Developers are working with city officials to bring a large retirement community to Altoona.

Scenic Development LLC plans to build a facility that would serve more than 100 senior citizens in the area, realizing a community effort that began 10 years ago to create a retirement center in Altoona.

The facility will offer temporary and long-term facilities with three levels of care: Independent living (38 units), assisted living (34 units) and skilled nursing (38 beds).

This is whats known as a continuing care retirement community, Scenic Development Partner Gib Wood said before Altoona City Council last week. Really it will fill all the senior housing needs that Altoona has right now.

With anonymous approval, City Council held the first of three readings to rezone nearly 40 acres of land directly east of Clay Elementary School, southeast corner of the intersection of First Avenue South and 24th Street Southeast.

Cheryl Laird Humphrey currently owns the property up for rezoning 23 acres from agricultural to multi-family residential use and about 14 acres from low-density residential to commercial land use.

Humphreys attorney Ed Skinner said the land owners anticipate retail and small commercial development on the additional land that Scenic Development does not purchase for the assisted living facility.

We anticipate with the advent of the assisted living community being established, there will be types of business that will relate to that, such as dentistry and health, Skinner said, adding that he began efforts to create a retirement community in the area in 2002.

Officials say the facility will create about 48 jobs in Altoona.

The second, and likely third, rezoning reading for the property will take place at City Councils Sept. 17 meeting. After that, the projects advancement will depend on a certificate of need that the state will issue or deny Scenic Development on Oct. 5.

Read more from the original source:
Retirement community headed for Altoona, pending certificate of need

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2012 /CNW/ - There are many definitions of retirement based on the premise that it marks the end of your full-time career. One dictionary even defines retirement as "a withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life." However, for many Canadians today, retiring is about much more than just leaving the workforce. People are living longer, working later into their lives, and are spending a larger portion of their lives in retirement than previous generations. If the reality of retirement is changing for many people, isn't it time the definition of retirement changed with it?

"Slowing down and enjoying your golden years means different things to different people," says Cynthia Caskey, Vice President, Portfolio Manager and Sales Manager, TD Waterhouse Private Investment Advice. "You can choose to continue working part-time, consult, volunteer, go back to school, open your own business - the sky is the limit. So with all these choices, we can see that retirement is changing. Shouldn't the definition change too?"

With this in mind, TD is asking Canadians to submit their own definition of retirement. Just visit http://www.redefineretirement.ca from September 10 until September 26, 2012, and provide your contact information and your own new definition of retirement in one sentence. For submitting your definition, you'll be entered into a draw to win $1,000, which could be used to help top up your retirement savings. The contest winner will be announced in a press release that will be issued the week of October 22, 2012, and on TD's Facebook and Twitter pages.

"In general, we're remaining healthier and more active longer in life, which means that many are spending more years in retirement. We're inviting Canadians to really think about what their 'ideal retirement' will be like, and consider how they want to spend their time, who they want to spend it with, and whether or not they will stop working completely," says Caskey.

"It's important for Canadians of all ages, not just those approaching retirement, to think about the lifestyle and activities they'll want to be involved in - and then consider the finances that will be needed to support this," adds Caskey. "The earlier you start thinking about your retirement dream, the sooner you can start saving to make sure it comes true."

About TD Bank Group The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Group (TD). TD is the sixth largest bank in North America by branches and serves approximately 22 million customers in four key businesses operating in a number of locations in key financial centres around the globe: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Canada Trust and TD Auto Finance Canada; Wealth and Insurance, including TD Waterhouse, an investment in TD Ameritrade, and TD Insurance; U.S. Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, and TD Auto Finance U.S.; and Wholesale Banking, including TD Securities. TD also ranks among the world's leading online financial services firms, with approximately 8.5 million online customers. TD had CDN$806 billion in assets on July 31, 2012.The Toronto-Dominion Bank trades under the symbol "TD" on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges.

