All About Retirement Funds : The Easy Way to Get Started

August 26, 2008

All About Retirement Funds : The Easy Way to Get Started

All About Retirement Funds is a commonsense, practical guide that covers every financial aspect of planning for retirement. Up-todate, in-depth coverage is provided for maximizing the long-term benefits of a 401(k), IRA, pension plan, annuity, Social Security, or other retirement financial vehicle. From determining how much money will be needed, to when and how to begin drawing on retirement reserves, this comprehensive, easy-to-read addition to McGraw-Hill’s bestselling All About series tells workers everything they need to know to save, invest, and plan for a long and financially comfortable retirement.

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Retirement Plan Benefits and QDROs in Divorce

August 26, 2008

Retirement Plan Benefits and QDROs in Divorce Every year, well over one million Americans obtain a divorce. Retirement savings represent one of, if not the most, significant assets of most individuals, with typically more than 75% of a couple’s assets comprised of retirement savings. The division of retirement benefits in a divorce is effected by a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO). Under a QDRO, a portion of an employee’s retirement benefits may be assigned to someone other than the plan participant to fulfill that individual’s marital property settlement or family support obligations. The accurate valuation and allocation of retirement benefits in divorce proceedings are thus critical aspects of the divorce process, and accountants who provide litigation support services, family law attorneys, benefits specialists advising individuals and other professionals involved in divorce proceedings need to under the methods and legal requirements. Unfortunately for practitioners, these topics are complex and are not comprehensively covered by undergraduate or graduate coursework. Neither the CPA examination nor coursework in undergraduate/graduate accounting programs cover the topics of valuing retirement benefits or QDROs, yet more and more CPAs are engaging in this work and are called into court to testify on these particular financial issues. Similarly, family law attorneys and even judges hearing marital dissolution cases often have little familiarity with QDRO requirements and their potential importance as a marital asset. This lack of understanding leads to poor drafting, exposing an attorney to potential malpractice liability, and missed opportunities to maximize a client’s ability to collect what is duly owed. CCH’s Retirement Plan Benefits and QDROs in Divorce provides detailed guidance on the issues attendant to examining and valuing retirement benefits in divorce and drafting QDROs and non-ERISA plan orders. Coverage includes discussions of: viewing retirement plans as assets; determining whether to use a valuation of a retirement plan to offset its value against other marital assets or to draft a QDRO; discovery; the procedure for valuing retirement plans, including the characteristics of pension valuations and other considerations in valuation such as vesting and pensions in payout status; effective drafting of QDROs for divorce and related orders, including the use of model orders; use of QDROs for child support arrearages; tax treatment of benefits; non-ERISA plans, including the civil service retirement system, military plans, and city and county plans; malpractice considerations; and more. Retirement Plan Benefits and QDROs in Divorce is a practical, easy-to-understand resource for this complex area of practice. It includes helpful case studies, examples, proposed settlement agreement language, and more. And, unlike other books currently available on the subject, this new title is the only title oriented to accountants as well as attorneys. All the key advisers to the divorce, whether drafting attorney, accounting/benefit valuation professional or other specialists should understand the issues, so they can effectively contribute to the settlement. In terms of placing a value on a retirement plan, a better educated practitioner can examine a pension valuation presented by an “expert” and not be intimidated by the methodology. Written by Timothy Voit, a full-time specialist engaged in retirement plan valuation and QDRO drafting, this book focuses on pensions because they tend to be the largest marital asset, in terms of value. The discussion is divided into two main parts–the valuation of retirement plans and the drafting of court orders dividing retirement plans using a QDRO or like court order, with the chapters placed in order based on their relevance to the divorce process in general.

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The Experience of Retirement

August 26, 2008

The Experience of Retirement Retirement brings with it the promises of leisure and freedom as well as the risks of boredom and isolation. When retirees rid their schedules of anything resembling the kinds of obligations that once had been imposed by work, they will experience a sometimes-uncomfortable absence of structure. In The Experience of Retirement, the distinguished sociologist Robert S. Weiss provides a detailed description of how some people plan their retirement, what life in retirement is like, and what makes for a fulfilling retirement. His engaging book can thus serve as a most useful guide. Weiss shows us both retirement’s benefits and its possible costs, both the relief retirees can feel once free of work’s stresses and constraints and the discomfort that can be caused by loss of the positive aspects of working life.

The book is based on extensive interviews with eighty-nine men and women before and after their retirement from middle-income careers. Weiss makes vivid their experiences by presenting, in their own words, their descriptions of leaving their careers, considering what to do with their time, confronting issues of income in retirement, dealing—sometimes—with social isolation, and reorganizing their lives. The interviews reveal the way in which retirement affects marriages and other familial relationships. Weiss concludes by presenting advice about retirement based on the actual experiences of retirees. For anyone approaching the age of retirement or already retired and looking for a more satisfying post-career life, for personnel managers, health care professionals, and all those who provide services for the retired, The Experience of Retirement will be an illuminating guidebook to this phase of life.
Customer Review: should have read it sooner…..
excellent book on the experience of retirement…. i only wish i had read it before i took early retirment from college teaching…. makes me feel a lot saner reading the interviews in this book!
Customer Review: Need livelier experiences
As a career consultant and former academic, I am a great admirer of Robert Weiss. I continue to recommend Learning From Strangers to students who want to learn qualitative research. And I am of an age when retirement can be a realistic option for the current or near future.

So naturally I looked forward to this book, hoping for new insights and ideas.

Experience of Retirement is based on interviews with a sample of retired people in the Greater Boston area. As the author explains, most were chosen from middle class neighborhoods, although a few self-selected after reading about the study. The book itself comes from depth interviews with these retirees, divided into chapters based on typical retirement issues.

