- 602-341-3456
- Free shipping for all orders
Paper assets like bonds, stocks and mutual funds may provide you with limited financial assurance. In fact, you may find yourself worrying about how well they perform and whether or not they will have as much value as when you bought them when you retire.
Rather than spend years worrying about your portfolio, you can diversify it by investing in precious metals. Specifically, you may find a self-directed precious metals IRA can give you more confidence and peace of mind when you are serious about building wealth for your eventual retirement. Follow these simple tips to open and fund a self-directed precious metals IRA today.
When you open a self-directed precious metals or gold IRA, you must follow several critical IRS rules, particularly if you want to enjoy the tax benefits for your account and avoid expensive penalties. The foremost rule you need to abide by involves entrusting your new IRA to an IRS-approved custodian.
Many investors choose custodians like banks and credit unions for custodians for their self-directed precious metals IRAs. An IRS-approved custodian for your IRA will advise you on critical details like:
When you consider custodians for your self-directed precious metals or gold IRA, you should look for one that has:
These qualities can give you the confidence of your self-directed IRA being handled competently and legally. You may also find it more affordable to maintain this type of retirement savings account and rely on it to provide you with the value you want for your retirement.
After you establish your new self-directed IRA, you can then fund it in preparation for buying gold or other precious metals to add to it. You can fund your new account by using cash, if you prefer. However, you can also transfer funds from other savings or retirement accounts you may have open.
For example, many investors like to transfer funds from accounts like a:
Before you transfer funds from these accounts, you may want to find out if you must pay any penalties. Many times, you can transfer funds from accounts like a Roth IRA without penalty, depending on your financial institution. You also need to be aware of how long it can take those transfers of funds to clear. If you use cash, you may be able to purchase precious metals right away. However, if you transfer funds from an existing account, you may have to wait for a week, if not up to three weeks, for them to be made available in your new IRA. Your custodian can advise you on how long funds transfers may take. You can then decide in what way you should add funds to your new self-directed precious metals IRA.
After you add funds to your new self-directed precious metals IRA, you can then decide what kinds of precious metals you want to buy and how much you want to add to your account. In fact, you are not the person who will actually buy the precious metals. Rather, your custodian will make that purchase on your behalf.
Your custodian will also ensure your precious metals meet the current IRS purity standards for whatever ones you plan on buying. Gold and silver, for example, must be at least 99.5 percent pure. Precious metals like palladium and platinum must be at least 99.5 percent pure.
Your custodian will also ensure the precious metals meet any weight requirements and have the required serial numbers or other markings on them. These requirements may initially seem rather burdensome to follow. However, the IRS utilizes them to ensure your self-directed IRA has the desired value and also can accumulate the desired amount of wealth for your retirement.
After you buy the precious metals for your IRA, you may initially believe that you can keep them in a safe deposit box at the bank or somewhere in your home. However, the IRS does not allow you to store your own precious metals. Instead, you have to send it to a depository for safekeeping.
You can always ask your IRA’s custodian for a referral to a trustworthy depository. Chances are your custodian has a list of depositories that financial institutions rely on to keep precious metals for their IRA clients.
You can also do your own research and find a depository on your own. As with selecting a custodian for your IRA, you want to ensure the depository has several notable qualities before you contract with it. These qualities include:
These qualities can give you peace of mind that your precious metals are being kept safely for you until you decide to liquidate or add more gold, silver or other metals to your account. Your depository will also store the precious metals for you under the account name for your self-directed IRA for your convenience and security.
Once you get the account opened, funded and send your precious metals off to the depository for safekeeping, your next logical step involves monitoring your self-directed precious metals IRA. You should check it regularly to ensure it is growing in accordance with what kind of wealth you want to build for retirement. You may need to take into account factors like any interest you accrue on the account or fees you have to pay to keep it open.
You can also watch market trends to anticipate whether or not your precious metals will grow in value or if they are costing you money. Based on the market trends, you can decide to add more funds to the account and buy more precious metals. You can decide to liquidate precious metals if you want to avoid losing more money than you can afford.
Your custodian will be a valuable source of information about how well your self-directed precious metals IRA performs. You can get insight about how much money the account has made, how it might perform in the coming weeks and months and if you should invest in more precious metals for it.
Learn about Mandatory Distributions and Penalties
Finally, you should learn at what age you can take distributions from your self-directed IRA without penalty. The IRS typically requires you to wait until you reach 59.5 years of age before you can take distributions from this type of account without paying penalties. If you withdraw funds from it prior to that age, you can expect to pay nominal penalties, which takes away from the wealth you want to build for retirement.
When you reach 72 years of age, you will have to take mandatory distributions from your precious metals IRA. Your custodian can advise you on if and when to add funds so you avoid depleting this account entirely. You can plan ahead of time for those distributions to be added to your retirement income without you compromising your financial security.
A self-directed precious metals IRA can give you the peace of mind and value you want for building wealth for retirement. You may avoid the worry and stress that come from investing solely in paper assets like stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Find out how easy it can be to invest in precious metals like gold by reaching out to Sedona Bullion today.
