A viatical settlement is the sale of a life insurance policy by the policy owner before the policy matures. Such a sale, at a price discounted from the face amount of the policy but usually in excess of the premiums paid or current cash surrender value, provides the seller an immediate cash settlement. Similar to reverse mortgages, viatical settlements involve insured individuals with a life expectancy of less than five years. In countries with high health care costs (such as the United States), this is a practical way to pay extremely high health insurance premiums and other senior care expenses that severely ill people face. Some people are also familiar with life settlements, which are similar transactions but involve insureds with longer life expectancies (two to fifteen years). - From Wikipedia and other sources 5/2007New Firm, 401k Bootstrap, Designs Retirement Plans for the Entrepreneur
Leawood, KS (PRWEB) March 14, 2008 -- 401K Bootstrap designs and evaluates retirement plans for entrepreneurial companies using the same techniques large companies use to design their plans. Its mission is to give the small business owner the information he needs to make an informed business decision in selecting the best retirement plan for his company. See http://401kbootstrap.com/ for the key concerns addressed in the design and evaluation processes.
401K Bootstraptm is an independent company; the company does not accept revenue from any outside source: Not from funding companies, not from advisors and not from administrators. Any suggestion we make is in the best interest of the client company only.
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) gave a gift to anyone who owns a small business, the SOLO 401(k) plan. The SOLO 401(k) plan lets the self employed person have the same level of retirement benefits as the large corporation. The advantages of the SOLO 401(k) are larger contribution limits than most other plans, the loan feature of 50% of the account balance up to $50,000, the option use the Roth after tax plan, and contribution flexibility that allows both employer and employee contributions to be made up until tax filing time.
The SOLO 401(k) plan is available to any business, regardless of business type. It is available to the sole proprietor, the S and C Corporations, partnerships, and LLCs and LLPs. There are slight differences in the maximum contribution for the incorporated and non-incorporated business, but the net effect is that the sole proprietor can participate fully without incorporating.
One of the potential uses of the SOLO 401K is to bootstrap a business using seed capital as a loan from the 401K. Once a SOLO 401K is established, the owner can rollover funds from other retirement plans including IRAs, 401K plans from previous employers, SEPs and SIMPLE plans (after two years). Since the new entrepreneur may have spent time in the corporate world, he may have accumulated a fairly large nest egg in retirement accounts. The owner is borrowing from himself, therefore the business use of the loan does not have to be justified like it would be for a bank or third party loan.
The SOLI 401K allows a tax free loan of 50% of the account balance up to $50,000. The loan must be repaid in 5 years (or less) using non-deductible monthly or quarterly payments amortized at a reasonable interest rate, generally at Prime plus 1%. This is a technique that must be evaluated carefully since immediate taxation of the entire loan plus penalties occurs if the loan is not repaid as scheduled. 401K Bootstrap will help the entrepreneur evaluate the risks and potential of using retirement funds to fund the business.
The Roth 401K option also can offer a substantial advantage over pre-tax savings, especially now that income tax brackets are low and may increase in the future. The contribution limits for a Roth 401k are much higher that for a Roth IRA (although it is possible to have both), and the Roth 401K contribution amount is not constrained by income as is the Roth IRA. 401K Bootstrap will model the Regular and Roth 401K options to let the owner select the plan best for his unique situation.
The 401K Bootstrap concept was born during the development of the Balanced Retirement Benefits System, when it was discovered that good information for retirement plans for the small company was hard to find. In our research we found inaccurate, misleading, outdated and missing information about the powerful SOLO 401K plan. The plan was not mentioned in the leading tax preparation handbooks and was even missing on the IRS website description of retirement plans for the single person company.
401K Bootstrap also offers a Referral Partner Program that pays a flat finders fee to anyone who recommends the company to a client who purchases the services.
401K Bootstrap does not provide tax, legal or investment advice and does not provide actuarial evaluations for defined benefit pension plans.
For additional information, contact Gary Canant at 913-548-7263 or see http://401kbootstrap.com/.
About 401K Bootstrap:
The company was founded by Gary Canant, MBA. Gary has over 25 years experience in the financial services and life insurance industry designing and installing large retirement plans. In 2007, Gary began applying the techniques he learned over the years to the small and mid size retirement benefit design.
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