Proposed SECURE Act Make Roth IRA Conversions More Valuable

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Matt Schwartz in 401(k), 403(b), Current Events, Economy, Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Retire Secure!, Retirement Plan Options, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA.

Proposed Regulations to SECURE Act Make Roth IRA Conversions Even More Valuable
by Lange Legal Group, LLC

Cartoon depiction of the SECURE Act featured on CPA/Attorney James Lange's website PayTaxesLater.com

Randy Bish

On February 23, 2022, the IRS nonchalantly released 275 pages of Proposed Regulations which shocked the retirement and estate planning professional community. Since the passage of the SECURE Act at the end of 2019, many planners have been reeling over the ten-year payout requirement for inherited retirement accounts created by the Act, subject to limited exceptions.

Families and their retirement and estate planners have been scrambling to minimize the greatly accelerated income tax burden caused by the ten-year payout rule and have been recommending in many cases (particularly with Roth IRAs) to wait until the end of the payout period to withdraw the funds from the inherited retirement account.

The most devastating announcement under the Proposed Regulations was for beneficiaries of retirement accounts who inherited from retirement account owners already receiving Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)—those who reached their required beginning date for distributions prior to their death, i.e. the April 1^st of the year after they reached age 72 or retirement, whichever is later. This group represents most retirement account owners, and these beneficiaries will likely be required to take annual distributions in the first nine years immediately following the year of the IRA owner’s death, and then be forced to take a lump-sum distribution for the balance of the retirement account in the final distribution year. These proposed distribution rules will apply to traditional retirement accounts but not to Roth retirement accounts because Roth retirement accounts never have a required beginning date for distributions.

If the Proposed Regulations are passed in their current form with respect to RMDs from IRA owners who reached their required beginning date before their death, our general recommendations to inherited retirement account owner beneficiaries are as follows:

- Traditional Retirement Accounts: Consider your likely income tax bracket for the next ten years and then decide whether it is more advantageous to take roughly one-tenth the first year, one-ninth the second year, and so on or take advantage of the limited income tax deferral still available by taking the minimum amount out years 1-9 and take out the balance in year ten. This strategy will most likely make sense on more modest retirement accounts ($500,000 or less) and averaging the income or strategically withdrawing the IRA in some other manner will likely make sense for larger IRAs. Each case should be evaluated based on running the numbers, and our group is well-positioned to help you with that analysis.
- Roth Retirement Accounts – The advice for Roth retirement accounts is more straightforward. We recommend that Roth IRA beneficiaries wait until year ten and then take out the balance in year ten.

The Proposed Regulations provide important guidance for when a minor child is no longer considered a minor (age 21) and when a beneficiary is considered disabled (defer to the Social Security definition for beneficiaries ages 18 or older and use a common-sense definition for determining disability before age 18 (if an individual has a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that results in marked and severe functional limitations and that can be expected to result in death or to be of long-continued and indefinite duration).

In addition, the Proposed Regulations provide important clarifications for planners regarding what language can and cannot be in a trust to qualify for stretch exceptions and/or the ten-year rule. Finally, the Proposed Regulations do waive the failure to take an RMD penalty (50%) if the missed distribution is taken by the due date of your tax return.

We will alert you to the approved Final Regulations which we anticipate being published later this year. However, we felt that it was crucial that you were aware of this pending additional change regarding inherited retirement accounts.

If you have inherited a retirement account after 2019, will inherit a retirement account in the future, or you’re looking for more information please register to attend Jim Lange’s upcoming webinars on Tuesday, May 3^rd and Wednesday, May 4^th at https://PayTaxesLater.com/Webinars

The Defenses Against the SECURE Act

Posted on August 23, 2019 by James Lange in Beneficiary Designations, Current Events, Economy, Estate Planning, IRAs, Retirement Plan Options, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA and tagged Beneficiaries, James Lange, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversion.

The Best Defenses Against the SECURE Act by James Lange

photocredit: Getty

This blog post has been reposted with permission from Forbes.com

I have posted several articles explaining the most important provisions of the SECURE Act and the devasting effect that its provisions will likely have on individuals who inherit IRAs or retirement plans. This article will address some of the proactive steps you can take now and after the SECURE Act or something similar becomes law.

Reduce Your Traditional IRA Balance With Roth IRA Conversions

If timed correctly, Roth IRA conversions can be an effective strategic planning tool for the right taxpayer. Often, a well-planned series of Roth IRA conversions will be a great thing for you and your spouse and will be one of the principle defenses from the devastation of the SECURE Act.

You and your heirs can benefit from the tax-free growth of the Roth IRA from the time you make the conversion up to ten years after you die. One of the advantages of making a series of conversions is that the amount you convert to a Roth IRA reduces the balance in your Traditional IRA, which will reduce the income taxes your heirs after to pay on the Inherited IRA within ten years of your death.

Inherited Roth IRAs are subject to the same ten-year distribution rule after death as Inherited Traditional IRAs under the SECURE Act. The important difference between the two accounts is that the distributions from Roth IRAs are generally not taxable. One good thing about Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is that it temporarily lowered income tax rates, so this year is probably a better than average year for many IRA and retirement plan owners to consider Roth IRA conversions as part of their long-term estate planning strategy. We did several posts on Roth IRA conversions earlier this year and concluded this was a great time to look at Roth conversions. Now, it is even more important.

In short, it may make more sense for you to pay income taxes on a series of Roth IRA conversions done over a period of years than it would for your heirs to pay income taxes on the accelerated distributions required under the SECURE Act. The strategy of doing a series of Roth IRA conversions over several years tends to work better because you can often do a series of conversions and stay in a lower tax bracket than if you did one big Roth conversion. Of course, there is no blanket recommendation that is appropriate for every IRA and retirement plan owner.

Spend More Money

Many of my clients and readers don’t spend as much money as they can afford. Maybe if they realized to what extent their IRAs and retirement plans will be taxed after they die, they would be more open to spending some of it while they are alive. Assuming you can afford it, why don’t you enjoy your money rather than allowing the government to take a healthy percentage of it? Considering taking your entire family on a vacation and pay for everything. My father in law takes the entire family on a four-day vacation in the Poconos every year. Yes, it costs him some money, but those family memories will be a much more valuable legacy than passing on a slightly bigger IRA – especially if your IRA is destined to get clobbered with taxes after you die.

A variation on the same idea is to step up your gifting plans – not only to charity but also to your family. Sometimes it makes sense to give a financial helping hand to family members who might need one sooner than later. Not only might you be able to ward off additional troubles for them, but it might help your own peace of mind if you don’t have to worry about them. What about that new grandbaby? Consider opening a college savings plan – it could open a whole new world of opportunity for him when he reaches college age.

If you donate to charity, make sure that you “gift smart”. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 made it more difficult for many Americans to itemize their charitable contributions. If you fall into this category, you need to know about a provision in the law that allows you to make charitable contributions directly from your IRA. Known as a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD), this strategy allows you to direct all or part of your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) directly to charity. The amount of the QCD is not an itemized deduction on your tax return – but it’s even better. It is excluded from your taxable income completely! So, if you are required to take RMD’s from your retirement plans and intend to donate to charity anyway, a QCD may be a much more tax-efficient way to do it.

Update Your Estate Plan

Thoughtful estate planning can provide options for survivors that will allow them to make better decisions because they can do so with information that is current at the time you die. Even if you have wills, life insurance and trusts, the changes in the laws suggest you review and possibly update your entire estate plan. This includes your IRA beneficiary designations too, and that’s particularly true if you have created a trust that will be the beneficiary of your IRA or retirement plan. Assuming some form of the SECURE Act is passed into law, you would likely improve your family’s prospects by updating your estate plan.

Consider Expanding Your Estate Plan

The changes brought about by the SECURE Act could make life insurance even valuable to your estate plan than in the past. The idea is you would withdraw perhaps 1% or 2% of your IRA, pay taxes on it, and use the net proceeds to buy a life insurance policy. The math on this type of policy stays the same as in the past. The difference is in the past your heirs could stretch the IRA over their lives. This makes the life insurance option much more attractive because the alternative is worse. Charitable Trusts might also become a good option depending on the final form of the law.

One idea that we think can be a good strategy for some IRA owners under the SECURE Act are Sprinkle Trusts. If used in an optimal manner, they can provide families with the opportunity to spread the tax burden from inherited IRAs over multiple generations by including children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as beneficiaries. Sprinkle Trusts have been one of the many “tools” in the sophisticated estate planner’s repertoire for years but have become much more attractive recently because they can offer significant tax benefits to certain IRA owners. They can also have hidden downfalls, so consider talking with an attorney who has expertise in both taxes and estate planning to help map out a strategy that is appropriate for your situation.

Combine Different Strategies

Perhaps the best response to the SECURE Act involves a combination of strategies. For example, in some situations the most course of action might be revised estate plans, a series of Roth IRA conversions, a series of gifts, and the purchase of a life insurance policy.

Spousal IRAs

The SECURE Act will not apply directly to an IRA or retirement plan that you leave your spouse. After your spouse dies and leaves what is left to your children, then the SECURE Act does rear its ugly head.

The SECURE Act is a money grab – an action by Congress that betrays retired Americans. You will likely be able to at least partially defend your family against its worst provisions by taking action. This is not one of those posts where you think “great post, now back to watching television”. It is a post meant to create dread that the IRA you worked so hard to accumulate will get clobbered with taxes after you die unless you take action. The ideas discussed above are some of our favorite action points. This post should be the beginning, not the end of your research and action on this enormous problem.

For more information go to https://paytaxeslater.com/next-steps/ to take next steps to protect your financial legacy.

If you’ll be in the Pittsburgh area, go to https://paytaxeslater.com/workshops/ for updates on Jim’s FREE retirement workshops to learn even more about how to established retirement plans that will be beneficial to make the most out of what you’ve got for your family.

James Lange

The SECURE Act: Is It Good For You Or Bad For You?

Posted on August 19, 2019 by James Lange in Beneficiary Designations, Current Events, Estate Planning, Estate Tax, Government Programs, Income Tax, Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Retirement Plan Options, Retirement Planning, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA, Traditional IRA and tagged death of the stretch ira, James Lange, Retirement, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversion.

Is The SECURE Act Good for You or Bad For You by CPA/Attorney James Lange on Forbes.com

Will you be able to retire safely under the SECURE Act?

This blog post is republished with permission from Forbes.com

My previous post introduced the potential consequences of the SECURE Act, which is being promoted as an “enhancement” for IRA and retirement plan owners. This is because it includes provisions allowing some workers to make higher contributions to their workplace retirement plans. I think it is a stinking pig with a pretty bow, so I wanted to give retirement plan owners the good and bad news about it.

I am a fan of Roth IRAs because they allow you to have far more control over your finances in retirement than you might have otherwise had. You are not required to take distributions from your Roth IRA, but the good news is that they’re not taxable if you do take them. These tax benefits can be a critical factor for seniors, especially if you are suddenly faced with costly medical or long term care bills. Saving money in a Roth account can offer financial flexibility to many older Americans – and one good thing about the SECURE Act is that it can help you achieve that flexibility. Here’s how.

The Good News About The SECURE Act

Under the current law, you are not allowed to contribute to a Traditional IRA after age 70½. (You can contribute to a Roth IRA at any age as long as you have taxable compensation, but only if your income is below a certain amount.) The age limitation for making contributions to Traditional IRAs is bad for older workers – and that’s an important point because the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 19 percent of individuals between the ages of 70 and 74 are still in the workforce. The SECURE Act eliminates that cutoff and allows workers of any age to continue making contributions to both Traditional and Roth IRAs.

