Kitces | Nerd's Eye View - Retirement Planning

Proposed $3 Million IRA Cap, Estate Planning Crackdowns, And Other Proposals Of President's Budget

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:02:00 -0500

Last week, President Obama released his proposed government budget for the coming 2014 fiscal year. Of course, the reality is that the budget itself is just proposed and has not yet been approved, and many of the suggestions contained in the budget may be reformed before being set forth in actual legislation (or fall by the wayside entirely, or be written into legislation that ultimately doesn't pass). Nonetheless, proposals in the President's budget often signal areas that the Administration may be targeting for reform, and/or line items that could end out as a bargaining chip in future legislation.

In the 2014 budget, the Administration reiterates several reforms that have been suggested in the past, including an array of high-net-worth estate planning crackdowns, and even a reversion back to the 2009 estate tax exemption and rates. However, the proposal also includes several notable new provisions, including a potential tax credit for establishing automatic enrollment retirement plans, a shift to chained CPI that could impact everything from Social Security benefits to income tax brackets to the return on TIPS, a series of estate planning crackdowns on GRATs, IDGTs, and dynasty trusts, and in what has already been picked up by the media as a controversial provision, a potential "cap" of $3.4 million on retirement accounts beyond which no further contributions would be allowed.

In addition, surprising new proposals outside of gift and estate planning were included, including favorable relief allowing inherited IRA rollovers and an extension to the tax-free treatment of mortgage debt cancelling in a short sale, and the elimination of Required Minimum Distributions for those with less than $75,000 in retirement accounts. On the other hand, the proposals also include an increase to Medicare Part B and Part D premiums, especially for higher income individuals, a potential cap on itemized deductions at a 28% tax rate (even if the individual has a higher tax bracket), and a new requirement that all stocks in the future must use average cost (eliminating the ability to make lot-level gain and loss harvesting decisions).

The reality at this point is that information and details on many of these provisions are still limited; nonetheless, we highlight all of the most important proposals that would impact financial planners and their clients, and consider their feasibility and the potential planning implications.

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Safe Withdrawal Rates In Today's Low Yield Environment - Walking On The Edge Of A Cliff?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 06:05:00 -0600

Safe withdrawal rates have been under a great deal of criticism in recent years, as both investors and planners ratchet downwards their expectations of market returns in the face of a low return environment. Of course, the reality is that safe withdrawal rates are actually based upon low-return environments in the first place, and do not rely upon long-term historical average returns. Nonetheless, a growing body of research suggests that expectations of the safe withdrawal rate should be adjusted based on the current market conditions that apply at the time of retirement.

Accordingly, today's low-yield environment, where the real return on TIPS is actually negative in the coming years, arguably represents one of those times where safe withdrawal rates should be applied with caution. And in fact, a recent draft study by Finke, Pfau, and Blanchett affirms this concern, finding that the probability of failure for today's retirees could be much higher than commonly recognized, given today's real returns on TIPS.

Ultimately, though, just because starting conditions are suboptimal does not guarantee that safe withdrawal rates will fail for today's retirees. By analogy, just because you're walking along the edge of a cliff does not mean you're certain to fall off of it; nonetheless, being closer to the edge of the cliff is certainly more dangerous than being safely inland, and similarly starting a retirement in today's market conditions clearly merits more caution and monitoring!

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Are Baby Boomers Actually Right Where They Should Be For Retirement Savings?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 06:02:00 -0500

As the baby boomers move inexorably closer to retirement, many have lamented the plight of the generation, which appears to have dramatically undersaved and therefore is ill prepared for retirement. Yet the reality is that given how spending fluctuates through the working years - especially when raising a family - it may be entirely normal for couples to save less during the bulk of their working years, and instead save substantially in just the final years before retirement when the cost of raising children winds down. In turn, savings in the early years can actually be less effective than reinvesting into the individual's "human capital" and increasing lifetime earnings. And in such an environment, the real issue is not effectively saving in the early years, but instead is to proactively manage spending to ensure it does not ramp up too rapidly in the later years. Combined together, this suggests that the reality may be that back-loading retirement savings into the final years before retirement doesn't mean baby boomers are "behind" but instead that they have been following a remarkably normal and even "optimal" path!
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Is A Goal To Save A Percentage Of Income Every Year Bad Retirement Advice?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:07:00 -0500

