The Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement to Supplement Healthy Investments for the Nest Egg, or RISE & SHINE Act, received approval from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on June 14 in a voice vote. The retirement legislation, which could be included in the Senate's version of the SECURE Act 2.0, has provisions designed to expand access to workplace retirement plans and allow businesses to offer emergency savings accounts.

Several factors -- including the ownership of a business or vacation home -- can create risks for families, potentially making asset protection planning an important step, writes estate planning attorney Martin Shenkman. Depending on a family's liability profile, it might make sense to set up trusts to own life insurance and other assets, Shenkman writes.

Business owners who hire their children can deduct employee wage expenses, and the dependent employee-children won't owe federal taxes unless their income from all sources in 2022 exceeds $12,950, tax columnist Bill Bischoff writes. It's important that wages are reasonable and that the business keeps records and issues W-2 forms as it would for any employee, Bischoff notes.

Thanks to less healthy lifestyles, early screening and better medical care, older people today report more chronic health problems than earlier generations did at the same ages. This can mean many things for clients, including the need to retire earlier, higher health costs and the need for care that "will not qualify as 'long-term care' since the degree of disability will be less than required by HIPAA criteria," writes long-term-care expert Robert Pokorski.

Research on 35 million plan participants conducted by the Investment Company Institute indicates that people saving for retirement maintained consistent asset allocations in the first quarter of 2022 despite significant market volatility. Just 0.9% of defined contribution plan participants quit contributing in the first quarter, down from 2.7% in the first quarter of 2009 and 1.4% in the first quarter of 2020.

Retirement income strategies should match a client's individual retirement income style, says Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income at The American College. For instance, Pfau notes that a probability-based client will gravitate toward stocks, while a safety-first client will likely be more interested in using bonds or annuities to provide safer income.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the Treasury Department, is calling for life insurers and other financial institutions to speak up about red flags that might indicate exploitation of older adults. Possible warning signs include sudden changes in a person's contact information or a surge in transfers out of a person's account.

Some retirement account beneficiaries could have less time to withdraw the money than the 10-year period set by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, experts say. An IRS proposal would require the money be withdrawn in years one through nine, and rules that predate the SECURE Act give heirs only five years to withdraw money in some situations.

Variable universal life policies saw sharp gains in policies sold and new annualized premiums in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2021, according to LIMRA data. Whole life sales were below the peak achieved in 2021, but the numbers show "increased consumer interest in life insurance and the financial protection it provides that began at the start of the pandemic has continued in 2022," says Elaine Tumicki, director of insurance product research at LIMRA.

As the White House considers the possibility of more student loan forgiveness, people who were planning to use 529 education savings plans to pay down student debt might be wondering what their options are. Among other things, it's possible to change the beneficiary of these plans or wait to use the money for their grandchildren's educational needs.