IRA’s in marriage
Hi, my fiance and I are going to be getting married soon. At the moment we both have Roth IRAs. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to max out both her and my IRAs once we are married. So, I was wondering if it would be better to max out one of the accounts and then anything we have left over, put into the other, or if it would be better to split the budget evenly between both?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2022-10-04 23:44
Is the reason you cannot max out both is your combined Modified AGI being too high, or do you qualify for full Roth contributions, but cannot allocate enough to fund both? If the reason is MAGI being too high, if you are in the phaseout range, you will both have the same max individual limit. Neither spouse could exceed that limit, therefore the highest possible total contribution will result from both of you contributing the max allowed. Another way around the MAGI limit is to consider the back door Roth IRA method for each spouse that does not already have a pre tax traditional IRA balance.