News Stories and Articles
Time to prepare your will
Changes in tax rules for this year and next make estate planning tricky
-- and crucial. If you're rich, the best estate planning advice would
be to die quickly. If you're not, the best advice is to either review
or rewrite your estate planning documents to make sure your heirs
aren't left high and dry if you die. For example, if you were to die
this year and had an old "by-pass" trust, the elimination of the estate
tax could cause you to accidentally disinherit your spouse. Read the
full
article here.
Mind the Estate Tax Gap - What You May Not Know
This gap year is having an unintended consequence. Those affluent
families who suffer deaths this year could wind up paying stiff capital-gains
taxes on inheritances. That's because of the disappearance of what's
known as the "step-up" in basis, which allowed assets to be revalued
for tax purposes at the time of death. For more, read
the entire article.
6 Ways Couples Can Maximize Social Security
Payouts
Couples who are currently married, or who have stayed together
at least 10 years, tie their working records--and the resulting Social
Security checks--together as long as they both live. In the case of
Social Security payments, the result is often better for the couple.
Spouses have Social Security claiming options that single people don't.
Click
here for a few ways couples can boost their Social Security benefits.
Five Steps For Avoiding Financial Fraud
Just as banks have always attracted robbers, the money management
business has always attracted charlatans. Lately we've seen more than
the usual share of frauds and Ponzi schemes, with Bernard L. Madoff's
scam as the largest and most noteworthy. What's an investor to do
for protection? To find out, read
the entire article.
10 Ways To Outsmart Your Credit Card Company
Sick of the high interest rates and new fees card companies have foisted
on consumers lately? Some cardholders are fighting back. Here are
some
of the ways they're doing it.
Five Ways To Add Time To Your Day--Right Now
A lot of productivity advice offers great hints for speeding up
particular tasks: perhaps by concentrating better, eliminating distractions
and interruptions or learning to use a Google account and other common
programs more efficiently. But what can you do if simply saving five
minutes here and 10 minutes there aren't enough? What if you want
hours more time in your life, or if you constantly feel overloaded
and busy? Here are five big ways to make more time, which ultimately
means you'll have a better chance of succeeding at what you want to
accomplish. You can find more information about each one here.
