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Financial Planning / Foolish 401(k)s


Subject:  Re: Self directed IRA's Date:  2/2/1999  9:29 AM
Author:  TMFMax Number:  807 of 25318

<<After I roll my account over to Datek, will this be the type of account that I can
contribute to come tax time? My wife and I plan on each contributing $2k to a
Roth IRA, would we also be able to contribute to this newly opened Rollover

I also asked Datek this question. Can we open a Roth IRA jointly like our
regular brokerage account and just send them the $4k or would this have to be
two accounts.

I would think one is possible (only makes sense) but the online Roth IRA
application at Datek does not seem to have an option for joint account?>>


You can't roll 401k money directly into a Roth IRA, but you can roll it into a traditional IRA and from there to a Roth. Once into the Roth, that is an account that you can continue to contribute the $2000 a year into.

As to the other question, no, no joint account on an IRA. IRA stands for "Individual Retirement Account" (actually the A used to stand for something other than "account" but I can't remember what -- kind of irrelevant), but IRAs are all individual.

Here's a bit more on Roths that might answer some more questions for you:
