Know Your IRA

For an area as highly regulated as IRAs and company plans, it’s not surprising that there’s a ton of abbreviated terms to keep track of. Here’s 18 common ones that you should know.

Retirement accounts and divorce. When a divorce occurs, the financial assets of a couple, including their retirement accounts, are often split. If mistakes are made during this process, the stress of a divorce can be compounded when one or both spouses find that they are subject to unnecessary taxes or penalties.

Surprisingly, the rules governing what happens when an ex-spouse acquires a Roth IRA after divorce are unclear. Here are just three of the many key items to consider.

Whenever there is a new administration there is a lot of uncertainty about what the change will mean for retirement accounts.

A spouse beneficiary must be married to the account owner at the time of the account owner’s death, and he or she must be named on the beneficiary form (or inherit directly through the document default provisions). A spouse beneficiary has a number of unique options. 1. Split the inherited account if necessary. A spouse beneficiary can take advantage of the special spousal rules if they are the sole beneficiary of an IRA account.

Can children have IRAs? There is no minimum age for having an IRA. Due to the power of compound interest, saving tax-free in an IRA from childhood can provide a significant head start on financial security. Saving $6,000 in an IRA annually from age 14 through 24 and earning 7% per year provides $1.16 million at age 61—even without contributing after age 24!