"Save a healthy portion of your income every year from the start of your working years to the end" is a standard of retirement planning advice. Although we may debate about whether the exact number is 10%, 15%, or 20%, or more, the focal point is the same - as long as you save a sufficient portion of your income, you'll have enough savings to fund your retirement. However, it can actually be even more effective to not save in the early years, and instead invest in one's "human capital" by trying to boost earnings instead of the retirement account balance. In order to make this work, though, it's crucial to keep future spending from rising as fast as future income. Consequently, the reality is that maybe baby boomers are "behind" in their retirement savings not because they failed to save a percentage of their income, but instead because saving "just" a percentage of income allowed them to consume the rest and increase their spending to unsustainable levels. In turn, this suggests that in the future, the better path to retirement success may not be to save a flat percentage of income every year, but instead to target an appropriate standard of living, raise it conservatively, and save all the rest, however much that may be!
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Options For When Your Client Has A Change Of Mind About Starting Social Security Benefits

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:03:00 -0500

You have an appointment with a client who has already elected Social Security and now realizes he has made a mistake. Whether because he didn’t think about how his election would affect his spouse, or he was unaware of the options, or for some other reason, he has now changed his mind. What are his options? While the so-called "Social Security withdraw and reapply" option is mostly gone as a strategy, there are actually still several ways to "undo" benefits, including choosing to pay back benefits within the first 12 months, going back to work to deliberately cause the Social Security Earnings Test to apply, voluntarily suspend benefits after full retirement age, or adjust the timing that a spouse starts benefits.
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What Returns Are Safe Withdrawal Rates REALLY Based Upon?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 06:00:00 -0500

As retirees and their planners adjust to the 'new normal' - a world of lower-than-average returns for the foreseeable future, many have questioned whether the historical safe withdrawal rate research is still valid. After all, if returns will be below average in the coming years, doesn't that imply safe withdrawal rates must be below average as well? In point of fact, though, safe withdrawal rates do not depend on average returns in the first place; the worst safe withdrawal rates in history that we rely upon are actually associated with 15-year real returns of less than 1%/year from a balanced portfolio! Accordingly, given current bond yields, dividend yields, and inflation, if the current environment for today's retirees will result in a "new record low" safe withdrawal rate, the S&P 500 would still have to be no higher in 2027 than it was in 2007 or even 2000! On the other hand, merely projecting equities to recover to new highs by the end of the decade or generating a mid-single-digits return would actually represent an upside surprise, allowing for higher retirement spending than 4.5% safe withdrawal rates!
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Are Regime-Based Retirement Projections A Better Way To Model The "New Normal"?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 06:03:00 -0500

Financial planners seem to increasingly agree we may be in a "new normal" - an environment where returns are lower, due to a combination of high market valuation, low interest rates, debt deleveraging, and the associated lower economic growth. Accordingly, it has become increasingly popular to reduce long-term return projections for clients from their historical standards. Yet the reality is that while returns may be reduced for the next decade, it doesn't necessarily mean clients will experience low returns for the entirety of their multi-decade retirement, just as those who retired in prior low-return environments like the 1970s may have had a bad decade of returns but an average or even above-average 30-year result. A better alternative may be to model retirement as a sequence of "investment regimes" - extended periods of time that have specific risk and return expectations, followed by subsequent periods of time that have their own expectations. For instance, instead of reducing 30-year returns, clients might look at the impact of having an average return of 5% for the first half of their return, and 15% for the second half, reflecting the market cycles seen throughout history. Could this actually represent a better way to project the risks and opportunities of retirement and develop appropriate spending recommendations?
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It's Time For The Next Generation Of Monte Carlo Analysis Software

