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Wealth of Insights Newsletter

• Navigating Property & Casualty Insurance

  Preserving and growing your investments goes hand in hand with protecting your tangible assets when it comes to achieving your long-term financial goals. Just as we continually review investments to ensure that we are implementing our best ideas from a quality and valuation standpoint, the same rigor applies to tangible assets.

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• April 2025 Newsletter

  The change of seasons brings with it the promise of longer days, new beginnings and growth. However, transitions are often accompanied by challenges. Like the shift from winter to spring, economic growth and higher returns endure setbacks. That was certainly the case during the first quarter of the year with policy changes, DeepSeek’s threat to artificial intelligence, erratic tariff implementations, and continued uncertainty regarding the future of the markets.

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• March 2025 Newsletter

  In this newsletter, David Smith, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at Rockland Trust, addresses some timely questions that have been raised by clients given the volatile beginning to 2025.

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• Social Security Beneficiaries

  In retirement, your income may come from a variety of sources, such as retirement accounts, investments, Social Security, pensions or even continued part-time work. Maximizing these streams of income is integral in achieving your goals after one’s primary working years are over.

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• 2024 At a Glance

  From everyone here at IMG, we hope you enjoyed your holiday season and that 2025 is off to a great start. Like many of us who took some time off during the holidays, so too, did the markets, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) both taking a step back during December, down (-2.4%) and (-5.1%), respectively.

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• Retirement Income Tax Strategies

  Retirement planning is a multi-step process that evolves over time and takes into consideration many variables, including your financial goals and how long you may expect to live. 

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• Saving for College

  Assisting with tuition has mutual benefits; in easing your family’s financial burden you can build an educational legacy as well as take advantage of tax and estate planning incentives.

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• A Primer on Life Insurance

  Determining if life insurance is right for you is a very personal decision. Although it may seem morbid, an easy test is to consider if someone would suffer financially if you were to pass away. If the answer is yes, then there is a good chance that you should consider life insurance. While there are several different types of life insurance, what they all have in common is that they pay cash to your loved ones upon your passing.

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• Donor Advised Funds

  As investors, charitable giving can be one of the most personally rewarding strategies we have available. Providing aid to our favorite charities as part of our overall financial plan is a compelling opportunity on many levels. Still, navigating our charitable goals and the complexities of planning, organizing and disbursing grants while maximizing the accompanying tax benefits can feel daunting.

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• Navigating the Nuances of Business Ownership Transition

  Owning a business is a huge accomplishment. It requires countless hours of hard work and tenacity to transform what began as a business idea into launching the operations, recruiting the team, and implementing the endless activities needed to run a successful business. Moreover, the business life cycle ebbs and flows with economic cycles, market trends, pandemics, and evolving consumer behaviors. Simply put, business ownership is the ultimate balancing act of creativity, planning, execution, and supervision.

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• Estate Plan Review

  This February marks a Leap Year, where we get one extra day in the month. This calendar oddity occurs once every four years and helps keep us in sync with the seasons. Leap day offers us an extra day this year to take the time to ensure that we have paid proper attention to our estate plan. It is important to check in every so often to confirm that your plan and documents continue to reflect your wishes. Laws and regulations change in small ways each year, and every once in a while there’s a significant change in estate law.

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• 2023 At a Glance

  The shift to living with COVID versus in fear of it had ramifications as surging consumer demand was met with labor and supply shortages. This caused inflation to heat up and the Federal Reserve (Fed) to repeatedly intervene with rate hikes. As we enter 2024, we are optimistic that inflation is contained and the Fed can reverse course and reduce interest rates.

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• Tax Planning Strategies

  As we approach year end, December is a fitting time to consider some tax planning strategies that may help reduce your upcoming tax bill and achieve your long term financial goals. Given the complexity and ever changing tax laws, it is important to be up-to-date on the most recent changes. On October 4, 2023, the governor of Massachusetts signed an extensive tax package into law.

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• The Hidden Risks of Cash

  After raising interest rates 11 times since March 2022, the Federal Reserve (Fed) held its benchmark interest rate steady for the second straight month, at a range of 5.25%-5.50%. This marks a 22 year high, and indications are that it may hover around this level for a while. 

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• Five Things Your Kids Should Know About Life Insurance

  September is Life Insurance month. Life insurance can be invaluable and is not limited to older adults. From Newlyweds, to new parents, or those looking to protect their families, life insurance is an important tool to help ensure that loved ones are taken care of financially should the unexpected happen.

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• Lifetime Gifting

  After years of working and careful planning, you may find that you have saved more than enough for retirement and potential healthcare expenses. In addition, your financial advisor warns that your estate is large enough that it may be subject to federal and/or state estate taxes at your death.

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• Will I Have Enough Money When I Retire?

