It’s Boy’s Week, the time of year when my closest high school buddies come to Pittsburgh for our annual gathering. They travel from all over the country as they have every year for roughly 35 years with the exception of the pandemic. There is no real agenda, but we always end up playing a lot of bridge and going for long walks that inevitably end at Mineos. We will likely play both regular golf and frisbee golf. We might go to a baseball game or spend a day in the Laurel Highlands. Ultimately, the specifics of our plans are not important; the essence of these gatherings is in the simple joy of spending time together.
The truth is it doesn’t really matter what we do. The important thing is to just hang out.
As you can imagine when a group of guys get together, we always talk about our feelings and our relationships. (OK, just kidding). The truth is we just love spending time together no matter what we talk about. In reality, news, sports, television, movies, and sarcasm directed at each other, particularly towards Bill Sikov, and humor dominate our discussions.
We started doing weekly Zoom meetings at the beginning of the pandemic and never stopped.
A recent peer-reviewed article published in Frontiers in Psychology by Christos Pezirkianidis, Evangelia Galanaki, Georgia Raftopoulou, Despina Moraitou, and Anastassios Stalikas, "Adult friendship and wellbeing: A systematic review with practical implications," has thrown a spotlight on the importance of adult friendships.
I found it fascinating, and in it, the authors draw a conclusion that I believe would resonate with many of us and that underscores the value of fostering our friendships in adulthood: “Positive, supportive relationships predict higher physical and psychological wellbeing levels more than any other variable.”
The authors of an earlier peer reviewed article on the subject also found evidence correlating measurable health benefits with higher degrees of adult friendship[1]. In that study, the results of which were published by the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found “previously unidentified causal evidence on the mechanisms linking social relationship patterns with health and longevity across the human life span.”
And the benefits of friendship aren't just about health and happiness. They also extend to meaningful engagement in the world. The Frontiers in Psychology study found that having a greater number of friends is associated with higher engagement in community activities. Isn't it fascinating that our friendships can impact not just our personal lives but also our connection to the broader community?
With these intriguing conclusions in mind, I encourage all of us to reflect on our friendships, to value them, and to invest time in them. Is there a friend you haven't spoken to in a while? Reach out. Is there a grudge between you and an old friend? Consider mending the bridge.
Let’s nurture these essential bonds. Let's invest time and energy in our friendships, for they are a crucial element of our wellbeing.
Warmly,
James Lange
[1] The article was published in the January 19, 2016 volume of the PNAS and is entitled “Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span.” The complete article is available free online at PNAS.org through the Academy’s open access option if you are interested in reading it.
Live In-Person Workshops!
So, You’ve Accumulated a Large IRA and/or Retirement Plan: Now What?
Three Sessions of Tax-Savvy Advice in a Live Workshops with Presenter CPA/Attorney James Lange, including One Specialty Session for Parents of a Child with a Disability
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Crowne Plaza, 164 Fort Couch Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15241 (across from South Hills Village)
/or/
Saturday, July 8, 2023
Comfort Inn, 180 Gamma Dr., Bldg. B, Pittsburgh, PA 15238 (take Exit 10 off Route 28)
Two easy ways to reserve your seats now.
Call 412-521-2732 or Register at PayTaxesLater.com/2023Workshops
Free refreshments will be served.
Session One: 9 – 11 AM
Getting the Most from Your IRAs and Retirement Plans After the SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0
Both foundational and advanced Roth IRA conversion techniques are included in this session.
With new tools and opportunities at your disposal, we encourage you to attend this workshop to learn how to defend yourself against the dreaded SECURE Act and take advantage of SECURE Act 2.0. In this session, we will cover:
- How IRA owners born between 1951 and 1959 can profit from SECURE Act 2.0.
- How to move a portion of your taxable investments (IRA and other retirement plans) to the tax-free investing environment (529 plans, your children’s Roth IRAs, Roth 401(k)s and more)—potentially more valuable for your children than you making Roth IRA conversions.
- Capitalizing on Roth IRA conversions through 2025 while favorable income tax rates remain and before the 2026 Sunset Provisions of The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 take effect and tax rates go up substantially.
- How you could benefit from the new rules allowing employers to contribute to an employees Roth retirement plan. (Previously, employers were only allowed to contribute to tax-exempt Traditional plans.)
- Rollover possibilities for 529 plans to Roth IRAs making 529 plans more attractive than ever.
- Advanced concepts for Roth IRA conversions:
- Transition after-tax dollars in retirement plans, to a Roth IRA at no cost—potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes down the road.
- How to benefit from back-door and Mega back-door Roth IRA conversions.
- How to plan for the conversion of an Inherited retirement plan to a Roth at your beneficiary’s tax rate, not your own. (This is a little known strategy with big tax savings for those who qualify.)
Session Two: Noon – 2 PM
The Best and Most Flexible Estate Plan for Retirement Plan Owners
Getting your retirement plan correct is critical, but if you don’t get your estate planning right, your family could lose hundreds of thousands in taxes. That can be prevented.
For many $1M+ IRA or retirement plan owners, unless you take aggressive action, your loved ones will likely take a massive income tax hit on the monies in those plans.This workshop will concentrate on what you can do to protect your estate from Uncle Sam with an emphasis on reducing income taxes, not federal estate taxes. We will review what we consider the best estate plan for most married IRA owners but will also cover some advanced trust planning.
We will combine our newest thinking with some of our classic strategies for protecting your children or grandchildren from themselves, but also creditors, possibly including their spouse.
