Start your Roth Clock: The Roth Five Year Rule Has Two Tests, Not One
Let me start with the mistake I see most often. It does not catch careless people. It catches people who did their homework. They read about the Roth five year rule. They understood it. They counted their years and some were still wrong, because there is a second test that most explanations skip entirely. Here […]
The Joint Account You Did Not Open
There is a line I use across the table that usually stops the conversation for a second. I did not come up with it. I learned it from Ed Slott and his team, and it is in my book because it does more work in ten words than I could do in a page. IRAs […]
Selling Your Scottsdale Business? Why the Tax Conversation Should Happen First
There is a number most people know by heart. It is the balance on the retirement account statement, the one that arrives quarterly and gets checked more often than that. There is a second number that far fewer people have ever calculated. It is the portion of that balance that may actually be available to […]
Traditional vs. Roth: What Your Heirs Actually Inherit
The question most pre-retirees ask about Roth conversions is whether they will come out ahead. It is a fair question and it has a real answer, though the answer depends on assumptions about future tax rates that nobody can make with confidence. There is a second question that often matters more, particularly for households that […]