Customer Reviews

Nolo's Essential Retirement Tax Guide: Your Health, Home, Investments & More

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Whether you're nearing retirement or simply want to know more about it, you can't go wrong with this NOLO publication. I'm decades from retiring, but it was interesting to learn about the implications that older folks may encounter when retiring. They explain a lot of the tax issues that might be encountered as well as the implications of selling property, renting property, selling investments, social security, what to do with your home, and preparing for major health concerns.

The explanations are well written and are presented simplistically without jargon. The book explains when you can and can't do certain things with your money and how it will/won't affect your taxes. There are too many examples to list here, but they are all laid out in the book.

Anyone looking to learn more about the complex and sometimes tedious rules regarding the American tax system will learn a lot from this book. It's definitely a resource that I will consult in the future and have already suggested this book to my parents.

The authors certainly have "done their homework" in presenting a lot of complicated, dry and uninteresting information in a cogent and approachable manner. Another great NOLO publication!

When I was offered several books to review, I got caught in a clicking frenzy and mistakenly clicked on this one and you can't take back one of those clicks. The book was on it's way to me. I was stuck with it. But so what, I didn't have to review it. They couldn't make me. However, when it came I couldn't help glancing through it.

What struck me most was that it was easy going. Kind of interesting too. What struck me second was that a lot of this stuff applied to me and I'm one heck of a long way from retiring. This book will guide not only oldsters, but youngsters too through a myriad of tax forms and it tackles just about every circumstance a normal person might find herself in.

And this book will talk you though just about any kind of legitimate deduction you can think of and heck, why should you pay the government one lickin' stickin' cent more than you have to. It's your money, after all. You worked for it, Uncle Sam didn't. Of course, there are specific references in the book that apply to retirees, but as far as I can tell, this really is a tax guide for everybody. It informs, helps and guides you through the maze of laws and forms that our government has deemed necessary for it's citizens to pay their taxes. It's going to help me this April and if you're an average person like me, I bet it can help you too.

So when I saw this guide I jumped on it because I thought of my MIL who is near retirement age. I received it today and jumped on in.

I found this NOL essential guide to be truly very informative and helpful as it claims it will be. The downside is that it felt as if it was a regular tax guide and they threw in the word retirement wherever it would suffice. I found myself being able to use this guide for myself & Hubby. We are 27 and 32 respectively! No where near retirement age as the guide seems to call out for that market.

They threw in a chapter about GIFTS & when the become tax deductible etc. I am assuming because they are reaching for that "retirement" audience they throw in examples about lending to you Grandchildren, or giving gifts for your Grandchildren. Is this their way of satisfying the
"Retirement" part of their "Nolo's Essential Retirement Tax Guide: Your Health, Home, Investments & More" in the title?? I dissapointedly came to that conclusion half way through the book.

In one chapter where they discussed IRA's & Annuities/Withdrawals; a section that I was specifically interested in for my MIL, they directed me to another publication. How is that helpful?

Don't get me wrong... It is a very easy read and does make the tax jargon much easier to digest. As someone who does our taxes online every year, these were things that I have learned through H&R Blocks tutorial. This books wasn't necessary. This was a nice little on the surface lesson, that will have you digging deeper if you need more info for you situation.

I am 27... I didn't think that anything would apply to me, and this whole book did, minus the retirement/Grandchildren verbiage.

Buy it on sale... or look for something more in depth. I am waiting for my Ronnie Deutch book so that I can compare.

I would agree with Sofia Hernandez that you could have thrown out the word "Retirement" and this book would have worked. It's really an easy-to-read guide on the basics of US taxation but deals very little with tax issues related to retirement. Or, should be titled "Retirement for the Affluent Who Don't Have to Consider Entitlement Benefits or Pension Distributions." Social Security benefits, for example, isn't even a chapter item and gets only eight pages listed on the index? It should have dealt more serously with this issue. In my case, I am interested in the impact of the Windfall Elimination Provision. I am 60, called a couple SSA offices on the impact of the WEP. One office told me that if I can send in figures and they can have it estimated by another office. I called another office and was told SSA cannot do estimates but will calculate it for me WHEN I am ready to apply for benefits. And how about Medicare benefits? Five pages noted in the index. And it could have dealt more seriously with the mechanics of pension withdrawls and calculations to determine taxable portions.

