Noted financial planning writer and commentator Bob Veres has initiated an entry on Change.org, entitled "Fix the financial regulators by imposing a fiduciary standard on all who offer financial advice." Will this be a new way to make the call for fiduciary standards better heard in Washington?Read More...
Under the existing rules for 529 plans, account owners can only make investment selection adjustments once per year (or when there is a change in beneficiaries). Under the new relief just released from the IRS for 2009, 529 plan account owners will now be eligible to make changes... twice.Read More...
Yesterday, President Bush signed into law H.R. 7327, the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA), which included certain provisions designed to suspend so-called Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for the upcoming 2009 tax year. But will that really do much to help our clients? Probably not in most cases.Read More...
The results are in for FPA's first ever video competition on "How NOT To Do Financial Planning", and congratulations to Dave and Rob Daline of Minnetonka, MN, for their winning video "Winston the Pug."
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Continuing the fiduciary financial planning momentum created by the CFP Board's release last year of their updated Standards of Professional Conduct, the FPA has promulgated one of the first formal statements of a "Standard of Care" for the delivery of financial planning services - a step that many consider to be crucial for financial planning to become widely recognized as a profession. But is the planning community really ready to go where this road leads?
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As readers of my newsletter know, in May I published research that challenges the safe withdrawal rate as potentially being TOO safe in some environments, where market valuation is not at unfavorable extremes. However, in some feedback I've received from readers, another important point is being made - in some cases, the safe withdrawal rate may also still be too aggressive!
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