Why hire a CFA to manage your wealth?

There is a difference:

https://www.cfainstitute.org/learning/investor/Documents/why_hire_a_cfa_charterholder.pdf

Retirement Minute – max Social Security in 2017

What’s wrong with a rule that advisors have to act in their clients best interest?

I’m not a fan of the government over regulation, but asking financial advisors to act in their clients best interest seems like a no brainer.  Why are the big guys asking Trump to repeal this rule?

Rise Up!

NFC Champs!  Nice to have our home team going to the Super Bowl.

What is a Fiduciary?

Last minute tax deductions for 2016

You’ve got 2 weeks remaining in 2016, here is a quick checklist of ways to reduce your taxes:

• max out your 401k ($18,000 + $6000 if over age 50)
• max our your HSA if you have a High Deductible Health Plan ($6750 for families / $3350 for singles)
• do you have any investment losses in a taxable account?  Sell now and deduct up to $3000

And don’t forget about Itemized Deductions on your Schedule A form, plan ahead and get more deductions:

• Medical/Dental Expenses:  keep track of your out of pocket expenses.  If over 10% of Adj Gross Income you can deduct.
• Long Term Care premiums can be included in this
• State Tax or Sales Tax (you choose which one to deduct)
• Personal Property Tax
• Real Estate Tax
• Mortgage Interest
• Mortgage Insurance (PMI – deductible for some income levels)
• Mortgage Points/Loan Orig fees (basically prepaid mortgage interest can be deductible)
• CHARITABLE – big one you can do in the next two weeks
• Cash donations to qualified charities are deductible (keep records and written verification from charity)
• Non Cash Donations (donating household items to your favorite charity thrift store or qualified charitable institution)
• < $250 just need to record name of organization and description/value of property
• $250 to $500 need above + receipt from organization
• $500 to $5000 have to list more details with tax return including form 8283, still very easy
• >$5000 you will need to have an appraisal of the property.
• Misc Itemized Deductions (may or may not be subject to 2% AGI threshold) :
• Investment expenses and fees + some legal expenses
• unreimbursed employee expenses
• Job search expenses
• Job related education
• work uniforms (some restrictions here)

normally don’t trash competitors but……..

I think this says enough about the financial services industry:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/merrill-lynch-brokers-must-refer-2-customers-or-face-pay-cut-2016-12-07?mod=mw_share_twitter

Retirement Minute Episode 15: Social Security & Medicare 2017 increases

Medicare increases for 2017

Forbes has a good summary on the medicare premium increases for 2017:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2016/11/14/medicare-part-b-premiums-will-top-10000-a-year-for-high-income-senior-couples-in-2017/#4011937940b3

How to see everything Google knows about you

An interesting post from Clark Howard’s website on Google’s My Activity page:  http://www.clark.com/google-my-activity-data-dashboard-delete?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5821747304d3014e53b2b514&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter