Breaking Down the President's Budget Proposal

Joe and Big Al discuss negative interest rates and how they could affect you. Plus, Big Al and Joe break down Obama’s 2016 budget proposal and explain what the changes could mean for you and your beneficiaries. These changes include the possible elimination of:

the backdoor Roth IRA
the stretch IRA
step-up in cost basis at death

Other proposed changes include: adding required minimum distributions (RMDs) for Roth accounts, preventing new retirement contributions for those with $3.4 million in retirement account balances, repealing net unrealized appreciation (NUA) rules for employer stock in retirement plans, plus more.

4:24 “If you work an extra two years, it means that’s two years less that you’re taking from your portfolio and that’s two years more that you’re deferring your overall Social Security benefits”

10:22 “There are significant changes going on with Social Security; we are doing a webinar [on February 23^rd, 2016] if you’d like to sit in the comfort of your own home and listen for an hour”

11:43 “For a long time economists believed that nominal interest rates or the amount of money received for depositing money was theoretically bound to zero”

12:05 “Lately, however, central banks from Europe to Japan have implemented a negative interest rate policy in order to stimulate economic growth”

19:18 “Here’s what they’re trying to eliminate: the backdoor Roth IRA, the stretch IRA, and step-up in cost basis at death”

19:55 “Here’s how it [step-up in cost basis] works: when you pass away, your assets get stepped up to whatever they’re worth at the date of death. Let’s just say you bought a home for $100,000 and now it’s worth $1 million and you pass away–you didn’t sell it. When your kids get it and if they sell it for $1 million, do they have to pay gains on the $900,000 gain? The answer is no – it’s a step-up in basis so it’s as if your children bought that asset for $1 million. It works with stocks, real estate and anything outside of your retirement account, it gets that step-up in basis”

22:02 “Here’s another change: adding RMDs at age 70 1/2 for Roth accounts”

24:08 “If it’s a large account, your non-spouse beneficiaries are going to pay a ton of tax in those accounts if you have a large balance in those accounts”

26:47 “You want to convert while assets are down because if you convert now, the recovery with the future growth in the IRA is all tax-free”

28:22 “What you need to do right now is have a forward-looking tax strategy created so you can figure out what steps you need to do this year, next year and the future so you can stay out of higher tax brackets coming”

30:02 “If you have more than $3.4 million in a retirement account, you will no longer be able to contribute to retirement accounts. You can still save money but it won’t be sheltered from tax”

31:25 “Capital gains is a lot lower rate than ordinary income rate, in fact capital gains for most people is 15%, but ordinary income tax rates go as high as 39.6% so it can be a huge tax savings”