The end of the year marks an important deadline for those who have been accumulating assets in a retirement account. That is because the majority of those who are over the age of 70.5 must take a required minimum distribution (RMD for short) from their retirement accounts before December 31st of each year. However, there are a number of caveats to this requirement, because it wouldn't be an IRS rule if there weren’t exceptions and exemptions.

1. Can I reverse a Roth IRA contribution because my income was higher than I expected?
Yes. It is actually very common for people to make a Roth IRA contribution in the beginning of the year and realize later that they do not qualify for a Roth IRA. The solution is very easy and usually involves just filing out a form. Your custodian (the firm that holds your Roth IRA and sends you monthly statements) will have a form for you to complete. You can either reverse the Roth IRA contribution entirely or recharacterize the contribution as a non-deductible IRA. The non-deductible IRA option may be more appealing, especially if you want to do the backdoor Roth IRA.

1. What if I have a $1 million 401k, can I convert that to a Roth IRA?
This was a real question, but a hypothetical what-if scenario to understand the Roth IRA conversion limitations. The answer is yes, you can convert a $1 million 401k to a Roth IRA. In fact the IRS would love for you to convert a large 401k to a Roth IRA because like any conversion you would have to pay tax on the converted amount and that would be a revenue generator for the IRS. Once converted and held for 5 years, the benefits are the same as a regular Roth IRA - tax-free growth, ability to withdraw your money without tax or penalties, and of course no RMDs. So why would the IRS love such a thing? Because the IRS is shortsighted; they see the immediate tax revenue as a boon, not recognizing that they will never be paid on that money again.