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What Everyone Should Know About 401(k) Retirement Plans

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What Everyone Should Know About 401(k) Retirement Plans

This Finance Article is Brought To You By - Daniel Beckett

Retirement plans in the US include the popular 401(k) plan. The plan is a income tax deferred retirement fund that is funded by employees wages that go straight to the plan. Then, income tax is paid when the employee begins taking the money out of the plan after retirement. This is usually beneficial because the employee is often in a lower tax bracket after retirement than before.

A great feature of many 401(k) plans is that often employers will match funds deposited by their employees up to a certain amount. So, if the employer matches say the first five percent of the deposit, the employee gets the benefit of an instant 100% return on the money deposited - hard to beat!

Management

The funds of 401(k) plans are usually managed in only two possible ways. One is where there is a trustee who makes all the decisions - the manager or trustee is usually chosen by the employer. The other is the self-directed 401(k) where the employee gets to choose between a number of investment options that are made available to the plan participants.

Withdrawals

One of the big problems with 401(k) plans is the restriction on what can be done with the funds before the employee retires. Usually there are very stringent requirements that must be met before an employee would be allowed to withdraw the funds early. And, the federal government imposes a 10% tax penalty on top of the normal income tax that would be due if the employee takes the money early.

Some plans allow employees to take a loan from the 401(k) to temporarily withdraw funds as a result of an unexpected hardship. Taxes are still deferred on the money received, as the loan is not taxed, but a pre-defined interest rate is charged, which becomes part of the 401(k) balance. It is important that employees only contribute as much to the 401(k) as they can afford to spare, as either of these options ends up costing in the long run.

Transfers

With todays workforce being so mobile, it is unusual for an employee to work for one employer for a whole career. 401(k) plans allow for moving to another job, though. The plan can be transferred to an individual retirement account or can be moved straight to the new employer's plan if the new employer has a 401(k) plan.

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