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Suppose you unexpectedly incur a major liability, from a lawsuit or some other unforeseen cause. Will the funds in your IRA be protected from your creditors? Maybe ... or maybe not. Here are the rules:

There is a lot of paperwork involved when you open an IRA account. You have to prove to the bank who you are and that your funds are legitimate. There is an account opening form and a beneficiary form to be completed. After you do all of that, then you get a multi-page, tiny print document, which is the IRA agreement. It does not require a signature, yet it is the contract between you and the IRA custodian that you have agreed to abide by.

Have you recently converted your traditional IRA to Roth IRA? Are you under 59 ½? If so, you will want to know about the five-year rule for penalty-free distributions of converted funds from your Roth IRA.

One of the most difficult aspects of starting a business is obtaining proper funding. While banks have begun lending again, loans for startup businesses are still difficult to obtain.

Having just one IRA instead of several may simplify paperwork and minimize fees. But when you begin to think about leaving IRA funds to heirs, consider using more than one IRA to do so.

This week's Slott Report Mailbag answers readers' questions about commingling assets and QCDs.

It now appears that the new fiduciary rules proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) back in June of 2016 are all but dead. Late last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a last-minute appeal of its March 15th decision to toss the DOL rules. The appeal was filed by the AARP and three states (New York, California, and Oregon), not the DOL.

Let's say you wish to contribute to an IRA in 2018 but have too much income to make a either a deductible contribution to a traditional IRA or a contribution to a Roth IRA. You still have the option to make a nondeductible contribution to a traditional IRA. Might this make sense for you?

This week's Slott Report Mailbag answers readers' questions about leaving money to charities and Roth conversion penalties.

If you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) with family coverage, determining your 2018 contribution limit has been an adventure. This in one of the many unintended consequences of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).