Andrew Griffith CPA

01/06/2025

We spent the past couple of months reimagining our tech stack and business operations to better serve our clients. We redesigned our website, our portal, and many other aspects of our business model. We even expanded our capacity to serve by hiring more staff. We look forward to seeing what happens in 2025.

01/01/2025

Happy New Year everyone! With the start of the new year, comes great joy, excitement, and anxiety for all. The annual ritual of filing our income tax returns will begin soon.

As we close out 2024, let's take a minute to reflect on our treasured memories from 2024. Once that moment of silence has passed, let's put some plans in motion to actually accomplish our New Year's resolutions in 2025 and make 2025 better than 2024.

If your New Year's resolutions involve money, Andrew Griffith CPA would love to spend some time talking with you about your resolutions and your plans to achieve your goals.

06/07/2023

With all of the air quality issues that are currently being experienced by many in the northeastern part of the U.S., the AirNow.gov website has an official air quality alert system available at https://www.enviroflash.info/. On the AirNow.gov website, you can access maps covering various topics including fire and smoke. Many other useful data points are available via this website (e.g. air quality index).

EnviroFlash is sponsored by the EPA with support from State and local air quality agencies. EnviroFlash provides air quality information such as forecasts and action day notifications via email for your area of interest.

05/03/2023

Yesterday, someone alerted me to this article that quotes me on the energy tax credits and rebates associated with the Inflation Reduction Act was published in March 2023. Specifically, we talk about energy efficient home improvement tax credits and the residential clean energy tax credits and some potential rebates.

You can take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act's tax credits now, but you'll have to wait a little longer for the rebates.

05/03/2023

Back in February 2023, some of my comments related to the Consumer Price Index were published in the article linked below. Specifically, I offered some strategies to mitigate the effects of inflation and stagnate wages on household budgets.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the change in monthly prices paid by consumers . Learn about CPI, its history, the CPI formula, what it includes and how it is used.

04/11/2023

Chaitra Radhakrishna makes a very good point in the linked video about life in general. We often limit ourselves instead of allowing success to happen. If you do not try, you will not make mistakes, which means you will not have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes and that will keep you from reaching your potential and goals.

I encourage everyone to set some goals and then commit the time to try and continue trying until you reach your goals. Please do not limit yourself by avoiding the risk of failure (AKA mistakes). You will still be a better person by having tried and will not have a regret of "I wish I would have_____" later in life.

Chaitra Radhakrishna left her restrictive job as a corporate web developer and made $50k as a creator in 2017 but wanted to achieve bigger goals. In 2018, sh...

03/30/2023

Terry Turner interviewed me about my perspective on lifetime annuities. I am a firm believer in the financial security that fixed-rate, lifetime annuities can provide its benefactor(s). Some insights into why I think lifetime annuities are critical components of every sound retirement plan are in the article linked below.
I do caution everyone that the insurance indemnity fund coverage limits for insuring fixed-rate, lifetime annuities vary by state. Each state's insurance indemnity fund functions in a manner similar to FDIC or NCUA financial institution insurance. It is prudent for annuitants to ensure that their annuity contracts are not concentrated with a single insurance company to the point that their state's insurance indemnity fund's coverage limits exceed the annuitants' risk tolerance levels. For example, the state insurance indemnity funds of New York, Connecticut, and Washington provide coverage up to $500,000 per insurance company's annuitant contract holder. In contrast, New Jersey's coverage limit is $100,000 for deferred annuities and $500,000 if an annuity is in active payout status. Most other states' coverage limits are $250,000 with some exceptions (AR, SC, OK, WI, DC have limits of $300,000). CA, FL, GA, MN, and NC have other coverage limit models.

After missing out on three lifetime pensions, Andrew Griffith, a CPA and university professor shaped his own by adding annuities to his retirement plans.

03/14/2023

On March 8, 2023, the "Money Taboos Part IV: Filing Taxes Without Fear" episode of Addition Financial Credit Union's podcast, 𝑀𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡, was released. Ricky Laviña, CPA, Cristina, Randy, and I discuss some of key topics including tax brackets, married filing jointly or separately, tax credits, tax refunds, e-filing tax returns, and tax return audits. -filing

If you are looking for the Spotify version of this podcast, you can find it at https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PMeMX6Y5pDUL9U1hUIpFQ

The entire series is linked at https://pages.additionfi.com/making-it-count

Listen to this episode from Making It Count on Spotify. Tax season is almost upon us — so what better time to continue the Money Taboos mini series with a focus on all things taxes? In this episode of Making it Count, Randy and Cristina welcome Andrew Griffith, CPA and associate professor of accou...

02/17/2023

Every state that has an income tax may have some unexpected or unusual tax breaks available on the income tax returns. For example, Oklahoma used to allow taxpayers to exclude (from state income taxes) up to $100 per primary taxpayer for their political campaign contributions. (That practice stopped a few years ago.) Since every income tax authority's rules change every year, we cannot rely on the tax rules that were true last year to still be true for this year. More on this (including some of my comments) can found in the article that is linked below.

State tax codes have many quirks, and they're amended often. How many of these unusual deductions have you heard of?

02/16/2023

Some out-of-pocket medical expenses related to COVID are deductible. There are limits to the types of specific expenses that are deductible. Generally speaking, those medical expenses that were paid in 2022 and not reimbursed by insurance or a tax avoidance plan (e.g. Flexible Spending, Health Savings, etc.) that is intended to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses will be deducted on the IRS Schedule A as a medical expense. Please keep in mind that, even though it is was eligible to reimbursed via an FSA or HSA or a similar plan, it still might qualify as a medical expense deduction on your federal income tax return. -19

Most COVID-19 financial relief programs for consumers have ended, but if you had large medical bills last year, however, you might still get a tax break.

02/13/2023

The article linked below discusses personal loans. Generally, everyone should avoid borrowing money as much as possible. No one become wealthy by accumulating debt. More of my comments on this topic are in the link below.

The best personal loans for a 600 credit score offer reasonable rates and fees, plus high dollar amounts. See 2023’s personal loans for a 600 credit score.