There are no age restrictions. Kids of any age can contribute to a Roth IRA, as long as they have earned income. A parent or other adult will need to open the custodial Roth IRA for the child. Not all online brokerage firms or banks offer custodial IRAs, but Fidelity and Charles Schwab both do.
The Roth IRA must have an adult custodian named on the account until your grandchild reaches the age of majority, which is age 18 in most states (including Washington). There is no minimum age for making earned income, only that the child has performed work.
Key Takeaways
You can't give someone a Roth IRA account, but you can give them contributions for a Roth IRA. The total amount of gifts you give one person can't exceed $16,000 annually, or you risk having to pay a gift tax.
IRA Contributions as Gifts to Minors
You can contribute funds directly to your child's or grandchild's IRA. However, it must not exceed the $6,000 ($7,000 for ages 50 and older) limit per year or the child's earned income, whichever is lower. The funds deposited in the IRA do not need to be the child's own funds.
No. Roth individual retirement accounts (Roth IRAs) are designed to be owned by one person only. Parents can, however, open a custodial Roth IRA on behalf of a minor child. Once the child becomes an adult, they assume ownership of the account.
Possible taxes are income taxes or gift taxes. You cannot transfer a Roth IRA to another person during your lifetime, so a gift to your wife is not possible. You can, however, name her as the beneficiary of the Roth IRA, and she would have free access to it once you pass away.
The short answer is yes, other people can contribute to your Roth IRA on your behalf. There are two specific types of Roth IRAs that are set up precisely for this: a custodial Roth IRA and a spousal IRA. While both types still require earned income to open the account, contributions can be made on your behalf.
If you give more than $15,000 in cash or assets (for example, stocks, land, a new car) in a year to any one person, you need to file a gift tax return. That doesn't mean you have to pay a gift tax. It just means you need to file IRS Form 709 to disclose the gift.
You can transfer money into a trust established to benefit a grandchild. You can reduce your taxable estate while earmarking funds for the higher education of a grandchild through the use of a “529 account.” You can use other gift vehicles like IRAs and savings bonds.
Do I need to report this transaction to the IRS? No, but your mother may be required to report this transaction to the IRS as a taxable gift. Generally, the transfer of any property or interest in property for less than adequate and full consideration is a gift.
For 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, the annual exclusion is $15,000. For 2022, the annual exclusion is $16,000.
In 2021, parents can each take advantage of their annual gift tax exclusion of $15,000 per year, per child. In a family of two parents and two children, this means the parents could together give each child $30,000 for a total of $60,000 in 2021 without filing a gift tax return.
You can contribute to someone else's IRA. If a family member or friend has an IRA, but unable to make contributions to their own IRA, then you can make contributions to their account as long as they have earned income.
Can You Have More than One Roth IRA? You can have more than one Roth IRA, and you can open more than one Roth IRA at any time. There is no limit to the number of Roth IRA accounts you can have. However, no matter how many Roth IRAs you have, your total contributions cannot exceed the limits set by the government.
Key Takeaways
Anyone who inherits a Roth individual retirement account (Roth IRA) from a parent eventually will have to withdraw all of the money from the account. In most cases, withdrawals will be tax free.
Roth contributions are made with after-tax money, and any distributions that you take are tax free as long as you are at least 59½ years old and have had a Roth IRA account for at least five years. Your beneficiaries can continue to enjoy this tax-free status for a period of time after they inherit the account.
In most cases, heirs can make tax-free withdrawals from a Roth IRA over 10 years. Spouses who inherit Roth IRAs can treat the accounts as their own. That is, there are no deadlines for withdrawals.
The Roth IRA five-year rule says you cannot withdraw earnings tax-free until it's been at least five years since you first contributed to a Roth IRA account. This five-year rule applies to everyone who contributes to a Roth IRA, whether they're 59 ½ or 105 years old.
Under current law, the parent has a lifetime limit of gifts equal to $11,700,000. The federal estate tax laws provide that a person can give up to that amount during their lifetime or die with an estate worth up to $11,700,000 and not pay any estate taxes.
The 7 year rule
No tax is due on any gifts you give if you live for 7 years after giving them - unless the gift is part of a trust. This is known as the 7 year rule. If you die within 7 years of giving a gift and there's Inheritance Tax to pay on it, the amount of tax due after your death depends on when you gave it.
Unfortunately, gifts to individuals are not tax deductible: tax deductions can only be taken for gifts to organizations on the IRS list of approved charities. In fact, the IRS limits the amount of gifts you can make to any one person. As of 2021, the maximum gift exclusion is $15,000 per child, per parent.
Generally, the answer to “do I have to pay taxes on a gift?” is this: the person receiving a gift typically does not have to pay gift tax. The giver, however, will generally file a gift tax return when the gift exceeds the annual gift tax exclusion amount, which is $15,000 per recipient for 2019.
Say you give two favored relatives $20,000 each in 2021 and give another relative $10,000. The $20,000 gifts are called taxable gifts because they exceed the $15,000 annual exclusion. But you won't actually owe any gift tax unless you've exhausted your lifetime exemption amount. ($20,000 - $15,000) x 2 = $10,000.