Good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene DICKERSON, your host, your personal financial advisor.

Happy to serve you for the next half an hour.

That's exactly what we'll do, will serve you in every way we are able, because you are the most important part of our entire show.

You make us the most relevant financial show on television today, without question, because everything we talk about is something that's important to you.

That's the key.

If it's important to you, it's important to us.

You send us your emails to Jean and ask MTM dot com making our financial correspondent Make sure that we have a full roster of good questions to make sure that we're giving you the very best that we have each and every show.

And in my own way, I try to share as much of my 780 years of experience to benefit you in every way possible.

So for those of you who have seen our show before, you know how this works.

For those who are joining us for the very first time, a couple of bits of information.

Number one half an hour goes very quickly.

If you think I've got some time, I'll settle in.

Maybe in a few minutes, you're going to miss a lot.

You don't want that to happen.

And number two, if at any point in time you find yourself being even even mildly entertained, you have my sincerest apologies, he said, very tongue in cheek.

Bottom line is that there's a lot going on in the world.

There are lots of questions about politics, about elections, about inflation, about interest rates, about the stock market, about job creation, about ups and downs, turmoils, both domestic and international.

And for so very many of you, it's such an unsettling time that it feels that's a that's a really important word.

It feels like the world is crazier than it's ever been.

And if I can give you even some small assurance, even from a negative standpoint, some small assurance that sadly the world has been far crazier, that may give you may give you some peace of mind to know that the things that we have faced in the past world wars, famines, pestilence, set a real world and all of the attendant challenges that go with them.

We have faced and we have overcome and we have prospered and all the challenges we have now, they're very serious indeed.

We will face, we will overcome and we will prosper.

And hopefully each question that we answer tonight helps them prosper just a little bit.

Megan, who can we help?

First, this evening, hygiene.

Well, we have a really wonderful and detailed question to start off tonight, so let's get to it.

This one says, I'm an old dad, 72 this past year, and I just got a new accessory installed, a pacemaker.

I'm fine.

And the pacer is slated to last 14 years before needing a new battery.

But while being in the hospital, it gave me time to think about my daughter's situation.

She is 46 this year, a single mom with 12 year old triplets.

Okay.

She's been teaching steadily at the elementary school level for around 15 years.

After the divorce a couple of years ago, she was able to buy her ex-husband out of their four bedroom, two and a half bath home where she and the triplets, the Tripp's still live.

She's a terrifically hard working woman.

She earned her real estate license while teaching and has been successful.

I worry because with the trips, her job, her part time job, the house, the dog and anything else she's got on her plate from week to week, the kid is running herself ragged.

My wife and I are both retired and thankfully we did well when we worked a number of years ago.

We were able to give our daughter about $60,000 for each triplet, which was placed in an account for their education.

After the divorce, we rewrote our wills so that she will get all of our assets when we're no longer here.

And while that amount is substantial, I worry about her financial acumen and her investment savviness.

Would you think that sitting down with her and reviewing her situation could benefit her?

I know she'd probably take financial advice from folks other than mom and dad.

A lot more quickly than my wife and I often have offered up.

Anyway, that's my tale and I'd appreciate any insights or suggestions you could offer.

Thank you so much for your time.

Well, you're quite welcome.

Your words are very kind.

And more importantly, it's clear that you've raised a really wonderful daughter and goodness, triplets.

Can't even imagine.

I, I find that daunting.

And goodness, 12 years old at this point.

Soon to be teenage girls.

Wow, That's amazing.

A couple of things jump out at me and all of them are wonderful and various levels.

Your reference to your daughter is the kid at 46, while understandable, may very well understate her abilities and her maturities.

She has clearly handled many challenges in a dramatically successful way.

So the pride of a father being shared with another father of daughters, it's so evident and will serve you well until you have gone through three or four more pacemakers, because we you and I may only have 30 or 40 more good years on this planet that we have to donate to guiding our children and our grandchildren and maybe, maybe someday great grandchildren as well.

First of all, excuse me, her educational career, in all likelihood, particularly if she is a resident of the state of Pennsylvania, particularly if she's participating in a Pennsylvania public school retirement plan, will likely provide her with a very substantial pension.

One of the few organizations that in this day and age actually provides pensions and provides.

We have seen pensions coming out of appeasers that were dramatic, adding to the fact that she probably has a pretty substantial income, particularly if we add in her part time side hustles, etc., her Social Security will likely be at the higher end, if not the high end of the spectrum.

So bottom line is, it's not not only not unthinkable, it is in the realm of likely that her pension will be in the high threes, perhaps $4,000 a month.

