ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN If you leave your job, you will probably be given the options of rolling over your money from the company pension plan into an IRA, leaving it invested in the former employer plan, or transferring it into another employer plan. Reasons for keeping the funds in the employer plan might include: - insecurity about making investment decisions on your own,
- desire to retain ability to borrow from the plan (not permitted for IRAs);
- better legal protection against creditors under Federal law than is provided under state law for IRAs;
- desire to preserve 5 or 10 year income averaging in conjunction with a lump-sum pension payout, and
- possibility of being able to defer distributions from the account beyond age 70 ½ if you are still working.
On the other hand, if you decide to roll the funds over into an IRA, you will have better control over the money because you’ll be making the investment decisions. Since tax deferral with IRAs can usually be stretched out further than with a company benefit plan, you will probably end up with a larger pre-tax nest egg. If you decide that you want to transfer the money into a new plan, it could be done directly from the old employer plan if the new plan accepts direct rollovers. Alternatively, you may be able to convert the old plan assets to cash and then make the transfer or you might be able to roll over the funds into a conduit IRA temporarily, until you have a new job, and then make a second rollover into the new employer plan. As you can see, you might be faced with an overwhelming number of options and consequences. These can usually be resolved after a review and analysis of objectives and available options with a professional financial and tax advisor. |
