Backdoor Roth IRA

[Anonymous]

I'm 13:05 above with $600K in a traditional IRA from a previous 401(k) rollover. I'm still trying to figure out if it makes sense for me to dump all this in my employer's 401(k) with management fees, or go without a backdoor Roth and keep my money in Vanguard Admiral shares with minuscule costs. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do mine with Fidelity. I end up opening a traditional IRA and then closing it when I transfer to ROTH. I tried leaving it open for the next year but it never works or there is some problem funding it the next year so I just open a new one.

Couldn't you just leave $1 in it so you don't have to go through the hassle of opening up a new account each year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 13:05 above with $600K in a traditional IRA from a previous 401(k) rollover. I'm still trying to figure out if it makes sense for me to dump all this in my employer's 401(k) with management fees, or go without a backdoor Roth and keep my money in Vanguard Admiral shares with minuscule costs. Any thoughts?

It's a safe bet that wasn't $600k of contributions. Do you have cash on hand to pay the taxes on all the earnings included in your $600k amount? If you do and it's worth that much to you to get that $600k into post-tax investments, go for it. If the only thing keeping you from rolling it into your 401k is the fee differential, you can always keep it in your rollover IRA, in a low-cost fund, and just accept that a Roth won't be part of your strategy.