Top 10 Articles of 2023

1. End of Life Planning: Are You Good to Go?

As Benjamin Franklin quipped, “…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes…” Ensuring financial security for your survivors and clearly communicating your values and wishes helps to ease grief and stress at a time when necessary legal and logistical steps must be taken. DOWNLOAD FREE REPORT

2. Retirement Planning: Is There a Best Time?

With most Americans living healthier for longer, retirement is becoming less tied to Social Security eligibility (age 67, for those born in 1960 or later) and more tailored to individual values around fulfilling work, active play, and community service. How will you adjust your retirement planning to reflect your ideal lifestyle? DOWNLOAD FREE REPORT

3. Colorado Mandates Retirement Savings Plans in 2023

In 2023, Colorado mandated that every employer in business two or more years with five or more employees offer a qualified retirement plan or enroll in a new state-sponsored Roth IRA payroll program called Colorado SecureSavings. We believe that a 401(k) plan is often the better option, offering broader eligibility, more flexibility, more tax options, and higher contribution levels. Also, new SECURE 2.0 Act federal tax credits may offset 100% of the qualified start-up costs. LEARN MORE

4. Saving for a Grandchild’s Education Expenses

The grandparent-funded 529 plan is an often-overlooked tool to lower one’s taxable estate and tax-efficiently transfer wealth to benefit future generations. Changes to federal financial aid rules and new SECURE 2.0 Act provisions allowing unused 529 plan account funds to be rolled into a Roth IRA make this strategy even more attractive. DOWNLOAD FREE REPORT

At the start of each year, AMG’s investment team revises its three-year economic outlook, which informs portfolio positioning decisions for wealth management clients. Watch the replay from January 2023 and save the date for our next economic outlook webinar on January 31, 2024. WATCH THE WEBINAR

6. Families Can Reverse the Generational Money Curse

Transferring wealth constructively across generations is one of the most challenging problems our clients face. Over our nearly 50 years of working with families of significant wealth, we find the adage “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” may be avoided with advanced family planning and transparent communication. LEARN HOW

7. Financial “Baby Steps” When Planning to Start a Family

From birth through age 17, it’s estimated that parents will spend about $310,605 per child born today. There are many ways new parents and grandparents can put their growing family on firm financial footing. DOWNLOAD FREE REPORT

8. Benefits of Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs)

Many can be averse to moving forward with advanced estate planning techniques because they are intimidated by their complexity or fear that someday they may need the gifted assets for their use. Using a SLAT instead of other trust types can often address these concerns as it offers some flexibility for the beneficiary spouse to use distributions to pay for household expenses. With the lifetime gift and estate tax currently set to decline substantially in 2026, it’s an opportune time for married couples of meaningful wealth to evaluate SLATs in their wealth-transfer strategy. READ MORE

9. Can You Have Good Income But Bad Credit?

A credit score is entirely independent of how much money you make and instead is based on how you manage your finances, i.e., how much you owe and how you pay it back. It can sometimes surprise high-net-worth individuals that missing payments, relying too heavily on credit, or opening too many accounts can negatively affect their ability to access credit at the most favorable rates. LEARN MORE

10. Artificial Intelligence: The Big Picture is Transforming Rapidly

On October 26, 2023, AMG hosted the first of its two-part event series on Artificial Intelligence (AI), featuring the co-founders of HalfBlast Studios, Lisa Calkins and Jeff Schmitz. In a demonstration of large language models (LLMs), Calkins said to “think of ChatGPT as (you) having a smart assistant.” It is an incredibly powerful tool that is exceptionally good at searching through and summarizing large amounts of data. Other emerging applications of AI include new imaging models for patient diagnostics and its potential to enhance education. WATCH WEBINAR

Other notables that just missed the Top 10 cutoff include:

• U.S. Federal Debt: A Decade of Decisions & Fiscal Challenges Ahead—read a summary of our October headline event featuring former Speaker of the House, The Honorable Paul D. Ryan.
• Natural Resources: Shaping Today and Tomorrow—watch the webinar replay of this event unveiling insights, analyses and tips for growing, mining and electrifying your investment portfolio.
• Notes on the Economy – Q1 2023 Summary—read this summary of our 24-page quarterly economic outlook report for clients.
• Elder Abuse Affects 1 in 10 Older Adults—read about how to recognize the signs and report possible cases of elder abuse, which thrives in silence.