My Retirement Blog

Category: 401K

  • Retirement Savings Tax Credit Tips

    If you make eligible contributions to an employer-sponsored retirement plan or to an individual retirement arrangement, you may be eligible for a tax credit, depending on your age and income. Here are six things the IRS wants you to know about the Savers Credit: 1. Income limits The Savers Credit, formally known as the Retirement…

  • Fipath Express Rollover Center

    FiPath is an online site that provides comprehensive, independent, unbiased retirement planning content and analytical tools so consumers can take control of their retirement planning. They recently released a new tool to help those who need to roll over their 401k to an IRA. The FiPath Express Rollover Center is the only tool of its…

  • 2012 401k Limits

    The Internal Revenue Service announced cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for Tax Year 2012. In general, many of the pension plan limitations will change for 2012 because the increase in the cost-of-living index met the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment. However, other limitations will remain…

  • How to Solve the Retirement Crisis

    I recently read an article at Money Mamba titled “Solving the Retirement Crisis: A Tax Proposal.” The article includes studies stating that most people do not have enough saved for retirement and don’t know how much money they would need in retirement. The article also includes studies showing that after meeting with a financial representative…

  • 2010 401(k) Contribution Limits Could Fall

    The current 2009 limit for employee contributions to a 401(k) is $16,500, with employees over 50 able to contribute an additional $5,500 as a catch-up. When the IRS announced the 2010 contribution limits in October, we may find that the limit will be lowered because there is a provision in the law that requires that…

  • 401(k) Fee Disclosure Bill

    This week the House Education & Labor Committee introduced the Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009, a bill that would require your 401(k) plan to clearly state all fees that it charged. Currently, the law doesn’t require your plan administrator to disclose all the fees and it’s often very difficult to find this…

  • Review Your 401(k) Fund Fees

    This week, I analyzed my wife’s old 401(k) and learned that she had around $7,000 spread across nine funds at T. Rowe Price. Fortunately for her, and most other 401(k) participants, she’s not charged for having so many funds; it’s just a bit of a mess whenever you open up her statements because you have…

  • 401(k) Employer Match Cancellation

    If you work at a company that has stopped 401(k) contribution matching by your employer, you should be happy, rather than upset. I’ve been talking to a few people, over email, about how they should respond to their company canceling their 401(k) match. Some are upset that their companies did this (one of them had…

  • Being Fired Doesn’t Affect Retirement Vesting

    If you are fired, it doesn’t affect the vesting status of your retirement assets. Any funds that hadn’t vested, will expire. Any funds that had vested, are yours to keep forever. Any contributions you made are always yours, regardless of how long you’ve been there or how the vesting schedule works. Your money is always…