Getting Your Financial Ducks In A Row Rotating Header Image

IRA

When a 60-day Rollover is Not a 60-day Rollover

Review of a PLR that provides relief for a taxpayer who did not complete a rollover within the required 60 days.

Staging Your Roth IRA Conversion

You can benefit in the long run by staging your Roth IRA conversions. This can reduce taxes and potentially eliminate RMDs.

A Good Reason to Not Convert to Roth

Another facet that you might want to think about as you consider whether to convert traditional IRA monies to Roth IRA.

Determining Your MAGI

Do you know how to calculate your MAGI (Modified Adjusted Gross Income)? It’s important to know when you’re contributing to an IRA.

IRA Cross Loans – Don’t Even Think About It

Don’t attempt to go around the prohibited transaction rules by using cross loans with your IRA. It won’t turn out well.

IRA Charitable Distributions – If You’re Less Than Age 70½

Can you make IRA charitable distributions before age 70½? What are the tax consequences for doing this? How does it all work?

Prohibited Transactions and Disqualified Persons

There’s a fine line when transacting business with individuals using your IRA. You need to make sure they’re not prohibited transactions.

Wash Sale Rules and IRAs

Do you know how the wash sale rule applies to IRAs? You need to be careful about what you’re doing when harvesting tax losses.

Wash Sale Rules

If you sell an investment at a loss, you need to be careful about how you re-invest the money so that you can avoid the wash sale rules.

Are You Really Diversified?

You may not be as diversified as you think. Learn more about correlation among various asset classes and how you can use this to your benefit

Social Security vs. Saving

Examining Social Security versus saving – a hypothetical exercise, answering if we’re better off with Social Security or saving the money.

Running Afoul of the One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule (and How to Fix It)

In case you’re not aware of it, there is a strict rule that the IRS applies with regard to IRA rollovers: you are allowed to roll funds over from an IRA using the 60-day rule only once during each 12-month period. FYI: Trustee-to-trustee transfers are not considered rollovers for this rule. Here’s an example of what could happen: Early in the year, you withdraw some money from your IRA to help you catch up on some bills. Then, you receive a bonus within the 60-day period after your withdrawal, so you deposit those funds back into the same (or any other) IRA. Later in the year, you want to take another short-term distribution from your IRA, and once again circumstances present the opportunity to put the funds back into the first IRA… but now you’re stuck. You can’t roll the distribution back into the original IRA (or any IRA), since […]

RMDs in 2022 and beyond

New tables are available for calculating RMDs in 2022 and beyond. For most folks it’s an easy adjustment – a bit more involved for inherited IRAs.

3 Ways of Dealing Without Recharacterization

Recharacterization of a Roth conversion has been gone for quite a while now. Risk reduction is more complicated now, but still possible.

Combining IRAs with Other Retirement Plans

Do you know the rules for combining various retirement plans with one another? It’s important to know these so you don’t do it wrong.

How to Bypass Mandatory Withholding on a 401(k) Distribution

When you take a distribution from your 401(k), 20% is withheld automatically. How can you bypass this withholding?