Can i sell a fund that is currently in my Roth IRA to use the money to purchase a different fund in that same Roth IRA without having to pay any taxes or penalties?

Absolutely. There are no tax consequences related to buy/sell transactions within a Roth. No IRS penalties either. No need to be concerned with long term vs short term capital gains. No distinction between capital gains, dividends or interest. Also, you don't report these transactions like you would a buy/sell in a taxable brokerage account. All of this is also true of standard IRA accounts.

However, you should determine if the fund might be charging you if when you sell... either because of a back end load or because of a short hold period. If you only select NO LOAD funds, you will not have any fees with the possible exception of a purchase and sale in less than 90 days.

You should probably look at you library or bookstore for a guide to investing, or start to subscribe to Money or Kiplinger Financial to learn more of the basics. And... if you have another question, feel free to post again. You can tell from the reader counts that lots of folks are interested in all of these questions.

John G,

Thanks for the help. I certainly appreciate it.