Make sure yourgolden yearsSPARKLE.

While you plan for enjoying the fruits of your labor, it’s critical to ensure a steady stream of income that cannot be outlived. With the prospect of paying for retirement needs for as many as 20 years, retirees need to be concerned with maintaining their cost-of-living.

While Medicare provides a valuable safety net, it may not provide the coverage needed especially in chronic illness cases.  Planning for long-term care, in the event of a serious disability or chronic illness, is an important consideration of today’s smart retirement plan.

You want to make sure your wealth legacy is protected from onerous settlement costs and taxes. Planning for the transfer of assets at death is a critical element of retirement planning especially if there are survivors who may be dependent upon the assets for their financial security. SAM can help you plan for estate transfer through tools as simple as a will, up to more complex trusts.

We consider a smart retirement plan three-tiered: savings and investments, individual or employer-sponsored qualified retirement plans, and Social Security. SAM can help you craft a sound retirement plan that emphasizes qualified plans and personal savings as the primary sources with Social Security as a safety net for steady income.

Established in the 1930s as a safety net for retirees, Social Security pays benefits based upon the earnings of an individual while working. If a person wanted to continue to work and delay receiving benefits, they could do so to build up a larger benefit. Conversely, early retirement benefits are available, at a reduced level, as early as age 62.

Employer-sponsored plans deduct contributions from an employee’s current income. The amount of income received at retirement is based on the total amount of contributions, the returns earned, and the employee’s retirement time horizon. As in all qualified plans, withdrawals made prior to age 59½ may be subject to a penalty of 10% on top of ordinary taxes that are due. Depending on the size and type of the organization, they may offer a 401(k) plan, a Simplified Employee Pension plan or, in the case of a nonprofit organization, a 403(b) plan.

Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) are tax-qualified retirement plans established as a way for individuals to save for retirement with the benefit of tax-favored treatment. The traditional IRA generally allows for contributions to be made on a tax-deductible basis and to accumulate without current taxation of earnings inside the account. Distributions from a traditional IRA are taxable. With a Roth IRA, contributions are not tax deductible, however, the earnings growth is not currently taxable. To qualify for tax-free and penalty-free withdrawals of earnings, a Roth IRA must be in place for at least five tax years, and the distribution must take place after age 59½ or due to reasons such as death, disability, tuition or a first-time home purchase (up to a $10,000 lifetime maximum). Distributions from traditional IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans are taxed as ordinary income and, if taken prior to reaching 59 ½, may be subject to an additional 10% federal tax penalty.