An individual retirement arrangement, or IRA, is a personal savings plan which allows you to set aside money for retirement, while offering you tax advantages. You may be able to deduct some or all of your contributions to your IRA. Amounts in your IRA, including earnings, generally are not taxed until distributed to you. IRA's cannot be owned jointly. However, any amounts remaining in your IRA upon your death can be paid to your beneficiary or beneficiaries.

To contribute to a traditional IRA, you must be under age 70 1/2 at the end of the tax year and you, or your spouse if you file a joint return, must have taxable compensation, such as wages, salaries, commissions, tips, bonuses, or net income from self–employment. In addition, taxable alimony and separate maintenance payments received by an individual are treated as compensation for IRA purposes.

Compensation does not include earnings and profits from property, such as rental income, interest and dividend income or any amount received as pension or annuity income, or as deferred compensation.

Please refer to Publication 590 for information on the amounts you will be eligible to contribute to your IRA account.

If you, your spouse, or both of you are covered by a qualified retirement plan, your IRA deduction may be reduced or eliminated, depending on the amount of your Modified Adjusted Gross Income and your filing status.

Figure your deduction using the worksheets in the Form 1040 Instructions or Form 1040A Instructions or in Publication 590. You cannot claim an IRA deduction on Form 1040EZ; you must use eitherForm 1040A (PDF) orForm 1040 (PDF).Form 8606 (PDF) should be attached to your return if any of your IRA contributions are not deductible. If both you and your spouse qualify, each of you may contribute to separate IRAs.

The deadline for making a contribution to a traditional IRA for the year is the due date of your return, not including any extensions of time to file.

You may choose to take the deduction on a return filed before the contribution is actually made, provided you make the contribution by the due date of that return, not including extensions.

Amounts you withdraw from your IRA are fully or partially taxable in the year you withdraw them. If you made only deductible contributions, withdrawals are fully taxable. If you made any non–deductible contributions, withdrawals are partially taxable. Use Form 8606 to figure the taxable portion of withdrawals.

Amounts you withdraw before you reach age 59 1/2 may be subject to a 10% additional tax. You also may owe an excise tax if you do not begin to withdraw minimum distribution amounts by April 1st of the year after you reach age 70 1/2. These additional taxes are figured and reported on Form 5329 (PDF). Refer to Form 5329 Instructions for exceptions to the additional taxes. For information on Roth IRA contributions or distributions, refer to Topic 309 and Topic 428. For information on conversions from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, refer to Publication 590.

More information on IRAs, including information on tax–free transfers and rollovers, is available in Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs).