Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Can you use external money to pay trading commissions in tax-free and tax-deferred accounts?
According to Publication 590, broker's commissions for stock transactions within an IRA cannot be paid in addition to the IRA contribution(s), but they are deductible as part of the contribution, or add to the basis if you are making a nondeductible contribution to a Traditional IRA. (Top of Page 10, and Page 12, column 1, in the 2012 edition of Pub 590). On the other hand, trustees'  administrative fees can be paid from outside the IRA if they are billed separately, and are even deductible as a Miscellaneous Deduction on Schedule A of your income tax return (subject to the 2% of AGI threshold).  A long time ago, when my IRA account balances were much smaller, I used to get a bill from my IRA custodian for a $20 annual administrative fee which I paid separately (but never got to deduct due to the 2% threshold). My custodian also allowed  the option of doing nothing in which case the $20 would be collected from (and thus reduce) the amount of money in my IRA.  Note that this does not apply to the expenses charged by the mutual funds that you might have in your IRA; these expenses are treated the same as brokerage commissions and must be paid from within the IRA.