Alex Okugawa 0:00
Hello, and welcome to our segment cut through the noise where today we answer your questions that we’ve been hearing throughout the month. Today we’re talking about the tax proposal changes to Social Security, another crazy crypto scam, and whether or not you should buy a car right now. All right, Anthony. So, you know, a big, I guess, tax proposal that came out a couple of days ago. There’s a lot of important changes in there, but not necessarily anything yet. That’s finalized.

Anthony Saffer 0:24
Yeah. President Biden introduced a proposal early in the year Congress came back with a proposal just the other day. And basically, you know, they’re saying tax increases primarily for people that are making 400,000. Plus, bringing the top bracket back to 39.6. A lot of people are calling it a roll back to the Clinton-era administration. But the thing is, is it affects everyone differently.

Alex Okugawa 0:47
Yeah, right. Well, that’s the thing, too, is because I think, you know, if you have a question about taxes, well, how’s it going to impact me? Right? Like, are my taxes going to go up? But I think what we’re seeing is, it’s going to impact people differently across the board. I know for like Californians, a lot of people were wondering, well, are they going to repeal like the state and local income tax capital $1,000. At this time, that doesn’t appear to be in there. So a lot can change between this proposal and a finalized version?

Anthony Saffer 1:14
Yeah. And that’s probably the most important thing that we would pass along is that based on a proposal, a lot changes before it goes into a bill. And it affects everybody differently because there are given taken any tax bill. And so you want to be really careful about how you act upon that, especially now.

Alex Okugawa 1:28
So I’d probably leave with this is if you have questions about the proposal to your unique situation, you probably want to talk with your CPA or your advisor just to say, hey, based on my situation, what are things looking like? Are there any corrective steps we might want to take now? Right, in preparation for, you know, a potential finalized version?

Anthony Saffer 1:45
Yeah, for sure. All right, next question. Social Security came out and says they are running out of money one year earlier than planned.

Alex Okugawa 1:52
Yeah. So that’s expected to be run out I think in 20 2033. Yeah, now the thing is, is that is expected to be running out of money meaning fully funded, that doesn’t mean it’ll completely stop, because you’ll still have what are called FICA taxes coming in to help pay for Social Security, but it just might be a reduced benefit. I think a lot of questions that retirees have is well how is this going to impact my benefit, right? And I mean, truth be told, I think it’s going to be a really rare occurrence to see a retroactive reduction of retiree benefits I mean, think about it politically who’s the major you know, voting base largely is largely older people and so if they were to reduce their benefits you’re gonna have people up in arms

Anthony Saffer 2:34
Yeah. And the younger generation if you think about it, they’re already those that are actually thinking about social security are probably like well it’s not going to be there it’s going to change in some way when Congress actually does get its act together and they do tend to wait until the last minute I think if you if you stretch out the the full retirement age a little bit further it hasn’t been changed in like 40 years given enough time to get there they’re probably going to increase the wage base because you only pay social security taxes up to a certain limit i

Alex Okugawa 3:01
think is $137,000 right now yeah. So

Anthony Saffer 3:03
if you if you push those types of things out no one’s gonna like the changes fully, but the younger generation is going to expect that for the most part it’s something that just needs to be

Alex Okugawa 3:12
done that is usually like the best option too is that both sides of the camp both parties everyone involved is going to be unhappy in a small way that’s usually the best option to keep this thing fully funded and operational. Yeah,

Anthony Saffer 3:23
but when you hear stories like this, you don’t want to go out and just necessarily act based on this fear thing. Oh, it’s gonna run out of money. I need to take it super early. Exactly. And get you know, huge discount and then you have lower benefits for the rest of your life. Absolutely.

Alex Okugawa 3:35
Alright, so next thing, there was another crypto scam another, you know, Walmart, white coin fiasco. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Anthony Saffer 3:43
Yeah, so fake press release. It says Walmart’s going to accept Litecoin which is a cryptocurrency. But you know, the crypto shoots up really quick. And then everybody realizes it’s a scam because Walmart comes out and says that’s not even true. And it goes back down pump and dump.

Alex Okugawa 3:57
Yeah, well, I think it speaks to the vulnerability of this whole crypto space because listen, I mean, it’s still been around for a little while. And now I think people are starting to see more adoption. People are trying to research and more understand its use cases, but it’s still very vulnerable. It’s still in its early stages. So again, when we think about crypto in its entirety, I think you still want to look at at least our position is still a speculative asset. Right? If you’re going to invest in any of these cryptocurrencies, it has to have a specific purpose and a plan knowing that this thing could go to zero

Anthony Saffer 4:30
yet, but even beyond cryptocurrency, I think there’s a lesson in this number one is that information changes or is is distributed super quick, right with the internet. And then you have a very speculative investment environment. So people are going out pumping money into the based on a tweet or something a press release and getting burned by it.

Alex Okugawa 4:48
Absolutely.

Anthony Saffer 4:49
All right. Next last question here is should I buy a car right now or wait?

Alex Okugawa 4:53
Yeah, and if you’re in the market to buy a new car, you’re probably seeing the prices are going crazy. So there’s not too much we can do about it. What I would say is I mean if you can wait if you can I think that’d be the best thing you can do but if you do need a car right now just be really picky be very selective you know make sure you’re looking at all your options comparing the price of the new car versus the used car because in many cases these used cars are going for almost as much as new cars and then just consider other options like does it make sense you know can I lease for a little bit of time if I do need a car right now just to hold me over and then hopefully supply chains things like that normalize in the car prices become more normalized

Anthony Saffer 5:30
leasing can be a band-aid I’ve talked to a few people that have bought like a very inexpensive used college to get them to the next couple of years until supply opens up a bit Awesome.

Alex Okugawa 5:41
Well, this is our segment cut through the noise. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have a question that you would like us to answer, you can send us an email at admin at one-degree advisors calm in the subject line just put cut through the noise and we’ll make sure to answer it during our next segment. Cut the noise

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