That same provision of the SECURE Act offers a hidden bonus – it means that it will also be easier for older high-income Americans to do “back-door” Roth IRA conversions for a longer period of time. The back-door Roth IRA conversion, currently blessed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is a method of bypassing the income limitations for Roth IRA contributions. The current law prohibits contributions to a Roth IRA if your taxable income exceeds certain amounts. Those amounts vary depending on your filing status. But even if you are unable to take a tax deduction for your Traditional IRA contribution, you can still contribute to one because there are no income limitations. Why bother? Because, assuming you don’t have any other money in an IRA, you can immediately convert your Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA by doing a back-door conversion. That’s a good thing because the earnings on the money you contributed can then grow tax-free instead of tax-deferred.

Here’s more good news. The current law requires Traditional IRA owners to start withdrawing from their accounts by April 1^st of the year after they turn 70 ½. These Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) can be bad for retirees because the distributions are taxable. The increase in your taxable income can cause up to 85 percent of your Social Security benefits to be taxed and can also move you into a higher tax bracket. And once you begin to take RMDs, you are no longer allowed to make additional contributions to your account, even if you are still working. The SECURE Act increases the RMD age to 72, a change which will allow Traditional IRA owners to save more for their retirements.

There’s a hidden bonus in this change as well. Increasing the RMD age to 72 will allow retirees more time to make tax-effective Roth IRA conversions. What does that mean? Once you are required to take distributions from your Traditional IRA and your taxable income increases, you may find yourself in such a high tax bracket that it may not be favorable to make Roth IRA conversions at all.

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The Hidden Money Grab In The SECURE Act

Posted on July 9, 2019 by James Lange in Current Events, Estate Planning, Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA, Traditional IRA and tagged Beneficiaries, death of the stretch ira, James Lange, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Contributions, Roth IRA Conversion.

Capitol Building Washington DC used in Pay Taxes Later Blog Photo Courtesy of Delgado Photos

*Please note this blog post is a repost with permission from Forbes.com

On May 23, 2019, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement). A more appropriate name for the bill would be the Extreme Death-Tax for IRA and Retirement Plan Owners Act because it gives the IRS carte blanche to confiscate up to one-third of your IRA and retirement plans. In other words, it’s a money grab.

The SECURE Act is wrapped with all kinds of goodies that are unfortunately of limited benefit to most established IRA and retirement plan owners. But if you have an IRA or a retirement plan that you were hoping you could leave to your children in a tax-efficient manner after you are gone, you need to be concerned about one provision in the fine print that could cost them dearly. Non-spouse beneficiaries of IRAs and retirement plans are required to eventually withdraw the money from its tax-sheltered status, but the current law allows them to minimize the amount of their Required Minimum Distributions by “stretching” them over their own lifetimes. This is called a “Stretch IRA”. Distributions from a Traditional Inherited IRA are taxable, so the longer your beneficiaries can postpone or defer them (and hence the tax), the better off they will be. The bad news is that the government wants their tax money, and they want it sooner than later. The ticking time bomb buried in the SECURE Act is a small provision that changes the rules that currently allow your beneficiaries to take distributions from Traditional IRAs that they have inherited and pay the tax over their lifetimes, virtually cementing “the death of the Stretch IRA.” (The provisions of the SECURE Act also apply to Inherited Roth IRAs, but the distributions from a Roth IRA are not taxable.)

If there is any good news about the SECURE Act, it’s that it does not require your beneficiary to liquidate and pay tax on your entire Traditional IRA immediately after your death. For many people, that would be a costly nightmare because they would likely be bumped into a much higher tax bracket. Under the provisions of the SECURE Act, if you leave a Traditional IRA or retirement plan to a beneficiary other than your spouse, they can defer withdrawals (and taxes) for up to 10 years. (There are some exceptions for minors and children with disabilities etc.) If you leave a Roth IRA to your child, they will still have to withdraw the entire account within 10 years of your death, but again, those distributions will not be taxable. But any way you look at it, the provisions of the SECURE Act are a huge change from the old rules that allow a non-spouse heir to “stretch” the Required Minimum Distributions from a Traditional Inherited IRA over their lifetime and defer the income tax due.

That’s not the end of the bad news. Once your beneficiary withdraws all the money from your retirement account, it will no longer have the tax protection that it currently enjoys. In other words, even if your children inherited a Roth IRA from you and the distributions themselves weren’t taxable, the earnings on the money that they were required to withdraw are another story. Even if they wisely reinvest all the money they withdrew from their Inherited Traditional or Roth IRA into a brokerage account, they’re still going to have to start paying income taxes on the dividends, interest and realized capital gains that the money earns.

I know there are readers out there who are thinking “it can’t be all that bad”. Yes, it is that bad. Here is a graph that demonstrates the difference between you leaving a $1 million IRA to your child under the existing law, and under the SECURE Act:

Child Inherits Stretched IRA Under Existing Law versus Child Inherits 10 Year IRA Under SECURE Act Reprinted with Permission from Forbes.com for Pay Taxes Later website

Child Inherits Stretched IRA Under Existing Law versus Child Inherits 10 Year IRA Under SECURE Act – James Lange

This graph shows the outcome if a $1 million Traditional IRA is inherited by a 45-year old child, and the Minimum Distributions that he is required to take are invested in a brokerage account that pays a 7 percent rate of return. Other assumptions are listed below*. The only difference between these two scenarios is when your child pays taxes! The solid line represents a child who can defer (or “stretch”) the taxes over his lifetime under the existing rules. At roughly age 86, that beneficiary who was subject to the existing law in place still has $2,000,000+. The dashed line represents the same child if he is required to take withdrawals under the provisions of the SECURE Act. At age 86, that same beneficiary has $0. Nothing. Nada. The SECURE Act can mean the difference between your child being financially secure versus being broke, yet Congress is trying to gloss over this provision buried in the fine print. I don’t think so!

