Quick question about SIMPLE IRA transfers

[Gamma Ray]

Hi,
I have been moving my funds from Simple IRA at different financial institution to VG for few years. It goes from my Simple IRA account to my Traditional IRA at VG.
I was told that I could also make contribution to my ROTH IRA on the side since Simple IRA counts as employer provided retirement investment and it goes as Traditional IRA. So I have been contributing $5500 on the side to Roth.

One my of coworkers was told that she can still contribute to tIRA while moving her funds from other company to VG.
Is that correct? Can you make more pre-tax contributions even though you have SIMPLE, or is it because she doesn't reach the max SIMPLE limit?

[BD w/ Kung-Fu Grip]

I was told that I could also make contribution to my ROTH IRA on the side since Simple IRA counts as employer provided retirement investment and it goes as Traditional IRA.

This is correct: a Simple IRA is treated similarly to a traditional 401(k). It does not affect your IRA limits: you can contribute the full $6,000 (for 2019) to either a traditional or Roth IRA.

[retiredjg]

I agree. Contributing to a SIMPLE IRA at work does not affect one's ability to contribute to either a traditional or Roth IRA as an individual.

[Alan S.]

If you contribute to a SIMPLE IRA, you can still make a TIRA contribution in addition.

However, the SIMPLE contributions make you an active participant, and if your MAGI is too high the TIRA Contribution cannot be deducted. Without the TIRA deduction it would be better to contribute to a Roth IRA providing your MAGI is not also too high for a Roth contribution.

[Gamma Ray]

Thank you so much for the replies, for some reason I thought we could not contribute to tIRA with SIMPLE in place, but I think I realized now why I thought that. It's mainly because of the lower income limits.

When I first started contributing to SIMPLE and began transferring funds to VG as tIRA, the income limit was around $60k (currently $63k for 2018 and $64k for 2019) while rIRA has double this amount so I started contributing full to IRA (for myself and 2nd one for my wife, this gave us add'l $11k/year we could save with tax-free growth)

In this case I should remind my coworker if she has income over $64k she needs to check how much of it can be deducted, if she has higher income she should also consider rIRA.

Also, thanks for reminding me limit is $6k now, for some reason VG never reminded me to adjust my weekly contribution.
Edit: Looks like I am using "maximize" feature, it won't let me adjust contributions, so I assume it will do it automatically.