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roth ira conversion

Taking Distributions from Your IRA In Kind

When you take a distribution from your IRA, whether to put the funds in a taxable account or to convert it to a Roth IRA, you have the option of taking the distribution “in kind” or in cash. In cash means that you sell the holding in the account or simply take distribution of cash that already exists in the account. This is the most common method of taking distributions, and it is definitely the simplest way to go about receiving and dealing with a distribution.  Cash is cash, it has only one value – therefore the tax owed on the distribution, whether a complete distribution or a conversion to a Roth account. On the other hand, if you choose to use the “in kind” option, you might just save some tax on the overall transaction.  The reason this is true is due to the fact that the amount reported […]

Ordering Rules for Roth IRA Distributions

Tax (Photo credit: 401K) Did you know that there is a specific order for distributions from your Roth IRA? The Internal Revenue Service has set up a group of rules to determine the order of money, by source, as it is distributed from your account.  This holds for any distribution from a Roth account. Ordering rules First, over-contributions or return of your annual contribution for the tax year.  This means that if you’ve made a contribution to the Roth IRA in the tax year, the first money that you withdraw from the account will be the money that you contributed that year.  If you over-contributed to your account a prior year. Growth on this over-contribution or annual contribution needs to be removed at this time as well, with tax and penalty paid as required. Second, regular annual contributions to the account.  The next money that comes out is the total […]

Pre-Death Planning: Roth Conversion

Image via Wikipedia Financial planning often requires us to face our own certain demise – something that we often don’t want to do, but still a certainty that we all must face. Among the things that we want to do when planning for the inevitable would be to make certain that our surviving loved ones have access to adequate monetary resources to support themselves, in the most cost-effective manner.  Another thing that we hope to accomplish is to make the transition as easy as possible for our loved ones.  One way to do this is to convert a good portion of your IRA or other tax-deferred funds to a Roth IRA account.  Here’s why: By converting to a Roth account, you will make the funds in that account available to your heirs totally tax free. Granted, your estate will also be smaller by the amount of tax that you paid […]

Roth Conversion/Recharacterization Strategy

Image via Wikipedia 1/1/2018 Note: Recharacterization of Roth conversion is no longer allowed as of tax year 2018. The last tax year that you could recharacterize Roth conversions is 2017. See Roth Recharacterization is No Longer Allowed for more details. If you have an IRA you probably know about the concept of a Roth IRA conversion – where you take distribution of a portion of your IRA and directly transfer that money into your a Roth IRA, paying tax as you go.  Then the Roth IRA can continue to grow tax-free (as Roth IRAs do) and you’ll never owe tax on your qualified distributions from the Roth IRA. In addition, if the investments you’ve made in the Roth IRA have lost money, before October 15 of the following year you have the opportunity to recharacterize your Roth conversion.  If you didn’t recharacterize, you’d be paying tax on a conversion amount […]

Is It Really Allowed – Making a Non-Deductible IRA Contribution Followed By a Roth Conversion?

I occasionally receive this question: Can I make a non-deductible IRA contribution, and then shortly after convert the IRA into a Roth IRA?  My income is too high for me to make a contribution directly to a Roth IRA. Image by Plbmak via Flickr According to the rules in place today, you can do this.  Here are the applicable rules: There is no income limit for an individual to make a non-deductible IRA contribution. There is no income limit for an individual to make a Roth Conversion. There is no time limit on how long a contribution must be in a traditional IRA before converting it to a Roth IRA. Essentially this situation provides the individual with an income above the limits to contribute to a Roth IRA with an avenue to accomplish the funding of a Roth IRA.  It seems too good to be true.  And even though you […]