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I just completed Form 709 for 2022. I looked at it and I do not see any box or question on the form where I indicated I was claiming the lifetime exemption. Maybe I missed it.

Did the IRS tell you which aspect of your parents' forms caused the need for amended forms?

My wife and I are grandparents who provide gift money to our grandchildren. We put all our gift money into Nevada Vanguard 529s, with me as the owner and our joint revocable trust as the successor owner. Each grandchild is the beneficiary of their own separate account. If we are gone by the time our grandchildren get to college, one of our children will become trustee of the trust, with the ability to name their sibling as co-trustee. Together, they will gain control of their children's 529s.

Could you live by yourself on $17,500,000? (i.e. half of current assets, in the event of split)? if so, I don't see the problem. As I read this thread I had the same thought. If you can survive on $17M, and possibly build it further in the future as you have in the past, then protecting half your current savings should not be the principal question you consider in getting married. I would first consider questions of love, trust, and intent. Do you plan to do things in the future that might lead to a divorce? Do you know your potential spouse well enough to assess whether they are likely do things in the future that would lead to a divorce? Have you talked explicitly about whether you both view a marriage with children as a lifetime relatio...

I follow GAAP standards ... and livesoft standards.

I would not agree to be executor for a will sight unseen. There could be something in the will that is unworkable, like insufficient funds to cover final expenses net of prescribed inheritances and TOD/beneficiary designations, or obvious provisions that are bound to result in a lawsuit by some heirs against other heirs - and against you. You could structure the loan, at current IRS Applicable Federal Rates (AFRs) or greater, like a construction loan for a new house, i.e., you identify a maximum amount and allow your friend to draw amounts as needed, up to the maximum. If this was an informal family loan I'd say you could write it yourself and just have your friend sign it. Since you may end up in a lawsuit (see first paragraph), I would ha...

.... Now, if you feel uncomfortable with that, just put in $100K and leave it. You are not going to come close to the 2022 estate tax deduction of $12.06M (twice that for married) which you lock into this gift by filing 709. People often make this comment, but if OP happens to live in Massachusetts their estate will be subject to MA estate tax if their assets at death plus past reported, or unreported, Federal Form 709 gift amounts exceed $1M. Other states may have similar estate tax provisions. Also, I don't think you lock in the current Federal estate tax lifetime exemption unless you report Form 709 amounts equal to or greater than the current exemption before the exemption is reduced by half on January 1, 2026. If I am wrong about this...

dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:18 am Quick plug for a balance bike rather than a pedal bike with training wheels. Seems to work well for our youngest and the other neighborhood kids.

The part they need to learn first is balance and steering, not pedaling, after all.

As a grandad who learned to bike on training wheels but now has five "modern" grandkids, I second the fact that balance bikes without pedals are the way to go rather than pedals and training wheels. A first bike for a three year old could have no pedals, period. A second bike the following summer could have the ability to add-on pedals as the child gets used to a somewhat larger bike. These bikes have hand brakes, not the rear wheel pedal brake we were used to in the old days.

I can offer one piece of advice, on the first one, I made a mistake of paying the entire tuition bill from a 529 account for the freshman fall semester. When I received the 1098-T box 1 (qualified education expenses), it was less than the tuition bill, 10-15% less (I think it was in this range, other fees, parking..etc). That difference ended up being taxable plus a 10% penalty. So now I spread the 529 out over the full course of schooling. Alternatively, you can try to contact the school to get the qualified portion that will be reported on the 1098-T of the tuition bill. Thanks. Good info to know. I have researched 529s and I know what a qualified expense is, but I see it's important to understand the bills you get from the college may b...

OrangeKiwi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:11 am
Stick in Preferred Deposit and you get to avoid spending time on this conversation at the cost of 25 basis points.

That is a possible outcome. However, I would prefer to move less than $100K, more like $50-70K. Am I wrong on the minimum deposit amount?

atdharris wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 10:03 am TTTXX is paying 4.49% right now. You can buy it through Merrill Edge. I'd definitely move the cash out of BoA's savings account.

Sounds great to me, but my wife thinks we would be crazy to do this now, since the US may default on its treasuries in few months, causing us to lose our non FDIC-insured money in TTTXX.

What do others think?

