Americans who save have plenty of motivation to open a retirement account: tax-deferred investment growth. Depending upon the kind of IRA, you may either be able to deduct contributions or enjoy completely tax-free withdrawals when you reach retirement age. Prudent retirement savers will consider these tax benefits when they make long-term financial plans.[1]
At the same time, traditional IRA accounts only allow paper assets, like securities or cash. Many careful investors want to diversify their savings into various types of assets. For instance, it can make good financial sense to allocate some of your investment portfolio to assets that typically have an inverse relationship to stocks, bonds, and the dollar. One such asset is gold.
The good news is, you don’t have to choose between an IRA and gold. You can add a gold IRA to your portfolio and even rollover some of your existing IRA funds into your new account.
How a Gold IRA Works
Often called a precious metal IRA, this type of self-directed individual retirement account allows you to invest in gold, silver, platinum, or palladium.
So long as you follow a few rules, you can enjoy the same tax advantages you would have with a traditional IRA. Once you establish your account, you can even buy and sell the bullion coins you hold at your discretion. You just need to keep the precious metals—and any profits earned on the sale of them—within your self-directed IRA. At retirement, you’re free to do whatever you want with the gold. In that way, a gold IRA can offer you both security and freedom.
After you read this brief overview, you should understand what a gold IRA is and how you can get help to create one quickly and easily.
What Kind of Gold Does the IRS Allow in a Precious Metals IRA?
A few examples of IRA eligible precious metals include gold, silver, or platinum American Eagle bullion coins, palladium Canadian Maple Leaf bullion coins, one-ounce bullion bars.
Approved bullion bars, coins, or rounds will all meet these purity requirements:
- Gold: .995
- Silver: .999
- Platinum and palladium: .9995
As you can see on the IRS website, you can’t hold collectibles in your IRA. In other words, your gold investment has to be considered valuable because of its precious metal content and not because of any numismatic or artistic worth.
Similarly, you aren’t allowed to store fine art or antiques in a self-directed IRA. The IRS wants to have an objective measure of your assets, such as the price of an ounce of gold on any given day. Valuation of collectibles depends upon more subjective measures, like an art appraiser’s opinion or the sales price at the last auction.
What Else Do You Need for a Gold IRA?
The IRS will not just let you purchase an approved gold coin, store it in your safe deposit box, and call it a gold IRA. Naturally, you’ll need to complete a little paperwork. Still, with our help, you can legally and safely create a precious metals IRA in a few simple steps. We can provide you with help and advice during each step.
This brief summary will help you understand how a precious metals IRA works:
Everything you need to know to get started in Precious Metals
Learn how precious metals can strengthen your portfolio, protect your assets and leverage inflation.
Request the Free Guide
Determine Storage
The IRS has warned savers against storing their gold in an insecure place, such as their homes.[2] However, as your own IRA manager, you can choose a secure local storage option. Otherwise, we work with a secure depository and can ensure safe storage.
Fund the Gold IRA
We can help you roll funds over from such existing retirement accounts as 401ks and other IRAs. You can also make cash contributions, within IRS limits for the year. We require a minimum initial purchase of $10,000 for a transfer or rollover, and only $5,000 for a non-transfer/non-rollover IRA to get started.
Select Your Gold Coins
Our precious metals advisors can help you select high-quality, IRS-approved bullion coins to hold inside of your IRA. Of course, you’re also free to choose your own approved coins from our large inventory. Popular choices include proof coins such as the 1 ounce American Eagle Gold Coins, and Canadian Maple Leaf gold coins. While some customers prefer to invest in gold coins, others choose silver, platinum, and palladium.
Complete Your Purchase
Depending upon the storage option that you select, the trust company will either fund us directly or fund you, as the manager, to complete your purchase.
Benefits of a Gold IRA
Throughout history, gold has been considered a safe-haven investment. While the price of an ounce of gold can go up or down, this physical asset tends to hold its value over time. Also, gold and silver typically react inversely to such other markets as securities.
Many prudent investors believe they should diversify their portfolio to provide insurance in case other investments drop in value. This is especially true for long-term savings like retirement accounts.
Start Your Gold IRA
In summary, the IRS allows you to hold certain kinds of bullion within a self-directed IRA account. You need to create your account, fund it, purchase approved bullion products, and of course, make plans to safely store it.
At Scottsdale Bullion & Coin, we have helped many customers create legal, secure gold IRA accounts. And we can help you too. Call us today at 1-888-812-9892 to get started.