Newsroom View

With stocks down around 17% since Feb. 20, older Americans stand to benefit from Congress’s stimulus-bill move to suspend required minimum distributions from retirement accounts this year.

The one-year hiatus gives those who can afford to leave their nest eggs alone a better chance of recovering losses. The reason: They’ll have more shares in their accounts in the event of a stock-market rebound.

People who took a required minimum distribution (RMD) in 2020 and want to roll it back into an IRA because of the RMD waiver, a reprieve granted by the CARES Act, may have a little more time to do it. Recent IRS guidance includes an extension until July 15, 2020, to complete time-sensitive actions, such as indirect rollovers of retirement account distributions. But the extension only benefits a select group — those who took a distribution in 2020 between February 1 and May 15 and haven't rolled over any other distribution in the past year.

The Internal Revenue Service has been scrambling to make things easier for taxpayers in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it’s issued yet another notice related to this tax season that moves deadlines later. It’s welcome relief for seniors and gig workers and many more. For CPAs trying to meet April 15 tax deadlines and to explain why second quarter estimated tax payments were due before first quarter payments, they can sigh in relief.

The new coronavirus outbreak and economic measures to contain it could have a significantly negative impact on retirement preparations for millions of Americans.

Account balances have been depleted by the stock market collapse. Many people now need to tap into their accounts to make ends meet. Others, facing layoffs or reduced hours, won't have the income to make investment contributions.

The ink is barely dry on the new coronavirus relief bill, yet tax mavericks are hatching strategies around the retirement savings provisions.

Last Friday, President Donald Trump signed the $2 trillion package into law. The measure contained several provisions aimed at loosening rules governing retirement accounts.

The coronavirus has disrupted life throughout America, but various common-sense tips can help keep your finances under control. 

Fortunately, most of the following checklist items are reasonably easy to implement, without requiring much heavy lifting. Many are actions you should have been taking anyway, but now they're more urgent.

The bipartisan COVID-19 stimulus bill just signed by President Trump includes welcome tax relief for retirees: The required minimum distribution rules for Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)s are waived for 2020.

The coronavirus stimulus package, known as the CARES Act, working its way through Congress is expected to waive required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement savings accounts for 2020, granting a reprieve for retirees age 70½ and older who might otherwise be required to sell low and take distributions just when the stock market has nosedived in recent weeks.

The Senate’s $2 trillion coronavirus-relief bill that passed Wednesday night includes breaks for Americans whose retirement accounts have been battered by the stock-market meltdown.

The House of Representatives is expected to pass the package on Friday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said President Trump would sign the package as it was written Wednesday.

The market’s recent plunge has been brutal.

But for people with traditional individual retirement accounts, the silver lining is that today’s lower account balances can be used to reduce income-tax bills in retirement.

The key is a strategy known as the Roth conversion. This allows account owners to transfer some or all of the money in a tax-deferred IRA to a Roth IRA, a retirement account into which you contribute after-tax dollars and get tax-free withdrawals.