Release Notes

• We added an option to allow customers to trust a device so multi-factor authentication is not required on every login.

• We now present multi-factor authentication challenges on every login. We may adjust this in the future to allow for trusted devices and risk assessments to determine when to challenge.

• Fixed an issue where the change indicator did not display on the Retirement Accounts tab in Settings & Assumptions even if the Account Withdrawal Order had been modified.
• Fixed an issue where the selected Account Withdrawal Order setting was not listed in the Inputs section of the PDF report.

• The Roth Conversion Optimization algorithm was updated to improve several cases, and should also show performance improvements in many cases.
• We fixed a bug where manually set Roth conversions were distributed across the retirement accounts when choosing "apply to base" after running a maximization report even when “Roth Optimization” was not chosen for that maximization report.

• Previously, we collected fractional years remaining in mortgages as decimals, we made that a lot more usable now by adding a "months" field so you can specify years and months remaining in whole numbers.

• Profile names were not displaying properly in some cases in the Maximized Plan PDF report. We've resolved the issue.

• We added marginal tax bracket to the Compare tab in alternative profile report.
• Moved the Annual Spending Reduction Limit to its own screen in Maximization report setup to simplify the screens and make clear that the setting applies to all maximization options, not just annuitization.
• Chart/table labels for Floor plans in the Upside Investing range report were confusing and incorrect, including the trajectory percentile as if it was a range. This has been fixed.

• Improved visual display and accessibility when there are validation issues with input fields
• Mortgage "years remaining" entry field did not show decimals when viewed (if present)
• Fix - The net investment income tax (NIIT) may be overstated when plan includes income/losses from real estate.

• We significantly improved the ability to use keyboard navigation throughout the app, so you can access all functionality without relying on a mouse or touchpad.

• We made several improvements to the Full Risk Investing reports intended to simplify and clarify the results, conceptually connect the results to the base plan, and provide better guidance for acting on the results.
• Improved stability by resolving an issue that was causing very infrequent outages that prevented customers from accessing the system for a short time.

• For children, you can now indicate on which adult's record the child is eligible for Social Security benefits. We default to assuming the child is eligible for benefits from both parents (except when there is only one adult in the family).
• You can also identify when a child is a dependent for tax purposes of one spouse or the other (or neither) in cases where the family is not married, filing jointly.
• Fixed an issue preventing display of detail tables on some phones. Our minimum supported screen width for tables, to ensure quality of user experience, remains 768 pixels. Most phones support this width in landscape mode.

• Changed names of common strategies for Full Risk Investing to clearly communicate the stock/bond percentages
• Changed name of Base Strategy to "Current Strategy" in Full Risk Investing to clarify intent.

• Semi-annual update to default inflation and nominal interest rates.

• Fixed issue with yellow warning numbers not showing up in Budget Tracker
• Fixed issue with CSV earnings files with some file extensions not importing properly

• Changed most charts from stacked area to stacked column
• Clarified the annual spending reduction limit option in the Maximized Plan and defaulted all maximization options to No
• Fixed an issue with an unsaved changes alert showing up when first saving disability benefit information
• Improved general usability, accessibility, and design throughout app

• Social Security - In partnered cases, the reported child benefit(s) may be based on the earnings record of either adult roles. If only one role has started retirement benefits, then it will be based on that role. If both have started retirement benefits, then the larger of the two available benefits in a given month is used.. Previously, any available child benefits from each role was reported simultaneously.

• Improved behavior of back button when in detailed reports.
• Fixed issue that prevented duplicating some alternative profiles.

• Improved accessibility of charts in Dashboard report
• Fixed alignment of numbers in tables
• Improved usability of drop-down selections
• Removed chart legend labels for categories that had no data in the chart
• Added "Leaves Home Age" to setup for children in the initial family setup

• A bug in Safari/webkit was causing a blank screen on older Macs and iOS devices. This is now fixed.
• Fixed an issue in the Maximized Plan PDF report where ages would show as "N/A" in the list of Social Security benefit filing dates.
• A bug in MA state tax was not assessing the full "Millionaires Tax" if a portion of the taxable income was long term capital gains.

