4 Reasons to Roll Over Your 401(k) Into an IRA - The Motley Fool

There are a lot of reasons to love 401(k)s: They have higher contribution limits, the money comes right out of your paycheck every month so you don't have to remember to transfer it, and your employer might match some of your contributions. But 401(k)s also have their drawbacks. Here are four reasons you may want to consider rolling over your 401(k) into an IRA.

1. IRAs have more investment choices

Most 401(k)s contain a few investment options selected by your employer. You might be happy with these options, but if you're not, there isn't much you can do about it. You can request that your employer add more investments, but it does not have to comply. Or you could roll over your 401(k) savings into an IRA.

Image source: Getty Images.

IRAs offer a virtually unlimited selection of investments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and more. You can spread your money among as many of these assets as you choose, and change your asset allocation as often as you like. Not everyone will feel confident enough to choose their own investments from such a broad selection, but if you prefer to have more control over your retirement savings, an IRA is a better choice for you.

2. IRAs often charge lower fees

All retirement accounts, including IRAs, charge fees. Your brokerage will have a fee schedule, and your investments may have their own fees. Mutual funds, for example, charge an annual fee called an expense ratio. This is usually a percentage of your assets. 

401(k)s also have fees, which can be higher than IRA fees, especially for smaller companies. Having fewer employees means that each one has to shoulder a greater portion of the 401(k)'s administrative fees. The investments your employer selects for the plan may also have higher fees than you'd like to pay. These can eat into your profits and slow the growth of your retirement savings over time.

With an IRA, you're free to choose low-cost investments and work with the broker that's most affordable for you, so you can reduce what you're paying in fees and help your savings grow more quickly.

3. Roth IRAs aren't subject to required minimum distributions (RMDs)

Required minimum distributions (RMDs) are mandatory withdrawals from retirement accounts that begin at 72 unless you're still working and own less than 5% of the company you work for. The only accounts not subject to RMDs are Roth IRAs. These accounts are funded with after-tax dollars, and the government doesn't tax distributions, so it has no reason to make you withdraw money from these accounts early.

RMDs may force you to withdraw more money from your retirement accounts than you'd like to, raising your tax bill and hampering the growth of your savings. But stashing some of your money in Roth IRAs can help you avoid this. You're free to draw upon this money as needed, and you don't have to use it at all if you don't want to. 

Roth IRAs aren't the best choice for everyone, though. They make sense if you expect you'll be in the same or a higher tax bracket once you retire, but if you think you'll be in a lower tax bracket once you retire, a traditional IRA might make more sense. You'll pay taxes on your distributions, but you'll lose a smaller percentage of your income to the government. 

4. Rolling over your 401(k) lets you manage all your funds in one place

It's not impossible to manage your retirement savings if they're spread out among several different accounts, but it's definitely easier when they're all in one place. You can see all of your investments and fees together and make changes to your asset allocation without having to log into multiple retirement accounts.

Consider rolling over your 401(k) to an IRA if any of the above benefits appeal to you, but think through the decision carefully. The larger contribution limits and possible 401(k) match might make it worth staying with your 401(k) if you're happy with its investment choices and fees.

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2020-01-12 13:17:00Z
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Ghosn faced 7 hours a day of questioning in Japan: lawyer - Fox Business

Fox News senior legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano says former chairman and CEO of Renault Carlos Ghosn will most likely stay in Lebanon and spend a lot of money to protect himself.

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer

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TOKYO (AP) — A lawyer for former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who fled to Lebanon while awaiting trial in Japan, said his client was questioned an average of seven hours a day without a lawyer present.

Takashi Takano said in a blog post Saturday the questioning continued through weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Takano has said he told Ghosn he couldn't expect a fair trial in Japan, but his chances of winning were good because the evidence against him was so weak.

Japan's judicial system has come under fire over Ghosn's case. Critics have for years said the prolonged detentions tend to coerce false confessions. Suspects can be detained even without any charges.

