The Defenses Against the SECURE Act

Posted on August 23, 2019 by James Lange in Beneficiary Designations, Educational Resources, IRAs, Retirement Plan Options, Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Stretch IRA and tagged Beneficiaries, James Lange, Retirement Planning, 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, Educational Resources, Estate Tax, Government Programs, Income Tax, Inherited IRAs, IRAs, Retirement Plan Options, 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 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 Educational Resources, 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 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

Stop the Sneaky Tax!

Posted on September 6, 2017 by James Lange in Beneficiary Designations, Educational Resources, Inherited IRAs, QTIP Trusts, Retirement Plan Options, 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 Conversion, Save Our Stretch IRA, Sneaky Tax, Stop the Sneaky Tax, stretch ira changes, stretch ira rules, stretch roth ira.

It’s Time to Stop the Sneaky Tax!

Those of you who follow my blog know that I have been somewhat obsessed with the legislation that I call the Death of the Stretch IRA. If you’re new to my blog, please read some of the preceding posts – they’ll tell you just how much this legislation will cost IRA owners. The worst part of the Death of the Stretch IRA is that most beneficiaries (your children and grandchildren) won’t have a clue about how much of their inheritance they have lost to taxes. When they inherit your IRA after you die, your beneficiaries will suddenly have more money than they had before. Our government is counting on them to be content with their higher bank balance, and is hoping that they never notice that an enormous chunk of their inheritance ended up in Uncle Sam’s pockets before the remainder found its way to them. That’s what makes this tax so nefarious and, well, sneaky!

Our government has a lot of expensive problems right now – they’re looking to come up with a viable heath care system, build a wall on our southern border and I can’t even begin to imagine how much it will cost to repair the damage done by Hurricane Harvey. The Treasury doesn’t even have enough money to pay for their day-to-day operations, much less all of this – they’re going to be raising the debt ceiling next month! I’d bet my own IRA on the fact that the government is planning to include the Death of the Stretch IRA – and the $1 Trillion in revenue that it will generate – as part of an appropriations or budget action that will be voted on before the end of 2017.

You Can Help Stop the Sneaky Tax

If you are a loyal reader, you know that we have been writing our clients and friends to warn them about the sneaky tax, and working on solutions to minimize the damage that this legislation will do. Now it’s time to send a shot across their bow and tell the government that they’d better find their revenue someplace else besides your IRA. We are asking your help to start a grass-roots protest against the Sneaky Tax which would kill the stretch IRA—an incredibly useful estate planning tool. This new law would be so absolutely devastating to so many families across the country, our clients included, that we can’t just sit by and watch it happen.

Write Your Congressman Now

Please help us get the message to our legislators that we will not stand for them picking the pockets of our children and grandchildren. Please consider going to www.stopthesneakytax.com to add your name to the list of people who are unhappy with this proposed new law and send an email to your Congressmen asking them to say NO to the sneaky tax. You can also keep up to date with what is going on with this law by joining our new private Facebook group: SOS Save Our Stretch! Stop the Sneaky Tax! You can join the group by going to www.saveourstretch.com. For a limited time, joining the Facebook group will entitle you to a free Advance Reader Copy of Jim’s newest book – The 5 Greatest Tax-Saving Strategies for Protecting Your Family from the New Tax Law.

Sign our Petition to STOP Washington’s Planned Trillion Dollar IRA Sneaky Tax at www.stopthesneakytax.com.

Join our Facebook Group for breaking news and updates at www.saveourstretch.com.

And please forward this to everyone you know who has an IRA!

-Jim

Action you can take:
Forward this petition to all of your friends’
Join our Facebook Group and for a limited time get a FREE advanced reader copy of my upcoming book dedicated to stopping the sneaky tax.

You can view my previous posts on the Death of the Stretch IRA by clicking the links below;

4 Reasons Why We’re Excited that Retire Secure! is Interactive on the Web!

Posted on October 29, 2015 by James Lange in 401(k), Beneficiary Designations, Educational Resources, Index Investing, IRAs, Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan, Life Insurance, Retire Secure!, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Social Security, Traditional IRA and tagged Asset Management, Financial Planning, IRA, James Lange, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Retire Secure, Retire Secure! A Guide to Getting the Most out of What You've Got, Retire Secure! Third Edition, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA Conversion, Western Pennsylvania.

