Hanging onto winning investments
in your taxable account effectively gives you tax - deferred growth, just like a retirement account.
Not exact matches
The key note here is that earnings withdrawn for non-qualified reasons (aka not for college expenses) are subject to income tax, not capital gains tax which they alternatively would be subject to
in the
taxable account (which would
effectively be 0 % if I'm within the 15 % income tax bracket).
So if you hold this fund
in a
taxable account and successfully recover these taxes, your overall investment return would
effectively be higher than what Vanguard reported.
That
effectively allows the $ 28,000 to rack - up a tax - free 6 % return within the Roth instead of remaining
in the
taxable account where taxes on investment gains would result
in a lower after - tax return.
But the $ 24,000 he puts into the traditional 401 (k) also gets him a tax deduction, which at a 33 % pre-retirement tax rate
effectively frees up $ 7,920 he can invest
in a separate
taxable account.