← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1938: Ask Farnoosh and Georgia Lee: Taxes, Values and Policy (Encore)
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So many. Episode 1938 Ask Farnoosh and Georgia Taxes, Values and Policy. You're listening to so Money with award.
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Winning money guru Farnoosh Tarabi.
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Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas.
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Or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place.
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Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money. Hey friends, it's November 7th, 2025. Welcome back to AskFarnouche Fridays. We're gonna do something a little different today. We have a guest. My friend and financial planner. Georgia Lee Hussey, founder and CEO of Modernist Financial, is joining me and together we're gonna unpack the big beautiful bill. Remember that and what it's going to mean for our taxes this year and in years ahead. We're going to get into how this new legislation could impact everyday taxpayers, what it says about our national priorities, and how we can align our money decisions with our values. That's where Georgia Lee helps a lot of our clients. And so we're going to get a little political. So just a forewarning, if you're not into that, you can skip this one. But as Georgia reminds us, taxes are political whether you like it or not. Before we dive in though, a quick recap in case you missed our episode episodes this week. On Monday, I marked so Money's 1900th episode with my friend and longtime colleague, Tracy Burns, a certified divorce financial analyst who helps women in midlife regain control of their finances after divorce. Tracy and I go way back to our early days on the New York Stock Exchange as fledgling reporters. So this one is both personal and packed with a lot of advice on rebuilding wealth and confidence after divorce, as well as before you get married. Then on Wednesday, I revisited my conversation with Danielle Robay, journalist, TV host, and we explored how asking better questions of ourselves and others can often lead to smarter money moves and even a more fulfilling career. And finally, before we get to our questions, I want to give a special shout out to one of our Apple podcast reviewers, Alexis, who recently wrote what I love about Farnoosh is that she has advice for folks who are living at home. There's something from every episode that I can take with me and think about throughout the day. She has made me more confident in understanding my financial life and asking people around me about theirs. Well, Alexis, thanks so much. I love hearing that this show can be for everyone. Whether you're just starting out, you're living at home or you're managing millions. And as a thank you, I'd love to invite you to get a free 15 minute phone call with me where you can ask me anything about money career. You can email me Farnoosh@somoneypodcast.com, let me know you left this review and and I'll reply with a link where you can pick a time for us to connect. All right now onto today's show. Georgia Lee Hussey, welcome back to SO Money for a special edition of Ask Farnoosh and Georgia. We're gonna get into the details of how to tax plan for the next year and how to maybe finish strong this year in light of some changes. And before we get into all of that, how have you been?
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It has been a bit of a roller coaster. Modernist has grown a ton this year, which is very exciting, especially in this moment. People making decisions about how they can align their wealth with their values feels more pressing than ever. So I've been well, busy and excited about being able to think about these big ideas in a year like this as an American.
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And tell us a little bit about Modernist Financial. I know we've had you on so many times, but we take for granted the incredible work that you do and we get it in maybe indirectly the specific kind of work that you do. But tell us again this intersection of values and financial values. Personal values. Financial values where you play with your clients.
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Yeah. So our work is to help people structure their wealth around their progressive values. And so we work with very high net worth people. Our investable asset minimum is 3 million, but we tend to rock around the 5 to 20 million range. So these are not everyday people in terms of wealth. We use that work with these clients. It's a very small book we've got. We maybe let on two to three clients a year maximum. We're very picky about how we bring on because we want folks who are interested in almost the laboratory of what does it mean to show up around our values in this moment and within the inequitable structures that exist in American, the American economy and our financial institutions. And so it's really meaningful, beautiful work to be doing. And then because we're a B corp, we spin that work out through Modernist University and all the tools we use with clients are available to the folks who are listening here. So I understand that our client base is not they're not me either, to be honest. But they're, they're an interesting space to understand what's possible and Then figure out what some of the actions we can all take to align our wealth and our values. And then last thing I would say is that we define wealth as not just money because that can really demotivate us in terms of taking action, but also it is our time, our relationships, our social capital, the skills that we bring into our daily lives and also our well being, what ways in which we show up with attention and care and kindness and ethics in. In the world. So that's modernist and I founded it 10 years ago. It's our 10th birthday.
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Oh my God. This year.
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Congratulations.
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So money is also celebrating 10 years? Yes. And I think you have been such a big part of our success here and our ability to connect with our listeners. You've given us so much great advice, insights, information over. So thank you so much for that.
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What did you do for your 10th? Because I treated myself to some things. Did you give yourself any 10th birthday presents?
