Articles on Wealth Management Topics

As mentioned in the most recent issue of "Seasonal Musings" - the quarterly e-newsletter distributed by Five Seasons Financial Planning - the passing of the SECURE Act late last year permanently changed the financial planning landscape, and in particular, many of the rules on required distributions from IRA's and retirement plan accounts. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed just a few months later, contains a number of measures related to the taking of RMD's in this calendar year alone.

Roth 401(k) contributions are especially advantageous to younger workers still looking forward to their peak earning years. And for higher-paid employees, Roth 401(k)'s may be the only way for them to contribute to Roth-style accounts. Now here's a way - courtesy of some fairly recent clarification from the IRS - to potentially supercharge the pace of your contributions to Roth-style accounts at the workplace, regardless of whether or not your employer offers a Roth 401(k) feature.

One of the major factors to consider when deciding whether to rollover a retirement plan account to an IRA is investment flexibility. An IRA typically allows its owner almost unlimited investment flexibility. In contrast, a 401k, 403b or 457 retirement plan account-holder is constrained to choose from among the menu of investment options made available by the plan's sponsor and service provider.

New 401k plan design features (auto-enrollment, auto-escalation, and riskier default investment options) are based on the knowledge that, in general, investors and retirement savers do not make very good financial decisions. Reams of academic research support this conclusion.

The decision as to whether or not to rollover a retirement plan account to an IRA should be based on more factors than just the associated mutual fund management expenses. On its website, the Dept. of Labor provides guidance to retirement plan participants, i.e. employees, on how to evaluate the fees and expenses associated with their plan: "... don’t consider fees in a vacuum. They are only one part of the bigger picture including investment risks and returns and the extent and quality of services provided. Keep in mind the importance of diversifying your investments."

The Tax Policy Center estimates that recent changes to the tax code in the form of last year's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) "... will cut individual income taxes for 65 percent of households overall, but raise taxes for about 6 percent of households." Even so, why not resolve to improve your financial situation even more in the New Year. Depending on your circumstances, there may be a variety of moves to make to reduce your tax bills (or to offset them by saving money in other ways).

457(b) plans are retirement plans for government workers and for highly-compensated employees of non-profit organizations. As such, 457's are offered by some of Utah's largest employers, including Intermountain Healthcare and the University of Utah. These plans are analogous to 401(k)'s and 403(b)'s, but they differ in one critical way.

Health Savings Accounts, or HSA's, were only introduced in 2004, and already there are over 20 million of them. Much of that growth, however, has taken place in the last few years, driven by the recent popularity of high-deductible health insurance plans. I've owned an HSA since 2011 and am a big fan of them, so let's discuss the benefits of these relatively new accounts.

In the prior posting in our series, Articles on Wealth Management Topics, we discussed the basics of the Roth 401(k) plans that many employers have introduced in recent years. But are these plans right for you, or should you stick to contributing to the traditional 401(k)? Let's talk about some of the circumstances that would make Roth 401(k) contributions more attractive.

Now that Roth 401(k) plans have become a permanent fixture, more companies are beginning to offer this option to employees. With that in mind, let's take a look at the major features of this relatively new type of retirement plan.