Any IRA rollover rules?

[FedExCourier]

Are there specific laws regarding the time frame of rolling my employee sponsored 401k to an IRA? I retired Nov 30 this year and just got a call from Vanguard concierge services who helped me open an IRA account but I haven't funded it yet. The concierge threw me off guard when he called because I thought I had to wait 45 days after retirement to do this which would have put opening an IRA on Jan. 14.
I felt kind of like a dunce and totally forgot some of the questions I wanted to ask...Is there any advice or experiences to share or things you wish you had known before you rolled over into an IRA? Thanks!!!

 

[LOL!]

There are no specific rules. Your former employer may have its own rules.

I still have my 401(k) going at my former employer. I am in no hurry to do a rollover to an IRA. I might even leave it there for years and years.

 

[FedExCourier]

Unfortunately, my employer kicks those of us who will be living on a portion of our 401k savings off the plan.

 

[travelover]

Fidelity serviced my old 401(k) and they started hounding me as soon as I retired, to roll it over. I guess they make more money off an IRA than the 401(k).

 

[Hermit]

There are no specific rules. Your former employer may have its own rules.

I still have my 401(k) going at my former employer. I am in no hurry to do a rollover to an IRA. I might even leave it there for years and years.

Mine is still with my employer. I can do up to 12 withdrawals, rollovers, or whatever from the 401(k) per year. Costs are a bit less than VG and they have an adequate selection of index funds. Today I did my first withdrawal. It took a week and a blood pressure raising exchange to make it happen. I have 13k in after tax money sitting in there. Unfortunately the only way I can get it out is to roll the entire 401(K) over. The profits on the after tax gets rolled into the pre-tax bucket. With the treatment of the pre-tax profits and the difficulty in making withdrawals, I may roll the whole thing over to VG.

 

[Car-Guy]

I retired 3 years ago and haven't moved my 401K. I have great investment options with my previous employer and the management fees are almost zero. I don't plan on touching it until RMD's kick in in another ~8 years.

 

[FedExCourier]

Okay, so no problem keeping 401k as is for now, whew! He did seem to really want me to get that IRA account started. Oh well, at least I do have an account number.

 

[Helen]

Are there specific laws regarding the time frame of rolling my employee sponsored 401k to an IRA?

FedExCourier, are you younger than 59 and 1/2 and do you plan on drawing from your 401k or IRA in the near future?


Edit to add: I just read through one of your posts and I see that you are 60. Congratulations on your recent retirement!

 

[FedExCourier]

FedExCourier, are you younger than 59 and 1/2 and do you plan on drawing from your 401k or IRA in the near future?


Edit to add: I just read through one of your posts and I see that you are 60. Congratulations on your recent retirement!

Thank you, Helen! I will start taking a little out each month starting at some point in January.

 

[jazz4cash]

Unfortunately, my employer kicks those of us who will be living on a portion of our 401k savings off the plan.

Not quite sure what you mean by "living on a portion....". I don't think they can force you out of the plan if you have more than ($5k?) in your account. I do believe they can restrict withdrawals (e.g. no partial withdrawals). Is that what you meant?

 

[jazz4cash]

Fidelity serviced my old 401(k) and they started hounding me as soon as I retired, to roll it over. I guess they make more money off an IRA than the 401(k).

I am not even retired and they are already hounding me every time I call for anything. I have rolled a small portion over to a Fidelity IRA to purchase individual stocks, but I will likely keep the 401k in place indefinitely as there are some unique and reduced cost funds (e.g. stable value) I could not get otherwise and several other advantages.

I did a rollover a few weeks ago and the rep sounded elated when I told him to initiate a rollover and devastated when he realized it was not being rolled over to the Fido account.....even challenged me on the rate of the CD I was buying ("we have CD's...what rate are you getting?").

