My parents are of retirement age (late 60s/70s) but never had jobs that offered investment options so they are currently living off social security which isn’t much. What can my siblings and I do to invest on their behalf? Are there investment funds we can place money into, have them as co-owners, and take out the money when they need it? Or should we put money in a high-yield savings account since they are already in retirement age and missed the bus, so to say?
One thing you might consider is to simply give money to your parents. The IRS allows each citizen to give up to $15k to any other citizen tax free every year. I don’t think either party even has to report it. ( YMMV ).
Typically you can’t be co-owners of an investment unless you’re married. Honestly, I’m not sure investing is the best option for your parents at this point anyway.
Thank you for the suggestions. I’ll have to ask my tax guy about the gift tax maximum. After your post, I went searching online for what is the maximum monetary gift you can give to a citizen but all I could find was gift taxes for small businesses [Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes | Internal Revenue Service]. Hopefully, my tax guy can give me some suggestions.