OK. I already know that jointly owned retirement funds per se do not exist. However, is there any way we can open a joint investment account and get a similar tax advantage?
I am asking because, being a stay-at-home wife who is good with money (frugal, got an amazing refinance for our mortgage, found much less costly insurance, etc.,) I would feel even more motivated if much of our savings could go into a joint fund and not into accounts that are solely in my husband's name.
I do max out my Roth IRA contribution every year. But once that is done, there is no other good place for the money to go, except into my husband's retirement. He has already maxed out the matching funds and opened an non-matched retirement account to which he is contributing an additional $750/month. Still the cash is accumulating in checking and savings and needs to be invested.
We discussed the possibility of opening a joint investment account with Vanguard and he said he thought that would be a good idea. (We have a strong marriage and I get the sense that he was starting to feel a little guilty that the majority of the savings was going to him.) However, if we opened a standard brokerage account, I know that we'd start feeling the tax penalty -- the tax on capital gains. So, how do we get around this?