The House of Representatives passed the SECURE Act by an overwhelming majority, so the probability that the Senate will pass a version of this legislation is quite good. In 2017, the Senate Finance Committee recommended the Death of the Stretch IRA by proposing the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act (RESA). In true government fashion, RESA was unbelievably complicated. It allowed your non-spouse beneficiaries to exclude $450,000 of your IRA and stretch that portion over their lifetime – but anything over that amount had to be withdrawn within five years and the taxes paid. And if you had more than one non-spouse beneficiary, the amount that they’d be able to exclude from the accelerated tax would have depended on what percentage of your Traditional IRA they inherited. Imagine trying to plan your estate distribution around those rules!

The Senate is now floating an updated RESA 2019 that seems to say that it will change the original exclusion amount to $400,000. It will be a good change if it is passed. That is because instead of each IRA owner getting a $400,000 exclusion, the new version includes language to allow a $400,000 exclusion per beneficiary. When I first read that provision I thought I had either read it wrong or that it was a typo. That little detail would be extremely valuable (and make estate planning for IRAs and retirement plans far more favorable), especially for families with more than one child. But even in the Senate version, anything over and above that exclusion amount will have to be distributed (and the taxes paid) within five years of your death (instead of ten years like the House version).

Unfortunately, our “peeps” think the House version of the bill (which has a 10-year deferral period, but no exclusion) will be what eventually becomes law. This is particularly troubling because the Senate version would allow room for far more creative planning opportunities (and tax savings, because of the $400,000 per beneficiary exclusion). As of the time of this post, Senator Cruz is attempting to hold up the bill, but his reasons have nothing to do with the fine print that affects Inherited IRAs. The original version of the Act contained provisions about college tuition (Section 529) plans, but those provisions were stripped in the version the House voted on and Senator Cruz wants them restored. Unfortunately, no one is arguing about the biggest issue with the SECURE Act, which is the massive acceleration of distributions and taxes on your IRA after your death. And unless someone in Congress objects to the provision in the SECURE Act about Inherited IRAs, your non-spouse beneficiaries will find out the hard way that their elected officials have quietly arranged to pick your pockets upon your death.

I have been a popular guest on financial talk radio lately. Many of the hosts want to blame one political party or the other. I blame all of Congress. This is one of the few truly bipartisan bills that has potential devasting consequences, at least for my clients and readers, and it is highly likely to pass both sides of Congress. I wonder how many of our legislators in the House actually read this bill or understood what is was they voted for. Did they realize they are effectively—by accelerating income-tax collection on inherited IRAs and other retirement plans—imposing massive taxes on the families of IRA and retirement plans owners – even those with far less than a million dollars? Or perhaps they did understand it and hoped that the American public wouldn’t.

If you can’t tell by my tone, I am upset. I am also motivated to examine every strategy that we can use to legally avoid, or at least mitigate, the looming hammer of taxation on your Traditional IRAs and retirement plans. I’m going to address these strategies in a series of posts, so please read them to see how this proposal could affect someone in your specific situation. Even though the Senate version has a five-year tax acceleration instead of a ten-year, the Senate version could be better for most readers because of the value of the exclusion – especially if you have multiple beneficiaries.

Please check for follow-up posts on this subject. I will show you some strategies to protect your family from the Death of the Stretch IRA and keep more of your hard-earned money in your hands.

James Lange

Assumptions used for Graph

$1 Million Traditional IRA inherited by 45-Year Old Married Beneficiary
7% rate of return on all assets
Beneficiary’s salary $100,000
Beneficiary’s annual expenses $90,000
Beneficiary’s Social Security Income at age 67 $40,000

Roth IRA Conversions of After-Tax Money: Beware of the IRA Aggregation Rules

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Matt Schwartz in IRAs, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions and tagged Roth IRA Conversions, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2017.

How Do the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 Effect Roth IRA Conversions?

With the historic low tax rates under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, we have received many inquiries regarding Roth IRA conversions. Two of the most common inquiries we receive are as follows: 1) when a client retires and wants to convert after-tax money in their employer retirement plan to a Roth IRA, and 2) when a client is not eligible to make Roth IRA contributions but wishes to get additional savings into Roth IRAs.

Transferring After-Tax Contributions from an Employer Plan to a Roth IRA

If you have after-tax contributions in your employer plan and you are retiring, ideally you want the company to issue one check directly payable to a Roth IRA consisting of the after-tax funds and the balance to a rollover IRA or other qualified plan. That is the easiest way to convert the after-tax contributions to a Roth IRA. Unfortunately, some companies will not do a direct transfer of the after-tax funds to a Roth IRA and will either write you a check for the after-tax funds or deposit all your retirement funds including the after-tax contributions into a rollover IRA. If all the funds are deposited into a rollover IRA, then you cannot segregate the after-tax contributions without meeting special rules. If you receive a separate check for your after-tax contributions, then you have 60 days to transfer that check to a Roth IRA. If you do not take advantage of the 60-day period, then those dollars can never be recontributed to a Roth IRA.

How Do you Get Additional Funds into IRAs if Your Income is Above the Roth IRA Contribution Income Eligibility Limit?

If your income exceeds the Roth IRA contribution income eligibility limit, then you can make a nondeductible IRA contribution and then convert it to a Roth IRA. However, if you have pre-existing IRAs, then those IRAs must be considered to determine the taxation of the conversion. For example, suppose that you make a $5,500 nondeductible IRA contribution but have a rollover IRA of $94,500. If you were to convert the $5,500, you would likely be surprised to learn that 94.5% of the $5,500 conversion ($94,500 (amount of taxable IRA) divided by $100,000 (total balance of all IRAs) would be taxable. That is why it is important if you use this technique either not to have other retirement funds or to have all your other retirement funds in Roth IRAs or qualified plans. Married couples can often use spousal IRAs when one spouse does not have a rollover IRA and is not currently working or is working somewhere that does not have a qualified plan to utilize this technique.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at (412) 521-2732 or send me an email at the link below if you are interested in creative ways to increase your Roth IRA holdings.

The Essence of Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan

Posted on November 14, 2017 by James Lange in Beneficiary Designations, Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Roth IRA, Stretch IRA and tagged Families, Lange's Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Leave it to Beaver, stretch ira.

Learn how Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan can help ease your worries for your family’s financial future.

