Once you have considered all the options open to you at the time of a job change, the decision may come down to leaving your monies where they are (assuming it is possible to do so under your old employer's plan rules).

There are minimum balances that have to be met to remain in a plan. If you drop below this amount, the company may choose to close your account and send you the proceeds, less 20 percent withholding. At least $5,000 needs to be invested for a company to have to manage your account once you leave their employ. If you meet this threshold and the plan permits it, you can leave the funds; this may cause you the fewest headaches dealing with taxes or penalties due in the rollover process.

If it is possible to leave your retirement fund in place with an employer, you will be allowed to begin withdrawing those funds as early as age fifty-five without a 10 percent penalty. This of course may be a huge advantage if you are out of work during the 4½ years after age 55 but before 59½ when the 10 percent distribution would otherwise drop off. Fidelity Investments offers the following list of questions to ask yourself when considering whether it makes sense to leave your money in an employer's plan:

• Am I satisfied with the choices I have for my investments?

• Does the plan have options I can't get elsewhere?

• Do I have after-tax contributions that I have made to the plan?

• Does the plan limit access to my retirement savings or impose certain restrictions because I am no longer an employee?

• When does the plan require me to take my money out?

• Will the plan allow me to consolidate my retirement accounts? (If not, a rollover IRA may be the preferred option.)

• Do I intend to leave these savings to a beneficiary? (If so, check to see if the choices for withdrawal options are limited.)

The provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 allow qualified plans to accept direct rollovers of after-tax contributions that were made to a defined contribution plan. However, some plans may not adopt this provision. You will need to check the rules of your new plan. You can roll your after-tax contributions into an IRA, but note that after-tax contributions may not be rolled from an IRA back into a qualified plan.

When you are transitioning to your new employer, take the time to thoroughly understand their retirement plan offerings. As stated earlier, you especially need to be clear about whether the new company will accept any after-tax contributions you made to the former company plan. One danger you should be aware of is buried in the terms of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. The law allows rolling over after-tax contributions made to a qualified (pre-tax contribution) plan, but individual companies have the right to decide whether they wish to adopt this provision. Check it out before triggering a decision that backfires on you.

There should not be any problem transferring all the pre-tax contributions and their earnings from the established plan into the new plan, assuming the new company is set up to receive a rollover. One question to ask of your new employer is whether there is a requirement to work there for a specified period of time before a rollover can be implemented. Hopefully the new company's rules will dovetail nicely with the old. By learning the rules for both, you can make the best decisions.

For distributions taking while working there are certain exceptions to the 10 percent tax penalty rule. These also apply to distributions from your IRA.

• Disability

• Medical expenses exceeding 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI)

• Annuitization over a five year period or to age 59½ whichever is longer

• Death

• IRS tax levy

If you take a distribution from your company plan after ending employment the IRS requires 20 percent withholding. Depending on where you live, your state may also require withholding. You have 60 days to rollover these funds into an IRA. If you wish to rollover 100 percent of your company plan balance to your IRA, you will have to come up with the 20 percent (or more) that was withheld.

If you have a balance on a loan you have taken against your retirement plan, you will need to make arrangements for repaying it when you change jobs. This is an important detail to take care of because if you do not, the loan will be considered in default. Worse, the outstanding balance now becomes a taxable withdrawal, and may have other penalties as well. You should be able to find the applicable rules in your plan's Summary Plan Description.