A gold IRA is a self-managed individual retirement account that invests in both physical gold and other precious metals. A gold IRA often has higher fees than a traditional IRA or Roth IRA, which invests exclusively in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. A gold IRA is a type of self-managed individual retirement account (IRA) that allows you to own gold bars. 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 stocks of gold mining companies or exchange-traded gold funds (ETFs).
Gold IRAs are a special type of self-directed IRA that allows you to invest in physical gold and other precious metals, such as silver, platinum, and palladium. Investing in a gold IRA requires the services of a custodian bank, a broker to purchase gold, and an approved depositary to store gold. Like other self-directed IRAs, Gold IRAs can be Traditional or Roth. These investments are available in a normal brokerage IRA, which means you don’t have to go through the work and additional costs of setting up a self-directed gold IRA.
Popular gold IRA companies include Orion Metal Exchange, Birch Gold Group, Red Rock Secured, Gold Alliance, Oxford Gold Group, and Goldco. Before you initiate the transfer, it’s important to calculate how much of your existing retirement savings you’d like to invest in your new Gold IRA. All Gold IRA rollovers follow the same rules as converting to a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA. A gold IRA works just like any retirement account with the added benefit of giving you more control over your investment, including physical gold coins and bars, as well as other IRS-approved silver, platinum, and palladium metals.
A gold IRA or a custom precious metal IRA cannot store every type of physical gold or precious metals. Given that you can also hold silver coins or gold bars, platinum, and palladium in a gold IRA, the correct term is technically “precious metal IRA.” You can transfer all or part of the balance to fund a Gold IRA with no tax liability, as long as you complete the rollover within 60 days. In addition to the account depository, the Gold IRA Company coordinates the tasks of the custodian, the facility where the precious metals in your IRA are physically stored.
Gold IRAs follow the same general rules as traditional IRAs when it comes to tax benefits (traditional or Roth), contribution limits, and payout rules. They also perform the necessary administrative functions to ensure that your Gold IRA complies with all IRS regulations. It should be emphasized that a gold IRA is only necessary if an investor wants to invest in physical gold bars, coins and gold bars. Surprisingly, a gold IRA doesn’t just have to hold gold, you don’t have to hold any gold in one at all.
Making a mistake, even if it happens accidentally, can be very costly. So it’s worth knowing what the IRS will and won’t let the IRS do with your Gold IRA. With your Gold IRA or Custom Precious Metals IRA, you’ll still have beneficiaries, receive quarterly account statements, and can sign up online to check your balances.