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2021 is the last year your clients can use their retirement funds for unlimited charitable giving as a result of provisions in recent tax laws.

If you inherited an individual retirement account from someone who died after 2019, a recent change in federal tax rules could affect the manner in which you make withdrawals known as required minimum distributions, or RMDs.

Want your retirement planning to hit jackpot savings levels? Of course you do. And you're wondering if the way to reach those heights is via alternative investments like cryptocurrency and Bitcoin price swings. What about additional alternatives like collectible comic books and real estate?

Cryptocurrencies, among the world’s most volatile assets, are searching for mainstream acceptance in the investment world. Their next target: your retirement portfolio.

Financial services companies are rolling out new products and services that allow more everyday investors to add bitcoin and other virtual currencies to their nest eggs as a way of reaching for higher returns. Some are marketed under names such as “CryptoIRA” and “BitcoinIRA.”

Sometimes, it can seem like only rich people can benefit from the tax code.

As a result of widespread job loss during the coronavirus pandemic, many suddenly-unemployed persons who dipped into retirement accounts are saddled with outstanding loans from company savings plans. Advisers can play a valuable role in helping these clients by understanding how the “loan offset” rules work, how the CARES Act affects loan offsets, and how offsets differ from “deemed distributions.”

Does your employer offer both a traditional and Roth 401(k) and does your employer allow you the opportunity to do what’s called an in-plan Roth conversion? That’s a tactic whereby you would convert some or all the money in your traditional 401(k) into your Roth 401(k). If so, it’s important to know the do’s and don’ts?

The age when older Americans must start making withdrawals from retirement accounts could change yet again.

Under a provision in proposed retirement legislation pending in Congress, required minimum distributions, or RMDs, would start at age 75 by 2032, up from age 72 — which only took effect last year after the 2019 Secure Act raised it from age 70½.

I figure Ed Slott has been asked this question a million times, “How much do I need to retire?”, but I ask it anyway. Like anything in life, the true answer is a little more nuanced. My guest, Ed Slott, is a CPA and accomplished author of financial and retirement-focused books, including his latest, The New Retirement Savings Time Bomb.

Any IRA owner turning age 72 this year will have a required minimum distribution due for 2021, but the due date for taking that RMD will depend on the half of the year in which they were born. June 30 is the cut-off date when the transition to the SECURE Act age 72 RMD rule becomes complete. The SECURE Act raised the RMD age for owners of individual retirement account owners and certain retirement plan participants from 70½ to 72, but only for those who turned 70½ in 2020 or later.