Old Employer’s 401(k) won’t do direct rollovers

[lostinlove]

@ilovejeshua Oh….. so if you contributed to a traditional Ira X years ago, backdoor is not an option? (assuming your employer otherwise allows it)

 

[ilovejeshua]

@lostinlove

so if you contributed to a traditional Ira X years ago

And still have a tIRA balance today/when you want to exercise the backdoor option. (If you contributed to a tIRA 20 years ago with your high school job income and then converted it to a Roth during college when you were unemployed and have $0 tIRA today, you're fine.)

assuming your employer otherwise allows it

Your employer has nothing to do with this process, these are all your individual accounts.

 

[freebornjim]

@lostinlove That's not necessarily true. Many 401(k) plans allow you to move tIRA balances into the 401(k). All you have to do is at some point roll those funds out of the IRA and leave the account empty.

You're only subject to the pro-rata rule for any funds in the account at the time of Roth conversion, not those that have been there in the past.

Also, backdoor Roth has nothing to do with your employer as it's all post-tax dollars moving around in personal accounts (tIRA, rIRA).

 

[rachellee]

@ilovejeshua My income is below the cut off to contribute to R.IRA so I believe this is not relevant to my case

 

[pmattson]

@rachellee It is below the limit today. hopefully in the far future it will be a problem for you.

 

[wenwen86]

@rachellee No company wants to relinquish custodianship of money. Go to your current provider with a statement from Empower and ask them to pull it into their institution. When I did that it was 3 minutes of dude typing information from the statement and a finger signature on an iPad. About 2 weeks later the assets from the old custodian showed up no problem.

 

[vannitheng]

@rachellee Are you sure they aren’t refusing to issue an ACH or wire?

Empower is huge. I’ve never heard of them not permitting a rollover to a 401k - it’s just sent via check to you payable to the new custodian. (Still a direct rollover)