January 17th, 2012 — Miscellaneous
IRAs appear to be uncomplicated retirement planning tools. However they are chock full of difficulties that can cause the account owner to lose benefits and pay a needless IRA penalties. There are yet other instances when you pay a penalty in the form of an additional IRA tax.
The first dilemma has to do with boundaries on contributions. Should you lead over authorized or perhaps deduct over permitted offered your level of profits, you possess an unwanted factor dilemma that needs to be repaired or perhaps confront fees and penalties. Ask a cpa, financial advisor or perhaps appear online for the boundaries every year.
Once the money is from the account, you could have restrictions on what items are permitted intended for purchase. One example is you can’t acquire artwork or perhaps collectors items or perhaps do pieces of self-dealing along with your IRA. Possibly specified sec for instance master confined partners who have unrelated enterprise taxed profits can produce trouble for ones IRA. If you merely create permitted purchases, normally futures, bonds, common money, ETF’s, and annuities * you actually want to create probably the most with the tax housing part of ones IRA. So it is silly to put in ones IRA items which could as a rule have the lowest tax price beyond ones IRA for instance futures held for over a year, increases in size which usually are subject to taxes solely with 15%. The most effective purchases intended for IRAs are the type which have been typically subject to taxes with full common profits premiums.
Next, we have the limitation on IRA distribution. While there are numerous exceptions, withdrawals prior to age 59 1/2 are subject to a 10% IRA penalty. Knowing the exceptions can often help you avoid the penalty.
Next, it’s possible to run afoul of the IRA minimum distributions rules which require that you start withdrawing money from your IRA after you reach age 70 1/2. Failure to make these withdrawals has a very heavy extra 50% IRA tax. You must then stick to a mandated IRA distribution schedule every year thereafter.
Further, you have restrictions on moving your IRA from one institution to another or from one account type to another. For example, should you withdraw your IRA money from one bank to move to another bank, you must do that within 60 days (60 day rule) or pay tax on the amount moved. Similarly, should you leave the employment of a company and receive your 401(k) account, the company must withhold 20% of the balance from your check. Therefore, when doing a rollover or setting up a rollover IRA from another account, it’s best to do so as a direct trustee to trustee transfer which avoids all withholding or time limitations.
All of these issues are covered in one document – IRS publication 590. It’s well worth a one-time read.
January 16th, 2012 — Insurance
You may want to believe insurers are hot competitors and never talk to each other. Except you would be wrong. There’s a steady flow of information into two central databases. The bigger and more important is called CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) with the smaller competitor called A-PLUS (the Automated Property Loss Underwriting System run by Insurance Services Office Inc) which collect a broad range of information about you and how you relate to insurance companies. This is not just details of the claims you make. A range of factors are combined to produce an insurance score. This parallels the work done to create a credit score, and both scores are used by insurers to create a risk profile for you and set insurance rates. So, for example, both organizations record when you ask for clarification of your cover even though this does not result in a claim. It even records whether you are late in paying any of the premium installments. There’s also a positive effort made to collect public information about you, e.g. whether you are involved in litigation, have judgments against you, are subject to foreclosure orders, and so on. If any of this information is incorrect, it could mean you are only offered cover at high rates or you are refused cover. Because of this, many states have passed laws to give you basic rights. You will usually find your local rights set out on the site run by your state’s Insurance Commissioner.
The CLUE reports are sold by LexisNexis and provide information about all claims relating to your home or your vehicle. The key problem is that, if the score is very low, it could cause your home address to be blacklisted. While this might be an accurate assessment of your risk profile, it would do a significant injustice to anyone later buying your home. As an aside, all the information is stored for not less than five years so insurers use your history of claims to assess the risk you will file another. Continue reading →
January 12th, 2012 — home insurance
It’s a curious fact that the federal government does very little to monitor the amount of crime. You would imagine the Department of Justice would be interested to follow the statistics of wrongdoing so that resources could be targeted where most needed. Instead, we have judicial statistics that record the number of cases coming before the courts – the tip of the iceberg with so little crime actually detected. The police admit to solving less than 10% of the burglaries reported to them. Yet the statistics show the number of burglaries has been falling. This surprising fact is explained in two ways. First, most people have the basic contents of a home so burglars struggle to find buyers for the goods they steal. Second, more than a quarter of our homes are now fitted with an alarm system, iron bars on the windows, and stronger doors. This makes it more difficult for the burglar to break in. Obviously, a determined thief will always get in but, if it looks too much hassle, most move on in search of a home where the owner has helpfully left a door or window open.
So let’s start with the good news. Most insurers offer a discount for people who fit security measures to reduce the risk of a burglary. Check with your current insurer to see what gives the biggest savings. Now come back to your home with a little more confidence. You may still find the worst has happened, but you have done your best to prevent it. Now the practicalities: did you have enough cover? Whether you are a renter or an owner, it’s worth paying the full rate to cover the replacement value of all your possessions. Walk through the rooms and make a list. It’s too easy just to think of the more expensive items like the television, your computer(s), cameras and music equipment. You will be surprised how quickly the value of the contents rises when you actually list all you have.
In fact, there should be two lists. One should be the everyday possessions, the other the expensive items. This can be jewelry, artwork and other collectibles. Take photographs of all the expensive items. For all the larger electronic and domestic goods, make a note of the serial numbers. Insurance companies are always more comfortable if you have proof of purchase – yes, it’s a good idea to keep receipts and instruction manuals should a claims adjuster ask for them. Receipts are also useful to show the original value. If you have no receipts, look for evidence of payments on credit card and bank statements. Even PayPal may show payment when you bought online. Continue reading →