Her Social Security will be approximately the same.

So that even if she has been, sadly for all these challenges, unable to save a great deal of money, she will likely be looking at a retirement that will provide her with about $8,000 a month of income.

So your pride needs to embrace that piece as well.

She did a very wise thing in securing her home for both herself and her children.

That's a very wise thing indeed.

Buying out in a divorce is challenging, is very difficult, Very, very tough at that point.

But that will serve her well indeed.

You have been exceptionally kind in giving a substantial block of money for each of the triplets so that they have their educational anticipated educational expenses well under control.

If that money is being well invested, that should end up giving them well over $100,000 apiece.

That should give them either the complete options, all the options that they wish for higher education or cover at least a substantial portion of it.

You've already helped out in that way.

And of course, you hopefully 30, 40 years from now, when the good Lord calls you home, will be supplying her with additional resources that you and your wife have managed to hang on to as well.

This is really a rather remarkably wonderful what challenge that you present to us of would we be able to sit with and counsel a very bright, very successful woman?

The answer is yup, we do it all day long, very happily.

Now, as a gentleman, approximately the same age as you, your daughter may or may say, Gosh, it's kind of like talking to my dad if that is a comfortable thing, problem solved.

If it is not, perhaps she would like someone closer to her age.

Perhaps she would like someone who is closer to her gender.

Perhaps she would like none of those and would like just to have the opportunity to pick somebody that she has real chemistry with.

Fortunately, most financial advisory firms, a single financial advisor, a solo practice financial advisor, is not a firm that that's just an individual who is offering services and that they're passing.

Everything goes away.

A firm as more than money, for example, would have various financial advisors, very sage has various backgrounds, various approaches, etc.

etc.

so that your daughter could absolutely be comfortable speaking with someone that she is comfort, that understands her, that she has confidence she can trust.

And goodness, if you and I have 30 or 40 mortgages or she has 50 or 60, and that long term relationship should serve her very, very well.

So seek a good firm, seek one that has options, let her pick and and continue to support her as you have outstanding start.

Wonderful start.

Next.

Let's continue.

Well, now we have a gold question and it's actually two questions.

This one says With all the gold being sold by brokerages or held in the gold backed IRAs for one case, could the demand by retirees ever exceed the gold available on demand if there were a run on the accounts, as what happened years ago when the government required the holders of gold to be turned in, could the government ever learn what you have and require holders to do this again or pay taxes on this?

Just how confidential is my account with the broker and is it better for gold to be held personally for this confidentiality at home?

Thank you for your advice.

These are two very straightforward questions.

Some would actually take a peek and go, Well, these are very simple.

Let's just dispose of these rather quickly.

The answer is that the answer to these questions is far more complex than they appear.

Let's start with the first.

With all the gold being bought and sold in brokerages, is there ever a chance that the demand will exceed the supply?

The answer is no.

No.

Even if there were no additions added to the supply of gold from this point forward, the demand does not exceed the supply.

Then the supply is adjusted based on price.

One of the few things most folks remember from Econ 101 back in college is supply and demand.

The shorter the supply and the higher the demand.

The thing that gives is not supply or demand, it's price.

So if under current circumstances, normal circumstances, whatever you may wish to describe gold and at the moment roughly $2,000 an ounce, if that's the equilibrium price for supply and demand.

Currently, if demand were to shoot up, so would the price.

By the way, it works the opposite way.

If for some reason people decided that gold doesn't really float their boat, doesn't really get them where they wish to be and the demand lessens, the price will drop as well.

And additionally, if there was a massive supply of gold discovered and the supply flooded the market, that price would drop as well.

So you can see supply and demand will be rather well balanced by the markets, by how much is available and what someone is willing to pay for it.

And those are unknowns.

We'll have to find out as the future unfolds.

The second part, sadly, I believe you have not been fully informed.

When you open an investment brokerage account, you are agreeing that a great deal of your information will be shared with the government.

So confidentiality should not be expected.

If you have a an investment account with a broker, certainly not if you have an IRA.

IRA transactions IRA balances IRA distributions are reported annually by the IRA custodian to the federal government.

And there are lots of other requirements in terms of what you're holding and what you have bought and sold, because they must report that as a capital transaction.

And they're expecting they the IRS is expecting that you will pay tax on all of those things that will absolutely be reported to the federal government and the IRS.

So expectation of privacy?

Absolutely not.

Supply and demand, That makes perfect sense.

The one item that I will caution you on is a very kind of tossed in at the end of your question, is it better to have your gold confidentially at home?

I think that's one of the worst ideas that that you can possibly consider the risk of having any substantial amount of gold.