  People work long and hard to save for retirement, and it can be challenging to estimate how much is enough money in savings to cover your costs throughout retirement, while making your money last as long as you do. This is only exacerbated with increasing life expectancies, since retirement savings need to last longer.

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• Reviewing Your Insurance Policy

  With most investments, market conditions, innovations, and efficiencies impact performance. The same is true with life insurance. So, like any other investment in your portfolio, an investment in life insurance should be monitored to ensure that it is maximizing return and meeting your objectives.

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• Debt Ceiling Dilemma

  With news of the United States reaching the debt ceiling, and the threat of default dominating the headlines, it can be very confusing to differentiate fact from opinion. Add to that the political backdrop of the balance of power in Congress, and it oftentimes turns into a partisan debate. Here is a breakdown of what it all means, how we got here, why this even matters, as well as possible outcomes.

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• Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement

  On December 29, 2022 President Biden signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 outlining $1.7 trillion in federal spending for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2023. Included in this bill is the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act 2.0 which aims to make it easier for Americans to build retirement savings. Among the nearly 100 provisions, we've summarized some key points.

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• Will Infrastructure Investment Pave the Way to a Stronger Economy?

  In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a roughly $1 trillion package that reauthorized existing programs and provided more than $550 billion in new funding over the next five years to help upgrade aging U.S. transportation, water, power generation, and communication systems. This large injection of funds is likely to affect how many Americans commute, travel, transport goods, access the Internet, power homes and buildings, and more.

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• What Do Rising Interest Rates Mean for Your Money?

  On March 16, 2022, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve raised the benchmark federal funds rate by 0.25% to a target range of 0.25% to 0.50%. This is the beginning of a series of increases that the FOMC expects to carry out over the next two years to combat high inflation.

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• Wealth of Insights – Tax Savings Strategies

  As 2021 comes to a close, now is a good time to start thinking about your taxes and making sure they are aligned with your financial goals. Our resident Manager of Tax Services, Rita Yeung, CPA, highlights some tax savings strategies to consider.

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• RMD Roundup: A Few Key Updates About Required Minimum Distributions

  As we approach the end of 2021, now might be a good time to take a closer look at a few developments surrounding required minimum distributions (RMDs).

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• Life Insurance at Various Life Stages

  Your need for life insurance changes as your life changes. When you're young, you typically have less need for life insurance, but that changes as you take on more responsibility and your family grows.

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• Strategies Using Life Insurance

  Life insurance is not only about protecting your survivors in the event of your death. Depending upon the type of policy you purchase, it can also enable you to meet specific life goals.

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• A Guide to Potential Tax Law Changes - Income Tax (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  President Biden has proposed a number of initiatives during his presidential campaign surrounding tax increases for individuals with high income. More specifically, for individuals with income over $400,000 will be greatly affected.

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• A Guide to Potential Tax Law Changes - Estate and Gift Tax (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  The federal lifetime gift tax exemption amount is the amount individuals can gift away during their lifetimes without having to pay any gift taxes on the transfer to the individuals. The lifetime gift tax exemption is unified with the federal estate tax exemption amount, which is the total amount that can be excluded from estate taxes at death.

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• A Guide to Potential Tax Law Changes - Business (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Clients have different levels of wealth and business complexities, so the potential tax law changes will have varying impacts on estate and income tax planning. The goal of this piece is to give a high level explanation of the more relevant changes that impact most of our lending customers.

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• 2020 Tax Savings Strategies (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  As 2020 comes to an end and the presidential election is behind us, we are still left with the uncertainty of how the Senate will be controlled due to the two run-off elections in Georgia in early January 2021.

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• Loan Rescue to the Rescue (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Cash accumulation in a life insurance policy is valuable and tax advantaged. Loans on those cash values are actually a great way of utilizing the funds.

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• Presidential Candidate’s Tax Policy Review (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  With the presidential election looming, we took a closer look at how the current and proposed tax laws from President Trump compare to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s proposals.

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• RMDs: To Waive or Not to Waive…That is the Question (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Learn more about required minimum distribution options available to you in light of changes from the CARES Act.

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• Planning is About Living (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Lessons the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us. Helpful information about developing a plan for protection later in life.

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• Comparing Long-Term Care Insurance Policies (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Comparing LTCI policies is a lot easier when you know what to look for.

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• Determining the Need for Long-Term Care Insurance – How Much is Enough? (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  When considering the purchase of LTCI, you'll need to pay particular attention to the benefit amount and to the benefit period.

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• There’s Still Time to Contribute to an IRA for 2019 (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Even though tax filing season is well under way, there’s still time to make a regular IRA contribution for 2019.

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• The Pros and Cons of Dollar Cost Averaging: How It Works and When to Use It (Opens in a new Window) (Opens in a new Window)

  Read the article to learn more.

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