About TD Waterhouse TD Waterhouse represents the products and services offered by TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. (Member - Canadian Investor Protection Fund), TD Waterhouse Private Investment Counsel Inc., TD Waterhouse Insurance Services Inc., TD Waterhouse Private Banking (offered by The Toronto-Dominion Bank) and TD Waterhouse Private Trust (offered by The Canada Trust Company). TD Waterhouse Private Investment Advice is a division of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc.

Excerpt from:
TD asks Canadians to Redefine Retirement

For a notion once synonymous with the"golden years," the idea of retirement today conjures up at least as much anxiety as pleasant anticipation for many of the baby boomersfast approaching it.The financial crisis took a hefty toll on both their 401(k)s and their confidence, with a host of articles warning about the unpreparedness of the next generation of retirees.

And it's not just a perception issue.Elevated unemploymentanda housing market still well off its highscombine withinflationary health-care costs and stubbornly low yields to paint a difficult picture for retirement, just about any way you slice it.

This week, Morningstareditors and strategists, including our director of personal finance ChristineBenz, as well as notable outside expertswill tackle the issues head-on,with a practicallook at controlling retirement expenses, anticipatingnew spending patterns, playing catch-up, and prepping a portfolio for drawdown mode. We'll cap off the week with a live Q&A where you can pose your own retirement-related questions to our expert panel.

Though the retirement landscape is challenging,we believe investors can gain some comfort and control by assessing their current situation and crafting a sensible plan to maximize their saving and investing efforts.This week, we aim to stack the deck in your favor. Be sure to bookmark this page and return each day, asnew reportsare posted. And don't forget to tune in Friday for our live Q&A webcast; we look forward to hearing from you!

Monday, Sept. 10: How Much Do You Need in Retirement? Digging Into the 80% Rule for Income Replacement in Retirement Consider these swing factors to create a customized income-replacement rate.

Will Your Income Needs Trend Down as You Age? The data may say yes, but there are some important considerations to bear in mind.

What Unexpected Expenses Crop Up in Retirement? Dental care, as well as skyrocketing health-insurance premiums and property taxes, top readers' lists of unwelcome in-retirement costs.

Don't Discount Inflation When Planning for Retirement As seniors' spending patterns change, so too does their exposure to rising prices.

Related Reports from Morningstar's Archives:

Tuesday, Sept. 11: Are You on Track?

Follow this link:
Morningstar's Retirement Readiness Week

For years, the financial-services industry has drilled the "80% rule" into pre-retirees' heads, suggesting that they'll need to replace 80% of their pre-retirement income when they retire.

Other variations on setting an income-replacement ratio--simply the retiree's gross income from all sources in retirement divided by his or her pre-retirement income--come in around the same ballpark. For example, T. Rowe Price has proposed 75% as a good threshold for planning purposes. As the firm's senior financial planner Christine Fahlund discusses in this video, retirees will no longer have the "expense" of saving a portion of their income for retirement. And that factor is not insignificant: According to T. Rowe's recommendation, 15% of pre-retirees' income should be saved for retirement.

Nor will retirees have to pay FICA taxes for Social Security and Medicare, which amount to another 7.65% of incomes. (The Social Security component of FICA has been temporarily reduced to 4.2% through the end of 2012, but it is set to go back up to 6.2% at the beginning of 2013; the Medicare component of FICA is another 1.45% of income.) That assertion is corroborated by Aon Consulting's Replacement Rate Study, which concludes that in 2008, a 78% income replacement rate would allow a 65-year-old with $60,000 pre-retirement income to retire in 2008 with the same standard of living he or she had while working. In that scenario, reduced taxes during retirement account for much of the difference between the amount of pre- and post-retirement income required to keep the standard of living stable.

