I wish someone had told me about IRAs years ago!

Youngsters take note!! Do one deal a year in your Roth and have XX houses paying you tax free rent for retirement. Yes, you WILL be 59.5 someday.

FYI: you can still make a contribution to your 2017 IRA until tax day April 17. $5500. If age 50+ $6500.

$6500 for 2017 plus $6500 for 2018. That’s $13,000 as working capital if you are setting up a brand new account.

Set up another acct for your spouse and you’ll have $26,000 to work with. I prefer to loan out money for easy, simple income.

I LOVE Self Directed Roth IRA because every penny of profit is TAX FREE!! Sell a prop, keep ALL the money. I figure it’s a 40% advantage over traditional investing.

(I’m not a licensed financial advisor and this is quick, general info)

We can pull out the money we contributed “anytime”.

At age 59.5 we can pull out any of the money TAX FREE!!

Roth IRA: pay the tax on the seed but the harvest is tax free.

Traditional IRA: the seed goes in tax free but the harvest is taxed.

Contact my man Mike Todd at IRA Innovations 615-794-8961. He will be at Convention.

BRAD

I maxed my Roth this year. I'm not doing a self-directed one for real estate yet, but hopefully in the future...

Note that, to apply to the 2017 year, the IRA funds have to be DEPOSITED by tax day (the 17th) -- not just MAILED by tax day.

- John...

Also, remember that you can convert money from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA.

I funded my child's Roth IRA when she worked part time during school. For every dollar she made (under the max deposit), I put that into a Roth IRA. I just put it into a target account at Vanguard. She has a nice start on her retirement and it has shown her how quickly it grows. Her focus now is on the 401K at her job that has a company match, but at some point she will have extra money to add to the Roth. She doesn't have to think about opening it, just adding to it at this point.

I remember when I was in my 20s, there was no Roth, but I calculated (by hand because there were no personal computers) the point of diminishing returns on the tax deductions for my traditional IRA contribution. That amount I would put into the IRA for the year. So my savings in taxes funded most of the contribution. As soon as Roth's were available I started to fund them.

$250 dollars a month from age 18 into a retirement investment account has turned into almost One Million Dollars. Each house purchased at age 18, costing an average of $80,000, is now worth over Half a Million Dollars and has given me over a Quarter of A million Dollars Income.

Traditional and Roth IRA deadlines are NOT extended along with your return extension. The date remains the same.

(SEP IRA Employer contributions ARE extended if the business extends, but that's a different matter.)

- John...

I do join you in the wish that we'd learned about Roths earlier. But as we're both not gainfully employed, we now are working on converting hubby's traditional IRA to his Roth, a bit at a time so that we don't "creep" tax brackets.

Mike and all,

My training comes from John Hyre, nationally regarded tax attorney and recent speaker at Convention, (bought his weekend training session at Convention) combined with face to face discussions with Mike Todd of IRA Innovations at Conventions. (Great commections are made at Convention!!)

If your income is too high, consider a Self Directed Roth Solo 401K. No income limits and can contribute $18,500 per year. Cannot use it for an ongoing business like renting houses but can be used to loan out money like a bank.

OR “back door”: set up a Traditional IRA then convert it to a Roth. Even Dave Ramsey is promoting this technique.

Knowledge is power and profit! Your tax guy needs to get around people of wealth.

Traditional investors tend to ignore this stuff.

Guys like me who started with nothing seek out methods.

Nicole: Just to be clear, even with a SEP, that is for the EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION only that can be extended. You can't pay into a SEP yourself with any extension or otherwise. Only if the business taxes are extended may than extend their portion of the SEP contribution.

- John...

Mike: Well, it looks like most of us here aren't making over $131,000/year (single) or $193,000/year (married). If you are, then that is great for you! :)

Note that it just affects your ability to contribute to a Roth IRA. What people making that kind of income can usually do is fund a Traditional IRA and then convert it to a Roth.

See "backdoor ira" if you're interested.

- John...

Mike, fire your tax guy.

Seriously, you're working with someone who shouldn't be doing taxes or should be working for H&R Block.

(Sorry, I was answering Mike as I went and didn't see that Brad had already mentioned it beforehand. Sorry to say the same thing.)

- John...