Written by Brandon Grundy, CFP®.
Pay now or pay later, that’s the main question when we think about taxes on our retirement accounts and it’s one with lasting consequences. A client recently sent me an article about converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs in the context of government debt. Let’s touch on that while discussing some of the basic considerations for people who feel they need to play catchup when it comes to Roth accounts.
The history of individual retirement accounts coincides with the decline of employer-sponsored pension plans. I won’t go into all of that here. However, some context is important. The shift began in the 70’s and 80’s to account types that were owned, managed, and the responsibility of employees instead of employers. This led to the 401(k) structure we’re all familiar with and, over time, the expansion of IRAs. To incentivize savings the government gave workers a tax deduction on contributions and the employer got a tax break (and less burden from not having to provide workers with a pension) when it added money to an employee’s account. Employers had rules to follow when structuring plans, but otherwise employees were on their own to manage their 401(k)s if that was an option and, if not, their IRA.
That was (and still is) the primary option for retirement savings until the late-90’s when Roth IRAs were created by Congress. Roth accounts flipped the tax savings thinking around – savers gave up a tax deduction on their contribution but got tax free growth if they left money in the Roth long enough. As with traditional IRAs, Roth accounts weren’t available in the workplace. Instead, savers opened and funded these accounts based on various limitations, such as the original $2,000 maximum annual contribution. This was raised over time to the current $7,000, or $8,000 for those age 50 or older.
Decades of inertia around this led to most savers having most of their money in tax-deferred 401(k) accounts and IRAs instead of in a Roth. Any dollar saved for retirement is positive, but the long-term reliance on traditional plans leaves many savers facing a series of tax bills because every dollar in those accounts will be taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn.
Say you contributed $100,000 during your working years and your balance grew to $1 million. Nice job! You saved on taxes while saving for retirement and haven’t paid taxes on dividends, interest, and gains in your account the whole time. The US Treasury has been waiting decades for tax revenue and they’ll eventually get it. Part of how they collect is by requiring you to start taking distributions by age 73 whether you need the money or not. Most retirees would have already started taking distributions for obvious reasons, but many don’t. These latter folks are left paying taxes on income they don’t actually need. On a million-dollar balance the first required distribution could be $38,000, all taxable in the year distributed. That could kick the account owner into a higher tax bracket or more if this income coincides with a spouse’s distribution, Social Security income, and so forth. Too much taxable income is a good problem to have but it’s still a problem.
It’s this group that Roths appeal to most in hindsight since Roth IRAs don’t have the minimum distribution requirement. The challenge is how to get money that’s currently in a traditional retirement account into a Roth.
This is where Roth Conversions come in. You do this by having your existing custodian (your workplace plan or brokerage firm) move cash and/or investments from your traditional balance into Roth. Sounds straightforward, right? There might be some forms but otherwise it’s all electronic and shouldn’t cost anything… in fees. However, the conversion gets taxed as income during the year you convert. You have the option to withhold taxes at the time, but generally speaking it’s better to pay at tax-time with other money (doing so helps the Roth conversion break even faster). The ultimate tax bill depends on a variety of factors that are beyond the scope of this post, but your tax advisor or humble financial planner can help you figure this out.
So planning ahead to reduce the impact of required distributions makes good sense depending on your current tax situation. But what if taxes are higher in the future, and should you try to preempt that by converting more now? Aren’t higher taxes a given with government debt being so high?
Our national debt is massive, more than twice that of any other country and larger than the next four higher-debt country’s debt load combined, according to a quick Google search. That sounds bad. However, we should remember that our economy is equally massive and our nation’s debt functions differently than our personal household debt does. To grossly oversimplify, our government can continue to refinance its debt indefinitely so long as there are willing lenders. And willing lenders abound. Our bonds are the most liquid in the world and our currency is involved in an overwhelming majority of all foreign exchange transactions. Sure, there may come a time when our economic status and currency is meaningfully different, but that’s not likely anytime soon.
Ensuring long-term dollar primacy requires that we keep our fiscal house in order. However, it doesn’t necessarily matter in the way many in the marketplace use to scare (for lack of a better word) people into buying a product or books about investing in gold or paying abnormally high tax bills when converting traditional retirement account balances into a Roth.
So consider your motivation for doing a Roth conversion and make sure it makes sense for your personal situation. Run some tax projections while weighing other options for shielding your IRA from taxes, such as donating money from your IRA to charity tax-free if you’re at least 70.5 years old. This can be a good way to offset taxes on required minimum distributions while helping the organizations you value. Beyond that, be careful about how quickly you try to play catchup with the perceived benefits of a Roth IRA.
