To hear some tell it, the investing landscape has undergone big changes in 2006 - sort of like the old Wizard of Oz sequel in which hills become valleys and valleys become hills.

I wouldn't call the new rules, adopted this year in Washington and Harrisburg, that earthshaking. But some that deal with investments for retirement and college may be quite valuable to a lot of people.

The accompanying chart on E7 lists most of the big changes of 2006. The key ones remove uncertainty by making permanent some good tax-law changes that were enacted early in the decade but had been set to expire at the end of 2010.

Investment gains in Section 529 college-savings plans are now free of all federal tax if they are used to pay for tuition and other approved college costs, for example. Until this provision was made permanent during the summer, the old rules were set to return after 2010. Those rules merely postponed taxes until gains were withdrawn instead of canceling them.

The 529 plans, sponsored by the states, are a

headache to research. With no guarantee of tax exemption, lots of people felt they weren't worth the trouble.

"The fact that it doesn't expire after 2010 makes it attractive," said Byron Reimus, a free-lance writer and public relations consultant in Yardley. He has more than $80,000 in a Pennsylvania 529 for his son, Clay, a high school senior.

With the tax uncertainty cleared up, Reimus is thinking of increasing his contributions. In fact, in hopes of getting bigger investment gains, he may put future 529 contributions in some other state's plan.

That option became more appealing during the summer, when Pennsylvania enacted rules that exempt all gains in these accounts from state income tax. Previously, that only applied to Pennsylvanians using their state's plan.

"My [investing] window at this point is four years," Reimus said. "We're going to stick with the plan we have here, but the balance of the money we're going to put away for the next few years will go somewhere else."

Also, Pennsylvania this year granted an annual income-tax deduction of up to $12,000 per person, or $24,000 per couple, for contributions to these plans.

Another good change enacted over the summer makes Roth 401(k)s permanent, eliminating the sunset provision that had them expiring after 2010.

Like the regular 401(k), these are retirement-savings plans offered by employers. But while withdrawals from a regular 401(k) are subject to federal income tax, Roth withdrawals are tax-free. The catch is that contributions to Roths are not tax-deductible, as they are with regular 401(k)s.

Roth 401(k)s are new this year and have not taken off, partly because of uncertainty over future tax treatment. With this resolved, more employers are likely to offer them.

They can be especially valuable to younger workers who are in low tax brackets now but could be in much higher ones in the decades to come.

By using the Roth instead of the traditional 401(k), they will give up a relatively small tax savings they could have enjoyed on contributions, but they'll avoid a potentially big tax on future withdrawals.

The Roth also serves investors who just don't want to have tax worries in retirement, and those in higher tax brackets who think tax rates may go up.

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Among the most widely praised changes this year are ones that increase annual contribution limits to IRAs and 401(k)s. Before the Bush tax-cut measures of 2001, the maximum annual contribution was $2,000 to IRAs and $10,500 to 401(k)s.

Those limits were gradually increased under that measure. This year, a person under 50 can put $4,000 into an IRA and $15,000 into a 401(k). People over 50 also can make annual "catch-up" contributions of an additional $1,000 to the IRA and $5,000 to the 401(k).