Forbes recently published an article detailing the many traps created by the complicated rules surrounding IRAs, 401 (k)s and other retirement accounts. These are traps that can snare not only smart investors, but financial advisors, lawyers, accountants and even the IRS itself. We'll be sharing some of these traps in the next few editions of News & Views. The next 5 are below.

If you're leaving a job and haven't decided whether to roll the money in your 401(k) into an IRA, in your new employer's 401(k), or into a regular taxable account, don't take a distribution while you think on it. Your ex-employer must withhold 20% of the distribution for taxes. That means if you decide to roll over the whole amount into an IRA, you'll have to come up with the 20% from other sources.

If you leave a 401(k) with less than $5,000 behind at an old employer, your ex-employer is allowed to dump your money into a high fee IRA invested in a money market paying a negligible return. The combination of meager returns (0.11% a year) and high fees can eat up a $1,000 account in less than a decade.

Folks who have 401(k)s or other savings plans at work can't contribute to a pre-tax IRA if they earn too much. There are income limits for Roth IRA contributions too, although they're higher (income limits). You can withdraw any excess contributions you weren't eligible to make by Oct. 15 of the following year without penalty. If you don't, you'll owe a penalty equal to 6% of the excess contribution, per year, every year until you withdraw the money.

If you make an after tax contribution to an IRA for any year, attach Form 8606, Nondeductible IRAs, to your 1040 and retain a copy for your records. If you don't, when you start to take distributions, the IRS will treat every penny as taxable.