When a spouse, parent, sibling, or other loved one dies, administering their estate becomes the responsibility of a family member or professional. If you are not a professional, expect to be thrusted into details of the Internal Revenue Code after the death of a loved one.
Stock investors are assuming the debt ceiling problem would be resolved. Otherwise, stocks would have plunged this past week.
An investment’s risk is usually defined as its standard deviation. The financial press and investment marketers cannot be faulted for defining risk as standard deviation. Reducing the concept to a single statistic makes it easy to understand. However, standard deviation expresses only one aspect of investment risk. It totally misses the more important human component: how you will behave in reaction to your wealth disintegrating in a crisis like the 2008 global financial meltdown. That’s what really matters in managing wealth strategically.
With a recession more likely following the banking crisis in March, small business owners and those starting new businesses receive some relief from this new tax break that became effective in 2023.
Investments in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and other retirement accounts qualified under Federal law for tax advantages are the main source of funding retirement in America. The retirement financial system that the United States has built over many decades is a partnership between the U.S. government and private sector and it is unique to our free-enterprise capitalist system. Far from perfect, it’s complex but offers opportunities to build wealth and support a standard of living that is the envy of most of the rest of the world.