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

There are two sides to every story: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times; you take the bitter with the sweet; every rose has its thorn. However, in leadership, we often miss out on half the story. Most discussions focus on what leaders "should do" rather than on what they "should avoid." The result? We talk about success, but seldom talk about failure.

In The Wisdom of Failure, we discuss a common theme among industry's greatest leaders--their most important lessons have come from trial and error. Unfortunately, many of us don't pursue the trial because we are fearful of making error. Jim Owens, former CEO of Caterpillar Inc., told us we actually learn more from our failures than we do from our success. He states that our most important lessons as leaders come from our toughest losses.

Mistakes are part of taking healthy risk. They provide us with new ways of thinking and give us new insights into how we can improve as leaders. Real failure doesn't come from making mistakes; it comes from avoiding errors at all possible costs, from fear to take risks and from the inability to grow. Being mistake free is not success. Still, we avoid challenges and hide mistakes. We don't like to talk about them and bring attention to them. It's safer to look the other way or sweep them under the rug. That's why so many leaders have the same struggles over and over again.

So, why don't we embrace challenges and become accepting of mistakes--to learn from them and ultimately grow from them? And if learning from mistakes has so much value, why is it taboo to even talk about mistakes in the context of business and leadership?

We are all evaluated on how well we perform our jobs. Not surprisingly, companies pay their employees to succeed, not to fail. The better the performance review, the better we are compensated. However, performance reviews inherently reward us on our short-term success and penalize us for our short-term mistakes. Rarely does someone receive a performance review spanning several years. And personal growth from mistakes is an evolutionary process. It takes time. Mistakes today usually hurt our performance evaluations in the short term. Moreover, in entrepreneurial firms, making leadership mistakes are not only amplified, they can destroy an entire company.

So what do we do? We avoid them. Consider the Thomas Edison quote "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Do you think he would have lasted in today's business environment? We have created an evaluation platform where successes are celebrated and failures are not. Remember, "failure is not an option."

IDEO founder David Kelley believes failure is not only an option, it is a necessary ingredient for success. Rather than punishing employees for failure, he and his leadership team encourage employees to be comfortable with bad ideas--one of the reasons IDEO is one of our most innovative companies. He believes that without freedom to pursue bad ideas, employees will miss many good ideas.

We live in a culture that values perfectionism. As children, we were told "practice makes perfect." We learned that making mistakes was bad, that we need to always "color inside the lines." We learned that to succeed we needed to "strive for perfection."

Perfectionism is one of the biggest deterrents of learning from mistakes. People become so fixated on not failing that they never move forward. They focus on the upside risk associated with failing, rather than the downside risk of not trying at all. How did Tom Watson, former CEO of IBM, react when one of his executives made a $10 million mistake? Instead of firing him, he viewed the mistake as an investment in training and development. Why? Watson realized taking healthy risk will often result in failure, and that a culture of perfectionism can be paralyzing to progress.

To advance our careers, we are encouraged to build social capital, to gain respect, and to create an image of professionalism. Managing the way others view us becomes larger than reality. The result--we become overly concerned with achieving the goal rather than considering the process--and the goal is to succeed. Rather than focusing only on the what, great leaders also focus on the how. If aspiring leaders are too driven to succeed, they may lose sight of what is most important. They become so enamored with success that they avoid failure. What was once considered a strength, eventually becomes a detriment. The more success they achieve, the more failure becomes unthinkable--and the downward spiral begins.

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Failure Is The Only Option, If Success Is The End Goal

WELCOME to our special monthly series called Bible School Business School (BSBS). BSBS takes insights from the culture and history of the ancient near East as depicted in the Bible and applies these insights to business, leadership and personal development. BSBS aims to broaden our mindsets beyond the Western paradigms on business, leadership and personal development.

Report by By Brett Chulu This article seeks to show how the active involvement of the chief executive is critical to driving a successful performance management initiative that yields above-market returns. The following excerpts from what is famously known as the parable of talents will be used to draw insights on how business leaders can strategically manage performance.

Matthew 25:14 (KJV) reads: For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightaway took his journey.

Matthew 25:19-22 (KJV) continues: After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoned with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord you delivered unto me five talents: Behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee a ruler over many things: Enter into the joy of thy lord.

Likewise the servant with two talents gained two more and was commended like his five-talent colleague. In sharp contrast, the one-talent servant buried the resource he had been given by the master, accusing his master of being a tyrant.

