And good evening.

You've got More Than Money, you've got Gene Dickison, your host, your personal financial advisor, here to serve you.

For the next half an hour, I'm all yours.

I'm here to do one thing, and that's answer as many questions that you have posed to us as we possibly can.

If you are a loyal viewer, and so many of you are, you are so very kind, we get many, many e-mails, most of them complimentary.

Most of them.

I got to be honest, I know that there are lots of personalities on radio and TV that get very upset when they get e-mails or comments that are negative.

I think they're a hoot.

I have so much fun.

So, recently I got one that was addressing my... ..appearance.

Excellent.

I thought that was funny as all get out.

If you have comments that you feel are constructive, send them along.

If you're just a nasty person, send those along too.

I have a lot of fun with those.

Bottom line is 98% of the e-mails that we get are wonderful and they're insightful and they reveal the sides and complexities of your life that we could, gosh, never kind of dream up to pose ourselves.

So many of you are complimentary about the fact that the shows are interesting, almost always because the questions are so interesting.

I'm hopeful that the answers are useful.

They're certainly accurate.

They're certainly well intended.

But whether they are as interesting as the question, I doubt it.

I don't think so.

So the fact that we've crafted our entire show around you makes us the most relevant financial show on television today, bar none.

I have no qualms about making that statement, because we focus on you.

I see all the other shows, I know what they're doing.

It's a 24/7 cycle and they just get to fill space and it's usually pounding drums and being goofy.

We don't do any of that stuff, although the drum thing is a good idea.

We should think about that.

Bottom line is, I need to thank you.

The fact that we are the most relevant show on television today is not because I am the most dynamic host ever.

Guaranteed.

It's because you lead very interesting lives and you allow us, you honor us by inviting us into your lives and asking us to be of assistance.

So let's show you exactly how this works.

Our financial correspondent, Megan, is sitting by.

Megan, where do we start serving this evening?

- Hi, Gene.

Our first question tonight says, my wife and I are retired with a comfortable income of $114,000 per year and 2.3 million in IRAs.

Our sons are 37 and 35.

The older one is an artist who we partially support.

He puts about $1,000 a month on our credit card and we send him money as needed.

Our other son is very self-sufficient.

We've been contributing to a Roth IRA for each of them when we can.

Our older son needs extra money for now, and our other son prides himself on adulting.

But sometimes I wonder if we should try to be more evenhanded.

Maybe I'm overthinking this.

I'm grateful we're in the position to help them, but what are your thoughts on this, Gene?

- Fascinating question.

First of all, let's be very clear.

The word is adulting.

If you weren't listening carefully, it...might have sounded like something naughty.

It wasn't!

They have two sons.

Very different, obviously.

One an artist.

Fantastic.

I love art, love music, love creativity.

All the things I am unable to do I really admire.

The other is very proud of his adulting independence, his self-sufficiency.

The fact that Mom and Dad have been contributing to Roth IRAs I think is one of the most brilliant things that they can possibly do.

These young men have at least 30, maybe 40 years left before they retire.

When they retire, these dollars that have been tossed in, not out of their pocket, but dollars have been tossed in on behalf of Mom and Dad... Hopefully, Mom and Dad still with us.

But at that point, maybe no longer, maybe in a far, far better place.

But the impact that they're going to have with what will inevitably compound to be a tremendously impressive sum of money, income tax free, breathtaking.

You are making an impact that generations of your family will feel.

That's fantastic.

Your concern about, "Am I being fair?

"Am I being equal?"

is very understandable.

It's very understandable.

You want to be equal in the sense, in the hopes that that will make you feel like you're being fair.

I gave my older son $15,000 this year because he needs to live.

I gave my younger son 6,000 for his Roth IRA.

It doesn't seem right.

I don't feel like that's right.

The reality is, if you try to force more money on your younger son, who is very proud of his independence, you're going to risk damaging that pride that he feels that we all pray that our children end up with, pride of accomplishment, pride of standing on their own two feet, pride of providing for themselves and being independent.

That's a tremendous gift that you've already given your younger son.

But the issue of equal - I understand the concern, so I'm going to make a suggestion that may be useful.

Continue as you have.

But if you want to create some equality, maybe the time to do it is not now, but later.

Maybe the time to do it is when the two of you have graduated to the next dimension.

Maybe the time to do it is to simply keep a little bit of an accounting in your life of how much more you've given your older son.

So let's just pick a number and say that your total estate is $3 million and over the next 20 years before you pass, you've given your older son an extra $20,000 a year, an extra $400,000.

Would it be appropriate to be more equal that in your estate it would say the first 400,000 goes to our younger son and then they split 2.6 million equally?

The 400,000 out of respect for what we gave our older son while we were alive.

So the younger son gets a check for 400 to begin.

