New Simple Retirement Tool

While 60 percent of all households nationwide participate in some type of a retirement account, just 40 percent of eligible farm households do. In fact, only 7 percent of farmers and ranchers contribute to the types of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) that can provide helpful tax advantages, with just 3 percent of the general population having an IRA.

That's why the U.S. Department of the Treasury recently launched a new tool, known as myRA, for anyone interested in a simple, safe, understandable, and affordable method to start saving for retirement. CliftonAllenLarson principle and Farm CPA Today blogger Paul Neiffer shares more details about this new program

Neiffer: "It's designed to be coordinated with individual retirement accounts. It is suppose to be much easier for employees and individuals to participate. They can invest up to $15,000. Once they go over that amount, they have to go into a regular IRA. There are no fees to the participant for participating. It is suppose to be very, very easy. So far I've not had any of my clients set one up. I'm interested in finding out how easy it is, but that is our understanding that it is very easy to set up. It is invested in U.S. treasuries. Then once you hit a certain point, you have to roll it over into a regular IRA. Also the limit on it is whatever the IRA limit is: you can put your money between a regular IRA, a myRA, or a ROTH but you can't exceed whatever the limit is — which is $5,500 for younger people and then for people over 50 years and older it is $6,500."