Tuesday Talk - April 9, 2019

Legal and Financial Risks and Choices for Aging Professionals

Speakers: Jermaine Guthrie, a certified financial planner at TIAA and Tamara Telesko, Director of Wealth Planning Strategies who is expert on legal and tax issues

Jermaine Guthrie and Tamara Telesko each presented on legal and financial issues facing retirees and those planning for retirement, and then responded to questions and led a discussion.

Some of the legal issues to be dealt with included how to protect a retiree, or a surviving spouse and her/his assets in the event of incapacitation, the use of unlimited power of attorney designations, the best arrangements for wills, how to assure that finances remain well managed after the death of the person who is most knowledgeable about finances, and what strategies can be used to assure that Medicare and Medicaid will cover nursing home expenses, if need be? Gifts to children? Creation of a trust?

Among the financial issues included were: who should and should not annuitize, to what extent, and when, strategies to minimize the minimum required distribution of those over 70 and a half, ways of protecting the corpus of your 403b or IRA (for your spouse) when you need to go into care and don’t have other resources with which to finance the care, long term care policies -- how much is needed and is it too late to get such policies when already retired and in your sixties, seventies, or eighties?