How secure is my 403(b)? Can its assets be “raided”?
The simple answer is that with the defined contribution plan: 401k, 403b, 457 and the US government TSP; the employer doesn't hold on to the funds. When they take your money from your paycheck there is a period of a few days or at the most a few weeks before they must turn the money over to the trustee running the program. If they are matching your contributions they must do the same with those funds.  The risk is in that window of time between payday and deposit day. If the business folds, or enters bankruptcy protection, or decides to slash what they will contribute to the match in the future anything already sent to the trustee is out of their clutches. In the other hand a defined a benefit plan or pension plan: where you get X percent of your highest salary times the number of years you worked; is not protected from the company. These plans work by the company putting aide money each year based on a formula. The formula is complex because they know from history some employees never stick around long enough to get the pension.  The money in a pension is invested outside the company but it is not out of the control of the company. Generally with a well run company they invest wisely but safely because if the value goes up due to interest or a rising stock market, the next year their required contribution is smaller. The formula also expects that they will not go out of business. The problems occur when they don't have the money to afford to make the contribution. Even governments have looked for relief in this area by skipping a deposit or delaying a deposit.  There is some good news in this area because a pension program has to pay an annual insurance premium to The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation a quai-government agency of the federal government. If the business folds the PBGC steps in to protect the rights of the employees. They don't get all they were promised, but they do get a lot of it.  None of those pension issues relate to the 401K like program. Once the money is transferred to the trustee the company has no control over the funds. "I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what ""pension"" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account is generally a ""defined benefit"" account, whereas 403(b)/401(k) and similar - are ""defined contribution"" accounts. The difference is significant: for pensions, the employer committed on certain amount to be paid out at retirement (the defined benefit) regardless of how much the employee/employer contributed or how well the account performed. This makes such an arrangement a liability. An obligation to pay. In other words - debt. Defined contribution on the other hand doesn't create such a liability, since the employer is only committed for the match, which is paid currently. What happens to your account after the employer deposited the defined contribution (the match) - is your problem. You manage it to the best of your abilities and whatever you have there when you retire - is yours, the employer doesn't owe you anything. Here's the problem with pensions: many employers promised the defined benefit, but didn't do anything about actually having money to pay. As mentioned, such a pension is essentially a debt, and the retiree is a debt holder. What happens when employer cannot pay its debts? Employer goes bankrupt. And when bankrupt - debtors are paid only part of what they were owed, and that includes the retirees. There's no-one raiding pensions. No-one goes to the bank with a gun and demands ""give me the pension money"". What happened was that the employers just didn't fund the pensions. They promised to pay - but didn't set aside any money, or set aside not enough. Instead, they spent it on something else, and when the time came that the retirees wanted their money - they didn't have any. That's what happened in Detroit, and in many other places. 403(b) is in fact the solution to this problem. Instead of defined benefit - the employers commit on defined contribution, and after that - it's your problem, not theirs, to have enough when you're retired."
"Because fuck auto-playing videos and pop-under tabs to ""related"" articles:  #1. A conference call is a raid, just with less screaming. Waiting for 40 players to log on for a raid is exactly the same as waiting on a conference line for attendees to join. These are your ""party members,"" and there's almost always someone with a broken microphone.  #2. Slack channels are your guild chat. Guild chat is where people hang out. Where people talk for hours and hours. Where people share ideas, or ask for help. My co-founder and I live in Slack, operating from two different cities. The whole experience is hauntingly similar to my teenage years spent talking to guild members on the Internet.  #3. People judge you based on your Internet presence. I became a personal branding expert at 17 years old when I learned that who you are online is your ""character,"" and what you choose to show people determines the idea they have of you in their mind.   #4. You don't know what grinding is until you've had stale Skittles for breakfast. Entrepreneurs are notorious for bragging about how ""hard they grind"" and how little they sleep. But I'll be honest, you don't know what a real ""grind"" is until you've loaded up on coffee and gluten free/dairy free microwaveable mac and cheese (I have food allergies) and farmed Runecloth for 48 hours straight. Once you've done that, a product launch is a piece of cake.  #5. You can't win by yourself. Part of what makes an MMORPG so enthralling is that it cannot be played individually. Even the most modest of challenges require a group of some sort--and with groups come friendships, camaraderie, and competition. Entrepreneurship is no different. You can only play for so long before you need to enlist the help of others. And that's what makes the game so much fun.  #6. Bad players judge based off gear. Wise players judge based off skill. Most players (in the gaming world and the real world) measure success based on material value. People assume that better gear, nicer clothes, and more expensive cars means better talent. I learned at a very young age that is a faulty mentality to have. Being able to accurately judge who you're going up against, who you're partnering with, or spotting the next great player is all about looking beyond the material. You have to see the person, not the player's gear--and a lot of people can't do that.  #7. There is no ""point"" to the game. When I first started playing World of Warcraft, the kid at my school who introduced me to the game said, ""I can't wait to hit level 60. That's when the real game begins."" I didn't understand what he meant until I hit the level cap too, and realized there was no end to the things you could do in the World of Warcraft--just like there is no end to the things you can do here on earth. The real game starts once you're out of the starting area and old enough to realize you are the captain of your own ship. You can create your own quests, and you define your own measures for success. Your purpose is yours to create.  #8. Gold doesn't make you a player better. I had a mentor in the World of Warcraft. I deliberately sought him out because I wanted to learn how to play the game like him. For the three years we played together, he was poor. Constantly asking other people to borrow gold. He was also one of the most talented gamers I'd ever played with. When I would ask him why he wouldn't spend more time farming gold, he'd say, ""Gold isn't going to make me a better player. I'd rather practice."" That was my first introduction to the idea that money, in itself, doesn't make you a better player (or person).  #9. Some people are raiders. Some are PvPers. And some are explorers. In the World of Warcraft, you can do a lot of different things. You can round up 40 people to go defeat a raid boss. You can form a small team and compete 3v3. Or you can travel around the world on your Kodo mount and explore. The game is yours to play, however you wish to play it--just like life. Which means you can't compare your experience and your ""achievements"" to someone else who prefers to spend their time differently. They aren't 1:1.  #10. Friendships are made during the pursuit of a goal. Some of the people I played World of Warcraft with as a teenager became my closest friends--friends I still talk to today (just last week I had dinner with my guild leader from a decade ago).  Those friendships are the result of working together toward a common goal, and I see the same thing unfolding as I build my first company. How often my co-founder and I bounce strategies and ideas in a day is eerily reminiscent of my climb to Gladiator with my 2v2 partner. The hires we make are our new guild members. Our Slack channel is our guild chat. Our weekly conference calls are our raids, and our competitors are all the other guilds who are trying to defeat the same bosses we are." It is true that with a job that pays you via payroll check that will result in a W-2 because you are an employee, the threshold that you are worried about before you have to file is in the thousands. Unless of course you make a lot of money from bank interest or you have income tax withheld and you want it refunded to you. Table 2 and table 3 in IRS pub 501, does a great job of telling you when you must.  For you table 3 is most likely to apply because you weren't an employee and you will not be getting a W-2. If any of the five conditions listed below applied to you for 2016, you must file a return. You owe any special taxes, including any of the following. a. Alternative minimum tax. (See Form 6251.)    b. Additional tax on a   qualified plan, including an individual retirement arrangement (IRA),   or other tax­favored account.  (See Pub. 590­A, Contributions to   Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs); Pub. 590­B, Distributions   from  Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs); and Pub. 969, Health   Savings Accounts and Other Tax­Favored Health  Plans.) But if you are   filing a return only because you owe this tax, you can file Form 5329   by itself.   c. Social security or Medicare tax on tips you didn't   report to your employer (see Pub. 531, Reporting Tip Income) or on    wages you received from an employer who didn't withhold these taxes   (see Form 8919).    d. Write­in taxes, including uncollected social   security, Medicare, or railroad retirement tax on tips you reported to   your  employer or on group­term life insurance and additional taxes on   health savings accounts. (See Pub. 531, Pub. 969,  and the Form 1040   instructions for line 62.)   e. Household employment taxes. But if you   are filing a return only because you owe these taxes, you can file    Schedule H (Form 1040) by itself. f. Recapture taxes. (See the Form   1040 instructions for lines 44, 60b, and 62.) You (or your spouse if filing jointly) received Archer MSA, Medicare Advantage MSA, or health savings account  distributions. You had net earnings from self­employment of at least $400. (See Schedule SE (Form 1040) and its instructions.) You had wages of $108.28 or more from a church or qualified church­controlled organization that is exempt from employer  social   security and Medicare taxes. (See Schedule SE (Form 1040) and its   instructions.) Advance payments of the premium tax credit were made for you, your spouse, or a dependent who enrolled in coverage  through the Health   Insurance Marketplace. You should have received Form(s) 1095­A showing   the amount of the advance  payments, if any. It appears that item 3: You had net earnings from self­employment of at least $400. (See Schedule SE (Form 1040) and its instructions.) would most likely apply. It obviously is not too late to file for 2016, because taxes aren't due for another month. As to previous years that would depend if you made money those years, and how much. i will probably choose to buy a stereo or a dvd player, as opposed to designing and building my own, but i can grow a potato, as long as i dont go to prison for growing a potato.  