Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts are meant to provide tax savings when covering certain living expenses for people who are mentally or physically disabled prior to age 26. ABLE accounts began late in 2014 and have not yet become well known in the community or among many advisers I talk with. In an ABLE…
Playing a 3,000 Year-Old Board Game in Front of 200 Million People I’m a sucker for board games and Netflix documentaries, so when I stumbled on AlphaGo, I was sucked in. It chronicles the story of how a research group, DeepMind, developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based computer program (AlphaGo) so advanced it took on…
If you’re not already there, it’ll happen to you soon. You’ll need to have a Family Money Talk. Maybe you’re in your 20s asking your parents how much they could pay for a wedding. Or you could be in your 40s talking to your kids about their college choices. Our most frequent case, the one…
This is the second in our three part Annual Financial Checklist series. While not exhaustive, it will help you to continue to think proactively about stacking the odds for financial success in your favor. See our previous “January through April Checklist” for more ideas. May Look into College Scholarships: If you have a child in…
“Is a Roth IRA right for me?” is a simple question with a complex answer. Even worse, myths and misconceptions surrounding Roth IRAs make them seem more complicated than they are. We’ll address the four most common rules covering withdrawals, contribution limits, home purchases, and taxes. Even if these rules don’t apply to you, it’s…
Wrapping up our year, we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out on our most read blog posts of 2017. We also want to say a big “Thank You!” for reading, sharing, and dialoguing with us along the way. If you have any suggestions for future topics, send them to us at Team@SmithPartnersWealth.com. 6…
Anticipating the start of the swim portion of Raleigh’s 2017 Half Ironman, 99 strangers and I waded into Jordan lake. Five hours of grueling effort and quad cramps later, I finished the race to the sound of crowds chanting my name. Ok…maybe not the “crowds chanting my name” part, but I crossed the finish line. The only…
In short, yes. But don’t take our word for it: as seen in their 2017 annual report, the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees “project that the combined trust funds will be depleted in 2034“. However, the Social Security Administration and Congress have a few “levers” they can pull to extend this 2034 date…
For much of the year, we’ve told clients “let’s wait and see” when considering certain tax saving strategies like Roth conversions or a Qualified Charitable Distribution because we wanted to see what tax policies might come from Washington. On September 27th, the White House released the “Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code” to…
Is your name really John Smith? The remarks about our names started early: “Jon and Anne Smith…are you kids using your real names? I’m gonna’ need some IDs.” This was the welcome we received 46 years ago from the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn, even though our getaway car had tin cans trailing and…
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