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I did go to Paris this year. It wasn't because of this podcast turning 10. It was more because I just needed to get out of the country. And I love Paris. And I had an overdue birthday. My best friend and my best friend and I try to celebrate our milestone birthdays together. So we did our 40th together and this was like our 45th. So we did that. But. So yeah, maybe I can throw in also. It was the 10th anniversary of so many. But I'm gonna figure out something unique for this moment and I don't know what the. I don't know what it is. I've been so bogged down on doing the Montclair pod as well. But yeah, you've motivated me to think of something to do.
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Yeah.
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What did you say about you? You bought yourself something nice.
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Two things. A new city bike. That is so lovely. She's Finnish. Her name is Pegasus and she's very fast and sweet and all set up for the. And hauling stuff. And then I had my. I work with a designer and I save up all year to have a custom piece of clothing made every year. And I had a denim tuxedo made.
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What?
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And it is the best thing. I've never had a suit furnouche like a proper.
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And Justin Timberlake. Remember when they showed up to the VMAs? I don't remember this Matching tuxedo in matching denims.
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Oh, that's me. I am just. I am. I am the best version of Justin Timberlake.
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Sure, it's better. That's cool. What do they call it in Canada when you wear denim on Denim. I think it's a Canadian. It's called the Canadian Canadian tuxedo.
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Yeah, they used to call it a Texas tux, but now it's.
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You need to snap that pic and send it to me.
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I will too.
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Sweet. All right. Congratulations.
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You do.
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You mentioned modernistuniversity.com which is an incredible invaluable label resource. I'm going to link it in our show. Notes. You've recently written about 2025 tax planning, the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill on our finances, essentially. And the calculators have found that most people are going to save between 3 and 5% of their income, but it's going to be at the expense of a lot of necessities that we often reserve for the neediest people, the people that need things like shelter and, and so just high level. Maybe we can start high level with how you're seeing the Big Beautiful bill's impact on the tax landscape and just the trickle down of that.
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Yeah, I think trickle down is a wonderful verb to invoke in this moment because it really is a return to many to the theory of trickle down economics that economic cycle economists have proven again and again does not work. But we're seeing it in this policy. What's interesting to me is our clients are, as I say, very wealthy and they're not saving very much money from this bill. What they're, what we're all saving is the continuance of the 2017 reduction in tax brackets. So this is why the tax foundation calculator that I link in the blog is really helpful because it will tell you can model your specific situation and approximately how much you're saving. Again, 3 to 5%, as you say, is a good proxy. This bill, in order to continue those tax cuts and to put in some real zingers for the uber wealthy, is intentionally defunding basic social safety net needs. The conversation we're hearing about SNAP benefits and food stamps, et cetera, and Head Start that's happening because of the government shutdown is really just going to be continued and in 26 and beyond. So that's the main takeaway I would have is that you've already integrated these savings into your lifestyle and this calculator will help you understand. And for our clients, we're recommending that they take that 3 to 5% rule. And who could I give some money to? Because in addition to this, the stock market has been bumping both international and in the US and so there's gains to be donated. And so we're seeing Clients make significant donations to 501C3s. But so nonprofits we know, like Planned Parenthood or ACLU, but we're also encouraging them to give to 501C4 organizations. They don't get a tax benefit. But to be honest, our clients don't need more tax benefits. I'm trying to get them to a 15% tax rate because I'm like, that's just an equitable tax rate. So those are the kinds of things we're doing with clients. And just to back up a little bit further, we do tax planning with our clients and their CPAs every year. Because tax planning is such an important nexus for all of the other elements of our financial planning lives, whether it's investment in portfolio management, Roth conversions for long term, legacy planning for kids, charitable giving, lending, planning, banking, it all comes together in the world of tax. So to do that work, to try and have your accountant just prep your return, won't work within a comprehensive planning setting. But to do that work without values seems really impossible to us in the way that we do.
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So I want to get into some of the. What can we do of this? And if I'm having conversations already with my accountant, just on more housekeeping stuff for the. As we head into the end of the year, really, so that we can be more prepared for next year. But this is an excellent time to be having these conversations because your accountant probably isn't overwhelmed with any returns at this point.
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You got three more weeks before they're overwhelmed.
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Yeah, three more weeks. Get it in. But so we'll get into some concrete questions that you can ask and should ask. But also, let's talk a little bit more about the price that we're paying for these tax benefits. The $12 million lost in health care, the $3 million lost to SNAP benefits, the housing voucher limits as homelessness intensifies. Talk a little bit about that. I think it requires repeating, in some cases, hearing it for the first time.