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:04:00 -0500

Monte Carlo analysis has become an increasingly popular arrow in the financial planner's quiver, as an improvement over the oversimplified traditional straight-line projection. Unfortunately, though, use of Monte Carlo analysis has begun to focus excessively on a singular probability of success, that itself can be almost as misleading as straight-line projections when not viewed in proper context. However, this is not a flaw of the Monte Carlo approach itself, but instead of the tools being used by financial planners. Instead, what's ultimately needed is software that shows not just the probability of success, but also the magnitude and consequences of failure, and a sensitivity analysis that helps clients understand the impact of the trade-off decisions they have available. What can ultimately result is a "next generation" of Monte Carlo analysis, that provides a more useful, relevant, and actionable framework to help clients make effective financial planning decisions.
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Splitting After-Tax 401(k) Distributions For Roth Conversion

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 06:01:00 -0500

As more and more baby boomers retire, an increasingly popular strategy is to split pre- and after-tax funds in a 401(k) at retirement, with the goal of rolling over the pre-tax funds into an IRA, and converting the after-tax funds into a Roth IRA, taking advantage of the non-taxable nature of the after-tax contributions. Yet the effectiveness of the strategy is ambiguous at best; recent guidance from IRS Notice 2009-68 would suggest that the approach shouldn't be allowed at all, and although some esoteric and technical workarounds have been suggested, none have truly been tested or subjected to IRS scrutiny. As a result, while many 401(k) plans are willing to issue separate checks to accommodate those who wish to try the strategy, and the odds of getting caught are low, caution is still merited about whether the client will really end out with the desired tax treatment.
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The Impact of Investment Costs on Safe Withdrawal Rates

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:02:00 -0500

While the safe withdrawal rate research provides useful guidance to understand how much clients can safely spend as a baseline, it is based on historical index returns - even though in reality, clients cannot even invest directly in an index without incurring some investment costs, and many pay for the cost of a financial advisor in addition. As a result, many planners recommend that clients adjust their spending downwards to account for the costs and fees. Yet the reality of the research is that while investment expenses do have a real cost, it has far less of a spending impact than most assume; a 1% expense ratio might reduce a 4% withdrawal rate not to 3%, but instead to 3.6%. This surprising result occurs because of the self-mitigating impact of investment expenses that are recalculated based on the client's account; when accounts are declining, the fees decline as well, while inflation-adjusted spending rises. The end result is that while financial planners should not ignore the impact of expenses on sustainable spending, it's important not to overstate the impact, either, or clients may unnecessarily constrain their spending when they could be safely enjoying more of their money!
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Research Reveals Cash Reserve Strategies Don't Work... Unless You're A Good Market Timer?

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 06:03:00 -0500

Cash reserve strategies that hold aside several years of spending to avoid liquidations during bear markets are a popular way to manage withdrawals for retirees. In theory, the strategy is presumed to enhance risk-adjusted returns by allowing retirees to spend down their cash during market declines and then replenish it after the recovery. Yet recent research in the Journal of Financial Planning reveals that the strategy actually results in more harm than good; while in some scenarios the cash reserves effectively allow the retiree to "time" the market by avoiding an untimely liquidation, more often the retiree simply ends out with less money due to the ongoing return drag of a significant portfolio position in cash. As a result, the superior strategy for those who want to alter their asset allocation through market volatility (the effective result of spending down cash in declines and replenishing it later) appears to be simply tactically altering asset allocation directly, without the adverse impact of a cash return drag. Nonetheless, this still fails to account for the psychological benefits the client enjoys by having a clearly identifiable cash reserve to manage spending through volatility - even though the reality is that it results in less retirement income, not more. Does that mean cash reserve strategies are still superior for their psychological benefits alone, even if they're not an effective way to time the market? Or do total return strategies simply need to find a better way to communicate their benefits and value?