 

[Sunset]

Mine is still with my employer. I can do up to 12 withdrawals, rollovers, or whatever from the 401(k) per year. Costs are a bit less than VG and they have an adequate selection of index funds. Today I did my first withdrawal. It took a week and a blood pressure raising exchange to make it happen. I have 13k in after tax money sitting in there. Unfortunately the only way I can get it out is to roll the entire 401(K) over. The profits on the after tax gets rolled into the pre-tax bucket. With the treatment of the pre-tax profits and the difficulty in making withdrawals, I may roll the whole thing over to VG.

The IRS just changed the rules, you need to check this, but, as I understand it. You can roll the after-tax money from the 401K into a ROTH (no taxes due) and the rest into a rollover IRA.
This is important because if you roll the after-tax 401K with the other money into a rollover IRA, there is the danger of being taxed again on the after-tax money when you withdraw it from the IRA.
Keeping them separate is much safer and nothing to prove to IRS

 

[PatrickA5]

I wanted my Fido 401K moved over to a Vanguard IRA. I did it in two steps. Step one was rolling the 401K to an IRA at Fidelity. That took all of one day. Then I had Vanguard take the money from Fidelity and put it into my VG IRA. That took 2 weeks. The whole process might have taken maybe 30 minutes of my time. Pretty simple.

 

[Sunset]

OP - Check some other brokers like scottrade (or other brokerage with low fees), they are offering a bonus to rollover your 401K to a rollover IRA with them.
They charge no fee to have your account. Only charge when you buy/sell funds/etf/stocks.
example: Scottrade charges $7 to buy/sell stocks.

So a Simple plan would be rollover to Scottrade , buy 1 or 2 vanguard etf's which are very much like vanguard funds, keep the account for a year, then transfer it to Vanguard (unless you are happy at Scottrade).

Scottrade link here shows what bonus they pay, you have to scroll down a bit to see it:
https://www.scottrade.com/lp/because/?icid=8|29|709|47&HPMainBanner&Branch_ID=

Basically it is:
$100 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $50,000 - $99,999
$300 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $100,000 - $199,999
$600 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $200,000 - $499,999
$1,000 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $500,000 - $999,999
$2,000 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $1,000,000+

I have used Scottrade and found it good, I don't get anything for recommending them.

 

[FedExCourier]

The IRS just changed the rules, you need to check this, but, as I understand it. You can roll the after-tax money from the 401K into a ROTH (no taxes due) and the rest into a rollover IRA.
This is important because if you roll the after-tax 401K with the other money into a rollover IRA, there is the danger of being taxed again on the after-tax money when you withdraw it from the IRA.
Keeping them separate is much safer and nothing to prove to IRS

Sunset, I did discuss this with Vanguard because I have a small amount of after tax money that was invested years ago ( I forgot about it) and we are separating that money out of the mix.

 

[Bamaman]

My company was paying all Fidelity expenses on the 401K, and they required me to take all the money elsewhere when I retired. Fidelity rolled the 401K's into a Rollover IRA account and added my existing IRA's to them.

Paying an average .75% basis points really hurts--especially in years like 2008-9.

 

[rayvt]

OP - Check some other brokers like scottrade (or other brokerage with low fees), they are offering a bonus to rollover your 401K to a rollover IRA with them.

Scottrade link here shows what bonus they pay, you have to scroll down a bit to see it:
https://www.scottrade.com/lp/because/?icid=8|29|709|47&HPMainBanner&Branch_ID=

Basically it is:
$100 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $50,000 - $99,999
$300 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $100,000 - $199,999
$600 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $200,000 - $499,999
$1,000 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $500,000 - $999,999
$2,000 Cash Back Bonus
On Qualifying Deposits of $1,000,000+

I have used Scottrade and found it good, I don't get anything for recommending them.

If you are up for a tiny bit of addditional work, transfer $200K to broker A to get their $600, $200K to broker B to get their $600, etc. Wy should you give a broker $400K and get only $600 when you can get $1200 by splitting it up? If you don't like one of them, transfer it back out next year and collect another $600!

I did this a couple of years ago. Actually, I called Etrade and told them I'd be transferring in $XXX (a bit over 2 times the amount to get $600) but immediately transferring half of that to Merrill, and got them to ageee not to charge a fee for the transfer out.