Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account?
First thing to note is that contributions (i.e. the total of all the amounts that you directly contributed into Roth IRA at any point in time) to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn at any time, without needing any reason, without any tax or penalty. Early withdrawal (early because you are under 59.5) of earnings, on the other hand, will incur tax and penalty. (I didn't go into withdrawal of conversions as those are a little more complex.) When you withdraw, contributions come out first, so as long as you don't withdraw more than the amount of past contributions, you won't have any tax or penalty. And if it's not going to have tax, it doesn't really matter if you do it this year or next year. If you need to dip into the earnings, however, then maybe it would be better to do this year so it will be taxed at lower rates. "One ""con"" I have not yet seen mentioned: retirement accounts are generally protected from creditors in a bankruptcy.  There are limits and exceptions, Roth has a 1.2 million dollar limit and can be split by a divorce QDRO for instance.  Link Since it seems you have no income this year, you may may be raiding your IRA for living expenses.   If there is a chance you may declare bankruptcy in the next year or so, consider doing that first and raid the IRA for seed money after." In a year with no income, the best advice is to convert existing IRA money to Roth. This lets you take advantage of the 'zero' bracket, the combination of your exemption and standard deduction. This adds to $10,300 for a single person.  Other than that, if you are determined to take the money out, just do it. There would be a 10% penalty of the growth, but the original deposit comes out tax free anyway.  Edit - There's a rule that if you sell your entire Roth account (i.e. all Roth accounts, you can't pick one of a few) and have a loss, you can take that loss. (Per Dilip's comment, this strategy is pretty moot, it's not a loss taken against other income as a stock loss would potentially be))
"I spent some time searching, and couldn't find the answer written explicitly in IRS regulations.   What I did find was this chart from the irs showing that nonqualified distributions from a Roth 401k are pro-rated between contributions and earnings.  It is well documented that you can't withdraw any money early or tax free (even contributions) from a Roth 401k (""Designated Roth Account"" in IRS parlance) that has made any money. source You can do a direct rollover from a ""Designated Roth Account"" to a Roth IRA and the basis  describing contributions vs. earnings is preserved. source And there is plenty of evidence showing you can withdraw contributions from a Roth IRA without penalty. source All that being said, I can't find anything from the IRS that says this is a legitimate strategy." Taking all your assumptions: With Roth, you take $6112 from work, (let's call you tax rate 10%) pay $612 in taxes, and contribute $5500 (the max if you are younger than 50).  This $5500 will grow to $21,283 in 20 years at 7% annual growth ($5500*(1.07^20)), and you will pay no additional taxes on it. With the traditional IRA, you take $6112 from work, pay $612 in taxes, and contribute $5500.  You will receive a tax deduction at tax time of $612 for the contribution.  This money will also grow to $21,283.  This will be taxed at your ordinary income rate (which we're calling 10%), costing you $2123 at the time of withdrawal.  You will have $19,155 left over. EDIT: If you invest your tax savings from every contribution to the Traditional IRA, then the numbers wash out.  Perhaps a pivotal question is whether you believe you will have greater taxable earnings from your investments in retirement than you have in taxable earnings today -- affecting the rate at which you are taxed. Yes sir, been there did that.  Now a Roth account is considered income if you it pull out. It is your money and you have to report if you pull it out. FYI, open a savings account, and put it in that so if you need it this will not happen. One additional note related to Roth vs regular: for a regular 401k or IRA, you pay the 10% penalty on any withdrawal.  For a Roth, you can withdraw the contributions early (but not the earnings) without any penalty or tax. Of course, if this is a retirement account it's better to leave it that way.  Personally it's one reason I avoid Roth - in addition to probably being in a higher bracket now, I also would prefer not to be able to touch my money.  But for some there could be advantages in having that ability (such as in an emergency). "In general, I agree with Alex' ""don't do it."" If I dig deep for any reasons to transfer from a Roth into a Roth 401(k) there might be 2:" It's a little extra hassle come tax-time if you have a distribution to account for, as you'd be required to file Form 8606. If you pay for tax-preparation the extra fees could easily wipe out any interest earned.  