What are the Taxes on My IRA Withdrawal? – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Investopedia’s recent article entitled “How Much Are Taxes on an IRA Withdrawal?” explains that the withdrawal rules for other types of IRAs are similar to the traditional IRA, with some small unique differences. Other types of IRAs include the SEP IRA, Simple IRA and SARSEP IRA. However, each of these has different rules about who can open one.

Tax-Free Withdrawals Only with Roth IRAs. When you invest with a Roth IRA, you deposit the money post-tax. Therefore, when you withdraw the money in retirement, you pay no tax on the money you withdraw, or on any gains your investments earned. That is a big benefit. To do this, the money must have been deposited in the IRA and held for at least five years and you must be at least 59½ years old. If you need cash before that, you can withdraw your contributions with no tax penalty, provided you do not touch any of the investment gains. You should document any withdrawals before 59½ and tell the trustee to use only contributions, if you are withdrawing funds early. If you do not do this, you could be charged the same early withdrawal penalties charged for taking money out of a traditional IRA.

The Taxing of IRA Withdrawals. Money that is placed in a traditional IRA is treated differently from money in a Roth, because it is pretax income. Each dollar you deposit lessens your taxable income by that amount. When you withdraw the money, both the initial investment and the gains it earned are taxed at your income tax rate when withdrawn. However, if you withdraw money before you are 59½, you will be hit with a 10% penalty, in addition to regular income tax based on your tax bracket. If you accidentally withdraw investment earnings rather than only contributions from a Roth IRA before you are 59½, you can also incur a 10% penalty. You can, therefore, see how important it is to keep careful records.

Avoiding the Early Withdrawal Tax Penalty. There are a few hardship exceptions to the 10% penalty for withdrawing money from a traditional IRA or the investment-earnings portion of a Roth IRA before you reach age 59½.

Do not mix Roth IRA funds with the other types of IRAs. If you do, the Roth IRA funds will become taxable. Some states also levy early withdrawal penalties. Once you hit age 59½, you can withdraw money without a 10% penalty from any type of IRA. If it is a Roth IRA and you have had a Roth for five years or more, you will not owe any income tax. If it is not, you will have taxes due.

The funds put in a traditional IRA are treated differently from money in a Roth. If the money is deposited in a traditional IRA, SEP IRA, Simple IRA or SARSEP IRA, you will owe taxes at your current tax rate on the amount you withdraw. However, you will not owe any income tax, provided that you keep your money in a non-Roth IRA until you reach another key age milestone. Once you reach age 72 (with new SECURE Act), you will have to take a distribution from a traditional IRA. The IRS has specific rules about how much you must withdraw each year, which is called the required minimum distribution (RMD). If you do not withdraw your RMD, you could be hit with a 50% tax on the amount not distributed as required.

There are no RMD requirements for a Roth IRA, but if money is still there after your death, your beneficiaries may have to pay taxes. There are several different ways they can withdraw the funds, so they should get the advice of an attorney.

Reference:  Investopedia (Feb. 21, 2020) “How Much Are Taxes on an IRA Withdrawal?”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

What Should I Know about the Secure Act of 2019 and IRAs? – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

New federal rules for IRAs will significantly add to the tax burden for some heirs by telescoping the permitted period for withdrawals. But this pain can be greatly reduced by converting regular IRAs to Roth IRAs before bequeathing them, explains CNBC’s recent article entitled “Here is a way to beat the tax burden for IRA heirs.”

Before the new legislation, all heirs could enjoy their entire life expectancy to take withdrawals from inherited IRAs. As a result, they were able to stretch out these accounts, and the tax on withdrawals, over decades. That is why they were given the nickname “stretch IRAs.”

But this changed in December of 2019 when Congress passed the Secure Act of 2019. The bill preserves the lifelong stretch period for surviving spouses, minor children, the chronically ill, and other individuals who are not more than 10 years younger than their benefactors (this group would include most siblings). However, for other heirs—including adult children—the new rules restrict the stretch period to a single decade. Beginning with the IRA bequests from benefactors who die in 2020, heirs must now take out all of the funds from these accounts within 10 years and pay ordinary income tax on each withdrawal.

