This ABA bestseller has helped thousands of estate planners understand the complex rules and regulations governing qualified retirement plan distributions and IRAs. Now newly updated, An Estate Planner's Guide to Qualified Retirement Benefits provides expert and current guidance for structuring benefits from qualified retirement plans and IRAs, consistently relating key distribution issues to current estate planning practice. Topics covered include:

• The different types of qualified plans and the tax and non-tax rules relating to them
• The forms of distribution and the situations in which they need to be considered
• Penalty taxes
• Distribution requirements and how to calculate them
• Income taxation and handling rollovers
• Transfer taxes
• Spousal rights, QDROs, and community property considerations
• Estate and trust administration issues
• Practical planning strategies to avoid penalty and excise taxes on distributions while incurring the lowest income tax, and more

Includes appendices on tax consequences and hypothetical retirement plan scenarios, sample forms, and revenue rulings, private letter rulings, IRS news releases and notices.