Can Traditional IRA assets be moved?

IRA owners may wish to move their IRAs from one financial organization to another. Transfers and rollovers are two methods of moving assets from one IRA to another IRA of the same type.

A transfer is a direct movement of assets between like IRAs. A transfer generally is from one financial organization to another financial organization, but may occur between IRAs at the same financial organization. Although IRA owners direct the asset transfer, they do not have actual receipt of the assets. An IRA owner may make an unlimited number of transfers in a year. The transfers may be for all or any part of an IRA balance. Transfers are not reported to the IRS.

An IRA-to-IRA rollover is another method of moving assets, tax-free from one IRA to another IRA of the same type. With rollovers, the IRA owner, surviving spouse beneficiary, or former spouse actually receives the assets through a distribution before rolling it over to another IRA. A distribution that is eventually rolled over to an IRA is treated like any other type of distribution at the time it is taken from the IRA. Consequently, the withholding rules apply. The distributing financial organization reports the IRA distribution on Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc., and the receiving financial organization reports the rollover contribution on Form 5498,IRA Contribution Information.