You can unlock greater retirement wealth by reading this document that nearly everyone ignores

You may be able to save more in your 401(k) than you think.

If you're 55 years old and you put $32,500 into your 401(k) this year, your statement will tell you that you maxed out.

You didn't. The actual ceiling on that account is $80,000.

Most people never find out the second number exists, because nothing they receive from their employer mentions it. Your statement shows a balance. Your enrollment page shows a percentage. Neither one tells you what your plan actually permits.

Most of the people I have met in the last 30 years of doing retirement and tax planning think a 401(k) is just an account with a contribution limit. It's more than that. Every plan runs on a written document, and that document dictates what you're allowed to do with your own money. Some plans give you options worth a great deal. Your statement won't show you any of them.

Here are five things worth asking about.

1. The contribution limit above the contribution limit

The 2026 limit on what you can defer from your paycheck is $24,500, or $32,500 if you're 50 or older. That's the number everybody knows.

The total annual contribution to a 401(k) is $72,000, or $80,000 for people between 50 and 59 years old (or $83,250 for those 60 to 63). That limit includes deferrals, employer contributions and voluntary after-tax contributions - not merely what most people think about when they're investing in a 401(k).

Your deferrals and your employer's contributions fill that space first. Whatever remains out of that larger limit can be filled with a third contribution type most people have never heard of, called voluntary after-tax contributions. These are not Roth contributions. They're a separate category, and by themselves they aren't worth much because the growth comes out as ordinary income.

The value comes from converting them to Roth, either inside the plan or through an in-service distribution to a Roth IRA. Do it quickly, before the money earns anything, and the conversion costs almost nothing, since you already paid tax on those dollars. From there the growth is tax free, the withdrawals are tax free, and there are no required distributions on them in a Roth IRA.

Two conditions have to be met. Your plan has to permit after-tax contributions, and it has to permit the conversion. Plenty of plans allow one and not the other, which is a dead end.

There's also annual nondiscrimination testing that can limit how much high earners are allowed to put into that bucket, and in some plans the contributions get refunded after year-end. Ask before you count on the full number.

What you lose by not knowing: The largest tax-free savings opportunity most people over 50 will ever be offered, every year until the day they stop working.

2. The 55 rule

Most people know they can't touch retirement money before age 591/2 without a 10% penalty. Fewer know about the exception written into Internal Revenue Code Section 72(t)(2)(A)(v).

If you separate from your employer during or after the calendar year in which you turn 55, you can take money out of that employer's plan with no early withdrawal penalty. You still owe income tax. You just skip the penalty.

Three things trip people up:

-- The separation has to happen in that year or later, so leaving at age 53 and waiting until age 55 doesn't work.

-- It only covers the plan of the employer you just left, not old accounts from previous jobs.

-- It does not apply to IRAs at all.

That last point is where the money gets lost. Roll the account into an IRA and the exception vanishes permanently. A taxpayer in a 2021 Tax Court case learned this after retiring from Home Depot at 55 years old, rolling the funds from his 401(k) into an IRA, and taking a withdrawal two years later.

If you're retiring between the ages of 55 and 591/2 and you'll need income from that account, the answer may be to leave the money exactly where it is. Ask your plan one question first: Does it allow partial withdrawals after you separate? Some plans force you to take the entire balance at once, which defeats the purpose.

What you lose by not knowing: 10% of everything you withdraw during the years between leaving work and turning 591/2, on a benefit you can never get back once you've rolled the money over.

3. Still working past your RMD age? Your distribution may not be due.

Required minimum distributions generally start at age 73 (for those born in 1960 or later, they will start at age 75). But if you reach that age and you're still employed by the company that sponsors your plan, you may be able to delay distributions from that plan until April 1 of the year after you retire.

The exception is narrow in three ways.

First, it applies only to the plan of the employer you currently work for. Old 401(k) accounts from previous jobs still require distributions, and so do your IRAs, no matter what your employment status.