With this accumulated wealth to heirs, adult children will also be saddled with a huge tax burden. This means more of a need for estate planning to address this. Without estate-planning expertise, these beneficiaries will likely withdraw 10% of the IRA’s assets every year for 10 years to lessen the tax impact.

A wise solution for some is to convert their regular IRA into a Roth IRA. Unlike regular IRAs, contributions to Roth IRAs are made solely with post-tax money. Though unlike regular IRAs, Roth IRAs carry no income tax on withdrawals, the Secure Act means they will now be required to drain the account within 10 years of inheritance.

Note that as you get near retirement, converting to a Roth has a few other advantages. Holders of regular IRAs must begin taking annual required minimum distributions (RMDS) at age 72 (before the new legislation in December, this age was 70½).

However, if you plan to keep working or are retiring with sufficient income from other resources, you may not decide to take withdrawals. Rather, you may want to allow these assets in your account grow intact rather than gradually weaning them for withdrawal. Converting to a Roth allows you to do this.

Depending on your situation, a Roth conversion might be a wise option if—not only to lessen your heirs’ tax burden but also to sustain the growth of your retirement nest egg.

Ask your estate planning attorney about a Roth IRA conversion and how it fits into your estate plan.

Reference: CNBC (Feb. 12, 2020) “Here’s a way to beat the tax burden for IRA heirs”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Estate Planning Checklist, Especially for Procrastinators – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Many people do not think of themselves as having an “estate.” However, a house, car, savings account, life insurance, and all the possessions you own are an estate. If, after years of procrastinating, you finally did the right thing and had an estate plan created with an experienced estate planning attorney, is there anything else you need to do? Yes, says Federal News Network in the article “Good at putting things off? Here’s the last checklist you’ll ever need!”

Where should you keep your estate planning documents? These documents need to be kept in a secure location that is known to the people who will need access to them. A will might be kept at home in a fire and waterproof safe, or at your attorney’s office. Each estate planning attorney has his or her own process and can make recommendations. A will placed in a safe deposit box may create huge headaches, if the box is sealed upon death. Remember that people will need easy access to some documents, like a Do Not Resuscitate, or Medical Health Care Proxy, so they could be stored somewhere in the home where they can be grabbed in an emergency.

Who should have a copy of my estate plan? This is a personal preference. Some people give a copy to all heirs and their executor. Others prefer to keep it private. It is essential that the person who will be your executor knows where your will is and can get access to it quickly.

Update beneficiary designations. Many assets are governed not by the will, but by the beneficiary designations on the accounts. That may include retirement accounts, annuities, IRAs, life insurance, and possibly bank accounts and investment accounts. Check them every few years, especially if there have been divorces, marriages and new members added to the family.

Review how your assets are titled. If there are assets owned as “joint with right of survivorship,” they will not pass through probate and will become owned by the joint owner upon death. Sometimes this works well for large accounts, but sometimes it backfires. Talk with your estate planning lawyer.

How long does my estate plan last? An estate plan does not have an expiration date.

When should I amend my estate plan? Anytime there is a large change in the law, as has recently occurred with the passage of the SECURE Act, the estate plan should be reviewed. The SECURE Act has changed the rules about IRA distributions for heirs. Anyone with a sizable IRA should review their plan.

Any time there is a large event in your life, is another time when your estate plan should be reviewed. Those events include a death, birth, marriage, or divorce. If the person you had named as your executor or who had been given Power of Attorney or Health Care Proxy is no longer in your life or is no longer trusted, you also want to review and change these documents.

Reference: Federal News Network (Feb. 5, 2020) “Good at putting things off? Here’s the last checklist you’ll ever need!”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Alternatives for Stretch IRA Strategies – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

The majority of many people’s wealth is in their IRAs, that is saved from a lifetime of work. Their goal is to leave their IRAs to their children, says a recent article from Think Advisor titled “Three Replacements for Stretch IRAs.” The ability to distribute IRA wealth over years, and even decades, was eliminated with the passage of the SECURE Act.

The purpose of the law was to add an estimated $428 million to the federal budget over the next 10 years. Of the $16.2 billion in revenue provisions, some $15.7 billion is accounted for by eliminating the stretch IRA.

