A Roth IRA is generally not considered a cheap vehicle for children, but it should be.
Roth IRA accounts are ideal for children because children have decades to grow their contributions, tax-free. And these accounts also offer flexibility: contributions to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn at no cost or penalty at any time.
There is no age limit. Even little kids can contribute to a Roth IRA: the obstacle to opening this account is income, not age.
The child must have earned income. If a child has earned income, he or she can contribute to a Roth IRA. The IRS defines income received as taxable income and wages: money collected by a W-2 service or self-employment, such as babysitting, walking a dog, cleaning a sty, or bonfire. If you wish to contribute to your child's Roth IRA account or match your child's contributions, it is preferable to have at least the same working income as the total amount of the grant.
There are contribution limits. The Roth IRA contribution for children's limit is $ 6,000 per year in 2019, or the total income earned during the year, the lesser of the two. If a child earns $ 2,000 for child care in 2019, she/he can contribute up to $ 2,000 for a Roth IRA.
Your child's income is what makes them eligible for the Roth IRA, but a parent or other adult will need to help open the account. Roth IRA providers generally require an adult to open and administer a Roth Custody IRA on behalf of a child.
The process is very straightforward and should only take about 15 minutes: you must provide social security numbers for you and your child, dates of birth, and other personal information.
Now that you know if your children can have a Roth IRA, you may be wondering if they should have one. The answer is yes. In addition to wanting to invest in advance, there are several reasons why a particular Roth IRA is the right choice for children:
Retirement accounts are well-known sticklers'' about allocations; many impose a 10% fine on money raised before the age of 59 and a half. It is difficult for children who are not exactly known for their ability to delay pleasure.
But a Roth IRA is different. Money deposited into the account can be withdrawn at any time and used for everything from a teddy bear to a genuine first machine.
This flexibility is offset by stricter rules for Roth IRA income or the return of invested contributions. The distribution of investment profits may be taxed on income, penalized by a 10% advance distribution tax or both.
These two rules make the Roth IRA a good compromise between children who want easy access to their money, and parents who want to make sure that part of their money will be saved for the future.
There is a funny phenomenon called compound interest that works like this: over time, the money invested makes more money. A child who begins saving early has many more benefits. If your children leave their money with the Roth IRA until they retire, they may see 50 years or more of an investment, completely tax-free.
You can say that a single contribution of $ 6,000 to a Roth IRA, without additional inputs, would increase to about $200,000 in 60 years (assuming a return on investment of 6% and a monthly capitalization).
This increase would not occur in a simple savings account, which is the most traditional option for children since it is flexible and does not require income. Unlike a Roth IRA, birthday money is welcome.
However, a Roth IRA account allows your children to choose investments that can lead to the type of growth described above in the long term. In contrast, savings accounts pay a relatively fixed interest rate, currently around 0.09%. It is by far and away from several thousand dollars, 6% or more, that you can expect to earn each year with a long-term investment. Even at a 1% interest rate paid today by many online savings accounts, a single deposit of $ 6,000 will not double even after 60 years.
There are tradeoffs, of course: in particular, your children can lose the money they invest in a Roth IRA, even though history tells us that it is unlikely to happen if they join a diversified portfolio for a long time.
The Roth IRA works like this: Since there is no tax exemption for depositing money into your account, eligible retirement distributions are not taxable. All of this growth we are talking about is entirely tax-exempt if your child follows the distribution rules.
Roth's tax treatment is particularly useful when the time horizon is long, and the current tax rate is low, and both are valid for children. In fact, most children's incomes are so small that they pay little or no income tax, which means they avoid contributory taxes.
Yes, a Roth IRA account is a retirement account. The ideal goal is to keep in mind and allow them to accumulate the right amount of money over time. But it should be mentioned that a Roth IRA is not just a retirement account.
Again, contributions can be withdrawn at any time for any reason. However, there are specific gaps that can ensure that your child has access to investment income before the age of 59 and a half.
