John G

You need to rely on your lawyer for advice, not wait for information to show up here. Your lawyer should be taking the lead. Sounds like the sister is not willing to accept your claim. If the amount is modest, you may end up spending more money on lawyers and court costs then just reaching an agreement.

Sounds like the custodian is an insurance company and they clearly mislead you about what was needed. While your spouse should have followed up to make sure his wishes were acted upon, the appalling advice you got makes me think you have a good case against the firm. If the sister is not trying to take possession of the funds, then this will get resolved after a few letters between the lawyers. If the sister seeks to collect the funds, you have a bigger problem. You problem is a good lesson to all the folks who visit this board. Never assume that the letter of instructions or the paperwork was done correctly or filed on time. Murphy lurks in the bowels of every custodians backroom. You need to follow up all instructions to be absolutely sure the changes were made. You need to check every monthly statement to be sure transactions are posted. Good luck with this problem. Keep us posted.

Your second question is best left to your lawyer, there are many possible answers especially if the funds are with a bank, brokerage or mutual fund with operations in multiple states. You should be aware that the sister could decline to accept the inheritance, in which case the funds would either be returned to the estate or perhaps you would be next in line.... again, a question for your lawyer. If the sister is trying to claim the funds, then you have a dispute that will require a court ruling. If your problem is not with the sister, but with the custodian then this issue can be cleared up rather quickly. I am not a lawyer, but from the facts you stated I would assume that a judge would see there was some intent to change the status of the account. The custodian should have known you can not have join ownership of an IRA, but it is less clear that an average citizen would know this. You may have an action against the custodian for incompetance. Who was the "agent" you mentioned? A brokerage? A bank? This is an interesting problem, I hope you will post again how it is resolved.

You don't get a free pass with investing, as your assets grow you will need to spend more time and understand your options, the rules that effect you, and the focus of funds you a choosing. Over the long haul, if you minimize your personal effort you significantly increase your risk of making mistakes. If you don't understand investing, you are more likely to get nervous about market swings and exit at the lows and buy in at the highs - which is exactly the opposite of what you want to do. It is your money after all, so I would pay attention to investment choices. All that said.... when you are just getting started, you just don't have a lot of assets set aside. So, for the first 5-10 years you can pick one good general stock fund and just add the next years contribution. Keep this going until you see some serious assets when you may want to consider splitting your IRA into two funds. Vanguard is a wise choice because of their low operating expenses. S&P500 vs Total Market - they both would do the job. You get significant diversification. The expenses are very low because these funds are driven by computer buy/sell decisions. Fewer trips to see companies. Less analyst bias. Good luck.

Not yet. Various plans have been floated by Congress and political candidates. None have become law. "Privatizing SSN" got set back to a lower priority after the stock market drop and Sept 11. This issue might come back up in a few years.

You will get more attention from any broker if they think you are considering an alternative firm or indicate you are willing to switch teams if you don't like the service. I would talk with Amex before you move the money. You will find that their interest in you may dwindle once the funds are in their vault. It is a natural tendancy of sales forces to focus on the next deal. You should drop by your local library and look at what they offer in investment basics books. The March issue of Consumer Reports each year has a very good general article on retirement planning and mutual funds that is written in laymen's language. Most mutual fund families have material on the web to evaluate individual funds with top holdings, asset mix, and other features. There are a lot of outstanding investors that are self taught, a process that is measured in decades rather than weeks. Good luck.

I think a third party would see this as a fee charged for special services that just applied to you. I have never seen any formal definition as to what qualifies as a deduction. What broker are you using?

