Bogleheads.org

I’m not sure how actionable this post is. We follow the golden advice of bogleheads and we do not discuss personal finances with friends or family. Nothing good will come of it. I doubt this is part of the Bogleheads philosophy. I refer to Bogleheads openly with friends and family often and even send them links to Bogleheads posts that may be of interest to something we’ve talked about recently. In a way, I’m an ambassador for Bogleheads.org. That being said, I came from modest means. I was -200,000 net worth starting off fresh from grad school. If the discontented folks didn’t go to college, let alone get an advanced degree, that alone is enough to separate you somewhat. But if you and your discontented friend still had the same wages aft...

If you are Single and have over $500k in tax-deferred or Married with over a million (jointly) in tax-deferred, you probably want to do Roth conversions first to reduce future RMDs. Taxwise, the Inherited IRA is just another tax-deferred account except that the withdrawals can’t be converted.

In another year, you’ll both be over 70.5. You could then give the Inherited IRA withdrawals to charities using QCDs and save the space in your current tax brackets for your own Roth conversions (assuming you already have the larger IRA balances).

As far as what the money should be invested in, just consider it part of your portfolio and invest according to your investment plan.

Stinky wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:58 am

berg wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:23 am My first post was about navigating the backdoor Roth for the first time, now our Roths have $155k and $100k in them.

Going from $290k to $3 million of net worth in 10 years - that's just awesome. Congratulations!

In all fairness, you appeared to have a high income 10 years ago when you started such that you had to do a Backdoor Roth. Not everyone can grow the rest of their portfolio so fast since they don’t have the “extra” income that you have.

So far, I haven’t seen anything showing whole life is better than. . .

VanguardInvestor1972 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:51 pm . . . "buy term and invest the rest".

Certainly in California, there are social service agencies who will intervene and arrange for court appointed guardianship, even in the absence of any person known to the conservatee going to court on the conservatee's behalf. Of course, social services must be alerted, and that could be done by anyone, or a facility such as a hospital. We called social services for a friend who married late in life and who was complaining that his wife was spending his money and giving a lot to her “church”. She also monitored him so he couldn’t leave the house very often. When social services came, he answered the door and said everything was fine. He didn’t want to rock the boat and asked if we were the ones who called in. I’m seriously considering pick...

The problem is that someone first needs to recognize that you need help or are slowly losing cognitive functions in case you don’t recognize it yourself. Cognitive loss can be very gradual that the people you see often don’t recognize it. We had this case with an aunt for which I was the successor trustee. I asked her one day to pick up our kids from school and to take them to her condo (DH and I both had somewhere to go) and she couldn’t find her way home. The kids told me about this and I just asked if she was driving safely. She was. But this was a red flag I hadn’t noticed. Another one was when she said she would write checks for her bills but not mail them right away. She said she wanted to double check them a few days later. That’s wh...

So you can’t donate QCDs to third-party charities using Charity Navigator? That’s my bottom-line question. No. They aren’t in the business of forwarding mail. They are in the business of rating charities. (I wasn’t even aware they could collect and forward Taxable money.) There’s too much risk in forwarding your QCD on your behalf. When something goes wrong you would blame them and they’re not even charging you for it. Why should they do that for you and assume the risk of potential problems? (I would say the same for Donations from Taxable accounts.) I assume they are taking on the role of generating an acknowledgement letter for you at the end, especially if you give to several charities at the same time. This is very different than forw...

We’ve been using Charity Navigator (CN) to make our donations, because we like the anonymity. I’m interested in any experiences that posters here have had with using it to make QCDs. Sure, you can send them a QCD check, but they will know who you are and your address. Since they are a charity, they will acknowledge the donation and probably let you know it will be used for their data collection and maintenance of their website. We haven’t done any QCDs in any form yet, so I’m unfamiliar with the process. Ask the custodian to send you a check from your IRA made out to the charity. It will be mailed to you. Write on the attached “receipt” to not add you to any mailing lists (preferably using red ink). (All our recipients honored this.). Make...

KyleAAA wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:52 am

celia wrote: No money to re-pave the road? OK, you get dirt paths. Not much spent on schools? OK, you’ll have mediocre schools with no enrichment and large class sizes. No fire department? Hopefully there is a volunteer fire department!

But OP doesn't necessarily have to be the one to pay for those things.

Even if you don’t have kids, you probably want your community to have decent schools. I cringe when I see graffiti and the swear words are misspelled!

