Talk:Roth IRA

Arrangement versus account
The official IRS document listed at the bottom of this article, Publication 590, Cat. no. 15160x, is titled Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs): For use in preparing 2011 Returns. — Anita5192 (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

"Caveat" Re Step Transaction
I removed the paragraph on the step transaction. The article linked to does not constitute a reliable source, and I cannot find any RS on the internet for this. A reliable source in this case would be, I would say, a major financial firm like Fidelity or Vanguard, or a personal finance section of a website/newspaper like CNN or USA Today. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 00:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, it looks to me like the editor who added this may in fact be the author of the article used as the reference, in which case this is a self-published source.  The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 00:41, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Article mentioned at Forbes.com, possibly inaccurate
I don't understand this well enough to edit, but editors here should be aware of this piece which criticizes this article, towards the end of page 1: --JFH (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I see this has been addressed. --JFH (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, pity the author of the Forbes article didn't see fit to just correct the Wikipedia article.  The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 19:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Improvements for clarity
The Disadvantages section is not well written. Being tax-deductable and reducing AGI are exactly the same thing; it is redundant and misleading to mention it twice under different bullets. Comparing Roth IRAs to 401(k)s is not a good comparison; the advantages/disadvantages of Roth IRAs should be to traditional IRAs, not 401(k)s. Also, some employer-sponsored retirement plans have the option for Roth-style investing, which makes the comparison even less valid.

I propose that the advantages/disadvantages be presented in a table so that each characteristic can be seen side-by-side and can be easily compared.

Contracts clause aside not helpful. If the United States breaches a promise in the tax code, there is precedent for money damages under the Winstar cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.59.114.122 (talk) 17:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, the income limits do not appear to be updated for the current tax year, which start at $112,000 for single filers. 70.39.231.44 (talk) 13:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:BRD: arrangement or account?
This is the only place I've ever seen it called an "arrangement". Individual Retirement Arrangement redirects to Account. Google gets almost 27 million results for "account", compared to nearly two million for "arrangement". Admittedly the IRS uses "Arrangement", but almost everyone else (including Wikipedia) doesn't.  Ignatz mice•talk 03:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia should reflect the wording of the law which introduced the IRA. I believe this was the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and that refers to "Individual Retirement Accounts" and "Individual Retirement Annuities" (no mention of "Individual Retirement Arrangements")   The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 16:14, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The second paragraph under Advantages is incorrect:

"Distributions from a Roth IRA do not increase Adjusted Gross Income. This is important because it means that these distributions are income tax free (as noted immediately above), but it also has the important, additional advantage of not increasing a taxpayer's marginal income tax bracket. Distributions from a traditional IRA are not only taxable, but because they are income, they can also cause other income to be taxed in a higher marginal tax bracket."

Marginal income that falls wholy or partly in a higher tax bracket does not cause other income to be taxed in a higher backet. The way marginal tax rates (brackets) work is correctly described in other Wikipedia arsticles, for example here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

Thus the "additional advantage of not increasing a taxpayers marginal tax rate" (as comparted to distributions from a traditional IRA) does not exist. Tseanes (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2013 (UTC)tseanes

Criticism section
I'll be working on a criticism section of the Roth IRA. Here are some sources I plan on using: Lugevas (talk) 02:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Taxable SS benifits
I am unable to find any ref to IRAs in the IRS section mentioned. So should this passage be deleted?


 * Unlike distributions from a regular IRA, qualified Roth distributions do not affect the calculation of taxable social security benefits.

Ps. I went ahead and deleted some texts (unsourced!) that in my humble opinion appeared to have arbitrary proRoth bias. “Be Bold”. JdelaF (talk) 09:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC) JdelaF (talk) 09:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * The articles https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/does-an-ira-distribution-count-as-income-to-social.aspx and https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/provisional-income.asp confirm that the passage you are considering is true so I would not delete it.
 * Instead, I would add additional citations to the two articles above. Nick Nitpicker (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and added the additional citations. Nick Nitpicker (talk) 17:39, 10 January 2023 (UTC)