I have a friend who is a respected CPA in our community. I know he manages the finances for some of the residents at our local CCRC. I asked him if he actually serves as POA for some of the residents and he said yes. He said there are several other CPAs in our area who also provide services for residents of the CCRC. I have no idea about the fees for these services. I know some of the residents still manage everything for themselves, and I also know some of the residents rely on their adult children as their POAs.

pizzy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 2:32 pm Bonds/cash is currently 7%, but it is all cash.

I also view bonds plus cash as one lump in our portfolio. For us, that lump aims for 15%, with the remaining 85% in VTSAX. The bond part is about 12.5%, all in VBILX. The rest is checking or Vanguard Federal Money Market.

SnowBog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 10:24 pm The idea I like the least is "waiting" for the child's SSN. My concern is that it will take an indeterminate amount of time for them to get and share that with us. Some might take years (if ever). And I don't want the parents to get in the way of something we are trying to do for their children (which they'll probably care more about as the kids get older - but by then they'd have lost years of growth).

If the parents do not want you to do this, you should not try to do it. If the parents agree to help you do this, they will probably have the baby's SSN within two weeks. For our grandchildren, the hospitals submitted all the necessary info to the SSA and the parents had the new SSN very quickly.

TheTimeLord wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:34 pm What are retirees who "over saved" doing with funds in excess of their needs besides donating to kids and charities?

Partly kids, partly grandkids' 529s, partly QCDs, and partly just watching our savings shrink as the market goes down. Our savings aren't what they used to be! We are going to Europe next month, but we can't bring ourselves to spend today's cost for business class.

Unfortunately, it is very hard for me to pay people to do things I can do myself, even though I really have no budget constraint. I am one of the few people in our neighborhood who has always mowed, seeded, and fertilized their own yard. When I was working, I had to get our driveway cleared when it snowed so I could get to work, so I paid the going rate, which increased over the years from $15 to $50 per plow for 15-20 plows per year. As soon as I retired I bought a snow blower. Prices are now up to $100 per plow (!) and I am still snow blowing myself, but I am turning 75 and wondering what I will do at 80. I hope we have moved to a retirement community by then.

I managed my mom's finances the same way for several years (she had Alzheimer's and asked me to handle everything for her, and I had POA). However, after two years, I used the powers outlined in the DUrable Power of Attorney to establish a Revocable Living Trust for her, transferred all her assets, except her house which I sold, into the trust. I was the trustee, and it made everything cleaner this way. The trust followed the terms of her will as far as beneficiaries were concerned. I think a revocable trust is the best way to go. I managed my aunt's finances, health care, and assisted living arrangements for the last three years of her life as co-trustee of her revocable trust. I set up her finances with BoA and Vanguard accounts titled t...

My father also had 100% stocks when he retired, including about 40% of his portfolio in his own employer's stock that he had purchased through an incentive plan over his career. I advised him to sell his employer stock into bonds, but he said no, he had confidence in his employer (big mistake - his employer crashed). Spin the clock thirty years, and at age 94 he was ready to sell his house and move to a retirement facility. He asked me to take-over his finances and I said "OK, if you let me put all of your house sale proceeds into a safe bond index fund." He had about a $1M portfolio, and his house sale added about $300K in bonds. Seven years later, now at 101(!), even in this down market his portfolio is still just over $1M, with...

We sleep on a latex mattress that cost about $1,100, shipped to us from an online distributor. We love it. As another poster commented, solid latex mattresses are extremely heavy. That is the only downside. We have had fairly good innerspring mattresses. They are great for the first five years, then you start to feel you are sleeping in a trough for a few years, then you get a new mattress.

Why? Is your time worth nothing? "Serving" as executor is not an honor. It's a burden, wrought with risks. First, my father gave me life, raised me with love and kindness, taught me many valuable life lessons, and put me through college. As an accountant by training and a jack-of-all-trades farmer by upbringing, he advised me on my income taxes and gave me lots of help and advice on home improvements over the years. At some point the tables turned, and now I am helping him. Second, I am part of a small civil community with my other four siblings. We each have our own lives, but we share a common value to help our father as he has aged, and now, at age 101, faces the final stage of his life. None of us would charge for the time we...

If you want to invest in ESG funds, invest instead in VTSAX. Then take the extra ER amount you would have paid your brokers to curate their ESG funds and donate that amount directly to your favorite ESG charities.

