If you have a child, grandchild or loved one who is away at college, you should be aware that the federal medical privacy rules (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 – “HIPAA”) apply to him or her. Once your child turns 18, the federal HIPAA law says that you can no longer have … Read more
It’s a common scenario: An elderly relative is no longer able to live alone, so family members sell the relative’s house and have the relative start living with them or in a nursing home or assisted living facility that’s closer to the family.
One thing you might not consider
Have you ever considered writing down a list of all your assets (with account numbers, passwords, and so on), as well as debts and recurring payments?
Making such a list and putting it in a secure place can be a godsend if something ever happens to you and you become incapacitated, because your family will have a much easier time looking after your affairs.
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, a middle-class couple described the extraordinary difficulties they faced when
Congress has revived a law that lets you make charitable donations directly from your IRA, which might provide older people with some significant tax advantages.
The “IRA charitable rollover” was discontinued at the end of 2014. But Congress has now resurrected it, made it permanent, and also made it retroactive to the beginning of 2015.
If you’re over the age of 70½, you’re required to take minimum distributions each year from your IRA, and you have to pay income tax on those distributions. But the “charitable rollover” law lets you
The federal government has begun a much more intensive program of auditing health care providers for violations of HIPAA, the federal law that protects patients’ privacy. For the first time, the government will be auditing not only health care providers but also related businesses to whom patients’ information might be disclosed – including third-party administrators, … Read more
Did you know that it may be possible to avoid paying immediate capital gains taxes when you sell an investment property? That’s true if you’re planning to sell the property and invest the proceeds in another property shortly afterward. For instance, suppose you own a condo as an investment, and you plan to sell it … Read more
A New York company ran a loan-application website. As part of the application process, users had to click a box to get from one screen to the next. Above the box it said, “Clicking the box below constitutes your acceptance of … the borrower registration agreement.” The borrower registration agreement wasn’t on the page, but the words “borrower registration agreement” were a hyperlink to another page that included the complete contract. In fine print, the contract said that disappointed borrowers couldn’t sue in court and had to take all claims to arbitration.
Was this binding?
People who are remarrying after a death or divorce should almost always strongly consider having a prenuptial agreement.
When prenup agreements first became popular a generation ago, most people thought of them as a way for wealthy people to protect themselves in case they were marrying a gold digger. Today, however, prenups don’t have the same connotation. They’re often used as a straightforward financial and estate planning tool, especially by mature couples who are entering into a second marriage.
The number one reason that people enter into prenups
A company called Multi Time Machine makes high-end military-style watches. It refuses to sell them on Amazon. If you search for the company’s watches on Amazon, you’ll get a long list of competing watches. Is this illegal? Possibly, according to a federal appeals court in San Francisco, which allowed a lawsuit against Amazon. If you … Read more
As a general rule, you can deduct home mortgage interest on your federal income taxes, as long as you itemize deductions. This sounds simple enough, but it can get complicated if a home is owned by more than one person. Recently, the IRS provided an explanation of how this works. According to the IRS, the … Read more