Roth IRA savings accounts don't seem to earn much interest, so while you could come out slightly ahead with this approach, I don't think it's worth it. I prefer to keep a portion of my emergency fund in an online savings account (0.75% interest), and another portion in CD's (2.10% interest) through the same bank. "I may be missing something here, but I don't think this is a disadvantage. The fact that the employer contribution will be taxed is the same as it would be if it were a match in a traditional account, so the amount you lose to taxes on it is a wash. The employer contribution is only smaller if you can't afford to contribute as much to the Roth because it's post-tax, and therefore your contribution is under the cap for the match. If you're contributing the maximum the employer will match or higher, then I don't think there's any disadvantage on the match portion. First, the 5% cap on employer contributions is calculated on the gross, even in a Roth account. Second, the taxing of the amount contributed to a Roth does not reduce the dollar amount that goes into the Roth account, it just reduces your net pay. So if your contribution is $100 to a Traditional account, your gross pay is reduced by $100 and your Traditional account gains $100. In the Roth, your gross pay is still taxed as though that $100 were included, but the $100 is put into the Roth. The tax portion of that ""after tax"" money does not reduce the amount of the contribution." As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent. An IRA is subject to many rules.  Not only are there early withdrawal penalties, but the ability to deduct contributions to an IRA phases out with one's income level.  Qualified withdrawals from an IRA won't have penalties, but they will be taxed as income.  Contributions to a Roth IRA can be made post-tax and the resulting gains will be tax free, but they cannot be withdrawn early. Another tax-deductable investment is a 529 plan.  These can be withdrawn from at any time, but there is a penalty if the money is not used for educational purposes. A 401K or similar employer-sponsored fund is made with pre-tax dollars unless it is designated as a Roth 401K.  These plans also require money to be withdrawn specifically for retirement, with a 10% penalty for early withdrawal.  Qualifying withdrawals from a regular retirement plan are taxed as income, those from a Roth plan are not (as with an IRA). Money can be made harder to get at by investing in all of the types of funds you can invest in using an IRA through the same brokers under a different type of account, but the contribution will be made with post-tax, non-deductable dollars and the gains will be taxed. "This does not apply to Roth IRAs. It defines the difference between the two depending on what your age is when this happens. If you are 59 or younger, you have a 10% penalty in addition to taxes. If you are between 59.5 and 70, there is no penalty, but you do have to pay taxes. If you are 70.5 or older, then you MUST withdraw money, and that withdrawal is called the ""required minimum distribution"" and you pay taxes on it as if it were income.  In terms of investments, the two are the same in that the earnings you make on your investments grow tax free.  Here is more information between the two.  *Improvements are welcome for my answer." I'll add this to others: Having non-deductible portion in your IRA requires additional tax forms to be attached to your tax return, and tracking. If you plan to have long-term investments in your non-deductible IRA (such as, say, target funds or long-term stock positions that you expect to hold till retirement) it may be better to keep them in a non-IRA account. This is because the income tax on the withdrawals from the IRA is at ordinary rates, and from the regular investment account is at capital gains rate. While the rates can definitely change, traditionally capital gains rates are significantly lower than the ordinary income bracket rates. So generally I think that having non-deductible IRA deposits is only useful if you're planning a ROTH conversion in a near future. You're misunderstanding the concept of retirement savings. IRA distributions are taxed, in their entirety, as ordinary income. If you withdraw before the retirement age, additional 10% penalty is added. Investment income has preferential treatment - long term capital gains and qualified dividends are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. However, IRA contributions are tax deductible. I.e.: you don't pay taxes on the amounts contributed to the IRA when you earned the money, only when you withdraw. In the mean time, the money is growing, tax free, based on your investments. Anything inside the IRA is tax free, including dividends, distributions (from funds to your IRA, not from IRA to you), capital gains, etc. This is very powerful, when taking into account the compounding effect of reinvesting your dividends/sale proceeds without taking a chunk out for taxes. Consider you make an investment in a fund that appreciated 100% in half a year. You cash out to reinvest in something less volatile to lock the gains. In a regular account - you pay taxes when you sell, based on your brackets. In the IRA you reinvest all of your sale proceeds. That would be ~25-35% more of the gains to reinvest and continue working for you! However, if you decide to withdraw - you pay ordinary rate taxes on the whole amount. If you would invest in a single fund for 30 years in a regular account - you'd pay 20% capital gains tax (on the appreciation, not the dividends). In the IRA, if you invest in the same fund for the same period - you'll pay your ordinary income rates. However, the benefit of reinvesting dividends tax-free softens the blow somewhat, but that's much harder to quantify. Bottom line: if you want to plan for