If you're talking about $1,000.

Yes, let's not worry about that.

Somebody breaks in, give it to them, have them walk away, somebody demands it, give it to them, have them walk away.

But if you're talking about substantial sums of money, the risk of having your home invaded your home attacked your home, giving up your supply of gold and someone being injured in the process is too high.

It is simply too high.

So that's not a an option that you should consider such an option.

In my opinion, anyone should consider small amounts just for fun.

Sure, larger amounts, collections, etc.. That makes no sense, Max.

Hopefully we can make sense for our next questioner, our next member of our audience.

Where to next?

I hope so too.

Our next emailer seems to be have been led astray, so hopefully we can help him out.

This one says, My wife passed away in 2022.

We were together for 65 years.

I asked our bank to have her I.R.A.

money transfer to me as her sole beneficiary on the account and the surviving spouse, a bank representative of their IRA, of their IRA department, told me which form to complete and how to fill it out.

My wife's 2022 required minimum distribution.

It was paid to my checking account at the same bank.

The balance was then put in a new account with the ownership description shown as an inherited IRA.

Time passed and I took RMDs for her account and my own IRA.

To my surprise, the RMD from the inherited IRA was roughly double the amount I received from my irate, although the amounts in both accounts were approximately the same.

I discovered through research that as my wife's sole beneficiary and surviving spouse, I should not have filled out the form for an inherited IRA, but instead rolled it over to my own IRA.

I asked to have the R&D deposit reversed and reissued at the lower correct amount.

However, my bank said the IRA ownership description cannot be changed now, and I have to take that larger amount.

I feel like a victim here.

I followed their instructions which were wrong, and now I have to suffer a rapid depletion of the affected IRA and pay higher tax sooner.

Is there anything I can do, Jean?

Well, there are a number of things that you can do.

I'm I'm not 100% convinced that this is fixable in the sense that you can reverse this process.

I'm also not 100% convinced you can't.

So one of the first things I would suggest that you do is to escalate your complaint, your concern to someone at the bank that has the authority to make things happen.

If you're talking to a teller, if you're talking to someone at the branch, they they may have some limited authority, they may have some limited information.

You need to be talking to somebody who's a very high up in the hierarchy of the bank for two reasons.

Number one, to let them know, I'm guessing your age to be approximately 85.

You were married for 65 years.

So to let them know that the bank advice was poorly given.

So at the very least, someone in the banking department, the in the bank itself needs to be aware that their client service was not up to their standards, not up to the standards that we would expect, by the way, not up to the standards that the Department of Banking and Securities, that would be our the state of Pennsylvania's department.

Every state has their own slightly different name perhaps, but they are required to supervise banking, securities transactions, etc..

They are very diligent and very vigilant looking for situations where seniors, I think 85 qualifies, where seniors are treated poorly.

Now, we're not suggesting the bank did anything intentionally wrong, but they did something wrong.

They did not ask your intentions.

They did not explore as they should have.

They did not fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to act in your best interest.

They did not explain things in a way that you would have understood them and made corrections immediately.

It was only after the the pain had been felt of the higher taxation that this occurred.

So, number one, talking to someone higher in the bank, of course, number two, you may or may not find that they can escalate this and correct this problem.

We are hopeful they can.

Number three, Department of banking securities or whatever your state calls the regulation of financial transactions with seniors at number four, strongly consider moving those IRAs out of that bank and into the hands of someone else that you feel you can trust at a higher level.

And perhaps once those are moves that that transaction can be undone, something you should look at very, very carefully.

The last thing that I would suggest is to take a deep breath and sit with a financial advisor who also has at least a solid understanding of the tax code.

These folks do not a solid understanding of the tax code may end up solving your problem without doing any other making any other changes, because the fact that you're getting a higher number may or may not be a dreadful thing if you're paying double the tax, but the tax rate is very small, it may actually be to your benefit or an interesting creative idea if you are philanthropic, if you are a charitable person and you're supporting perhaps your church, that money can be sent directly to the church and there's no tax whatsoever called a qualified charitable distribution, a church, a nonprofit, etc..

So there are a lot of ways to look at this, but start with making sure the bank knows that you're unhappy and then escalate from there.

But explore all your options.

And again, I don't think you'll get that great information from where you're currently situated.

So finding another advisor as a second opinion is likely in your best interest.

Well, not the best mags, but I think that's going to end up working out just fine.

We just need to make sure that we work through all those steps.

Is there someone else that we can help?

Well, we have another question from a dad trying to help out his family.

This one says, I'm writing today to ask for your advice and help on questions about beneficiaries of a retirement account.

