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      How a Retirement Withdrawal Can Lead to a Perjury Conviction

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      A prominent lawyer was recently sentenced to home confinement for falsely claiming hardship to withdraw funds. How desperate must you be to take money out?Sometimes, it’s illegal to spend money that you set aside for yourself.When you save money in many types of workplace retirement accounts, the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t collect income taxes on that money until it’s time to take it out, when you’re older.Need money before then? Certain types of “hardship” withdrawals are permissible. But you must have a very good reason, and you definitely can’t lie about it.Last week, a sentencing hearing took place after a rare case involving this sort of legal violation. Federal prosecutors had won convictions against Marilyn Mosby, the former Baltimore prosecutor who may be best known for pursuing charges against the police officers in connection with the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, for both impermissible withdrawals and making a false mortgage application when she bought a condo in Florida.Ms. Mosby will spend up to 12 months in home confinement, absent a successful appeal or a presidential pardon, which she has requested.Her case is a complicated one, given that the sentence isn’t just for impermissible withdrawals. And her false claim of financial hardship to withdraw money from her city retirement account took place during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when alternative, one-time-only rules were in effect.Still, hardship withdrawals are widely available.What follows are some questions and answers about what happened in Ms. Mosby’s case and what the rules actually are. Keep in mind that employers have a fair bit of discretion in how they set up the rules for their retirement plans, and there may be slight differences between the rules for 401(k)s, 403(b)s and 457 plans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Do With an Inheritance

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      A sudden windfall while grieving can be an emotional minefield, particularly for younger adults. Experts share ways to handle it wisely.Michael Hay knew his mother was financially secure, but he didn’t fully know her situation until she was admitted to a hospital in August and he was granted her power of attorney. Even then, it wasn’t until his mother’s unexpected death, about a month later, that Mr. Hay understood that he and his two sisters were about to inherit a sum that would make a real difference in their lives.Nine months later, Mr. Hay, 47, says he’s still processing the shock of suddenly losing his 78-year-old mother while gaining an inheritance he wasn’t prepared to receive.“I still call it ‘my mom’s money’ even though it’s legally in my name,” said Mr. Hay, who works at a tech start-up and lives in Madison County, N.Y.Mr. Hay’s reaction to his sudden wealth is not unusual. “It is a big shock both emotionally and financially, and I don’t know that anyone is ever prepared,” said Kathryn Kubiak-Rizzone, founder of About Time Financial Planning in Rochester, N.Y. She recommends that beneficiaries not make any financial decisions for the first six months because they’re likely to still be grieving.Research shows that more adult children may find themselves unexpectedly inheriting wealth over the next two decades. The silent generation, or people born roughly between 1928 and 1945, and its successors, the baby boomers, are expected to transfer significant wealth to members of Generation X and millennials over the next 20 years, according to the Wealth Report, a publication from Knight Frank, a London global property consultant.Federal Reserve figures show that half of all inheritances are less than $50,000, but with boomers reaching 80 and beyond, members of their family may begin to inherit more wealth. More than half of millennials who are anticipating an inheritance from their parents or another relative expect to gain at least $350,000, according to a survey by Alliant Credit Union in Chicago. (Whether they actually receive that much is another question.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Money in College Savings Accounts Can Now Go Toward Retirement

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      But there are caveats to moving the money into Roth I.R.A.s, and the government still has to issue guidelines about the option.Starting this year, some of the money in 529 college savings accounts can be used for retirement if it’s not needed for education.New rules under the federal law known as Secure 2.0 allow up to $35,000 in a 529 account to be rolled over to a Roth individual retirement account for the beneficiary of the 529 account if certain conditions are met.State-sponsored 529 accounts, named for a section of the tax code, are used to pay for education expenses — mainly college costs. Money deposited in the accounts grows tax free and can be withdrawn tax free to pay for eligible expenses like tuition, housing, food and books.The new Roth option is aimed at parents who may be reluctant to save in a 529 because they worry about having to pay income taxes and a penalty if for some reason the funds aren’t needed for college and they want to withdraw the money.“It is parents’ No. 1 objection to opening a 529,” said Vivian Tsai, chair emeritus of the College Savings Foundation, a group that includes big financial firms that run the state college savings programs. “The barrier is really psychological.” (Ms. Tsai is also senior director and head of relationship management for the education savings unit at TIAA, a large investment firm that manages 529 plans in seven states.)Many families struggle to save for college, and accumulating “too much” money is usually not a problem. “The vast majority of account holders do not save enough,” Ms. Tsai said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      IBM Reopens Its Frozen Pension Plan, Saving the Company Millions

