I am Jill Hansen and I am going to talk to you about four simple steps to follow when receiving an inheritance. The first thing that you want to do when you receive an inheritance is make a listing of what you have gotten and also what you expect to get through real estate proceeds or whatever sales that may come down the pike and making sure that when you are looking at the real estate proceeds, you take into consideration the commissions that may come out of that.
When you are inheriting, depending on what type of an account it is, will have different tax ramifications to the person inheriting the money. For instance, in IRA to a spouse, there will be no tax implications. But in IRA to children, there will be and there are different options you want to check with your tax accountant about the best way to take money out of inherited IRA.
The next thing you want to pay attention too is stepped up cost basis on stock. Usually, we can date, we can use the stepped up cost basis as of the date of debt to value stock which brings down capital gains rates for the person inheriting the funds. The last thing is, most of the time Life Insurance proceeds if they are set up correctly are tax free through the years.
The next things you want to do is make a list of your short and long-term goals. Being college funding or retirement planning, assign specific dollar values to those. You should also have a three to six months emergency fund setup as well. The next thing is a splurge account; you want that new kitchen, you want that new car, set up a separate account for that and when you have gone through that money, get back on track with your goals.
The last thing is establish a strategy for obtaining those long-term goals; the college funding, the retirement planning and the best way to do that is to talk to a financial professional that knows your background, your risk tolerance and any specifics to your situations, so they can tailor a plan for you, I am Jill Hansen with Martha's Vineyard Financial Group.
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