The Mega-Back Door Roth IRA (How to Get an Extra $43,500 in Your Roth!)

Transcript:

On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna talk about the mega Backdoor Roth I R A, and how you can get over 40,000 additional dollars into your Roth I R A every single year.

What's up everybody, and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master money.co, and today on the Personal Finance Podcast. We're gonna be talking about the mega Backdoor Roth ira. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok at Master Money Co.

And follow us on Spotify, apple Podcast, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on it. If you want to help out the show, leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now, today we are gonna be diving into the mega back. Door, Roth, I rra And this is gonna be an action packed episode 'cause we're gonna talk through a bunch of different topics.

In addition, uh, we're gonna be diving into how to do a traditional backdoor Roth i r a if you are a high earner and you cannot get your money into a Roth. I r a, the prerequisite for the mega backdoor Roth i r a is talking about the actual backdoor Roth i r a. So we will go through that and in addition we're gonna talk through a bunch of differences between the 4 0 1 k.

And the Roth i r a and how these are going to all link together, allowing you to do a mega backdoor Roth I r a. So if you don't know what a mega backdoor Roth I r A is, this is a way that you may potentially be able to contribute an additional $43,500 into your Roth I r a. And this is by leveraging the fact.

That some employer 4 0 1 K plans allow for after-tax contributions. So the current limit right now is you can get up to $66,000 into those accounts with the after-tax contribution. So this is gonna be really, really cool to kind of go through this. Then you may be saying, well, how is that possible? The Roth I r a contribution limit right now is $6,500 with a mega backdoor Roth I R A makes that possible.

So we are gonna be diving into this today, and if that's something you're into, let's get into it. Alright, so the first thing we're gonna be talking about is obviously the Roth I R a, and reasons why you wanna get money into a Roth I r a. And for a lot of people, when you look at something like the Stairway to Wealth, we have the Roth I R A at the top of the list for investing priority and for very good reasons because there are a ton of pros, in my opinion, to the Roth I r A.

If you don't know what the Stairway to Wealth is, this is our step by step guide teaching you exactly what to do with your money. That's why it's called the Stairway to Wealth, because it's step by step. If you're interested in checking that out, you could check it out at Matt. Master money.co/stairway to Wealth, and we always have it linked up down below in the show notes.

We have an absolutely free guide for you if you wanna check that out. So the Roth IRA is one of my favorite retirement accounts. It's where you contribute money into this account and money has already been taxed, meaning it's already been taken out of your paycheck standard every time you get paid.

Your taxes are already taken out. You put that money into the Roth ira. The Roth IRA can grow tax free, and you can pull the money out tax free after the age of 59 and a half. Now, there's a bunch of different cool caveats to the Roth I r a, but this is the simplistic. Explanation of what a Roth I R A is.

And the beautiful thing about this is that tax-free growth because the majority of your money when you are compounding over a long period of time, and if you're a long-term investor, as most of you are, then the majority of your money over that timeframe is going to be the compound growth of your money.

In fact, if you maxed out your Roth I r A over the course of 30 years, you got a 10% rate of return. You would have well over a million dollars in that Roth I R a and about $850,000 of like $1.1 million would be tax free growth, meaning the growth of your money. And so this is a very, very powerful tool to put into your tool belt, especially if you're a W two earner.

If you're a W two earner, you don't have a bunch of tax advantages like. Business owners and other folks out there have, but a Roth I R A A 4 0 1 K, and all these different things are going to allow you to have some additional tax advantages and take advantage of those going forward. So really, really excited.

It's a really, really cool account for most people to look into. Now, some of the pros of this are you get tax free withdrawals, meaning that when you are withdrawing that money in retirement outta that account, it is completely tax free. You don't have to worry about taxes whatsoever. You're just pulling that money out.

There are no required minimum distributions, and this is a big, big. Factor for me because at the age of 72, uncle Sam, if you have your money in a 4 0 1 K or an I R A is going to say to you, it is time to start taking money outta that account. Because when you take money outta the account, you're gonna get taxed with a Roth I r a.

You do not have to worry about that. And why does that matter? Because you hear me talk about this all the time. It matters because if you are thinking about having social security as a part of your retirement plan, your social security is going to get taxed more. If you have income coming in and 4 0 1 k distributions required, minimum distributions are taxed as income, so with a Roth I R A, your social security is not actually taxed more in retirement.