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I refer to “Leave it to Beaver” families as the perfect candidates for the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan (LCPB). Just to be clear about what I mean by that, I am showing you a basic version of the family tree for that type of family. Blended families with children from different unions sometimes need to have estate planning with more complicated beneficiary designations. It is not that the LCBP cannot work, but it is not as straightforward. With that in mind, let’s look at the essence of Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan.

Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan example photo

It is important to think long-term with financial planning using the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan.

In previous content of the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan series, I have discussed the tax and long-term estate planning benefits of leaving your IRA and retirement accounts, when possible, to the youngest members of your extended family to get the longest stretch possible. Remember, keeping money in the tax-deferred environment (traditional IRAs and retirement plans) or the tax-free environment (Roth IRA etc.) for as long as possible works to your heirs’ advantage.

But, let’s be realistic. Even if you understand that the tax benefits are greater when you leave your IRA to your grandchildren, most couples want to ensure that their surviving spouse will be financially sound with enough discretionary money to lead a happy and fulfilling life. So, if we take that attitude, it might seem that the simplest and safest route is to simply leave all your money to your surviving spouse.

Or, you make some calculations and decide your surviving spouse will probably be fine with most of your IRA but some of it could go to the kids upon the first death. Maybe your plan works out perfectly, but maybe it doesn’t. Let’s look at an example. You have a two-million-dollar IRA, and you think, based on future calculations that your spouse will only need about $1,500,000.

You could make your children the beneficiaries of $500,000 at your death. Conducting your estate planning in this manner could provide your children with some inheritance after the death of the first parent. It might be very useful to them, especially if they have children of their own that will be needing money for school or facing other monetary challenges associated with raising a family.

The financial market is in constant flux, keep that in mind when making plans.

That sounds like a great plan but what happens if the market takes a big dive? The two million you thought was going to be there has dropped to 1.5 million, and you have designated $500,000 of that to go to the children. Now, your surviving spouse has less money to live on, and you fail to meet your objective of providing for your spouse. That would be horrible. Divvying up an estate appropriately is one of the biggest hurdles of estate planning.

So, you go back to square one, and leave everything to your surviving spouse outright. Down the road, your family will likely have to give up more in taxes. Furthermore, if changes in the tax code modify the advantages of the stretch IRA, you could potentially forfeit the tax advantages that might be offered to compensate a bit for the loss. There was talk, for instance, of allowing $450,000 of an Inherited IRA to be stretched over a lifetime, and this exemption allowance would be available to both spouses.

If your estate planning leaves everything to your spouse, you forfeit one $450,000 exemption. Whereas, if the first spouse to die leaves $450,000 to the kids (giving them the advantage of the stretch), then when the second spouse dies, the children can take advantage of the second exclusion and stretch another $450,000. That is a big difference.

This is why the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan is right for you.

What we come back to time and again, is that we don’t have a crystal ball that allows us to plan for the future with any confidence that we are making decisions that will be appropriate for the circumstances at that time. That is precisely why the LCBP is so effective. You can draft the documents in such a way that your surviving spouse (with the help of an advisor and perhaps the grown children) can make good decisions about allocating the estate that are both tax-savvy and in the best interest of the family.

Picking up on our previous example where the stock market took a dive and there is less money overall for the surviving spouse. Under the terms of the LCBP, he or she could say, “Hey, I’d love to help the kids out, but I need all the money.” End of story, surviving spouse just keeps everything and we get a good result.

The essence of the LCBP will put you at ease.

Alternatively the surviving spouse has more than enough money for long-term security and a comfortable lifestyle, so he or she decides that money should go to the kids. So, with the cascade in place, divided among the children equally, and with disclaimers available, the surviving parent can look at each child’s situation and help them in the way that makes the most sense. Perhaps one child has a bright financial future, and it would make more sense to pass money onto their children (the grandchildren). In that instance, the first child could disclaim their portion directly to their children via well-drafted trusts.

Second child would love to do the same, but actually, he or she could use the money. So, he or she accepts the inheritance, and does not disclaim to his or her children. Flexibility works. And, a further advantage is that none of these decisions must be made quickly. The family has nine months after the first death to finalize all decisions. A little breathing room after a crisis can be very welcome.

With documents that offer flexibility, you don’t have to predict the future to provide for your family in a way that makes sense for the time. Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan allows for terrific post-mortem planning that can make an enormous difference for the family.

Next week, we will examine estate planning with the potential $450,000 exclusion in more detail.

See you soon!

P.S. If you want to do a little advanced study on this topic before the next post and video, go to https://paytaxeslater.com/estate-planning/.

Why Flexible Estate Planning Matters, Especially for IRA and Retirement Plan Owners

Posted on October 12, 2017 by James Lange in Estate Planning, IRAs, Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Retirement Plan Options, Roth IRA and tagged Estate Planning, IRA, James Lange, Lange's Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Retirement, Roth IRA, stretch ira.

Why Do We Need Flexible Estate Planning?

Welcome back, Friends! This is the second post in my new video series on Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan—the best estate plan for traditionally married couples, or what I like to call “leave it to beaver couples,” in contrast to blended families where more variables come into play for estate planning.

Why do we need flexible estate planning? Why is it so valuable for IRA and retirement plan owners? Well, to get there we must think about the unique tax features of IRAs and what happens to an IRA when you die…

Most contributions to IRAs and retirement plans are tax deferred. We will ignore Roths for now. Their status as tax-deferred investments is valuable to you and to your heirs. Under the current law, you can take advantage of a great estate planning tool referred to as “the stretch IRA.” Stretching the IRA means keeping as much money as possible in the tax-deferred environment for as long as possible. We want to allow as much of the principal in an inherited IRA to grow tax-deferred for as long as possible—currently a child or even a grandchild can stretch distributions from an inherited IRA over his or her lifetime. But, we are looking at a possible change in the laws regulating retirement plans that could really ruin that opportunity. Having flexibility in your estate planning allows you to roll with the changes, and make good decisions under the new rules. But let’s take a little closer look at how the stretch works.

