5 Things Taxpayers Can Proactively Do To Best Take Advantage of the New Income and Estate Tax Law

Posted on by in 401(k), 403(b), Estate Tax, IRAs.

There are some BIG changes for taxpayers in the creation of the new 2010 Tax Relief/Job Creation Act.  How can you best respond to this law?  Take a look at these 5 things all taxpayers can proactively do to best take advantage of the changes:

1.  With the money you save on the reduction of your social security tax, you should contribute at least that much additional money to your retirement plan.

2.  Contribute to your retirement plan in the following order:

  • Contribute whatever an employer is willing to match or even partially match
  • Contribute to your Roth IRA and if married to your spouses Roth IRA, even if your spouse isn’t working
  • Maximize your contribution to your Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) if available
  • If not available, maximize your contribution to your traditional 401(k) or 403(b)
  • If your income is too high to qualify for a Roth IRA, contribute to a nondeductible 401(k).

3.  Since we have two more years of low tax rates, make Roth IRA conversions.  Consider multiple conversions since you can “recharacterize” or undo them.  If you do multiple conversions, you can keep the ones that do well and undo the ones that don’t.

4.  Review your wills and trusts.  Many, if not most of the wills done for taxpayers with estates of $1 million are now outdated.  Not only will you not get optimal results, but your existing wills and trusts might be a huge restriction on the surviving spouse.

5.  Now that you can either leave or gift $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 if you are married, you should rethink potential gifts to children and grandchildren without tax laws that would otherwise restrict gifts you would like to make.

New Tax Law Creates Enormous Opportunities for Millions of Employees

Posted on by in 401(k), 403(b), Educational Resources and tagged .

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: JAMES LANGE, CPA
OFFICE: 412.521.2732

September 27, 2010 – The President signed a new law, effective immediately, that has an enormous impact on millions of retirement plan owners.

The new law will allow employees to convert all, or a portion, of their traditional 401(k) or 403(b) retirement plan to a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b). The law is actually part of the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act which has implications for small businesses, but this little known provision also has a profound impact on employees with these retirement plans who will want to make a Roth conversion.

This bill would allow 401(k), 403(b), and governmental 457(b) employees to convert their pre-tax account balances into Roth designated accounts, which is the official title for a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b). A Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) will enjoy income tax-free growth for the lives of the plan owner, spouse, children and grandchildren. The amount of the conversion, however, would be considered taxable income. If an employer has an existing 401(k) or 403(b) plan, employees could immediately make the conversion to either a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b).

This new legislation will be extremely important to people who are still working and have substantial wealth in their employer retirement plan as it will essentially allow them to convert their traditional 401(k) or 403(b) to a Roth designated account that would still be part of their employer retirement plan. Previously, if an employee’s retirement plan was tied up in a 401(k), they would not have been eligible to make a Roth conversion while they were still working. Now, if employers have Roth designated accounts, employees can make a Roth conversion of whatever amount they wish.

Since tax rates are expected to go up in 2011, at least for upper income taxpayers, it will definitely be to their advantage to make a conversion to a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b) in 2010 while they can still pay a lower tax on the conversion.

One strategy that would be highly beneficial for middle income taxpayers who are still employed and have limited access to their retirement plan is that they will be able to make a partial conversion of their 401(k) to a Roth 401(k), since it might be too aggressive for them to convert their entire 401(k) and pay income taxes on that conversion. An even better long-term strategy for this middle income group is a series of multiple, partial conversions over a period of years of the pre-tax dollars in a 401(k) to the Roth designated account in the 401(k). Conversely, if a person is a high income employee or will likely always be in the top tax bracket, they should consider a much more substantial Roth conversion.

Another huge benefit of this law is that these new Roth designated accounts will enjoy excellent creditor protection since, for the most part, 401(k) and other retirement plans are controlled by a federal law called ERISA which offers better creditor protection than ordinary IRAs or even Roth IRAs. A good example of this is OJ Simpson, who is collecting substantial income while he is in jail because the judgments against him could not penetrate the ERISA creditor protection on his retirement plan.

Obviously, the law only covers employees who have access to Roth designated accounts at work, but it would be to an employer’s advantage

An Indecisive Congress on Federal Estate Tax

Posted on by in Educational Resources, Estate Tax and tagged , , .
As the old adage goes, there are two things for certain, you will die and you will pay taxes. For decades this statement has remained true, but in 2010, one of these is far from conclusive. Why the uncertainty swirling around paying estate taxes?

