December 17, 2025 • 39 mins
Chuck Zodda and Marc Fandetti discuss white-collar workers seeing their security slip and fears of AI and layoffs rise. Oil rallies as geopolitical risks mount from Russia to Venezuela. Todd Lutsky joins the show to chat about choosing the right asset protection plan for you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:43):
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(01:06):
and Mark Vandebti.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Chuck Mark Tucker with the here and the Day after
the jobs report. We open our show today with a
piece in the Wall Street Journal. Spooked by AI and layoffs,
white collar workers see their security slip away. The subheader
office workers are hanging on to their jobs for dear life.
(01:34):
Let's discuss mark your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, the.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Main fact cited by the author is at the unemployment
rate among the meat of the labor force, people in
their mid twenties to their mid fifties, has gone up.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But that's about.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
The amount by which it's gone up is not much
different than the amount by which the overall unemployment rate
is increased. No, so I wasn't as startled by that
little statistic. Maybe I had it in the back of
my mind somewhere, as the author of this piece is, Look,
we should all be I guess a little bit concerned.
I mean, you've you've pointed out many times at the
(02:14):
unemployment rate change. The unemployment rate can be persistent, so
once it starts to go up, tends to continue to.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So I have two divergent thoughts here. The first is
that I am a little concerned about where the labor
market seems to be right now, because the data from
yesterday was not great. Just there's no way to sugarcoat
it was not a good jobs report. The counter to
(02:41):
that is twofold number one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
came out with a published statement the day before that
basically said, hey, you might see some bigger swings in
the jobs report than normal, and and here's why. It
has to do with the way that they do their
(03:02):
sampling and how different cohorts are grouped, and basically which
months samples get included in November, given that there was
no October sample collected from households. And so that's one
piece that you know, you look at this and you say, okay,
I need to take this with a grain of salt.
The other is that the sample collection period for this
(03:23):
pretty much began like right after the shutdown, And so
there's a decent chance that at least some respondents may
have been responding to their employment status during the shutdown
rather than after, because they may have been you know,
temporarily furloughed or laid off by a government contractor or
anything and any one of these you know, number of things,
(03:46):
and so like, just as an example, when I see
the underemployment rate the U six jump from eight percent
to eight point seven percent in a span of two months,
not one, because now we're gonna have this gap in
October that we have to fill in every chart from
now on, which doesn't make me feel great about it,
but that's it, is what it is. When I see
(04:06):
the underemployment rate go from eight to eight point seven
in a span of two months, it means one of
two things. Either a something a little wild happened with
the data sampling, which is an acknowledged possibility, or the
labor market worsens significantly in a span of two months,
which is not reassuring. It's one of those two things.
(04:28):
Those are the only two explanation.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
This is the frustrating thing about economic data. It's all sampled,
which means you have a so called confidence interval, the
same plus or minus you get when you look at
a political poll. The candidates could be tied or one
could be up by five. We don't really know. We
can't ask the whole population are you working?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
We could, they just wouldn't answer.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, I guess right, But when's.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The last time you responded to it? A text message
from Hey, I'd like to ask you some questions about this. Yeah, no,
I'd rather not. Almost look at.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
A lot a census takes to clean. They do it,
and it takes years to get the data into the
shape where it could be consumed by people who use
data for professional reasons. I guess my point is we
never really know what the rate of unemployment is, so
we have to look at the change and the magnitude
of the change, the direction of the change, and on
top of all that, chuck if you're the Federal Reserve,
(05:21):
which is probably why most people care. In addition to
caring about the the playing your own.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Job prospects, how thank you?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, we're wondering what's the Fed going to do? Should
it be lowering standing pat or raising interest rates? What
is phrased differently? Because the unemployment rate is a pretty
good indicator of whether or not the economy's running too hot.
Empirically it's lined up pretty well over time, we come
up with this concept of a non accelerating inflationary rate
of unemployment, which historically was thought to be somewhere between
(05:50):
five and six. It went down when the baby boomers
came into the workforce, and other demographic changes pushed it
down in the nineteen nineties. Maybe my point is maybe
it's going up again. Maybe the accelerating rate is now
five again. Maybe it's five and a half, which it
was throughout the nineteen eighties. We don't really know, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And so I think ultimately, again we always say, like, look,
don't pay attention to anyone report because because of the
issues that we've talked about with sampling and estimation, one
report doesn't mean anything. Here's what we do know. When
you look at the job openings in the Labor Turnover Survey,
the Jolts report shows a consistent weakening in the labor
(06:28):
market for the last three and a half years. When
you look at the job support that we are talking
about now prepared by the BLS, a consistently weakening labor
market for the last three and a half years. When
you look at private reports from indeed, an ADP and Paychecks,
a consistently weakening labor market for the last three and
a half years. There has been no acceleration or deceleration
(06:54):
in that it's been pretty linear, which is kind of
interesting because generally when you have a labor market that
decelerates in linear fashion. It usually does so for maybe
a year to year and a half, and then something
breaks and it either gets markedly worse or something doesn't
break and things start to improve. Like you, we don't
really have straight lines down into the right in labor
(07:18):
market data historically.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Is it weakening? And I would have used the same
word as you did, And this question is rhetorical. I
don't have the answer. Or is it normalization following an
abnormally type labor market in the aftermath of COVID. That's
the question in the back of my mind.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You have a thought I do from my perspective, which
is worth.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I don't know much as anybody else's.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
If it was a penny for the average person's thoughts,
mine would be half a penny, but due to inflation,
it's still a penny. That's how I look at it.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I think, I follow you.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
My mind is overvalued in dollar terms. I think whatever.
In any case, my thought is that twenty two and
twenty three represented the normalization from twenty one. Okay, twenty
twenty two and twenty three were the normalization of an
(08:11):
abnormally hot labor market. And the the way that I
get there is completely unscientific. The way that I get
there is basically, hey, when you got into you know,
twenty twenty four, the start of twenty four unemployment okay,
it was you know, back at four percent basically, which
(08:32):
historically is kind of where we viewed as like the
old Like that's like the low that we've gotten to.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Historical in the modern area.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And so I kind of looked at it. I'm like, okay,
we've normalized to you know, the lowest normal reading.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I gotta say, though, relative to the broader sweep of history,
four percent, it was only realized a couple of times
at any in any other era, four percent would have
been a five alarm fire for the FED.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Totally get that. But like I look at the end
of the two thousands, just end of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I know, I just that's why I qualify then.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We were there. And so I basically say, okay, if
we've reached the lowest reading before here, yes we've we've
at least reached, you know, a normal threshold. I look
just at another example, the ratio of openings to unemployed people,
which was around one point one seven in Q one
(09:22):
of twenty four heading into twenty twenty just before the
pandemic it was one point one six. So again it
was at pre pandemic levels. There is what I look at,
and so I I kind of view like, hey, the
economy had normalized by the end of twenty three as
far as the labor market is concerned.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
But even then normalization and I know you know this,
it is a moving target. COVID changed the way peeped totally. Yeah, y,
So what if And again question in the back of
my mind, don't know the answer. What if the natural rate,
which is synonymous with the non inflationary rate, what if
it's been pushed up by the changing composition of the workforce,
Millennials coming in, different ethic, different view of work and
(10:03):
life and balance, Boomers going out, and other forces, constricting immigration.