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Linking Academic and Planner Research on Retirement Income (Guest Post)

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:07:00 -0500

"Planners and academics need to work together to develop a profession with evidence-based practices." That is the message given at the FPA Retreat by Dr. Michael Finke, a professor of personal financial planning at Texas Tech University, and a co-author of mine at the Journal of Financial Planning. Yet while the Journal of Financial Planning is a great resource, and it has been the go-to outlet for research on retirement planning from the perspective of practicing financial planners, especially regarding safe withdrawal rate strategies, the academic research approaches the retirement challenge from a different perspective and focuses on different tools and strategies. Ultimately, researchers can use their technical skills to investigate optimal retirement strategies, and practitioners can guide these investigations by suggesting real world constraints and ideas for solutions, and even by sharing in the nitty-gritty process of conducting the research. Let’s encourage these interactions to get rigorous analyses which can be applied to real-world problems.
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The Problem With Essential-Vs-Discretionary Retirement Strategies

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Wed, 30 May 2012 06:03:00 -0500

In planning for retiring clients, it's crucial to get an understanding of what the client's goals are in the first place - so that recommendations can be made about how to financially secure those goals. In the context of setting a spending goal, a popular delineation is to separate retirement spending into "essential" versus "discretionary" expenses - not unlike "needs" versus "wants" for accumulators - with the idea of using guarantees to secure the essential expenses, and less certain growth assets with some risk to fund the discretionary expenses (since they're 'only' discretionary and not essential, by definition). Yet in reality, even discretionary spending still constitutes an important part of a retiree's overall lifestyle - the loss of which could be very psychologically damaging. As a result, merely securing the essential expenses of retirement and leaving the rest at risk still, in the eyes of most retirees, would constitute a failure of the overall retirement goal. Instead, clients often choose to ensure that all their spending can be sustained - by continuing to work as long as necessary (as health allows) to secure all of their goals. Does that mean the distinction between essential versus discretionary retirement expenses isn't necessarily helpful after all?

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Annuities Versus Safe Withdrawal Rates: Comparing Floor/Upside Approaches

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:06:00 -0500

As the retirement income research evolves, an increasingly common question is whether the popular safe withdrawal rate approach is better or worse than an annuity-based strategy that provides a guaranteed income floor, with the remaining funds invested for future upside. Yet the reality is that as it's commonly applied, the safe withdrawal rate strategy is a floor-with-upside approach, too. Unlike the annuity, it doesn't guarantee success with the backing of an insurance company; yet at the same time, the annuity is assured to provide no remaining legacy value at death, while the safe withdrawal rate approach actually has a whopping 96% probability of leaving 100% of the client's principal behind after 30 years! Which means an annuity is really an alternative floor approach to safe withdrawal rates - one that provides a stronger guarantee while producing a similar amount of income, but results in a dramatic loss of liquidity, upside, and legacy. Does the common client preference towards safe withdrawal rates and away from annuities indicate that in the end, most clients just don't find the guarantee trade-off worthwhile for the certainty it provides?
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A New Way To Review Client Social Security Benefits - Online!

nospam@example.com (Michael Kitces) — Tue, 22 May 2012 06:03:00 -0500

Although Social Security benefits are a major part of retirement planning, since the Social Security Administration stopped mailing statements to workers last year, most planners have been limited in their ability to get updated Social Security information for clients - especially new clients who may not have a prior benefits estimate, and/or who may have never previously reviewed their earnings record. Fortunately, earlier this month the Social Security Administration launched a new online platform allowing anyone to access their own Social Security benefits estimate and earnings record. In response, many planners are now starting to walk clients through the process of claiming their online Social Security account - which can be done on the spot, in the planner's office, in less than 5 minutes! - and reviewing the benefits estimate and earnings record as a part of their new or existing client meetings!
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