CARLOS AND CAROLE GHOSN SPEAK OUT TOGETHER FOR FIRST TIME SINCE BEING REUNITED

Japanese prosecutors and Justice Minister Masako Mori have repeatedly defended the nation's system as upholding human rights, noting Japan boasts a low crime rate. Mori said the system follows appropriate procedures under Japanese law, stressing that every culture is different.

Takano said he recently looked at prosecutors' data and Ghosn's notes to tally the hours of questioning for 70 of the days Ghosn was detained. On three days, Ghosn had been questioned for some 11 hours, according to Takano's tally.

Ghosn was detained under two separate arrests for 130 days. He has been charged with underreporting his future compensation and of breach of trust in diverting Nissan Motor Co. money for alleged personal gain.

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In a news conference in Beirut lasting more than two hours, Ghosn reasserted his innocence, and accused Nissan and Japanese government officials of plotting his removal.

Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades, has said the compensation was never decided, and the payments were for legitimate business.

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Much of his news conference was devoted to criticizing Japanese justice as rigged and harsh. He said he had been grilled without a lawyer present while held in solitary confinement. He advised all foreigners to leave.

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2020-01-12 11:47:34Z
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Saudi Aramco raises IPO to record $29.4 billion through greenshoe option - CNBC

Investors monitor a screen displaying stock information at the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) following the debut of Saudi Aramco's initial public offering (IPO) on the Riyadh's stock market, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 11, 2019.

Ahmed Yosri | Reuters

State-owned oil company Saudi Aramco said on Sunday it has exercised its "greenshoe option" to sell an additional 450 million shares, raising the size of its initial public offering (IPO) to a record $29.4 billion.

Aramco initially raised a then-record $25.6 billion in its IPO in December by selling 3 billion shares at 32 riyals ($8.53) but indicated it may sell additional shares through the over-allotment of shares.

A greenshoe option, or over-allotment, allows companies to issue more shares in an IPO when there is greater demand from participants during the initial offering.

Investors were allocated the additional shares for the option during the book-building process, Aramco said.

Aramco said "no additional shares are being offered into the market today and the stabilizing manager will not hold any shares in the company as a result of exercise of the over-allotment option."

Aramco shares have been volatile recently because of geopolitical concerns as tensions between the United States and Iran rose after President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander and raised fears of war.

Shares of Aramco fell to 34 riyals on Jan. 8, its lowest since the stock began trading on Dec. 11, but closed at 35 riyals on Thursday.

Thursday's closing price valued Aramco at $1.87 trillion, above the IPO price, which valued the company at $1.7 trillion, but below Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's coveted $2 trillion target.

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2020-01-12 08:33:00Z
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Carlos Ghosn Skipped Bail. This Man Was Left Behind. - The New York Times

Every weekday morning, Greg Kelly, the former Nissan executive accused of helping Carlos Ghosn hide his compensation from the Japanese authorities, makes his way to his lawyer’s office in Tokyo to chip away at a monumental task: reviewing close to 1 billion pages of documents.

His wife, Donna Lynn Kelly, who everyone calls Dee, goes off to Japanese class.

That’s the life of the two Americans in Japan as they await Mr. Kelly’s trial, according to a person who knows Mr. Kelly and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personal matters. The timing of the trial, once set to begin in April, is now uncertain after Mr. Ghosn’s sudden flight to Lebanon two weeks ago. A pretrial hearing next Thursday may shed more light.

Mr. Kelly, whose passport was taken away when he was arrested in November 2018, is preparing to defend himself against criminal charges that, as Mr. Ghosn’s chief of staff and the man nominally in charge of Nissan’s internal auditing, he helped Mr. Ghosn conceal how much he was being paid. The prosecutors in Japan declined to comment on Mr. Kelly’s case.

Mr. Kelly says he is innocent and just wants to go home to Tennessee. At 63, he suffers from a spinal condition that has left him with weakness in his extremities and an uncertain gait that sometimes causes him to trip and fall. He has an infant grandson in Seattle he has never met.

