Insights

By Ryan Yamada, Senior Wealth Planner    When putting away for retirement, we often dream about all the things we’ll be able to do with that money – traveling, going out to eat, maybe trying new hobbies. 

Ryan Yamada, CFP®, Senior Wealth Planner  It was late one afternoon when I received the call from a retired client.  

by Jamie P. Hopkins, ESQ., CFP®, LLM, CLU®, ChFC®, RICP®  Regardless of how far off you are from retirement, there’s one main goal your planning should be working toward: saving enough so that you don’t outlive your money. 

By Jamie Hopkins, Managing Partner, Wealth Solutions  The next wave of retirement planning reform is headed for shore. 

By Jamie Hopkins In September, I covered the proposed tax plan released by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, which would help pay for the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act through changes to corporate, personal and other taxes, as well as retirement plans.

Many of us all but ignore our retirement accounts for much of our working lives. We look at a pay stub and have a vague sense of the “minuses:” Social Security, insurance, taxes. But the IRA is one of the most powerful retirement savings tools available to us, and so it warrants our attention. 

Retirement is far off until it isn’t. This chapter of life can sneak up on just about anyone, and we do ourselves a favor to be as prepared as we can. Like anything involving the government, finances can be confusing, with different tax treatments, contribution limits, beneficiary rules and more.

By the very name, the SECURE Act – or Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act – is designed to enhance retirement savings. There are several provisions in the new law to help accomplish this goal.

There are currently about half a million centenarians in the world. The U.S. leads the world in sheer number of centenarians, according to available data. People are living longer than ever, and this plays a significant role in how you plan for your retirement.

We live in the Information Age, where any information we could ever want is available to us within seconds, but due to the overwhelming wealth of info and sources – not to mention neck-break speed of the instant news cycle – it feels hard to know what’s really going on.

But when the SECURE Act goes into effect – expected on Jan. 1, 2020 – beneficiaries will have to fully distribute taxable accounts within 10 years of the account holder’s death. That could push your loved ones into a higher tax bracket.