7 Tax Time Retirement Savings Tricks

Ashlea Ebeling for Forbes writes: What if you could boost your retirement savings, courtesy of Uncle Sam? Some of the most generous provisions of the tax code are incentives to save whether via a workplace 401(k), an Individual Retirement Account, a Roth IRA, or one of many retirement plans for the self-employed. Yet year after year taxpayers fail to take advantage or make costly mistakes.

Here are some tricks to make the most of the breaks, and traps to watch out for, courtesy of David Prokupek, chief executive officer of the Jackson Hewitt tax prep chain. “A lot of people like handholding, especially around retirement; it’s a lot of math,” he says.

Why worry about retirement at tax time? You can fund an IRA for 2014 until April 15^th and a SEP-IRA (for the self-employed) until Oct. 15^th—the due date of your 1040 with extensions. And it’s a good time to review your 401(k) workplace retirement contribution choices for 2015 to make sure you’re saving enough to grab any employer matching money and to consider making extra catch-up contributions if you’re 50 or older.

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