Bob Smith is a married 69-year-old retiree with a million dollars in his IRA. On April 1 of the year after he turns 70 ½, Bob must begin taking annual required minimum distributions (RMDs) from his retirement plan. You see, the government has been letting Bob defer income taxes on his IRA contributions for many years. But eventually, they want their share! RMDs are calculated using numbers found in IRS Publication 590. Publication 590 gives us a divisor that is based on the joint life expectancy of Bob and someone who is 10 years younger than Bob. We see that at age 69, Publication 590 says that Bob’s divisor is 27.4 (very nearly 4%). So, when you do the math, this first year Bob must take out close to $38,000. So, for the rest of his life Publication 590 is used to determine how much of a distribution Bob is required to take annually.

Now, when Bob dies, the ownership of that IRA is transferred to his wife, Jane Smith. Conveniently in this example, she is the same age as Bob so she begins taking her required minimum distributions exactly as Bob did. As time goes on, her life expectancy decreases, and the distributions get larger. When Jane dies, however, what’s left in the IRA will go to their children as an Inherited IRA. This is when things can get interesting.

Let’s assume for discussions sake that their child, Sally, is now in her sixties. Sally will be required to take minimum distributions as well. The difference is that her distributions will be calculated based on her life expectancy. Which, obviously, is much longer than her mother’s was at the end. So, the dollar value of the distributions drops, and the bulk of the account continues to grow tax deferred for a long time—and Sally benefits from the power of compounding.

You all know that I am a big fan of paying taxes later. So, if you have done flexible estate planning, like Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, and if you can afford it, here is an even more dramatic possibility. Since the flexible estate plan allows Sally to disclaim the Inherited IRA (she doesn’t need the money), she can pass it directly to her son, Phillip (her parents’ grandchild). Now, Phillip is in his thirties and his required minimum distribution is even lower. Think of how long that deferral can run!

And, if you REALLY want to think of something incredible, imagine that this retirement plan is a Roth rather than a traditional IRA. Now, all those distributions are tax free and we are really talking about building generational wealth. The video with this post goes into detail about how IRAs are treated after death, and provides examples using specialized software that show how family wealth can grow using inherited IRAs and Roth IRAs—with the caveat is that this is how things work under the current law.

Unfortunately, we still believe that the death of the stretch IRA will pass in 2017 or 2018. What is going to happen, subject to exception, is that the non-spouse beneficiary will no longer be permitted to stretch distributions of an Inherited IRAs over his or her lifetime. Any amount over $450,000 will be required to be disbursed within 5 years of the IRA owners’ death. Potentially devastating! There are some work-arounds that we have devised in anticipation of the law changing but this is precisely why flexible estate planning is so critical. Enjoy the video.

See you next week!

-Jim

P.S. If you want to do a little advanced study on this topic before the next post and video, go to https://paytaxeslater.com/estate-planning/.

Recharacterizing Roth IRA Conversions? – Your Ace in the Hole When the Death of the Stretch IRA Passes?

Posted on August 24, 2017 by James Lange in IRAs, QTIP Trusts, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA and tagged death of the stretch ira, end of the stretch ira, Finance, Financial Advisor, inherited ira, James Lange, new ira laws, Retirement, risk, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, roth ira recharcterization, stretch ira, stretch ira 2017, stretch ira rules, stretch roth ira.

What Are The Risk of Roth IRA ReCharacterizations?

This post is the last in a series about how you might be able to use Roth IRA conversions as a defense against the Death of the Stretch IRA.

Disclaimer: Please note that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 removed the ability for taxpayers to do any “recharacterizations” of Roth IRA conversions after 12/31/2017. The material below was created and published prior the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

How does a Roth IRA Conversion Work?

Suppose you have an IRA worth exactly $1 million, and that it happens to be invested equally in ten different mutual funds of $100,000 each. Then suppose we run the numbers for you and figure out that $100,000 is the optimal amount for you to convert to a Roth IRA. How does a Roth IRA Conversion work?

Well, one idea would be to start by ranking your funds according to how much you expect them to fluctuate in value. Maybe you are holding a portion of your IRA in Certificates of Deposit at your bank. Most people would expect that money to be “safer” because it generally doesn’t fluctuate in value. Then suppose you have a portion of your IRA invested in large cap stocks. You’ve noticed the value changing as the stock market moves up and down but, in your case, we’ll say this fund fluctuates an “average” amount compared to your other holdings. Then suppose that you also a portion of your IRA invested in small cap stocks, and that fund has been known to lose 20 percent of its value overnight. We’ll call that one the “riskiest.”

So which part of your IRA should you convert? You could convert the CDs or the ones that you consider to be the safest. Or you could convert the small cap stocks – the one you consider to be the riskiest. Maybe you’d like to convert part of each fund that you own. Let’s look at the possible outcomes.

You can certainly convert your CDs but, in my opinion, going through all that paperwork to avoid paying taxes on the one or two percent you’ve probably earned on them doesn’t seem worth the time or trouble. What about converting a little bit from each fund you own? I’d prefer that to converting the CDs, but it still seems like more work than necessary. What about your “riskiest” fund – the one that has the value that fluctuates wildly? Let’s assume that you converted $100,000 of that fund. What position might you be in a year down the road?

Well, suppose that fund doubles in value. You now have a Roth IRA worth $200,000 but you only had to pay tax on a $100,000 conversion. Good for you! But suppose the fund went down in value, and now you have a Roth IRA worth $50,000. Worse yet, you’ve paid $25,000 in income taxes, and now you’re really mad at me.

Recharacterize Your Roth IRA Conversion

Remember, as long as you act by the October tax deadline, you can recharacterize, or undo, your conversion. This flexibility can give you enormous peace of mind while you’re waiting for the details of the Death of the Stretch IRA to be finalized. A recharacterization will NOT get back the money your investment may have lost – you will need to wait for the market to come back up for that. What the recharacterization can do is get back the money you paid in income taxes, if the account goes down in value.

