It has been estimated that there is over $28 billion in qualified retirement plans (QRPs) and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) for Americans. These arrangements offer tremendous financial benefits for the QRP participants and IRA owners. These benefits may include avoiding income tax on otherwise taxable income contributed to the arrangement, the income tax free growth on earnings inside of the arrangement and protection from claims of creditors of the participant or owner. To avoid what the Congress and the Treasury Department perceive as abuses, there are extremely strict rules that these arrangements and the participants or owners must follow. For example, severe penalties (in the nature of taxes) may be imposed if contributions to the arrangement are too small or too large, or if distributions from it are taken too early or too late. These rules, coupled with the fact that virtually all distributions from any such account (other than from a Roth IRA) are included in gross income, make financial planning for the participant or owner very complicated. In addition, interests in a QRP almost always are included in the participant’s gross estate for Federal estate tax purposes. And any IRA also will be included in the gross estate of its owner. This means the interests may be subject to both estate and income tax producing a very high level of overall taxation. Generally, the most efficient way of dealing with QRPs and IRAs is to take distributions as slowly as possible to delay taxation of the income. The tax law permits the participant or owner to take distributions relatively slowly over the life expectancy of someone of his or her age. However, some QRPs require that distributions must be taken much more rapidly. The participant, in some cases, may be able to “roll over” the interest in a QRP to an IRA including one that will permit distributions to be taken as slowly as the tax law permits. After death, new regimes on taking distributions may come into effect. These are exceptionally complicated especially if the participant or owner wishes the interests to pass into a trust for creditor protection, management or other reasons. The leading treatise about these rules is Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits by Natalie Choate. It is regarded by many as the “bible” on the topic. Over 50,000 copies have been sold to lawyers, accountants, financial planners, CFPs, IRA advisors and others. All reviews of it on Amazon rate it Five Stars! (“As an estate planning attorney, this book is always within reach” “This is a very technical book but if the answer isn't in here it probably doesn't exist” “As an ERISA specialist, I find this to be one of the best resource guides available”) So how could this resource possibly be improved? By having it be available in an electronic format in the Cloud. And now it is. The features of this electron version of Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits include:
- Two new chapters not included in the current print version – Chapter 10 on Minimum Distribution Rules for Defined Benefit Plans and Annuitized IRAs and Chapter 11 on Insurance, Annuities, and Retirement Plans
- An expanded version of Chapter 7 – Charitable Giving updated through March 31, 2015, and including all material from the Special Report: Charitable Giving with Retirement Benefits.
- It is word searchable
- It contains dynamic links from Table of Contents and to others Sections of the book (and back) with just a click
- It is automatically updated, including new information for the 2015 rollover rules
- It allows hyperlinking (again with just a click) to virtually all authorities (Code Sections, Revenue Rulings, PLRs, etc.) cited in the book
If you like the paper version of Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits, you will love the electronic version. You can subscribe to it at RetirementBenefitsPlanning.com
