Talk:401(k)

All earnings... what?
Hanging sentence: "...these contributions are made on an after-tax basis and all earnings."

Capital Gains in 401k
Under the heading Taxation, I don't understand the statement "Earnings from investments in a 401(k) account in the form of capital gains are not subject to capital gains taxes."

That seems to be misleading. All profits in a 401k are subject to normal income taxes upon withdrawal, excepting possibly for a special provision called NUA for company stock inside a 401K.

I am thinking the original author is probably trying to say, compared to mutual funds which often have annual capital gains distributions with tax liability, 401K allows savings to accumulate tax-deferred until withdrawal.

So the first sentence should say: "Income taxes on pre-tax contributions and investment earnings in the form of interest and dividends add: and capital gains are tax deferred."

Upon withdrawal all 401K gains are taxed as normal income (short term gains tax treatment), excepting for a special provision called NUA which allows favorable tax treatment (lower long term gains tax rates) for certain company stock gains, subject to the NUA rules.

TBILLT (talk) 16:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)TBILLT


 * I think it's accurate in that the gains themselves are not taxed while in the fund. Withdrawal is another issue, one that that sentence is not addressing. JesseRafe (talk) 17:13, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

174.7.167.228 (talk) 13:14, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Withdrawals are taxed, not profits. See the link in the preamble. Understanding the withdrawals instead to be an allocation of principal between the account's two owners allows for, and explains why, everyone gets a benefit from permanently sheltering profits from tax.  Obviously they could not get that benefit if profits were taxed on withdrawal.

Second sentence in Taxation section is false
This can be readily seen by simple calculation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.118.108.99 (talk) 18:50, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

401k
starts from the 400 billion dollar medical expenses, and the one man that started it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.89.33.32 (talk) 18:28, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Other Countries (KiwiSaver)
KiwiSaver isn't a tax deferred arrangement (it has no tax offset or effect on your net income). The statement in paragraph two of Other Countries implies that KiwiSaver is an equivalent scheme to a 401(k) (noting that the UK and Australia do have similar, albeit not identical, schemes). Happy to discuss, but I'm going to remove the NZ reference unless there is a specific point to it being a comparison (that NZ does not have an equivalent). Roche-Kerr (talk) 00:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)