On Jan. 8, he watched his former boss, appearing fit and pugnacious in Beirut, address a room packed with journalists. Over nearly three hours, Mr. Ghosn proclaimed his innocence in four languages. He mentioned Mr. Kelly twice.

“Greg Kelly, an honorable man, husband and father, who was brutally taken from his family,” Mr. Ghosn said. “My plight has captured headlines,” he said. “You cannot forget Greg’s ordeal.”

In Beirut, Mr. Ghosn has a pink mansion in an upscale part of town. The Kellys live in an apartment, small but clean, with a microwave but no stove. Ms. Kelly can visit family in the United States, but she spends most of her time with her husband in Tokyo, the person said. Her visa depends on her studying Japanese, so she spends several hours a day in class. If she doesn’t score high enough on the exams, she can be sent home.

While Mr. Ghosn used a corporate jet to visit homes in Brazil, Beirut, Paris and Tokyo before the 2018 arrests, Mr. Kelly led a more pedestrian life as a Nissan executive, according to two people who know him.

A lawyer, Mr. Kelly joined Nissan in 1988, enticed by a recruiter who described “an extremely interesting Japanese company in Tennessee. I think it would a good fit for you,” he recalled last year in an interview with the publication Bungei Shunju.

He and his wife raised a family — two sons — in Brentwood, Tenn., a Nashville suburb near Nissan’s North American headquarters, and Ms. Kelly worked as an accountant. While the children were young, the Kellys were members of the Church of the Good Shepherd, a local Episcopalian congregation, with Dee and their son Mike writing and directing Christmas pageants.

In 2008, their lives changed. Mr. Kelly’s job, as senior executive in Nissan’s human resources department, took him to Japan, and Ms. Kelly came with him. He became a senior vice president and then, in 2012, joined Nissan’s board — Nissan’s first American board member — while working for Mr. Ghosn, the chairman, as the company’s top legal officer.

He was considered a close associate of the chairman, a reliable vote to help Mr. Ghosn carry out his plans for an alliance of Nissan and Renault, the French automaker Mr. Ghosn also headed. But Mr. Kelly has rejected that description, pointing out that he was not on the board’s top decision-making body, the executive committee. “Considering this, why was I called Ghosn’s right-hand man?” he told Bungei Shunju.

The Kellys enjoyed Japan — “Greg and I often discussed the possibility of living in Japan part-time in our retirement,” Ms. Kelly later said — but their lives remained rooted in the United States.

In 2008, they bought a vacation house in Sanibel Island, Fla., in a neighborhood crammed with a network of canals leading to the Gulf of Mexico, according to property documents. They joined a sailing club that organized potlucks at picnic huts on the beach and luncheons at local seafood restaurants.

“You’re dealing with an all-American guy, not extravagant, no racehorses, nothing,” said the second person who knows Mr. Kelly. “Very ordinary guy, and charming, very American in the positive sense of the word.”

Mr. Kelly retired to Tennessee in 2015 but kept his board seat. In November 2018, Mr. Kelly recalled in the interview with Bungei Shunju, a senior executive urged him to attend a board meeting in Japan. Mr. Kelly, facing spinal surgery within two weeks at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he would prefer to attend via video conference. The official insisted that he come in person, that the company would send a plane to pick him up and that he would be home within three days, in time for Thanksgiving.

Minutes after landing in Tokyo, he was arrested. He spent the next 34 days in a cell at Tokyo Detention House, sleeping on a futon on the floor.

Before he was released on bail on Christmas Day in 2018, Ms. Kelly recorded a video and distributed it news organizations, begging for her husband to be freed or at least to be allowed to consult with a Japanese doctor she had identified as one of the country’s leading experts on Mr. Kelly’s condition. He would eventually undergo surgery in Tokyo for spinal stenosis, but it did not relieve his symptoms.

In September, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Kelly, along with Mr. Ghosn and Nissan, of breaking American disclosure laws. Mr. Kelly agreed to pay $100,000 and submit to a five-year ban on serving as a senior executive of a public company to settle the charges without admitting or denying guilt.