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Yes. And I think it's especially important to have this conversation again in the space with the accountant, because an accountant's predilection generally is to save you as much tax money as possible. And we're having that conversation independent of the policy impacts of saving tax money. And so I just encourage us to, as you say, what is the impact of me saving money on taxes? And it means that important things are going unfunded. We have links to the social impact we have. As we actually it became so complicated. We're like, okay, we're gonna have A post just on social impact. Then we're gonna have a post on just the tax impact. Then we're gonna have a post on these weird. There's a lot of strange implications because this bill was built by Congress as it always is, but it was built as a sort of election candy. They're trying to pass out benefits to people ahead of the 2026 and 2028 election cycles. So understanding the impact is complicated. And I think we're not. The way that they've structured this, they have structured many of the defunding elements to not happen until 20276 so that we don't see that our neighbors are going hungry and there are more families on the streets until the midterm elections have happened. It's quite, it's.
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Can I just say one thing though? So I'm in New Jersey and Mikey Sheryl just won the gubernatorial election by a landslide. She flipped six red counties blue. And I don't think it was a coincidence because going into this election she had a lot against her but she picked up a lot of momentum in the final few weeks. And I remember, so the election was Tuesday. Over the weekend, some people lost their snap benefits. On Saturday you go to the grocery store and there's people like asking for money. And that is a hard thing to unsee.
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Yes.
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And I think that in a small way, in a medium sized way that did drive some independent voters potentially or some Democratic voters to who wouldn't have voted to go vote because they're seeing actually already the fallout of this. As you say, it's 2026, but we're already seeing some of the impact and it's already taking an impact. It's already resulting in some people changing their votes.
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Yes, I agree. And I think this really speaks to an, what we call a money story and a dominant culture money story that people who are rich are heartless or are mean spirited. And that becomes really complicated when we do tax planning because we know that narrative is in the background. But we're trying to do the right thing on our own return. And so if we don't bring this into the room, it, I think it makes action difficult and it makes planning difficult. And I agree with you. I think people saw what Oliver Wendell Holmes said. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization and there we are not going to solve. There is no capitalism in the market will not solve hunger, it won't solve houselessness, it won't solve civil rights, it won't solve those things. This is what systemic solutions are for. And I think people voted in accordance.
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What do you say to the person who's listening, who's like, why are we politicizing this? I don't trust that what you're saying is true. We live in a capitalist world and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. I don't know what the. Their argument is. But people will not be happy to hear this inter. To use their words, maybe the interpretation of, you know what you're saying.
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And I am fine with. For me, it's not my podcast, so you bring me on here on purpose. That's not who I'm speaking to. I always, I come back to this George Orwell quote, yeah, the belief that art has nothing to do with politics is itself a political opinion. And so I just take the word art out and insert taxes. The belief that taxes are not political is itself a political opinion. Investing money, wealth, charitable giving, tax policy, everything is political. And I can tell from my. And this comes from my lived experience, right? As a woman, as a lesbian, as a woman who considers herself anti racist, I'm just like, money is so political, I can't unsee that. And so if that's not what you want to hear about, that's cool. There's. Everybody else will basically tell you that money is not political. So there's plenty of people to affirm that opinion. I think it's actually gratifying to a lot of.
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Yeah, that's my said. I feel like if this was the episode that was going to turn you off, I don't think you're going to get any of the other shows. I do either, because it's inevitable. When you're talking about money, you are talking about issues, you're talking about platforms, you're talking about POVs, which again, it's a lived experience and that involves your political views as well. And maybe you don't like the word politics, but maybe it's about policy, which.
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Or ethics. To me, it's really comes down to ethics is one of the ideas in many cultures is don't steal. And the ethical world I operate in, the values I operate from, translates that to, I vow not to take anything that is not freely given and I vow to be as generous as I can. And that is basically what I'm saying. I don't want to game the system in order to get more for me knowing that I am taking food out of a child's mouth. But that doesn't mean that I can't operate in this world either. Right? We can have a reaction to A complicated world with many different impacts and many different systems that all come together around money. And we can say, I just don't want anything to do with it. And that's just not a realistic response either. And so I see that with people with progressive values and inheritances, and they ignore it because they can't handle the internal dissonance of the wealth itself and them having to step into a different story of how they own that wealth. So back to tax planning. I'm not saying you're bad for getting a tax cut. I'm just saying understand the system you're operating in and you do that with that information what you will and make sense of it with your own ethical.