Second, your plan has to formally offer the provision. Most plans do, but not all, and some impose their own conditions - like a full-time status requirement, even though the tax code has no such rule.

Third, you can't be a 5% owner. That sounds simple and it isn't. The code counts more than just your own shares. Ownership held by your spouse, children, grandchildren and parents gets attributed to you. Two spouses who each own 3% of the business are treated as 6% owners, and neither one qualifies. That rule catches family businesses constantly.

There are instances where you might be able to tap into old accounts with this rule. If you have old 401(k) accounts sitting elsewhere and your current plan accepts incoming rollovers, moving them into the plan where you still work can shelter that money too. That's the opposite of what people are usually told to do with old accounts.

What you lose by not knowing: the opportunity to not pay unnecessary taxes on years of income, at an age when taxable income also drives your Medicare premiums.

4. The fund menu is not the whole menu

Your plan probably offers somewhere between 10 and 20 investment choices. Some plans also offer something called a brokerage window, sometimes known as a self-directed brokerage account, which opens the plan up to thousands of exchange-traded funds, mutual funds and in some cases individual stocks.

The money never leaves the plan. Same tax treatment, same protections, longer list of investment choices.

It also carries real costs and restrictions that vary by plan. Ask what the fees are, how much of your balance you're permitted to move into it, and what you're actually allowed to buy inside it. Some windows are limited to mutual funds only. The cost of avoiding those questions can be an annual account fee, a commission on every trade and a menu of funds with higher expense ratios than the ones already sitting in your core lineup.

And be honest with yourself about why you want it. A longer menu is not an upgrade. If you'd use it to buy a handful of stocks and watch them every morning, the target-date fund was doing you a favor because it protected you from bad stock picks and not enough diversification.

What you lose by not knowing: potential gains from a well-diversified portfolio. Maybe not as much of a loss as the other missed opportunities on this list, but it's still a choice you should get to make.

5. The company stock rule that disappears the day you roll over

This one is different from the rest, because you don't just miss it. You destroy it.

If you own appreciated employer stock inside your 401(k), a provision called net unrealized appreciation lets you move those shares out of the plan and pay ordinary income tax only on what they cost when they went into your account. Everything the stock gained while it sat there gets taxed at long-term capital gains rates instead, and only when you sell.

For those who are unaware, ordinary income is taxed on a graduated schedule from 10% up to 37%, while long-term capital gains top out at 15% for most people and 20% at the highest incomes. Picture $750,000 of company stock that originally cost you $75,000: that's $675,000 of gain. Roll it into an IRA and the gain eventually comes out as ordinary income; use NUA and it's taxed as capital gains instead. At a 32% ordinary rate, that gain runs about $216,000 in tax, versus about $101,250 at the 15% capital gains rate - roughly $115,000 more, on the same shares, for choosing the wrong path. For someone whose shares cost a fraction of what they're worth today, the difference can be six figures.

Roll the account into an IRA and the option is gone. Permanently. There is no correction, no amended election, no way back. And rolling the account into an IRA is exactly what most people do on their last day of work, in about 30 minutes, because it's what everyone tells them to do.

What you lose by not knowing: the largest single tax opportunity in most long-tenured employees' retirement, and potentially thousands of dollars.

What to do right now

Request your summary plan description. It's a document your employer is required to give you, and it explains in detail whether and how all of these rules apply to you.

Then ask your benefits department five questions: Does our plan hold employer stock, and what's the cost basis on my shares? Does it allow partial withdrawals after separation? Does it permit voluntary after-tax contributions and in-plan Roth conversions? Does it offer the still-working exception for required distributions? Does it have a self-directed brokerage account?

None of these features exist in every plan, and nobody at your company is likely to bring them up on their own. Benefits departments often answer questions and rarely volunteer strategy.

People don't lose these options by making a bad call. They lose them by not asking questions they were never advised to ask.