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      The company has stopped making contributions to 401(k) accounts, and instead giving workers cash credits in a new version of its old pension plan.Traditional pension plans haven’t come back. But the news from IBM might lead you to think so.Last month, IBM thawed out a defined benefit pension plan that it had froze more than 15 years ago. The company has also stopped making contributions into employee 401(k) accounts.These moves are startling, because, on the surface, at least, IBM seems to be reversing a decades-long trend of corporations moving away from traditional pension plans. With the old plans, companies promised to pay employees retirement income that rewarded them for long years of service. But these plans were expensive, and IBM and hundreds of other firms instead began to emphasize 401(k)s that moved the primary responsibility for saving and investing to workers. IBM’s new approach is significant because the company has been a leader in employee benefit policymaking. What it is doing now is no simple return to the classic cradle-to-grave benefits system. In fact, IBM’s new pension plan isn’t nearly as generous to long-tenured employees compared with its predecessor.The move has real advantages for some people who work at IBM, particularly those who put little or no money of their own into 401(k)s and who stay at the company for a relatively short while.Crucially, IBM’s maneuver is likely to be wonderful for its shareholders. The company is saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year by stopping contributions to employee 401(k) accounts. And it doesn’t need to put any money into the pension plan this year — and, probably, for the next few years — because it has plenty of money already in it. On a purely financial standpoint, IBM is improving its cash flow and bottom line.For a small but important subset of companies — those with fully funded, closed or frozen pension plans — IBM’s move could be a harbinger of things to come, pension consultants say. IBM is using a surplus in its pension fund to simultaneously change its employee benefits package and help the company’s finances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nikki Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement

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      It feels like years ago, but actually only a few months have passed since many big Republican donors seemed to believe that Ron DeSantis could effectively challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. It has been an edifying spectacle — an object lesson in the reality that great wealth need not be associated with good judgment, about politics or anything else.At this point, both conventional wisdom and prediction markets say that Trump has a virtual lock on the nomination. But Wall Street isn’t completely resigned to Trump’s inevitability; there has been a late surge in big-money support for Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. And there is, to be fair, still a chance that Trump — who is facing many criminal charges and whose public rants have become utterly unhinged — will manage to crash and burn before securing the nomination.So it seems worth looking at what Haley stands for.From a political point of view, one answer might be: nothing. A recent Times profile described her as having “an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.” A less euphemistic way to put this is that she seems willing to say whatever might work to her political advantage. “Flip-flopping” doesn’t really convey the sheer cynicism with which she has shifted her rhetoric and changed her positions on everything from abortion rights to immigration to whether it’s OK to try overturning a national election.And anyone hoping that she would govern as a moderate if she should somehow make it to the White House is surely delusional. Haley has never really shown a willingness to stand up to Republican extremists — and at this point the whole G.O.P. has been taken over by extremists.That said, Haley has shown some consistency on issues of economic and fiscal policy. And what you should know is that her positions on these issues are pretty far to the right. In particular, she seems exceptionally explicit, even among would-be Republican nominees, in calling for an increase in the age at which Americans become eligible for Social Security — a bad idea that seems to be experiencing a revival.So let’s talk about Social Security.The first thing you should know about Social Security is that the actual numbers don’t justify the apocalyptic rhetoric one often hears, not just from the right but from self-proclaimed centrists who want to sound serious. No, the exhaustion of the system’s trust fund, currently projected to occur in roughly a decade, wouldn’t mean that benefits disappear.It would mean that the system would need additional revenue to continue paying scheduled benefits in full. But the extra revenue required would be smaller than you probably think. The most recent long-term projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Social Security outlays rising to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2053 from 5.1 percent this year, not exactly an earth-shattering increase.It’s true that the budget office projects a much bigger rise in spending on Medicare and other major health programs. But much of this projected rise reflects the assumption that medical costs will rise much faster than economic growth, which has been true in the past but need not be true in the future. Indeed, since 2010, Medicare spending has been far less than expected. And there is every reason to believe that smart policies could further curb health care costs, given how much more America spends than other wealthy nations.Still, Social Security does face a funding gap. How should it be closed?Anyone who says, as Haley does, that the retirement age should rise in line with increasing life expectancy is being oblivious, perhaps willfully, to the grim inequality of modern America. Until Covid struck, average life expectancy at 65, the relevant number, was indeed rising. But these gains were concentrated among Americans with relatively high incomes. Less affluent Americans — those who depend most on Social Security — have seen little rise in life expectancy, and in some cases actual declines.So anyone invoking rising life expectancy as a reason to delay Social Security benefits is, in effect, saying that aging janitors must keep working (or be cast into extreme poverty) because bankers are living longer.How, then, should the Social Security gap be closed? The obvious answer — which happens to be favored by a majority of voters — is to raise more revenue. Remember, America collects less revenue as a percentage of G.D.P. than almost any other advanced economy.But Haley, of course, wants to cut income taxes.My guess is that none of this will be relevant, that Trump will be the nominee. But if he stumbles, I would beg political reporters not to focus on Haley’s personal affect, which can seem moderate, but rather on her policies. On social issues and the fate of democracy, she appears to be a pure weather vane, turning with the political winds. On fiscal and economic policy, she’s a hard-right advocate of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the working class. If calling someone a “populist” has any meaning these days, she’s the exact opposite.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Macron Appears Ready to Tough Out France’s Pension Crisis

