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The qualified charitable distribution (QCD) questions keep rolling in - and we aren't surprised. After all, the QCD provision is one of the biggest breaks in the tax code and it's of tremendous value to the charitably inclined. In this week's Slott Report Mailbag, we also walk a reader through the general IRA beneficiary provisions in a community property state.

It generally takes about 30 seconds to complete a beneficiary form, and that is about all the consideration that is given to the document. Do you realize that the beneficiary form determines who will receive what could be a significant portion of your estate? Learn more about the beneficiary form's power in today's blog post.

This week's Slott Report Mailbag examines how to take advantage of net unrealized appreciation (NUA) - one of the BIGGEST breaks in the tax code - along with answers to two questions on qualified charitable distributions (QCDs).

Did you take your RMD from your IRA for 2015? Hopefully, the answer is yes because for most IRA owners and beneficiaries the deadline for taking a 2015 RMD was December 31, 2015. There is an exception. If you reached age 70 ½ in 2015, you still have time. Your deadline for taking your 2015 RMD from your IRA is April 1, 2016. However, if you missed your 2015 RMD, stay calm and follow these three steps.

Here's the 10 most amazing, surprising and/or illuminating facts about retirement that I read in January. Before each fact, you will find my own brief commentary, and after each fact, you will find the original article from which the fact was pulled should you be interested in further reading.

I've received several questions about these two popular planning strategies, and whether it was too late to incorporate them when you sit down with your CPA. The short answer is yes, the ship has sailed. And here's why.

Tax season is here. This is the time when many IRA owners consider making contributions for the prior year. Are you planning on making a 2015 contribution to your IRA? Here are 10 IRA contribution rules you need to know.

This week's Slott Report Mailbag answers questions on three of our most popular topics: required minimum distributions (RMDs), the stretch IRA and IRA rollovers. The rules are extremely confusing, and we clear them up for these three consumers in this mailbag.

The Roth IRA is one of the most useful tools in the retirement planning bag of tricks. But just as the quality of any tools at your local hardware store might vary from shelf to shelf, so too do the qualities of Roth IRA conversions you might execute. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with a “plain vanilla” conversion, but this article delves into a conversion strategy you might want to look into during stock market volatility: Roth-conversion-cost averaging.

This edition of the Slott Report Mailbag (one of two consumer mailbags this week!) examines how to name contingent beneficiaries, looks at the misconceptions of "taxable income" and answers a reader's question about contributing to an IRA on his wife's behalf.