Retirement Watch Weekly
The New Looks in Homeowners’ Policies
Homeowner’s insurance is under-going major changes. You can’t take for granted important details about your homeowner’s insurance policy, and you can expect premium increases soon and probably over the next few years. The good news is you could receive a much higher level of service at little additional cost. Insurers are under a lot of […]
Taking IRA Distributions in 2012
Every IRA owner needs to consider IRA Distributions and changes in 2012, regardless of your age. The tax law and potential changes require everyone to take a hard look at their situation and consider moves to make in 2012 and beyond. Anyone who was age 70½ or older in 2011 needs to take required minimum […]
Income Tax Planning for 2012-2013
It’s time to sharpen your pencils or tighten up your spreadsheets. Income tax planning for 2012 and 2013 is likely to be more important and trickier than in the previous few years. Key provisions expired at the end of 2011. Others expire at the end of 2012. New provisions are kicking in. And Congress could […]
New Tax Rules for Investment Sales
There are new forms and rules for reporting some capital gains and losses in 2011 and following years. For sales of stock purchased after Jan. 1, 2011, on Form 1099-B brokers report the cost basis as well as the sale proceeds. For stock purchased before 2011, only the proceeds are reported. Also reported is whether […]
February 2012
February 25, 2012 04:50 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review The big news this week came largely from overseas. One action that didn’t receive enough attention was from China. It decided to engage in another major round of its version of quantitative easing. That shows that China’s economy is slowing more than many observers […]
Estate Planning to Protect Assets, Heirs with a QTIP Trust
The marital deduction is a widely used, but often misused, Estate Planning tool. It’s powerful, but it also can create problems and headaches when not used properly. Here’s how to achieve your goals while avoiding the minefield of potential marital deduction problems. The marital deduction is simple and has two advantages. Under the estate […]
Worst State for Retirement
It’s easy to find guides to the best places to retire. There are numerous books and articles. But it’s not so easy to find a list of places you shouldn’t retire to. Of course, you could pick up the latest Census report and see which areas are losing population. But the web site TopRetirements.com put […]
Is the ETF Bubble About to Burst?
Exchange-Traded Funds are probably the most successful new product launch in the investment industry as measured by the rate of new money flows into it. But things haven’t been all roses for ETFs. A number of ETFs quietly folded or merged into other ETFs because they couldn’t attract enough assets. Many others still are available […]
