Intel offers many retirement and investment-related benefits, and coordinating them or choosing between them can be complex.  Veripax Financial Management is intimately familiar with Intel's benefits, and can help you make important decisions regarding

• Intel Stock Purchase Plan

• Stock option/Restricted Stock Unit planning

• SERP/SERPlus allocation and coordination with Intel Profit Sharing

• Traditional 401k vs. Roth 401k

• Protecting and/or squeezing more income from large Intel stock positions (Option collars and Covered Calls)

• Leaving Intel

Call to discuss how we can help with these decisions and develop a plan that coordinates these benefits.

Intel SERP/SERPlus

The Intel SERP (Sheltered Employee Retirement Plan) offers one of the most flexible 401k plans in the industry.  Because of Intel's generous Profit Sharing contributions, many employees have up to half (and sometimes more) of their total SERP value in the Intel Profit Sharing portion.  Prior to 2007, the Profit Sharing portion was invested in a fund that was roughly equivalent to the S&P 500 index.  In 2007, this was changed to a much more diverse and complicated set of investments that includes U.S. large cap, U.S. small cap, foreign and emerging market funds, as well as several U.S. and global bond funds.  In 2009, more flexibility was added by offering the choice to allocate a portion of Profit Sharing to various Target Date funds.  Needless to say, choosing investment options that complement this complex set of investments is tricky and can have a profound effect on the long-term performance of your retirement savings.

SERPlus is an option for highly-compensated employees to continue to make tax-deferred contributions beyond the 401k limits established by the IRS.  Although tax-deferral can be a good thing, it should be kept in mind that "tax-deferred" becomes "fully taxable" when the funds are needed for income.  In many situations, it may make sense to diversify retirement savings based on tax treatment by having some funds that will be fully-taxable, some that are tax-free, and some that are in between.  Again, we can help you work through these scenarios and come up with a plan that makes sense and lowers the risk of future tax scenarios.

Traditional 401K vs. Roth 401K

Intel offers the choice between avoiding tax now and paying it later (Traditional 401K), or paying the tax on contributions now and having tax-free growth (Roth 401K).  Which choice makes the most financial sense depends on retirement income requirements, investment growth, future tax rates, and many other considerations.  Unfortunately, many of these factors cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy.  We have helped many people think through the tradeoffs, potential benefits and potential risks of this important piece of a retirement plan.

Large Intel Stock Positions

Many Intel employees continue to hold large Intel stock positions (2000 shares or more), and most employees in this situation are also aware that large individual stock positions carry significant risk.  Intel senior employees (Grade 10+) are restricted from buying or selling Puts and Calls on these positions directly.  However, an advisor with discretionary authority to manage the position would keep option transactions at "arms length".  This enables the use of protection strategies such as Collars and income strategies such as Covered Calls.  Veripax Financial Management has significant expertise in advanced option strategies and can manage these positions to get the most out of your Intel stock.

Leaving Intel

For most people, their time at Intel eventually comes to an end, which often leads to the question "now what".  Decisions now need to be made concerning COBRA, stock options, and how to rollover the 401K.  We can't help much with the decision of whether to leave Intel or not, but we have helped many former Intel employees through the process once the big decision has been made.