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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • Saver's Credit and HSA
    Why would you think it might? The link you provide shows the five types of contributions that are allowed and HSAs don't appear on that list.
    • contributions you make to a traditional or Roth IRA,
    • elective salary deferral contributions to a 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457(b), SARSEP, or SIMPLE plan,
    • voluntary after-tax employee contributions made to a qualified retirement plan (including the federal Thrift Savings Plan) or 403(b) plan,
    • contributions to a 501(c)(18)(D) plan, or
    • contributions made to an ABLE account for which you are the designated beneficiary (beginning in 2018).
  • Saver's Credit and HSA
    I can't seem to find any information on whether an HSA qualifies for the IRS Tax "Saver's Credit".
    Retirement Savings Contributions Credit (Saver’s Credit):
    IRS Website:
    retirement-savings-contributions-savers-credit
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    The CNBC columnist (Sara O'Brien) has apparently taken to recycling old(?) material. A "new" column appears today. The only new material I see is a single sentence giving the number of projected HSA accounts at the end of 2024 to be 38M, with assets of $150B.
    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/19/you-cant-save-in-hsa-on-medicare-a-bill-to-change-that-has-tradeoffs.html
    To add a little new material to this thread, here's a question I have not been able to answer about Medicare premiums being eligible medical expenses:
    - An HSA owner may use the HSA to pay qualified medical expenses incurred by one's spouse. So one spouse may take tax free withdrawals from his or her HSA to pay for doctor visits incurred now or in the past by the other spouse (so long as the expenses weren't deducted, paid for out of another HSA, etc.).
    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969#en_US_2021_publink1000204083
    - One cannot use an HSA to pay Medicare premiums before one turns age 65. This is a very rigid rule: someone age 62 cannot use an HSA to pay for a 65 year old spouse's Medicare premiums.
    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969#en_US_2021_publink1000204086
    - If a spouse is the beneficiary of an HSA, then the HSA become's the spouse's, much as a surviving spouse may elect to treat an inherited IRA as one's own.
    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969#en_US_2021_publink1000204097
    Now, what happens with Medicare premiums paid by the deceased spouse? Suppose spouse A, deceased, had paid premiums at age 65 (qualified expenses) before the surviving spouse B turned 65?
    Had A withdrawn money from the HSA prior to death, the withdrawals would have been tax-free based on the premiums paid. But now that the HSA is owned by spouse B and the same payments were not qualified expenses for spouse B.
    Is there an exception that allows the Medicare premiums to be considered qualified expenses for surviving spouse B? Or, what I suspect, does death transform these formerly qualified medicare expenses into unqualified expenses?
    It's different if the beneficiary isn't the spouse. Then the estate has a year to take withdrawals as if the deceased were still alive.
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    Just to be clear, my triple+ benefit of current HSA was for i) pre-tax contributions, ii) tax-deferral on earnings, iii) tax-free and penalty-free withdrawals for qualified medical use, and then "+" for penalty-free but taxable withdrawals for nonmedical use after 65. So, this proposal would make triple+ benefit of HSA just triple.
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    There has to be an escape clause for people putting too much money into HSAs. (Use it or lose it as with FSAs would have made HSAs toxic.) This was always a feature - and always one that came with taxes. Non-medical withdrawals were never triple tax free. The only change being made here is whether a withdrawal penalty is added.
    It's not just Congress saying that IRAs were intended for retirement (though Congress did make that clear in its original legislation). It is the Supreme Court saying the same thing as well, in ruling that inherited IRAs are not retirement accounts deserving of bankruptcy protection.
    In any case, changes involving stretch IRAs did not make formerly tax-free money taxable. They did affect the timing and arguably size of the tax - a quantitative, not qualitative change. Likewise adding a penalty to non-medical withdrawals from HSAs would not make formerly tax-free money taxable since the non-medical withdrawals were never tax-free.
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    I know people who would be very upset at Disallowed #2 as they also considered HSA as a supplemental IRA. Some who were sitting on the fence on the HSA were swayed by the allowed nonmedical use of funds after 65. If this proposal becomes serious, there may be some grandfathering exceptions. Or, the Congress may say that allowed nonmedical use after 65 was a defect or loophole in the HSA that had nothing to with the health intent. Afterall, the Congress took away the stretch-IRA for heirs by just saying that it didn't have much to do with the retirement intent of the IRA.
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    The current bill is HR 7435, introduced on April 7.
    I don't expect this to go anywhere either. That said, IMHO it still has significant flaws.
    As I understand it, HSAs were part of a package added to the Medicare expansion act in 2003 (that created Part D) in order to mollify thirteen conservative representatives. Without HSAs, high deductible health plans (HDHPs) leave many people with health coverage in name only - a complaint heard more recently including here about some ACA plans. HSAs make HDHPs, where people have more skin in the game, more palatable.
    Medicare does not have high deductibles, nor is it a disliked program. So it doesn't need HSAs to spur participation. And to the extent that people want alternatives, there is already Medicare Advantage. So it seems that the main raisons d'etre for HSAs don't apply.
