Web resources offer retirement information

As the saying goes, there is nothing certain in this life except death and taxes. While good retirement planning won't help you avoid the first, it can soften the blow of the latter and allow you, upon retirement, to continue to live in the style to which you have become accustomed. Perhaps even slightly better.

In the interest of helping you save time on your retirement planning, I have listed a few of the best Web sites on the subject.

A Web page at

thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/about6-28-99.htm.

offers links to all these Web sites.

www.fool.com/Retirement/Retirement.htm

While much Web content concerning retirement planning tends to promote a site owner's products or services, you can find a goodly number of sites such as Motley Fool that have no ax to grind and that are also current, knowledgeable and comprehensible to the neophyte.

Fool has become a favorite among e-investors for its irreverent but insightful approach to all aspects of personal finance. Fool's 13 Steps to Retiring cover the tough questions we all need to ask and that many people tend to wait too long to address. Fool also supplies tools to run the numbers that answer these questions.

www.snap.com/main/channel/item/0,4,-6416,00.html

Apart from their annoying URLs, you'll find a lot to like at the retirement site of Snap.com, the Web's fastest-growing portal. (Portal services help users to find and organize subject matter on the Internet.)

Snap's Planning for Retirement demonstrates portal access to retirement calculators, pension guides, reverse mortgage strategies, and much more from recognized sources such as American Express, the Washington Post, Quicken and AARP.

www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/pages/finplan.html

Your tax dollars are at work as the federal Administration on Aging identifies some fine online resources from the American Savings Educational Council, the Department of Labor, MetLife, Social Security, FHA and others. Try the Crash Course in Wills & Trusts for the information you need to plan an estate of any size.

retireplan.miningco.com/

The Mining Company's motto was "we mine the Net so you don't have to." Its reincarnation as About.com hasn't changed that focus.

Each of its Guidesites is chock-full of pertinent, cutting-edge links and is put together by a qualified guide with extensive experience and training. The guide for retirement planning has worked with individuals and businesses in that field for more than 10 years and is an accredited pension administrator.

www.investorguide.com/retirement.htm

As part of one of the most extensive and well-organized investment sites on the Web, InvestorGuide offers extensive coverage of 401(k)s, IRAs, Social Security, estate planning, taxes and retirement software. Look for the gold stars, which indicate the sites that InvestorGuide esteems most highly.

www.netplanning.com/faq/retirement.html

The National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys gives an excellent overview of the many rules associated with annuities, IRAs, qualified retirement plans for nonprofit entities, investment strategies, and their assorted, complex, and often interlocking tax ramifications.

Government regulation has made profit-sharing plans, pension plans and ESOPs less attractive than in the past, so there is relatively abbreviated coverage of these plans. Search by topic or keyword. This site definitely isn't for the beginner or the faint of heart, but if you find the booklets and instructions that come with your tax forms enlightening, you shouldn't have trouble with most of it.

www.ebri.org/rcs/1999/1999_results.htm

By the time you read this, the latest annual Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute should be available. It is slated for release June 15. Respondents to the 1998 survey were categorized by personality type.

Deniers (10 percent of Americans) say they believe it is pointless to plan for retirement. Impulsives (20 percent) believe that a comfortable retirement is well within reach but they get sidetracked. Strugglers (9 percent) say that something always sets them back just when they finally have a handle on their finances. Cautious Savers (21 percent), Planners (23 percent), and Retiring Savers (17 percent) all have some degree of effective planning in place, but have various levels of confidence about the financial aspects of retirement. Survey results from 1996 forward are available.

(Mike DePue is the business librarian at the Main Library, 397 E. Central. For almost 18 years he has answered thousands of business questions.)

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