• Fixed an issue where negative numbers would not show up as red in alternating rows in tables.
• Fixed an issue where the age a child leaves home would not save unless changed.
• Fixed an issue where the comparison Annual Discretionary Spending chart would not display the full lifespan in cases where maximum ages of life were set later in the alternate profile than in the base.

• Federal Tax - The Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) may be overstated when state and local taxes are high and capped to $10,000 by the TCJA.

• All states with income tax updated through 2022 tax year.
• AZ state tax - Updated brackets to 2.5% flat tax effective 2023.
• MA state tax - Added new tax for high earners effective 2023.
• PA state tax - All retirement income at age 60 or later is assumed to be non-taxable.
• 2022 returns added to Dimensional Funds and Core Asset Classes for Monte Carlo.

• Fixed a bug that could cause Roth conversions to be applied inconsistently between an alternate profile run as a comparison report and the same profile run stand-alone.

• Fixed a bug that was disallowing entry of employer contributions and Roth conversions on alternate profiles in some cases.
• Fixed a bug that was causing an error when attempting to add Retirement Accounts after having dismissed or skipped entry during initial family set up.

• We introduced "Screen Guides" for every data input screen. These guides offer a helpful overview of key concepts, tips, and common questions along with links to further learning resources for each area of the app.
• We now require entry of an ex spouse's expected or actual Social Security retirement benefit file date, rather than defaulting to full retirement age.
• Fixed a couple minor bugs that crept into Budget Tracker: transaction columns are now sortable again, and when you save the first set of transactions for a new year's budget tracker, the transactions show up without needing to refresh the screen.
• Retirement date was incorrectly labelled in the adult edit screen, this has been fixed.

• Fixed a problem in Budget Tracker where discretionary spending targets could not be changed once created.

• For enterprise Single Sign On users, based on data from your directory we can now automatically create Organizations and assign members to those organizations upon login.
• You can now jump to any year easily in the Year-at-a-Glance report by selecting the year dropdown.
• Added precision to the Y-axis of the Return Rates chart to distinguish values in smaller ranges.
• Fixed an issue where a Social Security past earnings record derived from benefit information could be understated if already receiving Retirement benefits and also set to suspend Retirement benefits in the future.
• Fixed an issue where the maximized Social Security solution could vary slightly depending on how the what-if Retirement benefit file date was set.
• Fixed some missing wording for Land Value rollover check in Real Estate.
• Fixed some confusing footnote and header wording for Lifetime Balance Sheets in the PDF report.

• Fixed an error when creating a new alternate profile from a maximized alternate profile where only one spouse's dates were changed

Annual Federal Update

General

• 2022 CPI-U and chained CPI-U

Federal Tax

• 2023 Income Tax Brackets
• 2023 Standard Deduction
• 2023 Taxable Income Limits for incorporating Capital Gains taxes
• 2023 AMT Thresholds
• 2023 Child Tax Credit
• 2023 Earned Income Credit
• 2023 Medicare B premium and income brackets

Social Security

• 2023 Contribution and Benefit Base
• 2023 Earnings required for a quarter of coverage
• 2022 COLA
• 2022 Retirement Earnings Test Annual Exempt Amounts
• 2022 WEP Substantial Earnings
• 2022 Real wage Differential
• 2021 Average Wage Index

Secure Act 2.0 RMD age changes

• 2023 RMD start age changes to 73
• 2033 RMD start age changes to 75

• Tax Updates/Fixes:
  • General - Step-up basis is now calculated on regular asset capital gains in survivor reports
  • Pensions - Military pensions may now be identified using the new Type field allowing improved handling in state taxes
  • Rhode Island - Added retirement income exclusion including the revision for 2023 and beyond
• Reserve Fund first year income and balance now handled in line with general regular assets

The following issues have been fixed:

• The Lifetime Balance Sheet could be out of balance if real estate was purchased in the current year.
• A series of special withdrawals from Roth accounts could delay the start of smooth withdrawals from the non-Roth accounts.
• Full Risk Investing and Upside Investing Reports:
  • Settings for relative or survivor change in standard of living were not always reflected in the living standard results.
  • The percentage of non-annuitized assets to be spent was not respected in all years in some cases.
• Year-end Reserve Fund balance is now included in the Net Worth reports.

