Reference no: EM132322566

Assignment -

Total 4 Question - 2 questions based on tax and 2 questions based on nursing.

Question 1 - Tax Research and planning. 225 words and reference.

Please respond the below statement.

Depending on the amount of Social Security benefits, a person may have to pay taxes on some of that income. This amount is also different based upon marital status with married filing jointly having a higher threshold than any other marital status (Cussen, 2018).

For any other status than married, the threshold for tax free benefits is any income $25,000 or below. Income between $25,000 and $34,000 might have up to 50% may be taxable and above $34,000 might have up to 85% of the benefits taxable (Cussen, 2018).

Those that are married filing jointly has the same three-tiered structure, but the limits are $32,000, between $32,000 and $44,000, and above $44,000 (Cussen, 2018).

With all of this data, there is one caveat. The caveat is that income is calculated differently when figuring in Social Security benefits. It is a term called modified adjusted gross income (MAGI). Modified adjusted gross income adds back all tax-exempt interest, tax-free fringe benefits, and exclusions to adjusted gross income as well as 50% of the benefits from Social Security for that year. This amount shows which tier a person or couple could be taxed on their Social Security benefits (Cussen, 2018).

In the case of Sam and Sue, the post does not 100% state whether they continue their jobs after they reach age 66. If they do so, then it does not matter whether they get divorced or not because making $80,000 or $165,000 a year goes way past the 85% of Social Security benefits being taxable.

If one assumes that they stop working, then one can actually calculate modified adjusted gross income. For Sam the benefit is a monthly amount of $1,800. Multiply this by twelve and one gets $21,600 per year. Halving that benefit to get modified adjusted gross income becomes $10,800 per year. This is well below the $25,000 threshold for single. Doubling it would make the amount of Social Security benefits around $21,600 which is well below the $32,000 threshold for married filing jointly. So, the friend was really jumping the gun advice-wise.

Sam and Sue would have to make over $10,400 in raw income or $20,800 in additional Social Security benefits before they have to consider divorcing due to avoiding taxes.

If they went the single route, they could each earn another $14,200 in raw income or an additional $28,400 in Social Security benefits before they encounter taxes on their Social Security benefits. This would in total bring another $28,400 of income into the house or $56,800 in Social Security benefits.

Overall, I would tell them that they have nothing to worry about their Social Security benefits being taxed. However, I would tell them how much extra income they could bring into the house without having their Social Security benefits being taxed and lay out the limits much as I have had in this forum post.

Question 2 - Tax Research and planning. 225 words and reference.

Please respond the below statement.

There are a lot of different things that Sam and Sue should do to come up with the "best" tax planning strategy for their retirement. To begin working through the options, we first have to lay out the assumptions.

The first assumption is that 66 is their full retirement age. If they are 65 in 2019, that puts their birth year roughly around 1954 give or take a few months, in which case 66 is the full retirement age (Social Security Benefits Planner: Retirement, 2019). It goes up for each year 1955 and beyond though, so my first suggestion to them would be to make sure they aren't retiring early if they don't need to. If we assume 66 is their full retirement age, the best way to ensure the largest benefit would be to further delay claiming Social Security. They can receive a 132 percent benefit by delaying their Social Security claim until age 70, which is an 8 percent credit for each year!

To address their friend's suggestion to get divorced to get more money, there are actually two components to that we need to look at. The first is the difference between the taxes due on Social Security for a single taxpayer versus a married couple filing jointly. Along with that we need to address any additional income that Sam and Sue expect, as those funds will likely affect their AGI and tax liability more than any perceived savings from getting divorced.

For a single taxpayer, Social Security benefits would not be taxable if their modified AGI plus 50 percent of their Social Security benefits are less than or equal to $25,000. For taxpayers filing jointly that number is $32,000. If Sam and Sue's AGI while married is less than $32,000 then there would be no benefit to getting divorced for tax purposes as all of their benefits would not be taxable anyway.

However, Sam and Sue state that they intend to keep their jobs after signing up for Social Security. If we assume their salaries will be the same, that changes the calculation. Our text has the details for that calculation, but the basis is greater than $34,000 for a single taxpayer or greater than $44,000 for taxpayers filing married jointly (Spilker, 2019). With potential incomes of $80,000 and $85,000 the taxable benefits will likely be based on 85 percent of Social Security as the lesser calculation. That percentage is the same for single filers as it is for married filing jointly, so there would be no savings there to encourage getting divorced just for that calculation.

My recommendation to Sam and Sue would be to stay married and delay claiming their Social Security benefits until they needed them. I would also want to know about any other potential retirement savings they had like 401(k), Roth IRA's, pensions, and the like. Some retirement accounts have minimum distributions that must be taken after a certain age, which when combined with their salaries and Social Security benefits will have an effect on their tax burden.

Question 3 - Introduction to nursing. 150 words with reference.

There are many researchers who train students to do interviews and sift through the massive amounts of data that is collected in the interviews. I am wondering what your thoughts are on how valid that style is. What are your thoughts about the researcher not doing the interviews and then not going through the field notes to observe for themes and key phrases? Can the researcher accurately speak to the research if they do not do the interviews and coding? What is your rationale?

Question 4 - Introduction to nursing. 150 words with reference.

I like the idea of qualitative research as family, although I absolutely agree that they are all siblings and cousins of each other I never really put that together in that way, I like it : )

Tracy mentioned rigor and gave a nice description, do you think there is enough rigor in qualitative research to be valid when it comes to creating evidence based practice for nursing practice? Offer a rationale for your answer.