Once we get through all of the holiday merriment, its time to buckle down to the serious business of getting your financial and legal papers in order. The end of the year is a great time to set aside a couple of hours to review your legal documents, organize your financial documents and sort through and clean out your file cabinets.
Review your estate planning documents, and those of any loved ones you are responsible for. Estate planning documents generally include: last will or living will, power of attorney and health care directive and any trust documents you may need. If anything has changed (marriage, divorce, children, moving) you will want to get your documents updated. If you need a referral to a good estate planning attornery, I can highly recommend the one that I use, Mike Wiese.
Prepare for tax season:
make charitable donations before December 31
make tax-free gifts to loved ones as part of your estate planning strategy
plan your IRA contributions
shut down any inactive businesses you may have started previously
go through your paperwork and get it organized, if you have piles laying around on kitchen counters or on your desk, now is the time to sort through and get it filed away. This is also a great time to go through your files in your file cabinet and clean out anything you no longer need. Remember to shred anything that has your identity information
set up your filing system for next years tax paperwork and vow to maintain it - I recommend having just one file folder where you keep all of your tax related documents so you don’t have to worry about which filing folder to put it in, when its time to do your taxes everything will be together in that one folder
Review your insurance policies
if you have acquired any high value jewelry, artwork, collectibles etc. make sure they are covered
if you have sold or given away any high value items, you can have these removed from your coverage
review your auto insurance premiums and deductibles
Review your annual free credit report
contact the major credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian and Trans Union) to request a free copy of your credit report, by law you are entitled to one free copy annually
review your report for anny errors and contact the company to get those errors corrected
