, our newest Pay Dirt columnist, on what’s surprised her about giving advice at Slate and how she manages to answer questions about such a wide breadth of financial topics.
Lillian! You joined Slate’s Pay Dirt just this fall, what has surprised you most about giving advice to our letter writers? I’m actually surprised how many people write in with questions about the gift tax. There are a lot of middle class people fearful of the IRS knocking on their door after getting some help with paying for college. But it’s been a good writing exercise finding new and creative ways to explain to people thatpeople do not need to currently worry about paying the gift tax— unless their estate is over $12.92 million.
It helps that I’ve been working in financial education and media for seven years now and before that, I spent a decade in social services, so I’ve seen a wide range of financial issues. I’ve had the opportunity to money problem-solve with both multi-millionaires and youth experiencing homelessness. I haven’t come up with a question yet where I don’t have at least a little experience with the topic before I start writing.
Usually, when I sit down to write the column each week, I look at the questions I’m being asked and generally know how I should answer each of them. There’s rarely a question that involves significant research other than grabbing the relevant IRS codes. So my biggest task isn’t figuring out what advice to give, but rather how to phrase it in an interesting and readable way.however, I looked at the questions and immediately thought, “Oh no, I’m out of my depth here.