5 Retirement Planning Mistakes I See in Initial Meetings
Worried you might be making mistakes that could derail your retirement? Discover the 5 retirement planning mistakes we often see and how to fix them early.
When 90% of Your Wealth Is Riding on One Stock
Most people with a concentrated stock position know they should diversify. What they do not know is how to do it without handing a large chunk to the IRS. In this article, Chuck Bender walks through how a net unrealized appreciation strategy (NUA) combined with a donor-advised fund helped one client retire comfortably without an unnecessary tax hit. If you are sitting on a large position in a single stock, this is worth a read.
Retirement Tax Planning Mistake: A Hidden $10,000 Missed-Deduction Surprise
By Graham Ewing, CFP®, MBA, Director of Financial Planning Standards A couple came to our office not long ago with a straightforward goal: make sure they were ready to retire. The husband was considering retiring soon, the wife planned to…
Roth Conversions
There has been a lot of talk about Roth conversions so I wanted to help bring greater clarity to the issue. First, we will discuss the differences between a Traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and a Roth IRA. Second, we will…
How to Avoid Senior Scams
The greatest financial scams are perpetrated on the most vulnerable group in America, aging senior citizens who are slowly losing mental capacity. The aging process invokes emotions of fear, consequently triggering emotions of anger or greed because the mental capacity to…
How to Plan for your Parents’ Long-Term Care Costs
Could you be on the hook for your parents’ long-term care expenses? The answer is YES! In about 30 states, including Pennsylvania, there are laws called filial reasonability or filial support laws, which may obligate children to help defray their…
Simple and Solid Roth IRA Advice
Age 59½ is a key age for both a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA, because at age 59½, you may withdraw from either a traditional or a Roth IRA without incurring a 10% penalty. With a Roth IRA, however,…
Roth IRA Conversions—When Should I Convert?
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) come in two varieties—the traditional IRA and the Roth IRA. The traditional IRA allows you the opportunity to claim a tax deduction on your income tax return for contributions made to the IRA, and you must…
Giving and Happiness
An article that I read in Investment News attributed happiness among seniors to their generosity and indicated that relationships serve as a powerful source of fulfillment and happiness. In our lives money can serve as a useful tool, but money…
Want to manage your tax rate in retirement… Start while you’re saving!
While it’s hard to say what the tax laws will be in 30 or 40 years, it is likely that distributions from different types of retirement accounts will still receive special tax treatment. In addition to ensuring the investments in…