IRA

The 10% Penalty and Converted Funds – Five Things You Need to Know

The Roth IRA rules can be complicated. One area that is especially complex is understanding how the 10% penalty applies to converted Roth IRA funds. Here are five things you need to know if you already have converted funds in your Roth IRA or if you are just trying to decide whether Roth conversion is the right strategy for you.

America’s IRA Experts are in Las Vegas!

This week, Ed and I (Jeffrey Levine) are in Las Vegas for the first ever AICPA Engage Conference. Engage has taken some of the biggest (and in my humble opinion, best) AICPA conferences, such as the Advanced Personal Financial Planning Conference and the Advanced Estate Planning Conference, and merged them into one giant conference.

Important Ages in Retirement Planning

Catch-up contributions for most retirement plans and IRAs can be made beginning in the year you are going to turn age 50. The only plan that does not allow catch-up contributions is the SEP IRA. The following are the catch-up limit amounts.

How a Roth 401(k) is Different than a Roth IRA

Roth 401(k)s and Roth IRAs have a lot in common. Both offer the ability to make after-tax contributions now in exchange for tax-free earnings down the road if the rules are followed. However, there are some important differences between the two plans that you will want to understand.

Three Ways to Decimate a Retirement Account in a Flash

If you want to move your retirement account from one institution to another, you can do it one of two ways; directly or indirectly. Moving your account directly is the preferred way because it avoids a lot of headaches, but for various reasons, sometimes people choose to use the indirect method.

State and City-Run IRA Plans Are Not Going Away

On April 13, President Trump signed into law legislation that blocked Obama-era Department of Labor (DOL) regulations encouraging the establishment of IRA plans run by cities and municipalities. On May 17, he signed similar legislation applying to state-run IRAs. While these new developments may make the road ahead for both city and state run IRA plans more difficult, these plans are not going away.

DOL Fiduciary Rule to Go into Effect June 9

The long-running saga of the Department of Labor (DOL) fiduciary rule took another turn on May 22 when Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta confirmed that there would be no delay in the June 9, 2017, implementation date. Mr. Acosta said that after careful consideration, there was no legal basis to extend the deadline.

The 99% Rule for Spousal Beneficiaries of Retirement Accounts

It sounds funny to say, but death is a part of life for all of us. It’s one of the few things that all of us have in common at some point, and it’s one of the few issues that must be addressed in every plan. While every situation is unique and we all have our own goals and objectives, the overwhelming majority of married couples with IRAs and other similar accounts, such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s, name their spouse as their primary beneficiary as part of their estate plans. As such, knowing the rules for when a spouse inherits an IRA is critical for just about every married couple.

One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule and Spouse Beneficiaries

Hopefully, by now everyone has heard that IRA owners can only do one IRA-to-IRA or Roth IRA-to-Roth IRA 60-day rollover in any one-year period. This interpretation of the 60-day rollover rules was part of a 2014 Tax Court decision (Bobrow v. Commissioner, T.C.Memo. 2014-21). What was unclear from this ruling and from subsequent IRS guidance was whether or not the rule applied to a surviving spouse who inherited multiple IRAs from a deceased spouse.

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