Everyone wants to be able to live a long and happy life. Part of that starts with ensuring the quality of one’s retirement and making sure that they are setting aside enough capital for a sustainable future. But how is one supposed to set aside money? And what do they need to do to do it? One of the best ways for an individual to optimize their retirement savings is by investing in an individual retirement account (IRA). These types of accounts are designed to maximize the value of one’s money for when they retire. This differs significantly from business banking in Greeley or banking in Greeley online. However, one can still set up an individual retirement account by banking in Greeley or investing with any preferred financial institution.

The one caveat with individual retirement accounts is that there are two main types, both of which do different things for different clients. Most people don’t really know the difference between them. To help those who fall into this category, here is a comparison between traditional and Roth individual retirement accounts.

Traditional IRAs

When discussing IRAs, it is best to start with the traditional version. After all, this was the first iteration of this type of financial account. So, the main objective of an IRA is to maximize one’s retirement savings, or income, by minimizing the tax effects on current earnings. A traditional IRA lets a financial client contribute pretax income to an investment account geared towards a retirement-based timeline for withdrawal. The cost of being able to deposit untaxed income is that one has to pay tax when they withdraw it. But this in itself is where the IRA’s utility shines through.

Typically, when one is financially strongest, they will consider setting aside money for their future – most commonly retirement. When someone is making a decent amount of money with their annual income, their tax bracket can be particularly high – or at least higher than it may be in the future. By using a traditional IRA, an individual can circumvent their higher tax percentage and invest money that will grow tax-free for years to come. The higher one’s tax bracket, the more money they are able to save with each deposit. For that reason, the IRS limits the amount of money one can drop into a traditional IRA. This is done based on age. For individuals under 50 looking to invest their money into a traditional IRA in 2021, they will be limited to a $6000 total deposit. Those over 50 will be granted an additional $1000 that they can add to their limit – making it a $7000 total. Despite the limitations in annual deposits, the difference in tax can make a huge difference later on when one withdraws their capital.

The greatest benefit of a traditional IRA is being able to avoid taxing one’s long-term retirement investments. The only way this becomes feasible is if the investor’s pre-retirement income is higher than their post-retirement income. This matters for a few reasons. One is that if a person has a higher tax bracket while they invest their money, they will be able to avoid an unnecessary loss of cash. This could be a significant chunk of change if their income tax is 25% or higher. However, the degree to which this tax-free investment rewards its investor depends on their income bracket when they withdraw it. For instance, if one has been extremely fortunate and made the right financial decisions to be earning legitimate cash flows while they are retired, they have a reasonably high tax bracket due to the size of their annual income. It is important to note that the capital received from most investments is taxable as income. Therefore, if one’s other investments are quite strong, their retirement income may be reasonably high, as well as the percentage of income that they are taxed. What this means for an IRA is that one won’t be able to extract the maximum amount of value. This is because they will have to tax their withdrawals at a rate that was comparable to their income bracket when they invested, essentially nullifying the majority of the benefits of the IRA. Where IRAs are most successful is when they are extracted after a person has entered a much lower tax bracket. That way, they are taxing a small amount on potentially decades worth of tax-free investments.

An added benefit of traditional IRAs is that the IRS sometimes can qualify IRA deposits as tax deductions on one’s current income. In a way, this is like double dipping one’s investment. For example, if a person contributes the full $6000 annual amount to their IRA, they may be able to claim most or all of that amount as a deduction on their annual tax return. In this case, the Internal Revenue Services would permit this claim and not apply income tax to the earnings dedicated to the IRA. This allows investors to maximize their deposits and benefits from using an IRA.

Roth IRAs

A Roth IRA is similar to a traditional IRA but also distinctly different. This financial instrument is almost like a reverse IRA. Rather than avoiding tax costs on the deposit, one can avoid them through qualified withdrawals. Opposite of traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax dollars. These taxed contributions get put into the IRA and are allowed to grow over time. How this differs from a regular savings account is that all the withdrawals from this account are tax-free. How the money grows and expands is unaffected by tax, as long as certain conditions are met.

In general, a Roth IRA is much less restrictive than other types of tax-free savings accounts. First of all, a contributor can make additional deposits at any age as long as they have recorded some form of income during that fiscal year. Considering how easy it is to do that, one can maintain a Roth IRA indefinitely as a primary savings account.