In addition, you could take those required minimum distributions and not worry about taxes whatsoever. Another great thing is you can contribute to a Roth I r A at any age. As long as you have earned income, you can contribute at any age whatsoever. So I love that part of it. It has flexible withdrawal rules because you don't have those required minimum distributions.

But in addition, when you contribute money to a Roth I R a, another pro is that you can also pull those contributions back out as long as you keep the money in the Roth I r a for at least five years. So this is another unique thing where if you get in a really sticky situation or your investment plan, Completely changes, then you can pull that money out within those five years.

You also have a Roth I r A is great for tax diversification. So we've talked about this in the past on how to set up your retirement accounts, but you need tax diversification in order to make sure that you are maximizing the amount of your tax implications when it comes to retirement long-term. So you could think of things like a taxable brokerage account, a 4 0 1 K, and a Roth I r A.

You wanna diversify between all three of those. There's also no taxes to your heirs with a Roth I r a. So while beneficiary. Who inherit our Roth I r A will be subject to required minimum distributions. When they inherit that Roth I r a, unless they're the spouse, their withdrawals will generally be tax free.

You can also contribute to a Roth I R A via the backdoor Roth I r a, which we'll talk about in a second. Even if you have a high income, so there are income limits to a Roth I R A and every single year they tend to go up. And so look at your current year right now to see what your income limits are. But typically if you make too much money, a lot of people.

Under the assumption that you can't contribute to a Roth I r a and that is completely not true. That is what we're gonna be talking about in this episode, is you could do a backdoor Roth I R a I do it first thing every single year. You could do that backdoor Roth I r a, and you are still able to contribute and get money into that Roth I R a.

In addition, you can hedge against future tax increases. So in the future, we don't know what taxes are going to be. You can hedge against the increase of tax by contributing money to a Roth I r A over the long term. So there is a ton of different benefits to the Roth I r a and a ton of different things that I like about the Roth I r A.

Now, some of the things that you want to consider also there are contribution limits. So right now at the time recording this, you can only contribute $6,500 per year in a Roth I r a. And if you are over the age of 50, you can contribute $7,500 per year into that Roth I R A. But it is still an incredibly powerful tool that most people need to be taking advantage of.

Even if you're a high earner, even if you're a high earner, sure, you may want to go towards the pre-tax accounts first to get that tax advantage right up front this year alone, especially if you're really in the peak of your earning years. But in addition, you still wanna be looking at that Roth I r a for some tax diversification.

And the benefits that it provides when it comes to hitting retirement age, specifically with zero taxation, when you're pulling that money out, sure you were already taxed on your paycheck upfront, but when you pull that money out, that compounded money is gonna be a great thing to have. And you're gonna be really happy you did that in retirement.

Now what I wanna do here is I wanna dive deeper into the different type of 4 0 1 K contributions. 'cause you need to understand these before we kind of talk through the mega backdoor Roth I R A and the backdoor Roth i r a. So there are. Three different types of 4 0 1 K contributions. So first one is the pre-tax contribution.

So this is typically for your traditional 4 0 1 K where you contribute money that has not been taxed yet, directly out of your paycheck. It goes into your 4 0 1 K and it grows. And then once you have to pull the money out, then you get taxed on that money. Now a lot of people wait for their RMDs and they start pulling it out, and they're getting taxed on their money because they're required to pull that money out.

So you are getting taxed upon withdrawal, so you gotta make sure that you understand this. This is called pre-tax contributions. Then we have Roth contributions. So Roth contributions are made with after-tax money. Some people call this post-tax contributions, meaning you pay taxes on your income first, then.

You can contribute to your Roth ira. We just went into the Roth I R a exactly how this works. This can be your Roth I R a or your Roth 4 0 1 K. But specifically right now we are talking about 4 0 1 K contributions. So if you didn't know there is a such thing as a Roth 4 0 1 K, we have an entire episode on it.

And when we talk about this, this means that you have the. Awesome power of being able to contribute a large lump sum of money every single year into the Roth, but it's a Roth 4 0 1 K, so you can put $22,500 per year at the time. I'm recording this into that Roth 4 0 1 K, an incredibly powerful wealth building tool.

So you have these Roth contributions available to you. Then you have what are called after-tax contributions. Now this is what I really want you to listen to if you are interested in the mega backdoor Roth I R A, because after-tax contributions are really, really important to understand with this. So these are contributions that are made with money that's.

