​This installment is about scams - not scabs, scars or Spam - and so I appreciate your opening this message and taking the risky chance that it's not just another of those we all receive that warrants immediate use of the DELETE key.  Unfortunately, scams have become as ubiquitous in our lives as the cell phones and computers they often arrive on - and that's because our communication and financial transactions have largely moved online.  Plus, with the assistance of AI, scammers now have almost infinite numbers of ways to convince us to accept their tricks as legitimate offers, deals and requests.  So, while your fraud antennae may already be pretty sophisticated, here are some hints that may also minimize the sad stories we hear too often from those who've already been taken in.

One of the most effective ways to avoid disaster is to understand that scammers succeed by creating urgency and fear.  Thus, our bank account has been compromised; a valuable prize we've won just requires us to authorize the shipping charge on our credit card; legal action will taken if we don't immediately authorize a payment we didn't even know we had; or the old favorite: a family member needs money wired from our account for some critical purpose.  This urgency, if it seems even remotely plausible, is designed to make us stop thinking clearly and to act before we can protect ourselves.  The best rule of thumb for this one is just to slow down.  First of all, we need to remember that legitimate organizations rarely demand instant action or threaten severe consequences without providing the notices they actually use.  In fact, the IRS, credit card companies, and collection agencies never use simple phone calls to pursue their claims.  They want a record of the contacts and requests/demands they've made, so they send written notices.  That means the best way to respond to such calls is to say we'll need to discuss their business with our lawyer or financial advisor or consult our own records - and we'll need a hard copy of the relevant documents to do so.  Legitimate claimants won't have any problem with that response, but scammers will do nearly anything to force a payment out of us before they'll let us off the phone.  That's the critical litmus test for phone call scams and it warrants an immediate hang-up.  It's also the best strategy for any charitable organization or supposed alma mater who may be calling during a "today-only" fund drive - that urgency is the dead giveaway and they'll appreciate our contribution next week as much as right this moment. 

But what about those drastic emergency calls from a child or grandchild who needs bail money or funds for a plane ticket home, just to name a couple of the heart-string pullers?  We shouldn't even assume we can verify the caller by the sound of the voice at the other end.  Again, AI has developed ways to make those calls sound just like our real family members, despite our disbelief that that's really possible.  One safeguard our family uses is to have a special password we've all agreed to require before we proceed further.  If our troubled family member doesn't know the word or doesn't even know we have one - or maybe doesn't know a nickname they call us - then we're talking to someone else's family member and they should make another call.  Goodbye and good luck!

Of course, we should never give out personal information over the phone or by e-mail, even if it's needed right away to verify or correct our records.  The best way to flush out the crooks here is to say we don't have that information handy and we'll call back the organization at its legitimate number as soon as we can locate what they're looking for.  And, too, if we receive what looks like an official letter or form that asks us to update key information, or to call a certain number to do so, or to mail the form in a stamped envelope conveniently provided, it may be tempting, but we shouldn't ever do it.  Instead, we should contact the organization ourselves - at a customer service number on a recent statement we know is legitimate or by checking the organization's actual website. 

Sometimes, we've actually shot ourselves in the foot just by opening an e-mail from a source we don't recognize.  Even doing that can also provide information that can be used against us.  It's not a coincidence that spam and scam sound so much alike.

Finally, we should keep our usernames and passwords in good shape, by using ones that aren't easily guessed or aren't used for every single account or site we have or use - and then by changing them periodically.  So-called password lock boxes and security services that shield individual passwords from hacking are also worth investigating, particularly if we do a lot of online buying or surfing among random or unfamiliar sites.  But check to make sure those are legitimate, too.

And, of course, if we decide or discover that we've already been scammed, then speed in contacting our bank or credit card company is the key to cancelling or reversing the charge or having it taken off our account.  We should also consider reporting it to the NH Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division at 603-271-3658, as that may not only help us but alert the office to a new and virulent new scam tactic.  

The way I look at all this is that sophisticated scamming is going to keep trying to stay ahead of our attempts to thwart it - there are people sitting around thinking them up and plotting how to prey on us at this very moment.  And it's going to remain a more serious threat in ever more unexpected places and disguises if we don't use just as much guile to protect ourselves.  I mean, we're not dealing with door-to-door sellers of vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias anymore.  Those people are now retired and living in Florida on our parents' and grandparents' money.  Let's at least not fund the next generations' nefarious lifestyles.  

