401K tax

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/401k/a/aa122104a.htm?p=1

The other tax question on 401K, although you will get taxed when you get the money out, but you will not get them out all together, you will only get a small amount once at a time, when you don’t have a job, you will be at a lower tax bracket. So for tax benefits, it is reducing your high income tax bracket now to low tax bracket in the future.

IRA

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/green/retirement/traditional_IRA_Roth_IRA.asp

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneymatters/5160

In essence:

• This is a retirement plan besides 401K (work sponsored), you save this amount of money (maximum $4000 each year) by yourself in your own bank, and you don’t pay tax (Roth) or tax deferred (Traditional).
• 401K is pretax, IRA is after tax, you don’t get tax break for contribution but on growth
• If your income exceeds $114000, you will not be eligible for Roth IRA.
• But!!! on 2010, you can convert all your Traditional IRA to Roth IRA no matter your income, except you have to pay tax during this conversion.
• Some other benefit of Roth IRA including early withdraws can be found in the links above.