Some years ago, when some of our fellow steely-eyed killers started swapping paint at 600 knots a bit too frequently, “back to basics” became the method from on high. The Bobs felt that we had lost touch with some basic airmanship and general knowledge. If we went back to the basics, we could save some blood and treasure. But, what if no one ever taught us the basics, say about something like the important topic of investing accounts? Enter this article!
Account Types 101
There are only a handful of investing or other types of accounts that most of us need to know about. To avoid clutter, I’m not even going to talk about the others. Here we go! The five accounts you need to know about are: IRAs, Employer Plans, Taxable Brokerage Accounts, 529 College Savings Plans, and UTMA/UGMA accounts. We’ll skip banking accounts like checking, savings, High Yield Savings Accounts, and CDs for now. IRA: An IRA is an Individual Retirement Arrangement, btu most of us call it an Individual Retirement Account. Let us never speak of this silly distinction again.- An IRA is a tax-advantaged account you set up yourself (or an advisor helps).
- It has nothing to do with your TSP or 401(k).
- The IRS sets limits on how much you can invest in an IRA each year, $7K under age 50 in 2025.
- IRAs come in 2 basic flavors, and you can inherit someone’s IRA:
- Roth: No deduction on your tax return, but the growth and distributions are generally tax-free.
- Traditional: Deduct the contribution on your tax return, subject to limitations, no taxes while the money grows, but pay taxes when you take distributions in retirement.
- You can have many IRAs, move money from Traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, move money from Employer Plans to IRAs, move IRAs to Employer Plans, and consolidate IRAs, subject to various rules and potential tax requirements.
- Employer plans can also offer Roth or Traditional options based on the same tax treatment as IRAs.
- The IRS sets the contribution limits for employer plans, but they are much higher than IRAs.
- Employers usually match employee contributions to a certain point and can share profits into the plans.
- You can usually keep your employer plan after leaving the job, but you may not want to.
- Taxable accounts create flexibility because you don’t have to wait until retirement use the money.
- Taxable accounts generally allow access to the entire universe of publicly traded securities.
- Taxable accounts can be jointly or individually owned.
- Taxable accounts can have beneficiary designations to make estate planning easier.
- Taxable accounts get a “step-up in basis” when you die which usually means that any built-in taxable gains go away.
- No federal tax deduction for contributions, but many states with income taxes allow a state deduction.
- Growth is tax-free.
- Distributions for qualified (most college-related) expenses are tax-free.
- You can change the beneficiary to another family member (even grandkids).
- You can roll over leftover money to a Roth IRA, subject to restrictions.
- The downside is that if you can’t or don’t use the money for a qualified expense, you’ll pay income tax plus 10% on the earnings.
- The custodian (usually the parent) operates the account for the child’s benefit until the state age of majority, usually 18-25, then the child takes it over.
- The first few thousand dollars of income are tax-free or at low tax rates, but accounts earning lots of dividends or capital gains can start weighing on the parents’ tax bill.
- The investment options are generally the same as any other taxable account, but these can hold more “exotic” investments.
- Because these must be transferred to the child at a young adult age, many families defer funding until they know what path their child is on to avoid pouring gas on a fire.