Financial Planning

If you’re like most parents, you have a laundry list of things you want to teach your child so they grow up to be a successful adult who contributes to society. From a young age, you model and instruct them in how to share, what respect looks like, how to handle responsibility, and how to prioritize. As a society, we are excelling in some areas of parenting, but falling behind in others. In a recent National Financial Capabilities Study, only 24% of Millennials (age 23-35) were able to answer the first three financial literacy questions correctly, and a mere 8% answered them all correctly.

I think most of us would agree that life insurance is an important financial product to have in our arsenal. But in 2017, more than 4 in 10 people didn’t own a life insurance policy in any amount and 40% of those who did said they were under-insured.1 Why is there such a disparity? What are some of the obstacles people face when making their life insurance decisions?

Any time a tax change occurs, it affects more than just your net pay. In the case of the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump’s tax reform bill, we know that it lowers tax rates for individuals and corporations, increases the child tax credit, doubles the standard deduction, and caps or eliminates several deductions. But what does it mean for your estate plan?

As 2023 draws to a close, it is time to check that you have taken advantage of these simple tips to reduce your tax bill. It is best to keep these strategies in mind throughout the year, but there is still time to take advantage of them before year-end.  

On October 14th, Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill to raise the gasoline tax 23 cents a gallon in an effort to restore New Jersey’s depleted Transportation Trust Fund.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. - John Dewey Education is perhaps the greatest gift one generation can give to another. Aside from the education itself there are additional benefits provided when a grandparent helps fund a grandchild’s education. It is a way to relieve the parents of some of the stress of paying for a child’s education and for the older generation to instill the value of education on the younger generation.

Tax-wise, 2010 was a great year to die (just ask George Steinbrenner’s family). At the time, Congress repealed the so-called “death tax” which today carries a top tax rate of 40% on estates over $5.45 million (indexed annually for inflation). Keep in mind however that this exclusion applies only to federal taxes which are often supplemented by estate taxes levied on the state level as well. Today, two of the most taxing states in the country to die in are New Jersey and New York.

But what’s not so plain and simple are the retirement plan options available to business owners and the rules that govern them. That world is filled with terms like nondiscrimination testing, interest crediting rate, non-elective contribution, and so on. Beneath all of that however lies a foundation that allows for some extremely powerful planning opportunities.