Kevin Kroskey's Money & Mind

On February 13, President Obama's Fiscal Year 2013 budget was released. Follow this link to get a full copy of the   2013 Budget . The   Treasury's Green Book   containing general explanations of the Administration's revenue proposals can be found here. Robert Keebler, a leading professional in the area of tax and estate planning, highlighted some of the key proposals potentially affecting taxpayers below: Extend Bush tax cuts for all but the top two brackets. The only change would be to have the 33% and 35% rates go back to their pre-2001 levels of 36% and 39.6%. Taxpayers in the top two marginal brackets would still benefit from reduced rates on the portion of their income taxed in the lower brackets. Raise the long-term capital gains rate to 20% for single taxpayers making more than $200,000 per year, $250,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly and $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separately. Tax rate on qualified dividends would revert to ordinary income t...

The IRS has made cost-of-living adjustments to IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans for 2012, so here is what you need to know about the newly altered contribution limits and phase-outs for these plans. 401(k) & IRA yearly contribution limits. In 2012, these are the annual contribution limits for some popular retirement savings vehicles. ·          401(k)s, 403(b)s, most 457 plans, Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) - $17,000 with an additional $5,500 catch-up contribution allowed for those 50 or older. (2012 COLA: $500.) ·          Traditional & Roth IRAs - $5,000 with an additional $1,000 catch-up contribution allowed for those 50 or older. (No 2012 COLA.) ·          Simple IRAs - $11,500 with an additional $2,500 catch-up contribution allowed for those 50 or older. (No 2012 COLA.) ·          SEP IRAs - $50,000 ...

What do you do when an account owner passes away? If your loved ones have invested, saved or insured themselves to any degree, you may be named as a beneficiary to one or more of their accounts, policies or assets in the event of their deaths. While we all hope “that day” never comes, we do need to know what to do financially if and when it does. Legally, just who is a “beneficiary”? IRAs, annuities, life insurance policies and qualified retirement plans such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s are set up so that the accounts, policies or assets are payable or transferable on the death of the owner to a beneficiary, usually an individual named on a contractual document that is filled out when the account or policy is first created. In addition to the primary beneficiary, the account or policy owner is asked to name a contingent (secondary) beneficiary. The contingent beneficiary will receive the asset if the primary beneficiary is deceased. Some retirement accounts and policies may have mul...

Walter Updegrave, in addition to being an award-winning journalist, speaker, author and senior editor of MONEY is a professional who truly understands the world of retail investing and communicates his thoughts in a manner meaningful to his readers. As an example, below is an excerpt from a recent   CNN Money release   based on a readers question “Should I hire a financial adviser to manage my retirement portfolio, and can I afford to?” “The answer depends largely on how comfortable you are going it alone -- and how good a job you think you could do overseeing your finances without help from a pro. Let's start with one key aspect of retirement planning: investing. As long as you're familiar with the concept of asset allocation and you're comfortable picking funds, you shouldn't have trouble building a diversified portfolio on your own. And you can get plenty of assistance short of hiring an adviser: These days most 401(k) plans provide tools to help you assess your in...

The excerpt below is from a keynote address gave in 2000 by "Uncle Milt" (or Milton Friedman as he's more commonly known). With all that is going on in Europe currently, it's not likely the question of whether the Euro is long-term sustainable will go away. --- "The euro is one of the few really new things we’ve had in the world in recent years. Never in history, to my knowledge, has there been a similar case in which you have a single central bank controlling politically independent countries. The gold standard was one in which individual countries adhered to a particular commodity—gold—and they were always free to break or to leave it, or to change the rate. Under the euro, that possibility is not there. For a country to break, it really has to break. It has to introduce a brand new currency of its own. I think the euro is in its honeymoon phase. I hope it succeeds, but I have very low expectations for it. I think that differences are going to accumula...

Predicting interest rate movements correctly is hard. Predicting them for a living is harder still. But getting it wrong is nowhere near as painful as the experience of those who lose their own money based on someone's forecast. A year ago, the Reuters news agency polled a group of people closer than just about any other community to those who actually decide rate movements. These were 16 money market dealers who do business directly with the US Federal Reserve. 1   The so-called primary dealers — banks or broker-dealers — are market makers for government securities. They consult directly with the US central bank and Treasury about funding the budget deficit and implementing monetary policy. So if you wanted an informed view about the interest rate outlook, these might be the people you would call on first, which is what Reuters did when it asked the dealers for their forecasts for Treasury bond yields three, six and 12 months ahead. Back in late September 2010, the dealers came ...

Will Congress pass it? What difference could it potentially make? On September 8, President Obama announced a new plan to improve the economy – the $447 billion American Jobs Act, a sequel of sorts to his past economic stimulus proposals. His announced goal: job creation without new taxation. What’s in this bill? The AJA would try to boost the economy through seven different tactics – extensions and expansions of tax breaks, and infusions of federal dollars. The current payroll tax holiday would be extended through the end of 2012. The payroll tax would fall to 3.1% - not only for workers, but also for businesses with payrolls of $5 million or less. Companies could get a tax credit as large as $4,000 for hiring the long-term unemployed (people who have been out of work for at least 6 months). Long-term jobless benefits would again be extended. $80 billion of federal money would be assigned to new infrastructure projects (highways, bridges and s...