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Written by Dani Arthur 

At some point, we've all wished we could change places with someone else, preferably someone rich and famous. Guess what? There are plenty of people who'd love to be plain-old you, and they'll go to great lengths to get their hands on your identity.

You may have missed the news – buried in a much bigger spending bill and passed in the thick of the holiday season, but after months of nearly bringing it to the finish line, it’s now official: On Friday, December 20, 2019, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was signed into law.

by David Booth, Executive Chairman and Founder, Dimensional Fund Advisors

By now, you’ve probably seen a few – or a few thousand – retrospectives on the past year and the past 10 years… with a few 20-year reflections thrown in.

Maybe it’s the nice, round New Year number. (Although technically, it may not be the dawn of a new decade until 2021.)

The IRS recently issued new cryptocurrency guidance and is hot on your trail if you bought and sold cryptocurrency and didn’t report it on your tax return.

Here are the tax basics. You’ll treat cryptocurrency as property for tax purposes.

Urban legends, urban myths and the latest that’s on everyone’s lips — fake news, whatever you call it, in our age of information, claims of spurious repute can go viral in minutes. Anyone with a PC can start a blog and offer up opinions on just about any subject, whether he or she is an authority or not. Sources? Who needs sources?

You may think we harp on you a lot about protecting yourself against identity theft and tax scams. You are right… but we do it because having your identity stolen becomes an absolute financial nightmare, sometimes taking years to straighten out. Identity thieves are clever and relentless, and they are always coming up with new schemes to trick you.

The year 2019 served up many examples of the unpredictability of markets.

1. What is long-term care?

Long-term care refers to the ongoing services and support needed by people who have chronic health conditions or disabilities. There are three levels of long-term care:

What a year it’s been. Remember December 2018? As The New York Times reported at the time, “Stocks plunged in December [2018], posting their worst monthly loss since the financial crisis and the worst December since 1931 and the Great Depression.”