Retirement

Topline With numerous Federal Reserve officials sounding the alarm on inflation, minutes from the central bank’s latest monetary policy meeting released Wednesday hinted at bigger interest rate hikes ahead this year and outlined a plan to reduce its balance sheet by $95 billion per month. Key Facts Federal Reserve officials, who last month raised interest

Medicare Advantage managed care plans, which in 2021 covered 26 million enrollees, will get an average 8.5 percent increase in total Medicare payments next year. At the same time, MA plans are rapidly embracing a wide range of social services and supports for older adults living at home. Sometimes called long-term care lite, these benefits

I was 64 on New Year’s Eve 2015, when I worked my last shift at the Chicago Tribune. I packed up my cubicle, turned off the lights and – just like that – dropped the curtain on one of the most rewarding chapters of my life. At first, I was giddy with all the freedom

The legal profession urges you to get your estate planning done. They draft wills, trusts and empowering documents like the Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directives. Responsible people with means usually get this done. What they and the lawyers they hire apparently don’t think about is what happens when the client, who may

Yet Another Tax Proposal The Biden administration released its budget and tax proposals on March 28, 2022. This is called the “General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 Revenue Proposals,” or more affectionately the Greenbook. Should you care? Honestly, who knows. Speakers at a major estate planning conference speculated that it was unlikely for

Some people wait until the last minute to take care of things. If that’s you, here is a last-minute RMD Alert. IRA (and 401(k)) owners born in the last half of 1949 (after June 30, 1949, but before Jan. 1, 1950): Did you take your RMD (required minimum distribution) in 2021? If not, you need

Most people worry about their financial future and yet basic financial education is excluded curriculum from high school to university Building Financial Confidence The need for individual confidence in personal financial planning has never been more paramount. Managing debt, navigating ever changing economic conditions, investment risks, rising inflation, and the increasing need to build a

By Lazetta Rainey Braxton, Next Avenue As a “preacher’s wife” (so vividly portrayed by Whitney Houston in a cinematic classic), I have witnessed many funerals where confusion and animosity clouded a celebration of life due to the proper lack of estate planning. Specifically, when there is no will in place, all hell tends to break

By Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell, Next Avenue Jane Coloccia is no stranger to moving long distances, having moved in 2014 from New Jersey to southern California. When she picked up the phone to hire a moving company earlier this year to relocate from California to northwest Oregon with her husband, Victor Teixeira, and their small dog, Sophie,

By Andrea King Collier, Next Avenue When I started this series at the beginning of 2021, my husband and I were preparing ourselves for our “big” 65th birthdays in November and December. It was all straightforward. We made a list of things we needed to tackle and went after it. And now, just like that,

The difference between a big tax bill at the end of the year and a rebate often comes down to two very important steps. For the self-employed, rebates require proper planning throughout the year, making sure you’re paying (without overpaying) the IRS every quarter. Second, it demands that you’re taking the right exclusions, deductions and

In May 2021, psychologist Anthony Klotz coined the phrase “The Great Resignation” to describe the record amounts of workers quitting their jobs after reevaluating their roles during the pandemic (cnbc.com, January 2022). Last year, on average, 3.98 million workers quit their jobs each month, the highest average on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Some people who are still working after age 72 can delay required minimum distributions (RMD) from their 401(k)s, but there are important limitations. RMDs from your company’s 401(k) can be delayed until April 1 of the year after “the calendar year in which you retire from employment with the employer maintaining the plan,” according to

Parents often want to be fair with their adult kids and may want to appoint them together on legal documents when they do their estate planning. That means that the adult children will have “equal decision-making ability” on things like the Power of Attorney for finances or the Advance Healthcare Directive (aka power of attorney

Women may think about retirement as not working, rather than focusing on what it means to be financially free in retirement. Many women have thought about a day when they would not need to work a nine-to-five job but hold on to traditional ideas about retirement planning. For example, they ask themselves: Shouldn’t I take

Introduction to the Roadmap A recent Tax Court case gave a resounding victory to the taxpayer who had pursued what some might view as an aggressive split-dollar life insurance plan to minimize estate taxes. Estate of Marion Levine v. Commr. 158 T.C. No. 2, February 28, 2022. This follows prior cases that held pretty strongly

First a pint. Then a round, or two, or a few – add an order of fish & chips – and you have the makings of a fun evening with friends at the local pub. This is pub life. Pints and fish & chips aside, place matters. Where we live, and the nearby neighborhood places

The IRS issued IR-2022-69 on March 25, 2022, in which they reminded owners of retirement accounts that some must take their 2021 required minimum distributions (RMDs) by April 1, 2022. The language in IR-2022-69 referred to reaching age 72 after June 30, 2021, which caused some confusion. The confusion was because the new rule of

If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that if you put something off for too long, you may not have the chance to do it in the future. Many people are heeding that advice these days by changing jobs, getting divorced and buying homes. It is no different with estate planning.

Most of us know someone who has memory loss issues. Maybe we know someone who has cognitive impairment or dementia. What we don’t always see is how these issues affect the spouse of the impaired person. The caregiver role can turn into something no one anticipated. At the earlier stages of diseases that show up