Types of Precious Metal IRA Accounts

IRAs, or Individual Retirement Accounts, are so very powerful exactly because they feature a type of IRA for literally everyone under the American sun and their situations. This is because for anyone who has some money which you can afford to tie up in investments longer term, you do not have any good reason to not open an IRA and save money on a tax-deferred basis for retirement. It is this tax-free deposit of principle and investment returns growth that makes these accounts so incredibly powerful. Five of the best and most noteworthy types of these IRA accounts are covered here.

SEP IRA

SEP IRA’s is their acronym for Simplified Employee Pensions for Individual Retirement Arrangement plan. This variation on the traditional IRA in the U.S. is a version by which business owners are able to offer their employees and themselves a way to save these retirement benefits for the future. This SEP delivers an ideal solution for the owners of businesses to contribute resources toward the retirement of their hard-working employees and themselves. They make these contributions into an IRA or annuity that is specifically established for each member of the plan who is allowed to participate.

SEP IRA’s are much like traditional IRA’s in that they follow the identical rollover, distribution, and investment rules as do their traditional IRA cousins. Administration costs for running such plans for the self-employed who have no employees are minimal. When the business owner does have employees who work for him or her, then the rules state that all such employees have to be given identical benefits under the SEP plan. As these SEP’s are a hybrid form of IRAs their retirement and savings funds are able to be invested in the same manner as with the majority of types of IRAs out there. The rules state that all employees who meet the following three criteria must be included within the SEP plan:

  1. Employee has reached 21 years of age
  2. Employees have worked for company in at least three of the prior five years
  3. Workers have earned minimally $600 in compensation during the tax year

Self-directed IRAs

It is unfortunate that the majority of IRA investors are not aware of all of the many investment options available to them in their IRAs. These individuals end up going with the standard kinds of investments with their retirement funds, choosing the limited mutual fund, stocks, ETF’s, and bonds with which they are familiar. It is true that these are among the most popular types of assets contained in American retirement accounts, but they are not necessarily the best yielding ones and certainly are not the only kinds permitted. IRAs are allowed to hold a great range of investments that include even private businesses and real estate, among other types. The IRAs with these special privileges are known as Self-Directed IRAs. A few reasons why such types of IRAs make great sense are:

• After working for decades, the majority of your whole life savings will be tied up in some form of retirement account. The easiest way to take advantage of a large and unusual investment is with your IRA funds.

Real Estate Investments are among the best yielding over time, and it is difficult to track down even good REITs which will provide you with the real estate profit potential that equals possessing a certain piece of property. While the publicly traded REITs including Simon Property Group, Vornado Realty, and Equity Residential are enormous and diversified operations that have properties across the nation, this gives them great stability by sacrificing profit potential unfortunately.

• By investing in a private venture investment, it is easy to realize greater profits than in owning common stock of public companies in the markets. This is why wealthy venture capitalists are always seeking a way to buy in while a venture is in its earliest stages, and you can do this with a Self-Directed IRA as well to purchase a share in a brilliant but early business idea that will provide you with enormous payouts when it becomes successful.

• Franchises are another fantastic opportunity that you can pursue with IRA funds in a Self-Directed IRA. Owning a Tim Hortons or McDonald’s is a much more profitable enterprise than simply purchasing shares in one of them.

• Similarly buying shares in a gold miner such as Newmont Mining or Anglo-American is not going to provide the returns that actually owning gold and silver bullion bars and coins in your IRA likely will.

All off this is to say that any person who has amassed a great deal of money in a Self-Directed IRA will want to consider investment ideas that are superior to standard investments like securities. This includes everything ranging from franchises to tax liens to precious metals on to private equity, businesses, and Real Estate. This is why such Self-Directed IRAs can really help you to get ahead in your retirement saving and planning.

Roth IRAs

Another interesting type of IRA that allows contributions from pre-taxed investment and retirement funds is a Roth IRA. With these special types of IRAs, permissible withdrawals are not taxable, although account earnings are taxable and penalized if they are withdrawn in a manner that is not considered a “qualified” distribution. In these Roth IRAs, you are able to continue making contributions to the account after reaching 70 ½ years. In fact, you are able to keep funds within this account so long as you are alive. It may also be set up as an annuity when it is established as a Roth IRA. Contribution limits for these Roths are the same as with traditional IRAs.

401k

401k plans are work-related retirement plans. These qualified retirement vehicles can be your most useful and valuable planning for retirement opportunity that is available to you. Besides tax-deferred growth and tax deductions provided up front, you also benefit from automatic savings deducted from every paycheck and typically from employer matching funds, which are the closest thing to free money you will likely encounter. All that is required to join a company’s provided 401k plan is to fill in a simple and easy form to participate. You get to choose the amount that you save, as well as to pick out your particular investment choices. You also benefit from the ability to change as often as you want the amount you contribute from your paychecks, whether you continue to participate or not, and the investment vehicles of which your funds are a part.

The rules for these 401k plans are fairly straightforward and easy. You are only allowed to participate in such a plan if and when your company invites you to do so. The company would have to offer the plan first and you would have to qualify for it to participate. A cardinal rule about 401ks is that you can not start one up by yourself.

457b

457b Accounts are a useful alternative and powerful retirement investment building tool for the countless thousands of individuals who work for either local or state governments or for not for profit corporations. They were named for the IRS code which established them. As they allow workers to save as much as a deferral limit of $18,000 in 2015 and 2016, these tax free contributions can be a significant source of retirement funds that are allowed to grow with no taxes taken out now until the point where the money is withdrawn.

Two different types of 457b plans exist. The first is for employees of governments like local and state workers, firefighters, police officers, and even teachers. The second type is for not for profit companies like charitable groups, hospitals, and unions.

What is surprising to many individuals is that these 457b plans have many advantages, making them superior in many ways to other kinds of employer-related retirement plans, like 401k plans. For starters, you do not suffer from a 10% penalty if you withdraw money before you turn 59 1/2 if you are concluding work or retiring. Deffered income taxes can be avoided by rolling over the savings to a different retirement plan. Government plans may be transformed into an employer-sponsored plan or a personal IRA, while not for profit employees can roll into another 457b plan. Another tremendous advantage lies in the fact that employees with 457b plans can also have 401ks and can contribute the maximum contribution amounts to both accounts at once.

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