Posts / #POST-246694

Moving Cash Allocation into Tax Advantaged Accounts instead of After-Tax?

Sep 2, 2026 · 16:02

R/INVESTING

↗ https://reddit.com/r/investing/comments/1w5ejk7/moving_cash_allocation_into_tax_advantaged/

**EDIT:** The math was off; capital gains tax hits would likely dwarf the amount I'd save on taxed interest. Not going through with this, but leaving the post up for posterity.

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My portfolio breaks down like this:

* Short Term Cash - $25,000 in a Fidelity CMA
* House Downpayment Savings - $123,000 in a Brokerage, invested in treasuries and box spreads (SGOV and BOXX)
* After-Tax Brokerage: $143,000 in stock index funds, weighted towards the US
* Traditional IRA - $126,000 in stock index funds, weighted towards international (I prefer international in to be in tax advantaged accounts because of the non-qualified dividends)
* Roth IRA - $32,000 in stock index funds, weighted towards international
* HSA - $21,000 in stock index funds
* 401k - $141,000 in stock index funds, slightly weighted towards international.

My marginal tax rate is 35%, so between taxes and inflation, all of the returns for my cash savings get absolutely eaten away at. I moved part of my downpayment fund into BOXX to combat this, but I was uncomfortable going all-in on BOXX due to the risk of the IRS reclassifying it, or potentially something shady happening with the company.

So, I'm considering shifting my portfolio, moving more of my cash allocation into my Traditional IRA, but **keeping the overall portfolio composition the same**. The way these trades would look as as follows:

* In my After-Tax Brokerage, buy 1 share of VTI on-the-close; in my Traditional IRA, sell 1 share of VTI on the close. With that, I have essentially moved 1 share of VTI into my After-Tax accounts, and replaced it with the equivalent amount of cash in my traditional IRA.
* When I get closer to buying a house, I'll do these same trades in reverse - sell the VTI in the After-Tax account, and then buy VTI in the traditional IRA; moving the cash back to where I can access it.

What do we think of this? Again, the overall portfolio does not change - the only thing that changes is where the cash is located in it.