Our daily roundup of retirement news your clients may be thinking about.
Oregon's auto-IRA program has seen a robust increase in employers' registration since the program started last year, according to this article on MarketWatch. Some 62% of eligible participants have been contributing to the program, with 5% of the participants not making any contributions, one researcher writes. "In short, the early results from OregonSaves show that the program works."
Clients should consider planning for retirement based on their biological age and not chronological age, according to an article in Forbes. This is because people do not age at the same rate because of genetics, diet and exercise. “[R]ecent scientific and technological advances now enable us to measure our true biological age (B-age) with much greater precision than ever before,” says one of the researchers.
A Qualified Charitable Distribution is a great option for retirees aged 70 1/2 and older who want to donate directly from their IRAs to a charity, writes an expert on Nasdaq. The QCD will be counted towards their required minimum distribution but the withdrawal will be excluded from their taxable income, the expert explains. "[I]n this case, the donation is not a deduction but rather an exclusion from income, so taxpayers who have few deductions can benefit from making a donation while still taking the (recently increased) standard deduction."
401(k) plans are a great tool to save for retirement, but the downside is that participants take on investment risk, according to an article on Motley Fool. Some 401(k) plans also charge hefty administrative and investment fees, and not all workers have access to this type of plan. Nevertheless, the plans provide many benefits, such as generous annual contribution limits and an employer's match.