Getting trusts right, particularly when the underlying asset is an IRA or retirement plan is crucial. In our reviews of trusts of this type, more than half the trusts we examine are not done right. This common estate planning mistake can be devastating for families with a large IRA and who prefer leaving money to one or more beneficiaries in a trust rather than leaving it to them outright. This could be a minor’s trust, a spendthrift trust, or an asset protection trust. This workshop shines a light on this common sloppy and costly estate planning error and how you can get it right. In this session, we will dive into:
- The details of the best and most flexible estate plan for married retirement plan owners known as Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan ™.
- Should your heirs inherit your IRA and other retirement assets directly, or would naming a trust be wiser?
- Do you need the ever more popular “I don’t want my no-good son-in-law to inherit one red cent of my money trust?”
Session Three: 2:30 - 4:30pm
Taming Parents’ Financial Fears for their Special Needs Child
My (Jim’s) special needs daughter will be better off by $1,890,544* in today’s dollars using three strategies that potentially could also be life changing for your family.
My wife and I lost many nights of sleep agonizing over what our daughter’s future would hold after we are gone. Before I came up with our preferred solution, all we could think of was: work longer, save more, spend less, and leave more. Then, I figured out the three-pronged solution to the problem.
- Qualify your child for SSI or SSDI
- Get the estate planning right
- Do a series of Roth IRA conversions
The third prong is universally overlooked. Tax laws including both the SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0 provide incredible benefits for parents of a special needs child to consider Roth conversions even if they have previously dismissed the idea.
Even for parents with a modest $500,000 IRA, optimizing Roth IRA conversions could make a difference of $239,000* in today’s dollars for your special needs child over their lifetime. In this session, you’ll discover:
- The enormous benefits of optimizing your Roth IRA conversion strategy for your special needs child.
- How Roth IRA conversions strengthen your financial position in addition to benefiting your special needs child.
- The peer-reviewed math and optimal timing for Roth IRA conversions.
- Why you should almost certainly establish an ABLE account for your child.
- Rollover possibilities for 529 and Roth plans into an ABLE Plan which, in many ways, is better than a Roth IRA.
- Who Gets What? Sophisticated legacy planning for children with dissimilar needs and situations.
- The importance of drafting a Special Needs Trust to protect your child’s government benefits and preserve the enormous tax benefits that qualified special needs children can benefit from.
- Advanced concepts for Roth IRA conversion:
- Transition after-tax dollars in retirement plans, to a Roth IRA at no cost—potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes down the road.
- How to plan for the conversion of an Inherited Retirement Plan to a Roth at your beneficiary’s tax rate, not your own.
*Assumptions available at https://PayTaxesLater.com/Assumptions
Live In-Person Workshops!
So, You’ve Accumulated a Large IRA and/or
Retirement Plan: Now What?
6 Valuable Bonus Gifts: Yours FREE When You Attend Any Workshop!
Free Bonus #1:
Register today and you will receive a digital copy of Jim Lange’s soon to be published book, Retire Secure for Professors and TIAA Participants, the best book Jim and his team have ever written. The advice in this book is applicable for all IRA and retirement plans owners.
Free Bonus #2:
Attendees also receive our 56-page Special Advisory Report for Parents of a Child with a Disability: Three Critical Steps to Protect Your Child’s Financial Security After You Are Gone.
Free Bonus #3:
Your next gift is a hard cover copy of Jim’s best-selling book, Retirement Plan Owner’s Guide to Beating the New Death Tax, detailing how to respond to the SECURE Act.
Free Bonus #4:
You will receive a copy of Jim’s 276-page best-seller, The Roth Revolution: Pay Taxes Once and Never Again. Jim shows how to use a series of Roth IRA conversions to grow income from your IRAs tax-free.
Free Bonus #5:
You will receive Jim’s book on Social Security, The $214,000 Mistake: How to Double Your Social Security & Maximize Your IRAs.
Free Bonus #6:
Qualified attendees are eligible for a FREE Retire Secure Initial Consultation with Jim Lange and one of his number-crunching CPAs.
Disclaimer: Lange Accounting Group, LLC offers guidance on retirement plan distribution strategies, tax reduction, Roth IRA conversions, saving and spending strategies, optimized Social Security strategies, and gifting plans. Although we bring our knowledge and expertise in estate planning to our recommendations, all recommendations are offered in our capacity as CPAs. We will, however, potentially make recommendations that clients could have a licensed estate attorney implement.
Asset location, asset allocation, and low-cost enhanced index funds are provided by the investment firms with whom Lange Financial Group, LLC is affiliated. This would be offered in our role as an investment advisor representative and not as an attorney.
Lange Financial Group, LLC, is a registered investment advisory firm registered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Banking, Harrisburg, PA. In addition, the firm is registered as a registered investment advisory firm in the states of AZ, FL, NY, OH, and VA. Lange Financial Group, LLC may not provide investment advisory services to any residents of states in which the firm does not maintain an investment advisory registration. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any strategy will be successful. Indexes are not available for direct investment. If you qualify for a free consultation with Jim, and attend a meeting, there are two services Jim and his firms have the potential to offer you. Lange Accounting Group, LLC could offer a one-time fee-for-service Financial Masterplan. Under the auspices of Lange Financial Group, LLC, you could potentially enter an assets-under-management arrangement with one of Lange’s joint venture partners.
Please note that if you engage Lange Accounting Group, LLC and/or Lange Financial Group, LLC for either our Financial Masterplan service or our assets-under-management arrangement, there is no attorney/client relationship in this advisory context.
Although Jim will bring his knowledge and expertise in estate planning to this workshop and to the meetings, it will be conducted in his capacity as a financial planning professional and not as an attorney. We are not soliciting for legal services.