Most advisors thought that Congress would extend the estate tax law before it was due to expire at the end of last year. But while the House did act, the Senate did not. So… what few predicted would happen, did…the tax is gone for a year but is expected to be revised in 2011 at a higher rate and a lower exemption.

At this point many suggestions have been made from keeping it the same and making it retroactive to changing it completely. No one knows what Congress will eventually do, but as we wait patiently, we must be smart and continue to plan for our futures.

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Time is Money”. Time is of the essence when talking estate planning even under this kind of uncertainty. Regardless of your estate’s size, it would be wise to seek the advice of an experienced estate planning attorney who can help you sort through your options.

Recent IRS Notice Lifts Ban on Rolling Over Your MRD

Posted on by in IRAs and tagged , , , .

In response to the economic crisis that kicked into high gear last year, Congress passed the Worker, Retiree and Employer Act (WRERA) of 2008 with the goal of providing older Americans some much-needed relief and flexibility in managing their personal finances. Part of the Act allowed for the suspension of minimum required distributions (MRDs) from IRAs and defined contribution plans. However, WRERA was enacted so late in the year, many retirees and plan administrators were unable to adjust to the new rules and many continued to take their MRDs during 2009.

If you are one of the people who unnecessarily took MRDs all year, you’ll be happy to note that on September 24th, the IRS issued Notice 2009-82 which gives you a second chance to keep the money in your account.  The normal ban on rolling over MRDs is being temporarily lifted and you now have the option to roll the money back into the IRA or defined contribution plan by November 30th for mandatory payments taken before October 1st.  If you took an MRD after September 30th, the deadline for putting the money back into your plan is 60 days after the distribution was made.

Some IRA owners are bound to be disappointed with part of Notice 2009-82.  The IRS did not change the part of the tax code which mandates a one-rollover-per-year rule for IRAs.  If you are an IRA owner who took your MRD in one lump sum – no problem.  You can roll the entire amount back into your plan.  Unfortunately, if you’re an IRA owner who took monthly MRDs, you are limited to rolling back only one of the withdrawals.

If your MRD was not taken from an IRA, but from some other defined contribution plan like a 401(k), this one-rollover-per-year does not apply to you.  Even if you took monthly distributions, you can still roll the entire amount back into your plan.

IRS Notice 2009-82 provides an excellent opportunity to extend your income tax deferral from your retirement account.  Just don’t miss the deadline – November 30th for payments taken before October 1st and 60 days after the distribution for payments made after September 30th.

For a complete look at Notice 2009-82, click on www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-09-82.pdf.

Deadline is Nearing for the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit

Posted on by in Home Buyer, Roth IRA Conversions and tagged .

Even though the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit deadline is November 30th, the real deadline is upon us. That’s because the November 30th deadline refers to the closing date. Since most home purchases take between 45 to 60 days between contract signing and the closing date, you need to start house hunting in earnest in order to take advantage of this tax credit.

Qualifying taxpayers who buy a home by November 30th can get up to $8,000, or $4,000 if married filing separately.  Even better news — this credit does not have to be repaid as long as the home remains the main residence for 36 months after the purchase date.

Taxpayers can claim 10 percent of the purchase price up to $8,000, but the credit amount starts to phase out for taxpayers whose modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is more than $75,000 ($150,000 filing jointly).  If you do qualify for this tax credit, think about how you want to use it.  You can use it towards a nice tax refund – or – use the benefit of the tax credit to make a Roth IRA conversion if eligible.

Technically, you don’t have to actually be a first-time homebuyer to qualify for this credit.  If you did not own any other main home during the three-year period ending on the date of purchase, you will be considered a first-time homebuyer.

One side note for those who purchased homes between April 8, 2008 and December 31, 2008 – you do not qualify for this tax credit, but you may qualify for a different tax credit which amounts to 10 percent of the purchase price up to $7,500 ($3,750 for married individuals filing separately).  The big difference is that this tax credit must be repaid in 15 equal installments over 15 years beginning with the 2010 tax year.

With the success of the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit program – over 1.4 million homebuyers have used this credit so far – there is talk of extending the November 30th deadline.  However, Congress has yet to make a decision on an extension.  In the meantime, good luck house hunting!  If you would like more details on this tax credit and to see if you qualify, visit www.irs.gov.

Don’t Become a Victim of a Financial Scam

Posted on by in Financial Scandals and tagged , , .