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      Amid protests in the streets and in Parliament, the French leader shows no sign of scrapping a law that raises the retirement age.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election program last year was short on detail. His mind seemed elsewhere, chiefly on the war in Ukraine. But on one thing he was clear: He would raise the retirement age in France to 65 from 62.“You will have to work progressively more,” he said during a debate in April 2022 with the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. She attacked the idea as “an absolutely unbearable injustice” that would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”France heard both candidates. Soon after, Mr. Macron was re-elected with 58.55 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.45 percent. It was a clear victory, and it was clear what Mr. Macron would do on the question of pensions.Yet his ramming the overhaul through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself culminated in turmoil, mayhem on the streets and two failed no-confidence votes against his government on Monday, even as polls have consistently shown about 65 percent of French people are opposed to raising the retirement age.Had they not heard him? Had they changed their minds? Had circumstances changed? Perhaps the answer lies, above all, in the nature of Mr. Macron’s victory, as he himself acknowledged on election night last year.Looking somber, speaking in an uncharacteristically flat monotone, Mr. Macron told a crowd of supporters in Paris: “I also know that a number of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas that I uphold, but to block the extreme right. I want to thank them and say that I am aware that I have obligations toward them in the years to come.”“Those ‘obligations’ could only be a promise to negotiate on major reforms,” Nicole Bacharan, a social scientist, said on Tuesday. “He did not negotiate, even with moderate union leaders. What I see now is Macron’s complete disconnection from the country.”Marine Le Pen, center, of the far-right National Rally party, says the pension plan would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOpposition parties on both the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law before the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution.“The goal,” said Thomas Ménagé of Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, “is to ensure that this text falls into the dustbin of history.”But the chances of that appear remote.After a long silence, Mr. Macron is set to address the turmoil on Wednesday. He will try to conciliate; he will, according to officials close to him, portray the current standoff as a battle between democratic institutions and the chaos of the street, orchestrated by the extreme left and slyly encouraged by the extreme right. He has decided to stick with his current government, led by Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, and he will not dissolve Parliament or call new elections, they say.In short, it seems Mr. Macron has decided to tough out the crisis, perhaps offering some blandishments on improving vocational high schools and broader on-the-job training. But certainly no apology appears to be forthcoming for using a legal tool, Article 49.3 of the Constitution, to avoid a full parliamentary vote on a change that has split the country. (Only the Senate, the upper house, voted to pass the bill this month.)This approach appears consistent with Mr. Macron’s chosen tactics on the pension overhaul. Since the debate with Ms. Le Pen 11 months ago, inflation has risen, energy prices have gone up, and the pressures, particularly on the poorer sectors of French society, have grown.French lawmakers held up protest placards after the result of the first no-confidence motion against the French government at the National Assembly on Monday.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersYet, while he has made some concessions, including setting the new retirement age at 64 rather than 65, Mr. Macron has remained remote from the rolling anger. Most conspicuously, and to many inexplicably, after the government consulted extensively with unions in the run-up to January, Mr. Macron has refused to negotiate with the powerful moderate union leader Laurent Berger, who had supported Mr. Macron’s earlier attempt at pension changes in 2019 but opposes him now.“Macron knows the economy better than he knows political psychology,” said Alain Duhamel, a political scientist. “And today, what you have is a generalized fury.”A large number of Macron voters, it is now clear, never wanted the retirement age raised. They heard Mr. Macron during the debate with Ms. Le Pen. They just did not loathe his idea enough to vote for a nationalist, anti-immigrant ideologue whose party was financed in part by Russian loans.Mr. Macron is adept at playing on such contradictions and divisions. Because his presidential term is limited, he is freer to do as he pleases. He knows three things: He will not be a candidate for re-election in 2027 because a third consecutive term is not permitted; the opposition in Parliament is strong but irreconcilably divided between the far left and extreme right; and there is a large, silent slice of French society that supports his pension overhaul.All this gives him room to maneuver even in his current difficult situation.When Mr. Macron opted last week for the 49.3 and the avoidance of a parliamentary vote, he explained his decision this way: “I consider that in the current state of affairs the financial and economic risks are too great.”Protesters in Nantes, in western France, on Tuesday.Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the face of it, speaking about risks to financial markets while pushing through an overhaul deeply resented by blue-collar and working-class French people seemed politically gauche. It appeared especially so at a moment when Mr. Macron was turning away from the full parliamentary vote his government had unanimously said it wanted.“Saying what he said about finance at that moment, in that context, was just dynamite,” said Ms. Bacharan.It was also an unmistakable wink to the powerful French private sector — with its world-class companies like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — and to the many affluent and middle-class French people who do not like the growing piles of uncollected garbage or the protests in the streets, and who view retirement at 62 as an unsustainable anomaly in a Europe where the retirement age has generally risen to 65 or higher.If Mr. Macron has cards to play, and perhaps broader support than is evident as protesters hurl insults at him day after day, his very disconnection may make it hard for him to judge the country’s mood.Last week, Aurore Bergé, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party in Parliament, wrote to Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, to request police protection for lawmakers.“I refuse to see representatives from my group, or any national lawmaker, afraid to express themselves, or to vote freely, because they are afraid of reprisals,” she said.It was a measure of the violent mood in France.“If we have had 15 Constitutions over the past two centuries, that means there have been 14 revolutions of various kinds,” Mr. Duhamel said. “There is an eruptive side to France that one should not ignore.”The National Assembly in Paris. Opposition parties on the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law. Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More

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      What’s Next for Opponents of Macron’s Retirement Plan?

