Tired of hearing about the fiscal cliff yet? We are too. But while the American Taxpayer Relief Act (which "relieved" American taxpayers by raising their taxes) arguably may have been bad fiscal policy, bad employment policy and bad tax policy, from a purely pension- and benefits-centric point of view the legislation was not all that bad, and in fact could have been much worse.
In addition to the Roth conversion opportunity (which is permanent), for example, the ATRA made permanent the favorable tax treatment of educational assistance, adoption assistance and mass transit benefits. And it didn’t touch the tax treatment of 401(k) plans.
After a spending a week checking out the ATRA analyses, wrap-ups and post-mortems from various and sundry law firms and others, here are our two favorites:
• From the Groom Law Group, this four-pager on in-plan Roth conversions and the charitable IRA deduction
• From Bryan Cave, this overview of ATRA’s benefits-related provisions
And enjoy the brief respite leading up to the Washington Tong War coming our way next month, when sequestration, the debt limit and a renewed fight over spending cuts and tax deductions will once again occupy the nation, while the government slowly runs out of money in the background.
