Deciding on how to invest for your retirement can be more difficult with all of the options available today. You can break down one of your options, however, by looking at the pros and cons of a traditional IRA. Of course, most of the points here can be either pros or cons depending on how you look at things, so you’ll need to consider your circumstances and make the call on your own.

An independent retirement account gives you a lot of control of your investments. This is both a pro and a con depending on what you’re looking for. You go out and set up the account on your own, decide on each of your investments, and make adjustments over the years as you see fit. This is a lot of responsibility.

Some people thrive on this and love being able to make these decisions. Others prefer to have some of these decisions taken out of their hands and have someone with more financial knowledge, who they trust, tell them what will work best. Of course, if that’s the case, to fix this con you could always talk to a financial adviser about your account and ask them to help guide you.

Another important part of a traditional IRA is taxes. Your contributions, just like with a traditional 401k, are taken from your income before taxes are taken out. This means that some of the money you would have been spending on taxes will instead be invested in your retirement account. When you make withdrawals after you turn 59 years and 6 months old (retirement age) you will then pay taxes on your withdrawals.

This has the benefit that you’ll be investing more and earning more returns, and you are likely making more money now than you will be in retirement, meaning you’re in a higher tax bracket and paying a higher tax percentage than you will be in retirement when you will be paying taxes on this income, saving you money overall. This can turn out to be a negative factor, however, if it turns out your income is higher when you’re in retirement, meaning you have to pay more money. This is another situations where this can be good for some people, but bad for others.

The pros and cons of a traditional IRA are largely determined by your own retirement needs. Make the decision that’s best for you.