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In 1989, GoldStar Trust Company began opening IRAs for customers, positioning itself as a leader in custodianship and self-directed IRAs.
The company’s website highlights its role as an escrow/paying agent and trustee for its clients, offering unique investment and retirement planning solutions for individuals seeking to diversify their IRA portfolios beyond traditional mutual funds, bonds, and stocks.
GoldStar Trust Company has 34 employees listed on LinkedIn, though the exact number of employees is not publicly disclosed. The executive team, comprising three leaders, supports the employees in delivering the company's services.
As we look into our review, potential investors will find that GoldStar Trust Company specializes in many of the same areas as its IRA competitors.
However, GoldStar Trust Company is less well-known. Despite this, it offers a unique value proposition by acting as a trustee for a small bank with six employees, which was acquired in 1990.
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GoldStar Trust Company Management Team and Founders
Three vice presidents run the GoldStar Trust Company. Senior Vice President of Business Development is Dave Schnierle, Vice President of Business Development is Matt Peakes, and another Senior Vice President of Business Development is John Johnson.
All of them have experience working with various alternative investing forms through real estate investments and self-directed IRAs.
GoldStar Trust Company is one of the country's smaller IRA providers and therefore has a small team of executives and employees. They do not exactly compare with the larger companies that we review.
However, like many small providers, GoldStar Trust Company's executive team takes great pride in offering its clients' personalized services.
Investing Account Types Offered by GoldStar Trust Company
Four different types of self-directed IRA accounts by GoldStar Trust Company to investors along with numerous investing options. Let's discuss the different account types first:
Traditional IRA
Roth IRA
SEP IRA
Simple IRA
GoldStar Trust Company Traditional IRAs
Like all Traditional IRAs, the ones that GoldStar Trust Company provides make it possible for investors to defer taxable income until they retire, assuming they are 59 1/2 or older when they withdraw the money.
GoldStar Trust Company Roth IRAs
Roth IRAs are for investors who believe that when they retire may have a high net worth. Individuals who make Roth IRA contributions are not able to write those contributions off against their income taxes when they are still working.
However, after they have retired they do not have to pay taxes when they make withdrawals from their Roth IRA.
GoldStar Trust Company SEP IRAs
A GoldStar Trust Company Simplified Employee Pension makes it possible for employers to contribute retirement funds on their employees' behalf. There is a very obvious benefit for employers. Their contribution can be written off as a business expense.
Terms and conditions need to be considered, including the 10% fee that you have to pay if you make early withdrawals. However, this is not imposed by the GoldStar Trust Company. The IRS has instituted the penalties.
GoldStar Trust Company Simple IRA
Simple IRAs can be offered by employees with 100 or fewer employees. Employers can write off the contributions that they make to the pension accounts of their employees. In 2020, employees are also able to contribute a maximum of $13,500 to their plans.
Traditional IRA rules are followed by Simple IRAs, which means that contributors can write off contributions. Also, taxes are deferred until funds are withdrawn.
IRA Investing Options from GoldStar Trust Company
GoldStar TrustCompany, like all other self-directed IRA providers, aims to offer numerous options beyond traditional securities such as mutual funds, bonds, and stocks. The following is a list of all that the company offers:
There are many options in the list above that are not necessarily promoted by other IRA companies such as the concept of earning a return from supporting churches or charter schools.
GoldStar Trust Company aims to provide a wide range of alternative or exotic options that are not offered by other competitors. The surprising thing is the company doesn't promote typical commercial and residential real estate deals.
However, on the bottom part of their sales page, they mention that investors who are interested in investing their money into things that the website does not have listed, that they can get in touch with their investor services department to discuss the options that are available for how those things can be included in an IRA.
This is a creative way to approach customer service. This gives GoldStar Trust Company points when it comes to putting their customers first.
IRA Fees From The GoldStar Trust Company
GoldStar Trust Company provides a comprehensive fee schedule that is listed on its website.
Mutual funds, money market funds, and other types of publicly traded traditional security are charged a one-time $25 establishment fee and a $65 annual maintenance fee.
The company also charges a $50 hedge fund yearly asset holding fee and a $25 trading fee per trade along with brokerage fees. Although there are a plethora of different fees, when compared to the competition, they are all fairly reasonable.
It is not uncommon to pay $100 to $200 in yearly fees with smaller IRA providers when it comes to investing in traditional assets.
The approach that GoldStar Trust Company takes to the fees it charges on non-traditional is when the fees begin to vary. The following is a quick overview of how they administer fees among various alternative asset types:
The real estate fees charged by GoldStar Trust Company include an initial account setup fee along with yearly maintenance fees depending on the real estate's value that is in an IRA account.
They charge $50 for their initial setup fee. For properties worth under $20000 the yearly maintenance fee begins at $200.
The maintenance fee is $300 per year on investments worth over $200,000. A $100 fee is also charged by GoldStar Trust Company on the purchase or sale of real estate.
A separate $50-$100 administrative-legal fee is also charged for any documents that need to be reviewed or rushed.
There is a $50 setup fee charge to set up a precious meal investing IRA. For accounts worth $100,000 or less in value, the maximum annual maintenance fee is $275. The company also charges a $100 minimum depository storage fee.
However, there are no fees for exchanging, selling, or buying assets within the account. There is a $40 charge along with shipping costs with any precious metals distribution.