All of these things put upward pressure on They increase
people's wage expectations potentially and change the structure of the
economy and ways we can't know in real time.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So the reason that I push back on those and
again this is this is why we have these conversations,
just because, by the way, anyone listening like, neither Mark
nor I are right, you know, we don't know, right,
there's no right on this if we look at a
whole bunch of supplemental measures of wage growth, it's continued
cooling over the last year or two. Like you look
(10:40):
get the Atlanta Fed wage tracker, you look at paychecks
and their small business wage tracker, you look at aggregate
payroll growth. We've seen a continued cooling in wage growth
over the last couple of years. It is not inflected up,
which is what you would expect to see if it's
something where yeah, there are those pressures on the labor
(11:01):
market that you're describing.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
For me, the game set and match, and this is
like an empirical question. Labor economists will wrangle with this
for years. So, like you said, we're not going to
settle anything. These are like what we're doing is fleshing
out some of the high level potential causes and then
someone with some a specialist would dig in and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The real nerds dig in on this.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
PhD academic will dig in on They're doing this right
now and they have been doing it for decades because
these are all moving targets.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Let's take a quick break here. When we return, let's
talk a little bit about what we are seeing in
energy markets.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
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Speaker 2 (13:06):
All right, let's talk a little bit about energy, just
because everyone loves to be an energy expert when no
one actually is. And look, energy markets have been kind
of wild recently.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
October November sawnt gas, as an example, rise from two
dollars and ninety two cents per million BTUs to five
dollars and forty nine cents, so almost doubling in a
span of two months, and now was falling back to
three eighty nine. So you've just been seeing like wild
swings in that gas to the tune of again almost
doubling in two months and then falling you know, thirty
(13:43):
percent in a week, which is just not you know,
stuff you normally see when you take a look at oil.
Uh So, I gotta be honest here. You've got this
piece here that's titled oil Rallies's geopolitical risksmount from Russia
to Venice, and it's true oils up like one and
a half percent today. The counter is that on West
(14:08):
Text Intermediate it's still down almost ten percent in the
last week and a half. So I'm not really buying
the cover story here. Oil rallies is geopolitical risks amount.
I'm not saying that, you know, oil wouldn't see any
shift there, but it's it's just not matching up with
(14:29):
what we've seen over the last you know, month or
two in general. The other thing that I will tell you, though,
is complacency around energy markets is probably at an all
time high. And the reason why I say that is,
look twenty twenty two, you had Russia invade Ukraine and
oil prices obviously spike then, but subsequently have come down
(14:51):
significantly in the three and a half years since. Earlier
this year. I think we all remember, you know, back
in June, Israel and Iran got into a rather heated tussle.
You know, you had explosions all throughout Iran. You had
Iran you know, lobbing missiles back at Israel. You know,
explosions throughout Israel, like it was, it was pretty gnarly.
(15:14):
We also basically saw oil prices spike for about a
week and then come right back to where they were
before that. And so I do think that. And and look,
this gets talked about even in equity markets, but in
commodity markets in particular, there's like this idea that well,
nothing ever happens, Like there's there's no you know, if
(15:37):
you've tried to bet on geopolitics influencing commodity availability broadly
over the last fifteen years, really hasn't worked out for you,
like just has not been a winning trade. And so
there's there's a whole generation of traders out there who
you know, they said, oh, like I think this is
(15:59):
gonna happen. And by the way, like they could have
been betting this year on you know, oh, I think
oil is going to go up because of conflict between
Israel and Iran. And then it went up for a
week and came right back down. And I think there's
some complacency because occasionally these things can go on longer
and become more disruptive to energy markets. Just because they
(16:20):
haven't in recent history could lead to some complacency that is,
you know, problematic in these markets in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, I don't know. And a researcher who specializes in
this probably has the answer how the advent of shale
has impacted those dynamics. But my suspicion is it puts
a natural kind of ceiling on it, because when you
get above seventy eighty. This is probably very ignorant. But
(16:49):
I'll just say more of those shale production increases because
it becomes marginally more profitable, thus fixing the price problem.
So more supply comes online from shale. I don't know
if oil is less volatile or if it's traded in
more of a band since the prominence of shale, but
I wouldn't be surprised. I need to finish the second
(17:11):
season a Landman, and then maybe I'll have an answer.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Just wait until you get to the third. Wait a minute,
it's only on the second.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
That okay, that was the bit that was okay.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
The counter to this is that even like when you
have these short term spikes based on what the shale
patch saw back in the twenty tens where they did
say like okay, like let's open it up and just drill,
and then they basically got, you know, put out of
business by Russia deciding okay, you're gonna drill. Fine, We're
(17:42):
gonna drill more because we don't care about the price.
And you know, a whole bunch of oil companies in
the US went out of business. You just don't see
a similar approach with recent spikes in price, and so
I think it's something where, look, you've had a declining
(18:02):
rig count in the US since twenty twenty three, and ultimately,
I'm just not sure how price sensitive they are in
the short term because the projections that they're making are Okay,
we're going to explore this for you know, a couple
of years. Then we've got to get you know, the
well on the ground, and we got to be able
to make money from you know, twenty twenty eight through
(18:23):
twenty thirty three on this, because the other side effect
of shale wells are not side effect, but the other
wrigle with shale wells is the production degrades at a
much more rapid rate than conventional production does. You lose
a lot more production year over year than you do
with traditional methods, and so you basically have to be
(18:44):
able to say, Okay, can I really make my money
in that first four to six years as opposed to
a ten to fifteen year lifespan that you would expect there.
So ultimately, I look at you know, the headline oil
rallies is Geopolitical risks mount from Usia to Venezuela. I
honestly don't know which geopolitical risks will or will not
(19:06):
matter to the oil market because I don't know which
ones are going to represent a real, long term potential disruption.
I'm also just not convinced that, I mean again, like
the again, even with the continued sanctioning of Russia and
(19:26):
you know, crackdowns on that side of things, from an
oil export perspective, You've still continue to see oil prices falling,
largely by the way, just because the Saudi's and the
rest of OPEK have continued to increase production to offset that.
At a certain point you run out of you know,
additional excess capacity in OPEC. But you're not quite there yet.
So I guess where I get to on this is
(19:48):
I'm not sure that this matters, but I know for
sure you won't figure out if it matters by reading
Bloomberg or the Wall Street Journal. Let's take a quick break.
When we return, Todd Wetski joins us for ask Todd.
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Speaker 6 (20:31):
All markets are mixed as the SMP five hundred is
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President Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned tankers entering and
exiting Venezuela. Right now, the Dow is up merely three
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(20:52):
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(21:13):
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(21:35):
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(21:56):
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Speaker 1 (22:15):
That is Wallstree Watch. This is Ask Todd on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network. If you have an existing estate
plan or in the market for one, Todd Lutsky is
here to answer your questions and help you plan for
later life. Ask Todd is presented by Cushing and Dolan,
serving Massachusetts and New England for more than thirty five
years helping families with a state and tax planning, Medicaid planning,
(22:38):
and probate law. Visit Cushingdolan dot com. Now here's Todd Lutsky.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
As promised, We've got Todd Lutsky with us here in
studio for ask Todd to answer your estate planning questions.
This is your chance to ask those questions live on
air right now, and we do have the phone lines
open at eight eight eight to zero five two two
(23:05):
six three. Again that number is eight eight eight two
zero five two two six three. So this is your chance.
If you've been thinking about getting you know as sibling
and irrevocable trust for Christmas, here's your chance to talk
to uh Todd and find out good idea, bad idea,
ugly idea. But again eight eight eight to zero five
(23:26):
two two sixty three is the number to call. Make
sure you call early to get in line, since we
can usually only get through a couple of these. Mister Lutsky,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 8 (23:35):
I'm great. Never really thought this was a Christmas present,
but I like, I liked the idea.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
How are you doing? Uh? Tough day for me? I'm
sure has had to fire my fruit delivery driver this morning.
Speaker 8 (23:48):
Fruit delivery.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah. I had to let the man go. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know how it is, Todd. Want to talk to
you about UH asset protection the way I see it,
And maybe I'm wrong because you do this every day
and I don't. There seem to be three different ways
to deal with the cost of long term care irrevocable trusts,
long term care insurance, and self insuring. Is that accurate?
Speaker 8 (24:13):
I would say yes, in general, like you know those
are I don't think so. Yeah, those are really only
three things you can do.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
What's the How does someone go about figuring out which
is the right instrument for their situation?
Speaker 8 (24:24):
So if you're thinking about irrevocable versus insurance versus self insurance, yeah,
it's and it's not just limited to this question, Chuck.
I think it's great. I think when you talk about
estate planning in general, where do you begin value? Value?
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Value?
Speaker 8 (24:45):
What's the size of your estate? How much are you worth?
I mean, I think that's one of the first fundamental
things you need to think about when you're doing a
state planning. So you sit down and let's let's apply
it to all the all of these you sit down
and you say, I need to do a state planning. Okay,
do I need an irrevocable trust or a revocable trust?
(25:08):
First question, well, how much are you worth?
Speaker 7 (25:11):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (25:11):
I'm worth ten million dollars? Okay, pretty sure. You probably
don't need nursing home planning. Why because I'm self insured.
I've got ten million dollars I'm generating you know, seven percent,
that's seven hundred thousand dollars a year in income. I'm good,
I can pay for the nursing home. I'm self in short,
(25:32):
which also means I don't need an irrevocable Medicaid trust.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But there might be other planning needs, just not specifically
on that end.
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Right. So then you shift and you say, okay, well
then I'm going to go with the revocable trust. Correct,
And then we can talk about planning from a revocable perspective.
So very helpful there. Next let's come back with the
answer being, well, jeez, Todd, I'm worth about four million,
and you know one and a half million of that
is my home, and I got to be five hundred
(26:00):
you know, in an IRA, I want to protect my
assets from the nursing home. Sure, Oh, you're right, So
now I don't need the revocable trust. I need an
irrevocable trust, and we can go down and explore that
at the meeting. But it also makes me think that's
long term care. I'm not self insured. Cross that off,
(26:21):
and I know that I would that I you know,
I don't want to just I think irrevocable trust planning
would be the other way. Let's say I'm too old,
I'm seventy, I can't get long term care insurance, so
that's out. I guess I'm stuck with irrevocable trust planning.
I don't want to say stuck with That's a good
that's a good approach, sure, right, So I think looking
(26:43):
at value, a value of your estate is really what's
going to drive not only the type of trust you need,
but also how you might protect your assets from the
nursing home if you get there. If you can insure
yourself great, I'd start, you know, in my fifties looking
for those policies because they're great, they do work, and
(27:06):
you know, I just got to make sure you can
afford them.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Talking with Todd Lotsky from Cushing and Dolan Studio, Line
still has room on it at eight eight eight to
zero five two two six three. That is the number
to call for you to ask Todd your estate planning
questions live on air right now again eight eight eight
to zero five two two six three. We're gonna take
(27:29):
a quick break, but when we come back, we're gonna
get right to your questions with Todd. That phone number
is eight eight eight to zero five two two six three. Again,
it is eight eight eight to zero five two two
sixty three.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Ask Todd with Todd Lutsky every Wednesday at ten thirty
only here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. You're listening
to Ask Todd with Todd Lutsky on the Financial Exchange
Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
All right, we got a couple of calls for you,
mister Latsky. First in the queue is Dan in Wellesley. Dan,
you're on with Todd.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Hey Todd, good morning, good morning. Ah question for you.
My brother and I had our estates done by you
and your firm and twenty ten. Great job. We're very comfortable.
We need to do some sort of an update to
take a look at what we have. Things really haven't
changed too much. A little real estate appreciation, a little
debt reduction, but pretty much overall, we got everything, the
(28:52):
whole package from you, and I didn't know where we
stood fifteen years later.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
Wow fifteen years huh?
Speaker 7 (28:57):
Who?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Good?
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Good?
Speaker 8 (28:59):
Well, still that's good. A couple of things, obviously, I
would need to ask you just a couple of questions.
But I think in general this is great for everybody
listening because he's doing exactly what Dan's doing, exactly what
I would think. You know, you as other people who
have done your estate plan, you know, you might want
to check in once in a while and see if
anything needs to be changed. Might not, but a check
(29:20):
in couldn't hurt. So in this case, you know, for you, Dan,
I can at least speak to that. You know, I
forget are you married?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Ah married my brother and I he's married. You did
both of our estates together because a lot of the
real estate is combined, and we did the insurance trust
and the gifting and all that stuff.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
Okay, so you've got revocable trusts for you and your
brother and for your families, and you've got irrevocable gifting
trusts done correct.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Everything you set up for us in twenty ten, right
to the tee. So I'm not positive one hundred percent.
Speaker 8 (29:52):
But yes, So in this regard, how much are you
and your wife worth today?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Round number probably right about now around ten million, eleven million,
with all the real estate and our share and that
type of thing.
Speaker 8 (30:04):
So the good news is, if we've done a revocable
trust plan for you, with the exemption federally being now
fifteen million dollars each, right, you and your wife, that's
thirty million, your plan can shelter thirty million. So I'm
going to say, and if your brother's in a similar situation,
I'm going to say that the revocable trust plan is
(30:25):
working great from a estate tax standpoint. Federally, it also
is drafted with a formula so it automatically adjusted for
the new Massachusetts estate tax exemption, which is now two million.
