<p>The architect of the government confiscation of your 401K plans is at it again. This time in a front page opinion piece on CNN today, telling us what a terrible deal our 401K plans are. I wonder if people who read her article, while it sounds quite rational, have any idea what her true intention is. </p>
<p>Though I’m sure those of us who have been contributing to our 401K’s for 25-30 years don’t think her answer of nationalizing our 401K’s and giving us a puny, government determined dividend return is anything but theft.</p>
<p>Still think I’m paranoid? The fact that people like this are being given a loud voice and their opinions seriously considered, is eye opening.</p>
<p>Alliance@IBM (an employee organization) is trying to collect signatures for a petition to reverse IBMs decision to change the 401K company match from a semi-monthly to an annual mid-December event.</p>
<p>I think it was an abrupt change. Should have changed it to a quarterly event.</p>
<p>I’m really frightened after reading that article. I think I’m going to alleviate my anxiety over this “most dangerous woman in America” by finishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels and falling asleep in a stupor.</p>
<p>No one is talking about the government confiscating your 401k. There is a distortion of facts.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel better, I am not in love with forced savings accounts where the govt guarantees a return of 3 percent plus inflation; although, I might put money in a plan like that. </p>
<p>But that idea seems to have disappeared except for people that like to take advantage of people’s fears.</p>
<p>I am saying this nicely. I think you are a smart, good person. Don’t be one of those people.</p>
<p>Current estate tax law allows a couple to pass on up to $10 million tax free per child. If they have two kids, $20 million will be passed on tax free. Could it be that $20 million puts you in the top 0.2%?</p>
<p>I like busdriver’s “paranoia” regarding the 401k confiscation. The possibility keeps people from being complacent regarding policy changes that may drastically affect 401k.</p>
<p>That’s quite a bit fewer than I thought. Reading newspapers, it seemed everyone has a multimillion-dollar house. Is it 66,000 households or individuals? Anyway, if 0.2% are paying estate tax, practically everyone who owes are paying not evading.</p>
<p>“Currently only around 4,000 people in the United States are affected by the estate tax
policy. In 2011, around 3,200 people paid estate taxes, and of those, only 50 were family farms or small businesses.”</p>
<p>50 farms or small businesses. That is it. 50. I think many of the 50 are on CC.</p>
<p>There are people that are paying estate taxes on some of the wealth, but not all of the wealth. I have a couple of friends that are going to pay some estate taxes and their
parents have trusts set up and have slowly shifted ownership of some assets. One estate is worth less than 20 million, maybe 17 million. The dad is 89. He is running out of time to reach 20 million. :)</p>
<p>66,000 is a lot of people. I’d say that there are quite a few in the building where I work in the 1-10 range. I know one person in that’s in the 20 and up range. There are probably a bunch in the 20+ range in the whole company. But certainly well under 100. I recall chatting with one of these guys regularly about local sports (before he really hit it big).</p>
<p>The article said that the IRS did their analysis based on estate tax data. Since all of the people in this category didn’t die this year, perhaps their numbers are just estimates.</p>
<p>I don’t know, dstark, I think you’ve been drinking too much of DocT’s Jack Daniels. Too trusting that those in charge don’t want to rob you blind to hang onto their own power.
Wait till the guys that you don’t like get back in power, are you going to trust them too?</p>
<p>You aren’t paranoid if everyone really is trying to kill you.</p>
<p>I am specifically concerned right now because I have a short time to decide whether to dump a bunch more into my 401K for the year, and then have to decide whether to start up next years contributions again. I think I might prefer to not pour my money into that endless pit, and might like do something fun with it (pay off bills).</p>
<p>Obviously, I agree with Krlilies thought. If you become too complacent and don’t jump on everything these people start discussing, before you know it, it is law. There are so many things over my lifetime that I’ve thought were ridiculous and would never happen…and slowly, while I wasn’t even paying attention, they happened.</p>
<p>But hey, what does it matter anyways? Nine days till the end of the world.</p>
</p>