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Back to Orwell. The question is, what can people do? Let's talk about the conversations to have with our accountants, our bookkeepers, our. Even if we're doing our own taxes, questions to ask ourselves. You write about questions like, how much am I saving? Why is that important?
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So we're asking every client to calculate or every CPA to calculate exactly how much the client is saving. And then we're double checking it again against that calculator we mentioned, because then you can under. Again, you understand the system you're operating within. When you hear that news story that somebody's losing food stamps, you're like, but I saved $50,000 in taxes long term. Like, I did that calculation for a client yesterday. And they were like, oh, but nobody's saying that number. So unless there's a real number, 5% doesn't seem like a lot for a. But then you apply it to somebody with a high income and you're like, oh, that's a. A lot of money.
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Yeah.
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So it just, it grounds it in the body in a way that we really need. When these systems are so complicated and our tax structure is so complicated, a normal person cannot understand it. Unless this is their, like, nerd side hustle. They just want to read tax policy for fun, which, I mean, I do it for a job because I think it's super interesting.
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So that person, that client yesterday you were speaking with, they're motivated now to donate some of that?
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Yes, it made it clear for them. And I'm saying I'm not. Again, I don't say what you should do. I just want you to understand what the number is. We had a client who was selling an asset, and we often ask, would you consider making a donation for reparations? And so client. Most of our clients who we've asked that question. No, all of our clients, we've asked that question of give 3 to 5% of those assets away because they realized that the system they're operating in was not a meritocracy. They did not earn this. A lot of it was luck. Some of it was their own effort. It's always a combination.
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Yeah.
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So I think that's important. And then I also think it leads to the next idea is just donate it. Just donate it. There's no wrong answer right now because so many important things are being underfunded. I personally, my own personal giving is journalists and lawyers. I just want them to sue that out of anybody who's going after our social safety net.
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But you know, people have been asking me, can you do an episode on charitable giving? And of course I always do. But I think there is a component to charitable giving this year that is special in that given what we've discussed these areas in our social safety net that are compromised because of the big beautiful bill, that if you're not sure where to put your dollars, like that's a great place to ye.
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And there's really so many. It's in basically every category of social services being impacted, whether it's housing for the elderly, whether it's long term care, whether it's just really omnipresent. And then for example, I serve on the board of Oregon Humanities and DOGE took the money that we as taxpayers and Congress gave to the National Endowment for the Humanities and pulled it back and they're in the middle of suing for that money. Sure, I can donate extra money to Oregon Humanities, but it's never going to, we're never going to be able to individually replace the money that was going to Oregon Humanities from the federal government than what that then went out to rural libraries, that went out to tribes, that went out to organizations that are doing great work that are just severely underfunded.
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Yeah. What if you don't itemize? Is there a tip there for folks?
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Yeah, it's a good question. So it's again, you need to ask your cpa, do I itemize? And if their answer is that no, then don't worry about whether the charitable contributions you make are deductible or not. There's about two grand that kind of can matter. This, they've made charitable giving far more complicated than it used to be for tax purposes. So I would just say if you don't itemize, consider making 501C4 donations, which means it's a political or a policy based donation. So I can support, for example, Planned Parenthood 501 get a deduction. I can also support their 501C4, which allows them to go out and lobby and bring policy and hire lawyers to fight for the same direct service they're doing through the 501c3 charitable arm. So that's a big one. We have a blog post on this on our website on Modernist University on what is the difference between a 501C3 and a 501? Yeah, I don't know that it's interesting. We just had the Southern Property Law center out here last week doing a fundraiser and they need more money in their 501C4 really? Because they're doing so much legal work right now to sue for the rights of name any constituent. So it is very valuable for organizations right now that are specifically doing policy work.
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You have a point here about countering anti tax rhetoric. What do you mean by that?
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Yeah, it's Southern Poverty Law center actually comes into this. So I'm not if anybody's unaware, they have a pro Southern Poverty Law center came out of the civil rights movement in the Deep south. And as W.E.B. dubois said, so goes the south, so goes the nation. Southern Poverty Law center really holds a great deal of intellectual property around understanding hate in America. And they have something called the hate map, which shows us where all the militia, male supremacist, anti government, white nationalist, et cetera organizations are around the country. Very helpful for travel planning, by the way, for those of us who are not dominant culture. And the anti government, anti tax movement is an alt right movement. It's been going since I think it's the 60s, might be a little earlier. So one of the things I'm trying to be very conscious right now of is when alt right narratives are starting to infiltrate everyday ideas. And I've been seeing this a lot right now with the government shutdown and some I'm not going to pay my taxes behavior from people who would not have said that two or three or four or five years ago. And I am wary of a narrative that actually will continue to defund a tax system that previous to this year, 70% of our tax, our one federal tax dollar went to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing vouchers. Yeah, sure, it's not the perfect dollar, it's not how I would allocate the federal budget, but 70 cents of every dollar is pretty darn good and better than most people understand. So I'm just wary of letting alt right ideas that have been percolating for 60 years infiltrate my thinking and maybe.
