Longevity insurance was recently blessed again by the IRS with its finalization of a regulation allowing the inclusion of an advanced-age lifetime-income option in retirement plans such as 401(k) plans and IRAs.
As discussed in my July 25 MarketWatch article, 6 Ways a New Tax Law Benefits a Sustainable Retirement, “longevity insurance” isn’t an actual product that you can purchase from a life insurance carrier. It’s instead a term that refers to a deferred lifetime fixed income annuity with an advanced age start date, typically 80 to 85.
In a nutshell, IRS’ final regulation allows you to invest up to the lesser of $125,000 or 25% of your retirement plan balance in “qualifying longevity annuity contracts” (QLACs) provided that lifetime distributions begin at a specified date no later than age 85. Although the regulation leaves the door open for other types of fixed-income annuities in the future, QLAC investment vehicles are currently limited to lifetime deferred income annuities, or DIAs.
Suppose you’re concerned about the possibility of outliving your assets and you’re considering investing a portion of your retirement plan in a QLAC. Do you have to wait until age 85 to begin receiving your lifetime annuity payments? Absolutely not. So long as distributions begin no later than the first day of the month following the attainment of age 85, you will be in compliance with the regulation.
Although the regulation doesn’t define the earliest starting date of QLAC payments, based on previous legislation, it would seem to be April 2 of the year following the year that you turn 70-1/2. Why April 2? Per my MarketWatch article, regulations in effect before the new rule allow for inclusion of fixed income annuities without limit provided that the periodic annuity payments (a) begin by April 1 of the year following the year that the owner turns 70-1/2 and (b) are structured so that they will be completely distributed over the life expectancies of the owner and the owner’s beneficiary in compliance with IRS’ required minimum distribution, or RMD, rules.
Let’s suppose that you’re doing retirement income planning when you’re 60 and you’re planning on retiring at 67. In addition to your IRA which has a value of $600,000, you have a sizeable nonretirement portfolio that will not only enable you to defer your Social Security start date to age 70, there’s a high likelihood that you won’t need to withdraw from your IRA until 75.
Despite the fact that you don’t foresee needing income from your IRA until 75, IRS requires you to begin taking minimum annual distributions from your IRA beginning by April 1 of the year following the year that you turn 70-1/2. This is true, however, IRS now also allows you to circumvent the RMD rules by investing a portion of your retirement plan assets in a QLAC. Relying on these rules, you decide to invest $125,000 of your IRA in a QLAC with an income start date of 75. This enables you to longevitize, or extend the financial life of, your retirement using the six ways described in my MarketWatch article.
As you can see, there’s a lot of flexibility when it comes to selecting the start date of your lifetime income distributions from a QLAC. There’s approximately a 13- to 14-year window depending upon your birth date which falls between April 2 of the year following the year that you turn 70-1/2 and age 85. The key is that you must define your income start date at the time of applying for your QLAC. This is a requirement of all deferred income annuities, not just QLAC’s.
Finally, a QLAC may, but is not required to, offer an option to begin payments before the contract’s annuity starting date. While the amount of your periodic distributions will be greater the longer you defer your start date, you don’t have to wait until age 85 to begin receiving lifetime income.
