Given that I’m a Clark guy, no surprise I’m a Roth IRA fan.
Question: Can I take out the $5,000 I put in earlier this year and replace it if I put it back in by April 15 of next year?
I know you can take money you’ve put in to a Roth, just not the earnings. But you can’t put it back in. I’m hoping there’s an exception if it’s money I put in for this year.
I called the CAC but they were unsure. Hoping maybe someone knows for sure.
You can definitely do it within 60 days. My reading is that you’ve already used up $5,000 of your contribution limit for this year. Perhaps you could request a withdrawal of excess contributions, but it’s not entirely clear that you can do that if the contributions weren’t actually in excess of your limit. In any event, it’s going to be a tax mess. I wouldn’t try it unless I couldn’t figure out some other way to come up with the $5000. Even then, I’d probably skip the re-contribution part and just put it in a taxable account to avoid the uncertainty.
One source (fool.com):
Ah ok I thought that 60 day rule applied only to contributions in previous years.
And it might, but I doubt it. Since it’s not worth enough to get a legal opinion, or for someone to try it and then fight it in court if the IRS balks, I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.