4 ms·

It's clear that the IRA system was created to encourage saving for retirement through tax deferral. It was not intended for billionaires, because for them it s

It's clear that the IRA system was created to encourage saving for retirement through tax deferral. It was not intended for billionaires, because for them it serves no purpose in encouraging them to save for retirement. (Financial security in retirement is not something billionaires worry about.) The idea that there is no way the law could exclude this sort of benefit while not hurting the middle class is absurd. There are any number of ways to do it: for example, any plan with more than $10 million in capital gains could have gains above that amount lose their tax-exempt status.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
>It's clear that the IRA system was created to encourage saving for retirement through tax deferral. It is not clear to me that IRAs were created for this reason. As far as I can tell, they seem to exist only to provide plausible deniability (and poorly at that) for 401ks giving an advantage to big businesses that can afford to implement them (pre Vanguard/cheap passive investing days) over smaller businesses that could not afford to implement 401ks. Otherwise, I see no reason why people who work for employers that can afford to offer 401ks should have a leg up in tax advantaged retirement savings over people who do not and have to rely on IRAs (which have drastically lower contribution limits). >It was not intended for billionaires, It would have been simple to write in a limit for maximum amount of tax free gains in Roths.