The nation’s long-term care (LTC) insurers paid out $11.6 BILLION in 2020, a $600 Million increase over 2019 according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI). That is a huge amount of TAX-FREE benefits and only includes “traditional LTC insurance policies. Most people haven’t planned ahead for LTC costs. I get it. LTC insurance is expensive, premiums can and will likely rise over time and you may never use it. BUT if you own a business or are … Continue reading

Warren Buffett was not very kind to bonds in his annual shareholder letter a week or so ago. Of course, readers of my weekly market updates and blogposts already know that I’ve been saying the same thing for a few years! He wrote: “And bonds are not the place to be these days. Can you believe that the income recently available from a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond – the yield was 0.93% at yearend – had fallen 94% from the … Continue reading

Famous football coach Lou Holtz once said, “Pressure is what you feel when you are not prepared.” Retirement Income Planning (also the title of one of my books) is about preparation… not procrastination. In continuing to make my financial planning practice better and more valuable for my clients, I keep adding new capabilities, important services, and hopefully, good, relevant, and interesting information over time. BUT… in this blog post, I want to offer you a new and free resource. It’s … Continue reading

See the new tax bracket table for 2021 at the bottom of this post. The standard deduction for married filing joint has been increased to $25,100 and $12,550 for single filers. For those of you still working and making your FICA (SS and Medicare payroll contributions) will be applied to more of your income in 2021. The maximum amount of income that will be subject to FICA taxes will be $142,800 (up from $137,700 in 2020). As I wrote a … Continue reading

No matter how you feel about the presidential election results, it’s highly likely that you will see some changes in your future tax calculations and resulting tax bill – especially for my wealthier clients. Let me preface this BLOGPOST, by saying that nothing written below is etched in stone. These are simply Joe Biden’s wish list. He will have pressure from the more liberal side of his party to tax more and have more entitlements. Depending upon what happens in … Continue reading