Have questions? Ask us. We can help.
Written by Brandon Grundy, CFP®.
The second quarter (Q2) of 2024 continued this year’s A Tale of Two Markets: AI Versus Everyone Else. Large indexes like the S&P 500 performed well but this was driven primarily by a handful of large companies. Otherwise, market breadth was mixed with performance growing worse as company size grew smaller. Bonds also continued their tale of woe while experiencing a couple of positive glimmers during the quarter.
Here’s a roundup of how major markets performed during Q2 and so far this year, respectively:
- US Large Cap Stocks: up 4.4%, up 15.2%
- US Small Cap Stocks: down 3.3%, up 1.6%
- US Core Bonds: about flat, down 0.7%
- Developed Foreign Markets: down 0.2%, up 5.8%
- Emerging Markets: up 4.4%, up 6.7%
As I just mentioned, major stock indexes in the US looked great on paper as average returns seemed to rise steadily throughout the quarter. The largest publicly-traded stocks related to artificial intelligence performed best. Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia each ended Q2 with a $3+ trillion market capitalization and the worst performer of the bunch, Apple, was up 24% during the quarter. These and other popular Large Cap Growth names within the Technology and Communication Services sectors, like Google and Meta, now occupy such a large portion of the market that they massively impact index performance. Last quarter was positive because of this but performance could easily have gone the other way. This is plain when looking at benchmarks like the Russell 1000 that include the 500 largest stocks (similar to the S&P 500) and the next 500 smaller companies. According to my research partners at Bespoke Investment Group, this index rose by a respectable 3.3% during Q2. However, the top four stocks in the index added four percentage points of gain. Without them the remaining 996 stocks would have collectively averaged a small loss. Nvidia alone was worth almost 48% of the index’s gain. Besides the aforementioned sectors along with Consumer Staples and Utilities, up 1% and 4.6%, respectively, all other sectors in the US were negative during Q2. This is a reminder of how imbalances in the markets can be masked by average index performance and how this can promote investor complacency. Always look beyond the label – it’s what’s inside that matters.
This sort of imbalance isn’t unprecedented. Markets reflect the economy and substantial changes in market perspectives have coincided with every major development from the railroads to the creation of the internet. The rise of AI seems likely to be historically significant for the economy and markets, and maybe that’s a vast understatement. Only time will tell but we have to watch how these imbalances impact your portfolio in the meantime.
Beyond AI impacting the stock market, the bond market saw some positive moments during Q2 compared to recent quarters. Bond prices are highly sensitive to changes (anticipated or actual) in interest rates and rates were on the minds of investors again. As 2024 began investors expected the Federal Reserve to cut rates as much as half a dozen times during the year assuming inflation improved. However, inflation remained elevated and Fed officials indicated that rates could stay higher for longer. Investors quickly recalculated and the yield on the 10yr Treasury, an important benchmark, rose in April causing bond prices to fall. This reversed a bit in June as inflation and Fed policy forecasts seemed to improve. As Q2 ended the CME FedWatch website indicated investors were again expecting the Fed to reduce rates 3-4 times this year (and more into early-2025). These expectations could be overeager and have whipsawed quite a bit in recent weeks. This uncertainty will likely persist during the second half of this year.
So what to do about AI-driven imbalances in the stock market and the continued plight of core bonds. If you’re doing the “right” thing you’ll have diversification across asset classes (stocks, bonds, and cash), sectors (Technology, Healthcare, Financials, and so forth – there are eleven sectors in the US), and industries. Within bonds you’ll likely have exposure to those issued by the US Treasury, large corporations, and government agencies. You may also have bonds issued by states and smaller municipalities. You’ll have ready cash that pays essentially nothing in terms of interest, but you might also have some cash in a money market or CD at a decent rate. You have all these investment types so you’re not pinning your hopes on any one or two at a time. Sure, it would be nice to luck into having all of your money in Nvidia stock as it grows exponentially, but what if Nvidia got walloped or failed? I’m not suggesting this is likely. However, recall some of the many examples over time of massive growth followed by massive failure like Enron or maybe Pets.com. Those stories should stimulate a prudent desire to hedge your bets. Own it all in manageable and appropriate proportions. Then rebalance as needed based on a specific and repeatable process. You’ll get lift from AI-related stocks (or whatever else is popular at the time) while enjoying safety in numbers. You probably won’t beat the market on any given day but you’ll have a good chance of beating the system over the long run. And bonds are still helpful as a store of cash for the medium-term. You should continue to hold them in your portfolio along with complimentary instruments like short-term CDs and money market funds.