Matthew 25:26-28(KJV) continues the narrative: His lord answered and said unto him: You wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strowed (scattered seed): Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury (interest). Take therefore the talent from him, and give, it unto him which hath ten talents.

Talent-culture-leadership integration The primary takeaway from this parable is that the chief executive (master in the parable) should intertwine talent, culture and leadership to drive organisation-wide performance. In other words, the chief executive fully embraces the strategic HR agenda. Strategic HR is concerned with how talent, culture and leadership can be harnessed to meet or exceed the expectations of external customers, investors, regulators and the community.

The parable of talents demonstrates how talent, culture and leadership must be fused together to deliver on superior business performance.

First, for performance management to permeate the entire organisation, the chief executive must set the tone. The chief executive in the parable did not leave it to the formal HR function to champion performance management. Performance management initiatives in which the top leaders of an organisation do not take a primary role are doomed to fail. The master in the parable embodied what is referred to as the leadership brand. Leadership brand is a concept birthed by the RBL Group, a US-based strategic HR think-tank. A leadership brand occurs when the expectations of customers, investors and other key external stakeholders at all levels of an organisation are converted into thinking patterns and behaviours of executives and managers.

Second, the leaders at all levels in the organisation must turn the expectations of customers and investors into consistent employee behaviours. Put differently, the leaders must translate the leadership brand into a company culture by influencing employees to think and behave in ways that deliver on the expectations of customers and investors.

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CEO’s critical role in performance management

NEW YORK, Sept.7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --From the convenience of the desktop, the beauty and personal care industry will be able to source new products, learn from top beauty experts and make new business connections when the HBA Global Digital Trade Show takes place Thursday, September 27, 2012.

(Logo:http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120907/NY70367LOGO)

This free-to-attend interactive online event for manufacturers of beauty and personal care products will use video, animation, digital effects, real-time chat and social media to give visitors the experience of a real trade show. Featured at the HBA Global Digital Event will be:

"Hundreds of motivated decision making professionals have already registered for our 2nd Annual HBA Global Digital Event. Last year's event visitors really enjoyed the experience of interacting in this format," said Jill Birkett, Brand Director, Beauty & Wellness Industry. "This innovative event platform makes it convenient for the worldwide beauty and personal care industry to meet and make vital business connections and advance professional development."

Registered attendees to the HBA digital trade event will also gain on-demand access to the information for up to six months after the event and are eligible for giveaways and prizes for participating. For more information and to register for free to HBA Global Digital Event go to: http://www.hbaexpo.com/reconnect.

About HBA Global Expo & Conference http://www.hbaexpo.com produced by UBM Live, is the premier product development sourcefrom concept to marketfor the cosmetics, personal care, skin care, fragrance and wellness industries and features a comprehensive educational program and exhibits floor. HBA visitors comprise the top prestige, mass and emerging beauty and personal care brands worldwide. HBA Global Virtual Trade Show will take place September 27, 2012 and the next HBA Global Expo & Conference will take place June 18-20, 2013 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Connect with the HBA Global communities on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.

About UBM Live UBM Live connects people and creates opportunities for companies across five continents to develop new business, meet customers, launch new products, promote their brands and expand their markets. Through premiere brands such as MD&M, CPhI, IFSEC, TFM&A, Cruise Shipping Miami, the Concrete Show and many others, UBM Live exhibitions, conferences, awards programs, publications, websites and training and certification programs are an integral part of the marketing plans of companies across more than 20 industry sectors.

Contact: Annie Scully, 908-824-7938, annie.scully@ubm.com

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Digital Trade Show For The Beauty & Personal Care Industry To Accelerate New Product Development

Seaford, East Sussex (PRWEB UK) 7 September 2012

As the holiday season draws to a close many people are returning to work full of good intentions aimed at helping them hang onto that holiday feel-good factor. Holidays are a time to refresh and renew, a chance for many of us do a little inner exploration, and to reconnect with ourselves and our families. So whether it is creating space for a hobby, time out for personal development, or simply slowing the pace, it is almost inevitable that we return from our break with personal goals for improving our quality of life. It is equally inevitable that within days many people will be wondering just what happened to that good intent. and some will even lapse into post holiday blues.

