Hello there! There’s a new face around the LFS offices, and it’s the person writing this blog post! My name is Avra, and I’m a summer intern for Linder Financial Services. The past few weeks, I’ve been doing some behind-the-scenes work at LFS, including learning the ropes, assisting with clerical work, and doing some research of my own.

When I was offered the intern position at LFS, I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous. I was alright in the math department, but finance was completely new to me— they don’t offer Economics classes to high school sophomores! I’d heard snatches of conversation between my parents about a “Roth” and a “401(k)”, but apart from that, everything flew right over my head.

Enter LFS. On my first day, I found a schedule on my desk, with five full weeks of learning and research ahead of me. And research I did—among conducting interviews, investigating companies to invest in for my own Roth IRA, practicing my elevator pitch, and designing projects, I took several pages of notes, referenced and cross-referenced sources, and accumulated quite a large bibliography. Turns out that the world of finance is a little more complicated than I thought! I did get to mix a bit of fun in with my work via designing and painting the LFS holiday card (look out for something new in December!), and creating an auction board for the Country Club of Roswell’s charity fundraiser. Overall, speaking from week five, I can gladly look back and say that the experience was worth it. It’s always nice to have useful information under your belt, and I’m excited to share with you all what I’m going to use it for!

My main project while interning has been to design an informative guide focused on teen investment, so that I can pass along the information I’ve learned during my time at LFS. Over the summer, I noticed that many of my friends got hired for jobs, and regardless of if they were employed at small businesses or doing volunteer work, the end result was often money. And what do you do with that? To make a long story short— they wanted to know. When I broached the idea of a guide to them, I was excited to see that many of them had lots of questions, so I was even more eager to dig deeper in my research. My efforts resulted in the creation of a Carrd— a website platform that allows you to create easy-to-use interactive infographics. Over the past year, Carrd has gained a notable amount of popularity in terms of usage for its accessible design and layout, so I thought it fitting to use for my fellow tech-savvy peers. (Don’t worry, Carrd can still be accessible to you if you aren’t well-versed with technology!) It’s packed with the basic need-to-knows about investment, and I can’t wait to share it with you all (if you’re interested, of course). And while I’ll be leaving soon to head back to school, it’ll coming to a blog near you…

As most of you know, everything at Ameritrade is tied to your mailing address, phone number and/or email address. If everything is current, Ameritrade is just slow and sometimes makes mistakes. Kinda like us. If these items are not current, it is nearly impossible to get anything done there, especially if it’s an urgent request. These Ameritrade requirements are for our security as account holders, so this is all good!

We took a quick look at our own family accounts and realized that some members of our family (not to name names, Mom and Dad) have been woefully negligent in updating these items. So, while we are cleaning up our own family info, we want to work with you on yours over the next few months. We realize that many of you have moved recently due to record low interest rates, have changed your email addresses or gotten rid of your home phones.

So how are we going to do this?

We have a CRM (customer relationship management) system which allows us to keep track of all of this client information – and we think it’s mostly accurate because your birthday cards don’t usually come back to us, but our system doesn’t update Ameritrade (again for security reasons). So, expect that this process will be a little manual. We will tell you what Ameritrade is showing and what our system has. If you tell us that any of this is wrong, we will send you any appropriate paperwork to change it at Ameritrade. Some info can also be updated via Advisor. Client.

HINT: We are now frequently using DocuSign for online form approval, when it is available, and you are comfortable using it. This process requires you to answer obscure security questions (what color was your car in 2005?) or uses double factor authentication via text to the cell phone number on record at Ameritrade. If you do not have a cell phone number on file at Ameritrade, this is a good time to add it, even if you don’t plan to text. They can then call you to give you the code.

Just think of this as summer cleaning….

Oops, we almost missed this but because it’s so important, we are going to extend June for another few days!

World Elder Abuse Awareness Month was started in 2006 to combat the six types of global elder abuse. Financial mistreatment of the elderly is actually the most common and fastest growing type of elder abuse around the world.

What exactly is elder financial abuse?

The Older Americans Act of 2006 defines “elder financial abuse” as “the fraudulent or otherwise illegal, unauthorized, or improper act or process of an individual, including a caregiver or fiduciary, that uses the resources of an older individual for monetary or personal benefit, profit or gain, that results in depriving an older individual of rightful access to, or use of, benefits, resources, belongings or assets.”

I know many of us are saying “well yes, but that can’t/won’t happen to me or my parents.” We hope we are right about that, but AARP says that the victims of just investment fraud are most likely married men with higher incomes and greater financial literacy than average. That sounds like a lot of us, and our fathers! And even more scary, as much as 90% of overall elder financial mistreatment is done by relatives or other trusted caregivers. Retirees are often targeted just because of their wealth. And only 1 in 6 cases is reported. And in case you are wondering, we have absolutely had clients who have been the victims of elder financial abuse.

