Can I transfer Securitys from my Scottrade account to my Shwab ROTH IRA ?

Question

I can contribute $5000.00 this year ,stocks are worth about $2500.00, Cost basis is about $3200.00. I have had them for over 2 years. The account they are in now is NOT an IRA.

Answer 1

Only if those stocks are also offered in Scottrade, then you can tranfer into a Roth IRA. Though, I wouldn't recommend that you fund an IRA with stocks since they are highly volatile. You can make lots of money off of stocks but you can also lose lots of money. For example, if a price of a stock was $50 and then it grew to $100 and then something happens to the market, it drops to $2, how are you going to feel? If the company goes bankrupt or was banned from continuing doing business, your stocks will be worth nothing!

Stick with mutual funds and bonds. Keep stocks outside of the IRA so that you can sell them at anytime. You are already losing money on the stock, so it's best to liquidate them now since whatever you are doing, its not working.

Answer 2

You can only contribute cash to an IRA. The stocks in the Scottrade account could be transferewd to a Schwab Roth IRA if the Scottrade account is also a Roth IRA. This would not create a tax benefit, you would merely be changing custodians/brokers.
The short answer: if your Scottrade account is not already a Roth the only way to get the stocks into a Roth is to sell the stock and repurchase them in a Roth. This would apply even if you open a Roth at Scottrade.
I know this is not the answer you wanted but it is the correct answer.

Answer 3

I may well be wrong on this but I believe that you can only make cash deposits to an IRA, either Roth or traditional. Securities can be purchased by the IRA, but they may not be deposited to the account as contributions.

Answer 4

I suggest you sell the stocks and get a tax deductible loss. ($2500 value vs. $3200 cost basis). Then put the $2500 proceeds into the IRA. You can put another $2500 into the IRA and then you'll get to reduce taxable income by $5000 for the contribution.

Answer 5

thrilling question. I seek all the way by using ebook 590 and that i could locate honestly no point out of that variety of contribution. It refers purely to funds. attempt calling Shwab and asking them. yet another thrilling element could be if the shares in the universal account have been bought and the money transferred to an IRA account and the shares repurchased, could that be seen a wash sale?