Can I use my Roth IRA to start a business?
Read the Forbes article titled IRA Adventures. While it's not the detailed regulations you certainly need, the article gives some great detail and caution. You may be able to do what you wish, but it must be structured to adhere to specific rules to avoid self dealing. Those rules would be known by the custodians who would help you set up the right structure, it's well buried within IRS regs, I'm sure. Last, in general, using IRA funds to invest in the non-traditional assets adds that other layer of risk, that the investment will be deemed non-allowed and/or self-dealing. So, even if you have the best business idea going, be sure you get proper council on this.
You can't do what you would like to do, unless your business has another, unrelated investor or is willing to invest an equal amount of funds + .01 into a corporation which will employ you.  You will then need to set up a self-directed IRA. Additionally, you will need a trustee to account for all the disbursements from your IRA. "1) Indeed, if referring to a Roth as the question is, you are right on. But - You can deposit to an Traditional IRA (TIRA). You just can't deduct it. You are then permitted to convert that to a Roth any time. Now, this would appear to negate income issues, right? Not so fast. When you convert, all TIRA accounts must be considered. In other words, when it comes to the TIRA, you only have One TIRA, the ""A"" actually standing for Arrangement, not account. That TIRA may then be spread over as many accounts as you have time to set up. So, if there is any pretax money and/or untaxed gain, it will be prorated and taxed based on your conversion amount. If any of this is not 110% clear, please comment and I will update the answer.  No 401(k) at work?  Note: I edited as my original wording misunderstood the response, and in turn, appeared a bit unkind. Not my intention." you can begin drawing retirement income from 401k, ira and roth accounts at any age.  the key is that it must be retirement income. you can't blow it all on an epic party, but you can withdraw a modest amount every year while preserving enough capital to last the rest of your life.  there are 3 common strategies for doing this: side notes: techinical details: roth conversion ladder: substantially equal periodic payment plans: Have you considered a self-directed IRA to invest, rather than the stock market or publicly traded assets? Your IRA can actually own direct title to real estate, loan money via secured or unsecured promissory notes much like a hard money loan or invest into shares of an entity that invests in real estate. The only nuance is that the IRA holder is responsible for finding and deciding upon the investment vehicle.  Just an option outside of the normal parameters, if you have an existing IRA or old 401(k) or other qualified plan, this might be an option for you. According to the IRS, you can still put money in your IRA. Here (https://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employee/Retirement-Topics-IRA-Contribution-Limits) they say: Can I contribute to an IRA if I participate in a retirement plan at work? You can contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA whether or not you participate in another retirement plan through your employer or business. However, you might not be able to deduct all of your traditional IRA contributions if you or your spouse participates in another retirement plan at work. Roth IRA contributions might be limited if your income exceeds a certain level. In addition, in this link (https://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/IRA-Deduction-Limits), the IRS says: Retirement plan at work: Your deduction may be limited if you (or your spouse, if you are married) are covered by a retirement plan at work and your income exceeds certain levels. The word 'covered' should clarify that - you are not covered anymore in that year, you just got a contribution in that year which was triggered by work done in a previous year. You cannot legally be covered in a plan at an employer where you did not work in that year. Not exactly. There are a few ways to manage your taxes with investments. 1) For most investments you get taxed on any gain in value in the investment or dividends paid by that investment. Most investments (with some exceptions for mutual funds) you don't take the tax hit until you sell the investment and realize the gain. For bonds, cds, and other cash type investments you have to pay taxes in the year they pay out the interest or dividend. 2) You can put money (up to a certain limit) in a traditional IRA and can subtract that amount from your income for tax calculation for the year you invest it. However, you are going to pay taxes on it when you take the money out at retirement. It really just delays the taxes. 3) If you put the money in a Roth IRA, you don't get a tax break now, but you don't have to pay any taxes on the money or the gains when you take it out at retirement. 4) The gains from some mutual funds can be tax exempt, but that just saves you from paying tax on the increase in value.  5) Don't fall for scams that try to use insurance policies as investments to avoid taxes. The fees are ginormous, which usually makes them a ripoff. Then at the end, if you decide to cash in your house, you can roll the   proceeds into a fancier house to avoid paying taxes on your profit. The problem is that the book was written in 1989. That comment is no longer true; that part of the tax law changed in the 1990's. Also in 1989 the maximum amount that person could put in an IRA was $2,000 and hadn't been raised for almost a decade and wouldn't be raised for another decade. Roth accounts didn't exist; nor did HSA's or 529's. Most people didn't have a 401K. You are asking to compare what options we have today compared to what was available in the late 1980's.  For me except, for the years 2001-2005 and 2010-2015, the period from 1988 until now has had flat real estate values. Still the current values haven't returned to the peak in 2005. The score is 11 great years, 17 flat or negative. I know many people who during the 1990's had a zero return on their real estate. This is a great idea and I can't think of any downside. The best part about it is in the future when you have built up your emergency fund beyond the maximum contributions to the Roth IRA, you can then move your Roth funds into a higher yielding investment. I might take it a step further. In addition to this, try to get a line of credit from your bank (with no annual fee). In case of emergency, you can decide if you want to take the money from your Roth or borrow from the line and pay some interest temporarily. Depending on the situation it may actually make sense to pay a little bit of interest and leave the money in the Roth, since over the long run the future earnings of that money could easily make you more than the interest you'll pay for (let's hope) a short amount of time. To really hit home why your idea is fantastic: "People often have the wrong idea about how taxes apply to their money.  