Category: Financial Planning
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Last minute tax shelter setup for 2015
Every year there are a few small business owners who wait until the last few days of December to set up a retirement plan or pension plan that winds up reducing their tax liability by many thousands of dollars at tax filing time in the spring. It takes a few hours work for each plan…
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The basis of financial planning
Solid financial planning starts with an understanding that it never works out as planned.
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Does Giving Tuesday make you feel a bit uncomfortable?
Today is designated as “Giving Tuesday”. By now most people understand how this relates to public media frenzy following “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday”. Where do you stand? Does the concept of Giving Tuesday and all the media coverage today leave you feeling a bit uncomfortable? If so, I suggest that this is because you…
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The wrong way to do year-end tax planning
Implementation is the most important part! The Thanksgiving Day online edition of The Wall Street Journal carried an article about year-end tax planning strategies. It caught my attention because this is my favorite part of my own professional practice; a service I look forward to providing in the last quarter of each year. It is…
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Medicare information: Are online sites safe?
I noticed that a major national publication(1) that is widely read by affluent seniors published a sponsored links section under the heading “2015 Medicare Premium Cost” that raised my curiosity and made me a little suspicious(2). I decided to check it out. The simple benchmark I used was to ask myself “Would I be comfortable…
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Evaluating a private placement investment
This week I came across a situation where a friend was considering investing in an unregulated private placement deal. The friend is not a “qualified investor” as defined under the law and was probably actually relatively unsophisticated about investment issues. We have a mutual friend, an attorney, who was also unfamiliar with securities law and unable to…
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Initial inquiry about a private pension plan
Last night I received an anonymous post on my web site that says “I am a self-employed… with income of $1 million after deductions. I am looking to find a tax deductible retirement plan that can help me reduce my tax liability. I looked in to IRA and Roth IRAs but my income is too high…
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Stock market crash in a nutshell
Over the past 60 days investors around the world have pulled more than $6 billion in investments from worldwide emerging markets. This caused worldwide stock prices to drop by about 10%. Much of this money has been reinvested in U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. stocks have dropped about 4% so far as a side effect. The…
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Now is the time to review financial plans
In the event of stock market panic, read this: Many of my recent articles and blog comments about financial planning surround the concept that a financial wake-up call and a reality check are very badly needed by individuals and small business owners today. Recent news about the unhealthy global stock market makes it clear that many others share these…