The Great Rift Valley Software Company[0] is a small corporation that allowed me to use a bit of my retirement money without tax penalties.

[0] https://riftvalleysoftware.com

Could you expand on the tax side of that a bit?

This is the first time I've heard of using a personal retirement account to pay business expenses without tax penalties, and I'm not finding any relevant hits on Google.

It's a way of setting up a 401(K), that funds a corporation.

Kind of a pain in the butt, and not many accountants know of it. There's a lot of fairly strict rules. You can't paint outside the lines.

There's a company that specializes in this kind of thing. I don't really want to go into detail, here, but feel free to get in touch (my HN ID has contact info).

Ah, thanks, that helped locate some relevant search results!

For those following along at home, the accounting term seems to be [[ Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS) ]]. The IRS website has some unusually direct guidance[1][2] on tax compliance risks associated with ROBS.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/rollovers-as-business-s...

[2] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/robs_guidelines.pdf

First I've heard of ROBS, thanks for posting. I would have assumed OP was talking about a Self Directed IRA, which is an interesting account that can do a lot more than hold securities. From my understanding your IRA can at that point own an LLC which then might hold other assets like actual real-estate.

Yes, that’s it. It’s a really good idea to use a company that specializes in this stuff. They take care of all the accounting and legal stuff. My own accountant won’t touch that stuff.

I think you can do something similar with Real Estate Investment trusts (REITs) depending on your country of citizenship.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_investment_trust#U...