019: What You Need to Know about the SECURE Act

The SECURE Act, also known as the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, came into effect on January 1st, 2020. Designed to make it easier for Americans to access tax-advantaged accounts and stop people from outliving their assets, it made another round of sweeping, monumental changes to the tax code. This means that even if you’ve just created what you think is a robust, thoughtful retirement plan, it’s time to review everything again and make sure that you’re taking advantage of all of the available opportunities. Today, we dig into the good, bad, and the ugly of the SECURE Act from a tax and planning perspective to help you make sense of what’s changed and how it can affect you. If you want to play by your game plan and not the federal government’s, tune in and find out how to make the most of our changing tax policies. In this podcast interview, you’ll learn: Why the magic ages in tax planning are now 59 ½ and 72 - and why this is the sweet spot where the most vital tax planning should happen. How the change in the standard deduction has affected charitable organizations. How to use qualified charitable distributions to avoid being taxed on ordinary income. Why pre-tax investments are the most expensive money you can buy. Why generation-skipping stretch IRAs have been eliminated.