Rollovers into IRAs - Regulations, Cautions, & Tips:

Rollovers maybe one confusing subject, rollovers originate from eligible plans, tax-sheltered annuities, plus section 457-government plan, cum five IRAs types. Rollovers may come from eligible plans like 401(K), profit-sharing plans, and pensions. Rollover can be to Roth IRA or traditional retirement account. Say you have one 401(K) and preparing for your retirement, then you plan on rolling your 401(K) plan into one IRA, and then in that case know the rules and cautions first.

For transferring your assets from 401(K) into any IRA like Roth IRA the stipulated time period is 60 days, if you cannot cover the conversion within this time period then your aimed rollover would be treated as distribution, which would subject to taxation, plus if your age is under 59 ½ then 10% premature penalty on distribution would be charged. Cleanest method for rollover is through trustee to trustee transfer. Getting qualified plan’s proceeds personally would require 20% withholding. If your assets are rollover to Roth IRA then they are charged taxes unlike traditional or SEP or SIMPLE IRA rollover.

Roth IRA has couple of advantages over other IRAs like no minimum distributions are required till death, no taxes are paid at withdrawal time, plus your Roth accounts’ descendent enjoy your Roth assets tax free. But certain things can’t be rollover from qualified plan into IRA like hardship distributions, loan deemed as distribution. Anyways speak with one qualified tax-advisor before your rollover making sure any prohibition doesn’t exist.
There are certain rules and regulations of Roth IRA and you need to take care of those rules. People usually opt for Roth IRA and they get confused as they do not have enough knowledge of Ira. So to understand it better you should take online help from various websites.