tax-deferred

Answer: When you’re behind on saving for retirement, maximizing your contributions to tax-deferred plans in your final working years can be a smart move.

Many people with large tax-deferred retirement accounts can reduce their lifetime tax bills by converting at least some of the funds to a Roth IRA.

Why she asked, should tax-deferred 529 savings accounts only pay for college tuition, books and such?

“If you have saved a lot of money in tax-deferred vehicles, and you haven’t planned to do either Roth conversions or spend down that money, you could wind up having a much larger monthly Medicare premium than you think,” Nawn says.

These tax-deferred accounts are often offered to government employees and may have more oversight and better investment choices, Otter says.