• Importing past earnings from CSV would also import current/future earnings if there were any in the CSV file. This is now fixed.

• Fixed issues with rounding and bolding of data in the Lifetime Balance Sheet
• Improved clarity of the interface when Upside Investing settings in an alternative profile override settings in the base profile, and fixed an issue with some Upside Investing settings when base profile account information was also overridden in the alternative profile.

• Home capital gain calculation for survivors now uses higher step up basis if home is in a community property state. Also the married filing jointly exclusion limit ($500K) is used if sale is within 2 years of spouses death.
• Fixed issues where the Lifetime Balance Sheet could be out of balance if a home was purchased in the current year or when Reserve Fund return rate differed from Regular Asset return rate.

New

Check out our new Upside Investing analysis for Premium and PRO customers!

Upside Investing is a new version of Living Standard Monte Carlo^® that finds your living standard floor and potential upside opportunity. Our previous Monte Carlo analysis, which shows both upside and downside risk, is now called "Full Risk Investing."

• We updated the Lifetime Balance Sheet report to include your household’s trapped equity––how much housing plus real estate equity will be left for bequests––and your housing holding costs, that is, how much income you sacrifice in not selling these assets and investing the proceeds. Other changes to the balance sheet include:
  • Retirement Assets - Initial retirement-account assets are now displayed instead of retirement-account contributions and withdrawals.
  • Excess Asset Income - We now display income amassed when you specify a return rate on retirement accounts different from the return rate specified for regular assets.
• Improved accessibility of comparison charts
• Fixed an error that would occur when pressing back button from some report screens

Improved

• Allow entry of “end benefits age” for permanently disabled children expected to leave care at a certain age or predecease both parents
• Improved usability of drill-down Year-at-a-Glance entries
• Disallowed editing of family name if the family is shared with you
• Updated return history for all Core Asset Classes and Dimensional Funds with final 2021 numbers

Fixed

• When running a standalone alternative plan, if you had not hit "skip to details" for Base Plan, you would receive an error
• Message stating lifetime present values cannot be compared would be displayed even when real returns were the same
• Changing death year of deceased spouse would not update validation rules for surviving spouse's widow(er) benefit dates
• When creating a covered earnings history from a Social Security benefit estimate, the resulting benefit shown was too low in some cases

Improved

• Added drill-down detail for Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) breakdown within the Federal Tax area of the Year at a Glance report
• Separated Bequest and Funeral Expenses from Special Expenses in the Lifetime Balance Sheet, also separated Pensions and Annuities
• Clarified several error messages related to using Social Security benefits in place of earnings records

Fixed

• Fixed an error where tax rates showed up as "NaN" in the tax detail report for partnered families when one partner died before the other
• The year-end rollover alert flag for Social Security Records was not appearing in left hand navigation, this is now fixed

Improved

• Social Security - We improved the rounding of the PIA to better align our benefits with the Social Security Administration.

Updated

• Uniform Lifetime Table updated to 2022 revision. This affects Required Minimum Distributions from retirement accounts for 2022 and beyond.

Improved

• The model used to estimate future Medicare B premium was updated to index income bracket thresholds to inflation except for the top bracket. The top bracket will be held at the current value. This extends the pattern of updates to the Medicare B income thresholds in recent years. This can mean the lower brackets may collapse into the top bracket over time depending on the inflation setting. At the point a lower bracket rises to meet the top bracket, the top premium level is used if the AGI is at or above the current top bracket.

Fixed

Fixed an issue causing errors when updating retirement account balances when the accounts were overridden in more than one alternative profile.

Improved

• You can now create a lifetime financial plan for an Alternative Profile "standalone" without comparing to Base or other profiles.
• Marginal tax bracket and effective tax rate are now shown in the Federal Tax Details report.

Improved

• PRO users can now set default values for nearly all Settings and Assumptions. The defaults automatically apply to all families unless overridden.
• You can now enter age 70 Social Security benefit estimates when using estimates in place of an earnings record. This eliminates the need to do manual adjustments to the benefit estimates if past Full Retirement Age.
• Rent can now be set to increase or decrease beyond inflation. Rent used to always match inflation.
• We've made a number of additional usability, validation, and wording improvements.

Fixed

• Creating a new alternate profile from the results of a Maximized Plan was only working when performed from the report details screen. This now works on the "slideshow" flow as well.

Fixed

• Entering invalid characters into grids would cause an error, but now will just revert to the default value for the grid.
• Clearing amounts from lump sum or annual amounts when editing a pension would cause an error but now default to $0.
• The starting amount entered in "Project growth" panel for the annual living standard index was being ignored, this is now fixed.

New

• Professional customers can now create Organizations. With Organizations, you can share client data between different PRO users and can reassign ownership of family data to other PRO users, for example in situations where an advisor has left the firm or is on vacation. Sharing family data can be useful in many situations, such as to allow a senior advisor to review the work of junior advisors, or when an assistant updates financial data for a family before the advisor runs a report. Note that all members of an organization must have an active PRO license for our software.
• You can now export a Social Security earnings record as a comma-separated values (CSV) file and re-import it. This is helpful in cases where for any reason you need to delete and re-enter family data. You can now save and re-import the earnings without having to download from the Social Security Administration site.

Improved

• Added new setting to allow differentiation between long term capital gains and qualified dividends
• Increased maximum allowed number of retirement accounts

Fixed

• Asset balances could be calculated incorrectly in widow(er) cases with large bequests. This has been fixed.
• Fixed issue with Montana capital gains credit.
• Fixed problem where it was not possible to select retirement account optimization options in the Maximized Plan setup for an alternative profile if there were no retirement accounts in the Base profile.
• Fixed problem where it was not possible to select Roth-related optimization options in the Maximized Plan setup if there were only Roth conversions and no actual Roth accounts.

Annual Updates

• Federal tax rates and brackets
• Medicare B
• Social Security

Fixed

• Medicare B - Use latest expanded income brackets to determine premium
• Social Security - Child benefit from lower PIA parent may be assigned to disabled adult child during survivor years if child receives DIB on own record

Fixed

• Fixed issues with downloading PDFs in certain browser and plugin configurations

Improved

• We now display a warning and confirmation if you try to navigate away from a screen without saving changed data
• Simplified the Base Profile progress gauge and provided direct links to items that need attention
• Restructured the setup flow and navigation to group all financial assets together
• We no longer display a warning message when you navigate to a second screen before the first has finished loading
• Added an idle timer to log out after period of inactivity

Fixed

• Eliminated an inaccurate concurrent modification exception that occurred periodically when running Risk Analysis
• Reserve Fund Contributions were not included in the Year at a Glance report in Excel, this is now fixed
• Comparison report buttons were sometimes partially hidden when alternative profile name was long, they now display properly

Improved

• Allow inflation and mortgage rates to be set up to 25%
• Improve validation and labeling for changes of home to reduce erroneously entered data

Fixed

• Change of home not saved properly if no purchase price is entered

Improved

• Adjust help widget so it doesn't interfere with clicking on elements next to it
• Change minimum allowed Economies of Shared Living setting to 1.0
• Add link to User Manual from family dashboard

Fixed

• Retirement account assets missing from online Year-at-a-Glance report
• Occasional "gateway timeout" errors when waiting for long-running report

• Semi-annual update to default inflation and nominal interest rates, which are now all set at 1.5%
• Fixed an issue with text size in charts

Improved

• The Family Overview screen has been rearranged to allow quicker access to Alternative Profiles and we added the ability to delete Alternative Profiles to that screen

Fixed

• A person's setting for percentage of retirement assets to spend was not being respected in cases where the person had no retirement accounts of their own but inherited retirement assets from their spouse dying earlier in the plan. This has been fixed.
• Depending on time of day, an error could occur when first trying to run reports after adding deceased spouse. This has been corrected.
• Entries in the "Cost of Children" grid now display correctly in the PDF report.

Fixed

• Monte Carlo (Premium/PRO Only)
  Consistently handle asset income when maximum indebtedness is set. Better handle custom assets with large variances in their return history.

Fixed

• In certain cases with contingency changes, life insurance within Maximized Plans was calculated differently than Base Plans, this is now fixed.
• An issue was fixed where, in certain cases, during years when Required Minimum Distributions for non-Roth accounts was greater than the smooth withdrawal for the year, a Roth withdrawal was also included.
• Calculation of Arizona adjusted income has been changed to ensure the threshold for filing is being correctly determined.

Improved

• You can now run a Comparison Plan of two alternative profiles!
• We now provide more specific detail of the problem(s) and steps to correct if Disability Benefit entry is blocked.
• You can now set extremely low safe return rates in order to model significant economic downturn.
• We've removed "Match inflation" as an option for annuity Growth Rate as these types of annuities are now difficult or impossible to buy.

Fixed

• Applying maximized Social Security dates to an alternative profile resulted in an "override" flag in the navigation bar even if no dates had changed.
• An error would sometimes occur while trying to to add Social Security benefits for a deceased spouse.
• An error would sometimes occur when editing a Retirement Account that had different contributions in a past maximization report.

Improved

• Display age by birthdate on detailed data entry screens
• Clarify text in the Social Security What-If Filing Dates guide related to entering past dates

Fixed

• Housing validation was failing if Rent/Own not specified resulting in ugly error message upon saving data. This validation has been fixed.
• Certain login situations could result in redirect loop if using cached code. This has been fixed.

Fixed

• In an unusual case where there were no Spousal Social Security benefits other than Child-in-Care Spousal Benefits, and yet the Spousal benefit filing date if set too early could impact the amount of Spousal benefits, the Maximized plan was not properly being applied to the Base plan. This issue has been addressed.

Fixed

• Cost of points entered for future Real Estate purchases were being based on value of property instead of mortgage amount. This is now fixed.
• Points entered for change of Housing were having no impact on the report. Now fixed.
• Year at a Glance report was not including closing costs on purchase of new home, now does.

Happy New Year! Here are some updates to start the year:

• Updated all Federal Income Tax, Social Security, and Medicare Part B parameters.
• Updated the annual CPI-U and the Chained CPI-U with estimated values for December.
• SECURE Act: Start retirement account RMDs at age 72 if applicable.

Improved

• Added creation date to cover page of PDF report
• Allow entry of up to 1 million dollars per month for extra monthly mortgage payments to allow for modeling lump sum payoffs

Fixed

• Divide by zero error would happen occasionally when maximizing. This is fixed.
• Error when creating base plan with more than 10 children in family. This is fixed, though we have a limit of 15 children per family.

New

• Survivor Reports - Run a report to see the impact of one spouse/partner dying unexpectedly.
• Reserve Funds - You can now set money aside so it isn't included in your spending plan.

Improved

• Added Dimensional Fund Assets so you can create investment strategies using historical returns information from these funds.
• Earnings, retirement account withdrawals, special expenses and receipts can now be set to continue until death date
• Added a setting for future change to Medicare Part B premium growth rate
• Improved guidance for correcting Social Security benefit information that is out of date when using benefit information in place of full earnings record
• Added reports under Net Worth section detailing household and individual Estate
• Allow Economies of Shared Living setting down to 1.4
• Added income from existing annuities to Progress Tracker
• Special expenses/receipts in PDF now appear in the same order as they do online
• Added warning about automatic enrollment in Medicare Part A and impact on tax deductibility of HSA contributions when applying for Social Security
• Added growth % and today's/nominal information to the summary view when showing monetary activity
• Added table/chart toggle to Risk Analysis overview charts
• Added Retirement Assets to the metrics you can choose from in the Compare tab of report
• Increased number of assets that can be assigned to investment strategy
• Allow roth first/last optimization even if a specific adult in family doesn't have both types of accounts

Fixed

• If entering data in a specific order you could bypass warnings and add a non-covered pension when using Social Security benefit information in place of earnings history. This can cause inaccurate calculations and is no longer allowed.
• Going to Help Center from within initial family setup and then clicking Back would return to the very beginning of setup. Now it resumes setup where you left off.
• Survivor percentage fields for pensions were not appearing in PDF, they now are.
• Social Security benefits were not showing father/mother benefits for widowed situation. This is now fixed.
• Emerging Markets asset and others could cause errors in some situations during Monte Carlo runs. This has been fixed.
• Earnings prior to 1951 were causing errors with contingent planning enabled. They are now handled correctly.

New

MaxiFi Premium and PRO versions now include Contingency Planning, allowing you to plan for changes that should occur in your family's financial plan upon death of a spouse (or partner). For example, reduce or eliminate an expense or receipt, or perhaps retire at a later or earlier date.

Contingency settings are available for retirement date, future earnings, retirement account contributions, special expenses and special receipts. We will be making contingency settings for primary and vacation home available soon.

For more details about this change, see the User Manual.

Improved

• Increase upper limit on pass-thru deductions
• Allow users to project earnings growth more than 5%
• Provide more prominent help for explaining Social Security restricted applications
• Clarify that the behavior for "grow" an expense/receipt, etc., refers to multi-year items, not rollover behavior
• Add video explanation of lifetime utility maximization index
• Improve guidance around non-covered pensions
• Add FAQ about how MaxiFi derives adult equivalence for adults and children
• Improve visibility of dismissed items in MaxiFi adult/household overview screens

Fixed

• Duration of Special Expenses could not be set to end at last year of life. This is now fixed.
• Real Estate could have "hidden" current mortgage data even if not yet owned. This is now fixed and any existing invalid data removed.
• Points entered in future housing changes were displaying improperly.
• Points entered in future real estate purchases were not converted from percent decimal to percent.

Improved

The May 24, 2019 update to MaxiFi implemented a major redesign of how we handle capital gains on taxable assets in the regular asset account and capital gains on bequests. In the past, we realized future capital gains as they were accrued, i.e. in the year they were earned and assessed capital gains on bequests. With that update, we now realize capital gains on a pro-rata basis when they are withdrawn from the regular asset account and we exempt death bequests from capital gains.

For more details about this change, see this page in the User Manual

New

• Tax Detail Report - See additional detail about the numbers underlying our tax calculations in each year of the plan.

Improved

• Improve navigation within family data area to highlight adult and household overview pages and reduce visual clutter
• Add FAQ about how to model paying off mortgage early
• Add time-based distribution comparison chart to Risk Analysis overview report

Fixed

• Alternative profiles end up in wrong order when duplicating client data (PRO)
• Spousal benefit filing date is shown even though there are no actual spousal benefits when there are mother/father benefits
• Unrealized capital gains handling in Monte Carlo incorrect
• Logic for displaying whether Social Security was maximized is flipped in PDF

Improved

• Update cash and inflation return rates for 2018, allowing custom assets with 2018 return history

Fixed

• Error message not displayed when report fails due to secondary role having out of date benefit information
• Periodic out-of-memory errors when processing risk analysis results

New

Living Standard Monte Carlo℠ is now available in MaxiFi Planner Premium! Learn more about how our Monte Carlo analysis works and see detailed instructions for how to get started.

