Best tax breaks

Strategy: Stop making retirement-plan withdrawals.

The IRS used to require retirees age 701/2 or older to take annual withdrawals from the money in their traditional IRAs or 401(k)s - and pay income tax on them. This rule forced a whole lot of people to sell at the worst possible time: when their investments had been mauled by the bear.

But a new law suspends those required minimum distributions for 2009. That lets your money keep growing tax-deferred if the market recovers, which could save you serious coin.


NEXT: For: Investors