These savings come without even redeeming a single Groupon, let alone taking bigger-ticket measures to reduce costs in retirement. Indeed, others spend substantially less than 75% or 80% of their working incomes during retirement, as many retired readers noted in this Discuss forum thread. Yes, there may be the often-discussed reductions in commuting costs, lunches out, and clothes that come along with quitting work. But retirees can also reduce their in-retirement income needs by making bigger-ticket changes such as downsizing or paying off their homes. And as Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns assert in this blog post, retirees are also likely to be off the hook for child-related expenses like college tuition that they might have had while they were working. Moreover, retirees who were saving much more than the 15% pre-retirement savings rate that underpins the 80% rule also may be able to get by on much less than they did while they were working, simply because they're not saving as much, if anything.

Does that mean the 80% rule is just a plot by the financial-services industry to get people to sock more away than they actually need to, thereby increasing the assets on which they can charge fees? Not necessarily. After all, health-care costs have the potential to swing substantially higher during retirement than they were when a person was younger, so a conservative retiree might use a rate even higher than 80% for planning purposes. People with lower incomes before retirement should, by and large, also employ a higher income-replacement rate than higher-income workers. At the same time, very high-income earners will want to plan for a replacement rate that's well above 80%, for reasons Ill outline in a moment.

The fact is, any "rule of thumb," like the 80% rule for income-replacement, is a blunt instrument--a reasonable starting point, but one that can be refined with consideration of your personal circumstances. A useful starting point, especially if you're getting close to retirement, is to prepare an in-retirement budget. Here are some of the key swing factors to bear in mind when deciding how to set your own income-replacement rate.

Level of Pre-Retirement IncomeThe Aon study showed that a retiree earning $90,000 prior to retirement would need to replace 78% of his or her pre-retirement income during retirement to maintain a steady standard of living, while one who retired with a $20,000 salary would need to replace 94%. A retiree with a working salary between those two poles--$50,000--would need an 80% replacement rate to maintain his or her standard of living.

Why the big variation? For starters, less-affluent workers don't typically save at the same level as wealthier ones while working, given that living expenses consume a big share of the former group's budgets during the working years. They also pay less in taxes as a percentage of their incomes than their wealthier peers while working, so tax savings will provide less of a benefit to them in retirement than it will for wealthier retirees. Another factor driving higher replacement rates for less affluent retirees is that they're not likely to have as much leeway to bring their living costs down during retirement as their more affluent peers, because spending on basic needs is a bigger share of their budgets than discretionary items such as dining out and travel. Meanwhile, less-affluent retirees' health-care costs may be every bit as high as their wealthier counterparts. Thus, although it may seem counterintuitive, it's wise to nudge your replacement rate above 80% if your income falls toward the lower end of the levels described above, and perhaps slightly below it if your pre-retirement income is at or above $90,000.

At the same time, it's worth noting that those with very high pre-retirement incomes--$150,000 and above--may need higher income-replacement rates than those with pre-retirement incomes of $60,000 or $90,000. Taxes are the reason, because a greater share of their in-retirement income will come from taxable sources of income such as traditional IRAs and 401(k)s.

Savings HabitsYour pre-retirement savings habits should also figure into the assumptions you use. The Aon study assumed an average rate of savings--about 5% for those earning $60,000 and about 6% for those earning $90,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Survey data employed in the Aon study. If you were making $90,000 when you retired but saved less than 6% of your salary, you'd want to use a higher replacement rate for planning purposes than would otherwise be typical for your income band. Meanwhile, a $60,000 earner who was saving 25% of his or her salary while working could obviously get by with an income-replacement rate of 75% or even less.

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Digging Into the 80% Rule for Income Replacement in Retirement

When should people start saving for retirement?

Although the economy is still showing unsteady legs, an individual can plan for retirement. Whether you can contribute money to a savings account now or create a plan for when you can start contributing, any step toward a future retirement goal is better than doing nothing.

When determining the total amount needed to retire, professor LaRoe suggests using a financial planner. If you do not have one, start searching for one immediately. The sooner you start planning for retirement, the more you can begin making your future retirement plans.