What are the signs of elder financial abuse?

The experts tell us to watch for in our loved ones:

• Uncharacteristic purchases or money transfers. As you know, we look at every Ameritrade transaction every day and we call you if we see something that doesn’t look like you.
• Failure to pay bills or keep appointments. This can sometimes be elder abuse and sometimes be forgetfulness or something else, of course
• Secretive transactions or unwillingness to discuss financial behaviors

What should I do if I’m the victim of financial abuse?

• Report to Adult Protective Services in your county
• Notify local police department
• Tell us, and your other loved ones

We are happy to virtually introduce you to our summer intern, Avra Neuringer. Avra is our niece, the oldest daughter of our sister Nancy and brother-in-law David. She will be a rising junior at Northview High School here in Atlanta.

Hopefully, many of you will meet Avra during her summer with us. She will be participating in meetings via ZOOM and in person, and she will have a variety of projects which we hope will be educational and even a little fun for her!

Avra will author Bernie’s Blog at the end of her summer with us to share what she has worked on and what she has learned.

Welcome Avra!

Back by popular demand and compliments of Nerdwallet, is an updated look at happy financial birthdays. Or not. All are subject to change.

And all of these treats are in addition to the nifty birthday cards you get from us!

We can help with any of these!

Age 50: Annual additional catch-up contributions of $1000 for traditional/Roth IRA’s are allowed (from $6000 to $7000). For employer-sponsored plans like 401K’s or 403B’s, the annual catch-up amount is $6500 (from $19,000 to $26,000)

Age 55: You can now (usually) withdraw dollars from your employer-sponsored retirement plan if you leave your employer for any reason, without the 10% early withdrawal penalty. Income taxes still have to be paid. Of course.

Age 59½: Withdrawals from any retirement plan without a 10% early withdrawal penalty are now allowed. Income taxes – uh yeah.

Age 60: For most widows/widowers, this is the earliest age to collect survivor social security benefits. There are situations where survivor benefits can begin earlier.

Age 62: This is the earliest age for social security benefits to begin (yours or spousal) but amounts are permanently lower than if you wait until full retirement age which is currently 66-67. There is also a reduction in benefits until you reach full retirement age, if you earn over $18,960 in 2021.

Age 65: You are now usually eligible for Medicare. Get signed up before you turn 65 if you can.

Age 66-67: This is considered full retirement age. This is age 66 if you were born between 1943 and 1954. It goes up by two months per year until you reach 67 if born after 1960. This will change of course. Starting to receive social security at this age means no reduction due to early start payments or income.

Age 70: Delaying social security beyond your full retirement age (see above) increases your (or your spouse’s) benefit by 8% per year until it maxes out at age 70.

Age 72: Required minimum distributions (RMDs) out of traditional, non-beneficiary IRA’s start at age 72. The government has been waiting for its (fair) share of income taxes for decades, so this is the time. There are other rules for employer sponsored plans if you are still working. Does not apply to Roth IRA’s. Qualified charitable contributions up to the amount of your RMD are not currently subject to income tax.

This issue of “Bernie’s Blog” comes to you from Tim Kriegel who is a CPA, as well as part of our LFS family.

This month we want to look at the tax proposals impacting individuals that have been floated by President Biden. We will keep our discussion to the major points and those that are more likely to impact our clients as there have been a lot of ideas discussed. From what we have been able to discern, even if Congress would pass tax legislation this year, the changes would not be effective until 2022. However, now is the time to start discussing and thinking about the possible implications.

Major potential changes:

• Top income tax rate on individuals increased from 37% to 39.6% for single filers with incomes above $452,700 (joint filers $509,300).
• Long term capital gains of taxpayers (single or joint) reporting $1 million or more income on their returns would pay capital gain taxes at a rate of 39.6% up from 20% today.
• The tax benefit of itemized deductions for those earning over $400,000 will be capped.
• FICA taxes would be imposed on wages above $400,000.
• The current Estate/Gift tax rate and exemption would remain unchanged.

One of the biggest potential items impacting our clients is the proposal to change how unrealized gains are taxed at death. The proposal eliminates the stepped-up cost basis on inherited assets upon death.

There are several exemptions which we will be glad to discuss when we meet.

The President’s proposals are a starting point and will not pass Congress as-is. They are bound to evolve, and compromises will be made, but we should all be aware of the ongoing discussions. The last discussion item will impact a lot of people.