Ever wonder how you can access your retirement accounts without paying the 10% penalty? In this video we share our plan for avoiding IRA and 401k penalties by setting up a Roth Conversion Ladder.

Credit is due to the MadFientist who introduced us to the idea. Basically you rollover your old 401k into a traditional IRA, then convert that to a Roth IRA. The converted funds are considered ?income? and therefore ?contributions? so you may withdraw them at any time (after 5 years has passed) without tax or penalty.

More information can be found on his website:
https://www.madfientist.com/after-tax-contributions/
https://www.madfientist.com/retire-even-earlier/

Interestingly, President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal might close that loophole despite the IRS just putting out notice 2014-54 which seemed to confirm this is a viable and lawful strategy.

Link to the IRS Notice 2014-54:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-54.pdf