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onefatss · Mar 16, 2009, 07:49 PM

I have a small 401 worth about 15000 dollars.I have med bills totaling around 8000 dollars from when my wife was ill and no ins.I have been served legal papers for payment which I cannot pay.my questions are,can I close my 401 to pay off these bills?do I have to leave the company I work for to do that? Or can I remain employed there? And what kind of tax/penalty can I expect to pay. Thanks for any help

ebaines · Mar 17, 2009, 05:50 AM

Having unreimbursed medical bills for yourself, your spouse, or dependents falls into one of the "hardship" withdrawal cases, and consequently you can indeed take a withdrawal for this. The plan admiistartor may require proff from you to show the money is going toward medical bills. However, this does not excuse you from paying both regular income tax and the 10% early withdrawal penalty on the withdrawal. Consequently you would probably need to withdraw almost all the $15K in order to have $8K left over after taxes to pay the bills off.

Another option would be for you to take a loan against your 401(k). Most (not all) plans allow employees to take a loan of up to 50% of the plan value - in your case that's $7.5K. You pay the loan back to yourself over the course of several years. The advantage of going with a loan over a withdrawal is that you do not pay income tax or penalty on the loan amount, and loan the interest is paid into your accout (you are paying yourself). Loan repayments would be automatically deducted from your pay check. Talk to your plan administrator to see whether this is an option for you. The "gotcha" with loans is that if for some reason you are unable to pay the loan back, or if you leave the company, the outstanding amount of the loan becomes fully payable - if you don't pay it all back then the outstanding balance is considered a withdrawal and you then have to pay the taxes and penalty on the outstanding amount.

ericsaul · Mar 19, 2009, 10:36 AM

How do I check on my 401k stats if not employed by the companies

ebaines · Mar 19, 2009, 10:40 AM

Do not piggy backa new question onto an old discussion. You should start a new thread for this new tpoic. However, to answer your question - you should be receiving regulkr statements, probably quarterly, regarding your old 401(k) plan(s) from the plan administrator.