Avoiding taxable gains: I would not recommend this as your first priority, I would worry about the investment choice first. If you sell a fund to avoid long term capital gains you often trigger short term gains at a higher rate. Yes, you could end up owning a fund with huge imbedded capital gains and you don't want to pay tax on this now if your personal gains are slight or non-existant. But that is a pretty rare specific case. New number crunching on new facts: Assumptions, age 56 now, retire at 66, either you or your spouse may live to 96 and so you might want to see a 30 year income stream. Math based solely on 200k rollover. Assuming that stock market over next ten years averages 10% annual return. Comparing three initial choices: investment choices that have expenses of 0.2%, 0.6% and 2.0%. These would compare to ultra low index fund like Vanguard, Amex no load index fund, or back end medium expense Amex managed fund. (you need to confirm the specific share classes that would apply and the total annual expense ratios) At retirement, age 66 the rollover would grow to $431k, $491k or $509k depending upon the net annual returns of 8%, 9.4% and 9.8%. At that point, you would have no problem pulling out an income stream of over $1,000. For example, lets convert the age 66 predicted assets of 509k (top scenario) to a flat 30 year income stream. If you shift to more conservative investments like 70% bond and 30% stock at retirement, you could expect to average about 8% return. Over a 30 year period you could draw about 50k per year, exhausting the funds completely when you hit 96 years. Four caveats: first, these numbers do not factor any inflation impact so the real value to you in future years would be less... you might assume a 1/2 todays purchasing power, but that is just a rule of thumb. Second, you would probably prefer a gradually increasing income stream rather than level. That is a spreadsheet job, not a simple calculator. Third, investment returns vary year to year and your result will move up or down depending upon where the good and bad years appear. Four, earlier lump withdrawals to cover special bills are not considered. These are just some general scenarios of how your hard work might play out in retirement. It is very hard to predict 10 years into the future, much less 30+ years. However, I think the exercise gives you important feedback for your planning. You need to factor in pension, SSN, home equity, cash/CDs and other assets to get a more complete picture. One of the points I was originally trying to demonstrate was the impact of choosing higher expense funds. As you can see above, just a 0.4% reduction in annual return costs over $18,000 over just the first ten years and this grows to about $78,000 if the difference is 2.0%. The difference grows much larger over the next 30 years in retirement if you still have the higher expenses problem. Hope this has been useful.

Welcome to this message board werty. I have some problems with your post. Exchange traded funds are hardly a panacea. The first problem is that the average investor does not know about them, and posters on this message board are often learning the basics. The second problem is that you left out some key facts. From NAZDAQ's web site on ETFs: Do I get paid dividends and/or capital gains? Exchange Traded Fund holders are eligible to receive their portion of dividends, if any, accumulated on the stocks held in trust, less fees and expenses of the trust..... No high management and sponsor fees. Expense ratios are very similar between ETFs and open-end mutual funds. Usually, they range from .18% of the value of the fund to .84% From Morningstar web site: Costs In terms of the annual expenses charged to investors, ETFs are considerably less expensive than the vast majority of mutual funds. SPDRs, for example, recently reduced their annual expense ratio to just 0.12%. IShares' annual expense ratios range from 0.09% for iShares S&P 500 Index, to 0.99% for several of its iShares MSCI Series offerings.... Still, investors need to put these numbers in perspective. On a $10,000 investment, you'd save just $9 a year by choosing iShares S&P 500 Index fund over Vanguard 500 Index Fund VFINX..... The expense advantage of ETFs may also prove to be more mirage than fact for most investors. That's because you must pay commissions to buy and sell ETFs, just as you would for stock transactions. Concerning SPS Advantage... from Amex's own web site: "Over the long term, SPS Advantage will be more expensive than buying mutual funds with front-end sales charges. In exchange, however, you’ll receive added convenience, specialized services, and ongoing advice from a financial advisor" {note they say more expensive than a loaded fund, which means it is a lot more expensive than a no load or index fund} "The SPS Advantage fee is a percentage of the total value of the mutual funds and securities in the account. Underlying products may have their own fees and expenses." There is a wonderful footnote in 6pt type that reminds the careful reader that 12b-1 can be layer on top of the annual fee. So fees on fees. I sure found it interesting that Amex did not specifically identify the overall percent subtract each year on the web pages that explain this account. My take on your proposals: While ETF's have some nifty features, claiming that they "they kill the expenses of index mutual funds" vastly overstates their positives. Note the key phrase "expenses of the trust" and "commissions to buy and sell" above. Also note that Morningstar does not say ETF "kill" index funds, rather they say they beat most mutual funds, which for the expense ratios they are talking about means actively managed funds. I also marvel at this statement you made: "I can't tell you the number of "No Load Investors" that are riding their no load index funds into the ground when simple strategies to prevent losses could be employed". That sounds suspiciously like something a broker would say. I would argue there are no simple strategies to prevent losses - this is an illusion. I have never met anyone who can consistently identify a bottom or a top for a specific stock, a sector or the market in general. You are sure to generate wonderful commissions for a broker when those trigger points are reached multiple times in a month. I have never seen any simple strategy that can be universally applied to financial markets under all conditions. The academic studies have demonstrated that annual performance tends to decline with frequency of trading. Investing has a very large cemetary for fool proof ideas that were mostly fool and little proof. You don't hear much about the "dogs of the dow" anymore - to name one theory that had 15 quarters of fame. If you want some credability on this message board, be honest with your facts and skip the "blabbing" comments. If you review the range of comments on this board you will see that posters are not likely to know a lot about spiders, puts/calls, straddles and other more advanced investment techniques. The audiance for this message board does not show any great interest in intraday trading either. Index funds are one of the mechanisms investors should understand. In my opinion index funds tend to outperform all but a tiny fraction of the actively managed funds. That ETFs also have some of these attributes does not diminish what I have said about index funds.