It is easy to plan to lead a better life when real life the daily demands of work, family and all the rest are put on hold for the holiday. But things are quite different when we step back into our routines. Pressures of being back at work aside, there are also the stresses of how and where we live our lives which contribute. For example, most holidays are pleasant and relaxing because of where we choose to take them. Time in the mountains or on the beach is qualitatively different from time spent on the school-run or in the office. While there may be stress involved in navigating a foreign menu or entertaining the kids, this is quite different from the monotony of the daily commute, dealing with demanding colleagues, being indoors all day or looking after a home and family.

While one answer to this quandary is to take time by taking regular breaks, for many this falls into the 'good intentions' category; it is easily trumped by the daily life demands. So the dilemma is to find a way of taking care of oneself that brings some of the benefits of a holiday into the routine side of life, to create the personal space to pause, reflect and refresh.

The Inner Landscapes approach uses short personal development retreats that combine thought-provoking workshop activities with walking in inspirational settings. These events bring together three advantageous elements: the transformative power of a group, the natural environment, and the opportunity to step off the treadmill. Taken together these combine to help foster processes that aid focus, reduce stress, and clarify thinking. In short they provide a supportive and convivial setting to indulge in some effective personal development.

The concept is the result of two years study and preparation by psychologist and personal development consultant Barry Winbolt. After 20 years as leading workshops aimed at helping employees beat stress and lead more productive working lives, he has turned his attention to helping people achieve better understanding of themselves, so that they can take control of their lives. "In all the years that I have been training people, it became increasingly obvious that the real answer to wellbeing lies within us. When it comes to a sense of personal fulfillment, the successful people all have insight into what makes them tick and where they want to go in their lives", he said. This line of thinking led to a radical new concept that has become Inner Landscapes. Carefully developed personal development retreats and workshops provide attendees with the opportunity to pause and reflect. The purpose, says the founder, "is to guide people to greater satisfaction and fulfillment in their lives through an understanding of life changes, transitions, meaning and purpose." So those good intentions don't have to vanish just because the holiday is over.

About Inner Landscapes East Sussex based Inner Landscapes was founded in 2011 by Barry Winbolt, to provide retreats and workshops to enable people to find greater satisfaction and fulfillment in their lives. The organisation uses reflective personal development techniques, that include walking in the natural environment, combined with carefully structured workshops and exercises held indoors, in settings chosen for their comfort.

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New Approach to Personal Development Helps People De-stress and Keep their Lives on Track

Durham, NC - The Duke Professional and Personal Development Program is taking reservations for a four-week reflective workshop, "Knitting the Fabric of Your Life, One Stitch at a Time."

The four-session workshop will use the knitting process as a metaphor to examine how we cope with four recurrent themes in life: starting something new, repeating a pattern, changing things, and making an ending.

"Like many creative processes, knitting not only requires us to learn and repeat basic skills, but also to explore variations on those `stitches'," explains group facilitator, Stephanie Jenal, Ph.D., a counseling psychologist for Duke Professional and Personal Development Program. "We are excited about the prospect of helping participants gain greater understanding and mastery of the stitches they use daily to create the fabric of their lives."

The series begins Sept. 26 and continues Wednesday evenings through Oct 17. The group will meet from 5:30 P.M. to 6:45 P.M. in the fourth floor conference room of the Erwin Square building, 2200 West Main St. in Durham. The cost is $75 for the four-week workshop.

Participants are invited to bring a handiwork project such as knitting, sewing, or beading to work on during the workshop. Registration is open to employees and the public, but class size is limited. To register, call (919) 286-1244.

The Duke Professional and Personal Development Program (Duke PPDP) is one component of the Duke Occupational and Mental Health Programs. Duke PPDP offers fee-for-service coaching, talks, workshops, and other professional programs that promote work/life balance for individuals, groups, and organizations.

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Knitting as Metaphor For Personal Development

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. For programs that rarely play and have very different football traditions, Virginia and Penn State share a number of personnel connections.

Quarterback Michael Roccos father was a standout signal caller for the Nittany Lions, and coaches Mike London and Bill O'Brien have ties that go back to their days as ACC assistants.

But perhaps most notable is the fact that Jerry Sandusky was one of the top finalists for the job when Cavaliers coach George Welsh retired.

Sandusky, who awaits sentencing on 45 counts of child sex abuse, was interviewed twice by Virginia officials in late 2000, and was visited in Pennsylvania by then-president John Casteen and then-athletic director Terry Holland.

Accounts from the Times-Dispatch at the time said Casteen and Holland came away from (the) visit concerned that his involvement with the Second Mile, the charitable organization he founded in 1982, might prevent him from making the necessary commitment to coaching.

