Or maybe it should prompt us to consider whether sanctions, if they're not achieving anything, are worthwhile in the first place.

Gregory Craig, who was White House counsel under President Barack Obama, was indicted Thursday on charges of lying and hiding information related to his work for Ukraine.
Craig, a 74-year-old lawyer based in Washington, D.C., was charged by the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, unit.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/11/obam...osecutors.html

Process crime imo.

not sure about him but I support bad things happening to ppl who support trump. dont care the reasons.

Assange content moved to appropriate thread.

Since we sometimes talk about investing here: I'm reading about after-tax 401k contributions (which seems, in a vacuum, like a terrible deal? How is paying tax on income, investing that income, and then paying tax again on the gains when I take it out any different than non-retirement investing?) and Roth conversions for the first time.

This seems...too good to be true? I can contribute tons more to my 401k after tax (again, terrible deal?) once I max out pre-tax contributions, but then convert it to a Roth (amazing deal!!!) with the snap of a finger? What's the catch??

The go-to-first-new post link for the Assange thread now redirects to the LC thread.

I think if you clear your cache, that should fix it. It's a bug that happens sometimes depending on your last read post.

I did exactly this with my last job. When I left the company I rolled the after tax money in my 401k into a roth.

I think the after tax money was like a roth the whole time. Are you sure that you have to pay taxes on gains to an after tax 401k contribution?

Where it gets weird though is how the hell do they keep track of which money came in after tax and which before tax - as the whole grows (hopefully) and all the contributions - before and after tax - went in at different times?

I think the whole thing with an "after tax 401k contribution" is that it is what it sounds like: putting more money in your 401k after hitting the pre-tax limit, but paying tax on it first, which is contrary to the entire point of a 401k (until you get that sweet Roth conversion, apparently!).

I'm not sure about after-tax 401ks, but Roth IRA conversions are typically done from a traditional IRA and are most definitely taxable events. In other words, any amount you convert will count as ordinary income for that year.

Roth IRA Conversions and Taxes

Yeah this is a weird case though where you max out your 401k so your company puts the rest of your contributions that year in as 'after tax'. I posted about it here when it happened to me and no one had ever heard of it. My tax guy had never heard of it either.

But when I left the job I called Fidelity and they made it easy to roll all the after tax money into a Roth. The rest I rolled into a SEP IRA.

But of course I have no idea how they calculate how much is after tax since money grows over time and all went in at different times. Maybe they keep it like two separate accounts even though it looks like one to me. That makes sense.

You're right, I'd never heard of it and it sounds like a pretty sweet deal:

After-tax 401(k) (Bogleheads)

Your 401(k) plan needs to allow both an after-tax 401(k) option, which isn't universal, and then also allow an in-service rollover distribution from the plan, which I think is fairly uncommon. You also need to make sure they will allocate the distribution right (i.e., solely to the after-tax money).

After-tax 401(k)'s do suck, but the advantage they are supposed to offer is that you don't pay taxes on your investments while they are growing. However, equity index funds are so tax efficient that it's not a big deal, and having your investment returns tagged as ordinary income is catastrophic. It's not a terrible place to hold a bond fund though.

What you're describing is one way of "backdooring" money into a Roth. It something that people commonly do in a variety of ways. I've never done what you're describing because I never had an employer plan that makes it possible. But I do backdoor Roth IRAs every year. The execution is similar.

I don't think there is really a catch. One thing people ask about is something called the step doctrine. Basically it's an IRS rule that says that you can perform a set of transactions and even if each individual transaction (i.e., each step) is perfectly legal, if they think that the overall outcome is to circumvent the tax code, they can deem the whole process illegal (despite the fact that each individual step is legal).

So, one could argue that if you are just putting in a bunch of money in the 401k just so you can convert to Roth, even though each step is legal, you're basically getting a tax break that wasn't intended and the IRS could theoretically invoke the step doctrine say that the whole transaction is illegal.

The reason why I am not worried about this, is backdooring money into a Roth this way is something that is widely written about and done by many people frequently. I am unaware of a single instance of the IRS going after anyone for it. But I haven't checked in a couple of years.

Also IANAL or accountant or anyone you should rely on for such advice, so definitely do your own due diligence on above.

I am in the Tax Court for a backdoor Roth IRA at this very moment, but I think it was just because I didn't file the right form with my tax return. I'll let you all know how it turns out!

You almost certainly wouldn't want to take advantage of the bolded anyway, right? Isn't when you're working generally not a good time to roll over your IRA to a Roth since it gets taxed as normal income, and then it will all be taxed at your marginal rate? The best time to roll over your 401k/IRA money to a Roth is when you retire at 60 and have zero income. If you've set aside money in a taxable account you can live off that, and the capital gains and qualified dividends you're living off of aren't ordinary income. So then you can roll over your standard deduction tax free, then however much at 10%, etc etc.

The form (8606 IIRC) is notoriously difficult to fill out correctly. I used to have my taxes done by an accountant in the past and they ****ed it up twice, which is part of why I've decided to do them myself now. I have to look it up every year.

Nope.

In the case of after tax contribution, you've already paid the tax, so there is no additional tax on the conversion unless there was appreciation in the time between the contribution and the conversion. Then you only pay tax on the appreciation.

interesting

Katie Porter rules and has absolutely killed it in any questioning I've seen. Keep getting em KP.

Katie Porter 2020!

Dammit I can't even watch sumo without Trump ****ing it up. fml

Idk. He might be a celebrity competitor and I might shell out $20 to see it.

Dude won't even throw out the opening day pitch but he's showing up for natsu basho, gtfo with this crap.