We’ve updated how taxable accounts are categorized in the Planner. This change makes it easier to enter your accounts accurately and ensures your plan reflects the right tax treatment.
Most accounts will migrate automatically, but you should review your accounts to confirm they’re categorized correctly. See below for further instructions.
Why We Made This Change
Previously, all taxable accounts were entered under a single category, with a tax treatment toggle for Ordinary Income or Capital Gains. While flexible, this setup caused confusion and extra steps.
By creating three separate taxable account types (Checking, Savings, and Investment), we’ve simplified the process and aligned account types more closely with their typical tax treatment. This helps the Planner provide more accurate tax and projection results.
What’s New
Here’s how accounts will now be handled:
Checking Accounts
Default rate of return set to 0%
Ordinary income tax treatment only
No cost basis, turnover, or dividend yield inputs
Savings Accounts
Default rate of return set to 2%
Ordinary income tax treatment only
No cost basis, turnover, or dividend yield inputs
Investment Accounts
Tax treatment toggle remains (Select Ordinary Income or Capital Gains)
Capital Gains treatment: For brokerage accounts hold stocks, ETFs, or stock mutual funds
Ability to enter Cost Basis, Turnover Rate, and Dividend Yield
Ordinary Income treatment: For brokerage accounts holding money market funds and/or bonds
How This Update Impacts Your Plan
There have been no changes to your Rate of Return.
Most of your accounts will categorized automatically as follows after the migration. You'll be prompted to confirm to ensure accuracy.
Accounts with Ordinary Income tax treatment
If you previously selected the Checking or Savings Recommended Rate, these will be categorized as Checking or Savings
Otherwise, upon confirmation you will need to select the appropriate type (Investment, Savings or Checking.)
Accounts with Capital Gains tax treatment
will now appear as Investment and you will be prompted to confirm to ensure accuracy.
Make Sure to Review Your Investment (Brokerage) Accounts
Fixed Income
Select “Ordinary Income” tax treatment for Investment accounts holding money
market funds and/or bonds.
Equities
Select “Capital Gains” tax treatment for Investment accounts holding stocks,
stock mutual funds, and ETFs.
Mixed accounts
If you hold balanced or target-date funds in taxable accounts, your tax treatment is more complex than this model captures
For a brokerage account holding both Ordinary Income assets (e.g. cash, bonds) and Capital Gain assets (e.g., stocks, ETFs), separating into distinct stock and bond funds will improve both modeling accuracy and tax efficiency.
Separate the account into two accounts: one as Investment (Capital Gains) and the other as Investment (Ordinary Income). This ensures each portion is taxed correctly.
This update makes taxable accounts easier to set up. Review your taxable accounts under My Plan > Assets and Debts to confirm they’re categorized correctly.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to the Support team using the Chat function in the bottom right corner of your plan.