Category Archives: Regular Blog

Another Social Security tax trap!

At this time of year everyone is thinking about taxes!  But what most people don’t understand is, if or how Social Security retirement income is taxed. But once they get their first tax returns done during retirement they find out. But they are probably also unaware of the next tax-trap that will eventually come. I lost my Mom in 2013, but the IRS allows a couple to file jointly for that years tax return.  In 2014, since my Mom was no longer alive, my Dad … Continue reading

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1st Qtr – Stock Market Volatility

This market (and attached chart) is not exactly for the faint of heart. Although no major drops, it’s been just up and down… ending up just a hair above where 2015 started. The chart shows that in just the first 3 months of this year, we’ve had a roller coaster ride. The white line is the S&P 500 and the blue one marks the interim peaks and troughs drops and gains. Check out these 9 market moves within the year’s first 90 days: Down -2.73% Up +2.97% Down -3.37% Up +3.54% Down -3.30% Up … Continue reading

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the 3 Buckets of Taxation

I’m traveling to another retirement conference tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll learn some great new things to share with you in the weeks to come. But for now I wanted to show you my latest 1 minute retirement planning video about the 3 buckets of taxation. View the brief video here: https://youtu.be/pqJ9rTPn4H4 all the best… Mark  

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Social Security Planning with Minor Children

This is a subject that I wrote about in my Social Security Retirement Income Planning book, and it just came up again in a discussion with a potential client this week, so I thought I’d make a blog post that “steals” this chapter from it. If you know someone raising children (their own or otherwise) they should learn about this little-known Social Security filing strategy. This short chapter follows here: “I wasn’t going to include a section in the book … Continue reading

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Help Out Your Federal Worker Friends! A Huge Opportunity.‏

Are you a federal employee (or know someone that you care about that is)? If so, you should learn about this special program that’s about to end and/or share it with them. I know this information won’t affect most of you, but if it does it could dramatically cut your retirement taxes and that’s why I wanted to pass this along to everybody. And almost all of us know someone that works for Uncle Sam. Depending on one’s federal lifetime earnings, a person may be able … Continue reading

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