HCM Wealth Advisors Blog

Most of you have probably heard about the SECURE (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement) Act. It was signed into law before Christmas and went into effect the first of this year. It contains some valuable elements that will help those saving for retirement, but it also did damage to some of the strategies used in long-term family wealth planning. We’d like to talk about a change that could alter literally every financial plan in existence up to now and change the way plans are crafted in the future. If you think we’re being hyperbolic, well… we’re not alone. The Director of Retirement Research at Carson Wealth said “[t]his is nothing short of a disaster for trust planning…”. A Marketwatch article contains the quote “[the Secure Act] is a complete disaster from a planning perspective…”. So what’s so bad in this bill? Well, nothing less than the death of the Stretch IRA.

Everyone wants to live their best worry-free retirement, which should include spoiling your grandkids, enjoying your favorite restaurants and maybe even traveling the world. You certainly don’t want to be worrying about money. That is where the benefit of having a retirement income plan comes in. And that plan should provide reliable-growing income and long-term appreciation, regardless of what the markets are doing in the short run.

Our previous tax planning blog focused on short-term strategies such as tax bracket management and gain/loss harvesting. This week, we’re going to be looking at ways to manage your long-term tax planning with ideas for IRA distributions, Social Security, and the Medicare IRMAA.

Behavioral Biases can negatively impact your retirement. But just knowing about them can help you overcome them. Learn about the Overconfidence Bias, Familiarity Bias, and the Gambler's Fallacy in this blog.

Believe it or not, yesterday, October 15th (not April 15th), was the actual deadline for filing individual tax returns. We know there’s a temptation to put off thinking about taxes until next winter, but if you do, almost all your money-making opportunities will be lost. If you can find the time to work on tax planning, you just might realize some meaningful rewards. As always, we’ll help you every step of the way, so don’t worry if you’re not sure what to do.

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are just the type of tool we like because they are a tax savvy way to save for future medical bills, including age based long-term care premiums and nursing home expenses later in life. Even though they have been available since 2004, many people still don’t know what they are or fail to take full advantage of their tax benefits.