Retirement Articles
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Good Strategy or a Contrarian Signal?
Large corporate pension funds have more of their portfolios invested in bonds than in equities for the first time in over a decade, according to pension consulting firm Milliman. Like individual investors, the pension funds don’t like what they see in stocks. There’s a lot of volatility and downside risk, and the positive potential isn’t […]
Student Loans in Retirement
Will your Social Security benefits be garnished to pay student loans? Apparently, that’s no unusual, according to a story in The Washington Post. The Federal Reserve, which tracks the details of household assets and liabilities, says Americans age 60 and over owe $36 billion on their student loans, and about 10% of that debt is […]
Good Estate Planning Is Not All About the Money
Estate Planning isn’t all about the money. At least, it’s not if you want the plan to be successful. Long-time readers know I’ve been saying for years that estate planning isn’t all about taxes. You need an estate plan even when the estate isn’t likely to be hit with federal estate taxes. You also need […]
April 2012
April 27, 2012 04:20 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review Big decisions soon need to be made by policymakers and investors. As I’ve said the last few weeks, a wave of economic and market forces are coming together and forming a critical mass that’s creating a lot of stress on the system. It’s not […]
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Picking IRA Beneficiaries
Many people make serious mistakes when naming beneficiaries for IRAs and similar accounts. Talk to almost any financial planner or estate planner and you’ll hear wild stories. People often have no beneficiaries named. Or a divorced or deceased spouse is the primary beneficiary. Some of the mistakes are so bad they end up in court. […]
Beware of State Estate and Inheritance Taxes
Many people are resting easy about estate taxes because of the $5 million federal estate tax exemption. They shouldn’t. Only 27 states have no estate or inheritance taxes. Of the 23 states with the taxes, most impose them at lower levels then the federal tax. Also, because of budget problems, a number of states imposed […]
Estate Planning for Grandparents Stepping in as Parents
A quiet trend in the U.S. is that a growing number of parents serve as the primary parents for their grandchildren. The Census Bureau started tabulating this information in 2000, and since then the numbers have grown. The 2010 census showed that 3.1 million children are living without their biological parents, and 59% of them […]
Planning from Your Income Tax Return
Most of you recently completed your 2011 income tax returns or soon will. Don’t file your copies of the returns away just yet. The federal income tax return is one of the best financial planning documents available. Many financial planners insist on seeing the latest returns very early in the relationships with a potential client. […]