Prosecutors have barred his lawyers from putting the voluminous documents in his case online and making them searchable, which means that only Mr. Kelly’s Japanese defense team, or others who come to their Tokyo offices, can see them.

Mr. Kelly has insisted on helping to review the mountain of documents prosecutors say they will use to make their case. He spends hours each day at his lawyer’s office.

“Greg has been wrongly accused as part of a power grab by several Nissan executives,” Ms. Kelly said in the video. “The truth of this will come out.”

In the 2019 magazine interview, Mr. Kelly was defiant about his and Mr. Ghosn’s innocence, contending that Hiroto Saikawa, who was then Nissan’s chief executive, approved the compensation plans that led to the arrests. “How come Ghosn and I were suddenly arrested without one instance of being asked to explain and no discussions or meeting on the subject,” he said.

But then Mr. Kelly added, “I am very proud to have worked for this amazing company, Nissan, for over 30 years. It has been an honor.”

Liz Alderman in Paris and Makiko Inoue in Tokyo contributed reporting.

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2020-01-11 15:43:00Z
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New Law Aims To Help Americans Without Retirement Plans. Will It Work? - NPR

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The Secure Act aims to make it easier for small employers to offer retirement benefits. But some analysts say the new law doesn't go far enough because it's optional and doesn't apply to gig workers. Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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The most powerful way to get people to save for retirement in recent decades has been through benefits offered at their job. But a lot of people — about half the American workforce — don't get that from their employers.

"Over 50 million workers right now don't have access to any retirement plan at all," says David Certner, legislative counsel for AARP.

Small employers are the biggest segment lacking coverage, he says. That's because many small businesses lack time and money to set such programs up, he says.

The new law, called the Secure Act, aims to help with that in part by allowing smaller employers to band together to share the administrative burden — making it cheaper and easier to offer retirement benefits. How many will do so and expand their retirement benefits is far from clear, because the program is optional.

And, Certner says, the law won't apply to many other workers who aren't classified as employees. That's because they're contractors or gig workers who aren't eligible for those benefits.

The Secure Act also gives people more flexibility to save for longer periods of time and delay withdrawing funds. It also allows employers to offer other investment options like annuities.

The fact that the measure passed with overwhelming bipartisan support last month is significant, says Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. But she says the changes are modest.

She notes that the government has tried — and largely failed — to encourage more small businesses to offer retirement benefits through programs like the Treasury Department's now-expired myRA program.

She expects it will be the same with this latest law.

"I don't really think they're really going to move the needle much at all," Munnell says.

The new law requires employers offering retirement benefits to include part-time workers who've been on the job at least three years. That could help about 4 million workers, Munnell says.

Much bigger changes to retirement law have been occurring at the state level, experts say. Ten states — including Oregon, California and Illinois — recently started requiring private employers to enroll their workers in individual retirement accounts if the employers don't offer their own benefits. Those state programs are expected to expand retirement savings to 15 million more people.

"Without a mandate, without somebody saying, 'Mr. Small Businessman, you have to do something for your employees,' I don't think we're going to see much change," Munnell says. That's why she says she'd like to see such rules extend to all 50 states.

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2020-01-11 12:48:00Z
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'Pretty much everybody prosecuted gets convicted:' Carlos Ghosn exposes Japan to new scrutiny - Yahoo Finance

Ex-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn excoriated the Japanese legal system this week during a two-hour press conference defending his decision to flee the country as he awaited trial for financial crimes tied to the Japanese automaker.

“I did not escape justice. I fled injustice and persecution, political persecution,” Ghosn said at a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon on Wednesday. “You're going to die in Japan or you've got to get out.”

The condemnation from Ghosn, once dubbed “an auto industry superhero,” opens up Japan’s legal system to increased scrutiny ahead of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. It’s a system whose prosecutors secure convictions over 99% of the time. It’s one that allows a trial by a jury of one’s peers only for certain crimes. And it’s one that, according to Ghosn, interrogated him without the presence of his lawyers and denied him the right to a quick trial on trumped-up charges.

