June 25th 2015
If you're the type of active investor who prefers to stay engaged with the oversight of your investments, you are likely already well-versed in the wide array of investment opportunities available through a self-directed Individual Retirement Arrangement. Contrary to common belief, your IRA account has almost limitless investing potential - providing the asset and your management methodology align with IRS guidelines.
Despite your investment savvy, when it comes time to pay the piper for your IRA expenses, including custodial services for those assets, you may have a few questions about what the process looks like. Can you as the IRA account holder finance the expenses of your retirement plan with your own personal funds? What about collecting income – do you as the IRA owner get to handle any of your hard-earned capital gain?
The fact of the matter is, your IRA is a completely separate legal entity from you, the IRA account owner. Consequently, financing the expenses of your IRA account and collecting income from your IRA’s investments must all be done through your IRA, not through the account of any disqualified persons – yourself included.
Nick Snapp, Client Representative at New Direction IRA, explains that the details of this process are fairly intuitive, as long as you understand the basic tenants of an IRA, “Although an IRA may be owned by a client, it’s helpful to look at it as a sovereign entity. The reason IRA administrators like New Direction exist is because the IRS wants to keep IRA owners at an arm’s length from their IRA investments.”
“Because an IRA is its own legal entity, any money that is earned through its investments or owed for its expenses must flow through IRA funds themselves. As far as making this process as painless as possible, New Direction has a leg up on its competitors because of our Online Bill Pay.”
New Direction IRA is paving the way in technologically advanced payment processes for self-directed IRA administrators. NDIRA has created an online bill payment environment that saves clients time and money. This unique feature allows clients to submit expense payments through myDirection.com, and reduce processing time down to only one business day. There are also no additional check fees to this process.
“Another benefit of the Online Bill Pay feature is clients’ ability to view their payment throughout the entire process. The feature works kind of like a bank account. Clients also have direct access to their funds. They can request a check for emergencies and receive it between 1 and 3 business days.”
To learn more about New Direction’s quick and efficient Online Bill Pay feature, click here.
Remember, you and your IRA account are friends, not carbon copies. Your IRA’s profits and expenses must be managed through your IRA alone – a provision that allows you to bask in the tax benefits that IRA accounts have to offer!
