IN LIGHT OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, OUR PLANNING PROFESSIONALS WOULD LIKE TO SHARE A FEW TOPICS THAT WE THINK ARE IMPORTANT TO DISCUSS.
The CARES Act has brought about some unique retirement planning opportunities for the year 2020. Not only was the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) age increased from age 70.5 to age 72, but the requirement to take any distribution has been completely waived. The waiver is also extended to inherited IRAs. If you do not need to make a withdrawal to fund cash flow this year, you can avoid an extra tax liability by not taking a distribution. Additionally, if you did not have the cash reserved for this distribution, you can avoid selling assets within your retirement accounts that may be down. You can instead leave them undisturbed to potentially recover their market value prior to the next required distribution. If you have already taken a distribution in 2020, there may still be time to unwind the transaction.
During this difficult time, our planning and tax teams have coordinated projections and testing for our clients to determine if they should take advantage of the RMD waiver.