Retirement Watch Weekly
How to Protect Your IRA
Would you spend a minute or less deciding the fate of your most valuable asset? Do you want a mutual fund or other financial institution to make the decision? Most people actually spend less than a minute designating the beneficiaries for their IRAs or other qualified retirement plans. And they give little or no thought […]
The Easy Way To Pay for Long Term Care
Financing potential long-term care expenses can be complicated and expensive. Nationally, a month in a nursing home ranges from $3,000 to $6,000, and is rising faster than general inflation. That’s why many people do no planning. Another reason is that half of nursing home stays are for 90 days or less, and Medicare pays for […]
Trusts You Should Avoid
Trusts are hot, and the IRS has declared war on them. It has increased staff and is planning more audits of trusts. But most Retirement Watch readers can relax. Trusts put together by the scam artists are those the IRS is going after. These are trusts that purport to eliminate taxes without changing your use […]
How to Beat Little-Known Estate Plan Traps
It’s the little things that often sabotage an estate plan. You can work with your estate planner to get the right gifting program, trusts, and other strategies. But a mundane detail or two still could undo a lot of your work. Whether the estate is a few hundred thousand dollars or millions of dollars, it […]
How to Leave More for Grandkids
Would you like your grandchildren to end up with only 20% of what you intended? That’s what happens in most cases. The government doesn’t want you to pass wealth directly to your grandchildren. It wants the money to stay in your estate, get it hit by estate taxes, go to your children, get it hit […]
The Truth About Retiring Overseas
We’ve all heard and imagined the fantasies of living at least part of our retirement years overseas. You probably read articles and mail promotions describing overseas “retirement edens” and describing how you can live like a king on a couple thousand dollars a month. And of course, there are those fabulous tax breaks. It all […]
Big Benefits from an Overlooked Charitable Trust
Let’s take a strategy we developed last month, build on it, and turn it into something very powerful. In the “defective” grantor trust we discussed last month the grantor of the trust is taxed on all its income, but the trust is excluded from the grantor’s estate. The combination lets you leave more tax-free dollars […]
Effective Estate Planning Strategies
Almost no estate plan is a lost cause. An estate can be improved when it appears to be too late. In fact, heirs and beneficiaries can make some smart moves to reduce taxes even after the loved one has passed away. Whenever you are dealing with someone else’s estate, you should be aware that a […]
