Romney built an IRA worth up to $100 million by loading Bain Capital private fund interests into a self-directed wrapper that is still fully legal today.
The IRS permits self-directed IRAs to hold private company shares, LLC interests, and real estate; brokers restricting you to public stocks is their policy, not law.
One prohibited transaction under Section 4975 disqualifies your entire IRA retroactively, making the full balance immediately taxable plus a 10% early-withdrawal penalty.
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If you own an IRA, you already have the same wrapper Mitt Romney used to build a retirement account reportedly worth between $20 million and $100 million, back when the annual contribution cap was just $6,000. The buried benefit: your IRA does not have to hold public stocks and mutual funds. A self-directed IRA can own private company shares, LLC interests, pre-IPO founder stock, private real estate, and other alternative assets, and every dollar of growth stays inside the tax shelter. That is the Romney IRA loophole, and it is still legal in 2026.
Nothing in the tax code caps how big your IRA can grow. The code only caps what you contribute each year, which for 2026 is $7,500, plus a $1,100 catch-up if you are 50 or older. What happens after the money is inside is up to the investments you pick. If you buy 1,000 shares of a private startup for $0.01 each inside a Roth IRA and those shares later sell for $500 apiece, the entire windfall grows tax-free. That is the math Romney used with Bain Capital fund interests, and any founder, early employee, or private-fund investor with an IRA can use the same wrapper today.
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The authority is Internal Revenue Code Section 408, which defines individual retirement accounts and lists only a short set of prohibited holdings: life insurance, collectibles, and S-corporation stock. Everything else, including privately held C-corp shares, LLC and LP interests, private notes, and real estate, is allowed. The custodian rules that let banks and brokerages restrict you to public securities are their choice, not the IRS's. A self-directed IRA custodian, regulated under the same section, will hold the alternative assets for you. Prohibited transactions and disqualified persons are governed by IRC Section 4975, which is where most people trip.
Anyone eligible to fund an IRA can open a self-directed one. The traditional IRA has no income cap for contributions. The Roth IRA phases out at higher incomes, but a backdoor Roth conversion sidesteps that. The strategy only produces Romney-scale results if you have access to an asset that is genuinely low-valued today and plausibly explodes in value later: founder shares in your own startup (with strict guardrails), carried interest in a private fund, pre-IPO secondaries, or early-stage private placements. If your only investment universe is index funds, the wrapper still works, but you will compound at market returns, not venture returns. Also excluded: you cannot buy assets from yourself, your spouse, your parents, your kids, or entities they control. That is self-dealing, and it blows up the entire IRA.
Open a self-directed IRA (Roth or traditional) with a custodian that handles alternative assets. Roth is the Romney move because withdrawals after age 59½ are tax-free forever.
Fund it with your $7,500 (or $8,600 with catch-up) 2026 contribution, or roll over an existing IRA or old 401(k) for more firepower.
Direct the custodian to purchase the private asset at a defensible, arm's-length valuation. Get a third-party appraisal. This is the step Romney's Bain interests reportedly used, and it is the step the IRS scrutinizes hardest.
Let it ride. Any dividends, interest, or eventual sale proceeds flow back into the IRA untaxed.
Take qualified distributions after 59½ (Roth) or required minimum distributions starting at 73 (traditional).
One prohibited transaction under Section 4975 disqualifies your entire IRA as of January 1 of that year, making the full balance immediately taxable, plus a 10% penalty if you are under 59½. Guaranteeing a loan to your IRA-owned LLC, paying yourself a salary from an IRA-owned business, or buying an asset from a family member all qualify. A second landmine is Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI): if your IRA holds an operating business or uses debt financing, income above $1,000 gets taxed inside the IRA at trust rates that hit 37% fast. And valuation matters. Contributing shares at $0.01 when the real fair market value is $10 counts as an excess contribution and potential fraud. Compared to parking cash in a CD paying the FDIC national average of 1.68%, the upside here is enormous, but so is the downside if you skip the paperwork.
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