Where are our taxes going?

During the  Obama presidency the federal deficit has basically doubled.  We now have a federal deficit of over $17 Trillion that T not a B. You  can  not blame it on Iraq or Afganistan since those wars were well underway before he came into office and most of the  expense is in the billions of dollars of equipment  vehicles, building, arms, trucks, planes  etc that were bought, built and  transported to the battlefield most of which was already in country before Obama's election. You  can not blame it all on the  recession because if you believe Obama  the  recession is over and we are well into a recovery, or so he says. My reply to that claim is what recovery? So if its not the  wars and its not the  recession why have the federal deficits doubled since  Obama took office? Its not the costs of OBAMACARE since the true inflationary costs of that program cannot yet have begun to be seen since the program doesn't really begin until next year! There really is only one answer and that is out of control spending beyond the tax income the  government takes in!

So its our overspending without adequate tax revenue to offset the spending. Can we all basically agree on that? That brings us to the next question. If we are spending more than our revenue What impact will that have on future  tax rates? Do you believe that the Congress and the president are going to balance the deficit in the next 10 years or so? I don't. So what do you think will happen to  our tax rates over the next 10-25 years? The only logical answer is they  are going to  go up. If that is the  case than it is even more important that we begin to plan for how to manage the taxes we will have to pay!  Tax free or tax  controlled income planning and tax free retirement products are therefore almost  essential!  We can  help you with  that!

How Much Insurance do I need? Other great questions.

A client just asked me a number of questions about insurance.
Question 1)  How much insurance do I need?
This is a great question. There are a number of ways to address this question. Some people use a ballpark approach , some use a multiple of 10-20 times incomes but  there is a nice one page worksheet that can help you answer this question. Its called The D.I.M.E worksheet If you  want to  answer this critical question this worksheet will help you out. I can  help with that!

D.I.M.E.
D. represents  Death Benefit and Final Expenses
I. represents Income Replacement
M. represents Mortgage Payoff Amount
E. represents Education Expenses
The Sum of D.I.M.E. equals a reasonable estimate of your insurance need

Question 2) Since I have insurance at work why do I need more?
Almost 90% of work based insurance is Term Coverage. Workplace Term coverage has limitations.
If you retire, are disabled, quit or are terminated Worksite term is usually not portable. You leave you lose!! Your need for insurance doesn't stop just because you leave! I can provide Worksite Portable Life Insurance that you  can  keep. Ask me about how that  works! So when you leave your ability to buy a replacement policy depends on you  health and your age at that future date and time. If you  can tell me when that happens or what your health will be then you might be able to  say you  do not need other insurance. If you cannot answer those questions than  worksite insurance is not enough!! The typical 1.5 - 3 times salary is simply not enough! To get more you have to buy it and you should buy it from a professional who understands your real needs. You  can't get that  from a website! You  only  get that  from a professional who works with you  face to face.

Question 3) What is  the  right  type of insurance for me?
Another great  question. There are many types of insurance that fill specific needs. Only by sitting down with a professional who works with you  to  analyze all of your specific, assets, needs, debts, financial commitments is it possible to truly insure that your selected policy or policies truly meet your needs. I will tell you  this. Most people have a complicated set of needs and in most cases one policy my not completely cover all of those needs. that's why insurance companies have created 6 or 7 different types of policies. How many do you need?
If you have a question that you would like to  see answered please send me a question or get in touch  for a one on  one discussion!

What About Required Minimum Distributions (RMD's)? Any Alternatives?

Many people have assets in their retirement plans that they do not need to use for their retirement. They want to leave those dollars for a family legacy or a favorite charity. Unfortunately most Qualified plans include a requirement that the owner begin taking Required Minimum distributions begin when the reach age 70.5. The penalties for not taking the RMD are very severe and are designed to be Punitive in Nature. There are only a couple of ways to  avoid these withdrawals or the Punative taxes. First  you avoid that if your funds are within a ROTH IRA or A ROTH 401K account. But there is a way to  avoid taking the withdrawal and avoids the taxable nature of the  distribution. With Your Tax professional I can help you accomplish this. It involves a charitable contribution using some of your assets but does not increase your income or your income tax.

Lets assume that your retirement plan is large enough so you need to  take a $20,000 withdrawal this year. If you  don't take the withdrawal you tax penalty is $10 K. If you do take the Withdrawal your tax bill would be increased by $5 K assuming a 25% tax rate. That  would leave you  with $15 K after tax. By taking the  withdrawal you might also find that you have been pushed into a higher tax bracket!! You may also  find yourself caught with the new increases in taxes due to OBAMACARE. This may make it go from bad to  worse. So in taking a distribution you  did not want or need you will end up with maybe less than $10-15K.  Lets say you have a favorite charity. If you gave them money here is an alternative  scenario. The  charity  gets $20 K which is guaranteed to  turn into no less than $21 K by the end of year one. You  get no tax increase, you get no tax penalty, you are entitled to a tax deduction for your donation and you don't increase your income reducing your tax liability and not increasing the income subject to Medicare tax, or OBAMACARE Taxes.  This is just one of a number of possible financial scenarios that you, your tax preparer  and I can establish. This sounds like a WIN-WIN scenario!
If this is interesting to you lets talk.

What is going on with OBAMACARE?