So you and your spouse can shelter four million with
your estate from the state state tax. So whether you
(30:49):
want to consider doing some I don't know, residency changes,
that's up to you, because you know, from Massachusetts, to
the extent you're over four million, you are going to
have Massachusetts a state tax bite. There Now, mass cannot
tax out of state property, So if some of that
ten million is out of state, it would not be
(31:09):
taxable here in mass So keep that in mind. And
to the extent we've taken assets and put them in
an irrevocable trust, they should not be included in this
ten million dollar number. Did you do that when you
gave me that number?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I did everything you said in twenty ten, and be honest,
whether you haven't looked at it too much since. One
of my last quick questions was, if I did move
to a Hampshire, would that make any difference? Because all
these properties are in Massachusetts and in their own trusts.
Speaker 8 (31:38):
I think if you could spend six months in a
day outside of the state, yes, you can make New
Hampshire your residency. You don't have to be there six
months in a day unless they require that for their residency,
which I don't think they do. So as long as
you're not six months in a day in this state,
you could be anywhere else. You don't have to be there,
But change your residency be a great idea if in fact,
(32:02):
you're still worth ten million, and that doesn't include what
we gave away, right, that's the way I want it.
Whatever's not in your state, I shouldn't be in that
ten million dollar number. But assuming that's the case, and
that's what you're worth. Yeah, you have, you know, ten
minus four six figure, six hundred thousand reasons to move.
(32:24):
So that's a lot of reasons to become a resident.
And if you want to do that of New Hampshire,
please come in, sit down. I can explain to you
all the things you have to do to accomplish that,
including setting up LLCs if you don't for Massachusetts real
estate so it's not taxed in mass even though you're
(32:46):
a non resident. I actually did a seminar once called
So you think you changed your residency, get it. It's
not so easy, but I can explain to you exactly
how to do it. So sounds like you're probably in
pretty good shape. So is your brother going forward, except
for maybe moving, that's an option. If you want to
explore some more state estate tax reductions, we could sit
(33:08):
down and talk. Or if you want to leave your
assets differently to your children, we can sit down and
talk about that. Otherwise, I think it's in good shape.
Thanks for to call. I hope that was helpful, and
folks like Dan call get this guide Balancing asset protection
and avoiding the state taxes right. It explains what this
(33:29):
trust that Dan has works, talks about portability, talks about
marital shares and remainder shares, folks better than we can
ever talk about it on the radio. Right, It's it's
a little more complex than that. The guide gives you,
the answers, gives you the charts, tells you how to
calculate your own estate tax liability and does it also
for irrevocable trusts. Little something for everyone in this guide.
(33:53):
See which trust is right for you? Call and get
it eight six six eight four eight five six or
Legal Exchange show dot Com again eight six six eight
four eight five six ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Todd got another one for you here. Let's go to
Rita in Shrewsbury, Rita. What's your question for Todd?
Speaker 7 (34:15):
Oh, good morning. My question is does the recent increase
in support and access to home healthcare have any impact
on the need for nursing home care?
Speaker 8 (34:26):
Hmm, that's an interesting question. So when you say the
increase in home healthcare, are you talking about insurance premiums
or something.
Speaker 7 (34:34):
No, I'm talking about services that you can you know, get,
or staying in your home when you're when you're sick.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
Okay, So these are what they call, uh, you know,
community based medicaid. I will try to answer it. I'm
not an expert when it comes to community based medicaid.
There are certain programs a lot offered by individual communities, right,
You've got to find out if it's available, like elder
(35:03):
frail elder care is one. There's different programs that are
available for your community. You got to find out how
much money is available. Generally is not a ton, but
there could be some, and so certainly look into that
and see if you can get community based, you know,
medicaid services for staying at the home. I agree with
(35:26):
you that the programs themselves have expanded, which I think
is wonderful. The idea of keeping people at home is
exactly what we all want to do, and even the
planning that we do for people is not designed to
say go to a nursing home, do everything you can
to stay at home. Now that said, does that change
(35:51):
I think your question is does that change the need
to protect assets from the cost of long term care
if you cannot stay at home, I would say no.
It really has no difference as to whether I would
do that planning or not. If if your goal is
to say I want to make sure this particular house
(36:14):
gets to my family, or this vacation home gets to
my family. If that's your goal, or I just want
more of my assets available to my family, well you
can't really rely on community based in home care for
that doesn't mean you can't apply for it, try to
get it, and by the way, getting it if you
(36:36):
have assets in these irrevocable trusts that you need to
do to ensure those goals are met, might also help
you become eligible for in home services. I don't know
what their asset limits are, but clearly if it's in
the trust, it's not your asset, and so it should
help you, you know, get those assets those community based services.
(36:59):
So winded answer, but I think at the end of
the day, the idea is I'm doing my planning because
I want to protect assets from my family. This will
do it. But also you might need to do it
to reduce a state taxes if you're married and you
want to double your exemption. These irrevocable trusts will do it.
The guide explains that. And lastly, I'm doing it not
(37:20):
just to protect and avoid probate and reduce taxes, but
also I want a nice, easy streamline of my assets
to my family so they can get it the way
and when and how they should get it, so hopefully
that helps.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Mister Lutski, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 8 (37:38):
Always a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
This has been Asked Odd on the Financial Exchange Radio network.
Ask Todd with Todd. Lutsky has been presented by Cushing
and Dolan, serving Massachusetts and New England for more than
thirty years, helping families with the state and tax planning,
Medicaid planning and probate law. Call eight hundred and three
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The views expressed in this segment are so those of
(38:00):
Cushing and Dolan Armstrong advisor. He does not provide any
legal or tax advice. Please consult with your illegal or
tax advisor on such matters. Cushing and Armstrong do not
endorse each other and are not affiliated.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Still more to come. In hour two, we're going to
be previewing Micron Technologies earnings and what it may say
about what's going on in the tech space, specifically AI
related tech space. Also latest updates on the Warner Brothers Paramount,
Netflix Triangle what's going what's going on there. And then
(38:30):
we are also going to be joined by Mike Simonson.
He's the chief economist at Compass. He's going to be
giving his twenty twenty six housing market outlook and forecast.
Mike always has some really interesting information for us, and
we will talk to him next
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
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the hosts. Do not reflect the opinions of Armstrong Advisory
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(01:06):
and Mark Vandebti.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Chuck Mark Tucker with the here and the Day after
the jobs report. We open our show today with a
piece in the Wall Street Journal. Spooked by AI and layoffs,
white collar workers see their security slip away. The subheader
office workers are hanging on to their jobs for dear life.
(01:34):
Let's discuss mark your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, the.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Main fact cited by the author is at the unemployment
rate among the meat of the labor force, people in
their mid twenties to their mid fifties, has gone up.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But that's about.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
The amount by which it's gone up is not much
different than the amount by which the overall unemployment rate
is increased. No, so I wasn't as startled by that
little statistic. Maybe I had it in the back of
my mind somewhere, as the author of this piece is, Look,
we should all be I guess a little bit concerned.
