Title:
In America There Are Two Tax Systems
Word Count:
529
Summary:
"In America there are two tax systems, one for the informed and one for
the uninformed. Both systems are legal."
One of America's most famous jurists, Justice Learned Hand made this
statement over forty years ago. When used today, one would certainly have
to include the little understood world of Individual Retirement Accounts
(IRA’s). The point I am making here is that we all need to keep ourselves
informed about what IRA alternatives are available to us. Being uniformed
...
Keywords:
Article Body:
"In America there are two tax systems, one for the informed and one for
the uninformed. Both systems are legal."
One of America's most famous jurists, Justice Learned Hand made this
statement over forty years ago. When used today, one would certainly have
to include the little understood world of Individual Retirement Accounts
(IRA’s). The point I am making here is that we all need to keep ourselves
informed about what IRA alternatives are available to us. Being uniformed
about these IRA alternatives almost certainly means we are not taking
full advantage of the opportunity to secure better returns on our
retirement dollars.
The vast majority of Americans have since their (IRA's) introduction in
1974 allowed our IRAs and 401Ks to be directed by someone else, such as
the friendly Broker and their Wall Street affiliates. This easygoing very
passive approach "let someone else do the work for me" attitude may well
have continued forever had it not been for the Wall Street crash of 2000.
With more than a trillion dollars lost in IRA and 401K equity alone, it
challenged the very way we viewed Wall Street.
The clear fact is if we Americans had known or understood back in 1974
that our IRAs and 401K's could be used to purchase real estate related
items like Tax Lien Certificates, Tax Deeds and Mortgage Notes, millions
of American baby boomers would today be retiring with vast sums of cash
and assets inside of their IRAs and 401Ks.
NASDAQ reported on March 10, 2005 that it had risen to 59% of what it was
five years earlier! This means $100,000.00 invested in NASDAQ listed
companies in 1999 would be worth something like $59,000.00. That's very
sad, but it’s where most Americans are today. Magazine, newspaper and
television advertising campaigns have created the illusion to millions of
Americans that those Wall Street products were the only financial
products you could buy. This is not the fact and as outlined above Wall
Street has not preformed too well over the last 30 years.
Real Estate on the other hand has out performed everything over the last
30 years by a very long way. IRAs and 401K's in general have over ninety
percent of their funds in financial products. This may well lead you to
ask "Why?” Are those Wall Street financial products superior in any way
to real estate investments?" No! Here are some quotes taken from two very
repected publications:
"... since the major housing organizations began keeping records in the
1960s, there has never been a year in which the average existing U.S.
residence lost value. Not a one. "FORTUNE Magazine, August 12, 2002
"It is striking that after the longest, strongest bull market in history,
the average American built more wealth owning a home than investing in
the stock market ."DENVER Post, March 14, 2002
After reading these quotes, it really is hard to understand why our IRAs
and 401K's are not 90% real estate versus 10% Wall Street products. Maybe
it’s time for all of us to get just a little more informed about those
hard earned dollars before it’s too late!
Have an opinon or a question you would like me to answer, then write me!
http://www.CarlHampton.com