​Greetings again, everyone!  This is my final summer offering, so I'm going to give you some morsels to chew on as you relax in the sun one more time before charging into Fall with your systems revitalized.  I've said some of this before, but we all forestall unpleasant decision-making, so here it comes again.

The cost of care for our loved ones [and ourselves] during our sunset years continues to be a troubling dilemma for many families, and with the upcoming cuts to Medicaid, the difficulty of qualifying and paying for care can only become more challenging.  That's compounded by the fact that while we're generally living longer, we're not necessarily prepared for the additional costs of the care that those additional years may bring with them.   So, here are some ideas worth considering, based at least upon the current landscape of Medicaid eligibility.

Of course, the low hanging fruit about medical care is to keep ourselves in as good shape as we can for as long as we can.  If we don't need professional care until very near our last mortal moments, the costs will be minimized, both financially and in relation to the burdens on our families.  One threshold factor is that once our legs give out and our mobility is significantly reduced, the level and cost of the care we need are exponentially increased.  That was true for my mother, so I know whereof I speak. 

If we're still young enough (under 60 is best, but definitely under 70) and can afford it, long-term care insurance remains a meaningful safety net.  But definitely consider the hybrid plans now available, which often provide for life insurance payouts equal to the premiums we've paid for unused benefits.  This is specialized coverage, though, so make sure you review the options with an agent who knows the entire available marketplace.

If buying more insurance just isn't your thing, however, consider setting up an irrevocable trust (that won't be counted toward Medicaid eligibility) and funding it with an existing life insurance policy that will pay off at your passing and help replace the assets that may have been spent on your care during those final years.  If you don't have (or don't want to pay for) a policy to use for this purpose, you could either fund such a trust with other assets you may not need for support, or you could simply pay into the trust the periodic amounts you might have spent on long-term care premiums, so you'll know those funds will eventually return to the family once you're gone.

But if you do need care, you might also minimize the bite by staying in your home as long as possible (you want that anyhow, right?) and getting just the care you actually need - that is, not paying the significant costs of 24/7 help.  So, maybe just for shopping, laundry, meals, medical appointments, or whatever, but not for all day and night assistance.  

And if you've got a family member who might be able to provide that assistance - say, a grandchild who needs a place to live anyhow - you can enter into written caregiver agreements with them, to provide for their specific services at defined rates of pay (with accurate records kept, of course), so those funds will also stay in the family and won't be considered gifts that would be counted against you if you eventually do need to apply for Medicaid. 

Finally, many people's primary asset is the value of their home and they want to preserve that at all cost.  If you're married and your spouse is healthy enough to stay at home, your spouse can retain it, you can qualify for Medicaid without having to sell the home - and its value won't undermine your eligibility.  Even without a spouse, if you have a child who's been living with you for at least two years and has enabled you to avoid nursing home care for that long, you can transfer the home to the child and that transfer also won't be considered a disqualifying event for Medicaid.  

And if neither of those options will work to protect your home, you can transfer it to your children and enter into an arms-length lease (with market rent payments) to stay there as long as you can or want.  Then, once the "lookback" period for prior transfers passes (currently 5 years), the home's value won't be counted toward Medicaid qualification. 

There are other more complicated options, as well, but my fingers are tired and the dock at Lake Winnipesaukee is looking pretty appealing.  So, let's hope these comments and options are strictly hypothetical and unnecessary; that we can pass them on to others who may not be quite as fortunate; and that we'll all be healthy as horses until the final whinny.  

​Holiday greetings again, everyone!  Before all your families arrive in a week or so, and your households rival the Griswolds' in "Christmas Vacation" - though, gosh, I hope not! - I want to pass on a few year-end ideas that perhaps you haven't heard before or at least recently.  Of course, if you're already up to speed about these tidbits from years gone by, then that's what the "delete" button is for.  On the other hand, these messages go out to almost 1,000 of you and it's hard to keep track of when each of you came or went from this esteemed group. 

First off, I'm sure you're all aware that we can each give up to $19,000 to each of our family members (or lucky friends) each year, and that a married couple of any gender persuasion can double that amount even if only one of them is actually coming up with the funds to do so - that's up to $38,000 per recipient if my math is still reliable.  This is called the annual gift tax exclusion and it will remain at that level in 2026.

