Hello everyone. Long-ish time reader.
I'm a Naval Aviator (Hornets). My wife finished residency in 2020 and is currently an attending physician/assistant professor at a medical school, both 29 yrs old. While she is a genius, she isn't well-versed in the financial realm, and leaves the majority of the decisions to me. Unfortunately, since I am a simpleton -- pull back on stick houses get smaller, push forward on stick houses get bigger -- this year I've started to reach the point that I would like some oversight/advice.
Annual Income:
Tax questions:
Thanks for being such a great community!
I'm a Naval Aviator (Hornets). My wife finished residency in 2020 and is currently an attending physician/assistant professor at a medical school, both 29 yrs old. While she is a genius, she isn't well-versed in the financial realm, and leaves the majority of the decisions to me. Unfortunately, since I am a simpleton -- pull back on stick houses get smaller, push forward on stick houses get bigger -- this year I've started to reach the point that I would like some oversight/advice.
Annual Income:
- Myself - $110 (only base pay is taxed ~$73.5k)
- Her - $210k (only made ~$115k in 2020 since she was a resident for the majority of the year)
- House purchase in 2020, mortgage - $500k
- Her student loans - $287k (currently all federal, will be refinancing shortly if they don't extend 0% interest)
- No other debt, no children
- Wife claims my state of residency (obscure, but legal under the SCRA), neither of us pay state income tax.
- Me - Roth TSP and individual Roth IRA are maxed every year, with additional money going to taxable accounts equating to total saving of ~30-35% of my annual salary. -- ~$285k saved to date
- Her - Max contributions have been made to her Roth 403b in 2020 (wasn't able to max it by end of year) and we'll max out her Roth IRA before April. -- ~$15k saved to date
- Combined total retirement savings ~$300k
Tax questions:
- Should we file jointly or separately this year?
- Should we continue to file separately in the future to preserve my ability to contribute to Roth options?
- Will we hit the threshold for itemized deductions?
- We bought a house this year, her name is on the deed, but only my name is on the loan, can we still deduct home interest against her taxable income?
- There wasn't a lot of student loan interest collected this year obviously, but based on her income this year can she deduct that?
- I've done my taxes every year through TurboTax, but always filing separately. If we file jointly this year, is our situation all that complicated? If not, can TurboTax still meet our needs?
- For her - based on the 403b not having income limits for Roth, does it make sense to continue contributing to Roth (years of tax-free growth), or go traditional to drive down taxable income?
- For her - she has other retirement options with 457b and 401a. From what I've read, having access to a 457b is pretty valuable and we have the ability to max out both. Should this be something we prioritize over other investment vehicles back-door Roth IRAs, 529s, HSA, etc.?
- I'm seeing people refinancing their student loans at 2-2.5%, but the rate quotes I've seen is 2.98-3.75% from companies on this site for 5-7 year terms. Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks for being such a great community!
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