PBS Television Ed Slott 2013 Retirement Rescue Show

Sat  March 2 2013, and Sat march 9th WOSU PBS television station in Ohio is broadcasting a great  financial show.  Unlike Suze Orman and  Dave Ramsey who have no professional training in Finance or Taxation or Retirement Planning. Ed Slott is a professional Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a retirement expert. His Special is  running on Public Television which does not accept commercial advertising. He  does not sell  Financial products, Stocks, Bonds or Mutual Funds, Insurance or Annuity products. Because the show  airs on Public TV there are no advertisers like TD Ameritrade or other Securities Brokerage firms  as show sponsors, or advertisers and potential content influencers.  Just look at the  advertisers or show sponsors for the  Suze Ormon or Dave Ramsey shows.

Don't get me wrong, I like Suze  and  Dave. They do give a lot of good advice.  However I know that some of their messages are biased, probably unintentionally,  by their  Lack of Accounting, Financial Training or their commercial sponsorship relationships. They believe that the only life insurance anyone ever needs is  term life insurance. They are flat out wrong! Although some clients may never need any other form of insurance many clients need a combination of both and some clients may be better  served by purchasing a cash value product

Ed Slott  has no comericial sponsorship bias and  does not sell  Securities, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Insurance or Annuities. Ed recognizes and speaks favorably about the unique advantages found only  with Fixed Annuity products and Universal Life Insurance. He Loves Tax Free retirement  strategies.  He says "Move your money from Forever Taxed to accounts that are  Never Taxed." ROTH IRA's are one way to  accomplish this goal. 401 K Plan rollovers are a useful tool where you can pay some tax now to avoid much higher taxes later.

I  agree  with  his  strategies  and  can  help implement them for clients looking  to protect some or even most of  their assets  from taxation now and into  the  future. Another quote I loved  was " The only thing better than guaranteed income for life is guaranteed Tax Free income for life." Contact me if you  want help with the strategies needed to accomplish either or both of these strategies.

Newspaper Article on Rolling Over 401 K Plan

Yesterdays Columbus Dispatch had an article by Mark Miller called "Rolling over 401(K ) might not be best." Mark's article talks about a hypothetical investment scenario in which an employee quits their former employed and either leaves the funds in the 401 K plan or removes the funds and rolls them into a self directed IRA. In this hypothetical situation the funds have grown to $1.13 /M in the self directed plan and $1.25 in the Employers plan. It is conceivable that the employers plan will outperform the individual plan, however it is equally conceivable that the employers plan will underperfom the individuals plan. This would appear to be a coin toss to me.

What is certain is that you have far less control over the plan assets if you leave it in a former employers 401 K Plan. The Employer may at some future date decide to toss you out of the plan as once happened to me. This was a purely arbitrary decision on their part and had nothing to do with anything I did or said within the 401 K Plan. Secondly they may decide to arbitrarily impose fees on your plan participation which we have seen happen. Third, depending on how you left or were forced out you might or might not want to provide any benefit to the former employer by helping them get more discounts in fees because of the larger asset base under management. Fourth, the employer may not permit you to utilize some very attractive product options that are not currently offered in most corporate 401 K plans.

Federal rules require that they give you several plan options. Some low risk usually low growth option, some moderate risk moderate growth options, and usually some higher risk high potential growth options. What these plans generally do not provide is a no risk of market downturn product with a guaranteed rate of return that also offers significant upside potential for double digit returns. Clients over 40 can guarantee themselves an increase in their Income account Value of 6 or even 7.2% per year as their worst case scenario. This is independent of market increases or market decreases. Every years gains are locked in and the worst case is that you double your money in 10 years and quadruple your money in 20 years. I have never seen this offered in any of the corporate plans that I have had a chance to review. It is available for small corporate plans or for individual 401 K Plans or rollover IRA plans. In addition a separated employee who is consulting during a time of transition or permanently after a corporate downsizing can utilize these products. Notice I say downsizing not rightsizing because these corporate barons never seem to be able to get it right. Why would you want to let them continue to have any control over your hard earned assets anyway?

One more set of benefits if we set up a small business 401 K Plan.
1 The Plan costs are reasonable.
2 The client can add much more to their own 401 K or SIMPLE Plan than they could ever save in an IRA
3 The client can set up a hybrid plan that combines funding both a ROTH and Traditional version of their very own 401 K Plan. Although this is legal most corporate plans do not offer this option.
4 If you choose to set up your own plan a direct rollover is a tax free event.
5 It is possible to set up a plan where you will never see a loss in principle due to market turbulence
6 You can split the assets into two categories one with Zero risk of market loss, and the other can be invested as you wish.
7 YOU DECIDE! You are in control!

If any of this is interesting to you feel free to contact us to determine how we can help you implement this alternative to leaving your funds in a former employers plan.
How can we help you?

www.columbusfinancialplanningpros.com
polarisfinancialservices@live.com