Retire Secure!: Pay Taxes Later - The Key to Making Your Money Last »

James Lange is an attorney and CPA with thirty years' specialized experience in IRA and retirement plan distribution strategies and estate planning. His recommendations have appeared in the Wall Street Journal thirty times, and he has been cited in the New York Times, Newsweek, Bottom Line, Financial Planning, and the Tax Adviser. Lange's Cascading Beneficiary Plan^TM, with the flexibility and control it offers the surviving spouse, has become a benchmark in estate planning. Nationally recognized as a Roth IRA and Roth IRA conversion expert, Lange is a frequent speaker who trains financial advisors all over the country. he is the founder of The Roth IRA Institute. Lange is also the author of the first edition of Retire Secure!, also published by Wiley.

For the millions of Americans fast approaching, or already in, retirement, the biggest question they now face is simply: "Do I have enough money to last for the rest of my life?" While no one can answer that question with absolute certainty, you can do two things to significantly improve your odds—develop an appropriate retirement portfolio and take action to reduce your taxes. The Second Edition of Retire Secure! explains how you can use IRAs, retirement plans, Roth IRAs, Roth 401(k)s, and Roth IRA conversions as well as other tax-favored investments to let Uncle Sam help subsidize your and your family's lifestyle and increase the odds that you will have sufficient income for the rest of your and your spouse's life, and perhaps beyond.

Drawing on the experience garnered from his thirty years as a practicing CPA and twenty-five years as an estate attorney, James Lange provides critical advice for all stages of IRA and retirement plan saving and spending, covering the best strategies for accumulating wealth while you are working, and spending down or distributing IRAs and retirement plans when you are retired and planning for your family. Lange explains how to maximize tax-deferred savings during the accumulation phase. He reveals the most tax-efficient ways to withdraw money from your accounts during retirement, and tells how to develop an estate plan that continues the tax-favored status of your IRA or retirement plan long after your death—so your heirs will enjoy tax benefits as well.

This revised edition of Retire Secure! contains all-new material covering several important laws passed over the last few years that offer new tax-advantaged opportunities. Lange offers advice on establishing a one-person 401(k) plan and information on the Roth IRA conversions available to everyone in 2010; details the new Roth 401(k) and 403(b) plans; and describes how your heirs can benefit from a stretch IRA and/or an inherited Roth IRA. In addition, he reveals the most certain way to provide financial security for your children: using survivorship life insurance—a classic tax-favored, leveraged form of a gift that can be an excellent tool for creating and preserving wealth.

Virtually every chapter of Retire Secure! contains recommendations that have come from "running the numbers" and are proven to work. Read this book and make your retirement and estate planning the best it can be for your future and your family's security.

Foreword by Larry King.

Acknowledgments.

How to Read This Book.

What Retire Secure! Doesn’t Cover.

Additional Resources for the Reader.

A Note Specifically for Financial Professionals.

The Big Retirement Question.

A Summary of Tax Reduction Strategies.

The Clear Advantage of IRA and Retirement Plan Savings during the Accumulation Stage.

Spend Your After-Tax (Nonretirement or Non-IRA) Money First during the Distribution Stage.

My Best Advice—Read This Book.

An Outline Overview of the Whole Process.

What’s New!

Consider Establishing a One-Person 401(k) Plan.

Roth IRA Conversions Available to Everyone in 2010.

The New Roth 401(k) and Roth 403(b).

All Non-Spouse Beneficiaries of an IRA May Be Entitled to the “Stretch” Benefits of an Inherited IRA, 401(k), and 403(b).

Unexpected Roth IRA Conversion Opportunities for Non-Spouse Beneficiaries of Inherited Retirement Plans.

Direct Roth IRA Conversion from 401(k) and 403(b) Plans.

Introduction by Ed Slott.

Part One: The Accumulation Years: The Best Way to Save for Retirement.

1. Fund Retirement Plans to the Maximum.

2. Traditional IRAs versus Roth IRAs.

3. Traditional 401(k)s and 403(b)s versus Roth 401(k)s and Roth 403(b)s.

Part Two: The Distribution Years: Spend the Right Funds First and Other Critical Decisions You Face in Retirement.

4. Optimal Spending Strategies for Retirees.

5. Minimum Required Distribution Rules.

6. Should You Transfer Your 401(k) Account to an IRA at Retirement?: Rollovers versus Trustee-to-Trustee Transfers and Other Strategies.

7. Roth IRA Conversions.

8. Annuitizing Your Financial Accumulations: Does It Make Sense for You?

9. Withdrawing Retirement Plans Funded with Company Stocks and Net Unrealized Appreciation.

Part Three: Estate Planning: It Is Never Too Early to Start.

10. Eddie and Emily: A Retirement and Estate Planning Case Study.

11. How to Reduce Your Federal Estate Tax Burden.

12. The Most Certain and for Many the Best Way to Provide Financial Security for Your Children: Survivorship Life Insurance.

13. Laying the Foundation for Estate Planning: Using the Minimum Required Distribution Rules after Death.

14. Using Disclaimers in Estate Planning.

15. The Ideal Benefi ciary Designation of Your Retirement Plan: Stretching and Disclaiming: Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan.

16. Changing Beneficiaries for Retirement Plans and IRAs.

17. Trusts as Beneficiaries of Retirement Plans.

18. How Donors Can Do Well by Doing Good.

19. A Point-by-Point Summary of the Whole Process.

Thank you, Readers.

Appendix: Life Expectancy Tables.

About the Author.

Index.