Author: Nora Peterson

ISBN-10: 0-910627-72-X

ISBN-13: 978-0-910627-72-6

Retire Rich with Your Self-Directed IRA organizes 16 chapters into 4 sections.  The introduction summarizes the assumptions made by the author, and used throughout the book, and provides a primer on some of the most basic terminology used in later chapters.  Additional resources, two appendices (containing tax-related data, available from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)), a glossary and a bibliography are also provided.

            This book devotes a significant number of chapters to real estate investments, and is likely to be of greatest interest to those interested in making these investments and conducting real estate transactions within the framework of the self-directed IRA.  These transaction include both traditional (e.g., broker-assisted and for-sale-by-owner) and non-traditional (e.g., real estate options, foreclosures, tax liens and real estate backed notes) transactions (p. 154).  For those interested in these transactions (in addition to investing in precious metals (chapter 14)) in their taxable form, the administration of these investments and transactions (chapters 4 and 5) within the self-directed IRA is addressed in this book.  Therefore, the obvious target market includes, but is certainly not limited to real estate agents, brokers and appraisers.  It is likely that these professionals would find the $21.95 cost of this book to be tax deductible.

            This book is, perhaps, best characterized as a “primer on the integration” of these relatively sophisticated and complex topics.  For example, the investor or potential investor in tax liens will have to “tool up” on the topic of tax liens through other sources, first, before able to digest the relevance of the present book.  After acquiring a bit of expertise in the area of tax liens (and, perhaps, even investing in a few, possibly in their taxable form), the self-directed IRA neophyte would, then, pursue these investment alternatives within this tax-deferred framework.  Certainly, nearly any type of investment vehicle could be pursued within the self-directed IRA, tax deferred framework, and the author makes this point very well, as well as the importance of the identification of the appropriate administrator (e.g., those making a market in providing these atypical services, without running afoul IRS rules and regulations).

            With the above qualification, and the understanding that no single book could provide adequate coverage of the variety of very technical and complex topics addressed in this book, I would recommend it to those interested in tax deferral and investment alternatives.  The greatest beneficiary is likely to be a reader with above average income, education, net worth and some experience in managing their own investments.  This is not to say that the occasional, completely unsophisticated investor might not also benefit, but this is likely to be the exception rather than the rule.

 The above review was contributed by:   Anthony (A.J.) Cataldo II.    Dr. Cataldo holds a PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University , MAc ( University of Arizona)  unofficial minor in Marketing , BSBA  (University of Arizona). He is a Certified Management Accountant and a Certified Public Accountant:  Click Here to view Anthony's Reviews