Blog 69 – Is Social Security Income Taxable?
Blog 69 – Is Social Security Income Taxable?
According to the Social Security website, some of you have to pay federal income taxes on your Social Security benefits.
2020 June Lara-Murphy Report
One of the ironies in our current situation is that Carlos and I have been warning our subscribers for years that the various rounds of quantitative easing (QE) had blown up a giant asset bubble that would eventually burst, and that the fallout would be even worse than what happened in the fall of 2008. Well, that did happen, but there was the whole global pandemic thrown into the mix. Consequently, it’s hard to know how Austrian business cycle theory interacts with the coronavirus itself and the associated lockdowns.
2020 July BankNotes
This Lara-Murphy Report (LMR) article was reprinted with permission. This and many more articles related to IBC and Austrian Economics are published monthly in the LMR. Subscriptions are available at www.usatrustonline.com
Blog 68 – The Term Rider Of An IBC Policy
One of the key pieces of information that a prospective client shares with us is the monthly or annual contribution that he/she would like to make to his/her Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) policy.
Once we know the original contribution to the policy, including the modal premium, (annually or monthly), and the age, gender, and the underwriting rating of the insured, we determine the minimum amount of death benefit necessary to make sure that the policy does not violate the Modified Endowment Contract (MEC) regulations.
2020 May Lara-Murphy Report
Even if the virus dies away, large sectors of the economy are already pulverized.
2020 June BankNotes
Humanity has been asking what is happiness and how to achieve it since the dawn of time, but still without a definitive resolution. The divergence of views on this subject is enormous, although it may be a good thing, because each individual can pursue happiness in their own way, which—according to the Declaration of Independence—is an inalienable right.
Blog 67 – The Capitalization Phase Of An IBC Policy
Prospective clients need to realize that the cumulative break-even may take a few years due to the initial cost of setting up the death benefit of the policy and the compensation to the financial professional who designs, sells and will service the policy for years to come. That is what Nelson Nash calls the capitalization phase of the policy.
2020 May BankNotes
The latest report on new unemployment claims was abysmal, coming in at 4.4
million last week, some 100,000 more than surveyed economists had expected.
The continuous claims came in at just under 16 million, an all-time record.
Mainstream labor economists estimate that, all things considered, the actual
unemployment rate now (which is only officially reported with a lag) is above
20 percent—a rate not seen since the darkest days of the Great Depression.
Indeed, all of the job gains since the Great Recession have been wiped out in
just a matter of weeks.
Blog 66 – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Paid-Up Additions – Part 5
Up to the late 1980s, policy owners could place an unlimited amount of discretionary capital into a life insurance policy. All this changed in 1988 with a new law known as the Tax and Miscellaneous Revenue Act of 1988 or TAMRA. This law established a qualification test for life insurance contracts based on the amount of premium paid each year to the policy. If the premium is too large under the guideline, the policy fails the test and no longer enjoys life insurance status. It is then reclassified as a Modified Endowment Contract or MEC and it loses several tax favorable features enjoyed by life insurance contracts.
2020 April Lara-Murphy Report
Major Firms Less Liquid Than a Responsible Household
Standard financial planning recommends that a typical middle-class (or wealthier) household have at least 6 months’ worth of expenses available in very liquid funds (“cash in the bank”), to handle a sudden job loss, injury, or illness. And yet, when the coronavirus crisis struck, we saw not only small businesses but even many major firms brought to their knees because they couldn’t handle even a temporary interruption in their revenue streams.