If you are using your tax professional only for tax preparation services, you are short-changing yourself. An experienced tax professional is an excellent resource for tax planning strategies and retirement planning. Many individuals are not planning today for tomorrow’s retirement.
The Indexed Annuity Leadership Council (IALC) reported on its April 29 blog that because guaranteed pensions and retirement plans of employers are now increasingly the responsibility of the individual employee, individuals must take financial planning into their own hands. The IALC conducted a national poll that included 605 retirees and 1,664 people employed and found that:
- 45% of employed adults plan to retire before age 67; 18% plan to retire at 67; 21% plan to work until 70.
- 56% of employed adults say they will have to keep working for financial reasons; 45% want to stay active; 34% enjoy working; 32% want to get more benefits.
- Finances weigh heavily on many people’s minds, but more than half (54%) have never talked to a financial adviser.
As Jim Poolman, the executive director of the IALC stated, “This tells me is that we might have a retirement crisis on our hands from the standpoint of people not preparing. One of the things this project does is highlight the need for people to do long term financial planning, especially retirement planning.”
If you have not already met with your tax professional to discuss your retirement strategy, why are you waiting? The earlier you begin saving for retirement, the more retirement funds you can accumulate. You should be planning for your retirement 20 years before you retire, not the year before retirement. Why meet with a tax professional? You should be discussing with your tax professional contributing to a Roth IRA versus traditional IRA, whether converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs makes financial sense, alternatives to your company’s 401(k) plans, are 529 plans the best strategy to pay for your child’s college education, adequacy of your life and disability insurance policies, high cash value permanent life insurance, long term care planning, is your financial advisor returning an adequate return on your retirement funds, etc. etc. etc.
If you want to learn more about retirement planning, we invite you to call 610-594-2601 today to make an appointment at our Exton PA CPA office to discuss your situation. You can also schedule a consultation at Click Here.