If you can't afford a financial planner, there are many ways to stash away even $50 per month to get you into the routine of compiling your nest egg. Automatic payday bank transfers into an account earmarked for retirement is one technique individuals use. This can help ensure you begin your journey to a stable, long-term retirement.

Some individuals use investment plans and put their money into 401(k) accounts or individual retirement accounts while others are still not able to do so. The first step can be the hardest, but don't give up.

We would like to thank Ross LaRoe, associate professor of economics at Denison University, for his insight.

Read more here:
Retirement planning: Start saving now

The oldest Baby Boomers began turning 66 this year the full-retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits but many are claiming their benefits early because of the troubled economy, poor job market and fears about potential changes to the retirement system.

Unfortunately for some retirees, the decision to claim their benefits early could cost them tens of thousands of dollars down the road.

Three out of four eligible area residents start taking Social Security retirement benefits early, even though for some people the decision will permanently reduce their lifetime payments and could cost retirees or their spouses some important income later in life, according to a Middletown Journal/Hamilton JournalNews analysis.

Social Security is the primary source of income for many older Ohioans and delaying benefits until the full retirement age or beyond increases the size of the monthly payments.

Ohioans who are in good health, intend to keep working, expect to live a long time and have spouses may want to delay claiming benefits because oftentimes it turns out to be a better financial decision in the long run, experts said.

For some people its worth taking early, like if you are unhealthy, you become unemployed or your investment returns are low or you really, really need income, said John Bowblis, assistant professor of economics and research fellow with Scripps Gerontology at Miami University. But for the typical person, waiting until 66 is probably going to be a better solution.

Social Security retirement benefits are provided to people who have worked for at least a decade, and the payment amounts are based on workers 35 highest earning years.

People can begin collecting Social Security benefits when they turn 62, but the full retirement age is 65 for people born in 1937 or earlier, and 67 for people born after 1960. Taking benefits before reaching the full retirement age reduces the size of the payments. People who retire at 62 will on average receive a monthly payment about 25 to 30 percent less than if they waited until their full retirement age.

Delayed benefits yield larger payout

Every case is different, but people who start receiving benefits earlier get smaller amounts because they are expected to receive more payments, and people who delay collections receive larger payments because they will receive fewer of them.

View original post here:
More people taking retirement benefits early

The oldest Baby Boomers began turning 66 this year the full-retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits but many are claiming their benefits early because of the troubled economy, poor job market and fears about potential changes to the retirement system.

Unfortunately for some retirees, the decision to claim their benefits early could cost them tens of thousands of dollars down the road.

Three out of four eligible Miami Valley area residents start taking Social Security retirement benefits early, even though for some people the decision will permanently reduce their lifetime payments and could cost retirees or their spouses some important income later in life, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis.

Social Security is the primary source of income for many older Ohioans and delaying benefits until the full retirement age or beyond increases the size of the monthly payments.

Ohioans who are in good health, intend to keep working, expect to live a long time and have spouses may want to delay claiming benefits because oftentimes it turns out to be a better financial decision in the long run, experts said.

For some people its worth taking early, like if you are unhealthy, you become unemployed or your investment returns are low or you really, really need income, said John Bowblis, assistant professor of economics and research fellow with Scripps Gerontology at Miami University. But for the typical person, waiting until 66 is probably going to be a better solution.

Social Security retirement benefits are provided to people who have worked for at least a decade, and the payment amounts are based on workers 35 highest earning years.

People can begin collecting Social Security benefits when they turn 62, but the full retirement age is 65 for people born in 1937 or earlier, and 67 for people born after 1960. Taking benefits before reaching the full retirement age reduces the size of the payments. People who retire at 62 will on average receive a monthly payment about 25 to 30 percent less than if they waited until their full retirement age.

Delayed benefits yield larger payout

Every case is different, but people who start receiving benefits earlier get smaller amounts because they are expected to receive more payments, and people who delay collections receive larger payments because they will receive fewer of them.

