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.
If you have a retirement plan where you work, that plan might allow you to take a distribution from it if you are experiencing financial hardship. Employer retirement plans are not required to provide for hardship distributions, so make sure to check with the plan administrator. Here is IRS FAQs regarding retirement plan hardship distributions.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag looks into two tricky areas of IRA planning. The first is how IRA distributions affect an individual's income, and in turn, their susceptibility to the 3.8% health care surtax. We then answered a question about the equally problematic Roth IRA 5-year rules.
If you have an IRA, you have access to your money at any time and for any reason (unless the IRA custodian has limits on your access). Unlike an employer retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or pension plan, you don’t have to ask anyone if you can take money out of your IRA to pay some bills. Your IRA is completely under your control, and no one can stop you from taking a distribution. But there are risks when you use your IRA funds for personal expenses during the 60-day rollover period.
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.
Approximately half of all Americans work for employers that currently don't have a retirement plan. That works out to be around 78 million employees. This issue, combined with a declining national savings rate and the projected funding problems of the Social Security system, has forced some lawmakers to propose ways to entice Americans to increase their savings for retirement. One example of such proposed legislation is the Automatic IRA.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag focuses on Roth IRAs and answers some of the more popular questions we receive. Should I go through with a Roth IRA conversion? Do I have to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) from my Roth IRA? Click to read a Q&A with our IRA Technical Expert.
On May 22nd, Congressman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) introduced H.R. 2117, The Retirement Plan Simplification and Enhancement Act of 2013, in the House of Representatives. H.R. 2117 is proposed legislation that is intended to boost retirement savings.
We are going back to basics in this week's Slott Report Mailbag with questions revolving around the foundation of IRA planning. Converting and accessing funds and avoiding penalties are the fundamental keys you and your financial team grapple with each day.
In order to make an IRA contribution, you must be younger than age 70 1/2 for the year and also have wages or compensation from your job. Once you make your IRA contribution, then you have to figure out whether it's tax deductible or not.