I mean, you've you've pointed out many times at the
(02:14):
unemployment rate change. The unemployment rate can be persistent, so
once it starts to go up, tends to continue to.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So I have two divergent thoughts here. The first is
that I am a little concerned about where the labor
market seems to be right now, because the data from
yesterday was not great. Just there's no way to sugarcoat
it was not a good jobs report. The counter to
(02:41):
that is twofold number one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
came out with a published statement the day before that
basically said, hey, you might see some bigger swings in
the jobs report than normal, and and here's why. It
has to do with the way that they do their
(03:02):
sampling and how different cohorts are grouped, and basically which
months samples get included in November, given that there was
no October sample collected from households. And so that's one
piece that you know, you look at this and you say, okay,
I need to take this with a grain of salt.
The other is that the sample collection period for this
(03:23):
pretty much began like right after the shutdown, And so
there's a decent chance that at least some respondents may
have been responding to their employment status during the shutdown
rather than after, because they may have been you know,
temporarily furloughed or laid off by a government contractor or
anything and any one of these you know, number of things,
(03:46):
and so like, just as an example, when I see
the underemployment rate the U six jump from eight percent
to eight point seven percent in a span of two months,
not one, because now we're gonna have this gap in
October that we have to fill in every chart from
now on, which doesn't make me feel great about it,
but that's it, is what it is. When I see
(04:06):
the underemployment rate go from eight to eight point seven
in a span of two months, it means one of
two things. Either a something a little wild happened with
the data sampling, which is an acknowledged possibility, or the
labor market worsens significantly in a span of two months,
which is not reassuring. It's one of those two things.
(04:28):
Those are the only two explanation.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
This is the frustrating thing about economic data. It's all sampled,
which means you have a so called confidence interval, the
same plus or minus you get when you look at
a political poll. The candidates could be tied or one
could be up by five. We don't really know. We
can't ask the whole population are you working?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
We could, they just wouldn't answer.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, I guess right, But when's.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The last time you responded to it? A text message
from Hey, I'd like to ask you some questions about this. Yeah, no,
I'd rather not. Almost look at.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
A lot a census takes to clean. They do it,
and it takes years to get the data into the
shape where it could be consumed by people who use
data for professional reasons. I guess my point is we
never really know what the rate of unemployment is, so
we have to look at the change and the magnitude
of the change, the direction of the change, and on
top of all that, chuck if you're the Federal Reserve,
(05:21):
which is probably why most people care. In addition to
caring about the the playing your own.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Job prospects, how thank you?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, we're wondering what's the Fed going to do? Should
it be lowering standing pat or raising interest rates? What
is phrased differently? Because the unemployment rate is a pretty
good indicator of whether or not the economy's running too hot.
Empirically it's lined up pretty well over time, we come
up with this concept of a non accelerating inflationary rate
of unemployment, which historically was thought to be somewhere between
(05:50):
five and six. It went down when the baby boomers
came into the workforce, and other demographic changes pushed it
down in the nineteen nineties. Maybe my point is maybe
it's going up again. Maybe the accelerating rate is now
five again. Maybe it's five and a half, which it
was throughout the nineteen eighties. We don't really know, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And so I think ultimately, again we always say, like, look,
don't pay attention to anyone report because because of the
issues that we've talked about with sampling and estimation, one
report doesn't mean anything. Here's what we do know. When
you look at the job openings in the Labor Turnover Survey,
the Jolts report shows a consistent weakening in the labor
(06:28):
market for the last three and a half years. When
you look at the job support that we are talking
about now prepared by the BLS, a consistently weakening labor
market for the last three and a half years. When
you look at private reports from indeed, an ADP and Paychecks,
a consistently weakening labor market for the last three and
a half years. There has been no acceleration or deceleration
(06:54):
in that it's been pretty linear, which is kind of
interesting because generally when you have a labor market that
decelerates in linear fashion. It usually does so for maybe
a year to year and a half, and then something
breaks and it either gets markedly worse or something doesn't
break and things start to improve. Like you, we don't
really have straight lines down into the right in labor
(07:18):
market data historically.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Is it weakening? And I would have used the same
word as you did, And this question is rhetorical. I
don't have the answer. Or is it normalization following an
abnormally type labor market in the aftermath of COVID. That's
the question in the back of my mind.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You have a thought I do from my perspective, which
is worth.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I don't know much as anybody else's.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
If it was a penny for the average person's thoughts,
mine would be half a penny, but due to inflation,
it's still a penny. That's how I look at it.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I think, I follow you.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
My mind is overvalued in dollar terms. I think whatever.
In any case, my thought is that twenty two and
twenty three represented the normalization from twenty one. Okay, twenty
twenty two and twenty three were the normalization of an
(08:11):
abnormally hot labor market. And the the way that I
get there is completely unscientific. The way that I get
there is basically, hey, when you got into you know,
twenty twenty four, the start of twenty four unemployment okay,
it was you know, back at four percent basically, which
(08:32):
historically is kind of where we viewed as like the
old Like that's like the low that we've gotten to.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Historical in the modern area.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And so I kind of looked at it. I'm like, okay,
we've normalized to you know, the lowest normal reading.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I gotta say, though, relative to the broader sweep of history,
four percent, it was only realized a couple of times
at any in any other era, four percent would have
been a five alarm fire for the FED.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Totally get that. But like I look at the end
of the two thousands, just end of the nineties.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I know, I just that's why I qualify then.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We were there. And so I basically say, okay, if
we've reached the lowest reading before here, yes we've we've
at least reached, you know, a normal threshold. I look
just at another example, the ratio of openings to unemployed people,
which was around one point one seven in Q one
(09:22):
of twenty four heading into twenty twenty just before the
pandemic it was one point one six. So again it
was at pre pandemic levels. There is what I look at,
and so I I kind of view like, hey, the
economy had normalized by the end of twenty three as
far as the labor market is concerned.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
But even then normalization and I know you know this,
it is a moving target. COVID changed the way peeped totally. Yeah, y,
So what if And again question in the back of
my mind, don't know the answer. What if the natural rate,
which is synonymous with the non inflationary rate, what if
it's been pushed up by the changing composition of the workforce,
Millennials coming in, different ethic, different view of work and
(10:03):
life and balance, Boomers going out, and other forces, constricting immigration.