Special thanks to our latest radio guest, President and CEO of fiduciary360 (fi360), Blaine Aikin, for taking the time to give us insight into several of the proposals currently before Congress dealing with regulatory reform. Blaine gave up his time during an especially busy week – he joined us on Wednesday night (9/9) and then traveled to Washington, D.C. for a scheduled meeting on Friday (9/11) with SEC Chairperson Mary Shapiro.

The trip to D.C. was taken with members of the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard – a group that was formed to draw the public’s attention to the movement to create a unified fiduciary standard.  Fiduciaries are people who manage money on behalf of others and stand in a special relationship of trust and legal and ethical responsibility – including CPAs, CFPs, stock brokers and insurance brokers.

Currently, some fiduciaries are held to a fiduciary standard while others are held to a suitability standard.  It is the goal of the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard that the fiduciary standard apply to all fiduciaries and that disclosures become crystal clear.  (For more on this effort, visit fi360’s website at www.fi360.com).

During the second half of the show, Blaine took a close look at some of the recent financial scams and scandals (including the Bernie Madoff scandal) and what the average investor should be doing to avoid becoming a victim of such a scandal.

Blaine’s advice was excellent and taking a minute to review his suggestions could save you financial heartbreak in the future.  For starters, Blaine recommends that investors rely on RFPs (requests for proposals) instead of third party testimonials.  Do a background check – read the fine print in disclosures.

Don’t work with people who don’t have time to answer your questions or tell you that you don’t really need to know.  This is one of the ways that Bernie Madoff was able to avoid detection for so long.

Make sure that your advisor uses a system of checks and balances.  For instance, Bernie wore four hats – broker, advisor, manager and custodian.  Included in this system of checks and balances is making sure that your advisor does not take custody of your assets directly.

Do your homework – look for 3rd party verification – audited financials, GIPS certified performance standards, CEFEX.

Finally, keep in mind the old adage – if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

If you missed the show with Blaine Aikin and you’d like to hear either the entire show or portions of the show – check back to this website soon.  Audio will be posted by next week (the week of September 21st).

Jim Lange in Kiplinger’s

Posted on by in Beneficiary Designations, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions and tagged .

Roth IRAs and Roth IRA conversions have been Jim Lange’s passion for the past decade and Jim is always happy to spread the word to the media. Jim’s latest appearance in print can be found in this month’s (September 2009) Kiplinger’s Retirement Report (Leave Your Kids a Tax-free Legacy on page 18).

To show the wealth-building potential of a Roth IRA conversion, Jim gives an example involving two 65-year old fathers.  They are both in the 28% tax bracket and both have IRAs valued at $100,000.  To simplify the example, both dads also have $28,000 in a taxable account.

The first dad decides to make a Roth IRA conversion and pays $28,000 in taxes up front.  The second dad decides to stick to his traditional IRA and will pay taxes upon withdrawal.  In Jim’s example, both dads live another 20 years and leave their IRAs to their children.

Thirty years after their parents die, the Roth IRA child has $1.8 million in future dollars.  The traditional IRA child only has $980,000.  Why the big difference?  For starters, the Roth parent never had to take required minimum distributions and the entire amount was able to grow tax-free for all of those years.  The traditional dad had to take an RMD starting at age 70 1/2 resulting in the parent and child paying taxes on the RMD every year.

This analysis really becomes powerful when you realize that a tax-law change starting on January 1, 2010 will make all taxpayers eligible for a Roth IRA conversion, regardless of income.  Considering that many wealthy taxpayers will be able to convert much more than the $100,000 in the example, the potential benefits of a Roth IRA conversion could be even more dramatic.

In the same Kiplinger’s article, Jim also stresses the importance of the beneficiary designation of your IRA.  If you hope to have your heirs stretch this tax-free shalter for their lifetimes, it’s important to get the wording correct.  Non-spouse heirs cannot roll an inherited IRA into their own Roth IRA.  Instead, they must set up an inherited IRA and the name of the deceased must remain on the account.  Jim advises using language along the order of “inherited IRA of Joe Sr. for the benefit of Joe Jr.”.  The money must then be transferred directly into the new IRA.

Remember – we are less than four months away from the big tax-law change.  Make sure that you’re up-to-speed on the benefits of Roth IRAs and Roth IRA conversions.  For a more detailed comparison between traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs, we offer another of Jim’s articles on this website.  Go to the homepage, click on articles and then click on Roth: Four Little Letters Lead to Long-term Financial Security.

As always, our excellent professional staff is available to help you with a complete Roth IRA analysis.  Get more details by calling our office at 800-387-1129.

Positive Market News

Posted on by in Market News and tagged , , .

