Make sure you know where you intend on moving your money in
advance!
As you probably know, an individual retirement account requires
that you decide where your money is going to be invested in
order to work with the retirement account. Essentially this is
called a "custodian" for your investments. You should generally
chose a safe custodian - some of the most common ones are mutual
funds, savings accounts, and bonds. While you should definitely
be careful as to which custodian you choose for your retirement
account, don't worry! You are not stuck with the same investment
until you retire.
However, unlike a normal investment, you should keep in mind
that you are only allowed to transfer or "roll over" your
retirement account once a year. Also, there are some very
specific rules that you need to follow. It is generally a good
idea to find out how to transfer a retirement account before you
even begin to invest in one. That way if you ever need to do a
roll over in the future, you'll be ready.
First of all, you should probably have a good idea of where you
want to invest the money before you start the rollover process.
The reason for this is that after you take the money out of your
original IRA custodian, you'll only have 60 days to put it into
the new custodian fund. If you take too long, then you will be
subject to a large penalty tax - and penalties are definitely
not worth the few extra days that you take!
Something to keep in mind is that if you do a roll over, you
will need to report that at the end of the year. Just like
anything else that is involved with your finances, you should
make sure that you keep track of which custodians go with your
individual retirement accounts and how much money is in each
account.
If you are going to do a smaller transfer from one existing IRA
to another, then it is possible that you won't even have to
report your transfer. These transfers are also tax-free. This is
a good idea if you do not want to change all of your money from
one custodian to another, but you think that it would be a good
idea to change how much money you have in each IRA.
About the author:
Jakob Jelling is the founder of Cashbazar.com. Please visit his
website at http://www.cashbazar.com/personal-finance.shtml and
learn how to take control over your personal finances.