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Tax Time? Time for a financial check-up!

February 19, 2020

Tax time is the perfect time to reflect and regroup financially.

You need to get information together to file taxes in the coming months anyway, so why not give yourself a financial check-up while you're at it?

Somethings you may want to check-in about:

1. Beneficiaries. Check your retirement accounts, investment accounts, life insurance, anything you may have added a beneficiary. Make sure they're still the people or organizations you'd like to have the funds after you die. If you've had a child, divorced, or someone has died, it is especially important to update.

2. Your Estate plan, or estate documents. Much like the beneficiaries, are your named people - Guardians, Trustees, Attorney-in-Fact, or Health Care Agent all the correct people? Has someone moved? Now is the time to review and update if necessary.

3. Titles. Have you checked your car, vehicle, boat, house, or other titled-entity lately? If you got married after the purchase, should you add a spouse? Has your spouse passed and now you need to update the title?

4.Tax Withholdings. Did you receive a large tax refund? Owe a large amount of taxes? This may be due to your state and federal tax withholding, or your W4. There are several state and federal calculators. If you are unhappy with your return, you may want to consider adjusting your withholdings. Perhaps you never adjusted after marriage, or children. Perhaps other changes have occurred. A tax professional may explain what's going on and can clarify next steps.

The list above is not exhaustive. It is merely a starting point. You could also meet with a financial adviser to review retirement accounts, or tax withholdings, or other financial needs.