Roth IRA and Other Roth Retirement Accounts

For many of us, Roth accounts offer advantages over traditional IRA and 401k accounts. They can be more flexible and more tax-efficient, permitting you to create and preserve more retirement wealth. This free online guide offers help in understanding how to choose the type of account that’s best for you, and explains special rules that apply to Roth accounts: contributions, conversions, recharacterizations and distributions. A topical index of the pages in this guide appears below.

Our book: Go Roth! (now available in a 2015 edition) provides a complete, authoritative, plain language explanation of rules and strategies for all types of Roth accounts.

What Hath Roth Wrought

This section provides introductory material to obtain general familiarity with the subject.

To Roth or Not to Roth

This section deals with the choice between traditional retirement accounts and Roth accounts.

Contributions to Roth IRAs

This section deals with contributions to Roth accounts.

Roth Conversions

This section deals with converting a traditional retirement account to a Roth account.

Recharacterizations

Managing Your Account

Go Roth!, our book on this topic, contains extensive guidance on investing and other aspects of managing a retirement account. At this time, only the following topic is covered in this online guide.

Roth Distributions

This section deals with distributions, the final stage in the life cycle of a Roth account.

Designated Roth Accounts

This section deals with designated Roth accounts, which are Roth accounts in 401k and similar plans, including  403b and 457b plans as well as the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan.