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Roth conversion

Pre-Death Planning: Roth Conversion

Jan 25th, 2012
by jblankenship.
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Eilaine Roth
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Financial planning often requires us to face our own certain demise – something that we often don’t want to do, but still a certainty that we all must face.

Among the things that we want to do when planning for the inevitable would be to make certain that our surviving loved ones have access to adequate monetary resources to support themselves, in the most cost-effective manner.  Another thing that we hope to accomplish is to make the transition as easy as possible for our loved ones.  One way to do this is to convert a good portion of your IRA or other tax-deferred funds to a Roth IRA account.  Here’s why:

By converting to a Roth account, you will make the funds in that account available to your heirs totally tax free.

Granted, your estate will also be smaller by the amount of tax that you paid on the conversion.  At the same time, your heirs will also not have to go through the rather painstaking process of managing the IRD deduction, if the estate is of a size that requires estate tax to be paid.  This will simplify the overall process dramatically, and depending upon the size of your overall estate this could be a significant.

On the downside of this, it’s likely that if you convert your account in a single year the tax paid on the conversion would be much, much higher than if your heirs paid tax on the ordinary required distributions if the account is left as a traditional IRA.

However, if you converted your account over several years in smaller amounts using a strategy like filling up the brackets, the overall tax cost of the conversion will be less, maybe even less than the cost that your heirs would experience otherwise.

You can always use recharacterization strategies to make sure that the whole process is as tax-efficient as possible. And in today’s tax climate (and market volatility) there are literally very few reasons not to go ahead with a Roth conversion strategy.

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If You Converted to Roth in 2010 – You Have About 50 Days Left to Recharacterize

Aug 24th, 2011
by jblankenship.
3 comments
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For those of you who took advantage of the one-time opportunity in 2010 to convert IRA funds to Roth IRA accounts, spreading the tax over the following two years (2011 and 2012), you are faced with a decision-point:  if you have reason to recharacterize the conversion, you have to do this by October 18, 2011.

Why might you want to recharacterize?

Here’s a ferinstance: If you converted $10,000 from your IRA account on December 31, 2010 into your Roth IRA and invested it in the S&P 500, that $10,000 converted is now worth approximately $8,997 (using a recent price).

If you are in the 25% bracket, you will owe $2,500 on the conversion, which equates to 27.79% in taxes on the conversion.  If your chosen investments did worse than the S&P 500 (and you know some of them probably did), your effective tax will be even higher.

Now, chances are that your investment may increase in value before you actually pay the tax on your 2011 and 2012 returns, but then again maybe it won’t.  Why pay the extra tax (or rather, the tax on the extra amount) if you don’t have to?

You can recharacterize the amount in your Roth IRA that corresponds to this conversion back into your traditional IRA – but you must do it before October 18.  At that time, you’ll also want to file an amended tax return showing that the conversion “did not happen” for tax year 2010.

On the other hand

If you bought the S&P 500 about a year ago with that same $10,000, it’s likely worth about $10,335 today, so you might want to leave the conversion alone.  Now your effective tax rate on the conversion (if you’re in the 25% bracket) is only about 24.19%.  Granted, it’s not a dramatic increase, but still it probably is better than you originally thought when you started this process.  And you’ve got two more years to pay all of the tax.

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NonDeductible IRA Contributions: Good or Bad Idea?

Jun 29th, 2011
by jblankenship.
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ideas
Image by Sean MacEntee via Flickr

If you find yourself in the position of having too high of an income to make a deductible contribution to your IRA for the year ($110,000 for joint filers in 2011, $66,000 for Single and Head of Household), you may be wondering if it’s a good idea to make a non-deductible contribution to your IRA.

There are two opposing camps on this issue, and the deciding factor is how you’re intending to use the funds in the near term.

It’s a Good Idea

If you’re intending to convert your IRA to a Roth and your income is too high to just make the contribution directly to the Roth account, the non-deductible IRA may be the right choice for you.  This way you’re effectively working around the income limitations of the Roth contribution ($179,000 for joint filers in 2011 or $122,000 for single or head of household filers).

You also have more funds available in your IRA account, which provides you with the ability to take advantage of economies of scale – certain mutual funds have higher minimum purchase amounts, for example.  Since the money is in an IRA you don’t have to track holding periods, non-qualified dividends versus qualified dividends, and your paperwork is reduced.

In addition, depending upon your state laws your money may be protected against creditors since it’s part of an IRA.

No, It’s a Bad Idea

If you’re not planning to convert this IRA to Roth, you’re effectively increasing the tax cost of your investment gains (under today’s law).  Since withdrawals of investment gains from your IRA are taxed at ordinary income tax rates (up to 35% under today’s rates), you’re effectively giving yourself a tax increase over the capital gains rate which is 15% at the maximum these days.

Instead of making a non-deductible contribution to your IRA, you could just make your investment in a taxable account.  Then within this account you could make investments geared toward long-term gains rather than income or dividends, therefore deferring tax until you sell the investment.  And when you do sell the investment it will be taxed at the currently much lower capital gains rate versus the ordinary income tax rate (which would be applied if you made your contribution in the IRA).

Conclusion

So – depending on what you’re planning to do with the account, a non-deductible contribution could be a good idea or a bad idea.  You will have to make that call.  Hopefully the information above will help you with your decision.

