Wow these guys are so incompetent. So I open a Merrill account and it took them about 25 days to open the account. Granted it was a trust account - but 25 days? On top of it, even I opened the account, I asked for option privileges and none of that was setup. Personally, the little extra reward from them does not justify dealing with this kind of incompetence.

And on the credit card, got my 1st statement. Either I am missing something or they don’t allow it - I wanted to pay from an external account and I don’t see that option. Additionally, I don’t see an option to pay my bill in full every month from an external account. If that is all true, then those are big limitations of the card too. I like to keep my life simple - want things such as payments to happen automatically from my external account.

At this point, I will get my card sign on bonus and both Merrill edge and the credit card will be sock drawered.

@craig10x said in Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card – 50,000 Point Bonus, $100 Annual Travel Credit:

Unless this card is set up totally different than the standard card …

So looks like you don’t have this specific card. Given the numbers shared, it does look like the card is setup differently. I will call them and verify - still time before Jan 15 estimated tax deadline.

@jcantanixon said in Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card – 50,000 Point Bonus, $100 Annual Travel Credit:

@craig10x said in Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card – 50,000 Point Bonus, $100 Annual Travel Credit:

The points you accumulate will get the bonus points from the platinum honors rewards as you redeem them, so wait until AFTER the 3 months to redeem any points accumulated…that way you will get the full benefit on the points you got before you qualified…

I have Platinum Honors with the BofA Cash Rewards Credit Card…so, that’s how i know…lol,
I waited until AFTER i qualified for Honors before cashing out points, at which point (when i did) i got the 75% boost automatically on them…

Actually, for this card, the bonus points are awarded while they’re earned, not redeemed. Here’s my month 2 statement showing the standard Rewards, the Preferred Banking bonus, and the 50k sign up bonus.

Your Reward Summary
1,823.92 - 2 Points/$1 on Travel&Dining
3,122.75 - 1.5 Points/$1 on All Other
3,711.26 - Preferred/Banking Rwds Bonus All Other
50,000.00 - Other Bonus This Month Other
65,396.69 - Total Points Available Month Other

Thank you - given that you have posted the numbers, I am going to believe you more. Definitely a no-no for me to pay the federal estimated with this card by Jan 15 - not enough time to qualify for the preferred status.

From the credit card terms, " The value of this reward may constitute taxable income to you. You may be issued an Internal Revenue Service Form 1099 (or other appropriate form) that reflects the value of such reward. Please consult your tax advisor, as neither we, nor our affiliates, provide tax advice."

Geez - if they issue a 1099, then it makes it a taxable income. If they didn’t issue a 1099, then I understand it would be up to the individual to decide how to do their taxes.

Looking for input from people who have gotten this card or the other BofA travel card that had rewards tied to the preferred status.

1. So if I going to get this credit card, should I open the credit card first and then open the Merill account? Or vice-versa or it doesn’t matter.
2. So let us say I get the process rolling for both the credit card and the Merill account within the 1st week of Jan. Since I would not have completed a quarter, would I be earning the lower credit card benefit until a quarter is completed? Once the quarter is completed and then I have an average balance exceeding 100K, would I then start earning higher rate on the credit card rewards?

[I am going to be paying a estimated tax bill on Jan 15 to IRS. Trying to see if I can get the 2.625 points for transaction done by Jan 15].

IRS says many who prepaid property taxes may still face cap on deductions

Not surprised - those were kind of the rules before and IRS and is just clarifying the rules. Even before this hysteria started, you were always allowed to fudge on the payment for a bill received - e.g. pay billed 2018 property tax in 2017, pay spring semester tuition in Dec, early payment of Jan mortgage. All this existed before and was all kosher.

It is amazing to see how many people (including people with 500K income) have absolutely no clue about the tax system and they are leaping to do stupid things/following their neighbors and friends like lemmings and then asking questions. I had one person asking me if he should be prepaying the property taxes when he is squarely in the AMT region and he had already paid it. And then there are people who want to pay mortgage for the next 3 years.

@ritholtz said in Steps to take in 2017 for the upcoming tax changes:

@my4mainecoons
Ok. I checked my escrow statement online. They deducted property tax payment from my balance last week. If it is not done by now, they might not be able to make it by end of year.
You can also do a payment, inform and get a refund from escrow account. I typically pay my insurance premiums and get a refund from my escrow account. I also made payment to my December month mortgage which is due by 1st Jan.
My idea is to pay 2018 and 2019 property tax payments in 2019 and use standard deduction for year 2018 taxes. Not sure how much it will help. Every bit helps.

Legally, you can only prepay taxes that have been billed and due early next year. Don’t try to prepay future taxes - IRS has a ruling out on the topic that disallows future speculative payments.

@matrix5k said in Steps to take in 2017 for the upcoming tax changes:

@principalmember

Thanks. We paid about 13k to MA last year, that’s a big chunk of change for us. I want to make sure I’m doing this right?

1. Pay MA 13k before Dec ends.
2. File 2017 taxes in Jan.
3. Get refund for around 13k back from MA (the taxes were already withheld from our paychecks)?

I think you are doing this wrong. Let us say that you got paid $120K and your total MA taxes were 13K. Taxes withheld from paycheck - let us say is 11K. When you put these numbers in the tax software, it would say that you would owe 2K for 2017. This is what you pay to MA before the end of the year. Not the 13K number but the shortfall that you have from the actual obligations.

And if you were not subject to AMT, what you would be saving is the federal taxes on this 2K - i.e. you pay it this year, you can deduct. You pay it next year, there is no deduction.

@matrix5k said in Steps to take in 2017 for the upcoming tax changes:

Question about #2. We live in MA and used Turbotax 2016 last year, have roughly the same income this year. Do I look at my MA tax return summary and look at “Total Tax” for this amount? Or would I need to plug in our numbers into Turbotax 2017?

That should be good enough unless the MA tax laws changed drastically. You may end up paying slightly extra but that is fine - will come back next year at hopefully lower tax bracket. And if you don’t mind extra work, use your MA site to correlate and verify your TurboTax16 calculation.

I had bought TaxCut2017 for this specific purpose - to be more exact in my calculation - but those morons won’t have the state tax update until Jan 5.

@almighty1 said in Should you accelerate income/stock gains to 2017 due to tax changes?:

In my case, hard to say since I have QLD, DDM and AAPL. The first two has 600% gains and the second one has 11,000% gains so if I sell, basically 100% of the amount is gained so is there a strategy to sell and still use it again to make money while having cash from the sale?

It is simple - you need to know your state tax bracket and you need to decide whether you want to take profits in the near futureand diversify or stay in the same positions.