I managed my aunt's finances and health care the last three years of her life as her DPOA and co-trustee of her revocable trust. Currently, I have done the same for my father for the past eight years as his DPOA and executor of his will. In both cases, I charged their accounts, managed by me, for my out-of-pocket expenses. I have never charged anything for my time. I advised my siblings I would reimburse them for their out-of-pocket expenses and I have reimbursed them from our father's accounts when they have asked me to. Everything is documented in the ledger book I keep for his accounts. My father, a frugal Yankee, made me promise I would not charge his estate for my executor duties after he dies! I had no intent to charge his estate in a...

My father always told me he would pay the full cost for tuition, room, and board at whatever college I could get into and wanted to attend. He said I would have to work summers, and at school as necessary, to pay for my books and all personal expenses during college. I ended up going to a top private college, and I remember working to unload the dining hall dishwashing machine as one of my student jobs.

.... As I like to say, buying an annuity is the best way to turn long term capital gains ... to ordinary income. .... If I ever have grandkids, I’m planning to start a Fidelity Personal Retirement Annuity for $10k-$20k after helping my kids open a 529 college savings account for my grandkids. bill We are funding 529 accounts for each of our grandchildren. So far, we have avoided putting trusts in our estate plan to protect our children's inheritance from state estate tax when they pass it to their children. One alternative we have considered, but not acted upon, is to overfund each grandchild's 529 account. Our children will become the owners of their children's 529s when we die. That would make any leftover 529 funds, after college is pai...

I would not call a high ratio of net worth to lifetime income an indicator of financial efficiency. I think it just means you are saving a large percentage of your income. Now in our early 70s, our net worth to nominal lifetime W2 income ratio is about 1.35, and our net worth to CPI-adjusted lifetime W2 income ratio is about 1.05. Some people might say we are financially efficient, but others might say we are unreasonably frugal.

Johny Fever wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 7:49 am Well once again I think I am the outlier here...

You are not an outlier at all. Your family situation sounds great to me. Good luck until you reach room temperature, and for your children after that.

There has been a lot of discussion on this thread about family discussions to ask adult children what is fair. I agree with other posters who have said, since we are talking about parents gifting their own money, the parents should decide, according to their own inclinations, how much to give each child. Setting aside any special needs or spendthrift issues, which parents can and are entitled to gauge on their own, I think it would be very uncomfortable to have a family meeting and ask all the siblings what would be fair. Siblings with lower incomes may feel hesitant to say they want or deserve extra gift money. Siblings with greater incomes may feel unspoken pressure to say they don't need or want extra gift money. I think most parents wou...

toddthebod wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:59 pm ... how many of you have had conversations with your siblings about how much money your parents have given you? .....

My wife and I didn't have to ask our siblings this question. We both had parents who accumulated modest savings. They were able to pay for their children's college education, but they never gifted substantial amounts to any of their children.

First, our joint revocable trust provides for OP's concern with a clause that says to our two (adult) sons, in equal shares, to be adjusted by any memorandum we may add to this trust indicating amounts we have gifted to either son during our lifetime (my wording; trust is in legalese). Second, we have been very careful to gift equal amounts to our sons. When we gifted to our oldest son to help with his first house purchase, we intended to gift an equal amount to our second son when he purchased his first house. However, it became clear our other son and his wife were pursuing jobs, and job relocations, that would keep them renting for an indefinite number of years. Also, we realized it would be unfair to gift our second son an equal amount,...

I found this on the internet, regarding the federal estate tax:

"Your IRA is subject to estate tax when you die and your beneficiaries will have to pay income tax as the assets are distributed from the IRA. But there is also an offsetting deduction for the estate tax that the beneficiaries can take on their personal returns."

You are asking about your state's estate tax. I am not sure how this would work in a state estate tax situation. I guess you would have to identify your state and ask a state-specific question.

Lee_WSP wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:39 pm ..... you both intended to gift to the other and filed the necessary paperwork. When you gifted the funds, you did not expect repayment. Now your brother wants to gift it back to you without any expectations because your gift enabled his dream to come true and he's doing well.

+1

This sounds like the right way to think about it to me. If OP and brother each made their gifts in good faith, not purposely trying to avoid gift reporting, there should be no issue.

I can stop pulling from Wellesley at any time and begin pulling from Cash savings. The negative is we will be depleting cash which means less readily available for home repairs etc. The questions are: Do I need to alter my current withdrawals from Wellesley or is it just best to stay the course with the expectation that Wellesley will absorb a downturn and bounce back? OR do I start pulling from cash immediately when I see a a market crash and then return pulling from Wellesley once the market rebounds? We have our IRAs set up with five years of RMDs in Vanguard intermediate term bond fund and the rest in Vanguard total stock market fund. When the market is down we draw from the bonds, then when the market turns up we replenish our bonds. ...