Improved

• Auto-dismiss side menu when on small width
• Ask about import from Maximize My Social Security as first step of MaxiFi family setup
• Provide useful error message when a base item can't be deleted due to dependent items in alternative profiles
• Add Real Estate Income and Spending to the Progress Tracker
• Allow Social Security Widow(er) Benefits to start month individual turns 60
• Combine parent/child earnings deductions in reports for non-married/partnered family
• Allow more than 5 changes of expectations in items such as future earnings, retirement contributions and withdrawals, special expenses and receipts
• Default Annuity Survivor field to 50%
• Improve error message for unsustainable consumption
• Provide chart view of Standard of Living and Life Insurance tabs in plan report
• Add mortgage detail to housing summary cards
• Provide spinner to indicate Excel is loading when downloading
• Strengthen confirmation message when deleting family data
• Change default rate of return for retirement accounts to 3.5%

Fixed

• Retirement Annuity Income for second adult in Comparison report is missing "income" in label
• Entering existing retirement benefit displays validation errors in "Modify Planned Dates" panel
• Entering anything other than 0 or 1 in growth field results in inaccurate browser validation message
• Real Estate Property future purchase value of 0 causes long run then error
• Imbalance in lifetime Present Values due to bequest in excess of housing equity
• "Data Binding Failed" error when housing Condo Fees blanked out
• Focus jumps to bottom of table when entering data in Living Standard grid
• Setting change not reflected after leaving settings screen and returning
• Mortgage interest rate for future home sales does not handle thousandths of percents
• Second home shows in PDF as "not owned/rented" even though it is
• "Two people live as cheaply as" should not be labeled with %
• Real Estate Sale Type key shown in PDF
• Error on Maximization report where progress says complete, but the report is not done
• Compare tab reports don't work properly when maximum ages in alternate profile are different from Base profile
• Social Security screen messages do not update if a pension is changed from non-covered to covered
• Clearing existing retirement or disability benefit does not appear to clear benefit used in place of earnings
• Real interest rate not displaying under Account > Default Assumptions

New

MaxiFi Planner now incorporates changes brought about by the new tax law, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). See our feature highlight for more information on these important changes.

Improved

• We now provide an alternative way of importing your Social Security earnings -- using the XML-formatted file available from your Social Security Administration account.
• Allow sale of primary residence and vacation home.
• TCJA: Ask whether mortgages are grandfathered into $1M deduction limit.
• TCJA: Allow users to provide deduction amount for pass-thru income
• TCJA: Allow comparisons of pre-TCJA, TCJA expiring as written, and permanent TCJA.
• Add Condo Fees to list of real estate expenses
• Add Back/Previous buttons to initial setup and results screens for improved navigation
• Reduce user confusion during setup by scrolling to top of page when "save and add another" is clicked
• Always show 'Reports' navigation item
• Improved stability and reliability of our infrastructure for running plans and producing reports.

Fixed

• If you dismissed a category during setup as "Not Applicable" but then added an item to that category in an Alternate Profile, the item would be hidden from view if you merged the Alternate Profile to Base. This is now fixed.
• A divide by 0 error could occur in certain rare situations, resulting in a cryptic error message. The error has been fixed.
• After resetting all Settings and Assumptions, it would still appear as if they were overriding default settings. This has been fixed so the view refreshes and you can see that all settings have indeed been reset to default.
• Future Tax Change settings were not working correctly but have been fixed. In addition, we now allow setting state tax increase or decrease of 100% to allow for modeling of doubling or elimination of state taxes.

New

The new Real Estate module allows you to enter information about multiple properties, including mortgages, expenses, and receipts.

The Vacation Home feature allows you to specify a current or planned vacation home along with changes to that home.

We've also added support for annuities that don't use retirement account assets.

