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What Does the New SECURE Act Mean to Your Retirement?
Congress has recently passed new legislation that probably affects your retirement plans. It’s called the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act. It became effective January 1, 2020. The Act is meant to help more people better prepare for retirement. A summary of the Act follows. Delayed RMDs. Until now, Required Minimum Distributions […]
Commission-Free Investments
You may know that Guidepost Financial Planning uses TD Ameritrade as its broker. They execute your trades, hold your securities and provide insurance on your investments. They’ve always been a low-cost brokerage house, but a couple of weeks ago they eliminated base commissions for online exchange-listed U.S. stock, ETF (domestic and Canadian), and option trades—moving […]
Higher 401(k) and IRA Limits for 2019
I know you’re familiar with 401(k) and IRA plans. Hopefully you’re already contributing to both of them! If you’d like to reread some previous articles on these savings plans, please check out 2018 Financial Resolutions, Financial Planning Resolutions and Plan Now to Minimize Your Taxes. As of January 1, you can sock away even more […]
IRS Tax Scams
April 15th is coming up soon and the tax scammers have been in high gear. I even received a recorded call threatening me with arrest from some scammers this year! The most important thing to know is that the IRS never makes an initial contact by phone or email. If they do send you a […]
As 2017 Winds Down…
Can you believe it, we’re only a month away from the end of the year! For many of us, we’re pretty busy with our normal activities (work, school, etc.) and then we have the holidays to prepare for too. It seems like there’s no time for anything else and yet there may be some very […]
Fiduciary Duty Rule Delayed
The Obama administration passed a rule that required investment advisors to adhere to fiduciary standards. Simply put, this means recommending investments that are in the client’s best interests. Previously, advisors merely had to recommend suitable investments. This often led to them recommend investments that, while suitable, offered the advisor the highest possible commission which was […]
Sir John Templeton
Have you heard of Sir John Templeton? He was a billionaire investor and philanthropist. He began the Templeton Growth Fund in 1954 and it had an average annual return of 13.8% for the next 50 years! He sold the fund to the Franklin Group in 1992 and died in 2008. Obviously Sir John’s investment philosophy […]
New Fiduciary Rule for IRAs
A large number of people need help managing their long-term finances and hire someone to help them with the process. Some people don’t have the time or desire to manage their assets themselves, while others don’t know enough about the system to manage their assets well. When selecting an advisor, many people take recommendations from […]
What If You Won the $1.6B Lottery?
Okay, I know three folks have already won this lottery, but it was pretty exciting while it lasted. If you had won, naturally you wouldn’t receive $1.6B. You’d have to split the prize with two other winners and pay federal taxes. (Fortunately for the winners, their states either have no income tax or no taxes […]
Retirement Account Bankruptcy Protection
In 2005, a set of Federal bankruptcy law amendments added protection of retirement accounts from creditors. However, a few weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that inherited individual retirement accounts are not protected. What this means is that your own IRAs and other retirement accounts are protected from creditors while you are alive. […]