And I want other voters to learn how to be informed before they vote.

Capricorn212 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:48 pm Thank you very much for your thoughtful words. Three of the siblings are and have been united/agreement/harmony on this. But this is maybe time to just bite the bullet and move on. And, not have a victory that costs us even more money.

I’m in my 70s now and have seen all kinds of financial situations, even with trusts. I find that those who don’t act “fairly” also end up being the loser when life is “unfair” to them. And I find that the more I give to charity, the more money I end up with. Part of that is from not needing to pay taxes on QCDs, but unexpected money also comes my way.

So, to me, life has a way of balancing itself out.

You can share this with 2 of your siblings. You know which ones!

Promise me to answer my questions when I get the tax 2022 from my tax man. Some how my tax man doesn’t like me to ask question. Honestly, this sentence makes me think that you should get a new tax preparer. What exactly are you paying for if not to go over the tax return with you first before filing? This is NOT to say that we (Bogleheads) will not be willing to help you ... We are, but it just sounds like you aren't getting the value for your money I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the tax preparer and OP likely doesn’t need a more expensive CPA. The tax preparer probably doesn’t have problems answering questions about the tax return. But if the questions are about future tax planning, that should cost extra. And the tax preparer ...

If there will be any delay because you're working through the trust succession stuff, I would contact the broker and inform them so they can lock access to the account. Nobody should be able to do anything with the assets until either the executor is appointed and can provide the appropriate credentials, or the beneficiaries can provide the death certificate, or the successor trustee is in place. The executor is not involved in the trust at all. But you should call the custodian to report the death so they can freeze the account and ask them what you need to do because of death. They will likely have you fill out a form for changing the trustee. And you may need to send in some pages of the trust if the trust was ever amended. You will als...

US withholding is 22% on bonus/supplemental income up to $1M. >$1M it’s 37%. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/for-small-business-week-backup-withholding-rate-now-24-percent-bonuses-22-percent-workers-urged-to-do-a-paycheck-checkup I was just justifying why they withheld 44% . (This link was for small business employers.) RetiredNurse , I’m sorry I confused you. And if you are a nurse who worked with COVID patients, you really deserve this retirement. Thank you (and your fellow medics) for keeping the rest of us healthy or we wouldn’t be here to help each other! Since you are now retired, you and your tax preparer might need to figure out if you need to do Roth conversions now. Once RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions) begin from your tax-defe...

States with no income tax need to get revenue somehow, if those affect you the savings may not be as much as you think. Property, sales, gasoline taxes are common. If you’re renting and not commuting maybe it doesn’t impact you much. +1. This is worth thinking about. How do the states without state income tax pay for the things the other states spend their income tax on? Without a state income tax, they probably have higher property tax, sales tax, gas tax, taxes on utilities and phone service, toll roads, library patron fees to check out books…. Everything has to be paid for somehow or it won’t exist. No money to re-pave the road? OK, you get dirt paths. Not much spent on schools? OK, you’ll have mediocre schools with no enrichment and la...

If you read the statement several times (as I did), you will notice this is in regard to Treasury bond rollovers, which you have now opted out of. You checked your statements as suggested and everything looks fine.

So there’s nothing else to do or worry about. The message makes perfect sense for your situation. Their software might have been ready to do another rollover but the money was not available so it sent this poorly worded message to you instead.

In case you wonder why they withheld $4,000 for taxes, it is because they looked up in the charts what taxes would be owed for someone who earned $9,000 in a single pay period and had worked for a whole year at that rate. Dividing the yearly taxes into pay periods gives you the $4,000.

Now that a good chunk of taxes has been paid for 2023, have you figured out how much of additional Roth conversions that tax would cover?

When you get done with your 2022 tax return, this would be an interesting problem to solve using the same software and projected income sources for this year!

dagsboro wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:01 am By the way is there any VG mutual fund at all, like Vanguard Total Bond Index, that is problematic to convert ?

I’m not aware of problems with any particular mutual fund.

But your settings for each account will need to be reset. Beneficiaries might carry over, but things like how to identify your shares when selling (FIFO vs Spec ID), where your dividends should go, and automatic withdrawals probably need to be reset and linked up to your bank again. After all, we are talking about “new” accounts here.

