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employer plan

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.

5 Facts You Need to Know About Your Retirement Plan

Image via Wikipedia Many of us are covered by one or more types of defined contribution retirement plans, such as a 401(k), 403(b), 457, or any of a number of other plans. What many of these plans have in common is that they are referred to as Cash Or Deferred Arrangements (CODA), as designated by the IRS.  These plans are also often referred to as Qualified Retirement Plans (QRPs). Each type of plan has certain characteristics that are a little different from other plans, but most of them have the common characteristic of deductibility from current income and deferred taxation on growth. (Note that this list of plans does not include IRAs. IRAs have certain characteristics that are completely different from QRPs, and vice-versa.) 1. Each dollar you defer is worth more than a dollar. It’s true. As you defer money into your retirement account, each dollar that you defer […]

8 Things to Consider Before Rolling Over Your 401(k)

K’nex (Photo credit: -Snugg-) Employers have been giving us lots of opportunities to make this decision of late: when leaving an employer, whether voluntarily or otherwise, we have the opportunity to rollover the qualified retirement plan (QRP) such as a 401(k) from the former employer to either an IRA or a new employer’s QRP. This decision shouldn’t be taken lightly – although often it is the best option for you.  Moving to an IRA gives you much more control over your destiny, so to speak, by allowing you to choose from the entire universe of allowable investment choices.  Using your new employer’s QRP can give you a better sense of control over the account as well, although the flexibility of an IRA is generally preferable to another QRP. But sometimes it makes the most sense to leave your money in the old plan.  Listed below are eight possible reasons that […]

Spouse May Be Your Best Option for IRA Beneficiary

Image via Wikipedia Since a surviving spouse gets the most tax breaks of all possible beneficiaries (other than a charity, perhaps), it seems that choosing your spouse as the beneficiary of your IRA may be the best way to go. This is partly due to the availability of delaying taking distributions.  Any other beneficiary must begin taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) by the end of the year following the year of the original IRA owner’s death.  The spouse beneficiary may defer distributions to the year in which the deceased would have reached age 70½, without taking any action. In addition, any other beneficiary besides the spouse is required to take the RMDs over his or her fixed-term single-life expectancy, while the spousal beneficiary can choose to take the RMDs over his or her single-life expectancy recalculated annually, so that the distributions will actually stretch out over his or her entire […]