Apparently guidelines for ROTH eligibility are not as "tough" given the context of this thread as traditional IRA. However what specifically defines "compensation". With traditional IRA's it has to be in the form of wages, salaries, or bonus. It can not be from dividend income/interest, etc. Also you folks that are really gung ho on the ROTH. Is the genesis of this view because its "easier" to facilitate given your current trading pursuits and not being eligible for the traditional IRA? Because unless you plan on having allot of income streams at age 70+ and making lots of money being in a high tax bracket, the ROTH is not all that its cracked up to be. If you are going to make way more income now and much less when you retire, go with the traditional IRA and reap the present value rewards of tax savings and putting that money to work. In other words if you are making $75K now, but only plan to draw say or pull down $40K a year between required minimum distributions and social security if its still around when you hit 70, you might want to get out your calculators and do some present value/future value comparisons.
That's a good point, although it's also probably fair to say that tax rates currently are at an all time low. I think you'll see all brackets go up in the future. It's inevitable considering the amount of debt that we are accumulating. That is to the Roth's advantage.
The way this country is going (aging boomers, health care entitlement, etc...) what's to say they won't have some sort of means test down the road for a Roth IRA? I'm sure we will see this for SS in the very near future.
if you make too much money, you can't put your money in a roth, only a traditional. as someone else stated, this year is a rollover from traditional to roth as long as you pay the taxes (either all in one year, or split over two years).
No requirement to start taking withdrawals from Roth at age 70 1/2. So one can keep building it up knowing it's tax exempt. No brainer for me.
You cannot trade futures (USA) directly in your retirement account, and I am not sure about forex. You must open a brokerage account through a trust company, biggest I think is Millennium Trust. But they charge like $75/quarter per broker (and maybe, per account), and I was informed that IB does this and it is only $30 a quarter ($10/month). So, thus the recommendation. Once setup, you trade your retirement account on your own.