IRS Publication 970 explains the tax benefits that may be available to individuals who are saving for or paying education costs for themselves or certain family members such as children. It includes information on Coverdell Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), qualified tuition programs (also called “529 plans”), student loan interest deductions, education savings bonds, and the education exception to the IRS 10% penalty for early IRA distributions. Read more to find out how you can use your IRA to pay for higher education.
You can invest your IRA funds in just about anything. However, you’re not allowed to invest IRA funds in collectibles, life insurance, and S Corp stock; but other than that, almost everything else would be allowed. It’s important to understand that when we talk about investing your IRA funds, we’re talking about investments inside your IRA. Someone recently learned a hard lesson when he invested his IRA funds outside his IRA, which caused a taxable IRA distribution that the IRS wouldn’t allow him to fix.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag goes situational - looking at an individual who forget to take his RMD (required minimum distribution) before rolling over his pension plan to an IRA, a woman who wants to find the best path to leave her IRA to her three sons and an employee who was re-hired by his old company and wants to know if he can roll his original 401(k) plan to an IRA. We have the expert answers.
The IRS limits how much you can contribute to an IRA each year, yet some IRA holders don't know about the IRA limits. What happened to a married couple when they exceeded them and failed to rectify the error?
Most of us know to check our mail around this time of the year for our copies of IRS Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Our employers have to send us copies of Form W-2 by January 31st of the following year. Because January 31, 2015 was a Saturday, the deadline to send us our 2014 Form W-2 was February 2, 2015. February 2 was also the deadline to receive another key form if you took an IRA distribution in 2014.
Soon, you’ll be getting a copy of your 2014 IRS Form 1099-R if you took an IRA distribution last year. You will be sent a copy by Monday February 2, 2015. How do you decode your early IRA distributions on this form?
When we think of retirement plan rollovers, we usually think about moving money between IRAs, or moving money from a company retirement plan to an IRA on a tax-free basis. For example, if you properly roll over money within 60 days from your IRA to another IRA or from your Roth IRA to another Roth IRA, the rollover is tax-free. Or maybe you retired and rolled over your 401(k) funds to your IRA. That rollover is also tax-free. But there is one type of rollover that is taxable.
This week's Slott Report Mailbag answers questions on how Roth conversions affect Medicare premiums, how the rules governing IRA rollovers have changed for 2015 and what individuals who converted to Roth IRAs in 2010 are now free to do with the funds.
The IRS recently released the 2014 version of Form 5329, Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts. The form, along with the accompanying instructions, is updated each year and is filed by the IRA owner to report certain penalty taxes they may owe with respect to their IRA. What are these tax penalties and how could they affect your account value?
The major Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) announcement pushed off last week's Slott Report Mailbag until this week, and it couldn't come at a better time. With 2014 hanging on by its coattails, year-end retirement planning is nearing its conclusion. In crunch time, advisors and consumers are asking specific questions about taking required minimum distributions (RMDs). It's only fitting that we received two questions on the topic this week.
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