The older son gets 1.3 million, half of what's left, and the younger son gets an additional 1.3 million.

It has respected his independence his entire life.

It has provided assistance to your older son, who hopefully appreciates it and benefits from it and becomes wildly creative and, who knows, maybe knocks it out of the park and ends up supporting all of you.

Wouldn't that be cool?

A suggestion that may be useful, and hopefully your family continues to do very, very well.

Speaking of very well, Megan, is there a question back there I can answer very, very well?

- That's always the goal.

This next question's about an Airbnb.

It says, I have $280,000 equity in my primary residence home.

I want to take a home equity loan for approximately $30,000 for repairs and support for lower wages at the moment.

My loan company says because I have rented my home out three weekends this year as an Airbnb, I am disqualified to get a home equity loan.

I'm wondering if you've heard of this.

Is this a common policy?

I do have home insurance that supports this as an Airbnb residence, very limited rentals.

I live there full time.

I'm wondering, can I change my mortgage to a company that does not have this policy?

Thank you for your help.

- Yeah, it's very interesting, and it is an issue that is evolving.

As many of you know, Airbnb ten years ago didn't exist.

I doubt that any of you have stayed at an Airbnb prior to ten years ago, but I know somebody in this building right now that has been in an Airbnb probably 25 times in her existence.

Bottom line is that Airbnbs are very, very popular and some folks have turned it into a real moneymaking operation.

Most folks don't do the Airbnb in their own residence while they're there.

But once you've decided you're going to do that, your residence becomes actually a commercial venture.

You're running a business out of your home.

Your mortgage company has determined they do not want to lend to you because the risks and the liabilities of having a commercial venture, whether it's an Airbnb or, hey, I'm going to run a barber shop out of my house, or, hey, I'm doing woodworking out of my garage, whatever that may be, changes the risk factor and increases the risk that the lender will not get paid back.

Is that across the board, every lender looks at it exactly the same way?

The answer's no, absolutely not.

So could you trade in, so to speak?

It's not.

It's refinancing.

It's going to another bank and saying, I want a new primary first mortgage to pay off this current first mortgage and then a line of credit.

Or you may even consider rolling those into one and just getting one new first mortgage.

So it will take some shopping around.

I would suggest phone calls, five, six, seven, eight of those.

You can do it in an hour or so, and comparison, you'll get very straightforward answers.

They will quote you interest rates and terms.

And pick the one that's best for you.

What you may find is that you have another problem you have not asked about.

And that's with the IRS.

Since you have converted part, a significant part, perhaps, of your home into a commercial venture, when you sell it, the IRS will want you to report part of that sale price as a commercial gain, and it will not qualify for the $250,000 as a single or 500,000 as a couple exclusion in terms of profits.

So I am hopeful that all of this is worth the two or three weekends a year that you rent Airbnb.

It may or may not be.

You may need to reconsider.

Often, we need to reconsider.

And sometimes it's just a question of getting, I guess, a second opinion - hey, this is what this person says, maybe somebody else has a slightly different idea - and that can be helpful.

Often our answers to the e-mails that you send us are second opinions.

You have your own advisors and you're just seeing what somebody who's got 780 years of experience might say.

Let's see if our next e-mail has that quality to it.

Megs, where next?

- Well, we have another house question, but this one's about a beach house.

It says, we own a vacation beach house with a sizable capital gain of almost $1 million.

If I give it to my children, what is their cost basis for it?

I understand I must have it as a primary residence for two years to utilize the exclusion provision of up to $500,000.

Thank you for your advice.

- Yeah, the question is remarkably simple.

It's buried in the e-mail.

It just says, What's their cost basis?

It's whatever your cost basis is.

That simple.

So if you have currently a capital gain of approximately $1 million and you give it to your children... Megs, does he mention how many children he has?

Did I miss that?

- He doesn't say.

- OK. All right.

So I'm going to guess two.

Son and daughter.

Lovely kids.

Well, the son's kind of a...

Daughter's wonderful.

Bottom line, I've made all that up.

So you have $1 million of capital gains embedded.

If you give them the home, they have $1 million of capital gains embedded.

Interesting.

Now, you are absolutely correct - if you were...

This is not a small ask, but if you were to move to the beach home and make it your primary residence for two years and then sell it, your capital gain would be cut in half.

The first 500,000 is free.

You would pay on 500,000.

That's not a dreadful thing.

If you gift it to your daughter and son...

Your son, meh...

Daughter's fantastic.

..they now each have an embedded $500,000 of gain.

Under the weirdest possible of circumstances, they both make it their primary residence for two years, they could sell the whole thing and pay no tax.

Now, we're not talking about teeny-tiny bits of money.

$1 million of capital gains, if we could avoid all of it, is going to save the family in excess of $250,000.

I know the top capital gains rate is 20%.

