Month: December 2023

The Situation:  Consider a person who took out a 30-year mortgage, 15 years prior to retirement.   The initial balance on the mortgage was $600,000 and the interest rate on the mortgage was 3.6 percent.

The person retires with $1,000,000 in her 401(k) plan but the retiree also has an outstanding mortgage of $378,975 and an ongoing monthly mortgage payment of $2,728.  

The retiree plans to spend $40,000 per year $3,333 per month to cover non-housing consumption in retirement. 

• The total annual disbursement from a 401(k) plan for a person with a mortgage is $72,735.

• The total annual disbursement from a 401(k) plan for a person without a mortgage is $40,000.

Question One:  What are the outstanding balances of the retirement plan after 15 years for a person with a mortgage and a person without a mortgage if the rate of return on investments in the retirement plan is 6.0 percent per year?

Answer:  

• The outstanding 401(k) balance after 15 years for the person with a mortgage is $691,380.

• The outstanding 401(k) balance after 15 years for the person without a mortgage is $1,484,698.

Question Two:  What are the 401(k) outstanding balances after 15 years if the person started retirement with $900,000 in 401(k) assets.

Answer:  

• The person with the mortgage has a 401(k) balance of $445,971 after 15 years.

• The person without a mortgage has a 401(k) balance of $1,239,290 after 15 years. 

Implications for longevity risk:

The existence of a mortgage payment substantially increases the depletion rate of the 401(k) plan. The mortgage payment cannot be avoided during market fluctuations.  The existence of a mortgage during a market downturn at the beginning of retirement can have an especially adverse impact on retirement wealth.

The discussion presented here does not explicitly consider taxes.

• All traditional 401(k) assets are fully taxed as ordinary income.   

• The person with higher spending due to a mortgage will have also have higher taxes.

• This person may increase spending to have adequate non-housing consumption.

More on these issues will follow.

Technical Note:  Discussion of Financial Calculations

The most straight forward way to obtain the 401(k) balance is to set up a spreadsheet where the loan payment is subtracted from the balance each month and the balance minus the loan payment earns a monthly return.   

A second approach involves the use of the FV function.  

The arguments of the FV function are

• Rate 0.06/12 or 0.005.
• NPER 12*15 or 180.
• PMT 6061.21 for person with a mortgage and $3,333.33 for person without the mortgage.
• PV -1,000,000. Negative because PV is cash in and must be the opposite sign of the PMT function.

The FV function is set up to analyze loans, so be careful with the sign of answer.

Tip #8a: People with mortgage debt in retirement must often take large taxable distributions from their 401(k) plan regardless of the level of the stock market.  The elimination of all debt prior to retirement substantially reduces the likelihood a person will outlive their retirement savings.

General Discussion:  Many financial advisors believe it is appropriate for their clients to keep some debt in retirement.   They will advise their clients to take out a 30-year loan instead of a 15-year loan to increase contributions to a 401(k) plan and to take full advantage of the deductibility of mortgage interest. They also argue that people nearing retirement should make additional catch-up contributions to their 401(k) plan instead of increasing payments on their mortgage.

The decision to keep debt in retirement is a recipe for financial disaster, especially if the household is reliant on fully taxed distributions from a 401(k) plan and partially taxed Social Security benefits.  

Issue One: The person with debt will more rapidly deplete their 401(k) plan and will pay higher taxes in retirement.

Discussion:  A person taking out a 30-year $500,000 mortgage, 15 years prior to retirement has annual mortgage expenses of $26,609.  The person that used a 15-year mortgage enters retirement debt free.  See the example presented in Financial Tip #4 Guidelines for the choice between a 15-year and 30-year mortgage.  

The person with the mortgage debt must either reduce non-mortgage expenditures or distribute additional funds from their retirement account to maintain the same consumption as the person that paid off her entire mortgage prior to retirement. 

Large tax-deductible mortgages reduce payment of federal and state income taxes in working years but increase payment of federal state and income taxes in retirement.

• Retirees without business expenses generally have lower itemized deductions than people in their prime earnings years, hence, the advantages from itemizing in retirement are often small.

• An increase in the distribution of 401(k) funds to cover the mortgage is fully taxed as ordinary income. 

• An increase in 401(k) distributions increases the amount of Social Security subject to income tax as discussed on this page offered by the Social Security Administration.  

Issue Two:  The person without debt is better able to maintain current consumption levels and preserve wealth during market downturns.

