IRA is an acronym for Individual Retirement Account. These are savings accounts that allow an individual to save periodically to take care of his financial needs after retirement from active work. These accounts are patronized by the government since they encourage people to plan for their post-retirement financial needs. The government provides incentives in the form of tax concessions to contributions towards Individual Retirement Accounts. These accounts are also known as Individual Retirement Arrangements or Individual Retirement Annuity. In most of the cases, all the three terms are used interchangeably to refer to the same entity.
There are several different types of IRAs popular with the investors. Some common types include: SEP IRAs, Roth IRAs, Simple IRAs and Traditional IRAs. Therefore IRAs can be seen as an instrument for the general public to save for their retirement needs and also reduce their tax liability in the process by taking advantage of the monetary incentives on such accounts offered by the government.
The various tax-incentives provided by the US government on IRAs promotes savings by individual members of the active workforce towards...