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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
This First Year Under The New Law Requires Planning
Published Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at: 7:00 AM EDT
The new federal tax code affects the return you'll file in Spring 2019.
The standard deduction, the amount you can subtract from your taxable income if you don't itemize, nearly doubles from $12,700 for joint-filers to $24,000, and from $6,350 for singles to $12,000. That's big.
Fewer than half of those who itemized their 2017 return are expected to itemize in 2018. If you have never used the standard deduction before, preparing your return will be much simpler. A joint-filer with more than $24,000 of itemized deductions will still want to itemize.
If you are still going to be itemizing in 2018, medical expense deductions will be more generous. For tax years 2017 and 2018, medical outlays in excess of 7.5% of adjusted gross income are deductible. However, Congress is considering extending the 7.5% threshold on medical expenses or making it permanent. Stay tuned.
The Alternative Minimum Tax - a despised set of parallel tax rules - will zap fewer Americans in 2018. The AMT started in 1982 as an effort to close loopholes, but it gradually affected more individuals and, in the 1990s, Congress stiffened the AMT rate. Under the AMT, the standard deduction and deductions for state and local income taxes are lost. The AMT exemption is much higher under the new law. Starting in 2019, the threshold income level subject to AMT rises to 10%.
This is an unusual period of adjusting to the new tax law and it requires professional care. Please contact us with your questions.
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