A Risk of Roth IRA Conversions

As beneficial as Roth IRA conversions and recharacterizations can be, there is always one risk I make clients aware of when discussing them. It has to do with the IRS itself. Have you ever known anyone who has gotten tied up in an endless and stupid loop of government red tape? Let me tell you about a married couple I know, who have always filed jointly. The wife, whose name has always been listed second on the tax return, started a consulting business and, as she was required to, made an estimated tax payment for the income she earned. The couple filed a joint return and waited for their refund to arrive. They finally received a letter from the IRS and opened it, only to find that there was no refund enclosed. Worse yet, there was a letter saying that no refund would be coming because they had overstated the amount of tax they had paid – a transgression that not only caused the IRS to completely wipe out their refund but add a significant amount of penalties and interest to their tax bill.

Armed with copies of canceled checks, the wife went down to the local IRS office and demanded they retract their letter – which they eventually did. But do you want to know why it happened in the first place? When the wife made the estimated tax payment for her business, she paid it using her own Social Security number because that was the number shown on the 1099s she’d received for her consulting work. Unfortunately, when they received her check, the IRS didn’t recognize her as a taxpayer. Even though she’s always filed jointly with her husband, her name and Social Security number were listed on the second line of the return, not the first. And because hers was not the first name – even though it was a joint tax return – the IRS could find no record of her, and her tax payment just went into a big black hole!

Unfortunately, we have found that the IRS sometimes has trouble putting two and two together. If both your conversion and recharacterization forms aren’t filled out exactly right, you could risk getting a nasty letter in your mailbox. We fight those battles with the IRS on behalf of our clients, but if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you need to know that it’s not unheard of for them to have a record of just one form or the other – but not both. If it happens to you, you need to stick to your guns and get it sorted out. A Roth IRA conversion can be your best defense against the Death of the Stretch IRA, and you can change your mind as long as you recharacterize by the deadline!

Thanks for reading, and stop back soon!

-Jim

For more information on this topic, please visit our Death of the Stretch IRA resource.

P.S. Did you miss a video blog post? Here are the past video blog posts in this video series.

Roth IRA Recharacterizations and the Death of the Stretch IRA

Posted on August 17, 2017 by James Lange in Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA and tagged death of the stretch ira, end of the stretch ira, inherited ira, James Lange, new ira laws, Retirement, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, stretch ira, stretch ira 2017, stretch ira rules, stretch roth ira.

Are Roth IRA Conversions legal? How can you change your mind after making a Roth IRA conversion?

This is one in a series of posts about Roth IRA conversions and the Death of the Stretch IRA. If you have not visited my blog before, it might be helpful to back up and read a few of the preceding posts.

Roth IRA Conversions – a Legal Way to Beat the Death of the Stretch IRA?

As you might know, I do a lot of presentations for legal and financial professionals, as well as plain old normal people, about Roth IRA conversions and the Death of the Stretch IRA. One question that comes up a lot in my presentations involves the legality of Roth IRA conversions. People look at the numbers I show them and say, “It doesn’t seem right that you can do this because your family is so much better off. It seems too good to be true. Is it legal to do this?”

In order to answer that question, I’d like to refer you to this quote from Judge Learned Hand said “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

I definitely do not advocate doing anything illegal – in fact, I applaud you if you were one of the people who asked the question – but, like Judge Learned Hand, I certainly believe that you should take advantage of every tax break that you’re allowed to. Would you worry about taking a tax deduction for a Traditional IRA contribution that you made, or for a donation to a charity? Of course not! Roth IRA conversions are no different. They’re definitely legal – they’re permitted by the US Tax Code, and the IRS even has a specific form that your CPA has to use when you do one. The problem is that they’re very complicated, and most people don’t like the idea of having to deal with even the most basic tax maneuvers – much less the complicated ones. So yes, Roth IRA conversions are definitely legal, and you don’t have to worry about bringing the IRS down on your head if you do one. But I still want to talk to you about how you can possibly get hurt when you go through the process.

Roth IRA Recharacterizations – Your Safety Net

Suppose you’ve read my books and my blog, and you’re rightly concerned about the Death of the Stretch IRA. You convert $100,000 of your Traditional IRA, and, because you’re in the 25% tax bracket, you paid $25,000 from your after-tax money. You now have a Roth IRA worth $100,000 and your savings account is $25,000 lighter. Then the market crashes, and suddenly your Roth IRA is worth only $60,000. You paid all those taxes for nothing! Or did you?

At the risk of making a complicated topic even more complicated, you need to know about Roth IRA recharacterizations. If you make a Roth IRA conversion, the IRS gives you until October 15th of the year following the year that you made the conversion, to change your mind. So if you make a Roth IRA conversion in 2017, and the value of your account goes immediately down, you have a fairly long time where you can wait it out and see if the market recovers. But suppose it doesn’t recover? Well, as long as you act by October 15^th of 2018, you can recharacterize, or “undo”, your conversion. I like to give my clients as much time as possible to decide whether or not the Roth conversion was a good idea, so I generally suggest that they ask for an extension on their tax return so that they don’t file it before that October 15^th date. In most cases, a drop in the stock market that happens right after a Roth conversion and causes so much chagrin will work itself out within a year, and my client is happy that they made the change after all. But if there is a long-term drop in the stock market, like there was in 2008, it is good to know that you can change your mind. There is one thing I do want to point out, though. If you recharacterize your Roth conversion, you’ll get back the money you paid in taxes. You won’t get back the money you lost in the market – at least not because of the recharacterization. You might get your money back eventually, but you’ll have to wait until the market comes back up.

Like Judge Learned Hand said, you are not obligated to pay more tax than the law requires. Roth IRA conversions can provide you with a hedge against the Death of the Stretch IRA, and save your family an enormous amount of money in taxes over the long term. And the ability to recharacterize, or “undo” your conversion should give you the peace of mind in knowing that you do not pay a nickel more in tax than you have to.

Stop back soon for more Roth IRA Conversion talk!

-Jim

For more information on this topic, please visit our Death of the Stretch IRA resource.

P.S. Did you miss a video blog post? Here are the past video blog posts in this video series.

Part II: How Roth IRA Conversions Can Help Protect You Against the Death of the Stretch IRA

Posted on August 10, 2017 by James Lange in Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA and tagged death of the stretch ira, end of the stretch ira, inherited ira, James Lange, new ira laws, new ira rules, Retirement, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, stretch ira, stretch ira changes, stretch ira rules, stretch roth ira.

Roth IRA Conversions and the Death of the Stretch IRA

This post is part of a series about using Roth IRA conversions as a defense against the legislation that I call the Death of the Stretch IRA. If you are new to my blog, you might find it beneficial to back up and read my earlier posts.

The Best Time to Convert a Traditional IRA to Roth

One of the reasons that people can be reluctant to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth is because they have to pay tax on the transaction. Nobody wants to give the IRS one more cent than they’re entitled to, right? And it’s true – any amount that you convert from a traditional IRA to a Roth is taxed, just like a normal withdrawal. But here’s the bigger problem. Not only do Roth conversions increase the amount of tax you owe at the end of the year, it can also increase the rate at which you pay tax. Managing the tax implications of Roth IRA conversions can be a huge problem for people who are looking to protect themselves against the Death of the Stretch IRA, so I want to tell you about the sweet spot that you should look for if you are considering a conversion.

First, I want to clarify that the examples that follow are based on the 2016 tax tables. The IRS has not published the 2017 tables as of this writing, so for purposes of illustration, we’re going to use the 2016 tax tables. But as an example: if you’re married and file a joint tax return with your spouse, you can earn up to $75,300 and stay within a 15% tax bracket. If you earn $1 more – $75,301 – you’ll shoot up to a 25% tax bracket. If you’re a high earner, you can earn up to $231,450 and pay 28% in taxes. If you earn $231,451, you’ll move up a tax bracket, to 33%.

The best way to convert a Traditional IRA to a Roth, therefore, is to first project how much income you’ll have during the year. Let’s say that you’re 64 and still working and, after adding up all of your income sources, you think you’ll end up with $131,450. And then let’s say that you have $1 million in a Traditional IRA. Should you convert all of that into a Roth? For most people, that would be a very bad move. But what you might be able to do is convert $100,000 because, when that amount is added to your other income, you’d still be in a 25% tax bracket. We generally recommend that our clients do series of small Roth IRA conversions that consider their other income sources so that they do not increase their tax bracket. For many people, the sweet spot for their conversion amount will be the difference between their normal income, and the top of their tax bracket.

I gave a workshop recently where someone was really having difficulty understanding why you’d want to pay taxes one moment before you had to. He asked, “Why does it matter when I pay the taxes if I’m going to be in the same tax bracket now or later?” And while he was (technically) correct about the amount that he was considering converting, what he’d forgotten about was the future gains. If he doesn’t convert, the gain earned inside his traditional IRA will be taxed when it is withdrawn. If that gain is earned inside a Roth IRA because he converted, the withdrawals will be tax-free. And when the Death of the Stretch IRA finally passes, having that pot of Roth IRA money that you can dip in to without having to worry about the tax consequences can give you enormous flexibility in retirement.

Future Income Sources Affect Roth Conversions

There’s one other point about taxes that I want to make. They frequently change after retirement! Let’s consider another example. Joe’s 65 years old and has just retired from his job. He also took my advice about Social Security and is waiting until age 70 to apply. From the IRS’s perspective, Joe doesn’t have a lot of income. Actually, he’s pretty comfortable because he’s just living on a savings account, but he has no wage income or Social Security income. These are the years when it might be a really good idea for Joe to consider a series of Roth IRA conversions and the best way for him to save some money in taxes! Why? Because when Joe is 70, he’s going to have income from Social Security that is higher because he waited, and he’s also going to have to take required minimum distributions from his retirement accounts. Taxes, taxes, taxes! If he is able to convert some of his traditional IRA to a Roth now, while he is in a low tax bracket, the required minimum distributions from his traditional IRA (if he has any left) will be less. And if he needs more income, he can always tap into his Roth.

Roth IRA conversions can be a great defense against changes in your personal tax situation, and against the Death of the Stretch IRA.

Thanks for reading, and stop back soon!

-Jim

For more information on this topic, please visit our Death of the Stretch IRA resource.

P.S. Did you miss a video blog post? Here are the past video blog posts in this video series.

Proposed Regulations to SECURE Act Make Roth IRA Conversions Even More Valuable by Lange Legal Group, LLC

Reduce Your Traditional IRA Balance With Roth IRA Conversions

Spend More Money

Update Your Estate Plan

Consider Expanding Your Estate Plan

Combine Different Strategies

Spousal IRAs

How Do the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 Effect Roth IRA Conversions?

Transferring After-Tax Contributions from an Employer Plan to a Roth IRA

How Do you Get Additional Funds into IRAs if Your Income is Above the Roth IRA Contribution Income Eligibility Limit?

It is important to think long-term with financial planning using the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan.

The financial market is in constant flux, keep that in mind when making plans.

This is why the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan is right for you.

The essence of the LCBP will put you at ease.

Why Do We Need Flexible Estate Planning?

What Are The Risk of Roth IRA ReCharacterizations?

How does a Roth IRA Conversion Work?

Recharacterize Your Roth IRA Conversion

A Risk of Roth IRA Conversions

Are Roth IRA Conversions legal? How can you change your mind after making a Roth IRA conversion?

Roth IRA Conversions – a Legal Way to Beat the Death of the Stretch IRA?

Roth IRA Recharacterizations – Your Safety Net

Roth IRA Conversions and the Death of the Stretch IRA

The Best Time to Convert a Traditional IRA to Roth

Future Income Sources Affect Roth Conversions

Proposed Regulations to SECURE Act Make Roth IRA Conversions Even More Valuable
by Lange Legal Group, LLC