All of these things put upward pressure on They increase
people's wage expectations potentially and change the structure of the
economy and ways we can't know in real time.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So the reason that I push back on those and
again this is this is why we have these conversations,
just because, by the way, anyone listening like, neither Mark
nor I are right, you know, we don't know, right,
there's no right on this if we look at a
whole bunch of supplemental measures of wage growth, it's continued
cooling over the last year or two. Like you look
(10:40):
get the Atlanta Fed wage tracker, you look at paychecks
and their small business wage tracker, you look at aggregate
payroll growth. We've seen a continued cooling in wage growth
over the last couple of years. It is not inflected up,
which is what you would expect to see if it's
something where yeah, there are those pressures on the labor
(11:01):
market that you're describing.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
For me, the game set and match, and this is
like an empirical question. Labor economists will wrangle with this
for years. So, like you said, we're not going to
settle anything. These are like what we're doing is fleshing
out some of the high level potential causes and then
someone with some a specialist would dig in and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The real nerds dig in on this.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
PhD academic will dig in on They're doing this right
now and they have been doing it for decades because
these are all moving targets.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Let's take a quick break here. When we return, let's
talk a little bit about what we are seeing in
energy markets.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
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Speaker 2 (13:06):
All right, let's talk a little bit about energy, just
because everyone loves to be an energy expert when no
one actually is. And look, energy markets have been kind
of wild recently.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
October November sawnt gas, as an example, rise from two
dollars and ninety two cents per million BTUs to five
dollars and forty nine cents, so almost doubling in a
span of two months, and now was falling back to
three eighty nine. So you've just been seeing like wild
swings in that gas to the tune of again almost
doubling in two months and then falling you know, thirty
(13:43):
percent in a week, which is just not you know,
stuff you normally see when you take a look at oil.
Uh So, I gotta be honest here. You've got this
piece here that's titled oil Rallies's geopolitical risksmount from Russia
to Venice, and it's true oils up like one and
a half percent today. The counter is that on West
(14:08):
Text Intermediate it's still down almost ten percent in the
last week and a half. So I'm not really buying
the cover story here. Oil rallies is geopolitical risks amount.
I'm not saying that, you know, oil wouldn't see any
shift there, but it's it's just not matching up with
(14:29):
what we've seen over the last you know, month or
two in general. The other thing that I will tell you, though,
is complacency around energy markets is probably at an all
time high. And the reason why I say that is,
look twenty twenty two, you had Russia invade Ukraine and
oil prices obviously spike then, but subsequently have come down
(14:51):
significantly in the three and a half years since. Earlier
this year. I think we all remember, you know, back
in June, Israel and Iran got into a rather heated tussle.
You know, you had explosions all throughout Iran. You had
Iran you know, lobbing missiles back at Israel. You know,
explosions throughout Israel, like it was, it was pretty gnarly.
(15:14):
We also basically saw oil prices spike for about a
week and then come right back to where they were
before that. And so I do think that. And and look,
this gets talked about even in equity markets, but in
commodity markets in particular, there's like this idea that well,
nothing ever happens, Like there's there's no you know, if
(15:37):
you've tried to bet on geopolitics influencing commodity availability broadly
over the last fifteen years, really hasn't worked out for you,
like just has not been a winning trade. And so
there's there's a whole generation of traders out there who
you know, they said, oh, like I think this is
(15:59):
gonna happen. And by the way, like they could have
been betting this year on you know, oh, I think
oil is going to go up because of conflict between
Israel and Iran. And then it went up for a
week and came right back down. And I think there's
some complacency because occasionally these things can go on longer
and become more disruptive to energy markets. Just because they
(16:20):
haven't in recent history could lead to some complacency that is,
you know, problematic in these markets in my opinion.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, I don't know. And a researcher who specializes in
this probably has the answer how the advent of shale
has impacted those dynamics. But my suspicion is it puts
a natural kind of ceiling on it, because when you
get above seventy eighty. This is probably very ignorant. But
(16:49):
I'll just say more of those shale production increases because
it becomes marginally more profitable, thus fixing the price problem.
So more supply comes online from shale. I don't know
if oil is less volatile or if it's traded in
more of a band since the prominence of shale, but
I wouldn't be surprised. I need to finish the second
(17:11):
season a Landman, and then maybe I'll have an answer.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Just wait until you get to the third. Wait a minute,
it's only on the second.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
That okay, that was the bit that was okay.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
The counter to this is that even like when you
have these short term spikes based on what the shale
patch saw back in the twenty tens where they did
say like okay, like let's open it up and just drill,
and then they basically got, you know, put out of
business by Russia deciding okay, you're gonna drill. Fine, We're
(17:42):
gonna drill more because we don't care about the price.
And you know, a whole bunch of oil companies in
the US went out of business. You just don't see
a similar approach with recent spikes in price, and so
I think it's something where, look, you've had a declining
(18:02):
rig count in the US since twenty twenty three, and ultimately,
I'm just not sure how price sensitive they are in
the short term because the projections that they're making are Okay,
we're going to explore this for you know, a couple
of years. Then we've got to get you know, the
well on the ground, and we got to be able
to make money from you know, twenty twenty eight through
(18:23):
twenty thirty three on this, because the other side effect
of shale wells are not side effect, but the other
wrigle with shale wells is the production degrades at a
much more rapid rate than conventional production does. You lose
a lot more production year over year than you do
with traditional methods, and so you basically have to be
(18:44):
able to say, Okay, can I really make my money
in that first four to six years as opposed to
a ten to fifteen year lifespan that you would expect there.
So ultimately, I look at you know, the headline oil
rallies is Geopolitical risks mount from Usia to Venezuela. I
honestly don't know which geopolitical risks will or will not
(19:06):
matter to the oil market because I don't know which
ones are going to represent a real, long term potential disruption.
I'm also just not convinced that, I mean again, like
the again, even with the continued sanctioning of Russia and
(19:26):
you know, crackdowns on that side of things, from an
oil export perspective, You've still continue to see oil prices falling,
largely by the way, just because the Saudi's and the
rest of OPEK have continued to increase production to offset that.
At a certain point you run out of you know,
additional excess capacity in OPEC. But you're not quite there yet.
So I guess where I get to on this is
(19:48):
I'm not sure that this matters, but I know for
sure you won't figure out if it matters by reading
Bloomberg or the Wall Street Journal. Let's take a quick break.
When we return, Todd Wetski joins us for ask Todd.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall Street.
Watch a complete look at what's moving markets so far
today right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
All markets are mixed as the SMP five hundred is
looking to snap its three day losing streak. Traders also
keeping a close eye on the price of oil after
President Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned tankers entering and
exiting Venezuela. Right now, the Dow is up merely three
tenths of one percent or one hundred and thirty seven points.
(20:52):
SMP five hundred is down over tenth of a percent
or eight points lower. NASDAK down a third of a
percent or seventy five points lower. Russell two two thousand
is up seven tenths of one percent. Tenuere Treasure Reiled
is flat currently a four point one five to one
percent Crewede Oil up nearly two percent. Hire Trading and
fifty six dollars and twenty three cents a barrel What
(21:13):
Warner Brothers Discoveries Board unanimously recommended shareholders reject Paramount's hostile
takeover bid. Saying it believes the offer from Netflix for
its studios n Hbomax streaming service is still superior. Netflix
shares are climbing nearly three percent. Warner stock is dipping
in paramount chairs of falling four percent. Meanwhile, according to
(21:35):
several media outlets, Open Ai is in discussions with Amazon
about a potential ten billion dollar investment and agreement to
use its AI chips. Amazon stock is up one percent. Elsewhere,
home builder Leonar reported lower than expected earnings as the
housing market remains stagnant. Lenar stock is down four percent.
