Planning & Risk
Fraud and how retirees are targeted
The specific patterns are well documented, and knowing the script is most of the protection.
Howard Mbeya
25 articles by Mbeya
Taxes in Retirement
Keeping records that someone else can follow
Documentation is needed decades after the event, by people who were not there when it happened.
Accounts & Vehicles
Simplifying a portfolio you already have
Most portfolios accumulate holdings rather than being designed, and reducing the number is generally an improvement.
Planning & Risk
The first year of retirement
A transition that people prepare for financially and rarely otherwise, with a recognisable pattern.
Taxes in Retirement
Deductions retirees frequently miss
A handful of provisions that apply specifically to older taxpayers and are routinely left unclaimed.
Withdrawal Strategy
Concentrated positions and what to do about them
A large holding in one company is the most common serious portfolio problem, and unwinding it has a tax cost that makes people freeze.
Planning & Risk
What to do in the year before retiring
A checklist of things that are considerably easier to arrange while still employed.
Taxes in Retirement
Gifts to family and how they are treated
Helping adult children and grandchildren has tax rules that are simpler than most people assume and consequences that are not.
Social Security
Applying for Social Security
The administrative process, the documents required, the timing that avoids delays, and the Medicare coordination that catches people out.
Accounts & Vehicles
Catch-up contributions and the last decade of saving
The years between fifty and retirement offer higher limits and, for many people, the highest capacity to use them.
Healthcare Costs
Planning for care at home
Most people who need long-term care receive it at home, and the arrangements are frequently improvised rather than planned.
Taxes in Retirement
Capital gains planning in retirement
Preferential rates and a zero per cent bracket create opportunities that disappear once other income rises.
Withdrawal Strategy
Home equity as a retirement resource
For many households the house is the largest asset, and the options for accessing it all involve real trade-offs.
Accounts & Vehicles
Target date funds, examined
The default investment in most workplace plans, and a reasonable one, with differences between products that matter.
Healthcare Costs
Dental, vision and hearing in retirement
Three substantial cost categories that original Medicare largely does not cover, and that people encounter unprepared.
Social Security
What happens if the trust fund runs short
A widely misunderstood projection, and what it does and does not imply for planning.
Withdrawal Strategy
The bucket approach and what it does
A popular framework whose main benefit is behavioural rather than mathematical, which is not a criticism.
Planning & Risk
Inflation and what it does over thirty years
The risk most likely to be underestimated, because its effects are invisible year to year and enormous in aggregate.
Taxes in Retirement
Charitable giving with tax efficiency
For retirees who give, several mechanisms deliver more to the charity and less to the tax authority than writing a cheque.
Social Security
Spousal and survivor benefits
The provisions that most affect married couples, and the ones most often planned for badly.
Accounts & Vehicles
Health savings accounts as a retirement vehicle
The only account with three layers of tax advantage, and most holders use it as a spending account instead.
Healthcare Costs
Medicare, and what it does not cover
The structure is more complicated than most people expect, and the gaps are where the planning is needed.
Social Security
How your benefit is calculated
The formula is public, it is progressive, and understanding it explains several things that otherwise seem arbitrary.
Withdrawal Strategy
The four per cent rule and what it was actually claiming
The most cited number in retirement planning came from a specific study with specific assumptions, most of which get dropped in the retelling.
Planning & Risk
The number people ask for, and why nobody can give it
How much you need to retire depends on variables that cannot be known in advance, which is why the confident answers are all wrong.