Spousal IRA

Spousal IRAs provide for the opportunity of making contributions on behalf of your spouse. You can open a Spousal IRA account to your spouse in case s/he is unemployed or her/his income is too small and make contributions for their sake.

Spousal IRA Requirements

1. Be legally married at the end of the tax year.
2. Prepare and file a joint income tax return.
3. One of the spouses should be employed and has earned enough to cover the desired contributions to the account.

Another requirement that should be met is with regards to the type of year you can open with regards to age.

• Traditional IRA - the spouse should not be older than 70 ½ years.
• Roth IRA - the spouse is not subject to any age limitations.

Contribution Limits

Tax Deduction

Under IRA conditions, you are allowed to deduct the amount of the contributions you have made to your spouse' account from your income tax return. But, this is allowed only if you don't participate in the retirement plan that is provided by your employer.

In the case of participating in your company's retirement plan and your average gross income is no more than $150,000 the full amount of your spousal IRA can be deducted from your income return. On the other hand, you can partially deduct your spousal contributions if the AGI is between $150,000 and $160,000.

If you have chosen a Roth IRA for your spouse, you will be able to contribute to his/her account only if your annual earnings don't exceed $160, 000.

Another requirement when opening a spousal IRA is that the account should be signed under the name of your spouse. Despite this, the opportunity of being his/her beneficiary still remains. IRA regulations disregard the fact that you are making the contributions and don't permit joint accounts.

To get the most out of your money, whether you are interested in mutual funds, stocks, ETFs or options, you need two main things - the knowledge and the right trading platform. As for the trading platform, we can highly recommend you try Zecco and TradeKing.
Zecco offers free stock/etf trading, no account minimum, trading community, real time quotes, and is also protected and insured against loss by SIPC. Opening a Zecco account to take advantage of $0 stock trades allows you to save money, which you can reinvest instead of paying brokerage commissions. These fees can make really big difference for long-term investing options like retirement plans (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA - 401k).
TradeKing has been ranked #1 Discount Broker by the annual US broker survey of SmartMoney (the Wall Street Journal Magazine). It has been also awarded the highest ranking in Barron's annual survey of Best Browser-Based Online Brokers. Take advantage of the award winning platform features by opening a TradeKing account and get $50.

Bookmark this page (CTRL+D) :