I track Roth IRAs and my Roth 401(k) the same way I do all of my other broad investment / brokerage accounts:
Contributions credit the bank account and debit the Roth IRA. At some periodicity (could be every 3, 6, or 12 mos), I change the investment balances, which in a rising stock market has typically meant debit the Roth IRA, credit Income:Nontaxable Investment Income. (I understand other people may prefer a different credit account; this works for me for tracking. David T says below "earnings are tracked in separate income accounts for tax tracking purposes. Note that *nothing *on Roth IRAs needs to be 'tracked' or reported in the USA, but perhaps David T means "separate" from his/my *other *income accounts that do need to be reported.) When I eventually take distributions, no, I won't make "extra" entries to track for the IRS, I will simply credit the Roth IRA account and debit the asset account where I have sent the distribution. Note that this is less involved than what I would do if I had REGULAR IRAs or 401(k)s, as there I would be tracking eventual tax liabilities on growth in those accounts, and then when I eventually take Required Distributions, then the portion of the distribution that is taxable I would track into a taxable income account. Here's an example for a REGULAR IRA. Say the account balance was $500,000 at 2029-12-31 and I was required to withdraw 5% of it per the tax code in 2032. When I take that $25,000 required withdrawal, I would record it as: Credit Regular IRA $25,000 Debit Brokerage Account $25,000 [these two record the transfer of assets] Credit Income:Taxable:IRA withdrawal $20,000 [this presumes a calculation that my tax basis in the IRA as of the withdrawal date was 100,000, or 20% of the balance] Debit Income:Nontaxable:IRA Deferred Growth $20,000 Credit Liabilities:Taxes Due this year $8,000 [at 40% tax rate] Debit Liabilities:Deferred Taxes on IRAs $8,000 (this account would have been credited every year as the IRA grew from investment earnings) On Thu, Jun 4, 2026 at 2:29 AM David T. via gnucash-user < [email protected]> wrote: > Clint, > > I don't see any other replies, so... > > Our family has four Roth accounts-- one each for an IRA and an employer > retirement plan. I track all the contributions and earnings for those > accounts* (we haven't yet taken distributions **). That way, I can see > generally what our retirement savings look like. > > Tracking actual daily value for these accounts is, frankly, more trouble > than it's worth. Our retirement plans mask the investment details, and only > provide generalized data, which makes tracking difficult. So, I mostly > check that the share balances are correct from year to year. This gives me > a broad sense of our progress toward the long term goals. > > HTH, > David T. > > * - Contributions are handled as standard transactions between asset > accounts, while earnings are tracked in separate income accounts for tax > tracking purposes. > > ** - IANAA, but I understand that when distributions are made, extra > entries must be made in GnuCash to allow you to track the distribution as > income for IRS tracking. > > > > On June 3, 2026 9:22:21 PM GMT+05:30, Clint Chaplin <[email protected]> > wrote: > >For those of you using GnuCash and having Roth accounts, do you use > GnuCash > >to keep track of contributions vs. rollover/conversions vs. earnings, and > >if so, how? > > > >-- > >Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin > >_______________________________________________ > >gnucash-user mailing list > >[email protected] > >To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > >https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > >----- > >Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > >You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > [email protected] > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
