Retirement

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 The additional tax is 10 percent of amounts withdrawn that are includible in gross income.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.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has released a new online toolkit to help preparers and auditors of state and local government pension plans implement new accounting and financial reporting standards.

The Internal Revenue Service released the annual cost-of-living adjustments Thursday affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for tax year 2014, allowing taxpayers to contribute up to $17,500 to their 401(k) plans in 2014.

A measure that would put the brakes on the Department of Labor's proposal to establish a fiduciary standard for advisors to retirement plans was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in a largely party-line vote on Tuesday.

Congress should consolidate and simplify the types of tax-favored retirement plans now available to small business owners to minimize the cost and administrative burden imposed by the plans, the American Institute of CPAs told Congress.

Investing is a complex undertaking. The supply of investment alternatives is seemingly endless. Evaluating various alternatives can be quite difficult and very time consuming.

A majority of large U.S. corporate pension plans were underfunded at the end of 2012, but Fitch Ratings said Thursday it believes funding levels at mid-year have improved with recent discount rate increases and strong equity market performance.

Governmental Accounting Standards Board chairman David Vaudt talks about his plans as GASB's new leader and the board's agenda for pension standards, post-employment benefits in the retiree health care area, and the need to provide useful information for elected officials and government policymakers, in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Daniel Hood.

The Internal Revenue Service has updated its static mortality tables for use by defined benefit pension plans in calculating the life expectancies of retirees.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is issuing a new accounting standards update on Monday that defers indefinitely certain disclosures about investments held by nonpublic employee benefit plans in their plan sponsors’ own nonpublic equity securities.

Nearly 70 percent of people in the Millennial generation have no retirement plan, according to a new survey.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued for public comment a proposed statement regarding the transition provisions of GASB’s new pension standards for state and local governments with the goal of eliminating a potential source of understatement of restated beginning net position and expense in a government’s first year of implementing GASB’s new pension accounting standards.