Roth Conversions Take Off

Roth Conversions Take Off

Richard Rubin and Margaret Collins at Bloomberg News recently reported that conversions from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs increased more than nine times in 2010, according to the Internal Revenue Service.  Taxpayers converted $64.8 billion in 2010, as compared to $6.8 billion in 2009. This was the first year that Roth conversions were greater than…
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Is a Roth 401(k) Right for You?

Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and Roth IRAs have been around for some time now.   For those of you unfamiliar with the difference, a Roth is the inverse of a traditional IRA.  That is, contributions made to a traditional IRA are tax deductible when made, but taxed when withdrawn, typically beginning at age 71.  With…
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Will Boomers Sink Equities During Retirement?

There’s been lots of speculation that Baby Boomers – the wealthiest generation in American history, not to mention one of the largest – have the potential to seriously impact equity returns as they use up their savings during their retirement years.  A newly released Vanguard research paper offers a number of reasons why investors have…
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Should You Increase Equity Allocation in Retirement?

Conventional wisdom has it that young investors should allocate a large portion of their savings to stocks – a high return, high risk asset class – when they first start investing their savings, and then slowly reduce their stock allocation as they approach and then surpass retirement age.  By the time they reach their eighties,…
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The Time to Plan Is When It’s Not Needed

I received a call last year from a woman who’d sounded desperate.  “I was just offered an early-retirement package from my company,” she’d said, the words rushed from anxiety, “and I’ve got two weeks to make a decision.  Can you help me?”  I had groaned inwardly, imagining the late nights ahead struggling to collect the…
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401(k)s Created More Losers than Winners

Today, many Americans rely on savings in 401(k)-type accounts to supplement Social Security in retirement. This is a pronounced shift from a few decades ago, when many retirees could count on predictable, constant streams of income from traditional pensions.  The question is: has this shift improved the average American’s retirement prospects?  According to the Economic…
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