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Also your state talk about being in Portland. And this is a little bit of a sidebar, but I think while we have you, this is not a political show, but I think how do you. How safe do you feel in Portland?
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Oh my gosh, I feel wildly safe. Yeah. The. I live downtown and I work downtown. My office has been here for 10 years. And even in the depths of COVID when I there were some rough moments, but it was still rough moments within a two block radius. And they were also rough moments that we now know Proud boys came down and they're an alt right hate group from up in Washington. And Portland came to our protests dressed as antifa and were breaking windows and were causing some of the violence. Not all of it, but some of it. But primarily they were peaceful protests. So there's a really interesting again, alt right narrative that infiltrated how people talked about Portland. And I saw it in my own neighbors talking about Portland. And I got to a point furnish where I was like, y', all, Portland's having a rough moment. It's like your cousin who's down on her inner life. We don't pile on. That's not how we behave. When somebody's having a hard time, we lift her up. And I will say Portland's been on the rise for two or three years now. Really on the backs of a. The longest series of protests for black lives in American history. We had 100 days here.
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Wow.
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And they were strong and they were beautiful. So I just. I really like to re frame that. And downtown is bumping and we've got. We are sold out of inflatable frog costumes. Sorry about that. But if you do come down to join our protest with the lovely librarians and grandmas, we do have a lending library so you can borrow your inflatable. They also have been doing some very charming interspecies inflatable marriages. So it's just there's so much joy in the protest culture in Portland. It's really sweet.
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I hope to revisit and you me and Pegasus.
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Yeah, exactly.
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I'll be riding shotgun or side gun backgun. Last but not least, talk a little bit about just parting thoughts. What are your parting thoughts for us as we close out the episode? Thinking about tax prep in 2025 and how what we can do. I know you gave us some good action steps and questions, but just how to maybe reorient our relationship with our money and our taxes in light of everything.
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Yes, I One thing we've been saying is be kind to the irs. Be Kind to civil servants. There's a very strong anti IRS narrative and the IRS is made up of individual people like you and me who have a hard job that is under resourced and under financed and has been for decades. So I'm, I really try to just have a frame of kindness when I talk about the civil servants who are doing that work. So that's one thing. So as one client says, put on your patient pants and hug your accountant. And that's just the reality because many of the things that were just put into this bill, the IRS has no idea how to implement them. And now we've had a government shutdown and Doge has fired a ton of people and they're not quite working on Windows 97, but they're very close. So there is just a just be patient. I'm betting the tax season is going to be extended or something. So if you don't need to file on time, file an extension, tell your accountant now, use calculators to do some basic planning for yourself so that they can get through really what has been five years of a God awful job. So be kind.
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I needed to hear that because I'm still waiting for my state tax refund and with this government shutdown, I'm told I will not be getting it until things reopen. So you know what?
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That's patient pants.
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Luckily my federal refund came before the shutdown, but not the state, which was a smaller amount but still significant. But okay.
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B
The last thing I would say is that, and this is really investments and taxes. There's a lot of narrative about an overvalued US market, an overvalued stock market, et cetera. And I'm starting to hear people asking should I sell? Et cetera. And there's an implication in that statement that you can market time your way out of news based fear and you can't. And you don't know whether the market is overvalued or undervalued. It may not be. The value of tech stocks right now is very different than it was in, let's say, the tech bubble of the early 2000s. So just make sure you're well allocated. Make sure you own some international stock in your portfolio. We recommend about 40% international, 60% US. So just make sure that you're well allocated. And that's a very reasonable conversation to have with your investment planner, your advisor, or look at your plan online. And if you're overvalued in the US and you've got some really, well, some things that have grown very nicely, then donate some of it. And that's a really nice way to rebalance. You could take the cream off the crop and it usually doesn't have a big impact on the plan. It's the circle of life, indeed.
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Georgia Lee Hussey. Thank you so much. Georgia Lee Hussey with Modernist Financial. As always, a pleasure.
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Oh, thank you so much. Marnish Sa.