how late can i put money into an IRA and still have it count for 2015?
The IRA contribution for the year are allowed until the tax day of that year. I.e.: you can contribute for 2015 until April 15th, 2016 (or whatever the first business day is after that, if the 15th is a holiday). You'll have to explicitly designate your contribution for 2015, since some of the IRA providers may automatically designate the current year unless you explicitly say otherwise. If that happens - it will be very hard to fix later, so pay attention when you're making the contribution. You get a couple of things from your IRA provider: Form 5498 - details your contributions for the year, account FMV, and RMD details. You can see the actual form here. You don't always get this form, if you didn't contribute anything and no RMD is required for you. Since the last day to contribute is April 15th, these forms are usually being sent out around mid-May. But you should know how much you've contributed by the tax day without it, obviously, so this is only for the IRS matching and your record-tracking.  Form 1099-R includes information about distributions (including withdrawals and roll-overs). You may not get this form if you didn't take any money out of your IRA. These come out around end of January.
If for any tax year, you were eligible to make deductible contributions to a Traditional IRA, and did make the contributions in timely fashion, then there is no need to file Form 8606 for that year. Form 8606 (which tracks your basis in the IRA) is needed if Form 8606 is also needed if The deposit slip at the institution that keeps your Roth IRA should have a place where you can designate the tax year the contribution should apply to. Yes. In fact, it's explicitly mentioned in Publication 590-A that you can file before making the contribution, as long as you make the contribution before the deadline. Filing before a contribution is made.    You can file your return claiming a traditional IRA contribution before the contribution is   actually made. Generally, the contribution must be made by the due   date of your return, not including extensions. "Does your company offer a 401(k) and are you taking maximum advantage of it? 2015 limit is $18,000, an extra $5,500 if you are 50 or older.  The RMD shouldn't be too large, it depends on your age, of course. You're in no worse shape than anyone hitting age 70-1/2 and having to start taking their RMDs. If you are younger, your RMDs start pretty low. If I look at Pub 590, I find a 50 year old starts with a 34.2 divisor, less than 3% each year. At 60, it's 25.2, just under 4%.  Edit - someone around 30 will have a divisor around 53.3 the first year. Just under 2%. I don't know what you consider ""sizable,"" but much above $300K in that IRA and you'll have more come out than you can fund into a Roth. Regardless of the amount, the RMD is taxable. You just need to pay the tax from other funds if you wish to keep the money invested as it was.  You will pay the tax at your marginal rate, and that's it. This is the one downside of the inherited IRA, unlike regular money, it doesn't escape taxes. But, your dad put it in pre-tax (right?) so the amount you got is larger for that fact.  I'm sorry for your loss." You can have a new ISA every financial year. As long as you don't take out any other ISA in the financial year that starts next week, you can use a help-to-buy ISA as your ISA for 2015/16. Existing ISAs taken out in earlier financial years will have no effect on that. Yes. Of course, you still need to take into the account the trade costs (fees paid to the broker), these are not going anywhere. Basically what it means is that you don't have to worry about long/short holding period within the IRA, they're all the same. It doesn't mean that long term trading is better or worse to have outside the scope of IRA, it just means that the concept doesn't exist inside. 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. You do not have to wait 5 years from when a particular dollar was earned to withdraw it. To be a qualified distribution from a Roth IRA, A) the Roth IRA must have been opened for 5 years (which yours was), and B) you must be 59.5 years old, or meet one of the other exceptions (and $10,000 for a first-time home purchase is one of the exceptions). Since it is a qualified distribution, there is no tax or penalty. "This may be more of a comment than an answer, but it's too long for a comment. Perhaps the Stackexchange Gods will forgive my impudence. That said: Even with the tax penalties, it can be to your advantage to put money into a ""retirement"" account and withdraw it before retirement. The trick is: Is the amount of the tax penalty more than the benefit of untaxed compound growth? For example, just to make up some numbers: Suppose you have $1000 of gross income to invest. You are considering whether to invest in an ordinary, non-tax favored account, or a classic IRA. Either way you will get 10% returns. Your tax rate, both when you put the money in and when you take it out, is 15%. There is a 10% tax penalty for early withdrawal. With an ordinary account you will pay 15% tax off the top, so you are only investing $850. Then each year 15% of your returns are paid in taxes, so your net return is 8.5%. But when you withdraw the money there are no additional taxes. With an IRA you do not pay any taxes up front, so you can invest the entire $1000. You collect 10% each year with no taxes. When you withdraw, you pay 15% plus the 10% penalty equals 25%. So after 5 years, the ordinary account would yield $850 x 1.085^5 = $1504. The IRA would yield $1000 x 1.1^5 x 0.75 = $1208. The tax penalty hurts. You are better to use the ordinary account. But if you could leave your money in for 25 years, then the ordinary account would yield $850 x 1.085^25 = $7687. The IRA would yield $1000 x 1.1^25 x 0.75 = $8126. The IRA, even with the tax penalty, is better. Of course my numbers are just made up. What your tax bracket is, what returns you get, and how long you think you might leave the money in the investment, all vary." "You must have $x of taxable income that year in order to make a contribution of $x to IRA for that year. It doesn't matter where the actual ""money"" that you contribute comes from -- for tax purposes, all that matters is the total amount of taxable income and the total amount of contributions; how you move your money around or divide it up is irrelevant." Yes, you can make contributions to your HSA for 2013 until April 15, 2014.  However, when you make the contribution, you need to explicitly tell the financial institution that your deposit is for tax year 2013, as they will be reporting to the IRS your total 2013 contributions after April 15. If you haven't filed your tax return for 2013 yet, you can wait until you make your final HSA contribution for 2013, and then file (before April 15).  