%, but I think that was based more on the idea that people who are looking for simple might be skittish about holding more gold than that. ...

Wow, I just read that STEM article. I can't even count the ways in which I find it offensive. It ignores the fact that women are under-represented in STEM from day 1 of freshman year. Unless something fundamental about college has changed, grades don't start happening until after that. Slight cause ...

If I understand correctly, you can start with $50k+ in VUSXX and then later drop well below $50k without any problem, as long as: (a) this is in a retirement account (e.g., IRA, Roth IRA, 401k), or (b) you have at least $50k of total assets invested with Vanguard. So, you could open a PP with just ...