(21:56):
According to Bloomberg, Bankrupt Spirit Airlines is in re discussions
to merge with the Frontier. Shares in general Mills up
two percent after the cheerios maker reported better than expected
results In After Today's Clothes, We'll see more tech earnings
from Micron. I'm Tucker Silvan.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That is Wallstree Watch. This is Ask Todd on the
Financial Exchange Radio Network. If you have an existing estate
plan or in the market for one, Todd Lutsky is
here to answer your questions and help you plan for
later life. Ask Todd is presented by Cushing and Dolan,
serving Massachusetts and New England for more than thirty five
years helping families with a state and tax planning, Medicaid planning,
(22:38):
and probate law. Visit Cushingdolan dot com. Now here's Todd Lutsky.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
As promised, We've got Todd Lutsky with us here in
studio for ask Todd to answer your estate planning questions.
This is your chance to ask those questions live on
air right now, and we do have the phone lines
open at eight eight eight to zero five two two
(23:05):
six three. Again that number is eight eight eight two
zero five two two six three. So this is your chance.
If you've been thinking about getting you know as sibling
and irrevocable trust for Christmas, here's your chance to talk
to uh Todd and find out good idea, bad idea,
ugly idea. But again eight eight eight to zero five
(23:26):
two two sixty three is the number to call. Make
sure you call early to get in line, since we
can usually only get through a couple of these. Mister Lutsky,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 8 (23:35):
I'm great. Never really thought this was a Christmas present,
but I like, I liked the idea.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
How are you doing? Uh? Tough day for me? I'm
sure has had to fire my fruit delivery driver this morning.
Speaker 8 (23:48):
Fruit delivery.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah. I had to let the man go. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know how it is, Todd. Want to talk to
you about UH asset protection the way I see it,
And maybe I'm wrong because you do this every day
and I don't. There seem to be three different ways
to deal with the cost of long term care irrevocable trusts,
long term care insurance, and self insuring. Is that accurate?
Speaker 8 (24:13):
I would say yes, in general, like you know those
are I don't think so. Yeah, those are really only
three things you can do.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
What's the How does someone go about figuring out which
is the right instrument for their situation?
Speaker 8 (24:24):
So if you're thinking about irrevocable versus insurance versus self insurance, yeah,
it's and it's not just limited to this question, Chuck.
I think it's great. I think when you talk about
estate planning in general, where do you begin value? Value?
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Value?
Speaker 8 (24:45):
What's the size of your estate? How much are you worth?
I mean, I think that's one of the first fundamental
things you need to think about when you're doing a
state planning. So you sit down and let's let's apply
it to all the all of these you sit down
and you say, I need to do a state planning. Okay,
do I need an irrevocable trust or a revocable trust?
(25:08):
First question, well, how much are you worth?
Speaker 7 (25:11):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (25:11):
I'm worth ten million dollars? Okay, pretty sure. You probably
don't need nursing home planning. Why because I'm self insured.
I've got ten million dollars I'm generating you know, seven percent,
that's seven hundred thousand dollars a year in income. I'm good,
I can pay for the nursing home. I'm self in short,
(25:32):
which also means I don't need an irrevocable Medicaid trust.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But there might be other planning needs, just not specifically
on that end.
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Right. So then you shift and you say, okay, well
then I'm going to go with the revocable trust. Correct,
And then we can talk about planning from a revocable perspective.
So very helpful there. Next let's come back with the
answer being, well, jeez, Todd, I'm worth about four million,
and you know one and a half million of that
is my home, and I got to be five hundred
(26:00):
you know, in an IRA, I want to protect my
assets from the nursing home. Sure, Oh, you're right, So
now I don't need the revocable trust. I need an
irrevocable trust, and we can go down and explore that
at the meeting. But it also makes me think that's
long term care. I'm not self insured. Cross that off,
(26:21):
and I know that I would that I you know,
I don't want to just I think irrevocable trust planning
would be the other way. Let's say I'm too old,
I'm seventy, I can't get long term care insurance, so
that's out. I guess I'm stuck with irrevocable trust planning.
I don't want to say stuck with That's a good
that's a good approach, sure, right, So I think looking
(26:43):
at value, a value of your estate is really what's
going to drive not only the type of trust you need,
but also how you might protect your assets from the
nursing home if you get there. If you can insure
yourself great, I'd start, you know, in my fifties looking
for those policies because they're great, they do work, and
(27:06):
you know, I just got to make sure you can
afford them.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Talking with Todd Lotsky from Cushing and Dolan Studio, Line
still has room on it at eight eight eight to
zero five two two six three. That is the number
to call for you to ask Todd your estate planning
questions live on air right now again eight eight eight
to zero five two two six three. We're gonna take
(27:29):
a quick break, but when we come back, we're gonna
get right to your questions with Todd. That phone number
is eight eight eight to zero five two two six three. Again,
it is eight eight eight to zero five two two
sixty three.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Ask Todd with Todd Lutsky every Wednesday at ten thirty
only here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. You're listening
to Ask Todd with Todd Lutsky on the Financial Exchange
Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
All right, we got a couple of calls for you,
mister Latsky. First in the queue is Dan in Wellesley. Dan,
you're on with Todd.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Hey Todd, good morning, good morning. Ah question for you.
My brother and I had our estates done by you
and your firm and twenty ten. Great job. We're very comfortable.
We need to do some sort of an update to
take a look at what we have. Things really haven't
changed too much. A little real estate appreciation, a little
debt reduction, but pretty much overall, we got everything, the
(28:52):
whole package from you, and I didn't know where we
stood fifteen years later.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
Wow fifteen years huh?
Speaker 7 (28:57):
Who?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Good?
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Good?
Speaker 8 (28:59):
Well, still that's good. A couple of things, obviously, I
would need to ask you just a couple of questions.
But I think in general this is great for everybody
listening because he's doing exactly what Dan's doing, exactly what
I would think. You know, you as other people who
have done your estate plan, you know, you might want
to check in once in a while and see if
anything needs to be changed. Might not, but a check
(29:20):
in couldn't hurt. So in this case, you know, for you, Dan,
I can at least speak to that. You know, I
forget are you married?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Ah married my brother and I he's married. You did
both of our estates together because a lot of the
real estate is combined, and we did the insurance trust
and the gifting and all that stuff.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
Okay, so you've got revocable trusts for you and your
brother and for your families, and you've got irrevocable gifting
trusts done correct.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Everything you set up for us in twenty ten, right
to the tee. So I'm not positive one hundred percent.
