The Current Tax Law Regarding Savings for Retirement

Because of the ups, downs, and other unpredictable changes in the current tax law, regarding savings for retirement, and other financial concerns that are part of every life, you need to plan carefully for your retirement needs. We provide information concerning social security payments, retirement tax credit, tax deductions on lump sum cash outs and current tax law changes.

Retirement Tax Credit and Tax Deductions Concerning Retirement

For small business owners in particular, having a good retirement plan allows you to build up a solid investment fund outside your business and gain significant tax benefits along the way - and as an added benefit, qualified tax retirement plans offer some protection from creditors should some unexpected event threaten your business and personal assets.

• Distributions from a pension plan or annuity

  You or your spouse may currently be receiving payments from retirement plans from former employers, or you may have purchased a commercial annuity that provides you with income. This section will explain the treatment of both periodic or annuity-type pension payments, and lump-sum distributions.
  
  

• Lump-sum distributions

  Some special rules and reporting methods apply if you cash out your benefits in one fell swoop.
  
  

• Social Security payments

  If you're receiving Social Security benefits, you'll need to be able to calculate the portion (if any) that is taxable.
  
  

• Individual retirement accounts

  This section also discusses individual retirement accounts, a type of plan that's gotten a lot of attention because of the addition of Roth IRAs to the menu in 1998, and the enhanced availability of regular deductible IRAs.
  
  

• Pension plan contributions

  For business owners, we discuss how to deduct your contributions to a business-related retirement plan elsewhere in this Guide.