This checklist was created to help you organize your affairs. Your individual situation will dictate other items which may need to be addressed. We suggest discussing your plans with the executor of your will as well as consulting with your legal, financial, and tax advisors. The time to get these professionals involved is before an event occurs – plan ahead. If you wait, chances are the lack of preparation may cost you and your heirs more money, time, and frustration.
Earned income stops for everyone at some point, and people then need to navigate the transition from saving for retirement to spending from their investment portfolio. From a financial planning standpoint, we generally encourage clients to be debt-free in retirement so that when their earned income stops, so do their debt payments. Exceptions may be made for situations with reasonable levels of debt at extremely low interest rates or for loans with short remaining terms.
When “Ross”, age 62, retired from his full-time job in August, he continued to work as a freelance consultant. During all the years he was employed, Ross typically received a bi-weekly paycheck, from which taxes, insurance premiums, and 401(k) contributions were automatically deducted.
During tax season and the inevitable search for financial records, some of us were frantically searching for that one piece of paper we just couldn’t find, and others had everything organized and ready to go.
A beneficiary designation states to whom your assets will pass after your death. These types of designations are assigned to specific assets. For example, your employer’s 401k plan will have a beneficiary designation, which is separate from your personal IRA.
Talking with your children about disability and/or death can be a difficult task for most people. Parents spend the better part of their financial lives working, saving and planning only to end up avoiding proper communication and planning with their children on the topic of death. Parents often do not discuss their estate plans with adult children out of fear that this will only cause tension and improper incentives. But in my experience as an attorney and financial advisor, the most successful planning results come from good communication.
I’m often asked this question: “With the federal estate tax exemption amounts being so high, do I really need an estate plan?” The answer I give is “Absolutely yes!”
With the SECURE Act 2.0 delaying Required Minimum Distributions to age 73, and higher marginal brackets a likely reality in the near future, annual income tax planning has become even more important.
The areas of trust planning and trust creation are vast and limited only by the imagination of the trust-makers, their attorney and the law.
The jam study demonstrated the phenomena known as “choice overload problem” when humans are faced with choices, less is better.