    If the intent is simply to hand seniors who need extra help some money, one could target it better. For example, reduce premiums so that instead of covering 1/4 of costs, they cover 1/5 (that's a 20% reduction). Then increase IRMAA amounts to make up this difference. Revenue neutral, while providing Medicare assistance to those most in need instead of giving tax breaks that most benefit those who need it least.
    There's another type of problem with this proposal. AFAIK, the government has not set up a program where people were promised tax-free earnings only to have them later taxed upon withdrawal. It would be as if the government said about Roths: sorry, we're taxing your earnings now.
    I could see disallowing tax-free use of HSA contributions and earnings for premiums going forward, but disallowing the tax-free use of past contributions and earnings sets a dangerous precedent.
  • Proposed HSSA - Health Savings for Seniors Act
    Watch proposed bipartisan changes to the HSA for seniors, called HSSA (Health Savings for Seniors Act), that will ALLOW contributions to the HSA when on Medicare, but DISALLOW (1) Using the HSA for Medicare premiums, (2) Eliminate penalty-free withdrawals after 65 for nonmedical use (the current Triple+ benefit will just become Triple). It revives a similar 2019 proposal that didn't go anywhere.
    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/medicare-enrollees-could-put-money-in-hsa-plans-under-house-bill.html
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/new-bill-would-let-seniors-save-for-medical-care-tax-free/ar-AAWoHsz
    https://401kspecialistmag.com/bill-seeks-to-expand-hsas-to-seniors-covered-by-medicare/
    https://bera.house.gov/sites/bera.house.gov/files/documents/BERA_030_xml.pdf
  • Social security & IRMAA
    Maybe a side note to this thread, but HSA contributions adjust gross income. Further, if one has earned income through self employment, Health insurance premiums (including ACA Insurance premiums) are deductible against self employment income which would also potentially lower AGI.
    So, when calculating for ACA premium credits remember to "adjusts" ones AGI to reflect the possibility of these two income deductions when calculating your MAGI for ACA eligibility and premium credits.
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 4/13/22
    Good point. Next week we have three Fed officials speak, Monday - Bullard, Tuesday, and Thursday - Powell. I can not imagine much soothsaying from the Fed next week. I was hoping equities would go up today to take some recent paper profits, instead I ended up selling more of my small Muni allocation. The MUNIs I bought during 2013 taper tantrum have now dipped below zero.
  • What are you buying - if anything?
    Not doing much buying at this time.
    Dollar-cost averaging into PRILX (HSA) and MIEIX (401k) every two weeks.
  • Penn Mutual Am 1847 Income I
    Yup @Bopa, I'm in and have been for a while.
    I've watched the snippets of Cipollini III the fund mgr, formerly one of the fund mgr's of Berwyn Income and like what I hear. Rational thinking, talks to picking up holdings during volatility in the markets...I know he would make better decisions than me during the frequent market schmeissings, the fund allows me to stay invested during the large downdraft days. I also like that he is I'm guessing 15 years or so younger than me so I'm thinking I can hold this one as I get older, maybe?
    Stock portfolio portion is balanced between small, mid, large stonks, some intl stocks, def value stocks, real balanced between categories meaning defensives, cyclicals, market senstitive segments.
    I think he was in something like 20% cash going into 2022 which likely assisted the positioning of the fund.
    Someone here did mention the co-port mgr, Saylor left the fund several months ago?
    This one, HSAFX Hussy and PVCMX Palm Valley have been some funds that have allowed me to stay invested over the past few months.
    I do remember when he was running BERIX few years back, there was a posted brochure on their website that going back 10 years, drawing down THE 4% every year, the BERIX fund then co managed by Cippollini III, actually increased in value even when accounting for the withdrawls. Maybe he can make that happen here too?
    FWIW, from my perspective, it's a keeper, YMMV.
    Good Luck to All,
    Baseball Fan
  • Inflation: Rip or Ripple
    "Facebook posts claim that the rising cost of goods in the United States is due to price gouging rather than inflation. But experts rejected the idea that corporations are the main culprit and said the spike in prices follows big federal spending, heightened demand, and supply problems, all of which have accompanied the pandemic."
    https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.9ZG3DG (apologies if the link does not work, go read the article)
    We can pee in each other's Cheerios all morning as to the root cause of the inflation we are experiencing, we likely won't agree. But there is no doubt it is real. The question is for how long and where to protect your investments.
    Anecdotally, my heating bill for my home in the Blue Ridge Mtns, same usage as prior year etc, ~$235 last month vs ~$145. Not a small increase. I don't have to tell you about grocery shopping or what services are costing these days.
    What concerns me the most is that from a product standpoint, my thinking is there might be a tremendous amount of "false orders", meaning I need 10k widgets but better order 15k because the lead times are extended. what happens when that unravels or there are cancelations?
