An IRA rollover makes good financial sense

Are you changing jobs? Careers? Taking early retirement? If you are receiving a distribution from a company retirement plan, there are important factors to consider: income taxes, penalty taxes and asset accumulation for retirement - all of which are essential issues we can discuss in further detail.

Your decision on what to do with your retirement savings can be reduced to four basic alternatives:

• You can take the money today and pay income tax, along with a penalty – if you are under 59½.
• You can roll it over to a traditional IRA and continue to defer tax until later.
• You can roll it over to a traditional IRA and then convert to a Roth IRA. This would require you to pay tax on the distribution amount in the year of conversion, but you would never again pay tax on that money if you left it in the Roth IRA for at least five years and until you reached age 59½.
• If the plan allows, you may roll the funds over to your new employer’s plan.