Re: Federal and State tax bracket?

The tax brackets that you are inquiring about come from the IRS but here is a link for 2008s tax bracket

http://www.fairmark.com/refrence/index.htm#rates

Take note that you currently pay a 10% tax on the 1st $8,025 (single) or $16,050 (jointly) and then taxable income over that goes into the 15% up to $32,550 (single) or $65,100 (jointly)...and so on. In other words if someone says they are in the 15% tax bracket or the 25% tax bracket - all of their income is not taxed at that rate. There is a range for the 10%, then above that it goes into the 15% bracket...etc. In reality, you make go into the 25% tax but your true rate would be maybe 13% or so.

The brackets are based on taxable income which is your gross income minus pretax contributions like a 401(k), pretax medical insurance and any flexible spending accounts you may have and finally your standard deduction or your itemizations if they exceed your standard deduction.

There are plenty of calculators out there for 2008

Re: Federal and State tax bracket?

I don't have the answer re where to get the state tax bracked. Regarding how much to invest in the TSP, my advice is to invest as much as you are allowed to. This not only offsets taxes, it builds your retirement account. When planning for retirement, it's very nice to know you can afford to retire, look back at how easy it was to invest in the future and realize how little you miss the junk you might have bought if you'd not maxed out your TSP contibutions.

Re: point of view

This is a myth that really catches a lot of novices. Your point of buy low, sell high is correct. However, as the market continues its downward spiral, many investors are bleeding TSP funds and will not have anything left to "buy low" with. It's no secret that any gains made in the past 10 years have been erased by the last year's bad news.

The folks in the G Fund are truly bringing in and holding the largest share of their TSP investments.

Opinions to the contrary?

Re: point of view

"It's no secret that any gains made in the past 10 years have been erased by the last year's bad news."

This is not correct. The current levels of the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 indexes (broad indexes of the US large cap and small cap stocks respectively) are about the same as they are in early 2006. Both are substantially higher than they were 10 years ago.

Regarding the G fund, it is doing better than the other ones in the short term. Long term(10 years or longer) it lags the stock funds significantly.

Since retirement investing is a long term proposition it obviously makes more sense to look at it from a long term perspective. If someone is approaching retirement age then they have already reaped the benefits of long term stock exposure(assuming they have a properly allocated portfolio) and have substantially reduced their stock fund exposure to preserve long term gains.

Re: TSP

Yes, Yes, Yes, ... I would love to see an answer to your question. Sorry I don't know either. Over the years this question has been asked a few times ... I have never seen it answered.