Retirement Watch Weekly
Learning Estate Planning Strategies from “Tony Soprano”
The passing of actor James Gandolfini, best known as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, received a lot of publicity. Not all the publicity was in the entertainment or celebrity media. Financial and legal media pounced on Gandolfini’s will, generating a lot of commentary from lawyers and Estate Planning specialists, little of it positive. Gandolfini’s estate […]
Avoiding Costly Medicare Errors
The wild card in most retirement plans is medical spending. Too many people approach retirement believing Medicare and their last employer will cover most retirement medical costs. Even after people realize their full potential exposure to medical expenses, many miss critical opportunities to reduce their share of the costs and especially to reduce the uncertainty […]
Reviewing Little-Known IRA Traps
IRAs seem to be simple things when we open them and begin annual contributions. Over time, as we move from the accumulation years, trickier rules kick in. This is where many people inadvertently lose portions of their nest eggs to taxes and penalties. Others simply miss opportunities they didn’t know were available. Here’s a review […]
Nailing Down Charitable Deductions
We’re heading into the traditional charitable giving season. You should start your planning early this year to make sure you incorporate tax law changes for 2013, and a few changes from the last 10 years that many people still haven’t absorbed. Here’s a guide to securing 2013 write offs. Higher income people should keep in […]
What’s Happened to Emerging Markets?
Not long ago emerging economies and their stock and bond markets were darlings of the investment world. The countries sank a lot at the beginning of the financial crisis, but they bounced back much more quickly. They didn’t have the debt overhangs and other problems of the developed world. They maintained reasonable policies in the […]
Line Up Caregivers for Long Term Care in Advance
That’s the advice from a new AARP study. The study concluded that there simply aren’t going to be enough people available to provide long-term-type care to people who need it in the next few decades. AARP says the problem is identified from simple arithmetic. The Baby Boomers are a large population group and are getting […]
The Shrinking State Death Taxes
The Wall Street Journal reports that another four states are eliminating or phasing out their estate or inheritance taxes. That leaves only 18 states and the District of Columbia among those who still impose such taxes. Readers who live in these states need to be wary. You might not have to worry about federal estate […]
Updating the Annuity Puzzle
Economists and many financial advisers believe that most people should annuitize a portion of their nest eggs. That is, once they enter retirement they should buy an immediate annuity paying a fixed amount annually no matter how long they live. (Or you can buy an inflation-indexed annuity so the annual payment increases with inflation, but […]
