Last year we penned the following … in this post
HUGE Social Security COLA … 5.9% to Be Exact, Wow…. COLA Pension Recipients Check Your Benchmark
Looks like that was just the dress rehearsal… here is this years release…

With much talk of Inflation costs this year, the SSA (Social Security Administration) release this week of an 8.7% COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) was not a huge surprise..
Important Items Associated with this Adjustment
Pensions – Folks with Pensions that have COLA adjustments should also watch for a similar increase – Your benchmark and adjustment will likely differ from SSA as they use the CPI-W three month average as noted here in our pre-post last year
Pre-Retirees – Those nearing Social Security, according to this neat fact sheet,
Maximum Social Security Benefit: Worker Retiring at Full Retirement Age goes from $3,345/mo. to $3,627/mo.
New Social Security Tax Base – Those still working, understand this COLA also filters into the SSA base income tax rate, again as mentioned in the press release…
“Based on that increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $160,200 from $147,000.”
Have a Great “COLA Reminder” Day!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
July (YIKES GOING FAST) 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale
Hello and Welcome to our July 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!
If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!
Newbies –
We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets and current events!
Hope you enjoy!
July 2021 Video
YouTube
Financial Planning Tip(s)
IRS Refunds and Tax Return Processing Very Delayed
In this Break In Post, after having discussions with several of you, and then touching our CPA contacts we came to the conclusion that the IRS is delayed in processing returns and more importantly REFUNDS!!!
Before we could get the news to you, this Yahoo Finance Article nicely summarizes that the IRS is behind on a whopping 20% of returns or over 30 million !
With a September 1, 2021 IRS stimulus check lookback (those who did not get the last round of stimulus will be reviewed by the IRS to see if they qualify) the IRS has their hands very full….
All together…. PATIENCE! They will eventually get to us!
Fingers Crossed For a Hot (Large) COLA Increase
Catching wind through our contacts of a possible HOT (read Large!) COLA adjustment this year for Social Security and possibly those lucky ones that have a COLA adjuster on their Pension or other retirement plan we dug in here in this post and outlined the methodology used by the SSA. The line in the sand for adjustment is later in the year but as can be seen by the latest CPI-W running at 6.1%, with a little luck, we may have a very nice adjustment on our hands!
Capital Market Comments
Valuations are Getting Better but Expectations are WAY out of Line!
In this post and with the help of our Friends at JPMorgan we happily reviewed the far right hand smartly turning graph, that is headed in the correct direction for better valuations… YAY
A bit later in the month we ran across a wonderful but somewhat worrisome poll done by Natixis of over 8000 investors and their expected return over the next 10 years…. Way off base in our minds….
Likely to see this last poll make its way into the Newsletter as these numbers are likely so exaggerated, we want more air time!
Ok…that’s a wrap for the July review….
Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of August!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
jkfinancialinc
street-cents
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Posted in Audio, Clients/Clients Only, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Tax Related, Video
Tagged Cola, Forward PE, Inflation, IRS, IRS Delays, IRS Refunds, JPMorgan, Natixis, Natixis Investor Survey, Pension COLA, Social Security COLA