Join David McKnight and I to discuss his book "The Guru Gap"!

[LostDollar]

The more well-known books are those by Tom Hegna for retirement planning:

Paychecks and Playchecks: Retirement Solutions for Life
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Amazon.com

This book has 315 ratings on Amazon.

Don't Worry, Retire Happy: Seven Steps to Retirement Security
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Amazon.com

This book has 129 ratings on Amazon.

David McKnight's The Power of Zero: How to get to the 0% tax bracket and Transform Your Retirement
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Amazon.com

McKnight's book has nearly 2,600 ratings on Amazon.

I don't know who Terry Savage is.

Laurence Kotlikoff would add to these areas. Here you go:

Amazon.com

Thank you for taking the time to post the comments and the links.

I can't get to zero. I will see what McKnight says in his new book about Gurus and those 18 retirement risks you talked about.

I think Hegna's book, Don't Worry, Retire Happy is what I will start with out of the additional things you suggested.

Last year I was trying to decide about making a recommendation to take Social Security early when the payments would be offset by earnings.

I ran onto reports by Kotlikoff and Savage about ruthless clawbacks of old SS "overpayments". I decided taking the early SS when it was going to be accompanied by job earnings offsets was not worth the risk of future challenges by SS for incorrect computations.

Anyway, that's where her name came up for me.

Based on some other comments I saw made by Kotlikoff, I had considered attempting, back then, to ask you about Financial financial planning vs Economist financial planning, but decided I did not have the reading speed, reading comprehension, and level of critical thinking that would have been necessary for me to uphold my end of the conversation.

 

[DHK]

those 18 retirement risks you talked about.

This link has a white paper from The American College on those 18 retirement risks. (I would've posted it directly, but the 3.2mb file is "too big" for the forum to attach it as a file.)

https://www.safemoneyhouston.com/uploads/7/8/5/6/78562736/retirement_risk_solutions.pdf

Based on some other comments I saw made by Kotlikoff, I had considered attempting, back then, to ask you about Financial financial planning vs Economist financial planning, but decided I did not have the reading speed, reading comprehension, and level of critical thinking that would have been necessary for me to uphold my end of the conversation.

I have a general rule for retirement planning combined with tax planning: If you have less than $500,000 of retirement assets, you don't need tax-focused planning. The math just won't make sense and the tax code really won't hurt you.

For potential clients in that economic level, those will primarily be product sales, such as annuities with lifetime income benefit riders or other provisions. It won't be a max-funded non-mec cash value life insurance policy. It just doesn't make sense to me.

There is a term that I made up that doesn't really exist: Generally Accepted Financial Planning Principles (GAFPP). The problem with it, is that there aren't hard and fast rules like there is in accounting with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

That being said, Financial financial planning is more of the "time-tested" or rather "traditional" planning while Economist planning is looking at the dynamics of the world and insulating ourselves from them and/or taking advantage of them.

Sometimes there's room for both in a product strategy. It just "depends."

 

[LostDollar]

I have a general rule for retirement planning combined with tax planning: If you have less than $500,000 of retirement assets, you don't need tax-focused planning. The math just won't make sense and the tax code really won't hurt you.

I fit that categorization.

In terms of absolute dollars, for you guys dealing with hundreds of people with millions in retirement assets, my situation is like an Oreo cookie for an afternoon snack. But since it is my situation, it is a big deal to me.

I don't know for sure what logic would say about my needs for tax planning. What I can tell you is my feelings say it is necessary -- to the extent I can find GAFPP concepts that can be adjusted to fit my situation.

In 5 years, my household's marginal tax rate will jump 1 bracket. My death and the resulting widow tax rate "adjustment" might jump it another bracket, leaving my wife as a single taxpayer with a marginal rate two brackets higher than our current joint marginal rate.

Hence my concern to see there is not some easy "you should be doing this" tax thing in addition to Roth Conversions that I should be doing now. I think your and Allen's comments have told me there isn't.

 

[Lloyds of Lubbock]

There is no one size fits all book.
I happen to like Ed Slott, the fact that he likes life insurance is a plus.
Even Dave Ramsey for some people it is great advice.

 

[PrivClientSG]

Is there a book of conceptual advice you would use with the high-quality, wealthy people with good financial habits?

For what purpose? Conceptal, general, etc. -- no, I don't think there are. Why? Because HNW, wealthy people don't fall into "conceptual" or "general" or anything of the like. I wouldn't take that approach.

Now, there are specific books, on specific topics, that I have used with HNW people. But it's very case specific.

 

[LostDollar]

I spent some time yesterday afternoon getting depressed listening to planning videos by David McKnight and others.

Mr McKnight talks a lot about getting to the $0 tax bracket and also says something to the effect that current tax rates are the sale of a lifetime.

Which leads me to wonder:

The PostOffice sells forever stamps. Buy now, use whenever after rates go up.

Somebody, maybe Ed Slott commented that the IRS loves Roth accounts because of all the taxes they collect on conversion money.

Maybe the IRS can find a way to sell forever tax credits per tax bracket at todays tax rates.

(This could keep some actuaries employed designing the system.)

 

[LostDollar]

I have a general rule for retirement planning combined with tax planning: If you have less than $500,000 of retirement assets, you don't need tax-focused planning. The math just won't make sense and the tax code really won't hurt you.

Today (as a non-carpenter and non-insurance agent) I was supposed to be trying to figure out how to raise a sagging 30 year old deck.

Instead, to answer a question posed above, I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to make a concise public forum statement about a very personal financial matter, that centers around managing Inherited IRA cash flows for the next 30 years.

One of the things I realized in that process was that in the last 8 years with retirement assets under $50K, then retirement assets under $100K, then retirement assets under $500K, income taxes have been, are, and will be, for me, a major factor in planning retirement fund management steps at ALL of those financial asset levels, just as they would be if I had a funds base in the millions.

As a result, I will have to strongly disagree with your statement I have bolded above. When you are used to thinking in millions of dollars of assets, the tax numbers I am dealing with are trivial. When you are having to think in thousands, or tens of thousands, they are important. It's the GAFPP concept of merging "managing finances for tax benefit" along with "other management considerations" that is important.

Around 50 years ago, purely by accident, I had a CPA as a lunch companion for a short time. I can't remember his face, his name, his company, or anything we talked about, except for one thing he said in a very, very forceful manner.

"It's all about taxes."

 

[PrivClientSG]

Taxes impact everyone. How much they do, to what extent, what it means and the impact it has on one's lifestyle, and so on -- is all relative.