Category: Financial Planning
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Why tax rates will be higher
We should recognize that tax rates for the wealthiest individuals and corporations will be higher in the future than they are today. I stirred up a handful of comments yesterday on Wall Street Journal social media about the future of income tax rates. Some people apparently think that higher income tax rates are not possible…
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America’s evolving attitudes about inheritance
When it comes to money, we are still not communicating well with family and advisers. Estate tax laws aren’t helping. A new report by Hearts and Wallets provides some fascinating insights on America’s evolving attitudes about inheritances, including: “only 27% of the parents surveyed have told their children how much they are likely to inherit”…
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Devastating impact of education costs
I worked on two personal income tax returns yesterday that serve as examples to further underscore the need for education finance reform. As an adviser I see plenty of these examples in working class families, these two just happen to be the latest. I know that my peers in the tax preparation industry will see…
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Negative interest rates: what does it mean?
How current news affects financial planning Much of the world has entered into a period of negative interest rates with little economic growth. Here in the United States Federal Reserve Chair Yellen still says that interest rates will rise (and she knows better than anyone) but remain at historically low levels this year. Some doubt…
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Too many chefs spoil the financial plan
The saying goes “Too many chefs spoil the broth”. I saw that concept play out twice this month with the tax liabilities of two small businesses. These otherwise successful entrepreneurs used too many financial advisers without designating one of them as the chief financial officer in charge. The results were nearly disastrous. Potential disaster #1: S-corp cash…
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Three benefits of operating as an LLC
If you are self-employed, there may be at least three benefits of operating your business as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). In most states the cost is roughly about $200 to form a LLC and about $100 per year to maintain it. The potential benefits are: Liability protection – This is the usual reason, to…
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The shrinking middle class
Pew Research Center published this graph that shows how the portion of people in the middle class has shrunk from 60% to 50% of all Americans over the past 25 years. The calculation defined middle class as someone with a total household income ranging from $41,900 to $125,600 for a three-person household in 2014. Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/09/news/economy/middle-class/index.html
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What the stock market did while you were out
In case anyone has not noticed, the stock market’s performance stalled a year ago after 6 years of almost straight line growth. We hit bottom in the ‘great recession’ in 2009 and and then values tripled over the next six years. Since last January we’ve lost value. The overall long term return on investment for…
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Control the cost of divorce with peaceful resolution techniques
A checklist of financial planning issues to consider in collaborative divorce Divorce is expensive and almost always a losing proposition for both parties from a financial perspective. Financial stress during the marriage is increasingly cited as one of the reasons that married couples seek a divorce. An expensive divorce only makes this problem worse. During…
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Debunking the myths of peaceful divorce strategies
Many of the widely read articles in popular media or financial industry publications that discuss alternate divorce resolution strategies1 focus primarily on the limitations of each of these methods. The articles are often written by attorneys and so the focus on disparagement might be considered to be unbalanced or self-serving for the profession. Certainly it…