Choosing your Gold IRA company is the first step to opening your IRA. If you decide to invest in a precious metals IRA, you should do so conservatively. Depending on your financial situation, most experts recommend investing no more than 5 to 10% of your retirement savings in precious metals. Eligible products that meet these criteria include Canadian Maple Leaf coins, Australian Koala investment coins,
and PAMP Suisse bars.
The IRS also allows American Eagle coins even though they don’t meet the 99.5% purity standard for gold. You can’t currently hold rare or collector coins, Swiss francs, British government bonds, and German marks in a self-directed IRA. Before you start transferring, it’s important to calculate how much of the value of your existing retirement plan you’d like to invest in your new Gold IRA. You’ll also need to choose a precious metals dealer who will make the actual gold purchases for your IRA (your custodian may be able
to recommend one for you).
To avoid the possibility of having to pay taxes and penalties, your Gold IRA company can process the transfer on your behalf. Making a mistake, even if it’s accidental, can be very costly. So it’s worth knowing what the IRS does and doesn’t do with your Gold IRA. If you need advice, you should contact a trusted advisor rather than relying on representatives from the Gold IRA firm. By setting strict parameters for defining IRA gold, the IRS can ensure that people hold investment-grade rated assets in their self-managed gold IRA, as opposed to collectibles, which
are not eligible for any preferential tax treatment.
To comply with the many regulations surrounding gold IRAs, you can’t store your gold at home or in a safe deposit box. A gold IRA rollover involves withdrawing funds from another defined contribution account, such as an IRA, 401 (k), 403 (b), or savings plan. A good Gold IRA representative will help you decide how much you should invest and which metals will work best for you. If this isn’t a priority for you, there are other ways to add precious metals to your portfolio besides a gold IRA
.
Unless you have multiple retirement accounts, it would be very risky to convert your entire balance into a gold IRA. However, instead of holding paper assets such as stocks and bonds, the Gold IRA is intended for holding physical gold bars, i.e. coins or bars of gold and other approved precious metals, including silver, platinum, and palladium. You can transfer all or part of the balance to fund a Gold IRA with no tax liability, as long as you complete the rollover within 60 days. A common way to fund a new Gold IRA account is to use funds that are already in another retirement account, such as another IRA, 401 (k), 403 (b), 457 (b), or Thrift Savings Plan,
in accordance with IRS rules.
Remember that not every self-managed IRA custodian offers the same investment options. So make sure that physical gold is among their offerings before you open an account
.
