Author Archives: Megan Russell

There are strategies to achieve a better inner calm.

We can receive documents to our secure ShareFile client portal.

“And the now-20-year-old beneficiary who lost her father less than a year ago is supposed to navigate this mess on her own? No chance. This is madness.”

Congress decided to inflation-adjust both the existing and the new split-entity qualified charitable distribution limitations.

We avoid investments we deem too risky or laden with fees and seek instead a well balanced, low-cost, diversified portfolio.

It is helpful to know that a charitable remainder trust exists, but most charitable intentions benefit more from a donor advised fund.

The Schwab Bank representative said that he was familiar with these types of scams and knew how to handle it.

Fearful of monetary or societal failure, many hope that owning gold will bring them peace of mind. This articles reminds us to get peace of mind a different way.

The reason can be explained through a simple analogy about an interior decorator.

I am pleased to announce that our newest CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) professional at Marotta Wealth Management is me!

Once you’ve open an HSA and have started making contributions, it is important that you set beneficiary designations on the account.

Here are three common Roth transactions and how they interact with MAGI for Roth IRA purposes.

Waiting just one year means that you lose a portion of the growth in your traditional IRA to income taxes later.

These strategies are strong in both good times and bad.

If China booms, it may be a mistake that we reduced the allocation. If China undergoes investment controls, it may be a mistake that we kept China at all.

This article is a curated list of recent news about Taiwan.

If the form is accepted, the Social Security Administration will generally not only change your current IRMAA, but they will also use your Projected MAGI for the next several years. Here’s why.

Here are some of the pros and cons of specific SEP IRA and individual 401(k) retirement account options available.

This article gives you the formula to decide how much to offer or if the property is a good deal.

This notice did not offer the final guidance we were hoping for, but rather continued to push the decision further down the road.

This quarter, we saw that in 1-year returns ending June 30, 2023, Developed Freedom Investing had a -3.68% disadvantage, Emerging Market Freedom Investing had a +3.67% advantage, and Overall Freedom Investing had a -0.57% disadvantage.

Gifting depreciated stock is more complex and never to anyone’s advantage.

When a 529 plan is set up, there are two important people associated with the account. The first is the account owner. The second is the beneficiary. Both can be changed.

Each governing body in Virginia has their own rules and eligibility requirements.

Knowing the difference between these categories helps you to use them appropriately.

We’ll have to wait and see what they really mean by these lofty goals.

Contributing to a Roth IRA, even though you know you will withdraw it before retirement, is a sound financial strategy.

A wishlist is a force of thrift both for you to defer your consumption and for your family and friends to ensure that all the value of their gift makes it to your heart.

Websites such as investor.com are useful, but not as useful as you might hope.

There is an illusion that the executive branch will handle the collection of all our data with respect and care. I hope that current times can shatter that illusion for you.

These grants are called “K-12 Learning Acceleration Grants” and must be used to pay for “qualifying education services.”

I have difficultly imagining a likely outcome where I would regret a Roth conversion.

If you made a Roth contribution this year, here is a reminder to update your contribution basis records.

While there can be a lot of uncertainty, the conclusion is normally anticlimactic.

This is only a good idea if your financial advisor is covered under the fiduciary duty and is fee-only.

By discounting portfolio returns to only real returns, we have already considered inflation in the planning targets.

This quarter, we saw that in 1-year returns ending April 30, 2023, Developed Freedom Investing had a -2.99% disadvantage, Emerging Market Freedom Investing had a +1.85% advantage, and Overall Freedom Investing had a -0.4% disadvantage.

Last year, thirteen countries made our cut-off. This year, eleven do.

We recommend waiting for the final guidance but being prepared for some sort of required distribution this year.

If you are expecting high inflation, it may be stocks which offer the greatest security against the diminishing dollar.

The incongruity between feeling like we are in a bear market for 61.66% of trading days and actually being in a bear market for only 24.81% of those days unfortunately makes bear markets feel longer than they really are.

This amendment applies to 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, SIMPLE IRAs, and governmental 457(b) plans.

While our 2022 update saw a number of changes, this year we only have one change.

This past year, our 2022 Gone-Fishing Portfolio beat its benchmarks.

Form ADJ of the 760 lines 8a – 8c are where you report miscellaneous deductions.

Why create tax rules which expire so soon after they are made? The answers are as frustrating as the uncertainty the sunsets create.

How do our current tax brackets compare to historical ones? Are our taxes higher than the past? When was the most expensive time period for the U.S. income tax?

Malcolm Gladwell establishes two opposing types of problems: a strong-link problem and a weak-link problem. Which type of problem can charitable giving solve?

This is a summary of the six steps required to create a well-crafted investment plan.

This amendment raises the ABLE account age to 46 starting in 2026.