Look up the word ‘nit’ in the dictionary, and you’ll find a few definitions—none of them particularly positive. So it’s no surprise that the tax commonly known as NIIT can be a bit of an annoyance. NIIT is short for net investment income tax. It originated back in 2013 to help pay for the new [...]
Taking stock
Recently, a friend described his experience trying to buy a new car. “I had two choices,” he said. “One dealer wanted full sticker price. The other wanted even more. It wasn’t much of a choice.” The inflation situation in the car market is well understood. A shortage of components is limiting car [...]
The John Cleese Way
I’d like to describe—and to recommend to you—what I’ll call the John Cleese approach to financial planning. It is, in my view, the simplest and most effective way to think about saving for retirement, or for any other goal. John Cleese, the English actor and comedian, is largely retired now. But [...]
Productivity strategies
Truth be told, investing is just one ingredient for financial success. In fact, one of the best routes to financial security is also one of the most obvious: to increase one’s income. In the middle of a pandemic, though, this might seem like a tall order. After all, most people’s work lives—not to [...]