If you haven’t made your way to www.langeretirementbook.com yet, now is the time!

Here at the Lange Financial Group, LLC, we are very excited to bring you an interactive version of Retire Secure! A Guide to Getting the Most Out of What You’ve Got.

Reason #1 – The entire book is on this website. Yes, all 420 pages of the book, including the front and back covers, all about the best strategies for retirement and estate planning.

Reason #2 – The book is divided into chapters for ease of reading. Meaning, you don’t have to flip through 400-some pages to get to Chapter 11 – The Best Ways to Transfer Wealth and Cut Taxes for the Next Generation.

Reason #3 – We honestly haven’t seen anything like this before. Granted, I’ve read magazines on viewers where you can flip the pages as you read. But not a website for a book that includes a viewer, as well as a forum where readers can engage with each other.

The comments are moderated by the Lange Financial Group, LLC staff and myself. One of us will reply to your comment as soon as we can. To leave a comment, all you need to do is connect with your Amazon, Facebook, or LinkedIn account. This measure is for your protection, as well as ours. We don’t want spammers posting comments or incorrect information about such an important topic.

Reason #4 – We are hoping this interactive website encourages you to purchase the book! Retire Secure! is available from Amazon and JamesLange.com. Once you’ve read the book, feel free to return to LangeRetirementBook.com to ask questions, as well as Amazon and Goodreads to review the book for the benefit of others.

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The Optimal Order for Spending Assets: Roth IRA or Traditional IRA First?

Posted on April 2, 2015 by James Lange in Educational Resources, IRAs, Retire Secure!, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Traditional IRA and tagged assets, IRA, ira withdrawal, James Lange, Retire Secure! A Guide to Getting the Most out of What You've Got, Retirement, Roth IRA Conversion, Western Pennsylvania.

Roth IRA, James Lange, Retire Secure A Guide to Getting the Most Out of What You've Got

Those of you who have attended my workshops or read the previous editions of my book may remember a rule of thumb I used to use that said, “Spend your after-tax dollars first, tax-deferred dollars second, and then your Roth IRA”. Well, guess what? The changes in the tax laws now mean that there are no more rules of thumb! My new advice is, “Spend your after-tax dollars first, and then withdraw traditional IRA and Roth IRA dollars strategically to optimize tax results.”

Changes in the tax law that affect capital gains and individual tax brackets, as well as new taxes that are aimed specifically at high income taxpayers mean that the advice I used to give in the past is now far too simplistic. Chapter 4 presents detailed information on how capital gains and other taxes should affect your decision to withdraw money from a traditional versus a Roth IRA account. Would you have thought that your marital status could affect your decision too? Is it possible to minimize the tax on your IRA withdrawals? (Hint: oh, yes!) If you have IRA and Roth IRA money left over when you die, is it better to leave one type of account over another to a child at your death?

Chapter 4 covers many new issues that you did not have to worry about in the past, which should certainly affect these decisions. I’d like to give you one word of caution, though. Each of the scenarios presented in this chapter is based on a specific set of variables. In one scenario, I changed only the account from which the taxpayer made the withdrawal, and the outcome is significantly different. Please don’t assume that your personal circumstances will result in the same outcome shown in these scenarios. Ask us to run the numbers for you!

Be sure to stop back for my next post, which will cover some ideas for managing your Required Minimum Distributions!

Thanks,

Jim

Jim Lange A nationally recognized IRA, Roth IRA conversion, and 401(k) expert, he is a regular speaker to both consumers and professional organizations. Jim is the creator of the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan™, a benchmark in retirement planning with the flexibility and control it offers the surviving spouse, and the founder of The Roth IRA Institute, created to train and educate financial advisors.

Jim’s strategies have been endorsed by The Wall Street Journal (33 times), Newsweek, Money Magazine, Smart Money, Reader’s Digest, Bottom Line, and Kiplinger’s. His articles have appeared in Bottom Line, Trusts and Estates Magazine, Financial Planning, The Tax Adviser, Journal of Retirement Planning, and The Pennsylvania Lawyer magazine.

Jim is the best-selling author of Retire Secure! (Wiley, 2006 and 2009), endorsed by Charles Schwab, Larry King, Ed Slott, Jane Bryant Quinn, Roger Ibbotson and The Roth Revolution, Pay Taxes Once and Never Again endorsed by Ed Slott, Natalie Choate and Bob Keebler.

