My wife and I already made our 2016 contributions to our Roth IRA. With some bonuses this year, we are going to have a gross income over the IRS limit for Roth IRA. A tax accountant told me I need to recall the 2016 contributions which I would put in my stock brokerage account.

Going forward, it looks like my options are Traditional IRA with a Roth IRA back door OR just put all my investment/retirement funds in my stock brokerage account each month and not use any sort of IRA.

What’s the professional opinion here? My wife and I are maxing out employer match on 401K so this is really secondary retirement planning. I do like the idea of having all of my investment and retirement funds in one place. Gives me more buying power and dollar cost averaging power. Downside is I tend to make more buys and sells than traditional retirement investing. I like to time the market, sell at highs, wait for pull backs and rebuy ect. So capital gains tax would be in play.

So what’s professional opinion? Go through the hassle of Traditional IRA back door Roth for the tax advantage or just use my Stock Brokerage account knowing I’ll get a capital gains tax hit but I’ll have all my funds in one place, more buying power, and no contribution or income limits?

Secondly, if I decide to go the stock brokerage account route, can I convert the balances my roth and my wife’s roth into my stock brokerage account? Both are stock trading roth IRAs but I’d rather have all my funds in one trading account.

Thanks.