When were Roth IRAs created?
Roth IRA
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Funds that reside in a Roth IRA cannot be used as collateral for a loan per current IRS rules and therefore cannot be used for financial leveraging or as a cash management tool for investment purposes.
Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax deductible. By contrast, contributions to a traditional IRA are tax deductible (within income limits). Therefore, someone who contributes to a traditional IRA instead of a Roth IRA gets an immediate tax savings equal to the amount of the contribution multiplied by their marginal tax rate while someone who contributes to a Roth IRA does not realize this immediate tax reduction. Also, by contrast, contributions to most employer sponsored retirement plans (such as a 401(k), 403(b), Simple IRA or SEP IRA) are tax deductible with no income limits because they reduce a taxpayer's adjusted gross income.
Eligibility to contribute to a Roth IRA phases out at certain income limits. By contrast, contributions to most tax deductible employer sponsored retirement plans have no income limit.
Contributions to a Roth IRA do not reduce a taxpayer's adjusted gross income (AGI). By contrast, contributions to a traditional IRA or most employer sponsored retirement plans reduce AGI. Reducing one's AGI has a benefit (besides reducing taxable income) if it puts the AGI below some threshold to make the taxpayer eligible for tax credits or deductions that would not be available at the higher AGI with a Roth IRA. The amount of credits and deductions may increase as the taxpayer slides down the phaseout scale. Examples include the child tax credit, the earned income credit, the student loan interest deduction.
A Roth IRA contribution is taxed at the taxpayer's current income tax rate, which is higher than the income tax rate during retirement for most people. This is because most people have a lower income, that falls in a lower tax bracket, during retirement than during their working years. (A lower tax rate can also occur if Congress lowers income tax rates before retirement.) By contrast, contributions to traditional IRAs or employer-sponsored tax-deductible retirement plans result in an immediate tax savings equal to the taxpayer's current marginal tax bracket multiplied by the amount of the contribution. The higher the taxpayer's current marginal tax rate, the higher the potential disadvantage. However, this issue is more complicated because withdrawals from traditional IRA or employer sponsored tax deductible retirement plans are fully taxable, up to 85% of Social Security income is taxable, personal residence mortgage interest deduction decreases as the mortgage is paid down, and there may be pension plan income, investment income and other factors.
A taxpayer who pays state income taxes and who contributes to a Roth IRA (instead of a traditional IRA or a tax deductible employer sponsored retirement plan) will have to pay state income taxes on the amount contributed to the Roth IRA in the year the money is earned. However, if the taxpayer retires to a state with a lower income tax rate, or no income taxes, then the taxpayer will have given up the opportunity to avoid paying state income taxes altogether on the amount of the Roth IRA contribution by instead contributing to a traditional IRA or a tax deductible employer sponsored retirement plan, because when the contributions are withdrawn from the traditional IRA or tax deductible plan in retirement, the taxpayer will then be a resident of the low or no income tax state, and will have avoided paying the state income tax altogether as a result of moving to a different state before the income tax became due.
The perceived tax benefit may never be realized. That is, one might not live to retirement or much beyond, in which case the tax structure of a Roth only serves to reduce an estate that may not have been subject to tax. To fully realize the tax benefit, one must live until one's Roth IRA contributions have been withdrawn and exhausted. By contrast, with a traditional IRA, tax might never be collected at all, such as if one dies before retirement with an estate below the tax threshold, or retires with income below the tax threshold. (To benefit from this exemption, the beneficiary must be named in the appropriate IRA beneficiary form. A beneficiary inheriting the IRA solely through a will is not eligible for the estate tax exemption. Additionally, the beneficiary will be subject to income tax unless the inheritance is a Roth IRA.) Heirs will have to pay taxes on withdrawals from traditional IRA assets they inherit, and must continue to take mandatory distributions (although they will be based on their life expectancy). It is also possible that tax laws may change by the time one reaches retirement age.
Congress may change the rules that allow for tax-free withdrawal of Roth IRA contributions. Therefore, someone who contributes to a traditional IRA is guaranteed to realize an immediate tax benefit, whereas someone who contributes to a Roth IRA must wait for a number of years before realizing the tax benefit, and that person assumes the risk that the rules might be changed during the interim. On the other hand, taxing earnings on an account which were promised to be untaxed may be seen as a violation of contract and completely defeat the purpose of Roth IRAs as encouraging saving for retirement – individuals contributing to a Roth IRA now may in fact be saving themselves from new, possibly higher income tax obligations in the future. However, the federal government is not restricted by the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits "Law[s] impairing the Obligation of Contracts". By its terms, this prohibition applies only to state governments.