Did You Know About These IRA Rollover Rules? (Individual Retirement Account)

Tax deferred IRA rollovers occur when you withdraw cash or other assets from an eligible retirement plan and contribute all or part of it within 60 days to another eligible plan. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the IRA rollover rules allow them to "waive" the 60-day rollover requirement, but you must meet additional qualifications to be eligible for the waiver.

From time to time, the IRS has extended the 60-day requirement for IRA rollovers. For example, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina left some tax-payers in a difficult situation. Not only would the hurricane have made persons eligible for the waiver, if a person needed to make use of the fund for as long as three years, as part of the recovery effort, they would have been allowed to eventually return it to another eligible account without penalty.

The IRS' IRA rollover rules are not typically that lenient. Only one roll-over is allowed within a 12 month period. Investors that have broken that rule have ended up paying taxes on the entire value of the fund. There are alternative transactions that are less risky.

Under the IRA rollover rules, all roll-over checks must be reported to the IRS by the current custodial company. On the other hand, a transaction called a transfer (sometimes referred to as a direct roll-over) is not reported to the IRS. There is no frequency limitation on a transfer, but transferring the fund several times can be costly, as custodial companies charge fees for early withdrawals and conversions. Plus, you never know which assets are transferrable and which must be liquidated. Liquidating a stock holding, right now, is not a good idea. You'll lock in a loss that right now exists only on paper.

If you make less than $100,000, you can use IRA rollovers to convert from a traditional to a Roth account, but you would have to pay income taxes on any funds that were made using pre-tax money. Maximum earnings are different for couples and the cap will be lifted completely in 2010, unless the law changes.

People are sometimes interested in converting to a Roth because qualified distributions are never taxed. There are other advantages, as well.

Under the IRA rollover rules, you could also switch to self-directing. Self-directing offers more investment options, some of which offer much higher returns than the traditional stocks, bonds and bank CDs. At the moment we are offering a real estate investment where you can double your ROI, indeed you can at least double the ROI that you earned last year, and that is guaranteed. Please check this investment out for yourself.

If you do take IRA rollovers, you'll have lots of cash in the account and it's a good time to look around and see what choices are out there. One good choice exists in the housing market. Affordable housing is more difficult than ever to find.

During the bubble, investors and builders provided housing for those that could afford a home in the $250,000+ range. In many areas, there is nothing lower priced.

Under the IRA rollover rules, you can use the account to invest in real estate. You just have to follow a few other rules. Learn them and follow them. That should be all that you need to know about IRA rollovers, but you need to learn more about the real estate market. If you have a couple of minutes to spare, please feel free to visit my website.