The holiday season is upon us! For me, this brings fond memories of family traditions centered around spending time together, eating good food, and exchanging gifts. This year, consider giving the gift of financial education to your children (or grandchildren) that will pay dividends (pun totally intended) as they grow.
If you are reading this post in the hopes of “knowing your worth” as it relates to your moral character, societal contributions, or, more literally, how much you can get for your plasma, I am sorry to disappoint. But before you click away from this page, this article may give you something more valuable: education on the calculation and application of your net worth. It might not sound exciting, but this could help you focus on goals and live your life to the fullest, and what could be more thrilling than that?
With student debt at an all high time and college costs continuing to escalate, funding college expenses is not just on the minds of parents—it’s on the minds of grandparents as well.
That’s because the owner of the 529 Plan (technically called the Participant) can change the beneficiary whenever he/she wants. And as long as the new beneficiary is a family member of the old beneficiary, there are no income tax consequences. So, the expectant father could have opened a 529 Plan account and named himself or his wife as the beneficiary, and then changed the beneficiary once they’d obtained a Social Security number for their child.
Unfortunately, as part of the overhaul of the state budget and tax system, the state tax deduction for contributions to the NC 529 Plan is set to disappear completely in 2014. Without the tax deduction, the North Carolina 529 Plan moves from being a great option for state residents to simply being an ok alternative.