As many of you know there is much discussion in Washington these days about possible tax reform. I emphasize possible since nothing is definite and it may not be definite until after the first of the year.

If you have a child (or grandchild) currently in their last year of high school you should be aware of the new filing date for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid also known as FAFSA. The FAFSA is the initial form that parents need to complete if they wish to be eligible for financial aid when their child goes off to college next fall.

Okay, this blog post is not about how you can personally find $42 billion, but how all Americans combined can find this money. According to this video, there is about $42 billion in unclaimed property.

Last week Congress passed a two-year budget deal that includes important provisions designed to close perceived 'loopholes' in the Social Security system. The idea is that these strategies/loopholes were generally adopted by married high-income beneficiaries and by closing the loopholes the system would be made more solvent.

I was at a party this weekend and as I have come to expect, I received the following question more than once: so, what do you think is going to happen in the market this week? I gave my usual professional answer: I have absolutely no idea! Of course the folks that I were speaking with all had their thoughts/opinions but we all agreed that none of us truly did know what today would bring.

Most people would argue that living in a digital world, with instant access to an endless stream of information has made us smarter and more self-empowered than past generations. Investors believe that it has “leveled the playing field”, enabling them to make investment decisions based on the same information once only available to the investment pros.

It may be anecdotal, but it does seem that more and more folks are becoming victims of identity theft. We file taxes for our clients and we have had a couple of clients over the past few years for whom we attempted to file their tax return only to have it rejected because the IRS thought it had already been filed!

While I think about this issue quite a bit and attend many industry sessions on this topic, I have shied away from writing in any detail about this issue on this blog.

Question: if I told you at beginning of 2014 the US dollar would strengthen by 10% against the other major currencies around the world (the euro, yen, etc...) would that be a good thing?

"Results from this study demonstrate the importance of differentiating between financial planners whose primary objective is to sell financial products versus financial planners who create a retirement plan by first quantifying retirement goals and objectives." This is the very last sentence in a