Otherwise, if you have already filed for 2013, and you make another HSA contribution for 2013, you'll need to file an amended return in order to claim the additional deduction. One more piece of advice: Don't wait until the last day to make this contribution.  Make your final contribution at least a week early.  Each year here on the site we get some questions from people who made an HSA or IRA contribution on April 15, only to be told by the bank that they missed some internal bank deadline by a few hours.  There is no need to wait until the last day; don't cut it too close. "As other people have indicated, traditional IRAs are tax deductable for a particular year. Please note, though, that traditional IRAs are tax deferred (not tax-free) accounts, meaning that you'll have to pay taxes on any money you take out later regardless of why you're making the withdrawal. (A lot of people mistakenly call them tax free, which they're not). There is no such thing as a ""tax-free"" retirement account. Really, in terms of Roth vs. Traditional IRAs, it's ""pay now or pay later."" With the exception of special circumstances like this, I recommend investing exclusively in Roth IRAs for money that you expect to grow much (or that you expect to produce substantial income over time). Just to add a few thoughts on what to actually invest in once you open your IRA, I strongly agree with the advice that you invest mostly in low-cost mutual funds or index funds. The advantage of an open-ended mutual fund is that it's easier to purchase them in odd increments and you may be able to avoid at least some purchase fees, whereas with an ETF you have to buy in multiples of that day's asking price. For example, if you were investing $500 and the ETF costs $200 per share, you could only purchase 2 shares, leaving $100 uninvested (minus whatever fee your broker charged for the purchase). The advantage of an ETF is that it's easy to buy or sell quickly. Usually, when you add money to a mutual fund, it'll take a few days for it to hit your account, and when you want to sell it'll similarly take a few days for you to get your money; when I buy an ETF the transaction can occur almost instantly. The fees can also be lower (if the ETF is just a passive index fund). Also, there's a risk with open-ended mutual funds that if too many people pull money out at once the managers could be forced to sell stocks at an unfavorable price." Your Simple IRA account is yours and yours alone, not your employer's. The only thing your employer can do with it is putting more money into it. The best option is to simple let it sit for the two years, and then either: "I disagree with the IRA suggestion. Why IRA? You're a student, so probably won't get much tax benefits, so why locking the money for 40 years? You can do the same investments through any broker account as in IRA, but be able to cash out in need. 5 years is long enough term to put in a mutual fund or ETF and expect reasonable (>1.25%) gains. You can use the online ""analyst"" tools that brokers like ETrade or Sharebuilder provide to decide on how to spread your portfolio, 15K is enough for diversifying over several areas. If you want to keep it as cash - check the on-line savings accounts (like Capitol One, for example, or Ally, ING Direct that will merge with Capitol One and others) for better rates, brick and mortar banks can not possible compete with what you can get online." "Publication 590a covers this in a fairly specific manner. Page 11, section ""Are You Covered by an Employer Plan?"", specifies: The Form W-2 you receive from your employer has a box   used to indicate whether you were covered for the year.   The “Retirement Plan” box should be checked if you were   covered. So, by default, if that's checked, you're covered.  590 does go into more detail, though. Assuming you're covered under a Defined Contribution plan (a 401k for example): Defined contribution plan. Generally, you are covered   by a defined contribution plan for a tax year if amounts are   contributed or allocated to your account for the plan year   that ends with or within that tax year.  Tax Year: Tax year. Your tax year is the annual accounting period   you use to keep records and report income and expenses   on your income tax return. For almost all people, the tax   year is the calendar year. Further, they cover issues related to an employee leaving Dec. 31 very specifically: A special rule applies to certain plans in which it is not   possible to determine if an amount will be contributed to   your account for a given plan year. If, for a plan year, no   amounts have been allocated to your account that are attributable   to employer contributions, employee contributions,   or forfeitures, by the last day of the plan year, and   contributions are discretionary for the plan year, you are   not covered for the tax year in which the plan year ends. If,   after the plan year ends, the employer makes a contribution   for that plan year, you are covered for the tax year in   which the contribution is made. Example: Example. Mickey was covered by a profit-sharing plan   and left the company on December 31, 2014. The plan   year runs from July 1 to June 30. Under the terms of the   plan, employer contributions do not have to be made, but   if they are made, they are contributed to the plan before   the due date for filing the company's tax return. Such contributions   are allocated as of the last day of the plan year,   and allocations are made to the accounts of individuals   who have any service during the plan year. As of June 30,   2015, no contributions were made that were allocated to   the June 30, 2015, plan year, and no forfeitures had been   allocated within the plan year. In addition, as of that date,   the company was not obligated to make a contribution for   such plan year and it was impossible to determine   whether or not a contribution would be made for the plan   year. On December 31, 2015, the company decided to   contribute to the plan for the plan year ending June 30,   2015. That contribution was made on February 15, 2016.   Mickey is an active participant in the plan for his 2016 tax   year but not for his 2015 tax year. Mickey is in a similar (but different) circumstance, and it's clear from the IRS's treatment of his circumstance that you would be in the same boat (just a year less off) - but be aware given Mickey's situation that it's theoretically possible for them to make another contribution next year, as Mickey had, depending on when their plan year/etc. ends. So - from the IRS's point of view, everything you said the company did is correct.  They paid you in January, contributed to your 401k as a result of that paycheck, and thus you were officially considered covered for 2015."