Self-Directed IRA & Roth IRA Benefits: Pros of Both IRAs

If you are a typical American employee, you probably think that you need another payroll deduction item as much as you need another hole in the head. While it’s understandable that you might not like the idea of more money taken out of your paycheck, you have to remember that there are a lot of benefits of an IRA or Roth IRA.

These benefits help you not just several years down the road, or in your retirement years based on your retirement plan, but they can also take effect right now. That’s right, you have an option. You can get immediate benefits from an IRA account.

5 Benefits of Self-Directed IRAs & Roth IRAs

Here's just a small portion of the list of the benefits of an IRA account to get the most out of your investment options.

1. Maximum Control in Investment Options

One of the great things about an Individual Retirement Account is that you can control how much money you can put on your Roth IRA or Traditional IRAs. If you feel that you don’t have that much money to invest. You can set your IRA monthly contributions to a very minimal level and avoid maximum contribution.

However, if you are looking towards retirement and you're looking to put away as much money as possible, you can set up a maximum payroll contribution that will reach your annual contribution limit. There’s a lot to be said about this ability to control the amount of funds you contribute to your IRA retirement plan account. If anything, it gives you peace of mind. It also gives you a sense of control.

One of the worst things about retiring and also investing is that many people feel that they are not in control. They don’t feel that they can control the outcome of their retirement savings decisions, of their investment decisions.

Well, to a certain degree, you get that control with an IRA. This is one of the biggest benefits of an IRA. Sure, to a certain extent, a lot of these benefits are merely perceived. Meaning you only think you get these benefits but at the end of the day, dollars and cents is what matter most. And since you have a lot of control over your IRA contributions, this can go a long way in you feeling that you help craft and control your standard of living when it comes time to retire.

2. Tax Benefits and Advantages

In the United States and most other jurisdictions, the world over, income taxes are based on your annual gross income. Keep in mind that this gross income is an adjusted figure. In other words, legally speaking, this is what's leftover, after you've taken out legal deductions or legal reductions of your income.

In most jurisdictions, the more money you make the higher the percentage of tax you have to pay. This is part and parcel of a progressive tax system. In most jurisdictions, the political infrastructure favors taxing the rich more than either the middle class or the poor. This makes a lot of political sense. You need to know this so that you can take legal means to reduce your income. The lower your income, the lower the taxes you pay. That’s the bottom line.

The great thing about an IRA account is that up to a certain amount, you can use whatever money you put into your IRA account to reduce your total taxable income. The lower your taxable income is, the lower your taxes. This is one of the biggest benefits of an IRA account.

This is especially crucial if your income is on the borderline between a higher percentage rate and a higher bracket and a lower bracket. By investing money in your IRA, you can take yourself out of the higher bracket and into a lower bracket. This is not just a few cents we are talking about here. This can base your taxes' money.

3. Contribution Limit Rules and Some Time

Another of the many benefits of an IRA account is that you can contribute to your IRA up to a certain age. You’re not doomed to keep contributing to your IRA as long as you’re alive. It doesn’t work that way. Your contributions stop when you are 70.5 years of age. If you want you can also, in certain situations, stop contributing earlier.

See also: Best investments For IRA

Consider diversifying your retirement portfolio with gold in your IRA. Diversifying helps secure assets for the long-term. Learning about rolling over your IRA to gold can be a good first step to considering this option.

4. Tax Break/Tax Deductions

The great thing about an IRA is that it helps you save money on taxes immediately. In other words, in the year that you made the contributions, you save money on taxes. Whatever invests gains that your IRA account generates over time, whatever dividends it racks up, whatever earnings your IRA account generates, you don’t pay taxes on that.

There is no annual tax on investment gains, portfolio increases or stock dividends. When do you pay taxes on your IRA? You pay when you are withdrawing money FROM your IRA account which is several years from now. If you are a young person, this could be several decades from now. Why is this, a big deal?

Well, factoring in inflation, chances are high that you are not really going to be paying that much taxes on your IRA contributions now, and its increases because on a dollar for dollar basis, your account has increased at a higher rate than the amount of money that you have to pay. Again this is all adjusting for the rate of inflation.

If you look at your IRA situation from a certain perspective, it would be easy to conclude the U.S. Government is basically giving you a free 'subsidy' to provide for your own retirement nest egg.

It is foregoing taxes it has a legal right to collect by letting you write off part of your income if you invest that part into your IRA. This makes sense from the government’s perspective because it enables people to plan for and provide for their retirements and this reduces the load on the government to provide such security for people. It all works out in the end.

5. Nontaxable Withdrawals: Tax Advantages

If you don’t withdraw from your IRA account up until you reach retirement age, your withdrawals are nontaxable if you withdraw when you are 65. At any age over 59 years of age, there are no tax penalties for IRA withdrawals.

Roth IRAs are fined with after-tax dollars, enabling tax-free withdrawals as long as you have had an account for at least five years and are older than 59 1/2.

Keep the list of benefits of an IRA account in mind when making your financial plans. Make sure to consult an investment advisor before making any significant changes to your retirement accounts to avoid gold IRA scams. Your IRA can definitely help you retain the value of your hard-earned money and also grow it over time.

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