What Does Qualified Retirement Plan Mean? 
Most qualified retirement plans are under ERISA -LRB- The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 . -RRB- Theyre usually employer sponsored or individually elected plans , i.e. employer examples would be 401 -LRB- k -RRB- s , SEPs or 412 -LRB- e -RRB- . Individual plans examples would be Roth IRAs or traditional IRAs . The contributions are tax deductible . The plan account accumulates tax deferred . The distributions are taxable as ordinary income . 