With Veteran's Day quickly approaching, Ed Slott and Company IRA Technical Consultant Jeffrey Levine detailed 3 retirement-related tax breaks members of the United States armed forces can take advantage of before year-end.
Suppose you are one of the many retirement account owners who converted funds to a Roth IRA in 2010 when there was a special 2-year “deal” on paying the taxes. Now you are wondering when you can take a distribution of those funds. The simple answer is that you can always take a distribution of your converted funds. However, depending on what you withdraw, you may not be happy with the tax consequences. Here are the rules.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag discusses several topics dealing with the 2013 tax laws, including limits on personal exemptions and the gift tax exemption. Several of these questions require complete understanding of NEW tax laws, so make sure your financial advisor is verse in the latest tax law updates.
You are under age 59 ½ and need funds from your IRA to live on. You set up an early distribution payment plan that will be exempt from the 10% early distribution penalty (called 72(t), SOSEPP, or SEPP payments). You now want to move that account from your current IRA custodian to a new one. Can you do that? Click to find out.
IRA distributions that you take before age 59 ½ are considered early distributions that are subject to an IRS 10% early distribution penalty unless an exception applies. For IRAs, there are many exceptions to the penalty including death, disability, higher education, and others. A lesser known exception to the penalty applies if you use IRA funds to buy your first house.
There are a number of excuses, more formally known as exceptions, that you can use to get out of the 10% penalty and lessen your tax burden. One such exception is for disability. Below, we discuss five important facts you need to know about this exception if you plan on trying to use it to avoid the 10% penalty.
Tradition has it that when a man and a woman get married, the woman typically takes the last name of her husband. Although today, many choose to modify this tradition, perhaps by hyphenating their maiden name with their husband’s surname, or do away with it altogether and keep their own name, there are still many who keep this tradition alive.
If you are thinking about going back to school but don't have the money, you can potentially use your IRA to pay for higher education expenses. Unfortunately, the distribution from your Traditional IRA will be taxable.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag covers some common questions we receive each week. One question deals with the date of a person's first required minimum distribution (RMD), another with a family member using their IRA to purchase their son's mortgage and a third on combining an inherited IRA with an individual's own IRA.
Last week, Hurricane Sandy - a.k.a. Frankenstorm - pounded the eastern part of the United States. In the days since, thousands have been displaced from their homes, more are still without power and millions have been financially impacted by the storm that, by some estimates, could top $50 billion in damages. Unfortunately, many of those who’ve been affected could be about to make - or may have already made – a bad situation worse by making costly financial and tax mistakes or top of the losses suffered as a result of Hurricane Sandy.