Already been taxed. However, unlike Roth contributions, these after tax contributions aren't designed to provide tax-free withdrawals on earnings. They are a separate category and only some of your 4 0 1 K plans are going to allow this. This is a completely separate category, so it's after tax contributions, but it's not going into your Roth, it's going into your standard 4 0 1 K.

And the reason for this is this just allows you to get more money into that 4 0 1 k. Then they're gonna be taxed upon withdrawal. So after tax contributions in retirement, the contributions themselves are not taxed again since they were made with after-tax money. However, any earnings on those contributions will be taxable unless you do what we're about to talk about here, because the real reason to do these after-tax contributions.

Is the significant benefit of what we know as the mega backdoor Roth I r a. So first of all, if your 4 0 1 K plan allows these after-tax contributions and you gotta check with them, which we will talk more about here in a second, but if they allow these 4 0 1 k after-tax contributions, you can convert those after-tax contributions.

To your Roth i r a and subsequently be able to enjoy tax-free growth and withdrawals over that timeframe because that money was already taxed. You're gonna roll it into that Roth I R A. And the advantage here is that you can effectively contribute more to a Roth account than a standard contribution limit would allow.

This means that you can get a mega amount. Into that Roth I r a every single year. So if you have an employer that allows this and you are a high earner, most likely you are a high earner, if you're doing this, then this is going to be a huge benefit for you. Because to be able to get an additional $43,500 per year into the Roth means that you are going to have a massive Roth I r a, and that tax-free growth is seriously going to compound over time.

So I really, really like this. Think it's a really, really cool idea for a lot of high earners. Now let's think about these three. One more time. Okay. The pre-tax contribution is how much is your money does not get taxed. It goes into your 4 0 1 K and when you pull it out, it's gonna get taxed. Your Roth contribution is money that has already been taxed on your paycheck, and then it goes into the Roth grows tax free.

You could pull the money out tax free after tax contributions are ones that do not go in a Roth, but they've already been taxed, so the money has already been taxed. It's not going into a Roth, it's going into a regular 4 0 1 K. So the money contributed goes into your 4 0 1 k. And the gains on that money will be taxed when you pull it out.

So that is the comparison between the two. So who does the mega backdoor Roth I R A not apply to? Before we dive into this, if you don't max out your 4 0 1 K contributions and your I R A contributions currently, this means, you know, you put $22,500 per year PERT tax into your 4 0 1 K and 6,500 into your I R A.

Then this is probably not the strategy for you. Or if you don't meet income limitations to have a deductible. I r a. Or if your employer does not offer after-tax 4 0 1 K contributions. So you definitely want to make sure to ask your employers either plan or you can talk to hr. They can get you the contact info, or they may know off the top of their head if your employer actually offers these after-tax 4 0 1 K contributions.

Really, really important to check that out first. So, That is the baseline. Some of the stuff that you need to understand. Now we are gonna dive into a regular backdoor I r a conversion because you gotta understand that first. And then we will get into the mega backdoor Roth I r a conversion. Alright, so first we're gonna talk about a regular backdoor Roth I r a conversion.

Now we've had an entire episode on this and we've talked about it a number of times on this podcast, but if you don't know and you are a high earner and you think you cannot get money into a Roth I r a, you absolutely can. And the way to do this is with what it's called a backdoor Roth, I R a. I do this at the beginning of every single year.

So the phase out right now for the contribution limits in 2023 at the time recording this for single filers. Are $138,000 and then you are ineligible to contribute at $153,000 to your Roth i r a and then Mary filed jointly it. The phase out starts at $218,000 and then you are ineligible to contribute at $228,000.

So this is for the year 2023. At the time recording this, if you are listening in the future, just check for Roth I r a contribution income limits for your specific year that you were in. So if you make more than the income limits, And have earned income, you can still contribute to something like a non-deductible traditional I R A and the backdoor Roth I r a uses this as a tactic to then convert the non-deductible traditional I r A contribution into a Roth I r a account.

So I'm gonna briefly give you the. Few steps on how this works. 'cause it's a very simple process. A lot of people think this is gonna be a whole complicated thing. It does not take much time at all. And now one thing I want to note is if you're going to do this and you don't have a traditional I R A open yet, I would just open it at the same place that your Roth I r a is located because this makes that transfer.

Incredibly simple. So say for example you have your Roth I r a at Vanguard, then I would just open the traditional I R A at Vanguard as well because the transfer process is so incredibly easy and that is just the easiest way to do it. So number one is you're gonna make a non-deductible I r a contribution.

