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
Delaying Social Security while first drawing down an IRA can cut a retiree’s lifetime taxes
Waiting until 70 to claim Social Security raises a retiree’s monthly check by roughly 8% for every year past full retirement age, but it also...
An ABLE account lets a disabled person save tens of thousands without losing benefits
An ABLE account lets a person with a qualifying disability save and invest money in a dedicated, tax-advantaged account without the balance counting against the...
A spousal IRA lets a non-working spouse keep saving on the earner’s income
A spouse who has left the paid workforce, whether to raise children, manage a home, or simply because one paycheck covers the household, is not...
A qualified charitable distribution lets those 70½ and older give from an IRA tax-free
Once an IRA owner turns 70½, the tax code offers a narrow but valuable shortcut: money can move directly from the account to a qualified...
Trump’s new order launches TrumpIRA.gov with up to $1,000 a year in federal matches
President Trump signed an executive order in April directing the Treasury Department to build a new federal website, TrumpIRA.gov, aimed at workers who lack access...
Failing to update a beneficiary after a divorce can send your money to an ex-spouse
A retirement account does not know a marriage ended unless someone tells it. Federal law lets a divorced person’s former spouse collect a 401(k) or...
Inheriting an IRA now forces most heirs to empty it within 10 years
Most people who inherit a traditional IRA today have exactly ten years to drain it, not a lifetime. The Internal Revenue Service confirms that a...
Cashing out a 401(k) before 59 and a half usually adds a 10% penalty to the tax
Tapping a 401(k) before age 59½ triggers a two-part tax hit the Internal Revenue Service treats as the default outcome, not a rare exception: the...
A pension survivor election at retirement decides whether a spouse keeps income for life
A single choice made the moment a traditional pension begins paying out can decide whether a surviving spouse keeps any income at all after the...
A reverse mortgage turns home equity into cash, but heirs must repay or sell the house
A reverse mortgage lets a homeowner age 62 or older convert home equity into cash without a monthly payment, according to the Consumer Financial Protection...
Many states give older homeowners a property-tax freeze or rebate worth hundreds a year
More than two dozen states let homeowners age 65 and older shrink, freeze or get reimbursed for a rising property tax bill, and the design...
Medicaid’s five-year look-back can penalize gifts made before applying for nursing-home coverage
Federal law requires every Medicaid long-term care applicant to disclose 60 months of financial history, and a cash gift, a forgiven loan, or a house...
A revocable living trust can move a house and accounts to heirs without a court process
A revocable living trust can move a house, a brokerage account, or a bank balance directly to the people named to inherit it, without the...
A small-estate affidavit can let heirs skip probate when an estate is modest
A small estate can clear a bank’s front desk in an afternoon once a family has the right piece of paper: a small-estate affidavit, sworn...
Naming a beneficiary on an account skips probate and pays heirs directly
A named beneficiary on a bank account, a retirement plan, or a life insurance policy receives that money directly the moment the account holder dies,...
Trading a pension for a lump sum feels tempting, but the buyout often shortchanges the retiree
A company pension that offers to convert a lifetime monthly benefit into a single lump-sum check looks like a windfall, but the number behind that...
The federal pension insurer keeps a searchable list of unpaid benefits from ended plans
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is still holding retirement money that private-sector employers set aside for workers they lost track of when a pension plan...
A federal database now helps workers track down old, forgotten 401(k) money
A federal search tool now lets workers check whether a former employer’s 401(k) or pension plan still owes them money, using only a Social Security...
Low-income retirees can sell investments in the 0% capital-gains bracket and owe nothing
The federal tax code holds a bracket that surprises even longtime retirees: a 0% rate on long-term capital gains, and it isn’t a rounding trick...
The saver’s credit can hand lower-income workers back up to half of what they save for retirement
A federal tax break already lets lower-income workers recover as much as half of what they put into a retirement account, yet it remains one...