Every year taxpayers wonder how they should spend their tax refund. Should they pay down their debt, or add money to their emergency savings fund?  A survey conducted by Dealnews.com reports that 44% of taxpayers will use their refunds to pay off debts, while 34% will put the refund amount into a savings account. The [...]

For something that is common during our working lives, but never talked about until we are 62, Social Security seems to still be a mystery to us.  We all know it’s there, we see it come out of our paychecks, we know that it will kick on somewhere around 62, but it seems that we [...]

Required Minimum Distributions, or “RMDs”, are a part of life for tax qualified accounts like IRAs or 401ks.  At age 70½, you have no choice but to start drawing a portion of the money out and paying the taxes on those withdrawals.  The IRS has “called” your loan and now wants to start pulling tax [...]

Retirees have multiple sources for traditional income at retirement.  This article does a great job of reviewing the types of income that you can rely on for income.   Social Security Pension Income Dividend Income Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) Annuity Income   However, it takes the extra step many advisors and companies fail to see.  [...]

Congrats, you are now retired.  All those years of saving and planning are done.  Or are they?  So how do you know if you plan is going to work out?  As you age, the fixed-income portion of your portfolio becomes more important.  The goal doesn’t have to be maximum income.  Preservation is still really important [...]

Even though the fiscal-cliff compromise kept the federal estate tax exemption at its former level of $5 million, many state governments are imposing estate or inheritance taxes on more modest amounts. With many states suffering from budget shortfalls, estate tax revenue is more important than ever in keeping government programs running. And that means that [...]

For seniors and pre-retirees, Budgeting can be a scary topic.  But, it is a vital one.  Many retirees live off social security income, some pension income, and personal savings to last them the rest of their lives.  With many seniors living on a fix income at retirement, their income faces many risks.  Inflation, market risk, [...]

Daily Finance – Tax season is almost over, and there are only a few things left that you can do to affect what you owe for 2012. But looking forward to the 2013 tax year and beyond, adding a Roth IRA to your arsenal of retirement investing tools could save you a ton in taxes [...]

Today is a bleak and dreaded day for many Americans.  Today is the last day to pull all those files together and go through the headache of filing a return with the IRS.  For those procrastinating until the last possible minute to do a return, this a stressful day.  For many, this is the day [...]

Most of us know what a Roth IRA is, right?  But there is a lesser known version of a Roth, the Roth 401(k).  They are fairly new, being established in 2006, and are similar to Roth individual retirement accounts in that they are funded with after-tax dollars.  And like there IRA counterparts, withdrawals in retirement [...]