Author Archives: David
Obamacare and Your Taxes (2014 and beyond)
The Affordable Care Act has a wide ranging list of tax effects, some of which apply to individuals, some to corporations, some intended to provide incentives for individuals or businesses to get insurance, some to provide funding which helps keep other parts of the law up and running. Before you get worried, though, or dive […]
How to lose a $1million bet (and also how to compare apples and oranges)
Ted Seides, CIO of Protege Partners, explains why he’s losing his bet against Warren Buffett. The bet, for $1million, was over which would outperform over 10 years – an S&P500 index fund (Buffett’s choice) or a fund of hedge funds (i.e., what Protege Partners does). Now I want to point out, at the outset, that […]
High Income Year or Low Income Year
To be more precise, we are talking about whether one’s taxable income is high or low in a given year — relative to expected income in future years. And what we can do to take advantage of the fact that some folks are going to have higher or lower incomes now versus in the future. In […]
I am a “Top Financial Planner” – but don’t just take my word for it…
I am a “Top Financial Planner”! Or, so I was told by a solicitation I got in the mail from a company called “SLD Industries”. It’s one of, apparently, many such fake promotions designed to convince me to spend upwards of $200 on a fancy plaque or award to display in my office. Folks, don’t […]
Financial Planning versus the Robo-Advisors
It seems that every day there’s another headline or article about the rise of the Robo-Advisors. And it seems a common myth discussed in these articles is that these online investment advisory services are a growing threat to the business of personal human-provided financial advice. What it really comes down to is what, exactly, one […]
2015 IRA, 401(k) and other retirement plan contribution limits announced
By law certain retirement plan limits get adjusted every year, not exactly tracking inflation (i.e., not by the CPI) but rather in “chunks” which approximate it. For 2015, the following limits have been announced: IRA Contributions (combined limit across Roth and Traditional): $5,500IRA Catch-Up Contributions (for folks over 50): $1000[Both unchanged from 2014 and, actually, […]
A Few Points about Delaying Social Security, and about Spousal and Ex-Spouse Benefits
This started out as “A Few QUICK Points…” but unfortunately, Social Security is just too complex for almost anything to be “quick” about it. [For the sake of simplicity, we will assume for the rest of this article that “full retirement age” is 66 — which is actually the case for folks born between 1943 […]
Should retirees keep their life insurance?
I recently came across a brief video on a financial planning website (meant for advisors, not our clients), and it was supposed to explain to us 5 reasons why retirees might want to keep their life insurance. I went to watch this video very openly and honestly. There certainly are circumstances where some small subset […]
How Advisors Lure Federal Workers Out of Low-Fee Retirement Plans
A very interesting article came out today on Financial Planning <http://www.financial-planning.com> regarding the treatment of former employees of the Federal government by the investment management industry. The article in question, should you be interested in reading it: <http://www.financial-planning.com/news/regulatory_compliance/how-advisors-lure-federal-workers-out-of-low-fee-retirement-plans-2690130-1.html> Some background: The Federal government runs a retirement savings program which is basically the same […]
Inflation and the Price of a Burger
In a pair of recent discussions, the issue of inflation has come up. In one, someone mentioned that he’d thought that recent inflation was worse than “official” numbers – and the example he gave was how he’d noticed how expensive meat was at the supermarket. And in another, a question arose regarding how well one might […]
Meyers Wealth Management 