There’s uncertainty as we enter a new quarter, as always, but the economy is doing well and most of the stock market isn’t overvalued. I’m optimistic about returns for the rest of the year but I plan to stay disciplined and focused on long-term performance versus chasing what’s popular. I humbly suggest you do the same.
Have questions? Ask us. We can help.
Written by Brandon Grundy, CFP®.
Your beneficiary designations matter and are easily overlooked, sometimes for years. You list them on your retirement accounts and life insurance contracts, and maybe on your bank and brokerage accounts. If you skip this step, perhaps assuming you’ll handle it later, the default option is often your “estate”, meaning your accounts have to go through probate.
We’ve discussed this in prior posts over the years but this concept is worthy of repetition.
The paperwork for some accounts, such as Schwab’s IRA application, often has a predetermined order of priority if you forget to name your own beneficiaries. First it’s your spouse and then your kids (natural or legally adopted) but the form doesn’t automatically include stepchildren. Third comes your estate as beneficiary and that usually means probate.
Is that what you want? Would you instead prefer to list your own beneficiaries to avoid ambiguity? Or do you have beneficiaries whom you’d like to receive an uneven portion of your account? Maybe charities? Or as is the case with the story I’m linking to below, did you list someone during what’s now a prior life and want to update that to your current situation?
Here are a few important points to remember when thinking about beneficiary designations.
- They’re per account and designations on one don’t apply to another. There’s nothing stopping you from listing your spouse on all of your IRAs, your grandchild on your Roth IRA, and charities on your life insurance, whatever you want. Your spouse typically has to agree by signing a form if someone else is a primary beneficiary, but you can get creative.
- Lots of account types can have beneficiaries. IRAs, Roth IRAs, your plans at current and former workplaces, even bank accounts, and of course life insurance. Adding beneficiary designations wherever possible is cheap estate planning.
- Beneficiary designations can override your will. Just because your will or trust lists your current spouse as beneficiary of “everything”, that usually has no bearing on an old 401(k) still held with a former employer that lists your ex-spouse as beneficiary.
- Accounts with named beneficiaries usually bypass probate. In my experience most beneficiaries (spouses, adult children, and so forth) get access to the funds in a week or two after signing some paperwork and submitting a death certificate. Compare that to probate in CA taking a year or more. Your beneficiaries can accelerate the process if your estate is small (less than $185K in CA currently) but avoid this if possible. And probate is expensive. Some sources suggest that 4% to 7% of an estate can go to various costs.
- Your beneficiary designations are revocable but durable – nothing changes without you! You should review your designations periodically to ensure they look right. For most people this is simple because you probably listed your spouse as primary beneficiary and maybe your kids as equal contingents. But I ask again, are you sure this is what you want? Do you want to equalize a financial gift for one kid by increasing another’s share of a retirement account? Have your balances grown and you want to shift who gets which account and how much, maybe considering tax consequences? Lots of options to personalize your beneficiaries if you think about it…
Okay, so on to the story that started the wheels turning this morning…
The following link goes to The Wall Street Journal and details a legal battle between brothers fighting to keep their deceased brother’s old 401(k) from going to a girlfriend he had decades ago. Her claim is clear – she’s listed as the 100% beneficiary of a specific account and there’s paperwork to prove it. The brothers’ claim is ambiguous – we don’t think that’s what our brother intended. Who knows what can happen in the legal system and I’m not an attorney, but everything I’ve learned over the past 20+ years in this business indicates that the former girlfriend is the decedent’s lawful beneficiary. Is that what the brother actually wanted? Who knows because apparently the only document he left behind was the beneficiary form he completed decades ago.
Don’t let that be you. Don’t let this happen to the person or people you feel should inherit your remaining assets. Don’t make them go through probate unnecessarily and help them avoid the legal system if at all possible.
You can check your account statements to see who you’ve listed as beneficiaries. If it’s not there, check your online portal. If you can’t find them anywhere, call the company! Or if we’re managing your accounts, reach out to us and we’ll tell you exactly how you’re set up and can assist with updating as needed.
One of the issues in this lawsuit was the former employer not making information from “old” paper documents viewable online. I’ve seen this before. Your beneficiary listing will say something like “on file” versus showing specific names. Trust but verify, as the saying goes. Doing so could save your beneficiaries a lot of trouble.
Here's the link to the story I mentioned.
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/inherited-retirement-savings-beneficiary-breakup-divorce-849e3ff2
Have questions? Ask us. We can help.