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More Clarification on Rollovers and Transfers

Apr 20th, 2011
by jblankenship.
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I’m compelled to provide an additional update to the posts I’ve provided in the past in the article Running Afoul of One Rollover Per Year Rule and its follow-up More on the One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule.  This is primarily to provide clarity to a portion of this rule that I personally was unclear on when the articles were originally written.

The rule is that you are restricted to one IRA rollover in a 12-month period.  So let’s define a few things for the purpose of this discussion:

Rollover – this is when you move money from one IRA to another, first taking possession of the funds prior to depositing the funds into the new (or the same old) account.  You have 60 days to complete this process.  At the end of the tax year you’ll receive a 1099R from the original custodian, with a distribution code of 1 or 7 (this form is important to the rule).

Transfer – Also known as a trustee-to-trustee transfer or a direct rollover, in this case you do not take possession of the funds, they are transferred directly from one IRA to another.  Another possible way this could occur if you receive a check from the old custodian made out to the new custodian.  Typically this sort of movement of funds does not generate a 1099R at the end of the year, as you’ve not actually made a distribution – no taxable event has occurred.

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12 months – this really means a full year, 365 days in a normal year, 366 days in a leap year.

The Rule

Now that we have our definitions, here is the rule:

You are restricted to only one Rollover for each IRA account, either receiving or distributing during a full 12 months from the date of distribution.

Transfers are not influenced by this rule. You are allowed to make as many transfers between IRAs as you like, uninhibited by the rule.

An example is in order:  You have an IRA at Mutual Fund Company A, and you take a rollover distribution, and you deposit the money into your IRA account at Brokerage B.  You are restricted in that you cannot make any other rollovers into or out of these two IRAs.

If you have other IRAs, the rule does not apply to those – only IRAs that have been subject to rollover (as defined above) into or out of them within the previous 12 months.

Roth IRA Conversions and Recharacterizations do not apply to this rule either – these are different sorts of distributions, and can be taxable events, but are not subject to this rule’s restriction.

Lastly, the rule does not apply to rollovers into or out of Qualified Retirement Plans (QRPs) such as a 401(k).  You are free to do as many rollovers into or out of an IRA to/from QRPs with no time restrictions.

Hopefully this has helped to fully clarify the rule.

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Tax Bill Higher Than You Expected?

Apr 18th, 2011
by jblankenship.
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Now that you’ve (hopefully) filed your return for 2010, you may have noticed that the bill was higher than you expected.  This may be due to some subtle changes to the tax law that affected your return for this year.  Listed below are some of the changes that you may have been impacted by:

Social Security taxation: Especially if you had unusual income taxed in 2010, such as a Roth Conversion, you could be subject to as much as 85% taxation of your Social Security benefit.

Alternative Minimum Tax: If you’ve been impacted by this, not only are your ordinary income tax items taxed at a higher rate, but your capital gains and dividends could be taxed at a rate higher than 15% as well.  This happens for folks with incomes between $150,000 and $439,800 (or $112,500 and $302,300 for singles) as the AMT exemption phaseout occurs.

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Child Tax Credit: If your income is over $110,000 ($75,000 if filing Single), the Child Tax Credit reduces by $50 for each $1,000 over that limit.  This has the effect of increasing the marginal tax rate by 5% for each child, as your income increases.

Passive Loss phaseout for rental realty: If your AGI is greater than $100,000, the deduction of up to $25,000 of losses from rental real estate is phased out up to an AGI of $150,000 when the deduction is eliminated altogether.  This can increase the marginal tax rate by 50% ($25,000 credit eliminated as your income increases by $50,000).

There may be other reasons that impact your tax bill, but these are some that have recently come to light as typically occurring.

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The Roth Recharacterization

Feb 16th, 2011
by jblankenship.
1 comment

420px-Fruchos_character_at_Norwood_Christmas_Pageant_2008After all the hoopla around Roth conversions in 2010, now is the time to consider whether or not a recharacterization is in your future.  So what is a recharacterization, and how does it work?

Recharacterization is the “backing out” of your Roth conversion.  In other words, you can literally make the conversion as if it had never been done at all, with your money back in the traditional IRA where it started.

Why would you want to do that?  Here’s an example: let’s say you converted $100,000 to a Roth IRA in 2010 and you are ready to pay the tax on your 2010 return (you elected out of the spread to 2011 and 2012).  Except that now, your investment in the Roth IRA has dropped in value to only $50,000 – and you still owe tax on the conversion of $100,000!  Yikes – that’s just totally wrong!

Recharacterization can help to save you in this situation.  As long as you act before the due date of your return (including extensions), you can put recharacterization to work for you, moving the $50,000 back to the traditional IRA.  It will be as if nothing was done at all, and no taxes are owed.

Actually, as far as the IRS is concerned you are not moving $50,000 back, you’re moving the original $100,000 and the gains or losses on that original $100,000, which happens to equal $50,000.

Recharacterization Strategy

One way to use this to your advantage is to split your Roth conversions up into separate accounts by specific types of assets, so that if one of the asset types (or more) happens to drop significantly in value, you can recharacterize the conversion on only that account, leaving the other account(s) intact.

This would help with your record-keeping, since any amount that you recharacterize from a Roth to a traditional IRA must include the gains or losses that are attributable to the recharacterized amount.  Of course, you wouldn’t likely recharacterize unless you had net losses in the Roth account – although you might find that recharacterization is a good option if you came up short of cash to pay the tax on the original conversion.

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