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At GreatRatesCorp, we can help assess your financial situation by helping you track income and expenses, establish an emergency fund, and determine your net worth along with provide guidance on estate, tax, retirement, education and investment planning. The following are some ways we add value in the financial planning session:
Paying for college has never been easy, particularly for families with competing financial goals. Since 1980, the cost of a college education has risen more than twice as fast as the Consumer Price Index. In the future, four years at a private college could cost more than you paid for your house and, next to retirement, may be the biggest expense you and your family are likely to face. We offer 529 plans from several mutual fund company that are state sponsored, thus, a very robust product. A 529 plan offer these features and more:
We offer numerous retirement plans for individuals, employees, businesses and those self employed to help save for those important years of life. The following are some of the plans that we offer:
We offer a variety of retirement options to meet your needs, including long-term care, IRA’s and nonqualified annuities. Individual Retirement IRA’s will help you maximize retirement savings without compromising safety.
Traditional IRA
Roth IRA
Rollover IRA
Keogh COMPANY Regardless of the size of your company, several mutual funds have a retirement plan solution that can be tailored to your business. Not only are there multiple business retirement plans available, but you will also be able to take advantage of a diverse selection of investment options.
401K A company sponsored retirement plan can benefit you by:
This plan provides increased financial security for employees upon retirement. Contributions by employer are tax-deductible.
Simplified Employee Pension
SIMPLE IRA
Whether your goal is a comfortable retirement, education, travel, a new home or simply to accumulate money for a rainy day, mutual funds can help you achieve your investment objectives. A mutual fund is simply an investment that allows people with similar financial goals to pool their resources with thousands of other investors. Professional money managers invest that money in dozens of securities that meet the objectives of the fund. A mutual fund is an investment account in which hundreds or thousands of investors pool their money. The account, or portfolio, is run by one or several professional money managers who choose which stocks or bonds to buy or sell and monitor the performance of the portfolio. Most fund portfolios hold between 20 and 500 individual stocks and bonds. This diversification helps to prevent dramatic losses because the fund’s success isn’t dependent on the fate of just one company. Keep in mind, however, that it is still possible to lose money when investing in a fund that holds a large number of individual securities. The fund may concentrate in a particular market sector or follow some other higher-risk strategy. Mutual funds offer many distinct advantages, including:
We offer a variety of mutual funds from the following fund families:
Variable annuities are among the fastest growing retirement investments. Despite their popularity, many people still don’t know much about them. It’s a contract issued by an insurance company that includes an option to turn your assets into an income you can’t outlive. Because taxes aren’t due on variable annuity earnings until they are withdrawn. Of course, when your earnings are withdrawn, they are taxed as ordinary income. Because variable annuities are designed to be retirement investments, there is typically a 10% federal tax penalty on earnings withdrawn before age 59-1/2. When you buy a variable annuity contract, your money is invested in funds — similar to mutual funds — that are managed by investment professionals. Returns on your investment fluctuate as the prices of the stocks and bonds in the funds rise and fall. That’s why the annuity is called “variable.”
Variable Universal Life Most people buy life insurance for the protection it offers. They want to know that if they die unexpectedly, their families won’t be put in dire financial straits. But some life insurance policies offer a broader array of benefits. In addition to providing life insurance, variable universal life allows you to save and invest money that you can later withdraw or borrow against*. As you pay premiums on a variable universal life insurance policy, part of your money accumulates a cash value. Instead of simply sitting around or earning a fixed amount of interest, you can opt to invest your policy’s cash in a variety of investment subaccounts. These subaccounts run the gamut from conservative to aggressive, giving you the chance to pursue competitive rates of return and potentially grow your money more quickly. However, the value of these subaccounts will fluctuate daily and may be worth more or less than their original value. The advantages of variable universal life:
Tax planning involves far more than scrambling in April to defer income and boost deductions. If you want to minimize what you pay in capital gains tax, reduce your year-end tax bill and give less of your estate to Uncle Sam, you should be aware of the short- and long-term tax consequences of all your financial moves. One tax-savvy strategy is to contribute regularly to tax-deferred savings plans, which let you defer your tax payments until you make withdrawals. The benefits are two-fold: The more you contribute to a 401(k) or deductible IRA, for instance, the more you reduce your taxable income for that year. Plus, the money you invest grows at a much faster rate since it's not dragged down by taxes. If you're looking to reduce your taxable estate, a quick way to do that is to make tax-free gifts up to $11,000 a year per person. When you're investing outside of retirement plans, you have a number of tax-smart options. There are tax-managed mutual funds, which seek to minimize the turnover in holdings and hence limit the number of taxable gains distributions to shareholders. There are also tax-free CDs, bonds and money market funds. But a tax-free CD or money market fund may not always save you more than their taxable cousins. Here's how to tell which is best for you: Compare your after-tax return on the taxable investment with the return on the tax-free investment. To figure out your after-tax return, you need to know your combined income tax bracket (federal + state), since that determines how much of your investment income you can keep. If you pay 27 percent in federal taxes and 6 percent in state taxes, your combined bracket is 33 percent, which means you keep 67 percent of the income the investment generates. So if a taxable investment guarantees a 7 percent return, you'll only pocket 67 percent of that, or about 4.7 percent. If a tax-exempt instrument offers less than that, you'll pocket more with the taxable option. Generally speaking, if you're in a top tax bracket, you will benefit more from tax-free investments since the yield on a taxable investment would have to be very high to match your return in a tax-exempt instrument.
Estate plan ensures that your family and financial goals are met after you die. They include: a will, a living will, assignment of power of attorney and medical power of attorney. For some people, a trust may also make sense. When putting together a plan, you must be mindful of both federal and state laws governing estates. Your assets include your investments, retirement savings, insurance policies, and real estate or business interests. Next, ask yourself three questions: Whom do you want to inherit your assets? Whom do you want handling your financial affairs if ever you're incapacitated? And whom do you want making medical decisions for you if you become unable to make them for yourself? A will tells the world exactly where you want your assets distributed when you die. It's also the best way to name guardians for your children. Dying without a will - also known as dying "intestate" -- can be costly to your heirs and leaves you no say over who gets your assets. Even if you have a trust, you still need a will to take care of any holdings outside of that trust when you die. Trusts are legal mechanisms that let you put conditions on how and when your assets will be distributed upon your death. They also allow you to reduce your estate and gift taxes and to distribute assets to your heirs without the cost, delay and publicity of probate court, which administers wills. Some also offer greater protection of your assets from creditors and lawsuits. Inheritance can be a loaded issue. By being clear about your intentions, you help dispel potential conflicts after you're gone. Meanwhile, the top estate tax rate is coming down. The estate tax is scheduled to phase out completely by 2010, but only for a year. Unless Congress passes new laws between now and then, the tax will be reinstated in 2011 and you will only be allowed to leave your heirs $1 million tax-free at that time. By leaving all your assets to your spouse, you don't use your estate tax exemption and instead increase your surviving spouse's taxable estate. That means your children are likely to pay more in estate taxes if your spouse leaves them the money when he or she dies. Plus, it defers the tough decisions about the distribution of your assets until your spouse's death. You may give up to $11,000 a year to an individual (or $22,000 if you're married and giving the gift with your spouse). And you may pay an unlimited amount of medical and education bills for someone if you pay the expenses directly to the institutions where they were incurred. If you donate to a charitable gift fund or community foundation, your investment grows tax-free and you can select the charities to which contributions are given both before and after you die.
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