We raised two siberian huskies for 12-13 years each. They could each be trusted to go out the door to the bathroom and then come back into the house - until they were about six months old. After that, is was full time leashes in the yard or on walks or hikes, unless they were pulling us on cross country skis. While we were at work, they were on an eighty-foot overhead line with a leash. The line went from our back door, across our back yard, and twenty feet into the woods. They had a great dog shelter by our back door, but they preferred to curl up in the snow in the winter - we called them husky balls. They were very good about going to the bathroom in the woods, but they both got into digging frenzies in our back yard from time to time, e...

I see Wellesley is about 60% bonds. Have you considered setting up your portfolio so you could withdraw from all cash or bonds during downturns?

No process. I thought we were probably oversaving all through our thirties and forties. Around age 55, when I did my first retirement income and cost projection, by year out to age 100, it became obvious we had oversaved.

I enter my numbers manually. It forces me to actually read through our multi-page Vanguard report and understand all the different types of income.

Let's come back to this question every ten years and see if anything has changed. About the time I retired, in 2008, I simplified our portfolio, with my wife's permission, to almost all Vanguard total US stock market index and Vanguard US intermediate-term bond market index. We had some "old" Vanguard 500 index that I let ride.

So far, I have not second-guessed myself on leaving out international stock. My rationale is that the managers of US corporations are better guessers on international investment opportunities than I am.

Hopefully her Taxable accounts are already titled in the name of the trust. If so, you just need to be recognized at each institution as trustee. The trust usually gives the trustee(s) the same powers as the grantor had. . . that is to buy, sell, invest, pay bills . . . This is my understanding also. I cared for my elderly aunt as her DPOA and co-trustee of her revocable trust. I never had any trouble using my DPOA for billing and medical care arrangements with her health care providers. Her BoA and Vanguard accounts were titled to her trust, which used her SS number as its tax ID. As a trustee of the trust, I never had any trouble with BoA or Vanguard. For the past eight years, I have managed for my elderly father's finances as his DPOA. ...

Infinite, since I don't consider a cash rewards credit card balance that will be paid in full each month to be a liability. We have only borrowed once in our life, for the mortgage on the house we still live in. We paid off that thirty year liability ten years early.

I'm wearing .... Oh, gosh, I'm not wearing a watch. I'm retired. Washed up, as my wife says.

When I was working I wore a Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry 24653 or a Casio GWM510-1.

Now that I'm retired, I bought a Citizen ProMaster E168-S116660 that will probably outlive me. I like it because it is solid as a rock, keeps perfect time, and gets its battery power from normal daylight (like the Casio). I still have the Victorinox. It is very nice, but I need to change the battery every two years or so.

rmdashrfsplat wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:00 am My non-gov 457(b)'s current SDP clearly states distributions must begin prior to 70.5, and equal distribution amounts will automatically match current RMD tables if they are too low.

That would be great!

Is there a way to recast your decision with the employer's benefits team, since the initial one was done in error?

So far, her employer has said no.

I would personally not leave non-gov 457(b) assets to a beneficiary in this fashion.

We are willing to gamble her employer will still be solvent when she dies. If we decide the tax bomb (one year distribution, not over ten years) would be too much based on our children's circumstances, she may leave her 457(b) funds to charity and we could leave other funds to our children.

Fidelity has good experts, but they are embedded more deeply in the organization and are not the ones that answer the phone. There are people assigned to your wife's company plan; they have access to plan documents and are knowledgable about what you can do. We have talked to these people, at the top of Fidelity's retirement plan department and at the top of my wife's employer's retirement plan department. The multi-step annual RMD request process I described in my post is what they came up with. It is very cumbersome, and very demanding of our extra time each each year. I have not found any federal reg that says employers can (or must?) impose tight rules for withdrawals, or cumbersome rules for RMD requests, on retired employees who are ...

My wife has a Non-Governmental 457(b) plan through her 501(c) employer. I have read this IRS summary and I cannot find an answer to my questions https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/non-governmental-457b-deferred-compensation-plans . When she retired, her employer told her she had to propose a specific plan for her desired withdrawals. The options were "take it all at once" or "take it in a specific sequence of equal distributions". Importantly, no mention was made regarding RMDs. My wife did not need any distributions and wanted to leave the funds to our children. As designated beneficiaries, our children will receive all remaining funds in her account upon her death. In order to maximize the remaining funds, my wife el...