Although I don’t know what tax rate we’ll be in in retirement, I assume it will be lower. I say this because our biggest expenses (besides tax) will be gone. Mortgage, student loans, childcare. These things alone are nearly 40% of our income, so my assumption is we won’t need our full income in retirement. Maybe only half, or 60%. Maybe that’s a wrong assumption. I thought the same thing. We retired right after the mortgage was paid off, all the kids had finished college, and our retirement accounts had “enough”. Frankly those things were about half of our expenses. But I couldn’t figure out why we were paying more in taxes then. It finally occurred to me that we were itemizing while working but took the standard deduction in retirement si...

I hope I'm not running afoul with what I'm doing. My parents are both in their mid-80's and don't use computers at all. They're pretty much shut-ins due to their physical condition (but otherwise content with each other and their lives). I am managing their accounts as if they were mine, at their request and for their benefit. I have durable power of attorney but am not listed as a joint-owner anywhere. Technically, I think you’re committing fraud by using someone else’s username and password, even with their permission. If you want your custodian to keep your accounts secure, you need to do your part by not sharing this. Same for your parents. This will be an issue if their accounts are ever hacked and the custodian asks if they ever shar...

We are in early to mid 30s with a late start to saving. We maxed out Roths for last 2 years, but our tax burden is already significant (~27%). We are looking to bring that down, as we don’t expect to have such a large tax burden in retirement. How do you know what your tax rate will even be in retirement? The way you’re thinking now (in this thread) shows that if you progress as has been proposed (50K tax-deferred each year in a solo 401k !!!), you will have multi-millions in your solo 401K alone. Are you familiar with the Rule of 72 ? It tells us that an account will double it’s value in a specific time period based on the rate of growth the account gets. Say you put $125K (2.5 years of solo 401k) in the 401K by the time you are 35 and le...

I didn’t sign up for all those follow-on questions, but I’ll answer the ones I know off of the top of my head: :oops: I greatly appreciate questions that stimulate me to ask my own. Celia makes some pertinent observations about mutual funds vs brokerage funds at Vanguard but Celia said - the vast majority of us have converted (to VG brokerage accounts). Roughly how many or what percent is that? We have no way of knowing unless Vanguard wants to share that. But in talking to phone reps about 5 times last year, most clients are now on the new platform. And all accounts opened within at least the last 5 years could only be opened on the new platform. I believe this was originally an “old technology” issue as in “are you still using an old Atar...

This thread sounds like you are on the young side and trying to max out tax-deferred options. I think you should max out your Roth options while you are young.

As time goes on and your joint income grows more than the tax brackets grow and your tax burden grows, then you can change to more tax-deferred in your later working years.

If you read some of the threads by older Bogleheads about doing Roth conversions before their RMDs start, you will soon realize there is such a thing as “too much” in tax deferred. Even if you die with a lot left in tax-deferred, your heirs will be stuck with emptying it out over 10 years (assuming they will have have to roll the plan into a Rollover [traditional] IRA).

I would not knowingly load a Chinese app on my phone. Although temu is headquartered in Massachusetts and their customer data is supposed to be secure, there can always be future data leaks. If nothing else, some peorson(s) in China know your name and address and what you ordered. I have no way of knowing how secure my data is in China. About 10 years ago I bought some cheap things (musical greeting cards, origami paper) on eBay that came from China. They appeared to be a loss leader since the shipping alone had to be more than the product value. I kept seeing the customs labels telling what was inside and thinking this is a waste of time for Customs officials to look at. But the sellers were apparently building up a large positive reputati...

It sounds like you are still on the mutual fund platform (where account numbers are 11 digits long). The brokerage accounts are on a different platform (with 8 digit accounts numbers) and are where you can buy CDs, individual bonds, ETFs, as well as mutual funds. You can’t do transactions between the two platforms (eg, using cash in a mutual fund account to buy a CD in a brokerage account) unless you call them up to do the transaction for you. But if you call, they will try to talk you into transitioning all your accounts into brokerage accounts (which the vast majority of us have now done). They are also removing some features on the old mutual fund platform as time goes on since it is a maintenance issue for them. Each brokerage account h...

Dregob wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:36 pm From TIAA website if I take joint annuity with 20 year guarantee it yields 46K/year.
If I take RMDs it is 26K/year. . .

But if the RMDs work like they do in IRAs, the percentage to withdraw increases each year. I’ll bet the RMD is over 50k a year by the time you get to the 20th year of withdrawing. And do you keep getting the same annuity benefits until you both die?

I think another consideration is if an annuity leaves anything for your heirs like the remainder of an IRA does. I guess they would get the remaining payouts until the 20th year should you both die before that.

