Retirement Watch Weekly
New Ways to Invest for Grandchildren
The market sent a message to grandparents the last few years. To ensure the success of your plan to leave the grandchildren wealth, heed this message. A time-honored practice when setting up an account or trust for grandchildren is to buy shares in one or a few favored companies, then leave them alone. The grandchildren […]
Avoid This #1 Retirement Mistake
What’s the biggest mistake in retirement plans? From what I see, it is failing fully to factor inflation into their planning. Retirement these days often lasts 20 years or more. To be safe, you should plan on living to age 90. Over that time inflation can make a safe, comfortable stream of income uncomfortably tight, […]
No-Tax, Low-Cost Way to Help a Grandchild
You don’t need to give away money or property to help the grandchildren. You can lend to the grandchildren and let them build something with the loan. Here’s one plan. Lend $50,000 to your grandchild for five years. The grandchild invests the money and earns 10% annually. At the end of five years, the grandchild […]
Cutting Your Taxes By 30% Or More
Despite repeated IRS attacks, the family limited partnership still provides substantial tax savings. The IRS hates FLPs because you retain a lot of control over the assets. But the IRS has trouble winning court cases. Numerous court cases now give fairly clear rules for using this flexible tool to greatly increase the after-tax wealth left […]
Increase Income: Annuities versus Bonds
There is a plan that might boost your current after-tax investment income and increase the estate left to your heirs. Especially if you own bonds to generate income, including tax-free bonds, consider this strategy as part of both your investment planning and estate planning. A problem with bonds, even tax-free bonds, is that estate taxes […]
Top Ten Funds
A market decline is a good time to clean out your portfolio. Get rid of the mediocre performers that disappointed in the last market rise and are likely to continue disappointing. Now is the time to set your portfolio to perform better when the market recovers. To help you, let’s review some funds I recommended […]
Little-Known Tax Write-Offs – Give It Away, Write It Off, And Still Enjoy It
There might be a pile of untapped tax write offs lurking in your home or personal inventory. Most people don’t have a hint of this, because the IRS doesn’t advertise some creative tax strategies it has approved for years. If you know about this strategy, you can give property away, take a deduction for it, […]
Tax Gains From Market Losses
The first bear market in a long time offers an opportunity to dust off an effective tax reduction strategy. Use this strategy now and you could significantly increase this year’s after-tax returns. The strategy is called a tax swap or mutual fund swap. It works with stocks, bonds, or mutual funds Suppose you bought some […]
