I had roughly $10,000 in my 401k. The market tanked and one of the funds toppled. The value in my 401k went to $5,000. At this point in my career there was no employer match, so it was all my own money. The company I worked at switched 401k providers to another provider that did NOT offer the same funds. Net result was that they have to SELL my old funds and purchase equivalent funds with the new provider. I had to incur a realized loss of five thousand dollars. Where is the tax advantage there?
Where is the tax disadvantage ?
Most funds have stock index funds. If you use the approach that a large chunk of your investments are in index funds, it does not matter much which company provides the 401K. It seems that your problem was an investment selection problem not a tax advantage problem.
I actually like the 401k. After 12 years it has allowed us to virtually painlessly amass about 500K for retirement. Beats relying on a single employer pension that could disappear when I’m 55.
