so that means they changed those laws. at one time, you couldn't take custody, there had to be a direct transfer or there would be penalties incurred. when there was a proliferation of the storefront investment firms in the early 90s, the ones who followed the multilevel marketing of investment vehicles ala amway, there were substantial numbers of people caught unaware as the sellers ''downstream" had no real financial or legal knowledge of the ins and outs of the methods and the vehicles they were selling.
@ProblemAgain: It may have been that way in the past. The current IRS code lets you take one distribution per year directly payable to you. Now, by law, tax has to be withheld on that distribution, so you will need to have additional funds available to make up the whole amount when you put the funds into a new (or even the same) qualified account. Then you would have to wait until you file your year end tax return to get a refund on the withheld taxes. http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employee/Rollovers-of-Retirement-Plan-and-IRA-Distributions 4951