I agree with the above comments on the investment hold period. If you are 50 years old now, you could easily be invested for 35 years. Perhaps you should post: your current age, the age you expect to retire, the age you would need to tap into this rollover. I think you were talking about capital gains distributions from funds outside of IRAs. I would focus more on the validity of the investment choice and less on the tax issues. Changing your investments to avoid taxes can be very counter productive and take your eye off the more important issues. Your advisor should have told you about tax managed funds. For example, the Schwab 1000 is like an index fund except that at the end of the year they sell some down stocks to eliminate any capital gains or even dividends, and I don't think they have had any taxable anything in many years. Did your advisor tell you that index funds are by their nature less likely to cause capital gains? That is because they don't switch stock picks unless the underlying list changes and with continuous growth they are rarely compelled to sell anything. If your advisor has not communicated these rudimentary facts to you, then I suggest that he/she is not very knowledgable or is not allocating much time to your issues. How do you handle taxable events from a mutual fund? Every year you will get a statement from the brokerage/fund and it will divide up the various taxable amounts. Accompanying that statement will be information explaining the form. You or your accountant will then plug that data into a computer program or the Schedule D to create your 1040. {the short answer} When you transfer funds to avoid a capital gains distribution, you cause another taxable event and it will probably be short term gains. The 8% target is a fairly conservative number. In my mind that would represent a 60% stock 40% bond portfolio on low expense funds. In the mind of your AMEX rep, that might represent a 10% stock market return minus the 2% expenses of the Amex funds. Back end loading: A phased out back end load sure beats a front end load and it looks like you would keep the funds for enough years. You should SPECIFICALLY ask if you can transfer between similiar funds... my guess is yes... but you should not guess but find out. I personally would not go the route you are proposing because of the rather high expense ratio of the Amex funds. So far, you have not convinced me that the advice you are getting is worth very much... your advisor seems to be leaving out a lot of information that you should know. Give me some additional data on age/years and I will crunch the numbers again. You might want to add some comment on how much interest you have in learning about investing and monitoring your assets. If the answer is zero, then Amex approach might make some sense, but I would not expect a lot of personal attention after your assets arrive at Amex. (you get a lot of attention during the sales phase) Any modest effort on your part would allow you to make better long run investment decisions.

I think quantifying the differences expenses might make on your 401k might be instructive. You did not tell us the rollover amount, but I am going to assume $200,000 and that this money may be invested for 25 years. From Amex web site it looks like their no-load index funds may have expenses of 0.39 to 0.79% depending upon which index fund and what share catagory applies. I am going to assume a blended expense level of 0.6% for Amex. From Vaguard's web site I find the annual expenses of their S&P500 index fund at 0.18% and their Total Market index fund at 0.20% and I will use 0.20% for these calculations. I assume that the underlying stock market rose 10% a year before fund expenses. Comparing Vanguard approach to Amex after 25 years: you would have about $180,000 more with the lower cost Vanguard, which reflects a difference of just 0.4% in annual expenses. You can scale that up or down to match your actual rollover... but it sure looks like a big premium to me. Lets take this number crunching a little further. Same 25 years, same 200k rollover, same underlying stock market return of 10%. Comparing Vanguard S&P500 to the 2.75% loads of some of Amex's actively managed stock funds. Here, the difference assumed in the annual drag on investment return between V and Amex is 2.55%. The results are ugly. After 25 years, you would have $919,000 more by investing in an ultra-low expense Vanguard index fund compared to the Amex higher annual expense actively managed funds. I ignored any front end load with Amex actively managed funds. A couple of caveats: the applicability of Amex loads/expenses depend upon which share class applies and is far from clear even after reading their web site summaries. However, they have many funds that have expenses above industry averages, so the comparisons are instructive. I use these firms and funds for examples only, I neither support nor oppose any of these funds and have no financial interest or any other connection to either firm. There is a quantifiable cost of turning over your investment thinking to a "professional". I have given you some examples of how I would attempt to qualify the different results using an HP 12c and 10 minutes of crunching numbers. I am willing to rerun all the scenarios if you post more specific information.

