Currently, for Americans living on $45,000 or more per year during retirement, 18% of that income is generated from personal savings and investments1. For millions of Americans, the personal savings and investments component of our income consists largely of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA). IRAs are tax deferred personal retirement funds that allow you to save up to $5,000 per year ($6,000 if you’re age 50 or older).

Have you ever been to an unfamiliar city and stopped for directions on how to get to your final destination? If you were to ask several local citizens, you would likely receive multiple and even different detailed expressions of these directions. The difficulty then becomes deciphering which “direction” will get us there quickly and with a minimal number of “wrong” turns. As investors your destinations are slightly different yet you commonly use similar investment vehicles (mutual funds) to travel this path. Each of you plan and hope to reach your goals quickly and with minimal risk.

As the number of small businesses in the U.S. grows, the number of retirement plan choices seems to grow as well. Two popular retirement plan options for smaller businesses seek to avoid the complexities that go along with establishing a qualified retirement plan such as the 401(k). These two options are the SEP IRA (Simplified Employee Pension) and the SIMPLE IRA (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees).

Welcome to part two of our series on the responsibilities of a retirement plan fiduciary. In part one of this series we cited the five significant responsibilities that a retirement plan fiduciary has. Previously we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the first two responsibilities – managing the plan for the exclusive benefit of the participants and act prudently at all times.

In a previous blog post, we spent time reviewing who could be considered a retirement plan fiduciary, and what the associated responsibilities and liabilities would be. As we discussed, anyone who has the ability to act with discretion and control, with respect to the management of retirement plan sets or other investments, could be considered a fiduciary under ERISA or the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

How then can companies give key employees such as corporate officers an opportunity to contribute more dollars on a pretax basis? One alternative is for the employer to establish a non-qualified deferred compensation plan. Such plans give employers a tool that enables them to legally discriminate against non-highly compensated staff. As a matter for fact, in non-qualified deferred compensation plans, employers are required to discriminate at some level.

In this article we will explore how to select a long-term care policy that will meet your needs at a reasonable cost. In future articles, we will spend some time reviewing how business owners can purchase long-term care in a tax advantage manner.

Business owners actually have the opportunity in many cases to purchase long-term care insurance in a tax advantage way to their companies. In many cases, all or a portion of the premium paid by the business on behalf of the executive is tax-deductible at the business level, and not considered taxable income to the employee receiving the coverage.

Are you currently a qualified retirement plan fiduciary? If so, you may have some responsibility and perhaps liability that you were not previously aware of. Retirement plan sponsors on a national basis are coming under increased scrutiny with respect to how they administer pension plans in their care.