In the latest issue of The Lange Report, we finally had a chance to share some positive market news. In fact, the second quarter of the year turned out to be the first positive quarter in a year.

Continuing the upturn, the market also had a great July. The S&P 500 reached its low on March 9, 2009 closing at 676.53.  On August 3, 2009, it closed at 1002.63.  This is a return of 48.2% off the March 9th bottom.  The second quarter performance of the S&P 500 – an increase of 15.9% for the quarter – was its best quarterly performance in over 10 years.

Even though the market is still well off the highs that we experienced in 2008, the latest market news is certainly promising.  Many of our clients continue to ask what’s going to happen to the market in the next 3 to 6 months or even in the next year.  The truth is – we don’t know.  Nobody knows.

However, it is interesting to take a look at historical trends.  From 1926 (before the depression) to the second quarter of 2009, the S&P 500 Index has generated an average annual return of 9.6% (compared to government bonds which have averaged 5.5%).  Let’s say that you invested $1 in 1926.  If you had invested in government bonds, you would have roughly $100 today.  If you had invested in the S&P 500 Index, you would have roughly $2,000 today.

Of course, individual circumstances play a critical role in determining what asset allocation is appropriate for you.  At Lange Financial Group we continue to be believers in well diversified portfolios with some representation in most asset categories.

If you’d like to take a look at a more detailed analysis of the latest market figures as well as other economic indicators including international markets, emerging markets, interest rate changes and unemployment figures – it’s all available in the latest edition of The Lange Report.  For a copy, please contact the office at 1-800-387-1129 or sign up for our e-mails on the home page of this website.

New Website Feature

Posted on by in Educational Resources, Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Life Insurance, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions and tagged , , , .

Six months into our new radio show, The Lange Money Hour: Where Smart Money Talks, we’re happy to report that we have loyal listeners from all over the country. Calls, emails and questions have been coming in on a regular basis from California, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Florida and New Jersey (as well as across Pennsylvania).

We’ve also discovered that many listeners enjoy listening to the shows again once they’ve been posted here at www.retiresecure.com.  Thanks to the listeners who made the suggestion that we offer shorter audio clips in addition to our full-length shows.

Since we also thought that was a great idea, we’ve created a new page featuring clips from every show.  The link is posted on the left-hand side of the homepage — click on Audio: Key Advice From The Lange Money Hour.

To make this feature even more user friendly, we provide a description of the topic and the date of the show.  Now you can get quick advice from Ed Slott, Bob Keebler, Natalie Choate and all of our other guests, just by clicking on the appropriate link.

All of our favorite topics are covered including Roth IRAs and Roth IRA conversions, safe withdrawal rates, the use of insurance in estate planning, tax-loss harvesting and the best estate plan for most traditional families — Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan.

Please use and enjoy these clips at your leisure and keep the ideas coming!

Turning Children Into Financially Responsible Adults

Posted on by in Life Insurance and tagged , , .

A huge thanks to Neale S. Godfrey, best-selling author and founder of The Children’s Financial Network, for sharing her incredible ideas for raising financially responsible children on the July 29th edition of The Lange Money Hour. Neale was a great guest — full of tips for parents and grandparents on how to make sure that children are financially fluent.

A couple of her strategies are particularly timely given the economy and the time of the year.  For instance, many parents and grandparents are busy doing back-to-school shopping right now and we all know that shopping with tweens and teens can get ugly.  Neale offered a practical solution to avoid arguments and overspending.  For kids age eleven and up, Neale suggests giving them a budget and letting them make their own decisions.  You can set up a bank account or give them pre-paid debit cards, but in the end, putting them in control of their finances forces them to make budgetary choices.

The recession has also forced a lot of adult children to fly back to the nest and Neale recommends hammering out the details of the arrangement before they move back in.  How long do you expect them to stay?  What financial obligations do you want them to take care of?  Having these discussions in advance avoids problems later.  Neale even suggests taking the extra step of drawing up a lease with all of the terms defined.

In addition to setting up a trust, one of Jim Lange’s chief concerns when it comes to minors is the naming of a guardian.  Neale agreed that naming a guardian for your children is absolutely critical and she also recommends sharing the details of the arrangement with your children.

Notice, though, that the key element in all of these situations is communication — full disclosure of the family’s finances.  The problem for many families is that money is a taboo topic.  If this is the case in your family, one of Neale’s books might help.

Her #1 New York Times best-seller, Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children is an excellent choice for adults and Ultimate Kids Money Book is perfect for elementary school age children.  Both are available on Neale’s website www.childrensfinancialnetwork.com.