Immediate Fixed Annuity Payments – How much will you get?
One of the advantages of immediate fixed annuities is the feature that provides you with income for the rest of your life, for both you and your spouse, or simply to pay you for a fixed number of years. But what’s the best choice for you? Let’s consider some payouts based on annuity type and other factors to get a [...]
Categories: immediate annuities, retirement income Tags: immediate fixed annuity
Immediate Fixed Annuity: An Alternative to Tax Free Bonds
While tax-free bonds can be a popular source of tax-free income, some retirees are not aware that they can receive a potentially higher source of cash flow from insurance companies using an immediate fixed annuity. In exchange for the premium payment, the insurance company pays the annuity owner a cash payment for life or for a term of years. Each [...]
Categories: immediate annuities Tags: immediate fixed annuity
Guaranteed Retirement Income
Let’s work up the ladder of rates that you can get from guaranteed retirement income sources. We skip treasury securities because bank deposits pay more and they also have a federal guarantee (up to $250,000 per depositor through 12/31/2013) Bank Certificates of Deposit – in terms from 3 months to 5 years. Generally, the longer the term, the higher the [...]
Categories: retirement income Tags: guaranteed retirement income
ProspectMatch: Estate Planning Strategies
A New Type of Trust May be Able to Solve Many Estate Planning Problems Many wealthy Americans today are worried about what will happen to their estates after they are gone. Although many different types of trusts have been designed to help alleviate this problem, a new type of trust, called the “inheritor’s trust” has a level of flexibility that [...]
Categories: estate planning Tags: estate planning strategies
Find a Financial Advisor
Realize first that the term “financial advisor” is a generic term much like “retirement advisor“and can mean almost anything. In fact, most “financial advisors” make commissions by selling products. Which means that while they may be sincerely interested in helping you, they earn nothing until you buy something. So if you want advice and not products, that you want to [...]
Categories: how to find a retirement advisor Tags: find a financial advisor
Retirement Annuity Rates–Where to Find Them
Although there are several flavors of annuities, the term “retirement annuity” typically refers to an annuity taken from an employer pension plan (e.g. monthly payments for life) or a non-qualified annuity purchased by an investor with after tax funds in return for monthly payments from an insurance company. Retirement annuity rates or monthly payments will depend on the amount you [...]
Categories: immediate annuities, retirement annuity Tags: retirement annuity rates
Americans Wasted $26 Billion in Estate Taxes–Failure to Know Estate Planning Basics
If you don’t want to waste your dollars, its critical that you understand estate tax planning basics and how to avoid estate tax. The Annual Report on the United States Government reports that Americans paid $26 Billion in estate taxes in 2006. Every dime of those taxes could have been avoided. How do you think the kids felt when they [...]
Categories: estate planning, estate tax Tags: estate planning basics, estate taxes
Company Retirement Plans
Company retirement plans come in two flavors–defined benefit (based on an ultimate benefit to be paid upon retirement) and defined contribution (based on the amount that gets put into the plan today). These are both referred to a “qualified plans” because they qualify for tax deductible contributions under section 401 of the Internal Revenue Code. No matter what type [...]
Categories: retirement plans Tags: defined benefit, defined contribution, non qualified
Financial Advisor Fees — How They Really Work
There are 3 ways that financial advisors or retirement advisors can charge in the US: They can charge commissions based on transactions. For example, when you buy or sell a stock or a bond. The typical fees to a full service firm ,e.g. Merrill Lynch, where you value their research and recommendations, maybe 2% for a transaction. So if you [...]
Categories: commissions, financial advisor fees Tags: financial advisor fees
Six Tax Breaks for Seniors
Here are six tax breaks that apply to seniors or affect seniors because of their retirement status or age. Immediate Annuities – an income source for those 60+ Immediate annuities pay a regular income and because the payments are based on age, it only makes sense for people age 60+ to use these vehicles (the higher the age when you invest, [...]
Categories: reducing taxes Tags: tax breaks for seniors
