Banking tips to help you cash in Your cash is parked. Do you know if it’s making or losing you money? For instance, letting it sit in a non-interest-bearing account is a waste of earnings potential. It’s actually losing money if you factor in inflation! Here are some ideas to help you make the most of your banked cash: Understand your bank accounts. Not all bank accounts are created equal. Interest rates, monthly fees, minimum balances, direct
This month: January 1 – New Year’s Day January 15 – 4th Quarter Estimated Payments Due January 20 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day Start tax planning for the new year – Adjust withholdings – Organize filing records – Schedule tax consultation – Rebalance investment portfolio Welcome 2020. A new year calls for a fresh look at your financial strategies. Consider how to make the most of your savings accounts — and don’t forget you
When setting up a revocable trust, you need to be diligent about asset transfers, beneficiary designations and funding formulas. Failure to complete certain steps can prevent the trust from acting as you intended, creating additional cost and unintended consequences for your estate. Common issues include the following: Failure to transfer assets Setting up a trust is just the first step. You must accurately transfer assets into the trust in order for its proper function to take
You may already be familiar with the idea of setting an “in case of emergency” contact that displays on the lock screen of your phone to let emergency personnel know whom to call if you’re found alone unconscious or unable to speak. Smartphone providers now offer enhanced options that let you provide even more emergency information, such as medical conditions and allergies. Newer iPhones make it easy with their integrated Health app, but there are ways
Resist the urge to avoid naming a guardian as part of your estate plan simply because it’s not easy to imagine someone else raising your children. If you don’t, you leave the guardianship of your children up to the courts if you pass away. Think about who, starting with your family members, would be the best choice. Remember that the guardian you choose doesn’t also have to handle money for your children. Assuming you have life
An Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) has long been a fundamental tool for managing federal estate tax liabilities. But with a sizable increase in the federal estate tax exclusion, some families are wondering if their ILIT is even relevant anymore. An ILIT owns your life insurance policy for you, essentially removing it from your estate. ILITs were popular for their ability to shelter life insurance proceeds from estate taxes. They also give the grantor the ability
Estate planners have been watching Congress closely, waiting to see what will happen with the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act. The legislation, designed to boost Americans’ retirement savings, has implications for individual savers and for those planning to pass an inheritance to the next generation. The SECURE Act passed the House of Representatives in May with a nearly unanimous margin of 417-3. The bill is considered to have strong bipartisan support and
Businesses need to get paid to stay afloat, and it’s no fun to spend a lot of time collecting a debt from a customer. When someone doesn’t pay and you need to collect, here are some tips for doing it: Be sure you know the rules where you live. State law debt collection rules vary. While the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies only to third-party debt collectors and lawyers, some state laws apply to
A noncompete clause in an employment contract can be an effective way to keep a worker from leaving to work for a competitor for a defined period of time after he or she stops working for you. Sometimes independent contractors have as much, or nearly as much, company-specific knowledge as employees. So the question is whether you should include a noncompete clause in your independent contractor agreement. If you require independent contractors to sign a noncompete
All businesses with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees must submit their 2018 pay data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by Sept. 30, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., has decided. The information, which must include how much each employer paid workers of various sexes, races and ethnicities last year, is intended to be part of the EEOC’s ongoing collection of demographic data. Businesses must submit the
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