On Apr 24, 8:07 pm, joetaxpayer <joetaxpa...[at]nospam.com> wrote:
- quote -

The problem is that often such articles are self-fulfilling because
they give politicians, always eager to part our money from us, ideas
about doing exactly that.

It's like in Brazil, where a congressman pushed an idea to have a
single tax over financial transactions replacing all others and it
ended being added as yet another tax...

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On Apr 24, 5:24*pm, BreadWithS...[at]fractious.net wrote:
- quote -

Agreed. And I would hate to be the politician that tells America we're
going to start taxing your Roth! Then again I would hate to be a
politician at all ;-)

Remember the original intent of these tax incentives were to control
the actions of Americans. The same thought process applies to mortgage
interest deduction and munis, fo rexample. Unless the gov't no longer
wants to motivate us to save for retirement, it is counterintuitive
they would directly attack retirement accounts. It would also likely
create such a level of distrust amongst citizens that the gov't would
lose it's motivational power all together. Nobody relies on the word
of an "indian giver" (pardon the expression).

More likely (but purely speculatively) the IRS will use indirect
methods (lowering phase outs, altering AMT rules, lowering exemption
amounts, delaying age based benefits, etc...)

I would be very surprised to see existing Roth's directly taxed. Even
the symantics are extremely complicated. How would they prevent a
"bank rush" on Roths when the legislation is proposed before Congress?

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On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:24:14 -0500, "Elizabeth Richardson"
<erichktn[at]worldnet.att.net> wrote:


- quote -

My assumption is that everything I have will eventually be taxed (one
way or the other) and that I will end up with less.

Meanwhile I am content with two thoughts:

1. Regardless of how much tax I ultimately have to pay, the more I
start with (gross), the more I end with (net). So consistent with a
pleasant lifestyle now, I focus on good savings techniques (cost
control and diversity) and pay little or no mind to the tax aspect.

2. While the future tax system is unknown, I appreciate and use
whatever simple and easy opportunities for tax deferral are available
to me today. I'll deal with tomorrow when it comes.



-HW "Skip" Weldon
Columbia, SC

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Elizabeth Richardson wrote:

- quote -

A similar story appeared in Barron's as much as a year ago. I didn't
give too much credence to that article either.
Joe

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"raylopez99" <raylopez99[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f09da611-9fb0-49e5-8db7-e18eee4b45f3[at]d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Well, just because the guy is published nationally, doesn't make his opinion
any more valid than anyone else's opinion. And, frankly, apparently he
doesn't know too much about tax issues, because 401ks are already taxed, and
probably at a higher rate than they would be if the money were in a regular,
non-tax-deferred account. Those capital gains that are hidden in your 401k
will be taxed as regular income. It's too easy to speculate on the Roth
IRAs, but a more reasonable (to me) prediction is that we will no longer be
able to contribute to such an account, so that all retirement accounts will
have the same tax treatment at distribution.

Elizabeth Richardson

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raylopez99 <raylopez99[at]yahoo.com> writes:

- quote -

It's interesting to speculate on what form that taxation
may take - probably not straight up income taxes.

But note that it's purely speculation.

My first guess is that all IRAs and 401(k)s will get hit
with a flat percentage of assets tax annually. We already
have to calculate values of these accounts at the end of
every year (ie. for use in computing RMDs). I wouldn't
be surprised to see, say, a 10bp/yr tax.

But, again, it's purely speculation. The thing is that
if such taxes come to be, it'll just be another factor
we'd need to take into account and I'd be pretty surprised
if it were a big enough tax to form a disincentive against
continuing to maximize contributions to these things.

"Because that's where the money is." (Sutton. Kinda)


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This is the first time I've seen this in a respectible publication--
that eventually the US will tax "tax free" accounts, even, as Jim
Jubak says, Roth IRAs!

Anybody else seen this in print? Not Usenet, but in a national
syndicated article.

RL



http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...ng.aspx?page=2

Jubak's Journal
4/15/2008 12:01 AM ET

Where's the biggest pool of money the government could tax? How about
401(k)s and individual retirement accounts. There's more than $4
trillion invested in IRAs alone.

Investors currently expect taxes on this money will be deferred (if
the money invested came from pretax income) or nonexistent (if the
money came from after-tax income). But what Congress put into law,
Congress can take away in a new law. Think the politicians will be
able to keep their hands off this pot of cash when the debt crunch
really hits, sometime after 2015? I wouldn't bet on it.

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