Monthly Archives: November 2013
Taking former employer retirement savings with you – 55% should think very carefully!
A statistic quoted in a recent Kiplingers Letter: About 45% of folks who get a lump sum from an employer-sponsored retirement plan after changing jobs roll the entire sum into another tax-advantaged savings plan. That’s double the share who did so in the early 1990s, when lump sum distributions often prompted job changers to […]
2013 Year-End Reminders
At year-end, there are several financial moves which can be particularly beneficial. We list a few here, as a reminder: (a) Charitable Gifts – in order to get the tax break for making gifts or donations to charities, they must be completed by year-end. See A Powerful Tool for Charitable Gifts – the Donor-Advised […]
A Powerful Tool for Charitable Gifts
A Powerful Tool for Charitable Gifts – the Donor-Advised Fund Year-end is a time that many of us think of charity. And while the tax code encourages giving gifts to charity, if you want to take advantage of the tax break on this year’s taxes, you need to make the gift before year-end. Many of […]
Socially Responsible Investing
A few months ago a client asked me, “Do you ever use SRI funds or social screens in selecting investments?” My answer was that we generally don’t seek out SRI funds. Instead we advise clients to seek out the investments that best meet their financial needs and then approach charitable giving separately. But I […]
Expiring at the end of 2013
A variety of tax credits and deductions are going to expire at the end if 2013. Typically there is always some last minute negotiations and it would be perfectly unsurprising to see some of these renewed or extended. But it’s nothing like the massive set if expirations which almost happened last year. Here’s a nice […]
Rick Ferri sometimes uses actively managed funds!
But he does so selectively and carefully, with an eye on exactly when and why such a fund may be better than an index fund or index ETF. Very much worth reading. His thoughts on the matter overlap my own very significantly: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2013/11/12/when-active-funds-make-sense/
I-Bonds “Real” Interest Rate Goes Back Above ZERO
I-Bonds “Real” Interest Rate Goes Back Above ZERO — for the first time since the rate was set to zero back in Nov, 2010. For the last three years, any newly purchased US Treasury Series I savings bonds – which pay interest which is a composite of a fixed “real” rate plus a variable […]
Meyers Wealth Management 