And one more consideration is that part of your IRA RMDs can be QCDs after 70.5, but QCDs can’t be taken from annuities.

Jack FFR1846 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 5:14 pm You may want to at a minimum, focus on a few things. I'm retiring in June and DW has stopped working. Opensocialsecurity says for her to take it at 62 (this May) and me at 70. Those are numbers you will want to find and write down.

OP, I suggest you ignore this tool since it doesn’t take Roth conversions into account. The higher wage earner should just start SS at 70 because the space that earlier SS would take up in your tax brackets is needed for doing Roth conversions instead.

Just a heads up but I think Merrill will have a problem with how much to remove for the first contribution since the gain/ loss wasn’t done with them. Maybe they will accecpt your calcs or maybe not as most people don’t know what the IRS is looking for when calculating the gain or loss . THEY ARE LOOKING AT THE ACCOUNT VALUE ON BOTH DATES. The particular fund(s) you used are irrelevant. The fund you used could have dropped in value but the entire account could have grown! The IRS looks at what percentage of the account the contribution was on the day it was made. Let’s say the first $6,000 was adding to a Roth holding $94k. That means as soon as the contribution is made, 6% of the account was associated with that contribution regardless of ...

I spent a little time looking for doctors who speak Bulgarian without realizing this was an old thread. So, I re-googled for Romanian and ended up at ZocDoc.com again. One of the filters on the search engine is supposed to be a language search but that filter does not work on my phone. Anyway, that’s one resource that might help you. Try googling “assisted living” or “senior care” to see if you can find an agency that filters for the foreign language you need. Your local senior center can also point you to other services or give you more ideas. You could even take your grandmother with you to see what the center is like. Pick up a schedule of activities. Besides having low cost lunches, they often have music, chair exercises, puzzles, a pia...

Our Backdoor Roth wiki page will explain it all to you. It has examples of the pro rata rule and what Form 8606 should look like for each example. Take your time reading it as it has lots of detail to consider. It may also need to be read more than once.

Basically, think of your wife’s IRA as having $7,069 in it and $7,000 was converted while $69 went to Taxable. The $7,000 in basis was spread over all the dollars. If you answer all the interview question correctly, it should come out fine with you paying taxes of the $70 (due to rounding) plus $7 for an early withdrawal penalty.

This is a strange question for a trust. At Vanguard, you can’t even list a beneficiary even if you want to for a trust as they know the trust lists the beneficiaries and the trust can be changed. But it also makes sense to put your name down as the beneficiary for a revocable trust, while for a Special Needs trust, you would list the name of the disabled person. I have no idea what you would do for an irrevocable trust after someone dies and there are lots of beneficiaries. But possibly this could also be related to one thing to keep in mind which is that at a bank, the number of “equal” beneficiaries determines how much FDIC insurance coverage the trust account gets ($250K per beneficiary assuming they get equal shares after you die). Poss...

Down the road (next 6 years) I'll need to decide what to do with my TIAA traditional funds. An annuity pays more but looking at the site it looks like another option would be to take RMDs beginning at 73. This sounds like the whole thing is tax-deferred. What do you mean by “an annuity pays more”? More than what? Once any money is withdrawn, it can still be invested. So the spending value depends on how much it is when you need to spend it and taxes have already been paid. Is there a fee or penalty for withdrawing it all now and roll over to a Traditional IRA? Or do you prefer to take an anniuty? If an annuity, is there an option for fixed payments for the rest of your life? (Ie, the account never runs dry, but nothing is left for your hei...

Why would you think his life expectancy is 77? Why do you think he is dying over 6 years earlier than the average 67 year old? Given the limited info we have, I would put my money on him living 6 years longer than the average 67 year old not shorter... This is a good point in that it takes into account that your life expectancy changes over time. A male life expectancy at birth 67 years ago was probably 77 but since those born that year who were destined to die during their first 66 years are already gone, the others have a longer average life expentancy, probably to 83 (6 years longer). But at age 82, those still living have another 4 years or so added to their life expectancy. . . Statistics confirm a currently 65yo male has a life expec...

I'm going to add something that's a little different than what others already added. At 67, and assuming your husband lives till average life expectancy for male in U.S. which is 77, he has roughly 10 years. This means every 1 year is 10% of his remaining life expectancy. To me, this is HUGE. Why continue to work when you've already accumulated very nice sum that should be able to easily support your disabled dependent? I recently retired at age 57.5 after realizing this. Money can't buy time. OP says they are saving for the benefit of an adult disabled child but we have no idea what the child’s “living expenses” are. The child’s projected life expectancy probably gives them a big unknown for the future. For example, covid appeared unexpec...

