Tag: Checkbook IRA
Private Lending IRAs: The SDIRA Checkbook Retirement Account Advantage
Private Lending IRAs and Checkbook Control
Private lending is the ideal investment for an IRA…and less than ideal outside of an IRA.
Understanding why that’s the case – and why a checkbook control IRA is crucial to maximizing private lending investment returns – requires an understanding of tax and investment concepts. In this post we’ll cover the income tax treatment of private lending inside and outside of retirement accounts (IRAs, Solo 401k plans) and why a Self-Directed IRA with Checkbook Control is the IRA you need for private lending. Additionally, if you’re a real estate investor, you’ll learn how to get funding for deals by leveraging the IRAs of private lenders. Continue reading “Private Lending IRAs: The SDIRA Checkbook Retirement Account Advantage”
Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The Step Transaction Doctrine
Mastery of the Prohibited Transaction Rules of IRC 4975 may lead the self-directed investor to contemplate some clever deal structures to work around those.
Suppose you own an income producing property that you’d like your Solo 401k or Checkbook IRA to purchase, but knowing that as a “disqualified person” you can’t transact with your IRA you initially conclude that it can’t be done. Suddenly, you experience an epiphany – you could transfer title to the property from your name (or your LLC’s name) to your brother’s name, and he would subsequently sell the property to the self-directed retirement account. Eureka!
That stroke of brilliance has been had by many others and the courts have developed some judicial doctrines to analyze and characterize such transactions. One such doctrine is known as the Step Transaction Rule. Continue reading “Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The Step Transaction Doctrine”
Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The Plan Asset Rule
The Plan Asset Rule
There’s a lesser known extension of IRC 4975 in the Code of Federal Regulations that discusses something known as the Plan Asset Rule. In a nutshell, the Plan Asset Rule says that when retirement plans own a “significant” share of an entity, all of that entity’s assets are treated as assets of the retirement plans for purposes of the prohibited transaction rules.
The implications of this can be staggering; if retirement plans collectively own a significant portion of an entity, all the disqualified persons of all the retirement plan investors are disqualified persons to that entity. Continue reading “Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The Plan Asset Rule”
Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The DOL Interpretive Bulletin
Benefiting from tax-advantaged retirement funds before retirement age would be a beautiful thing, especially for those of that leverage the power of Solo 401(k)s and Checkbook IRAs. But, as that would defeat the intent of those accounts, the Prohibited Transaction Rules of IRC 4975 were created. Although written broadly, the innovative investor can contrive many ways to circumvent those rules.
However, beyond the letter of the law, the IRS has some additional tools at its disposal with which to counter creative strategies. Those include the Step Transaction Doctrine, the Exclusive Benefit Rule, and the Plan Asset Rule. For cases in which those rules may not apply, the IRS has the Department of Labor Interpretive Bulletin ERISA IB 75-2. Continue reading “Beyond Prohibited Transactions: The DOL Interpretive Bulletin”