Author: Ed Slott Year: 2005 Pages: 300 Rating: 74/100 Amazon: Parlay Your IRA.....

Individual Retirement Accounts, or IRA's, are investment vehicles that help an individual plan for retirement. By investing money into an IRA each year throughout one's career a person is able to leverage tax benefits and hopefully be financially prepared for retirement. It sounds simple. It isn't.

There are different types of IRA's and various stipulations, clauses and procedures for each kind. The idea behind the value of an IRA is take advantage of compounded interest by growing your money in a tax-deferred environment, Ed Slott, the IRA Expert, who authors this manifesto uses plenty of graphs and charts to drive home the idea of how effective compound interest is to creating value.

IRA's are often passed down to beneficiaries (especially in wealthy estates) upon your physical departure from this planet. This is where things really get tricky. If not properly organized an IRA can't be "stretched" by the beneficiaries therefore losing the awesome growth powers of the stretch. A few missteps and a family can easily lose thousands and even million of dollars of value.

Litty's Take

This book was given to me to read by my father. I'm glad he did. Managing your wealth is as important a job as your career. Much like the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" there is much more to increasing your wealth than cashing a paycheck every two weeks.

That being said I was amazed at how difficult it is to properly set up IRA's to maximize value. Basically it is impossible. I'm not sure if this is because a cottage industry of IRA Experts (like Mr. Slott) has figured out every which way to manipulate and maneuver through the IRA code to provide maximum benefits or because the government agencies that create these tax shelters are morons. Either way it seems like Average Joe is getting screwed out of his family fortune while the rich get richer.

If your looking to gain some understanding on how this all works Slott's book is decent. He tries to add some color to the mundane and intricate minutia of tax code and retirement planning. I think reading this can help you ask the right questions when planning your own financial affairs.

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