Planning for Retirement and Retirement Accounts

Overview/Description
 What are your retirement dreams? Everyone wants to retire comfortably. The amount you need to do this depends on several variables, including your current age, when you start saving, the rate of return of savings accounts, expenses, and how long you live. This course focuses on basic retirement considerations, with heavy emphasis on income taxes. Taxes are always important in personal financial planning, but perhaps never more so than in the context of retirement accounts. When dealing with these accounts, there is often a "right" and "wrong" way to conduct transactions. The information in this course will help you avoid pitfalls and take advantage of available tax-reduction strategies. Throughout this course, the tax rules or tax values provided in the examples and calculations are based on the year 2001 tax guide. When you are creating your personal financial plan, be sure to use the tax guide rules and values for the current year.

Target Audience
 General American Audience

Expected Duration
2.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Planning Retirement

  • recognize the benefits of planning for retirement.
  • perform a net worth assessment, given a scenario.
  • identify the formula used to calculate required postretirement income.
  • calculate the annual cost of living at the midpoint of an individual's retirement years.
  • identify the formula for calculating an individual's share of retirement annuity cost.
  • calculate a given individual's share of retirement annuity cost.
  • identify investment strategies to save for retirement.
  • identify the differences between traditional and Roth IRAs.

    • Tax Strategies for Retirement Accounts

  • recognize the benefits of using tax strategies to protect retirement accounts.
  • identify ways to roll accounts over to reduce taxes.
  • identify situations where an individual can avoid the 10 percent penalty payment on early withdrawals.
  • identify the requirements for using 10-year averaging on lump sum retirement account distributions.
  • decide if an individual qualifies for using the 10-year averaging lump-sum retirement account distribution.

    • Minimum Withdrawal Rules

  • recognize the benefits of understanding the minimum withdrawal rules.
  • calculate an individual's minimum withdrawal amount.
  • apply the minimum withdrawal rules to an individual's retirement accounts.
  • identify methods to reduce the effects of minimum withdrawal amounts.
  • apply the methods of reducing minimum withdrawals in a given scenario.
  • identify the minimum withdrawal rules an individual should follow for their inherited account.
  • apply the rules for calculating the minimum withdrawal on an individual's inherited account.
  • match methods of reducing estate taxes to their examples.

    • Course Number: PD0147