There's not really any such thing as ""pre-tax"" or ""post-tax"" income, only pre-tax and post-tax **uses** of your income.  This is somewhat hidden by the fact that we pay income tax based on our income for the year; but if you look a bit closer, you'll notice that come April 15th, (almost) every dollar you get to *subtract* from your gross income isn't defined by where it comes from, but rather, where it *went* (there are a few special cases there, like qualified dividends, that that's an entirely different issue).  Perhaps the most clear example of this is a traditional IRA that you self-fund from your savings account on April 14th, for the prior tax year - You're putting dollars you've already taken home, into a pre-tax account, *after* the end of the calendar tax-year; and yet it all works out exactly the same (tax-liability wise - There's certainly an opportunity cost there) as if you had contributed those dollars via a weekly payroll deduction.  So when you manually fund a Roth IRA, it has *no* effect on your tax liability (except insofar as you *don't* get to deduct it from your taxable income, which you wouldn't if you had left it in a savings account, etiher).  In the year you earned that money, you paid taxes on it; when you take it out, you won't." You can withdraw the contributions you made to Roth IRA tax free. Any withdrawals from Roth IRA count first towards the contributions, then conversions, and only then towards the gains which are taxable. You can also withdraw up to $10000 of the taxable portion penalty free (from either the Traditional IRA or the Roth IRA, or the combination of both) if it is applied towards the purchase of your first primary residence (i.e.: you don't own a place yet, and you're buying your first home, which will become your primary residence). That said, however, I cannot see how you can buy a $250K house. You didn't say anything about your income, but just the cash needed for the down-payment will essentially leave you naked and broke. Consider what happens if you have an emergency, out of a job for a couple of months, or something else of that kind. It is generally advised to have enough cash liquid savings to keep you afloat for at least half a year (including mortgage payments, necessities and whatever expenses you need to spend to get back on track - job searching, medical, moving, etc). It doesn't look like you're anywhere near that. Remember, many bankruptcies are happening because of the cash-flow problem, not the actual ability to repay debts on the long run. The only caveat I'd give is that I'd be sure of eligibility to make those contributions. The IRS article Amount of Roth IRA Contributions That You Can Make for 2012  has a chart for AGI limits for specific years. I would not suggest closing out your Roth IRA -- Couple of reasons for that - 1) Since you've been contributing to it for 15 years, your investments have probably grown, seen dividends, etc.  If you close it out, you will owe taxes and be slapped with a 10% penalty on the growth (money you didn't contribute).  That's quite a waste of hard earned money.   2) While your income may exceed the contribution limit of a Roth, you could do what's called a 'backdoor' Roth - which is really just converting your after tax contributions into an IRA into a Roth IRA. 3) Given the length of your contributions your Roth IRA is seasoned (5 years) This allows you to use up to 10k for your house if you chose.  (Usually not an option people use) Other than that, consider paying off the student loans with the highest interest first. "A Roth IRA is simply a tax-sheltered account that you deposit funds into, and then invest however you choose (within the limits of the firm you deposit the funds with). For example, you could open a Roth IRA account with Vanguard.  You could then invest the $3000 by purchasing shares of VOO, which tracks the S&P 500 index and has a very low expense ratio (0.04 as of last time I checked).  Fidelity has a similar option, or Schwab, or whatever brokerage firm you prefer. IRAs are basically just normal investment accounts, except they don't owe taxes until you withdraw them (and Roth don't even owe them then, though you paid taxes on the funds you deposit).  They have some limitations regarding options trading and such, but if you're a novice investor just looking to do basic investments, you'll not notice.   Then, your IRA would go up or down in value as the market went up or down in value. You do have some restrictions on when you can withdraw the funds; Roth IRA has fewer than a normal IRA, as you can withdraw the capital (the amount you deposited) without penalty, but the profits cannot be withdrawn until you're retirement age (I won't put an actual year, as I suspect that actual year will change by the time you're that old; but think 60s). The reason not to invest in an IRA is if you plan on using the money in the near future - even as an ""emergency fund"".  You should have some money that is not invested aggressively, that is in something very safe and very accessible, for your emergency fund; and if you plan to buy a house or whatever with the funds, don't start an IRA.  But if this is truly money you want to save for retirement, that's the best place to start. **Note, this is not investment advice, and you should do your own homework prior to making any investment.  You can lose some or all of the value of your account while investing." "You seem to be treating your Roth IRA as a sort of savings account for use in emergency situations.  I would use a savings account for savings as withdrawing money from an IRA will have penalties under various circumstances (more than contributions, Roth IRA less than 5 years old, more than $10k for a down payment). Also, you mention folding your IRA into your 401k so that it will ""grow faster"".  However, this will not have that effect.  Imagine you have $30k in an IRA and $100k in a 401k and you are averaging a return of 8% / year on each.  This will be identical to having a single 401k with $130k and an 8% / year return. This is not one of your questions, but employer matches are not counted in the 401k contribution limit.  If your 22% calculation of your salary includes the match to reach the max contribution, you can still contribute more." One can have a self-directed IRA. This is not like a Schwab, eTrade, etc IRA. It has a special type of custodian that knows how to manage it.  I became aware of such an account as a way to purchase a rental property. There were two issues. The type of property I looked at wasn't anything a bank was willing to finance. And the rules regarding self dealing added a potential layer of expense as I technically could not perform the simplest of things for the property.  For you, the obstacle looks like self-dealing. Any IRA can only be funded with cash or transfer/conversion from another IRA/401(k). I don't know how you would get the intelligent property into the IRA in the first place. Once you own a patent, or anything else, you can't sell it into the IRA.  It's at times like this that member littleadv would suggest this is the time to talk to a pro before you do anything hazardous to your wealth.