Author: admin

The A, B, C, & D of Medicare

Jul 10, 2019

Whether your 65th birthday is on the horizon or decades away, you should understand the parts of Medicare – what they cover and where they come from.

There are two components of original Medicare, Parts A & B. Part A is hospital insurance. It provides coverage for inpatient stays at medical facilities. It can also help cover the costs of hospice care, home health care, and nursing home care – but not for long and only under certain parameters.^1,2 (more…)

Tags: Medicare

A Retirement Fact Sheet

Jul 8, 2019

Does your vision of retirement align with the facts? Here are some noteworthy financial and lifestyle facts about life after 50 that might surprise you.

1. Up to 85% of a retiree’s Social Security income can be taxed.

Some retirees are taken aback when they discover this. In addition to the Internal Revenue Service, 13 states levy taxes on some or all Social Security retirement benefits: Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. (It is worth mentioning that the I.R.S. offers free tax advice to people 60 and older through its Tax Counseling for the Elderly program.)

2. Retirees get a slightly larger standard deduction on their federal taxes.

Actually, this is true for all taxpayers aged 65 and older, whether they are retired or not. Right now, the standard deduction for an individual taxpayer in this age bracket is $13,600, compared to $12,000 for those 64 or younger.       (more…)

Tags: financial advisor, retirement

Charitable Contribution Limits

Jul 3, 2019

Among the big changes in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) were new limits on standard and itemized deductions. These limits and restrictions created new hurdles when planning deductions with tax advantages in mind. An exception was charitable deduction, which remains an option for high-income individuals looking to create a donation for the charity of their choice.

When making a charitable donation, two avenues to consider are donor-advised funds (DAFs) and private foundations (PFs).

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Tags: Certified Financial Advisor Charlotte NC, Tax Advantages

Can an IRA Be a College Savings Vehicle?

Jun 28, 2019

An IRA is a retirement savings account, right? Indeed. IRA stands for Individual Retirement Arrangement. Even with that definition, however, there is no prohibition on using an IRA to save for other purposes, such as funding a college education.

Why would anyone choose an IRA as a college savings vehicle? At first glance it may seem strange, since there are other types of investment accounts specifically dedicated to that objective. On closer inspection, though, IRAs (especially Roth IRAs) present some features that may be quite attractive to the parent or grandparent who wants to build education savings.

Parents are urged to save for their children’s college education as soon as possible, but what if their children end up spending little or no time in college? (more…)

Helping Your Parents Manage Financial Tasks

Jun 26, 2019

Worldwide, the number of people aged 60 and older is growing.By 2050, this demographic will be more than twice as large as it was in 2015.¹

Some of these seniors could face a financial test.Will they be able to look after their investments or financial matters at age 80 or 90 with the same level of scrutiny they exercised earlier in life?

Your parents may be facing such a challenge.If you sense that they are not quite up to it, then a conversation about financial issues could be in order.

If you need to have this kind of talk with your parents, it is best to proceed gently, while acknowledging some potential risks that may heighten if the status quo persists. (more…)

2019 Mid Year Outlook

Jun 25, 2019

Making a Charitable Gift from Your IRA

Jun 21, 2019

Is your annual IRA withdrawal a bother? If you are an affluent retiree, that might be the case. The income is always nice, but the taxes that come with it? Not so much.

If only you could satisfy your yearly IRA withdrawal requirement minus the attached taxes. Guess what: there might be a way.

If you gift traditional IRA assets to charity, you could see some big tax savings. The Internal Revenue Service calls this a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD), and you may want to explore its potential. Some criteria must be met: (more…)

Tags: Retirement Tax Savings

Tax Moves to Consider in Summer

Jun 14, 2019

Making changes earlier rather than later.

If you own a business, earn a good deal of investment income, are recently married or divorced, or have a Flexible Savings Account (FSA), you may want to think about making some tax moves now rather than in December or April.

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Tags: Tax Planning

Bad Spending Habits That Can Be Corrected

Jun 12, 2019

Americans have a great deal of disposable income relative to many other nations, yet our free spending can take us further and further away from the potential for financial freedom. Some people fall into crippling spending habits and injure their finances as a consequence.

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Tags: Financial Help, Spending Habits

Impact Investing: Have You Heard of it? You Will.

May 24, 2019

I’d like to shine a bright light on the ever-growing popularity of impact investing and then define the three types of investors found to have the most interest in what seems to be this relatively new (although it’s actually not) and seemingly unknown (only to the retail investor) area of the investment marketplace. Let’s hop right in.

Impact investing. First, it’s important to know that “impact investing” is merely a subsegment of a more broadly defined investment methodology known as Sustainable, Responsible and Impact … otherwise known as SRI. This is actually a relatively new set of terms or definition for the S-R-I acronym which for a long time stood for Socially Responsible Investing – and that is actually where a lot of confusion comes in when people begin to discuss SRI or impact investing strategies. (more…)