There are some classes of software that simply don't change much from year to year, and retirement planning software is one of them."
That was the lead sentence from last year's roundup of retirement planning software, just before the crashing economy and the loss of trillions of dollars in assets made that statement ridiculous. Not since the recession of the early 1980s has the need for revised retirement planning - and better tools with which to handle market and tax conditions - been so acute.
* Whole bevy of issues have emerged in the past year, not the least of which are:
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* Can your clients still retire, or do all the basic assumptions need to be revisited?
* What if the markets are slow to come back?
* With trillions spent to revive the economy - and trillions more planned - what will be the tax ramifications?
* What changes are anticipated in the planned overhauls of Social Security and Medicare?
* How are the financial straits of state and local governments going to affect taxes, including sales and property taxes, for retirees and prospective retirees?
The stress of the current recession, coupled with the loss of assets for most clients and uncertainty about where to invest for future years, will make the near future more demanding for most accountants engaged in retirement planning, and may necessitate changes in how accountants approach these engagements.
Fortunately, publishers of retirement planning systems seem attentive to this need - many are updating and releasing new versions of their software this year, while others are making provisions for changing federal and state tax laws or the need for stronger comparison of scenarios.
We've looked at the nine most notable retirement planning tools for the 2009 product survey. Here's how they stack up:
BRENTMARK RETIREMENT PLAN ANALYZER
Brentmark offers three programs directed specifically at retirement planning, of which the flagship is the Retirement Plan Analyzer. The RPA is used to evaluate various strategies of taking distributions from traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, Roth 401(k)s and other qualified retirement plans. Its companion programs are the Retirement Distributions Planner and the Retirement Income Navigator.
In the final stages of beta testing is a new 2009 version of the Retirement Plan Analyzer, which retains the interface and functionality of previous versions, but with some new features. Chief among these are the addition of a new "quick calculators" tab, which allows a side-by-side comparison of conversion of the retirement plan to a Roth IRA. There is also a new "quick start" menu for faster access to client set-up and functions.
The RPA calculates up to four alternatives simultaneously for varying types of distributions, including minimum distributions, pre-59-1/2 distributions, Roth IRA conversions (including the two-year spread-out for such conversions in year 2010), spousal rollovers, income taxes, estate taxes, IRD calculations, life insurance and done-exclusion gifting.