If you don’t need all the money in tax-deferred and are charitably inclined, you can do QCDs each year after you are age 70.5 of up to $100k for each of you. In that case, you might want to aim for similar amounts in tax-deferred for both of you.

“Tax-advantaged” refers to both tax-deferred and Roth accounts. So that doesn’t help us in understanding your scenario in this conversation. Please use the separate terms so we can help understand the question. Although I politely disagree that tax rates shouldn’t be discussed here, that is the primary part of WHY you want to convert and HOW MUCH you should convert. As far as splitting the amount to be converted between the two of you, I would split it proportionally by how much you each have in tax-deferred accounts. Please note that your IRAs (and future RMDs) will continue to grow as long as the accounts grow more than what is withdrawn/converted each year. As an example, if your million dollar Traditional IRA or 401K grows $50K a year, ...

But, we should first ask what was the reason for having individual accounts in the first place? If you each received inheritances and decided to keep that money separate or one of you has kids from a previous marriage, you will be co-mingling the money in the trust unless you put it in new accounts titled as “<trust name and date>, separate property of oxidize726” and “<trust name and date>, separate property of Mrs. oxidize726” using her SSN. In the later case, you should confirm if both trustees will be able to do transactions in both accounts. No inheritances, previous children or any other reason to keep the money separate; the individual accounts simply existed prior to our relationship. Assets owned before marriage is another reason ...

My wife retired in 2021. I thought a non-working spouse could contribute to a Roth even if the MFJ MAGI was >228k? She can’t contribute to the Roth directly, but can contribute indirectly using the Backdoor Roth just the same as when she was working. (The IRA contribution is allowed because the joint earned income (not MAGI) is enough to cover IRA contributions for both of you, but you both share the same MAGI which disqualifies the direct-to-Roth way of contributing.) If she already made 2022 or 2023 contributions directly to a Roth, those need to be recharacterized to a Traditional IRA, then converted. Hopefully she hasn’t since rolled other accounts into any kind of Traditional IRA since she stopped working. (This sounds like you haven’...

It isn’t just Joe and Mary are insured for $500k on a joint account and EITHER of them can also have a separate account insured for another $500k, but that EACH of them can have a separate account insured for that much.

But before you even start worrying about this, read about what SIPC insurance covers and doesn’t cover:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/inve ... ot-protect

tibbitts wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:05 pm

aristotelian wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:00 pm Possibly if you hold that much in cash. That would be an unusual use case.

Why would the decision be related to what the brokerage account was invested in?

If you have a bank CD held in your brokerage account, that part would be insured by FDIC instead. So split your CDs into multiple banks if you have over $250k in CDs.

If you want a snapshot of something in a spreadsheet like this , do a screen shot of the open spreadsheet on your computer screen. The “snapshot” ends up on your invisible clipboard. So then you open a tool like Paint and “paste” it there. Crop or change the image as desired. Then save the image as a .jpg . (This is in the windows operating system. Sorry, Mac users. :( ) Then for hosting your .jpg image, go to postimages.org and select “resize for message boards” and then “choose image” to point to where the .jpg is on your computer. Then you may have to wait for a short time in the queue until it returns with several links. Copy the one for message boards and save it somewhere where you can find it again. (I usually save my original spread...

Could someone enlighten me on a very basic question - what are the benefits of moving assets into a trust, property or otherwise (eg stocks)? Besides avoiding probate (a public process) and maintaining privacy, it will make life easier for a future trustee (instead of your POA) to manage your affairs, especially if the grantors’ cognitive abilities decline or even if they just get tired of managing their financial affairs. (DH’s parents and mine both passed the responsibility on to the next generation when they turned about age 90. DH and I will probably do the same.) Many financial institutions want you to use their own form to recognize someone else to maintain your account, but what if the account owner is incapacitated? These companies...

I have done this at Fidelity, where both my wife and I have separate, individual brokerage accounts. I can confirm there are no tax implications for moving your remaining assets into the trust. It will be just the same as moving assets to a joint account. And when one of you dies, the assets will get a full step-up at death or a half step-up depending on if you live in a community property state or not. But, we should first ask what was the reason for having individual accounts in the first place? If you each received inheritances and decided to keep that money separate or one of you has kids from a previous marriage, you will be co-mingling the money in the trust unless you put it in new accounts titled as “<trust name and date>, separate...

