IRA custodians are allowed to charge fees on IRAs, but the fees must be properly disclosed to you. These fees are required to be spelled out in the disclosure statement portion of the custodian's IRA document that you get when you open the IRA.
When it comes to moving retirement account money from one IRA (or other eligible retirement account) to another, Congress has given you a couple of options. On one hand, you can have the money sent right from one institution to another. This is known as a trustee-to-trustee transfer, or a direct rollover, and is the preferred way to move money, as it avoids a lot of problems. On the other hand, Congress also allows you to move money indirectly. Click for more information.
A client is leaving his employer. He is over age 55, but not yet age 59 ½, and he will need money from his retirement plan for living expenses. What are his options?
A Will is a legal document under state law where you name a person to manage your estate and divide your property after you die. Property in your estate must pass through “probate”, which is the process under your state’s law of how your estate is administered and who gets your property. Ideally, you should have a Will. If you don’t, then state law will decide who gets your property after you die. That might not be what you want, so it’s better for you to decide who gets what by having your own Will.
Last Tuesday, Senator Orin Hatch of Utah introduced new IRA-related legislation to the Congressional floor. The purpose of the bill had nothing to do with taxes, as you might first suspect, but rather, was introduced in an effort to strip the Department of Labor (DOL) of some of its power over IRAs. Below we discuss the role of certain federal and state entities play in IRAs.
While many Americans aren't saving enough for retirement, there are others who are saving a lot (true story). In fact, some of you have asked whether it's possible to contribute to more than one retirement plan for the same year. See the answer below.
Do you have a will, a trust, and retirement accounts? Who will get your retirement assets? Let’s say that your will says that everything goes to your spouse, your trust says that everything goes to your children, and the beneficiary form for your IRA says that everything goes to your spouse and your children equally. Who gets your IRA? These answers and more below.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag includes questions about helping your grandchildren pay for the ever-rising cost of college tuition plus the intricate 60-day IRA rollover rule.
Now that we are in the middle of the summer of 2013, have you ever thought about contributing to an IRA for your child or grandchild this year? It’s possible as long as certain rules are followed. We explain these rules below.
On June 26, 2013 the United States Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, commonly known as DOMA, as unconstitutional. In particular, the Supreme Court decided that if same-sex marriages are recognized under state law, the federal government must recognize those marriages as valid too. This has obvious implications for a virtually infinite list of financial items including federal tax issues, Social Security benefits, healthcare benefits and various rights with regard to retirement assets afforded under ERISA.