Your thread title says $200k+, which would not be possible over a two year period. Your actual post appears to say $100k in each of two years, which would be possible. I imagine your total donation, not your QCD claim, is going to be $200k+. Since you will only be claiming $100K as a QCD for each year, you will be fine. To be fully qualified for a charitable deduction if you are audited, the charity should give you written receipts, one for for each of the two years, that say "no goods or services were provided" (IRS wording). I agree with others that nearby conservation land is not a good or service provided in return for your donation.

Puyi wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 2:50 pm My AA across all accounts is 75/15/10 equities/bonds/cash.
My AA across retirement accounts alone (401k/Roth) is 88/12 equities/bonds

36yo

You are doing fine. Nothing unreasonable. Yes, 10% cash is high, but if it makes you comfortable with your remaining 75/15 allocation it's fine.

When my wife and I started out, I was paranoid about the risk of stock market losses. I was determined we should build a solid nest egg of bonds before we began investing in equities. Up to our mid-thirties, our portfolio was about 0/85/15. By our mid-forties, our portfolio was a more reasonable 70/25/5. Today, during retirement, it is about 85/12.5/2.5.

( .... I wrote a polite but firm letter to the GC of the firm. She called me directly 3 days later and while I was on the phone she took the elevator down to the Operations group and told them to release the account balance in a check.) When I retired, I had a rollover problem caused by a large, national brokerage that was going to cost me about $12K in federal taxes. My advisor, and the company's retirement account department, both said there was nothing they could do to help me with the problem. I wrote a letter to the company's NYC-based Chief Counsel and asked "Is this the standard of professional, fiduciary assistance XXXX intends to provide to its clients?" A week later I had a call from their retirement department saying t...

When my never-married Boston aunt went to her friend, a Harvard law school grad, to ask him for help planning for her elder years and her less than $1M estate, he set her up with a revocable trust, with me as her co-trustee and DPOA for finances and health care. I learned about the benefit of revocable trusts when, at age 89, she had two falls that left her in an acute care rehab hospital. When she was ready for discharge, I transferred her to a skilled care rehab facility near me, then to a nearby assisted living facility. We set up her savings as joint trust accounts at BoA and Vanguard. I was the only trustee doing transactions for the accounts. I arranged all of her care during the last three years of her life, including a major cancer ...

This looks like it would keep the problem contained. So it works well enough that you’re not stepping in puddles getting in and out of the car? The mat has lips around the edges that keep the water contained. The key on sizing is to measure your tires' outside tread width and the length from the furthest extending edges of your front and back tires. Aim for a mat that only gives you about six inches of extra mat width on each outside-edge of your tires. Your normal step out of the car will take you beyond six inches of mat - no problem. Buy a mat with a length that gives you about an extra foot in front and in back of the furthest extending edges of your tires. The product's web site may suggest a larger size based on your car make and mod...

... I've got a gravel driveway, once it's snow covered not a problem, but do you feel the thickness of the mat would stand up to the occasional stone that might get stuck in tire treads? Does a squeegee really work to get the water up and over the edge when emptying it? If you had to do it again would you get this product or something different? We are in our third winter with the mat. It has worked well and I would buy the same product again. We built a new two car garage and decided not to use our second car on winter days when there is snow and salt on the roads. We only bought a mat for our main car, which is a mid-size SUV. I have never cut it with a stone from our tires, but it did get cut once when we unloaded our car after a snowsh...

We built a new garage with a concrete floor in a NH town that uses a lot of salt on the roads in winter. I am paranoid about salt causing spalling of the concrete, so I bought this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MY ... =UTF8&th=1

It works great.

obafgkm wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:22 pm And of course, this is true no matter where the assets are held.

#bogleheadsisnotavanguardforum

I chose the most "plain vanilla" example possible in order to avoid possible outcomes that might not result in a step up in basis for the same assets. For example, if OP's broker was different than their parents', and the OP's broker could not hold the assets for any reason, all or part of the assets might need to be liquidated and transferred as cash. The cash component would modify the OP's scenario of holding onto the same assets until their children inherited them.

Also, Vanguard is the broker I know best, even though this not exclusively a Vanguard forum.