Good to Know

Good to Know A married couple, both U.S. citizens, can jointly gift or bequeath as much as an astounding $24,120,0001 in 2022 without paying gift, estate, or generation-skipping transfer taxes. Each spouse has a $12,060,000 exclusion for gift and estate tax plus a generation-skipping transfer tax exemption of that same amount for 2022. These exclusions…

Good to Know Let’s face it—it may be easier to handicap who’ll win the Presidency in 2024 than to forecast how, or even if, your taxes will change over the next few months. This blog will point out a select few areas that could change your tax landscape dramatically, including: Paying more capital gains tax,…

Good to Know You may find yourself advising clients and prospects that were either misinformed or unaware of the consequences of claiming Social Security benefits too early. A potential, if not common, client angst is the realization that age 62 was NOT a wise claiming age decision. A client could face three unwelcome results from…

Good to Know Year-end tax planning for 2021 depends in large part on proposed legislation, such as the “Build Back Better Act.” Without a reliable crystal ball, the ultimate passage of the Act and other legislation is hard to handicap. However, the passage of the Act could hit many upper-middle-income and high-income taxpayers squarely in…

Good to Know The answer posed by the blog title is no. That’s good news. The bad news is that only a short list of beneficiaries is eligible for stretch IRA treatment at the death of the original IRA owner. Only an eligible designated beneficiary can stretch distributions from Traditional IRAs where the original owner…

Good to Know This blog is the first in a series to identify common psychological influences that can lead clients to financial decision errors. We begin this series with a common influence referred to as Anchoring. Anchoring Defined Anchoring is regarded by some as one of the most powerful psychological influences in the human brain.…

Good to Know One of the beauties of Social Security Retirement benefits is the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). The COLA is simply an increase to a covered worker’s benefit to maintain their purchasing power. A covered worker is a worker from whose compensation Social Security taxes have been withheld. The long-term average annual COLA is 2.2%,…

Good to Know CFP Board expects a certificant to serve a spectrum of client demographics based upon factors such as age, gender, culture, and net worth.  This blog summarizes a unique income tax strategy for high and ultra-high net worth clients.  Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) can help a client: Avoid income tax on investment…

Good to Know The 5 habits to passing the CFP® exam are not complicated. In fact, they’re quite simple in concept. But here’s the rub, simple is not always easy. For example, here’s the simple equation for losing weight: Calories out > Calories in = Weight loss Yet seven of every ten Americans, the author…

Good to Know We introduced the concept of Behavioral Finance in the author’s most recent blog. Specifically, we learned that financial decisions that are rational to our subconscious, primal survival instincts can be breathtakingly irrational to our conscious, objective brains. One of the most perplexing and frustrating examples of this phenomenon is buying high and…