Good to Know

Good to Know What do you think of first when someone says, “victim of COVID-19?” Most of us think of medically vulnerable fellow citizens or business failures. But what about Social Security’s health? Before answering that question, let’s recognize a few fundamental forces behind Social Security’s financial challenges: Social Security become law in 1935 and,…

Good to Know The Security and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) is aimed squarely at protecting the best interests of retail investors. A common issue that arises is exactly when Reg BI applies. The short answer is that Reg BI applies when a retail customer receives and subsequently uses a recommendation from a…

Good to Know THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT PROVIDES MORE THAN SBA LOANS FOR BUSINESS WORKING CAPITAL SBA loans and the Paycheck Protection Program dominated the business headlines over the last few months. But several less-heralded provisions of the CARES Act go beyond recent headlines to shore up cash flows of struggling businesses, too. How? Liberalization of…

Eligible Designated Beneficiary What exactly does it mean to be an “eligible designated beneficiary” of a Traditional IRA? Here is the short answer – an eligible designated beneficiary is exempt from the now-infamous stretch IRA killer known as the 10-year distribution rule. For IRA owners dying in or after 2020, the 10-year distribution rule kills…

Good to Know Once upon a time in a land not so far away, it was possible to defer (stretch) IRA retirement distributions over multiple generations at the death of an IRA owner. That idyllic time was before 2019 and the land in question is these United States of America. During that pre-2020 period, it…

Good to Know The juggernaut of student loan debt is a sad fact of life today for many families. But what if you could avoid or reduce student loan debt for you, your family and your clients? If that sounds unlikely, join us as we dispel three common myths that just might lighten the debt…

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,…