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Recharacterization Deadline is Approaching

Approaching as quickly as a Caribbean hurricane is October 17, 2011, the day of reckoning for undoing 2010 Roth conversions. A recharacterization means reversing your Roth IRA conversion as if it never happened. Once this date passes, most individuals who made 2010 conversions that they did not recharacterize will be irrevocably locked into them as well as their accompanying tax bills.

War Story – Naming a Trust as an IRA Beneficiary

We have written several times about the various aspects of naming a trust as beneficiary of an IRA. We have indicated when it would be appropriate to do so, as well as defined the complexities involved with such an undertaking.

Volatile Markets – What NOT To Do

Your client, prospect or you are jittery because of today's extremely volatile markets. He decides to move some of his IRA money to another investment. In order to do this, he decides to take a distribution of some of his IRA money to move to another custodian, perhaps a self-directed IRA custodian. But with the swings in the market he gets nervous that he might miss out on the upside while he is waiting for the paperwork to be processed for the new IRA. So he uses his IRA money, while it is outside of the IRA, to purchase his new investment. He figures he can just put the investment back into the new IRA, no harm, no foul, right?

Form 5329: Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans and Other Tax-Favored Accounts

What is Form 5329? Its title is "Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts." You should file the form whenever you miss a required distribution, take a distribution before age 59 ½ when one of the penalty exceptions does not apply, and when you make excess contributions. Those are most of the reasons to file the form. The form calculates any additional taxes owed (what are often called penalties) for certain IRA transactions. Not filing the form could only make things much, much worse.

Content Citation Guidelines

Below is the required verbiage that must be added to any re-branded piece from Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC. The verbiage must be used any time you take text from a piece and put it onto your own letterhead, within your newsletter, on your website, etc. Verbiage varies based on where you’re taking the content from.

Please be advised that prior to distributing re-branded content, you must send a proof to [email protected] for approval.

For white papers/other outflow pieces:

Copyright © [year of publication], [Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC – depending on what it says on the original piece] Reprinted with permission [Ed Slott and Company, LLC or IRA Help, LLC – depending on what it says on the original piece] takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this information.

For charts:

Copyright © [year of publication], Ed Slott and Company, LLC Reprinted with permission Ed Slott and Company, LLC takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this information.

For Slott Report articles:

Copyright © [year of article], Ed Slott and Company, LLC Reprinted from The Slott Report, [insert date of article], with permission. [Insert article URL] Ed Slott and Company, LLC takes no responsibility for the current accuracy of this article.

Please contact Matt Smith at [email protected] or (516) 536-8282 with any questions.