Retirement Watch Weekly
Planning Your Retirement: What’s Really Important?
Most people do their retirement planning backwards. They are guided that way by conventional advice and advisors. Retirement is more fulfilling and the planning is easier if the steps taken are a little different than those in the conventional planning process. The traditional retirement plan begins with money. The first step or series of steps […]
What is the Best Age to Begin Taking Your Social Security
What is the best age to begin taking your Social Security benefits? The answer might be changing. We discussed this conundrum that faces those approaching retirement in both our past visits and in my book, The New Rules of Retirement. The general conclusion is that the vast majority of retirees who begin taking their benefits […]
How to Shield Large Capital Gains
Successful investors and business owners always face a tax planning dilemma. If they sell their highly appreciated assets, they owe capital gains taxes. Even at today’s low top federal rate of 15%, the tax can amount to a sizeable chunk of money. People do not like their net worth to decline by that amount with […]
How to Help Grandkids Stay Solvent
In last month’s visit we discussed how to educate children and grandchildren to start them on the road toward financial independence. This month, let’s discuss how to help youngsters who already are in the working world and perhaps have started to dig themselves into that financial hole of high debt in which so many people […]
Medicare Premium Hikes Coming
Medicare beneficiaries with higher incomes face higher premiums in 2007 and thereafter. We have better estimates of those premiums now, and beneficiaries can factor these higher costs into their financial plans. The higher premiums, called surtaxes, are imposed on a sliding scale. They begin rising for single beneficiaries whose incomes exceed $80,000 and for married […]
How to Plan for New IRA Benefits in 2010
Retirement account owners, especially up-per income owners, will receive significant new tax benefits in 2010. These benefits can be maximized if a plan is established now and actions are taken over the next few years. Two tax benefits begin in 2010, if Congress does not change the law. The first benefit is the repeal of […]
Inheriting 401(k) Plans has become Easier
Income taxes are likely to be lower for many who inherit 401(k) plan accounts and other employer retirement plan accounts, thanks to the pension reform law the President signed into law in August. The law puts non-spouses closer to an equal footing with spouses who inherit the accounts. Employers are not required to give heirs […]
Why You Must Give Charitable Gifts Early
This newsletter long has been a proponent of making estate planning and charitable gifts early, if the giver can afford to. Recently, this approach was endorsed by Warren Buffett, with his widely-publicized plan to give most of his fortune to a series of foundations in coming years. Buffett actually has been behind the curve. The […]