Discussion:   Typically, a person attempts to maintain a certain level of consumption perhaps 60 percent of pre-retirement income throughout retirement.  A person with a mortgage or a monthly rental payment is less able to reduce expenditures when the value of stocks in their 401(k) falls because the mortgage payment or the rent are not optional. 

Any reduction in disbursements from 401(K) plans, which are reduced in value due to a collapse in stock prices, would have to occur from a reduction in non-housing consumption.   

The largest financial exposures occur when the market falls by a substantial amount in the early years of retirement when the entire savings from working years is exposed to the market.  The market downturn in stocks in 2008 was somewhat offset by an increase in bond values.   This time around both stocks and traditional bonds appear to be in a bubble.   People may want to consider Series I or inflation bonds as discussed in  financial tip #7.

Still, the best way to prepare for a market downturn is to eliminate all debt prior to retirement. 

Concluding Remarks:  During working years, many households take on a large amount of mortgage debt to reduce current year tax obligations. Failure to eliminate all mortgage debt prior to retirement often leads to rapid depletion of 401(k) assets, higher income tax burdens in retirement and increased exposure to financial volatility.  

Often people leaving the workforce raid their retirement plans to fund current consumption.  A departure from the workforce creates an opportunity for people to convert traditional retirement assets to Roth assets at low cost.  The low-cost conversion to Roth assets can substantially improve financial outcomes in retirement. Households are only able to make this low-cost conversion if they have a decent ratio of liquid assets to debts.

Analysis:

• A previous post, Financial Tip #5, found that people leaving a firm with a high-cost 401(k) plan should roll over funds from the high-cost 401(K) to a low-cost IRA to increase wealth at retirement.   The rollover is often a prerequisite to converting traditional 401(k) assets to a Roth.

• The tax code allows for the conversion of traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. Distributions from a Roth account in retirement are not taxed and do not count towards the amount of Social Security subject to tax. The person converting previously untaxed funds in an IRA pays income tax on the converted funds in the year of a conversion.   The cost of converting traditional assets to Roth assets, the additional tax paid stemming from the conversion, is low when households have marginal tax rates.   

• Marginal tax rates are lowest when a worker or a spouse leaves the workforce.  This can happen when a person returns to school, decides to care for a family member, becomes unemployed or retires.  
  • Conversion costs are $0 if AGI including the amount converted is less than the standard deduction ($12,950 for a single filer).
  • Conversion costs for single people filing an individual return are 10 percent of taxable income AGI minus the standard deduction for taxable income between $0s and $14,200.  Increases in taxable income up to $54,200 increase conversion costs by 12 percent, the marginal tax rate.

• The potential gains from converting traditional retirement assets to Roth assets early in a career perhaps when returning to school are tremendous.   

• A person leaving the workforce for school for a couple of years at around age 28 might convert $20,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth at a cost of around $2,000.

• The balance of the Roth account from this conversion after 30 years assuming a 6.0 percent return is $114,870. 

• The direct tax savings from the conversion assuming a tax rate of 10 percent would be $11,487.  An indirect tax savings from the omission of tax on Social Security, assuming around $50,000 in Social Security payments spread over a couple of years, would be around another $5,000.  The conversion can be thought of as an investment of $2,000 leading to a return of around $16,000 in around 30 years.  The rate of return for an investment of $2,000 and a return of $16,000 in around 30 years is around 7.2%.

• A person in a low tax bracket because she is young and single and returning to school and only working for the part of the year could be in a much higher tax bracket in retirement, especially if married and both spouses worked and claimed Social Security.  In many cases, the returns from converting a traditional IRA to a Roth will be much higher than the one reported by the simple example in the above bullet. A person living 100 percent on Roth distributions and Social Security could easily pay $0 in annual tax after accounting for the standard deduction.

• A person returning to school full time with no reported earnings could convert an amount equal to the standard deduction to a Roth and pay no additional tax.  It would be irrational for a person with a 0 percent marginal tax rate to fail to make a conversion.

• Workers leaving the workforce are often more concerned about meeting immediate needs than for planning for retirement.  However, conversion costs are small during a year a person leaves the workforce.

• Workers leaving the workforce with debt or with 401(k) loans often distribute funds from their 401(k) plan, pay a penalty and tax, and are unable to rollover or convert funds to a Roth.

