Tax intricacies of MLP in a Roth IRA
"You seem to have it right.  Unless you have a big position, having MLP shares in your IRA will not cause you any tax hassles.  Your IRA will get a Schedule K from the MPL (which may be mailed to you), but you won't need to do anything with that unless you're over the UBI limit.  Last I checked, that was $1000, and you probably won't exceed that. UBI in principle needs to be evaluated every year, so it's not necessarily a ""one-time"" event.  If your IRA does go over the UBI limit, your IRA (not you) needs to file a return.  In that case, contact your custodian and tell them about the Schedule K that you got. See also my answer here: Tax consequences of commodity ETF The question is about commodity ETFs in IRAs, but the part of my answer about UBI applies equally well."
"Assuming you are below retirement age, you typically cannot roll money from a Roth IRA into a 401k nor transfer money out of a 401k until you leave the company. Your best bet is to leave your exising roth ira separate from your 401k.  A good strategy for retirement accounts is whenever able (typically when you switch jobs) roll your 401k into a ""rollover IRA"" (not a roth).   Then you can manage your investments with more options than the 5-20 funds provided in the 401k.   I would recommend against rolling funds into a 401k because of the lack of options in most 401k plans. Also, 401k is pre-tax and Roth is post-tax.   Pre and post tax investments don't mix before withdrawal unless you do a conversion of some kind." "MLP stands for master limited partnership. Investors who buy into one are limited partners, rather than shareholders, and have their taxable income reported on K-1s, rather than 1099s. MLPs are engaged in businesses (e.g. real estate, natural resources) that generate a lot of cash that doesn't need to be ""reinvested,"" or put back into the company. Because of this feature, the IRS will exempt it from corporate tax if it pays out at least 95% of its income in the form of dividends. The advantage is that you avoid the ""double taxation"" common to most corporations, and get a higher yield as a result.  The disadvantage is that the company can't retain earnings for growth, and needs to borrow money if it wants to grow. In this regard, an MLP is much like a utility (except that a utility has to pay corporate taxes, and is otherwise heavily regulated by the Federal and/or state governments). You can look upon an MLP as an unregulated utility. This means that MLPs are most suitable for utility type investors who are more interested in current income, than capital gains. Because they are unregulated, they are riskier than utilities." For the Roth the earnings: interest, dividends, capital gains distributions and capital gains are tax deferred. Which means that as long as the money stays inside of a Roth or is transferred/rolled over to another Roth there are no taxes due. In December many mutual funds distribute their gains. Let's say people invested in S&P500index fund receive a dividend of 1% of their account value. The investor in a non-retirement fund will be paying tax on that dividend in the Spring with their tax form. The Roth and IRA investors will not be paying tax on those dividends. The Roth investor never will, and the regular IRA investor will only pay taxes on it when they pull the money out. You have two questions - first - no, if you are above the deduction limit, then you still have a traditional IRA deposit but with post tax money, tracked via form 8606.  Second - If I read this right, if you cannot take the deduction, but can do the Roth, by all means, this is the 'no-brainer' decision. Makes no sense to deposit non-deducted to a traditional IRA if you can do Roth.  But - for sake of the full picture - if above the Roth limit, you still should make the post tax deposit (to the traditional.) If you have no pretax IRA at all, you can convert immediately. If you have a mix, you have the option to convert piecemeal paying the tax on the pro-rated amount the pretax represents. "To answer your question point by point - I'd focus on the last point. The back of my business card -  Let's focus on Single. The standard deduction and exemption add to over $10K. I look at this as ""I can have $250K in my IRA, and my $10K (4%) annual withdrawal will be tax free. It takes another $36,900 to fill the 10 and 15% brackets. $922K saved pretax to have that withdrawn each year, or $1.17M total.  That said, I think that depositing to Roth in any year that one is in the 15% bracket or lower can make sense. I also like the Roth Roulette concept, if only for the fact that I am Google's first search result for that phrase.  Roth Roulette is systematically converting and recharacterizing each year the portion of the converted assets that have fallen or not risen as far in relative terms. A quick example. You own 3 volatile stocks, and convert them to 3 Roth accounts. A year later, they are (a) down 20%, (b) up 10%, (c) up 50%. You recharacterize the first two, but keep the 3rd in the Roth. You have a tax bill on say $10K, but have $15K in that Roth." Part of the difficulty in this sort of planning is that you are also betting on future tax rates and comparing them with current taxes.  If you are in a low tax bracket now, but expect to be in a higher one when you take the money out, it is better to pay the taxes now.  If you are in a high tax bracket now, but expect to be in a lower one when you retire/take the money out, then it is better to defer the taxes until then.  If you think that future sessions of Congress will decide to tax withdrawals from Roth accounts, then you should contribute to traditional accounts.  The problem is that you don't know with certainty what the future will bring. So you have to make educated guesses about what might happen, and what you can do now to protect yourself from it. Ideally, plan so that even if the bad things happen, you will be reasonably comfortable. "I was told if I moved my 401k into a Roth IRA that school purposes is one reasons you can withdraw money without having to pay a tax. Incorrect.  You will need to pay tax on the amount converted, since a 401(k) is pre-tax and a Roth IRA is after-tax.  It will be added to your regular income, so you will pay tax at your marginal tax rate. is there any hidden tax or fee at all for withdrawing money from a Roth IRA for educational purposes?  You still will need to pay the tax on the amount converted, but you'll avoid the 10% penalty for early withdrawal. I know that tuition, books and fees are covered for educational purposes. Can I take out of my Roth IRA for living expenses while I'm attending school? Rent, gas, food, etc... Room and board, yes, so long as you are half-time, but not gas/food  Possibly only room and board for staying on-campus, but I'm not certain, although I doubt you could call your normal house payment ""education expense"" with my 401k being smaller, would it just be better to go ahead and cash the whole thing and just pay the tax and use it for whatever I need it for? What is the tax if I just decide to cash the whole thing in?  You pay your marginal tax rate PLUS a 10% penalty for early withdrawal.  So no, this is probably not a wise move financially unless you're on the verge of bankruptcy or foreclosure (where distress costs are much higher then the 10% penalty) I can't answer the other questions regarding grants; I would talk to the financial aid department at your school. Bottom line, transferring your 401(k) is very likely a bad idea unless you can afford to pay the tax in cash (meaning without borrowing).  My advice would be to leave your 401(k) alone (it's meant for retirement not for school or living expenses) Ideally, you should pay for as much as you can out of cash flow, and don't take out more student loans. That may mean taking fewer classes, getting another part time job, finding a different (cheaper) school, applying for more grants and scholarships, etc.  I would not in ANY circumstance cash out your 401(k) to pay for school.  You'll be much worse off in the long run, and there are much cheaper ways to get money." "I may be missing something here, but I don't think this is a disadvantage. The fact that the employer contribution will be taxed is the same as it would be if it were a match in a traditional account, so the amount you lose to taxes on it is a wash. The employer contribution is only smaller if you can't afford to contribute as much to the Roth because it's post-tax, and therefore your contribution is under the cap for the match. If you're contributing the maximum the employer will match or higher, then I don't think there's any disadvantage on the match portion. First, the 5% cap on employer contributions is calculated on the gross, even in a Roth account. Second, the taxing of the amount contributed to a Roth does not reduce the dollar amount that goes into the Roth account, it just reduces your net pay. So if your contribution is $100 to a Traditional account, your gross pay is reduced by $100 and your Traditional account gains $100. In the Roth, your gross pay is still taxed as though that $100 were included, but the $100 is put into the Roth. The tax portion of that ""after tax"" money does not reduce the amount of the contribution."