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Retirement Planning

Retirement Planning in its most basic form involves accumulating sufficient resources via appropriate retirement vehicles and investment expertise, with the objective of providing yourself a financially secure retirement. But in its highest manifestation retirement planning involves optimizing not just the accumulation component but also the distribution component, as well as the creditor protection component, by minimizing the impact of income and estate taxes and third-party claims while maximizing perpetuation of retirement asset wealth over multiple generations.

Virtually every financial professional you interact with has some retirement planning expertise. Your financial advisors, your tax advisors and your estate planning attorneys all can be valuable facilitators of the retirement planning process.

So who should you turn to in order to assure that your retirement planning is “buttoned up,” with respect to the accumulation-optimization component, the distribution-optimization component and the creditor protection component? In all likelihood you can begin the process by turning to any one of the above professionals with whom you have an ongoing and valued relationship. When you do, you should request that a “retirement planning status review” be conducted. Once fully engaged in the process, you’ll emerge with a clearer view of where things stand and what (if anything) needs to be tweaked or overhauled.

LLO as part of its estate planning client intake process elicits information concerning the identity, value and beneficiaries of all retirement vehicles and then assures that both document provisions and beneficiary arrangements are implemented in a manner which properly integrates the clients’ retirement planning objectives with their estate planning objectives.  But we also offer a more in-depth Retirement Planning Status Review Service, either as a standalone undertaking or as an offshoot of our triennial free estate plan review service.

LLO’s Retirement Planning Status Review Service is discussed in detail below. But before we get into that, let’s examine the components of “Retirement Planning” in a bit more detail:

  1. Coming to the realization, hopefully early in life, that you ought to be taking advantage of the significant tax incentives provided to those who put something aside for retirement.
  2. With the encouragement and assistance of your financial and tax advisors, selecting the appropriate vehicle(s) for accumulating retirement wealth.
  3. Investing your retirement assets wisely over the years, under the guidance of professionals.
  4. Designating beneficiaries for retirement vehicle death benefits in a manner that balances the frequent conflict among income tax deferral, death tax minimization, creditor protection and the substantive facts, circumstances and objectives of your estate plan. This is a process sometimes referred to as “Integrating Retirement Planning with Estate Planning.”
  5. Periodically conducting a Retirement Planning Status Review.

Pleasant Dreams: the Benefits of a “Retirement Planning Status Review”

Here’s what LLO’s Retirement Planning Status Review Service consists of: 

  • First you complete LLO’s Retirement Planning Status Review Intake Form (downloadable from our website, or contact us for a copy) giving us current information about your retirement vehicles, your beneficiaries, your income and your income taxes, and indicating whether you want one or more of the following basic analyses:
    • Maximum Tax-Deferred Stretch-out Analysis
    • Inherited IRA Required Minimum Distributions Analysis
    • Roth IRA Conversion Analysis;

  • We’ll quote you a fee based on whichever one or more of the above calculations you’ve requested. Then once we’ve received your retainer, we’ll run the calculations, meet with you to review and if necessary tweak them, and then render a final written Retirement Planning Status Report to include the final calculations and any recommended retirement-planning-related estate planning changes, including but not limited to:
    • Beneficiary designation changes
    • Estate plan document changes
    • Level of creditor-protection afforded by each retirement vehicle, both as to --
      • creditors in general and
      • nursing home protection in particular
    • Additional fee quote for LLO implementing any recommended changes

So take advantage of our Retirement Planning Status Review Service, and dream the dreams of the planning-optimized.

Also, visit the www.llo-law.com website and click on the Newsletters drop-down menu to review the following retirement-planning-related Newsletter Articles:

  • August 2011: Special Needs Beneficiaries
  • April 2014: Traversing the Retirement Plan Beneficiary Designation Minefield
  • May 2015:
    • Significant Changes in RI -- IRAs affected
    • Clark v. Rameker - Inherited IRAs not exempt
    • How to Distribute an IRA to a Trust post-death

And click on the Articles by LLO drop-down menu to browse the following Items:

  • Using Standalone Retirement Distribution Trusts - Stephen T. O’Neill
  • Elder Law Treatise - Comments regarding nursing home protection aspects of retirement vehicles - Michael T. Lahti

Serving residents of Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Counties of Barnstable, Plymouth, Bristol, Norfolk, Suffolk and Middlesex.



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| Phone: 401-331-0808
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| Phone: 508-815-2500

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