Personal Finance (Not Investing) • advice for higher tax than usual

I've been unable to find an affordable tax advisor in my area with availablility, so am hoping folks here might be able to advise a bit. I retired in September 2024 at age 65, and began collecting a small pension and my social security right away. (Very high COL city.) I neglected to have tax taken out either of those checks (but am for 2025). In addition, there are other tax burdens for 2024:

• I earned about 23K more than prior years

• We are not taking a business deduction this year (freelance tutoring business has been long unsuccessful and we're abandoning it

• We are facing capital gains tax of around 1500 from inherited stock (Confirmed by our Vanguard personal advisor plus personal research)

So there are 4 situations generating taxes for 2024. We have no losses to claim against the gains, unfortunately. We are married filing jointly, and in the 22% tax bracket in WA state (no income tax at least). Other than contributing to our IRA, is there anything else I'm not seeing in terms of tax strategies? I think we're probably facing an IRS bill of $6-7k or so. We are pretty much living on the edge of our fixed income, due to cost of living here and having a nest egg that needs preserving for our remaining years. (All Vanguard index funds mixed by our advisor.)

Statistics: Posted by LushLife — Fri Jan 10, 2025 4:33 pm

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