Accounting plays a big part in every person’s life. Unfortunately, many of us fail to understand its importance. It is especially true for senior citizens. Whether you’re still working or enjoying retirement, learning basic accounting skills will help you improve you and your family’s finances.
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Taking Hold Of Your Finances
Budgeting is one of the first things we learn at an early age from our parents. We always learn to save a portion of our money and pay for necessary expenses first. Whatever is left can then be spent on any indulgence we want. This saving model, however, can change as we reach our later years.
These changes are due to the differences between the lifestyles of older and younger people. For example, you can allocate a smaller portion of your income to your savings as there are lesser risks for you to become unemployed.
You, however, have to save more money for any emergency medical expenses. Your expenses can also become lower thanks to legally mandated discounts for senior citizens. From these examples, we can then see the importance of recalibrating your budgeting model upon reaching a later age.
Learning Accounting Can Protect You Against Fraud
According to a study in 2010, at least 20% of elderly individuals have been a victim of financial fraud in the US. Financial fraud has been common among elderly individuals regardless of wealth. One key factor for this prevalence is that many seniors are not aware of how many technologies work. Another reason is the lack of understanding of their finances.
One of the most common scams that senior citizens fall for is the IRS scam. The scammer often calls a senior citizen informing the latter that they have a pending IRS violation. Although the IRS has time and time clarified that they never communicate tax violations through phone calls, a lack of knowledge on how taxes work makes many elderly vulnerable.
Learning more about taxes can help you safeguard yourself against these types of scams. Knowing that you were able to correctly and adequately submit your tax return can help you identify a tax fraud from a mile away. This article by Ilana Polyak on the Journal of Accountancy discusses other ways you, as an elderly, can protect yourself from financial frauds.
Preventing elder fraud
The aging of the Baby Boom generation will create more targets for perpetrators of elder fraud. Here’s how CPAs can keep older clients from falling prey.
Be able to recognize the many types of fraud. There are several types of elder financial abuse. One is theft, usually carried out by family members, friends, or neighbors. Two-thirds of the time, financial abuse is committed by family members, according to The New York State Cost of Financial Exploitation Study. Click here to read more…
Managing Your Estates And Inheritance For Your Children
Want it or not, we’ll all reach a phase in our lives when we need to think about what we’ll leave for our children. It can be uncomfortable for older people to face their mortality. Hence, families often avoid discussing inheritances and estates. Unfortunately, this often results in family issues, especially when it comes to determining how much every member deserves.
Learning estate accounting can help you plan this as early as possible. By doing so, you can rest assured that no family altercations will arise from your passing. You can also learn the taxes that will be applied to your estate to help your planning further. Our accounting experts here at AldarisCPA can provide you with top-notch accounting services in the West Seattle and Northwest Washington area. We offer some of the best individual and family consulting services tailor-fitted for your needs. Contact us now by clicking on this link.