Perhaps the best part of the book comes in the Introductioon, where the author reflects on his own retirement. Unfortunately, the rest of the book seems as prosaic (and almost as dated) as the gold watch pictured on the front cover. Authors rarely get to choose their own cover art, so we have to ask why the publishers chose a stereotypical image for a book that questions retirement stereotypes.

Because the interviewees were chosen to be “typical” or “ordinary” middle class retirees, their stories are, well, typical. It’s not realistic to generalize beyond this rather narrow sample and in any case, their insights just aren’t that profound or novel. Retirees enjoy extended breakfast hours…well, okay, but so what?

The biggest gap of the book is the lack of reference to single, never-married retirees. Some interviewees have been divorced or widowed, but I don’t recall references to bachelors. Some time ago I read research suggesting that single people actually fared better on their own because they had learned to enjoy their own company.

Other sections are simply too short to be useful. His relocation advice on pages 184-185 seems completely accurate and helpful (based on my own background as a relocation “expert”). Dependence on an automobile and separation from friends creates special challenges, often arising from a wish to move to a lower-cost, slower-paced small town.

But I’d like to go deeper. Volunteer work has a different kind of energy than paid work. Someone who misses the challenge and competition of working for pay needs to explore new worlds, such as working online.

Those who want to work face social pressures to look younger, and these pressures have financial impact. A woman could easily spend $100-$200 a month or more on hair, makeup and manicures. It’s no longer enough to cover gray: now you’re judged on highlights. And a sixty-something woman may be less than thrilled by what’s considered the requisite fashion in shoes.

I wish Weiss had drawn on his superb sociological background to develop a sustained theoretical framework to explain retirement. Do retirees take on new roles in society? Are they a form of new social class — a lower class, to be sure? A new culture? He could have referred to the seminal book Becoming an Ex, a sociological classic about leaving one role that formerly defined us.

But perhaps there are more basic difficulties with the whole notion of retirement. It’s difficult to accept the retirement experience from the aging experience. And the greatest challenges of aging may be inherently sociological. The aging cohort clashes with the values and demands of the younger cohorts. We face an outdated social infrastructure, designed for a time when age fifty meant “old” and geographic boundaries made sense.

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Washington Retirement Options: The Statewide Guide to Independent and Assisted Living Retirement Communities

August 26, 2008

Washington Retirement Options: The Statewide Guide to Independent and Assisted Living Retirement Communities A bewildering array of choices confronts anyone looking for the right retirement community. With buzzwords like continuing care, independent living, and skilled care, how can anyone assess all the different levels of service? Now, for the first time, here is guidance for anyone in Washington State faced with finding retirement housing. Gerontologist Jeannette Franks has evaluated 200 retirement communities and assisted living centers across the state to provide retirees with the power of information when they go about making this all-important decision.
Customer Review: Washington Retirement Options
When this book came out in 2001, it was very helpful for evaluating the many retirement and assisted living communities in Washington state. Now, in 2007, it badly needs to be updated since so many new communities have been built. Still, the reviews of the almost 250 places it does cover are beneficial. It is arranged by regions, then by cities, making it easy to see what’s available in your area.

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Retire On the House: Using Real Estate To Secure Your Retirement

August 26, 2008

Retire On the House: Using Real Estate To Secure Your Retirement Use your home to finance your retirement

Forgot to save for retirement, but bought a house? Saved a lot and also bought a house? Whatever your situation, Retire on the House can show you how to best use your home equity for a long and prosperous retirement.

Focusing on both retirement and real estate, Retire on the House is designed for retiree homeowners who want to use their home equity to finance their retirement. Filled with valuable insights and practical advice, this unique guide illustrates a number of ways this can be done, including:

Selling your current home at the top of the market, moving to a less expensive residence, and retiring on your profits
Obtaining rental income from your current home by renting to boarders
Remodeling your home into units for much higher rental income
Three options for obtaining cash from your home without selling, remodeling, or renting it
Reducing or eliminating retirement expenses such as taxes
Balancing your real estate portfolio by diversifying with other asset classes

Many of today’s homes have tremendous value, and with Retire on the House as your guide, you’ll discover how to use this value to achieve the retirement you deserve.
Customer Review: A great resource with tons of tips and suggestions.
I love this book because it is well-written and market savvy, but it doesn’t talk over my head. The suggestions for how best to utilize my real estate equity are clear and forthright. The predictions for new up and coming areas to purchase in are so helpful(and worth the purchase of the book alone.) Also, the various strategies for planning for retirement make this book an absolute must-have for anyone who owns or dreams of owning a home. I highly recommend this book. As far as financial books go, this gets my highest rating!
Customer Review: Great book on important subject
If you or anyone you know has questions about real estate and the investment aspects of it – particularly as they get older then this is the book. After reading it, I decided to give copies of it for Christmas to my parents and my inlaws.

It does a great job of laying out the options homeowners have of using their single family residence as an investment. The real life examples of using home equity with a variety of reverse mortgages, interfamily loans and home equity lines of credit were very useful. It helped clarify a dizzying array of options available to me and others as a homeowner who may one day need to use my home equity to assist in retirement. I found this book to be incredibly thorough, well-researched and well written.

I highly recommend it to anyone with a meaningful amount of home equity and to those who advise investors on home investment options.

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Time to rethink your 401(k) plan? Pension Protection Act allows employers to redesign retirement plans.: An article from: Journal of Accountancy

August 23, 2008

Time to rethink your 401(k) plan? Pension Protection Act allows employers to redesign retirement plans.: An article from: Journal of Accountancy This digital document is an article from Journal of Accountancy, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1970 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Time to rethink your 401(k) plan? Pension Protection Act allows employers to redesign retirement plans.
Author: Nancy E. Oates
Publication: Journal of Accountancy (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 203 Issue: 5 Page: 50(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale