I received a notice from my employer about our 401k plan. The plan will soon start charging an administrative fee to employees’ accounts, estimated to be about $20 per quarter. Until now our plan didn’t charge any administrative fee explicitly. I was able to confirm that on my 401k plan statement. See previous post Find […]
Obama Budget Limits Tax Deductions On 401k, Health Insurance, and Muni Bond Interest to 28%
The Obama budget proposal is officially released last week. The proposed tax related changes are further explained in a Green Book. $3 Million Cap On Retirement Accounts First on the proposed $3 million cap on retirement accounts (p. 175 in the Green Book PDF), it’s not exactly $3 million, but actually an amount enough to […]
Obama Budget Proposal: Chained CPI and Cap on Retirement Accounts
The news media, Internet discussion boards and Twitter are full of protests about two things in President Obama’s budget proposal, leaked to the press before its official release: chained CPI for Social Security and cap on retirement accounts. First of all, these are only proposals. The President does not make law. The proposals get fed […]
Fiscal Cliff Deal and Backdoor Roth
Happy New Year! News came that Congress passed a fiscal cliff deal, official known as the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Whether you like it or not, that’ll be the law for now. Rather than doing a run-down for what’s in it, which I’m sure you read everywhere, I will look at one item […]
Find Out How Much You Paid Admin Fees In Your 401k Or 403b
Back in August, my 401k provider sent a disclosure required by the new Department of Labor rules. It basically said they may deduct fees from my account and when they do, the amount would show up on the quarterly statement. It didn’t say how much those fees would be. See my previous post New 401k […]
How to Save $4,000 in Your Graduation Year — Part 1: Taxes
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name.] If you are a college senior or if you graduated this year, pay attention. The year in which you finish college and enter the workforce presents unique tax circumstances. In addition, you may think you are achieving financial independence from your […]
How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect Middle Class Families?
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name as a follow-up to his previous post How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect High Earners?] There hasn’t been much discussion of how screwed middle class families with significant medical expenses are going to be by a couple of […]
How Much Will the New Health Care Taxes Affect High Earners?
[This is a guest post from Bogleheads investment forum participant Bob’s not my name.] There’s a lot of talk these days about the new Medicare taxes in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), so you may be wondering how much they will affect you. The short answer is: If your household income (married filing jointly) is […]
New 401k Fee Disclosure Does Not Disclose Admin Fees
New regulations from the federal government forced 401k plan providers to give better disclosure to the plan participants about the fees they are paying. August 30 was the deadline for distributing the first disclosure. You should have received yours by now. I read the disclosure from my plan. It confirmed that the funds in the […]
Best Investment Options With Fidelity BrokerageLink
401k plans are slowly getting better. My plan added a low-cost collective trust. My wife’s plan added a self-directed brokerage account, also known as a brokerage window. Her plan is managed by Fidelity. Fidelity calls it BrokerageLink. Some 401k plans managed by Charles Schwab also have this feature. Schwab calls it PCRA — Personal Choice […]
Most TSP Participants Should Switch To the Roth TSP
My friend Austin asked me about the Roth TSP. TSP is Thrift Savings Plan. It’s the equivalent to a 401k plan for federal government employees and members of the military. Until now, TSP only accepts pre-tax contributions, like a Traditional 401k. TSP announced that it will add the Roth feature soon. I heard April 1, […]
Collective Trust vs Mutual Fund: What’s the Difference?
My 401k plan recently added a new investment option. It’s a collective trust from BlackRock — BlackRock EAFE Equity Index Collective Trust. It invests in stocks in developed countries, tracking the MSCI EAFE index. What Is a Collective Trust? A collective trust is like a mutual fund but it only sells to institutional investors like […]