- The Finance Gourmet

2023 Required Minimum Distributions

September 11, 2023April 10, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

If you have an IRA or 401k and you are over 70 1/2-year-old, you need to take a required minimum distribution, or RMD, from your retirement account each year. However, with the coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed specific relief for certain kinds of retirement accounts creating different rules for your 2023 RMD. New 2023 RMD Rules Normally, taxpayers over the age of 70 1/2 years old have to take money out of their retirement accounts like IRAs and 401k plans. The reason is simple. The IRS doesn’t want that money sitting there untaxed forever. So, when you get into retirement, it wants to tax that money that you enjoyed paying no taxes on for all of those years. With the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, however, Congress looked to provide some relief to taxpayers in the form of $1,200 payments, small business loans, and relaxing the rules on accessing and using retirement plan money. One of those benefits is the suspension of required minimum distributions, or RMDs, for 2020. All RMDs, regardless of the owner’s age, or how many required minimum distributions have already been taken are suspended for 2020. In other words, there are no required distributions during 2020. If you …

The Not Quite Goldilocks Economy

December 18, 2019 by Finance Gourmet

Everybody loves the idea of the Goldilocks Economy. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right. The Fed is leaving interest rates unchanged, and telegraphing that is currently isn’t planning on making any changes next year either. Stock market pundits have given up on calling the impeding doom of a stock market crash (at least for this month). Job reports show job growth, but not too fast of job growth. And while wage are growing, they are doing so slowly. Not Goldilocks However, you won’t see a lot of articles on a Goldilocks Economy happening. While things are definitely not too hot and not too cold, there is a connotation with Goldilocks that things are inherently good. This economy seems more like the negative version of a Goldilocks situation. As in things aren’t too bad, as opposed to things are too good. In a way, this is better for investors and the economy in general. Too much optimism can turn a mild-mannered, almost Goldilocks economy into a runaway bubble and no one wants that. The next year will be very interesting. Once the holidays are past and the country stops paying attention to impeachment in Washington, the reality of just …