Backdoor Roth IRAs are loopholes used to access the tax advantages of a Roth IRA for individuals who otherwise make too much money to qualify for one

Learn about the differences between traditional and Roth IRAs

Traditional IRAs allow tax-deductible contributions, but withdrawals in retirement are taxed as income. Roth IRAs use after-tax dollars, offering tax-free withdrawals later, but income limits may restrict eligibility. Choosing between the two depends on your financial situation today and your future tax outlook.

What's a rollover IRA?

A rollover IRA is a type of investment account that lets you move the money from an old retirement account into an IRA after you stop working for your employer. This move lets you keep your funds in a tax-deferred account without being hit with taxes, fees, or penalties. This article explains how you can roll over your money and highlights any restrictions to keep in mind. Learn more here.

An individual retirement account is a type of tax-advantaged investment account

An IRA lets individuals at most income levels invest either pre- or post-tax money for retirement. IRAs are often good solutions for people who don’t have the option to invest in a 401(k) plan—or for those who want to put even more money aside for retirement.

The Roth IRA was named after Senator William V. Roth, Jr.

The Roth IRA was established by Senator William Roth in 1997 as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act. Roth IRAs differ from traditional IRAs in that they allow individuals to invest after-tax income for retirement rather than pre-tax income.

529 savers can now roll funds into a Roth IRA

One of the key disadvantages of a 529 college savings plan is the possibility a beneficiary doesn’t end up going to college. Nonqualified withdrawals are subject to a 10% penalty. However, as of 2024, the SECURE Act 2.0 started allowing 529 savers to roll over $35K into a Roth IRA.

You have to earn under a certain gross amount per year to be eligible for a Roth IRA

A Roth IRA might make the most sense for someone confident that they will have a higher income in retirement than they do now. For 2025, those allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA must have a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) of less than $150K.

Roth 401(k) plans vs regular 401(k) plans

A normal 401(k) defers tax payments to later, while a Roth requires no tax payments at withdrawal time. Financial experts often recommend investing in a Roth 401(k) plan or Roth IRA when someone first starts their career to lock in a relatively low tax rate.

Although anyone can contribute to a traditional IRA, not everyone can access its tax deductions

If you or your spouse contributes to a 401(k), you likely won’t be able to deduct your traditional IRA contributions from your taxes. On the flip side, if you don’t contribute to an employer-sponsored retirement account, you’re probably eligible for that tax deduction.

Spousal IRAs give spouses who do not work a way to save for retirement

In most cases, only working individuals can open and contribute to an IRA. But the IRS has a special exception for married couples: the spousal IRA. It lets the working spouse open and contribute to an IRA on behalf of their nonworking spouse.

Learn how to withdraw $1K from your IRA

Normally, you face a large penalty if you take money out of your IRA before age 59½. Now the IRS is letting individuals withdraw up to $1K without facing the 10% fee (with the exception of Roth IRAs) for emergencies.

7 things to know about inherited IRA rules

An inherited IRA is any kind of IRA or 401K plan you inherited from someone after they’ve died. Since there are different tax advantages for each type of retirement account, the rules you have to follow widely differ based on the account, your relationship to the deceased, and how you want to use the money. Here are the seven things you must know to navigate an inherited IRA.

The prevalence of 401(k) plans and IRAs over pensions shifted investment risk from employers to employees

The shift also reduced administrative costs for companies—and left millions without guaranteed retirement income. 401(k) plans were introduced in Section 401(k) of the 1978 Revenue Act, which was originally intended as a loophole for people like executives rather than the average employee.

PayPal's Peter Thiel turned his Roth IRA into $5B

In 1999, tech titan Peter Thiel had a Roth IRA with roughly $2K in it. By 2019, that tax-free account was worth $5B. For context, the average Roth IRA was worth roughly $39K at the end of 2018. Naturally, Thiel had a few investment options that the average person probably doesn’t have access to—but the story of his IRA’s boom is nonetheless fascinating.

Certain trusts can bypass estate taxes—but the terms can't be changed

Putting money and other financial assets in an irrevocable trust is one way to avoid estate taxes. There are some cons to this trust, like the fact that you can't change the terms of the trust or assets in the trust after they're set. But a big pro is that any financial assets in an irrevocable trust aren't considered part of your estate, meaning they aren't subject to death taxes.

Retail investors are getting burned by long/short strategies

In the US, many retail investors lack the SEC-mandated status (a high enough net worth, income, and other factors) to directly invest in hedge funds. The regulator considers hedge funds too risky for the masses. Hedge fund-like strategies have emerged as a workaround, despite potential pitfalls.

Special-purpose acquisition companies let companies skirt the IPO process

A video explains how private companies have taken advantage of this loophole, why investing in these companies isn’t always a good idea, and how blank-check companies (as they’re commonly called) work.

Ted Benna is the father of the 401(k)

It took a benefits consultant to highlight the financial power of a subtle, obscure tax code change buried away in Section 401, subsection k of the Internal Revenue Code. Benna realized this section, designed primarily for high-earning corporate executives, could help workers save money on taxes when preparing for retirement.

Tax-loss harvesting is a way that some people attempt to trim their tax bills

Specifically, tax-loss harvesting is a way to lower your tax bill by offsetting investment gains with losses. It can be tricky to practice and comes with a few important rules, so working with an expert may be your best bet before Tax Day.

Since the 1990s, banks have sold some of the credit risk of their accounts to external investors, known as SRTs, or synthetic risk transfers

This means if the account defaults, the outside investors assume most of the risk in return for some regular payments, freeing up the bank's ledger. It is a form of insurance used by banks to allow them to free up capital. In 2024, nearly $100B worth of SRT notes were sold.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

Reinvested dividends are not a way to dodge paying capital gains taxes

When an investor holds stock in a company that pays a dividend—a portion of its profits directly returned to shareholders as monthly or quarterly payments—they can choose to hold that dividend in cash, spend it, or reinvest it into more shares of that company’s stock.

The IRS may look at your social media if you're being audited

While some people cheat on their taxes, others evade paying them altogether. This article details methods the Internal Revenue Service uses to catch these people in the act, such as scanning social media, computer data analysis, and whistleblowers.

HSAs are frequently criticized for exacerbating inequality in healthcare access

Health savings accounts offer large tax advantages, but require personal contributions. Some argue that the tax advantages benefit wealthy individuals more than anyone else and that HSAs don't do much to help people who can't afford to regularly contribute to one. As a result, HSAs only decrease costs for those who can comfortably invest in them, and health inequalities between high-income and low-income individuals are exacerbated.

How fee-free Robinhood makes money

Robinhood is both loved and hated by retail investors. Although its mobile app is easy to use and transactions on its platform are fee-free, many individuals have taken issue with a controversial practice that drives 75% of its revenues. Robinhood uses payment for order flow, essentially taking payment from other brokerages to redirect users’ trades. Read up on how PFOF works here.

Over-the-counter markets are used to bypass traditional exchanges while trading

Commodities are regularly traded via OTC markets so that buyers and sellers can bypass central exchanges and negotiate terms more directly. Before the advent of formal exchanges, most assets were traded OTC.

Compounding, explained

During conversations about personal finance, the term "compounding" gets thrown around—but not everyone understands how compound interest and compound returns work. Broadly speaking, compounding is what happens when you not only earn returns or interest on your original investment, but also on the accumulated returns or interest you receive over time. This article explains how both of these processes function, and what compounding could mean for your wallet.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.