What has the IRS cooked up for us this year? I was reviewing some of the tax changes for 2020, and it seems like the big changes came last year as part of the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What did get my attention were some cautionary items...
T.J. Abraham is a big guy who played football throughout high school and college. An offensive linebacker, he loved the tough-man fraternity of the team, the getting hit, clanking helmets, getting back up. He saw stars, he threw up, but he got back back in it. “I probably got my...
Meet Dr. Alan Green. He has a tiny but lucrative practice in Queens. His patients travel from around the country to get prescriptions to drugs they believe will fight aging. Who are his patients? An estimated 5% are fellow doctors. Others have backgrounds in science or are in the upper-income...
Those in the Divorce business will tell you that they experience an uptick in January. No couple wants to disrupt their family’s holiday, so they push the Divorce off until January. They know that it will be emotional and disruptive, even as they try to minimize the effect on their...
California has passed legislation that could help hundreds of thousands of independent contractors become employees. It would provide the opportunity to earn a minimum wage, overtime pay and other benefits. Yet this legislation is highly controversial. Uber, for one, doesn’t think the law’s provisions apply to its drivers. They’re just...
Living Trusts are an important service for us, and creating a Trust often inspires people to get serious about life planning. Many of those who are retired or who are nearing retirement begin to make plans for what they hope will be the next twenty or more years. Health and...
I dodged a scam this week from a company that called to renew my subscription to McAfee, my antivirus software. They directed me to a website and told me I had to pay $420 for a two-year subscription. This felt a little hinky, but then, I’ve had a computer virus...
Vanessa Hammer and Brendan Hammer are two divorce lawyers who fell in love and married. Both came from families who had struggled financially, which helped mold their shared values and goals. Vanessa came from a large Mexican-American family in Houston. Brendan was the only child of an Hispanic mother. When Vanessa...
Peter Rothstein likes that his job has a social purpose. It expands clean energy to mitigate climate change. Best of all, he will soon be able to support that mission in his retirement plan. Socially conscious investing is gaining ground. Identifying 401k offerings that support environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors The...
Called candida auris, this fungus is highly contagious, drug-resistant, and it’s plaguing nursing facilities. Half of the patients who contract this disease die within 90 days. It’s so difficult to eradicate that many facilities have stopped accepting patients infected with it. Public health officials struggle to contain the pathogen, while...
The government is responding to statistics showing that current generations are not saving for retirement. Unlike their thrifty parents, many baby boomers are alarmingly ill-prepared for retirement. Many other employees are more focused on present financial needs than future ones. The implications of generations of people who are unable to...
A recent New York Times article tells the story of a divorcing couple who amicably divide all community property. The problem was Zoe, a Jack Russell terrier, that “Jim” brought to the marriage. Technically, Zoe belonged to him. In North Carolina, a community property state, pets are classified with “stuff”,...
