Investment Instruments

However stout a client's tax defenses, there's almost no avoiding the levy against retirement plans for the year they reach 70 1/2, when they must start withdrawing cash from IRAs and 401(k) plans and paying ordinary income tax on it, writes Robert Hershey in the New York Times.

Prudential Retirement today announced its first longevity reinsurance transaction of 2012. Under the terms of the deal, Prudential Retirement will provide reinsurance of longevity risk to the U.K.'s Rothesay Life, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Securian Financial Group recognized its employees' role in a 25 percent earnings growth in 2011 by making a 9-percent salary profit-sharing distribution to their 401(k) accounts.

The budget seeks to strengthen the defined benefit pension system by giving the board of the PBGC authority to adjust premiums and evaluate risks to it, and keep it viable for the times when plans fail.

Brian H. Graff, executive director and CEO of ASPPA, calls President Obama's proposed 2013 budget "a bad proposal based on bad math," especially when it comes to encouraging participation in small businesses' 401(k) plans.

Declining discount rates and disappointing asset returns caused pension funding levels in major global markets to drop in 2011.