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Want to Contribute to your IRA for 2013? You Still Can!

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2013 has come and gone and now that we’re in the new year many people think it’s too late to put money into their retirement accounts and get the tax savings that they can bring. The truth is however that contributions to several different kinds of retirement accounts for 2013 can be made right up until April 15, 2014 and, when you file an extension, even later.

For example, the IRA contribution limit for 2013 is $5500 and, if you’re over 50 years old, you can put in an extra $1000. This can be in a “regular” IRA or in a Roth IRA or if you want to you can split the funds between the two as long as your contributions don’t exceed $5500 or $6500 respectively.

If you don’t mind waiting through a ton of legal mumbo-jumbo, IRS publication 590 has a lot more details about what you can and can’t contribute to your IRA. It’s complex, to say the least, so talking to your accountant or another financial expert is probably a good idea. Additionally there are a number of online tax filing companies like TurboTax that have online programs and calculators that will help you to determine what is the best way to do taxes if you’re self-employed and maximize your deductions, contributions and tax savings.

In brief, here are the 3 kinds of retirement accounts  to which you can still make contributions for 2013 if you’re so inclined.

  1. Traditional IRA. The deadline for this one is either April 15 or whatever the actual day is (before then or after, if you have an  extension) that you actually file your taxes. Additionally, you can open an IRA account up until that time if you haven’t done so already.
  2. Roth IRA. The rules here are exactly the same.
  3. SEP IRA. This is a Simplified Employee Pension plan and can be used by someone who’s self-employed or has their own small business. You can contravene to this type of account up until the maximum extension time which is October 15.

So, as you can see, contributing to your IRA is definitely still possible to get your  tax credits for 2013. If you have any other questions about contributing to an IRA or retirement fund, or questions about personal finance and general, please let us know will get back to you ASAP with answers and options.