Individual Retirement Account

Better known as an IRA, an individual retirement account is a type of account that is intended to help you save for your golden years. Designed to encourage people to save for their retirement, the IRA comes with tax breaks which you get either now or when you retire. There are two types of IRAs. The traditional IRA provides a tax deduction for some portion of the amount you put away. In contrast, with a Roth IRA you don’t get an upfront tax break but you do get to withdraw your savings plus profits without paying a single dime in taxes on that future distribution during retirement. With both types of IRAs, the interest, dividend and capital gains over the years are not subject to taxes. There are limitations to the amount you can stash away in an IRA each year, but you can invest in many different instruments – equities, mutual funds, bonds, exchange traded funds or keep it in cash. There are also penalties that come into play with both types of IRAs if you choose to take money out of the account “early” or before reaching 59 ½.

Treasury Department Focuses on Longevity Risk with Retirement Income Guidance

The Treasury Department just released a proposed set of regulations that could have a meaningful impact on the retirement income market in the U.S.

The Treasury’s guidance package builds on feedback received in response to the request for comments issued by the Labor and Treasury Departments last fall.

The...

Some Sobering 401k Statistics

The UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education just released an interesting research report titled “Meeting California’s Retirement Security Challenge.” The report has an introduction written by Jacob Hacker—a Political Science professor at Yale University. Hacker’s introduction focuses on what he refers to as the “Great Risk Shift” and is appropriately titled “The Coming Age of Retirement Insecurity.” The viability of defined...

Why Low Interest Rates Increase the Cost of Your Personal Pension Plan

Retirees and those saving for retirement should think of themselves as the managers of their own personal pension plan.  

Many people used to have access to a traditional, defined benefit pension plan through their employers.  With a defined benefit pension plan, someone else (an employer or professional managers hired by an employer) assumes responsibility for managing plan contributions, investments and...

Reverse Mortgage Data

There is a case to be made for home equity as the most important source of retirement funding in the United States, and this would seem to make the...

Companies: 

eRollover CEO Tim Harrington on Filling a Void in the Retirement Planning Market

Tim Harrington is the Chairman and CEO of start-up eRollover.

Tim is a seasoned technology and consumer marketing entrepreneur.  Among Tim’s accomplishments is the ecommerce company Fogdog Sports--a venture he led from inception through successful IPO and post-IPO merger.

We had the opportunity to speak with Tim before his presentation at the Finovate conference in San Francisco.

 

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