How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, or the SECURE Act of 2019, is, from a taxpayer’s perspective, both “good news” and “bad news.”
The “good news” includes helping small employers establish 401(k) retirement plans and allowing more employees to save for retirement.
The “bad news” is that the new tax law eliminates the much-loved income tax deferral – called, “stretch out” – enjoyed by non-spousal death beneficiaries who inherit individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, and 401(k) retirement plans on or after Jan. 1, 2020.
That is, the new SECURE act of 2019 applies to IRAs and 401(k)s where the owner dies on or after Jan. 1, 2020.
Thus, the longstanding “stretch out” tax deferral rules continue for IRA’s and 401(k)’s inherited before 2020.
Under the new law, most nonspousal death beneficiaries are required to receive full distribution of the inherited IRA within 10 years of the owner’s death.
Thus, non-spousal beneficiaries generally cannot “stretch out” the “required minimum distributions,” or RMDs, to themselves from the inherited IRA over their own lifetimes.
Stretch-out of the inherited IRA allows younger beneficiaries with long actuarial life expectancies to receive much smaller annual RMDs; both reducing annual income taxes owed on RMDs and allowing the continued accumulation of tax-free growth inside the inherited IRA.
The new 10-year rule allows certain flexibility and tax planning: The distributions could occur as ten annual payments or as one lump sum payment in the 10th year.
Certain designated death beneficiaries, however, are excepted from the 10-year rule: The IRA owner’s surviving spouse, a beneficiary who is not more than 10 years younger than the owner, and the deceased owner’s minor, disabled or ill child.
Surviving spouses who are death beneficiaries continue to be able to “roll over” their deceased spouse’s IRA or 401(k) into their own IRA, as if she had funded the “roll over” account with her own earnings.
Accordingly, the surviving spouse does not have to commence annual RMDs until he or she reaches the required beginning date, or RBD. The RBD is now increased to age 72. A modest improvement from 70 ½ years old.
However, the new 10-year rule may motivate some married couples with multiple retirement accounts to leave some retirement accounts to their children and not the surviving spouse. That way their children commence the ten year period on some accounts at the first spouse’s death and not on all accounts at the death of the surviving spouse.
Losing “stretch out” deferral of RMDs is particularly troublesome if the designated death beneficiary is a so-called “conduit trust.”
Conduit trusts require all annual RMDs to be paid each year either to or for the benefit of the trust beneficiary and are drafted in contemplation of the annual RMDs received by the trust being “stretched out” over the beneficiary’s lifetime; a period usually greater than 10 years. Thus allowing the inherited IRA to last longer and be spent more appropriately by the trustee.
With full payout occurring within 10 years of the owner’s death, some conduit trusts, where possible, can be modified into so-called accumulation trusts. Accumulation trusts – as the name suggests – allow the trustee to accumulate (rather than distribute) the annual RMDs received by the trustee from the inherited IRA.
Like all trusts, however, accumulation trusts suffer from the big disadvantages: Trusts are taxed at the highest marginal tax rate once their undistributed net taxable income reaches $12,750 (2019); one reason why conduit trusts were used.
A possible solution is to convert traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs – whose distributions are nontaxable income to the beneficiary.
The IRS needs to issue regulations to implement the SECURE Act of 2019. These IRS regulations will provide important details and thus allow further planning opportunities.
Anyone concerned about the foregoing issues should discuss them with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional.
Attorney Dennis A. Fordham is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at
A few months ago a group of NASA exoplanet astronomers, who are in the business of discovering planets around other stars, called me into a secret meeting to tell me about a planet that had captured their interest. Because my expertise lies in modeling the climate of exoplanets, they asked me to figure out whether this new planet was habitable – a place where liquid water might exist.
These NASA colleagues, Josh Schlieder and his students Emily Gilbert, Tom Barclay and Elisa Quintana, had been studying data from TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) when they discovered what may be TESS’ first known Earth-sized planet in a zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of a terrestrial planet. This is very exciting news because this new planet is relatively close to Earth, and it may be possible to observe its atmosphere with either the James Webb Space Telescope or ground-based large telescopes.
Habitable zone planets
The host star of the planet that Gilbert’s team discovered is called TESS of Interest number 700, or TOI-700. Compared to the Sun, it is a small, dim star. It is 40% the size, only about 1/50 of the Sun’s brightness and is located about 100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Dorado, which is visible from our Southern Hemisphere. For comparison, the nearest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away from Earth. To get a sense of these distances, if you were to travel on the fastest spacecraft (Parker Solar Probe) to reach Proxima Centauri, it would take nearly 20,000 years.
There are three planets around TOI-700: b, c and d. Planet d is Earth-size, within the star’s habitable zone and orbits TOI-700 every 37 days. My colleagues wanted me to create a climate model for Planet d using the known properties of the star and planet. Planets b and c are Earth-size and mini-Neptune-size, respectively. However, they orbit much closer to their host star, receiving 5 times and 2.6 times the starlight that our own Earth receives from the Sun. For comparison, Venus, a dry and hellishly hot world with surface temperature of approximately 860 degrees Fahrenheit, receives twice the sunlight of Earth.
