How To Choose the Best Fixed Annuity

Written By: John C. Ryan on November 30, 2009 2 Comments

Most people have heard of fixed annuities. Often they won’t try them because they’re afraid they’ll lose money. Their fear stems from lack of information on a fixed annuity. A fixed annuity is very similar to a CD at a bank but has additional features that make it far more attractive. Just like a bank, you have guarantees on interest rates.

If you invest in a fixed annuity, you can either use it as a deferred or immediate annuity. While they both use the same fixed annuity, the way you take the money is different. Immediate annuities offer annuitization or periodic payments. You have several options such as fixed payments, a specific number of years for payments, payments for a lifetime or payments for a number of years or lifetime with a guarantee your beneficiary gets any unpaid amount of principal or the balance of the payments if it’s set for a specific time. Clients use the product as a deferred annuity when they don’t want any money right away but want tax-deferred growth.

The tax-deferred interest is a real plus for those saving for retirement, but as with any benefit has negatives also. If you put the money into a deferred fixed annuity and suddenly realize that you need funds, you have a ten percent penalty to pay on the growth you remove if you’re not yet 59 . The tax laws do allow you to take substantial periodic payments penalty-free. The payments must last until you’re 59 or at least for 5 years.

Penalties for early removal of money don’t stop with the IRS, insurance companies impose them too. Just like a CD, a fixed annuity has an early withdrawal penalty. It often ranges between four and seven percent. This normally gets smaller the longer you wait to take money and eventually disappears on most contracts. Some contracts, particularly those that pay a high rate, always have a surrender fee unless you annuitize. Occasionally they impose the same fee on beneficiaries. If you plan to take payments, it’s not a problem.

There are exceptions to the surrender charge. Many contracts offer the ability to remove funds of as much as ten percent without penalty. This amount may be available each year or once for the life of the contract. Almost every annuity allows you to take the interest penalty free each year and some people use the annuities that way, just as they’d use a CD.

Even though you may allow your CD to roll over, you still have to pay taxes on any interest you earned. This isn’t true for an annuity. As long as you don’t remove the money from the contract, you don’t have to pay taxes on the interest. Even if you want to take some of the principal and leave the interest in the contract, the IRS looks differently at your distribution. Annuity tax laws use LIFO rules. That means, last in, first out. Interest is always the last thing into the contract so the IRS considers the initial money you take as interest until you reach the amount you originally invested.

Immediate annuities use a different, favorable set of rules. The good news is that if you decide to annuitize a deferred annuity, you get the favorable tax treatment. The tax law indicates that part of the payment on systematic payment for fixed annuities is principal and part of it is interest. This allows you to spread the taxable growth out over several tax years.

To calculate the amount you pay in taxes each year you use an exclusion ratio. The exclusion ration is how much you exclude from that contract’s income. To find it, you need to know three things; your life expectancy, your payment and the amount you invested. You simply multiply your payment times the number of years for life expectancy. If you receive $800 a month and have a life expectancy of 22 years, you’ll get approximately $211,200 over the lifetime of payments if you collect in full. If your initial investment was $100,000, you divide that number by 211,200 and get an exclusion rate of 47 percent. In this case, you’d only pay taxes on 53 percent of your annual income from the fixed annuity.

Because of the favorable tax treatment, high interest rates and secure feeling of never running out of money, many people choose to take payments from the fixed annuity. Some, divide their funds into several different vehicles but use fixed annuities as their base monthly income in addition to social security. They request the insurance company deposit the funds directly into their account just like their social security. By doing this and keeping other investments for appreciation value and emergencies, they always know they’ll have money for monthly needs such as food, shelter and utilities.

John C. Ryan disperses his knowledge on how to find the best annuity given your particular situation. Interested in learning more about how to choose the proper fixed annuity given your particular situation. Visit us, for more information on fixed annuities .