Personal Finance Buzz

What are the 2012 Roth IRA rule changes for contribution limits, phaseouts, and Roth IRA conversions? Here are a look at the highlights.

How To Do A Roth Recharacterization And Avoid Costly Mistakes. A Roth recharacterization is a “do over”. It’s undoing a Roth conversion. If you do a Roth recharacterization, you have until October 15th of the year after you convert to a Roth, to undo it. So if you converted to Roth in 2010, you have until October 15, 2011 to undo it.

Make an invalid Roth distribution and BAM! Penalty city.

Important Roth penalties and how to avoid them

One of the best retirement planning tools out there is the Roth IRA. However, there are people who don’t know about the Roth IRA. That’s actually too bad for them. The Roth IRA is a great tool for many who are looking for a way to increase their nest eggs, while reaping specific tax benefits.

If you decided to convert your IRA into a Roth you need to pay your tax the right way if you want to avoid penalties. That’s right…..not only do you have to pay “the MAN” but you also have to do it the way he tells you too. Sorry…that’s life.

There are two rules often cited by investors that sound similar but that in fact make very different claims. In this article, I’ll describe the differences between the two rules — the Multiply-by-25 Rule and the 4-Percent Rule.

It's good to review the Roth IRA rules periodically to ensure you can make Roth IRA contributions for the current tax year. The IRA Roth rules aren't that complex.

It's just too important to start saving in a Roth IRA at the earliest possible time you can. As soon as my son has earned income, you can bet I'm opening a Roth IRA for him.
I opened my Roth IRA as a grad student back in 2000. Since that time I've scrimped and saved every penny I could to make sure I maxed out the amount I could contribute every single year.