Individual Retirement Accounts have more options than ever. In 2009, you can contribute up to $5,000 a year — $6,000 if you are age 50 or older.

When it's time to take the money out, minimum required distributions will be based on a uniform table showing the life expectancy of the IRA owner and a beneficiary who is 10 years younger. If your sole beneficiary is your spouse, and he or she is more than 10 years younger, actual joint life expectancy may be used.

New tables allow you to take smaller distributions each year, thereby maintaining tax-deferred compounding of the balance.

Better yet, beneficiaries may continue distributions based on their own individual life expectancies. If you are single — or if your spouse has other sources of income and won't need the IRA — naming a grandchild as your beneficiary can mean extending the tax benefits of an IRA for generations. A five-year-old, for example, has a life expectancy of almost 78 years.

Your IRA can be "stretched" across generations even if you name your spouse as primary beneficiary. If he or she does not need the money when the time comes, it can be "disclaimed" and go to your secondary (contingent) beneficiaries. Or your spouse can roll your IRA into his or her own IRA and name new beneficiaries for that account.

Important: Name primary and secondary beneficiaries and be sure that your beneficiary designations are kept up to date. Also, check to be sure that the designations are on record with your IRA custodian. With mergers among many financial institutions over the decades, forms filed years ago may be lost.