retirement - plan for retirment. Otherwise - IRA is not an investment vehicle. Also consider Roth IRA/conversions. Roth IRA has the benefit of tax free distributions at retirement. If your current tax bracket is at 20%, for example, contributing $5K to Roth IRA instead of a traditional will cost you $1K of taxes now, but will save you all the taxes during the retirement (for the distributions from the Roth IRA). It may be very much worth your while, especially if you can contribute directly to Roth IRA (there are some income limitations and phaseouts). You can withdraw contributions (but not earnings) from Roth IRA - something you cannot do with a traditional IRA. If you have the cash on hand to pay the tax on the amount you are transferring I recommend moving to a Roth IRA An IRA is tax-deferred. You put in pretax contributions in to an IRA, and you are taxed on that money (your contributions and interest earned) when you withdraw it at retirement, age 59 1/2.  The idea being that you will be taking less out per year in your retirement years, putting you into a lower tax bracket. The major problem is most people draw out as much or more a year in their retirement years than when they were working. A Roth IRA grows tax free You put after tax contributions into a Roth IRA, you have paid taxes on the contributions, and you are never taxed on the growth. When you draw the money out at retirement you don't pay any income taxes on that money. Let me give you an example: For this example we will use the following information for both scenario: We will invest $400 per month for a total of $4800. The current maximum is $5000 if you are under 50 years old $400 dollars after taxes is $300 Invest $300 a month, at age 65 you have 3,529,432 You owe no taxes on this money, it doesn't matter how much you take out a year. $400 dollars a month is taken pretax out of your paycheck. Invest $400 per month, at age 65 you have $4,705,909 You owe taxes of 25% as you draw that out for at total tax of 1,176,477 4,705,909 - 1,176,477 = 3,529,432 cash in your pocket The problem is if you draw out more than $82,400 (current 2010 filing single) per year you will be pushed to a higher tax bracket and take more of your money away. If you decide to buy a vacation home and you take out $250,000 to pay for it, that's counted as income for that year any you will be in the 33% tax bracket. Even if you can keep yourself to a low income the government forces your hand and makes you draw out more money at age 70, based on their tables, forcing you into a higher tax bracket Part of the difficulty in this sort of planning is that you are also betting on future tax rates and comparing them with current taxes.  If you are in a low tax bracket now, but expect to be in a higher one when you take the money out, it is better to pay the taxes now.  If you are in a high tax bracket now, but expect to be in a lower one when you retire/take the money out, then it is better to defer the taxes until then.  If you think that future sessions of Congress will decide to tax withdrawals from Roth accounts, then you should contribute to traditional accounts.  The problem is that you don't know with certainty what the future will bring. So you have to make educated guesses about what might happen, and what you can do now to protect yourself from it. Ideally, plan so that even if the bad things happen, you will be reasonably comfortable. "To answer your question point by point - I'd focus on the last point. The back of my business card -  Let's focus on Single. The standard deduction and exemption add to over $10K. I look at this as ""I can have $250K in my IRA, and my $10K (4%) annual withdrawal will be tax free. It takes another $36,900 to fill the 10 and 15% brackets. $922K saved pretax to have that withdrawn each year, or $1.17M total.  That said, I think that depositing to Roth in any year that one is in the 15% bracket or lower can make sense. I also like the Roth Roulette concept, if only for the fact that I am Google's first search result for that phrase.  Roth Roulette is systematically converting and recharacterizing each year the portion of the converted assets that have fallen or not risen as far in relative terms. A quick example. You own 3 volatile stocks, and convert them to 3 Roth accounts. A year later, they are (a) down 20%, (b) up 10%, (c) up 50%. You recharacterize the first two, but keep the 3rd in the Roth. You have a tax bill on say $10K, but have $15K in that Roth." "For 401(k) and regular IRA, you pay income tax on withdrawals from the account. At a certain age, there is a ""required minimum distribution"". This is an amount you must withdraw from the account or you face penalties. I've also read about, but am not familiar with, mechanisms by which you can retire early and start taking withdrawals before the regular official retirement age. (These may or may not be legit, I didn't do any research on it.) A Roth IRA, which is not ""tax deferred"" and thus not technically covered by your question, there is no tax on withdrawals (assuming you are at retirement age) and no required minimum distribution. Something to watch out for on your accounts are fees that they charge for withdrawals. I was in a 401(k) once that had a $50 fee per-withdrawal. A monthly check from this account would eat your money! I paid the fee once, when I rolled it into an account at a brokerage after leaving the company."