Manage individual retirement accounts

Step 1

Review your client’s life events

Speak with your client to determine whether he or she has experienced any recent life events. These could include:

• Marriage or divorce
• New baby or dependent
• Disability
• Retirement
• Job change or loss
• Sale of or exit from a business

Depending on your client’s situation, you may need to help your client roll money over from a retirement account, update beneficiary designations or take a distribution.

Step 2 

Assist with rollovers, beneficiary updates or distributions

Start by helping clients understand the various options available to them when moving jobs: rolling the account into an IRA, moving it into a new employer's plan, leaving it where it is or taking a distribution. 

Help roll money over from a retirement account
Understanding the rollover process can help you guide your client and reinforce your credibility.

• Set up a traditional or Roth IRA if your client doesn’t have one to receive the rollover
• With your client’s help, get the employer’s distribution form and request a direct rollover. Your client may also complete our rollover form if the sending institution will accept it.
• Follow up to ensure the plan sponsor mails the distribution form and other necessary paperwork to the third-party administrator (TPA) or recordkeeper
• Once the rollover is complete:
  • The TPA and/or recordkeeper will send a distribution confirmation to the plan sponsor
  • The IRA custodian will send confirmation of the IRA deposit to the client

Resources to use:
Life events checklists
IRA incoming transfer and rollover guide
Open a traditional IRA
Open a Roth IRA

Manage beneficiary designations

Knowing the ins and outs of beneficiary designations can help you fully satisfy your client’s planning objectives, extend income from an IRA and create a new generation of clients.

Conduct a beneficiary review

• Order a report listing the beneficiaries for your client’s IRAs
• Send your client a beneficiary review letter and follow up with phone calls
• Ask for introductions to the beneficiaries when appropriate. Meeting the beneficiaries can help you create a relationship with the next generation and make them future clients.
• Discuss how the SECURE Act impacts the ability to use the “stretch IRA” option if your client wants to leave IRA assets for future generations
• Offer free beneficiary reviews for prospective clients. Your attention to details like wealth transfer could help convince them to move their IRAs to you

Resource to use:
IRA beneficiary designations

Take a distribution

Help your clients make distribution decisions that will help their money last throughout their retirements.

Normal distributions

For clients age 59½ or more.

• Consider depleting taxable accounts first to extend the advantage of tax deferral as long as possible
• Consider setting up a systematic withdrawal for retirees or other clients who need a steady stream of income from the IRA now

Early distributions

Distributions from an IRA before age 59½ will normally incur a 10% tax penalty in addition to income taxes. (The tax penalty is increased to 25% for distributions from SIMPLE IRA plans made within the first two years of participation.) However, under section 72(t) of the Internal Revenue Code, the penalty doesn't apply if the distribution falls under certain exceptions. Some (but not all) examples of distributions that are exempt from the early distribution penalty include:

• Death
• Disability
• Certain medical expenses*
• Health insurance premiums during long-term unemployment*
• First-time home purchases, up to $10,000*
• Qualified higher education expenses*
• Substantially equal periodic payments
• Qualified reservist distributions*
• Birth or adoption expenses*^† (Distributions must be made within one year after the birth or adoption date and are limited to $5,000 across an investor's accounts per birth or adoption.)
• Distributions made while terminally ill^†
• Distributions made in connection with federally declared disasters (up to $22,000 per individual)^†
• Distributions for unforeseeable or immediate financial needs related to necessary personal or family emergency expenses (up to the lesser of $1,000 or the excess of your account balance over $1,000)^*†
• Distributions due to domestic abuse (up to the lesser of $10,000 as adjusted for inflation or 50% of the account balance)^*†

^*Capital Group does not require documentation on these distributions. If made before age 59½, they are reported to the IRS as early distributions, with no known exception (IRS Code 1) on Form 1099-R. Consult a tax advisor to determine whether a distribution falls under a particular exception.

^†If your client wants to repay all or part of the distribution back to their IRA, they must do so within 3 years of the date they received the distribution.

Required minimum distributions

With the exception of Roth IRAs, required minimum distributions (RMDs) from an IRA are required to begin April 1 of the year following your client’s 73rd birthday. Roth IRAs do not require RMDs until after the death of the owner.

Beneficiary distribution options

The beneficiary’s relationship to the account owner determines the rules and restrictions for beneficiary distributions.

Six steps to make RMDs easy for your clients:

1. Consider consolidating your client’s accounts to simplify the RMD process
2. Order an RMD report that shows your IRA clients who should be taking RMDs. (Your firm may be able to provide a report.)
3. Send annual RMD reminders to those clients that haven’t set up automatic distributions. (Birthday cards add a nice personal touch.)
4. Follow up on the RMD notifications sent when traditional or SIMPLE IRA owners turn 73
5. Use an RMD planner to determine the amount your client will need to withdraw
6. Reinvest the distribution if your client doesn’t need the money now

Tip from top sellers

Financial professionals who do a lot of rollover business have told us that tracking the paperwork through each stage of the rollover process is a key client service.

Some have designated one person in their office to handle all rollover paperwork and follow-up phone calls. One even gives a bonus if that person is able to complete the rollover within one month.

Resource to use:
Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Guide