Continued here:
Ohioans are taking retirement benefits early

CHICAGO -- A decade ago, Christopher Thornton, a high-level recruitment specialist, thought he would retire in 2012. He envisioned traveling, volunteering, maybe working part-time just for fun.

But those retirement dreams have been dashed. Since the economic downturn, his pricey Chicago town house has lost nearly a fifth of its value. He said his investments, though slowly recovering, at one point had been gouged by 45 percent.

Still, Thornton, 59, counts himself among the lucky ones. He's seen too many friends lose their jobs and their health care, and exhaust their savings.

"Every morning I wake up and I fear I might be next, and it's unsettling," he said. "At the beginning of your career, you think there's a start date and an end date. And now for a lot of people in my generation, there's no end date in sight."

Americans of every generation are readjusting their expectations in the wake of a devastating recession. And none more so than the nation's baby boomers, who are reaching the traditional retirement age and finding it means only more uncertainty and more work.

Many are scared, but others are angry. They played by the rules, had successful careers, cared for their families and sacrificed for retirement. Then the recession ate away at their investments and home value, and in some cases swallowed up their jobs. Now comes an election in which Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs are on the

As baby boomers scramble to recoup their losses, perhaps what has eroded most is their confidence and faith in the American dream. And many aren't sure Washington has the ability or will to restore either -- despite the many campaign promises aimed at this huge group of voters.

Steven Sass, associate director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said the job picture for older workers has undergone a major transition, and politicians, employers and employees have not yet adjusted.

"What has happened is really shocking," said Sass. "In 1983, once you got to age 50, about 68 percent of all full-time workers stayed in the same job until retirement. You didn't leave unless you were fired."

But in recent years, only half of workers have retired from the same company that employed them when they were 50,

Read more:
Retirement dreams deferred

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIlORfjnnQ

06-09-2012 13:58 Like us on Facebook: Follow us on Twitter: Mel Gibson has one of the most expensive divorces in Hollywood history. Mel Gibson was already reportedly ordered to fork over half of his 800 million dollar fortune to his ex wife Robyn Moore. But since these two had no prenup, she will also receive a large portion of his retirement benefits.

See the article here:
Mel Gibson's Ex-Wife Gets $400 Million And His Retirement Fund - Video

Does your retirement plan consider tax issues? It should -- or it could cost you valuable post-work money.

Taxes don't end when you stop working. Federal and state tax issues come into play in several retirement income areas.

Retirement savings

The key focus of all retirement plans is ensuring you have enough money to live the retirement lifestyle you want. While you were working, you took advantage of workplace savings accounts such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts.

If your IRA is a Roth account, you don't have to worry about tax issues with the Internal Revenue Service. You paid taxes on the money before you put it into your Roth IRA, and its earnings have grown tax-free. That means you don't owe the IRS anything on your withdrawals once you retire.

But if you're depending on traditional IRA or 401(k) funds, you will owe taxes. You never paid income taxes on the workplace plan or deductible IRA contributions. Plus, the earnings of these accounts are tax-deferred, meaning you owe tax at your ordinary income tax rate on money you take out in retirement.

And if you've delayed distributions so as to postpone those taxes for as long as possible, remember that the required minimum distribution, or RMD, rules compel you to withdraw certain amounts when you turn 70 . The IRS has life-expectancy charts, the most common one being the Uniform Lifetime Table, that help you calculate how much to withdraw. Traditional IRA, 401(k) withdrawal rules

Withdrawals are required from all tax-deferred retirement accounts once you turn 70 . The account distributions are taxed at ordinary income tax rates. If you made nondeductible contributions to a traditional IRA, information on IRS Form 8606 you filed reporting those contributions will help you avoid paying taxes on that money again when you withdraw it. The IRS has three required minimum distribution tables to help you figure the amount to withdraw. Basically, the longer you are expected to live, the less the IRS requires you to withdraw, and pay taxes on, each year.

Taxable Social Security

Your private retirement accounts are designed to supplement your Social Security benefits.

See the article here:
Tax Issues You Could Face in Retirement