Existing beneficiaries of stretch IRAs will not be affected by the change in the law. But going forward, most IRA heirs—with a few exceptions, including spousal heirs—will have to take their withdrawals within a ten year period of time.

The estate planning legal and financial community is currently scrutinizing the law and looking for strategies that will protect these large accounts from taxes. Here are three estate planning approaches that are emerging as front runners.

Roth conversions. Traditional IRA owners who wished to leave their retirement assets to children may be passing on big tax burdens now that the stretch is gone, especially if beneficiaries themselves are high earners. An alternative is to convert regular IRAs to Roth IRAs and take the tax hit at the time of the conversion.

There is no guarantee that the Roth IRA will never be taxed, but tax rates right now are relatively low. If tax rates go up, it might make converting the Roth IRAs too expensive.

This needs to be balanced with state inheritance taxes. Converting to a Roth could reduce the size of the estate and thereby reduce tax exposure for the state as well.

Life insurance. This is being widely touted as the answer to the loss of the stretch, but like all other methods, it needs to be viewed as part of the entire estate plan. Using distributions from an IRA to pay for a life insurance policy is not a new strategy.

Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT). The IRA could be used to fund a charitable remainder trust. This allows the benefactor to establish an income stream for heirs with part of the IRA assets, with the remainder going to a named charity. The trust can grow assets tax free. There are two different ways to do this: a charitable remainder annuity trust, which distributes a fixed annual annuity and does not allow continued contributions, or a charitable remainder unitrust, which distributes a fixed percentage of the initial assets and does allow continued contributions.

Speak with your estate planning lawyer about what options may work best in your unique situation.

Reference: Think Advisor (Jan. 24, 2020) “Three Replacements for Stretch IRAs”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys

Unintended Kiddie Tax Change Fixed in the SECURE Act – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning

Families were hurt by a change in the kiddie tax that took effect after 2017, but they will be able to undo the damage from 2018 and 2019 now that a fix has become law. The SECURE Act contains a provision that fixed this unintended change, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle’s recent article, “Congress reversed kiddie-tax change that accidentally hurt some families.”

The kiddie tax was created many years ago to prevent wealthy families from transferring large amounts of investments to dependent children, who would then be taxed at a much lower rate than their parents. It taxed a child’s unearned income above a certain amount at the parent’s rate, instead of at the lower child’s rate. Unearned income includes investments, Social Security benefits, pensions, annuities, taxable scholarships and fellowships. Earned income, which is money earned from working, is always taxed at the lower rate.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed the kiddie tax in a way that had severe consequences for military families receiving survivor benefits. Instead of taxing unearned income above a certain level—$2,100 in 2018 and $2,200 in 2019—at the parent’s tax rate, it taxed it at the federal rate for trusts and estates starting in 2018.

Hitting military families with a 37% tax rate that starts at $12,750 in taxable income is unthinkable, but that is what happened. Low and middle-income families whose dependent children were receiving unearned income, including retirement benefits received by dependent children of service members who died on active duty and scholarships used for expenses other than tuition and books, were effectively penalized by the change.

Under pressure from groups representing military families and scholarship providers, Congress finally added a measure repealing the kiddie tax change to the SECURE Act, which seemed as if it was going to be passed quickly in May. The bill was stalled until it was attached to the appropriations bill and was not passed until December 20, 2019.

There is a specific provision in the bill: “Tax Relief for Certain Children” that completely reverses the change starting in 2020. It also says that subject to the Treasury Department issuing guidance, taxpayers may be able to apply the repeal to their 2018 and 2019 tax years, or both.

The IRS has not yet issued guidance, but the expectation is that amended returns will be required, if a taxpayer elects to use the parents’ tax rate for that year.

Some parents whose children have investment income may be better off using the estate-tax rate for the two years that it is in place. In 2019, those trust brackets may actually allow more capital gains and dividends be taxed at the 0% and 15% rates than by using the parents’ rates.

Reference: San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 20, 2020) “Congress reversed kiddie-tax change that accidentally hurt some families”

Sims & Campbell, LLC – Annapolis and Towson Estate Planning Attorneys