i just might grow my own produce, you dont know what i grow.  but i do not have the freedom to grow weed, because the police will raid my home and take my children and they will put me in prison and they will auction my home to strangers, lol...  for the five hundredth time, i have the freedom to grow a potato or a carrot, but if i grow one single weed plant i will be sent to prison with murderers and rapists.  #when weed is decriminalized, then i will not need to buy weed from criminals,... lol.. "Question 1: How do I start? or ""the broker"" problem Get an online broker.  You can do a wire transfer to fund the account from your bank. Question 2: What criticism do you have for my plan? Dividend investing is smart.  The only problem is that everyone's currently doing it.  There is an insatiable demand for yield, not just individual investors but investment firms and pension funds that need to generate income to fund retirements for their clients.  As more investors purchase the shares of dividend paying securities, the share price goes up.  As the share price goes up, the dividend yield goes down.  Same for bonds.  For example, if a stock pays $1 per year in dividends, and you purchase the shares at $20/each, then your yearly return (not including share price fluctuations) would be 1/20 = 5%.  But if you end up having to pay $30 per share, then your yearly return would be 1/30 or 3.3% yield.  The more money you invest, the bigger this difference becomes; with $100K invested you'd make about $1.6K more at 5%.  (BTW, don't put all your money in any small group of stocks, you want to diversify).  ETFs work the same way, where new investors buying the shares cause the custodian to purchase more shares of the underlying securities, thus driving up the price up and yield down.  Instead of ETFs, I'd have a look at something called closed end funds, or CEFs which also hold an underlying basket of securities but often trade at a discount to their net asset value, unlike ETFs.  CEFs usually have higher yields than their ETF counterparts.  I can't fully describe the ins and outs here in this space, but you'll definately want to do some research on them to better understand what you're buying, and HOW to successfully buy (ie make sure you're buying at a historically steep discount to NAV [https://seekingalpha.com/article/1116411-the-closed-end-fund-trifecta-how-to-analyze-a-cef] and where to screen [https://www.cefconnect.com/closed-end-funds-screener] Regardless of whether you decide to buy stocks, bonds, ETFs, CEFs, sell puts, or some mix, the best advice I can give is to a) diversify (personally, with a single RARE exception, I never let any one holding account for more than 2% of my total portfolio value), and b) space out your purchases over time.  b) is important because we've been in a low interest rate environment since about 2009, and when the risk free rate of return is very low, investors purchase stocks and bonds which results in lower yields.  As the risk free rate of return is expected to finally start slowly rising in 2017 and gradually over time, there should be gradual downward pressure (ie selling) on the prices of dividend stocks and especially bonds meaning you'll get better yields if you wait.  Then again, we could hit a recession and the central banks actually lower rates which is why I say you want to space your purchases out." "First off, looks like they didn't ""get away"" with anything. Second, the company said these guys didn't know about the breach - is it possible they actually didn't know and were selling for other reasons? Why must we jump to the worst possible conclusion right away? Third, it's not clear there's actually been a crime here so what are you on about?" For such a small amount, I really don't think it's worth the time and effort to withdraw it. Why not roll it over into a traditional IRA or a new 401k / 403b? Okay what I meant was that if you catch someone and find out they own a certain address, they cannot escape the trail. If they want to move funds from a criminal wallet to a safe wallet, there will always be a trail.  And that's just the transaction network. The stock market equivalent counterparty operates on a similar ledger system.   &gt; the parallel is clear  Except that with blockchain technology its 100% transparent and global by default and doesn't need a third party to audit the system because its all done algorithmically and openly.   Also no need for a clearing house or companies to give you access to the stock market through their services (like e trade). What kind of retirement money? 401k? Withdraw it, take the tax hit, buy Bitcoin. Done.  I know one person that has sold their nice, paid off car back to the dealer, used the cash to buy bitcoin, and then taken out a loan on a used beater for 5 years. they still have a car to get around in and a positive indication that bitcoin will value more than the interest they are paying on the loan. IMO, that's much safer than putting sheltered money into it. although, it would be hard to get evidence of capital gains on any bitcoin profits 5 years from now.