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Get smart with your money

Estate Planning

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

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download (1)Today’s top story: Are you behind the financial times? Also in the news: How to better organize your bills, talking with your family about inheritance, and learning the five parts of your credit score.

6 Signs You’re Behind the Financial Times
Still writing checks?

4 Ways to Better Organize Your Bills
And kiss late fees goodbye in the process.

On Inheritance, UBS Urges Families to Break the Silence
The importance of difficult conversations.

Everyone Should Know the 5 Parts of a Credit Score; Do You?
Let’s find out.

5 Ways to Make Peace With Money
What to do when money is your nemesis.

Q&A: When to start Social Security when you don’t need it

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Dear Liz: Most of the questions you answer about Social Security come from people who don’t have a lot of money saved. I agree with your advice that those people should delay starting benefits. That way their Social Security checks, which will be the bulk of their income in retirement, will be as large as possible. But what about those of us who won’t need the money? I will receive a good pension and thanks to real estate investments, my retirement income will exceed my current income should I retire at age 62. That means I will never have to touch my capital. I do not have any other debt and am fully insured.

My initial thought is that I should take Social Security as soon as I’m eligible and use it while I’m in good health for travel and other activities. A friend who is in a similar situation says to wait and enjoy the emotional safety that if the need arises, I can turn on the Social Security tap later and let some more money flow. If you don’t need the money now or later, but could have more fun earlier, should you take Social Security sooner?

Answer: The less you’ll need Social Security, the less it matters when you start it.

Starting benefits early locks you into lower payments for life and will result in significantly smaller lifetime benefits for most people. That’s in part because Social Security hasn’t adjusted its payment formulas even as life expectancies have expanded, so most people will live beyond the “break-even” point where delayed benefits exceed the amounts they could have received had they started earlier. Delaying benefits is particularly important for married people, since one partner is likely to outlive the other and will have to get by on a single check. Making sure that check is as large as possible will help make the surviving spouse’s final years more comfortable.

But all that assumes that you, like most people, would receive half or more of your retirement income from Social Security. If your Social Security is truly icing on the cake — you don’t need the money now, you (and your spouse) are unlikely to need it in the future, and you don’t care about maximizing your lifetime benefits — then start it whenever you want.

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailToday’s top story: Why your digital assets should be part of your estate planning. Also in the news: Three reasons to consolidate your 401(k) into an IRA, what the proposed AT&T/DirecTV deal means for you, and twelve things you should always try to negotiate.

Estate Planning 101: Don’t Forget About Your Digital Assets
Your social media accounts and iTunes purchases need to be protected.

Three Big Reasons to Consolidate Your 401(k) Into An IRA
Reducing fees is a big one.

What AT&T, DirecTV deal means for you
Our choices in entertainment providers are becoming increasingly slim.

12 Things You Should Always Negotiate On
Negotiating may be awkward, but it can save you money.

Should you have to pass a test to get a loan?
Would proving financial literacy reduce the number of defaults?

Q&A: Paying off home loan with a windfall

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Dear Liz: I’m 65 and my wife is 62. We recently sold a business for over $900,000 and will net somewhere between $550,000 and $600,000. Should we use the proceeds to pay off our mortgage? Our home is worth about $1.5 million with a mortgage of $390,000 at 3.586%. We contribute an extra $200 per month to reduce the principal. We have no other debt. Our savings, retirement and brokerage accounts total $1.2 million. My wife receives a pension of $483 a month and works part time as a substitute teacher. I plan to continue working until age 70 with a salary of about $170,000 per year. On retirement we should receive about $4,400 per month in Social Security benefits.

Answer: Many people feel more comfortable having their mortgages paid off by the time they reach retirement age — even when the interest rates on the loans are so low they’d almost certainly get better returns elsewhere. (The after-tax cost of your mortgage is likely less than the longtime inflation rate of about 3%.) Not having a mortgage payment can substantially reduce your monthly expenses, which means you have to take less from your retirement accounts. Such withdrawals often trigger taxes, so you essentially save twice.

Other people feel perfectly comfortable carrying a mortgage into retirement. They’re happy to take advantage of extraordinarily cheap interest rates and keep themselves more liquid by deploying their savings elsewhere. And many people have to carry debt because they can’t pay it off before they retire, or paying off the mortgage would eat up too much of their available funds.

Because you do have choices, discuss them with a fee-only financial planner. If you pay off the mortgage and invest what’s left, you could draw about $50,000 from your retirement funds the first year without a huge risk of running out of money. That plus your Social Security and your wife’s pension may give you enough to live on. If not, you may want to invest your windfall and continue paying the mortgage down over time.

Can life insurance be used as an estate planning tool?

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Dear Liz: I am 70 and my wife is 59. My pension covers us for both our lifetimes. We have no debt. My wife and I do not need the required minimum distributions I will soon have to start taking from my 457 deferred compensation plan, which is currently worth $1 million. I planned to invest these distributions in an index fund to leave to our son. My accountant recommends instead that I buy a joint whole life insurance policy for me and my wife because it will be tax free when our son inherits our estate years from now. Does it make sense to buy insurance as an estate planning tool?

Answer: Does your accountant sell insurance on the side, by any chance?

Because a tax pro should know that the money in that index fund would get a so-called step up in tax basis when you die and your son inherits the account. If he promptly sold the investments, he wouldn’t owe any taxes on the growth in the account (the capital gains) that happened while you were alive. Even if he hangs on to the investments for a while, he would owe capital gains tax only on the growth in value since your death. That’s a pretty awesome deal.

If you buy life insurance, by contrast, you’d have to weigh any tax benefit against the not-insubstantial amount you’d pay the insurer for coverage. At your ages, such a policy would be far from cheap.

Any time someone suggests that you buy life insurance when you don’t actually need life insurance, you would be smart to run the proposed policy past a fee-only advisor — one who doesn’t receive commissions or other incentives to sell insurance.

There’s an outside chance that your accountant recommended a permanent life insurance policy for estate tax purposes. These taxes will be an issue only if the combined estate of you and your wife is worth more than $10 million. If that’s the case, you should consult an estate planning attorney about your options.

Elderly parent wants to help unemployed sons

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Dear Liz: Both of our sons, ages 63 and 59, are currently unemployed. We are 93 and self-supporting with Social Security and my retirement benefits. We live in our own home and are able to handle all our expenses, even though my wife requires a companion for 12 hours each day.

I believe we should financially aid both sons, to the limit of our ability, but my wife disagrees.

They are the two main beneficiaries of our estate. Each one is scheduled to receive about $40,000 upon our deaths. How should we proceed?

Answer: If your estates won’t amount to much more than $80,000 at your deaths, it doesn’t sound as if you have the financial wiggle room to help your sons. Your wife already requires significant care and may need more in the future. Plus, she’s likely to outlive you, which would mean getting by on less (certainly a smaller Social Security benefit, and perhaps a smaller pension amount as well). Any money you give them, in other words, is likely to be to her detriment.