I like the Nolo guides. They have lots of good, fairly in-depth information about their subject. This one was no exception.

The retirement tax guide has information on most everything you might need to know. There are sections on basic tax information and then chapters of more detailed info on home, business, hobbies, health, and much more.

A useful guide for anyone needing help figuring out their taxes after retirement.

The books was very insightful. It provided step-by-step instructions on how to prepare for Retirement especially during the volatile times of today. I also enjoyed reading the Case Studies and the real life examples that were included as a reference. However, I was also hoping to get additional information about the types of funds that one should target depending on the Age group & the Income level. The book is a good reference material, but you cannot just rely on this book to plan your retirement. You need more details!

This is primarily a basic, clearly written account of how (and how much) to save and spend over your lifetime as you plan for and live through retirement, with an emphasis on taxes and tax planning. The book offers "just the facts" and does not make any special claim that you can live your latter years in luxury through any particular investment scheme or tax strategy. It is organized around separate topics of interest to retirement and retirement planning (your home, business, health care, estate planning, etc) and serves as a good reference to each.

I would recommend this book to anyone who plans to have some sort of retirement from work (seems far off, doesn't it?) or expects to have retirement -related dealings with their parents as or children. The book is essential in that most of us need to plan for retirement -- it certainly provides the basic information we all need to consider, especially in terms of taxes.

I am not sure why this book is marketed as "retirement" planning. The information in it is quite useful to those of us decades from retirement (with the exception of the grandchildren part). I had planned on getting this for my parents, but am ordering them a separate copy.

I used a couple of the sections to understand sections of tax law when preparing my taxes this year. They had a good explanation of the solo 401k (although they did not identify it as such) contributions allowed. They also had the clearest explaination of self employment tax calculations for the self employed that I have ever read and I finally understand this issue.

Overall I found this book to be a good overview of general retirement and tax issues. I like the numerous examples, which make understanding the steps for calculating various credits much easier. It is not very in depth, but would provide a good starting point to understanding how taxes will impact your retirement (and until then, a lot of the rest of your life!)

This book contains the same information as IRS publications all together in one book in an easy to read form, but I found it depressing to read because it brought home to me what a terrible burden our tax system is and how deductions have been whittled away over the years. The book is well laid out, but all I saw in it was "CAN'T, CAN'T, CAN'T," nothing about what you can do but everything about what you can't do.

Also, I never felt that the authors were really trying to help retirees plan retirement tax strategies, and much of it was just general information for everyone.

I think this is a good book for people who don't know anything about doing their taxes, but for those who have been doing their own for years, there is nothing new here.

We are in the situation that one of us is disabled and the other about three years away from retirement. While family, we are not in a traditional marriage, and so we've had a lot of questions about how to manage as we age. This book provided some much-needed information about our particular situation (i.e., me as a dependent) and also a wealth of information about working post-retirement (which I'm sure DH will want to do, if "only" to write).

I also found the information on claiming dependents especially helpful as we worry about our long-grown son having to move back in with us once he finishes college if the current job market continues to decline and we have to pool resources to survive.

We are like a lot of folks: Pretty much dead broke, with no investment income or retirement plans other than Social Security, and no home either because we sold it before the bottom fell out. (At least in a few years, we hope to be out of debt.) However, for those who do have a home, pension plans, and other investments, this book will help you make the wisest decisions about them. It also covers what happens should one of you die, which is something everyone of retirement age has to think about and plan for. The section on Your Health covers long-term care options and how to handle having to pay for someone else's medical expenses.

The following broad categories are included, with check lists to help you plan:

Some Tax Basics
Your Home
You Business
Your Health
Charitable Contributions and Volunteer Work
Education
Investments
Your Rental Property or Vacation Home
Personal Loans and Purchases
Your Family
Gifts, Inheritances, and Surviving Your Spouse

Finally, a good index rounds out the book, making it a really good reference book. You don't have to read through the whole book; just find what you have a question about and turn to it. Definitely useful to have on your book shelf.