Retirement Watch Weekly
Investing Your IRA to Escape Penalties
Investors are starting to fall into traps with their IRA investments. The law has had these traps for many years. They are being sprung now because more invest-ors are attracted to nontraditional investments. Investments in publicly-traded stocks, bonds, and mutual funds don’t pose problems, but purchases by IRAs of some nontraditional investments are prohibited or […]
January 2010
January 24, 2010 02:00 p.m. Tough Week for the Markets One of the difficulties of investing is we never know what will trigger a correction or even something worse in the markets. If these things were obvious, then investors would react before they occurred. The past week is a good example. Just a week or […]
Adding Flexibility with a Disclaimer Trust
It’s tough to keep your estate plan in tune with the rapid pace of change. The estate tax changes. Your family situation and the value of your assets also change. Any of those factors can trigger a need to change your will or other elements of your estate plan, and the pace of change seems […]
Timing is Right for Transferring a Business
The economic decline doesn’t have many positive effects, but it can increase the benefits of estate planning strategies, especially for business owners. The current environment allows you to transfer business interests to your loved ones at a low estate and gift tax cost. Business owners should meet with estate planners and consider accelerating plans to […]
Avoiding Gift Return Problems with the IRS
The IRS recently said it was beginning a program to identify people who do not file required gift tax returns. It believes the program will identify a large amount of unpaid taxes. Gift tax returns must be filed when a gift exceeds the annual gift tax exclusion, currently at $13,000 per recipient per year. Gifts […]
Selling Now to Avoid Higher Taxes Later?
Income taxes are going to increase. That’s the message coming from Washington. We don’t know which taxes will increase or by how much, but there seems to be strong majority support for higher taxes. Rising federal spending also makes higher taxes more likely. At a minimum, it appears the 2003 tax cuts will expire at […]
Knowing When Long Term Care Insurance is for You
Insurers and insurance agents often are mystified at the numbers. Despite their efforts to sell long-term care insurance policies, only a small percentage of the potential buyers own LTCI. I’m not bothered when insurers miss profit opportunities. But I am concerned when people don’t protect themselves by purchasing insurance they should have. Let’s take a […]
More Planning Tips for IRA Conversions
We covered a lot of ground on IRA conversions in recent visits. We’ve been thorough but there are a few more angles that you should consider before deciding whether to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Early is Best You can convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA any time during the […]