In addition, though, each of us has a lifetime gift and estate tax exemption of $15,000,000 (that's no typo), so a married couple has a total of $30,000,000 to work with for lifetime gifts and/or estate tax values.  If you're worried that this may not be enough to cover your potential tax liability, then congratulations!  For most of us, though, this should allow for as liberal gifting and generosity as we're likely to need.  The way it works is that if our annual exclusion gifts to anyone exceed $19,000 (or $38,000 for marrieds) per recipient, we'll just be using up a portion of our lifetime $15M, and we'll need to file an IRS Form 709 to report those excess gifts.  We don't pay any tax, however; the return is solely to allow the IRS to keep track of how much of our lifetime exemption we've use and how much is left for future gifts or for our estates to claim when that time comes.  

But there are more gifting goodies available, as well.  If we want to pay education (tuition, room & board, travel to and from home and school, etc.) or medical (also dental, optical, therapeutic, etc.) expenses for our favored recipients, we can do so in any amounts without using up any portion of our annual exclusions or lifetime exemptions.  We just need to make sure those payments are made directly to the providers of those services and not to the personal recipients themselves.  No return is even required to report those amounts, though we should certainly keep track of the payments in case we have to prove whether we only paid for legitimate purposes).  Check the IRS website if there's uncertainty about a particular payment (irs.gov).

And finally, if we can't (or aren't inclined to) make a flat-out gift of our funds (because perhaps we'll need them ourselves someday), how about a low-interest loan to a family member, say, for a down payment on a house or to avoid the need for higher-interest education loans that may take years to repay?  After all, the current age for a Gen Zer to be able to buy a house is now about 40 and some people are still paying off student loans they took out 30 years ago.  Just watch Jimmy Stewart's impassioned plea to Old Man Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life" and you'll know what I'm talking about.  Such loans need to be properly documented, of course, but they can be fully or partially forgiven (as gifts in another year) if that becomes an affordable alternative later on.

So, although I often harp on charitable giving this time of year - many of those organizations are like our starving-artist kids after all - charity does begin at home, I've heard.  

That's all for now, I guess, although I'll also reaffirm not to make unwarranted gifts - they're also called scams - to people and organizations you don't know and wouldn't benefit if you did.  Artificial intelligence may be a wonderful concept in many applications, but it's making many scammy solicitations look like the real thing, and if we're not sure about them, then we need to get help before the damage is done and the checkbook is empty.

On that happy note, I'll compensate by wishing you a wonderful time with your families and friends, including a better year for all of us here and around the world who really need it in 2026.

​Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  No law this time, but perhaps a topic of conversation at the dinner table tomorrow, to help us avoid any of those topics that might have caused projectile silverware or glasses of wine used as splashy conversation enders.  So, here goes.

Just look around the table and then consider what the odds are that all of us would ever be here in the first place.  Let's start with some basics.  The people who keep track of things like demographics estimate that there have been about 109 billion people since we started walking somewhat erect and processing more thoughts than a jellyfish.  If that's even remotely accurate, then it's a pretty long shot that any one of us is here right now at all.  And if there are a dozen of us around this one table, just think of the odds that all of us would have made it from the primordial ooze to this moment in the almost infinite history of things. 

Let's break this down another way.  Homo sapiens are believed to have existed for the past 300,000 years.  If we assume 20 years per generation - people didn't live much longer until pretty recently - that's 15,000 generations since that first hot night in the cave.  And if we speculate that our lines of descent stretch back that far, then during each one of those generational encounters, it was likely just a random event that enabled our ancestors to survive until the next generation.  That means our luck had to have held during 15,000 such occasions, or we wouldn't be here today.  So, if any two of those distant nanas and grampas hadn't found each other, our family tree would have put down its roots somewhere else entirely.  To put it in contemporary terms, we had to win the lottery 15,000 times in a row to be asking for another helping of creamed leeks right now.

But we don't need to go back anywhere near that far to understand the point.  Just think about our ancestors since America's first birthday almost 250 years ago.  If the males hadn't survived the intervening wars; if they'd died haying in the fields in the hot sun or dropping trees on themselves trying to build the homestead; or if the females had died in childbirth or the children hadn't made it through those first treacherous months of untreatable diseases, we wouldn't be here now.  Or if our parents hadn't met on that blind date or it hadn't gone well; or if they hadn't lived or gone to school near enough to each other to have had that date at all; or if one of their families had moved away and that was the end of it right there; we wouldn't be here now.

