@notrichenough, a sincere apology is owed to you, and I extend it hoping you understand that it was an honest mistake on my part.
Sorry.
^ No worries. 
Should it be the function of a system of taxation to implement social goals, whatever they may be? I feel like this is where a (any) tax system goes off the rails - incentives here to stimulate something there, solving poverty, giving breaks for something judged more socially worthy according to somebody, etc etc etc. Before you know it the tax code is a million pages long and no one understands it.
Referring to a political figure as, âThis guyâ is not disrespectful, unless you think they must always be referred to in a reverential way. A president really is just another guy, not royal, no Godlike qualities. It may sound odd, but certainly not disrespectful, when you consider the truly rude things our presidents have been called.
Should I be offended if someone talks to me casually, and doesnât always refer to me by my title? I must insist that you call me Captain. 
Actually, that annoys me immensely.
Has it not been?
Re #4541: I agree wholeheartedly. Why is paying a mortgage more worthy than borrowing for other reasons, why is giving to a church more worthy than giving a friend some money, why is working for a hedge fund more worthy than working for a credit union?
Not only does it make the tax code something that otherwise intelligent people canât understand, it corrupts the system by enticing special interests to get legislatorâs attention.
What country do you live in that does not have a progressive income tax system in place?
This thread has been helpful. Please keep it alive.
Maybe I should start a new thread for middle income people looking ahead to retirement.
âMaybe I should start a new thread for middle income people looking ahead to retirement.â
But you know almost everyone considers themselves âmiddle incomeâ. From less than 40K to over a million, Iâll bet that most consider themselves in that category.
âThe Middle Class ($50k to $100k AGI) Retirement Threadâ?
Perect, madison. And maybe with tht friteria DadII will realize/admit he is neither dirt poor nor middle class.
The weird thing is that the first 1/3 of our marriage we didnât even make middle class, as defined by your #s. The middle 1/2 of our marriage we were clearly in your range and now we have rolled out of your range again in retirement. Life is very âfluidâ in this household and we have rolled with it.
A lot of things that happened were beyond our control and literally took an act of Congress that one of our Senators devoted much of the decades of his career to accomplish. Hâs wages did rise very slowly but steadily. My SisIL died and was very generous to H. We had always planned weâd be in a lower income bracket in retirement than when we were working, but as they say, âMan plans, God laughs.â We arenât complaining, we are just very surprised. 
Re: âThe Middle Class ($50k to $100k AGI) Retirement Threadâ?
A great idea. Maybe also allow for a tangent about how to help with their offspringâs wedding or having to help their adult S or D financially, AFTER they have been in retirement (which may be our case.) I once heard that the number one or two reason why people becomes poor when they are in retirement is that they are unable to cut the âfinancial cordâ with one or more of their offsprings.
I think I have been in the class of 50K to 100k AGI (definitely so in the years when I contributed a more significant portion of my income to my 401K) during most of my working life.
I really wish I could work for more years but it seems not very likely. I am very envious of those in the middle class who have managed to work for almost 40 years before their retirement. I will consider myself extremely lucky if I could hit year 35.
I think I have actually been working for that many years if I include those years between my UG and my grad school. But I think I had used up all of my earnings from those few working years to fund my graduate school (and immigration) so I essentially started from zero in assets after graduate school. Financially, the hardest years were when we were full pay parents for two years for our childâs college education expenses.
I donât think I said that I do.
Perhaps discussion about theories of taxation is too political, so I will stop. Probably off topic, anyway.
Or maybe we just hijack this threaad and meander in that directionâŠ
I agree in different phases of life, one starts off slow on the low end of wages and slowly builds up assets, putting kids through college, paying off a home, building up retirement. I donât think any of us on this thread have a lot of money to throw around w/o regard for tomorrow.
I hope people can just keep in mind to post things beneficial to learn about, with considering what to do now and in the future, to be better prepared for retirement with financial security.
Thinking about it and discussing it certainly helps us all give this topic the attention it should get.
@msteeâ
I havenât read this thread for many weeks and just saw your post asking about transferring an inherited IRA. Once you have decided to transfer from the existing financial institution and where you want your inherited IRA to go, itâs best to contact the NEW institution first and ask it to initiate a trustee-to-trustee transfer.
Iâve had a great deal of recent experience with Vanguard as the transferee (recipient) company for inherited IRAs that I have set up for my niece, nephew and D from their grandparentsâ IRAs. If you have settled on using Vanguard, you need to contact its âConciergeâ department and someone there can walk you through the steps and direct you to the necessary form. Essentially you will complete and send to Vanguard an IRA Asset Transfer Kit that provides all the account information from your existing inherited IRA and Vanguard will take care of contacting the transferor (current) company. This step ensures that the new inherited IRA account is set up properly before the monies are transfer and helps ensure that the IRA stays intact. Hereâs a link to the form:
http://www.vanguard.com/pdf/s258.pdf
The IRA Asset Transfer Kit will require a âsignature guaranteeâ or âmedallion guaranteeâ because you are asking that all of the funds be âwithdrawn.â One used to be able to obtain those at commercial banks, but they have stopped recently and you now have to go to a brokerage firm to obtain them. Make sure you call and find out.
If you do end up transferring your inherited IRA to Vanguard, you can set up its annual RMD service. Once you have set up your new inherited IRA, make sure you name âsuccessor beneficiary(ies)â for your inherited IRA so that you have taken that estate-planning housekeeping step.
If you decide to go with another institution, contact that companyâs retirement asset transfer department. Fidelity has a very efficient service as well.
I hope this is helpful.
My local bank still gives signature guarantees and medallion guarantees. They did give us a hard time in December because the company had told him to write a letter of instruction and have it medallion guaranteed, but the bank rep said she couldnât guarantee a letter so we had to have to company fax a form for him to fill out. He was asking to remove me as custodian of an account.
Yes, Schwab and Fidelity were both helpful to us in receiving inherited IRAs. I agree that the receiving brokerage will help walk you through the process, conference calling the other institution as needed.
Wells Fargo was the only VERY confused institution. They wanted to give the money to the state but we were able to convince them to disburse to beneficiaries instead.
Hereâs more details on the proposed cap. It sounds like $3.4 million cap applies to a couple jointly and to all retirement accounts combined.