My former wife, who is a wonderful person, and I are the parents of two fantastic young men.

Unfortunately and tragically, she developed severe dementia and is now cared for full time in a nursing home.

Before falling seriously ill, she asked me to be for all her business and personal affairs in setting up instruction her finances.

I made sure that our sons are listed as joint beneficiaries of her TIAA-CREF retirement account.

She worked for many decades and saved very carefully and also benefited from excellent investment advice from TIAA-CREF.

The current balance of her retirement accounts is over $900,000.

Her attorney has told me that as beneficiaries of the retirement account, our son's money will come to them directly and quickly, and that this transaction is separate from and not controlled by or subject to the instructions in their mom's will.

I have three questions about what will happen when she passes.

One will my sons receive their shares of her TIAA-CREF investments as retirement money for them, That is, will this money pass to them as money to be deposited only in their existing or future retirement accounts?

Or will it be paid as ordinary income?

Two as beneficiaries.

Will they owe Pennsylvania death taxes on the money that they will receive from their mother's retirement account?

One lives in New York.

One lives in California.

And three, will they owe any federal taxes on the retirement money that they receive?

Thank you so much for considering my questions.

goodness.

Considering your question is an honor, it is refreshing to hear a gentleman start with my former wife, who is a wonderful person.

That says a great deal about you, sir.

And obviously it says a great deal about your wife.

Fantastic.

And the word fantastic apparently applies to your boys as well.

Well done, sir.

So these questions are actually rather straightforward.

The situation has its challenges, no question about that.

But the questions that treatment of this particular account is very straightforward.

It's currently TIAA-CREF, for those who have not heard of that, is a very large national firm.

They predominantly work with educational institutions and nonprofits in terms of setting up retirement plans.

So think of TIAA-CREF.

If you wish an analogy, think of it as a41k.

Think of it as an IRA.

It is a retirement fund.

So when we ask will the boys receive their shares?

As as income.

Here's a check.

Or will they receive it as something that needs to be placed into a retirement plan?

The answer is it's their choice.

So using very simple numbers, if if if today is her day and she meets her maker and the boys each receive your attorney is quite right is simply an easily in short order checks for $450,000 from this retirement account.

They will each have an independent choice of either taking the money immediately paying income tax on $450,000.

My heart grows faint just thinking about that or accepting it into an IRA rollover, an inherited IRA.

It rolls from the current plan into an IRA that is marked as an inherited IRA.

It would be in your former wife's name for the benefit of each son.

They then have certain requirements that they must follow in terms of taking money out over a ten year period.

They can take it out sooner or they can take it out over time.

They have lots of options.

So for most folks, for most folks, taking that inherited IRA option works very, very well.

Will there be Pennsylvania death tax?

Undoubtedly, yes.

This is part of her estate.

She is a resident of Pennsylvania.

That's what determines if there is death tax.

Approximately four and a half percent, it might be a little bit less, but approximately four and a half percent based on the direct descendant going to her sons.

So that's very straightforward.

If this is the only asset in the estate, yes, it will be deducted from these assets or the boys will have to pay that directly to the state of Pennsylvania.

If there are other assets, it's possible that the inheritance tax would be paid from something else and that these this 900,000 will pass in intact.

But it doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like that's the scenario.

So I suspect that, yes, there will be four and a half percent.

So the state of Pennsylvania, nothing to federal.

And finally, will they pay federal taxes on the amount they receive?

Yeah, without a doubt.

Whether they take it in a lump sum, $450,000 income and off we go, we've got to pay tax.

This is money that has not been taxed previously.

So the IRS is very committed to getting their pound of flesh out of this particular block of money.

Again, each boy will have their own options.

They can follow their own path, whatever fits them best.

Lump sum, spread it out ten years or whatever.

But whatever money comes out and ends up in their hands, it will be taxable.

Gosh, we had a couple interesting questions that were a little uncomfortable.

And then we had a couple of questions that just demonstrate how wonderful families can be, whether they stay intact or not.

They can still be wonderful to each other and benefit each other and care for each other.

Well, I'm blessed to be able to answer some questions for folks who are that fine.

If you are so inclined and you would like to have one of your questions asked and answered, we answer every single question back to you.

Send those to me gene at ask MTM dot com.

I have an entire team that answers questions back and we work on these things as a team.

And maybe, just maybe on a future show you'll see your question answered live as well.

And hopefully it's 780 years of experience.

I'll get most of my answers.

Correct?

Most.

So thank you so much for spending part of your time with us this evening.

Hopefully you'll be back next week when we're back in the studio for another edition of More Than Money.

Goodnight.