Some confusion about the Roth IRA five-year rule

The answer is "it depends." :-)

The lengthy explanation starts on page 65 of IRS Publication 590:

That would be interesting since the Roth IRA was "born on January 1, 1998", according to fairmark.com.

But I think your question is: suppose you open one Roth IRA more than 5 years ago and another Roth IRA less than

That might depend on the relationship between the two Roth IRAs. Did you roll over distributions from the first Roth IRA into the second?

Generally, I believe the 5-year clock is on a per-account basis.

So generally (caveat: there are a lot of conditions), you could withdraw from the earlier Roth IRA without penatly, but not from the later one. (If conditions are such that you need to worry about penalties in the first place. Refer to IRS Pub 590.)

However, there are special conditions that apply to Roth IRA contributions due to conversions from a Trad IRA. Generally, each conversion has its own 5-year clock.

So it seems reasonable to wonder if rolled over Roth IRA distributions are affected by the 5-year clock associated with the original Roth IRA or the destination Roth IRA. I don't believe IRS Pub 590 mentions if/how the 5-year clock is affected by Roth IRA rollovers.

I think this question would be better posted to the misc.taxes.moderated newsgroup.

So would this be a good reason to open even a tiny Roth, when the income ceiling is lifted only for 2010, to get the clock started, should finances change in the future?

I took my own suggested, since the OP didn't. And ....

Wrong. So ....

That's a moot question. The 5-year clock for all Roth IRA contributions collectively (except conversion contributions) starts from the beginning of the year in which the first contribution is made to any Roth IRA.

However, each conversion contribution has its own

If you are over 59.5, you can pull out contributions without penalty, but not earnings.

-- Ron

I'm the OP. All my contributions are conversion contributions, as I haven't worked for the last 20 years (age = 75). So this was valuable information to me. Thank you very much! And thanks to all who have contributed to this chain of posts (I know "chain" is the wrong word, but I cannot think of the right word. That's one of the things that happens when age = 75).

======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: Please trim the post to which you respond. "Trim" means that except for a line or two of the previous post to add context, the previous post is deleted. Thank you.