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Question: A daughter who has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis is listed as the beneficiary on her father’s Roth IRA. Does this disease qualify as a “chronic illness” for purposes of the exception to the 10-year rule? Is there a definition that the IRS uses for chronic illness? If she doesn’t take the inherited IRA after 10 years but withdraws it based on her life expectancy, will the IRS send a letter to her where she has to prove chronic illness? If the IRS doesn’t agree, what will they assess her since the amount is not taxable? Answer: There is no list of illnesses that qualify as “chronically ill.” Instead, to meet the criteria as a chronically ill individual under the SECURE Act, the daughter must be certified (by a licensed health care practitioner) to be unable to perform at least 2 activities of daily living for at least 90 days, or require “substantial supervision” due to a severe “cognitive impairment.”

The coronavirus has been wreaking havoc on markets and millions of retirement account balances have suffered significant losses. This has left many IRA owners looking at lower account balances after several years of gains and wondering what the next step should be. One strategy to consider in a market downturn is a Roth IRA conversion. Why Convert Now? When you convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, your pretax traditional IRA funds will be included in your income in the year of the conversion. This increased income may impact deductions, credits, exemptions, phase-outs, the taxation of your social security benefits and Medicare Part B and Part D premiums; in other words, anything on your tax return impacted by an increase in your income.

Now that we live in a post-SECURE Act world, I have a 78 year old client that is still working...

When a person takes a distribution from his IRA or workplace plan, he has 60 days from the day of receipt to redeposit (i.e., roll over) those dollars into another qualified account. This assumes no other disqualifying rollovers have been done in the past 12 months and these dollars are otherwise eligible to be rolled over. If he fails to redeposit all or a portion of the withdrawal within the 60-day window, whatever amount remains outside of the IRA or workplace plan will potentially be subject to tax and potential penalties. How common are 60-day-rollover fails? Very. Unfortunately, people take withdrawals from retirement plans all the time, fully intent on rolling the money back. However, the reality is that many miss the deadline. But what if there were extenuating circumstances as to why the dollars were not rolled over within the 60-day period? After all, sometimes life gets in the way of the best intentions.

I have a client with AGI of $ 10,213, and he is under 50. After the standard deduction has taxable...

I already know the answer to this question, but I have a client who is being told something different from...

The amount of annual elective deferrals you can make to a 401(k) or 403(b) plan is limited by the tax code. If you discover that you’ve over-contributed in 2019, time is of the essence to correct the error. If you don’t act quickly, the tax consequences are serious. What is the limit? For 2019, you were limited to $19,000 in elective deferrals (plus an additional $6,000 if you were at least age 50 at the end of the year). It’s important to remember your deferrals to each company savings plan are normally aggregated for purposes of this limit. (There is an exception if you participate in both a 457(b) plan and a 403(b) plan.) How do you know whether you’ve exceeded the limit? Most plans have mechanisms in place to prevent you from exceeding the deferral limit in that plan.

Dad dies in 2018. 403(b) account is left to spouse,. She disclaims 75% so that the account then has four...

Hello. just met with a client and estate attorney. Client has a sizeable Roth IRA and would like to leave...

“You don’t really have a loss until you sell,” said Ed Slott, a certified public accountant and retirement-plan expert. “Often...