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Self-Directed IRAs

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What is a SDIRA?

Learning Center

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Learning Center Overview

Access the largest knowledge base for Self-Directed IRAs. Expand your investor knowledge with articles, whitepapers, practical guides and tons of other educational resources.

About Entrust

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What We Do

For 40 years, The Entrust Group has provided account administration services for self-directed retirement and tax-advantaged plans. Entrust can assist you in purchasing alternative investments with your retirement funds, and administer the buying and selling of assets that are typically unavailable through banks and brokerage firms.

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Investing in precious metals can be a great way to diversify your Self-Directed IRA (SDIRA). Gold and silver were among the first known investments and served as a form of currency for centuries. They’re still regarded as a store of value, a hedge against inflation, and protection against currency deflation. Central banks can print more paper money; they can’t produce more gold or silver.

Precious metal prices tend to act in opposition to the stock market: when equity prices are low, gold typically rides high.

Precious metals are “precious” because they’re rare. All the gold, silver, platinum, and palladium in the world are finite. Although they haven’t been mined out of existence yet, getting to the lodes of precious metals in the Earth’s crust is expensive, time-consuming, and environmentally costly.

What You Can Invest In

Your IRA can hold gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. The IRS has specific requirements as to its purity. All precious metals that do not meet IRS specifications are considered collectibles and are not allowed in your SDIRA.

Below is a list of some of the allowable metals you can invest in as put forth by the IRS.

Gold

  • American Eagle coins 1
  • American Buffalo coins 2
  • Australian Kangaroo/Nugget coins
  • Austrian Philharmonic coins
  • Canadian Maple Leaf coins
  • Bars and rounds produced by a refiner/assayer/manufacturer accredited by NYMEX/COMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LBMA, ISO 9000, or national government mint and meeting minimum fineness requirements 3 4

Silver

  • American Eagle bullion and proof coins 1
  • Australian Kookaburra coins
  • Austrian Philharmonic coins
  • Canadian Maple Leaf coins
  • Mexican Libertad coins
  • Bars and rounds produced by a refiner/assayer/manufacturer accredited by NYMEX/COMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LBMA, ISO 9000, or national government mint and meeting minimum fineness requirements 3 4

Platinum

  • American Eagle bullion and proof coins 1
  • Australian Koala coins
  • Canadian Maple Leaf coins
  • Isle of Man Noble coins
  • Bars and rounds produced by a refiner/assayer/manufacturer accredited by NYMEX/COMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LBMA, ISO 9000, or national government mint and meeting minimum fineness requirements 3 4

Palladium

  • Bars and rounds produced by a refiner/assayer/manufacturer accredited by NYMEX/COMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LBMA, ISO 9000, or national government mint and meeting minimum fineness requirements 3 4
1 Numismatic and American Eagle coins that have undergone “certification” (also known as “slabbed” coins) aren’t acceptable for use in IRAs.
2 Only uncirculated American Buffalo coins are allowed (i.e. proof coins aren’t allowed).
3 Minimum fineness required: Gold .995+; Silver .999+; Platinum .9995+; Palladium .9995+
4 Small bullion bars (i.e. bars other than 400-ounce gold, 100-ounce gold, 1000-ounce silver, 50-ounce platinum, and 100-ounce palladium bars) must be manufactured to exact weight specifications.

Assembling Your Team

Once you decide to invest in precious metals, you’ll need to assemble a team to help you make and maintain your investment. You’ll need a Self-Directed IRA Provider, Dealer, and Depository.

Self-Directed IRA Provider
Dealer
Depository

The SDIRA provider, handles the documentation to establish, fund, and complete transactions for your SDIRA. We’re responsible for recordkeeping and ensuring that all necessary reports are submitted to the IRS. Without an SDIRA provider, you cannot invest retirement funds in precious metals or alternative assets.

Dealers are firms or individuals who make deals for the sale and purchase of precious metals. Traditionally, they made bids and offers on the price of gold. Today, the name is used to describe firms that accumulate an inventory of precious metals and sell it to coin dealers, jewelers, or investment companies.

You will need to use a precious metals dealer to buy and sell the physical metals your SDIRA owns. When identifying a dealer, make sure to do your due diligence. As the account holder, you are responsible for negotiating all the details of the transaction of the precious metal including the metals’ price. We recommend working with dealers who know and understand the purchase of precious metals with retirement funds.

Note that Entrust is not affiliated with any precious metals dealers.

To maintain the tax-advantaged status of your retirement funds while investing in precious metals, you must store your assets at a precious metals depository. The IRS does not allow SIDRA holders to take physical possession of metals owned by an SDIRA.

When choosing a depository for your metals, you’ll need to choose what type of storage you want: allocated or segregated. 

Allocated storage, also known as non-segregated or co-mingled storage, involves co-mingling the metals with assets owned by other investors. Account holders are assured of receiving metals of the same types, weights, and years/hallmarks as their original deposits, though may not receive the exact metals they deposited. This type of storage is more convenient for the depository and generally incurs lower costs.

On the other hand, segregated storage refers to keeping metals separated from those owned by other investors. While this option generally comes with higher costs, accountholders are guaranteed to receive the exact metals they originally deposited.

We work with these nationally recognized depositories:

The Investment Process

Here are the steps to invest in precious metals with your SDIRA:

START
STEP 1
Open a Self-Directed IRA

Open an account online in under 10 minutes here.

STEP 2
Fund your account

Via a transfer, a rollover, or a cash contribution.

STEP 3
Choose a precious metals dealer

Make sure to do your due diligence.

STEP 4
Choose a depository

Entrust works with a few nationwide depositories.

STEP 5
Buy the metals
  • Complete Precious Metals Buy Direction Letter
  • Sign the dealer invoice
  • Sign the Depository Holdings Election Form
  • Submit forms to Entrust
STEP 6
Entrust processes transaction

Entrust wires funds to your precious metals dealer.
Entrust emails dealer and client a copy of the packing insert used to ship the metals to the depository.
Depository audits and approves the shipment.
Entrust reviews the depository’s audit and matches it to your dealer’s invoice.
The metals are booked into your Entrust account.

FINISH

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Your SDIRA now holds the precious metals!

 

Things to Know

Here are some important things to know about managing your precious metals investment:

  1. Depository fees

    These are paid by your SDIRA provider. The depository bills your provider, and your provider uses funds from your SDIRA to pay them.

  2. Taking possession of precious metals your IRA owns

    If you take physical possession of your precious metals for any reason, it is considered a distribution from your IRA, which is a taxable event and may be subject to the early distribution penalty.

  3. Choosing a depository

    To invest in precious metals with Entrust, you must use one of the depositories we already work with.