Roth IRA for new immigrant

[Badgerbabe 0]

If you are young or they are young and you're not sure what to do at this point or the other half hasn't moved here yet it might be prudent to open a starter IRA - which basically is a savings account but the contributions can be used as deductable as long as certain other conditions are not breached.

The starter IRA then can be rolled into another plan/ mutual funds/roth IRA without any penalty once you both decide on which way to go.

It pays a low interest rate but it's still an IRA plan and is somewhere to park the money and use it against your taxes if you want to get it in before this tax year.

Just a thought.

You can use IRA'S ( WITHDRAW) if you need to for a 1st house purchase and you can take it out for 60 days (borrow it) as long as it all goes back in before the end of that time. If you don't there's a large penalty.

Hope this helps

I've just been on an IRA course in December with my Bank and it can be a pretty complicated area. Especially where deductable and non deducatble contributions are concerned.

It depends how much you earn jointly - if you're married

It also depends if you belong to an employee stock or pension scheme.

Hope this info helps.