example 10-15 years before the expected date) the tax implications of receiving various forms of retirement income become more important. As all tax-deferred contributions and the accumulated investment income will be taxed as ordinary income for the individual upon withdrawal, the tax rate applied to this income during retirement becomes an important issue. Clearly, the higher the tax rate during retirement, the less income an employee will receive, other factors the same. Considering the current and future projected government deficits and funding problems along with the threat of rising inflation, the long-term prospects for lower or the same US Federal and state tax rates appears dim. Due to the likelihood of higher future tax rates, many workers would like the

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Financial planners often advise their clients to first take advantage of employersponsored 401(k) plans, especially those with matching employer contributions. They often recommend next that clients consider a traditional or Roth IRA, depending on their current eligibility and tax bracket. Generally, the traditional IRA tends to be preferable to the Roth IRA if one expects to be in a lower tax bracket during the retirement versus the contribution years. This preference could be impacted by the theoretical or the practical assumptions one could make as to the tax bracket effect, minimum distribution requirements, and the impact of withdrawals on the amount of Social Security benefits taxed. This research compares the traditional and the Roth IRA, examining both the theoretical and practical assumptions of client behavior. The results indicate that the best choice between the types of IRAs depends on whether the investor's actual behavior is consistent with theory or practice.

This article analyzes the quality of the life insurance recommendations generated by Internet Web sites. The quality of a Web site's recommendations is measured by comparing how closely the recommendations match two benchmarks chosen by the authors. The authors submitted four relatively simple scenarios to 48 Web sites offering advice on how much insurance is appropriate in given circumstances. The article presents several statistical measures of the wide variation in advice offered by these Web sites, and it suggests several explanations for this variation. Statistically, the Web site recommendations differed from the authors' chosen benchmarks, but did not differ by the type of organization maintaining the Web site.

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