Hello, I just found out that my plant is closing within a yr. Was wondering about my 401k. I know there are penalties to pay for taking it out eary, but is there any kind of hardship thing to reduce that? If not, how much of a penalty is it, and if my 401k is worth 12000 dollars , how much of it could I expect to net after taxes and penalties?

You don't have to take it out and I would not if I were you. You can roll it over directly into an IRA and avoid any penalty and defer any tax liability.

If you are under 59 1/2 and do not rollover the money you will incur a 10% penalty. In addition the $12K will be added to your taxable income and taxed accordingly. This would be a minimum of 15% and maybe much higher depending on your total income for the year. So I would guestimate, at a minimum you will lose 25% of this money or $3K.

Thanks for your help. I and a lot of us that are getting laid off are going to be between a rock and a hard place... Our higher paying jobs are going to be gone and there is nothing within a hundred miles or more that pays anything close to them... I guess there's a lot of that going around now though... Again, thanks for your help.