Retirement Planning
401(k), IRA, Roth accounts, pension plans, withdrawal strategies, required minimum distributions, and how much you need to retire.
Latest in Retirement Planning
A surviving spouse can face higher tax rates as a single filer, the \”widow’s penalty\”
The loss of a spouse carries a tax consequence that catches many survivors off guard, and it arrives after the grief, not during it. Once...
A surviving spouse can roll a late partner’s IRA into their own and delay withdrawals
Inheriting a retirement account triggers very different rules depending on who does the inheriting, and a surviving spouse holds the most valuable position in that...
A married couple can now shield up to $30 million from federal estate tax
The federal estate and gift tax exemption has risen to $15 million per person for 2026, which means a married couple can pass roughly $30...
A working spouse can fund a full IRA for a partner who has no earned income
A common assumption sidelines a whole category of retirement saving: that a person needs a paycheck to fund an individual retirement account. For married couples,...
Leave a job at 55 or later and you can tap that 401(k) without the early-withdrawal penalty
Turning 55 while still attached to a job opens a narrow but valuable escape from one of retirement saving’s harshest rules. Ordinarily, money pulled from...
After 65, health-savings-account money can be spent on anything with no penalty
A health savings account changes character the year its owner turns 65, and the shift is one of the more generous quirks in the federal...
Pulling retirement income from a Roth can keep more of your Social Security check untaxed
Which account a retiree taps for spending money can quietly decide how much of a Social Security check the IRS gets to tax. The reason...
Some retirees pay zero federal tax on long-term investment gains when their income stays low enough
The federal tax code contains a bracket that many older investors never notice: a zero percent rate on long-term capital gains for taxpayers whose taxable...
A new federal program will match up to $1,000 a year for workers who save without a job plan
Starting in 2027, the federal government will begin depositing money directly into the retirement accounts of lower- and moderate-income workers who set some cash aside...
A Roth IRA never forces withdrawals, letting the money grow tax-free for heirs
Every other retirement account eventually forces the owner’s hand. Traditional IRAs and 401(k)s carry required minimum distributions — annual withdrawals the government demands starting at...
A durable power of attorney lets someone manage your money if you can’t
Illness, a stroke, or the slow arithmetic of dementia can take away a person’s ability to manage money long before it takes anything else. When...
A transfer-on-death deed passes a home to heirs without probate in many states
For most retirees, the house is the biggest thing they will ever leave behind — and if it passes through a will, it usually passes...
A new federal Saver’s Match will deposit up to $1,000 into some workers’ retirement accounts
A change buried in the SECURE 2.0 retirement law will turn a little-used tax break into something more tangible: cash the federal government deposits directly...
Workers in their early 60s can now make a larger catch-up retirement contribution
Retirement savers have long been allowed to put away extra once they turn 50, a catch-up contribution meant to help workers make up ground in...
Roth conversions have no income limit, letting high earners move money into tax-free growth
There are two ways money reaches a Roth account, and they follow very different rules. Contributing directly is barred for high earners once income tops...
A qualified charitable distribution lets retirees give from an IRA and count it as their RMD, tax-free
Once a saver reaches the age when the government requires withdrawals from a traditional retirement account, that money lands on the tax return as ordinary...
Required withdrawals from retirement accounts now start at 73, rising to 75 in 2033
Tax-deferred retirement accounts come with a bill that eventually comes due. The government lets savers postpone taxes on traditional IRAs and 401(k)s for decades, but...
Trump opened 401(k)s to private equity and crypto, putting $12 trillion in retirement savings in play
An executive order signed in August 2025 set in motion the biggest change to workplace retirement menus in a generation, directing federal regulators to clear...
A payable-on-death beneficiary lets a brokerage or bank account pass to heirs without probate
When someone dies with money in a bank or brokerage account, that money can spend months tied up in probate court before an heir sees...
A small-estate affidavit lets heirs skip probate entirely for a modest estate
When a parent dies leaving a bank account, a car, and some household belongings but no fortune, the family often braces for probate court out...