[lewdog]

How Peter Thiel turned $2,000 in a Roth IRA into $5,000,000,000

Roth individual retirement accounts were created to help middle-class earners set aside money for retirement with no taxes due upon withdrawal. But PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has used his Roth IRA to amass a $5 billion nest egg.

Thiel’s Roth IRA was worth less than $2,000 in 1999, according to Internal Revenue Service data obtained by ProPublica. Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax dollars, which means at withdrawal the money is tax-free. (Traditional IRAs are funded with pretax dollars, so distributions are taxed at withdrawal.)

The account jumped more than $3 billion in value in just three years, even though Thiel did not contribute money to his Roth after 1999, ProPublica found. It had reached $5 billion at the end of 2019.

Thiel, 53, need only wait until he turns 59½ to withdraw any of his Roth account balance completely tax-free.

Amassing this amount of money in a Roth IRA is not simple. The contribution limit for these accounts is $6,000 a year in 2021 (or $7,000 for people 50 and older). There are also income restrictions. For example, single individuals with modified adjusted gross incomes, or MAGI, of less than $125,000 in 2021 can contribute up to the limit, but their contributions are phased out if their MAGI is between $125,000 and $140,000, the IRS states. If they earn more than $140,000, single taxpayers cannot contribute to a Roth IRA. For married couples filing jointly, the threshold is between $198,000 and $208,000 in 2021.

Thiel and other entrepreneurs have used their Roth IRAs slightly differently from the manner in which the average investor would, ProPublica found. For example, Thiel bought 1.7 million shares of PayPal PYPL, +1.77% in 1999 for $0.001 per share, or $1,700, ProPublica reported.

With this strategy, investors are able to buy a large number of shares in a startup at fractions of a penny per share. When those investments garner large gains, investors can use the proceeds from these investments still inside the Roth IRA to make other investments. Substantial gains could be derived if the company goes public and its share price skyrockets.

The gains from those sales are then tax-free, because they occurred inside a Roth IRA.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ho...00-11624551401


I know some traders who do most of their trading in their ROTH IRA account for the exact mentioned above. All gains made from trades are tax free.