Are your parents adequately prepared for retirement? If not, are you planning to help them out? In many families, one or more adult children will step up to help Mom and Dad when they can no longer safely take care of themselves. That could mean time away from your family and job or pitching in financially to cover a variety of expenses.
At any age, the death of a parent is a difficult experience. But these days more adult children are dealing with an added stressor: the realization that Mom or Dad died with debt. In the past decade, there’s been a steep increase in debt among senior households. According to a report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, half (49.8 percent) of families age 75 and older have debt, averaging $36,757. Most senior debt is tied to
Lower income tax rates make this an attractive time to convert your traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. By converting, you’ll pay taxes on those funds now instead of at some future (likely higher) rate. The main hurdle will be paying taxes owed. If you convert $50,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth, your taxable income will increase by $50,000. If you’re in the 24% tax bracket, that amounts to $12,000 in taxes owed. That
Artists and their families have unique needs when it comes to estate planning. Be aware of the following strategies to protect the value of an artist’s work during and after his or her lifetime: Copyright eligibility. The first step is understanding what constitutes a copyrightable work. Protection is available to original works that are either written or otherwise recorded, including literary, musical, artistic and certain other intellectual works. These categories are to be interpreted broadly and can
Today, 77 percent of Americans go online every day, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, and most of us maintain at least some kind of digital data in the cloud. We save emails, post to social media, and store photos in online albums. All of this digital information has created a new issue for you, your heirs, and the technology firms that hold your assets. The key concern is maintaining your privacy and security
Cyber-insurance policies cover business liability for a data breach in which customer information (such as social security or credit data) is exposed or stolen by a hacker. Such policies may also cover data breaches due to employee error or malfeasance. Depending on the policy, this insurance can cover a range of expenses associated with data breaches, including notification costs, credit monitoring, costs to defend legal claims, fines and penalties, and other applicable losses.
If your business is involved in a legal dispute, you may voluntarily agree or be required to participate in mediation. Mediation is an alternative way of setting disputes that involves negotiation with support from a neutral third-party. Typically, mediation involves key decision makers from each party as well as their legal counsel. The mediator begins by leading the parties through a confidential review of the situation at hand. Then, depending on the nature of the conflict,
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That’s all well and good if someone copies your new outfit. But imitation is a whole other issue when it comes to online innovation. Let’s say you’ve just come up with a new online business idea and you’re convinced it has the potential to be the next big market disrupter, like Uber or Airbnb. Can you patent the website, app or software? The unhappy answer is
Your company’s proprietary information is your secret sauce. It’s what makes your company distinct and competitive in the market. Yet too few businesses put real time and attention into protecting this valuable information. If information is stolen and you choose to pursue legal measures, you have an obligation to show that you took reasonable steps to protect your proprietary data. But this kind of litigation can be a slow process that may never really compensate you
The patent process is lengthy, complicated and expensive. So how can an inventor or small business owner move forward with an innovation? Eventually you’re going to have to share your idea with someone who will help develop it, manufacture it, or otherwise bring it to market. Here are three legal tools you can use, with assistance from an attorney:
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