Until about a decade ago, only two habitable zone planets of any size were known to astronomers: Earth and Mars. Within the last decade, however, thanks to discoveries made through both ground-based telescopes and the Kepler mission (which also looked for exoplanets from 2009 to 2019, but is now retired), astronomers have discovered about a dozen terrestrial-sized exoplanets. These are between half and two times larger than the Earth within the habitable zones of their host stars.
Despite the relatively large number of small exoplanet discoveries to date, the majority of stars are between 600 to 3,000 light-years away from Earth – too far and dim for detailed follow-up observation.
Why is liquid water important for habitability?
Unlike Kepler, TESS’ mission is to search for planets around the Sun’s nearest neighbors: those bright enough for follow-up observations.
Between April 2018 and now, TESS discovered more than 1,500 planet candidates. Most are more than twice the size of Earth with orbits of less than 10 days. Earth, of course, takes 365 days to orbit around our Sun. As a result, the planets receive significantly more heat than Earth receives from the Sun and are too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface.
Liquid water is essential for habitability. It provides a medium for chemicals to interact with each other. While it is possible for exotic life to exist at higher pressures, or hotter temperatures – like the extremophiles found near hydro-thermal vents or the microbes found half a mile beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet – those discoveries were possible because humans were able to directly probe those extreme environments. They would not have been detectable from space.
When it comes to finding life, or even habitable conditions, beyond our solar system, humans depend entirely upon remote observations. Surface liquid water may create habitable conditions that can potentially promote life. These life forms can then interact with the atmosphere above, creating remotely detectable bio-signatures that Earth-based telescopes can detect. These bio-signatures could be current Earth-like gas compositions (oxygen, ozone, methane, carbon dioxide and water vapor), or the composition of ancient Earth 2.7 billion years ago (mostly methane and carbon dioxide, and no oxygen).
We know one such planet where this has already happened: Earth. Therefore, astronomers’ goal is to find those planets that are about Earth-size, orbiting at those distances from the star where water could exist in liquid form on the surface. These planets will be our primary targets to hunt for habitable worlds and signatures of life outside our solar system.
Possible climates for planet TOI-700 d
To prove that TOI-700 d is real, Gilbert’s team needed to confirm using data from a different type of telescope. TESS detects planets when they cross in front of the star, causing a dip in the starlight. However, such dips could also be created by other sources, such as spurious instrumental noise or binary stars in the background eclipsing each other, creating false positive signals. Independent observations came from Joey Rodriguez at Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. Rodriguez and his team confirmed the TESS detection of TOI-700 d with the Spitzer telescope, and removed any remaining doubt that it is a genuine planet.
My student Gabrielle Engelmann-Suissa and I used our modeling software to figure out what type of climate might exist on planet TOI-700 d. Because we do not yet know what kind of gases this planet may actually have in its atmosphere, we use our climate models to explore possible gas combinations that would support liquid oceans on its surface. Engelmann-Suissa, with the help of my longtime collaborator Eric Wolf, tested various scenarios including the current Earth atmosphere (77% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, remaining methane and carbon dioxide), the composition of Earth’s atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago (mostly methane and carbon dioxide) and even a Martian atmosphere (a lot of carbon dioxide) as it possibly existed 3.5 billion years ago.
Based on our models, we found that if the atmosphere of planet TOI-700 d contains a combination of methane or carbon dioxide or water vapor, the planet could be habitable. Now our team needs to confirm these hypotheses with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Strange new worlds and their climates
The climate simulations our NASA team has completed suggest that an Earth-like atmosphere and gas pressure isn’t adequate to support liquid water on its surface. If we put the same quantity of greenhouse gases as we have on Earth on TOI-700 d, the surface temperature on this planet would still be below freezing.
Our own atmosphere supports a liquid ocean on Earth now because our star is quite big and brighter than TOI-700. One thing is for sure: All of our teams’ modeling indicates that the climates of planets around small and dim stars like TOI-700 are very unlike what we see on our Earth.
The field of exoplanets is now in a transitional era from discovering them to characterizing their atmospheres. In the history of astronomy, new techniques enable new observations of the universe including surprises like the discovery of hot-Jupiters and mini-Neptunes, which have no equivalent in our solar system. The stage is now set to observe the atmospheres of these planets to see which ones have conditions that support life.
[ You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend. ]
Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, Research Scientist of Planetary Studies, NASA
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The forecast for snow across the region held true on Thursday, with a winter storm turning parts of Lake County winter white.
Forecasters had expected snow in elevations above 2,000 feet, but on Thursday even some lower elevations had a light layer of white.
As a result, much of Lake County woke up on Thursday to the wintriest of scenes – with snowfall across much of the county and a white cloak of snow on the top of Mount Konocti and the surrounding mountaintops.
