All Forum Posts by: Evan Kraus

Like I said the transactions are all at arms length! I am well aware of the prohibited transactions. Everything I have done is well documented. My goal was to grow my IRA funds. I have no need to use any monies from my IRA. But this review still puzzles me. Will send you a PM,

Doreen

Let me go back to the beginning of my creation of the Checkbook IRA.

When I first found out about the Checkbook IRA I was doing Hard Money Loans out of my LLC that deals with all my rental properties. After loosing my shirt with my IRA's several times throughout my life and the poor returns with super conservative investments I decided to try the Checkbook IRA. Researching this was a problem. Most or all the information out there are adds for representatives setting it up for you. Plus the info you get from them puts the fear of the IRS in you. So after careful consideration I bit the bullet and had one of those representatives create the Checkbook IRA. I have had it for a year and 3 months. Well I started having questions about adding my wife's IRA money to the account. More Greek! Just before the end of the year I moved some more funds from one custodian to the one that Checkbook IRA is under. I was out of town and a deal came up and i had to move the money rather quickly. By mistake a routing # for another branch of the bank was used. The transaction was rejected. At the end of the year I got the yearly invoice which included the transaction fee for the incomplete transfer. Thats when I tried contacting them with no response. So i called the Custodian and luckily got someone that was quite helpful. He informed me that I did not need this Representative. That is also when i found this Forum. I wish I had found this before paying these people all this money to do something that would have cost me one tenth of what i paid them to set up the Checkbook IRA. So far no one has asked to review my transactions and I don't even know what they would want. I keep the books for the LLC in Quickbooks. 99.9% of the transactions are Mortgage investments and Interest payments. Thats it! All the talk about Prohibited Transactions and scare tactics I heard are BS. It's quite simple to abide by the rules. Surely there are those that don't. It would take less than 15 minutes to review my transactions. So from what I gather you are saying I don't need this representative. But now how do I keep it Kosher? I know my transactions are solid but this review. What is needed for it and do i really have to do it.

Thanks!

I am with you on the review. They were supposed to do that but I think if the value of the account is over 250K. The Representative that I currently have charges $90 for the review although they haven't reviewed the transactions. Or I can have an accountant do it. The problem with that is my accountant doesn't have a clue about a Checkbook IRA.

Here is how the transactions go.

I fill out the transfer request (Custodian to Custodian) and send it to them (representative). They in turn forward it to the custodian. Another form goes with that. Its the investment form (custodian to LLC). Then they charge an $80 wire fee. There is also a $220 maintenance fee and I don't know what i get for it! I think the pay the custodian fees. In short once they got my initial funds to start up the process it was like they don't know me from Adam.

So do I really need a representative? And do I need a third party to review the transactions?

No mans land for sure! After I spent the money and it was all set up I realized i could have don it myself. Basically all they did was create the

Articles of Organization, I did the rest filing for the LLC, and getting the EIN. Funny thing is I didn't put 2 and 2 together. I fill out the transfer request send it to the rep then they send it to the custodian. The do nothing but forward the document for a fee of course.

Do I really need to keep the representative?

I have a problem with them. They can bill my IRA account without any input from me. I leave the minimum amount in the account. My IRA LLC is flourishing. Its pretty simple to abide by the IRS regs. I think I remember that the Asset value was reported to the Custodian at the end of the year and not the Rep.

So what benefit are they? You mentioned the custodian as as the qualified individual. If i remove the rep the custodian is still there.

It would be nice to have someplace to put questions. These guys came highly recommended but it still took quite a bit of research and reading on my part to figure out exactly what they did and how the Checkbook IRA works. After all the hoopla and cautions I found it quite easy to keep track of the transactions and abide by all the IRS regs.

I currently have a Checkbook IRA that I invest in Mortgages.

Since I started the process I have had some issues with the company that set up the IRA. They are not the Custodian but only a representative. Once they got the funds to start the Checkbook IRA going the entire picture of the company changed. I have had issues with them responding to email about questions and charges. I recently made a transfer from one Custodian (Fidelity) to the Custodian that is associated with my Checkbook IRA LLC. There was a mistake in the routing number and it was canceled. The representative had the nerve to charge me the transfer fee any way. Trying to correspond with them to get it removed after 3 attempts I have gotten no response.

Here is my question. Do I need the representative? The Custocian has informed ma that I can remove them at any time.