That's 200,000.

But then there's a surcharge on top of that because of higher income.

That's 3% plus.

And then there's state tax in most cases.

You're going to pay $250,000.

Or over the next two years, you could earn $250,000 by figuring out how to sell this property tax free.

Now, it doesn't actually sound to me, and I'm reading into this e-mail a lot, I'm unpacking a lot that's not obviously stated in the e-mail itself, particularly about the kids - for all I know, the son's great, I don't really know - I'm reading into it that the gentleman's not really that interested, maybe, in getting the proceeds, because he's willing to give it to the kids.

So if the objective is not selling and paying no tax but the gift, the objective is hanging on to it and keeping it in the family, then you probably don't want to give it at all.

You probably want them to receive it in your estate, because if you were to pass today, the embedded capital gains goes to zero, and your daughter is terrific, your son, meh, they're going to get an asset that is marked.

Their cost basis becomes the market value of the date that you pass away.

So you have eliminated the tax on $1 million by not giving it away.

How do you know what's best?

You must, must, must sit with a trusted, experienced estate attorney.

You must sit with a trusted, experienced estate attorney.

Review your options.

Working with a tax accountant probably would be very useful, as well, because a lot will depend on your tax brackets.

And then of course, a financial advisor to kind of give you a sense of your entire picture if this is a small part of it, if it's a big part of it.

All that will have an impact.

And keep in mind that several of the most advantageous estate tax provisions that are currently in position evaporate in two years.

And if the laws don't change, it could get very painful.

It may be time is of the essence.

So do not wait.

Make those appointments, get the information you need to make the decision that's best for you.

We try.

The word fiduciary is so... Ah, we never use it.

Most people never use it.

It simply means an advisor who is both legally and morally and ethically committed to acting in your best interest, independent of what might be in their best interest.

Sometimes, for example in an earlier question, we talked about paying off a mortgage.

Paying off that mortgage removes money that the advisor will be paid on.

So in essence, here he or she has their paycheck go down but it's the right thing for the client.

Ah, the right thing for the client.

Karma is such a wonderful thing.

Sometimes karma is a... Ah, you know what I mean.

But other times karma's wonderful because if you just keep doing the right thing over and over again - it may take some time, it may take some time, we get that - but karma in the positive sense, oh!

Oh, it's glorious.

Speaking of glorious, our financial correspondent Megan does a glorious job of bringing us great questions.

What's next?

- Thank you, Gene.

That was very nice.

This next question says, We love your show.

Thank you so much.

I have a question about life estates and not sure if you've addressed it in a previous show.

Short summary is this, and if you need more info, I'm happy to provide it.

My mother, divorced, changed her deed in 2014 to herself as life estate and put me and my three siblings as 25% tenants in common.

Transfer was $1.

She died recently and we're getting different expert opinions on what our individual tax obligations might be.

Nothing, because the cost basis is established at her time of death - March of this year - because, A, we are class A heirs, and, B, the sale price was less than that appraisal to cost basis would be when she changed the deed back in 2014.

Thanks in advance for any attention you can give this question.

- Wow.

OK, the first thing that I need to address.

Very polite.

Very sweet.

Very sensitive.

Hey, you may have addressed this in the past.

I don't care.

We may have, we may not have.

It's hard for me to remember.

I've only been doing...

I think we added it up once that I've answered 27,000 questions live on air.

That's incredible.

I think by now it's over 30,000 questions.

So that's not the relevant point.

The relevant point is, if you haven't heard the answer, ask us, because I guarantee you somebody else hasn't heard the answer either.

So by you asking us, you're actually representing a fair number of folks who will benefit from you asking the question.

So thank you for that.

A life estate is something that very few people bump into.

It is a technique that can be extremely useful, extremely useful, and yet it's rarely seen, rarely discussed in many estate plans.

And there's lots of reasons for that.

But when it's useful, oh, it's beautiful.

In this case, many years ago, almost ten years ago, Mom said, I don't want you guys to go through the hassle.

I'm going to give you my house now, but I'm going to keep a life estate, so I'm going to put the house in your names, four, 25% equally, tenants in common.

Tenants in common, by the way, is one way that you can own a property together.

You are partners, but each of your one-quarter share is your own.

So if along the way you had passed away, that would have gone to your children.

It would not go to your siblings.

If one of your siblings lost their job and wanted to sell part of their home, they could do that.

They could sell 25% of the home to somebody else and you'd be in partnership with somebody else.

All of that can happen.

By the way, negative things can happen.

Somebody gets divorced.

That 25% might be taken away.

Somebody goes through a bankruptcy.

That might be taken away.

Somebody gets sued.

That might be taken away.

What Mom did was brilliant.

Mom says, I know that those are all risks, that these things could happen.

I'm going to protect myself.

