If I think we’ll all agree that good communication makes for a good relationship, whether that be between financial advisers and their clients, co-workers, friends or spouses. In my experience over three decades as a money manager and one decade as an arbitrator, I can confirm that problems start with miscommunication.

Given that frame of reference, it’s always good to hear when things are going well. A new survey from Fidelity focusing on couples (tinyurl.com/4sf87k69) concluded that 71% of partners communicate at least “very well” with their other half about finances -- including 25% who say they communicate “exceptionally well.”

However, the survey, as usual with these sorts of things, found room for improvement.

Just how much should a partner know about family finances or how their partner feels about discussing financial issues? Should you know how much your partner earns? (Two out of 5 surveyed did not know.) Should you be able to discuss health and lifestyle as easily as careers and estate planning? (Couples found it easy to discuss health and lifestyle and “most difficult” to discuss careers and estate planning.)

What about the tone of your discussions? Should finances cause arguments or relationship challenges? (Forty-four percent admitted to arguing about money at least occasionally, while 18% said that money is the greatest challenge in their relationship.)

What about how you make decisions on big financial matters, such as retirement? Do you do that jointly? (Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they are joint decision-makers when it comes to retirement and other long-term financial goals.)

Do you agree on how much you need to save for retirement or when to retire? (Fifty-one percent of non-retired couples disagreed on how much savings is needed to reach retirement, and 48% disagreed on the age they were expecting to retire.)

If one of you becomes incapacitated, will you feel confident that your partner can take over? (While almost half of the respondents had complete confidence in either themselves or their partner to take over decision-making capabilities for day-to-day finances and short-term goals, when it came to taking full control of finances and strategies for retirement, only 4 in 10 felt completely confident in their or their partner’s ability to do it.)

If you are a wife, do you want to have input in planning for retirement? Twenty-two percent of women said they had little or no input with retirement planning. Considering that women tend to live longer than men -- a National Center for Health Statistics report in February 2021 (tinyurl.com/p43cchrc) found that the life expectancy for males at birth was 75.1 years in the first half of 2020; for females it was 80.5 years -- this is not good news. One of the things I encourage in my practice is that both partners be equally knowledgeable and comfortable about financing the future.

If you were lucky enough to be in a good-communicating partnership, would you expect to be content with your family’s finances? (Yes, indeed. For those couples who said they communicated well, 73% rated their household’s financial health as excellent or good, compared with 42% for couples who said they did not communicate well).

That data point is hard to ignore. From my own experience, I can tell you that there is nothing more important than open and clear communication between partners, aging parents and their adult children, and anyone who needs to interact socially, within a family or on the job.

If your communication skills need some help, there is no better time than right this second to start. Take just one step toward better communication. How? Take the initiative. Ask some of the few questions we discussed in this column. Listen to the answers.

Fidelity, one of the largest asset managers in the world, offers some additional tips at tinyurl.com/3pwu3w9b.

The 2021 version of the Fidelity Couples & Money study surveyed 1,713 couples with a minimum household income of $75,000, or at least $100,000 in investable assets.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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I’ve heard from a number of readers frustrated with their inability to get their tax refunds or economic impact payments, with attempts to contact the IRS via phone only adding to their unhappiness.

According to Erin Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, in her midyear report to Congress, the IRS received 167 million calls during the 2021 filing season -- more than four times as many calls as occurred during 2019, the “last typical filing season.”

The advocate works for TAS, the Taxpayer Advocate Service (tinyurl.com/2pn2funa). TAS was created by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 in 1996 as an independent organization within the IRS. TAS’s purpose is to help taxpayers when they have problems they can’t resolve with the IRS. However, even TAS said on its website in March (tinyurl.com/32e6v8ca) that its ability to help with delayed tax refunds is “limited.”

According to Collins’ report, the IRS had a “Level of Service” on its Accounts Management telephone lines of 15%, and only 7% of taxpayer calls reached a “telephone assistor.” The numbers were even worse on the most frequently called IRS toll-free number, the “1040” line. About 85 million calls were placed, and only 3% actually reached a telephone assistor. As Collins noted, when so few calls get through, “problems remain unsolved and taxpayer frustration mounts.”

Collins’ midyear report shared important information on a number of fronts. For example, she noted the challenges the IRS had in accomplishing its tasks given the COVID-19 pandemic and the added responsibility of three rounds of stimulus payments.

