Retirement Watch Weekly
How to Ensure Your House Move is Legal
Moving is becoming harder than ever. I’m not referring to the significant expense and work needed to transport your goods from one home to another. That hassle and cost could be a drop in the bucket. The real problem is convincing the different states involved that you really have moved. Because of aggressive and contradictory […]
The Most Overlooked Deduction
Those who inherit IRAs often are not aware of a deduction they can take to shelter IRA distributions from income taxes. Even most tax experts do not understand “income in respect of a decedent.” Most skip over the topic in school and expect not to run into it. But with so many people owning valuable […]
How to Prevent Identity Theft
Technology makes it easier to steal someone’s identity and money. But the focus on threats from technology is opening people up to serious losses by misdirecting attention. Despite its fast growth rate, high tech identity theft is not the most serious scam you face. The data are clear. Your greatest risk of either identity theft […]
Inflation-Protected Never-Ending Lifetime Income with Annuities
Retirement planning boils down to solving two problems: providing an income for life, and ensuring that income retains its purchasing power. Running out of money and watching the purchasing power of one’s income erode are two of the greatest retirement fears. Financial services companies constantly are developing products and strategies to alleviate these fears. As […]
Reverse Mortgages: How to Withdraw Cash from Your Home
American seniors can take equity out of their homes without moving. They also don’t have to make payments during their lifetimes while they live in their homes. Reverse mortgages were almost unknown when I first wrote about them more than a decade ago. Now, they are much better known but are greatly misunderstood. Only 8,200 […]
Estate Tax Changes on the Horizon
Hurricane Katrina and other factors put on the back burner permanent changes to the estate and gift tax. The plan was to have a permanent change to the estate tax enacted in fall 2005. For now, however, we continue to live with the scheduled phaseout that was enacted in 2001. Under this schedule, taxes will […]
Making the Medicare Prescription Drug Decision
The promotions for the Medicare prescription drug program are starting and will become intense for many of you over the next few months. Take your time to analyze the choices. If you are eligible for Medicare now, you are eligible for the prescription drug program. Sign ups for the plans can start Nov. 15. The […]
Pockets of Opportunity in the Stock Market
The trends that boosted our portfolios ahead of the indexes this year are likely to last another quarter or more. As more and more investors notice our returns and invest with us, it will become time to move into other investments. We aren’t at that point yet, but I’m already drawing up a short list […]
