Should I close my IRA now that I'm FIRE?

[HipGnosis]

I'm FIRE.  I have a pension (US military), investments, and now social security.
Should I roll my IRA into my investments and close the IRA?

[cool7hand]

Thank you for your service!

Do you mean that you want to roll your former employer's 401k into your IRA?

[seattlecyclone]

Do you mean moving all the money out of your IRA into a non-tax-sheltered brokerage account? That's likely a pretty silly thing to do. Closing a pre-tax IRA means paying tax on the entire sum this year, and closing a Roth IRA means you lose out on the benefit of untaxed growth going forward.

[Gronnie]

OP -- can you explain why you would want to do that?

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Should I roll my IRA into my investments and close the IRA?

If you move money out of the IRA, you pay taxes on it.  And if you're under age 59.5, you will pay a 10% penalty as well.

Why do you need to change the IRA?

[Turtle]

I'm FIRE.  I have a pension (US military), investments, and now social security.
Should I roll my IRA into my investments and close the IRA?

If your IRA and your taxable investments are with different companies and you are looking to simplify, rolling one or the other in order to have them both at the same company should also work.  Depending on timing, if one of those companies is running a promotion to encourage more business, you might even get a bonus out of the deal

[yachi]

Should I roll my IRA into my investments and close the IRA?

I really don't want to be pedantic, but some of these terms have particular meanings that could cause us to give you the wrong advice.  Most responses here are assuming what you mean by investments is a non-retirement brokerage account, and are giving solid advice for that case.  But you also used the term "roll" which is a particular type of transfer from one retirement account to another retirement account.
Also, you can (and should!) have the money inside your IRA invested.  An IRA is like a bucket that can hold a bunch of different investments.  In fact, nearly any reasonable investment you have access to elsewhere can be held in an IRA.

You should think strategically about your IRA withdrawals.  Your IRA is most likely a traditiona IRA.  If so, it's treated like income when you withdrawal it.  So it's a bad idea to take it all out at once.  It's also a bad idea to use it for a large purchase, like a house.  There is a 10% tax penalty if you're under 59 1/2 years old.*  If you're over 59 1/2, consider withdrawing only up to the next tax bracket, or only as much as you need to quality for particular insurances.  When you take out a little at a time, it doesn't torpedo your taxes by placing you in a higher tax bracket.

*There are some moves where you can avoid the 10% penalty and access it before 59 1/2.  It involves converting a traditiona IRA into a Roth IRA, and letting it age 5 years.  Converting a traditiona IRA into a Roth IRA is also a taxable move, so you can use it to increase taxable income.

[HipGnosis]

OP here.

I see that 'roll' was a poor choice of term.  Sorry.

The 'why' is that I kind of don't like that I can't contribute to it.  And it's an 'extra' set of numbers to monitor and track.  Weak, I know.

Thanks for the replies.

[ATtiny85]

But what are you actually asking? There may still be some help to be gained if you explain what it is you are doing and what you think you want to do.

[achvfi]

OP here.

I see that 'roll' was a poor choice of term.  Sorry.

The 'why' is that I kind of don't like that I can't contribute to it.  And it's an 'extra' set of numbers to monitor and track.  Weak, I know.

Thanks for the replies.

We put money into IRAs because it has tax advantages, typically we should leave money in there as long as possible. Take money out of it only as per your need to spend or if you want to roll money better option is to roll money into Roth IRA, with even better tax advantages.

[curious_george]

Don't do this.

There could be huge tax implications if you are doing what it sounds like you want to do.

[Turtle]

If your account is located at some random other institution where you don't have any other accounts, I could see where tracking it would get to be a hassle.

Most places which have investment accounts also will hold IRA accounts.  My USAA IRA and regular investment accounts were easy to see from the same page, and now that Schwab bought the investment arm from them, it's still easy to see all my accounts on the same page.

If you are looking to simplify your tracking, rolling to another IRA won't cause any tax event if you want to consolidate to multiple accounts at the same institution.

[jeroly]

I'm FIRE.  I have a pension (US military), investments, and now social security.
Should I roll my IRA into my investments and close the IRA?

First of all your question doesn't make any sense.  The holdings in your IRA comprise the pretax portion of your investments.  You can't 'roll... [your] IRA into... [your] investments' as it already IS part of your investments.

You also can't just 'roll... [the account balance of your] IRA into... [your after-tax] investments' without paying taxes on the converted amount.  This could have the opposite effect from why you put the money into that IRA in the first place - your marginal tax rate could soar and you might even wind up paying a higher tax than you would've paid had you not made those pretax contributions in the first place.

You may be attempting to ask about consolidating your IRA with your other accounts.  If you use, say, Fidelity or Vanguard, you can 'move' your IRA to be in the same institution as your other, after-tax, accounts.  You want to do this via a direct rollover into a new IRA hosted by that financial institution.  Don't withdraw the $$$ and don't have your IRA trustee mail a check to you, as that might constitute a taxable event in which you will need to pay all the taxes due on that account plus a 10% penalty if you are under 59 1/2.  If the trustee says that they can only mail a check to you then make sure to send it on to the new institution promptly - I think you have 60 days or less to make this happen without serious tax consequences.

[yachi]

You mentioned being military.  I believe you can roll an IRA into a TSP account.  If you already have a TSP account this could take two accounts down to one without tax repercussions.