Why It’s Important To Coordinate Your Taxable Investments With Your Self-Directed IRA Investments

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Your self-directed IRA can save you a lot of money in taxes, both in the short term as well as in the long run. If your IRA is set up as a traditional account, then (depending on certain aspects of your financial position) you may be able to take a tax deduction for those contributions. And contributions in traditional IRAs will grow on a tax-deferred basis, while the investment gains within a Roth IRA will never be subject to taxation. Many individuals are well-versed with the various tax implications on this level.

But there’s another perspective from which you may want to consider your self-directed IRA tax analysis, and this is the way that your taxable investment accounts, and investment decisions, can impact your self-directed IRA investments.

Let’s first examine just how valuable your self-directed IRA can be. Consider two hypothetical portfolios of $100,000, one a taxable account and the other a self-directed IRA. Let’s further assume that each portfolio is comprised of stock that pays dividends at a 3% rate annually (with those dividends being reinvested), and that the stock price appreciates 5% annually.

At the end of 25 years, the value of the taxable account would be approximately $525,000, while the self-directed IRA is worth over $630,000. This difference in value is attributable solely to the fact that the owner of the taxable account has to pay taxes on the dividends they receive, even if they choose to reinvest those dividends.

If the self-directed IRA is a traditional account, then you will have to pay taxes on those gains, but they’re likely to be at a lower tax rate (because you’re in retirement and perhaps no longer working full time), and they’ll only be taxed when you take the distribution. If your account is a Roth IRA, then you’ll realize the full value of the investment gains.

So one common tax optimization strategy is for an individual to place income-generating investments that would otherwise incur a tax liability into an IRA in order to avoid that liability.

On the other side of the equation, it’s important to note that there are certain tax advantages that are actually disallowed within an IRA. For example, investment interest (such as borrowing funds to purchase a stock investment, or taking out a mortgage to buy a piece of real estate) can be used to offset gains in a traditional account. But borrowing funds is considered to be outside the scope of permissible activities for self-directed IRAs, and the tax benefit of those expenses will be lost inside the retirement account.

It’s the same situation for investments that have tax advantages built in, such as municipal bonds. Because these investments would already be tax-advantaged outside of an IRA, there’s no reason (and it’s actually a missed financial opportunity) to keep these types of assets inside a retirement account.

Understanding the interplay between your taxable investment accounts and your self-directed IRA will put you in the best position to make the optimal investment decisions.