IRA Plans

Yes

It depends on the provisions of your employer. Most will allow a rollover from another qualified plan (meaning an IRA or another 401(k) plan) but you have to be actively employed when you request to roll funds into the 401(k) plan.

What? Please provide more info/details.

b...savings

You need to speak with a tax professional. Contributions to an Individual Retirement Account come from an individual's earnings and are limited by the IRS.

As of April 2006 the FDIC coverage for IRA's was increased to $250,000 from $100,000. This only includes money invested in bank deposites such as CD's and Money Market accounts and does not include Mutual Funds, Stock, Bonds, or Annuities. If you have non qualified accounts with the same bank you would receive $100.000 in coverage for those per person in addition to the $250,000 for the IRA account bringing your total coverage in those cases to $350,000. Married couples are eligible for $700,000 using the above information with the ability to increase this to 1.1 million with using living trusts or POD (payable on death) accounts.

Notes: Money Market mutual funds are not covered.

The right answer is, It Depends.

I like a ROTH IRA. Here we pay tax on our contributons. Qualified distributions from a ROTH IRA are tax free. The ROTH IRA also allows us to take our Annual Contributions out of the IRA at any time without tax or without penalty for any reason, even to make a trip to Vegas and put it all on red.

A Traditional IRA is OK too. Here we do not pay tax on our annual contributions giving us a tax advantage now. All distributions from a Traditional IRA are subject to income tax, and if taken before age 59.5 years, there is a 10% penalty. There are a few items that qualify for avoiding the 10% penalty.

Everyone can contribute to a Traditional. Not everyone can take the tax deduction. This is called an after tax Traditional IRA. The earnings are tax deferred. When you take a distribution from this IRA part of the distribution is subject to income tax and part of the distribution is tax free. These amounts are based on the ratio of your after tax contributions to the total amount of the IRA.

Both IRAs will provide you with more investment choices when you use a discount broker as the IRA custodian.

IRAs typically are afforded $1,000,000 of bankruptcy protection. This may vary from state to state.

The 401k contribution is taken from our pay each pay day. Some employer's offer a matching contribution. The Traditional 401k is not taxed when we contribute. It is taxed when we take a qualified distribution. Investment choices are usually limited to a set of mutual funds and savings accounts. Some 401k plans offer a loan feature. I do not recommend you ever take a loan from your 401k account.

Some employers offer a ROTH 401k. Your contributions are taxed as you make the contribution. When you take the qualified distribution from the plan your money comes out tax free. When the employer makes a matching contribution to this IRA, it is a tax deferred contribution. You will pay ordinary income taxes on distributions of the employer's contribution.

When you start contributing to a 401k plan, READ the Summary Plan Description. You will be given a copy, read it.

The big advantage of a 401k plan is for 2008 you can contribute up to $15,500. And if you are over age 50, you can contribute an additional $5,000. This "Catch-up" contribution can be made even if your 401k limits you to an amount lower than the $15,500.

Which is better? It Depends.

For Traditional IRA (sep, simple, etc), you have to start withdrawing at age 70 1/2. At that time you would have to take a RMD each year based on your age factor and value of the all your trad. IRA (sep, simple, etc) account on last day of previous year (PFMV) - i.e, if your account(s) were worth $100,000 and your age factor was 23.5, then you would have to take $4255.32 for that years RMD. The RMD will change each year since the value of the account and age factor change each year. The goal of the RMD is to zero out the account, but the age factor are so far set that it not possible/will never happen.

You not have to ever take withdraws from a Roth IRA since no RMD is required.

Annual percentage yield (APY) is a normalized representation of an interest rate, based on a compounding period of one year

The maximum income allowed from a limited partnership in an IRA is $1,000 per year. Under the IRA, a limited partnership is entitled a master limited partnership or MLP.

You can`t do anything with it, other than take it to the bank it is made out to and deposit it.

You should review the Publication 590,link provided.

There are a number of instances and circumstances where the penalty won't apply, and some that increase it.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p590/ch01.html

They can sometimes...you would need to check with your state laws to see.

Are you looking for a IRA account that you had at a brokerage firm years ago? A lot of firms have merger and changed names. If you know the name of the old firm, then you can call the firm that company became.

traditional is pre-tax and roth is post-tax , meaning traditonal is tax deferred until you take disbursment and roth is taxed already.

Would really depend from firm to firm. Some firms require that you have to deposited money into the account when it is opened, other don't.

if the brits come for u t.a.l/

According to IRA regulations, if any part of an IRA is used as collateral, the entire IRA is considered to be distributed. Distribution of such accounts are subject to income taxes and an additional penalties. This is important because margin accounts require that you pledge your account as collateral. Your attempt to convert an IRA account into a margin account will nullify it's "qualified" status. It is for this reason that investment firms will not provide margin for a retirement account.

Also, you are not allowed to have/keep a debit balance in a IRA account

***Revision

Updated as Feb. 5, 2011

Select few brokerages will grant margin on IRA accounts.

However, the margin capability will not be allowed leverage.

The alternative purpose for seeking margin account is to avoid the settlement period (3 days, in which, the proceeds and principal cannot be used).

Interactive Brokers and TD Ameritrade allow margining IRAs for settlement avoidances, only. This service has been approved be the Securities Exchange Commission.

Bottom line: YES, you can margin an IRA account. NOT, for leveraging purposes.

Since you are usually charged a fee for each account, it is best to have all of your IRA funds in one account. I recommend utilizing a self-directed IRA account from a firm such as PENSCO Trust, where you can have all types of investments, even real estate and businesses, in one account. They can set up subaccounts with any broker you may utilize and you only get charged fees once. Watch out for "free" IRA accounts. The sponsor can earn exorbitant fees hidden in the investments they offer or pay you below market rates to earn money from your account.

One way to evaluate the best place for an IRA - what will you be charged per year for the account? and are the available investments also low cost? Vanguard is a good place to open an IRA, not only is the annual charge for the IRA account low ($20/year) but the investments available to put into the IRA are also low cost. Fidelity is another place with reasonable IRA costs. There are many other planners and companies out there that will charge sky high prices for the same thing as what Vanguard offers you. i'd check out Vanguard before looking elsewhere.

Yes you can do that. Even you can convert it into the ROTH IRA too. For more details speak with your plan administrator. == == == == * * * * * http://www.irs.gov/retirement/article/0,,id=137864,00.html

Yes. Your ability to have a personal or spousal Roth IRA is a separate questions from whether you can have a SEP IRA. Anyone with earned income can contribute up to $4,000 (or $5,000 if your are 50 or over) in 2007 and $5,000 (or $6,000 in 2008) if they meet the income requirements. You must have earned income of under $99,000 for 2007 and $101,000 for 2008 for singles or $156,000 for 2007 and $159,000 for 2008 for married filing jointly. For a SEP IRA, you must have business income to contribute. You can contribute up to 25% of your business income with a limit of $45,000 in 2007 and $50,000 in 2008 (those 50 years or older may contribute $5,000 more). Thus, if you have business income, you can contribute to your ROTH IRA if you are eligible and a SEP IRA. If your SEP IRA is likely to become substantial or you have funds in a 401(k) from a previous employer and you are an one person (or one person with a spouse) business, you should look into individual 401(k)s. All of the major financial institution and self-directed trust companies offer them. They work like a corporate 401(k) but you have complete control. They may be better than a SEP since: 1. The contribution limits are higher 2. You can borrow in a 401k but not a SEP 3. You can have a Roth 401(k) but you cannot make Roth contributions to a SEP 4. You can buy life insurance or invest in a S corporationin a 401(k)