Millions of Americans were affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. You may be one of them. If you are, there is some encouraging news. On September 29, President Trump signed H.R. 3823, the “Disaster Tax Relief and Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2017” into law. The new law provides a package of tax relief for Hurricane victims, including a provision that allows penalty-free distributions from retirement accounts.
This is the story of Al, Bob and Carl. Each cousin is the non-spouse beneficiary of his father’s 401(k) plan. Their fathers worked together at the local automotive factory for their entire lives and were all covered by the same plan. The default distribution option in the plan for non-spouse beneficiaries is a five-year payout.
Did you convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in 2016 and now you are reconsidering that move? Did you make a 2016 traditional IRA contribution and later discover the contribution was not deductible? Did you contribute to a Roth IRA, not knowing that your income was above the limits for eligibility? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, there is a deadline rapidly approaching that you will want to know about. That is the October 16, 2017 deadline for recharacterizing 2016 conversions and IRA contributions. Here are 8 things you need to know about recharacterization.
Many times when individuals divorce the IRA is split between the spouses. This is done through the divorce decree or separation agreement. An IRA is never split using a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO). That is only used for splitting employer plans, such as 401(k)s.
As medical expenses continue to increase, planning for them in retirement takes on greater importance. One approach is to shift thinking of the Health Savings Account (HSA) as an account to defray medical expenses annually to an account with pre-tax dollars and tax-free earnings to defray medical expenses years from now in retirement.
Have you inherited an IRA? What type of IRA is it? Your answer will matter a lot when it comes to your tax bill. Inheriting a traditional IRA will have very different tax consequences than inheriting a Roth IRA.
Generally, when you receive a check from your IRA custodian or employer plan, you have 60 days to rollover the funds to another retirement account, either an IRA or an employer plan. As with most retirement plan rules, this rule comes with two exceptions – one good and one bad. Let’s look at what happens when Lori receives a check.
The once-per-year rollover rule says that you can only roll over one IRA distribution from all of your IRAs (both traditional and Roth) in a one-year period. This is a tricky rule and many taxpayers have run into trouble with it. One area that can be very confusing is determining exactly what the definition of “year” is.
Warning! The options described here are for spouse beneficiaries named on the beneficiary forms of IRA accounts. Non-spouse beneficiaries and spouses who inherit through an estate have a different sets of rules.
No one can argue that the millennial generation faces big challenges when it comes to savings. Younger workers are dealing with record setting student loan debt, high housing costs and stagnant wage growth. It’s hard to save for retirement when you are worried about the next month’s rent. Here are five strategies to help younger workers get started saving for retirement.
