Our Weekend Word

We know that the topic of inflation is being pretty well beaten to death as it hits 20 year highs, but bear with us for one more article about it.

Generally, the IRS will impose a 10 percent early distribution penalty if you withdraw assets from your traditional IRA before the age of 59½. So, what would happen if you needed to tap into your IRA before then? 

The answer is they go up and down! (Corny laugh) Wanted to use this weekend word to raise awareness on the rising rates the FEDs have done and what you should be aware of by them. 

Ah, the age-old question. For years I’ve gone back and forth over this and, finally, having done both now, feel like I have a decent sense of when each option is appropriate.

With all the home selling that’s been going on there is a little-known tax rule to help you figure out if you’ll owe any capital gains on your house that may have massively appreciated in the past 2 years.

This particular rule is especially helpful to know for people who may be moving to a second property or may have moved in somewhere else for a while before selling their home.

When markets get crazy it can be comforting to find certainty, and for this we look to… taxes? Yep, that’s right, the most certain thing in our whole financial system.

Taking a loan from your 401(k) can be tempting. You put all this money in it, and it’s just sitting there staring at you while you struggle through affording your house, car and maybe a vacation every once in a while. Then you find out you can take a loan from your retirement plan, and hey, by the way, you pay yourself the interest. That doesn’t sound so bad. Certainly, better than taking out a personal loan or putting something on a credit card and paying the bank right, especially at only 4.25% interest right now. Well, not always.

Yesterday first quarter GDP numbers surprised many when they posed a -1.4% mark, indicating that the economy had actually contracted instead of expanding. This was pretty far off from consensus views that the economy would grow by 1.5% that quarter.

Does this mean that we’re going into a recession? Not necessarily.

In the course of our hectic lives, it’s not all that unusual for people to lose track of some things. Sometimes it’s their car keys, other times important dates, and still other times it can be an old stock position or small bank account.

Fortunately for us, our kind state of Pennsylvania has a system to keep track of any wayward assets that may have gotten buried in the file cabinet. Those unattended accounts can fall into the jurisdiction of Unclaimed Property laws.

It is no secret that over the past week Russian businesses have been hit with stiff international sanctions to cripple the Russian economy and dissuade further aggression towards Ukraine. Russia has made threats of its own in response that you have undoubtedly seen on the news.

We want you to know that Commonwealth is taking steps to help us stay protected from possible security threats and any exposure to sanctioned Russian companies.