Starting in 2020, IRA owners will have to think twice about their retirement account. With recent changes being made to IRA laws in the SECURE Act, non-spouse beneficiaries can no longer stretch an IRA if the account holder passes following the end of 2019. Instead, the SECURE...
Reports from late 2019 and early 2020 have identified numerous restaurant and food chains that either closed or plan on closing stores across the country. Although each brand has specific reasoning for closing particular stores, the status of the economy certainly has an impact. In a strong...
Starting January 27, 2020 the IRS began accepting 2019 tax returns. The IRS stated in a recent news release that they are expecting to receive more than 150 million returns this year and are prepared to assist filers to ensure a manageable transition. Despite the large volume...
Social Security is becoming a hot topic once again as the trust funds responsible for the benefit are set to be depleted by 2035. According to projections from a 2019 report by the Board of Trustees for the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the...
When President Trump signed the SECURE Act into law in December of 2019, saving for retirement received a boost from Washington’s legislators. While some aspects of the law adversely affect seniors and their beneficiaries, the law is seen as a victory for the working class. Similarly to...
During the last ten years, studies from Merrill Lynch, LexisNexis, and others have consistently shown that a majority of adults do not have any form of estate planning set up in the event of their death. This means that the bulk of Americans do not have a...
A new year signals a new course for retirees and their retirement saving plans. As part of the 2020 government appropriations bill, the SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act) was signed into law. While the bill does include breakthroughs for some businesses and...
The Internal Revenue Service’s proposed updates to their Uniform Lifetime Table are set to change  required minimum distributions starting in 2021. In 2018, the Trump administration signed an executive order directing the Treasury Department and IRS to revise their life expectancy and distribution tables. The purpose of...
While Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell believes the U.S. economy is in good shape heading into the 2019 holiday season, top Wall Street firms beg to differ.  Powell cited a strong labor market and consistent consumer spending as signs of a healthy economy, although the Fed’s move...
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW How much do you know about social security and its actual “fine print”, as they say? Believe it or not, Americans have a huge misunderstanding as to how Social Security works, from how taxes are collected to overestimating the average monthly benefit.