8 Elbert County News
January 21, 2016
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Social Security rule change coming soon Congress recently approved a budget deal that eliminates two popular Social Security claiming strategies for married couples. Planners have recommended for years that couples take advantage of claiming first under spousal benefits and delaying their own, earning Delayed Retirement Credits. This would allow the benefit to grow until they collect at a later age. This was popular for couples who were similar in age but at least one planned on working to full-retirement age (FRA) and possibly longer. There are only a few months before the April 30 deadline to determine if you are still eligible to claim under the Restricted Application or the File and Suspend. Typical of a government agency, you need a primer to understand the options. Here are the basic strategies using our sample couple, John, age 65, married to Mary, age 62. Both will be FRA at 66. • Mary can collect a reduced benefit at age 62 if she is not working and earning more than $15,720 per year. However, her benefit will be reduced indefinitely. • If Mary turned age 62 prior to Dec. 31, 2015, and John turns 66 prior to April 30, 2016, then John can File and Suspend (and keep working) so Mary can file a Restricted Application, restricting her benefit to half of John’s. This will allow Mary’s benefit to accrue to a higher value when she is older. She can file at any time just as long as she was 62 before the turn of the year. • John, however, can only File and Suspend for the purposes of Mary collecting a spou-
sal benefit by April 30. This is part of the 180-day grandfather rule that started when Congress passed the law on Oct. 30, 2015. • At age 70 John can collect his maximum Delayed Retirement Credits, which will accrue at 8 percent per year up to Patricia Kummer age 70. FINANCIAL • Mary can turn STRATEGIES on her own benefit anytime between age 66 and 70, and collect her Delayed Retirement Credits that were accruing while she was collecting half of John’s benefit. This works best if John continues working and contributing to his Social Security amount. • The File and Suspend in order for your spouse to file a Restricted Application is expiring. If the wage earner is not age 66 by April 30, and if the spouse was not at least age 62 prior to the end of 2015, then these strategies are no longer available. Keep in mind there are still many tax and income strategies you can plan for around when and who should collect Social Security and at what ages. Unfortunately, the ability to double-dip, such as collecting a spousal benefit while your own accrues, will no longer be available. There are still good planning techniques
associated with spouses purposely collecting at different ages. One benefit is when the highest wage earner delays collecting until age 70. This creates the highest possible benefit for the wage earner or the surviving spouse. Non-working spouses are still eligible to collect under their working spouse’s benefit, but the option to collect under a Restricted Spousal benefit and accrue higher benefits under your own wages is expiring this April. It is important to plan your retirement strategies well, including IRA distributions and other taxable income, as well as calculating the optimum age for collecting Social Security benefits. Some couples may also be impacted by pension plans, Government Offset Provisions, and Public Employee Retiree Account (PERA) offsets. Therefore, meeting with your advisor well in advance of retirement gives you the best planning ideas to enhance your overall retirement. Patricia Kummer has been an independent certified financial planner for 29 years and is president of Kummer Financial Strategies Inc., a registered investment advisor in Highlands Ranch. Kummer Financial is a six-year 5280 Top Advisor. Please visit www. kummerfinancial.com for more information or call the economic hotline at 303-683-5800. Any material discussed is meant for informational purposes only and not a substitute for individual advice.
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Mad world requires hope, calm approach
Production/Marketing Manager SCOTT ANDREWS
Do you remember the Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start the Fire?” Billy Joel takes us musically through a history lesson as he shares everything from Harry Truman to heavy metal, the cola wars and everything in between including Woodstock, punk rock, Watergate, AIDS, crack, terror on the airlines, etc., etc. The chorus goes like this: “We didn’t start the fire, It was always burning, Since the world’s been turning, We didn’t start the fire, No we didn’t light it, But we tried to fight it.” As I have overheard many times over the past several months, “The world has gone mad.” I have even caught myself thinking it or saying it as I watch or read the news. I mean, Billy Joel could probably rewrite the lyrics to the song to include everything from ISIL/ISIS, the three-ring circus of a presidential race, ebbs and flows of social media opinions, rants, debates, immigration, ranchers taking over federal buildings, drug addictions at epidemic proportions, celebrity breakups and connections, weekly professional athlete antics and arrests, and the list goes on and on. Have you found yourself thinking it or saying it, “The world has gone mad?” If so, just remember, “We didn’t start the fire, It was always burning, Since the world’s been
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turning, We didn’t start the fire, No we didn’t light it, But we tried to fight it.” There are so many things we can do to “fight it,” many things we can do locally and that may have an impact globally. Those ideas are for another column or email Michael Norton exchange as right now WINNING the focus of this column is on what we can WORDS do for ourselves when we find ourselves reeling from the feeling of the world going mad. Or better yet, going, going, going, gone mad. First we should try and remember that, “It was always burning, Since the world’s been turning.” And generation after generation has survived most of it. Secondly, we need to stay true to our belief system and not get caught up in the attempts at influence of others where it conflicts with our belief system. And lastly, at least for today, we need to live with hope. Not false hope, or empty promises of hope and change, but the kind
of hope that fuels our everyday attitudes, the kind of hope that drives encouragement to make changes or to be a difference maker, and the hope that the next thing we hear and see on the news will be one thing we can build upon in our own personal lives and for our families. We didn’t start the fire, but somebody did. It has been burning since the world’s been turning, and it will always be burning in some way. No, we didn’t light it, not most of us anyway, the majority of the world is still good. But we do try and fight it, and we do that through a commitment to our belief systems, positive actions, and by living with hope. How about you? How are you dealing with a world that has gone mad? Are you caught up in the madness or are you a believer of hope? Either way I would love to hear all about it at gotonorton@gmail.com. And when we stay committed to our belief system, action, and hope, it really will be a better than good week. Michael Norton is a resident of Castle Rock, the former president of the Zig Ziglar Corporation, a strategic consultant and a business and personal coach.
Goodbye, David Bowie; hello again, mortality David Bowie died. He died a couple of days after turning 69. We were both born in the same year. I just looked at the calendar and wondered where those numbers came from. Two thousand sixteen. What goes along with it, are my own numbers. Bowie was so hot in the ’70s that there were lotteries for his concert tickets. My favorite Bowie song is “China Girl,” which he cowrote with Iggy Pop. Pop was in love with a Vietnamese girl at the time. Pop was raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and attended Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. We would have been schoolmates, if my family had stayed in Ann Arbor. Pop and I were born in the same year too. We have lived very different lives. I was 55 when I retired, and wondered what I was going to do every day. I wondered if I would have enough to do,
or if I would wind up not doing very much of anything. It’s not like that. I have never been more productive in my life. I have a much better outlook. Being a schoolteacher at a school Craig Marshall Smith where accountability was all over QUIET us was wearing me DESPERATION down. And so were the students. More and more of them were being accepted who didn’t belong in college. I was on the Internet today at 4 a.m., and there was the Bowie story. Good morning, Craig.
“The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off (The The).” And then on one of my playlists I heard “My Back Pages.” I guess someone wants me to think about mortality today. “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” I can vividly remember 15, 16, 17 and 18. But 41, 42, 43 and 44? No idea. I know I was a schoolteacher, that’s about it. Keeping a grade book, hiring part-time instructors and feeling sorry for them. They had no benefits. The school had benefits because they were far less expensive than I was. I planned to retire in 2003. One morning I opened an email from the school president. She said she would give me a satchel of Smith continues on Page 9
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