Backdoor Roth Question

[Saphomd]

Must I open a traditional brokerage IRA to convert to a backdoor Roth IRA? Or is it possible to open a traditional non-brokerage IRA?

Thanks.

[neurosphere]

The exact nature of the IRA is not relevant. You need to make a traditional IRA contribution for the first step of a backdoor Roth contribution. That's it. Whether it is a brokerage account or non-brokerage is not important.

[Saphomd]

Thanks. I already made my contribution to Vanguard which is in a traditional Brokerage IRA ( Federal money market settlement fund). This is what Vanguard set up for me. However, on the website, they want me to open up a new Roth Brokerage. It wont allow me to contribute to my regular Roth IRA which I already have ( non-brokerage). Vanguard did not give me the option to open a traditional ira settlement fund, unless I could have.

[Duckie]

However, on the website, they want me to open up a new Roth Brokerage. It wont allow me to contribute to my regular Roth IRA which I already have ( non-brokerage).

Vanguard is only opening new accounts on the brokerage side. Since you didn't have a TIRA on the mutual fund side you had to open one on the b-side. You will have to open a Roth IRA on the b-side, too, because you can't shift stuff back to the mf-side (you can't convert a TIRA on the b-side to a Roth IRA on the mf-side). Eventually your mf-side Roth IRA will be migrated to the b-side Roth IRA.

[Earl Lemongrab]

There's no requirement to open a new Roth IRA for the backdoor. Just convert into the existing account if that's where you want it.