 Here are some interesting figures on OBAMACARE  week 1
 Visitors to Healthcare.gov website                              9.47 Million
Number of visitors to the Individual Marketplace        5.68 Million
Number who attempted to Register                               3.72 Million
Number Who registered to set up account                     1.01 Million
Number of people who managed to Log in                       271 K
Number Who began enrollment                                        196  K
Number who completed Enrollment                                   36  K 
Lets see  about 1% of those  who attempted to register actually we able to enroll

Like  every BIG GOVERNMENT  program the screw up and cost overruns are the  Largest parts of the program cost.
In some ways progress is being made  there are now somewhat close to 500K enrolled.
My question is how many of them had insurance through their companies before OBAMACARE became the law of the land?
Another key question is how many of the 9.47 million visitors have  had their hours cut from full time to part time because of OBAMACARE?
How many of  the new jobs created in  the past year are really the result of Full time jobs with benefits being turned into 2 part time jobs without benefits?
Unfortunately no one is talking about these numbers!

Are you prepared for retirement Poll

Today I'd like to  stare a retirement poll.  Everyone is welcome to participate either through a comment here on the blog
or with a telephone vote #614-264-3864 
or an email financial-services@live.com
I will compile the comments and votes and share them in a blog post

When It Comes To Being Ready For Retirement I feel that I am...
A) Right on Track
B)  I was right on track until 2008-2009
C) May fall short on my income needs
D) Have no idea where to start or who to turn to

Knowing where you are going to  finish at the end of the race requires knowing where you are at the start of the race. Today is the Start of your Retirement Race.  Some of you still have an ultra marathon left, some have a regular marathon left, some have a 5K  race and some of you  only have a 100 meter dash left. Wherever you are in the race today everyone can  use some help or at least a review.

If you were to  retire today how much lifetime income would you  be able to guarantee?

A very interesting study about the american majority.

A study  reported on Meet The Press indicated that the Majority of American voters DO NOT favor or support the Radical Democrats or The Radical Republicans. Even if you add both parties RABID Followers  and mix them together you do not have a Simple Majority!! The Majority are in the middle!!! Its time to  clean house.
The elected officials of both parties seem to be unwilling to work for the electorate that put them in office and therefore they all need to be replaced. If the voters want to  see financial responsibility in our government  we have to vote out incompetence. Unless and until that is done the economy will continue to be weak and the financial markets will be subject to a bursting bubble! Our weak and fragile recovery and I use the term Recovery  loosely is subject to  cancellation on a moments notice.
Write  to  your democratic and  republican elected officials and thell them to  get to  work or prepare to  be FIRED!!!

OBAMACARE Still a mess!

OBAMACARE.  Still a dysfunctional disaster!
The government  cant keep their websites up and operating. Enrollment partially due too the high downtime of the sites is still very low. The administrate failed to properly prepare for the launch!

they should have tested the site before a national rollout! Oh yes but doing that would require a thoroughly thoughtout plan. Something the government is not very good at.
OBAMACARE is not much beyond a premium discount plan. It does virtually nothing to  address
the dozens of factors producing the high cost of healthcare in the US. There is no negotiation on the proce of healthcare services themselves. The Goverrnment including the White House Staff, the House and Senate and all the federal agencies should be included in OBAMACARE. If they were all included and bound by the good and the bad of OBAMACARE maybe just maybe the elected officials who passed the bill might have actually read the bill!!!!!

I am not saying OBAMACARE is all bad. It is not all bad. But the Design has been flawed since its very inception and to claim otherwise is nothing but Administration lies! If  you  want some unbiased input look at factcheck.org a nonpartisan organization. Both parties lie when they  talk about OBAMACARE.

Current financial SAFE MONEY opportunities

Here are some current opportunities  and  ideal candidates

1)   pay $119,332 now collect $242,138 in 15 years for a 5% effective yield 
    perfect for  someone trying to fund a child or a grandchild's education

2) pay $113,200 now and collect $250,000 split into 4 payments over 23 yr period for effective 5% yield   funding a trust or for some part of a retirement, perfect for a ROTH

3) pay $76,542 now  and collect $151,330 with many payments over 27 years for a 5.4% yield
   retirement or trust funding

4) pay $3,532 now and collect $62,000  in 43 years for a 7% return
   tax free if you use ROTH Funding for  grandchild or trust

5) pay $112,800 now and collect  $266,750 in payments between 2025-2033
   ROTH or 401K plan for someone retiring in about 13-15 years

6) pay $46,000 -70,000 now and collect 8 years of equal monthly payments for a 6% yield
   current retiree, or current worker looking  for a reasonable but guaranteed rate of return.

7) FDIC Insured variable rate CD. Guaranteed rate of 1% with upside potential of up to 7%              annual return on a 7 year CD. Minium purchase price  $30,000

These are just some of the interesting opportunities that are available. Pleas contact for more information or to determine if they are suitable for your situation.  These are all Safe Money
financial products with no Market Risk of loss of principal. All of these are subject to availability  limited time opportunities

Just Completed OBAMACARE Navigator training

I just  wanted  to announce the completion of the 5 modules of federally mandated training for OBAMCARE, The Affordable Care ACT, (ACA).
We only had a couple of  problems with the training program. The Federal government  lost the records for the completion of module one and the successful passing of the  test required for module 2. It took about 3 weeks to  get the  database records corrected to  reflect my having passed the  tests. I had to seend them copies of the certificates of completion three different times before we got it fixed.
 Then for the past 5 days the  training website was down and out of service. If this is any indication of what to  expect going forward all I can  say is WATCH OUT!!!!!! Oh and  also  the internet security  certificates are screwed up on the  Training website.  This mess  really inspires confidence!