The Slott Report
The 60-Day IRA Rollover Cheat Sheet – What Counts and What Doesn’t
IRS has announced that they are going to go along with the Tax Court decision in the Bobrow case, but they won’t do so until at least January 1, 2015. What's this mean? We detail this ruling below.
Slott Report Mailbag: The Tricky Balance of Retirement Planning Funds on the Move
3 Ways to Make Filing Next Year’s Tax Return Less Taxing
April 16th is here. The blossoms are budding on the trees, the birds are beginning to chirp and, of course, CPAs and tax preparers everywhere are coming out of a 2 ½ month hibernation. Tax season is officially over. With that in mind, taxes may be the last thing you want to talk about right now, but with the sting of this year’s tax season still fresh, now’s the time to start thinking about a few easy steps to help make next year’s tax season a little less... well… taxing! Here are three such steps you might want to consider.
Using Your Income Tax Refund as an IRA Contribution
If you're lucky enough to be getting an income tax refund from IRS for 2013, you might be wondering what you can do with that money. Certainly you can use it to pay some bills, or treat yourself to something you've wanted to buy for a while. But if you're thinking about using that refund to help save for retirement, you're in luck. The IRS allows you to have that refund check directly deposited into an IRA if you follow certain procedures when you file your federal income taxes for 2013.
After-Tax IRA Contributions, Distributions, Conversions at Tax Time
How do I tell IRS that my IRA distribution or Roth conversion is not taxable? We get this question fairly frequently at tax time - especially if the client has done a "backdoor" Roth conversion. Click to find the answer and more information on After-Tax IRA Contributions, Distributions, and Conversions at tax time.
Slott Report Mailbag: Can I Convert SEP IRA Funds to a Roth IRA?
3 Things You Didn’t Know About IRA Prohibited Transactions
Prohibited transactions are a list of things that you cannot do with your retirement account. In fact, they are one of the worst things you can do with a retirement account. When a prohibited transaction occurs, your entire IRA is deemed distributed as of January 1 of the year you made the prohibited transaction. This can lead to any number of negative consequences, the least of which include massive taxation and penalties. Since the prohibited transaction rules are so important, the basic information can be readily found in IRS publications and other places on the web, but here are 3 things most people don’t know about them.
How to CORRECTLY Report Tax-Free IRA-to-IRA Rollovers on Your Tax Return
As we approach the April 15, 2014 tax filing deadline, one of the things you have to report on your tax return is an IRA-to-IRA rollover. Whether you’ve already filed your taxes for 2013 or you’re waiting until the last minute, here is how to correctly report a tax-free IRA-to-IRA rollover. Don’t assume that because an IRA-to-IRA rollover is tax-free that it doesn’t need to be reported on your tax return; it has to be reported!
IRA Custodian Creates 60-Day Rollover Problems
In a recent 60-day rollover private letter ruling request, an individual was allowed to complete a rollover of only a portion of his IRA distribution. Click to find out what happened.