Speaker 8 (29:52):
But yes, So in this regard, how much are you
and your wife worth today?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Round number probably right about now around ten million, eleven million,
with all the real estate and our share and that
type of thing.
Speaker 8 (30:04):
So the good news is, if we've done a revocable
trust plan for you, with the exemption federally being now
fifteen million dollars each, right, you and your wife, that's
thirty million, your plan can shelter thirty million. So I'm
going to say, and if your brother's in a similar situation,
I'm going to say that the revocable trust plan is
(30:25):
working great from a estate tax standpoint. Federally, it also
is drafted with a formula so it automatically adjusted for
the new Massachusetts estate tax exemption, which is now two million.
So you and your spouse can shelter four million with
your estate from the state state tax. So whether you
(30:49):
want to consider doing some I don't know, residency changes,
that's up to you, because you know, from Massachusetts, to
the extent you're over four million, you are going to
have Massachusetts a state tax bite. There Now, mass cannot
tax out of state property, So if some of that
ten million is out of state, it would not be
(31:09):
taxable here in mass So keep that in mind. And
to the extent we've taken assets and put them in
an irrevocable trust, they should not be included in this
ten million dollar number. Did you do that when you
gave me that number?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I did everything you said in twenty ten, and be honest,
whether you haven't looked at it too much since. One
of my last quick questions was, if I did move
to a Hampshire, would that make any difference? Because all
these properties are in Massachusetts and in their own trusts.
Speaker 8 (31:38):
I think if you could spend six months in a
day outside of the state, yes, you can make New
Hampshire your residency. You don't have to be there six
months in a day unless they require that for their residency,
which I don't think they do. So as long as
you're not six months in a day in this state,
you could be anywhere else. You don't have to be there,
But change your residency be a great idea if in fact,
(32:02):
you're still worth ten million, and that doesn't include what
we gave away, right, that's the way I want it.
Whatever's not in your state, I shouldn't be in that
ten million dollar number. But assuming that's the case, and
that's what you're worth. Yeah, you have, you know, ten
minus four six figure, six hundred thousand reasons to move.
(32:24):
So that's a lot of reasons to become a resident.
And if you want to do that of New Hampshire,
please come in, sit down. I can explain to you
all the things you have to do to accomplish that,
including setting up LLCs if you don't for Massachusetts real
estate so it's not taxed in mass even though you're
(32:46):
a non resident. I actually did a seminar once called
So you think you changed your residency, get it. It's
not so easy, but I can explain to you exactly
how to do it. So sounds like you're probably in
pretty good shape. So is your brother going forward, except
for maybe moving, that's an option. If you want to
explore some more state estate tax reductions, we could sit
(33:08):
down and talk. Or if you want to leave your
assets differently to your children, we can sit down and
talk about that. Otherwise, I think it's in good shape.
Thanks for to call. I hope that was helpful, and
folks like Dan call get this guide Balancing asset protection
and avoiding the state taxes right. It explains what this
(33:29):
trust that Dan has works, talks about portability, talks about
marital shares and remainder shares, folks better than we can
ever talk about it on the radio. Right, It's it's
a little more complex than that. The guide gives you,
the answers, gives you the charts, tells you how to
calculate your own estate tax liability and does it also
for irrevocable trusts. Little something for everyone in this guide.
(33:53):
See which trust is right for you? Call and get
it eight six six eight four eight five six or
Legal Exchange show dot Com again eight six six eight
four eight five six ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Todd got another one for you here. Let's go to
Rita in Shrewsbury, Rita. What's your question for Todd?
Speaker 7 (34:15):
Oh, good morning. My question is does the recent increase
in support and access to home healthcare have any impact
on the need for nursing home care?
Speaker 8 (34:26):
Hmm, that's an interesting question. So when you say the
increase in home healthcare, are you talking about insurance premiums
or something.
Speaker 7 (34:34):
No, I'm talking about services that you can you know, get,
or staying in your home when you're when you're sick.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
Okay, So these are what they call, uh, you know,
community based medicaid. I will try to answer it. I'm
not an expert when it comes to community based medicaid.
There are certain programs a lot offered by individual communities, right,
You've got to find out if it's available, like elder
(35:03):
frail elder care is one. There's different programs that are
available for your community. You got to find out how
much money is available. Generally is not a ton, but
there could be some, and so certainly look into that
and see if you can get community based, you know,
medicaid services for staying at the home. I agree with
(35:26):
you that the programs themselves have expanded, which I think
is wonderful. The idea of keeping people at home is
exactly what we all want to do, and even the
planning that we do for people is not designed to
say go to a nursing home, do everything you can
to stay at home. Now that said, does that change
(35:51):
I think your question is does that change the need
to protect assets from the cost of long term care
if you cannot stay at home, I would say no.
It really has no difference as to whether I would
do that planning or not. If if your goal is
to say I want to make sure this particular house
(36:14):
gets to my family, or this vacation home gets to
my family. If that's your goal, or I just want
more of my assets available to my family, well you
can't really rely on community based in home care for
that doesn't mean you can't apply for it, try to
get it, and by the way, getting it if you
(36:36):
have assets in these irrevocable trusts that you need to
do to ensure those goals are met, might also help
you become eligible for in home services. I don't know
what their asset limits are, but clearly if it's in
the trust, it's not your asset, and so it should
help you, you know, get those assets those community based services.
(36:59):
So winded answer, but I think at the end of
the day, the idea is I'm doing my planning because
I want to protect assets from my family. This will
do it. But also you might need to do it
to reduce a state taxes if you're married and you
want to double your exemption. These irrevocable trusts will do it.
The guide explains that. And lastly, I'm doing it not
(37:20):
just to protect and avoid probate and reduce taxes, but
also I want a nice, easy streamline of my assets
to my family so they can get it the way
and when and how they should get it, so hopefully
that helps.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Mister Lutski, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 8 (37:38):
Always a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
This has been Asked Odd on the Financial Exchange Radio network.
Ask Todd with Todd. Lutsky has been presented by Cushing
and Dolan, serving Massachusetts and New England for more than
thirty years, helping families with the state and tax planning,
Medicaid planning and probate law. Call eight hundred and three
ninety three, four thousand and one or visit Cushingdolan dot com.
The views expressed in this segment are so those of
(38:00):
Cushing and Dolan Armstrong advisor. He does not provide any
legal or tax advice. Please consult with your illegal or
tax advisor on such matters. Cushing and Armstrong do not
endorse each other and are not affiliated.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Still more to come. In hour two, we're going to
be previewing Micron Technologies earnings and what it may say
about what's going on in the tech space, specifically AI
related tech space. Also latest updates on the Warner Brothers Paramount,
Netflix Triangle what's going what's going on there. And then
(38:30):
we are also going to be joined by Mike Simonson.
He's the chief economist at Compass. He's going to be
giving his twenty twenty six housing market outlook and forecast.
Mike always has some really interesting information for us, and
we will talk to him next
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