“This whole incident has taken a criminal justice system that I think has often been shielded from the view of the world and it’s brought it front and center,” says Matthew Wilson, president of Missouri Western State University, who’s a lawyer with extensive experience working in Japan.

‘Pretty much everybody gets convicted’

Ghosn — a 65-year-old Brazilian-born French and Lebanese citizen — asserted that he’d been deprived of freedom since his arrest in November 2018 for allegedly under-reporting his compensation in public filings. He was detained for more than 100 days before his release on $8.9 million bail in March and his cinematic escape late last month.

Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn gestures as he speaks during a news conference at the Lebanese Press Syndicate in Beirut, Lebanon January 8, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

In his press conference on Wednesday, Ghosn suggested that he fled to Lebanon because his conviction in Japan was a foregone conclusion. He’s not necessarily being paranoid. As has been widely reported, Japan has over a 99% criminal conviction rate.

“Pretty much everybody prosecuted gets convicted,” says J. Mark Ramseyer, a professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School and a noted authority on Japanese law. Still, he noted, “The Japanese system, it’s basically a fair one.”

While the 99% conviction rate might suggest a rigged system, experts on Japanese law are quick to point out that prosecutors there are extremely selective about which cases they take on.

“There’s surprisingly few prosecutors in Japan and so they’re overworked,” Ramseyer told Yahoo Finance, noting that they therefore focus on the “slam dunk” cases.

‘Two extremes in executive compensation’

The case against Ghosn began in November 2018, when he was arrested on his corporate jet after it landed at a Tokyo airport and accused of failing to report millions of dollars in compensation. A 2010 Japanese law requires companies to disclose top executive pay, a kind of “social sanction” meant to embarrass companies that overpay their chiefs, according to Bruce Aronson, an affiliated scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at the NYU School of Law.

“The U.S. and Japan are two extremes in executive compensation,” Aronson said, explaining that outsize CEO compensation is not as socially acceptable in Japan as it is in the U.S.

Still, it would have been “bizarre” to haul Ghosn to jail simply for failing to report part of his compensation, according to Ramseyer, the Harvard Law School professor.

Former Nissan Motor Chariman Carlos Ghosn leaves the Tokyo Detention House in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Ultimately, those were not the only charges against Ghosn. He was re-arrested in December 2018 and accused of shifting personal investment losses to Nissan and hiding more income. Japanese prosecutors arrested him yet again in April 2019, accusing him of shifting $5 million meant for an overseas distributor to his own company.

For his part, Ghosn contends that Nissan conspired to have him prosecuted because they feared he would merge Nissan with the French carmaker, Renault, where he was formerly the CEO.

In a statement last week, Nissan called Ghosn’s escape to Lebanon “extremely regrettable.” The automaker said it “discovered numerous acts of misconduct by Ghosn through a robust, thorough internal investigation” and that he was “not fit to serve as an executive.”

A unique criminal justice system with its own flaws

Like every criminal justice system, Japan’s has flaws. While Japan provides jury trials for some violent crimes, Ghosn likely would have been tried by a panel of three judges — individuals paid by the very government that was prosecuting him. And even if those judges acquitted Ghosn, he couldn’t consider himself a free man. That’s because, unlike in the U.S., Japan allows prosecutors to appeal cases if they lose them.

“Almost without exception, when a prosecutor loses … they are going to appeal. That’s almost automatic,” says Wilson, the Missouri Western State president with extensive experience working in the Japanese legal system.

While a trial by a jury of independent peers might seem more fair than one by judges, Aronson of NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute noted that Japan has one of the world’s most independent judiciary systems despite Ghosn’s claims that the system is corrupt.

“You can’t bribe a judge in Japan,” Aronson said, noting that Ghosn fled to Lebanon, a country ranked by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index as more corrupt than 137 other countries, including Japan (which was just more corrupt than 17 other countries.)

