Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune: 3 EASY STEPS for creating a lifetime supply of tax-deferred, even tax-free, wealth for you and your family

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5 Responses to 'Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune: 3 EASY STEPS for creating a lifetime supply of tax-deferred, even tax-free, wealth for you and your family'

1. Donald E. Fulton - August 14th, 2010 at 2:26 am

   This is both a very good and very bad book. Slott is a CPA and his bio indicates that he specializes in IRA law and estate planning. The retirement column in the Wall St. Journal uses him as an IRA expert. If you’ve seen Slott on PBS, you know he is also a pitchman and showman. This book is a mixture of expert IRA info and advice and wild overselling.

   On the plus side:
   
   This book is full of IRA information and good IRA advice presented in a very readable manner. I made dozens of notes in the front cover while reading this book. An excellent IRA reference. And I think the book does a service by pointing out that the IRA code has (sort of) a loophole that allows the ‘effective’ taxes paid on the IRA to be greatly reduced if the IRA is passed on to younger family members who should (Slott recommends) only take out the minimum annually over their lifetimes. Slott calls this the ‘stretch’ IRA.

   On the negative side:
   
   Your IRA can grow into a FAMILY FORTUNE, he screams, with pages of tables showing a 100 thousand IRA growing to millions (in one case to nearly 300 million if left to grow into well into the 21 century!). Nonsense, what about the time value of money? Slott never heard of it (or pretends he never heard of it). The reality, of course, is that if your income tax rate is, say, 33% then when you withdraw IRA funds you lose 1/3rd of it to taxes. The best that even a perfect tax strategy can do is recover this 1/3rd. Nice, but hardly a fortune.

   Slott provides a useful check list of features an IRA contract should have. You would think that maybe he would read the IRA contracts of top IRA providers (like Fidelity, Vanguard) and tell us how they stack up? Nope, that’s our job, not his.

   Convert to a Roth IRA and your money will grow TAX FREE he screams. Slott’s very positive on Roth IRA’s, too positive. I worked through a Roth conversion example and find that the extra shielding that a Roth IRA allows can boost your after-tax returns a little. (Calculation details are in ‘Roth Primer’ section of the ‘Charity’ essay on my home page.) I calculate in a 6% market environment that Roth IRA will yield 6% vs an after tax yield for a traditional IRA of approx 5.4%, or an extra 0.6%/yr investment gain. However, there can be a serious downside to doing a Roth conversion that Slott doesn’t mention. A large Roth conversion will likely be taxed at a much higher incremental income tax rate than normal minimum withdrawals, and since Roth has only a tiny yield advantage over a traditional IRA it could easily take a decade or more just to get even.

   Rating: 3 / 5

2. Alexander McKelvey - August 14th, 2010 at 4:52 am

   This book focuses on ensuring that your IRA is properly set up, so that it can be passed on to beneficiaries intact, effectively establishing a “stretch IRA”. The stretch IRA describes an IRA held by a beneficiary, and which will pay out over their lifetime.

   This book is very well organized, and the author is clearly very enthusiastic about his subject. He does quite well making his case, that you should ensure your IRA passes intact to a beneficiary, in that it can offer them HUGE tax advantages for their entire life time.

   He is also quite good about explaining the steps you need to achieve this. Much of the book is reference material that will not apply to everyone at any given time, but that is not a real criticism. The book is cheap enough, and the sections that apply to all are worth the entire purchase price.

   If you have an IRA, and you have any desire to pass your assets along to a beneficiary, this book is an excellent starting point.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. M. Cheney - August 14th, 2010 at 7:36 am

   Ed Slott is considered THE expert on stretch IRA’s. Book is aimed at investors who will probably die before depleting their IRA funds. It explains how to structure a stretch IRA to pass this money on to future generations with minimal taxation.

   Book is better organized than Slott’s previous books. It is very readable. I keep it for a reference and have purchased additional copies for gifts.
   Rating: 5 / 5

4. Bill Hartman - August 14th, 2010 at 9:47 am

   This book shows you basically two options. Give most of your tax deferred assets to the government after you and your wife’s death, or set it up so your kids and/or grandchildren get it. It is amazing how many financial and legal types that I have shown this too that didn’t know about Stretch IRA’s. Great book to teach you how to keep your hard earned dollars in the family instead of sending to the government.
   Rating: 5 / 5

5. Howard M. Shaver - August 14th, 2010 at 11:13 am

   [[ASIN:B000HT2P1Q Parlay Your IRA into a Family Fortune: 3 EASY STEPS for creating a lifetime supply of tax-deferred, even tax-free, wealth for you and your family].]
   
   This is a great book. Really can be helpful if you have professionals who know what they are doing as the key is doing the correct thing at the correct time and making sure that those you bequeth the IRAs to also understand what to do.
   
   I work in this area of financial planning/management so am not sure whether the “regular” person would understand it, but just having read this, it will be helpful if more professionals read it
   Rating: 4 / 5

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