Good to Know

It’s been reported that the Stretch IRA is dead for eternity (or at least until Congress changes the rules again). A Stretch IRA, of course, is the strategy of delaying required minimum distributions from an inherited IRA for decades if not generations. Before the SECURE Act of 2019, the Stretch IRA strategy was highly effective…

The property and emotional damage left in the wake of a natural disaster may be compounded by financial stresses. For qualified disaster losses, recent legislation by our federal government could soften the financial impact. First, we’ll define what losses may qualify and then we will summarize key provisions of the legislation. A qualified disaster loss…

Good to Know 5.2 Million The number of student loans in default in early 2019 according to the Ascent’s Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2019 That’s the bad news. The good news is that there may be a way out for students with balances remaining in their 529 Qualified Tuition Program. Before the SECURE Act, distributions…

The long-awaited bipartisan SECURE Act (the Act) was finally approved by the House on December 17, 2019, after a seemingly interminable process that began in March 2019. The Senate approved the measure at the speed of light (at least by legislative standards) on December 19. President Trump signed the measure into law the next day,…

Good to Know Savvy financial advisors know that prudence in taking retirement distributions is balancing income tax efficiency in the current year against long-term retirement portfolio growth. While each client may present unique needs, a discussion starter to the question “where should I take my distributions from?” follows: First – Take the full amount of…

Good to Know Six of every ten Americans fear running out of money in retirement more than death. This is the first of three blogs addressing financially dangerous and avoidable retirement mistakes. Today’s focus is upon avoiding excess withdrawal rates from one’s retirement portfolio. Before we begin, let’s address the common phrase “safe withdrawal rate.”…

Good to Know Married clients could lose one-half or more of their jointly owned countable assets when a spouse applies for Medicaid Long-Term Care insurance (LTCi). Countable assets1 include cash, publicly traded investments and other assets. Today, we’ll focus on creating the awareness needed to potentially avoid the loss of countable assets. But first, let’s…

Good to Know In our last blog, we identified three ways to manage the risk of long-term care expenses: Self-insurance for wealthy clients Private long-term care insurance for the middle class Medicaid for the desperately poor Today, our focus turns to a deeper understanding of Medicaid. Conventional wisdom holds that most Americans cannot qualify for…

How can the average American afford Long-Term Care insurance (LTCi)? Before we answer that question, let’s refresh our memory on the strategic use of LTCi. In our previous blog, we identified the following strategies to manage long-term care costs: Self-insure If you can comfortably afford catastrophic (e.g., dementia) long-term care costs of as much as…

Good to Know “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” That common but deeply flawed bit of conventional wisdom is based upon a comment made almost 450 years ago. It was flawed in the 1500s and it remains flawed today. As but one insight, any retirement plan that ignores long-term care risk could be a…