My Retirement Blog

Category: IRA

  • Withdraw From Tax Deferred Accounts Last

    When it comes time to begin taking disbursements from your retirement accounts, try to take them from your tax deferred or tax free accounts last (401k’s, Roth and Traditional IRAs) because you want them to grow tax-free as long as possible. If you opt to retire before 70.5, the age at which mandatory disbursements begin,…

  • Highly Compensated Retirement Contribution Options

    When you’re a “highly compensated employee,” you’re limited in how much you’re allowed to contribute to your 401(k). You are limited because the government wants the playing field to be level and it’s “unfair” to lower compensated employees if more highly compensated employees contributions outstrip the percentage for the lower compensated employees. Whether or not…

  • Specify Your Roth IRA Contributions

    Until April 15th, you can still make a contribution to your Roth IRA for 2006; but you can also make contributions to your Roth IRA for 2007 as well. So, it is important that when you send in your check, you specify which year it is for or your brokerage will likely add it as…

  • Tax-Return Funded IRAs and Splitting Your Refund

    Did you know that with the passing of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, you are now permitted to take your tax refund in three, as opposed to two, ways. The first two, as a check or a direct deposit into a savings or checking account, are still available but the Pension Protection Act added…

  • Motley Fool’s 5 Retirement Must Knows

    If you enjoy a nice helping of humor along with the usual dry subject of personal finance, Motley Fool is the website for you. I was poking around their content rich site the other day when I decided to pop my head into their retirement section and found an article written by Robert Brokamp (TMF…

  • Name Your IRA Beneficiary

    It is critically important that you properly name your IRA beneficiary because, in the event of your demise (which will hopefully happen very far into the future), the tax ramifications change based on who you name as your beneficiary. Usually, your spouse, if you have one, will be able to inherit your IRA without any…

  • Planning For Retirement At Any Age

    The “Retirement and Planning Center” at Yahoo Finance has a great article from USA Today that outlines a retirement strategy for every age group – 20 to 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 to 59. As expected, the younger you are the more aggressive (emphasis on growth) they recommend you be and…

  • Withdrawing Funds from an Individual Retirement Accounts

    Just to clear things up a little bit, an IRA is actually called an Individual Retirement Arrangement, not an Individual Retirement Account, but everyone calls it an Individual Retirement Account so that’s why I call it that. I’m not usually a stickler for such things and I don’t really care what anyone calls it as…