Finance

Planning to delay retirement may not rescue you from poor savings

Published

3 months ago

September 17, 2024

Alistair Berg | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Planning to work longer is a popular escape hatch for Americans who feel they’ve saved too little to support themselves in old age.

About 27% of workers intend to work in retirement because they need to supplement their income, according to a new CNBC and SurveyMonkey survey. They polled 6,657 U.S. adults in early August, including 2,603 who are retired and 4,054 who are working full time or part time, are self-employed or who own a business.

While working longer is among the best ways to shore up one’s nest egg, the plan may backfire, according to retirement experts.

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Workers may not be able to work into their late 60s, early 70s or later due to an unexpected health complication or a layoff, for example.

“It sounds great on paper,” said Philip Chao, a certified financial planner and founder of Experiential Wealth, based in Cabin John, Maryland. “But reality could be very different.”

If workers lose those wages, they’d have to figure out another way to make their retirement savings last.

Workers often retire earlier than planned

A nonexistent ‘escape valve’

Americans generally use a later retirement age “as an escape valve which doesn’t necessarily exist,” Chao said. “But saying it and doing it are two totally different things.”

It could ultimately be a “very dangerous” assumption, Chao said.

Many people who retired earlier than planned, 35%, did so because of a hardship, such as a health problem or disability, according to the EBRI survey. Another 31% of them retired due to “changes at their company,” such as a layoff.

It sounds great on paper. But reality could be very different.

Philip Chao

founder of Experiential Wealth

More than half, 56%, of full-time workers in their early 50s get pushed out of their jobs due to layoffs and other circumstances before they’re ready to retire, according to a 2018 Urban Institute paper. Often, such workers earn substantially less money if they ultimately find another job, the paper found.

Of course, some people exit the workforce early for positive reasons: More than a third, 35%, of people who retired earlier than anticipated did so because they could afford to, EBRI found.

There are benefits to working longer

Working longer — for those who can do it — is a financial boon, according to retirement experts.

For one, workers can delay drawing down their savings; that keeps their nest egg intact longer and may allow it to continue growing via investment profit and additional contributions. Workers can also delay claiming Social Security benefits, which can boost how much they receive.

Some people continue to work longer because they like it: About a quarter, 26%, of workers said they want to work in retirement, and 17% of retirees continue to work in some capacity because they enjoy it, according to the CNBC retirement survey.

Americans may also get non-financial benefits from working longer, such as improved health and longevity. However, research suggests such benefits depend on how much stress workers experience on the job, and the physical demands of their labor.

Working longer also appears to be more of a possibility for a growing share of older workers.

“A shift away from a manufacturing economy to one primarily focused on delivering services and information facilitates working to an older age,” Jeffrey Jones, a Gallup analyst, wrote.

Finance

Treasury delays deadline for small businesses to file new BOI form

Published

12 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Business Finance News

Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury secretary, on a tour of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in Vienna, Virginia, on Jan. 8, 2024.

Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The U.S. Treasury Department has delayed the deadline for millions of small businesses to Jan. 13, 2025, to file a new form, known as a Beneficial Ownership Information report.

The Treasury had initially required many businesses to file the report to the agency’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, by Jan. 1. Noncompliance carries potential fines that could exceed $10,000.

This delay comes as a result of legal challenges to the new reporting requirement under the Corporate Transparency Act.

The rule applies to about 32.6 million businesses, including certain corporations, limited liability companies and others, according to federal estimates.

Businesses and owners that didn’t comply would potentially face civil penalties of up to $591 a day, adjusted for inflation, according to FinCEN. They could also face up to $10,000 in criminal fines and up to two years in prison.

However, many small businesses are exempt. For example, those with over $5 million in gross sales and more than 20 full-time employees may not need to file a report.

Why Treasury delayed the BOI reporting requirement

The Treasury delayed the compliance deadline following a recent court ruling.

A federal court in Texas on Dec. 3 had issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked FinCEN from enforcing the rule. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that injunction on Monday.

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“Because the Department of the Treasury recognizes that reporting companies may need additional time to comply given the period when the preliminary injunction had been in effect, we have extended the reporting deadline,” according to the FinCEN website.

FinCEN didn’t return a request from CNBC for comment about the number of businesses that have filed a BOI report to date.

Some data, however, suggests few have done so.

The federal government had received about 9.5 million filings as of Dec. 1, according to statistics that FinCEN provided to the office of Rep. French Hill, R-Ark. That figure is about 30% of the estimated total.

Hill has called for the repeal of the Corporate Transparency Act, passed in 2021, which created the BOI requirement. Hill’s office provided the data to CNBC.

“Most non-exempt reporting companies have not filed their initial reports, presumably because they are unaware of the requirement,” Daniel Stipano, a partner at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, wrote in an e-mail.

There’s a potential silver lining for businesses: It’s “unlikely” FinCEN would impose financial penalties “except in cases of bad faith or intentional violations,” Stipano said.

“In its public statements, FinCEN has made clear that its primary goal at this point is to educate the public about the requirement, as opposed to taking enforcement actions against noncompliant companies,” he said.

Certain businesses are exempt from BOI filing

The BOI filing isn’t an annual requirement. Businesses only need to resubmit the form to update or correct information.

Many exempt businesses — such as large companies, banks, credit unions, tax-exempt entities and public utilities — already furnish similar data.

Businesses have different compliance deadlines depending on when they were formed.

For example, those created or registered before 2024 have until Jan. 13, 2025, to file their initial BOI reports, according to FinCEN. Those that do so on or after Jan. 1, 2025, have 30 days to file a report.

There will likely be additional court rulings that could impact reporting, Stipano said.

For one, litigation is ongoing in the 5th Circuit, which hasn’t formally ruled on the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency Act.

“Judicial actions challenging the law have been brought in multiple jurisdictions, and these actions may eventually reach the Supreme Court,” he wrote. “As of now, it is unclear whether the incoming Trump administration will continue to support the Government’s position in these cases.”