• The five-year rule imposes tax and penalty on funds disbursed from a Roth IRA funded through a conversion from a traditional IRA within five years from January 1 of the year of the conversion.  A separate five-year waiting period is applied to each conversion.     The five-year rule applies for conversions after age 59 ½ even though all funds in Roth accounts funded by contributions can be withdrawn without penalty and tax at that age.  The purpose of the five-year rule for conversions and its implementation even after age 59 ½ is to prevent immediate access to funds in a traditional retirement account.  The five-year rule for conversions appears to apply to disbursements from both contributions and earnings for both pre-tax and after-tax IRAs. 

Concluding Remarks:   The cost of converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, the additional tax paid on the amount of the conversion, is generally low in years where a person leaves the workforce.  The potential tax savings in retirement is considerable.

Several additional posts on IRA conversions are planned.  One post considers issues related to conversions of non-deductible IRAs in a procedure called a backdoor IRA.  A second post considers the advantages of converting pre-tax IRAs during retirement.

Tip #6: Series I Savings Bonds should be included in every investor’s portfolio.  This asset purchased directly from the U.S. Treasury without fees is an effective hedge against inflation and higher interest rates.

Characteristics and rules governing Series I bonds:   The Series I bond, an accrual bond issued by the U.S. Treasury tied to inflation, is described here.  

Key Features of Series I Bonds:

• Backed by the full faith of the U.S. Treasury

• Cannot be redeemed until one year after issue.

• Redemptions prior to five years from issue date forfeiture of one quarter of interest.

• The composite interest rate changes every six months,

• The interest rate is based on two components – a fixed rate and the inflation rate.   

• The composite rate is guaranteed to not fall below zero.

• The interest is taxed when the bond is redeemed.

• Bond matures and stops paying interest after 30 years.

• The Treasury limits annual purchases of the bonds to $15,000 per person with a limit of $10,000 on electronic purchases and $5,000 on paper purchases.  The paper Series I bonds can only be purchased through refunds from the IRS.

Reasons for Purchasing Series I Bonds:

• Series I Bonds, unlike traditional bonds and bond ETFs, do not fall in value.

• In the current low-interest rate high valuation environment, traditional bonds and stock prices are almost certain to decline in value.  

• A retired person with I-Bonds outside of a 401(k) plan can respond to a market downturn by using proceeds from the redemption of I-bonds to fund current consumption rather than disburse funds from a 401(k) plan, which could be temporarily down in value.

• The Series I Bond is a riskless asset.  Investors with this asset can reduce holdings of traditional bonds and cash and increase investments in equities.

Difference Between Series I Bonds and TIPS:

Treasury Inflation Protection Securities (TIPS also allow investors to protect returns when inflation and interest rates rise.

Key differences between TIPS and a Series I bond as explained here:

• The TIPS value can fall in an era of deflation.  The Series I bond never falls in value.

• The tax on interest from TIPS is paid annually and not deferred to redemption

• TIPS bonds can be sold without forfeiture of any interest at any time.  The redemption of a Series I bond is not allowed until after a year from the purchase date and sales prior to five years from the purchase date involve a forfeiture of a 3 months of interest.  

• All TIPS can be counted as a liquid asset.   Only Series I older than 5 years from issue should be considered liquid.

• Up to $5.0 million in TIPS can be purchased in a single auction.  The annual limit on the purchase of Series I Bonds is $15,000.

Thoughts on Series I interest rates:

• The current fixed interest rate on a Series I Bond is 0 percent.  The current composite fixed + inflation component on bonds purchased prior to May 2022 is 7.12%.  A delay in the purchase of a Series I bond until the second half of the year could result in a permanently higher fixed rate.  However, investors would lose an annualized return of 7.12% accruing in May. 

• Bonds purchased years ago in a high interest rate environment have a higher current composite rate because the fixed component is higher.  People are currently aware of I-Bonds because of the elevated inflation rate.  The purchase of I-bonds also makes sense when inflation is low and interest rates are high because the investor will obtain both a higher fixed rate and increases in interest when inflation returns.

Concluding Thoughts:  Investors should purchase a Series I bond every year.  Investors who maximize receipt of the employer matching contributions to a 401(k) plan can then divert additional investments to a Roth IRA or a Series I Bond.  People without a 401(k) plan that allows matching contributions should contribute to a Roth, invest Roth contributions in equities, and divert some funds to the purchase of Series I bonds.

