Fidelity Health Savings Account

[David Donner]

Can a retail trader with no job & just trades his savings (and has a high deductible health insurance plan) open a Fidelity Health Savings Account?

Has anyone done it?

What info or documents should you save to show the IRS years down the road that you opened the HSA account & it should be tax free?

Lastly, what swap account did you use? The fidelity government swap fund or the fdic bank fund?

Thank you for any info you can offer on a couple or all of the questions!

 

[Scataphagos]

What info or documents should you save to show the IRS years down the road that you opened the HSA account & it should be tax free?

From the last I used one of these... what you apparently have in mind won't work for you. The problem is (1) the money must be withheld by employer*, (2) it's limited to something like $2500/year maximum, and (3) what you don't spend in the plan year is lost. IOW.. if you put $2500 into the account but spend only $1500 on qualified expenditures, you lose the other $1000 and start the next plan year with a zero balance.

*requirement may have been liberalized ??

 

[David Donner]

From the last I used one of these... what you apparently have in mind won't work for you. The problem is (1) the money must be withheld by employer*, (2) it's limited to something like $2500/year maximum, and (3) what you don't spend in the plan year is lost. IOW.. if you put $2500 into the account but spend only $1500 on qualified expenditures, you lose the other $1000 and start the next plan year with a zero balance.

*requirement may have been liberalized ??

You are describing a Flex Spending Account, not a Health Savings Account.

 

[Scataphagos]

You are describing a Flex Spending Account, not a Health Savings Account.

Thanks for bringing me up to date. The HSA apparently began in 2004... which was after I'd discontinued my FXA. The HSA is better.

 

[toonerdy]

Can a retail trader with no job & just trades his savings (and has a high deductible health insurance plan) open a Fidelity Health Savings Account?

If I recall correctly, I asked a Fidelity representative several years ago and the answer was no, not for individual customers, but that Fidelity was offering Health Savings Accounts in the United States as part of deals to provide employee benefits for client companies they were targeting.

I was able to get a TD Ameritrade HSA via hsa-bank.com (Webster Bank), which I believe now requires holding a minimum balance of $5k on the hsa-bank side (not in the trading account) to avoid a $2.50/month fee.