Still, Ghosn’s case was an unusual one even in Japan, in part because he faced prison time for allegations related to financial crimes. “White collar criminals almost never go to prison [in Japan], which is not true in the U.S.,” Aronson said. “In the U.S., I think there’s more of a range of outcomes.”

The fact that Ghosn did face criminal charges raises legitimate questions about how Japan treats all of its criminal defendants, not just those with the means to be spirited away to a friendly country.

Carole Ghosn, wife of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn is seen during his news conference at the Lebanese Press Syndicate in Beirut, Lebanon January 8, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

In April 2019, over 1,000 Japanese professionals and lawyers wrote a letter calling to reform Japan’s legal system. The letter noted that criminal defendants aren’t allowed to contact family members (in Ghosn’s case, he could have no contact with his wife), and that most suspects in jail were “placed under constant surveillance.”

“Japan’s criminal justice practices have long been described as ‘hostage justice (hitojichi-shiho).’ The Code of Criminal Procedure of Japan allows suspects to be detained up to 23 days before indictment. The authorities interpret the code to oblige detainees to face interrogations throughout this period. ... It is not uncommon for suspects to be yelled at from close range. Furthermore, suspects are not allowed to have lawyers present during questioning,” the letter noted.

In recent years, Japan has made certain reforms to its criminal justice system. Japan abolished trial by jury in 1943 but reintroduced it for certain crimes in 2009. Just In 2018, the country created a system for plea bargaining allowing more lenient sentences for defendants who feed prosecutors information about other suspects. The spotlight that Ghosn cast on the system’s shortcomings may spur further reforms to that system, especially as Japan prepares to welcome the world for the Olympics.

In the meantime, Ghosn may remain in Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Japan but imposed a travel ban on the former Nissan executive this week. Unless he faces a trial outside of Japan, it may never be clear whether the allegations against him have any merit.

“If in fact he’s been stealing from the company,” noted Ramseyer, the Harvard Law School professor, “it’s hard to feel terribly sorry for him.”

Erin Fuchs is deputy managing editor for Yahoo Finance.

Read More:

Boeing, Nike, and McDonald’s: Why CEO turnover spiked in 2019

Carlos Ghosn’s career options

Where is Elizabeth Holmes now? Dealing with the Theranos criminal fraud case

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2020-01-11 12:20:00Z
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Japan seeks Interpol wanted notice for wife of ex Nissan boss - Reuters

FILE PHOTO: 70th Cannes Film Festival – Screening of the film "L'Amant double" (Amant Double) in competition - Red Carpet Arrivals - Cannes, France. 26/05/2017. Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, and his wife Carole pose. Picture taken May 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier/File Photo

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese authorities have requested the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO) for an Interpol wanted notice for the wife of former Nissan Motor (7201.T) boss Carole Ghosn, local media reported on Saturday.

If the notice is issued for his wife, Carole, the couple’s travel chances outside of Lebanon may be restricted, Mainichi newspaper said. Interpol has already issued an arrest warrant for Ghosn.

The request from Japan was made on Thursday, Mainichi and other Japanese media said, quoting unnamed sources.

Officials at the Japanese justice ministry weren’t immediately available for comment.

Japanese prosecutors on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant against Ghosn’s wife for alleged perjury, as officials stepped up efforts to bring the fugitive car industry boss back to face trial on financial misconduct charges.

Ghosn, the former Nissan and Renault (RENA.PA) chairman, fled Japan to Lebanon, his childhood home, last month as he awaited trial on charges of under-reporting earnings, breach of trust and misappropriation of company funds, all of which he denies.

His dramatic escape has raised tensions between Japan and Lebanon, where Ghosn slammed the Japanese justice system at a two-hour news conference on Wednesday, prompting Japan’s Justice Minister to launch a rare and forceful public response.

Lebanon, which has no extradition agreement with Japan, may lift a travel ban on Carlos Ghosn if files pertaining to his case do not arrive from Japan within 40 days, caretaker justice minister Albert Serhan said in a statement on Friday.

Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Shri Navaratnam

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-01-11 04:59:00Z
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