Retirement Archive
The Economy and Other Retirement Account Mysteries
The economy and the markets were major factors in retirement plans last year. Roth individual retirement account 2010 conversions were recharacterized...
A Decent Proposal
Practitioners traditionally have had limited tools to address a taxpayer's individual retirement account. Since amounts in an IRA can be subject to both...
In-plan Roth Rollovers
An in-plan Roth rollover (IPRR) is effective for distributions from Internal Revenue Code Section 401(k) plans and IRC Section 403(b) plans made after...
How to Murder a 2010 Roth IRA Conversion
Last year 2010 was the first year tax-deferred individual retirement accounts could be converted into tax-free Roth IRAs without having to worry about...
Death by IRA Beneficiary Designation
Individual retirement accounts have long been treated as the proverbial red-headed stepchild of estate planning. Until recently, they were often overlooked,...
Taking Another Look at Roth IRAs
As the U.S. economy continues its sluggish recovery, and despite the turbulence and uncertainty of the global economy, there's a tremendous planning opportunity...
Valuable Resources
As practitioners in the world of estate planning and elder law, we're all aware that America's aging population faces countless and challenging legal...
Insurance Policy Management
Among other perplexing issues facing clients these days is what to do with life insurance policies that are calling out for attention, sometimes very...
Is Blood Thicker Than Water?
Family businesses are different from other businesses. Besides unique estate tax, succession and governance issues, family businesses must also deal effectively...
Transferring Life Insurance by Gift or Sale
A client who has a personally owned life insurance policy comes to you. You convince her to either sell or gift the policy to an irrevocable life insurance...
Liquidity Alternatives
As the baby boomers reach retirement age, more family businesses are faced with the issue of succession planning. The days of passing the family business...
Juggling Accounts
In 2010, the legislature, Internal Revenue Service and courts were busy dealing with retirement benefit issues. Congress expanded designated Roth accounts...
The Moratorium is Over
It's not news that individual retirement account owners must withdraw required minimum distributions (RMDs) from their IRAs after reaching age 70, or...
Correcting Unfavorable Beneficiary Designations in Trusts
PLR prevents post-mortem reformations of trusts as designated beneficiaries of IRAs...
Plan Ahead for Roth IRA Conversions
Beginning in 2010, individuals are allowed to convert or roll over certain distributions from retirement plans and IRAs to Roth IRAs regardless of their...
Creditor Claims on Retirement Benefits
Four recent court decisions shed some new light on certain situations clients may encounter in dealing with creditors' claims on individual retirement...
Using Trusts to Protect Benefits from Beneficiaries' Creditors
As Thomas C. Foster points out in his companion piece to this article (see p. 54), the law governing the protection of inherited individual retirement...
Offset Your Roth IRA Conversion Costs By Acting Charitably
Roth individual retirement accounts offer the enticing benefits of tax-free growth and the ability to make withdrawals during retirement when certain...
Are IRAs and Charities the Perfect Match?
You own individual retirement account and non-IRA assets. You want a certain amount of your estate to pass to charity, and you want the charitable gift...
Investment and Tax Strategies for A Changing Environment
For decades, the United States had a top marginal tax rate as high as 50, 70 and even 90 percent.1 As a matter of fact, for the past 50 years there have...
Identity Crisis
The retirement plan marketplace is experiencing an identity crisis of sorts. To help fix deficiencies in the 401(k) system, Congress passed the Pension...
Chase Away IRA Spousal Rollover Demons
When IRA custodians get nervous, they often need a private letter ruling to calm them down and tell them that what they're doing or planning to do is...
Cash Balance Plans
Investing for retirement can be problematic for professionals in partnerships or other types of closely held firms. Yes, that includes lawyers in law...
Roth IRA Conversions, Nontraditionally
A Roth IRA is the same thing as a traditional IRA, but with special features,1 including: Contributions to a Roth IRA aren't tax deductible, while contributions...
A MAT Sample Form
There are many ways to draft a modified accumulation trust. Here's one: Separate Accounting for Retirement Arrangements Except as otherwise provided in...
Consider the MAT
Recent private letter rulings issued by the Internal Revenue Service1 have created concern among estate-planning attorneys regarding the best way to draft...
The North Winds Howled
The year 2009 was very rough on retirement accounts. Not only did they take a hit from the economic downturn, but also many suffered because of swindlers like Bernard Madoff. And some were drained by the very rules, bureaucracies and agencies set up to administer them. ...
Disclaimers vs. ERISA
In the recent case of Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan et al.,1 the U.S. Supreme Court again confirmed its longstanding...
Trusteed IRAs: An Elegant Estate-planning Option
Experienced estate-planning practitioners know that the promise of the stretch IRA to prolong the account's tax-deferred or tax-free status thereby allowing...
Before Setting Up A Trusteed IRA
Internal Revenue Code Section 408(a) defines an IRA as a trust. . . for the exclusive benefit of an individual or his beneficiaries. But Section 408(h)...
Traditional Vs. Roth IRAs
In 2009, only individuals with a modified adjusted gross income of $100,000 or less are allowed to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. But this income...
Show Me the Money
Advisors recommending Roth IRA conversions had better be prepared to answer these questions from clients: For years, you've told me that I should postpone...
Want To Convert To a Roth IRA?
The year 2010 marks the first time that wealthy individuals will have easy access to a Roth IRA. Although they still won't be able to make contributions...
Consider the ESOP
In business succession and estate planning involving a closely held business, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) should be one of the prime planning...
Got Stretch-Out?
When a trust is to be the recipient of retirement plan assets and you want it to benefit from stretch-out, you're going to need to qualify that trust as a “see-through trust.”...
Cleaning Up the Mess Madoff Made of IRAs
There are some measures taxpayers can take to soften the toll frauds have taken on their retirement plans...
