It’s perk-planning season. As companies continue their cost-cutting, crowd-pleasing trend toward flexible benefits, workers poring over menus will consider their own lifestyles and family needs, but there’s one other concerned party they should remember: the IRS might be peering over their shoulders as they place their orders. Manhattan tax attorney Stuart Kessler warns that if the money is made available for immediate use, the whole pot could be taxable income. Some benefits are more taxable than others. Free parking, for example, becomes taxable income when its value exceeds $155 a month.
Then there’s the child-care tax choice. Do you want to set aside up to $5,000 in a pretax dependent-care spending account, or pay the sitter out of take home pay and then claim a child-care credit? A nile of thumb, offered by Tim Morse, senior tax manager with KPMG Peat Marwick: if you make less than $25,000, go for the tax credit; it will put more money in your pocket at the year-end without crimping your cash flow.
title: “Chip Shots” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-27” author: “Robyn Swensen”
It’s the mantra of mutual-fund investors: “Look for good long-term performance.” Indeed, nearly every fired-rating system in existence relies on some measure of past performance. But there’s a new reason to consider rookie funds without a track record. Sheldon Jacobs. editor of The No-Load Fund Investor, has found that new funds outperform the market on average during their first month of operations. His research shows that the trend is particularly strong at companies like Fidelity. Janus, Strong, Price and Lindner. Jacobs can’t explain the phenomenon but says there has long been suspicion – though it’s never been proven-that fund companies boost their new funds by loading them up with high-flying IPOs or having other funds buy the same stocks to raise prices. Jacobs doesn’t recommend purchasing rookies but says that if you’re going to take the risk anyway, it’s best to stick with a fund family that frequently launches them fast out of the chutes.
title: “Chip Shots” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-15” author: “Ernest Noble”
Once a loser, always a loser. That’s apparently the rule in the investment-newsletter game, where longtime laggard The Granville Market Letter was ranked the worst-performing newsletter of 1994, based on calculations by The Hulbert Financial Digest. Granville disputes the ranking. “I don’t know why [Hulbert] has it in for me.” . . . Mutual-fund pioneer Kurt Lindner died last week after a long illness. The Lindner Fund, started in 1954, has been run since 1993 by his protege, Eric Ryback. . . . Darn those minus signs. Last week Fidelity blamed a lone accountant for incorrectly recording a $1.3 billion loss as a gain, causing the Magellan Fund to renege on a planned $4.32-a-share year-end payout to shareholders.
