How NUA Can Lower Your Taxes in Retirement

Net unrealized appreciation, or NUA, is a special way of withdrawing your employer's stock from your employer-sponsored retirement account. Although the rules are somewhat complicated, NUA treatmentcould help you save a big chunk of money in retirement.

NUA is simply the difference betweenthe cost basis of the employer stock in your employer-sponsored plan and the current market value -- assuming the market value is higher than that cost basis. For instance,if you retire with $1 million in your employer's stock in your employer-sponsored retirement account, and those shares have a cost basis of $250,000, you have $750,000 in net unrealized appreciation.

You can take advantage of NUA treatment to save a bundle of money on your retirement distribution if you meet each of the following three requirements:

You own shares of your employer's stock inside your employer-sponsored retirement plan.
Those shares are worth more than you paid for them.
You withdraw them from your account via an in-kind lump-sum distribution.

Note: In many cases, you'll have to completely drain your employer-sponsored retirement plan as part of the transaction.

How NUA differs from a typical retirement withdrawal In a traditional defined-contribution retirement plan, you and/or your employer contribute money to your account on your behalf using pre-tax dollars. While it remains in that account, the money compounds tax-deferred. Once you retire, you can start withdrawing money from that plan, paying ordinary income tax rates on the money you withdraw.

Have lots of highly appreciated employer stock in your 401(k)? Then a NUA strategy might make sense for you.

In a properly executed NUA transaction, however, the taxes are handled differently. Imagine that your company-sponsored retirement plan consists of $1 million of your employer's stock when you reach retirement and that you and/or your employer paid $250,000 for those shares.

If you take that $1 million as an in-kind, lump-sum distribution from your account and it qualifies for NUA treatment, you'll only pay income taxes on the $250,000 basis. To be an "in-kind" distribution, you need to take the shares out as shares of your employer's stock -- not convertedto cash. To be a "lump sum" distribution, it needs to empty your employer-sponsored retirement account entirely.

The other $750,000 would remain untaxed until you sold the shares. Then the sale would be treated as a capital gain or loss. Your holding period would begin the day you took the distribution, and your basis for determining gains or losses would be the $250,000 you had already paid taxes on.Capital gains taxes on short-term assets are the same as your ordinary income tax rates. But if you hold those shares for at least a year and a day after your take your distribution, then they qualify as long-term capital gains and will be taxed at the lower long-termcapital gains tax rate.

Once you take the distribution, any dividends those shares pay become taxable, but if the company's dividends are qualified, you become eligible for the lower tax rate on qualified dividends. The table below showcases the tax savings you get from qualified dividends and long-term capital gains tax treatment.

Source: IRS Publication 550.

The pros and cons of NUA The biggest plus of NUA treatment is the potential to pay substantially lower taxes on your retirement plan distributions. Not only could you pay long-term capital gains tax on money that's typically treated as ordinary income, but you may also get to defer paying those taxes even longer, too; once you take the NUA distribution, that money is no longer subject to the required minimum distributions that normally kick in at age 70-1/2 for traditional retirement plans.

Unfortunately, planning to receive NUA treatment comes with substantial downside risks as well. Most of those risks center around the fact that NUA treatment only works with employer's stock coming from your employer-sponsored retirement plan, which makes it an incredibly non-diversified strategy.

For NUA to make sense for you, you need a significant amount of your employer's stock, and it needs to be worth far more than it cost in the first place. Additionally, that stock needs to maintain a reasonable semblance of its value for at least a year and a day after you take the distribution in order for the lower long-term capital gains rate to kick in.

On top of that, because a NUA transaction requires you to take money out of your employer-sponsored retirement account, you lose the ability to roll it into a traditional or Roth IRA and keep it tax-deferred.

Is NUA right for you? Using an NUA-based retirement withdrawal strategy may make sense for you if all of the following are true:

You have a substantial amount of highly appreciated employer stock in your employer-sponsored retirement plan.
You firmly believe your employer's stock will hold its value long enough for you to sell it at a long-term capital gain and receive a much lower tax rate.
You have sufficient investments in other assets to meet your retirement income needs in the case that your investment in your employer's stock somehow goes awry.

If not, you're likely better off following a more traditional retirement withdrawal strategy.

The article How NUA Can Lower Your Taxes in Retirement originally appeared on Fool.com.

Chuck Saletta would like to tip his Fool cap to Frank Duke, who is a legend among those looking for innovative ways to execute NUA strategies. Chuck has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has not position in any stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.