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The clock is ticking down to a new year. Learn why it’s not too late to lower your 2023 tax bill with IRA contributions.
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There’s so much to do at the end of the year — planning for winter travel (or a quiet solo holiday), buying gifts, and wrapping projects up at work so you can have some relaxing time off. Adding extra money to your retirement account (or even striving to max out your contributions) might be at the back of your mind, and that’s certainly understandable. But if you are hoping to boost that balance, you might be out of luck this late in the year.
If you participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, like a 401(k), you only have until the end of 2023 to add money that will count as 2023 contributions, and therefore lower your taxable income. But if you have an IRA account as well (or instead, if you don’t have access to an employer plan), you actually have longer to add money. Here’s the good news on that, as well as a few tips to carve out more retirement account contributions in 2024 and beyond.
You have until tax day 2024 to contribute to your IRA
If you’re hoping to add more money to your IRA, be it traditional or of the Roth variety (meaning tax savings in retirement, rather than now), you can keep contributing beyond Dec. 31, 2023. In fact, you have up until the annual tax-filing deadline, which is Monday, April 15, 2024. It’s important to note that if you get an extension on your tax return that gives you an additional six months to file, you are not allowed to count money added to your IRA after that April 15 deadline toward 2023 taxes.
This is great news for people with IRAs, because the end of the year is a notoriously expensive time for a lot of people. The winter holidays eat up a decent chunk of money, for example — a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation found that consumers intend to spend an average of $875 apiece on gifts, food, and other core holiday purchases. If your own tab for December will come close to that, you likely don’t have much cash available to invest. But your situation could change come the new year.
If you end up receiving cash gifts for the holidays, or you get an end-of-year bonus from your employer, you might want to put some (or all) of that money toward retirement. And since you can contribute money to your IRA for 2023 after 2024 has technically begun, you’ve got a way in. Just make sure you select “2023” as the contribution year in your account. If you’re now very close to the contribution limit for your IRA (for 2023, $6,500 if you’re under 50, or $7,000 if you’ll be 50 or older by the end of the year), this could give you the ability to max it out.
How can you save more next year — and beyond?
It isn’t easy to put some of your earnings aside to invest for the future, so any amount of money you can put into a retirement account (or even a taxable brokerage account) is great. That said, you likely want to make it a point to increase your contributions, as the more you invest, the more wealth you can build over time.
If you struggle to find money to invest and are currently waiting until after your bills and any discretionary expenses are paid for, it might be time to rethink that. I met a major savings goal for 2023 by paying myself first, and just about anyone can use this technique.
Treat your retirement investing as a must-pay bill, and include the amount you want to save in your monthly budget. You can really make this stick by automating your contributions — set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your IRA for the same day you get paid. If the money is out of your account before you can spend it, you’ll be on track for a comfortable retirement — no fuss or remembering required.
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