Retirement Watch Weekly
Exchanging Other Policies for Long Term Care Insurance
Consumers can exchange tax free old life insurance policies or annuities for long-term care insurance (LTCI) policies, under a 2006 law that became effective Jan. 1, 2010. Unfortunately, few people have been able to take advantage of the law. The idea behind the law is to give another option to people with cash value life […]
Planning to Avoid the Coming Medicare Surtax
The new Medicare surtax is a major source of funding for the recent health insurance reform. The tax has two elements. A 0.9% surtax is added on earned income over $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. There’s also a 3.8% surtax on unearned income (investment income) of taxpayers with adjusted […]
Using Summer Jobs to Create Roth IRAs as Estate Planning Start
More American teenagers than in recent years are seeking summer jobs this year (though fewer than in the old days). You can help make a summer job more profitable for your grandchildren and teach them about long-term Estate Planning at the same time. Or you can provide an additional incentive for the teenager who doesn’t […]
Buying Life Insurance & Long Term Care Insurance Together
Consumers are finding ways to protect their wealth from long-term care expenses without buying long-term care insurance (LTCI). Consumers seeking these alternatives, however, need to know some details to ensure they buy the best coverage for them. LTCI sales should be booming. The big Baby Boomer generation is in the prime years for buying LTCI. […]
Making Roth IRAs From Employer Plans
Many 401(k) account owners don’t realize they may be able to convert these accounts to Roth IRAs. The opportunity to convert traditional IRAs to roth iras now is well-known. We’ve been helping readers plan for it since 2008. The law now also allows the conversion of most employer-sponsored defined contribution plans to Roth IRAs. There […]
June 2010
June 25, 2010 11:00 a.m. Always Interesting Investments There always are interesting investments, said Rob Arnott, manager of the PIMCO All Asset fund, a component of our hedge fund mutual fund portfolio. Arnott forecasts that inflation hedges will be a very interesting investment over the next year or two as a deflationary trend takes hold […]
Checking the Alternatives to Your Bank
The cost of banking is rising. Banks lost a lot of money the last few years. They are making it back with higher fees and new fees on checking accounts. You easily could be paying a few hundred dollars a year in bank fees. That can work out to a pretty high percentage of your […]
Roth IRAs for Estate Planning
There’s a lot of focus on Roth IRAs these days. Often overlooked is that for some people, however, a Roth IRA’s greatest benefit is as an Estate Planning tool. Before making a decision, consider carefully the potential estate planning effects of the Roth IRA and add those to any income tax benefits. While no estate […]