    I want to see when many companies provide raises to their associates this spring...what willl that look like...what will the wage-price spiral look like?
    Wondering if we are about to get into a stagflation scenario...tough times during the late 70's early 80's. Will the precious metals protect our purchasing power...might not be a bad idea, dunno?
    WSJ article over the weekend stated we are in "unchartered waters" as we have never experienced the same scenario we are going thru now. So who knows?
    I'm thinking about the metals, also HSAFX, our ole' friend Hussy might be telling us "I told you so" by the end of the year but he likely has too much class to do that.
    Good Luck to ALL,
    Baseball Fan
  • RLSFX
    replying to @hank, "where to hide?" Maybe, who knows listed below?
    PMEFX Penn Mutual AM 1847 Income (am a bit concerned about bond portfolio side of fund, lower rated bonds, not sure?)
    TSUMX Thornburg Summit, been watching this one for a while, you can finally get in with an IRA at Schwab under the $1MM initial investment, I'm in
    HSAFX, Hussy allocation...if the stuff really hits the fan this year,likely good place to hide
    PVCMX, Palm Valley...lot of cash, absolute return investment
    BLNDX, as profiled by Prof Snowball a few months back, I didn't like the one day drop of ~5% back in November? and bailed but now thinking if any fund is going to make high single digits+ this year, it could be this one? I've waded back in...we'll see what happens
    FMSDX, Fidelity Mult Asset Income, hanging in there
    We talked about I bonds prior
    I bailed on TANDX, Tandem, ~ 30% in cash, drawdown NOT to my liking, disappointing
    Good Luck to all,
    Baseball Fan
  • 7 bear market funds
    @JD_co
    Hussy hsgfx after this reset might be top dog looking backwards 10 years
    What are your thoughts re hussy hsafx. Allocation fund with risk controls. Puts. Looks at stonk and bond valuations when setting allocation. Most target date, allocation funds don't??
    Best
    Baseball Fan
  • Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
    @Derf,
    I have three puddles of retirement income: Roth IRA, T-IRA and HSA. I have pension, but no Social security.
    Until 65 I will be contributing to my HSA and managing my income to maximize my ACA (Affordable Care Act) premiums.
    From 65 to 72 I plan on managing withdrawals / conversions from my T-IRA to the extent that I can maximize my (15%) tax bracket. At 72 RMDs will start.
    RMDs percentages increase each year. Depending on your T-IRA balance, these RMDs could be more than one needs to spend.
    Do you find you spend your entire RMD or does some end up puddling in a taxable account?
    Here's @yogibearbull's RMD chart:
    image
  • Any GREEN today
    Hussman's newer fund HSAFX seems to be a better, more stable fund than the older HSGFX, holding its own during both upturns and downturns.
  • Any GREEN today
    @Hank, I don't own it; did own HSTRX about 12 years ago for a while. A friend owns HSAFX now and isn't too unhappy with it, but you know what they say about a stopped clock.
    But then the best I did yesterday was zero from NVHAX, EIXIX, and PQTAX.
  • Schwab needs to "re authorize" Quicken access
    The CEO sent out an email apologizing for the problems people are having connecting to Schwab: Link
    I’m on Quicken for Mac and switched over to the new Schwab connection early in the process and haven’t encountered any issues.
  • Blackrock Systematic Multi Strategy Fund (BAMBX)
    (Lipper* generally quotes from the manager’s description):
    “The Fund seeks total return comprised of current income and capital appreciation. BlackRock will invest the Funds assets through a diversified set of strategies that seek to provide total return comprised of current income and capital appreciation in both periods of strong returns and periods of market stress.”
    77% in bonds likely reason the fund was up a bit yesterday. Longer dated high quality bonds were up sharply.
    Since the asset breakdown on Lipper adds up to 100%, it’s unlikely they’re doing much (if any) shorting - which generally skews the total to something over 100.
    I tend to like Blackrock. Rock Rieder, one of their fixed income people, talks a good game. Bright and articulate.
    No fund is a “spaghetti bowl” if one is willing to invest the time and energy into exploring the contents. In the case of TMSRX I’ve not done the due diligence I probably should have, trusting in TRP whom I’ve been with for about 30 years to run that complex fund on the straight and narrow and not put my money at excessive risk. But that’s laziness on my part - not dereliction on theirs.
    @Baseball_Fan - Could you share a little about your current investment approach? What do you like in addition to near 0% cash? I recall about 6-7 months ago you were buying Home Depot and also looking for inflation hedges. The problem with those inflation hedges is that a lot of other people caught the scent in the wind 6 months ago and chased. It’s a diverse lot. Some areas (certain industrial metals) are doing fine and may not be overpriced. But it’s a rough playing field as evidenced by the more than 6% drop in oil yesterday.
    *Link to BAMBX Lipper profile: http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?YYY622_6m0GgCfSF7IkKdT1pfwHShuZTH3KwZb8EX/lL+8rQLcR/QKIWm+VprdhsazlKneG