Recently, the Social Security Administration announced its COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) for 2015. This adjustment of 1.7% will be applied to payments beginning in January 2015.Also connected to this adjustment is the increase of wages subject to the Security Security Tax, going from $117,000 to $118,500.If you would like to learn more about how this [...]
On October 23, 2014, the IRS announced its annual cost of living adjustments. Below is a chart from www.401khelpcenter.com that does a nice job summarizing the changes in limits since 2012. Chart of Select Limits 401k Plan Limits for Year 2015 2014 2013 2012 401k Elective Deferrals [...]
Below is an email to our clients discussing our recent rebalancing of our Target Allocations. We thought it would be helpful to share during this recent market volatility. A phrase I always try to keep in mind during times of higher market volatility is “the markets tend to take the stairs up and the elevator [...]
If you are a customer of Chase Bank you are probably wondering what steps you can be taking to protect yourself.First, we would suggest not to panic and change banks based on this breach. All banks and financial institutions are targets for these attacks. Unfortunately, it is safe to say this won't be the last breach [...]
The last quarter (or so), we tend to be very focused on tax planning. (Not to be confused with tax accounting in the first quarter or so). With that, it is very timely that last week the IRS issued guidance (Notice 2014-54) on rolling out after tax contributions from a 401k plan. KEY POINT In its [...]
Recently the WSJ published this article focusing on Donor Advised Funds that we wanted to share.http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/tax-smart-philanthropy-made-easy-1408728248-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwMjEyNDIyWj?tesla=yThe article highlights the ways Donor Advised Funds (DAF) can help simplify & organize your family's charitable giving. It also outlines how utilizing DAFs can help maximize the tax impact of the gifts you make.We have seen this impact firsthand in helping clients establish and manage DAFs. Companies like [...]
Family Loan-Forgiveness of principal vs forgiveness of debtCredit Card Miles529 ContributionsOutright gifts of up to $14,000 per person-$28,000 from a couple2x for december and january for particular goalLifetime exemptionWhat is not considered a gift
As a follow up to our post earlier this week, today CNNMoney published an article on the differences between public & private loans in the case of death of the borrower. This illustrates another big difference between the two types of loans.Click the link below for the article.http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/28/pf/parents-student-loans/index.html?iid=Lead
In our previous post we briefly mentioned the various options available to recent graduates for repayment of their student loans. Here is an overview of those options along with some important resources to consider when deciding the best strategy for yourself.What Type of Loans Do I Have?The first thing to understand is the type of loan [...]
I am 32 and max out my retirement savings every year through 401k and IRA. I also save an equivalent amount that I put into savings/investment accounts. How should I think about trading off between maximizing my contributions to retirement accounts versus putting less in my retirement accounts so I have more liquid assets to put [...]