Two days later, Al Groh announced his resignation as New York Jets coach to take the job at U.Va.

Holland, in an e-mail, said the search was waiting for Groh to finish the season with the Jets all along.

We never got to the point of a background check for Coach Sandusky, so (I) dont have any idea of whether or not that would have revealed anything, particularly at that time, he wrote.

Of his reaction to hearing the charges against Sandusky, Holland said he was surprised: Everything we knew of Coach Sandusky at that time indicated that he was an excellent coach and an even better human being.

The rest is here:
Virginia football: Jerry Sandusky was a finalist for Cavs coaching job in late 2000

OAKLAND, Calif. Don Nelson will officially enter the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday. But there is one notable person that thinks the NBA's all-time leader in coaching victories should not be inducted.

Nellie himself.

"I don't really feel deserving to be in the Hall of Fame, but I am in and I'm happy about that," Nelson told Yahoo! Sports. "It's a great, great honor. There are a lot of guys who deserve it more than me that haven't got in yet like Al Attles, Bill [Fitch], [Dick] Motta and those guys. They were real coaches. Man, did they ever coach.

"So I feel a little undeserving. But anyway, here I am. Here I come."

Nelson walks into the Hall of Fame with one thing that can't be questioned. His record win total.

[Also: Rajon Rondo is interning at GQ during NYC Fashion Week]

Through 11 seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks the first beginning in 1976 11 seasons in two stints with the Golden State Warriors, one short-lived campaign that lasted 59 contests with the New York Knicks and eight seasons with the Dallas Mavericks, Nelson earned a record 1,335 victories. He downplayed his excitement about surpassing Lenny Wilkens' old mark as he approached it. But Nelson showed his true feelings by dancing with players following record win No. 1,333 in the struggling Warriors' 116-107 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on April 7, 2010.

"That team that I coached that I love so dearly wanted me to have that record so bad," Nelson said. "And they worked so hard for me to get it that I got caught up in it just like they did. They were excited. I got excited. Personally, second would have been fine with me."

Nelson wore fish ties early in his career and sneakers with his suits, yet for all his quirkiness, his innovative schemes and personnel decisions made an impact on the league. Nelson was big on using small ball, sometimes playing Golden State guards Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Sarunas Marciulionis together. He started Hack-A-Shaq. He allowed the late Manute Bol, a 7-foot-7 center, to shoot 3-pointers. He once had 7-foot forward Dirk Nowitzki guard 5-3 guard Muggsy Bogues.

"I didn't do it to be different," Nelson said. "I did it because I thought it gave me an advantage to win games otherwise I wouldn't have done it. When I coached good teams, I didn't have to do that. But when I coached bad teams I had to be creative."

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Don Nelson to enter Hall of Fame as NBA's leader in coaching victories

Glenna Hiett worked many different positions before she found counseling.

An Ashmore, Ill. native, Hiett worked as an interior designer, a writer, a secretary, and at a floral shop, before she decided to go back to school, in her 40s, at Indiana State University. Thats when she found her calling: marriage and family counseling. She was also certified as a life coach in 2001.

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See original here:
Hiett enjoys counseling couples, families; life coaching

Retirement home owners who face large exit fees when they sell or sublet the property will find their costs cut considerably after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) forced one of the larger providers to curb its fees.

Fairhold, which has 53,000 retirement home leases and owns many of the freeholds for former McCarthy & Stone properties, has agreed to change its structure for charging tenants. In the past it has levied transfer fees of 1pc. It will now not charge a transfer fee for new leases that it obtains through acquisition or development, and will impose fees only for a service that it undertakes.

The OFT has been investigating these fees, also known as exit fees, which are payable when a tenant sells or lets out their retirement home and in some other situations. Typically calculated as a percentage of the value of the property, these fees can amount to thousands of pounds. Fairhold has said leaseholders will not pay any transfer fee when the lease is passed on through inheritance or surrendered, or if a relative or carer moves in with the elderly tenant.

A flat fee of 85 will now be charged for subletting, which replaces the current fee of 1pc of the property's value. The OFT said the change should make it more affordable for tenants not living in their property to sublet it.

Fairhold also indicated that it will not enforce any transfer fees on properties that it may acquire from developers in the future. The company said it "welcomes" the conclusion of the uncertainty which has arisen as a result of the discussions with the OFT.

The OFT is still investigating the fees charged by other retirement home companies and said it hoped to provide an update in the autumn.

The rest is here:
Retirement home group backs down on exit fees