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      Angry protesters lit small fires and clashed with police clad in riot gear at the Place de la Concorde in central Paris on Thursday after President Emmanuel Macron pushed his pension reform bill through Parliament without a vote.Several thousand people had spontaneously gathered there earlier in the day, after the government’s decision was announced, to demonstrate across the Seine River from the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.While the gathering was mostly peaceful throughout the afternoon, the situation took a more violent turn as night fell over the French capital and the police moved in to clear out the Place de la Concorde, a major square in Paris with a famed obelisk in the middle, not far from luxury hotels, the Tuileries gardens and the U.S. Embassy.Protesters with covered faces threw cobblestones torn from the pavement at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons as they slowly pushed the diminishing crowds into surrounding streets. Some protesters set fire to wood construction fencing and heaps of trash, which has gone uncollected in many parts of Paris over the past week because of an ongoing strike by garbage workers.Protesters with covered faces throwing objects at the police on Place de la Concorde in Paris, on Thursday.Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFrench police officers responding to clashes that erupted at Place de la Concorde.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockThe scene at the Place de la Concorde earlier in the day was much more jovial, but also seemed to embody how fuzzy the next stage of the battle may be for opponents of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul.Thousands of protesters, along with some leftist legislators, gathered on the plaza, in the center of a giant traffic circle in the heart of the French capital. But the crowd was disorganized: Some people tried to generate momentum for a march on the nearby National Assembly, to no avail, while others chanted slogans or just stood by.Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the prominent leftist politician, arrived and then quickly disappeared.Hours after Mr. Macron’s decision to push through his plan to raise the retirement age without putting it to a vote in the National Assembly, many in the crowd expressed anger and vowed to continue fighting a measure that they say erodes a cherished part of France’s social safety net.“We will do spontaneous protests across France,” said Isabelle Mollaret, 47, a children’s librarian who held a sign that read, “Macron, you aren’t the boss. We will fight him!”Catherine Porter/The New York TimesThe protest on the Place de la Concorde already has all the hallmarks of a French demonstration. Union flags and balloons are up. Loudspeakers are blaring music. And, yes, a union truck is selling jambon-beurre sandwiches.Constant Meheut/The New York TimesUnion leaders said earlier on Thursday that they would soon call for more demonstrations, trying to extend what have already been eight nationwide mobilizations against the pension plan in the last two months.With an absence of clear organization, it was unclear whether the protests would grow into the kind of unbridled social unrest that France has sometimes experienced — such as the Yellow Vest movement in 2018 and 2019 — or would fizzle.But anger among opponents of the pension plan was growing. In the plaza, where union flags and balloons flew and music blared from loudspeakers, many people said they were committed to continue protesting against the plan — and against a government they see as having shown contempt for them.“We will do spontaneous protests across France,” said Isabelle Mollaret, 47, a children’s librarian who held a sign that read, “Macron, you aren’t the boss.” She added, “We will fight him!”Students protesting against the government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64, in Paris, on Thursday.Lewis Joly/Associated PressA group of students chanted against Mr. Macron, calling him “president of the business bosses.” If students become deeply involved in the protest movement, that could be a bad sign for Mr. Macron’s government. In 2006, widespread student protests against a law introducing a youth jobs contract forced the government to backtrack and repeal the law — exactly what protesters are aiming for now.Still, the feeling on the plaza was one of a festival, not an angry protest. A woman handed out chocolate. Students sang. A group of women from Attac, a French anti-globalization movement, known as the Rosies, changed the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to reflect an anti-Macron sentiment and led the crowd in a choreographed dance.“We are relieved because we know the fight will continue,” said Lou Chesne, 36, an energy-efficiency researcher and one of the dancers.He noted that the government hadn’t been able to collect enough votes in the Legislative Assembly to pass their law, and instead had to shoehorn it through with a special constitutional tool.“They are isolated,” Mr. Chesne said. More

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      France’s Battle Over Retirement

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      Will Reid, Mooj Zadie and Paige Cowett and Diane Wong and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis episode contains strong languageMillions of people have taken to the streets in France to protest a government effort to raise the retirement age to 64, from 62, bringing the country more in line with its European neighbors.Today, as Parliament holds a key vote on the proposal, we look into why the issue has hit such a nerve in French society.On today’s episodeRoger Cohen, the Paris bureau chief for The New York Times.A rally in Paris against the government’s plans. The main banner in front translates as “Retirement reform: No to working longer!”Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockBackground readingAfter large protests, all eyes were on the French Parliament on Thursday as it prepared to vote on the measure to increase the retirement age by two years.Here are some of the reasons so many people in France are protesting the proposals.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Roger Cohen More