Tip #3: New entrants to the workforce, facing unprecedented levels of student debt, should prioritize debt reduction over saving for retirement.

Most students with substantial student debt should reduce or forego retirement savings until their debt levels become manageable.  Students entering the workforce with substantial debt could reasonably forego saving for retirement for the first three years of their career. Potential advantages of pursuing a debt reduction strategy and the creation of an emergency fund over saving for retirement include:

• Reduced lifetime student loan interest payments
• Improved credit rating and reduced lifetime borrowing costs
• Reduced likelihood of raiding retirement plan and incurring penalties and tax
• Increased house equity and reduced stress associated with debt

Discussion of advantages of rapid student loan reduction at the expense of saving for retirement:

• The decision to initially forego saving for retirement and earmark all available funds towards repayment of student debt leads to a substantial reduction in lifetime payments on student debt.  Two examples of the magnitude of the reduction in lifetime student loan payments are presented below.

• A student borrower starting her career with $30,000 in undergraduate loans could take out a 20-year student loan leading to a monthly payment of $198.82 and lifetime loan payments of $47,716.   Alternatively, this student borrower could forego contributions to her 401(k) plan, increase student loan payments by $565.4 per month and pay off her student loan in 61 months.   The new total student loan repayments are $33,837, a total savings of $13,879. 

• A second borrower with three student loans — a $35,000 undergraduate loan at 5.05%, a $40,000 graduate loan at 6.66% and a $25,000 private student loan at 10.00% — choosing the standard 20-year maturity on all loans has a monthly payment of $775 and realizes total lifetime payments of $200,633. The modification of the private loan to a five-year term initially increases the monthly student loan to $1,065.  The total lifetime student loan debt payments for the person who repaid her private student loan in 5 years instead of 20 years and earmarks the reduced loan payment to further loan reduction is $146,271.  This is a total lifetime savings of $54,362. 

• The student borrower who rapidly reduces or eliminates all student debt can increase savings for retirement once the monthly student debt payment falls or is eliminated. Furthermore, the rapid elimination of the high-interest-rate private student loan could facilitate refinancing of the remaining student debt at favorable terms.

• The failure to maintain a good credit rating will lead to higher borrowing costs on all consumer loans and on mortgages in addition to higher lifetime student loan payments.  

• Assumptions on the impact of credit quality on interest rates were obtained for credit cards from WalletHub, for car loans from  Nerd Wallet, for private student loans from Investopedia, and for mortgages from CNBC.  The differential between interest rates on people with good and bad were 9.8 points for credit card debt, 7.0 points car loans, 10.0 points for private student loans, and 1.6 points for mortgage debt.  The monthly cost of bad credit depends on the interest rate differential, the likely loan amount, and the maturity of the loan. The analysis presented here assumes a likely loan balance of $10,000 for credit cards, $15,000 for a car loan, $20,000 for a private student loan, and $300,000 for a mortgage.  The analysis also assumes the borrower only paid interest on credit card debt and loan maturities were 60 months for car loans, 240 months for private student loans, and 360 months for mortgages.  Based on these assumptions, the monthly cost of bad credit was $82 for credit cards, $49 for car loans, $124 for private student loans, and $277 for mortgages.

• A person who fails to eliminate debt could end up with higher borrowing costs for their entire lifetime.

• Increasingly, young adults are tapping 401(k) funds prior to retirement to meet current needs.  Often individuals who raid their 401(k) plan prior to retirement incur additional income tax and financial penalties.  A CNBC article reveals that nearly 60 percent of young workers have taken funds out of their 401(k) plan. A study by the Employment Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) reveals that 40 percent of terminated participants elect to prematurely withdraw 15 percent of plan assets. A poll of the Boston Research Group found 22 percent of people leaving their job cashed out their 401(k) plan intending to spend the funds.  New entrants to the workforce who prioritize the reduction of student debt over saving for retirement will be less like to raid their retirement plan and incur tax and financial penalties. 

• Note from Tip #3 that people using Roth IRAs or Roth 401(k) plans are less likely to pay penalties and taxes on disbursements on retirement savings because the initial contribution to a Roth can be disbursed without penalty or tax.  People with debt should start saving for retirement through relatively small contributions to Roth accounts rather than large contributions to traditional plans.

• Many people who fail to prioritize debt payments struggle with debt burdens for a lifetime and fail to realize a secure financial future. A CNBC portrayal of the financial status of millennials found many adults near the age of 40 were highly leveraged struggling to pay down student debt, using innovative ways to obtain a down payment on a home and barely able to meet monthly mortgage payments.  A 2019 Congressional Research Service Report found the percent of elderly with debt rose from 38% in 1989 to 61% in 2021.   The Urban Institute reported the percent of people 65 and over with a mortgage rose from 21% in 1989 to 41% in 2019.  A 2017 report by the Consumer Finance Protection Board found that the number of seniors with student debt increased from 700,000 to 2.8 million over the decade.  Many of these problems and financial stresses could have been avoided if the student borrower entering the workforce had initially focused on debt reduction and the creation of an emergency fund rather than saving for retirement.

These problems will worsen if borrowers don’t start focusing on debt reduction over saving for retirement because many in the new cohort of borrowers are starting their careers with higher debt levels.

Concluding Thoughts:  Many financial advisors stress saving for retirement over debt reduction.  Fidelity, a leading investment firm, says young adults should attempt to have 401(k) wealth equal to their annual income at age 30.  Workers without debt and with adequate liquidity for job-related expenses can and should contribute.   Their returns will compound overtime and they will have a head start on retirement.

The Fidelity savings objective is unrealistic for most student borrowers with debt. The current cohort of people entering the workforce has more debt than any previous cohort.  Average student debt for college graduates in 2019 was 26 percent higher in 2019 than 2009.  The decision by a new worker with student debt to go full speed ahead on retirement savings instead of creating an emergency fund and rapidly retire student debt can and often does lead to disaster.  The young adult choosing retirement saving over debt reduction pays more on debt servicing, invariably falls behind on other bills, pays higher costs on all future loans, and often raids their retirement plan paying taxes and penalties.   

Tip number 2:  Most households use traditional retirement accounts instead of Roth accounts.  The Tax Policy Center reports around 23% of taxpayers have a traditional IRA compared to around 12% of taxpayers with a Roth IRA.  According to CNBC, in 2016 around 70 percent of firms offered a Roth 401(k), but only 18% of workers used the Roth 401(k) option.  

More people should choose a Roth retirement plan over a traditional one.  People should use Roth accounts in the following circumstances.

• Workers at firms not offering a retirement plan with a marginal tax rate less than 25% should use a Roth IRA instead of a deductible IRA.

• Workers at firms offering both a traditional and Roth 401(k) should choose the Roth 401(k) if their marginal tax rate is less than 25%.

• Workers with marginal tax rates less than 25% at firms with 401(k) plans without employee matching contributions should select a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) over a traditional 401(k) plan.

• Workers who maximize receipt of employer matching contributions should place additional contributions in a Roth IRA.

• Spouses of workers with family AGI below the contribution limit for Roth contributions should contribute to a Roth IRA, if eligible.

Comments:

• Gains from 401(k) contributions are relatively small when employers don’t provide a matching contribution and a worker’s marginal tax rate is low.  

• Workers with Roth accounts are less likely to withdraw and spend all funds prior to retirement than workers with traditional accounts because they can access the amount contributed without penalty or tax prior to age 59 ½. 

• The tax saving from Roth disbursements in retirement are high both because disbursements after age 59 ½ are not taxed and the Roth disbursement does not increase the amount of Social Security subject to tax.

• Workers at a firm that do not match employee contributions, around 49 percent of employers, should contribute to a Roth IRA instead of a 401(k) plan unless the worker has a high marginal tax rate.

• One effective contribution strategy is to take full advantage of the employer match and contribute all additional funds to a Roth IRA. Two common 401(k) matching formulas are 50 percent of the dollar amount contributed by the employee up to 6.0 percent of the employee’s salary and 100 percent of contributions up to 3 percent of the employee’s salary. 

• Most new employees at firms with a vesting requirement, a rule delaying full ownership of 401(k) matches, should contribute to a Roth IRA instead of a 401(k) plan.

• Stay-home spouses of workers with income should choose a Roth IRA over a traditional one if they are eligible. In 2021, a single filer with MAGI less than $140,000 and a married joint return filer with MAGI less than $206,000 cannot contribute to a Roth IRA.  Workers with income above these contribution limits should contribute to a Roth IRA.  Other workers should use a backdoor IRA.

Readers should remember to open their Roth IRA early in life as explained in financial tip number one.