I will create a life estate done through a trusted, experienced estate planning attorney, of course, but I will create a life estate which will be registered in the courthouse so that anyone who might be interested in buying this home will understand that they can buy it.

The four of you could agree to sell it.

But I still live here and I do the entirety of my life.

And her life passed March of this year.

So for almost nine years she was totally protected.

It didn't matter - divorce, bankruptcy, all kinds of negative things could happen - would not have affected her at all, because she had the right to live there as long as she lived.

It was brilliant.

Well done, you.

Fantastic.

Now, cost basis.

I think you've been given really bad intel.

And when you say you get various opinions, please stop asking your brothers-in-law and your sisters-in-law and the guys at work.

These are not reputable sources.

The reality is that when Mom gave you her home in 2014, the value at that date was irrelevant.

The value at the date she died is irrelevant.

She didn't own the house.

She gave it to you in 2014.

In 2014, that home had a cost basis.

It was your mom's cost basis, likely pretty modestly low.

That's your cost basis.

And when you decide to sell your home, each of you will get one quarter of that cost basis.

Let me use very simple numbers.

Mom many years ago paid $100,000 for the home.

You are holding a home worth 400,000.

Each of you has $100,000 of value.

You will get $25,000 each of cost basis.

You will pay capital gains on $75,000.

Simple.

Pretty smart mom.

God bless her.

Megs, do we have a particularly interesting one next?

- Well, that one was a smart mom.

I think we have a smart grandma for the next question.

It says, I read I can change my grandson's 529 into an IRA.

I've had his 529 since he was a baby and now he's 18.

He doesn't want to go to college, and this sounds like a great way to get his retirement money started.

So I'm wondering, how does this work?

- You are absolutely correct.

This is great.

Relatively new, last year or two.

The rules have changed.

And I don't know who came up with the idea in Congress.

I hesitate to think that anyone in Congress has a good idea ever.

But in this case, somebody did.

Probably one of the consultants.

We don't know.

529 plans are incredibly advantageous right up to the point where you have a child such as this young man who says, I'm not really sure I want to go to school.

And then you go, Wow, it looks like I made a mistake.

Now, you din't.

I know it's "didn't", but in our world, din't.

You din't make a mistake.

You did some really wonderful things.

You've gained some serious tax advantages and you still have lots of options.

It's still your money.

You can take it back.

It's still your money.

You can leave it cook until that child, now 18, is 28 and has their first child.

You can convert that IRA to your grandchild.

How cool is that?

That is radically cool.

There's 100 different ways that the 529....

I'm exaggerating.

There's only 70.

But there's a lot of ways that the 529 plan can be fabulous.

They added another one.

And this new one says, if you have had your 549 plan for at least 15 years... Did you read the e-mail?

Did you hear carefully?

18 years.

18 years.

So that part is the first qualification.

15 years or longer.

And if it's been 12, wait three years.

It's that simple.

At the end of that 15 years, if it's not going to be used for education, it can be moved income tax free into a Roth IRA for that child, for that benefit of the child.

18 years old - for that young person.

So, depending on the amount that's the maximum amount that that child is permitted into that annual Roth contribution... For example, if they work full time and they make 30,000 a year, the maximum Roth right now is 6,500.

That 6,500 can come out and go into the Roth IRA and then be tax free for the rest of that child's life.

If there's more than 6,500, do it again next year and next year and next year.

There is a lifetime maximum, 35,000 bucks.

So, theoretically, over about, what, a six-year period, you could from age 18 move $35,000.

So, 24, that young man's now 24 years old, has $35,000 that when he's 30, 31, could be worth 70.

38, could be worth 140.

45, it's worth 280.

52, it's worth half a mil.

59, it's worth a million.

And at 66, it's worth $2 million.

How cool is that?

Come on.

That's radically cool.

So for a young man, maybe he's going to become a tradesman, maybe a carpenter, like my dad was, and proud and, by the way, highly paid these days.

And because Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa decided to take care of them from a very early age, might end up still with a tax-free retirement at 66 of $2 million.

Fabulous.

Ah, you guys are fantastic!

Our questions tonight, fantastic, covering a broad range from obviously tremendously interesting people with interesting lives and interesting challenges.

That's the whole idea.

We are designed to answer your questions, to be of assistance and to be of service to you.

Send us your questions, gene@askmtm.com gene@askmtm.com We have a tremendous staff, tremendously talented financial advisors who will answer every single question back to you, even the silly ones, even the really hard ones, even the ones we have to do research on and even the snarky ones.

We like those, too.

We answer every single one and we pick the best and bring those back to you.

So, hopefully you learned a lot this week.

Hopefully you were entertained a little bit and hopefully you learned enough that you want to come back next week when we return to the studio, do our very best to serve you in another edition of More Than Money.

Goodnight.