Is a Spousal IRA a separate account from an existing Roth IRA?

[FirePaddle]

Backstory:

I retired on 10/2020. No earned income since then.
My wife continues to work and earns enough to cover living expenses and both our Roth IRA max contribution limits.
We have continued to contribute the maximums to our individual Roth IRAs ever since 10/2020.

I recently remembered that you need to use "earned income" to fund an IRA, of which I have none. Then I learned of the Spousal IRA option, which we would qualify for since we do file taxes jointly.

My question is: Is the Spousal IRA a separate account type that I should have signed up for when I retired, or am I fine with my continued contributions to our current Roth accounts? The contributions come from our joint checking account.

Side note: I did sell ~$28k of stock in 2021 from by taxable brokerage account, in case that counts for anything.

Thanks for any advice you may have!

[nalor511]

No it's your same account, just make your contribution as normal. Then on your taxes, you fill things out so that you made the contribution based on your spouse's earned income, but there is nothing you need to do differently with the account setup or contribution

[terran]

No, a spousal IRA is just another way of saying you can contribute to your own IRA even if you don't have earned income as long as your spouse does and you file Married Filing Jointly. You can continue to contribute up to the lesser of the $6000 ($7000 if over 50 years old) or your spouse's earned income after subtracting her contributions to any combination of your Roth IRA and traditional IRA that you want and are eligible for based on income.

You might find that you're eligible to make traditional IRA contributions now because of lower income and/or because you're no longer covered by a retirement plan at work. Note that if you're covered by a retirement plan at work at any point in the year then you're considered covered, so you'll have to wait until your first full year of retirement.

[secondcor521]

It's a spousal IRA *contribution*, which can be made to your traditional or Roth IRA.  As far as the IRS is concerned, there is no such thing as a *spousal IRA*.

[FirePaddle]

Thanks everyone, this makes sense and makes me happy! Spousal *contribution*, yes, that is much clearer than Spousal *IRA*.

[terran]

It's a spousal IRA *contribution*, which can be made to your traditional or Roth IRA.  As far as the IRS is concerned, there is no such thing as a *spousal IRA*.

Yes and no. They actually do have a Spousal IRA heading here: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-ira-contribution-limits

[secondcor521]

It's a spousal IRA *contribution*, which can be made to your traditional or Roth IRA.  As far as the IRS is concerned, there is no such thing as a *spousal IRA*.

Yes and no. They actually do have a Spousal IRA heading here: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-ira-contribution-limits

Learn something new every day.  I thought I read about it being called a Kay Bailey Hutchinson Spousal IRA contribution in the IRS instructions, and relied on memory.

It's confusing.  The actual tax code used to just be a section titled "special rules for certain married individuals", but Congress passed a law changing the title to "Kay Bailey Hutchinson Spousal IRA".  The meaning of the section if you read it talks about contributions, not any sort of different account type.

Here's the actual law that Congress passed:  https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ22/PLAW-113publ22.pdf

Here's the text of the law:  https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/219