So a standard i r A that you can open up anywhere. You make a contribution into that i r a, and for most people, you're gonna wanna max that thing out. So if you're a high earner, most people have enough money to put $6,500 into that i r a. So that's the first step. Step two, you are going to convert this money from the traditional i r a to the Roth I r a.

So this step is also pretty easy. First, you should wait at least a day or so before the money clears. Make sure the money clears in that traditional i r A. Before converting it. Now, the I R A has no guidelines on this in terms of how long it needs to sit there, but it's much better to show a clear step-by-step process when you're actually converting the money over.

So I just usually wait one day, then I'll convert the money over because I've done this in multiple different locations. So at some firms, all you do is make that contribution and transfer it over. So say for example, like at Vanguard, All you have to do at Vanguard is make that traditional I r a conversion to a Roth ira.

They make this so incredibly simple. You click like two or three buttons, they walk you through the process on exactly how to do it, and then all you have to do is just transfer it over. Now, at other firms that I've worked with before, they make you fill out a, an additional form, then you have to sign that form.

That is the. More difficult process, but it's just an additional form that you have to fill out. Nobody likes filling out forms, that's why I bring that up. But there's two different ways that some brokerage firms may make you do it. Vanguard was super, super simple for me, but I've also done it at other firms, and they make you fill out that form, which is also standard, so don't really worry about that if they make you fill out that form.

So there's two different ways to do it. Then once you do it, just keep your records. Make sure you keep track of it. Talk to your c P a if you have one. They can actually talk you through this as well and make sure that this is a good option for you. But for a lot of people, if you want to get money into that Roth I r a, you make too much money, then the backdoor Roth I r a is a great way to do this now.

The mega backdoor Roth I r a is doing this on steroids, meaning that you can get an additional $43,500 into your Roth I R A by leveraging the fact that some employer 4 0 1 K plans actually allow for after tax contributions up to the current limit of $66,000. So the current limit right now at the time recording this is $66,000.

So now that you've had the refresher on the backdoor Roth I R a, how does this mega backdoor Roth I R A works? That's the biggest question that most people are having right now. Well, first. It allows you to take advantage of the fact that after-tax contributions to your 4 0 1 K plan are treated just like a traditional I R A, but the process is slightly different or, and one big thing for a lot of people is that you want to be checking, obviously if you can do these after-tax contributions, but if you are self-employed and you have a solo 4 0 1 K, you can actually set up your own solo 4 0 1 K to allow you to be able to do this.

So self-employed folks out there. Solo 4 0 1 k will actually allow you to put this together and you can set up this plan. So this is amazing for small business owners out there. So in order to do this mega Backdoor Roth I R A, your 4 0 1 K plan needs to offer two things. The after-tax contributions above and beyond the $22,500 pre contribution limits.

And in-service distributions or non hardship withdrawals, it needs at least those two things in order to make this happen. If it doesn't have the non hardship in-service withdrawals, you might still be able to accomplish the same thing. If you're leaving your company soon, that gets a little more murky, but you wanna make sure that you are looking at this and making sure you have this down.

The after-tax contributions are the very biggest part. So making sure that they offer those after-tax contributions is gonna be really, really powerful. So here is the step-by-step guide on exactly how to do it. So number one is you need to maximize your after-tax 4 0 1 K contributions. So you need to figure out how much you're actually allowed to contribute to maximize your after-tax 4 0 1 K contributions.

This means understanding your employer's plan and then making those additional contributions. Now this can be somewhat challenging, and the reason why this can be challenging is a lot of times, if you think about it, when you start contributing to your 4 0 1 k, they want you to make a contribution as a percentage of your paycheck.

So sometimes you have to do a little math to make this work if that is how your company works. So if you have to do that, you wanna make sure that these contributions are after tax, not Roth 4 0 1 K contributions. They have to be after tax contributions. You cannot do this in a Roth 4 0 1 K. It has to be those after-tax contributions.

Once you've maxed out that after-tax contribution, you can now withdraw a portion of that Roth I r A if your employer allows in-service non hardship withdrawals. Otherwise, you need to wait until termination and then you can roll over the after-tax portion into your Roth I r a. But the downside of waiting is that any growth.

From after-tax contributions becomes part of the pre-tax balance, unlike Roth dollar. So if you have to wait, you're gonna have to pay taxes on some of the growth of that money while you're waiting, especially if you have those dollars invested, which is the downside to having to wait. Whereas if they allow you to have the in-service non hardship withdrawals, and you can just transfer that money over, then it is much, much easier.

