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Slick TV ads often make financial planning and wealth management sound simple, but it’s usually not. Managing wealth requires knowing a lot about highly technical topics, like taxes, government regulations, and finance as well as history, psychology and how to communicate with loved ones about sensitive issues. This article highlights some of the knowledge needed to manage wealth and why it’s often so daunting without the help of an independent personal financial advisor who is familiar with your situation.
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Understanding The Federal Reserve Mandate To End Inflation
The Federal Reserve System, the nation’s central bank, has a dual mandate to pursue maximum employment and maintain price stability. These two priorities are currently treated equally, but that was not always the case. In fact, the Fed’s bias toward maximizing employment was a critical driver of the stagflation that plagued the U.S. in the late 1960s and 1970s. Recognizing the need to balance price stability and maximum employment, in 1977, Congress revised the Federal Reserve Act.
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Fed Governor Kugler Details Inflation And Economic Outlook
The 12-month inflation rate, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, was 2.6% in December, down from its peak of 7.1% in June 2022, and the six-month rate for PCE inflation was even lower, at 2%, which is the target rate set by the Federal Reserve.
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Why Rates May Not Be Cut Until June
The cost of a loan to buy a home, car, college education, and achieve the American Dream is staying the same for now. As expected, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank did not lower loan rates following the Fed’s Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, policy meeting.
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Practical Suggestions For Achieving Your 2024 Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions usually fail because they‘re often too hard to achieve. After six months, only 10% of people who make resolutions achieve them or remain committed to them, , according to a study by Dr. Mark Griffiths, a Chartered Psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Behavioral Addiction at the Nottingham Trent University. What can you do to make financial, medical, or other personal resolutions more likely to be achieved?
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A Sign Of Progress In Solving U.S. Economic Problems
The Federal Reserve appears to be pulling off a feat most experts did not believe it could: ending its aggressive inflation-fighting campaign of 11 interest rate hikes without tipping the U.S. economy into a recession.
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Fed Keeps Rates Unchanged; Expects Easing In 2024
To promote transparency and free markets, the Federal Reserve System began publishing the opinions of the 19 U.S. central bankers that decide interest rate policy.
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Have You Logged Into Your Social Security Account?
Have you logged in to your Social Security account? Creating an online account at SSA.gov is an important first step in understanding your retirement income situation. However, only about 60 million of the 160 million individuals in the U.S. labor force who have Social Security accounts have created a way to access the Social Security Administration’s website.
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The Great Fake Out Of 2023 Is Poised To Extend Into 2024
All year long, the economy and stock prices have fooled experts and consumers, outperforming expectations month after month.
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Test Your Financial Planning IQ
The five questions below are a challenge meant to allow you to assess your knowledge of investing, tax and financial planning. If you have been following our news stream, this quiz draws on familiar ground. The answers are below.
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Planning Briefs
What Business Owners Need To Know About The New Aid Package
Published Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at: 10:00 PM EST
Just before midnight on Monday, Congress passed a law enabling $920 billion in stimulus and relief to fight the economic devastation caused by the pandemic. The new legislation is imminently expected to be signed by President Trump and will be the fifth piece of major legislation enacted in response to the COVID pandemic.
It will fund expanded unemployment benefits, recovery rebates, school programs, transportation spending, COVID testing and vaccines, and relief for small businesses. Consistent with our firm’s focus, here’s a roundup of what small business owners need to know right now.
The bill is 5,593 pages in length, and the fine print of the small business aid provisions will be widely analyzed over the next week. New regulations and forms for submitting loan requests are not yet available from the Small Business Administration. Look for those details to be posted here in the days ahead.
The new aid package to small business totals $325 billion, with $284 billion of that amount earmarked for a second round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. In addition, another $20 billion was allocated for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL). Also, $15 billion is reserved for live venues, independent movie theaters and cultural institutions, according to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The aid is desperately needed. The vast majority (91%) of small businesses that qualified for PPP in the first round of forgivable PPP loans funded by the CARES Act have already spent their entire PPP loan, and more than half (53%) expect to need additional relief in 2021, according to last week’s survey of business owners by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).
If you previously received a PPP loan, you may apply for a second loan, according to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal, citing a senior staffer for Republicans on the House Small Business Committee. To qualify for a second round PPP loan, a business must have suffered a 25% reduction in gross receipts during a particular quarter in 2020, compared with that same quarter in 2019, according to The Journal. First-time PPP borrowers reportedly will be subject to the program’s original eligibility rules.
The new law will allow businesses to deduct expenses incurred during the PPP loan process, including payments to advisors. The IRS had previously indicated that businesses could not deduct expenses associated with securing a PPP or receiving ongoing advice regarding accounting for the loan , including the tax and other financial risks. The first round of the federal loan program to small businesses, administered by the Small Business Administration in the CARES Act effective March 27, 2020, was widely criticized as overly complex and favoring large businesses over mom-and-pop shops with 10 or fewer employees.
Perhaps the most controversial provision contained in the new aid package affecting small business owners allows a 100% deduction on the cost of business meals. An attempt to aid restaurants, it is often pejoratively referred to as the “three-martini lunch deduction.”
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