New Book Offers Money-Saving Tips for Pension Distributions

By Frank Pagani

Pension Distributions: Planning Strategies, Cases, and Rulings, a new book by Seymour Goldberg, covers the practical aspects of pension distributions, and topical issues such as new IRS rules and planning strategies with the Roth IRA. The book is a useful resource for CPAs who have clients with substantial retirement assets, or have such assets themselves.

Published by The CPA Journal, the book answers such questions as:

* When a Roth IRA owner dies, what action should a nonspouse designated beneficiary take and when?

* What happens to a qualified plan when a defective spousal consent takes place?

* When is a lump-sum distribution from a qualified plan not a lump-sum distribution for special averaging purposes?

* How is the income in respect of a decedent deduction allocated if there are multiple beneficiaries of retirement assets?

* When should you use a trust as the beneficiary of retirement assets?

Pension Distributions discusses the IRS' new pension correction program and new rules for selection of trusts as the beneficiary of retirement accounts, IRS audits of plan distributions, and pertinent IRS letter rulings and federal court cases. The book includes sample forms for beneficiaries, distribution elections, Roth IRA elections, and elections when using trusts as beneficiaries of retirement accounts.

Seymour Goldberg, is a CPA, JD, MBA and author of A Professional's Guide to the IRA Distribution Rules, now in its third edition. In his latest book, Goldberg offers tips on effective uses of a Roth IRA in an estate plan, spousal consent, lump-sum distributions, disclaimers, and charitable remainder trusts as beneficiaries of retirement accounts, among other issues.