While you can’t buy physical gold (only self-directed IRAs allow you to do that), you can invest your IRA funds in other types of gold investments, such as gold-oriented mutual funds, gold futures, gold ETFs, or gold stocks. You can even invest in gold mining companies. A gold IRA is a type of self-directed IRA that allows you to invest in gold bars for retirement. In a regular IRA, you can’t own physical gold, although you can invest in a wide variety of assets that are invested in gold, such as gold stocks or gold ETFs.
To use an IRA to invest in gold, you must follow two IRS guidelines. First, you can only invest in IRS-approved gold. Although the list of approved options is changing, the IRS says it must be “highly refined precious metal.” Because the gold in a gold IRA must be stored in an IRS-approved depot, you can’t store it in a safe, a home safe, or under your mattress
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Many investors choose gold to diversify their portfolio, either by investing in a gold IRA or buying the metal outright. A gold IRA also has similar tax benefits to a normal IRA, allowing interest to accrue tax-free until the owner is ready to retire. However, the IRS has introduced additional tax reporting and record keeping requirements for gold IRAs due to the more complicated assets they hold. If you already have an IRA or 401 (k), either Regular or Roth, you have the option to convert some or all of your funds into a Gold IRA
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In other words, when you buy gold in your Roth IRA, you can’t keep the physical bars or coins yourself. When you’re ready to sell the physical gold holdings in your Roth IRA, contact your brokerage firm. Once you’ve opened a self-managed gold IRA, you can transfer cash to the account to fund your purchase of physical gold. Make sure you check the list of allowed gold objects with your custodian bank before you transfer gold to
your IRA.
The ability to use gold and other materials as securities in an IRA was introduced by Congress in 1997, says Edmund C. Some IRA companies guarantee that they will buy the gold back to you at current wholesale prices, but you could still lose money if you close the account, which is not usually the case when opening and closing regular IRAs. Your custodian bank can refer you to an approved institution and process the gold transfer as part of setting up your Gold IRA. Gold IRAs are usually defined as alternative investments, meaning that they are not traded on a public stock exchange and require specialized expertise to value them
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Record gold sales combined with the appearance of many more companies processing and simplifying transactions have made investing in a gold IRA a one-stop shop. If gold seems like a good choice for you, Sentell suggests investing no more than a third of your retirement savings in a gold IRA. Gold IRAs have higher maintenance fees than other types of IRAs, which is due to the additional costs associated with investing in
gold.