The Trust & Financial Services Department can assist you with your retirement by assessing what you have, and determining what you need for the retirement road ahead. Ideally, we will create a personalized scenario based upon your financial need by consulting your financial plan, the foundation of a comprehensive retirement strategy. This way, your retirement plan speaks to your individual needs, and it is not based on generalized demographics.
So I've saved money, now what?
Many of our clients have diligently saved money over the course of their lifetimes. Once they retire they ask, "Now what?" The challenge, and our objective, is to transform that accumulated savings into an income stream sufficient to support their desired lifestyles and last their lifetimes.
About Retirement Accounts
The government of the United States, as a matter of public policy, encourages its citizens to save for their own retirement. The obvious reason being to lighten a potential burden on social services. To that end, the Internal Revenue Services has created tax incentives for individual citizens to set a portion of their income aside for retirement savings in specialized retirement accounts. Not only does this money not get exposed to income tax in the year it is received, it grows tax deferred until it's withdrawn from the retirement account. The classic example of an account of this type is the Individual Retirement Account or I.R.A.
Starting an I.R.A.
Opening an I.R.A. is relatively straightforward. It's a matter of completing a few forms. However, an I.R.A. comes in two varieties, traditional, and Roth. A traditional I.R.A. is funded with pre-tax dollars, that is, dollars that are typically invisible to Federal income tax at the time that they're received into the account. The monies then grow tax deferred, meaning the gains and dividends are not taxed as they remain within the I.R.A. These dollars are taxed as individual income when they are withdrawn from the I.R.A. A Roth I.R.A. is funded with after-tax dollars, meaning money that the individual has already paid taxes on. Like the traditional I.R.A., the gains and dividends are not taxed because they grow within the I.R.A. However, withdrawals from the Roth I.R.A. come to the individual tax-free because the dollars were taxed upon deposit to the I.R.A.
Administering an I.R.A.
Cape Ann Trust & Financial Services Department acts as trustee for I.R.A. accounts on behalf of its clients, chosen to suit the individual clients' needs.
Inheriting an I.R.A.
I.R.A.'s are subject to complicated rules and regulations in the case of inheritance. Improper planning can result in catastrophic erosion of the asset-base.
Other Retirement Choices
There is a vast choice of retirement vehicles available to individuals and businesses. Contact us to find out more about your options.