You will find much of what you are looking for at American Expresses web site: http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/p...95,00.asp#INDEX and also a full list of funds at: http://br2.americanexpress.com/trade2/tool...ery.asp?fam=AXP Did you advisor tell you that Amex has five no-load index funds? AXP S&P 500 Index Fund AXP Mid Cap Index Fund AXP Total Stock Market Index Fund AXP International Equity Index Fund AXP Nasdaq 100 Index Fund If he did not, I would wonder about the degree to which his advice might be biased towards commission based products. Amex has about 45 loaded funds and the only no-load funds are the index funds. Amex does a pretty good job hiding the actual loads and fees - I think you have to go to the prospectus which is a document that must comply with more standard reporting and less PR. A quick look seems to show that the no load versions of their funds have annual expense of around 2.8% which is very high. The loaded versions subtract 5.75% on the front end and then tap you for 1.25% every year. Ouch. Compare that to 0.17 to 0.32% expenses index funds in Valley Forge which have no load. The five no-load index funds look a little better but still have annual expenses that are about 2x or 3x the comparable expenses at Vanguard. You might want to download the actual prospectus to make sure "expenses" are properly cited. The difference between Amex index and the Vanguard index may be about 0.4%, but over decades this difference would amount the thousands of dollars. You might be better off buying your advice on an hourly basis then to "Ka-ching" pay for it through higher expenses every year. I don't understand what you are saying about distribution dates, but if you are talking about capital gains distributions... they have no impact at all for mutual fund shares within a retirement account. There is no reason to avoid or even think about the capital gains distribution dates for any funds held by an IRA, Roth or 401k.

The comment above on expenses is absolutely correct - they can be hidden in a number of spots including 12b. Expenses above 2% is relatively rare and ussually related to exotic funds like niche international or a very specific focus fund. At least in those areas, there is some rationale basis for the expenses such as visiting companies around the world. However, I have a hard time understanding the expense structure differences that may range form .5% to 1.8% for a set of similiar funds that are domestic large cap, especially when you can select an index domestic large cap with expenses below 0.3%. We have probably dwelt too much time of fees, expenses and loads on mutual funds. Other issues to consider in selecting a fund: (1) who runs the fund and how long has he/she held the position, (2) the investment strategy or focus, (3) track record in up and down markets, (4) overall size - large funds are less nimble and more restricted in the firm in which they can invest (5) fund rules governing concentration, leverage, etc and (6) tax management or not {not an issue with IRAs just normal investing}. I am sure there are some other factors to consider. I have no experience with AMEX associated funds. Perhaps others can comment on this specific family of funds.

Don't confuse loads and fund expenses and fees. Some folks use these terms very casually to mean any type of charges. Fees normally refer to the annual charge for an IRA account. Not all funds have an annual charge, some that do waive the fee if the assets are above a specific level. Loads are either an initial lump payment based upon a percent of the deposit or a back end percent charge against the total assets at exit. Loaded funds are primarily loaded because the commission is passed on to salespersons who have an incentive to "sell". No-load funds do not have a commissioned sales force, but rely on brochures, the internet and media coverage. All funds have expenses. The funds with the lowest expenses are index funds where a computer makes stock purchases from a list, such as the S&P500, and there are no expenses for company visits and very low labor costs... the PC does all the work except customer service. On the high end you have high requirement funds such as country specific international funds. Loaded funds especially punish anyone who decides to change custodians or funds (if not in the same family) after a few years. There are actually more classes of shares then just A and B for many loaded funds. But I will restrict my comments to front end vs back end loads. With front end load, you immediately skim off XX% of your funds and so your investment base is smaller. Back end loads do not reduce the initial base but are imposed on what should be a larger pool of assets. Back end loads were invented by the industry when they had trouble competing with no-load funds. I am not very high on loaded funds, there are just too many underperformers on the marketplace being sold by the commissioned sales force. I would select a load type fund for only two reasons. First, if you are so unsure about investing that you want to leave all the decisions to a salesperson who will guide your choice. Problem with this is that the salesperson has a natural bias to steer you to the choice that gives them a good commission rather than one that gives you a good investment. Second, you have found a back-end loaded fund where the load is phased out after you assets have stayed with them for perhaps 6 or 8 years. Assuming that the underlying investment is performing well, this one of the better load type arrangements. The fund seeks to secure long term commitments and you in turn see the load slowly disappear. Ask AMX if that is what they offer. No load vs loaded: since you have 8,000+ funds to choose from and you only need a couple of good ones, you can find reasonable choices from both domains... I prefer to do my own thinking and avoid the advice of salepersons, so I would be inclined to go the no load route. Back to the issue of expenses: Do not assume that a loaded fund has no other annual expenses. They invariably do. Annual expenses have a very wide range. At the low end, some index funds get their annual expenses down below 0.30%. Actively managed funds based upon US stock market often will show annual expenses in the 0.75% to 1.50%. International funds, specialty funds (like environmental or social types), and sector funds (narrowly investing in a specific industry) tend to have annual expenses of 1.5 to 2.5%. In the past twenty years, index funds have consistently beaten 80% or more of all actively managed funds. Why? Because they save 1% or more of the annual expenses. So a mindless computer picking stocks from a big list.... Vanguard 500 for example... tends to perform better than most teams that actively analyze stocks, interview CEOs and talk to vendors. It irritates anyone who believes in stock picking (which includes me) but it is just hard to overcome that 1% edge you give up. What this says is that stock picking is not nearly as big an issue as the asset (stocks, bonds, moneymarket, cd, or cash) allocation. Yes, a handful of fund managers can put together a string of market beating performances. But, the common fund has a hard time consistently beating the performance of a ultra-low expense no load index fund.

