Hopefully you already know this – if you have a loan from your 401(k) plan and you leave employment, either on your own or if you’re terminated, the loan is considered a distribution from your plan, and therefore taxable. It’s important to note – this only applies when you leave employment. Here’s an example: you [...]
Posts under ‘IRA’
Your Retirement Plan and Where You Live
We’ve covered a lot of ground with regard to how various tax laws impact your retirement plans: pensions, IRAs, 403(b) and 401(k) plans. But we’ve primarily focused on the US income tax laws (the IRS) affect your plans – and there are many nuances that you need to take into account with regard to state [...]
The 2010 Roth Conversion Opportunity
Time is swiftly running out to take advantage of the unique opportunity for deferral of tax payments on Roth IRA Conversions in 2010. In case you’re not up-to-snuff on this, in 2010 all taxpayers with traditional IRAs or qualified retirement plans that are eligible for rollover have the opportunity to convert the account (or part [...]
Valuation for Roth IRA Conversions
You’ve read all about Roth IRA conversions, and you know a lot about the questions that one must resolve in order to make one of these conversions work out for you. Have you considered how the valuation rules will impact your decision process? Valuation of your IRA If you have IRAs that contain both pre-tax [...]
A Terrible, Terrible Idea
My thanks for Natalie Choate for analyzing and pointing out the following information. Ms. Choate is truly a rock star in the world of IRA law, and much gratitude is owed to her by those of us in the financial community for her thorough analysis and commentary that she provides on such matters as this. [...]
Using Capital Gains and Losses to Help With a Roth Conversion
Many analyses done with respect to Roth IRA conversions only come out to a positive outcome when the attendant tax on the conversion is paid from non-IRA sources. For many folks this shoots down the entire prospect, as there is no available cash outside of IRAs and other investments to use to pay the tax [...]
Roth Conversion While Receiving 72t Payments
With all of the conversation going on with regard to Roth IRA Conversions, I thought it would be useful to address a special set of circumstances with regard to Conversions. As the title implies – we’re talking about the eligibility of an IRA for conversion if it is also subject to 72t, or a Series [...]
Should You Separate Your Rollovers From Your Contributory IRAs?
For the most part, it is often recommended to merge all of your IRA money together into a single account, to simplify record-keeping, allocation, and paperwork in general. However, there may be circumstances where it could make very good sense to separate your contributory IRAs from 401(k) plan rollovers – and it pertains to creditor’s [...]
Rolling Your IRA into a 401(k) – to Avoid RMD
In a recent article I pointed out a few additional reasons that might make you want to rollover your old 401(k) plan into an IRA – but there are also good reasons, in particular circumstances, that it might make sense to move your IRA funds into a 401(k) plan. One of those reasons might be [...]
More reasons to keep on rolling (to an IRA, that is)
We have discussed in the past that it is usually better to rollover an old 401(k) plan from a former employer to an IRA – more flexibility in investments, (usually) lower costs, more control, etc., are among the chief reasons to do so. However, in some cases your old 401(k) plan may have access to [...]
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