I thought a 1040-X shows what the original values were on key lines of the tax return along with the updated (amended) values for those lines. Were all the original lines reported as zeroes?

I would think this would be a common mistake. But then, I also think the IRS could be waiting for that “original” return to show up.

Time to call and clarify it with them! Since the 1040-X is an abbreviated return, they will want to see your entire tax return for 2021. For example, they can’t tell what your wages or Roth conversions are by looking at the 1040-X AGI or how things might be reported separately for each spouse, if reporting MFJ.

Didn't you write $500 million? :sharebeer 500,000 not 500 million. This is a different situation now. In my opinion, the three of you MUST agree on your stance or it will become a 4-way case with at least 4 law firms! So you 3 should each have a chance to share your opinion with each other. When you come to an agreement, then stop talking about other options so the opposing lawyer can’t dig a wedge between you. The things you need to consider in likely decreasing order are: * family relationships not only between the 3 but also all 4. Take into account how many of you have kids and how close the cousins are to each other. * the estimated amount of money left in the estate, after lawyer fees are subtracted by both parties * your knowledge o...

Hi All, My accountant and financial planner are giving conflicting advice, and I'd appreciate some help regarding tax-deferred savings strategy. I almost stopped reading at this point since I knew what the disagreement would be about. But, I was surprised that the planner was the one to say ”stop tax-deferring” while the tax preparer says to keep going. They’re both right, but for different reasons. Do you want lower taxes now or later on in retirement? This is basically the same discussion as where to draw your living expenses from in early retirement (before SS starts). I think you might find this recent thread relevant if you already have over a million dollars in tax-deferred and hardly anything in Roth: Cusp of retirement… I would als...

I wouldn’t pay the €350.

I would tell the husband to pay!
HE needs to learn to be more careful next time.

I am very surprised at these responses. How is this her money? They are married. Unless a prenup says otherwise, this is THEIR money. I work and my wife stays at home. Is my paycheck only my money? No, it's OUR money. To those that are suggesting this is her money, do you suggest similarly that I offer my wife an allowance? when a married individual gets an inheritance it is separate property unless/until they put it in a joint account or use in for shared expenses such as the idea of paying down the mortgage. +1 If the inheritance is not co-mingled with joint assets, this also means if the couple divorces, this inherited money goes only to the person who inherited it, then the joint assets can be split equally. This is the same result as ...

Lee_WSP wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 1:45 pm If minors are named beneficiaries, the best outcome is either let it sit until they turn 18 . . .

This would be horrid too as the minors would turn 18 in various years while the IRA changes values. And this may take up to 18 more years for the account to be completely turned over (if a baby was born a few days before the original owner died).

I would defer to your wife, but suggest a compromise that might help. . . Who would she be “compromising” with? The money is all hers! Perhaps compromise was the wrong word...maybe an solution that both could agree on, help both, make use of the money in some sensible way but also make sure the wife's desires for a savings account is honored. If OP wants to dangle a “carrot” in front of DW, he could suggest that he write a written agreement to invest at least half of it in an account earning a higher interest rate with the condition he will reimburse her for any losses she incurs. He could even agree to give her another 1% from their joint account each year. My guess is that she won’t take the offer, though. But it would be interesting to ...

I'll note we married late in life and have mostly separate property. This is because we would like our separate residual estates to ultimately go to our own sets of relatives after we are both deceased. Hopefully you already know you should split your tax liability proportionally (unless you want to “gift” her some or all of the taxes you paid on her behalf). One way to determine portions is for each of you to draft a tax return as filing as Single. Split any interest/ capital gains on any accounts owned jointly and put half in each return. Note the tax liability for federal and state for each of you (NOT the amount of taxes refunded or still owed). Then save both data files. Start over for a joint return by first importing the more compli...

Beneficiary forms don’t have those custodian designations. This concern doesn’t even make sense. If the deceased has an IRA at a particular custodian, let’s say Vanguard, only that custodian (Vanguard) can divide up the IRA into new accounts for the beneficiaries. If a particular beneficiary doesn’t like Vanguard, after the Inherited IRA is funded, then the beneficiary can transfer the account to the custodian of their choice (eg, Fidelity). That’s what we did when we inherited as we wanted to keep all our accounts at the same custodian. Note that the split of Taxable accounts would probably also be split at the same custodian as the deceased used but at a later time if the Taxable assets were owned by the trust. The deceased’s final expen...