If you’d like to be reminded as to when the book is coming out please fill out the form below.

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WSJ Article: Jim Lange Examines Proposed New Laws & Financial Planning

Posted on March 24, 2015 by James Lange in Educational Resources, Roth IRA, Social Security, Traditional IRA and tagged Financial Planning, IRA, James Lange, jonathan clements, Personal Finance, Roth IRA Conversion, wall street journal.

Don't Let Obama Proposals Sidetrack Financial Planning, WSJ, James Lange, Jonathan Clements

Jim was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal (for the 35^th time) by Jonathan Clements, a long-respected personal finance journalist. They discussed several topics including many that Jim has included in his new book due out in summer 2015, Retire Secure: A Guide to Getting the Most out of What You’ve Got.

The article, titled: Don’t Let Obama Proposals Sidetrack Your Financial Planning, mentions several legislative proposals that have been introduced since 2014 that could have a large effect on your personal financial planning. Specifically, Jonathan asked Jim about his thoughts on the proposals and how they might change Social Security and Inherited IRAs and Roth IRAs.

Jim’s advice? Even if changes are made for allowing Social Security maximization strategies like Apply & Suspend, traditional planning advice will likely remain the same. Hold off on Social Security as long as you can and collect the full delayed retirement credits.

“Let’s say the husband dies at 70, but the wife lives to 95,” Mr. Lange says. “The extra 32% in survivor benefits could mean the difference between her being in poverty and her being just fine.”

And what about the potential death of the Stretch IRA? Does it still make sense to do a Roth IRA conversion should a law pass that limits the effectiveness of Inherited IRAs? Jim explains that if a law passes that obligates a beneficiary to drain the account in five years, such an event could push that beneficiary into the highest tax bracket for those years. Because of this:

“It might still make sense to do the Roth conversion, so the kid won’t have this horrible tax burden,” Mr. Lange says.

You can read the full article here: http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2015/03/20/dont-let-obama-proposals-sidetrack-your-financial-planning/

To learn more about nearly all of the subjects discussed in this article in greater detail, read Jim’s book! Go to www.retiresecurebook.com to receive a free 4 page summary and email reminders for the release of the Third Edition of Retire Secure!.

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More on The Traditional IRA vs Roth IRA

Posted on March 18, 2015 by James Lange in Educational Resources and tagged Financial Planning, IRA, James Lange, Retire Secure Book, Retire Secure! A Guide to Getting the Most out of What You've Got, Retirement, Retirement Book, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA Conversion, Tax Planning, Taxes, Western Pennsylvania.

Retire Secure A Guide to Getting the Most Out of What You've Got, James Lange 2015

Over the years, I’ve been challenged by clients who present me with questions that even King Solomon in his infinite wisdom couldn’t answer. Other questions, complicated though they might be, are much easier to manage because they can be solved by running the numbers.

Chapter 3 of the new edition of Retire Secure! quantifies a number of “what if” scenarios that are frequently presented to me by my clients. What if I’m in an average tax bracket, and I need to cash in my retirement account? What if I’m in the highest tax bracket, and I need to withdraw all or part of my retirement account? What if I’m in a high tax bracket now, but am in a lower tax bracket when I need to withdraw all or part of my retirement account? What happens if I’m in a high tax bracket now, but I lose my job and am in a very low tax bracket when I need to withdraw all or part of my retirement account? What happens if I’m in a high tax bracket, but my heir is in a low tax bracket? All of these are very significant considerations if you have to choose between a Traditional IRA vs a Roth IRA.

Questions like these can be accurately answered by using quantitative analysis. Chapter 3 presents a series of hypothetical scenarios which prove that certain tax situations definitely do favor the use of one type of account over another. In some situations, the Traditional IRA is better, and in others, the Roth IRA is better. If your choice is Traditional IRA vs Roth IRA, you may find some of these scenarios thought-provoking. As with the previous chapters, the assumed rate of return has been reduced to a conservative 6%, so the differences in the illustrations will be even more pronounced if you earn a higher rate of return on your own investments. The illustrations should only be used as a general guide. In order to get the most accurate answer for your specific situation, please consider asking us to run the numbers for you.

All this discussion about the Traditional IRA vs Roth IRA debate reminds me: you really should take a look at my next post about Chapter 4. It delves into some surprising new details about spending retirement accounts!

