You can make a reinvestment or transfer from an existing IRA to a gold or silver IRA, or even a Gold IRA account. A reinvestment requires that you take possession of the funds and deposit them in a gold or silver IRA within 60 days. A transfer is less complicated because the funds go directly from your current IRA to a Gold IRA account within 5 days. To help customers avoid this threat, some IRA companies repurchase their gold, for example, at the then-current wholesale price. Therefore, if your portfolio is balanced with investments in gold and paper, the losses on the gold side will be offset by the gains experienced by other assets.
You get the same tax benefits from a gold IRA as from a traditional IRA with stocks and bonds. The main benefit of an IRA with gold is that it provides you with a way to own physical precious metals within a tax-advantaged retirement plan. To invest IRA funds in gold, you must establish a self-directed IRA, a type of IRA that the investor manages directly and which is allowed to own a wider range of investment products than other IRAs. To open a gold IRA, technically called a self-directed IRA, you'll need to find a company that specializes in these types of accounts.
In the event of a reinvestment, your current IRA depositary will hand you the money you want to withdraw and then you will have 60 days to deposit the funds into your new gold IRA account. Gold from a gold IRA must be stored in an IRS-approved repository; you can't keep it in a safe, in a safe at home, or under your mattress. When it's time to call IRA companies with gold, ask representatives if they recommend ingot products or if there are better options. If you already have an IRA or 401 (k), regular or Roth, you have the option of transferring part or all of your funds to a gold IRA.
For a gold IRA, you need a broker to buy the gold and a custodian to create and manage the account. If you opt for a transfer, the funds are sent directly to the depositary of your gold IRA account, so there's no chance of additional fees or penalties being imposed on you. The tax code also states that gold or silver must be held by an IRS-approved depositary or trustee, although some gold IRA sellers claim that this law has a loophole (we'll talk about this later). In my opinion, turning your IRA into gold makes sense because all the other assets you can keep in a tax-advantaged retirement account are declining in value.
