I'm 63 y/o federal employee with a regularr IRA that I opened in 1996 and a ROTH IRA I opened in 1999. I cannot find the orginal documentation for either of these accounts. I do have an Excel spreadsheet that indicates I made the following deposits:
9/3/1996 deposit reg IRA 4/8/1999 deposit ROTH IRA 4/8/1999 deposit reg IRA 12/13/1999 transferred from reg acct to ROTH IRA 4/17/2000 deposit ROTH IRA 4/13/2001 deposit ROTH IRA for year 2000 4/13/2001 deposit ROTH IRA for year 2001 4/1/2008 deposit regular IRA (do have form 5498 for this deposit)I don't believe, at least on some of these desposits. I included deposit documentation when I filed my taxes. What do I need to do to straightned all of this out so i can start making transactions of these accouts.? Do I need to get duplicate copies of my tax returns for the above years to see if i included IRA/ROTH documentation? Do I need full copies? My brokerage account has changed hands three times and the current holder, Ameritrade, tells me they don't have documetation for desposits I made when the avcoount was held by the previous account holders.
Specific ROTH questions:
After reading the following article I 'm wondering can I withdraw profits from my ROTH IRA without penalties because I'm older than 59 1/2 and I had the account for more that five years? Can I withdraw profits even if they haven't been in the account for five years per the following statment?
" . . . But there is a five-year waiting period for withdrawals of any earnings. The five-year clock for earnings on regular contributions starts the year you open your first Roth IRA, and it doesn't reset each time you make a contribution. You also have to turn 59½ years old to avoid a 10% penalty for early withdrawals on any earnings, along with income tax. . . "
Today, 5/31, in the WSJ, page B2, there is a good article, Contributions Methods Sway Roth Withdrawal Rules, which raises several interesting points
************************************************************************************************************************** Contribution Methods Sway Roth Withdrawal Rules By KELLY GREENE May 31, 2008; Page B2We couldn't contribute to our Roth IRA this year because of the income limits. I noted that we could contribute to a nondeductible IRA and then later convert it to a Roth, assuming we are under the $100,000 income limit or wait until 2010.
My question: Since we already have the Roth accounts open, am I right in assuming there is no five-year waiting period to make penalty-free withdrawals? Also, am I right in assuming that you can convert a nondeductible IRA into an existing Roth IRA?
--Bill Uhr, Falls Church, Va.
The way the five-year waiting period works depends on the way you're putting money into a Roth individual retirement account. There's one set of rules for making penalty-free withdrawals if you are contributing to a Roth IRA, and another set for Roth IRA conversions.
Roth IRAs are attractive because they have no withdrawal requirements for the account's owner, along with no tax on future earnings on their assets, unlike traditional IRAs. As you note, there are income limits for making Roth IRA contributions. For 2008, your income must fall below $101,000 for an individual or $159,000 for couples filing jointly. If your income exceeds those limits, though, you may still be able to make a partial contribution (described in Publication 590 at
There are no income limits for contributions to a nondeductible, traditional IRA, which you could convert to a Roth later. (One note: If you have pretax money in any IRA, you would owe some income tax on the conversion. Publication 590 explains how to do the math.) This year and next, you can convert a traditional IRA to a Roth if your modified adjusted gross income is no more than $100,000 a year, either for an individual or married couple filing jointly. Modified adjusted gross income is essentially all of your income except for that from any Roth IRA conversions and a few other exceptions. Publication 590 includes a work sheet explaining how to calculate this amount, along with more about what does and doesn't count toward modified adjusted gross income.
Starting in 2010, there are no income limits for Roth conversions. And in
2010 only, you can spread the income and accompanying tax from a Roth conversion across 2011 and 2012.Once you've socked away money in a Roth IRA, either through a regular contribution or by converting other IRA assets, when can you take the money out without a penalty? You can withdraw your original contributions at any time with no penalty -- an advantage that a lot of people don't realize. But there is a five-year waiting period for withdrawals of any earnings. The five-year clock for earnings on regular contributions starts the year you open your first Roth IRA, and it doesn't reset each time you make a contribution. You also have to turn 59½ years old to avoid a 10% penalty for early withdrawals on any earnings, along with income tax.
There's a separate five-year clock for assets you convert to a Roth account from other retirement accounts, says Ed Slott, an IRA consultant in Rockville Centre, N.Y. You have to hold those specific assets in a Roth for five years or until you turn 59½, whichever comes first, to make penalty-free withdrawals.
Why the separate five-year waiting period? The federal government wants to make sure Roth conversions aren't used as a penalty-free way to raid traditional IRAs early, Mr. Slott says.