Estate Planning

Death, Taxes, and Death Taxes

…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

— Ben Franklin

The quote above, attributed to Ben Franklin, is a well-known excerpt from a letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789 where he discussed the new Constitution that had recently been adopted in the United States.

President Joe Biden has proposed plans in his first few months in office that may pair those events even more so than Franklin may have imagined.

It's a Great Friday for 6 Estate Planning Tips

Planning for death is not a light topic, nor is it one that many of us care to discuss unless we experience events that jar us into action. For example, it is common to buy life insurance upon the birth of a child or create a will upon the death of someone close to us. But there are many other considerations that we should regularly take into account, and today is a Great Friday to take a look at our own plans.

Wha+ 1S Your Passw@rd?

A couple of weeks ago, I told the story of how I was victimized by a thief. Thankfully, I’ve been made whole by my financial institution, but I’m not particularly satisfied with some of the answers I received regarding how the crook convinced the bank they were me.

As it turns out, the bad guy didn’t convince the bank they were me. Rather, they convinced the bank that they were my wife! They spoofed my home phone, which made it appear that they were calling in from my number. With that, they were able to convince the bank to allow access by providing a minimal amount of personal information that could have been obtained anywhere, such as a Facebook profile.

Frankly, the bank in question probably didn’t follow their own security procedures. But if I had taken all of the advice I offered up in “5 Tips to Avoid Being Ripped Off”, it likely would have thwarted the crooks. One of the tips was to use randomly generated passwords that you can store securely in a password management application such as LastPass. I've found that using a tool such as this has  other benefits, as well.