Vanguard IRA Benefit For Joint Account Holders
For those that have an Roth, Traditional, or SEP IRA at Vanguard like me, you probably noticed that they charge a custodial fee of $10 a year for each mutual fund you have with a balance of less than $5,000. This can add up if you own multiple funds in different IRAs. The only way to get around this is if “the IRA owner?s Vanguard account assets (including IRAs, employer-sponsored plans, brokerage accounts, annuities, and nonretirement accounts) total $50,000 or more.”
I just discovered that for joint accounts, the total value goes towards both account holders. For example, if my wife and I hold a joint taxable account with $50,000 in it, we would both be exempt from IRA custodial fees no matter what our IRA balances were, even though the $50k is shared between us. Might be helpful for those near the threshold.
Find more in Retirement | 3/2/06, 11:06pm | Trackback
March 3rd, 2006 at 5:19 am
nice discovery!
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:21 am
Since index funds minimums are 10k, a person with 50k in assets will not incur any custodial fees for any funds?
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:24 am
No, unfortunately any other fees like index fund maintenance (low-balance) fees still apply. This is just for IRA custodial fees. Those are seperately calculated.
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:02 am
Great discovery Jonathan. This makes setting up joint accounts worth while. I’ve always spent the extra couple of minutes logging in and out if I wanted to access my wife’s account.
March 5th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I’ve added my mom and daughter in addition to my wife. Works fine. Plus this put us over $100,000 and into Voyager territory, which exempts those index and retirement account fees as well.