So, what's my point in all this?  It's simply that we have an awful lot to be thankful for just to be sitting here at this very moment.  And instead of arguing over things we can't change during the next hour or so - things that will only distract us from the need for serious thankfulness - let's make the most of this convergence of our extraordinary good luck and enjoy it like our lives have depended on it.  Because they did and they do.  

​Crispy Fall greetings, everyone!  It's been a while since I've written, so lest you completely forget me and I end up in your spam folder, I want to reconnect and offer some timely advice about those pesky required minimum distributions from retirement accounts (RMDs) that some of us have to deal with this time of year.

First, though, I need to digress and give you something else worth thinking about that can be a trap for the unwary:  If you or others you know are assuming that you/they don't need a will or trust if all the assets are in joint ownership with someone else (like a residence or bank accounts) or have designated beneficiaries (like IRAs or life insurance) - and that because of those arrangements, the assets won't require probate administration and can't be called upon to pay off a decedent's obligations and end-of-life expenses - you/they are seriously mistaken and could be blindsided if not careful.  

That is, if all those assets pass automatically and quickly to others at someone's death - great result, for sure - the assets are by no means exempt from the obligations and expenses I mentioned.  So, if you are a recipient of one of those automatic transfers on death, it will behoove you to make sure that all the decedent's obligations have been satisfied or you could be called upon to return at least a portion of what you've received, in order to satisfy those obligations.  'Nuf said here about that, but please let me know if you have questions about what I've just described.

OK, let's talk RMD strategies.  You'll know who you are if you have this issue to contend with, so I won't bother with the basics.  The problem is that if you just receive a check for whatever that annual amount turns out to be, you're going to pay regular income tax on it unless you take steps to at least soften the blow.  Here are a few of those you might consider.

Probably the lowest hanging fruit is simply to have your IRA administrator make charitable contributions directly from the account to your favorite non-profits - the Peterborough Players is always high on my list - 'cause every dollar that goes to them is one you don't have to include on your IRS return.  Sure, there are limits on these direct payment benefits, but most of us don't have to worry about exceeding them, and even so, I'm not sure whether there's anyone left at the IRS to keep track.

Other possibilities for reducing the tax bite on RMDs is to use the funds to pay for things that are tax-deductible.  So, you could pay your year-end real estate taxes with the funds or prepay interest on a mortgage balance you still owe, or even pay a long-term care policy premium, all of which are deductible and might give you a greater benefit than taking just the standard deduction you've always used. 

Other tactics you might consider are to deposit the RMD back into the account, so the non-taxable portion will start growing again on a tax-deferred basis.  

Likewise, if you have grandchildren and want to help them avoid years of repaying student loans, you might contribute the net RMD funds to so-called "529" accounts for them, and the funds in those accounts will also grow taxed-deferred - even never taxed if the payouts are used to pay for tuition, books, room and board, and other education-related expenses for the young Einsteins.

Finally - and this one is more cutting-edge but perhaps worth a look - you can investigate what's known as a "qualified longevity annuity contract", or QLAC in gov-speak parlance.  This is a kind of annuity you can buy with up to $200,000 (per spouse) from the accounts where RMDs are required and then defer taking payments from the annuity until age 85.  So, that much would no longer be included in calculating your RMD and you wouldn't have to pay tax on the annuity payments until you started taking them.  Of course, you need to make sure the company you buy the annuity from will still be around at that point, but that's a risk anyone who buys life insurance is also taking, and you need to be clear about what happens with the annuity balance if you pass on before you start taking the payments.  You'd certainly want it to go to your designated beneficiaries.  Like lots of insurance plans, there are bells and whistles to consider, so do your homework before making a decision.

And, of course, the most advantageous option from a non-tax standpoint would be to take that RMD and book a nice trip somewhere to enjoy the fruits of all those years contributing to the account.  We just got back from a week hiking in Sicily with our kids and the value of an experience like that is priceless.  Now I'm thinking about Spring training in Fort Myers, but I'm not yet ready to broach that at home.