A special thanks to Robert Keebler of Keebler & Associates, LLP for bringing to our attention the Senate Highway Bill S.2132, which brings back the mandated 5-year rule for Inherited IRAs (with some exceptions). This obviously has a lot of estate planning professionals on edge to see what’s going to happen with respect to retirement benefit planning for clients this year and beyond. The entire Bill can be found on the Library of Congress’ website. To view S.2132, click here. Robert Keebler has a phone call into Senator Baucus’ office to confirm and will be posting more updates in the…

By Allan Roth Reposted from Financial-Planning.com Long ago, there wasn’t much that planners had to worry about as far as taxes except for lawmakers changing tax law. Now we have to worry that, if Congress does nothing, taxes will jump in 2013. In these financially tumultuous times, Roth conversion strategies can reduce risk substantially for clients in 2012. UNKNOWNS FOR 2013 Regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats prevail in controlling the White House and/or Congress in November, there is likely to be an impact on tax law. If nothing is done, the Bush-era tax cuts will expire and the highest…

Reproduced with Permission by and Courtesy of Leimberg Information Services, Inc. (LISI). For information about how to subscribe to LISI, click here. “For more than 14 years, we have been advising clients about converting to a Roth IRA. For the first ten years, most of our collective efforts focused on the long-term strategic benefits of converting to a Roth IRA with us preparing complex spreadsheet analyses on the front-end to determine an ‘ideal amount’ to convert. Like other tax professionals, with the extreme volatility of the stock market in recent years, our Roth IRA conversion paradigm has shifted. Instead of…