Guides for real money decisions

Guides › Transfer-on-Death Deeds Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: for one house going to clear-cut beneficiaries, a transfer-on-death deed does the single thing most people buy a living trust for — keeping the home out of probate — at recording-fee cost instead of the roughly $2,700 a typical revocable-trust package runs. The trust earns […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: on a normal (non-MEC) policy, a partial surrender is taxed basis-first — withdrawals are tax-free until you have recovered every premium dollar, and only then become ordinary income. A full surrender nets everything at once: cash value minus basis, all taxable in one year. […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: if your policy is a modified endowment contract, the friendly withdrawal rules are inverted: money comes out gains-first (LIFO) — taxable ordinary income until every dollar of gain is out — and policy loans from a MEC are taxed the same way, plus a […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: IRC §1035 is a one-way door. Tax-free exchanges run life → life, life → annuity, life → long-term-care insurance, annuity → annuity, annuity → LTC — but never annuity → life. For a policy you no longer want as insurance, exchanging into an annuity […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: selling a policy is taxed in three tiers (Rev. Rul. 2009-13): (1) proceeds up to your cost basis — tax-free; (2) proceeds from basis up to the cash surrender value — ordinary income; (3) everything above cash surrender value — long-term capital gain. Surrendering […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: if you are roughly 65 or older — and especially if your health has declined since the policy was issued — a life settlement (selling the policy to an investor) can pay meaningfully more than the cash surrender value, because the buyer is pricing […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: your cost basis is premiums paid, minus dividends you took in cash or used to reduce premiums, minus prior tax-free withdrawals. Two corrections to the versions you will read elsewhere: dividends that bought paid-up additions do NOT reduce basis (they went back into the […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: in 2026 the Tax Court taxed a policyholder on roughly $160,900 he never received. His policy’s automatic premium loans had grown until the contract terminated; the insurer applied the $205,433 cash value against the debt, sent him nothing but a Form 1099-R, and the […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: usually not as a first move — because surrender is the only exit that is simultaneously taxable, irreversible, and priced at the policy’s floor. The order to evaluate: (1) if you are 65+ or in declined health, get a life settlement quote first — […]

Guides › Life Insurance Decisions Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: surrendering a permanent life policy is a tax event, not a refund. Everything above your cost basis — premiums paid, minus dividends taken or applied, minus prior withdrawals — is ordinary income under IRC §72(e), and the gain is computed on the FULL cash […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: Florida’s personal-representative fee (Fla. Stat. §733.617) is presumed reasonable at 3% of the first $1,000,000 of compensable value, 2.5% from $1M–$5M, 2% from $5M–$10M, and 1.5% above — so $30,000 on a $1M estate. “Presumed” is the operative word: the will can set different […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: the Texas “5% executor fee” is not 5% of the estate. Estates Code §352.002 pays 5% of cash the executor actually receives plus 5% of cash actually paid out — and expressly excludes the three biggest cash events in most estates: money already sitting […]