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
Your first required retirement withdrawal can wait until April 1, but doubling up can spike taxes
The IRS lets savers postpone their very first required minimum distribution past age 73, pushing the deadline to April 1 of the following year instead...
Skip a required retirement withdrawal after 73 and the penalty can reach 25%
Retirees who miss a required withdrawal from a traditional IRA, 401(k) or similar retirement account face one of the tax code’s steepest automatic penalties: an...
After a Medicaid recipient dies, the state can bill the estate and claim the family home
Since 1993, federal law has required every state Medicaid program to recover certain costs from the estates of enrollees who received long-term care before they...
A health savings account can quietly become a tax-free retirement fund for medical bills
The IRS confirmed this year that someone with self-only coverage can contribute up to $4,400 to a health savings account in 2026, and $8,750 for...
Adding an adult child as joint owner of your home can trigger a gift tax and expose it to their creditors
Parents who add a grown child to their home’s deed to simplify estate planning often trigger consequences they never intended: a taxable gift under IRS...
Converting some IRA money to a Roth before age 73 can shrink future required withdrawals and their tax
Required minimum distributions are not a suggestion — once a retiree turns 73, the IRS forces a taxable withdrawal from traditional IRA and retirement plan...
Contributing to a Roth IRA in retirement is allowed as long as you or a spouse still have earned income
Retirement does not automatically close the door on building tax-free savings. Federal law once barred anyone 70½ or older from contributing to a traditional IRA,...
Workers who earned more than $150,000 last year must now route 401(k) catch-up contributions into a Roth
A $150,000 line drawn in 2025 paychecks now decides how the Internal Revenue Service taxes retirement catch-up savings. As of the 2026 plan year, any...
The federal pension agency refreshed its unclaimed-benefits list on August 5
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation refreshed its national database of unclaimed pension benefits on August 5, the latest in a series of quarterly updates for...
About 31.9 million forgotten 401(k) accounts hold an estimated $2.1 trillion
Roughly 31.9 million 401(k) accounts across the country now sit forgotten by the people who own them, holding an estimated $2.1 trillion in retirement assets,...
An inventory of every account spares heirs from losing track of money
When an account holder dies, the money in bank, brokerage and insurance accounts does not automatically find its way to the family. Heirs can only...
An irrevocable trust moves assets out of an estate to shield them from care costs
Medicaid pays for long-term nursing home care only after an applicant has spent down nearly all countable assets, and that spend-down is what can consume...
A step-up in basis erases the tax on a lifetime of gains when heirs inherit a home or investments
When someone inherits a house or a brokerage account, the tax code performs a quiet erasure. The asset’s cost basis — the figure used to...
A low-cost index fund’s tiny fee leaves far more in a retiree’s account than an active fund over time
Every mutual fund and exchange-traded fund charges an annual operating cost, expressed as a percentage of assets called the expense ratio, and it is deducted...
A bond ladder staggers maturities so a retiree never has to sell at a loss
A bond ladder answers a specific problem that surfaces whenever interest rates rise: a bond bought earlier at a lower rate loses market value, and...
A Miller trust can qualify someone over a state’s Medicaid income limit for coverage
In a set of states known as income-cap states, an applicant whose monthly income sits even a few dollars above the Medicaid long-term-care limit can...
Long-term-care insurance bought earlier in life can spare a family from spending down savings for a nursing home
Long-term-care insurance is one of the few tools that can keep a nursing-home stay from draining a household’s savings, but it works on a narrow...
Form 8888 splits a tax refund straight into an IRA, saving it automatically
The Internal Revenue Service lets a filer divide a single federal tax refund across as many as three separate accounts, and one of those destinations...
Consolidating scattered old retirement accounts can cut fees and simplify the required withdrawals later
A worker who changes jobs several times over a career can end up with a trail of forgotten retirement accounts — a 401(k) at each...
A pension holder can often take a lump sum, but the monthly annuity usually protects a surviving spouse better
When a traditional pension comes due, many plans present a choice that is easy to underestimate: a single large lump sum now, or a smaller...