In some areas, like the Northshore, snow quickly turned to slush by morning, but in areas like Lakeport and Kelseyville, a thin layer of snow remained later in the day before finally melting away. Cobb and the mountains near Middletown had more snow, as is common for those areas during winter storms.
The day also was punctuated by rainfall and dramatic clouds over Clear Lake, where birds like pelicans are gathering in large numbers.
Conditions are forecast to be partly sunny on Friday, before chances of rain return on Saturday. Sunday is anticipated to be mostly cloudy.
The National Weather Service said another winter storm system is forecast to move into the region as early as Monday afternoon, bringing with it chances of showers for much of next week.
Daytime temperatures will hover in the 40s before rising to the low 50s later next week. Nighttime temperatures will hover in the 30s.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff’s Office announced that Capt. Norm Taylor has graduated from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy, or FBINA.
Taylor graduated as part of class No. 278 on Dec. 20 in Quantico, Virginia.
The FBINA is held at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia. This is the same facility where the FBI trains its new special agents and intelligence analysts.
The FBINA is the world’s premier law enforcement executive development and leadership program. Internationally known for its academic excellence, the FBINA offers 11 weeks of advanced communication, leadership, and fitness training.
Participants must have proven records as professionals within their agencies to attend. On average, these officers have 21 years of law enforcement experience and usually return to their agencies to serve in executive level positions.
Capt. Taylor was among 258 men and women from 49 states, the District of Columbia, 37 countries, four military organizations and six federal civilian organizations.
FBI Director Christopher Asher Wray presented Captain Taylor with his certificate at the ceremony.
FBI Academy instructors, special agents, and other staff with advanced degrees provide the training. Many instructors are recognized internationally in their fields.
Since 1972, FBINA students have been able to earn undergraduate and graduate credits from the University of Virginia, which accredits many of the courses offered.
A total of 52, 540 graduates have completed the FBI National Academy since it began in 1935.
Captain Taylor joins Undersheriff Chris Macedo (class No. 199, 1999) as the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s only currently employed FBINA graduate.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Authorities are trying to locate a missing man and are asking for the community’s help in providing leads.
Walter Leland Stuart Jr., 55, was last seen by family in Solano County on Dec. 19, according to the Lakeport Police Department.
The Lakeport Police Department said it is conducting a followup investigation, in conjunction with the Fairfield Police Department, in order to locate Stuart.
Police said that in the days leading up to Christmas, Stuart had been in contact with family members via telephone but has not had any contact with them since then.
Authorities have information that he may have returned to the Lake County area, including the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport.
Stuart is a white male with brown hair and blue eyes. He is 6 feet tall and weighs 160 pounds.
If anyone has information regarding his whereabouts, contact the Lakeport Police Department immediately at 707-263-5491.
Trustee Richard Teagarden was re-elected as President of the YCCD Board of Trustees for 2020.
Teagarden represents Trustee Area 1 which includes a portion of Yuba County and includes Marysville Joint Unified School District.
He retired in 2010 as the superintendent of Yuba County Office of Education where he had served since 1994.
Prior to that appointment, Teagarden was a principal and teacher in the Marysville Joint Unified School District.
He is a graduate of Marysville High School and Yuba College; his undergraduate degree and his Master’s Degree in Public School Administration is from North Texas State University.
Trustee David Wheeler was reelected as vice president of the YCCD Board of Trustees.
Wheeler represents Trustee Area 3, which includes a portion of Sutter County including Nuestro, Franklin, Brittan, Meridian, and Winship Elementary School District, Live Oak Unified School District, and Yuba City Unified School District.
First elected to the Board in 2010, Wheeler is a graduate of Yuba City High School, has an associate’s degree from Yuba College, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from San Francisco State University in Theater Arts.
From 1976 until his retirement in 2010, Trustee Wheeler was professor of theatre arts and film studies at Yuba College.
During his tenure he directed more than 125 major productions, and received numerous awards including the first Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Award for Excellence in Theatre Education.
Susan Alves was re-elected as clerk of the YCCD Board of Trustees.
Alves represents Trustee Area 6, which includes a portion of Yolo County (Woodland Unified School District) and a portion of Colusa County (Colusa, Pierce Joint, and Esparto Unified School District).
She was appointed to the Yuba Community College District Board of Trustees in October 2018. Her current term expires in December.
Alves retired in 2018 from public education where she served in the Woodland Joint Unified School District for 22 years; 13 years as a teacher, and nine years as an elementary school principal.
She attended Woodland Community College; her undergraduate degree is from Chico State University and she attended Sacramento State University earning a Multiple Subject Teacher Credential, and an Administrative Services Credential.
Other members of the YCCD Board of Trustees are Brent Hastey, Michael Pasquale, Jesse Ortiz and V. Richard Savarese.
“I would like to offer my hearty appreciation to these trustees who have assumed critical governance responsibilities. Our board members are truly dedicated servants of their communities providing countless hours in leadership for our colleges and students. I am humbled to serve with such civic-minded community leaders who have committed to becoming a 'best-in-class' Governing Board," said Chancellor Douglas B. Houston.