Retirement planning

The Internal Revenue Service has released a new revenue ruling that offers simplified safe harbor due diligence procedures that a retirement plan administrator can use in order to be deemed to have reasonably concluded that an amount was a valid rollover contribution for an individual retirement account.

When President Obama announced the myRA program during his State of the Union Address this year, it likely raised several questions among those in the accounting community: What is this new program? How will it work? How does it compare to the retirement benefits businesses already provide to their employees? What do I need to share with my clients about this?

The Internal Revenue Service is permitting millions of dollars in potentially improper self-employed retirement plan deductions to be claimed, according to a new government report, which estimates that up to $71.4 million over five years could be saved with better controls.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing transition relief to owners of individual retirement accounts and individual retirement annuities relating to the application of a one-rollover-per-year limitation of the Tax Code.

Americans' confidence in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement has recovered slightly from the record lows of the past five years, primarily among those participating in retirement plans, but overall their actual preparations for retirement haven't improved, according to a new survey.

Fewer retirees are expected to receive spousal or survivor benefits from Social Security and private employer-sponsored pension plans in the future, increasing their economic vulnerability, according to a new government report.

The United States ranked near the bottom of the top 20 countries in term of retirement security, according to a new report.

A blue ribbon panel of public policy experts has released a set of recommendations to address the problem of underfunded public pensions.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has released an implementation guide for the new GASB standards for accounting and financial reporting for pensions.

President Obama introduced a new retirement savings vehicle that he called a “MyRA” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, and the White House has followed up with more details on Wednesday about it.

President Barack Obama proposed a series of actions to deal with economic issues ranging from the minimum wage to tax reform and student loan debt during his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

Many considered Dec. 31, 2013, the final date for year-end tax planning, but there are numerous planning actions that you can take in 2014 retroactive to 2013. Here’s a quick and easy guide to help you with your planning.

Lyle Benson, founder of L.K. Benson & Co. and chairman of the AICPA's PFP Section, discusses how some of the tax changes in the past year could affect a client's financial planning this year, in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Daniel Hood.

Congress dangled an incentive for high-income Americans to convert their tax-deferred individual retirement accounts into post-tax plans. Their response was overwhelming.

An additional tax of 10 percent is charged on premature withdrawals from a qualified retirement plan, SIMPLE plan or IRA. The additional tax is 10 percent of amounts withdrawn that are includible in gross income. The rules and exceptions are intricate enough that they don’t need to be complicated by things like fraudulent withdrawals by a soon-to-be former spouse. But that’s what happened to Andrew Roberts, whose wife withdrew funds from his IRAs without his knowledge.

A recent ruling by the U.S. Tax Court holds a costly reminder about the consequences of making inappropriate transactions within a client’s IRA.

While financial independence and what you need to do in order to maintain independence is clearly important, it isn't the only thing.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued guidance on in-plan Roth Individual Retirement Account rollovers, that is, rollovers within a retirement plan to designated Roth IRAs in the same plan.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued a fix to correct a problem that emerged with the transition to new pension accounting standards.

The higher tax rates passed by Congress this year have some top U.S. earners seeking last-minute strategies to lower their tax bite as year-end calculations turn up unpleasant surprises.