QPRTs Can Be A Good Deal Now
It seems counterintuitive, but qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs) can make a lot of sense now...
How Much Do We Need To Retire?
The growing number of retirees, their increased life expectancies and the size of their savings led us to wonder: How much accumulated income-producing...
Let's Finally Perfect The Spousal IRA Rollover
For some time, prominent commentators have requested that the Internal Revenue Service publish official guidance to deal with this increasingly common...
IRAs and the AVM
Although assets are typically valued for federal estate tax purposes as of the date of death, Internal Revenue Code Section 2032(a) provides that, generally,...
Left Reeling
Economic uncertainties and the full weight of a bear market have many Americans reeling. The squeeze is on for workers: They can't borrow against their...
The Good and the Very Bad
Elder law experienced no cataclysms in 2008. But significant trends emerged and public benefits planning continued to mature. First, the good news: Medicaid...
The Feds Must Stop Hounding the Elderly
Dear federal lawmakers: It's time to change the law so that individual retirement account custodians, not the elderly, are responsible for withdrawing...
Rescue Plans for IRAs Left to Marital Trusts
The Internal Revenue Service has been concerned about whether retirement benefit plans qualify for the marital deduction when they're left to a trust...
Webcast Musings
A recent webcast in which a veteran Internal Revenue Service representative participated provided insight into issues in spousal rollovers, income in...
When the Stretch Snaps: Computing Damages
When a retirement plan participant dies, the Internal Revenue Code's minimum distribution rules generally require that the plan benefits be distributed...
Ten Common Errors
For many clients, retirement benefits are their largest asset. For others, they are important even if not determinative. For all, the rules governing...
Client Considering Using His IRA For an Unconventional Investment?
Wealthy clients often ask advisors whether they should use their individual retirement accounts for unconventional investments. And now that the equity...
A Costly and Unnecessary Detour
Few things in the tax code are clearer than this: A surviving spouse named as the beneficiary of retirement plan death benefits of a deceased spouse can...
Notice 2008-30's Thumbs Up
In a move that generated considerable joy and surprise,1 the Internal Revenue Service announced in Notice 2008-30 that beginning this year, a decedent's...
Roth IRAs and You
You, too, can have a Roth individual retirement account (IRA). How? And why would you want to? The final regulations under Internal Revenue Code Section...
Sticky Situations
Retirement benefits present unique challenges to the fiduciary of a decedent's estate. In fact, an executor may have to grapple with three scenarios in...
Section 409A Alert
Estate planners need to identify Internal Revenue Code Section 409A issues when advising executives and professionals who participate in nonqualified...
Alternative Investments: Perils for IRA Trustees
Trustees of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) have increasingly seen participants turning to nontraditional or alternative investments in their accounts....
Whoops!
True story: a decedent's trust had been named beneficiary of an individual retirement account (IRA.) While the trust beneficiaries were busy arguing over...
A Great New Option: The Nonspousal Rollover
The Internal Revenue Code and regulations allow a beneficiary of a pension plan to stretch out required minimum distributions (RMDs) over her life expectancy....
PPA Guidance
Christopher R. Hoyt, professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, and Bruce D. Steiner, attorney in the New York office of Kleinberg,...
NEW U.S.-FRENCH TREATY PROTOCOLS
Carolyn DeVore of Pullman & Comley, LLC, in Westport, Conn., reports: The United States and France ratified significant protocols to their income tax...
It Was a Pretty Good Year
For those of us interested in retirement benefits and who isn't? there was a lot of change in 2006, including the enactment of the Tax Increase Prevention...
Pension Protection Act
Bruce D. Steiner, attorney, Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen, P.C , New York, has this overview of the recently adopted Pension Protection Act of 2006...
IRA Bequests To Charities
If you are thinking about naming a trust with a charitable beneficiary as the recipient of some of your retirement assets, here is a word of advice: Don't!...
Coping With The IRA Raid
Inheritors of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) who don't enjoy the tax-favored status of a surviving spouse can face steep income and estate tax...
Court Orders Work
What do you do if faced with a decedent's individual retirement account (IRA) beneficiary designation that names a trust with multiple beneficiaries,...
IRS Rejects UPIA 10 Percent Rule
If an asset is to qualify for the federal estate tax marital deduction as qualified terminal interest property (QTIP), the decedent's surviving spouse...
Transferring IRAs
It's often necessary or simply desirable to terminate an estate or trust in favor of its beneficiaries. Problems arise when that estate or trust is the...
A Gift from Uncle Sam
Staring in January, small business owners can line up to collect a gift from Uncle Sam. It's the Roth 401(k) and, according to financial advisors, it...
PENSION PLAN ALERT
If you have business-owner clients run do not walk to check that their pension plans are in order. And if they are not, quickly ask the Internal Revenue...
A Golden Opportunity
The year 2005 saw a lot of legislative and Treasury Department action in the employee benefit area. This is nothing new. Since the Employee Retirement...
Helpful Rulings
Some helpful rulings for retirement benefits planning were announced in 2005. One court ruling defines higher education expenses, a revenue ruling clarifies...
Keeping Benefits Safe From Creditors
Only a minority of clients seem to be aware of the need to protect accumulated tax-qualified retirement benefits1 from potential future creditors. In...
Double Deaths
Retirement benefits are typically left to the participant's surviving spouse with the expectation that she1 will do something with them: either roll the...
Why Not to Invest In Non-Deductible IRAs
People who are too wealthy to qualify for either a deductible individual retirement account (IRA) or a Roth IRA have the option of contributing to a non-deductible...
Take Note
The year 2004 saw developments in retirement benefits ranging from new final, minimum distribution regulations for defined benefit plans to a crackdown...