Improved

• Allow descriptions for pensions.
• Hide or downplay rollover alerts for unmodified base events displayed in Alternative Profiles
• Display alert indicators next to items needing review in profile left hand navigation
• Add indicator in left hand navigation on Alternative Profiles for changed items so it is easy to zero in on changes in a profile

Fixed

• Preview of unmodified Base Plan money activity from an Alternative Profile can be inaccurate. It is now accurate.
• Maximum and minimum validation on mortgage loan balance not working. This is fixed.
• Sort order of items in MaxiFi Base Profile multi-item screens is not stable. These now always sort in order they were added.
• After changing person's death year, the old death year still shows up in activity panels such as Future Earnings and Retirement Contributions. This has been corrected so the death year updates immediately.
• Maximized Social Security dates can cause error when applied to base plan if base has suspend/reinstate dates and Maximized Plan does not. This is fixed so all dates are applied correctly.
• Can create an Alternative Profile from top menu even if no base plan yet. This is fixed so you can only create an Alternative Profile if you have run the Base Plan.
• Importing family from Maximize My Social Security to MaxiFi results in Base Profile called "Your Plan" instead of "Base Profile". The profile is now named properly.
• Clicking on Comparison Report icon from Base Profile dashboard results in error and no comparison. We now no longer allow clicking on the icon.
• In divorced cases, Social Security Widow(er) benefits sometimes not shown or show incorrect date. This has been fixed.
• RMDs for retirement accounts were not calculated if no current retirement assets. This now works even if no current assets in the accounts.
• Benefit dates associated with past earnings do not display after saving in MaxiFi Social Security screen. This has been fixed.

Improved

• Provide 'Add Profile' button in profiles menu so easier/clearer creation of Alternative Profile.

Fixed

• Future inflation rate changes entered in settings and assumptions were not being applied to earnings. This is fixed.
• The PDF report would show Yes when should say No for Pension covered by social security. The correct text is now displayed.
• Bequest and Funeral Expense settings were always from Base Profile. They will now be set from Alternative Profile if overridden there.

New

Estate Planning: You can now specify special bequest amounts and expected funeral expenses to aid in estate planning.

Improved

• Collect date of divorce when necessary to ensure accurate Social Security maximization.
• Improve Usability of Social Security Widow(er) benefit dates by only requiring entry for survivor.
• Show clear warning in report if life insurance is limited by age.
• Change Excel download method to avoid false threat detection by McAfee.
• Show real rate of return on MaxiFi Lifetime Balance Sheet report.
• Add section headers/footers to MaxiFi PDF report to indicate current plan.
• Move Account subtabs to Account submenu.
• Allow deceased spouse's year of death to be changed.
• MaxiFi should say "last year of earnings" instead of "retirement age" on deceased spouse's detail screen.

Fixed

• Scrollbars in earnings grids do not display on iOS if there is overflow. This was fixed by removing scrolling and always showing full grids on narrow-width devices.
• Errors when changing family name are not displayed to user. They are now.
• Horizontal progress indicators do not collapse properly on small screen widths. This was fixed by removing labels on narrow-width devices.
• Entry of long family names causes unexpected errors or inaction. Validation was fixed and messages display correct now.
• Child Social Security benefits were not included in Year at a Glance report. They are now.
• Numbers in progress indicators misaligned in IE 11. This is fixed.
• Negative Consumption error message not displaying, instead cryptic "ENOENT". We now display a better error message.
• "Value is not a decimal" error when setting Annuity Growth Rate to zero. We now allow zero.
• Annuity Income not included in Income breakdown in Year at a Glance report. It is now.
• Cannot add category to Progress Tracker if none already on overview screen. This is fixed.
• "IEEE_INVALID is signaling" warning causing failure of Base Plan run. This is fixed
• Annual Increase/Decrease in money activity widgets affects number from current year even if start is future. Growth is calculated correctly now, starting in start year.
• Incorrect mortgage data causes segfault - shows 'Unknown error' to user. Data validation was improved and we display a friendly error message now.