How do I roll my IRA into Gold and Silver? Is there a defined approach to doing this that everyone should follow? If you have not been pleased with the performance of your IRA this year, then such are questions that you’re likely to be asking yourself. It is also possible that you’ve heard about the benefits of precious metals in retirement investments, and you’re trying to purchase some gold and silver to reap the same benefits. In today’s article, I will help you understand how you can rollover your current IRA into gold and silver, and also present my recommendation on the companies that can help you achieve this.
P.S.
See my Top-5 List of Gold & Silver IRA Solutions on this page
The Basics – what are your options
The one thing you need to know is that putting precious metals in your IRA can be such a simple and straightforward process. If your current IRA allows you to choose stocks, bonds, and funds, you can pick gold and silver-related paper assets. Doing so will let you earn from the movement of prices in the precious metal investment industry, but will unfortunately not offer similar benefits to those presented by physical gold and silver. The option that you have, therefore, is to roll over your IRA (the funds in it) into gold and silver, though this process may be a bit more complicated.
Paper precious metals – the ‘not-so-good option
Individual Retirement Accounts that allow you to choose your own stocks are an easy-to-work-with option for those who would like to convert their holdings into paper equivalents for gold and silver. For instance, you can purchase an interest in these precious metals by purchasing stock in the mining companies. The prices of the stock are bound to fluctuate with the changes in the value of the metals they mine. Unfortunately, these companies’ balance sheets and reputations also affect the price movement of the stock. If a mining company is shut down due to poor performance, the death of miners, or the lack of more minerals to mine, then your retirement investment could end up getting compromised.
To avoid such a situation, you can opt to buy exchange-traded funds that comprise gold and silver holdings. In this case, a share of the fund is used to represent a piece of the precious metal holdings. Unfortunately, ETFs are also susceptible to market forces, despite being more stable than stocks.
Self-directed IRAs – the best option
If you want to purchase physical gold and silver in an IRA, then the best option is to set up a self-directed individual retirement account. A self-directed IRA (SDIRA) is essentially a special IRA that presents an investor with more choices of the assets they can own (more than what you can expect in traditional IRAs). Amongst the things you can hold in your SDIRA include precious metals, such as:
- Gold
- Silver
- Platinum
- Palladium
You will, however, have to follow the rules stipulated by the IRS, as far as the purity of the above-listed precious metals is concerned.
**See my #1 Recommended Gold & Silver IRA Solution
Rolling your funds into gold and silver
To successfully move the money held in your IRA into physical gold and silver, you need to follow all steps to roll over the funds from the traditional IRA into a self-directed IRA. You, therefore, have a duty to pick a reliable self-directed IRA, so that this process can happen smoothly.
The IRS allows investors to roll over funds only once in a 12-month period, so you should also consider this rule to ensure that roll the right amount of funds (by your own estimation) into gold and silver. The one thing you’ll be pleased to know about this rollover process is that it presents tax advantages in the form of zero tax charges on all the money that you rollover from your IRA into a self-directed IRA (for use in the purchase of gold and silver) if you carry out the process within 60 days. You’ll also not incur any penalties on the transfer.
Purchasing the Bullion for your self-directed IRA
Upon funding your self-directed IRA, you can start to purchase gold and silver with it. It is necessary to work with a reputable precious metal dealer at this point so that you end up with bars and bullion of the IRS-approved quality. Your custodian will then send the precious metals dealer the money, after which the dealer will ship the bullion to the custodian’s depository.
At this juncture, I’m sure you are wondering why the precious metals will not be shipped to you so that you can store them in your safe. Thing is, the IRS does not let anyone hold their own precious metals, and anyone who attempts to hold their gold and silver is liable for penalties. Not forgetting that for the sake of retirement investments through IRAs, one can only purchase bars, bullion, and coins from a limited selection, such as American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs.
Final Remarks
As you can see, rolling over your IRA into gold and silver is not a complicated process, but it is one that demands that you stick to a number of rules. The best thing to do when starting out with precious metal investments is to work with reliable service providers at each level. Gold and silver are highly-priced commodities, and those who are looking for ways to purchase them are, as such, usually targeted by scammers and thieves.
Whereas you may not have all the information about all the reliable companies you are supposed to contact to roll your IRA into gold and silver, you can at least get started by checking the companies I have recommended below. Hopefully, you will come across one that will look professional and reliable to you, and you will, upon doing enough research about it, contact its support staff to get started with the rollover process:
See Gold Retired’s Top-5 Recommended Gold and Silver IRA companies
OR
See Gold Retired’s Top-Recommended Bitcoin IRA
That will be all for this article, in which I’ve responded to the question, “How do I roll my IRA into gold and silver?”. Thank you for making it to the end, and I hope that you now have sufficient information to get started with the rollover process. Let me know if you have any more questions.
I wish you well,
Eric, Investor and Team Member at Gold Retired!
Hi Eric. Thank you for very interesting article. Securing future is extremely important, and in current day I wouldn’t feel comfortable to invest all my money in stocks. Gold and other precious metals seems as reasonable option and your post is very helpful. Initially I was thinking about buying paper precious metals but after reading your post I think self-directed IRAs are much better option. Looking forward to use your advices in practice.
Thank you for your comment! Appreciate it more than you might think!
I really hope you found value from the post and that it was helpful to you!
/Best