So you can see this becomes a more complicated process if you don't have both of those two items. There are a good portion of employer plans out there who actually allow both things. So outside of that, the process is almost the exact same thing as doing a regular Roth I r a, but you have to have those two items buttoned up before you go ahead and do this.

So it really does depend. I. On your employer's plan, but I thought a lot of you need to know about this if you're not utilizing it already, because we have a lot of high earners who listen to the show. And of those high earners, a lot of them are trying to find additional ways to get money into some of these attacks advantage accounts.

And this is one fantastic way to do this. And in addition, if you're a solopreneur or you're someone with a solo 4 0 1 k, that is a great option that's going to allow you to. Set that plan up exactly how you want. And if you need help setting that plan up, make sure you call that provider or that brokerage and say, Hey, I want to set this up where in addition I can do a mega backdoor Roth I r a, and that way they will kind of walk you through the steps.

Make sure that you have that thing set up correctly so that each and every single year you can make these conversions because that is a really powerful thing as a business owner. Who may not get 4 0 1 K matches, but if you can take advantage of some of this stuff, then really you can have some really cool stuff happening as you go about and make this happen.

So this is one of my favorite strategies for people who have those after-tax contributions that they're allowed to take in your 4 0 1 k because it will compound so much faster with this amount of money. In fact, I wanna show you, just as an example, I wanna show you exactly how much this money can compound if you actually maxed this thing out, where you got $66,000 per year into something.

I really wanna show you how this can happen, especially if you can get an additional $43,500 per year into your Roth I r a. So let's do the math next. Alright, so real quick, I just wanted to show you the math on how powerful this can be. If you can actually get all these after-tax contributions into your Roth i r a and you can compound it for a long period of time.

So obviously every situation is going to be different and I'm gonna compound this thing over the course of 30 years to show you the difference. But if you don't have that amount of time, a lot of people are earning a lot more money in their thirties and their. Forties, and so maybe you don't have 30 years before you are planning on retiring, but this is just a really cool example of how powerful this can be.

So say for example, after the course of 30 years, you got an 8% rate of return and you did that additional $43,500 per year. You got that into your Roth i r a, and so you got an 8% return annually. Here's how powerful this can be. Your total additional contributions into your Roth I r A will be $1,305,000.

So for those total contributions, it'd be $1.3 million, essentially, if you're rounding down, and your imbalance would be $5,105,995 just by doing this mega backdoor Roth, I r A, the amazing thing is, The amount that your money grew from your initial contributions was an additional $3,800,000. What this means here, this is why this is so powerful.

What this means is that you are getting $3.8 million in this account completely tax free. This is why. This strategy is so powerful and why you wanna get more dollars in your Roth if you can. If it makes sense for you right now, you wanna talk to your c p A, make sure it makes sense for you. But if it does make sense for you that tax free growth is undeniable, that additional $3.8 million that you, your money just earned for you without ha you having to lift a finger instead, except for just transferring that money over is absolutely incredible.

Now, let's bump this down to 15 years. See what would happen. Maybe only have 15 years before. Retirement and you wanna contribute for another 15 years. So even over the course of 15 years, if you do this in half the time, you'd have an additional $1.2 million in that Roth i r a, and you'd have $571,000 of that would be completely tax free.

So, This is absolutely amazing. I wanna go back to 30 years, and I wanna do this with, let's just say we do it with a 10% rate of return. A lot of people don't like when I do 10% rate of return. We're gonna do it for fun. You would've $7.4 million with a 10% rate of return. You would've contributed $1.3 million.

And guess how much money you would've completely tax free? $6.1 million. This is how powerful it can be if you get money into that Roth I R a, especially in these large amounts because you're gonna have a lot of tax-free money in that account if you do that. This is why I love the Roth I r a. Another amazing reason why it's so fun to contribute to a Roth I r a watch that money compound over time because your initial contributions.

Are gonna be the minority in that account, especially if you have a long timeframe where you're compounding of that timeframe. This is what money is meant to do. Money is a tool to allow you to achieve freedom. And using accounts like this is going to allow you to achieve freedom so much faster. And in addition, you're gonna have larger accounts because you know this stuff.

Listen, I wanna thank you guys for listening to this episode. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you. And. Thank you for investing in yourself because that is exactly what you're doing when you listen to this podcast, is you are investing in yourself and there's no better investment than that is investing in yourself.