Retirement Watch Weekly
Six Ways To Help Buy A Home
Buying that first home is one of the things that makes a person believe he or she is on the path to success and security. For today’s young people, buying that first home can be hard. In many areas, real estate prices continue to climb, and most young people graduate from college owing student loans. […]
Health Care Tax Strategies
Health care or long-term care can eat up a big part of a retiree’s budget – or the budget of a retiree’s children. Fortunately, the tax law can help pay for a big part of that burden. Deductions for medical expenses seemed to disappear when the rules were changed in 1986. Now, you can deduct […]
Life & Long-Term Care Insurance In One Package
Sales of long-term care insurance are stalled. Only about 2% of the target market buy the policies. The latest attempt to make long-term care health insurance attractive is to combine it with life insurance, making both products more attractive. Here’s the pitch in these new policies. The long-term care insurance is there if you ever […]
Is A Living Trust For You?
Visit any area with a lot of older Americans, and you’ll see plenty of ads for free seminars on Living Trusts by lawyers and financial profes-sionals. Recently, the seminars even sprouted up in my area and seem to be spreading. There aren’t too many lawyers who will go to the trouble of presenting a free […]
7 Estate Planning Guidelines For Using The Kiddie Tax To Maximize Family Wealth
You’re smart to be saving money for your children’s or grandchildren’s future. You can be even smarter. By paying a little attention to which assets you put in each family member’s name during Estate Planning, you can use the tax law to dramatically reduce the family’s tax bite on this money. The kiddie tax allows […]
Beat Taxes On Social Security Benefits
The 90% marginal tax bracket is alive and well. Most people believe that such high marginal tax rates ended with the 1981 and 1986 tax cuts. For most taxpayers, they did. But those high marginal tax rates exist today and are reserved for retirees. Many of you who recently completed your federal income tax returns […]
Should I Empty My IRA Early?
It is not always a good idea to keep money in an IRA as long as possible. In most cases, it makes sense to let income and gains compound tax deferred for many years. But that can change as you get older. You might benefit by taking more money out of an IRA than you […]
Don’t Spread Affluenza to Your Heirs
Many people who have accumulated some wealth are torn over the issue of how much to give or leave to their heirs. They prefer to leave a meaningful legacy and help their heirs be financially secure. But they also are afraid the wealth will hurt the recipients. The debilitating effects of wealth are real and […]
