A transfer of money from one retirement savings plan to another. You can roll over retirement savings when you change jobs. You are not taxed on the money that you directly roll over from one qualified retirement plan to another. Direct rollovers are permitted to allow people to maintain the tax-deferred status of their money. If you do not directly roll over your retirement savings account, your previous employer is required to withhold a percentage of the account balance for pre-payment of income taxes. Before leaving your former employer, ask them for instructions on how to handle a rollover (even if you do not yet have a new employer) in a way that will not trigger the automatic withholding.