At the end of the 2021 tax filing season, the IRS had a backlog of over 35 million individual and business income tax returns that required manual processing. The backlog included roughly 16.8 million paper tax returns waiting to be processed, about 15.8 million returns that were suspended during processing and required further review, and approximately 2.7 million amended returns that awaited processing.

The backlog largely was due to the pandemic, which brought social-distancing measures that kept many employees away from IRS offices.

As Collins noted: “The pandemic exposed weaknesses and vulnerabilities that must be strengthened ... and it is causing the IRS and congressional overseers to collaborate on steps to improve the IRS’s performance going forward to provide taxpayers with the service they deserve.”

The advocate recommended a number of steps for the IRS to take, among them reducing barriers for the e-filing of returns and expanding callback technology for the high-volume toll-free IRS telephone lines. My readers will be pleased when these improvements are implemented.

You can review the full list of recommendations at tinyurl.com/m7k7b4yd.

The IRS agreed to implement 48 of 73 recommendations (in full or part) made by Collins previously in her year-end report (see Appendix 1 at tinyurl.com/4k6ee66m).

If you are still waiting on the IRS in frustration, positive changes may yet come out of this pandemic-related tax turmoil.

As Collins wrote: “In the coming months, the IRS must work through its backlog of tax returns and be current in processing its correspondence while focusing on rebuilding itself to become a more efficient and taxpayer-centric organization. In the coming years, the IRS must modernize its operations to better meet taxpayer needs, reduce administrative burdens, and improve the delivery of services.”

Let’s hope next year is not as challenging at tax time as this one has been, especially for those who are financially in need.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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Do you have a child or grandchild who has been drawn to stock trading through the internet or an app?

While I’m a proponent of investing for all ages, I’m hardly a fan of kids entering the markets without training or supervision. If you feel the same way, you’ll want to know about a new resource, announced at the end of June by FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which regulates brokerage firms), that I expect to be very helpful -- both to you and to regulators (if you are willing to submit comments).

FINRA’s new initiative (tinyurl.com/ftz7by8) is a massive project that will have an impact on investors both young and not so young.

It’s a multiyear, multifaceted $30 million initiative, whose goal is to provide kids with information that can help them make good investment decisions and avoid mistakes.

That’s an incredibly worthwhile goal. This is FINRA’s ask for comments: “Given the recent influx of novice retail investors into U.S. securities markets coupled with rapid advancements in technology, FINRA requests comments from firms, investors, investor advocates, academics, investor and financial education providers (for-profit and nonprofit) and other stakeholders concerning effective ways to reach today’s investors. We are especially interested in comments pertaining to younger, novice investors and people who have yet to participate in investing outside an employer-sponsored retirement plan.”

FINRA is asking for comments on 10 questions, which you can see at tinyurl.com/3x7m67p9. You’ll find instructions on how to comment there as well. Here are a couple of examples for educators:

“Which methods of educating investors have worked best to increase investor knowledge among self-directed retail investors? Please describe the modes and channels used to reach people and the demographic characteristics of the target audience for such efforts. What should be FINRA’s role with regard to educating self-directed investors?”

“Does simulated trading help educate investors or potential investors about different aspects of investing, such as risk, diversification, costs and performance?”

In case you have not seen a simulator, take a look at a free one offered by the SIFMA Foundation called The Stock Market Game, which you can find at tinyurl.com/3yueuzkc. The SIFMA Foundation is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing understanding of the financial markets.

The comment period, which is now open and ends on Aug. 30, 2021, is the first phase of the project. The second is a comprehensive program “aimed at educating this rapidly-growing segment of novice retail investors who are leveraging advancements in technology to enter U.S. securities markets.” Retail investors are non-professionals who buy and sell securities or funds.

If you are interested in reading comments that have already been submitted, you can find them here: tinyurl.com/54f4rmc9.

Education is needed on all levels. FINRA Foundation’s most recent investor survey (tinyurl.com/wfcbj2tx) found some troubling trends, as investor knowledge in the United States was low among all investors, and many investors were confused about the various fees they pay for investing.

New investors had less investment knowledge than others. For example, in a separate study done by the FINRA Foundation with the research organization NORC at the University of Chicago (tinyurl.com/v9ed6xyy), new investors, when tested, on average answered only 1.4 out of 5 investment knowledge questions correctly.

As Robert Cook, president and CEO of FINRA and chair of the FINRA Foundation, said, “It is critical that newer investors understand both the benefits and the risks of participating in the financial markets.” Who can disagree?

To stay up to date on this noteworthy cause, visit www.finrafoundation.org. Write to me at readers@juliejason.com with some of your suggestions, as well.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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