There is a $50 one-time setup fee on Perth Mint Certificates. Subsequent fees include a $40 fee on trades or sales of assets inside the account, a $75 yearly account maintenance fee, and a $150 yearly asset holding fee.
Investors are allowed by GoldStar Trust Company to put money into accounts outside the U.S. where the assets or funds can be held in an IRA account.
They charge an annual fee of up to $275 for the service based on the account's value and $50 to $75 to surrender annuities or liquidate assets.
GoldStar Trust Company's IRAs allow investors to put their money into church bonds and loans.
This is a unique investment that no other self-directed IRA provides promote as far as we know. In terms of fees, a $45 annual flat fee is charged by GoldStar Trust Company to maintain this type of investment.
Fees of $25 to $50 are also charged to maintain or shut down accounts that relate to any transfers or in-kind changes.
GoldStar Trust Company Support and Customer Service
The customer service team at GoldStar Trust Company is available from 7 AM through 5 PM CST. Their toll-free phone number to contact them is 1-800-486-6888. You can also email the company at [email protected].
Customer Reviews at GoldStar Trust Company
The Better Business Bureau has not officially accredited GoldStar Trust Company. However, it has an A+ rating that it maintains.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that the company is getting many online customer reviews, so it is difficult to know what customers who are are doing business with them think about them.
However, on their Google business profile, the company scores just 1.9 out of 5 on their 17 customer reviews.
FAQs for GoldStar Trust Company
Where is the Headquarters of GoldStar Trust Company?
The head office of GoldStar Trust Company is in Canyon, Texas.
What kinds of retirement accounts can you move into an IRA with GoldStar Trust Company?
The following are different types of accounts that can be used by investors with GoldStar Trust Company:
Simple IRA
SEP IRA
Roth IRA
Traditional IRA
Is It Possible to take Possession of the Assets in My IRA?
Although some IRA companies allow investors to control their assets through using a limited liability corporation, it is not something offered by GoldStar Trust Company.
The IRS is looking to crack down on investors who hold retirement-related assets in their houses, no matter how they do this. Therefore, this is not allowed by GoldStar Trust Company.
Is A Property Manager Needed to Make Real Estate Investments?
IRA account real estate investors are required by GoldStar Trust Company to work with a property manager.
A formal agreement must be signed by property managers with GoldStar Trust company to be officially registered property managers and to profit from gains that they might be entitled to receive.
The GoldStar Trust Company website has answers to many other frequently asked questions. Most of them relate to legalities concerning real estate investments.
Should GoldStar Trust Company IRA Be Selected for your Self-Directed IRA?
Maybe the best reason why you should choose GoldStar Trust Company is that they are very upfront regarding the fees they charge.
Many of their competitors do not prominently display their fees on their websites.
When they do, usually only a bare-bones version is shown.
GoldStar Trust Company lists each fee it charges for all types of investments that investors may be interested in. Investment companies are rarely so upfront regarding their fees.
The downside to working with GoldStar Trust Company is the company doesn't have as large of a market share compared to many of its competitors.
There are not a lot of publicly available customer reviews on the company compared to others, and many of the actual reviews are negative.
However, despite their Google business profile being negative, GoldStar Trust Company still maintains an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Overall, before making their final decision, investors should shop around with some other small IRA providers.
From an investor's standpoint, GoldStar Trust Company does promote church loans and annuities which is very unique and cannot be found anywhere else by investors. It may be good to invest with them if you are interested in these specific types of investments.
Why Put Gold in Your IRA?
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) protect your retirement as well as your family's financial security.
These special accounts allow you to set aside tax protected savings that you can use in the future.
With these long term accounts it's important to allocate a significant portion to assets that are solid and reliable, so you have a secure and worry-free retirement.
You can have cash in an IRA, but that is devaluing at a rapid pace and inflation is out of control.
You need an asset that's dependable, retains it's value, and even increases in value over time, and there is no better asset for this than gold.
With the world's economy struggling through lockdowns, shortages, wars, and inflation, uncertainty has never been higher and investors are protecting themselves by placing physical gold in IRA's.
A gold IRA investment prospers from these crisis that negatively affect most other assets.
Risk is knowing the economic dangers and doing nothing to protect yourself and your family.
Safety is knowing the economic dangers and taking action to protect your financial future, and this is easy to do with a gold IRA.
Pros
Cons
Final Thoughts
Investing experts generally agree that retirement portfolios should contain 5 to 20% precious metals. That serves two important purposes:
1. Protects against inflation and 2. Increases your retirement savings value in case of a depression or recession.
That means you need to be very careful in how this small portion of the overall puzzle of your retirement portfolio is invested.
If you are wanting to make investments in precious metals or some other alternatives, there are many different options to choose from to be your custodian.
GoldStar Trust Company is not a scam company, but they are not the best for setting up a precious metals IRA, there are much better options for investors that we discuss in detail on this website.
You can get a Free Gold Investors Guide from our top gold and precious metals company recommendation or you can read our article of the top companies we reviewed this year:
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Or, if you like what you have read about GoldStar Trust Company, you can go to their website below:
I started BMOGAM Viewpoints as a way to compile all my views on investing in one place. I own my home, have some real estate, and own a few stocks like most people, but what really drives my interest in investing is I have a strong love of precious metals, especially gold.
