William Byrnes 3

While April 15 is a well-known and understood deadline, most clients don’t associate April 1 with any important tax-related deadlines—but April 1 is, in fact, one of the most important deadlines for clients who turned 70 1/2 years old in the previous year. For those clients who maintain traditional retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s and IRAs, April 1 is the date by which they must take their first required minimum distribution (RMD) from the account if they turned 701/2 in the previous year.

For example, a client who turned 701/2 in 2018 must take their first RMD by April 1, 2019. This April 1 deadline is a special rule that applies only to first-time RMDs–a client’s 2019 RMD will be due by December 31, 2019. This means that clients who choose to wait until the April 1 deadline will be required to take two RMDs in 2019. For each subsequent year, the generally applicable December 31 deadline is the relevant date for RMDs. For more information on lifetime RMD requirements, visit Tax Facts Online. Read More

Written By William Byrnes

 

 

 

Harold Goedde

Taxpayers who have a tax deferred retirement plan (e.g., a 401K, 403B, 457B) or an IRA must take a required minimum distribution (RMD) when they reach age 70 ½ which is reported as ordinary income. In the year you become 70 ½, you can defer the first distribution until April 15 of the following year.

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John Stancil

The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act (PATH) contains a number of tax provisions that are designed to reduce the amount of taxes paid by United States taxpayers. This act was signed by the President in December 2015. The provisions in the act are not new incentives, but made existing incentives permanent. This can be seen as somewhat significant as there is sentiment in Congress and elsewhere to reduce the tax benefit from charitable contributions. I would add that “permanent” in tax lingo means the provisions do not expire, but may be changed at any time by Congress.

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I had a number of clients hit the magic RMD age this past year. RMD is an acronym for Required Minimum Distributions, if you are getting close to 70 years of age, you will be hearing that a lot. Even if that magic number is quite a ways down the road for you, this is a post you will want to read & remember.

Read more about RMDs in detail here on my blog post.

For a quick recap about what Required Minimum Distributions are, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines it as “Required Minimum Distributions generally are minimum amounts that a retirement plan account owner must withdraw annually starting with the year that he or she reaches 70 ½ years of age or, if later, the year in which he or she retires. However, if the retirement plan account is an IRA or the account owner is a 5% Read More

As year-end approaches, this is a good time to make sure you have taken your required minimum distribution (RMD) for 2015.

What is an RMD, you ask? The tax code does not allow IRA owners to keep funds in a traditional IRA indefinitely. Eventually, assets must be distributed and taxes paid. If there are no distributions, or if the distributions are not large enough, the IRA owner may have to pay a 50% penalty on the amount not distributed as required.

Generally, required distribution begins in the year the IRA owner attains the age of 70½. If 2015 is the year you reached 70½, you can avoid a penalty by taking that distribution no later than April 1, 2016. However, delaying the first distribution means you must take two distributions in 2016, one for 2015, when you reached age 70½, and one Read More