[yieldcrv]

you can create a solo 401k that contains both a traditional and roth account, and roll over from your old employer's 401k to the traditional solo 401k, and do a conversion to the roth account

there are caveats to this, like always being attached to your solo 401k plan makes you ineligible for contributions to an IRA all the time, but you will be able to have rollovers into the IRAs, you also might decide that the solo 401k is a superior product to IRAs in every way

if you are not currently eligible to create a solo 401k, it is very easy to become eligible with a single dollar of 1099 or schedule C income the year you make it, and then it can exist in perpetuity

corroborate that with your licensed professionals. many gurus overlook the solo roth 401k mostly due to SEO and their audience of professionals that associate "401k" with "corporate employer thing", as opposed to something at parity with a traditional and roth IRA and expanded in capability

[PopAlongKid]

>if you are not currently eligible to create a solo 401k, it is very easy to become eligible with a single dollar of 1099 or schedule C income the year you make it, and then it can exist in perpetuity

No, your scenario is not "very easy". No custodian is going to handle a solo 401k based on one dollar of self employed income (and 1099-NECs aren't issued for such tiny amounts anyway). You are also overlooking the overhead of maintaining a 401k, such as plan updates every time related federal tax law changes, or the potential IRS reporting requirements, which can generate significant penalties if overlooked.

[hansvm]

Merrill Lynch is usually good about that sort of thing. You're right that you wouldn't _only_ have the $1 401k, but they're fine having a few phantom accounts here and there to execute your financial strategies, and they'll stay on top of inconvenient legal changes for accounts they know about.

[yieldcrv]

yeah, in the 10 years I've had one, the compliance is just a notice from the "document provider", and a 5500-EZ document annually. the bank, brokerage and crypto exchange accounts have no monthly/annual fees.

OP can also just use the solo 401k's roth balances as a temporary holding place to then pass through directly to the roth ira

The expanded investment options are worth it alone. And the years where there is self employment income, the expanded contribution limit up to doing my own $70,000 employer match saves literal years of contributions off my life.

It's literally 10x what the IRA contribution guys get, and most of them are barely able to even reach the IRA contribution max.

There are more tax deferral plans out there too, I'm willing to do that compliance.

[isaacdl]

This is really interesting. I'd considered a solo 401k at one point because a made a small amount of self-employment income in one year, but decided against it because it wasn't enough to be worth the hassle, and I didn't expect to keep having self-employment income. Now I wish I had gone through it, just so I'd have a place to roll over this old 401k. (Of course, now that I look, Vanguard doesn't do solo 401ks anymore and redirects to Ascensus, so might just be frying pan to fire anyway.)

[yieldcrv]

> now that I look, Vanguard doesn't do solo 401ks anymore

Vanguard wouldn't need to know it was a solo 401k, they would just see a trust being signed up. There are other institutions that you can go into mutual funds or get similar exposure from who are more acclimated to solo 401k entities though.