Many senior taxpayers claim the standard deduction on their annual income tax return instead of itemizing deductions. Often seniors pay little or no mortgage interest, and they usually don’t owe much for state and local income and property taxes. Most of the common itemized deductions don’t add up to much for seniors. Add to that… Read More
What can you do to make sure your power of attorney will be honored? Ask your bank, brokerage house, IRA or other retirement plan provider, and insurance companies if they will honor your power of attorney and ask for their response in writing. If they say they will only honor powers of attorney on their… Read More
Sometimes banks and other financial institutions, such as brokerage houses and insurance companies, refuse to honor a power of attorney when they think the document is “stale,” that is, a significant amount of time has passed since the POA was executed. This refusal means that an agent may have a useless document if it was… Read More
A power of attorney (POA) is a standard part of every estate plan. In this document the client appoints an agent to take care of the principal’s finances, bills, investments, taxes and other financial matters. It used to be that the authority of an agent acting under a power of attorney was not questioned. Now,… Read More