What is the 5 year rule for Roth IRA?
The five-year rule could foil your withdrawal plans if you don't know about it ahead of time. This rule for Roth IRA distributions stipulates that five years must pass after the tax year of your first Roth IRA contribution before you can withdraw the earnings in the account tax-free.
Roth IRA withdrawal guidelines
Before making a Roth IRA withdrawal, keep in mind the following rules to avoid a potential 10% early withdrawal penalty: Withdrawals must be taken after age 59½. Withdrawals must be taken after a five-year holding period.
Contributions can always be taken tax- and penalty-free. But Roth IRAs must meet the 5-year aging rule before withdrawals from earnings can be taken tax- and penalty-free. Failing to meet the 5-year rule can result in taxes and penalties.
Once you turn 59½, you needn't worry about this five-year rule, even if you take a payout before your conversion meets the five-year period. For example, there's no 10% penalty if you do a Roth IRA conversion at age 58 and withdraw funds two years later at age 60.
“For Roth conversions, the five-year-holding period is set for each individual conversion amount,” Edmisten says. “The five-year period is counted as tax years. So, for example, a Roth IRA conversion made any time in 2023 would be counted as having been made as of Jan. 1, 2023.”
If your age is greater than 50, it likely doesn't make sense to convert because there is not enough time to allow the Roth IRA growth to exceed the tax cost today.
In general, you can withdraw your Roth IRA contributions at any time. But you can only pull the earnings out of a Roth IRA after age 59 1/2 and after owning the account for at least five years. Withdrawing that money earlier can trigger taxes and a 10% early withdrawal penalty.
Roth IRA contributions are made on an after-tax basis.
The maximum total annual contribution for all your IRAs combined is: Tax Year 2023 - $6,500 if you're under age 50 / $7,500 if you're age 50 or older. Tax Year 2024 - $7,000 if you're under age 50 / $8,000 if you're age 50 or older.
The amount of the distribution depends on how much you have saved in the account and your life expectancy, according to tables published by the IRS. With a Roth IRA, you can leave the money in for as long as you want, letting it grow and grow as you get older and older.
Roth IRAs grow through compounding, even during years when you can't make a contribution. There are no required minimum distributions (RMDs), so you can leave your money alone to keep growing if you don't need it.
What is a backdoor Roth IRA?
A “backdoor” Roth IRA allows high earners to sidestep the Roth IRA's income limits by converting nondeductible traditional IRA contributions to a Roth IRA. That typically requires you to pay income taxes on funds being rolled into the Roth account that have not previously been taxed.
If you make withdrawals from a Roth IRA after you retire, you won't have to pay taxes on them, and that covers both the contributions and the earnings on those contributions. This effectively gives your savings a boost and can be an advantage if you are in a higher tax bracket in retirement.
There's no limit on the number of IRAs you can have, nor on the combination of IRAs you can have. For example, you could decide to have two IRAs, both of them Roth IRAs. On the other hand, you could choose to have two IRAs, but one is a traditional IRA while the other is a Roth IRA.
The point of a Roth IRA is that it's already taxed money that grows tax-free. So, to convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA you'll have to pay ordinary income taxes on your traditional IRA contributions in the year of the conversion before they “count” as Roth IRA funds.
The five-year rule also applies to funds held in a Roth 401(k) account. So if you've had a Roth 401(k) and a Roth IRA for at least five years and you've been actively contributing to both, then the five-year rule shouldn't be an issue for rollovers.
Notably, under Treasury Regulation 1.408A-6, Q&A-2, for the purposes of this 5-year rule the clock starts the first time any money is funded into any Roth IRA, whether by contribution or conversion. There is not a new 5-year clock for each Roth contribution, nor for each Roth account that is held.
Let's say you open a Roth IRA and contribute the maximum amount each year. If the base contribution limit remains at $7,000 per year, you'd amass over $100,000 (assuming a 8.77% annual growth rate) after 10 years. After 30 years, you would accumulate over $900,000.
For the most affluent investors, the decision may be moot anyway due to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) income restrictions for Roth accounts. For 2023, individuals can't contribute to a Roth if they earn $153,000 or more per year—or $228,000 or more if they are married and file a joint return.
Since the contributions were previously taxed, only subsequent earnings would be taxable on a conversion to a Roth IRA. If the investor converts $20,000 to a Roth IRA, 90% ($18,000) would be considered taxable income upon conversion and 10% ($2,000) would be considered after-tax IRA assets and not taxed.
Roth contributions aren't tax-deductible, and qualified distributions aren't taxable income. So you won't report them on your return. If you receive a nonqualified distribution from your Roth IRA you will report that distribution on IRS Form 8606. Learn more about reporting non-deductible Roth IRA contributions.
Do I have to pay taxes on early Roth IRA withdrawal?
To discourage the use of IRA distributions for purposes other than retirement, you'll be assessed a 10% additional tax on early distributions from traditional and Roth IRAs, unless an exception applies. Generally, early distributions are those you receive from an IRA before reaching age 59½.
In the US, the penalty for an ineligible contribution to a Roth IRA is equal to 6% of the excess amount. Alternatively, if the individual is not eligible to take a qualified distribution to fix the error, then there is an additional 10% early withdrawal penalty on any earnings on the erroneous deposit.
- Charles Schwab.
- Wealthfront.
- Betterment.
- Fidelity Investments.
- Interactive Brokers.
- Fundrise.
- Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.
- Vanguard.
The Bottom Line. In many cases, a Roth IRA can be a better choice than a 401(k) retirement plan, as it offers more investment options and greater tax benefits. It may be especially useful if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket later on.
If you contribute 5,000 dollars per year to a Roth IRA and earn an average annual return of 10 percent, your account balance will be worth a figure in the region of 250,000 dollars after 20 years.