Jim

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Sneak Peek at the Updated Retire Secure!

Posted on February 25, 2015 by James Lange in Retire Secure! and tagged IRA, James Lange, Retire Secure, Retire Secure! A Guide to Getting the Most out of What You've Got, Retirement, Retirement Planning, Roth IRA Conversion.

The third edition of Retire Secure! has been completed and will be going to the printer shortly. Some of you may be thinking, “So what? I already read that book.” Since the second edition of Retire Secure! was published in 2009, there have been two major revisions to the tax code and several landmark court decisions that have significantly changed the way we approach the cases we handle in our office. We try to keep you informed of these changes through our newsletters. If you’re a client, we also meet with you at least once a year to review your situation and, if needed, we help you make changes so that you can achieve the best results possible based on the current laws.

So why should you read this book? Reviewing their finances regularly isn’t a top priority for a lot of individuals – although it should be – and it is human nature to become complacent about things that we’d really rather not have to think about. When we were writing Edition 3, though, I found that so much has changed since I published Edition 2 that it became necessary for me to discuss many of the old laws and the old solutions we used to use, and then explain why the old solutions are no longer effective under the new laws. The legislative changes also created new and possibly unforeseen problems for taxpayers that require proactive management on their parts. Without proactive management, those individuals can pay far more in taxes than they need to. Ultimately, it is their wealth that suffers from their lack of attention.

I’ve been accused of being a self-appointed ambassador of information, and I guess that’s true. I believe this information is so important that everyone should read my book from cover to cover, but I’m enough of a realist to know that not all of you share my enthusiasm for the subject matter. Since I’m a nice guy, though, I’ll respect your time and use this blog to point out the highlights of what’s changed in every chapter. Hopefully a sneak peek at what’s contained within will inspire you to read the whole book.

Happy Reading!

Jim

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More on Retire Secure! Third Edition…Coming Soon!

Posted on January 3, 2015 by James Lange in 401(k), 403(b), Educational Resources, IRAs, Retire Secure!, Roth 401(k), Roth IRA, Roth IRA Conversions, Social Security, Traditional IRA and tagged Financial Planning, James Lange, Retire Secure! Third Edition, Retirement, Retirement Book, Roth IRA Conversion.

Retire Secure! Third Edition, A Guide To Making The Most Out Of What You've Got, James Lange

The third edition of Retire Secure!, Retire Secure! A Guide to Making the Most Out of What You’ve Got is set to be released in the coming months, (stay tuned for exact date). This revised Third Edition of Retire Secure! covers how to develop an estate plan that, among other goals, seeks to continue the tax-favored status of your retirement plans or IRAs long after your death using the stretch or inherited IRA—a strategy that has been, and continues to be, threatened by congress. Lange has a history of staying ahead of the curve, seeing trends and changes in the tax laws and developing strategies for his clients in advance to keep them on the right path toward their financial goals. He was among the first to predict the coming changes to the tax law on Roth IRAs and wrote a peer-reviewed article for The Tax Advisor (official journal of the AICPA) that would go on to win article of the year in 1998. He is continuing this trend in this Third Edition by laying out the possibility of the death of the stretch or inherited IRA as we know it, and providing avenues to reach the same or better outcomes for your family including the use of charitable remainder unitrusts, or CRUTS and life insurance.

Lange offers up plenty of new content in this Third Edition including cutting edge analysis on the unique synergy between Roth IRA conversions and Social Security Maximization that his office has been developing. Using Social Security maximization techniques including spousal benefits like “Apply & Suspend,” and timing small appropriate Roth IRA conversions to take advantage of lower tax brackets in retirement can make hundreds of thousands of dollars of difference in your retirement portfolio… and he’s got the study to prove it.

Virtually every chapter of Retire Secure! contains recommendations, analysis, and case studies that have come from a deep understanding of tax law, estate planning, investing, and “running the numbers” and are proven to work.

Read this upcoming book and make the most out of what you’ve got for your retirement and your family’s future security.

A nationally recognized IRA, Roth IRA conversion, and 401(k) expert, he is a regular speaker to both consumers and professional organizations. Jim is the creator of the Lange Cascading Beneficiary Plan™, a benchmark in retirement planning with the flexibility and control it offers the surviving spouse, and the founder of The Roth IRA Institute, created to train ad educate financial advisors.

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