No problem posting investment questions here as they are often intertwinned with Roth/IRA issues. Sounds like you are going to tuck some extra money into a Roth. The first issue is to make sure you have "earned income" and otherwise meet the filing/income qualifications. I will assume that you are qualified. Next step is to select a custodian who will hold your assets. Your primary choices for custodian include: brokerages, mutual funds or fund families and banks. Some of these options can be done on the internet, others by 800 numbers. I recommend that you consider either a discount broker like Etrade, Schwab or Ameritrade or a No-load mutual fund family like Vanguard, T Rowe Price, Janus, etc. {No-load is a type of mutual fund that does not charge a front end commission or a commission when you exit} Most brokerages offer access to mutual funds from their system. The best way to make a custodian selection is to contact three potential custodians and ask them what they offer for someone getting started... they usually have some good promo material to explain retirement accounts and investing. Note, that some but not all custodians charge an annual fee for IRA accounts. Zero to $15 is reasonable, anything else you should reject. You can often ask a firm to waive their annual fee and they often do this to get your business. Making an investment choice: Here, I am going to suggest that for the first few years you keep things very simple and select a broad based stock fund. An S&P 500 index fund would be excellant, but their are many choices. I say stock mutual fund because I am assuming that these IRA assets will be left to grow for many years. Over multiple decades, stocks (aka equities) have traditionally provided better returns. Over a 30 year period you might have 6-7 down years, but the up years more then compensate. [if you are not aware of the different types of asset classes and their long term performance, I can say more in a second post on this] The maximum that you put into a Roth or IRA this year is $3,000 or if you are over the age of 50 you can contribute $3,500. Keep contributing to the same mutual fund each year until your assets grow to $20,000 of more. Then you may want to consider opening a second mutual fund. I would not consider individual stocks until you were much more familiar with investing and your retirement assets were more than $50,000. Some good sources of general information on investing, mutual funds and IRAs include: Kiplinger Financial, Worth, Money and Consumer Reports (March issue each year). Your local library will have a wide range of books on investing as well.

There are no tax consequences of transactions undertaken within either a regular or Roth IRA account. Long term , short term, dividends, income - have no meaning. Frequency of transactions have no impact either. You do not pay tax on any gains within any IRA during the year. Conversely, you generally will not be able to write off losses either. See the other questions on this message board that have addressed IRA losses - the process is complicated and subject to percent thresholds/limitations. Regular IRA dispursements in retirement are treated as ordinary income.... you do not get the benefit of long term capital gains. Roth IRA dispursements in retirement are tax free.

The methodology is set by law and IRS regs. The Federal perspective is indifferent to how many IRAs you own and where they are located. Conversion math is based upon the aggregate data: the total sum of all IRAs and the amount that was after tax contributions. I would imagine that the primary reason for this is to eliminate "cherry picking" and other game playing. Pro rata essentially means all data treated proportionally. You can not selectively pick and choose parts of an IRA or which IRA that you want to convert. All conversions are done on the valuation of the day of conversion. If 20% of your IRAs would not be taxable, then no matter how much you convert only 20% of the converted amount is non-taxable. You can not just convert the non-taxable components. Sorry.

