529 Education Savings Accounts are named after the section of the IRS code that outlines the rules of the plan. When it began in 1996, the 529 plan was a new way to save and pay for higher education; the money got to grow tax-free and then could be withdrawn tax-free if it was used to pay for qualified higher [...]
Americans are generous people. According to the Lily Family School of Philanthropy, Americans give almost $485 billion dollars a year to charity. The reasons vary from paying it forward to giving something back or knowledge of the immutable universal law that if you give you will receive (although if that’s why you’re giving it probably won’t work). But, will your [...]
At the very moment IRAs joined the retirement savings universe in 1974, so did Required Minimum Distributions (RMD). The government was more than happy to provide a tax-deferred way to save for the future, but it came with a future reckoning—paying taxes on all the contributions and on all future growth whenever an IRA owner began to take distributions. And [...]
“What in the world does that mean?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that question during more than 30 years in the financial industry. Clients naming beneficiaries on IRAs, 401(k) accounts, annuities or insurance policies stop dead-in-their-tracks when asked to decide whether they want beneficiaries to receive proceeds from their account Per Capita or Per Stirpes. [...]
Among savers and investors, the terms IRA, 401(k), and Roth are as common as drinking water, and sometimes the lines between them get blurred and the distinctions are lost. I’ve had multiple clients refer to their IRA as their 401(k) because that’s where the money was before it got rolled over. Many people haven’t been able to tell me whether [...]
Why does everyone think estate planning is so hard? You just split it equally among your heirs and you’re done, right? That’s a simple way to do it, but often, not the best way. Everybody’s family is different and you need to think about the specifics of your family; What’s their situation?; How do you want them to benefit [...]
Getting Vision Insurance If you’re a retiree or approaching retirement you probably remember Johnny Nash singing I can see clearly now the rain is gone I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day. And that’s exactly what today’s retirees want. It’s just [...]
In the last two-and-a-half years inflation has become a four-letter word. For the 40 years before that, inflation had been relatively benign and for a huge percentage of the American public, inflation was something they’d heard about but never really experienced. Today, everyone has seen the effects—the price of gas is almost double, eating out requires a small loan, [...]
It wasn’t really a secret, but the IRS didn’t make a lot of noise about it either. In March 2023, the agency quietly changed the rules, issuing Revenue Ruling 2023-2 which has a substantial impact on estate planning and irrevocable trusts. In the last 10 years, irrevocable trusts have been used more frequently to protect family assets from being [...]
In the last three years, changes in the U.S. employment market have been more rapid than bullets from a machine gun. And just when we thought things were settling down, now the newest, latest trend in employment has emerged. As with all its predecessors, this change is about employee attitude and is driven primarily by Gen Z and Millennials. [...]
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