Originally Posted by
Kevo
Yes, the pro rata rule.
You are allowed to contribute $6k per year to an IRA or Roth IRA. If you make enough money, you don't qualify for a Roth IRA and you also get no tax break from contributions to a regular IRA.
To get around this, you have toto first put money in an IRA and then roll it over into a Roth account.
So, you want to do $6k per year into your IRA, then roll it over into a Roth IRA.
If you end with a 0 balance in your IRA, then the IRS allows all of the money new money in the Roth IRA to grow tax free forever. If you roll over $6k out of a $60k balance IRA, the IRS says only 10% of the money that you put into the Roth IRA qualifies for "Roth" tax free growth.
Anyone wishing to get around the pro rata rule that has an existing IRA can roll the balance of the IRA first to a 401k (either employer sponsored or individual), then go through the backdoor process as stated above.
I have a self directed 401k I'm addition to my employer 401k for this reason- it allowed me to roll an IRA balance out of my IRA so that I had a clean slate for a backdoor roth.
The self directed 401k also allows me to contribute income from consulting that I do one the side into the self directed 401k as an employer contribution (I'm my own employer in this situation), above and beyond the employee maximum contribution that I'm limited to in my full time employer's plan.
Important to note that anyone can have a self directed 401k with or without side income though.
And yes, JM2E- I'm investing automatically, twice a month both inside and outside retirement accounts even though I have every expectation that the market could go lower.