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By Ian Berger, JDIRA Analyst One of the more controversial rules in the 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act is the requirement...

We are two weeks into 2025. Have you been following through on your New Year’s resolutions? As our readers already know, for...

By Sarah Brenner, JD Director of Retirement Education The year 2025 is upon us! There is no doubt that this...

Our daughter (age 50) is the sole beneficiary of her husband's (age 52) IRA due to his death in April 2024. Is there a time limit for when she must either take ownership or roll it over into her own IRA or other qualified plan?

I counted them. This year the Slott Report published 101 blog articles. While other sites add “pay-for-content” firewalls, we continue to pump out incredibly valuable and important information, week after week, totally free of charge. One would be hard-pressed to find an IRA or retirement plan topic we did not touch in 2024. Yes, the Slott Report is the gift that keeps on giving: the IRA version of the Jelly-of-the-Month Club.

In the May 8, 2024, Slott Report, we published a “cheat sheet” summarizing the confusing SECURE Act rules for beneficiary IRA (and company plan account) required minimum distributions (RMDs).

The holidays are upon us. There is shopping to do, gifts to wrap, and parties to attend. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the season, you may be forgiven if your retirement account is not at the top of your mind. However, for some retirement account owners and beneficiaries, a very important deadline is looming. December 31 is the deadline to take 2024 required minimum distributions (RMDs) for many individuals.

Year after year, this topic continues to bubble up. Confusion exists over when a QCD can be done in relation to the RMD. Qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) can offset all or a portion of an RMD (required minimum distribution). However, for whatever reason, the sequencing of these items (QCDs and RMDs) confounds people. Let’s set the record straight, starting with some QCD fundamentals:

Get ready! Several new 401(k) provisions from the SECURE 2.0 Act kick in on January 1, 2025. One that we’ve already written about is the ability of employees to make extra catch-up contributions in a year they turn age 60, 61, 62 or 63 by the end of the year. (This “super catch-up” also applies to SIMPLE IRA participants.) Here are two others:

Each year it is a Thanksgiving tradition here at the Slott Report to take a moment to give thanks for the rules that are helpful to retirement savers. There are many times when rules governing retirement accounts can seem illogical, confusing, and maybe even unfair. However, there are other rules that work well and give us the tools necessary to not only save for a secure retirement but maybe even get a few tax breaks along the way.