457(b) plans are retirement plans for government workers and for highly-compensated employees of non-profit organizations. As such, 457's are offered by some of Utah's largest employers, including Intermountain Healthcare and the University of Utah. These plans are analogous to 401(k)'s and 403(b)'s, but they differ in one critical way.
Health Savings Accounts, or HSA's, were only introduced in 2004, and already there are over 20 million of them. Much of that growth, however, has taken place in the last few years, driven by the recent popularity of high-deductible health insurance plans. I've owned an HSA since 2011 and am a big fan of them, so let's discuss the benefits of these relatively new accounts.
In the prior posting in our series, Articles on Wealth Management Topics, we discussed the basics of the Roth 401(k) plans that many employers have introduced in recent years. But are these plans right for you, or should you stick to contributing to the traditional 401(k)? Let's talk about some of the circumstances that would make Roth 401(k) contributions more attractive.
Now that Roth 401(k) plans have become a permanent fixture, more companies are beginning to offer this option to employees. With that in mind, let's take a look at the major features of this relatively new type of retirement plan.
Pension or "defined benefit" plans are in a state of decline in more ways than one. Thousands of pension plans have been terminated in recent years. The vast majority of them were fully funded, but were frozen by healthy companies, like IBM, Verizon and Hewlett Packard, looking to save money.