Yes, anyone can fund the IRA. Max contributions to either Roth or regular IRA is $3,000 this year , or $3,500 if the IRA owner is over age 50. The IRA owner must qualify by having earned income. Same rules apply as if the IRA owner was funding the IRA (Roth or regular) themselves.

The original post said Vanguard considered the total of 3,015 to be contributed for 2002. Therefore, he has a problem. Call Vanguard and ask them how this might be corrected. If Vanguard makes no provision for "fees" to be paid directly, then you need to withdraw the $15 overage. You have both IRS and custodian issues here. The IRS can allow something, but the custodian may decide not to support it. In my experience with Bear Stearns and other brokerages, this option is only available on annual fees and must be done by separate check during a specific time window that is less than 60 days. It is a specific program, not a self electing option. When this program is offered you can avoid trimming off the value of an IRA to pay the annual fees which goes beyond the deduction issue. If Vanguard never offered this option to you, then they are unlikely to support your view. A phone call should reveal their policy. Vanguard is a great fund family but they aim for extremely low expenses and do not support every option that other custodians may support. Good luck with this.

You do not pay a 10% tax penalty if you are under 59 1/2 and are a first-time buyer of a home. The max you can pull out of an IRA is $10,000. Your spouse may also pull out $10,000 from their IRAs for this purpose. Both you and your spouse must meet the first-time buyer rules. See IRS Pub 590 for more restrictions. You are not borrowing from your IRA but taking a dispursement. I am not a big fan of this option. The total amount you can use is limited and reduces the effectiveness of your retirement tax shelter. You might want to consider seeking a loan from other family members or waiting a little longer before purchasing a home. Some communitities have special incentives and mortgages for first-time home owners that are worth investigating.

The IRS will regard this as overfunding your IRA. Some custodians allow you to pay with a separate check the annual fee. It is not clear that you are talking about a specific set fee. It sounds like Vanguard did not offer this to you but you assumed you could compensate for the fee. Call Vanguard and talk to them. I suspect you will need to write Vanguard a letter and request the money to be returned. The nature of this expense may not allow separate payment. I do not believe that "loads" are eligible for this separate check, separate treatment. Talk to Vanguard.

IRA tax credit issue is moot. She is a student and students, by law, do not qualify. This is not even fine print. They DON'T qualify.

Clarification: the new $3,000 max is for contributions made this year for 2002. It does not apply for contributions made in 2002 for 2001 tax year. If you currently have a low tax rate and do not expect a lower rate in retirement, then you are probably better off going 100% to a Roth.

Almost all custodians have pamphlets and brochures for novice investors and folks who are just getting started with IRAs. You will also find many of the brokerage houses and mutual funds will have some of this information on their web site. Other good sources for beginners include: Kiplinger Finance, Money and Worth magazines. A subscription to Kiplinger may be the best choice for you because they cover the intro career (buying a house, credit, IRAs, etc.) issues better.The March issue of Consumer Reports does a good job boiling down the basic facts and giving a short list of good mutual funds. Your local library will also have a wide range of books on investing that will cover IRAs. The maximum you can contribute to a Roth or regular IRA this year is $3,000, assuming that you have atleast that amount in "earned income". You will find that many employers have 401k, 403b or other retirement program that may be very good. Often you have more than one option to consider and may want to do more than one or some combination of options. You may want to pick up a copy of the IRS Publication 590 which covers various IRA programs. Another source of info is the sister site: www.rothira.com which has articles on various Roth/IRA issues. Sounds like your boy friends parents did you a great favor by getting you to think about an IRA account at an early age. You have about a 10 year start of many of your classmates. I am curious about where you have deposited your IRA funds. Hopefully you have a broadly based stock fund that will over the long haul give you a good return. Post again if you have other questions.

You should understand that this kind of transaction does have dangers associated with missing the 60 day period. For example, after day 55 you send a letter to the custodian, but they fail to execute the instructions in a timely fashion. Lots of small things can go wrong and the time period is fixed. Run this idea past your accountant or tax preparer and see if he/she thinks it is a good idea.... my guess is that they will also think of the severe downside of not getting the yolk back into the egg on time. Let's say something messes up the timing and you want to put restore the account.... under most circumstances you must wait a year to try it again. If it was a regular IRA, you would have tax witholding to deal with as well.