Retirement

Same desk, different tax sleeve

Traditional and Roth IRAs sit on the same Sterling Active blotter as a taxable brokerage account. The ticket, the chart, and the positions list do not change shape. What changes is the tax sleeve: contributions, conversions, and distributions follow retirement rules, and Sterling does not tell you which rule applies to you.

Open the IRA from registration. You get an SCG number immediately. Rollovers from an employer plan or another firm come after the account exists, and only once funding and clearing are actually open. Do not send assets because this page describes the workflow.

Which page to open

• Traditional IRA: pre-tax sleeve. Contribution limits and required distributions sit with the custodian documents.
• Roth IRA: after-tax sleeve. Income limits and conversions are in the client agreement, not in a chat reply.
• Rollovers: the transfer itself. Open the destination IRA first.
• Brokerage: use this if the money is taxable and an IRA is the wrong wrapper.