Rollover of After-Tax 401(k) Dollars to a Roth IRA
Last week the IRS finally produced a ruling on whether or not you’re able to rollover after-tax dollars in a 401(k) to a Roth IRA tax-free, which is different from actually having a separate Roth 401(k) account available. The IRS has ruled that after-tax and pre-tax amounts can be kept separate on a pro-rata basis in regards to distributions from a plan. This certainly makes sense and I think most advisors assumed you could do this, but the IRS has never officially stated that it’s allowed until now.
Apple’s Privacy Policy
Last week Apple updated their privacy policy regarding your personal information. Apple will not be storing and will not have access to photos, messages, email, and call history for iPhones and iPads running iOS 8. Only your personal passcode can grant access to this information. This means that even if they receive a government/police warrant for the information, they don’t have the info so it’s not feasible to turnover. I don’t take the government abusing our liberties lightly so I commend Apple for this. I’ve personally never owned an Apple product (I can hear people screaming “WHAT!?” yeah…) but I might switch to an iPhone now.
European Troubles
I haven’t been talking about Europe a lot the past few months because I was starting to feel like I was beating a dead horse, but the troubles continue! The media in the US really does not talk about how bad things are over there… Over the weekend, some French farmers burned down a government tax office and an insurance office in protest. Their governmental policies are so idiotic and the EU economies are such a disaster that people are just fed up at this point. The US Dollar has been on a tear since mid-July as capital continues to pour into the US. We could be in the early innings of a sustained rally in the US dollar.
-Nick